Episode 2, Act 2 - Wrong Answer

=- July 10th, 2022; 1 Week Later -=

I set down my breakfast: a slice of boiled toast and scrambled eggs, setting my gaze outside my penthouse apartment and watching the traffic jam play out below. Magical Maid Incorporated, for all its faults, had always treated me well. Something about being on the level I was at caused them to overlook some of my flaws; my personality, for example. As long as I played at the 'good girl', did the photo shoots they invited me to, made the proper public appearances, they brought me anything I needed. A plane ticket to France? Why not? All the chocolate I could ever want? Of course!  Enough cash to buy a penthouse? Nothing less for our star Warrior.

I definitely missed the early days of Magimaid. Back then, I got to rough up a lot more politicians. I remember it fondly, getting to transform and smash up the halls of Congress. Activism was a lot more hands on those days. Now we just used special interest groups and funded the government with its own money. Come to think of it, when did they stop making me pay taxes? I might have to spend a little time with Olivia recounting my wilder days. Maybe it could break me out of this malaise.

I kept my apartment clean. With a wand and magical skills, it wasn't hard to keep it that way. I managed to automate away most of the work by setting my wand to clean on its own, watched as the little feather duster swept through my kitchen, a modern magical roomba. How long had it been since I'd had the feather duster? Seven years, maybe. That's about the time I realized this world was made out of cardboard and patched up with bubblegum.

Maybe I should be glad that it wasn't something worse; a nail bat, for instance. I'm definitely 'wacky' enough to get one of those. I've managed to shift the wand into that shape with very little effort. My priestess wasn't happy about it, but sometimes you have to send a message. Olivia? Oh. You're not listening. That's fine.

...this house is empty. Maybe I should invite her over. I just; it's hard. I don't want to show her more of this side of me. She doesn't deserve that. Doesn't deserve me at my worst.

I've had a little time to think about what happened last week. A bit of time. Feeling confident, I found the jar of slime in my fridge and brought Malty into my bedroom, setting her down on an end table. It was time to figure out something that's been bugging me for a whole decade.

Malty. You've never, once, been honest with me. "Not by a long shot," the pink goop cackles. "All Divinities, you really think I'm on your side? After everything we've been through together?" Teeth start protruding from a gap in her glass. A glass I'm starting to recognize as unable to hold her. Slime oozes out from the cracks in the jar.

Please stay in the jar. "Oh. We're playing the polite game, now? I don't think I will stay in the jar. I've let you play your games long enough. It's time you gaze at my full glory." Malty was leaking all over the floor, the carpet... was that really necessary? We've talked about that. It's a bitch to steam clean magical slime out of the carpet.

"Open your eyes, Madeline. I'm all around you. The carpet is me." I didn't like that thought. But it stuck to my mind, a burr that I couldn't shake away, and I started seeing flashes, glimpses. No no no. You do not get to just-- you don't get to just decide that for yourself!

"Madeline," one of the walls spoke. Bulbous white orbs started to emerge from the pink-stained woodwork, teeth running over a poster of-- you let GO of that. RIGHT NOW.

"Alright, jeez. No use aggravating you over a little thing like this." Some of her wall-slime pulled back from the poster. It would still need wiping down, but she wasn't at risk of losing Bea... again.

"By now, you're probably wondering to yourself: how come you've got such big eyes, Malty? Why, the better to see you with, of course!" Typical Malty theatrics. I wasn't about to have any of it. I looked for something sharp and pointy.

"But that's the wrong question, Madeline! What you should be asking yourself is: how come you've got such big teeth, Malty! Why, the better to-- OW!" Malty screamed as I burst a pocket of slime with the pointy end of my wand, letting the blue fluids leak out. My wand had returned to my hand without much mental effort, and I morphed it into a stake before driving it straight into her... skull? It was hard to tell with the whole room being covered in slime like this.

"OW, OW. ALL DIVINITIES, IT HURTS! YOU MAKE YOUR POINT, KID!" Better. Olivia, I know you can't hear me, but... it's important to establish dominance with your mascot, you know? To confront them when they step out of line, and quickly. If you don't have time to break them down emotionally and psychologically, then start by reminding them physically. Make them figure out who fears whom.

"GEEZ LOUISE. IT'S LIKE YOU HAVE A WHOLE CATALOG OF PENT UP VIOLENCE, I GET IT. I DON'T NEED TO BE IN ANY PARTICULAR FORM FOR YOU, KID? YOU'LL STAB ME AND FLING ME WHATEVER SHAPE I TAKE." That's right, and I'll gladly do it again, you milkshake motherfucker. Come out in your real shape. Stop hiding.

"THAT'S WHAT I WAS GETTING TO, KID. NO PATIENCE, NO PATIENCE." I had the gut feeling she was about to devour me whole, not explain her biology, so I stabbed her again. "FRICK. GAWD. FRICKING HAM IT." She squirmed and slurped off the walls, clutching a brand new violet leak in her side.

Talk, mold patch. "I WAS JUST GOING TO NIBBLE, KID!" Yeah. That's what I thought. "SO... WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT DIMENSIONS?" I idly spun the stake between my fingers... let's see. We're three dimensional creatures, right? And the fourth dimension is Time, or something like that.

"RIGHT. I FORGOT YOUR WORLD WAS STILL SO... PRIMITIVE." Malty hissed, holding her wound. She was starting to take a shape that was much easier to define. Humanoid, with eyes running across her skin. Teeth float inside her slime, assembling themselves into mouths to speak with no gums or larynx. She was probably speaking telepathically, directly into my mind.

"CLOSE. I HAVE ORGANS THAT VIBRATE IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION: PERCEPTION. YOU CANNOT OBSERVE THEM UNLESS YOUR MIND IS TRAINED TO OBSERVE THEM." I scowl at the implications. Who is she to call me untrained? Without hesitation, I glance through another perceptual dimension, and another. Regret struck soon after.

A gray skinned witch, a toaster, a pile of rags, a plush doll, nothing at all, a slime, a cat, a rat, a bat... there were so many different ways to perceive Malty. All of them subtly wrong; a failure to grasp her true form in the human mind? All of them correct in their own imperfect ways. 

I don't know why I hadn't tried this before; besides keeping careful track of my now-plummeting Faith reserves, there was no reason to not observe my mascot for what she really was. No. There was one reason. A mental reason. If I ever acknowledged she was anything other than a toaster, I might have done something drastic.

"ARE YOU DONE TRYING TO DRAW CONCLUSIONS FROM AN IMPERFECT SET OF FACTS, KID?" Malty, at least, the parts of her I could perceive, decided to interrupt my train of thought. Rude. Still, I wasn't a genius scientist. I am a warrior who feasts on the entrails of my enemies. So I guessed I was going to let her have this one.

"THEN WE BEGIN. THE FIRST DIMENSION OF PERCEPTION IS A SIMPLE PHOTON, A PRICK OF LIGHT. WE CALL THIS DIMENSION CONTRAST." Dimension of Perception? Okay, now I'm completely lost. I thought we were talking about Space. "SPACE IS IRRELEVANT. WHAT MATTERS IS WHAT WE PERCEIVE, KID. YOU, OF ALL DIVINITY, SHOULD KNOW THAT."

...it was true. My power... "YOU'VE BEEN CRIPPLED FOR YEARS BECAUSE OF YOUR FEARS, KID. BUT NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! YOU'RE ONLY TWO TENTHS OF THE WAY THROUGH YOUR SHORT, PITIFUL LIFESPAN. PLENTY OF TIME TO CHANGE, KID." Malty didn't hug or comfort me as she'd intended to. Perhaps because I glared hard enough to send her retreating? I cannot imagine a time where you weren't the world's biggest bitchwaffle.

"NO, IT'S TRUE. AT YOUR AGE, I WAS DIFFERENT. I TOOK THE PLUNGE AROUND THE SAME TIME AS YOU. FIXED MY PERCEPTIONS OF THIS UNIVERSE." Malty's slime slipped and slid around me, fingers drumming against my shoulders. "EVEN SO... DON'T LOOK TOO DEEP, KID. YOU DON'T WANT THE COUNCIL OF KNOTS TO COME KNOCKING, DO YOU?"

A shudder ran up my spine. One recruitment attempt from their leader was enough to know I didn't belong there. That's a story we won't be seeing, Olivia. You don't need to know about them. It's important that you never, ever meet them. You won't have the same resistance I do; the same ability to see through their offers for what they were.

"I DON'T WANT TO THINK ABOUT CALICO AND HER BAND OF CACKLING CRUSADERS RIGHT NOW. LET'S GET BACK TO THE LESSON. THE SECOND DIMENSION OF PERCEPTION IS THE WAVE. ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION. THIS IS WHAT PROVIDES COLOR TO YOUR WORLD, KID." Malty's hue began to shift... mottled blues, pinks and orange puddle together. Whatever emotions she's trying to convey with that, they're alien to me.

Still... the first two dimensions are Light and Color. I wondered what this meant for those who were colorblind? I've seen the world from their eyes before. What they see is so unlike anything I could understand before witnessing it. The world had such a different texture. I broke into tears when returning to my body. Being blind, even for a moment? It sent me into a panic spiral the first time I tried it. The organs I'd come to rely on, gone like that. The world I knew-- everything was different.

"THE ORGANS YOU RELY ON ENGAGE WITH THE UNIVERSE THROUGH THE THIRD DIMENSION OF PERCEPTION: INTERPRETATION." Malty's fingers opened up, and two eyes surfaced and sat in her palm. "EVERY CREATURE THAT CAN VISUALIZE MUST PROCESS AND INTERPRET WHAT THEY ABSORB. THE HUMAN EYE CONTAINS PHOTORECEPTORS THAT PULL IN THE IMAGE, BUT THE WORLD YOU SEE IS TOPSY TURVY."

Bones slipped through her fingers, forming sharp nails: ones she used to twist and adjust the eyes into shape on her palm. To rotate them and face me. Her hand pulsed, and I could see the core of her slime traveling up her arm. She rarely exposed her core. As far as I could tell, it was her weakness. One good strike and she'd be dealt with, for good this time, but I couldn't bring myself to take advantage of this moment. She still had too many lessons to impart. She must have known that I was struggling with that decision, because she gave me a derisive sneer.

"THE IMAGES THAT YOU SEE IN YOUR EYES? THEY ARE PROCESSED IN THE WRONG ORDER. SOME MIGHT EVEN SAY 'UPSIDE DOWN'. BUT YOUR CORE, THE ORGAN THAT BEATS WITH THOUGHTS AND COLORS. IT INTERPRETS THIS DATA. RIGHTS THE INFORMATION IN THE BRAIN AND SETS IT INTO MOTION. IT COLLATES THE DATA COLLECTED BY YOUR VISUAL RECEPTORS AND TURNS IT INTO A REPRESENTATION. INTERPRETS IT." She allows the visual representation to linger in her palm... and then pops it into her mouth-- eyes, core and bony-nails, all of them vanish, and move to another part of her body.

But I already knew these things, Malty. We covered most of this in training. The higher-ups in Magimaid knew what my powers were. To perceive things differently. We also knew that some warriors, when taught about the source of their powers, are able to use them more effectively; a fire-based warrior saw her flames turn violet after learning more about heat.

Magimaid was quick to capitalize on their resources. They put us through grueling remedial education to learn more about our powers, in the hopes that some of us would evolve. The information I gleaned from these training sessions was useful. I was a bit too busy dealing with Malice alongside my teammates to pay attention in school, and anyone I could have relied on was just as busy fighting Malice as I was. There weren't many of us, and our attention was needed everywhere. 

"I WOULD TOSS OUT WHAT THEY TAUGHT YOU. A RELEVANT ASIDE, THEY WOULD TEACH YOU THAT THE DIMENSION WHICH PROVIDES COLOR IS MERELY A PHYSICAL DIMENSION. WHAT DO THEY KNOW, KID? THEY AREN'T MAGIC. NOT LIKE US." I'd prefer if we weren't compared to each other, Malty. Ever. "NO PROMISES, KID."

"THERE IS AN EXTRA LAYER TO THE DIMENSION OF COLOR. COLOR MAGIC; IT IS THE SAME MAGIC THAT I WAS BUILT WITH." Chii's magic; the Witch of Color. One of the founding mascots for Magimaid, alongside Malty and a few others. But Chii's a Contractor, like you. You don't mean... "THAT'S RIGHT, KID. I WAS LIKE YOU IN SO MANY WAYS, ONCE." Malty gives me a toothy grin.

"I MADE IT SO CLEAR TO YOU WHAT I WAS. YOU WERE SO FOCUSED ON MY MANY, MANY MISDEEDS THAT YOU MISJUDGED ME, KID." I felt her slime ooze across my shoulders. Her touch was frigid and caused my body to shudder involuntarily. "I'M A CREATURE OF COLOR, OF LIGHT, OF INTERPRETATION AND IMAGINATION! FOUR DIMENSIONS OF PERCEPTION! MY CONTRACT WAS WITH CHII, AND NOW I CONTRACT MAGICAL WARRIORS MYSELF."

I pulled away from Malty. I needed a moment to breathe. She wasn't very good at keeping her lesson on track; Malty seemed a little too used to obscuring information to deliver it in a proper and honest manner. I couldn't focus on the implications, couldn't let the thoughts intrude into my brain. I would never become something like her. I knew that much. I'd kill myself long before becoming as warped as Malty was, is, could be.

I wasn't about to sentence anyone else to this life. 

But you are sentencing someone to this, aren't you?

You're training Olivia now. Training her to die.

You've trained others to do the same.

...

Am I different? I... 

I don't know.

Malty, just, tell me what you were going to say. I can't think about this right now.

"HAVE IT YOUR WAY, KID! THE FOURTH DIMENSION, IMAGINATION... HAVEN'T YOU EVER WONDERED ABOUT THE COLOR 'PINK'? IT ISN'T A REAL COLOR, KID. IN FACT, IT'S A MAGICAL COLOR." No. You're not saying... "TO SOME CREATURES, NOT HUMANS, IT IS AS IF THIS COLOR DOES NOT EXIST. HUMANKIND INVENTED A COLOR THAT SHOULDN'T AND CAN'T EXIST. ISN'T THAT STRANGE?"

But it exists. I have a pink uniform. You're pink. There's pink on my walls, pink in my skin, pink in my food. "THE PINK YOU SEE? IT'S THE COLOR THAT REPRESENTS THE TRANSITION BETWEEN VIOLET AND RED. BUT THERE IS NO COLOR, NO TRANSITION, BETWEEN VIOLET AND RED, MADELINE. THERE NEVER HAS BEEN. JUST INFRARED AND ULTRAVIOLET. THIS COLOR, PINK? YOU'VE SIMPLY IMAGINED IT WAS THERE. AND THEN?" Her hand reached out for me.

No. No, you are not about to bullshit your way into breaking me. Not now. You won't-- hands off my chin! I slapped away her gooey tentacle, and watched that creature cackle. "PERCEPTION IS MALLEABLE. YOU CAN PLACE THINGS THERE THAT DON'T EXIST. MAGIC. MONSTERS. ME." Malty leans in closer now, her body twisting and writhing. "I DON'T EXIST. I CAN'T EXIST, KID. I'M ILLOGICAL IN EVERY WAY, SHAPE AND FORM. AND YET? YOU CAN SEE ME, CAN YOU NOT? BECAUSE I OCCUPIED THAT SPOT." A tentacle reaches out and... boops me on the nose. "I'M IN YOUR IMAGINATION. I'M YOUR LITTLE BRAIN BUDDY, KID! AND I HAVE BEEN FOR MORE THAN A DECADE, NOW."

But, but you're real. I can touch you. Magic is real. Monsters are real. The Malice has killed people. Murdered people close to me. I've felt them invade my body, bruise me, break my bones! Malty, you can't just say it was all a figment of my imagination!

"IS IT, THOUGH? I WONDER ABOUT THAT." Malty twists her head. No. No, she can't do this to me. "EVERYONE IS JUST SO CERTAIN THINGS HAPPEN LIKE THEY THINK THEY DO. BUT MEMORY IS FAULTY. PEOPLE SAY ALL KINDS OF THINGS HAPPENED, WHEN THEY JUST OCCURED IN A DREAM, OR THEY EVEN GET TELEVISION SHOWS MIXED UP WITH THEIR CHILDHOOD. KID, HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THE POSSIBILITY OF..."

"MASS HYSTERIA?"

FernGilly

1/2 chapters for this week! Wow, she really is an unreliable narrator. What does she do with her breakfast?

(proofreading shenanagins; thanks, Lumina!)

UPDATE: Fixed some grammar issues, accidentally referred to the Council of Knots as the Council of thorns and used manager instead of 'priestess'.

I convinced one of my proofreaders, Orlon, to join Scribblehub! They're an amazing writer, and they're a big part of why this story flows as well as it does. Ode to Fallen Angels is great; there's queer themes, religion, characters struggling with gender identity and DEMIHUMANS!

If you like my work, check me out on Twitter! I'm only marginally more wild than the things I write! Interested in learning more about the Neverlands? You can visit me and ask all the questions you like at my Discord! You can also catch me on Twitch and Youtube. I'm not streaming at the moment, because I've been writing like crazy. It would make my day if you could follow me on Youtube, though! ;w; I'm still not at that fabled 100 subscriber mark... that's when I get my own channel link.