//------------------------------// // The Heart PIllar // Story: Worlds Apart: The Chosen of the Prognosticus // by GMBlackjack //------------------------------// “Can any of you explain what the heck you just did?” Vivian, Data, Caspian, and Luigi looked down the titanium stairs to see a short, angry-looking girl who was very familiar. Her hair was a pale teal color and done up in a side ponytail, and she wore a green and blue suit made out of a futuristic material that had shoulder pads. Most importantly, she had two bright red leather gloves on her hands. “...Jenny?” Vivian asked, cocking her head. “That’s the name!” Jenny clapped her hands together. “So, since you know who I am, I bet you know why I’m upset?” “I’m… very confused.” Vivian shook her head. “You were just… in there.” Vivian pointed at the cave with the clocks and the golden door. “A-oh. Oooooh.” Jenny facepalmed. “Just what I needed, a bunch of idiots playing ‘escape the simulation.’ Never gets old…” “Did we do something wrong?” “Oh, you bet you did! The Cave of the Past is hooked directly to the Datasphere’s Power Network. Normally there’s supposed to be safeties in place, so, I don’t know, it doesn't make a nearby star go supernova trying to supply the proper amount of power! Something you did a month ago made Calvar-four go up like a Christmas tree! And then today the alarms start going off...” Data glanced at the Pure Heart. “You did say you rejuvenated the Pure Heart through the Emperor, Vivian.” Vivian jumped forward. “What Data means is that we didn’t even know we were in a simulation and are very sorry about your star.” Jenny pointed at the Pure Heart. “What is that thing?” Caspian tapped his chin. “How about… we’ll tell you if you tell us what we were just inside of and why you’re in both places.” “Ugh, you talked to old me, didn’t you? She’s such a bore.” She tapped her fingers on the stairs’ railing. “Fine, you have yourself a deal. I am Jenny of the Red Gloves. That cave right there leads to a nearly perfect simulation of the world as it was one billion years ago, back before everything went kablooey several times over and I learned how to go with the flooooow.” She waved her arms to illustrate her point. Vivian gulped. “D-does that mean the Chaos is still around?” “In small pockets,” Jenny said, shrugging. “If you’re scared of the big ugly Chaos gods, only Tzeentch is still any trouble, and he’s mainly restricted to the crater these days. The universe got too big and crowded for him.” Jenny smirked. “Did you have some trouble in there, little missy?” “Uh, well, yes…” “Well it is his favorite playground these days. I still have no idea how he inserted himself into the code, but it’s not like it matters.” She kicked her heels back, grinning. “Sooo, gonna explain to me what that Pure Heart thing is?” Data nodded. “This Pure Heart is the core of the Equis universe’s reality and a manifestation of the concept of love. We are collecting one from every universe to stop the Void from consuming all worlds.” “Ah.” Jenny glanced at the Void. “Wait, that’s you guys?” “No no no!” Vivian waved her hands. “We’re not causing it, we’re trying to stop it!” “Good. Get it out of here, it’s messing with my business.” She wrung her wrists for a few seconds. “This planet’s supposed to be the core, but nobody cares when a giant world-ending muncher is in the sky…” “Uh, I’m wondering,” Luigi said, poking his head out from behind Vivian. “You said the door led to a billion years ago?” “Duh. Did I not already explain this? I’m pretty sure I already explained this.” “Then are you a billion years old?” Jenny gave him a thumbs up. “Yep! Was mutated by Nurgle when I was young, and haven't grown an inch since! I’m also completely indestructible!” With one of her hands she snapped her fingers, summoning a magic blade that cut off her foot. It grew right back. Another finger-snap later returned the boot into existence around the foot. “Bingo!” Vivian paused. “Doesn’t that… hurt?” “Oh yeah, a lot. But after a billion years of pain, you kinda learn to ignore it. Let’s see…” She started counting things off on her fingers. “I’ve been burned alive, vaporized, cut into tiny cubes and fed to a snake-god, walked through lava, survived three years in the vacuum of space, stabbed through the eyes, transformed into a frog, thrown into a black hole, a—” “We get it,” Caspian interrupted. “You basically can’t die.” “Yep! The best part is that my brain is about as big as any human’s, so I can’t store all the memories. Every now and then I pick up a book from a few million years ago and discover that I was queen of a peace-loving race of priests. It’s like reading about another person!” “Right…” Vivian wasn’t sure what to make of this girl. Data stepped forward. “We need to return to Flipside. You have lived a billion years, do you know anything of interdimensional travel?” “I know how to access alternate planes of reality, but they’re all within the same universe, at least that’s what the Datasphere tells me.” “Datasphere?” “You know what the Internet is?” “Yes.” “Let the Internet stew for nearly a billion years, extend across the entire known universe, and spontaneously develop self-awareness. That’s the Datasphere.” “A fascinating concept,” Data said. “But that’s a ‘no’ on getting us out of here?” Luigi asked. Jenny smirked coyly. “I didn’t say that, my mustachioed friend. I think I’ve seen that Pure Heart on an inscription somewhere recently. It might be able to help you out.” “How far away is this… inscription?” Caspian asked. “Other side of the planet.” Vivian sighed. “Buckle up for another lon—” Jenny clapped her hands. With a poof all of them teleported to the other side of the planet. “—g journey aaaaaaand we’re already here.” They were standing at the base of a tall, black structure the size of a mountain that was shaped like someone had drawn what they thought a spider looked like from a textbook description, and then proceeded to throw as many of those metal spiders as possible into a tower. “...How is this thing going to help us?” “Not this thing,” Jenny said. “That just happens to be here. We have no idea what it does.” Caspian shook his head. “This massive tower is here and you have no idea?” “That’s generally how things work here, bucko. So much stuff has been left behind there’s stuff nobody understands everywhere.” “Then what do you want to show us?” “This.” Jenny turned her back to the spidery tower and entered a small wooden shack sitting on the side of a perfectly normal river. “Hurry up!” Letting out a sigh, Vivian followed Jenny inside. The home was a simple sort, though in addition to the usual fireplace, furniture, and pictures on the wall there were also a few pieces of broken technology and magic crystals littered around. Jenny descended the stairs to the basement, so the others followed. The basement was not a traditional basement. It was a cylindrical room with a crystal pillar in the center that currently held nothing within its grasp. This did not stop Vivian and the others from recognizing exactly what they were standing in. It was smaller, yes, but the brick patterns on the ground were the same, the way shape of the pillar was identical, and the atmosphere… It was a miniature version of the Heart pillar room in Flipside. Jenny tapped the base of the column. “See this here? This inscription shows that Heart thing of yours bei—” Data all but threw the Pure Heart into the pillar. As had happened several times before on Flipside, the pillar pulsed with the color of the Heart—purple. The colors in the bricks shifted to match for a brief moment. However, instead of the door appearing on a platform a few floors above them, the door appeared on the wall directly before them. It was a beautiful, vibrant purple and exactly like the ones on Flipside. “...I take it this is exactly what you needed,” Jenny said, gesturing at the door. “Yes,” Vivian said. “It… it’s taking us to the next world.” Caspian pulled out his sword. “Then we shall g—” The Pure Heart popped out of the pillar into Vivian’s hands. “What?” Vivian cocked her head to the side. “Flipside’s pillar doesn’t do that.” “It is smaller,” Data suggested. “Maybe it is not intended to be a permanent slot for the Heart.” “The door’s still here,” Jenny said. It vanished the second after she completed her sentence. “Wise guy…” “Okay,” Vivian clapped her hands together. “Here’s the plan. Put the Heart back in, wait for it to pop out, then grab it and run through the doors. Ready?” “Uh…” Luigi blinked. “Maybe we sh—” “Ready,” Data and Caspian reported. Vivian tossed the Pure Heart into the pillar, generating the door again. After it popped out, she caught it and ran through the door, Luigi, Caspian, and Data right behind her. Jenny waved at them. “Goodbye, interdimensional hero weirdos!”