Get set, Go

It was nice. Time seemed to stop and the universe drifted away leaving the two of them as its only inhabitants.
“I don’t know if I can do this again.” She whispered. “I don’t know if I could handle having to keep fighting. It has to stop somewhere.”
Lore gently set her down. They reached into their jacket and removed a small hourglass. “Ten years of peace and we never thought to tip it once.” At its base, three grains of sand. “It’s going to be alright.” Lore’s smile warmed her. “When everything goes to plan, we’ll get our peace. No more having to fight, no more being on the move constantly and no more living in the past, no matter how fun it is trying to blend in with the locals.” Char giggled. “Once this is over, all we’ll be needed for is meetings. We’ll be free to do whatever we want.” That thought lingered in the back of their mind. They hadn’t even considered the stakes of their current situation and how they had changed since they had met. From the protection of a single planet from an unhinged ex-temporal agent to the defence of potentially all of reality or a mere stepping stone to the great beyond. They couldn’t deny that they had changed significantly since then too; they thought back on that final encounter with Crait, if they were to do it again now, it would have been over before it began. Times had changed and so had they, the stakes had only changed to match. Lore kept that in their mind, it gave them peace in what should have been the most stressful time of their life. “Just like saving a planet.” They whispered over and over as a mantra before moving toward the observation window. The truth was they weren’t scared of failing, they knew they were stuck in a fixed point in time, they were scared that whatever came next meant that it was over. They had no idea how they were going to adapt to a life without conflict, without a puzzle to solve and scared of what failure would mean. Tapping their feet by the observation window they waited. They had seen him out of the corner of their eye but pretended not to acknowledge him until he began floating before them.
“You ready then?” Reality had taken humanoid form, his hands pinned behind his back as he floated closer to the glass.
Lore closed their eyes and gave a small nod. They were as prepared as they’d ever be so the sooner they started, the better. With the nod, Reality retreated. There then came a horrendous drone, a foghorn that pierced the ears of everyone in their reality regardless of location. Lore withdrew their necklace from under their shirt. They touched their ring to the centre of the triquetra for luck as they cloaked themselves in their energy to make their way to the battlegrounds.
They’d never seen so many people in a field so small. Their new clone army mingled with the fighters gathered from throughout the multiverse and were still one of the smaller forces on display. Undulia and her Crait stood ready at the head of their legions; then the others arrived. The armies that followed were either led by Cornerstones or faces from Lore’s past or both. The fifth army to join them was led by the ex-Cornerstone of life with an Alodrass look alike taking the position of Cornerstone in their universe. It intrigued them as to what differences there were between their universes and how that impacted their day to day lives. Char and Piper separated beside them. They stood together at the head of their now comparably small force, waiting for the battle to begin. Lore scouted the battlefield for their allies.
“Who do we go to first?” Char nudged them.
“No one in particular.” Lore smirked. Piper huddled in between them. “When Reality gives the go ahead, everyone who can is going to fly up to the same point above the middle of the battlefield before we swoop down and sweep up any stragglers and the clones.”
“It’s going to be epic!” Piper was going to jump but feared headbutting his parents.
“So after we’ve done that it’s straight into the station to start the plan right?” Char nodded as she spoke, trying to make sure she understood. Lore returned the nod. “What is the next part of the plan again?”
“We create something new.” Lore paused. “An infinite layer of reality that spans all fifty two megaverses, a layer of reality with unlimited possibilities and only a single constant… Us… Time showed us what we could do with fifty two of us working together and I would say we could use that energy now more than ever.”
“Unlimited new Lores.” Char chuckled. “So that’s what you meant. Because if you create enough of anything, you’re bound to recreate something you’ve lost. The council members that died in the other universes…” Time appeared beside them.
“Never died.” It appreciated the confused looks. “Put simply, fourth dimensionally speaking, they still haven’t been transferred to the other universes so who’s to say they ever were? If no one saw it happen, and we know it hasn’t happened yet, then they are all in a state of being in their new universes and in the universes you’re about to create. Fourth dimensional quantum physics!”
“You knew about this all along didn’t you?” Char’s index finger jabbed at Time.
“Not everything. Plus I only knew about it because I had seen Lore do it before. Paradox city.” It shook it’s head.
Reality was now only a head, a large head but a head nonetheless. “Combatants, the time is now to decide which universe has created the best champions. The time is now to rid this reality of its weaknesses and start anew as the gods of old did. Only one can stand above the corpses of the others to rebuild the multiverses with their flesh and blood.” Char grimaced. Two large hands appeared beside his gargantuan head. “BEGIN!” The hands came down.
Lore was already linked with Char and Piper so the energy from them poured into them instantly. Time and the other Cornerstones, past and present, were next. They could see the others taking flight. Kicking off from the ground, they let out a mighty roar, their feet shattered the soil below. The air around them rushed past in silence before a sudden boom erupted and nearly threw them off course. They all reached the rendezvous at the same time, colliding and seemingly annihilating one another as they did. The white glow of Lore’s Reaper flashed the full light spectrum as the separately coloured Cornerstones and Reapers were absorbed into their matrix. Lore felt a rush of energy they had never felt before, a power at their fingertips they had never known. Before they could get too intoxicated by this, they remembered they weren’t at their full potential yet. As their army stood closest to the station they swept up the remaining Cornerstones first. Growing ever more powerful, Lore wasn’t prepared for the effect the clones would have. By the time they were ready to enter the station, their light shone bright enough to blot out the sun and their very presence warped reality. In the Beginning