Exploratory Skimmer 001, the best in the exploratory fleet!
“The only ship in the fleet,” Pidge muttered as she pulled herself out of bed. She let out a big yawn and placed her feet on the floor, pleased that the floor heating element was working today. The freezing metal floor had been an unwelcome surprise on virtually every night she had spent on this ship.
She stretched a bit and put on her glasses, blinking to get her eyes adjusted to the lighting. The room was small, but still large enough that she had to take a full step to get to the sink and brush her teeth. She preferred doing it herself – the machine did just as good of a job, but it never felt right. When she was done she stretched a few more times and went to look at her closet.
Logically speaking, she shouldn’t even have needed to debate. She was on a mission; she should wear her green paladin suit. Without it, she was squishier than even a normal human, easily the prime target in an attack. It was also form-fit to her so it was easily the most comfortable thing. And yet, for a moment, she considered wearing regular clothes. Dress, shorts and shirt, didn’t matter, just something.
I must be getting bored. Maybe I need to give it an upgrade. Goodness knows that won’t somehow be disabled in the next few months.
In the end, she still chose the suit, giving her squishy form significant armor, a much-needed maneuverability bonus with its thrusters, and numerous HUD displays that she could access with a thought. She had those in her glasses as well, and her contact lenses, but one could never have too many redundancies.
She grabbed her weapon and holstered it at her side. With a quick breath and a smile, she walked out into the hallway.
Something shot at the ship and caused all the warning lights to go off. She stumbled and fell flat against the hallway wall. With an overdramatic groan she pushed herself off the wall and ran to the bridge. This took about three seconds – the ship only had room for quarters, a living area, a bridge, a cargo hold, and a hallway to connect them all. It was an upgrade from the usual Skiff, sure, but not much of one.
The fact that everyone else was already on the bridge more than mildly irked her.
“Glad you could join us!” Pinkie said with a giggle. “We’re fighting a blue alien space monster!”
“TAP IN!” Flutterfree blurted as she forced the Skimmer into a barrel roll to dodge the space monster’s blue mucus.
“And I’m still the best pilot…” Pidge shrugged, jumping into the pilot’s seat the moment Flutterfree got out. She weaved in and out of the barrage of mucus easily.
“You play too many video games,” Vriska said with a grin.
“Aw, you upset about losing last night?” Pidge ribbed.
“…No.”
“Yes you are.”
“Focus on keeping us alive.”
Pidge leaned back and started driving with her feet, still doing much better than Flutterfree had been.
“Yare yare daze…” Jotaro muttered.
“I really, really, really should yell at you for ‘reckless endangerment’,” Pinkie said. “But let’s not and say I did, okay?”
Pidge shrugged. “Sure.” She saw a more complex barrage come at her, so she put her hands back on the controls and threaded through the organic projectiles. She whirled the Skimmer around to face the creature. It was a snake with numerous scales flowing in different directions like jellyfish tentacles. It pulsed with blue lights that gradually changed their brightness.
Something tugged at the back of Pidge’s mind. “Database search – something about this seems familiar!”
Vriska pressed a few buttons on a nearby screen. “Scans say highly organic… Telepathy indication… Positive ID – it’s the protomolecule!”
Pinkie’s eyes widened. “Jotaro, Flutterfree, suit up – we need to get this thing’s attention on our level! Passion-Lolo combo!”
“Right,” the two of them said at once. They left the bridge and found a spacesuit locker, slipping into their form-fitting suits with ease.
“Ready to teleport!” Jotaro called. The two of them were placed just outside the ship in an empty space next to the beast. The protomolecule snake paid them no mind – completely fixated on the vaguely shark-like form of the Skimmer. Jotaro summoned the Passion, wrapping the flowering vines around the two of them. Flutterfree activated two powers at once – Lolo and her Rage’s truth essence. The vines of the Passion and Lolo intertwined, shooting toward the protomolecule snake with the glow of Rage around them.
They hit, making direct contact with the bizarre soul and mind of the snake, revealing the truth of who they were to the blue being. The Passion brought the souls into an understanding, allowing the snake to calmly release its rage. It stopped firing its projectiles and calmed down.
“SUCCESS!” Pinkie said, grinning. “Oh, hey Investigator!”
Pidge looked around – didn’t see anyone. “Uh…”
“The Investigator likes to only show himself to one person at a time,” Vriska reminded her. “Dunno why the voice of the protomolecule decided to be so… difficult, but it’s quirky and fun if you can get past only hearing one side of the conversation.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Pinkie gasped. “I’m sure we can find you some planets where you can recreate your network. I understand that being divided is difficult for you, but there are people who will help you. Just hold on a sec…” She pressed a button, recalling Jotaro and Flutterfree. “Pidge, write up a message to transmit back to the City so they don’t freak out when we transmit the Protomolecule to them.”
Pidge started typing up the report. “We don’t have enough… power to transmit something that large.”
“He can do it himself,” Pinkie assured her. “Glad to have you back, proto-vestigator! I’m sure you’ll like the City! Aw, you’re too kind!” She smiled brightly for a few seconds, as if listening intently to something.
This went on for some time.
“Uh…” Vriska said, raising a hand.
“Oh, he disappeared when I stopped talking,” Pinkie giggled. “Probably working on transmitting himself.”
Vriska facepalmed.
“Message sent,” Pidge said. “He should wait a few minutes before transmitting to make sure they get it.”
Pinkie shrugged. “I don’t know if he will. I’m not talking to him anym-”
The protomolecule snake vanished in a puff of light.
“Huh. Hope he doesn’t cause too much chaos.”
“You want him to cause chaos don’t you?” Flutterfree accused.
Pinkie grinned. “Yeah. Just not too much.”
“Wordplay,” Jotaro said, clapping slowly.
Pinkie bowed. “Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week.”
“Which is almost over,” Vriska said, pointing at a screen. “We’ve only got one more planet we need to hit, then our mission out here is done. We can go home.”
Jotaro cracked his knuckles. “Let’s see what challenges it has to offer us.”
“Why can’t the last planet ever be a simple peaceful first contact?” Flutterfree asked.
Pidge shrugged. “Hey, it might be that way soon enough. We’ve just got to wait… Uh…” she pressed a few buttons until she got the ETA for Tower Collapse. “Thirty-nine years.”
“There’ll be a lot of last planets before that timer runs out.”
“But it will run out,” Pinkie said. “So let’s enjoy these last planets while we can! Pidge?” She pressed her hooves together and grinned. “Engage.”
“O’Neill is a plague on us all,” Pidge muttered. “Yes, Captain.” She plotted the course and the Skimmer blasted off into the night.
~~~
The last planet looked like a dud from a distance.
Round. The size of Equis. Gray. Cratered. Devoid of atmosphere – like the rest of the system it was in. As far as their instruments could tell from afar, the planet was a completely lifeless rock just like millions of other planets.
The exception were their ka sensors. Whenever they were pointed at this planet – from any other planet – the readings went crazy. They seemed to insist there was a thing there. A thing that really, really needed to be found. It needed to be found so badly that it was screaming to anyone with a ka-based ear to COME HERE.
So of course the Skimmer’s shields were at full, weapons were all charged, and everyone had their psychic abilities at the ready preparing for any sort of danger. They moved in slow, like molasses, drifting ever-closer to the gray orb. Currently, the five of them could see it on the viewscreen, and it was just as boring up close as it had been from afar.
“I hate it when this happens,” Vriska seethed. “It’s just sitting there. Inanimate. Innocent. Fucking with us.”
“The Tower may be leading us on a wild chase for amusement,” Jotaro said, furrowing his brow.
“Think we should stop crawling like snails yet?” Pidge said, bored.
Jotaro shook his head. “No. Traps are clever.”
“We could still be moving faster. We can light-jump away.”
“Just keep scanning,” Pinkie said. “Are we close enough for really really detailed scans?”
“Soon…” Flutterfree said, pressing a few buttons. “And… now!” Automatically, the ship began scanning the surface. Lots and lots of more nothing, nothing, and nothing. But then it found something it wasn’t supposed to. A reading of an object not on the planet’s surface – but slightly above it.
In an orbit.
Pidge blinked. “What the quiznak?” She pressed a few buttons. “I’m detecting an orbit outside the planet’s gravitational bubble! Or… No, it’s not an orbit, it’s just a really, really tiny planet. Small… too small. Way too small.”
“Why is small a problem?” Vriska asked.
“Black holes have no size and they work,” Flutterfree pointed out.
“I mean, it has less of a ‘gravity well’ so it’s… just not enough,” Pidge said. “It’s moving in the shell like a planet, but it has no gravity…” She scratched her head. “This doesn’t match with our current understandings of the New World’s Physics… or Sunny’s orbital motion estimation equations…” Pidge pressed a few buttons. “We have to check this out!”
Pinkie nodded. “We’ll go there… as soon as we get close.”
“Not going any faster?”
“Nope!”
Pidge groaned. “ETA… nineteen minutes.”
Flutterfree put her wing to her face and sighed. “Of course…”
“I’ll try to get more detailed visual readings.”
A few moments later, an image appeared on screen. The metallic object was spherical and almost featureless on the outside, save for one large circular door on one end. The door itself had been blown open, revealing an interior that was bigger on the inside, but just as empty as the space outside.
“…Something escaped,” Flutterfree said. “How strong do you think that door was?”
Jotaro pondered this. “With time, Star Platinum could probably punch through that much reinforced metal.”
“No, no you couldn’t,” Vriska said eyes widening. “I know what this is. This isn’t just some thick metal. That’s a door from the Vault.”
“Oh, so a treasure room!” Pinkie grinned. “I wonder what sort of loot we’ll find?”
“Interior’s empty,” Pidge said, pressing more buttons. “…And there’s no door on the inside. Nor is there a place for one. Which means…”
“This is the room at the center of the Vault,” Vriska said, blinking. “Whatever the final goal of that mad puzzle-filled labyrinth was, it was in there. …And it punched out of a door designed to keep higher class civilizations out.”
“Saitama can punch out,” Pinkie pointed out.
“He’s cheating.” Vriska folded her hands together.
“…This might be a bit out of our league,” Flutterfree commented. “The final goal of the vault is out, and we’re near it.”
Vriska rolled her eyes. “Like we’re going to run away with our tails between our legs because of some door. Hah. We’re the Primary Team, we’re better than that. Or stupider than that. Take your pick.”
Pinkie giggled. “Yep! Right into the dragon’s mouth everyone – let’s find whatever was in there!”
“Chances are it’s on the planet’s surface,” Pidge said. “Probably the source of all the ka readings. I’m trying to narrow down its possible locations…” She hastily ran a few simulations on the ka-density around the planet. “There appears to be an epicenter for the ka pattern at negative thirty-five degrees south, zero degrees west. Should I take us down?”
“Yeah, but do it slowly,” Pinkie said. “We should probably get in suits.”
Pidge, Jotaro, and Flutterfree gestured at themselves – they were already suited up. Pidge put on her helmet to complete the set. Vriska didn’t need a suit, but she summoned one to herself anyway. Pinkie pulled hers out of her mane and stuck it on. While Flutterfree’s had a bag for her tail, Pinkie’s let her tail hang free. It would have been a safety hazard for anyone who wasn’t Pinkie.
Carefully, Pidge lowered the Skimmer into the gravity well of the dead planet. The transition was sharp, making all their stomachs do flip flops, but the ship was able to shut off its artificial gravity a fraction of a second after the real gravity took hold. They descended onto the gray, dusty rock, sending up a flurry of granules into the air.
“Technically, there’s not any air at all,” Pinkie said, pressing a few buttons to schedule a full-team teleport. With a schwoop they were all standing outside the Skimmer, the dust of their landing settling on their suits.
“You know, if this is anything like moon dust, it’ll itch something fierce if it gets in our suits,” Pidge commented.
“Then keep your suits sealed! Problem solved.” Vriska mockingly knocked on her helmet. “Anyway, I’m going to be the first to state the obvious here. I see fuck-all.”
The landscape of the dead world was flat, dusty, and only had the general small mountain – shallow crater combo of a dead world. They weren’t anywhere close to an impressive impact; sitting in quite possibly the most average area on the entire planet.
“Where’s that other shoe…?” Pinkie mused, perking her ears up and listening closely.
“You can’t hear anything in space,” Flutterfree said.
“Unless you’re Pinkie,” Jotaro countered.
“…Depends.”
Pinkie shrugged. “I’ve got nothing right now, so it looks like Flutterfree’s right for the time being!” She chuckled. “Anyway, Vriska, got anything?”
“No psychic residue that I can sense,” Vriska said with a shrug.
“Mmmmm… Pidge?”
“Only weird readings are the ka levels,” Pidge responded.
Jotaro threw his hat into the ring without being asked. “Hermit Purple and the Passion don’t feel anything to lock on to.”
“Interesting…”
“Can I go now?” Flutterfree asked.
“Sure!” Pinkie said with a wink.
Flutterfree focused herself and spread Lolo out in all directions. This was exactly what they had needed to do – in an instant, the previously invisible became visible. A few meters away, two large metallic spires shifted into their view. They were smooth, sleek, and all-in-all pretty generic sci-fi props of the kind Pinkie’s Party was getting more than a little tired of seeing all over the place.
“Why can’t we get more fractals?” Pinkie asked, holding out a hoof and waving it around. “I mean come on, they look cooler! Way cooler! This is just… Not awesome!”
Flutterfree smirked. “Channeling Rainbow?”
Pinkie shrugged. “Yeah, probably. Is there more?”
“I think so…” Flutterfree said, spreading Lolo even further. Slowly, more spires came into their view, each pair taller than the pair before. They created a path that went on for as long as they could see.
“I don’t see an end…” Flutterfree said, closing her eyes to focus. “Nothing but more, taller spires the further I go…”
“Any traps?” Jotaro asked.
“They seem benign to me, but that doesn’t mean much. Too many things have been immune to Lolo’s Revelation lately.”
Pidge turned to Pinkie. “I’m going to try to interface with one and risk triggering an ancient apocalypse curse. Cool?”
Pinkie nodded. “Cool.”
Pidge dashed over to the closest pillar and pulled out her laptop, using an omni-cable to affix her computer directly to the pillar’s exterior wall. After a few seconds she had a basic connection. “No security as far as I can tell…”
Jotaro sauntered up to the pillar and tapped it with his finger. He knit his brow.
“Oh! Jotaro’s noticed something!” Pinkie said, appearing right next to him. “What did you find!?”
“Something’s off here…” He continued to trace his finger along the pillar, going down until he touched the ground.
“You’re right, something’s off,” Pidge said, scratching her head. “There’s code and circuitry inside this pillar, but it doesn’t seem to serve a purpose! Not even decorative. Most of the commands I put in are accepted, but then nothing happens.” She typed furiously on the keyboard. “It’s like it’s partial…”
Jotaro picked up some moon dust in his hand and threw it on the pillar, the gray granules sticking to the pillar with ease. He tried to brush them off again, but they remained on the pillar, giving it a dirty tint.
“These pillars are new,” Jotaro said. “They have to be newer than all the large craters – or any event jarring enough to kick up ‘moon’ dust. Some would have gotten on the surface and dirtied it.”
Flutterfree blinked. “We’re in an area that isn’t heavily cratered. Isn’t it reasonable to assume there just wasn’t any dust to get stuck?”
“There’d still be microscopic amounts,” Pidge said, performing a scan. “And aside from the stuff we’ve kicked up, these pillars are clean. So clean they show signs of a radiation exposure of…” She blinked. “…A couple years. Less than the age of the New World.”
“So, what, the thing in the Vault escaped and made these pillars?” Vriska asked. “Why?”
Pinkie blinked. “…As an invitation…”
And then they weren’t on the planet anymore. Each of them stood behind separate podiums colored in ways similar to them. Each podium had a square screen on the front that buzzed with static. Aside from the five of them and the podiums, they appeared to be in complete darkness.
All of them entered a fighting stance – except Pidge. She just rammed her face into her podium. “Not again…”
Jotaro glanced at her. “What?”
Pidge held up a hand and adjusted her glasses. “Okay, we get it, Bob the all-powerful wants to test our mettle as heroes again. Turn on the lights and start the game show already, let’s get this over with.”
“Bob?” Flutterfree asked, cocking her head.
“There’s an all powerful multiversal being that likes to test groups of heroes through a game show. Prepare for a lot of really stupid games a-”
“Jumping to conclusions,” a man said. A spotlight appeared, revealing him to all of them – he wore a black suit and a cowboy hat alongside a face that was a fusion between Roland and Flagg – except the eyes. One of them was a piercing red while the other cycled through numerous pool-ball shapes. His left hand was frozen in ice, while the left raged in fire. “I am not Bob, or any number of other beings you have encountered.” His voice sent chills up their spines, but it didn’t sound unnatural. Perhaps the normalcy of it was what made it terrifying.
Pinkie didn’t flinch. “Then who are you?”
“It is simple. I am the Vault. I am the prize. I am what lies beyond the Final Puzzle.” The corner of his mouth twitched, giving the slightest hint of a frown. “The Final Puzzle has been removed. So I must create a new one for those who seek me.”
“And you decided a bunch of game show podiums was what to go with?”
He looked at her with curiosity. “I decided. But I also didn’t. I am a Tower subroutine.” He held a hand into the air. “I was created with the purpose of seeking an ultimate reward…”
Vriska rolled her eyes. “Please, you don’t look like much to me.”
“I am the Endless Wish,” he said, looking her in the eyes with his impassive, unmoving face. “The will who takes me will have everything.”
“…I stand corrected.”
“I was to be given to the society who breached the final Vault door, proving themselves worthier than my creators. Except you didn’t do that. You just found my resting place. But I cannot say you cheated either, for you had no intention of finding the Vault when you arrived on this world.”
“So you’re going to test us?” Flutterfree observed. “…Are you aware that, well, we’re the protagonists and the camera is on?”
“Good deduction Flutterfree!” Pinkie said with a grin.
“I am aware,” the Endless Wish answered. “You will still undertake a new Final Puzzle. My only will is that my power is given to those worthy. You will be here until I have deemed you sufficient or insufficient.”
“…Can we just back out?” Flutterfree asked.
“No.”
“Figures,” Pidge muttered. “What’s the punishment for failing?”
“Death.”
“Yare yare daze…” Jotaro muttered, lowering his hat.
“Looks like we have to fight for our lives,” Pinkie said. “How’s that? Did we pass your first test? Express little desire to actually have a wish?”
“Yes,” the Endless Wish answered. “You have also passed numerous others through simple coordination in your arrival and your actions in life.”
“Suck it,” Vriska said, lounging forward with a coy smile. “We’re awesome, we’re heroes, and ka is on our side. What else could you possibly need to know?”
The Endless Wish’s mouth twitched. “You must not know. That would spoil the tests. For now, as far as you’re concerned, this is a game show.” He blinked out of existence before appearing again behind a podium of his own – except now he was wearing a jovial mask reminiscent of Dimentio’s harlequin face. He spoke with an exaggerated chipper tone. “Ladies and gentlemen, readers and contestants, it’s time for the first ever round of Final Puzzle, with me, your host, the Endless Wish! With us today we have the people of Pinkie’s Party! Please, introduce yourselves and tell us a random fact!”
Everyone turned to Pinkie. She shrugged. “Eh, go with it, at least for now. Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie, and I once made an eldritch demon explode because he couldn’t fathom me!”
“…I’m Flutterfree, and I’m a quasi-vampire Page of Rage.”
“I’m Vriska Serket, I’m over a thousand years old and still kicking ass!”
“Jotaro Kujo, PhD. I used to be a marine biologist.”
“Pidge Holt. I built most of Final Dawn. I’m assuming all the readers know what that is.”
Pinkie nodded in confirmation. “So, now that that’s out of the way, what’s our first little game?”
“A quiz!” The Endless Wish said with a clown-like giggle. “We’ll see how well each of you really know your Songs of the Spheres lore! Any one of you can answer the questions at any time, but you have to ring in first!”
“Do we have to put the answers in the form of a question?” Vriska asked.
“This is not Terezi’s game night, you will not be punished for answering in the incorrect format! Who does that? Just not right!” He snapped his fingers, and suddenly the rest of the room shifted into existence. The floor was a jarring white, and the walls a murky purple. Every part of it was featureless aside from a giant screen that sat between the Endless Wish and Pinkie’s Party. “Let’s start with something simple. Question one: what is the birth name of Lord English?”
Vriska buzzed in. “Caliborn. Next.”
The Endless Wish didn’t miss a beat. “TWO! What is the name of the boy Roland had with him at the end of his original journey to the Dark Tower?”
“Patrick,” Jotaro answered.
Vriska looked to him. “How did you…”
“Jojo studies the journeys of heroes,” Pidge said with a smile. “Roland’s is one of the more important, and the ending of his journey even more so.”
The Endless Wish threw the card over his head and pulled out another question. “Three! Before she was called Scarcity, the Rarity that was instrumental in the Starstream War had another nickname. What was it?”
Flutterfree furrowed her brow – and a second later buzzed in. “…Scarce.”
“Four! A train is traveling through universe A with no time travel allowed. Universe A is connected to universe B, where time travel must form loops. Universe B has a train going in a circle every ten minutes, at which point it jumps ten minutes into the past, forming the loop. If the Universe A train enters universe B on a track that will take eleven minutes to return train A to Universe A, what happens to train A?”
Pidge adjusted her glasses and grinned evilly. “This depends on if Universe B operates on ‘safe loop’ rules or ‘recursive loop’ rules. If Universe B is a ‘safe loop’, then the looping time has no effect on the overall universal timeline and train A will return to Universe A in eleven minutes. If Universe B is a ‘recursive loop’ the universe will reset to default every time train B loops, ensuring train A can’t return to Universe A without the loop being terminated. This all assumes, of course, that train A exists in the same timeframe as train B when in the same universe.”
“Clever girl…” the Endless Wish said. “FIVE! How many words are in Songs of the Spheres as of the publishing of the last chapter?”
Pinkie laughed. “Easy! 2,001,893. Naturally, that’s only on FimFiction! According to Archive it’s 1,911,965. I’m not going to bother with the other places. You want an exact value? Ask a question that doesn’t require the chapter to be written with fill-in-the-blanks!”
The Endless Wish shrugged, seemingly taking this as legitimate criticism. “In that case… SIX!” The mask switched from mischievous and amused to devious. “Which one of you is going to die before the end of this chapter?”
Pinkie’s Party didn’t have an initial response.
“Take your time. It’s not like we’re in a hurry.”
They didn’t need time – a lightbulb went off in Flutterfree’s head. She buzzed in. “Vriska.”
“Flutterfree what the fuc-” Vriska was stabbed by several of Flutterfree’s wing-blades at once in numerous vital areas. Naturally, the death wasn’t Heroic or Just, so the troll came right back up. “…I get it. You could have given me a warning though!”
“I didn’t want to give him a warning,” Flutterfree said, shrugging. “So, I got that answer correct, and now we don’t have that looming sword over our heads. Next question?”
“If you insist. Seven!” He leaned in. “What would Nova think of you replacing her?”
“Fuck you,” Vriska muttered.
Pinkie pressed her hooves together and glared at the Endless Wish. “This is how it’s gonna be, huh? Questions that torment us. Well if you want an answer, here it is. Her mind would accept that she hadn’t really been replaced and that we still cared for her. She would get back on the team and learn to work with Pidge. But there would be a gnawing hole in the back of her mind that would be a downer on her personality for several years. Because, deep down, she would know she was replaced. And she wouldn’t be able to ever completely remove it, and she would hate herself for being so shallow.”
Pidge gripped her podium. “…Quiznak…”
“What’s next asshole?” Vriska demanded. “Something special for me?”
“Eight! Which person do you dream of killing in cold blood the most? Any of you can answer this one. Take your time.”
Vriska paled.
“You don’t have to,” Flutterfree said. “I can think o-”
“Starbeat,” Vriska answered, cutting Flutterfree off. “She’s the one I see myself killing most often in my dreams. Our relationship looks fine, but the troll in me wants to rip her to shreds. I’m suppressing it, so it’s manifesting more than anything else! Happy?”
“No!” the Endless Wish declared with a jovial tone. “NINE~! Who’s marrying Flutterfree today?”
“You piece of trash…” Flutterfree muttered. “Right, right…” She sent off a quick prayer and shook her head. “I’m pretty much limited to the people in the group here, and all of them would be out of the faith. You’re a real piece of work. The answer? Pinkie. The others would have some serious problems d0wn the line dealing with the emotional baggage.”
Pinkie took out a ‘wedding-in-a-box’-set, decorating her and Flutterfree in brilliant white dresses. There was a kiss so fast virtually nobody saw it, Pinkie threw a giant wedding cake into the ground, and then she shredded up the wedding papers, invalidating them. “There, emotional confusion over and done with! Woo! You ain’t got nothin’ on those tentacle monsters, wishy-boy!”
“Ten…”
Pinkie pushed her face right into his. “Ahem. We have a rating here, bucko. So no. You can’t go there.”
The Eternal Wish let out a laugh. “You are a fast one, aren’t you? Fine – I’ll just have to come up with a new torment.”
“You’ve already come up with it.”
“Yes. We’re done with questions.” He clapped his hands together. “Instead, let’s play a game of survivor. Each of you will be locked in separate cubicles.” Suddenly, none of them could see or hear each other. “And now each of you will be asked which one of your teammates you want to die! And the kicker – you can’t vote for yourself! And Vriska won’t be able to respawn. Also, if you refuse to choose, you fail the Final Puzzle. Have fun!”
After a few minutes of screaming, eventually everyone had come up with an answer.
“Pinkie, care to reveal yours?”
Pinkie, silently, pressed a button. On her screen Flutterfree appeared.
Flutterfree blinked, shocked.
“Care to explain?”
Pinkie silently shook her head, keeping her smile motionless.
“Fair enough. Flutterfree?”
“I’m sorry,” Flutterfree said, pressing her button. She chose Pinkie. “I… I did what Eve did last time with me. The one I cared about most. Guess she had the same idea.”
Vriska pressed her button. “Well I fucking chose Pidge because I’m a fucking jerk and thought she’d be the ‘least important’ or whatever. Pidge, please tell me you chose me so this is fair.”
“Pidge isn’t next, it’s Jotaro!” The Endless Wish said. “Come on, what do y-”
“Vriska,” Jotaro said, slamming his fist into the button. “She wouldn’t need emotional support. The others would.”
“And lastly, Pidge, who did you choose?”
Pidge was grinning like a madman. “Pinkie, we quiznakking did it.” She slammed her hand on the button, choosing Jotaro. “We just gamed your system, man! All of us chose someone different! Woo! GAH you have no idea how difficult it was to figure out who was going to choose everyone else. I had Vriska and Flutterfree reasoned out, and I knew Pinkie would choose whatever I didn’t choose, and I knew Jotaro couldn’t choose himself so HA!”
“What’s ha?” Vriska said. “Now we’re all tied for dead!”
“Exactly! That’s the way to win this game!” Pidge said, smirking. “It was the same in Bob’s, but we didn’t know it. This one was all about gaming the system! High-five Pinkie!”
Pinkie clapped Pidge’s hand with her hoof. “Woohoo!”
“…Well, in other news, I’m still an asshole bitch,” Vriska said with a laugh. “Jotaro’s too fucking practical, and Flutterfree you’re just too pure.”
“Eheh…”
“Your celebrations are premature,” the Endless Wish said, its happy voice seeming to crack.
“Problem?” Pinkie asked, grinning mockingly.
“Come on, throw something else at us!” Vriska challenged. “We’ve been through so much shit together, just you try to test it!”
“I am not testing your friendship,” the Endless Wish said; dropping the mask and returning to his monotone, default self. “I am testing your worthiness. You have shown knowledge, perseverance, and intellect. Your strength has already been shown. Your actions in the war are a testament to your society’s complexity. But there are other criteria.” He clasped his hands together, taking them away from the room and placing them in a long, seemingly endless hallway the width of a runway. “At the end of this hallway lies a treasure. It is your goal. Simply get there without perishing.”
“Where are the traps?”
“There are saws, lasers, intense hammers, hatchets, poisons, trolls, and giants. But they’re all invisible and enchanted with silent step.”
“I know the solution to this one,” Pinkie said. “He’s trying to test if we know when to give up and throw in the towel when facing impossible odds, like smart, capable, worthy people.”
The Endless Wish stared at her in disbelief.
“However, I’m going to say we one-up him.” Pinkie grinned. “We’re the protagonists. I happen to know things about our, well, future you could say. Mainly… Twilence wasn’t there to say goodbye when we left on our large journey. If we weren’t going to make it back she would have made a point of doing it, even if she wasn’t going to warn us.” She tapped her hooves together. “We’re literally unbeatable. Let’s charge right through this gauntlet like a gaggle of idiots. We might lose a few limbs in the process but we won’t die. There’s no chance.”
Vriska laughed. “Pinkie, this is stupid. I love it.” She ran into the gauntlet, promptly got cut in half – but revived. When Pinkie jumped in, she bounced around like a ping-pong ball but suffered no damage.
“It’s certain death in there,” Pidge commented.
“They know that,” Flutterfree added.
“I’m not so confident…”
Jotaro shrugged. “Yare yare daze…” He charged right through, using Hermit Purple and the Passion to detect where the invisible traps were, moving through with impressive grace and coordination.
“Fine, you guys do that, Flutterfree and I w-” Pidge noticed Flutterfree gracefully walking through the hallway without using any of her powers. And with closed eyes. “GAH!” Pidge ran after her – and promptly got hit by a hammer so hard she was launched into the lead of the group. She got stabbed with an invisible sword – hurt like nothing else, but she somehow managed to just laugh and keep trucking. The five of them ran through the hallway getting beat up left and right like ragdolls, but somehow they clung onto their lives throughout the entire ordeal.
Eventually Flutterfree made it. One of her eyes was missing, one of her wings had been clipped and two of her legs were just gone, but she grabbed the glowing coin at the end and smiled.
In an instant they were all fully healed and back in the game show room with the Endless Wish. He was wearing an annoyed mask.
Pinkie cleared her throat. “Let me put it this way, Wishy-buddy. We now know you can’t threaten us with death. And you know what I just remembered? You said the punishment for not playing was death, and that we would die if we lost. I guess that means it’s time for me to lose and see how we manage to survive that mess! Come on, give me mini-golf or something, I’ll be sure to fore right into your face eeeeeeeeeeevery time!”
The Endless Wish took off his mask and threw it to the ground, the face underneath twitching slightly. “Then it is clear by my own rules that I cannot win. Congratulations, you are the winners. You can now wish for anything you ever want, and then anything else you want, and then anything else, forever. You may have all the wishes you could ever desire.”
Vriska blinked. “Wait, really, you’re just going to give up?”
Pidge shrugged. “I mean, the point of the last test was supposed to be ‘giving up’, if Pinkie was right, so it stands to reason he’d have some understanding of the concept.”
“Huh. Neat.” Vriska put a hand to her chin. “So infinite wishes… What should we wish for first?”
“It’s a trap,” Jotaro said.
“Clearly,” Flutterfree added. “Nothing’s ever that easy. And even if it is, there’ll be unintended consequences.”
“Ah, the douchebag genie concept.” Vriska nodded slowly. “Clearly, we’ll have to wish carefully and without any chances of being misunderstood.”
“Can we just not wish at all?” Flutterfree wondered.
“Probably the safe option,” Pinkie admitted.
The Endless Wish spoke. “Why would you throw this away? I have endless power drawn from the Tower itself, the ability to bestow any desire.”
“You couldn’t recreate the multiverse,” Pidge pointed out.
“…True,” he admitted. “The Tower can overrule me. But I could destroy planets, create new ones… I could do so much!”
“Yes. We get it,” Vriska said, waving a hand. “I’m just remembering all those conversations where whatever anyone wished for backfired horribly. And those times we found low-level genies. Screw them utterly.”
“You’re not like Corona’s Wishing World,” Pinkie added. “You’ve got a personality in there somewhere. Tell me that can’t go wrong.”
“Are you certain you want to throw all of this away?” the Endless Wish asked, his voice seeming to crack a little. “I can bring back planets and places that were destroyed long ago.” He snapped his fingers and created a replica of Equis in his hand. “Every building, every waterfall, every city… restored to its splendor. You could go home.”
Vriska rolled her eyes. “And you’d recreate it with everyone who was on it when it was destroyed, from an ancient past, or make everyone remember what it was like to be consumed by the Twili.”
“I would not do that. And if you were concerned, you could just specify. Or undo the wish in an instant with another wish.”
“There’s always some angle you don’t think of.” Vriska folded her arms. “For instance, I just thought of recreating Equis perfectly, but making it so small nobody could see it. Or making it inside another planet, never to be found.”
“I don’t think you understand what endless wishes means. Any ‘tricks’ can be undone by wishes later.”
“Oh, so I could wish for the power to grant wishes however I saw fit, including my own?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t want that,” Flutterfree warned.
Vriska nodded slowly. “I know. I’m not as stupid as I used to be. But if he’s willing to do that, I’m starting to wonder if he’s not the douchebag genie. Maybe – just maybe – he’s legitimate.”
“The catch could be something that doesn’t reveal itself for an eternity,” Jotaro pointed out. “It could be the slow corruption of power.”
“Right. Clearly, we don’t make any wishes,” Pinkie said. “Sorry wishy-boy, but we won your game and we aren’t even going to use any. It’s just too-”
The Endless Wish snapped his fingers, and all of them were separated once again. “Do you not understand what you could be given?” He went to Vriska first. “All the hatred people feel for you and what you did… gone. Or, if you are feeling altruistic, I could remove the parts of your personality you find abhorrent, making you a better person. It need not be an or, it could be an and, you could have it all.”
“Fuck off.”
“Are you sure?” He slid next to her and created an image of Hastur. “You could have him back.”
Vriska pulled out her infinite-sided die. “Okay, time to see what random hell this thing spews out on you...”
The Endless Wish left Vriska for Pidge. “You… I could give you love.”
“Pass.”
“All the knowledge you could want. The answer to the New World’s Physics. The ability to restore Voltron.”
“I’m not going to let myself be clearly corrupted.”
Next was Jotaro. “You are a strong one, Jotaro. But don’t you wish you could empathize better? That you wouldn’t need help from others?”
“Yare yare daze…”
“Your lost family, your lost world, and I could even tell you the fates of the people you don’t know about. Just wish, and you’ll know if your daughter is alive… or Dusted.”
Jotaro froze, breathing heavy.
“Just one little wish…”
“No,” Jotaro said. “ORA!”
The Endless Wish did not feel pain, but he did decide to move to Flutterfree. “I can make anyone believe…”
Flutterfree growled. “Go read ‘The Big Gs’ chapter and see why that’s evil.”
“I can ensure the concepts of good and evil will maintain themselves past the Tower’s demise…”
“If they’re not defined by God, I don’t care.”
“I can give souls rest for you, just wish for it, and I can keep them from passing into the fires you fear so much.”
A tear rolled down Flutterfree’s cheek. She had to activate her Rage to keep herself firmly rooted in truth. “I cannot allow it. He knows what He is doing.”
Lastly, the Endless Wish came to Pinkie. “You could wish for anything as well.”
“I won’t though,” Pinkie said. “If you’ll notice, they all have some sort of thing they want. Family, knowledge, love, peace, or something else. Not me. I’m pretty content here.” She pulled out a lawn chair and put on a pair of sunglasses. “There’s nothing I really want. I have my friends, I have my job, and people are smiling because of me once again. What more could I ask for, really?”
The Endless Wish summoned them all back to the same location and snapped his fingers. “Then I’ll just give you one.”
Three figures materialized in front of them – Rohan Kishibe, Renee Jackson, and Nova Glimmer.
“I have given them back to you,” the Endless Wish said. “How was this wrong? Why were you unable to bring yourselves to w-”
“AHEM!” Renee announced, tapping her foot impatiently. “Darling, while I do adore what you’re doing, this body is spoken for on so many levels it’s not even funny.” She glared at him. “Don’t mess with things you don’t understand.” All biological functions within her ceased to function, and she dropped to the ground.
This gave the Endless Wish pause. Enough for Pidge to point at Nova, try to say something, and pass out from the internal stress instead.
“W-what’s going on?” Nova asked, looking around. “I thought I wa-”
Pinkie gulped. “You were. …This jerk’s duplicated you.”
“I…” Nova shook her head. “W-why? You didn’t ask f-”
“Of course not,” Pinkie said, trying her best not to cry. “He’s… upset at us for not playing the game the way he wants. He…”
“Pinkie… You have eyes. Since… How long…” Nova put a hoof to her head.
“She is back,” the Endless Wish declared. “She and Rohan have returned, and I can bring many others back at your beck and call.”
“It’s not really them though,” Flutterfree pointed out. “Twilight was not Eve. Pinkie is not Pinkie-X. Why would we create people who only exist to live in the shadow of the past?” She turned to Nova. “Why create a… a…”
“A bad memory,” Nova finished for her. The unicorn looked like she had seen a ghost – herself.
“True,” the Endless Wish said. “But you could also wish for everyone to treat them exactly as the old Nova. That everyone would believe this was a true revival. There could be some complex story about how the soul was preserved a-”
“ENOUGH WITH THE LIES!” Jotaro shouted, waking Pidge up. “WE DO NOT WANT ANY WISHES!”
The Endless Wish dropped his level-headed tone of voice. “My purpose is to give wishes! I will give them endlessly! Just make one!”
“Clearly, they aren’t going to,” Rohan said, smirking despite his unusual predicament of being Rohan-X.
“They don’t have a choice,” the Endless Wish said. “They cannot leave until they make the choice to keep you two alive or not. I have declared this. And once they have made that wish…”
“Then we could just wish to be released,” Flutterfree said. “…Except that could backfire too, and you really don’t like us.”
“…You want me to be part of some game?” Rohan asked the Endless Wish. “A puppet to manipulate the will of others for your own personal validation?”
The Endless Wish seemed to regret creating him. “Your fate hangs in the balance of this ‘game’, I wouldn’t be so coy.”
Rohan smirked. “I refuse.” He summoned his Stand. “HEAVEN’S DOOR!”
The Endless Wish was not affected – but he was not a target. Pidge was. Her face popped open like a book and Heaven’s Door wrote several pages of information in her head in a few seconds. The first thing she did was point her weapon at Rohan and blow his brains out.
“…Stubborn idiot,” Jotaro muttered, putting his hand over his eyes.
Pidge stared at the blood on her weapon. “He… he made me do that. He… quiznak…” She sat on the ground, dazed.
Nova stared at Rohan’s bloody form, pupils tiny. “You know… I think I’d rather… not die. Yes. That would be… a nice thing. Yeah.” She smiled awkwardly. “So, I know I’m just a copy, but I’d really like to stick around, and isn’t your friendship with m- her worth that much?” She said this with great uncertainty.
“We can’t give in to what he wants,” Jotaro said, folding his arms.
“Are you kidding?” Pidge shouted. “She’s here already! We can’t just send her back!”
“I’m not saying we do that. I’m saying we refuse to play the game.”
“Oh… sorry for jumping to conclusions…”
“I say we return her,” Vriska said. “Rohan did the right thing.”
“I am not committing suicide!” Nova shouted. “I… I don’t want to go through that again.”
Flutterfree shivered. “I… I don’t know what to do…”
Pinkie glared at the Endless Wish. “You’re sick. Creating her just to make us argue and…” She wiped a tear from her eyes. “It’s too much! It’s impossible!”
The Endless Wish leaned in – and actually smiled. “Good. Suffer. The Final Puzzle is only what you made of it.”
Flutterfree burst into tears, pulling Nova into a hug. “I’m so sorry I don’t know what to do! I can’t condemn you again but you won’t bring her back and aAAAAAA!”
Nova couldn’t process what was happening. “I… I…”
The other three members of the team were shouting at each other.
“You can’t throw her away!” Pidge shouted.
“You just don’t want to feel the guilt of replacing her!”
“Of course I don’t! But she was your friend!”
“That’s not her standing over there!”
“It’s close enough!”
“Stop!” Jotaro demanded. “You are feeding into what he wants!”
“This is more important than what that bastard wants!” Vriska asserted.
Pinkie looked at her team. Flutterfree couldn’t stop crying. Jotaro, Vriska, and Pidge continued shouting at each other, almost screaming. Nova just wanted to live. And Pinkie…
Pinkie didn’t see a ‘win’ in this situation. It was a black and white scenario with all wrongs. Use a wish – the result of the wish didn’t matter, it was the entire principle of the thing that was wrong. Keep Nova alive or no, it wouldn’t end well. She could sense it. But if they did nothing, the Endless Wish would just get angrier and try worse and worse things until they broke. It was a lose-lose situation. Evil-evil wrong-wrong.
A lightbulb went off in her head.
“EVERYONE!” She shouted. “Don’t you see what we’re acting like?”
Everyone looked at her, confused.
“We’re acting like the Seats in the conferences before the war! We are arguing with no hope of resolution!” She set her hoof down. “I am declaring my willingness to go with any of the options. Even if I want one or the other, I will be willing to go with any of them so we don’t break ourselves apart.”
There was silence for a moment.
“…I’ll do it too,” Nova said, surprising Flutterfree considerably. “I… I really don’t have a right to demand something from you. Or maybe I do, and I’m just a big idiot for thinking I don’t. I haven’t the foggiest idea. …I never had any say in the wish though, did I?”
“Probably not,” Flutterfree muttered. “…I… I’ll go with that as well. I don’t know. I will go with anyone for the sake of peace.”
“Yare yare daze…” Jotaro said, shaking his head. He walked over to them and stood firm.
Vriska and Pidge looked at each other, anger softening. Then they both realized something at the same time – and laughed. They both walked over at the same time, smirking.
Pinkie smirked. “Heh… Look at that. We’ve decided we can’t make the choice.”
“So you are refusing to wish!” the Endless Wish said with anger.
“Oh, no, we’re just going to flip a coin about it,” Pinkie said, putting a coin in her hoof. “My special three-sided coin here. Wish for this to all be undone, wish to keep it, or just stay where we are and refuse to do anything.” She winked – then tossed it into the air.
The Endless Wish snatched it out of the air. “WHY DON’T YOU GET THE POINT? YOU ARE UNDERMINING MY PURPOSE!”
“That’s the whole point,” Flutterfree said. “We… object to your purpose. Wishes, in general, aren’t right. There are exceptions, yes, but I don’t see a need for a wish right now. You came at a time where we don’t need one.” She pulled Nova close. “Wishes are dangerous and when they don’t backfire they only bring out the worst in people.”
“I… I… I…” The Endless Wish roared. “I’m done. Clearly the only way to fulfill my purpose is to force you.” He tapped Flutterfree on the head. “MAKE. A. WISH.”
Speaking like a zombie, Flutterfree began. “I wish th-”
Before Pidge realized what was happening, a Stand popped out of her – none other than Heaven’s Door itself. The Stand rushed Flutterfree and popped her open like a book, writing cannot be conditioned by the Endless Wish in her. Then Heaven’s Door returned to Pidge.
“…What?” she said.
“Nani?” Jotaro added.
Pinkie smirked. “Heh. Heheheheh. Rohan’s a stubborn one, isn’t he?”
“No!” the Endless Wish seethed. “I must be able to! I must!”
Pidge’s instructions to use Heaven’s Door continued whenever the Endless Wish tried to do something. Soon, all of their minds were protected by Heaven’s Door’s written law.
“You can’t fuckin’ make us do anything,” Vriska laughed.
Nova laughed. “Yeah! All thanks to Pidge!” She sauntered over to Pidge and put a hoof around her.
“Wh…” Pidge blinked.
“…You shouldn’t be ashamed,” Nova said. “You fit in just fine.”
“I…” Pidge blinked. “…Thank you.”
“I admit… it’s a little sad to see you all having done so well without me. But… it’s also nice to see that you’re really that strong. I… I don’t know.” She shrugged. “You’re all great. Yes, even you Vriska.”
Vriska raised an eyebrow. “But I voted to kill you.”
“And I probably would have done the same in your place,” Nova pointed out. “I understand. How could I not? I traveled with all of you for decades. Or, well, the other me did, the one whose memories I have.” She turned to the Endless Wish. “…You’re dealing with a bunch of ponies backed by a force you don’t understand. I don’t even understand what’s going on, but I know they’re fighting you. So I support them. I stand by them. I still want to live, but I won’t accept it if they have to give in to you to do it.”
The Endless Wish glared at her. “There is not a third option, unicorn.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes. There is no option at all. They will not have a choice! I will cause so much death, destruction, and suffering that they have no choice but to make a wish!” He grabbed Nova with his hand. Then he duplicated her a few dozen times.
Then he killed all of them with a snap of his fingers.
“STOP!” Flutterfree shouted.
The Endless Wish recreated a Nova, and killed her again. “Make a wish.”
“FINE!” Pinkie shouted, a vein pulsing out of the side of her head. “YOU WANT A WISH!?”
“YES!” he said, sensing that he had finally gotten through to her. Made it so she couldn’t resist. She would finally give in t-
“I WISH THAT THIS WAS THE LAST WISH TO EVER BE GRANTED – ALL POTENTIAL WISHING SOURCES WILL LOSE THEIR POWER!”
The Endless Wish stared at her. “No… No you can’t!”
“IT’S MY WISH!” She slammed her hoof into the ground. “And you have to grant it.”
“I do not I d-” He let out a scream as his internal coding began to take over. He had to fulfill the wish. There was nothing he could do to stop it. All wishing sources would lose their power… Every last one… He couldn’t go back on that!
So he would make it as damaging as possible.
“Know this!” He declared. “Every wishing source aside from myself will lose its power in a violent explosion! Trillions will die!”
“There’s a freaking reason I didn’t wish for it earlier!” Pinkie retorted. “But it’s clear you’re not going to stop unless you’re made to stop. So screw this, screw this entire game, and screw you. Do your worst.”
“You are speaking out of anger!”
“NO, REALLY!?” Pinkie screamed. “Me, ANGRY? Well TOO BAD! You wanted to push us to the breaking point and YOU DID!” She clapped her hooves sarcastically.
“Just wish for something benign! So-”
“I will wish that you become unable to talk and then wish that you end all wishes so no one else will ever have to go through this ever again!”
“You are a fool!”
“And you’re stalling! Are you allowed to refuse wishes?”
“I am allowed to discuss until I am sure the client has thought it through!”
“Now you’re the one not playing the game!” Pinkie said. “You’re doing exactly what you hated us for doing.”
The Endless Wish shivered. “Why… Why can’t you just… let it be… the way it is meant to!?”
“Because it’s wrong.” Pinkie narrowed her eyes. “You know what, I have a different wish in mind. I wish that you lost your powers and that you would give them to me.”
“GRANTED!” the Endless Wish said. Suddenly they were standing on the dead planet again, and the Endless Wish was in a spacesuit. “Now you will not be able to resist, you will receive my power and my drive to make wishes! You will have to make them! You will ha-”
“Heaven’s Door!” Pidge shouted, popping Pinkie open like a book.
Will only wish to end all wishes.
Pinkie fixed the Endless Wish with a smirk. “And you’ve lost.” She clasped her hooves together and made exactly one wish – sending a spiral of white energy out. There were no negative consequences. If any wish was to be made, it would now be impossible. The spell would spread out at the speed of light until it encompassed the entire New World…
“You… wh…” The Endless Wish fell to his knees, dumbfounded. “I… no… no… the Vault… all the purpose…”
“You got out-genie’d,” Pinkie said with a cute smile. “Now, I’ve got a n-”
Vriska ran the Endless Wish through with her sword, killing him instantly.
“Vriska!” Pinkie chided.
“He deserved that,” Vriska asserted, pulling her blade out. “I don’t care what you say about the ‘morality’ of that. Fucker needed to die and I didn’t want to give him any chance of making it out of this.”
“He was powerless,” Flutterfree said.
“And so were all those Novas,” Vriska said, spitting on the Endless Wish’s corpse. “You can disagree with this all you want. But you all know this is why I’m part of this group. I’ll do it when none of you will.”
Pinkie nodded slowly. “…You’re right.”
Jotaro shook his head. “…We should head home.”
The five of them went back into the Skimmer and took off, leaving the gravity well of the planet. Everyone changed out of their suits and took their seats on the bridge.
“…You know, despite it all,” Flutterfree looked up. “…It was nice to talk to Nova again.”
Pidge smiled ever so slightly. “You’re right.”
Jotaro hid his face from everyone while Vriska angrily flicked a tear off her face.
Pinkie found herself smiling and crying at the same time. She hit the button to transmit all of them back to Nucleon.
~~~
Pinkie’s Party stood in front of a new statue right outside the Expedition Office. It was a statue of Nova – complete with hoof-screen, horn-ring, and confident cocky smile.
At the base of the statue was an inscription.
NOVA: THE GREAT EXPLORER
Beneath that was a very long list of all the places she’d visited, etched in words so small it was impossible to read unless viewed from up close.
“I keep telling myself she wouldn’t have liked being back,” Vriska said. “That it would hurt too much for her.”
Pinkie shook her head. “It would have been hard for her. I think she wouldn’t have been able to go on missions with us. But she could have had a life. Eve would have taken her in, and that relationship could have blossomed. She would have had to forge new friendships where she wasn’t eternally living up to her other self… but she would have managed.”
“Should we have brought her back in the end?” Pidge asked.
“…By the Tower’s rules, no,” Pinkie said. “She had already died, bringing her back as a one-off in a simple chapter like this would have been… unsatisfying, and not in a good way.” She looked at the ground. “If we remove that, I don’t think there’s an answer. If it was okay to bring her back, why not everyone else? Why not copy them all several dozen times? Where do you draw the line?”
“That’s why we couldn’t do it,” Flutterfree said. “We would have had wishes…” She wiped her eyes. “And we would have needed to draw a line that we couldn’t know was right. Opening that can of worms… It was not something for us. It was never intended to be for us.”
“It’s just one set of impossible questions after another,” Jotaro said.
Pidge summoned Heaven’s Door, looking at it intently. “…I don’t know what to make of all this. Is this a gift? Or something I stole? Or a blasphemy?”
“Don’t try to answer the question, just be thankful,” Flutterfree suggested. “For all the suffering we went through… it ended up okay. We beat the ‘douchebag genie’ at his own game.”
Vriska snorted. “Nice word choice.”
“I learned from the best.”
Pidge looked back at the statue. “Yeah… good advice. But… was this closure? Or did it just open up new wounds? Or…?”
“I don’t know,” Pinkie said with a shrug. “I’m not sure even this chapter knows what it means. It was a thing that happened, asked a lot of questions, and flopped around like a flounder. We had to win. But did we really learn anything?” she paused. “I miss the times when the adventures were mostly innocent fun and the conflicts were simple.”
Flutterfree let out a soft laugh. “Yeah… those times were nice.”
Jotaro suddenly slammed his fist into the palm of his opposite hand. “Then let’s go do that.”
“Jojo, we’re in front of a memorial,” Pidge chided.
“Would she have wanted us to stand around dwelling in our sorrow? Or would she want us back out there, doing what we do best?”
Pinkie smirked. “…Jotaro’s got the right idea. We got her a statue. We shouldn’t remember her by sitting around moping about it, we should remember her by acting.” She tapped the inscription. “She is going to be remembered as an explorer. So let’s go explore as far as we can while we’re still able.”
“…Fuck it, sure,” Vriska said, stretching her limbs. “Let’s throw ourselves right back into that frying pan. I’m sure it hasn’t gotten hotter.”
Flutterfree chuckled. “But if we’re going into the frying pan, doesn’t that mean we’re out of the fire?”
“The fire is not the only place that’s outside the frying pan. There’s also the irons.”
“I thought those were in the fire?”
“Shut up,” Vriska laughed.
Pinkie giggled. “Let’s go. …I just had an idea.”
“What?”
“Let’s name the Skimmer Nova.”
“…That’s perfect,” Flutterfree said, a tear rolling down her face.
Later that day, they piled into the freshly named Nova and blasted off. They opted to travel without becoming light so they could really feel the journey. They passed through Nucleon’s atmosphere, left the gravity well, and launched toward distant planets and stars…
Explorers to the end.