#140 – The Grand Mother

“Oh! I know Celesmy!” Maia said excitedly.

“Yes, my diminutive forms are known by your kind quite well. I haven’t been in my true form in many an eon… Although, I suppose in this world, I’ve only existed for about three years…” explained the light.

 Maia squinted her eyes. “I wish I could see you.”

The light laughed. “I will grant that wish, easily.”

Kane’s heart sank.

“Relax, Kane,” said the light. “This one won’t count. I am not cruel.”

The light dispelled, and in its place, a gently glowing woman floated amid the abyss. Her starry eyes glistened with wonder, and being in her presence alone filled Maia and Kane with a gentle warmth. If it weren’t for the lack of anything around them, they would be unable to see the full scale of her. She towered over creation itself. Kane wondered how it was possible to fit her within his vision. It seemed that wherever they were, reality was certainly skewed here.

“You’re a pretty lady,” said Maia.

The Grand Mother giggled. “You’re rather adorable yourself, omnimaster Maia. Now then, shall we get to your wish?”

Kane asked, “Is there still time? The world was turning so fast…”

GrandCelesmy replied, “You did well in keeping ChronoKinmy’s power away from Reklauzolth. Rest easy, for now. I must hear Maia’s wish.”

Kane felt a wave of relief wash over him. It wasn’t over. They had done it. Maia just needed to undo the wish, like they planned.

“What should I wish for?” Maia asked.

The relief vanished.

“Well, Maia, I can grant any wish you’d like. Or undo any wish previously granted. I believe I can undo Reklauzolth’s wishes as well, but we’d need to try it to see,” said GrandCelesmy.

“What’s that do?” Maia asked.

“It would undo the effects of Reklauzolth’s wish granting. Your world would be restored from its influence. Reklauzolth will be forced back to where it came from, where it will no doubt decay as it exceeds its reality. Monommy, including myself, will cease to exist. Perhaps humanity could live from there. Matter would be restored to how it was before, but I must warn you, I know not what the world would be like if it were completely devoid of Reklauzolth I can’t guarantee a pleasant universe.”

Maia thought for a moment. Kane couldn’t hear her thoughts, but could hear something else. Something erratic and high pitched. It was irritating.

“What else can I wish for?” Maia asked.

“Whatever else your young mind can imagine, my dear,” said GrandCelesmy.

Kane, GrandCelesmy, and the entire world waited in the quiet for her decision, with only the irritating sound in Kane’s mind to break the silence.

Then, finally, Maia spoke.

“I wish…”

Kane felt Maia’s presence vanish.

“What happened to her?!” he yelled out.

“She made her wish,” said GrandCelesmy. “I promised to grant her it.”

“What did she wish for?”

“It matters not. She did not wish to fix this world.”

Kane’s heart sank. “Really?”

“Really. Her wish was good, and kind. But it was not what you requested of her,” said GrandCelesmy. “I shan’t tell you what the wish was.”

“I see…”

GrandCelesmy closed her eyes. “Seeing as how an omnimaster is born every generation, however…”

Kane felt a surge of tingling energy fill his being.

“…and how you are the only one of the children – of humanity – that I can see at the moment…”

Kane’s body came into being, and there he was, floating in space, before The Grand Mother.

“…well, then the randomness factor is eliminated, isn’t it?”

“But I wasn’t the chosen one,” Kane said, looking down at his hands.

“Who do you think chooses the chosen one?” GrandCelesmy asked with a smirk.

“Oh, right… But why? Maia’s wish still hasn’t been granted.”

“Monommy don’t need to obey their human partners, you know. It’s a choice.”

“I do know that,” said Kane, looking back at up at the goddess.

“Maia is a good child,” said GrandCelesmy, “and like her wish, her heart is good, and kind. No doubt she’s been being raised well.” The Grand Mother smiled.

GrandCelesmy’s eyes drifted towards the abyss. “But her heart… it is not pure.”

Kane was surprised to hear this. How could a six year old’s heart not be pure?

“You misunderstand,” said GrandCelesmy. “None of this world’s hearts are pure. Not her’s, not your’s, not Glenn’s, not the kindest individual you’ve ever met. And I see it not just within Earth’s Children, but within the Children who arrived here from Frewosz as well. Even the Elves, the Dwarves, the Fairies, and the Demigoddesses. Not a pure heart in sight. This is not how it was in Frewosz. This world is far more complex than the one I came from. Why is that, do you think?”

“I don’t know…” said Kane.

“Surely you do. You are of this… Earth.”

“Well I guess… Life is just complicated. There’s no pure hearts because nobody is that simple?” said Kane. He wasn’t totally sure of his own explanation. He certainly wasn’t an expert in human souls. Nobody was.

“I see… You know, despite all of this chaos and bloodshed, I’ve grown quite fond of your reality,” said GrandCelesmy. She held out her hands and cupped them under Kane.

She continued, “As you said, it is complicated. No two people are the same, not entirely. In Frewosz, we followed set paths, acting out a story. Even I was unaware of this. I simply did as I chose to do, as did we all. When I would peer into the heart of a mortal, I would see who they were and it was very simple. I now know, because of my time in this reality, that in Frewosz – in the game world – we didn’t truly have free will. We thought we did.”

The Grand Mother smiled brightly. “Yet here, I stare into your soul and see a complex, intricate weave of varying threads and lights, colours and frequencies. Some of which I thought not to exist. It’s wonderful.”

Kane let out a small laugh. A god, discovering colours, like a little kid.

GrandCelesmy sighed dreamily and closed her eyes, then said, “To think, I considered myself omniscient. Every being of this universe seems to have the potential for countless more universes within them. It is an awe inspiring thing.”

Kane tilted his head. “You really think we have universes inside of us?”

GrandCelesmy’s bright starry eyes opened as she shook her head. “No.”

Kane felt disappointed. It sounded cool. GrandCelesmy gently pat Kane’s head with the tip of her finger.

“But I know you to have the potential for it,” she clarified. “Each and every Child does. Many seem to believe that some of you lose it when you age, but this is not true. Those untapped universes simply lay dormant. I am positive the potential is always there for those who seek it out.”

Kane nodded.

“Humans are sources of limitless imagination, should they desire to be. They have the power to create wonderful worlds of all kinds,” said GrandCelesmy.

“Well, Frewosz did come from someone’s imagination,” said Kane.

“Yes!” said The Grand Mother excitedly. “My world is the creation of Alexandra Stella. I would have liked to thank her for creating me. I wonder if other worlds would do the same.”

Kane’s ears perked up. “Other worlds?”

“Monommy was not the only piece of fiction on Earth,” she clarified.

“Oh. I hadn’t thought about other things being as real as… You,” said Kane.

The Grand Mother laughed, then sighed, staring off into the abyss behind Kane.

“It is a sad thing that those worlds, those stories, those characters and experiences, are lost now. They had every right to exist in your world, just as we did,” said GrandCelesmy.

“That would have been even more chaotic, hahaha” Kane chuckled.

GrandCelesmy shook her head.

“You misinterpret my words, Kane. The Monommy series should never have completely taken over like it did. It should not have absorbed so many lives and plunged your world into darkness as it did.”

“But the Monommy were amazing! You made this world a better place, it was the chaos types and Reklauzolth who ruined it!” Kane protested.

“Everybody’s story deserves to be told,” said The Grand Mother. “Not just Alexandra Stella’s. Not just yours. Not just mine. In a world ruled by one story, there’s no room for other stories. What a boring world that would be.”

“I guess you’re right, in a way…” said Kane. Despite it all, he did love living in a world with real Monommy.

“It was wrong that your world became all about us. What Reklauzolth did was abominable, but our existence here was wrong too. Monommy was already real enough here – it touched the hearts of many, entertained you, some of you even found friends and family through it,” said GrandCelesmy, her smile beaming.

Kane smiled too. She was right, he had found family.

“Just because something is fictional, does not make it unimportant. Humans carry their stories with them their whole lives, real and fictional. These stories and characters become a part of your soul. Your beautiful, complicated, messy souls,” said GrandCelesmy.

The new omnimaster and the goddess of Monommy sat in silence for a moment, staring at one another.

“Well, Monommy becoming real was a dream come true, until the world started to break,” said Kane.

GrandCelesmy chuckles. “I believe the sky tore the very moment we popped into existence here.”

“Oh, right…”

“I will not deny that it was interesting!” said the goddess. “Even wonderful for some of you, just as it was terrifying for others. Not to mention how almost all Monommy the world over developed mental illnesses when they learned of their true origin as video game characters, hahaha!”

Kane wasn’t exactly surprised to hear that.

“Aah, but I am certainly thankful that it happened, wrong as it was,” she continued, “as thanks to the wish, I came into being and had the opportunity to truly live. Fantasy is wonderful but how lovely is it to breathe in the air of a real world?”

Kane took a deep breath, then noticed something.

“Hey, how am I breathing, anyways? Isn’t this space?” he asked.

“You are not. I have removed the need to, for the time being,” GrandCelesmy explained.

“Weird…”

“Yes. All of this is rather odd.”

The two sat in silence for a while longer. The irritating sound in Kane’s mind didn’t stop, but he felt calm regardless in the light of GrandCelesmy.

“So…” said Kane, “If I’m the omnimaster now, I can make a wish?”

“You had a hand in summoning me. You have the omnimmy ability. So naturally, yes, you may make a wish,” said the goddess.

“How do I know you won’t put it on hold like you did Maia’s?”

“Oh ho ho!” The Grand Mother laughed in surprise. “You dare accuse me of not granting it? I like you very much, Kane Redwoods.”

Kane gulped.

“Worry not, my dear,” said GrandCelesmy, “Your wish will be granted, and I will grant it first. I… sort of need to, to grant Maia’s, to tell the truth.”

“Oh…”

“Whenever you’re ready, Kane. You are my wishmaker, just as Maia and Cherise were Reklauzolth’s wishmakers. They had their opportunities to be the main character of their stories. You, Kane, are who the Grands have now chosen. It must have been fate when you picked up the Monommy Machine that would house Virusmy,” said the goddess.

“Oh, my dad brought it home from work one day. He wanted to make up for yelling at me,” said Kane. He still felt very conflicted.

“Well, fate or no, it was your compassion to that being, to Virusmy, born not of Frewosz nor truly Earth, that made me realize I made the right decision, through the guardians.”

Kane looked down. “I don’t want to make the wrong wish.”

“Of course you don’t. You want this world fixed, yes?”

“Of course I do,” said Kane.

“Then may I make a suggestion?”

“Please.”

“The way I see it, you have two options, assuming you want to be rid of Reklauzolth. I certainly do, but it is your wish,” the goddess began.

“I want that thing gone,” said Kane, clenching his fists.

“Naturally.”

“What are my options then?”

The Grand Mother pulled her hands back, letting Kane’s body float suspended in the abyss. She held out her left hand, and a tiny light appeared floating above it, in the shape of Celesmy’s Light form.

“I can assume my Light form and grant a new wish. However, the only way to do so safely, and to be free of Reklauzolth, would be to start anew. I would erase this universe from existence, and a new one would form. I could choose to include magic in that world if you would like, and I could guarantee you would be reborn into it. However, as the current universe is infected with Reklauzolth’s influence, none of your friends, family, or anyone on Earth would be reborn in this new universe. You wouldn’t remember them anyways, so you would not miss them, but the option is there,” she explained.

Kane didn’t like the idea of being alone. A new universe of magic sounded great, but not without his friends. Not without his family. He asked, “…what’s the other option?”

“The other wish you could make would be an Unwish. I would assume my Dark form, and undo the wishes that Maia Clive and Cherise Caulfield were granted. This would also undo all wishes that Reklauzolth ever granted. If Reklauzolth never detected a wish from your universe, they would never be able to form the dark star and squeeze their way in. However, as all wishes are undone, Monommy would certainly no longer be real beings. And I cannot say what else might change about the world, for I know not what Reklauzolth has changed in this reality. I know for certain that the two wishmakers we know of weren’t the only ones. This is the option I told Maia of earlier, although I left out some details. I was worried she would choose the other option, a magical universe, without thinking,” she explained.

Kane nodded. That made sense. The last time a six year old changed the fabric of reality to add magic to it, it didn’t end well.

Kane sighed. “It feels like either way I lose… I need some time to think.”

“Time is something that no longer exists,” said GrandCelesmy. “I have ceased all causality, save for our minds so we may communicate. You have a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of an instant to make your decision, and you have limitless time to make your decision. Both statements are true.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You have as much time as you need, dear. You and I are the only beings in this universe who can think at the moment. I had to make it so, to prevent Reklauzolth from firing even a single neuron. The rest of the universe’s consciousness is too infected. Virusmy’s quick thinking is to thank for severing the connection between your mind and Reklauzolth’s,” said the goddess.

“Wait, Virusmy did that? When?” Kane asked, confused.

“She seemed to find an error of some sort in spacetime. To her, it appeared like code. In the time you were scattered from Warpmy’s portal spell, she fed the error into your mind, and it snapped the connection,” the goddess explained.

“So that’s what the glitch in my eyes was about,” said Kane.

“Her power is fascinating, it far exceeds what she should be capable of. I think, perhaps, Amalchemy accidentally imbued her with Divine magic when granting her a body. They weren’t properly fused when she was made, so it’s possible. I know not, to tell the truth. This never happened on Frewosz.”

“Wow…”

“If it weren’t for her, it would just be me and Maia here. I would have either granted her wish, or we would stay in this place between time forever. The universe may have simply… stopped.”

Kane stared out into the abyss. An eternity of just Maia and GrandCelesmy… It would get old, he thought.

“It is fortunate that we have this silence to share,” said the goddess.

“I wish it was silent,” said Kane sarcastically.

“But it is,” said GrandCelesmy, confused.

“Oh,” said Kane, turning again to face her. “I hear this weird noise in my mind.”

“You do?” The Grand Mother asked, very confused. “That should be impossible… I don’t feel Reklauzolth or any life besides it…”

She touched a finger to Kane’s head again and closed her eyes.

“Wait. What is that?”

Inside Kane’s being, GrandCelesmy saw Kane’s soul, glowing brightly and healthily as it should. She saw the fragments of Virusmy’s soul, intertwined with Kane’s, that served as evidence of their pact. But behind that, she saw a glitchy, purple mess.

A glowing cosmic hand reached into Kane and pulled the glitchy mess out of him.

As soon as it was out and Kane could see it, the noise in his head disappeared, and he recognized it.

“It’s INDEXfal!” he said, pointing at the glitched ‘Monommy’.

“An error in the programming of the game we came from?” The Grand Mother asked.

INDEXfal vibrated and twitched in place, unspeaking. It moved erratically but somehow also stayed in place.

GrandCelesmy studied it for a moment, watching its movements.

“I see,” she said. “When Reklauzolth granted the wish to make Monommy real, it made the game real, and with it, its errors. Like this INDEXfal.”

She reached a hand out to INDEXfal, and it caused her fingers to start to glitch out.

“Kane, my dear, are you familiar with what INDEXfal did to the game?” she asked, staring at INDEXfal with wonder and curiosity.

“It corrupted save files,” said Kane. “you didn’t want to have its Drop, or your game would be changed forever until you started a new game.”

“Yes,” said GrandCelesmy. She crushed INDEXfal in her hand, and the purple glitchy effect spread across her hand. “It changed the rules.”

Kane stared at the glitchy energy that was now swirling around GrandCelesmy. “What does that mean for the real world?”

“It means,” The Grand Mother said with a warm and bright smile, “that you have a third option.”

Kane’s heart skipped a beat.

“What is it?”

GrandCelesmy laughed. “I have no idea! But I can guarantee you, I can force it to include magic. And I can bring over any humans still alive.”

“What about the Monommy?” Kane asked, gripping his Drop charm bracelet.

“I’m not sure,” said GrandCelesmy.

Kane pulled Virusmy’s Drop off of his bracelet one last time, splashing it down. In a burst of light, Virusmy appeared, asleep, in Kane’s arms. He held her close.

“Thank you.”

Kane looked up at GrandCelesmy, staring directly in her starry eyes.

“I wish…