"WHO ARE YOU, [ALIEN/OUTSIDER]?"
Staying silent wasn't going to do me any good. Nor was staying still.
So as I hovered there in the sky, I placed a hand over my chest and said, "I am Kukulkan, a Goddess who wishes to save humanity."
"A FOREIGN PRETENDER MASQUERADING AS A FALSE GOD. MARKED, I SEE."
"I can assure you, I am very much real."
I was about to ask what Uriel meant when he said 'marked' before the angel continued with its telepathic message.
"COME, SNAKE, THE GARDEN OPENS FOR YOU."
SCP-682 got up from his submissive position and started running towards a valley blocked off by many mountains.
"COME, MARKED [FOREIGNER]. SEE THE GLORY OF MY MASTER FOR YOURSELF."
I get the feeling that wasn't so much a request as a demand. Now I know I'm more than durable enough to withstand a strike from the Gate Guardian, but I didn't want to antagonize Uriel and see what else he could do to me other than striking me with that fiery sword of his.
So I followed SCP-682 and passed through the valley. From there, I saw how a crown of dozens of mountains walled off this place… this… barren land. At the center of this barren land held between the mountains was a single tall humanoid of glowing white light standing in front of a pearly white gate. Coming out of its back were numerous wing-like things and it held onto a flaming sword.
The Gate Guardian: Uriel, guarding Eden.
In a circumference around the angel was a long ditch filled with charred meat, presumably from Ion's attempt to invade the garden.
SCP-682 stopped about one kilometer away from the giant humanoid. Slowly, its velociraptor form took small steps and carefully inched toward the Gate Guardian.
Uriel made no move. Yet nonetheless, SCP-682 was cautious and remained so even when he wasn't struck down by the fiery sword.
I didn't follow SCP-682. I watched as one of the most dangerous SCPs the Foundation had contained slowly walked towards the angel unobstructed.
After walking halfway there, SCP-682 fell to the ground, losing his legs as he began to crawl— no wait, the lizard revealed his true form as he began to slither.
He was approaching the Gate. The snake slithered around the tall angel. Just as he was about to enter, what used to be SCP-682 gave the world a final long look, akin to a person staring one last time at a home they will never return to.
Then, he entered through the gate and into the Garden of Eden.
"APPROACH. DO NOT ENTER."
The angel asked me. So I did as it commanded. I approached with the same speed as a human running. Then, I stopped about 100 meters away from the Gate. The towering almost 300-meter-tall titan of an angel filled most of my sight.
I glimpsed at Eden. It was indeed beautiful, but I am on much more important business than admiring someone's garden.
"You must know of what happened to the sun and the rest of humanity."
"YES."
"So why do you do nothing?"
"I GUARD."
"Is that all you do?" I outstretched my hands, "Just standing here guarding Eden?"
"YES."
"Did people try to enter?"
"YES."
"Did you kill them?"
"YES."
I felt a sense of outrage. Billions died and this thing didn't even attempt to help any survivors?
"Why?"
"HUMANITY IS NOT READY."
I flew closer directly in front of Uriel's face, ignoring the potential danger of such an action as I stared into the 'eyes' of the white titan, "Did your master not create humanity? Did your master not love humanity as His own children? Did your master not preach about love and mercy?"
"HUMANITY IS NOT READY."
Receiving the same reply, I found myself becoming more and more enraged at how Uriel did nothing when he had the capacity. He was the very opposite of me. He had the power to let people into Eden and save them. He could've saved so many more than I could.
"Humanity is dead because of you and your master's inaction."
"NOT YET."
"Your master must be a careless one to leave his garden unattended as weeds choke out the flowers."
Uriel raised his sword and pointed at me. Because of how close I was to him, the angel aimed his sword in such a way that he could easily strike me from down under.
The flaming sword bore the radiance and heat found on the surface of the sun. I could feel its heat, its divine heat like that of a hot spring day. I stood my ground unaffected and unintimidated by the angel's action.
The fire wasn't any normal fire. It is divine fire, a subspecies of the same fire I conjured up from Tohil's Authority over the flames.
"DO NOT QUESTION MY MASTER, MARKED [FOREIGNER]. YOUR STAY HERE IS ONLY BY MY MERCY."
I shrugged my shoulders, entirely unaffected by Uriel's threats, "You invited me here. Like a child showing off his toys gifted to him by his father, you clearly wanted to show off your master's work."
Uriel didn't respond.
"You must be wondering why your master isn't saving any humans, aren't you?"
Uriel's body moved. His flaming sword raised high like a torch, and just as I had thought that he would strike me down, the angel swung down at a position next to me.
The sword's blade disappeared. No, it's more accurate to say the cutting-edge teleported away and slashed at the distant object that entered Uriel's forbidden ground.
There was a tremendous pillar of divine flame that erupted from the moat of charred flesh and meat. It was so bright that the areas around it darkened as it eclipsed the radiance of the corrupted sun.
It was only when I saw the remains of more charred, blackened flesh did I realized that some flesh blobs were secretly inching closer.
Gaining Authority over knowledge once again, I temporarily knew how to read an angel's body language. I needed to act quickly and poke Uriel with prodding questions lest the knowledge that comes from Quetzalcoatl's Authority is gone alongside the Divine Authority.
"You… care do you not? You wonder why your master hasn't made a move yet to snuff out the sun and this blight upon His favorite creation."
"DO NOT QUESTION THE WILL OF MY MASTER. HE WILL ACT AS HE SEES FIT."
Uriel does care. He wonders why his master isn't doing anything. He wants to slay the sun yet he was told to stay and guard until the Promised Time… the Promised Time of When the Rose-colored King Will Return From The Abyss?
I ignored that for now since it doesn't appear to be immediately important.
"Tell me at least, how does one stop this?" I plead, "How does one stop Ion?"
"..."
Uriel's body language suggests the angel wants to tell me. So what's stopping him?
I stared at the crimson sky that blanketed everything. The white sun, Grand Karcist Ion.
Ah. So that's why.
I flexed the Pan-Human History me's Authority over the storms and summoned forth clouds that blanketed this area. It will serve to block out the sight of Ion.
With my time limits not yet reached, I had no problem concentrating on thickening the blanket of clouds above me until everything within the crown of mountains was basking in a darkness found only in a starless, moonless night.
"AMIDST THE ROARING TEMPEST OF THE GREATEST SON OF SUN, THE JEWEL OF PROGRESS WILL SERVE AS YOUR SPEAR. FOR WHEN IT PIERCE THE HEART OF THE MERCIFUL EUPHORIA WHO SITS UPON THE SUN THRONE, THERE, HUMANITY WILL FIND NORMALITY."
My eyes narrowed at the cryptic language used by Uriel. The angel has to be messing with me, right?
Son of son? Son of sun? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Planets? Are planets the son of Sol?
I opened my mouth to ask for clarification—
"DO NOT ASK FOR MORE, MARKED [FOREIGNER]. LEAVE."
Uriel then raised his sword and stabbed it into the ground, shaking the nearby mountains as cracks filled with fire and the smell of sulfur spread out from where the blade had struck the ground.
He wasn't going to budge anymore. The angel was serious about not responding.
"...Very well. I will accept this gift no matter how cryptic it is."
With that, I left. If I had more time, perhaps I would've asked the archangel what he meant when he called me a 'Marked' foreigner but oh well. I'll take what I can get.
I took off towards North America. Crossing Turkey, I found the usually lushly green Europe you'd find on Google Earth to be completely barren of any greenery. It was shades of black, yellow, and red as large masses of meat congregated into slabs and amalgamations that spanned entire cities. Observing them for a minute, I found them to serve as a type of factory or maybe a 'spawning pool' where humanoid flesh things crawl out of.
These things are much different from the disorganized molten amorphous masses of waxy meat that made much of the corrupted humans when Day Break first happened. Now, they're becoming more organized, they're becoming more humanoid, more creepier.
One was a short and stumpy humanoid like that of a dwarf, only it had a lamprey mouth for a face with rolls upon rolls of sharp teeth.
Another was a tall lanky thing with a large, unsettling smile that spreads from ear to ear, literally. The Joker would be proud of them. It also had two 'eyes' but no nose or ears.
And finally, there was a single huge blob of fleshy mass the size of a car. It moved like an elephant through the six appendages for legs on the lower part of its body. What's the creepiest part about this… 'spotter' was the fact that its body was covered in eyes each the size of chairs.
The streets of Berlin and Paris were overrun with these things.
And these are the most common types I could pick out from hovering in the upper atmosphere. There were hundreds, thousands of more variants of these things that seem to crawl out of man's worst nightmare.
Ion touched upon every phobia possible. There were hairy spiders the size of an adult man. There were amorphous masses filled with tiny holes like they were sponges. There were tiny flesh things that were shaped like maggots that crawled together in masses numbering in the millions.
There were sea urchins that contained spikes as long as pencils. There were a hundred meter-long snakes whose head was that of an animal skull. There were horse-sized frog-like creatures that slubber about with a stomach full of concrete and rebar as they continued to consume any man-made structures.
There were things that resembled humans in every way, including even wearing clothing but possessed no facial features at all.
It almost appeared Ion searched the internet and materialized every creepy image and monster on it into existence.
The worst part of all this? Despite being many dozens of kilometers up in the air, I can hear them faintly. The noise they were making was a cacophony of hellish shrieking and painful wailing.
Looks like Ion is really amping up his psychological warfare games. The next step would be to carve memetic hazards onto these things' flesh.
… That's totally what he's going to do, isn't it?
I moved on, making a mental note to tell the Foundation of my discoveries. I could glass all of Europe but that would definitely negatively affect the rest of the world as a volcanic winter of unprecedented proportions covers the globe.
As I traveled back to Michigan, my mind thought about what Uriel said. That cryptic hint…
The greatest of son of Sun probably meant a planet, but what measure of greatness are we talking about here?
Size? Their ability to provide for life?
Just what could it mean?
And the Jewel of Progress, what kind of progress does Uriel mean? The printing press? The first steam engine? The first book made by the printing press? Some part of Mekhane since he is the God of Progress and Technology?
And why did Uriel call Ion the 'merciful euphoria'? What could be so merciful about turning into a flesh blob?
Though that 'roaring tempest' part seems to indicate that the planet is known for storms… hmm…
Perhaps something in the heart of a hurricane? Maybe somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico or somewhere that breeds storms? But the water cycle appears to have entirely disappeared as without my intervention, it doesn't even rain or snow anymore.
When I ended SCP-343 and was returning home, I could distinctly remember how there weren't any clouds anywhere. There wasn't even any wind.
As I entered Canadian airspace, I couldn't help but feel a bit glad. With the SCP Foundation helping me, this will surely be much easier than if I had done it alone, especially since the Foundation can keep me in touch with any remaining Groups of Interest that are still around. Like the Church of the Broken God.
Dropping out of the upper atmosphere and subsequently slowing down, I descended to find Site-19 under siege. They were being attacked by more of those nightmarish creatures.
A part of the perimeter wall was breached as scores of giant humanoids with a dozen legs and a dozen arms came in. Each of those arms had three hands attached to the end. The humanoids had no head, only smooth flesh where the neck should be.
Using those hands, they started making weird gestures in an unstable jerky manner and conjuring up glyphs that manifested on the ground, in the air, and on the flamethrowers of security guards who were trying to fight back.
I didn't know what the glyphs on the ground or in the air do, but it seems the glyphs that are on the flamethrowers transmute it into stones. It turned those flamethrowers useless.
Without a second thought, many cores of plasma appeared all around them. Then, like an artillery barrage, I send forth streaks of plasma that slam into these tall things, burning them with the fury of the sun.
Before these things could fully turn to ash, one of the more untouched humanoids jerked nine of its hands in a strange manner and in turn, a new glyph manifested making my plasma seemingly harmless.
Holy shit. I recognize those things. They originated from SCP-1730, from that one monster with give or take a hundred hands and had a human strapped to its disk of a head.
Forget Cognitohazards that the SCP Foundation likes to employ, Ion gave those under him the ability to conjure up Kinetohazards.