He walked to the dark pool in the center of the obsidian room. This was where 'potential', raw chaos, gathered. He plunged his hand into this liquid night.
"The Crimson Communion begins," he said to the empty room.
When Aetius pulled his fingers from the pool of potential, he held a physical object in his hand. It wasn't paper, it wasn't metal. It was alive.
This was the invitation to the "Crimson Communion".
It resembled a folded lotus flower made of frozen blood, with razor-sharp edges. It was as black as obsidian, but when light hit it, it shone a deep ruby red, echoing with thousands of screams. Each one had been "forged" specifically for the 150 participants on the list.
Aetius picked up the first invitation. It was cold, and its touch vibrated slightly like a lover's skin.
He closed his eyes and whispered the first recipient's "What if..." into the invitation.
Ashes. Bell sounds. The scream, "Burn them all!"
Aetius released the invitation into the air. The lotus hung suspended for a moment, then tore through reality like paper and vanished.
He took another.
Spotlights. The sound of pills rattling. A lonely, cold bedroom.
The second lotus vanished too.
The third... An exploding plane. "Steve!"
The fourth... Clown laughter. A chemical tank. "Puddin'!"
The fifth... An icy planet. Betrayal. "I was abandoned!"
And so it continued. 150 times, Aetius sealed a regret, a shame, an existential wound, and sent it to the four corners of the universe, to different layers of time. "The Crimson Communion" had begun. The invitations were finding their recipients.
Place, time, and space had lost their meaning. This was an eternal echo of the moment the decision was made and regret was born.
Daenerys Targaryen was not sitting on her throne. She was frozen in the wreckage of her memories, in the imaginary ruins of a burnt King's Landing. The black dress she wore was covered in ashes falling like ceaseless snow. Her eyes were open but unseeing. She was only hearing.
Bells. Bells. Bells.
The sound of surrender had been the trigger for her madness. "If," her cracked lips whispered, as they had whispered billions of times, "if those bells... if they hadn't stopped... if I hadn't listened..."
Just then, something changed in the ashen air before her.
The air didn't freeze; it coagulated. The ashes hung suspended instead of swirling. And in the middle of the silence, the sound of cracking glass was heard.
Reality opened like a wound before her eyes. Through that slit, the thing Aetius had sent glided in.
The crimson-black crystal lotus.
It didn't fall. It hovered right at Daenerys's eye level. Contrasting the whiteness of the ashes, it beat like a dark heart.
She didn't touch it. There was no need.
The invitation spoke to her mind. The voice was not Aetius's; it was the darkest, most seductive echo of her own voice.
TO THE QUEEN OF ASHES,
Her mind was shaken by the power of the invitation. Images rushed into her consciousness against her will. The house with the Red Door. The moment Viserys smiled at her. Drogo's tent in flames. And then... The bells. The burning of the city. Drogon's roar. Jon's betrayal. The coldness of the dagger in her chest.
Your regret.
The invitation knew her "What if...".
Then words appeared. In her mind, as if written in flames:
We offer you a "MOMENT".
You were defined by your regret. You have the chance to destroy that moment.
You are invited to the Palace of Pleasure, "The Crimson Communion".
A tournament based on Will, Desire, and Dominance.
THE PRICE: Defeat is surrendering that "Moment"—that piece of your soul—to the victor. Your pain will be her power.
THE PRIZE: Victory is the right to rewrite that "Moment" in the physical universe.
Daenerys's eyes cleared for the first time through that dull fog. This was a trap. This was a dream. This was blasphemy.
But what if it was real?
Not burning the city. Not hearing the bells. That moment Jon stopped her. That moment right before he betrayed her. Fixing that moment...
The invitation slowly opened before her. Inside, two words shone:
ACCEPT / REJECT
Her ashen fingers rose tremblingly into the air.
An apartment flat. In one of Gotham's slums. The room was filled with empty pizza boxes, confetti remnants, a dismantled bomb timer, and a dozen "Employee of the Month" photos nailed to the wall.
Harley Quinn, wearing a dirty t-shirt that said "Puddin's Property" but was scribbled over with "Property of ME!", sat with a bowl full of potato chips in her lap, watching an old Looney Tunes cartoon on television. Bugs Bunny was tricking Elmer Fudd with dynamite.
"Ha! Classic!" she giggled, her mouth full.
Just as Elmer said, "Be quiet, I'm hunting rabbits," the television screen went black.
"Heey! It was just getting to the funniest part!"
The screen filled with static tingling and then... exploded. Not physically. The image collapsed inward, and something was pushed out through the glass of the screen as if it were a solid object.
The crimson-black lotus fell noisily onto the coffee table in front of Harley, next to the chip bowl.
Harley froze for a moment. She blinked.
"Wow," she said. "The effect of yesterday's mushrooms lasted longer than I expected."
She reached for the invitation and picked it up. It was cold and trembled slightly in her hand like a goldfish. She smelled it. It smelled like gunpowder and strawberry bubblegum.
"Alright, little goth flower, what are you?"
The moment she touched it, the invitation exploded into her mind. Not Aetius's voice, but a circus announcer's voice:
TO THE RED SMILE! TO THE CANARY OF CHAOS!
Images: Ace Chemicals. Pale skin. Green hair. His laughter. His beating. His betrayal. Dr. Harleen Quinzel's "What if...". "If I had never fallen in love with that man..."
The smile on Harley's face faded. This was her untouchable "sacred" memory.
Then she "heard" the rest of the invitation. Tournament. Palace of Pleasure.
And "The Price".
"...is surrendering that piece of your soul—to the victor. Your pain will be her power."
Harley's smile slowly returned, but this time it was much wider, much more unbalanced.
"Spiritual cannibalism," she whispered. "Oh my God... This is... hot. I love it! Eating other people's pain? Sign me up for the party!"
The text of the invitation appeared: ACCEPT / REJECT.
Harley pressed her greasy finger right in the middle of the ACCEPT text. "Here we go, bunnies! Showtime!"
The crystal lotus exploded in her hand into a cloud of bright red confetti. Harley laughed and threw the confetti into the air.
Themyscira. Paradise Island.
The air was filled with the scent of salt and olive trees. Diana was meditating on the island's highest cliff, facing the sea. Her eyes were closed, her mind listening to the song of the universe. She was calm. She was strong. She was in balance.
Then, she heard a wrong note in the song.
It was as if someone had dragged their fingernails across a blackboard in the middle of a cosmic orchestra.
She opened her eyes.
The bright reflection the sun created on the sea... began to vibrate. The light wasn't behaving as it should. It was liquefying, bending, and collapsing into itself in the air, above the water.
Diana stood up. This wasn't Ares' magic. This wasn't Circe's illusion. This... was new.
At the point where the light gathered, that ruby-black lotus appeared.
This wasn't like the invitations sent to the others. The others were inviting. This one... was aggressive. It was polluting the air. Spreading like a poison into the pure energy of Paradise Island.
Diana reached for her Lasso.
The invitation attacked her mind. Not like a question or an offer, but like a violation.
TO THE WARRIOR OF TRUTH. TO THE LOVER OF THE LIE.
Diana's mind built walls against this insolence. But the invitation was strong. Aetius had chosen the sharpest memory to break her.
Blue sky. A German plane. Full of bombs. And a man inside that plane.
"I wish we had more time."
"I can save you."
"No. This is my duty. I love you, Diana."
Explosion.
Diana's breath caught. "If," her mind whispered, involuntarily, "If I had stopped him. If I had gotten on that plane."
The invitation's words echoed in her mind:
A CHANCE TO FIX THAT "MOMENT". A CHANCE TO SAVE STEVE.
Diana's face contorted into a terrifying mask of anger and grief. This was against the laws of the universe. This was a violation of order, fate, and truth.
THE PRICE: Defeat is surrendering that "Moment"—that piece of your soul—to the victor...
THE PRIZE: Victory is the right to rewrite that "Moment" in the physical universe.
"No," said Diana, her voice loud enough to crash against the rocks. "Truth cannot be manipulated. Whatever the cost."
She focused on REJECT from the ACCEPT / REJECT options appearing in her mind.
She pressed with all her will.
The invitation vibrated. And... nothing happened.
The crystal lotus continued to hang in the air. It didn't vanish. It just waited.
Diana looked at it with anger. Her rejection had not been accepted.
Aetius's own voice came into her mind, in a soft, mocking, and patient whisper: "You say 'No' now, Amazon. Because you fear the price. But you have tasted that 'What if' once again. It will grow inside you. And when you are ready to say 'Yes'... I will be waiting."
The lotus stopped glowing, became matte, but hung in the air of Themyscira like a rejected sin.
In the depths of the Char system, a massive Zerg Leviathan glided among the stars like a nightmare.
Inside, the Heart of the Swarm, the Queen of Blades Kerrigan, sat on a neural throne. She was no longer Sarah; she was a will that had swallowed a galaxy, a goddess connected to trillions of minds. Her mind saw through the eyes of every zergling, every hydralisk on thousands of worlds simultaneously.
There was silence. Only the hum of the Swarm.
And then, inside that hum... she heard another voice.
There was no physical invitation. Aetius wouldn't send an object to her ship like an idiot would; he attacked the source directly: The Hive Mind.
This wasn't like a virus; it was a whisper. Among trillions of voices, a single, pure, penetrating thought:
TO THE ABANDONED CHILD. TO THE QUEEN OF REVENGE.
Kerrigan's mind disconnected from the Swarm for a moment. Images: Tarsonis's cold, metal platform. Mengsk's betrayal. That moment the dark wave of Zergs came over her. "If... If they hadn't betrayed me that day."
This didn't hurt. Kerrigan had transcended pain. This intrigued her.
This consciousness, Aetius's consciousness, had dared to touch her mind. He was strong. He carried the energy of the SGC.
Word by word, he engraved the offer into the Hive Mind.
Palace of Pleasure. Crimson Communion.
Will, Desire, and Dominance.
THE PRICE: Defeat... is surrendering... that piece of your soul... to the victor.
THE PRIZE: Victory... is the right... to rewrite... that "Moment".
Kerrigan, or the echo of Sarah remaining inside her, thought of Tarsonis. Fixing that moment? Becoming human?
Weakness.
She was the Swarm. She had no regrets. Only... purpose.
But then she thought about the "Price" part again. "...is surrendering to the victor. Your pain will be her power."
She wouldn't take others' pain and make it her power. She would take others' souls and make them the Swarm's power. This tournament... this "Crimson Communion"... was an opportunity for evolution. Consuming the essence, pains, "What ifs..." of the universe's most powerful females... This would perfect the Swarm.
Kerrigan's lips curled into a deadly smile.
She wouldn't play Aetius's "regret" game. She would go hunting.
In her mind, with a cosmic roar, she shattered the ACCEPT option.
Aetius, billions of light-years away in his Palace, felt that wild, hungry approval of the Swarm and smiled. "That's it," he said. "That is a true female."
The pool of potential in Aetius's obsidian room was no longer a calm darkness. Its surface was churning with 150 different lights; each was the data stream of a soul connected to the Palace of Pleasure.
A few were bright and wild: Kerrigan's burned like a dark red flame with an insatiable gluttony. Harley's trembled like a manic, color-changing disco ball. Daenerys's light was an unstable ember; trying to burn under the ashes, then glowing with anger.
Diana's light was different. It was a bright, pure gold color and sealed with the "Reject" command. But Aetius knew the seal didn't block the invitation's power; it only delayed it. Diana's rejection was proof of the power of her "What if...", and this tied her even tighter to Aetius's hook.
The other 146 lights told their own stories too.
Aetius ran his hand over the pool.
One light was emerald green and thorny. Maleficent. "If he hadn't stolen my steel wings..." Accept.
Another was a cold, pale blue. Elsa. "If I had never unleashed my powers..." Accept.
Another was a sharp purple smelling of lilac and gooseberries. Yennefer. "If I could have chosen a womb..." Accept.
Another was steel gray stained with blood and gunpowder. Lara Croft. "If I could have saved my father..." Accept.
Another was an impure, trembling light of faith. Mother Teresa. "If that 'dark night' where my prayers were unheard had never happened..." Accept.
Demon queens, assassins, women of science, goddesses... Each had pressed the ACCEPT option under the weight of their own tragedy. Some came for power; like Hela and Sylvanas. Some for love; like the ghost of Juliet Capulet. Some for revenge, like Black Mamba. And some, like Bayonetta or Morrigan Aensland, just to experience the pure chaos offered by this cosmic blasphemy.
And despite Wonder Woman's rejection, the 150th light was lit. Aetius's list was complete. The connection was established.
"The time has come," whispered Aetius.
He closed his hand over the pool. He made a fist.
And across the four corners of the universe, 150 women were seized by their "What ifs...".
This wasn't teleportation. Not an invitation. This was being grabbed and pulled from the deepest wound of the soul.
For Daenerys, the ashes of King's Landing stopped swirling. Everything froze. Then, the imaginary dagger wound in her chest—Jon's betrayal—began to pull inward like a cold vacuum. Ashes, screams, and memories were sucked into that point, into the tearing fabric of reality. She couldn't resist; her pain was pulling her.
For Harley Quinn, the cloud of confetti hung in the air. The void in the exploding television screen turned into a liquid mirror. "Woo! Pool party!" she shouted and extending her baseball bat forward, dived into that unknown liquid with laughter.
In Themyscira, the matte lotus hanging in front of Diana suddenly glowed blood red. Her rejection was meaningless. Aetius wasn't pulling her physically; he was pulling Steve's memory. Diana couldn't push the image of the exploding plane of the man she loved from her mind, and that image became the hook tearing her from the physical world. While her Golden Lasso shone in her hand, with a scream full of rage, she was pulled towards Aetius's chaos, contrary to light and order.
Kerrigan didn't come. She projected. She never left her throne inside the Leviathan. But she concentrated a piece of the Hive Mind, her purest psychic will, and sent an avatar to the energy of the Palace of Pleasure. This avatar was woven from bone, chitin, and pure revenge; in Aetius's kingdom, it was as "real" as the physical.
Across the four corners of the universe, 150 "What ifs..." were pulled simultaneously. From the depths of a Mayan temple, from the cryogenic pod of a spaceship, from the attic of a Victorian mansion, from the infinity pool of a Hollywood mansion... All were sent towards Aetius's Palace, passing through tunnels opened by their own regrets.
The destination was not an arena. Not a throne room.
This was a waiting room. "The Pale Hall".
This was the entrance gate of the Palace of Pleasure and reflected Aetius's understanding of pleasure: overwhelming, biomechanical, and seductively organic.
The hall was impossibly large. Its architecture defied Euclidean geometry; there were no corners, only curves. The walls looked like they were made of warm, polished marble with pink veins and beneath the surface, pulsed a pale light with the rhythm of a giant heart beating slowly. This felt not like a structure, but a womb.
There was no ceiling. Only a constantly changing gas nebula in peach, lavender, and pale gold colors. This nebula emitted a deep, resonant hum that was neither storm nor silence. This sound vibrated inside the bones like the satisfied purr of a giant cat.
The air was heavy. It smelled not like perfume, but like bodies. Orchid, ozone, the sharp salt of sweat, and a slight mix of the metallic smell of blood. This place smelled of life and desire.
There was no furniture on the floor. Instead, the floor itself rose and fell in soft, undulating "islets" that appeared to be made of dark velvet. These islets were designed to pull the sitter in, forcing them into a semi-reclined position; not for resting, but for being watched and watching.
Right in the middle of the hall was a massive, circular fountain. But it wasn't spouting water. The liquid inside was like clear, dense, and slightly bubbling champagne. It constantly bubbled, reflecting thousands of small, prismatic lights around.
Participants began to appear in different parts of the hall, as if waking from a dream.
One of the first to arrive was Harley Quinn. She somersaulted out of the liquid mirror and fell onto her back on one of the velvet islands. "Wow... This place," she said listening to the hum in the ceiling, "smells like the inside of the Joker's brain. I love it!" She jumped up, shouldered her bat, and walked toward the fountain.
Immediately after, Hela, the Goddess of Death, appeared. She didn't pass through a rift; she found form condensing from within shadows. Her armor and massive horned crown were menacing even in the soft light of the hall. She heard the hum and grimaced. "Too... moist. Even worse than Odin's boring Valhalla." Her eyes paused on Harley. A broken toy. This one gets bitten first.
Daenerys stumbled out from within a hurricane of ash and regret. She was still in shock from that final moment. Her eyes saw the unimaginable luxury of the hall. This was more magnificent than even the Red Keep. For a moment, she thought this was a kind of afterlife, a Valyrian heaven. But that smell of prey in the air... No. This was a palace. And palaces existed to be conquered.
Kerrigan's avatar silently found form in a corner. Her bone claws made a slight hiss when they touched the velvet floor. Her zerg eyes, in which galaxies burned, scanned every life form in the room. Analyzing biological signatures, heat levels, fear pheromones. She was the most alien thing here.
Yennefer stepped elegantly out of the portal Aetius pulled her through. This place was full of magic, but not like the Chaos Magic she knew. This was more... raw. Hungrier. She inhaled the scent in the air. It smelled of power. And... regret. Hundreds of different scents resembling her own regret. "So this is the laboratory," she whispered.
Bayonetta appeared with a laugh and a rain of rose petals. She wasn't surprised like the others; she embraced this strangeness. "You invite me to the party," she said loudly, drawing the attention of those in the room, "but no music and no gentlemen? You are very rude." She reached for one of the velvet islands, crossed her legs, and took a lollipop out of her purse.
Wanda, aka Scarlet Witch, fell to her knees in pain in the farthest corner of the room. The psychic noise here... The constant broadcast of 150 different traumas, 150 "What ifs..."... was turning the chaos whispers in her own mind into an unbearable scream. My children... Vision...
Maleficent appeared with her now regained wings wrapped around her like a protective cloak. Her green eyes scanned the other "queens" in the room. She saw weakness in Daenerys. A rival in Hela. In Yennefer... she saw curiosity.
Then Diana came.
Unlike the others, she came fighting. She burst from the light tunnel she was pulled through with a scream full of rage and landed hard on the marble floor of the hall. Her landing created a shockwave on the floor. Her Lasso in hand shone with a pure light of truth. Her eyes were blazing.
"Aetius!" she roared. Her voice suppressed the hum of the hall for a moment. "Come out from where you're hiding, coward! End this disgusting game!"
The room went quiet. Harley stood at the edge of the fountain and looked at Diana. "Wow, look at that outfit. They didn't say it was a costume party."
Hela smiled. "Fresh meat."
Diana looked at the women around her. Warriors, queens, monsters... She saw the same thing in all their eyes: either deep pain or deep hunger.
Just then, the fountain in the center stopped bubbling. The hum in the ceiling went silent.
And Aetius's voice spoke inside the mind of every woman in the room, touching their most intimate thoughts. His voice wasn't physical; it was soft as velvet, seductive, and full of absolute amusement.