Songs of the Spheres

by GMBlackjack

097 - The Handmaiden's Aliens

“HONK!”

The purple-blooded Skaian troll with long, wavy horns roared. He wore the purple robes of the Bard of Rage, which seemed ridiculous and distracting at first with its oversized spotted hat and codpiece, but had quickly cemented itself into the minds of the primary team as Bad News™.

They were having a rather difficult time taking down this particular troll.

He grabbed Pinkie Pie as she appeared behind him, throwing her forward and kicking her in the stomach. He roared in unbridled Rage. “You motherfuckers think you can pull that shit on me?”

“I’ve drained his luck!” Vriska said, shrugging. “No idea how he’s still alive. Or, well, dead-alive, but you get the picture.”

“You… MOTHERFUCKING… arrogant bitch… THINK YOU CAN REMOVE THE CHUCKLEVOODOOS!?” He charged at her. She swung her sword, but he caught it between his hands and snapped it in half. He then drove his hand into her stomach, drawing blood.

Vriska took it, grinning. “Never really understood the chucklevoodoos, so I can’t really have a thought about them, sorry Gamzee.” She used her free hand to throw her dice down behind him. Several tentacles shot out of the ground, wrapping around his limbs.

Gamzee fell back, screaming. With one flex of his muscles, he was free.

And then he’d been punched half a meter into the ground by Star Platinum’s time stop. Being a ghost, not to mention a highblood troll, he managed to pull himself up. “Honk…”

“Honk,” Flutterfree said, shooting him in the nose with an arrow of light.

“You… MOTHERFUCKING….” He tapped into his chucklevoodoos, sending out horrific imagery into nearby minds.

Flutterfree looked at the monstrous clown creatures ready to tear her mind apart and replace it with insane sludge. With a twitch, she summoned Lolo, banishing them. She shot Gamzee three more times, the arrows lodging in his ghost body. He found his arm affixed to his chest by one of them, discovering that even his strength wasn’t enough to break the holy arrow.

Despite the pain, he moved forward. To remedy this, Flutterfree shot him in the ankles, pinning them to the ground, and then to each other. The ominous nature of his walk vanished the moment he was hopping toward her, dragging clods of dream-earth behind him.

“HONK!”

Flutterfree rolled her eyes. She just kept shooting until he couldn’t move.

“Finally!” Nova blurted, activating her spell. With Gamzee immobile, he couldn’t do anything against the Skaian imprisonment spell. A blue shell appeared around his body, drowning out his enraged honks. He was frozen.

Nova slapped a bracelet around his wrist. “And good.”

Flutterfree lowered the bow of light. “He seemed… upset.”

“Course he was,” Vriska said. “Highblood and the Bard of Rage. Of course he’s going to be a little violent and upset. Not to mention the fact that this is the only Gamzee who’s ever died. Cut in half by Omega Kanaya with a chainsaw in the moment just about everyone died.” She shook her head. “Can’t believe Karkat asked for a capture, if anyone ever deserved to perma-die it’s this bastard.”

“Not exactly arguing here,” Nova admitted. “That was a pretty intense murderous face. Yeesh.”

Vriska kicked the immobile Gamzee over. “Welp, Earth C it is.” She pulled out her dimensional device…

…And then a muscular humanoid tiger fell out of Skaia’s Dream’s ‘sky’. “Ow," she said, standing up quickly. “RATH WILL NOT STAND FOR FALLING!”

“Uh…” Flutterfree blinked as the new arrival climbed out of a tiger-shaped impact crater.

“Oh, right!” ‘Rath’ hit her head with her fist. “YOU GUYS! I was looking for you. I need… HELP! Right, yes, help! …Help.” She mulled the word over in her mouth, deciding it was disgusting. “Geh…”

Pinkie grinned. “What can we help you with?”

“I NEED TO STOP CHANGING!” she shouted, raising a fist. “HELP ME STOP CHANGING!”

“Changing from what into what and how?” Vriska asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Uh… Uh…” ‘Rath’ grabbed her head. “WHY IS RATH NOT SMART ENOUGH. Need to… Uh…” She pointed at a green hourglass symbol on her chest. “THIS! This thing!”

“An Omnitrix…” Nova blinked. “…Wait, hold on, Aradia? Is that you?”

“YES! RATH IS ARADIA!” Aradia clapped her hands. “And RATH is STUCK CHANGING.”

“Define changing,” Jotaro said.

“WELL, it’s like… Uh… The watch keeps switch-”

A green light enveloped Aradia and changed her form, replacing the muscular tiger with a small, gray being with two big eyes. Overall she was the size of a human hand. “Oh, this might be useful.” She reached onto her back to touch the Omnitrix’s new location. “Maybe I can figure out why it’s on the fritz now… …Why does it have to be on the back in this form?”

Vriska smirked. “You’re so tiny!”

“Yeah yeah, blah blah, just help me.”

“So you were dumb and angry a minute ago and now you’re smart and arrogant,” Vriska smirked. “I like what’s happening.”

“I can’t travel through time like this!” Aradia blurted. “I’m just a gray thing with a big brain! I can’t be the Handmaid!”

Pinkie smirked. “Don’t fret your tiny big head. We’ll help! What can we do?”

“Need to find a version of Azmuth, the creator of the Omnitrix. Chances are we’ve found a universe based on the ‘Ben 10’ source material, right?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Nova said.

“Well, had I been able to think of that a few minutes ago, I would have just gone to Renee. But I was in punching mode. You understand.”

“Yep,” Vriska said. “I’m still not going to let you forget the day you decided to name yourself Rath.”

“Can we just get to solving my problem? Maybe?”

“Think she’ll change into something more agreeable next?” Nova asked Pinkie.

Pinkie shrugged.

~~~

Renee stared at Aradia, ignoring the primary team standing around her.

Aradia was currently an amorphous green blob suspended in midair by a tiny mechanical device that looked like a UFO.

“Yeah. I’m goopy. Fun, right?”

“Maybe…?” Renee said, furrowing her brow. “So… I take it you’re stuck like this?”

“She actually keeps changing every couple of minutes,” Pinkie said. “She was a tiger, then a gray genius, then something that stank really bad, and now this.”

Aradia shifted again, into a thin blue humanoid creature with lots of black points. “Oh boy, the fast one. If I talk a mileaminuteatanypointpleaseforgivemeIdon’tusethisonethatmuchandI’mdoingitrightnowaren’tI?”

Renee turned to Pinkie. Pinkie grinned. “The answer is yes.”

“Darnit,” Aradia muttered.

“Regardless, how can we help?” Renee asked.

“Finding an Azmuth is the best option. Someone who created an Omnitrix.”

Renee pulled up the database. “We have no Azmuths on file, though the system does recognize a possible source material. ‘Ben 10’?”

“Yes,” Aradia said. “That’s it. Do we have anyuniversesinthatcontinuity?”

Renee stared at her.

“Any universes in that continuity?” Pinkie translated.

“Thanks,” Aradia said, putting a hand to her face.

Renee lit her horn and did a search. “We’ve got none officially recorded, unfortunately. Doesn’t mean there isn’t one, it just means nobody’s bothered to notice the fiction-reality connection if we do have one. Since Azmuth didn’t turn anything up, are there any other keywords or people?”

Aradia spat out a string of words even faster than she had before, and then sighed. She gestured to Pinkie.

Pinkie giggled. “Ben Tennyson would be known in virtually any version. Max Tennyson, maybe. The rest of the things she said were just her listing off random names that came to mind.”

“No results and no results, sorry. I’ve sent automatic requests to the TSAB, Void, and Collection for more information, but I wouldn’t expect responses for a few days at least on something so ‘mundane’ as a database search.” Renee scrolled through the files some more. “I did notice a note at the end of the ‘Ben 10’ file. Looks like it’s thought to be the source material of the Celestialsapiens. Or, at least, a work that actually has them in it. It could mean it’s one of their universes.”

“Great!” Aradia said. “We just go look around Celestialsapien space!”

Renee raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Why not have our scientists look at the Omnitrix. I’m sure we could fix it, with time.”

“Yeah, well, if that was all it needed the future versions of me wouldn’t be avoiding me,” Aradia said, folding her arms. “They’d love to accelerate this process if it was mundane.”

Renee nodded slowly. “Well, I suppose you know what’s best for you. Pinkie, do you want to guide her through Celestialsapien space until you find something?”

“Sure do!” Pinkie said, grinning. “She does so much for us we regularly have no idea about. It’s time to help her!”

“I’ll give you a Skiff,” Renee said. “Pidge should have just upgraded 7-4-E, so grab that one if you can. Enjoy your trip. Don’t anger the Class 1, mkay?”

“Don’t plan on it!”

~~~

Some of Aradia’s forms were very, very large. So large they wouldn’t fit in the Skiff. So instead of letting her occupy the sixth seat in the Skiff, she was dragged along behind in a magic bubble of variable size that Nova had conjured just for the occasion. She was currently a large, dull-orange dinosaur creature. She was grumbling to herself.

“I think Aradia’s nutting up,” Nova observed.

“She’s made of stronger stuff than that,” Vriska said. “She can handle dozens of paradoxes at once.”

“But she can’t right now,” Flutterfree reminded her. “I think that’s what’s really getting to her. Not only can she not move through time like a boat on the water, but she also can’t keep her own thoughts straight. Her brain keeps changing. …She feels like she’s losing her sense of self.”

Vriska blinked. “…Yeesh. Didn’t think of it that way.”

Flutterfree nodded. “We’re so used to thinking of certain people as being strong and unbreakable, but really, sometimes it only takes one thing for us to come unhinged. Much more of this and I think it will happen to Aradia.”

Nova sighed. “…How can we hurry this along?”

“We’re already in Celestialsapien space,” Vriska said. “Already jumping through universes as fast as we can after scanning for anything similar to the Omnitrix. So far nothing.”

“Good news: the Celestialsapiens either haven’t noticed or don’t care that we’re here!” Pinkie said, grinning.

“That’s something, I guess,” Nova muttered. “Do we have anything else working for us?”

Jotaro shrugged, saying nothing.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Nova leaned back in her chair and sighed. “We could be out here for weeks.”

Pinkie grinned. “Yeah, we could. But it’s a road tri-” Pinkie’s Pinkie Sense activated violently. Her body flipped into the air and she slammed into the Skiff’s windshield. “Stop the Skiff!” she ordered.

Vriska cancelled the next dimensional portal opening. Behind them, Aradia shifted forms again. Through the camera they had trained on her, they saw a form they all recognized. Humanoid, feminine, and a body seemingly made of stars with three horns pointing upward from the forehead.

“Celestialsapien…” Flutterfree said with a gulp. “…Is this good or bad for us?”

“Let’s just not move until she changes again,” Pinkie said. “Shouldn’t be… too long.”

Aradia was motionless. Her expression did not shift and her limbs did not move. She was stoic.

Inside her mind, however, it was a different story.

She existed as a mental projection of her real form – troll horns, red cloak, and all. She floated in an endless expanse of stars, slowly realizing that she had control of her mind as her.

“Oh thank the Tower,” she said, sighing in relief. She put on a big smile and laughed – she finally felt like herself. Even if she didn’t, technically speaking, have a body right now.

She realized there were two other beings in the void with her. They looked like opera masks, their red color identical to her robes. One looked downward with an exaggerated forlorn expression, while the other looked upward with a similarly eccentric hopeful expression.

“Uh… hi,” Aradia said.

“Hello,” the hopeful mask spoke with a young, male voice. “Welcome. I’ve been expecting you.”

“Don’t lie,” the other said with an middle-aged feminine voice. “You’ve just been hoping that someone would show up to end this frivolous deadlock.”

“Sooo…” Aradia leaned back. “I’m Aradia, who’re you?”

“I am Kaldar, the Voice of the Future,” the hopeful mask said. “And that moping lump of sadness is Antira, the voice of the lost.”

“The Past,” Antira corrected.

“A state of existence that only has relevance if you permit it to.”

“Both the past and the future are inherent parts of the flow of time,” Aradia said, shaking her head.

“And this is why you are here,” Kaldar said. “You are the Voice of the Present, here to fulfill the third consciousness within us. To complete us.”

“So you existed without me?”

“Yes and no,” Antira said.

“Ah, got it.”

“I like it when they just understand,” Kaldar said with a smile.

Aradia smirked. “Helps to jump around time a lot. So, uh, what do we do here?”

“Pointlessly argue,” Antira sighed.

“Debate,” Kaldar corrected. “We take into account all variables and determine if action is required for any given scenario.”

“What’s the current topic?” Aradia asked.

“Currently? We need to determine if we demand you stay with us for eternity so all arguments don’t end in a deadlock. I have grown rather tired with the future not benefiting from our involvement even considering the paradoxical nature of our existence, so I push that we require Aradia eternally present within us.”

“The future doesn’t need our help,” Antira muttered. “The path it takes must be its own. Aradia should leave.”

Aradia folded her arms. “Well I don’t want to be stuck here forever. What about a compromise? I can create temporal duplicates of myself. I could set it up so one is with you some of the time.”

Kaldar twitched. “The point of you being here is to break the tie, not introduce a third option.”

Aradia smirked. “I guess I don’t play nice then, huh? This is the part where we debate, right? Until one of us jumps to the side of another and creates a majority, allowing the actual Celestialsapien body outside to do something.”

“Your understanding is correct,” Antira admitted. “But perhaps it would have been better if you didn’t… Then you would have just wanted release.”

Kaldar looked at nothing. “No, debate is the way of our people. No matter what the three voices within us are, we always work it out among ourselves. We are complete, we should not complain. Aradia, your position on the matter is a curious one to be sure. A compromise, you say? Please, elaborate as to why this is the path that should be taken.”

“Well, there’s three of us here,” Aradia said, gesturing at the three of them. “What all of us want is important. I want to be able to do things without debating for eternity. Antira, you want to be faithful to the past as I understand it, and therefore want little to do with major action. Kaldar, you want to build a better future and to do that you need me here to break Antira’s hesitation. If we are to work together, we must work together to find something in the middle of all that.”

Antira sighed. “But if you remain here at all and break me, the past’s influence will be broken.”

“We are creatures of time,” Aradia said. “We should use our power to assist the timeline.”

“Or bend it to our will,” Kaldar said. “We are a Celestialsapien. We can build universes should it be required or desired. We could make entire universes bow to us.”

Aradia raised an eyebrow. “…Little ambitious?”

“Just stating facts. Of course we have the power to build lower societies up and build a new tomorrow in our image. The point is we should use the power.”

“Not all power should be used,” Antira reminded.

“We’re not talking about the use of power right now, we’re simply talking about how debates are going to go,” Aradia said. “While Kaldar seems a little too… anxious to flex our power, I do agree that so long as the power’s not too dangerous to use, it should be used. It’s how I fly through time.” She snapped her fingers. “Kaldar, I’ll agree with you if you alter your position slightly.”

Kaldar’s expression deepened. “I’m listening.”

“I can create time clones of myself. In theory, I can be with you and Antira always. But I won’t have to be the same me all the time. I could swap out every now and then. It’d allow me to continue my work outside this body while also being in it. So if we fix my Omnitrix I can start that right away.”

Antira shook her mask. “No. This cannot be allowed. Having a voice that changed? It would be too much…”

“Seems like a great idea to me. I get what I want, you don’t, and Aradia is simultaneously here and not under most circumstances. Therefore… I propose we repair Aradia’s Omnitrix.”

“Denied,” Antira said.

“I agree though!” Aradia blurted.

“The proper way to go through with it is to say ‘seconded’,” Kaldar said.

“Ah, right. Ahem. Seconded!”

The actual Celestialsapien body of Aradia twisted. “MOTION CARRIED: RE-”

And then Aradia’s Omnitrix flashed, transforming her into a red creature with flying-squirrel-like folds of skin. “…Seriously!?”

“You ran out of time!” Pinkie called to her through a communication spell.

Aradia tried to fold her arms, but realized the wing-like folds of skin interfered with this motion. “The downside of being a Celestialsapien. Everything takes forever. Gah. And now this form is impatient. Lovely mood whiplash. Can’t we go any faster?”

Vriska moved her hand to the throttle and moved them to another dimension. Then three things happened in quick succession.

First, the Pinkie Sense activated again, causing Pinkie to gasp in a mild panic.

Second, Aradia shifted form. She was suddenly a human with short brown hair and a green jacket.

Third, the Skiff’s engine exploded.

~~~

Nova pulled herself out of the skiff’s wreckage. “Ow…”

“You’re welcome,” Vriska muttered, pulling herself out from under a piece of the windshield, tripping and cutting her hand after she got out. “Yeeep, luck is abysmal right now. I really wanted to have a day of tripping, didn’t you?”

Pinkie appeared from behind her. “We all have bad tripping days, you know.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like them.”

Jotaro pulled himself out of the wreckage with Star Platinum, Flutterfree in his arms. She had a small wound under her left ear that didn’t look bad, but had been jarring enough to knock her unconscious.

Nova checked her over with a scan. “She’s fine. Will probably wake up in a few minutes.”

Pinkie took the opportunity to look around. “We appear to be… on a normal planet.”

They had landed at the edge of a cornfield, stopped by the raised earth of a road. It was night, so it wasn’t surprising that the road was abandoned. In the distance they could make out farmhouses that seemed to be of human design, but they had learned long ago never to assume that. The Skiff had cut a small tear in the cornfield, exposing dirt and lighting a few small fires that were quickly going out due to the moisture in the soil.

Vriska picked an ear of corn and examined it. “Seems normal enough.”

“So, question,” Nova said. “Why did our ship explode?”

Pinkie furrowed her brow. “Because we found the right world.”

“Ahem. Causal reason, not ka reason, thank you.”

Pinkie shrugged. “Technology isn’t perfect?”

“Hey, I spent a ton of luck making sure we didn’t die in that crash,” Vriska commented, trying not to slip on a rock. “It should have kicked in to prevent that explosion if it was just a mechanical failure.”

“Your power isn’t predictable or absolute,” Jotaro pointed out.

“Yeah, well, s-” She slipped in the mud and fell face first into it. “I need to find people. I need to find people quickly.”

“With your luck we’ll never find anyone fast enough,” Nova said.

“HANDS UP! YOU’RE UNDER ARREST!” a voice shouted from on top of the road.

Vriska turned to Nova and grinned.

“Vriska, bad idea…”

Vriska put her hands up. “All right officer, what did we do?”

To their surprise, the ‘officer’ was not a normal policeman – he was a bipedal lizard in gray armor holding a futuristic gun. He had it trained on all five of them. “This is property damage.”

Vriska zapped some of his luck away, walking closer to him. “Our ship just crashed, can you maybe give us a break?” The rest of them slowly walked up to the road behind her. Jotaro didn’t have his hands up because he was holding Flutterfree, and he tried to make that as obvious as possible.

Vriska made it up to the road and saw a small squad of people wearing the same armor. Notably, none of them were the same race – although there was one human. One of them was a creature made of fire, another was a being that seemed more purple energy than physical being, yet another was a robot, and there were a smattering of others as well.

“This seems a little overkill,” Pinkie said, walking up to the lizard. “It’s just a crashed ship. Why the full squad?”

“Dimensional activity was detected,” the robot reported. “Only the human man is of a race in our database. You are the likely culprits.”

Pinkie raised an eyebrow. “You can’t expect dimensional beings to have any idea what your laws are.”

“It’s common sense not to crash into someone’s cornfield,” the lizard retorted.

Pinkie giggled. “Eh, fair enough. Take us away!”

Vriska kept absorbing luck in small bursts – the light that came from her eyes was hardly detectable in such conditions, and didn’t appear to be threatening. It couldn’t even be felt. She was sneaky, she knew how t-

“The gray one is doing something!” the purple being said, holding up her hands and trapping Vriska in an aura of pink magic. In reflex, Vriska pushed her luck absorption to her captor, making her trip and fall, dissipating the magic.

The fiery guy took this as an attack and flung a burst of flame at them, only for Nova to block it with a magic shield. “Hey, hey, we don’t have to fi-”

“Danger levels at critical!” the robot declared, unfolding several guns from his sides. “Protect!”

“Dammit,” Nova muttered, facehooving. “Looks like we’re fighting local law enforcement! Again. Thanks, Vriska.”

Vriska shrugged, summoning her dice. “What can I say? I bring out the best in people.”

~~~

Aradia looked herself over. She had survived the crash, the bubble absorbing all the dangers of impact before dissipating. It had made an impressive crater in the middle of a rocky, abandoned area to the side of a rural road.

She was human right now. Definitely female, though nobody would be able to tell that from first glance due to the flat chest and youthful appearance. Her hair was short and brown and her eyes matched the green of her jacket – which had a ten on it.

“Weird…” she said, looking at the ten. The source material was ‘Ben 10’, and this jacket was what the titular Ben wore. But Dave was this Omnitrix’s human DNA sample. Why didn’t she turn into him? Or a feminine version of him. That was an odd thing about the Omnitrix; Davepeta had been able to change into different genders, but if a female option was available for Aradia it would always switch to it. Maybe it just knew? Or could alter the DNA?

…Maybe this was just the female human DNA sample. She hadn’t actually turned into Dave before.

Regardless, given the Omnitrix’s reaction to the universe, this was probably the right place. She strongly suspected it was the ominitix that had caused the Skiff’s engines to explode, but she couldn’t prove that. Nor did she have any idea how it would do that.

She stood up and checked the Omnitrix. It seemed to be working just fine now. Not shifting her form around, but it had the human form set as the default instead of her troll self. She tried willing herself to transform into a troll – but nothing happened. She tried any other alien, but nothing. Vocal commands did nothing either.

“Guess the master control is off,” Aradia mused. She placed her fingers to the watch and began cycling through forms. All of them she had turned into were available, but that was a lot of aliens to sift through to find herself. She didn’t get very far.

“Albedo…?”

Aradia looked up to see the human she presumed was the Ben of this world. They looked almost identical, only slight differences in body structure between them.

Aradia waved her hands and shook her head. “Oh no, I’m Aradia, I have no idea who Albedo i-”

“Nice try,” Ben said, pulling up his Omnitrix. “You’re not talking your way out of this one.”

“No, seriously, I’m not Albedo, I’m from another uni-”

Ben transformed into a race made mostly of pale green crystal. “Diamondhead!”

“You name them? That’s cu- woah!” Aradia dodged a wave of crystal shards that came out of the ground. She fumbled with her Omnitrix, looking for a form she knew how to use. “This’ll have to do…” She accessed her sample of a Gem. Her body coalesced into a round, red gemstone that produced a tall, feminine body. The Omnitrix placed itself overtop the gemstone, which affixed itself over where her heart would have been in a more organic body.

She generated an exceedingly long whip from the gemstone’s center, readying it.

“…Haven’t seen that one before,” Ben said with Diamondhead’s significantly deeper voice.

“You pick up new samples when exploring other universes. Which is where I am from, by the way!”

“If you were from another universe, why aren’t you named Ben?” Ben proved that he was really good at using the crystal powers of Diamondhead by trapping Aradia’s larger form in an instant. She was able to force her hard-light body into a narrower shape, slipping out one of the cracks.

“Because that wasn’t my default form!” Aradia retorted, wrapping Ben up in her whip – which he broke apart easily. “I showed up here and got stuck!”

“Using your own backstory to try and derail me? Clever, Albedo.” Ben rushed her hitting her form right in the face.

Aradia transformed back to her human form, grunting. She clearly needed something else. She ran, scanning the aliens in the watch.

Ben charged after her. “You aren’t going anywhere!”

Aradia slipped and fell on the swirling crystals beneath her. But just as she was trapped again, she found it.

Her form.

She transformed into herself, glorious troll form and all. With her psychic powers she tore the crystals to shreds, then dropped them. “Look, this is my default form! Hey!”

Ben blinked. “…What is that?”

“Alternian.” He won’t take ‘troll’ very well. “Look, this is who I am. Not all of my race have psychic powers, and not all of my race can control time.”

“Control time?”

“Hi!” future-Aradia said from behind Ben. “Future-Aradia here.”

Ben narrowed his eyes. “How can I be sure you’re not Albedo?”

“Besides the fact that I don’t know who he is?” past-Aradia asked. “Uh…” An idea came to her. She took out her dimensional device.

Ben got defensive.

“Nonono! Not a weapon, not a bomb, a dimensional travel device! I don’t have to use it to travel, but it sure is handy.”

“Use it and we’ll see if that’s what it is.”

Aradia nodded, pressing a button. The dimensional device activated and opened a portal to an Earth where the sun was up. “Good enough for you?”

Ben nodded, allowing himself to turn back to his default human form. “That does raise a few other questions. Why are you here and why did you look like me?”

Future-Aradia timed out and returned to the default human form. “My Omnitrix is broken, as you can probably see. I came to this area of the multiverse looking for a version of Azmuth to fix it. Since he created it. …He was the creator of the Omnitrix in this universe, right?”

Ben nodded, holding up his. “Yeah. And ours look pretty similar, so they probably work the same. Though I bet you’ve got more aliens.”

Aradia nodded as her past self went through time to complete the causal time loop. “I can’t take all the credit. It used to belong to a friend of mine named Davepeta. It was… passed on to me.”

Ben blinked. “Well, I’m pretty sure we can get Azmuth to at least take a look at it – he’d love all the multiversal aliens in it. But if you can control time and have psychic powers in your default, why do you need it?”

“Usually I have the master control on,” Aradia said.

“Must be nice.”

Aradia smirked. “I take it you don’t?”

“Eh, on and off.”

“Anyway, I’m able to switch to anything I want at will, and I can create time clones of myself to use multiple forms at once. It’s a self-contained army when it needs to be.” She stretched her arms. “Feels weird to be a human, have to admit.”

“…Is that why your voice is so high?”

“Hm? Oh, this is a female. Almost all the aliens are.”

Ben blinked, looking her up and down, and then proceeding to flush. “…Ah.”

“Probably some cosmic joke that I look so androgynous right now. Don’t worry about it. We can get this fixed – oh, but we need to find my friends first. Their ship must have crashed elsewhere.”

“The Plumber database should have a crashed ship on it.”

“…Plumber?”

“Bunch of space police trying to not be conspicuous. It doesn’t work as well as they’d like. Everyone knows about them now, so, it basically failed completely and now it’s a big joke.”

“Ah. So, curious, who was Albedo?”

“Azmuth’s apprentice who kinda became my evil twin because he made another Omnitrix connected to mine…”

~~~

“What did you guys do!?” Flutterfree shouted.

“Took care of a problem,” Jotaro said, laying the last unconscious alien on top of all the others, creating a pile of bruised and battered ‘officers’.

“I was expecting a bit more fight, you know?” Vriska said. “Magic-girl had some freaky powers, but those became pretty useless pretty fast.”

“This was law enforcement!” Flutterfree blurted, throwing a hoof wide. “You all know what happens when we upset law enforcement!”

“We don’t get put in jail?” Pinkie suggested.

“PINKIE!”

Pinkie giggled. “I know, I know, that didn’t go as well as it could have, but none of them got seriously hurt.”

“I broke a few bones,” Jotaro said.

Pinkie rolled her eyes. “Okay, yes, some of them are in a lot of pain but they’ll all be fine. We just need to collect our bearings and find out where we are.”

“United States, Earth, two-thousand-something-or-other,” Nova reported from her hoof-screen. “Physics allows for FTL, high magic, and extremely unconventional biology. Guess this explains why the Omnitrix can scan a Gem and get a ‘DNA’ sample.”

“So a bit of an outlier universe that seems normal on the surface,” Vriska said. “Got it.”

“We should probably find Aradia,” Nova said. “She needs to know we’ve upset the locals.”

Pinkie looked at Nova and grinned.

“She’s standing right behind us, isn’t she?”

“What did you guys do!?” Aradia shouted, putting her hands to her head.

“I think they beat up a squad of Plumbers,” Ben said, pursing his lips.

“That’s bad! That’s bad, right?” Aradia asked.

Ben shrugged. “Eh, I can get you cleared. So long as you don’t turn out to actually be evil.”

Aradia put her hands on her hips and glared at Pinkie. “Why would you do this?”

“Completely my fault,” Vriska said, walking up to them. “See, I was being awesome, and then sparkly over th-”

“UNKNOWN ALIEN DNA DETECTED!” Ben’s Omnitrix interrupted. A yellow light shot out of the device and scanned Vriska.

Ben checked his Omnitrix. “Sweet, new transformation. Do you have time travel and telekinesis too?”

“Luck manipulation and mind control,” Vriska said, folding her arms. “Don’t you dare turn into me and steal my thunder. I will have to show you who’s the better spiderbitch.”

“Message received…” Ben said.

Flutterfree turned to Aradia. “…Could he scan us?”

Aradia nodded. “It’ll only accept one Equestrian DNA sample, though. He’ll only get one of you.”

Nova put a hoof to her chin. “Hrm… We should think for a moment to decide which one of us would be the most helpful. As a unicorn, I have a full range of magic spells. Pinkie has a lot of bizarre abilities that… might drive him insane. Flutt-”

“Flutterfree is the choice,” Pinkie said, throwing the pegasus at Ben. The Omnitrix scanned her in an instant. “And now the deliberation is done! Woohoo!”

“Pinkie!” Nova blurted. “I was going to get a whole pro and con list out!”

“And that’s booooring,” Pinkie said. “Hey, hey Ben, try one of us out.”

Ben shrugged. “Sure. Haven’t been a horse yet…” He readied his Omnitrix and selected the Flutterfree sample. He turned into a pegasus – except clearly a stallion rather than a mare.

“…How does it do that?” Aradia wondered.

“I feel… hungry,” Ben said. “For either blood or… apples?”

Flutterfree nodded. “I am a quasi-vampire. I’ve also got this.” She activated Lolo fully, forcing another Lolo out of Ben. “This is Lolo. It’s a Stand. It lets you see other Stands like Star Platinum over there and taps into hidden potential. And a few other odd things. I’m sure you’ll find it useful.”

“…I’m calling this form Vampony,” Ben said, transforming back to a human shortly afterward.

Flutterfree facehooved. “Of course.”

“But hey, at least it’s not me!” Pinkie said. She grabbed Ben’s face and gave him a deadly serious glare. “You would have lost your marbles.”

“…My marb-?”

“ALL OF THEM.”

Ben shivered. “…Kay.”

Aradia shook her head. “Never mind that right now. Everyone, you already know this is Ben. Ben, this is the primary team of Merodi Universalis.” She introduced them all one at a time. “And now can we go to Azmuth and get my Omnitrix fixed?” She tapped her fingers together impatiently.

“…You’re not used to being linear, huh?” Nova asked.

“No. No I’m not. I’d like to stop being linear as soon as possible. I was able to turn into myself for a little bit back there, but it’s temporary.”

Ben pulled out his phone. “I know just the ship. Hey, Julie? I need a spaceship ride. …Well, the people I need to move just beat up a full Plumber squad, so I don’t really want to ask them for a ship right now. …Huh, wasn’t expecting you to agree so quickly.” Ben hung up his phone. “We’ll have a ship.”

“What kind of ship?” Vriska asked.

“Ship,” Pinkie said.

With a rush of wind, a green and black gunship appeared over their heads. “SHIIIIIIIIP,” it bellowed in a deep, synthetic voice. It descended to the ground below, opening up its back door to create a ramp inside. There was nobody driving.

“Uh…” Flutterfree coked her head. “Who drove it here?”

“Ship drove himself,” Ben said with a smirk.

“…The ship’s name is Ship,” Nova deadpanned. “Not going to ask.”

“You see, that’s a funny stor-”

“I didn’t ask!”

Pinkie took a sticky note out of her mane and stuck it on the forehead of the unconscious lizard. Sorry! Hope you get well soon! A happy Pinkie Pie and a balloon image were scrawled in the corners in what appeared to be pink crayon.

“Let’s go!” Pinkie declared, bouncing into Ship. The others followed suit.

Ship blasted into the sky, leaving the Plumbers behind.

The lizard woke up first and found the sticky note. He looked at it and let out a forlorn sigh.

~~~

Ship flew through space to what Ben assured them was ‘Azmuth’s current laboratory world’. Apparently the Omnitrix’s inventor was prone to wandering from world to world, looking for another place to call his ‘lab’, rarely staying on his homeworld.

Since Ben had his invention, and since even Ben’s Omnitrix was known to act up from time to time, Azmuth always let Ben know where he was.

“…Well, most of the time,” Ben said. “Sometimes he just gets up and goes somewhere else. But he told me about this place just a month ago so chances are good he’s still there. Probably, you know.”

“We can always jump to the past if he’s not,” Aradia said. She ran her hand across the interior walls of Ship. “…Is Ship alive?”

“The Omnitrix has a scan of his race,” Ben said, leaning back. “So, I guess? I call mine Upgrade.”

“Huh…”

“It’s really weird looking at both of you,” Nova said. “The only clear indication I get of which is which is your voices.”

“There are… posture differences,” Ben said.

Vriska smirked. “Oh yeah.”

“This has happened before, apparently,” Aradia said, drawing the attention of the conversation away from the aforementioned posture differences. “There was a second Omnitrix in this universe that automatically linked to Ben’s. It forced the wearer, Albedo, to look like Ben. Creating an Evil Twin.”

Pinkie chuckled. “Nice. I’ve met a few evil versions of myself from time to time. …Vriska, you?”

Vriska shrugged. “Hard to find reason to give me an Evil Twin. Well, I guess now I could have one, but back then? Yeah, the Evil Vriska wouldn’t look much different.”

“I guess you could call Damara mine,” Aradia said. “…Though I do encourage people not to think of her ghosts as evil... Just relationally challenged.”

“And we’ve gone too deep down the rabbit hole,” Ben said.

“SHIIIIIIIIIP,” Ship beeped.

“What is it?” Flutterfree asked.

“SHIIIIIIIIIIIIII-IIIIIIIP.”

“Oh. A strange field of energy around the planet?”

“SHIP SHIP.”

“Well don’t fly into it then! Just stop outside and let us look at it.”

Ben blinked. “Uh…”

“I guess Ship qualifies as an animal,” Flutterfree said, smirking. “Who knew?”

“Yare Yare daze…” Jotaro muttered.

“Field of energy?” Nova asked. “What field of energy?”

Ship dropped out of his FTL and entered orbit around a planet. Not that anyone could tell it was a planet. All they saw was a vaguely round ball of black and white wires of energy swirling around like a pile of worms.

“…What…?” Flutterfree said, cocking her head.

“I see we have zebraworld,” Vriska observed.

“I can’t get any good scans…” Nova muttered, tapping her screen. “Hey, Ship, is there a way I can interface with your sensors?”

A green wire shot out of one of Ship’s walls, turning Nova’s screen black and green. She felt a small jolt shoot up her body as she connected. Data on the strange field of energy began to display. “…Thanks. Let’s see here…” She scrolled through some information, narrowing her eyes.

Everyone crowded around her, trying to look at the data as well.

“Ahem. I can feel the moisture in your breaths.”

“Oh! Sorry,” Flutterfree said, backing up first. Soon, only Aradia remained.

“You’re doing well,” Aradia observed.

Nova sighed. “Eh, I guess so. Master of scanning, parsing through information, and big buckets of magic.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’ve come a long way since I first started watching you.”

“…Yeah.”

“…Having problems with Stardust?”

“Always.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.” Nova didn’t even look up from her screen.

Aradia backed off, sighing. Flutterfree put a wing around her. “Don’t worry.”

“Hm?”

“She lets it get to her more than it should, and she knows it. Her family’s doing fine, she stresses about the things that do go wrong too much.” Flutterfree looked at her friend with sad eyes. “She just can’t let go of the difficulties.”

Aradia frowned, saying nothing.

“We’re watching out for her, don’t you worry. Every time she thinks its about to fall apart, we’re able to get her back on track.”

Aradia nodded slowly.

“Got something,” Nova said, ending any conversation that was happening. “The field of ‘zebra’ only exists around the planet, not inside. A simple dimensional hop should get us in, no problem whatsoever.”

“…Dimensional hop?” Ben spoke up. “Should I be worried?”

“Nope!” Pinkie said, pulling out her dimensional device from her mane. “Here we go!”

Nova rolled her eyes. “Adjust the portal size first, Pinkie.”

“Oh, I did!” Pinkie said with a wink. “You just didn’t see it~!” She activated the device, opening a portal to a version of the planet that did exist, but was a frozen wasteland.

“Take us in, Ship, if you don’t mind.” Flutterfree asked. Ship complied, flying into the planet’s cold, bitter atmosphere. With another portal opening, they were back in Ben’s universe, on a desert world with sand everywhere. They couldn’t see the zebra-stripes above them, but they couldn’t see the sun either. Just endless brown sky.

“Ship, find Azmuth’s transponder,” Ben said. “Shouldn’t be too far.”

“SHIIIIIIP.” Ship found an alien facility constructed in the middle of the endless sand. It was constructed of three separate pointed towers connected by triangular frames of dark metal. Green energy pulsed in the middle of the triangular frames, presumably powering the facility in some form or other.

Ship landed in front of the facility in the sand, letting everyone out. The moment they were out Ship shrunk to the size of a small dog, taking the form of an amorphous blob with a single circle that may have been an eye on the part of the body that may have been a head.

“…He’s an alien dog,” Nova observed. “All right. Cool.”

Ben shrugged. “Yeah.” He walked to the front doors of the facility and knocked on the door. “Hello? Azmuth? It’s Ben! Ben Tennyson! Wielder of the Omnitrix? …Azmuth, open up.”

There was no response.

“Hey, I know you’ll be interested to interview a bunch of people from another universe! Wouldn’t that be cool? I got two multiversal DNA samples, Azmuth! …Azmuth I know you can hear everything that goes on outside your facilities. AZMUTH!”

Jotaro pried the front doors off their hinges with Star Platinum.

“Wh-hey!”

“We needed to get in,” Jotaro pointed out. He strode inside, hands in his pockets, saying nothing further.

Aradia’s grin faltered. “…Do you think Azmuth will be mad about that?”

“Probably,” Ben said. “But he likes weird science. Pretty sure what you are will make up for that.”

“Ship ship,” Ship said.

Flutterfree chuckled.

“This is why we don’t have a team mascot,” Vriska said, following Jotaro.

The interior of Azmuth’s facility was spacious – though it didn’t look it. Despite the tremendous square footage of the ground floor, almost every inch of it was covered in bizarre alien experiments. Some looked like vehicles, others were possibly weapons, but most of them were of mysterious, unknown functions.

They did not get much time to process these unusual devices for very long – because they found Azmuth. He was a small, gray alien of the same race Aradia had transformed into back in Skaia’s Dream, though he had significantly more wrinkles than Aradia’s version.

He was currently being pointed at by a male Celestialsapien with a metallic ring around his head but above his horns. “AZMUTH.” The voice made the party of adventurers stop in their tracks.

“L-look, I can’t help you,” Azmuth said with an old, throaty voice.

“YOU ARE THE GREATEST OF THIS UNIVERSE’S MINDS. YOU CAN FIX MINE.”

“Minds are not such simple constructs as machines. I cannot wave a technological wand and return your voices to the way they should be!”

The Celestialsapien grabbed his head with his hands. “DENIED. CARRIED. NO CONSULTATION!” Then he turned his head to the adventurers, as if just registering their presence. He stared right at Aradia. “YOU. I SENSED YOU. I CALLED. YOU CAME!”

“Uh, I’m just here by accident,” Aradia said, taking a step back.

“I’m Ben Tennyson,” Ben said, stepping forward. “She’s just from another universe and is of no concern to you.”

“Other universe…?” Azmuth said, confusion and curiosity crossing his face simultaneously.

The Celestialsapien brushed Ben aside with a thought, throwing him deep into the pile of technology around them. His gaze remained fixed on Aradia. “I WAS NOT CERTAIN IF MY THOUGHTS WERE ABLE TO BECOME THAT REAL WITHOUT… CONSULTATION. PERHAPS A CLOSED TIMELIKE CURVE? YOU. YOU CAN FIX ME.”

“Don’t listen to him!” Azmuth blurted. “He’s mad! His race don’t even talk li-”

The Celestialsapien lifted Azmuth into the air. “YOU CAN HELP ME, YOU JUST DON’T WANT TO. BUT SHE’S DIFFERENT. SHE WILL.”

Aradia gulped. Really not sure if I’m able to… Probably not.

“YOUR TIME IS UP, AZMUTH.”

Ben transformed from inside the pile of junk. “ALIEN X!” He shouted, standing tall as another male Celestialsapien, missing the metal ring of the other but proudly sporting the Omnitrix symbol on his chest. “MOTION CARRIED: SAVE AZMUTH.”

Azmuth was suddenly on Flutterfree’s back.

“YOU ARE NONE OF MY CONCERN!” the mad Celestialsapien shouted.

Ben spoke again. “MOTION CARRIED: REALITY PUNCHES.”

Ben was in front of the mad Celestialsapien and punched him over and over – but the cosmic being was able to intercept every punch in an instant. “STOP THIS FOOLISHNESS! WE CANNOT FIGHT!”

“MOTION CARRIED: RETURN SANITY.”

“DENIED!” the mad Celestialsapien shouted. “I WILL NOT ACCEPT A CURE FROM THOSE WHO DID THIS TO ME!”

The punches from Ben were becoming hard enough to ripple reality around them, but they were always stopped by the quicker-acting Celestialsapien.

“How fucked are we?” Vriska asked Azmuth.

Azmuth let out a disgruntled cough. “I’m going to assume that’s colorful language for ‘dead’. The answer is extremely if we remain in this universe.”

“We can get out,” Vriska said.

Aradia looked at Azmuth. “This universe is going to be destroyed if this goes on, isn’t it?”

Azmuth nodded. “But there is nothing in our power we can do.”

Aradia looked at her Omnitrix. “…Maybe there is…”

“…You do not have control of your Celestialsapien form,” Azmuth said.

Aradia sighed. “But there’s got to be…” She paused. “How hard would it be for you to detach this Omnitrix from Ben’s?”

“Few hours. We don’t have that.”

“Yes we do,” Aradia said, opening her Omnitrix and transforming into her own form. She turned to Azmuth. “I can freeze time so you can have as long as you need to work. How much do you need?”

“Three hours and twenty-six minutes,” Azmuth answered.

Aradia froze time for everything except her wrist and Azmuth, allowing even herself to be frozen. The next thing she knew, Azmuth was hopping off her wrist. “Got it done with ten minutes to spare. I hope you have a plan.”

Aradia nodded. She did a quick check mentally to make sure her Omnitrix’s master control was on and that her troll form was her default. It was, which brought a smile to her face. “Okay… Here we go.”

She duplicated herself through time a hundred times, filling the area that wasn’t occupied by technology.

“All of you,” she called to Pinkie’s team and Azmuth. “Leave the universe. I’m going to try to save it. This planet will not be surviving.”

Pinkie nodded. “Don’t argue team, let’s move!” They jumped through a dimensional portal.

When they left, the mad Celestialsapien grabbed Ben and threw him to the ground. The impact with the ground did nothing, but the touch of the mad Celestialsapien tore against Ben’s own supposedly impervious skin. “YOU ARE SURPRISINGLY IMPULSIVE, BUT YOU STILL MUST THINK. I NO LONGER CAN. LOOK AT THE MONSTER YOU HAVE CREATED!”

Hundreds of Aradias nodded to each other – and then each of them chose a different alien from the Omnitrix. Some were large, some were small. Some were made of energy, while others didn’t even make three-dimensional sense. Some were powerful things that could level planets, others were just ordinary creatures.

The point was to try one of everything she could think of at once. There were going to be a lot of Aradia deaths from this one, but at least they wouldn’t have deviated in what she considered a meaningful way.

They charged – energy, space, time, and existence itself folding in. The planet they were on exploded, killing the vast majority of the Aradias. But those who remained focused intently on the mad Celestialsapien – discovering that he was able to absorb any attack regardless of magical intensity, spiritual nature, or temporal shenanigans. He saw it all and reacted, many times before it actually came. However, a few of the ‘god’ level samples Aradia found were able to deflect his attacks, allowing Ben a moment to attack.

“WHY DO YOU NOT HELP ME WITH THIS POWER!?” the mad Celestialsapien asked.

The only Aradia-form Aradia left looked right at him. She said nothing – but she held out her Omnitrix. All she needed to do was think.

And she transformed into her Celestialsapien form.

~~~

“Oh, look who’s back,” Kaldar said.

“I was hoping you scared her off,” Antira mumbled.

Aradia clasped her hands together. “So, remember that deal we were about t-”

“You didn’t come back when you could to finish it,” Kaldar muttered. “There was an entire spaceflight where you had plenty of time, and yet you didn’t.”

“As should be blatantly obvious, I’m not hindered by linear time,” Aradia said.

“Your Omnitrix is also fixed,” Kaldar pointed out. “And yet you’ve returned, thinking to use us. Hoping to save a universe.”

“Yes. I submit that we save this universe from destruction.”

“Denied,” Kaldar said. “On grounds of prior behavior and interference with a Celestialsapien experiment.”

“Denied,” Antira agreed. “On grounds of the way things are building up. We are an out of context individual. We have no right.”

“Celestialsapien experiment!?” Aradia blurted.

“It’s obvious that’s what he is,” Kaldar said. “One who does not have to debate their actions. We’re born like that, you know. A single mind. Terribly weak as infants – comparatively at least.”

“Does your kind allow those sorts of experiments?” Aradia asked.

“Generally not,” Antira said with distaste. “I do not see this action being approved by the full Converse… but you must understand, we are a race that, as a whole, believes that after enough debate, any course of action is viable. We have no laws that are set in stone, merely a ‘history’ of previous decisions made by wise thinkers. Everything can be changed with new information. Kaldar and I are largely separated from the full Converse, so we cannot tell you what the current flow of the debate is.”

“Or it could be freelance,” Kaldar pointed out. “It’s not this needs Converse approval, it’s just apt to get disapproval a few millennia from now. If we interfere without proper debate, there will be consequences from those who made him this way.”

Aradia folded her arms. “That’s assuming they’re watching or did this intentionally.”

“That is a fair point…” Antira said.

“Let’s look outside,” Aradia said.

“Why?” Kaldar asked.

“I have a point I want to make.”

“Seconded,” Antira said. A visual projection of what was happening appeared in between the three of them.

The mad Celestialsapien was throwing stars at Ben, only for him to clap his hands and make them vanish. The strongest of the Aradias twisted space around the mad Celestialsapien, allowing Ben to get some solid hits in.

“The mad Celestialsapien is going to die,” Aradia said. “Maybe he’ll take the universe with him, maybe he won’t. But right now he’s dying. I’d like to help him.”

“Honorable,” Kaldar admitted. “But it would still be interference.”

“You’re the voice of the future,” Aradia blurted. “Don’t you believe in change? And Antira, you’re the voice of the past! Don’t you believe in staying true to one’s self?” She gestured at the mad Celestialsapien as a wormhole was driven through his chest, tearing at the reality of the universe. “That man is going to die out there, and he doesn’t deserve it. He just wants help.”

“Ara-” Antira began.

“I don’t want to be forced into this again!” Aradia shouted.

There was silence in the mindspace of their Celestialsapien.

There were tears in Aradia’s eyes. “He’s asking me for help. And I’m killing him for it. Somewhere deep in there, part of him knows that might be necessary. But I’ll be damned before I don’t try every other option! So please, I beg of you, let us save his mind!”

Once again there was silence.

“…Seconded,” Antira said.

Kaldar nodded slowly. “As you two wish. I will point out that he was able to refuse ‘Ben’s’ assistance in the matter.”

“Then let’s do it together,” Aradia said. “Two on one should be able to do it, right?”

“We’ll have to make a call,” Antira said. “A group debate. That will freeze Ben up.”

“Then we just have to move quickly,” Aradia said. “Motion to connect to Ben Tennyson.”

“Seconded,” Kaldar said.

Suddenly, Ben and two green masks appeared. The feminine mask was eternally smiling while the masculine was scowling.

“Bah, what’s this?” the male one said. “Aren’t we supposed to be busy?”

Ben blinked. “Huh – what? Why isn’t anything working right now?”

“We have entered joined debate,” Antira stated. “It is unusual for our kind, but we need to make a speedy decision before the mad Celestialsapien unleashes his wrath on us in a way we cannot defend against.”

“Why are you bringing us into this?” the male mask asked.

“Bellecus, we are an unusual Celestialsapien,” the female retorted.

“Serena, that’s no excuse, every last one of us can know anything we want within a universe. It’s not like we’re hiding it.”

“Yes, yes, we get it!” Ben said, waving his hands. “Handing over the keys to just one personality is a bit of a taboo in your culture, can we just end this quickly?”

“YOU DID WHAT!?” Kaldar blurted.

“Hey, try to find us and re-educate us in proper Celestialsapien psychology,” Bellecus said. “Oh wait, we exist inside a watch, sorry.”

“At least we aren’t the mindless drone currently beating at our doorstep, we do observe what he’s doing,” Serena said. “Sometimes, anyway. …Bellecus, I think I’m actually starting to feel pain from the beating.”

“Guys! Stop debating!” Ben shouted.

Aradia cleared her throat. “We need to work together to return the mad Celestialsapien’s mind to normal, to override his will. We’ve already seconded.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ben said. “Let’s go.” He blinked. “Why isn’t anything happening?”

“Oh! Right, we’re involved as well,” Serena said. “Haven’t done this in a while. Ahem. Seconded!”

Bellecus sighed. “Remind me again why you’re the one who agrees with him the most?”

Outside in reality, Aradia and Ben appeared next to each other. The mad Celestialsapien looked at them.

“NO! IMPOSSIBLE! YOU MOVE TOO FAST!”

“MOTION CARRIED: RETURN SANITY.”

In the shared mindscape, a single yellow mask appeared. But it wasn’t a single personality – it was a conglomeration of three different faces, all forced together into something that was eternally screaming. It wasn’t even a full mind – there wasn’t a place for true logic within it. It operated almost entirely on instinct and emotion, raging against their advance.

“If we ever needed war machines…” Bellecus began, but didn’t finish his thought.

Red and green light shot from the six personalities split between two Celestialsapiens, hitting the yellow mask head on. In an instant, there were three yellow masks.

They looked at the newcomers with mixed expressions – anger, relief, and confusion. Then they vanished from their respective mindscapes. Outside, the mad Celestialsapien looked at his hands. He didn’t move, frozen in debate.

“State of the universe?” Aradia asked.

“Stable and recovering,” Serena said. “There are a few systems without their suns, though.”

“We can fix that, right?” Ben asked. “Or are you two back to demanding arguments about everything?”

“No,” Bellecus said. “I frankly hate that we still have to hear your voice when you visit.”

“Do what you will,” Serena said with a bow of her mask.

“You’re all insane,” Kaldar muttered. “The Converse will hear of this.”

“They already know,” Ben pointed out. “There was a whole big thing about me recreating the universe, got put on trial. These two threw me the keys so we could win and we’ve just kept that up ever since.”

“I do like it when he visits,” Serena admitted. “Makes interesting company. You three are of course welcome to return as well.”

“No you are not,” Bellecus muttered. “This connection is over.”

Aradia was suddenly alone with Kaldar and Antira. She looked at them.

“This power still needs to be used,” Kaldar told Aradia. “As much as it pains me to say this, we can do nothing without your presence. Consider your previous offer.”

“Consider it done,” Aradia said. “You’ll have at least one copy of me with you at all times. I must be allowed to move freely in and out as required, as previously agreed. And I’m going to set it up a little later – I need a break. But before we end this session… Antira.” Aradia floated over to her. “Thank you for breaking free of yourself to do what needed to be done. Any strict adherence to the past or the future… is limiting.”

She floated away. “I hope we can all learn to step outside of what we are as we continue this debate.” She bowed. “I’d like to leave now, if you don’t mind. I’ll be back.”

“Seconded,” Antira said.

“Unanimously approved,” Kaldar added.

~~~

Aradia shifted out of her Celestialsapien form on the surface of a planet with sixteen other Aradias – the only survivors. Ben, Azmuth, and the primary team stood to the side.

“Get out of my universe,” Azmuth said. “I fixed your watch, now get out of here. Your kind causes way too much trouble.”

“All right, all right!” Aradia said, holding her hands up in surrender.

Azmuth walked off, grumpily muttering to himself.

“Don’t take it personally,” Ben said. “I think he’s still upset at how one of your kind blew up our universe.”

“…Then what are we standing on?” Nova asked.

“A copy,” Ben said, smirking. “Created by yours truly. Or, well, Alien X agreeing that the universe shouldn’t be destroyed by an ancient multiversal society’s bomb.”

“Yeesh,” Nova said. “That has to be weird.”

“Sometimes it bugs me. Mostly it doesn’t though,” Ben said. “Want to know what really scares me about it?”

“What?” Aradia asked.

“Alien X couldn’t stop the bomb. We would have if we could have. But it wasn’t possible. It’s really the only thing I’ve seen that Alien X couldn’t deal with.”

“There’s a lot of scary things out there,” Flutterfree admitted. “But at least you’re here to protect your universe. I think that’s enough.”

“Thanks,” Ben said, giving her a thumbs up. “It sucks you probably won’t be back, you know.”

“We really shouldn’t be here anyway,” Pinkie said. “The Celestialsapiens own this universe. Hopefully they won’t be mad about… that.” Pinkie pointed at the frozen Celestialsapien, eternally staring at his hands.

Aradia looked at his eyes. “…I hope you’re being you in there,” she said. “What are you going to do with him?”

Ben shrugged. “I might be able to take him to the Forge of Creation. I’ll have to talk to Serena and Bellecus about the wisdom of that idea. If that’s a bad idea I’ll just hand him off to Professor Paradox… We’ve got him taken care of, don’t worry.”

“All right!” Pinkie said. “Now… Here’s the thing, we need a ship to get home...”

Ben sighed. “AZMUTH! THEY NEED A SHIP!”

“WHY IS THAT MY PROBLEM!?” the alien yelled back.

“WELL THE PLUMBERS WON’T LIKE THEM AND I CAN’T JUST LET THEM HAVE SHIP!”

“FINE! THEY CAN HAVE ONE OF MINE! I HOPE THEY LIKE BEING CRAMMED!”

The otherworlders gulped.

~~~

Nova stopped outside the door to Stardust’s bedroom.

Her daughter was sleeping quietly under the covers, a smile on her face, unaware the door had been left open.

Nova closed it with a sound-silencing spell so as not to wake her. She walked down to the living room and sat down on the couch next to Sunburst.

The TV was giving a report about recent efforts made by Skarn to connect with Merodi Universalis as a trading partner. The words of the report began to blur past her face.

“…Are we ever going to be ok?” Nova asked suddenly.

Sunburst looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… Us. Our family.”

“Nova, you’ve kept us together this long.” Sunburst smiled. “Doesn’t matter how rough it is. We’ll make it.”

“She’s going to be a teenager soon, Sunburst,” Nova said, biting her lip. “I… I don’t know if I can stand strong against that. I have a hard enough time as it is understanding her now. She’s going to want to scream, to rebel, and we’re going to have to find a way to strike a balance between giving her freedom and standing our ground.”

Sunburst gulped. “How about you handle the standing and I handle the freedom?”

Nova looked into her hooves, forlorn. “She’s smart enough to take advantage of that. Pit us against each other.” She shook her head. “We can’t let her think her defiance will get her anywhere when it does show up. But… I don’t know. I barely even understand why she is the way she is now. I’m worrying too much again, huh? Really should listen to Flutterfree…”

Sunburst put a hoof on her. “Hey. You might be worrying too much. But those questions need to be asked. We need to prepare for what’s coming, and continue being good parents despite everything.”

“…Are we, though?” Nova asked. “We argue all the time. You spoil her. I scare her. I… I worry that we’re messing her up.” Nova bit back tears.

Sunburst held her close. “We’re not messing her up, Nova. She’s a good kid.”

Nova nodded. “I… I know. But I also don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t think anyone goes into being a parent having any idea what they’re doing.”

Nova blinked, registering this comment. Then she laughed. “That’s… they should print that on gift cards or something.” She wiped her eyes. “That’s so true.”

“R-really? I was kinda just talking without thinking there…”

Nova kissed him. “You should do that more often.”

Sunburst smiled. “…And you should do the opposite.”

“Oh look at you, on a roll today.” She giggled. Then she pulled him into a hug. “…I don’t treat you well enough. I’m angry, upset, stressed, and gone more than I should be.”

Sunburst held her close. “It’s okay.”

Her laughs turned to sobs as she let it all out on Sunburst’s shoulder.

~~~

A rumor began to circle around Celestia City. …More than a rumor. Perhaps a tall tale, or even a legend.

It spoke of the City’s guardian that lived in the very core of its existence, in the restricted areas that were still Castle Bleck. She was a woman of stars – a Celestialsapien, some said. Others laughed and said that was preposterous, she must be something else, for the Class 1 race would never care about them.

The people of Celestia City spoke of how the guardian never moved an inch. How she sat there, waiting for the moment she was needed. Others said she wasn’t a true guardian, and that she merely wanted information on the multiverse, thinking that hitchhiking was the best way to do it. Still others said she was a collective of beings…

But the stories agreed on one thing. Altruistic or not, she was there, watching over them. Watching over them with immeasurable power at her fingertips.

Aradia liked hearing about herself as she walked around Celestia City. She wondered how word of her presence even got out, since she hadn’t actually done anything as the Celestialsapien yet, but she didn’t mind that much. The rumors gave the citizens something to be excited about – and a strange feeling of safety, even if they thought the rumor was just that, nothing more than a story spun for fun.

In many ways, the words held all the power she needed.

She prepared herself to go debate the very fabric of reality with the voices of Time itself…

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

“UNKNOWN ALIEN DNA DETECTED!” Ben’s Omnitrix interrupted. A yellow light shot out of the device and scanned Vriska.

Ah yes, the Omnitrix AI, which makes Pokédex completionists look like sloths.

“SHIP SHIP.”

Speaking of Pokémon...

“We’re watching out for her, don’t you worry. Every time she thinks its about to fall apart, we’re able to get her back on track.”

Why do I get the feeling that Aradia's concern means that that won't be the case in the near future?

“This is why we don’t have a team mascot,” Vriska said, following Jotaro.

"I thought I was the team mascot."
"Pinkie, you're the team leader."
"I can multitask."

Yeah, Stardust must be terrifyingly intelligent. This will be tricky. At least her parents have one another.

This was one heck of a roadtrip. The Converse may make their displeasure known in time. I suppose we'll have to wait and see. Also, did anyone ever finish incarcerating that Gamzee?

[Amusementist]

9614814
I’m honestly surprised this is the first Ben in the story? Wait, if there’s a Ben, then there may be a Generator Rex.

[EnderHooves]

9614814
No no no, they elected Jotaro as the team mascot a while back. I don't remember if it was right after he joined or a bit later, but it was probably just a throw away joke or something.

I'm loving this. I like the rumor about Aradia that's circling around now. Very nice.
I just remembered a theory I had.
I propose that the Displaced multiverse and the crazy connections therein, are an experiment/entertainment made by Them. They seal off that smaller collection of universes (smaller being relative to the grand scope of the multiverse) and play with their selected Isakai human. Whether it be the hobo, the Con Vender merchant, or pulled right from deaths door, its Them plucking a soul and putting it in their quarinteened universes to do with whatever they please.
Can I get some response to this? I'm not sure how it wouldn't fit or make sense other than the flow of ka and how it would work with the authors. Maybe the authors are just recieving, and not creating Prophets. And the stupid mary sues wouldn't be a Ka glitch to be dealt with by the flowers because either A:not actually Ka, or B:Them have the universes quarinteened enough that the flowers don't bother.
What does everyone else think?

[GMBlackjack]

9698138
Not entierly sure if "displaced with a capital D" means something specific, BUT I can answer for displaced fics in general.

Them are responsible for a TON of Displaced scenarios, yes. Not *all* of them, but quite a lot.

The Them quarantining universes so the Flowers don't bother makes sense. Also, there are 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 universes and 90% of those never get any contact so any displaced universe that only has one guy in it and no multiversal shenanigans isn't likely to be picked up by the Flowers.

As for it "not being ka" responsible, I'm going to not answer that because the absolute nature of ka is important to SotS itself.

-GM, master of absol.

[Starcat5]

9698561
I believe Capital D Displaced means a story starring a transformed human, usually a Brony, dropped into Equestria. Lower case displaced is a simple crossover without all that self-insert ******** that I hate.

[omegasnowfall]

I love that the Celestians have something new in their culture! Can't wait to read the next chapter!

[kistecool]

“Ow,’ she said, standing up quickly.

Double quote - single quote

[RoboRed]

Not every day where Aradia gets to be the focus of the story and gets to do a bit of growing.

Meanwhile, I hope things with Starlight, Sunburst, and Stardust continue to improve. It still doesn't seem like things are fully stable since the last major drama but it's going in a positive direction.