Asciin (DB)

ASCIIN SERIES
== Overview ==
Asciin is a cosmic being (formerly a mortal from a three-dimensional universe) who, after his reality collapsed during an Allsphere Amalgamation event, gained the ability to cause anything to occur by simply imagining it. Blaming the Allsphere Weaver, whom he saw a flash of through the chaos during the event, for the death of everyone in his universe (save for himself), he used this power to ascend beyond the cosmology of the Allsphere in an attempt to kill the Weaver.
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== Abilities ==
Within the scope of his power, Asciin is able to do literally anything he imagines, unless it contradicts a being even more powerful than himself. Anything that he imagines and decides should happen will happen. He was also able to increase his range by imagining the higher structures beyond what he could currently control, though he is unable to go beyond the Hypercosmic Ocean of Realities (nor does he wish to). His maximum range includes all Allspheres that have come into contact with structures that are already within his power, all Conspheres, the Protosphere, and the Postsphere, as well as his immediate surroundings in the Hypercosmic Ocean of Realities.
== Story ==
=== Prologue: This Cosmically Insignificant End Marks the Beginning of a Greater End ===
All hell had broken loose... or maybe Hell was collapsing too. Asciin didn't know, or care, for that matter. What mattered right now was trying to find somewhere, anywhere, that might be safe. The universe was collapsing around him, for no apparent reason. People were glitching in and out of reality like the world was nothing more than a bugged video game, and the laws of reality, once among the most reliable things in his life(second only to his parents' care for him), were being shattered before his eyes like the bones of the unfortunate sap he'd been next to on the subway train when this whole thing had started, who hadn't even noticed the anvil cartoonishly materializing above his head. His remains had been... less cartoonish.
Oh, crap, my parents! Asciin was 17 years old; preparing to be independent and leave the house, but not quite there yet, and his mother and father, Sacra and Dehad, were in no hurry for him to reach that point. They had always been unbelievably loving, something he had enjoyed to no end during his childhood, although his teenage years has turned it into more of an embarrassment. That was, until he realized how idiotic it is to be embarrassed that your parents love you. If this was the end of reality itself, which it certainly looked like, he wanted to be with them.
"They should be at home right now," he told himself under his breath, "or maybe they were like me and just ran, without really knowing where they intended to go." Reasoning that he wasn't going to find them by anything but coincidence in the latter scenario, he made a beeline for his house. Upon reaching it, he threw open the door. "MOM! DAD! ANY IDEA WHAT'S HAPPENING!?" No response. He headed up to their room. "MOM? DAD?" Still nothing.
Having found nothing, he decided to go back outside; after all, the universe was equally likely to make him die a gruesome death whether he had a roof over his head or not.
Outside, however, was mostly gone. A neon blue-green tide was washing over everything, surging in the direction of the house. A quick glance across the living room and out the back window, and another two to each of his sides, told him that he was surrounded. Nowhere to run. Can I swim in it? Obviously the answer was no, considering that all the debris it had surely swept up by now was nowhere in sight. Must be some sort of cosmic tide that pulls things... to the space between worlds? I don't know, I've read too much science fiction... To delay the inevitable for a few seconds, he made the effort to climb on the roof- and there were his parents, huddled together, clearly terrified, like he was.
"Mom! Dad! There you are! I was on the subway, and then reality started breaking apart and I wanted to look for you guys and I couldn't find you and I don't know what's going on and I'm so confused-"
"We are too, honey," his mother cut him off. "Come here. The least we can do is stare down the apocalypse as a family."
"Sure thing, mom." He joined them in the huddle, watching the tide come closer with each moment.
"Didn't expect it to end like this, not gonna lie," Asciin's father remarked. "Thought there would be some sort of warning, at least. A declaration of nuclear war, or a weather report that we'd be annihilated by a natural disaster in a few hours."
"Yeah, this was completely out of the blue," Asciin agreed.
"And now we're going into the blue," Dehad joked. They all laughed. Not because they found it particularly funny, given that it was about their impending deaths, but because if they didn't, they would cry. They cried anyway. Tears in their eyes, their laughter intensified into hysterics, the three of them locked in a huddle that was rocked by howling with intermittent sobs.
"I want you both to know that I love you both so, so much, and it was a joy to have you both in my life," Asciin's mother choked out as the waters reached the house.
"You took the words out of my mouth, dear," his father replied.
Asciin saw, through the current, a figure. And somehow, as if by some cosmic knowledge, he knew that the figure was responsible for this event. But, in that moment, he didn't have room in his heart for the all-consuming rage he knew he should be feeling; it was filled to capacity by sadness and love for his family.
"Same," he said.
And then the tide reached the roof and consumed them all.
=== Chapter 1: Who Are You? ===
Asciin woke up to the sound of three confused voices.
"He's probably just some homeless guy who fell asleep here for the night."
"Or, he came here to pull some sort of idiotic prank! You know how much our "peers" like to make our lives hell."
"Please, would you stop with the paranoia? The least we can do is give him the benefit of the doubt."
"I second that motion."
"...Fine. But if he's some prankster, I'm tying him to a chair and forcing him to listen to Victor's nightcore playlist."
"Hey! It's not that bad!"
"It is and you know it."
"What's going on? Where am I?" Asciin asked, slowly opening his eyes. Standing over him were two teens, a boy and a girl. They seemed about his age. Behind them, another boy who looked a few years older, maybe 20, was leaning against a wall.
"Oh, you're awake!" the girl exclaimed. Asciin looked around, taking in his surroundings. He was in some sort of warehouse-turned-office, complete with computers, papers, and a board that reminded him of a meme he'd seen a few times. "You're in our... home base? Meetup spot? We've never really discussed what it's called."
"Is it a shelter?" he asked.
"Sort of," the younger boy replied. "From what?" This confused him.
"The... giant wave of cosmic death outside?"
"No idea what you're talking about," the strangers chorused in unison.
"Neon blue-green? Everything it touches just... disappears?"
"Did you pass out in here because of drugs or something?" asked the 20-something in the back. It seemed like more of a genuine question than a joke.
"Weird stuff, then." Asciin was grasping at straws now. "Things and people randomly appearing and disappearing? The laws of physics just... giving up? General chaos?"
"Look," the older boy said, leaving the wall to stand next to his companions. "We come here each afternoon to discuss... things, and we aren't taking in junkies or crazy people. I advise you leave." Asciin got up.
"I'm not crazy, and I've never touched drugs. I remember the world ending, and there was some sort of flood, and then, well, I woke up here. Did you guys seriously not notice anything?"
"If the world ended, we would know," the girl responded.
"I'm pretty confused, then. Is this some sort of alternate reality?"
"Out!" barked the older boy.
"Cool it, Victor," the younger one said. "This guy is talking about cosmic phenomena, alternate realities... he's probably just hopped up on some crazy substance, but what if he isn't? What if we have a genuine multiversal traveler?"
"Ridiculous, Stuart. Even for you," snorted the older one.
"Isn't the whole point of this group that the idea of something beyond the universe isn't ridiculous?" the younger boy persisted. "Back me up here, Ali."
"I agree with Stuart," the girl told the older boy. "The chance is slim, but it's not one we can pass up. Besides, if we spend a few hours researching some crazy person, what have we lost?"
"Time I could be using to read fanfictions," the older boy grunted. The other two turned back to Asciin.
"What's your name?" asked the younger boy.
"Asciin."
"Well, hi there, Asciin," the boy said. "I'm Stuart, and this is Alice, though we call her Ali." He pointed to the girl, then the other boy. "And Victor. Our resident chronically online goth." Stuart continued over Victor's protest. "We're looking into the theory of higher cosmological structures, though since we're young and have no resources, we've turned to more... esoteric means. Mystical practices, cult rituals-" That seemed like as good a cue as any for Asciin to make a break for it. Stuart blocked him with his arm. "No crazy blood sacrifices, I promise. But chanting, ascensionism, basically anything we can find. So far none of it has worked, but at least it gives us the chance to debunk a ton of myths."
"And you think I can help you somehow," Asciin surmised.
"Exactly."
"Sorry," Asciin replied, "but I don't know the first thing about what you're studying."
"It's a pretty simple principle," Stuart replied. "Imagine the universe as a drop of water. Where's the rest of the ocean? Traditionally, the universe is the whole ocean, but a lot of very compelling scientific theories point toward a multiverse; so far, though, conventional science has turned up nothing in the way of solid evidence."
"Our unconventional methods, so far, haven't proven any better," Ali added.
"Just imagine," Stuart forged on, as if uninterrupted, "a whole web of universes out there, infinitely many of them stretching beyond the space-time we humans recognize... the further detriment to our cosmic significance would be worth it to..." Asciin didn't hear any more after that. He was in a rainstorm, which appeared to be frozen in time. He looked around. Each drop looked like a fractal, with infinite precision and detail. It was so beautiful...
"Asciin? Asciin!" he was being shaken. Suddenly, he was back in the meeting spot, and Stuart was grabbing his shoulders. "Were you listening?"
"You were saying something about cosmic insignificance."
"Yeah. You zone out or something?"
"Something like that."
"Describe it."
"Huh?"
"When I talked about the multiverse, your mind left the conversation. I have a bit of a hunch that it was related to your cosmic displacement, if that was at all real. Describe it."
"Okay..." Asciin struggled a bit, as if trying to recall a dream. "There were a bunch of raindrops, floating in midair... they were like fractals, too. And I wasn't just daydreaming about it, it felt as if I was actually, physically there."
"Interesting..." was Stuart's only reaction. "Any idea what triggered it?"
"No really," Asciin replied. "You just got talking about the multiverse, and I imagined it while you talked, and the next thing I knew..." And he was there again. This time, however, he saw a droplet right in front of him, and through it, Stuart was staring back at him. He relayed this information into the droplet.
"I doubt that," Victor said. "You look like you're still here. God, why are we researching this crackhead?" he muttered, turning away from him. As the connotation of the word "crackhead" registered in Asciin's mind, a bag of clumped, powdery crystals fell on Victor's head. "Hey!" he yelled, turning around. Yet, Asciin was standing motionless. The bag slid off his head, revealing the illicit substance. "How did I know?" Victor sarcastically remarked. Annoyed at the bag for popping in seemingly out of nowhere, Asciin only grunted... and the bag faded away, right before all of their eyes.
"What just happened?" Stuart asked, seemingly in partial shock.
"I think that... might have been me," Asciin responded. Victor gave him a dirty look. "Not like that! I meant, as soon as Victor put crack in my mind, it appeared, and when I wished it hadn't appeared, it disappeared."
"If you can just alter reality," Victor snorted derisively, "make my shirt change color." As soon as Asciin heard those words, Victor's shirt became visually ambiguous, completely lacking definitive color. No black or white, or rainbow, or changing, just... vagueness.
"What color?" Asciin asked him.
"Uh, purple," Victor stammered. And so it was purple.
"Incredible!" Stuart exclaimed. "How do you do that?"
"I honestly have no idea," Asciin told him. "I just kind of... imagined it?"
"Amazing."
"You know," said Ali, who had been quiet the whole time, "some myths and other stories held that if someone were to survive a reality-shaping/ending event, they would become a sort of god in their own right."
"I think that's from a science fiction novel," Asciin said, "but I certainly couldn't do this before I got hit with a cosmic death wave, so I guess that's the theory for now."
And then he saw the figure.
It was the same one he'd seen through the cosmic ocean, the one who had been responsible for the calamity that had separated him from his parents. Oh, right, his parents! Where were they? Had they been killed, or flung into another reality? Rage boiled up inside him. This... thing, god, whatever it was, had taken his family, his home, his whole universe from him. He flung himself fist-first at it, before realizing that he was nowhere near it. It was off in the distance... and much bigger than he'd thought. He ran, and kept running toward it, imagining himself becoming bigger, stronger, faster. He wanted to make this being pay for what it had done to him. With a mighty cry, he lunged toward it.
And found himself sprawled on the concrete of the room he was in with Stuart, Ali, and Victor staring at him like he was crazy.
"What's wrong with you?!" Victor exclaimed.
"I saw the..." Asciin began, but realized that he needed to give some context. "Right before the apocalyptic flood consumed me, I saw an entity of some sort. And, somehow, I know it's to blame for the destruction of my home. So when it appeared just now, I ran at it, and tried to hit it."
"And how'd that go for you?" Victor asked.
"Well, as far as I can tell, I didn't hit it, and then I face-planted into some concrete. What do you think?"
"I think we can work out a deal here," Ali interjected. "You want to kill that thing, right, Asciin?"
"More than anything."
"Well, we could help you by giving you all of the knowledge we've accumulated over our research. Granted, it's all theories, but some of it could be useful. And in return, you could report all of the cosmic phenomena you see back to us."
"Do I get a say in this?" Victor lamented.
"Not at all," Stuart jovially informed him. "Sorry!"
"So, is it a deal?" Ali asked him.
"It's a deal," Asciin assured her.
"Oh, boy!" Stuart exclaimed. "I can't wait to get to work!"
=== Chapter 2: Higher Dimensions ===
Asciin woke up the next day tired, irritated, and sore. That's what I get for sleeping on a big wooden crate. I wish I had a bed. In his morning fog, he had forgotten his reality-warping powers, and suddenly found himself on top of not a crate, but the most comfortable bed he had ever encountered.
"Ah, yes. Why didn't I just do that?"
"You had a lot to process yesterday," Stuart chimed in, walking through the door. "You're not used to being able to create whatever you want."
"True enough," Asciin conceded. "What are we doing today?"
"Stuart and I were thinking you could do a bit more exploration of the multiverse for us," Ali informed him. "Learn its general nature and such."
"All right then," Asciin said, eager to make his way to the one who had wronged him, "let's get to work."
A few minutes later...
"Computers are all set up, we can access our stores of theories and jot down your observations. Mission #1 is a go." From the interuniversal space, Asciin laughed.
"You're not ground control for a space agency, Stuart."
"I know." Stuart was giddy with excitement. "We're going beyond even space! Now, what do you see?"
"I dunno... droplets? Same as before."
"Odd that the multiverse is a frozen rainstorm... oddly specific."
"It probably isn't." Ali, ever the smart one, had a theory. "Reality bends to Asciin's imagination, so it's likely to be a metaphor, or how he imagines it."
"Do you copy that, Asciin?"
"Loud and clear. Although, I'm noticing a lot less attitude today. Where's Victor?"
"At home." Stuart sounded like he was struggling between annoyance and laughter. "The finale of his favorite show drops today. Something about weirdly hot killer robots."
"Sounds interesting," Asciin remarked. "Anyway, what do I do from here... un-metaphor the multiverse? How do I do that?"
"Just... imagine an illusion shattering. Like it's revealing its true form," Ali suggested. "Don't actually imagine that true form; it'll just turn into what you imagine. But imagine the change."
"Got it." Asciin did as he was instructed, closing his eyes and imagining this imaginary veil lifting. "I see a bunch of blobs. They're infinite in height, length, width, and... God, that's trippy."
"What are you seeing?" Stuart asked eagerly.
"They extend in a fourth direction... a fourth spatial axis."
"Can you examine it?" Stuart prompted.
"Sure." Asciin propelled himself over to one of the blobs, shrinking it to an observable size. "So, in the first three dimensions, it looks like just a regular, infinitely-sized universe. Along the fourth, each part looks... slightly different? Like frames of an animation."
"Of course!" Stuart exclaimed. "Time! Each individual blob-universe you're witnessing has its own space-time! So, if the universes are each infinitely 4D, how are they separated?"
"Uhhhh..." Asciin felt nauseous just looking at the answer. "There's a fifth dimension, which they have no size in. I preferred the rain metaphor, can I go back to that?"
"Go ahead," Stuart told him. "I think we know everything we need to."
"That's much better," Asciin sighed.
"Still, we're not done for today." Asciin groaned.
"What now?"
"Well, can you reach that cosmic being?" He tried.
"Nope, it's beyond the scope of what I'm imagining right now."
"Which means there must be something beyond the multiverse!" Stuart excitedly declared.
"So... I just ascend?" Asciin asked.
"If your ability extends that far, it should be as easy as everything else."
"Right..." Asciin imagined the multiverse dwindling into insignificance, and just like that, it was a glass orb floating in his hand, just one of infinitely many across the empty expanse he found himself in. Already knowing that it was a metaphor, like before, he imagined the veil shattering again. "The multiverse is a five-dimensional blob in a six-dimensional space. This hurts my head..." Stuart was gibbering like a madman, clearly thrilled with these discoveries.
"We could publish! Sure, no one in their right mind would believe us until we showed them Asciin's powers, or maybe they'd eventually find out on their own and we'd be hailed as the first discoverers... there are less political implications with the second option, let's do that one."
"Stuart, calm down. Asciin, is there anything else of note?" Ali was, yet again, re-railing the derailed conversation.
"Nothing else, just a dimension higher than the next. How about we call this one... the megaverse?"
"Has a nice ring to it," Stuart agreed. "Can you go higher?"
"Let's see..." Asciin went up again, and the megaverse was just one of infinitely many, infinitely sized six-dimensional blobs in seven-dimensional space. "Same thing, up one more dimension and containing infinite megaverses." He went higher, into eight-dimensional space, then nine, each one containing an infinite number of the last. He imagined himself flying upward through the chain, eventually reaching the peak. "It's turtles all the way up," he remarked. He ascended one more time, into proper infinite-dimensional space.
And then, from the nauseating mental stress of witnessing dimensions not meant for human eyes, he collapsed on the concrete floor of the warehouse and vomited profusely.
=== Chapter 3: Beyond Infinity ===
(Note: much of the explanation for set theory that was originally in this chapter has been omitted due to being boring for the average reader. If you want the details, click here)
"So," Asciin asked the next day, feeling much more rested than he had the day before, "how am I going to go past what we've got? I tried last night, and that thing is still out of my reach."
"Well," Stuart began, "there's an intriguing mathematical field of study known as set theory, which is the study of sets of objects; it's often considered the foundation of pure mathematics. In it, one can create a bijection between two infinite sets, which led German mathematician Georg Cantor to the discovery that-"
"What he's saying is that there are bigger numbers than infinity, basically." Victor cut Stuart off before he could ramble too long.
"How was that show yesterday?" Asciin asked him.
"The animation and soundtrack were the best the studio has put out, the fight scenes were fire, and the writing was terrible. In other words, I'm conflicted."
"Anyway," Stuart pressed on, "I'll describe these greater infinities, and you can imagine them."
"Sure, sure," Asciin dismissed him, "but the main problem right now is that I can't mentally handle any of this higher-dimensional stuff. In fact, it's a miracle my head didn't explode when I reached the omniverse; how will I handle 'bigger than infinity'?"
"Simple," Ali told him. "Imagine yourself being able to handle it, and you will be."
"Why didn't I think of that?!" Asciin exclaimed.
"Because you clearly didn't spend the night thinking of all the things we do with your abilities," Ali responded. Stuart was beginning to get impatient.
"Can we get going?"
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"Alright, I've reached the Omniverse," Asciin told the others. "Now, how do I imagine this higher infinity?"
"Start by thinking of infinity," Stuart instructed. "Think of a list, with infinitely many items on it. The list is numbered. What happens when you add another? Infinity and all of the finite numbers have already been used."
"Mhm."
"So, it has to be infinity plus one. Then infinity plus two, three, four, infinity, infinity plus infinity plus infinity infinitely... And then infinity times infinity times infinity an infinite number of times. This isn't actually a bigger infinity, but it's the process we use to reach the first one."
"And from there it just repeats itself forever," Asciin finished.
"Exactly!" Stuart praised him. "Now, the first genuinely greater infinity is called Aleph-one. It's basically the set of all numbers on the list, including everything from the hierarchy we just talked about. Think of it as not the final point on the list, but subsuming the whole list, because you can always add one more after the end of the list, and Aleph-one contains that too." Imagining this number of dimensions, Asciin found himself outside of the omniverse. There were a lot of other omniverses, and he didn't yet see the entirety of this place he found himself in.
"What's the next one, Stuart?"
"It's the same principle, really. Everything here will be repeated until we get to large cardinals. So, imagine a list where the final number is Aleph-one. Aleph-two is the set of all extensions of that list, and entirely beyond it. Keep in mind that Aleph-one times Aleph-one already vastly eclipses anything from the previous hierarchy in its proportional leap."
"And I imagine it's the same from there," Asciin thought aloud, "with Aleph-three, four, five, infinity, Aleph-Aleph-one, et cetera, with each subsuming every extension of the list analogy from the previous one."
"Yup!"
"I guess I'll be ascending now, then." And he did. He watched as countless- no, beyond mere countlessness, infinities of dimensions dwindled into insignificance, and he saw more, bigger omniverses than he ever could have imagined before. Thank God for Ali. This would overwhelm me so fast if she hadn't thought of that trick. Eventually, he reached the peak: the absolute highest Aleph, the one that subsumed, going by Stuart's analogy, the list that went up through the Alephs. Stuart called it "Cantor's original absolute."
"It's the number that Georg Cantor thought represented God," Stuart informed him. "An arbitrarily large Aleph number that surpasses mathematical definition."
"Is this the highest I can go, then?" Stuart had a good long laugh over Asciin's question. "Could you stop laughing and answer me?"
"No, it's not the highest," Stuart managed to get out. "I called it 'original' for a reason; there are more. Set theory has progressed a lot since Cantor's days, and what you just went through are all considered 'small cardinals'. Next is the inaccessible cardinal, which will probably be the last one I can adequately explain to you. Basically, it can't be reached by the Aleph hierarchies, hence 'inaccessible'. Easiest way to imagine this is to think of the difference between infinity and zero, because that's basically the difference between an inaccessible cardinal and infinity." Asciin imagined that, and...
"Holy- I just grew more in that one jump than I have since I started!"
"Told you it was big. Next, imagine something inaccessible to the inaccessible, something completely outside of any and all hierarchies of inaccessible amounts, and you've reached a one-inaccessible cardinal. Then a two-inaccessible cardinal is inaccessible to one-inaccessible, and three-inaccessible is..." As Stuart prattled on, Asciin continued to climb, but he could still feel that the one he was after was far above him. He skipped ahead to what he mentally dubbed the "final level of the inaccessible hierarchy, which there can be no further inaccessibility from". Upon relaying this to Stuart, he was informed that this was called a hyper-Mahlo cardinal.
"Can we get to the next thing?"
"Sure," Stuart responded. "So, I'm not exactly sure how to explain the rest to you, since I don't understand it all that well myself- I've never gotten a formal education in this, just dabbled in it online. Basically, people have proposed axioms, or statements assumed to be true, which exceed degrees of inaccessibility because their conditions imply the existence of lower cardinals below them."
"I don't get it."
"Ah, screw it," Stuart decided. "Just imagine yourself understanding them enough to ascend to them."
"And why didn't we just do that the whole way?"
"Because it's fascinating!"
"Whatever." Asciin had reached the pinnacle of set theory; this he knew, thanks to his newfound mastery of the subject.
"Triviality is what comes next," Stuart continued. "Basically, some paradox exists, the whole system breaks down... rules and logic are null and void, so everything is provably true. Literally any mathematical statement, axiom, or cardinal can exist without any issue."
"And that's it?" Asciin was beginning to tire.
"Close. Notice we haven't gone to any other version of absolute infinity yet. This one is pretty easy to grasp; it subsumes all mathematics, this time including large cardinals, and no mathematical definition can ever come any closer to it than zero is. Literally no infinity can be higher than it; that goes against the whole purpose."
"Alright, done." Asciin had reached the peak of infinity, and was ready to call it a day. "Oh, right, observations for you guys!"
"Don't go forgetting those," Ali told him sternly.
"Let's see... I'm in some sort of bubble, and there are a bunch of omniverses here. The lowest omniverses are like the one I ended on yesterday- their dimensionality is plain old infinity. Others are more spicy. Then, at the top of the food chain, there are those that have equal dimensionality to the bubble itself; absolute infinity. There are also three other things, which aren't omniverses but are equal to the biggest ones. I think each one houses an entity."
"Is that all?"
"That's all."
"Great! Now, get back down here. Victor brought microwave pizza."
=== Chapter 4: Transcendent ===
Asciin had ascended beyond everything, reached the pinnacle of what could be reached and even beyond that, past what he somehow, inexplicably knew was called an Allsphere. The one he was after, the Weaver of Allspheres, had only moments left to live.
"Where are my parents?!" he demanded of the wretched creature. "What have you done to my world?!"
"They are gone," this reprehensible, loathsome entity responded. "Drowned in my Hypercosmic Ocean of Realities." And it was true, for in the waters, neon blue-green, he saw the corpses of his mother and father, along with countless others.
"NO!" Asciin hysterically threw a fist at the malevolent god, but it did nothing. The Weaver laughed.
"You cannot ascend to me. My power was the cause of yours. To surpass mine, it must grow, and such is not its nature. All of the growth you have experienced so far was within the reach of your power the whole time. I, however, am not." It cast him into the ocean to drown, the last survivor of his forgotten, insignificant, worthless world.
Asciin woke up in a cold sweat.
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"How do we go beyond this?" Stuart questioned the next morning. "We've gone to the highest infinity, so... that must be the end, right? A big ol' bubble. Not what I think anyone was expecting, but it's good to know regardless."
"There has to be more," Victor said. "Asciin saw three entities in the bubble, and if any of them were the one he was after, he would have attacked for sure."
"Asciin, do you have any idea what's next?"
"Huh? What?" Stuart was looking at him.
"I said, do you have any idea what's next?" Having snapped back to attention, Asciin thought for a moment.
"Hmm... well, I know the end goal is something called an Allsphere, which is one of infinitely many in the ocean that swallowed up my world. So we'll need to figure out how to make me imagine that. Sorry, I'm a bit distracted today."
"Why didn't you tell us before?" Ali asked.
"I didn't know," he replied honestly. "I had a dream last night. That's how I found this out."
"So, just to clarify," Victor began incredulously, "you're making a serious claim about how we proceed from here, about the fundamental cosmology we exist in... based on a dream you had last night?"
"I know I'd find it stupid too, if I was you, but I just know it was real. Besides, a lot of stupid stuff has happened so far, why not add more to the pile?"
"Did you find anything about your own reality?" Stuart asked curiously. Asciin gave him a pained wince, indicating that he should back off. "Never mind." Ali snapped her fingers.
"Back to the task at hand, guys. Going past the pinnacle of numbers. And I think I have it; it's simple, really. Just go beyond numbers entirely." Stuart was skeptical.
"Ali, please elaborate."
"Plenty of fictional stories have beings and places that are above dimensions," she explained. "Think of conceptual realms, or gods beyond infinitely-layered hierarchies, abstract things that aren't affected by the physical world."
"That could work," Victor acknowledged.
"Let me try," Asciin said. He closed his eyes and thought of a beyond-dimensional structure, an ocean in which the bubble was just one pocket of air. He opened them to a brilliant expanse of Outside Bubbles. "Ali, you're a genius." Stuart pouted, clearly jealous. "Success."
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"So, what's this place like?" Stuart asked, obviously eager to learn more about this fascinating new idea of beyond-dimensional cosmology.
"It's a giant, glowing, abstract landscape. Mind-bogglingly complex, too; Ali's trick kept my head from hurting all the way up through the infinities, but as soon as I hit this, I had to do it a second time. The bubbles are just kind of floating around."
"Like that ocean you were talking about?" Victor asked. "Maybe you're close."
"No." Asciin shook his head with dismay. "There is a figure, ruling over this place, but it's not the one I'm after. This one I feel as if I could pluck off its throne with two fingers, if I ascended just one more level.
"Then do that," Stuart said. "Unless there's more to observe here," he added. So Asciin went up another level.
"The thing containing it is kind of the same, but far bigger. It has a bunch of the place I was just in, each ruled by another one of that entity I saw. There are free-floating bubbles, too, maybe every possible bubble. And then there are these bigger structures; they're like the ones that contain bubbles, but infinitely larger with infinitely more bubbles in them. Each one of them is ruled by one of these beyond-dimensional entities too, although those ones are far more powerful. This whole place, actually, is ruled by an extra-extra-strong one of those guys. Anyway, I'm going up to the next level; that's all there is here." At the next level, he found himself in another bubble, this one containing infinitely many of the structures that contained Outside Bubbles, both their finite and infinite variants, and a few of the structure he was just in. He relayed this information back to the others.
"Are there any more of those beings?"
"Absolutely," he told Stuart. "Every structure in this bubble has one." He thought for a moment. "Wouldn't it be a lot more convenient if you could just see all the places I've been, and look at them on your own? Because I'm getting tired of answering questions."
"I must admit, I'm a bit fed up with having to ask, too," Stuart told him.
"What have you got in mind?" asked Ali.
"Well, I thought I could imagine up a database with information on all of the things I've discovered for you. Then, you can just look through it and find all of the relevant information."
"Great idea!" Stuart told him. "If you could make that right now, that would be... and, it's already opened on my computer."
"One step ahead of you, buddy."
_________________________________________________________________
With that distraction out of the way, Asciin continued to climb. Past this greater bubble, he found a transcendental plane that had infinitely many of them. He rolled his eyes.
"What's with the cosmological order and its structures being infinitely copied inside higher ones?" He looked around, making sure to gather as much information as possible for the three down in the physical world. In the distance, he could see a being, which was... coming toward him? As it got closer, it waved its hand. Confusedly, he raised his to wave back, only to find that the action had banished him to a new place, almost completely devoid of anything whatsoever. He grunted, but was unperturbed; while he sensed that none of the other entities he could sense existed here could escape, he was orders of cosmic magnitude above them in power. With a mere thought, he not only escaped the prison, but reached an entirely new level. Finding the one he had come from, he grew until he dwarfed it in size. Then, he reached in, grabbed the being who had tried to erase him, and punched it in the gut. Not that it really had a gut, but his attack had evidently done some damage.
"Be careful who you bully in high school, and even more so in the hierarchy of reality." He sensed a higher being directing its attention toward him and, wisely electing to avoid more trouble, ascended again.
_________________________________________________________________
Now, he was in some massive expanse, habitable to any being, regardless of abilities such as his. The beings here lived in perfect harmony, and were each beyond any of the structure he had previously been to. He sensed walls around him, though; there was a bigger structure yet, which meant that he wasn't done. Up to this point, he had experienced genuine beyond-dimensional transcendence, like the jump from the Outside Bubble to the Monocosm, only a few more times, namely Beyond Bubble-Transcendentum and Transcendentum-Transcendentum Continuum. But now, as he reached with his mind to encompass this entire structure, he transcended again... only to find himself in the exact same place he had been in, only a layer higher.
"What-?" He transcended again, to this higher Cosmolarch, only for the exact same thing to happen. "Of course, structures that can contain themselves! Just what I needed!" With an exasperated sigh, he envisioned the levels of these structures as a set of stairs, only to realize that he didn't need his metaphor to be laborious and grew wings. However, no amount of flying could take him all the way up, and he was getting more irritated by the second. "I don't need this crap. Why can't I just transcend the whole thing instantly?!"
And then, with a facepalm, he realized he absolutely could.
"I'm such an idiot..." and he found himself in the Box.
=== Chapter 5: Boxed ===
Asciin looked around him, spying infinitely many, infinitely stacked structures, which he had just surpassed.
"All right... now, let's see what's beyond this?" He imagined himself ascending beyond the place he was in... and when he opened his eyes, he was still there. Not in the way he had been with the Cosmolarch, where there had been a bigger Cosmolarch outside... he simply hadn't ascended. He rolled his eyes. "What stupidity is going on now?" He tried again. No luck. "Crap." Asciin floated through the void, thinking. How will I go about this? It's not like my power has any sort of complicated technique I just don't know, and it's not the kind of thing to have locked away potential... I imagine things and they happen, simple as that. Meaning that I must be unable to imagine what's beyond this... He tried imagining himself being able to imagine anything. Then, he imagined himself being able to imagine things he couldn't with his newfound imagination, before deciding it would be more efficient to simply imagine his mind always expanding, being able to encompass greater and greater things. It grew rapidly, and he was confident that he could do this now. He imagined his own ascension...
"You've got to be fricking kidding me." Upon opening his eyes, he found himself still in the Box, though now he was almost as all-encompassing as it was, nigh-certainly the most powerful being within it. But no matter how many structures and concepts he subsumed, it was useless in the face of something that rendered all attempts to grasp it futile.
"Asciin, I know what's going on!" Stuart's voice came in once more, for the first time since he'd been given the database. "We've all been analyzing everything you've ascended to, and it looks like what you're in right now is untranscendable to any power it contains... you'll need help from a higher entity to escape it."
"Not the greatest news for me," Asciin said wryly, "considering my history with cosmic beings."
"Yes, I know," Stuart said. "But based on the energy flow I'm seeing around you-"
"What does that mean?" asked a puzzled Asciin.
"What does what mean?" asked a now equally puzzled Stuart.
"Energy flow. Some sort of sci-fi mumbo jumbo?"
"This program you've given me far exceeds what you probably expected when you conjured it up. I can analyze, with perfect precision, the exact movement of every cosmic force, and every property of anything your power touches."
"That's... impressive." Asciin looked at his hands. Had he really created that? I'm a lot more powerful than I thought. Virtually omnipotent, really. Guess I should have realized that sooner.
"Useful, too," Stuart chirped. "As I was saying, the energy flow around you leads me to believe that there's some sort of supreme being in this place. Our best shot is if you find that being and negotiate with it. Shouldn't be too difficult to track, given that you can give yourself basically any ability you want to track it with."
"Try imagining that you can see a sort of energy that all gods emit," Ali chimed in. "that'll lead you right there."
"Got it," Asciin affirmed. "Victor, you got anything to add?"
"This went over my head to moment we got to numbers bigger than infinity," he responded. Asciin followed the trail that had now been laid bare before him, traversing the entire interior of the Box and supassing all possibilities, impossibilities, everythings, and nothings, until he eventually reached the realm of the Boxial True Lord.
"Why do you enter my domain?" The Lord asked him. "How have you reached such heights? I have given no being any such capabilities."
"I've achieved this through other means. And I enter your domain because I wish to achieve more; I require to go beyond the Box." The Lord snorted.
"And why, as the creator, would I allow my creation to do such a thing? For mortal to transcend divine is madness, a violation of the basic cosmic order! You have no right to transcend me, nor to even ask such a thing of me! Exit my sight, boy, lest I uncreate you."
"I doubt that I am of your creation," Asciin replied. "There is a domain far beyond yours, called the Allsphere, which I intend to go past. I suspect that I originate from a reality contained within a different Allsphere." The Boxial True Lord laughed.
"Then how have you come here, little one?"
"I suspect that upon the utter decimation of my home reality, I was deposited into the space between the Spheres, and found myself in this one. Now, let me through."
"You spin a compelling story, young creature," the Lord told him. But I do not believe it. Rid me of your presence.
"Please," Asciin begged. "I need to avenge my home reality. My family were killed in the event, and I must kill the Allsphere Weaver to satisfy my revenge."
"Family, revenge, all such petty concepts. I pity you, mortal. But you are not exempt from my law. Persist, and I will use force to remove you." I'd like to use force to remove YOU, Asciin thought. Now, that would feel good. I've waited too long to attack the Weaver, and this stuck-up being would do nicely to keep the edge off my lust for violence against some god... I can just imagine my fist, buried in that face-
"Hold on, you weren't on the floor a moment ago," Asciin told the Lord. "Must be embarrassing to trip in front of a lesser being."
"I did not trip!" the god exclaimed vehemently. "You dealt a blow to me! And quite an impressive one for a being of your standing, as well. You should not be able to harm me, even holding domain over all of my creation as you did when you entered this room."
"Well, growing in power has kinda become my schtick over the last few days, but you've proven difficult to go past," Asciin told it. "But I guess punching your face is a lot easier to imagine than whatever's outside the Box."
"DIE, IMPUDENT CREATURE!" The Lord reached out its hand, producing a wave of power that would have blasted a lesser combatant beyond any semblance of being. Aciin, however, was no lesser combatant. With a single thought, he withstood the blast, and walked forward rather calmly.
"That's a pretty cool attack," he commented. "You wouldn't mind if I stole it, would you?" With a wave of his hand, Asciin unleshed the same attack, but amplified unbelievably.
"This should be impossible," the Lord stammered. "Beings below the Box shouldn't be able to do anything to me!" The blast knocked it back, shaking the entire structure they were in.
"I'm surprised too," Asciin said honestly. "My ability to transcend things runs on my own imagination, so my power is limited to what I can imagine. Given that my mind is that of a mortal ridiculously low on the cosmic ladder, it makes sense that I wasn't able to ascend beyond the Box, even though my ability itself comes from a multi-Allsphere event and therefore should be far above this level... but you've presented yourself in a nice, convenient form that's very easy to imagine myself being stronger than. At this juncture, then, I should be able to go to the next level."
"YOU SHALL NOT LEAVE!" screeched the humiliated god, lunging toward Asciin. But before it could grab him, he disappeared in a puff of metaphysical smoke.
_________________________________________________________________
Now, he was in an expanse of multiple Boxes. Noting that there was nothing of note, he attempted to ascend again. Nothing.
"Same as before," Stuart's voice came in through the ear of his body back in the 3D universe. "Find the ruler and imagine yourself being more powerful." So Asciin did just that.
"I've seen you, mortal," the Multiboxial True Lord told him upon entry. "You are the mortal who has ascended beyond any limit set by the gods, and who has humiliated one of my subordinates quite thoroughly."
"Yep, that's me," he said. "Now, I've already imagined myself being stronger than you, so I'm gonna-" he found himself in a cage, his mind shrunken down to its natural state.
"I'm afraid I cannot allow you to do so." The higher Lord shook its head. "In your inexperienced hands, who knows what that power of yours might do? You could be the sewer of chaos, the disruptor of the cosmic order. You are a threat to my creation, and if allowed to continue, the creation above mine as well. Therefore, you must not continue. I shall strip you of your power and return you to your home world."
"My home world is beyond your reach," Asciin said. "Now let me out, before I end you." In response, it only sighed.
"This is what I spoke of. Your desire to reach the pinnacle of this world, to kill this being so far above you, has the potential for severe effects on the natural hierarchy."
It didn't notice the bars creaking.
"I said... LET ME OUT!!!!!!!!!!!" The cage blew open, just as Asciin had pictured. "If you wanna contain me, you'll have to make any route of escape beyond my imagination," he growled menacingly. "If you don't, this is what happens." He imagined himself being restored to his former power. "Now I'm mad. You've gotten in my way, and I don't take kindly to anyone stopping me from killing the Weaver." His demeanor suddenly brightened, but for some reason he still exuded danger. "But you get to be a preview!" He raised his hand, and the Multibox became an arena, with him and the Lord of this place being like two characters from an anime or similar combat-oriented media. A storm of energy was gathering above his head, which the Lord would ordinarily have been able to dispel. However, Asciin had oriented the battle to his liking, switching out both of their virtual omnipotence for metaphorical strength and speed. "And now, I'm going to fu-" he was cut short by a blow to the gut.
"Mortals and their mid-fight spiels. This is why you should not be allowed to go further." Asciin was sent flying backward, and slammed into the seating area of the arena he'd created.
"Shoot. I can't ascend in this state."
"And I, for some reason, cannot strip you of your power. We will battle here not as gods, but as warriors, on even ground." The Lord attacked again, jumping forward with its fist stuck out in front. Asciin barely managed to get out of the way in time.
"Shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot-" he took a heavy blow to his head.
"All that talk, yet you make no attempt to fight back?" The Multiboxial True Lord towered over him, prepared to deal the finishing blow. "I regret that I cannot let you live, for you are an intriguing creature." Asciin's head was spinning, and he was sore all over; in no condition to make a comeback in traditional combat. What do I do what do I do what do I- I've got it! "However, the danger you present is simply too vast." It launched its fist forward with a piston-like motion, and a force that would utterly obliterate Asciin at a conceptual level...
But the attack never landed.
"Gods and their melodramatic spiels. This is why a lowly being such as myself was able to transcend all the beings beneath you." The Lord was frozen in place. Without any apparent action on Asciin's part, it crumpled to the ground. "See, I realized that I created that scenario, where we had to fight physically... and could just as easily end it, to take back control. Why did I think it should be like some show I like? This isn't some animated series, this is real. So, I stopped pretending. We're almighty beings, we should act like it! And, of course, I am almightier. Anyway, I'm gonna ascend now."
"D-don't-" the crippled cosmic being managed to choke out. "You don't understand the-"
"Screw you." Asciin transcended the Multibox, and went further up the chain.
_________________________________________________________________
Now that he knew the basic process, Asciin found it fairly easy to progress further. He would simply track down the ruler at each level, surpass them, and go to the next. Of course, he eventually found this to still be cumbersome, considering the infinite number of times he needed to perform it. After reaching through the Megabox, Gigabox, Terabox, Petabox, Exabox, Zettabox and Yottabox, he decided to streamline this process by imagining himself simply transcending any being within the cosmological container he was in. After speeding this process up to an infinite extent, he found himself in the Omnibox.
"Welcome, child."
"Who's there?!" Asciin whirled around, trying to find the voice of the mysterious being addressing him. However, it seemed to be disembodied. "Show yourself!"
"I'm the ruler of this place, just as the beings you have surpassed were the rulers of their domains. I, however, have observed you since your battle with the Boxial Lord. In fact, I have seen every possible outcome of it."
"Explain."
"The Omnibox contains all possible Archboxes; this includes every possibility of the one you came from. Naturally, you were duplicated; as you've ascended, you've merged with each possible version of yourself."
"But that's impossible. I'm not from this Omnibox- heck, I'm not from this Allsphere. Only one of me was deposited here, and I'm not in any of the natural possibilities here. So how?" The Omniboxial Lord chuckled.
"Silly mortal. In the time you've been here, the possibilities have diverged further. Every possible version of yourself that's reached such a height as this is simultaneously within you right now."
"I don't care. I'm here to ascend past you and reach the Ocean of Allspheres."
"I am aware of that. And I cannot allow you to do so."
"Are you also aware that quite a few steps down, someone else said something very similar?"
"I am."
"Then what's the point in trying to stop me? You know how it'll end."
"I'm not going to try to imprison you, or kill you. You're a rational creature, no? So I will attempt to reason with you."
"...go on."
"Your mindset makes you a very dangerous being. You've shown no reservation in attacking the hierarchy I've instantiated, and you are single-minded in your pursuit of violence against a being far above myself. How do you think I feel about that, knowing how essential the Allsphere Weaver must be? Granted, I haven't witnessed it myself; such an entity is far beyond my ken. But I know that if I were to be killed, disaster would strike across this entire Omnibox. If you kill a being that much higher than I am, just imagine the calamity. Actually, don't- you know what your imagination is capable of."
"Your point is?"
"You should step back. Take some time, calm down, and consider the consequences of what you're trying to do."
"Calm down? Calm down?! You clearly have no understanding of the creatures you've created. I lost my family, my world, everything! You're a solitary god, you have no one that you care about. You're almighty, so nothing has ever happened to you that you didn't intend- until me. I'm not some lesser being that you can just order back to the lower world-"
"I assure you, that's not what I'm doing."
"I'm the unaccounted for variable in whatever plan you have for this place. And if you think you're going to stop me with words, think again, because rationality has gone out the window a long time ago now, pal. Let... me... through!"
"No."
"That wasn't a request." Asciin imagined a form for this ethereal being, a physical one which he could maim for its insolence. The Omniboxial True Lord looked at him with a mix of confusion and fear, the latter of which was the correct emotion, and neither of which were likely something this being had previously ever experienced. The former of the two feelings would be wiped away soon enough; Asciin would make himself very clear.
"Stop this," it commanded. "I have not done anything to warrant this."
"I don't care. I'm tired of all this ascension. I'm tired of thinking about my parents, and the life I had before, and every single god I go past trying to tell me I shouldn't keep going with the one thing, the single goal, that's keeping me sane. Without this journey to the top of the cosmic ladder, I have NOTHING. So I'm going to complete it, and you don't get a say." The Lord looked... sad.
"And what will you have, once this is over? What will keep you sane when you've completed your objective?" This made Asciin pause. But only for a moment, before his anger truly boiled over.
"You think you're smart, do you?" He crossed the space between them in less than an instant, and delt a mighty blow to the entity's gut. "You've never felt pain before, have you? Your entire existence has always been perfect; you don't understand mortals, your own creations. You never have, and now, you never will. Because I'm not giving you the chance." The god's face contorted with agony.
"Please-"
"You thought that you would always be the supreme one within your domain, huh? That a new god would never come along?" He grabbed the entity by the head, and lifted its chest to the height of his own fist. "News flash, buddy..."
"I AM GOD."
And upon killing the Lord of the Omnibox, he subsumed its entirety, and saw into what lay beyond it.
_________________________________________________________________
"Exciting," Asciin told himself. "This might be the last step before the Allsphere."
"Not so," said the being that then materialized in front of him. "This is the Boxplex, the first level of another hierarchy that must be transcended to reach your goal."
"Uuughhh... why can't I just reach it?!"
"Your path is a long one. You must be patient."
"Are you going to try to stop me like all the others?"
"No. I've seen how that went; I do not wish upon myself what you did to the one beneath me."
"What I did-?" The realization hit him like a small motor vehicle to the head. "Ohhh my god, I committed a murder. A cosmic one. I killed god." The Boxplexic Lord nodded sadly.
"And if you continue, you will only leave more destruction in your wake."
"Hold on, you said you weren't gonna stop me. Why are you attempting persuasion?"
"I do not believe that you can be persuaded. I am simply giving a warning, so that you may reflect upon it once you have destroyed us all."
"How am I going to destroy everyone? I'm only trying to kill one being."
"An incredibly fundamental one, at that. The entire Hypercosmic Ocean of Realities relies upon the Alllsphere Weaver for its existence. If you thought that what happened to you was tragic, enough to warrant the death of the one who caused it, imagine that happening everywhere, unchecked. The Weaver is the one who controls the collisions between Allspheres. Without it, the calamity that befell you would never have happened."
"Wrong. It's a malicious god."
"And what gives you the belief that you would know that better than myself, a high-level god whose knowledge is necessarily functional on the subject?"
”I have firsthand experience, you arrogant, pathetic creature.”
”As do I.”
”I won’t stop.”
”Then I hope that you are able to reverse the damage you’ve inflicted, once you come to your senses and regret it.
“I’m going.” The god gave him a look of resignation.
”So be it. And prove me wrong.”
”You are.” And he transcended the Boxplexic True Lord, growing more in that moment than he had since the beginning of his ascendance. He continued up the Archboxplex Chain, and was not confronted again. Finally, he reached the Omniboxplex. “Now, let’s see what’s beyond this?”
=== Chapter 6: Final Push ===
Asciin transcended the Omniboxplex, eager to see if he would find himself outside the Allsphere. However, upon his ascension, he instead found himself in...
"Nothing? That can't be right."
"It is, though." Stuart, who had obviously been studiously researching every structure Asciin had been through, gave his take. "Beyond the Omniboxeplex, nothing's being detected. There is literally nothing you haven't reached yet."
"No, that's not true." Asciin felt for the Allsphere Weaver's presence once more. "It's still above me. I think I can gauge it... crap."
"What's wrong?"
"I have a lot of ascending to do. See, past Outside Bubbles, a lot of structures transcend each other on a kind of fundamental, non-quantitative level. A purely conceptual transcendence, you could call it. The Box, as I've observed, encompasses any amount of "layers" of these transcendences; in other words, the Box itself transcends its contents at not a conceptual level, but a meta-conceptual one. Such a gap is repeated throughout the whole chain of them, until the Boxeplex steps it up with... a meta-meta-conceptual jump? I don't know. Anyway, repeat that and you get the whole chain of Boxplexes."
"I'm aware of that," Stuart told him. "I've been reading everything about these structures. Where are you going with this?"
"Based on the gap between myself and the Weaver at this point, I'm fairly confident that an Allsphere can contain an arbitrarily large cosmology. That's conceptual, meta-conceptual, meta-meta-conceptual, meta-meta-meta-conceptual, et cetera. Every transcendence. All of them. But there's nothing further that I can ascend through, since this particular Allsphere seems to only contain Omniboxeplexes, nothing higher. I'm stuck. I can't go further."
"Maybe that's for the best," Stuart said. Asciin went deadly silent.
"What," he whispered, "did you just say?"
"Well, you heard all of those gods, who probably know way more about this whole thing than us... plus, you need to cool your head. You kind of..." he trailed off for a moment. "Killed someone? A very very important someone?" No response. "I've made a terrible mistake. It's cool how immediately I can tell."
"I didn't let any of them stop me, and I won't let you stop me." Asciin burst out into laughter that sounded almost psychopathic. "I thought you were my friend, Stuart! I thought you would help me! And you're betraying me at my lowest point?!"
"That's not what's happening," Stuart tried to assure him. "I'm just... worried about the unintended consequences, you know?"
"I guess I was only ever a tool to you three," Asciin ranted on, as if Stuart hadn't spoken. Or maybe he was just ignoring him. "It makes sense: you act like an ally, a supporter, but when I can't help you any more, I'm discarded. Fine. So be it. I'll do this without you, somehow."
"Oh, get over yourself." Victor's voice came in now, instead of Stuart's. "If you keep going, you might wipe out everyone in this Allsphere. You might wipe out everyone in every Allsphere, from the sound of it!" He paused, seething. "We've been messing with things we don't understand. You're messing with things you don't understand! Why can't you get that into your head?! You can't fix your world! You're barely dealing with yourself! How the hell are we supposed to help you!?"
"You think the fear of losing everything is rough?" Asciin laughed dryly. "Try having it be your entire life. With my enhanced mind, I remember everything about what life was like before. It scrambles your mind, it'll make you feel crazy!" As he spoke, he re-lived the day when anything and everything that had mattered to him was ripped away from him. "At this point, I'm just screwed. So why would it even matter? Why even care..? When I can just... destroy? No, I don't care if I end up killing you, or your universe, or everyone. I'm ending this exactly the way I set out to."
"Asciin... buddy, come on..." Stuart seemed at a loss for words, and Victor was silent. Ali didn't seem to have anything to say.
"I've figured out how to go higher," he said suddenly. "I'll just imagine the transcendences themselves, without the need for any cosmic structures. They were only a crutch anyway. Just. Like. You." And with that, he pulled his human form from the physical world, severing his contact with the three of them, perhaps permanently. "I hope it's sitting pretty, there in its ocean. Because I'm coming for it."
And he began to ascend.
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"That can't be good," was all Stuart could say.
"That little..." Victor seemed to be cycling through anger and disbelief. "I knew we shouldn't have helped him! This research, valuable as it is, has no value if everything it concerns is destroyed!"
"Hey, we had no way of knowing he would do this," Ali said. "Now, I guess we just pray that those gods were wrong."
"And what being will we pray to that he won't kill?" Victor challenged. But Ali had no answer.
_________________________________________________________________
I don't need them anyway. Asciin told himself that over and over and over again, but he just couldn't convince himself. He had automated his ascent by this point, simply envisioning himself as transcending any and all possible transcendence. All he had to do was wait. 
"They were dragging me down," he said aloud, though no one could hear him save for himself. "Whatever." He continued to go up through every transcendence one could be put through. He went through meta-times-infinity-conceptual transcendence, meta-times-Aleph-1-conceptual transcendence, and beyond. He didn't just go through absolutely infinitely many levels of transcendence, he went through arbitrarily many. And once he reached the summit, he found that he still could not reach the Allsphere. So he pulled from the worlds beneath him every possible idea to make his power greater. All possible transcendences, all possible structures that could be encompassed by any possible transcendences, all impossible transcendences, transcendence beyond the duality of possibility and impossibility, every transcendence in existence, non-existence, and non-binary states both between and further beyond either extreme and even transcendence beyond anything on the existence/nonexistence scale, until he encompassed everything, nothing, and all that lay outside of either. Truly, at this point, he encompassed All; he just needed the Sphere. He could feel how close he was to the Allsphere Weaver he was; he would soon kill it.
"Make your peace, weaver of destruction. Your minutes are numbered."
And then he breached the Allsphere.
=== Chapter 7: Past the Allsphere ===
He found himself in a normal, three-dimensional universe. There were people walking around, some buildings, and the occasional car. No Hypercosmic Ocean of Realities in sight. He went to the nearest person for information.
"What cosmological structure is this?"
"Um... Earth?" The person, seemingly a normal, human civilian, looked at him like he was crazy. He backed away slowly, then turned his back and continued going about his business.
"Where am I?" Asciin muttered under his breath. "Back in the mortal world? That can't be right. Let's see..." he imagined the worlds below him, and sure enough, there was an entire Allsphere beneath him. And infinitely many others. "What the- whatever. I'll just ascend further." There seemed to be a few people watching him by this point, obviously curious about this seemingly insane teen who had just appeared out of nowhere. They were incredibly confused when he dematerialized, and seemingly folded into a higher dimension.
_________________________________________________________________
"Multiverse, same as before," he remarked to himself. "Am I going to have to do this whole thing again?" He imagined his way up the Archverse Chain again, all the way up to the Omniverse, then the Outside Bubble, then the Monocosm, Infinicosm, and Omnicosm. He skipped the rest until the Box, since he'd had difficulty with it before, but to his surprise he was able to get past it without issue. "Guess transcending the whole chain the first time allowed me to be able to just imagine it," he remarked. "Actually, that could work!" He imagined the entire Allsphere again, and found himself back in 3D space again. This time, there was an Allsphere within an Allsphere beneath him.
"Okay, let's check the distance to the Weaver." He felt for the cosmic being's presence, and felt himself somehow further away than before. He also could perceive a hierarchy in between them. Stacked Allspheres.
"Fine!" he yelled. "Have it your way! I can make it up this chain just like the others!" He imagined himself at the top of all the Allspheres, ready to launch outward into the Ocean of Realities. When he opened his eyes, though, he was only at the pinnacle of the third from the bottom. Instinctively, he knew that the gap between Allspheres was so absolute that it simply could not be skipped. "Really? I have to transcend each one individually?" He didn't know whether it was the Allsphere Weaver or his imagination, but he distinctly heard a voice in the back of his mind say "yes".
So he ran, his imagination creating a metaphorical equivalent to make it easier for him. Each Allsphere's firmament was a glass barrier, which he ran headlong into, shattering it. For the first time, this ascent required the full extent of his power, so he had no way of speeding himself up. He knew, with the finite rate at which he was going, he would be running for a greater amount of time than the lifespan of any of the gods he had already long since surpassed. There was only him, his anger, and the barriers between realities, being destroyed one by one. His voice faded and rose between the overwhelming cacophony of shattering glass.
"GO- FU- D-MIT-!" He would gladly accept every torment if it would lead to his goal.
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He had run for eternity. No, an eternity of eternities. A greater eternity than any length of time that even he could convey, with his mind which had conquered the gods and their realms.
Now, with infinitely many metaphorical wounds from the broken glass of countless realities, he approached the end.
Infinity, of course, didn't have an end, but he was well beyond such concepts and paradoxes by this point. Finally, the last wall was not glass but brick. From the lower worlds, he drew every concept that he had not already invoked to expand his power and break through. Abstraction beyond all transcendence, divine perfection, immutable, archetypal forms, singularities of all metaphysical and physical levels of creation. Philosophical, theological assertions of God, from whom his might had become indistinguishable from by this point. Self-transcendence, divine simplicity, every meaning of the word "absolute", were all attained by his power. For every assertion he made of his own power, he decided that they were fundamentally untrue, as he deemed himself beyond such things. For any degree of might, denoted as X, which he assigned to himself, he became hyper-X, hyper-hyper-X, and all further extensions, before deciding the whole thing was ridiculous and abandoning the constraints of any logic, hierarchy, or theological/philosophical ideas of what a supreme being was. And with that, he broke the bricks and passed into the Apex Allshpere.
Yet, despite being able to even see outside now, to witness directly the Ocean of Allspheres he had been striving for, he couldn't do it. By all means, he possessed every form of power that could, would, or wouldn't every exist. He was finally, truly, omnipotent. But it wasn't enough.
"One barrier. ONE SINGLE, IDIOTIC BARRIER! YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY, WEAVER!? THAT YOU CAN JUST KILL OFF LESSER BEINGS, AND MAKE THE SURVIVORS CHASE FUTILE REVENGE FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT?!" The entire Allsphere shook. Every Allsphere within it shook. Asciin's rage was palpable enough that it affected the world around him directly. "JUST BECAUSE WE'RE SMALLER, AND LESS IMPORTANT! WELL, I'M NOT ALLOWING IT! COME DOWN HERE AND FIGHT ME!" But there was no response. Asciin slumped against the edge of tis place he had been swept off to, the wall between himself and the only thing he had truly wanted since this insanity had begun.
"All I want is to avenge my family... it's not fair. But I guess that's how it was made, wasn't it?" He laughed, not out of any semblance of joy, but spite. Not just for his current situation, but for everything. Every single insane moment that had brought him here. He thought of his parents, who he would never see again. "Please- was all of it... for nothing? I guess so." He curled up into a ball and wept.
_________________________________________________________________
"Asciin, why are you crying?" His father stood over him.
"Dad?! How are you here?!"
"That imagination of yours is a powerful thing, buddy." Dehad put a hand on his son's shoulder. Asciin then noticed that they were in their house.
"Supper's ready, you two!" His mom called them from the kitchen. "Come and get it while it's hot!" Asciin wiped away his tears.
"What happened?"
"I'm not too sure," his father said, scratching his head. "You passed out a few hours ago." They went over to the table, where three plates full of food and Sacra were waiting.
"Oh, you're awake! Thank goodness, honey, we were so worried!"
"Well, I'm fine, I guess... so that whole apocalypse was just a dream I had? Nothing bad happened?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Dehad told him.
"The... giant flood that collapsed the laws of reality? The three of us huddled on the roof to escape it?"
"Oh, that," Sacra said. "We don't like to think about it too much. Kind of a reminder that we died and are now only a figment of your imagination."
"Okay, that makes sense." Asciin realized how tired he must be to have just said that. "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!" His father sighed, and the illusion around him shattered. The three of them stood in the Apex Allsphere, looking out at the ocean that had swallowed them.
"You knew that we died," his father told him.
"Yes."
"But you also know that we'll always be with you, right?" his mother added. "Dead or alive, real or imaginary- although what you imagine, at this point, is really no different from reality by this point- we're with you, and we love you."
"So don't give up. Work hard, and keep that chin up. We're proud of you." his dad punched him lightly in the arm.
"Thanks." But by the time the word left his mouth, they were gone. "All right, then. No giving up. I'm getting to the end of this, whether it's possible or not!" With new motivation surging, he ran, arms out, into the barrier. He slammed against it with one fist, the other, and both. For what felt like another eternity, he pounded against the wall, never wavering. Nothing would stop him, not even the limit to all things. He envisioned his world, and his family on the other side. He pounded harder.
It worked.
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The Allsphere Weaver felt a disturbance in the Hypercosmic Ocean of Realities. An Allsphere had collapsed in on itself, seemingly for no reason at all. Near the wreckage, it saw... a human? That couldn't be right. It went to check.
_________________________________________________________________
Asciin saw the Weaver approach. Finally, it was time for his vengeance.
"Your end is at hand!" he declared. "You cannot hurt another being!" The Weaver regarded him with stone-cold silence. It seemed unmoved by his threat. "Fine then, how about I show you my power?" He imagined pure power, swirling around him. The surrounding Hypercosmic Ocean, though not actually water, began to boil. "How's that? This is the power of the one who will smite you!"
Still, it remained stoic.
"Then how about I-" Asciin stopped as a wave of unimaginable agony washed over him. He could feel every form of pain, and an infinite amount of it.
"You are feeling the pain of every being in the Allsphere you have come from," a voice told him.
"Holy crap, it talks," he groaned through the pain.
"Your ascent has caused untold misery. Each time you broke the ceiling between Allspheres, layered so carefully, the higher collapsed onto the lower. The same apocalypse you went through is now happening to countless others. Allsphere Amalgamation, the process which took your parents' lives, is one of precision and intent. It is to advance the development of all worlds. What you have caused came not from any higher purpose, but from pure, unadulterated anger. Just as the lower gods warned, you have brought your own pain upon more others than you can imagine."
Asciin heard this over the infinitely many noises in his head. He could feel everything that everyone was feeling, all at once, as if he were all of them. He lost friends. He lost colleagues. He lost mentors, and students, grandparents, grandchildren. He lost his only child. His spouse was killed in front of him.
From countless fresh sets of eyes, his parents died all over again. He couldn't take it. He wouldn't take it.
"MAKE IT STOP!!!"
And it did stop. The Allshpere that had been collapsing was frozen. Inanimate. Lifeless. He released his grip on it. The agony resumed, and he stopped it again.
"Do you see what you have done? By all accounts, you have become the monster you believed me to be."
"I... I do."
"You will repair this Allsphere. Beyond that you are free to choose your own role in this existence you have carved out for yourself."
"Understood."
_________________________________________________________________
Stuart, Victor, and Ali found themselves safe, and back in their office.
"What was that?" Ali wondered aloud. "The entirety of reality seemed to... tremble."
"My bad," said a voice from the corner. They all turned to look at Asciin. "Yeah, it's me. And you guys were right. I should have stopped."
"No kidding," Victor hissed, his voice dripping with disdain. "You probably killed everyone!" Asciin flinched.
"An then, clearly, he fixed it," Stuart said. "Look at him!" Asciin seemed a lot more self-conscious than usual, almost... embarrassed, except a lot sadder. "He clearly feels bad about... I dunno, whatever happened. The least we can do is hear him out."
"Agreed," Ali said.
"I guess I'm outvoted," Victor muttered.
"Guys, I'm... sorry," Asciin said sheepishly. "And not just for the world burning and such. The way I talked to you all before I broke away from you guys... I shouldn't have said any of it. If you can't forgive me, that's okay. I wouldn't either."
"Don't worry about it," Stuart told him. "You were going through a lot, and you fixed everything, didn't you?"
"Yeah."
"No harm done, then."
"All right, then! Anyway, to make it up to you guys, I've created a gift for each of you. For Stuart, the database has been upgraded; now, you can enter a sort of "spectator mode" where you can actively observe anything in existence. For Ali, a book, but not a normal one. Any book you can think of, you can read in it."
"Thanks!" they chorused. Asciin had clearly been successful in his gift selection.
"And for Victor... I've re-written the finale of that show you like."
"You what?"
"You were talking about how it disappointed you, so I've created a version with a doubled runtime and an answer for every single narrative fumble in the episode. You can even put it on the internet, if you want; just, maybe do a bit of research into copyright law first."
"That's awesome."
"I hoped you'd like it. Because this is probably the last I'll see of any of you. I'm going to live in the Hypercosmic Ocean of Realities as a counterpart to the Allsphere Weaver, and make sure nothing like this ever happens to anyone else." They were too dumbstruck to speak. "Bye!"
=== Epilogue ===
Asciin was happy in his new domain. He had created his own, Allsphere-adjacent structures, which he used to keep himself entertained, work on developing his abilities, and, most importantly, provide a safe haven for the inhabitants of any Allspheres that collided. His next major plan was to speed up the Weaver's development of its ocean with some of his experiments.
_________________________________________________________________
Stuart, Ali, and Victor sat at Stuart's computer, watching their friend.
"He seems happy," Ali said.
"He's earned it," Stuart replied.
"You bet he has," Victor agreed. "That finale re-write he gave me? It. Was. Perfect."
"He's done well," Ali said. "After all he's been through."
"You think his parents are watching him, wherever they are?” Victor asked.
”Watching,” Stuart said, “and smiling.”
Category:Cosmic Entity
Category:Story
Category:Divergent Branch
Category:Canon
Category:Class 5