Visions of Hope

“Very risky business.” It came closer. “Saving one universe by sacrificing another. Not always achievable but you did it.” Almost no-one present had any idea what it was talking about.
“Sorry what?” Lore checked that they weren’t the only one in the dark. The room nodded.
A holographic image sprang from Time’s wrist. “This was the universe twenty minutes ago.” The image showed fifty five universes, two of which were highlighted in red. “This is now.” One of the red universes was no longer present.
“Our universe is gone?” Crait looked to Lore then to Time.
“Yeah… I thought that was your goal. Your universe decay was beginning to accelerate. Something in that facility was dragging it towards here.” It pointed to the third universe in sequence. “You saved a whole lot of lives.” Time played the simulation, showing what would have been. Crait’s universe built speed for a moment, it soon lost all of that. It collided with the third universe as expected but what wasn’t expected was the domino effect that followed. As Crait’s universe shattered, shards flew in all directions. Universes one and two were narrowly spared but all including and after three were in danger. As three fell, it too sharded. The debris cloud protected the first two universes but the others weren’t so lucky. Chunks of parallel realities collided, combined and destroyed as they rampaged through the majority of the multiverse. “By dusting your own universe, you saved all of those realities. A small price to pay as my uncle would say.”
“Your uncle?” Lore looked at it weirdly. “I don’t like where this is going…”
“Well, at least you heeded my warning.” Time swiped at their wrist. The hologram expanded. It multiplied fifty-two fold. A large glowing orb grew at the centre. “Reality is much bigger than you thought.” It couldn’t help but smile. “Our reality, or at least as far as your concerned, consists of fifty two multiverses surrounding a central universe. Within each multiverse are at least fifty two universes. My Grandfather, Reality, created all of them. Then he gifted a multiverse to each of his children.” Time stopped to make sure they were still following. “After we retired, my father started speaking to his brother again. Reality tried to get me back into the fold. I stayed long enough to find out what he was doing.” Time shook its head. “I’m sorry I roped you into this.”
“Seems like one way or another we’d be here anyway.” Char sighed.
“That’s dad for you.”
“Sorry what?”
“Ah… You didn’t know… I thought Varkral would have told you… See there are people in reality, people who have stood on the precipice of importance, who are like magnets to chaos.” Time turned to Lore. “You’re one of those people.”
“Meaning?” Lore had lived their life and apart from the gaping hole in their shoulder, had made their way through it mostly unscathed.
“For lack of a better word, your cursed. Doomed to forever live in interesting times. Doomed to ever escalating catastrophe. The only reason you were able to live on Earth in peace for so long was because it was fixed. If time had been at all fluid, you’d have been fighting off invasions and wars for those ten years.”
“So is this the crescendo then? The final rise?”
“For a while, you might even lose the curse but who knows?” Time shrugged.
“Alright then, I’m cursed. What does that really have to do with this multiverse and your family?”
“My uncle declared war on my father. He said that his kids had assembled the best armies in the ultraverse and that they could destroy my father’s best effort. My father accepted that bet and tried to recruit me to build him that army.”
“And now we’re stuck doing that then.” Lore was not pleased. Time nodded.
“Sorry. I thought he’d just leave it alone but when Uncle threw the rogue universes at us, father couldn’t back down.”
Lore raised an eyebrow and began to scan Crait. Sure enough, their signature was wildly different to Lore’s or even Charrlene’s. “They don’t match anything we’ve seen before.”
“That’s the kicker. Every multiverse has a constant. Ours used to be you. My fault. Uncle’s universes have Crait as the constant. But thanks to his kids, there aren’t too many of those either.”
“Right… What are these Craits like then?” Lore looked to Crait apologetically, “No offense.”
“None taken.” They replied.
“They’re a lot like this Crait. The ones that are left anyway. They’re almost a cross between the two of you. From your timeline though.” Time pointed to Charrlene. Charrlene shuddered.
“Ah. That may pose an issue.” All eyes were on her. “Our Crait, the original Crait was nothing like the one you met Lore. They were a cold and calculating warrior. They planned for more than failure, they planned for their failure’s failure. While Lore’s plans would have maybe one contingency, they had binders dedicated to twisted ankles and minor dislocations. All that slowly went out the window as time went on and they learnt what to expect but they were nothing like the person you fought. That Crait was twisted. Centuries old and bitter from the way your relationship ended.” Silence.
“Anyway… Crait is the leader of Uncle’s army. They’re probably also at least a Paragon but I’m not sure if my cousins can do that so…” Once again, a shrug. “It’s not an exact science.”
“Why? You wanted out so, why are you here?” Char looked to Time then the projection of reality. It was beautiful in a simple way.
“Because, if I wasn’t then we’d have lost. And I have to make up for my mistake. I passed on this role once, to do it again would be thousands of times more selfish. All of those deaths would be on me.” Two light streams of tears glimmered down its face.
Lore nodded, satisfied with its response. “Alright then, what’s our next steps?” Over in their multiverse, a single red universe remained. Time selected it. It expanded, revealing a sizable text box. Time scrolled through it, stopping at Quatarr. Memories Long Forgotten.