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- London, United Kingdom -
- December 20, 1939 — Night -
The fog rolled heavy over London, thick enough to blur the street lamps into pale ghosts. The war hadn't reached them yet, but the fear of it already had. Posters told people to "Be Prepared," sirens wailed at odd hours for practice drills, and queues for rations wound longer every week.
In pubs, in homes, in Parliament itself, talk of Samrat Aryan was still there—but it no longer shocked the British the way it stunned the rest of the world. His name had been on their tongues for years, ever since the day Bharat slipped from their grip.
To the people, the latest reports from New York Harbor felt less like news and more like a grim confirmation. Aryan was no longer a rumor, no longer some exotic rebel from the East. He was a force. A mutant, they said now. That word—mutant—gave them a frame, something that explained away the impossible. It wasn't Britain's weakness that lost them India, it was the unnatural strength of one man.
That story soothed them. It allowed them to hold their heads high while the Empire tightened its fists on Africa, the Caribbean, and anywhere else it still could. The Crown Jewel was gone, but the Crown itself still glittered, and the people wanted to believe it hadn't dulled.
The election only deepened that mood. Chamberlain was out, Churchill was in. His speeches rang on the wireless every other night: booming promises that Britain was still the torch of civilization, that Germany would be crushed, that the Empire would rise again. The people cheered in their kitchens and workhouses, not just because they believed him, but because they needed to.
Yet, beneath the surface, another voice was beginning to spread.
It started small—anonymous leaflets slipped under doors, whispers in market lines. The Royal Family, some said, was not truly British at all. German blood ran through their veins. And wasn't it Germans now threatening to bomb their homes? Weren't they already the enemy?
Then came the masks.
On a damp evening near Piccadilly, a group of men and women in plain clothes set up crates on the corner. They smiled warmly, handing out gas masks to anyone who came near. Mothers clutched their children closer, grateful but cautious. The officials hadn't arranged this—everyone knew how slow the government was with supplies. So who were these strangers giving things away for free?
One woman pressed a mask into a boy's hands, kneeling to meet his eyes.
"Protect yourself, little one," she said softly, almost like a blessing. "From the poison in the air—and the poison in your rulers."
Some muttered thanks. Some frowned. But most just took the masks. Fear made people practical.
And then, slowly, a pattern emerged. The masks weren't blank. Inside each was a folded slip of paper. On it, a symbol: a crown wreathed in thorns, and beneath it, a name whispered more and more boldly with each passing week.
Morgan Le Fey.
She was painted as a descendant of Arthur himself, the rightful heir to Britain's legacy. Where Churchill spoke of war, she spoke of protection. Where the Royals clung to German ties, she claimed pure British blood, ancient and unbroken.
Her people moved quietly, not only on the streets but in the offices. Clerks in the War Ministry began misfiling documents. A few policemen looked the other way when certain crates were unloaded at night. A whisper here, a favor there—the kind of small things that seemed nothing in isolation, but together they made gaps. And through those gaps, Morgan's influence slid in like water.
In Whitehall, Churchill thundered about Hitler. In the slums, families fitted their children with Morgan's masks. And in between, men in fine suits—respected members of Parliament, veterans, civil servants—met in secret rooms with figures who did not cast normal shadows.
The Kingsmen, once sworn defenders of crown and country, now bent their knee to a queen of their own choosing. And alongside them, in the quiet places of Britain—graveyards, crypts, ruined abbeys—things stirred that had not moved in centuries. Undead knights in rusted mail, eyes glowing faintly, stood watch over shipments of supplies meant for the people.
To most Londoners, it was just kindness from strangers. Free masks in a time of fear.
But to those who looked closer, the fog that hung over the city seemed heavier than ever—less like weather, more like a curtain, hiding something far older and far darker waiting to step back into the world.
—
Meanwhile....
- The Starlight Citadel (The Hub of Multiversal governance), Otherworld -
The great hall of the Hub was never quiet. Its walls were woven from light itself, shifting like the night sky, stars flowing in slow rivers across the ceiling. Yet tonight, all seemed still, as though the Citadel itself held its breath.
On a dais at the center, Merlin sat cross-legged, his robes pooled around him like fallen clouds. His beard shimmered faintly with the silver glow of his magic. For hours he had not stirred, his eyes closed, body so calm it was hard to tell if he was even breathing.
Then, without warning, his chest hitched. His eyes snapped open—blue orbs clouded with strain. His hands trembled before he steadied them against his knees. A low gasp escaped him, the kind of sound that came only from deep within, where pain and revelation touched.
Roma, Merlin's daughter and the Ruler of the Citadel, seated a short distance away, immediately leaned forward. Her crown of starlight flickered with unease as she studied her father.
"Father," she asked softly, "what happened?"
Merlin's gaze lingered on the endless cosmos painted across the chamber's walls. He took a long moment before answering, drawing breath as if each word cost him.
"I… remembered." His voice was hoarse. "Memories…a lot of them, and fragmented…"
Roma's brows furrowed. She had seen her father shaken before, but rarely like this. "Was it one of the hidden realms?"
"No." He shook his head slowly. "Worse. The anomalous universe. The rogue one."
The weight of those words sank like lead. Even for her—an Omniversal Guardian—that universe was more myth than fact, a place scholars spoke of only in cautious whispers.
Merlin pressed on. "A long time ago, two vast powers clashed there. Their collision ripped reality apart, tore the fabric until it was no longer tethered to the multiverse. Later… someone, something, repaired it. But even then, no one could touch it. No path, no spell, no anchor could bind it to the greater whole. Not even me."
Roma's voice carried both curiosity and worry. "Yet you went."
"I sent not myself," Merlin admitted, "but an avatar—a shard of me. Enough to study, to observe. To perhaps find… a way. A thread to stitch it back." His eyes darkened. "But even there, I was not alone."
Roma tilted her head, her tone sharpened. "Who?"
"Morgan." The name left his lips like a stone dropped into water. "Not the one you know here. Not one I've battled before. This was her—yet more. A Morgan who had seized the Darkhold fully, without restraint, without limit. She had drunk its pages dry, and worse—she had absorbed the knowledge and essence of her other selves. Every alternate Morgan, drawn into her like rivers feeding an ocean."
Roma's breath caught, the faint shimmer of her crown dimming. "All of them… united in one vessel?"
"Yes." His hands clenched. "And it was that Morgan who struck me. My avatar—my creation—was unmade in an instant. Not merely destroyed, but erased. She knew I was there, knew I was watching, and she ended it as though swatting away a fly."
The silence after those words was heavy. Even the starlit walls of the castle seemed to shift uneasily.
Roma studied him carefully. "You said you went to observe… to maintain balance. To connect that universe back to the whole. Now—" She hesitated, then forced the question. "Now you've found an obstruction."
Merlin's lips pressed into a thin line. His eyes, though weary, glimmered with something deeper: recognition of a storm long in the making.
"Yes. Morgan is no longer a threat bound to a single world. She has carved herself into the heart of that rogue universe, and from there, she may yet find her way outward. If she does… if she crosses the veil into the greater multiverse…"
He didn't finish. He didn't need to.
Roma's voice was quiet, but steady. "Eventually, she will come back here…won't she?
Merlin's gaze met hers, heavy with sorrow. "Yes, she will….to lay her claim over this dimension. A place from where she could easily access the nexus of all realities."
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