Microstory 1138: Nereus Jolourvedin

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When Opal Jolourvedin was 27 years old, she had a child, who she named Nereus. They lived relatively contently on Durus for the better part of the next decade, doing their part to increase social justice, and support the transitional government. She taught him to be a feminist, a kind person, and a generous human being. When he was eighteen, he found himself drawn to a mysterious section of the planet called The Abyss. It was out of here that the first monsters came, but since they were destroyed in the war, and the portal more or less was closed, no more temporal anomalies were coming through. Still, the Abyss was a dangerous and hazy place. No one who went in ever returned. Laws were passed to prevent it from ever being used as punishment for a crime, and a border guard was stationed along its perimeter to prevent the curious from trying their hand. Though over the years, these protective measures were lessened. Nereus knew that he had the power to alter reality, and he thought he would be able to repair the problem, so that no one else’s life would be at risk from it. He realized he had failed when the portal snapped him away, and sent him to another universe. This was an extremely dangerous place, for it is where the monsters originated. And they were not happy that humans were invading their home. That was what they were trying to do. Fortunately, when their powers were combined, a pair of women were capable of sending all the humans to the past, where it was safer. Unfortunately, not everyone was able to make it through when the bubble that formed to encompass the crowd was disrupted. Nereus and the rest of the standard humans had to fight their way out of a city of enemies, most of them losing their lives along the way, but Nereus survived. He protected those few survivors for years, by constantly generating realities where the monsters hunting them never succeeded. But this was becoming tiring, and he needed a permanent solution. After learning a little bit about the history of the universe, which was called Ansutah, he mustered all of his strength, reached deeper into the past than he ever had before, to find a reality where there was one final way of escaping Ansutah. Scientists long ago invented a way to travel to other universes, but before they built the main machine, they engineered The Prototype, to make sure the technology worked. Plans were made to build a version in between the Prototype, and the Crossover, to measure the feasibility of scaling the infinity drive that powered the machines, before they used up too many resources in the massive undertaking. These plans were scrapped in the original timeline, but Nereus needed it, so he changed history to accommodate those needs. He then found where The Transit was hidden, and finally left the hell world with all his new friends. He eventually returned to his home universe, but in a much earlier timeline; one in which he was never even born. He started calling himself The Repairman, and used his ability to protect the timestream, so that the actions of the time travelers didn’t get out of hand.