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Hello, everyone! I know this is unexpected, but ...

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Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha GuardianS

Transition, Part Three—Paradox

Spoiler for Transition, Part Three—Paradox:

[Non-administrated Planet #109, Miliene] [No official date and time]

The world is a fallacy.

For those who live within its protective cradle, the world is their everything. From life to death and the eternal loop of beginnings and endings, the world is a constant, the invariable perpetuity. After all, where else can a human go but the world in which they live? There may be differences, even direct opposites in a new world, yet it remains the same: everything is shackled to the design of the beings we have all come to acknowledge as gods. Try as they might, humans may never transcend destiny, the foundations of existence laid down by the hands of the creator. Even death lies within their domain. Escaping one world is pointless, for the unseen path, however twisted, eventually leads to another. The act merely delays the inevitable and prolongs the suffering.

Why should there be suffering when everything is guided by the hands of destiny, one may ask.

For the world is a paradox.

As an unwavering entity in your entire life, the world protects and harms, reveals and hides, nurtures and annihilates. Mortals are the finest being sculpted in the forges of the heavens, birthing the tinkers and the shapers, the philosophers and the sages. Yet, they are also the destroyers and the demolishers, the apostates and the deviants. In the constant called the world, they vie for their own survival, challenging their oppositions to ensure their own continuity. Mortality is itself an eternal sentence of creation and destruction, that which is unbreakable, inescapable.

And what of the world? It is content to bask in the mortals’ struggles, for its existence lies in the balance of life and death, of beginnings and ends, of the subsistence of victors and losers. Such was, is, and will always be the way. For it is wrought by the gods to be the designated battlefield of truths and illusions, virtue and evil, the grand stage where everything and everyone is bound by their wills and changed at their whims. Destiny is but a flavorful word used by the ignoramuses who chose to submit their lives to beings who can understand nothing about pain or suffering, disease or deaths. How should these proud yet deceitful angels guide the living when they themselves are devoid of human qualities, when they are eternal existences oblivious to the ravages of time and age, when all dictated destinies are as mere experiments to them?

Indeed, the world is the paradox.

The creators high above in their aloof thrones are clever creatures of unfathomable intellect. They have long foreseen that a perfectly utopian world will lead to its own destruction—no world will survive on peace alone, nor will it thrive through war. A world at peace leads to decadence and complacency, to the hidden vestiges of dark jealousy and ill will, thus to wars. And yet the world cannot continue on warring forever because it demands the presence of physical entities with which to seed and cultivate itself. The constancy and irony of the world is thus ordained within the divine paradox, and the creators, ever so subtly, weave it in such a way that it is impossible to break free from the eternal loop even as they hid within their lofty palaces, untouched and unseen.

For a mere human living on the playful palm of the celestial beings, I was supposed to be content, living my life as that which has been destined for every other human. But, I was dissatisfied, restless at being made the pawn of some unseen gods toying with the lives of humans expecting obediently to be smothered and crushed in the end, like the puny flame of a melting candlewick that lingered feebly around before being blown out by the slightest of breeze. Or, if there was never to be the fateful breeze, it would still flicker and vanish when its wax was consumed. Why should we suffer at the whims of others?

And so, I rebelled against they who created me.

The price for that rebellion, even when it was done when I was yet out of my mother’s womb, was steep. I see only darkness since I was born, the brilliance of light and the luxury of colors denied me at birth. The joy of sound reached my ears, yet never out through my lips. The blood of nobles may flow in my veins, but I was regarded as no more than the filth of the kingdom. Of three brothers, I was the littlest and also the outcast; they had never talked or played much with me, leaving me to the silent solitude of abandonment and loneliness. No one could understand me, and me them, for communication was impossible with my infirmity.

Fortunately, some benevolent, perhaps mutinous angel, tired of the creators’ little game, understood my unfair predicament, and had so granted me another form of vision: the revelations of the world’s events through thoughts and memories. It was erratic at first, the ability manifesting in pieces of vague mental pictures, but as I aged, it became progressively easier to rifle through a person’s thoughts and literally see the world through him. Young though I was, I saw more than anyone else could as I easily pierced through the illusions of words and façades. In my tower room, separated and without physical contact with the world beyond, I saw all and heard all.

The kingdom was in turmoil. My mother became mentally unstable after the death of my father and the throne of the empire’s policymakers was assumed by my stepmother, a beatific high priestess of some obscure religion whose deity concerned me not. Historically, no Queen has ever wielded direct ruling power before, but this was a special circumstance. My elder brother was in line for the throne, but because he had yet to complete his royal education, the high council ruled for an extraordinary clause: under the constitution of the kingdom, granted that there are no suitable candidates to hold the throne when the King is deceased, a Queen may be bestowed as a temporary ruler. And since my mother was ill, the high priestess was thrust the mantle of rulership in her stead.

Whilst being Queen entitled her to some degree of privileges, it was no more than a tiebreaker to decide on what decision to embark on for the empire. She sat in between the gnashing teeth of nobles and commoners, the protectorate of both the rich and the poor, the lords and the serfs. Her task was very simple yet infinitely difficult, and I sometimes found myself pitying her. For all her fragility and delicate appearance, she was a good and efficient Queen, making clipped arrangements and decisions without flinching from the overbearing nobles and the demanding citizens. Yet, perhaps her strangest characteristic was her mind: it was peculiarly impenetrable to my mental prowess, and as such, I had never been able to glean anything within.

It was not until much later that I discovered why.

Unable to perform the duties of a prince myself, my two brothers were to take the helm of the country when they completed their edification. Fate’s twisted machinations never ceased to take root in this world: in accordance to the precepts of royal education, the nobles are allowed to choose who they want to serve at the end of their training—the aristocrats or the commoners. While most families tend to stay close to their birthright, there were those who occasionally received the inner calling to serve the citizens. Whether it was out of sympathy or gallantry, it was never made known, but they who worked for the lesser people also served the Circle, one of the most powerful entities in the world allied with the great Church and the polar opposite of the Conclave, the council of nobles. And the two were always at each other’s throat.

What was more ironic was the fact that my brothers had different appeal to serve one of the two groups.

Coincidence? Nay, it was pre-destiny, the inescapable wheel of conflict.

Forasmuch as they were my brothers as they were between themselves, their mind was disgusting, filled with lust and desire for power, murderous thoughts at those who bar their path to the throne. Their gap in age was small; the elder was only two years older. But, that was reason enough for the conflict to dig its inexorable claw deep into their hearts—the second was simply not content for the eldest to step down from the throne some years later and be sidelined. Their struggle for supremacy had begun the moment they had their rites of passage, and had continued so throughout their adolescent life. Never were they in agreement on anything, save perhaps their passion, if misguided and ill-borne, for the country.

The sacred Royal Hall of Wisdom was always filled with bickering, debates, arguments, banters, but none more so than when the two brothers met. On occasions, infightings broke out and, if not for the firmness of the Queen, deaths would have readily occurred. Serenely, she swept through them like a silent yet ferocious wind, demanding acquiescence when disagreements surfaced, offering solutions when negotiations failed. She stood like an unwavering pillar amidst the political storm, loved and hated at the same time.

And so, the wound, deep, unseen, and untended, quietly festered, until it turned gangrenous.

Ninety days into her service, the Queen made a startling announcement: she was four-months pregnant. The entire high council went into a furor—they had not expected such a turn of event. The eldest prince was not due to complete his education for at least another year, and should the Queen enter a state of maternity recuperation, the weekly meetings would be thrown into chaos. While regents and advisors could make decisions on her behalf, most of them were truly cowards; they were incapable of holding their stance for long without being swayed to the other side. And, unlike the Queen, they typically served one of the two groups. The truly neutral ones, teetering on the dangerous precipice, would likely fall to pressure and vote for either side before long.

But, far from seeing it as trouble, the two brothers, perhaps seized by the same angel of malicious fortune, thought it was a god-sent opportunity. With the correct plan of action and right timing, they could, in one fell swoop, eliminate the obstacle to their own agendas—they would be free to call the dignitaries to fuel their ambitions, thereby raising themselves as the legitimate ruler. Blood assassination, the term used when kin employed dark, underhanded means with which to remove barriers to their personal power, was not new in the kingdom, but it was not uncommon, either. History has a strange way of repeating itself and, driven by the confusion caused by the unexpected death of the King and the tumult of an heir to the throne, the stream began its turn anew, its waters black and foreboding.

In the dark corners of hidden chambers, the brothers plotted the death of the Queen. Many were the ways thought of, with cruel, brutal intelligence added in between to make the … transition, as they called it, as smooth as possible. As my mind flitted on the surface of their thoughts, there flashed the horrible images of the Queen, draped in snowy white, smeared with her own blood as the assassination manifested. I retched once, twice, then vomited as the mental pictures turned even more gruesome. There was only so much brutality before a murder became a pointless savagery, the latent nature of humankind that lay dormant while reason held sway. And as days progressed, reason could do naught but fail.

As sudden as it was alarming, something quite unexpected occurred. Something perturbed the eldest prince such that his mind was peculiarly distant most of the time and, several days later, became totally unreadable. It was revealed to me later, after searching through the minds of his loyalists, that the eldest prince, who cavorted with the lords and nobles of the Conclave, came into possession of a powerful relic with unknown ability. A pure black armor, glinting with a sheen so dark as if to devour all lights. It granted him some incredible powers—enhanced magical aptitude and capabilities far greater than what was normally achievable at his age. But, the most dangerous aspect was probably his mind: it became impregnable to my ability, and when I tried to force myself through, I was blocked by a powerful mental presence that brushed off my scan easily. The spirit possessing the prince, if I may refer to it as such, was strong and domineering, slowly eating into his individuality as it tried to take over its host completely.

It managed to frustrate all my attempts, but at the one try in which I was successful to have a slight glimpse, I regretted it. There was nothing in the mind except a terrible void, a vast hollowness that spread like a mindless plague, encompassing and consuming everything it came into contact with—it had so devoured half the sanity that was left of the prince. Deeper within its empty heart rolled a boiling, overpowering hatred, of loath and wrath mixed with deep-seated resentment. So overwhelming was its abhorrence that even my softest touch at its edge set my nerves on fire, a burning tingle that caused my blood to surge like white-hot liquid. Yet, in the tangled web of unnatural mindscape, there was a great well of loneliness, confusion, and sadness. Its feeling of abandonment and denial was so vivid it wrenched my heart.

And always, always present, were the blazes of brilliant pink and gleaming yellow that seemed to be understandable to no one but the being itself. Though curious, the pull of its negativity was so strong, so relentless that it was sucking my conscience into its own, the twisted warp of its own personality threatening to distort my own. I fled and never again returned to the condemned mental landscape thereafter.

Yet, with the discovery also came a startling revelation of what chaos that might follow in its wake. Feeding on the lust and rapture for power with which the prince so desired, the entity would unleash a catastrophe upon this world, destroying everything as it sought to achieve that one wish. The destiny of this world was already set in stone. As much as I loathe this disabilities inflicted upon me, this was the world I was born in, and also the one with which I would perish; I myself was an insect trapped in the golden amber that was the divine paradox. I would not let the gods decide the end of my world as they saw fit. Against all reasoning, I rebelled against the destined choice, defying the fate wrought by the creators for this world.

And so too began the rhythms of destruction shaped by my own hands.

Truly, the creators are magnificent beings, unsurpassed in both cunning and grandiloquence. In so introducing an element that threatened the balance of this world, it sought an opposite force to restore the tipped scale. Yet, there was no escaping the writ of fate that was already set in motion: the end of our world. The alternative of one way held the same result in the end, only from a different perspective. It was too late when I realized what their intent was: that I was destined to be the both angel of death and redemption for this world.

And, clueless as I was determined, I set down the path to annihilation and rebirth.

In my struggle against the eldest’s newfound abilities, I had to find someone as influential as he was and held the same, if not greater, position as he did. There was simply no point in hoping that a typical councilor would be able to hold his own against such a figure of power. And amongst the candidates, only one seemed to stay prominently above the rest …

It had never occurred to me in the beginning that my gift—or perhaps a curse in disguise—would allow things as powerful as complete mind control; there were times that I had strongly wished for something to happen, and those who ‘heard’ the call apparently went out of their way to make it come true. There had been mention of suggestion and hypnosis in the days of old, but my ability far transcended them all. It was surprisingly easy, effortless even, and it felt oddly … fulfilling.

From mere peeks and glances and skirting around the edges of men’s minds, I could now make them beholden to me, become the physical self to do what that I could not, in reality, perform. It was a sweet, triumphant discovery, one that made me feel truly remarkable. And so, like a master leashing a dog, I held my second brother’s mind hostage and, with him, the entire Circle under my command, just as the eldest had the Conclave for his own. Fortunately, some things were already planned in line against the influence of the nobles’ secret society; it appeared that my mundane brother had not been entirely resting on his laurels.

Deep within the catacombs of various cathedrals and churches throughout the Empire, experiments were being carried out to vastly improve the magical powers of common mages, a secret project known as AISHA, the namesake in honor of the First Lady of the Empire who was rumored to be one of the strongest mages ever seen in history. The Churchdom was in charge of one of the largest military forces in the Empire: the Astral Templars, time-honored warrior castes who eschewed typical magic for control over the very powers of nature. Using certain forbidden magic, researched under the codename Nexus Link, members of the Churchdom implanted false memories and hypnotic suggestions into these guardians of the sacred temples. Some were even skilled enough to directly control a select group of Templars and passively influence the thoughts of others through gradual conditioning. Bell towers and observatories were surreptitiously converted to armed bastions, with a number of strategic locations housing the dread cannon Elreana’s Reach, each one driven by the Churchdom’s most powerful spellcasters, the breathing, living composites that survived through AISHA’s torturous experiments.

The Circle was long ready for war; it was just waiting for the ripe time to do so.

My efforts were thus shifted to more productive endeavors: to find the source of the entity’s powers. In the incipient research, there were notes and vellums scattered around the libraries with which the eldest prince had perused. Silently searching through both physical and mental records held by the custodians, it became apparent that the armor the prince found was a relic of old, wrought during the bygone eras of extraordinary magic and technology. The knowledge of the craft was lost, yet its artifacts remained.

Among some mentioned most prominently were the Regalia of the Thirteen Stars, once worn by the fabled God-King Bryvon Chalcordan the Betrayer who single-handedly plunged the old world into chaos. It took the lives of twelve armies from various kingdoms, a contingent of the still-nascent Astral Templars two hundred strong, and some of the most powerful mages the world had ever seen, to finally overwhelm the Betrayer and destroy him. His corpse, mangled beyond recognition from the combined destructive forces of magic and weapons, was not even interred; it was duly cremated where he perished using pure fire conjured from mana, and his ashes were left to disperse in the winds. There was no tombstone to mark the place he was defeated, but the legacy of the destruction he wrought remained in the Plains of Despair.

After his death, the Regalia was scattered and kept by the seers of the Order of Elreana, so that its tremendous power would not be harnessed again. It was not known whether the following event was intentional, but the Order of Elreana and their homeland Songhaven then vanished from the face of the world, leaving only a template from which would be born the powerful Churchdom as well as the new order of Astral Templars, self-governed avatars of the goddess Elreana who abandoned control over conventional magic to mastery over the powers of nature. Perhaps they thought that with their disappearance, the secrets of the Regalia would follow as well.

What foolishness! Humans are, by nature, both curious and greedy beings, and some, though staunch advocates of courage, honor, and justice, are just as easily compelled by power—and the Regalia was power enough to subjugate even the strongest of wills. The Seers of Songhaven might have been devout in their duty, but such could not be said for every single one of them. The mortal flaw of a human had always been his mortality, and the unholy might of a God-King was as seductive as a sweet to a child.

The gullible was prey to the wily, and the secret had not died with the Seers.

And so, one simply need but only look in the right direction and place to flesh out information about the legendary artifacts. Ancient tomes that survived the purging following Chalcordan’s death, cleverly rewritten and made into clandestine manuscripts and discreet grimoires, told of these magnificent items secretly hidden within antediluvian vaults and ruined reliquaries. And, as was the capricious nature of fate, the eldest prince stumbled across one by chance.

According to lore, the entire Regalia was made by the legendary Brotherhood of the Forge, a group of twelve extremely talented master crafters who had fashioned various instruments and equipment famed for their exquisite design, unsurpassable durability, and most of all, the powers hidden within each and every item they created. It was said that a mundane-looking sword the Brotherhood made could become the sharpest and strongest blade capable of cleaving through a fortified castle wall if it was in the hands of the proper person designed to wield it. It was not known how true the claim was, but rumors were abound that the master crafters were also mighty wizards who enchanted the items with powerful, ancient magicks as they were being shaped.

The Regalia, a full set of voidsteel armor covering the head to the feet and complete with its accessories, was said to be the Brotherhood’s most historic endeavor, along with the renowned Titans, two hundred of them all. How different they were, no one knew, but it was said that the Brotherhood had used alien craft dating back to the Dawn Age and artifacts from that accursed era to empower the Regalia. There was rumor that King Chalcordan had somehow gained an ear into what the Brotherhood was doing at that time and, coveting the Regalia for himself, tampered with the process and then stole them from the Brotherhood’s mountain forge.

With his death, the power of the Regalia had supposedly become broken and would no longer function. The Titans, retrieved from the fallen bodies of the pioneer Astral Templars, went into the custody of the newly-founded Church, who gave the highest order of their Astral Templars access to them so that they might harness the power to defend the kingdom—or so they say. The passage of time stopped for none, and the Titans, for their existent appearance and undeniably formidable power witnessed by many, soon became the deepest desire of warriors and mages alike. The Regalia was forgotten, scoured from the tablets of history.

Yet, the legends of the Regalia, forbidden by imperial law to be spoken publicly, remained on the lips of the bards and storytellers and the elders, and it was mentioned only in the smallest of passing whispers and darkest rumors. Even they were guarded and wary of telling anyone—even their own family—for defiance warranted the irrevocable sentence of death. Why so heavy a punishment for something that might have been a figment of one’s imaginations, spun and embellished as the time rode past?

Because the ruling powers of the Empire truly believed that it was real even until now, and they fear it.

For in the whispers and rumors of bardic songs and fireside tales, it was said that just one piece of the Regalia can make you lord over all of mankind. And should you have all the pieces together, you would become …

I unearthed one of the Regalia in the northern arctic lands of Rhalestia after several months of searching, beneath a crumbling stone ruins buried by snow. There, upon the cadaverous skull of a seemingly sneering ancient king, hung the most dazzling crown I had ever seen. It was not so much that the entire artifact was glowing so brightly than it was the large gem set into the central crest of the simple black crown. It was a diamond that seemed to give off light on its own; there was very little illumination to be reflected, for the interior of the ruins was very dim, and the only other light source came from a magical orb I summoned just enough to show me the path.

In the darkness, the Crown of the Diamond Star was a sun.

I—that is, my physical body that was linked with that of the host through my ability—was transfixed and involuntarily shivered. It was not because of the scintillating light casting long, ghostly fingers of shadow with its brilliance, or for the fact that the relic would finally be in my grasp. I quavered because I felt a deep, towering presence pressing down on me, an overwhelming manifestation of something huge and that dwarfed my physical form, threatening to crush me with its invisible weight. I could move not a muscle, and all activities controlled by the brain seized to a halt.

All the while, the diamond pulsated with a pure white light, washing over me, engulfing, teasing, probing … as if it were a living thing, and I the subject of its experiment …

For an indefinite amount of time, I stood in the awesome presence of the crown, motionless. I could not pry my eyes from staring into the inquisitive illumination. Not even an attempt to pull my mind out of the host was possible. It was as if I was trapped in time, rendered inert by forces that deserted me when I needed them most. And for the first time in my life, fear snuck its way into my heart. It would not be long now, before it finally struck at the string of my existence, erasing me from the face of …

As sudden as it had happened, the probing aura vanished, and with it the crushing sensation that pressed on my body. I fell to my knees, breathless. Even the dank crypt air suddenly felt refreshing, and I sucked in huge gasps greedily. It took a few moments to adjust to the near comatose condition I experienced just moments before. Slowly, I rose. Whether it was driven by pure whimsical notion or some greater foolishness, my eyes raised up to stare at the crown again.

The brilliance of the jewel did not dull, but it seemed to be so strangely warm now, welcoming even. In fact, it seemed as if the light was … pulling at me, beckoning that I come closer?

The first step was taken, then the next. There was a clear, vibrant hum as I approached, growing louder and higher each passing second. Soon, I stood just beneath the dazzling crown. I could now see the design of the black metal that made the crown, the ornate carvings and etchings and grooves. The diamond, inlaid on the crest, was smaller than my closed fist. Its radiance felt pleasant, like the touch of spring breeze. It was so close to the touch …

And touch it I did.

I cried. I screamed. A light so blindingly pure burned through my eyes and my second sight, sweeping away all colors until everything became blank. The world fell away from me, its dizzying hues blending and mixing into unrecognizable entities. Immeasurable power surged through the innocent gem, a shot of bright lightning so tremendously overwhelming it blocked out all senses and yet still kept me conscious. It was so unbelievably powerful that it pulsed relentless through the mental connection I had with the host and seared my physical body miles away. The holy conflagration was consuming my soul. In that instant, I thought I would finally die.

Perhaps I did.

And in the course, I gained the clarity of the universe.

Incredible! I stood, a diminutive being, in the center of the celestial throne, home to the gods who manipulate destiny and direct fate. I saw with untainted lucidity the rise and fall of stars, the birth and destruction of planets. I held the sun of my world in my hands, and the suns of multiple universes in my bosom. With a twiddle of my finger, I could bring life to an uninhabitable world, or dictate the death of civilizations. In the nexus of dimensions, I saw all—the past, the present, and the future. Everything was possible, miracles that were not beyond my abilities to perform. I witnessed all without flinching, marveling at the newfound powers that would allow me the control of …

Abruptly, colors returned. The universe disappeared, the stars vanished. The suns burned out and the lives I put to existence were snuffed. In the instant that the vision had happened, everything was gone. The dark ruins returned to focus. I dropped to my knees for the second time, gasping. My body trembled violently and sweat dripped from my forehead. Gingerly, I raised my hand to wipe the droplets and touched something heavy and metallic.

I did not know when had I put it on, but the crown was on my head. I lifted it off and brought it down level to my face. The diamond that had so dazzled and sparkled just now no longer did so; now, it looked like a dull glass crystal. Yet, the hum of power within it was still present. No, the power trapped inside was resonating with mine. I could feel the tingle of energy coursing through my entire being, like liquid fire flowing in my blood. And …

Wait, something was different, but I could not quite place what. Slowly, I pulled myself up, dusting myself as I did with my other free hand. Something caught in my eyes, a mote of dust perhaps, and I blinked. A pause. I blinked again. The vision was clear. And that was what was different.