//SHIFT–OVERRIDDEN.

//POINT OF VIEW OVERTAKEN BY OUTSIDE FORCE.

//SEE THROUGH THE EYES OF THE END.

The End said nothing as it watched Sebastian and Damian discuss the man who had killed Damian’s boy. It was bittersweet for the two of them, at least as far as The End could tell. For Damian because he finally got utter and complete confirmation that Sebastian hadn’t killed his son, and for Sebastian because he finally got confirmation that his old friends were gone. Dee was gone.

Damian was all that remained.

If The End had been capable of crying, it would have teared up a little as the two men exchanged an awkward handshake and went their separate ways for the night. Sebastian called for Jun, she teleported to him, and they both spent a long while simply talking about the consequences of Garrett being out in the wild. They were both fearful that another Endra situation would arise. Unfortunately, their fears were well-founded, but not for the reason they thought.

For the truth of the rules that kept Embodiments from descending to the all-world was dangerously close to coming to light. Rules that The End did not remember writing, and ones that had been changed so many times over thousands of years that they didn’t resemble the ones initially instated.

“WHO COULD HAVE MADE THESE CHANGES?” It murmured to itself in an utterly dark room, the screen with Sebastian and Jun on it its only source of light. “FLUX, STAGNATION, AND I WERE THE ONLY ONES WITH ACCESS TO REALITY ITSELF. YET THERE WERE NO TRACES OF THEIR MANIPULATIONS ON THE RULES. THEY SIMPLY… CHANGED.”

It leaned back and ignored the possibility that could spell the absolute worst.

“I WILL HAVE TO PERFORM A MORE THOROUGH SEARCH. MAYBE I OVERLOOKED SOME POSSIBLE WAY FOR THEM TO COVER THE TRACES OF THEIR EXISTENCE.”

A noise came from the screen, and The End waved it away before it intruded on their privacy. There was a real danger to the all-world for the first time in… as long as it had existed. More Embodiments had disappeared without a trace, and it couldn’t find them. Either they had been killed, in which case their chosen had lost their powers, or they had descended.

So far, no chosen had lost their powers. Yet dozens of Embodiments were gone.

The End had failed in its one duty to the all-world. As had Flux and Stagnation. There was one shining ray of hope for the Staura–no, two if it counted Sebastian and Jun. Moricla grew ever closer to crossing over. With what Sebastian found out about Keratily’s impersonation, Moricla’s entry would cause a major stir. Perhaps even more so than if Keratily hadn’t blasphemed.

It took a quick peek at Sotrien. Destruction and fear clouded the planet like a blanket of smog. A species long-proud in its worst qualities was brought face to face with the long-overdue consequences of their actions. The question was whether they would change for the better or simply weather the storm until Moriclal left and return to normal without learning a thing. The End hoped for the former, but its experience told it that the change would only last as long as the trauma. Once it healed, the Staura would go back to exploiting and being exploited.

On that happy note, The End brought up a screen of the chosen Sebastian and Damian were looking for. It technically wasn’t allowed to do that, but the rules had been rewritten enough to leave a loophole. Looking was now allowed, but it couldn’t give any specific information. Only clues and riddles that might lead Sebastian to the truth.

Garret crawled over a stretch of blasted land with something cradled to his chest. His breaths came quick and wet, audibly raining down on his helmet as he pressed himself flat to the ground. Noise rumbled over him, and tiny debris rained down on the armor that once belonged to Sebastian.

“Please don’t see me.” He whispered to himself, which was silenced by his helmet. The End still heard. “I need to find the place the worm told me. They’ll help me. Not like that useless idiot Damian. Fucking useless piece of human garbage isn’t worth the armor on his back.”

The rumbling continued as Garrett continued to blame people for the position he was in. A long list of names spilled free, each with their own hate to match, only growing in vitriol as the stream flowed. There was something wrong with the man. Hate was one thing, but this felt… brought on. Stirred and prodded to the surface to get Garrett to act a very certain way.

“WAS THIS TAREL’S DOING? OR IS THE ‘WORM’ WHISPERING TO HIM?”

It took a long while, but The End eventually got its answer. A harsh voice, as if spoken through broken teeth and a throat long wracked by smoke and chemicals, rasped out a series of commands that somehow didn’t reach The End’s mind. The nonsensical sounds confused Garrett for a moment, as was made obvious by the man’s whispered disbelief, but then it was as if a switch of understanding was flipped.

“Don’t resist it. Got it.” He muttered to himself, then went completely limp.

A tiny white worm crawled out from the thing he held so close. The End finally recognized it for what it was; a chunk of dirt-coloured ice shot through with a myriad of tiny white worms. How Garrett managed to get his hands on the thing was a mystery even to The End, but the thing itself was not.

“ENDRA’S… CORE? HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?” It sat up straighter and summoned more angles, until it could get a perfect three-dimensional view of where Garret was. “EMBODIMENTS ARE NOT MEANT TO HAVE CORES. YET THAT IS, UNMISTAKABLY, ENDRA’S CORE. AN OBJECT THAT DOES NOT EXIST.”

And it was in Garrett’s hands. Not one of the Staura. Garrett had no investment in the war for Stauran supremacy. He shouldn’t have even had a chance to find the relic he held. Yet there it was. And there he was. The End refused to believe it was some kind of coincidence. At some point, Tarel had to have contacted Endra and brokered… some kind of deal. She must have given her core to him, which he passed on to Garrett, and who was manipulated into delivering it to her under the guise of finding Sebastian.

But it didn’t make sense. The End had watched Tarel’s reaction when it announced Sebastian as its chosen. Tarel had truly panicked. So… when, then? It had to be after Tarel sent Garrett after Sebastian, but before Endra descended on the all-world. Did the timeframe even work? Tarel couldn’t have brokered a deal after Endra descended.

There was one massively important variable here that The End couldn’t place. The very existence of an Embodiment’s core. Maybe it was a decoy. Tarel could be trying to get Garrett a place in Endra’s inner circle by bringing her ‘her core’, an object that she would instantly know was real, but wouldn’t know how it exists or why she can exist without it.

It truly didn’t know. So all it could do was watch helplessly as the scene unfolded before it.

Time crawled by. Garrett was still for hours. The End never once looked away, monitoring every aspect of the situation to the best of its abilities. Parasitic worms crawled free of Endra’s core and squimed all over Garrett, pressing against his armor as if trying to get in, but relented when they found no purchase.

Then, suddenly, something thudded to the ground over Garrett. Clear blood soaked into the ground and dripped down onto him, followed by the sounds of conversation. One voice was calm and cruel, while the other was frantic and distraught.

“Your false god is no more. So now you come crawling to us. To me.” The cruel voice said. “What makes you think we’ll be merciful? Isn’t that the entire reason you opposed us in the first place?”

The distraught voice whimpered. “Keratily proper thought that. We just followed the most powerful person in the family. Up until a few days ago, that was the Matria.”

The cruel voice laughed. It was a sound filled with pride and dark enjoyment.

“And now you want to hide in our shadow. Unfortunately for you, Keratily was the exception to the rule. She alone is what kept you safe from us. Without that absurd power backing you, you have no claim to the name. She made sure of that.”

“But brother–”

“Don’t call me that.” Cruel voice said flatly. “We will consider your faction. Bring them to our home base within the month or we will hunt you down and slaughter you like the weak animals you are. Now, we have something else to deal with, so run along.”

Garrett looked up as well as he could as footsteps trailed away. The End tried shifting all of its angles to get a better look at the new voices, but something was off. No matter where it looked, there were no Staura. No people in general. Only Garrett under the ground in a crawlspace.

A hand burst through the dirt. It grabbed Garrett by the wrist and dragged him up, then set him perfectly on his feet. He looked around in confusion, which The End mirrored as it checked all of the angles.

The opulent room, which looked like that of an extremely high class hotel, was only on Garrett’s screen. There was no dirt to be seen. The Staura who sat across from Garrett, surrounded by two bodyguards in full armor, looked exactly like Jun if she’d aged up a few years and gained a cruel streak.

“Hello, chosen human.” She said pleasantly. Her voice still carried a threat. “Your Embodiment reached out to us. You have brought the requested item. As long as it’s verified, we will uphold our half of the deal.”

“Uh.” Garrett said dumbly. He didn’t even attempt to recompose himself. “Where am I?”

The Staura cocked her head to the side. “Somewhere you don’t need to know. People could be watching you right now, and I’m not risking our operation for the sake of easing your confusion. Just know that I am the enemy of your enemy. That does not make us friends, but as long as you are useful, we can be… allies.”

Garrett finally decided he needed to look professional and squared his shoulders. “Thank you. I… um… who are you?”

“Your Embodiment really told you nothing, didn’t he.” The Staura sighed. “I am a Keratily. One who is not aligned with the delusional progenitor of my name. If that means nothing to you, then you don’t deserve to know more.”

The End wished to listen further, but it felt something beginning to interfere. Another Embodiment. It waved the scene away, then rested its face against its hand. Even Tarel, who had seemed to incompetent, was skirting the rules. And if someone so insignificant as a newborn Embodiment of will could interfere to this extent, the more competent ones would be utterly abusing their newfound freedom.

If anything else could have seen The End at that moment, they would have shivered in fear. The utter joy melded with cruel understanding that radiated off a being so monstrously powerful, and directed solely at those who broke the rules it had laid out for the protection of everyone…

The Embodiments had broken their chains. But with it, they had also given up their protection.

“SHOW THEM THEIR MISTAKES, SEBASTIAN.” The End chuckled. “MAKE THEM WISH THEY HAD NEVER WRONGED YOU.”