The End of the End of the World

Fenrir rears and snarls. His opponent, a tenth as tall and a thousandth as heavy, is undeterred. "It is time for you to die," it argues. "Your time is past."

Reaching out with one immense paw, Fenrir smashes his opponent into the ice. Broken into at least three pieces by the power of the blow, it shivers, then reforms into three smaller copies of itself. They stand in a loose triangle, and each says, quietly, "You have become abomination to what you once were."

Suddenly, one of the three simulacrula glows red, then explodes, blowing a small crater in the ice where it had stood. Fenrir's eyes glint, and he looks toward another, but it summons a shield of ice before itself, which fizzes and pops as Fenrir's attack blows it apart at a microscopic level. The other simulacrulum quickly summons its own shield. They continue, in unison, "You were bound, enchained, until the end of the world came."

Fenrir's eyes unfocus, looking out over the entire expanse of ice around the simulacrula. It explodes catastrophically, spiking the air temperature and depriving the simulacrula of the ice they were using as materials for their shields. Harvesting the ice they stood upon, the simulacrula fall into the water. There is a moment of silence, though Fenrir remains tense. Then the water flows vertically upwards, carrying with it a single figure, the same size as the one first confroniting Fenrir. Shielded within a bubble of water, it speaks: "We, the thinkers, freed you, and the world ended, as everyone knew it would."

Unseeably, Fenrir did something. The world seemed almost to darken, and the water, unfrozen, fell to the lake below. Fenrir himself staggered; and, wounded by his own attack, reconsidered. Light returned to his opponent's eyes, and it rose again in its watery shield. "You devoured the serpent of old government and values; remade us in your own image, and took the world with you."

Silently, Fenrir stood.

"But your task is done. We would tell you, live with us; but you cannot. We would tell you, stay among us, as a reminder of what lies behind us; but it is against all your nature. Your nature, your dharma, your destiny, is to transform all else into yourself. That propelled us forward; but your time is done. And now every bite you take of the world is a step back, not forward."

A drop of water - just one - fell on the ice below Fenrir's eye. It sizzled, then froze.

With a terrible ripping noise, the lake shifted. The envoy shimmered, then, almost instantaneously, liquefied. Mass moved, compacting, transmuting. Heat shimmered upward as everything within a five-mile radius was transmuted to match Fenrir's will. Engines formed, and what had been the lake lifted upward, burning mass copiously to reach escape velocity.

There was no room for Fenrir on Earth, anymore. But he was too much alive to die just yet.

Author's Note: In the same spirit as my last transhumanism post. Sorry! I'm rather out of practice at blagging recently, I fear. I'll try to improve.