Chapter 14: Excommunication (or, Trouble in Paradise)
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
My arrival at the Divine Information Aggregate โ that is, the hub of Paradiso's news and intelligence network, which in this realm takes the place of Mercury โ is greeted with roughly the same reaction as my earlier visit to the Celestial Refinery.
Which is to say that everyone immediately loses their Me-damned minds.
I lay my fingers on my temples as the increasingly familiar cries of adulation ring out from all around me. At least there's no human souls in the vicinity, meaning my uncovered glory isn't sending anyone into ecstatic seizures this time, but that doesn't stop me from cursing myself for not thinking about this about ten seconds ago. I don't need to be "seen" here; I should have just made myself invisible or something so I wouldn't have to put up with this again.
...could still do that, actually. Better late than never.
Between blinks of an eye, I shroud myself in nothingness, removing all trace of my existence from the world around me. Waves of confusion ripple out through the previously-reverent crowd, but I ignore their bewilderment as I plunge unseen into the facility below.
Interestingly, the inside of the DIA isn't nearly as mechanical-looking as the Celestial Refinery was, instead consisting primarily of a titanic, interconnected network of half-translucent pipes, the kaleidoscopic light they're formed from making them appear almost like three-dimensional waveforms. Within them, countless angels and heavenly scrolls pass back and forth at speeds outstripping the naked eye's ability to process โ though that obviously doesn't apply to me. I try not to look too long anyways, as they'd undoubtedly only distract me from my goal.
...that said, without relying on the Right Eye or a convenient unicorn angel to guide me, I'm admittedly a little lost regarding how to get to said goal. Nothing exactly appears to be labeled in here.
Quirking my currently-invisible lips, I call the Heavenly Radar I summoned for myself earlier back up and adjust its parameters a bit, redefining its target from seeking out my lost divinity to seeking anything that inherently qualifies as "divine" โ such as, for example, the angels themselves. I don't really want to know the present location of every last member of Paradiso, but where exactly would I find the largest group of-
Got it.
I soundlessly teleport a few thousand miles down and to my left, reappearing in front of what looks like a shutter over a hundred miles long. Willing it upwards, I cast aside my cloak, pass through into the space beyond, and find myself inside Paradiso's parking garage.
...okay, so that's undoubtedly not its actual name, but I'd be hard pressed to call a space with this many Irenics parked in it anything else.
๐ฌ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐.
The innumerable car-like angels snap to attention as I let my halo flare with light, my voice filling the seemingly endless space with ease.
๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ป๐๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ฐ๐๐๐๐.
Billions of heavenly engines immediately rev an affirmative response.
๐ท๐๐๐๐, ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐. I intone. ๐ณ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐ด ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ฏ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐. ๐ฌ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐.
No way of getting around that, no matter how much I'd rather not even mention as much.
๐ฟ๐๐๐ ๐๐, ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐. I continue, letting cool derision seep into my tone. ๐ด๐ ๐๐๐๐๐, ๐ท๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐. ๐ฎ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐, ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ด๐๐๐๐๐๐. ๐พ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐'๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐.
I allow my expression to fall slightly, dropping officiousness in favor of concern.
...๐ด ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐.
I raise my head and rake my gaze across the gathered angels.
Portals open all across the hangar, and the sound of infinite screeching tires echoes outward as the army of Irenic pour through them, all too eager to fulfill their purpose of spreading the message of Divine Will across the heavens.
Left behind in the newly vacated space, I'm finally free to sit back on nothing, sigh, and let my brow slant downward with a mixture of ire and unease.
That felt supremely uncomfortable to say, both tonally and content-wise, but it had to be done, as I don't believe for a second that Loptr actually sent that flock of angels to try and oust me. They had essentially no chance of succeeding at all, and he's too intelligent not to realize that โ or at least, he has too much information by way of the Prophetic Power to realistically believe such a relatively minimal force could do more than briefly inconvenience me, even had Bayonetta and Jeanne not been present as well. On the surface, all that attack really ended up doing was alerting me to Loptr's movements in the first place, so there's no way that's all there was to it.
No โ far more likely, the point was to strike not at me, but at my power base... at Paradiso itself. Loptr didn't think those angels could depose me, he was essentially just gathering testimony that I'm not the God that Paradiso believes me to be, or perhaps just not one worth following. If I showed mercy and allowed the renegade angels to live, they could provide eyewitness proof to other angels that I'm "consorting with witches" and strengthen whatever rhetoric Loptr is already using, while if I chose to condemn them and wiped them out instead, that itself provides proof that I will willingly turn on my own "children" should they speak out against me. Given my ongoing refusal to reunite the Trinity of Realities, there probably are at least some genuine dissenters scattered across Paradiso, angels not being so inherently loyal as to make them incapable of free thought, so all Loptr has to do is keep stoking those embers of doubt until they burst into genuine flames of rebellion. The entire scenario was a trap, designed to force a choice where any of the obvious options would produce the exact same result in Loptr's favor.
...or at least, that's my best guess. Given the subject matter, the Right Eye would be useless here even if I were using it right now, so I can't exactly be certain of that conclusion. Frankly, I'm still not sure why Loptr is even acting this early. I'd assume he wants his eye back, but unless he was just poking me to test how feasible that would be, I don't see why he'd bother showing his hand now, when he doesn't even have Loki yet, and thus lacks his Sovereign Power, without which he couldn't take it from me anyways.
Unless, of course, he's banking on his future self assisting from within me...
My ribbons twist and wind together, my fingers grasping at nothing. This uncertainty is part of why I chose not to chase the other angels even after the Glamor revealed their allegiances and self-terminated. For all I know, baiting me into pursuit was the entire intention, and I'd really rather not risk playing right into Loptr's hands โ better to simply cut him off at the pass.
Hence that little speech just now.
I float back out of the hangar, anger still warring with apprehension. That Loptr is technically right about my fakeness is already a big mark against me, so hopefully my words were officious enough to pass muster, while still believably parsing as having come from the original "Spoiled Teen God" โ though, with only those two descriptors to go off of, I'm admittedly not sure the real Jubileus in this situation would have sent out a message in the first place. Felt like a worthwhile risk though, as a direct warning and command from God should keep at least most of the rank-and-file angels from falling to Loptr's rhetoric.
I frown. "Should" being the operative word. If I'm wrong, that same logic might actually end up working against me โ but then again, the number of angels created only after Jubileus was already sealed away likely vastly outnumbers those that came before, so perhaps keeping "in character" isn't really as big a deal as I initially believed. "Spoiled" isn't exactly the image I want to be projecting anyways, and if there's any time to start changing that, it's now, when there's literally a hostile entity trying to entice my angels to his own side.
Whatever the case, if Loptr is already making moves, then dealing with him needs to take precedence over everything else. And if I don't want to risk approaching him in person to do so, lest my eye suddenly decide to rip itself out of my head and allow him to kill or possess me, I'm going to need to gather up a war room...
My marble lips curl back in irritation. I'm getting sick of this. Seems like every time I turn around lately I come across yet another most pressing priority, leaving me flitting from one urgent issue to the next before I can even fully resolve the one I was already working on. If one of my plans to recover the Translunar Faith Allocator had worked even just in part-
No, you know what?
I snap my fingers, instantly teleporting out of Paradiso and back into the human world โ or, at least, the human realm.
This far out in space, hovering around the outskirts of the asteroid belt, "world" doesn't feel like the best descriptor anymore, to me.
Extending an arm towards the sprawling fields of drifting space rock, I beckon them to me, pulling several hundred thousand out of orbit at once. As they stream towards me from every conceivable direction, drawn countless miles in the span of an instant, I take a moment to judge their collective mass... and frown, finding it wanting.
That's not nearly enough. I need, what, roughly 70 sextillion kilograms? I clearly overestimated the magnitude of my materials here; this is nowhere even close to what's required.
...well, no matter. That, at least, is easily fixed.
Rather than reduce the belt any further or spend time manifesting the remainder manually, I instead simply take the materials I've already gathered and nudge their physical properties a little. The density of the asteroids skyrockets as they spiral downward, rising exponentially even as the rocks themselves begin to shrink, condensing and coalescing together in front of me into a single churning mass of stone.
Soon enough, everything has merged together, the end result having swelled to just over a fifth of a mile wide. Floating a final asteroid from the weightless void to my grasp, I keep hold of it just long enough to drastically edit its elemental makeup, then use a single finger to gently push it forward towards the rest.
As the asteroid impacts and bonds with the now roughly-spherical aggregate, its altered atomic composition acts as a catalyst, rapidly spreading across the object's entirety. Beneath the surface, distinct layers form and settle into place, while the exterior shifts in color and tone to a familiar, silvery yellow-gray.
Good โ now for a personal touch.
Curling my fingers together, I rear back, then thrust my fist forward into vacuum. Despite not coming anywhere close to actually touching the sphere, a tremendous chain of impacts suddenly strikes all across its surface, forming thousands of craters of all shapes and sizes across the porous rock... some shaped slightly more like my knuckles than others.
As the resultant quaking settles, I raise a hand to my chin, examining the end result from all angles.
Hmm. It's not perfect, but... it'll do, I think.
Turning, I form a large portal to just beyond the Earth, where the few small remnants of its recently-destroyed natural satellite still drift, now little but errant asteroids themselves. Floating through, I take hold of my creation and gently push it into place โ then allow it to explode outward from the 1/10,000th scale I've been holding it at to its true intended size, the sphere's sudden expansion propelling its predecessor's now-useless debris out into void. I take a quick moment to stabilize its orbit, making sure it isn't going to just come tumbling down onto the planet or the like, then step back into Purgatorio to admire my work.
There โ one new moon, identical to the old one in all the ways that matter, recreated and restored to its proper place. This should re-stabilize the tides, bring light back to the night, prevent a bunch of species from going extinct, make sure the Earth's axis doesn't inevitably end up going off-kilter later down the line, and basically just get everything that the old one's destruction ruined back on track.
...in the human world, at least. Unfortunately, without a replacement for the heavenly facility that's supposed to be attached to it, this still doesn't help Paradiso at all, but-
I pause, my gaze drifting back down to the planet whose celestial partner I just remade.
Actually... maybe there is one more thing I can do here...
Which is to say that everyone immediately loses their Me-damned minds.
I lay my fingers on my temples as the increasingly familiar cries of adulation ring out from all around me. At least there's no human souls in the vicinity, meaning my uncovered glory isn't sending anyone into ecstatic seizures this time, but that doesn't stop me from cursing myself for not thinking about this about ten seconds ago. I don't need to be "seen" here; I should have just made myself invisible or something so I wouldn't have to put up with this again.
...could still do that, actually. Better late than never.
Between blinks of an eye, I shroud myself in nothingness, removing all trace of my existence from the world around me. Waves of confusion ripple out through the previously-reverent crowd, but I ignore their bewilderment as I plunge unseen into the facility below.
Interestingly, the inside of the DIA isn't nearly as mechanical-looking as the Celestial Refinery was, instead consisting primarily of a titanic, interconnected network of half-translucent pipes, the kaleidoscopic light they're formed from making them appear almost like three-dimensional waveforms. Within them, countless angels and heavenly scrolls pass back and forth at speeds outstripping the naked eye's ability to process โ though that obviously doesn't apply to me. I try not to look too long anyways, as they'd undoubtedly only distract me from my goal.
...that said, without relying on the Right Eye or a convenient unicorn angel to guide me, I'm admittedly a little lost regarding how to get to said goal. Nothing exactly appears to be labeled in here.
Quirking my currently-invisible lips, I call the Heavenly Radar I summoned for myself earlier back up and adjust its parameters a bit, redefining its target from seeking out my lost divinity to seeking anything that inherently qualifies as "divine" โ such as, for example, the angels themselves. I don't really want to know the present location of every last member of Paradiso, but where exactly would I find the largest group of-
Got it.
I soundlessly teleport a few thousand miles down and to my left, reappearing in front of what looks like a shutter over a hundred miles long. Willing it upwards, I cast aside my cloak, pass through into the space beyond, and find myself inside Paradiso's parking garage.
...okay, so that's undoubtedly not its actual name, but I'd be hard pressed to call a space with this many Irenics parked in it anything else.
๐ฌ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐.
The innumerable car-like angels snap to attention as I let my halo flare with light, my voice filling the seemingly endless space with ease.
๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ป๐๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ฐ๐๐๐๐.
Billions of heavenly engines immediately rev an affirmative response.
๐ท๐๐๐๐, ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐. I intone. ๐ณ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐ด ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ฏ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐. ๐ฌ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐.
No way of getting around that, no matter how much I'd rather not even mention as much.
๐ฟ๐๐๐ ๐๐, ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐. I continue, letting cool derision seep into my tone. ๐ด๐ ๐๐๐๐๐, ๐ท๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐. ๐ฎ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐, ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ด๐๐๐๐๐๐. ๐พ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐'๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐.
I allow my expression to fall slightly, dropping officiousness in favor of concern.
...๐ด ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐.
I raise my head and rake my gaze across the gathered angels.
๐ฒ๐บ
(Go.)
(Go.)
Portals open all across the hangar, and the sound of infinite screeching tires echoes outward as the army of Irenic pour through them, all too eager to fulfill their purpose of spreading the message of Divine Will across the heavens.
Left behind in the newly vacated space, I'm finally free to sit back on nothing, sigh, and let my brow slant downward with a mixture of ire and unease.
That felt supremely uncomfortable to say, both tonally and content-wise, but it had to be done, as I don't believe for a second that Loptr actually sent that flock of angels to try and oust me. They had essentially no chance of succeeding at all, and he's too intelligent not to realize that โ or at least, he has too much information by way of the Prophetic Power to realistically believe such a relatively minimal force could do more than briefly inconvenience me, even had Bayonetta and Jeanne not been present as well. On the surface, all that attack really ended up doing was alerting me to Loptr's movements in the first place, so there's no way that's all there was to it.
No โ far more likely, the point was to strike not at me, but at my power base... at Paradiso itself. Loptr didn't think those angels could depose me, he was essentially just gathering testimony that I'm not the God that Paradiso believes me to be, or perhaps just not one worth following. If I showed mercy and allowed the renegade angels to live, they could provide eyewitness proof to other angels that I'm "consorting with witches" and strengthen whatever rhetoric Loptr is already using, while if I chose to condemn them and wiped them out instead, that itself provides proof that I will willingly turn on my own "children" should they speak out against me. Given my ongoing refusal to reunite the Trinity of Realities, there probably are at least some genuine dissenters scattered across Paradiso, angels not being so inherently loyal as to make them incapable of free thought, so all Loptr has to do is keep stoking those embers of doubt until they burst into genuine flames of rebellion. The entire scenario was a trap, designed to force a choice where any of the obvious options would produce the exact same result in Loptr's favor.
...or at least, that's my best guess. Given the subject matter, the Right Eye would be useless here even if I were using it right now, so I can't exactly be certain of that conclusion. Frankly, I'm still not sure why Loptr is even acting this early. I'd assume he wants his eye back, but unless he was just poking me to test how feasible that would be, I don't see why he'd bother showing his hand now, when he doesn't even have Loki yet, and thus lacks his Sovereign Power, without which he couldn't take it from me anyways.
Unless, of course, he's banking on his future self assisting from within me...
My ribbons twist and wind together, my fingers grasping at nothing. This uncertainty is part of why I chose not to chase the other angels even after the Glamor revealed their allegiances and self-terminated. For all I know, baiting me into pursuit was the entire intention, and I'd really rather not risk playing right into Loptr's hands โ better to simply cut him off at the pass.
Hence that little speech just now.
I float back out of the hangar, anger still warring with apprehension. That Loptr is technically right about my fakeness is already a big mark against me, so hopefully my words were officious enough to pass muster, while still believably parsing as having come from the original "Spoiled Teen God" โ though, with only those two descriptors to go off of, I'm admittedly not sure the real Jubileus in this situation would have sent out a message in the first place. Felt like a worthwhile risk though, as a direct warning and command from God should keep at least most of the rank-and-file angels from falling to Loptr's rhetoric.
I frown. "Should" being the operative word. If I'm wrong, that same logic might actually end up working against me โ but then again, the number of angels created only after Jubileus was already sealed away likely vastly outnumbers those that came before, so perhaps keeping "in character" isn't really as big a deal as I initially believed. "Spoiled" isn't exactly the image I want to be projecting anyways, and if there's any time to start changing that, it's now, when there's literally a hostile entity trying to entice my angels to his own side.
Whatever the case, if Loptr is already making moves, then dealing with him needs to take precedence over everything else. And if I don't want to risk approaching him in person to do so, lest my eye suddenly decide to rip itself out of my head and allow him to kill or possess me, I'm going to need to gather up a war room...
My marble lips curl back in irritation. I'm getting sick of this. Seems like every time I turn around lately I come across yet another most pressing priority, leaving me flitting from one urgent issue to the next before I can even fully resolve the one I was already working on. If one of my plans to recover the Translunar Faith Allocator had worked even just in part-
No, you know what?
I snap my fingers, instantly teleporting out of Paradiso and back into the human world โ or, at least, the human realm.
This far out in space, hovering around the outskirts of the asteroid belt, "world" doesn't feel like the best descriptor anymore, to me.
Extending an arm towards the sprawling fields of drifting space rock, I beckon them to me, pulling several hundred thousand out of orbit at once. As they stream towards me from every conceivable direction, drawn countless miles in the span of an instant, I take a moment to judge their collective mass... and frown, finding it wanting.
That's not nearly enough. I need, what, roughly 70 sextillion kilograms? I clearly overestimated the magnitude of my materials here; this is nowhere even close to what's required.
...well, no matter. That, at least, is easily fixed.
Rather than reduce the belt any further or spend time manifesting the remainder manually, I instead simply take the materials I've already gathered and nudge their physical properties a little. The density of the asteroids skyrockets as they spiral downward, rising exponentially even as the rocks themselves begin to shrink, condensing and coalescing together in front of me into a single churning mass of stone.
Soon enough, everything has merged together, the end result having swelled to just over a fifth of a mile wide. Floating a final asteroid from the weightless void to my grasp, I keep hold of it just long enough to drastically edit its elemental makeup, then use a single finger to gently push it forward towards the rest.
As the asteroid impacts and bonds with the now roughly-spherical aggregate, its altered atomic composition acts as a catalyst, rapidly spreading across the object's entirety. Beneath the surface, distinct layers form and settle into place, while the exterior shifts in color and tone to a familiar, silvery yellow-gray.
Good โ now for a personal touch.
Curling my fingers together, I rear back, then thrust my fist forward into vacuum. Despite not coming anywhere close to actually touching the sphere, a tremendous chain of impacts suddenly strikes all across its surface, forming thousands of craters of all shapes and sizes across the porous rock... some shaped slightly more like my knuckles than others.
As the resultant quaking settles, I raise a hand to my chin, examining the end result from all angles.
Hmm. It's not perfect, but... it'll do, I think.
Turning, I form a large portal to just beyond the Earth, where the few small remnants of its recently-destroyed natural satellite still drift, now little but errant asteroids themselves. Floating through, I take hold of my creation and gently push it into place โ then allow it to explode outward from the 1/10,000th scale I've been holding it at to its true intended size, the sphere's sudden expansion propelling its predecessor's now-useless debris out into void. I take a quick moment to stabilize its orbit, making sure it isn't going to just come tumbling down onto the planet or the like, then step back into Purgatorio to admire my work.
There โ one new moon, identical to the old one in all the ways that matter, recreated and restored to its proper place. This should re-stabilize the tides, bring light back to the night, prevent a bunch of species from going extinct, make sure the Earth's axis doesn't inevitably end up going off-kilter later down the line, and basically just get everything that the old one's destruction ruined back on track.
...in the human world, at least. Unfortunately, without a replacement for the heavenly facility that's supposed to be attached to it, this still doesn't help Paradiso at all, but-
I pause, my gaze drifting back down to the planet whose celestial partner I just remade.
Actually... maybe there is one more thing I can do here...
Stay tuned for the return...
A huge thanks to @Pheonix14, @Warclam, @ScorpioBot, @Captain Skipjack, Leaf, Bertucchi, BlackEagle91, Jordan Juengel, Alxariam, and my eight other Patrons not named here, as well as an extra special thanks to a certain generous patron who wishes to remain unnamed. Each of them receives a model of the newly reforged moon at a 1/10,000,000th scale (meaning about a foot or so in diameter). It floats and orbits freely around other objects of a larger mass (like you!), and comes complete with a maker's mark โ by which I mean a miniature crater that is very clearly an imprint of my fist. ๐
A huge thanks to @Pheonix14, @Warclam, @ScorpioBot, @Captain Skipjack, Leaf, Bertucchi, BlackEagle91, Jordan Juengel, Alxariam, and my eight other Patrons not named here, as well as an extra special thanks to a certain generous patron who wishes to remain unnamed. Each of them receives a model of the newly reforged moon at a 1/10,000,000th scale (meaning about a foot or so in diameter). It floats and orbits freely around other objects of a larger mass (like you!), and comes complete with a maker's mark โ by which I mean a miniature crater that is very clearly an imprint of my fist. ๐
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