PortalQuest Awakens
Dove's Hell Bubble isn't quite what you expected it to be. For one, it looks kind of sketchy, but no worse than some of the Lands you've seen - though, the sky does look like Halloween threw up all over it. Since that's kind of a gross description, you turn your gaze back to the desolate landscape itself. You sure hope this isn't what Earth looked like before the floods, because yuck.
Finding it had at least been easy, except that nobody's actually here, directly in front of you, which kind of makes the whole journey a moot point. You can't rescue people you can't find.
You've gotten lost in worse places than a Hell Bubble, though, so you crack your knuckles and let Mutini jump down out of your arms. First things first, any good super secret spy agent needs a good Secret Base, and since there's no time like the present there's probably no better place than the current one.
"One sweet ass escape route coming riiiight up. Stand back, Mutini, I'm gonna need some room for this one - you play lookout."
Stealing nothing from nothing to create something has gotten a little bit easier - kind of. You can actually make stuff now, but it's not quite as easy as wiggling your nose and snapping your fingers yet (you know because you've tried). Trying to apply that to another thing you haven't quite gotten a handle on yet - traversing the void - is asking for trouble. But the power of friendship overcomes all odds, right?
It works. Sort of. It looks very typically like a bad SciFi CG portal, but when you lower your hands and look at your creation all you feel is pride. That is a damn good SciFi CG portal if you do say so yourself. So good, in fact, that you don't even notice that something is going wrong until you physically feel the gateway jerk out of your control.
The weird Doctor Who-esque cracks that are fracturing through Dove's weird ass bubble are rooting themselves into the portal...and you don't know what they are, but you know you don't want them getting into your Void.
You don't really know how to go about getting control of the portal again, but your best guess is to just funnel more of the Void into it, trying to push the fractures out - more, and more, and more, until finally -
000
The portal gives no warning before it bursts like a popped balloon, pushing Roxy back a few very large steps. There's only enough time to realize that her portal has become many before the cracks being to absorb them, and one decides to plant roots beneath Roxy's feet with a flash of eerie light.
"Aw, shi-"
Roxy's gone before the words finish, but her results don't go with her - instead, the amalgamation of time anomaly and void path spreads its way through Dove's bubble, planting new portals wherever the fractures spread.
This is why you shouldn't ask Lalonde's for help, Jontan.
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====> Wrap things up.
Denny’s gives you the best goddamn pancakes you have eaten in your life. They might be better because Sir Karksalot is there with you, who knows, but it’s the best meal you can remember and it’s hard to stop asking for more even when your belly protests painfully against. And maybe you guys just say there a while because for once, everyone seems safe and sound, nothing’s happening, and you are not alone in the hell bubble.
So maybe you follow him to his place. Maybe you waste more time with him, against him, until he has to go do something somewhere that is not here with you. It’s cool. You are not that needy of an asshole to lock him in his own house. Whatevs. You are totally cool.
His world is kind of hilarious though. So maybe you get up to some trouble and maybe he has to bail you out. And then maybe you have to make that up to him.
Maybe after that, you go see John. Is he going by John now? Somehow, the details aren’t all that important in this maybe situation. Maybe you go see him. Maybe you hold him, touch him, let him touch you. Maybe you spend the night and just chill out and be. Maybe you paint his rabbit green and put little pompoms on her ears.
That seems like a thing you’d do. You like this maybe thing.
Maybe after that, you go see Sollux and gape over his hair, wow. But hey, it’s a good look for him. Maybe you tell him that, just to see if he’ll blush because goddamn is that adorable. Maybe he lets you give him a hug. You’d liked that before. Maybe you hang and figure out how good a blind guy is at video games. Shit sounds hilarious.
You could even visit John’s Karkat, if you wanted. See what hilarious things he might be up to.
Maybe you meet new people and do new things and make the multiverse a better place from your presence. Maybe-
====> Stop stalling.
Yeah. You've spent enough time running away from your destiny.
See, the thing about being a Sylph of time? You know when the timelines end. You know exactly when your chances are up. When you've hit the last possible fork. That you will choose the wrong one. Your life has been an endless stream of wrong choices, but this time? This time the fork that ends you is the right one, the right choice, and this time you have to pick it.
It’s time.
You go back to the hell bubble. It’s been falling apart on its own and there’s no stable ground to stand on anymore. You float along the destruction, watching as debris is hit by the increasing time scars and blips out of existence. You don’t find Signless. You’re pretty sure he’s already dead. You don’t think the portals that saved you and the rest saved him as well. There’s no sign of the Cherub either. You kind of hope she’s dead. Someone like that... Well. Lets just say you’d have killed her yourself if you found her, if only to make sure she didn’t escape this.
There’s no core or center of the hell bubble, no spot you could stop and say “here’s where my last stand should be!” Last stand... Yeah. You probably shouldn't think too much about what you’re about to do.
You lift your hand. You close your eyes. You reach out.
====> Do something crazy.
Well. You’ve done crazier. Probably.
You rip the bubble into pieces. It shatters around you, millions of bits and half formed things torn asunder in what feels like centuries but you know is only seconds.
You take hold of the scars and tear the time wounds open full, letting them feast on the debris, clean up the mess of left over code and unique objects. You spent so long fighting the game and now you are doing it’s dirty work for it.
Something inside you twists and breaks. You ignore it. All that matters is that you finish.
Guiding the pieces takes every bit of concentration you have. You can’t leave anything behind. Can’t take the chance that the void monsters might escape an plague any timeline you’ve had contact with, that you’ve contaminated. You hope so hard that none of them have already.
When the last piece fades, you open your eyes and the darkness around you is shaded in orange. You look down at your hand. Half of it is fleshy pink. Two fingers are orange. You look at your body.
Somehow, you aren’t surprised that you don’t have legs anymore.
You can feel it now. Silence surround yous like a blanket. You can feel it’s almost over. It’s almost done. There’s just one more thing to do.
You think of Jade and Hal. You wonder what it might have been like if you’d chosen them in the second session. If you’d gone to their victory. It’s been tugging you ever since because you are still connected to them and you presence causes strain on their timeline every second you keep breathing.
Well. That’s kind of depressing. Eh.
You close your eyes again. You flatten your hand over your heart.
You make it stop.
====> Greet Death like an old friend.
Well. You would, all the melodrama included, but then a metal hand clamps down on your wrist. You jerk, startling as the other you, the one from the fever dream, wrenches your hand back from your chest. He doesn’t say anything, just grabs your face with both and forces you to look at him. His shades are gone, red eyes focused completely on you, and you wonder what he’s seeing.
“Moron,” he mutters and it’s almost affectionate. “You’re done, man. Just stop.”
“That’s totally not what I was just trying to do,” you gripe and he rolls his eyes.
“Yeah, well, lets get this going outside the heroic sacrifice realm, shall we?”
“Like there’s another choice.”
“Look, I know in you end all and be all world that you’re all crazy for this suicidal bullshit. I’ve been there. But you don’t have to wink out of existence just to save the main timeline. There’s another option.”
You look at him, at his calm face and his replaced arm and the way he’s seems so solid, so settled. You wonder how he got that way. You wonder who has his back.
You give in and let him guide you.
====> Take her hand.
She’s screaming for you and it’s confusing because why is she here, why would she- She’s begging you to hear her and you’re having trouble remembering why her voice is so surprising.
You’re unraveled, fading, and you don’t think this is a bad thing, but she’s crying for you. She’s reaching out. And after what feels like eternity, you let her find you. You let her bring the scattered pieces of you together and make you whole again. You stop fighting as she drags you with her to the light.
You wake up with the noise of Houston in your ears and fall out of a tree. It’s a start.
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