Pinkie’s Party was taking a stroll through the singing forests of Nithia. They were currently in an area of the New World with some level of existing space travel, so the worlds within the surrounding systems had been cursorily explored and mapped out for them. The primary power here – Anziba – had once been a world that headed a young Class 3 civilization that had decided to opt out of the war entirely. They only had the vaguest idea of who Pinkie’s Party was and that suited Pinkie just fine.
But they had been told by everyone they had met that they had to stop by Nithia to just appreciate the beauty of the world.
Flutterfree was sold the instant they touched down. The forests of Nithia not only let out beautiful melodious sonnets whenever the wind blew through them, but the colors of every single plant and animal on the world shifted depending on the angle they were examined from.
Currently Flutterfree was leading the trek through the woods, a small gaggle of woodland critters surrounding her. “Aren’t you all so precious...!”
“They’re certainly lucky to be here,” Pidge agreed, adjusting her glasses. “Maybe I could run an analysis…”
“Just don’t hurt any of them,” Flutterfree said, taking a breath and spinning around. “…It’s been so long since I just appreciated nature.”
“Even I have to admit, this is something,” Vriska said, rubbing a hand along the multicolored bark of a nearby tree. As she did so it sang out with a harsh melody somewhat like an electric guitar. “…My respect for this forest just increased by a factor of ten.”
Jotaro nodded, a small smile on his face.
“…Not gonna lie, wish I could see it,” Pinkie said. Her mane had stopped being flat about three days ago – it was decidedly hard to tell time in the New World with days – but she wasn’t back to the peppy party pony quite yet. “I mean, I can ‘see’ it, you’re all proxies, but… I can’t see it.”
“You can totally hear it though.” Vriska lifted Pinkie up and touched her hooves to the tree bark. “Come on, do the thing. Blow the roof off this place.”
Pinkie giggled. “If you insiiiist!” She cracked her hooves and started banging on the bark as if it were a drum. The dramatic electric tunes coming off of it blew everyone’s hair back. Jotaro had to hold onto his hat to keep it from flying away. All the animals screamed and ran away.
There was a chorus of laughs and a “yare yare daze…”
“Oh, Pinkie’s not done yet!” She picked a flower from the ground and stuck it in her mouth. When she blew it made a mixture of harmonica and flute noises. She ran her tail against the grass to add some bells and started carefully tapping the tree back to get just the right amount of reverb.
“Oh my, are we doing a spontaneous musical number?” Flutterfree asked.
“Just grab a plant and get creative!” Vriska said, jumping into a bush. The sound that came off of it sounded like an explosion.
Pidge adjusted her glasses. “Creative, you say? Give me five minutes and I can have a one-woman band up and running. …The woman is me.”
“We can understand subtext,” Jotaro commented.
Pidge smiled. “Jojo, subtext is used to describe the meaning behind a sentence. I was – oh, wait, I guess I was doing that. Nevermind. Just get me a tree.”
Jotaro punched down a tree and Pidge set to work, popping open her toolkit and tearing pieces of bark off.
“Guess I’ll try to get the critters to sing…” Flutterfree said. “…If only Vriska would stop scaring them away.”
Vriska winked in her direction. “Exploding bush is the best percussion, change my mind.”
“Tuuuubular bells!” Pinkie said, strumming some blades of grass.
“…Those can be fun…”
As they continued their musical antics, their three companions looked on and watched.
“Welp, it’s pretty clear who’s part of Pinkie’s Party and who isn’t,” Tornado observed.
“They have a very special bond,” Rev said, smiling warmly. “It wouldn’t do to intrude on it.”
“Wouldn’t know how. They all seem to just get each other.” Tornado narrowed her eyes. “Kinda wish the USM teams did that.”
“Any team has the potential to become a functional unit – or to struggle.”
“They seem to work as one unit, seamlessly.”
The last member, Rina, was currently attempting to cast a spell through her horn, but decided this part of the conversation needed her input. “It isn’t seamless. They all have their problems, issues, and play off each other differently. Let’s take… Vriska as an example. She serves a role as the group’s hothead, the girl who’s willing to come up with some crazier and less-than-noble ideas. I’m essentially a duplicate of her in this case. But her relationships with all of the other four are very different.”
“I didn’t know you studied people,” Rev said, blinking.
“I got bored at the church sometimes,” Rina said, a soft glow forming around her horn. “Regardless. Vriska’s relationship with Pinkie is both one of respect and mutual pranking tendencies, both of them are very willing to put everything aside and be childish for a while. Vriska looks to Flutterfree as a mentor, someone who’s understanding and deep control should be studied and emulated. Jotaro, on the other hand, is like the older brother you got into trouble with all the time, very reliable and able to take more shit than the others. And Pidge is the true fellow nerd. I bet they secretly get together for game nights.” As she said this, she successfully cast the spell for the first time: creating a sword from the aether. She smashed it into a tree, turning it lifeless. “Nice. Finally got some of the darker magics to work…”
“Good observations on them,” Rev commented. “What I find interesting is that their dynamics are rarely two-way. Flutterfree doesn’t see herself as a mentor figure to Vriska, for instance – she sees Vriska as strong, but she would never try to become like her.”
Tornado leaned back and started kicking her feet. “Whatever it is, it’s making me a little jealous.”
“If you want what they have I’d suggest being more open with people,” Rev said. “You may think Flutterfree and Jotaro are reserved at first, and they’re certainly introverted, but they’re very real with each other. Very open to expressing their vulnerabilities to each other. Even Jotaro, believe it or not, though I doubt you’ll get to see that while we’re around watching.”
The jam was already in full swing. All five of them had their instruments and were going crazy with a song that had some sort of beat but definitely wasn’t all that pleasant to listen to. But they didn’t care, it was fun.
Pidge stopped playing for a moment and held up her computer. “Maybe if I could adjust the resonance to match up with the new physics better… Just need to perform a few scans… I should really get this changed to a touch screen, it would be so much better. And th-” Something dawned on her. She slowly set her laptop down and sat down on the grass, taking a moment to process.
“STOP THE MUSIC!” Flutterfree shouted, a slight purple burst of Rage coming from her wings. The message got to everyone loud and clear and they stopped playing, turning to Pidge with concern. “What’s wrong?” Flutterfree asked.
Pidge looked at her laptop. “…I’m just a replacement.”
“Pidge…”
“I do the exact same thing she does, just with more ‘tech’ and less ‘magic’. I scan things, tell you what I figured out, and then… Well, that’s that.”
“Pidge, you aren’t just a replacemen-” She caught Pinkie’s grimace. “Pinkie, tell me that’s not what’s going on here.”
“Partially,” Pinkie admitted. “…She does serve the same role, overall.”
“I knew it,” Pidge muttered, expression clouding.
“But it’s no different than when I replaced Eve, or Jotaro replaced Renee. Roles were shifted and the dynamic changed because people can’t always stay in the same place. We… we were just lucky enough to have everyone still around when things changed before.” She put a hoof on Pidge. “You’re not Nova. You aren’t anywhere near as hotheaded, nor do you have that weirdly amazing need to talk philosophy. I don’t see a shred of slightly-crazy idealist in you, what I see is a curious person. You want to know. Nova never bothered to really learn about the science she told us – she let her screen do all of that. You don’t need the device to parse it for you. And, above all, you do that really cute thing with your glasses where you try to look evil and conniving.”
Pidge snickered despite herself. “That… that doesn’t matter.”
“It’s little quirks like that that make us who we are,” Jotaro said, lifting up his hat so he could meet her eyes. “They’re perhaps more important to us than what we contribute.”
Pidge beamed. “Jojo…”
Rina turned to Rev. “Am I allowed to say ‘gag me’?”
“It’s a bit childish but it’s not necessarily wrong.”
“Okay. Gag me.”
“Gladly,” a deep, masculine voice that wasn’t Jotaro said.
Rina blinked. “Fu-”
A pillowcase laced with some sort of sleeping drug went over her head. She tried to summon her sword, but she didn’t have enough focus.
“HOLY SHIT!” she heard Vriska shout as she recognized the attacker. “BA’AL!?”
“Talk about a blast from the past, am I right?” Pinkie asked.
“Pinkie… now’s not the… time…” Flutterfree muttered.
Rina lost all sensation, unable to follow anything further.
~~~
The Sweeties had been in space for two weeks, according to Swip. In all that time, they hadn’t found any sign of multiversal society.
Until now.
For they had just found a moon – likely from a version of Earth – that had a data archive built on it. The system they were in had no atmosphere – and no normalization from the thick aether either – so when Swip landed everyone who wanted out had to get into a spacesuit.
To Mattie’s surprise, both Burgerbelle and Nettle had suited up alongside her and Thrackerzod. “You know it’s probably an empty base, right?” Thrackerzod asked.
“So? It’s cramped in here,” Burgerbelle said.
“It’s even more cramped in this suit…” Nettle muttered, struggling to get her tendril-bow to behave.
“We can take it off when we get inside!”
“Assuming life support is still on.”
Mattie chuckled. “Darling, you’re such an adorable ball of pessimism, aren’t you?”
“I fail to see how adorable relates to pessimism.”
“I fail to see how it can’t,” Thrackerzod commented.
Burgerbelle leaned in to Nettle. “Thrackerzod has a very pessimistic personality in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I have an eldritch personality,” Thrackerzod huffed.
“Eldritch doesn’t exist anymore,” Nettle pointed out.
Thrackerzod’s expression turned dour. She turned around and hopped out onto the low-gravity surface of the moon.
“…Did I do something wrong?”
“Yep,” Mattie confirmed. “Don’t worry, she’s strong, and you’ll learn.” She trotted out after the no-longer-eldritch unicorn.
Burgerbelle rolled her eyes. “To elaborate on Mattie’s annoyingly vague point, Thrackerzod misses her eldritch connection. You may know of her as the filly who rejected who she was, but we all need to remember she was a multidimensional tentacle monster for hundreds of thousands of quote-unquote ‘years’ before she met us. Change isn’t easy for her.”
“…At least she has some powers.”
Burgerbelle sighed. She decided she was done with the conversation and skipped out onto the moon’s surface, bouncing along after the other ponies. With a blank expression Nettle followed, the light of a nearby glowing green gas giant reflecting off her helmet. Every one of them moved differently. Thrackerzod took point with a purposeful stride while Mattie moved with an exaggerated swagger. Burgerbelle was inconsistently skipping and jumping around Nettle while the once-Downstreamer in question had difficulty moving at all – she’d barely gotten used to experiencing normal gravity.
They approached the archive. It was mostly built by Gems, so it was a smooth green and blue textured structure with many curves, facets, and glistening edges. Since it was a data archive for a Class 2 multiversal society, it was the size of an aircraft carrier, though unlike an aircraft carrier all the size that was usually hidden under the water was on full display here.
Eventually, they managed to bound all the way to the archive’s front door. Thrackerzod put a hoof to the lock mechanism, allowing it to pick up on her presence and transmitter. “This is Thrackerzod of the League of Sweetie Belles.”
A computerized voice responded. “Welcome. Lockdown has been enabled and arcane security clearance confirmation is not working properly. Please hold…”
“Oh NO!” Burgerbelle wailed. “We have come all this way to be stopped by horrible customer service!”
“We can break in if we have to,” Mattie pointed out. “It just told us it isn’t working quite right.”
“Give it a second,” Thrackerzod said, narrowing her eyes.
“Security questions for Thrackerzod located,” the computer reported. “Answer correctly and you shall be allowed to pass. Name your old friends’ new names.”
“Scoota-hoo and Elizabloom.”
“What is the name of your direct eldritch superior?”
“Hastur was the last eldritch superior I had, I am free now.”
“The name of your godchild?”
Thrackerzod sighed. “…Hemlock Belle.”
“Thank you, you may proceed.”
The doors opened.
Mattie blinked. “Who the hell is Hemlock Belle?”
Thrackerzod didn’t look at her. “One of Squeaky’s grandkids. Had some magic problems at birth. …Last I knew she was doing okay.”
“Oh… Right…”
Nettle blinked. “Squeaky had kids!?”
Thrackerzod glared at her. “Yes, she did. And no, you weren’t supposed to know. They were never supposed to be involved with any of the adventures. Ever.”
“Do any of the rest of you have secret kids?”
Burgerbelle pondered this. “Well, I think Servitude has a son… Otherwise no.”
“Dears, I have tons of kids,” Mattie said with a dismissive wave. “Almost none of them know who I am, but you know, that’s just the way the tail swings sometimes.”
“Some of those kids have tried to kill us,” Burgerbelle pointed out.
“All in the past, all in the past.”
“Really?”
Mattie looked at her with an unusually stern expression. “…What are the chances any of them survived? Or that I’ll ever see any of them?”
Burgerbelle was taken aback.
Mattie sighed, looking at nothing in particular – a universal sign that she was looking outside the ‘story’. “I won’t be seeing any of them again. Sure, they might be alive, but I’ll never get to talk to any of them. Not even… Joyce… God, I liked Joyce, she was a great kid. Only one who could ever get me.”
There was an awkward silence. Wordlessly, Thrackerzod moved into the archive. The others followed. The doors closed behind them and the airlock pressurized before they were allowed into the main entryway. To their surprise, the interior was well cleaned and fully operational. All the monitors displayed normal archive displays and the lights were working at full capacity.
There was even a receptionist. Behind a smooth, white desk was a cute kid with auburn hair and a stylish purple top hat. She waved at them when they arrived.
“Is it normal for kids to be in charge of places like this?” Nettle asked.
“We do allow kids to work if they want,” Burgerbelle pointed out. “Otherwise we couldn’t exactly recruit a lot of Sweeties.”
“She’s also not supposed to be in charge,” Thrackerzod muttered. She walked up to the counter and put her front hooves on top of it. “You’re the last one here? Weren’t you captured?”
The hat kid nodded. Then she jumped off her very tall chair and stood on the countertop, proceeding to mime a series of unusual events. First she waved, then she put her hands to her face, then she curled into a Ball. Then she jumped off the counter to the ground and pulled out a parasol and grinned. The grin quickly vanished as she trudged along the floor, acting weary. She removed her top hat and pulled an astronaut helmet out of some sort of inventory or similar power and proceeded to float around the room until she arrived at the seat behind the counter. She put her hat back on and made a ‘tah-dah’ motion with her hands.
“…How did you get past the security? You don’t have clearance.” Thrackerzod said.
The hat kid tapped her head and folded her arms smugly. Then she laughed, shook her head, and pointed at a screen with an error message and a wrench on it.
“I do not understand this child,” Nettle said, blinking. “What is she saying?”
“Nothing, that’s her whole point,” Burgerbelle said.
“There’s more point than that,” Thrackerzod muttered. “This is one of the more well-known instances of the Everyman.”
The Everykid let out a mock gasp and put a hand to the side of her head as if she was panicked. Then she chuckled and shrugged, pulling herself up to the desk. She leaned in overtop her folded hands as if to ask ‘how may I help you?’
~~~
The Austraeoh moved through space at a brisk pace, having entered a sizable void between systems that allowed it to move at an impressive ten percent light speed. They had gathered a few ships as they traveled – mostly Merodi vessels that had escaped Celestia City before it had been destroyed. Nobody really knew how it was destroyed nor were they able to tell O’Neill much about the red thing that separated them once they had escaped.
There had been a few other ships they’d found – a couple nonaffiliated vessels and collapse ships – but nothing all that impressive.
The bridge of the Austraeoh was fully operational once again. Minna had taken the seat next to O’Neill, effectively becoming his Second. Clandestine continued to manage the consoles while all the other positions were manned by a mix of all crews they had accumulated over the last week. Lapis Vee would have been there as well under normal conditions, but since she was woefully understaffed she had to spend all her time down in Engineering just to keep the ship running.
O’Neill looked down at his chair’s armrest-console and sighed.
“What is it?” Minna asked.
“Just got another report about a fight breaking out.” He put a hand to the bridge of his nose. “Apparently Security started it, this time.”
Minna glanced over at the report, pursing her lips. “At least they weren’t actually trying to kill each other…”
“That’s a small consolation. You don’t know if they’re going to get it out of their systems or if they’re just going to rile themselves up and get more violent.”
“Maybe some people go some way, and others go the other?” Clandestine asked.
“Great sentence,” O’Neill observed.
Clandestine rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. People are different. You’ll have to play a game of back and forth to…” Her console beeped, cutting her off. “Ahem. It looks as if we have two ships in front of us.”
“How far away.”
“A minute at ten-c,” Clandestine responded.
“Can we identify them?”
“Appears to be Combine and Void ships heading right for each other.”
“This is going to be quite the reunion…” O’Neill shook his head. “Start slowing down, hail them. The general message should do for now.”
“…They’ve started firing on each other.”
“Of course they have,” Minna deadpanned. She closed her eyes. “I… think I see that they won’t shoot at us.”
“Raise shields anyway.” O’Neill adjusted his collar. “Send a warning pulse through the middle.”
The Austraeoh’s fully-functional pulse cannon activated, sending a burst of purple-green energy between the biological jellyfish-like mesh and the black crystalline comet. O’Neill opened a channel. “It’s time to stop!”
Clandestine facehooved.
The Combine and Void responded – the Void with a video call, the Combine with a telepathic message.
The video showed a purple woman in a space-pirate outfit. “This is Captain Faris Tycoon, shove off if you don’t want to fight.”
You shall assist us in this conquest, Overhead O’Neill.
“Hmm… No and no.” O’Neill folded his hands. “War’s over.”
“Are you asking us to just lay down our weapons like nothing has happened?” Tycoon demanded.
O’Neill gestured to Minna. She cleared her throat. “Yes. Yes we are.”
Faris blinked. “High Commander Belle! Are you… legitimate?”
“There’s been a complete ceasefire agreement between me and the Overhead. We have banded together to salvage what remains and understand the nuances of this new world. All the ships in our fleet have agreed to that goal as well.”
Faris nervously looked behind her, trying to gauge the reaction of her crew. “Yessir. I’ll probably need you to tell that to my crew in person.”
We do not recognize the end of the war, the Combine said. The conflict still remains.
“The only conflict that remains is the conflict you bring,” O’Neill countered. “You’re the Combine, you thrive on conquest. But now you’re broken and almost nothing, what exactly do you expect to do with a victory at this point? I doubt your ship is even suited for planetary subjugation!”
This changes nothing.
“You don’t have any higher-ups telling you what to do either. You are just your ship.” O’Neill smirked. “Nobody will come to help you if you decide to do something stupid.”
“I’m detecting an energy buildup,” Clandestine reported.
“Fine, return fire whenever they actually do.”
“I don’t think it’s a weapon. I think it’s a self-destruct.”
“Dammit,” O’Neill cursed under his breath. “How’s the deflector dish?”
Minna looked up a report. “Not well. Our shields can’t be extended effectively.”
“Send out a call, get everyone to cluster as close together as possible, increase shield effectiveness. I don’t suppose we have magic use yet?”
“Spectral rod is still being recoded.”
“Well, at least you were right. They weren’t going to be shooting at us…”
Suddenly, the energy buildup dropped to zero.
“…What?” Clandestine said.
A new voice came over the Combine’s communication. A single, synthetic word. “Welcome.”
Minna blinked. “Mite!?”
“Affirmative,” the nanobot responded.
“Did you just disable a Combine self-destruct?”
“Yesaroni.”
O’Neill shook his head. “…Thanks. Do you know what they’re doing now?”
“Panic.”
Get this nanobot off our communications!
“Try.”
“Or don’t,” O’Neill said. “Admit that you made a mistake and we won’t blow you out of the sky.”
The Combine was silent for a moment. We admit hasty actions were taken.
“Good enough. Welcome to the fleet, Combine jellyfish, your complete cooperation is required, and that includes personnel rotations and mingling.”
This is unacceptabl-
“Oh, look at that, my finger is on the ‘fire missiles’ button.”
…Reevaluation indicates demands are acceptable.
“Good boy.”
~~~
Flutterfree opened her eyes. The beautiful sight of the forest had been replaced with the cold, harsh metal of a cage. She found that her body was unbound, so she stood up on all four hooves and stretched her wings, looking around. Vriska, Pidge, Jotaro, Pinkie, Rev, and Rina were all slowly coming to, rubbing their heads and groaning.
In the middle of the cage was Tornado’s body, her throat slit. Flutterfree gasped and backed into the cage wall.
“You always gasp, feel revolted, and then forget about them the next day.”
Flutterfree whirled around, Rage in her eyes. She took in the appearance of Ba’al. He clearly had the same body he always had, but it looked so different from how she remembered. The hair was gray and the beard long. One of his eyes as missing and his left hand was disfigured, possibly by acid. Instead of the royal robes of the Goa’uld, he wore the trappings of an old hermit with tattered fabric, muddy stains, and numerous satchels filled with unusual plants. She saw an old, battered zat gun on his belt.
“And you kill for the fun of it,” Flutterfree retorted.
Ba’al chuckled – then let out a raspy cough. “I do… I do… and ka be damned, I’m going to see if I can kill all of you. One at a time… The redshirt was first. Just a companion who meant nothing and will mean nothing.”
“Tornado wasn’t nothing,” Flutterfree asserted. “She… She went through so much for the USM. Suffered at the hands of the Cele-”
Ba’al rushed to the edge of the cage and gripped it with his hands, panting so heavily drool came out of his mouth. “You… don’t… get to…” He looked for the word, couldn’t find it, and decided banging on the cage was good enough.
Vriska shot him a glare. “Looks like someone’s lost it.”
“It… It… It…” He scratched the side of his head. “Where did I put it – oh yes!” He walked away to rummage around the room. The cage was inside a messy, disorganized shack crafted from the musical plants of the world. Every piece of furniture he overturned let out a shrill series of notes that were no longer comforting, but ominous. “Yes…”
“What is it? Your brain?”
He popped open a box with a drum sound, pulled out a harpoon gun, and shot Vriska through the head with it. Then he used the zat gun to disintegrate her body. He let out a brutal laugh – before clutching his chest and flopping onto a couch, breathing heavily.
Vriska’s immortality kicked in and her body was reformed. “…Bastard.”
“This body never had a mother in the first place!” he sang. “Meaningless!” He proceeded to grab his legs and start rocking back and forth.
Jotaro let out a sigh. “Pinkie?”
Pinkie turned to Rina and nodded slowly. Rina took in a breath and focused on her magic. She summoned her magic blade with a grimace. She looked to the mad Goa’uld and threw her blade.
Ba’al reacted like lightning, pulling out his zat gun and firing it at Rina with full power. The beam hit her in the heart just as her blade struck him in the chest. He fell to the ground as a lifeless husk just as her eyes rolled back into her head.
“RINA!” Rev shouted, running to her. She laid a hoof on her neck, checking her pulse. “Nothing…”
“There’s a hospital on the closest planet,” Pidge said. “Get us out!”
“ORA!” Jotaro shouted – as usual, he couldn’t summon Star Platinum, so he just punched the bars of the cage with his fist. They didn’t budge. Pinkie ran up to the cage and tried to squeeze herself through the gaps with similar luck.
Flutterfree removed her marble tips to reveal the blades on her wings. She accessed the Rage she could and tried to cut the bars – but their alloy was simply too strong. “New plan, CPR. Pidge?”
Pidge cracked her knuckles. “On it.” She and Flutterfree ran to Rina, flipping her onto her side, heart upward. Pidge began mouth-to-mouth while Flutterfree did the pumping with her carefully positioned front hooves. While she did this, she lightly traced around areas of Rina’s body with her wingtips, feeling for obstructions.
Rev stared at the scene for a moment – then she sat down, pressed her front hooves together, and began to pray.
Flutterfree, on the other hand, began to glow even stronger with the Rage within her – acting not more violently, but more desperately. Frantically wishing the truth to be that Rina was alive, that she could come back.
Unfortunately, Rage did not care what someone wanted to be true, only what was. It told her as much. As she forced herself to ignore it, tears rolled down her face and onto Rina’s side. “No, not again…”
Pidge stopped her mouth-to-mouth. “…I’m sorry…”
Jotaro put a hand on her shoulder. “You can’t bring them all back.”
“I’m not going to let her just be another footnote! Her story is bigger than this! It’s…” She let out a deep roar of Rage – but once again, the truth could not be changed. She was lying there, dead, and there was nothing the Rage could do to her.
But within Flutterfree, there was another truth. A different sort of truth.
For the first time since the New World arrived, a Stand manifested. The defiance of the truth gave Lotus Locus just enough of a push to Reveal itself. The great spirograph swirled around Flutterfree like a halo while the green strands spread out through the entire cage.
Yes, yes… Lolo is ka-based, it can change things…
The strands of Lolo wrapped around Rina – but could not Reveal any life within her.
No! There’s something! Think, think, think! I…
Lolo acted on its own – dropping Rina and rushing to Rev. Rev let out a pained gasp as she was filled. Her eyes and horn became brilliant holy lights and she floated into the air. She spoke a word that meant nothing to any of them and the cage was filled with holy light.
The moment the light cleared, Rina started breathing. She opened her eyes and groaned. “Did one of you fucking stomp all over me?”
Flutterfree pulled her up with Lolo and rushed her into a hug. “Oh thank goodness…”
“GAH! OW!”
“CPR makes the ribs weak,” Pidge reminded Flutterfree, sighing in relief.
Flutterfree didn’t let go.
“I get it, I was dead! Let go before you pop a lung!”
“…I was dead too, huh?”
Everyone turned to see Tornado sitting up, touching her neck and feeling the blood.
Vriska put an arm around Tornado’s neck. “Good to have you back!”
“…Maybe the New World allows for easier revival?” Pidge wondered. “Statistically speaking… Wait, never mind, don’t have enough data points.”
Pinkie furrowed her brow. “I don’t know… I know Coming Back Wrong can’t be a thing if the Tower isn’t here, but… The Tower is. Oh, who cares, I’m glad to have you back.” She pulled Tornado into a hug. “Welcome to the team again!”
“Eheheheheh… Sure. Sure, team, yes, right.”
Rev rubbed her head. “I… I think I have all my powers back. All of them.”
Flutterfree smiled, summoning Lolo again. “You’re welcome. …Would everyone like to have everything back?”
“YES PLEASE!” Vriska begged. “PLEA-A-ASE!”
Flutterfree obliged, activating Lolo around all of them, tapping into all that was hidden. Pinkie became bouncy, Star Platinum appeared, Rina gained a dark aura, Vriska’s luck activated, Pidge remained Pidge…
…And Tornado’s eyes flashed white.
Flutterfree turned to stare at her in shock. “No… Tornado…”
Tornado grinned. “Tornado’s not here right now. Can I take your message?”
“STAR PLATINUM: THE W-”
Tornado-Ba’al raised a hand, launching Jotaro through the walls of the cage and several musical trees. “Thank you for giving me all this outrageous power.” She pressed her hands together. “Goodbye.”
The immense psychic energy discharge destroyed the entire shack in an instant.
~~~
The Everykid led the League down a hallway of the archive, pointing out all sorts of areas where parts of the mainframe had exploded and repairs were underway, evidence that no, not all the information could be accessed from the lobby.
Nettle, Mattie, Thrackerzod, and Burgerbelle weren’t in their spacesuits anymore, having long since discarded them.
Mattie and Burgerbelle had the biggest smiles on their faces and were walking up with the Everyman, making conversation with the evidently mute little girl. Thrackerzod was trailing behind with a disgusted look on her face.
Nettle glanced from Thrackerzod to the rest of the group and back. “…Uh…”
“The Everyman was on the side of the Nihilists and they’re acting like old friends.”
Nettle processed for a moment. “Nihilists. Oh! Oh, those were a thing.”
Thrackerzod grunted. “The worst of all possible evils and they’re doting.”
“She’s cute! How could we not!?” Mattie called back.
“…I thought you told her listening in on conversations was rude?” Nettle asked.
Thrackerzod raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been around her for a week, tell me how much she respects authority.”
“Well she likes her authority…”
Thrackerzod looked up at Nettle and blinked. “I’ve just had an epiphany.”
“Hm?”
“You’re me.”
Nettle blinked. “I don’t get it.”
“You were a higher-order being suddenly brought low into the form of a physical body and have to learn everything about how the biologicals work in order to survive.” Thrackerzod laughed. “This is amusing.”
“…I still don’t get it.”
“Parallelism, darling!” Mattie called back.
Nettle put a hand to the bridge of her nose. “This would be so much easier with my full mind…”
“That’s the point,” Thrackerzod said. “You have to make it through without your full mind, learn how to adjust with the meat-thing you have in your skull. You aren’t like Burgerbelle – Burgerbelle’s mind is the same as it always has been. Ditzy, easily distracted, burger-focused, and full of an unhealthy amount of… ‘memes’.”
“MEMES! MEMES EVERYWHERE!” Burgerbelle shouted.
“Okay, Mattie I can understand, but how can you hear us!?”
“Mattie told me to say that.” She gave them some finger guns.
“...I never got memes,” Thrackerzod muttered.
“Neither do I, but I find them fascinating.” Nettle furrowed her brow. “What makes a good meme? What aspects of absurdity and humor make the subjective brew needed to be ‘dank’? She seems to understand…”
“She makes a fool of herself.”
“I think that’s part of it.”
“You’re hardly one to judge.”
There was a moment of silence.
“…I’m sorry about the Eldritch comment,” Nettle said.
Thrackerzod sighed. “I think I should be happy that you’re trying, but instead you just irk me to no end. A-” Thrackerzod blinked again. “By Azathoth’s yellow-bellied suckers, this is not the day for me and epiphanies.”
“Uh…”
“I just imagined how everyone else must have felt for, oh, the few decades it took for me to get some of the most basic ideas drilled into my head.” She let out a bitter laugh. “My situation isn’t exactly something I get to encounter very often.”
“So… you’re empathizing?”
“Nettle, I can tell you right here and now that while this does qualify as empathizing for me, you really shouldn’t take it as the standard.”
“But if…”
“Talk to Servitude more. She understands these things. Don’t talk to Mattie. She pretends to understand these things.”
“It’s the language of love and pain!” Mattie called back.
“The appropriate response here is to groan.” Thrackerzod said. Then she groaned.
Suddenly, the Everykid stopped moving. She jumped to a panel in the wall and pulled it open, revealing a maintenance shaft. Inside was a large, muscular man in a white nautical outfit. The moment the panel was opened he jumped out, summoning a Stand everyone recognized – Star Platinum.
“STAR PLA-”
The Everyman waved her hands rapidly to get Jotaro Kujo to stop attacking. She smiled nervously and introduced the two of them.
“Oh. Hey Jotaro,” Mattie said. “…Guess you ended up here, huh?”
Jotaro stood up and grabbed his hat. “Yare yare daze… It’s been a while.”
“Hasn’t been a while for us,” Thrackerzod muttered, walking up to the front. “My jaw is still sore from that punch.”
Jotaro lowered his hat and said nothing.
“Wait… Is that the guy who blew up my mind regulator?” Nettle blurted.
“No, that was Nova,” Burgerbelle offered.
“…Then he gets a pass. But when I find this Nova…”
Mattie grimaced but didn’t say anything. Now was definitely not the time to drop that on them.
“So, Jotaro, why are you here?” Mattie asked.
“Repairing the systems,” he said, pointing to a pocket welder he had in his hand. “The kid needed help, she couldn’t do it on her own.”
“…You do know she’s the Everyman, right?” Burgerbelle asked.
“Yes.” Jotaro glanced at the Everykid. “Didn’t know you did.”
“You. Repairing a mainframe,” Thrackerzod deadpanned. “Really?”
“I didn’t find anything else to do,” Jotaro said. “Why are you here?”
“Trying to find any information we can,” Mattie answered. “Specifically stuff like, oh I don’t know, physics simulations, Merodi transmission devices, that sort of thing. Lil’ Everykid here apparently couldn’t give us full access from the lobby, so my guess is that you can help us.”
Jotaro let out a disgruntled sigh. “…Yes, I can. Give me a search term and I can lead you.”
“Let’s start with the data records during the collapse,” Thrackerzod said.
Jotaro nodded. “This way.” He flipped around and began walking. The rest followed him without a second thought.
~~~
“…What?” O’Neill said.
“I said I’ve got some Skaians,” the Emerald on the screen said.
“But Skaians can’t survive. They’re ghosts.”
“These Skaians apparently can.” Emerald held up a white pearl. “By transferring consciousness into this… thing. Apparently it’s an ‘endless party’ in here.”
“Oh. So they can’t really do anything.”
Emerald shook her head. “It’s like a many-fused Gem. They’re able to use their powers outside, just… sporadically. And without much discipline. Or order.”
“Can they… talk?”
“Yes. I have them muted for good reason.”
O’Neill turned to Minna. She shrugged. O’Neill shook his head, taking a moment to process. “Well, welcome to the fleet, Emerald. By the way, do you know what happened to Yellow Diamond?”
“…She was Dusted,” Emerald said, forming her arms into the Diamond symbol. “It has been a difficult time recovering for the Gems here.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She was a great military leader,” Emerald said. She glanced behind her for a moment, checking to see if the coast was clear. “…And it’s best she’s not around to continue the war.”
O’Neill let out a sigh, but nodded in agreement. “See you soon.” He cut the feed.
Clandestine turned around. “Guess that means you really are Second now, Minna.”
Minna smiled sadly. “Second of what, Military? This isn’t just a military fleet anymore, there’s dozens of civilian ships, all heading for the center. And when we get there… will we stay cohesive?”
“You’d be the one to know.”
Minna frowned. “My visions have been coming back. But they’ve never been for the far future, just the immediate. And-” Her irises dilated. She slammed a button. “This is Minna to the entire fleet, SHIELDS UP AND ARM YOURSELVES!”
“What’s coming?” O’Neill asked as he activated the red alert.
“The red thing.” Minna said. “I’m having a hard time focusing on it, but it’s intangible, red a- and it’s about to show up onscreen.”
The red thing did show up. Like wind it flowed toward them, a single reddish point of light trailing a softer glow behind it for kilometers. It felt their presence and charged right for them, the trails twirling into a complex interference pattern that was hypnotic to experience.
“FIRE WEAPONS!”
The fleet fired every weapon they had. Anything physical or explosive was completely useless, passing right through and having no effect whatsoever. The magic lasers had some effect, distorting the pattern of its movements, but doing no visible damage. It passed through the fleet. Smaller ships were launched away at speeds so fast sensors lost track of them in under a second.
“What is it!?” O’Neill shouted.
“Magic is similar to TSAB devices, sir!” Clandestine reported.
“Do we have any TSAB ships?”
“One.”
“What do they have to say?”
Minna checked the report as it appeared on her screen. “…That’s a dumb idea.”
“What is?”
“Shoot TSAB transmission frequencies at it until it gets confused and goes away.”
“Couldn’t hurt!” O’Neill said. “Clandestine, send out the order.”
“Already done.”
“Effect?”
“I mean, it’s no longer moving in a straight line?”
The red thing was zigging around the fleet like a ping-pong ball.
O’Neill narrowed his eyes. “Activate the spectral rod.”
~~~
Tornado-Ba’al looked down at the crater, not at all surprised to see that everyone had survived thanks to Rev’s magic shield.
She shrugged. “Well, looks like you’re all up and running. What else did I expect to happen, I wonder?” She became confused at this question. “…What did I expect to happen…? I… What?”
“You’re going to get out of her right now,” Pinkie said, producing a chainsaw and her Massacre dress.
“Can’t do that! The mind’s empty!” She tapped her head like it was a watermelon. “Nothing but Ba’al in here!”
Vriska glared at her. “Then it’s time to die. Luc-”
Tornado-Ba’al held up a hand – revealing the infinite-sided die. “Do you really want to make my luck so low that I’ll be desperate enough to roll this? Because at that abysmal level… Well, I might just cause a planetary catastrophe. …Cats… I should invest in cats…”
Vriska shook her head. “…I see insanity hasn’t removed your planning.”
“Oh yes, plans, I always have plans. And this time I’m smarter – I know the workings of fate! They’re like a meat grinder in a clock that… that…” She snapped her fingers, unable to come up with the word. “You know what I mean.”
They stared at her blankly.
“Whatever, point is, if I stay and fight even with this power, I lose. So… Bye!” She blasted out of the atmosphere with her psychic power.
Pinkie jumped behind a bush and vanished.
Pidge coughed. “Three… Two… One…”
Pinkie brought Tornado-Ba’al crashing to the ground with a her warhammer, planning on cracking her head open on the pavement like a watermelon. Tornado-Ba’al gained enough control of her power to slip out from under the hammer, but she was still near the ground. Rina summoned her swords and threw them at Tornado-Ba’al, only for the psychic to throw them back.
“How about no more death swords?!” Pinkie shouted, having just barely dodged them.
“Fine!” Rina said, flaring her wings and blasting a beam of pure black energy at Tornado-Ba’al. Rev met it from the other side with a white beam. Vriska jumped up and kicked Tornado-Ba’al in the stomach. She retaliated with a burst of psychic energy, grabbing all of them and ramming them into the ground hard enough to make dents in the earth.
“STAR PLATINUM: THE WORLD!”
The next thing Tornado-Ba’al knew she was on the ground, her neck within Star Platinum’s fist. A bruised and battered Jotaro walked back to the fight. “You pissed me off.”
“Off of what?” Tornado-Ba’al asked, forcing the Stand’s hand open with her power.
“…Nani?”
“You make no sense.” Tornado-Ba’al hit him with a tree.
“Found it!” Pidge said, pulling her weapon out of the shack’s wreckage. She fired her grappler around Tornado-Ba’al. Instead of trying to break it, she ripped the handle of the weapon out of Pidge’s hand and recalled it.
“…Hey that’s…” Pidge paused. “Actually I don’t know why more people don’t do that.”
Tornado-Ba’al smirked. “So crazy it just might w-” Pinkie chopped off one of her arms with a chainsaw, prompting a terrified scream.
“No! No I have to live! Escape! I…”
Flutterfree closed her eyes and spread her wings. The Element of Kindness flashed. In an instant, she was on the other side of Tornado-Ba’al.
The Goa’uld-controlled corpse unceremoniously fell to the ground, dead.
Flutterfree put her marble wingtips back on. “The kindest…” She didn’t finish her sentence.
Vriska looked down at Tornado’s body. “…Well, I guess that’s that. We went on vacation and got our powers back. Yay…”
“I’ll get us a party once we’re in the mood,” Pinkie said. “It is something to celebrate, bu-”
“No,” Flutterfree said. “We’re not just going to move past this and forget about her like some Redshirt. That was the old way. This is the New World. Things don’t have to be the same.” She walked over to Tornado’s body and leaned down. “She needs to be remembered as one of us. When we get to where we’re going, and the deed is done… we will bury her.” She turned to Rev. “…Can you prepare her?”
Rev nodded. “I’ll need supplies.”
“Pinkie has whatever you need. Right?”
“Right.” Pinkie changed out of her Massacre dress and started pulling out medical supplies.
Pidge, Jotaro, and Vriska looked around awkwardly. This was not something they had ever done. They weren’t sure they wanted to keep her in mind.
Rina stared into the air, unblinking. That was me.
Rev clasped her hooves together and began to enchant the medical wrap with preservation. She began to wind it around Tornado, sealing it to her body. “This can be removed later, she’ll be just as we left her.” She and Flutterfree slowly wrapped the entire body while Pinkie sat nearby, ‘watching’.
Rev clasped her hooves together again and laid them on the wrapped body. She charged it with energy to finalize the seal, launching a loose spark that hit Pinkie in the forehead.
“Ow,” Pinkie muttered, rubbing her forehead. “That stung.”
Rev and Flutterfree stared at Pinkie in disbelief.
“What? It was just some loose magic that… I… felt…” Pinkie stopped moving. “R-rev, can you d-do that again?”
“...I think I can do you one better.” Rev held Pinkie’s head in her hooves, examining her closely. With her magic, she lowered the pink blindfold so it hung around the mare’s neck, revealing her empty eye sockets. They didn’t look painful after all these years - just empty.
Rev placed her hooves over the holes and focused. Once again, her eyes transformed into a glowing white state and bright energy flowed through her hooves into Pinkie. The mare’s body began to twitch and buzz. A slight, short of breath giggle emanated from Pinkie’s mouth.
Slowly, Rev removed her hooves from Pinkie. “Pinkie… How do you feel?”
Pinkie wiped a tear from her face and opened her eyes. “Tingly!”
Everyone stared at her for a moment. She didn’t stare at them - she stared at everything else. She saw the colors of the forest, the wispy motions of the grass, and… she could feel the wind in her mane. “I…” she was at a loss for words.
“...How is this possible?” Flutterfree asked.
Pidge blinked. “Forced curses like hers worked because there was a multiverse, no matter where she was or how her soul and body were represented, she would experience the disability… There’s no multiverse now. The curse didn’t have a way to perpetuate!”
“I… I…” Pinkie sniffed.
And then she let out seventy years of tears she had never gotten to cry. Being Pinkie, this created enough tears to muddy the entire area they were standing in, but somehow nobody cared about this. All of them except Rina piled onto her and joined her.
“...The sappy cry hug never ends, huh?” Rina wondered aloud, not expecting an answer. For once, she was satisfied without one. Simply watching them… It made her feel like there was more out there than what she knew.
They really had something special here.
~~~
“This node connects the recently-recorded data with everything else,” Jotaro said, leading the League and the Everykid through the endless towering halls of data storage.
The Everykid looked at him and raised an eyebrow. He ignored her.
The doors to the node opened automatically and smoothly despite being the size of barns. Inside was a domed room lined with dark metal. The lower edges of the room were covered in computer screens while the central floor sloped up until it came to a point, atop of which sat a glowing ball of pink energy.
“…Pretty,” Burgerbelle observed.
“Stand over there,” Jotaro said. “I need to access the terminal and I don’t want to deal with the security measures for people looking over my shoulder.”
“Sure thing,” Mattie said, walking to where he directed. “You know, I envy that orb. Something sharp jabbed into it at all times, and it doesn’t even care.”
“You really need to stop speaking,” Burgerbelle observed.
“If I didn’t say these things, who would?”
“Exactly.”
Mattie rolled her eyes, chuckling. She looked to the side at the Everykid, noticing she had a nervous expression on her face. “Dear, what’s the matter?”
The Everykid looked up, forced a smile, and shook her head rapidly.
“Something’s bothering you.”
The Everykid backed away from them slowly, a grimace forming on her face.
“…Something’s wrong,” Nettle said.
“Yare yare daze…” Jotaro muttered, pressing a button on the console. With a flash of bright light, bolts of intense electricity shot out of the orb and into Mattie, Thrackerzod, Nettle, and Burgerbelle. “No one considered I might be the Everyman as well.” He pulled his hat down.
Thrackerzod tried to muster up some magic, but the pain from the lightning was simply too much for her to handle. She didn’t have any eldritch nature to draw on anymore – she had to react like a normal unicorn. She couldn’t just shunt the pain away… She could only scream.
The Everykid put her hands to her mouth.
“They would tell everyone about us since you spilled the beans,” Everyman-Jotaro said, shaking his head. “It has to-”
The Everykid pulled out a parasol, hit Jotaro across the face with it, and pressed the ‘undo’ button on the console. The lightning stopped, dropping four singed and heavily injured ponies onto the ground.
“Why’d it stop…?” Mattie wondered absent-mindedly. “It was so… sparkly…”
Everyman-Jotaro stood back up, summoning Star Platinum. “What has gotten into you!?”
The Everykid shrugged, removing her hat and replacing it with a black one that gave her a green visor.
“We cannot leave our self behind!”
The Everykid took one look at him, shook her head, and shot a laser out of her parasol at him.
“STAR PLATINUM: THE WORLD!”
The next instant, they were locked in combat – apparently time-stop wasn’t so effective against the Everykid.
Stand-fist to the face was. She took the hit head on and landed on the ground. She was quickly able to jump back up, but she was already making pained grunts.
As she fired another laser at Everyman-Jotaro, Burgerbelle struggled to focus. Blood was dripping from her mouth and her eyes felt like they were on fire – though this was only because she wasn’t remembering to blink in her pain. She used one hand to push herself to her knees.
In the other hand she had a hamburger.
“…Where did…?” she shook her head, realizing she shouldn’t ask the question. That was the whole point of her. What she did, what she was – it didn’t operate on sense.
Shakily, she stood up, holding the hamburger high. “BURGER!” she shouted. She stuffed the burger into her mouth and wolfed as much down as she could, throwing the remaining patty over the back of her shoulder. It exploded when it hit the ground.
Everyman-Jotaro and the Everykid turned to stare at her in disbelief.
She smirked, no longer feeling the pain or noticing the blood dripping down her face. She felt strong, like a force of nature. She leaned forward and held her arms behind her, running right for Everyman-Jotaro.
Star Platinum moved to defend its user, but the Everykid saw her opportunity. She put on a red hat with two eyes on it. She threw the hat at Star Platinum – and she vanished, becoming Star Platinum. Everyman-Jotaro found that his Stand was no longer defending him.
Burgerbelle reached Everyman-Jotaro and delivered many rapid kicks and punches to his muscular body, moving so fast it looked like she had several arms and legs. “Ora ora!” She shouted, giggling.
Everyman-Jotaro punched her in the face himself, knocking her to the ground, dazed. Focusing for a moment, he recalled Star Platinum, forcing a dazed Everykid back into existence.
He took a step toward Burgerbelle, raising a fist. “Useless.”
“Omae wa mou shindeiru,” Burgerbelle said, an exaggerated near-trollface expression upon her features.
“NANI!?”
The delayed reaction from Burgerbelle’s attacks hit all at once. Jotaro convulsed like an accordion affixed to a car pump, barely having a moment to yell out in pain before he keeled over.
“Gotcha!” the Everykid crowed, spreading her arms wide.
Nettle turned to stare at her. “YOU CAN TALK!?”
“Yep!”
Burgerbelle grinned. “…Awesome.”
The Everykid giggled.
Thrackerzod groaned, finally rising to her hooves. “So…” She coughed. “Let me get this straight. We were saved. By memes.”
“Abso-doot-elutely!” Burgerbelle said, dooting a trumpet for emphasis.
“And we thought Flat powers couldn’t exist.”
“I just had to stop thinking about it.”
“Uh huh…” Thrackerzod shook her head and turned to the Everykid. “And you…”
The kid looked at her expectantly.
“You’re the Everyman.”
She nodded.
“He was the Everyman.”
She nodded again.
“You killed yourself.”
She smiled awkwardly and nodded.
“…What?”
She laughed, linked arms with Burgerbelle, and started dancing.
Mattie limped to Thrackerzod. “Something, something, friendship is magic.”
“But they had the same mind!”
“Dimensional effects are gone, remember?” Mattie smirked. “Every instance of the Everyman is separate. And as I recall, he wasn’t big on consistency. The Everyman died with the multiverse. What we’re looking at is just… some kid.”
Burgerbelle lifted the kid into the air. “The Everykid!”
The Everykid threw her hands into the air and grinned.
“Hnnng, so precious…” Mattie whispered.
“So can you take us to the actual information?” Burgerbelle asked.
The Everykid nodded eagerly, gesturing for them to follow. Burgerbelle and Thrackerzod followed readily. Mattie stayed behind, taking a moment to check that Nettle was okay before turning to look at the node’s sphere.
“You know, I wonder if I could repurpose this…”
“Probably,” Nettle said, trying to figure out how to walk without hurting her leg.
“Right, I forgot, you don’t know how to talk properly and aren’t any fun to mess with.” Mattie rolled her eyes. “Looks like Burger’s got her powers back. You might have something in you as well.”
“…And all I have to do is stop thinking.”
Mattie facehooved. “I think it’s different for every person.”
“Why isn’t it consistent?”
“People aren’t consistent.”
“I am.”
Mattie let out a guffaw. “You’re in for a long, painfully rude awakening.”
“...Sure I am.”
Mattie facehooved. “Let’s try not to lose the others.” She put Nettle on her back and trotted out of the room.
Of course, Mattie was injured and she was in no position to have a rider at this point in time, but that was kind of the whole point of the operation.
~~~
The Austraeoh’s spectral rod activated, attempting its first in-combat spell since the collapse. The goal? Just stop the red thing from moving.
We really need something better to call it, O’Neill thought. But now was not the time to vocalize the opinion – they’d name it after it was dead. “Energy weapons ready?”
“Yessir,” Clandestine reported. “Spell is away.”
The spectral rod’s energy released, creating a cube of white energy around the red thing’s ‘head’. The trails of red behind it began to dissipate as it bounced off the walls of the box.
“FIRE!” O’Neill ordered.
Every ship in the fleet with an energy weapon hit the cube at the same time. The red thing could not have dodged any of the destructive capability.
So instead it absorbed all of it and broke out of the cube.
“…Well, the spell worked,” Clandestine observed.
O’Neill held a hand to the bridge of his nose. “How long until we can create a seal spell?”
“Hours, given that the rod just blew itself out,” Minna said.
“Peachy,” O’Neill muttered. “Order the ships into a defensive-fleeing formation to minimize how many of us it can take out. If it shows relentless pursuit prepare to split the fleet.”
Clandestine gulped. “Yessir... Should I stop the TSAB transmissions?”
“No, keep it as confused as possible, see what happens.”
“Haste!” Mite announced.
“I forgot he existed,” Minna said, shaking her head.
“Undeniable.”
The fleet began to move away from the red thing, arranging itself thinly so its energy could not reach too many ships at once. It showed no sign of giving up pursuit, but it couldn’t stay fixed on any one target due to the TSAB signals.
“Okay, we need to prepare the separation. We can’t survive like this. Split in three ways, larger groups to either side, smaller in the center so that group is more likely to survive and make it to the center. Whichever group it follows should scatter in every direction after we are out of range. A-”
“Incoming ships!”
“Oh, what now!?”
Six TSAB advanced warships sped to their fleet, firing magical chain weapons at the red thing. It pulsed in anger, but it could not overcome the power of an actual sealing spell. It was quickly locked in a glowing red box and grabbed by the TSAB’s lead ship.
“They’re hailing,” Clandestine reported.
“Onscreen.”
The familiar face of Vita appeared onscreen. “This is Vita. Good to see you O’Neill.”
“We’re a lot happier to see you.”
“…Eh…” Vita tilted her hand back and forth. “You’re the ones who called us here with all those signals.”
“Crazy idea did something…” Minna muttered.
“And the Device Geist was our problem.” Vita sighed. “When so many mages were… dusted, the surviving Devices unleashed all their magic at once, creating a being that wanted everyone to be like them: separated from what they cared about.”
“…Geez,” Clandestine said.
“Yeah. Geez.” Vita regained her upright posture and saluted. “But the threat has been neutralized, no use dwelling on it. You are all welcome at Midchilda, regardless of which side you fought on in the war.”
“…How’d you pull that off in your government?” O’Neill asked, blinking.
“…It was Acting High Sovereign Fate’s last order,” Vita said, trying hard to keep a straight face.
“My condolences.”
Vita nodded. “…Do you have a connection to any major worlds?”
O’Neill shook his head. “All we have are loose ships. Midchilda is the first major world we’ve found. Our mission is currently to make it all the way to the center of the New World.”
“We’ve been preparing a scouting team to do that as well. Wait a few days – we can join you.”
“As long as we can come to Midchilda and get some vacation time.”
Vita smiled sadly. “…Our society may still exist, but it isn’t a happy society, O’Neill.”
“We’ll take what we can get.”
Vita nodded. “Of course. Come with us, we’ll show you the way.”
~~~
“Hey, GM, we’re going!” Roxy called across the church. We had arrived a few hours earlier by my suggestion, not that I was let out of the cage.
GM was talking to Froppy. He turned away from the amphibious woman to see Roxy walking over to him.
“Ah…” GM rubbed the back of his head. “Did they chase you out?”
“Well, nobody wants anything to do with Monika, Twilence, or Flagg,” Roxy said. “So, sorta. They never came right out and said it though. C’mon, let’s go.”
“…Roxy, I found my family here,” GM said. “They’re over there, talking to Aslan. My parents… my brother… my sister…”
Roxy paused for a moment, then winked at him. “Say no more. We’ll miss you.”
“Are you sure? I ca-”
Roxy put her hands on GM’s shoulders. “Kid, you’re not a Prophet anymore, you don’t have to worry. You’ve already told us everything we wanted to know and then some. You don’t have to do anything else.”
“…Telling me not to worry. Heh…”
“Hey it’s still good advice, even if you don’t follow it!”
“If my life had a story… Well, it does, and…” he shook his head. “Nevermind, I don’t even know.”
“And that’s fine. Not everyone has to stick with the adventure. And… frankly, you aren’t made of stern enough stuff to keep going. You don’t have to.”
GM nodded. “I guess… I’m being nice to myself, if that makes sense. Or Uber-me is. Giving me a chance to just… have a life.” He laughed nervously. “I know a thing or two about physics, I guess… got Monika to give me my books… I could do something here. …Maybe. I don’t know. I’m not great at the physical stuff. …One thing I know is that I’m sure not writing again.”
“Don’t tell yourself that.”
“Bu-”
“You aren’t a Prophet. You don’t have to worry.”
“But if I write it, he…”
“Would have written it anyway.” Roxy turned him around and pushed him forward. “Now, go. Be with your family.”
She watched as he walked away – and was embraced.
“…Feels a little weird, doesn’t it?” Roxy asked Froppy.
“…Ribbit?”
“Just… Him. This whole thing came out of his mind.” She put her hands behind her head. “If you look long enough you can see the patterns in his thinking appear in reality.” She patted Froppy on the back. “You’ve got something to look forward to, with him around.”
“I’ve got other things to look forward to.”
Roxy smirked. “I suppose you do. Congratulations! Sorry I won’t be here when it happens.”
“It’s not a problem. You have somewhere to be anyway. And I don’t want Flagg anywhere near it.”
“I hear that.” Roxy saluted. “Catch you later, sister!”
Froppy raised an incredulous eyebrow.
Roxy laughed to herself as she skipped out the church doors. She looked around and took in the breeze wafting over the pink ocean. Behind her there were several houses in the middle of being built and a few pieces of farmland that had already been plowed. They were starting a regular town around here.
It gave her hope for the future.
She ran across the town and out into the nearby sea-forest. She landed neatly next to our campsite. “GM’s staying.”
“Nani? Why?” Rohan asked.
“He found his family.” Roxy said, dusting her hands off. “And no offense, he probably needed to check out before he completely lost his mind. That thing with the cult… He hasn’t been able to let it out yet.”
“Leaving the story…” I mused from my cage. “…He’s close to doing it. Not quite, but close.”
“Not quite?” Chancellor Fluttershy asked.
I shook my head. “No. He’ll show up again. I… see a few moments. But he’s mostly done. He served his purpose.” I looked to the sky. “…I can’t wait until I get to do that.”
Monika grunted. “Never, if we have something to say about it.”
I smiled softly at Monika but said nothing.
>>When one story ends, another begins. Endings are, and always will be, lies.<<
I shook my head at M’s screen. “Sometimes, there really is an ending. And what comes next isn’t a story, it’s a life.”
Flagg let out a snort. “Please, do you really think the idea of an ‘ending’ or a ‘story’ is actually important? You’re on about nothing but semantics.”
“Semantics are what make us human,” Rohan said, drawing some manga with Heaven’s Door. “Warm and baking mean essentially the same thing, but one suggests comfort while the other suggests the exact opposite.” He made a sharp line on his paper. “Words make us, define how we think.”
“Not me!”
“Just because your book is immune to my words does not mean it has no words. Your words are merely more complex and disturbing than ours.”
Flagg smirked. “How about we do an experiment to see exactly how?”
“We are not removing that voice inhibitor,” Roxy deadpanned.
Flagg shrugged. “It’s only a matter of time…”
“Yes, yes, you’re alive, you’ll be important later,” I muttered, twirling my hoof in the air. “So will I. It’s still the best option since there isn’t a drug in existence that could keep you out for long and killing you just frees you.”
“…How about we not argue about that for the millionth time and get going?” Roxy said, putting her belongings in her inventory. “We’ve got a long way to go still.”