Overworked Sentinel

Virant, as the titular inductee of the Shards, has lived most of his life under the service of the Magnitude Fragment Rendgen. The two seem like polar opposites - where Rendgen is chaotic, erratic, and seemingly delusional, Virant is grounding, scheming, and constantly picking up his leader's slack. His underlings would consider Virant to be somewhat of a hardass, expecting a job done quickly and correctly the first time. Virant would be sure to inform that he's just doing his job, really.

The Shards were, originally, just comprised of Rendgen and Virant. Virant had been visited by the Mag Frag and was hurriedly, hushedly told of the other's dream - a world where everyone was reunited in the titular fusion Singularity, where everyone shared in one identity, and they could all be whole again. Understandably, Virant was initially distrustful - as a member of the Coalition of Reality, he'd always been taught that the Big Six were adverse to re-fusing, as the creation of Singularity within a Timeline would ensure destruction of all Timelines as the world knew it.

Still, visits from Rendgen on subsequent nights drove Virant into accepting his proposal to form a coalition of Fragments determined to bring about just that: the end of the known world, in order for some sort of peace. It was an absolutely harebrained scheme - a single Mag Frag could not possibly overthrow the others, unless they had the magic of more Mag Frags on their side or had fused with Pyatiugolnik, the strongest of the bunch. And yet, there was something giddy in Virant's chest about the whole thing: out of all the Fragments, all Gladar, all everyone, he had been chosen. Rendgen had singled him out, confided in him, and that had to mean he was special in some fashion, right?

It started off great. Recruitment was done in shady fashions, with both Virant and Rendgen disguising themselves and remaining in hiding. No amount of Frags could dismantle a Mag Frag, but it still felt like progress, and progress meant they were getting closer to the finale. 

After they'd recruited enough Fragments, though, Virant noticed the plan had changed a little. At first it was just "entice the Big Six into re-fusing in order to recreate Singularity". Now it was "Let me fuse with one of the Big Six to convince them into re-fusing". Then it changed to "Cause as much chaos as possible, so the Big Six are forced to re-fuse". Every time, the original goal seemed to warp in a strange, twisted way - the entire ordeal felt more like an excuse for Rendgen to have fun and stretch his wings in new ways, rather than some grand plan for reality.

And that depressing realization was what caused Virant to lose actual hope in the Shards. It wasn't that Rendgen was a scheming, manipulative, cruel lord who had led them all on a false path for his own glory. He was just a bored egomaniac who wanted to find new ways to get his rocks off.

That's all the Shards were, in the end. A way for Rendgen to spice up his life somewhat.

Virant tries to not think about it, these days. He tries to stay focused on the original plan, on their core concept that once existed. Maybe if he can make it succeed, somehow, someway, Rendgen will realize Virant was right all along and come to his senses. It just hurts too much to consider that he wasn't actually special at all, wasted his life for someone else's amusement, and is leading the rest of the Shards to their untimely demise.