Remember the dice. The dice have always decided what happens, from day one. Never forget.
-x-
"They called it a miracle.
"A fractured spine, both legs broken, and they called it a miracle that he managed to walk. Hell, he managed to run. But it wasn't that surprising to me. He always had a strong back, and he always healed fast. The steroids probably helped more, though. Not off-the-record steroids, I mean medical steroids. The kinds that are used to fix up muscles? Yeah, those.
"It cost him his college fund, and basically pushed him to get as many scholarships as possible. If it could get him a free ride into a good school, he'd have to do it. And with his grades the way they were, he needed to double down. There's only a hundred and four days of summer vacation, and he spent every single one of them on rehabilitation.
"By the end, following eight surgeries and copious amounts of drugs, he wasn't just walking again. He was sprinting. Again, not a surprise. He's always been a runner, not a quarterback – it didn't suit him. So he did the impossible, his ma sewed crosses on his jersey, and people took to calling him God's Gift…" I scoffed at the idea.
"Alliterative appeal aside, there was always one detail that bothered me. He had a fracture," I brought up a finger and traced it along my forehead. "Right along here, down to the nose, and then back behind the ear. The surgical scar that was left behind while the damage was being fixed, it made him look like someone took a piece of his clone's head and sewed it onto him.
"He looked just similar enough to how he looked before that you wouldn't notice with a first glance, but just unappealing enough that once you noticed it, you couldn't stop staring. I learned to stop, but the damage was mostly done. He, uh, went through highschool without a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. He wasn't gay.
"I'd been distancing myself from him more and more, and he had other things to focus on – mostly pain medication, keeping up with his pills to treat anything chronic that was left behind… there were a lot of problems. I guess what I'm trying to say is, it became hard to tell how much he needed and how much he just wasn't getting.
"Remember, he didn't have a college fund anymore. Caring for him was putting his family in debt. He was the star athlete, even if he'd changed positions and someone else was quarterback now. Everyone knew who was really boss on the team. But it didn't matter how popular you were in highschool if every step you took was a physical, painful reminder that you didn't have the money to continue getting the care you needed, and every look in the mirror a reminder of some awful shit in the past.
"In short, he was fucked. He needed stronger stuff, the kind of stuff they give to professional football players. But that was in short supply… fortunately we lived in a white, well-off suburban neighborhood. That meant there were a lot of sheltered kids who wanted or needed something that wasn't easy to find. They wanted an edge in life that they just weren't getting, and that meant they had to go somewhere to get what they wanted… somewhere out of the way–
"–It was the tunnel, of course." I paused, "What, thought it'd be something else?"
-x-
I had a lot of catching up to do if I wanted to know everything that had happened in this world. My ass went numb after the first two hours of sitting in front of no less than nine screens. My Ultimate Eye was uncovered, trying to absorb all the information as it ran at twice the speed.
Using my eye to process that much information was always difficult – it was better suited to battlefields than looking at moving pictures. At the same time, it was a novel experiment.
On each of the screens, a gigantic figure of some form blotted out the heavens with its girth as it descended. Some had other, smaller entities behind them – but no less powerful. They were the representatives of each of their planets, and of their respective moons. At the sight of Type Pluto, the smallest of the lot, I laughed.
Type Mercury was absent, instead replaced with a gaping emptiness. That was what I saw on the last screen. "This one's live, isn't it?" I asked aloud.
Standing behind me, Laura had her arms crossed as she watched. "Yeah," she confirmed. "Don't know why you're so interested in it… there's nothing out there."
I scowled, "That's the point."
Each video ended in a similar way, with one person or another pulling every trick they could out of their ass to slay one of the unstoppable monsters. The sight of Type Uranus being penetrated by Bang Shishigami's nail, however, threatened to rob me of my composure. Fucking really? Really? My mouth dropped open at the sight of it.
"How did he…?" I spared a glance behind me, and only saw the eternal woman shrug.
"Say what you want about that guy. He was a real goof… but he got the job done. Then Godo came along and stole his thunder." She laughed, "That's just how it works, I guess."
"That's not a fair comparison." I frowned, "Godo has a weapon tailor made to killing these things… Bang was just some guy. That nail shouldn't have–" my breath hitched, "Sorry. No. You're right. What matters is that they're dead." I reached out and started pressing buttons. To my relief, I managed to turn off the screens on each try instead of accidentally turning off the power or something.
Leaning back in the chair I sat in, I lamented its lack of wheels, and the fact that it couldn't rotate. That wasn't very fun. But what did fun matter? I… damn it. I was distracting myself from the main issue. Somehow, these people had been doing the impossible. They fought and beat a series of unstoppable gods, and now the black thing had arrived.
They couldn't see it. Maybe Kokonoe could, if she was clever in how she worked around its memetic ability to erase information about itself, but I worried for her mental health… Ah, how silly of me. The world was coming to an end. Who was I to suggest Kokonoe was in the wrong for doing everything she could to prevent that? If she failed, everyone was going to die anyway.
…Even Laura.
"So…" I trailed, "X-23."
"Yeah."
I stared at her, "You're not very surprised."
"Course not," she shrugged. "We met. You wouldn't know, since it hasn't happened for you, but we did."
I sucked in a breath of air through my nose. Of course we'd met. In the past, obviously, since we were in the future… an impossible future. Because why not, you know? It just made sense.
"Was it on good terms?"
She raised an eyebrow, "Guess." Laura said to me.
"That's a "no", I suppose," a sigh left my lips, "Figures."
"Hey, don't let it get to you. Not everyone does well on their first meeting."
"…You realize, technically, if you met me in the past, then you just had the rare opportunity for a second try at first impressions." I stared at her as she slowly deflated, "Yeah. You fucked that up."
"Still not as bad as yours."
"Was a flaming car involved?"
"…Uh…"
"Laura, I'll be straight with you, if I was going to appear in your time, and had access to a nice car, you can bet we'd meet. And that the car would be on fire." I paused, "And that it wouldn't be a Prius."
"Why not?"
"Because fuck Priuses." My eyes went up in thought as I focused on the ceiling. "Prii? Priusi? You know what, just… just fuck fancy cars." My arms crossed, "Vans are where it's at."
"…You think that was a van?" She looked desperately confused – and I felt refreshed. "That was not a van, that was–"
"It was the most amazing experience you ever had." I nodded, "You're welcome." Then I took a deep breath. "Those things… they're supposed to be the most powerful entities representing their respective planets. They're cosmic creatures lacking a human concept of death."
"So?"
"…They're only supposed to show up when the entity representing the earth has died. They're post-apocalyptic, an emergency clean-up crew to deal with anything on this planet's carcass…" But the world around me felt alive, for whatever passed as a sensation of feeling. There was flora and fauna, there were people aplenty, and if these monsters were going to show up… they would've arrived with the Black Beast.
But they didn't. They either waited until the time was right, which it wasn't, or more likely something had triggered their arrival early. I wanted to say it was because the universe was about to be erased due to temporal shenanigans… however, not one iota of that jived with me.
Putting it simply, the Aristoteles were a response to planetary-style conflicts. This easily qualified as something much bigger, sure, but it wasn't the kind of thing that would get their attention. "How long has that screen been blank?" I pointed to the black thing.
"Dunno," Laura shrugged, "Since it was set up?"
"But you know where it is."
"Somewhere in Brazil… Or, I guess it'd be called the "Non-Interference Zone" now."
"What happened?"
"This and that," Laura shrugged helplessly. "Time hasn't been kind to that place." I heard a beeping noise from her belt, and at the sound of it she reached down and grasped a small device.
"Is that a beeper?"
"Yup. These things last forever," I briefly caught a glimpse on the side of it, a familiar logo for an old hospital… and I smiled. The story of how Ryuken's beeper survived the test of time and fell into Laura's hands was probably an interesting one, but I knew I'd never learn. "Looks like I'm heading out for another supply run. You coming?"
"Do I have a choice?" I asked, looking around at all the monitors.
"You could stay, but then you'd have to keep Kokonoe company."
"That doesn't sound too bad." I said to her, "And I have a few questions for her anyway."
"Suit yourself."
I stayed in that room for another ten minutes, just watching the black thing as it warbled ominously. Whatever it truly was, under all that bubbling mass, I'd finally found a physical representation of it.
And in truth, I was thankful that old beeper went off. If it didn't, I wasn't sure I'd be able to hold back my shaking much longer.
-x-
"Poe," Kokonoe greeted with a nod as I stepped into her office – or whatever passed for an office. It had a nice looking fan that occasionally gave an unpleasant skipping noise as the blade of it ricocheted off the edge, but it did its job well enough.
The catgirl scientist eyed me as she sucked on her lollipop. Her smile was coy, but her eyes were flat and dull – like a little bit of the light in them had just up and died in a corner somewhere. The whole room stank of alcohol and Silvervine candy. She knew this conversation was a long time coming.
"I get that this world is a possible future. I get that it's been cut off from any potential past. I get that it's disappearing, and that's bad." I stared at her, watching for any kind of flinch. "None of that explains how you can see that thing, and nobody else can."
She didn't flinch. Instead, her smile widened as she stretched in her seat. "Sure it does," she countered, "I've been watching that thing for years. Of course I can perceive it."
"But you're not immune."
"…"
"You know what it can do. There's no way you don't… and you exposed yourself to that?" I was trembling, "I've seen what it does to people. The chilliest, nicest guys are turned into fucked up copies of that monster just from looking at it. It's a memetic virus. How can I trust that you're immune, Kokonoe?"
She answered me simply and concisely. "You can't."
It took the wind out of my sails as I rocked back and fell into the nearest seat. The chair rolled a little on its wheels that strained to hold the weight of my body. "That's… that's not an answer."
"No, it's an answer. It's just a bad one. I could tell you that I put a metal plate in my skull," she brought up her knuckles and rapped her forehead. I heard them strike something harder than bone. "I could tell you that I found out about this thing years ago when ORT fucking vanished."
"How do you know about ORT?"
"The Black Beast appeared and fucked everyone," she reached under her desk for something. "No point hiding it, there's no way you don't know it's here," Kokonoe grumbled as she pulled out a bottle of wine, vintage… holy shit, eighteen seventy, that's genuinely impressive shit! I didn't drink and I knew that was impressive!
"…You collect wine?"
"No. But I might've found someone's old cellar." She didn't bother pouring herself a glass, instead sipping directly from the bottle. I just blinked at the sight, in awe of how she didn't accidentally choke on her lollipop as she guzzled the stuff.
"H-Hey…" I forced myself to stand again, moving forward to pull the bottle out of her hands. "Come on, it's bad enough you might be going nuts, we don't need you getting drunk."
The sudden viciousness with which she knocked me over and onto the floor was a hard reminder – she was one of the strongest characters in this setting for a reason. "I'll drink if I want to," she said with venom in her voice, pulling her hand back as she clenched and unclenched it.
I think she broke my nose.
…Checking, I felt blood. Yeah, she broke my nose.
So, as I snapped it back in place, I stood and warily began reaching for my swords.
"Don't bother," Kokonoe scoffed. "We both know I could kill you if you tried anything… and that should be proof enough, right?" She raised an eyebrow. "If that thing had any control over me, you'd be dead now. After all, you're not a hero." Her knuckles whitened as she clutched the neck of the bottle, "I've been hearing that thing for years, but I never listened. Not once."
The admission didn't remove my tension, though my hand slowly distanced itself from the handles of my Zanpakuto. "What happened? It had to have been something, right?"
Kokonoe watched me as she reached into her labcoat and slowly pulled out pictures, printed and laminated. She tossed them in a haphazard pile on the desk. "You're a famous historical figure, Poe R.R. Acti. But I don't recognize any of the people in those pictures."
I sorted through them, one by one. "Aang, Katara… This… This is from several worlds ago. How did you–"
"After the Black Beast appeared, organizations like the SCP Foundation or the Magus Association collapsed. There were secrets in both that were put under lock and key by the NOL… but not all of them were caught. Some slipped through. Relius Clover found a few. He brought that thing into our world, but right before… these were some of the pictures we got."
Some of them, I remembered with absolute clarity. But others looked wrong, distorted as though they were burnt and warped. Those were the ones I stared at the most. I saw Hiroshi with his earth dragon, fighting Visola… and Aang? Why would he do that?
In another, I saw Momo flying around. I saw Appa on fire, and Aang shouting at me. My head hurt as I stared at them, "Wait… that doesn't look right." I pointed at the pet, even as I held my head. "Momo was dead, Visola ate him…" I murmured the words.
There was a pulsing noise, my nose bleed redoubled and there was a loud ringing sound – "Hey! Thieves! Pay for your food!" Everything hurt. "I can't pay you with money. But I'm pretty sure I can pay you with my services." That didn't happen, I know that didn't happen because it never happened and I would never do that – "…the great cabbage bandit…!"
I threw up on the floor, my whole body shaking as I stared up at the lights on the ceiling and heard voices from people that never said those words. I was still bleeding. My head hurt so much, oh, hi Kokonoe… don't stand for me… there's wine on the floor…
What happened? What did I do?
…The world was gone. Everything was just… I threw up again. I passed out. I couldn't stop screaming. Why is it so quiet now?
-x-
One Foot on the Platform
OR: One Foot on the Train
End-293
