A1: Act 4 (The End of the Beginning)

Chapter 56

Nelly finally rested at the entrance of a large cave. "Is this it?" Aranea asked after Nelly sat motionless for a while. Her spider lusus suddenly lowered her head as if to let her off. Aranea wordlessly complied and headed into the cave. She turned back once to see her spider-mom stare at her with a pleading look in all 8 of her eyes.

"Ok, I'm going," she told her lusus. "W8 for me here, okay? I don't know how long this will take me?"

The cave was lined with glowing blue crystals that served as lights. The cave only had one winding, narrow tunnel, with no deviations or dead ends whatsoever. After what felt like half an hour of walking, Aranea came into a clearing where a great beast sat.

Echidna was a blue and white snake-like creature with crystals running down the back of her head that reached down to her back. Echidna uncoiled herself as Aranea approached, and the troll could see that the crystals moved like hair rather than staying still like rock. Echidna's upper body was white and had no distinguishing features except for two breasts that seemed out of place on a reptilian creature. Aranea decided not to ask about it as it was the sort of thing Kankri would tell her was impolite and potentially triggering.

"What have you come here for?" Echidna asked her.

"I need your needles," Aranea told her. It occurred to her that a creature without hands needing needles was also very strange, but this was an urgent matter so she had no time to ask silly questions. "We've got to initi8 the scratch. I'm sure you know what that means. We've messed up."

"Of course," Echidna replied. Relief swept through Aranea at how cooperative she was. "But first, I must ask you a few questions."

Aranea held her tongue, although she wanted to protest.

"Time does not pass while you are in here," Echidna reassured her. "To others, it will seem as if you only stayed a few seconds in this cave. And even so, I will not take what you would perceive as a 'long time'."

"Ok, then," Aranea said. "What are your questions?"

"Why did you start this session?" Echidna asked her.

"It was Meenah's idea," Aranea explained. "She told me it was a virtual reality game, 8ut after I came into the Medium she told me she had…lied to me." Aranea paused for a moment before she continued. "She told me the game would wipe out everyone in our world who wasn't playing it. That we would make a new world, one even 8etter than what we already had. And I just…8elieved her." The fact that Aranea was, in part, complicit in the killings of millions of innocent trolls hit her for the first time since playing the game. "I'm sorry," she said as her eyes began to water. "I need a moment."

"Take as long as you need." Echidna reassured her. "And take as long as you need. The first truth I will tell you is that all living things, without exception, die. Good or bad, rich or poor, wise or foolish, loved or unloved…all perish. Even a great being such as myself will perish soon. Your universe's time of death was recent, determined by your friend's wishes. But it is not lost. Beforus will be made again. But it will be painful at first. Now, for the second question: Are you prepared to endure?"

"Endure what?" Aranea asked. Her voice cracked with grief.

"The pain that is to come," Echidna told her. "This is the second truth."

"No," Aranea said through tears. "I'm too 8usy crying right now."

"That is a good answer," Echidna said. She took the tip of her massive tail and wrapped it around Aranea's shoulders. "But you will have to endure more. It will be more bearable, of this I promise. And finally: What do you think the ending will be like?"

"I don't know," Aranea asked. "We go into the pocket dimension Saw8uck mentioned? Do you even know who I'm talking a8out?"

"That is not the end," Echidna answered her. "That is only the end of the beginning. The last truth is that one day, this all will end, and you will all have gained enough wisdom to move beyond Paradox Space. That is what I give you to hope for, in addition to what you seek."

Two of the crystals on Echidna's back grew longer as she spoke until they broke off of her skin. The needles—actually crystals—floated to Aranea, no doubt carried by Echidna's telepathy.

"Thank you," Aranea said.

"Indeed," Echidna remarked. "You may leave now. I see success on your journey, but it will come at a price."

Aranea wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but she simply turned around and walked out of the cave, as if guided by some unseen force.

. . . . . .

Mituna had just fallen asleep when Rufioh found out he was being trolled on Trollian by Horuss.

Uncensored Terror (UT) began trolling Aztlan's Underling (AU)

UT: D===== Rufioh

UT: D=====Rufioh, please send help. I am in jail.

AU: What the F*CK?!

AU: How d1d you get 1n ja1l?! WHAT D1D YOU DO

UT: D====I attacked Meulin

AU: WHY

UT: D====SHE STARTED IT

AU: THAT'S A TERR1BLE EXCUSE

UT: D====It w001d not have been a bad %cuse if she had not retaliated!

AU: Whatever, look, 1 can't help you r1ght now. I don't know the f1rst th1ng about Derse law, and 1'm with M1tuna r1ght now. 1 have to make sure nobody bothers h1m unt1l Latula 1s done w1th whatever she has to do. 1 can't ba1l you out or anyth1ng l1ke that.

UT:D==== Well, then, what am I supposed to do? I won't be able to make a pocket if I can't find those whores. Unless they are in the prison somewhere? Or perhaps they were actually horses…?

UT: =======D That makes me feel much better!

AU: Pocket d1mens1on, bro. Horror-terrors. Get 1t r1ght. 1 need you to not screw th1s up anymore than you have, Horuss. Just stay focused on the m1ss1on. Anyway, 1s Meul1n w1th you?

UT: =====D Yes, we were both arrested for "disturbing the peace". The black people taking us to the jail said it would make them 100k good for getting rid of "violence in the streets".

AU: Dude, don't say "the black people".

UT: =====D Why not?

AU: 1 don't know, 1t just doesn't sound r1ght. Anyway, look, get Meul1n to fl1p those co1ns and get you both out of there.

UT:=====D All right! Thanks for the brilliant plan, Rufioh!

AU: Eh, anyone could have come up w1th 1t. Now go do someth1ng 1mportant!

Uncensored Terror (UT) has ceased trolling Aztlan's Underling (AU)

Horuss turned to Meulin, who was in the same cell as him. The Hegemonic Brute, not being very bright or good with law enforcement, didn't think twice about putting two people that hated each other in the same cell.

"====D Meulin!" Horuss asked. "====D Now that are strange fight is over, perhaps we can now begin to cooperate with each other instead!"

"(7_7) Cooperate? With you? Why?" Meulin's aggression from before seemed to be gone. Horuss wasn't sure how that had happened but at least now they didn't have to fight again. He thought for a moment about what to say to her next before remembering that Meulin had special coins with her.

"====D Can we use your coins to warp out of here?" he asked her.

"(*_*) That's not how they work, silly cat!" Meulin told him. "They only bring people to you, and they only warp you by making you swap places with the person's color on the other side of the coin! But since we're here together, our coin won't do any good!" Meulin took out a green and blue coin from her sylladex (or was it her specibus?) and showed it to Horuss.

"===D I suppose we could try bringing someone else here, then!" Horuss declared. "Where's Rufioh's coin?"

"(&_&) I'm not letting you have it!" Meulin protested. It might mess things up! It might bring Cronus here by accident and…we can't have that!"

"=====D Why not?"

"((-)) He's not suppurrsed to be here. That's all I can really think of at the moment." Sighing, she reached into her bag to give Horuss the brown and lavender coin. "I guess you can do whatever you want. I don't really know why I attacked you, to be honest. I think it was because somebody made me."

"====D Who?"

"($-$)His name is…I don't know," Meulin said. The name was on the tip of her tongue, but it just wouldn't come out.

"=====D Well, then, let's try to bring Rufioh in here to bust us out!" Horuss said, flipping the coin. "Speaking of busting, I sure miss Buster."

(%-%) Who?"

"=====DMy lusus."

"(V-V) Oh. I miss mine, too. Her name was Kitty. Too bad we can't bring them here."

Horuss flipped the coin, but it landed on the lavender side, so Cronus appeared with them instead.

"Vwhat the, huh? Vwho the…vwhy did you guys bring me here? Vwas it from those coins?" Cronus asked, looking shocked and horrified at the fact that he was now in jail instead of wherever he had been before.

"D==== Fiddlesti%! I messed that up!" Horuss explained. "I was trying to bring Rufioh in here, not you. Let me just try again…"

"Vwait, vwhere is Rufioh right nowv?" Cronus asked.

"====D With Mituna. Why?"

"Perfect," Cronus muttered, not trying at all to hide his malicious grin.

Horuss flipped the coin again and it landed on the brown side. Cronus promptly vanished, replaced by Rufioh.

"What the-?" Rufioh was about to demand an explanation then turned to Meulin. "Oh. Th1s 1s what your co1ns do, huh?"

"(I-I) Yep! I also forgot to mention, Horuss…if you flip your own coin and it lands on you, you die. I don't even know how I know that."

"D==Oh. Well, now what?"

"Fl1p the co1n aga1n!" Rufioh shouted. "1f you do 1t, then 1 won't d1e. 1'll just swap back w1th Cronus, who really shouldn't be w1th M1tuna, l1ke ever. That's what Latula told me."

"D===But we need you to break us out!" Horuss protested. "Besides, I've missed you."

"We've been apart for only a few hours!"

"D===That's enough time in my b00k."

"1f 1 try and bust you guys out, w1ll you warp me back?"

"====DOf course!

"Ok, we'll 1'll just…keep ramming against these bars," Rufioh sighed as he pounded at the bars of their cell with his hooves. "Meul1n, could you keep try1ng to fl1p the co1n and warp me back to Cronus?"

"D=== Do that and I'll hurt you again!" Horuss threatened. Meulin picked up the coin anyway and tried to. But it landed on the brown side, thus doing nothing. She tried again. Still no luck. A third time still landed on the brown side.

Rufioh wanted to scream or cry, but both of those actions just seemed to unbecoming of him. So he just kept doing what his new metal body was made to do.

. . . . . . .

Cronus hadn't even gotten to see Mituna in his Prospit room before he suddenly found himself inside his mind. It was just a him, a table, two chairs, and a void of light-grayish white. That was the best way to describe the color.

"Have a seat," Mituna gestured to him. He was standing in front of him in shorts and a t-shirt. That was pretty ordinary, but Mituna wasn't wearing anything over his eyes. In all the times they had met face to face, Mituna wore a visor or sunglasses or something like that over his eyes.

"I know why you're here," Mituna said. "And I want to talk to you. Forget about Latula. She's not here. I wish she were, but she's not. I want to speak with you as frankly as possible."

"Because it's the last chance you'll get, right?" Cronus asked. "I guess you knowv vwhat I'm here for, somehowv. Probably because of your vweird prophetic powvers, or something."

"Kind of," Mituna replied. He sat down and beckoned for Cronus to sit, and he did so. With a snap of his fingers, Mituna made two cups of some liquid appear in front of himself and Cronus.

"It's tea," Mituna explained. He took a sip and swallowed it. He shut his eyes when he did it as if it was unpleasant.

"Vwhy are you drinking it if you don't like it?" Cronus asked.

"Try it," Mituna urged him. Cronus did and found it very sweet.

"Is this honey-flavwored?" Cronus asked.

"Mind honey," Mituna told him. "Just a pinch of it. It's sweet, sickeningly sweet. You want more and more of it but then you reach a point where you have to stop. You need it more and more but you know if you do it's going to hurt you. That's what being able to see everything feels like, Cronus. I didn't really understand my role as an Heir of Doom until I died. Well, my mind died. I'm dead now while my body is out there, still alive. I still want to live, Cronus. But I'm caught between two extremes: Knowing everything here, like I do now, or knowing very little, and being with other people. And now you're here, and you're going to kill this part of myself, the part you see before you now. I've tried looking into it and I know that if I try and stop you, talk you out of it or defeat you, it won't be good for the rest of us. And I could never forgive myself. This is the best possible world, believe it or not."

Cronus sipped more of his tea, and when he swallowed it he saw something. He saw a million worlds, a million timelines, some of where he killed Mituna, some where Mituna killed him. Still in others there were some where they didn't fight at all and resolved to leave this empty world together. And in a few that Cronus watched with devoted attention, he consummated every feeling of love and hate into Mituna, and in only one of these Mituna accepted it. But he did not return it or reciprocate his feelings, not in any one of them. Mituna woke up crying, telling Rufioh to get Latula because he had had a bad dream that Cronus was there.

"Bullshit," Cronus told him. "It's complete bullshit. I just sawv a bunch of timelines in that little sip I took just now. You're hiding the good one from me. The best one."

"The best one, to you, exists only in your own mind, Cronus."

"Shut up and…I don't knowv, just let me talk to you."

"That's exactly what I want you to do."

"Vwhy did you leave me? Vwhy did you reject me for Latula?"

"I didn't, Cronus. I never accepted or rejected anyone. I had to go and see her myself. And despite my fears, despite my trepidation and vague sense that she'd reject me for being a creep, she accepted me. She liked me. She chose to love me."

"Love isn't a choice, Mituna. It just happens. Like howv it happened for me to you."

Mituna sighed and shook his head. He then focused his red and blue eyes into Cronus'. "You don't love me, Cronus."

Cronus sat there, stunned and unable to respond. Shock turned to anger.

"Yes I do. You stupid fucking lowvblood. You're just a fucking tool, a gog-damned tool for people on Beforus to use vwhen they need their computers fixed or a heavwy object lifted. You're a piss-blooded dried husk that spent too much time on the surface to do anything useful to—"

"-Anyone but you," Mituna interrupted, "And I should be grateful that you've found the good in me because if I remember, I couldn't find it in myself."

"Stop trying to guess vwhat I say."

"It's easy to do when you can see all the things you're likely to say. If you'd like, I'll explain to you the framework of our relationship."

"Vwhy do you get to make the rules?" Cronus asked. "Is it because you're a lowvblood and it vwould be 'fair' for me to just let you do it because in the past, you could'vwe been my slawve?"

"No. I want to lay out the framework because I care about you and hate to see the way this session has made you feel about me, and about yourself. I want the real you back. The timelines where you're truly your best are all doomed—at least as far as I can see. I'm fighting against that because I know that your true self is there somewhere—and I'm getting it out."

"This is my true self," Cronus insisted calmly as he took another sip of his tea. "It's you vwhose being vweird, edgy and—dare I say it-? Dewviant. It's like you're not ewven a troll anymore."

"I'm more of one than you can imagine," Mituna countered. "But posturing and bragging won't get us anywhere. Let's talk."

AN: I'm still on this. I know it's been ages, but it's time I finish this. Life got in the way as I was finishing school and still need a job. But there's only a few more chapters left and I intend to make them some of my best.