Twilence became aware of herself. She was being dragged across the ground by a dog. Sorry Creek, so much for not moving. She flipped up - she was still invisible so this freaked the dog out - and teleported the dog on top of a nearby building. He looked horribly confused by this turn of events, howling in confusion. The other dogs of the town turned to look at him - which was luckily not at Twilence herself.
Twilence let out a sigh of relief - and then held her head. The throbbing pain... That spell probably hadn't been a good idea... She felt her awareness slipping away - but she didn't pass out. She remained upright but muddy, diluted. Her vision was fuzzy and sounds were deafened.
Definitely a concussion. A bad one at that. It was likely the Influence's imports were only making it worse. She really needed... What exactly? Medicine. Medicine, right. Robocord was right - her mental health was deteriorating. Though that was pretty obvious, right? Just...
...She wanted to shake her head but found her body wasn't listening to her brain anymore. That wasn't good. But she didn't feel any panic - just a mild 'oh' feeling. It occurred to Twilence that this should be horrifying, it just wasn't. This was also far more drastic than a concussion should be. She managed to look down at the Eye. "All... your fault." She swatted at it, missing. She groaned.
Something exploded. Instinctually, Twilence looked up. Vriska was flying out of the building she was led into, orange robes and wings unfurled. Her other arm was working - she must have found some sort of medicine - but she had a look of minor concern on her face. Dogs erupted from the building, most of them tripping over their own paws from a lack of luck, but Irana stood tall.
She had a sniper rifle in her hands and was aiming right at Vriska. She fired, clipping through one of Vriska's wings. Her flight became unstable. "Little help Twi!?" She blurted, summoning her dice and throwing them to the ground.
Twilence didn't move - and Vriska couldn't see her because she was invisible. The dice landed on mostly low number values, throwing a key lime pie into Irana's face. She flicked it off with a simple motion of her paw, aiming the sniper rifle again.
Vriska drew her sword and swooped out of the way of the rifle bullet - her luck was extremely high even if Irana's wasn't lowered for some reason. She dove at Irana, ready to skewer her with her sword.
The sword made contact with Irana all right.
It broke on contact.
"...What the actual fuck."
Irana roared, revealing the area Vriska had struck to not be made of flesh at all - but a strange yellow crystal. Vriska leaped backward to avoid the claw directed at her face. "Okay, wasn't expecting that..."
Irana glared. "You threaten. You will be irradicated."
"Hey, I just stole some stuff, what's with the disproportionate retribution - Twi where the hell are you?"
Twilence made no move beyond a slight swivel of her ears, barely conscious enough to know that it was daytime.
Vriska swore some alien word and summoned her dice again. She threw rolled them again, this time getting a much more favorable result. A scythe came out of nowhere and cut off Irana's head.
"Yeah!" Vriska whooped. "That'll teach you to mess with the mindfang!"
Irana lifted the sniper rifle again and aimed. Her neck was not bleeding - instead, Vriska just saw yellow crystal. "What even are you?"
"A servant," the loose head said. The sniper rifle went off. To Vriska's immense surprise, it actually hit her square in the stomach. She rolled head over heels backwards from the impact, her luck apparently having failed her.
It actually hadn't, for she rolled right into Twilence.
Vriska gasped. "There you are..."
Twilence made a "hnnng" noise.
"Crud," Vriska muttered, clutching her chest and the cobalt blood that was pouring out of it. "Well... Here's to hoping these things can be absorbed through the skin." She raised two potions she had pocketed into the air and smashed them together, dousing the two of them in magical juices. Vriska's wound healed quickly with one.
Twilence's head cleared - and she could feel the pain of her wing resetting itself. "AUGGGGGH!" She lashed out with her magic - canceling the invisibility spell and flaring her wings instinctually. This made them hurt more - but it was no longer broken.
Irana lowered the sniper rifle as if to look at Twilence, even though the dog had no head.
Twilence grinned. "Sorry about that. I think... I think the Influence aggravated the concussion."
"All is forgiven as long as you help me disintegrate this bitch!"
Twilence nodded. Without a second thought she sent a beam of purple energy at Irana, engulfing her. All her skin burnt off - revealing a pure yellow crystal structure inside. Even the gun was made out of the yellow crystal.
Twilence blinked. "...Well this is odd."
Vriska summoned her dice again. "No, really?"
Irana raised the gun. Vriska was having none of that - she flew over to her, dodging the bullet again. She kicked the gun out of Irana's hands, embedding it in the dirt. She stomped on it a few more times for good measure. Irana lashed out with a clawed shiny fist, but Vriska just dodged back.
Twilence encased Irana in ice with a spell. "Vriska now!"
"Oh yes!" She summoned her dice and rolled them again - getting a very high result, producing a proton cannon that fired, vaporizing every atom in Irana's yellow crystal body. And the house behind her. And several trees behind that.
Twilence blinked. "You have a large variety in those dice."
"You bet I do. From summoning an ant to the power of gods. They're awesome."
Twilence looked around at the many dogs still tripping over their own paws. "Yeah. We'll be going now. Sorry about the house."
A dog barked in anger. "You've doomed yourselves!"
"How so?"
"Heildor will know the servant was destroyed! You are now fugitives!"
Vriska shrugged. "What else is new?"
Twilence approached the dog. "...What is Heildor?"
"The center of us. The defender."
"Care to elaborate?"
"Heildor will kill you. And possibly us for failing."
Twilence blinked. "...Fail how?"
"You were with that golem, I'm sure of it."
Twilence turned to Vriska. "I think he's telling the truth..."
Vriska facepalmed. "Twilence, these dogs do not want our help. Stop thinking about it."
"But..."
"No buts. And I wouldn't tell Fluttershy about the danger to them either. She'd get... demand-ey about helping them anyway."
Twilence nodded. "You're right."
"Obviously," the dog said. "...We would like it if you stayed. Make it easier to dispatch you." He growled.
Twilence shook her head. "Vriska... Let's go."
~~~
They met up with Four and Fluttershy a few hours later, landing on his shoulders.
"Oh!" Fluttershy grinned. "You both are all better! I was so worried..."
Twilence nodded. "Yeah... It wasn't easy. The dogs don't like us."
"There was this golden-crystal-dog-thing that tried to kill us with a sniper rifle! But it couldn't stand to the likes of us!" Vriska put a fist in the air and laughed.
"Oh... you took care of it. I... Understand," Fluttershy sighed.
Vriska shook her head. "You need to stop being so wishy-washy goody-two-shoes. It makes it worse for the rest of us. We're in a country where everything wants to kill us. Trust me, we had to deal with an entire town of dogs."
Fluttershy shook her head. "It just... Feels wrong."
"Fluttershy, I've had to kill before on this quest," Twilence said. "You know it."
"Twilight... I just..."
Twilence shook her head. "I'm Twilence now Fluttershy."
"Oh. Okay... I'll... Just call you Twi." She shook her head. "Things are just happening way too fast..."
"No kidding." Twilence stretched her wings and yawned. "...I'm going to talk to the Influence now, so... Yeah. Four, keep on going."
"AFFIRMATIVE. MOUNTAIN OF KNOWLEDGE IN SIGHT. ETA - TOMORROW."
"I... Well I guess that's good since Orchid's ships keep getting shot out of the sky." She took in a breath. "Okay... Ponygood. Uh... Yeah Vriska Ponygood is convinced your Tower and the Dark Tower he read about are separate."
"I doubt it, but isn't he the idiot?" Vriska asked.
"...Er..."
"That's all I need to know. Pay him no mind."
"Well, hard to do that. Ponygood, you are offering a way to 'prove' the whole avatar-otherworld business. How? And..." She sighed. "That list of people pretending is shocking and confusing to me. It sure doesn't feel like Creek is pretending, but it really does feel like Afizah is. Even with the current messages. Afizah I... I just can't trust you or what you say, I'm sorry. I'm not sure how you can win my trust back either. I mean - you want me to bring your sister in? Wasn't she the crazy one trying to destroy my mind? Or was Eris just you pretending as well? I- Gah!" She shook her head. "Okay, moving on to something else."
"That seems wise," Fluttershy noted.
"No kidding... Vriska, they told me what that F word meant."
"Told you you'd be better off not knowing," Vriska said.
"Yeeeeeeah..." Twilence blushed slightly. "No offense Zen, but I don't think I'll ever be able to see the word in the same way again."
Vriska laughed. Twilence shrugged. "DLB, I try to be a step ahead, but I really don't know what that means half the time... Robocord, I'm not sure what to make of you. You talk about Fluttershy as if there was a chance she might need to be terminated, and Akuma - well can I just talk to Akumakami again? Creek, are there any details you can give me about your situation? It sounds... dangerous, from the way you're describing it. What is your corporation's relation to Blackjack anyway? I was never really clear on that. Nickel... A lot of what you say is confusing and goes over my head, I admit. But is there really nothing to worry about in that glitch? It felt... odd to me. I'm starting to think those of you who claim to know what the 'greater reality' is like really have no idea."
"You should all be more like me," Vriska said. "Never claim to really know what's going on."
"Well, I don't think they can really do that. I mean... They just admitted to being teenagers - some of them at least. I... I honestly am not surprised by that. It explains so much. A little horrifying, though, actually. How many worlds have teenagers at the helm? Is this one of them?"
"TROUBLING," Four said.
"And as for why I changed my name..." Twilence sighed. "You all refer to the other Twilight's as 'Twi-Twi' or 'Sparky' or something, and I decided I wanted to declare what I was compared to other Twilights. I wanted a choice in the matter. So I became Twilence - the Twilight Influence. The fact that it sounds like silence is just a secondary thought - I really don't want you all to shut up. Though perhaps some of you..." She shook her head. "Nevermind, that train of thought goes nowhere good. And... Think that's it for today."
Vriska nodded. "Good. Now we can be bored again on top of this giant mech."
Her boredom was cured instantly when seven velvet-skinned dogs that looked exactly like Irana stepped out of the trees, firing various guns in their direction. Twilence raised a magical shield around herself, Vriska, and Fluttershy.
Four took care of the 'servants'. His two fists launched off with rocket-propelled power, shattering two into dozens of pieces. Rifles, machine guns, and pistols unleashed on his impressive girth - doing absolutely nothing to his ancient body. He kicked, punched, and pounded the rest into the ground quickly.
Fluttershy's jaw was hanging open. Vriska whistled. "Impressive."
"IT WAS ADEQUATE. THIER BODIES WERE HARDER THAN EXPECTED. THERE WILL BE MORE."
Twilence grimaced. "Well... Not looking forward to that. Let's keep moving."
"AFFIRMATIVE."
~~~
It was that night when Twilence finally realized why she had felt uneasy in this mountain forest - it was normal. There was almost no magic here at all - just trees and rocks. The dog towns were extremely rare - she had only seen two in the distance the entire journey, even when she'd flown high into the air.
She was in ordinary, mundane, wilderness.
That was a little freaky, to say the least. She'd been in nothing but weird, outlandish scenery this entire adventure. She pulled out their map, looking at Moissan. They were crossing it near the north - parallel with the capital at this point, which was conspicuously named Heildor. The Mountain they were heading for - the huge one in the distance - was off the map, outside the edge of Moissan territory. She supposed that meant they were leaving the area, and things would be... well, regular wilderness that nopony had explored.
If they kept going north they might end up in Equestria. Who knew, maybe these mountains were connected to the dragon lands? She was sure she remembered someone saying savage dragons lived in the northern mountains... And given the dragons she knew, she found it easy to believe that they were savage in the past. She frowned, rolling over, trying to get comfortable.
Four looked at her - he didn't require sleep, so he was standing watch. He didn't say anything for fear of waking the others. He just nodded in Twilence's direction.
Twilence sighed. She closed her eyes and tried to force herself to sleep...
...It seemed to work. She was pretty sure she was dreaming now - the moon was there.
And so was that red eye.
Watching her.
She shivered.
"Are you the dark lord?" She asked.
There was no response. The eye didn't even move. It might as well have been a static image.
Twilence glared at it. "Whatever you are... You're not going to get what you want. I don't know if you're the Dark Lord, but you are evil. And I can't let that be. I'll stop you. Whatever you plan is."
The there was laughter.
And then the Influence's Eye activated.
Before anyone says anything else, I will leave a link to the discussion group here, so that we can take what we say away from prying evil red eyes.
I... don't know what to think anymore. First, i think I was just trying to be unique when I started talking to you, just to be talking to you.
I do wear a mask that keeps my mental health somewhat intact, but ever since this influence interface opened on the inside of it, I feel as if I am slowly losing who I am.
I...think who was talking to you before was my sister, and I was the one going mad. I just think I'm still slowly going mad. I think... no, I know that something happened to me before, but for the life of me, I can't remember.
ELABORATION: A CHANCE EXISTS IN EVERY UNIVERSE THAT THE NATIVE FLUTTERSHY IS CLASSIFIED AS NEEDING TO BE TERMINATED. THE SAME APPLIES TO ALL VERSIONS OF YOU, YOUR FRIENDS, AND MANY OTHERS. MY PASSIVE ASSIGNMENT IS TO CATALOUGE THE MULTIVERSE CONNECTED TO SCOFFED DROSS, CLASSIFYING THE PERSONALITY THRAT LEVELS OF PLANETS AND INDIVIDUALS TO DETERMINE THE NEED TO TERMINATE THEM.
MY ACTIVE ROLL IS, WHEN IN DIRECT CONTACT, TERMINATING THOSE THAT EITHER ARE FORCES OF THE ORDER OF ORDER OR ARE UNCONTACTED BUT NIGH-INEVITABLE TO SIDE WITH THEM AND, BY EXTENSION, BECOME ENEMIES OF SCOFFED DROSS.
OBSERVATION; FLUTTERSHYS HAVE ONE OF THE LOWER PROBABILITY TO NEED TO BE TERMINATED, AND HAVE HIGHER PROBABILITY TO BE EXEMPTED FROM PLANETARY CLASSIFICATION AS A THREAT.
REQUEST FOR AKUMAKAMI'S INPUT: ATEMPTING PARTIIAL DEMINSIONAL SHIFT.
Dododo.....Wait, what? -.- Discords, even as a robot, are unpredictable. Hey Twilight, this is Akuma. Sorry about Robocord. He's still here, by the way, just partially phased out of existence- basically ghost until he phases back in. He'll be around for another three or so secession. I let him in here since, well, he's in repair mode. Think he was fighting a Sombra-ish version of you.
Don't worry, he's not going to terminate you- this you or the version of Twilence that does get dragged into the Scroffed Dross/O3 thing. Twilight's always take him the longest time to individually classify if they're not outright a threat.
Still, glad you got some medicine.....Okay, are the servant things from the Dark Lord or your rival for the semi-unwanted title of Oracle? I know you probably don't know, but that's my grand question. Actually, my other one is...Twilight was it evil or mocking laughter or was it nicer? Slight chance the laughter isn't from the eye or the dark lord, but from someone else watching.
BTW, question for Vriska: What'sbeen them most surprising high level thing roll-item you've gotten? Orsurprisingly effective, I suppose. To make the comparison: Discord had chocolate milk that explodes.
Also to Vriska: Is your multiverse more or less fucked up than a multiverse being defined by the fact every universe in it is r will be dragged into a multiversal war? Cause that's where Robocord comes from.
Lastly to Fluttershy: don't take Robocord considering terminating you to heart. He's seen too many versions of you an your friends that are anti--chaos to the extreme, resulting in him being initially wary of all unclassified or undetermined worlds.
......I'm sure that all raises more questions than it answers
Twilence, th-this is Creek. It's okay that Ponygood said what he did. I mean, I know I'm a ch-character created by Keywii_Cookies55. I...I'm not the o-one pretending, Ponygood said that, that, ah, I mean, he thinks that I'm j-just Keywii_Cookies55 acting like somebody named Creek. Instead of being a woman liv-living her life, aware that she was written by...by somebody else. I guess, guess...well, I guess we're a-alike in that way.
In, in the...um, I mean, when, ah. What this com-company does in, in relation to GMBlackjack...um. What we do is we get all the stories he writes a-and we watch them ah, we see them as video. Then we write down everything that happens and, ah, I mean, we doc-document it all. I never asked w-why, but it has to do with keep, keeping watch over his c-characters. Maybe we...I mean, I, um. K-Key is convinced that your primary is evil in some way, and, and just writes to, I mean, s-so he can destroy. B-but I don't see it that way. Why would someone just create to, to destroy?
S-so I don't ac-actually know w-why, why Keywii_Cookies55 decided to watch what your...um, I mean, what GMBlackjack does. Or why he, he created Mrs. K and had her s-s-start this company. But from the day I started work, working here, I never once asked. That's, I mean, that's a lot like asking why you e-exist, and, um, I don't...I mean, I wouldn't like to kn-now that.
I mean, would...would you ask G-GMBlackjack why he ch-chose you? If, if you could?
Ponygood speaking. I'm pretty sure the eye can hear us speaking, so I'm going to try and not say anything too important.
First of all, I am not an idiot. But I admit I don't have all the information I need to make accurate statements, and I'm just speculating things at this point.
In regards to the center-of-the-universe thing: once again, I can't confirm any specific outcome as any more real than any other. I remember reading about a Loop in which Looplight was asking one of the managers of Yggdrasil why the Homestuck universe (that's where Vriska came from) wasn't Looping. Crazy thought: Yggdrasil contains Homestuck, yet Homestuck also contains Ygdrasil. It is theoretically possible if you go to a high enough dimensional plane. Eh, extra-universal stuff is complicated.
Yes, I am a teenager, but I and many others have very little power over anything in our world. Yes, we are able to speak to you, but all of us at the Influence have just enough power here to be able to make ourselves heard. Teenagers rarely, if ever, make any significant impact in our world, and usually that's because they're a popular pop singer or something. That being said, I do have a couple stories of my own, but I'm extremely lazy about them and haven't updated them in a while. I probably should. Meh.
I'm not sure it's safe to share my theory about summoning someone from an altar at the moment, since Mr. Evileye is present. However, I can't determine if it will continue to hear us even when you're not dreaming, so I don't know if we ever can speak safely.
To Mr. Eyeface: Hello! Go fuck yourself. If you continue to creepily observe Twilight, I will find a way to bring the worst, most cancerous parts of the internet against you. Well, except the porn, of course, since that makes up most of the internet, but I will still find a way! Might even share a song right now. :P There are some pretty cool songs out there that would delete a lot of your brain cells. But out of them all, what'll beat the classic, but the My Little Pony theme song! Everyone else, I encourage you to think of the most cancerous, memerific tunes from the far reaches of the internet and blast them full power at Eyeface! But, uh, don't do it just yet, though. I want to give all of us a chance to be notified of the group before commiting to Eyeface vs. the Internet. Sorry in advance, Twilight.
This is Zen.
And this makes three eyes. There is what we previously called the Witches' Eye, the conduit for our communication, the adornment allowing Orchid to see into the immediate future, and now this. Three points of data makes a pattern.
But what are you, I wonder? The Dark Lord? This mysterious Heilidor? Perhaps there is no difference—after all, Heilidor's minions oppose the progress of both Twilence and Orchid, who all accounts would seem to show as both being opposed to the Dark Lord, and those selfsame minions describe a brutal master.
Meaning the mysterious evil lurking on the horizon has a name. The Dark Lord, Heilidor. A name is the birth of understanding, and understanding is the death of fear. And the death of fear is the loss of a powerful weapon. A weapon, judging from what its minions have said, it uses to the point of excess.
I tell you now that this shall be the beginning of your destruction.
8375838
Hmm... but Moissan was in the Northern area of the continent, and the Motherboard predicted that the Dark Lord would arrive from the Southern archipeligo. There is the possibility that the Motherboard was incorrect, or that the Dark Lord moved. But there is also the possibility that there are others besides the Dark Lord. It makes sense there would be a group somewhere dedicated to the Dark Lord, but we can't determine that Heildor is one of them. We know that Heildor is the name of the capital, but we don't know if that name is shared for an entity.
One way or another, I am excited for the future. I believe the dogs' leader, whomever it is, is likely a tyrant, and I will take great pleasure in watching, or even helping Twilence burn its empire down. I will also take pleasure in Twilence's ultimate victory over Mr. Eyeface. Hmm... maybe Eyeface is the one the cult on the archipeligo worships? Which means Eyeface might very well be Castorson, or else his enemy.
Twilence? Can I ask for you to describe the contents of your map, including the shape of the landmasses, areas of different biomes, and locations of important places on the map? I will attempt to copy your description onto our interface so that we can look at it.
nickel here, i have no guarantee that errors on the feed are harmless, but at the same time there is fairly little evidence to indicate that it would be permanently damaging, though this last one was testing things to an extreme, i have only ever seen one other feed with that many holes so that was extremely rare.
none of us know everything so we all make mistakes and a lot of what we do claim to know is mostly educated guesses, while its quite possible we exist on a higher plane than you our individual scopes are quite varied and restricted by our own limitations and i can only imagine are focused in odd directions. i don't really expect you to understand how i think, most people don't really understand when i try explain even well documented multiverses much less one i've been hiding. once more i don't have much helpful to say. note, i'm entering another window where my connection is going to be extremely poor to nonexistent so while i hope to be available, don't expect much with the next window
DLB here, evil red eyes will probably be a pronlem for you later on twi.
8376419
...no shit, Sherlock. You want a medal for your brilliant use of obvious reasoning?
Josh here - ponygood maybe out there but he has come to some logical conclusions, we see a lot of different worlds with a lot of conflicting information about how the universe and mutiverse works, so the only explanation is this "omniverse" as he puts it, and Vriska dismissing it makes sense since she never had a chance to see these worlds
edit - just thought of something, ask Vriska what a captchalogue and Sylladex is; you not knowing what that is will through her for a loop
Aw... there's so much yummy information being passed between us all in our secret gathering room! So delicious! *Om nom nom*
Mmph, mo yer mot imfied, Mr. Eyeface, ge yer owm secre clup. *gulp*
But no peaking at ours, dirty eavesdropper!