New Age Dawning

**New Age Dawning** is a Story Arc of the the Exteria Multiverse. It takes place in several worlds and first follows the point of view of Dorothee MacDaniels. It is as such an indirect sequel to the Chronicles of the Damned series, and has also an indirect sequel in Venatio : True Evil.

## First Arc

### An Unstable Timeline

Dorothee wakes up at night to a distorted world and the sight of the incarnated Demon Lord Leviathan of Envy. Both are quite perplexed to see eachother : to Dorothee, Leviathan is sealed in this timeline ; to Leviathan, Dorothee is dead. The two agree to help eachother and understand what happens to them.

While walking in Dorothee's mansion, they stumble upon a shadowy, twisted version of John Easthampton who believes that Dorothee is dead and threatens her repeatedly. Before Dorothee can do anything, a strange presents shoots John and kills him, dispelling the dark aura that distorts the world.

### The Cheshire Society

The man, Gabriel Den Anfan, wakes up a stunned Dorothee, as well as a confused Leviathan and a lost John Easthampton - the 'real' one, this time - and tells them that they have been trapped in a temporal incoherence, a Divergent Timeline. Gabriel asks the trio to follow him to his headquarters, the **Cheshire Society**.

This strange society, directed by Lily Evershire, attemps to neutralize the temporal instabilities of the timeline by eliminating those who cause them, Divergence Catalysts. Dorothee understands that she almost died by being absorbed in one of those 'fake' timelines where the original Dorothee died. She decides to join Lily's crusade against those time distorsions and those who have been causing them, the Paradoxes.

### Recruiting Allies

Lily Evershire sends her agents all over the world - and even across time - in order to recruit more allies and fight the Paradoxes, those strange existences born from the worst of timelines who have lived their whole lives in suffering. Among them is Meredie Quila, Lily's creation and a genius detective who, alongside her new student and partner Nami Harumageddon, finds the ragtag group of heroes living with Mark Danaus and recruits them before Paradox Pi, Viridi Powell's Paradoxical version, slaughters them all.

Gabriel, alongside fellow agent Zack Karnaj, meanwhile attempt to recruit FBI high-ranked agents Andrea Godwin, Alex Spencer and Crow and Clarence Stanford, Alex's partners, however Alex is seen discussing with Ragnar Den Anfan, a rival to Lily who attempts to manipulate the temporal distorsions to his own advantage. Alex would however rather side with the Cheshire, and alongside his team, joins the group. Despite an attack from Paradox Mu, the pair returns to safety.

Meanwhile, Dorothee, still in her own time, helps the demonic Gaunt with finding his old friend, the demon merchant Vlad Nolovic, who benefits from the chaos by becoming the Cheshire's primary supplier. She also intervenes by crushing the paradoxical cage holding back Malva Malebranche's temporal prison, hence unleashing her as well as Paul Seckendoff.

### Paradoxes Approaching

Dorothee then meets the mysterious Paradox Alpha who taunts her and attempts to kill her. Dorothee, thinking that this Paradox might be a shadowy version of herself, decides to chase after her in order to do battle, but the Paradox escapes in a strange, desolate future of Dorothee's timeline where Interra has merged with Inferno.

In this apocalyptical setting, she meets with Maria Blanchebois and Leanor Pandaemonium, this world's rulers, and slowly learns the truth about this world. In one of her possible futurs, Maria destroys the world and merges earth and hell, and the only way out for the survivors is to painfully torture to the point of insanity and death Dorothee's child, Ashley Easthampton, in a ritual meant to seal Leanor away.

Dorothee once again confronts Paradox Alpha and understands that Alpha is in fact not Dorothee herself, but a version of Ashley that survived the ritual. Broken but determined, Ashley reveals that Dorothee is the world's Catalyst ; once killed, Cheshire will disappear forever. Then, regretfully, Ashley eliminates Dorothee with a single shot.

## Second Arc

### The Cheshire Isle

However, thanks to Sarah Duncan allying with Lily, the inhabitants of the Cheshire Corp are saved and land on an island of the Empty Realm, which is then dubbed the Cheshire Isle. On this island, the two omnipotent girls begin to build their empire, allying with other islands from the Sea of Oblivion, among which the island where Shiruka's group lives since the events of Memories Mending, and the massive Black Rose Empire ruled by emperor and empress Revan Tuule and Nemo Harumageddon.

From there, the Cheshire island keeps sending agents across worlds to recruit people and protect them from Paradoxes and crushed timelines, such as Gabriel rescuing Pepper Simmons in her world of Fabula Nova, Lily recruiting Xiaopai Ming herself, or Hina Harumageddon and Michael Dawne helping Leila Monica and One escape Paradox Theta's wrath. They also form alliances with key individuals such as Lonan Darcia or Sigma.

Lily and Sarah then learn the true objective of the Paradoxes : to call upon the power of the sealed Great Old One Itaqua through a shadowy ritual, in order to merge all Timelines and heal all wounds left in time, erasing the concept of Paradox and allowing her to live life as a complete entity. Due to the Paradoxes' immunity to Lily and Sarah's Akashic magic, they cannot directly attack them.

### Divine Servants and Lost Children

The events of Magus Wars : Courage brings to Lily and Sarah's attention the concept of Divine Servants and Summoner Keys. Planning on using them as a weapon against coming dangers, they search for several keys and summon multiple Divine Servants, including the extremely powerful Endymion. The ancient King of All Heroes then goes by himself to the realm of Sylphestia to rescue the groups of Mina Harker, Serah and Sonia Fangstone from Paradox Omega, claiming Sonia as his own and installing his headquarters on the isle.

The disturbance ends up attracting the attention of the noble Seraphim. One of them, Ellyra, blesses the Cheshire with portals leading to an apocalyptic future devastated by Itaqua, where Future Children of those who live within the Cheshire are allowed to return to the present and prevent their parents from dying. Led by Daren and Zhira, parties are formed in order to retrieve and recruit Future children as quickly as possible.

### Shadows of the Future

Despite the great number of new allies, things are not so bright for the Cheshire Isle. Nelo Raines, son of the unstable Foxx Raines and Florina Beatini, attempts to kill all other Future Children in order to obtain their souls and overpower brutally all Paradoxes in a suicidal assault. He proceeds to assault other Children like him, assisted by Sigma's daughter Heather Sabel. However, Amaranth Dawne, Hina and Michael's daughter, manages to fight him and discourage him from violence, finally teaching him the meaning of life.

Another threat however is the person of Machiavela Duncan, Sarah and Lily's magically-conceived daughter, who has been disappointed by her parents' performance. She decides to ally with Ashley, much to her parents' wrath, and devises a plan in order to stop Itaqua from crushing the Cheshire. In order to do so, she orchestrates for the half-human Great Old One to fall in love with a kidnapped Xiao, half-ironically hoping for true love to conquer all.

A third presence appears ; the independant Kara Harumageddon, a Paradoxical version of Hina which has been used in the future as a sacrifice, a new body for Itaqua. Despite being extremely resentful against mostly everyone, Kara ends up softening a little and agreeing to help the Cheshire, in order to exact her vengeance on the other Paradoxes.

### Dread Noden Comes

Despite events actually settling, as if Machiavela's plan has succeeded, investigators Morwen and Kyle Darcia discover through an eldricht cult that Itaqua is no longer worshipped ; instead, Noden, an even more powerful Great Old One, is said to be the cause of the worlds' end. And Noden, unlike Itaqua, is not tethered to the Paradoxes' ritual, meaning he can attack whenever he wishes to.

Lily and Sarah discover that in an ironic twist, true love does conquer all ; more precisely, Noden is the twisted son of Itaqua and Xiao, an intemporal anomaly with immense destructive power. Lily and Sarah come to confront the Paradoxes and Machiavela, telling them that the situation has grown out of control ; despite visible tensions between mothers and daughter, as well as the enmity between Ashley and the Cheshire Isle, and the awkward stare between Ashley and Dorothee, a non-agression pact is made.

Events accelerate ; even more worlds are connected to the Cheshire Isle who prepares for the final assault. The event that truly triggers the end, however, is the awakening of Kuri-ma Mazda after the Alma Decepta of Regret is unsheathed. Positioning himself as a strategic ally for the Cheshire, Mazda directs the young Mina towards a cosmic pirate expedition in order to retrieve key elements for cosmic travel, which she succeeds in doing.

### Against Noden

Using the knowledge of Alcidie Madigan, an ancient and powerful Witch, as well as the key items obtained by Mina, Mazda manages to protect the Cheshire from the outer realms of space, where the battle will take place. As Noden appears - immense and invincible - the Cheshire attempts to clash with it through sheer power and apparently succeeds, only to understand that they were basically striking at a single proboscis of Noden's hundred-tentacled body.

Understanding that fighting the entity is absurd, the Cheshire switches to a back-up plan : appeal to Noden's human side. By sending the anomalous girl Kyoko Kanamura inside Noden's body, they allow her to meet with Noden's human core and appeal to his feelings ; through this, and a powerful mixture of Akashic and Seraphic magic, Noden starts to lose ground.

Noden finally returns to a human form, and the Cheshire, for now, is saved. However, shades of even greater dangers coming are drawn in the future, and Future Children keep coming from apocalyptic worlds, meaning that even more worlds have to be saved ; the Cheshire Isle's work has just started.

## Characters

* Dorothee MacDaniels
* John Easthampton
* Leviathan
* Lily Evershire
* Sarah Duncan
* Gabriel Den Anfan
* Zack Karnaj
* Andrea Godwin
* Alex Spencer
* Crow
* Ragnar Den Anfan
* Several Future Children
* Kara Harumageddon
* Ashley Easthampton

* Paradox Delta
* Paradox Kappa
* Paradox Mu
* Paradox Theta
* Paradox Pi
* Characters from other Timelines
	+ Characters from Chronicles of the Damned
	+ Characters from Butterfly Effect and Butterfly Effect II : Masquerade.
	+ Characters from Final Fantasy Veritas XIII
	+ Characters from Monstermind
	+ Characters from Memories Mending
	+ Characters from Legend of Zelda : Crucible of Souls
	+ Characters from Lemurian Tales

## Trivia

* This Storyline is pivotal to the existence of the Multiverse : it introduces the Cheshire Isle which has since become its center and aim, a zone that despite its dangers and instabilities remains a safe haven for those who have suffered, a promise of eternity.