This work is a piece of fiction. While inspired by real events, cultures, and practices in human history, the story blends factual history with fictional characters, dramatizations, and creative interpretation.
It is not intended to promote, glorify, or encourage any illegal activities, substance use, or harmful behavior. All depictions of sensitive topics are included solely for narrative and historical context.
For the effects of the story, all characters are to be considered above the majority age.
Reader discretion is advised.
————————————————
╔═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╗
Earth-199999.
~8 BE (Before Emergence) ~ 2015 CE (Current Era).
I truly wonder how much was part of his plan.
"Now, what to do with this baby?" I asked out loud.
"I'll take him," the most unstable person in this esplanade declared.
"... Sure, why not," I said.
━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━
"That's what I would like to say," Aragorn added. "But, have you seen yourself, Wanda Maximoff?"
"... What's wrong?" She asked with a confused mien.
"No, well, I mean... You're a teen, you were wailing like a child just moments ago, your brother, even with his metabolism, will need at least 10 sessions of PT, you need a whole school of psychologists after you indirectly, very directly, ended more than 10% of the population, and you can barely control your powers. Why do you want this... Vision?" Aragorn asked after burning her.
"... I... Uhm... I'll make sure he is raised to be different from Ultron," she said. Sure, her heart was decided, full of conviction, but there really was much left to be desired of her delivery.
"Why would you believe yourself to be capable of that?" Aragorn asked.
"... We raised ourselves, even through Hydra's overreach," she replied.
"That's truly surprising in itself, but your track record doesn't help you, child," Aragorn said.
"... I...." Wanda lost her words.
"What do you suggest, Akila?" Pietro asked.
"Why don't you two, and Vision—I'm naming him that, by the way—go under the custody of a responsible adult?" Aragorn suggested.
"Are you offering to adopt us?" Pietro asked, stars in his eyes.
"No, no, that would be a terrible idea," Aragorn denied hurriedly.
It wasn't so much a terrible idea as that it would conflict with the future he was tracking for Earth-199999.
The teens became dejected at his quick denial.
"I'm barely part of human society, and you two are too old to be accepted to the Imperium," Aragorn lied with the truth. "I suggest you stay with that guy and help him locate his lost friend," Aragorn pointed with his tail at Steve Rogers.
"Captain America?" Pietro asked. Wanda shared his confusion.
"I don't think it would be good for you two—three—to be locked to a single place," Aragorn said. "Not once the world starts to investigate what split the Avengers."
By now, Hulk, by Aragorn's hand, was happily being accepted as a competitor in the Grandmaster's arena. Barton would take this as a wake-up call to retire to his farm life with his family. Rogers would return to his hunt for James Barnes. Pym, after such a close brush with death, would try to reconnect with Hope van Dyne. And Stark, the man needed rest.
Since Thor, as was always his plan, was returning to Asgard, the Avengers had unofficially disbanded. Hence, the public will want answers.
"Rogers has a clear-cut moral compass; he'll be soft with youngsters like you. And Vision, based on what I know of synthetoids, will grow up at about the pace of a pup. For the moment, I can't think of a better chaperone for you," Aragorn explained.
He didn't say it, but with no point of contact between the Avengers and Wakanda, he doubted James Barnes would get the needed treatment for his brainwashing problem, which is why Rogers needed the telepath witchling as much as they needed him.
"... Will he accept?" Wanda asked while gazing at the downed Captain America.
"Affirmative," Aragorn assented.
"..." They shared looks, then Wanda spoke for both of them, "We agree."
"With that out of the way," Aragorn turned back to the baby synthetoid. "Do you have enough control over your powers to remove the warping from those people's minds?"
"N-No," Wanda denied, she stammered.
"Okay, I'll do something about that," Aragorn said with a sigh.
A pleasant silence, according to Aragorn, descended. This loaded silence, according to the twins, was broken by Pietro.
"You... Are you not condemning us?" Pietro asked. He was determined to get an answer, no matter how much it would hurt.
"I'm not," Aragorn shook his head. "Your future, one not as criminals or dead, fits my needs. You're needed in my design."
Part of the twins' hearts lit up with the idea of being part of 'Akila's' design; however, the murky guilt and depression snuffed out that small light.
"... Could we be forgiven?" Pietro asked after processing Aragorn's reply.
"Take the remaining lifespan of every lost life to this incident, total it, and then divide it between Stark, Banner, you, and me, and that would be the number of years, approximately, that it would take you to gain forgiveness from the Karmic Scales," Aragorn replied flatly. "Ultron dodged the bullet by dying."
A salty, humid breeze filled the silence Aragorn's words left behind.
Wanda's chaos flared dangerously in her unstable mind, but Aragorn flooded her with :Calm: through his empathy to stabilize her.
"Why are you included?" Pietro asked.
"I allowed all of this to happen, didn't I?" Aragorn asked, nonchalantly.
"... Why?" Wanda asked. Her question was guttural. A small part of her condemned Aragorn for not stopping Ultron, for not stopping her.
"A billion died to save a googol lives," Aragorn stated.
That was not entirely false. A billion didn't need to die to save the future countless that Thanos was going to snap. However, via the butterfly effect, humanity's population had grown a billion more than it would have originally.
Naturally, at this point, after Aragorn had squeezed everything out of Earth, in the sense of souls and that his maids were now his Therions, there was no problem with Tiamut emerging a few years before the original date, but at the rate things were progressing, Tiamut would have been born around the time Thanos had five Infinity Stones and was steamrolling the Avengers.
Celestial or not, any organism at the moment of its birth is at its weakest. Most obviously, the combination of Thanos with five Infinity Stones and Tiamut's Emergence was not desirable to Aragorn.
"...?!" For the twins, a googol lives was not a number that could be computed, much less imagined.
In the end, Aragorn didn't explain much, and the three decided to wait for the Avengers to wake up naturally.
In the meantime, Aragorn did as he always did.
"..."
Under the wide eyes of the twins, he shifted to female and breastfed the awakened synthetoid baby.
She wasn't doing so just because she liked breastfeeding; she was also using the contact to run her biokinesis through Vision and analyze the differences between a vibranium-based synthetoid and an Element-based one (like Seraph and Spark).
"Weren't there records of this left?" Aragorn muttered under the still widened eyes of the twins.
"Ahem!" Pietro coughed and looked away. "It's rare to see records of Akila in any other form aside from your usual one and draconic form."
"I spent plenty of time in this form during my travels," Aragorn commented. "Probably, because of the perceived subserviency of females to males for the past millennia, not many chose to leave records of this form."
Before the Avengers could wake up, Plutusdrakon arrived.
Contrary to his size, his flight was not accompanied by a tempest. His flight, although in a large part assisted by his wings, was his telekinesis that took care of the finer details.
His massive form made a banking turn and then dived towards Aragorn. For a moment, the twins prepared to flee while carrying with them as many of the unconscious Avengers as possible; however, a calming glance from Aragorn was enough.
Naturally, Plutisdrakon was not going to crash into his grandfather. His draconic form shrank, and he shifted into his humanoid form.
Vladarion, Plutus' father, was the son of Natalia and James, and like his mother, his hair was a dark red. Plutus inherited his red hair from his father; additionally, his divinity influenced his eyes. When he was not wielding his divinity, his eyes were light blue like his mother's, Sarah, but when he wielded his divinity, his eyes turned a golden, bright orange.
Like the vast majority of deities, and like all Therions, Plutus was a handsome man with beauty beyond words.
Plutus wore no shirt with black pants. He wore more gold than any of the Therions ever did, and contrary to his mother's looks, he appeared 100% human in his humanoid form, except for the slitted pupils.
Gulp.
"..." Aragorn and Plutusdrakon, wordlessly, turned to Wanda before even striking up a conversation.
"Wha-What?" She asked, flustered.
Aragorn rolled her eyes at her and then turned to Plutusdrakon. "How was it?"
"It was a complicated affair, Grandfather," Plutus said with a whiny undertone to his report. "The destabilization was chaining on itself, and the rest of the continental shelves were being dragged down with it."
"I trust you handled it," Aragorn said while reaching towards his head and petting Plutus like a child.
"Yes, but I'll file a complaint," Plutus replied, instinctively crouching slightly and leaning on Aragorn's hand.
"Yeah, yeah," Aragorn said absentmindedly. "Tell the children that Ultron has perished, and they should stop sharpening their metaphorical swords."
"Really?" Plutus asked while pointedly staring at the red baby sucking on Aragorn's nipple.
"This is Vision," Aragorn pulled the baby away from his suckling for a moment and hoisted Vision up towards Plutus.
Plutusdrakon observed the baby with curiosity and then, like a lightbulb lighting up, he asked, "Grandfather, were you outsmarted by the AI?"
"In a way, you could say so, but I don't see a problem with this outcome," Aragorn returned the soon-to-wail baby to his meal.
"... I'll leave this part out of the report," Plutusdrakon said.
"Do as you wish," Aragorn shrugged with disinterest.
Plutus stayed with them for a moment to discuss matters with Aragorn before flying away to the Isthmus when he sensed the Avengers were waking up.
With the neet dragon's intervention, this cataclysmic chapter of humanity came to an end.
What followed was the search and rescue efforts to unearth victims buried under rubble of all kinds, the efforts to combat the spreading wildfires, and even city-wide fires, the search and localization of those lost in the chaos, accounting for the material and human losses, and finally, mapping rebuilding plans for the future.
These and many more were the usual actions taken by humans after suffering a natural disaster; however, this was the first time an entire hemisphere and more had been affected on such a large scale.
Many couldn't do their jobs out of injury or because their workplace no longer existed. Many had to dip into their savings, if they had the forethought of having any, and that left them in the red. Many didn't know how to move on after having lost it all.
An economic recession hit half the hemisphere, and soon after, a crisis hit major economic centers of the world.
Fury's 'savings,' that he was preparing for the time after Aragorn's departure, dipped into the red after having to make a move to stop the economy from collapsing.
Publicly, all charities done with the funds donated by the Isthmus were paused, and the funds were routed to the many small countries that couldn't see a way out of the deep waters.
Behind the scenes, because such a vast economic crisis didn't serve his plans, Aragorn, with the help of his grandson, the God of Economy, channeled capital to strategic industries to revitalize the economy.
So while the repercussions were vast and widespread, the duration was shortened considerably.
As the world recuperated and as humanity returned to its usual mood, Aragorn kept track of events and happenings that could affect his planning.
One such event was the passing of the Ant-Man mantle to Scott Lang.
{A/N: I had said before that the Ant-Man movie would be removed due to the causality of the plot; however, I was mistaken. Don't expect a whole chapter about it, though.}
Taking advantage of the vacuum power left behind by the separation of the Avengers, Darren Cross launched a 'visionary' proposal to arm the soldiers of the US Army in his Yellowjacket Suits.
Aragorn had little interest in the Pym Particle, or even the Quantum Realm, but either way, he tracked their progress carefully since Scott Lang was supposed to push forward the idea of time travel after the Avengers lost their hope.
The Quantum Realm was somewhat interesting in Earth-199999 to Aragorn, because it could be called a dimension, a facet of reality. However, back on Earth-5H1N3 and most of the other realities, the Quantum Realms were known as the Microverses.
These were Parallel dimensions that could be accessed by compressing matter to a certain point and creating an artificial nexus as a door. Beyond the Microverse, the Underspace existed, the polar opposite of the Overspace, the workplace of the Cosmological Compass, Aragorn's bosses. Hence, because he had peered at it multiple times when he was studying the Underspace, he found no novelty in the Microverse.
After confirming Scott Lang's return from the Quantum Realm, Aragorn turned his All-seeing eyes to another important target of his observation, two of them actually.
These were Stephen Vincent Strange and The Ancient One.
Aragorn jumped through space and appeared smack dab in the courtyard used for group training of the future masters of the mystic arts. His presence was undetected by the trainee sorcerers and even the masters.
Behind the cover of obscurity, he walked through the halls filled with history he saw and shaped.
Long past were the days when the Sanctum was nothing but a shack Agamotto called home. The years Agamotto spent tiring Aragorn's ears with his dislike for the selfish immortality Aragorn granted his son and wife were gone.
The times he visited to help suppress demons beyond their capabilities, attracted by the allure of humanity and the Duskari, were now fond memories.
When he summoned Malsrithil, Vrastaghor, and Brissoleoh to fight demonic invasions just for the sake of messing with the Masters of Sorcery at the appearance of even more demons.
{A/N: These were the demons manipulating the Deviants in the previous chapters, the ones the Duskari adopted.}
Aragorn wouldn't say it, but from the different agroupations of humanity he interacted with, he never had a problem with the Sorcerers other than with Agamotto's peskiness. That, in his book of interactions with humanity, a race known for their ability to repeat mistakes over and over every 100 years or less, was an Outstanding.
After a rare time of reminiscing for him, Aragorn entered the library. He ignored the librarian, Master Wong, and found the future Sorcerer Supreme busy studying.
"That one has the warnings at the end; you should wait to attempt the spells it teaches about," Aragorn advised.
"Who puts the warnings at the end of the book?" Strange asked and turned to Aragorn with a look of 'are you serious?'. That look quickly changed into surprise and shock.
"It's a legacy from a time when the common sense was different from this time's," Aragorn explained.
"You're Mr. Abner," Strange pointed out the obvious.
"You know, I've had so many names across time; however, all these names have a common origin with A'Heelah, except Abner," Aragorn said. "Do you know why only Americans call me Abner?"
"What?" Strange asked, confused by the random question.
Aragorn didn't reply and waited for him to answer his question.
"... Because it's the name you wrote in the Independence Act, it's a matter of national pride," Strange replied.
"Yeah, I figured as much, but... I find it strange when I have explicitly said many times that from 'Aragorn Abner', Aragorn could be considered my true name, why not use Aragorn, the rest of the world doesn't use it, if you wanted to keep your originality and sense of uniqueness, why not use the word I said was my real name?" Aragorn asked.
"That... I don't know," Strange replied.
"Yeah, I don't know either, and it's hard for me not to know something on this Earth," Aragorn chuckled. "Anyways, I came to visit you, girl."
"I beg your pardon? I'm certainly not a girl," Strange said with a weirded-out look.
"Aragorn was talking to me, Strange," The Ancient One's voice echoed from the other side of the reading room. "To what do I owe the honor?"
"I bring an offer from one of my daughters to you," Aragorn said, turning to the Ancient One. Strange observed with curiosity how Aragorn interacted with the 'girl'.
"What could I have done to garner the attention of the esteemed Goddess?" she asked.
"You were born," Aragorn replied.
"... As flattering as that could be taken, I doubt you meant that way," she said after a moment in thought. "Please follow me, it would be a milestone in my life to serve you some of my tea."
Aragorn followed after her, silently, leaving behind the confused and curious doctor.
╚═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╝
━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━
╔═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╗
Earth-5H1N3, Wakanda.
As years passed in seconds in Earth-199999 by comparison to Earth-5H1N3, Pietro continued his enrollment of voluntary or unwilling cooperators to the upcoming divine war.
One of those cooperators was the Black Panther, who owed a lot to Aragorn.
"Brother, what news do you carry from the war?" Queen Shuri asked toward the holographic projection of her brother, T'Challa.
"With the exception of some airfights, you can say that not much has changed in the matter of close combat. Everything is either ranged attacks or nuclear ballistic missiles," T'Challa reported.
"With the ban on nuclear weaponry lifted by the convenience of the radiation-eating Arbor Mundi, the outside jumped eagerly at the chance to burn through their arsenal," one of the council members participating in the assembly said.
"Like children with firecrackers," another commented with disdain.
"Aside from the initial pings of Atlantean technology on the Nautilus radars, have there been any other sightings of the subaquatic?" Queen Shuri asked, trying to steer the conversation away from the racism she was working hard to change.
The Nautilus was the amphibious vessel Queen Shuri had designed and bestowed upon T'Challa for his monitoring of outside threats.
After a hard-fought ritualistic battle between the two siblings, Queen Shuri, thanks to the 'enhancements' provided by Aragorn, came up ahead of her older brother.
Disputes of the royal kind, as taught by history, would normally end with the royal bloodline reduced. Like a 'civilized' version of kodoku, or a representation of nature's law of the survivor passes down their genetic material to the next generation.
However, Queen Shuri and Prince T'Challa were different, and Wakanda was a modern society. Naturally, due to their bond, the siblings only cared for the fittest to succeed to the throne.
On the other side, while it sounded contradictory that a 'modern' society still decided the next ruler via personal combat, it was undeniable that Wakanda was different in that, unless in strenuous circumstances, it was rare for siblings to be at each other's throats during a royal selection.
As such, after her victory, T'Challa and Shuri agreed that he could best serve Wakanda by taking leadership over the War Dogs/Hatut Zeraze. His responsibilities included, but were not limited to, overseeing known risk factors for Wakanda and evaluating new risk factors.
The ongoing nuclear war and the famine that also hit Wakanda somewhat easily fell under this category.
As a side note, the reason Wakanda was hit but not as gravely as the rest of the world was that part of their produce came from genetically engineered underground crops. Still, like the rest of the world, most of their surface crops didn't survive the overirradiation.
"They are aware of us and have been keeping their distance from the boundaries of our radar's range," T'Challa reported. "I believe they know that we spotted them, but don't care to make contact."
"That's not strange," a councilmember said. "For a kingdom as old as theirs, known for their isolationism, even beyond ours, it isn't unexpected behavior."
"That tells us enough," Shuri said. "Even with their preference to keep away from the surface world, the rukus caused by the nuclear war and the movements of the Arbor Mundi must be loud enough to force their hand."
"That's... not desirable, my Queen," an elder councilwoman said. "The Atlanteans are not the sort to make a distinction between the multiple countries in the 'Surface World.' Wakanda is not Atlantis, that's all that matters to them."
"..." Shuri thought in silence for a few seconds; the council respected that and allowed her time. After reaching a conclusion, she began, "We sh—"
"Sorry to interrupt," Pietro interrupted and manifested like an apparition in the middle of the most guarded room in Wakanda. Before panic set in, he continued with, "I come in peace," and hoisted his P-Link up for all to see.
He tapped on it, and a three-dimensional hologram of Aragorn appeared as a recorded message. The message said: "Pietro's words are mine, Shuri."
"... What?" Fast thinking as she was, even for Shuri, the abruptness of the situation was too much.
"My words are also Gaea's," Pietro said to an 'empty' side of the room.
"So word has reached you," Bast said. She appeared in the form of a black cat.
"Oh, so indeed Omnipotence City is involved," Pietro said in confirmation.
"My Goddess," Shuri said, walking down from her seat and kneeling respectfully. With even greater reverence, the council followed after.
"Return to your seats, useless actions will help no one," Bast commanded. She turned to Pietro and said, "Odin has gone mad, and the majority of the affiliated pantheons support his madness."
"Mmmm, are you sure he has gone mad?" Pietro asked. "Based on what our Madame told us, that guy went mad when he broke this universe."
"... He is responsible for our peril?" Bast snarled and hissed.
"Our Madame said that he tried to take control over a fraction of the power she had bestowed upon Hela, her avatar, and the resulting fuck-up doomed this universe," Pietro explained with no regard for the shocked and dumbfounded mortals listening in.
"He did what?" Bast's fur bristled.
"It's good to have confirmation of the Old Man's target, though," Pietro added. "Anyway, we'll fight the deities that side with the Mad Godking and stave off the end of times until the rest of my family arrives, that's what I came here to convey."
"... The Ennead bought his grandiloquence," Bast revealed with a conflicted tone of voice.
"... Will you survive the fall of your pantheon?" Pietro asked with a look of concern and wariness.
"Not all of us are willingly supporting this madness," Bast clarified. "Many are just following along because opposing this movement could be... mortal for us."
"What are you trying to say, Bast?" Pietro asked with narrowed eyes. "You stand against us, to the side, or with us, but there's no in between. If you raise a weapon in opposition to us, you'll be dealt with accordingly."
The atmosphere, beyond the weight Pietro's scathing words brought in, got heavy unnaturally. The mortals—all mortals in Wakanda, not only those in the royal room—felt their knees faltering. A hole seemed to appear in the pit of the stomach of all Wakandas. Perspiration flowed out naturally.
These were only some of the physical reactions to Pietro's divine intention being made known. Mentally, as if seeing mirages, fires, and pits of molten lava appeared surrounding them. The sky turned red in their minds.
"Stop that, I'm not your enemy, Wakanda is not either!" Bast exclaimed.
"Is that so?" Pietro asked, his intention still weighing on his surroundings. "Wakanda is your sandbox, your will is Wakanda's. If you stand in our way, so does Wakanda. So answer truthfully, are you our ally or our enemy?"
"Ally! I'm your ally! So is Wakanda!" Bast replied hurriedly.
While Bast was older by a wide margin than Pietro, he stood at the natural height of divinity, what's known as nine tails in the Drachantheon Therion or Skyfather everywhere else. Bast was not the head of her Pantheon. It was an unfair match-up.
With her confirmation, abruptly, the weight felt both in body and soul vanished. The calling of hell no longer rang in their souls, and the inevitability of time stopped breathing down their necks.
Many took deep breaths, some hyperventilated, and more than a few needed a change of vibranium weave underwear. That was outside the meeting room, the councilmembers and Queen, much to the credit of their spirit, managed to recompose themselves after a few minutes of deep breathing and a sip of water.
"How did he get you to this level in such a short time?" Bast asked in the meantime that the Wakandan leadership recover.
"300,000 years is not a short time, is it?" Pietro asked, confused.
"A deity 1,000,000 years old is considered young," Bast said with a deadpan.
"Ah, you're right," Pietro said in realization. "I was operating within the timeframe of Earth-199999, but I do remember the Old Man mentioned that deities here were far older. I don't know what to tell you, though, the Old Man plotted our path and we simply walked it."
"..." Bast glared at him fiercely. It was like watching a nouveau riche recounting the story of their path to success and starting with 'I simply burrowed from my daddy a million or two as start-up funds, simple.' to her.
Seeing the conversation reaching a lull, Shuri decided it was as good a time as ever to interject. "A divine war approaches, correct?"
"Yes," Bast affirmed. "Wakanda shall participate in it by my side."
"You didn't answer before, but can you survive the separation from your patheon?" Pietro asked again.
"Normally, no. Though I'm sure Aragorn can find a solution to that, or I could take my Grandmother as my new head," Bast replied.
It wasn't always the subject, but, like in Bast's case, some deities were bound to the pantheon they belonged to. Some were not.
A bond similar to this one is what all deities from Gaea's lineage shared. Gaea's eradication, conversely, meant the end of these deities. It was for that same existential threat that even some of those who felt doubtful of supporting Odin's madness capitulated when the objective of 'releasing' Gaea from the 'danger' that Aragorn represented was submitted.
"From where are they attacking us?" Shuri asked. The councilmembers looked at her with eyes of 'Our Queen, so brave,' for interjecting on the conversation between two deities.
"Probably worldwide to remove obstacles from the Arbor Mundi," Pietro said with a questioning tone directed to Bast.
"Nirn is also a target," Bast confirmed, adding.
"Nirn?" Shuri asked.
"It's a planet the Old Man owns in the middle of Nova Territory, an embassy," Pietro explained.
"Nova?" Shuri asked, confused. She understood they were talking about an extrasolar planet, but she sought to make sure.
"An allied empire, last we checked," Pietro said.
"The Nova Empire is one such world that has never birthed deities. All of their faith is wired towards the Xandarian Worldmind and processed for that thing's development and more," Bast explained. "However, I doubt they have the capability to oppose a united front from the Kree and Shi'ar."
"... That's alright," Pietro shrugged. "So long as we last long enough, everything can be dealt with afterward."
It might come up as irresponsible, especially with so many billions of lives on the line; however, that firm was Pietro's faith in his family. Additionally, he didn't care for what happened to the Xandarians. He cared for those close to him and those who were his responsibility.
"Wakanda will start war preparations, my Goddess," Shuri confirmed. "Who shall we coordinate with?"
"There are a few," Pietro replied. He tapped his P-Link and something blinked in Shuri's Kimoyo Beads. "Contact them, I passed you their info. I gotta run, I still have places to visit and preparations to make."
And just like that, with no courtesy, Pietro disappeared.
Pietro had visited Krakoa before dropping by Wakanda; however, he now needed to make some rounds around the Arbor Mundi before departing to Nirn to coordinate with the Nova Empire.
On his way to the Re-Nazca, outside the normal time flow, he suddenly stopped in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. With a lost look, peering at what he saw as the time flow, he said, "They stopped?"
He flexed his divinity over time and tried to get a clear reading of the time flow.
"They stopped distancing the future from the present?" he asked out loud.
Sensing that whatever prompted Odin to stop influencing time was no good, he resumed his run toward Re-Nazca.
When the impossibly tall canopy of the Arbor Mundi surfaced on the Horizon, a pillar of light descended.
The Bfrost had been dropped atop the Arbor Mundi.
╚═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╝
↓Part 2━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━ Part 2↓
╔═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╗
Earth-199999.
~7 BE (Before Emergence) ~ 2016 CE (Current Era).
Aragorn brought down the floating teacup from his lips and said, "This is good tea."
"The progenitor plant of this tea is one I planted a few decades after I became the Sorcerer Supreme," The Ancient One said, pleased with the compliments.
"That's a hobby I partake in," Aragorn nodded.
"Tea?" The Ancient One asked.
"Not exactly," Aragorn shook his head. "The hobby of 'planting' and seeing the results of my efforts 'fruit' splendidly in a few centuries, millennia, or eras later. It's a rewarding hobby."
"I can understand the sentiment," The Ancient One nodded with a faint smile. "When I made the pact with Dormammu and the weight of my longevity settled in, I planted 'ancestors' of this tea to have something to look forward to."
"For such a corruptive and malignant pact, that was a healthy and commendable approach," Aragorn praised her.
"Thank you, Aragorn," she said, lowering her head, pleased. "What did you plant? If you don't mind my intrigue."
"What did I not plant, is the correct question," Aragorn replied, looking away through the time flow and seeing the many 'seedling' he planted in the past.
"Some time ago, from your perspective, I time-shifted to the past, around the Carboniferous. I was undertaking a project that recently gave birth to the first sapient spiders. As a side effect of said project, I had hundreds of millions of years' worth of free time."
It was a scale of time that, even for someone named 'The Ancient One,' was out of perception. The less said about sentient spiders from the period known to house the largest critters, the better.
"My wife has always been fond of flavors that go well with sugar, vanilla, cacao, cinnamon, cloves, whatever could be used for sweets, you name it." The more Aragorn spoke, the more emotions broke through his facade of listlessness, and the more shocked The Ancient One found herself.
"There were even some plants that no longer exist outside the Imperium of Halo that I artificially selected and evolved," Aragorn bragged.
"That's something I would have liked to get the chance of tasting," The Ancient One said before taking a calming sip of her tea.
"You could," Aragorn said, coming out of his reverie. "This is related to the offer my daughter Yao wanted me to extend to you."
"Yao?" The Ancient One said with a quiver. "The founder's guardian? One of the Order's main deities?"
Long ago, before Agamotto's passing, the Drachantheon Therion had agreed to sponsor the order of sorcerers.
It was a logical outcome for Agamotto to pursue. The Drachantheon Therion were directly associated with Aragorn, whom he considered the protector of Earth and Humanity.
What better pantheon to sponsor his order than the one who had been protecting Earth and sheltering humanity since before it called itself humanity?
As with many facets of life, many of the Therions didn't distribute their 'blessings' equally between the sorcerers. However, there was one exception, Yao.
Regardless of their potential, so long as when the contract was accorded, their hearts sought to protect humanity and/or Earth, all sorcerers received the same blessing.
Yao was the only one of the Vishanti known to still be alive, even though the order of sorcerers rarely, if ever, saw her.
Hence, for The Ancient One, hearing of an offer from Yao, brought by Aragorn, left the centuries-old woman dumbfounded.
"For reasons you'll understand when you meet her, Yao has a soft spot for you," Aragorn continued, unconcerned with her shock. "Blessed be those born blessed and the brave ones who fought tirelessly for the blessing, right?"
"I don't think I've heard that saying before, but it isn't hard to agree with it," The Ancient One said.
"I don't know if it's a popular saying," Aragorn confessed. "It's closer to a personal observation of how human society operates."
"In this case, would I form part of the blessed or the brave ones?" she asked.
"Mmmm, what do you think?" Aragorn asked instead of answering.
"... I can admit that being part of the brave ones who fought for the blessing sounds better than being born blessed," she said after mulling over it. "But the world and longevity have a way to put reality into perspective... Maybe I was born blessed."
"I may not be the best judge, but I think you lost your blessings before reaching your teen years," Aragorn said. "Hence, maybe a bit of both. Nevertheless, Yao's attention on you is 90% because of a blessing you were born with, the remaining ten percent is who you are right now at the twilight of your life."
"... I see," she muttered. "I'm part of both the blessed and the brave," she smiled softly. "What about in the Imperium?"
"The Imperium?" Aragorn asked for clarification.
"You said your observation was on human society. What about in the Imperium's society, is it the same?" she asked.
"The Imperium and Earth's societies are too different for comparison," Aragorn replied. "Just the difference in lifespan makes the comparison a moot point."
"That matches what I've learned as a long-lived human living with normal humans," she nodded. "... I would like to hear what Goddess Yao has to say, if it isn't too arrogant of me to say."
"Maybe in front of another goddess it could be considered arrogance, but Yao won't get mad for your taking a cautious approach," Aragorn said. He made the rest of his tea flow out from the teacup in rivulets through the air and drank it all. Then he stood up and made a slicing motion with his tail. A portal opened after. "Go ahead, I'll guard the fort in the meantime."
She observed the rift and nodded to Aragorn. With hesitant steps, she walked into the portal. Aragorn waved his tail afterward, and the portal closed.
"Now... What is there to do around here to pass the time?" Aragorn muttered and made his way back to the library, this time without obfuscating his presence.
On his way to the library, he made a strategic detour to the hall of relics of the Greenwich Sanctum.
"I witnessed this one's creation," Aragorn said, standing in front of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak. "Named after its namesake spell, forged in Babylon in 907BCE."
He observed the magical relic for a moment more before hovering over to the next one. It was a jagged dagger carved from a dark wine-red horn; its handle still kept the rawest form of the horn's base. "This one was made from one of Vrastaghor's shed horns after a gruesome battle with a particularly strong Mindless One during Dormammu's first invasion."
Next, he found himself in front of a glass container holding a cloak crafted from layered Japanese wool with embroidered edges and a printed chequered inner lining, and decorated with two gold clasps with ruby inlay.
"Were you causing a ruckus, and they had no choice but to imprison you?" Aragorn asked with a wry smile.
Thud!Thud!Thud!
The cloak hit the magical glass reproachingly.
"Why would you blame me for the repercussions of your actions?" Aragorn questioned it as if he understood what it tried to communicate—he did.
Thud!Thud!Thud!Thud!Thud!Thud!
"Just because I said it was a good idea to give you a personality doesn't mean whatever you screw up is my fault," Argorn said helplessly. "Under that logic, everyone's progenitor is to blame for anything anyone ever does."
Thud!Thud!Thud!Thud!Thud!Thud!Thud!Thud!Thud!
"Sure, sure, sure, I'll be here awaiting your ghost to torment me," Aragorn scoffed and moved to the next relic.
He went through several of them, talking about their origins to himself, until one of the masters entered the hall.
"... Master Aragorn," he said, a healthy dose of wariness in his voice.
Aragorn looked eyes with the master and then said, "The Staff of the Living Tribunal," his eyes lowered to the 'stick' in his left hand. "What do you know about the Living Tribunal?"
"Magic too great to be sustained by our bodies engraved on objects to bear the weight for us," Karl Amadeus Mordo replied.
"That's the textbook definition of all magical relics," Aragorn rolled his eyes. "Based on that definition, you believe the Living Tribunal is a form of magic, a spell perhaps?"
"... It could also be a ritual," Karl Mordo said, doubtful of the origin of Aragorn's questions.
"But the Living Tribunal is none of those," Aragorn tilted his head playfully.
"Could I make use of your ageless wisdom, oh protector of Earth?" Karl Mordo said, choosing not to guess.
"Sure," Aragorn smirked and made a pulling motion, and a mundane spear appeared in his hand. "This is the spear a certain centurion used to pierce the side of the son of Yahweh."
Mordo's eyes opened wide.
"Nowadays, many picture a golden spear with intricate engravings and convoluted designs, and maybe some inlaid gems," Aragorn spoke with an air of mockery. "Humans would find it easier to imagine a centurion wielding the famed Spear of Destiny, Longinus' Spear, if it is something adorned to heavens and back than accepting a normal centurion wouldn't go around wielding a golden spear to the crucifixion of one considered a rebel figure to the Romans."
Aragorn spun the spear expertly in his hand.
"I don't understand," Mordo confessed.
"Well, this is the Spear of Saint Longinus, the centurion," Aragorn explained. "That," he pointed at the staff in his hand, "is the staff of The Living Tribunal."
"... !" It took Mordo a few seconds, but he connected the dots and understood that the Living Tribunal was no spell, magic, or ritual.
"It's so absurd that that trinket is connected to the facet of my boss in this universe," Aragorn commented. "Even more absurd is that it is so weak."
"Y-Your superior?" Mordo's heart was two or three beats away from giving up.
I'm just an average master of the mystic arts. Why is this thing in my hands? And since when does the ancient dragon have a boss?! Like so, many panicked thoughts flooded his panicked head.
"Yes," Aragorn nodded sagely. "My direct boss is Noona, because who wouldn't like a boss lady? Noona's boss is the Living Tribunal, and the Living Tribunal's boss is the Aniki, the creator of the Multiverse and all that exists, existed, will exist, and doesn't exist."
"T-This!" Mordo offered the staff. "Ple-Please take it back!" It was a desperate plea that bordered on an order.
"Why would I?" Aragorn asked playfully. "Oh, Master Mordo, the relic chose you; you must wield its power responsibly."
Then, leaving the panicking master behind, Aragorn jumped space to the library.
"This is stupid! Why would they leave this clearly important piece of information for last?" Strange was ranting in whispered shouts while reading the last page of a book.
"You're still on that?" Aragorn asked, amused.
"AH!" Strange shouted, startled. "You... I thought I would not see you ever again, Mister... Aragorn(?)."
"I'm playing Sorcerer Supreme for a few, while your Ancient One takes her first vacation since America was discovered," Aragorn informed him.
"For heaven's sake! Since when?!" Strange exclaimed. He was not religious, but that was how impactful the discovery of his boss's black company style of employment was.
"Strange, this is a library," a new voice, Master Wong, said. His heavy steps resounded as he approached.
"That doesn't matter right now," Strange raised his voice. "Did you know your boss hadn't taken a vacation since the fourth voyage of Cristoforo Colombo?"
"Now, this is interesting. Why are you using his real name when you refused to use my real name for so long?" Aragorn asked, intrigued.
"I know Italian," Strange replied.
"Aragorn is easy to pronounce, isn't it?" Aragorn asked. By the end of his question, Wong arrived.
"Who told you th—" Wong's question died in his throat.
"I told him that," Aragorn said, addressing Wong. "It was a quick three-day vacation in the Celtic lands. I saw her then."
"Master Aragorn," Wong greeted him respectfully.
Aragorn turned to Strange with a look that said, 'See? How easily he pronounced my name. Why couldn't you do the same or so long?'
"Mr. Aragorn, I already used your name. What else do you want from me? I'm not the ambassador of America, not even its spokesperson," Strange groaned in complaint.
"Strange," Wong's stern voice called out. "Your disrespect for Earth's oldest protector was allowed when you were not one of us. However, now you must address Master Aragorn respectfully!"
"No, well, Aragorn in itself is already a title of respect for me," Aragorn said. "Agamotto didn't like me much because I kept his wife and son away from his mortality, so he made that stupid rule to spite me. That's why The Ancient One doesn't address me as Master Aragorn; all Sorcerers Supreme get to know the truth eventually."
"That... Is that the case?" Wong asked, a concerned expression on his stoic face.
"Wong, please be respectful of Mr. Abner," Strange said, pleased with himself beyond measure.
Wong half glared at him.
"Mr. Aragorn, it's an honor to have you in our Sanctum today," he said. "Are you here to update the library, or perhaps you bring prophetic news of another incursion from one of the Splinter Realms?"
"None of the above," Aragorn replied. "I'm here as the Temporary Sorcerer Supreme until the girl returns from her impromptu vacation."
Wong gave Strange a questioning look.
"The girl, as in The Ancient One," Strange explained.
"Oh," Wong said. It made sense for Aragorn to call her a girl, but Wong was failing to process that.
"How long will this vacation take?" Strange asked; he had a far easier time processing Aragorn's Aragornness.
"It depends. If she accepts a certain deal one of my daughters is offering her, she'll retire, and today would have been the last time you saw her," Aragorn revealed. "Don't worry, should that happen, I'll appoint the next Sorcerer Supreme before the end of the year."
"... Could you repeat that?" Wong asked/demanded.
"If she accepts a certain deal one of my daughters is offering her, she'll retire, and today would have been the last time you saw her. Should that happen, I'll appoint the next Sorcerer Supreme before the end of the year." Aragorn spoke in one breath.
Wong's day started like any other day: meditation at 4 am, breakfast at 6 am, armed combat at 7 am, meditation at 9 am, self-study at 10 am, then lunch. The afternoon was left for his duties as a master of the mystic arts, and after 5 pm, he was in charge of the library ever since Kaecillius undid the previous librarian.
It could be considered monotonous and repetitive by some, but this was his life, and he had been doing it for years like this. At no point in his day, week, year, or even further back did he consider what his life would be like without the Ancient One in it.
If this had come from someone else, he undoubtedly would have exploded in denial. Aragorn, however, was not someone known for his jesting mood by the order of sorcerers, even less for lying.
"I think you broke something in him," Strange said while observing the unmoving master.
"He'll get over it," Aragorn spoke dismissively. "Anyway, the girl was teaching you from time to time, was she not? As her temporary replacement, ask away, my wisdom shall enlighten your unenlightened head!"
Aragorn was in a chirpy mood.
"Anything?" Strange asked.
"Sure, go ahead, would you like to know the answer to life? The secret to a happy life? Five infallible pick-up phrases? The answer to any great question is within reach, so ask away, oh mortal."
He used his energy control and telekinesis to set up a mood fit to the ambience he had in mind. The thunder of lightning strikes echoed from somewhere, the shadows extended unnaturally, motes of light swirled like a hurricane around them, and since Wong, in his dazed state, was ruining the ambience, he teleported him to his room.
Strange was swallowed by the mood, at least it looked like it. Aragorn refrained from reading him and awaited curiously for the question, and Strange delivered. Except, what he asked was—
"How do I heal my hands?"
"... Boring," Aragorn deflated like a balloon. The ambience went away with the boring question, and Aragorn gazed at Strange with contempt. "Since I said I would answer, I will. The way to heal your hands is to continue studying the mystic arts. Keep doing what you're doing."
"That can't be the only way!" Strange exclaimed. "Everyone knows the Libralisk hides the answers to unthinkable miracles, less said about your Imperium, this can't be the only option!"
"It's the only option available to you," Aragorn's voice carried finality.
"... That... I refuse to believe that," Strange declared.
"Boring," Aragorn said flatly. His chirpy mood was gone, down the drain. "What if taking any of the other options meant the end of half the life in the entire universe?"
Strange sucked a frigid breath.
"What are you talking about?" He demanded.
"Your field is medicine, and sorcery recently, but you must have heard of it, the mighty flap of a butterfly, right?" Aragorn asked.
"In chaos theory, it is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state," Strange, with his photographic memory, gave the textbook definition.
"Right," Aragorn affirmed. "Imagine that, but times a googolplex. Then you could see what I see. And what I see is that if I heal your hands, you'll return to the cozy life where you arrogantly believe you could even control death. There's nothing wrong with that, except that in the near future, half of life would be obliterated like dust to the wind, and nothing could be done about it because you were not there. You could bet on being on the surviving half, but I know for a fact you'll not be among them. So, in summary, if I heal your hands, you'll die in a few years, and with you, half of all life. Capisce?"
Aragorn said it all in one breath.
"..." His trembling hands shivered harder. "... Capisco."
"Excellent! You capisci, I capisco, and we capiamo!" Aragorn nodded nonchalantly. "Now, that's been taken care of, so let's continue with your training. Hopefully, Wong will join us tomorrow after he comes out of his shock."
Absentmindedly, after his worldview had been broken, Strange rolled with Aragorn Aragorness.
'That's tree for tree, right?'
|Excellent work, now we (I) are (am) missing Kaecilius only.|
-Should we (I) include the girl in the count?-
>I don't see why not, she was pretty dumbfounded when we (I) told her about Yao's interest.<
'Yeah, we (I) should include her. I bet Yao has broken her up by now.'
|Let's take a peek.|
Aragorn peered in Yao's direction through space and distance and confirmed his suspicions. The Ancient One was dumbfounded, looking at the premium fluffy version of herself. It was like staring at a different person who could be or not be your family; however, after the similarities had been pointed out, it was uncanny.
'Excellent.'
|Glorious.|
-No words.-
>We (I) are (am) great!<
Weeks passed, and the news of the possible departure of The Ancient One spread to all corners of the three sanctums.
To keep the future in line with his desired expectations, Aragorn made it unclear whether a replacement had been appointed or not. He didn't want Kaecilius to jump the gun and commit suicide by dragon faster than intended or to turtle in and never pose a challenge to Strange.
As the day passed and the weeks turned to months, Strange and Wong, who became his de facto disciples, grew in understanding of the mystic arts and experience.
It wasn't that Aragorn was a better teacher than The Ancient One, and that that was why their potential was blooming, it was that he was cheating.
Strange already counted with the cheat of monstrous talent and photographic memory, but Wong didn't have a similar ability of recollection; however, his talent was undeniable.
These factors, plus his own use of psionic teaching, are what brought their potential to bloom.
Psionic teaching consisted of various approaches.
Data Transferring, to save time reading and comprehending.
Psionic Illusions and Psionic Constructs, to create a representation of real opponents, unmistakable from the real thing.
Psionic Healing, to drive their bodies and minds to the limit and then bring them back.
And, finally, but equally important, Soul Stimulation to round up their trinity of self.
It was a comprehensive training regime that spectacularly stimulated them into learning with no other choice.
As for what his 'disciples' thought about it...
"Kill me, I'm too tired to sleep," Wong implored.
"I don't blame you, I feel better rested after dying once than after a full night of 2 hours of sleep," Strange replied.
Both were spreadeagled in the middle of the training court, their bodies were as tattered as their mindset, their souls flickered lively to Aragorn's eyes.
"If you so want it," Aragorn shrugged. A lazy wave of his hand later, both disciple/labrats were out for the count; technically dead, yet alive.
While the two undea—disciples were 'relaxing', Aragorn took his time to stimulate their souls in a near-death state and carefully fix their broken bodies; this was the real reason they rested better when dead.
Months passed once more, and September 2016 arrived.
Kaecilius invaded the London Sanctum...
The outcome? Naturally, the two hyped up, leveled-up, overtrained, half-crazy, hyper-focused, and maddened sorcerers beat the shit out of Kaecilius and his zealots. No, it was beyond that. Strange and Wong were in such a crazed state that they booby-trapped their souls and sent them with the equivalent of a nuke strapped to their souls to Dormammu.
Yeah... This time, it wasn't Dormammu who actively initiated conflict with Earth. Kaecilius contacted/lured him, and Strange and Wong ambushed him with a terrorist attack, from his point of view.
If it were only that the 'nukes' strapped to their souls were explosions of magical energy, Aragorn wouldn't have thought much of it, but the thing was that Strange used the Time Stone to mix [Time] into the magical bombs.
Imagine Strange trapping himself with Dormammu in a loop; that's terrifying from the perspective of the timeless Dormammu. Now, imagine the same thing, but instead of being trapped with Strange in a temporal loop, he is trapped in a temporal loop with an explosion of white magic...
Even Aragorn felt the budding emotion of pity for the Dimensional Lord.
"You two... You passed," Aragorn approved of their madness.
"...—"
THUDTHUD
Both fell backwards, unconscious.
"Well, what do you think?" Aragorn asked.
From behind the veil of reality, Yao, with her nine silver-white tails swaying behind her, and The Ancient One, with a serene smile, appeared.
"What did you do to them?" The Ancient One asked. She approached hesitantly the downed men and used her spells to check on their status. Her eyes opened wide. "What is this?!"
"What happened?" Yao asked Aragorn, who, at that point, was latching onto her tails behind her.
"Nothing much," Aragorn replied, lost in the sea of white divine fluff. "I pushed them to their limit and kept them at it for months. They are not hurt, though; they are simply riding down the high. They lost the tension that kept them forcibly straight."
"This is evil," Yao said. The Ancient One, channeling her healing magic through them, nodded in agreement.
"Meh," Aragorn shrugged. "When is she departing for Abeyance?"
"I'll bring her over myself when we return to Earth-5H1N3," Yao replied.
For the following week, The Ancient One said her goodbyes, and the next Sorcerer Supreme was determined by a flick of a coin.
Heads was Strange, Tails was Wong.
The coin had to be flipped multiple times because Strange kept pushing on the tails side while Wong kept pushing on the heads side with his magic. Yes, both were fighting not for who shall take up the mantle of the Sorcerer Supreme but for who shall be freed from it.
In the end, Aragorn's patience tipped over and declared Strange the Sorcerer Supreme, and just when Wong was about to celebrate, he declared him the Vice-Sorcerer Supreme.
"What even is that, Aragorn?" Wong asked with unhidden hostility in his question.
"When Strange is not available, you'll pick up his load," Aragorn explained.
"Not available as in when I'm indisposed?" Strange asked.
"Yeah, but it works both ways around," Aragorn smiled at their faltering expressions. Basically, like in a company operating 24/7, where each shift manager oversees a shift, Aragorn made the Sorcerer Supreme position a 24/7 company run by two CEOs, each responsible for a shift.
"I hate you," Strange said before levitating away with the Cloak of Levitation.
"Maybe Kaecilius was right," Wong said before opening a portal.
"I must say, I really went plus ultra with this job," Aragorn commented with a pleased smile. Luckily, Strange and Wong had departed already; otherwise, they would have cried blood... again.
Pleased with himself, Aragorn departed Earth and jumped space, realms, dimensions, and borders and arrived at a certain bubble of altered time where the candy to his eyes was doing her best with a certain spell.
"My sweet, sweet Noona, I've come to bargain," Aragorn said, the pink nebulae of his eyes illuminating his cheeks in an unplanned fashion to cast a 'blush' over his marbled white skin.
Right at that moment—
BOOM
—Death's spell blew up.
"Ugh," Death groaned. "This sucks," she complained like a petulant child. "My Love, why couldn't you make this spell even more complicated?" Sarcasm dripping.
"My pouty Noona," Aragorn landed behind her and scooped her in his arms. He placed his forehead to hers before kissing her nose, and lastly her lips. It was a chaste kiss, nothing sexual.
All tension left her shoulders. She breathed a heavy sigh and said, "This is hard. This body doesn't have the facility my real one has for energy manipulation."
"Certain parts of your MainSelf capabilities were tied to your role as [Death] of the Cosmological Compass. I'm not confident in stratifying those without affecting parts of the Multiverse," Aragorn explained.
He leaned back in the air and sat in an invisible recliner of psionic energy.
"I thought you had it mastered, though," he added.
"To a point, I do," Death nodded, nozzling on his chest comfortably. "I want full infinite percent mastery over it before attempting it on our Chocolate," Death explained.
"I love that about you, Noona," Aragorn said. He brought the hand not supporting her back to her cheek and traced her cheekbones with his thumb.
"And I'm madly in love with you, My Dragon," Death said. She was drawing circles over her chest and looking up dreamily into Aragorn's pink and golden nebulae.
"I received word from Pietro." His words caused the space surrounding them to crack, decay, and be erased. "Your most liked Skyfather is our next target."
"ODIN!" Death gnashed her teeth; the aura of death leaking from her began to affect even her body. Her eyes, sclera included, became orbs of darkness. Her skin cracked and turned ashen beyond her natural, attractive paleness; her nails grew into sythes, she wore her wrath over her body like a deathly cloak.
Aragorn's crimson eyes reflected her monstrous form, yet no disgust or fear could be seen in them.
"Do you think he used the Reality Stone to warp reality on such a scale?" Aragorn asked.
"No," Death replied. "The Reality Stone, as I'm sure you can imagine, can't warp time, space, minds, or souls. And its range is limited without the Power Stone fueling it. I don't know what artifact he used, but unless he collected all the stones you guard and the ones missing, it was no Infinity Gauntlet, Crown, or Armor."
Aragorn made a conflicted expression. Death noticed.
"You know what he used, don't you, My Love?" Death asked.
"I have a guess bordering on fact on what he used," Aragorn said. "But that is connected to a bunch I can't defeat without my MainSelf outside this Multiverse."
"That's... Who are we talking about here?" Death asked.
"The Beyonders," Aragorn revealed. "They are terrible match-ups for you of the Cosmological Compass."
"... That's not desirable," Death confessed.
On one-on-one, no Beyonder could best an Abstract under normal circumstances, but the problem was that they were numerous. Way more numerous than the Aspects of Reality.
Reality only had so many aspects. Beyonders, on the other hand, were a nigh-omnipotent race of humanoid reality warpers, the Kings in White, the Ivory Kings.
The Cosmological Compass was bound to Reality. The Ivory Kings were not.
The Cosmological Compass' power depended on Reality. The Kings in White were free from restrictions beyond personal limitations to their power.
It was a terrible match-up, as Aragorn had said. So, he wanted Death nowhere near anything that had to do with the Beyonders.
"He must have come into possession of a Cosmic Cube," Aragorn explained. "I don't know what else, but for sure a cosmic cube is in his hands."
"So... No fighting him?" Death asked, a massive pout on her face, upturned eyes and all.
"No, Noona. I'll take care of him; you can deal with all the other flies," Aragorn replied. He poked at her puffed cheeks with his forked tongue.
"But I hate him and I want to kill his peepee before killing him," Death continued her fit.
"I'll make sure to get a cock-shot in before killing him, and if I can capture him, you'll get your cock-shot at him," Aragorn complied.
"Mmmmmm, okay!" Death nodded happily.
Aragorn smiled and kissed her lips. Now it was a sexual kiss, with nothing chaste about the amount of tongue he made death deepthroat.
╚═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╝
————————————————
{A/N:
Please check out my P@treon account! There are already 10 chapters ahead for premium members, which is at least 100,000 words. Premium members also gain access to a new chapter every week.
[email protected]/ExistentialVoid
Free Members get access to all free chapters, and I upload free chapters about 12 hours earlier on P@atreon.}
————————————————