by James Wylder, who thanks you so much for reading about our Forgotten Heroines today. Who was your favorite? Hope to see you again soon! art by Bri Crozier, who you should absolutely look up other work by. We're fans of "Peach Soda." The Tourist pulled the chart down, and pointed at it with a rather excessively long pointing stick. Pathway sat with an ice pack on her head, Ashlyn was reading a book called, "The Untold Adventures", ("Well I didn't do that...oh no wait that did happen." she said at least three times.), Miranda was on the floor playing with spray-paint, and making the whole floor into a mural. Shona, well, Shona was just lying on the floor staring up at the ceiling throwing a ball up and down. "Hello? Are you even listening? I have another plan to get us noticed!" "What are you going to do?" Pathway said flatly, "Blow up a universe? Run off with Ashlyn for a long time, and then neither of you tell us what happened for literally days while the two of you avoid each other in comically romantic mishaps around the Pyramid?" The Tourist pointed at pathway, but no words came, and she lowered her finger, and shrugged. "Okay, so maybe my plans haven't gone according to plan." "That sounds like a pretty big problem for plans, "Pathway replied. "Can you just get...all the way off my back about this?" "I'm not on your back, I'm in a chair." "This is why you weren't in the novel, bejeebus." The Tourist rubbed her forehead, and Miranda coughed. All eyes turned to her. "Hi, yes, Miranda here. CNN. So, Miss Tourist, why are we still...doing this?" "What's with the CNN gag?" "I thought it was fun." Shrug, "You know, I take that back, continue." "Thanks, look, we've already done a lot of stuff. We ended the world!" "That got undone pretty quick," Ashlyn muttered. "...and formed a rock band." "Okay, that part was actually fun," Pathway noted. "But my main point here is...I think we had a good run at this? People paid some attention to us. We had a good time." The Tourist frowned, and lowered her pointy stick. "We can't just, end things now, there's still so much to do!" "Like?" She fumbled through her trenchcoat pockets, but came up with nothing, "Uh...well..." She threw the pointer, and adjusted her sunglasses, "there is a mysterious final task I had for us...one big plan to change everything for us." "No there isn't," Ashlyn said, The Tourist frowned, "Well don't tell them that!" Ashlyn sighed, "Admit it, just admit why you're really doing this, Tourist!" She threw her hands up, "I already told you! Attention! I could not have been more clear this was all just a selfish ploy for attention!" Ashlyn crossed her arms, "Is it." "YES?" "Whose attention?" The Tourist froze solid, and glanced at the rest of the room, "Uhhh." "Hmn?" Miranda asked. "Yes, go on," Pathway prodded. "I missed most of that but please say the interesting thing," Shona said. The Tourist turned around, this was not going her way. She was supposed to keep this going for some time, not end it all with, ugh, being *honest*. It was grotesque. No, no she had a better plan...she started the laughter slow and soft, and increased it in intensity, throwing a hand in the air, fingers splayed in a claw. "So then, you finally figured it out." "Yeah," Miranda said, "we literally all knew you weren't going to be honest, again, and just do something weird like that. We all know why you're doing this, just say it." Shona raised a hand, "Actually uh, Tourist, let me point a thing out? You do realize that none of us would be here still if we didn't like hanging out with you, do you?" The Tourist's jaw went a little slack, "Uh, no?" Pathway raised an eyebrow, "Do you really think any of us care about recognition the way you do." "Oh I absolutely do," Ashlyn said. "Sorry, do you really think any of you but you and Ashlyn were in this for selfish reasons?" "Hey!" Ashlyn and the Tourist yelled back. Pathway stood up, "We're still here because this is fun. It's fun to spend time with friends, so run around, to be somewhere. If you spend enough time alone, those things become precious. And you may be an emotionally insecure jerk, but in the end you do the right thing, even if, you know, you have to posture about not doing the right thing for ten minutes." The Tourist looked at her feet. "We're here because we like you, stupid. So throw out your plan. Let's find a path somewhere else. We'll go with you, right?" Miranda nodded, "It's been fun, and if we're lucky we can find another roller derby." "I've been bored ever since we finished mopping up the Centro resistance, so this has been pretty great, plus there are a lot of great food trucks when you have a time machine," Shona said. "It's not a time machine it travels along narrative--nevermind," The Tourist tried not to smile. She failed, so she spun around again to face the controls to the pyramid. "Right, well, if there's no plan, then let's go somewhere exciting." Ashlyn perked up, "Somewhere wild?" "You could say that. One of my favorite places. Where beasts come from all over to compete for who is the supreme beast." She grinned, "If you're all still up for the ride?" The cheers told her they were, and as the Pyramid zipped off, The Tourist felt her face flush. The right kind of attention, after all. * * * Ashlyn sat there, completely unimpressed. "You said beasts. You said it was wild." The tourist pointed out, "It's exactly that! No lies!" "Personally, I am having a wonderful time," Shona said, holding the bag out to the couple, "popcorn?" "Yes," Ashlyn grumbled, and took some, chewing angrily. "I hate you," she mumbled to the Tourist. "Love you too." Ashlyn stopped and stared, "Sorry what was that?" "Oh uh, I mean, I despise you, you...filthy...human...with all that finely done hair and...attractive bisexual aesthetic." "I don't entirely know what that means, but please continue while I eat Shona's popcorn." Pathway and Miranda slipped back in, carrying their commemorative stuffed toys. "You really like that stuff?" the Tourist said dryly. "It's so cute!" Miranda said, waggling the stuffed animal in front of her by awkwardly leaning over all the other seats. "Yes, they are soft," Pathway replied. "Well this whole thing is still stupid," Ashlyn muttered, as the announcer came back on to announce that the next round of the puppy bowl was starting. "Shh! Miranda said, "Look the little golden retriever fell asleep!" "So did Shona," Pathway noted. The Tourist smiled, honestly. She'd never forget this. Thank you so much for joining us on this journey today, and may your own memories with loved ones keep you warm until we can be close together once again <3 -The 10kd Team.
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by Aristide Twain, who unfortunately has a cooler name than every single member of the Arcbeatle Press staff, and has written things that are actually funny, so we might not commission him again just because he'll keep making us look bad in comparison. art by Bri Crozier, who is an angel and we're all glad is here. REMEMBRANCE of the JUDICATOR “So on the bright side,” began Ashlyn Oswin, straining against her bonds, “we're not back with the talking cats.” “Everybody wants to be a c...” Miranda began to hum sarcastically. “Hush, you can't sing that here,” barked a guard. “No copyrighted music, are we clear?” “If you think I give a damn about that sort of thing, you have another thing coming,” the mysterious traveller in all of narrative space only known as the Tourist retorted, trying to take a daring stance. Unfortunately, she had yet to get used to being chained at the ankles, and so ended up tripping and falling headfirst into the murky, greenish, knee-high waters of the Time Sewers. “I could go for some singing cats right now,” Shona commented with surprising calm while the Tourist flapped around in the water, clumsily trying to get back on her feet. She really didn't appear to be succeeding — she'd probably got her wrists tangled up in the chains while trying to disentangle them from around her feet, Shona and Ashlyn reckoned. She struggled some more. In fact, the Tourist was making an awful lot of bubbles. Could... specimens of... of whatever species she was... drown like regular people? Clearly they could trip like anyone else. Or get chained up by sentient crocodiles like anyone else. The real question was, could you drown in a Time Sewer? As soon as they'd arrived here, the greenish water had clogged up the plumbing of the Tourist's Pyramid, and indeed put it temporarily (and temporally) out of commission. The Tourist and her merry crew had stepped out in search of the fluid leak that was so rudely interrupting their lackadaisical rampage through the slice of omniversal reality known as the 10000 Dawns, and been immediately set upon by— —well, there was no non-silly way to put this, and anyway, looking at the Tourist and Miranda, Shona and Ashlyn were of a common accord that trying to hold back on the silliness now would have served little purpose. If Pathway had been here, there might have been some hope. Things seemed to get suddenly more serious when Pathway was around. Possibly because of the katana. But, alack, Pathway was not here, being busy following a probable wild-goose-chase for a Numbered connection in Dawn 789. So it was by its name that Ashlyn eventually resolved to call out to the taciturn guard. “Hey! You! Crocodile-guy!” “What is it?” the upright, sentient crocodile hissed in response, reflexively pointing its golden spear in their direction. “Not to be overly dramatic, but, uh, we think our fellow prisoner there is, er, drowning? Could you maybe... make sure that that... doesn't... happen?” “It's in your own interest,” Shona added on a bout of inspiration. “Presumably. You've kept us alive, so clearly we're valuable to you.” “You're not talking to a Centro stooge, you know,” Ashlyn muttered with a glare in Shona's direction, which was rather impressive as they were tied back-to-back. “Maybe these guys aren't even capitalists.” “I should say not!” grunted the Crocodile, waving its spear closer to them. “We are in fact a Collective! The Collective of the Retconning Crocodiles!” The Tourist continued to flail and bubble. “Isn't that nice,” Ashlyn said urgently. “Can we maybe swap cards after you save our friend—” “—well, more of an acquaintance really—” Miranda quipped. “—from drowning to death?” The Crocodile's unnervingly toothy maw curved into a smug grin, in a way that gave off an impression that the Crocodiles did this quite a lot. “Oh, that won't happen here, not in these waters,” it (he? they?) explained. “The Time Sewers aren't exactly a physical location.” “Oh? Isn't this part of the 10,000 Dawns?” Miranda asked with a disappointed pout. “We were rather heading for the 10,000 Dawns here.” “Yeah, we had a whole thing going,” Ashlyn concurred. “I'm only a humble guard,” the Retconning Crocodile answered, “I'm sure I wouldn't know.” “I thought you said you were a Collective, and yet you have an undereducated... working class? Soldier caste?” Shona asked dubiously. “...Good point,” said the Crocodile, and then it pulled a remote control from one of the pockets of its regal silk robes. Wait, since when had it been wearing a silk robe? ...All of them? Wait, "them"? Ashlyn, Shona and Miranda looked around in bafflement. There was now an entire crowd of Crocodiles in fine silk robes watching them; the low ceiling was now high and arched, like a cathedral's. The Tourist was still flopping around in the water, though. At long last, one of the Crocodiles — there was no way to tell if it was the original one — stepped forward and pulled the unearthly woman out of the water. She was drenched and gasping for breath, but inexplicably, not only had her never-ending cigarette not left her lips, but its tip was still smoldering. “You! You!” she panted and raged at the watching reptiles. “If you do that again I will destroy you! I will annihilate you!” “Bigger fish have tried, little OC,” said another one of the Crocodiles. “Fish, drowning, hahah, very funny,” the Tourist said, rolling her eyes. “And don't call me an OC.” “Why? It's what you are, you know, little traveller,” said yet another Crocodile with a patronizing grin. “A first draft. An echo of the future, half-formed, bereft of a story to your name or—” “Ugh! I know!” she cut it off moodily. “But don't say it in front of them!” She gestured at Shona and Ashlyn. “Miranda's like me, but they — they don't understand metafiction the way I do.” “Tough,” snapped a Crocodile who wore a bigger and more ornate miter than the other, and was thus presumably in charge. “We are the Collective of the Retconning Crocodiles. Metafiction is our thing.” “Metafictional parasitism, more like,” the Tourist retorted. “This sludge you call a timeline — you seep in through the cracks when something disturbs the balance of realities, is that it? And you try for... what, global multiversal takeover?” “What? But... GMT's not possible,” Miranda observed, sounding as if she'd read that somewhere. “It's logically impossible. You can't linearly conquer an infinity of worlds.” “Oh, my dear,” said the head gator, “please do tell us what about us made you assume we were linear, so we can change it immediately. But that's besides the point. You're one to talk, little draft! Behind those shades and that too-cool-for-school attitudes, you're just another intruder.” “I am far more than just another intruder,” answered the woman with the pyramid. “I'm the Tourist.” “Those are the same thing,” scoffed the crocodile, “always have been. A tourist is an intruder in denial. At least we're honest about what we do. Retconning. It's in the name.” With a flourish, the Crocodile took out the remote control again and pressed another button. The chamber around them rippled and the next second, they were seated on a bench in some sort of courtroom — and they always had been. “So were going to do what every tourist-trap in the omniverse has wished to do from the very beginning,” the Crocodile continued. “We're going to hold a tourist accountable. We're going to put the Tourist on trial.” “What about us?” asked Shona, who had made the unpleasant discovery that all four women's ankles were still chained, now to the foot of the accused's bench. “Shona, that's the wrong question,” said the Tourist. “Hey! Speak for yourself!” Miranda interrupted. “I mean, I like you, but I do want out of this!” said Miranda. “If they have an issue with you for some reason—well look, we're not tourists, there's no reason they should imprison us—or kill us—or whatever it is they're going to do to—” “I'll thank the prisoners to please stop bickering, before we retcon them to have been mute from birth,” said the Head Crocodile, holding up its remote menacingly. “Alright?” All four gave silent nods. “And for the record, we have you three humans down as accomplices.” “A-ha! So you're not human!” Miranda whispered excitedly to the Tourist, who gave her a glare. “Even I had ever been human,” the Tourist answered through clenched teeth, “which by the way isn't admission one way or another—my method of travel would have turned me into something... more than human, one way or another, by now. Also, shut up, didn't you hear the reptiles?” But then she turned back to the Crocodiles with an accusing look, which, as she was the accused, surely went against all kinds of courtroom protocols. “That being said,” she almost shouted, “please explain to me why, and on what kind of authority, you arrest me for some innocent April's Fools Day fun, while you are planning the same thing, if not worse!” “The 'why' is very simple,” one of the Crocodiles answered. “Your brute-force meddling with the 10,000 Dawns' narrative is throwing a spanner into our carefully-laid plans.” “A little chaos between friends is a wonderful thing,” the Tourist boasted. “Not in the eyes of the Firmament it isn't,” the Head Crocodile boomed, thumping his staff against the marble floor for emphasis, and the four realized that it had retconned itself into having held a staff all along, just so it could do that. “Don't you see? They'll never allow your wanton interference to stand. Before day's end, I expect they'll press a massive Reset Button on the entire thing. The entire thing.” “Which means,” the other Crocodile elaborated, “now that you've dragged us into this mess, that our plan will be retconned out of History, too!” “As for the 'how',” said the Head Crocodile, “true, we have no authority to judge you for intruding upon the 10,000 Dawns, but you know what does? A resident of the 10,000 Dawns.” The Head Crocodile resolutely pressed the central button of his Retconning Remote, and suddenly, a Judge had been sitting on a throne all along. It was a robot of some kind — an android of minimalist design, wearing a robe dark as night, with two glowing blue rectangles for eyes and a slightly unnerving way to stare at you with them. “May we present the Judicator,” said the Head Crocodile, with a graceful bow for the metal judge, “of Dawn 3. The most perfect legal engine ever devised within the 10,000 Dawns, and widely recognized to have full authority within them. You might have judges who had read the law of your country, but the Judicator had read the law of every country in history. You might have judges who form a decision based on weeks of testimony and careful work through of the information through their synapses, but the Judicator...” “Hold on, you're just quoting the Judicator's introduction paragraph in the original 10,000 Dawns webnovel, aren't you?” the Tourist interrupted, unimpressed. “We already told you, we're metafictionally-interdimensional mischief-makers. This is what we do.” “I'm sorry,” the Judicator blinked, “did I just hear a full confession to crimes against the fabric of reality? That's... unusual.” “Ah, no, your honor,” the Head Crocodile said, ambling closer to the robot, “we're the accusers, not the accused. The accused are sitting on that bench over there.“ The Judicator's eyes flickered briefly. “Oh yes. Now let me see, son. Ah...” The Tourist narrowed her eyes challengingly as the Judicator peered closer at her. “Your honor,” said the Head Crocodile, “are you ready to pass judgement on this inveterate meddler for her crimes against the 10,000 Dawns?” The Judicator hummed slightly, and stepped back, and sat down in his throne again. “Hold on, that's not normal,” said Shona. “The Judicator isn't supposed to need time to think. That's the point of a robot judge. Well, one of them. It deliberates within microseconds. It's not—” “Oh, I am ready,” said the Judicator, eying the Tourist curiously. “The young lady's quite right. I am quite ready to pass judgement, if that would be proper. But you're not going to like it. I'm warning you. You're not going to like it.” “What?” the Crocodile shook its head. “But you're completely fair! You know every legal system there ever was! If you're not satisfied with your verdict— what?!” “Oh, I'm completely satisfied,” said the Judicator. “My programming is completely satisfied. I'm just saying that you're not going to like it, son. That's just how it is.” “Stop teasing us and give your verdict, damn you!” the Head Crocodile roared, waving its tail around in a half-circle. “I could hold you in contempt of court for that, son,” the Judicator, “but considering the rough time I'm about to give you that wouldn't be fair to you. So I'll refrain. ...But I could. Well, here's the dirty truth. Mysterious traveller in all of narrative space known as the Tourist, Miranda of unclear last name, Shona Davis, Ashlyn Oswin, I find you wholly innocent of any crime against the 10,000 Dawns by the standards of the vast majority of legal systems in my databanks. In fact, the vast majority of legal systems from the 10,000 Dawns' history present in my databanks concur that you five, specifically, by name, are especially, specifically and completely innocent, and that no further ruling may amend this verdict, and that you should be let go at once.” The accused's bench and the chains at the four world-travellers' ankles began to vanish. “No!” cried the Head Crocodile as all the other members of the Collective collapsed back into him. “You can't! You can't do this! I won't let you!” But that's not how the story went. And in the Time Sewers, once someone had set a course for the story, there was nothing more to be said. The Crocodiles had put their all in the Judicator, and the Judicator had said that the prisoners should be let go. And so—they were. “Come on, gang,” said the Tourist once they were all safely out of the Time Sewers and in the 10,000 Dawns proper. “We've got a lot of time-travel to do.” “What?” “Oh, haven't you lot figure it out?” the Tourist said, adjusting her tie. “Well, I don't like to brag, but I am incredibly clever. And I always will be. Which is rather the point.” Ashlyn's eyes widened. “Oooh.” “Oh! Oh! I'm getting it too!” Miranda said excitedly, bouncing on her rollerblades, which was really rather impressive. “Please explain,” Shona put her foot down. “To come to its conclusions,” the Tourist explained, talking down to Shona slightly (to her displeasure), “the Judicator draws from a sense of morality and from every record it can find of every law ever passed in history. So, if someone were to, say, go back in time and spam all legal records with an overwhelming number of new laws, stating that we specifically have to be let go under all circumstances — well — its hands would be tied, wouldn't it?” “But... wait, you're not really a time-traveller, are you?” Miranda noted. “You and I, we travel sideways in spacetime, not backwards and forwards.” “Usually, yes,” said the Tourist. “So it's a lucky thing that I've become an increasingly metafictional individual since I escaped the Drafts, hm?” “And an even luckier one,” Ashlyn added with a playful grin, “that you swallowed a bunch of metafictional... time-juice... from the Crocodiles' Time Sewers! Right?” “Right-o.” “And what about the 'morality' element? The Judicator isn't supposed to go in for loopholes. It's supposed to recognize cheating.” “Cheating? Where?” the Tourist shrugged. “We, the heroes, did what we had to do to defeat the bad guys trying to take over the world. Pretty moral if you ask me.” “What the Head Honcho, or whatever, said, though,” Ashlyn insisted with a front. “About the Firmament and a... reset. Is it true? Will someone step in and stop us from travelling any further?” “...Do I have to answer that?” “Ugh, enough soul-searching!” Miranda suddenly declared, and sprayed a portal onto the nearest wall. “I don't know how long it is before day's done. But in the meantime, let's have some adventures.” (Collective of the Retconning Crocodiles © Aristide Twain, June 2019)
Story Copyright 2020 Arcbeatle Press and James Wylder Any resemblance to persons living or dead, fictional or real, or events past or present is either purely coincidental or done firmly within the grounds of loving parody. Any attempt to use this story to make weird claims on a wiki argument thread should probably be grounds to ignore any other arguments from the user making those claims forever. Just saying. It's an April fools story, I mean really. by Alex Wakeford, who after he inevitably gets famous will allow us to be a footnote on his wikipedia page, but only on Thursdays. art by Bri Crozier, who will not be able to escape having us credited on their wikipedia page. Sorry about that. Our bad. Should auld acquaintance be forgot The enemy ship was large, monolithic, and boasted no interesting features to speak of, which struck the Tourist as an equally unremarkable opening she would be sure to change when she came to retell this story. Crewed by a menace that brought dread wherever they went, they’d plunged through dimension barriers and shattered probability mirrors to lose them. But, true to their reputation, they just kept coming. The Canon would never stop coming. (Much better, the Tourist noted.) She danced around the central console of her own vessel with Ashlyn, dressed in her white lace shirt and grey hybrid jumper. And oh, what a double-act they made! They were to piloting a hyper-advanced narrative waverider as Abbott and Costello were to physical comedy – they were Laurel and Hardy, Ant ‘n’ Dec, Cheese and Crackers! Speaking of the latter… The Tourist furrowed her brow and took a long drag from her cigarette as she spotted, in the corner of her eye, crumbs fall to the floor from the crackers that Shona was loudly munching on while studiously monitoring the tactical readout on the viewscreen. Even the Tourist’s shadow seemed independently disapproving, she noted its stern posture with its hands on its hips, before she realised that she was emulating the same stance… She turned to see Miranda zipping across controls on the upper-levels that now existed, and Pathway was charging up a comically large directed energy weapon – preparing to deliver a swift and explosive refutation to the Canon. At that moment, an entitlement-class torsion missile detonated off the bow (if a pyramid vessel can be said to have such a thing) and – to the Tourist’s irritation – scrambled all the controls’ functions. “Miranda,” she called to her rollerblading companion, who was continuing to ascend up to the sixth level that seemed to have suddenly sprung into existence. “Get these systems under control, they’ve got me flying on inverted!” “What’s wrong with inverted?” Shona grumbled through a mouthful of crackers. “Everything’s wrong with inverted!” the Tourist and Ashlyn snapped back. Pathway slammed the release on their ship’s entrance portal and heaved her energy weapon into an aiming position at the first of the Canon’s streaming pods. “They’re broadcasting this?” Ashlyn exclaimed. “They must be upset!” “Five women existing in an independent narrative? Of course they’re upset!” Miranda called down from the seventeenth level. “Just be glad that the first thing I did was mute their repeating comms at us about how we’re unrea—" Another torsion missile detonated, this time triggering the activation of random systems. Whatever was said next went entirely unheard by Ashlyn Oswin, as she was enveloped in an emergency teleportation field. Her form shattered into its component molecules, tumbling through unconventional space. The Pyroclastic Kingdoms of Shuntspace, the Stellar Engines of the Dead Star Nine, the Interpluvial Helix – all these places and more, until she arrived (thankfully with a successful reconstruction) on the most exciting, most luminous world she could hope to be. Earth. * D’you remember the first time you went to the beach? There’s that moment where you come over that first hill and catch a glimpse of how the sea spans the horizon. Your young mind can’t quite comprehend its expanse, all you can do is become lost in how the light dances on the waves and watch the rolling tides. Battlefields are like that too. But instead of the sea, it seems like an equally vast plain of cold and muddy morass. It is the frigid air that is the rolling tide, the vast interconnected network of barbed wire that is the light upon the waves, as the mind attempts to untangle what it is bearing witness to. And it’s not true, of course – the expanse of it. No, not on this particular battlefield. The average amount of space between opposing trenches was no more than a few hundred yards at most… Ashlyn had materialised in the heart of No Man’s Land. Scanning the horizon, she saw two strange rectangular boxes sitting on a distant hill as the only notable landmark that wasn’t wreathed in wire. She thought of the others, where they must be now, whether they would escape, if they could possibly find her, and if she was herself stepping into far greater danger here. But as she warily stepped forward, it was not the staccato beat of single-shot gunfire that greeted her, nor the bellowing of orders from a captain. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? It was singing. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne? Ashlyn reached the top of a muddy ridge and saw something she wouldn’t soon forget. A great crowd of brown and green and grey uniforms stood together, more than she could count. Some shook hands, some held onto each others’ shoulders, medics tended to the wounded on both sides. Hateful old men would do their best to ensure that nothing like this would happen again. And their evil will endure, taking ever new forms, combat against which may well be eternal – their enmity forever unslaked. But for this single moment in history, it was two voices that joined as one, people who realised that they had no reason to hate one-another, and – however fleeting it may have seemed – the human spirit won out. And Ashlyn, who had seen much of this evil and would fight against it with every ounce of her being regardless of whether it was a winning battle or not, was resolute that the same spirit could prevail again. She smiled as a bear of a German soldier joined the crowd and bellowed in Es ist in jedem Anbeginn, das Ende nicht mehr weit wir kommen her und gehen hin, und mit uns geht die Zeit The song faded from Ashlyn’s ears, as if some kind of barrier had been surreptitiously placed between them, and she found herself moving – only half-aware of where she was going – towards an old man who looked every bit a stranger to this place as she did. She noticed that there was only one box on the horizon now. Odd… He stood away from the crowd. His clothes were ripped and torn; Ashlyn momentarily mistook the visible tufts of red velvet sticking through his coat for blood as she got closer. The thick, furrowed eyebrows betrayed a kindly-looking face, and his untidy mop of curled grey hair was anything but regulation-length for a soldier. She couldn’t understand what it was that stirred in her, compelled her to keep walking towards him. It was like something written into her organic circuitry and she’d just learned how to read. She didn’t know why she smiled at this stranger who – upon facing her – looked as if he were seeing the face of an old friend. He said a name, but it was not her own. I think you know who it was, and she went along with it regardless. * “Curator!” a young lieutenant approached in some distress. “The Canon is going down, what are your orders?” They had sustained a hit to their ventral cannon which caused a wildcat destabilisation of the Lore Drive, not to mention their streaming pods had been picked off one-by-one, bringing a premature end to their four-hour broadcast. “Curator!” The Curator stood there, dazed, watching the cascading explosion cause a major breach in their now disordered hull. His wispy blond hair looked like an independent sentient being from how it stood on his head as power transferred to the inertia dampers. “Your uniform, lieutenant,” the Curator spoke at last, his voice sounding as if it were light-years away. “My uniform?” “I see you have deigned to impress your peers and superiors by modelling it on the Imperial battle-dress uniform.” “Yes, sir…” An alarm began to blare, signalling the bridge crew to abandon ship. The Curator then rounded on him, bellowing in his face as the alarm blared louder. “AND YET, you have misplaced no fewer than THREE essential canonical details, aligning yourself not with your duties as a canonical curator, but a lowly creator! The punishment for this fakery carries a ship-wide reprimand, followed by immediate excision by airlock.” He needn’t have bothered, for the bridge was consumed with flame and the Canon was no more. * It only took a few minutes for the familiar pyramid vessel to materialise and for the other four women to come rushing out to find Ashlyn, who stood waiting with an expectant look on her face, before plunging herself into the arms of a welcoming group hug. “We were terribly worried!” said the Tourist. “Luckily, Miranda was able to track the emergency teleport’s coordinates.” “Turns out that was on the seven-hundred-and-fifth level,” Miranda grinned. “But we’ve managed to size things down to normal again. Hopefully…” Shona nibbled on a chocolate bourbon, offering the pack around. “Well, now that we’re all back together, let’s go and find a happy story.” “About that…” Ashlyn grabbed Pathway by the hand and pulled her and the group over to the top of the ridge, revealing the sight of the Christmas Armistice. “It would appear that we’re in one…” Ashlyn thought back on the strange old man. They hadn’t spoken for very long at all. Indeed, she hadn’t really been sure what to say, but she felt in a way she couldn’t quite describe that what had passed between them carried the weight of many years. She was certain that, in some fashion, she may well have just saved the old man’s life, and that some invisible purpose within her had been fulfilled – for the last time. But now, the time had come to revel in merriment, as the soldiers started up their song again in a gleeful encore, and the five heroines were moved to join. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne? Copyright 2020 Arcbeatle Press and James Wylder
Any resemblance to persons living or dead, fictional or real, or events past or present is either purely coincidental or done firmly within the grounds of loving parody. Any attempt to use this story to make weird claims on a wiki argument thread should probably be grounds to ignore any other arguments from the user making those claims forever. Just saying. It's an April fools story, I mean really. By Sean Dillon, who is the new talented editor at Arcbeatle Press. Get the autographs now. Art by Bri Crozier, who is just really damn good at what they do. Oh, and this one is a bit darker than the others. Still a comedy story, still good fun and VERY GOOD, but delves into a few things that might not be for you today! Use your discretion :). Go On, Toddle Along An Exciting Adventure with The Tourist and Ashlyn Oswin TW: Implied rape invocation, racial slurs. As the Black Pyramid dematerialized, it made the groaning wheezing sound typically heard when Crawling plays on the radio. The sky was an evergreen cloudless blue as the remains of the moon were shattering down towards the orphanage of disabled puppies. There were a number of reasons why the moon was destroyed, among them being the belief that using nuclear weapons actually solves problems. As highlighted by the charred remains of a number of unnamed puppies who just wanted love and affection, this is not the case. As the Black Pyramid hurtled through the bloody recesses of time and space, the destruction of the moon was not on Ashlyn Oswin’s mind. There were a number of more pressing things that she was dealing with, the least of which being the dead. For starters, there’s the Black Pyramid itself. As anyone who has been within it first notices, the interiors are far too large to fit within the exterior proportions. Not that they were all that large compared to a typical pyramid, but there was a slight size increase compared to what one would expect. They were designed with an air of gothic, albeit a gothic inspired by someone who has never experienced a work in the gothic tradition. Which is to say that there were a bunch of bones scattered around the walls and there weren’t that many sources of light. At times, Ashlyn could barely see a thing. Then, of course, there was the woman she was traveling with. Most people called her the Tourist, if only to stop her from going on a long, rather tangential speech about how no one could ever know her true identity as it was forsaken to the cruel horrors of the universe, horrors which she fights day in day out, without want for reward, recognition, or friendship, Horrors that have taken so much from her, so many she cared for, and so forth. She would then go on to list these people at length in a way that made her seem like the true victim as opposed to those who died horribly. (Notable examples include Rey Taylor, who was turned into mush by traveling to a parallel universe of magic talking ponies, Mary Jones, who asphyxiated after resetting time to its proper place, and Dina Noble, who had some rather unfortunate experiences she, in the Tourist’s telling, begged to forget.) The Tourist was a lean, almost cockroach-like, older woman, roughly in her early 50’s, and showed it. Though her hair was a curly brown done up in a pompadour and her skin smooth as a chameleon, beneath her eyes, inside her soul, was someone who constantly did the right thing, no matter the cost. Even if she had to kill, slaughter, maim, or exterminate to get it done, she would do what she deemed was necessary. The Tourist was dressed in a black trench coat (which she considered putting spikes on before rejecting it due to not being able to make it work with the trench coat’s fabric), black pants, a white shirt, a black tie, black sunglasses with circular frames, a cigarette perpetually hanging out of her mouth (though Ashlyn never saw it lit), and pink ballerina shoes. Her black jackboots had not yet arrived. Indeed, they were five years late despite her having a time machine that could arrive at the exact moment they were shipped mere moments after being ordered. Which was a shame since the Kreesus Man was the only thing that brought her true joy. (Well, that and hate fucking.) “Something on your mind,” asked the Tourist. This was not done out of genuine curiosity so much as it was a calculated move in service to a larger scheme. Her traveling partner was in a bit of a mood. It was the kind of mood where it would be allowed to simmer if not questioned, and explode if it were. The traveling partner was a young 20 something with short brown hair cut into a bob just slightly long enough to barely miss the shoulders. Much like the Tourist, she was lean albeit more athletically so. More a dancer than cockroach (these were her shoes after all). She had the face of a movie star just waiting for her big break as opposed to the school teacher she ostensibly was. The Tourist’s current traveling partner, much like her previous partners, was dressed in a rather short blue skirt that emphasized her breasts, a frilly bow behind her head, and some basic high heels. She exuded an air of kindness and generosity. And yet, there was a wicked smile beneath the sweetness. It was a very Hufflepuff smile, the kind that no one suspects until there’s a sword coming out from you. You’d see the sword coming, Hufflepuffs always stab people in the front. But, as with the case of most self-proclaimed Ravenclaws, you’d be too busy lapping up your own cleverness to notice it happening. It was this, among other things, that ultimately pushed the Tourist towards asking the question to her traveling partner. She was, after all, always in the mood for a good old fashioned hate fuck. “Well,” said Ashlyn after a moment’s thought, “I’ve been thinking.” Well, that’s a problem, thought the Tourist. Best fix that after the hate fuck. “Thinking about what, love?” “About these adventures we’ve been having.” “W-what do you mean?” “Well, to stick with some of the more recent ones, there was that robot you pushed out of a hot air balloon made out of the flesh of orphan street urchins.” “To be fair, I did it because his robot army was plotting to overthrow the Queen of England and his death was the only way to stop them.” “Then there was the pacifistic death bot you taught the necessity of killing.” “Only other death bots! Besides, everyone knows pacifism never works. If anyone ever tried it, they would soon realize the futility of the deed. There are evils in this world who would rather all of us die. Barbarians just waiting to overthrow our freedoms, take away our friends. I needed to teach it the futility of pacifism before it got itself murdered by the hard truths of the world we live in!” “And then we blew up the Enchanted Wood.” Ashlyn, notably, did not name the horrid sight, the blackest gnome, who, along with a pair of peg wooden dolls, helped them in their... adventure in the Enchanted Wood. “Bah! Better to blow up all fairy tale lands then let them be converted by the Dredded foot soldiers of the Robotmen!” She perked up, hoping her traveling partner picked up on her pun. If she did, she was confused by its relevance to the nature of the Robotmen. They were not so much jack booted thugs of an authoritarian police state who dealt in order through subjugation, but rather an insidious threat dressed in utopian ideals with a fascist undercurrent simmering beneath the surface like a bag of cocaine that has just been ripped open in the insides of a Floridian man trying very hard not to look suspicious and failing miserably. Even then, the pun worked better in prose than spoken verbally. “And then, you ruined my date with Graelyn because you were, and I quote, bored.” “Well, that date was going to crap anyways.” The Tourist had to be careful with this next bit. Go too far, and she leaves forever without the hate fuck or attitude adjustment. Not far enough, and the plan’s ruined. “Then,” Ashlyn continued, on a roll with her list of adventures, “we helped a bank kidnap and brainwash an intelligent life form.” “Oh come on, it wasn’t that intelligent. Plus, the stock market needed it. Do you know how many corporations could have lost .02% of their net growth?” “But what really hit me was our most recent adventure. It started when we got into an argument over the ethics of our adventures. A lot of our adventures have had what can only be described as… terrible results.” “And I told you,” with an emphasis on you that only a Scottish sounding person can pull off, “that this is a hard world that requires hard decisions. Sometimes, there are only bad choices and we must pick amongst them.” “Right, that’s what you said. And then, you put me in charge of our next adventure. We landed on the moon in the not too distant future and discovered it had been infected with carnivorous giant spiders.” “Truly, a realistic thing to encounter in the vastly cruel cosmos.” “We were trapped on the moon along with a platoon of Space Marines.” “Who deserved all our support, as all troops do.” “Who then died.” “A tragic, but necessary sacrifice.” “Leaving us with their nuclear weapons to defeat the Spiders.” “And I left the decision up to you. Luckily, you made the right call in the end. Who knows what those dreadful spiders would have done if left to roam the universe.” “Except… I almost aborted the bomb.” “…YOU WHAT!” The Tourist was furious. Her traveling partners were typically stupid by design, but never to this degree. How could she let her down like this. The Tourist would have to scrap her sooner than she expected if this was the level of fuck up to be seen. She calmed herself quickly. There was still the potential hate fuck after all. Ashlyn was not to be detoured. “I got a sense from them that they weren’t inherently hostile. That they reacted to us with violence because the Marines shot first. Were we to leave them alone, they would have lived peacefully on the moon. Who knows what cultures we’ve murdered, what lives they lived. I was about to abort the bomb when something hit me. Something made a horrifying amount of sense, such that I didn’t have enough time to abort the bomb. About not just that adventure, but all our adventures. It had been nagging at me for quite some time until then, but when it hit, I was awash with a sense of overwhelming clarity.” The Tourist was starting to sweat. “So what are you saying?” “I’m saying that somehow, every element in our adventures is connected to the television show Doctor Who. That’s what I’m saying.” Shit, thought the Tourist. On the bright side, at least she’s never heard of Lady Aescalapi… Axeliu… Ascelopolis… That woman I had a drunken one night stand with after helping Better Living Industries defeat the Fabulous Killjoys. “It is… only a coincidence! I do not even know who David Tennant is!” There was a bit too much emphasis on the word coincidence for Ashlyn to believe that it was. That, and the Tourist was moving a bit too close to Ashlyn for her liking. “Besides, we’ve had adventures that weren’t inspired by Doctor Who. Remember the time we stopped those reds from stealing the Martian death weapons? Or the time we sacrificed my own people for the safety of the universe. Or the time you got kidnapped and ravished by the Immortal Transphobe while I teamed up with my evil past self (who I had no idea even existed) to fend off the space police who were miffed because I created all life in the universe?” “Ok, I think that last one happens to a different member of the, for lack of a better term, fam,” though Ashlyn did make a mental note to kick the Immortal Transphobe in the balls should they ever meet, “but I damn well know those are all plots to Doctor Who stories.” “Erm... so what?” said the Tourist with a hint of desperation poorly disguising itself as flippancy, “So what if these stories are all like Doctor Who stories? Surely we can live and love happily! Besides,” the Tourist shifted her position such that she was very close to the Black Pyramid’s one door, barring any potential escape (not that one would want to leap into the veins of time), “if you want to avoid the story of Doctor Who, then this is the perfect opportunity to subvert it! Surely you remember that in that story, the Doctor and his companion drifted apart. But here, Here! We can come closer together. We can do what you always wanted to do: make sweet, hot passionate love! You’ve made the hard choices I make every single day. You understand the necessity of the world we live in. The cruel nature of life! I can make things so much better for you!” And for a moment, Ashlyn paused. Not for long, of course. Where she the other one, the one she was blatantly ripping off, she might’ve been tempted to give the Tourist a snog and a hate fuck. She might’ve even done it. (Though, in the other one’s defense, were their roles swapped, she would’ve thought the same of Ashlyn.) But there was one thing that prevented her from doing so, the thing that was number one on her mind. It wasn’t so much that they were ripping off Doctor Who as it was the way they were doing it. Their story wasn’t fully Doctor Who per say. It was a bit grimmer, a bit darker, and a bit more fascist than a typical Doctor Who story (which usually aired towards a naïve liberalism). And she knew full well where her story would end: A woman who died to inspire a hero to do dark, awful things to bring her back. The Tourist would rip time asunder and betray her own people in the name of the Lost Lenore. What drama, what consequences would there be to this tragic affair? This ancient story. This fairy tale. Obviously, they wouldn’t be able to be together in the end. Such stories never allow for the lovers to be together in the end. They would be separated. Usually, such things would be something along the lines of Orpheus and Eurydice, but their adventures would never allow something as light and fluffy as that to happen. It would have to be darker, and Ashlyn had an imagination. The Tourist’s people would offer a trade. Ashlyn, it would turn out, could birth machines such as the Black Pyramid because of some technobabble that only made aesthetic sense. If the Tourist were to allow them to use her as a means of reproduction, to create more, better traveling machines, then her traveling partner would be allowed to live (pacified, of course, so she wouldn’t run off). If the Tourist did not, Ashlyn would be killed. The Tourist would agonize over the decision, but in the end she would make the hard decision. She would say yes to her people and allow Ashlyn to live forever in bondage. It was, after all, for the greater good. Not wanting that ending, Ashlyn asked a very simple question before landing the coup de grâce. “What’s my name?” “What,” the Tourist retorted with a small laugh within. “My name. We’ve been traveling for so long, surely you of all people must know my name.” “O-of, Of course! Of course I know your name!” “Well, what is it?” “It’s… It’s… It’s… Cassandra?” Ashlyn responded to the wrong answer by punching the Tourist in the face. There was a rather nasty shiner on her left eye and the doors to the Black Pyramid were wide open. The Tourist almost fell out, but she held onto the frame of the entrance with great difficulty. She was too focused on holding on for dear life to form coherent sentences, only making snarls and animalistic growls that had the vague outline of language. Ashlyn raced to the console that controlled the Black Pyramid with great difficulty. But it was as if there was a corridor of air helping her along towards her goal lit up by actual lights. The Tourist was starting to lose her grip by the time Ashlyn reached the console. The Tourist gave her traveling partner a look which pleaded for mercy. “Oh fuck off! Fuck off you twat! And forget you ever met me!!!” And with that, the Tourist fell into the veins of time, left adrift in the past, present, future, and neverwas while the doors of the Black Pyramid slammed shut. Ashlyn sighed, slightly relieved. Self-preservation, even for someone with her character, trumps horniness in the end. Ashlyn looked around. The interior of the Black Pyramid had shifted slightly. No longer the design of someone who had listened to far too much Linkin Park, now it looked like the design of someone who listened to far too much My Chemical Romance. There was still an edge to the design, but it was a different sort of edge, one that allowed for Queen, Janelle Monáe, spadging on sigils, and other queer things. The bones were still there, but there was an artfulness to their design, and they weren’t the only ornaments affixed to the walls of the Black Pyramid. Moreover, Ashlyn could actually see what the majority of the Black Pyramid looked like. There were posters of rock bands, bookshelves full of stories waiting to be annotated, a jukebox with a guitar leaning on it. Ashlyn looked at her surroundings and was pleased. She was less pleased by the clothes she was wearing. They just weren’t her style. And so, she traveled down the corridors, which seemed deeper than they once were, perhaps even diving into infinity, knowing instinctively where to go. *** It had been a rough few months since Colonel Eliezer Levenston-Stalworth had been commissioned to defend the British dominion over India. They had recently locked a fusilier the troops called The Big Crazy for repeated misconduct, not the least of which being preventing several high ranking officers from doing what needs to be done to boost morale and keep those wogs in line. Natives, the Colonel corrected himself, we’re supposed to call them natives. However, he has been making a lot of ruckus as of late and has threatened to murder the next man to enter his cell. Sure, it was because he was being held without charges and forcibly having his hair cut to below regulation, but he’s been a troublemaker for so long. The Scot needed to be taught the proper British way of things. Furthermore, the natives were beginning to revolt against the various platoons sanctioned to bring order to this fertile, savage land. They did not appreciate the troops slaughtering their cows to make steaks out of, nor did they like being stripped naked and beaten with sticks for daring to protest their lot in life. They had begun to form resistance groups under a fool named Gandhi who thought that non-violence could actually stand a chance against the might of the British military. And to top it all off, a race of sea-wogs had surfaced and had aligned itself with the natives. They claim to be intellectually superior, but if they were, they would have used their technology to aid in suppressing the encroaching Nazis, natives, and other lesser peoples. (On the bright side, some of the men had rustled a herd of cows, so steak would be on the menu tonight.) All these things were on the Colonel’s mind when he heard news that a strange woman had been found nearby. He recalled his old ally the Tourist who helped fight against the barbarous hordes of Yeti and the insidious might of the Robotmen, who dared to subvert the glory of the British Empire. Perhaps she could help with their little problem. It was reported that she was found lying unconscious on a mound of manure with a robot standing next to her. It was wearing a dapper hat and holding a box slightly smaller than a pair of Jackboots in her size… *** Alice River was in the twilight of her spring when the death bots attacked. She had been teaching History for the past ten years. She was beloved by her students, the faculty, and had even been in meetings with several Labour and Liberal Democrats, though she herself was a member of the Scottish National Party. Her courses typically consisted of walkthroughs in various pre-English civilizations and how they led to the modern world, with a direct focus on the fictions told in those eras such that it was unsure by those who hadn’t taken her courses if she was actually a history teacher at all. Those who did knew she was always talking about History. Her husband, Roland Williams, was a nurse who worked at a nearby hospice. When he started his medical career, Roland had wanted to be a doctor. However, as he began his medical degree, it occurred to him that his strengths were in assisting those in need. He could do a diagnosis like no one else, but he was stronger doing the equally complex work of organizing a hospital to have all the right people in the right place, to keep the patients comfortable in between the doctor’s visits, and to guide them to the next stage in life. He had been friends with Alice since they were kids and it was only before they went to college that they realized their feelings for one another. (Indeed, they were the last people in their small town to realize that.) They were married a year after they graduated college and loved each other for all the years that followed. They never had kids (Alice was infertile), but that didn’t dampen their relationship (bar one fight before they got married). What did dampen their relationship was the death bots attacking. One of them struck Roland in his right shoulder. He was lucky to have survived. Practically everyone else was dying, Alice could hear the screams of her students, her fellow faculty, and all the other people wandering the university grounds. She was awash with dread and misery. The only thing keeping her going was her husband, who was screaming in pain. Fortunately, one of her students was with Alice and was able to help carry her husband to a safe location. The student’s name was Bob Potterson, and she was a rather odd student. Officially, she wasn’t a student at all. She couldn’t afford to go to college, so she worked in the cafeteria serving chips to the students. On her off hours, Bob would sneak into various lectures held in the university. The one she cared about the most, however, was Alice’s. There was a small degree of a crush to this (though Bob recognized that such a relationship wouldn’t work out), but it was mostly due to how invigorated and excited Alice was about history, about the people who once lived, the stories they told, the stories lost, all the things that make us who we are. It always put a smile on Bob’s face. Alice, when she found out about Bob, let her stay on and acted as a personal tutor. She liked Bob’s smile and how she asked seemingly obvious, yet unasked questions. The three found themselves in one of the classrooms. It wasn’t that large, roughly large enough to fit forty students at a time. But it was enough to keep Roland alive. He weakly told the two that he was going to be okay, but his voice refused to lie to them. On a normal day, such an injury would mean Roland would lose his arm. It would take him years to relearn all the things he did with just one arm. He would have to stop nursing for a while, maybe forever. Alice would still be there for him, maybe take a semester or two off to help with the early transition. But it would still hurt. Fortunately, this was not a normal day. For as Alice was tending Roland’s wounds as best she could, a wheezing groaning sound akin to a dying llama filled the room. The three were awash with a wind from nowhere. In its place, landing precisely atop the tables, was a Black Pyramid. In the direction facing the three was a door with a novelty maple leaf for a knob. The door opened rather smoothly; in its frame was a woman. At first, she was silhouetted by the light from within, almost blindingly bright. But as she stepped closer, they could make more of her out. The woman was dressed in a purple suit with a loose black tie dangling around her white shirt. She was wearing a bowler hat with a small bisexual flag stitched to its rim. She was wearing a fashionable pair of flip flops with a smile on their heels. She had a tattoo on the left side of her neck of a raven flying high. Her hair was cut in a bob just long enough to not reach her shoulders. She was lean, she was confident, and she had the closed smile of someone who had just recently thought about the prospect of space-age wiccan polyamory. Alice was intrigued by the woman, but somewhat weary of the Black Pyramid. There was an implication of banal cruelty to its design. One of someone who thought brutalism wasn’t brutal enough. And yet, the woman inside seemed to subvert those expectations. She was like the imaginary friend everyone had, the one who wanted to overthrow the government because it was a bit too cruel. Roland was a bit too dazed and confused to have an opinion. Alice seemed at ease with the woman, so he tried to relax. But there was something about that smile of hers that made him think of dashing adventurers who get too close to danger and leave too many wounded behind. Though, again, he was a bit too dazed to have a full opinion. Bob, on the other hand, had a toothy grin on her face. She could tell the woman was her kind of people. She stood with a confidence Bob wished to have in herself. She was sure Helen would be fine with a threesome, right? (Unbeknownst to Bob, Helen was already in the Black Pyramid, along with a bunch of other students, faculty, and people in the line of death bot fire. A clever plan all things considered, evacuating as many people as possible so the death bots will think they have murdered everyone and move on to somewhere else. That way, mostly everyone will live. The woman thought about the life she was about to go into. About all the places she could see. If danger came, she’d meet it as best she could. Sometimes, she thought, violence is necessary. But only a twat thinks it’s the only solution. Who knows, she thought, maybe I’ll run into her again. And then she laughed in her head and turned towards those outside the Black Pyramid with a polite smile on her face.) “Hello. My name’s Ashlyn Oswin. Need a lift?” Copyright 2020 Arcbeatle Press and James Wylder
Any resemblance to persons living or dead, fictional or real, or events past or present is either purely coincidental or done firmly within the grounds of loving parody. Any attempt to use this story to make weird claims on a wiki argument thread should probably be grounds to ignore any other arguments from the user making those claims forever. Just saying. It's an April fools story, I mean really. by James Wylder, who wrote a story bible of 10kd in High School from whose outline this scene was written directly from! A peek at a future unmade! art by Bri Crozier, who is a trooper in any continuity. You wake up. Looking back on all the other times you woke up before in your life, this one strikes you as different. Probably because of the woman with light blue eyes and hair with pale white skin looking down at you while pterodactyls fly through the sky, in which hangs a gigantic...thing. Like two pyramids placed bottom to bottom, with a wheel of spikes sandwiched in the middle. So that's unusual. But somehow the thing that really throws all of it off for you is that the woman is wearing a white tracksuit with glowing blue stripes, the jacket unzipped to reveal a plain blue tee. You mean, come on, dinosaurs and a giant sky double pyramid thing, they're both unusual. They go together in a weird way. Even the lady with the light blue ponytail, and somehow matching eyelashes and eyebrows, sure. But the tracksuit. Come on. "Hey, I'm Pathway. I take it you've never been teleported before?" Of course you haven't. She nods, face firm. She doesn't appear to be a smiler, but does extend a hand you take, as she pulls you to your feet. "You must have gotten caught up in the Creation Machine's shift. Regardless of what you like, you're going to need to help me. Its the only way you'll get out of this fiasco alive." Wait hold, up, you recognise Pathway! She...you saw her at class the other day. Only she had peachier skin, and brown hair. She was new along with the grungy guy, with the stubble, who... Oh, there he is too. He bursts through the bushes, a bulky rifle in hand. It looks like something from a sci-fi movie. He is wearing a grey uniform now, with the number 789 on the breast. This detail becomes more notable when Pathway draws her sword (!) from her back, and points it at him. "789, you're not getting our classmate." Wait, you say, what exactly is going on? "You shouldn't listen to Pathway here, she and the Infinite want to destabilize the universe. You and I got along, come one, just come over to my side of the clearing, I can explain everything." "I'll cut your throat out," Pathway replies, and the edge of the sword glows blue. Okay, at this point you just have to ask who exactly the Infinite are? "We're guardians of the multiverse. Not by choice. We had to, when Lady Frostbite and her people, the Numbered, decided to take it over." "We did so for the good of all! What Pathway fails to tell you is that there's only so much stuff in existence, and we're going to make sure it doesn't run out. The Infinite think that things are limitless, everyone gets a free lunch with no consequences." Okay, so this is an ideological war? "It's a war," Pathway replies, "over the creation machine." She points into the sky, at the double pyramid thing. You're about to ask what that is, when a great cry breaks you out of your revery. It's a goddamn Tyrannosaurus rex, bursting through the treeline. How did we not notice it? "It probably only just came into existence, get back!" Pathway shoves you back, and as 789 blasts the dino with his gun, green bursts of energy racking it, Pathway blocks it's teeth with her sword. Getting the blade between two teeth, as the Rex swings its head up to try to bite her again she leans into the momentum. She flips backwards , and lands with her sword in the back of the predator's neck, sliding down its back and splitting its spine. She lands with a hop off of it, and looks at 789, "Sorry, what were you saying about our ideology?" But he'd already started running. Okay, what just happened. "The creation machine made that dinosaur, it made this entire planet. That's what it does. We need to keep going I just need to find my orb." Your what?" She holds her hand out to you, "My way of travel. Now come on, there's a lot I need to explain to you. The 10,000 worlds created by the creation machine need to be defended, and I'm sworn to do that. But I'm also sworn to aid anyone caught up in this without their choice. Would you come with me?" The edge of her lips curl up in a smile. You'd still have enough time to catch up to 789. Do you take her hand or not? THE WAR ACROSS THE INFINITE 10,000 DAWNS PROTOTYPE Copyright 2020 Arcbeatle Press and James Wylder
Any resemblance to persons living or dead, fictional or real, or events past or present is either purely coincidental or done firmly within the grounds of loving parody. Any attempt to use this story to make weird claims on a wiki argument thread should probably be grounds to ignore any other arguments from the user making those claims forever. Just saying. It's an April fools story, I mean really. Breaking the NarrativeBy James Hornby, what a lovely fellow. You'd really think this wasn't his first 10,000 Dawns credit. Why didn't we bring him on before? Probably because Wylder is running the company and couldn't handle having the smarter handsomer other James around. Art by Bri Pi, who deserves one of those boats that floats down a river with people fanning you on it while you sit on a throne? Do those have a name? Look, they deserve that. It was getting late. Another day at Brightstone Farm had come to an end. Closing the latch on the barn door, Redacted Pinorva drew in a deep breath. The lush smell of the meadow filled his nostrils, carrying all the gentle flavors of summer. It was days like this he would remember for the rest of his life. Strolling back through the fields towards the farmhouse, he saw his uncle, Uncle, stride out to meet him. "Redacted, my boy." Uncle greeted him with a warm smile, his face as old and haggard as the trees in Hayseed Wood. He placed his arm around Redacted's shoulders and together they headed for home. "You've done me proud today, boy. Not only did you stop that pesky Xiz invasion, you also managed to get my tractor fixed." He tapped at his chin. "I think I'll make your favorite for dinner tonight." Redacted's eyes lit up. "Chicken masala with extra chapattis?" Uncle scratched his head. He coughed awkwardly. "No. Spinach. Now get inside and eat your greens!" Grumbling, Redacted ran into the farmhouse. Uncle stopped at the porch and took one last glance at the sky. He smiled at the setting sun, well aware it was one of the last he would see. At the edge of the farm, the peace was about to end. The barn door rattled. The latch leapt up and down. Something inside wanted to get out; the cows were all too happy for that to happen. They didn't have to wait long. With the hiss of a Zolar ray gun, the barn door disintegrated, and five people stepped out. "Here we go again," said the Tourist, taking in her picturesque surroundings. "Another narrative to subvert." The five intruders strode across the rolling fields heading for a solitary farmhouse, where a family sat down for dinner. "How was that?" Uncle asked as he gobbled down the last piece of spinach on his plate. Redacted's face screwed up into a ball of disgust. "Fine, Uncle. Though I don't quite know how you can forget what my favorite meal was." "I'm sorry, my boy," said Uncle. His head hung low in shame. "It was so long ago I just forgot." Redacted looked confused. "Uncle, we had chicken masala last week!" Uncle chuckled. "Perhaps when you get to my age you'll understand." Redacted's confusion quickly turned to concern. "Are you sure you're alright, Uncle? You've seemed ever so distant recently." Uncle's face grew grave. He left the dinner table and walked over to the refrigerator. When he opened the door his face was bathed in a pool of golden light, much brighter than that of a normal refrigerator. For a moment Uncle seemed mesmerized. He quickly snapped out of it, and returned to the table with two bowls of rice pudding. "I hope this will help you forgive me for the curry incident?" Redacted smiled, pulling the bowl towards him with hungry eyes. "All is forgiven, Uncle." Uncle smiled, watching his nephew eat with pride in his eyes. Knock knock. Uncle's eyes darted to the door. I can't remember this part! Before either of them rose to answer their late night caller, the door opened. Five women stepped into the kitchen, dressed in all manner of strange clothes. They looked like rejects from a prolific book series. Uncle had a sneaking suspicion they were. Their leader stepped forward. "Hey guys! I'm the Tourist. These are my friends; Miranda, Ashlyn, Shona and Pathway. I hear you two were both neglected by your author. We've come to share our sympathies. You see, we too were scrapped, or sidelined in the creative process. We're actually quite pissed about the whole thing. We're popping from reality to reality to give our creator the middle finger. Hope you understand." Redacted and Uncle found themselves nodding even though they had no idea what the strange lady was saying. Alien invaders were weird; these people were freaks! "Hope you don't mind me doing a spot of redecorating?" Miranda raced around the room on her roller-skates, dousing the walls with spray-paint. "There. Much better!" Redacted leapt up from his seat. "Stop that. This is our home!" Ashlyn held out an arm to calm him. "Never you mind about that. What's your name?" "Redacted Pinorva," Redacted replied. Ashlyn batted her eyelashes at him and gently placed him back in his chair. "Redacted Pinorva? That's a weird name." "His first name was used by another intellectual property," Shona explained. "Happens all the time when the author doesn't finish their work quick enough." "And what's your uncle called, sweetie?" "Uncle," said Redacted, like it was obvious. "Uncle?" laughed Pathway. "What kind of name is that?" The Tourist joined in. "Your author couldn't even be bothered to give you a proper name!" Tears formed in Uncle's eyes. "I think you'll find I DO have a name. I'm just not allowed to tell him!” He thrust a finger at his nephew. "What are you talking about, Uncle?" Uncle glanced at the intruders in his kitchen and rolled his eyes. "Well since you lot have barged in and broken the narrative, I may as well tell you." Rising from his chair, Uncle leaned over the table. "I'm you, Redacted. You from thousands of years in the future. You after a terrible war wipes out our people. You shortly before I slip back into my ship - that fridge over there - and usurp the throne of the Eternal King in order to break the laws of time and pluck you out of the War before its devastating conclusion. In the process you become the sole survivor of said war, and a cyclical paradox is created that ensures the survival of our race. Happy?" Redacted's jaw fell open. "Geez, Uncle. Spoilers much?" "Sounds quite a complicated story we've got going on here," said Ashlyn. "I'm surprised this idea wasn't made into a series." "The author got bored," the Tourist explained, "preferred to write space adventures about the Roc's Feather and its crew's battles against the Voltron." "Voltron!" Uncle squawked. "They're B-movie villains at best. They were nothing compared to the villains from my adventures. I stopped the Aubrite from rewriting reality!" "Actually, on that note." The Tourist pulled a distress beacon from her pocket. "We're actually here to do just that. We're here to draw the attention of the powers that be. Figured destroying this reality might work. This distress beacon may look small, but it has the power to call upon every hostile ship in the universe. Well, this universe anyway. If there's anything that'll get our creator's attention, it'll be blowing up the main setting of one of his worlds." Shona held up her hand. "But doesn't this Earth belong to another author? We were literally just talking about how that guy couldn't be bothered to name anyone around here." "Hey!" shouted Pathway. "You never said anything about destroying the entire world!" The Tourist groaned. "Not now, Pathway, I'm busy. This is all besides the point. Now we've gone to the effort we may as well blow this place up anyway." She turned her attention back to Uncle. "I'd invite you along for the ride but you're a tad… past your prime." She shrugged. Seeing Redacted's hurt look she added: "And you're too inexperienced. Sorry!" The Tourist pushed her thumb down and the distress beacon activated. Already the world seemed different, like a countdown had begun on a quick march to zero. Opening the front door, Ashlyn ushered everyone outside. "Come on, we may as well observe the spectacle while we're still here." The five miscreants stood in the middle of a field, staring up to the sky. Redacted and Uncle followed, unable to form a plan quick enough as their world ended around them. They watched as every conceivable invasion happened at once. Helicron, Xiz, Draxi and Voltron ships reigned down from the skies. A Solari pilgrimage vessel collided with an Artari sunskipper. The warpdrive of the sunskipper was hit, sending a devastating blast of Iglix radiation into the stratosphere. Every ship in the sky was caught by the shockwave, turned into molten fireballs of doom. They descended. The apocalypse had begun. "Better be quick before the blast gets us," said Miranda. "Hop in," said the Tourist, throwing her pyramid-shaped transport onto the grass. It grew to the size of a small shed. As her companions entered, the Tourist cackled to herself. "If this doesn't get their attention I don't know what will." Seconds later they were gone. The crashing ships hit the Earth. The world ended. Copyright 2020 Arcbeatle Press and James Wylder
Any resemblance to persons living or dead, fictional or real, or events past or present is either purely coincidental or done firmly within the grounds of loving parody. Any attempt to use this story to make weird claims on a wiki argument thread should probably be grounds to ignore any other arguments from the user making those claims forever. Just saying. It's an April fools story, I mean really. |
James Wylder
Poet, Playwright, Game Designer, Writer, Freelancer for hire. Archives
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