The Influence

by GMBlackjack

XXXVI

Pinkie called to Twilence the moment she was back. "Don't bother reading through it now, I can take care of most of it. Basically, Orchid, try using some of Gamnemnon's powers, Twi, see if you got the Element of Magic still in you, and I'll do... this." She drew a truly absurd sized sword and a strange staff with a piece of jade it, while still holding the frying pan in her tail. A boombox somehow appeared behind her and started playing a song. "And no offense Ponygood, I just think this song's better."

Vriska cracked her knuckles. "It's literally impossible for you to beat me. You're lucky Siron doesn't want you dead, yet. You would be if he did."

Orchid put the essence of Gamnemnon forward and went into Vriska's mind. She frowned. "...I feel like I should be able to sever the connection, but it's just... not working."

"Luck," Pinkie said. "Just luck."

Twilence glanced at her cutie mark and tried to sense her connection to the Tree of Harmony. She felt... Something, that was for sure, but nothing powerful. Nothing that would aid them. "No... Nothing. Sorry."

"Are you all quite done?" Vriska asked, sighing. "Just give in, I really don't want to have to do this."

Pinkie shrugged. "You'll run out of luck eventually!"

Vriska snapped her fingers, absorbing the luck of both Orchid and Twilence. The two of them fell down to the ground, unable to stand properly. Pinkie shrugged. "Was that supposed to do something?"

Vriska narrowed her eyes. "That's right. You cheat..."

"And what good is luck if you're playing against a cheater, huh?"

Vriska smiled. "Do you mind if I let myself enjoy this?"

Pinkie giggled. "Not at all! Go nuts!"

Vriska rushed Pinkie with her sword. Pinkie met it with her own, but this was Vriska's plan - she rolled her dice on the ground, rolling a combination of 7s and 8s, producing what appeared to be a proton cannon the size of a small mountain in the sky, blasting the ground around Pinkie into nothing. Pinkie herself just appeared on top of the tentacle of darkness holding Fluttershy - and cut it. She moved to free Infinity, but the black tentacle tightened around the unicorn's neck, telling Pinkie that she'd be dead if she got any closer. She dodged some of Vriska's sword swipes.

Twilence frowned - Vriska was enjoying this. She was in full control of her thoughts, if not her actions, which made Twilence question her integrity. Not for the first time, either. She tried to shoot Vriska - but her horn fizzled and popped from a 'random' magical surge. "Ugh. Orchid, can you see anything?"

"Vester's all around her. I can't see the future of her actions. The tentacles though... They're fuzzy, but I'm getting better at it." She tried to stand up but tripped over her own hooves. "DAMMIT. This... How does anyone beat her when she's like this?"

"I don't know. Glad she's on our side... Technically. We need to get out of here. Aradia..."

"She'll appear in fifteen seconds towards your left. Do something that draws their attention, please? I'm not."

Twilence nodded, turning to her left while Pinkie was launched into the ocean by a shark made of pure diamonds. "You know," Vriska said. "Were you most people, you'd be dead by now."

"I'm not most people!" Pinkie giggled, pointing the staff and enveloping Vriska in a red and green swirl. She didn't care - whatever its effect was supposed to be, it didn't do it. "Darn."

"Yeah, hitting me with anything isn't going to happen unless it benefits me."

And then Aradia appeared to Twilence's left, holding up an arm in defense.

"Aradia!" Twilence yelled. "Get us out of here!"

"I'm a little occupied but... I think I can come back later..."

The steampunk Starlight appeared and attacked Aradia while a future version of Aradia appeared. She moved towards Twilence, only for an extremely lucky stray shot from Vriska to bean her in the chest, tossing her to the side. "Ack..."

Orchid moved to heal with Proteus's essence, but with her luck the healing was minimal. Then another Steampunk Starlight took a shot, blowing off Aradia's head.

Twilence gasped. She... She'd just watched Aradia get killed. That... That didn't-

Another Aradia appeared behind her. "Twilence, don't look too closely, okay? There's more where that came from."

Starlight screamed in rage. "Why do you do this to me!?"

"You do this to yourself."

"All I did was exist!" Starlight yelled, charging at Aradia again, and the two vanished into time.

Vriska shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, that was something." Pinkie was trying to hit her with a frying pan and missing where missing should have been impossible. "Hey, you. You done yet?"

"No!" She giggled, grabbing a newspaper and hitting Vriska across the face. "You don't have to be too unlucky to get hit by a newspaper!"

Vriska blinked. "...Right." She grabbed Pinkie's outstretched hoof and threw her into a nearby spire of darkness. "Not that it helped you any."

"Ow..." Pinkie muttered.

Twilence tried to stand up, but again found herself tripping. It was pointless. She had to have something else...

The Influence. She started reading through the comments in haste. If they were going to get a response, they'd have to read her thoughts... Josh had apologized, he was forgiven, but her trust was still shaken. Even though he did have those disorders, the trust issue still stood, though she was sorry for him now. She wondered if any of the others had real disorders - was Wolfe serious about being a pyromaniac? And - no, she didn't have time for this. Creek... Creek didn't have anything... GM had said something about Akumakami which was interesting but not all that relevant... All the suggestions didn't help! Pinkie had already told her about the important ones - the mind attack, the weapons, saving Fluttershy, the Element... And it sure didn't look like Vriska was going to run out of luck anytime soon.

She had nothing.

She was useless.

And it was obvious Pinkie was getting tired.

They needed a break...

Then Twilence saw her.

Fluttershy. Holding the infinite-sided die in her hoof.

She threw it - and it hit Vriska square between the eyes. She fumbled. "Wha-" then she saw the die. "Oh. So that's where that was..."

It lit up... And summoned both Starlight and Aradia there. This normally would not have done anything - but Starlight was in the middle of casting an impressive time spell.

All of them - including Infinity and part of the dark tentacle - appeared on Troisha a thousand years in the past, on a beachfront with a single house. An old stallion was sitting on the house's porch. He slowly backed into his house, removing himself from the rather obvious confrontation.

Vriska blinked. "Uh..."

Fluttershy moved forward. "Are you... Free from Siron?"

"...No..." She shook her head. "Okay look, the past Siron is trying to figure out where this new servant came from, so really quick, before he realizes what I am and what I can do, uh..." She grabbed her sword and stabbed herself in the chest, collapsing on the ground. "This is a temporary measure! Run! FUCKING RUN!"

Aradia quickly froze Vriska in time. "That should keep her for a while..."

Starlight undid the time spell. "No. She's going to do what needs to be done."

Aradia redid the time freeze. "Do what? Kill all of them?"

"Kill you! She'll obviously get lucky enough to hit the real you!"

"You really don't understand how this works do you?"

"Who needs to? You've slain countless millions!"

"Your time was never supposed to exist in the first place!"

"Who made you the judge of that!?"

"It's literally my job description!"

Twilence finally managed to stand up. "Everyone! Stop! Please, we can't argue like this! Siron is going to take advantage of us all if we don't keep Vriska frozen!" Did suicide count as a just or heroic death? Maybe in this case... But with Vriska's current level of luck it would probably tip in favor of not, and Vriska had known it. She needed them all to run. "He'll kill us all and use whatever information she has to make the future even worse! And there's no way anyone can want that!"

Starlight frowned but did stop unfreezing Vriska. "Fine." She glanced at Fluttershy, Twilence, Orchid, Infinity, and Aradia. "...I'm outgunned right now..." She gritted her teeth. Then she vanished into time.

Aradia let out a sigh of relief. "I was worried there for a second..." She turned to the frozen, dead form of Vriska with a bizarrely cheerful smile.

Fluttershy had tears in her eyes. "...Is she..."

"Conditional immortality," Aradia reminded her. "While this situation was dubious, her luck will ensure she revives. Which means we need to get out of here. Or I can just send her back to the future-"

Orchid sighed, exasperated at something that was about to happen. Twilence tensed. "Aradia do it fast-"

Then the mass of shadowy tentacle moved, engulfing Vriska and vanishing in a puff of black magic.

Aradia turned to Orchid. "Why didn't you say anythi-"

"Because I didn't in my vision. Obviously."

Pinkie facehooved. "This is... Greeeeeeat..."

Aradia pulled out a pocketwatch. "Our past versions are still sailing across the sea and will vanish in a few seconds. Excuse me while I procure us another yacht..." She vanished and reappeared a second later. "There, got one. Let's take this from the top!"

And then they were on a time-accelerated yacht again, heading for the Capital once more.

Except this time there was definitely a difference.

There was, somewhere in the world, a Vriska tied to Siron.

Twilence gulped. She - and everyone else - knew that was very, very bad.

~~~

[IMPORTING...]

Vriska frowned. "Mite, I'm getting one of those feelings again. They've been happening a lot lately."

"Entanglement."

"Bah, whatever." She examined her surroundings - she was inside the palace, she knew that. A few minutes ago she had seen it from the outside, a tall structure sitting on top many other skyscrapers as if they were stilts. The palace was very orange and had an innumerable number of onion domes, some of which she swore smelled like actual onions. Currently, she was inside a small cell with no windows and only one door. They had confiscated her sword and most other belongings, but they had missed her dice. Rarely did anyone even know what a strife specibus was, even less of the time how to disarm it.

She took one look at the door. "So, we need to grab this Overseer's attention, eh? Well, I'm sure I can do that. Mite, place bets on how many rolls it'll take for him to show up."

"Three."

Vriska smirked. "A-"

Before she even threw the first roll the door opened. "Anything within the palace has my attention."

The Overseer was... an eye. An eye composed almost entirely of fire with a single, dark pupil in the center, a shape almost identical to Twilence's and Orchid's eyes. Translucent robes draped from the flaming eye itself, giving it the appearance of being a head on a body, even though the two parts of the Observer were separate. Vriska wondered if the 'robes' were even real.

She stared into the deep, red, fiery eye for some time, mesmerized.

"Vriska."

She snapped out of it. "Right. Overseer, let me cut to the chase. I am Vriska Serket, and I am from another world. I am here to warn you and the council about a certain prophecy, a Dark Lord, and a weird set of eyes..."

The Overseer nodded. "Have the Eyes of Time and Rhyme been activated?"

"...I suppose that's one way to refer to them. Heck, it even rhymes! Cool."

"This would explain much about Heildor's actions... Come, the Council will see you. I do wish to know how you obtained such a tiny companion..."

"Otherworld stuff. Or 'Rhyme' stuff, I guess. Hey, what are you the Eye of, by the way?"

"Sign."

"...You really put a lot of thought into the naming, didn't you?"

Vriska noticed the Overseer's fire flare up and down rapidly - was that laughter? "Indeed I did. But that is something for another time. Come..."

Comments

[Keywii_Cookies55]

I'm glad you're okay, Twilence, I was worried things were going to go worse for you.

[Ponygood11]

GM had said something about Akumakami which was interesting but not all that relevant...

I'm... pretty sure I was the one who said that. I sent Akuma a private message, and he revealed his reasons for leaving there. GM just suggested I send a PM.

Anyway, I got nothing about your current situation, apart from hurry! And, obviously, watch out for Vriska. Who knows what corruption Siron's spreading through the world using her.

Got some more information about Siron and the demons. In his universe, magic is not in everyone and is considered a "gift" to those that have it. Also, their local Nightmare Moon is a whole lot more evil than yours, to the point of killing members of their hunting parties. The demons themselves are an aggressive warrior race, which regularly gets into fights amongst themselves. When Twilight revealed herself to the village, the demons confused her for their Nightmare, were extremely scared of her, and Siron eventually came to attack her. When he realized she meant no harm and actually really wanted to be helpful, he manipulated her and her friends into attacking Nightmare, and didn't care that some of them might die. He was surprised when Nightmare was redeemed, but quickly took advantage of it and accepted her as one of their warriors. That's all that exists at the moment, but GM does plan on using the demons more in his Songs of the Spheres(SotS) story plan.

No hard feelings, Pinkie. Didn't even realize you might have chosen a song already. But after listening, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on our preference.

[wizard0209]

guess i was wrong... sorry we were pretty much useless back there twi... i'll comment again when i have something useful to say...

[The oracle]

I was worried Twilence

[Ponygood11]

8448213
Welcome, The Oracle! We have a discussion group here, if you'd like.

[wizard0209]

ok so having a Vriska that is tied to Siron is pretty bad, but in homestuck anyone who time-travels from and apart of a doomed time-line to the alpha time-line they are marked for death; one way or another they die, and all loop-holes (like being insanely lucky) are only temporary; it may have to come down to our Vriska having to be the one to kill her, but she will die (as sad as that my be) sooner or later

[Sonic Rainboom Dash]

*static*... Twi... *static*... can't reach...*static*...interference...*static*...the eye...*static*...evil...*static*.......................................*click*
I'm Back~ and soon you will die~
*click* *line goes dead*

[Sunbro4life]

Most sorry Twlience but I have been Called on to aid another in Jolly Cooperation I wish you good fortunes and I shall return my new friend , long may the Sun shine !

[GamermanZendrelax]

A thought occurs to me, regarding the term "Eye of Rhyme." Long ago, before writing was invented, stories could only be retold be people who had memorized them. If they were of any significant length, they were arranged in verse, since that makes things easier to memorize. Often, that meant rhymes.

It may be that your eye, Twilence, exists specifically for the purpose of reaching into and out of stories. I know that isn't exactly groundbreaking, but it could provide very important context for other information. Granted, we have too little to say anything conclusive at this stage, but it could be of great importance.

Also, I had a thought, regarding what we may have forgotten. At the beginning, the hidden island you were on featured the image of your Cutie Mark—or, prehaps more likely, imagery relating to the Tree of Harmony. While you're sailing, I would suggest reaching out to it—without Siron getting in the way, it may be more feasible.

[nickle241]

well i've got nothing for this, off the top of my head i've only encountered records of three beings who could actually sort this timeline problem out that would actually care and with aradia occupied and the doctor in one of his least helpful equestrian incarnations with any power this time around that leaves you kind of stuck without a clue here. on the bright side it looks like you are getting out of the doomed timeline effect and are instead in either a stable loop(by skaia standards anyway) or retcon in progress both of which leave survivors from before alterations.

[Keywii_Cookies55]

Hey, Twilence? Is...can I ask you something?

Is...is it okay if I call you my friend? It's okay if you say no, but, you've been so nice to me, and even if we never meet I just want to say that I like talking with you. you're smart, funny, and we've known each other for months. Well, I mean, other than Cartridge you're the only one I really talk to regularly, even if it's one week at a time.

I wasn't going to ask, originally, it's kind of sad that I've made friends with somebody I'll never get to have a real conversation with, but everything I know about GMBlackjack tells me that everything is building up to the end. and after that we...we won't be able to talk anymore. I'll stop getting updates from you and I'll be put in charge of the next world. one that probably doesn't let me interact like I have with you.

So, if it's alright, I'd just like to know that you think of me as your friend. If, I mean, if you don't then that's okay, I just wanted to let you know that it's how I see things. I'm sorry, I'll stop talking now.

My shift ended a couple hours ago anyway.

[GMBlackjack]

[COMPILING...]
[BEGINNING ACCELERATED IMPORT SCHEDULE...]