PART TEN: A QUANTUM CONONDRUM
Feeling hopeless after the Selkie Prince’s detailed description of the Kraken and its daunting abilities, the Undine leaders gathered in the room shuddered at the inevitable face-off against the beast to save Avala from the creature’s wrath.
“Have your people ever defeated the Kraken?” Queen Denise asked worriedly.
“Yes, your majesty, at great cost to our people, we managed to defeat the Kraken…”
“How did you pull off this seemingly impossible task?”
“We fought valiantly using Sacred weapons and kept pushing through until we reached the brain of the beast, the only effective way to vanquish it. However, our experience fighting the beast helped as learn of another one of its vulnerabilities which is that, Primordial Waters hinder its abilities significantly,”
“Primordial waters, you say?” Queen Denise asked turning to face Skip, the only one in the room that could command Primordial waters.
“Yes, indeed, your majesty. I am informed that you have a caster with the ability to control these waters. This caster is crucial in defeating the beast because should the creature be exposed, it would lose its potency,”
“I imagine that exposing the creature to these waters is a nigh impossible task,”
“I am afraid so, your majesty. The Kraken will do anything within its power to avoid contact with these waters,”
“So, in conclusion, we have to figure out a way of bringing this creature into contact with Primordial waters,” Maris stated.
“Any ideas on how we do that?” Queen Denise asked the gathered leaders collectively.
“Your majesty, the key in doing this is using the Kraken’s own abilities against it. The most recent reports from the DoD is that there have been significant ripples in space-time as a result of the collusion between the creature’s vortexes that function like wormholes and the portals created as a result of Traveling occurring between Avala’s timeline, A-31 and other Timelines…”
“Space-time is tearing apart at the seams on top of the other cataclysmic destructiveness happening in the Timeline. However, what this means is that there is a distinct possibility that the region has become host to a Vanishing Point and we can exploit this to our advantage,” Avery explained.
“What in the seven seas is a Vanishing Point?” the Queen responded in awe.
“A Vanishing Point is an unstable portion of Space-Time that converges different Timelines and Spaces within a given Reality. Although the Kraken is able to manipulate Space, its range will be significantly impaired should it occupy the Vanishing Point. Once it is trapped in the Vanishing Point, it is possible to then teleport it to the Primordial Waters and thus immobilize it,”
“If the Vanishing Point is unstable, then how would we be able to exploit it to teleport the Kraken to the Primordial Waters?” Sage Zariya asked.
“This is the dangerous part; we have a very slim window of time to achieve that goal. The Artificial Sentience (AS) construct that my family constructed, Ash, should give us an approximate time when we can strike. We must not let a single moment pass without taking advantage of that slim window of possibility…”
“During that precise moment in time, the Vanishing Point would be malleable enough to allow travel to the Primordial Waters but that can only happen if Skip shall be present aas he is the only one who can directly access the waters…”
“Even if this AS is used and we determine a Vanishing Point, how do we ensure that the Kraken will fall prey to it? I imagine that it has somehow managed to evade the Vanishing Point already as a result of its abilities, am I right?” Queen Denise inquired.
“Since it is able to manipulate space, I presume that it has managed to stabilize the current area of space it currently occupies. That is where Prince Rian and the Selkies come in. Should we be able to access the space it is occupying, it will not resist engaging the Selkies in warfare as the two races have a bitter rivalry. Prince Rian has agreed to act as bait to lure the creature into a trap- a portal that I can open. Due to the principle of Quantum Entanglement, the portal I open close to the creature would also cause a fissure in the unstable Space-Time continuum in the region thus summoning the Vanishing Point effectively trapping it,”
“What a convoluted plan! It seems more the stuff of dreams than an effective strategy of defeating the Kraken,”
“The odds are heavily against us but it is our only hope in defeating the creature,”
While Queen Denise and the other Undine leaders deliberated on the crazy shot at defeating the Kraken, Avery introduced the Artificial Sentience program known as Ash and put it to task on calculating their best shot at reaching the Vanishing Point and their odds of pulling it off. The results were not promising.
“Your majesty, I am afraid if we want to defeat the Kraken, we must do so immediately. By Ash’s calculations, we have only eighty minutes to pull off this task,”
“What? This is incomprehensible! That is far too little time,”
“The longer we wait to carry out this plan, the shorter the time we will have to achieve our objectives, your Majesty,” Avery responded. The Queen could barely muster enough confidence to issue an order for them to attempt the crazy mission ahead of them.
Avery immediately set about the mission objectives which first involved safely transporting Skip, Maris, Prince Rian, Iara and several other Selkies who tagged along for the mission to a safe location within the highly unstable region that had once been Avala in Timeline A-31. Before traveling to Avala, the mission team had traveled to Timeline D-3 and were issued with hazmat suits that would filter out the rapidly changing regions of Space-Time that were a direct consequence of the instability of the Space-Time continuum.
What lay on the other side could not adequately be described as anything other than Pure Chaos. The entire region was enveloped in darkness with the sky flashing between several weather patterns and varying timings of the day. The team had to constantly shift positions as the Spaces around them kept changing which proved highly difficult.
After carefully navigating through the unstable spaces of the region, Avery managed to locate her niece whose Mana was almost entirely spent from her using her Reality warping abilities to keep her high priority targets, Dulcina and Deo, safe. Avery soon discovered that region occupied by her niece and Dulcina and Deo was stuck in a time-loop of approximately five minutes wherein the Lunar-Titania would state that they needed to get closer to the ocean to defeat the creature, rush towards the shore which would shift to another disadvantageous area of Space-Time that would end in her gruesome death which Ada would then be forced to erase from Reality and the cycle would endlessly repeat. The three were so deeply imbedded in the time loop that they did not even notice the team entering the region.
Avery was able to break the three out of the loop once she safely moved them to a more stable region but then urged them to remain there until they were retrieved by the DoD from D-3. Dulcina protested claiming that it was her duty to defeat the creature but quickly realized the magnitude of the situation and swiftly sat next to her protector and Ada.
“Avery-“
“We’ve got this,” Avery reassured her. Ada nodded contentedly and kept her eyes peeled for any other threats to her targets while Avery and the mission team rushed towards the Florian sea.
The Florian Ocean’s waters were dark red with the Kraken still issuing attacks on the surface, effectively using its own vortexes to safely navigate the terrain without suffering any ill-effects of the unstable Space-Time in the region. Ash determined the safest route to the creature and the team followed the AS’s instructions to the letter. As calculated, the Kraken was unable to resist the allure of fighting against the Selkie, particularly hell-bent on vanquishing their Prince.
Holding their own against the creature with its potent abilities and unstable Space-Time proved quite the difficult task but the team persisted until Ash gave them signal and Avery immediately opened up a portal, channeling Skip’s abilities to do so at the exact moment it was required. The portal collided with a vortex the Kraken opened near its mouth to suck in its prey, thus creating a collusion so powerful that it tore through Space-Time and effectively created a Vanishing Point.
The Vanishing Point then transported them to the Placid Lake where the creature was immobilized and Skip summoned the Sacred Weapons he had used to vanquish the Leviathan and both he and Maris quickly eradicated the beast, closely following the advice of Prince Rian for effectiveness. Once it was slain, the souls trapped within it were released into the Primordial Waters and Skip helped them cross over to the other side.
The souls of the slain Sage-Queen Ramla and her Protector Prince Seamere, appeared before the team and thanked them for eradicating the scourge of the Sea before departing to the Paradise lands with the other good souls.
“By some miracle, we actually did it!” Skip stated in utter disbelief.
“That was just the beginning, I am afraid. There is still the matter of stabilizing the Space-Time continuum and more importantly, stabilizing the power of the Undine Pillars,” Avery stated.
“How do you do it, Avery? We just managed to avert a potential Apocalypse in less than 80 minutes and you are already thinking about the next crises to be averted?” Skip asked her in wonder.
Avery simply shrugged her shoulders. “All in a day’s work,” she replied.
All stood in awe of the enigma that was Avery Alison.
TO BE CONTINUED…
With yet another crisis averted thanks to the Curse Breaker, Avery, what lies in store for her future? Stay tuned to find out! Links to previous parts in this intriguing saga are listed below. Enjoy!
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