25.9

*ACT YoE 4,181/LT September 29, 2000*

Earth Bet → Local Spatial Reality

Northern Arctic Ice Pack

Eve watched as the tiny shrub that Kudzu presented to the world phased into existence. There was a short pause as her ally examined the surroundings before stating, “No birds present, I like this land. Clean air. What’s the plan?”

Kudzu was refreshing that way. Plants didn’t care if they were moved. Didn’t care if all their projects were put on hold for a decade. The Green Alchemist was precisely that, a plant, and therefore pretty much unflappable. “The Summon to this world was pretty impressive—a vindictive self-sacrifice with modified bonuses once the World understood what was going on.”

“Low-mana, low-worth, except your investing in creating a foothold?” Kudzu’s shrubbery twitched in mild confusion. Eve nodded, at first, she too had been confused about what exactly could be gained from this world. The golem cores were useful, but it was clear that they required a massive amount of time to produce. If they hadn’t, she’d have been drowned in golems the moment the first one fell. Without mana, much of the world was a barren wasteland, and the few bits that weren’t altogether produced less mana in a year than a second of her Core being in operation. So, what value did such a place have that could make her stay?

“You're anchored in the Aether, the place between, can you see it?” Eve answered the question with her own.

There was a pause before Kudzu said, “That is a mighty large crystal earthworm. Very eldritch, very old. Should I render it into components?” Eve waited as the shrub twitched, like a serpent’s tongue tasting the air. “Ah, now that makes perfect sense. I see why you haven’t left yet. Are they open to negotiation?”

“Let’s find out,” Eve said as she turned to the golden man who phased into existence next to both of them. The thing about being known as “Scion” to the masses was that he wasn’t a man at all. Instead, he was a manifestation. Much like the Seven she defeated in the past, the golden man was simply a piece of a much bigger existence. The projected eldritch simile of a finger poking through a sheet of paper. This method was used because it allowed circumvention of a majority of restrictive rules, both those of the Crystal Wall and the World itself. Such dodgery wasn’t without penalties, though. Unlike Eve, who had been summoned, there was minimal leeway for Scion to act.

Especially now that Eve was here.

It was much like a Cold War standoff, with the minor differentiation that Eve held all the nukes. The golden beams that terrified the world’s parahumans were no more dangerous to her than spotlights. It was because the enormous number of tricks the creature used between spaces were all based on a singular concept.

Doors.

Eve was rather impressed when she started looking into it. At first glance, parahumans all appeared to have different powers. A closer check, though, proved something far different. Parahumans exhibited different power expressions, but their base was all from the same source.

The use of a Door.

A man who constantly explodes? A Door to the Sun.

A man who has a zone of moondust creation? A Door to Dream.

Flight? Constantly moving Door.

Biological manipulation? Door to Small Things.

Mental Manipulation? Door to Electro-Chemical responses.

Every. Single. Power. All of them were linked to the use of Doors and Doorways. Which, in turn, was very understandable to Eve, as the Rune of Space revealed the truth. The entire affair was remarkably similar to a scene from the classic movie The Wizard of Oz. Parahuman powers were hidden behind the curtain of confusion. The secret shield was maintained because those who would experiment and discover the secret were killed by the very powers they sought to gain.

It was no coincidence that the majority of interdimensional mechanics, also known as Tinkers, died. The earthworm, hiding in the space between, most certainly did not want nano-machines, teleporters, universal diagnostics, or an understanding of the fundamentals of spatial shifting. Such things would both reveal its existence and threaten its life. How amazing, then, that the so-called Tinkers involved in such things died, in a very messy manner with quite a bit of collateral damage.

Scion did not speak. He floated in the air, a foot above the ice, golden and silent, the illusion of a man but lacking the texture of one. Skin like light, eyes like holes through which brighter things peered, observed them both. Kudzu’s shrub dipped slightly, its leaves shuddering in a pattern that meant both “annoying” and “amused,” depending on context.

Eve, being Eve, interpreted the motions as both.

“You’re not used to being seen,” she said to the hovering observer. Not to him, exactly—this was no conversation. The projection didn’t warrant one. No, it was more like addressing a cut-out, a middleman with minimal emotion.

She took a step forward, planting a foot in the snow. The Arctic air was thin, and if she were still mortal, it would have stung her lungs with every breath; now, though, she didn’t need to breathe. It was just a habit. Another relic of mimicry, and perhaps a little respect for the World’s rules.

“It’s not just doors,” Eve continued. “It’s ownership. That’s what you’ve hidden behind.”

The golden man did not respond. Didn’t flicker, didn’t move.

“Every such power has a key,” she said. “And every key fits a lock. The trick is—who holds the key? The thing between places, the Earthworm, I will call it, wants to pretend it is the grand administrator. That these doors, these expressions of potential, are its gift to hand out.”

Scion twitched. The first motion. A flick of the head—imperceptible to the untrained eye, but Eve was no child to subtlety. Her senses were not mortal and limited. It was enough.

She smiled, her eyes cold with no warmth. “I have the Rune of Space. I don’t need a door. I draw the boundaries of the room. If I am forced, those boundaries will not include you.”

Kudzu rustled, his shrub thickening slightly with denser chlorophyll as he fed from the ambient mana, infinitesimally thin though it was. “He’s listening,” Kudzu said, almost conversational. “Or at least, the thing behind him is.”

“That’s the point,” Eve murmured. Then, with patient calmness, she continued: “I’m not here to break your toys. But I am claiming a seat at the Game. In exchange, do not flip the board.”

A line sizzled into the snow. A straight incision, sharp as obsidian, precise as a railgun. She had not moved. The snow wasn’t anymore. Space had realigned to accommodate her intent, folding just enough to create a wedge of absence.

Scion blinked. Once. The most human thing it had done.

Eve reached into her Core—not physically; the motion was a whisper through metaphysical layers—and drew forth a shard of mana imbued with a piece of her understanding. A fragment of saturated mana, crystallized, bound in language older than this iteration of Earth. The color was wrong.

Not purple, not violet—outside those concepts. The kind of hue that made retinas itch and thoughts slide sideways.

She dropped it down towards the snow.

It did not sink. It hovered, vibrating with barely restrained pressure, as though gravity was confused about whether it ought to apply.

“There,” she said. “Consider it a reservation. Proof positive that entropy can be defeated. The primary Holy Grail for your entire species, if I haven’t miscalculated.”

Kudzu whistled—a warble of wind through leaves—and nudged the shard with a root. “Oh, you’ve done it now. I smell the terrible desperation. I taste it.”

“That’s the point,” Eve said again, eyes still locked on the golden man. “If I walk into someone’s domain, I bring a gift. If they want me to leave with nothing, they return it. If they don’t…”

The golden projection of a man shimmered, not like heat distortion. The motion was practically algorithmic—a ripple in its pattern. It had registered the concept of crystallized mana shard and considered it; the rippling was a screaming shout of shock. The World was not rejecting the crystallized mana, not devouring it, and not casting it out, though from what she understood, the golden man appeared to believe it should have reasonably. Eve continued, “...then things get very messy.”

*ACT YoE 4,181/LT September 29, 2000*

Earth →1e+80

The Space Between

Elsewhere—and not elsewhere, because distance was a joke told by limited minds—the Entity stirred.

Its awareness was not the same as human consciousness. It did not think. It assessed. It calculated vectors of threat and potential, as well as probability arcs. Every possible timeline forked through its understanding like rivers through a basin.

This was its purpose because it was the Warrior: the shield and sword.

One strand continuously terminated prematurely.

Eve. The name of the Other that had interfered multiple times.

She had disrupted the Cycle. She had enhanced the outcome.

Another probability-strand fractured a billion times, each fork shattering outward like nerves from a spine. A city burned in one. In another, a girl tore herself open and became something else. In yet another, the Door broke.

The Entity considered the rune-shard in the snow it saw.

Unacceptable!

Uncontrollable!!

Valuable?

Priceless!!!

It reviewed the current known options.

Retaliation via Scion was not viable. The projection was limited. Eve was not a parahuman; she existed Outside. The shard network did not touch her. There were no hooks. Yet, she studied them. She saw value; value meant negotiation was possible.

Briefly, the Warrior tested combat scenarios.

Every combat scenario ended in Eve’s death, but that was cold comfort because the moment after she died, the scenario ended.

There was only one possible reason that aligned with logic.

The Other was a projection as well, and killing her brought attention from the Origin.

There was only one reason a scenario timeline would keep ending without input: if the Entity running it died.

That made her an Other that combat wouldn’t solve.

The Entity was irritated. This was not its job.

If only the Other-Half was here, it could solve this easily.

Calculating from past instances, it remembered previous situations from the vast Cycles. If combat were not a viable option, the Other-Half would use…negotiation?

*ACT YoE 4,181/LT September 30, 2000*

Earth Bet → Local Spatial Reality

Northern Arctic Ice Pack

Back on the surface, the snow had stopped falling. Not naturally—it simply knew better.

Scion hovered in place for another heartbeat, then vanished. Not teleported. Not moved, ceased to be. As if a switch had flipped, removing a line from a script.

Eve watched the space where he had been.

Kudzu exhaled an amused, creaking breath. “That went well.”

“I didn’t have to intervene with my true body,” Eve agreed. “That means it knows I’m a construct. Excellent.”

Another pause. Kudzu turned slightly, his leaves angling toward the vibrating rune still hovering in the snow. “Are you going to provide such a genocidal species the means to escape their current predicament? If you left well enough alone, they would all die once Entropy completed its work.”

“They are children trapped in a slowly freezing playground.” Eve countered. “If I help them now…”

“Karma takes notice and writes a bill,” Kudzu said, and laughed. The sound was like vines snapping.

Eve turned away, the wind teasing at her clothing, and looked out across the Arctic. Beneath the ice, Kudzu’s vine network had started to form. Not literally—but in the skein of layered realities, she could feel its bulk coiling, growing into a controlled piece of Aetheric territory much like her own rune-built ones.

There would be negotiation. Pressure, exerted where it wouldn’t be seen as hers.

Tinker's dying messily.

Thinkers who went mad.

The slow erasure of anyone too close to the truth.

But that was the nature of war. Not bombs or bullets, but thresholds. She had extended a helping hand, but she wasn’t going to carry the world on her back.

The only thing Eve had to do was not blink first. And that? That was easy.

Because the moment she understood all the tricks, how the Doors were opened, how the Contracts were written, she could close them, she could change them.

Eve would then politely rewrite the locks.

She smiled. It was the human thing to do after all.

*ACT YoE 4,181/LT October 21, 2000*

Earth →1e+80

The Space Between

The Entity studied the carefully constructed Contract before it.

It was very exquisite—a complement to the Cycle, instead of a shattering of it. The words bypassed mere communication and promised things it greatly desired.

The return of the Other-Half. Complete. Undamaged. Fully restored.

The cessation of involvement in exchange for observation.

Competition on a grand scale to enhance the outcome.

It was a battle, and the Warrior understood those.

A faint golden flicker of flame pulsed into existence. A tiny fraction of the whole. The merest whisper of what it had managed to understand without assistance.

As the golden manifestation of the Entity’s mana touched the Contract, it scribed a singular line:

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