{Prince Jake,} Ax said, looking around suddenly. {I think there is someone in the bushes outside.}
"There can't be," Rachel said. "Tobias checked the whole area before we started."
"Not all of it," said someone. Everybody turned to stare.
Leaning against the doorway was a girl. She was tall and slender. She had black curly hair that tumbled around her shoulders, dark slanted eyebrows that made her look like a witch, and large green eyes. She was wearing a long black skirt, a dark purple peasant blouse, and a blood-red shawl that made her look like an old woman. She was also wearing old-looking black leather boots, and had a silver pentagram on a chain around her neck.
The girl smiled. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Tarynne. I'm a priestess of Za-Lavarne, even though I'm not an Andalite."
"Of who?" asked everyone.
Ax looked scared. {One of the old gods...an old god of the Andalite homeworld.}
"Of Talalaqua," Tarynne corrected. "You have even forgotten the name of your planet. No wonder you've been almost defeated by mere puppet masters. You've turned your minds purely to the ways of the physical world, and not to the spiritual."
{But the old gods are dead!} protested Ax. {Killed! Gone! Destroyed by science.}
"No," said Tarynne simply. "They're not gone. They're not dead. Especially not Za-Lavarne."
Ax shook his head. {Any of them would have been better. Cha-Zarine, Kai-Rashav, even Vay-Koral. But Za-Lavarne...}
"Excuse me," interrupted Jake. "But who is Za-Lavarne?"
"The Andalite goddess of darkness. When a warrior dies, she rips them apart in an extremely clinical way, then uses their tailblade to cut their heart. If the blade has been dulled by weakness, and the heart toughened by corruption, then she dooms them to her realm, the realm of the dark mind. There, they live forever in their own worst mightmare." Tarynne explained all this very calmly, as if explaining a math problem.
{On the other hand,} added Ax, {if their tail blade is sharp from their inner strength, and their heart is soft and pure, then she eats their heart and gives the rest of their body to the realm of the light mind, where they live forever in their memories.}
"I thought Za-Lavarne was the Andalite goddess of the stars," interrupted someone.
The girl who said it looked a lot like Tarynne. She had light brown hair, however, brown eyes, and didn't have witch eyebrows. She was wearing stained blue jeans, a T-shirt with a picture of a dragon on it, and ratty old gym shoes.
"Alright, now who are you?" Marco demanded.
The girl shrugged. "Call me Maza. It's my Hebrew name; it means 'star.' My real name is Nicoletta, but it's a stupid name."
"Are you her twin sister or something?" Cassie asked.
"No, she isn't," said someone else.
This person was another version of Tarynne and Maza. She was very tall and had a developed figure. She had black hair, blue-green eyes, and several silver earrings in each ear. She was wearing a green-gold leather bodysuit that looked vaguely official.
{And you're their mother, right?} sighed Tobias.
"Nope. My name is Jane." The girl walked toward them. "I'm on your side, in a way. I fight both the Ellimist and the Crayak. In fact, I fight all gods. Including Za-Lavarne."
"Who are all these people?" yelled Jake.
Another girl walked in. She looked like Maza, but had shorter hair, green eyes, and slightly witchy eyebrows. She was wearing a black sweatshirt with a peace sign embroidered on it, ratty black jeans, and gym shoes.
"I," I said, "am Veronica Catherine Richards. Call me Ron."
Marco muttered, "So what do you have to do with these people?"
"They're characterizations of me," I explained. "Different versions of me that I insert into my stories. These three all happen to be from different fanfics I never wrote."
"Oh." Cassie nodded. "Aren't you that author that posted the first self-insertion fanfic?"
"The one that started all this crap?" Rachel growled, morphing to tiger.
(Since I seem to be in a lot of trouble in this fanfic, I'll slip out of my main characterization and revert to a secondary fanfic. I'd rather not, but I don't want to get ripped apart by a tiger. )
"Yes, and I didn't need one of those stupid 8-balls either," I added, from my new characterization as Tarynne. "All that those useless baubles do is to restrict your power. They're for weak authors who don't have any control over their characters whatsoever."
"And you do?" snorted Marco.
I glared at him. "If I didn't have any control over my characters, I wouldn't have been able to write that fanfic in the first place. Do you know how hard it was to make you do just what I wanted? If I hadn't been such a powerful author, you would have just rolled over and done whatever I wanted, without protest. I strengthened you, for God's sake. Applegate had you subservient as whipped dogs. I had to teach you to stand up for yourselves before I could write that."
"Yeah, and now we're rebelling," said Rachel. "Thanks a lot, Ron." She started morphing to tiger again. As befits the situation, I will now switch to yet another characterization.
"But you are only pawns in another game," I said. "Just like the Ellimist told you. Just like the Crayak told you. But they," I added, "are pawns too."
{Pawns of whom?} asked Tobias skeptically.
"Of the Goddess. You're in a vicious spiral, traversing the outside of Spiral Castle. The Goddess is manipulating you. All of you, just for her own entertainment. I know this from experience. I've seen Spiral Castle. I've been through it. And I almost managed to kill the Goddess. If I had, the universe would have been obliterated. But as it is..." I let them draw their own conclusions.
They all stared at me.
"But now," I said, jumping to Maza's characterization from Jane, "I've got to go. All of us do."
{Then why did you come?} asked Marco.
"Should there be a reason?" all of us asked. "If only to make sure that people remember who started this all. The author who doesn't need a magic 8-ball, only a pen and paper. The author who created the self-insertion genre, but no one remembers her."
And we left.