Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me!

Yup, today's my birthday, and I decided to celebrate it by updating this story yet again at the expense of my literal dozen other stories! I'm such an awesome writer!

Anyway, this one will focus more on Darcy and a certain thing I've stalled too long to introduce. So, without further ado, let's go!


Darcy sat on top of the rooftop of her house, her hair and dress blowing in the wind as she looked at the setting sun on the horizon.

As she sat there, completely and silently alone, she took a deep breath and remembered something that changed her thoughts about her mother's plans…

"You want to show me something?"

That was something that Darcy asked to her mother, Mrs. Shrinivas, guided her deeper into the house, going into the laboratory where Harbinger rested.

"I feel like I've been keeping hidden how much I actually know about the truth regarding our world for long enough," Mrs. Shrinivas answered. "The more Nurse Sue walks around unattended, the more I fear one of the realities I dread the most will become a reality if nothing is done."

"One of the realities?" Darcy repeated. "What are you talking about?"

Mrs. Shrinivas paused, and pushed some buttons, opening up a pedestal from the ground that soon emerged, showing a pair of gloves on top of it. They were black gloves with a spiral symbol on the back of the hand, with cyan fingers.

"These, Darcy, are Dimensional Gloves," Mrs. Shrinivas explained. "Back when I was working with Nurse Sue, we discovered many things that had to be kept a secret to ensure mass panic wouldn't follow. You already know about Mary Sue, right?"

Darcy twiddled her fingers and looked away as she nodded, still remembering very well the restless nights she spent after

"Another thing we found out was how Cliches could enchant items and give them certain abilities," Mrs. Shrinivas continued. "For example, someone with a "Crystal Ball" Cliche could enchant objects of glass to transform them into crystal balls themselves."

"That's transforming things, though," Darcy eyed the gloves. "What do these gloves have to do with that?"

"See, there's another thing that can be done with Cliches; it is possible to remove a Cliche from a person and implant it on an object, giving said object the Cliche's powers and allowing whoever uses it to have essentially a secondary Cliche to work with," Mrs. Shrinivas smiled and patted the inactive Harbinger on the head. "That's the main reason why Harbinger here is as powerful as they are."

Then, the woman walked to one of the gloves and threw it to Darcy, before grabbing the other one and equipping it.

"This also applies to these gloves; they have been synthetized with a "Alternate Reality" Cliche," the woman clenched her fist. "With that Cliche in tow, the gloves allows someone to enter a portal that allows them to visit alternate realities, as the name might imply."

"Alternate realities?" Darcy put the glove on. "Do you want to show me a reality where we're not doing the whole Harbinger plan?"

Mrs. Shrinivas paused and stared at her daughter, right before she explained what she wanted to do:

"I want you to show you a reality that reveals the consequences of failing to achieve our goal. One that shows the Index System still standing, and if Nurse Sue is allowed to continue living."

"Nurse Sue?" Darcy tilted her head. "But isn't she supposed to be our ally?"

"Oh Darcy, my sweet little Darcy, how I wish you could remain this naive and innocent forever," Mrs. Shrinivas aimed the glove forward. "Alas, such an action would spell your doom, so I have to do this."

The glove shot an energy blast that, upon hitting a wall, transformed into a green swirling portal that lead to what looked like the city square of Royal Woods. Once that was done, Shrinivas gestured Darcy to follow, and the younger girl obliged and followed the woman through the portal.

Once the duo crossed, the portal closed and Darcy gasped at what she saw: Several flying Trainerbots scanning the area around the duo, with several people walking around wearing white robes or nurse outfits, all while posters of a version of Nurse Sue looked down at them.

Mrs. Shrinivas quickly grabbed her daughter and took her with her to an alleyway, avoiding one of the Trainerbots' scanning beam.

"This, my dear Darcy, is an alternate reality where by allowing Nurse Sue to live, she overpowered everyone and became the supreme ruler of Royal Woods," Mrs. Shrinivas explained as she put her daughter down and summoned a holographic screen from her glove. "The main reason this reality came to be was-"

"Wait, since when can you release holographic images showing information about an alternate reality?"

"You should know by now that certain Cliches have a much greater range of powers and abilities than their seemingly simple denominations might suggest," Mrs. Shrinivas sighed. "Just because the readers don't know any better doesn't mean you should share their ignorance."

Darcy blinked twice in confusion, allowing her mother to continue:

"Alternate realities are called as such because the future, as you should know by now, is by definition impossible to predict; any movement we do, any action, any decision, down to the most insignificant, edges our world closer to ensuring one such alternate reality becomes the true reality."

The glove opened up and released a holographic image.

"The moments that allow alternate realities to become closer and closer to canonicity are known as "Divergence Points". Should these points be affected, the alternate reality can either become guaranteed to happen… or be rendered a simple answer to a potential question. A "What If", of a sort."

"Is this reality a What If?"

"Not yet, there's still one important Divergence Point that needs to be taken care of in order to remove this reality's chance to become canon," Mrs. Shrinivas snapped her fingers and the holographic image floated down. "According to the readings, Nurse Sue stayed alive long enough to betray us and take over the Index System. If she dies, this reality becomes a mere What If."

Darcy hummed and looked elsewhere. "I'm not sure… I don't like the idea of anyone dying…"

The woman sighed. "I figured you'd say that, so there's something else I want to show you in hopes of changing your mind."

Mrs. Shrinivas grabbed her daughter, placed her index and middle finger together and teleported the both of them… into the graveyard. Once there, she grabbed Darcy's hand and walked her down the terrifying collection of graves until they found a peculiar set of them.

The graves of the Loud family.

Upon seeing this, Shrinivas released her daughter, who walked and inspected the graves to ensure her eyes weren't lying to her. But the one that caused her to panic was Lincoln's grave, placed among a few other graves separate from his family.

"Even him?"

Mrs. Shrinivas

"But why would she do this? What does she need to gain?" Darcy asked with a shaky voice. "You helped her get back to her feet! She's supposed to be our ally!"

"Alas, my sweet little Darcy, Nurse Sue isn't our ally. She's not anybody's ally," Mrs. Shrinivas folded her arms. "In all dimensions, there's only one entity that Nurse Sue answers to…"

Darcy paused… and gasped. "Mary Sue?"

Mrs. Shrinivas snapped her fingers, and a portal back to their original dimension. The duo walked through, and once the portal closed, Darcy dropped to her knees, breathing heavily as her mother said:

"So, Darcy, you've seen what will happen if Nurse Sue is allowed to live. You've also seen how many people will die as a result of it. Given all I've shown you, I'm going to ask a simple question."

The woman crouched down and made Darcy look at her.

"Would you kill Nurse Sue for me?"

"Something on your mind?"

Darcy broke out of her trance and turned around to see herself being joined by a certain red-haired boy known as Chandler.

"Oh, nothing, I was just thinking..." Darcy looked back. "About things… But you arrived just in time!"

"For what?" the redhead asked.

"Helping me focus on something else!" Darcy chirped. "You've been absent for a long time. Where did you go? Did Mom ask you to do something?"

"She sent me on this very strange errand," Chandler answered as he sat next to Darcy. "She told me to take a bit of a break to go to Scotland."

"Scotland?!" Darcy exclaimed in sheer disbelief. "Why would she send you so far away?!"

"I asked her the exact same thing, but what she told me only made me more confused," Chandler narrowed his eyes. "All she told me was to keep an eye on the Loud Castle, and see how things were going in Loch Loud."

Darcy raised an eyebrow. "Loch Loud?"

At a rural duchy in Scotland, the people of Loch Loud walked around with smiles on their faces while a few of them looked at the castle from afar.

"It's a duchy where the Loud family originated from, apparently. Mrs. Shrinivas sent me there to do one specific thing."

At the castle, meanwhile, an aged woman with messy grey-ish hair dusted off some bookshelves at a library, right before Lynn Sr. and Rita entered through the door, getting her attention and bringing a smile to her face.

"Look out for the extended family."


So, this is something I never do, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask. Given the cliffhanger at the end of this chapter, which should be seen next: the next chapter of the Scotland stuff, or go back to discovering what's Virgin Sacrifice with Lincoln and Cristina?

Let me know your opinion in the comments and have a nice day. :)