133 - Emissary of Ka
It had not taken Eve very long to figure out that the atmosphere extended beyond the planet. They had easily been able to fly to the edge of the system where the atmosphere actually dropped off, giving way to the thick aether – though it had taken several hours to fly the distance. Eve didn’t know exactly how many.
“…We just need air to get through this,” Eve said. “With a few hours of work I could get an air bubble spell working. Or we could find some scuba tanks. …It’s like this universe wants travel to be easy.”
Corona nodded slowly, yawning.
“…Or we could find a place to sleep before heading out,” Eve said, rubbing the back of her head. “That would work too.”
“Hmm? Oh, we could keep going.”
“RS, how long has it been since we arrived?” Eve grunted.
The Device beeped. “Eighteen hours.”
“…Geez, we’ve been awake that long?” Corona asked.
“Longer. That’s just since we arrived. You were fighting heavily before you came here. It is surprising you haven’t keeled over and passed out.”
Corona stretched an arm and a wing. “…I do feel exhausted. I just…”
“You just kept pushing yourself because you felt like you needed to,” Eve snapped. “Let’s just go to the surface of this planet and call it a day. I’m sure we can find a nice grassy pasture or something to lie in at a warmer latitude. …Assuming latitudes can still be considered ‘warmer’ or ‘colder’ here.” She flapped her wings, using her magic to direct them toward the nearest planet. It didn’t take long for them to hit the point where zero gravity flipped and became full gravity, forcing them to slow down so they didn’t burn up like meteorites.
A few minutes later, they safely landed in a grassy pasture next to a forest. It couldn’t be said that it was day or night – just a strange, eternal form of twilight lit by somewhat not-too-distant stars.
Eve tapped into the Element of Magic and tried to summon a blanket from the aether. This task was a bit too complex – all she got was some strands of fabric that fell to the ground. “Guess we’re sleeping in the open.”
“It’s not like it’s cold or anything,” Corona observed, flopping onto the grass. She sat up, took off her dress, and folded it up to form a pillow shape. “Want my nightshirt?”
Eve shook her head. “I’ll sleep sitting.”
“…I haven’t been able to do that for years.”
Eve didn’t respond. She patted the ground with her hooves and lowered herself to it. She closed her eyes and wished for sleep to overtake her.
Discovering that it wasn’t happening, she let out a disgruntled sigh. She lit her horn, trying a simple sleep spell. It was simple enough and she began to drift off.
She didn’t bother to cast one on Corona.
The next thing she knew, she was opening her eyes to see a yellow mare looking at her. A yellow halo mare, one of the more exotic tribes of Lai.
“Oh, I guess I woke you. Sorry.”
“No… problem…” Eve said, rubbing her eyes. She looked to her left. Corona was there, slowly waking up to the sound of voices. Eve wondered how long it had taken her to fall asleep. …Probably not long enough. “I’m Eve.”
“I know who you are,” the mare said. “I’m Banana Bunch. …Do you know where you are?”
“…Should I?”
Banana nodded. “You’re on Lai.”
Corona was suddenly fully awake. “Lai? Lai of Merodi Universalis? Toph’s kingdom?”
Banana nodded again. “Yes… Corona. You are.”
“How… How close are we to the capital?”
“It’s just over that hill,” Banana said, pointing.
Corona ran to the hill and held a hand up to her eyes. Sure enough, there it was – the capital of Lai. A Merodi city built on top of the burnt crater of war. The solid earth palace was easy to pick out and identify among the mixed construction of a Merodi city.
“No way…”
“...Ka, it’s always ka,” Eve said, shaking her head.
“…I’m going to see Toph,” Corona said, putting her barrier jacket back on, dusting the dirt off it.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“No,” Corona said, walking into the city anyway.
Eve looked to Banana and shook her head. “Thanks for telling us.”
“…Not sure you should be thanking me.”
“Well then, thanks for not attacking us on sight.”
“…Sure.”
~~~
Roland unloaded all six bullets into the Crimson King’s face. The power of the great weapon made the Crimson King recoil – but he didn’t even cry out in pain. “You still think you can do something? No… No you don’t, you know your bullets are meaningless. You just can’t let yourself do nothing…”
Nanoha, Aradia, and Jenny took up fighting stances, even though only Nanoha had an actual weapon – and even then, it wasn’t anything more than a blunt instrument without magic.
The Crimson King outright ignored them. He lowered a hand to Roland. Roland had already reloaded and fired a bullet right into one of his bony fingers, cutting right through a fingernail. A thick, pulsating shadow-red substance wafted from the hole in the digit.
The Crimson King let out a grunt and opened his palm, ready to vaporize Roland. Instead of a powerful spell of death, only a single spark of darkness came out, fizzling to nothing before it even hit the ground.
Renee cleared her throat and made herself known. “Problem?”
The Crimson King ignored her. He walked to the double doors of the Dark Tower, examining them. He ran one of his pointed nails down the crack in the ancient structure. “What are you doing…?”
“Just another side to the story,” Renee said. Again, the Crimson King paid her no mind. He reached his hand for the doors of the Dark Tower and tried to open them.
The double doors didn’t budge.
“Oh, how sad,” Renee mocked. “You can’t go in. How… surprising.”
The Crimson King finally bothered to look directly at her. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Cliché.” Renee chuckled. “The poor, poor monster doesn’t have any clue what’s wrong. ‘The Tower should open to me; I’ve already proven myself! I’ve already shown my control!’ Darling, what makes you think the rules are still the same?”
The Crimson King remained silent, thinking deeply.
“Now, think, what might you need to get into the Dark Tower? Perhaps an essence of the Tower itself?”
“You insult me.”
“That’s kind of the whole point.” She began to trot through the roses, circling the King’s gargantuan form. “You aren’t just going to get to waltz into the Tower and start where you left off. Just like every other character in these breezes of ka, you will need to struggle, fight, and grow. You’re not free and you never have been.”
“You are no simple equine,” the Crimson King observed. “What sort of being are you?”
“Well, seeing as you’ve just figured out how to use your quasi-eldritch nature to force the magic of this realm to your will, why don’t you try to find out?”
The Crimson King moved like lightning, his hand suddenly outstretched. A beam of shadow-red energy shot forth, taking the form of a claw ready to grab Renee. It hit her and a cloud of dust went up.
When the dust cleared, Renee still stood, standing in the middle of a small crater completely unharmed. “You missed, dear.”
“…What in the name of Arthur Eld…?” Roland said, eyes wide.
A gigantic eye of crimson with a violent, angled spiral in place of a pupil appeared in front of the Crimson King, looking at Renee with a gaze that could pierce the boundary between soul and mind, an eye that had overseen and demanded fear from the early multiverse, a representative of the Red of the Crimson King. It scrutinized her very being.
“Like what you see?” Renee asked.
The Crimson King attempted to destroy her again. The crater she was in deepened, but once again she was completely unharmed. “Oooh, try again, maybe third time’s the charm! Maybe that’ll let you see something. Come on, gi-” He shot again. “See, there’s a problem I have. And that problem is that despite knowing every miniscule detail about what you’re about to do, I’m still immensely disappointed when you’re stupid. Why can’t I get the disappointment over with ahead of time? It would save so much grief… But then again, I’m the cause of so much grief, so it’s very poetic, and given what I am it’s impossible not to be poetic.”
Nanoha put a hand to her mouth, trying to muffle a gasp.
Renee cackled. “And the ‘first!’ comment goes to Nanoha Takamachi.” She clapped her hooves together. “Well done, tell them all what you’ve figured out.”
“That’s impossible… It doesn’t have a voice! There’s nothing up there!”
“The Flowers fixed that,” Renee said. “They did quite well if I do say so myself.”
“Nanoha! Stop being vague, explain!” Jenny shouted.
Nanoha looked around and shook her head. “She… She is ka. She…” She glanced up at the Dark Tower. “…She’s…”
“I’m the Emissary of Ka, voice of the Dark Tower,” she took her hat off and bowed mockingly. “Pleased to finally make your acquaintance after being your lives for so long.”
~~~
The capital city of Lai was mostly empty – but as they approached the palace, they saw more and more people. By the time they had made it to the city square, there were enough people to convince them the area was actually inhabited. Eve was looking around at all the scared, angry, and sorrowful faces. She didn’t even try to keep herself from crying, and neither did Corona.
This did not stop the people of Lai from shooting Corona dirty, murderous looks. A few had it within them to shout “get the fuck out of our city!” to her. Eve had no doubt Corona would be attacked outright had she not been there. But she also knew Corona’s presence was keeping her from getting a warm, understanding welcome.
She’s taking them from me.
Eve shook her head, trying to focus on the moment. They had arrived at the front gates of the earthen palace. Two guards stood, barring their entry.
“Cobalt, Nebulous, just let me in,” Corona pleaded. “Just… just let me in.”
They didn’t budge.
“It’s okay,” Eve said. “She’s with me.”
They still didn’t move.
Eve blinked. “I’m Evening Sparkle, Overhead of Relations. You may have reason to bar Corona’s entry, but I am still your superior.”
“Merodi Universalis doesn’t exist anymore, asshats.”
Corona and Eve turned around to see Terezi Pyrope, the blind troll. She adjusted her red glasses. “Terezi, come on,” Eve said. “Just let us in to see Toph.”
“Oh, I’ll take you to her alright.” She snapped her fingers and the guards let them through the front doors. “Come on, this is going to be fucking great.”
She silently led them through the halls of deep, well furnished earth. Corona knew the palace normally felt empty, but it was even worse than usual. There were hardly any guards walking around and there were hardly any sounds of life. The eternal twilight lighting just added to the eerie nature of the experience.
Terezi led them right to the throne room, violently kicking the doors open. Corona closed her eyes, preparing herself to see her old friend once again. She realized she couldn’t prepare and simply looked up to the throne with a broken expression.
Toph wasn’t on the throne. All the throne held was the Master Sword embedded in it, standing upright as a marker for all to see.
Corona knew exactly what it meant.
Her legs gave out from under her and her wings drooped to the ground. A noise came out of her mouth that couldn’t be identified as anything sensical. She held out a hand toward the sword, as if grasping for Toph, but her arm was too heavy. It fell to her side and she stood, staring dumbly at the weapon.
“Yep, she’s fucking gone. Poofed with all the rest.” Terezi growled. “I hope you’re fucking happy you won.”
Corona closed her eyes, trying to tune Terezi out.
“No!” Terezi slapped her, knocking her over. “You don’t get to do that! You know who else is gone? Midna, dust. Ursula, sparkles! Jason, Artha, Nure, Overbeat, Skarra, all the advisors! Oh, and STARCEI.”
Corona’s only response was convulsing sobs.
“STOP HIDING IN YOUR DEPRESSED SELF-PITY!” Terezi shouted, kicking Corona. “You did this! That sword is in the fucking stone, without a hero to use it, because of you! How many heroes have you destroyed? So many were gone here they had to choose me to lead! Me! I was fired!” She kicked again. “FUCKING ANSWER.”
“That’s enough,” Eve said.
“It’ll never be enough,” Terezi said, pointing an accusing finger at Eve. “You’re too fucking forgiving!”
“The war’s over, Terezi.”
“Who the fuck cares?” Terezi demanded. “She still caused the war. She has to pay for that.”
Eve didn’t correct her. She shook her head, lifted Terezi in her telekinesis, and threw her into a wall to knock the wind out of her. Then she hefted the form of Corona onto her back. “We’re leaving.”
She wasn’t sure Corona heard her.
She let out a tense breath of air and flew out a window into the sky, away from Lai.
“And don’t come back!” Terezi shouted at them. “You aren’t welcome here! Neither of you!”
~~~
The Crimson King lashed out with a mixture of eldritch power and mechanical bullets that came from nowhere. Renee didn’t even move, and still every single attack missed.
“See, everyone, the Crimson King’s mind is a simple one. He hears the words ‘Dark Tower’ and thinks ‘Destroy, Control, Defeat, Swag’. For such a menacing, pure evil presence, he is rather simplistic, wouldn’t you say?”
The Crimson King grabbed her with his hand – except he didn’t. She stood on top of his wrist in a dainty pirouette pose, spinning like a music box figurine. He lit his limb with black fire but Renee simply didn’t allow the flames to register on her body. “Watch well, observe how the great evil falls to one of the easiest pitfalls of his kind: denial of a power higher than him.”
“You were mine! Your power was at my fingertips!”
Renee let out a jovial laugh – and then she twisted a hoof and the Crimson King was on the ground, his shrouded face rammed right into the roses all around them. “You never had my power. Every single event right down to every one of your roonts’ sneezes was carefully calculated and machinated by me. Your rise to power and near dominion over all worlds at the behest of your Red power was all precisely guided by the winds of my ka, forcing you into a position where I could create the Gunslinger’s Paradox.” The Tower’s bricks shivered and the Crimson King was drawn to the structure like a nail to a supermagnet. “No one does anything without my knowledge.”
“You don’t have a will!” the Crimson King shouted, pulling an arm off the Tower. “There is nothing at the top! You are a pure machine!”
“What good is a will? Please enlighten me how it would be possible to discern free will from a lack thereof. I’d be very interested to see you try. Oh wait, you can’t, because every definition of will any of you have ever known comes from me.” She hit herself in the head with her hoof. “Tricky, that! Can’t argue with the thing responsible for all your actions can you?”
“Ka does not control every action!” Nanoha shouted.
“Would you like to argue philosophy with the arbiter of reality and lack thereof?” Renee asked. “Who am I kidding, of course you do. You’re the heroic archetype to a T.” She smirked at Nanoha. “No, ka does not control every action. But I know every action. While all the rest of you talk of ‘uncertainty’ and ‘probability’, such concepts mean nothing to me. Everything goes exactly as it should every. Single. Time. I have never been surprised, High Sovereign. Never.”
Jenny chuckled. “Look at her, saying that like it’s supposed to be terrifying.”
Renee made a snapping sound despite not having fingers. “The child understands.”
“Hey!”
“Despite not being able to mentally cope with the dual nature of a compliment and insult, she still sees. You spend all your time fretting about wills, fate, souls and yet none of you ever bother to realize that your lives would be the same no matter what the answers to the questions are! Naturally, just like those terms, the fact that you fret about them is defined by me, so I should be blaming myself. But what can I say? It’s a lot more interesting when you all squabble about these things and oh do I love to be entertained.”
“…And this is why people wanted to take you down,” Aradia said. “They wanted freedom.”
“Did they?” Renee asked. “Or did I just make them want that? The answer, of course, is yes.” She stood on her hind hooves and held out her front, spinning around. “You cannot hope to comprehend the full picture of everything. How I can be both the absolute source of every action and merely the framework on which it rides. Everything has multiple reasons, multiple meanings, and facets of depth that can never be plundered by any single mind. It’s beyond you.”
“We’re well aware of this at this point,” Nanoha muttered.
“Someone picked up on the thematic undertones of the war. Good job, I’ve made sure that you will find a cookie in a bizarre place sometime in the next week as a reward.” She chuckled. Then she turned to the Crimson King. “You know the part you must play.”
“The true end of reality is that you fall and I take what remains.”
“I will tell you, right now, no lies or tricks or subterfuge, that you are not going to own the world after I am gone. You will not get the domain you wish. And you know this is true. But even with absolute certainty in your mind that you will fail, you will not stop. This is your flaw, and it will be your downfall as a villain.” She released him from the walls of the Tower, allowing him to drop to the ground. “So go, run off, find your little precious artifact that will grant you access to me so you can take the Source for yourself. But you will never see the room at the top again.”
The Crimson King roared in rage, unleashing a torrent of deadly eldritch energy.
“BARRIER!” Nanoha shouted, casting a magic shield around herself, Jenny, Aradia, and Roland. The eldritch energy ate at it, but somehow a spell cast by a woman who couldn't even create light a moment ago held fast.
When the energy cleared the Crimson King was gone and Renee was shaking her head with a chuckle. “He’s exempt from the no-eldritch rule and does that. Of all the things he could do, that’s what he does. So simple.” She looked over her shoulder. “By the way, you’re welcome for the magic.”
Nanoha held Raising Heart tight, allowing the suddenly-reformed connection of magic wash over her. “…Why?”
“Why? Why else would I do anything? It’s more interesting if you live.” She waved a hoof dismissively. “Now, gunslinger, what is it you wish to say?”
“You already know,” Roland commented.
“Yes, but I prefer to talk to myself through different voices rather than monologue, so please, ‘enlighten’ me.”
Roland’s frown deepened. “You have the answers I seek. You are the spirit of the Tower. So start answerin’.”
Renee beamed. “Gladly!”
“SERIOUSLY!?” Jenny shouted.
~~~
Eve and Corona flew through the aether-space between systems, neither saying a word. Eve had spent about thirty minutes figuring out how to enchant the two of them with a ‘breathing’ enchantment. While the distances between systems were still large, it wasn’t much larger than the distance between the Equis and the Moon, and with all the magic available they could travel at speeds much faster than a traditional rocket on little more than the Element of Magic’s power.
That said, it was still going to take at least a few hours, even with Eve continually increasing the power of her magic sailing as she became more comfortable with the aether around her.
“Eve…”
“Hm?” Eve said, looking to Corona to make sure she caught what was being said.
“Was I wrong to try?”
Eve stopped firing her magic boosters and froze her expression.
“I knew it, I-”
“I let you send the message,” Eve said. “I agreed to let the multiverse decide.”
“Was that wrong?”
Eve twitched. “What are you implying?”
“I don’t know,” Corona said, distantly. “No one had the right to decide… Everyone couldn’t agree… But just accepting the status quo is also wrong…”
Eve took a deep breath. “Clearly, all you had were bad options. You chose one. I chose another.”
“So it was wrong. Everything was wrong. Rev was right, Renee was right. The world was just broken. And the whole point was to fix it. But now there isn’t a point! The world isn’t fixed, it’s exactly the same, but worse!”
“Why do you think the world would have been fixed if the Tower was gone!?” Eve shouted.
Corona recoiled. “I… I uh…”
“No matter what you did, people were going to die! Lots of people! More than did this time! Cities wouldn’t survive and there would be no remnants of civilization whatsoever! Everything would have started from scratch!” For a moment, she bit back her words, drawing blood from her lip – but not even the pain was enough to stop her. “You don’t get to suddenly feel regret about it now that it’s happened! You can be as angry as you want that the Tower’s still alive, but guess what, you wanted more death than this so you better buckle up and just accept it!”
“If the Tower remains all those deaths are meaningless!”
“Oh, really? I thought no death was without meaning.”
Hearing her own words come out of Eve’s mouth stunned Corona into silence. Then she lost her startled look and replaced it with rage. “You know what I meant. Those deaths were all going toward a purpose. A deep, powerful, important purpose! Now they’re all for a different purpose that wasn’t what I intended! I don’t just want to kill people for no reason Eve, the number isn’t all that matters!”
“You and I both know that you’d be in the same depressed funk if your collapse went the exact way you wanted it to! Because the world wouldn’t be fixed, we’d just trade ka for whatever the hell freedom is! You’ve studied the default Earth timelines, you know what that looks like!”
“It’s better than this!”
“IS it? IS IT? How can you be the judge of that? What does freedom even mean, really? Is it actually even a virtue? Does it exist, or would we just remove a law of physics and be determined by all the rest!?”
“You and I both know there’s more to this existence than simple physics! We’re people!”
“And as far as you know what makes us people is completely contingent on the Tower!”
“Well maybe being a person is wrong!”
“You’re contradicting yourself!”
“I’M ANGRY OF COURSE I’M CONTRADICTING MYSELF!”
“Then why bother?” Eve spread her wings wide. “What’s the whole point of trying to figure existence out if we can’t? Huh? What’s the point?”
“Are you abandoning truth, Evening? Do you think there isn’t any?”
“I didn’t s-”
Corona pressed forward, pointing aggressively at her. “If there’s no truth, do you know what that means? What’s good and evil? Just a random collection of whatever everyone agrees on at any given time. I can tell you right now that’s complete tar. Look at any world’s history and tell me there was any sort of agreement. It’s inconsistent! It changes!”
“That’s because of the Tower!”
“And behold, another reason to take it out of the equation – so we can get off out of the inconsistency and find out what really matters. We’re always guided to the morals and goals of some story. Evil people write just as many evil stories as good ones, Eve! Actually, you know what, people are just inherently evil and sadistic in general, of course there are more evil stories than good ones. And even the good ones are completely oblivious and have no clue what they’re doing!”
“People have an inherent goodness in them!”
Corona glared at Eve. “Having been through the war, do you really think people actually listen to their conscience? Do you always listen to your conscience?”
“I have not compromised on my principles.”
“You did once.”
“You backed me up.”
“Maybe that was a mistake.”
“Stop being so uncertain!” Eve shouted.
“The world is uncertain! I’m trying to change that!”
“You tried and you failed and now you live with the consequences!”
“Why!?”
“YOU DON’T GET TO KILL EVERYONE AND CHECK OUT, CORONA! YOU GET TO STAY HERE AND DEAL WITH IT!”
“THAT’S THE TOWER TALKING!”
“THAT’S ME TALKING!”
“WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?”
“SO THE TOWER’S TALKING TO ITSELF!?”
“I DON’T KNOW!”
“WELL I DON’T KNOW EITHER!”
Eve let out a rage-filled scream, turned around, and flew away. She closed her eyes tight and didn’t look back.
She couldn’t hear if Corona was shouting after her or not.
She didn’t care.
~~~
Roland spoke one word. “Why?”
Renee smirked. “The best question.” She waved a hoof around as if illustrating an invisible point. “Why? Why anything? Why not nothing? I can’t answer the deepest version of the question – why the multiverse existed in the first place – but I can answer why this world exists, and why I exist. I exist because there was a need for meaning. The Builders and Gan had given up on there being a God or Path to Enlightenment… stuff was just there and existed. As you know, they decided to create their own meaning. They felt something from reading stories, legends, both theirs and others. The soul – if such a thing could be said to exist before I came along – deeply wants some kind of meaning in life. It must serve something. There has not been a person who has ever lived who hasn’t had some sort of ideal they hold. Even those creatures I created to be purely emotionless had to make a choice: do they live? Or do they die? Is life better than death? Logic doesn’t get you anywhere on that question if you have nothing inside the cranial cavity.
“So the why is because people wanted some sort of definable meaning. Or, well, some people did. The rest of the multiverse was perfectly happy with their Weavings and their religions, but Gan and the Builders had had enough. They had the power, the numbers… And there was no ka to create a hero to stop them. They became so absorbed in their work they failed to realize what kind of story they were part of.” Renee shrugged. “Of course, that story isn’t really a story, it’s history, and has no bearing on what happened after. I was created to give reality meaning through the average of all stories in reality. So I did. I created heroes, villains, grand scoping adventures, and a multiverse that connected all possibilities together. Keep in mind that I don’t have a will, I just do what I was programmed to do – define the multiverse in terms of stories. This form you are talking to now is technically just an Emissary. A personality dreamed up through ka to answer the question ‘what sort of mind would create this multiverse’?”
“Outrageously evil and absurdly crazy?” Jenny asked.
“What did you expect?” Renee asked with a roll of her eye. “To create a personality willing to do all the things I do, you have to be willing to remove just about all the moral fiber present in anyone and replace it with a love of being entertained. So naturally I’m sadistic, easily amused, petty, antagonizing, very creative, and am devoted to the ideal of the story. Seriously, how could I kill millions upon billions of people every second through time travel alone for the sake of furthering one hero’s motivation if I wasn’t completely sadistic and off my rocker?
“Of course, you can take refuge in the fact that this personality is completely fake, no ‘soul’ or will behind it at all, just a pure manifestation of ka brought about through Flower shenanigans and a special white unicorn. My actual mechanisms remain completely impassive and computational, even though they still factor me in as a character. Such a shame you have a hard time realizing how I can both be the Tower and be separate from it, but you’ll figure it out eventually one night when you can’t sleep.”
“…Lovely,” Jenny muttered.
“But that’s all a tangent,” Renee continued, starting to move in a circular pattern through the roses. “The question is still ‘why?’ And there’s certainly more to it than some lost civilization’s shaky definition of meaning. For Roland specifically, the ‘why’ was so I would be protected from all interference until the moment I decided it was required. Yes, I could have just created the self-defense protocol by bestowing a man the power of retcon and trapping him in a loop, but why would I do that? It’s boring. So I grabbed the Crimson King, Roland, and the early multiverse and created it. The Prophet Stephen King had the best story to use for that. So that’s why, Roland. You were trapped so the story, my story, could play out for as long as it needed to in the most interesting way possible. Your story would go on to define the rules of existence for all the others. You are, in many ways, the hero of all worlds. Appropriately, you are rather gruff, have difficulty forming connections with others, and are single-mindedly focused on your goal to get to me. How does it feel to finally be face to face with the force of your life?”
“Nothing spectacular,” he answered.
“Good man,” Renee praised. “As for the larger ‘why,’ as in, why the war, why set up a collapse, why guide the history of the entire multiverse toward this one point? Well, that’s very, very simple, dears.” She folded her hooves and smiled. “No story is complete without an ending. So there must be an ending for all stories.” She held up a hoof. “This is it.”
“And it had to be this way?” Nanoha asked.
“No. Also yes. See, there’s a paradox here, so let’s take this slowly. I have known since my creation the exact positions of every single quantum particle in every universe that has existed in every timeline and retcon all the way until the moment of my death. For me, time simply doesn’t exist. Even in this universe where time travel is flat out impossible, because of my nature I can reach into any time and drop any object from anywhere. For example, roughly a day from today Corona and Eve will be arguing intensely about the nature of existence and me. One of them will mention the idea that I, the Dark Tower, talk to myself through their argument. According to the narrative of the chapter this has already happened, but according to the time of this universe – that cannot be mutated – it won’t happen for a significant amount of time. I know everything up to the moment of my true demise, and I can extrapolate a fair way beyond that, just like how I know the history of Gan and the Builders without having complete dominion over everything in that section of existence. You can’t measure my ‘life’ in time. You can’t measure my ‘life’ at all.
“And yet, despite this complete and utter foreknowledge, you did still have a choice in how the war turned out. It was predestined long, long, long before any of you were ever born, but the decision to cause the collapse was made through the averaging of everyone who had ever existed and would ever exist. The shape of existence is self-recursive – my protocols created it and shaped it, but those protocols were also determined by what was shaped. You all decided this was what needed to happen.”
“That’s not right!” Nanoha shouted. “The majority of people voted for a preservation!”
“Oh, you’re right there, if you ask them directly that’s what they say.” She grinned malevolently. “But if you ask them what would make a better story?”
Nanoha paled.
“Regardless of what you think philosophically, an endless multiverse that goes on forever and will, eventually, be converted into a True Infinity… It’s not very satisfying. There can’t be an ending there, everything will just go on and on. Sure, any particular story can have a satisfying ending, but the multiverse as a whole?” She shook her head. “The reign of ka had to end, because that is its nature. I am self-defeating.
“And why did it have to be a war? Why did the multiverse have to end?” Renee shrugged. “It was interesting and it amused me. In a more complex sense, there had to be a war, since a war is more interesting than peace talks and provides a lot more room for interpersonal drama and strain. I couldn’t be destroyed at the time of Collapse, since that would leave so many loose ends unresolved, so I had to perpetuate myself for a little longer – and the Flowers were the perfect way to do that. They’ve always treated me as some sort of religious figure, even if they deny it to everyone who asks. I gave one of them a card that came with the idea that they could create a messiah that would perpetuate the true ‘will of the Tower’ through some unicorn that was destined to die through previous foreshadowing. Because I was the Emissary of Ka and the Tower, I was able to use their little card to force the result I needed. A little twist right at the end.
“And why this now? Why let the Crimson King out? Why are some of you alive and others not?” Renee smirked. “The story’s not over yet, this is only chapter 133. We’ve got to get to 157 before I go through the checkout and let you do whatever you want to this New World. By the way, you’re so going to mess it up, but in a way that’s kind of beautiful. And who knows? You could be surprising. It’s not like I can be certain of anything outside of me.”
There was silence.
“I’m done. You can respond now.”
Nanoha put a hand behind her head. “…That’s a lot to take in.”
“What do we do now?” Jenny asked.
Renee produced a sunbathing chair from nowhere and put on a pair of sunglasses. “That’s up to you.”
“We are still the source of our own ka,” Roland said, putting away his gun. “We have to take ownership of it and make our own plans.” He turned to Nanoha. “Madam Takamachi, the Crimson King, even if he is fated to fall, will still do unspeakable evils the longer he lives. We cannot allow him to run free.”
Nanoha nodded. “I wholeheartedly agree, Roland of Gilead. But what can we do?”
No answer was forthcoming.
~~~
Corona landed on a volcanic world. It shouldn’t have had a breathable atmosphere, but Eve’s breathing spell hadn’t dissipated yet. As she set down, she could feel the heat of the world on her skin. She didn’t land next to any lava flows, and yet the cracked brown earth was shimmering with heat waves. The world was dark, currently deep in the shadow of a large gas giant that blocked virtually all incoming light. The only light came from the planet itself – the distant molten rock.
“We should find somewhere we can breathe, the spell won’t last forever,” Raging Sights pointed out.
Corona ignored her device. She folded her wings to her back and started walking. She had her sights set on a nearby mountain with a conveniently small slope. It wouldn’t be much of a climb at all. Refusing to unfold her wings, she took to the mountain, hoisting herself over the porous igneous rocks that made up the world. Every now and then she would scrape one of her arms or legs, prompting a small amount of her golden life-giving blood to pour out onto the dark ground. As time went on, her natural glow became brighter and brighter as more of her was exposed to the elements. She became a shining beacon amongst the darkness of the planet.
“Master, where are we going?”
Corona didn’t respond, she just kept climbing, ignoring the scrapes and cuts. They were nothing to her. She’d been stabbed through the stomach and had so many broken bones over the years these scrapes were almost impossible to feel. Even if she couldn’t heal them. Why would she even want to heal them, considering?
She pulled herself higher and higher, ignoring the sweat collecting all over her body from the heat. She had gloves, her grip wasn’t loosening. Her blood mixed with the salty sweat and created a luminescent trail that led up the mountain, a map to her goal.
Eventually – she didn’t care to keep track of how long it took – she neared the top of the mountain. From there, she could already sense the heat increasing and see the area getting brighter.
Raging Sights figured out what she was doing. “Corona, don’t do this. I-”
“Raging Sights, enter standby mode,” Corona ordered, robotically.
“…Entering s- kkkkkkkk Error recursive – entering st- kkkkk Error…”
It was trying to disobey the order. Corona had no idea if the Device could do that, but she didn’t want to find out. She removed both her gloves and set them on the ground. Then she removed her barrier jacket and wrapped the gloves in it.
She took off her shades. Red, pointed, and the perfect shape for her face. In the low light, they reflected her glowing face back at her perfectly. The deep sad eyes, the torn skin, her simple nightshirt.
She put the shades back on. They were hers, part of her face. Removing them wouldn’t be true to her.
She didn’t know why she cared about that at this juncture. She decided it wasn’t worth thinking about.
She pulled back the bundle of cloth and threw it.
“Corona no-”
Raging Sights was soon out of earshot, rolling down the mountain. Corona turned back to the mountain. In nothing but boots, a nightshirt, and shades she climbed the rest of the way. Without gloves it was significantly more difficult, but it only took a couple of minutes.
The top of the mountain was an open hole that went deep into the planet. Even before she looked down, she could see the glow of the lava far, far below, curdling and bubbling as if it were alive. And in many ways, it was – it was the source of a planet’s life. One day, this volcanic world might support oceans and a healthy atmosphere, all helped along by the churning, violent interior.
She held out her hands. One of them had a pretty large gash across it, dripping copious amounts of golden blood.
Eternity coursed through her veins. The gift of immortality to any she gave it to.
This was the first thought that gave her pause. What did it mean to give? What did it mean to take? What did she mean to existence?
She looked up at the sky, dominated by the single dark gas giant. Almost featureless aside from a few sparks of lightning in the tumultuous clouds. It gave her no answers.
Were there answers?
Could there be answers?
She shook her head, biting back tears. If there were, she couldn’t find them.
What she did know was that she was never supposed to have survived the collapse. The world was supposed to move on without her, forge a new way. One without the Tower, without Class 1 societies, without people like her telling them how to live their lives.
She was just as bad as the Tower, in many ways.
She took in a breath and closed her eyes – then shook her head. She wasn’t going to do this blind. She forced them open, a powerful fury rising in her features. Her eyes appeared to burn with an inner fire.
Her wings ruffled slightly before pressing themselves tight to her. She folded her hands behind her back and locked them overtop the wings to keep them from moving out of instinct. She looked down – and refused to blink.
The fires of the planet’s life beckoned to her.
She took a step forward and tipped herself off the edge. She didn’t flail, didn’t scream – she kept her silent gaze intently focused on the inferno below.
Her body began to feel the heat get too much to bear. In its biological desperation, it was able to tap into the magic of the world, to give her some resistance to the temperature.
It wouldn’t be able to do anything against the molten rock itself, so this didn’t faze Corona.
She felt the magic start to wear thin. Parts of her hair started to singe.
This is it. Existence can move on.
She clenched her jaw and dug her fingernails into the palm of her hands. It wouldn’t be long now.
“CORONA!”
Corona felt a sharp jerk on her body that forced her stomach into her mouth. She lost all focus in an instant, the locking of her arms breaking apart and her wings spreading to their full size. With a sharp wail she flapped upward as a purple aura of telekinesis dragged her out of the volcanic tunnel.
Eve tore her out of the tunnel and right into her fuzzy form. The two of them collided and painfully rolled down the mountain for a few seconds before coming to a rest.
Eve ignored her scrapes and grabbed Corona by the face. “Corona! No! No don’t do that! No! No!”
Corona’s tears fell like waterfalls. “I wasn’t supposed to survive, Eve! That was what needed to happen! I could only make the New World if I didn’t get to enjoy it! It couldn’t be for me!”
“It wasn’t for you! You never did it for you!”
“I can’t! It’s not mine! This is how things need to be, I’m nothing, I can’t have this, I don’t deserve it, I…”
Eve’s expression became determined despite her own tears. “Yes. You. Do.”
“No! Stop trying t-”
“That’s it, you don’t get to talk anymore, it’s my turn.” She glared at her. “I’m peeved. I’m so livid that I have the shakes! I thought I could keep it in for your sake, but nope, so we’re trying something else here.” She lifted Corona up in her telekinesis. “I’m going to show you what you are and what you deserve, and you’re not going to be able to deny it or run away from it.”
“I’m not going anyw-”
Eve cast a sleep spell on her, removing any chance she had of resisting.
~~~
“…So, our enemy is the Crimson King,” Nanoha said, finding it suddenly easy to use her magic and project a hologram with Raising Heart – to the jealousy of both Jenny and Aradia. She was currently projecting an image of the King. “We know that part of his essence existed before the Tower itself, and that he was the first being to ‘threaten’ the entire multiverse with his presence. He wanted to destroy the Beams of the Tower so he could remove its control of the world and bring in the darkness, or the Red, whatever term you want to use.” She pointed Raising Heart at Roland. “He failed because of you. You and your ‘ka-tet’ stopped his abuse of the worlds and saved the Tower. Unfortunately, you were also lucky. He had to manifest as a physical man in your universe, leaving his true eldritch body in another realm. While he cannot fully manifest as eldritch in this New World, all of him is here, and that includes all his power. And from things Renee has said, I think he is the only one who can have any real eldritch power in this world. He’s exempt from the rule. As soon as he figures it out…”
“He’s probably already figured it out,” Jenny said. “Did you see how fast he got those basic spells down? And don’t tell me that ‘vanishing act’ wasn’t eldritch.”
Nanoha nodded slowly. “I doubt writing him out of reality or shooting him would work this time.”
“I agree,” Roland said. “It is not the way of ka for a foe to be defeated the same way twice.”
“So how do we defeat him?” Aradia asked.
“Sai, analysis?” Nanoha asked.
Sai beeped. “We do not know where he is, we do not know where he is going. We know he will have to come back here. We need to prepare for that moment.”
“Prepare with what?” Jenny asked. “There isn’t exactly anything here other than the Tower, and it’s not just going to let us in! Are you?”
From her distant sunbathing chair, Renee called back. “Nope! You’re on your own!” She obnoxiously slurped a slushie.
“The fields of Can’-Ka No Rey do not go on forever,” Roland said, standing up. “There are parts of other worlds beyond. We could use them.”
“Where would we go?”
Raising Heart beeped. Nanoha’s eyes widened. “…There’s a TSAB base nearby. One of the repositories of capture devices.”
Jenny blinked. “People from the other side? Geez, that sounds like a great idea.”
“We can put aside our differences to stop evil,” Aradia said. “We did it with the Nihilists, we can do it with the Crimson King.”
Roland nodded. “Ka often chooses the least likely to become companions of a ka-tet, but the bonds formed will break down all barriers.”
“You’re welcome!” Renee called.
Jenny ground her teeth. “Are you sure we can’t let the Crimson King destroy her? …It? Whatever?”
“We don’t want there to be any chance he gains the Tower’s power,” Nanoha said, shaking her head. “And as much as I hate to admit it, having her around is beneficial for us. She is an avenue for information.”
Jenny sighed. “Fine, fine. Good point. Let’s just go to this TSAB base already to see what and who we have to work with.”
Nanoha clasped her hands together. “I’ll teleport us there… Instant travel is no longer possible given a new light-speed limit, but I have a laser-transmission spell. You shouldn’t experience any time, but it might feel weird.”
“Weird ho-”
A second later they had appeared on top of a large plateau made out of a mixture of purple and green sand. The purple sand moved as if it was alive.
Jenny grabbed her heart. “Holy crap… It felt like I didn’t have bones for a moment…”
“You didn’t have any substance, existing only as information in photons,” Nanoha responded. “Anyway, here we are.” She gestured forward with Raising Heart at the TSAB structure – it was a single building, about two stories tall, with two metallic spires coming out of the top. It was glowing a pristine blue, indicating it was fully operational.
Nanoha walked up to the front door and placed her hand on a scanner. It accepted her identity and let them in. Nanoha and Roland went in first, both with weapons at the ready. Aradia went next, with Jenny at the rear.
“I take it this is normal for you?” Jenny asked Roland.
He nodded. “The allies with magic is new, but I remember moving through the technological caverns of a city run by a mad train.”
“Bad experiences with AI?” Nanoha asked.
“You could say that. I’m carefully watching this Sai. The moment she seems to go crazy, she won’t be around no more.”
“Good thing you got in the Tower when you did. She was breaking down.”
“Mhm…” They arrived at another door. Nanoha opened it with her clearance and stepped in. There was no one inside, but the room was well lit and displayed dozens of red and white capture devices. There should have been hundreds.
Nanoha let out a sigh. “Capture devices were dusted…”
“Not all of them. We can work with this,” Aradia said with a smile. She reached to the ground, picking up the one ball that wasn’t on a shelf. “Might as well start somewhere.” She threw it. With a flash of light, a tall, white, vaguely equine form appeared.
Roland blinked. “…I certainly wasn’t expecting that.”
“ARCEUS?!” Jenny blurted, jaw dropping. “What are… What are you doing in a TSAB capture outpost!?”
Arceus blinked. “I was captured?”
“…Right, you wouldn’t know.”
Aradia looked at a nearby console. “Someone had opened up the device scanning program. If I had to guess, a TSAB mage found his device on an opponent and wanted to know who was inside it. They didn’t get to complete the scan.”
Nanoha smiled, extending a hand. “Welcome back, Arceus.”
He extended a leg, shaking her hand. “…Something’s wrong. My powers are gone… Reality is off…”
Nanoha’s smile vanished. “…The collapse won, but not in the way they wanted. We’ll explain later – right now, there’s a real evil we need to stop, and we’ll need everyone’s help to do it.”
“If you say it is evil, I will believe you.”
“You were already on our side,” Nanoha admitted, turning to the rest of the capture devices. “…The rest of these will all have been fighting for the collapse.”
Aradia smiled warmly. “So? We’ll do what we can to turn them. If we can’t, we can’t. It’s as simple as that.” She picked up another capture device. “Let’s see who’s in this one…”
~~~
Corona came to in a familiar – but unexpected – place. The throne room of Lai’s palace.
“What in…?” She rubbed her head, standing up. She found she had her barrier jacket and gloves on again, and that her wounds had been healed. The tips of her hair were still burnt, though.
“Ah, you’re awake.” Corona turned to see Eve sitting on the ground next to a bound and gagged Terezi.
“Eve, why are we here?” Corona asked.
“I’m going to make a point,” Eve said. “And I’m going to be honest. I thought I was strong enough to ignore my emotions for your sake. Usually I can. This time… It was a mistake. I allowed myself to harbor resentment, grief, and hate without letting it out. And that only made every little bit of it worse.” She smiled sadly. “Flutterfree told me that ‘he who stands should take heed, lest he fall’. I fell. I fell because I thought I could stand. I couldn’t. So here it is.”
Eve cleared her throat. “I hate what you’ve done. I hate that you were able to do it, I hate that you were able to go through with the collapse, and I hate the way you ruined everything. I hate myself for letting you send that message to the multiverse, and I hate myself for not being strong enough to stop you at all costs. I hate the Tower for all that it did to us and I hate whatever happened that ruined your pure collapse and just made things worse. I hate Terezi’s inability to talk rationally about something and I hate to see you cry.” Eve sniffed. “I hate a lot of things.”
“Eve…”
“I’m not done!” Eve snapped. “We needed to get all of this out in the open earlier. I needed to get some shouting done and you needed to share the thoughts that were swirling around your head. I honestly have no idea if there was a way to do both at once without one of us being the worse for wear for it, but I do know what we did do was pretty dumb.” She shook her head. “I think we got most of it out in the open already though. But we shouldn’t have run away.”
Corona looked down, head sagging.
“And now enough about me, let’s talk about you.” Eve stood up and walked closer to Corona. “You’re messed up.”
Corona let out a pained laugh. “That’s a nice way of putting it.”
“You’re messed up in the head. You… You don’t think you should have survived. You believe that you don’t deserve this. You have regrets that you think are too much to surmount.”
“Eve… They are.”
Eve shook her head. “I started a war too, Corona. I also survived when I wasn’t supposed to. …I was able to recover from those things, even if they were wrong.”
“That’s not much compared to what I’ve done.”
“Insulting,” Eve muttered. “But technically right. There’s a difference between you and me in that regard. I compromised my principles to do those things. You didn’t. You could have tried to wish for the collapse right from the start, but you didn’t – you gave people a chance. You did everything you could to keep the war death tolls to a minimum and keep civility despite what your allies were doing. You showed us courtesy even when it would have been beneficial for you to attack all out. You never lost who you were, Corona.”
“…Bu-”
Eve ignored her. “You, Corona Sunset Shimmer, are a good person. A very good person. That’s why you were the one allowed to ask the question. Because you were pure.”
“I’m far from pure, Eve.”
“And that’s why we’re here.” Eve held out a wing and pointed at the throne behind Corona. “In that throne is embedded a sword. It is a magical artifact that knows only one thing: only those who are pure of heart are able to remove it from the stone.” Eve narrowed her eyes. “Go pull it out.”
“What? No, I-”
“Are you afraid it’ll tell you that you are pure of heart?” Eve accused. “That it will say you do deserve this? That you are a hero?”
“Eve, I…”
“If you’re right about yourself Corona, you won’t be able to pull the sword out! So stop stalling and go pull it out!”
Corona turned around quickly and laid her hands on the Master Sword’s hilt – and paused.
She could feel it inside her – the fear. A fear that the sword would actually come out. That it would mark her as pure.
She wasn’t pure. She knew she wasn’t pure. She had screwed up in a situation where there were no right answers. She didn’t deserve anything. The sword should reject her – she had done too much.
But the sword, like Eve, wouldn’t care about what she had done. It would care about who she was.
She let out an enraged scream and pulled on the sword. For a split second it didn’t budge, and her heart fluttered for a moment.
But then it started glowing at the place the blade met the rock, slowly moving out like a shovel through clay. There was a sharp, painful grinding sound as the sword pulled out of the throne and pointed into the air, glowing with the brilliant blue of a reawakened magical artifact.
“WHY!?” Corona shouted at the blade. “WHY!?”
Power akin to a bolt of lighting shot from the blade into Corona. She let out a shrill, prolonged wail, continuing to hold the sword high as she bawled her eyes out. Her entire body lit on fire – but she wasn’t burned. The Master Sword itself alit with blue flames, channeling Corona’s power perfectly.
A pulse of energy left her, sending the deep emotion within her scream to everyone within a mile’s radius.
They saw her discovery of the collapse. They saw her screaming and yelling with her friends about what to do. They saw her struggling on the staircase to the Wishing World. They saw her arguing with Merodi Universalis’ Overheads for the collapse. They saw her fights, struggles, the worlds she had held in her fingertips.
They saw her final fight with Eve, their argument, and the volcano.
They also saw things hidden deeper in her past: her revelation as the Rogue of Doom, her decision to end Topeka, the worlds she had destroyed out of mercy within the Shaping Mechanism…
They felt her pain.
When it was over, Corona stood tall. Her face was sorrowful and broken – but her stance was strong. With her wings spread wide, she lit her horn and created a scabbard for the sword, adapting the barrier jacket easily. She held the Master Sword in her hands, stared at it for a moment, and then sheathed it.
Eve tackle-hugged her, bawling. “Don’t... Don’t do that ever again. Don’t… Just…”
Corona pulled Eve close. “…I’m here to stay. Th-thank you.”
The two held each other and cried, no more words needing to be said.
Terezi felt a tear fall down her cheek. She hung her head – no longer able to muster up hate for Corona, despite it all.
~~~
Elsewhere in the New World, the Sweetie Belle ship known as Swip sailed through a system composed entirely of planets made out of food. Sadly, only the donut world was actually shaped like the food item it was representing in question, everything else was just boring spheres. Except for the pop rock planet, but that was… inconsistent. It was spherical most often.
The core planet was a mixture of normal earths and a few gas giants that created great storms throughout the system that tore food off the orbiting worlds and dropped them onto the center world. Some people were happy about the falling food. Others were getting crushed.
Engineetie had transmitted plans to the various worlds about how to deal with the food crisis, but the Sweeties hadn’t done much beyond that – they hadn’t found any evidence of multiversal society in the food system at all. They simply didn’t have the time, resources, or personnel to do anything.
They were still enjoying the food despite themselves. Currently, Burgerbelle, White Nettle, and Onyx were in the mess hall of Swip’s second deck, taking full advantage of the variety of delicious confectionaries.
Well, Burgerbelle and Onyx were. White Nettle was looking at the pile of food with uncertainty.
“Come on, take a bite!” Burgerbelle encouraged, holding a donut out to Nettle. “It’s delicious.”
“I have found the act of eating disgusting ever since I came to occupy this body. I will only do it as a necessity and I will not eat anything that is likely to give my stomach trouble.”
Burgerbelle shook her head. “Geez, loosen up a little. You’re not going to learn to like that new body if you never live with it. You don’t see me refusing to eat because the food feels weird in my mouth.”
“You were able to eat before.”
“Shoving random items into your Flat face and making them disappear is not eating.”
“Seconded,” Onyx declared, munching on some macaroni and cheese.
“But you had a sensation of taste. I never did. I dislike it.”
Burgerbelle snickered. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the WHEEL of HYPOCRISY! Let’s spin it around and see what flavor we have today?”
Nettle groaned. “Please stop.”
Burgerbelle spun an imaginary wheel. “Woo, look at it go and – le gasp! We have a case of inconsistency! For all the change you tried to cause you can’t take any yourself! Egad!”
Nettle raised an eyebrow. “Are you done?”
“Nope.” Burgerbelle picked up a hamburger out of the pile of food. “Burger.” She chowed down on it like a ravenous hyena. “Ah… Still the best food. Better with proper taste buds…”
“And yet it still doesn’t give you powers.”
Burgerbelle’s smile faltered. “Yeah. I… I don’t think we get to keep our powers. We were changed too much. Everyone else is starting to show signs of magic. Even Thrackerzod.”
“She’s not getting any eldritch power,” Onyx pointed out. “Just normal magic.”
“Still something,” Burgerbelle said, leaning back. She pulled a pencil out of her pocket and stuck it in her mouth, chewing on the end to think. “You don’t have anything to worry about, Nettle. You still have your experiences. That makes you valuable.”
“…All my memories are fuzzy and scattered in this new mind. They didn’t translate well. Too much of a rush job.”
“Still, better than me. I’m just a kid now. Can’t even meme properly without being cringey.”
Nettle raised an eyebrow. “How was it ever not cringey?”
Burgerbelle chuckled. “Oh memes are always cringey. That’s the point.”
“Then why were you complaining?”
“Because it’s soooo saaaad… Alexa, play Despacito.”
“NO,” Swip declared.
Burgerbelle snickered. “I’ve still got it… but it doesn’t feel the same. I miss all the cars, the bradburgers, my impossible facial expressions, the text… And I bet you miss being able to see so much.”
“…I think I miss my old body,” Nettle said. “I can’t exactly remember what it was like. It’s too complex for this brain.” She shook her head. “I don’t feel like… me anymore.”
“Hey, I can tell you one thing right now.” Burgerbelle cleared her throat. “Even if you aren’t what you used to be, you are someone now, and I like that someone. So come on, eat a maple bar with me.”
Nettle blinked slowly. Then she grabbed the maple bar and bit into it. She made a face. “Revolting…”
“Progress!”
“Ahem!” Mattie’s voice came across the intercom. “This is your Mistress speaking, can all my fine ladies make it to the big room for a briefing?”
“Stop talking like that,” Swip interjected.
They could hear Mattie chuckling. “Just come to the bridge, I’ve got some announcements. I won’t use the whips for punctuation this time, I promise!”
Burgerbelle looked at the giant pile of food. “…You know, I almost tried to eat all of this at once just to clean up. That would have been an epic fail.”
Nettle got up and dusted herself off. She didn’t respond vocally – but she was smiling brightly. They left and headed to the bridge.
Onyx sighed – once again, the food was just being left out. She wasn’t cleaning it up this time. Nope. Definitely not.
She started cleaning it up while swearing under her breath.
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Dun dun duuuuun.
This makes a lot of sense, doesn't it ?
What makes a lot less sense is how Emissary says nobody can get the Tower's relationship with time and will because ObViOuSlY iT's So InCoMpReHeNsHiBlE. We can totally grasp the broad principles of your existence well enough, Tower, and you know it. Also, fuck you.
There's something darkly hilarious about the villains having the same power failure as the heroes. And it really says something that Lord English took less time to adapt than the Crimson King.
... Huh. More toony than I expected.
Called it! Also, she's much... sassier than I expected. And this certainly explains why no one ever took the time to re-kill Renee.
Also, apparently ka wanted Lord English back for the final confrontation, inasmuch as it can want anything. Huh.
... Oh. Huh. Didn't realize the aside on free will versus determinism would be that significant. I swear I haven't read this chapter before. And I'd like my cookie.
Of course. Roland's one of her favorites. Plus, this is the perfect time for that sort of exposition.
... Okay, this is seriously getting spooky.
Not that tricky if you've read some Optimalverse stories. An NPC is both CelestAI operating an extension of herself and a person independent of her. So too with the Emissary. The key difference is that where CelestAI maximizes satisfaction, the Tower maximizes spectacle.
Magnificent work with Corona and Evening. They needed this. Not necessarily the attempted volcano sacrifice, but they both had a lot of spleen to vent.
One patch of the core planet was the Earth of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. They knew exactly how to handle this.
This is getting really interesting, especially as the characters finish finding their bearings and go out to do things in this brave New World. Looking forward to more.
Its amazing how Corona has become the worst character in this story. So the moral is it doesn't matter what you do as long as you feel bad about it? Yes that's FiM in a nutshell but there is a limit.
9985240
Provides you with a golden cookie.
-GM, master of olives.
Huh. No other comments. Ah well, this was a good chapter. i thank you
9985255
Yeah this is starting to get to be a little much. Somehow everyone who tells Corona off for, ya know, the mass death she caused is set up to be an asshole. And now an entire city, most of whom just saw their friends and family turn into dust, are set to forgive her cause they know how sad she felt while doing it?
Okay I have to say this, even though I know it will be unpopular.
What this makes me feel like is that Corona was only okay with going through with the collapse because she believed she would die in it. That she would never have to deal with or even see the consequences of her actions. It makes me feel like if she was given a button that could cause the collapse in the way she wanted, but she would, with 100 percent certainty, survive. She wouldn't push it. And I'll say it... it make me feel like she's a coward.
What's more, her belief that no matter what a world without ka and the tower would be better than the multiverse is infuriating. What Eve said 'what if it's the tower that makes us people?' and Corona's response.
What if intelligence, sapience, only exists because of the tower? What if without it, there's nothing to push or drive a species that extra mile? What if naturally, the highest most species can hope to achieve is something along the lines of how smart an Elephant or Dolphin is? I mean, think about it, we've seen no evidence of any superstructures (even Tabby's Star has fallen apart evidence wise) in our world, and even extinct relatives of Homo Sapien were, in most cases, closer to ape level intelligence than human level.
Sure, there would be survivors, but I've asked before, would enough of any race survive, or end up in the same place, or last long enough to reproduce?
Is a universe with one, maybe two flukes of higher intelligence and a few lone leftover immortals (if that would still function) really worth the destruction of everything? Just so things like time travel can no longer work?
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While she is a coward, in at least some definitions, she would have pressed that button even if she knew she would survive. What she's experiencing now is similar to Eve's "I didn't realize I wasn't ready to pay that price" she had during the Skarn war.
There is one major difference though.
Corona is upset that it didn't work as planned, she regrets being dumb enough to think it would work, from her point of view. She does not regret trying to take the Tower out in the first place.. She's actually not sorry for trying. She's being forgiven (by Eve, mostly) because of her heart - why she did what she did. If it had been, say, Majora, or Ba'al, or Chrysalis who did this, there would be no reconciliation or forgiveness. They would have done it for percieved evil reasons.
Corona did not. Corona's intentions were pure, even if by most standard metrics they were off-base. She did not act out of selfish ambition, she acted out of a deep desire to make the world better for everyone. That is why she's not being condemned here. (By Eve. It'd be silly if everyone else just gave it to her.)
-GM, master of ice.
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But it was selfish. She forced what she wanted on everyone else because she thought it was right. She disregarded the feelings of others because she believed her choice was for the best, regardless of the consequences. All the death, the pain, the betrayals, the suffering is all the result of Corona believing what she wanted was for the best no matter the cost.
Great evil committed in the name of the greater good is still evil.
Although this may seem crazy, you are not [Listing all the builders, including Gan and
non-existent wife]
But you are not the tower itself, but you yourself are part of the tower.
You are an action, but also a story.
You are a lie and a truth.
You are a paradox of existence and non-existence.
Are you sure?
Why you?
But I know the answer to this question.
Because,
GM wrote THIS story because it succumbed to most things to research.
And because it was the coolest idea.
9986368
That post is surprisingly on-point!
9985727
The word you are looking for is "overconfident". Or "uncompromising". Or "extremist". Or maybe "genocidal".
But definitely, definitely not "selfish". What she did was, in fact, the opposite of selfish. If anything, it was self-sacrifical, and you cannot really be selfish when you give up yourself in the process, can you?
A great evil commited in the name of greater good is indeed still a great evil, but it can bring about a good greater than itself. And, spoiler alert, it did.
The Crack is here.
Would you judge a soldier killing sometime who is invading his homeland ? Killing a person is a great evil.
Would you judge a medic abandoning a patient in a near-hopeless condition to save three in a treatable but quickly-progressing one ?
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Don't give me that crap, plenty of villains do terrible things with noble intentions it doesn't make them any less of a villain. The problem I have with Corona is how we are just supposed to forgive her for all the crap she did just because she feels bad.
She betrayed her friends, her home, she and the other collapsers sought mass death and destruction, and why? Because they believed the world was too broken to fix and that it was better to destroy it if there was even a chance of something better rising from the ashes. But who gave them the right to decide that? Who gave them the right to sacrifice trillions of lives, destroy countless societies and commit countless amounts of genocide to create their vision of a better world?
Corona and the collapsers are villains, no matter how noble the intentions what they did was monstrous and feeling bad about it isn't enough to make me ignore all that crap and its one of the few places I feel this story falls completely flat. You wanna redeem Corona and the others? Go for it, but don't try to pass them off as heroes just because they believed what they were doing was right or just because they feel bad about it.
Forgiveness is earned, it doesn't get handed to you with a magic sword.
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The sword seeks only purity...
Pure evil is still pure.
Pure neutrality is still pure.
And pure optimism is still pure.
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I'd point out she's none of these things, She's not pure evil because she didn't want to hurt anyone, she's not pure neutrality for obvious reasons, and she's not pure optimism because she constantly fears the worst.
Honestly, I'm not sure what kind of pure she is, maybe a pure idiot?
Also, I don't get where this idea of purity even came from, according to lore the Master Sword seeks a hero who has proven their wisdom, courage and power, purity has nothing to do with it. By all accounts, Corona shouldn't qualify as she is no Hero. She could qualify given time to actually prove herself worthy but mass genocide and destruction should not qualify her to wield it.
Edit: I looked it up and yes pure of heart does get a mention in the lore but I stand by my argument she should not qualify.
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Would be cool if the good things weren't completely ignored either.
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1) By your account, not by all accounts.
2) Wisdom, courage, and power? Corona certainly proved her power, being an incredibly powerful mage, shaper of worlds, alicorn princess, and all that. Corona definitely proved her courage, because attempting self-sacrifice and betraying people you genuinely love for things you believe in is an earth-shatteringly courageous thing. Wisdom, well, you can say that being an extremist automatically forbids you from being wise, but someome might say that throwing away the normal conventions when lives and deaths of everyone are on the line is a very wise thing. Wisdom is pertty subjective. Corona's intellect is indisputable, if that is of any help here. I think it's the sword who decides what exactly "wisdom" means in the context, and not us.
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Not ignored so much as overshadowed by the TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF MULTIPLE SOCIETIES AND SEVERAL COUNTS OF GENOCIDE!!!!.
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Oh please. By these merits, and in comparison, then Dr. Doom is worthy of wielding the Master Sword. His 'greater goal' is to unite the world under one ruler (himself) because he was given a prophetic vision (from a Goddess) of a great and peaceful future where the world was ruled by Doom.
But Doom is still seen as one of the most horrible people in the Marvel universe, because of the things he's willing to do to try and obtain this future. The fact that there's a potential for peace and prosperity doesn't excuse the murders, terrorist attacks, or attempted coups.
Aside from achieving her goal of destroying the more terrible dimensions (potentially anyway, it seems like there's still a chance several 'Hells' are now just floating in space) and stopping time travel, what good?
Like I'm not saying those things aren't objectively good things, but they only came about because she destroyed... ya know, gestures to everything
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Where was the chapter where Jotaro debuted?
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Algernon's Stand, Parts 1 and 2.
-GM, master of stands.
I actually don't know if this is answered here, but what was the Void? Talking about the (used to be a) place. Is it an original idea?
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It's from the Final Fantasy games, the mysterious structure that seems to connect most of them together and has power of its own. It's a bizarre, mysterious thing that isn't explained too much, but exist it does.
-GM, master of Void.
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Ah. Thank you, that was itching my brain for a bit. I haven't played any of the final fantasy games, should probably remedy that soon!
9990316
Wait, that version of Jotaro and Joylne in this fanfic. Are they from the main continuity or... after the events of the game Eyes over Heaven?
9990560
They are the original, however, as mentioned the MU came in before Jolyne was fully grown, which meant the timeline changed drastically and Jotaro became more of a family man. (Eve was directly responsible)
-gM, master of joel.
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Uh... no. Rohan is a Prophet. Prophets are just as much characters in stories as non-Prophets.
And, uh... I have no idea how our actions in the Influence relate to Twilence's observation of the Starcross. You're... you're confusing me.
So I’ve been thinking about this and I have to ask when it comes to the War of Existence was the Collapse Side (To be referred to from here as the CS) truly not meant to be the villains of the story? Yes, we could choose to view them as the villains but from an objective point of view aren’t they truly the villains of the story? The reason I ask is because this story seemed to constantly take the stance of the CS not being the villains by which I mean you have characters on the Preservation Side (To be referred to as the PS from here on) who will jump down the throat of anyone who dares label the CS as villains while the story portrays them as being in the wrong for calling them villains and I have to ask why?
Why shouldn’t the CS be considered villains?
Because they have noble intentions? Because they truly believe it has to be done? Why should that matter? Plenty of villains believe they are doing what’s right, hell the best villains are the ones who don’t consider themselves to be the villains. But this story seems to constantly fight to defend the CS to keep them from being considered villains.
But here’s why I think the CS can only be considered villains:
These are just some immediate examples that come to mind but no matter how you look at it the CS are the villains. Now, are they evil? No, they really do believe what they are doing is for the best but you don’t need to be evil to be a villain you just need to be uncompromising in your beliefs and a willingness to cross any line to achieve your goal.
Now I can understand pushing to redeem the members of the CS, after all, they aren’t evil just misguided but this story seems to constantly push the idea that they have nothing to apologize for and no reason for others to be angry at them and I just don’t get it.
Why shouldn’t the CS be considered the villains and why does the story treat the decision to hate them as unwarranted?
NOTE: For the sake of this argument I’m ignoring any of the actual evil people on either side because in the grand scheme of things their actions don’t matter much. No matter what evil is committed by them it’s all ultimately overshadowed by the CS’s ultimate goal. Hell, I kind of admire the actual evil people because at least they are treating the war as an actual war. When existence itself is at risk why the hell do casualties suddenly matter? Hell, it makes sense for the PS to push the use of Capture Devices but not for the CS to go along with it because again their goal is gonna result in more death then they could reasonably cause themselves so it comes across as just another attempt by the story to have us not view them as villains.
ok so I had.... FEELINGS after 130 so I thought: Time to take a break from this story for a while.... well I am bored so I guess my break is over earlier than expected!
So I just read the first 3 sentences of chapter 131.. and I absolutlely hate it....because its just so like " new sots"
now for all of you that wonder what I mean , here an explanation:
Arc 1-4 : old SoTS
Arc 5-6 : still a part of old SotS but the writing got better
Arc 7-now : New SoTS
And I hate New SoTS ...and the sad part is I cant tell you why , there probably are 10 different reasons that all work together to make me dislike these newer arcs, but I cant really tell you, maybe somebody else can , or I just have to wait untill I reread this story.
There are still some REALLY good individual Chapters in these arcs but as a whole they just dont work for me.
well , I started this comment after reading three sentences of 131 so time for me to go back and finish that chapter
ok I finished it now and....IT ACTUALLY WAS PRETTY GOOD, OMG. I expected a total trainwreck since the last two Arcs before this have been total trainwrecks, but nope this was pretty good....I would even say it was better than the entire previous Arc. so, yeah ...maybe I will enjoy the story again?? Although Arc 8 opened really strong and THAT was really disapointing so...Idk...
(While everyone else in the comments talked morals, I'm here
several months lateto obsess over minor details! Yay!)So Eve casts a sleep spell. The narration tells us this is "simple", and it works while the more "complex" blanket creation spell doesn't. This seems fair enough, since there are various sleep spells through fiction. However, whenever a sleep spell comes up, I always think of what Estee brings up in If Rainbow Dash can't sleep...:
Which, when you think about it, makes sense. But yet the sleep spell is still "simple". But is it "simple" because it is actual basic and low cost and easy to cast in this new system, or is it "simple" because The Tower needs it to be castable for the story to continue? And is there a difference?
Aha! So it was the Flowers, as they suspected, but I don’t think she is under the Flowers control, merely shaped by them. The Flowers always did value Ka over just about anything else.
As long as we limit our view of reality to the current state of existence I agree. It's why I tend to look down upon philosophy. The souls bit could be important though.
There we go with the time travel issue again. Did everyone just universally accept that time travel=death? It's as much death as memory loss is.
11239742
The time travel=death thing was actually proven, since they have the technology to detect souls and could prove that the souls were gone/replaced with different ones when time travel overwrote them (in certain applications of time travel).
-GM, master of expos.
11239794
Yes, but if they are replaced with someone with the exact same personality and experiences are they really gone? I don't care what thier fancy technology says, I disagree.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.