Crossover: Monthly Character Templates in the Multiverse Chat Group — Chapter 110

Chapter 110: Cyber Ghost

To Priestess, the Doctor was her greatest partner, her truest confidante, and her sole fellow traveler.

Even if the oceans boiled away and the atmosphere bled into the void, even if satellites plummeted one by one into the crushing vortex of gravity, even if the sun swelled with vicious intent and ruthlessly devoured its own children until the cosmos fell dead and silent—they would meet again.

“What does any of that have to do with me?”

Frez blinked, genuinely baffled. His relationship with the Doctor was strictly platonic. He hadn’t crossed any lines, nor had he made any grand, universe-defying vows.

“Is this just because I made the Doctor work overtime?” he asked, crossing his arms. “I didn’t exploit her to death. Or is it because you think I temporarily crashed the ‘Nail’ and you came here to settle the score—oh.”

A sudden epiphany struck him. He stood up, took a dramatic step back, and wrapped his arms around himself defensively. “You don’t want me to marry the Doctor, do you? You’re jealous. So that’s your angle.”

Priestess stared at him.

A long, heavy silence stretched between them.

If a highly advanced, digitized consciousness could feel a headache, she was undoubtedly experiencing one right now. His imagination was entirely untethered from reality.

“Humanity is functionally extinct,” Priestess finally said, her voice smooth and devoid of inflection. “Even if you and the Doctor were to reproduce, it would not be enough to continue our lineage. Our enemies are always watching us from the dark. I must accelerate the Originium Project.”

She lifted her gaze to meet his. Within those violet eyes, her stark white, diamond-shaped pupils were exceptionally striking, glowing with an unnatural, synthetic light.

“I need your help to cover this planet with Originium,” she continued. “The Doctor currently leans too heavily toward her former self. She wants to preserve both civilizations. She has always been a kind, yet foolishly greedy person. Her willingness to assist you stems from a naive hope that she can force enough changes to give this current civilization a better path.”

This modern civilization on Terra was an anomaly neither she nor the Doctor had ever anticipated. It had simply sprouted from the ashes. Under the volatile catalyst of Originium, its development had skyrocketed far beyond the natural pace of a nascent society.

And then there was Kal’tsit. That ancient fossil was doing nothing but stirring the pot, agitating an already filthy, cesspool-like civilization into further chaos.

“As long as we successfully blanket the planet in Originium, this civilization and our own will be safely gathered within the Internalized Universe of the Originium,” Priestess explained, making no effort to hide her grand design. “If we spread Originium throughout the entire cosmos, my ultimate goal will be achieved.”

Frez studied her face. She was completely serious.

“You probably wouldn’t grasp the mechanics if I spoke in theoretical terms,” Priestess added, a faint trace of condescension bleeding into her tone. “Based on my observations, your intellectual level is roughly on par with an ordinary private university student from the era before our civilization left the homeworld. And your major certainly wasn’t physics or mathematics.”

She took a slow, measured breath. “To put it simply: when Originium is spread across the entire universe, I can overlay the Internalized Universe onto reality. Like turning a pocket inside out, everything within the Originium will become the real universe. I hold supreme control over Originium. In that new reality, even the ‘Lumberjack’ will cease to exist.”

Frez translated that in his head. Simply put, she wants to become the god of the new world.

The Lumberjack would always come to cut down the trees called civilizations, but the axe could not harm the amber formed upon the stumps. By using this flaw, Priestess intended to preserve all civilizations within that amber until the Internalized Universe grew massive enough to swallow the cosmos whole.

“Even if I refuse, you’re going to do it anyway,” Frez pointed out, his tone dry. “There’s no point in pitching this to me, is there?”

“Correct,” Priestess admitted. “But we are of the same race. I haven’t seen a human other than the Doctor for a very, very long time.”

“Are our genes really that similar?”

“You are far more… primitive.” A faint smile graced Priestess’s lips. “To us, you are an antique. The fundamental difference isn’t massive, but our genes have been rigorously screened and iterated to achieve superiority.”

“Are you sure about that?” Frez chuckled. “Back when I didn’t even have any special powers, I could still knock the Doctor out with a single punch.”

“Her excellence was never measured in physical violence,” Priestess countered smoothly. “But you possess something we do not. I believe it is worth recording into the Originium as a reference.”

Frez narrowed his eyes. The amused curve of his lips sharpened into something dangerous. “You really sit high up on that throne of yours, Priestess. You actually think I’m made of clay.”

The delicate teacup in his hand shattered, instantly ground into fine powder between his fingers.

Without a second of hesitation, Frez threw a punch. Crimson Nilu Fire roared to life, swirling around his fist in a violent vortex of heat, only to slam into an invisible, unyielding barrier inches from her face.

The corner of Priestess’s mouth curled into a confident, pitying arc. “I didn’t underestimate you. But your power operates on the same principles as those little animals on the surface, doesn’t it? Therefore, you cannot touch me.”

Crack.

A hairline fracture appeared in the empty air.

Priestess’s confident smile vanished. Her violet eyes widened in sheer shock.

How is this possible?

“You underestimate the locals way too much,” Frez whispered, the Nilu Fire flaring hotter. “A large fraction of their power might stem from you, but you’ve never actually looked squarely at what they can do. Not to mention…”

Click! CRASH!

The invisible wall shattered like cheap glass. Frez’s hand shot forward, his fingers clamping like a vice around Priestess’s throat.

“I’ve never been a fan of stuffing people into Originium rocks,” he said, lifting her effortlessly off the ground. “Compared to your pathetic version of lingering on life support, I prefer to take a gamble.”

Suspended in the air, Priestess’s expression quickly smoothed back into cold indifference. “This is just a futile struggle. Why invite your own destruction? People in our civilization made the exact same choice you are making now. Ed failed. You will share his fate.”

Before Frez could reply, a strange, magnetic pull tugged at his back. Acting on instinct, he reached behind him, grabbed the source of the spatial distortion, and yanked hard.

The Doctor stumbled into the digital space, nearly losing her footing.

“Priestess?!”

The Doctor cried out, her eyes darting between Frez’s glowing fist and the woman dangling from his grip. Seeing the situation, she actually let out a long, exhausted sigh of relief. “I felt fluctuations in the Originium permissions while I was sleeping. Just as I suspected, you were dragged in here.”

The moment she sensed the anomaly, the Doctor had tried to use her administrative permissions to pull Frez back out to reality. Unfortunately, her current physical and mental strength was far too low; instead of pulling him out, his sheer gravitational anchor had dragged her in.

“We meet again,” Priestess choked out, managing a faint smile despite the hand crushing her windpipe. She showed zero fear of death.

This body was nothing more than a string of data woven into the Internalized Universe. She couldn’t be permanently killed here; at worst, it would just take a little time to recompile her avatar.

“Frez, what did she want with you?” the Doctor asked, her tone shifting to strict business.

“She wanted me to help her accelerate the Originium Project.”

“No!” the Doctor snapped, stepping forward. “That won’t work!”

The current, agonizingly slow progress was exactly what she wanted. Accelerating the project now would only drag this newborn civilization into a horrific, agonizing end.

“Doctor, you know we don’t have much time left,” Priestess argued, her voice slightly strained but calm.

“You left the Originium Project alone for ten thousand years, and now you want to hit the gas? Ridiculous!” the Doctor shot back. “We still have plenty of time. As long as we guide them down the right path, a few hundred years won’t be an issue.”

Frez knew the lore. In Endfield, the people of Terra eventually expanded to Talos-II. As long as they didn’t veer off into doomed worldlines, they had a massive buffer of time. Whether they could actually defeat the Lumberjack in the end was debatable, but Terra’s current technological level definitely couldn’t compete within a mere few centuries. If they could, they wouldn’t be trapped inside the Starcapsule, entirely reliant on the stargate to travel.

“A few hundred years?” Priestess tilted her head, ignoring Frez’s grip. “Where did you pull that conclusion from? And what exactly do you define as the ‘right path’?”

She looked genuinely curious. She had no data on Frez’s so-called ‘path,’nor any mathematical model that supported a’few hundred years’ survival rate.

“Don’t worry about it,” Frez said dismissively. “I have my own special sources of information.”

“Is it an ability akin to Future Sight?” Priestess asked, her diamond pupils locking onto him. “I’ve been curious for a long time. You don’t belong to this world, yet you possess an impossible amount of classified information. Tell me, in this future you claim to see… did we succeed?”

Frez stared at the digital ghost for a long moment, then gave a dry, humorless chuckle.

“I don’t know about success,” Frez said flatly. “But I do know your name ends up carved into a tombstone.”

There was a grave for Priestess in Endfield. That much was a fact.

He tossed Priestess aside and turned his gaze to the woman in the coat. “So, Doctor. What do you think?”