It was always the small things that bothered Meroc the most. A plan derailed by some insignificant happenstance that not even he could have seen coming. Like the existence of a certain hydra he’d never heard of before. Who, like most unknown hydras had a habit of doing, had gotten himself involved in a battle far bigger than he realized. 

Such was why Meroc’s chosen champion was winning a fight she was supposed to be losing. Alyda the scaled was certainly strong. Certainly clever, and more than capable of killing her target, that girl the Giant was after. But she was certainly not a match for that twice marked fisherman, the champion of the Leviathan. 

She was supposed to die. Ammunition used for him to force together the great gathering. An excuse held in noble blood. 

Instead, the fisherman had been wounded, and barely managed to force Alyda to flee. A failure of both her directives. The girl alive and Alyda somehow still alive. And all because of a dumb hydra now too wounded to continue playing at its foolish game. A very stupid game that Meroc was sure would serve as yet more fuel for the Giants little pet project. 

It was a bad day. No champion dead. No future problem solved. And now he would have the Giant’s little freak of a child more involved in the whole affair than he would’ve liked. 

But Meroc had dealt with worse. He was Seldom seen, Seldom heard. A plan gone awry was not the end of the world. He just needed to find a new way to throw a shard into the Giant’s plans. And maybe find a way to make that abhorrent child of hers go back to playing his own games of self delusion. 

So, Meroc thought. He let his mind unravel from its limited form. Slipping away from his main body and inhabiting every focus sleeve he had made all at once. Essentially tripling the power of his mind. Flames licking at the fabric of thin existence as he did. 

A day passed like that. His mind turning unceasingly as he plotted and planned. Looking beyond this point of time and into a thousand, thousand potentialities. And of those unceasing and infinite possible timelines, he saw only five that he liked. 

One in which the girl killed him and the Giant both. Another with her dead, slain by the hands of a friend compromised. A third in which she swore herself to him. A fourth where she found herself dying after slaying that dreaded Leviathan. And a fifth in which was mystery, it’s outcome shrouded from his many minds. 

Now, there were many in which she wound up dead before doing anything of note, but the statue quo always remained the same after that. The balance of power in eternal limbo. Unchanging and never moved. 

Meroc reviewed his five options. 

The first was non-preferable. Meroc was kind fond of living. But he would take it if if meant seeing that Giant dead. The second was also an… okay option. As she would still cause a decent shaking of the order of things before her untimely death. The third was obviously what he would prefer most. A new powerful champion was always a good thing, especially when she had the potential to become so much more. 

It was the last two, however, that truly had him contemplating. 

For a dead Leviathan was a tempting offer indeed. Without that thorn in his side there were so many things that would be made available to Meroc. Options and plans that he had long forsaken. 

The last one was tempting for an altogether different reason, though. As it was a true mystery. The details of its outcome hidden, which hadn’t happened in, well, over three thousand years give or take. And he still wasn’t sure how it had even happened the last time. He just knew that it was, for all intents and purposes, a wild card. A last resort just in case all other plans failed. One last bit of spite to throw into the works of all his rivals and enemies. 

A backup plan if you will. 

Nekroz

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