I Screamed a Note of Thunder that reached into the Underweb, froze Time and Space, and heaved as the Nodes touched the contact points.

The power of a galaxy rose up and surged through the spell. An impossibly dense reordering of reality imposed itself onto existence, encompassing everything here in layers upon layers of pan-galactic energy flows that became extensions of multiversal reality.

The Entity woke up instantly, and not bound by either Time or Space, promptly tried to remove itself from either.

It slammed into the new reality the Underweb brought with it, something that was far, far harder than the mere existence that was Eternity and Infinity, and went nowhere and nowhen.

The fantastically complex Underweb flared into visibility with the titanic flows of energy running through it, and collapsed down into the planet below. The strands burned away the subshadow mist as it roiled and tried to become a defense, and was instead flashed into nothingness by the weight of the Web wrapping it up.

The planet was sliced apart like it was made of gossamer, even as the thing within began to lash out wildly. With time frozen between ticks of the clock, the mass of the planet was smashed and thrown out of the way in sections in all directions by the writhing of the Thing below, but all the formerly-warding matter simply stopped moving when the Thing stopped pushing it, and only brought its tendrils into contact with the Web sooner.

In contact with and sticking to it, mega-reality meeting lack of it and clinging to it like opposite magnetic poles. Reality poured into and over the thing, and began to wind it up as it flailed and lashed out in what could only be called panic and a desperate attempt to flee, to escape.

Now the eyes within the countless stars reached out with long, long legs, and tweaked the Web here and there. The strands of the spell tightened in profound ways at the perfect time. Tendrils, tentacles, and polyps were bound, restricted, and reality tightened with even more weight as a Web with the reality of multiple universes constricted slowly and implacably.

There was no eagerness, no hastiness. There was cold, lethal patience, the perfection of hunters in action and leaving nothing to chance.

The power rippling off this Thing as it expended all the energy it could was beyond titanic. The star system would have been wiped away, aged to infinity, compressed to nothing, tore apart into pre-chronal energy, or shattered into uncounted dimensions.

The threads of the Reality Web took it all and scattered it across countless infinities, even as the Weavers began the slow process of allocating it all back to where it had been originally stolen from.

The Tat on my back pulsed, and the Widow of the Web pulled herself out of it, and into this moment of Time.

For the moment, she was the size of a planet. Ignoring me, her legs reached out, and began to work the Reality Web with cold and perfect detachment, eight scarlet eyes never leaving the prey within the shattered core of the planet, still almost obscured behind layers and layers of Webs. She pulled more Strands out of the spell...

All five of us burst into full Song at the same moment. The Sublime Chord echoed throughout the Web and opened into a higher Power looking down.

TRUTH!

HOPE!

VALOR!

Something, some terrible last plan of annihilation, be it self-sacrifice, a universe-threatening rupture in existence, or a final strike to disrupt the spell and the Widow closing off the final escape, slammed full into the power of Heaven, and shuddered in utter anathema.

Chaos latched onto VALOR and swirled into the heart of the attempt to break out and slay the Widow. Although far, far from a servant of Heaven, the Widow recognized the moment and lunged, striking and breaking the perfect pattern to do so.

The moment of annihilation passed as a soundless scream of utter despair fell into the gulf left by HOPE passing the creature by, and it saw the TRUTH of the stolen Fate now being imposed on it.

------

The Widow wrapped the creature up, and we all watched her and her prize sink back into the Underweb as the threads of the firmament returned to whence they came. As the last of them melted away, the eyes in the stars closed up, the Principals withdrew from the delightful show, and Time finally started up again.

The planet in front of us was shattering, divided into countless blocks that remnants of kinetic energy were kicking out in all directions like shattered toys. The lives of the creature’s mortal Fate-anchors were snuffed out basically en masse, while what orbital and system traffic was present attempted wildly to escape the planet that had been chopped up and blown apart basically between one eyeblink and the next.

We had no time to save anyone who couldn’t save themselves. The psychic energy releases alone shattered the minds and souls of anyone else alive on the planet below. The radiating terror was enough to get every ship that could go to hyperdrive to panic-jump out of the system, while those who couldn’t went directly mad and were obliterated either by themselves or waves of improbability moments afterwards as pulses of dimensional uncertainty unbalanced reality and their power cores all shattered.

The sun was big enough and tough enough not to be destabilized by the shockwaves, but still ended up throwing out enough solar flares to fry the whole inner system.

All investigators would learn was that something really, really bad had happened here.

On the brighter side, the stolen Fate that had been leading the Federation here towards a miserable Doom was being pumped back into them, and maybe they could turn things around.

At least, they now had a chance.

I looked at the other four, who all pointed at me, and I sighed.

“A hundred members of the Watchful Order of the Guardian Eye should really make a difference, I think?” I rolled my eyes.

“That would indeed help,” Dealer said, shuffling her Cards. “Let’s find some worthy souls, everyone!”

Divinations powered by HOPE swept over the stars from our hastily-‘ported positions half a light year away from the obliterated prison planet, guiding us to the beings who could bring the Light of the Quantum Lantern to the galaxy of the Krempi Federation.

Clean-up done right was always the most important job in the long run. They could locate the right souls, I could track them with my Cosmic Awareness, and we could bring them across the universe to the Lantern to receive their Eyes of the Lantern. Some Cosmic-class heroes would be just the thing to stop the darkness gathering here, and the Hope they were agents of would gather the returning Fate around them like beacons of a brighter Destiny...

--------

In the relayed Awareness of Ben Parker...

The non-finite Entities materialized together in the system, just a waystop on their endless duties.

The mix of Law and Chaos working together in the remnants of the system intrigued them both, as did the telltale corruption of reality that indicated a Fate-eater having successfully infiltrated Eternity... and having been harshly removed from its hiding place.

“The Weavers rarely take action, Master Order. Well-played,” Lord Chaos’ mismatched face, its eyes and mouth full of stars, congratulated the cold perfection of its counterpart.

“The energies of Chaos abound, managing to contribute to this effort despite the Weavers. Subtly done!” the androgynous Master Order returned the compliment. “I sense another remnant, echoes of what might have been. Could this have been a trap for the Weavers?”

“They must not have anticipated a joint effort from both our forces,” Lord Chaos murmured, seeing the same. “The Widow deviated from her pattern at just the right moment to foil him, wielding Chaos in the midst of her Web. Very unexpected of her...” it pronounced in satisfaction.

“She has always been the most willful of the Weavers,” Master Order agreed without judgement. “Shall we oversee their efforts with the Fate and Luck that was diverted by the creature?”

“The sorcerers who aided them are already taking steps to make use of it,” chortled the head of Lord Chaos. “Very clever, an unusual amount of foresight...”

“Indeed. An excellent move, bringing Eon’s Quantum-Wielders here to influence events and make use of the returning Fate. Ones to watch, perhaps?”

“Perhaps...”

The two heads vanished, off to observe the dying Fate-Eater. Of the echoes of the Words of Creation and the power of Heaven still lingering in the vicinity, they naturally felt nothing at all...

------

“A spell that could encompass an entire solar system in an impenetrable barrier. Impressive,” the Atom spoke, the middle-aged master of size-changing present at the High Guard meeting today. “Is this something you can replicate?”

Nimue and I both shook our heads. “There were variant magical Laws from at least six Alternities involved, woven together and anchored in the Underweb, some of them self-contradictory when assembled,” Nimue explained calmly. “Most of the spell unwound itself from memory as it was being woven. I can recall some aspects of it particular to this universe, which form a fantastically powerful Binding spell all on their own, but the greater spell... I would have to be in a greater dimensional plane which permitted multiple fundamental interpretations of magic, sort of like having multiple completely different and totally valid sets of quantum physics working at the same time.”

“The perceptive influence,” the Atom began to say, and then saw her slight smile, opting to cut himself short. “I see,” he finished quietly. “Simply on a non-finite tier of comprehension, perhaps?”

“If not, then very, very high. Being non-finite would certainly make it easier. But since it’s meant to be used against things from Outside Eternity, that’s hardly unexpected,” I supplied. “It just lets us know that time and alternities aren’t the only vector we’re attracting trouble from.”

Everyone groaned, Primus the loudest. “What now?” Carol complained, learning forwards.

I smirked, and then frowned slightly. “You’ve all read enough Alternity Watch stuff to realize that our alternate worlds have absolutely crazy amounts of stuff going on from all directions. A lot of them can’t make it.” The faces of everyone there turned down. Some of those reports were about extremely horrific endings of alternate realities. “Well, one of those vectors is the force of human Destiny. We attract attention from cosmic beings because of that force of Destiny. This whole dumping alien prisoners on another world was totally random, yet it was guided to us by our Destiny and the impetus of the thing that wanted to feed on it.

“So, in addition to all the other threats...” I held up my hands helplessly.

“The old man makes the world more capable of fighting off those threats, so more threats manifest?” Primus rolled his eyes.

“He is raising the floor of human achievement and cooperation faster than any Terra starting at the same point, according to the AW reports and comparisons,” Doc Bronze spoke up thoughtfully. “Add that to our top-end achievements and the number of major alliances we’ve been able to make with honorable non-Terran races, and our heights also eclipse those of almost all alternities.” He nodded at Centurion Lygaete, Beta Ray Bill, Gamora, and Saber, the Strontian chosen to represent their people here, while there was a note from the distant Starsinger of the Acanti, listening in as always when called on.

=====

For those who read the Comments, I gave out the proper name of the organization of the Lantern of the High Guard some time ago! Here it is in the novel.