ALL NOVEL 36. A Twist in Time
Agatha Harkness PoV:
'Agatha Harkness, do you wish to change your destiny? Become my subordinate and gain the power to change your fate.'
Agatha heard the voice suspected to belong to the existence in front of her within her mind. Become her subordinate? Why would such a godlike existence want her as a subordinate?
Yes, she truly thought that existence was a God. Well, a Goddess. The voice sounded very feminine. To quench her doubts, she asked the existence for clarification:
"Are you God?"
'I suppose you can think of it that way.' She heard the voice again.
"Why do you wish to have me as your subordinate? As you can see, I have nothing of worth." Agatha said self-deprecatingly.
'You can just think that it was fate that led me here. You have much to accomplish in the future, that is, if you do not perish here.'
She had much to accomplish? While it was true that she was very ambitious and hungry for power, Agatha did not think that she had anything that would warrant attention from a goddess.
"Do you really wish to have a witch who studies dark magic as a subordinate?" Agatha was confused by this. Dark magic had led her to this point. The suspected goddess should definitely know about that.
'What does studying dark magic have to do with you becoming my subordinate?' The goddess replied with a question. 'I want you as a subordinate due to your potential for magic and witchcraft. Nothing more, nothing less.'
She really did not seem to care about Agatha studying dark magic. As for her potential, Agatha herself wondered if her potential for magic was so high that a goddess came to recruit her.
'Now, I have yet to hear your answer. Do you wish to become my subordinate and change your fate? Beware that the time to make a choice is running out.'
After hearing the goddess speak, Agatha made up her mind. There was no other option left. Either she died at the hands of her mother or chose to join the goddess in front of her. She spoke resolutely
"I wish to become your subordinate."
-----------------------
Shiraori PoV:
"I wish to become your subordinate." I heard Agatha speak and breathed a sigh of relief. I quickly undid her binds with a wave of my hand.
I could have just gone and mind-controlled her like I did with Mobius and the TVA members but I did not want Cthon to somehow influence me through this in case he was able to completely corrupt Agatha. There's no guarantee that something like that won't happen after all.
It would be in my best interest to maintain a more contractual give-and-take relationship with her, where we part ways after meeting each other's interests. But ultimately I decided to try and make her my subordinate.
I suggested her being a subordinate and affirmed her suspicion of me being a god to gain a low level of loyalty to make any transactions in the future easier.
It kind of reminded me of novels where protagonists acted like gods to trick others. I ended up taking inspiration from Klein.
It seems I should wrap things up here before the effect of [Timestop] runs out. Oh, before that:
'Do you want to keep these witches alive?' I asked even if I knew her answer just in case.
"No, I would have killed them myself if I had the power." Well, you already have that power and you would have killed them if not for me.
'Aura, there's no need to keep them alive anymore. We don't need an audience.' I signalled her just as the effect of [Timestop] ran out. These witches' bodies could be raised as undead and tested to see if they retained their witchcraft afterwards.
"Wha…Who are thes.."
"Arghh…"
"…"
Their voices were cut off immediately by Aura's pet beasts killing the witches. Agatha walked towards her mother's corpse and picked up the brooch she was wearing before turning back towards me.
After sending the bodies to Nazarick with a sweep of my hand and then spoke: "[Gate]." As the swirling black void opened as I signalled Agatha to follow me.
She looked slightly hesitant but ended up following me anyway. On the other side of the gate what appeared was an impromptu lodge that Mare had created earlier. All in all, it was better than a dark and dingy forest where she was going to be killed.
As we sat inside the lodge I heard Agatha speak to me.
"How exactly am I supposed to refer to you?"
'You can call me 'D'. Now that we have been acquainted with each other let's get down to business. Here is your own future in multiple timelines.' I called myself 'D' as I did not know if there was any magic or abilities that could be used to track me or affect me through my true name.
I used hologram creation to show her a simplified and modified version of events.
Modified for obvious reasons. To benefit myself of course. Plus it's not like she can know the true version of events as she has already deviated from that path. Not to mention that I threw all the timelines into chaos due to my plan of creating time sanctuaries.
While it did take some time, I had nothing better to do anyway. I put my hand into my inventory and took out a book titled 'Agatha Harkness' for simplicity and gave it to her as well.
It was a book containing a summarised version of events I just showed which I created using [Book Creation]. It also had a few events about the comic book Agatha that were highly edited to be in my favour.
Needless to say, she looked shocked after seeing her future of having her powers stripped away by Wanda and being forced to live as the ordinary human Agnes.
'Fate is not fixed in stone. For every action you take, a different timeline is created. Since you know of these events, your future is already on a different track. Your true potential is much higher than what you saw.
Multiple other versions of you become even greater witches. Ultimately, you can also achieve the same and perhaps surpass them.' I said.
"What exactly do you wish for me to achieve?" She asked still at a loss of words for what she had just seen.
' All I need from you is for you to learn magic and create greater changes to your fate. You are free to do anything you wish and learn whatever magic you wish.
You can use the magic you learned to exchange knowledge with me. Remember the exchange must be equivalent.' I again borrowed a page from Mr. Fool's book.
I would be the one to determine what was equivalent and what was not. And this would allow me to obtain that knowledge after letting her do the work while disguising myself as an enigmatic god.
The reason for all these restrictions is again because I don't want an evil elder god like Cthon to catch wind of me and possess me. I can never be too careful when dealing with these gods especially if they are as powerful as their comic book selves.
'In order to make sure that you do not get corrupted by the Darkhold, I will also grant you immunity to mind-controlling magics as well as abilities that affect the soul.' I said.
I opened the administrator skill and added the entry <Heresy Nullification> next to her name. In case Cthon is able to corrupt her, the <Heresy Nullification> entry would be automatically removed and I could immediately cut contact with her.
"I can't thank you enough for what you have given me," Agatha spoke slightly unbelieving of the events that had transpired.
'If you ever wish to speak to me, you can ask the demon hidden in your shadow to contact me.' I had already asked a shadow demon to enter her shadow earlier. Agatha had already known about this.
It would be a hassle to contact me across timelines, but preparations had already been made by Albedo for this purpose.
'Now if you will excuse me, I will take my leave as I have an urgent matter to attend to.'
"Thank you once again," Agatha replied
The reason for this is that I had felt an intruder entering Nazarick which was in my pocket dimension. I immediately used dimensional magecraft to try and block the intruder from escaping.
I had no idea how they were able to enter in the first place but the intruder had to be decently powerful.
Albedo had also contacted me and told me that the intruder had been captured a while back.
I turned around and teleported the twin guardians to Nazarick along with me.
-----------------------
*Writing these chapters was tough….