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By: Yghjd the Almighty
Posted on: August 14, 2022 ( PART ONE Introduction), September 14, 2022 (PART ONE Chapters 1 - 4), and July 2, 2023 (PART ONE Chapters 5 - 8 and PART TWO Introduction)
Cover Image: Monster's Looming
Cover Image by: Mirai Matsui
Classification: Photography
Year: 2022
PART ONE
Introduction
Silencers are agents who deal with dinosaurs and the mysterious animals called “monsters” and “nightmares”. It all started 35 years ago, in the year 1987, when the first monster appeared. Back then, various world governments hid the existence of the “monsters” from the general populace. WWI had ended, and as people were in a period of rapid progression, a biologist in the USA noticed an unusual animal in a forest near the coast. It was a dinosaur. It resembled a tyrannosaurus rex. The man was excited by this discovery and decided to consult the authorities. The animal was promptly captured, and the biologist was paid to keep his mouth shut. However, this was only the beginning. 2 weeks later, just 25 kilometers from the last site, was a second discovery by the same person. This time, it was of the same species. 9 days later, local military personnel dispatched to investigate saw another one. The area was sealed off under the guise of a forest fire. However, the sightings increased in frequency, to the point where there were multiple in a single day. Then, 4 months after the initial sighting, the first “monster” appeared. It accompanied 3 t-rexes, who were following it as if in a trance. It was similar to the other tyrannosauruses, except for 2 distinguishing features. It was slightly larger than the others and had another shocking feature: it had shiny transparent plates covering its skin, leaving no gaps. The military tried to capture it alive, but tranquilizers, bullets, and missiles didn’t even dent its armor. It was only when someone tried using a flamethrower out of desperation that they finally felled the beast. Later analysis of the plates of the beast revealed that they were made from quartz. After these occurrences, the reports lessened in number, until eventually, none were left.
However, the story did not end here. One year later, a similar incident involving Utahraptors occurred near the coast of Egypt. The raptors also had an abnormal individual. However, this one’s differences were different from the previous incident. This time, it had evolved iron spines and had stronger muscles, along with being smaller in stature. It was dangerous, however, as it dashed around at speeds upward of 320 km/h in bursts that lasted around 1 second each. It was only when it dashed into a tank sent to dispatch it that it became concussed and was captured. Upon examination, it had more aggressive behavior than the rest of the others. It had to be put down after it killed over 20 people that were sent to manage it.
After the second incident, the government decided that these animals were dangerous, and referred to them as “monsters” as they possessed extremely adapted traits for killing.
Within the next 3 years, 4 more incidents like this occurred around the world. The world governments, tired of these happenings, decided to hire people to resolve these issues. These people had to be intelligent and resourceful, and as a result, 5 people from across the world were drafted, having been paid millions each to risk their lives to keep the “monsters” and the dinosaurs a secret from the rest of the world, as well as to dispose of them as they see fit. These were the world’s first silencers.
In the year 2002, a new horrific type of beast appeared. In this case, there was only one such beast. However, the effects were devastating. This happened in BC, Canada. There were several differences. For one, the “monster” that appeared unlike last time was a herbivore: a triceratops. Secondly, it was 240 meters tall, making it easily visible. Thirdly and most importantly, it had seemingly supernatural powers compared to the other monsters. It was able to manipulate gravity to some extent. An international decision was even made to use nuclear weapons. However, even that did not harm it. What finally ended the beast was unknown, but it was found dead near the shore. Because of the many sightings, it was already beyond the world governments’ abilities to keep it hidden. The news spread worldwide about monsters, with various ex-silencers revealing more about the monsters.
After the incident with the triceratops, the world governments dismissed the triceratops as an abnormality. However, 10 years later, in 2012, a gigantic iguanodon in Spain caused a similar incident, and was found dead in the same way: it was completely undamaged.
This caused the world governments to relabel these special incidents collectively as “nightmare” events. Ever since then, similar to the “monster” ones, “nightmare” events have been becoming more and more frequent.
“In the bag, we have provided for you, you will find a tablet we have specifically prepared for you. It contains detailed information on all recorded “monster” and “nightmare” species and variants. Use this to deal with any incidents in the future,” informed by the Head of silencers.
Agent Blackstone, a new recruit, fell asleep at that point. He was too tired to pay attention to the briefing any longer. Of course, his boredom was justified…
Chapter One The Secret Mission
Agent Blackstone was ready for his first job. This time, it was to capture an albertosaurus variant categorized under the poisonous category known as Jack’s Albertosaurus. It was a low-danger target. Of course, like all other “monsters”, carelessness could still have a lethal effect. For one, entering anywhere near its range or places where it had been without proper protection essentially guaranteed death. It was because its primary weapon was its roar rather than its bite. Specifically, its bodily fluids had extreme concentrations of up to 50% botulinum type H toxin, one of the world’s most poisonous chemicals. Because even its breath was lethally toxic, it was the third most ecologically destructive “monster” known.
It was still considered a low-danger target because it had no protection, and was often alone due to nearby dinosaurs being dead, so sniping usually finished the job quickly.
Agent Blackstone was supposed to be sent in with a team. However, that day, due to two of his teammates being sick, one being in the hospital from a car crash, and one serving time in prison for stealing and selling confidential information, he had no choice but to complete his mission alone. It was no problem, however. Within 5 hours of entering the region where the target was last spotted, he saw the target 4.5 km away. He prepared a remotely operated drone and used it to electrocute the target. It rendered the target paralyzed. He then proceeded to switch to tranquilizer rounds, rendering the target unconscious. He then called in the pickup crew. However, the first helicopter that came was part of an illegal research operation that hoped to use the target as a source of biological weaponry. As silencers were instructed not to show mercy to illegal activity, Agent Blackstone used a homing missile to shoot down his attackers. The missile destroyed the target.
Thirty minutes later, the government successfully secured and transported the Jack’s albertosaurus using a giant drone.
In the aftermath of the government’s departure, Agent Blackstone pulled out an unusual device not issued by any government. It resembled a cell phone but was entirely covered in one giant screen. He put his finger on the device and traced a unique symbol.
With three fingers, he swiped away from himself on the screen.
“Commencing scan in…
3…
2…
1…
Scan complete. Mutating factor identified. Capturing mutating factor.”
Agent Blackstone gently set the device on the ground and walked away.
Slowly the poison left by the “monster” evaporated, and a mechanical, crystalline cube began materializing.
Why was he messing around with the scene? Because he was secretly a member of one of “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)”, a special organization that knew the truth behind the “monsters”:
The monsters were created by a group of mysterious beings known only as “The Scientists”.
The nature of “The Scientists” was unknown. They could be humans, artificial intelligence, or something else entirely. However, what was known was that they
a) had access to live dinosaurs;
b) used unusual technology to modify dinosaurs;
c) released the dinosaurs, “monsters”, and “nightmares” into the world;
d) never show themselves to the world.
While operating outside the watchful eyes of the world, “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)” had the goal of discovering and quietly solving the “monster” issue to save the earth.
Wildfire Anthony Blackstone was the head of this organization, and gained the position after the previous head Erick T. Josan retired.
Since then, Agent Blackstone has been upholding the meaning of the name “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)”:
/-\ll
|\/|onster
|_|ltimate
|)efense
Of course, that was not just enough for Agent Blackstone to step up himself. He did so because there were likely confidential documents possessed by the world governments that could offer various hints about the true identities of “The Scientists”.
Agent Blackstone had a plan to gain the required documents, but it was a very risky one. And after the mission he had just completed, he needed only one more thing to complete his plan…
Chapter Two An Exceptional Target
There was one thing that Agent Blackstone needed to gain the documents. This one thing was a cube. Not just any cube, but a time-traveling cube, similar to the one the Jack’s albertosaurus left behind. Each cube could be engineered to utilize its properties to temporarily mutate humans in similar ways that it can mutate dinosaurs to turn them into monsters. However, the cube would need to be supplied with an immense amount of energy to activate it, making it impossible to use carelessly. Cubes require the amount of energy to power the USA for 1 second for every charge, with each charge lasting between 4 minutes to 24 hours, depending on the type of cube. The reason a time-traveling cube was needed was that there were no alternatives, and there happened to be a time-traveling “nightmare” ankylosaurus rampaging in the sea near Australia.
The target was observed thus far to have the following tendencies: typically, there was only one copy at any given time. However, there would sometimes be two copies. The original would disappear after being disturbed. When a new copy appeared, a spherical area of 200 meters in all directions would be overridden by a similar area, with some differences.
Based on this information, it was concluded that the “nightmare” traveled back in time after being disturbed, bringing back nearby terrain along with it.
Knowing this, Agent Blackstone concluded that it would be absolutely imperative to avoid being overridden, and as such, stay clear of areas within 230 meters of any location that the “nightmare” had been. As a result, capturing the cube of the “nightmare” required targeting and neutralizing the nightmare at a distance before it recognized the disturbance and time traveled.
Agent Blackstone had a special device prepared by “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|).”It was an AI-powered cannon that was in the form of a 4”x4” x4” disposable box with a touchscreen and a single hole that would fire a dart. The dart used was rather expensive, costing 4 billion US dollars to produce each shot. The darts would fly at Mach 108, easily hitting the unsuspecting target and temporarily absorbing all electric signals in the “nightmare”, rendering it inactive. Of course, the nightmare would have to then be destroyed entirely while in this state so that it could never time travel to interfere.
The next day, Agent Blackstone traveled by submarine to an area 1500 meters away from the “nightmare”, which was near the maximum distance away from the “nightmare” before its eyes could transfer the sight of the shot to its brain. He searched for a nearby rock and set up a small, reinforced iron raft. Then, the submarine left the vicinity. He then set up a soundproof shield so that the projectile from the box would not rupture his eardrums. He then set the box’s target to the “nightmare” and started the launch countdown. He quickly activated the shield and turned away. In a massive flash of light, the dart was shot, shattering the box and launching the dart.
The nightmare was incapacitated. Agent Blackstone then used a powerful but slow-charging laser canon to blast into the weak point of the target: the eyes. This did no damage to the stunned “nightmare”, however. Agent Blackstone was pushed to find alternatives. Using botulinum toxin would make cube extraction very difficult, so he decided to rule that out. He decided that using an EMP to fry the gargantuan beast would be too damaging and risky, which ruled that idea out too. The next idea he came up with was considered a last resort: using a cube to finish the job. To be more specific, he was going to use a teleportation cube (also from a nightmare) to decapitate the target. He charged and applied the temporary mutation from the cube, and managed to destroy the still-incapacitated target after waiting 18 hours for the materials to be prepared and delivered. Then he used an advanced extraction device, reminiscent of the small device from the Jack’s albertosaurus collection. This one was different in that it was larger and cost many rare elements to create. A cube was successfully extracted and stored for use in the next plan.
Agent Blackstone then rode an invisible “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)” supersonic helicopter back to the “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)” base while reflecting on a few facts about the “nightmares”.
First of all, the “nightmares” never naturally died. Since the beginning, they simply had their cubes extracted by “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|).”
Second of all, “nightmares”, unlike other monsters, could only ever produce one cube, and would only truly die when their cubes were extracted.
Third of all, even after a “nightmare” was killed, its body could still regenerate for up to 4 hours after death, leading to perfect corpses becoming a common occurrence.
Laughing at the fact that the rest of the world was completely clueless about these important bits of knowledge, Agent Blackstone was now finally ready to activate his plan.
Chapter Three A Risky Plan
Agent Blackstone’s plan involved using the override function of the time-traveling cube. As the position overridden was relative to either the earth or something on earth (this was unknown to “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)”), the position was controlled to be in a hidden compartment secretly installed under an undersea rock by an “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)” agent.
First, Agent Blackstone dived into the undersea compartment, which contained the documents from the future, and copied all the data on them. He then used a full disappearance suit developed by “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)” that muffled all nearby sounds, prevented heat signatures from entering, and allowed full invisibility. This allowed him to enter the facility.
There were multiple gates that blocked his way. However, as his identification proved him to be a silencer who had completed a recent job without having yet had a review meeting for his job, the security system became unable to process it as “insufficient authority,” and instead registered this as a review meeting. He entered the archives of the facility and replaced the existing documents with the ones that he time-traveled with.
Agent Blackstone then returned to the hidden compartment and left the documents there, and used the charged time traveling cube from the ankylosaurus “nightmare” to send the documents to the past.
Having obtained the documents, Agent Blackstone went back to “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)” headquarters to review them with the discovery team.
Although the information on the documents did not hint at much on their own, combining them with the data from “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)” proved to be rewarding. By combining the two sets of data, Agent Blackstone and the discovery team discovered that there was a “Scientist” working somewhere in an area within the Pacific Ocean.
What they discovered about “The Scientists” as a species was even more shocking.
According to the combined evidence, “The Scientists” were a group of extremely intelligent beings that evolved directly from the dinosaurs. Not much detail was known about the appearance of these scientists, but what was known was that they were using the cubes to mutate the dinosaurs for some unknown purpose and that this was only the weakest of their technologies.
If “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)” carelessly provoked “The Scientists”, an apocalyptic war could easily occur. As a result, “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)” as a whole needed to be careful with any actions directly involving “The Scientists” until they could learn more.
Agent Blackstone also figured out something, but decided to keep it from the rest of the group:
The Scientists likely had spies within “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)”, in the form of either mind-reading devices, controlled people, disguised individuals, or any one of a countless number of potential spy technologies, perhaps even in combination.
While merely a possibility, there was no doubt that it was a likely one, and there were no known ways of blocking mind reading technology known to “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|).”
Now recognizing that it would be difficult to use large-scale operations, Agent Blackstone decided that he needed to learn more about “The Scientists”. He was also going to have to do this alone, and there was no further known information about them.
Chapter Four The Study
Agent Blackstone decided that the best course of action to take would be to study why and from where the “monsters” appeared, as no one had ever seen a monster appear. Using data from old “monster” sightings, Agent Blackstone discovered that the sightings always seemed to be near each other, and the areas where “monsters” were identified gradually shifted.
Furthermore, Agent Blackstone discovered that there were 3 such moving spots, and that they were never close to each other. One of the spots also seemed to be capable of producing “nightmares.”
Noticing these trends, Agent Blackstone decided to investigate one of the two spots that did not produce “nightmares.”
Flying a private hovering jet, he arrived at the 40 km wide area where “monsters” had been appearing at the time. He then activated special cameras from the sky to capture any movement in this area.
After a few hours, Agent Blackstone noticed a microraptor variant known as the red-plated microraptor walk into the wild from seemingly nowhere. Reviewing the footage, he saw that it ran headfirst out of what was likely an invisible vehicle, alongside hundreds of ordinary microraptors. Keeping his distance, he activated the invisibility function of his plane and deployed drones to identify any traces of the mysterious vehicle. However, there were no environmental traces. However, Agent Blackstone knew that there was likely something there, as the microraptors were alive even when they had only partially appeared. However, all this led him to consider another possibility:
What if the “monsters” and dinosaurs were being teleported in from somewhere through a spatial portal?
Previously, he had discounted this as a possibility due to the seemingly restricted areas of appearance. However, he reconsidered this due to two main possibilities, among countless others:
There could be a device that travels around that creates the portals.
The proximity in location is specifically planned by “The Scientists” to deceive humanity.
Taking these possibilities into account, he decided to investigate further. He used millions of smaller drones and spread them throughout the area.
Two days later, another “monster” appeared. This time, based on his observations, Agent Blackstone was able to confirm something else.
While there were seemingly no traces of anything where the “monsters” and dinosaurs appeared, there was one clue that hinted at a portal of sorts. Behind where the “monster” and the dinosaurs appeared, there was a small disc-shaped region that seemed to muffle any sound by 3%. Agent Blackstone decided to observe for another week. This was a consistent factor in the 3 observed appearances throughout that week. As this was consistent, Agent Blackstone came up with 4 further theories regarding the nature of these portals:
The portals had some form of camouflaging effect that made the “monsters” and dinosaurs disappear up until a certain distance.
The portals had a camouflaging effect on the “monsters” and dinosaurs for a set amount of time.
The portals had a spatial distortion effect that either shifted the dinosaurs forward or the disc-shaped effect backward.
The “monsters” and dinosaurs were in a different form or state of matter, and either decayed or normalized to a point where they could normally interact with the local environment.
Agent Blackstone then continued to analyze the data that he had and noticed that when the dinosaurs turned back, they were still visible. This made the first possibility impossible for when the “monsters” and dinosaurs re-entered the range, though the occurrence was still possible if the dinosaurs turned back when they were still hidden. However, even this possibility was thrown out of consideration when Agent Blackstone noticed that the appearance of the “monsters” and dinosaurs was too uniform and perfect.
He then went on to the second possibility. This was not possible, as the dinosaurs specifically had an average 0.25% difference in speed to the average speed, but still appeared at the same point, leading to Agent Blackstone judging this as an impossibility.
Now left with 2 possibilities, he decided to examine the third possibility. Based on the data acquired, he deemed this possibility likely, as there was no evidence against it. It would explain most of the data.
He then decided to move on to the last possibility. He deemed this one out of consideration because of an obvious issue: the “monsters” and dinosaurs would fall apart while either decaying to matter or normalizing in their state. As the other form of matter, by effects of the surroundings would have been proven unable to interact with ordinary matter, the “monsters” and dinosaurs would have been released as loose particles instead of complete creatures.
Now left with a single possibility, Agent Blackstone prepared to continue his study on the source of the “monsters” and dinosaurs. Of course, he took into account that he could be completely wrong and that his efforts so far could have been for naught…
Chapter Five The Study Continued
While observing the “monsters” and dinosaurs, Agent Blackstone found a very important clue. He always thought it was strange that no one had seen the “monsters” and dinosaurs appearing, but this clue finally gave him an answer.
It was 12:34 at night when the event was recorded. A group of 5 heavily armed silencers, who were likely in charge of investigating the other “monsters” and dinosaurs, were present while a group consisting of a “monster” and some dinosaurs appeared. Suddenly, a small bipedal creature the size of a chicken appeared. It had both some feathers and scales, as well as unsettling turquoise eyes. Surprised by this, the group prepared for combat, thinking that it was a “monster.” However, the being was very powerful. By simply gazing in the direction of the team, all of their firearms were twisted and compacted, until only marble-sized spheres of various materials remained. Scared by this, one of the silencers tried to flee. However, the creature looked at the direction of the silencer. The silencer was knocked unconscious. The creature then pulled out a mysterious tool. The tool had no handle. The creature levitated and pointed the tool at the collapsed silencer, vaporizing him. The others tried to flee, but were also vaporized.The only trace of them ever having been present were the spheres. The creature brought the spheres along with it, then left through a portal after throwing a strange coin. The connections to the cameras in that area were then lost.
Agent Blackstone figured out that the coin was possibly an EMP. Having seen the creature’s powers, he realized that the creature was very likely a “Scientist.” Upon his observation of this, he decided to leave and try to figure out what could potentially work on the “Scientist.” He flew the plane back, but parachuted out halfway while leaving all technology behind and wearing a traditional military camo suit. He also turned on the autopilot function, setting the target to somewhere in the middle of the ocean, as well as having a realistic hologram of himself set up.
Why did he do this? Because the “Scientist” likely knew of his plane, and was almost certainly going to try to do something.
However, his plan did not prove to work well. The plane was destroyed, but that was not all. Needlelike projectiles were shot at him. He managed to dodge the projectiles with no injuries, however, and managed to land safely and promptly flee. Based on what he had seen, the projectiles were likely homing missiles, and would have exploded had any of them even touched him. However, he was almost certain that the “Scientist” did not know of his location. Just to be safe, though, he hid in the nearby area for a week before moving to an “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)” base 340 km away via civilian means.
Reflecting on what he now knew of “The Scientists,” he realized that defending the world from their experiments was going to be a lot harder than he thought. To start with, how would he defeat a hyper-intelligent, telekinetic, and extremely technologically advanced creature?
After about 5 minutes of brainstorming, he found a solution: he would need to upgrade his own arsenal with the cubes of the “monsters” and “nightmares”, and create his own technology to counter the technology of “The Scientists”.
Fortunately, a recent breakthrough in technology allowed “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)” to harvest energy from the moon’s orbit. W. Blackstone then decided to use all 17 of “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)”’s ability enhancing cubes in a project: He would, for the first time, try to directly modify the purpose of the cubes. This was necessary because intelligence enhanced “monsters” could often be reasoned with, and as a result, there was no need to extract their cubes.
2 weeks passed, and “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)”’s team of 5031 genius (human)scientists finally managed to create an AI that had the potential to modify the cubes. The AI named itself “Jacob”
Another week passed after that, and the AI managed to modify all 17 of the cubes. Then, it was time for the trial run. W. Blackstone decided to test it on himself. It managed to work for a second, but Agent Blackstone had to deactivate it right after, as the mental chaos caused by the cubes was too dangerous to use long term.
Now, he could begin the next phase of his plan.
Chapter Six A War Among Greats
A few days had passed since he had activated the modified cubes. Agent Blackstone was ready for his plan: declaring war on “The Scientists.” He had spent the last week using the modified cubes in short bursts, creating technology incomprehensible and indescribable to mere humans. However, he was ready at last: he could now use his technology and hyperintellect to combat “The Scientists”.
Two days ago, he had figured out that “The Scientists” were not actually disappearing, but were hiding in an overlapped space in the world. What this meant was that “The Scientists” were shifting their matter into a state where they would interact similarly, while occupying the same space and not interacting with the normal world. It was more than likely that “The Scientists” had some base that was already shifted, and could somehow match the position of the earth at all times. The shifting of the overlapped space is similar to how adding a number to both sides of the equation would keep it solvable, in the same way that shifted objects would still be able to interact normally with each other.
He also created technology to shift into the base, but he needed to acquire 2 pieces of information:
He needed to know in what aspects the base was shifted.
He needed to know by how much the base was shifted in these aspects.
However, discovering such information was quite easy, as he created a device that could see anywhere in the world using light trapped in a loop. Using this, he could decode where “The Scientists” made their base. He discovered that it was shifted by a certain amount(as there are no existing units capable of describing this), just so that it was in a fourth intersection of factors, with each intersection of factors representing a combination of factors from the changes in reality that had identical physics to the present one and the present world being the first intersection.
Using this, he was able to create powerful technology to combat “The Scientists”. However, “The Scientists” were not going to wait idly as he prepared his plans. During that time, “The Scientists” started to enhance their own weaponry. However, all of that was quickly put to a stop when Agent Blackstone sent a temporal frame replicator, or in simpler terms, a device that stopped the advancement of time in a given area, into “The Scientists”’ base, preventing them from making any breakthroughs. This stopped the majority of the threat of “The Scientists”, but there were still hostile “Scientists” scattered around on earth.
After this one week, Agent Blackstone was able to identify 4312 “Scientists” on the Earth, and managed to halt all but 200 of them. However, there was an issue. For an unknown reason, the quantity of scientists was spontaneously increasing. “The Scientists” were no longer materializing, and would instead appear from thin air.
At first, Agent Blackstone suspected that there may have been a second base. However, this was soon proven wrong, as the matter at the place of appearance was pushed outward instead of being absorbed into a shifted base, meaning that the scientists had some sort of portallike construct that they were using to enter the world from. Noticing this, Agent Blackstone came up with various theories about the reason “The Scientists” appeared so suddenly 35 years back, and what goals they hoped to achieve by unleashing the dinosaurs and “monsters”.
After cross-checking each of his theories, he finally discovered “The Scientists”’ goals…
Chapter Seven The “God”
It turns out that “The Scientists” had a mysterious “God”. The motives of this “God” were that it wanted to create the ultimate species, but to do that, it needed to perform countless experiments. The reason that dinosaurs were used were because of the fact that they appear to be the ancestors of “The Scientists” and the “God”, and are likely the species that were first experimented on by them. From what Agent Blackstone could deduce, the “God” was a highly genetically modified “Scientist” that was likely once their king. This individual’s power was of an incomprehensible nature. However, where this being was was unknown, as it was not in the shifted base. He concluded that the “monsters” that were unleashed upon earth were merely failed experiments, and that the “God” was far more powerful than anything that he has seen thus far.
Originally, Agent Blackstone thought that he was close to protecting the world from “The Scientists,” but the fact that the “monsters” seen thus far were merely failures meant that they would become more powerful over time.
He was going to need technology that was much more powerful, and he had just the idea to do it.
He used a state of enhanced intelligence to further enhance his own, and then repeated this process to find more and more ways to enhance his own intellectual capabilities to the point where he could effortlessly calculate everything in the universe. However, he went too far. At that point, he discovered that it was all inevitable, for all realities simultaneously existed. What he could prevent would only be manifested in some other possibility. There were some points where the paths of reality split so that he never succeeded in defending the earth, and there were some in which he succeeded on the first day, accidentally saving the world from the threat of “monsters” and “The Scientists”. And no matter what he did, there would always be a possibility of the future where a threat that could end humanity would exist, resulting in the chance that the human civilization would survive to the far future narrowing exponentially the further a timeline was predicted.
By this point, Agent Blackstone was nearly omnipotent; he had created a device that could extract energy from anything in the universe, and he could destroy or create anything using a different form of technology. He could, if he so willed, annihilate all threats in the universe, or even create a new law of reality that prevented humanity from being erased.
But what would the point be?
No matter what he did, he would ultimately be a threat to the entire universe, and even beyond. If he decided to end his own power, another being, somewhere, intelligent or not, was bound to stumble upon omnipotence.
There would always be something to destroy all of reality. However, as with all problems out there, what if he made a final rule? What if he made an unbreakable barrier in the axis of possibility?
That was, in the end, what he did. He made it so that it would be impossible to end civilization. However, at this point, his realizations made him approach an eternity of nonmotion. He was going to have to make a decision: stay powerful and become a dormant omnipotent, as it is likely that countless others, according to his calculations, done before, or throw it all away to become an ordinary being again.
It only took him a split second to make the decision. In the end, he ended up choosing to return to a mortal state while granting himself three things: The ability to accomplish anything he willed, an eternal and indestructible physical state, and the inclination towards protecting humanity.
He then proceeded to return to an almost mortal state, wiping his memories of omnipotence, and winding time back to one week ago.
This time, he was going to complete his objective, and nothing would be able to stop him.
Chapter Eight The Fate of “The Scientists”
W. Blackstone was waiting for the cubes to become modified. He didn’t know how long it would take. However, something about the current day felt different, almost as if someone or something had rewritten reality. However, he couldn’t tell what this person or thing was. He decided to take a walk in the woods near one of “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)”’s bases. Then, a “Scientist” appeared in front of him, from nowhere at all. W. Blackstone had no idea how it found him, but it gave him a note in messily scribbled English before leaving.
On the note, written with a mysterious, diamondlike dye, was the following: “We know that we can’t win this war, and are terminating our experiments on this plane. Perhaps our species will one day meet, but we do not know. But know this: we needed these experiments to fight off something. Something that you will one day encounter, though not yet. For now, take this warning: when the sun has changed,” the next lines were not legible. Wildfire Blackstone looked to the next line that was: “What you shall encounter is not life, is not physical, but is sentient. Beware, for it can be anything, anywhere, and anytime.”
With this extremely vague clue, W. Blackstone decided to investigate with whatever time he had until this new threat manifested itself.
PART TWO
Introduction
Five years later...
One day, the threat from “The Scientist”’s note predicted manifested itself.
“/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)” had been searching for clues about this new threat for the last 5 years, and many things had changed. For one, the president of the United States, Dart A. Waters, was a member of “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)”. Reflecting on this fact one day, on the same trail as the one that he encountered the “Scientist” that gave him the note, W. Blackstone looked at the sky. It was lime green. He blinked, and it was back to normal. Knowing what he saw, he rushed to the nearby “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)” base to investigate.
There, he discussed with various “/-\.|\/|.|_|.|)” researchers about this, and it was discovered that every one of the 2347 individuals gathered at the site had a similar experience at some point during the day. Except for one man. However, W. Blackstone found it strange. This member of the staff was not on any of the records. But W. Blackstone knew something else was off: the reports of this member seemed to slowly shift with time. He asked around about this staff member. People who had more recently met this person, when provided the name, described him as a 23 year old with brown eyes, though the hair color from each account varied. People that first met this person 4 years ago described him as being a bald 27 year old with varying eye color varying by account. Strangely, after noticing these inconsistencies, the “inconsistent man”, as W. Blackstone described, disappeared, never to be found again.
For one week after the disappearance of the “inconsistent man”, there were no unusual phenomena. However, what happened on the 8th day forever changed the course of the world’s future. On this day, a tenth of the world’s population started to show the same problems as the ”inconsistent man”. The descriptions and records of people were lost, and one by one, they vanished.
And at this point, W. Blackstone knew that if he didn’t do something quickly, he could be next.
[ * To Be Continued * ]
[Writing Editors:
Min Ji Choi for PART ONE Introduction - Chapter Four;
Jadyn H. for Part ONE Chapter Five - PART TWO Introduction.]