Microstory 1117: Opal Jolourvedin

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By absorbing all the powers of every mage in the world to finally end the war with the monsters, historical figure, Jayde Kovac ushered in a new era. Fortunately, while some monsters did survive that final attack, most were destroyed anyway. Unfortunately, the Mage Protectorate was destroyed as well. Most of the former mages survived, but they no longer possessed powers, which sent the planet into chaos. They would come to find out that these temporal abilities were not lost forever, though it would be a long time before they returned at full strength. For a while, all they had were people they referred to as mage remnants. Their powers were weak and unreliable; mere echoes of what their ancestors could once do. Opal Jolourvedin was not one of these people. She was a full mage, and in fact, quite a powerful one. The problem is that she didn’t realize this about herself. She knew that she could fix the present moment, like a magical undo button, but she never did figure out how much of reality she could alter. The universe is an uncertain place. Every decision you make springs a new reality, as does every decision anyone else makes, including the lowly cockroach. Opal had the ability to spontaneously draw forth the outcome of a decision that was never made, but could have been made, theoretically. Let’s say that a man is climbing a ladder, but is in too much of a hurry to get to the top. He rashly skips a rung, which causes him to slip, fall, break his neck, and die. With a snap of her fingers, Opal can elicit a timeline where he decides not to skip a rung, does not slip, does not fall, does not break his neck, and does not die. She doesn’t go back in time and warn him of his mistake. She doesn’t send her consciousness to his body, and force him to take a different path. She simply determines the best outcome of any situation, finds that outcome in an endless field of what are called microrealities, and then makes it so. For the most part, she is the only one aware that any change to the timeline has been made. According to everyone else, this is just what happened, and it was always going to have happened. She can, however, preserve certain people’s memories of the other timeline, just to give them a little perspective. After all, if they are not cognizant of what mistake they might have made, they may end up making a similar one later on, and she won’t necessarily be around to fix it for them. Again, she was never in a position to truly understand the magnitude of her power, but she would bear a son with the same gifts. He eventually made his way to Earth, and became...The Repairman.