Terra heard a knock on her bedroom door while she was lounging in bed, calling out in a languid tone. “You can come in, Chel.” The door opened, and Chelsea walked in with a concerned look. “Let me guess, you’re worried about that ninja group?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Chelsea asked with a sigh, moving over to sit in the chair near the desk. “You know what something like that is capable of. If their energy really can take out a Keeper, isn’t this a major risk factor?”
“Hmmm…” Terra smiled, stretching out on the bed with her tail swishing in the air above her. “And you want me to go all holy smite? Or just track down all of them?”
“Both are entirely good options.” Chelsea nodded her head quickly. “From what I know of you, you won’t tolerate anyone that wants to directly harm the Keeper, right? These guys went rogue because they were shut down after saying that their energy would be able to replace the Keeper. Doesn’t that make it your time to act?”
“You’re not wrong.” Terra nodded her head, slowly pulling herself into a sitting position. “But, I don’t think I’m going to do anything this time.”
“What, why–” Chelsea’s eyes went wide as she processed Terra’s reasoning. “You used the twins to peer into fate?”
Terra didn’t directly answer, instead moving to stand from the bed. “If they posed a legitimate threat to Dale, there is no power in this world that would save them. Instead, I think that they’re going to be an overall benefit to the world.”
Chelsea let out a long sigh, resting her forehead on the palm of her hand. “To promote growth, a touch of chaos is needed… This is true for any civilization. Are you saying that Dale’s worlds have become too peaceful outside of the invasions?”
“Not necessarily. However, a problem created within his world should be solvable within his world. Besides, I’ve got bigger things I need to worry about.”
Seeing Terra’s casual response, Chelsea’s brow twitched. “Bigger than a cult of doppelgangers wanting to replace the Keeper’s existence?”
“Yup!” Terra nodded her head. “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you this, but your void barrier over Lorek was breached. Void monsters have been sneaking in there unnoticed for a while now, and some of them have completed the initial mutations.”
Chelsea’s eyes went wide again. “Why didn’t the alarms trigger? And how come we haven’t heard any reports? If they have been around long enough to evolve, we should have been hearing about them, especially on a world where time is accelerated.”
“And therein lies the problem.” Terra chuckled, shaking her head. “You didn’t deal with worlds like this in your time. Worlds where time was accelerated.”
Chelsea furrowed her brows at the comment, before letting out a small gasp of realization. “It’s a breeding ground. Because of the acceleration, they are able to improve far more quickly. And because of the time difference, the media only transmits important information. Strange occurrences like that wouldn’t be included. But still, we have alarms on the barriers.”
“And Lorek is a much larger world than the ones you’re used to dealing with.” Terra continued, shrugging her shoulders. “Although you managed to strengthen the barrier to match, there are some gaps that clever monsters can take advantage of. Once they’re in, they blend right in with the barrier itself, so you never even notice that they got in in the first place.”
“…Okay, I understand why you don’t consider the ninjas a major threat. But void monsters? Shouldn’t you be a bit more serious about something like that?” Chelsea knew how terrifying void monsters could be from her own world. As she thought of that, her eyes went wide. “You’re telling me this. The restrictions… it means that somebody has already discovered them.”
“That’s right.” Terra nodded her head. “Remember, for things like this, we can only share the information if it is available in some way to the Keeper’s people. Currently, there are three monsters that have been discovered. Two of them have only attacked other planets within that universe for the time being, while the third has been spotted on Lorek itself.”
“And you’re preparing countermeasures for those?” When Chelsea asked that, Terra nodded her head.
“That’s why I can’t focus on anything else right now. One of the monsters is viral.” Chelsea’s eyes widened in shock when she heard that, before narrowing dangerously.
“You’re not planning to cut off the world, right?” Terra actually blinked in surprise at Chelsea’s question, turning to look at Chel and letting out a light laugh.
“What? No, no, sorry that caught me completely off guard.” Terra shook her head. “I wouldn’t ask Dale to give up one of his worlds like that. He’s invested way too much into them, and I don’t think he’d be able to forgive me if I suggested it.”
“Honestly, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have been able to use this method of resolving the problem. So, I do have to thank you for that.” Terra offered a bright smile when she said that, causing Chelsea to think about what she might mean.
“You’re… using an anti-meme to deal with a void monster? It’s possible, but difficult. Especially a viral one, since they are highly prone to mutations. If you don’t account for the mutations, the monster could absorb the anti-meme and grow out of control.”
“You’re definitely not wrong. But… Dale gave me some rather useful domains, don’t you think?” Terra’s smile only grew brighter when she asked that, and this time Chelsea caught on right away.
“You want to use the power of an Origin to craft an anti-meme woven within Fate? Is… that possible? Sorry, but Origins weren’t a known concept in James’s world, so any information related to them was purged.”
Terra nodded her head at the question. “I honestly wasn’t sure, myself. As soon as the idea occurred to me, the system locked the knowledge of how to do it. That’s why I can only use your methods, and let my incarnations improvise. See why I’m a bit busy to handle your ninja cult problem?”
Chelsea let out a long sigh, nodding her head. “Right… and you said that there were three currently known monsters, so I can assume that the number is probably much higher than that. I’ll ask Leowynn to look into that matter.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.” Terra interrupted with a small shrug. “With the creation of Digital Conversion, there are less people using the Boundless Caravan, which itself is benefiting Leowynn less now than it used to after the divine tokens were revised. This had a minimal impact on other gods, but it was Leowynn’s primary source of divinity. She’s in a somewhat weakened state for now, and can’t afford to splurge until she sorts out her power a bit more.”
Chelsea’s brow twitched. “There’s nothing wrong with using the mortal Fallen, is there?”
Terra gave another smile at that suggestion. “That would be perfectly fine. In the meantime, you can work on an upgrade for the barrier, or strengthen the patrols. That should be your current line of thought right now, right?”
“That’s right… honestly, I’d like to give the job of strengthening the void barrier to another research team, though. We’re working on a new energy source, and having to worry about other priorities will keep pushing it back more and more.”
“That’s fine, too.” Terra nodded in agreement. “As long as everything gets finished up, that’s all that matters.”
“So… we just need to put this image on a public broadcast, right?” The divine Terra asked, looking between the image drawn on the wall before them and her nearby twin.
“According to Fate, that should do it.” The fallen Terra agreed, though had a somewhat troubled look on her face. “It looks really creepy, though…” The image was drawn on the wall of a building, in one of the larger cities of Lorek. It took the appearance of an angel with eight arms, each one bent clockwise around a circular body, each arm using its hands to cover one of eight eyes at the base of the adjacent arm. At the center of the body was a gaping mouth that seemed to lead into a black abyss.
“How do we get this on a broadcast that will reach everyone, though?” The fallen Terra looked away from the image, almost as if she thought it was dangerous to keep looking at it for too long at one time. “Fate said that it would disappear after a day, right?”
“Right… so we need to get it on a big broadcast that will reach everyone. Thankfully, one of the effects for the beast we’re going after is that it compels the spreading of information through social media, so… maybe we can just pay for it to be aired as an ad to popular sites?”
“…We’re going to have to pay a lot, aren’t we?” The fallen sister asked with a long sigh, before shaking her head. “Well, let’s get to it. It feels like that thing’s going to rip me apart if I stay here for too long.”
The divine sister blinked at that, looking over. She could see that one of the hands on the image had parted its fingers slightly, revealing one of its eight eyes. “Okay, yeah, let’s get you away from it before something bad happens.”
The divine sister quickly pulled out a camera, scanning the image drawn on the wall. Once that was done, the two of them quickly left the alleyway where the image was stored, while the fingers silently covered the eye once again. “Who are we going to get to advertise this for us, though? All of the ad companies would definitely be infected by now, right?”
The fallen sister blinked at that, already feeling better after they left the alley. “That’s a good point. I’d check my book to look for people not under its influence, but that would make me infected, too… and I really don’t want to go back and look at that again to clear it out.”
“Yeah… and since it’s working on a delay, we won’t be able to cure them first to get them to show it.” The divine sister let out a heavy sigh. “We’re going to have to pay a lot more to convince them to do it.”
The fallen sister gave a rather bitter smile. “Money solves everything in this world.”
The two of them quickly made their escape to the furthest hotel that they could get to in the city, checking in and starting to make some calls. Given the nature of both the void beast that they were ‘hunting’ and the anti-meme designed to hunt it, they had to act fast. The void beast itself had the effect of gradually lowering the intelligence of those under its control, while compelling them to communicate with others while sharing key phrases.
The anti-meme, meanwhile, would only last for twenty-four hours after it was completed. After that, it would activate across all individuals that had seen its image. Any of those who were under the control of the void beast, theoretically, should see an image of the eight-armed angel attacking them, causing them to black out for a few moments. When they awoke, if it all worked as planned, both the anti-meme and the void beast should be gone.
