Chapter One, Meeting

And that's it. A bright white light that enveloped me completely. Not an explosion or bleeding out. Just a light. A light that took me somewhere.

My head hurt. I shut my eyes as I lay on the cold, hard rock flooring; it felt like polished marble. In this place, lying on the floor, I heard a deep droning in the distance, filling the space. Where am I? I slowly opened my eyes, the bright white making me shut them immediately. I sat with my eyes closed, periodically opening them just a little to get used to the brightness.

A few minutes later, I stood up with my eyes accustomed to the light. I saw an expanse of white with pedestals further than I could see. Am I dreaming? I walked around the expanse; each pedestal held a deep, dark void speckled with white dots. It reminded me of the stars. I inspected the pedestals and saw that each had an engraving on them. The one closest to me read "Universe 00000022415 - Safe." why was it written in English?

I searched the universe's pedestals, looking at each of them. Some had universes overflowing with black, spilling on the floor, while others were minuscule bright drops of pure light; they emitted a lot of heat. Other basins seemed to be full of just black. I read what the black one said; "Universe 00000000094 - Dead." I looked, and on the basin's edge, I saw my crashed ship, seemingly in the middle of its growth. It's… mine.

I stared into the basin for a long time, seeing my universe with the label of dead; everyone and everything I knew before the ship was just gone. All of it is consumed by darkness. I spiraled there, my head hung above the basin containing the corpse of my universe, my home, my everything. All of it is dead. I struggled to contain my tears, the water filling my eyes. I shook over the basin, tears beginning to stream down my face; I started ugly crying, sniffling, and shaking. Why. I Hate them, but at this point, even having one of them back would be better. Now I'm just… alone.

I threw the basin onto the floor, the black matter spilling onto the floor and being absorbed by it; the basin lay empty, barren, I Picked it up and sat in the empty basin, praying that this all was a dream or a bizarre simulation, but no end came, I began to cry again, tears falling down my face as silently I wept for the death of my people. As I cried, the sound of footsteps clicking from afar came. I lifted my head, my face full of tears, and looked at where it came from.

A figure walked towards me, weaving through basins with a strange feeling about them. They strolled towards where I was.

As they approached me, I shouted out to them. "Hello?!"

All I received in response was a smile as they approached me, their paws clicking on the cold, hard ground, echoing through the white void. As it approached, I checked its features. Yellow fur, purple and black markings, a little heart on its cheek, purple hair, purple eyes, hand paws dipped in black, wearing some black baggy pants, and a crop top. Right on its core, a number was written in Roman numerals, "XIII" Thirteen. Was that its name?

As it approached me, it looked at me and spoke in a tongue I could not understand; words spilled out of its mouth and fell onto deaf ears. I stared in confusion as it articulated noises with never-heard sounds. It tilted its head and appeared to have a moment of revelation before looking apologetic and fiddling with an object under its jaw. Once complete, it spoke, "Sorry about that. Is the translator working?"

I looked at it in shock as it spoke my tongue. "Oh wow- so that's a translator? I don't have that language in my database?" I have hundreds of thousands of languages installed, but somehow, I don't have that one.

"That is not particularly important now, creature; you have purposely spilled a universe basin. I understand the grief, but extracting the materials was worth a lot. Now, we can't reach them without traveling there directly."

"Oh- that- I- well- yeah. I'm sorry. Will there be any punishment for my misdeeds? Are there other people living here? I'm sorry, I haven't spoken with anyone in the last five years…"

"No worries, friend, they don't live 'here' exactly, but there are more people. I was tasked to bring you to Epoch and show you around, so that's what I'm going to do." it smiled gleefully.

"Epoch, is that a city?"

It nodded as it started to walk in the other direction, pausing to instruct me to follow, "Well, what are you waiting for?"

I quickly followed it, apologizing, "I'm sorry. I didn't think we were going so soon!"

"It's okay; since we are traveling together, I think we should at least introduce ourselves. I am Trisk, I wield bladed weapons, and I go by 'her' if you couldn't tell," she looks at me with playful annoyance, "and I am in training as a god slayer; I am currently in training to become a fully-fledged god slayer. Cause of that I am mostly learning the legal stuff since I am already quite capable." she smiled confidently.

"A 'god slayer'? Is that just a title, or do you actually 'slay gods'" I chuckled to myself. Gods aren't real; it must be a title.

"Well, yes, I do. Gods may not have existed in your universe, but they do in many others. When gods step out of line and try to take over other universes or rule too controllingly, we remove the problem. It's an efficient system; we work as the moderators of gods while the Egos work as the Gods of Gods or our employers."

"Egos?"

She begrudgingly answered, "Beings that are fundamental to keeping the patchwork of the dimensional fabric under wraps. I personally think they are a bunch of pushovers."

"What?" I said, not understanding what she was saying.

"A band of 13 Gods, appointed by who knows what to keep things running smoothly."

"So, like a band of directors for a large company?" I questioned

"Yep!" she replied. "So you come from a capitalistic world, don't you?"

Confused, I replied, "Yes, I do?"

"Well, then, you will need an official introduction course when we get back; ill tell the instructor to screw off so I can teach you personally!"

"Okay-" I said reluctantly; this girl is off the rails. "Well, I am Cryo; I am a Soran, created by humans to do menial work or accompany them. We are an amalgam of animal, human, and tech, so we have a different anatomy." it's strange; I should be running out of battery, but I'm not, I thought. "I was sent into space by the humans to reach the end of the universe, and now I am here, wherever 'here' is."

"Ah," she said, having a moment of realization. "This place is the 'Poke-through,' it's essentially a place where we store all of the universes we have dealt with, places where we removed the god from and are protecting from other god-having universes. There is a reason traces of religion exist in your universe, but no god-like influence is present."

"That makes much more sense; I wondered why those loons kept believing such insane stories," I said with a hint of resentment.

"Yeah…" she said, with an odd tone. Did I annoy her?

We kept walking and talking on the way back. She didn't really offer much substance, though she did mention how we are in somewhat similar situations, which seemed to make her feel much more comfortable around me. She mentioned something about being trapped, unable to move or see in an infinite black void for a long time, which sounded like hell. At that point, I would be begging for death. She seems to enjoy every moment she stands, walks, and looks around; it's nice, even though it's likely a result of her time in that void. I'm curious about how long she spent there, but I'm not going to ask; it seems insensitive.

She looked at me oddly before saying, "Do you… know anything about someone who looks like me with pure black fur?" as she spoke, each word she began exuding a strange aura of pure hatred. It was so overpowering that I stopped in my tracks and froze while looking at her, terrified. It felt like all of my internal organs were being inverted.

She noticed what she was doing and stopped quickly, replying to my actions with, "Oh- oh my, I'm so so sorry. I didn't mean to let out my killing intent… Are you okay?" she asked, concern quickly replacing the dull face, wishing for the death of whoever that may have been.

I took a deep breath and asked, "Who… are they?"

"My captor," she replied simply.

I felt the pain she felt. Whoever must've trapped her likely held her for a long time. I responded sincerely, "I'm sorry."

She smiled eccedentesiastly before shaking her head and saying, "Let's move on from this."

She kept speaking about stuff, but for a while, after she mentioned that person, she was pretty distant. However, once the conversation had moved, she seemed to have returned to her usual self. She's pretty eccentric; it's welcome since I'm not exactly feeling well from being in that damn ship for so long. I hope this isn't a dream since she is nice to be around.

"Okay! We are here," she said suddenly, breaking me out of my trance.

I looked around, confused, not seeing anything. "Here?"

"We can make it back to Epoch from here." she points at the ground; a 5-meter wide circle was written on the ground. Several intricate shapes and symbols are scrawled within it. "This circle just needs a bit of any kind of magic power, and it will activate. Come, stand over here." she gestured to a spot on the circle. I moved with haste, watching her use this magic.

I thought she would use some form of electricity to excite the circle, but from her paws, a deep purple began to glow, spreading through the circle. The brilliant purple began to glow brighter and brighter, enveloping us both. The light emitted from the ground grew until I couldn't see the space around us. The droning was slowly replaced by ringing in my ears. My head hurt. I began to get dizzy as energy flowed through my body, something I had never felt before. It didn't hurt, but it was strange. It cupped and caressed my body, flowing and moving my body to another place. I felt like I was being lifted and carried by a gentle giant. The feeling of being lifted pitted my core, terrifying yet uplifting. It was strange. I saw colors, shifting shapes, movement, and people when I opened my eyes. I turned to see Trisk; she had her eyes closed and was lying back like she was sunbathing on a peaceful beach. She looked comfortable, her paws behind her head and legs crossed, so I let her be. As the ringing in my ears grew louder, my vision became blurred. My head began to ache, the splitting pain permeating my entire being. The energy that was flowing through my body became suddenly violent. My entire body shook as I silently tried to scream. What is happening to me?

Trisk opened one of her eyes to see how I was doing as I started to shake. She saw me shaking and silently screaming out and quickly rushed over to hold me and began to whisper something, words that I didn't understand, but the combination soothed me; my head was still spinning, but the pain was gone.

"magic shock. I'm so sorry I forgot to mention this; are you okay?" Trisk said with concern.

"y-yeah," I stuttered out, my head still spinning from the head-splitting pain. I rested in her arms, letting myself calm down while she supported me. She kept looking around; the space contained thousands of colored roads and ways to go. Gravity seemed not to exist here.

"We are going to navigate to Epoch manually, okay?" she said, carrying me calmly.

I picked myself up and floated next to her. "okay."

She pointed toward where we needed to go, so she took my paw and pulled me through the colorful space. People are still moving through, sometimes more than one, each following a trail, unconsciously moving through the space and enjoying the travel.

"why do we have to go through this manually?" I asked.

"you aren't fit for magic yet, although you most likely will soon. Your body rejects magic as a foreign invader, but with time, your body will accept its new life," she answered with a smile.

"if my body rejects it, then wouldn't it be bad for me?"

"It's like cutting out parts of your diet; after a while, reintroducing that can make you extremely sick, except in this case, you were never introduced to it. And that is what I accidentally let happen to you when we went through the gateway- auto navigation conducts a lot of mana through your body."

"ah, that makes much more sense. Will I be able to use magic like you?" I asked in response.

"Of course! I'll teach you the basics; hell, if you are any good at it, I can teach you more!" she chuckled to herself, grinning. "I have a sense of these things, and I have a feeling you might have a knack for magic. I'll explain when we get there, okay? It's really complicated." she said, the smile on her face growing. She seemed overjoyed to have someone to teach.

"Alright!" I exclaimed.

We proceeded through the space as I watched everything pass. So many people and so many colors; it felt like a dream. I never thought I would ever see something so beautiful. I wonder how they made it? All of this is so much to absorb. Where will I live? Where will I charge? It's almost too much to bear; what will come of the future? I hope I will be taken care of. The future holds questions that I lack answers to.