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Epilogue
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Jenna ran through the jungle, D's flamethrower clutched to her chest. She nearly crowed in triumph every time she thought of it. She couldn't believe she'd actually managed to get it. Death's very own flamethrower! Stolen from her by Jenna, useless silly little Jenna who no one ever took seriously enough. That'd show her to be so disappointing!
Fluffy ran along at her heels. Somehow, she'd won the hideous little creature's loyalty in the battle. Perhaps it was that she'd finally stood up for herself. Or perhaps it was that she had summoned the full-fledged forces of Hell itself to fight in the battle and single-handedly turned the tide of war, and the mutant plot bunny was simply too terrified of her to do anything but her will. Either was good.
When Jenna was sure she was not being pursued, she slowed down, breathing heavily, and collapsed to her knees in the jungle clearing. Her pretty yellow dress was irretrievably stained and torn.
"Well, now what, Fluffy?" she said. "Where do we go from here?"
Fluffy didn't say anything, only looked mournfully at her.
"Okay, we'll recoup here," Jenna told him, absentmindedly stroking the flamethrower. "Then we'll find another plot hole and get out. We'll show them. They'll see. They'll all see! Especially D! Her and her stupid gimmick of pretending to forget my name, and ordering me around, and not thinking I'm cool, and, and…" Jenna fumed. "Couldn't keep a hold of her weapon, though, could she?" Jenna grinned. "Trust me, Fluffy. With this baby, the world is our oyster. We'll conquer and enslave a world in no time."
Fluffy made no reply.
"Be that way," Jenna sniffed. She swung the flamethrower around to rest on her back. It thrummed with uncontrollable power beneath her grasp.
Jenna smiled, and unlike Fluffy, missed the many glowing sets of yellow eyes in the foliage, watching her intently…and hungrily.
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Aline climbed the seven brutal floors up to her family's apartment, where they had been staying ever since the destruction of their suburban house, and would be until the insurance mess was figured out.
Her parents hadn't even realized she'd been gone, which figured. They also didn't blame her for the destruction of the house, which also figured. She simply wasn't interesting enough to get the house destroyed. All the blame rested on her brother's shoulders. He had an earring, and so, in Aline's parents' view, was much more likely to have been at fault.
School had started up again. Aline didn't mind so much. It was a welcome distraction. The summer, full of shouting and tears and calls to the insurance company, had ended up being pretty terrible. Aline was only glad that she was able to sink deep into her escapist literature and ignore her family. She'd been reading a lot lately. Class wasn't exactly difficult, either, so she figured she could keep reading library books while neglecting to take notes. Probably, she should have been more fastidious about school. She wanted to go to college, didn't she? She wanted to have a real career, didn't she? Being an accountant, or banker or…something.
She put the distasteful thought away as she stepped into her tiny new bedroom. She dropped her backpack, which had once held the splinters of a dear and precious friend, by her bed and sat at her desk. She'd do schoolwork…later, she decided. For now, she just wanted a cup of tea and some sweet time alone with the internet.
She found that her computer, a slow and clunky thing purchased off eBay after the destruction of her previous computer, was already on. Had she forgotten to turn it off? When she jiggled the mouse, the screen brightened. She had no internet tabs or chat programs open. Just Microsoft Word. She clicked the icon and found a blank document, the cursor flashing at the top left of the page.
She must have left this open. She couldn't remember doing it, but she must have.
She heard the electric tea kettle turn off in the kitchen, and went to make herself some tea before she forgot. When she returned, she caught her reflection in her bedroom mirror—and for a split second, the reflection was wrong. Too short, too dark, too red-haired. Aline splashed tea everywhere, smacking the cup on the desk as she dashed to the mirror for a closer look. But no, it was only skinny blonde Aline. Sixteen years old. Starting to fill out a little. Slouching a bit less.
She glared suspiciously at her reflection, daring it to contradict her again. Her own familiar face glared back in consternation. Eventually she turned back to her desk.
The flashing Word cursor blinked at her.
The shadow of a ghost of an idea lurked in her mind. She'd been reading a lot lately. Maybe she could….
Her hands hovered over the keyboard.
No, better not, she thought hurriedly, and drew back. She glanced nervously at the mirror. She wasn't even reflected in it right now. It showed nothing but the plain white ceiling. Plain and white and definitely not going to throw anything unexpected at her, ever again. Surely it was safe.
Long-faded memories churned uncomfortably inside her. Suddenly, something filled her up, something bright and unbelievably strong, some leftover influence of usually-deadly substance, one that Aline herself had been resistant to. She had never quite shaken off her experiences, after all. A part of her, a part she had tried vainly to suppress, remembered the feel of the dark and terrible objects in her hands, sown death and destruction. Much as she tried to forget, a part of her would always refuse.
Before she even knew what she was doing, Aline's hands danced across the keyboard, and the neat black letters appeared on the clean white screen, filling the screen again and again with the quiet tapping of the keyboard. The mug of tea lay cold and forgotten.
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Nikki's phone buzzed. It was a picture message, a group selfie of D, a burly redhead, a skinny pale woman, and a slinking young man in white, all on what looked like a boat. 'Fish you were here' the caption read.
It was without a doubt the dumbest pun Nikki had ever seen. It almost physically hurt her. Could that be weaponized, she wondered? Probably, she thought fondly, and shot off a reply message.
She was the caretaker of the Hub in earnest now. Everything was different now. After the war, someone had to organize everything, boss everyone around, get things in order. Nikki was, quite happily, that someone.
After an extended vacation to the many beach planets of universe #1972b-Alpha, of course.
The Hub was mainly in order now. Peace talks had taken months to fully broker, but she believed that everyone had walked away more or less happy. That, or they were tired of sitting in long meetings listening to Nikki shout at everyone.
Territories had been parceled out. It was easy enough to accommodate everyone when you had infinite land, but there it was. Trade agreements had been struck. With someone actually competent coordinating things, it was easy enough to find compromises. The Community of Burning Ones were to be kept away from everyone else, and had been settled in the great forests—where the occasional fire was necessary to keep the forest healthy. Of course, they regularly burned the entire forest down on accident (or maybe out of sheer greed), but it was alright when you had an infinite amount of imaginary forests. Disputing shipper tribes settled far from each other, padded out by contingents of fangirls. Life for them seemed happy.
Even the Mary Sues now had the dutiful task of herding the unfortunate sheep reviewers. Someone had to take care of them, and the Marys seemed content to do it.
And just the other day she had finalized an order to rescue the unfortunates trapped upon the Hanging Cliffs.
Nikki coordinated all this from her office, a massive open room with a thousand screens displaying anything she wished to see. A console of what must have been thousands of buttons—none of them labelled, not that Nikki needed it—controlled them.
She sat back and regarded her life, content.
Her gaze fell to one tiny screen in the corner, which was focused on an unremarkable teenage girl in her bedroom. Nikki had promised Aline that she would be left alone forever, but, well, Nikki was a meddler born and bred. She had to keep tabs on things. She could hardly let the Underdog of the Hub go unwatched.
Aline had been very boring for the past few months. Not that Nikki watched her all that closely. All she did was sit and read and waste her life. No matter how much Nikki nudged her in the right direction, the girl stubbornly refused to do what was good for her.
Irritated, Nikki watched her putter around her kitchen making tea. She pressed a button. Both Aline's screen, and a screen displaying a short, curvy girl with a badly-dyed purple undercut sitting on a couch and typing away, glowed briefly. The shorter of the twins didn't notice this at all. The taller spilled tea everywhere and made a mess, and looked quite mad glaring at the mirror.
Nikki sighed. It was no good. She decided to give up on her. She'd live her short, boring life and accomplish nothing of worth at all. That wasn't Nikki's fault. She'd tried.
Something beeped gently. Nikki glanced up. The Writer Block Detection apparatus indicated that a Block had formed, and was sinking through the Hub's tenuous reality to another world. She checked where it was headed. Nowhere important, she could tell, and didn't bother to note the precise universe ID. She spun away to take care of something else. She checked her email. 1,482 new messages since she'd checked it that morning. The usual. She went through throwing out all the chain emails Marie had forwarded her first. What was it with moms and those stupid things? She wondered if it was maybe time to drag D on another little vacation.
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On a remote and boring version of Earth in the far-flung corners of the multiverse, Marie lay on a hammock strung between two palm trees on a beach in Majorca. She hadn't done a day's real work in years. She was quite alone here, but that was fine. The tension had drained out of her muscles, over time. She was sleeping again.
Perhaps later today, she'd take another stroll on the beach, and curse the Author's name, but only out of habit. The Author, she knew, was the one who had allowed her this fate, and she resented it—but it was hard to resent anything all that much when you spent so much time drinking coconut milk in the sun.
Marie forwarded a few more chain emails about the Nigerian prince to Nikki and sighed. This was the life.
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In the darkest of all timelines, in a universe plagued by strife and misfortune on nearly all levels, there lay an Earth shrouded in darkness and in chaos.
The seas had long ago turned acidic and cloudy, poisonous to even be near. A permanent clover of roiling clouds covered the planet. In all places where there remained soil, grew thick grey thorns as thick as the redwoods that had long ago been cut down to the relentless toil of greedy industry. Great tracts of country not subsumed by the ever-present thorns or churning industry lay burned and barren, never again to bear life.
At the epicenter of foulness lay a city, though perhaps necropolis was the better term. Though it was the only remaining city on the entire planet, it was populated by very few actual people. Demons and devils ran amok through it, along with shambling undead, amalgamating monstrosities of all sorts. The few human-looking subjects that remained were mutated slaves, hideous growths upon their faces and bodies, chained to their posts, doomed to do menial work until their imminent deaths.
The necropolis was vast and flat, sprawling out from the center of a mountain. On top of the mountain lay a tower, jutting up oppressively from the ground, piercing the veil of clouds itself. If one were to stand at its base and look up, one would not be able to see the top. It grew up and up, spiked and wrought of dark steel. Leathery winged beasts of burden flapped around it, running errands, bleeding from many whipcrack lacerations. Lightning flashed near-constantly around it, through some dark magics unknown to simple mortals.
If one were to ascend through the tower from the entrance hall—bypassing entirely the extensive dungeons in the hollowed-out mountain, where dwelled such horrors as to not be spoken of, save to mention that the very screams of the prisoners could have powered an entire world—one would climb for days, if not weeks, before one reached the top. There, in a throne room carpeted in blood-red velvet and draped in human skin, dwelled the Empress.
Jenna, age fifteen, sat on her throne. She had her hair in a pair of cute little pigtails these days, though sometimes she liked it in a high ponytail, too. She wore a fuzzy pink cashmere sweater and a matching pink headband. An enormous, grotesque beast lurked around the throne in chains. It was massive and diseased, bulging with unnatural muscle, its formerly white fur fallen out in clumps, the exposed skin mottled grey-green with radiation poisoning. Yet it lived. It seemed, in certain lighting, approximately lightning-shaped.
The Empress smiled beatifically. Everything had gone so wonderfully these past few years.
Her peaceful moment of reflection was ruined when the huge doors to her throne room slammed open by a booted foot. A small dark figure strolled inside.
"D," Jenna said politely. "So wonderful to see you! However did you manage to evade my searchbeasts?"
"Oh, is that what those were?" D said, looking around. "They weren't very good."
"I do hope my hospitality isn't lacking. Your visit is quite unexpected. Oddly enough. Incidentally, guards, seize her."
But the guards did not seize her. For the first time in years, she was not obeyed. Jenna was flabbergasted.
"Yeah, they can't see me," D said. "Or they don't want to. Whatever. I'm just here for my flamethrower. We need it for a thing."
"I'm afraid I can't do that," Jenna said brightly. "It's mine. I stole it fair and square and built all this with it, and you can't have it back."
"Kay. Cool." D shrugged. "See you, Janelle."
She turned and started walking away.
"What?" Jenna stood. "Where are you going? You don't have anything to say to me? You don't have any comments on how I conquered an entire world, all by myself? I became an empress of darkest darkness, all by myself, and you don't have anything to say about that?!"
"Not really, no," D said.
"Guards! Seize her! Dungeon! Dungeon right now!"
"Not gonna happen, kid," D said. "Sorry. Anyway, I'll be back in a few years to collect my flamethrower. Don't worry about planning for my visit or anything. I'll just pick it up from the ashes when it's done with you."
Jenna sat heavily back down. "Well what the hell does that mean?!" she shrieked, but D was already gone.
From the ashes, she thought. What sort of nonsense was that? Jenna was perfectly in control. Her fingers found the flamethrower in its hiding place under her throne. It had served her well all these years. It wouldn't betray her. It was hers now. Hers.
Jenna put the disquieting encounter out of her mind and went to have a nice breakfast tart, and perhaps assign more searchbeasts to undesirables like D. One world was nice to rule, but perhaps she should set her ambitions higher…
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Aline Markowitz, age thirty-six, New York Times best-selling author, spun in her office chair and sighed contentedly. She'd recently finished moving into her new apartment, a nice little loft in Brooklyn. It was absurdly, ludicrously expensive, but then, she could afford it. She'd had quite a prolific career.
Her expensive phone buzzed, indicating an e-mail from her agent. Petra was raving—the new book was doing well, unprecedentedly well. Another home run, it looked like—and so unexpected given the new book's unusual premise. A story about a young author who goes to the land of stories? How droll! How original! However did she come up with it? It was an absolute hit. Aline had a copy of it on her bookshelf, the latest in a long row of books with Aline's own name on it.
Aline had just gotten off the plane from LA. She wouldn't be here long. She had a book tour to start soon. She took the time to admire her new home. Nice oak paneling, rows and rows of books. All her favorites, plus a bunch of classics she'd never gotten around to reading but still looked nice on the shelf. Her favorite shelf was the one with her own books, beautifully bound hardbacks. Tasteful art adorned the walls, much of it purchased from the original artists. The carpets were rich and plush, but modern, bright. Something that spoke of an up-and-coming career author on the rise. Her work was only getting better and better. Though she had already written over a dozen bestsellers, she was sure her magnum opus was waiting, somewhere within her.
Aline herself had never looked better. She hadn't had a chance to change out of her white pantsuit yet, and even after hours of travel, she looked great. It was well tailored, and she had a good body to tailor it to. She couldn't believe she'd ever been a skinny awkward teenager. She'd filled out, started exercising, and her skin had cleared up. She'd switched shampoos, and now her blonde hair, which she'd hated for its dull limpness, now seemed quite bright and neat, pinned back in an artfully messy bun as it was. It even set off her blue eyes to sparkling, though perhaps it was because she was so happy these days. Everything had worked out.
Aline smiled. Everything was wonderful. Finally, finally everything was alright.
She returned her attention to the story she'd been reading on her sleek laptop. She had a free hour before she had to be elsewhere that evening. Fanfiction—old habits died hard, she supposed—but fanfiction of her own novels. Good fanfiction, too. She had a few secret account on most of the major websites. She'd disclosed the fact that she read and reviewed it to the media, and her fans were now forever obsessed with discovering exactly which reviewer was the author herself. It was fun. And the thrill of having others share her work and adore it enough to want to add to it never got old.
She read for a while, then got up to go make herself some tea. She'd received a fancy gift box full of rare, expensive teas a while back from a fan and was slowly sampling it.
On the way to her lavish kitchen, she spotted something on her living room coffee table. A book. Had Petra been round, and left it for her? Was this a special edition of something? Aline didn't remember discussing anything like that that. She picked it up. It was thick, bound in white leather, embossed with gold.
Aline read the title.
She read the title again.
And then a third time.
Icy cold shot through her. "You again," she snarled. "Finally came back for me, did you?"
The damn book made no reply.
"I've gotten by without you all these years," she told it, jamming an accusing finger at its cover. "And I don't need you now. So thanks, but no thanks, and goodbye!"
She chucked it out the window. It went pretty far. She didn't stick around to see it land.
It would be back, of course. It always came back. But Aline would be ready for it. These days, she was ready for anything.
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