• Published 17th Nov 2020
  • 4,405 Views, 919 Comments

Worlds Apart: The Chosen of the Prognosticus - GMBlackjack



A Void appears, threatening to destroy all worlds. Twilight is chosen to travel the multiverse and save it from an untimely demise. A reimagining of Super Paper Mario with ponies and a few twists. Each world is a different crossover. Complete!

  • ...
6
 919
 4,405

PreviousChapters Next
Tippi and Count Bleck

Nastasia wasn’t sure what tipped her off, but she sensed when they were about to arrive. She and Count Bleck had never really thought the Ghosts of Gaia would be able to stop the arrival of the heroes once they realized that Dark Oak had gone offline. But the feeling Nastasia got seconds before they warped in, that was something else. A sensing of the arrival of great fate, power… and tragedy.

They warped in with Dimentio. Nastasia wished she could say she was surprised—but she’d never really trusted the jester with the inexplicable ability to travel anywhere in the multiverse, seemingly without limit. His origin was unknown, his motives were unknown, and he seemed to treat everything as a joke.

But the Dark Prognosticus had spoken of him, so Count Bleck allowed him to join. Tentatively at first, but giving him more and more as he proved himself useful.

Nastasia moved her eyes to the rest with him. Two of them weren’t the heroes. The first was that infernal, irritating Gilgamesh that could still somehow use the Void. Apparently, he was related to the early days of the Void itself, somehow, but Nastasia didn’t care about that at the moment. She also didn’t care all that much about the once-Mr.-L Luigi. Just another familiar face.

It was the heroes that drew her attention. Twilight: regal, strong, empathic, deeply hurt by what she’d experienced. The blind warrior, Toph: proud, self-sufficient, and determined. Cosmo, the weakest, but the most caring among them. Data, the… well, he was supposed to be emotionless, but he looked absolutely terrified at the moment. Something must have happened. Caspian was clearly the generic dashing warrior King the reports suggested he was, and Vivian… she looked so different from the members of the Tribe of Darkness Nastasia had helped destroy so long ago. She looked… innocent. Still smiling, even now.

And then Tippi. Tippi.

It hurt Nastasia to look at the Pixl. She couldn’t imagine what it must be doing to the Count.

“So, you have recruited a traitor?” Count Bleck snarled.

“Ah ha ha ha, my Count!” Dimenito said, waving his finger. “It is you who betrayed me! You have no intention of giving me a world to shape as my own. You lied like a fly painting itself yellow to appear as a bee!”

The Count shrugged. “It is true. It was a necessary lie, of course.”

“Oh, naturally, if I were in your shoes I would do the same.” Dimentio clasped his hands together. “But, see, I have this thing called self-preservation instinct.”

“You have more than that, Dimentio,” the Count said. “There’s always been more to you than meets the eye.”

Dimentio tilted his head to the side. “Have you found out my secret, yet?”

“No. And Bleck does not need to. For your treachery and secrets will end with Count Bleck!”

“I… have a question,” Tippi said, fluttering in front of Dimentio. “How?”

“How? Bleck scoffs in confusion.”

“How can you do this? How can you, who once held all life as precious, destroy it all? Did all of that mean nothing to you!?”

Bleck lowered his hat over his eyes, remaining silent.

“Answer me, Blumiere!”

Bleck held out a hand, gripping his scepter tight. “Your question needs no answer! Count Bleck has spoken enough of the reasons!” He summoned the Dark Prognosticus to him. “And even if there were anything to say, I am chosen, just as you are!” He spread his hands wide, laughing. “We are destined to be enemies!”

Cosmo summoned the Light Prognosticus. “We don’t have to be.”

Twilight nodded, stepping forward. “You can stand down, Count. I… I believe you know who Tippi used to be, and Tippi knows who you used to be. It doesn’t have to end in tragedy. You can come down from your pillar, and we can find another way.”

“Fools!” Bleck shouted. “The only way to end this is to end me, Count Bleck!”

“...I don’t want to…” Tippi said. “I… I remember everything, now… Please... “

“These feelings matter not!” Bleck decried. “We shall duel, and our battle shall be worthy of the last conflict existence will ever see!”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “We’ll do what we have to.”

“I count on it.” Count Bleck adjusted his cape. “Nastasia, it is time for you to leave.”

“O-oh,” Nastasia swallowed. “As you wish, Count.” She jumped off her pillar, landing next to the exit door. Before she left, she stole one last glance into the room, catching Twilight’s sad eyes. Nastasia nodded to the alicorn and closed the doors behind her.

Then Nastasia burst into a run. Already, she heard the battle starting behind her—she needed to hurry. Just to the left of the central chamber, there were a few of the more interesting and potentially useful relics of Gaia—crystalline entities that would obey every word spoken to them, magitech machines designed to soar around the world, and a couple of magic spells. But she only cared about one of them.

A black convertible car. It looked somewhat normal compared to the rest of the items in the room, but it was exactly what she needed. A car that had carried heroes across one of the many planes of Gaia. There had been many like it, and Nastasia had no way to know which one this was—but it had a proud name. The Regalia.

And she was about to drive it recklessly through Castle Bleck in a panic.

She hopped in, turned the key, and sped off at alarming speeds. She whipped out of the storage room and into the main hall—aiming directly for the tunnel the resistance had made all the way to the central chamber.

With a tense grimace, Nastasia slammed her foot on the gas pedal and blasted through the halls as quickly as possible. There were a few points where the floor wasn’t precisely flat due to the explosives that had been used recently, but she pushed through them anyway, no matter how much they scratched the Regalia’s finish.

The moment she saw the gathered forces of her army, she started bashing the horn as much as she could. “Make way!”

When your boss who hypnotized half of you starts driving at you in a black car traveling at over one hundred miles per hour tells you to “make way,” you get out of the way. Crystal ponies and monsters alike dove to the side, cutting a path for the Regalia to push through just in the nick of time.

Nastasia didn’t take her foot off the gas for a second. With no more obstacles in her way, she drove further and further toward the edge of the Castle. It took much longer than she would have liked, but she eventually arrived at her destination: where three minions and a white unicorn were standing around a pilfered Starfleet communicator, listening to Picard.

“...I suggest you stay where you are,” Picard was saying. “It’s too dangerous to try anything in your situation.”

Rarity huffed. “Please, captain, Lucy and I have the lunks under control.”

“Who you calling a lunk?” Mimi spat. “O’Chunks, I understand, but me!?”

“Yeh!” O’Chunks grunted. “...Oh wait…”

Nastasia skidded to a stop right next to their position. “Get in! All of you!”

Rarity drew her blade. “Why in the name of all that still exists would I listen to you?

“Dimentio has betrayed Count Bleck.”

“Oh, really? That sounds like great news, actually.”

“Let me repeat that. Dimentio has betrayed Count Bleck. The extremely intelligent master of dimensions who never told anyone what his motives were? I know you want to stop the Count, but think for a moment what this might mean. ‘K?”

Rarity blinked. “Well… when you put it like that…

“Just get in,” Nastasia said.

Rarity shrugged. “Fine, fine, I’m not untying Mimi though until I decide it’s necessary.”

“Whatever, just g—”

Rarity hopped into the passenger’s seat, setting Lucy and O’Chunks in the back with Mimi in O’Chunks’ lap. “Step on it, darling.”

Nastasia wasted no time, flooring it to get back to the central chamber.

“Change of plans, darling,” Rarity told Picard through the communicator. “It appears as though I’m rushing with Nastasia to deal with a little coup d'etat that Dimentio fellow has planned. I will cut off her head if it turns out to be a trap, don’t worry.”

“Be careful. Picard out.”

~~~

When the door was closed, Count Bleck let out a deep laugh. “BLEH HEHEHEHEHEHEHEH! Face your demise as all worlds crumble to nothing!

“Everyone, let’s do this!” Twilight lit the Element of Magic, tying all seven of the chosen together while Luigi, Dimentio, and Gilgamesh fell back. Six beams of color intersected at Tippi and blasted toward Bleck in a spiral of white laced with all six of their colors.

The Chaos Heart manifested and turned the beam jet black, removing its power in an instant. “Fools! Your Elements of Harmony are nothing to the power of destruction and hate that brews within this Heart!”

“You need to use the Hearts!” Dimentio called. “Now or never!”

“Data!” Twilight called. “Do it!”

Swallowing hard, Data tapped his communicator. “Data to Flipside… release the Hearts.”

Count Bleck charged them, the Chaos Heart creating a wall of spiked darkness to end them.

“Ah ha ha ha!” Dimentio said, holding the wall in place with a ripple in space-time. “Not this time, dear Count.”

The Chaos Heart created a spear of darkness and threw it at Dimentio, though he teleported out of the way easily.

“Hearts incoming,” Eggman said. “Get ready.”

Back in Flipside, Eggman was tapping buttons furiously preparing for a sudden drop to near-zero power. “Here goes…” He pressed a button, and the Heart Pillar went black—only the eight colored points inside giving off any light. They all formed in a line, going from red to pink, angled in the exact direction needed to reach the signal of Twilight and the others. “Fire!”

All of Flipside went dark.

The eight Hearts streaked through space in a chain with their tips pointed forward, twirling ever so slightly as they moved to give the chain an overall appearance of a corkscrew. They hit the outer walls of Castle Bleck and phased right through, not damaging a single wall of the structure. They rushed into the central chamber, swirling around Tippi in a perfect ring of eight.

“I’m sorry,” Tippi said. Flapping her wings, she asked the Pure Hearts to neutralize the Chaos Heart’s power. They obeyed, swirling around Count Bleck and the Chaos heart in a rapid, colorful motion that soon looked like a sphere of utter Purity.

The black constructs of the Chaos Heart vanished. Upon completing their task, the eight Pure Hearts became dulled—not stone, for they still glowed softly with their colors, but they no longer floated, instead falling to the ground as though they were simply regular crystals. Like them, the Chaos Heart was dulled, but as Count Bleck still had his grip on it, it didn’t fall.

“Heheheheheheh…” Count Bleck gave off an exaggerated shrug. “Well done, you have removed the Chaos Heart’s immunity! But you know what remains?”

“What?” Toph deadpanned.

“COUNT BLECK!” He lifted his arms, summoning a massive Void vortex behind him. “Still the chosen of the Dark Prognosticus, still the Master of the Void, still the instrument of your doom!

Cosmo smacked him in the face with the Light Prognosticus, cracking his monocle. “Yeah, well, we’re none of those things!”

“Get him!” Twilight shouted. She rushed forward with her friends, horn ablaze—

“And so I strike, like an unseen dodgeball in an echoing gymnasium!”

Dimentio appeared behind Count Bleck and flashed a magical explosion into the back of his head. Before Bleck could do anything, there were seventy Dimentio duplicates shooting magic at him and kicking him.

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this, Count!” Dimentio said from all the clones at once. “It’s aggravating having to hide my power so you don’t feel threatened, so I can explain being ‘defeated’, and so I can be a good little minion!” He grabbed the Count by the neck and drove him into the ground with a resounding tremor that shook the Castle more than the Void itself had. “You were the fool! The duckling that thought the Prognosticus was his mother! Hah! You’re nothing more than an old fool blinded by pain.”

Count Bleck grunted, struggling against Dimentio’s grip, but he only brushed away a harmless duplicate.

Suddenly, there was only one Dimentio. “You’re one of the most pathetic men such a prophecy could have chosen. But I suppose that is the way these disgusting prophecies go. Yet another reason to hate this.”

The Count threw a hand wide. “Bleck! Your power is incredible, but I am the Void! The ancient construct of Gaia, consumer of worlds!” He summoned a Void portal behind Dimentio, intending to trap him in a twisted nexus of space and time that would slowly drain all of his essence. “You are nothing to its power!”

“Ah ha ha ha ha!” Dimenito snapped his fingers, forcing the Void to vanish.

“Bleh heh HUH!?”

“Don’t you get it, Count?” Dimentio asked. “I was there when the Void was built. I was the one who gave the Prognosticus to Enuo. I was the one who made sure Exdeath found it. I was the one who led the Prophecies to the Ancients, to the Shadow Queen, to the All-Q, to you, and all the others in between! Ah ha ha ha ha! I am the speck of dust that won’t go away, the background character that draws the attention of all the viewers! I am the Master of Dimensions, Dimentio!”

For the first time, real, legitimate fear crossed Count Bleck’s face. “You… how long have you been attempting to recreate the worlds in your image?”

Eons,” Dimentio breathed, the vile rage dripping from his mouth. “And here’s another chosen of the Dark Prognosticus that just re-fu-ses to play nice. So I’ll take care of you, too, and move on to the next time.”

We won’t let you,” Twilight said, stepping forward. “You aren’t a hero, Dimentio. You’re just a villain whose plan keeps going awry.”

“You’re nothing,” Dimentio said, shrugging. “You could just use the Pure Hearts so I could finally end this nonsense. Be happy, you’re getting your worlds saved because of this. The Prophecy will probably wait until the end of your natural lives before rearing its beautiful head again. I just have to…” Dimentio trapped Bleck inside of a white box. “Squash a little bug.”

Luigi jumped forward and brought his hammer down on the white box, shattering it. The hammer traveled all the way through, smacking Bleck on the head and knocking him all the way to the ground. In the process, Bleck dropped the Chaos Heart onto the ground.

“Blumiere!” Tippi shouted.

“Stealing all the glory…” Dimentio let out a “tut tut” noise. “Following in the footsteps of your brother? Really?”

“Hey!” Luigi pointed at Dimentio. “Imma stopping you from vaporizing him!”

Dimentio generated a ball of magic in his hand. “He must be ended to stop the destruction. The Chaos Heart’s connection must be severed.”

“You can shut it!” Gilgamesh shouted.

“...The warrior clown shouts in defiance? Color me… confused.”

“First!” Gilgamesh started counting off his fingers. “You totally ruined that fight. None of us got to do much of anything! You took all the fun out of it. Second! You created the Void which means you’re responsible for my Curse!

“I didn’t create the Void, that was Enuo, an—”

“Third!” Gilgamesh interrupted. “I’m suddenly a lot less cool on the whole ‘make worlds in your image’ thing!”

Dimentio snapped his fingers, triggering an explosion next to Gilgamesh’s face that knocked him to the side. “This is why I never get minions. You could learn a thing or two from me, Count.”

The bruised and battered Count was barely able to rise to his knees. “And you could learn… From me… I see the world is broken, and I know I would do no better… What makes you think you can?”

“Experience,” Dimentio breathed. “You never watched the worlds weave together for eons, like hairs into a disgusting garment. It’s built wrong.” Dimentio created another magic ball in his hands. “I’ll build it right.”

“Stop,” Twilight ordered, standing between Dimentio and Bleck. “You have done enough.”

“Not going to let me have the satisfaction?”

“No,” Twilight deadpanned. “In fact, after this is over, I’m hunting you down. That man back there is broken and sad. You… you’re psychotic.

Dimentio laughed. “Glad you noticed!”

“We’ll figure out what to do with him. Your work is done, Dimentio.”

Dimentio shrugged. “Fine, fine. I trust you to do what needs to be done. Ciao!” He vanished in a ripple of spacetime.

“...I appreciate the gesture, but it is pointless,” Bleck—no, Blumiere—said. “You must end me to stop the destruction of all worlds.”

“Can’t there… can’t there be another way?” Tippi asked.

“The only other way would be to find a new chosen for the Chaos Heart, and there are none of those around. I am surrounded by heroes. Not villains.”

“You’re not a villain!”

“Timpani… I was so wracked with grief, I let myself become this. I chose to become a monster so…”

“So you could make the worlds prove they should exist,” Cosmo said. “That… that they would defeat a monster like you and prove the power of love was worth something.” Tears formed at the edges of her eyes. “You… you wanted to be proven wrong this entire time.”

“And I have been,” Blumiere let out a bitter laugh. “Only, now, now that I see you are here, Timpani… I am not as pleased to go. I… I needed to die, knowing others could have love, but not me. But now…”

“There has to be some other way!” Tippi shouted. “There… Twilight? The Elements of Harmony?”

Twilight lowered her head, shaking it sadly.

“Toph? The Avatar can… can alter his spirit, right?”

Toph grimaced. “I don’t think that’s how it works”

“Cosmo?” Cosmo couldn’t even look Tippi in the face. “Data?” Data couldn’t stop crying. “Caspian?”

“Only by the power of Aslan,” Caspian said, shaking his head.

“Well Aslan isn’t here, is he!?” Tippi shouted at the top of her lungs.

“I have done so much evil,” Blumiere said. “If he seeks to save me, he will do so through my death. You know this, Caspian. I see it in your eyes.”

Caspian couldn’t look him in the eyes any longer, turning away.

“Hurry, heroes,” Blumiere said. “The worlds are being devoured as we stand here.”

Twilight bit her lip, summoning a magic blade. “Will this… will this restore what is lost?”

Blumiere shook his head. “New worlds will rise where those empty ones are now. However, what is gone… is gone, as far as I know.”

“Blumiere…” Tippi said.

“Timpani… go, live your life. I know you will not be able to find another man, but promise me you will not end up where I have. Borrowing a phrase from a culture I destroyed… Live long, and prosper.”

“I… Blumiere, I’m so sorry.”

“Oh.” He looked away. “You… do not expect to live long.”

“No. I don’t.”

“What!?” Toph shouted. “What are you talking about, Tippi?”

“This… digital mind is unstable. I am unsure if it is curable. Without Hume computers and AI research, it almost definitely isn’t.”

“We’ll take you to the Ninth World,” Twilight said. “My Splinters can care for you and figure something out.”

“It… it’s worth a try.”

“Then I wish you enjoy as much life as you have left, Timpani,” Blumiere said. “Go, appreciate what remains—and explore the new worlds that rise in their place.”

“I… I will.”

Blumiere plucked the gem he wore around his neck and tossed it to Vivian. “I leave the mantle of the Tribe of Darkness to you.”

“M-me!?” Vivian stammered. “But I don’t even remember!”

“And that is for the best. Our history is terrible and full of evil.” He turned to Twilight. “Leader of the heroes of the Light Prognosticus, give me my wish.”

Twilight angled her sword up. “I’m sorry we have to do this.”

“And I am sorry as well. To think that this is what I wanted.”

“Blumiere…” Tippi said.

Twilight swung the blade... and stopped short of his neck.

“I… I can’t.” Twilight sat down. “I… I’m sorry, I can’t do it. Not to you.”

“Oh for the sake of my festive hat!” Dimentio appeared in the room once again. “I grow bored of this nonsense. I don’t actually need him dead, I just wanted to have the satisfaction, but apparently we need to get this show on the road!” He pulled out a shimmering rainbow star taken from the rainbow gauntlet of Lumash. “Time for your big entrance, Mr. L!”

“W-what!?” Luigi stammered as the star hit him, unlocking his full potential.

“Grab the Chaos Heart, Man in Green.”

Luigi jumped over to the Chaos Heart and picked it up. It accepted him wholeheartedly.

Tippi landed on Blumiere’s shoulder. “What… what is going on?”

“A chosen of the Chaos Heart,” Blumiere realized, eyes widening.

“He really was Mr. L?” Caspian asked, stunned.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Dimentio laughed, floating in front of the Heart-holding Luigi. “You have no idea how hard it was to get Gilgamesh in the right place at the right time, bring Luigi here, get him hypnotized, break his hypnosis so he could become accepted as a hero, and then bring him back here so he could steal control of the Heart from right under your little noses! The Chaos Heart may reject me as its chosen, but Luigi is under my control, now. It is effectively mine.”

“Dimentio… how?” Blumiere stared at him in disbelief. “How would you know of the prophecy of the Man in Green that far ahead? How did you read it and not fall?

“Oh, the answer is simple, my Count.” Dimentio clapped his hands, taking both the Light and Dark Prognosticus and levitating them above his head. With a snap of his fingers, both books opened up and released all of their pages into the air. The covers fell to dust as the swirling vortex of pages coalesced into a single massive brick of carefully arranged papers. A new cover appeared around them, lined with both dark and light elements, focused on a single star-shaped crystal in the center cover. It fell into Dimentio’s arms.

“This is the Prognosticus. And I wrote it.”

Blumiere could do nothing more than stare at him.

Dimentio flipped to the last page. “This one was particularly badly mangled when the book was separated… but completed, it reads ‘the Man in Green shall rise with another’s will and a loving hatred will be born anew.’ “ Dimentio slapped the book shut with a twitch of his neck. “Mr. L? I think you need some fresh hatred to empower that heart of yours. I shall bestow you mine, so we may dance like a man and a mistress who has her charge wrapped around her delicate finger…” Dimentio shattered his form into a thousand diamonds, surrounding Luigi and the depowered Chaos Heart. The faster the diamonds whirled around, the more darkness returned to the Heart. A twist of the Void swirled around the Heart, Luigi, and Dimentio’s diamonds.

Everything was taken into a blender and spat out into one. A dark head manifested, a massive Luigi-like hat appearing on top of it. Spikes of ugly, disconnected points weaved together, creating an elongated neck that stopped at a jester’s body. The neck punctured through the body, forming legs and arms that ended in massive shoes and fists that were cartoonishly oversized, each one twice as tall as a person.

“GREEEEEEEEN,” the thing shouted, making everyone cover their ears in pain. For a moment, its eyes were blank white voids… but then a yellow spark came into them. “Oh, pardon me! Like a newly awakened bird, it appeared I needed a moment to re-adjust. But no matter. Now I have all I need… to become the King of All Worlds!”

“I will not permit it,” Blumiere said, standing up. “I demand that the Chaos Heart return to m—”

“Not chancing that,” Dimentio said. With a click of whatever dark tongue was inside of him, Blumere was teleported away—Tippi still on his shoulder. “And while I’m taking care of unforeseen complications…” Another click and all the depowered Pure Hearts were sent away as well. “There we go…”

Dimentio’s head snaked toward them, twisting back and forth like a king cobra. He lowered himself to face the six remaining heroes. “Congratulations, heroes of the Light Prognosticus! You have completed your destiny and defeated Count Bleck, saving all worlds from destruction!”

Twilight stared the thing that was mostly Dimentio in the face, unwavering. “We’ll stop you too.”

“Then this should make an excellent battle for the fate of everything! Viewers on the edge of their seats as their plucky runt David takes on Goliath! The play for the end of all, your siren song; The Ultimate Show!”

Author's Note:

Hey guys! This story will wrap up soon--I might start releasing the last few chapters quicker, like I did with Amber Ashes, I haven't decided for sure yet.

However, I DO know that I have started a brand new awesome Omniverse project, Omniverse VIII! Since this story's ending, why not poke your nose into the Transcendental Sequence?

-GM, master of kegs.

PreviousChapters Next