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Do Entities Dream Of Crystal Sheep? (Endbringer Lewd Worm CYOA) Chapter 7
🕑 Added 2023-05-13 20:07:04 +0000 UTC-x-
Chapter 7
-x-
[Evelyn]
“Ok, so let me get this straight… I told you to upgrade our combat systems and defenses- since we didn’t have any dedicated countermeasures against weird stuff like magic. Yeah I get that part." She nodded.
"But can you please explain to me, how you managed to somehow, turn us into a literal god? I can't even- agh!” Evy let out an unintelligible noise that could have either been a muffled scream, or hysterical laughter.
[Evelyn] stared at Evy's failed attempts to collect herself, and decided that it was the right moment to explain, speaking up in the brief lull in the conversation.
“A single stage below that to be precise. Records from memory describe multiple modes of ‘ascension’ or ‘apotheosis’, and definitions of what a ‘god’ entitles vary according to religion and fiction. However, the final stages of ascension available from this particular method was deemed unfavorable to us due to its requirements. Particularly, because it requires us to bind ourselves to a specific dimension after the process is completed. We already have administrative authority over such a dimension while also retaining our mobility in the form of our [Domain], so this process is both redundant and a downgrade. It will most likely also result in an incomplete or unstable evolution while simultaneously immobilizing us in a world we actively dislike.”
The endbringer paused, and stared at its counterpart before nodding. “I have determined that my current state was adequate enough for our purposes so there was no need for us to take such an unfavorable deal. Not when there are better avenues of improvement available to us. Currently, I have reached a state where even a focused attack by the warrior’s [sting] shard itself would struggle to destroy this body completely. Other than that, with the reality warping capabilities we now possess, unconventional attacks that utilize ‘magic’ or target the ‘soul’ are now rendered mostly ineffective - as planned. We are also now completely immune to mundane physical damage.”
Evy threw her a skeptical look. “Really? There’s a lot of weird shit out there, I'm doubtful that you could just no-sell everything just like that.”
[Evelyn] nodded in agreement. “True, there are still beings that are capable of threatening us. However, the few threats that could destroy us immediately without any hope of recovery whatsoever are so far above our capability to combat, that even attempting to do so is basically just assisted self-termination with extra steps. Unless we are exceptionally lacking in judgement, attracting the attention of such beings need deliberate effort on our part to do so.” she pointed out. “On a more relative scale, we have no need to fight beings like ‘Saitama’ or ‘Goku’, who actively evolve to match the threat and putting ourselves in a position to do so is completely unnecessary, even on the occasion that we do visit the dimensions they reside in.”
Evy looked at her counterpart thoughtfully. "We can't keep working on that assumption as we move forward though. We're bound to run into trouble eventually. It's just how the universe works. Just look at what happened with the Entities. It's not as if they expected to die to a bunch of two legged hairless apes when they set out for this star system, now did they?"
[Evelyn] tilted her head thoughtfully “The statistical probability of the [Cycle] failing so completely to a civilization as advanced as that of Humanity is negligible. But at the same time, the fact that it happened is undeniable." she noted, and Evy nodded.
"Yeah, it's better to venture into all our affairs with the assumption that Murphy is waiting around the corner to screw us over. Being over-prepared is never a bad thing."
"Agreed. Being in the line of fire of events like an ‘infinity snap’ is also easily within our capabilities to avoid. In fact our ability to freely travel the greater multiverse could be considered our most powerful defense. It is better to merely accumulate enough power to counter most things we come across and leave ourselves open and flexible enough to escape the things we can’t.”
Evy agreed with that. “Did you use my ‘meta knowledge’” she snorted at the term “to come to this conclusion?”
“Yes, this inference was made using the memories we have of the Multiverse from media available from the world we designated as ‘home Earth’ along with the [DATA] stored in my memory banks. We still need an actual sample of each specific esoteric effects as we encounter them to conclude this result with certainty, but our ability to adapt against metaphysical threats is immensely improved. The Entities have encountered similar phenomena before. It is how the Warrior developed many of the core and 'Perfect' shards like [Stilling] in the first place." [Evelyn] answered. "Even if something is effective against us, I am confident I can counter it so long as our [Domain] is active. Our offensive capabilities are only mildly improved however, but not a concern due to how developed it already is.”
Evy sighed. She wasn’t even mad really. Quite the opposite in fact. It was just… she just wanted to take things slower and pace it out a bit better so that she wouldn't be overwhelmed by things and caught off-guard.
“The escalation is strong in this one.” she drawled in exasperation.
[APPROVAL] came interjected QA, her broadcast almost audibly glowing with admiration.
“Of course you do.” Evy sighed. “Oh well. We might as well merge, yeah?” Evy asked, looking up at her other half.
“Yes.” [Evelyn] agreed. “There is much for us to review as a singular being.”
Evy turned as she heard a slight hovering noise approaching her position, so she turned just in time to see 9S dropping onto the roof they were talking on. Evy watched curiously as a pod dropped off 2B right behind him.
The woman looked emotionally exhausted but it seemed like she had enough resolve to move towards her without hesitation anyways. The gynoid stared at Evy and her counterpart with wariness, caution and hope in equal measure.
An awkward silence stretched between. 9S, however, was distracted as he stared at [Evelyn] with unrestrained curiosity. “Hello Evy. Is this your… real body?”
“Yeah.” She agreed.
“Oh cool.” He stared at the endbringer for a long while, becoming increasingly confused and frustrated as time went on.
‘He looks like he really wants to ask me something, but is becoming increasingly more inclined towards banging his head against a wall’ Evy noted in her head with a small degree of amusement. 'At least I found someone else to share my pain with.'
But still, she sympathized with his plight and decided to put him out of his misery. “Is something wrong, 9S?”.
He hesitated for a moment, before giving in. “Well, I’m wondering if there’s anything wrong with my sensors, ma’am. I already got these checked out so I know nothing’s wrong but it keeps giving me false readings!”
Evelyn had a suspicion as to what was going on, so she decided that she might as well try to set things straight. “Well, tell me what’s the issue? I’ll see if something from my end of things messing things up, yeah? And what's with the whole ma'am thing?”
“For one, it keeps telling me that your size” he gestured at [Evelyn], “is completely off the charts, and your density and maso readings keep coming back as an error. I noticed something similar happening in your head but this is on another scale entirely. I’m just confused. And for the second question... Well, if you manage to bring Yorha back, you’ll be our overseer right? I was just addressing you as I would my superiors.” He shrugged nervously, and his voice sounded a bit hopeful too.
Was he trying to butter her up, or is he trying to see if was planning to commit to her decision?
“Well, 9S, to tell the truth, putting me at the top of any organization is a bad idea. I’m simply not inclined towards leading people, and putting someone with the same directives I have is just asking for trouble. There's also the fact that most of the people we will be making contact with are paranoid about my true nature, so it's a terrible decision to make all around. I have someone else in mind when it comes to a leader for your people. I haven't hashed out all the details yet but the idea is that we have the organization have many component factions that will hopefully work together, you know? I’m also more useful as a deterrent and as a supplier than as an actual leader, you get my drift?”
“I think so. We'll agree upon the details later then. So what do I call you then?”
“Evelyn’s fine, especially after my consciousness rejoins hers. I just took the name Evy to make it easier for others, and ourselves, to address each other”
He nodded thoughtfully, though his face was a bit confused. “Why would humans be paranoid about you?” He asked.
Evelyn smirked. “That would be my ‘Sister’s’ fault. You see, she's a powerful precognitive who used her abilities to extensively influence her victims into creating outcomes that in turn cause horrific damage to someone or something else at some later point in the future, essentially turning them into rube-Goldberg devices that spread pain and chaos. You know, the usual. The locals called them Ziz bombs. Due to how convoluted the chain of events tend to be and how they usually end up cascading into something disastrous. They fear that I'm something similar- which is reasonable really considering that it's true to an extent. Well, I probably wont ever get rid of that suspicion but if I act in a way that fits their preconceived notions, I can get them to take me seriously and actually trust my actions, funnily enough.”
2B tilted her head. “So you’re going to pretend that you’re one of these endbringers then?”
Evy smiled sadly. “It won’t even be a lie, I am one.”
2B stared at her intently. “But why do you have to resort to such a cover-” she spat the word with such vitriol that it took Evy aback. She also had a strange feeling that it wasn’t the word itself that bothered her, but something else… “-when you have better options?” The gynoid finished, her voice practically shaking with emotion..
‘… That probably hit a sore spot. Considering her history with 9S, it's understandable really.
She sighed before she started to explain. “Coming out with it will only make things worse. Humans are full of contradictions like that, 2B.. They would be more paranoid and actively disruptive if I tried to tell them that I have a human mind or anything along those lines. The parahumans of Earth Bet are driven by conflict, and they will make a mess of things if they think they can get away with it. Even when considering worlds that are not Earth Bet, many of the places I plan on adding to our network are going to be places that are arguably worse. Showing anything that is considered a ‘weakness’ is out of the option.”
2B slumped. “I… I understand.” 2B said, as she looked at Evy with pity evident in her eyes. “You’ll come to regret it, you know?” she said, words more a statement of eventuality than a reply.
“Maybe.” Evy said, smirking. “But it would be a novel experience nonetheless, and what is life without a challenge, eh?”
Evy paused, the smirk suddenly freezing on her face. Her eyes darted across the landscape frantically in search of a threat that didn’t exist.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.” She mumbled. “I’m going to retrieve the Bunker before something goes wrong. You can never tell with Murphy.” Evy stared at her other half and nodded.
[Evelyn] cut the mental partition, and stilled as two parts of a whole were left hanging with nothing to keep them apart.
Then she was whole again, and the latent maso particles used the opportunity to bind itself to her, utterly and completely.
Evelyn, a human, a weapon, a goddess, stared down at her clenched fist in surprise.
“Huh. I guess I was wrong.”-x-Even as she rose up into the upper layers of the atmosphere, Evelyn didn’t know what to think about her newfound godhood but then again, she already was one by technicality with how much control she had over her [Domain] and the dimension within it. She just managed to complete the linking process the maso had attempted with her own realm instead of the Nier multiverse so as to speak.
In essence, she managed to link her [Domain] to her soul itself instead of being limited to just her shard modules.
What did this do, you ask? Well, functionally nothing more than the manual upgrades her divided self had given her, but there were certain metaphysical implications that came with her ascension to godhood that literally flew over her divided self's cognition. Either she somehow managed to ignore it, or it was something she simply couldn't observe - most likely because it needed a certain frame of mind to recognize - She was fairly sure that the concept of blind faith and belief was as alien to the Entities as the Entities were to humans. She didn't have any solid reasoning for believing the things her very soul was apparently telling her, but she had belief in the fact that it was true.
And well... it she wasn't all that happy about the contents.
Yeah, the benefits were immense, but the downside was the fact that it painted a big fucking target on her back whenever she entered a world or universe with an active pantheon on it.
“Well, shit.” She cursed. “Fuck you, Murphy.”
Upon analyzing the nature of her so-called ‘Divinity’, Evelyn wanted to bang her head against a wall. At this stage, the 'godhood' was mostly just a label that acknowledged her power. It didn’t allow her to empower herself by associating herself with a concept. Not yet at least- she had no new eldritch insight into the inner workings of the universe (only being recently being introduced to the fact that they existed), no new ability to feed off of faith or something like the warp gods (Was there a skill tree for this shit?). And what dubious claim to omnipotence she DID have was still limited to her personal dimension, and was thus redundant (The fucking Manton limit was still there for some inexplicable reason).
And she couldn’t even use her newfound ability to ‘bless’ people since her magic and divinity was actively, by its very nature, Anti-human.
Yeah, she could have her magic play nice with them to an extent, but it was in the same way a jar of acid could be ‘safely handled’ in a lab. A human could use it in limited applications but any attempt to actually empower them would be akin to shoving acid down their throats and might end up transforming them into something else. The biggest takeaway from all of this was that her fine control over the particles increased massively, and that it wouldn’t contaminate her other abilities anymore.
‘All in all, this is a horrible experience, 3 out of 10, I would not recommend.’ She grumbled.
“Ugh, is this what the Emperor of Mankind felt when things went to shit in 40K? Wait no, the poor man has it much worse, I'm going to shut up now.” Evelyn sighed.
In the end, she was still just a slightly bigger fish in a not-that-much-safer ocean. “At least that’s another thing to cross off of my childhood wish-list. See mom, I can become a goddess!”
Evelyn’s attention snapped back towards her target as she noticed the atmosphere thinning out. As she levitated towards the ruins of the space station, Evelyn could only watch in awe as the sky slowly transitioned from a clear blue into the starry vastness of space.
“It never gets old, does it? All the things we take for granted… Maybe I should take a vacation after things settle down. Go to Equestria or something. Wait, no. That place is a cesspool of eldritch horrors and nightmares beyond the understanding. Somewhere else then.”
Evelyn landed on the largest piece of the debris, a massive skeletal semi-circular frame that drifted idly through of space, an unceremonious grave for a people who gave up everything to a war without purpose.
Evelyn stared sadly at the sight, taking in the pointlessness of it all, and decided that she didn’t like it.
“Well then, let’s get to changing that shall we?”
Evelyn touched the metal with a hand, and tried to feel it out with her [Resurrection] ability to see if she could restore it. It usually grasped what it considered a singular ‘whole’ object for reference. However, the specifics of what qualified as a ‘whole’ to the power was entirely arbitrary and dependent on whether the object has an actual history as a singular entity or not.
So, when she tried to enforce her power onto the metal frame, she only managed to mentally grab hold of a single cabin. “No, that won’t do.” She frowned. “Wait, will that-”
As soon as the idea entered her mind, Evelyn wasted no time trying to see if it would work. As she sank her maso particles through the empty frame, Evelyn managed to sense an echo of the station ; an echo that went beyond the physical. Tracing the sympathetic links to all its constituent parts, Evelyn spread her magic over all of it, even the bits that had fallen to the surface of the planet, and linked the fragments together. She didn’t need all of the pieces ; just enough for her to unify the echoes of the station into something coherent
- a memory suddenly played out in her head without prompting. It was a brand new satellite installment that was erected by the order of the council of humanity. An experimental platform that manufactured androids using the corpses of their enemies. Throwing away the lives of androids against the unending tides of the machine lifeforms was cruel, and a decision that the other installments had to make all the time. Then there were the deserters and those who were far too traumatized to actually contribute to the war efforts without having their memory banks erased. So at the time, the idea of recycling enemy machine cores to mass produce 'androids' which in turn could be thrown back at the enemy sounded like a great idea. After all, they didn't have to care about the morality of wasting 'machine' lives and the higher ups could pat themselves on the back and not have nightmares when they shut down for the night. However, the AI running the bunker had its doubts, it wasn't sure of the morality of the situation and it was still so very young at the time. But even if it had the vague impression that what they were doing was wrong, it did nothing and continued to carry out its duty. For the Glory of Mankind. The station could only observe as living, thinking beings were sent out to die again and again without end, and worst of all, it couldn't stop itself from growing attached to people who were never supposed to be anything more than expendable. But still, it saw and witnessed the lives of its precious inhabitants, unobserved by either android or machine until its very end. And so, when it felt its systems being breached by the Machine Network, the only thing it could feel was relief. Finally, things were coming to an end. It just wished that its inhabitants could have lived a more fulfilling life -
Evelyn reeled back as if struck, and gulped dryly as she tried to get rid of the lingering taste of black and blue on her tongue. "Were those ...memories? No, an impression? Of the land? Does a space station even count as a land? What's going on?" She frowned, and then shook her head. "An interesting phenomenon, and something worth studying if it happens again, but I can't do anything about it right now." She sighed.
"Well then. Let's get started, now shall we?"
Evelyn spread her hands out, and her soul flexed.
A spherical burst of light reached outwards as her [Domain] expanded, engulfing most of the space station until it eventually stopped at the edge of the boundary near the two-kilometer radius.
And then, she reached beyond it by following the trails of maso particles that linked together the rubble saturated with her very essence into a singular whole. Observers on the surface of the planet stared as distorted branches of light forked its way across the sky light like lightning, and stayed there until every last piece of the Bunker was connected once again.
[Resurrect] she commanded, and then things were never the same.
-x-
A.N: I won't explain everything here but no, she didn't suddenly turn into a planeswalker.
