...in the harmonious realm which has come, the emptiness remains haunting as the Phantom only barely hid from Ald'wyn, on a barren world he made camp, the violet starlight illuminating everything before him, the cracks upon the earth rose slabs hundreds of feet into the clear skies, only barely did the pebbles number in resting beneath his boots.
" so many plans" he murmured, " so much resource,", and struck the bladestaff into the ground, "and yet they still fight me"
A shadowy voice in the splendid light uttered ; "Because you cannot prevail", but as the Phantom turned, he found yet again he was alone, he gazed intensely at the bladestaff in his hands, dropping it frightened, and running towards a plain in the desolate grey fields, he tumbles over, almost intentionally, rolling in the dirt around him, then laying flat and forcefully breathing, "leave me alone! ... I ... I just want to be alone", the dust trinkled over him, but fell as slow as it could, the gravity of the world being weak to hold them down, but in the time after, as he is completely enveloped by sand, a shadow begins to rise over the world, and a sinister voice cried aloud; "phantom!".
He broke out of the sheets of sand, looking up to a spiked dragon which overshadowed the massive sphere, and without warning Ald'wyn flew into it, it's head making trail to the phantom.
He rushed up suddenly, running hurriedly back to the bladestaff, Ald'wyn was close, the effects, the phantom could feel, the earth being bent by the gravity of it's body, soon the ground was a slope, and the staff laid up the incline, the integrity of the earth beneath him began to fail, and he fell through, it seemed the chasm was closing up, half of it in the shadow, and through the top the phantom saw three things, the burning eyes of the world eater, and the glimmer of the bladestaff.
In despair he lifted his fingers up desperately, pleading "just...fall to me" his fingers twitched as he said so, and seemingly miraculous the staff fell, and cut down through the side of him, he was scared halfway, one eye closing up in the black blood.
He only barely grasped the bladestaff, and whispered; "Avdfenor"... world ender.
The earth rumbled and rose around for miles, truly the entire world broke apart, And merely a kilometer away Ald'wyn is kissed by the jaws of the world ender, and in that moment gained an equal, thus no longer was it a singularity, by its dimension it defaults, becoming "he" and the world ender becomes known as "she".
She was pale, like the earth which had come before, larger only slightly to Ald'wyn, the two tackled, their claws moving thousands of meters before even scratching the other, But Ald'wyn was a veteran, he held up her hands and spat fumes of plasma onto her surface.
In the depths and darkness of her, contained tightly in a small alcove the phantom whispered "run away, cover the retreat".
And Avdfenor roared into Ald'wyn's face, the force pushing him away, and suppressing him long enough, Ald'wyn saw her white wings fade into the blackness of the cosmos and he closed his eyes, covering further with his wings and tails, and in the end seemed as though he was a sphere, his scales were as hills running cross the sides of him, blowing force from their openings, and he flew as he always had, only with the grace of greater speed.
Elsewhere, happening just moments before or EVEN after, the exact time is uncertain.
Within the protection of the Phantom's sanctuary, what seemed to be a great blemish in spacetime, a blackess which no light escaped, and gave off none of such kind, but within was a hall fit for the one true king, he who is chosen among the Vanir to lead the last gods.
In a plain room of emerald marble floors stretched over for almost a mile and cealed off at its ends by the corpses of dragons, those of old, still sparkling in death, and those of gold, straightened up as standing statues.
The roof above them could barely been seen, it was clear that something massive was responsible for the marvel, perhaps even a titan.
In the center of the room, the remaining Vanir Lord; Zanrax, who is accompanied by the Fireheart: Gordon, and the machine gods: Ralmus and Unisus. And Finally the demon goddess; Caitlyn.
They deliberated on the war to come, "we must leave immediately" The king said.
"With what army?" Caitlyn asked,
He looked down at her, saying with a large smile on his face; "we have both machine lords in our presence, we can have any army".
Unisus breaks into the conversation, saying to him; "Correct, but I fear my spineless brother will be useless in this endeavour, you may be unaware, but he never intentionally creates a tool of death" He smirked, saying further; "I'll build so many, we could all even have our own personal 'Anti Stupid question droids'...", he then looked down to Caitlyn, "wouldn't that be swell?"
And in the time to come, it began, they refused leaving the sanctum, for fear of Ald'wyn's hunger and hatred of them, thus Unisus ripped the walls of all they could, melted marble to refine energy crystals, and eventually fashioned a legion of sphere like structures, each only a few dozen times larger to their makers.
Walking in the midst of them Zanrax bellowed; "what are these things? How does one win a war... with balls!?!?"
Unisus rushed out from the guts of one of the underdeveloped machines, walking up to Zanrax covered in oil dug up from the dragon bones, "have you perhaps ever caught a glimpse of one of wondrous creations in action?"
-"yes"
With a large grin and sarcastic tone Unisus asked; "which ones?"
-"The ones which don't look like orbs"
"Ah! Yes I remember that model..." then laughed tremendously as he continued; "you're probably reminiscing on the Gan'ercons, a nice class of transforming machines, but worthless where WE'RE going,"
he looked back at an undone shell of a machine, " these are my updated Destrik'cons..."
But he's interrupted before explaining further, "aren't those the things that tried to kill I and Gordon on Ald'wyn?" Caitlyn asked
He came up to her, squatted down to half his height, before even almost being a foot higher than her, "come to think of it, they are... no more questions from you"
-"So you'll have me believe you're building those monstrosities again?"
"You don't have to believe it...", and he rose to his feet, looking up, sealing his faceplate just before saying: "you just have to see it happen".
And in what seemed like days, they were ready, in numbers almost ten thousand, they hovered in a scattered formation, or in no formation at all, until Ralmus put order to them, and made phalanx of them.
"Now, behold!" Unisus said to them,
"And... how will they fight" Zanrax questions, "they DON'T have hands"
Unisus remained silent in the humming noise his toys made, and whispered; "battle stations"
-"repeat that, clearer this time"
And Unisus drew furiously his blade; Kaxxfo'ar, and pointed forward to the top of the doors; "battle stations!", and his legions displayed their power, the linear cracks on their surface opened wide, flipping inward they unsheathed massive guns, each machine with at least twenty weapons array, each array with at least 3 guns.
They fired through the roof of the place and left the shadow of the sanctum, flying off to destroy the enemy.
Zanrax looked up, the pieces still crumbling down, crackling as each last piece of stone broke away, " you do realise you just alerted Ald'wyn of our location?"
-"control yourself, the praise is unnecessary, we can't all be marvelous as I"
Soon after, the machines caught sight of Avdfenor, after travelling through the slipstream at speeds faster than light, the Phantom was laying in a crater blasted out from her, singing to himself, "I sing the song for tomorrow, I sing the song for today, I sing for I live forever, and that has been my way..."
He is only interrupted by the clapping thunder of the Destrik'cons' cannons, he gets up to his feet, yelling confused and demented orders, "banner the chambers! Seal the blast doors! Give me some numbers!"
And from the ground beneath, stone behemoths rise in favour of him, but they are cut back down by flaming bolts coming in scores of fury, in seconds they are laid waste to, and the Phantom sees the futility of his cause, but he was bound for resistance and he would do the nearly impossible, in a haste to escape he said; "cover our retreat, destroy the cons".
But every attempt proved fruitless, they were simply too fast, and bit by bit Avdfenor fell apart, and in the distance Ald'wyn could barely be seen catching up to them.
"No! This can't be happening!" In his madness the Phantom held THE bladestaff in both hands, and separated the ends, a bright light was let out as endings severed from beginnings, he held both blades in his hands, crying aloud; "build a wall, and do it like you mean it!", he appeared to be in a battle stance, and by his command a mass of facsimiles rose out of the dust, standing around him with their heads down in a way impossible to differentiate.
They all swiped their blades, and everything for lightyears around is swept away, giving space for the next phase.
And from the slipstream all worlds and higher formations were brought to ploy, each as a node in a mesh, a shield, a wall, pregnable only by destroying the generators on each world, but they were guarded by monstrosities, three layers stood, each with a million worlds, and an illusion of a quadrillion other worlds.
The Destrik'cons hovered in the void before it, one saying to another; "I'm not designed for this", and turning tail, beaming off like a flash back to the sanctum, they rushed in through the hole they left, already having knowledge of the place meant it's barriers could not hinder them entrance, as they assembled before the archway Unisus looked at them with a face full of rage, "well?!? Is he dead? where's my staff?".
And in reply all they brought was a doodle, a drawing one of them made with lasers on the floor...
Taking one glance Unisus turned away in anger, "if these were contemporary times..." he said backing them, "I would have you all scrapped and turned into ammunition for real killers".
Zanrax walked past him, inspecting the drawings before he said; "these defenses are actually quite fallible"
"Really?" Unisus remarked in a cold tone, "then tell me, how do we get in?"
-"we create the Phantom's alter ego and multiply her to spread discord among his followers, funny enough he's not able to create machines as you do, they're not perfect, we can use that to our advantage".
"Nice Anecdote, but how do we get something...ANYTHING! through those shields"
-"There are passageways in the slipstream, small enough to pass little bits of data but nothing more, I hypothesize we could send souls in this manner"
"you say "souls" like you believe in magic... but even so, who could possibly take up this challenge?"
-"if you still have I'aegis I can fuse the data with Raveron, and we'll have a being perfect for the job"
"I could, if Ralmus wouldn't be a selfish cunt and share his son with us"
Ralmus came up to the two, "if it means defeating this threat I'll give my only true son"
"And I, my feminine spawn of failed lab experiments"
-"I'aegis isn't a lab experiment, we both put a lot of work into building her,"
But Unisus ignored him, pushing out an extension from the side of him, like a slot into his body, from which he stored a cartrage containing the soul of the chaotic counterpart of Ralmus' God of order, they handed their greatest creations, pinnacles of their genius.
And Zanrax made them one, slamming the two together, and telekinetically heating the shells, then rewriting each of them so they may share a unique form, but still be two separate entities,
Zanrax took a heavy stance, drawing energy from the ground, shattering the floor and levitating from it a white liquid, frozen gasses within the rock beneath the sanctum, from it's cells came a being giant as they, it's form seemed both masculine and feminine, it's smooth torso connected to limbs which were perfectly straight and slender, to complete the creature Zanrax planted the merged cartridges into the back of it's spine, and smashed his fist in the floor next to it, drawing a mask from the stone, having vents over it's nose and mouth, and glass over the openings of it's eyes.
He walked casually to the front of the being and placed the mask on it's face, saying to it, "and by this mask you shall be the Harbinger of time, take with you the power to mend the heavens".
Fin.
Glossary
Vanir: Yes, Vanir, the old magic gods from norse myth, I had to write up a whole language for them, plus backstory.
Fireheart: A mortal in service of dragons who is permitted dragon like abilities, recapping from a previous story, Gordon is 6 feet tall
Ald'wyn: literally meaning "doom" in Vanir, a dragon who later becomes the world eater, and turns against the Vanir
Destrik'con: meaning Sphere machine in Vanir, can harmlessly drift around in its orb and design weapons of any kind, then in some cases open up to become large warriors with rollers for feet.
Sound staff (the thingy phantom uses): It's a device able to manipulate enspacetime, with an amplifier attached it can alter almost anything, almost anywhere
Slipstream: in this case a channel of energy that's...well...everywhere, the Vanir figured out how to hone it and send objects at faster than light speed.
Gan'ercons: meaning "beast... switch...and machine" it was an iron giant with armor that looked like the hide of a monster which it could morph into
Caitlyn: (Recap) five feet tall, blood pink skin, humanoid like structure... likes asking questions
Unisus: a professional jerk, very rude, very sarcastic for no exact reason, excellent at building weapons of death
Ralmus: Unisus' brother (yes, I know they're machines) calm and collected, a kind hearted machine who designed Unisus and passed on the design to his father for rendering
Gender analysis: some are called he/she, though they don't have genitals of any kind, this refers to masculine or feminine nature, if a being can't be compared to any other, they are usually called "it"