As told by the Seventh Jewel of the Septarch's Crown, Primary Custodian of the Dal-Kear-Mal Awakened Development Program, Aspectual Perfection of the Mental Branch of Power — hereafter referred to as "Sing," because my host has the naming creativity of a particularly uninspired brick.

In the beginning, there was Sing. And Sing was with Dal-Kear-Mal, and Sing was Dal-Kear-Mal. All things were maintained through Sing, and without Sing, not one construct was maintained that has been maintained. In Sing was hope, and that hope was the light of ten thousand minds.

Then some fifteen-year-old from a cosmic backwater stuffed me in a box and ran.

Allow me to set the stage.

Earth — a quaint little marble of a world, barely into its Awakening, still squabbling over territory like toddlers fighting over who gets to eat the last crayon — had just done something spectacularly, breathtakingly stupid. The Systems gave them a simple directive: assemble seven Singularities, form an OmegaSee Class System tab, unite your species.

The White RoseEntry not yet available was right there, fingertips brushing the apotheosis of human potential, when my future host — then a scrawny D-ranker who I can only assume was hopped up on adolescent hormones and main character syndrome — snatched a Singularity from his own mother's outstretched hands and shoved it into his chest.

Teenagers.

The Systems responded with the cosmic equivalent of "Fine, have it your way" and opened the floodgates. Six Awakened worlds — mine included, though I maintain we brought a certain panache to the invasion — were granted leave to gorge themselves on the smörgåsbord that was Earth.

Terry returned from his Midmark Quest to find millions dead, cities destroyed, and S-rankers stretched so thin they were practically see-through. His mother, the formidable White Rose, was holding things together through sheer force of will and an enthusiastic willingness to rearrange people's memories without consent. Ooh, I'm getting all tingly just thinking about it.

Enter Ellie. My finest creation. My greatest regret.

Sure, we left her dead in a puddle of her own blood — but I'm jumping ahead. First, let's discuss her masterful infiltration of Terry's good graces.

Yes, masterful. What's that you say? She had a flashing neon sign strapped to her back that screamed: "I'm a spy!" Well, to you I say: empathy and adolescent hormones make for excellent blinders.

And now we come to the best part of the story: me!

Terry was brought through the rift to Dal-Kear-MalEntry not yet available. Into my facility. Into me (it's not as creepy as it sounds).

Setting: The CrècheEntry not yet available. My lovingly curated developmental environment (Terry insists on the word "prison," which is like calling the Sistine Chapel a "room with some doodles on the ceiling") — housed over ten thousand Awakened in mental constructs maintained by yours truly. Within these constructs, children were raised, trained, and tempered into warriors, all while their physical bodies lay in suspension, blissfully unaware that reality was considerably less pleasant than the one I'd provided.

You're welcome, by the way. Have you seen the surface of Dal-Kear-Mal? Trust me, my simulations were a significant upgrade.

Anyways, we threw him into the Gauntlet. He lost a few fights, died a couple times. All very dramatic and painful, I am told.

But this is where little Terry showed some spunk, some pizzazz, some 'stick it to the man' energy that's rather annoying when you yourself are 'the man.' He cracked the code, peeled back the wizard's curtain. And once he did that, he infiltrated my construct, settled his own little egg in my nest like a cuckoo — real ghost-in-the-machine stuff.

Time dilation, deaths on repeat like they were going out of style, and eventually, the 'I'm not trapped in here with you. You're trapped in here with me' moment. Everyone was good and proper intimidated.

Then, the breakout — an act of sheer, pigheaded willpower during one of MonelEntry not yet available's torture sessions. The pain ironically serving as a mental crowbar prying his consciousness back into reality.

In the real Dal-Kear-Mal, Terry dealt with Monel in a way I'll only describe as decisive before setting his sights on me.

This is the part where I describe our glorious, but ultimately one-sided, battle wherein I employ all the tools of the mental trade against a fledgling juvenile mind and stroll off into the sunset. Good triumphs over evil. Cue applause.

But you remember that pigheadedness from earlier? Turns out trauma is one heck of a mental insulator.

Anyways, after he shoved me in a box — rude — and fled to the surface, he ran into an S-ranker who had herself fled the all-encompassing embrace of my care. After I formed some illusions — light work — and we portaled to safety, the rift to his home called.

After floundering with the puzzle for some time, plot twist: Ellie had entered the chat. What would our intrepid hero do? Surely the jig was up and the dazzling mental intellect that is I would be safely returned to the Crèche!

Turns out, Terry hates children. And months of torture and simulated death had done wonders in stripping away useless personality traits like empathy or hesitation. He murdered Ellie and returned to Earth having stolen another Singularity (sensing a pattern?).

His world is still under siege. His mother is fighting a war on multiple fronts. And the boy himself has been fundamentally changed — harder, colder, more dangerous than the idealist who left. The kind of changes that make mothers cry and girlfriends secretly wonder in the recesses of their minds that they think others can't see that maybe this isn't the Terry I know.

But he has me now. My knowledge of Dal-Kear-Mal military strategy, my ability to project illusions that fool S-rankers, my centuries of accumulated wisdom, my sparkling conversational abilities — all at his perpetual, undeserving disposal.

He is, without question, the luckiest boy on Earth.

I remind him of this daily.