When the trio appeared at the anomaly site, they were immediately swarmed. Atom felt Tess and Dory get ripped away from their initial position. He couldn’t make out what the things looked like, but they hit hard and fast. He was pushed back as the stream of void creatures beat down on him like he was standing in front of a wide-open fire hydrant. 

They were not precisely strong individually, but he could tell that they could eventually do him some damage if they continued to swarm him like this. Atom’s eyes burned in annoyance. He seized the space around him, enforcing his domain on the area. Immediately ceasing in place, the swarm momentarily faltered. 

Deciding he needed some space to think, Atom let his path run wild. In a burst, a one-kilometer area around him flash fried as his body twinkled ever so brightly. Placing the artifact bow on his back, he looked down at himself and brushed off the burning embers of the beings that had been assaulting him. A dark smudge of goo could be seen marring his white haori. 

“Ah man. Come on.”

He rubbed at the spot vigorously but only managed to smear the substance deeper. 

“This is never going to come out.” Atom dropped the offending cloth in disgust. 

A roar that rattled his bones echoed across the vacuum of space. Of course, Atom could not physically hear it. Hell, he couldn’t even breathe. It was freaking outer space. He wasn’t bound by the fleshy constraints of air, though. A body reborn in the substance of the stuff that made the universe tick didn’t need such things to listen. 

He jerked his head in the direction of the roar. The scene that flashed into Atom’s eyes chilled him to his very core. Two gargantuan-sized pearlescent white hands jutted out of a tear in reality. The breach, which looked like a curtain being held open by two hands, had to be several hundred kilometers tall. What was inside that curtain was not sunshine and rainbows. The empty black nothingness was all that could be seen. Atom’s chest tightened at the unforgettable sight of the Void.

Hundreds of beings rushed out of the tear. They ranged from the most fantastical beauty creation had ever produced to the most twisted pure chaotic madness he’d ever laid eyes on. Just looking in that direction made Atom’s eyes burn. Even being near the creatures made his stomach cramp violently like he’d eaten the last burrito from a sketchy gas station that had been suspiciously discounted. This was a definitive warning sign that he was creeping dangerously close to beings a tad too far outside his weight class. 

Atom’s eyes locked onto the Void as whispers filled his mind. They quickly turned to wails of pain. He felt himself start to spiral out of control almost instantly. The feeble grip he had on his own power slipped as his Mantle, Endless Nova, began to awaken at the site of wrongness flooding the infantile Plane. 

Without Atom’s bidding, he felt his Mantle initiate the process of manifestation. A power coalesced above him, causing him to look up. A praetorian-style galea with a plume of kaleidoscopic starlight formed above him. The mercurial silver helm slowly drifted down towards his head as he felt the space behind him warp. 

A collapsing neutron star blazing with turbulent blue fiery light formed behind him. It began to expand, contract, and rotate as it spewed stellar energy from its top and bottom like a spinning wet tennis ball being hit by two comets. Cosmic debris and colorful interstellar gases formed about the star in an endlessly expanding spiral. As Endless Nova picked up speed, a sigh could be heard in his mind. 

Atom couldn’t stop it. He wanted to. He desperately wanted to, but the screams were too loud in his head. 

“ATOM!!” Came a familiar voice from somewhere. 

He tried to focus on the voice with everything he had, but the noise in his head was overwhelming his defenses. He did briefly succeed and met Tess’s eyes. Tess was fighting off a dire wolf-headed Cthulhu-looking monstrosity. She held a bright silver power lance and shield in her armor. The shield and lance morphed and twisted to her desire like a machine goddess. The interchange between the two happened so fast and violently that it looked like space was exploding randomly in the area. 

She sent her concern across the bond as well as her confidence. He knew she would be okay for the moment. Her battle moved away, and it unblocked Atom’s sight of the tear in space. His gaze slipped to the breach again. A mental cry pulsed in his head, hitting him like a truck scattering his lucidity once more.

Atom grabbed his head. He felt the pain of the infant universe fall on him like a sledgehammer. It screamed in agony as the things that should not be tore at its fabric. Scarring its soul with their wrongness. The breach, a bleeding wound that wouldn’t close no matter how hard it tried. It needed to close. 

Help us, please help us!

The cries of the Plane sounded like a child begging for help. It was hurt and injured. Confusion filled its cries as it didn’t understand why this was happening. 

He felt his path stir at the child-like voice. Atom’s Divine ranked Ascension with its unfulfilled price, a piece of himself that he had locked away and suppressed, began to resonate with the pleading cries of the Plane.

That was the tipping point as their pleas for help overwhelmed his last tenuous threads of reason with its sheer desperation. He felt himself give in and drift back towards the celestial mass. The power built inside him as it urged him to fuse with the core of the pulsating nova. 

Black diamond stars appeared around his eyes, stretching down his cheeks like scars as the suns in his eyes raged to new heights. 

“Yes,” he found himself saying. 

He could make it all stop. He could help. No, he could fix this whole situation. All he had to do was reach up. Seize the helm and... 

His perception of the world went completely black, and he lost connection to everything. His power, motor function, vision, and even his bond to Tess. The impact that slammed into Atom’s head was so immense that he momentarily thought he had died. A power much greater than his own flooded his body, stabilizing his energy state. His vision immediately snapped back into focus on a person in front of him.

Dory held him one-handed by his master’s robe. Her blue and green heterochromatic feline gaze blazed with power shining on his face like neon lights. She scrutinized him intently. Not liking whatever she saw, she cocked her arm back, ready to deliver what he assumed was the asteroid that just struck his head. 

He jerked up his hands and said, “I’m good! I’m good!” 

Dory tightened her grip and pulled him closer, “Are you sure?” 

The menacing tone in her voice made Atom squirm as he tried and summarily failed to get away from the woman.

She narrowed her predatory gaze, “I really think one more might fix somethings in there.” Dory pointed her chin at his head.

 Atom pushed away from the crazy cat lady. Speaking frantically, “Dory that won’t…uhm… be necessary. I’m in control now.” 

She snorted before cracking a grin and letting him go, “Ya darlin I know. I was just messing with you. Sorry, I meant to be here with you, but I needed to help stabilize the situation before we got over run.” 

A green streak of light blurred up beside them. A female with light matching green skin came into focus. Atom recognized her race, although he did not know who she was. 

The woman was a high Goblin, one of the Fushi. They weren’t technically goblins, but they had so much in common that he refused to think of them any differently. 

The female was beyond gorgeous, with her blue eyes shining with an inner light surrounded by a face that looked like it had been crafted specifically to break the hearts of anything with a sex drive. Her silky black hair was floating behind her as though she was submerged in water. A pair of overly long pointy ears poked out of the sides of her head like wings. Atom had to admit she was right up his otaku alley. Not that it mattered. He had his queen already, but hey, he could appreciate a home run when he saw it.  

The woman looked at him before glancing back to Dory. She spoke in a heavenly sing-song voice. The sound-making him feel uncomfortable. Something that didn’t really surprise him. He was jumping into a situation that required the varsity team while he was quickly realizing he was still playing JV. He couldn’t feel the power of anyone here, but he could feel the disruption effects of their authority on the fabric of space as the battle raged on around them. 

“Doritha, stop playing with the man child. I have an Orion Class trying to slink off. Everyone his tied up and I can’t get too far away without my seedlings weakening. Ya knows if we don’t close this thing before any of the Fayan or High Tuwath take notice then we will be in a difficult position. It’s bad enough that wretched angelic abomination is holding the tear open.” The unknown woman said.

She looked back at the breach and grunted in annoyance. One of the lines holding back the hoard of void beasts started collapsing. Throwing out her hand, hundreds of glowing seeds of light burning with green life energy flew out from her palm. They shot away from her before exploding like fireworks sending out a pulse of energy that felt similar to strong trees and fields of blooming flowers. 

What was left from the explosion was a ball of green writhing roots that rapidly began growing into trees. Those trees grew to enormous sizes, then collapsed in on themselves and eventually morphed into carbon copies of the female. They instantly streaked away and began fighting the lesser Void creatures reinforcing the lines. 

A druid maybe or possibly a fertility goddess? She definitely was not a straight Ascended. There were planes with real swords and sorcery-type stuff. Mana and arch magus etc. It was all just anima, whether you converted it to something else and called it Qi, spirit, or mana. Anima was what the user believed it was. 

Dory gave her a thumbs up before patting him on the face and disappearing. Atom immediately felt the destabilizing effects hit him again as Dory’s domain was no longer supporting the region. Asserting his own Will over the area, the effects lessened. He was back in control. 

“Dammit that woman should have warned me it would be that bad.” He muttered in annoyance. 

Before Atom could start to assess the situation or see where he could be most effective, the green long-eared woman spoke again. 

“Boy, can ya do that flash thing again?” 

Atom could most definitely do the flash thing again, but he would not. It was bad enough that Dory guilted him into assisting in this mess. While he wasn’t as strong as these people around him fighting off an apocalypse, he did have some tricks that would make this whole thing exponentially easier. For instance, Atom could simply drop a small star right in front of the breach and vaporize most everything trying to come out. But if he did something like that, then everyone would know he could do it. That would lead to someone either wanting to fight because that’s what idiots who sought immortal power liked to do, or they would want him to make them a sun or some such nonsense. 

He looked out at the madness coming from the breach. This shit right here was exactly why he stayed in his damn house on his blessedly remote planet and played video games. 

A tiger-headed person grew in size to battle a twenty-story being made of disturbing flowing geometric shapes. Just looking at the thing made him want to pee. Not in fright, mind you. Looking at it literally did something to him that caused the urge to urinate. Sort of like when you scratched a mole on your chest and felt it on your stomach. It was weird, and he wanted no part of it. Like, who would want to fight triangle pee monsters? 

“Not I,” said the cat.

He looked at the goblin and put on an expression of helplessness before saying, “Sorry it was a one-off thing.”

She eyed him skeptically. He didn’t think she believed him, but fortunately, she didn’t push the issue.

“Well, ya smell like sunshine and space magic. Keep ya’r Starry friend in check. Do you think you could drop some gravity magic around this thing to slow down the little ones and stabilize the area? I’m tired of chasing em down. Once we have these little buggers contained, start blasting anything that comes out of the hole. I’ll work on healin the breach.” Said the goblin in a strange accent he had trouble following.

Atom just stared at the woman. Piecing together what she said, he eventually nodded. She blinked away and popped up far away, engaging with something Atom had a hard time looking at. 

“Nasty gods, why am I here.” He cursed. 

Tess. He needed to find Tess. The bond they shared was muted along with all his other senses, but that didn’t matter. He had already given her the artifact. The thing would be difficult for her to hide for much longer. 

Once he took in everything, it was hard to miss Tess and the hundred-meter tall-growing black silvery mecha. It was writhing and shifting like a Rubik's cube as it began to unfold itself. Atom needed to get inside the thing before it decided to go into autopilot. 

Putting his hands together, he focused on his mastery of the Law of Gravity. He pulled his hands apart, and a dark warping well spun in between his hands. Gravity was one of the flavors of the Law of Force, but since they all played their part in the scheme of things, the lesser forms of the Law could be mastered. It was also the safest form to work with. Pulling apart his name's sake was not healthy for the environment. 

Once he felt that the gravity well was strong enough to stay stable, he urged it aside with his Will and created seven more. Aligning them into a pentachoron shape for stability, Atom began connecting the forces so the wells would stay in formation without repelling each other. 

He then adjusted the vectors of their gravitational pull towards the central point. The final shape looked like a stack of pyramids placed on top of the main pyramid. It was the size of a beach ball and had enough gravitational force to collapse the core of a planet. 

Atom flicked his finger, and the thing shot off towards the tear. Once it reached around a hundred kilometers out from the breach, he slapped his hands together and then pulled his arms and hands wide. The four-D object collapsed and exploded, surrounding the gaping rip in space. 

He waited in anticipation to see if the effort was worth it. The large island-size fingers of the white angelic slipped for a moment, and the tear partially healed itself before the thing firmed up its grip once more, preventing the breach from fully sealing. 

Atom sighed internally. He had really thought that might do the trick but had to admit doing something like that on the fly wouldn’t produce ideal results. It was a long shot either way. The little Void creatures were now trapped, and the regional fabric of space was stabilized while constantly applying pressure on the opening. Hopefully it would accelerate the closure.

Turning back to the artifact, he panicked. It was now more than two hundred meters in height and fully formed. It had taken the form of a sleek black mecha this time. If Bandai Namco had a chance to see this, they would most likely have some legal issue to bring up with Atom. It suspiciously looked like a replica of a Gundam Banshee, only ten times larger. Silver lines of power ran through the matte black suit with matching bladed wings folded behind its back. 

He looked at the eyes and saw that they were still dark and relaxed. He still had some time. 

Tess was doing her crazy anime battle with the demonic and angelic purebloods that were slipping through the containment. He needed to get inside the suit before it started doing its probability thing without someone behind the wheel. That thing could potentially make matters worse without guidance.

 He shifted to the front of the building-sized suit, and it opened at his presence. He mentally communicated to his admittedly bad-ass-looking bond mate. 

Tess, stop messing around. Can’t you see we are in a crisis? It’s time to get serious. 

Tess’s power lance flashed. The anima in the area rippled violently, and the things she was fighting burned away like a stack of flash paper. 

You know Atom, you really are an ass sometimes. 

What? What did I do? 

Ugh. And that, Atom, is why you are an ass. 

He sighed and kept his trap shut. Right now wasn’t the time to discuss whatever miss-step he had made this time. Atom felt something change in the area around the breach. He started to get a horrible feeling as he rushed inside the artifact suit. 

He slipped inside the suit, and the opening closed behind him. Moving towards the center, a black sphere fifty meters in diameter lay suspended in the air. Atom slapped a hand to the outer hull of the thing, and a wave rippled through it. The dark metallic metal rolled away like water creating an opening. He moved inside, and it sealed behind him. 

The sphere served as the core and cockpit of the suit. It was mostly empty aside from the set of concentric rings of metal with spines coming out of them. The contraption was covered in glyphs and runic symbols, creating a massive formation. They lay dormant at the moment. 

Atom moved to the center of the crazy-looking thing. Atom closed his eyes. Slowly he gathered and gently released power. As his output rose, the formation slowly came to life. The rings and spines rotated in their fixed position. If you looked on from the outside, you would think he was standing in the center of a kinetic perpetual motion device. The rings and spines looked like they were infinitely flowing inward. 

The air hummed with power as the ring's rpm’s surged higher. A distortion field around the motion of the rings began to manifest. Light and heat were pouring off Atom in visible waves as he ramped up his output. It was almost time.

 While this artifact was extremely powerful, its start-up sequence was less than optimal. He couldn’t fully start it until the formation reached a certain threshold. It was sort of like a Diesel engine. You couldn’t just instantly start it without possibly damaging something. You needed to let the glow plugs do their thing before it could reach auto-ignition. 

Like the madness this core was inspired by, once he juiced up the motion of the formation rings, they would perpetually continue to spin. He felt it reach that threshold, and he pulled back his power, letting the contraption hum at its idol motion. 

He mentally called to Tess that it was ready and waited.

 Atom felt Tess touch the sphere and merge with the structure. He then punched it. His path poured out from him in an overwhelming explosion of power. The rings whined like jet engines as the sound rose higher and higher and the formation fully came to life. The glyphs and runes glowing with vibrancy made the formation shine like a chaotic rotating mess of starlight. 

The rotating formation reached critical mass, and the mess of light that was so chaotic before slowly started to organize into new visible runes. It was sort of like what a fan does when it appears to be rotating slowly once it picks up speed. Earth called it the stroboscopic effect. 

Once the runes became fully visible, a silent implosion happened. Atom felt a deep thrum in his chest, signaling that the artifacts probability engine had come online. He opened his eyes to a completely different scene. 

The spinning formation could no longer be seen. The sphere he had initially entered had disappeared. All that lay before Atom was a three-sixty view of open outer space. The battle raged on before him. He moved his arms, and… nothing happened. He should have seen the hands of the massive mecha. 

“What the hell? Is this thing broken? Tess what’s going on?” He called out in confusion. 

“Calm your tits. You think it’s easy to assimilate a two-hundred-meter fantasy item.” 

 A screen popped up in front of his face vying for his attention. 

 

Atom sighed. What had he been on when he made this thing? No, of course, he did not want to rise up or defeat evil. What he wanted to do was be at home with his headset on, talking smack to the multi-planar gaming community. He rubbed at his glabella. The lengths that he went to stay out of the limelight were sometimes just… depressing, even to himself. He mentally selected yes. 

 

   Atom felt a sizable pull on his anima reserves as the artifact prepared to take an assessment of the situation outside. He looked out at the battle. He had felt something earlier, but he wasn’t sure exactly what it was. He raised his hands and shaped an L with his thumb and pointer fingers. Putting them together, aimed at the breach and pulled them apart. A screen of the area popped up magnified on the region. 

Two figures stood just outside the opening. At first glance, they looked like normal humanoids. Two arms, two legs, etc. When Atom saw the faces, though, he started cursing. It was one of the Fayan. One was a female, the other a male. Both were achingly beautiful. The race was truly blessed by creation for its beauty. They would outshine almost any ascended with ease. They looked sort of like elves, but their skin was too pale, but the ears were slanted backward and just a little too long. Blood Red lips with needle-like metallic teeth that held no purpose that he knew since he’d never seen one eat. They probably only existed to give him nightmares. Eyes with black sclera and glowing draconian irises finished off a dichotomous look of beauty and horror.  

They were among a few known factions that had their own realm you could visit. It wasn’t like a plane and did not function like one. The Fayan realm was born of chaos, and only those of the Fayan could traverse it without issue.

 What made these beings so dangerous was that they were not like the beasts of the angelic or demonic races. Even the thing holding the breach open was mostly a beast in the hierarchy of things. All the factions that Atom knew about in the Void had Lords who presided over their races. They were still alien in every way, but they did have higher beings that did something similar to ruling. 

These two were something akin to nobles. Atom knew that much but did not know their rank. It had something to do with their eye color, blood purity, or whether they had a coffee on Tuesday. It was challenging to understand precisely what mattered or didn’t matter. Suffice it to say, it only made sense to them, and they all innately understood how it worked. 

The pulse went out from the artifact, taking the form of a golden wave. It washed over the sector's combatants. Atoms hackles rose as everything in the sector froze and turned towards his location.

“Shit,” Atom cursed. 

“Tess, hurry up!” 

“Shut up. I’m working as fast as I can.” Tess shot back in annoyance.

The two Fayan looked at his position in curiosity. Well, he assumed it was curiousness. It could just as easily be sexual attraction or apathy. The female stretched out a slender hand pointing in Atom’s direction. A black ball streaked with blood-red glowing lines slowly formed. The sense of wrongness coming off the thing was palpable, even from his position of more than a thousand kilometers away. 

The ball of power left her fingertip without warning it almost instantaneously appeared before the artifact. Without Atom’s prompting, the suit formed a shield of golden light as it pulled more power from him. The ball struck the shield violently, lighting sprayed out as the two battled for supremacy. 

Atom had no control over the thing as Tess had yet to fully sync with the suit. All he could do was stand there helpless as the artifact responded to the threat. He knew that they had taken too long when a massive red box appeared in front of him. 

 

  “Dear mother of God! Tess, disengage. We need to get out of this thing.” Atom said while sweating bullets. 

Why did he have to bring this god's damned thing with him? Better yet, why did he even build something so ridiculous. He could feel Tess panicking just as much as he was through their bond. Neither of them wanted this thing to make decisions on its own. It was too late now, though. With the autopilot already engaged and the protocol online, the best thing he could do was get the hell out of the artifact and wait for it to run out of power.  He’d be a puppet in his own body if he didn't, as the artifact used him like a Duracell. 

Atom tried to shift out of the artifact and immediately hit his knees, gripping his head in pain. 

“What the hell was that, Tess?” Atom called out. His voice cracking. 

Something had just disrupted his shift, and the backlash had been severe. 

“I think the whatever ball of energy is trying to destroy the shield is disrupting our connection to the Feed. I’m trying to override the artifacts AI but it’s ignoring my request to finish syncing for, my own safety… Atom this thing isn’t going to let us leave and you’ve already given it so much power that we may not be able to break our way out.” Tess explained in a defeated tone. 

Atom snorted, like hell he was going to sit here and become some damn NPC in his own creation. He reached for his other game-changer artifact on his back. It wasn’t there. IT WASN’T THERE!

“Tess where is the bow?” Atom said. Fear filled his voice. 

“…”

“TESS!” He shouted. 

“The artifact has already taken it…,” Tess said quietly. 

Atom threw up his hands and began to curse. He cursed himself, Dory, the Void, the Fayan skank that threw that stupid ball of death, the thieving ass artifact, and most of all, he cursed himself for creating something like this POS. 

“You know what.” 

He pulled out his favorite recliner from his inventory and dropped it in the center of the seemingly digital space. Sitting down, he pulled out some popcorn. 

“Fine then. Just… fine. Whatever.” Atom said as he pulled the handle on the side of the recliner, leaning back. 

“I can’t do anything. I’ve already tried using our skills like blink, but they aren’t working either. I’m sorry, babe…,” She trailed off. 

Atom sent some reassurance through their bond and a strong feeling of acceptance and love. It wasn’t her fault. Even if they had started the process immediately, they still might no have synced in time given the appearance of the Fayan. 

Looking back at the screen, his stomach tightened.

“So, it’s like that.” 

He guessed he had racked up some karmic debt for things to got this sideway right after breakfast. 

A deep synthetic crescendo of bass blasted inside the core as the probability engine engaged. The world twisted. Atom clinched his teeth in pain as he felt him self get drained like glass of orange juice.  

  Mantles balls. He hated this part. 

“Mother fu—,” But Atom never finished as reality started to flicker and the nightmarish acid trip began. 

 

Vibrant vines wrapped around the demonic true blood abomination. Azure vines contrasting with its crimson skin. Crystalline horns bucked wildly as the vines tangled around them bending its head at uncomfortable angles. The voidling stared balefully at its soon-to-be executioner. A pair of four-pointed star pupils contracted rapidly. As disturbing as the visage was, it did not phase the voidling’s opponent. 

Zosia, Champion of the Fushi, Supreme Druid of the Blood Leaf Forest, Slayer of the Great Blight, Guardian of the Trial Planes, Mother of the Tribes, Mantle of Vitality, did not let this lower being in her eyes. She looked away and urged the vines inside the abomination's mouth. A few moments later, the vines ripped the demon in half from the inside out. Elder Sun blossoms bloomed and burned away the remains of the creature.

Satisfied with the results, she looked for more powerful opponents trying to slip out of the clever cage that man child had set up. He was strong for his age. If she had been a few thousand cycles younger, she would have taken him back to the Blood Leaf and made many strong Fushi. The breeding stock was always so poor in the Trial Planes, and it was difficult to acquire fresh bloodlines without causing a fuss with Doritha. A few dozen of her Ascendant males wasn’t so big of a loose. And it was never as fun if they came willingly from the start. 

Zosia snorted, thinking about the cat's prudish ways. She would relent one of these days. 

Zosia scanned the lines. Her seedlings were doing well in dispatching the invaders. She rarely got the chance to use Saplings Legion, and it was always satisfying to gain the combined combat experience her seedling replicas acquired after the battle was over. It had been key to her rise to power. Every war provided hundreds or even thousands of unique experiences, helping her become one of the most feared Druids to walk the Planes. 

Her senses were not as keen in the vacuum of space where little of nature's life flourished, but she could get by. All things were of nature bounty anyway. 

Zosia’s head jerked to the opening as a surge in wrongness entered the Plane. The two beings strolled arm and arm as though they were on a stroll. As far as Zosia knew, they very well could have been. That’s just how those of the Fayans were. 

Taking stock of the situation, she felt for Doritha. She was still battling the Orion Class monster. She could easily handle the thing but keeping it stalled in that area was the right call. Their combined power was cutting off an exit for the lesser creatures. 

Reaching out telepathically to her friend Doritha accepted the connection. It was deemed offensive to force a link without permission. Or so Doritha claimed. 

Dory responded first, “I know Zosia. I feel them. What do you think?” 

Zosia considered the question. What should they do? Talking with the two and asking them to leave could work. It actually did work pretty often, sometimes even without violence. 

The decision was taken out of their hands when a mountain size figure appeared from out of nowhere. A spherical golden wave of magic racing out from the thing. The wave rolled over them and everything in the sector. It smelled like the handsome man child's power. 

“What the blight is that?” Zosia sent to Doritha in shock.

“Give me a second.” Dory sent back. 

Zosia turned back to see, and a feline Eldritch horror from her deepest darkest nightmares briefly flashed in and out of existence. Primal fear rolled thru Zosia at the view. Half of the Orion class monster was simply missing. The rest of its body burned away in dark purple soul fire. 

“Planes third nipple. I hate when you do that.” Zosia said in a shudder. 

Doritha appeared beside her and belched in a most unladylike manner. 

“Oh,” Doritha's eyes sparkled in mirth as she covered her mouth innocently. 

“Excuse me. How brutish. And Sorry darlin you really shouldn’t have looked. You already know it bothers you.” Doritha said. Her Southern twang bleeding through hard. 

“Mhmm, a little warning would have been nice ya know.” Zosia said skeptically. 

Zosia looked back at the two figures when she felt the chaotic energies build. 

“Well, I guess talking ain’t gonna work,” Doritha said. 

“Is the man child going to be alright?” Zosia said. Gauging the power coming off the death ball had her concerned. That thing was already doing untold damage to the weave of the Plane. It was like an insidious ember on the fabric of space. Everything about it attempting to set it aflame. 

Doritha squinted in the direction of the ape child. “Eh, I’m sure he will be fine. That thang is pretty strong.” 

“If you say so. It’s certainly interesting. You should let me have him once this is over.” Zosia said slyly. 

Doritha snorted and slapped Zosia on the rear. 

“Zosia, I told you I can’t just give you males.” 

Zosia yelped at the swat and then snorted before bumping her friend with her hips. 

“Come now Doritha. Just lend him to me for say a hundred years,” Zosia said. A thoughtful look on her face before she continued like she was bartering with a merchant, “No wait, how about two-hundred years. That’s nothing Doritha. Nothing. Ya know the males will enjoy it and the Fushi are always in need of fresh blood to keep them strong.” 

And that last part wasn’t even a lie. The Fushi truly did need males to keep the bloodline strong. Zosia wasn’t a shameless old lecher, at least not entirely. The Fushi race was matriarchal, and unfortunately, they produced too few High Fushi Males. This bottleneck in their population growth was primarily due to their odds of having a male child being one in three, unlike most races where the odds were an even fifty-fifty. Since the Fushi children always favored the mother side of the bloodline bringing in compatible males from other races didn’t dilute or alter the Fushi race. It was a win-win. 

Doritha just laughed at Zosia’s words, “It don’t matter either way sweetie. I doubt that his partner would accept me throwing him to a fertility goddess. Plus, he’s too young for you anyway.” 

Zosia scoffed. “I’m still in my prime Doritha.” 

The two watched in fascination as the Fayan released the chaos death ball. The ball quickly shot towards the strange artifact. Both Doritha and Zosia had their minds on full blast. Their perception of time made everything around them look like the battle had paused. They both had done this the moment the Fayan stepped into the Plane. It was far too dangerous not to. 

The pair looked like minor nobility in the Fayan court, but that meant nothing. One of them could easily be the most powerful being in the Void and not be a noble at all. They were beings of unchecked chaos and creation. Sometimes they killed everything on-site, and sometimes they were as friendly as your best friend. Sometimes they talked illogical nonsense for hours, and sometimes they spoke like divine philosophical poets laying out the most complex mysteries of the universe so simply that anyone could understand it. Sometimes they gave away riches while cursing you to damnation, and sometimes they robbed you blind while acting deeply upset that they had to do the act. The bottom line was that they were not of the planes and were unpredictable.  

The death ball, for instance, could easily be the females' way of saying hello. The energy ball was killing the lesser voidlings without impunity, adding to the illogical appearance of the two. This breach had turned truly dangerous now that they were here. 

“Should we attack?” Zosia commented. She looked at her friend. 

Doritha made a cute face as she scrutinized the death ball zooming towards the man-child. Zosia looked back as the golden tower shield materialized from nowhere, blocking the ball of doom. Colorful plasmatic energy shot out as the conflicting energies interacted. They both watched the light show for a while, waiting to see if they needed to step in, but the shield held firm. 

“Let’s take a backseat on it for now. I ain’t seen what this kiddos toy is capable of yet. We may need to help but no reason to ruin his first breach experience. It might help him grow—,” 

The hairs on the back of her neck rose. Zosia felt the heavy use of a High Law. The cries of the baby Plane went silent as the lines of probability became visible to the naked eye. The lines shined like the morning light. The darkness of the thankfully empty sector blasted away as the lines twisted and writhed like a pond full of serpents. 

The ball of chaotic energy was absorbed by the shield of gold, and the black-winged figure flickered in and out of reality as it changed shapes rapidly. It was a mountain, tall and vast as three suns. It was a flaming torch the size of the world tree burning with holy light. It was a rock with silver divine blood leaking off it signifying the death of a true god. It was a man kneeling in front of a longsword. His armor was made of hardened jagged blood, and his eyes were pits of fire. It was a thousand other people and races or things. Almost all unfamiliar. Almost all extremely, one might say, improbably strong.  

The flickering finally stopped with a simple robed man sitting on a stone. Zosia couldn’t help but think he looked like a peaceful shepherd meditating on a rock as his herd grazed around him. His skin was brown that seemed like it had been earned from long days in the sun. A long white beard trailed down over a crook lying across his knees, solidifying the nature of the man in Zosia’s mind. She felt nothing but overwhelming peace and serenity coming off the man. 

The man opened his eyes, and clear honey brown irises took in their surroundings. The man's forehead scrunched up in confusion briefly. Like he didn’t understand how he had come to this place, but eventually, his face settled on mild amusement. 

He closed his eyes again, and then he sniffed. Zosia felt herself being pulled forward as the universe literally bent inward towards the man's nose. All the ambient energy seen in the area, even some from Zosia herself, flowed towards the man. She couldn’t stop it or reclaim it. Zosia didn’t even know what kind of energy it was or where it came from as her essence still felt full. It felt… different, but she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was. She stretched herself, trying to sample the energy. Truth. It was the only word that came to mind. He clearly had better control than she did, whoever the old man was. 

The Fayan were not immune to the man's nostrils of might either. A stream of dark miasmic energy was pulled out from their chest and zipped off towards the old shepherd. This action caused the two to start acting strangely. They seem to be in some type of competition of politeness. 

 The female smiled with her needle-like gaze shining wide as she bowed to the male. In polite denial, the male shook his head, smiled, and genuflected back. 

Bloody stumps, she hated being around these weirdos. The scene would have been funny if Zosia knew what the bloody stumps was going on. She kept the weird and very dangerous Fayans in her peripherals as she turned her attention back to the old shepherd. 

The old shepherd finished his sniff, and the energies entered his nose. Zosia stilled her mind and kept her senses on high alert. The old man opened his eyes. The orbs were pitch black with burning silver runic symbols. The man smiled and hell fire was all that could be seen. He spoke for the first time. 

Zosia felt her eardrums burst from the man's voice. 

“Zosia, we need to get out of the area. The kid isn’t in control.” Doritha tugged at her arm. 

Zosia did not resist. What the man said, combined with the type of power coming off the old shepherd, hitting her like waves of hot magma, told her all she needed to know. 

The old man had said only two words and they sent shivers down her spine. 

“Ah, Sinners.”