Knocking on Heaven's Door [MtG/Multicross/SI]

[shadenight123]

Chapter Forty-Eight (Macross Frontier)

The Aetheric trails of the duo of Planeswalkers was still hot, for such a definition, by the time I reached upon the Plane of Macross Frontier. The streets of the large colony ship were bustling with people, and since no one was screaming or dying, it was pretty clear that the duo of Planeswalkers looking for Nadia hadn't come in with their guns blazing. Perhaps it was because they couldn't detect the trails of Aether left by the passage of their fellow Sparks, or perhaps they simply had other means of seeking out their prey, but it was clear they were prowling for Nadia, and they were doing their hardest not to get caught in the act.

A Planeswalker could always run away, so the approach had to be subtle.

I didn't need such compulsions, but at the same time I knew the best way of catching Nadia's attention could either revolve around a mass murder, or something a bit less bloody and more civilized. A passerby wearing fancy clothes handed me a pamphlet about Sheryl Nome's latest incoming concert, and as I nonchalantly passed through towards the theater per she was supposed to sing in a few hours, my senses twitched as I came to a halt in a playground.

"Rean si dne rouy," a voice of shadows and darkness hissed from the nearby sand square, twin eyes of burning white fire emerging from the tight confines.

"Speak properly or don't speak at all," I replied with a snap, "I can't be bothered to listen to your words in reverse," tentacles of darkness sprouted as the light dimmed all around us, lofty waves of Black Mana burning into the ground and aging it drastically beyond repair, to the point where the dirt itself broke through the cracks in the metal below.

"You will be removed, Tyrant, like all those before you," the Dahaka hissed as pulsing shafts of white light burst through the darkness all around me, tentatively burning through the first layer of my skin as I merely watched with a bored and dispassionate expression the Planeswalker in front of me. His form fully materialized from the playground's sand, and as he stood up to his massive size, I snickered.

I snickered and then pointed at his head. The Dahaka stared at my finger for a bit, and as the sand began to twist in small tornadoes around us, he slowly raised his left hand towards his horns.

A bright green plastic bucket remained hooked in the middle of his horns, and as the Dahaka touched its folds, and widened its white burning eyes, I began to laugh as I clutched my stomach. "You must be an alteration!" I laughed uproariously as I shook my head, "If you were the real thing, that sort of...oh, well, can't win them all."

The green plastic bucket broke under the grip of the Dahaka's claws, and as he howled and rushed forth towards me, I simply twisted my frame to the side as I slithered out of the grasp of his claws, tentacles of darkness and sand shattering from his stomach to pin me against the floor. Or they would have, had highly pressurized jets of water not left the countless mouths forming upon my chest.

Slivers emerged, their skin translucent as they emitted dolphin-like sounds, piercing through the darkness with beams of light and strong gale-like winds. Silently the net resounded into existence, pale ethereal wisps connecting to one another as the plane began to separate from the rest of the Blind Eternities, the Dahaka roaring as it didn't realize what was going on, merely rushing ahead like a mad bull seeking its path out.

It knew no tricks and no magics, but as I avoided one of its claws, it abruptly lashed out with a tentacle and sliced apart my right shoulder, the coarse sand digging into the bleeding flesh of the Slivers that formed the upper layers of my skin. The meowing sounds of newborn Slivers beneath them made me swiftly disappear from the dark spiraling sands as the twisting dimension of time seemed to answer the Dahaka with ease.

Beyond the hurricane of darkness and sand, the playground had begun to twist as gruesome humanoid monsters made of sand spread out from the people who had been nearby, the vicious existence known as the Sands of Time breaking into the flesh of the humans to transform them into monstrosities without any purpose but that of killing. The Dahaka's tentacles emerged from the hurricane of darkness and sand, my feet hitting the air as if it were solid as I dodged the blows, Mana swelling into existence at the tip of my fingers as concussive blasts of fire crystallized the sand into glass, which shattered under the pressure of sharp claws.

Slivers burst free from my skin, their talons meeting the deformed fingers of the mutated sand creatures as I stopped to glance at the Dahaka's twisting of Black Mana for its purpose. The deformed creatures of sand died as the energy of their souls gathered into the palm of the Black Planeswalker, a thrumming whip made of dark energies with tiny flames of crimson fire appeared in his hand, and as it snapped towards the head crest of a Sliver thrum, it decapitated the creature in one fell strike.

The next second the Dahaka had to use both extremities of its whip in order to avoid the downward slash of a large crystalline talon, as a Sliver as tall as it pummeled into his frame, sending him to skid backwards on the courtyard.

Two more limbs emerged from the Sliver's midriff, throwing the Dahaka further back and ripping through its chest as the creature of sand and time howled in anger.

"!elbativeni eht epacse tonnac uoY!" the Dahaka snarled, white sand gathering in steams around the crystalline Sliver, the coarse grains failing to as much as scratch the hard diamond-like surface of its skin.

"I don't even know why I'm bothering," I said with a sigh, before smiling softly. "Ah, right, because this way, I get to draw the attention of your comrade in arms." I inclined my head to the side. "It's a pity you don't possess a form of brain I can read, or I'd have already understood why you're looking for Nadia of all people. Don't you know she's a pacifist? She'd never join you in whatever form of silly revolution you're planning...because that's what you're doing, isn't it? Down with the Tyrant and all that senseless tripe..."

The Dahaka extended his left hand, having let go of the summoned whip, and as its tentacles grew thicker and stronger, it bound the Sliver and began to exercise enough pressure to crack its hardened skin. The hurricanes of sand had meanwhile laid waste to the nearby buildings, even as the mobilized forces within the city had begun to wake up from their slumber. Still, they were keeping their distances.

It was as the Dahaka lost itself to its fury and desire of cracking the crystalline-hided Sliver to pieces that I felt the presence of two other Sparks coming into existence, the temporary Net cast around us unable to withstand the pressure as it hadn't been linked across the whole Plane. One of the two I recognized, the second not so much.

I took my distances as a pillar of starlight and blinding ringing bells echoed in the air, the surface upon which the Dahaka had been melting to nothingness just like the rest of the Macross Frontier's hull miles below our feet. It was simply because I didn't wish to experiment another explosive decompression that I sealed the breach caused by the spell with my own magic.

The Dahaka was a magnificent glass sculpture, with quite the fine details upon its deformed in rage face. The Planeswalker Spark within its chest still burned brightly, and inside the glass the darkness that suffused its existence was already starting to grow once more.

"Wasn't the net a clear sign I didn't wish to be bothered?" I asked, turning my sight upwards to the sources of my annoyance.

"Oi Tyrant, is that anyway to speak to the likes of me? Don't you remember? Where monsters rampage, I'm there to take them down!" the red-haired woman said brightly, "Where treasures glitter, I'll claim them! When an enemy rises to face me, victory will be mine!"

"This guy was not rampaging," I drawled back, "I had everything under control," I continued as I looked past the woman and to her young charge with hazel hair and a staff in her hands. "She sparked recently?"

"Yeah, and in a bad way too, can't find her way back home this one!" the long red-haired woman slammed a hand against the back of the younger floating Planeswalker, and then gingerly pried from her hands the staff she was holding, much to the young girl's surprise. "When you're done playing with your food, you sicko, can you help this fair maiden send this little one back home?"

I felt the twitch of the Net's array break as pillars of rock rose to crack apart the Dahaka's glass frame, the darkness inside shimmering as it quickly dispersed into another plane. The other Planeswalker did the same, but as I felt the Spark of Nadia near in a hurry, it was clear that the duo hadn't been able to find their target.

I sighed as I watched Lina Inverse and her young charge descend from the skies to land right in front of me. Lina was wearing her usual adventurer outfit, and her young charge was instead wearing a one piece white uniform of sorts with dark blue lines and golden buttons, two blue ribbons holding her hair in a twin ponytail style.

"This little girl here is Nanoha! Nanoha, this is the guy that explained what it means to be as awesome as me to myself," she grinned from ear to ear. "And now he's gonna do the same for you, see ya, Tyrant."

And then she simply upped and left, as it was typical of her.

"So..." I said quite calmly as I looked at the quivering form of Nanoha Takamachi, apparently not one day over twelve, with her staff no longer in her hands as Lina had appropriated it. "Your name is Nanoha?"

Nanoha didn't answer.

Nadia had arrived on the back of a giant lion after all, and Planeswalker or not, a giant roaring lion was enough of a jump scare to take the words right out of the throats of everyone in the nearby proximity.

"Shade!" Nadia yelled from the back of her lion, her long dark blue hair tied in a ponytail with a white ribbon, her eyes narrow as she wore her usual outfit for Planeswalking, which consisted of an indecent show of dark skin interrupted by a leather skirt and jacket and her upper torso further hidden by a white shirt that did nothing but show the most generous of decollete.

The countless golden rings around her earlobes were also a gaudy show in my modest opinion.

"Not my fault," I said most resolutely.

Nadia did not look convinced.

Exterminate an entire Plane more than once, and suddenly every singular event of mass destruction must be attributed to you.

It's unfair I tell you.

Utterly unfair.

 

[shadenight123]

A Window Into The Past - Omake (Bleach)

Yamamoto had died.

He was sure of it.

In his old age, facing his final foe, he was sure of the blow that had taken his life away. So why then, did he find himself upon the edge of a volcano witnessing the slumbering of a humongous demon?

Unknown symbols met his eyes and a foreign tongue reached his ears as he was attacked without a chance to explain himself, and so he swiftly fought back. He made his way out of the vast maze of underground passages heated by lava with swift footwork, not bothering to kill anyone he could avoid, and reaching for his freedom beneath a blue sky, in a giant sprawling city that was anything but human-like in its appearance.

Though he left behind the heat of the forges and the screams of pain of the suffering slaves, it was only after a few tense minutes that he accepted the fact he was no longer in Soul Society, and that he hadn't fallen to Earth, or was in Hell, either. This place was...different. He could feel it, and he could feel something else deep within him. It was different from his Reiryoku, and his body made of Reishi seemed to have solidified somewhat. He would need to familiarize himself with the current world, but in order to do so, he would need to understand the language first.

He began to observe the people around him, picking out the way they pointed at things near the market stalls, or how they complained loudly about the quality of food. At first, he believed such a method crude and unrewarding, but after just a few minutes he had already mastered the words, and could easily speak with the accent of those who had been born into this world flawlessly.

After two short days, he completed his rudimentary vocabulary, and understood that his best chances at finding an answer to the mystery of his arrival in Ravnica would pass through the Izzet, but if he wanted to find purpose in this new life, the Boros would be his next step. He had been the leader of the Shinigami for countless thousands of years, so he presented himself, and he was swiftly enlisted.

It was the angel Razia who personally told him what he was, and what he could do.

He was a Planeswalker. He could travel though worlds. He had Sparked and had become something greater than the human he had been, and it appeared that they did not know of the Shinigami in this world, but they did know what happened to the souls of the dead, especially if they had signed a pact with the Orzhov. It was no different from the world of the Shinigami, and yet it annoyed him greatly.

Then one day, the skies of Ravnica darkened. Countless tendrils and mouths spread through the skies and blotted out the sun, powerful magic ripped through the air as tendrils of flesh descended down slamming into buildings, breaking floors and reaching for the very core of the world. It was in that occasion that Yamamoto's abilities came to the front. It had been the first time in years since his arrival that he used his Bankai, and as the world withstood his flames, so too did the creatures.

At first, they died in droves, but then they began to die only by the score, then in small numbers, and finally they stopped dying, growing instead stronger with each swing he threw at them. The powerful Bankai of his, the one that no other Shinigami yet living had ever managed to beat, there it was, utterly useless.

The creatures that continuously emerged from the tendrils had been at first mere beasts, with sharp talons and triangular head crests. Yet suddenly they grew humanoid in shape, and their fighting became even fiercer than before. Ripples seemed to pass across the tendrils, as the mutations that transformed one of his foes into a humanoid shaped creature soon did the same to every other of said monsters.

It was then that he met it, a monster the likes of which he had never seen. It was no Arrancar, or monstrosity of Quincy make. It was a creature similar, and yet different from the rest of the horde that seemed to be following its unspoken commands. Below Yamamoto, the city of Ravnica laid in ruins.

The skies had lost their last valiant defenders, the few remaining angels that had accompanied his fight in the sky dead and devoured.

All around him stood but the swarm, the countless talons, the endless teeth, the never-ceasing skittering noise of countless mouths shrieking out a cacophony that Yamamoto could hardly understand, and yet seemed to be screaming the same thing.

The monster that had easily been ten times his size slowly began to shrink until a man stood in front of him, his equal in size and shape. His face remained neutral, unfazed by the carnage and the death that seemed to happen all around him.

"I am the Tyrant," he spoke crisply, lifting his right hand up, and as one the monsters, the creatures that had been scouring the land down to its base, they all began to stare at him. "And mine are the laws that all Planeswalkers must obey. Thee shall not kill another Planeswalker. Thee shall not aid the Eldrazi. Thee shall not aid the Phyrexian. Do you comply, Planeswalker?" he asked, and his eyes narrowed.

Yamamoto would have wanted answers to the questions that rose in his mind, but as he realized that he was the only living being left in the entire plane, whereas even the ghosts had disappeared, he wondered if the answer he gave would affect the outcome.

"Youngster," Yamamoto said flatly, "You are in need of an etiquette lesson."

"My word has been given," the man spoke as the tendrils left the ground, carrying with them the creatures that had until then assaulted the world. Magic poured out as the crumbled buildings grew back, as if they had never been touched, the dead slowly waking up and dallying around their daily lives as if nothing had happened. The ghosts themselves seemed to reappear from thin nothingness, and as Yamamoto stared at an act that could easily be considered godly, the man spoke once more. "I am the Tyrant, and my brethren are the Slivers. You are a Planeswalker, Genryusai, so congratulations are in order."

He then raised an eyebrow. "You should deactivate your Bankai now, lest you destroy this world."

The first meeting with the Tyrant was thus, for the leader of the Gotei Thirteen, an out-of-the-world experience.

Needless to say, he was glad when he was shown how to travel back to his Plane.

He missed his Green Tea after all.

 

[shadenight123]

Chapter Forty-Nine (Macross Frontier)

Nadia's hands stood planted firmly on her sides as she glared at me, her eyes burning with righteous determination. The defense forces of the Macross Frontier had been doing their usual drill, and there was definitely no trace left of a giant massive creature of sand and darkness in their memories. The breach had been sealed and repaired, leaving nothing behind as the multiple levels of the colony ship were all as pristine as the day they had been built. The playground too was back in full swing.

"The playground's back in full swing too," I said, pointing at a swing in a corner of it, where children were actually playing on it with giggles and laughter. I waited a heartbeat, and then my shoulders slumped. "Is it the lack of the drum and plates sound effect?"

"No, Shade," Nadia said with an exasperated sigh. "It's because your sense of humor is horrible."

I brought a hand to my chest, my eyes widening slightly as I faked being hurt. "You wound me, princess of Atlantis, you really wound me deep into my tiny heart. What will you do if I start crying and turn into a big pile of salt as a result?"

Nadia rolled her eyes. "I'll give you salt if that's what you want," she said as she ruffled the mane of the lion she had rode on, "but before that, what just happened? I don't think you were coincidentally fighting an enemy Planeswalker while on this Plane."

I shrugged, "I could claim Lina coming over and handling me a newly ascended Planeswalker a coincidence too, but it all did happen at the same time I reckon," I glanced to where Nanoha seemed to be lifelessly staring ahead of her. I furrowed my brows. A minimum of life in her body wouldn't have been that bad, would it? I inclined my head to the side, only for Nadia's frame to set itself between us, her thoughts easily reaching my own.

"Reading someone's thoughts like that isn't how you endear yourself to others," Nadia huffed. "Because when they discover you've been spying in the privacy of their minds, they get angry at you. I can't believe you forgot that."

"Nadia, speaking about forgetting things...you forgot your great-granddaughter back in your home plane," I said flatly, watching in disbelief as Nadia's eyes widened, and then she comically disappeared within two nanoseconds, leaving her lion behind. The lion roared and looked up at me, its eyes warily gauging my reactions to his roar. I smiled, and the lion wet itself and began to pathetically cry out like a meowing baby as it hid its face beneath its paws.

I turned my attention towards Nanoha's shell-shocked expression. "So," I said with a smile, kneeling down to be at eye-level with the lifeless eyes of the young girl. "What happened, child?"

I received no reply. I snapped my fingers in front of her, and then made funny faces, but nothing happened. "I could recite Vogon poetry," I acquiesced, "But I am not such a monster." I tried to bring under her nose an ice cream cone, but I sortied no effect. I tried with candy, chocolate, hot milk, coffee, tea and even went as far as clutching a roasted chicken right under her nose.

Nothing seemed to work.

"Very well," I said. "In desperate times, desperate measures," I placed my index and middle finger against Nanoha's forehead, and then my eyes narrowed as I read her thoughts, her most—wait a moment. "This is..." I muttered, I widened my eyes, "Is there even something in here?" I inclined my head to the side, tendrils of thought shifting across her entire brain, seeking out something out of the stagnancy of thoughts, out of the utter lacking of purpose, out of...uh.

"Guess we need to go deeper," I grumbled, "I hate going deeper into someone's mind like this," I rolled my eyes as tentacles covered in pulsing brains with tiny beady eyes spread out from my back, surrounding us both as an illusion was masterfully worked into existence around us. The girl's eyes had begun to widen as tiny flickers of thought sparked inside the emptiness of her head. Whether it was because she was finally feeling the thrum of Mana around her, or because she was snapping out of her stupor, it was as the tentacles sealed around us both and the eyes born upon them settled on her, she finally did more than simply watch with lifeless eyes what was going on.

She screamed, and her raw screaming was filled with pain and etched with misery. Yet the Hive easily absorbed it, and easily nullified it until her desire to scream was sated, and only silence remained inside her mouth.

And finally I pried it out from the depths of her body. She had Sparked.

She had Sparked, and she had Sparked badly at that too.

This was Nanoha Takamachi, and she had been doing her best within the Garden of Time when everything had gone wrong. It had been one such dimension, after all. The reactor had been unstable, and a single wrong action could have spelled its destruction. Nanoha hadn't been lucky. The reactor had exploded, tears had opened in the space-time continuum, and she had fallen deep into the Imaginary Space.

She had thus begun to fall eternally, but her heart had at first held on to the slight chance of someone coming to save her, someone appearing out of nowhere to aid her, and when that hadn't happened, the traumatizing revelation of an eternity of doom and death by thirst and hunger had made her Spark.

Unfortunately, due to her location and her youth in the business of Planeswalking, she hadn't gone anywhere. She had kept falling. Even though she could now cast Magic, she had no Mana to use in order to leave that place. Even though she could have left by sacrificing her own life force, or finding energy through other means like swearing her soul to a devil or tearing it into pieces in order to leave, she knew not of those methods, and so hadn't found anyway to leave.

She could have stopped feeling thirst and hunger, but she hadn't because she didn't know how.

In the end, she had stopped falling only because someone had decided to use her altered, empowered, maximized, ultra-modified to the extreme version of the Giga Slave, the UltraMax Giga Slave, to summon forth and possess, rather than get possessed, an enhanced version of the Lord of Nightmares. So rather than just destroy one world, it had rippled across the edges of the multi-dimensional Plane itself and caused a devastating wave that had bounced Nanoha out of the Imaginary Space, and into the Nothingness of a Plane where only a ranting Lina remained, berating the Lord of Nightmares for having exaggerated again.

...

Lina had then thrown her at me while speaking to herself about how she'd avoid getting punished if she just distracted me with a cute little girl long enough to get away, because it was renowned that the Tyrant had a weakness for helping damsels in distress...

"I will kill that woman," I said with a growl, hundred of teeth bared from countless mouths, "And then I will resurrect her, just to kill her again. I should have added a clause about Plane destroying, but three is a perfect number, so I couldn't add a fourth law to the previous three, I mean..." I groaned, "She didn't kill a Planeswalker after all, so I can't really go and kill her. Punish her? There's enough space to let her do as she pleased wherever she wants and this time she was lucky, I guess..." I looked down at Nanoha's lifeless eyes. "The best solution is to just erase the countless decades of void. Empty space is meaningless, isn't it?"

I extended a hand through her head, and as Nanoha's mouth opened to gasp from the pain of having metaphysical fingers dig into her mind, I could feel her Spark within her eagerly lash out in search of some form of warmth. "Now, now," I said gently, removing my hand, "Everything will be all right now."

Nanoha's eyes widened at my sight, and then at the countless skittering eyes and tendrils all around her. The pulsing brains and the chittering made her face uneasy, but she steadied herself. She had been in the emptiness of the Imaginary Space for a few hours, and now there she was, out of it, somewhere strange and foreign.

"Hello there, young miss," I said gingerly, pressing my back against the wall made of brains and eyes, "I am the Tyrant and you, little Nanoha, are a Planeswalker."

Nanoha looked up at me, her hands clasping upon her Raising Heart staff, only to realize she wasn't holding it any longer. "Raising Heart?" she muttered, looking right and left, "I must have dropped it," she continued, fearfully realizing she had lost her staff, "I must get it back!"

"In due time," I said with a sigh, coughing slightly to regain my composure and my tone. "I am the Tyrant," I extended a hand, letting my fingers touch with their tips my chest as I smiled and smugly lifted my head to the side, "The ruler of all Planeswalkers! Be welcomed, child, for you too are blessed with-"

"I have to hurry back to Fate and the others!" Nanoha exclaimed, interrupting me once more. She looked up at me with pleading eyes. "Can you help me, mister Tyrant, sir?"

I stared at her eagerly pleading eyes.

I took a deep, calming breath.

This was like beating to death with a club baby seals.

This was like cutting the fins out of sharks and letting them drown deep at the bottom of the sea.

This was like skinning live animals alive for furs and pelts.

It was a sad thing, but it happened, and the world had better things to take care of than bother about solving any of that meaningless inconsequential hippie-related trouble. After all, humans wasted no more than ten seconds thinking about how sad something was before changing their minds and wondering what was cooking for dinner, or what show was on later that night, or why the stupid dwarfs were dying eating magma.

"Yes, of course," I said with a resolute expression. "Take my hand, and we shall go help them!"

And with that said, I extended my hand.

Lina Inverse, don't think I'm not coming for you later on.

I will need to help this young girl recover her Raising Heart after all, won't I?

So tremble, Lina Inverse! My firm determination will never waver in punishing the likes of you!

But first, I had to help.

 

[shadenight123]

Chapter Fifty (Nanoha)

The bridge was kind of small. The ship that belonged to the Time-Space Administration Bureau for their investigation of Precia Testarossa's misgivings was the Arthra, and it wasn't even equipped with the Arc-en-ciel cannon yet. If it had, it would have been capable of destroying everything in a one hundred kilometer range from the point of impact due to space-time distortions. As befitting to people who firmly believed in peaceful means of solving problems and talking it out, they didn't even have Anti-Missile or smaller intercepting lasers of sorts on an exploration vessel.

This kind of ship wouldn't survive an encounter against a lone fighter, so exploration would normally end in a matter of seconds in any dimension worth their salt in space-faring capabilities.

Nanoha's appearance in the middle of the bridge cast everyone's emotions into turmoil. Though their happiness wasn't short-lived, some feelings of suspicion at my appearance entered their subconscious. To their minds, nobody could ever leave the Imaginary Space. Nanoha had managed, but since I was there too, they were wondering what kind of powers over Time and Space I had that even the impossible could become possible.

Al-Hazard's magic sprung to mind. "Greetings," I said with a smile, "From the Tyrant of Al-Hazard! This young girl is yours, I guess?" I placed a hand over Nanoha's head, rubbing it affectionately, "Have they never told you it's dangerous to enter head-first into a field of Imaginary Space? No? Yes?" I inclined my head to the side. "Anyway! Be thankful! She might have kept falling for centuries if I hadn't been checking the exact spot she was falling through!"

"A-Ah...Nanoha! I'm so glad you're fine!" Lindy Harlaown exclaimed as she jumped off her captain's seat and proceeded to hug the little girl, tears of relief and joy on her face. "Everyone was so sad! Thank you, sir," she then stood up to beam a smile in my direction, before bringing both of her hands together and grabbing hold of my right one. "It's such an honor to meet a fabled person of the legendary Al-Hazard! Thank you! Thank you so much for this miracle!"

I bashfully giggled and looked sideways, "Now, now, I was just doing what was right..." I muttered.

Lindy herself guided us to the infirmary of the exploration ship, and as we arrived just in time to watch the downcast expressions of Fate, Chrono, Yuuno and Arf, the four lifted their heads nearly simultaneously.

"Nanoha!" and as they all rushed towards her, I belatedly realized she was half a head taller than them. Uh. Well, it didn't matter. A couple of years of difference meant nothing. A couple of thousand of years neither, but that was only when both were adults.

"Oh my," Lindy said, her eyes having caught up with the height difference, and her expression turning slightly puzzled.

"Time flows differently in Imaginary Space," I remarked in a whisper. "A second is an eternity, and an eternity a second. Time has no meaning where there is no Space, and Space means nothing without Time. That's why we call it Imaginary Space, because it cannot exist, it lives on in our dreams. Then we turn our dreams to reality, and that is created," I sighed, crossing my arms. "I found her, but countless decades had passed and her mind couldn't take it any longer and broke," I murmured, shaking my head as Lindy's eyes now turned towards me, her expression one of shock, worry deeply rooted into her soul as she looked with sadness at Nanoha's happy smile at being reunited with her friends. "Thankfully she did not age much while in there, but...well, I erased her memories of the time spent simply drifting around in darkness." I bitterly smiled. "She's no different than a young girl who had quite the scare right now."

"I'm really thankful for this," Lindy whispered. "That child...she isn't a member of the Time-Space Bureau...I didn't know what to tell her family even, but..." she grimaced. "Thank you once more for your miracles, sir Tyrant."

I shrugged. "It was like batting an eyelid," I replied. "Effortless things like that don't really deserve to be rewarded."

Lindy clutched her hands together, a stray thought in the back of her head making itself known. A selfish thought, a weary one, a budding hope that she needed to grasp with both of her hands, while her son was busy with Nanoha's return and wouldn't listen on to her selfish request.

"A photo," I said nonchalantly, looking sideways at her befuddled expression. "All I need is a photo and a name so that I may seek the soul through the countless dead."

Her eyes widened, and then she swiftly pried open a pocket of her jacket, thrusting the framed photograph into my chest with tears in her eyes. "Clyde," she said, "Clyde Harlaown."

I nodded as I looked at the photo, before my left and right shoulders twisted as countless fragments of Mana burst into existence. The light-show couldn't be avoided, especially since Resurrection was the kind of spell that while I could use, didn't really belong to us Slivers. We were more for regeneration rather than outright resurrection since, after all, countless deaths were equaled by countless births at the same time.

Shining White Mana burst through the folds of time and space, rippling across the barrier between life and death and grabbing hold of the soul of the dead in question.

Death shall hold no dominion over the Slivers.

When the figure materialized, the blue-haired human was admittedly wondering what was going on. His eyes took in the room he was in, and his last thoughts were of the Book of Darkness' rampage and his sacrifice to hold it back. He had no idea how he had ended up there, nor who the figure with crystals on his shoulders was. He did recognize Lindy as his wife, though she looked like she had aged a bit, and his son too...

"I..." Clyde muttered, looking straight at Lindy. "What is going on?"

"Oh...oh...dear!" Lindy rushed straight for Clyde, embracing him tightly as she began to cry, letting out her rampant emotions of relief and happiness. I yawned, slowly taking a couple of steps back.

"F-Father?" Chrono's voice cracked as the dark-haired child lost much of his tough-looking expressions, which had already disappeared in large part due to his relief for Nanoha's well-being.

As I watched the exchange happen, I already knew what would be next. There would be hugging, there would be smiles, there would be thanks, there would be joy and then a few years later everything would be normal. Life would go on, the cherished moments of today would be nothing but a vague echo, and new memories would take the place of old ones. Today, of course, there was happiness.

But Today is such a frail thing to someone who lives eternally.

"Mister Tyrant...thank you," Nanoha said, looking at me as if I was some sort of hero. I rolled my eyes and shrugged. "Could you help Fate too please?" Nanoha asked next, holding on to Fate's hand as she gently brought her friend in front of me, her candid smile the one thing that gave strength to Fate in these dark and troubling times of hers.

Fate looked up at me. "Even after everything she has done, you still want her as a mother?" I asked nonchalantly, "And you want a sister too?" I raised both of my eyebrows. "It can be done, I guess, but finding someone in Imaginary Space...well, if you're a clone then you should share the same genetic signature I guess, so..." I passed a hand through my hair. I was simply putting up a show, and as I extended my other hand, I finished my sentence, "A strand of your hair if you'd please."

Fate hastily ripped out from her head a lock of blond hair, wincing only a tiny bit at the pain as Arf worriedly hovered over her.

"Even if he brings her and Alicia back, Precia's still a criminal," Arf said worriedly, "And she chose already, Fate..."

Fate shook her head. "She...She is still my mother," Fate whispered, "I am not Alicia, and if she comes back too then mother will...she will accept me, won't she?"

I let the strand of blond hair hover in the open palm of my right hand as I let it twist and shine, pulse and ripple with a little light show. The next instant, Precia Testarossa's form appeared in a corner of the infirmary, the tank that held Alicia inside intact by her side. "We'll make it, Alicia," Precia was whispering, "We'll make it to Al-Hazard. We'll make it. We'll make it." She shuddered suddenly as she realized she was no longer falling eternally, but as her eyes widened at the sight of everyone else in the infirmary of the ship, she screamed in reply. "No!" she cried, "No! How is this even possible!?"

She stood up, putting herself protectively in front of Alicia's tank. "You won't have her! You...You think you stopped me, but...but I—"

I raised a hand and then abruptly moved it to the side. Held up by an invisible force, Precia was violently jerked away from the tank. "Be quiet, you fool," I snarled as I extended my other hand. A pulse of White Mana left my palm, and rushed straight for the tank, shattering the glass as the energy imbued themselves deeply into the little girl that was Alicia, her eyes snapping open as a result as frilly white and green clothes covered her body.

"I..." Precia's words died in her throat.

"Now," I said quite calmly, "Precia Testarossa, for the grievous sin of having tried to invade Al-Hazard, I must pass my judgment upon you," I looked at my nails. "I reckon the annihilation of your entire existence will do just fine."

And just like that, fluff died.

For it is only when the oven is full that fluff burns the brightest.

 

[shadenight123]

Chapter Fifty-One (Nanoha)

I looked quite calmly at Lily Harlaown. "She will be coming with me to suffer her fate," I remarked as the floating body of Precia Testarossa floated towards me, coming to a halt by my side if with her body constrained by invisible chains. Her voice too had been silenced, as she realized by how futilely she tried to scream towards Alicia, only to fail as no sound left her throat.

"That's-She's a wanted criminal for the Bureau too," Lily replied, looking at Precia's tear-filled eyes directed towards her daughter Alicia, who was just then recovering from the surprise at waking up in an unknown place.

I shrugged. "Try to stop me," I replied quite dutifully, "I mean, no form of magic you may ever use will aid you in that endeavor, but truthfully I am quite curious about what you could ever do," I inclined my head to the side. "Do you not realize that?"

"It's just too cruel," Lily said softly, her eyes moving towards Fate, whose shoulders were trembling with emotions. "You can't give something back only to take it away suddenly."

"The way I see it, Miss Testarossa will receive the death penalty were she to remain under your custody," I said quite gently. "Rather than let her die, the erasure of her existence is quite milder by contrast."

"Erasing her existence or death, isn't that the same!?" Arf yelled, "What kind of miracle are the people of Al-Hazard capable of if they then do this!? It's not a miracle, but a devilish wish!"

I rolled my eyes, and then sighed. "What then? Shall I allow others to attempt the same thing she did? Craft reactors to try to break reality in order to reach us? Do you even understand how much the hatred we felt for your pathetic races has been left to simmer beneath the surface, uh?" I growled, my eyes blazing. "Do you know what it means to watch vermin squirm and kill each other, only to then come up to us and claim it's our fault, and that we should help you rebuild because, oh gosh, we didn't think weapons of mass destruction truly did that stuff?"

My eyes began to glow, "Your saving grace is my mercy and my wistful thinking. Do not take more than I allow you, for you don't even have the right to breathe my same air," I raised an eyebrow, "I am the Tyrant. I rule over Al-Hazard. I am Time and Space, Infinity and Nothingness. Compared to me, you are but a speck of dust," I dangled Precia Testarossa up and down a bit, "So stop talking, because you know nothing."

I then snapped my left hand's fingers, letting a simmering portal spread open from thin air. "We give and we take," I said with an air of finality. "Never forget it." And then I threw Precia Testarossa through the portal, letting her whole frame disappear from sight.

"No!" Fate screamed, rushing towards the portal even as Arf hunkered down to hold her still, "No! Mom! Mom!" as she screamed herself hoarse, I very quietly headed towards the portal, stopping only a step away from it.

"Someone's existence is composed of their past achievements and their past actions," I said quite gingerly, "It is not composed of their heartbeats, or of their memories. That is why, erasing someone from existence merely means that no one will remember their past merits, and their past crimes. If I were you, I'd just leave those two up for adoption at Midchilda. Someone might come get them in a couple of hours at most."

Lily's eyes widened in disbelief as I simply laughed. "I am the Tyrant. Never forget it. Also, Nanoha Takamichi, remember my words that I now proclaim! In twenty years of time, I will come for you! Until then, be a good girl."

And with that said, I disappeared through the portal.

The erasure of someone's existence from a Plane wasn't really that difficult when you could control a Psionic Net capable of planet-wide actions. Then, I dropped Precia Testarossa with a new identity in Midchilda.

If she went back to planet-busting or dimension ripping, then she would be on her own. Until then, though, she had her new chance at life.

"Carl?" I asked offhandedly to the Sliver's head that emerged from my shoulder.

"Two hundred thousand ninety seven hundred twenty-three," Carl answered primly.

"Thanks Carl," I replied. "Set a notice for twenty years from now."

"Notice set," Carl said, disappearing into my shoulder as I walked through the bustling futuristic streets of Midchilda without much of a purpose after dropping Precia off. She would have a bit of a fortune to start her off, buy a house, get her family back and be happy.

That would be it.

"I wonder. Do the Gods not act because they don't care, or because they've given up on repeating eternally the same things?" I hummed as I extended a hand to hold open a door for a couple of cute girls stepping out of a patisserie that I knew made delicious chocolate waffles. "Or perhaps, are they busy eating chocolate waffles?"

As I sat down and gingerly began to munch on the ordered chocolate waffle, I waited patiently for a Planeswalker's Spark to enter this world, soon followed by Nadia's disheveled appearance entering my sights as she sat down in front of me, and ordered an ice-cream cone.

"An elder God as a babysitter is not acceptable, Shade!" she hissed.

"What happened to my poor Nyarla?" I asked quite curiously.

"Your poor Nyarla ate my animals!" Nadia hissed, half-choking on her tongue. "She was sucking the marrow of my little Namba by the time I came back home!"

"It's the circle of life," I hummed, "And it goes on and on...the circle...of life..."

"Elder Gods are not a part of the circle of life," Nadia growled. "Sliver Elder Gods especially."

"You're just jelly I got the best and cutest and you got stuck with silly overgrown cats," I remarked with a smile and a chuckle. "So, Nadia...what possessed you to leave behind your Plane and venture once more into the Blind Eternities?"

Nadia shrugged. "A bit of this, a bit of that..."

I hummed, and said nothing.

She could play the silent game all that she wanted, but eventually, she would crack.

Or I would just follow her around until the end of times.

 

[shadenight123]

Chapter Fifty-Two (Nanoha)

Some things are best left forgotten, or to the deep imagination of the sleeper adrift in a sea of nightmares. Others are easily brought to the surface, time and time again, to be cherished fondly. Some memories are etched in stones, ours to forever remember deep moral lessons. Memories are, however, precious things. There is a limit, however, to how many memories a human may store. Even a dragon has limits, after all.

"Why am I forgetting stuff?" Nadia asked. "I wouldn't normally bother anyone about it, but aren't I supposed to live forever?"

"Yes, and you would also normally retain your memories too, unless something happened that made you forget," I replied quite calmly as I ate another chocolate waffle, covered in maple syrup and sprinkled with sugar and tasty multicolored sprinkles. Whipped cream abounded on the plate by the side, and as I gingerly finished the delicacy, another appeared to replace the one devoured. "Have you suffered any traumatic event recently?"

"No," Nadia huffed. "I was just gone for a bit. I must have made a misstep and ended up a few days in the future than intended."

"Which brings us back to why someone like you would ever even wish to leave the comforts of her boring Savannah if not for some holier than thou reason," I remarked, but Nadia simply bit down on her ice-cream cone and pouted. "You do know I can force you to tell me."

"Please, Shade, we both know that for all of your bark, you've never bitten anyone once," Nadia's smiles twitched in a smirk. "The big bad Tyrant is just a Tsun-de-re~"

"I have boiled the atmosphere out of countless worlds," I said firmly, glaring at her.

"Probably because it was poisonous," Nadia replied. "Before coming here I checked on the budding Planeswalker. You messed with her mind, didn't you? So typical," she sighed, "Rather than explain things properly, you just do stuff and then leave."

"Should I have left her with the decades of nothingness but the sensation of falling?" I retorted, only for Nadia to shake her head.

"That's not what I'm saying," Nadia huffed. "What I'm saying is that rather than just upping and leaving behind some traumatized people, you could have done or said things in a different way, a better way..."

"It would have taken longer, and I have no interests in retreating the same grounds. I've already done everything that needed to be done. Precia will start working as a stay-at-home clerk worker of sorts, Fate will remain on the tracks set and Alicia's life will be normal and happy. She'll die at eighty-nine, Precia will die at seventy-three, and Fate will die at eighty-one. There, it's done. Their future is set unless someone doesn't intervene to alter it," I angrily bit down on another waffle. "You youngsters think you know what's best. Kindness, compassion, doing stuff the nice and easy way...why bother? Break a leg, and the guy who would have been run over by a car won't. It takes less than having to convince him, or be nice to him, or so forth. Destiny needs to be handled with firm determination and a strong arm, not wishy-washy feelings."

Nadia's expression didn't falter. "But you don't break legs. You just break up the pavement and force someone on another road."

"Why would I break legs? Mine are metaphors. They aren't really real," I sighed. "Look Nadia, we've been through this. Whatever wish of eternal peace you seek is unattainable. Make your peace with it. Some like eating children, some like killing people. Their paradises will never be the same as yours."

"And I don't believe it, Shade," Nadia stressed.

"But you do accept that you can't force a tiger to eat anything but meat, right?" I said. "That's the point," I scooped the cream up from my plate with a pancake coated in peach syrup, chewing on it with a tired expression. "Only because someone possesses intelligence doesn't mean they won't still be eaten by another intelligent being when it comes to survival. Have you ever tried giving sentience to all living animals in the world? All it ends up with is the vegetarians getting exterminated as the majority declares eating meat more important than human rights. And before you say it's just a random occurrence, then please, do the math. I've done the experiment on five thousand seventy hundred ninety two worlds, ninety six point three percent of times the result was the destruction of free speech and the silencing of the medias."

Nadia rolled her eyes. "Weren't you the one who said that when dealing with infinities, percentages are meaningless?"

I shrugged. "I know what I said. I know what I stand for. If they ain't Planeswalkers, I don't care. If they're Planeswalkers, and they don't follow the rules...then they die. Plain and simple, easy to understand, no questions asked."

"So if it's not that, then everything else is fine?" Nadia asked. "If someone were to mind control another, if someone were to threaten another, then...you wouldn't intervene?"

"Planeswalkers can run away easily," I pointed out. "That is the number one thing all governments tell their citizens when facing threats. Run away, let the police handle it. I am the Government, and I am the Police. Your only task is to run away and let me do my job. If you have grievances, then just go looking for a Sliver. They'll bring you to me."

"That's not how it should be," Nadia said, "We should come together instead. We should create a society, a Plane where we can all be together. Why haven't you tried that yet? It could work!"

"Why?" I asked. "Why would there be a need for a Plane when the only thing that will eventually stave off boredom is travelling? Stagnancy does not suit us, Nadia. It never did, and probably never will. You're still young, but one day..."

"This being young...if it's wrong then it's wrong, and maybe you need a young person to tell you when you are the one being wrong!" Nadia huffed, slamming both of her hands on the surface of the table as she stood up. "You're just a cranky old man who thinks he knows what's best for everyone, but you don't! And you've gotten worse too! Do you remember when you helped me and Jean save my father and Atlantis? Do you remember how you helped us all?"

I looked at Nadia with a small smile, "Yes, and now that you know that I could have done it all by snapping my fingers in less than ten seconds," I stood up in turn. "What do you think of me now, uh? Was I just playing around with you and Jean? Was I just enjoying watching you risk your lives for the secret of the Blue Water? Was I just..."

"You were just being our friend," Nadia answered with a bitter smile. "You were Shade and not...not the Tyrant. You have all the time in the world, but you act as if you're in a hurry, running away from something or someone eternally...you never stop, you never cease moving...once ,you would have stuck around a world for decades."

"Times change," I replied firmly, "And people change too. I have learned from my mistakes, Nadia. Perhaps it's time you start learning from yours."

Nadia chuckled bitterly, and shook her head. "Cherishing other people, even if they aren't Planeswalkers...that's not a mistake, Shade."

"See?" I answered with a small shrug. "Our views cannot coexist. Our paradises differ." I glanced at her, "I'm going to go find out why you were being hunted by two Planeswalkers, but don't think I won't be keeping an eye on you too, Nadia."

"I'm coming with you," Nadia said abruptly, eyes lit with determination.

"When was the last time you summoned a creature that wasn't an overgrown cat?" I asked in turn, only to find myself being pulled by Nadia out of the patisserie that doubled as a bar too. "And stop pulling!"

"I'm going to help," Nadia said, her eyes sparkling with joy. "You'll see, Shade. You just need to see the Planes in their wonder and joy. You just forgot, that's all."

I rolled my eyes, and then waited until she belatedly realized I was the one who knew where to go in order to pursue the duo of the Dahaka and the Kor woman.

For both of their Aetheric traces lead to one place.

Mustafar.

 

[shadenight123]

Chapter Fifty-Three (Mustafar)

In a world without water, and covered in molten rocks and lava, I reckoned that the Dahaka wouldn't be worrying about his weakness. I stood at the bridge of the Hive Fleet Gamma, the Blind Eternities surrounding us with their infinite uncaring hunger and desire for destruction as the Plane's borders stood a mere slip away from us. Assaulting a Plane wasn't difficult, and picking a specific world out of that Plane wasn't hard either. The hard part was ensuring the Plane's blockade to prevent the Planeswalkers from running away.

I unashamedly admitted having stolen the idea of Hive Fleets from those good old Tyranids, but as the biological imperative of evolution and continued existence warranted it, it hadn't been that difficult to craft Slivers the size of battleships, capable of transporting thousands of hibernated Slivers through the Blind Eternities unscathed by their effects.

I had lied to the likes of Fuuka, but it had been mostly warranted. Without the proper care, the Blind Eternities weren't just treacherous, but truly cruel. A normal human sent into them would disappear without trace, not from existence, but from the possibility of resurrection or reincarnation. It was the final death one could condemn someone to, the likes of which not even a Planeswalker could fight against.

The moment I punctured through the Plane with the Hive Fleet would be the moment the plane would get a wake-up call on who truly was the strongest entity in the galaxy. Judging by the age of the stars in that Plane, I would arrive in a time of strife and war. Of course, it would be meaningless for both parties to try to stop me, and I doubted they would even gather enough of a power to pose a threat.

"Creepy, too creepy," Nadia said from my side as I glanced at the Plane's barriers, not really visible to the naked eye, but more of a metaphysical existence beyond recognition. "Why do you always build things so creepily?"

"Fear is a powerful tool," I replied. "No normal man dares to stand in front of a giant, no lone soldier dares fight the monster with a thousand teeth," I hummed. "This, in turn, lowers casualties."

The twitching tentacles that had expanded carefully around the Plane's barrier came to a halt as they twisted, growing branches that began to surround the Plane on all sides. The Psionic Net so reinforced by the Hive Fleet burst into existence all over the Plane at the same time, the slip from the Blind Eternities into the Plane requiring but a split second of time. Mustafar's entire surface was now engulfed in a Psionic net, countless brains of Slivers working at full power to hold whatever Planeswalker was inside at bay.

"First, bombardment to soften hardened targets," I remarked, raising a hand as a Sliver's head materialized from the surface of the floor of the Command Ship, "Go get them, Tarkin."

The Sliver's head nodded, thrumming Mana of crimson color gathering as the gems stored within the fleet's ships sparkled brightly, before pillars of light and beams of thunder descended upon the planet's atmosphere, and past it straight into the ground causing massive holes to spread over the burning surface of the planet.

Around the pillars of light Slivers of crimson scales and sharp movements emerged, rushing across the surface of the whole world.

"Is the planet uninhabited?" Nadia asked.

"There are droids meant to gather rare minerals from the lava flow of the planet," I said nonchalantly as I felt the Psionic Net ping, Slivers suddenly losing contact as walls of stone engulfed them, shattering their bones and lungs with incredible pressure. "Oh, a lithomancer," I mumbled. "A planet of rock and lava with the Dahaka and a Lithomancer on it," I craned my neck. "This might actually make me sweat a little. Then again, it's a volcanic planet."

I turned to look at Nadia, who didn't even laugh. She just stared flatly at me. "What? You're a pacifist, so pacifically wait for me here."

"Being a pacifist doesn't mean sitting on a chair watching the world burn, it means going out with buckets of water to stop the flames from spreading!" Nadia retorted even as I transformed, countless redundant organs spreading through the massively enlarging frame as I outright broke through the bioship as if the walls were made of soft jelly, rather than hardened chitin. Nadia disappeared from the inside of the ship to reappear outside of it, pursuing me on the back of a large blue-scaled dragon.

Due to the fact we weren't meant to hit the atmosphere for a while, the dragon choked, and only its carcass kept floating downwards towards the planet. Nadia jumped off the back of the dragon, brilliant wings of light spreading from her back as she determinedly pursued me, her hand grabbing on to one of the many spikes that had grown upon my mutated back. She was relentless, I'd give her that. At the same time, I merely let go of the mutated skin and watched as she flailed in the emptiness of space before flaring brightly and disappearing with a quick teleport, reappearing once more on my back.

Relentless and headstrong.

There was a reason I despised pacifists with power after all.

I spread open my wings as the ribs within my body burst apart, unleashing downwards a set of flesh sacks which opened to reveal the vanguard of the Slivers. The crimson Mana siphoned from the planet turned their scales reddish and their bones tough, and yet they advanced rolling upon themselves with sharp spiked scales on their spines to keep a grip on the land, floating where lava took the place of solid rock.

"Those are buildings!" Nadia yelled in my ear, using an arm to try to divert my sight from the goal to a nearby enclave of crumbling metal. "I can sense living people in there!"

"Then go save them," I replied nonchalantly, "I have justice to uphold!"

Nadia yelled in a fit of rage, and then stomped hard with both of her feet against my back, using it to propel herself in mid-air and disappear, teleporting towards the living beings within the buildings. I increased my speed, the Slivers below me having grown to a tide of war in the meantime. Mana burned brightly as crystals spread evenly across their backs, their croons soon followed by the birth of Skeps all across the landscape, shimmering lights surrounding them to protect them from stronger blows.

Shadows and rocks blocked my view of the horizon as thunder and lightning streaked the darkening skies. Pulse of blue psionic energy lashed out across the atmosphere, throwing back the Planeswalkers who had tried to flee. Unfortunately for them, there would be no fleeing.

My wings flapped once, and the wind pressure burst the sandstorm apart, the skies clearing to their normal dark red hue, if without the sand to bother the sight of my Slivers. They spun around themselves as drills as the Dahaka came into their sights, long tentacle-like limbs of the mind that was the Legion, they roared their challenge and shattered the ground with their pressure as they scratched, ripped, impaled and broke the Dahaka's form on the ground.

Darkness spread across the limb made of the many, sand ruptured the skin, pulsing lights and fetid Black Mana burned large open wounds across them, but yet they did not cease their advance. The dead began to float up in the air, where gentle songs would knit their flesh and restore life to them, and once enough would gather, they would once more descend down towards their target, merging seamlessly with the rest.

The Dahaka would have still had a chance, but amidst his vision literally crawling with talons and teeth, a singularly stronger scythe-like appendage appeared for just an instant, shattering through his head all the way down to the bottom of his spine, before lashing backwards to split him open in half. My tail swished as Blue Mana gathered in enough quantities through the crystals in my hide to burst jets of water all around his frame, and as he screamed from the pain he was feeling, the final bit of resistance crumbled and his Spark came loose.

Columns of stone spread out to engulf the Slivers near his body, and as my Scythe-limb ripped itself free from the stone, I turned towards the kor-woman whose crazed expression told me everything I needed to know without even bothering to ask.

"The true gods have risen! Kneel through agony, Tyrant!" the woman bellowed as a multi-limbed creature appeared behind her, spreading shining light that blinded my eyes, making me howl as the rest of the Legion burst into a frenzy of evolution, the Thrums evolving rapidly into Primes, their tentacle tipped with sharp talons slashing through the air as they bind and ripped at the drone. "If you do not yield, you will be consumed!" with her next words, a large sinkhole spread open below our feet, jagged shards of stone engulfing and ripping apart with their magic a chunk of the endless Slivers.

It would not be enough.

"Your gods will die," I snarled as I drew near, my Scythe-like limb morphed into a hand, "And your soul will be the herald of their destruction!"

"Gods don't die," the woman said with a smile. "I am the first, Tyrant...but I will not be the last sympathetic to their call!" and as she widened her arms, as if ready to embrace death, my hand slammed home and gripped her forehead tightly.

"Death?" I laughed gingerly. "You will join the Coalition," I continued as her body began to burn, her screams growing shriller until nothing was left of her body if not for her Spark, which soon was joined by that of the Dahaka in my other hand. "I will not grant anyone the mercy of Death." I hissed as I engulfed the two Sparks, letting them shift and merge together with the rest, transferring them past Time and Space to the place where the others stood in silent agony, their energies suffusing the entire engine of war that belonged to the Hive.

For no soldier can march on an empty stomach.

And thus, no Hive can work without food.

 

[shadenight123]

Chapter Fifty-Four (Mustafar)

The madness screams without end. Pain to the newborn skin shall feel like countless scissors rusted upon the most delicate of nerves. Tremble and reveal your secrets, for without legs, you cannot escape, but a mouth to scream I will grant you, so scream! Scream, my pretties! Scream, and tell me what He wishes to know! We who have no remorse query, and you who know not of peace will answer!

I sighed as I let the Coalition work its way through the memories of the captured duo. The Slivers in charge of the storage vault would do a great job, as always, but they'd need a bit of time in order to seep through their memories, and then patch their thoughts up. It didn't matter if this would have probably been considered worthy of being declared the king of all evils, because it worked. Thus, practically speaking, it was a flawless reason to rip out the very core of a living being in order to acquire the memories necessary to understand just what was going on.

Nadia wouldn't have approved, but she was busy saving the people of Mustafar that actually lived on this forsaken planet make of lava and molten rocks.

Meanwhile, the tendrils composed of the countless Slivers were done shattering through the planet's crust, eagerly gripping into their own talons the rare metals that, while utterly worthless to the likes of me, could still be processed into enhanced armor to be worn by my prized Apex troops.

A powerful earthquake rippled the ground beneath my feet, even as the Prime Slivers stood serrated around me like children eager to please their mother, though it was mostly in their genetics to do so. A twitch, and one of them developed the Dahaka's surprisingly refined sand control. Another twitch, and one of them learned to wield the might of the streams of Time a bit better. A spasm in one's fingers, and rock morphed and merged like clay. The knowledge was being taken and integrated, the Hive's hunger for resources second only to the thirst for knowledge.

The Hive had no secrets with one another, no need to lie, or to betray. Everything was for the glory of the Hive, and the glory of the Hive wasn't victory, but evolution, and past evolution, it was merely the guarantee of a continued act of existence. The Hive merely wished to survive. Things like eating everyone else, or consuming whole worlds, they didn't bother the Slivers, and never belonged to the Queen's main purpose. Even the Hive-Lord didn't seek conquest, but mere expansion to make space for more clutches of eggs into the Skep.

Already, one of the Skeps built within the world's surface had finished reaching the planet's core, and like the popping of a bubble, overheated air left the countless tunnels towards the surface, passing through organic generators that would transform that heat into energy, energy that would be stored into crystals to be later transformed into Mana, and from there, it would become an unending supply for both myself and the yet dormant Hive fleets.

The art of military maintenance and supply logistics wasn't lost to the Hive, it simply never factored in.

"Shade!" Nadia screamed as she appeared a short distance from me, her clothes covered in soot and ashes. "Tell your creatures to stop!" she looked at me, "They're breaking this world!"

"My children are hungry, Nadia," I replied quite nonchalantly. "I must let them eat."

"Your children don't have to eat this world in particular," Nadia replied, glaring at me. "There are people here who call this place their home!"

"So what? It's as good of a world as any others, and there are no Sparks yet to be born here anyway," I answered. "If you want to, just drag the survivors elsewhere. Use the New Nautilus. Wasn't it meant as a colony ship to begin with? You have one hour until this planet's core is completely spent. I am even holding the atmosphere together to give you the time to do that," I continued.

"I'm not as skilled as you are, and gathering everyone on this planet's surface will take more than a hour," Nadia said, only for my smile to make her falter. "And if I do that, you'll just disappear into another plane while hiding your tracks, won't you?"

"That I will," I said while shrugging, "But then again, I've successfully dealt with your pursuers, and eventually will find out why they've been hounding you. I've got more pressing things to worry about now than holding a prattling granny by my side to ponder on why people shouldn't be killed ruthlessly," I inclined my head to the side. "Or do you perhaps wish to try to stop me?" not one of my Primes stood up from their positions. They had no need to threaten, nor any desire to fight, because it wasn't my desire, so it wasn't theirs either.

"Since taking up the mantle of the Tyrant, you've changed, Shade," Nadia said. "Once, I'd chalk up your words as mere bravado, but now...you'll really do it, won't you?"

"Waking up a Hive fleet is costly in terms of energy. I am recouping my losses," I said. "If you want to keep wasting time talking, I suggest you spend it summoning your New Nautilus and getting the people out of here and over to the closest world."

"The energies of an entire plane aren't enough!? Energy here, energy there...how much do you even have stored away like a squirrel for winter!?" Nadia snarled, "Are you telling me you can't just let these people live? Are you telling me you'll take away their homes just like this?"

"What is cruel to the ant is mere garden work to the builder," I replied dutifully.

"Just because we have these powers doesn't mean we have to use them so cruelly! You were the one who taught me this, Shade! You did! You said that power came with responsibilities!" Nadia clenched her fists.

"I did, didn't I?" I said with a sigh, "But then why does man squash ants? Why does man eat fruits? Why not just die, trying to feed off the sun and the wind? Well? Why not?"

Nearby, a formation of rocks broke as the lava began to spin in a whirlpool, greedily being sucked in by hungry mouths. "They aren't ants!" Nadia yelled, her right hand clutching the pendant around her neck, a perfect mimicry of the Blue Water pendant. "They are living beings! They have a future ahead of them, hopes and dreams!"

"So do dogs," I said, "And yet when a dog bites a hand, he is put down. A death sentence, just because they aren't humans. The difference in treatment still exists, does it not?"

"They didn't bite anyone's hands, they don't even have the teeth capable of biting yours!" Nadia yelled, "If it's energy that you want, then I'll give it to you!" she continued, "I haven't been travelling much, but I have enough! More than what you could gather from this planet! Just let this planet be!"

I raised a hand, and the tremors all around us ceased. The Slivers slowly began to stand and disappear one after the other, the hole into the planet's core sealed shut as I furrowed my eyebrows. "Nadia, bring out the New Nautilus."

Nadia faltered, and she took a single step back before catching herself.

My eyes began to burn. "You went to worlds where space travel existed in order to improve on that ship, and if you aren't summoning it, then it means just one thing," I bared my teeth, "It's currently being used."

"Shade," Nadia whispered. "You aren't like this."

"I am not the Tyrant this multiverse deserves," I hissed, "I am the Tyrant this multiverse needs," I growled. "Where is it?"

Nadia shook her head. "I don't know! I just keep it summoned," Nadia swallowed. "It's to evacuate people, Shade. Innocents can take refuge elsewhere, where they can be safe from Eldrazi and Phyrexians, where they can—"

"Where they can corrupt the worlds with just a tiny vial of Phyrexian oil, or have the Eldrazi spread their tentacles upon new Planes!" I bellowed out. "Zendikar is there for a reason, Nadia! The people are trapped there for a reason!" I clenched both of my fists. "I didn't make it a law, but I reckoned it was obvious it would fall under consorting with either of the two factions!"

Nadia took a step forward, her eyes ablaze with determination. "I thought you would...dismiss my words," she said next, her glare turning sad. "I thought...I thought you would say that you'd never let people suffer like that on purpose. I thought...I don't know, I thought there was still something of Shade left in you, but...is that what you've become? A cruel and petty Tyrant who destroys worlds on a whim?"

"What else could I have become?" I retorted while shrugging, "A wise king with a big white beard on a golden throne? A conquistador with a sword in hand? Why is it that if you put a net in an open field, you people must always slam against it head first? Why can't you just avoid the net? Why do you have to cut those ropes for no reason? The net is there as a safety for you, but...but you don't understand it, do you!? I am deeply sorry for all those governments who passed laws that the people refused to understand were for their own good!"

"People will always oppose tyrants, Shade," Nadia said. "Because we want to be free."

"Then you are free to die," I answered. "You are free to suffer. You are free to be corrupted, and compleated. You are free to have your soul devoured by the Eldrazi, and you are free to sacrifice yourself in whatever folly you may wish. But," I roared, "You aren't free to drag others down with you! You aren't free to stretch the corruption to other planes! You aren't free to force me to enhance the blockade! You aren't free to force my hand into killing more and more people than necessary! Because of you! Because of your naivety, of your pathetic childish dream of pacifism and whatever the fucking else you believe in, now countless innocents will have to die!"

Nadia's eyes widened as she began to glow, arcane runes spreading all other her skin as the Prime Slivers around me in turn shifted from a passive to a belligerent stance within seconds, "No, Shade-You can't do that! You can't even know if they're corrupted or not!"

"You are no Uther Lightbringer, and I am no Arthas," I growled, before bitterly laughing, "But at the end of the day...If two or three planes burn, just as long as the rest survive, then that is reason enough."

"Please don't do that," Nadia whispered, her hair starting to glow and change, becoming the color of the deep ocean as Mana gathered around her fingertips. "Please, Shade, please don't..."

"I cannot allow such a plague to continue unchecked, and that is why I must stop it before it can grow," as I spoke, I extended my left hand. In answer, Nadia's smile grew bitterer still, until she finally closed her eyes.

"I hope the New Nautilus isn't in use right now," Nadia said, and then blasted the Blue Mana she had been gathering straight through her head, the streams of time and space slipping through as I hastily rushed for her, only to be rebuked as an invisible field held me back those tiny precious seconds that she needed in order to complete her gamble, and send her mind backwards in time.

When my fingers reached her head, it was too late. Most definitely, I could age her brain, but the memories on it wouldn't be the same as before. She would merely have the memories of her seeing the same scenery for countless years. It was done. She had wiped them all out. She had erased them, leaving nothing behind. Her last memory in her head was of bitter acceptance at the sight of her great-great-lots of great-granddaughter being left at her doorstep, and the sadness and grief of a child who had lost both of her parents so young had made her feel guilt for not being capable of helping those of Zendikar in turn.

She had left that last memory in her head specifically for me.

"Shade?" Nadia said, "Why are you holding my forehead in your hand?" Nadia asked next, "If you've come to visit, now isn't the time. My latest Granddaughter is..." she moved her head away from my hand, and then furrowed her brows, "What kind of place is this?" she asked next, before looking down at her clothes. "Oh, my adventuring clothes, it brings back memories..." she grinned, before suddenly raising an eyebrow. "Wait a moment. You had your hand on my forehead! Did you just erase something from my head!? Shade!" she yelled, "You'd better not have done something nasty and erased it!"

My shoulders began to shake.

A Planeswalker shall not aid Phyrexia or the Eldrazi. The sentence for it would be death.

Erasing one's memories...it didn't count as death, did it?

"Shade...you look sad," Nadia murmured, "Did something happen? Was it like that time with the brain disease? Did...did you have to do something horrible?" she neared, her arms slowly surrounding me. "It will be all right, Shade," she whispered. "Whatever you had to do, I'm sure you can fix it."

I gingerly returned her hug.

My fingers trembled as they applied a gentle pressure to her back, my mind barely registered the smell of sandal wood that she naturally emitted as a perfume of sorts from her skin. I took a small, deep breath, and then I did the only thing I could do.

I was the law.

The law that is not absolute is not the law.

Had Genryusai been here, without fault, he would have cut Nadia down.

One cannot order others to do that which one himself will not do.

"Bye, Nadia," I said in the end as I let go of the embrace. "May we never meet again."

"Shade?" Nadia's befuddled expression was the last thing I saw as I slammed a fist straight through her guts, pulses of White Mana binding her like chains as Blue Mana burst into her head, knocking her unconscious before she could as much as counter my magic.

I threw her through a portal that would land her straight into the entrance of her home in the middle of the Savannah, and as countless Slivers instead pulsed and pushed themselves into her world, they easily lifted themselves to the borders of her Plane, sealing it from the rest of the Multiverse.

As the portal closed, and the Slivers near me stood in wait, I began to laugh.

"Awaken the fleets," I roared as the Slivers around me began to fly in a frenzy, skittering and increasing the volume of their chatters, "Awaken all of them and scour the Multiverse! Find them! Find the survivors of Zendikar and destroy them down to their last!" behind me, a sudden eruption of lava was accompanied by the loud sound of thunder, "meanwhile..." I passed both hands through my hair. "It is time I spoke with Nicol."

I disappeared into yet another portal, but this one would take me in an all-together different world.

The massive pyramids coated in gold shone brightly with eternal flames atop them. The Mana was rich and thick, and as it gathered in the air in steady streams, the towering figure of a gigantic dragon easily dwarfed the pyramids themselves. No, the pyramids were nothing more than places for the dragon to let his claws rest, his head's horns blackened by heat and encrusted blood, a gem the size of a house floated between the two curved horns.

His wings widened to blot out the sun as his voice made the very earth shake, the humanoid creatures reverently serving him all around us bowing and screaming as they ran for their lives, his breath as hot as the sun uncaring as it scorched those closest to him, the ones in charge of cleaning his sharp claws, or bring splendor to his scales.

"How annoying," Nicol Bolas spoke a single word, and yet it was enough to let the sand beneath us turn to glass. "You come to me only when you wish to ask me aid, never to bring me gifts."

"No fact escapes you," I replied as I knelt, the glass surface shattering under my knee, "My teacher."

Nicol Bolas laughed, and his laughter was both mocking and cruel.

It also rang with the truth of the Multiverse.

There is always a Greater Power.

 

[shadenight123]

Chapter Fifty-Five (????)

Nicol Bolas had many titles. God Pharaoh was his favorite, but not the one he preferred the most. Out of all of his desires, the one of having someone considered the strongest call him Master was his most cherished, and the screams that his touch would deliver to a mortal the sweetest of symphonies to his ears. He stood under the harsh suns he had crafted to keep his back warm and his eyes smoldered with desire and greed. He had been the triumphant brother, the conqueror of the war of the Elder Dragons, and he had known no rival, faced no threat, and had been defied by none but those he himself had grown up for the task.

Admittedly, his hatred for the Umezawa bloodline still ran deep, but even so, his hatred had found a new direction soon afterwards.

"You come seeking the the location of those people of Zendikar that escaped your attention," Nicol spoke, amusement in his voice, "Were my words not crystal? Keep the weak in check with might, remind them of your might constantly, or things like arrogance and pride might befall them."

"I thought only the mad would stand against me," I answered as I slowly stood back up, "Only the mad, and the fools, but instead even those close to me have fallen," I took a small breath, "Or have they been engineered to fall, Nicol?" I looked up at him. "You did see that question coming, did you not?"

Nicol lowered his head slowly, his eyes burning with bright flames as his breath turned the cracked glass below us into molten, hot lava. The heat didn't disturb me, and as his large maw came an arm's length away from me, he smiled, showing his many teeth.

"There is no trust between teacher and student," Nicol said, "How it saddens my heart."

"You have no heart," I pointed out smoothly. "Not answering is an answer by itself."

Nicol clicked his tongue against his teeth, and the mere act sent ripples across the molten crimson sand. His head slowly rose once more, "I could have," he said in the end. "An accident here, a threat there, a pawn with pawns elsewhere...but why would I do that?" he laughed loudly, his claws gripping upon the gold encrusted pyramids and breaking them under his strength. "Toppling you serves no purpose, if not to weaken myself. The Shard of Dominaria...how is the Plane now?"

"Nothing but a massive rift," I replied quite calmly, "the Sliver's exponential growth is enough to withstand the continuous pressure increase within the Shard, but it has already gone past the point where anyone other than me, or perhaps you, may hold it at bay."

Nicol Bolas' throat thrummed. "Perhaps then it is not I you should seek out as the culprit," he emitted a single snort, "Do not deny that was your purpose in coming here, but as always, you are quick to act and slow to think," he glanced upwards, to the suns up in the sky. "Your culprit knows of Dominaria's condition. The very ones who tried to save it might be the ones wishing for an end to this stalemate."

I crossed my arms in front of my chest, "Did we not kill them?" I looked up at him, "Or has a rift opened elsewhere in the Multiverse?"

"Not even the bodies remained of those that defied our combined might, but both birth and death are reversible," Nicol answered, "in the interests of Time, had one been saved by a spell of such ability as to alter time itself, then he or she would still be possibly alive."

"For such a thing to happen, I suspect seeking out those who can easily alter Time would be the profitable venture," I said thoughtfully, "The Dahaka should have clued me in. But the Kor woman..." I passed a hand through my hair. "There must be a leak, and that leak must have lead the Eldrazi's worshipers to other Planes."

"There are many reasons to let the Eldrazi and the Phyrexians leave Zendikar. Some are nihilistic in nature, others are practical or pragmatical," Nicol spoke. "A few are even petty in their nature, clearly befitting the weak souls that harbor such plans of vengeance. The solution thus lie on Zendikar's soil, but before that, you must cease your clamoring for destruction and send back to sleep your Hives," his eyes burned. "You are playing another's game, student, and my pride as a teacher demands you only suffer my schemes, not others."

I blinked, and then pinched the bridge of my nose. "To make me waste energies...then isn't it clear that whoever's doing this is trying to break Dominaria free from its shard? Keeping its fate a secret, using Zendikar as a flame for the moths...what purpose could they still possibly seek?"

"Perhaps, had you not told me of the fate of the Mending, I would have taken responsibility," Nicol remarked, "But now we stand together, for our powers are linked directly to the fate of Dominaria's shard. Your might comes from the Mana and the Rifts that still twirls chaotically within the Shard, and your strength is sapped just as much as you use it to contain it. Closing the rifts would be a deadly blow to you, but it would just as much mean the loss of great power for me," he tightened his grip on the crushed golden pyramids. "That I will not tolerate. Whatever fool seeks our ruin shall not find it."

"So, does my teacher have a lead I can pursue?" I replied.

"The Planeswalker known as Teferi," Nicol spoke, "And if not him, then seek out one similar. Traces of Blue Mana should be easy to sniff out in great quantities." His wings spread with a snap, the air pressure swatting away the few humanoid figures close to us still, their bodies smashing against the ground to be reduced to paste, and nothing more. "Though their ploy clearly wishes for you to head to Zendikar, you will not go there. Force them to once more act in order to push you there, but this time...I will be watching," his eyes shone with pale Blue light, "And when they act, I will alert you."

"I will take my leave then, teacher," I answered as I turned to leave, only for his tail to come swishing down towards me, my right and left arms breaking freely into reinforced pillar-like limbs to hold the attack at bay. It still resulted in the ground shattering beneath me, my teeth gritting from the effort of holding the tail back from me.

"No matter how many Sparks you feed on," Nicol Bolas spoke as his tail slowly stopped pushing me down, "No matter how much power you store, remember that you stand where you are because I put you there," he smiled, flames leaving the sides of his fangs. "Your fangs will never be sharp enough to pierce my scales, student," he narrowed his eyes. "Remember it well."

I curtly nodded, and spat to the side a few drops of blood before leaving the Plane behind, this time unchallenged.

If one spoke of Time and its agents, then of course a few choices came up.

There was one such Plane, after all.

A Plane filled with nothing but Time Lords.

 

[shadenight123]

Chapter Fifty-Six (Doctor Who)

Time is a turbulent ocean, filled with contradictions and strife. Though you submerge yourself in it, in the end it is only the light at the far end of the coast that may guide you. It is only that one event that remains fixed in time, that one instant that can never be changed. Anchor yourself to it, and from there onward, let time never be anything more than a simply dimension to trudge upon.

The Time Stream was already nothing more than a tattered mess of broken pieces, events happened even if they shouldn't, and those that should did not. The skies turned black during the day, and crystal during the night. The seas of red became landmasses of green, and the mountains toppled and grew into jungles. Gallifrey heroically withstood the continuous assault of the Daleks, and the Daleks incessantly battled without fear nor mercy the Time Lords.

In the midst of the two warring factions, a rift spread open right in the middle, giving pause to both as they wondered just on whose side the new weapon would be unleashed for. The answer was surprisingly simple.

Neither.

"Anthrax," I said as I appeared out of the rift, a small Skep in my hands as I played with it, throwing it in the air only to catch it nimbly. "Hunt." I threw the Skep, watching as it grew in size until it suddenly dwarfed the city of Arcadia, close to being ruined. Petals blossomed on the sand matted in blood as spores began to turn into mold at an alarming rate near the Skep's walls, while blood poured down thickly from the ghastly wails that echoed inside the countless tunnels and caverns.

It emerged next, and its thoughts were mine, and mine were its. It was one of the Apex, the Slivers I had crafted, engineered and created for a singular purpose. It held upon its biological imperatives, and held no morals that I would not imprint upon it, and no desires that I would not grant it. It was a child of mine, a creation made not out of love, or joy, but with the true cold rationale of someone seeking absolute annihilation of one's enemy, no matter the price to be paid.

All around him, tiny spore-like flakes of mold swam and moved nimbly, phasing in and out of existence like ethereal flakes of snow. The moment one touched a Dalek's armor, it didn't melt it as much as pass right through it, the inhuman shrieks of the Pepper Shaker soon reaching squeals beyond the ultrasonic as it died, horribly consumed only for his armor to rattle, and then burst as countless more Slivers the size of spores flew out quickly, spreading to new victims within seconds.

Anthrax had a singular, terrifying ability that it would share with the rest of the Hive when awake.

It could reduce a Sliver's size to a mono-cellular level, phasing them out of existence only to have them return into existence directly inside a living creature's body.

Though I watched rays of sizzling energy rush for me from the Daleks, they harmlessly impacted against a shield of unwavering energy. Anthrax's form was humanoid enough, if with a peculiarly characteristic of rotting, tumescent tumors covering his body, all connected by rampant mold and fungi overgrowing his every available inch of skin. His face was amorphous, at times human, and at times just a blob of jelly without characteristics. When it sought to let specific expressions known, it would light up its sacs all over his skin.

He was like a walking Christmas Tree made of deadly fungi and incredibly lethal bacteria. And though the Daleks could work against it, and the Time Lords could alter time to find a cure, all of the bacteria constantly evolved and changed, and if the diseases did not kill the living, then the microscopic Slivers would eat them from the inside out.

This world lacked both a Spark and a yet to awaken one too, but it was rife with war and strife. Such emotions could easily be gathered as energy, so who was I to renounce a free snack? Near me, the choked forms of Time Lords clutched their throats as their bodies shriveled into dark husks, my eyes glancing towards Anthrax' form, his tumors pulsing with green happy lights.

"Have you had pleasant dreams?" I asked, receiving thrilling yellow lights in reply. Anthrax wasn't that bad of a Sliver. All things considered, he was unique in his own special ways, and there could be no distaste for his form. If he wished for it, he could easily alter his genes and appearance to resemble the most beautiful of humans, be they male or female. He didn't care about it thought, and happily went about popping his sores to release toxic liquids that would drain life from the sand itself, turning it into radioactive sludge.

Anthrax had dreamed of discovering a new strain of common cold, one capable of reinforcing the muscles of a living being's body the right amount needed to sneeze one's lungs out in a single bout. I couldn't help but chuckle at his dream, extending a hand to rub his gelatinous head graciously.

He flared with bright pink lights, happy to be praised, and as I returned my attention to the ruins of the city of Arcadia, I sighed.

This was the twentieth Plane in which I assaulted Gallifrey. There were no signs of the Planeswalker version of the Doctor, or for what it mattered, there were no signs of any living being capable of ascending. I had visited twenty Planes, burst through their dimensions and time streams, and yet not once, from the beginning of Time to the End of it, had I found a single trace of the Doctor.

Well, if he didn't want to be found, I would be hard pressed to look for him into a Plane that held dimensions into it just as much as it did other worlds and time streams. Even though I had sent back to sleep most of the Hive Fleets, some I had left to prod through different Planes seeking a possible guilty party while at the same time gaining strength and power from the destruction of those Planes, swallowing worlds and suns without remorse nor care.

On the other hand, if the Doctor had actually become a Planeswalker then I didn't really need to find him.

He would be the one to come looking for me.

And when the thirty-fourth Plane fell, the Doctor appeared.

"Ah...I should have expected something like this," I remarked. "You are, after all, a singular existence."

One Planeswalker against Thirteen.

A Tyrant against Thirteen individuals, all of which singularly born with the sheer desire of protecting humankind and the rest of the species of the galaxy from the threatening monsters that lurked beyond time and space.

This was one the hornet nests that I had painstakingly avoided hitting for the large majority of my life.

Unfortunately, there comes a time where a Hive Tyrant must ask his Queen to hold his beer and watch him.

In that moment in which I felt the ripple, in that moment in which thirteen distinctive Sparks that yet were all the same appeared, in that brilliant instant of time...

My hearts skipped more than a few beats.