Originally Posted by
grampagen
The line of Guardians stretched back longer than reckoning, and the time before them, back to the time of creation.
Among them, Asha'rah's chosen, Jack Knave was one man of a billion. Even with his family ties, there'd been nothing particularly special about him but a deft hand, a keen eye, and a foolish sense of daring that had cost him a great deal, from petty change, to Manco and the Royal Flush Gang, to his life more than once..
Yet despite what he saw before him, with no knowledge of the uncertain consequences as he would follow through, there came a rush of panic, yet a surety in the middle of that sense of excitement. The sword in his hand never felt firmer in his grip, and, with one foot in the ether and eyes on the conflict before them, even from this vantage point he was not far from his comrades on the broken world below.
There was a passage forming. Awesome, chaotic power surged where Charco and Efrideet brought it down on half of the Forsworn Avatars of Sakin, and the other one, where Sasheem began to attack parts of the fabric of reality itself, he felt a flightiness in his dealing hand.
"The time is right, but there's one last thing. At this scale, with all we've done, I see it now."
The World of Fallen Angels that had threatened all of existence this day, the host began to turn his attention from dominating all life to running from it, and pulling it apart at the seams as he went.
"Every creation must be balanced by destruction. That's always how it's been. When everything was chaotic, people were filled with fear, and they needed somebody to cling to."
The tale was familiar, but he'd only heard it before and lived to see the consequenes. Having it all before him, he examined his hand and upped the ante.
"What you stole from Ishtar, from Inanna the moment you took Inda'ren's life, we'll never get that back again. For all that's happened since your War in Heaven, neither will you return to what you once were."
He'd heard figments about a prophecy here and there, pieces that slotted into neat little roles to meet the beats of someone else's tale, and everyone else was a footnote.
"Broken in three, parts of you return in pieces, but that's not what you really are. You're just a memory, Asha'rah. This little part of you, it might be immortal, but you died a long, long time ago. Even if we wanted to go back to the way it was, that's no longer possible."
Koorimaru had snatched her up, but she hadn't done a thing until he and Zaofan rang on her shell, and the first thing she remembered was the phantom dragon.
"But who says that our universe can't be the one to change the way it goes? Don't you see? You wanted us to unite under something more than martial might. The strong would scrap it out, and everyone else would be dead or left starving and desperate and paranoid. You'd entrusted it to the Guardians to carry out that vision that you couldn't, and today is the day they succeed."
Jack lift Excalibur. Turning his right palm over, he folded it under his left. Stacking the deck, he was prepared to put it all on the line.
"You've striven enough, time to fold. We don't need you anymore, as a Goddess, an overseer, none of that! Instead of looking to remember what you did, becoming what you once were, I need you to do right by all of us, right here, right now."