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Her only reason to exist was to be pure. As the world itself was wholly impure, it was believed that she would be the beacon of light and understanding, of ultimate salvation. At least, this is what the Evolved believe, those self-named followers of the Church of Multiverse Evolutionism.

Since the church's inception in 1922, its members worked tirelessly to find a way to explain the purpose of their lives in this universe. They toiled, stumbling almost blindly, until a plan was formed to harness a being--one of their own likeness--who was to be bred and made completely pure, untainted by the evil and unnecessary distractions of this world. But all truths, an old prophecy warned, came with a price.

The jet-black obelisks towered ominously in a well-hidden cavern, unknown to all but a pawful of geologists, land surveyors, and the random traveler hiking in the southeast corner of Idaho...and of course, the Evolved. All of them were there today--a healthy pack of just under one hundred, standing eagerly, watching, waiting, quivering anxiously in wait for the marvelous spectacle they so desperately wished to see. They were staring so intently at the rough stone gap between the obelisks that very few even noticed their Great Teacher stepping up to the high platform, half constructed, half naturally carven, jutting out from the wall, a good twenty feet above the floor of the open hall in the cavern.

"My Brothers and Sisters," Oren Imishlin called, the zeal of his captivating voice as present as it ever was, drawing the crowd to turn their heads as one to stare up at him. "We sit now," the grizzled wolf began, "on the brink of a new era. Since the dawn of our collective sentience, we have struggled to understand the universe and our purpose in it. Religions have come and gone, philosophies fading in their glory once their thinkers pass into the next realm. Many millennia have passed, and we still grew no closer to true knowledge than when we began.

"Not until one furson, far nobler and wiser than I, was able to put together the fragments of knowledge that older civilizations had collected for us, sifting through the fallacies and pointless arguments to see the underlying truth within. And so for over eighty years, we have striven and slogged to understand our true purpose in this realm."

Oren surveyed the noiseless crowd, smelling their silent anticipation before continuing his speech, speaking slow, cautious words, each syllable weighted with the utmost sincerity. "Our wait is over." He raised his hands, beckoning to an equine acolyte standing in the center of a large, elliptical control panel, cables snaking unceremoniously from the various pieces of complicated equipment, piling along the cavern floor before rising to fade seamlessly into each obelisk.

The horse dutifully engaged the machine, himself barely understanding the underlying complexity of a system designed to allow travel in the 8th dimension. The whirs of computer fans and rising energy fields were drowned out almost immediately by a loud, ungodly screech as time and space itself was ripped open. The two obelisks appeared even blacker than before as they were set against a large white hole growing between them. A gust of wind blew over the crowd before the air settled again, the cavern becoming once more silent, save for the strains of a nearly overtaxed machine in the corner.

From within the blindingly white abyss, the outline of a figure could scarcely be seen, curiously approaching the open portal. "Come forth, Lavinia!" cried Oren from the balcony. "Come forth, O Pure One, and guide us!" Lavinia, as she had been named, stared out at the crowd, inches from the portal, yet still on her side. The white dragoness looked innocently bewildered, yet slowly started to step through nonetheless.

The machines whirred harder as living matter made to cross through, and a young disciple from the front of the crowd rushed forward towards the coming figure he perceived his savior. The young cheetah raised his hand gently, gracefully proffering assistance as if to an elder lady. Lavinia grasped his paw, then immediately threw her head back and shrieked, letting loose a horrible noise that shook the stone and quaked the bones and souls of all who heard it. The cheetah's eyes bulged out of their sockets, and he started foaming at the mouth, his body jerking until his paw was released and he fell, writhing and twitching on the floor.

Lavinia herself fell forward, landing on the cold, hard stone of the cavern floor. "No!" Oren cried out, rushing down the slick stone steps of the balcony. "Fool! You've tainted her! You touched her! She has been made impure!" He shoved his way through the crowd, snarling down at the cheetah, whose body had gone limp, save for some sporadic twitching here and there. The cheetah's eyes were half-lidded, staring blankly into nothingness, yet he still breathed. Oren raised a paw, making to strike the lame cheetah, but instead his eye caught Lavinia, still on her hands and knees on the floor, looking around confused.

Oren softened his tone immediately, and his raised, clenched paw swam into a gesture of aid, helping his precious Pure One onto her hindpaws. "My dear, my Messiah," Oren spoke reverently, gently, to the snow-white dragoness. Lavinia caught the eye of that dark-furred wolf and laughed. Her laugh was wry, unnatural, and very heavy. As with her scream, it vibrated the walls of the cavern around them, making all who heard her feel belittled. Oren immediately released his grip on her, cowering away from her.

Before anyone could react, Lavinia sprinted away, dashing madly through the crowd parted already by Oren, ran straight towards the sliver of daylight that was the fissure allowing entrance into the cavern, and then disappeared into the wild.

Oren looked up just in time to see her pallid figure whip through the opening, roaring in rage as he followed after her, but gave up just outside the cavern, seeing too many possible routes to follow. He had been called a fool for his zeal in the past, but he wasn't foolish enough to go pursuing a quarry without proper supplies and planning. So he retreated back inside the cavern, where another loud screeching noise told him that the portal had just closed, the horse in the corner struggling frantically with the failing machines. "Leave it, Edgar," Oren told him, his voice already weary. "That phase is done."

"It's not that, Great Teacher," Edgar replied. "There was some backfire...something...when the Pure One came through..."

"What do you mean?" Oren demanded.

"The machines--they acted as if they wanted to open it wider, to expand the portal far beyond the limits of our control."

"But you handled it, did you not?" the wolf snapped back, impatient for trifling technical issues.

"I think so, sir, but..." The horse frowned at the machines before stepping out of the ring of equipment to approach his leader.

"But what?" Oren sighed.

"Well," Edgar explained in a low voice as he got close to Oren, "I think we transmitted the portal somehow. I think more portals opened elsewhere."

"Where elsewhere? There was nothing else here!" Oren shouted in his whisper, other Evolved members looking anxiously at them. Edgar gazed around, frowning at the crowd trying to listen in.

"It could have been anywhere. Just outside of here, in another state, possibly even another country. The scope of this device, I mean, it's magnificent and all, but we still understand so little about it--"

"Enough!" Oren hushed his acolyte, who had been speaking anxiously. "Such repercussions will be dealt with as needed. For now, we have a Messiah to capture."