0000

Chapter Ten

0000

The problem with feisty (however briefly) young heroines going out on their own to prove their independence in a fit of righteous indignity is that they always, invariably fail.

If the Cliché Compendium had been on hand, it might have made a snarky comment on the subject.

If Aline had been around to read said snarky comment, she might have angrily tossed it over her shoulder and muttered, well, what the hell did it know, anyway?

It should have been easy. By the nature of the Hub's bizarre temporal unphysics, biological cycles were disrupted, which is a fancy way of saying that there was no need to eat or drink or otherwise acknowledge ones existence as a meaty skinbag of assorted squishy bits. And it wasn't like she'd never been out there before. Admittedly, the only time she was alone, it wasn't for very long, and it was only because she was sure terrible things would happen at the hands of Nikki if she didn't run, but still! What did that mean? Nothing! Nothing at all!

Aline wandered. Around her, the wide expanse yawned and swallowed her in the emptiness.

Attempts to open a plot hole had proved both unsuccessful and pointless. Nikki had mentioned that there was a technique to it; catching a rift in the plot continuum or something. Aline had spent several minutes puzzling over what that meant, if anything at all, and eventually deciding that it didn't matter anyway. Plot holes could lead anywhere, even if she did manage to open one in a fit of accidental logic like she had in the meeting with Marie. She could end up in just about any time, place, or world, and it occurred to her that her own specific time, place and world were frighteningly singular.

Perhaps she could find the enemy camp and convincing them she was an absolutely huge Zutara shipper and could definitely help out if only somebody could let her pop into her own universe for just a second to grab some of her things?

She considered it. She recalled the time she mentioned the word Zutara to the people it concerned.

Perhaps not, she thought, glancing at the scalded skin and icicle wounds on her arms.

Aline sat down and sighed. The ground was neither cool nor warm, nor truly there at all. It existed only as something to prevent people from falling through it.

"I really didn't think this through," she said. By all rights, there shouldn't have been an echo owing to the lack of anything to echo against, but there was anyway. It was just more dramatic that way.

Well, no shit, Sherlock, Common Sense bit out moodily.

Shut up, she thought at it.

She flopped onto her back. Staring at the unsky was unnerving, so she tried to avert her eyes only to find that there was nothing to avert them to.

She sighed again, blowing a wayward lock of hair away from her face.

About there was when it started to get weird.

When you take the creativity of the entire multiverse and stuff it into a mostly unremarkable flat plane, the fictional refugees of the other worlds, and hordes of screaming girls, strange things happen. Fueled by little more than belief, the raw force of creativium and a few stolen atoms from some other universes, they begin to manifest—thus, anthropomorphic personifications, among other things like plot bunnies and their corrupted cousins.

They change. Spending too much time on the endless plane of the Hub…stretches you. What part is stretched is generally not your choice. It might sharpen your wit, or it might turn you into a raving lunatic whose only devotion in life is the technically nonexistent. Sometimes, in places where the creativity is thick enough, it inverts in on itself and collapses, forming small, dense cubes of matter known as Writer's Blocks. Most don't survive the Hub's atmosphere and are instead booted to a random other world, where at least one scruffy young man will suddenly be scrambling to meet a deadline and wondering how the well of words could suddenly dried up.

And of course, sometimes things will happen that nobody can explain even with the longest stretch of imagination. It was generally accepted that this was the way of things, and those interested in retaining some scraps of sanity oughtn't question them.

This was an attitude that would not bring Aline the slightest comfort in the coming hours.

0000

D stopped in front of a seedy pub. There was a neon sign above it, flickering weakly in green and yellow. The sign probably said something like 'Food, Fun and Beer', but most of the letters had burned out, and it now read 'Fo f a er'. She wondered why it wasn't spelling out something more fitting to the situation and remember that she was no longer on the Hub.

She glanced at the scrap of paper in her hands. Her memory was as perfect as having one as long as hers would allow, but doubt was starting to creep into her mind. This was the address alright. It troubled her that any of the old lot would wind up here, but in hindsight, she knew it probably shouldn't.

With a sigh, she pushed open the door.

The inside of the place looked exactly like one would expect it to from the outside; decrepit, cramped, smelling of whiskey and despair. A listless bartender wiped a shot glass with a filthy rag. It was dark and sparsely populated, yet somehow still managing to be crowded.

Amazing, thought D, how far the influence of the Hub could stretch.

No one noticed her. No one ever noticed D in bars. They went in to escape her in the bottoms of glasses, and never noticed her slipping in after them. D didn't mind this. It was her nature. Sure, it made conversation a bit lacking, and forget about picking up men, but at least you weren't bothered much. She seated herself in corner and scanned the room.

Drunk men. Miserable men. Two women trying to prove that one didn't really need more than a few scraps of fabric to be clothed. A very interestingly shaped stain on the ceiling. A dart board, holes dotting the wall around it. A skinny haggard man sitting near her suddenly sobbed and stumbled out, tearing at his hair. Being around D did that to people if she wasn't careful. She paid it no attention.

There. Was that him? Red haired and burly. But he looked different somehow, if that was indeed him. She'd have to wait and see.

She didn't have to wait long. It was hardly ten minutes before the red-haired man had somehow managed to offend the shaved gorilla next to him. The gorilla was quite drunk, and the redhead wasn't exactly sober either. The gorilla inquired as to what the redhead's issue was, to which the redhead replied with a question of the gorilla's sexual orientation, and implied that he liked to wear women's clothing. Watching grown, muscled men act like middle-schoolers was amusing until somebody got hurt—namely, the redhead. His first punch missed so badly D couldn't be sure where he was aiming for. The gorilla didn't waste any time.

D winced. Right in the solar plexus.

The redhead attempted to get up, and failed, whether from injury or inebriation. Luckily the gorilla seemed to have lost interest, and went back to gazing at the bottom of his glass with a grunt.

Yes. That was him alright. Expression arranged with practiced expertise into smarmy condescension, she went to his side and crossed her arms, looking down at him. He remained blearily staring at the ceiling.

She waited. She waited a bit longer. She kicked him. "Oi. You. Get up."

He groaned, blinking blearing. "Whuh? Who?"

"I said get up. Lazy swine, can't even recognize old friends anymore."

He blinked for several seconds, the world apparently still spinning for him. "Debbie? Izzat you?"

"If you call me that again, I will kill you until you die to death," D said.

A beat. Then, "It is you!"

D smirked, not quite ready for a full-fledged smile. "Yeah, it's me. Come on, I'll buy you a drink."

A short while later they were both seated at the bar. D was somewhat incapable of ordering drinks for anybody due to her basic inability to get the attention of the barkeep, but whiskey was procured eventually. "So. How ya been?" D said.

The redhead fidgeted. "Oh, well, you know…uneventful compared to before, really."

She looked at him, quirking an eyebrow. "Hundreds of years I haven't seen him, and he gives me uneventful."

"…well, I did get married."

D looked like somebody had slapped her with a wet fish. "Married?What kind of shrieking, whip-wielding, snake-haired harpy would marry you?"

"She's a florist," he said defensively, and leapt wildly for another subject. "How did you find me, anyway?"

"I had my people put an ad in the paper."

She earned a stare for that. He seemed to be weighing the likelihood of D making a joke against the likelihood of this being true.

"It was a very well-known paper."

Walter shook his head. "Your people, eh?"

"…alright," D admitted. "Midgets."

"Midgets."

D shrugged, wishing they were on the Hub so a halo would be so kind as to appear over her head. "Oh, you can get anything on eBay."

"One day, I'll learn not to ask," Walter sighed.

"No you won't."

"True. So how about you?" Walter said, gesturing for another round. "Picked up a new line of work, I see?" he gestured to the arguably human primate wandering toward the exit in a daze.

"Yes," she said. "I've taken Uncomfortable Truths as a collective. Been continuing the firm. Of course without you three there, I've had to do some part time, too. So it's the first four, and then whatever else the Cosmic Bureaucracy says falls under true and uncomfortable." Truth be told, being the anthropomorphic personification of Uncomfortable Truths was unrewarding drudgery most of the time. No one ever listened, it was terribly depressing until you got the hang of the constant, heavy cynicism, and forget having a love life—it was bad enough in her old job, and now she couldn't look at a man without immediately knowing every one of his little flaws and imperfections. Sure, you avoid the occasional serial killer, but it was still lonely. And the waves of suffocating despair you occasionally got when you accidentally started caring were a bit difficult to deal with, though coffee seemed to help with that.

And those jerks at the Cosmic Bureaucracy wouldn't let her switch, either.

But you didn't just say that.

"Sounds like something you'd enjoy," Walter said vaguely.

"It's alright," she said. "You don't really get appreciated much. And the clients are such boors."

"Hm." He was gazing at the flamethrower strapped to her back. "That weapon is familiar to me. Where have I see in it before?" he muttered.

"Oh, do you like it? It shoots fire. I keep it partially submerged in hammerspace, and that keeps it lightweight," D said proudly.

Walter shrugged and downed the last of whatever he was drinking. D stared into her glass and took a sip. She didn't drink much anymore. In the older days when she was first starting a solo career, when people seemed especially dull and petty and ignorant and the loneliness was constant and terrible, she'd tried drowning her problems in drink. It didn't work. For one thing, they kept learning to swim, and for another, drinking away the awful truth was hard when you were the awful truth.

"Listen," she began. She didn't know how to address the topic carefully, and never did. "Here's the deal. The Hub is in a reasonable amount of turmoil. There's been a rift—the factions are choosing sides, and the one of them is trying to bring down the Fourth Wall."

Oddly enough, for a world outside the Hub at any rate, the temperature dropped ten degrees. There was a long, pregnant silence. "So?" Walter said bluntly, taking a long draft.

"What d'you mean, so?" D said, her voice rising to an odd kind of whisper-yell.

"I mean, very simply, that I don't see how this applies to me," he said, looking away.

"You're War," she hissed. "How do you think it applies to you?"

"Wrong on two counts," he said stonily. "First off, I'm not War. I was never War. That's not how it worked. We were the Secondary Horsemen. Our power was subtler. I couldn't do anything to help you even if I wasn't retired, which I am. And if you didn't already know all this, Deb, I'm a codfish. Is someone reading us? Is that why I'm explaining to you these things you already know?"

"You can't retire from this job, Wally. You are what you are," she said evenly. "And we're Horsepersons, you sexist pig," she added in a mutter, without much venom. This was not strictly true. The Secondary Horsepersons did not have to ride out at Armageddon, and thus did not have horses. They wouldn't have if given the choice. For one thing, the official Horsepersons of the Apocalypse were deemed elitist snobs, and for another, D had better things to do at the end of the world—such as preventing it—than trot about on some horse. They still called themselves Horsepersons because, well, brand association.

"Look at me," the Secondary Horseperson of War said miserably. "I'm losing bar fights. When you lose bar fights, that's a fair indicator that you're done with your job of being War."

D opened her mouth to protest, and then closed it. After a few moments, "No, you're right, that is pretty pathetic," she admitted.

"Thanks, Deb. Your words of encouragement have always kept me going in times of trouble."

"But that's not what I mean," she continued, unmindful. "You can't stop being an anthropomorphic personification. You just can't." There was no more explaining to be done. You couldn't change your basic makeup, even if you went and married a florist and started losing bar fights, and you couldn't change it if you started wearing trench coats and shooting fire at people for fun and spending your time criticizing amateur derivative fiction out of sheer boredom. "The Hub is our domain, and if the Fourth Wall goes down, we fade. I might stick around for a while," i.e., for a few hours, if hours were still around, until the lack of Fourth Wall threw the rest of creation into total chaos, since I've been doing my job and filling out all the paperwork, but you and the rest that have outlived your cosmic usefulness will dissipate within minutes—maybe more if you're on the Hub. We need an anchor, a crux, and so does everything else, seeing as what won't die immediately will when you start breathing colors and tasting emotions. That's what's at stake here. And you won't even consider it?"

"No," he said flatly. "If your army is so pathetic that one man will make a difference, you're hopeless." For a second, unexpected hope inflated in her chest at the sign of the Walter she knew when the firm was still together, but his next words, soft and wavering, killed it with haste. "I can't, alright?"

She was quiet for a long time. Then she punched him in the face, hard enough to bruise her knuckles. "That was for calling me Debbie," she said matter-of-factly, and stomped back to the exit.

"I'll see you around, won't I?" he called after her, rubbing his jaw.

She shrugged helplessly. "Uncomfortable Truths, remember?"

"Right," he said, suddenly becoming very interested in pattern of the floorboards.

She left. Outside, she sat down on the curb. She took off her hat and stared at the uneven cobblestones. Movie clichés were the only way she really knew how to express despondency. Walter had been her best bet. What were the chances of getting any of the others?

But D didn't do things halfway.

She glanced at the next address on the list. Oh, you had to be fucking kidding her…

0000

Sweet freedom! Ah, how wonderful it was!

Fluffy the mutant plot bunny scampered down the narrow space, moving as fast as his leaking grey matter would allow. He wasn't sure how he'd managed to get away, but he wasn't questioning his good luck. All he knew was that one moment he was in the clutches of the Dark One, and the next her attention was momentarily diverted. One strong kick was all it took to rip him from her vice-like grasp and launch him to freedom—and now he was running, his tiny rodent heart hammering.

She couldn't be far behind, no, certainly not. But she was a youngling (which of course did not lessen the fact that she was the devil incarnate, possibly even his mother-in-law), and her legs were short and untrained. He had a few minutes at the most. But a few minutes was all he would need.

There! The trunk! Oh thank the gods. It contained Writer's Blocks, he knew, instant death to creatures of imagination. His freedom would not last—how could it, when here was no true freedom in a multiverse that contained her? There was only one place where she couldn't follow him. He wouldn't get a chance like this again; he'd have to make this one count.

He bolted to it, bracing against it and trying to lift the lid.

Locked! No! Why oh why did it have to be locked?

He scrabbled at it, squeaking desperately. The trunk, in a way that should have been expected, did not respond. It seemed to be sulking.

He tried kicking it. He did not expect it to kick him back, with considerably more force and more legs. With a painful whump, he collided with the opposite wall.

"Flu-ffy!" a sing-song voice called.

Oh no. No!

"Flu-ffy, where are yoooou?"

Please no!

Fluffy scrambled up, ready to bolt further, but no, it was too late. She was bearing down on him now, a cute little smile that perfectly expressed her utter disdain for living things that spreading across her face.

"There you are! Mommy was worried sick." And just like that, she had him again. Hugging him. Cuddling him. Freedom had flown. Her vigilance would not wane again; his chance was gone.

Fluffy tried half-heartedly to bite her. It didn't work.

0000

"Go away."

"Baa-aa!"

"We love you!"

"Baa! Please update soon!"

"Shut up!"

"You're the best writer ever!"

"I said shut up!"

Aline, for reasons that she was not entirely willing to ponder, was being followed by a herd of sheep.

"You're so awesome! Baa!"

Making a grating noise of frustration, she yanked one of her shoes off and threw it at the nearest one. She missed. Far from being slighted, the herd gazed at her with star-struck admiration.

"You'll have a new chapter out soon, right?" one asked anxiously.

"I still have another shoe," she threatened lamely.

"Baa!"

She attempted reason. "Look," she said. "I haven't even written anything for months, and what I have was dreadful. Do you understand? There's just no possible way, so please leave me alone!"

The sheep stared at her in bewilderment. "Baa?"

"Does that mean the new chapter will be out soon?"

Stony faced, she ground out, "No."

They looked crestfallen for a moment, but soon went back to gushing praise at her. She tried throwing her other shoe. She missed again.

She sighed and collected her shoes, resigning herself for a long, annoying walk involving much tripping over her fans.

"Bloody sheep," she hissed about fifteen minutes later when attempts to make functioning earplugs failed. Then she stopped, something occurring to her. "How did a bunch of sheep find my writing?" Her brow furrowed. "And how can they talk?"

An unexpected answer came. "We weren't always sheep," said one, who Aline suddenly noticed had decidedly un-sheeplike eyes. "But we like it much better!"

Narration was suddenly reverberating in her skull. The Hub…stretches you…

She wondered where she'd heard that, and shuddered. "I need to get out of here," she muttered with new resolve. "Fast."

She picked up her pace, driven by an increasing sense of urgency. She managed to block out the crooning sheep—one of whom had started a round of Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall—for several minutes before she realized there were no sounds at all. Puzzled, she spun around to find the sheep perfectly silent, huddled together quite a way behind her.

"What's wrong with you?" she demanded of them. "There's still miles and miles of nothing for you to annoy me for."

"You're entering the land of the Burning Ones," one whispered, wide-eyed.

Aline blinked, imagining a tribe of people spending their lives as columns of flame. "Burning Ones?"

"Yes," another continued in a hushed voice, as if afraid that they would hear. "We do not venture there. No one should."

"They're terrible!" another moaned. "Oh, don't go! You'll be dead in minutes!"

"You're sheep," she pointed out flatly. "And anyway, whatever they are, I prefer them to listening to you, so good bye, have fun, screw you."

She ignored their continued urgings not to go, and soon they died away behind her. The silence crept back, and for the moment she welcomed it.

Pfft. Burning Ones. How bad could they be?