"It's incredible. That there was anything with the power to do that?" Pasekria the pilot said.
"No it isn't. There are undoubtedly countless species that can do that. Most are smart enough not to venture out into here." Their leader replied somewhat angrily.
"Well whatever their reason I am afraid we can't enter. The rip has already sealed itself over. I'm sorry commander. The energy that was released from that omniverse can sustain us for many centuries to come however." Pasekria replied.
The commander laughed bitterly.
"Centuries? That's the blink of an eye for most animal species, never mind a civilization of our level who have done the impossible." The commander said with more despair than anger.
"Well those centuries will buy us time sir."
"Time for what? To barely scrap by on this barren rock with billions of phantoms trying to murder us? Maybe it would be better just to drive into that Omniverse and see what happens. Either way it would be over."
"My lord please." Another of the underlings interrupted.
He continued "We cannot let this all be for nothing. To even get this far is more than most species have ever done. We owe it to our forbears to ensure their work is completed."
"Or maybe they made a mistake?" The leader replied.
"Maybe there was a reason our world wasn't able to fully manifest itself."
The underlings were all shocked at what their commander was saying. He had never been a strong leader to be fair. Constantly losing his cool under pressure and at times showing far more sympathy for the phantoms they captured. Still even his most loyal followers couldn't believe that he, or any member of their kind would ever just want to give up.
"Sir not to sound insolent, but if that is what you really believe, you are not fit for command. A leader must believe that every sacrifice is worthwhile." Pasekria, who in contrast to the others had always despised the commander said with a mocking tone.
Before things could really escalate however, Pasekria suddenly noticed something on the monitor. It appeared to be similar readings to the Omniverse straight ahead of them, but several trillion light years in the opposite direction. The readings were also extremely faint too. In fact the only reason Pasekria could read them at all was because they had become caught up in a phantom reality and were somewhat distorting its larger structure.
It was most likely just residual energy from the rip in the Omniverse. Surely it couldn't be the life forms that had somehow punched a hole in their reality? Whoever or whatever they were, If they had the technology for that, then there is no way they would fall victim to a simple phantom reality. Still whatever it was, he was going to investigate, whether their leader ordered him to or not and set a course.
The Circus Master struggled to remain conscious, with almost all of his team having passed out, except for Florence and The Strange Boy. Even the mighty Jiang Shi child however had been brought to his knees by the constant scrambled songs and melodies.
Florence had tried to sing to offset it, but the pain would always overwhelm her before she could get more than a few notes out.
Just when it seemed as though the infernal noise would never stop, the landscape outside suddenly changed again. This time the Circus Folk found themselves in the middle of a star system, similar to one from their universe.
The Circus Master took a few minutes to heal before pulling himself up, after which he tried to wake the rest of the Circus Folk.
"What was that? Attack of dreadful melodies and folk songs." Carlene asked.
"It was more than that, those songs." Florence said. "They, they felt alive."
"You know normally I'd say you were crazy, although that would be ironic since we live in a magic circus. Still I know what you mean. I felt like there was, someone trapped in my head, trying to get out. Several people in fact. It was worse than when I was out there." Carlene replied.
"That's because it was a universe made of music." Denika said as she crawled up out of the Kitchen below, with blood in her ears.
"You're hurt Denika let me help you." The Circus Master said, whilst Carlene and Florence went to check on Ashlei and Keptis, both of whom were still unconscious.
"I'm fine, but we ran into a problem down there. In order to protect us from those... songs, I had to reroute a lot of the power to create a stronger forcefield. I don't think we have enough left to escape now."
"We do." Algrasa said as she came up after Denika.
"If you disconnect it before it drains."
"I can't we're too vulnerable out here. We have to think about this." Denika replied.
"I told you, you don't have time. I certainly don't. I admit those musical creatures, they caught me off guard, but if you'll give me another chance I can get us through this. I'm not saying it will be easy, but we have to try. That forcefield might have driven them out, but it won't protect you for long." Algrasa insisted.
"Okay." Denika said after a few seconds, and with extreme reluctance as the two women were forced to resume their task.
Fortunately Ashlei and Keptis weren't badly hurt, though Ashlei found it difficult to stand and had to take a rest.
"What, what happened." Ashlei asked as Carlene helped her to sit down.
"We were attacked by, actually I'm still not sure love." Carlene said.
"It was a musical universe." Denika shouted from below.
"An entire reality that was nothing more than an extended musical vibration spanning a period of over 100 trillion years. All the life forms, planets and stars, or their equivilant in them were lesser musical vibrations contained within the larger, eh song meanwhile. All unique, all lasting a much shorter time. No physical form whatsoever. Just songs, fully conscious and as alive as you and me." Denika continued. Of course she had gotten this information from Algrasa after the two woke up below and the phantom explained it to Denika after she diverted the power to the forcefield.
"Incredible." The Circus Master said to himself.
"An entire reality that from our perspective is nothing more than just a happy tune. Mind you I suppose our world would be just as strange to them. What a pity it wasn't able to manifest."
Suddenly the Tent began to rock violently again. Asteroids from the phantom universe they were in began to strike the Tent as Denika had brought down the forcefield to allow Algrasa to fuse with the Tent's core.
The Asteroid belt however soon proved to be the least of the Circus Folks problems as the musical creatures soon returned. Carlene instinctively covered Ashlei's ears, but it was no use. The musical waves were literally possessing the Circus Folk, in much the same way as Algrasa's people had. However Algrasa's people were at least more of a match for the Circus Folk physically. With the Musical creatures however a human (or Vampire, or Vandal or Martians for that matters) body could contain thousands of their souls, though it would be completely overwhelming and brutal for the host. The noise of the thousands of souls screaming or rather singing for help alone would be enough to drive almost anyone mad.
The Circus Folk however had no choice but to endure it as did Algrasa who pushed the Tent with all her strength through the Asteroid belt. Hopefully both of these phantoms wouldn't last long.
As the Tent made its way through the Asteroids however the phantom universes started to crack open, just like the sky above the previous city had. This time however it was a a green light that shone through the blackness of space. Several large, red winged creatures soon followed. Obviously another phantom universe that was merging with this and the musical reality. Rather than retreat from it, Algrasa flew right into the center of the green light, much to the protests of all the other Circus Folk.
She knew however that these phantom universes never represented the full reality and she could fly to the end of it, if she tried.
Fortunately the red creatures were not focused on the Tent surprisingly. Instead they were making their way to the nearest planets. Unfortunately however when Algrasa reached the light she saw much to late, that it was actually part of this universe after all. The light was in fact a strange, sentient, alien predator that fed on its victims simply by engulfing them. The red creatures were its latest victims, billions of whom had been devoured by this alpha predator, with only a couple of hundred having managed to escaped.
Algrasa pushed and pushed the Tent as hard as she could through the green lights that were already beginning to erode the magical time craft. The holes in the Tent meanwhile allowed the green light to pass through and cause any part of the Tent they touched to catch fire. Ashlei was severely burned when one of the beams of light briefly hit her arm, before Carlene pulled her out of the way.
The entire Tent soon became unbearably hot. How those flying creatures had been able to survive at all was incredible. They must have had a ridiculously strong armor.
A few more creatures started to appear within the green lights ahead of the Tent. More phantoms, either from this or most likely another universe. Whatever they were however these creatures did not last long and almost instantly melted, leaving behind only skeletons, which quickly faded into nothing.
Fortunately just before the Tent was completely consumed, Algrasa was able to reach the end of this strange, living mass of light. On the other side however was what looked like an ice planet. Below were massive oceans, completely frozen, mountains, and large white cities that glistened in the sun.
The Circus Folk meanwhile were just relieved to be somewhere cold, but within a few seconds the ice world below began to crack open and hordes of massive Dinosaur like creatures began to cross the land, with tropical trees and forests beginning to fade in over the Ice world.
"All these universes trying to converge on us. We're going to have to up the power." Algrasa said.
"I can't, that grey monster almost drained me!" Denika replied.
Suddenly both the ice world and the tropical forest vanished and the Tent appeared to be floating in a large grey area of space with hundreds of colourful planets around, except rather than stars, there were strange, giant creatures circling what appeared to be these numerous worlds. Several of the creatures appeared to notice the Tent, and one, a large Ape like creature, (albeit with smooth, marble like skin that even shone.) Grabbed hold of the Tent and began to inspect it.
Fortunately before the creature could pick apart the now fragile time craft out of curiosity, he began to fade and in his and this strange grey universes place emerged what looked like a massive attic. A nearby table completely and chair completely dwarfed the the Tent. Up ahead of the table and chair meanwhile filled where several giant blue glowing spheres. Suddenly another sphere joined the crowd. The Circus Master meanwhile looked out the back hole in the Tent and saw that si a strange, old, giant man at the back of the room, who was working on a strange device that appeared to be creating the spheres for whatever reason. Upon seeing the Tent however the old man picked up a strange weapon and charged at the Tent. Fortunately Algrasa piloted the Tent through one of the blue spheres in time, which seemingly led to a beautiful paradise world on the other side, filled with a city made of gold and beautiful vegetation. Eventually however after a few minutes of flying over the golden city, the green lights began to appear all around again, melting the paradise world. Soon the large creatures stationed over certain worlds including the marble Ape also began to appear within the lights. They did not burn up, but they were clearly in tremendous pain and started to scream and flail wildly, with one of them nearly striking the Tent.
The music also started to return and blast in the Circus Folks ears. (With the heat from the green light having already almost knocked them out.)
With her last ounce of strength, Algrasa pushed the Tent as hard as she could to the point where she almost faded out of existence.
Fortunately however by sacrificing some of the energy that she had earlier drained to sustain herself, she succeeded in pushing the Tent beyond the foundation of this ever growing amalgamation of phantom universes, though doing so left her too weak to barely stand, never mind push the Tent any further.
Denika instantly ran to help Algrasa, who already started to fade in and out in her arms.
Meanwhile on the top deck, the Circus Folk were also greatly weakened from their ordeal, but the Circus Master himself managed to clamber to one of the nearby holes in the Tent which now served as makeshift windows.
There he saw in the distance, the numerous phantom universes that they had become ensnared in were starting to form into a massive, electric blue cloud.
The Circus Folk could also still hear the melodies from the musical creatures, though now they were faint and harmless and gradually grew quieter.
"It looks like at least one of those universes might actually come in to being after all." The Circus Master said.
"No, no it isn't." Algrasa replied faintly, as Denika carried her to the upper deck.
"All of those realities are scrambling around for the tiny bit of energy I left behind. I hoped it might distract them. Maybe one of them will use it as the basis to form itself, but for now we don't have to." She fainted before she could finish. Worse a few seconds later she actually started to fade again.
"Algrasa, please stay with us." The Circus Master said as he held her hand, but it was no good. Her energy and her will had been spent in the struggle.
"Get out of the way." Denika said.
"I'm probably going to regret this, but it seems we have no choice." Denika said as she started to channel the few reserves of magic she had left into Algrasa. It did manage to stablise the phantom and help her regain her strength, but now Denika would effectively be left without magic for possibly the next few days.
"Thank you Denika, I guess I just pushed myself too far." Algrasa said as she made her way to one of the holes at the back of the Tent.
"Yes!" She said excitedly.
"We've reached your reality, look at it out there. In the very distance. I can feel it."
The rest of the Circus Folk all clambered around the small makeshift window to get a good look at something that possibly no one in history had ever seen before.
This wasn't just a universe, or even a multiverse, but an entire omnivese. Trillions of different multiverses all gathered together to form a single plane of existence. It was still over 100 trillion light years away however and looked ironically to the Circus Folk, a somewhat unspectacular sight. It appeared to be nothing more than a large coloured ball of energy.
"We're over 100 trillion light years away, but we should be able to make it in no time." Algrasa said.
"I'm serious. It's not so much about distance, but just finding a way to link myself to it, which should be easy now that were out of the way of those phantoms."
As she prepared to link herself back to the core of the battered time capsule however, she suddenly was overcome with the presence of something else coming near them.
"What is it?" Denika asked. "Another phantom universe?"
"No, no this is different. This is." Before she could finish, the Tent was suddenly pulled across the vaccum in another direction away from the Omniverse and towards a large yellow, sterile looking world, all on its own in this seemingly endless dark void.
"Got them!" Pasekria said.
"You were thinking of giving up Commander. These creatures will be our salvation. If they have the knowledge to escape their omniverse, then they can allow us to enter it."