Loki looked down at his feet confused.
'...what's going on?'
'...?'
Only the ground underneath his feet remained standing, while the rest had already completely collapsed into oblivion.
"Where even am I?" Loki asked out loud, wondering while looking at the darkness that surrounded him from all sides.
Mountains stood in the distance, but only an oblivion remained raised in between them and him while he stood on the peak of a pencil like pole mountain himself.
The scenario was bizarre to say the least.
'...is this a dream?' Loki thought, and as soon as he did, something within him snapped.
A flood of memories came rushing back as Loki's eyes snapped open in the darkness.
'That's right! I left the village to go on a tour around the world since I wanted to digest my potion and advance to a True God of the Lord of the Mysteries Pathways!'
After travelling for a while, only partially aimlessly, while following a poorly hand drawn map he stole from the archives of the retired expedition team of the village, Loki stopped for rest.
It was night, and his destination, the next village, wasn't moving from its spot, so he decided to take a break to keep himself alert throughout the rest of the journey.
The world wasn't particularly dangerous.
There were a few strange plants and animals morphed because of Beyonder characteristics, plotted here and there, but Loki avoided them rather easily because firstly most if not all of them were mad and barely cognisant, while secondly none of them could hold a candle to his ability to escape as a thief.
His intuition always warned him of any suspicious animals simply because their worth was more than normal, so he already knew to stay on guard against them, walking without drawing any attention while making sure to stay a safe distance away so that he could always just run away or dip into the thick roots of a tree to hide himself from particularly large predators.
And right now, Loki was in the burrow formed by the dense roots of one such large tree.
As the world around him started to slowly become clear, Loki slowly scanned around him without moving.
'....a dream… so someone from the darkness pathway?'
Loki activated spirit vision and carefully observed his surroundings. The tree he was under was normal, just like it was when he'd scanned it before hiding under it, but the world or rather the creature lying in wait outside it was not.
Loki clearly saw a short and strange rabbit-like creature sitting just outside.
To call it a rabbit would be an insult to the cuteness of fluffy creatures like them, but that was what Loki guessed it was… at least before it had fallen prey to madness.
In Loki's spirit vision was a macabre animal whose spirit had been torn. Instead of a healthy rabbit shaped spirit, its head was replaced by a swirl of darkness, not the pretty kind, but a twisted swirl that twisted its head with it, making everything a bizarre onion like mix of flesh and blood.
Loki almost shuddered involuntarily but held back because he had already seen such things in his short journey outside the village.
'Alright…can't just escape this time since there is no other way out of this burrow…but it's just a rabbit, so nothing should go wrong even if I were to fight it out.'
'However it's a rabbit that's Sequence 7 at least…'
'Can I even fight that?'
'..no way…would a mere Sequence 9 who's only ability is slightly better eye sight be able to compete with a monstrous creature that has nothing to lose? That can make me succumb to madness without even trying?'
'Is there even a point in putting up a fight then?'
'Won't it just be more painful to fight? Shouldn't I just…surrender?'
'....I should just surrender.'
By this point, the rabbit with the swirling head had already hopped closer. Moving to stand just beside Loki's head as his gaze turned listless, seemingly giving up and ready for being doused in the chill of death completely unafraid of losing their glimmer.
The rabbit's body transformed once it saw this.
Its previously swirled head unwrapped into a large tentacle that had a particularly pointy end which it directed right at Loki's head.
The rabbit stayed there for a moment, seemingly admiring its handiwork before-
PUCHI
"Aghh… the headache…" Loki shook his head and pulled back the short knife he'd stabbed into the rabbit's chest.
He watched it whimper on the rough but moist soil floor for a second as it tried to escape by kicking its legs while it died being unable to do a thing about the silver dagger in its heart.
"Damn…this feels horrible…" Loki mumbled before twisting the knife with force and finally putting the mad rabbit out of its misery.
The squishy sensation of gutting an animal lingered on his fingers as he spit out the bile that his stomach had thrown up.
It took a while, but Loki controlled himself well, and after his emotions stabilised, he cleaned the silver dagger, which he'd stolen from the same archives of the retired expedition team in the village, on the fur of the now dead rabbit, before tucking it back into his belt.
"Yuck."
Loki closed his eyes, sighed, and then opened them to reveal a deep gaze that watched the spirit body of the rabbit slowly decay and slip out of view.
He had always been lucid after he had broken out of the dream. As soon as Loki realised that he was dealing with someone from the Sleepless pathway who was at least a Sequence 7 Loki began to figure out a plan to escape the situation.
But he didn't have to think hard because almost immediately after he broke out of the dream, Loki felt a drastic sense of listlessness. He just wanted to give up and lie flat on the ground, allow the world to take its course and the rabbit to eat him up.
He managed to stay lucid even through this surprisingly! Whether it was because the rabbit was just a mad creature that couldn't fully exert the effects of its beyonder ability or some function of his anti corruption ability he did not know. But Loki remained lucid nonetheless.
And so he lay there, pretending to have given up, waiting for just the right moment to strike, to perform a theft.
To steal the rabbit's life.
'...'
'Does this also count as acting?' Loki asked himself and soon felt something shift inside his being, as if a mass or sludge just became slightly looser, almost easier to move around and was dissolved into his soul.
He waited some more for the Beyonder Characteristics of the rabbit to form and picked them up before putting them inside a small pouch and sealing it up with walls of spirituality to avoid contamination.
"I can't eat the rabbit can I?" Loki thought, looking at the fresh meat that was laying at his feet.
"I mean…the beyonder characteristics already formed…so this is worthless, isn't it? It should just be plain meat?"
Eventually Loki decided not to take the risk since some lingering spirituality in the rabbit's corpse might interfere with his own Beyonder Characteristics since it was likely classified as a mystical material.
The sun rose up after a few hours and so Loki was on his way to the next village again.
'Will there be another 'Little Girl' like last time in this village too?'
'What is up with me and meeting these true gods so soon after I've reincarnated into this world?'
'I just came here and I've already met the Darkness pathway True God…and whichever pathway 'She' was from…likely the Wheel of Fortune pathway…'
'Should I have asked her for a blessing before I left?'
Loki shook his head.
He'd rather be self sufficient and not rely on the blessings of random gods so early in his beyonder journey. Especially not from someone who called him a failed iteration.
'No point in regretting such things…'
Once again on his journey, Loki encountered a few strange creatures.
Things like parrots and fish that could summon lightning were rather common among them. While even stranger creatures that held characteristics from two non adjacent pathways like a bizarre tree that hung corpses on its branches while setting anything that came close to it on fire were rarer.
Loki guessed the other farther pairs likely died due to madness before they survived for long enough.
'Hopefully no High Sequence mad Beyonders decide to intervene in my journey to my next village…'
'The next village…' Loki pondered as he looked at the map, 'I've been walking for two days already…and I haven't reached it yet…the map says it should've only taken me a day…'
'These maps need to be seriously improved…'
'Oh how nice it would be if someone made a map for marauders? A grand map of all valuable items that can be stolen in one place? For only people with the most solemn vows of theft to see and use?'
'Sigh…to bad nothing like that exists right now….I should see if I can get someone to make it for me later…'
…
Dumbledore looked at the papers spread in front of him with annoyance.
He said nothing for a while before quietly pulling out the quill in the drawer beside him.
He thought for a while before writing down words he felt were extremely sensible, "...Minerva McGonagall suddenly finds herself free and realises that she hasn't contributed enough to the school and comes to Headmaster Dumbledore's office to take on additional work this is a reasonable development given her workaholic character."
Dumbledore smiled upon seeing the words written on air before quietly letting them sink and dissolve away.
As soon as he did so his eyes sharpened.
He placed the quill back into the restrictive drawer before leaning forward on the table and thinking through the recent happenings that he had already predicted.
The weave of fate disturbed by the newly authored scenario to it resurfaced in Dumbledore's view allowing him to study it keenly.
His eyes traced every last bit of it, making sure not a single knot remained hidden from his view as he examined the constant interactions between every important character in the story.
"Mr. Error seems to have already fallen into the trap… he occupied Dumbledore's body and spent time rewriting the fates of several characters in the play related to the main character…"
"But he has still not seen through the fatal flaw in his plan…"
"Or is he just that arrogant?"
Sigh….
"Too bad I can't ask the damn mirror anymore… a partner of over a thousand years…lost so easily."
KnockKnock
A series of knocks broke Dumbledore out of his reverie while the web of fate disturbed by the special quill sank back into listless restfulness.
"Ah…Minnie…" Dumbledore said with a smile when he looked at who his guest was. "...care for some licorice?"
McGonagall looked at Dumbledore with a glare, almost hissing at him for offering her candy that would bite your mouth before controlling herself and speaking calmly, "I just….happened to be a little free at the moment Professor…Is there anything else I can help you with?"
Dumbledore looked heartbroken, his eyes watering up but McGonagall didn't budge, so he just sighed sadly and collected the papers on his desk, "Well you always were an overachiever even when you were at Hogwarts Minerva…who am I to stop you from doing the same now?"
Dumbledore smiled and handed over the pages in his hands, but just as McGonagall grabbed them, Dumbledore spoke in a deeper tone, "Could you call for a meeting Minnie?"
McGonagall was a little startled by the sudden order but when she looked into Dumbledore's eyes she nodded nonetheless, "I'll ask the Order to convene in five minutes…"
Dumbledore smiled once again and let go of the papers, leaving McGonagall to take care of them.
He watched as she walked away before sighing and pretending to wipe away some sweat as he mumbled, "Ah…administration…how tedious…would Hogwarts even run so profitably if I weren't here?"
McGonagall seemed to have heard Dumbledore's words but before she could say anything else, the gargoyle staircase spun around and took her back to the second floor from where her office would be the closest.
Dumbledore inside his office popped open a new pack of cockroach clusters and bit on the head of a particularly lively one.
His gaze remained on the wriggling cockroach body for a few seconds before it shifted to a tear in the spirit world from where a short owl flew out and landed on his table.
"Hmm…? A letter? From Nicholas...what has he been doing since the last time I saw him?"
Dumbledore looked at the letter for a few seconds before frowning in thought.
'...hmm…he has the memories of a child from Hogwarts that doesn't exist but is rapidly forgetting about him?'
'...whose child is this? Did the Black family do something to him? But there aren't any Black kids at Hogwarts right now…'
'Perhaps the mysterious creature belongs to one of Sirius's nightly escapades…'
'Hmm…why didn't this letter arrive a few minutes ago…I could've just asked Minerva to perform a ritual…'
Sigh…
'I guess these old bones have to do everything around here after all…'
Dumbledore quickly pulled out the quill from his desk before scribbling another statement into the air.
"Severus Snape losing control over his emotions upon seeing the love of his life is completely reasonable."
The words faded into the air, sinking into the weave of fate causing it to shimmer into existence in front of Dumbledore's eyes.
His eyes scanned the knots again, staring hard at them before sitting calmly to study the specific mercurial weave of fate entangled with the letter he'd just received.
'...a boy…'
'Nicholas doesn't seem to be connected to a boy…there are no signs of the boy being hidden by concealment or even killed…'
'Did he hallucinate?'
Dumbledore frowned.
An angle hallucinating something? While not impossible, it wasn't exactly good news, so Dumbledore frowned.
'Is he losing control?'
As Dumbledore studied the fading weave his hands suddenly trembled.
'Mr. Error?'
'Was he responsible for this?'
Dumbledore's eyes twitched for a second as he studied the weave with more intensity, trying to find any signs of interference with the fate of the world, trying to search for someone who had bent it to their whims and fancies in any way.
But-
'Absolutely nothing, it's perfectly normal.'
Dumbledore thought that, but he could see clearly that those words were a clue in itself.
'Perfectly normal…'
'How could the fate of an Angel ever be 'perfectly normal'?'
'...'
…
Snape felt a slight brush against his mental defences before a sharp announcement rang inside the minds of all his bats.
"Violators are not allowed to breathe as the first punishment!"
Almost instantly, Snape felt his bat bodies start to suffocate. He remained perfectly fine as a creature of the darkness under the moonlight, however his split up bats began to feel a strange sense of suppression, as if something greater was attempting to control the air around him.
'...worry not.' A soft, sweet voice rang inside his mind as he felt the suppression his bat bodies felt.
Snape relaxed almost immediately when the suppression was lifted and his body felt rejuvenated. His clouded head cleared as he quickly ripped out half a dozen ingredients from his darkened self before tossing them into a moon like crucible that was slightly tinted by crimson created out of the light from his own current form.
Not even a moment later, Snape dunked his shadowy hand shimmering with moonlight into the cauldron and pulled out an ethereal liquid from the moony crucible and tossed it to the ground in between everyone on Moody's side.
Just as the ethereal potion hit the ground, Moody shouted, "Stick to the line! Stick to the line!"
Hermione quickly fixed her steps, regardless of her sudden inability to breathe, adjusting her feet to be exactly on Moody's imprints on the wet forest floor just as the potion hit the ground and exploded into a cloud of sparkly dust that engulfed all of them.
Everyone in the group took a deep breath. Or at least they felt they did. In truth, their bodies simply felt like they'd taken a deep gulp of fresh air despite the fact that their lungs still couldn't trap any air in them.
Hermione being hounded constantly by Loki's excellence during the potions class instantly recognised the special potion that Snape had used.
"Monty's Liquid Air! A potion that allows those in contact with it to absorb air through their skin!"
Unfortunately for her, she wasn't at Hogwarts, and there was no time for anyone to award her points for her excellent answer.
Snape only glanced her way before looking at Belltraix who had paused her attack and gripped her throat with irritation.
"...wh- at… di-d you -do Sne-ape?" Bellatrix asked, looking directly at Snape's shadowy body, gasping for breath as she started turning purple from the lack of oxygen in her blood.
Regardless of her being a demigod at this moment, or her being from the Death pathway and being resistant to the aura of Death, Bellatrix instantly found herself dying.
Yet true to her crazy self, she stayed calm, her eyes turning frosty as she quickly tried to determine the weakness of the attack levied on her.
Her eyes suddenly widened momentarily before she shut them with a sharp screeching wail and jumped away in horror.
By this point everyone on Moody's side had either pulled out their wands or simply readied their spirituality for their Beyonder abilities.
Hermione and Tonks had their wands pointed directly at Bellatrix both aiming to use the same spell from the Error pathway, Daphne was ready to curse Bellatrix, Belmont was ready to apply the Abyss Shackles to bind her for everyone else's assault, while Ron simply observed the situation quietly.
Harry however was the fastest.
Almost as soon as Bellatrix appeared, he activated the eye of demon hunting, sending a glimmering haze over his green eyes as he used his enhanced observation prowess to almost instinctively determine Bellatrix's weakness.
Except, before he could act on it by shooting the special knife in his hand right in between Belatrix's brows, Moody shouted, "Don't attack! Stay back!!"
Needless to say, the words took everyone by surprise, and it only doubled when Bellatrix finally took a deep gulp of fresh air before she snarled.
"You can't affect me from so far, can you?"
Her head was tilted at an awkward angle, almost upside down when she asked her question, making one pause to think for a moment if she were a contortionist who specialised in breaking bones.
Moody said nothing.
If he was waiting for a trap to spring or Bellatrix to attack, only he knew, but since Tonks had warned them all to follow his lead, they didn't move.
Instead they too continued to stare at Bellatrix, waiting for her move, pondering about the imbalance in their current situation.
Could a single Demigod take on so many Beyonders of a variety of pathways at once given they also had multiple Demigods on their side?
They had their answer the next moment and Harry almost immediately realised that Bellatrix had been holding back immensely in their previous fight.
Bellatrix's hands came together to touch the corresponding index and ring fingers to form a horizontal diamond shape using them which she imposed upon her glabella, causing a small dark diamond to form over it on her forehead.
Almost immediately, in the next moment, a horde poured out.
Within the blink of an eye Harry found himself face to face with about thirty different undead all rushing towards him, wanting to simply devour him as if he were the tastiest meal on the planet.
Everyone else was under a similar strain.
From skeletons the size of a three story building that could simply sweep everyone off their footing with a single wave to ice and fire breathing dragon skeletons that expanded to the size of half a Quidditch field to a swarm of banshees or kappa demons, each undead rushed towards them like they were a swarming part of an avalanche.
Moody had no time to shout new commands but apart from Tonks and Belmont who were used to Moody, not everyone else had the courage to hold onto his previous orders.
Harry didn't attack his undying onlookers himself since he almost immediately realised that they weren't strong enough to cause him any harm no matter how terrifying they looked. It was just that, Ron was too weak to contend with them!
So before a single undead could attack his dear friend, Harry tossed a handful of small potion vials, each glowing a distinct gold, at the swarm headed towards him.
Moody's eyes widened in surprise at Harry's actions but before he could react to protect him from harm, a greater threat unveiled itself.
Bellatrix had circled them in the time it took the swarm to be thrust upon them before planting a simple object that threatened to sweep everyone off their feet.
The Gate to the Underworld.
A sharp shredding suction force tore through the forest, ripping apart entire chunks from trees and toppling them along with the dirt and all the other creatures in the area.
Of course, it also included the small group that had to for some reason follow Moody's steps lest they risk being punished.
All of a sudden, in an unprecedented manner, the group faced two life threatening threats.
First was the plan threat of the swarm of undead rushing towards them from the front threatening to take out the weakest among them.
While the second was the gate to the underworld that was sucking everything so hard that they were all being lifted off their feet and going to violate the law laid before them.
Moody's magical eye spun around rapidly, scanning each and every grain of gravel on the forest floor to find an appropriate solution.
Snape was already moving towards Bellatrix but he wasn't fast enough.
Ron Weasley seemed to be terrified of the swarm and was raising his wand to attack.
Harry Potter had already tossed the vials to save his friend and was now turning to act to save them from the Gate of the Underworld.
Hermione and Tonks were also readying up to use a spell since the situation had clearly gone out of hand.
Belmont had already cast shadow shackles to pin himself to the floor to prevent himself from flying towards the Gate of the Underworld. He could perhaps hold onto Tonks and save her from flying into it too, but everyone after that would inevitably collapse.
And Daphne was still waiting.
All this led to only one possible solution for Moody.
Within the blink of an eye, Moody's hands slipped onto the invisible item in his robes before pulling it out and tossing it straight at Bellatrix!
Empowered by the suction force of the Gate to the Underworld the invisible item soared, speeding through as it rushed towards her in a trajectory that was ready to slam into her head like a bullet.
The suction force from the Gate and Moody holding onto the cloak, unfurled the bindings from the package, to reveal a fat book bound by thin brass sheets.
Everything after that happened in an instant.
The book slammed into the veil of the Gate of the Underworld.
A lightning bolt struck the gate of the underworld causing Bellatrix to be thrown back dozens of meters.
Harry's potion vials landed on the swarm of undead that was coming before each one exploded in a bright radiant warmth reminiscent of the sun as each of the undead was completely purified and killed.
Ron's hand flicked unnaturally as his spell was redirected towards the brass book that was about to be sucked up into the underworld, causing it to forcibly be stopped and enter a state of tug of war between Ron and the now crumbling gate.
Hermione and Tonks each used the same spell to steal the voice of the Banhees, causing them to stop launching their wails.
Snape changed his direction from Bellatrix to the Book that had almost been sucked into the Gate of the Underworld before grabbing it and forcibly darting away as a glimmer of moon light regardless of the fact that it was bright daylight.
While most importantly of all, Daphne held onto her curse of bad luck, waiting for the right moment to use either a blessing or a curse for the right person since fate seemed to be rather fickle at this very moment.
The sudden flurry of spells, involuntary actions, explosion of potion vials that had been blessed by the Sun Goddess herself, the enormous damage caused by the suction of the Gate of the Underworld, and finally the throwing of the Book that Moody had performed left everybody's ears ringing.
Yet it was still not done.
Bellatrix, standing up with her nose bleeding, looked down upon everyone else while standing atop a tall rock and reabsorbed the Gate of the Underworld, transforming it into a rune that snapped onto her left palm emitting a deep sense of decay and death.
There was a pause as both the parties looked at each other with an evaluating gaze.
Clearly the net winner of the last confrontation was Moody's side with the book still in their hands and Bellatrix having suffered a clear defeat both in her undead forces and personal health.
Yet, Bellatrix hadn't run away. Her eyes were firm and showed a glimmer of anticipation, as if her impromptu plan had finally reached a climactic fruition.
Her right hand slowly slipped to her waist from where she pulled out an old simple bone wand that belonged to her master.
Her lips curled up into an eerie unsettling smile as she flicked the wand once.
In the startling silence that followed, out poured two grey misty forms that four people in the area immediately recognised.
Snape's pupils widened.
And Moody's grip on his staff tightened.
But Harry's mouth hung loose before he barely uttered in a horrified whisper, "...mom?...dad?"
…
Walburga looked at the final result of her divination.
She'd just convened a ritual to ask the God of the Darkness pathway, Salazar Slytherin, if he could perhaps guide his followers, her, to reclaim the Death Blasphemy Card that was stolen from them.
And the result was simple, a dream that pointed her exactly to its location.
Only, the location and its contents had been rather unexpected.
Walburga kept her eyes closed and recalled the result of the divination.
A deep dark world, hidden under a myriad of tree roots, within a colossal shadowy structure inside it, and on a simple table deep within lay the Card of Blasphemy for the Death Pathway.
She did not recognise the location.
But even stranger was the fact that she saw someone she recognised in that divination.
A rather tall man whom she felt her heart call out to instantly.
'...Sirius…'
A slight tinge of worry crept into Walburga's heart as she pondered upon the place that Sirius was inside.
Since she didn't recognise it, it could only mean that it was either a completely irrelevant location that posed no danger, or a location that posed so much danger that even she as a demigod had never heard or seen it until today.
And for some strange reason Walburga felt like it was the latter.
After all, it had taken a True God revealing it for her to know of it.
'What's he doing in such a dangerous place…'
Walburga for the first time in a while felt herself reminded of the death of her first son, Regulus. She kept her eyes closed and slowly formed the symbol of the crimson moon on her chest.
'May the God of Darkness bless him.'
Walburga opened her eyes and after some thought made her way to Sirius's room.
'If I can't help him directly…I can ask for some luck…'
As soon as Walburga stepped into his room however, she wished she hadn't. The room was at the peak of disorder, so much so that Walburga almost felt that this was what Amelia had meant when she was here the other day to talk about bottled up chaos and order.
With clothes strewn about, Walburga almost thought for a second that a hurricane had swept through the house.
"Kreacher!!!!"
A short elf popped up upon Walburga's loud shout before it looked at her innocently.
Seeing her house elf not answer her clear question Walburga made herself explicit, "What's…the reason you haven't cleaned this room?"
Kreacher looked around in confusion and rubbed his finger over a spot on the furniture before asking, "Is it not clean enough madam?"
The words left Walburga dumbfounded so she looked around with her spirit vision active and almost immediately recognised what Sirius had done.
'The brat concealed all his dirty laundry!!!!'
Walburga's face scrunched up in annoyance and frustration before she glared at the innocent Kreacher who was suddenly imagining himself beheaded and hung up on the wall like his ancestors.
"Forget it…" Walburga said, holding her head, "You may return."
Kreacher nodded, albeit a little confused, before he bowed and vanished again in a pop leaving Walburga to go around the room and clean the dirty laundry.
Except almost immediately, as Walburga picked up a pile of clothes off of the desk, a strange coin slipped out of a pant pocket.
Walburga picked it up and looked at it carefully.
There was nothing written on it for a second before the coin turned uncomfortably warm as new letters popped up, circling around its metallic edge.
'....five minutes?'
'Five minutes what?'
Walburga was about to toss away the coin, thinking it was a toy before she paused.
'A toy using the protean charm?'
'Since when did Zonko's become so expressive?'
…