Amanda
Amanda wasn't even paying attention to Zeke as she took deep breathes, her face was all scrunched up in pain. It hurt.
It hurt so much.
Her whole body was screaming in pain like it had been torn apart and then stitched back together. The biggest drawback of using a spell on that scale had to be how she couldn't just turn off her nerves, so she had to fully sit through the whole ride.
She glanced over at his downed for-
Except he wasn't downed, he was morphing for lack of a better word but she felt like that couldn't quite describe what was happening and her eyes made sure that she saw everything, including stuff that she wished she didn't.
But it did mean she had a better idea than him on what the fuck that was, probably.
"So it finally kicked in huh, This is what I really did Zeke~" She stumbled closer but still teased as relentlessly as she would she'd been in better shape. besides what mad magician didn't love to just gloat about their latest successes. She felt more alive now than in weeks, maybe even months.
ZekeA black sludge littered with plasma and corruption spewed out of his throat. He vomited space refuse... exuding this accursed energy as if he were sweating it off. Soon, the sludge was overtaking most of his body, with only his head and torso barely visible.
"
...not...talking...you... fool... the vessel is compromised... stop observing... your damn eyes... stop looking...
BZZT"
A dry howl shook the ground, the beast trashed and grew larger than Amanda by far.
"Ah... it's not so bad... it was getting so noisy in here. Congrats kiddo, you've kicked my ass so utterly it's...
shut up shut up! This wasn't the plan! If we merge forcibly like this, we won't be able to... hah! Serves you right, you freeloaders. Ship's already sailed anyways! This is my chance. I'll see your dream to its end, so just shut up and...
no, no no no! We will not be devoured! We won't accept this, we won't give up our..."
Eyes like stars flared up inside the dark body of a dragon. This vile sludge was like a door to the other side. But that warmth, that glow... it started to look more and more like the Nexus sun. Foreign, but familiar. Different, but the same.
It first happened about 16 years ago, though it was really just another repeat of a process he made over and over. A boy sought help and accepted to give his body in exchange for power. Yes... his vessel had been implanted with fragments of the old world... of himself, and become susceptible to his influence. Over time, the Will of the World had some dominion over the boy. Or so one would have thought. Over time, he possessed different alternate versions of himself and bound them to hyperspace, in order to turn it more compatible with himself. Different histories, different possibilities, but they all served to the same purpose as if they shared one dream. One will.
This was not truly planned from the getgo. To begin with, he wasn't nearly good enough to think that far ahead. It really ended up being a game of improvisation, to toy around with circumstances in order to turn them advantageous. By first being annihilated fully by the lord of Little Russia, his vessel was shattered and hollowed. Made malleable... more suitable to be connected to hyperspace and to the dark forces that lived within it.
But it came with a price. Its very being had been split and broken, a chink had torn off from itself. Even if Zeke could become one with the Will of the World, Zeke would be incomplete and thus constantly create new organisms to fill that void. A singularity of countless selves puppets a single body, while being slaves to that same vessel.
But something inside that hive sparked. Using Aruna, Zeke let her drain off enough energy to strain the organisms. Pushed to that brink due to his countless battles, the old world organisms still had to focus their energy on maintaining the vessel, else they'd vanish. So by weakening the connection so suddenly, and absorbing the ambient energy himself, his existence was starting to override the other ones that were once part of the balanced equilibrium.
Thanks to Amanda's prior repair, Zeke himself was whole, and he had full control over his body. Using the energy he absorbed, he devoured himself. Devouring himself, he could unleash more energy which he would use in order to assert himself as the sole channel between the Old World and himself. Simply put, everything else wouldn't simply be a part of him. It would become him.
See, the forces that sustained and shackled him... those were not his own. He had been exposed to them a long, long time ago... and his consciousness was still trapped there. No amount of body-hopping could change that, and even normally, this would never work.
That is because the one who calls himself Ezekiel is something that shouldn't even exist. The world he comes from should not even be possible. So affirming himself as anything more than an extension of the void would cause the Nexus to correct the paradox. It would never allow him to be an individual.Unless someone observed him. Unless someone looked so deep into the abyss that he would be unveiled and made real.Right now, Zeke was forcing himself through a chrysalis.
"Individuality? A pretty word. But you gave it up once you accepted the Will of the World. Besides, it's rude to talk around the guest of honor... so shut up and be assimilated fully this time. Oh, and honey, do you think you can pull off another spell like that? Something fire-based would be nice."
Amanda could see even deeper than before. She could see colors that didn't exist, shapes that shouldn't be there. She could see him, sitting in the middle of the void, surrounded by the pieces of a broken city so similar to the one she was standing on. Because even she should be able to see it now.
The Old World is a shard of a dead Nexus. Or rather, a pruned timeline fragment.
The creatures Zeke unleashed were the remaining people from said Nexus, stripped of their bodies and will by a foreign force, and became one with the void.
And he too was someone from that Nexus, subject to that fate. Everything up until now was simply for the sake of freedom. So he would be free to pursue his dream, as a stable self-independent from anything else.
