With one sweep of his neck, the Diamond Strands tore the Golden Strands head into three parts, laughing inatiably as he did so. "I KNOW you can hear me Goldy, so listen up, I'm the king of this here Hill ya damned hippy! I'm gonna absorb y'all into myself and join with the kid when its born, and then whatever becomes of the lil feller, that's gonna kick the unholy crap outa that damned Hyperwolf!" The flailing body of the Golden Strands flopped around as the last of his life energy spilled out onto the harsh concrete ground. He stopped flailing suddenly and simply melted away.

"You are one STUPID country hick, you know that Diamond!?" His voice erupted from all around the Diamond Strands as he looked all around, trying to find the source of the voice.

"WHERE ARE YA, YA YELLA BELLIED, SNAKE LIVER EATIN, CACTUS LOVING SON OF A BITCH!?" He screamed at the top of his lungs, watching with innate horror as the Clones he didn't kill suddenly stopped in their tracks, turned to face him, and slowly walked menacingly towards him. "You want to go the undead route!? Fine by me! Gatling rounds for each of ya!" The Diamond Strands formed a mounted minigun on his chest and plugged away, the bullets slamming through the Clones with little to no effect as they continued their slow journey.

"I told you. While you ate moons, I ate entire Universes that teamed with life! I consumed hypergiant class stars! Devoured black holes! Chomped down on supernovas, collapsing galaxies, pulsar and quasars with far more delicious energy and vitality than some hunk of dead planet! You might be made of diamond dust, but ALWAYS know this!" The Golden Strands voice echoed out of the make shift mouths of the Clones bodies, each with a variety of emotions flashing across their faces at any given point.

"Gold will always increase of value, while diamond just kinda looks pretty!" The Clones became a melting funnel that grew into the sky, gathering all twelve trillion, four hundred thity eight thousand, eight hundred seventy one remaining bodies into one giant sphere that splintered and fractured, like an eggshell dropped on the floor. The sphere surrounded the entire planet and slammed into it, the Diamond strands screaming insults and firing his gun at the rapidly descending ceiling.

"Now you know my true power." The Golden Strands laughed quietly as he shrank back into his humanoid form.

He looked around himself to find that most everything had been left undamaged, with the exception of the shattered remains of the Diamond Strands, which were still struggling to hang on to what ever energy it had left.

"It... It aint fair you know?" He struggled to say, gasping for air.

The Golden Strands sat down next to his fallen opponent. "Yeah... I know Diamond, I know. I have a question for you. What happens when I absorb you into myself? Do we merge into a new entity, or will I simply get a comsetic makeover?"

The Diamond Strands coughed out a laugh. "Y-yer pretty funny for a pile of dyed yarn, ya know that?"

"Yeah... I know."

"Far as I can tell... When it's over a done with, ya get more then new looks... Ya get..." He coughed three times, then gasped for more air, "Ya get stronger... Make it quick please, I-I want to meet up with that douche of a Cobra, and have me a few words with him... Ya... Damned... Hip-" The Diamond Strands let out a long sigh, and then it was over.

The Golden Strands simply sat, stunned at the lever of cruelty the Core would go through simply to stop one single person. "Roger that good buddy."

Sasha watched the whole thing happen, the Golden Strands simply opened his hand as a series a mouths formed on his fingertips, the fingers then snaked outwards, swallowing the remains of the Diamond Strands with little to no difficulty whatsoever. As this happened, small patches of diamond formed in intricate patterns on the Golden Strands body, forming a suit of armor that looked more alive than anything else. While this happened, the golden portions of his body became the skeleton as the process continued, while the diamond portions became muscles and tendons where needed. When it was all said and done, the Golden Strands looked at his new form with a bit of sadness.

"This... This just isn't right. Well Sasha, I'm guessing this where we part ways. Good Bye." He almost whispered as he began to walk off.

"And where do you think you're going?" She asked rudely, almost like she thought she had ownership of him.

"I'm going to find my friends, you're welcome to come along if you wish."

"No. I don't think so, now that the first fights over, you HAVE to-"

The Golden Strands ran up and slapped her across the face, a stern look in his now empty eyesockets. "I HAVE TO WHAT!? WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO!? IS THERE SOME LAW YOUVE ESTABLISHED SAYING THAT I HAVE TO SIT AND WAIT FOR THE OTHERS TO COME AND FIND ME!? IS THERE!?"

Sasha looked insulted.

"I own-"

Again he slapped her.

"You... You don't own me. You don't own anything except your own damned life. I'm leaving, come if you want, but cross me again, and I will NOT hesitate to end your life." With that, the Golden Strands walked away, leaving Sasha standing there, feeling like a pompous, snobby, attention starved prom queen.

Antimo and Nordafet had traveled the better part of ten days witout rest or sleep, or even eating for that matter. the reason for this being was that since they were created in the Dream Dimension, and since all the energies of that Dimension had now leaked outward into everything else, they only needed minute amounts of energy abnsorbtion to do anything for any period of time. So they were content with just simply walking about. Or, when the time called for it, fusing into there upgraded Shell form, Nordante and flew for a ways.

During one of these flights, they managed to finally breach the funneling mass of color and energies where all the souls that had been trapped in the Dimension between Dimensions had, until recently, resided.
"This is it. I'm not sure what's left on the other side, but the Hyperwolf's trail leads straight into this thing. You ready Nordafet?" Antimo channeled through the comlink.
"Of course, what could possibly-"
Antimo stopped him right there. "Look, I know that's like your favorite catch phrase ever... But whenever you say 'What could possibly go wrong' ... Something ALWAYS goes wrong! So shut the hell up, and let's get the Puppet King, and get the **** out of there before anything else stupid happens." The rest of the way was silent as Nordafet's scanners ttraced any incoming hostiles, while Antimo's hundreds of varied weapons arrays trained on anything suspiscious.

The Dimension between Dimensions was as desolate and empty as a old abandoned amusement park. There were few of the many centillions of trapped souls that chose to remain there since the Hyperwolfs punting of the Fat Man hard enough to break through the very secured barriers that kept the souls from passing on. Since the barriers broke down, those that escaped summarily got their asses kindly kicked by the army of Grim Reapers that were impatiently awaiting their dues.

Eventually, the message got out about the whole thing, and people just decided that between fighting for enternity or death on the spot, they would have a few more millenia of the whole switching sides upon defeat in battle.

But something became horribly, horribly aparent after those that became defeated didn't disappear in a puff of grape scented smoke. That since the barriers had broken down, Time now flowed normally, as did the many natural and unfortunate circumstances when it came to Mortality.

Some, like the Puppet King, became more noticably agressive to be one of the now many hundreds of thousands of warriors who fought both to survive and kill off those that would harm their chances. Eventually, after a few hundred years, tiny alliances formed that became Guilds, soon after that, those Guilds soon banded together under a ruling group of eight that helped decide the new rules and fates of those within this once horrible place.

Of course, there were still two sides, Existence versus Nonexistence, and the Door and Chasm took perverse pleasure in controlling their mainly unwilling armies to crash into battle every few years. The landscape had changed drastically, it wasn't the place that was endless anymore, instead, the ground swelled, looped, twisted, honeycombed, anthilled, and on many occasions, became warped locations that transported people to other places.

The sky was a light blue ocean with clouds of white seals that swam and dove, and ground was a seemingly endless and dense forest of ancient trees with scary faces, and on occasion, the occasional shrub like Boy Band was set ablaze, because even though they were almost constantly at each others throats, they had commonly agred that NO boy band should be alloud to live after five minutes, otherwise they would have a fearfully strong fanbase to contend with.

And no one wanted that.

It was in a small clearing that Barney Fife, the Puppet King and his close friend after many battles, the Bloody Knight were in the process of fighting off a horde of the Chasms Warriors. They had been fighting for what seemed like five minutes. When in fact they had indeed been fighting for at least three minutes and twenty nine seconds.
"Is it me?" The Bloody Knight started, "Or is it just the fact, that outside the numerous and reasonably strong warriors that the Chasm has at his disposal, that we are always being attacked by Slugs."
Barney laughed uncomfortably, " I think they don't want to be called that anymore, they perfer to be called the Velocitally Challenged Gastropods. Remeber the big fuss they put up at the last meet and greet?" Barney fife pulled out a couple of packets of salt, tore them open, and lobbed them at the eyestalks of one.

The slugs, or Velocitally Challenged Gastropods, screamed in agony, and made a sign stating that "Throwing salt at them was now considered a hate crime."
"Shut up!" The Bloody Knight roared as he slashed through the Gastrod's neck, where it became uncomfortably stuck.
"See? Now look what you've done! Not only did your sword get stuck, you've only ticked her off!" Barney retorted. "Look, I know you guys are trying to outlive the rest of us, but I don't really see that happen- What the **** is that!?" He became distracted at the Shells outward appearance, not even knowing who the two were that fused into the form were. "Um... Yeah... Técnica prohibida espectáculo de títeres: Agitadores de bombardeo de la sal!" He called out as his chest openeed up and several different colored strands of string attached to many different pieces of wood clattered together into the shape of seven of the eight B52 band members with huge chunks of salt in each hand.
"THIS IS FOR OLD COUNTRY!" The Drummer shouted, but was interrupted by the lead singer.
"NO IT'S NOT! THIS IS FOR THAT ONE GUY IN THAT OTHER PLACE WE WERE AT!"
The Bassist joined in, "YEAH! THAT GUY! I THINK HIS NAME WAS STEVE, OR BOB, OR MAYBE EVEN DEREK! I DON'T KNOW, BUT YEAH! THAT GUY!"
The others were silently contemplating murdering those three out of pure rationality.

Without a second thought, they hurled the salt chunks at their targets. They then made signs stating that being part of the B52's was now also considered a hate crime against the velocitally challenged. this made some sense to a nearby stop sign. who had nothing better to do than shout the words "STOP IN THE NAME OF LOVE! MY HEART CANT TAKE NO MORE!" at random objects, untill it became clear that no matter how badly it wanted to shout at something moving, there was just no chance of that happening.

The slugs, or Velocitally Challenged Gastropods, simply died of heart attacks, because the B52's were now doing all their best hits, if there was ever such a thing. The songs were so bad, that a nearby blond woman in a bright yellow dress, became exponentially more beautiful, and simply went to the movies. It was there at the movies, that Antimo started talking to her, while Nordafet slapped the Puppet King across the face, threw a glass of wine in his eyes, and accused him of cheating on several past Girlfriends, Fiances, Wives, and the occasional Baptist Priest.

"Wha? I- What!? WHO THE **** ARE YOU!? AND I'M FRIGGIN BLIND NOW YOU DAMNED JACKWAGON!" The Puppet King shouted furiously as the Bloody Knight simply shrugged his shoulders. Nordafet, with little time to explaine, shaped his hands into a very cartoonish pair of scissors and cut the strings that gave the now annoyingly batshit crazy B52's their life. The puppets crashed to the floor, clattered to pieces, and turned into dust.

The world, for the most part, was a happier place for it alltogether.

"Anyways, my name is Nordafet, hi, I'm a Deom, and the Hyperwolf, formerly the Lost Wolf, punted a physical manifestation of the Chasm of Nonexistence hard enough to break down the barriers between this place, and everything else. Now because of some unknown reason, my friends hitting on a chica in a yellow dress with an amazing smile, and we need you to stop the Hyperwolf's unborn child from killing him. Capiche?"

Barney simply shook his head in confusion to the whole thing, to which Nordafet promptly took as a close enough. Antimo, having a lovely talk with the woman in the yellow dress, said his goodbyes, and rejoined nordafet.

"This the guy?"

"Yeah, it's him."

"Good, grab him and his friend and let's go."

"Why do we need his friend?"

"Dunno, might come in handy sometime. Maybe even as a pillow."

"But he's covered in pointy metal! I can't imagine him being a very cofortable pillow, can you?"

Antimo thought about this for a minute, turned to the Bloody Knight, looked him over for about a minute, and nodded. "Yeah... Maybe he could help against the kid, or maybe heat up a cup of coffee... I mean, in comparison, the slugs-"

The Velocitally Challenged Gastropods held up signs pointing out that could be construed as a racist remark in the insect world, and they were more inclined to the politically correct terminology.

"Oh, go sit on a salt stick." Antimo said in slight annoyance. "I don't even know what the hell those smudges say!"

Ignoring the chaos of the battle that had gone into completely and utterly weird territory, the Puppet King and the Bloody Knight agreed to join the Deom and his friend in search of the Hyperwolf. Things were not easy at first, as the Bloody Knight kept complaining that no matter how far they went, the B52's would always be stalking them. This was partly true, as the band had learned the secrecs of traveling through hyperspace, simply by messing Ryan Seacrest's immaculate hairdo up, the science behind it got blurred beyond that point, and no one much cared for Ryan's feelings on the matter anyways.

The Hyperwolf was silently watching the Bloody Strands belly as it grew, he sensed the strength of the fetus grow exponentially with eyes full of awareness and at the same time, a certain level of fear.

'You shall kill me?' He questioned to no one but himself. 'Heh... I need to geet stronger, I've work to do for the Chasm.' he concluded to no one within ear shot.

In a flash of light he vanished to do what he had set out to do in the first place, round up the leftovers that escaped when the barriers had ruptured. The Bloody Strands had been sensing his presence for a while now, but didn't bother to aknowledge it, she had other things to consider, and the pregnancy required her fullest attention. The energy she took in from the lives she consumed went directly to feeding the baby's insatiable hunger. It drained her levels to the point where, even in the most dangerous of circumstances, she could only lay still as the dangers either passed or did grievious harm to her.

She knew that when the time came, the Child would consume her life in the process of the birth, fuse with the remaining Strands, and overcome its Fathers strength with its own. Although she had long since abandoned him, and swore a oath to finally do that which she had been tasked with by Resaec all those years ago, there was a seed of doubt that grew within her as to the actual reasons for this immedialte compulsion to do so.

'Soon, my Child... Soon.' Were the only words that repeated in her mind, like a scratched record that cotinually skipped.

The Door of Existence, in a weakened state of being since its own armies had either rebelled against it, were killed off by the Chasms own troubled forces, or had simply escaped, reached out towards its Brothers, Sisters, Fathers, and Mothers in other Existences, Realities, and Dimensions in a concentrated effort to rally strength against the side of Nonexistence. Even though the response was nearly instantaneous, it was nearly destroyed when pockets of Nonexistantial Interference shot through it, causing the Door, and all that it was connected to, a great amount of agony. The message was pure, simple, and direct.

"Help me. I am dying."

The Strands who had kicked off the Highlander Event, now that the fusion of Diamond and Gold was finished, had renamed itself Goldiamond in honor of its first of many fallen bretheren. Sasha, who had tried to claim ownership of Goldiamond, followed as a fellow traveler, merely to record its adventure to its conclusion. She used a new platform that combined that best features of Facebook, Twitter, Diaspora, Wikipedia, Posterous, Pinterest, Youtube, Hulu, Vimeo, and many others that she had created using a few sparse strands left over from the fight between gold and diamond. She never talked to Goldiamond, or asked it questions.

Out of either fear or respect, Sasha simply walked along side it, neither Master, Slave, Ally, nor Enemy.

The Arhem triplets became the psuedo minions of the Fat Man, alongside the group of the scientists, setting out on seperate tasks, gathering information about the whereabouts, movements and battles between the now fractured remnants of the armies of both the Door and the Chasm, and recording everything through the new platform.

The Chasm, in the meantime, located and subdued Resaec, the Black Syrup into its legions.

Unwilling in mind and spirit, the Black syrup was exstinguished of his freedom.

Genetically experiemnted on till it had no idententy of its own.

Rather, it was grown into a collective known only as the Hive, and when the Hive grew large enough for self sustainability, it cut ties with the Chasm and created a pocket Dimension for itself. Through that pocket Dimension, it too collected and stored Yottabytes of detailed and sensitive information. It held no allegiances, polotics, morals, ethics, rules, or laws.

The Hive became known for its secretive, but nonlethal, ways of gathering such information.

The Core, aware of everything happening in the Great Infinite, but not knowing the outcome, simply continued onwards with its own musings and projections. Creating new multiples of projected results it attained through the past events, and through those created more and farther reaching possibilities. It cared not for the feelings of one side or another, nor did it feel any conflict of interest when its attention swiveled from one side to another.

It was interested in only the preservation of the Balance itself.

The Strands that became unnaturally attracted to Goldiamond, found themselves gathering power and stregnth through unknown methods. Through their interactions, they each created broken bonds, hatred, loves, slowly broiling romances, and fierce and fractured rivalries with eachother as to where and when they could reach Goldiamond, hoping for their chance at the destined battle.

Blake, Bobby, Skylar, and Daniel themselves simply followed their intuitions when possible, searching for the designated spot where and when the Hyperwolf could meet them. At times they became frustrated with the lack of progress, Sometimes they made leaps and bounds, finding themselves in predicaments, that normally could've been avoided all together.

Kim and the woman in the yellow dress found themselves growing closer to each's destined places, yet repelled magnetically by circustances beyond their control.

No one knew where they would end up, how they got there, or when they would meet up again. Indeed, many years had passed without their noticing, and many more would still before things would spiral downwards when the Hyperwolf and the Unborn Child would meet.