“You’ve got this Alice… just concentrate on the one point you are thinking of…” the professor’s voice echoed in my ear.

I feel… what I think is energy flowing out of me, slowly up my spine, it itches as it rises and diverts out along my arm. It’s warm, like dipping your arm in comfortably warm water.

Just then a blue light appears at my fingertips, expanding and pushing away from me, as the air in the room feels energized! Suddenly in an instant, a fold appears in the rift, and I can see a white light emitted from it.

I take a deep breath, and close my eyes as a wave of dizziness washes over me.

I feel Violet’s hand around me, “You okay Alice?”

I nod and step toward the fissure, “Yes, I’m fine, let’s go!”

Unsure of what to expect, I step through, and after a moment of intense bright light, I arrive in the past. Or… a version of it.

I’m not sure why I was expecting anything else, it’s Oatis… before the disaster. I stand there in awe as Violet, Elena and Falel arrive behind me.

Waiting for a moment, I kiss Violet, “Good luck, and stay focused… okay?”

She smiles, “Go Alice…” she whispers as she activates her gear to splice in and get all the screens in the district working for us. I turn to the train station, and break into a run.

As I start to run, I hear Violet’s voice explain to everyone in the building, to evacuate to the ground floor lobbies, that they would need to listen and do their best to survive.

To my surprise, people started to head to the lobbies.

It wasn’t too far, down a large hall, several trains sat in the hall, two about to leave in opposite directions, I brandish my pistol and simply shoot one of the control circuits, killing the power instantly.

I need to get everyone out of here, and get the trains out of the station before Elena redirects the trains from the Action Tower.

I should have spoken before I killed the trains, because now people were panicking. I step onto the platform, raising my voice as loud as possible, hoping I might be able to get attention.

“Everyone, this is an emergency, I need everyone to listen to me now!”

A few people look, but most everyone is looking for answers on their own.

I take a deep breath, “EVERYONE, SHUT UP!”

Voices hush, and all eyes turn to me.

“I need everyone to go to the front lobby for…”

Some grumbling passes over the crowd, as people start complaining and speaking to one another. I need to get them moving, as I only have a few minutes… and I had completely forgotten the human element of this.

I stomp my foot, screaming at the top of my lungs, “I’m trying to save your lives!”

Punctuating my shrill yelling, a low thud pulsates through the air. Vibrating harshly, the sound weakens, and eventually goes silent.

“What was that?”

“Did she do that?”

“I’m going to be so late…”

All these voices were silenced as a dark shadow passed over the building, all eyes locked on the windows, as the clouds part, and a boot breaks through.

Violet’s boot.

I hear her voice in my ear, “Goddess… that’s…”

I tap my earpiece, “Violet… focus, that’s not you, that’s someone else!”

Deep breaths…

Silence for a moment, as the people around me start to look back to me.

So, I point to the lobby. “Everyone move! Clear the room, get to the lobby, there’s a glowing rift, I need everyone to walk through it!”

Adrenaline starts to kick in, and fortunately people start to listen. Had Violet not just landed I doubt they would have been so willing to listen!

The crowd starts to empty the room, and I’m grateful for the timing, because I know I’m a little ahead of schedule now.

Trains will be coming in about two minutes, and everyone will need to move because this train station won’t exist in about 7 minutes.

I guide people toward the exit, tapping on my earpiece again, “Violet, are you okay?”

She doesn’t respond, “Violet, are you headed up to the tether, there is some tearing sound of interference, and I can’t see her in the lobby when I arrive at the back of the group, the rift isn’t hard to pass through, I simply watch as everyone standing goes through the rift.

I notice Elena with several little train cars in her hands, “I got all the guys from the station as well, and sent the empty cars away,” she paused for a moment, looking over the crowd, “is this everyone from this building?”

I breathe deeply, looking over everyone, “Yeah, I’m confident this is everyone from the station.

She smiles, perhaps a little nervously, “There is good news and bad news though, I got all the trains diverted before opening time, so there is no one in the action tower now, but it took me a couple minutes longer then I would have liked, we aren’t going to have long to evacuate.

I tap my fingers on the wall, looking at the train cars in her hands…

“I’ve got a plan Elena, tell everyone on the train not to exit on arrival.”

She looks very concerned, “Why? That’s a death sentence!?”

I look back at her, “Seriously Elena? Trust me, just do it!” I turn and run back to the station, the room started to shake violently, as a boot landed on the ground much closer then Violet had been stepping.

A few moments later, a train rolled into the station, packed with hundreds of morning commuters. I shot the control mechanism earlier, so thankfully the doors remained closed.

“Thank the Goddess.” I whisper to myself as I activate my mass manipulator, I reduce the car from its normal size to toy proportions, the hundreds of people, and the tiny men contained inside, now were but bugs to me… and simply molecular to Violet’s enormous form outside.

The men could probably… live on her, not knowing they were on a woman…

What a thought…

I snap myself out of it though, and step over to the train, softly lifting it off the ground and placing it beside me, as I await the final train, I could see it’s light approaching in the adjacent tunnel.

Then the power went out.

“Shit.” I need to get in there!

Without explaining to the tiny people in the train, I jump onto the tracks, running into the dark tunnel.

No lights, nothing to see… and I bump into something hard and cold.

“Train.”

Without waiting another moment, I train my mass manipulator on the train, and it makes a loud protracted creaking sound, snapping as it shrinks off the rails, as it gets smaller, and smaller.

I hear Elena’s voice faintly in my ear, “Alice… we don’t have much time…”

I keep my fingers on the train, as it shrinks, so I don’t lose it in the darkness. “I’m almost done, I’ll be back in a few moments.”

I don’t hear a response though, as the tunnel shakes violently, and I crouch down, over the train, protecting it with my body.

Rocks rain down from the cracking ceiling, rewarding my back with a few pelts. Nothing bad…

But those rocks certainly could have crushed my little trains.

“I’m coming back out! Did Violet make it back?” The train was now about the size of a pencil, four cars long, I gingerly lift the little objects into my hand, covering them with my free hand, and make a break for it.

Still no response, and the tunnel behind me collapses in a deafening roar, dust shooting past me, fogging the already dim light from the station.

The light doesn’t get brighter though, only dimmer.

It must be her shadow… it’s the morning, it can’t be getting darker right now.

Shit! I can’t go any faster.

Another violent earthquake nearly knocks me off my feet, as the tunnel starts to fall off the station.

I leap upward, onto the platform at the last moment before I would have been trapped, the little car I left on the ground in the station was still sitting there, it was about twice the size of the cars in my hand at the moment, so I dipped down and scooped it into my free hand.

The building isn’t shaking as much… good.

I slide around the corner into the lobby, to see Violet’s head, visible faintly in the now much smaller portal.

It’s much too small.

“Violet, take these cars!” I reach my hand through, and feel the cars be plucked from my palm, suddenly the aperture constricts, and feel my hand be pushed back toward me… by a force that feels almost magnetic. It’s strong, and violent, and completely immaterial.

“ALICE!” I hear my wife scream from the other side, hysterical with tears, “AALiic…” her voice fades out, like she was flung far from me.

I was too late, and there is no way to reconnect with my timeline.

I sigh and walk to the window, slamming my fists into the brittle glass.

It shatters and falls, leaving me with an open view of my wife.

“Violet.” I whisper to myself, too small to be heard.

She is a giantess in every sense. Her feet cover entire city blocks, and she dominates the skyline, her waist high above the rooftops.

I look way up, past her legs, and curves, her hips and waist, I can just barely see the cusp of her breasts, blocking the view of her face.

A sight I had only imagined revisiting for years. She is so powerful. So massive…

So, incapable of stopping what is to come.

Looking past her is a difficult but possible action, and the horizon is gone. This copy of Auru is collapsing, and I can see that occurring before my eyes.

As the edge of this copy of the universe collapses in, the buildings fold up and in, along their fourth dimensional axis, shattering completely once entirely removed from reality.

Every object, person, plant, animal, and particle in this copy of the universe is simply that… an unstable copy. They will all collapse inward.

… but what if both versions of that copy were present?

Goddess help me if I’m wrong.

I close my eyes, and jump.