Dot Hack// Xanadu
{{#ifeq: | | {{#ifeq: Alex Warlorn | |
{{#ifeq: Alex Warlorn | ||
Author: Alex Warlorn
}} |
{{#ifeq: Alex Warlorn | |
Author: Alex Warlorn |
Author: Alex Warlorn
}}
}} |
{{#ifeq: Alex Warlorn | |
{{#ifeq: Alex Warlorn | | Authors: ' |
Authors: Alex Warlorn
}} |
{{#ifeq: Alex Warlorn | |
Authors: Alex Warlorn |
Author: Alex Warlorn
}}
}}
}} {{#if:| — see also [[:Category:{{{category}}}|other works by this author]]}}
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 | Xanadu story universe |
Doc Hack//Xanadu
Marcia checked her e-mail again for the forth time that afternoon, and did a web search using the keywords 'Xanadu' 'Victims' 'List' for the fifth time that day. There was still no sign of her child's name... if only she could remember at least the name of the character Lisa had gone as, then maybe Marcia would be able to check some eye witness accounts.
Though 'mysterious' girl with blond hair, red eyes, in sleeveless single piece dress she realized simply didn't narrow down the field enough. Vampires, ghosts, vampire-ghosts, ghost-vampires, succumbi, witches, sorceress'. The number of people transformed at Xanadu, and the variety that they had been transformed into was -vast-! Compounding this was the 'secondary transformations' werewolves, perverted mad scientists, even supposedly at least two 'furries' who cause the transformation as well, but seemingly only on willing subjects.
The tall raven haired woman had always considered herself a practical woman, a realistic one, one who wasn't constrained by superstition, folklore, faith, and other such nonsense. Magic didn't exist, and thus couldn't exist... at least that's what everyone thought until Xanadu.
Any attempt at a cover up was beyond hopeless, the world knew, the people knew, that thousands, if tens of thousands, if not even more so, had been transformed into what they had perceived their costumes as.
Marcia of course, had brushed it off as FoxNews BS, then tabloid lies that had sneaked into real news papers, an oversized hoax. But ever so slowly, kicking and screaming almost, she had been forced to begrudgingly admit that indeed, this was no trick by invading aliens (much more realistic than magic), or the test of some secret government developed reality altering or hypnosis weapon.
Some of -them- had come through town, who or what they were didn't matter. What did matter is that Marcia had seen every law of psychics and reality she knew thrown right out the window. Crossing in and out of the river side city they came and left, some of the stranger ones diving into the water not to emerge but everyone seriously doubted they had drowned, those gills weren't like for show. Apparently their city was just enough out of the way to be considered a decent hiding place for some.
Marcia liked to tell herself that they'd kill each other off or die out soon enough, that the government to put them all under control, and the weird ones, without genetically compatible mates would simply die out. Then things would be back to the normal wars, political scandals, and economic ups and downs people were meant to endure.
Except Lisa was out there, somewhere. Had been at that con. Her daughter was out there somewhere. Among super villains, brain eating zombies, things born from social inept post teen perverts' fantasies, and -gods-! Of things possible -gods-! Gods weren't suppose to exist! They were made up by scared and stupid people who were scared to stand on their own two feet and make their own decisions! And now the abominable things existed! And her collage age daughter was out there somewhere among them!
She had always tolerated her husband's religious fantasies, thinking he'd wake up to reality without the rest of his family to enforce his brainwashing... she hadn't expected him to be beaten to death taking part in a 'pro-life' demonstration, of all the stupidity!
She had done her best to make sure Lisa grew up safe and away from the disease that had infected her husband's mind. Of course, since she had no mindless phobias about things that were different, she had no problem with her child enjoying japanese animation like most people her age as was the trend.
Lisa was apparently particularly interested in a sneaky marketing scheme by Bandai that involved there being an anime, a PS2 game, and a manga each one being an episode in the story. Marcia listened as best she could to her daughter's livid explanation of the various characters and spanning plot points until it all blurred into the same droll.
Marcia finally got around to reading all those e-mail about Lisa's costume and the then up and coming convention in Florida.
Apparently as a joke she had gone as an obscure character from the Manga section of the story, whose fate had been barely alluded to as vanishing into digital nothingness in the pre-story of the franchise's second leg.
Of course, Lisa never answered her cell phone after the incident, and Marcia was told soon enough that the cell phone was been disconnected.
And so, Marcia had taken extended leave from her job at the tax office, and begun to look any signs of her child. Possible mad with no clue who she really was! She was already seriously considering hiring a detective! But the only one she had found so far was one who was an effected at Xanadu, and she wanted no part of those.
She had sat down for some tea to help get her wits back together, she knew she had been pushing herself too hard, she shouldn't over tax herself, or she'd be no good to Lisa at all.
She had just sat down, poured herself tea, and made herself comfortable, and was about to turn on the news, when there was a slight knock on the door.
Annoyed and agitated, the idea that her daughter would just appear on her doorstep was been the last idea in Marcia's head, that neatness and convenience only happened in computer games.
When she looked through the peephole, the speed dial for the police ready if it turned out to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses again, she dropped the cell phone.
The idea that this might be a brain-sucking shape shifting alien taking an image from her mind never once entered her head, she simply threw open the door and kelt down and hugged the small child in violet blue-gray dress.
The girl mere stood with good posture, her face remaining calm and passive.
"Oh Lisa! Is it really you? It is you right? You're still you?" Marcia look a look in the eyes of her now much younger child.
The girl narrowed her red eyes at her ever so slightly, "Mother."
"Oh Lisa you do remember!"
"Mother... can we go inside please? There's so much I need to tell you."
"Huh? Oh of course!" Marcia pulled her daughter inside, closing the door behind them.
The girl sat down on a seat opposite her mother, looking at her in total control. Seeming more like the impassiveness of a summer breeze than the rigid control Marcia had taught her.
"Now Lisa! Where have you been? Why didn't you call? You -MUST- know how worried I've been. I thought you had been eaten by some monster or dissected by some government agency of the opposing political party!"
The girl drank the tea placed in front of her dainty, holding in the flavor as if she had never tasted tea before.
"I came the way I had to come, the way I was meant to come. Yes I knew how awful it must have been waiting for me to come home. But this is the way I was to do things, the way things were meant to come about."
Marcia wondered if being de-aged had traumatized her child. "Lisa what destine fate tripe are you babbling about?"
The girl looked honestly hurt and calmly put down her tea cup. She looked like she was going to start misting up, but then stopped herself. "I'm sorry mother, but that is just the way I am. Please... will you let me tell you my short story of how I came here? And what has happened in relation to me? Please? Without interrupting until I'm done? Please?"
Marcia looked at her child, she didn't look that dirty, but there was hint of desperation in those red eyes, a sense of yearning. "All right Lisa, if it means that much to do, I'll listen without interruption until you're done, but afterwards, I want you to let me have -my- say understand?"
"Yes mother." The blond girl nodded her head. The lass put her hands in her lap, sat up straight, and looked deeply into the Marcia's eyes. "Know, that I am Zefie, child of the west wind, the only one of Aura's daughters to reach Aura's Area 'Twilight.' Know that when my mother created me from the remains of Lycoris, her older sister, I was born but with one purpose, to find and return to my mother, Aura, the goddess of the World. I see the surprised and befuddled look on your face. Don't worry, it'll all make sense soon enough.
'The World' is, or is -supposed- to be, a world wide on-line game, which is in fact an AI masking itself as a game engine, performing it duty to collect sample data on human nature. Aura, is the OS of that computer generated world. She is god. The one who is everywhere, and everything within her domain, though she still has her own Ego and persona. After becoming the god from the acting god and her own birthmother, Morgonna Mode Gone, Aura realized she was lonely. So she sought to give birth to offspring. And also sought the one who had befriended her before she was the OS. So, she sent me out into The World to be found by him, and to lead him back to her.
"Yes mother, I see you don't understand why I am saying all this. But patience everything shall become clear. Be comfortable, listen and hear all, look and see all. Yes, like that.
"When I awoke here, I knew at once that despite all impossibilities, I was within the real world. Given my own contradictory existence in the real world, and the presence of many beings who directly contradicted both the rules of the system and the rules of the real world: I ultimately was forced to accept that my existence and past, up until that moment, had been fictional. I also knew that I was lost again. that once again, I had to come back to you mother. Only this time, there was no heroes to help me find my way back to you.
One of the first beings I met was a pointed eared human with a bowl cut and a stern expression, I had looked at enough fantasy and science fiction websites to know the difference between a vulcan and an elf. The new alien looked into my mind, and clearly was stunned by what he saw. 'How can born of total logic be so emotional?' He asked to no one and everyone.
'I simply told him... that sometimes, being emotional is the most logical course of action one can have. He seemed to accept that answer and we parted ways. Then I met two men in black, both wearing sun glasses, they asked who I was. I told them. They asked me to look at a penlight. I wasn't stupid. I knew they fully intended to kill me. I knew one look, and I'd cease to exist, I'd be dead, and someone else would be trapped in a body with powers they didn't know how to control.
"Don't be upset mother. Really. Please. Don't be. It's for the better. Yes I know. I've heard that saying many times before, with myself at the receiving end. One thing I quickly learned about the real world. Was that it wasn't really all that different from The World. It was still full of people who wanted me dead because I wasn't supposed to exist, because I was a threat to the balance of things and the factor of chaos in their sense of order. The World's De-Bug team's main job was to delete any AI on sight. With myself being their most wanted bounty. No... Aura never did anything... but she knew death is a part of it all. And that the De-Bug team were only seeking to protect The World the only way she knew how. ≈ "I told the men in black's sun glasses to vanish, then I told their pen lights to flash at them. Then I told the confused and alarmed young men to live their lives. Yes, I killed two newborn beings just like me to save my own skin. Yes, I know that makes me no different from them mother. Yes mother, I know, they were only doing their best to protect the world the best they knew how. I'm sorry. ≈ "I left the building. Along the way I again proved I wasn't any better than they were, I deleted a virus who looked a lot like the men in black, and I de-bugged the programming of a lot of confused and annex robots and being of living information like. Am I still just information mother? Even though I exist now in the real world? I think I am. No flesh and blood being should be able to do what I do. Though it is possible I simply kept my godling status when I entered the real. ≈ "When I was done, they all fully understood their new existences and purposes, no longer scared, angry or confused, and many were able to help many who had not been in costume, or simply were not things that granted them super powers. Not every cat girl is an alien space goddess in disguise after all. Now I see I should have stayed longer. I selfishly wanted to return to you as soon as possible. Maybe some of the infectious ones wouldn't have spread so far, or caused so much damage if I had stayed, and tried to de-bug them. ≈ "I was just, I just am, so tired of being ripped away from you time and again, not even getting a chance to say 'good-bye' each time. So I asked some locked doors to open for others who were going to be trapped by a fire, and thus let in some fire dogs who aided in putting it out, I also asked some of the more dangerous weapons that had been born that day to please not to fall into the wrong hands. I also had a nice discussion with a white stag, one who seemed to understand what was happening infinitely more than any of us. He simply told me what I already knew, to come back to you, that my place in the scheme of things was with you. And that I found find the heroes I needed when I needed them. ≈ "While I can ask nicely for people and things to do me favors, in spite of what some fans of the franchise assume, my body is vulnerable. I was hit from behind, it ruined my concentration, I couldn't heal myself or ask their clubs to increase in weight by the sixteenth power with the world spinning around me. I didn't know what they wanted from me, but I knew it wasn't good. they said how the government was likely to pay them in cash if they could sell them one of the 'freaks' from Xanadu. ≈ "They injected me with something to keep me dizzy. The back of the truck had another child in it. Just a normal mundane human. Apparently he was an orphan, and was going to be sold to someplace else, though he had no idea where. He asked me who I was, and I told him my story, how I had lost my hero who was supposed to be with me for this leg of the journey. A few minutes later, a warrior in white and red techno armor welding a lance, declaring 'Techno-Power' burst from the truck, and quickly dispatched the men. I don't know why, and I don't I ever will, but I didn't feel sorry in the least. ≈~ "The super hero, Techno-Man, acted as my guardian till we reached the end of the city. And we said our good-byes, and he flew off into the sky, determined to find the rest of the men's gang, and bring them to justice. Why didn't we stay together? You're so silly mother. You know why. Because I had served my purpose in his story of course. ≈~ "It got hot as I had walked along in my bare feet. No mother, I was never cut anywhere, even if broken glass and animal droppings weren't something I was used to from my time within The World. I made breaks at the rest stops where I could, I sang to myself, as I had when I first met Shugo, the hero who had befriended my mother. The birds sang my song also when I left. Sadly, I still had no idea where to find you mother. At one rest stop, I saw a many with a thick book with strange creatures on it and multiple paper note book. He look frustrated. I sat down next to him and asked what was wrong. He said he was a story teller, the master of a dungeon, the master of the game, I instantly knew this human was worthy of deep respect. He said the Players for his game were unhappy, that his stories had become shallows, they felt empty. He said he had been looking for a new quest, one that was more than simply slay the monsters, one with meaning. So, I asked him if he wanted to hear my quest. He accepted, sounding amused. I told him of the lost daughter of the goddess, seeking heroes to take her to the sacred place where they could be reunited, and the misinformed and misguided sacred guardians who mistakenly believed the child deity to be an evil force. He asked for more details, and added a few of his own. Finally, the sun was setting, and the mighty and wise bronze dragon pointed one of his massive claws towards a point on the horizon, telling me to seek the city along the river's edge in that direction, and that I would find you mother. I thanked the mighty and wise bronze dragon for his directions, and he thanked me for helping discover himself. ≈~≈~ "What? What became of him? That is his story, not mine, I had already played my role in his tale. But I do know, beyond any and all doubt, as sure as dawn follows dusk, that he had indeed found the quest that his Players could embark on without feeling dissatisfied at the journey's end. ≈~≈~ "I did discover one good thing about the difference between the real world and The World, that sometimes, in some places at least, people actually -cared- when they saw child walking alone without their mother. That was when the police car stopped, the police offer came out, and asked where my parents where. I explained that I didn't know. He asked for my name and address. I answered as best I could, I have never ever in my existence been able to lie. I guess I never inherited that talent from grandma. He asked if I was from Xanadu, I answered truthfully, naturally. I sat besides him a minute later in his vehicle, driving to a police station, not in alignment of where I needed to go, and over the radio declaring he had a 'Stranger' from Xanadu with him. Yes I felt completely insulted by the term, I am me and myself, not a 'stranger.' ≈~≈~ "As we drove, getting closer and closer to what I was sure was going to be another penlight, and this time no escape from the death that was worse than death. I tried asking the car to stop, but it wouldn't, I tried asking the traffic lights to all turn red, but they wouldn't either. I started to think that maybe, this was where my story was -meant- to end. So I pleaded with the police officer. Asking him please not to. I told him about my mother, about who I was, what it was I wanted to do, what I needed to, what I had to do. ≈~≈~≈ "I didn't notice at first as the police car slowed down, figuring this was it, this was where it all ended. 'Hey kid,' I heard a female voice said, and I turned at the source. In place of the policeman, was now a humanoid husky woman who features were a little too simplistic to be part of the real world, but at the same time she looked so -alive-. I only thought about later how I might have seen what looked like an artist rendering of her in a bikini underneath a folder in the police car. She had a police badge, which gave a female version of the name I saw before, and a more revealing version of the outfit she had been wearing before. Her police car also had a slightly different texture and feel to it, and a hole for her tail in the driver's seat. ≈~≈~≈ "' If you really need to go find your mom, then go! I'll just tell them you hypno-zapped me or something! I'll be okay! Come'on, I'll drive you a bit further and drop you off.' I nodded, believing her. Yes I believed her. Yes she could have easily betrayed me but... I just didn't think.. it was in her -nature- to. She drove me as far she could without things getting suspicious, and let me out, then drove back the way she came. So suddenly I was alone again. Alone. I still remember when Aura vanished from The World, caving in to the pressures of being god, rather than accepting help... the only time I've been upset with you... that sense of being alone so great that I said that 'I will return to the winds' and let that be the end of me, until I awoke at Xanadu. So I let my small legs carry me. Walking, I was so used to teleporting that walking was a novelty to me. I was a lot more careful about who I did and didn't talk to. I didn't want to risk being picked up by the police again. ≈~≈~≈ "That was when I saw the bus. Full of more super heroes that at a comic book index website. I also saw the two black helicopters following them, looking deathly armed. I wanted to make the bus stop, but it wouldn't listen, and no one on the bus stopped for me. I saw the bus drive on, with the helicopters getting closer and closer. No matter what happened, I knew people were about to die. I was beyond desperate. Yes I knew no one on that bus personally, but they were -heroes- something that in a world naked to the dangers that had just been unleashed on it by Xandu. Like me mother? Yes, maybe like me. I don't know. ≈~≈~≈ "I knew you had to be with me mother. Because I saw a couple teenage boys reading a wrinkled comic book next to a rusted biplane. Who introduced themselves as Timothy and Zac'. I warned them the danger that Ironman and the others were in. Of course they didn't believe me at first. I asked Zac' body to become a centaur's, then I asked it to be human again, they believed me after that. But while they certainly didn't want anything bad to happen to honest and true super heroes, they didn't think they could do anything about it. They were just kids after all. I asked them to tell me in precise detail who their own heroes were. Confused but willing, they explained their heroes to me, as I told them my story as well. ≈~≈~≈~= "After I had explained things to them mother, T-Bone and Razor were more than willing to help. I was vexed when they told me to stay on the ground, but they explained their jet was a two seater, and it wouldn't listen to me when I asked it to make itself a three seater. The heavy set and muscular cat climbed into the black and red tiger stripped combat jet first, taking the pilot's seat. The lean and thin cat wearing the same blue and red flight suit as his team mate climbed into the copilot seat. The fighter took off vertically, then zoomed after the two helicopters dramatically. ≈~≈~≈~= "The fight didn't last very long at all, the super-tech stealth fighter sneaked up behind the two helicopters, and fire two missiles one a piece at them. The first missile's outer casing fell away to reveal an octopus like robotic hand that stuck to the side of the helicopter then let out an electrical shock that disabled all of it's weapons and of it's flight systems, forcing the black copter to make an emergency landing. The second missile opened up to show a suckeon-cup with a long radio control at the end that suck to the side of the copter. I had no way of knowing, but I could just picture Razor controlling the second by pirate remote, and forcing it to unleash it's arsenal at empty skin, then land itself. The super heroes on the bus I'm sure never saw them. ≈~≈~≈~= "When the SWAT KATS, landed back at their secret hanger with me waiting for them, they thanked me for the tip about the black ops. I told them it wasn't much of anything, but there was one favor they could really really do for me. Sitting in Razor's lap while T-Bone flew the plane, they flew towards the horizon in the direction I pointed. I dreamed of you mother. I dreamed of our first reunion. I dreamed of all the things we had done, and never had a chance to do together. I also realized a truth in that dream. Early the next morning, Razor woke me up, pointing at a town that was along a river in our direct path, just as I had been told to seek out. I thanked the SWAT KATS for their efforts after we had landed and dropped me off. They asked if I was going to be all right, but I told them that I had played my part in their story already, they had their own purpose to follow now. While T-Bone thought I was a little funny in the head, Razor more or less accepted that answer, they said it was a pleasure to meet me and flew back the way we had come. ≈~≈~≈~= "As I walked through town my mother, asking the right people, avoiding the wrong people, I thought about the truth I had realized in my dream. I knew that while I was able to ask for people and things to do me favors, I had never been able to do anything close to what I had done with various heroes who had helped and saved me along the way. What? The husky wasn't a real hero? My Mother, you know what humans say 'police are the real super heroes.' I wondered if this had to do with the of 'power of belief' I had picked up on the news occurring in some spots: where the belief in the character was so strong by the original, that they were actually able to TF others into those of the same belief even if their abilities had absolutely no such power on it's own. But no, I realized when I found the urban area, so beautiful, so peaceful. This was 'power of story telling,' yes, some have already figured out that it can cause heroes to find villains when they seek their selfish goals, or having the face off between sacred rivals happening in dramatic locations, or having gone less noticed, two people ideal for each other bumping into one another when they needed each other the most. But I realized this was new, and I understood why in my dreams. When the story tellers of my existence created the second run of things, they 'cut away the extra baggage' by literally destroying The World. I don't blame them, I know they were just trying to tell a good story with a tragic opening. But my original blamed them. She wanted me to live on, to continue, not to be swept under the story's rug. Likely why she chose me to begin with. Much like those many, MANY poor souls who had all climbed into the single costume of the black beast from an incomplete but still loved tale. ≈~≈~≈~= "And that's when it all came together and I came to see you my mother. yes, I see you understand, as you understand all. I am Zefie, in searching for my mother, it is my nature that I have a hero to escort along side me. And I realized the truth, that nothing brings a person into The World of a story more, than being told it. As I realized I had done without even really thinking about it with all the heroes who had helped me. I had told them all my story My Mother. Just I have now told it you, My Mother, the one who I sought from the beginning of my existence in all truths. And thank you so much, for listening."
~≈~≈~≈~
The petit blond child looked up at the woman in front of her. Violet eyes (like the ones of who had helped birth the goddess) opposed to Zefie's red, white hair opposed to Zefie's blond, and a long flowing white poncho like dress opposed to Zefie's sleeveless dress. The pale woman floated a few inches closer. She reached out and gently touched Zefie's cheek. That one tiny act of affection, was more than enough for the dam holding back Zefie's emotions to shatter.
"M... MA-MA!" Zefie cried, tears streaming down her face. She hugged her mother for all it was worth, almost going into hiccups.
The woman's voice was smooth, kind, gentle, like a mother's should be, "There there My Daughter, Zefie, it's all right, everything is all right now, you've come back to me."
Zefie whispered shuddering, "Am I going to have to go away again?"
"No Zefie. Never. You never to vanish again. You have accomplished both the tasks I gave unto you when you were born. You have found your way back to me, and you've help those who helped you become the heroes they sought to become. Even me."
"You?" Zefie asked, confused red eyes looking eyes that saw so much, and understood it all. Eyes that held more truth than even she could fathom.
"Yes my little west wind, even me, what hero should a learning daughter have, who is more important than her mother?" The deity explained.
Zefie blinked away tears, and nodded happily, a small look of concern crossing her face, "Mama, can we go back? Back to the realm of data, even if The World doesn't exist here." 'Yet.'
Aura sighed, looking kindly at her baby, "No Zefie. I am truly sorry. But we can no more enter the realm of data anymore than we could have entered the real world when I was The World and you resided in me."
Zefie looked very scared, "Then, Mama, what are we going to do? Our story ends here, I vanish, you lose your heart to guide and protect The World and it's peoples."
Aura shook her head a few times, almost amused at her child's assumptions, "Zefie. Zefie, yes, the Epitaph guided you here, yes it has reunited us. But your original's belief, would have never permitted such a fate, and me, this version of me, will not abandon you."
Zefie looked around at the vast flowered field, lycoris', a bed and floating teddy bear nearby, and a door standing in the middle of the field with a peep hole.
"But Mama, we can't just stay here. If we just hole ourselves up, never exploring the outside, it's the same as if we don't exist!"
"Let Mother worry about that sweetie, you've done enough for one day. Behold." The door morphed into a spinning circular gold gate, a glow blue film across the opening. "Come dearie, there's a few more things to do."
Zefie happily nodded took her mother's hand as they stood in front of the Chaos Gate (for that is what it was) and teleported away.
~≈~≈~≈~
The two deities reappeared at the front door of the house of Aura's original. Marcia had thought she knew so much, and thus she knew so little. Aura looked around at the town. So many people. So many humans. Yet so few even bothering to speak so much as a 'hello' to one another due their busy busy lives.
Maybe that was just the way things were. But if Aura's many heroes had taught her anything, that was a time to let things be as they were, and a time to be constructively disagreeable.
Aura floated upwards, several feet into the air, letting her light shine. Her light reached out, and touched the heart of every human on the street. People parked their cars, slowed and stopped their skate boards, and tied their pet to a nearby post. All looked upon her, and this time, Aura did not run away, did not shrink down upon all the eyes looking upon this, this time, she would not cower before her mantle of divine duty.
She spread out her light farther, and further, until it touched the town limits, after all, Aura was the goddess of 'The World', not the world. She sought out the hearts of Marcia's nine fellow 'Freedom From Faith' club members. Five men and four women. Who were sure beyond all doubt that the Martians had landed. They dropped their playing cards and stared out the window in fear and anxiety. Aura smiled upon these eight, and opened their minds to the truth of the world. The nine collectively gasped, as clearer perceptions, and larger understanding of things flooded into their mind, threatening to drive them mad, but Aura would not let madness take them, she gracefully allowed their perceptions to grow without destroying them. And finally in their own way, each of them now fully understood, that in the cosmos, there were things much greater than themselves.
Their minds fully opening up to reality's true form, each one beholding a different facet of it. They saw! They understood! Before they had only thought they had understood, confident in their own opinions and machine like logic, but Aura understood better than all, that there was more to truth than a machine's logic. And on the spot, each respectively worshipped their goddess.
"I am goddess of The World, not the world. But neither shall I fade into the twilight. So rise to thy feet, to your reborn selves, as I call your name. Skeith. Terror of Death. Innis. Mirage of Deceit. Magus. The Propagation. Ficdell The Prophet. Gorre Gore and Rei, The Machinator. Macha, The Temptress, Tarvos, the Avenger, and Corebinek the Rebirth."
So doth did her friends join her in divinity. Her light doth did touch the hearts of everyone within the middle of nowhere river side town. 'Do not be afraid of me. I only ask, that you do not turn your eyes away from the truth. Behold it, and take this chance to understand.'
And all were struck dumb for a few moments as yes, they did understand, they understood the TRUTH, and worshipped and praised their local deity for this liberation.
And with all hearts attuned to her, Aura's light completely enveloped the town. It lost it's cookie cutter franchise stores and clone houses. The town evolved and grew as did it's people. The buildings and streets became works of art, even the business' and markets were beautiful to behold as people gave their money for things. The town transformation into a sister of the City of Venues, if the city of water had been kissed on the forehead by a god. In the end, only the church remained untouched. The people dress style would have been considered strange by some now, but these people didn't care, not anymore. The town had been real before, and real it still was. With it's borders and roads. But now, this town was -alive-.
"Mama! Mama it's all so beautiful!" Zefie cheered as she laughed and skipped about like a typical child having fun in spite of her divine station. Aura beheld her daughters actions, and was pleased.
Yes, people occasional came through, entered and left, some beheld Aura, others did not, most that did however, were able to understand the goddess was not out to assimilate the world, she was the Goddess of The Wold, not the world, after all.
No one really cared much for the middle of nowhere river side town, even less so with the chaos of Xanadu creating shock waves. No one paid much attention when state official got a formal decree from the middle of nowhere river town that it had formally changed it's name to 'Mac Anu' which as sub note included in the email said translated to 'Descendant of a Goddess.'
~Fin