Aucteros stared at the words. The future. The present. The past.
But this, this isn't how it was supposed to go.
(Corvessa, that maniac, just raised the stakes. She's got half the heroes hunting for her after what she did, turning that man into a piece of bone. What was she thinking?)
(But that's not even the worst of it.)
(Rhenvar is here.)
(Mid-transformation.)
(He's fighting the two strongest superheroes in this world. If he finishes shifting, if that final layer of restraint breaks and Viir transforms as well-)
He rubbed his temples. His plans are unraveling. All of them. He breathed in and out, that made him even more exhausted.
(The Book of Fate isn't a prophecy. It's a framework. A pattern I manipulate. A chance to keep the world from collapsing in on itself and looping again.)
(But Rhenvar? He doesn't just destroy. He consumes. Souls and all. If he finishes feeding, there'll be no Worldheart left to secure, only an empty husk.)
"So nya~ Corvessa's been gone a long time, hmm." Meowfunction twirled beside him, glitching slightly.
(She didn't care. She never cared. That mind was fractured long before I recruited her.)
(I'd sent Charles to track down Ultimateman… back when I thought the situation was under control. Back when I didn't realize Rhenvar had arrived, and Corvessa killed someone so powerful.)
(Still, I can salvage this. There's a window.)
"Meowfunction," he said, "go to the center of the city. Back up, Charles. Use your teleportation ability. Move fast."
"Oh, you got it, raid leader!" She saluted as a corrupted cheerleader. "But I can only use it three times before it's on cooldown~"
She skipped away, flickering in and out of code.
He barely understood half the words that came out of her mouth.
He turned back to the Book. Its pages shimmered with shifting glyphs, destiny slipping further away.
(I cannot risk Corvessa finding out Rhenvar was here. If she did, she'd drop everything. The mission would mean nothing to her. She'd throw herself into his arms, or her claws, or whatever form she wore today. Just to turn him into a crow.)
He rubs his temples again.
(Her obsession with turning him into a crow is getting tiresome. And I'm sick of it, I had thought she was perfect to kill him…)
He waved his hand closing the book and glanced toward the horizon.
(I'd have to reach the villain's lair on foot. I can't teleport; I'd never seen it directly. And blind jumping with a dimensional door might shove me halfway across the continent if I'm unlucky.)
A strange metal box rumbled up to the curb. People stepped in. He watched them curiously.
"All aboard the Southern Plaza," the driver called out.
Aucteros flipped through his Book.
(Southern Plaza… perfect. It's near the lair.)
He stepped aboard.
"Sir, do you have a ticket?" the man at the wheel asked.
His book pulsed with divine light. He cast Mind Warp. A low-level spell. Anyone with magical resistance could shrug it off. But these people were soft. Magicless. And pathetic.
The man blinked and Aucteros moved on.
(Perfect.)
He sat near a window and stared out, watching buildings fly past. No magic. Just machines.
(This world moved itself without animals or runes. I should have come to these advanced worlds more often they are… fascinating.)
Someone sat beside him. An old woman. She smelled like dust and soap.
She turned to him. "You look like a hero."
Aucteros scoffed. "I'm not a hero. I'm a savior."
She tilted her head. "You've got that… aura about you. But your eyes are twisted."
(Twisted?)
She leaned closer. "In my youth, I met many heroes. And many villains. You know what they all had in common?"
He said nothing.
"They all believed what they were doing was right. Or at least… wanted to believe it."
She smiled at him gently.
His jaw clenched.
"Old woman, enough," Aucteros hissed. "I don't care for your words."
She paused. Her gaze didn't waver.
"You said you're a savior. Funny thing, saviors only ever appear when something's about to end."
He stiffened.
(Yes. The end. The end of this cursed cycle. The endless resetting, the looping of fate, the false Gods puppeteering everything for their own amusement.)
(I'm not just saving worlds, I'm preserving them. Locking them away before its suffering repeats.)
The old woman sighed.
"If you call yourself a savior, and not a hero… then I think you're already lost."
(Lost? She thinks I'm misguided.)
(This hag has no idea. No knowledge of what I've seen. No comprehension of the God I serve. The God that knows the loops. That sees the strings. And the false Gods that laugh.)
He turned to her, voice low and sharp.
"Let me ask you something. If you knew your world was trapped in an eternal loop, one that resets everything, over and over, only for divine amusement, wouldn't you want it to end? Wouldn't you need to stop it?"
She was quiet. Then finally:
"No. If it ends… then that's it, isn't it?" Her voice shook, just a little.
(Fool.)
(Or… maybe not a fool.)
He looked away.
The bus slowed down to a stop.
"We've arrived at western 5th Avenue," the driver called.
"Oh! This is my stop." She stood, touching Aucteros' shoulder. Something inside him shifted. "Just remember, young man… a savior arrives to stop disaster. Not to cause so early."
She stepped off into the crowd and vanished.
He stared at the seat she'd left behind, then touched his shoulder.
(…She doesn't understand. How could she?)
(She wasn't there when my story bled.)
(She never saw the world reset. A thousand times!)
(She would never understand watching those you love die, over and over. While you were forced to play the script.)
(All for the Gods entertainment. I will save everyone.)
He exhaled. His hand tightened around the Book.
"Idiot, she doesn't know the truth, the lies, and the laughter that God's screeched."
The conductor called out, "Southern Plaza, next stop!"
(Finally,)
(My answer to these useless insane idiots is intelligence.)
(Time to meet him.)
(My new partner.)
(The super villain. Variable.)