-0-
(Loth's P.O.V)
The dream started without warning.
One moment I was floating in the quiet dark of unconsciousness. The next, I was standing knee-deep in black mud while screams twisted through the air like metal being bent in half.
I knew the place instantly.
Not because I had ever been here—but because every Fate nerd on Earth had seen this hellscape at least once.
Fuyuki. The Fourth Grail War. Fate/Zero.
And the mud wasn't mud at all.
It was Angra Mainyu—thousands of Chaos-infected beasts of humanity's sins, crawling out of a ruptured Grail like a cracked egg spilling poison.
Three figures fought knee-deep in the madness.
Percy—filthy, exhausted, Riptide slashing through the black tide with water-sharp currents that barely held shape.
Annabeth—back-to-back with him, the Necronomicon strapped to her back with glowing silver daggers that meant her brain was calculating faster than her body could keep up.
And towering over them—
Gilgamesh.
Golden armor scorched black in places.
Gate of Babylon firing continuously, tearing holes in the sea of sin monsters but never enough.
He was roaring something—anger, pride, pure annoyance—but the dream muted all sound except a low buzzing behind my ears.
A yellow glow rose beside me.
I didn't turn. I didn't want to.
But it spoke anyway.
"They cannot win without you."
I exhaled sharply. "Of course you'd show up."
The yellow figure—humanoid, featureless, its "skin" nothing but roiling Chaotic energy—drifted forward as if it didn't weigh anything at all.
"I am your truth," It said.
"Your future. Your end. Your beginning."
"Cut the theatrics," I snapped. "What do you want?"
It raised a hand toward the battlefield.
"To show you what you will become."
Suddenly the mud shifted beneath us, pulling me downward like a sinkhole. The battlefield dissolved into a whirlpool of light and the dream snapped to a different place—so abruptly it made me nauseous.
Thalia's tree.
Camp Half-Blood.
But not my version.
A different timeline.
Because sitting under the tree was me—or a younger me, surrounded by rings of pink and violet energy pulsing like a heartbeat.
Luna sat beside him, calm, serene, meditating with him as if nothing was wrong.
I stepped forward automatically.
"Luna!" I called, instinct overriding logic.
She didn't react.
Past-me didn't react.
The whole scene was silent, frozen.
Chaos drifted beside me.
"They cannot hear you. This is memory, expectation, and possibility woven together."
"So this is your pitch," I muttered. "After Hecate's."
Chaos shook its head slowly.
"No pitch. Only truth. Watch."
I turned back to the scene just as the rings around my past self pulsed—once, twice—then destabilized. The pink aura warped inward like a collapsing star.
I felt my stomach drop.
"No—no, no—"
The other me exploded.
Not a burst.
Not a flare.
A detonation of raw, uncontrolled Order that vaporized everything in its radius.
Luna vanished in an instant.
The tree evaporated.
The hill, the forest, the cabins—everything.
And then the entire world ignited into a sheet of pink flame.
I choked on nothing. The blast didn't touch me, but I felt the vibration of it in my bones.
Then the world burned away completely, leaving only a vast pink void beneath us. No ground. No horizon. No sound.
I couldn't breathe. "What was that?"
Chaos drifted above the emptiness with me, perfectly calm.
"Order."
Its voice deepened, like it came from inside my skull.
"That is what you are growing into. That is what waits at the end of your path. Order unleashed without balance destroys everything. Reduces existence to stagnation."
I clenched my fists. "That's not me."
"It will be."
"I won't become that."
Chaos turned its faceless head toward me.
"Unless you merge with me."
I stiffened. "There it is. The pitch."
"No," Chaos corrected.
"The solution. Together, you and I become equilibrium. A unity of Chaos and Order. A being that cannot be overthrown by Fate, by gods, by anything. The One True God."
It spread its arms.
"Ragnarok. Us."
"I'll never join you," I shot back in horror and not a little hate. "Never."
The void darkened around us, like a warning.
Chaos sighed—a strangely human sound, almost disappointed.
"I hoped you would see the truth willingly Loth."
Its yellow form rippled, and the image of Percy and Annabeth in Fuyuki reappeared in front of me—this time closer, clearer, their faces strained, desperate.
"If you will not come to me by reason…"
Annabeth screamed as an Angra Mainyu tendril wrapped her leg.
Chaos leaned beside my ear.
"…then I will consume your friends."
The dreamspace vibrated violently.
"Come to the Crossroad Realm."
"Give yourself up."
"Become one with me."
Percy was dragged into the mud up to his waist, thrashing.
"I await you, my other half."
The last thing I saw before the dream shattered was Annabeth's hand reaching out toward me, fingers slipping beneath the surface—
—and Chaos whispering:
"Ragnarok waits for no one."
-0-
I woke up choking on air that wasn't really there.
My hands were shaking. Sweat soaked the front of Kevin's- MY vest. The images from the dream—Percy dragged into black sludge, Annabeth screaming, Chaos whispering in my ear—clung to my skull like thorns.
"Percy… Annabeth…"
Their names escaped before I could stop myself.
Three days since I broke free of the Omnitrix.
Three days since I stole Kevin Levin's body to survive.
Three days since I learned I was now on a countdown to Either:
A) Become Order and destroy everything.
B) Become one with Chaos and destroy everything a different way.
C) Consume Chaos with my own spark Order.
Not great options.
I sat up on the thin RV bunk, taking a moment to breathe. Across the aisle, Ben was curled up in a ball, blanket twisted around one leg. He shivered once, then immediately resumed snoring—loudly and with the unique resonance of a tractor engine.
I sighed and pulled the sheet back over him. The kid had no idea what kind of apocalypse roulette I was currently playing. And he didn't have to. Not with the kind of shit waiting in his future.
Quietly, I slipped off the bed and into the bathroom. The small fluorescent light flickered once before turning on.
Kevin Levin stared back at me in the mirror.
The long black hair, the earrings I still wasn't sure how to remove without tearing something, the dark brown eyes that weren't mine. But the face itself… handsome. Like an Anti-hero to my regular Joe. It suited the Anodite energy humming under my skin disturbingly well. Stronger. Sharper.
A literal upgrade.
I felt the guilt settle in like a cold weight in my chest.
"Thanks," I murmured to the reflection. "And sorry, Kevin."
Whether he deserved it or not didn't change what I'd done.
After splashing cold water on my face, I dried off and grabbed the black vest and sneakers Kevin had been wearing. I was halfway to the RV door when a low voice stopped me.
"Rough night?"
Grandpa Max was leaning in the small kitchenette, arms folded with a wet apron on.
"I couldn't sleep so I did the dishes."
He shrugged, looking tired, but not judgmental—just watchful.
"Nightmare," I answered honestly. "Thought I'd get some fresh air."
He grunted. "Don't stay out too long. We've got a lot of road ahead of us tomorrow.
Magical Leylines were hard to locate on their own. But Max thought we'd have better luck accessing Plumber HQ archives. That's where we were going.
"Thanks."
I nodded and slipped outside.
The campfire was mostly glowing coals now, the woods around us quiet except for the distant call of wolves. For a moment I wondered if one of them was Blitzwolfer. This world had rules I still didn't fully understand, and aliens roaming backwoods America wasn't even weird here.
I sat cross-legged beside the dying fire and closed my eyes.
Faces flashed behind my eyelids.
Percy.
Annabeth.
Luna.
Chaos.
The version of me that had exploded into pure Order, wiping out an entire universe.
I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't become a walking extinction event. And I had no right to fall apart while my friends were trapped fighting for their lives.
So I focused on the one thing I could control: my power.
The much missed warmth at the center of my chest responded immediately—the core of the Anodite energy that now fueled this hybrid body.
'Holy shit...this control...'
I thought, easily pushing it outward, into my arms, my legs, my spine—
—and my entire body imploded out of physical form with a surprised shout.
I shifted into pure energy like it was the most natural thing in the world.
A startled laugh burst out of me, staring at my glowing pink limbs."Oh, holy hell—okay, that's new."
I reformed, solid again. Then dissolved a second time just to be sure.
It worked effortlessly.
Every cell in the Osmosian body felt like it welcomed the transition, like it had been waiting for the chance to become something more flexible than flesh. Malleable. Hungry. Built to change states without resistance.
No wonder the absorption worked.
No wonder I hadn't burned this body out instantly.
"Osmosian plus Anodite… Perfect shell," I realized. "I can actually work with this."
I gathered energy in my palm, shaping it, testing control levels, ready to see how far I could go. Especially with some spells from the Wizarding World.
Mmh. What should I try first? An Incendio? Expeliarmus?
Then the RV door creaked open behind me.
I turned.
Gwen stepped out, wearing her Lucky Girl mask, jacket zipped up against the chill. She hesitated for a moment at the edge of the firelight.
Then she walked toward me with more determination than I'd ever seen from her.
When she stopped a few feet away, she lifted her chin.
"I want to learn magic," she said.
Her voice didn't waver at all.
"Teach me before you leave."
A breath.
"Please."
I froze, energy still crackling at my fingertips.
Chaos, Order, the chase across worlds, my friends drowning in corruption—none of it showed on her face. She just looked at me like a kid trying to take control of her life in a world that made no sense.
And for the first time since the dream, my heart eased.
Just a little.