Collide Gamer

John had read the windows before he had gotten any actual battle reports, so it was accurate to say that they corroborated what he’d learned from Gaia first.

The forces of Fusion had fought the Lorylim on every front. Izha had sprung every last surprise that he had, some of them better prepared than others. It had been a wise policy to keep some haremettes in the Guild Hall, as it and the adjacent Goblin Capital had come under quite heavy fire.

All of that fighting stopped the moment Izha had gotten grafted onto Tiamat. At that point, ‘The Event’ had occurred. A number of names were currently swirling around for it. The Awakening, the Great Re-Alignment of the Abyss, the Opening of the Chasm, Veilbreak – All of them were in one way or another accurate.

Izha had poured every drop of power he could get his hands on into every part of humanity that he could reach. He had prepared plenty for it. By now, John knew what Tabbie had talked about when she fought Claire. He also knew what Izha had been so interested in alchemists for. For several years, he had operated a pharmaceutical empire, covertly spreading his tendrils to every corner of the world.

He had been avoiding Abyssal attention easily, since he knew who was and was not an Abyssal. His minions went around, using various excuses to sell various drugs, real or not, mixed with trace amounts of Lorylim spores. John had found all of that conspiracy shortly after his parents died. Measures that had previously thrown him off his trail had been dropped. From that moment onwards, John had suspected what Izha’s endgame had been.

The Great Re-Alignment of the Abyss, which was John’s preferred name for it, had brought with it the death of all Lorylim on the planet. Every assault had simultaneously ended, every creature dissolved. Many Abyssals already alive but short of their potential had been caught up in the ensuing push and pull between Tiamat. It had been a harrowing experience, reportedly.

A harrowing experience that all of the mundanes that now entered the Abyss shared. How many of those were there? No one could say yet. The entirety of a successfully eradicated species had been poured into humanity. In Europe, about 1 in every 150 people was an Abyssal already. First reports had it that even they found a whole lot more new Abyssals wandering the world and they had only just started searching,

Assuming that it was now 1 in 100 people that were Abyssal, an entirely baseless number that John guessed from the European situation, they were looking at something in the realm of 30 million new Abyssals. The reality was that there would be no truly accurate census done in decades. It would take months, possibly even years, for all the mundanes that had awakened to properly trickle into the Abyss. The ripples from this event would continue into eternity.

Izha’s last joke was played on the entire world. He had destabilized relations between the Greater Empire and Fusion, he had devastated Fusion itself, he had turned the Mandate of Heaven towards civil war, and now every last place on Earth suddenly was a hotbed of new Abyssal activity. Nobody could say how many people with incredibly powerful Innate Abilities now existed, with no knowledge of how to use them. The Generation of Monsters had gotten even more monstrous.

How Gaia was going to handle this whole situation, the world was waiting to see. For his part, John doubted that it was coincidence that he suddenly heard about a pandemic starting up in China, one of the most densely populated areas of the globe.

The ramifications of the Re-Alignment could not be measured. John did not try. He had enough to do in the days after the victory just mopping up the mess the Lorylim had left behind.

First on that checklist was the unearthing of Tiamat’s remains. Not only did everyone want to make extra sure their victory was complete, but the Astrotium skeleton was also the single most valuable spoil of war ever – in theory.

They cleared rubble for hours upon hours, all of them. John often found himself wondering if Abyssals at the highest level could flatten a mountain. He at least found out that excavating one took even people of their might a prolonged time. The Horned Rat was especially involved in this. Given his apparent investment into seeing the Lorylim dead, that was understandable. John still wondered if there were ulterior motives.

In the end, the god of future calamity also was the one to find the skeleton. It was one half what Enki had forged and one half the remains of the Metracana. John claimed it all as spoils of war. Remus was disgruntled by it, claiming he could do something more interesting with those materials. No one was willing to get violent over it and John was very insistent. If he wanted to recover the Metracanas, he likely would need all the Astrotium he could get. Metra and Ehtra brought them to safe storage.

Divination used on the skeleton confirmed the bad and the good. Tiamat had survived, managing to isolate herself in the final moments of the transferral. With both Izha and Lyndell out of the hivemind, Tiamat had no means to escape. The telepathy was out, any traces of the original Lorylim still on Earth had been eradicated, and not even in the deepest hotbeds of Lorylim activity was as much as a single spore found. It wasn’t entirely unlikely that, in his final moments, Izha had decided that fate would be crueller than death. John tended to agree, even if he would have preferred to see them both dead.

The knife that Layla had used, Lyndell explained to have been herself. That was to say that one part of the primordial Lorylim that had held out In the hivemind had gone on to infect John and to then form the Lyndell he knew. The other had, by context clues that Layla gave him, inspired Marathyu to forge the dagger as a final form of service. The knife was annihilated in the end. Only a vaguely dagger shaped burn mark beneath the skeleton’s ribs had been left behind.

Layla had been placed in medical care as soon as possible. With Undine and Gnome out of the picture, only Lucifrena had possessed a modicum of healing ability. It had been enough to make sure Layla did not sustain any permanent harm from the ordeal.

The elementals, John had gotten back in an afternoon. Travelling to each elemental plane, finding them there and convincing them to come back had been exceedingly easy, since he had good relationships with every elemental leader, except the Mother of Water’s angry side. He was lucky enough to catch her in one of her agreeable moods. Even though that was less of a hassle than he first thought it would be, he still did not plan to call upon Primera again, unless it was life or death. There were powers a tad too dangerous to rely on them. He felt the Omni Elemental fell under that.

The final toll of the Last War of the Old Abyss, as Lydia called it in one of her speeches, was one of heavy losses and unfathomable change.

To John, it wasn’t over until three days after Tiamat had fallen.

___________________________________________________________________________

The two caskets were lowered into the ground. The priest read out the honours. “To Brenda and Benjamin Newman…” he started. John blended out everything else.

He was staring at the hole in the ground. There was family around him, all of it estranged. Nephews and cousins that he had no idea about. His parents had never talked much about their family and rarely pulled him to any family meetings. His grandparents had died fairly young, so there was no connective tissue there either.

None of his harem were with him. They all had offered to go. John had decided that all or none were the only proper options, so he had gone with the reasonable option.

“What a wrong step can do…” one of Benjamin’s friends muttered.

Arranging for their death to look like a hiking incident had been easy. John could not have stood the thought of people thinking they had committed double suicide. There was no good tale to tell about their end. Death by hiking accident was believable. John had considered mixing a heroic tale of his father fending off a mountain lion in there. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡⚫𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢⚫𝘯𝘦𝘵

Alas, his father hadn’t been a hero. They had been just normal people, caught in the gears of something so vast they couldn’t have comprehended or resisted even if John had told them. A simple lie was best. At least this way everyone would remember them together and loving life even in the depth of winter.

John continued to stare at the hole. He had thought he would be dissolved in tears by this point. Because he had dealt with all of the emotions of their death by literally fighting the Dragon of Chaos and screaming at the embodiment of God, he was more together than anticipated. Only when he threw his ritualistic handful of dirt onto the joined grave did he feel a singular tear rolling down his cheek.

The ceremony eventually came to its end. Family that had been there out of politeness was the first to leave. A few angry faces turned away. There were unresolved sibling disputes in the air that John would never know about.

“There is an awful lot I never knew about you,” he muttered to himself. “I’m sorry.”

There were still some people around. Work friends of Benjamin and social club friends of Brenda, their chosen family. They politely waited a few seconds, acting as if they hadn’t heard that. Then, one of them put a hand on the Gamer’s shoulders. “We’re going to drink to their memory… want to come along?”

John smiled at the offer, but shook his head. “I’m going to mourn with my beloved. Thanks for the offer.”

“That’s the best place to mourn,” the man said with a nod. “We’ll leave you alone… They were very fine people. You can be proud they were your parents.”

“I am,” John assured.

He stood by his parents’ grave for many more minutes, just staring at the freshly laid ground. The stone was solid grey, the inscription simple. The dates on it spelled out the sorry fact that his parents hadn’t even reached 40. They had him young and had not gotten old. It was a tragedy on so many levels.

‘And here I stand, a functionally ageless god amongst men, coming from that humble origin,’ he imprinted that on his mind. Then, he turned away. He would return to plant flowers soon enough.

Technically there was a long walk through DC between him leaving the graveyard and him taking the teleporter back to his Guild Hall. Practically, his mind was in a state where every simple activity just passed him by like a breeze. Minutes felt like seconds. Only when he was addressed did time feel like it was resuming its usual flow.

“Are you really sure you want to do this today?” Rave asked him, slowly and carefully. “It’s fine if you’re not in the right mood for it. Everyone would understand.”

“I think I’m in exactly the right mood for it,” John responded and smiled slightly. “I feel… sombre and hurt. I’m healing. That’s exactly how the nation must feel.”

“Okay…” Rave pressed a gentle kiss on his cheek. Wordlessly, Momo did the same. Chancellor and first haremette flanked him. John placed the crown on his head, the pointy, uncomfortable thing. Then, the three of them stepped around a corner and into the throne room.

There was no fanfare. Even if Fusion had a royal theme already, nothing festive would have been appropriate. The room was filled to the brim. Indeed, for the occasion, John had edited the Palace so the outside wall was gone and thousands of people could crowd on the lawn and still see him. Cameras followed him. Alone, he sat down on the throne.

“Victory… has been bought,” John began his speech without any preamble. “It has been bought and brought about with blood, sweat, and tears. News of us overcoming the First Foe has already spread far and wide. You must all have celebrated… and I believe celebrations are in order… just not overly gleeful ones.

“We have all lost so much. In innocence, in naivety, in friends, in family, in joy, in potential – things that we will never get back. Things that I cannot pretend opened more doors than it closed. We have lost things that are gone forever. What we have cherished is simply… not there anymore. There is no one in Fusion that has not lost in this war. I will not diminish this loss with talks of worth. I have talked enough of the honour found in fulfilling the duty. Now that we have won, truly won, it is time to mourn.

“Yet, it is also time to pick ourselves up. To shake off the grief that holds us, each of us at our own pace, gather up what we can still gather, and face the future honestly and forthrightly. For me, that begins here.”

John lifted the crown from his head. He turned it in his hands, once more inspecting the symbol of the changes he had enacted unilaterally. It was an ugly thing, barely worthy of even the moniker of crown. Six thorns attached to a circlet, beset with six different gemstones. Steel, not gold, scratched by the haste at which it had been forged.

“I assumed absolute authority at the start of this war,” John continued. “I am convinced I had to do it. One vision was needed to steer the ship of state in these past weeks, one voice to be the coordination that all listened to… Magnus Magus, Emrik Telford and Chemilia Smith, please join me on the dais. Stand before the throne.”

The crowd muttered at the sudden announcement. They muttered even more when John pulled a knife out of his inventory. Muttering swelled to outright talk when he cut into the mundane steel of the crown.

“With the threat of the Lorylim dies my mandate to wear this crown alone,” John declared, his voice growing more energetic. “I will not return to the pretension of a republic, especially not in the times that we are now entering. The mantle of leadership is mine by right of power and accomplishment. My authority, I share and bestow with those worthy of it.”

John cut out the first segment, marked with a green gemstone. He rose from the throne and walked to Chemilia.

“To Chemilia Smith, one of Fusion’s two longest serving generals, who nearly laid down her life in the recent battle, I give the piece of the crown that bears the colour of air. May she, as my primary military advisor, know when to come through like a hurricane and when to speak softly.”

The pink-haired woman looked at the piece of the crown in her hand. It had no magic to it whatsoever, nothing supernatural at least. “Thank you, my king,” she said, then cleared her throat. “Thank you, my King!” she repeated at a louder tone, one that would have passed muster.

John just smiled and moved onto the next. “Magnus Magus. I honour you in part because of your father’s sacrifice… I honour you because you are my friend… and I honour you because your dedication makes you worthy of it. As representative of the Fateweavers of Fusion, I bestow upon Magnus Magus the piece of the crown that bears the colour of earth. May he stay grounded and may he remind me that we can overcome and work within what limits us… if you would allow me to enlist your aid like this.”

“I will,” Magnus said. He had not changed since his parents’ death and John admired that. Why change what they had been proud of?

“Emrik Telford… you… do not need to kneel.”

The man had dropped to one knee when John turned to him. “Just this once, I think it is appropriate.”

“…If you insist.” John cut the next piece off the crown. “As representative of the Lake Alliance and the elected officials of Fusion, I bestow upon Emrik Telford the piece of the crown that bears the colour of fire. May he carry with him the passion to defend the innocent and the flame to advocate for what is right, even if it is not easy.”

John returned to the throne. Two more cuts split the remainder of the crown into three more pieces.

“Upon the light of my life, I bestow the piece that bears the gem the colour of light. May she shine as bright as she has done every day before.”

“Flatterer,” Rave joked and took the piece.

“To my greatest aid in the field of state, I bestow the piece that bears the gem the colour of shadow. May she continue to work hard, even if her work is rarely seen and never as appreciated as it should be.”

“…I feel plenty appreciated,” Momo mumbled bashfully.

“To myself, I keep the piece the colour of water. May I remain temperate and balanced, may the ship of state sail evenly upon my waves, and may our enemies know the horror of my wrath.” His tone did not match the pledge, remaining as calm as he had been the entire time. “Although the exact shape of Fusion’s new form is yet to be decided, know that this symbolism will hold true. Half the power of state shall remain with me and mine and half I shall give to my friends, my subjects, and those that defend the realm.”

Led by Emrik, there was a wave of applause there. No whistling, nothing incredibly powerful, just curt applause in approval of his words.

“And, as a pleasant surprise at the tail end of all of this political necessity,” John added. “I hereby declare I will wed Jane ‘Rave’ Hollmey by the end of January.”

“Wha-“ Rave turned to him, mouth agape. There was a moment of silence. She threw herself on top of him on the throne, pressing her lips on his in a moment of pure, overwhelming love. He reciprocated the love with everything that he had. Whatever lingering hatred that had still clung to his heart cracked and fell away like slag around unalloyed metal.

What else could be done at a time like this than to live, laugh and move on?

End of Season 3