Beyond The Impossible

Washington D.C., Earth

Noriko Null has lost and regained access to her powers many times, but this is different.

She’s not only re-absorbing all the knowledge of the planet and increasing her IQ billions of times, but she’s also taking control of every single human on Earth from Abyss… while simultaneously having to adjust her senses from divine to human.

<This is not fair! I had you right where I wanted!> Abyss complains; the body she’s manifesting visibly shrinks down to human proportions, as she quickly loses access to the brainpower she leeched from the planet’s population.

She decides to access the powers she stole from Siduri to create a physical body for herself, but before she’s done assembling it Noriko’s hand plunges into her heart.

<Not this time.> Noriko tells her, her silver eyes shining brighter than ever when she pulls something out of Abyss.

Siduri’s true essence can’t be perceived in the physical world, so all she can see is the faint ghost of her presence dissolving into nothingness.

<Oh f##k this, I’m outta here!>

The manifestation of Abyss dissolves, her consciousness fleeing to the nearest available unshielded mind. It doesn’t have to be anything in particular: as long as Abyss can exist inside one mind, there will be the potential to get her revenge.

It’s just a random car driver, one of the delivery men that Abyss still had going around doing their business in order to feed her mind-slaves. She should be able to learn everything about him the second she enters his mind… if only she didn’t bounce off his brain.

“I told you. Not this time.” she can hear Noriko say, even if she’s several feet away.

She picks up a different strategy. At the speed of thought, literally, she reaches the only brain that is almost capable of giving her an intellectual advantage.

Nalani Null remains soundly asleep on her bed without noticing the evil entity attempting and failing to reach her mind. Without hearing her half-sister’s words:

“See how this feels”?

Abyss tries to get inside her father’s brain. Inside his companion, Doctor Kalama.

“No matter where you go…”

<You can’t be everywhere!> Abyss panics.

A barista in Melbourne. A software engineer in Helsinki. A firefighter in São Paulo.

“…no matter where you try to hide…”

<Give me anyone!>

A museum curator in Cairo. A chef in Vancouver. A teacher in Cape Town.

“…there is nowhere on this planet…”

<Anyone!>

A graphic designer in Seoul. A taxi driver in Istanbul. A marine biologist in Honolulu.

“…where you’re safe from me.”

Her last attempt to flee doesn’t go anywhere: Abyss finds herself in a dark place, unable to sense another mind. Or anything else but herself.

Until something does break the darkness. A pair of silver eyes, which to Abyss appear larger than the Sun.

“You’re stuck inside Earth’s collective consciousness, Abyss. Unfortunately for you, I currently hold it in the palm of my hand.”

<Since when do you want that? The whole reason I exist is that you’re too cowardly and small-minded to take over! You wouldn’t have lasted a day confronting humanity’s darkest thoughts without me!!!> Abyss shouts at her.

“True, you started out as a defense mechanism. But you’ve metastasized into a cancer that destroys everything. Trying to ruin my life was one thing, but you just attempted to kill all life in the Galaxy.”

<The universe. See, you’re out of your depth here! There are things out there that…>

“I saw your meeting with the Celestial Galaxy. Your memories are my memories now. Everyone’s memories are my memories.”

<That’s right. I convinced a f##king living galaxy to do my bidding. Act cool all you want, Null, but there are things out there that make Olympus look like amateurs… you need me.>

“There’s no talking your way of this, Abyss. It’s over.”

<Yeah, right. You’ve killed me what, four times by now? Five? As long as there is darkness within you, I can always return.>

“That was before you evolved past the need to be inside a specific brain. See, Abyss, that’s the thing about evolving… just because you came up with a new survival strategy doesn’t mean someone else hasn’t found a better one. And I have evolved past you.”

<Don’t patronize me, you self-doubting spineless c#nt, I’m as smart as you are. We both know you can’t kill me if a single fraction of me remains anywhere!>

“Then I guess I’ll have to personally evict you from every single mind on the planet.”

<You think I’ll fall for that bluff? The only way to affect the whole population to that level would be to use an Eternal Eraser against the planet! And you can’t do it without killing everyone!>

“Can’t I?”

Even though she no longer has a body, Abyss distinctly feels a chill down her spine.

<You wouldn’t…>

“Watch me. ETERNAL…”

<You can’t be serious!!!>

 

In reality

As far as anyone can see, less than a second has passed since Noriko Null has saved Siduri.

The rest of the Vanguard, together with Gilgamesh and Kayla Black, only see her just stand in the shadow of Washington’s Monument.

<Uhm, Nori, is everything okay?> Quantum asks, waving his hand in front of her face.

Her body is surrounded by a field of electricity that keeps flowing around her, and every muscle in her body is tense: she’s clearly under tremendous stress.

<Her soul is almost at the breaking point. I don’t believe she can last much longer.> Torn warns.

<Doing what?> Gilgamesh wonders.

Noriko finally speaks, with considerable effort: she sounds completely out of breath.

<E…ter… nal…>

<Oh crap. Everybody out, quickly!!!> Kari Zel warns them, with everyone rushing to keep their distance from Noriko as she releases the tension with a scream towards the sky:

<ERASER!!!>

A blast of pure information, concentrated into the mother of all lightning strikes, rises towards the clouds… draws a circle in the sky, visible across the city… and shoots back towards Noriko.

<EXORCISM!!!> she concludes, taking the blast herself.

Somewhere inside her mind, Abyss smirks.

<I knew you didn’t have the balls to do it.>

<GET THE F##K OUT OF MY LIFE!!!>

<Eh. Loser.>

The attack eradicates all traces of Abyss from her brain and her soul, down to the data collected by the Nexus. And it doesn’t stop there.

Since she’s currently linked to every mind on the planet, the effect spreads.

Every single brain on planet Earth is crossed by the Eternal Eraser variation, making sure absolutely nothing of Abyss remains.

And it doesn’t stop there. There’s too much work left to do.

Billions of people had their lives stolen for days. Noriko can’t give these days back, but she can remove the most painful memories… those forced by Abyss to hunt down her enemies, or to abandon their loved ones, or to abandon their duties, are granted some solace by making past events hazy images they quite can’t make out.

There are children to reassure. Any mind not developed enough to face the consequences of this violation of body autonomy is the most affected: they won’t remember anything.

The mental strain necessary to add a little mental suggestion in all of them, about their parents loving them and being in control of the situation, will probably shave off a couple months from Noriko’s life expectancy. She doesn’t hesitate to do it.

There are emergencies to direct. Abyss prioritized keeping her subjects alive, but a surgeon operating under her guidance needs proper assistance before he’s given back the use of his body.

Crime is shockingly easy to handle; Abyss had no use for criminals except for their brains, so everyone within a cell was simply kept there.

There will be an all-time record of people confessing crimes in the following week, though.

Humanity’s awakening needs to be set up properly. Thankfully Noriko teleported the entire planet’s nuclear arsenal into the Sun before becoming Empress, but there’s still the risk of a number of

nations escalating the crisis into a war.

Then there’s the economy. With everything completely stopped, this about to create the greatest economic crisis humanity has ever seen.

Then there’s evidence to get rid of. Proof that she was briefly a goddess must be everywhere, and leaving it out there could prove catastrophic for galactic politics.

So many things to fix, big and little, all interconnected.

She already hated being a goddess, but being THE goddess is exponentially worse.

She has to stretch herself thin. Supercharging her brain to this level, with eight billion minds working in unison to back her up, she can do more than she ever dreamed of.

Digital information across the planet is putty in her hands. Much easier than brains to mess with, and far cleaner. Scarily cleaner.

She fixes everything she can think of. Setting up temporary blocks for potential military interventions, pre-establish diplomatic contacts and freely distribute just enough information to make world leaders avoid the worst decisions, adjust the rate at which financial institutions will start working again, fidget the data that journalists will be able to recover… every big problem she fixes comes with an ever-expanding list of smaller problems and inconveniences.

She feels herself slipping. She really is spreading herself too thin.

She hesitates before relinquishing control.

It won’t ever be enough. Once she would have heard an annoying voice whispering to her mind that she’s a failure, that she doesn’t deserve her power and influence.

Luckily, she killed that voice today.

She disconnects her mind from everybody else’s, coming to her senses in the arms of a bronze-skinned man.

<Are you alright?> Gilgamesh asks her.

<I’m okay. Better than okay.> she responds, taking the initiative to kiss him.

Quantum awkwardly turns away from them, asking to Kari Zel:

<Did I miss something? What’s with these two?>

<You’re old enough to figure it out.> Kari replies.

Torn simply raises an eyebrow.

<Did we make it? Did we defeat Abyss?> Kayla Black asks, more than a little surprised by how chill the Vanguard is about having come this close to the end of the world.

<Well I don’t know about that, but Vesta reports she just threw her weird giant robot chick straight into the Sun.> Quantum informs them.

<Yes, Abyss is gone. For good, trust me. Torn, get back to Null Tower and secure the Twilight Mirror, I don’t want that thing close to any more Drylon tech. Quantum, you go to the tachyon relay at Midgard City and inform my cabinet that Earth’s embargo is lifted. Kari, go check on the President, I don’t want him to do anything stupid.> Noriko orders.

<What about you?> Kayla asks her.

<The planet just got off its vacation. I’m taking the rest of the day off.>