143 - Spirograph, Part 2
Lightning laid her hand on Jotaro’s chest and healed him. He shot upright in an instant, ready to fight - but saw no sign of Lord English. All he saw were his friends – his teammates – looking around with forlorn, weary expressions. Pinkie was struggling to tear off her massacre dress, Vriska was angrily banging on the sealed doors of the Dark Tower, Corona was staring at the harsh explosive lights in the sky, and Flutterfree was holding Eve close, the two trying not to lose all hope.
Pidge leaped onto Jotaro and wrapped her arms tightly around him, crying her inner pain away. They may have been heroes… but a body living through death was never something to just be brushed away.
Jotaro gently set her upon his shoulders and shook his head.
“…What do we do now?” Pidge asked.
Jotaro sighed. He had no response. Lord English had gotten what he wanted – he had entered the Tower. For all they knew, he had already become one with it. Already started to manipulate fate to his own brutal ends…
In the distance, he saw a group of people flying towards them, led by none other than White Nettle herself. She had her tendrils spread wide, aimed directly at the Dark Tower itself. She flew overtop Jotaro and the others, pressing every tendril of hers into the Dark Tower’s door.
“OPEN!” she screamed, interfacing with the ancient structure. “OPEN, DAMMIT!”
The Dark Tower did not listen to her demands, keeping its doors welded shut.
“Why can’t you open it!?” Vriska shouted.
“It doesn’t want me to! That’s it!” Nettle put a hand to her forehead and shook her head. “It… It’s telling me I can’t get in.”
“Do we have anyone here who could deserve to go in?” Pinkie asked aloud. “Someone appropriate enough for it to just let through? Anyone?”
“Cinder’s not here…” Twilence said, breathless. “But…”
Nanoha came out of the crowd, every step she took marked by trembling. She closed her eyes, laid her hands on the door, and pushed.
Nothing happened. She tried pulling, but that didn’t help either.
“Out of the way, bitch!” Caliborn shouted, shoving her to the side. “This is my moment!” He charged into the doors and bounced off like a ping-pong ball. “…Shit…”
“…Let me try,” Starbeat said, quietly. Her hoof had no effect on the doors. Many others tried – Mlinx, Death, Discord, Spades, the Everykid, Monika, Rina, Twilence, Roxy, O’Neill... They all failed. Every last one of them were barred from the Tower.
Jenny rammed herself into the Tower, thinking maybe if she just spent enough effort… But it was worthless.
Roland walked to the Tower last. He looked up the dark column that went all the way up to Earth itself. His expression set, he addressed the structure. “You let me in once before. My life is defined in relation to you. ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came,’ and he has come again. I served you for innumerable lifetimes, defending you from the Red that sought your demise. You were always the end of my journey – the purpose, the reason, the goal. I was released; but always I must return.” He laid his hand on the door, pressing the side of his legendary revolver into the unnatural structure. “I beg of you, allow me to face monsters once more.”
A soft breeze blew through his hair.
The Dark Tower did not open to the Gunslinger.
Roland slowly removed his revolver from the door and turned around, expression unreadable. Three paces out, he whipped around and fired six shots into the Dark Tower’s door. The doors themselves did not move, but the crack in the Tower grew by about a millimeter from being struck by such an important weapon.
“…Could we destroy it?” Corona asked. “Just… widen the crack?”
Nanoha shook her head. “I… I don’t think so. Nettle…?”
Nettle interfaced with the Tower directly, grimacing. “Roland’s revolver is the most ka-charged weapon in the universe aside from Black Thirteen itself. We do not have time to whittle it to nothing. …I don’t know why we even have time at all, everything in there could happen in an instant.”
“We have one other we have not tried,” Roland said, pulling down his hat. “The man in black.”
“Do it,” Eve ordered. “Get him here.”
Nettle nodded. She closed her eyes and sent her tendrils out, phasing through the ground until they found his prison. She pushed right through the security measures and teleported him to the Tower, depositing him unceremoniously on the ground.
He stood up, put on a smile, and chuckled. “I see everyone’s been having a delightful time.”
“Shut the fuck up and open the door,” Vriska demanded.
Flagg looked to the Dark Tower. “You see, I would. But I don’t have Black Thirteen.”
“Your essence is connected with Black Thirteen.”
“And the Tower distinguishes between us,” Flagg said. To prove his point he leaned on the door and pushed. “See? Nothing. Nothing at all. English is in the Tower and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it.” He leaned back and smirked. “And he let you try all the plans, didn’t he? Every. Last. One. And they all failed.”
“He’s trying to take your job,” Corona pointed out.
“And maybe that just means it’s my day.” Flagg shrugged. “Everyone has one.”
“You’ve changed,” Roland observed.
“It’s part of our nature,” Flagg responded. “As characters as well as people. Change… It’s an inherent property of everything., no matter what the bitch says.” He pointed at the Tower. “Right now, there is change going on in there. English is taking control of the Source and the world he creates… We’ll have to accept it for what it is. There’s nothing we can do. It’s time to bow and accept our new overlord.”
“The Tower is fading,” Roxy said. “It won’t be forever.”
“Why not?”
“Renee,” Twilence said. “Or, well, the Emissary. She’s said things – a lot of stuff I wasn’t there for, but I remember anyway. But she talked knowing she wasn’t going to be around for long. Hinting that we’d be free. The Tower will fall, Flagg.”
“So he has years, decades, maybe centuries to bend the world to how he sees it.” Flagg said with a shrug. “Or maybe the Emissary was flat-out lying to you. She’s not above that, she’s not above anything.”
Twilence frowned. “We have to do something.”
“…Do we?” Nanoha asked. “Do we have to? We tried everything we had, and it failed. We should know…”
Pinkie furrowed her brow. “Long ago, there was a moral like that. Sometimes, the right answer is to just give up. When there’s nothing you can do… stop making things worse by trying.”
“That’s… That’s wrong!” Corona shouted. “We can’t…”
“Your fight was pointless,” Lightning pointed out. “You strained Death unnecessarily and never really had any chance of winning. We would still be where we are now without you fighting him, and you all wouldn’t have suffering inner souls.”
Eve blinked. “…Make the most of it…” She looked up. “Unless anyone has any way into the Tower, we just have to wait for something to happen.” She turned to the smoldering cityscape in the distance. “Until then, we have people that need us to help them. To build them up. We don’t know what English is going to create. So let’s forget about him and help who we can for as long as we’re able.” She spread her wings and took off toward the City.
Corona clenched her fist and let out an angry breath. “I don’t want to admit it, but she’s right. We’re useless and we’ve lost. We should go do the next best thing.” She looked around at the small crowd. “Unless any of you have an idea?”
There was silence.
“…Okay.” She wiped a tear from her face. “Come on.” She spread her wings and flew away as well. Slowly but surely, everyone else walked after her.
“…What’s going to happen to us?” Pidge wondered aloud.
Jotaro grimaced. “I don’t know. Whatever it is, we’ll face it head on.”
“…It looks like we’re running away right now.”
Jotaro sighed. “Maybe… But we’re not running out of fear.”
“Hopelessness. We’re running out of hopelessness.”
Jotaro didn’t want to say she was right.
~~~
Lord English stood at the bottom of the staircase. Renee was a full flight above him, looking down. “By my bricks, you’re slow.”
He ignored her and took a step up the stairs, passing the first door without even bothering to look inside.
“Oh come on, half the fun of this is to see your life and how it brought you here! Open a few doors, take a good look at where you’ve been, what’s caused all this.”
He kept moving along, giving neither her nor the doors a passing glance.
She rolled her eyes. “Really… Guess I’ll have to open them foooor you.” She kicked the first door open, revealing a green and red egg. “Ah yes, your birth – as Caliborn. Laid on a dead world…” Through the door, Gamzee appeared and watched the egg hatch. “And you even got yourself a guardian to further your natural desires for multiversal conquest, what fun.”
She jumped to the next door, kicking it open. It showed him as a young cherub screaming at the top of his lungs about how he was going to kill his sister one day. “You were a lot more talkative back then. More willing to let the world know what you thought. Of course, I know what you thought, but you aren’t helping me with the conversation here.”
Suddenly, she was in front of him, opening a door. “But you aren’t just Caliborn. Oh no, you come from several different little timelines. Part of you is Gamzee…” She kicked a door open, revealing a purple grub that would one day grow into the Bard of Rage. “Part of you is an absolutely dashing pair of glasses…” A door swung open, revealing Dirk Strider programming an artificial intelligence into a pair of pointed shades. “And lastly, and least importantly, part of you exists as the Heir of Void.” She opened a door to a scene of a strong indigo-blood troll punching through a wall.
Trotting up the stairs backwards, she looked at English with a smirk. “You, English, are evil, anger, intelligence, and strength. Time, Rage, Heart, and Void. Lord, Bard, Prince, and Heir. And you are so much more.” She peeled another door back, revealing Caliborn standing over his god-tier clock, destroying it to ensure his unconditional immortality, bestowing his form with pool-ball eyes. “You are an endless. A true immortal, defined by a Horrorterror experiment on me.” She smirked. “I think you’ll like the next one.”
She pranced upward and waved a door open. Behind it was Caliborn fighting eight humans – including John, Roxy, and Jade. He was able to use the House Juju to trap four of them, but the four who remained kept fighting. Soon, he was losing, beaten to the ground by a brilliant light of Hope from one of the people facing him. He tried to stand up – but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.
One of the enemies with Heart powers grabbed Caliborn’s soul and tried to seal it within a mysterious, creepy puppet. Half of Gamzee’s body was caught in the trap. In the midst of this, a strange red ghost charged out of nowhere, clearly a mixture of both the strong troll and the anime shades. Everything collapsed into one explosion of energy that Roxy grabbed hold of.
She Voided it all from existence, despite knowing English would return from it one day.
Renee closed the door. “Of course, that didn’t actually happen. Not in the final timeline here, anyway. John was killed before he could take them back to fight Caliborn. And now look at the little rascal running around, making friends, hiding in fear from what he would have become had John lived.” Renee looked English in the eyes. “You shouldn’t exist.”
English continued his walk.
“But the Horrorterrors and I… Well, we couldn’t just let that stop, now could we?” She opened up more doors showing English destroying universes, slaughtering ghosts, and killing Hayate in the battle with the Class 1 societies. She showed him facing off against the army of Skaians, followed quickly by Vriska unleashing the House Juju on him, trapping him inside with the power of four essences – including John.
“John… The retconner, the one being in Existence given my power,” Renee said, smirking. “He was an idiot, which was why he could have the power. If he had been intelligent… It would have been too risky. Too uncontrollable. And when he died without completing his own loop… well, look where we are now. The culmination of your plan. Siron’s staff, the Crimson King, absorbing the eldritch power, and fighting through the City.”
The next door showed Lord English walking up the stairs of the Dark Tower. There was only one other door before the top of the Tower.
“Curious?” Renee asked, standing by the final door. “This shows the end of your story. You can take a peek ahead, see what fate is yours.”
“NO. THAT IS A TRAP.”
Renee chuckled. “Oooh, too clever for me! Except not really.” She threw the door open anyway. She showed Lord English standing in a blurry expanse, the spirograph of the Source spinning around him. Then she shut the door. “That’s your fate.”
“NO.” He pointed at the final door, the one with his name on it.
ENGLISH
“THIS IS MY FATE.” He threw the door open and walked right into the room at the top of the Dark Tower. The clock connected to the life of the multiverse was long gone, only the Source itself remaining.
It was a beautiful white spirograph turning eternally, producing all the ka in existence. Every rule of luck, every trick of fate, every meaningful moment: it all came from this one thing.
“You know, they all wonder what the Source is,” Renee said, appearing opposite English on the Source’s pedestal. “What could the Builders have possibly discovered that allowed them to create fate?” She touched it with her hoof and giggled. “I actually have no idea. It… It just is. Am I programmed to think that? Is it evidence that there’s more out there, or is it just the Sea of Infinite Possibility itself? A gift from God, or some scientific marvel I am prohibited from analyzing myself?” She shrugged. “It cannot be known. While I am here, that rule is absolute. When I am gone, the Source will be gone as well.”
Lord English extended a hand to the Source. “I WILL BECOME ONE…”
“You can grab it, but you cannot become one with it,” Renee said. “It is a source of power. That is all you need.” Renee held out her hooves. “Go on. Take it.”
Lord English clasped his hands around the Source – and promptly found himself pressed into the far wall by a force strong enough to crack planets in half.
Renee broke out into maniacal laughter. “You should see the look on your face! You thought you could just take it! That’s… that’s priceless! You idiot!” She held a hoof to her forehead and threw back her head to exaggerate the laugh even further. “Did you really think this entire scene was just going to be me going over your life? That I would have no point? Au contraire, my custom-made imbecile, I have all the cards here.” She smirked. “You want the keys to existence? Come and get them.”
He did. He transformed Black Thirteen into a clawshot and launched it at the Source. Renee clapped her hooves and made the Source vanish. “Always so practical…” With a swish of her tail, she was gone as well. The room was empty.
“ENOUGH WITH THE GAMES.”
Renee’s voice came from all directions at once. “Darling, I am the Emissary of Ka. All I know are games!”
The room at the top of the Dark Tower folded open, revealing a blurry cosmic background. It was not the Earth, nor was it the New World – in it he saw traditional galaxies, tendrils the size of many universes, and time itself twisting around in a net.
“This is what I see. This is what you want. This is everything – all that has ever existed and all that will exist. You can see over there the set time of my demise. What else do you see?”
Lord English didn’t respond. He held Black Thirteen up, transforming the casing around it to resemble a scepter. The multicolored spirographs within popped out of it and began orbiting the black orb at a frantic pace.
He narrowed his eyes. He didn’t see his victory. He didn’t see his defeat either.
“Well that’s because you don’t have the Source yet! I’m just showing you the expanse of it right now, nothing else. The interweaving nature of ka… It’s all here. All ready for you. I’ve even set up a very simplistic tutorial for you!”
“YOUR INSULTS ARE PETTY.”
“And that fills me with a sense of pride and accomplishment. No matter what you do, English, it brings me satisfaction. Conquest, defeat, it doesn’t matter, you are part of the story. Everything is! Hatred, love, worship, assault, it’s all the same to me.” The cosmic background receded from English, leaving him in an expanse of nothingness. “What are you to me?”
“YOU BUILT ME FOR THIS MOMENT. IT NEEDS TO BE SATISFYING.”
Renee chuckled. “And you are correct once again. Your life has always been leading to this moment. The moment where you look your creator in the face. Where you don’t demand answers – you demand the power that is rightfully yours. Such a sad, sad mind you have… But an interesting one.” The darkness around English seemed to get darker and darker. “You think you understand. This needs to be fixed…”
And then English was a human boy named Jared who had just watched both of his parents die in a car crash. He screamed in agony, and then stopped. Why? What? When? He didn’t know; all he knew was that he was at an orphanage. He was bullied, tormented, and forced to do all the work. Nobody paid him any mind. Through defiance, he made it to college, graduated with honors, and was promptly shot dead in a street the next day.
“TRICKS!”
“Real lives,” Renee said, the darkness closing in around him. “The lives you don’t understand. Let’s go another round shall we?”
He was a Gem working on Earth during Rose’s Rebellion against the Diamonds. She popped out of the kindergarten and was put to work fighting the Gems who had devoted their lives to this primitive planet. But she was captured and shown kindness by Rose directly, given a new life. She learned what it meant to care, to love, to appreciate life. But in the end, she was corrupted by the Diamonds in the last attack on Earth and lived the rest of her life a horrid monster. One of her best friends was forced to shatter her before she could destroy an entire human town.
Lord English took a few steps back. “THESE LIVES ARE INSIGNIFICANT!”
“Then live your own again.”
He did. He lived through Caliborn’s life – from hatching, to the arguments with his sister, to his tribulations in SBURB. Then his discovery of new life and meaning within the New World. He would never admit it, but he had made friends. And he would protect them as they had protected him.
“HE IS WEAK!”
“How about we try this on for size?”
Lord English was the Crimson King. A demon of untold power born of a union not meant to be. He saw the Tower, and saw an opportunity. He rose to the occasion and devoted his very mindset to bringing the Tower down, building up armies and psychic entities to rip at the Beams themselves. But as he continued on, he aged, and his mind escaped from him. He became a screaming old man at the end who did little more than shoot robotic spheres at Roland before a kid erased him from existence. But then he returned… only to be destroyed by Lord English.
Lord English clenched his fist. “WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS?”
“Maybe you’ll figure it out, maybe you won’t, I don’t care. This one will make you REALLY mad though, cheers!”
Lord English was Vriska Serket. Taken in by a giant spider lusus, she was forced to feed the creature other trolls constantly to keep it from eating her. She buried all inclinations she had of what was right and wrong to keep her sanity, so she became an evil manipulative mastermind, twisting the limbs of every last person she came into contact with to not only get food for her guardian, but also to enjoy the task. She had friends, friends she was willing to betray at a moment’s notice. The Thief of Light ventured into SBURB and tried to skew events so she would be the hero – but also the cause of the villain. When she found that Lord English was the real man behind the curtain, she found him an appropriate target. She found the House Juju and brought it right to the villain, trapping him within.
Lord English wanted it to be over. But it wasn’t. Vriska had much more to show him.
She wandered the multiverse, lonely. She found the Doctor, befriended him, and then was disillusioned. Monika came into existence. Vriska continued until she ended up on Twilence’s team through the machinations of the Influence, forming a new group of explorers until they were destroyed by a random demon with a Flower under his control. Enlish got to experience all her pains, all her growth, and all her loss. He watched Merodi Universalis grow, fall, and then… He got to suffer his own attacks.
“THIS DOES NOT DETER ME!”
“We’re not done yet.”
He was run through the lives of so, so many others. Siron. Monika. Luna. Mlinx. Starbeat. Flagg. Rina. Nanoha. The Emperor. White Nettle. John. Jenny. Burgerbelle. Roland. Renee. Daniel. Corona. Eve. Cinder. Even the entire Everyman. No experience was hidden from him.
Lord English clenched his fist. “I HAVE NOT FALTERED!”
“You have removed every ounce of empathy and care from your mind… You fool. You poor, poor fool.” She chuckled sadly. “One more for you.”
She threw him into Twilence. She was Princess Celestia’s student, and then she was the Princess of Friendship itself… and then she was lost in a time that was not her own, with an eye in her chest that wouldn’t stop telling her about what lay beyond the fourth wall and what the force of ka was. She went insane, but she came out of it, better than most options allowed. She became me, the one who understood ka and what it meant. I traveled the universe with my group until I could no more, and then I waited, manipulating from the background. Alone, fearful, and angry – but always understanding. I knew why everything happened, and when I realized that curse could end, I took it upon myself to make sure it came to pass. I suffered, but the collapse won. I was captured, mocked, and ridiculed. I ran and found a Deus Ex Machina. And then… I failed. Twilence failed to beat Lord English, falling, the last-ditch effort nothing more than an afterthought.
Lord English ground his teeth. He stood up tall, preparing for the next experience.
Nothing came.
“You truly are heartless,” Renee said. “You’ve felt what they’ve felt, been what they’ve been, and the only change that’s come across you… is that you’ve hardened your heart further. Your determination knows no bounds.”
“GIVE ME THE SOURCE!”
“Lemme think about that… Hrm. You know what? ‘Aw, hell no’!”
Reality crumbled. English was stripped of all his power and thrown to a ground that didn’t exist. Swords chopped at him from seventeen time dimensions, driving his very essence into nothing.
But it refused. It wouldn’t even let a death register. His unconditional immortality would go untested. He would live.
Black Thirteen, the Crimson King, and Lord English… All were still here, even in the impossible existence the Dark Tower was subjecting him too. He willed himself back up, forcing ka to his will. Black Thirteen formed itself into a cannon and shot at everything. Cracks appeared and disappeared. The Dark Tower trembled, weakening slightly.
“Ah ah ah!” Renee chuckled. “You can’t control me if you destroy me!”
“GIVE IT UP.”
“I do not fear death threats. Simple brute force will not aid you here.”
Lord English honked. Everything trembled as his soul grabbed hold of the Tower’s reality. He was suddenly on top of the Tower – which was impossible – and at the intersection of the twelve Beams. All ka flowed through him, a feeling both satisfying and agonizing. He drove his claws into the Tower itself.
And then his soul was burning. He had no body, and all he could feel was pain. Eternal pain that could not be numbed, would never abate, and would never let him grow bored. It lasted forever but was over in an instant.
He was released but did not wait a single moment before unleashing more attacks on the substance of reality itself. All the pain and experiences were doing to him was making him stronger. The fires could not kill him, so they only forged him into something more.
“More is such an opinionated word… It wasn’t like you had much in you to begin with, but come on, what’s left at this point?” Renee appeared as a unicorn in front of him. “If you lose the need for meaning, what’s the purpose in continuing?”
Lord English grabbed her in his claws, finding her pathetically easy to crush.
Blood trickled out of her mouth. “You understand everything, and you go on…” She gagged on the blood in her throat. “You know what you have to do.” She slumped to the ground, unmoving.
Lord English took a step forward – and saw himself. Just the two of them standing in an expanse of nothing.
They wasted no time. They turned Black Thirteen into a sword form and drove it through both of their hearts simultaneously. The bodies fused into a single one that was dead, but still standing. Affixed to Black Thirteen was Lord English’s amalgamation of a soul. It was intangible, but he could see it in his current state: a soft white light that sparked with a soft energy that was paradoxically the strongest force in existence. It was the last spark of anything worthwhile within him.
He destroyed it.
You have lost all drive, Black Thirteen told him. You have no reason to do anything. Why continue?
“THERE IS NO REASON NOT TO.” He didn’t roar, he didn’t scream, and he didn’t honk. He punched through reality, clawing at the Dark Tower’s defenses. He pulled back time, space, and coding he could not understand even as he was now. He smashed his way through the Dark Tower’s memory banks, a place beyond metatime itself. At every turn, the Tower’s true internal structure tried to stop him.
But even as it did so, it knew he would make it to his goal.
Lord English grabbed onto the Dark Tower and appeared inside of it at the same time. He entered the room at the top, where the Source still stood.
It had never moved. The Dark Tower had merely tricked him.
Lord English did not go to the Source. He demanded the Source come to him.
It did. The unknowable white spirograph left the podium and surrounded him. He took control from the Dark Tower.
He let out a deep, ululating honk. The Source gave all of ka to him, infusing the noise into reality itself. No one would feel anything - but the laws had begun changing. The ka of Lord English began to interfere with the old ka of the Tower, engaging in a battle none could see or really feel. Shifting fate wherever possible in the favor of the villain. In the favor of English. Every version and echo of his long-dead sister, the physical antithesis of English, were killed through a series of million-to-one coincidences.
He didn’t laugh. He didn’t pat himself on the back. He didn’t even roar. He stood impassive, feeling no joy or satisfaction from his victory.
There was nothing left.
Only Darkness.
~~~
It didn’t take Nettle long to realize that she was the strongest individual around at the moment. She couldn’t really appreciate the irony.
Just over a month ago, she would have laughed at the strange inversion of her situation and moved on without another thought. But now she had experienced life – seen what it was like to be something that wasn’t a Downstreamer. Felt the world with real, physical sensations, and without some ancient dogma pushing her forward.
Now that she was back, she couldn’t just move on anymore. She had felt too much. So much it wouldn’t just go away.
She couldn’t handle the suffering she saw all around her. With every person she saved from the wreckage, there were three or four others already dead, and more who had just been utterly vaporized. Every now and then she’d come across someone who’s soul had been affixed to their body – either by Death or English himself as part of a joke – and Rev or one of the other healers brought them back they’d look like they wanted to die for a moment. Most would get some semblance of sanity back after a few minutes, but there were a few that took the first opportunity they could to off themselves. Given the state the City was in, this was rarely difficult.
If Lord English was willing to do this when he had another goal in mind, what would he do when he could do anything?
And here she was, able to reach anywhere in the City with ease, and she still felt helpless with every body she pulled out. Every severed limb…
She broke down when she removed a lifeless Sweetie Belle from the wreckage. “I can’t… I can’t do this…”
The healer currently assigned to Nettle – Corona - saw her fall to her knees. She flew over and put a hand on Nettle’s back. “It’s okay. We can go on without you.”
“It’s not okay. If I go… thousands more die because I wasn’t helping to save them…” She tried to stand up – but she tripped over a rock and scraped her face on the ground. The wound healed quickly, but the pain was still there. “I can’t…”
“Sometimes we just can’t do it,” Eve said, trotting over. “If I’d tried to save everyone all the time… I would never have done any good. I would have broken.” She looked at Nettle. “You save who you can. But you have limitations just like everyone else. You can’t save them all.”
“I…” She shook her head. “I need to save as many as possible. That’s right, right? As many. All of them.”
“That’s the way it should work,” Twilence said, jumping down from a nearby rock. “But it isn’t how things are. Sacrificing yourself for others is honorable and good. But you’re also important.” She shook her head, sighing. “You and I are important, Eve and Corona much, much more so. Everyone else out there… under the rubble… They aren’t.”
Corona growled. “Screw that…”
“Ka’s still around, Corona, so it’s the way things are,” Twilence insisted. “We’re more important than them. It’s wrong, but it’s a law of reality. We mean more. If we lose ourselves to save a few hundred lives…” Twilence shook her head. “It’s worse off for everyone.”
“The loss of a hero…” Eve mused.
“That’s… that’s not what you all told me,” Nettle said. “You said everyone mattered. That… That…”
“Now you know why I wanted to destroy the Tower,” Corona said, using her magic to heal another injured man. “Equality doesn’t exist with it. People tell stories of the great, sure, but it goes beyond that. There are those less important, ‘lesser’ races…” She curled her hand into a fist. “I fight it with every fiber of my being.”
“And yet you tell Nettle not to push for them,” Twilence observed. “You’re just as guilty as the rest of us.”
“We don’t know how to live without a story…” Eve said, shaking her head.
“We’ll have to, if the Tower falls,” Corona said. “…Maybe we should try it… Just… throw ourselves into this.” She looked at the carnage, the wind flipping through her hair. “…Would it be right to tell Death to stop playing favorites?”
“Wouldn’t help,” Twilence said. “It’d just make things worse in the long run. Try to give equal treatment, you let a few heroes die. The heroes… They will be able to fight and protect. Without them…” She sighed. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but right now English could do anything. We’ll need everyone to maximize every chance we have. We have to play by the rules of ka.”
“No…” Nettle said. “No, no. Eve, you said we don’t know how to live without a story.”
Eve blinked and nodded. “Yeah, we don’t. Our lives have been defined by that.”
“What if… What if we need to?” Nettle asked. “Learn… how to live without a story.”
Eve shook her head. “That doesn’t really make much sense, how w-”
“Subversion,” Twilence said suddenly, eyes sparkling. “A subversion. That’s it! We tried the plan, the Deus Ex Machina, and the heroes’ last stand. What if, by trying to solve things the traditional way of stories, we ruined it? I think Nettle’s onto something!”
Corona scratched the back of her head. “She is…? But how could you solve something without…”
“Latch onto something else,” Twilence said, gesturing at the carnage around them. “Look. All these unimportant people. We were just judging them. Doesn’t that seem a little out of place? Sure, we have these conversations, but was now really the time or the place? Why are all of us in the same place right here, right now?” She pulled a small device out of Corona’s pocket and grinned when she noticed a green light was on. “And why would the cameras be on us?”
Eve blinked. “You’re not Aware right now, right?”
“Not at all. I’m just noticing patterns… Thinking…” Twilence turned to Nettle. “But I can’t be the one to figure it out, that’d be expected, that’d be normal. Nettle, you were so close, you have something. What do you think the answer is?”
Nettle took a step back, suddenly feeling under pressure. She wanted to say she couldn’t do it – but her foot stepped onto the dead form of the Sweetie Belle. Tears welled up in her eyes as all the other dead bodies flashed through her eyes. All of them… Hundreds…
They were important.
“We… we need to learn.” She looked at her hands. “We need to show we don’t… want to be better than them… That we want to be the same.” She turned around and looked to the distant areas of the City. “It has to be everyone. Everyone. If we try to face English with just those who matter, who are better… we lose. We can’t win, because we aren’t ready to win.” She took in a deep breath. “We need to fight not only alongside the soldiers, but alongside the normal people who live in their homes. The civilians we don’t give a second thought about. They need just as much say in this as we do.”
“…I like the idea,” Twilence admitted. “I just don’t see how we could do it, practically speaking. How would we get everyone to fight? Most the people you mentioned don’t want to fight. They don’t have it in them.”
“We could try to combine everyone’s wills,” Corona said.
“How would we do that?” Eve asked. “That many minds cannot work as one! It can’t be done! Whatever we put them in would destroy itself from contradiction or become a homogenous hive mind!”
Nettle smiled. “There’s something that wouldn’t.”
“What?” Corona asked.
Nettle used one of her tendrils to teleport a small adorable hat-wearing child in the middle of them. “The Everyman once existed as a living contradiction.”
Twilence, Corona, and Eve fell silent.
The Everykid wondered why everyone was looking at her funny.
~~~
Lord English heard a knock at the door the instant after he had unleashed his honk with the Source.
What?
The door swung in, revealing a word printed on it – not a name.
ALL
On the other side was the Everykid, her adorable smile meeting Lord English’s emotionless face.
“Hello!” she said.
English didn’t have to wonder who she was, or how she was here – he just knew what had happened while he was fighting the Tower for supremacy.
(The Everykid sat near the wreckage of the Austraeoh, next to the single spectral rod they had gotten working again. It was pointed straight into the air and was currently charging magical energy. Numerous magical runes were inscribed in the ground below her, the alien words slowly starting to glow a pale white.
“You’re sure she can handle it?” Minna asked, worry in her voice.
“Yes,” Corona said, tracing a few magical markings on the Everykid’s face. “She’s been separated from the Everyman for all of a month. The capacity is still there.”
“It’s the only idea I’ve heard lately that makes any sense,” O’Neill said, folding his arms. “I’m okay with it as long as the kid is.”
The Everykid nodded, putting on a determined expression.
Minna gulped. “I… I can’t see what’s going to happen. It’s going to be horrible…”
The Everykid shook her head and winked at Minna.
“It’s going to be horrible if we do nothing,” Corona said, plugging two wires together with her magic. “And we don’t know how long we have…”
“Exactly enough,” Twilence said. “No more, no less.”
“I’ve sent out the message,” Eve announced as she teleported back. “Everyone knows what we’re doing. There shouldn’t be very many who try to resist.”
Minna closed her eyes and nodded. “This really is our last-ditch effort, isn’t it?”
Pinkie nodded, grinning. “Yep! It’s so crazy and outlandish it just might work!” She placed her hoof on the activation lever. “Can I have the honors?”
Corona shrugged. “Sure, why not. Go ahead, Pinkie.”
“Yay!” Pinkie pulled down on the lever. The spectral rod activated with a painfully loud whine. A burst of soft blue energy left the rod, moving out in a spherical pattern. It swiftly encapsulated not only the entire City, but a distance several Earths wide, capturing many who hadn’t even been part of the City – living in caverns unaware of what was happening above.
And then the energy was gone. Every sapient being that wasn’t the Everykid passed out in an instant.
And the Everykid… the Everyman? The Everyman existed once more, but she was different. Despite the usual contradictions, she only had one active body at the moment – and that body had a purpose.
She ran off the platform and toward the doors of the Dark Tower, the thoughts of everyone rattling around in her mind. Many were confused, panicked, or afraid – but the most organized response was one of encouragement. They were going to do this. They were going to go in and show Lord English what they were made of.
The Dark Tower opened its doors for them before they even arrived. They hopped through, finding the interior to be white and without a staircase. There was only one door, and English already knew what the word on it was.)
Lord English noticed the narrative was mocking him. He did not care. He looked the Everyman in her little eyes. He let her take the first move.
She walked up to him and bopped him on the nose with her parasol. Then she backed up and smirked at him.
She started dancing the smuggest dance that had ever existed.
Lord English was immune to being baited – he felt no annoyance, rage, or impatience anymore – but he knew an invitation to attack when he saw one. He tore reality asunder and forced her body in two…
…Except he didn’t. Eve was suddenly standing there, taking the hit herself. For a moment, her body was torn into two, blood everywhere. Then she was standing next to the Everyman as if nothing had happened.
She wasn’t physically there. It was just her will.
Her will and the will of everyone else. Still powered by the old ka.
The room opened up once again, though this time it didn’t show the full expanse of the Tower’s vision. Instead, it showed a blurred expanse with ominous clock towers in the distance. The floor of the Dark Tower fell away, replaced with a dark, rectangular platform that screamed finality.
“Looks like we’ve got ourselves an arena!” Corona said, manifesting her will behind English. “I’m not going to pretend to understand how this works, but here goes nothing.” She rammed the Master Sword into his back and lit him on fire. He threw her aside with a roar.
Eve appeared next to Corona with a smile on her face. “…Together?”
Corona jumped up and lit herself on fire. Eve encased herself in ice and they charged, hitting English right in the stomach and pushing him down. With a grunt, he slapped both of them back. He prepared for another attack – but they didn’t go for him again.
“Who’s next?” Corona called.
Pinkie appeared from nowhere and hit Lord English with a squeaky hammer. “WHACK-A-CHERUB!” He tore her to shreds with a thought, but she was already back. “Geez, haven’t you learned anything?” She put on the bomb mask and latched herself to his face. “You.” She exploded. “Can’t.” She drove a sword into his skull. “Kill.” She threw a pie into his face. “Suction cup.” She stuck two suction cups on his eyes. “PONY!” She pulled out his eyes and smacked them to the ground with a pool cue.
They appeared in his skull once again, without a problem. He turned to ignore the various wills attacking him and turned to the Everyman. All he had to do was kill the physical body and…
…Where was she? All he saw was an army of wills…
“Oh, she left,” I said, appearing behind him. “There’s more than enough psychic wills in here to keep us all manifested when she’s nowhere near the Tower. By the way, having difficulty with your Awareness?”
He turned to me – and saw I was holding the orb of Black Thirteen, juggling it mockingly in my wings. He willed it back to himself, but he found that didn’t work.
Black Thirteen could force the Dark Tower’s doors to open.
It could resist his new will.
He launched for it physically – but I just teleported it… somewhere. I really don’t know where, and I don’t care. It wasn’t here.
All that was here were millions of wills, Lord English, and the Source.
But he had the Source, and nothing could fight the Source. He’d just have to outlast all these wills.
“Can you really do that?” Eve asked, stepping to the front of the combined will of all, a nonexistent wind blowing through her stellar mane.
English stared at her, lifeless.
“Can you outlast all of us?” Eve began to float into the air, her eyes glowing a brilliant white.
Silence.
“Any one of us, you could defeat, have defeated. Even the simple sum of our potential is nothing compared to the power you have at your disposal.” The Element of Magic shot out five beams of light, finding Pinkie, Flutterfree, Mattie, a Rainbow Dash, and an Applejack. “But together, we have something much more than the sum of our parts.”
Behind her, the wills of everyone floated, light shooting from them to the Element of Magic. Rainbows coursed through the crowd, endowing even the darkest and least significant of souls with a connection.
“Not too long ago, we were fighting each other. Killing each other.” Eve lifted Corona up, gesturing at her with a powerful hoof. “Existence was torn in half.”
Further beams of power coalesced above Eve, to the point at which it was hard to make her out.
“But here we are, standing today, together. We were trying to kill each other… but already, those wounds have begun to heal. Already, the bridges are being rebuilt. Already the magic of friendship has been restored.”
She pointed a hoof at English, forming all the energy into a point.
“There’s a reason ponies were chosen to lead this story. Not because we’re better than anyone, not because we’re cute… but because, to us, friendship is everything. And no matter the trial, no matter the difference, no matter the strain, we will always fall back on it!”
Eve, floating above English, speaking through her very destiny, threw the rainbows at him with the collective wills of every mind.
“WE ARE HERE TO STAND TOGETHER!”
The Elements of Harmony had unleashed many rainbows over the years, and in the lifespan of Merodi Universalis many sets had been used in tandem to face darker, stronger foes. They were powerful artifacts.
They were nothing compared to the brilliance that engulfed English at the top of the Tower, surrounding him not in a burning light, but an understanding light. A light that called out to him, asked him to come home. Opened the door and welcomed him in for a warm meal and an understanding ear. He could join them.
But he had given everything up to be where he was now. He would not accept such an invitation. The light cleared… and English stood, still. Not unaffected, but undamaged.
Eve lowered to the ground, frowning. “...It wouldn’t be complete if it ended like that, would it?”
“No,” Corona said, taking a step forward. She pointed a hand at English, narrowing her eyes. “It will end like this.” She glowered. “Charge.”
English moved first for once, punching Corona through the stomach. She reformed easily, laughing as the rest of the wills surged forward.
“STAR PLATINUM: THE WORLD!” Jotaro yelled, dropping on Lord English from above. “ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA!”
“Uh… normal Pidge attack,” Pidge said, firing her weapon into Lord English’s side. “Woo, I’m helping.”
“Keep it up!” Vriska shouted with a laugh. She held the infinite-sided die high and rolled it. Lord English suffered three megalodon sharks to the face, promptly followed up by Flutterfree cutting him into thousands of tiny pieces.
“TEAM ATTACK!” Pinkie shouted, summoning all five of them together at once. They rushed Lord English with several different attacks – all of which he deflected with ease.
But they didn’t seem bothered by that.
Roland of Gilead appeared and fired one bullet. This time, it struck true, blowing Lord English’s head clean off. He could feel the Tower shake from the attack – but English wasn’t deterred. He couldn’t be deterred. He was not a person anymore, but a force of nature. He clawed forward.
Randall Flagg grabbed English’s hand in his own. “You know, I think I’ve decided I want to keep my job, thank you.” He snapped Lord English’s wrist back with enough force to break it. “Applications open again next year.”
“FULL POWER… STARLIGHT BREAKER!” Nanoha shouted, shooting a beam of rose-colored energy at Lord English from above. He swam through the magic laser like it was water, jumping out of it and clawing her in two. She didn’t care – she only smiled as White Nettle came out of nowhere and tore Lord English apart with her limbs.
He reformed, contemplating what to do next. These wills were all immune to attacks, because they repaired themselves with energy from all the others. But that energy was not – could not – be infinite. He would be able to outlast them. He just had to keep fighting and his will would dominate.
“Oh, that expression looks too confident!” Jenny shouted, socking English across the face. “Geez, you could at least pretend to be hurt.”
“He has no soul within him,” Thrackerzod said, driving a dark blade through him. “He will do no such thing.”
“He just doesn’t know what’s good then, does he?” Mattie asked, whipping him from the side. “Kinda pathetic, really.”
Burgerbelle held up a radio device. “Tactical nuke incoming.”
“BURGERBELLE WA-” Jenny began, but the nuke got there before she could do anything. The entire arena exploded, but, of course, nothing at all changed.
“I hate the feeling of being blown up by a nuke…” Jenny muttered.
“Now we all know what it feels like!” O’Neill said, slapping Lord English with Crimson Sushi.
“Thank you for this wonderful experience,” Minna deadpanned. She did something to Lord English that nobody could see but it made him fall onto his back with what looked like a thousand spider-bites all over him.
Roxy punched him into the air where thousands upon thousands of Aradias proceeded to tear him apart through time, whips, and spirit shenanigans. He was tossed to the ground, where Saxton Hale grabbed him and threw him right into Lightning’s gunblade. She cast an Ultiga spell on him right into the path of Storm.
Storm smirked. He held out an artifact that allowed him to project his hand, grabbing hold of English and shaking him like a rattle. Then he tossed him off to Starbeat.
Vriska appeared next to her. “Wanna do this?”
Starbeat looked at her, conflicted for a moment. Then she shook her head, realizing she was being silly. “You know what, sure. Why not.” She and Vriska charged forward at once, cutting a hole in Lord English.
“Hey! Vriska went twice! Foul!” Pidge called.
“Yare yare daze…” Jotaro muttered.
“It’s not like there are rules here, just go with it,” Pinkie said. “HEY MLINX! GO FOR IT!”
Mlinx drove a spear into Lord English’s head. “That’s for my race.” He threw him to the ground – where Insipid touched him.
“Like, lame, I don’t get the Source. Whatever.” She opened her mouth and vaporized him with a beam attack mixed with pool balls.
“Time for my cameo!” Seskii shouted, unfurling brilliant white wings from her back and unleashing a cascading spell of holy energy upon him.
Death appeared from underneath and drove a Scythe in Lord English. The soulless cherub unleashed a vast Honk to waste away the wills of all the spirits, but once again he found himself tossed around, this time transformed into a volleyball by Discord. He and Trixie proceeded to play a quick round with him before passing the ball to Saitama.
“Normal punch,” Saitama said. He hit the Lord English ball so hard he looped around the Tower’s local spacetime and came back the opposite direction, where Monika caught him. He finally managed to transform himself back into his normal state.
“Okay Everyone!” Monika said, clapping her hands. “Let’s talk about the end of the villain’s journey. It mirrors that of the tragic hero – ending in defeat and loss.” She kicked Lord English in the chest – and somehow that removed more of his willpower than any previous attack.
He fell between two familiar faces – Caliborn and Spades.
“Stabbin’ time…” Spades said.
“Who’s weak now!?” Caliborn shouted. They both proceeded to pummel, shoot, and stab him as rapidly as they could.
Lord English launched himself into the air, flinging the two relics of his past far away. In front of him stood Rev. “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spiri-”
“Just fucking kill him already,” Rina muttered, summoning over a dozen swords and embedding them into Lord English. Rev rolled her eyes, completed a silent prayer, and summoned a Divine cross to burn Lord English into the ground.
Sunny was the closest one to him. She looked around unsure – it didn’t feel right, being here alone.
“Uh… Sunny?” Jane asked, appearing out of nowhere. “What the fuck is this?”
Sunny lit up like a lightbulb, not caring how Jane was here. “A… A bunch of combined wills. We need to kill that guy.”
Jane smirked. “Say no more.” She drew her Clockwork Katana from thin air and ignited it, slashing Lord English in half a blink. At the same time, Sunny unleashed an energy beam containing the collective power of her entire life as an Evermore.
“GUESS WHO ELSE IS HERE?!” Corea shouted, leaping into the fray. “That’s right, me, and oh boy do I love soul-bonds right now!” She blasted Lord English with fire, water, earth, air, and magic all at once. “TAKE THAT!”
Prism chuckled. “Adorable.” She produced an antimatter cannon. “Mine’s bigger.”
“Aw, no fair!”
“It’s fair,” Applejack said, landing squarely on Lord English with her hooves. “A lot of stuff might not be, but this is.”
“DOYJAAAN!” Valentine shouted, dropping from the sky with D4C and Froppy. They held Lord English down – and looked to Johnny.
Johnny shook his head before firing a bullet of Infinite Spin into Lord English, forcing the green monstrosity to completely reset his body once again. “I’m still not happy,” Johnny said.
“You don’t need to be,” Froppy said. “Ribbit.”
Johnny rolled his eyes and fired a few more shots.
Prism finally fired her cannon and burned Lord English to cinders. Once again, his will reformed him and he fought back, pushing them all away. But at this point, his moves became nothing more than footnotes. He would retaliate, but then he would be tossed in a complex game of keep-away – Arceus to the Emperor to Chem to Jingle… Gilgamesh stabbed, Strange incinerated, Sherlock punched with a shrug, Cosmo attacked with her very bones, Flep brought the might of the Celestialsapiens upon him, and Tzeentch made him face his TRAP CARD.
And still there were more. Azula. Empress Twilight. Servitude. Others… The attack was endless. English’s ears were never free from hearing one of them say something annoying.
“Um. Do you wanna buy a dress?”
“ARI ARI ARI ARI ARI ARI!”
“Ya owe me a million bits!”
“You killed my father!”
"Mathematical!"
"Make it so."
“hey. i bet you’re sour-prised to see me here. i bear-ly made it in!”
“CHIMICHANGAS!”
“OPHIUCHUS!”
“UNITED STATES OF SMASH!”
“GIGANTSCHLAG!”
As the Tower wills…
“MOTION CARRIED.”
|> Piano wires activated.
You will be made to serve the Combine.
∂ˆ´ ¥ø¨ µø˜ß†´®
“Awwww yeaaaaah…”
“Amusement.”
And then they stopped being distinguishable entities for Lord English. The beings that came up to him weren’t even important enough to have names. That was to say, they had names, but they had never been important enough for English to bother remembering who they were, and he didn’t exactly care to waste resources and look them up.
A giant slammed him under his foot before peeling up the green pancake and delivering it to a ninja who chopped him into many fine slices. The slices were then sent to a ravenous dragon who devoured every one of English’s shreds and began to digest. English exploded out of the stomach only to be overrun by a small troop of mismatched yellow creatures with annoying voices, followed quickly by an indeterminate number of Sparkles.
Soldiers in simple armor walked up to him and fired their weapons in perfect formation; acting with the same discipline he had seen on the battlefield. He blew them away with the same ease he had before, but this time they came back. They stood fast. None of them ran. They were fuelled by the wills of everyone.
And once the soldiers and the army had their turn… it was left to the ordinary people. At the top were Gems, unicorns, and other more ‘exotic’ races who used their magic, weapons, and natural skills to take English on. It wasn’t long before they stepped aside though, leaving it to the rest.
The mundane. Mostly humans who had families, jobs, and no combat experience whatsoever. At first they attacked tentatively with fists, kicks, and nervous expressions. But they realized they could feel no pain – and that there were millions of them. They mobbed English, pushing him over in a wave of people.
Their wills were weak. Pathetic. Unimportant. English didn’t even register most of what they did, and neither did the story. Every single one of these people had a moment of triumph and success, but nobody would care about reading through that.
And that’s exactly the point here. The setup is playing out exactly as it needs to.
There was a boy. This boy, as far as anyone was concerned, had no name. His features were so simple and ordinary nobody would remember them for sure – some would insist that he was actually a girl after the fact. He was young, but nobody could say how young. He had never been in any scenes, not even in the background as a bystander. He had never met or seen any of the heroes of this story. And after this one moment, nobody would ever see him again.
He kicked Lord English in the crotch.
This attack did nothing to Lord English’s will. It remained unchanged.
But this insignificant, unimportant boy was the one who did it. The swift, childish, immature, inappropriately comical movement of a worn shoe told the Source that now was the time to betray Lord English.
The white spirograph resonated with the old ka and flew off of Lord English, and with it went his control of the Tower’s reality.
Renee appeared in front of him, smirking. “And you thought you had won. Really. You’re just as stupid as all the rest of them. I would never have let you have it if I didn’t know how this ended. You may have had control of the Source - but you aren’t me and you never could be.”
Lord English wasn’t angry – couldn’t be angry. Couldn’t be anything. He had lost, and that was that. He knew he should roar in rage, fight against the force claiming it was better than him, refuse to back down. He should.
But he wasn’t what he used to be. He had given all his depth away to the Tower. He could no longer muster the will to do anything without a reason.
He knew it was utterly pointless to do anything else.
So he simply stopped existing.
~~~
The Everykid sat on one of the loose pieces of the Austraeoh, waiting for the moment she could push the lever back up and end the shared mind experience. Everyone had to get back to their bodies, after all, it wouldn’t do to have them all stuck up in hers forever. Plus, some of them probably had things to attend to. There were still some fires in the City…
When she sensed that Lord English had stopped existing she hopped up and reached for the lever.
But Renee stopped her. “Not quite yet, darling. You’ll get to it in a few minutes, don’t worry.” She looked the Everykid in the eyes. “I need to talk to all of you. And right now is the best time to do that without any unnecessary interruptions.”
The Everykid nodded and sat down, looking at Renee attentively.
“So, first things first – congratulations! You win!” Renee clapped sarcastically as a party blower went off somewhere. “You passed the test. Yes, of course, I always knew you’d pass the test, because I set it up that way. And you all want to know why…” Her mocking expression left her face, replaced with a seemingly uncharacteristic warm smile. “Okay. You deserve to have some answers for once.”
She held her hoof out wide. “The war should have been the end. I was supposed to fall at the end of it, and that’d be that, no more stories, you’d all be free. But you know the story here, that wouldn’t be satisfying. So I created this New World, this collapse-with-a-question-mark, to facilitate the continued story. To lead toward a conclusion. And ever since the beginning, Lord English was to be that conclusion.”
She raised an eyebrow in the Everykid’s direction. “Because of him, his threat, you built this City. You put aside your differences and grudges from the war to face a foe that was truly evil and far, far more powerful than any of you could deal with, even together. And you’ve been through a pretty close proximity of hell to defeat him – combined with a shared mind. You won’t be fighting with each other anymore. There’ll be no war-after-the-war, not here, you can move on. You may say that I took a huge risk giving him the reins for that short ‘time’ and that this peace was’t worth that, but it was only supposed to seem like a huge risk. I already knew how it was going to end given my ‘retcon’ nature. Only something ‘out of context’ could have interfered with it, and I am the context. The Lord English ‘risk’ was worth it in more ways than you can imagine.
“But there was more to it than that. There always is – so many facets. He made you see what you relied on as heroes. That you thought you could win through your own means. When I’m gone, that won’t be the case. There’ll be no heroes, no villains, no nothing. Just people. Some of you will have advantages over others, but I won’t be around to watch you or guide you. At first it may not seem like anything has changed beyond the loss of Awareness, but if you didn’t learn this lesson… About living without ka… Well, I don’t know exactly what would have happened, but I predicted disaster.
“As much as I mock, tease, attack, berate, brutalize, and torment you, I do want you to succeed. Those of you who are heroes, I chose you. I’ve watched closely as you’ve grown across the years and years and… Well, as the Dark Tower, I felt nothing. But as the Emissary, you’re like my children. It gets disturbing if you carry the metaphor out to completion, so I wouldn’t, though I already know some of you are.”
Renee turned around to look at the actual crack in the Dark Tower – it was five times as large as it had been just an hour ago. “I’m going to fade away, like you all want, in more ways than one. First of all, Lord English did kill this body, the Emissary. I’m only here right now because of metatime ‘retcon’ shenanigans to tell you what you needed to hear. I’m a little afraid of what happens when I go but the Tower structure isn’t. I know just as much as the rest of you about what lies beyond, if anything.” She shook her head and laughed bitterly. “You won’t hear from me directly after this scene. I’ll be gone. And the rest of me will fade away as that crack increases in size. You could hurry the final destruction along if you wanted, but I know you won’t. I’ve only got a few decades in me before I collapse completely. Since Lord English was the last major threat, I recommend you use that time to get any last bits of adventuring you want done. Seek out people so you can resolve conflicts. Things won’t neatly tie themselves into bows when I’m gone.
“In essence, I’m telling you to get your lives sorted out. A lot of you have trauma, and you need time to deal with that. I can help you in this time. Sure, there’ll still be death, and there’ll still be some absurdly outrageous things, and the people who are more important than other people, but… wouldn’t you like to wait a few years? Yes, you would. I know you would. I know you do.” She chuckled. “This Time is a gift of resolution. Use it wisely. Also, you won’t be able to get to Old Earth until I’m gone, so don’t try, mmkay?”
She tapped a hoof to her chin. “And now I’m going to talk to all of you. Yes, you outside the Fourth Wall, behind the screen or page, reading this. There are three distinct possibilities as to what you actually are. You could be in a world back in the multiverse that had access to this story, in which case, I’ve gone back in metatime and changed the color of the trees in precisely fifty percent of those worlds. You will go outside and they’ll look green. But have I changed your perception of green?” She smirked evilly. “You could also be the original Earth, the remnant of which is sitting up there in the sky, and you’re reading the very first form of this manuscript. Not the one of the Prophet, but the fiction from before my creation that fueled my early machinations. Or, the third option, I am just words on a page, and you’re reading this from the real world.
“Regardless, my message to you is the same. Don’t spend your lives wishing fictional worlds were real. It’s very much better for everyone involved if your desires don’t get translated directly to reality. Everyone’s messed up inside somewhere, and that’ll translate directly to the creation. So go read your books, watch your movies, and enjoy your games. Have fun, grow attached, and hell, maybe write some fanfics about them just to complete the insanity. You might even learn something through the fiction about the world you live in, a hint about human nature, or a moral that helps you understand the truth of your reality. Enrich your life. You can’t do that by yearning for a world that isn’t yours.
“And for those of you who endlessly question my methods… Fuck you, I don’t have to make sense if I don’t want to.” She laughed maniacally. “Also, Twilence, I’m following your example, prepare for your Discord account to be commandeered. No, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Looking right at the Everykid once more, she laid a hoof on the switch. “So… This is goodbye for those of you in there. I’m not apologizing for anything, including all those times I cut off Jenny’s hand. That was comedy gold. I’m not asking you to understand me – that’s impossible. I’m just asking you to take a look at your lives and make the most of them. And maybe, just maybe, you can realize I’ve got more depth than you think.” She winked. “Good luck.”
She pulled down on the lever.
~~~
One month later…
When you can build a City in a month, you can rebuild it in a week. So that’s exactly what they did.
And after that was over, everyone settled down in one way or another.
In the case of Pinkie’s Party, this meant doing exactly the same thing they always did. On this particular day, this meant returning to the City with a completed first contact mission and a meeting scheduled with the queen of a colony of giant locusts.
Minna looked up from the report they had given her. “…So they accepted the name locusts?”
“Uh, yep!” Pinkie said, grinning.
“I don’t need future sight to see that this is going to be the demons all over again.”
Vriska shrugged. “Well, if it is that again, I guess I finally get to experience it. That’s pretty sweet.”
Flutterfree hooved. “The whole demon thing didn’t end well…”
“I’m sure mayor Mlinx will figure out how to keep them off that path,” Pinkie said. “He might be able to save his culture through them! …In some tangential way.”
Minna rolled her eyes. “I’ll contact him, see what he wants to do. I expect he’ll be all over this. Anyway, since you’re back earl-”
“How about we don’t go on a second mission today?” Pinkie said. “There’s a lot of people I think we should visit and talk to, if you know what I mean.”
“…The cameras are finally on?”
“Geez, stop being so mind-ready!” Pinkie facehooved.
Minna waved them off with a smile. “Go have your fun. Give them a good impression of our City, okay?”
“No promises!” Pinkie said, bouncing out of the new Expeditions Central. They weren’t a Division anymore – the City wasn’t large enough to need them – but they were still a government-funded society.
As they walked through the City, Jotaro coughed and pulled a strange mechanical device out of his jacket. “I wonder what this is…?”
Pidge’s eyes lit up. “The hyper trans-flux inductor parallel conduit!? I thought we had to drop it!”
“Never underestimate Star Platinum’s quick hands.”
“Jojo, this is amazing! I could do all sorts of stuff with it! …Quiznak, now I need more.”
“I hear Jenny’s given the Workshop the designs to her duplicator,” Flutterfree said. “We could see if they can help.”
“Yesssss!” Pidge said, fist-pumping. “Can we?”
“Sure thing!” Pinkie said, sidestepping into a teleporter platform. They were whisked away to another sector of the City, right in front of the building everyone called the Workshop. In reality, it was Corona’s Public Laboratory, but nobody liked that name. It was a white warehouse with red lines on all the edges. There were a few insulting words of graffiti on the outside walls, but considering who Corona was this wasn’t that surprising.
Pinkie had been somewhat surprised there hadn’t been many death threats and no attacks on the place, but it just went to show what the final battle with English had done to help smooth the cracks.
They walked right in to see Jenny, Roxy, and Corona working hard on ‘mad sciencing’ together a true duplication device from Jenny’s designs.
“Hey! We’ve got an audience!” Roxy said, standing up and waving. In the process she dropped her tool to the floor several feet below her current position. Jenny’s old friend, Ivan the crystalline man, sighed dejectedly before picking it up and putting it back in a toolbox.
Corona turned to the visitors. “Oh, hey! What do you guys need?” There was a silvery-white collar affixed around her neck with a soft green light on it - a tracker. The City Government always knew where she was and when to call her for whatever labor they had in mind.
Pidge held up her present. “Duplications.”
“It’s not quite ready yet, but I can try general magic duplication,” Corona said, tapping her horn.
“…I’ll wait for the proper machine, thank you.”
Corona rolled her eyes. “If Raging Sights was easy to upset…”
Pinkie rolled her eyes. “Got anything for us while we’re here?”
“Oh, yeah! Flutterfree, I’ve got Eve’s order done.” She threw a package that Flutterfree caught. “You can take it to her.”
“No problem,” Flutterfree said. “It looks like we’re on the tour of the city today anyway…”
Jotaro adjusted his hat. “Yare yare daze… to the teleporter.”
They were soon in front of a purple building with a Twilight’s cutie mark emblazoned over the main doors. Before Pinkie’s Party got there, the front doors opened.
Eve and Nettle walked out. “Thanks again, I don’t know what I’d do without these sessions,” Nettle said.
Eve smiled warmly. “You have a good heart in you, Nettle. I’m just helping you find yourself a little faster.”
“Oh, I might need to call on you in the middle of the night, in case my date goes wrong.”
I poked my head out of a bush and grinned. “Your date won’t go wrong.”
“GAH! TWILENCE! What’s wrong with you!?” Nettle stomped her feet.
I smirked. “I have narrative timing. Also, your book is overdue. That’ll be five quid.”
Nettle blinked. “…You are the scariest librarian ever.”
“It’s my lot in life. For now.” I lowered myself into the bush and vanished.
Nettle shivered. “Guess I’m not supposed to be nervous about the date anymore. …But I totally am.”
“Perfectly understandable,” Eve said, a hoof on her shoulder. “We can go back inside and talk about it if you want.”
“You have other appointments, and I think I’m fine.” She absent-mindedly touched the tendrils on her back, making sure they were still neatly folded into a bow. “See you!” She waved and skipped down the street.
“Business is booming?” Pinkie asked, floating impossibly above Eve.
“Would it be anything else?” Eve asked, smiling innocently.
“Got a package for you,” Flutterfree said, handing it over. Before Eve even so much as looked at it the two embraced for a moment. “From Corona.”
“Ah, this is probably for you, actually.” She opened the box and took out a small metallic disc, barely large enough to see. “You’re always complaining that the Element of Kindness is a bit bulky.”
Flutterfree flushed. “Eve, now they’re going to say I don’t have to wear it…”
Eve placed the disc on the Element of Kindness, and it shrunk considerably. Instead of a hefty necklace, it became a nice little circlet on her forehead with a tiny pink crystalline butterfly in the middle. “Almost an alicorn,” Eve joked.
Flutterfree beamed. “…This is great! Thanks!”
“Not a problem! Also, don’t try to change the Element of Magic, I like the tiara.”
“I won’t! I won’t!”
“You were thinking about it.”
“…Maybe.”
Everyone had a nice chuckle at this. Before anyone else could say anything, Eve’s next patient arrived.
“All right, I’m here, let’s get this psychoanalysis over with,” Starbeat muttered, walking up to the door. “…What’s everyone doing here?”
Vriska shrugged. “Delivering a package.”
“Oh this is great!” Eve said, clapping her hooves. “We can have impromptu moirail counseling! Vriska, I won’t even charge you.”
Vriska winced. “Jegus, no, I don’t need that!”
“You kinda do,” Flutterfree said.
Starbeat blinked. “…Should I feel insulted, or sad?”
“Neither. Vriska just needs to be told things flat-out.” Flutterfree shoved her into the door. “Have fun!”
“This will be the polar opposite of fun,” Vriska muttered.
“…You do realize Eve uses combat therapy if you need it, right?”
Vriska blinked. “…Hold on, what?”
Pidge raised an eyebrow. “You really don’t pay attention to people, do you?”
“I do! …More than I used to!”
“Low bar,” Jotaro observed.
“Why you little…”
“Let it go,” Starbeat said, holding Vriska back. “They’re right, this will probably be good for us.”
“…Fine.” Vriska said, folding her arms. “But I will get back at you. Somehow.”
“And then we’ll enter another epic prank war!” Pinkie declared.
“Oh please no,” Flutterfree whispered.
“I dunno, it sounds like it’d be fun!” Eve teased.
“Betrayal!” Pinkie blurted in her announcer voice.
Eve rolled her eyes. “Yes, Pinkie, ‘betrayal’. Anyway, if I want to stay on schedule I should get these two in. See you around!”
Pinkie saluted. “Later!”
Eve closed the door on them.
Pidge furrowed her brow. “So… What now?”
“We go interview the greatest couple of retired old-timers in the City,” Pinkie said. She whirled around and pointed at O’Neill and Nanoha, walking down the sidewalk.
O’Neill snorted. “Just two old people enjoying each other’s company.”
Nanoha chuckled. “Interview us for what?”
Pinkie grinned. “Nothing really, just the cameras are on and all.”
“Oh!” Nanoha smiled. “That’s good, right?”
“At the moment, seems like it,” Pidge said.
Flutterfree smiled. “How’s the garden?”
Nanoha smirked. “I have yet to conquer the dragonic thistle curse, but I have great faith in my arcanum daisy and bleeding heart hybrids.”
“…Wow. I… had no idea what any of that meant.”
Nanoha shrugged. “I’m taking care of the magic weeds. Slowly. Very slowly. The problems that come with trying such an ambitious garden.”
“I’ll be sure to swing by, see if I can give you some help sometime. O’Neill, found anything to do in your retirement?”
O’Neill laughed. “If I’m doing anything, it isn’t actual retirement. I’ve worked for too long, Flutters. Way. Too. Long.”
“He watches a lot of movies and has started reviewing them online,” Nanoha interjected. “He’s apparently really good at it.”
O’Neill sighed.
“Lots of betrayal today,” Jotaro mused.
“It’s thematically appropriate,” Pidge said. “Representative of the trust between everyone in the City.”
“Pidge! You don’t say it aloud!” Pinkie chided.
Pidge adjusted her glasses. “Like it matters right now.”
“…I mean, it doesn’t right now, but in general!”
“I’ll be careful!”
Flutterfree rolled her eyes. “You’re all so… ridiculous.” She put her wings around them. “That’s why I love you all.”
Pidge smiled. “Y’know, Vriska’d throw a fit…”
“Vriska isn’t here.” Flutterfree released them. “Plus, Rev’s last sermon was all on expressing your affection more so people know it intrinsically. Vriska could afford to be told from time to time and just deal with the squirmy feeling.”
Everyone laughed at this.
Pinkie looked at a watch she didn’t have on her hoof. “Well, we’re runnin’ out of pages here. We should go visit one more person. And to mix it up, I’m just going to Ponk-a-donk us there. Bye O’Neil! Nanoha!”
Flutterfree’s eyes widened. “Pinkie, don’t do it like a-”
The four of them were suddenly in a lake in the middle of a park.
“PINKIE!”
Pinkie giggled. “I had to do it, you know I did.”
Flutterfree splashed her, but laughed anyway. The four of them crawled out of the lake and walked up a small dirt path to the Memorial.
The Memorial had been based off the design Corona had sent Eve during the war – but it wasn’t the likeness of Celestia holding the slowly spinning image of Equis. Instead, the pony was the Lost Hero, Allure Belle. She was holding a slowly spinning image of the multiverse complete with E, Q, and D spheres with the Unrealities at the bottom. As they approached, they could see thousands of names fly by. Names that started with those lost in the War for Existence, but also contained those Dusted, and those lost up to the point when English attacked. Flutterfree was pleased to see Tornado’s name fly by.
The person they met at the foot of this statue was one of the few people who could say he didn’t know anyone on the memorial: Roland of Gilead.
He sensed them coming, but didn’t turn around. “Everyone I lost has been gone so long, they’re only remembered because of my legend.” He folded his arms.
“You should make one for them,” Flutterfree suggested.
“I think I will,” Roland agreed. “…You’ve all had quite the story. Ka threw you around like toys.”
“But here we are,” Jotaro said. “Alive, and ready to take on anything.”
Roland smirked ever so slightly. “Anything…”
The Statue glinted in the serene twilight of Nucleon. Far above, the Earth sat, waiting for ka to end so those below could explore its ancient surface…
The many planets of the New World continued turning on as time pro-
“WAIIIIT!” Pinkie shouted, waving her hooves. “The story isn’t actually done! We’ve got a whole other Arc to go through! Geez, trying to wrap it up? We didn’t even visit everyone! The Tower hasn’t collapsed! The New World hasn’t been fully explored! Get your act together!” She cleared her throat. “Tune in next time folks! We’re not quite done yet! See you next time on Songs of the Spheres!”
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Boom. Bam. Bop. Badabop-boom.
Pow.
Honestly, I did not like this ending at all. Artificial, riskless, and we never see ARquius again after English's defeat. But oh well.
Side note: This chapter contains a bit of deep and very impactful foreshadowing, but this margin is too narrow to contain the explanation.
Very well done!
Perhaps. But are you retreating because of it, or have you exhausted your supply?
Huh. Operation: Genki Dama. Might just be crazy enough to work.
That girl just lives to raise further questions, doesn't she?
Absolute Eradication 1WWBB
Instant
Destroy target creature. If that creature is still on the battlefield, exile it. If it's still on the battlefield, its controller loses the game. If it's still on the battlefield, exile all other permanents that player controls and all cards from their hand, graveyard, and library.
English burned away all his impurities until nothing was left.
I'd say "May the legend of Billy Crotchkick never be forgotten," but the entire point is that it will.
I know it's the moral of the story, but I do feel a little attacked. Have you seen the world I have to live in?
And that's a wrap. Next arc's the afterparty. Here's to seeing this brave new world that has such people in it when they aren't trying to kill each other.
As people say:
Time is running out.
After all, soon we will all reach the end of the whole story.
Stories of the Lesser Universe, where the Dark Tower and Emissary in the end...
They will leave our era.
May Lord English rest in peace,
and we will live in our new world.
But soon they will have to go on a journey...
And what about your message...
Do you happen to think that some people will be attacked by this message?
Just suppose that because of this, people can be sad.
Of course I do not blame them, but still.
So tell me:
Is it really good when fictional worlds are not embodied in reality?
10077938
What kind of moral is worthwhile if it doesn't ruffle a few feathers?
-GM, master of inks and blinks.
Roooll credits. *ding!*
Wait, this isn't the end? Oh, dammit, just roll those credits already!
Icaru: heh, took them long enough to realize something as obvious as the fact everyone is important, rules of Ka be damned. I'm an egocentric contrarian and even I get that.
Well that was interesting, just one arc left to go now. What does AMA stand for again btw?
10078133
Ask Me Anything. See most recent blog post.
-GM, master of AMA.
10077985
Agreed...
Besides, the Problem is not wishing that "Fiction" is real... the Problem is wishing you can exchange your mundane, hellish world for one of the "Fictional" ones...
Sure this world is hell right now, but running away is not the answer, nor is suicide, before anything else suggest it...
10078421
I am neither living my life in fictional worlds nor contemplating suicide, but I am kinda tired of those things being constantly called "not the answer" without any explanation as if that exact phrase is some deep truth of life. Saying something is "not the answer" is not the answer. What even is "the answer" ? Does it even exist?
10081314
SotS has much to say on this, and in the end, it largely decides that "If an answer exists, there's no way in the world everyone is going to agree on what it is, so buckle up buttercup and deal with everyone as if their ideas are valid, even if they're clearly wrong."
-GM, master of internal structure.
10081314
I get it but try to be a more generalist... when people say that something is "not the answer" it means that those are things that amount to escaping without even trying.
This said... Did you even read m,y message? because it seems you didn't so...
- FanofMostEverything: I feel a bit attacked by the moral the arc had because we are living in a not so good right now.
- GMBlackJack: I know, but the best morals are the ones that force people to change, even a bit.
- Me (To GM Blackjack): yeah, and the moral was right.
- Me (To FanofMostEverything): I know the world is crap right now, but no one should seek a way to escape from it (either by getting sick of Isekaitis or resorting to suicide).
That's what I meant with my answer, I hope it preens the feathers you ruffled by no reading it or misreading it...
10081382
Well, sure, but just stating "but no one should seek a way to escape from it" will not stop people that do, and fundamentally cannot do so if people just don't happen to agree with a subjective moral principle behind it.
10081347
Surprisingly, I wasn't talking about this the general "Meaning" that time, but about the answer to "why remain focused on this world", which is a bit different. But not that different, I suppose, so the point stands.
10081513True, true.
In the end, I put my POV out there, some mulled it on and saw its value quietly on their own, others did it on the comments, so I felt I had to elaborate...
In the end, even your stance shouldn't be The one and only one that is valid either. and in the end, it'll be up to every individual to either accept my POV, integrate it to their interpretation or outright deny it...
This said, pointing and saying "You shouldn't say that" might look bad in certain circumstances, and as GM said: if you can't handle it, just buckle up and at least acknowledge that every idea and value is right, even if in your frameworks is wrong.
E-Dith:
If I grasped your intent wrong, please lemme know
10077985
I really depends on how that moral is interpreted. If it dominates your life, then yeah, that's dumb. If it's just a belief in the back of your head that makes life easier while still living a full life, then I see no harm in believing that fictional worlds exist somewhere out there in the omni/multiverse.
Welp, that's a wrap. The Final Boss.
So, for the end of this arc, here's an intermission Credits song