We will make your life particularly miserable

Amitiel Citadel, Neptune Orbit

With the plan for the subjugation of the Lyran factions and the economic restructuring of Terra outlined, Cthulhu's vast and alien consciousness focused once again on the blue planet he now considered his primary nexus in this system.

"However, Younger Brother Amitiel," the Ancient One's guttural, distorting "voice" echoed in the command room, "the mere division into economic blocs and the sowing of internal conflict on Terra and among the Lyran races, however elegant, requires constant oversight and a projection of our will that does not betray our hand too soon. We must perfect the facade."

Amitiel, ever the strategist, nodded with cold acquiescence. "Your wisdom is unfathomable, Great Dreamer. Subtlety is the key to lasting dominance."

"Precisely," Cthulhu continued. <>

"A perfect distraction," Amitiel approved. "While the world underestimates it, or pities it."

<> Cthulhu vibrated. <>

"The perception of global society will be easily shaped," Amitiel added, anticipating the thoughts of the Ancient One. "Many will reject it for its apparent endemic disorder, for its 'inability' to align itself clearly with the major blocs that we ourselves will be fostering. Others, however, will love it precisely for that supposed neutrality, for its 'cultural resistance' to superpower narratives, for its exoticism. We will always make it seem like the sympathetic victim, the besieged but noble mediator, and never the victimizer or the shadowy nexus of power that it truly will be for us."

"And the other countries to the south," Cthulhu's "voice" dripped with cold cosmic disdain, "their neighbors on the American continent and beyond, consumed by their own weaknesses and ineptitudes, will envy them and want to be like them. They will see their apparent 'independence' and their selective and carefully orchestrated 'prosperity' as a model to follow, thus sowing more division, more resentment, and weakening any attempt at regional unity that might oppose our designs for the larger blocs."

"But the most important thing about this choice of Mexico as our Earthly command center," Amitiel's voice grew harsher, losing any hint of the previous irony, "will be our relentless vigilance. We will monitor very closely, with absolute precision, any rebellion, any spark of true conscience or defiance that comes from that nest of energies and wills."

Cthulhu emitted a pulse of agreement that shook reality. <>

"And so it shall be," Amitiel affirmed. "They won't know that we will take complete control from within their apparent 'safe haven' in Cancún or Calakmul. We will continue to deceive them with the charade of multiple cosmic threats, with the illusion that they can choose their allies or forge their own destiny against a hostile universe. They will continue to believe they are fighting Cthulhu in the Caribbean, or me and my Netlins in the heavens, not realizing that we are both the jaws of the same trap closing in on them and their world."

There was a pause, and then Cthulhu projected a final thought, one that made even Amitiel feel a shiver of cosmic interest.

<

mage... Aria...>> The Great Old One's "voice" became a vibration that seemed to chill the very soul of the stars. <>

Amitiel nodded slowly, her eyes like quasars fixed on an invisible point. "Yes, Great Old One. Her energetic signature is... unique. She possesses a hidden power that no one among her allies seems willing to see or fully understand, too preoccupied as they are with their own petty struggles and antiquated notions of magic and power."

A cold, terrifying smile spread across Amitiel's perfect face. "And that is precisely why," she concluded, her mental voice ringing with absolute finality, "when her power begins to fully manifest, when that 'reborn soul' attempts to 'rise to the surface' of her true potential, we will make her life particularly miserable. Targeted suffering is a great inhibitor of spiritual growth not aligned with our Order. We will either break her completely, turning her into an example of the futility of hope... or we will twist her light to serve, unwittingly, our own ends. She will be no one's hero in the dawn of our Great Universal Brotherhood."

In the citadel of Neptune, the plan for the final subjugation of Earth and the neutralization of its most unlikely champion was laid. Darkness had many faces, and the most terrible was often the one that offered a smile of command and liberation.