This is a fused branch of the storyline continuing from [22] and [25A]

The Tall and Short Problems of a Cute Gamer Girl

[26/A]
For the Primary Branch [----]

“The conveyor belt didn’t work and we had to run the whole fucking way….Why does it smell?” The Blessin who came through the door leaned forward and still looked out of breath. The other one stretched out her hands and responded, “Everything seemed fine on our side, so I figured we didn’t need to move over until we had to meet up. No one has been in here in about three months to do anything.”

After she finished talking and before her doppelgänger could respond, a heavy thump carried through the wall and rattled the floor beneath them. The escaping group stumbled forward and away from the door.

“What is that?” Finley brought his biggest gun up protectively with his frantic question.

Brushing and fixing her golden hair while in the middle of a reserved breath, Blessin simply clarified, “That’s the bad guy.” The other Blessin whispered over to Rachel and gestured to one of the cafés. It wasn’t long before Rachel returned with two frosty six packs of bottled water from the nearest walk-in freezer. She also relayed a lot of moldy spoilage but also good remaining supplies. There was plenty of water for everyone.

Finn and Rachel regarded one another with wide eyebrows. Especially, Rachel‘s eyes lingered on her male form. Both Giselles fluttered their eyelashes with a goofy smirk at the same time. It briefly recalled for each a scary handful of hours when Jeremy lost his ability to make new memories.

It was a rare condition with no implication for Alzheimer’s or dementia but still felt too close. To add levity to the situation, Jeremy quipped that Rachel could tell him anything without consequences. But she cried fretfully when noting that he already said that three times.

He then responded that at least she knew he was consistent and left it at that because of the wariness in her eyes. Jeremy was consistent in his heart and his mind no matter if he was stuck in place like a record, transformed into a busty woman, or made into a preteen girl.

Once Blessin gulped down most of her water and cleared out a few coughs, the other Blessin went over and whispered quietly to her. She had a paper with several notes, and they scoured it. The young Giselle planted her hands on her hips and halted the whispering, “I think everyone deserves to be on the same page about what’s going on now.” She glanced around the group, especially focusing on the still-exhausted, out-of-sort arrivals.

Both Blessins flashed her look but the one she had spent three months with raised her hands and admitted, “She’s right. Everyone deserves to understand what’s going on.”

The theater had barely enough room for everyone, and it wasn’t too difficult to re-discover the same files on this side, even though Blessin transported a digital archive with the other version. Aside from a brief, ghoulish mention of harvesting Radiants to distill their abilities into a small, remote-like device, the recordings were functionally the same. The entire group was brought up to speed on the efforts of Quantum Helix to initiate trade and commerce between universes. They learned how radiant beings emulated humans and objects but also took in the myriad ways the Company exploited them.

Olivia comforted Hanako as young Giselle had comforted her. Before shifting back to his male form, Dale lamented how much he wished this was just a D&D campaign. Gwen focused on the fact this facility seemingly had no one else in it. Both Blessins, behaving rather like identical twins, took turns relaying that the suites upstairs appeared to be compromised, while also working towards the bitter pill.

“In the home branch reality for Rachel and that version of Giselle over there, Cerberus had designs for simplifying the equation by wiping out everyone and then isolating the radiant beings. It seems certain he has the same plans for this core reality.”

It took some careful explanation before the group realized exactly what that meant. Frantic whispers about nuclear consequences and fretting about family flashed around the room. Both Blessins shook their heads and admitted that anything could’ve happened topside. Perhaps, as he showed he could do, Cerberus disguised himself as a critical figure in the wrong place and pushed the world past the precipice. He also could’ve sabotaged radioactive facilities or executed a dozen different scenarios.

“What matters is these are all things he could do and would do, if not stopped. To him, our worlds are meaningless. Just lights to snuff out.”

The group definitely seemed convinced that the bad guy needed to be stopped, but none of them felt like heroes. Dale sat behind his computer either streaming, editing videos, or making silly animations. His greatest daily adventure was the extra spicy sauce at Taco Bell. Finley once helped his brother through a depressed episode, but he couldn’t imagine how to fight a seemingly endless monster made of darkness.

Finn confronted a small portion of Cerberus with a group who actually seemed able to block him and he still lost his eye, even though he gained the ability to see the creature out of the remains. All Rachel could claim was the ability to drive away from it. Gwen had been at the confrontation with Dale but all they felt they could do was resupply others with emotion. This wasn’t a group to take on some reality-spanning monster.

Blessin started work on another bottle of water before announcing that she had a plan. The other Blessin actually raised her punctuated eyebrows as though this was the first she was hearing of it. Going around, this Blessin scrutinized the group for details. She focused on their encounters with Cerberus. What had they just done to escape on foot?

Older Giselle narrowed her eyes, having processed the assist from their Blessin but not sure if she wanted to call her out on what it meant. They detailed the most recent encounter with splitting Cerberus down the middle to keep it at bay. Blessin snapped her fingers.

“Exactly. Giselles. I learned that one of you angrily kicked Athena‘s toilet seat. But I never properly pried into what the other one did or didn’t do. What did you do with the Mari seat?”

That was three freaking months ago! She couldn’t remember weeks previous. The simple effort of remembering the exact threat from Cerberus in the middle of the night had taken so much out of her. Young Giselle was able to locate when she kicked the seat to a very precise time with Rachel‘s help. What exactly was the other Giselle doing? What could be so important about that given moment?

Amazingly, quietly, more as a feeling than a memory, it came back to Giselle, “Love. It was love. I felt regret and a deep abiding love for Rachel. I was stuck on that toilet seat and feeling lost. I promised that I would remember that moment of fear and helplessness and do whatever kindness would help.” That was it! She told herself to remember that moment! She willed it inside her.

Blessin clasped hands in front of her. “Trying to understand all this drives me nuts. And it’s especially crazy that Giselle drives the bifurcation of universes. Love, anger, pity, fear, regret, devotion, and so many other emotions. They are at the crux, but I think I understand. It’s choice. It’s always been about choice. Cerberus limits choice, real choice. Every single choice you wanted to make or could’ve made or didn’t make is an unfurling fractal of the multiverse. Every single moment is a different possibility. But once that happens, there are an infinite supply of radiant beings created every single moment by every quark of chance. He missed one or let one go or the moment was too powerful to hold back. Too many maybes. So frustrating.”

A long, quiet pause settled over the group as everyone reflected. That pause was sharply broken by the sound of two cats meowing. Looking around, everyone expected it was the pair of cats either seen briefly or cohabitated with for three months. But Herschel and You had curled up into Hanako and Olivia’s laps quietly. They raised their heads at the sound but were each silent.

Rachel clapped a hand to her mouth and both Giselles realized the reason why a moment later.

“That’s Tycho… and Herschel?” You stayed where she was, but Herschel vaulted from lap time when his little brain put together the sound as well. The poor boy. Jeremy had to be so careful when he assembled video footage from before Tycho‘s death because his “brother” didn’t understand that he hadn’t actually come back from the Bad Smell Place. He seemed especially bewildered to hear his own voice copied.

The group discovered the source near the ring with the computer console. The sound was being piped through the speakers there and traveling to ones situated overhead. With a few clicks, Blessin brought up external video footage.

Right on the broken conveyor belt in front of the entrance sat both of the Huber/Conway cats. Rachel tensed up as Finn pressed one fist to his mouth and the other to where Cerberus scoured his eye away. Their cats couldn’t possibly be out there.

Every foul invective that their family-friendly filtered minds suppressed welled up in the four who desperately loved those two cats more than anything. The friends who knew their feline family said every subtle expletive for them. The Blessin who had spent three months underground switched on the microphone and said simply, “Go fuck yourself.”

“How harsh. I simply want to talk.”

“Go to Hell.”

“I don’t have to go anywhere. I just have to wait until you all starve. Meanwhile, it’s so easy to remind all of you of everything you left behind. Every family member. Every soul you claim to love. The power of love to save and preserve you. How long will it really sustain you?”

The other Blessin stepped forward and asked her twin to step aside. The weapons that the three-month residents of a chamber like this wielded, along with the guns the other group brought, were largely spread out in the main area in front of them. Before anyone else could react, Blessin snatched up one of the big guns.

She didn’t aim it at anyone in particular, holding it high towards the ceiling, but her face hardened as she dourly stated, “I’m sorry…”

Confusion spread around, especially in the bewildered expression of her twin as she asked, “What are you doing?”

“What I have to… Cerberus? I want to make a deal.”

Mari and Athena sloshed around as Hanako and Olivia realized what was going on. Bitterly, Hanako spat out, “How could you?!”

“Sorry, kid. You’ve already seen how disappointing humans can be. No devils, angels, or gods here. Only scared people who want to go home. The struggles of other worlds aren’t our business. I’m afraid this is the only way.”

Finley edged towards one of the other guns laid down, but Blessin warned him by lowering her gun close enough to be threatening. “Stay back and be warned. I’m no queen beautiful and terrible as morning and night. Neither dreadful as storms and lightning nor strong like the foundations of the earth. I am nothing to love. And I am afraid I cannot offer even a single hair from my head.” Tears streaked her eyes as she fought to finish her words.

While Giselle felt vague confusion at what Blessin meant, Finley tugged at his beard and clenched his eyes shut. Rachel looked like she understood as well, but she had no time to explain or pose a question. To the horror of everyone, Blessin tapped on the keyboard and the doors began to open again. With another press, the light above shifted, raising an emergency klaxon, from a blazing radiance to a softer, artificial luminance.

While Blessin remained by the computer, everyone else cautiously backed away. Moments later, black horrors erupted from the opening. 

[Since this is meant to be interactive, feel free to suggest ideas and prompts for future/alternate branch storylines. Some branches are already written but this will allow me to best pick new/alternate ones. I'm currently just rolling dice.]

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