090 - The Twelve, Part 1
“So this is where Lord English ended up,” Spades said. He had decided to follow Eve, myself, Flutterfree, and Renee back to the House Juju instead of staying with his citizens. The victory platform moved along behind us, tethered to Eve with her magic.
“Yep,” I confirmed. “He’s stuck in there. His own Juju used against him in the final moments, trapping him when he was vulnerable.”
Spades took a moment to spit on the ground in the direction of the House Juju before asking a question. “How, exactly?”
I blinked. “Uh…”
Eve stared at me. “Do you actually not know?”
I rubbed the back of my head. “Ah… No. No I don’t. I have no idea how it worked. All I know is that it did. We’d have to ask Hussie about that.”
“Well, he is tied up right here,” Renee said, pointing at the bound and gagged human ghost curled into a fetal position.
Spades leaned down and removed Hussie’s gag. “Hey.”
“Hey Spades! I told you you’d survive!”
“You didn’t,” Spades observed. “So, you’re not just a psycho, you’re actually responsible for this whole mess?”
“That’s a matter of definition and nuance, my friend!”
Spades smirked. “I’d give you a beatin’ for what happened, but it looks like the ghosts already did that for me. I’m just curious, how did it feel to have your own creation fill you with lead?”
“Metallic.”
Spades scowled. “Still a smartass.”
“Can you tell us what happened to Lord English?” Eve asked.
“I would like to at least be able to move my hands before I spill any super-secret spoiler beans, got it?”
Eve undid the bounds on his arms. “Good, now wh-”
He snapped his fingers. …Or, well, he snopped his fingers, turning all of us into flat, low quality images of ourselves, similar to how a Flat existed. He laughed, clapping his hands and blowing us all over. “Andrew Hussie strikes again! You will never get your answers about the ending of Homestuck! NEVER! SCREW YOU, G. M. BLACKJACK!” Laughing maniacally, he took off into the distance. He tripped a few times, but he got out of sight before the ‘Flat’ status effect wore off.
“…What just happened?” Flutterfree asked.
“That man also created a world called Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff,” I told her. “Think about the Flat’s world, and then make it worse.”
“I guess we know what a Prophet who really knows how to use his powers can do, now,” Renee muttered, adjusting her hat. “No offense darling, you just play your cards close to your chest.”
I smiled warmly. “I serve the role of mysterious benefactor. He is… Uh…” I pursed my lips. “Let’s not go there.”
“Fine by me,” Spades said, looking up at the victory platform. “So what now?”
“We let Corona have a look,” Eve said. “Any minute now, right?”
I nodded. “Right now, actually. ”
Corona, O’Neill, Pinkie, and Rainbow stepped out of a dimensional portal onto the victory platform. John zapped into existence with Allure, Jotaro, Applejack, Nova, and Jade.
“Uh…” Rainbow said. “Why’s everyone here all of the sudden?”
John shrugged. “I just go where they tell me.”
Eve teleported herself to Corona. “Just take the information out of my mind, let’s do this quickly.”
Corona blinked. “Sure.” She dissipated a glove and touched Eve’s forehead. They exchanged information mentally for a couple seconds before breaking the connection.
Corona grinned. “Oh, this is good…” She looked down at everyone. “I have an idea, but I’ll need to work on the victory platform for a bit. But this will really help us if my hunch is right.”
“Glad to be of assistance, ma’am,” Spades muttered. Flutterfree wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not.
Corona set to work – having Raging Sights surround the entire platform in magical circles. She repaired all the damage done to it in an instant, using a holographic representation of the interior to serve as her primary source of investigation. She became completely invested in the machinations within the victory platform and the dark house.
It took her all of ten minutes to shout “I’VE GOT IT!” She jumped off the platform. “I might have figured it out. I just have one question to make sure – what is the purpose of Sburb?”
Eve’s eye flashed orange for a moment. “The purpose is to create a new universe. Specifically one based in the adventure the players had on the way to creating it, creating a mythology for the new universe, and possibly even gods to guide them.”
Corona pondered this, mulling it over. “Yep, yep, that’s what I was hoping for.” She pointed at the victory platform. “Using the spells I know to manipulate the fabric of existence and this thing’s internal machinations, I think I can create a universe with it.”
“While that’s awesome, how does that help us?” Rainbow asked.
“The Tumor, when it exploded, created twelve new players,” Corona said. “With the right criteria and resources, I think I can win this ‘game’ we’ve been shoved into.” She turned to look at the glow of the Green Sun. “And in the process I might just be able to resolve this conflict…”
“Will we need all twelve of us?” Eve asked.
“Yes,” I said, glancing at those in John’s group. Nova waved, clearly still confused as to what was actually happening.
Corona nodded. “Whatever you say, knower of everything. Hey, mind telling me if this works?”
“Sorry, that’d ruin tension for the readers,” I said with a smirk. “I can tell you we don’t all die at the end of the day, but that’s about it.”
“That’s nice to know,” Flutterfree said.
“She had a qualifier in there,” Spades said. “Not all of you.”
“Yare yare daze,” Jotaro muttered.
“Think you can explain the plan… simply?” Allure asked.
Corona nodded and pointed up at the victory platform. “This is a victory platform from a mostly dead session.” She brought it down so everyone could see the disc and the now red house that dominated it. “I think I’ve reset it back to before it was used - might need a bit more tweaking, to be sure. But we now have a device that can, under the right conditions, create a new universe.”
“…Cool,” Nova said. “How does that help us?”
“It doesn’t initially. First off, we don’t have a full game of Sburb to shunt resources into Skaia. Secondly, any universe created by Sburb would just be part of the Green Sun’s dominion and not help us at all. Which is where we come in.” She stood tall on the platform. “There are twelve of us who were blown up by the Tumor and reborn as Sburb players.”
“Huh,” Applejack said. “Neat.”
“The twelve of us have inside us the Aspects of a partial, glitched game of Sburb,” Corona explained. “We were given these Aspects with the intention of winning Sburb. I was able to set the platform to recognize our essences in order to create a new universe defined by us. Which would be completely useless, even if we had the resources. But! BUT!”
“Just get on with it,” Spades muttered.
Corona smirked. “We don’t have a Skaia to grow a new universe in, or any energy to put into it.” She pointed at the Green Sun. “Luckily, there is a power source with the mass of two universes within it. With my reality magics, I have altered this entire Sburb setup to forego the game entirely and just shape a brand new universe directly out of the Green Sun.”
Jade blinked. “No frogs?”
“Uh, actually, there is a frog we need,” Pinkie said. “But since I’m the Space player I can just pull it out of my mane.”
“…What?” Nova said, confused.
“Dispelling a question we know people are going to ask,” I said. “Not important.”
Corona grinned, hand still outstretched to the Green Sun. “Since we are using the Green Sun to create our new universe, it will collapse in the process. It will be destroyed as we walk through the door to the new universe.”
“What about the ghosts? They’ll die!” Jade said, aghast.
“Not if we take you through with us,” Corona said, rubbing her hands together. “Jade, you and your ghost have the ability to shrink entire planets and put them in your pockets, right?”
Jade nodded. “Yes.”
“Given enough time, could you shrink the entire Dream Bubble like that?”
“I think so. It’s really big though…”
“John can help if needed with the ‘retcon’, from what I hear,” Corona said. “So, after the Dream Bubble – and any other worlds you want to take with us you can think of…” She glanced at Vriska. “…are shrunk down, we will take a portal directly to the ghost army. They haven’t moved, right?”
“No progress at all,” Feferi reported.
“Good. Then, John, we’ll need you to retcon-teleport us right to the Green Sun, passing through all dimensional boundaries with your power. Do you think you can do that?”
John looked at his hands. Then he looked up at Corona with a determined expression.
“Yes. I can.”
“We’re gonna get attacked by star-machines and squiddles,” Spades pointed out. “Think we can really get through?”
“Yes,” Eve said, eye glowing once again. “Yes, I am certain of it. It can be done.”
“Great!” Corona threw her hands and wings wide. “Then let’s go win this game everybody! Us twelve, on the platform. Rest of you, surround it. This is gonna be a bumpy ride…”
~~~
Dave and Karkat were staring out a window.
“Why am I staring out of the window, Dave?” Karkat asked.
“Because I told you to.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I told you to.”
Karkat twitched. “Is there no end to your repeated responses?”
“No.”
Karkat twitched. “Well slap me like a fish and drive my bone bulge up a wall. I-”
“Okay.”
“DAVE! IF YOU ACTUALLY DO ANY OF THOSE THINGS I WILL FIND YOUR FRIDGE, SHIT IN IT, AND BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN WITH AN ARMY OF FUCKING HAWK WASPS!”
“Sweet. That’d be kinda cool actually.”
Karkat twitched. “Oh, I’m not done! You asked for it, Strider! I’m going to have to get CREATIVE.”
“The problem is the more creative your revenge is the more entertaining it’ll be to watch.”
“How bout I drive your bone bulge up a wall and slap you with a fish?”
“Boring.”
“AND THEN WHAT IF EVERYTHING GOES SHITHIVE MAGGO-”
The planet rumbled. Karkat turned back out the window and saw what he was supposed to be looking at.
Jade was out there, the size of a city, and getting larger. …Or the planet was getting smaller. It was hard to tell with her and her freaky space powers. Even without the power of the Green Sun, as the Witch of Space the size of objects were basically suggestions to her.
“Huh. Thought she was going to not involve us?”
“She’s not,” Dave said. With the other hand, Jade grabbed the moon. It had a few bases on it, they wouldn’t want to lose it and everyone on it.
“All right, where are we going?” Karkat muttered.
“See, that’s the fun part. I actually have no idea. Because different time. Do you have any idea how much I flipped when Vriska showed up?”
“…No?”
“I flipped my shit because my carefully crafted timeline was thrown out the window for something new.” Dave shrugged. “Now I was careful, so we didn’t end up with any dead Daves because of this, but man, I was looking forward to that starship.”
“We got a starship!?”
“Duh. …Not in your lifetime though.”
“…Oh.”
Dave let out a breath. “It’s good you get to stick around, Karkat. The world wouldn’t be the same without your endless stream of explosive rage.”
“How unusually sentimental of you.”
Dave shrugged. “Sometimes, you gotta think of me like Vriska there. You all only experienced a number of years you could count. Meanwhile she’s off fucking around for over nine hundred. Sometimes I vanish into the future or past for a long while, and the shifting of all that…”
“Ah. Are you saying you’ve changed?”
Dave didn’t have a response to this. Jade had gathered the Earth and the moon in her hands, and used the power of the Green Sun to switch universes.
“You know, it would have been handy if she knew how to do that before,” Karkat muttered.
“She just needed to figure it out,” Dave said. “Hey, at least it’s not using the fenestrated walls for a years-long journey.”
Jade grabbed hold of the Land of Pyramids and Neon – even though it was abandoned, it might hold something for them. She placed it near the Moon and the Earth at the same relative size, the three objects seemingly orbiting each other around a singular point.
“Ugh, I’m starting to feel sick looking at this,” Karkat muttered.
“I bet the world governments are flipping their shit.”
“Kanaya will issue a statement or something. Or someone else. Hell, might even be John for fuckall we know.”
“That’s not a word.”
Karkat twitched. “There’s gonna be a…”
Jade shifted universes again, letting the now marble-sized Earth see the House Juju and everyone around it as truly immense.
Jade said something to someone else, but it was impossible to hear properly given the tremendous size difference. It was the same with the response.
“You know I’d like it if she told us what she was doing ahead of time,” Karkat muttered.
“Rose probably knows. Go ask her.”
“Fuck no.”
“Then exist in a state of eternal mystery.”
Karkat could see Jade talking to her ghost counterpart, though only for a short while. They soon nodded to each other, the ‘Omega’ Jade teleporting away.
Jade pulsed with the powers of the Green Sun. She handed the Earth, Moon, and Lopan to a pink pony, who seemed perfectly able to keep the three planetary bodies from crashing into each other. Jade then spread her arms wide, creating a wide ring of green energy that shot across existence, further than Karkat could see in either direction.
The House Juju – and the entire Dream Bubble – began to shrink under Jade’s power. The mystical combination of every Sburb player’s dreams and deaths the size of a universe compressed further and further, until Karkat was able to see it had a curvature. It was vaguely pink around the edges, and the interior was a mish-mash of so many different sceneries and worlds that it was impossible to make out any single one.
Karkat could see that the energy of the Green Sun formed a ring around the Dream Bubble, the other side of the ring occupied by Omega Jade. It took several minutes to reduce the universal construct to the size of a marble, but they did, and Jade put it alongside the other three.
Karkat tried to make out features now that the Dream Bubble was closer, but it was still the same impossible mismatch.
“I’m going to go see if any of the fast food places are still open in this crisis,” Dave said. “Coming?”
“…Sure,” Karkat said, tearing his gaze away from the window. It wasn’t like there was any point to his continued investment in this. Might as well enjoy a nice meal while everything went down.
As they walked around outside, Karkat saw the victory platform everyone was standing on. “…Ugh… Here we go again…”
He was going to need more than one hamburger.
~~~
“I won’t be able to turn the Dream Bubble back to normal once the Green Sun is gone,” Jade told Corona. “You’ll be able to, right?”
“If we can’t, we know people who can,” Corona promised. “I can’t imagine the Collection refusing to return what are essentially war refugees back to their original size, even if we are involved. If not that, Empress Twilight of the Void has the resources to do it.”
“Good to know we have options,” Jade said. She looked around. The Twelve new players (minus Corona) were standing on the platform. Floating around it were herself, Omega Jade, Meenah, Feferi, Spades, Vriska, and John.
“So… where did you find this thing?” Vriska asked, looking at the victory platform.
“The Omega Timeline,” I answered from my place on the platform.
John blinked. “Wait, the world where everything went wrong? Didn’t I change that so it didn’t exist anymore?”
Spades shook his head. “Nope. You left a copy of yourself behind when you did the zappy thing with your planet and took off with the ditzy broad. Other you gave himself to scrape out somethin’ for us. …Good to see you actually managed to do somethin’ out here.”
“Uh… thanks? …Whoever you are.”
“Slick. Spades Slick.”
“Uh huh…” He blinked, turning to the Jade ghost. “Oh, geez, you’re Omega Jade. I’m sorry, I couldn’t save you and… stuff.”
“It’s okay. I had gone pretty evil-mind-control,” Omega Jade said. “Grimbark, if you will. It’s good that you went back and changed everything. Don’t question that, it let everyone have a good ending. The rest of us here just get to enjoy the afterlife and… well, whatever comes after this war over the Green Sun.”
Allure looked up at them. “How much stuff happened to you guys!?”
“All the stuff,” Vriska said. “All of it.”
“Geez. It sounds like you went through more in a couple years than we’ve done in a couple decades. Good grief.”
“Yare yare daze,” Jotaro concurred.
“Now you’re beginning to see the clusterfuck that is Homestuck,” Vriska said. “It’s even more confusing to read it than to be part of it. At least when you’re part of it you have your own internal timeline to base yourself off of. Readers don’t get that much luck. You jump around like a ping-pong ball on a trampoline with extra high gravity.”
“Fun,” Allure said, smiling weakly.
Corona flew down to the platform. “Right, so, we need to stand in certain spots for this ‘trick’ spell to work. I’ll label them with our Aspect symbols.” Under herself she created the symbol of Doom, a black spiked circle, almost skull-like with circular holes in it. On the opposite side of the disc, she created the vibrant green, leafy symbol of Life. “And… uh, who’s Life?”
I would have answered, but I decided to let Eve try out her new box of tricks. She turned on her eye of knowledge. “That would be… Applejack!”
“Really?” Applejack blinked. “Ah never figured out what my power was… Never even got an inklin’.”
“That’s because you’re a Mage of Life,” I explained. “Mages tend to only have a deep understanding of their aspect. They aren’t powerless, but their abilities tend not to manifest as strongly as others.”
“Oh. Well, Ah’m not complainin’. Does everyone else know what they are?”
Allure raised a hoof. “I don’t.”
“Only Aspect left is Heart,” Corona said. “I forget the first part. They’re less memorable.”
“Knight of Heart,” I continued. “One who fights with the soul. Allure, to you, the spirits and inner nature of people are yours to use. Not limitlessly, like a Witch, but with more precision.”
“…I don’t understand,” Allure admitted. “Should we, maybe, take a moment to figure these new abilities out?”
“Probably not,” Corona said. “They’re… not that powerful compared to the ghosts.”
Vriska nodded. “None of you are god-tier, and I don’t have a way to make you god-tier since this isn’t a normal session. So all of your powers are locked up within you, manifesting only in minor ways, if at all. As the Heir of Blood, at god-tier Jotaro should be able to completely inherit any connection to his ancestors and lost friends, possibly even talk to them and use their spirits as strength, maybe even become some sort of literal representation of ‘connection’. As it is, he just got some extra Stands. A nice bonus, yes, but not much.”
“Then there’s people like me and Nova,” I said. “Whose titles essentially mean nothing. Any powers I would have gained from being a Seer of Void, I already have. Nova’s time magic could accomplish everything a Prince of Time could, though she may find that she can erase time without using magic at all now.”
“If all of our powers were supposed to be weak, how come I’m able to fully use my Rogue of Doom powers?” Corona asked.
“You already know how to deal with extreme power of a complicated sort,” I explained. “And no, you’re not using it fully, you’re just using it specifically. A fully realized god-tier Rogue of Doom could bring entire civilizations to ruin. Luckily for us our realized Doom ghosts are the Heir and Mage, who are some of the less… outwardly destructive Doom types.”
“A Bard of Doom would be terrifying…” Jade commented.
Pinkie shivered. “Yeah…”
Corona generated the Aspect symbols around the circle in pairs. The white swirl of Space opposing the red gear of Time. The sun of Light against the loose lines of Void. The teal tri-tipped circle of Mind against the Pink heart of… well, Heart. The angry purple lines of Rage against the smooth wings of Hope. The free blue gusts of Breath against the deep red wound of Blood.
Everyone stood on their respective Aspects. The red house flashed, changing colors to purple. The number of squares beneath the roof changed form four to twelve, creating a ‘+’ pattern out of the sections.
“It recognized us,” Corona said. “Good. It thinks we’re ready to begin ‘ultimate alchemy’ and create a new universe. It’s prepared to connect.”
“Let’s turn the Green Sun into a universe,” Meenah said, grinning maniacally.
Corona pointed at Spades. “Hey, look, you could die if you come out here. You’re not a ghost, nor are you one of the Twelve. Jade could put you on one of the pl-”
“I’m comin’ and you can’t stop me,” Spades said. “That big ball of overblown green fluff is what gave Lord English his power, right?”
“A lot of it, but not all,” Vriska elaborated.
“Then I’m gonna take it out.”
“Fair enough,” Vriska said, shrugging. “Corona?”
“John, prepare yourself,” Corona said. “We need you to zap the entire ghost army directly to the Green Sun. Think you can do that?”
“If they’re all touching, yeah,” John said.
“…Some of the ghosts have been thrown away and lost…” Feferi said.
“They’ll just have to be sacrificed,” Meenah said. “No war comes without casualties.”
“They didn’t know that when they signed up, though.”
“You wanna go fishin’ through Paradox Space for eons to find ‘em?”
Feferi shook her head. “No. This is what we need to do. I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that we would lose some.”
Eve nodded. “It’s… not fine, but we have to do it. It’s a war over… well, our very lives and freedom. Does everyone understand?”
There were a series of somber nods.
“Let’s go then. Corona, do you want to do it or should I?”
Corona forced a smile. “Let’s get some use out of Seraphim, shall we?”
Eve nodded. She summoned Seraphim; tapping into the dimensional coordinates Corona had given her. A portal opened right to the chaos of the ghost army. Jade increased its size with her Space powers while Omega Jade pushed them all through quickly. It closed behind them.
“Just as chaotic as I remember,” O’Neill said, observing the colorful robes of ghosts move in squads, pushing against the same Combine Gyroscope and Noble Horrorterror they had been pushing against when they’d left.
“Holy Celestia…” Renee said, hoof to her mouth. “Is this… What a multiversal war looks like?”
“Nope,” I said. “This is what you get when there’s one multiversal construct creating a lot of weird conditions. A true multiversal war between powers of this magnitude would have already destroyed every universe in this Paradox Space and then some. What we have here is a limited conflict.”
Allure gulped. “I hope we never see a full war…”
“You will,” I said. “But not between powers of this caliber. Class 1s avoid war at all costs because the consequences of going all-out against each other are beyond dire.”
A Mind player floated over to them. “We’re at a standstill. The bastards are able to send just enough power to keep us immobile, even if they can’t spend enough to utterly defeat us. I hope you have a plan.”
“Indeed I do,” Meenah said with a smirk. “John, start doing the zappy thing,” She grabbed a couple of Mind players from nearby. “You two. Broadcast what I’m about to say.”
The god-tier trolls nodded
“LISTEN UP!” Meenah shoutd. “EVERYONE NEEDS TO FALL BACK TO THE VICTORY PLATFORM I’M NEXT TO! WE NEED TO ALL BE TOUCHING! DON’T QUESTION, JUST DO.”
John took his position in the middle of the Twelve. He looked to the Green Sun in the distance – and focused his retcon power. Soon, him, the Twelve, and the entire victory platform were glowing a bright white.
Vriska touched the platform from the edge first, glowing white as well. Jade, Meenah, Feferi, Spades, and the others all followed suit, becoming one with the whiteness.
The ghost army left their engagements and began to pile on, the Time and Breath players lagging behind so they could free any ghosts that were still imprisoned.
The Horrorterrors and Combine realized what was happening. The Horrorterrors knew what John was, and the Combine’s scanners were detecting power akin to the Dark Tower itself.
The Horrorterrors and Combine dropped all fighting for a moment to shoot everything they had at the zapping white conglomeration.
“Fuck,” a Dave said, trying to accelerate time for everyone. He discovered that his acceleration didn’t slow the incoming attacks down at all. “BAIL!” he shouted. “EVERYONE BAIL! LEAVE THE REST!”
A few relative ‘past’ time selves jumped to defend against the attacks, prepared to jump into the different times to get to the white glow. But their timestreams were interrupted the moment the attacks hit, Paradox Space splitting their timelines into shreds.
The Breath and Time players that could make it to the zapping bundle of ghosts did.
Then a Horrorterror’s screech attack mixed with a Combine’s supernova ejection, hitting the retcon ball with full force…
~~~
ZAPZAPZAPZAPZAPZAPZAPZAP
The whole of Paradox Space rippled with white cracks, straining even the resilient physics of the black realm around the Green Sun. The sudden existence of these cracks provided a point of reference in the bending, churning, multiversal soup, allowing a three-dimensional being to see where the various universes were connected through the spread and visual location of the damage to reality.
The cracks spread across the darkness, surrounding the Green Sun in a halo reminiscent of the damage Lord English had once done to the old Paradox Space, back during the first time the Green Sun had graced the multiverse with its presence.
Within the Dream Bubble, deep in the center of the interaction between John’s retcon powers and the weapons of high level societies, Andrew Hussie began to sweat.
He looked at the House Juju. Watched it ripple, shake, and tremble as reality itself crumbled.
Was it weakening from all this strain?
Could it deal with the excessive deviation from its original plan?
Hussie decided to hide behind a rock. He did not want to be seen if the House Juju failed. But he couldn’t keep himself from peering over the edge of the rock with his narrow, empty eyes.
The House Juju vibrated. Blue, orange, red, and black colors flashed across the faces of the Juju…
And then it stopped, returning to normal. It had compensated for the new variable.
“Never should have doubted it! Ha!” Hussie said, going on to do a jig. “Take that bizarre alterations to reality! The Huss had you beat!”
Then he realized everything else was still shaking.
“…Okay so maybe I’ve celebrated a little too soon,” Hussie commented to himself. “Just because the worst thing didn’t happen doesn’t mean the next worst thing won’t happen!” He took off at a run through the Dream Bubble. Even though every part of it was in the process of being zapped away.
Sorta.
As was presumably obvious, things had gone sideways.
~~~
Up close, the Green Sun looked like any other star with its billowing, fiery surface. It was certainly not fueled by any sort of nuclear reaction at its core, but the external result of the inner machinations had the same visual appearance.
Except it was brilliant green. Everything anywhere near it would be illuminated by an intense green light, drowning out most other colors in favor of the Green Sun’s singular shade.
The space immediately around the Green Sun was free of the cracks in reality. This allowed the Green Sun to have a sky of sorts, seen as a bunch of black plates in the sky separated by glowing white breaks in the nature of spacetime itself.
It was in this ‘calm’ area near the sun that the ghost army appeared…
…without John, the Twelve, or the victory platform.
“Okay, what the shell?” Meenah asked. “Where are they?”
“I have no idea,” Vriska said. “The people we could ask where they are just happen to be the people on the stupid thing!”
“Can you see anything?” Feferi asked the Jades. They shook their heads.
“Fuckin’ useless…” Meenah muttered.
“I hate to break up the confusion party,” Spades said. “but we’re about to have company.” He pointed with his golden scepter at the cracks in reality.
They could see the Combine ships moving toward them, unhindered. One would assume that meant the Horrorterrors were moving toward them as well, no longer concerned with keeping the Combine away from the Green Sun.
The ghost army was now the primary target. And their secret recton weapon wasn’t with them.
“New plan!” Vriska shouted. “Meenah, you wanted to control the Green Sun?”
“Fuck yeah.”
“Then let’s try that.”
Meenah grinned. “I don’t think I’ve ever liked a sinkin’ plan more than this. Right. Dog-girls!”
“Woof,” Omega Jade said, prompting a facepalm from the living Jade.
“You got the Sun powers. Use them. You’re right next to the Green Sun for once in your life. If that doesn’t give you a power boost I don’t know what will!”
The Jades nodded. They moved to opposite sides of the Green Sun. The green energy of the
Sun’s corona began to swirl around them, indicating they had tapped directly into the multiversal construct’s power to the envy of every Combine ship watching.
“Right!” Meenah shouted, using a Mind player to project her commands. “Ghost dog, you’re on defense. Living dog, try to figure a way for us to escape this mess. GHOST ARMY – keep everyfin away from the Green Sun. Don’t let a single eldritch tentacle scrape the green flames, and don’t let a single Combine ship plug a cable in here. Got it?”
“Got it!” Everyone shouted.
“TIME FOR ROUND TWO!” she shouted, holding her trident high. The ghosts spread out, forming a colorful and striped sphere around the Green Sun. Physically, it should have been impossible to surround something the mass of two universes that didn’t even really exist in a realspace sense, but the Jades were there, acting as the Green Sun’s Guardians, condensing the relative space so a proper shield could be created.
No longer was the Green Sun an inert object. For the first time in its existence, the Green Sun would be able to fight back.
Omega Jade took a breath – and started flinging off the Green Sun’s corona in every direction, creating a violet flurry of blades of green slicing through space. This gave the Horrorterrors and Combine some difficulty in navigating closer to the Green Sun, since now the valuable power they were fighting over was attacking them.
They were not deterred, however. The loss of a few eldritch abominations or Combine ships was nothing compared to the value of the Green Sun – the danger it posed, the possibilities it entailed.
“I’d really like to hear that you’ve got somefin for us!” Meenah shouted to Jade. “Because if they’re both attackin’ at once, no Green Sun is gonna keep them back for long!”
“Working on it!” Jade shouted back. “Do any of you Light players have the ability to bestow luck?”
Vriska shook her head. “Sorry. I steal luck, can’t give it. Rose over there sees knowledge and fortune, can’t actually do much with it. And Aranea can heal with luck, which would just bring you back to normal luck, as I understand it. Eve could probably have done it. A Witch of Light should be able to manipulate it in general. …But she wasn’t god-tier anyway.”
“Then you’ll need to be patient!” Jade shouted. “I’ve got control of the Green Sun, yes, but I don’t have any idea how it works. I’m having difficulty working it out.”
“Yeah, really needed a Witch of Light,” Vriska muttered. “Any other ideas? Mind players, got anything for her?”
She was met with silence.
Feferi put her hands to her face. “Oh no. I’m sensing the Horrorterrors closing in. They’re moving faster than the Combine, slightly. I don’t think the Combine have noticed…”
“BRACE YOURSELVES!” Meenah shouted. “They could come from anywhere!”
Anywhere turned out to be from everywhere at once.
“Gogdam Horrorterrors,” Meenah grunted.
The eldritch abominations lashed from all sides of the Green Sun. Omega Jade could not defend from every side at once, but she did her best to spread the energies of the Green Sun around in a defensive measure, preventing the Horrorterrors from pushing all the ghosts aside.
Vriska decided it was time. “Any god-tier Vriskas! Any of you! We’re surrounded by fleshy Horrorterrors! SUCK ‘EM DRY.”
Every Thief of Light focused on the Horrorterrors, draining them of luck. The Horrorterrors themselves were far too massive and impossible for just one of the ghosts to do anything, and even several only made the Horrorterrors make mistakes that allowed for players of Life and Hope to take them out.
But that wasn’t the point. The point was to absorb as much fortune as possible from the fleshy monsters. Now that the battle was focused, the Combine couldn’t interrupt what was going on. The Green Sun’s power gave them the time they needed to absorb the luck without losing it instantly.
Vriska held up her Fluorite Octet, and so did every other Vriska ghost, including Vrisko. “LET’S DO THIS LADIES!” They threw their dice, most of them managing to roll the straight 8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8. They gained their blue armor, and power comparable to that which Jade had been wielding outside the Green Sun’s glow.
They charged. Blue sparks of light taking out tentacles, beaks, eyes, and other impossible body parts.
Beings that made Majora look like a small, annoying dog were torn apart by an army of ghosts.
Unfortunately for the ghosts, Horrorterrors were ancient, intelligent creatures. They learned quickly – as they had from Lord English – not to underestimate that which they had created using the knowledge of the Tower. They wormed their way through the Green Sun’s ghostly defenses, bashing ghosts aside. Trapping some in bubbles, tossing others into the depths of Paradox Space. They moved in…
And then a human boy nobody had paid any attention to activated his power. “TALLY-HO!” he bellowed, tapping into his power – that of a Page of Hope. The white, pure light of hope wafted off him and went into every one of his allies, filling them with new inner power and drive. It was pure white power that made the Horrorterrors scream in agony, for it was the antithesis of what they were.
The ghost army pushed them back.
“Fuck yeah!” Vriska shouted, her blade glowing with the Hope of thousands of ghosts. She twisted it and cut a Horrorterror in half. “One hit…. HELL YEAH, JAKE! HELL YEAH! KEEP IT UP!”
“GADZOOKS!” Jake shouted, shooting more Hope into everyone.
The Horrorterrors fell further back, screeching in impossible agonies, the light of Hope and the Green Sun simply too much to deal with.
And then the Combine arrived.
Rather than fire on the Horrorterrors, they assisted. They pushed through the Hope – for powers of purity did not burn them like it did the eldritch abominations. Omega Jade fought back with the force of the Green Sun, discovering that while, yes, that worked, the resulting supernovas from the destruction of the ships proved to be rather disorienting to the ghost army.
“Keep it together!” Meenah shouted. “Bloods and Minds, get everyone organized! We can’t afford to fall apart now!”
“GREAT SCOTT!” Jake shouted, letting out another surge of Hope to improve everyone’s confidence. They fought as one again – holding the barrier to the Green Sun.
“JAAAADE!” Vriska shouted.
“I think I have something! Just need a bit more time!” Jade said. “The connections of the Green Sun all lace through this single, inner point…”
The Combine and Horrorterrors tried something desperate. They focused most of their efforts on one single point of the battle, leaving the rest of their forces weaker. They would be pushed back significantly from the Green Sun because of this, but they had to do one thing.
A Combine beam mixed with a Horrorterror’s screech, blasting through a wall of ghosts. This blast would do absolutely nothing to the Green Sun itself – utterly meaningless. There was no need to defend against it.
Except it was going for one of the few people in this fight who could still die.
One Jade Harley, who was trying fervently to find a way out of this mess. The beam hit her in the back – and she screamed. The power of the Green Sun shot behind her and vaporized the Horrorterror and Combine ship that had unleashed the attack.
It came too late. Her body went limp, lifeless.
There was no way that death wasn’t Heroic.
“JADE!” several people shouted – including Dead Dave, Vriska, and Omega Jade.
Vriska’s features fell. She realized quickly that they needed two dog-tier Jades to get out of here. One to use the Green Sun to defend, another to figure out how to use the Green Sun to end this.
That had just been taken from them.
All they could do now was fight and hope the Combine and Horrorterrors eventually ran out of things to throw at them.
…That wasn’t going to happen.
~~~
John admitted it to himself.
He had no idea what he was doing.
One minute everything was white and then everything shook and his head felt like it was about to explode.
Then he opened his eyes.
He was lying in the middle of the victory platform. The purple house was still there, and so were the Twelve new players. Some of them were looking at him in concern, while the rest were looking around them, mouths agape.
They were flying through something. Something white with the occasional flash of pale color just to remind them they were moving.
“Where the hell…?” O’Neill asked.
“No idea,” John said.
Eve turned her eye on, scanning for understanding. “I’ve got nothing. It’s just… white. Twilence?”
I stared at the whiteness around us, furrowing my brow. “I… think its meant to indicate ‘travel’ over a great relative ‘distance’.” I rubbed my head. “John’s retcon doesn’t play nice with my Awareness. I can tell you the other ghosts made it to the desired location fine. I can’t tell you what we’re doing.”
“What will happen?” Flutterfree asked.
“Survival?” I said, shrugging. “Honestly I predict some sort of spectacular mindscrew is about to show up and blow our minds.”
“Yare yare daze…” Jotaro said. He extended Hermit Purple and the Passion out, trying to gather any sort of inkling what was happening but the purple vines came up with nothing.
Flutterfree went next. She summoned Lolo in its entirety, feeling the whiteness around them. It revealed dozens of black, spirograph shapes swirling around them like they were the center of a gyroscope.
“What are the gates doing here?” John asked. “And why do your vines have them?”
“It’s just how Lolo appears,” Flutterfree said. Then she blinked. “Wait, they are related, aren’t they?”
“Lolo’s Revelation is a ka based power,” Allure pointed out. “It takes what’s ‘hidden’ and makes it real, even if it’s something a little esoteric, like a hidden destiny.”
“Does it represent ka?” Eve wondered. “The Spirograph?”
“Don’t look at me, I don’t know anything!” John said, holding up his hands.
“Then what good are ya?” Rainbow blurted.
“Rainbow!” Renee chided.
“…Sorry, that was uncalled for.”
Eve turned her eye on again, examining the spirograph patterns. “…Starbeat and Lieshy both mentioned they saw the spirograph prominently in the room at the top of the Dark Tower…”
Corona blinked. “And the Horrorterrors created Sburb with what they found in the Dark Tower. …Could it represent ka?”
I shook my head. “Not quite. The symbol for ka itself is a circle with a stylized ‘K’ and ‘A’ in it. Starbeat could tell you that. The spirograph represents the entire multiverse.”
John blinked. “Huh?”
“On a simpler level, the spirograph represents interconnectivity. Every single line in the spirograph points toward the center, and yet is also interconnected with each other. It represents how every universe has a connection with the Dark Tower, but how they also share connections with each other. It is a symbol that represents everything – universes, the connectivity of worlds, the creation of new existences, the dependance on the Dark Tower.”
John cocked his head. “…Can someone explain to me what the Dark Tower is?”
“The center of the multiverse,” Eve said. “Source of ka, the force that ensures the multiverse operates with a dependance on stories and narrative. The reason you exist while a webcomic of you also exists.”
“So, let me get this straight. Sburb was created by the Horrorterrors using the power found inside this Dark Tower. And the Spirograph is just… representative of everything? How does that help us?”
“It doesn’t,” Jotaro said. “Do we even know if we’re going anywhere, or just moving?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, sorry.”
“John? Can you get us out of here?” Applejack asked. “Back to where we need to go?”
John held out his hand and felt his white power waft around his arm. “I… I can’t feel it. I can feel lots of places whirring by, holy cow. But I don’t recognize any of them…”
Eve’s eyes widened. “You may have just taken us out of the Green Sun’s control. Ugh, why didn’t we think of that?!”
Corona shook her head. “We did. Decided it wasn’t worth the risk – the Green Sun’s worlds are sealed off, and even if we could move the entire ghost army, we would lose contact with all the other stuff that was going on. Not to mention just letting the Combine and Horrorterrrors get the Green Sun sounded like a bad idea.”
“I wouldn’t mind the Horrorterrors getting it,” Nova said. “They just wanted to stop it from destroying so much.”
Eve shook her head. “Regardless, we’re outside the Green Sun’s reach now. John… Take us out of this tunnel. If we can’t get back into Paradox Space after that, we can at least go get help. Or tell everyone we know what’s going on.”
John nodded. “Hold on then.” He put his hand on the ground, turning the entire victory platform bright white once again.
We zapped away. We appeared in an unknown location lit by firelight. Underground, possibly some castle’s basement, but still large enough to accommodate the floating victory platform.
The first thing Eve noticed was that Seraphim was able to access more universes again – but she found that her physics ‘presets’ weren’t working. “Something’s up,” she warned, scanning the area with her eye. “Seraphim’s not quite righ-”
The moment she laid her eye on the area of the room shrouded in darkness, a fiery glow lit on the floor, revealing a gigantic throne made of skulls. The skulls were not simply piled into a throne shape, but were far more organized, arranged in levels with thin layers of gold below the jaw and above the tops of the dead heads, giving it an air of organized death. Within the throne sat a humanoid figure more than large enough to fill the throne. He was dressed in a single crimson robe that hid all his body save for the bony, wrinkled hands.
“What’s this?” he asked in a harsh, grating voice. Eve could hear him, despite her ears not being on. The sound of his voice made everyone back up – including myself.
I took a few more steps back, because I knew who this was.
“John, get us out of here,” I said. “Get us out of here now.”
“No,” the robed figure said. “You will stay right here, with me, until I know who and what you are…”
I pulled out my notebook and began scribbling furiously.
“No.” A flash of red came from the shadow of his hood where his eyes probably were, disintegrating my notebook.
I took in a sharp, enraged breath. That book may have only been the most recent in a long series, but the newest memories were often the most precious.
“You are a Prophet,” he said. “One aware of who they are, nonetheless… I was uncertain if that was possible. Regardless, you will not be scribbling your way out of this one.”
“W-who are you?” Pinkie asked. She didn’t have the knowledge I did – but she knew this was bad.
“I a-”
“The Crimson King,” I said, catching him off guard.
The Crimson King leaned in toward me. “How would you know that…?”
“A lot of different reasons. More Aware than the average Prophet, you understand. And I-”
I lost the ability to breathe. But I knew this trick – Flagg was known to use it. Not surprising, since this was Flagg’s old boss. I forced myself to cast a spell within my stupor. I had been around a long time – perhaps not as long as Vriska, but I had access to spells that would make entire universes tremble.
It was at this point I realized I was setting myself up for a fall. I saw it – the way ka was flowing, ensuring I’d build up my power, unleash it, and be wiped to the side like a bug on windshield.
“Not… giving you the… satisfaction…” I forced, before passing out. Due to my nature I was still Aware of the events transpiring after my unconsciousness began, but I was out.
“Twilence!” Eve shouted.
“Does anyone else wish to explain who you are?”
O’Neill leaned back against the purple house. “We’re the Twelve, obviously.”
“You wish to engage in a game of riddles?” The Crimson King stood up, his towering form driving fear into everyone. “No.” Allure’s horn broke off in an instant, forcing blood down her face. Allure screamed – then suddenly, the screaming stopped. She wasn’t moving or breathing. “Explain or I kill another.”
“ALLURE!” Renee wailed. “Stop, stop! We are the… the citizens of Merodi Universalis… A-and w-we…”
“YOU MONSTER!” Flutterfree shouted, a deep purple coming to her eyes. “MONSTER!”
The Crimson King tried to destroy her. The purple energies around her prevented this. She screamed, using her Stare on him. Her Rage made it all the way to his eyes – and held him.
“NOVA! JOTARO! JOHN!” Eve shouted. “NOW!”
Nova surrounded John in a time spell, getting the message from Eve loud and clear.
“STAR PLATINUM: THE WORLD!” Jotaro shouted, freezing time.
…For everyone except himself and John.
“TAKE US BACK! NOW!” Jotaro shouted; using Hermit Purple to make sure everyone was on the platform.
John was already moving. He zapped up himself, the victory platform, and everyone else.
They appeared somewhere gray and windy, where the ground was dead.
I started breathing again. “Holy bookworms… That was close…”
“ALLURE!” Renee shouted, running to the form of her sister. “Allure! Sweetie, I-”
Allure opened her eyes. Then she let herself breathe. “He… He really tried to kill me…”
Corona stopped preparing her revive spell. “How!?”
“I just… told myself to be dead for a moment?” Allure managed.
“Knight of Heart,” I said. “Defended herself by feigning her own soul’s death. I’m surprised she managed to do so…”
“Probably had something to do with me transferring her Doom at the last second,” Corona said. “I uh… don’t think transferring the Doom to the Crimson King did anything.”
“Instinct maybe…?” Allure said, eyes glazing over. “Woah, everything’s really fuzzy…”
Applejack trotted over to her. “You’ve lost a lot of blood and told your body you were dead for a few seconds. That’s not good. We need to patch this up right now. Eve, summon some bandages.” Eve did so, and Applejack had Allure’s forehead wrapped in a few seconds. “There you go.”
“Thank you…” Allure said, breathing slowly.
“I could have just healed her,” Corona said.
“Oh. Right.” Applejack blushed. “Uh, Ah guess somethin’ just took over.”
Corona placed her hand on Allure’s wound and healed it up. Allure’s face was still bloody, but she wasn't in danger anymore. She still appeared groggy.
“My horn…” Allure managed, able to worry about herself now that she didn’t feel ready to pass out.
“Hey, I’ve seen artificial horns,” Rainbow said. “Don’t worry, you’ll get one.”
“Mhm…” Allure said, shaking her head. “Thanks. All of you. …Especially Flutterfree.”
Futterfree smiled sadly. “I… I’m glad I helped you.”
“Yeah. I… Uh… Where are we?”
“I have no idea,” John said. He stood at the edge of the platform, looking into the distance.
Everyone joined him to examine where they were. Everything aside from them and the platform was colorless, limited mostly to darker shades of gray and black. The sky was overcast with endless stratus clouds while the ground was the scene of an endless plane of dead plants.
Dead, colorless roses.
In the distance, we saw it – a building of pure blackness that rose a few stories into the sky. It was clearly intended to be much taller, but the top of it was only rubble.
“Is that… the Dark Tower?” John asked.
“Can’t be…” Corona said. “I’ve seen it before, that’s not it!”
“It is…” I said, my expression haunted. “We changed something…”
“What?” Rainbow said. “Change what?”
“The Dark Tower has only been effectively threatened one time in the entirety of its existence,” I said. “The being who sought to bring it down was the being we just encountered. The Crimson King. In our conversation we must have changed something. Something that let him win.”
Eve pulled out Seraphim. “…There are no other universes. This is it.”
“How is that possible!?” Nova blurted. “You can’t go back and change something for every universe! That’s not how it works?”
Pinkie pointed at John. “He can overrule that. He could go back to the start of the multiverse…”
“…and destroy everything,” Jotaro completed.
John held up his hands. “H-hey I was just trying to get us out of there!”
“I want to know how this power can exist,” Corona said. “How can anyone have the right to change anything? Not even the highest of the high can overrule the laws of metatime! The multiverse always progresses.”
John waved his hand. “Hey, I got this from the House Juju! I don’t know anything about it! Honest!”
“What is the House Juju?” Eve asked, turning to me. “You’d know.”
All the others looked to me – even Pinkie, with a steeled glare.
“I… Fine.” I sighed, shaking my head. “The House Juju is the Dark Tower’s self-defense protocol.”
“...Explain,” Eve demanded, lighting her eye up just to make sure she got everything.
“When the Crimson King assaulted the Dark Tower in the ‘early’ days of ka, the Dark Tower ‘decided’ to use him. It created an impossible time loop around the life of one man – Roland of Gilead, the Gunslinger. It superseded its own rules of metatime to ensure that, regardless of what anyone did, Roland would travel through a time loop in a world that did not allow time travel, and defend the Tower from the inside.” I gestured at the Tower. “The Dark Tower is a physical construct, just like everything else. It could be destroyed with enough power and resources. So it allowed a story to take place where it was threatened, and created an exception to one of the absolute rules of the multiverse to ensure no entity would ever be able to touch it again.”
They all stared at me, blinking.
“Then the Horrorterrors made it to the room at the top of the Tower,” I said. “Normally this wouldn’t be a problem. But they decided to make something out of what they found. Based on the structures of the Dark Tower itself, they created essentially a miniature version.”
“Sburb…” John said.
“Yes. And with it, certain protocols the Tower had in place manifested themselves in strange ways. Most of the Jujus are manifestations of those concepts. The House Juju is the manifestation of the exception to the rules the Tower allowed to protect itself. It worked as intended – the Tower was once again threatened, this time by Lord English. But the House Juju allowed a suspension of the rules to defeat him. There was only one loose end.”
“Me,” John said.
“Yes. You. You stuck your hand into the House Juju and became its emissary. But unlike Roland of Gilead, you weren’t sealed in an infinite time loop. You were allowed to go free. You, John, are a loose end. An exception to the rules that was allowed. Why? I don’t know. Maybe the Tower has a plan for you. Maybe Hussie’s influence on the Tower cannot be understated. Maybe it’s just a glitch and the Flowers just aren’t touching you because you scare them. I don’t know.” I breathed heavily.
John gulped. “W-well then, I, uh…” He adjusted his collar. “I…”
“I’m sorry,” I said, sighing. “I got angry there. Passionate. There’s really nothing you did wrong, John. You were just given something you didn’t understand.” I shook my head, looking at the ruined Dark Tower. Then I narrowed my eyes. “Wait a minute…”
Corona looked up, sensing an idea. “What is it?”
“This can’t be real,” I said. “We’re still being written about. If the Dark Tower was destroyed, that would be impossible. The sight of a Prophet cannot penetrate to a ‘time’ when the Dark Tower doesn’t exist. But I can see these words appearing on a screen…” I put a hoof to my chin. “If we went back and fixed it, I would see these words appear after we fixed it, as a ‘this is what happened while ka was no longer in effect’ sort of thing. But that’s not what’s happening. Ka is still here.”
Flutterfree took a breath, preparing to reveal everything.
“No. Don’t,” I said. “We need to edit our memories.”
Renee blinked. “Well, as the Sylph of Mind I should only be able to heal memories, dear, and… why do we need to edit our memories?”
“Because we need to think this happened a specific way,” I said.
Eve’s eyes widened. “No, there’s no way. That’s crazy.”
“Is it?” I asked.
“Does anyone care to explain what you two just thought of?!” O’Neill blurted.
“What if this really happened?” I asked. “How would we fix it? We’d use John’s retcon to go back, of course. Go back and prevent us from ever meeting the Crimson King. Easy enough, right?”
“Uh, wouldn’t that create copies and a whole lot of other problems?” John said.
Eve nodded. “Yes, yes it would. There would be two sets of us and our presence would mess with everything even further.”
I put a hoof to my chin. “So, we’d know that. So we’d need to think of a way to ensure those past versions of us still become us, yet we change all the events. We decide to let our past selves experience an illusion. Let them think they’ve encountered the Crimson King and went to the broken Dark Tower, so their memories would be exactly the same…”
Allure held her head. “Are you suggesting that we’re living in an illusion created by our future selves!?”
“Yes!” I said. “Only it isn’t working – I’m too Aware. I’m changing what we remembered – but I must have been aware that this would happen. So I would have had a backup plan… I would ha-” I facehooved. “AUGH, if I change our memories we won’t come up with a reason to send ourselves back through an illusion!”
“What if it’s a closed time loop?” John asked. “We’ve always been in an illusion. We never actually met the Crimson King.”
“John, your power doesn’t work like that. You go back once, you actively change a thing. If you go back again, you can change it to be something else. And th-” I realized what the solution was. I sighed. “Well, that’s… depressing.”
“Would you stop making observations and get to the explaining!?” Rainbow blurted.
“There is a solution,” I said. “If we were the first group that came in and realized that, because of me, we wouldn’t be able to alter the events perfectly, we’d simply allow the second loop to come through to create a new set of events within an illusion. And then the first team… Would erase themselves from existence.”
Flutterfree gasped. “That’s horrible!”
“But I think it’s already been done,” I said.
“...I’m sure it has,” Eve said. “We wouldn’t let ourselves find a way to argue, to stop ourselves from making a sacrifice.”
“What does that mean though?” Nova asked.
“It means we go back and send the past versions of ourselves into an illusion based on our memories,” Eve said, “so that they can experience this and become us.”
“We just have to accept that the first loop… the first loop broke.” I gulped. “I’m sorry. I guess I was… wrong. All of us did die here. It’s already happened.”
“That’s… a haunting thought,” Renee said.
I turned to John. “…You should be able to just take us back to the moment we were in the white tunnel. You’ll need to divert them to a specific universe in the D-sphere. Corona, give me your dimensional device. I’ll key it in.”
Corona tossed the device to me. I entered the code and handed it to John. “Retcon back to the tunnel of white. Use this as a reference if you need it. Nova, keep us invisible. John, all you have to do is drop them in there the moment the past-you tries to jump to the Crimson King. It doesn’t matter what multiversal era you get them there, all that matters is that you do get them there, so this entire loop can happen.”
John nodded. “Got it.” He felt the essence of the place the device was set to. He knew where they needed to go.
Nova surrounded us in a bubble of invisibility.
“Wait,” I said. “…Flutterfree, use Lolo so John is actually able to retcon us out of this illusion.”
Flutterfree raised an eyebrow. “Is it safe?”
“In this new loop… Yes. Yes it is.”
Flutterfree spread out Lolo – and everything but us and the victory platform just vanished. There was truly nothing here. Everyone had to accept that everything I’d just said was true. The Crimson King, the wreckage of the Tower - it had just been an illusion created by people who no longer existed.
With another series of zaps form John, we appeared inside the white tunnel again, right behind our past selves. They didn’t notice. They couldn’t.
We watched a conversation take place that we had already had. Explanations of the Dark Tower. Sburb. Luckily we had come in after Flutterfree had used Lolo – that would have been disastrous.
Eve told John and Nova when to move telepathically. Nova made John extra-invisible as he moved to the past-platform. When past-John tried to retcon to the Crimson King, John retconned them to the universe he himself had been in just moments before – he didn’t even need to use the portal device.
And the loop was complete. They would encounter a fake Crimson King and believe they’d end up in the broken Dark Tower – but the universe they had been sent to was designed to bend its reality with ka… fate… A clever dreaming world that would keep people who entered it trapped forever, thinking they were living their lives. But of course I would always be able to figure it out and get them out with Lolo. Every time.
John let out a whistle. “That was a pretty serious mindfuck right there. Almost as bad as some of Dave’s causal loops. Almost.”
“How can you be so calm?” Flutterfree blurted. “The first versions of us just died!”
“…It’s not like we’re copies, or anything,” Eve said, looking at Flutterfree with a telling expression. “We are truly who we were before. It’s just that version of us who experienced something decided they would rather stop existing for the sake of their past.”
Flutterfree looked at her, pained. “…I… …I understand.”
Eve smiled sadly, wiping a tear from her eye. “I know.”
“…I take it my horn loss is real?” Allure asked me.
I nodded. “It may have been an illusion, but it did real things to our minds and bodies.”
“Figures. I hope the replacement doesn’t feel weird.”
“It’ll feel weird,” Eve said.
“Great…”
Corona looked to John. “…Take us back to the Green Sun, John. It’s time.”
“I don’t know how to get us out of this tube th-” he blinked. “Wait. I do. How…?”
Eve shrugged. “Probably because you’ve already translated in and out of here from elsewhere and… you know what, that rabbit hole probably has no end. Just like the rest of this.”
“Let’s just go back already,” Rainbow said. “I have plans to wipe all this brain-burn out of my memories.”
Renee laughed bitterly. “Not a bad idea…”
John placed his hand on the victory platform’s center again. “Here we go…”
Everyone went to stand on their designated positions, on top of their Aspects. They zapped away in an instant.
~~~
“Can someone kill that Noble Horrorterror already!?” Vriska shouted, skewering the planet-sized behemoth with her hope-filled sword. “Cause this isn’t going very fast!”
“We’re workin’ on it!” Meenah shouted, gesturing to all her fellow Thieves of Life who were continually draining the Noble Horrorterror’s life force. It had a lot.
“G-GAD ZOOKS...” Jake shouted, but it was clear his role as a beacon of Hope would end soon. Then their stalemate with the Combine and Horrorterrors would end. This close, one of the sides would get through to the Green Sun.
“Jade!” Vriska called. “Do we have anything!?”
Omega Jade shook her head as she unleashed another green solar flare. “I don’t have time to look! I’m just defending, defending, defending!”
“Right, so, uh…” Vriska bit her lip. “I know I said I didn’t want to bother them, but you might want to check Earth C to see if they’ve got any backup for us.”
Omega Jade shook her head. “Vriska, that’s dangerous! They could die out here!”
“We’re all gonna die if we don’t eke something out here!” Vriska shouted.
“Hey, I’m still fine,” Spades said, firing into space with his golden gun. “Not that I’m doin’ much, mind you.”
“That’s why you’re alive,” Vriska muttered. “They got Jade. She was a threat. If we get, say… Actually the only one in there who doesn’t have a ghost here is Dirk, maybe Roxy. I don’t see the Prince of Heart providing much of a benefit…”
“Don’t look at me, I don’t have any ideas either!” Meenah grunted.
“We need John!” Feferi said. “He has the only way out at this point!”
“Well he’s not here right now!” Vriska blurted.
Zap.
Vriska twitched. “Motherfucking…”
“Hey guys!” John said, standing in the middle of the victory platform with all of the Twelve around him. “I’m back!”
“WHAT THE FUCK TOOK YOU SO LONG!?” Vriska shouted.
“A mindfuck,” John explained.
Vriska took a look at everyone’s haunted expressions and Allure’s hornless face. “…I’ll believe it. Corona! Do the thing already!”
“I have to spin up!” Corona retorted.
“Tally ho…” Jake coughed, having poured out all the Hope he had in him. “I’m afraid I’m done…”
The Horrorterrors and Combine pushed in, now no longer hindered by the blinding light that had strengthened the ghosts so much.
Omega Jade barked. “You don’t have much time!”
Corona clasped her hands together and activated the victory platform…
Stats
Page generated in 0.027 seconds
Total duration
871 users online
449,897 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Blowing off steam?
9535148
derpicdn.net/img/2015/9/10/976850/full.jpg
I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about.
-GM, master of limes.
Ah. The Dark Lord Sassaflash gambit.
In any case... Yeah, I don't look forward to John learning that Jade is dead.
Wait. Jade is dead. They haven't faced Caliborn yet. Oh, this definitely can't be good...
Okay, I love time loops, and while this one was confusing at first, I think I understand it now, and it is a masterful solution! The creation of closed time loops can be very tricky.
If I understand what happened correctly, originally the group escaped the tunnel of light using John's retcon powers and ended up somewhere bad. The details of that Bad are left unknown, only that it was bad enough to necessitate this plan. The survivors of the first group, (who must have included at least Twilence, Flutterfree, and John, as their powers were necessary to make this work), came up with a plan to ret-con that Bad out of existence. They went back, and ret-conned their own escape from the tunnel into an illusion of their own design, such that the original Bad never happened in metatime. (that's why we don't see it on the page). The problem, is that usually this would create a paradox, as if the original Bad never happened, who would have changed the escape from the tunnel. The genius is that the first group devised a scenario such that the new group that exists after the ret-con would also go back and change the escape, so as to close the time loop and prevent paradox...
While the new scenario included the Crimson King, and the destruction of the Dark Tower, it doesn't seem necessary to me that this was the original Bad scenario. It's possible, since we don't have it on paper, so ka might have broken down, however, it could be that the reason we also don't have it on paper, is simply that the retcon transcends meta-time. It would have had to have been Bad enough for this retcon to have been deemed necessary though. Basing the retcon off their memories does seem like a good way to ensure the same solution is devised though, albeit with less dire consequences with it being only an illusion...
Of course, it's possible that I have some of the details wrong... just trying to figure out what happened.
I do wonder what the point of that side adventure was though... other than spreading an existential crisis from Eve to the rest of the group, and demonstrated how powerful John's retcon ability is, and foreshadowing the Crimson King (likely to be the BBEG of this story, eventually), and giving more exposition about ka... okay, I guess that side adventure really does have meaning in the story.
Alright, now that I’m caught up again, here’s my Obligatory List of Stories to Add. Which is just 2 things. Can 2 things be a list?
-Yamato 2199
The ships here probably have enough firepower to fit in with the Medori’s ships, considering the time they couldn’t use their main weapon to destroy the enemy’s Pluto base because it would also destroy Pluto. It could also be interesting to see Wave Motion technology interacting with other stuff.
-Adventure Time
Unsuprisingly, there are lots of opportunities for adventures here. There’s a fragment of the Lich in every universe now, for one. And considering how popular the show was you probably already have plans for it anyway.
9535242
SotS is almost completely written and, unfortunately, this means I can't add any more major players at this point. I may reference Adventure Time occasionally, but I'd never even heard of Yamato until now. A sad truth. Though stick around, episode 100 might give you a chance.
-GM, master of 100s.
Heh, starting to be glad that this story isn't working off the same homestuck theories I got exposed to. Otherwise just the mere return of the green sun would have given lord English to escape. Luckily either that isn't the case, or the greater rules employed by the house juju shuts down that connection now that he's already fully contained within
9535209
as someone who has read homestuck in its entirety (yes it's as bad as Vriska makes it out to be) what you're saying kinda falls apart at
from what you see in the comic you can read it like how things happens before John recons something and when you get to that point where he does the zapy thing you then see the changes he made, so the fact that we don't see all of that here is that (i think anyway) GM was just saving us some time
9535259
Well you can't put everything in a world that has everything in it. You can only work with what you know and what you like.
Yeet!
9535209
9535580
The specific reason why "they wouldn't be able to see it on the page" because if the Dark Tower were ever to *not* exist, it would be physically impossible for a Prophet's words to define reality - or for us to READ about such an event. If no Dark Tower ==> no story for us to see. This is why you don't see the first iteration.
As far as you know, the Bad was exactly what the 'new loop' shows. While that is the simplest solution, by the nature of no-one being able to read or write about it, it could very well have been something else and no one would ever know. (In MY mind it's exactly what was shown here, but even I do not have power over the Tower.)
-GM, master of answers.
9535772
i thought of that but i wasn't sure how to put it into words
Cayde?
9537022
...What?
-GM, master of I have no idea what 'Cayde' means.
9537027
The description in that line made me think of Cayde-6 from Destiny. He's a hunter, and uses a super ability called "Golden Gun".
What a chapter already...
Yay for more mindfuckery!
An existence where none of the multiverse remains but the world of the Dark Tower remains, broken and dead...that's a pretty terrifying "Game Over" scenario knowing what it means in the context of this story.
I suppose after all this is done and over I really, really should read Stephen King's Dark Tower novels.
Before this point I was briefly theorycrafting and wondering, considering the dubious interactions and implications relating to John, that maybe by some dark twist of fate he became the Crimson King and destroyed the tower. But it seems as though that line of timey-wimey thought that is not the case.
It's a good thing Twilence was astute enough to see the loophole in the situation the group was in and that they were able to craft a way out.
But man, my brain is hurting after reading all that.
You can say that again, Jesus.
Oh you can bet your sweet bippy something like it's been done before. Eve would know about that on a small scale.
...Yeeeeaaaaahhhhhh...
Well, this crazy ordeal has been going on for a few chapters now and it looks like it's coming to a close.
Other stuff:
Ahhhhh. Well I guess if anything, that definitely confirms they get to keep their powers after this is over. Or at least Allure does. Also that later situation with the Crimson King explains how she got her metal horn. Her sudden death was still a minor shock but I already knew she'd still be around.
Corona continues to find new and interesting ways to become overpowered.
Also, I'm going to need to reread the previous chapter later to make a better mental note of the Twelve's powers.
Having already seen through The Enchantress' vision of the war among the Starcross Society, that's a pretty damn terrifying implication.