31.1 (Jeanne Summers)
Bloom Awoke underwater, looking around she recognised her sister's cave in Lake Roccaluce, though there was no sign of her sister.
"Daphne?" She moved her arms, preparing to swim outside when she froze. Her arm glowing and see through in the corner of her vision. Looking down she realised her entire body was see through and glowing! "Calm down Bloom, calm down, you're fine..."
Decades of memories hit her, growing up in the Domino Palace, a very different group of friends by her side as she attended Alfea, the betrayal of her friend, the birth of her baby sister Daphne, and the attack on Domino.
Followed by almost a decade and a half trapped as a spirit between one world and the next.
She had to find Daphne, her baby sister, her poor lost baby sister, she needed Bloom, Bloom had to go to her, she had too, she-
Bloom felt like she smacked into an invisible wall as she tried to fly to Alfea.
- was stuck in the lake.
Daphne glanced around nervously, as Stella introduced her to everyone as Princess Veranda of Callisto. The girl called Flora stared at her, slack-jawed, like Daphne had done something unbelievable.
"Ummm, hi?"
"Huh, I feel like I should be less surprised than I am," Flora propped her hands on her hips and looked Daphne over, like she was trying to decide what to do with her new room mate.
"Daaaphneee, fiind meee Daaaphnee, laake-"
"That is a terrible ghost voice," Daphne told the glowing dream lady, blandly. The lady pouted.
"Sorry, I was trying to sound mysterious, turnabout is fair play and all."
"Uh... huh?"
"Sorry, sorry, hi, I'm Bloom, your big sister, I'm trapped in Lake Roccoluce, if you want to come talk to me." The duo looked at each other for a long moment, before Bloom spoke again, "I mean if you don't want to that's fine too, there's... plenty of fish I can talk to. Sirena would be a better conversationalist, but she's frozen with the rest of our home world."
"What does that even mean?" Even for a dream this was strange, and Daphne felt very lost an confused.
"Oh well, you see-"
"WAH!" Daphne flailed out of bed as her alarm went off. Across the room, Flora sat up, a gun in one hand and a spell in the other.
"Who's attacking!?"
"No one, sorry, I just had a really weird dream."
"Oh," Flora put the gun back under her pillow and cancelled the spell, "well then, do you want to talk about it?"
"No," Daphne eyed her room mate with concern, "that's fine... although... you wouldn't happen to know a place called Lake Roccaluce, would you?"
"Yeah, it's like twenty minutes of walking from the school, it's really pretty out there." The duo started getting ready for the day, they met up with their three other dorm mates as they crossed the common room.
"Oh! I know, we could have a picnic!" The four girls turned to Flora.
"Pardon?" Techna raised an eyebrow.
"Sorry," Flora looked a little abashed, "Daphne was asking about Lake Roccaluce earlier, I was just thinking, after classes this afternoon, we should all head down there for a picnic."
Stella gasped in delight, "I have the perfect picnic outfit!"
Musa nodded, "sounds good to me."
Flora smiled as a glowing Bloom filmed a shocked Daphne in on their heritage.
Bloom Awoke in her dorm.
"I've been a terrible sister haven't I?"
Flora smiled in sad understanding, beside and behind Bloom, their friends made denials and enquiries about the statement.
"I hardly spend time with Daphne, she's almost always off in the Lake, or visiting the castle, even after she got to be human again, I didn't see her very often. The most time I spend with her is usually when she's or history teacher. I didn't realise before just how lonely it was for her."
"Well then," Stella said, hugging Bloom with one arm, "let's go see her."
Around them the group agreed to make picnics with Daphne more of a thing.
31.2 (Awesomedude17)
"So sometimes you're Aisha, and sometimes you're Layla?"
"Yep, and occasionally, we slip between Italian and English."
"Yeesh. You're definitely not one of the lucky ones."
"There's worse cases. Some Loopers don't even have a set gender, and a Looper named Robin can have his wife turn into her mother while her cousin could become his son."
"Oh my God." Nabu blinked in horror.
"Staying sane through all that requires that you learn to go with the flow. Heck, the Loops where all the genders are flipped are some of the worst for Bloom, Diaspro and especially Stella. I could practically see the sparkles in Stella's eyes when she loudly said that she trumped Yggdrasil."
"So how'd Yggdrasil respond?"
"Null Loop with other Loopers who hate gender swapping, gender swapped."
"So the lesson is don't tempt Yggdrasil?"
"Yep."
"I'll keep it mind so something on my mind doesn't happen."
"Hmm?" Aisha raised an eyebrow, only to decide, "You know what, keep it to yourself. I'm sure no one wants to know."
"Thanks. Even I don't want to know."
31.3 (Awesomedude17)
Nabu Awoke as he snapped a picture with his camera. After a quick moment to gather his bearings, he looked into his Loop Memories.
My name is Nabu Norris. I'm a tourist visiting Japan and stopped in Morioh Town. I have a fiancé back at the hotel room after a bout of food poisoning. Her name's Layla, so that means Aisha is here. Anything else?
That question was interrupted when he felt something pierce his chest.
"Agh! What the!"
An arrow was digging itself deeper into his chest.
Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!
Once the arrow completely disappeared into his chest, the wound began to heal itself, much to his confusion.
He looked around and saw a blond man run off, holding a bow.
"Hey! Get back here!" Nabu gave chase.
"Okay, head count. Who's Awake here?" Josuke Higashikata asked the group before him.
"Present." Jotaro curtly said.
"I'm Awake." Koiche replied.
"Same." Okuyasu said.
"As am I, Josuke." Rohan finished.
After a head count, Josuke finally made a conclusion. "Guess we've got two visiting Loopers, unless-"
"Gramps isn't Awake." Jotaro said.
"Two visiting Loopers. Wonder who they are?"
"AAAARGH!"
"Keicho!" Okuyasu ran off, leaving a group of confused Loopers.
"Yare yare daze." Jotaro mumbled as the group ran off to figure out what was happening.
They eventually came to a strange sight where a cherub was slaughtering Keicho's Stand while some Jamaican looking person was staring at the fight with sheer confusion.
"What kind of Stand is that?" Keicho yelled in frustration.
"I don't know! I can't even control it!" The man looked on, unsure what to do.
"An Automatic Stand. Just what we need." Josuke remarked with sarcasm.
"Brother!" Okuyasu used The Hand to bring the cherub Stand closer to him. It prepared to attack when...
"Wait, stop! Don't hurt him!" The man begged.
The cherub looked at his apparent user, and then turned towards Keicho and Bad Company.
And then a gold bird-like Stand appeared from the power lines, struck Keicho through the chest, and disappeared with the bow and arrow he had.
"Brother, NOOOOO!"
The cherub visibly relaxed and returned to the man, showing endless affection.
"...Would someone explain to me what just happened?!"
Jotaro groaned. "You take this one, Josuke."
"Uh, right. So, that cherub there is apparently your Stand."
"Stand?"
"Let's go find someplace private. Rohan, your house is the closest."
Rohan groaned. "Follow me."
Nabu sighed and stared at his Stand.
"So you're saying that this thing is basically an extension of my soul?"
"When Bad Company appeared, you felt threatened, and this thing attacked anything it perceived a threat. Since this is an Automatic Stand, you can't control it. You can only point it in the right direction." Josuke explained. "Believe me, it's not exactly normal, but I'm sure that with enough time, you could have something resembling control over it."
"And it's clearly being affectionate towards people it doesn't perceive as a threat." Rohan annoyingly said as the Stand messed with his hair like a child.
"So, anything else?"
"You could name it." Koichi suggested.
"I don't know... Magic?"
The cherub agreed vigorously, to the ruination of Rohan's hair.
"So your Stand's called Magic now. Congrats." Okuyasu clapped.
"Ugh, how am I going to explain this to Lay-LAYLA! Oh jeez, I've got to get going!" Nabu ran off.
"Wait, Nabu! Get back here! We're not done with the explanation!" Josuke began to give chase.
Jotaro sighed. This was going to be one of those Loop, wasn't it?
Nabu, after about 15 minutes of running, soon found himself outside his hotel room. Fumbling for his keys, Josuke ran up to him.
"Hey! We weren't done explaining!"
"Look, not be mean or anything, but I had to get to my fiancé. She's sick, and it's almost late."
"Oh... I'm sorry! I didn't realize!" Josuke bowed as he began to apologize.
"Look, it's nothing. We'll talk another day. For now, I've got to see her."
"Alright." Josuke said, noticing someone out of the corner of his eye.
Nabu opened the door and walked in.
"Layla, you feeling better? Layla? I got something for your stomachache. Layla?" Nabu looked around. No sign of Layla around here. He even went so far as to check the bathroom for her, but nothing.
"Nabu? I don't think your fiancé's here." Josuke said.
"I- This isn't right. She's tough, but her food poisoning was really bad. She was practically puking her guts out this morning."
"Hmm..." Josuke lifted up one of the sheets and found something.
"Perhaps this bloodstain should say something."
"Bloodstain?" Nabu looked over the blood.
"What? This is some kind of sick joke. I mean... Layla hadn't been killed or anything, right?"
"The blood's fresh, and I noticed that someone was walking away calmly."
"Someone? Who? Who?" Nabu almost shouted.
"Our resident serial killer, Yoshikage Kira."
"S-S-SERIAL KILLER?!"
"Yep. Guessing he snuck in and... look, I think I should explain everything about this branch. If what had happened it true, than all I can say is... I'm sorry for your loss."
Nabu's world slowed down right then and there.
"Layla... I... I mean... This can't be... Oh God." Nabu passed out.
"Oh, son of a bitch." Josuke groaned. Picking up the nearby phone, he called Rohan and relayed the location of the hotel and the room number.
This wasn't good at all.
"How's he taking it?" Jotaro asked.
"He's been silent for a long while ever since he woke up. He hasn't even acknowledged our presence." Rohan explained. "I took the liberty of using Heaven's Door to write down everything we know about the man into his sub-conscience. With any luck, he'll join us in hunting the bastard, and maybe Kira won't kill any of us, or use Bites the Dust on us."
"Hmm... and what about the Stand Users everywhere?"
"Nabu will probably not bother, but he's going to need to know a lot about what Stands can do, and how to counter them. I'll probably take him with me to handle Oyanagi, and maybe have him meet Kanedaichi."
"Two of the less dangerous Stands." Jotaro said.
"As long as Nabu doesn't attack Superfly, and I handle Boy II Man again, he'll be fine."
"Nabu doesn't strike me as someone who's attack anything."
"Me neither, but I've noticed something while using Heaven's Door on Nabu."
"Hmm?"
"He's currently feeling an anger that surpasses his previous bout of rage, one that's outright murderous. Nabu clearly cared for Layla, or rather, as she's known in the Loops, Aisha."
"Nabu's a Looper?"
"Yep. I've read it all. I suppose I've got my next manga ready to try out after I handle my usual work."
"I doubt Nabu will appreciate your actions, Rohan."
"Relax, Jotaro, I haven't ripped out any memories. What I do know is that Nabu's a Looper from Alfea, and we all know who hails from there."
"Flora and Diaspro."
"Diaspro? This is the first I've heard of her."
"It's been a long while ago, Rohan. I'll talk about later. For now," Jotaro lowered the brim of his hat. "we've got a manhunt to tackle."
31.4 (Jeanne Summers)
The specialists were busy at work, repairing their ship, which had taken a beating in a non-baseline mission. The quartet were disturbed from their task by a wolf whistle., looking over the group saw Diaspro, with a box in hand, grinning cheekily at them.
"Hey boys," she strode closer.
"Diaspro," Timmy greeted her, "thanks for coming, sorry if you were busy."
The fairy waved him off, "nothing that couldn't wait, besides: I brought vain muffins." Brandon jumped out the pile of ship parts faster than Sky could track, almost teleporting to Diaspro's side.
Sky frowned as he stepped closer.
"Those are cupcakes," he said, "not muffins."
Diaspro scoffed, "Sky, please, cupcakes are just muffins with their make up on," seeing his confused look she clarified, "it's a 'healthy eating' joke from Earth. Muffins are healthy, cupcakes are not." She saw the clarity cross his face.
Picking a cupcake from the box, Diaspro called "Riven," to the boy hanging higher up on the ship's side, working on the damaged systems that passed just beneath the hull. He stopped fiddling to turn to her, spotted the cupcake she was poised to throw, and shucked his gloves, preparing to catch.
Sky was actually really impressed the other boy managed to catch it without getting frosting on his hands.
"Hey," Diaspro's quiet call drew the prince's attention back to her, "vain muffin?" She offered him the open box, but he shook his head, "alright, suit yourself."
She placed the box with some of the less used tools, and walked over to a giant tear in the ship's hull.
"Want me to patch it Timmy?"
"Yeah, please, it is why I called you."
"How did you know, though," Sky asked the three on the ground, "how do you all always seem to know who's awake with the Pings?"
"We don't," Brandon explained, "Techna actually came up with this method, after a very drunk Diaspro-"
"I was not drunk!"
"You were drunk," Timmy argued back. Brandon continued on as if he hadn't been interupted.
"- broke her phone and that some how translated to her brilliant thought: what if the way to fix the Pings, is by not fixing The Pings." The trio pulled their cell phones out of their Pockets to show the prince. "Techna and I managed to create these phones, in our home Loop, they can tell you who's Awake and roughly where they are, but in outside Loops, you'll only get who's in the Loop with you. Aaaaaand they only work if they phones are out at the same time, so we all take them out once the Pings start.
"Basically we just call each other," Brandon summarised with a shrug, "I'm surprised Techna hasn't set you up with one yet."
Sky looked over to Diaspro, rather than replying, as the fairy reached for the top of the jagged gash in the metal of the ship's plating. Before he could call out to stop her, she place her hand against the sharp, ragged edges of the metal, and dragged her bare hands down over the broken plating.
Sky choked on his warning when, instead of being witness to Diaspro shredding her own hands, the metal moved like liquid under her touch, the expansive damage repairing itself under her ministrations. Coughing to clear his throat he saw neither of the other specialist with him were surprised by Diaspro's actions, Riven already back to work and ignoring everything else.
"She..."
"Oh right, you probably didn't hear yet," Timmy at least had the decency to act chagrined. "A while back, there was a variant loop, and Diaspro was the fourth Trix sister, the witch of metal."
"That's right," Diaspro interjected, the hole closed, "no more jewellery stains for me," jokingly referencing the 'dreaded green circles' of cheap jewellery. Her smile slipped from her face as she saw the lost look on Sky's face. With a sigh she stepped over to him, pressing gently at his shoulders until he turned and began walking.
"We're just going to step outside and have a bit of a chat," the fairy informed the other boys as she walked Sky away.
"A chat?" he asked her.
"Yeah, we haven't really spoken much since you started Looping, and I think it's time we did."
Outside they sat down, facing each other, and Diaspro began.
"I'm going to talk for a bit, and I want you to listen, really listen to what I'm saying, when I'm finished I'll give you a minute to think about what I've said, and then you can talk. I know you're still having trouble with the Loops, but you're lucky, I spent over a hundred Loops not knowing what was going on. I thought I was in hell Sky. I was very in love you, you were The Love Of My Life. For the first few dozen Loops, I thought I'd been given infinite second chances to fix our happily ever after," Diaspro held up her hand and made a shushing noise when Sky went to speak, "I'm not done yet." He shut his mouth.
"Eventually, the futility of my task sent me off the deep end, I broke, and it took a long time before I could even start to pick up the pieces, but I did. Then I finally began to accept that you would never love me, and chasing you would only bring me sadness, grief, anguish and pain. I deserve better than that, I deserve better than chasing after you, so I begun to let you go.
"I still love you, and I might always love you, but it is because you were my First Love, you are my Prince, one day you will be my King, and I will serve Eraklyon as the Guardian Fairy our world deserves. I've made my peace with that."
Diaspro tried not to let it hurt when Sky relaxed at her words, a tension he probably didn't even realise he carried, slipping from his shoulders. She'd guessed that he'd still been feeling awkward around her, given what their history.
"The thing is, once I stopped chasing you, I managed to stand still long enough to see what was around me. Bloom is my friend now, and I care about her as well. I know that we may have over reacted, and that you didn't deserve millions of years of unrealised resentment, for you it only happened once, for us it happened tens of thousands of times.
"You cheated on me, pushed Bloom into an awkward position, publicly humiliated us both because you couldn't find a way to be honest enough. I know there was a lot of pressure on you, from several sources, but you could have opened up to Bloom more.
"I spent a long time trying to break up your relationship, so I know its weak points, and the biggest, is communication. You and Bloom, I've seen the inevitability of it, in the first run of our reality you two connected, deeply, and no matter how many times you were pulled apart, you found your way back to one another.
"But things are different now, you two can't keep up this on and off again nonsense, it is not healthy. You both deserve a healthy relationship. I know you're struggling with feeling inadequate, like you can't match up to her expectations, but Sky, there are less expectations than you think. Bloom waited for you, she's still waiting for you. I get that you feel a bit lost with the Loops, but you can ask us for help, and we'll all help.
"One of the first things you should do, though, is talk to Bloom, tell her everything that you're feeling, let her respond, really listen to her when she tells you what she's feeling. Most importantly, don't make assumptions, if you think she said one thing and meant something that you feel angry about, ask her, let her know how that made you feel, and why it made you feel that way."
Diaspro rubbed her hands over her face and sighed.
"Sorry, that was a verbal dump, just: You two have a connection, but both of you need to start talking about how you feel, and listening to each other. You two make one another happy, and you both deserve to be happy. Don't worry too much about the Loop stuff, you'll catch up, just ask someone when you need to, it's perfectly fine."
Diaspro gave a gesture to let him know she was done, Sky sat quietly for several minutes, opening and closing his mouth several times, as he discarded things he almost said.
"When they told me," he finally began, "that they'd chosen my future partner for me, I decided then and there, that I would never love her, no matter who she was. It was my only way of rebelling, I wanted to be able to chose things for myself, instead of having them chosen for me all the time.
"It stayed with me, even when we got older, like a tiny pebble in my shoe, and in the end... I like you Diaspro, this new you, the old you from when we kids, not so much the Diaspro in between, but... you do deserve better.
"But I think I deserve better too, you are amazing, Diaspro, don't get me wrong, but I deserve to be able to choose, and I chose Bloom before I even realised it. The way she makes me feel, the why of it, it's hard to put into words, you know? When ever I try, I just mess it up. She deserves someone better than me, someone who doesn't keep making mistakes, but I don't want to let her go!
"I want to be the man she deserves, but I'm so far behind, I- I..."
It was clear to Diaspro that Sky couldn't figure out how to say what he was feeling or thinking, so she interrupted before he worked himself into an anxiety attack, reaching over to put a hand on his.
"Let me tell you a secret Sky, you are the man that she deserves, because of two reasons: she chose you, and you love her. Everything else can be worked out, you can take as much time as you need to sort yourself out, but my advice, is you talk to her. Communicate, it doesn't have to be spoken, just communicate."
Sky sat for a long time, taking in Diaspro's advice, he wondered when she'd gotten so... advice giving. Attempting to lighten the mood, Sky tried for a joke.
"Thanks for this Diaspro, but we should get back now, before someone starts a rumour I'm cheating on my girlfriend again," he grimaced, realising how much poor taste the joke was in, only after it was too late to take back.
"Oh, don't worry, Bloom knows your virtue is safe with me. There was a variant Loop a while back, that Sky was actually, truly, deeply, madly in love with me." Sky looked Horrified. "As soon as I found out, I fled all the way to Earth to have a good cry in Bloom's Parent's bathroom."
"Why?"
"Because I reasoned you'd never think to look for me on Earth."
"But... why the bathroom?"
"Because I was crying, last time I cried over you, we were still finding my tears in the sheets a week later, and I changed them like, five times." Diaspro suddenly fixed him with a (slightly terrifying) intensely curious look, "why, where do boys do their messy, uncontrollable sobbing?"
31.5
Sky nervously stepped through the gates of Alfea. He double checked the bouquet of flowers he was carrying. Daffodils, Eglantine Rose, Rainflower, and one single blue rosebud, which he was a bit worried about. This wasn't really that kind of bouquet, and he really didn't want it to come off that way. He squared his shoulders, then headed for the Winx dorms.
"Okay, run this by me again," Nabu said.
"Sure," Flora said. "The Anchor is the first person to Awaken. Loopers start activating after that primarily based on their connections to their Anchor."
"So it makes sense that the Winx would activate early," Nabu said.
"Pretty much," Flora said. "It probably helps that we seem to be the most stable aspect of the loop."
"Of course," Nabu said. "And you fight the Trix so much that it makes sense that they'd activate soon too."
"Yep," Flora said. "Again, they're also a stable part of the loop."
"And then us boys," Nabu said.
"Right," Flora said.
"Now here's where I get confused," Nabu said.
"What about?" Flora asked.
"Wasn't Helia your boyfriend back in baseline?" Nabu asked.
Flora blinked, then flushed slightly. "Yes, yes he was."
"Then why is he the last of us to Awaken?"
"That is a good question," Bloom said, looking up from her book.
"Well, um," Flora said. "I haven't dated him in a very long time. Since I was still counting loops with three digits. Since then I've, well, I've kind of been trying to avoid him."
"Why?" Nabu asked.
"Because Helia crushes on her," Bloom said. "And then he flirts with her."
"Essentially," Flora said. "Which is... uncomfortable."
"I can't believe you didn't realize how blatantly he was flirting with you in baseline," Bloom said. "You had to have Aisha spy for you, and even then, you almost didn't believe it."
"Yes, well, I was a different person back then," Flora said. "Anyways, I'm not really interested in him anymore."
"Well, thanks for helping clear things up for me," Nabu said. "I should probably get back to Andros. See you in a few years."
"See you then," Flora said. Bloom waved, still focused on her book.
Nabu waved back, then opened the door. "Oh, Sky," he said, his eyes nearly crossing as he took in Sky's hand, clearly raised to knock. He stepped back into the room a bit. "What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to talk to Bloom," Sky said.
"Oh," Nabu said. "I'll just be going then." He stepped past Sky and beat a hasty retreat down the hall.
"What is it, Sky?" Bloom asked, getting to her feet. She glanced at the bouquet. "You'd better not be asking me out on a date."
"No, no, it's, um, it's not that kind of bouquet," Sky said, awkwardly holding the flowers up. "I just... I just wanted to... could we talk some time? Not a date, just, you know, get to know each other a bit better?"
Bloom considered him carefully. "I'll think about it," she said, taking the flowers.
"Thank you," Sky said. "I'm... I'm sorry about... I'll just... go." He turned and headed down the hallway, looking like a man defeated.
Bloom sighed and closed the door, then pressed her forehead against it.
"So, do you really want to get back together with him or not?" Flora asked.
"Yes," Bloom said. "It's just... It's so hard." She held up the bouquet. "And then there's this." She looked at it carefully. "Weird flower selection."
"There's probably a reason for it," Flora said.
"It can't be convenience," Bloom said. "Daffodils, sure, but no one makes bouquets of Eglantine Rose or Rainflower, and blue roses aren't easy to come by, even with magic. No, this was deliberate."
"Do the flowers have some sort of meaning?" Flora asked.
"Maybe," Bloom said. "There's a lot of symbolism associated with flowers on Earth. Every now and then my mom gets really into it. My adoptive mom, that is."
"She does own a flower shop," Flora said. "What do they mean?"
"Daffodils are the easy one," Bloom said. "They're usually a sort of 'please notice me' kind of flower. I think the meaning Sky's going for here though is new beginnings."
"That makes sense," Flora said. "What about the others?"
"Eglantine Rose... Ugh, this is a rare one, but if I remember correctly, it's supposed to mean a wound that needs to heal."
"Huh," Flora said. "Sounds like an apology so far, and a request for a fresh start."
"Yeah," Bloom said. "Rainflower definitely fits with that. It's usually used as a sort of 'it's not you, it's me' rejection flower, though it's really rare, but if this is an apology bouquet, Sky probably added it because it means the giver needs to make up for past mistakes."
"That all makes sense," Flora said. "And the blue rose?"
"Love at first sight," Bloom said.
"I thought that was lavender," Flora said.
"That too," Bloom said, frowning. "That can't be right. Lavender's easier to get than blue. It'd have to be one of the other meanings."
"Which is?"
"Either mystery, or... or achieving the impossible," Bloom said.
"...maybe you should talk to Sky," Flora said.
"Yeah," Bloom said heavily. "Maybe I should."
"Okay, what happened last loop?" Musa asked, watching Sky and Bloom chatting across a table. It wasn't particularly intimate, or even friendly, but it was polite, with a certain potential for more. "Last I saw, they weren't speaking."
"Sky gave her flowers," Flora said.
"That's it?" Musa asked.
"There's more to it than that, but that's the basic story," Flora said. "Let's leave them in peace. They have a lot to talk about."
31.6 (Awesomedude17)
The Trix plus Diaspro wandered around the shithole that was Paradise, Arizona. Thought it was a Null Loop, the four had already armed themselves with knives and guns in case someone had the bright idea to attack them.
Regardless, it was a typical Friday afternoon.
"So girls, what's up for tomorrow?" Diaspro asked.
"Dunno. Guessing we'll all go to a nightclub or something." Stormy asked. "Hopefully it won't rain cats and dogs then."
A cat soon splattered all over them as it fell from a great height.
"Not literally." Stormy said as she wiped the gore from her eyes.
"What the hell?" Icy said as cats fell from the sky and everyone began to kill each other.
A newspaper hit Darcy in the face, and she read the headline out loud.
GOOD GOD ITS THE APOCALYPSE!
Random violence increases, military and police overwhelmed
"You know, if you're going to make that a headline, you could at least learn the difference between 'it's' with a comma and 'its' without." Darcy remarked.
"Now's not the time to go grammar nazi, Darcy." Stormy said. "Let's figure out what the hell is going on."
The four managed to escape to the hospital nearby. As they discussed their options, a man was wheeled away with a gunshot wound in his head.
"So, what're we going to do?" Diaspro asked.
"My guess, get the hell out before we die." Icy said.
"Hey baby, how about we go to my place and UNF!"
Darcy had a look that said 'I'm so done with this shit' and grabbed the offending voice's groin in a vice grip.
"Sorry boy. I'm taken, and by a lady to boot, so piss off."
"AGH! I'M SORRY! LET GO OF MY BALLS!"
"Hmm..." Darcy smiled, let go, and promptly kicked the man in the balls. "There. Much better."
"Ow, my balls."
"So, aside from raining cats, perverts and now there's a zombie horde stumbling over here." Stormy pointed at a group of zombies that were swearing so much, a sailor would blush.
"Okay then, shotguns out, it's one of those Loops now." Icy said as they grabbed a bunch of shotguns and aimed at the zombie heads.
After two days of fighting, the group found themselves laughing as they dragged a zombie into a massive room by the balls.
"Man, that was a fun weekend, girls! You really know how to spice up a zombie apocalypse." Diaspro laughed some more.
"Yep. This is the best weekend ever!"
As they walked up the steps, they found a nuclear warhead on top of the desk that was there.
"...Worst weekend ever." The four said in unison.
The Postal Dude checked the rearview mirror as the nuke went off. He honestly couldn't give two shits about who was caught in the blast because he knew that there was no one important.
And then he Woke up at the same time Champ began to chase some random animal and run back to the nuked shithole.
"Goddammit, Champ."
And then he remember that the Trix was there.
"Fuck me, those witch bitches are going to fuck everything up."
And then he crashed and went into a coma for about 11 years.
Adminspace (Facepalmist)
Tyr glanced through Skuld's latest hardcopy report, this one regarding the latest Admin performance assessments. Just another chore for the highest-ranked Administrator within Yggdrasil...usually.
The one-handed Norse god paused as his eyes fell on one strikingly out-of-place entry: a black mark against Fand's name, with a very particular eyes-only code signifying perpetual veto on the Queen of the Fairies ever gaining another realm to Administrate.
He glanced up at Skuld. She stared back, scrupulously blank-faced. But having known her for so very long, the look in her eye was one he recognised well. This was a truly serious matter, not something so specious or personally embarrassing as one of Fand's little tales gone beyond the pale.
"Did she deserve it?"
"Oh yes." No further information was volunteered.
Tyr eventually sighed and returned to the reviews. Some things, as the code had signified, were just better off buried...
Skuld nodded and withdrew, thankful that her boss (and father, but mostly boss given the subject matter) had not forced the matter. She would not have enjoyed trying to explain it. She didn't even want to think about what Fand's unthinking fit of 'inspiration' had caused, let alone what it might yet cause should word ever get out. The damage had the potential to be incalculable, to a magnitude so horrifyingly broad that the Chief Debugger had reluctantly reined in her initial impulse to level punitive and official disciplinary measures at the hapless, fatally soft-hearted Admin at the centre of this...this debacle.
And it could have been even worse. At least Flora had already resigned herself to that Miele's 'death' and largely moved on. At least that Miele's soul had been warped in such a way that she could cope with the strain of imposed immortality in a way that even most Loopers could not. (Her heart went out to the poor woman, it really did. Miele herself had done nothing but catch the interest of a being so far above her as to render her helpless - and now she was essentially under 'house arrest', with only her captor to communicate with. Well, her and Skuld - she still had to code the back-door through which they could converse at need.) At least a copy of the pre-merging Miele had been kept on file, so she could be re-inserted into the universe-iteration she had been extracted from - with or without the experience she'd acquired, at hers and Skuld's discretion. At least Miele's baseline data had remained untouched, and in fact remained so distinct from the modified system-bot 'Miele' that the baseline Miele yet retained an infinitesimally possible probability of becoming a Looper in the normal fashion.
And at least no-one else would ever have to find out. At least, not if they were careful. And she had done her very best to clue Fand in on just how careful they needed to be.
In retrospect, it was fortunate that there was such a long walk back to Fand's office - and that hers was on the way. With the specter of her father questioning Fand's assessment behind her, Skuld could now devote some brief time to considering how to best ameliorate Miele's terrible situation as prudently as she could.
It would have been so much easier if Fand had just agreed to put the derivative Miele in long-term storage. But Skuld could not force the matter without making it public, which would defeat the entire purpose of attempting to close the floodgates in that manner. Not to mention - never to mention, in fact, by order of her father and the major pantheon heads - a certain dirty little secret that had been well buried, back in the bad old days before the Loops truly kicked into gear...
It was not the first time that an Admin had done something similar to what Fand had done. It was the first time that an Admin had managed to get past the patches and permissions implemented to prevent such a thing from being allowed. Which meant that either the way Fand had pulled it off was an original method, or-
Reaching her office and kicking off with a quick message to Fand to wait, Skuld checked; and double-checked. And sighed.
-the barriers had failed on Fand's terminal. On closer inspection of the code, because of some coding confusion over said terminal's exact location in the system. Because of course Fand getting crammed in the fridge so often would come back to bite them.
Skuld fixed up that coding - and not just to close the barn door after the stampede, there were a host of tiny little issues that said repair-job fixed - and moved on to the confidential set of laws that remained on stand-by to codify and proscribe this kind of thing. Most of them were not particularly well-known, except to those who had been 'on-deck' at the time, so to speak. However, there was one aspect that some of the better coders were familiar with...
She re-read what was there, and made some notes as a nebulous plan began to solidify. Then she continued on her way.
"Right," Skuld announced, storming into Fand's office and closing the door. "Fand, is your little helper available? It's time for your assessment results." Then promptly re-opening the door, hammered an opportunistically eavesdropping Loki in the head and punted him off a good way down the corridor.
"I'm here," Miele called out from Fand's terminal.
Skuld nodded and held up a datapad with two words typed in for all to see: Play Along.
"All right Fand... I've looked over Miele's coding," which she had, in only a cursory fashion to confirm her suspicions of what she was looking at...not that Fand knew it, or would ever find out, "and she seems to be sound - only time will tell on that one, though. If you'd cleared this beforehand, we might actually have been rewarded for coming up with this new method of constructing AI bots. But..." Skuld shrugged, "Well, she's too good."
"Too good?" Fand obligingly fed her the line.
"Too realistic. I could admire the way you used the existing character-framework as an intuitive shortcut, but considering all the steps you skipped over? There's a reason why you go through the channels to commission this, dammit!"
Fand blinked. "...Steps?" she blurted. "Someone's done this before?"
Skuld sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. Was Fand serious...? "Of course someone's 'done this' before," the Chief Debugger exclaimed, complete with air-quotes, "some of our best coders have this as one of their jobs! It's a long, hellishly complicated process - building each personalized AI-class bot from the ground up, quality-checking at every micro-stage for errors and potential failure points, running them through simulation after simulation to make sure we didn't screw up somewhere with the framework or logic routines or basically anything else we can think of. And it's not something you just rush through on an impulse!"
The Norn huffed, reining her very real temper in. It didn't help that everything she said was in fact true. There were reasons that such high-level bots weren't well-known, and one of them was that the coders who were good enough to pull that kind of thing off - with full QA, thankyouverymuch - within any realistic time-frame, were precisely the coders who were busy as Admins and being drafted in said expert roles to help fix everything else. That the three foremost experts in the field were herself, Hephaestus and Saraswati was no coincidence, after all.
Meanwhile, she went back to the door, opened it up and nailed the opportunistically eavesdropping Coyote in the head. Then punted him down the corridor, landing him on top of the comically groaning Loki. Needless to say, she was feeling rather more satisfied when she continued.
"Nonetheless," Skuld cut Fand off as she finally went to make a response, "your new method seems to work. But we need to be certain. So: everything on your method is confiscated, and your terminal has been blocked from ever experimenting with this again. The real experts are going to go exhaustively over this program of yours, and establish how to use it in a way that works with the proper QA procedures. At that point, if it checks out, you'll get credit for coming up with the program and we experts will start incorporating it into our roles. As for your punishment for breaking the rules you didn't even bother to learn about...! ...I'll decide what that is later." She now turned to the terminal from which Miele was gazing thoughtfully on. "Now, Miele."
"Yes?"
"You're provisionally cleared for active duty. Try not to get noticed, and just tell anyone who asks anyway that you're an experimental personalized AI-bot, and everything else is classified proprietary indefinitely."
On-screen, Miele shrugged. "All right, I can do that."
"See that you do. And..." Skuld artfully hesitated, her voice softening. "Sorry about this, Miele. It's not your fault that Fand's program built you too close to the template. Drop me a line if you ever need to talk."
The digitalized entity who could once have been a Looper for the Winx Club Branch nodded with a smile. "Okay... and thanks Skuld."
Skuld nodded back and turned to leave.
"Wait!" Fand called. Skuld stopped. "What did you mean 'too realistic'?"
The Chief Debugger glared at the Queen of the Fairies over her shoulder. "Answer me this, o Goddess of Shipping: rumor starts spreading that there's a quick, easy way to construct realistic, AI expies of all your favorite people from the World Tree's Branches... And now imagine what someone like Zeus would do with that information."
Fand had started going sparkly-eyed in a worrying fashion, only to blanch as the final statement registered. Skuld witnessed with satisfaction and headed once more for the door.
"And that's just the tip of the iceberg," she finished as she left, twirling her hammer on the way out in such a way as to thump the opportunistically eavesdropping Anansi in the face. Said spider-god was sent flying down the hall to land on the comically groaning Loki and Coyote, who had no doubt been listening the whole damn time. Unsurprisingly, all three tricksters fled the moment she started making her way towards them while brandishing her hammer.
'That ought to do the job,' Skuld mused. Rumor would spread (whether or not she helped it along), and research would be conducted - but it would be aimed at the process for commissioning personalized AI-bots, and only those who had reason to recall the bad old days would think to look deeper. And there was no proof left there, either; not to mention, even Zeus would (as he had) keep their silence if they ever worked out what had really happened here. Meanwhile, inquiries into the commissioning process would reveal a waiting period about the same length as the request for a vacation - and that was for the established process, which was understandable given who had to do the coding for each commission. As for the 'new process'... well. It was a simple enough matter to tack on a few more metric shit-tonnes of red tape (probably of the background-check, psych-evaluation and superior authorisation variety) to stretch out that 'waiting period' into a delivery date of n-1, and that was if the 'new process' ever did get forced to 'pass' its own evaluation.
Hopefully... hopefully that would be enough.
31.1: We really have been neglecting Daphne, haven't we?
31.2: Do not taunt the Happy Fun Tree.
31.3: Really, Nabu? You couldn't come up with a better name than that?
31.4: ...I don't have words for just how much I respect Diaspro for doing this. And she's fictional twice over. Huh.
31.5: Time for the healing to begin.
31.6: You're supposed to nuke it from orbit. I swear, you just can't find competent exterminators these days...
Adminspace: Not everything done for good reasons is a good thing. Now if only Fand understood that concept.