our backs against the wall, we're surrounded and afraid
our lives now in the hands of the soldiers taking aim
our questions ricochet, like broken satellites
how our bodies, born to heal
become so prone to die...
------
I don't know how long we drifted there, lost in the empty grey fog. There was something about the place that numbed the mind, making it more and more difficult to move properly or even think coherently the longer we were there.
It didn't take long for me to completely lose myself in the blank void. It was like I'd been frozen in time, my worried thoughts eventually fading into an indistinguishable blur.
Essa had won. She'd successfully locked away all her significant enemies, and there was nothing left standing between her and the domination of the universe.
Well, there was still Giselle, I supposed. But I didn't know how that would play out, and it didn't matter anyways. Either way, reality was about to fall into the hands of a wickedly vindictive madwoman- did it really matter which one?
I looked idly at the other two Primes...or, technically speaking, the other Prime and the boy who was supposed to have been a Prime. Jasper was curled with his knees tucked against his chest, hiding his face in his arms. Julia's eyes were closed, her body loose and relaxed as though she was asleep. Her dark hair floated around her face as though she was underwater, and her expression was tense and sad. I shut my eyes again, not having enough energy to keep them open.
This was even worse than the horrific future-space Essa had trapped me in before. I hadn't actually been able to, but least there I'd had a chance of hanging onto my senses.
This place didn't bother to trick your brain into giving up. It just consumed you.
Of all the ways I thought I might go; this wasn't one of them. I wondered distantly if Essa was going to leave us in here for all eternity, or if she was going to send at least Julia and I back to our timelines and carry out the things she'd threatened back in the End.
I was far enough gone that I couldn't even care. It didn't matter anymore.
Time stretched on.
Seconds, minutes, hours, ticking by and yet not moving forward at all.
It didn't matter.
I don't know how much time passed before I felt myself gradually rising, pulled upwards by an indistinguishable force. I didn't notice it at first, too far down under layers of mental fog.
But even once I did realize what was happening, I couldn't do a thing. I was paralyzed, as though my mind had been cleanly separated from my physical form.
Fragments of thoughts drifted idly, as I registered what was going on. Slowly, ever so slowly, my brain started working again, thoughts breaking through the intense haze.
What...what is happening? Is Essa getting us out to exact her revenge? I wondered. Or could this be...a rescue?
I couldn't move, couldn't even open my eyes to confirm either of these ideas. I began to panic, as I tried harder to move my limbs and nothing happened. I was aware that I was still rising, but aside from that, I couldn't sense my body at all. I was utterly powerless to fight back against or help whomever was pulling us out, if that was indeed what was happening. I'd dealt with sleep paralysis in the past, but this was a hundred times worse.
Was there actually a chance that it was Lukas, Aiden, and Jacek coming to our rescue, or was I deluding myself? How long had it been since Essa trapped us in there? Had she already managed to overthrow reality?
I was grateful for the questions, even though they were scattered and worried. I hadn't even realized how deeply the fog had settled into my mind, but it was a great relief to be able to think coherently again.
Voices floated slowly down to me, seeming like they were coming from a million miles away. I couldn't identify the speakers or make out what they were saying, but they sounded worried. So most likely not Essa, then.
I suddenly caught a few disjointed fragments of words, and distantly recognized the voices that went with them.
Jess...oh god, Jess, tell me...okay...please, please tell me you're...
I don't...he can hear you, Lukas...this is harder than it...shut up, please...
I gasped as my eyes snapped open, my body collapsing onto the ground of the In-Between. I rolled onto my stomach, lifting myself partially up and dry-heaving as a thousand unpleasant sensations rippled through me. Pain, everywhere. Every single muscle in my body was in agony, as though I'd just been thrown off a cliff or two.
"Holy...fuck." I panted. "What just happened."
Lukas crouched next to me as I lay on the ground, resting a hand on my back. "Are you okay?" he asked anxiously.
"I don't even know what okay means right now. That was so many different kinds of fucked up." I wheezed. I started to push myself up into a sitting position, then gave up and flopped onto my back.
Jacek helped Julia sit up as she massaged her forehead and groaned loudly. "What was that? Why does everything hurt so much?" she snapped.
"I don't know what it was, but I know I never want to come across anything even remotely like that ever again. I hate being paralyzed." I complained, draping one arm over my eyes.
"What happened to you guys?" Jacek asked anxiously. "What was that...place, thing, whatever?"
"It...ugh, it did all sorts of things. It felt like it was detaching my mind from my body, freezing my physical self, and turning my brain to mush, all at the same time. It got to the point where I couldn't think at all, couldn't even feel things." Julia explained with a shudder. "And even that doesn't do it justice. It was a nightmare."
I slowly sat up, still wincing. Every joint protested as I moved, but the agony was gradually fading down to an insistent ache. Lukas supported me as I got up, allowing me to lean on him as I struggled to work through the pain.
Now that I was on my feet, I saw that although we were still in the In-Between, we were no longer inside the circle of gates. I could see the white shapes in the near distance, but we were on the outside, among the strange misshapen towers. Looking closer, I realized that the bizarre structures were made of some kind of mottled dark-blue stone, the likes of which I had never seen before.
"I'm just glad we got you out before anything else happened." Jacek commented.
I was about to reply to this when Aiden suddenly said, "Uh...guys? He's not waking up."
I turned to see him kneeling next to Jasper's prone form, gently shaking the boy's shoulder as he lay motionless on his side. Jasper's eyes moved below closed lids, and his face was deathly pale.
"Let's just give him a bit and see if he comes out of it on his own." Julia suggested. "That place did quite a number on Jess and me, so I'm not sure I want to know what it did to him."
"Why would he be any different than you two?" Aiden asked.
I sighed distressedly. "Because...he's not a Prime."
Lukas gave me a baffled look. "What? How could he not be the Prime? What on earth are you talking about?"
"You know how Essa got into his timeline and messed with things?" Julia started. "Well...in manipulating events and making choices for him, we're pretty sure she may have actually become the Prime of that timeline. According to Jasper, she was the one to actually destroy the Command Block, not him."
"But...what does that mean?" Jacek inquired, giving her an uncomfortable side-eyed look.
Lukas covered his mouth with one hand, eyes widening as he realized what she was saying. "Oh...oh no. It means Essa is twice as powerful, because she's the Prime of two timelines instead of one. That must be how she was able to do all that crazy stuff with the In-Between."
Jacek stood, then reached down to help Julia up. She let out a yell of pain and surprise as she straightened up, doubling over again and clutching her side.
"What? What happened?" I asked.
She gritted her teeth, slowly unbending. "Fucking Essa. When she punched me down, I think she might've cracked a rib, or at least bruised one. Holy shit that hurts."
Aiden checked his inventory. "Crap. I have a potion of regeneration, but not healing."
"Awesome, hand it over." Julia demanded, her face pale.
He retrieved the potion, but didn't give it to her right away. "You sure? It'll get your health up, but it won't actually heal anything."
"I know how regeneration works." she snapped, then shut her eyes. "Sorry, okay, that was rude. I'm just...still so pissed at Essa right now."
As Julia swallowed the pink elixir, I looked around again, noting that this part of the In-Between looked much like the rest of it. Just like within the circle of gates, the ground was cracking to pieces, dark nothingness that matched the sky visible inside the deeper fissures.
"How long were we in there?" I asked. A guiltily worried look passed between the other three guys.
"We, uh...don't actually know." Jace said.
Aiden made a vague gesture to the sky. "Something happened to Jacek's timeline, though I don't know if it was Essa's doing or just reality being screwy. But the whole place was frozen. It was like time had stopped. He was the only person, only thing that wasn't frozen."
"You already know we can't count on time anymore." Lukas said, then crossed his arms. "I bet you're glad we decided to come along, hmm?"
I sighed, glancing away from his smug expression. "Yeah, yeah." I muttered.
"Anyways. It took us awhile to find Jacek and get back here, and almost even longer to figure out how to open that weird void-space." Aiden continued. "But Jace did the same thing with his sword that Essa did and just kinda...willed it to open, I think? And bam, there you were."
"How come we're all the way out here, anyways?" Julia asked, looking around at the bizarre structures.
Jace nodded in acknowledgment. "We didn't want to risk Essa finding us if she came back. She hasn't, though, which is...highly suspicious."
Jasper suddenly groaned, slowly opening his eyes. "Ow...oh, god, my head...what the hell..."
I bent down to help him sit up, ignoring the insistent pain that jolted through me. "Take it slow, you're alright now."
He rubbed his forehead, teal eyes unfocused. "W-what happened? Are we...wait, did we escape the void?"
"Close enough. We were rescued." I explained simply. He blinked, looking up at Aiden and Lukas.
"Wait...so I wasn't imagining things? You're-you're...?"
Aiden kneeled down next to him again, outstretching a hand. "Yeah. Hi. We're still kinda enemies in your time, aren't we?"
Jasper accepted the handshake, blushing ever so slightly. "Not, uh...not exactly?"
"From the sound of it, Essa wrecked his timeline pretty thoroughly. It's not exactly destroyed, but...I don't know what's going to happen to him now." I admitted as Jasper stood. "No one died at the end of the Witherstorm, which made a lot of other things not match up anymore. If he and the Aiden of his timeline are on good terms, then the whole Sky City thing won't happen...so the rest of the Portal Network nonsense won't happen, so...it's all just ruined. Oh god, Jasper, I'm so sorry. I don't know if we can fix this." I said, giving him a sympathetic look.
He lowered his head. "Oh. That's...okay. It was my own fault for trusting Essa."
"What the- no." Julia said forcefully. "No, it was not your fault! Essa tricked you! You had no way of knowing!"
Jasper looked miserably over at her, but didn't say anything. I sighed, trying to find a bright side to this mess.
"Listen. Your timeline, your life, is going to be incredibly different from ours. We can't change that. But maybe there's a way to still turn it around. What Essa did...she erased your known future, basically. But...right now, I think you have a chance for a brighter future than any of us. I can't speak for Julia or Jace, but I know that my life slowly got harder and harder after the Witherstorm, because of...events that took place soon after. But I don't think those can happen to you now, so if you're lucky, you'll be able to build a better life than any of ours. It'll be an uncertain path, but maybe that can work out."
He gave me a long look, then nodded slowly. "Are you saying...that in this case, Essa actually helped me?"
Lukas snorted. "Well, she certainly didn't mean to. But sure, I guess so."
Jasper reached up to rub his eyes. "It's just...it's so hard to not think of her as a friend. I thought she was on my side. I thought she was someone I could trust." he muttered. "I don't know how to deal with this."
"Try to form deeper bonds with your other friends. Your dependence on her may have impacted some things that happened between you and them, but maybe that's not completely irreparable." Julia told him. "But...when you go back to your timeline...there's something else you're going to have to do. Something hard."
Jasper gave her an apprehensive look. "Wh-what?" he asked nervously.
She hesitated for a moment, seeming like she was trying to prepare herself to say the words aloud. I could tell she was regretting deciding to break the news to him. "Essa, she...at the end of the Witherstorm, someone was supposed to die. In her timeline, it was Lukas, but in all of ours...it was Reuben. That death...it's a constant, and an important one."
His eyes widened. "Oh...is that why she told Axel to keep an eye on him? She knew...oh no."
"Jasper, when things don't match up between timelines, it throws the universe even more out of balance. I think reality was still mostly normal in your timeline, because Essa was keeping it steady or something, but everywhere else, it's a mess. I'd bet that when you go back to your timeline, it'll be just as bad as the rest of ours." Julia said.
I cut in here before she got off-track. "But the point is, even though all our timelines are different, there's one thing that's supposed to be constant in all of them, and isn't."
"Reuben." he murmured. "You're not...you don't mean...I have to kill him, don't I?"
I lowered my head somberly. "I'm sorry. We can't fix the fact that he didn't die in the Storm, but this variable can't stand. Trust me, I understand how much he means to you. I...I know what I'm asking, but I wouldn't ask this if it wasn't the only way."
Jasper shut his eyes, dragging in a deep, shuddering breath. His voice was barely a whisper as he said, "Okay. I understand."
"Are you alright?" Julia asked softly.
He nodded. "Yes. This is Essa's fault. If...if doing this means she won't get to hurt anyone else the way she hurt me...I can do it. I will do it."
Tears sparked in his eyes, though he held firm. I could see how much pain even the idea was causing him, but I also realized how badly he wanted to get back at Essa.
I'd been betrayed before, but never as deeply as she'd done to him. This kind of duplicity was damaging to a person's very core. Would he ever find peace, with all that had happened?
I believed he could have a chance for things to be better...but there was also a possibility for things to be far, far worse. Now that Essa was gone from his timeline, there was no way reality would still be holding together. What would happen to him if his New Order split up sooner? What if everyone turned on him? What if he ended up on an even darker path than any of us?
I exhaled slowly. No. I couldn't think about all of that right then. I'd just have to trust that Jasper could turn things around.
I turned back to look at the circle of white gates. "We should go. Jasper should head back to his timeline, and we need to figure out what to do next. We definitely have the element of surprise over Essa this time, but we shouldn't take any more risks."
"We gotta figure out how to turn her against Giselle." Aiden reminded as we started back towards the center of the In-Between. "If we can pit the two of them against each other, it'll be easier for us to take them both out. Hell, maybe you guys can do some weird fancy Prime stuff and trap her in a creepy void space!"
Lukas shook his head. "Dear, you have a very unsettling mind sometimes."
Aiden grinned shamelessly at him, and Jasper's head snapped up. He glanced between the two of them, surprise and confusion unfurling across his expression as though he'd just now realized they were a couple.
Julia nudged him lightly and murmured, "That's not a consistent thing. You still have a chance with whichever one you're thinking of."
Jasper's face reddened, but he seemed relieved. "Huh."
I glanced cautiously around as we stepped back into the ring of gates. There was no sign of Essa, but Jace was right- that was supremely suspicious. She couldn't have already done her whole time-turning thing...but where was she?
Jasper approached his gate, looking wonderstruck at the flickering images. His fingers tightened into a fist, and he asked, "Do I have to go back now? I can't stay and help you fight her?"
"It's better if you don't." I told him gently. "She's hurt you enough already, and your timeline needs you more than I can explain."
His gaze dropped to the ground. "I just wish I could help you guys somehow. I can't help feeling like I'm responsible for at least some of this."
"You can help by not letting Essa get the best of you. She wants you to stay miserable and blame yourself, so don't. At this point, your future is probably better than any of ours. Make it count." Julia declared staunchly.
Jasper hesitated for a moment, then replied with a smile that was only a little sad. "Okay. I can do that. Thank you."
"Good luck. And Jasper...I'm sorry this happened to you." I said. He gave me a long look, then turned back to his gate.
"It's alright. Nothing that can be done now." he murmured. I watched as he took a deep breath, then walked across the threshold. The glowing white devoured his small shape, sending him back to the wreckage of his own time.
Meanwhile, the other guys were studying Essa's gate. Jace had his eyes shut, fingers just barely brushing the white. "She's definitely there...but I can't figure out what's going on. Jo mentioned she could sense what Essa was feeling when she did this, but I've got nothing."
"That's alright. It's good enough that we know that she's there, not hiding somewhere waiting to attack again." Julia said as she and I walked over.
"But what do we do now? We've got to stop her, but how? She's so much more powerful than any of us- even Julia and her powers." Lukas said, stringing a hand through his hair.
Jacek stiffened slightly at the mention of Julia's powers, but Aiden interrupted. "I'm telling you, the way to do this is to turn her against Giselle."
"Okay, how?!" Julia snapped. "We know that Giselle is working against her, but we don't have any proof! Essa won't believe a thing we say, and Giselle will just lie through her teeth!"
"Don't ask me! Just, I don't know, do Prime stuff!" Aiden argued. "You guys are more connected to this than any of us. I'm sure you have the capacity to figure something out."
Julia shot back with something else, but I stopped listening. I gently pushed Jace out of the way and focused on Essa's timeline. Before, when I'd gone into Jasper's timeline to talk to her, I'd been able to do...something with the gate that allowed me to see where she was. Maybe there was a way to do that with Giselle.
I cautiously outstretched a hand, letting my fingertips touch the brilliant gate. A jolt of energy flowed through me, as though I'd touched a particularly strong Redstone circuit.
"Show me Giselle. Give me her past." I whispered. "How has she betrayed Essa?"
The gate suddenly changed, the blank white giving way to a dim scene.
I saw Giselle standing in the doorway to a small room lit with Redstone lamps, talking to Olivia. A pale blue bandana was tied over her mouth, like the ones that Essa and her Aiden had been wearing when we first met them.
Olivia's eyes were red, like she'd been crying. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but judging by Olivia's posture, she was fairly comfortable around Giselle...but that was about to change.
Giselle suddenly reached into her inventory, and before Olivia could react, threw a Splash Potion of Sleeping on the ground. Olivia's eyes widened in surprise, then fluttered shut as she slumped to the ground.
That was when things got ugly. Giselle tugged the bandana down once the potion swirls had faded, a triumphant close-lipped smile appearing on her face. She pulled an awful-looking dagger from her inventory, the blade coated in a dark substance that looked horribly like a Potion of Decay. Without hesitating a second, she plunged the dagger expertly into Olivia's stomach, right where it would kill her the fastest.
I gasped, and took an instinctive step back. With detached calmness, Giselle yanked out the knife and grasped one of Olivia's wrists. Feeling nauseous, I looked away as she dragged the blade down the other woman's arm, the brown skin giving way to horrible red blood.
Julia had her hand over her mouth, looking horrified. "But...but I thought Jack said Olivia's death was a suicide." she murmured.
"Giselle faked it. She murdered her and framed it to look like a suicide." Lukas replied in a low tone, looking equally sickened.
The scene changed to something that seemed a little more recent. This time Giselle was seated at a desk, her legs slung lazily over the side of the chair. Essa's Aiden was sitting across from her, but he suddenly jumped up, overturning his chair and saying something that I couldn't hear.
Giselle smiled at him, also speaking inaudibly. Her face was unsettlingly cheery, which contrasted starkly with the complete horror visible in Aiden's expression. She let out a small laugh, then continued speaking with a slightly more serious expression.
I watched as she stood up and turned away from him, still talking. I desperately wanted to know what she was saying, but in a moment it didn't matter. She walked over to a gold-clad armour stand in the corner of the room, removing the gold sword from its grasp. For a few panicked heartbeats, I thought I was about to watch another murder, but instead, she lifted the blade and began tracing exit code symbol in the air.
Julia leaned closer, squinting. "Those aren't the symbols to Essa's timeline. She's sending him somewhere else." she noted.
A downward slash of the sword opened the gate, and Giselle gestured to it dramatically. Aiden hesitated, his eyes betraying a flicker of fear as he asked something. Giselle replied, but he still didn't move.
"He must've found out that she's a traitor." Jace guessed. "He somehow discovered her secret, so she decided to get rid of him. Oh, no."
I nodded absent-mindedly as she tipped the sword closer to him. "I wonder where he is now." I murmured.
Giselle swung the sword at him, silently yelling something. Aiden dodged and gave her a dirty look, then closed his eyes and strode into the gate with false confidence. His posture was rigid and his face calm, but the shaking of his hands gave away how scared he was.
She lowered the sword as he vanished, and the scene changed. Now I was looking out at a mirror of the In-Between, but as it had been before things started getting bad. The glazed-terracotta of the ground was colourful and unbroken, and the sky was a wash of beautiful almost-evening periwinkles and blues. The only difference was that the gate that led to Jo's timeline was considerably dimmer than I had ever seen it, and Jasper's wasn't there at all.
Giselle stepped out of Essa's gate, looking calmly around. I barely had a moment to wonder what she was doing before another Giselle appeared, this one emerging from the gate to my timeline. This second Giselle was dressed very differently; a simple black tank top and jeans instead of the elegant blue and purple that Essa's Giselle wore. Unlike the first one's dyed auburn, her hair was a shocking magenta, the colour it must've been in her Admin form.
"That's- that's the her that we met!" Aiden exclaimed, pointing. "When she came and talked to us while you guys were gone...that's her. Jeez that's creepy."
They...she...exchanged hellos that were soundless to us as a third version of her came out of Julia's gate. This one looked more like Essa's, but with shorter hair and an unpleasant scar that stretched along her jaw and down her neck. She didn't seem to say anything, just nodded in acknowledgment to the other two.
Essa's Giselle started speaking with many broad gestures and a serious expression. From the look of it, she was the leader of the whole...whatever you wanted to call this.
It was distinctly uncanny to see her next to the other versions of herself. They all shared the same features, but things didn't quite match up in their postures and attitudes.
A fourth her burst suddenly out of the gate to Jacek's timeline, her expression as she spoke implying that she was apologizing for being late. The fourth version of her looked most like the one from my timeline, but with her long magenta hair pulled back into a braid and a long periwinkle cloak swooping back from her shoulders.
The four of them settled into a serious, inaudible discussion, with Essa's version of her still appearing to hold the chair. I let out an amused huff. "Huh. So it was the Giselle of Essa's timeline who started it all. That's like...a double betrayal." I remarked.
"I wonder why none of the others are involved now." Lukas mused. "And I'm still not totally sure why our version of her decided to rat on the others to us."
Jace gestured to the her of my timeline. "Look at the way she's standing- everything about her posture says she doesn't want to be there. She may have seen you guys as a way out of their crazy plan. That's what I would've done."
The scene changed again, and started shifting quicker. Giselle faking information in Essa's research; getting rid of Essa's other allies, by trickery or force; different versions of her going back and forth between the timelines; carefully plotting an excuse to keep herself out of the whole Admin adventure, and more. Little signs of her betrayal over the years that Essa had never seen.
I slowly stepped away from the gate as it returned to white, still staring blankly at it. Giselle was honestly starting to scare me even more than Essa. She was too smart, too sneaky, and I had no idea what her motive was.
"See? This is exactly what I meant." Aiden said excitedly. "If we can somehow get Essa to see this, she'll be vulnerable, and we'll be able to take her out or at least k-, uh...get rid of the missing constant."
I nodded. "That just might work. I think we might actually be able to pull this off. But...god, I hate to say it, but I'm on the fence again about actually killing her. Essa, I mean." I said hesitantly.
Julia grumbled. "Suit yourself. I'm more than willing to break a few morality clauses if it means saving reality as we know it."
"No, wait. We don't know what will happen to Jasper's timeline if we kill her. On one hand, since he was supposed to be the Prime, maybe it'll be fine. But on the other...what if it destroys his whole reality like what happened to Jo?" I objected.
She paused. "Shit, that's right. I...I don't know."
Lukas was shaking his head. "Guys, I really don't want to say this...but if it comes down to his timeline versus all of ours...we've got to do it." he told us. "I don't like the idea of that risk, not at all. But we can't let her gain control of our whole universe. If it comes down to it...this might need to be a sacrifice that has to be made."
Regret was etched into every bit of his expression as he said this, but I knew he was right. "Yeah." I whispered. "Yeah, I know."
I lifted my head, my gaze drifting over to Aiden. "You two don't need to stick around for this final fight, if you don't want to. You've already seen what Essa can do, and I really don't want either of you to get hurt any more than you have. If you want to bow out..."
"Jess, how many times to I have to tell you?! No. You do not get to push us away." Lukas said.
Aiden reached forward to gently grab his forearm. "Lukas, I can speak for myself." he said quietly, then looked at me again. "No, Jess. If you die, then your whole timeline is gone, and it wouldn't have done us any good to have gone back. We're in this to the end."
"But what if it really is the end? Your end?" I asked desperately.
"Then it is." Lukas told me staunchly. "If Essa kills me, I'll have died trying to save our reality, and I can handle that. Don't take this choice away from me. I've abandoned you once, Jess, and I won't do it again. I promise. I'll only leave if I know for sure that I can't be of help here."
I was frozen for several long seconds, before I slowly nodded and let my shoulders slump. "O...okay. Thank you."
Lukas stepped closer to pull me into a hug. "We're not about to let you face two of the most dangerous people we've ever met on your own."
"Hey, he's not on his own! Do we not count anymore?" Julia protested, gesturing between herself and Jace. I laughed, pulling away from the embrace.
"Ahh shut up." Lukas said, though his voice was empty of malice.
I took a scrutinizing look around at the In-Between, the shattered ground and wretched sky. We still had a chance.
Essa had pressed our backs against the last wall, but we were still fighting.
Do your worst, Essa. We'll be ready for you.
You might've changed the rules, but we're not out of the game yet.
-----
this chapter,, took forever. ugh. what the hell.
i've decided i don't care about endings anymore. i've probably said this before, but,, i'm being serious this time eehh
anyways! five chapters left!! aaaaaaa!!!
word count- 5219