Author's Note: We are halfway through the story. I'm sure many of you have questions, but here is the interlude that tells Warren/Mortar's tale from a few years prior.

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Interlude part I
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A traveling bard sat in one of the few relatively safe corners of the universe. Various beings drank and gambled away their troubles. Some knew the universe could end at any moment, some truly didn’t care.

He stroked against his string instrument, and chimed away:

“There once was a man from Paragon. There was a champion of virtue who knew freedom. There was one destined to bear the burden . . .”

***

Four years ago

Warren tried to not get involved in random gang disputes, as a hero, unless they went beyond a line that threatened to harm good, honest people. Lately, things had been getting more dangerous, and it was spreading beyond the boundaries of Paragon City.

He was walking into town from the house his friend and business partner had bought. It was the house they’d grown up in as orphans. Warren had felt a connection to that house, decades ago, before he’d learned that it would be where he was going to grow up, so he approved of the buy that Peter had made and celebrated through the night.

Now, it was time to check on a building again, one that Warren had been eyeing for days. No, this time he was bringing something, as silly as it might have seemed.

The flowers in his hand smelled wonderful. He hoped she would like them. He hoped she wasn’t allergic. Was it even possible for her to be allergic to anything? The scientist in him wanted to watch from a distance and takes notes to find out.

After setting them down by the door, along with a note saying hello, he knocked on the door and slipped away into the distance. Warren took one more look back at the flowers and door to see if anything had changed, but nothing.

He turned away and noticed someone was watching him. It was War Lagoon. There was a face he hadn’t seen in a minute.

“I never would have thought you had a cute side,” War Lagoon managed to tease with a serious tone and mostly straight face.

***

These had to be among the strangest gang members that Mortar Mage had ever fought. He took down two of them already; they were strong enough against his magic and gadgets. It was a fight that would have destroyed a school bus, and killed everyone on it, had Mortar not intervened. What he could not understand was why gangs who dressed alike would fight amongst themselves, especially in the open like this. It had to be counterproductive.

He followed two of them toward a building where they turned a corner into an alley. Mortar heard more grunts, screams, and sounds often affiliated with violence. Great, they ran into a corner to fight some more.

Or did they? Mortar stood at the entrance to the alley and found a woman standing there with raven black hair. Her outfit reminded him of a toy soldier, and he had seen her one other time.

Toyenna.

She spotted him, but gave no response of any kind. Toyenna walked to a door going into an adjacent building, and entered it.

Curious, he followed. Mortar got to the door when everything around him jolted, and a flash of light shot out of the entrance. He took a better look inside when everything calmed down. The light source looked like a portal. Toyenna walked into it. Again, Mortar followed.

Up? Left? Backward? Age? All of it became as much vague as it was child’s play while Mortar Mage found himself in a daze, shaking it off, and pushing himself off of the grated flooring while the blue luminescence behind him vanished.

The portal was gone. The room was cozy, but a little dark. There were hallways to the left and right.

Instinct, as dangerous as that was, told him he wanted to try right. So he quickly peeked the left first before glancing right. The right hallway was where he caught one more glimpse of Toyenna before she turned another corner.

Along the walls, there were blank panels where any reasonable designer would place windows. In the back of his mind, Mortar could hear a former friend and colleague asking if they at least had apples, and he could hear that same friend being smacked upside the head.

He made haste without making too much noise. Where this was, he did not know, but his gut told him it was important.

A few more corners came and went, and then Toyenna disappeared into a room where light flickered in a manner that made Mortar think of a blowtorch. It stopped, as did the final waves of the blowtorch’s sound, and there were voices. A man and a woman.

Mortar crept closer.

“I have brought a visitor,” said the woman. The hint of mechanism in her voice was so soft and subtle that most people would have missed it.

“Ah, you did?” the man said. “Is it him?”

“There is a ninety-nine-point—“

“Toyenna.”

“—a high probability that he is the one. He is hiding behind the wall as if playing a game. Do children grow the size of human adults?”

“Some do, but let’s not get into politics. You there! By the door, can you show yourself? I promise you we mean no harm.”

Mortar Mage entered the room. The man he found shared his short, brown, and wavy hair, as well as his nose and chin, though Mortar found himself glad that the man’s protective mask was up so that he could identify a gentleman with half of his likeness.

That was when Mortar brought down his hood. He left on his domino mask for the time being. He wasn’t in any danger, he didn’t think, but he wasn’t sure how much he could trust anyone here. The other man in the room tore the protective mask from his face and extended his arms to either side with an enthusiastic smile.

“Welcome home, son!”

***

The two of them talked as they strolled through the main hallway that circled this vessel. They were flying in space, but not mortal space.

“The eternal realm?” Warren asked.

“Correct,” said the man claiming to be his father. His name was Dexios. “The vast majority of us living here have a genetic distinction that lets us come and go as we please with this realm. Here, time as you know it is . . . different. There is a beginning, a definite end, but all else is the middle, flowing in every direction. It makes us look immortal where you come from, but it’s all a trick.”

“How long do you think has passed on Earth then since you were last there?”

“Hard to say. Since you were entrusted to a friend of ours? Too long. Twenty-four years.”

“If so long has passed, then how have you not aged? Do you take one breath here, and everyone I’ve known on Earth has had their last?”

Had their last. David, Peter, Jeff.

“Your friends are fine,” said Dexios. “A second here and now is still a second there and now, but it can also be a second there and almost any time, past or future. At least, that’s how best any of us can explain it. Time is tricky here, and going back to an earlier moment to find a person or place is as messy as it is dangerous. I’m ashamed to say this, but we waited too long to come find you. At the same time, I’m glad you’re safe from our own troubles here in the eternal realm. Or were. Being here has exposed you to a great risk.”

“I’m used to risking my life by now,” Warren stated.

“So I’ve noticed. Is that why you wear this interesting outfit? Toyenna has explained to me that your version of the mortal realm is one of the many variations where there are abilities beyond ‘normal human parameters,’ as she put it.”

“There are other versions of me?”

“It’s possible, though I can’t say for sure. You were born before your mother was given the same genetic distinction we have, so that makes you a ‘quarter god,’ practically mortal and highly susceptible to mortal rules of time. However, the other versions would all be copies made by an infinite number of decisions made in your very complicated realm, even at a specific starting point. Yours is close to being the center of everything, meaning that your version will have lasted most decisions made in the history of the mortal realm. Ah, let’s stop now, I never liked school, and I’m sure you can do without quite so much detail on the intricacies of why you’re you, and you can’t be replaced by your duplicates.”

“I appreciate that.”

“If you choose to become immortal and need the lecture for the exams Hades and Styx give you, then let me know, however.”

“There’s an exam?”

“Think of the written and behind-the-wheel exams for driving in your realm, but add loads of math and poetry to them, respectively. Styx really loves the one about the two planes leaving somewhere at the same time. The answer is always goldfish, but look luck guessing which kind.”

A door slid open, and there was a woman humming a melody to her bulging belly. Warren thought her golden blond hair was a state of perfection, and her overall beauty, both in looks and in voice, made him lose words he never thought he had.

She looked up at him and Dexios. Her eyes, blue as an ocean deep, were just like Warren’s. She smiled at him.

“It’s you. My dear son, you’ve come at last,” she said.

When she spoke, Warren recognized her face. In one room of the mansion where he had grown up, there were a number of busts depicting important members of the family who’d owned the building before the orphanage acquired it. It was his hiding place when Warren had had an anxiety or panic attack, or when he needed a place to cry, because none of the kids were allowed down there. Not even Peter knew about it until Warren pointed it out. All that time he’d spent down there allowed him to learn some of those faces. Hers was one of them.

Her name was listed beneath the bust, as all busts in that room had them, but Warren never learned those names, only their faces. Hers was Enid. She was born in 1887, but she looked not a day past thirty, if even that.

Warren said, “I still don’t understand. If you’re really my parents, then why did you give me up? What will you do when your new child is born?”

Enid replied, “We hoped we could bring you home sooner. There is a war out there. The gods and their ilk were always in unrest before all that happened recently, if ‘recently’ is a good word for it. I didn’t want you to see a war-torn realm, but I also didn’t want you to grow up in a time when you would have been sent into child labor like I saw in my day. We had a friend who admired the late twentieth century Earth, and asked that friend to take you in until this realm was ready for you. But it’s still not ready for anyone. The decision was a terrible one, but it was made with you in mind.”

“I’m not blaming you. I just wish you had at least found me sooner. It will be a while before I’m ready to call you Mom, or him Dad.”

“Twenty-four years, Warren. It must be frustrating to take this long to meet your parents.”

“To be fair, the adoption system isn’t much better these days.”

“Just as long as you aren’t setting any houses on fire that would take you. Would you like to know a secret?”

“What?”

“When your father works on his masterpieces, I fear he’ll set this whole ship on fire.”

***

“So, what are you working on?” Warren asked.

Dexios said, “Right now? A welding sculpture.”

“I thought there was a war going on?”

“There is, but art is always necessary. It’s magic for the heart and mind, because knowledge and love are the greatest forms of magic of all.”

“I find it odd that a god, or even a demigod, would use the word ‘magic.’”

“Why shouldn’t we? It’s one of the best words to come out of the mortal realm. Your mother is good with words. Astounding. She’s just as good with them as she is with curiosity. It’s why I fell for her. Ah, I still remember those days. It’s ironic that she and I not only fulfilled one of her favorite stories, but we inspired it.”

“What story is that?”

***

Toyenna entered the observation deck while Warren peered out the window into the spiraling lights in the distance. He had barely noticed her.

“Hello again, Warren,” she said.

Now she was a beauty that Warren truly wanted to know better. She stood by the sofa that he sat in.

“Hello,” Warren replied.

“I see you have visited us multiple times in the last seven days.”

“Can you blame me? A man needs to know where he comes from, and a man knows when he sees something he likes.”

“What is it you like?”

He brought a hand to her cheek. It felt so undeniably human. “For starters, you.”

“You are not repulsive to look at, yourself.”

Warren laughed, then turned back to the lights ahead. “Dexios tells me that if I stay a while, I will get to see your destination, but that I’ll be unable to return to the mortal realm as long as we’re there.”

“This is true.”

“And yet time doesn’t matter the same way here as it does where I’m from.”

“I come from the same realm as you, but I cannot find a good reply.”

“No need. I suppose I might understand better as I stick around. I’m going to have to, now. The fighting on Earth has become too dangerous to let it go on. I need to find out how and why the war here is spilling into the mortal realm.”

“That is why I allied myself with your father and his friends. They wish to end the war, but the bleeding into other realms has piqued his interest as a scientist.”

“You believe he is my father then?”

“Believe? I cannot say. That is not a word I am capable of applying to any case. You do share DNA with Dexios and Enid, according to my scans.”

“So I see.” He nodded.

His search for the last fourteen years had finally come to an end. The feeling was just there, but it was difficult to define or put words to. It was like spotting a falcon behind heavy clouds, and being unable to tell that it was, in fact, a falcon from far away.

Toyenna sat next to him, her posture too perfect to be human, but somehow just right for Warren. Never once did he think he would meet an android who would sit by its own free will.

Naturally, he had to ask about it.

“Do androids feel the need to sit or sleep?”

“Of course we do,” she said. “Exhaustion, energy conservation, and restoration are all part of our function.”

“What else is built in to your body?”

“I am unsure. I appear to be drawn to the protection of others. I once saw dying flowers outside the lab where I was brought to life. I spent days trying to keep them alive, but they did not make it past yesterday.”

“Ah. I am sorry. I will try to remember not to send flowers in the future?”

“Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“I think I enjoyed their care. Their time was short and sad, but I was . . . unknown . . . that to be a part of their time in the end. I tried asking Dexios and Enid about it, but they chose to let me explore the unknown. Warren, am I broken?”

***

He flipped a page, thinking that he finally figured out the last. There were even more symbols he hardly recognized. This was difficult without anyone telling him what each symbol was called or how it was supposed to sound.

“There you are,” came a lovely voice.

Warren pried his eyes from the odd book, and found Enid standing there. “Hi.”

“What are you reading, there?”

“I’m trying to learn the written language that Dexios uses. He said that the older gods all use it like a shorthand for notes and ideas these days, and I thought it was interesting enough to try learning it.”

She snorted. “I’ve been trying to figure that out for the better part of the last century. When did he give you that book?”

“He didn’t. I found it on the shelf of random reading materials three days ago. I think I’ve figured out fifteen of these symbols?”

“Fifteen? In three days?”

“I’ve been busy trying to stop a few fights on Earth, and proving someone’s theory wrong regarding a basic law of magic.”

“Your grades in school must have been something that would have made me proud.”

“Ah. I, uhh . . . no. I can’t say . . .” Warren cleared his throat.

“You know, we’re in a realm where time means as much as a loose carriage on a boat during a small storm. Just because you’re in your twenties doesn’t mean you’re too old for me to ground you.”

“Noted. Sorry, Mom.”

“Second of all— Wait, what did you just call me?”

It took Warren a second to realize that he actually did say it. It was a lot easier than he thought it would be. It was right, he decided.

“Mom.”

Moments passed before Enid spoke again. During that time, she practically hid her face by standing next to the main window and gazing out. A period of silence passed where her stunted breaths were visible.

“I sometimes wonder what it would be like, talking to my sisters again and gossiping about who-knows-what,” she said. “Especially Dawn; she was always the wisecrack.”

Warren said, “Was it hard to leave them behind, or watch them grow older?”

“I wish I could say. They were among the first to perish in this awful war. We blamed a friend of Dexios’s at first, until we learned that the portal was closed by another. Now all I can do is talk to them from here, and hope they’re at peace.”

“From here?”

“Yes. Has anyone told you this as of yet? We’re venturing to the temple that watches over the souls of the departed. Everyone you’ve known or loved passes through here before moving on to the next life. I wonder if it’s happened for them yet?”

He stood up slowly. The spiral of lights shone in different brightness from one formless light to the next, and each shone a variety of colors with redder and bluer hues further out from the center. The revelation was more than Warren had ever expected to hear. He rested a hand on the window and whispered at the spiral in the distance.

“Can you hear me, Pix?” He clenched his fist, and bumped his head on the glass.

“Who was Pix?” Enid asked.

“She was a friend, like a little sister to me. To everyone. We failed her.”

Enid put a hand on his shoulder. “Then all the more reason to come help us when we get to the temple.”

He weighed her words, and he knew right away that it meant something. It meant more than life or death.

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Interlude part II
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Mortar Mage let one of his gadgets take the lead as he and his allies entered the temple to fend off invaders. Dozens of fighters came at them with barely any sign of life or willpower in their eyes.

As he fought, Mortar saw Dexios use contraptions of his own that were designed to contain their foes. Most of the actual fighting was left to Mortar and Toyenna.

They found Styx alive, though bleeding and unconscious on the floor. Toyenna finally showed off her healing ray for the moment they were examining the beaten god. He was going to make it, but he wasn’t going to be much help in a fight.

Within the main chamber of the floating temple, Hades and Hel fought against a towering menace of a man that threatened to unravel the divine quilt of life and death. Mortar entered in time to see a weapon strike the unknown man, and turn to dust upon contact. The man laughed, but Mortar Mage caught him off guard with a fireball to the back of the head.

It became a fight of three on one, as Toyenna was told to stay back due to an unknown risk to her body. She helped Dexio collect the unconscious bodies of everyone who worked the temple. Hel continued to use ranged attacks, for the little good they did, until Mortar had a thought.

“He might be absorbing the density of any object we hit him with,” he said.

“What are we supposed to do?” Hades asked, dodging an attack from the menace.

“Invulnerability comes with an element that can bypass it. This isn’t the same thing, but I’m willing to bet that heat and energy based attacks will still work, even if we have to whittle him down.”

Hades let out a scream and conjured a lance of fire and lightning. He lunged and brought it down, point first, into the menace’s face. He pushed and he pushed.

Mortar Mage threw a barrage of fireballs and arcane blasts at the menace from behind. Between the two of them, they were at least causing their foe’s skin to glow with heat, his body to stagger, and his voice to show signs of struggle.

“Move it!” a woman shouted. It was Hel.

Hades and Mortar slipped away before Hel flipped open the nozzle on a hose that she had aimed at the overgrown invader. Gushing fluids impacted the menace, and he screamed as his limbs stiffened. Soon, he was nothing more than a frozen statue.

“You boys and your love of fire,” Hel quipped with a raspy voice. She dropped the hose and walked away.

“She does have a point,” Hades said. “Still, what do you think we should do with him?”

Mortar said, “I’d say imprison him, but it doesn’t look like the land of the dead will do much good for that.”

He received a frank and stern expression from the renowned god. Then a slap on the shoulder as Hades roared in laughter. “Dexios, where did you find this one? I like him!”

***

“Warren? I require your input on something,” said Toyenna.

He couldn’t see her at first as Warren entered the room. “Where are you?”

She stepped out of hiding. Toyenna was wearing a casual, yellow dress with a ruffled skirt. And was she wearing makeup?

“What’s this?” Warren asked her.

Toyenna explained, “My normal clothes required cleaning, but I had no backup in my wardrobe. Your mother suggested that I go buy more clothing.”

“Sensible. I’m glad you had money for it.”

“I did not know what to do, and I found some human girls who were willing to give me something called a ‘makeover.’ I do not understand this. I am trying. I feel . . . this was a mistake.” She tried to make for the door.

Warren caught her by the arm. “Wait, wait, wait.”

“This confuses me. I must change out and wait for the washer to finish.”

“Wait, you mean naked? Or do you have other clothes too?”

“Others are variations of this. Please let me go, Warren. I do not wish to hurt you.”

“You look beautiful.” He waited for her to respond. She said and did nothing. “You look fine, more than fine. I mean . . . Toyenna, there is nothing wrong with looking the way you do. If you hate it, say the word and I will let you go.”

“Hate; no. I’m simply confused.”

“Tell you what: I know that the universe is a dangerous place right now, but let’s take some time to ourselves. Give it time to figure out whether or not you like this outfit enough to keep it.”

“What do you suggest?”

“How do you feel about movies?”

***

Enid pressed a ring into Warren’s hand. It was silver, and plain except for an etching on a section of its surface. The ring barely fit Warren’s index finger on either hand.

“This belongs to you now,” she said. “There is a record, stored in the Paragon City Library, that needs to be continued. Ask for the family chronicle by name, and show them this ring. As long as the person at the desk is aware of the record, you should be able to access it.”

“Have you never thought to return to Earth and continue your work yourself?” Warren asked.

“I’ve thought about it, but every time I visit the mortal realm, it scares me. There’s always so much fighting, and so many changes that I have difficulty keeping track. No, the record needs new eyes. New hands. Your sister might be able to observe and write as you have proven yourself able, but that’s too far into the future to tell.”

“Sister?” He put a hand on her belly. “Wow. It’s funny how things finally hit you.”

“Maybe one day she will get to read your magazine. I know your father is fighting the urge to pick up every future issue you’ve yet to print. He laughed harder than I’ve heard in a while when someone used one of his better known names while referring to an archer running around without any clothes on.”

“Oh yeah, that was the story about a medical doctor who got lost in a jungle until a nomadic, subterranean tribe found and treated him.”

“That’s the one,” Enid said. “Did one of the tribesmen use transformation disguise himself as a woman just to see the doctor home safely?”

“So the story went. They had triplets recently.”

“Triplets!”

“Now the good doctor jokes that their medicine worked a little too well.”

***

He heard the reminiscent sound of objects being flung varying distances while someone went looking for something. Warren entered his father’s workshop and saw his father foraging through papers and tools.

Warren noticed an odd pack on the floor with “S.O.R.E.” written across the back. It looked like it had a couple slits on the sides where wings could potentially come out, and the pack seemed worn in a few patches.

“Hey, son,” Dexios said.

“Hi. What are you looking for?” Warren said.

“Research notes. I found the machine I built and used, as you see there on the floor, but I had some papers tucked away thinking I might finish some art pieces based on what I found.”

“Found where?”

“The beginning.” He kept looking, and managed to find a large sheet of paper with some markings on it. Warren only gave him an inquisitive stare. “The beginning of everything. The universe.”

“You were around for the beginning of the universe?”

“Of course not. Well, yes. Actually, it’s more like I went back to take a peek, because I wanted to see it with my own eyes. It was inspiring for some of my art; I never thought I’d see better. Then I met your mother. Now, there’s an odd effect of using time travel to see an event during the birth of time itself; left and right become mirrored.”

“I’d have loved to see that. Why the sudden interest in it now?”

“We might have a little problem. I’m hoping this can help me circumvent it entirely.”

***

Warren and Toyenna watched from the observation deck while the ship approached their destination. Many other ships approached it as well, and some were taking potshots at one another.

The gods and demigods were fighting one another for power over their domains since the last ruler was killed by a daughter no one knew he had. Some fought the rest out of spite for their numbers. Now, everyone with god blood and superpowers converged around the “little problem” that Dexios had spoken of.

Since the attack on the Underworld Temple, it was suspected that some of these gods who fought out of spite were ones who were banished aeons ago. It was possible that they were part of the reason that the fighting spilled into other realms.

More of that reason came from advanced androids—Toyenna’s entire line.

The androids were built by a separate entity entirely, but their impact in this situation was undeniable. That was what Dexios told Warren. Together, Dexios and Toyenna were looking for a way to make things right.

A hand brushed his, disturbing Warren’s thoughts. He saw Toyenna’s hand shaking. He grabbed it, clenched it, and offered her his warmth.

“Warren,” she said, “I think I’m scared.”

He said, “It’s OK. I’m here for you.”

Truth be told, seeing the “little problem” ahead frightened him as well. It was not so little after all. Never had he imagined there would be anything darker than black, or that he would look at it from a presumably safe distance. It was the same shape no matter what angle anyone looked at it from, and right now it was shaped like an egg. Eggs hatched and their contents spilled out. If this one cracked, time wouldn’t just cease to follow anyone’s rules. Matter wouldn’t simply shift from one state to another. Light would never shine anywhere, because there would be nowhere. Even gazing at the edges from this far felt as though the time doing so, or more, had never existed in the first place; that he didn’t matter in the slightest.

So Warren and Dexios surmised that sending any person or recording device into that last instant of nothing resulted in it being no more. The one god who had flown into it already would have learned that if there was time to learn. His soul would have joined the countless others if it simply were.

Before them was where everything ended up eventually. It was the end of the universe, on the edge of the eternal realm.

***

Red lights flashed overhead while Mortar Mage and Toyenna ran to meet Dexios. Their ship had been boarded by unwanted visitors, and they drove them out. It was a matter of time before more came.

“Good, you’re here,” said Dexios.

“Mom’s safe,” Mortar said.

“I figured she would be. Ship, seriously, you can stop with the red alert now!” The flashing persisted. “Bah! Machines, I swear. No offense, Toyenna.”

“None taken,” she said. “We are more stubborn than humans or the like.”

“A couple of big guys I know would probably laugh at that. Anyways, you’re both probably wondering what’s happening. It turns out nearly everyone here thought that someone was going to break a former king out of his cell.”

Dexios pointed out of the small window, and the view zoomed in on a rock hovering close to the end of the universe. On top of it was a stone fortress surrounded by fast, circling rings of fire, ice, and something transparent. The writing that appeared on the window labeled it as a “chrono acceleration barrier.” All three rings whipped around the rock and fortress like an illustration of an atom.

A number of gods were kept inside that prison, bound so that they could not use their powers to escape. The banished gods were meant to be worse, but none had ever been seen in ages until the attack on the Underworld Temple. Mortar tried to remember what they were called from the one time he’d read it in that old text.

“We’re up against a faction called the Vanquishiri Bahitians,” Dexios said. That was the name in the text, damn. “Every ship here has received a message saying that the Vanquishiri are preparing to throw an entire realm into the end of the universe.”

“An entire realm?” Mortar asked. “Is that even possible?”

“It shouldn’t be. If it were, though, and they managed it, it would pull everything else into it at an exponential growth. All it would take is . . . ah.”

“What?”

“This could be a problem.”

“What would it take? A rock? A super fatty kids’ meal?”

“Mere objects.”

“Wait, what you’re saying means that the realms are tied somehow. That makes sense, because I can move between this realm and the mortal realm at will when I shouldn’t.”

“You can do that even though you’re only a quarter god. That means they’ve figured this out, and they’ve chosen what to throw into the end. If I’m right, they picked something tied to all realms, something with enough history to hold all ties.”

“Earth; my Earth. They’re going to throw in the planet Earth and start a chain reaction. Then why is everyone fighting still?”

“The message said something about one of our ships or miniature celestial bodies having the key.”

Toyenna turned suddenly. “Teleportation powers have been detected.”

“Dexios!” shouted a man from another room. His voice was deep and booming.

The trio left the observation deck to meet their visitors. Mortar prepared a couple of gadgets designed to entrap someone in large quantities of taffy-like substance, stripped temporarily of superpowers.

Around the corner leading to the bedrooms, they found two men. Both were tall and imposing, both looked furious, but neither looked like he was attacking.

“There you are,” one of them said. “Do you have this key?”

Dexios said, “I’m afraid not. I recommend looking anywhere big enough to store a planet.”

“A planet?”

“Yes, Prometheus, a planet. My son and I suspect the Vanquishiri have done something with the planet Earth; his version of it to be more precise. If we’re right, the mortals will be going mad, and their oblivion would spell the end for everyone.”

“This would not bode well. Come, let’s spread the word and find this planet.” He left with his partner.

***

Everyone aboard Dexio’s ship watched the ensuing discord surround the end. One of the ships exploded. Two beings in what looked like spacesuits flew and wrestled with one another. How many eyes besides their own were on the prison when it changed?

The rock and fortress vanished, and something spherical and larger took its place. That something was the Earth, but it was only halfway here in the eternal realm. Mortar could see through it like it were a projection.

Now it was drifting closer to the end.

“We have no choice now,” Dexios said.

“What do you mean?” Mortar asked.

“I had hoped there would be more time. I had hoped we would be better prepared to solve the mortal realm’s problem with our fighting seeping through it. Toyenna, it is time.”

There was silence, vast and terrible.

She said, “Understood,” and left the room.

Mortar said, “Time for what? What are you doing?”

He looked between both parents. Dexios appeared more solemn than he had ever known the man for the past month. Enid was holding back her tears.

“Listen, son,” said Dexios. “There is a chance this will not work. There is a chance that it will work at a higher price than any of us will ever understand. I want you to go with Toyenna to make sure nothing goes wrong, to the best of your ability. I want you to remember that you have a home down there that needs your protection, and will need it for the years to come. I am sorry for everything, and I know there is no way to make it up to you.”

“Dad, I will come back,” Mortar promised.

***

They landed with a thud upon the dirt. Mortar Mage got up and clicked his device, but the portal wouldn’t close. In fact, it was shaking, and tweaking into the last shape that he saw the end.

“We have to go,” Toyenna said.

He couldn’t help it, and so they flew. Along the way, patches of the sky flashed unnatural colors and textures. People screamed and either ran and crawled across the pavement as Mortar and Toyenna passed.

Inside of the lab that Dexios had helped rebuild with a few cooperating gods and titans, Mortar and Toyenna made for the controls. He examined them to make sure they were working properly. The technology was just beyond the Earth, but it could catch up in a few years. The equipment was working.

There was a sound of steam and something opening. Mortar looked to see Toyenna stepping inside of one of the tubes around the room.

“Wait, what are you doing?” he asked.

Toyenna put something small and black above both ears. They lit up with a couple colored lights the size of pinpricks. “I’m doing what I came here to do.”

“And what is that?”

“Warren, please. The others are already on the way.”

“The others?”

“There’s a blue lever on the second console. When they enter this building, flip it around.”

Mortar shook his head at first. Then there was pounding and banging against the walls and roof of the building. Whatever was trying to get in was strong. The door opened, and there were shadows. Mortar decided to trust Toyenna. He flipped the blue lever.

As the other androids came into view—all with the same toy soldier uniforms and a blank, mortifying expression on their faces—the tubes glowed with a blue light. Toyenna made thudding sound in her capsule. The other androids fought against a pull that Mortar could not otherwise see until they all snapped into their respective tubes.

“Close the doors; use the green lever,” Toyenna said.

Mortar Mage did so.

“Next, use the orange on number four.”

Mortar did that as well. The glowing changed. All of the androids writhed. Now the whole room appeared to illuminate white from the center even though there was no light source there.

“One more; the silver one on number three. You know what to do.”

“No I don’t,” Mortar said. “What am I doing? What will any of this do?”

“This will close a dimensional rift, and pull the mortal realm out of harm’s way. Doing so will also put us all to sleep.”

“And then I can wake you, right? Then we can do more together right?”

“Once we slumber, we must all remain dormant. Warren, my time with you was precious. I want it to mean something. Please, flip the last switch. Let our time together last in your dreams, and your heart. Maybe someday, I can awaken again. Maybe someday, I can be as kind and wonderful to you as you were to me.”

“You’re asking me to pull the plug on the woman I love.”

“Warren, the universe must move forward in its rightful course. Let me sleep. Do it. Pull it now.”

His hand shook. Mortar Mage braced it, and the lever came down. With it, the light dispersed into natural shadow. The black devices over Toyenna’s ears popped. The androids shut their eyes and became still.

The whole world was silent. His connection to the eternal realm was severed.

***

The present

“. . . There was a burden destined to bind the one. There was a champion lost to what he knew and loved. He was a man from Paragon.”

The bard played the last few strings. Of course his song was paid little mind by the audience he had. It was a song for him, more than for them. While preparing his next song, the bard gazed out the window to see the eternal realm outside. The end of everything was that way.

Take care, my son.