Re: The Glorious Championship! [S3G5] [Round Two: The Kestalvian Rainforest]
11-22-2011, 07:26 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Adenreagen.
Elli saw the creature looming up ahead, time molding around it in a visible haze. Her end-evil mindset told her what she already knew: that thing would kill whatever it wanted, however it wanted if it got the chance, and that made it wrong. Wrong enough for her to fight. She’d gone against worst odds. Holding the bloody typewriter in one arm like a football, she began sprinting to it as fast as she could.
Then she heard the howling.
“Looks like you missed one, and Mindbitch is upset.”
“Yea? Well we’ve got a bigger problem right now, and it’s heading right for us.”
“You would think that, wouldn’t you. The biggest threat to life here hasn’t been us, although you did your fair share back there. It’s the Whorevolution that’s really messed things up. I’d say it’s going for that. We’re just a few specks between them, it’ll probably just pass us by.”
As he said this, two of the massive thing’s seven eyes focused on them, while the other five continued to glance elsewhere, one a ruined purple mess.
“Or not.”
He-Is-Not-Of-Much-Note began to chase after them under a species-oriented and mind-directed sense of revenge. Howling during its charge, it didn’t notice the sudden re-emergence of a certain space station.
* * * * *
Their escape was a stroke of luck, the wormhole generator having a little-known emergency protocol.
A light came on Itzel’s comms screen, letting her know that there was a high-priority private call on the line.
“What’s the news Sith?” Her desire for a good word causing her to drop protocol for a second.
“Mmmmm… ‘Ello love, we may have figured a way out of this… limbo th’Tesseract’s put Lucky in. Turns out that th’energy put off by th’wormhole generator had a purpose after all. If th’sensors stop getting information like they ‘ave been, it starts charging an…mmm “emergency jump” shall we say, to the last known co-ordinates where it was getting readings.”
“So we have a way out of here? How long until we’re ready to jump?”
“S’not that simple, love. Th’jump’s been ready since I called you, but there are some things to consider: We don’t know how fast we’re going, or if we’re moving at all. We know where the ship will come out, but with how things are in the foresrt we ‘ave no idea if we’ll come out inside of something and completely atomize it… and possibly the ship. We were speeding through relatively dense foliage when we snared by th’Tesseract.”
“So our new problem isn’t how to get out of here, it’s if we even should.”
“Exactly. There’s still th’Convolution to think of, and what linking the two parts into the same area could do to the infected on board.”
“Alright. If you think of any other cheery news, let me know immediately”
The High Admiral closed the link, thinking of what had to be done. Command was never an easy job, but lately it only ever seemed to be getting harder.
“Quirrinal, I need you to run a simulation for me.”
“Of course, Admiral, what do you need?”
“Based on the last sensory data we received, if we warped back to our last location, what are our chances of being atomized?”
(From a certain perspective, about five minutes passed, but where time had stopped, who knows.)
“I have the figures, Admiral. We figure under optimal conditions we have at best a sixty three point oh seven percent of not coming into contact. But I ran it twice and at worst we have a two percent chance.”
“Bring up the last visual we had, on the big screen.”
A large screen appeared in front of the Admiral, and everyone on the bridge decided to have a look in. There was dense undergrowth on the monitor. It even looked like a two percent chance of not hitting anything.
“Isn’t that a clearing right after the growth? If we can custom program the jump to move us just a few feet North, then we’ll come out onto a grassy field instead of a jungle.”
“You’re talking hundredths of a second of a degree, Captain.” She opened a line with Sithembal, deciding to hope for the time being that they could again be active.
“Any progress?”
“Oh…no love, just been mmmm….tinkering with the generator, trying to learn more about th’function, as t’were.”
“Is there any chance of changing the jump coordinates, even by the smallest bit?”
“Might be, love. Where did you have in mind?”
“I need you to find a way to send us back to where we were, but about ten feet north of where we were pulled out. We looked at the last visual input we received from the externals, and there looks to be a clearing just ahead of where we were. If you can do that, jump us right away. We don’t know how long we’ve been here, and I want us to leave on our terms.”
“’Course. Anything you want.”
* * * * *
There was a brief moment of tension in the air, then He-Is-Not-Of-Much-Note saw a giant ball appear out of nowhere, hurtling towards him with deadly speed. In a maneuver that defied his size, he jumped over the ball and snagged it with his hands, slamming them both down to the ground until they skid to a halt at the end the trench they just made. Looking up with a grin, the ape eyed the ball as it resumed hovering.
“Status report, everyone. NOW!”
“Everything’s fine on diagnostics. The shields took a small beating but that’ll recover with time. Otherwise we’ve got pressure readings, frequency signals, the clock’s moving again, so it looks like we made it out!” Captain Quirrinal was so excited that she would have kissed the nearest person, had that not been the Admiral. Instead she did a quick hop for joy and sat back down.
“Th’wormhole generator is offline. Sorry love, but it looks like that emergency jump, not t’mention my…mmm changes means we won’t be using it again for a while. Energy’s completely depleted right now.”
“Je infhecktid of je pupilajon,” began Terrence, “are bejjining to revert to jer orijinal shtatis or dishcontent. I would hypotheshize jhat we vee are now closhe to je shorce of jeir condishionn.”
Szindle was busy clicking away, but the Admiral completely ignored him. Since they were already in a conference call, she reasoned that Comms must still be functional. “Need someone to ignore? Why not Szindle?” Was the popular joke on the bridge, supposedly continuing an ancient joke that stemmed back eons to the approximate dawn of human global communications.
“Quirrinal, bring up the externals, I want to see what we’ve got right now.” Their immediate image was one of a large purple ape, grinning at them and making a multitude of hand gestures, most of which seemed to be obscene. “I guess you were right, Terrence. We’re near the Convolution.”
“Alsho, Admirjal, the infhecktion ish shpreadig, I wjould poschtulate jhat we shend it on itsh way.”
“Very well then. Put us into stationary hover, divert power to rear thrusters and fire them up.”
The ensuing force shot from the strange ball was enough to send He-Is-Not-Of-Much-Note back the way he was originally headed. Landing on his feet he used his fear, momentum and indignation to power him away, and his recalled rage to spur him towards the music-woman.
* * * * *
“Why the hell are you still going towards it? I already told you, it’s not after us, it’s after the Convolwhoretion. If you insist on fucking things up again, then at least give me to someone who knows how to actually take care of me so you can go and ruin things on your own. Being with you is just one disaster after the other. ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING???”
“Shut up Etiyr, just shut the fuck up. I’m so sick of you. I’m sick of Convie. I’m just so tired of being manipulated.” I’m just so tired. “Have fun with your lover Gabe or whoever, because I’m not going to cart your heavy ass around anymore when all you do is bitch and moan about getting your way.” She put him down as “gently” as she could, and left him there. She was sick of those two, and Etiyr could just rust away out here for all she cared.
“Bitch, where do you think you’re going!? I’m in control here! I swear to god if you don’t get me out of here…”
Etiyr just went on typing long after Elli put him down. She didn’t know what he said, but she felt like she could make a pretty good guess as to what it was. Drawing her trombone, she began cutting through a wall of vines that had spring up between her and the creature, and kept running.
(It was working. Throwing obstacles in her way was slowing her down so the purple one could catch up. That sexy ape was going to have its way with her and then it could get rid of the others as it pleased using the same method.)
He-Is-Not-Of-Much-Note spotted the human’s strange artifact. It was still making the annoying noises, but nothing seemed to be happening because of them. In a moment of glee, he jumped on top of the typewriter, laid a nice steaming pile on the current sheet of paper, and resumed chasing after the music-woman, hooting with laughter all the way. Oh little Etiyr. She abandoned you too? Now we’re not alone in being left behind. And yet so alone. So very alone. *snrk* Nope, couldn’t keep a straight face.
* * * * *
So many choices from this moment! So many ways for everything to end.
17
Sithembil was right… in a way. The Tesseract could harm them directly, but there are many indirect means when you control time that are so much simpler. Such as aging trees so they would collapse, or growing grass so quickly at the base while the points remained sharp so they speared anything above them.
The tesseract went back to before their arrival in the rainforest. As they appeared it simply crushed them all the moment they set foot into its jungle. (A happy ending, but SO BORING) REWINDdddddd
53
...and they had all gathered in a battle array around the beast, preparing to stan-s-s-STOP FAST FORWARD-D-D-D-D-D PLAY -and so the colony named Lucky VII screamed in collective agony as they were erased from time itself, in the end never having existed anywhere but in the mind of their destroyer. (Eh, it could always come bac-c-c-c-k) REWIND.
9
You are dead.
AGAIN
Ix was getting really tired of this. He tried to count how many times he had died, but he never actually remembered the number and had to guess, seeing as how the version with the count kept dyin-R-R- REWIND.
Chapter 4
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Page 800Page427Chapter62Page60(NO NO NO NO NO!)REWIND!
Page (number missing)
Pulling out her music book as she ran, Elli started flipping through, looking for something that might be grand enough for what she wanted to do. In the end she discarded it, realizing such a song would have to come from deep within her. Stopping as close to it as she dared, she pulled her trombone off her back and began to play.
“Swan song.” She said, bringing the mouthpiece up to her lips. As she played, she put everything she learned into the piece. She put her memories of home, of Leader, her love and anger into the piece. Darkness began to build up in the horn, looking like the opposite of a gentle glow. She thought of the others in this hopeless battle to the death, of Cail and Gaurinn and Gabe, everyone on Lucky VII, even AMP and Etiyr (specifically leaving Convie out of it, she would never feel sorry for it). She poured her dreams, her mind, her soul into the melody she was playing. To her it was beautiful, to anything listening it was wonderful and terrible at once. It all culminated into what would be an explosion of darkness made to specifically target the Tesseract and save them all.
Of course, close as she was, fate had other plans.
Elli, we could have been great together. Could have done so many things with each other and TO each other, but you just wouldn’t have it, would you? You had to snub me, not once but twice, killing off the friends I make like they’re of so little note. How would you like it?
The Tesseract, one eye focused on her the entire time, suddenly turned the bloody purple one on her as well, watching as He-Is-Not-Of-Much-Note finally caught up to the source of his fury, crushing her body single-handedly while the Tesseract tore at her with unrestrained time. It was the worst thing they could possibly have done.
(And it was thus, death would not take her kindly, as blood spilled from her skull and out onto the field, mixing with the already bloodstained soil, her only tombstone the ---what?)
The energy Elli had built up and focused into a direct attack instead exploded everywhere. Like taking a warhead and hitting it with a hammer, The darkness began to consume everything it touched and, being inside the range of the anomaly, included time. The past of that area, its future, devoured in the same instant. Nothing could ever live on that land again.
The darkness grew and consumed, but when Elli had died, there was only enough time for the contestants to see the sky grow dark and see the rushing wave of nothingness before they were whisked away. Out of danger and out into the void. A purple gorilla suddenly returned to its normal blackish-brown, before turning completely black and crumbling away. A black cat, finally separated from its master, who was getting some long deserved sleep, paused. Surrounded by the darkness it had once lived in, it felt a calmness come over it, but there was also a strong wrongness about it. A need to be somewhere else. The cat melded into the shadows all around it and disappeared.
The beast tried to change the event unfolding, but it couldn’t. Possible pasts and futures were no, no this is wrong devoured as soon as they were thought up. For a creature so used to controlling everything, this sudden loss of any control at all should have been impossible. There was no more control for the Tesseract to have. It was utterly reduced to a condition that made recovery impossible. Once able to control any event it chose, it was now a wisp. Its awesome power reduced to causing a creature to second-guess itself, and then would take centuries to recover. The loss of this control caused many smaller species of the jungle to either overpopulate, or die out completely. Time began to warp from its current state until it finally gave and snapped back into a standard flow of cause to effect. A circle of chaos began to spread throughout the planet, leading to a mass extinction that only those closest to a 1:1 existence would survive. Plants that aged into seeds began to (from a perspective) grow in reverse. Upwards waterfalls (Water-rises?) began to flood the areas as the water again resumed a flow directed by gravity rather than time. Ancient beings in slow-time environments died instantly, while rapidly advancing animal societies (apparently) slowed to a crawl.
(Everything was ruined. Millennia of tailoring a world with as few hiccups as possible had been leading to a paradise that it would now never see, nor would it come to be. It had tried to make it perfect for him, but he had not come soon enough, and now it would never be so.)
The anomalies had left the rainforest, but it didn’t matter anymore. Everything had changed.
* * * * *
They had decided to park the van in an alley off the strip. There were easily ten bars within walking distance, but Leader wasn’t interested in the gigs at the moment, he was busy trying to find his sidekick. She wasn’t in any of them, nor was she in the van, or the alley, or anywhere that he could see.
She’s probably off just blowing some steam, a shame she didn’t invite me along.
He had been meaning to talk to her about their day job for a while now. He didn’t want her to be his sidekick anymore. Not because she did her job poorly, or that it took away from her time with the band, or even that he didn’t like her. The problem was he was starting to like her too much and was constantly worried about what would happen to her, was constantly thinking about her.
As he turned around to head back to the van where the band was waiting, he saw a shadow detach itself from the wall. Ah, there’s her cat. Her own little sidekick. He chuckled at the idea of a string of Leaders and Sidekicks all working together to make the world a little safer. He pulled the spare collar and bell he kept out of his pocket and gave it a shake. The cat immediately came to him, “looking” in his direction. He picked the cat up.
Go home find Leader. Go home find Leader. Find Leader. Find Leader. Leader.Leader.Leader.Leader.
Her voice. Her cat. His head. Something was wrong, and he was overwhelmed at what this could possibly mean.
“Cat, where’s Elli? Is she around here?” A movement of ears that meant the cat had shaken its head “no”. “Is she in trouble?” Again the shake no. “Well then, where is she? Is she gone?” A tilt for yes. “She wouldn’t leave unless there was danger, WHERE IS SHE?” His frustration and panic led him to yell the last answer right into the cats face. And then the cat did something Leader knew it shouldn’t.
It looked at him, truly looked at him. With eyes; eyes it shouldn’t even have. Elli’s eyes.
“Oh, Elli… What happened to you?”
Leader.
He looked into the cat’s eyes again. Her eyes. “Can you really be in there?”
Leader. Leader. Leader.
He held the cat closer to him as his vision started blurring. She wasn’t in there. Elimine Fraze was gone, all that was left of her was her desire to be by her leader. Her need to be by him. The cat took that bit of her with it when their connection ended, and that was all of Elli that Leader could ever have. He looked into her eyes again and forgot about the gig, the band, and tried to remember every detail about her that he could. Eventually he started telling the cat all of their adventures that he could remember. It would take a while.
* * * * *
It was many years between Expedition 1 and Expedition 2. After the failure of Expedition 1 and the death of all members save Junior Researcher Ix "Ixxy" Zeman* there were many petitions to send a second team to the planet, or at least a probe to observe it. None of them passed until years later when Expedition 2 was finally sent. The recordings and musings of the original crew had led them to prepare for potentially endless possibilities in events and creatures, but they were to be sadly disappointed.
The youngest member, Tech Xodarap, was the most vocal on their expectations.
“We had expected to see some of the creatures detailed in Ixxy’s log, ya know? Instead we were treated to something none of us expected. Normalcy. There were creatures, yes, and plant life, and some remains from things that had lived from that time, but nothing extremely unusual. It was just a standard Class 3 planet: Habitable conditions with no dominant, sentient species. We found the bones of what we assume were the moebius finch, and a large collection of simian bones in a ruin. They looked to have been killed in some sort of ritual sacrifice. Perhaps the end of a race controlled by a cult, but we’ll never really know. Ixxy’s log said they had gone through a rapid shift in the last day from simians in family groups to government and standard city-functions. At one point I discovered a small patch of paradox grass, but it died the moment I approached it. It might have been the last patch on the entire planet.
There were a few other curiosities as well. We located what was left of Expedition 1’s camp. Honestly, there wasn’t much. Some canvas that hadn’t rotted away yet and a patch of new grass in an area that had obviously seen a fire. At one point we found a small desert. Not hot or anything, just a giant ring of black sand that, when you stood in the middle, went from horizon to horizon in every direction. It’s this great blemish on the planet that nothing seems to want to grow in.
(Samples collected later indicated that the giant ring was in fact crystallized ash. The cause remains unknown.)
Everywhere else though, was normal. There were no repeating events, or creatures that used time in any way that we had been told to look for. There were some twice-flipped sloths, or at least I think they were, but it’s kind of hard to tell. It’s like whatever was giving this place its funky space-time deal just up and *pfft* disappeared. We’ll keep looking, and digging, and puzzling, but when you’re looking for time-bending in a place that looks like it always ran on normal time, we’ll probably never find what we came here for.
*Ix Zeman later perished several years later when he became delusional and the memories of his supposed multiple “deaths” led him to believe he was immortal. He wasn’t.
-Excerpt from Kestalvia: Theories and Questions Second Edition.
Elli saw the creature looming up ahead, time molding around it in a visible haze. Her end-evil mindset told her what she already knew: that thing would kill whatever it wanted, however it wanted if it got the chance, and that made it wrong. Wrong enough for her to fight. She’d gone against worst odds. Holding the bloody typewriter in one arm like a football, she began sprinting to it as fast as she could.
Then she heard the howling.
“Looks like you missed one, and Mindbitch is upset.”
“Yea? Well we’ve got a bigger problem right now, and it’s heading right for us.”
“You would think that, wouldn’t you. The biggest threat to life here hasn’t been us, although you did your fair share back there. It’s the Whorevolution that’s really messed things up. I’d say it’s going for that. We’re just a few specks between them, it’ll probably just pass us by.”
As he said this, two of the massive thing’s seven eyes focused on them, while the other five continued to glance elsewhere, one a ruined purple mess.
“Or not.”
He-Is-Not-Of-Much-Note began to chase after them under a species-oriented and mind-directed sense of revenge. Howling during its charge, it didn’t notice the sudden re-emergence of a certain space station.
* * * * *
Their escape was a stroke of luck, the wormhole generator having a little-known emergency protocol.
A light came on Itzel’s comms screen, letting her know that there was a high-priority private call on the line.
“What’s the news Sith?” Her desire for a good word causing her to drop protocol for a second.
“Mmmmm… ‘Ello love, we may have figured a way out of this… limbo th’Tesseract’s put Lucky in. Turns out that th’energy put off by th’wormhole generator had a purpose after all. If th’sensors stop getting information like they ‘ave been, it starts charging an…mmm “emergency jump” shall we say, to the last known co-ordinates where it was getting readings.”
“So we have a way out of here? How long until we’re ready to jump?”
“S’not that simple, love. Th’jump’s been ready since I called you, but there are some things to consider: We don’t know how fast we’re going, or if we’re moving at all. We know where the ship will come out, but with how things are in the foresrt we ‘ave no idea if we’ll come out inside of something and completely atomize it… and possibly the ship. We were speeding through relatively dense foliage when we snared by th’Tesseract.”
“So our new problem isn’t how to get out of here, it’s if we even should.”
“Exactly. There’s still th’Convolution to think of, and what linking the two parts into the same area could do to the infected on board.”
“Alright. If you think of any other cheery news, let me know immediately”
The High Admiral closed the link, thinking of what had to be done. Command was never an easy job, but lately it only ever seemed to be getting harder.
“Quirrinal, I need you to run a simulation for me.”
“Of course, Admiral, what do you need?”
“Based on the last sensory data we received, if we warped back to our last location, what are our chances of being atomized?”
(From a certain perspective, about five minutes passed, but where time had stopped, who knows.)
“I have the figures, Admiral. We figure under optimal conditions we have at best a sixty three point oh seven percent of not coming into contact. But I ran it twice and at worst we have a two percent chance.”
“Bring up the last visual we had, on the big screen.”
A large screen appeared in front of the Admiral, and everyone on the bridge decided to have a look in. There was dense undergrowth on the monitor. It even looked like a two percent chance of not hitting anything.
“Isn’t that a clearing right after the growth? If we can custom program the jump to move us just a few feet North, then we’ll come out onto a grassy field instead of a jungle.”
“You’re talking hundredths of a second of a degree, Captain.” She opened a line with Sithembal, deciding to hope for the time being that they could again be active.
“Any progress?”
“Oh…no love, just been mmmm….tinkering with the generator, trying to learn more about th’function, as t’were.”
“Is there any chance of changing the jump coordinates, even by the smallest bit?”
“Might be, love. Where did you have in mind?”
“I need you to find a way to send us back to where we were, but about ten feet north of where we were pulled out. We looked at the last visual input we received from the externals, and there looks to be a clearing just ahead of where we were. If you can do that, jump us right away. We don’t know how long we’ve been here, and I want us to leave on our terms.”
“’Course. Anything you want.”
* * * * *
There was a brief moment of tension in the air, then He-Is-Not-Of-Much-Note saw a giant ball appear out of nowhere, hurtling towards him with deadly speed. In a maneuver that defied his size, he jumped over the ball and snagged it with his hands, slamming them both down to the ground until they skid to a halt at the end the trench they just made. Looking up with a grin, the ape eyed the ball as it resumed hovering.
“Status report, everyone. NOW!”
“Everything’s fine on diagnostics. The shields took a small beating but that’ll recover with time. Otherwise we’ve got pressure readings, frequency signals, the clock’s moving again, so it looks like we made it out!” Captain Quirrinal was so excited that she would have kissed the nearest person, had that not been the Admiral. Instead she did a quick hop for joy and sat back down.
“Th’wormhole generator is offline. Sorry love, but it looks like that emergency jump, not t’mention my…mmm changes means we won’t be using it again for a while. Energy’s completely depleted right now.”
“Je infhecktid of je pupilajon,” began Terrence, “are bejjining to revert to jer orijinal shtatis or dishcontent. I would hypotheshize jhat we vee are now closhe to je shorce of jeir condishionn.”
Szindle was busy clicking away, but the Admiral completely ignored him. Since they were already in a conference call, she reasoned that Comms must still be functional. “Need someone to ignore? Why not Szindle?” Was the popular joke on the bridge, supposedly continuing an ancient joke that stemmed back eons to the approximate dawn of human global communications.
“Quirrinal, bring up the externals, I want to see what we’ve got right now.” Their immediate image was one of a large purple ape, grinning at them and making a multitude of hand gestures, most of which seemed to be obscene. “I guess you were right, Terrence. We’re near the Convolution.”
“Alsho, Admirjal, the infhecktion ish shpreadig, I wjould poschtulate jhat we shend it on itsh way.”
“Very well then. Put us into stationary hover, divert power to rear thrusters and fire them up.”
The ensuing force shot from the strange ball was enough to send He-Is-Not-Of-Much-Note back the way he was originally headed. Landing on his feet he used his fear, momentum and indignation to power him away, and his recalled rage to spur him towards the music-woman.
* * * * *
“Why the hell are you still going towards it? I already told you, it’s not after us, it’s after the Convolwhoretion. If you insist on fucking things up again, then at least give me to someone who knows how to actually take care of me so you can go and ruin things on your own. Being with you is just one disaster after the other. ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING???”
“Shut up Etiyr, just shut the fuck up. I’m so sick of you. I’m sick of Convie. I’m just so tired of being manipulated.” I’m just so tired. “Have fun with your lover Gabe or whoever, because I’m not going to cart your heavy ass around anymore when all you do is bitch and moan about getting your way.” She put him down as “gently” as she could, and left him there. She was sick of those two, and Etiyr could just rust away out here for all she cared.
“Bitch, where do you think you’re going!? I’m in control here! I swear to god if you don’t get me out of here…”
Etiyr just went on typing long after Elli put him down. She didn’t know what he said, but she felt like she could make a pretty good guess as to what it was. Drawing her trombone, she began cutting through a wall of vines that had spring up between her and the creature, and kept running.
(It was working. Throwing obstacles in her way was slowing her down so the purple one could catch up. That sexy ape was going to have its way with her and then it could get rid of the others as it pleased using the same method.)
He-Is-Not-Of-Much-Note spotted the human’s strange artifact. It was still making the annoying noises, but nothing seemed to be happening because of them. In a moment of glee, he jumped on top of the typewriter, laid a nice steaming pile on the current sheet of paper, and resumed chasing after the music-woman, hooting with laughter all the way. Oh little Etiyr. She abandoned you too? Now we’re not alone in being left behind. And yet so alone. So very alone. *snrk* Nope, couldn’t keep a straight face.
* * * * *
So many choices from this moment! So many ways for everything to end.
17
Sithembil was right… in a way. The Tesseract could harm them directly, but there are many indirect means when you control time that are so much simpler. Such as aging trees so they would collapse, or growing grass so quickly at the base while the points remained sharp so they speared anything above them.
The tesseract went back to before their arrival in the rainforest. As they appeared it simply crushed them all the moment they set foot into its jungle. (A happy ending, but SO BORING) REWINDdddddd
53
...and they had all gathered in a battle array around the beast, preparing to stan-s-s-STOP FAST FORWARD-D-D-D-D-D PLAY -and so the colony named Lucky VII screamed in collective agony as they were erased from time itself, in the end never having existed anywhere but in the mind of their destroyer. (Eh, it could always come bac-c-c-c-k) REWIND.
9
You are dead.
AGAIN
Ix was getting really tired of this. He tried to count how many times he had died, but he never actually remembered the number and had to guess, seeing as how the version with the count kept dyin-R-R- REWIND.
Chapter 4
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Page 800Page427Chapter62Page60(NO NO NO NO NO!)REWIND!
Page (number missing)
Pulling out her music book as she ran, Elli started flipping through, looking for something that might be grand enough for what she wanted to do. In the end she discarded it, realizing such a song would have to come from deep within her. Stopping as close to it as she dared, she pulled her trombone off her back and began to play.
“Swan song.” She said, bringing the mouthpiece up to her lips. As she played, she put everything she learned into the piece. She put her memories of home, of Leader, her love and anger into the piece. Darkness began to build up in the horn, looking like the opposite of a gentle glow. She thought of the others in this hopeless battle to the death, of Cail and Gaurinn and Gabe, everyone on Lucky VII, even AMP and Etiyr (specifically leaving Convie out of it, she would never feel sorry for it). She poured her dreams, her mind, her soul into the melody she was playing. To her it was beautiful, to anything listening it was wonderful and terrible at once. It all culminated into what would be an explosion of darkness made to specifically target the Tesseract and save them all.
Of course, close as she was, fate had other plans.
Elli, we could have been great together. Could have done so many things with each other and TO each other, but you just wouldn’t have it, would you? You had to snub me, not once but twice, killing off the friends I make like they’re of so little note. How would you like it?
The Tesseract, one eye focused on her the entire time, suddenly turned the bloody purple one on her as well, watching as He-Is-Not-Of-Much-Note finally caught up to the source of his fury, crushing her body single-handedly while the Tesseract tore at her with unrestrained time. It was the worst thing they could possibly have done.
(And it was thus, death would not take her kindly, as blood spilled from her skull and out onto the field, mixing with the already bloodstained soil, her only tombstone the ---what?)
The energy Elli had built up and focused into a direct attack instead exploded everywhere. Like taking a warhead and hitting it with a hammer, The darkness began to consume everything it touched and, being inside the range of the anomaly, included time. The past of that area, its future, devoured in the same instant. Nothing could ever live on that land again.
The darkness grew and consumed, but when Elli had died, there was only enough time for the contestants to see the sky grow dark and see the rushing wave of nothingness before they were whisked away. Out of danger and out into the void. A purple gorilla suddenly returned to its normal blackish-brown, before turning completely black and crumbling away. A black cat, finally separated from its master, who was getting some long deserved sleep, paused. Surrounded by the darkness it had once lived in, it felt a calmness come over it, but there was also a strong wrongness about it. A need to be somewhere else. The cat melded into the shadows all around it and disappeared.
The beast tried to change the event unfolding, but it couldn’t. Possible pasts and futures were no, no this is wrong devoured as soon as they were thought up. For a creature so used to controlling everything, this sudden loss of any control at all should have been impossible. There was no more control for the Tesseract to have. It was utterly reduced to a condition that made recovery impossible. Once able to control any event it chose, it was now a wisp. Its awesome power reduced to causing a creature to second-guess itself, and then would take centuries to recover. The loss of this control caused many smaller species of the jungle to either overpopulate, or die out completely. Time began to warp from its current state until it finally gave and snapped back into a standard flow of cause to effect. A circle of chaos began to spread throughout the planet, leading to a mass extinction that only those closest to a 1:1 existence would survive. Plants that aged into seeds began to (from a perspective) grow in reverse. Upwards waterfalls (Water-rises?) began to flood the areas as the water again resumed a flow directed by gravity rather than time. Ancient beings in slow-time environments died instantly, while rapidly advancing animal societies (apparently) slowed to a crawl.
(Everything was ruined. Millennia of tailoring a world with as few hiccups as possible had been leading to a paradise that it would now never see, nor would it come to be. It had tried to make it perfect for him, but he had not come soon enough, and now it would never be so.)
The anomalies had left the rainforest, but it didn’t matter anymore. Everything had changed.
* * * * *
They had decided to park the van in an alley off the strip. There were easily ten bars within walking distance, but Leader wasn’t interested in the gigs at the moment, he was busy trying to find his sidekick. She wasn’t in any of them, nor was she in the van, or the alley, or anywhere that he could see.
She’s probably off just blowing some steam, a shame she didn’t invite me along.
He had been meaning to talk to her about their day job for a while now. He didn’t want her to be his sidekick anymore. Not because she did her job poorly, or that it took away from her time with the band, or even that he didn’t like her. The problem was he was starting to like her too much and was constantly worried about what would happen to her, was constantly thinking about her.
As he turned around to head back to the van where the band was waiting, he saw a shadow detach itself from the wall. Ah, there’s her cat. Her own little sidekick. He chuckled at the idea of a string of Leaders and Sidekicks all working together to make the world a little safer. He pulled the spare collar and bell he kept out of his pocket and gave it a shake. The cat immediately came to him, “looking” in his direction. He picked the cat up.
Go home find Leader. Go home find Leader. Find Leader. Find Leader. Leader.Leader.Leader.Leader.
Her voice. Her cat. His head. Something was wrong, and he was overwhelmed at what this could possibly mean.
“Cat, where’s Elli? Is she around here?” A movement of ears that meant the cat had shaken its head “no”. “Is she in trouble?” Again the shake no. “Well then, where is she? Is she gone?” A tilt for yes. “She wouldn’t leave unless there was danger, WHERE IS SHE?” His frustration and panic led him to yell the last answer right into the cats face. And then the cat did something Leader knew it shouldn’t.
It looked at him, truly looked at him. With eyes; eyes it shouldn’t even have. Elli’s eyes.
“Oh, Elli… What happened to you?”
Leader.
He looked into the cat’s eyes again. Her eyes. “Can you really be in there?”
Leader. Leader. Leader.
He held the cat closer to him as his vision started blurring. She wasn’t in there. Elimine Fraze was gone, all that was left of her was her desire to be by her leader. Her need to be by him. The cat took that bit of her with it when their connection ended, and that was all of Elli that Leader could ever have. He looked into her eyes again and forgot about the gig, the band, and tried to remember every detail about her that he could. Eventually he started telling the cat all of their adventures that he could remember. It would take a while.
* * * * *
It was many years between Expedition 1 and Expedition 2. After the failure of Expedition 1 and the death of all members save Junior Researcher Ix "Ixxy" Zeman* there were many petitions to send a second team to the planet, or at least a probe to observe it. None of them passed until years later when Expedition 2 was finally sent. The recordings and musings of the original crew had led them to prepare for potentially endless possibilities in events and creatures, but they were to be sadly disappointed.
The youngest member, Tech Xodarap, was the most vocal on their expectations.
“We had expected to see some of the creatures detailed in Ixxy’s log, ya know? Instead we were treated to something none of us expected. Normalcy. There were creatures, yes, and plant life, and some remains from things that had lived from that time, but nothing extremely unusual. It was just a standard Class 3 planet: Habitable conditions with no dominant, sentient species. We found the bones of what we assume were the moebius finch, and a large collection of simian bones in a ruin. They looked to have been killed in some sort of ritual sacrifice. Perhaps the end of a race controlled by a cult, but we’ll never really know. Ixxy’s log said they had gone through a rapid shift in the last day from simians in family groups to government and standard city-functions. At one point I discovered a small patch of paradox grass, but it died the moment I approached it. It might have been the last patch on the entire planet.
There were a few other curiosities as well. We located what was left of Expedition 1’s camp. Honestly, there wasn’t much. Some canvas that hadn’t rotted away yet and a patch of new grass in an area that had obviously seen a fire. At one point we found a small desert. Not hot or anything, just a giant ring of black sand that, when you stood in the middle, went from horizon to horizon in every direction. It’s this great blemish on the planet that nothing seems to want to grow in.
(Samples collected later indicated that the giant ring was in fact crystallized ash. The cause remains unknown.)
Everywhere else though, was normal. There were no repeating events, or creatures that used time in any way that we had been told to look for. There were some twice-flipped sloths, or at least I think they were, but it’s kind of hard to tell. It’s like whatever was giving this place its funky space-time deal just up and *pfft* disappeared. We’ll keep looking, and digging, and puzzling, but when you’re looking for time-bending in a place that looks like it always ran on normal time, we’ll probably never find what we came here for.
*Ix Zeman later perished several years later when he became delusional and the memories of his supposed multiple “deaths” led him to believe he was immortal. He wasn’t.
-Excerpt from Kestalvia: Theories and Questions Second Edition.
Spoiler