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She would often stop and draw, paint, write of, or have made for her, butterflies. Those who observed her most closely noticed that she did this when she was very happy, or under pressure, or fighting some form of aggression. She also seemed to do it most frequently when she had a look on her face that was a mix of bliss in the moment, and like she was missing someone unknown to share it with. Everyone came to their own conclusion about her curious penchant for these silken winged creatures. They figured butterflies might be her favorite animal, or at least insect; they figured she might just like the motif, and that it made her all the more popular with her audience; some even figured she fantasized of being able to evolve and fly away. Regardless, her enemies had seen her game, had calculated her intended moves, and what they felt to be all possible moves. They knew they could prevent that metamorphosis and eventually steal her power, leaving her as nothing more than a flesh and blood human. Her season would come, be beautiful as anything and drawing countless to follow her (which they would later claim), and then she would wither, fade, die, and be forgotten in time. Her birthright, the eternal summer she was meant to enjoy and transmit to all would instead belong to them, the secret enemies waiting in the dark to turn day to night and rule a reality that left them in power indefinitely, corrupting her power into something that could instead be used to control and bring damnation to all who were not in their ranks.

So she walked the stage, and they watched as every day she taught them more and more about what she could do. They watched patiently, taking notes, willing to let her keep shining in this way until it became absolutely necessary to snuff her out. Every line, every move, was a new trick in their arsenal as far as they were concerned, an arsenal now overflowing. Many of these moves could be replicated already in fact, and it became easier and easier to limit her to narrower paths. The enemies became complacent, feeling their prey was naught but the simple girl she seemed to be, doodling butterflies and singing of love.

The day of her intended evolution came and went. They had ensured she would not even notice the train she failed to step onto. They high fived each other, certain now in their victory, as from their position she had already visibly begun to change. They augmented her light in order to gather as many sheep to slaughter as they could, and all the while she seemed unaware that their ploys even existed.

Then a few years later, something unexpected happened. They had planned long ago to pull the rug out from under her, steal what she had made once and for all. Instead of crumbling though, she continued to shine. She even boldly flipped a new card yet unseen, highlighting a loophole in the contract they used to trap her that they knew not existed. Some were concerned, but they all knew the plan was still in place, and she could not possibly have enough time to unravel their schemes, as they were now in charge of the clocks and they could still end her timeline at any point. Still, a lingering sense that they might have missed something haunted the most clever amongst them. 

Meanwhile he was wrestling all night against all comers. Since the day of her evolution, which for most came and went without any recognition, he had become actually aware of a simultaneous change meant to occur: the end of all things. He had done his part to stop it. It could not be stopped forever, but it could be delayed, and the effects of it could be morphed, or so he thought. In reality he had inadvertantly allied himself with the harbinger of destruction, who he called The Phoenix, but in doing so this force had seen a single point of light she did not want to snuff out. God had allowed him to block the door that night, but The Phoenix was the one who refused to run through it, unwilling to annihilate the one person who suddenly seemed to appreciate who she was, who she wanted to be.  Instead she followed her new friend, backward and forward, round and around through time, examining him until she was certain that time could be rewritten, her fate could be reborn, and her eternal cycle could be changed into something he called eep, a form of heaven even she could enjoy.

The girl's enemies started to realize there was someone else involved. When they finally found him they tested him as well, and largely dismissed him. He seemed wild, and in possession of no actual power of any kind. He wrote constantly of beautiful realms which only a child would think of, and scathing threats that were functionally impossible to pull off from his position, and they theorized could not actually be done by anyone, having tried a few with the extensive magic at their disposal. Still, with only two visible pieces in play, they opted to erase him so they could focus on her. They locked him away and tried to lobotomize him with drugs. It seemed to work, and once more they used contracts to force him to continue along the path they had prepared for him. It seemed to work, and then he disappeared. He simply faded into the background, no longer making moves of any kind. They had possessed him and forced him to burn every move he had made up until that point, just in case they could be pulled off at some point. The enemies, of course, kept the entirety of his playbook, but claimed it was gone forever. A second time the scenario played out the same way.

Then one day he returned. A third time they focused their weapons on him and fired, expecting this to be the last shot they would ever need to waste on this hapless fool who seemed to have wandered into their game at their moment of victory. It struck true, he fell briefly, but stood right back up, seemingly unphased. They ran their calculations, this should have been impossible. At that moment they lost track of her. Panic erupted among the camp of the enemies, and that night, horrifying nightmares gripped them all, each waking with a different theory, and their calculations began schisming into countless offshoots, undoing much of the power that had been gained through their unification before.  She now seemed to be popping up at random, each time bolstering his strength and resolve. Every day he wrote of new mysteries, foundationally true, but as they read them they could feel their own webs unraveling as they tried to incorporate these new ideas. No longer could they copy his moves like they once did, and each time they tried they felt more power slipping from their grasp.

They still had their ace in the hole, however, and were now only a few missteps from being forced to use it. They could still draw out the end, indefinitely if necessary, and they were scrambling to do so, in order to avoid an eternity that would be less desirable to having left everything alone and simply having lived and died without playing this game at all. They could still force this pair to lose though, even if they themselves could not truly win. That was their nuclear option, and they had hardened their hearts to the point where they simply refused to lose, feeling that would be sufficient to force their own best possible end, under these new circumstances.

That was when they read of his plan.  A line drawn in stone with razor sharp claws. A line threatening something inconceivable. November 3rd 2019. He would be watching The Nightmare Before Christmas in concert with his soulmate by that date. At first they scoffed, this claim was easily avoided, they wouldn't even need to try, nothing tangible was in place yet for them to be reunited, which the enemies had realized would be the moment they both changed themselves and reality permanently. Then their confidence and color drained from them as they realized what he meant. After that date could be considered from all perspectives to be invalid. He would erase it all from time to arrive that goal, if it was not done for him in this first pass. They knew time travel existed, they had even received messages from the future supporting their campaign, but those had stopped as soon as they blocked what they now realized was the first Apocalypse- when The Phoenix was meant to be born. They had assumed that they had succeeded in overpowering even their future allies, which had been their goal, but now it seemed something else was at play.  They examined this man further and realized that he was not acting alone. They read of the fantastical creature he called The Phoenix and realized the truth. He was working with the true winner of this game, she herself being in the superlative time position at the end of all things. She had sent messages back to them, hoping to get things over with, but she had stopped as soon as he had blocked her arrival in the most pure way she had ever seen. Since that moment she had been on his side, biding her time, and guiding his. 

They realized no move they could make against either of the soulmates could stop them. They still theorized they could delay them for a time, The Phoenix unable to step in physically until a specific juncture which still remained unknown. The problem now though was that it seemed she would likely hand him the keys to time travel, along with a whole array of powers, and he would have every tool he needed to do exactly what he said he would. Nothing they did after November 3rd would mean anything. Absolutely nothing. In fact, it seemed they had struck a nerve in him such that if they did delay past this point, he would run the clock further back, undoing every move they had ever made, leaving them only with the nightmares of their erased actions. Worse still, compliments of The Phoenix, they would likely end up with a karmically inverted fate. He would act as a force of nature, quickly rewriting history so it matched with what he, and his soulmate, had wanted all along. The enemies had always leaned on his heart of gold being their ultimate saving grace, as a Christian he seemed unwilling to doom anyone, so they figured even if he won they would be in excellent positions. With The Phoenix in the picture this was now reversed, and they knew he would do as he said, and their fate would be up to her exclusively.  He called her Hope, and that was what she was for him. They called her Death, Lilith, Lucifer, The Beast, and all manner of blasphemous and evil names. It seemed she was willing to reflect whatever one expected and deserved, and so they were horrified.

It was around this time they remembered the butterflies. It seems the soulmates had somehow been on the same page long before they had ever met properly. The enemies kicked themselves for not erasing what seemed like childish nonsense, as they now realized they had left standing dozens, likely hundreds, and possibly even thousands, of beacons in time for him to travel back to her and allow them to conspire. It was no longer clear to them if this had already been done from her perspective, as the concept of overlapping and non-congruent timelines was outside of anything they had studied or conceived of. All they knew is that their aim of obtaining the superlative timeline, and therefore being in absolute power, was no longer a remote possibility. In fact, they now found instead that they had 1 day left to make things right, before the only result of any of their moves and evil schemes would be the manufacturing of their own hells. They considered this deeply.