September 17, Year 1950,
Washington city,
United States of America.
I am Kent Nelson, a sorcerer, an agent of Lords of order, contractor of Nabu the Wise a Lord of Order and cosmic being with near limitless magical power.
Yet here I was feeling powerless. My very world was being ravaged by forces, mosters beyond my control and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
From before the time I first put on the helmet of fate which contained the spirit of Nabu and acquired my powers, my world was plagued with war that swept across the globe.
The conflict never truly stopped before otherworldy forces started meddling and humanity faced more threats, I tried to do what I could but with the addition of Lords of Chaos, Demons and other mostrosities the tide was quickly out of my favour.
It was a losing battle and against these multiversal entities my situtation quickly deteriorated.
My world was dying, and with each passing moment, my hope withered away, like a flower in a scorched wasteland.
I had witnessed decades of slow, agonizing decay, a cosmic rot that had eaten away at the very fabric of my reality. My hands, which had held the immense power of the Helmet of Fate, now felt useless, trembling with the weight of my failure.
It was just a matter of time before the final, consuming darkness swallowed everything I had ever known or fought for.
But just as I was about to give in to despair, to surrender to the inevitable, a voice cut through the silence.
It was Nabu, my long-time friend and ally, who had spent decades fighting alongside me, now speaking with an urgency that pierced my heart.
"There is a chance to save your world."
The words were a jolt of pure energy, a thunderclap in the oppressive quiet of my defeat. Hope, a feeling I had almost forgotten, a ghost of a past life, reignited within me.
A chance. It was more than I could have ever asked for. It was a lifeline thrown into the abyss.
"What do I have to do?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper, a broken plea from a broken man.
"You must find a tipping point and change it," Nabu replied, the answer echoing with cosmic finality.
"How?" I pressed, the whisper now a desperate gasp.
"My powers allow me to travel through time and space at will. I will give you a one-time chance to alter the past."
A flicker of frustration ignited in my chest, a spark of anger born from a lifetime of fighting a losing battle. "Why didn't you do this earlier?" I demanded, the question sharp, biting.
Why had we suffered so long, why had so many fallen, if this power had always been an option?
"Because there are rules I must abide by," Nabu said, his voice calm and resolute, a rock against the churning tides of my emotion. "Until the Lords of Chaos revealed themselves to me, there were limits on the amount of power I could exert. The universe demanded balance, and I was bound by it."
"And now you're free to use your full power to help me?" I asked, a surge of false hope making me bold.
"No," Nabu's voice boomed, the finality of the word a cold shock, a physical blow that left me reeling. "Changing the past is against the fundamental order of things, against our very purpose as Lords of Order. It is a violation of the highest degree. So you will have a single, fleeting opportunity to use my power to meddle with the past. After that act, my powers will be sealed, returning to their reduced, constrained state as a consequence. The universe will demand its price."
The weight of his words settled on me, a crushing burden. One chance. A single arrow for a thousand targets. "So, I can only act once?" I asked, the desperation seeping back into my voice.
"Yes. You must find the single moment that will turn the scales in our favor. The one key that unlocks a new future."
"How do I even begin to find that?" I asked, the task feeling impossibly large, a mountain of sand I was expected to climb.
"Travel through time and space, through the timelines of the multiverse. It will be a solitary, endless journey. Find a point in time that will allow you to tip the scales and act on it. It is the only option, Kent. The only path left."
My heart sank, the faint light of hope flickering. "And if one tipping point isn't enough?"
"Then I apologize, Kent," Nabu said, his tone softened with a rare hint of sadness, a cosmic sorrow that resonated with my own. "That is all the help I can offer. How you succeed in this endeavor is something you will have to figure out on your own. Your will, your ingenuity, your desperation—they must be the final tools you use."
"Fine." The word came out as a sigh of deep, profound resignation. But I agreed. It was a faint hope, a single spark in a storm of darkness, but it was all I had left.
"Then it is settled. But there are rules you must follow on this journey, rules born from the consequences of such a great act. First, no matter which universe or timeline you visit, you will only watch. You will not interfere until you reach your chosen moment. Second, you will lose all memory of the multiverse after this task is complete. You will only retain the memory of this universe, this painful reality. Third, your action must not directly affect any other universe but your own. Do you agree to these terms?"
"I agree." The words were a vow, a promise to a friend and to a dying world.
"Then, by my authority as a Lord of Order, I, Nabu, grant you the ability to travel the multiverse and traverse time as you see fit."
I felt the cosmic power surge through me, a familiar but now overwhelming force. It was both a gift and a curse. "Thank you, my friend." My voice was thick with emotion. We were partners, not just master and servant. And this was our last chance, our final, desperate gamble.
And so I began my search, a solitary journey across a shattered multiverse. I traveled through countless timelines, bore witness to a million different ends, and spent what felt like an eternity.
Time, to a being of order, became a river I could navigate, and I followed its currents until I finally found it. The singular point of failure. The tipping point.
It was the death of a child.
Not a hero, not a king, just a completely ordinary human boy who died young. His insignificant death, a mere blip in the grand scheme, was the missing piece.
It was the moment that set off a chain reaction that unraveled my universe. Had he lived, the fragile cosmic balance would have been maintained.
I prepared to save his life, standing ready to act at the exact moment of his death. My chance had finally arrived. But just as I was about to interfere, I stopped.
I don't know why. Perhaps it was the instinct of a magician who reads the flow of fate, or maybe it was a final decree from Fate itself.
I paused and, in a desperate gamble, asked Nabu if he could show me what would happen if I saved the boy's life at that exact moment.
I am eternally grateful for that moment of hesitation. As Nabu revealed the consequences, I watched in horror. My direct interference—my very presence in that moment—would lead to a future even worse than the one we were already living.
The boy I saved would still follow a similar life path, but my intervention would set off a chain reaction that would accelerate the universe's decay, a catastrophic butterfly effect.
I realized then that my mission was more complex than I thought; I needed to save the boy's life at least twice, and I had to do it without revealing my presence or disrupting the timeline in any noticeable way.
I set out again, scouring the multiverse for what felt like centuries, until I almost lost all hope. I searched for a method, a solution that could circumvent the rules and still achieve my goal. And finally, I found something.
It wasn't within the multiverse, but outside of it, in the void beyond time itself. They call it that because there is no concept of time there—only events. Everything exists simultaneously, yet in a strange, ordered sequence.
And there, in that paradoxical void, I found it: a piece of existence. It was weak and powerless, a mere fragment, but the events associated with it gave rise to possibility itself.
Since I was outside the multiverse, I could use the full power of the Lords of Order. I isolated the fragment, locking it in its state before its associated events took place, and I created a connection to it.
With meticulous care and preparation, I brought it into my universe, connecting it to the child who was destined to die. I did it without using Nabu's powers within the universe, thereby not breaking our contract.
Once the deed was done, I once more put on the Helmet of Dr. Fate. I watched in silent amazement as the possibilities of my universe exploded into existence, like a new galaxy being born.
A new future was within our grasp. I knew then that we finally had a chance—a real chance—to stand against the coming destruction.