Think of 'plane' like a fictional world; Star Wars is a Plane, Star Trek is a Plane, Worm is a Plane, Dresden Files is a Plane, The Martian is a Plane. A couple are galactic-level, some are multidimensional, one's just a regular old local-spacefaring planet.
 
So, I once said that if Shadenight made another fic, I would go through and critique it.

It was only recently that I learned of it, and only now that I decided to muster up the energy to actually look at it.

I've gotten through Chapter 2, and I can't really say that anything jumps out at me as being bad. He's not even going overboard about the coffee.

But from what I've heard, I'll have plenty to look at in the future. I don't look forward to it.
 
Chapter Forty-Four (The Witcher)
Chapter Forty-Four (The Witcher)

White.

Pure white.

There was only snow upon this desolate world devoid of life, only ice, only darkness and death. This was the world of the White Frost. This was the pinnacle of non-existence, of negative entropy. This was the beginning of the end. Like Heat Death propagated itself, so too did the White Frost do the same, if in a completely opposite direction. The Incubators had cherished this. They had learned how to harness the power that came from it. They had become the masters of it and by consequence, I had too.

I extended a hand, Slivers of beady crimson eyes and pure white skin fluttering into existence as they hissed and gurgled, the silent death of the freezing wind in their breaths. They did not kill with screams or talons. They did not make others suffer. They brought death slowly, but surely. They were the slow drop in temperature from twenty to nineteen, and then down, deep down, until one day it reached the absolute zero.

"Grand Master?" a tiny voice squeaked nearby, a fluffy white tail coupled with deeply crimson eyes revealed itself from the ice and the snow. It hopped on its legs, and came to a halt by my side. "Grand Master," it said with glee, its eyes shining. "I, Yukibey, stand ready to serve!" it stopped right in front of the mass of Slivers that defied entropy, and squared its fluffy shoulders to attention, its tail moving right and left quickly like an overtly excited dog seeing its master for the first time in centuries.

"How fares the device?" I asked, a prism of singularly incandescent white burning brightly within the tightly knit confines of a psionic net, the pulsing heartbeat of a process unthinkable in most universes and that yet, in this one, worked. The act of defying entropy and denying its fundamental law, bringing forth no longer a death by heat, but a death by frost.

"It works, Grand Master," Yukibey said. "The universe is in balance thanks to it," it added. "How may I be of service to the Grand Master?"

I extended a hand, and as twirling Slivers left my arm to melt together and form a strong steel-like band near it, a shimmering portal spread across it. Yukibey watched, no words leaving its mouth. The effect was immediate. Upon the completion of the gateway, the still and frozen air began to move as entropy was greedily sucked inside, the colder winds and frost leaving the gate in turn.

Yukibey said nothing even as I moved the Sliver gate with a gesture, letting it fly high in the air until it reached the edge with this world's atmosphere. It spoke only once I began to widen the gate itself. "Grand Master?" Yukibey said. "How may I be of service?" it asked once more, and while there was no fear in its voice, I knew it was unnerved.

"Increase the device's power," I said as the spinning Sliver gate began its descent once more, now easily capable of engulfing much of this world's surface. Colorless stones emerged from my skin, the energy within it brimming as it sparked across the air, empowering the circle. I roared as the connection established itself, the ticking and spinning of the countless clocks across the infinite walls of the Blind Eternities ringing midnight and midday at the same time. The next second I found my target and pulled, the boundary between the two planes thinning drastically by the second.

Worlds turn in crucial moments of decision. Make your choice.

The scorching heat of a volcanic eruption flash-melted the ice around me, the resulting explosion forcing my wings to widen up as I began to float. The anti-entropy engine pulsed and thrummed as the gateway snapped shut, leaving upon the frozen lands a figure of pure fire. The land beneath his feet melted swiftly, and yet the mud had barely the time to form that it soon became dry, the nearby blocks of ice evaporating quickly too as the flames spread greedily in the air sucking the oxygen out of the atmosphere to increase the brilliance and the heat of the flame.

"Shigekuni," I said flatly to the humanoid torch. "I come in peace." I raised both of my hands, and in so doing the flames didn't cease in their intensity, but the heat somehow lessened considerably. An old human figure emerged from the flames, his long white beard fluttering to the wind as his red eyes seemed to pierce into my very soul. He found something truly disgusting with his gaze alone, and thus his expression turned sour within a split second of our meeting.

"What do you want?" the captain-commander of the Gotei Thirteen asked, his voice carrying itself powerfully across the air as the Slivers formed a semi-circle behind my back. They hissed and clicked, chittering among themselves and coiling themselves, ready for battle should the need arise.

"When you Sparked, I explained the situation of the Multiverse to you and asked you a few simple things. I am merely wondering if you followed up on them," I said offhandedly, "Also, your welcoming me is chilling my poor heart," I added as I patted my chest, letting a small block of ice shaped like a heart fall on the ground, where it quickly melted.

"If you did not wish for this sort of welcome, you could have come yourself into my home rather than forcefully drag me here," Captain Yamamoto spoke, his eyes glaring fiercely. "In all of your thousand of years of life, have you yet to learn the politeness of knocking at someone's door?"

I allowed my fingers to crack slightly as I took a deep breath. "See Yamamoto, I am not the one who knocks," I narrowed my eyes. "I'm the one who rips, tears and shreds. I've been doing a trial run, and it's been a while since I last fought seriously against someone. Since I'm planning something big, I kind of need to practice for it," I gave him a small smile. "Wouldn't want me being rusty make things go wrong when I hit the real deal." I began to stretch my arms. "So I reckoned...why not spar a bit? You have the time to entertain me?"

Yamamoto raised an eyebrow. "Spar?" he asked. "Is that so?" he used his free hand to push his beard to the side, his appearance slowly changing as he lost the thousand of years on his frame regaining his youth, and as he took a stance ready to unsheathe his sword, his eyes narrowed as smoldering flames took their place, his hair burning brightly. "I think I understand why you chose this desolate world."

"Grand Master?" Yukibey squeaked, "Grand Master, the Anti-Entropy engine is overheating—"

Now wasn't that quite ironic.

"Then just build another one," I answered without glancing away from my sparring partner.

I took a deep breath as the scales all over my body hardened, specific glands beginning to work their due as my body strengthened itself through all achievable means. We stared at one another, and then he struck first.

I hit the nearby mountain at mach speed.

"...all right, now I'll really get serious."

Chandra had nothing on Yamamoto.

After all, he had Nippon Steel, folded one thousand times.
 
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Just worth pointing out, the Heat Death scenario for the "end" of the universe has nothing to do with the presence of heat. It refers to the eventual total loss of energy in the entire system: no heat, no light whatsoever. A perfectly cold and dark void continuing on forever. Not literal "everything's on fire, oh gods!" In seeking to reverse or halt entropic decay, the Incubators were trying to create energy ex nihilo at a rate which outpaced the natural loss, not... create some sort of Frozen parody universe for them to have punny names in. The whole magical girl thing was a thing because (they believed) that magical girls' emotional energy/magic was free energy.
 
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Just a thought that occurred to me. There is a Shade for every Spark the Slivers harvest, and they implant Shade/reuse the sparks when they get them.

Otherwise, what would they be doing with them?
 
Have to agree that the Anti Entropy Device makes no sense, making it colder is only going to further the heat death since you are eliminating energy out of the system.

And the problem in heat death isn't that there is no energy left in the universe, the problem is that at maximum entropy all of the energy in the system is spread evenly so there is nothing to drive change anymore. You can have a perfectly closed system sit at 1000K and have maximum entropy if the energy is perfectly spread in the system. Having the device sit at absolute zero just sucks energy out of the system that could do work, so you are breaking thermodynamics in a worse way since you are eliminating energy out of the system completely.
 
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Think of it as a quirk of that specific universe. I mean, the entry on the witcher wiki(link) says "The White Frost is thematically similar to the theoretical fate of the universe known as Heat Death."
 
Well, I guess now we know why it seems like the "resistance" is mostly comprised of lower to mid-lower tier walkers, at least from what we've seen. If he has more folks like Yamamoto on his side it would be very foolhardy indeed to try and take him out. Especially if they agree with his logic more than they hate his actions. Which is probably why they tried to trap him in the Terminator plane before engaging him. If he can't call on reinforcements perhaps then he would be killable, nevermind the fact that losing the stabilizing agent of a bigger fish would cause widespread chaos and hasten the collapse of the multiverse.

Of course the "resistance" doesn't see it like that. Movements like theirs don't really look at things like the long game, especially when it's as emotionally charged as some of their members seem to be. I just kinda hope to see a "It was Tuesday" moment between him and Walkerjack. I live for those moments. You know, the ones where the self-righteous white-aligned hero or heroine confront the big bad only to realize that they never even registered as a thought to them. God, such a perfect thing to see.

I simply cannot wait.
 
Well, I guess now we know why it seems like the "resistance" is mostly comprised of lower to mid-lower tier walkers, at least from what we've seen. If he has more folks like Yamamoto on his side it would be very foolhardy indeed to try and take him out. Especially if they agree with his logic more than they hate his actions. Which is probably why they tried to trap him in the Terminator plane before engaging him. If he can't call on reinforcements perhaps then he would be killable, nevermind the fact that losing the stabilizing agent of a bigger fish would cause widespread chaos and hasten the collapse of the multiverse.

Of course the "resistance" doesn't see it like that. Movements like theirs don't really look at things like the long game, especially when it's as emotionally charged as some of their members seem to be. I just kinda hope to see a "It was Tuesday" moment between him and Walkerjack. I live for those moments. You know, the ones where the self-righteous white-aligned hero or heroine confront the big bad only to realize that they never even registered as a thought to them. God, such a perfect thing to see.

I simply cannot wait.
are you talking about Borderlands Jack? Cause I don't know any other Jacks like that... it sounds like you're talking about that scene where he scooped a guys eye out with a spoon?
 
I'm gonna be honest, it's a TV-show aimed at young girls. It deserves nothing more than indifference; obsessively hating it is just as weird as obsessively loving it.
As soon as planeswalker me's moral compass gets thrown out the window in favor of staving off boredom, I'm going to introduce the Borg to Equestria for shits and giggles.
 
Chapter Forty-Five (The Witcher)
Chapter Forty-Five (The Witcher)

The only reason the world did not melt outright was because it had been covered in a thick sheet of permafrost. It still did melt. The ground itself melted into molten lava abruptly as the Slivers gathered around my body and adapted to the burning heat of a supernova's core, the billions of Celsius hitting my frame becoming a scorching heat, but not a vaporizing one as thick reddish-brown scales took over.

The vast emptiness of space welcomed us both, Yamamoto on the offensive and I on the defensive as a blade of rough steel with a pennon wrapped around its hilt materialized from the thin Aether at my silent command. I slashed forth with it as it crossed with the one made of pure flames. Yamamoto's heat would have vaporized any lesser Planeswalker, or forced them to retreat. To me, it was like staring at an open oven. The feeling was there, but it was bearable if one put his mind to it. Five more swords emerged from my back to join the pennon blade one in holding back the Shinigami's own, each of them brimming with two-colored blades.

Six-armed as I was, I still ended up being pushed back by miles as Yamamoto disappeared nimbly, slashing at me from countless angles with a speed and precision that only my countless eyes and alteration of time allowed me to catch and deflect. No sound echoed in the absence of air, and yet the clangor of the swords still rippled across the air in waves that threatened to break the very space in-between ourselves.

In the emptiness of the void I silently avoided the incoming slash, only for the flames to twist themselves into spirals and whirlpools, reaching for my eyes with deadly precision. Frozen blocks of ice materialized as Sliver heads of light blue and white formed from my shoulders, the ice itself exploding with an audible pop as oxygen formed from the impact. Yamamoto's next swing pushed past me, and sliced in half the nearby moon, which cracked apart and began to separate.

A long whip-like tail left my right leg as I spun, barbs rupturing and shifting through time and space to strike in all directions and all places at the same time. The invisible armor of flames of Yamamoto melted the barbs made of the strongest material I could summon forth before they could hurt him, and as he gripped upon the melting flesh of my leg-tail, I burst the flesh around it into maws and fangs, caustic liquids of undoubtedly deadly nature spraying over him.

The heat made the liquids explode, the vaporous gases attracted to his frame as he disappeared, reappearing with grace and finesse behind me and moving a single hand in an upward gesture. A massive pillar of bursting star cores detonated in rapid succession in a downward path towards me, and as it did, I slammed both of my hands together and howled as the thrumming of the Hive answered my call, the forged link between Planes awakening the countless hungry entities that devoured countless worlds at my command.

The flames descended upon the gaping maws of the Slivers, the heat mixing and intertwining with their flesh as countless were charred just to properly channel said devastating heat and countless more died while holding it confined until it could be properly digested. It split evenly among the countless Hive Worlds, the Planar Barriers between them linked all among themselves and none others.

Heated winds left the countless pores of my sweating body, thick white haze crafting a breathable atmosphere the size of a planet, which quickly began to turn to ice due to the cold of space.

My body was singed, and yet burned brightly of a light of its own as my eyes narrowed in firm determination, my six blades standing at the ready as I rushed forth, pushing myself onward. With slick and precise motions, Yamamoto's sword parried all blows, easily letting them glance off his blade without even once managing to pass through his defenses. Muscles tightened and reformed, ripped and grew stronger as energy burned itself into the miracle of creation. The speed increased until normal human eyes could no longer see the strikes, and as the burning friction of the blades against the air crafted thunder-like echoes, the pressure between the strikes reached a seemingly impassable limit.

And then it broke right through it.

The resounding blast sent both Yamamoto and I backwards, the oxygen that had been turning to ice melting itself as it began to spin around the newly born core of a nascent star, even as a seventh blade formed from a seventh arm. This one was spiral-shaped, and whispered darkly as fog seemed to leave its hilt.

Yamamoto strengthened his stance as his muscles began to turn reddish, Mana gathering all across his body as flames spread evenly over his hair and through his eyes. I burst with gems and powerful crystals, Slivers of all species awakening within the confines of my frame as I clutched on to the seven blades with a single hand, the pressure exercised enough to meld them all together into a singular entity that was the death of fashion to behold, and yet seemingly unparalleled in power.

When it crashed against the fiery blade of Yamamoto, it creaked under the strain.

Bursts of primal energy gathered in my left hand as Mana thickly poured into existence to form a blinding sizzling bolt of energy. It struck through the intertwined blades, sending Yamamoto to fly backwards as I lowered my shaking right arm.

I took deep breaths even though there was no air to breathe, and then flapped my wings forward, countless copies of myself materializing from thin aether by my sides. A large hole spread through my chest as I widened my eyes, only for the wound to close abruptly, even as the other copies disappeared when struck by the same attack. Yamamoto's whole being burned incandescently as he lifted his left hand in the air, a titanic sun forming overhead with all of its heat and power.

Shields of White Mana formed all across my frame as I kept flying forth, impacting through the surface of the sun thrice as hot as a normal one would ever be, reaching past the utterly absurd levels and bursting right through its core, past it, and out the other way where Yamamoto was waiting to swing down his blade. I intercepted it with my bare hands and grabbed on to it with my fingers, roaring as I surrounded his frame, and his sun armor, with my countless hungry fangs, tentacles and talons.

Tentacles were clearly the weakness of Japanese people.

He burned right through them, pushing myself down as my back actually hit the surface of the planet we had just left, cracking apart the ground as the snow that had once been ever-present had already been replaced with scorched molten magma. I stood back up, exhaling deeply as I cracked my neck to the right and to the left, my right hand lifted up in the sky to recall back the seven swords I had used.

"Have you had enough of a beating, youngsters?" Yamamoto asked, his sword gently resting on his shoulder, "We can go on for days if you'd like. This world's time...it goes by faster than mine, does it not?"

I grinned. "One day equals one second."

"Oh oh oh," Yamamoto laughed cheerfully, flexing his left arm as flames erupted all across his veins. "Then I guess we can truly go all out!"

"I'd like that, but unfortunately I did ask for a sparring and not a beat down," I replied nonchalantly as a pipsqueak voice suddenly caught my interest.

"Grand Master!" Yukibey whined from a nearby rock that seemed cooler than the rest of the surrounding area. His eyes were actually filled with tears. "The Entropy levels are off the charts! Grand Master!" he whined quite thoroughly, "You broke the Entropy Engine!" he outright began to cry. "How can I face Kyubey-Sempai after this!? I should report to be recycled! Grand Master! Whyyyyy..." Yukibey cried out, his fluffy tail swishing right and left quickly as he shook his head.

"Also, he'd probably die of a heart attack, the poor thing," I continued smoothly, extending a hand to summon the Incubator into my arms. The creature unfortunately melted immediately, especially since I was still venting off the excessive heat. He reformed a split-second later atop my head, hugging it tightly. "Guess we can conclude it's a draw and move on with our lives."

Yamamoto sighed, his appearance returning to that of the old, wise captain of the Gotei's divisions. "Would you like some tea?" he asked next, opening a portal to his right.

I shrugged, and then followed him through.

"Do you have Earl Grey?" I asked.

"I have Matcha," Yamamoto answered roughly, his eyes burning with the blaze of a man in his prime defending his favorite drink.

"Just as long as you don't do the whole tea ceremony thing, please," I said as we both reappeared inside Yamamoto's office, the tatami below our feet spontaneously starting to burn as the papers on the nearby desk vaporized to ashes, the walls starting to melt in turn. As we both rushed to stomp the flames out and cool the atmosphere with magic, we blinked in unison at having forgotten just how high our spirits had soared...

And then we began to laugh at how silly we were about it.

"So, how are things going?" I asked as I took a seat on a nearby pillow, watching the old man take a seat in front of me. He pulled a string by his side twice, and then huffed, shrugging lightly.

"They are going quite well," Yamamoto replied with a neutral tone. I raised an eyebrow at the absolutely meaningless declaration, and plopped my chin on the open palm of my right hand.

When Yamamoto's lieutenant Chojiro stepped inside, he did not look surprised to see me. On the plus side, his blend of black tea leaves was astonishingly delicious.

We were left alone soon after, and as I took a long sip of hot tea, I exhaled in relief. I spat out some space dust that had gathered in my larynx, and watched with fascination as it seemed to have held magnetic properties, judging by how quickly it went on to hit the hilt of Yamamoto's sword with a metallic clink.

The Commander of the Gotei thirteen used his thumb and index finger to burn the metallic smudge off, leaving his sword in pristine conditions.

"I would ask of you a favor," he said in the end. "A Planeswalker who should have showed up a week ago hasn't come and sent no word about it. I believe she might have encountered trouble along the way."

I blinked, and then narrowed my eyes.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"Miss La Arwall," Yamamoto said.

I stared at Yamamoto a bit, my eyes snapping shut as I exhaled loudly.

"The law is the law," Yamamoto continued.

"I know, I'm the one who made those laws!" I whined. "I could just let her be," I continued, standing up while sipping tea as I began to walk in circles. "That damn pacifist—killing is unjustifiable my ass—good for nothing vegetarian...I'm even allergic to lion fur," I groaned. "But fine! I, the merciful Tyrant, shall seek her out and if she's been killed, I'll find the guilty party and annihilate them from existence after torturing them for countless decades."

Yamamoto raised an eyebrow.

"I did that once," I answered his unspoken question. "And the guy was a serial child killer."

Yamamoto, most aptly, said nothing.

Even he had a soft spot for children.

Only monsters didn't have soft spots for children.
 
Shade has many soft spots for children because slivers can be excessively soft if they want to be.
 
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