• Published 29th Oct 2017
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Songs of the Spheres - GMBlackjack

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089 - The Green Sun

Tick.

Every god-tier player of Sburb had a clock tied to their very life force. This was an absolute rule of Sburb, broken only once in the entire history of the Horrorterror experiment.

Vriska was no exception to this.

Tock.

Every time she – or any of the others, such as Aradia – died, their clock would begin to tick. The physical location of the clock did not matter. Vriska could have been in a quarantined universe within a black hole and her clock would still know.

Tick.

Currently, Vriska’s clock sat in a hall of similar clocks, all gathered together in a hall of green. It was one of two such clocks with the symbol shared by all players of Light, and it was the only clock currently ticking.

Tock.

Every one of the clocks took the appearance of a grandfather clock with a great swinging pendulum. With every tick, a single needle connected to the pendulum moved to the opposite side of the weight, reaching from one end to another, swinging metronome-like in front of the sun of Light.

Tick.

One side let out a purple glow when the needle reached it, the sign of a Just death.

Tock.

The other was soft and golden, the sign of a Heroic death.

Tick.

The middle was where the needle would land if a death was neither Just nor Heroic, triggering the revival subroutines inherent in Vriska’s very being.

Tock.

The clock’s machinations calculated every little detail it could, drawing everything together into a final verdict on the question it had been posed.

Tick.

Was it time for Vriska Serket to die?

Tock.

The clock began to creak, slowing the motion of the pendulum with the needle nearing the Heroic side of the clock face. She had saved an entire universe from destruction within a Tumor, and despite her reservations, she had been willing to risk it all. It was time to end her.

However, as advanced a piece of technology the clock was, there were ways to cheat it.

For instance, if, say, a minor earthquake were to occur because a certain purple alicorn wrote a story about a bunch of kids blowing something up nearby…

Well, the needle would be forced back to the middle. The calculation would be altered slightly enough to create a neutral death.

And Vriska would continue…

A reversal of a different fate her clock had experienced in another time.

~~~

Vriska woke up, the familiar feeling of a revival coursing through her muscles.

Twilence came through, she thought with a smile.

She grunted, pulling herself into a sitting position and flapping her wings.

The first thing she saw was the Green Sun dominating the otherwise black, starless sky above her.

The second thing she saw was a giant white artifact that resembled a house – similar in arrangement to the screens she had seen in the exile command station not too long ago. This house only had four segments under the roof, though – and all four of them glowed a brilliant white.

“The House Juju…” she said, standing up. “It’s still here…”

She took a step forward – and tripped on the unconscious form of Eve. She fumbled, managing to keep her footing. After realizing Eve was there, she saw all eleven of the others lying unconscious around the House Juju in a perfect circle – Corona, Renee, Pinkie, Nova, Jotaro, Flutterfree, Rainbow, Applejack, Allure, O’Neill, and myself. We all looked just as we had before being completely vaporized in the explosion, albeit unconscious.

She looked at us, at the House Juju, and then the ground. Then, with a nagging feeling in the back of her mind, she turned around.

Standing there were hundreds – no thousands – of teenage trolls with every blood color on the hemospectrum, a handful of humans among their number - though these humans had chalk-white skin rather than a usual tone. The eyes of everyone in the army had no pupils or irises, instead taking the form of empty white orbs.

Every last one of them was a ghost.

It was the army of ghosts that had helped her face Lord English over nine hundred years ago.

“What the motherglubbin shell is goin’ on here!?” The lead troll asked – a fuchsia-blooded royal troll holding a golden dual-tipped trident. She sported two long braids of hair that accentuated her fin-like ears. Next to her was another fuchsia troll holding an identical trident, wearing a colorful dress of greens, blues, and pinks, a pair of goggles covering her eyes.

Vriska took a moment to take the army in and laughed. “Oh, you have no idea how long it’s been!”

“You’re dam right I don’t!” The lead fuchsia shouted. “You set that house down, things explode, big green and ugly disappears, and then suddenly you’re in your god-tier rags with twelve randos! Who are these horses!?”

“Not all of us are horses,” O’Neill muttered, grabbing his head. “I have the worst headache.”

“Fine, a bunch of horses, couple humans, and what I can only assume is an angel or somefin. You need to start talkin’ girlfrond, or else I’mma FORK SOME BITCHES!”

This shout woke up the rest of the ‘randos’ around the house Juju. Corona was ready for a fight, hands surrounded in magic.

“Woah woah woah, everyone calm down!” Vriska said, hands up. “We’re all friends here!”

“Are we?” the fuschia asked, pointing forward with her golden trident. “’Cus I’m in a forkin’ mood.”

Vriska facepalmed. “We do not need to be forking any bitches, Meenah.”

“Yeah, that’s rude!” the other fuchsia troll added, putting her hands on her hips. “We need to handle the situation diplomatically!”

“Can it, Feferi,” Meenah muttered. “I’m the one in charge of this boat.”

“I thought you and Vriska shared the command?”

“Vriska’s being weird, her commander license is bein’ reevaluated.”

“I’ll explain everything!” Vriska shouted, waving her arms. “Just shut up first! Gog, I forgot how annoying all of you were. LISTEN UP!”

Everyone turned to look at her. Whether any of the muttering trolls were actually listening was up for debate, but she decided to go ahead regardless.

“So, here’s the deal. Ghost army? We beat Lord English over nine hundred years ago from my perspective. All the dream bubbles were sealed away in that black hole sun thing, freezing you all in this moment right here. Lord English was imprisoned in the House Juju during that moment because he was weakened without the Green Sun. Now, you’ve been brought back because there were some morons called the Combine who decided to mess with something they really shouldn’t mess with and created a new Green Sun.” She pointed up at the visible Combine fleet in the sky.

A human hand shot up in the middle of the troll ghost army.

“Yes?” Vriska said, clearly impatient, ignoring all the other grunts and rude words coming from the rest of the trolls.

“Hey, uh, Dead Dave here. I know, I know, the Enemy, but let’s forget about that right now.” He wore round shades and red robes with similar designs to Aradia, letting everyone know he was a Cool Dude. “Half-Life 2 Combine? That’s a fucking video game enemy.”

“And the entirety of our adventures were recorded in a webcomic called Homestuck,” Vriska deadpanned. “Don’t be surprised.”

The Dead Dave blinked. “I knew it.”

“Kinda figured you did,” Vriska said. “Moving on, yes, Combine, assholes.”

“Wait a minute!” Feferi asked. “How exactly did the freezing work? Not all of us were in the same place!”

Vriska took in a breath – had she been her old self, she would have started screaming at them. But she took control of her anger, let her air out calmly, and smiled. “I don’t really know exactly how it worked. What I do know was that you were sealed away, and now you’re not. And while all the ghosts were sealed away, those of us who were living were sent cascading across the multiverse for eons. That would be me, Aradia, and Davepeta.”

“Are they here too?” a robotic Aradia ghost asked.

“Aradia’s in another part of the multiverse,” Vriska said. “She’ll get here eventually, I’m sure. And Davepeta… They didn’t make it.”

There were collective gasps from Dave and Nepeta ghosts.

Vriska nodded. “Yeah… It sucked. A lot. But that explains what happened to you. As for who these twelve losers are, I’ll start by saying you can trust them. They’re good friends.”

“Since when do you make good friends!?” a random troll blurted.

“I’m going to guess that was a Karkat,” Vriska assumed, rolling her eyes. “Nine hundred years can do a lot to change a person, let’s just say. I wandered for a long time and eventually joined their little society. That purple horse there is Evening Sparkle, Overhead of Relations and Princess of Sappiness. She’s the most ‘in charge’. They’re willing to help us survive whatever the hell the Combine up there are planning.”

“And the Horrorterrors,” another Aradia said.

“Yes, they’re up there too,” Vriska confirmed. “But first, introductions!” She started introducing her friends to the trolls, quickly going over their names and who they were to get it out of the way. “Gah, why are there so many of you?”

“Numbers,” I offered.

“Right, right… Anyway, these here are the trolls. I can’t possibly introduce them all, so... Let’s just go with those of you that are in front.” She pointed at Meenah. “This here is Meenah. She’s awesome,” Vriska said, giving Meenah a fistbump. “She likes fish puns too much.”

“Glub,” Meenah said.

“Mhm. This is Feferi, she’s less awesome and more cute. She also likes fish puns.”

“Glub glub!” Feferi trilled, twirling her trident.

“Right. And that over there…” she blinked slowly as she took in a bronze-blood troll. “This is Tavros. I killed him.”

“Um…” he spoke in an uncertain voice. “That’s behind us, you know?”

Vriska turned to me. “…Do I have time?”

I nodded. “Go ahead.”

Vriska turned to Tavros and bowed her head. “I’m sorry.”

Tavros blinked. “W-what?”

“I’m sorry. I know I said sorry for killing you before, but it was dismissive, and that was wrong. And I’m sorry for a whole lot more. I’m sorry for treating you like absolute shit. I’m sorry for taking advantage of your disability. I’m sorry for trying to make you strong by being a complete asshole. I’m sorry for throwing you off that cliff. I’m sorry for not respecting you even after you died. Being a wimp isn’t an offense.”

All the trolls stared at Vriska in disbelief, unable to form words.

Vriska rubbed the back of her head. “As I said. Nine hundred years. Tends to tone down the bitchiness.”

“No kidding…” Meenah said. “That was… sappy.

“I can be sappy if I want,” Vriska asserted.

“What ever happened about being strong enough to do what’s needed?” Meenah asked.

“You can be strong and not be a heartless bitch. Case in point, Jotaro over there. And hey, I still have all the irons in the fire.”

“All of them?”

“All of them.” Vriska dusted her hands off. “Anyway, other apologies… Feferi, I… guess I’m sorry for ignoring you?”

Feferi shrugged. “Eh, I’ll take it.”

Meenah glared at Vriska. “Don’t you dare get all sappy on me you jellyfish.”

“You’re awesome and I don’t need to apologize to you for anything.”

Meenah chuckled. “That’s dam right!”

“AND AS FOR THE REST OF YOU!” Vriska shouted to the crowd. “I HAVE ADMITTED THAT I AM A BITCHY ASSHOLE. GOT IT?”

“GOT IT! ON TAPE!” a random troll shouted.

Vriska nodded. “Good. I have more apologies to give out, but those are to people who are still living. Sorry Terezi ghosts, you’re gonna have to wait.”

A few of them looked at her in surprise, but at this point most of the troll army had stopped paying direct attention to her and began muttering (or shouting) among themselves. That was trolls for you.

Meenah clapped slowly and sarcastically. “Greeeeat. Now that feelings-thirty is over, what’s up for forkin’?”

“Now, we g-” Vriska stopped whatever she was about to say when she spied a particular face in the crowd. “You.”

An ‘orange’ skinned human ghost in a green T-shirt noticed her attention was on him. “Shit, shitshitshit…”

“ANDREW HUSSIE YOU ORANGE FUCKTARD!” Vriska shouted, dropping her previously calm demeanor and charging at him, blade drawn. This grabbed the attention of the ghost army again.

Hussie started running across the dusty ground, but Vriska easily caught up with him and drove him to the ground, driving her sword into him over and over again.

“VRISKA!” Renee shouted, horrified.

“Don’t get your horn in a twist,” Meenah muttered. “You can’t kill ghosts with a sword. You can hurt ‘em though.”

Pinkie gave Meenah a bag of popcorn.

“…I like you.”

“Thanks!” Pinkie beamed.

This is for killing almost all your characters multiple times!” Vriska yelled. “This is for making us deal with time shenanigans I’m not sure even you understood! This is for that stupid epilogue you still haven’t written far as I can tell! This is for creating Lord English! You weren’t some oblivious Prophet, you knew exactly what you were doing.

“Andrew Hussie: abscond!” Hussie declared, suddenly not under Vriska’s sword and instead running away across the wasteland around the House Juju.

“GET BACK HERE!” Vriska shouted.

Meenah raised a hand. “Hold up. He created Lord English?”

“He’s the orange fucktard who wrote the thing that defined all our lives, SO YES.”

There was silence in the ghost army.

“I say we get him,” the Dead Dave suggested.

“Eh, go ahead, I don’t care,” Meenah shrugged.

About a sixth of the ghosts dropped what little they were doing and charged after him. Andrew Hussie was soon tackled, bound, and gagged.

Vriska smirked. “Ah, that warms my heart.”

“The fact that you have a heart is bizarre,” Meenah said. “Still can’t get over it.”

“You will or you won’t,” Vriska said, dismissively. “Anyway, uh… Fuck, I don’t know what I was going to do next.”

“We should look to the skies now,” I suggested. “The Combine and Horrorterrors are going to start talking to each other. Feferi, you have a connection to the Horrorterrors.”

Feferi processed the statement for a moment and nodded.

“Mind if we tap into your mind to broadcast what they’re saying so everyone can hear?”

“Sure thing!” Feferi said, grinning. “I wonder what this is gonna feel like?”

“Not that weird, actually,” Corona said, placing a hand on Feferi. “Huh, you’re really happy. …I think you remind me of someone.”

“Really? Huh, I dunno why. Glub glub!”

Corona held her free hand up. Raging Sights beeped and began to broadcast what was going on in the multi-universal mesh above them…

~~~

The Combine sent a small ship toward the Green Sun. Their shields flashed purple and then blue as they compensated for the differing flows of time and space between their original position and the Green Sun. In Paradox Space, straight lines were never straight, so the Combine had to make the line straight by force.

Then a Horrorterror moved through Paradox Space and appeared in front of the Combine ship. “NO,” it declared.

You are interfering in a legitimate Combine experiment. This Green Sun is our creation and interaction with it will not be tolerated.

“THE GREEN SUN IS OF OUR CREATION.”

There is no agreement between the Combine and the Noble Circle of Horrorterrors regarding intellectual property or otherwise.

“YOU HAVE RELEASED THINGS THAT ARE OUR CREATION.”

If you wish to claim the Dream Bubble for yourself, we are willing to part with it. But the Green Sun itself is our creation that we have spent innumerable resources on. We are not going to let such a potent power source be taken away.

“THE GREEN SUN IS TOO DANGEROUS TO EXIST WITHIN THE MULTIVERSE. AS LONG AS IT IS HERE, THERE IS A DANGER OF ANOTHER LORD ENGLISH.”

We are not attempting to create a system of self-perpetuating universe creation. All we seek is power from the Green Sun, not some short-sighted ideal. We will not be foolish enough to give the Green Sun the freedom to create that which we cannot contain.

YOUR THINLY-VEILED INSULT HAS NOT GONE UNNOTICED. THE POINT REMAINS THAT YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE MESSING WITH. THE GREEN SUN IS A CLASS 1 CONSTRUCT, FAR BEYOND WHAT YOU CAN CREATE OR FULLY COMPREHEND. YOUR CONTROL OVER THE ELDRITCH IS ALSO LIMITED, A FULL UNDERSTANDING OF WHICH IS REQUIRED.”

Are you offering information?

“NO. WE ARE SIMPLY DEMANDING THAT YOU STAND DOWN AND LET US DESTROY THE GREEN SUN TO END THIS DANGEROUS RESURGENCE. IN RETURN WE WILL NOT PURSUE REVENGE FOR THE TREATMENT OF NEOAN.”

You are the enemies of progress, the definition of that which is ancient and unchanging. You cannot understand that what is dangerous must be understood for anything of value to come out of it.

“GIVE US THE GREEN SUN OR WE SHALL FORCE YOU TO DO SO.”

Do you think you can?

“WE ARE A CLASS 1 SOCIETY, WHAT DO YOU THINK?”

Are you though? Our scans only pick up seven of the forty-eight Noble Horrorterrors known to comprise the Noble Circle. Are so many that apathetic? Or is it what seems more likely: you were harmed more by the Lord English incident than you let on. How many of the Noble Circle remain? Twenty? Twelve? Or is it just this seven of you left?

“IRRELEVANT. WE WILL CRUSH YOU.”

You underestimate the Combine. Everyone underestimates the Combine. You always think we just have a lot of space under our control and that our mastery over universes is limited. We are often spoken of as part of a joke, where the punchline is that we are too weak to face larger enemies. This is not the case. We simply do not see the need to waste resources fighting large enemies for minimal gain. This is not one of those times.

“YOU THINK YOU CAN COME AWAY WITH A VICTORY?”

The Noble Circle of Horrorterrors was severely weakened by the English Incident, and eldritch societies are known for healing exceedingly slowly, if at all. You will not be able to pool your resources for a full war over this Green Sun, even if it is the largest mistake of your race. We will be able to devote anything we wish, for we are fully unified under the principles of Combination.

“WE DO NOT NEED THE FULL POWER OF THE HORRORTERRORS TO FACE YOU.”

That is a theory we would love to put to the test.

“CALLING A BLUFF IS A DANGEROUS THING.”

We do not care if it is a bluff. We are taking this Green Sun. You can try to stop us if you want. We suggest you do not.

“WE ARE GOING TO DESTROY THE GREEN SUN. YOU CAN TRY TO STOP US, FOOLISH MORTALS.”

The Combine is not mortal.

“THE FAULTY INTERNAL BELIEF OF ALL MORTAL BEINGS.”

Is it war then?

“IT IS WAR.”

Let it be known, the Combine issues a formal declaration of war on the Noble Circle of Horrorterrors over the Green Sun dispute. Your time among the elite has come to an end. The largest Combine ship within the Green Sun’s Paradox Space charged. It was composed of twenty blue stars wrapped together with pearly white metal and flesh, the constructs coming to a sharp point that drilled through the paradoxical universe-mesh between it and the Green Sun.

The Horrorterrors attacked, moving through the inky blackness as easily as one might walk, lashing the edges of the ship.

Any hope for a curbstomp battle ended when the Horrorterror tentacles were deflected, and one smaller Horrorterror went up in impossible blue flames, disintegrating into nothing.

The Combine-Horrorterror war had begun.

~~~

“Holy glub,” Feferi said, jaw dropping. “What the shell did we just walk into!?”

Meenah grinned. “I have no idea, but I know I want a piece of that action.”

Every pony, human, and troll turned to look at the fuchsia-blood with bewildered expressions.

“I say we take the Green Sun for ourselves,” Meenah said.

“…Are you insane?” Allure blurted. “We can’t do anything up there! We’d be like ants trying to insert ourselves into a nuclear war!”

A multitude of other ghosts made their agreement with Allure well known through shouts, insults, and petty jabs of dubious wit.

“You’re forgetting one little detail,” Meenah said. “Ghosts can’t die.”

“Yes you can!” Vriska blurted. “Did you not forget why Lord English was so terrifying?”

“Lord Language ain’t here,” Meenah said, pointing at the House Juju. “He’s in there, swimmin’ with the fishes. In all our time walking Paradox Space, has anyone here been double killed by a Horrorterror?”

“Of course not!” a grumpy troll with nubby horns shouted. “If they died, they wouldn’t be here to tell you about it.”

“Fine, lemme rephrase that,” Meenah muttered. “How many of you have tried to fight a Horrorterror?”

Several hands went up. Not a lot, but enough.

“Right, and were they able to kill you?”

Everybody shook their heads.

“What did happen?”

The Dead Dave spoke up. “There were a lot of me losing, then I was back in the Dream Bubble. Clinically insane for a few ‘years’ or whatever. I got better.”

“There you go. All they can do is drive you insane, kapeesh?”

“Some of us like our sanity!” a troll shouted.

“You’re motherglubbin’ ghosts! You’ll live long enough to go sane again! I bet our new fronds have some mind-magic or whatever that’ll help too!”

Corona raised a hand. “Doesn’t always work, but yeah, I can probably do something to keep anyone from staying stark-raving mad.”

“But the Horrorterrors created the Dream Bubbles!” Feferi said. “They could shut us down!”

“I think they’re a little busy for that,” Meenah said, gesturing at the explosions in the sky.

“Eve, please dial a universe with Seraphim where ghosts cannot exist,” Vriska said. “Remove a leg or something.”

Eve blinked. “Uh…”

“I need to stop this idiocy.”

Eve summoned Seraphim and tried to dial a universe – then stared in shock at the Green Sun. “It’s… It’s blocking me!”

“The fuck?” Vriska blurted.

“The Green Sun. Seraphim can only see universes it connects to!”

Vriska executed a well-timed double facepalm combo. “Aaaaaaaaaagh. The point is there are universes you could be dumped into and not be able to exist. The Combine can probably do it.”

“Actually…” Nova said, tapping her screen. “I only see Combine ships coming in. I’ve not seen a Combine ship or Horrorterror leave.”

“…We’re in a quarantine,” Corona said. “The Green Sun and all its universes have been sealed off! You can come in but you can’t come out!”

“Who would do that? Did the Green Sun do that?” Renee asked.

I shook my head. “That would be the rest of the Class 1 Societies, ready to dump this entire battle into the Sea of Infinite Possibility should something like Lord English rise again. First sign of trouble, everything stops existing.”

Vriska blinked. “Fuck, we’re in some real deep shit aren’t we?”

A ghost thought now was a good time to interject. “The proper term is OUR SHIT IS SO DEEPLY FUCKED YOU CAN’T EVEN COMPREHEND IT!”

“The deepest I think any of us have ever been in,” I said. “Yes, that includes myself.”

“So that’s why we need to bring the fight to them!” Meenah said. “We can’t let evil Combination aliens get that kind of power, and if the Horrorterrors destroy it we are probably going to stop existin’! So we go up there and beat the shit out of them and claim it for ourselves!”

“Fine, you can’t die,” Vriska said, folding her arms. “What exactly do you plan to do to them? Splat against their windshields over and over?”

Meenah held out her arms and switched into her god-tier outfit – gray robes with the flowing green symbol of Life on them. “We’re keyed into Sburb, remember? The very Aspects of reality flow within us.” She gestured at the army of trolls. “Look at it all! Breath! Heart! Life! Hope! Light! Mind! Blood! Rage! Void! Doom! Space! Time! We have god-tier ghosts here that can bend every last one of those to their will. We were able to hold our own against Lord English – a being that the Horrorterrors were useless against. We are drops from the same ocean that green asshole was from. Let’s show the Horrorterrors that their little ‘experiment’ has a few more surprises in store!”

If there was one thing trolls liked, it was fighting. The speech was exactly what they needed to get them cheering and waving their weapons around excitedly.

“I’m sold,” Corona said, walking up. “Count me in.”

“You sure you got what it takes?” Meenah asked.

Corona spread her wings and lit herself on fire, magical rings surrounding her on all sides. “You’d be surprised.”

“Niiiiiiice. Can I count on the rest of you to help?”

Eve blinked. “Not in a direct conflict, but you’re Vriska’s friends, we’ll do what we can. Some of us will fight with you directly. Others…”

“Will get help,” Vriska finished. “Eve, you mentioned that the only connections you had were to universes the Green Sun was connected to?”

“Uh, yeah. Most of them appear to just be different ‘universes’ within the inky blackness above us. I could probably dial us to many different locations within the space. …Though I can’t be certain about the actual spatial distance. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“I’m willing to bet it’ll be connected to every universe that had a connection to Sburb in the past,” Vriska said. “Including Earth C.”

“…Where?” Meenah said, cocking her head.

“Where the successful session went,” Vriska said. “…Home.”

“What can they offer that we don’t already have? Look at that crowd, I’ve got every one of those human grubs in there at least once.”

“Not John,” Vriska said. “Not the one with the retcon power. It’ll help you a lot.”

Meenah shrugged. “Eh, fine by me if you wanna go huntin’ for extra backup. Long as I get to skewer some squiddles.”

Vriska nodded. “Nova, I’ll need you to scan for dimensional signatures.”

Nova saluted. “Got it.”

“Anyone else who wants to come, let’s go. I would say we need to move fast, but with all the time and space manipulators here the idea of ‘fast’ is probably meaningless.”

I shook my head. “Metatime still applies, so you should get moving.”

“Coming?”

“Me? Oh, no, I’m sticking around to go with the idea Eve has in a couple seconds.”

Had,” Eve corrected. “The idea I had and just wasn’t talking about because I was waiting for the right moment.”

There was silence in the Dream Bubble.

“…Well?” Meenah asked.

“Right, right,” Eve cleared her throat. “If you’re back, the House Juju is back, and the Dream Bubble as a whole is back, what if other parts of Sburb are back? Ancient remnants of Class 1 technology? We should look for those – they could be useful in maybe getting us out of this mess. I’ll lead the group.”

Meenah nodded. “So, lemme get this straight. We got a team getting’ reinforcements, got a team goin’ for weapons, and then the rest of us are just going to blow stuff up?”

Everyone nodded.

“Good, I was beginnin’ to think there wouldn’t be anyone left to blow stuff up. EVERYBODY SCATTER!”

The Merodi and ghost army scrambled while universes fell apart above them.

~~~

Eve looked at her troop of people who had opted to explore for Sburb remnants. Me, Flutterfree, Renee, and a handful of troll ghosts – mostly different versions of Aradia.

It appeared that Aradia had died many, many times during the time she and Vriska were in Sburb, which Renee supposed wasn’t all that surprising. What did surprise her was the fact that most of them were emotionless robots. Renee had known Aradia spent most of her time with Vriska as a ghost, but she had not known much of that had been spent possessing a robotic body.

The robots weren’t very talkative and were somewhat menacing, so there was silence for the most part as we floated through the eldritch blackness of the Green Sun’s Paradox Space. Spacetime itself was an uncertain construct there. We could always see the Green Sun wherever we drifted, but its location changed, as did the location of the Combine and Horrorterrors – though they were always distant.

Which was good, Eve had no plans of engaging in transdimensional combat if Seraphim wasn’t working properly.

The location of the Green Sun shifted again as we entered another area of Paradox Space. At first the experience had been disorienting, but now that everyone was used to it the sensation was no different than taking a sharp turn onto another street.

This time, however, there was something a little different.

“I see something!” Flutterfree said, pointing with a wing into the distance. “It’s blue!”

An Aradia put a hand up to her eyes. “That looks like it might be a Skaia… Is there still a session running in Paradox Space?”

“Explain?” Renee pleaded.

“Every active session of Sburb has a blue ‘planet’ in the center called Skaia that runs most everything, if you want it horribly simplified. That right there is the right color, though I can’t imagine a session surviving the destruction of the Sburb protocols...”

“Can we even get to it?” Eve asked, narrowing her eyes. “It looks pretty far away. Straight lines aren’t straight lines here.”

I pointed at the blue dot. “We won’t know if we’ll make it or not until we try. So let’s just try.” I flew forward.

We shifted through Paradox Space again. Instead of getting sent further from the blue dot we were suddenly there. The blue light of Skaia glowed bright, revealing the scene of destruction around it.

There had clearly once been numerous planets orbiting around this blue light – but now there was only one amber planet with a neon glow. The rest of the space around Skaia was rubble from worlds destroyed long ago.

“…This session didn’t go well…” the living Aradia observed. “What would destroy all the planets but one…?”

Eve furrowed her brow. “I don’t know. But I know we’re going to check it out.”

“No you’re not,” a deep, gravelly voice said. The group turned to see a black humanoid creature in a fashionable similarly-colored hat. He was a creature who had a carapace rather than skin, though much of him had been replaced with cybernetic parts – including his entire lower half, parts of his face, and one of his arms. In his hands he held a large, golden staff. With a flick of his wrist the staff became an assault rifle aimed right at Eve.

“No more ghosts are going to mess with my Medium. Get out.”

“What if I told you some of us weren’t ghosts?” Eve said, putting on a calm smile for the cyborg carapacian.

“Nothing else comes from the darkness aside from squiddly monstrosities,” he muttered.

Eve pointed at her eyes. “Look, I have pupils, and irises. I’m not dead.”

“Then that makes this gun a whole lot more effective in convincin’ you to leave, don’t it?”

Eve sighed. “Look, we want to look at this interesting place. In return… we can tell you what’s going on with the Green Sun and all those big explosions in the distance.”

To punctuate her point, one of the Combine ships exploded when one of its internal stars gave out. The supernova spread out through Paradox Space, which meant it showed up in at least six different locations as it spread. Eve raised an eyebrow.

“…A temptin’ offer. But unless you tell me you aren’t here for any plunderin’, you still gotta go.”

“All we’re looking for is remnants of Sburb game technology that might help with… those explosions up there. We would be willing to trade if you have such things.”

The carapacian lowered his gun. “Tradin’, huh? Fine, I’ll bite, don’t get anything new in here ever. ‘cept ghosts. And after the second one I grew tired of their undyin’ nature real quick.”

“How long have you been here?” Aradia asked. “Ghosts and dream bubbles rarely interact with active game sessions.”

“This ain’t no active session,” he muttered. “Name’s Spades Slick. Welcome to Pyramid Hell. Everythin’ else around is useless rubble. There are two rules here. First rule: no ghosts. All those robots stay out here. Second rule: I’m the only one that gets to hurt people here. You skirt that rule, you find out why I’m allowed to hurt people. Usually by stabbing, but as you can see I’m not below filling them with lead or a good ol’ fashioned thwackin’.”

“Gotcha,” Eve said, smiling. She turned to me – I nodded to let her know it was fine.

Spades led Eve, myself, Flutterfree, and Renee through the field of ancient rubble down to the planet Pyramid Hell, properly known as Lopan.

Lopan was a planet covered in amber pyramid structures, all of which glowed with neon at their tips. Eve realized this ‘planet’ actually had no right to be called such – it may have had normal gravity, but it was only a few miles in diameter by her estimate.

At the foot of one of the large pyramids was a town filled with a few different races – white and black versions of Spades’ race living alongside brightly colored reptiles and amphibians. They seemed comfortable enough, but most walked with their heads down, expressions dour.

“…What happened here?” Flutterfree asked. “Everything looks fine, but…”

“Did you see the debris?” Spades asked. “There used to be eight planets.”

“…Oh.”

Spades took them to a town square, to a statue with five figures on it standing in a battle stance. One of the figures was Spades himself. One of the others was a smaller black carapacian holding a flag and wearing a sash that said ‘MAYOR’. Standing behind him, taller than all the figures was a cross between a white carapacian and a dog wielding a sword - two brilliant wings coming out of her back. In the middle were two human teenagers – one with a long hood that swirled in the wind, another with triangular anime shades similar in shape to Corona’s. The hooded one wielded a hammer while the other tightly held a katana.

The statue had an inscription.

The Heir of Breath, the Prince of Heart, the Peregrine Mendicant, Spades Slick, and our illustrious Mayor prepare to face the Condesce.

“…So you all went to fight an enemy?” Renee said. “The one who blew up all the planets?”

Spades nodded. “Ridiculously overpowered fish lady. Liked puns and glitter. It felt good to run her through.” He folded his arms. “Only the Mayor and I survived the final battle.”

“I’m so sorry,” Eve said.

“It gets worse than that,” Spades muttered. “The windy kid had this power that let him jump around time and space out of order even more than usual. Before he kicked the bucket he went to the future and pulled every string he could to let Sburb think he had won.” Spades took one look around and blasted off into the sky.

Eve flew after him. “And then what?”

“I’m getting’ there, be patient,” he muttered, leading her closer to Skaia. Near the edge of the shining bubble of clouds, there was a circular metallic platform. On one edge was a structure that looked like the House Juju, except it was black, lifeless, and had a single door on the front of it.

“He brought us here,” Spades said. “Said he’d found a way to win the game for us. Give us somewhere to go. He lit up Skaia with the creation of a new universe. I don’t pretend to understand how many timelines or alternate universes he had to go through to make it happen. He personally threw a frog into the center of Skaia and watched it birth a new universe.”

“Threw a frog…?” Renee asked.

I shushed her – the specifics of how Sburb manufactured a new universe weren’t important.

“Then he vanished. Never did get to tell him he shouldn’t go back, shouldn’t let himself die.” Spades shrugged. “Point is the Mayor trusted him completely and led a team right through that door.” Spades pointed at the black house. “They went to the new universe. And then it was just gone. No Bilious Slick, no universe, no more Mayor.” Spades shook his head. “That left me with a bunch of moronic reptiles and carapacians. We had one planet, so we did what we could. Hasn’t been going well, as you can plainly see.”

Eve smiled sadly. “We can get you out of here. We have ways to other universes.”

“Likely sto-”

Eve created a portal with Seraphim back to the Dream Bubble. “Currently our access is limited because of the Green Sun, but I can get you to the place the ghosts live right now.”

Spades stared at the portal. “Good enough for me. You can have whatever you want if you can get us out of this hellhole. Except my weapon. That’s mine. So are my knives.”

Eve nodded. “For now, I just want to examine this platform. I have a feeling it holds many secrets… Almost like I just know there’s knowledge inside it for me to uncover... I’ve had intuitions before, but this is something else…”

“Huh, strange, I’ve been having a similar feeling,” Renee said. “Though it's more about these poor people and all their brokenness… I feel like we can fix it.”

~~~

Vriska, Allure, Jotaro, Nova, and Applejack walked through the Dream Bubble. None of the ghosts had decided to follow them, since none of them really had any reason to go to a world they didn’t even know existed until Vriska showed up. As far as the ghost army was concerned, Earth C didn’t have anything for them. The troll ghosts had all their friends here, and the human ghosts didn’t much want to go to the world where they were alive, reminding them of whatever failure it was that got them dead in the first place.

Not to mention the fact that, really, all Vriska needed to get the job done was Nova and her magic. The others were just there to keep her company – which she appreciated.

Except maybe for Applejack.

“So, mind explainin’ to me exactly what the plan is?”

Vriska nodded. “Right. So, Dream Bubbles 101 – when Sburb was actually active, Feferi negotiated a settlement with the Horrorterrors that all dead Sburb players would be able to live on as ‘ghosts’ in dream bubbles.” She looked like she wanted to explain it in a bit more detail and then thought better of it. “Under certain circumstances, players would be able to visit dream bubbles in their sleep. A ‘projection’ of their consciousness would appear in one of the bubbles and they would be able to interact with the Dream Bubble. There are still living players on Earth C and if we encounter any of them dreaming, I bet Nova will be able to pick up a connection back to Earth C. Then I’ll be home, I can pick up John, and we can use his overpowered abilities to break the war going on up there.”

Nova nodded. “A direct mental connection should be workable. We’re in Topeka, not trying to get to Topeka. If the analogy works.”

“It doesn’t,” Applejack said.

“Ah. Well then… We’re the ones in the weird universe. The dreamers are coming from a simple universe. Going to less complexity is easier than the other way around.”

Allure nodded. “Makes sense to me!”

Jotaro shrugged, saying nothing.

“So, here’s a question,” Applejack said. “How are we gonna find one of these dreamers?”

Vriska smirked. “That’s the fun part. In this new Paradox Space the Combine have created, there is only one Dream Bubble, the one we’re in. They’ll have to dream into this one when they do.”

“But this place is huge,” Nova said, holding out her hoof, pointing out that they had passed through the forest and were now on an expanse covered in amber pyramids shrouded in bright neon auras.

Vriska smirked. “I absorbed a truly enormous amount of luck from the ghost army.”

“Oh. So we are wanderin’ around hopin’ we run into someone,” Allure said.

“Mostly. I’m also looking for a place I think they’re likely to appear. Tell me if you see a desert filled with moody horses.”

“Funny,” Nova deadpanned.

“I’m serious. Not ponies, standard Earth horses. Hussie had a thing for them, apparently.”

Jotaro adjusted his hat. “Yare yare daze…”

“Did someone say moody horse shit?” Dead Dave said, appearing in a burst of red gears.

“More or less,” Vriska said. “’Sup Strider?”

“Oh, y’know, being cool, traveling through timelines that don’t exist, hiding my amazingly awesome eyes.”

“Rainbow would like you,” Applejack observed.

“What’s not to like about this masterpiece?” Dave asked, smirking slightly.

“You said something about the horses?” Allure interrupted before anyone could answer.

“Oh, yeah, that desert’s just that way,” Dave said, pointing. “But first, I wanna know what happened to Davesp- Davepeta.”

Vriska sighed. “Davepeta lived almost as long as I did, but a few years ago their mind was taken over by a bastard named the Collector. He’s dead now, but before he got what was coming Aradia had to kill Davepeta.”

“…And there were no dream bubbles out there.”

Vriska shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“Y’know, I liked to think there was at least one of us that escaped the fate of being doomed,” Dave said. “Guess not.”

Nova shook her head. “Davepeta lived a long, long time, conditional immortality aside. Nothing lives forever. I say that’s a pretty good run, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah. Maybe,” Dave said. “Anyway, good luck with your moody horse shit.”

Vriska marched in the direction Dave had indicated. She heard the sound of whinnying as they approached. Bingo.

They soon arrived in a desert filled with ghostly horses that were neighing in a tone that could only be described as ‘moody’.

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” Allure admitted.

“Something a little less literal?” Vriska suggested.

“…Yeah, let’s go with that.”

“So, what, he’ll just show up?” Nova asked.

“It’s how it works,” Vriska said. “This place… It has a habit of just drawing things.”

“Isn’t this just an image from someone’s dream?” Jotaro asked.

“Hussie’s, if anything. It might just be something random.” Vriska shrugged and spread out her arms, hoping she’d get lucky.

Naturally, she did.

There wasn’t a sound – he was just there. He was a human man in blue robes with the windy Breath symbol on his chest. The robes trailed off in a very long hood that waved in the wind. His eyes held bright blue pupils, making it clear that he wasn’t a ghost, and revealing to the ponies that the chalk-white skin of humans around here wasn’t a consequence of being undead, but rather their natural tone. This somewhat impressive appearance was rather jarringly interrupted by his toothy grin and nerdy glasses. “Oh, hey Vriska!”

Vriska blinked. “…That’s all you have to say to me?”

“Uh… Yeah?”

Vriska twitched in anger for a moment – but then released it. “Yep. You’re still John.” She pulled him into a hug. “Never change.”

“A-are you sure you’re Vriska!?” he said, bewildered by her sudden show of affection.

“Just shut up and enjoy the hug of a friend who’s been looking for you a long, long time…”

“Really? And here I thought we were looking for you! Or, well, Terezi was looking for you. We kinda just let her do that. Where’ve you been?”

“The multiverse,” Vriska said, smirking. “Made some friends. Say hello to a bunch of moody horses and the big guy.”

“Uh… Hi,” John said.

“Gog you are such a dork, John,” Vriska muttered, facepalming. “…It’s still good to see you though.”

“You all look like Dirk’s little ponies,” John observed.

“Don’t tell me My Little Pony exists here,” Applejack muttered.

Vriska blinked. “You know what, I think it does. Huh. Can’t believe I forgot that…”

Jotaro extended a hand, intimidating John with his stature. “Jotaro,” he said.

John met his hand. “John. But you know that.”

Jotaro was about to pull back – but something activated from within him. A purple vine shot out from his hand and wrapped around John’s. Roses burst from the purple vines, and suddenly Jotaro felt John’s very soul.

It was a very pure, if adrift spirit.

Jotaro stared at his hand. “Nani?”

“Uh… what?” John said. “And what again?”

Nova cocked her head. “…Was that Hermit Purple?

“No…” Jotaro said, shaking his head. “Hermit Purple could never do that…” he summoned Star Platinum, just to make sure he had his Stand. “All fine…”

“…Are you, uh, doing something?” John asked.

“We can explain later,” Vriska asked. “First, you can still do that retcon thing, right?”

“Yeah,” John said. “Though not now since, well, I’m dreaming. I think. I could tr-”

“No, don’t try, we don’t need a disaster from you trying something you don’t understand,” Vriska said with a chuckle. “Just let Nova here scan you – we’ll come to you on Earth C.”

“Oh sweet! Everyone will be absolutely stoked to finally see you after so long! Terezi and Karkat will probably get mad, but-”

“Wait, Karkat’s still alive?” Vriska said. “…Wait, how are any of the non god-tiers alive after this long?”

“Uh… Vriska, it’s been a few years, but not decades.”

Vriska blinked. “John. I’ve been gone nine hundred years.”

“Huh. Thought you’d be taller then.”

Vriska glared at him. “What could cause that much of a time discrepancy?”

“Well, Dave did jump us forward a few thousand years that one time…”

“Ah.” Vriska blinked. “Not to worry! There will still be a reunion! It just… will be rather one sided.”

“Hey, I can have Da-”

“Nonono, no need for that,” Vriska said, holding up a hand. “Nova, got it?”

Nova nodded. “Coordinates to Earth C, locked and loaded.” She opened a portal revealing a pasture of green grass in front of a New York-esque city. “Behold. Home.”

Vriska stepped through the portal and breathed in the fresh air. It smelled almost like every other Earth she had been on, but there was the unmistakable scent of trolls in the air. Faint, but there.

She stood in the sun, arms out, and smiled. “…Home.” A tear rolled down her cheek. She didn’t care who saw it.

John stared at the portal. “So can I walk through that or…”

“You should probably just wake up,” Allure said, hopping through the portal. “Find us after.”

“Oh. All right. Uh, can anyone stab me to wake me up?”

Vriska threw her sword back through the portal at him, winking. He vanished in a puff of light. “I enjoyed that far more than I should have.”

“He seems… clueless,” Nova observed.

“Yep, that’s John.”

“And he has the power that is going to help us face off against Horrorterrors and the Combine.”

“Yep.”

“That’s more than a little terrifying.”

Vriska laughed nervously, turning mind to more pleasing thoughts: home. “Gog, it looks so much better in person. Look at those buildings! The grass! The air around us!” She laughed.

Jotaro let himself smirk slightly. It looked no different from a standard Earth – grass, city, blue sky, evidence of people – but Vriska knew it was the one she’d been looking for all this time. She couldn’t let herself feel like it was ‘just another Earth’, for to her it wasn’t. It was the home she never got to visit.

Vriksa smiled. “I’m going to build my house here. In the human area. Because why the fuck not.”

Nova smiled. “We’re glad for y-”

With a zap of white energy, John appeared in front of Vriska. “Hey again!”

“Oh. Welp. You ruined the moment.”

John blinked. “Moment? …Uh, sorry. I was just trying to find you. Zapped around a bit and got here. Eventually.”

“John you saw where we got off.”

“That didn’t mean I had any idea where or when it was!”

Vriska rolled her eyes. “Right. Anyway, we’ll need your retcon power for something. But you know what, that can wait. We can always return to this exact moment whenever we want.”

“Time still progresses elsewhere though,” Nova pointed out. “…Wait, right, his power supersedes that doesn’t it?”

Vriska nodded. “Most broken power I’ve ever seen in the multiverse. The ability to go anywhere and change anything regardless of metatime.”

“Aw, geez, it’s not that great…” John insisted.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Egbert,” Vriska said, giving him a noogie. “I’ve been traveling for a while. I’ve seen some pretty ridiculous stuff. That pretty much takes the cake.”

John rubbed the back of his head. “If you say so. So, uh, wha-” his phone started ringing. “Oh, excuse me.” He answered the call. “Hey, Roxy!”

There was a feminine voice on the other side of the line.

John flushed beet red. “Uh, Roxy? I would absolutely love to but, well, you se-”

She interrupted him with something unintelligible to Vriska.

“Uh, you see, Vriska came back and kinda wants my help with something? Or… Well wants my help with something later. I guess.”

There was a bunch more talking.

“…Looks like she wants to talk to you, Vriska.”

Vriska shrugged, picking up the phone. “Hey other Lalonde. ‘Sup?”

There was a girlish gasp. “Oh. Em. Gee. You’re actually there. I thought he was comin’ up with some bizarro reason not to have some F. U. N…”

Vriska rolled her eyes. “For once, his wishy-washyness is legit. I’m here with a really big buff guy and three magic ponies.”

“…Okay, before I, like, come rushing over there and gush over the magic ponies like a seven-year-old princess, you got a buff guy? Lucky…”

“You and your assumptions. He’s not with me, he’s married, and has three kids.”

“I have many queshiuns,” she said, purposely mispronouncing the last word.

“You’ll get a lot of answers followed by some half-truths that just raise more questions.”

“Story of my life… One thing I gotta know though, should I feel… threatened?”

“I’ve been ‘dating’ a mini-Horrorterror for years and my moirallegiance is filled by a magical unicorn. Happy?”

“…No, I gotta hear both those stories. Like, right fuckin’ now.”

“How ‘bout no, how ‘bout you go find everyone else and gather them together for a special get-together. I’d have my party planner do it but I think she’s busy cutting eldritch abominations in half with a chainsaw.”

“You can count on Rolal, Vrisky!”

“Vriska.”

“Vrisky.”

“Vrisk- we’re not doing this. I just got back, my second interaction is not going to devolve into a two word back and forth.”

“Vrisky.”

Vriska hung up. “She’ll organize a get together of everyone. Eventually.”

Suddenly, a tall woman in the black robes of a Space player appeared in a flash of green, floating above them. She wore large, round glasses and had two white canine ears coming out the top of her head. Her piercing green eyes stared right into Vriska’s.

“Vriska, why is the Green Sun back?” she demanded, levitating Vriska into the air by the robe collar.

“Hey Jade, long time no see! Uh, would you believe me if I say I had nothing to do with that?”

“No,” Jade said with a knowing smile. “Start explaining.”

Vriska took a breath. “Well you see there is this multiversal alien race called the Combine that decided they could recreate the Green Sun as a power source. I tried to stop that, by the way, but luckily the Dream Bubbles were also recreated and I was finally able to find you guys!”

John and Jade stared at her, blinking.

Vriska grinned cheekily. “So you gonna put me down yet or not?”

Jade shrugged, setting Vriska back down on the ground. “You realize we’re going to have to destroy it, right?” She opened her hand and allowed the green power of the Sun to flow through her fingertips. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Problem with that,” Vriska said. “Destruction of the Green Sun will destroy all the ghosts – or at least seal them up again. So Meenah’s current plan is to take the Green Sun for ourselves.”

“…Take control of the Green Sun!?” Jade blurted. “Is she insane?”

“Yep,” Vriska said, “Especially since there’s already a war between the Horrorterrors and Combine over it. I’m sure you can see that, given your connection to the Green Sun.”

Jade nodded slowly. “So that’s what all that was…”

“Green Sun connection?” Allure asked.

Vriska sighed. “Ugh, more exposition… Every Sburb session universe had within it an entity called a First Guardian that was tapped right into the power of the Green Sun and used it to defend the universe from threats. Jade here ended up fused with her dog Guardian.”

“Woof,” Jade said. Then she smiled sheepishly. “Uh… Oops.”

“Are we going to talk about what happened to Jotaro, or no?” Nova asked suddenly. “Suddenly, purple thorns like Hermit Purple! What does that mean?”

Everyone looked around at each other and shrugged.

“What’s Hermit Purple?” Jade asked.

“Ooh! Ooh!” Allure perked up. “Do you want me to explain what Stands are?”

“…Sure.”

Allure took a deep breath.

~~~

Eve had moved the ‘victory platform’ back to Lopan so Seraphim could create a portal to the Dream Bubble while she worked. The Aradias were taking care of Spades’ people on the other side.

Eve herself was paying little attention to the portal; devoting everything she could to tearing apart the platform and examining it. The black house itself was impenetrable to her magics, and she didn’t dare open the door to a universe that no longer existed – but the inner workings beneath the platform opened to her with hardly any coaxing. She found herself able to pry it open with ease and understand the inner workings.

It was weird – yes, she was a scientist at heart and loved experimentation, but she didn’t have anywhere near the level of training that, say, Corona had. Yet she could just see the direction all the dimensional energy flowed through the differently colored pipes, what each section of the machine did, and how it all interconnected. The finer details of why eluded her, almost as if she was running on intuition.

She didn’t know it yet, but her left eye’s pupil had been replaced with the solar symbol of Light.

I had noticed, and had been instrumental in letting her work without interruption from Renee or Flutterfree, who would have been concerned about such visual changes. The two of them were trying to keep the inhabitants of Pyramid Hell calm during evacuation to an alien world of dreams.

Renee in particular was being the most useful, though she wasn’t quite aware of it.

She clasped a trembling yellow salamander’s nubby arm, looking down at the consort with a kind, loving expression. Her horn flashed with teal light for the slightest of moments and the salamander stopped trembling.

“What’s your name, little one?” Renee asked.

“…Casey von Salamancer. Thank you.” The salamander walked with purpose through Seraphim’s portal, confident.

“Wow, Renee, that was impressive,” Flutterfree said. “Not even my gift with animals could get them that calm…”

“That salamander’s mind was a troubled one… Such loss… They knew the Heir of Breath.” Renee blinked. “…How do I know that?”

Flutterfree shrugged. “Intuition? We’ve been helping a lot of them through this change.”

“Hrm…”

Spades walked over to them. “That’s almost all of ‘em. I can’t wait to bid this leprechaun vomit of a place good riddance.”

“Spades, the neon glow of this world is absolutely fabulous. I don’t see any reason why you’d have to leave it forever.

“The Noir aesthetic is superior. I need to find myself another city like that… A mobster paradise…”

Renee blinked. “I’m not so sure about the ‘mobster paradise’ bit, but I certainly can locate a world with the correct era-specific aesthetic I think you are looking for.” She adjusted her hat. “Anyway, that was everyone in this area. We should go ask Eve to move the platform again.”

I was watching Eve carefully place a magical probe into a cylindrical tank inside the victory platform, her left eye actively glowing with an orange light now. “Absolutely fantastic! The quantum flow of the fate-packets introduce the construct of grist into the physics of the universe, tapping into the experiences of the players to create a new plane of existence physically connected to worlds beyond, using Skaia as a nest!” She clapped her hooves. “This machine is so brilliant and I have no idea how I’m understanding it!”

Flutterfree pointed a hoof at Eve. “…Eve? Your eye is glowing.”

“It is?” She summoned a mirror and examined herself with it. “…Is that the symbol on Vriska’s robes? Light?”

I nodded. “Yep.”

“How am I tapping into a Sburb Aspect of reality?” she asked, her eye slowly fading back to normal.

“Think back to the Tumor,” I said. “How exactly did you survive?”

“You wrote us alive, right?”

“That was just Vriska,” I corrected. “She was already a Sburb player, she couldn’t be made one again. But the twelve of us… When the Green Sun was created, remnants of the old system were shoved into us.”

“So we’re players of the game?” Eve asked. “That’s… odd, since we don’t have any Skaia, or planets, or even a copy of the Sburb discs.”

“It’s glitched,” Flutterfree deduced.

“Exactly,” I confirmed. “Sburb was not meant to restart again once it had already been shut down. The Horrorterrors have not seeded any new universes to start the cycle. The Tumor changed us with the Sburb programs that popped into existence with the Green Sun. We are part of a game that can no longer run.”

“And because of that we get weird Aspect powers,” Eve concluded. She found that she could turn her Light-vision on and off at will, allowing her to intake and understand large quantities of information. “What exactly can we do? You’re the expert.”

“You’re the Witch of Light, which more or less translates to the manipulator of knowledge and fortune. You seem to have tapped more into the ‘knowledge’ side of the Light aspect, rather than the luck that Vriska is so obsessed with. I’m the Seer of Void, which doesn’t give me any abilities the Eye of Rhyme doesn’t already provide.”

“…Then what are we?” Flutterfree asked.

“Something to do with minds,” Renee deduced. “Or feelings.”

“Sylph of Mind,” I confirmed for Renee. “Which is to say one who heals with the power of the mind. You give them stability with your thoughts that influence their own minds.”

“I see…”

“You know, it says something about our lives that we’re just taking this in stride,” Eve observed. “New abilities from a glitchy ancient game? Sure. Why not.”

“Flutterfree’s not going to like what hers has to say about her,” I said, turning to the pegasus.

Flutterfree gulped. “…What am I?”

“The Page of Rage.”

“Wh… How does that make any sense? Do I look angry?”

I put my hoof on her shoulder. “Do you feel that inner voice of yours screaming against me right now, screaming that what I say cannot be true? That you cannot be a Rage player? That inner voice of your anger?”

Flutterfree blinked. “Y-yes?”

“The Page is a complex class – they are known to have extreme difficulty coming to terms with their Aspect, struggling to understand that it is a part of them, generally unable or unwilling to take steps to reach their full potential. You are not well attuned to your Rage, and yet it is undeniably a part of you deep down.”

“So what, I have to come to terms with it now?”

“No, actually,” I smiled warmly. “Most Pages never overcome their difficulty. If you were able to fully accept what you were, you would become essentially a beacon of Rage that radiated power, violence, and ‘truth’ from yourself. I wouldn’t worry about it though.”

Eve pulled Flutterfree into a hug. “She’s right. It’s not something we have to worry about. One less Rage player in the army won’t make a difference.”

“Never wanted to be in the army in the first place,” Flutterfree said, scratching the back of her head.

“I know.” Then Eve’s eyes shot open, the left one glowing brightly. “I also know I’m not going to be able to figure this out fully.”

“Really?” Renee asked.

“Yes,” Eve said, turning back to the platform. “…Corona needs to take a look at this. She’ll be able to pull something out of it with what I already know. I’m sure.”

“It’s nice just knowing things, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Sort of. Takes a lot of the fun out of learning.”

I shrugged. “Everything has its drawbacks.”

Eve called down to Spades. “I’m taking the platform through the portal as soon as everyone’s evacuated! Okay?”

“You could drop a nuke on this place after everyone was out and I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass.”

“Thanks!”

~~~

Meenah was still talking the ghost army up around the House Juju. She was currently using the bound and gagged Andrew Hussie as a soapbox because… well it had seemed like a good idea at the time, and she wasn’t regretting it yet.

“Right, I want all my god-tiers to my left. Sort by Aspect! I want nice color-coded lines! I’ll take your silence as agreement, now MOVE IT.” She coughed. “Those of you who aren’t god-tier go on the other side and just… I dunno, organize yourshells or somefin. Imma be honest here, you probably won’t be of much help. Yes, that includes you other mes and Vriskas. Them’s the breaks.”

Everyone shuffled off to their groups – except Fef, who was a non-god-tier and stayed at Meenah’s side regardless.

Meenah glanced at her. “What’re you doin’?”

“Letting the people who’re scared of you know it’s okay to listen to you?”

“…I have a deep biological urge to strangle you ’til you’re bone dry, y’know?”

“Good thing we’re ghosts then, huh?”

Meenah blinked – then laughed. “All right, you’re good. How about you actually do somefin though? Like check in on our extras back there?”

Feferi nodded. “Right away!” She jumped behind Meenah and walked closer to the House Juju, where O’Neill, Corona, Rainbow, and Pinkie were, preparing for battle.

O’Neill was analyzing the way Meenah was getting the troops organized. “Good stuff you’ve got so far, but I wouldn’t count out the mundanes yet. I’ve seen some of you change clothing just by thinking. Why not disguise all of you as ‘god-tier’ so they won’t know where the serious reality-warping powers are coming from?”

“Oh my glub that’s an excellent idea!” Feferi squeed. She created fake Life robes for herself, the gray folds billowing down her elegant form. “Not the nicest looking, but cool!”

“Remember the wings,” Pinkie said. “God-tier trolls have wings.”

Feferi nodded, adjusting her dream-form to have wings. She flapped them. “Completely useless, but I’m a ghost anyway.” She smiled at O’Neill. “I guess you really are a General.”

O’Neill shrugged. “And they wonder why I introduce myself as General rather than Overhead…”

Pinkie bounced to Feferi. “Feferi, think I should go with chainsaw, hammer, or chainhammer?”

Feferi blinked. “Chainhammer?”

Pinkie pulled a chainsaw with little hammers all over it. “Chainhammer.”

“Cool!”

“Yes!” Pinkie pumped a hoof and launched a party cannon.

Feferi gasped and grabbed Pinkie by the cheeks. “After this is over you and I need to have a party.”

“I agree! I’m thinking fish-themed!”

“Marevelous!” Feferi laughed.

“Pun overload,” Corona said, smirking.

Feferi shrugged. “I just like fish. And the sea. And talking about it too!”

“Not really a fighter?”

“Not really. I was bred to be a leader, but Karkat did that in my session so I didn’t really have to do much.” Feferi shrugged. “But hey, looks like I’m doing it now! Better late than never!” she giggled.

Corona smiled warmly. “It’s nice to see someone like you out here. No offense to your troll buddies, but a lot of them are rather abrasive.”

“Our cultures were pretty rough… but I’m not here to talk about that! I’m here to see what you’ve got!”

Corona lifted up her hand, showing Feferi a swirling nexus of red magical constructs. “This is a reality scrambler. Most universes would just give up and explode when I unleash this thing. Something tells me the ‘Paradox Space’ realities up there won’t be as adversely affected, but I bet the Combine’s ships will struggle to function when up becomes potatoes.”

“And for the Horrorterrors?”

“Good old-fashioned holy magic. It’s anathema to them.”

Feferi nodded. “I know. Strange how I, a Life player, got to be their voice in my session.”

Corona nodded. “Hopefully they’ll regret that. …You don’t have any trouble fighting them, do you?”

Feferi frowned. “They may have done a lot for me, but what they want now will destroy all of us! And I can’t let that happen. I care too much about my friends.”

“Even if the same isn’t true for them?”

Feferi nodded. “Especially then.”

“The multiverse needs more people like you.”

“Thanks!” Feferi said. “Now, Rainbow Dash, what do you have?”

“I’m awesome,” Rainbow asserted.

Feferi sighed, taking Rainbow aside. “You don’t have any special powers, Rainbow, and you’re a living pony! You could die!”

“Do I look like a pony who’d step down from a fight?”

“Unfortunately no,” Feferi said, folding her arms. “There’s going to be a lot of danger up there. One wrong slip from a Doom player and you’ll be dead in an instant, not to mention the Horrorterrors or Combine.”

“I’m going to fight!” Rainbow demanded, stamping her hoof on the ground.

“Rainbow, I know y-” Feferi noticed the whirlwind on the ground at Rainbow’s hoof. “…Do that again.”

“…Huh?”

“Stamp your hoof on the ground again, hard.”

Rainbow did as asked, creating a gust of wind with her movement. “Wha…?”

Feferi grinned. “Rainbow… I think you’re showing indications of the Breath Aspect!”

“…The what now?”

“Of course she is!” Pinkie interrupted. “All twelve of us got them!”

Corona and O’Neill turned to Pinkie. “…We did?” Corona asked.

“Yeah! All twelve of us got an aspect! Rainbow’s the Maid of Breath.”

O’Neill snickered. “Made of breath. I can see why she got that one.”

“Har-de-har,” Rainbow muttered. “Pinkie, what does that mean?”

“Well… Feferi?”

Feferi smiled. “Every player of Sburb has a title. Thief of Light, Maid of Time, to use examples you would know. The Aspect determines what part of reality the player can use – in your case, Breath, which can be described as ‘freedom’. It tends to manifest physically as wind. The first part of the title is the class, and is generally a bit more mysterious. Maids, as I understand it, fix, repair, or provide the Aspect.”

“Aradia spends all her time fixing Time,” Pinkie explained.

“So… What? I can repair ‘freedom’?”

Pinkie nodded. “Yep! And also control wind better than you could before, but that’s just in general.”

“…Sweet.”

Feferi turned to Pinkie. “Do you know what the rest of you are?”

“Oh yeah. O’Neill’s the Thief of Hope!”

O’Neill smirked. “That certainly sounds like me. Let’s take a wild guess – I have been bestowed the utterly broken ability to take the Hope within others and give it to myself.”

“I think that’s how it would work,” Feferi admitted. “Vriska’s a Thief as well. She takes luck – Light – and adds it to herself. You’ll probably work a lot like her actually, though on a more mental scale.”

O’Neill rubbed his hands together.

“You’re thinking of more ways you can screw with people,” Corona said.

“As soon as I figure out how to use it, there will be chaos. The Hope-slash-Crimson Sushi double combo. Watch the very soul drain out of the villain’s eyes…”

“Creepy~!” Pinkie trilled. “Meanwhile, I’m the Bard of Space!”

Feferi blinked. “That’s terrifying.”

“Why?” Corona asked.

“Bards are known for random destruction of everything through passive use of their Aspect,” Feferi said. “Uh… The only bard you’ll see here is the Bard of Hope, and he doesn’t know how to use his powers. The Bard of Rage though… he krilled a lot of trolls.”

Pinkie giggled. “Don’t worry, I’ve lived with being able to manipulate space all my life. Just because I now have a better explanation for a lot of it won’t change much. I can make space explode now though!”

“Please don’t,” Rainbow pleaded.

“Aw, ptooey, fine.”

“What about me, Pinkie?” Corona asked. “What am I?”

“Rogue of Doom.”

Corona blinked. “Me? Doom? That doesn’t make any sense! The rest of you have Aspects that fit you! Moving through space, freedom of flight, hope in the face of unwinnable odds… What about me screams Doom?

Pinkie shrugged. “I dunno. It’s what you were given though. You can take the Doom around you and distribute it wherever it needs to go, though. Oh, remember how Death prevented everyone from dying that one time?”

“…Yeah?”

“You can do that now. Sorta. You have to put the death on something else.”

“…Cool, but I’m still worried that I’m some sort of patron of death and destruction now.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Pinkie said, winking.

“ARE WE READY TO LAUNCH?” Meenah shouted.

“Oh glub, I need to tell her O’Neill’s plan!” Feferi said. “You’re all going to be a great help, but try to figure out how to use your powers in ten minutes, okay?”

Corona nodded. “We will.”

“Thanks! I’ll be right back.” She scrambled to Meenah and told her about O’Neill’s tactical suggestion.

“Glub me… MORE DELAYS. Fine, fine… LISTEN UP EVERYONE! We’ve got a ploy!”

~~~

Roxy’s god-tier outfit was that of the Rogue of Void, which was to say dark blue with a really sweet mask that went across her eyes and did nothing to actually hide her identity. She didn’t care, it was still awesome.

She had set up the party in an instant, which was to say she used her freakish Rogue of Void powers to take the ‘lack of party’ from the room and ‘create’ a party from that. She’d invited all twelve of Earth C’s resident Sburb players.

She didn’t tell anyone what the party was about – merely that John was coming with a surprise. They probably thought he had proposed to her or something. As if.

Everyone except John was already here. Including Jade, who had done really well at not letting anyone else know what was about to happen. The three trolls were also there.

Everyone was talking, but Roxy was busy waiting with anticipation. They’d all been looking for Vriska for so long – they’d known she was alive, but they didn’t know what had happened to her. There were going to be so many gasps and celebrations and amazing faces.

John walked to the door of Roxy’s house, opening it up to see the party. He smiled and stepped aside to reveal Vriska.

Roxy was right, there were a lot of gasps and celebrations and loud cheering – from the non-trolls. The trolls themselves stood back, staring at Vriska with unreadable expressions.

Roxy realized her little party was going to mean nothing to Vriska. The Thief of Light said hello to all the humans and introduced them to her friends, but she clearly had business to attend to with those of her kind. While the humans gawked over the ponies and Jotaro, she left them behind.

Vriska soon stood before the three other trolls, all three taller than her. There was the Jade-blooded Kanaya, towering over the rest of them with a graceful figure. Next to her was the mutant-candy-red-blooded Karkat, his horns just as nubby as always. He looked older than any of the other trolls by a fair bit, his face showing wrinkles.

And on the other end was Terezi, the Teal-blooded blind girl with sharp, red glasses and a walking cane styled with a red dragon head.

Vriska had her mouth open to speak, but couldn’t say anything the moment she rested her eyes on Terezi. Her lip began to tremble and her eyes filled with cobalt-blue tears. She took in a sharp breath, trying to get a hold of herself.

Terezi spoke with a nasally voice that belonged on a mischievous imp. “Vrisk-?”

Vriska broke down crying, flinging her arms around Terezi and squeezing her tight. She couldn’t say anything, she was so overcome with emotion. In the Dream Bubble, there had been too much going on… Too much chaos… There hadn’t been a moment for her to truly register what was happening.

But here?

She could see her best friend again. Nine hundred years of built up emotional stress released in one moment.

Even for one as strong as her, it was too much.

“V-vriska?” Terezi said.

“It’s been so long,” Vriska managed through her sobs. “It’s been so long…”

“Uh... Yeah. It…”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being such a bitch. I’m sorry for blinding you out of some pathetic act of petty revenge. I’m sorry for setting up that mess in the first place. I’m sorry for listening to my lusus when I could have turned away at any time. I’m sorry for running off to Jack and making you make that impossible choice. I’m sorry for burdening you with guilt. I’m sorry I made you bring me back… Even after you brought me back, I kept doing it! Blowing a second chance! I’m sorry! It was wrong! All of it was wrong. I was… I was wrong about so much…”

Terezi stood, gawking. “W-what happened?”

“She spent nine hundred years wandering the multiverse, trying to get home,” Nova said, walking up to them. “Hi. Nova here. I’ve been working with her for several years.” Nova put a hoof on the shaking Vriska’s back. “She just wants you to know she’s changed.”

Terezi was unable to process what was happening – she was frozen in shock.

So Karkat took control. He grabbed Vriska roughly by the shoulder and tore her from Terezi. He looked her right in the eye.

“About fucking time!” he shouted in his harsh, angry voice.

Nova was about to chide him – but Vriska laughed at this. She pulled Karkat into the next embrace. “Yes. Yes it is.”

“Hey! Hey! Let me go! I’m not some touchy-feely guy all of a sudden!”

Vriska wiped her eyes and put her hands on her hips. “And here I thought you were the guy to go to for romantic advice? Has that changed?”

“No,” Kanaya said with a soft, melodious voice. She put a hand on Vriska. “Vriska, I am glad to see you return to us so well.”

“Heheh… Yeah… Kanaya, about all those times I ignored you…”

“It led us to where I am today.” Kanaya smiled warmly. “There is no need to apologize.”

“Yes there fucking is!” Karkat blurted. “Even if everything worked out she was still fucked up! I’m going to milk her for every apology I can get!”

Vriska chuckled. “What do you want an apology for, Karcrab?”

“Tavros?”

“Apologized to his ghost personally as a big show in front of thousands of other ghosts!”

“Hrm… Jack?”

“I was an absolute fucking moron trying to create an enemy so I could be the hero. Not just selfish, but stupid on so many levels.”

“Jade?”

“Yo, Jade! I was a real bitch that caused every problem by making you fall asleep all the time! Heck, I’m probably indirectly responsible for Lord English, so I’ll go ahead and apologize for his existence!”

“Treating me and everyone else like shit?”

“None of you were actually shit, except maybe Eridan. Most of you were better people than me. You’re all my very best friends.”

Karkat grinned a big toothy grin. “Welcome back, Vriska.”

“Thanks. Now here’s the big question, why the fuck are you all taller than me? Being god-tier doesn’t stunt growth! This just isn’t fair.”

“I’ve started to shrink,” Karkat said with a chuckle. “Mutant blood, won’t be around much longer. Really glad I got to see you come back.”

“Hey, hey, Karcrab. I know how to get you some immortality serum. All of you. Don’t you fret about getting old. I’ve got connections now.”

“Well fuck me sideways, that’s the best news I’ve heard in years!” Karkat let out a deep laugh.

“You’ve changed too. Lot more comfortable with yourself.”

“Fuck you and your psychological observations. I get enough of that already.”

Vriska wiped her face again and gave him a thumbs up. Then she turned around – catching sight of Terezi again.

“…You going to say anything?” Vriska asked, her smile vanishing.

“What am I supposed to say?” Terezi said, a single teal tear running out from under her glasses. “Great job Vriska, you figured out life? Oh, yeah, you were an asshole, but that’s behind us. Ah, you spent nine-hundred years out there? Oh, must be bad for you. Makes my tiny handful of years waiting look like nothing, doesn’t it? Everything I feel just has to be a lesser version of what you’re feeling. And that makes me mad.”

Vriska put a hand on Terezi’s shoulder. “Terezi, just because you suffered less doesn’t make it any less legitimate. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been looking for me – what matters is that you were. And holy hell, do you have the right to be mad. I wouldn’t be upset if you punched me right n-”

Terezi punched her.

Virska laughed. “Capitalizing on the opportunity, are we Redglare?”

Terezi – finally – let her mouth spring into that toothy grin she was known for. “Hehehehehe. Mindfang, you know me, when there’s a legal loophole to punch a highblood, I’ll take it. Every time.” She extended a hand.

Vriska took it. “Scourge Sisters?”

“Scourge Sisters.”

They clasped each other’s hands and raised them into the air. “WE’RE BACK, BITCHES!”

There was applause and cheers.

Roxy smiled, wiping a tear from her eye. It was one of the most beautiful things she had seen in recent memory.

The reunion of friends and the rebuilding of bridges.

~~~

The Combine’s CX-07, a ‘Costra’ class ship, was a sight to behold. In realspace, it took the form of a translucent blue sphere with two white compass-needle-like prongs extending from the ‘front’ and the ‘back’. Within the sphere were several dozen stars, all of them blue hypergiants, brimming with unstable internal power. In other words, ready to blow at any moment – but kept in check by a truly tremendous organic construct in the center of the CX-07 that resembled a beating heart with several glowing tubes strapped to it.

One of the blue stars smashed into the edge of the CX-07’s sphere, pushing all of its mass into the globe. The globe proceeded to release controlled bursts of supernova-level energy into the darkness of Paradox Space.

Horrorterrors may have been impossible squid-like beasts from the deepest nightmares of haunted veterans, but when confronted with pure cosmic energy they still burned. Normally the Horrorterror would have simply folded itself through a manifold in ‘space’ to appear behind the CX-07 in its own perceived ‘past’, but the larger Combine RA-02 was working around the clock to ensure the physical realm around them operated like a three-dimensional space, closing off the Horrorterror tricks.

All around the Green Sun, these battles carried on. Not one Combine ship or Horrorterror could be allowed actually near the Green Sun. One would assume, given a three-dimensional perspective, that since the Combine had started on one side of the Green Sun and the Horrorterrors on the other, it would have been impossible to prevent any interaction with the Green Sun.

However, Paradox Space merely looked three-dimensional from outside, given its complete lack of anything within. The Horrorterrors were able to jump from location to location not because they had the physiological ability to do so nor knowledge of the different universal coordinates that led to different sections, but because they understood how Paradox Space operated and could walk through it like a school hallway.

The Combine had originally tried to negate this property, but they realized nearly instantly that if they did this, the Horrorterrors would easily reach the Green Sun before them. So the fleets of cosmic ships allowed themselves to be spread across Paradox Space seemingly randomly so they had a presence everywhere around the Green Sun. They turned their forced-reality generators back on and headed toward the emerald treasure.

Even though time and space around the Green Sun was in a constant state of flux and self-perpetuating loops, one thing was certain. If you looked at the light of the Green Sun and moved directly toward it, you would eventually reach it. This fact could not be changed.

Effectively, the halo of Combine ships and Horrorterrors around the Green Sun was shrinking, nearing the green orb as one side made an advancement here, the other there.

The only issue with visualizing this is that it was happening all at once in every location and timeframe across Paradox Space. Not even those actively within the battle would have any idea who was actually winning unless they were one of the Noble Horrorterrors, and these particular beings weren’t doing anyone any favors by talking.

Meenah did not care about understanding what was going on. She had an army of god-tier players and fake god-tier players, all of whom were already dead in every possible way. She was very curious to see what the Combine and Horrorterrors planned to do when they made themselves known.

At the moment, Meenah and Feferi floated just outside the perceivable ‘edge’ of the Green Sun conflict, thousands of brightly-colored ghosts separated by their robes into twelve different types. In front of them floated Corona, Rainbow, and Pinkie; O’Neill opted to stay behind the battlefront in order to issue commands. A duo of god-tier Mind players supported him, planning to use their Aspect to communicate his military commands to everyone as well as they were able.

Currently, the Horrorterrors and Combine were ignoring them.

Corona took a breath – she hadn’t learned much about her Rogue of Doom powers in the short time she’d had, but she knew enough to ensure Pinkie, Rainbow, and O’Neill would have their ‘deaths’ transferred to whatever was attacking them. She just had to worry about herself, seeing as her powers were unable to affect her personal ‘Doom’.

She’d been told the Rogue was basically the opposite of a Thief, and that made total sense considering what she knew about Vriska’s manipulation of luck.

“Ready,” she said.

“ALL RIGHT!” Meenah said. “Let’s show them what we’re made of!” She had no need to remind the ghost army what they were doing – they all knew the plan. Hit hard, hit fast, surprise them, and get to the Green Sun by any means necessary.

“CHARGE!” Feferi shouted, raising her trident.

The Space players surged forward first, their black robes billowing behind them. The only god-tier ghost of Jade took the lead, the Green Sun’s proximity filling her body with unimaginable power. “BARK!” she shouted, bending space to launch the entire ghost army right in between the CX-07 and a Middle Horrorterror. Some Mind players surrounded the ghosts in an aura of mental energy that kept the Horrorterror’s presence from forcing them to insanity.

The Aradias and other Time players began to duplicate themselves recklessly through the looping timeline of Paradox Space while the Dead Daves took an organizational role, ensuring that no universe-ending paradoxes would ensue from the overuse of Time manipulation.

And this was far from the only Aspect fighting. Hope shot beams of light that burned the Horrorterrors. Light players manipulated chance to the benefit of all. Void players used the Horrorterrors’ own tricks against them. And Doom… did exactly what one would expect it did.

The Combine and Horrorterrors pushed back, suddenly accepting the presence of a third faction within the battle. The Horrorterrors knew instantly they could not kill the ghosts in their current situation without going to extreme lengths, so they instead moved to capture the ghosts and imprison them within eldritch bubbles of madness. The Combine thought this was a good idea and copied it with their own biotechnical energies, molding physics to immobilize ghosts.

At which point the Breath players started doing their thing. There was a lot of wind blowing, but that wasn’t the point of what they did – the point was freedom. They filled the ghost army with freeing blue gusts that would unravel the traps keeping ghosts from fighting.

They pushed closer to the Green Sun.

The gray-clad Life players, composed mostly of versions of Feferi and Meenah, had a great time draining and manipulating the life inherent in both the Combine biomechanical ships and the Horrorterrors. Meenah herself crashed through CX-07’s external sphere and latched onto the life of the central, beating heart with her powers. The CX-07, not designed to resist assault from the inside like that, was completely surprised that she could breach the outer parts of the sphere at all. The heart shriveled up and died as Meenah absorbed every last bit of it for herself.

The lack of a central heart sent the blue stars flying. Without a stabilizing presence they all exploded in supernovae, frying vast chunks of the Combine, Horrorterror, and ghost armies. This did significant damage to the Combine and Horrorterror forces, but just really ticked off the ghosts.

Corona lowered her shield – she’d barely had enough power within her to simply survive that.

“MEENAH!” she heard O’Neill’s voice ring in her head. “WE ARE NOT A BUNCH OF LOOSE CANNONS! WE ARE A SINGLE, FIGHTING UNIT! NEXT TIME THINK BEFORE YOU UNLEASH THE FURY OF A DOZEN DYING SUNS!”

Corona didn’t hear Meenah’s response, for O’Neill’s commands only went one way.

Corona saw Rainbow Dash and Pinkie fighting alongside the ghosts. Rainbow Dash shifted the winds around her with more power than she ever had as a mere pegasus, but she paled in comparison to the pure essence of freedom the god-tier Breath players were unleashing. Pinkie was the same. Her destructive Space powers were interesting, but ultimately completely useless against something like a Horrorterror or higher Combine ship. She seemed to resort completely to her ‘Pinkie powers’ to do anything at all – and even the usually devastating chainsaw or ‘super explosions’ were doing next to nothing in the grand scheme of things.

O’Neill was at least useful with his tactical mind, organizing teams to go one way or another to keep up the fight. His Hope powers did nothing.

And then there was Corona. Her magic was definitely more powerful than any single ghost here except for the green, fiery power of Jade. But she had a failing – she wasn’t unkillable. While all the other ghosts would just take world-shattering hit after world-shattering hit and just stand back up screaming expletives, she had to waste magic and time defending herself.

Between defending herself and ensuring her friends were undying as well, she had nothing. Even taking out one low-level Horrorterror would be an immense feat for her, one that would require intense concentration and leave her open to something else…

She felt like she had been dragged into a conflict too big for her and her friends. Too much to even understand. This wasn’t even as big as battles could get in the multiverse! The Combine may have been fighting at their full strength, but the Horrorterrors weren’t. Their capacity was limited by the current restrictions put in place by the Green Sun and their own society’s apathy. If things were just slightly different, a Noble Horrorterror could kill the entire ghost army by just shifting the nature of the universe slightly…

They were very fortunate to be able to fight at all.

At least they appeared to be getting closer to the Green Sun…

It was at this point the Combine and Horrorterrors decided the ghosts were more than just a passing annoyance and sent in some serious firepower. A Combine ship that resembled a gyroscope the size of a solar system moved in, its rotational power vibrating its very being so much it was blurred. On the other side, a Noble Horrorterror rose, eclipsing the Green Sun with its impossibly tremendous girth, the maddening twists of its body threatening the Mind players’ barriers.

The ghosts began to be pushed back.

“Forward!” O’Neill’s voice yelled. “Punch through the barrier between the two, get them to fight each other!”

This ploy didn’t work. The rainbow of robed ghosts was sealed off by the Noble Horrorterror and Combine Gyroscope impacting each other. As the two enemies shredded each other to pieces, they also moved toward the ghosts as well, pushing them back. The energy threw some ghosts far enough away from the group to get lost in the inky blackness of Paradox Space.

“Too much…” Corona said, staring at the piercing eyes of the Horrorterror, transfixed despite the mental barrier. “Too much…”

“You’ll be glad to hear what I have to say, then,” a nearby Light player said. “You and your three friends will be needed back at the House Juju. Take them and go – this fight will not end in our victory as it is. But it is part of what is to come.”

Corona nodded, deciding to trust her. “Rainbow! Pinkie! O’Neill! We need to go back to the House Juju!”

Pinkie appeared in front of her. “Right away, Corona!”

“Figures,” O’Neill said. “Hope they can survive without my tactical genius.”

“Probably not,” Rainbow Dash said. “Corona, we better be leaving to find Siron’s Staff or something.”

“I don’t know why we’re going back, though that staff would be useful,” Corona admitted. “All I know is that we have to go. Just the four of us. …We weren’t making much of a difference anyway.”

O’Neill raised an eyebrow.

“Except you.” Corona opened a portal back to the Dream Bubble. “Let’s just go.”

~~~

Roxy’s party went on, with various little conversations between the visitors to Earth C and the various players of Sburb. It was a moment to relax, unwind, and talk about the nature of everything.

Roxy herself was talking to Applejack. “So, like, Dirk is a big brony and all so I know exactly who you are. I’m just trying to figure out how you are actually a thing. You’re on TV!

Applejack blinked. “Uh… there’s a force called ka that manipulates events to shape them to the stories written by people called Prophets.”

“Oh. Then we have a Prophet too?”

“Yeah. Ah actually know who he is. Watched a bunch of ghosts beat him up in the Dream Bubble.”

“So what you’re saying is that I’m a fictional creation.”

“Uh… Sorta, I think? Y’all are in a webcomic, at least.”

“I fucking knew it!” alive Dave shouted from across the room. “There was no way any of the shit that happened to us made real-world sense! Ha! In your face common sense, you can’t fool Dave Strider!”

Applejack facehoofed. “That’s a first.”

“I take it that’s not the usual reaction?”

“…No.”

“Huh.”

Dave continued dancing for a while, ignoring the continuing conversation. He whooped, fistbumping his future self, then jumped back a few seconds into the past to fistbump his past self, completing the circle.

“You use Time powers differently to Aradia,” Nova observed. “She’ll just clone herself recklessly. I’ve seen you create a lot of self-contained loops. Is that why I saw a ton of ghost Aradias but only a handful of you?”

“Dead Daves are the enemy,” Dave recited.

“Dead Dave’s comment makes more sense now.”

“Well duh, of course, because I’m the OG Alpha Dave. I’ve got it all under control.”

“Riiiight.”

“Hey, us Time players gotta stick together, Nova. None of that fuckin’ eye-rollin’ business.”

“Dave, I’m not a Time player. I have time magic. There’s a difference.”

“Oh. I guess I’m the one that told you, then. Another loop closed.”

“…You’ve talked to me in the future and I said I was a Time player?”

“Yep. Prince of Time, or destroyer of Time. Apparently all twelve of you became players when the Green Sun decided to pull a, ‘jk, lol, not dead’ on us.”

“…Destroyer of Time…” Nova nervously chuckled. “That makes a scary amount of sense for me. …Wonder if that explains what happened to Jotaro with that Stand…”

“You could probably erase time,” Dave said.

“What does that mean?”

“…Remove an event for everyone but yourself? I can’t tell you, I’m a Knight, not a Prince.”

“It just works,” Jotaro offered as he passed by them.

“Hey, Jotaro,” Nova said, stopping. “Think I may have figured out why you have a weird new Stand.”

“Figured out?” Dave said, shaking his head. “I’m from the future, I fucking know.”

“Right,” Nova said, rolling her eyes. “Apparently, we were all converted into ‘Sburb players’ when the Tumor went off and sorta-kinda killed us. I’m the Prince of Time, and you’re… Uh… I don’t know what you are. Dave?”

“Heir of Blood. Inheritor of connections or some shit. He can channel his ancestors.”

Jotaro thought about this. With some thought, he was able to summon the purple vines of Hermit Purple onto one of his hands and Star Platinum at the same time. He found that the hand holding Hermit Purple pulsed with a golden energy. “This wasn’t what I did with John. That was something else.”

“Did anyone other than Joseph have a stand in your ancestry?” Nova asked.

“Jonathan Joestar did not have o-” Jotaro paused. “The Passion…”

“What?”

“The Passion. When Dio awoke the World within himself, he was in Jonathan’s body. There were a few moments we saw Dio use a Hermit-Purple-like Stand…” Out of Jotaro’s other hand sprang more purple vines, these ones with flowering roses on them. “…Strange.”

There was a loud “BARK!” that drew every head in the room toward Jade.

She sparked with the power of the Green Sun. “Uh… Sorry! Sorry! It’s just been acting up lately, I’ll get control of it!” She blushed, grinning sheepishly. “It’s just barking, don’t worry about it.”

The room got back to what it was doing.

“Gah, I need to get these barks under control, I don’t like disrupting everything!”

“I think it’s cool,” Allure said, sitting on a table nearby so she was eye-level with Jade. “Being part dog, I mean.”

“I do have a lot of heightened senses, but… Well, without Bec’s Green Sun powers – which I really shouldn’t have – it just makes people think I’m a furry all the time… And then certain people who will not be named keep making jokes at my expense anyway.” She glared intensely at Karkat.

“What? What did I do this time!?” he said, legitimately confused.

“Nothing,” Jade muttered, turning back to Allure. “See?”

“No,” Allure admitted with an adorable smile.

“…Oh my gosh you’re so cute.”

“Thank you,” Allure said, smiling. “…You can see the Green Sun. How is the fight going?”

“Standstill,” Jade said, her body flickering as she focused her sight on the battle in the light of the Green Sun. “They’re all just fighting… A Combine ship exploded… A Horrorterror shriveled… And the ghosts keep getting captured.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t look like they’re going to accomplish anything. Their forces are too small compared to the might of the other sides.”

“That’s what John’s for, right?” Allure said. “He can do his ‘retcon’ thing and get us through that at any moment he wants.”

Jade nodded. “But what then? Once we have the Green Sun, what will we do with it? We can’t destroy it; all the ghosts need it to keep their afterlives. But we can’t exactly use it. Don’t know how. I’m directly tapped into the Green Sun because of my First Guardian status, and I just have access to its power, I can’t control it as a whole.”

“Have you ever physically been there?” Allure asked.

“No. The Green Sun locks me from getting to it with my space powers.”

“Maybe there’s a reason. Maybe, if you were next to it, you could control it.”

Jade blinked. “…That’s a good thought Allure! I should come back with you, figure out if that’s possible! Two dog-tier Jade’s are better than one, after all.”

“…dog-tier?”

“It’s what we call me. Since, uh, I’m part dog, and it makes me a First Guardian?”

“Oh.” Allure nodded slowly, as if this made great sense. She looked around, finding John in the crowd. “…Do you think he can do it?”

“If he doesn’t, he can just go back and do it again. He’s relatively good at using his retcon powers locally now, even if he never actually does much with them. Last time he did Dave threw a fit about how many timeline loops he screwed up.”

“I bet that was a fun conversation,” Allure said, continuing to watch John.

John didn’t notice Allure because Jotaro had decided to walk right into his field of view. “John Egbert,” he said.

“Uh… Hey, Jotaro!” John said nervously. Sure, he was used to people taller than him. But Kanaya was not this ripped. Nor did she look like she could remove his head with a punch. “W-what do you want?”

Jotaro sat down on a chair. “Sit,” he told John.

John gulped, doing as requested.

“I don’t fully understand what I saw, but I felt a pure soul within you,” Jotaro said. “I also felt a deep disconnect within you – an aloofness that produces cluelessness and something that isn’t quite apathy. You don’t take anything seriously.”

“Well yeah, too many people get hung up on things. You know? I just… Don’t.”

“…I would say you were running from problems, but I have seen into you. That aloofness is truly how you are.”

“Thanks…?”

“You have a great power within you, John. With it, you can shape reality itself. Or destroy it.”

“Uh, yeah, thanks for reiterating that. I know. I shouldn’t use it to go very far…”

“You still talk like it’s a restriction you’re annoyed with and don’t understand. Or don’t agree with.”

“Look, I get it Jotaro. It’s powerful. I shouldn’t mess with it.”

“There’s only one problem,” Jotaro said. “You will be asked to use it. And if you don’t treat it with respect, it could end in disaster.”

“…G-got it! Treat the retcon with respect! Be serious.”

“I mean it, John. You need to u-”

John’s phone rang. He quickly fished it out of his blue robes and looked at it. New message from undyingUmbrage.

“I have to take this,” John said, zapping away before Jotaro could do anything.

Jotaro narrowed his eyes. This was giving him a bad feeling.

~~~

John zapped across the skies of Earth C – leaving the human section of the planet and moving to the troll-dominated areas. Here the buildings were elaborate constructions with colored windows that stacked on top of each other like they had been created like a child playing with bricks.

He checked the text on his phone.

uu: EGBERT. EGBERT WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHY HAVE YOU HIDDEN YOURSELF.
uu: EGBERT! ANSWER ME THIS MINUTE OR THE BUNNY GETS IT!
EB: calm down caliborn. i just had to get away from a party.
uu: YOU VANISHED FROM MY SIGHTS.
uu: FOR A PARTY.
uu: WHAT AN UTTER WASTE OF YOUR TIME.
uu: IT WAS THE VOID BITCH WASN’T IT.
EB: yes, it was roxy. ROXY. not ‘the void bitch’.
uu: THE FACT THAT YOU KEEP TRYING TO CORRECT ME NEVER CEASES TO AMUSE ME.
uu: YOU TRULY ARE THE DIMMEST OF ALL THE HUMANS. AND THEY CALL YOU LEADER.

John decided to shift to another location, this time over the black-and-white home of the carapacians, their constructions looking a lot more like medieval castles and farms for the most part. Except the ones that looked like giant cans.

EB: what do you even want?
uu: WHAT ELSE DO YOU THINK I WANT?
uu: I KEEP CHALLENGING YOU. AND YOU KEEP PROVING YOURSELF TO BE A COMPLETE FUCKING WIMP.
uu: YOU HAVE THE ZAPPY POWER.
uu: YOU CAN GET HERE.
EB: i literally just finished a conversation with a big guy where we talked about not abusing the power.
uu: THIS MAN IS A FOOL!
uu: I ABUSED MY POWER. IT ONLY GAVE ME MORE POWER!
uu: IT IS THE SAME FOR YOU EGBERT.
uu: BEND EVERYTHING TO YOUR WILL. COME FACE ME.
uu: GAIN MORE POWER FOR YOURSELF.
EB: this is totally a trap.
uu: YOU KNOW YOU HAVE TO COME FACE ME EVENTUALLY.
uu: I WILL EVENTUALLY GO ELSEWHERE. AND LAY WASTE TO ALL REALITY!
uu: AND I WILL GET ALL THE BITCHES.
uu: ALL OF THEM.
EB: you stole that line.
uu: tUMUt
uu: IT’S MINE NOW.

John switched locations again, this time appearing over the colorful candyland that the consorts inhabited in all their amphibious and reptilian glory.

EB: clearly this conversation is going nowhere.
uu: ITS GOING SOMEWHERE.
uu: I WILL GET YOU HERE EVENTUALLY.
uu: ALL NINE.
EB: …nine?
uu: EIGHT. EIGHT.
EB: did you forget how to count?
uu: tUMUt
EB: you use that too much. you should get a new angry face.
uu: EGBERT. IF YOU ARE NOT ASSUMING MY FACE IS ETERNALLY ANGRY.
uu: YOU ARE EVEN STUPIDER THAN I GAVE YOU CREDIT FOR.
uu: COME GET YOUR FUCKING TROPHY.
EB: ugh, fine, i’ll gather everyone and beat up your sorry ass. i’ve got something else to deal with right now, so it won’t be instant.
uu: I WILL REIN IN THE UNENDING STREAM OF SHIT I WANT TO GIVE YOU.
uu: IN HOPES THAT IT WILL MAKE YOU COMPLETE YOUR SHITTY, EMPTY HUMAN ERRAND.
uu: AND GET YOUR WINDY BODY TO ME ALREADY.

John had started typing a reply to get Caliborn off his back, but someone swiped the phone out of his hands.

“V-Vriska?”

Vriska was typing away furiously on the phone. “You need to stop talking to this guy.”

“Bu-”

“No buts, we need to ensure the timestream doesn’t mess up. And here’s how I’m going to do that.”

~arachnidsGrip has joined~
uu: WHAT THE FUCK.
AG: H8y there, L8rd of Fucking Losers!!!!!!!!
uu: LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. WE HAVE. A HATER.
AG: You know, we never t8lked. Wh8t a sh8me that was! I never got to go full 8itch on you!
uu: RIGHT. THE SPIDERBITCH. WHY AM I TALKING TO YOU?
uu: YOURE STUPID.
AG: I’m the spider8itch who’s going to seal you away in a little white b8x one day, Cali8orn.
uu: …
uu: tUMUt
AG: Woooooooow!!!!!!!! L88k at you, 8eing so powerful and DEFIANT. I 8et that made you feel reeeeeeeeally good, didn’t it? A w8 off your chest?
uu: IS THERE A POINT TO THIS CONVERSATION?
AG: Yes, actually. I’m a8out to destroy John’s phone. So he won’t 8e a8le to hear from you ever again.
uu: WAIT WAIT WAIT. FUCK. DON’T DO THAT. HE HAS TO FACE ME.
AG: I’m fully aware of what he needs to do. And he’ll do it.
AG: Just not fucking now, Cali8orn.
uu: STOP USING MY NAME BITCH.
AG: Cali8orn. Cali8orn. Cali8orn. Cali8orn. Cali8orn. Cali8orn. Cali8orn. Cali8orn.
uu: IF I LET YOU USE MY NAME. WILL YOU LET JOHN KEEP HIS PHONE.
AG: Nope. 8ecause y8u d8n’t g8t t8 m8ss w8th my fri8nds anymor8!

She snapped John’s phone in half.

“VRISKA!”

“Don’t get a new phone,” Vriska told John. “Don’t let him have a way to contact you.”

“But I nee-”

“John, you can retcon anywhere. Just go talk to people in person.”

“I…”

“Look, you’ll have to go back and face him eventually, John. He’s right about that. But don’t go until you’re absolutely ready.”

“After this, I’ll be ready,” he said, taking on a determined look for the first time since Vriska had gotten here.

“You might be,” Vriska said, putting a hand on John’s shoulder. “But I don’t know if you come back after.”

John blinked. “You… don’t?”

“It has to be done, John. But from what I know… You’ll go. And you won’t come back.”

John began to sweat. “You’re… you’re sure?”

“Unless you try to change it with retcon. Which, John… if you do…” She thought back to the House Juju, keeping Lord English imprisoned because of actions John had not taken yet. John would defeat Caliborn… But the cherub would be reborn as Lord English, only to be sealed away in the House Juju. “The consequences would be disastrous for the entire multiverse.”

“You’re serious?”

“I’m very serious.”

“…Jotaro wasn’t kidding…”

Vriska smiled. “He rarely does.” She extended a hand to him. “Come on. Let’s go back to the party. Tell everyone it’s time for us to go.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We’ve been here long enough. Time to deal with the big Green Sun problem and forget about some evil cherub, for now.”

“…Okay, Vriska.” He grabbed her hand – and they zapped back to the party.

“ALL RIGHT, LISTEN UP!” Vriska shouted. “WE’RE LEAVING! I only need John’s help to deal with the Green Sun. The rest of you keep on living.”

“Fuck no,” Dave said. “We’re all com-”

“Shut up,” Vriska said, holding out a hand. “I made you do all the dirty work for me before. It’s time I pay you all back. You’ve all been through enough – enjoy your world. Please.”

Allure walked up to Vriska. “Uh… I kinda told Jade she could come, since she’s connected to the Green Sun and might be able to help us.”

Vriska sighed. “Okay, fine, Jade can come. The rest of you… Just stay here. We’ll be back.”

“Are you sure about that?” Terezi asked. “…I don’t want to have to go searching for you again.”

“I promise I’ll come back, Terezi,” Vriska said. “I just got home. I’m not going to let myself lose it again.”

“Coordinates locked,” Nova said, tapping her screen. “And I’ve dropped a beacon off as well. We should be able to find this universe again, regardless of what happens.”

Roxy waved. “Come back soon. Wonk,” she said, winking at them.

Nova opened a portal back to the Dream Bubble.

“You know,” Allure said, “this whole visit has felt like the end of an adventure I wasn’t part of.”

“We’re going back to your adventure now,” Jade said. “The tables will be turned soon enough!”

“…If you say so!”

They stepped through the portal, leaving a quiet party behind them.

~~~

A member of Them appeared in a universe near the train wreck of universes that the Green Sun had brought together. This universe had been created specifically for the purpose of observing the events within the new Paradox Space. Why?

So Them could bet on the outcome, what else?

“I think the Horrorterrors have it,” one said. “They may have been weakened, but they aren’t the weakest of the Class 1s. They have the power and home turf advantage.”

“I’m placing my call on the Combine. They’ve been holding their cards close to their chest for so long – I bet they’ve got a few superweapons not even we are aware of.”

A third spoke up. “Ah, but you fools aren’t taking into account how ka plays into this. Merodi Universalis and the ghosts are forming to insert themselves into the combat as the underdogs, and with as much buildup as they’re getting… Well, how do you think the story would go?”

Another one placed their input. “I think the Green Sun remains neutral in the end because the Xeelee – or the Great Will, or the Celestialsapiens maybe – interject themselves and declare the battle over.”

“Lame,” a fifth added. “I bet we get another Lord English.”

There was silence.

“Hey, if the entire multiverse is about to suffer an explosion or two, I want to get my money’s worth. If I’m wrong, well then my reward is not having to live in fear that a stupid Xeelee attack will drag Lord English into my section of the multiverse.”

“You’re still ticked about that?” the first one asked.

“Yes. Yes I am. The morons thought they could trap him. Ha. I’m never getting caught unaware again.”

“You did forget one detail.”

“What’s that?”

“There is a Xeelee in the universe with us.”

>>< It’s quite alright; he has a right to his opinion. We were desperate at the time. It isn’t often such a threat forms. By the way, do you want to know what my bet is?

All of Them did the metaphysical equivalent of ‘leaning in’.

>>< I believe a new sort of threat will arise. Not Lord English – that would be too predictable. Something completely new we will have to focus our attention on.

“Why would you say that?”

>>< Have any of you looked at what Vriska has just done?

“Who?”

Another Them answered the question. “The Thief of Light, a Merodi.”

“Oh her. Yeah I wasn’t watching her.”

>>< They’ve just broken the Quarantine on Earth C and released John.

“Who?”

>>< The retconner.

There was silence in the observation universe.

“…They have no idea what they’ve just done,” one of Them said.

>>< Exactly my point.

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