Chương 13: 12-A Meeting with Destiny

Ahura rolled across the floor in the shape of a furry tire. He was level 25 after the dungeon debacle two days ago, and his mimic powers had grown considerably. When he first got them, he could do only minor changes that took minutes to manifest and inflicted considerable physical pain. At first, he almost fainted from the effort of changing his hair color. His mind, body, and control over his shapeshifting powers had all advanced considerably as he gained levels.

His self-image now included awareness of every cell in his body—he could make minor changes with as little effort as breathing, and drastic ones with only a little time and work. He had also made a realization the previous day. His power was called Mimic. Not transformer, not shapeshifter, not skinwalker. Mimic. He got the idea that he could probably get the most out of his powers if he used a real model. Tol had been his first subject.

He studied him carefully, imagining he could feel Tol's body just as he felt his own. It did not work. He could not project his magical senses out of his own body. He tried several different approaches to no avail. He had almost given up when he had a luminous idea. He did not try to focus on his own body. He tried to change his own perceptions to match Tol's. His subject was savoring a sandwich, one of the last remaining.

Ahura tried to imagine the stale tuna flavor in his mouth, the uncomfortable metal chair pressing against his back. He changed his visual perceptions to match the scene Tol was watching, from his point of view, and then he gave the order to his body: change, change, and make all I perceive be true. His whole self clicked into place. Darkness took him, and when his sight cleared, he was no longer Ahura; he was Tol. He saw his double staring at him open-mouthed. He reacted, not as Ahura, but as Tol.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" both Tols exclaimed at the same time, lightning jumping into their hands, ready to be used as a weapon. Ahura saw his new body and mind react as if from the back of his own self. He easily took control of his false second mind.

"Sorry, Tol, these powers are new to me," he heard Tol's voice say, coming from his own mouth. Then he forced himself back into his own body. He apologized and left the room.

"Creep," he heard a disgusted Tol mutter as he left. He was too exhilarated to pay attention to him. He had mimicked him perfectly. Ahura knew that by interfering as little as possible with the simulated mind's actions, he could impersonate anyone, with almost no chance of detection. And he had wielded lightning! He could not only copy others' shapes and minds, but their powers, too. He was no fool. Tol had been easy because his own mind was much superior.

A smarter target could have trapped Ahura within his new perceptions, leaving aftereffects of memories and emotions. Plus, he did not believe his mimicked powers would be as strong as the original owner's, but they were still a huge advantage. He spent the night testing his new capabilities. He needed real interaction to copy a new model, but once he had copied it, he could use memory to assume its shape whenever he wanted. As a nice added bonus, copies came with surface memories and skills.

Someone knocked at the door. Dawn, perhaps? He knew she was cross with him, but he secretly hoped they could make it work again. You are too infatuated with that asshole. Dating you is almost like dating him, too, she had told him. That hurt. He did tend to idealize figures of authority. There was probably an explanation for that, buried somewhere in his past, but the present was too exciting to waste time digging for it. He guessed that it was probably the reason he had gotten Mimic as a power.

Arimel had gained prophetic visions instead, which suited him perfectly. The man was a visionary, with or without magic—he had, by far, the finest scientific mind he had ever seen. Oops. There we go again. He approached the door and looked through the peephole. Not Dawn. Bara, another student, and part of Arimel's new clique. There seemed to be a lot of those lately. He smiled impishly as he adopted her shape. Oh, goody, this one had some kind of teleportation power.

He would have to try that later, as soon as he gave Bara the scare of her life. He was a shapeshifter, after all, and they were supposed to be tricksters.

"Yes?" he said dramatically as he opened the door.

"Professor Arimel wants to see you," Bara told him, clearly unimpressed at seeing her doppelganger opening the door for her.

"He warned me you would do that," she added.

"Oh," said a crestfallen Ahura as he returned to his true shape. Then he rolled along the floor in his tire shape. He had copied that form from one of the mobs that roamed the streets.

"Come in," Arimel said, half a second before he knocked on the door. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Typical. Ahura entered the room. Arimel was working alone, wearing his lab clothes. He was furiously scribbling on a large black leather-bound notebook, a rack of test tubes sitting to his right. Ahura was sure he had been working nonstop on this project for the last two days.

"And that's that," Arimel finally said, closing the ledger.

"I've correctly identified more than six hundred different dungeon strains, with their metaphysical properties explained. Gods, there must be millions of different possible combinations."

"Those test tubes contain dungeon spores?" Ahura could not believe what he had heard.

"But how can you hold them? They can slip between dimensions."

"Because I am not holding them. The culture medium I am using is rich in essence. Rich enough to hold the eidocyte inside it, but not to make it grow. The eidocyte remains in the tube because the air surrounding it holds less essence," he explained. There it was again. Genius. How could he not idealize him?

"And you used your prophetic power on each tube to divine which results would be found out in a possible future in which you studied them," Ahura added with admiration.

"Tens of thousands of hours of lab work performed in two days." Thirty seconds ago, he thought nothing could beat his shapeshifting powers. He was not so sure anymore.

"Yes, I have correctly identified each strain and cataloged its properties. A total waste of time," Arimel answered. Ahura waited for a moment, unsure if he was joking. He was dead serious.

"This is the scientific discovery of a lifetime, Professor," he said weakly. Didn't he appreciate its significance?

"It pales beside our other achievement," Arimel answered flatly.

"And what else have we achieved?" Ahura asked.

"We have destroyed everything. Not only this world. All creation." Arimel was not one to soften blows. This was not how it was supposed to feel—five minutes ago, Ahura wanted to explore every possibility his new powers allowed. The world did not seem so gloomy anymore. Arimel had needed only one sentence to call back the darkness.

"But how…" Ahura began weakly. Arimel cut him off.

"How do your powers feel when you use them, Ahura?"

"Like I am pouring my mind into my body, and using it as a mold," Ahura answered.

"Mine feel like I can see not how things are, but how they will be if left on their own. I can't just let my vision wander, I have to focus on something real: an object, a person, a place…"

"That focus acts as a guide to many, many possible futures. No matter what I focus on, all futures, given enough time, end up the same: holes erupting everywhere, with monstrosities pouring out of them. Limbo devouring reality."

"As my powers grew, I could discern better among possible futures. I could filter them out. I tried to ignore all futures in which Limbo won. It was like trying to discern light at the end of a tunnel. But as my stats and my powers grew, so did my vision." Arimel's calm voice sounded almost philosophical.

"I began to see light at the end of the tunnel, a small glimmer of hope, a way to avoid a cosmic catastrophe. Until two days ago."

"Dawn," Ahura concluded. Arimel nodded.

"I can't perceive that light anymore. It has not disappeared, it is still there, but your girlfriend shines so brightly she blinds my vision."

"But why? Is she doing it on purpose?" Ahura asked.

"No. She is not. My visions are not prophecies. They are merely an advanced form of magical probability calculation. She is too smart, much smarter than me now, and, as such, she becomes an unknown factor in all my estimations. She can't be predicted. Anything she interferes with becomes unpredictable."

"We are doomed, then," Ahura answered gloomily, as he sat down.

"Not necessarily. Not anymore," Arimel countered, his voice firm with renewed energy.

"These past two days, I have been using my powers nonstop. I have gained four levels and a new perspective because of this. Another light, nearer and easier to perceive. Not that of the solution, but that of one who can help us find it. Someone not yet with us, but willing to help," he turned towards Ahura.

"I can't reach him alone—I need your help."

"Anything," Ahura answered firmly.

"Not much is asked for. Your stats are also quite high. We can now link our minds solely through physical contact, and then use your own intellect to help me push in the right direction. I think we can find our ally that way. Someone to instruct us in what we must do to save the Universe." Arimel extended both his hands towards Ahura, who held them, as he tried to focus on touching the Professor's mind. He did not have to exert himself much.

Arimel's mind, much stronger than his own, came knocking on the doors of his intellect. He let it in, and suddenly he saw the world as Arimel did. He felt as if a blindfold had been taken from his eyes. Everything was different. All he could see was pulsing with probability. The chair in front of him could burn in three days, but it could also be broken into splinters when one of the enhanced students used it as a weapon against an invading Essential.

There were many, many futures in which the chair just stood still until it was swallowed by a magical hole that manifested on the floor. He felt panic take hold of him. Whatever he looked at changed into infinite forms, which ultimately coalesced into the same fate: being swallowed by Limbo. He looked at Arimel, and he understood what he had said earlier about Dawn: there were thousands of Arimels, all of them combining to create new possibilities.

Focusing on one of them would cause it to break into many more, adding to the chaos. Then he felt the Professor's voice inside his mind.

"Calm yourself, Ahura, and look. Look there." And he knew where to look. Not a person. Not a place. A fleeting jumble of possibilities, fluttering against the winds of fate.

"Help me, help me see," Arimel's voice went on, and Ahura added his own considerable intellect to his, willing the vision to manifest. Suddenly, something tore, and they were no longer in reality. A blank void surrounded them. Only Ahura and Arimel existed in that space, but another presence was there too. Someone who could not be seen, but whose thoughts manifested inside their minds.

"You finally made it," a familiar voice said. Ahura was sure he had heard it before, but he could not place where.

"Nice to meet you at last, Ahura. I feel like I know you."

"Who are you?" Ahura asked. The Professor was on his knees. He had made most of the effort and could hardly talk.

"Today, I am only a conjecture. A possibility. The caretaker of the system you created to protect reality from Limbo. If you play your cards well, you will make that system real," the voice answered. There was still hope. This stranger promised a way out of the dreadful mess they had gotten all humanity into. Ahura knew then that he would pay any sacrifice this being demanded to mend the harm he had helped cause with his actions.

"What must we do?" There was no time to waste—he did not know how long the channel would last.

"The Compendium is only half-active. The first cycle must be finished to fully trigger it. Only then can it protect us from Limbo. One person from your reality must hit level 100 and become the first Omega—and yes, your world will die. There is no possible future in which that does not come to pass." Ahura's eyes filled with tears. He would be responsible for genocide. He would slay his world, even if he saved the cosmos. No matter how the story ended, the role of villain was theirs.

"Play the part you have to play. Make me real. If you do so, everything else will live. You will sacrifice one world to save billions," the being said as if reading his mind.

"How much more time do we have to achieve that?" Arimel asked, finally regaining his bearing.

"72 hours," the presence answered in a totally different voice. Arimel's own.

"Afterward, Limbo comes." Then Ahura realized why the first voice sounded so familiar. It was his own, not as he thought it sounded, but as it really appeared on recordings.

"Who are you?" Arimel asked.

"How should we address you?"

"Call me Necessity."