Castoff: The Apocalypse (ch. 24) (Patreon)

Guts looked like death warmed over, the cursed armor he wore receding to reveal raw skin and a shock of white hair. He leaned heavily on his blade, whose cracks were filled with gold, nearly oblivious to the chaos that transpired around him. He stood like the eye of the storm, because not even the Wild Hunt had wanted to get involved in the battle. However, with his victory, Ciri could see the Wild Hunt pouncing while they saw him weakened.

Her mind was reeling as she darted between soldiers, both her own and Nilfgaardian. Geralt was a half step behind her, killing those that she left for him and covering her back. Her blade darted out, delivering killing blows with every stroke as she pushed towards Guts. The Wild Hunt shouldn't be here. Either this was some truly spectacularly shitty luck on her part, or this was a deliberate action. Did the Wild Hunt know about her plan? Had they been waiting for an opportunity to ambush her?

Most puzzling of all was their numbers. The Wild Hunt had their own methods of traversing Spheres -- if they didn't, then they wouldn't be here in the first place. However, those methods were limited. It took a powerful sorcerer with the right aptitude to even make it possible, and Ciri knew they had at least one such mage. Only they were limited to a dozen people at most.

The entire reason why they hunted her for the Elder Blood in her veins was because of the power within it. It would allow them to move hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands across Spheres en masse. So, how could they suddenly send over half a thousand members of the Wild Hunt? What changed? Something had to have, because if they had the capacity to do this earlier then they would have.

Ciri caught a glimpse of the body -- Zodd. His corpse had reverted to the titan of a man that had even dwarfed Guts. He and Guts knew each other. Could this be something from his Sphere? This Griffith fellow? She only had the framework of a story of what transpired during the Eclipse, but it seemed to be the only possible answer. As she broke through the line of fleeing Nilfgaardians, she saw the Wild Hunt deliver a charge, leveling their lances or great swords as a good dozen of them tried to take out Guts.

Space rippled around her and she lurched forward, reappearing to drive her blade into the throat of a member of the Wild Hunt. He gargled on a spray of crimson, and she yanked the reigns of his mount to the side, making him bump into another rider. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of movement, and when she turned to him fully, she saw Guts was charging the horsemen. His dog shaped helm covering his face, shadows rippling around him.

Ciri blinked back just in time to see the charge break upon Guts like a wave against a cliffside. Dragonslayer carved through horses and their riders along with their armor. The blade itself, despite it's incredible weight, was as quick as a whip and in three strokes of the blade that took place in the span of a blink of an eye, the dozen riders were dead. And in pieces. It was a sight to see. Guts just kept… going. She had thought he was on his last legs, only to find that he seemed even stronger and faster than she had ever seen him.

Yet, no sooner than their corpses hit the dirt, Guts once again leaned heavily on his blade. Dimly, he looked in her direction as she rushed to his side while Geralt caught up. There were a lot of things she wanted to say, but she swallowed them all when she saw the steel in his gaze. Instead, she addressed the problem at hand. "There's been a change of plan," Ciri decided. "We need to deal with the Wild Hunt."

"Griffith," Guts spat the name like a curse as he righted himself. He had come to the same conclusion that she did. It was just a question of what could be done with it. The Wild Hunt were… manageable, for lack of a better word, in the sense that Ciri knew how to deal with them. Their numbers were few when they chased her, but this… this was an invasion force, and the effects it had on the Nilfgaardian army couldn't be understated.

With more than a thousand, they had disrupted and hurt the besieging army. Yet, with just several hundred riders of the Wild Hunt, the Nilfgaardian army shattered like porcelain. The fighting was sporadic and only taking place where both armies clashed beforehand, but more members of the Nilfgaardian army were breaking off in a full undisciplined retreat.

Ciri knew herself. She couldn't handle hundreds of Riders. And deep down, she knew that this was merely the tip of the spear. A reality that she dreaded was rapidly taking form -- a possibility that hinged on her being the lynch pin no longer required her, or, rather, the blood in her veins.

The Aen Elle elves were coming for her home. To claim it. To conquer it.

And her brief stay in that Sphere taught her how disastrous such a thing would be for everyone not of  the Aen Elle.

"We need to get back to Novigrad," Guts decided, standing tall despite his horrific injuries. He needed rest. He needed a healer. Yet he seemed as strong as he ever did. "Judeau. They're after you because you're a Source? They'll be after Judeau for the same reason," Guts growled, hefting his blade and readying himself. Her stomach did flips inside of her while her guts tied themselves into knots. She hadn't even considered the possibility.

Was it because of him? Did they already have him?

Ciri made a terrible general, she realized, because she didn't hesitate for a moment to reach out to Guts and pull upon the power in her blood. And it was only pure dumb luck that Geralt had caught up to her enough to lay a hand on her shoulder to be brought along. She abandoned the battlefield, content with the damage being done, even if it wasn't quite what she imagined. It was hardly a glorious victory that would ring out across the North, unifying the shattered kingdoms behind her, but it was enough. It would have to be because a far greater problem had arose.

As she pulled at the power in her blood, Ciri's vision went white as space and time rippled around her. She was looking for him this time -- the man that was being a colossal pain in her ass. Ciri didn't see him standing before them this time, but what she did see was a thread. A fine line that stretched across the vast universe. One end was attached to the Brand that rested on Guts' neck, while the other stretched off into the distance.

Space was her domain. It was hers. It was a fundamental right that belonged to her. It rippled like a still lake with a stone tossed in it, the incalculable vast distance between their Spheres, Ciri followed the thread to the Sphere. Guts' Sphere.

She saw him. Or, rather, them.

Griffith wearing that stupid looking bird helmet as he stood on top of the middle finger of a mountain sized hand that stretched upwards to the skies above where an Eclipse hovered in the sky. It wasn't the Sphere. Not exactly. It was a space around it… or within it? Ciri couldn't really be sure as her gaze locked with Griffith's, paying no mind to the others standing on the fingers of the hand. The Godhand. A little on the nose there.

"Fuck you," Ciri cursed, flipping them the bird. She couldn't interact with them beyond that. She was looking at their dimension through a window, and she would have to shatter it in order to reach in. However, the window was clear enough for her to look through and for them to see her.

With the message delivered, Ciri found herself back in Novigrad just in time to hear the shattering of wood. A tree felling had a very unique sound as the wood was splintered, pushed beyond its limits. An odd snapping and crackling sound. It filled her ears as the front of the Rosemary and Thyme collapsed inward as something colossal tore through the building as if it were made of paper mache.

Ciri tensed, ready to fight as a cloud of dust was kicked up, but she paused when she saw what had ripped through the front of the building that seemed to be on the verge of collapse based on the grinning wood. It was a dragon, as far as Ciri could tell. Only instead of flesh and blood, it was made of an odd crystalline material that had suffered a fatal crack as it laid in the building.

It was only when the dust cloud dispersed that she saw what happened to the monster -- the Apostle, as Guts had called them.

Judeau stood with his hand outstretched, as if he had pushed the dragon despite barely reaching its ankle. His blank expression was replaced with a small frown, and behind him was Casca who looked every bit as bewildered as Ciri felt. She wore a simple blouse and a pair of trousers, a saber in hand, torn between gaping at the fallen dragon and her child.

Judeau lowered his hand, "I don't like you." It was the first time Ciri had heard the child speak, but the air itself seemed to stir with an undercurrent of power a shiver raved down her spine, the power in the words not at all matching the youthful voice they were uttered with. Simply because they didn't feel like they came from a child.

The support beam lurched, the wood cracking as the dragon began to rise with the sound of minerals grinding together. Guts leapt into action, and Ciri was only a half step behind him. She blurred towards the dragon, darting between its legs, looking for a vulnerability to exploit. Ciri had no idea what Judeau did to the dragon, but there were spiderweb cracks that extended well beyond the point of impact, which proved to be its chest. Something Guts didn't fail to notice either as he went high, driving Dragonslayer into the cracks with downright monstrous strength because he nearly brought the remainder of the tavern down upon them when the dragon was knocked to the side.

Ciri felt a flash of genuine regret, knowing that she had to find a way to make this up to Dandelion somehow as the house collapsed on the fallen dragon.

"Guts!" Ciri heard Casca call out as he landed between them, Geralt at his side with his fingers twitching in preparation to form a sign. Now that they were outside of the building, Ciri got a larger view of the area to see that the road was an absolute wreck. People were still fleeing, telling Ciri that the battle hadn't started all that long ago, likely right when the Wild Hunt had attacked them. The only silver lining was that she didn't see any members of the Wild Hunt. Just ruined building, broken cobblestone, and tracks that marked the arrival of the dragon. "His body is tough. Strong as steel."

The rubble that landed on the dragon shifted, "Guts?" Ciri heard a rumbling from underneath as the dragon proved to be unharmed as the rubble slid off of it like water. "The forsworn enemy of Zodd? You yet live? Are you a coward that quit the field?" The dragon rumbled in a heavy tone, right itself to look down at Guts, who was unyielding in the face of the creature. "No. I smell Zodd's profane blood on your blade. He found his defeat at your hands."

The dragon sounded almost disappointed by that revelation.

Guts let out a snarl that barely sounded human but Ciri was distracted by a little hand touching her leg, and she looked down to see the frowning face of Judeau. This child really didn't understand the meaning of fear, huh? Because he looked at the dragon as if he wanted to put his foot so far up its ass he could use his teeth for clippers. He had also seemed to inherit Guts' indignant expression.

Then his eyes began to shine, as if the sun itself was pouring through them. Ciri didn't hear him speak, but she heard his voice -- not with her ears, but with her blood. The power within the child resonated with the Elder Blood in her veins, letting her know what Judeau desired.

For the dragon to go away. A simple childish desire backed with the power of a Source and her blood sang in response. His power echoed her own, making it swell like the tide. Distantly, Ciri was aware what Judeau was doing -- he was granting her power for her to shape and control. That was a distant revelation at best as she was completely swept up in the sensation. She tasted power on her tongue, her blood sang in delight while space and time rippled around her like a curtain she could peel back.

She saw it in a way that she never had before. Time… time was linear until you took a step away from it. As if it were a path that you could only go forward on, but the moment she escaped its boundaries, Ciri could see the intricate web of past, present, and even the future overlapping upon one another. She saw the Rosemary and Thyme while again, a large man wearing draconian armor approaching the front door.

She saw Judeau's power swelling -- pure, raw, power that surpassed her own in every way, except it was nothing but raw power. She was the Lady of Space and Time. They were hers. Every bit as much as her clothes and sword were hers. Judeau had no such claim, but his power was completely unrestrained in what it could be or what it was used for. She saw him wield it like a cudgel against… Grunbeld, hammering pure raw magical energy against his chest with such force that his thick crystal hide shattered upon impact.

Ciri saw her own arrival.

And she saw what transpired next.

It was an odd sensation, Ciri realized, as she raised a hand, mirroring her own actions in the future. It was enough to make her head spin, but she knew it would work. She could see every step of the path that she would take from the outside perspective she currently had on time. Even if she wasn't sure why it would work, Ciri knew that it would. As much as she knew that the sun would rise tomorrow morning because if she looked down the path a little, she could see the sunrise as sure enough as if it were rising here and now.

Time rippled around Grunbeld, her power singing as it was being used. Judeau wanted him to go away. He wanted him dead.

Guts would kill him. Ciri could see it, but as he was, it would be a hard fought battle. He would suffer for his victory, needlessly. Space was the part of her power that she used most frequently, but it was the lesser half of her power, Ciri realized as she brought forth an event from the future and put it in the past.

Grunbeld stood before her, tall, proud, if injured.

Then he laid on his side dead, his chest ripped open as Dragonslayer shattered his armor.

It was his fate in the future. The moment he set foot on the path that brought him into conflict with Guts, this was his fate. An inescapable conclusion. The only thing that Ciri did was move it up. She skipped the fight itself and went straight to the conclusion -- Grunbeld's death.

The very moment that his death was realized, Judeau removed his hand and Ciri doubled over. It wasn't that she felt weak or spent. Ciri felt like herself, as much she ever did, but she had just crashed down from the highest of highs to… normal. It felt like someone had scooped out her guts and sapped her strength, leaving her sweating bullets and standing on legs as feeble as a newborn fawn. Ciri gulped down air as everyone recovered from the shock of seeing Grunbeld stand tall only to immediately be dead in the span of a blink of an eye with no apparent cause.

When she collapsed to her knees, Judeau patted her on the back, like he was telling her 'good job.'

"Ciri, what did you just do?" Geralt asked her, crouching by her side. Ciri didn't have the breath to answer. Or the words, really. She simply gulped down air like a man dying of thirst in the desert, feeling strangely hollow as the power that sang in her veins slowly began to dwindle into silence.

Instead of answering, her gaze went to Judeau, who adopted his usual blank expression. His eyes were too bright. Too knowing. It was a little unnerving, Ciri thought, now she saw the depths of child's strangeness, though she was hardly in a position to throw stones. Her breathing caught in her throat when the child offered her a small hand to take. An offer? Or…

Ciri hesitated for but a moment before she took the offered hand. Power flowed through her veins once again, and she knew what she had to do. Not because of what she saw, but because she needed to know.

What came next?

The sun would set and the sun would rise, but as far as she could tell, that was the only thing that she knew for certain. Looking ahead was… different. Looking back, there was a single path -- every single decision that had ever been made that led to their current circumstances. From the Conjunction of Spheres all the way to this very second. Ciri was sure if she had the patience, she could watch the world's history unfold before her eyes. But, looking forward?

The paths diverged. A fork in the road, at first, then that fork branched out into a thousand different paths, and those branches became a million. Her brain throbbed between her temples as she tried to look at it, but it was just too… much. It was like trying to stuff an entire library into her brain all at once. The further she looked, the more the paths diverged.

And she wished that she could say they were radically different. They weren't. Actually, all but a handful of them were extremely similar.

An invasion that swept across the world heralded by Apostles and the Wild Hunt. The absolute domination of every sapient being, or their eradication. The kingdoms were thoroughly sapped of their strength, and they couldn't hope to muster a proper defense. Dwarves and elves would be enslaved. Humans and monsters would be eradicated. It filled her blood with ice to see that in the vast majority of the paths forward, the Sphere was lost.

Then her stomach started to fall as she looked even beyond that.

Ciri knew what the Aen Elle fled. The White Frost. An interdimensional calamity that caused a never ending winter that would freeze any world that it touched. The Sphere of Aen Elle was a destined victim of the calamity, which is why they sought her so desperately. However, they didn't understand what they were doing. Or, maybe they did, and they just didn't care.

Just like a path being formed in grass, the more you walked on it, the more defined the path became. A single traveler like herself? Unnoticed, in the grand scheme of things. But moving an entire society? Thousands upon thousands of people? That would create a defined path between two Spheres. A path that could be followed.

They were leading the White Frost right to this Sphere. For the elves, it mattered little. They would simply abandon this Sphere and travel to another, endlessly outrunning the calamity until there were no more Spheres to run to. For everyone else, it was the end. In a mere century, Ciri saw what laid ahead. A world of endless snow and frost with only ruins and corpses to mark the fact that civilization once was here.

The end of the world. It was coming. One way or the other.

Judeau let go of her hand before she was ready, and part of her wanted to snap at him. She nearly did until she tasted copper on her tongue and she realized that she had a substantial nosebleed. Ciri pinched it off, her head pounding. Her awareness expanded and some time must have passed because everyone else was gathered around her wearing expressions of concern.

Ciri knew she should reassure them. However, what came out of her mouth were words forged in steel.

"I know what we have to do."