5:20 Wants

It didn't take very long at all for the Rival to be ready for our date. Maybe a few weeks of relative time, which I had busied myself with the shaping of time around all the other universes. Unfortunately I was still struggling with it, and none of the “realizations” he’d helped me with had clicked into place. So the Rival's notification, if you could call a letter sealed with wax that, came as a pleasant distraction.

He was not in any of the universes. He had moved to stand outside it all, in the Void, some sort of protective technique keeping it from trying to devour him. The technique differed from my own nature, which was naturally immune to the passive effects of Void, by making him almost invisible to the Void, as if he was part of it rather than a part of creation. I made a mental note to copy the fundamentals of the spell, then focused on the man himself.

He had dressed up a bit. His hair was tousled in that way I knew he thought was roguishly charming. His robes were a red color, embroidered with silver, and lacking any of the elegant flowing quality that was more common in the Four Realms to sit tight against his chest. When I appeared beside him, he set his hands on his hips and grinned, looking me up and down appreciatively.

Being what I was, I didn't need to put in any effort to look my best. I always did. But that did not mean I would insult him by showing up the same as always. I willed my hair to become medium length, and pulled it up into a bun that would fit all appearances. As for my robes, rather than the typical purple, I'd switched them to a more pleasant green. They were slightly different in design, with longer sleeves and more excessive on the flowing parts, parts of them trailing behind me, and covering my hands with their length.

I still kept my sight away from him as best I could, though there was only so much I could do.

"Ravishing as always, Statera," the Rival said with a sweeping bow, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

I chuckled, reached out, and thumped him atop the head with one knuckle. "Down, boy. We haven't even started yet."

"I only said four words," he said straightening and squaring his shoulders, though his eyes were practically undressing me.

"It's what was implied," I said, letting my amused smile dance on my lips as I looked around, to fully take stock of all I saw. There was, as expected of the Void, nothing around us. Knowing the Rival, though, this only stoked my curiosity. What did this fool have in mind?

"Lovely place for a date," I drawled, gesturing to the Void. "Great ambiance."

He laughed. "Oh no, this isn't the date spot. Where we're going is somewhere else entirely. Somewhere I don't think you've been before," he teased.

"Oh yeah? And where's that?" I asked, folding my hands behind my back.

He spread his arms and something happened, a slight shifting in the Void that genuinely confused me. I frowned a little, then blinked as a shape took form from seeming nowhere, not me, nor him, nor any immediate source I could see. It took the shape of a doorway. A literal doorway, with an intricate stone arch around it, a wooden face, and a brass handle knob that turned and swung open on its own, revealing soft light and peaceful ambiance.

I narrowed my eyes and couldn't help it. I started to try to peer deeper, but a quick snap of the Rival's fingers stopped me.

"Nope. Step through first," he said, gesturing grandly. "And all will be revealed the moment you do. No Truesight needed." I flinched away from grasping for my deeper sight, shot him a little mock glare, then stepped forward and through the doorway.

Inside was a replica of a restaurant I had been to many times in one of my past lives. I'd often been taken there on holidays by family, or by some of my higher-end clients, or simply just for a pleasant night out, back when I had been Sylvia MacCleod, the psychologist in London.

It sat on one of the upper levels of a taller building in downtown. A wall of floor to glass windows overlooked London proper, complete with an expensive bar along the back wall. But instead of the myriad tables that had filled it before, there was now only one. And of course there were no waiters, no staff, no other patrons.

I spun around, looking at the walls and the ceiling, then once again out the windows at the skyline, admiring the sheer detail that went into it.

And then it hit me.

Beyond the sky, beyond this little bubble that was a replicated memory, there was Power. Power and scenes playing like ten thousand movies, snapshots from ten million lives, swirling in a great big ball around us, colored with emotion and thought and memory and everything else.

My jaw worked as the Rival followed through, shutting the door behind us, moving over to the table where he pulled out a chair and set, physically set, a bottle of wine down with a clink.

"After you," he said, wiggling his eyebrows.

I drifted over to the chair and sat, shooting him a look that was both playful and genuinely surprised all in one. "Rival," I said slowly. "This is your soul. You brought me into your soul."

"Indeed it is. Got it in one," he said, snapping his fingers and pointing at me. "I'm old enough that this great big ball of stuff that is me, the real me, the thing I was and have been and containing everything I've collected, created something called a Nexus. This is the heart. This is where my consciousness sits when I return to this form," he said, sitting down across from me and leaning forward on his elbows with a wink.

I literally could not think of a more intimate act than this. It swelled my heart and made me nervous all in one fell swoop, but both of those things focused together, first, on warring with my curiosity.

I wanted to look deeper at all of him. I was sitting right in the middle of it. All his lives, from who he was now to that person he said I supposedly wouldn't like way back at the beginning. Just sitting up there. And I could see it if I just wanted to, if I took this opportunity.

Some things I couldn't help but see, as always, but I restrained myself. I liked surprises. I wanted to see what he was going to show me.

I bit my lip. "You just wanted me inside you. At least buy me dinner first, not while we're already there." I teased, snatching the bottle of wine and pouring us both a glass that was far beyond proper in how full it was.

The Rival just winked. "Guilty as charged. Though, if we're being honest, considering you're the Four Realms, I've already been all up inside you for far longer now."

I all but choked on the wine in a spurting laugh. "That's terrible," I said, not even wanting to think about the implications of his innuendo. And still finding it incredibly, stupidly funny.

"Yes, it is terrible. I'm quite proud of it," he said.

"So you invited me inside yourself." At this, the Rival giggled like a girl cracking a dirty joke. Then I shot him a look before continuing. "And set up a memory. I think we've had dinner here, or lunch, what was it, two, three times over the course of your time with me? After you stopped being a client, of course, so you could continue to try to woo me."

"Five times," the Rival corrected. "This was the one place I could consistently get you to go out with me to. Which was quite funny, considering how much you complained every time."

"I did not complain every time," I protested, taking a sip of wine and feeling pure nostalgia run over my tongue. It was my favorite Pinot Noir. Or had been. Didn't taste as good as I remembered. I was...far bigger now. Those kinds of flavors were just...lost.

I didn't let it show on my face, though, even as the Rival waved his hand and an illusory server brought forth a plate of fried Brussels sprouts, setting them on the table between us.

"Oh yes, every time. You complained about the sprouts having too much sauce on them, despite eating three quarters of the plate yourself, and about them changing the sauce, and being too done. Did I mention that you always ate most of them?" The Rival teased.

I sniffed. "That was because your drug-addled rockstar stomach couldn't handle fresh greens like that. Even fried."

The Rival chuckled but didn't deny it. "You also loved to complain about the lack of service if the waiter wasn't the best."

I huffed again and crossed my arms. "I'm perfectly fine with bad service, and I only complain to you, not the manager. If you're paying almost a hundred dollars a plate, your server had better be on time with certain things. Refills, clearing appetizers, all that kind of stuff," I protested, quite correctly in my mind, even as I popped a Brussels sprout into my mouth and chewed, dulling my taste buds actively so that I could savor at least some of the mortal flavors.

"And what about complaining about how they didn't get your steak perfect medium rare every time?" He asked.

"I never sent it back," I protested, pointing at him dramatically. "Not once. Never sent it back. I did send back the lobster rolls, though. I will own that. Those were disgusting."

The Rival laughed. "That's true. I did actually sneak a bite of those. Those ones were nasty."

I laughed a little and looked down at the Brussels sprout plate, noticing that three quarters were already gone. And the Rival hadn't had any. I set it aside and leaned back a little.

"Can't fault you for complaining, though. In fact, that's part of what I liked about you. You were a woman who knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to call me out on my own shit," he said, leaning back in his chair, sipping at his own wine.

"That was a lot of my lives, I admit it. As the Yellow Emperor, I wanted to create a better world, and sought out anyone and everything that would help me achieve that. The time I was a starship captain, I would accept nothing less than being the first human to truly journey amongst the stars, like I had," I said, leaning back and letting nostalgia wash over me.

"Do you miss it?" the Rival asked.

I hummed in the back of my throat, looking out over London, a city I hadn't seen in....well. A long time. "Miss what? The past lives? No. Advancing is always my thing," I said with a little wink.

"Being mortal," he corrected.

I felt my answer catch in my throat a little bit. "I wouldn't trade what I have for anything," I said, instead of answering.

"That is not an answer," the Rival said, and shrugged. "That's kind of the fun part about being a Monkey Wrench. Starting from the beginning, building everything back up again. Always being reminded, even if for only a couple decades, what it's like to exist near the relative bottom again. Gets repetitive sometimes though, I'll say that. It's like...God, remember some of those old video games? It's like being on New Game Plus ten thousand," he said with a little chuckle.

This reproduction came from where the story's author publishes without consent, and the official page supports the writer.

"That does sound repetitive." I agreed. Especially if you remembered every life before then.

He shrugged, looking out the window, expression sagging a bit, making him look older. "Yeah, but you know, I never really wanted to stay in any of those places. I can be and choose to be and become whoever and whatever I want." And just like that his body shifted from male to female. Black hair, now spiked, dyed with red tips, a leather jacket, rocker shirt, and ripped black jeans on his-now-her body. The Rival leaned back, flashing me a cheeky grin that looked very different on her new aesthetic.

"Being divine sure has its perks. I can even change my body to be what I want. But that's just true of me, really. Every time I go to a new universe, you know, in the confines of that universe, I can be and choose to be whoever I want." He -no, she, explained.

"Liberating," I said mildly, swirling my wine, as the illusory waiter brought out two steaks and cleared the sprouts. I didn’t have to cut into it to know what mine was. A perfect medium rare, New York strip. The Rival had, as always, chosen to mimic me. I'd always gotten the impression the he'd liked watching me enjoy my food more than he liked his own. Now, I guess, I knew why.

But I was different now.

I eyed the meat. Even now, even though this was just a memory, I could see the weight that meat held in the universe, the memories it had contained specifically because this was a faithful recreation. And because it was something of the Rival's creation, briefly I wondered if this counted as eating parts of him. But no. This was an actual physical creation in the center of his being.

The meat spoke to me. It told me of the cow's life. Its karma. It had good karma. It had been treated well. Killed painlessly. Had been so fat and happy that death meant almost nothing to it. And so the flavor of the meat was better, as was the energy it contained.

I took a bite. Still just steak, though.

"Except it wasn't liberating, and you know that," the Rival continued. I looked up at her. "Because every time, in every universe, I chose to be the same thing. Your home universe, where we first met, had been the first time in a hundred lifetimes I had chosen not to be the First's Rival, and instead was just the Rival." She chewed her lip and leaned back a little bit, her own steak untouched, still in that same rocker body.

"What do you want?" he asked - no, she asked.

I paused with a bite of steak, dripping with juices, halfway to my mouth. "What?"

"What do you want?" She pressed.

"I... don't follow."

"Oh, sure you do. It's a simple question. I'm asking you what you want."

"What, you mean out of life? Out of this date? Out of you?" I asked, seeking clarification.

"Yes," she said simply. "I mean, look around. You're inside me. You could see the multiverse right now. Ask me anywhere you wanted to see, I'd show you. I don't care, we could even talk about something else. The floor is yours," she said, spreading her arms.

My eyes narrowed at her, and couldn't help but catch on the way her tight shirt pulled across her chest in a way I knew was purposeful. She was trying to throw me off, but I saw everything. I noticed, but wasn't swayed.

"I don't want to infringe on your privacy," I said slowly. "Whatever you want to show me is fine."

"That's not what I asked," the Rival said.

"I know it's not what you asked. I'm telling you," I told him, setting down my fork and knife, piece of steak still on it, to stare across the table at him. Her. Shit. I still thought of him as a her. Is this what it was like talking to me?

"Would you like to see your old friends? Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses...I've got some of them rattling around up in here," she said, touching her forehead.

I shrugged. "It's up to you. This is your date."

"Yggdrasil? I saw the ruins of that. What about one of the first universes? How's that sound? Could be interesting."

"Both of those are fine," I said. The Rival's frown only deepened. She drummed her fingers on the table. Then she stood abruptly, abandoning her food, and walked over to the windows, setting her hands on her hips.

She turned back to me, cocking her head to the side.

"You know, I actually put a lot of thought into this date. I knew from the start I wanted it to be here, but I couldn't decide on what to show you. That's not happened to me before, not with you. Because the old you, I knew enough of what you wanted. Who you were, your ambitions. As Sylvia, you were this woman hell-bent on helping people in a way they didn't even realize you were helping them. Even when I met you as an angel, I knew what your purpose was, your passion, your ambition. And I thought I knew what you wanted when I first came to the Four Realms. To be pursued. I know you wanted me to take a look at how everything was working, make sure it was all running fine, get an outsider's perspective on what was being done. But I came to a realization recently. I don't know what you want anymore," she said simply.

I furrowed my brows. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means... look, what you've been doing has been helping others. You've been letting your children do their thing, letting them learn, grow. Fine. Great. All fantastic. And I didn't realize this until you snatched me away from the First and helped me pull his fucking fish hooks out of me, but I realized that was the first time I'd seen you show an actual desire in a long time." I felt my stomach twist. I crossed my arms, setting my face in stone, glaring at her now. "You're just trying to be what everybody needs you to be."

"I am the Heavens," I said simply.

"And what does that mean?" she asked. "I don't actually know. The highest height? The earth and the sky? Yeah, great, but whatever. What does it mean to you? What do you want out of all this creation? Because as far as I can see, I don't know, and I don't know if you can say it, either, and that scares me."

"It doesn't matter what I want," I said firmly.

"Yes, it does," she countered. "It matters very much to me. Forget about everybody else. I care. I want to know."

"No, it doesn't," I said, standing, trying not to get riled up in the space that was inside of her. Some small part of my brain turned on itself with that action, however. Why are you getting upset? it asked.

Shut up, you, I told it before it could continue. "I'm here to keep things balanced and running. That's my job." I explained.

"Yes, I agree. That's your job. That's not your desire, is it?" the Rival pressed.

I let out a long, slow breath. "You don't understand," I said firmly.

"You're right, I don't. Tell it to me in a way I understand." She said.

"I can't want," I replied, tryingto phrase it delicately.

"The hell's that supposed to mean?" she asked.

And I... I couldn't help it. I didn't know why I reacted this way, but I did. My greater consciousness recoiled even as the words were spat out of my incarnation's mouth, pulling away just a bit so I didn't flood this interior soul space with everything I was.

"It means I've watched, since the time I woke up as this, people destroy things and become lesser despite growing more powerful, because of their wants," I snapped. "Just look around. The Oshun became obsessed and almost destroyed both of us because of what she wanted. She wanted it with such power that it created a Shadow of Obsession. She decided on wanting me and caused that entire catastrophe, made me become what I am today. Sehuyun wanted to prove herself, to prove she was the best fucking dragon ever. Evening fucking Morgan, at the very start, the Shadow, wanted to show me I was wrong and started a war because of it. Now look at the mortals, and what they do because of their wants and ambitions!

"Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with want and ambition. But I am the Balance. I am meant to help them see when that want becomes too much and wrong. My own desires don't matter in the face of that. And if that means I have to evolve beyond them, beyond any of it—no. Worse. Because of their greed and lust for power and all that crap, I've had to evolve beyond what I originally wanted, which was to sit there and watch my kids grow and build a home for them."

I huffed. "So you want to know what I want? That's what I want," I spat.

The Rival was silent. "No," she disagreed.

"No?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at him, daring her to continue that train of thought. And like the good friend she was, she did push forward.

"That's not what you want. That's what's been done to you. What you've done in response to it. And what you want for others. What do you want?" he pressed softly. "Right now, despite everything you’ve been through?"

I felt the words die in my throat. "I just told you," I said weakly.

"No. You said it yourself. There's nothing wrong with desire and ambition and want and not being passive. Not waiting for things to happen to you, and not being afraid of that...Because if anybody can do that and remain Balanced, it's you Syl."

I sat there with that for a long, long moment.

Felt every single one of my incarnations fade away. To stop, for a moment.

To think on this.

"I..." I started, everything shifting as the rational part of my brain latched onto what she said and agreed. "You planned this, didn't you, fucker?" I said weakly.

The Rival grinned. "No, actually. My thoughts have always been on how to get you in bed."

I cracked out a surprised laugh. "I don't want to do this by myself," I said softly. "I want what I've always wanted. Companions that stand next to me. Friends and family. I want to be able to sit with the weak as much as I want to stand by the strong and call them out on their shit and vice versa." I ran a hand down my face, and the Rival stood next to me and just waited for me to continue, to sift through that and get to the core of what I actually wanted. I didn't. Instead I shifted topics.

"You said once that you'd seen other cultivation universes. Could you show me some of those?" I asked.

The Rival grinned. "Now we're talking. Oh yeah. Let me show you the difference between the Four Realms and some of these other bastards out there - and let me tell you, your power scaling looks paltry in comparison."

She skipped over to me, hooked her arm in mine, body and face shifting as she made minor mental tweaks on what she wanted to look like, until I rapped her atop the head once again with a knuckle and told her simply, "Just be you, idiot."

She looked up at me with that grin of hers and said, "I am being me." The scenery outside shifted.

And we, for just a moment, explored how the Rival viewed the universe.

***

The First had felt nibbles for a while. Now he was feeling bites. Active poking and prodding and biting at his soul ball, outside the universe he currently inhabited, enough to stir him and make him pay actual attention.

He looked up and saw the butterfly, Sylphina, that chaos butterfly, floating around the ball that was the memories and energy he dragged around. But what was biting wasn't her, but rather something of the machine's. Drones. Now thoroughly investigating it, setting up a drill so they could take samples.

The First felt the corner of his mouth tug into a frown, and he shifted, for the first time stopping pretending to be passive.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he warned. Neither of the Origin Deities, be they incarnations, or drones, reacted. His frown deepened. This might be worse than he thought. The Cocoon Protocol was isolating, and already he saw the Overgod sending notifications to the two, warning them away. "I said, I wouldn't do that if I were you," he repeated firmly, projecting his voice even further, now truly concerned.

Monkey Wrenches were like honeybees, taking pollen from area to area. What leached out through his current body was enough to nourish and inspire growth in the surroundings. It could be a little much at times, but overall it was a net gain. However, what these two were about to do was take condensed, solidified energy from his very soul back to their universes, and there was no telling what they'd get.

He had all kinds of stuff up there, because he'd been everywhere. From diseased to cursed to brilliantly holy energy, because each universe needed something a little bit different. And though he didn't control what was released where, something did, and only leached the stuff beneficial to the universe he was in.

"Hey, machine bastard! I said stop!" he roared, standing, sending his aura sky high, genuinely warning both of these things off.

But in their arrogance, they did it anyways.

The probe was sent into his soul, and the First flinched, feeling a spike in his ribs, a sharp pain radiating through his entire body.

"God, you dumbass!" he started, snapping, but the drones were already flying off with their prize, the butterflies swooping in, sensing the wound in him and scooping up a little excess that bled out before he could clamp it shut. Because pains and wounds of the soul, no matter how old and strong he was, still caused him to flinch.

"Oh, you fucking morons! You absolute dumbfucks!" he called after them as the butterfly flew off. Those weren't the fish hooks he'd set out. Hell, they hadn't even been the ones he'd been expecting. He'd thought that they'd come to him for help or something, not take energy straight from his soul. Not even that green-eyed bitch who the Rival seemed obsessed with was dumb enough to do that.

The First ran a hand down his face. He let out a long, slow breath and cast his gaze out across the Void, to the machine universe and the chaos butterfly's universe.

"Fine," he said to himself. "You get one pass. But if I see something that wasn't supposed to happen, something get infected by what you took from me, I'm coming to stop it and you will not like what I do about it." He said, and did not sit back down. He remained standing, watching. The lesser souls who had set up entire worlds around him panicked, because he had moved for the first time in a long, long time, wondering what this meant.

He genuinely hoped it didn’t mean what they feared, but knew it would. And as such, he blinked once, blinked twice, set his hands together, and began to cultivate because he could already feel the chain coming off. The bonds that had kept him in place loosening, the contract he had with the Overgod starting to evaporate.

He'd been gracious. He'd warned them to stop. He'd sent his energy sky high in warning. Hadn't even retaliated when they had done something that could be considered an attack on his very soul, which that alone would have allowed him movement.

And now?

Now he'd clean up the mess they were about to create.