Part 6 - Infected

Chapter 120 - End to Beginning

A week passed in the narrative Minus Two. Max chose to reveal his plan to only a few people, knowing there would be mixed feelings about it. Gwen, Miles, Jacob, Stanley, Lisa and Grace sat at a table with him. He chose to keep his eyes down to save them the effort. Grace already knew, so she was only here to keep him company. The others watched him expectantly.

"I can rebuild Premis and its tie to Bastria." He started.

"Woah. That's…a lot more out there than I thought this would be." Jacob commented.

"Shut it." Max snapped, then took a deep breath. "Sorry. It's just…doing so will change the course of history."

"People will be overjoyed to go home." Said Lisa.

"I know they will, but it will never be the same. Conall, Khahrahk, Helltreader, all of them will be gone. The thing is, nobody will remember this."

"What do you mean?" Asked Gwen.

"I mean everything will go back to how it was when you were eighteen and Dad was seventeen. People won't remember stuff that's happened since then."

There was a silence that made Max uncomfortable. Grace put a hand on his shoulder, sensing his insecurity. With a little more confidence, he continued:

"People who were born in the nearly thirty years since then won't come back, but they'll stay in Bastria. However, I'm going to do this. I made the call to destroy the Tree and took octillions of lives in doing so; now I'm giving them back."

"How will this new Premis survive? The Ethereal Plates were destroyed." Asked Stanley.

Max shook his head and placed a box on the table. He undid the clasps and opened it. Inside were two egg boxes which contained the ten Ethereal Plates.

"They won't be left to roam free. Ten Guardians of my own blood will protect them."

There was more silence, then Jacob asked the question the God had hoped wouldn't come up:

"What do you mean by your 'own blood'?"

"It's…I…"

"You got Grace pregnant?" Gwen suggested.

Max bit his lip and nodded.

"Imagine making a multiverse to cover up that you got your girlfriend pregnant." Miles joked.

"Very funny. And before anyone says it's weird cos she's only sixteen, it isn't. In Premis time she'd be twenty-three by now, and everyone's been getting older and younger so they look about that age anyway."

"Well, if these Guardians will be in Premis, I'm guessing Grace will be." Said Lisa.

"Yeah. I feel bad about blowing up Yellowstone, even though the INTF deserved it. In this new Premis, in dimension 9381, there'll be a new mountain where me and her will live. Nobody will be able to climb it."

"More importantly, you were saying we wouldn't remember any of this. Does that mean me and Gwen won't remember these 'Guardians' are our grandkids, or even that you're our son?" Asked Miles.

Max nodded sadly.

"Don't worry, he won't be alone. I'll keep him company. Did you know he can look me in the eyes and not blast me with a vision?" Said Grace.

Jacob sniggered at a thought which Max figured out and rolled his eyes at.

"When will you do it?" Asked Gwen.

He looked up, straight into her eyes, but she wasn't hit with a vision this time. Perhaps he had control of them now?

"It may seem like a dream, but always remember it wasn't. Everything you saw was true, and you'll know that soon enough. But now…it's time to wake up."

Light consumed everything from this afterlife to the next and the next to the very edges of Bastria.

Miles yawned but perked up as he heard the sound of web shooters. It was a Sunday evening…date night! Gwen flipped up onto the roof of the Empire State Building where he was sitting.

"Hey." He said, trying to imitate himself from a couple of years ago.

She pulled off her mask and shook her hood off her hair, a wide grin on her face.

"'Hey' to you too." She replied.

They shared a fist bump and sat down. Miles handed her an ice cream.

"It's a bit melted."

"Oh well. Still better than any of the stuff in my dimension."

He chuckled and they sat in silence, trying to eat them before they turned into piles of goo. When they had finished, Gwen cuddled up to him and rested her head in his shoulder.

"You know, I had the weirdest dream ever last night. Probably the longest dream ever, too."

"What happened?"

"Well…there was some flashy gold guy; then some really hot guy, but not the good sort of hot; then there was a dragon; then there was some really horrible looking red human thing with wings; then there was another red guy but this one was like the size of a skyscraper. Finally there was someone in a spider suit and they said it all actually happened and I'd remember when the time came. There were loads of really small details in it now I think about it, but I can't be bothered going into the whole thing."

"Did you do that thing where you look at your hand to see if it's blurry?"

"That trick for knowing you're in a dream? No, I can't do that."

"RIP, I guess." He pulled out a couple of cans of 'Koca-Soda' and handed one to her.

She sat up and took it.

"Coca Cola is better." She said with a grin.

"Whatever you say. But I propose a toast to whoever this grey spider guy was."

"Hang on, I never said their suit was grey."

Miles frowned.

"That's weird. Maybe I had the same dream and forgot?"

"Ah well. To the grey spider guy."

They sat in silence for a few moments until Miles' phone buzzed. He sighed and pulled it out, going to dismiss the notification from his news app when he noticed the headline: 'navy fleet sunk in Atlantic'. He opened it up, wondering if it was a historical thing, but soon discovered it wasn't. Gwen read over his shoulder.

"Well, looks like your world's about to get crazy."

Miles put his phone away again.

"It's in the sea. Nothing I can do about it."

"Let's hope it stays in the sea."

Crossovers in this Chapter

Technically the High Elder Gods are a concept from the SCP Foundation, but I'm not going to highlight it unless there's an actual reference to the Foundation.

Note

The end of another part. I really really hope the INTF doesn't turn out to be a real thing, or in Michael's words, there's gonna be one hell of a 4th of July fireworks show. That being said, meeting Miles wouldn't be so bad. Anyway, this is the end of adventures in the Narrative-verse, so no more botched self-insertion…maybe…

A navy fleet sunk in the Atlantic Ocean; what could be happening in Miles' home dimension? You'll have to read part seven to find out!