Paragorn's Infinity Trial - Part 1

Once the message from his 'other self' had ended, its hologram disappeared leaving him utterly flabbergasted.

"What…? How…?" Stammered Mesa, unable to comprehend what just happened. He then turns to Invariant Bias and asks it if it knows what is going, but it answers that it too it has no idea what is going on. But since there was no immediate danger it simply decided to do nothing for the moment and see what would happen, to which Mesa was in agreement.

So there he was, stuck in another universe on an unknown planet in the middle of nowhere space and he was just contacted by another version of 'himself' who told him to wait for an extraction to a place where his all questions, and there are a lot, would be answered. So he sat down and enjoyed the sights and pretty soon closed his eyes to spread consciousness across the entire planet and enjoyed the wild pristine nature of this world. He looked down at all the fish in the seas, the birds and insects in the skies and the animals running, grazing and foraging across the lands. It was serene. What he noticed though was a single vast mansion on one of the islands in the planet's tropical region.

'That is strange.' Thought Mesa. Before he could investigate it, Invariant Bias alerted him to a ship that arrived in orbit. Looking up, Mesa's eyes went wide when he saw what kind of a ship it was. It was a Forerunner Transport Ship. This just kept deepening the mystery of what was going on. From the side of the ship, a shuttle was launched from the ship that landed minutes later in front of him and Invariant Bias, who itself was also perplexed as to what was going on.

When the bay doors opened and ramp came down, they were in for another surprise. Coming out of the shuttle was a construct that looked exactly like Invariant Bias, with the only difference being its three lights were a golden color instead of Invariant Bias' two blue and one red light.

"Greeting Reclaimer, I am Serene Bias, custodian of the Hub and overseer of the Nexus." Said the construct.

Mesa was silent as he absorbed what was happening, he simply stared at Serene Bias with deep puzzlement for seconds before he opened his mouth and said.

"I have so many questions."

"I know that you have many questions and I will answer them all for you at the Nexus. So please follow me." Said Serene Bias as it looked over at Invariant Bias it said.

"I see you have brought with you a Contender-class Ancilla, I am certain that the Nexus will be perfect for the both of you."

And then it turned around and entered the shuttle with Mesa and Invariant Bias following it into the shuttle. Taking a seat in the cabin, the shuttle took off and quickly had exited the atmosphere and was on its way towards the transport ship. And this whole time, Mesa felt no inertia, thanks to the inertia-less drives, as he looked out of the window and say the surface recede all the way until the blue atmosphere was replaced with the darkness of space.

Once inside the ship, he stepped out and was greeted with the Forerunner engineering he saw when he had gone to the Halo universe. The outside of the ship was made of metal, but the structural elements on the inside, like walls and floors and ceilings, was mostly made of hard-light. Placing his hand on one of the walls, it felt totally solid and reacted to his touch. The ship was a small Planet-Breaker class transport ship of just under 1.5 km (0,93 mi) that had an ovoid form. Looking 'outside', which was the ship making a projection of the outside onto its hard-light walls, Mesa could see the planet recede in the distance.

"Serene Bias, where are we going?" Asked Mesa as he stared out at the planet.

"And what are the Hub and the Nexus? And how did that other version of me leave that message for me?"

"This whole region of space is called the Hub and its center is the Nexus. The Hub is a special region of space made by you for you." Said Serene Bias and then went on to explain everything.

Turns out, there were infinite versions of him, with each having their own unique name, that have had their own unique adventures in their own universes. In many, many, many of those, they had been given the Infinity Gauntlet and had been sent on their Infinity Trials. Though the Infinity Trials for them were different, in the end they all ended up in this universe, undergoing the exact same trial that Mesa was currently on. In enough of those trials, they had also ended up in the Halo universe before coming to 40k and they had used Forerunner tech to get an edge against the inhabitants of this universe.

At a certain point, one of his versions decided to create a safe space within this universe for himself and for those who would come after him. As Serene Bias told him, that version of him came from the Dragonball Universe and, in his own words, had to follow the 'Toriyama naming pun', so he named himself Paragorn, which Mesa thought was a dumb name. He already had the Time Stone for himself and used it to create his own Hyperbolic Time Chamber-esque training room to train in.

And so, having to go through his own Infinity Trials, he was first sent to The Lord of the Rings universe as a normal man during the war against Morgoth. It was his job to get one of the Silmarils from Morgoth's crown. But instead of there being three, there were four Silmarils, with the fourth one being the Power Stone. Because Paragorn knew of the story of Beren and Lúthien, he sought out Beren and befriended him and stuck close to him. Throughout all the peril that they went through, he managed to get his hands on the Silmaril that was in fact the Power Stone on Morgoth's crown. When he had placed the Power Stone inside his Infinity Gauntlet, it sent out a massive shockwave of power that would be felt by everyone on Erda, including all the Maiar of which Morgoth was one. After years of toil, the many, many wounds he sustained and the endless combat he went through to get to this point, he decided that he had enough of running away. This time, he would face off against Morgoth and he would show him true power.

So, there Paragorn was, going to confront the Dark Lord upon the field of battle. He chose to confront Morgoth at his own fortress of Angband. This was at the time that the final war against Morgoth and his forces of evil would begin, so collateral damage did not factor into his decision making. As the Host of Valinor fought the Host of Angband in the War of Wrath, Paragorn suddenly and violently joined them and went through Morgoth's forces like a maelstrom of destruction and death. All the while, Paragorn loudly proclaimed to everyone, but mostly to Morgoth, that he was here and for Morgoth to come out and face him. And he did not stop fighting for years on end. Wherever there were orcs, Balrogs or any other one of Morgoth's forces, he fought them and destroyed them and continued on unceasingly. When Gothmog, the greatest of Balrogs, faced him in single combat, Paragorn bested him by bisecting him with his own dreaded ax. When Morgoth had sent out his most powerful servant, the dragon Ancalagon the Black, he bested it by tearing of its wings, shattering its skull and tossing its body onto the mountains of Thangorodrim. When all his servants had been destroyed, Morgoth had finally deigned to show himself. Having lived for centuries within Belariand, biding his time for the right moment when he could get his Infinity Stone, Paragorn had seen firsthand the evil, the suffering, the death and pain that Morgoth had caused the people and now it would be him that would bring this monster to justice. And so in single combat they engaged, this clashes sundering the earth, but in the end he was defeated and crippled by Paragorn, who delivered him to the Valar who eventually cast him out of the world and into the Void. When the matter of Morgoth was finally settled, the Valar had turned their attention to Paragorn. But before they could do anything, he told them that his time in this land is at an end and he left to go back to his own universe.

For his second trial, he was sent to the Halo Universe, at the beginning of the Human-Covenant War and was tasked with going to the Ark to find the Space Stone that was placed there. He was brought into the Halo Universe and deposited at Harvest. But luckily for him, he had his Saiyan strength and abilities and the Power Stone and Time Stone with him this time, so he was much stronger than anyone there. And after a long and very arduous journey, he had reached the Ark ahead of the UNSC, the Covenant and the Flood and found the Space Stone. With his third Infinity Stone in his possession, he had come to the obvious conclusion that future Infinity Trials would be more difficult. Now that he was here in the Halo Universe, he should take advantage of it and search out as much Forerunner technology as possible to take with him to the next Infinity Trial. To this purpose, he went out in search of the Janus Key, the Forerunner artifact that provided the real-time location of all Forerunner technology in the galaxy. Knowing that its location was at Requiem, he prepared himself for the inevitable clash against the Didact that was currently in stasis within Requiem. But since he was currently in possession of the Space, Time and Power Stone, he had bested the Didact easily took control of Requiem. And so with the Janus Key in hand, he had set off towards the locations inside its database and collected as much technology, blueprint, design seeds, weapons, armors, tools and everything else. He had even collected the blueprints on how to create the various AI-systems that ran the Forerunner empire.

For his third trial, he was sent to the Berserk Universe. But by this point, Paragorn had his Saiyan heritage and was powerful enough to reach Super Saiyan 3. He has the Time Stone, the Power Stone, the Space Stone and his system had picked up the location of another Infinity Stone in his home universe. Apparently, it was located on a desolate planet inside a cave. When he found it, he was rewarded with the Mind Stone.

After his arrival in the Berserk Universe, Paragorn was branded with the Brand of Sacrifice upon his right knee. In contrast to Guts, to whom the Brand has been nothing but a curse, to Paragorn it was a marvelous device to abuse it. For those who are branded would attract the attention of the Apostles, former humans that traded in their humanity for demonic power, and that is something nobody there would ever want, except Paragorn. His Trial entailed slaying 10,000 Apostles before he would be told about the position of fifth Infinity Stone. And considering his current level of power, he was undoubtedly the single most powerful being in that world.