Anthologie101

Erika Furudo, who was taking a bath in her mansion off of the coast of Tokyo, in an disclosed location of a exclusively private island, found herself feeling warmer within the water. The water was already warm, but it got warmer and warmer as time went on. Not paying much mind to it, as it could be one of Bernkastel's tricks, Erika continued to soak and rest within the water, drifting off into a deep sleep.

The water is getting warmer... Had it been a physically possible occurrence for such a thing to happen without warning... It would have happened earlier.

Erika's eyes shot open. Surely this was not the doing of Bernkastel! The probability of water getting hotter with no aid from the sun or extra water being added to it's mass was surely zero. Had Erika known that ten seconds ago, she would have jumped from the bath and ran out of the room like a maddening lunatic. Zero was such a strong concept, but how so did the water get hotter? And for what reason? Erika had to know. She needed to know the

TRUTH.

Unaided, water cannot change its temperature by itself. Its atoms need to lose momentum so that they cool, but even then the water is being aided by temperatures around it. And to add, this water is getting hotter, not colder.

Erika looked out of the window, and saw the open blue skies surrounding her, the seagulls squalling, the ocean waters crashing up against the shores of her private island. Truthfully however, this mansion belonged to Bernkastel and Lambdadelta, and with the two's combined power, it literally does not exist on the face of the earth. As Erika, being the "piece" of Bernkastel (and occasionally of Lambdadelta), occupied this region, she entered a state of Limbo in which her human body remained in the outside world, outside of existence as to be protected for the realm of living nature, as her spiritual body inhabited this Limbo, Purgatory, and was taking a bath.

The magic of the matter disgusted her, as though created from Bernkastel's being, she did not ever once use Magic. The concept of Magic and Love disgusted her, and it got in the way of her views of Truth. Such things were not needed. Though, a couple of times she did grow curious as to how powerful her magic would be. If Bernkastel's Probability Magic was powerful enough to make anything with a chance of 1 happen at will, then supposedly Erika could uncover Truth and create realities with a mere thought. She would live to directly support Probability, as it too worked merely from Truth itself.

Dismissing the thought as a mere theory and nothing else, Erika was truly afraid that her curiosity would work alongside her detective instincts and lead her to seek...

TRUTH.

"Scary..." Erika said aloud, hearing her voice echo across the plains of Purgatory and return to her ears with the screams of a thousand tormented souls. "How close to Hell am I? Is that why the water's getting so hot? This water doesn't exist in the first place! I don't even exist right now... but... did I ever?"

Of course I exist... Had I, Erika Furudo, not existed, would I be here now?

In a plane of existence outside of existence?

Now that her entire interpretation of logic was screwed, Erika remembered that she needed to get back on topic: "Why is this water so goddamn hot?!"

The water began to bubble up, and the soothing nature of its tranquilly violent state left Erika able to think more clearly.

Bernkastel is here... Along with Lambdadelta. If they are truly manipulating my water, then I know the reason. As this is a separate plane of existence, the rules of the universe does not apply here. The water itself is spiritual, so therefore it can be manipulated by magic and magic alone. Due to my inferior nature, I do not have the right to tamper with this realm without permission of Mistress Bernkastel. The water was never normal to begin with, and I should not even think to question its being as its being doesn't even exist to my mortality.

Erika felt enlightened, and she found herself able to relax more. She truly was fond of investigating. That was the

Truth.

"I am the Witch of Truth, Erika Furudo."

Only that time, it was not Erika speaking, but rather Bernkastel, who appeared to her in the form of a black cat, standing upon the window sill beside the bath which Erika was currently in. Looking over to her Master, Erika greeted her, "Salutations, Lady Bernkastel. How are you today? Well, I suppose?"

"I was mocking you, you know," Bernkastel answered her, returning to her human form and resting in the warmth of the tub with Erika. Bernkastel still wore her dress, but Erika was naked. That much was already known on Bernkastel's part. "Does nothing make you despair?"

"Not as long as it comes from you, Lady Bernkastel," Erika said with an adorable smile. Submission to Bernkastel was painted on her face like a masterpiece. "There is nothing that you can do that can drive me away from you."

Bernkastel Spoke Truth: I assure you that if I were to perform a task upon you that could leave you without my guidance and supervising eyes, you'd break from frustration and curse my very name. Then at that moment, I'll collect you as the piece you are and make my next move with you puppet corpse.

Erika Spoke Truth: I assure you that there is nothing you can do that can drive me away from you.

Bernkastel snickered, then began laughing. "Each time I use that very Magic, my heart disintegrates, piece by little piece. My morality has shrunk down to a minuscule amount, so small that not even I could reestablish its existence. You, Erika, are that heart. You are that painful truth that I cannot escape from, following me for all eternity, reminding me that if I never had that Magic, or that Love, to begin with, I'd have the happiness I ever so desire."

Erika sighed playfully to her Master and former self. "Then tell me that in Truth."

"Witch to Witch, I tell you the Truth." Bernkastel extended her hand for Erika to grab, which she gladly did and shook it. Erika's handshake was firm and tight, and this greatly pleased Bernkastel.

"Is that truly why you created me? For that reason?" Erika asked the Witch of Miracles before herself. "Then... your feelings for Lambdadelta... suppressed feelings of frustrated lust. Power. Someone to equal you... but also to be superior too. I've heard this story before."

Bernkastel frowned her usual frown and looked to the open bathroom door, where she heard footsteps approaching. "Lambdadelta approaches us. I do not wish to face her at this moment... Erika, I shall go check on my other body for a while. Perhaps she is doing much better than I."

Bernkastel disappeared through the space and entered a black realm with a white floor, lighted by millions of green crystals. Erika herself had never been in the realm, for Bernkastel never allowed her in. Erika did, however, catch a glimpse of one of the crystals. She managed to see a younger version of Bernkastel who was being called by a name which she could not interpret, but knew was highly familiar to her.

Bernkastel Spoke Truth: You may never see the inside of this realm. I will not permit you, and neither will you permit yourself as you are. And as you are, shall you forever be.

"Erika?" Lambdadelta said, stepping into the doorway and popping a gumdrop into her mouth. "Taking a bath, I see?"

It truly was scary how powerful Bernkastel and Lambdadelta were. Erika knew her power paled in comparison, lest she actually used Magic, which was impossible on her part. Perhaps Erika was a sacrifice made to Truth itself to regain some lost form of reconciliation with her obvious inability to coexist with the harmony of the universe and all of its planes of existence. Bernkastel was Miracles and Probability, while Lambdadelta was Certainty and Absolution.

They were far too powerful to even exist. And that was the truth.

"Yes, taking a bath, Lady Lambdadelta." Erika's response was slow, so Lambdadelta knew with absolute certainty that something was wrong.

"I know Bernkastel was here, Erika," Lambadelta sighed, sitting on the closed lid of the toilet and crossing her legs to relax. "I can sit here all day and demand the truth from you, but I know you'll tell me the truth. Won't you?"

"Bernkastel and I are one in the same, she is I, and I am she," Erika said with a bit of confidence, looking Lambdadelta in her eyes. The Witch of Certainty stared back with a greater intensity, now losing her patience for Erika.

"Shall you or shall you not spend the rest of your eternity frozen in caramelite?" the older Witch told her with a nagging tone, pointing a finger at Erika, who reeled back and lightly blushed, shrugging her shoulders at Lambdadelta.

"I do not wish for that, despite the fact at any moment you'd make it an absolute certainty," Erika replied. "I'll answer this... Bernkastel has told me that I will curse her name in frustration."

Lambdadelta's eyes widened in worry, she uncrossed her legs and stood up, looking around in all directions and even under the bathtub. She drew close to Erika and whispered in her ear, "Has she told you that in the Truth?"

"I am the Witch of Truth, she needs not to tell me in what I already am. I will not curse her name, and I will not fall from my obedience to her. She knows this, and the reason as to why she challenges this is a Mystery to me. I'll find out why she wishes for this to happen, lest she only be testing me for how much to the truth I long for I will remain with allegiance to."

"I'd say you have your answer right there, but it's never been in Bernkastel's best interest to test people like this. Or even at all. I'm the one who tests. Bernkastel is the one who pulls the strings of reality to make things happen without having to test the waters to make sure. Surely that is what Probability is. In a game of chess, you cannot test your opponent, all you can do is act with the most certainty. In eating candy, you can test. Test the taste, texture, longevity, and everything else you may with the candy until you make your choice."

Erika nodded to Lambdadelta, who was still popping the candies like pills. "I see what you mean. Perhaps since I am virtually the same being as Bernkastel, she has to manipulate me using testing rather than flat out manipulation because...--"

"--...she's not testing you, she testing herself!"

Bernkastel approached the Gates of Truth and opened a portal to walk through and meet directly the Eye of God, who stretched out its tentacles to grab her, but she dodged them with ease and jumped closer to the Eye. "I've come to speak with you... God."

"What has you so sure I'm God?" a voice spoke, not coming from the eye, but from the open Gates behind her, where God (Truth/The One/ The All) was sitting behind her, in the form of Rika Furude.

"I've given my entire being to you, just to gain the ability to do the same. I've realized that power to accomplish this alone is something only a god, if not, God Himself, is able to do." Bernkastel walked from the Gates, and the Eye of God resisted the urge to collect and absorb her into its being. She approached God Rika, with an outstretched hand. "Just let me... feel my old body... just once?"

"I hate mortals who Play God, Furude Rika," God said with the same tone in His voice which he always presented. With a sadistic smile, He stood up and smacked away Bernkastel's hand, and with that swift motion, the Witch of Miracles fell to her knees and began laughing maniacally.

"Yes! YEEES!" she screamed to God, pulling her hair and looking down to the ground, where she could only see blood and cawing crows surrounding the dead body of Rika Furude. "My soft body! I soft, human, mortal body! I miss it, oh how I miss it! How I long for the days to return where I can die, again and again! I'm sorry for taking it for granted! I never should have wished for this!"

God turned His back on her and snickered. "Even the Immortal Witch, Furude Rika Bernkastel, one who can match even my power with a mere thought. A body to harbor God's power itself... even you have to submit to Me. For you wanted to Play God, now you must feel the same pain as God, the same envy as God, the same Wrath as God. Do you think I don't know what you came to do? It's merely the truth... which I am." Then Truth begun to become impatient with the witch. "Please do hurry, I have halted my meditation for you, and I do not believe it was in your best interest to waste time like this. Address to me your problem, and I will see what I can do."

Bernkastel smiled devilishly, looking at the Gate of Truth behind her. "Father... I want him."

"Father? Why do you want him? What can he do that will benefit you in anyway? He doesn't even have a mortal body to do alchemy with," God told the witch. He shrugged His shoulders and laughed, facepalming. "Do you have any idea how much of a pain it was to contain and protect that wretched imbecile? And you want to release him?! For what?!"

"The imbalance," Bernkastel announced, catching God's attention, not as if she had ever lost it to begin with. He turned to her slowly, with an angry grin on His face. "Ah, yes... You do know of the imbalance. The planet of ponies You gave birth to millenia ago, it is creating an unfix-able gap between its dark space between here and the spiritual realm due to its... harmony."

"I created that planet to show how foolish you humans are," God said, strutting up to Bernkastel and looking her in the eyes. "Don't you understand how important it is for a universe to remain in balance? It may seem that they are destroying it, but in reality that planet of multicolored horses is gonna save your ass from a Ragnarok even you cannot stop. Lambdadelta was supposed to be the Witch to stop you, because I had foreseen an event like this occurring had I granted you this power. I allowed this to happen, but only because even I could not deny the Truth anymore. Of course, I could rewrite the laws of the universe, but I'd be breaking the Covenant I made when I started production of this universe."

Bernkastel Spoke Truth: By those same rules did You create me as I am, as You can bend rules, but You cannot break them. The probability chance of that ever happening is 1/0, therefore, you only plan on breaking those laws when the day of your Covenant's expiration happens. In that time, you will spare those ponies, won't you? And you will encourage them to ponify everything, won't you?

"Only time will tell," God told her. "Unless you really wish to make a move to using Father to cause such an imbalance that you'll put the energy of the universe which I have created to a new unity due to the disharmony you'd have inflicted upon it."

God opened the Gates of Truth, and separated Father's dwarf form from it, handing it to Bernkastel. "To whom shall we go, to whom she we seek salvation, to whom shall we address as 'Father'?" he said to her.

Bernkastel replied, "I shall give you Erika. She will serve you until I wish to return Father."

God chuckled, looking to Father, who was sleeping while in Bernkastel's arms. "Then I shall retrieve Erika now. You, go to that planet which you loathe, and inflict as much pain upon them as you can, but not a single one will die unless I permit it."

"Do you want to speak that in Truth? To make this agreement more official?"

Now... I'll play your game, but this is a game between you and Me. I am neither a game piece nor a companion. I am your opponent."

Erika fell into the room of God, and was greeted by Truth, who was in His appearance still Rika Furude, as Erika saw out of the same vision of Bernkastel due to her being part of God and Bernkastel's Covenant. "Wh...What?! Where am I?!" she cried as she looked to God, who smiled and waved at her. "I... I've seen you before... but I cannot discern where or when. Nice to meet you, I'm Erika Furudo, Witch of Truth. And you are--?"

"Truth," God said, walking up to Erika and looking closely at her dress. "So... you are Bernkastel's creation? Modified human with great powers and a massive potential of Supreme Godhood. You're exactly like Father."

"Father? Who's your father? If you're truth... then the one who fathers truth must be probability," Erika stated, thinking now of Bernkastel. "Are you like me?"

"Truth is the God of this universe, the same God that those humans fear and reject," God said, circling around Erika and standing on top of her head. "That God, is I. I am the true Father, and Father is My Son."

"The Son is the Father, like the Christians of earth speak?" Erika inquired, trying to swipe God off of her head, but she could not even lay a single finger on Him. "I always thought they were mad in the head and insane."

Truth jumped down from Erika's head and used His fist to pound her face down into the ground. "If I had a sacrifice for every human to doubt My Existence!-- That's right... I do."

"Care to explain what that means?" Erika asked Him, as she comically teared up from the massive bump on her head. She managed to sit herself up, but remained seated before God, who sat down in front of her. "And why am I here? What usage can God Himself... or Herself, judging by your appearance, have for me? Li'l ol' me?"

"There is a great imbalance of energy within a region of the universe which I have populated with horses and other mythological creatures," God said. "I need you to act as my Eyes and Body to investigate it, as the imbalance is rerouting My control over it. Plus, I must keep My Eye on your galaxy here as it poses a great threat to my existence."

"So, God is on LSD? And is scared that we'll steal all of His followers on Twitter? How quaint." Erika shrugged her shoulders and sighed quickly, but God hit her once again. She scooted back in comical fear and trembled. "For a child you hit like a grown man! And I know how that feels, goddamn."

"Don't use my name in vain, please," God growled at her, still with the same grin on His face. "How would you like it if every time I hated something I cursed it using your name? It's like using some one's credit card to buy luxuries for yourself while the other gets jack diddly squat. It's just not fair."

"I'd be quite honored if someone thought I was valuable enough to steal my identity," Erika said, finding herself face down on the ground again, with God standing on her back, rubbing His smoking fist. "On second thought... I think I'll just shut up..."

"Now, I know you're up for the task, as you seem to be adept to solving mysteries," God said to her, as she managed to sit up once again. "I really do not wish to speak to you too much, but keep in mind I'll use your subconsciousness to speak to you. I'll be able to possess you and use your body for My own and your powers, and everything you see, I will see. You will literally become God."

"Sounds fun," Erika said, not sounding very much excited. "A vessel for a being like you? Talk about using someone's credit card..."

"I shall leave you with these guidelines: You are the Embodiment of Truth, Nothing you say will be a lie, There is nothing you cannot accomplish, You will uncover Truth."

"Fine, can't be more vague than that, I see," Erika replied, standing up as a portal to Equestria opened behind her. "But... before I go on some wild goose chase of a mystery I know nothing about for I God I've just met... Do you know Lady Bernkastel?"

God smiled, knowing that Erika knew what had happened to a certain extent. "Yes, I do."

"Is she the one who told You to call me here?"

"Yes, she is."

Erika laughed loudly, clapping her hands and jumping for joy. "A game with Lady Bernkastel, and I get to play the piece again! Whoo! I suppose this is her test to get me to curse her name, but little does she know... that'll never happen."

God turned away fro  Erika, holding back laughter. "You Witches never cease to amaze me. Given all that power and you doubt My Existence? Pitiful and pathetic. Humans are worth more to Me powerless than they are being as powerful as beings like you and Bernkastel. Remember that, Erika Furudo. Or shall I say... Truth?"