Editing Eden (section)

===Approaching Earth===
As Eden began to approach Earth, she drew towards Scion before they began to pick out various sub-worlds for themselves and their shards. She felt that Scion's constant communications were distracting as she was using her powers to begin mapping out their actions after their arrival. She started to reform herself for a deeper simulation when she noticed a third broadcast. Recognizing that it was a broadcast from another Entity, Eden hesitated before sending a broadcast signaling her location.

The third Entity sent a garbled reply and Eden spent time analyzing it. She was then met by the [[Abaddon|third Entity]] who rammed against her in an ancient tradition meant to exchange shards. She worked to salvage key shards and give ones she could afford to lose on to the other Entity. Eden and the third Entity broke apart before Scion broadcasted his concern.<ref name="I26 1">The lesser one crossed paths with the entity's counterpart. For a duration, they intertwined, meeting through multiple realities, their bodies rubbing and crushing against one another.<br><br>A sharing of details, a wealth of knowledge, from hundreds of cycles. A sacrifice of the same.<br><br>The lesser one moves on, bloated with new shards and knowledge, but the counterpart flounders.<br><br>It sacrificed too much.<br><br>''Concern.''<br><br>''Confident.''<br><br>The counterpart is not worried. The signal carries notes of hope for the future. The counterpart will replenish its shards, its stores of knowledge, memories and abilities at the conclusion of this cycle, reuniting with the entity. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/interlude-26/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 26]]</ref>

Eden sent a confident response back and allowed Scion to take over some of her duties before she looked through her new shards.<ref name="I26 1"/> After looking through them, she began to form a simulacrum of the host species, set out criteria for an [[List of Possible Futures#Eden's Perfect World|optimal future]], and then looked for a future that matched that optimal future.<ref name="I29 1"/>

Scion interrupts the simulation, asking about their destination, and Eden absently agrees. She thinks on the future she had seen and starts to refine it. She reorganizes herself as she approaches their destination and sends Scion a confident reply when he expresses concern. Eden continues to work on her reorganization until she hits the ground.<ref name="I29 2">The gravity of the planetary bodies pull at it. It loses great clumps of shards.<br><br>It loses more. Its focus is now on holding on to the shards critical to making this future it has seen a reality. A world perpetually in conflict, the groups and factions kept small enough that none can challenge it.<br><br>All energy it can spare goes towards the reorganization. Shards must be discarded, or it will dwarf the destination planet. It casts shards off, and it retains shards that will allow it to draw power from those shards.<br><br>''Danger'', the Warrior broadcasts.<br><br>''Confident'', this entity responds.<br><br>It picks a reality. Up until the moment it hits ground, it works to reorganize itself. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/10/12/interlude-29/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 29]]</ref>

On the way down, Eden alters one of the third Entities' shards, replacing her own ability to find the optimal future. She realizes that she has made a mistake too late to fix it, and hits the ground hard at one world's version of [[Wikipedia:Ivory Coast|Cote D'ivoire, Africa]].<ref>In the doing, it alters one of the third entity's powers, replacing its own ability to find the optimal future.<br><br>In that very instant, it recognizes that it has made a grave error. The simulated world and the glimpse of the optimal future are already gone from its grasp. Too late.<br><br>The perspective changes, breaking away, distant, confused, detached. The impact was too hard. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/10/12/interlude-29/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 29]]</ref><ref>Cote D'ivoire, early 1980s, alternate earth with doors to Contessa's world and to Doctor Mother's. They limited access to the doors and later built the complex around her. - [https://redd.it/4plwx6 Wildbow's comment on Reddit]</ref>

Later, Eden starts to pull herself together. She starts to experiment as she works to create a humanoid avatar. After some time, she raises her head and opened her eyes to see [[Contessa|Fortuna]] standing before her. She realizes that Fortuna possessed the shard she had discarded and restricts it - rendering her and others like her immune to the shard's future-seeing power.<ref>And the gray fog descended on her mind, blinding her. A barrier, a blind spot, a future she could no longer see. Had it set the limitation more firmly in place?<br><br>The godling smiled. It ''knew'', because the power she was using was the same power it had used to glimpse the future, to find that ''particular'' future where it had the world divided, drowned in conflict.<br><br>As far as the godling was concerned, she was blind, as helpless as anyone else. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/10/12/interlude-29/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 29]]</ref> Eden then dismissed Fortuna before it continued to create her avatar and bent over.

[[Doctor Mother|A woman]] would help [[Contessa|Fortuna]] drive a knife into the avatar's neck, causing the [[entity]] to struggle and fail to form its body.<ref>The woman behind her took hold of the fist that held the knife. She stepped forward, driving the knife down, as if she were an extension of Fortuna.<br><br>Plunging into the spot where the spine met the skull.<br><br>They fell from the hand, dangled for a moment by their grip on the knife. It cut free, and they dropped to the ground.<br><br>Fortuna let one leg fold, pushing at the ground with the other. She rolled, breaking the fall. The woman fell a little harder.<br><br>The entity moved, and everything around them stirred. A thousand hands, a thousand arms, not all attached to the hands, legs, feet, ears, eyes, faces without features, expanses of skin, they twitched and writhed.<br><br>The noise around them faded, the heartbeats going still, the breathing quieting. The movements all around them stopped. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/10/12/interlude-29/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 29]]</ref> Severing this connection when Eden was most vulnerable dealt the critical blow to the entity.<ref name="29.x eConnectionCut"/>