[b]The Cradle of Life - Interior[/b]

Karzar remained utterly statuesque, light from the data screen reflecting off his cold, aquatic eyes. Beside him, Snil shivered with chilling intensity and nervousness, tendrils twitching spasmodically. The monitor the two had been viewing flashed red with a warning symbol, indicating that their message to CIPHER wasn't only failing to get through, but that the webs being used to transmit its signals were being attacked with heavy bursts of electromagnetism. Furthermore something had surrounded the Cradle of Life, and Karzar could only assume that their presence had finally been detected.

Snil nearly leaped out of his seat, only for Karzar to immediately step forward, and place a hand on his shoulder, holding him in place. 
"Calm yourself, Doctor." Karzar said with a tight grip, the corners of his mouth stretching and revealing his rear incisors, nostrils quietly taking in air, resulting in a subtle but gradual rise of his chest. "Let [i]them[/i] handle this."

Karzar had longed for a Cizran of high rank and intelligence to bare witness to the glorious reunification of his long-fractured race, but it was simply not to be. Yet here and now, they faced an obvious deception. Why was it obvious? How did the General and the good Doctor know that what stood before them was fake? Simple. Snil knew Kilamaran biology inside and out, having genetically modified Aredemos’ body to make full use of his elemental affinity of fire, rock, and ice. The very same affinity which was exactly what enabled him to freeze and shatter the firestones of his fellow Kilamarans upon returning to his homeworld. A capacity for modifying his form to mimic the qualities of a caustic substance was utterly beyond him, and thus, so too did Karzar, who held his shoulder firmly in his grip, [i]realize[/i] this as well...

Karzar reacted swiftly, stepping into the substance in only half a second, given that it had appeared mere meters from his face, grabbed his tooth-laden cape and threw it around himself and the Doctor. As the acidic explosion impacted his cape, the whole of his physical form underwent a transmutation. Every bone, every muscle and organ, every scale, every eye, every cell of gray matter in his skull became integrated into the substance pulling [b]all of it[/b] and all that it spread into him, and integrated unto his very own self. Karzar became one with the matter before him, becoming the very substance exploding at he and Snil, compressing and suppressing the wave within himself, as such that it merely caused his body to vibrate.

Karzar was not without his own set of Aptositic powers. He had the unique ability to become one with all physical things that made contact with his body, to the extent of mimicking their properties as the fully resonant, genuine article. It was why in his former life that he had made for such an efficient ocean predator, becoming one--not with the tide--but to become [b]as[/b] the tide itself. Such a gift did not merely lend itself to offensive or defensive measures, however; this gift had allowed him to know the full thoughts, feelings, longings, hopes, desires, fears, and dreams of all the Aptosites who he had led under his command, acquiring all through a simple empathy-inducing touch, and was the very reason that he need not so much as make a conscious effort. 

“They wish to resist becoming one with each other,” Karzar said with true sadness in his tone and posture, turning to face Snil as he let his cape, spawning a few more teeth, fall back to the floor. 

“Perhaps it is why they have conquered so much of the local inner and outer-galactic regions of this cosmic sector,” the Doctor replied without rhetoric in his voice, “gathering and acquiring many things in the hopes of filling a hollow void, just as they fill their appearances with many differing aesthetics, all on a banal quest for self-realization.”

“Oh, they will most certainly...” Karzar’s form shifted back, the dark glint of his eyes returning, “[i]realize.[/i]”

[b]The Cradle of Life - Exterior[/b]

The dark world of Obathera, whose residents had earlier attacked the lambent suns for nourishment began to unify their minds. For in feeding off that which the Cradle of Life gave them, so too did their awareness of of the internal and external expand astronomically. The hollow openings of the tall, cyclopean skyscrapers dotting Obathera became filled with uncountable yellow eyes, marked with multiple pupils resembling ink splashes, each one staring out into space with an unnerving, unerring, and uncanny sense of perception. This had not been the first time that the denizens of Obathera had cause to defend themselves, nor would it be the last, however rare the need rose into vision, a vision that grew to both figuratively and literally dot itself all over the Cradle of of Life. The eyes were the size of whole moons unto themselves, projecting as an encapsulating image of psionic energy over the Cradle of Life, swiftly and with a synchronicity that defied Cizran expectations of what was thought to be the limitations of the Aptosites. All they had known was that there was a spy in their midsts, that an organization had been watching them for a very long time, and that the Aptosites had begun to enact the full extent of their plans; plans acted for, not against the Cizrans, despite the apparent force they were willing to use to achieve them.
They had [i]not[/i] seen what the Obatherans were capable of doing for a time that literally predated the emergence of [b]this[/b] particular universe, nor had the Cizrans ever--through their numerous acts of counter-intelligence--witnessed the Obatherans watching them as they watched them now. 

Inside the Cradle of Life, through the skein of space, through the twine holding every threaded cloth of fabric together, specifically the fabric on which an impression was formed by Ezkshi, her battleship, and her entire crew…[b]this[/b] fabric became soaked, drenched, and submerged in pure white water, pouring forth and drowning the gaps between foam bubbles, and preventing any sort of stealth-based assault. The Obatherans did not try to intercept communication signals, nor did they attempt to hack or break into them. Using their eyes they observed every shift, fold, and imprint that was made, and this was how the creatures of the Dark World saw them. The water that flooded the crew was not unlike the primordial pool that the Cradle of Life surfaced from at the dawn of its existence. It was a place of beginning, of birth, a place existing so far back in time that the only records of its existence lay dormant within the creature’s ancient neurons. 

In this primordial ocean, there was no ‘space’, or ‘time’. This place had no rules, no laws, no defining features or attributes to shape it save for the endless mass of [b]unformed[/b] reality, and it was that very unformed, lawless substance that the decomposing beams fired into with no effect or interaction of any kind. No ghosts, no spirits, no astral phantoms, no obscure reflections of the selves occupying Ezkshi’s vessel, nor even the vessel itself. Neither a heaven, nor a hell, and definitely far from limbo; concepts like those didn’t exist yet, nor were there beings to create them, let alone imagine. The crew who thought that they could remain hidden found themselves glimpsing into the unravelling irises, dispersing scleras, and expanding capillaries into the unmolded after, the nondescript before, and inarticulable now.

In this existence, in this spaceless, timeless expanse, one could do naught but wait. 

The lambent suns surrounding the pink astral sphere, known to the Aptosites as Astraelis, retracted the bands of energy holding the anomaly in place, the walls of the crater that contained it closing in and gripping it with its very own flesh. A brief glimmer of magenta sparked over Astraelis, and as fast its mind could think, an enormous amount of energy was transferred to the nearest web in space. Travel across the astral plane was limited only by imagination and comprehension, and thus, in accordance with the Creature’s capacity for fathoming the act, the transference of psionic essence happened instantaneously. A wave of light illuminated the Cradle’s veins, a moment which circumvented the constraints of temporality had passed, resulting in every, single web that was being attacked surging with the power of Astraelis. Crystallization took place along the silk composing the webbing, bolts of electro-psionic ether radiated off the expanding webs as a psionically charged shield, repulsing the gamma pulses and radio-waves back. Its defenses complete, the Cradle of Life remained in its supportive state, holding the astral gates open, wherein the signal was promptly given to CIPHER. The Aptosite spy would feel much more invigorated, given that the signal now carried Astraelis’ psionic fuel with it. 

Meanwhile, the eyes dotting the Cradle of Life expanded to such great volumes that the darkness of their pupils spilled into each other, covering the creature in complete blackness. Starlight became bent and distorted, rendering the cold emptiness of space as the only sight. In the moments leading up to the Grid launching its beams, it no longer witnessed the colossus carrying the five worlds. Deep within the blackness of those pupils, the Grid did not see an enemy, it did not witness the eldritch being that had attempted to kidnap Nenegin zar-Talil, nor did it see the ethereal luminosity of Astraelis, the lava flows of Deimobos, or the sleeping desert of Kilamara. It did not gaze upon the looming obsidian towers of Obathera from which the eyes truly peered out of, and lastly it did not see the unending hurricane which swept across Gaiyana, that was rapidly becoming enveloped by a rising emerald plume.

Within the Absence the sight of the Grid became known, but not through sight. The eyes, whose parasitic host was space and time itself, [b]felt[/b] the location being impressed upon its fabric. It reconfigured the sensation into a concrete image, and [b]then[/b] saw many tiny machines aiming at it. In that instance of perception, sight reached out into a parallel existence, overlapped them together at opposing angles, and the World Beyond Time equipped itself with a mocking sword and shield.
What better sword and shield than the very same that took aim to destroy it? 

The Grid saw itself. It was aiming at itself. Not a reflection of itself, not a phantom, not a flaw, nor an error in its programming. Obathera did not redirect the dicing beams, it did not use mundane magic to reflect the beams back. From the absence that existed outside of space and time, the Obatherans accessed a timeline of another universe in which the Grid was firing at the Cradle of Life, superimposed the event to the location that it had once occupied, and let the Grid’s beams take care of the remainder of the work.
Now the only sight was a graveyard of mirrorous suicide.

[b]The Haloportal[/b]

The thing that watched Kirri was very much real, very much alive, and very[i]very[/i] hungry. Undetected as it were, the dimensional parasite that observed Kirri with plain objectivity did so through his firestone, a thing that held a connection to a realm bound to, but ultimately outside the physical plane. It watched him panic, scream, and spaz in response to its horrifying visage and the effect it had on what was an entirely [i]spiritual[/i] interaction. It did not need to breach the haloportal directly to gain access to Kirri’s mind, though it could have easily crawled right through the black hole had it so desired. 

It did none of this, for the interaction transcended the physical plane in its entirety.

The “prophecy” Kirri experienced was entirely astral in nature, the connection formed via his firestone which, on the astral plane, emitted a constant energetic signature. One that did not need a code, password, key, or a hacking tool to breach, no matter how secure it may have seemed to the Cizrans. On the astral plane, the only requirement to do [b]anything[/b] was will and imagination, and the will that belonged to this abomination was something so utterly outside of dimensional laws that these beings resided on, that it transcended the physical plane, neither circumventing, nor bypassing, but simply eluding the obstacle altogether. If it needed to, if it [i]wanted[/i] to, the being could have punctured the singularity and pried open the black hole like the ribcage of a rotting cadaver through use of the strong electromagnetic force, slip, slide, and glide along the folds of space that the Cizrans believed Kirri’s mind was projecting itself against, and slip right in. None of these were necessary, especially at a location where the very laws of physics broke down.

For now it merely continued to watch and observe. Watch as the crimson spiritual tendrils of Aredemos lashed onto and wrapped themselves around Kirri, gaining as strong a hold upon his loyal follower as his hold was upon the physical world, preventing himself from being trapped within a haloportal as well. He had not been prepared for the sudden transportation from Kilamara to the foreign world, a world which he most assuredly, most certainly, and most absolutely knew was NOT Kilamara, for he would have at least [i]felt[/i] the slightest tingle of the konul futily trying to drain his spirit as it had done to the rest of the Kilamarans. The poorly put together farce of a sanctuary would have been utterly [b]smashed[/b] by the tribal elders upon its discovery, for in their eyes Aredemos was the ultimate heretic and blasphemer to their ways, and the dwellers in the desert would have likewise done the same, for they knew who Aredemos was, and more than that, they knew that what he wanted and desired most was not worship, but complete and absolute freedom for his race and all other races that lay beyond their world.

It was clear now, just as it had been clear when he took flight from the farcical planet, that the Cizrans had done either a [i]remarkably[/i] incompetent job at studying Kilamaran culture, or managed to misconstrue the coordinates of his transportation to another world entirely, in-turn sending him to the [b]wrong[/b] place, and getting one of their [b][i]own[/i][/b] territories blown to smithereens. 

Or perhaps they had gotten their information from a drunkard named Garri, a Redeemed One who had lost his way, and in his stupor, jumbled the words Initara and Kilamara, whilst presenting the information to Nenegin.

Suffice to say that Kilamara remained safely, securely, and in-tactly aboard the Cradle of Life, swallowed as it was alongside its moon Deimobos. This fact negating any need for gravitonic restabilization by Commandant Zuril Nu-bashira, and resulting in the taloned Cizran never receiving the distressing feedback from his sensor arrays.

In a matter of moments, Kirri’s soul was yanked out through his firestone where it was dragged across the astral plane at light speed by Aredemos who, in his spiritually empowered state, kept his body firmly rooted in the physical plane. Though he was fully resisting and overcoming the monumental drag of a force that he did not know the full rules and governance of, Aredemos, however, knew enough after being transported to that mockery of a homeworld, that he would have to steel his spirit. A thing which he achieved through the escalation of power, before taking off from the false planet. It was with this hardened resolve that he evaded the trap, blinking across time and space at a rate of speed that rapidly brought Cradle of Life (which was currently undergoing a process of reformation as the eyes of Obathera retracted in size, draining away into the dark skyscrapers littering the planet) into his zone of awareness, triggered by the dormant spiritual signatures of those asleep on Kilamara.

Slowing his velocity so as to avoid annihilating a world that actually did belong to him, Aredemos tucked his limbs together, and braced himself for impact as he breached the atmosphere of Deimobos. For Kirri, this whole sequence of events was akin to being towed across a realm of fractal light that reflected everything that dwelt upon the physical plane. He saw a stream of swirling energetic solarity, brought to blackness by gravity, witnessed even more starlight streak passed his face, the scintillating crystal webs belonging to the Aptosite CIPHER, and the closing twilight orbs of the Obatherans. In an instant of extreme transmutation, the starlight shifted to burning, rocky red due to the emanant energy of a new firestone -- one of many found scattered on as well as below Deimobos’ surface. Through this stone, his soul found a new mass through which to rebuild itself, utilizing the many different varieties of superhot rocks and metals contained within the moon.

A core of magma molded itself like molten clay into the shape of a thorax, and from that thorax six exoskeletal legs made of hardened lava solidified into sharp, piercing points to hold the body upright. Upon that hot foundation, a secondary torso blossomed and bubbled up, forming the lines and contours of red muscle, abdomen, biceps, triceps, deltoids, trapezius and all. Finally, a tall, crown-shaped head stretched up from the neck, pulling and stretching itself into the desired shape with spectral hands, recurving spikes protruding along the sides. Next to form were his eyes- darkly reflective orbs of mahogany. Six in all ran down his face, ceasing above the mouth that retracted open, revealing his searing teeth.

Reformed and Redeemed again, Kirri peered out as his surroundings with confusion in his eyes. He knew he was on Deimobos, yet felt as though the very ground he stood on was being cradled by something far more massive. With that sudden reckoning, he became aware that what he saw beyond the horizon of the moon was not space. It was black flesh of the Cradle of Life holding Deimobos, the faint green glow of the lambent suns drifting in the creature’s membrane slowly orbiting it, and the sleeping Kilamara.

Though he was surely scared, he was also filled with wondrous awe, and a sobering sense of respite from the otherworldly thing he had bore witness to in his dreams. For now, his eyes shifted, and he saw Aredemos standing in a crater crater, frozen solid via his muta-cryogenic control over temperature. For the time being, Aredemos would stand guard here. He knew not if the Cizrans would come for them again, or if Nenegin were to seek revenge for his “insubordination” as he would have surely, and audaciously deemed the Redeemed One’s actions to be, but for now they were safe, and that is what mattered most to him.

Kirri approached Aredemos and asked him what the next step on their path was, still unable to fully process the events that had unfolded around them, but trusted that the original Redeemed One would have the answers he sought.

“We face a new beginning.”

[b]Cizra Su-lahn[/b]

I…[i]saw[/i] darkness envelope the cocoon I had created, a cocoon that flowed with psionic energy from Astraelis itself, a cocoon that became crystallized with raw psionic power, reinforcing the luminous tower of unyielding psycho-magnetism. For a moment I felt as though something was… off? Did a glitch occur? Did I not study this race thoroughly enough? Perhaps I needed more data, perhaps I needed to gather more, yet nothing in my research nor my interactions with the citizens of this world contradicted the data I had received. Something was afoul, something was amiss, but fortunately for me, the thing trying to trace its way to my wrong brain had failed to account for one simple and basic grain of tactical truth.

It had neglected to halt the acceleration of time, and though it lacked a physical form, the infusion of Astraelis’ psionic essence into the cocoon, meant the decay would become all too spiritual as well. In attempting to fester within my crystallized creation, its power diminished considerably, the tarry darkness thinning out along the strands, then drying into a billowing cloud of ectoplasmic dust. Now its words came out as a slurred, half enunciation of mockery, malignantly spreading in the thalamus of the being that I am not, triggering a biological defense mechanism.

It…[i]felt[/i] confirmation. It came in the form of a spasm, a foul, evil vibration pinging its way across [b]a[/b] brain; the inferior brain, the [b]slave[/b] brain which was my sub, secondary, utilitarian brain. This brain sat in a secondary chamber behind my primary master brain. It was the brain that had thought itself a member of the Cizran race, the brain I, CIPHER had given the order to hypnotize itself into [i]believing[/i] that it was Cizran, thus creating Zeptir who now writhed in agony. It had gone on and on and on, locked in the madhouse of divided souls for so long that by the time I received the go-ahead command from Snil and Karzar, the prisoner had begun to mistake itself for the warden. It was a distinction these Cizrans failed to take notice of, and in that aspect, it appeared we had both taken the other for fools.

But my foolery ends now.

Break the facade. Let it go. Time to rest, and let MYSELF take over. 

I am… (said) the Master.

I am NOT! said the slave, subject to the will of its superior.

I AM… CIZ-E-PTH-IER… said the seeming dissociative fool, who did battle with its art-ICU(too)-late-ly crafted self, a self which disconnected itself from myself upon realizing its imminent demise.

I am (not) dying.

I

AM

MYSELF

AND

ONLY

MYSELF!

[i]Your[/i] life ends [b]NOW[/b].

I…[i]screamed[/i]. The back of my neck split open, and a swarm of auto-cannibalistic bacteria came spilling from the wound, ravenously devouring that which was so readily expendable, just as all slaves are expendable upon the expiration of their use. With the help of Astraelis, I let out a loud and terrible screech, and spun a new web with which to strengthen my defenses. Through that aid I began to feel weightier, denser, and sturdier. I felt black crystal conforming to the contours of my exoskeleton, sprouting along the suction cups of my topside tentacles like newborn teeth, and bursting through the joints of my hoppers, and the hundreds of legs lining the sides of my torso.

I... got [i]rid[/i] of the liar, ejected the corrupt mass of once dire flesh into a blazing fire caused by the Kukull during its earlier stampede. The golem was now on its spaded hands and stumps, crawling toward its destination due to the loss of its lower legs, a result of its blind charge throughout the city. It had tripped over something once thin and easily cut, but now bore a physical resiliency on par with that of a neutron core, and possessed an ethereal edge matched only by a reaper’s scythe. Its severed limbs melted into energized particulates, and were drawn into the cocoon along with the many Cizran souls, and were its crawl not as quick as its charge, then so too would the rest of it - body and soul - be joined in glorious mergence.

I…[i]feel[/i] no pain.

I [i]feel[/i] free…

“You… [i]attacked[/i] the [b]wrong[/b] me,” I said with a voice that was filled with neutral depth, nearly robotic.

I…[i]watched[/i] my slave brain, now dead and useless burn away into nothingness as the armor closed around my face, twin crystal tusks protruding from my chin, and with my master brain, thought to myself that I am free to be me again.

[b]The Cradle of Life - Inside[/b]

Snil and Karzar observed the data flowing out of the eyeball in the ceiling with much delight and approval, thoroughly satisfied with the progress that CIPHER was making. The Cizrans had done all they could to deceive the spy with cheap imitations of their biology, in a banal battle to resist that which was natural. In failing to prevent the acceleration of time within CIPHER’s cocoon, it no longer mattered that the parts given to the Aptosite were fake, for every other trapped Cizran soul was very much real, very much genuine, and very much authentic, all the way down to their empathic organs where the goldmine of information truly lay. 

The data was disseminated, deciphered, and processed through Gaiyana, comprehended and understood by Astraelis, and Obathera allotted them with all the time it would take to do so, enshrouded within the Absence as it were.

Unity can only be kept at bay for so long until the truth comes crawling forth as a pindoll, ripping out its sharp rods of restraint, and skewers the sewn residence of existential subsistence, before in-turn weaving for itself a newer, [b]better[/b] form. One of solidarity, and collective cohesion, the likes of which can only be found flowing in the veins of a misleading idol. The crystal webs transmitted all the data back to the Cradle of Life. Death had indeed been fashioned; death was a requirement, a mandatory destination, but not the final destination.

Outside the Cradle of Life, the lambent suns orbiting Astraelis sunk even deeper into the Cradle’s flesh, as did the ones orbiting Gaiyana and Obathera, the world of everlasting life, freeing them to access higher degrees of potential. This lead to the crystal webs sudden and intense expansion, growing from what was once a construct merely a few feet in diameter to something the size of a planetary core. In perfect synchronicity, each and every one of them launched connecting beams of magenta across millions of light-years in a matter of seconds, bonding to each other as an incomprehensibly voluminous net of psionically charged crystal.

“Prime the gene wedge.” Commanded Karzar to the Cradle, who sensed his intentions by touch alone. This sense of touch extended to Gaiyana, Astraelis, and Obathera as well: incarnate body, mind, and soul of the Cradle of Life.

Broadcasting its beacon of unity, all the crystal webs that CIPHER had scattered throughout the Cizran galaxy began to synchronize in 
psionic harmony. In doing so, the awareness of the reemerging Cradle of Life from the Absence became amplified exponentially, and with that augmented awareness, the abhorrent beast feasting on the star of Q’ab was made known to it. This revelation spilled forth from the eyeball’s tear ducts as blight rain that caused a small area of rough tissue surface Snil and Karzar were standing on to turn gangrenous and rot away, only to suddenly regenerate in a weird cycle of life and death. The process lasted for ten seconds before the Cradle’s immune system kicked in and brought an end to the damage before it could spread any farther.

Within that revelatory interval, the gene wedge finished priming itself. The rising emerald plume within Gaiyana’s atmosphere reached a storm pitch as a substantial portion of the world’s lifeforms were telekinetically drawn upwards via Astraelis’ psychic assistance. Scale and skin crumbled to dust under the influence of Obathera, whose eyes marked the amphibian, aquatic, and reptilian flesh, dissolving them into an energized stream of raw organic material. The lambent restraints on Obathera lifted, and now all three worlds hovered just over their respective cradles, a sight which shook Kirri to the core as he saw them rise above Deimobos’ burning horizon.

Truly, he was witnessing something grand.

From Astraelis’ northern pole, a continuously firing beam of magenta shot vertically into space. Branching into a trillion bolts of electrically charged psionic energy, it made contact with the crystal net surrounding the Cizran galaxy and imbued it with an enriched psychic glow to rival its billions of stars. Pressure mounted within Gaiyana’s atmosphere as the storm that raged within exploded out from its gaseous containment. 

The Spirit of Gaiyana rocketed upwards and snaked its way around the magenta pillar where it joined the net to be processed and refined a thousand times over, immediately after to be then modified by the gene wedge that was manufactured by the Cradle of Life itself. The form that the wedge displayed itself to be as little more than a sickly brown cloud evaporating from the Cradle’s skin, to be absorbed into the net.

All across Obathera, its towers luminized with yellow light, striking at the lambent suns for more power, power that was pulled into the base of the tallest tower and projected up as a bolt, stained with distorted black pupils of sight beyond time. Where Gaiyana was life and death, and Astraelis was the mind incarnate, Obathera was that which persisted throughout all ages, throughout all lives, throughout all times, existences, and incarnations. Lesser creatures referred to Obathera as the Metropolis of Chaos, for that which reached outside of existence had next to no comprehensive value for ordinary beings. 

Obathera was the soul. A timeless, immortal, thing. Because of this, it was able to reach into the distant past- back to a time where the Cizran hivemind was still whole. With the help of the mind’s eye belonging to Astraelis and Gaiyana’s hold over life and death, it plucked a single, unsuspecting member of the race from their perch, and flung them into the pillar.

The five energies: the magenta light of Astraelis, the emerald storm of Gaiyana, the yellow lightning of Obathera, the brown of the gene wedge, and the white Soul of Cizran all resonated within the net, achieved harmony, and spiraled back down into the Cradle of Life, whose jaws parted, taking aim at the nearest branch of netting to Cizra Su-Lahn and…

[i]”FIRE!"[/i]

[b]Cizra Su-lahn[/b]

I…[i]looked[/i] to the sky, and saw the fruits of my labor flash before me an instant. I, like all the other Cizrans peering out at what seemed to be a great unfolding chaos- would have been blinded the flash, eyes burnt from their sockets if not for the optical protection afforded by my crystal armor as the energies surged into the cocoon. This triggered a massive and sudden expansion of the cocoon’s core, forcing the outer shell to grow not only in height, but in width to accommodate the rapid increase in size.
Wisely, I made the decision to fall back.

I…[i]knew[/i] however, as I fled, that for every building the crystal expansion sliced through, a Cizran body was bisected along with it. For every toppled structure, a Cizran was [b]crushed[/b] under its weight, and for every home that collapsed around, rather than atop a fortunate family, that they were [i]trapped]/i]. That misfortune, as [i]they[/i] in their stubborn complacency sought to deem it, would be met with a fate far more delightful than their agonizing deaths would lead them to believe.
[i]All of you[/i] are the same to me, and that is what [i]all of you[/i] [b]will[/b] [i]be![/i]

I…[i]fled[/i] farther and farther away, all the way to the outskirts of the capital, where I knew I was safe. I took one final leap, and with that leap, the tentacles upon my back stretched to twice the length of my forty foot body, my silk spinners crafting a web that bound them together to create a strong, silky membrane through which to keep myself afloat. It was from this point of ascension that I somersaulted mid-flight, throwing my rear forward and rolling over to a right side up position to watch the great mergence unfold.

Soon… I will be able to leave this world, but for now, I…

[i]watched[/i]. 

Watched as Gaiyana gave life back to the Cizran souls. Souls that were cleansed of misguided attempts at aesthetic perfection with which to replace their once beautiful bodies, modified to true perfection via the gene wedge that deCIPHERED their genetic code, and inserted ingredients for a newer, fresher, an ironically younger kind of beauty. 

I [i]watched[/i] as Astraelis gave them back their minds, once void of sanity. 

I [i]watched[/i] as Obathera gave them back their past, that eluded them to the point of them willing it begone.
 
I… 

WATCHED AS 

[i]MYSELF[/i] 

[i]AND [b][i]NOT[/i] ZEPTIR ZUKRINCHEN[/b]  …[/i]

… as the Soul of Cizran gave them back their unity.

I…[i]witnessed[/i] the last of the Cizran souls, their bodies sliced, crushed, and smashed to pulp by the destruction getting sucked into the cocoon, destined to undergo the very same process as many before them had. The final amalgamations of body, mind, and soul took place, the temporal storm of magenta, emerald, brown, yellow, and white decelerated to a slow cauldron churn, that liquefied into a ruddy solution, that re-accelerated in the center, creating a central vortex.

I… then [i]gazed[/i] through the shell, whose reflective magenta light faded to cobalt transparency, providing a contrast of color that gave shape to the thing that was starting to awaken. Through the veil, I saw a bundle of tails, twined together like an elegant flower whose petals were likened to a cluster of horns poking the top of the shell. Quickly, they unwravelled, revealing five saurian skulls with slender, serpentine features swishing, swinging, slamming into, piercing, and cracking the shell. I counted seven tries before large gaps formed at the peak, leaking cascades of ruddy birth fluid. At the mid-section of the shell, I saw gray, shimmering impressions of stretched torsos pressed against the interior, corroding the inner-walls with an insatiable hunger that led to a ring-shaped splinter destroying all but the front, producing an extremely crude clam hinge from which the cascades became a great flood. Unable to support such tremendous weight, the hinge collapsed, leading to the structure biting down into its own jagged teeth, bringing the whole thing crumbling down in a delugian avalanche. 

I waited nearly a minute, and finally...

I… [i]could see[/i] what had been born, tracing my mantis eyes down the length of the five-headed hydra, whose necks connected a torso made of pure gray ectoplasm, from where an uncountable number of smaller torsos spawned along its sides, pushing the grayish-indigo behemoth forward like a slug with occasional leaps. This colossal tail ultimately led to the main body, where four legs of equine origin held the creature upright, supporting its main torso. The torso itself featured a unique decoration of jutting rib bones that curved inwards like hooks. Between those protruding bones I saw jagged spikes attached to cords of muscle, whereupon after mere seconds of observation, I watched them launch and extend like spears, skewering any Cizrans lucky enough to dwell on the outskirts of the capital.

I…[i]had[/i] no emotional reaction to this, as it reeled Cizrans indiscriminately to the spot just below its ribcage, dropped into swirling portal to a place unknown, yet inextricably bound to its mind, body, and soul. The creature flung its head back, pupils more akin to a triangle of cone-shaped spikes protruding from the corners of its forehead and center brow, letting out a bestial roar comprised of many differing layers of vocal spectrums, in part due to the headed tails stretching up into the sky, and roaring along with it.

It was at this point, that I finally saw its arms sprout from its shoulders, outstretched in praise of its own existence…pulling the crystal fragments what was essentially its egg shards into the portal where they were reprocessed, and layered along the base of its tail, forming a mineral casing over what was - in reality - a massive empathic organ.

In knowing what I am, in knowing that I am not a relative of this insane monster, I felt safe in projecting a single question with my mind out to the creature.

[i]Who

Are

You?[/i]

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"[color=8493ca]La'Nibi Napistum[/color]."