She searched the surrounding area with a sharp glare before resting her sights on something. Fluttering her wings she took off into the air, only to then jump through the time and instantly appear to where she began gently landing down at. Standing near the smoldering remains of a campfire under a rocky cliff Aeon carefully glanced around at the empty area while feeling an irritating disturbance echoing in her ear from the location.
“This is where it happened… where it all changed. I can feel it…”
Narrowing her eyes she held a hand out, focusing her magic and conjuring large green and blue triangular casting bases below her, the markers crossing through one another and slowly spinning while searing green symbols of an ancient magic bled upward from the light into the air around the woman. Aeon turned her hand slightly before throwing a burst of green energy down behind her, a loud crackling blare sounding off as the burst of magic exploded into a foggy veil that quickly spread out and blanketed the world around her. Through it she saw ghostly images of the past manifesting and replaying before her within the tear in time. She saw Daemon and his followers sitting around their campfire, their actions playing out in front of the chronofly who closely observed what had transpired.
“Something went amiss here,” she cautiously remarked. “But what?”
Her eyes moved from one fighter to the next as they spoke in muffled voices with one another, their attention then turning upward that Aeon quickly followed with a piercing gaze.
“The pixie from Trixton Pass,” Aeon recounted, watching as Vale spoke to Daemon and the girls before flying down in front of them. “I really do hate seeing those disgusting remnants. I must make a reminder to exterminate all of them when Eden is finally mine. Still, everything appears to be transpiring properly. So then why…”
Vale spoke to Mika in a dampened voice as she began to fly upward, right before a bright flash of light zapped over the campsite and struck her out of the air. Aeon showed a bewildered look as she saw Vale drop to the ground in a stunned state, with the ghostly images of the past wavering profoundly as the entire world appeared to tremble from the event.
“What did that?” Aeon demanded, turning around and peering closely for the unexpected disturbance. “That wasn’t supposed to happen. The timeline shifted, but how?”
She heard a new voice speaking as light drew closer to Daemon’s group, however she saw not a person or monster but rather something else approaching them.
“What is that?” Aeon wondered, seeing a blurred distortion of dark light coming near. It wasn’t a shadow, but instead an absence of something that Aeon stared at in surprise.
“What the hell is this?” Aeon questioned, slowly walking around the anomaly that appeared blurred from any angle she viewed it from. “It… it’s just empty space. There’s nothing there, but… but at the same time there is.”
Focusing her magic on it the distortion rippled and melded with its surroundings, offering only a brief glimpse through the void of a centaur dressed in revealing clothing with a giant spear held in hand.
“Who in Eden is that?” Aeon asked, peering closely at the warped image of the strange centaur. Examining her from head to toe, the chronofly tried to make out the assailant who appeared to be a ghost in the ether of time.
“Another who’s past is hidden from time, who’s fate is blurred…” she said, then slowly halted as a disgruntled sigh escaped her lips. “It’s the same as it is with Flarah. This monster… she doesn’t have a timeline. That’s why it almost looks like an empty hole in the past to me. But how can… how in Eden is that possible? What are these monsters anyway? How can they not be connected to the river of time? Where did this monster even come from?”
Aeon clenched her fist as she struggled to repress her anger and frustration. Channeling all her might and power around the anomaly in time she was unable to clear the image any further, the mysterious centaur always being masked by an empty tear of nothingness as if she were never really there in the first place.
“This is starting to anger me,” Aeon growled. “They’re not undead, they’re alive, they have a lifeforce. But at the same time it’s almost like they’re not even here. This centaur is just like… wait, I’ve seen this irregularity before. First with Flarah, and then…”
Closing her eyes she focused her mind while her wings fluttered gently behind her, remembering very clearly where she had seen this sort of disturbance in time before.
“That’s right, the ones Flarah wanted to meet at Green Haven. That strange man and those two reptile girls that were with him, their fate was clouded by something all the same just as with this centaur. They were almost invisible to me.”
She carefully searched through the unseen river of time around her for the mysterious hooded man and scantily clad reptile girls she had seen on that fateful night, however as she tried to locate them from where they had traveled after meeting Flarah she quickly remembered something about the strange travelers that became apparent once more.
“I can’t see them. I don’t see them anymore, I don’t see them anywhere in time. How can… arrggh! What are they? How can they hide from me like this, how can their fate always be shrouded from my godly vision? I must know!”
Swinging her arms downward she shattered the images of the past around her, a haunting lime light being cast upon the surrounding area as Aeon’s wings glowed softly along with her eyes from the buildup of magic. She quickly looked around as if seeing things quickly passing her by, her gritted teeth bared in her scowl as the chronofly felt the ensuing ripples of time being distorted continuing to shake the world around her.
“Dammit, what did this centaur do?” she cursed. Dropping to her knee she felt a strong migraine coursing through her head, sudden changes in the timeline abruptly appearing before her eyes as she felt the deviations hitting her roughly.
“No… no…” she groaned shaking her head. “What… what’s happening? This isn’t just from that centaur, this is something more. Something’s wrong, it’s not… no, everything’s not aligning right. The future… it’s-”
Without pause she quickly gasped in shock, eyes widening as she saw the new course of fate being placed before her. Or rather, the absence of it.
Slowly she stood upright, turning her head one way then another as she saw fate changing all around her in a way that had never happened before. The centaur who caused the first disturbance had lasting effects in the course of destiny, but that wasn’t what Aeon was focused on at the moment. It was the others that had her attention now.
“Ten…” she breathed out. “Ten voids in time. How can this be? I already know of Flarah’s disturbance in the timestream, but now… ten others have suddenly bloomed. Where did they come from? They’re… they’re ruining everything!”
With a furious scream Aeon stumbled around in circles, her omniscient sight allowing her to see ten disturbances in the timeline that were causing a horrific chain of events to occur. Peering into the future Aeon saw ten rippling absences of fate moving about, and as they did their unnatural presence was causing predestined events to skew horribly off course, and in some cases become masked entirely. Shaking her head in disbelief and rage Aeon struggled to keep standing as the deviations in time struck her hard with growing intensity, her headache becoming increasingly painful while her vision only got worse the more she tried to see the future.
“NO!” Aeon cried out, dropping onto her hands and knees as she shut her eyes tightly. She shook her head to stave off the tangled mess of fates she had seen before she fell onto her side with a crippling migraine. Her wings flinched behind her, a leg kicked on reflex, and her eyes rolled back into her head as the very essence of time that streamed through her was going wild with new, ever-changing ebbs and flows.
“AHHHH! What the fuck is this? Stop… stop… STOP!” Aeon yelled, halting time around her as she struggled to sit upright. Breathing heavily she covered her eyes and tried not to throw up, the world around her spinning while ech
oing screams of her own voice sounded off in her ears still.
“This isn’t happening!” she cried out. “No! This can’t be happening! Everything was set just how I wanted, everything was going just the way it needed to, so why… why is this happening now?”
Slowly she got back onto her feet, balancing herself with shakily fluttering wings, before opening her eyes and suppressing her urge to vomit the best she could.
“These freaks are destroying my timeline,” Aeon scorned. “Dammit, how did they elude my sight to begin with? I checked the course of fate not even an hour ago and all was going as it should have, so then how… where did they… why didn’t I foresee any of this? How could they just suddenly appear like this?”
Taking a steady breath Aeon tried to ease her mind and slowly relax her body, hand flinching at her side before she looked around the area as all was quiet in the suspended moment of time.
“I can’t see what they are,” she cursed. “What changes they make in time are having a catastrophic effect on everything around them. My precious timeline has become a mess now. It’s almost as if they’re erasing the future entirely before my eyes. I can’t… I can’t see what’s going to happen after they change something, and I can’t see them before they make those changes. There’s no telling what they’ll screw up before it becomes impossible to correct. Wait… what if they…”
Turning to the side she focused her vision sharply on something, eyes narrowing as she peered deeply into the future at a specific event that she feared would also be altered, that being the time surrounding Seraph’s resurrection. Sure enough she was now unable to see anything clearly in the future as the meddling of fate by all ten of the mystery monsters had thrown destiny into complete uncertainty. Even the fate of Daniel Sorres was slowly becoming muddled as one of the anomalies in time was masking his future. And that meant only one thing for the Dark Queen of Time.
“Oh… shit,” Aeon groaned as she herself turned a sickly shade of green. Dropping to her knees she began vomiting profusely, time around her unfreezing and returning to normal as not only did her magic grow weak but also she herself from the violent chrono alterations.
“This… isn’t good,” she sputtered before hurling more bile onto the ground. “They’re… going to doom us all…”
Falling onto her side she vomited and screamed in distress, her magic becoming nulled while her body was rendered in shock from the changes in time paralyzing her.
“Everything… everything’s falling apart…” she muttered between stomach lurches. “No… not now… not with Seraph coming… goddammit… this isn’t how it was supposed… to happen…”
The Dark Queen groaned and expelled puke in her stunned state as the amount of changes blanketing the future became too much for her to handle. Even without focusing on the deviations she could easily feel them and their devastating effects to the fate of all those in Eden, including herself.
“What… are they? They’re not monsters… they’re abominations.”
*****
“YOU ABOMINATION!” a mighty voice echoed against the rocky walls of the surrounding cliffs. Within a lowered chasm beneath the surface of Eden sharp clanks and furious shouts were heard, the fierce battle taking place giving off blooms of white and cerulean light that radiated profoundly out of the widened crevice of the desolate land.
“I WILL DESTROY YOU!” a minotaur raged, stumbling backwards through pockets of murky water that gathered along the bottom of the pit before quickly regaining her balance. Her battle skirt and raiment were ripped and bloodied, her long dark hair was singed and caked with mud, her glowing blue tattoos were beginning to be masked by dirt and blood, and her tail had been nearly cut off as it shakily twitched behind her.
“FOR THE HONOR OF MOUNT SUPREMUS!” the muscular brute roared, raising her giant sword that glowed with sapphire light. She swung down with incredible force, smashing the blade into the ground with water splashing high into the air. As the attack ruptured the ground beneath the waves her opponent quickly jumped over the magically imbued weapon, with the minotaur following her movement with a vicious glare and glowing blue eyes.
“What does a mongrel like you know of honor?” the fighter playfully retorted, right before the waves of water around her suddenly blasted forward against the minotaur, punching her clear off her feet into a long crash along the cloudy mire. Sitting back up with a furious growl the brute saw her foe gracefully landing down in the water, the current seeming to quickly spiral around her as she slowly stood upright to smirk at her prey.
“After all, this is our world that you filthy beasts tried to steal from us,” she taunted as the minotaur slowly got onto her feet. As the giant stood above the water with fists tightly formed around the handle of her mighty sword, her eyes were aimed downward at her challenger who was considerably smaller in size despite her overwhelming strength.
Walking towards the minotaur with a calm stride was a nixie, her feet clad in straps decorated with fishbone. The woman’s aqua colored scales glistened on her slowly waving tail, as well as her thighs and pelvis while the black translucent skirt she had wrapped around her hips with golden lace hugged her feminine figure. Her scaly breasts were covered by a seashell bra and prominently displayed with their impressive size while draped around her shoulders was a long shawl of black cloth with tattered ends. The nixie’s teal colored hair flowed like a waterfall down past her shoulder to her back.
In one hand she held a trident, forged from ancient metals of the past, with its silvery steel and ominous glowing etchings of white light giving off a haunting glow amidst the darkened gorge. The other hand gracefully combed through her hair, brushing it aside to reveal her reptilian earfin while also throwing her bountiful locks off her back momentarily, revealing a segmented white diamond emblem on the back of her shawl. The same emblem she proudly displayed on a black medallion worn around her neck that rested above her scaly breasts. However, even with the unique weapon in hand and the white diamond insignias she wore to signify the magnitude of her threat, it was her eyes that the minotaur took notice of the most.
Her eyes that saw the world perfectly despite her being above the water. Her eyes that didn’t hide behind any glasses in which to properly see with. Her eyes that were locked onto the minotaur with a chilling gaze that rivaled a Darker One.
Her eyes that were made of steel just as her trident was, the unnatural gray metal moving and focusing its violet irises on the towering brute while ominous white rings softly glowed around them.
“So we’ve come to take it back,” the nixie spoke with a bite. “For it is rightfully ours, just as it always has been.”
The minotaur roared as she charged her foe, rushing forward and swinging her sword at the amphibious monster with great force. The nixie smirked and twirled her trident with one hand before her, parrying the brute’s larger weapon which was knocked aside with a heavy clank before it smashed into the water.
“Archaic trash,” the nixie scoffed. She quickly dodged the minotaur’s fist that slammed into the ground behind her, leapt into the air as the warrior’s blade whisked by underneath, and landed back on the shallow waters with a gentle splash before twirling her trident around her back and holding it above to block the minotaur’s follow-through with her swing. The mighty sword struck the handle of the trident, coming to a halt instantly while the ground and water below the nixie exploded from the concussive force. The muscular brute showed both anger and surprise at seeing the smaller woman having blocked the attack while smiling wickedly at her without so much as batting an eyelash from the strike.
“Are you done yet?” the nixie teased. “I’m growing rather bored playing with you.”
“YOU INSOLENT FISH!” the minotaur bellowed as she struggled to overpower her opponent. “I WILL CRUSH YOU BENEATH MY RIGHTEOUS FOOT!”
The nixie narrowed her eyes as water began rushing up around her from all sides, the swirling tides building up speed and intensity very rapid
ly before exploding outward in a powerful blast that threw the minotaur back into a stumble. Moving with unbelievable speed the nixie dashed past the minotaur atop the rippling waves, the water seeming to carry her forward with a rushing current below as she swung her trident with a trailing arc of white light behind it. The waves crashed and flowed past her as she came to a halt, with the larger brute behind her screaming in pain as she dropped down with one of her legs having been sliced clean off above the knee.
“You mean that foot?” the nixie giggled. She dashed along the water with extreme speed and agility, dodging the flailing monster’s fist and then her sword before she leapt into the air, twirled her trident overhead, and then struck down with a searing blur of white light that chopped off the other leg of the minotaur. The brute howled in pain as the nixie slowly stood up and yanked her weapon out from the murky, bloody water.
“Or was it that foot that was actually righteous?” the woman laughed. “Honestly they both seem rather pathetic to me. Hahaha!”
“CURSE YOU, ANCIENT!” the minotaur screamed in agony. She swung her mighty sword using both hands at the nixie, the attack coming to a swift halt as the woman held her trident aside and blocked the attack. The water below splashed away from the kinetic force while her hair waved from the heavy impact, leaving the minotaur stunned at seeing the woman halting the giant blade while showing a piercing glare with her menacing eyes.
“No,” the nixie scorned shaking her head. “It is you wretched remnants that are the curse upon this world. And it is we who are the righteous.”
She grappled the minotaur’s blade between the spikes of her trident, threw the large weapon out of the monster’s hands and away into the shallow waters with a giant splash, then leapt into a twirling flip onto the brute’s chest where she stood upon the minotaur with her glowing trident aimed at her face.
“Tell me,” the nixie inquired with a raised eyebrow. “There were three minotaurs who came down from that mountain in search of us. We know that much, but what we’re not sure of is which of you three has the key to enter that mountain again. You wouldn’t happen to be the lucky one hiding that key on her, would you?”
Chronicles of Eden - Season II - Act I Page 24