Heretical Edge

It took a… well, a lot to get through my entire explanation of how I had found my way to the Reaper ship and everything that had happened there. Especially when I ended up needing to backtrack to explain how I had ended up in Laramie Falls--and how I had ended up creating the future version of the city in a way. I started out by talking about going after Millersby when I ran into Gaia, with a brief note about disguising myself as a guy so they wouldn’t freak out too much about the timeline. But then I had to explain who Millersby even was and where he came from to begin with.

That, of course, required me to talk about what happened with Maestro and his whole attempt to bring the Fomorian Homeworld here. But that was just as well, I was going to have to explain that when we got to the rift thing anyway. Still, once I started talking about being face-to-face with that monster, Asenath got up and started pacing around agitatedly while muttering things about how I always had to one-up myself (boy did she not even know the half of it), while Shiori perched herself on my lap to hug me tightly. Which was rather distracting, but I forced myself to keep talking. I had to get through it.

With some effort, I pushed on. I explained everything about how we had found Fahsteth, and that he was dead now. The present day Fahsteth. That caused a bit of a reaction of its own, but I kept going. There was too much to get through for me to indulge spending too much time reacting to one little part like the death of Fahsteth.

And boy didn't that just say more than enough about this whole fucking trip all on its own?

Finally, I got through the story about getting to the Reaper tower and going into it, with an added note about Bastet following us after we met Sonoma to make sure she was safe from Fahsteth’s people. Which led me into explaining just what had happened once we did go into the tower, and found out what was really locked inside it.

I knew they immediately had a flood of questions as soon as I started getting into that, including something about Tristan and some others finding out about the place from the actual Reapers themselves, which was a story I really wanted to hear. But I had to press on, no matter how much I wanted to ask them things and answer every question they had. Hell, they'd really shown remarkable restraint in only blurting a few out now and then. Still, even as they started to reflexively ask more, I held up my hands to forestall them. I just needed to get through this. I had to explain the gist of it, then we could get into the deeper details.

Now this was the big part. It was going to shock and confuse them. I knew that from the start, and said so. But I promised that I would answer the questions, and that I was still totally and definitely me. It was a warning that probably just made them even more nervous, to be honest. But I wasn’t sure how to get into it without that disclaimer.

Finally, there was nothing else to say to prepare them. So I launched into exactly what had happened in that Reaper tower. I told them about being copied so many times, with so many versions of myself being sent throughout their history to help both the imprisoned Reapers and their victims come to terms with one another, and with what they were now. I told them about how every other version of myself had lived so many lives, whether it was literally physically real, or altered memories. Either way, the result was the same. I told them about how much the imprisoned Reapers had been changed by that whole experience, and were now calling themselves the Ankou.

And then I told them about what happened to me when I was brought out of that, about how the Ankou put my body back together and left me… different. I told them about not being a Boscher-Heretic anymore, or any sort of Heretic really. I was a Fae now, an Ankou-Fae, who absorbed every power from things I killed, but had to assign a lot of those powers to my other selves. And yeah, that led into the explanation of those other selves, that I had an Archive like Reapers did, where those other selves lived, but I could communicate with them.

Finally, Shiori had to jump up to her feet and start pacing around. It was almost funny to watch both girls pacing like that. She kept looking over at me with wide eyes, then to Asenath, then back to me while going in circles. “Okay, okay--um, you’re saying there’s a whole bunch of different Flicks now? And they’re all in this other-dimensional place like the Reapers use, a city on an island where they live and--and all that. Except you can keep one of them at a time in your head sort of like Tabbris was before, so they can use the few powers you give them to help out and sort of backseat drive if you need them to. And--and--” She stumbled over her own words before giving me a long look, mouth opening and shutting a couple times before she managed a weak, “Your life is kind of ridiculous, you know that?”

In the background, Senny muttered something about wondering if she had only just figured that out. Then she looked at me intently. “You know, if this was almost anyone else, I'd wonder if you were either screwing with us as a prank or something, or if you had been drugged. But this is you, this is Felicity Chambers. So sure, why not? We all should have known that you'd find a way to make traveling into the past turn out to be the least interesting and ridiculous part of this whole thing.”

Yeah, okay, she had a point. Still, her words made me blush a little bit before nodding. “Sure, I mean, you're not wrong. Neither of you. This whole thing has been completely absurd right from the start, and it's only gotten more ridiculous. But it's the truth. This is me. I mean, this is us. There's a whole bunch of me now, all in here. Right, Fathom?” Extra had shifted places with her while I was telling the story, part of our attempt to practice doing that sort of thing.

“Arrr, avast!” my mouth opened to blurt out so suddenly it made the other two jump. Then Fathom laughed and shook her head. “Shit, I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist! Hi there!” Both my hands moved to take one each of theirs, shaking them firmly. “I know this is really damn weird, believe me. From my point of view, I already know you guys. I mean, I have all of Original Recipe Flicks’ memories and everything. Right up until we went into that tower. And after that, I've got a hell of a lot of different memories. Memories of a whole other life spent with some really crazy pirates. It’s a whole thing. We’re all like that. We’re all people who started off with the exact same memories as the Flick you know, and got sent off to live other lives. Some of us for just a few years, others… well, there’s some of us who lived a hell of a lot longer than that. The old-timers are mostly sleeping right now, leaving shit up to us little whippersnappers.” She gave another loud laugh before finally releasing their hands to step back.

“Oh my God,” Shiori managed, staring intently at me--or rather, at Fathom. Then she took a quick step forward to embrace us tightly. “It's real, isn't it? It's all real. There's a bunch of different Flicks in there. Can you take us inside to meet them? It’s like a Reaper Archive, right? Like Denny and the Carnival, only an island city. Can--can we meet all of you, please?” Her hug got even tighter then. “I wanna see all of you!”

Well, that made me blush. Actually, I was blushing so deeply, it might have counted as coming from both Fathom and me. I wasn't sure how that worked exactly, but still. With a little smile, I replied, “I'm sorta still working on how to bring other people inside, but I promise you can both meet everyone, all of us. The whole Flique wants to see you.”

Shiori’s head tilted in confusion, but it was Senny who spoke up. “The whole Flick? Err, is that sort of like a royal we or something? Like they’re all pieces of you or… or…”

Grinning despite myself, I offered a small shrug. “No, not Flick like that.” Then I explained how it was spelled, and what it meant. Ending with, “I know it’s kinda silly, but we like it. It’s just a dumb little--”

I didn’t get any further before Shiori tackled me. With a yelp, I found myself falling back into the chair with the other girl on top of me. Her mouth found mine, kissing me like… well, like she’d missed me for all that time. I forgot everything else I’d been about to say, I forgot our conversation, I forgot what we were supposed to be doing. I forgot everything except for Shiori, as my arms wrapped around her. We kissed for… well, for awhile. It went on for what was probably an embarrassing length of time, but I didn’t care. Neither of us did. The only thing that mattered was kissing Shiori.

Finally, I managed to get control of myself. Mostly because I needed to take a breath. Leaning back, I put my hands on either side of the other girl’s face and stroked my fingers through her hair with a soft gasp. “I--uh, I guess that means you approve of the pun? Or maybe you just wanted to make me shut up about it.” I couldn’t help but tease a little bit while tickling the back of Shiori’s ear the way I knew she liked.

She giggled and splashed before grabbing my hand. Interlacing our fingers, she met my gaze. For a few long seconds, the two of us simply stared at one another. I lost myself in those pretty eyes before Shiori quietly spoke up. “I love you, Flick. I love you, I missed you. Even if you were only gone for a couple weeks from our point of view, it was forever. It was too long. I’m sorry you went through so much without us, but I’m glad you’re okay. I’m glad you’re still you, and that there’s so much more of you. I love all of you, every single one. I want to meet them. You and Fathom and all the rest. I don’t want you to ever go away for so long again. I need you. I need all of you. You’re my Flick.” She paused thoughtfully for a moment, then smiled and clearly amended the spelling with a tiny, adorable giggle. “You’re my Flique. It doesn’t matter what else happened, or whether you’re a Boscher or a Fae or a freaking living purple polka dot-covered Reaper with Elvis hair. You’re Flick. You’ll always be Flick. And I’ll always love you. No matter how many there are to love.”

And I’d thought I was blushing deeply before. At that point, I was pretty sure every single member of the entire Flique were contributing to it. She got a reaction from all of us, that was for sure. Finally, I found my voice to give a weak, “We love you, Shiori. We missed you so much. We--” Swallowing, I cupped her cheek and took a breath. “We’re all glad you’re here.”

“Ah, I really hate interrupting this, believe me,” Senny cut in. “But this whole situation seems pretty… uh, important? It was those Ankou who sent us back here to join you, right? I mean, we were sent to join, what, this version of you. You said you were split up into a bunch of duplicates by that rift that--okay wait, does that have anything to do with this… Flique? Is the entire Flique all split up too? Or… or what? And why would going through that rift even do that in the first place?”

Straightening up a bit and shifting Shiori on my lap, I took a deep breath. “Okay, so I told you about what happened with Godfather and uhh--and all that.”

“Yeah,” Senny agreed dryly, “you explained how you made a brand new god-tier enemy who hates and wants to destroy you and everything you care about. I guess because you got bored?” She was clearly teasing, but lightened her words with a reassuring smile. “Sorry, but you’ve gotta admit, you do find a lot of trouble.”

“I know,” I agreed weakly. “But seriously, it’s not my fault. Anyway, the point is, that whole… thing left me connected to the planet.” So I explained how that worked, about my newfound ability to teleport anywhere on Earth. Which led into the fact that the whole situation with stopping Godfather from bringing the Fomorians here was what led to the rift to begin with. And now, since I had started to go through it, the resulting magical feedback had spread duplicates of me through multiple parts of the timeline, all over the place. “And no, it’s not just spreading out other members of the Flique. It’s--wait, Fathom do we have a headcount?”

“All present and accounted for inside here, Boss!” my own mouth announced so the other two could hear the answer. “Either we all just happened to end up with the same Flick duplicate right here, or every Flick duplicate spread over the timeline has the entire Flique with them. Honestly, we’re not sure which is more baffling.”

I grimaced at the confusing and overwhelming thought. “Okay, let's just try to focus on this specific situation for now, I guess.”

Shiori piped up. “You said we have to find the rift that's around here and help you go through it, right? And that’ll help umm, put you all back together again? Which we need to do--I mean, all the different copies of you in all these different time periods need to do-- to stop the very-exploded Ehn’s power from going into the Fomorians in the present and turning them into super-dragon boosted Fomorian gods.”

My head bobbed as I swallowed audibly. “Pretty much, yeah. If every single version of me doesn’t make it to the rifts and go through them to close that connection to the Fomorian world, every last one of those monsters will get dosed with Ehn’s power. They’ll all become as strong as Dragon-Heretics.”

“Well that seems like a pretty big fuck-up,” Asenath muttered. “How much time do we have to find the rift and get you through it?”

At first I was going to say I didn’t know for sure, but then the answer came to me. “It’s uhh… oh, well I’m not sure how I know this exactly, but apparently six days.” It felt like Ceili had left that information with me somehow. Which made me wonder what else she had tossed in my head to come out at the appropriate moment. “But it’s not as simple as just walking through the thing.” Then I explained the other part, about how there would be some sort of enemy empowered by the rift, an enemy that would want to stop me. “We don’t know what they look like, only that each of them is different, and powerful. The Ankou said I’d need help to get past them. That’s why you guys are here. I mean, I guess they must’ve sent other people to other versions of me. I just hope it’s all... I mean, I hope they all listen like you guys are.”

“Flick, they’re your friends, of course they’ll all listen,” Senny reminded me. “And of course we’ll help you get past whatever guardian is going to try to stop you from going through the rift. We’ll find it and get you inside. No one wants to see what happens if the Fomorians become dragon-enhanced.” She said that part with a visible shudder.

“That does sound pretty terrifying,” I agreed. Part of me wanted to scream, freak out, even curl into a ball. But mostly I was just… happy. Was that stupid? Was it weird? Probably and yes, respectively. But Shiori was here. Shiori and Asenath were here. And somewhere out there, I knew that other versions of me were with my other friends, with Avalon and the rest. After so much time without them, they were back. Yes, sure, it wasn’t exactly the best possible way that could’ve happened, but still. Having Shiori and Senny here, and knowing that other versions of me were out there with the rest of my friends, meant more than I could ever possibly explain. Or even really understand myself. All I knew was that I felt better than I had in awhile.

Except for the fact that if we didn’t pull this off and get every version of me through those rifts, the entire Fomorian species would be upgraded with the full Dragon-Bonded boost. But hey, at least if I failed at that, I’d have people I cared about with me.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best way to think about it.

With some effort, I focused on the task at hand rather than worrying about what might happen if we failed in the long run. Looking back and forth between my two companions, one of them my girlfriend and the other the person who had first really shown me the truth about the whole supernatural world, I offered a faint smile. “Don't worry, we're going to figure this out. We’ll find the rift and get through it. Whatever’s out there waiting to block us, it doesn't stand a chance.” My hands moved to take one each of theirs, squeezing them. “I know it might sound selfish, and I’m sorry you were dragged back here like this, but I… I’m just glad I don’t have to do this alone.”

“Oh, Flick.” Shiori leaned into me, lips finding mine once more briefly before she smiled. “Don’t apologize, dummy. We want to be here. We missed you too! Right, Sunny-Senny?” When the other girl gave a firm nod, she continued slyly. “Besides, whoever we run into out in that land of knights and castles can't be that horrible and nasty.”

Raising an eyebrow, I asked, “They can't?”

Her eyes practically glowed with delight. “Of course not.

“They're only mid-evil.”