All sentient life is connected. The appendages may be different, we may eat different things, and live in different universes, but at the end of the day, we’re all one big family.
It’s time to explore the branches of the multiversal family tree, and today, we present:
(Node 1 Hyperion Earth Year 2024)
Amazing Alia, the Hyperion
from The Hyperion – Issue 36 – BLACK PARADE
“…You are a most impressive being, Alia of Earth. You have made me aware of something that even my avatar SoEl could not see, you are a true master of the mysteries of existence. I am humbled by you, a dimension beyond even me, and I bow to you. I will imbue you with my powers to continue your righteous steward of the universe, to slow Time and end the abuse of Space.”
…
“The Ascendant are gone. It’s the time of Hyperion,” she says and hugs Fandral. “Let’s get back to the ship. I want to know if my friends are ok.”
– Issue 37 – So Many Years Later
by VIV
Alia enjoys being in space. Her favorite is floating the void into random sections of the universe that only the Aeternus Machina had ever laid eyes on and its operators by complete chance. She can do this in her everyday clothing; sometimes she will wake up early on a Saturday morning, still in her sweats and a shirt that is so small that it bares her midriff, drink a cup of tea on the back porch next to Clay’s home gym equipment, and leave the cup on the weight bench before she bends her knees slightly, then extends as a glitter of yellow-white cosmic energy wafts in the wake she leaves levitating from the ground and into the waning night. Alia drifts up from Earth, away from oxygen that she can breathe but does not need, away from Earth’s atmosphere, then its gravity, until she is orbiting like the moon. Most mornings she does not drift too far, but she allows herself vacations when she is gone for months at a time, floating through those mysterious corners of the universe. But her excursions around the Earth are like taking a jog in the morning; she has to keep her cosmic senses sharp, the universe is full of dangers. None that scare her currently, but it is good to be ready. And she just enjoys the feeling of using the powers bestowed on her by a being of universal arcana.
This morning, the sun is rising steadily, and as Alia descends back to the backyard of her home, she senses Ivan and sure enough, he is staring up at her, shielding his eyes with a hand in a T-shirt and shorts.
“I didn’t know how long you’d be gone,” he says as she lands. “I’m glad you’re back. Something weird is happening and I need your eyes on it.”
“What’s going on?” she asks.
“Remember that Red universe that I got trapped in a while back? When I joined with the Red Father to keep Clay and mi abuelo safe from him?”
Alia remembers, but she also remembers the pre-Hyperion version of that time. Before Alia reset the universe, the Red Father had been sealed by a spell from the first Alia long ago that was broken when two beings of arcane power self-destructed, unleashing the Red Father and his minions to seek revenge on Alia. Ivan had been possessed by the Red Father, his soul displaced into the Red universe from which the Red Father drew his power. But after the Hyperion, Ivan’s history had been rewritten and he has a much better relationship with his grandfather, so much so that he practically raised Ivan. When the Red Father breached reality from the Red universe, it was a stroke of fate that allowed it and Ivan detected him instantly because he was meditating at the time and he was able to sense the destructive force when it suddenly appeared. Ivan confronted the Red Father, but was unable to best him, and the Red Father tried to recruit Ivan to be his partner because of the impressive power he displayed. Ivan rejected the offer and the Red Father used the two people Ivan cared for most to coax him into the Red universe. He was freed after Clay contacted Alia and her friend Wendy for help.
“I remember,” Alia says.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on the tear between our universe and the Red one, just to make sure nothing dangerous pops out of it again, and everything’s been normal. Until last night, it felt like the tear closed.”
“That’s good, ain’t it?” Alia asks.
“I guess, but I checked it again this morning, and the rift’s still there, but nothing on the other side. I astral projected there to get a better look. I looked through it, Alia, and the red is gone. All of it. The whole universe is gray and it’s like nothing’s moving, it’s just still. I felt something from there, not destruction like usual, it was more like, I don’t know, a hunger. We sealed the tear so I can see through but nothing should be able to get through. I do wonder what happened over there, though, and if we should be worried.”
Alia is puzzled. It does seem fortuitous that the threat of the Red universe seems to be neutralized, but it is strange for a universe to be paused in its development. All universes cycle through their existence many times, Alia had learned that to be a constant of existence.
“Can you take me to it, or should we just astral project?” Alia asks.
“I wanna see with my own eyes, and you can probably feel it better if you’re closer,” Ivan says. “But it’s in the Congo.”
“In Africa?” Alia asks. “Why didn’t I realize that?”
“It’s a coincidence as far as I can tell.”
Ivan is surrounded by green flames and he levitates. Alia feels him lift off and she is not far behind him.
The two fly for hours, much faster than aircraft makes the trip from the US to the Congo, but instead of landing in the lush rainforests of the Congo, they land in the desert region just north of it.
“This is the Sahara, isn’t it?” Alia says as they land in sand.
“The Congo’s right over there,” Ivan says and points. “But the tear is right here. I think we can only see it as astral projections so just use that mindset.”
“It’s right here,” Alia says and she faces what looks to be a normal spot in space that looks just like the rest of the desert surrounding them. She could walk through this rift that looks like the fabric of reality has been cut and flaps open like curtains in front of an open window. She can see what Ivan had described, a gray, stagnant universe, nothing like the Red that had raged through it before.
“It seems dead in there,” Ivan says.
“It is,” Alia says. She is about to say something else, but then she remembers that Ivan had mentioned feeling a hunger from the other universe, and then she feels something like that. It is faint at first and she takes a step closer. “The patron of the Red Father, whatever gave him his power, is gone and it has been replaced by something. Whatever killed everything. Do you feel that? The hunger, is it singular?”
“I can’t tell, it seems like one big thing maybe?”
Alia tries to concentrate deeper and she decides to eject her astral form.
“You don’t have to go with me,” Alia’s astral form says, floating before her body like a faint copy of it. “I just have to know what that is.”
Ivan ejects his astral form as well. “I won’t let you go alone.”
Alia nods and she shields their bodies in a camouflaged force field, then leads Ivan through the billowing curtains of their existence into another.
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