Old Echoes

“You know, I was expecting it to be way trippier out here, but this isn’t so bad.” Kat glanced to her two guides. “Although I do have this cut off sort of feeling. Like trying to see through thick fog.” She made a broad sweep of her arm, indicating the sheer darkness around them, broken only by pin-point stars and ribbons of aurora-like energy arcing in the seeming distance. “I feel like this whole… region… should be boiling with chaos, but it’s like… honestly, it’s kind of just like looking out into outer space. Endless black with random points of light, and the light-ribbons instead of nebula. Not unpleasant, really.”

Cyl smiled. “The Beyond is as it sounds. Beyond. Our senses are largely blinded by the shadows of the subconscious. In turn, it makes that which does exist in definition stand out starkly. Even our own expanded senses interpret things in mortal understanding. That which has not yet formed simply isn’t, and so much of the Beyond is essentially empty space. That which is shines as specks of potential lit into form, and so we can see it. But reaching those spots is the challenge. Distance doesn’t really exist out here in the literal sense, but in terms of conceptual dissonance, those other realms are far from us. Far from what we are. And so it takes us effort to reach.” She pointed to one of the arcing ribbons of energy. “Although you do see resonant flow between ideas, and as such, you find these existential jetstreams between Multiverses.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to ride one of those out?” said Kat.

“If they connect where you want to go, certainly,” said Cyl. “We use them sometimes. But in the interest of keeping the Omnyverse isolated, we’ve made sure to keep ourselves distant from such streams, in as much as we can. We don’t usually ride any to and from the immediate vicinity.”

“You can understand why we don’t want to give our position away,” said Reignbeau, giving Kat a bit of a side-eye. “So don’t try to shortcut out here.”

Kat pursed her lips. “I won’t. I’m following your lead, like you insisted.”

“Good,” said Reignbeau. “Keep it up.”

“You’re doing fine, Kat,” said Cyl.

“Surprised you even wanted to go out here anyway,” muttered Reignbeau.

Kat frowned slightly. “I’ve got existential roots outside the Omnyverse. Not just from my old erotica self, but from Salamando’s other works. I can’t help but want to glimpse some of it.”

Reignbeau frowned slightly. “Well then. Good for you.”

Cyl glanced at Reignbeau, opened her mouth to say something, then decided to let it go for now. Kat glanced at Cyl, unsure how to respond, but decided not to push things.

“Anyway,” said Kat. “Is there anywhere in particular you’re wanting to go?”

“By this point, I’ve established a little circuit of universes I like to regularly check up on.” Cyl paused and gave Kat a slight, sheepish smile. “I made a bit of a nuisance of myself during my early adventures out here. As such, there are some universes I’m basically banned from entering. We’re allowed to observe from a distance, and there may be a few emissaries we can speak to, but otherwise, trying to enter would lead to unpleasant consequences. Other Multiverses we can enter, but we have to be careful inside them. Wherever we go, we can’t be too disruptive of anything. We can help in small ways if there’s trouble, but we can’t fundamentally change anything without repercussion, both for us and for the universes themselves.”

“A lot of that is up to Author discretion and narrative conceit,” said Reignbeau. “Some of that is dealing with other Cosmics. Don’t forget there’s some pretty hefty threats out there. Even we can get killed on occasion, so don’t expect us to just babysit you if the Geometer or an Abyss Acolyte shows up.”

Kat gave her a flat expression. “I’m sure you’re both exceedingly more capable than me, but I’m not completely helpless in omni combat.”

“We know, Kat,” said Cyl, shooting Reignbeau a glance. “Reignbeau is correct, however. It can be quite dangerous for us out here. Rest assured if you are killed, you’ll regenerate in the Meta, but it is not a particularly pleasant experience. We may have some degree of Authorial power, but there are plenty of other Cosmics that outrank us.”

Kat opened her mouth to speak, but Cyl held up a hand. “With that said, I wouldn’t have brought you along if I didn’t think you could handle it. I have faith in you.” She looked back pointedly to her partner. “And I’m sure Reignbeau does, too.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Reignbeau flatly, not looking at either of them.

Cyl glanced back to Kat, and gave her an inquisitive look. Kat gave a slight shake of her head and a reassuring smile back. Cyl continued. “Well, even so, for a first jaunt, it might be best to just go through a circuit in the Erotica Cluster. I’d like to check on the Sex Mage Multiverse. Always nice to see the old stomping grounds.”

Kat chuckled. “My old stomping grounds was technically Civero.”

“That sucks for you,” said Reignbeau. “That’s one of our off-limits realities.”

Kat frowned. “Why’s that?”

“Temael,” said Cyl. “The Dark God’s machinations are fully entrenched in Civero’s history, and that of countless worlds throughout Civero’s galaxy. Due to us Progenitors’ past conflicts with It, we’re locked out of any interference with that universe, even just entering it.”

“I thought you settled things with the Dark God?” said Kat.

Cyl frowned slightly, a glint in her Marked eye. “I did. But that settlement came with compromises. We aren’t allowed to interfere with Temael’s influence any further.”

“I see,” said Kat.

“Not like it would be a good idea anyway,” said Reignbeau. “Like Cyl said, Temael is such a part of that universe’s history, trying to disrupt Its presence there would unbalance things. Best to let that universe’s Cosmics deal with It.”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Kat, frowning. “Would have been nice to see it, though.”

Reignbeau made a little scowl. “You can still see it, you just can’t do anything about it. But that’s better than I get. My whole world never even actually happened, apparently. The whole thing seems like it was a retconned memory. There’s no trace of it having existed anywhere in the Beyond.”

Kat blinked. “I’m… sorry.”

Reignbeau gave her another side-eyed glance, opened her mouth to retort. She thought better of it, though, and gave a little, “hmph”, and looked ahead. Despite holding back, Kat could sense the flash of bitterness the rainbow haired girl had made herself swallow back.

Kat glanced to Cyl, expecting her to say something. But the white haired Omny just stared ahead, a sullen expression on her face.

“Okay,” said Kat in a low voice. The three continued in silence for a bit.

***

The loop through the Erotic Multiverse Cluster was quick enough. Most of it was spent flickering through the various timelines of the Sex Mage Multiverse, observing how the erotically empowered Earth was fairing since the Dark God withdrew Its curse from the various Worlds.

The Erotic Adventures Universe, where Kat’s previous incarnation lived, was part of a Multiverse of its own, albeit a smaller one with only a few branching timelines. Such timelines were extraordinarily divergent, however, mainly split along two versions: one where the Milky Way Galaxy had been gutted by Temael’s avarice, and another where it hadn’t. This Multiverse and the Sex Mage Multiverse were invariably clustered together, however, ribbons of existential jetstream forming almost a spiderweb of connections from the vantage point of the Beyond.

Temael’s power held Its EAU timeline behind a dark veil, signifying the barrier the Omnys weren’t allowed to cross. Maybe they could have pushed it and forced a way in. Maybe. But doing so would have led to complications and consequences which Cyl assured Kat would not be worth it. Thankfully, the alternative timeline where Temael had been absent, the Centurions Universe, provided enough of a vantage point for Kat to peek through the dimensional veils into its counterpart.

From there, she was able to observe her Civero self in her natural World, honing in on her lifetime. It turned out as well as could be expected, given the sort of world Civero was. Civero Kat got her Ben back eventually, and their relationship blossomed into real romance. They stayed together the rest of their natural lives, and managed to avoid falling victim to any of Civero’s many mystical dangers. They’d gotten involved in a few supernatural incidents, but they managed to make it through. Civero Ben even got bonded to a mystic Artifact during one of those incidents, so he ended up getting some powers of his own. Because of course he would.

With that visit done, Cyl decided to do a quick dip into the Fae Realm to check on something. In the interest of keeping the existential maelstrom of the trip to a minimum, Cyl asked her two companions to wait outside. She gave Reignbeau a look and a psychic note to ease up on the attitude.

As the two other Ommys wiled away the minutes, Reignbeau kept glancing at Kat, looking like she wanted to say something, but instead kept looking away with a half-glower, half-pout.

After the fifth time, Kat sighed. “Alright, out with it. You got a problem with me?”

Reignbeau glanced at her again. “It’s nothing.”

“You clearly don’t like me being here.”

Reignbeau paused for a moment, seemed weigh her words, then bluntly said, “Not really, no.”

Kat blinked. “Damn. Just right out with it, huh?”

Reignbeau shrugged. “You prefer I drag it out and play passive-aggressive football the rest of the trip?”

Kat pursed her lips. “No. I’d just like to hash this out. What did I do to piss you off? You and I have barely interacted before.”

The rainbow haired woman gave an exasperated sigh. “You didn’t do or say anything. If you did, this would be a lot easier.”

“Okay. So, what is it, then?”

“Not sure there’s a better way to say it other than three’s company.”

Kat’s brow furrowed as she semi-scowled at her unusually moody companion. “What’s that supposed to mean? You think I’m holding you two back here? You think I’m dead weight? Look, I’m not one of the Five, but I’ve picked up some things since I Ascended. If there’s real trouble, I’ll follow your lead, but I won’t be slacking.”

Reignbeau shook her head and waved her off. “That’s not it.” She glanced to the sliver of space where Cyl had slipped through.

Kat followed her glance and blinked again. “Do you think I’m trying to make a move on Cyl?”

Reignbeau flushed a bit. “Are you?”

“No, no! Look, she’s great and all, but I’m not here for that.”

“Good.”

“Um… not to put too fine a point on it, but would it matter if I was? I thought you Omnys were all about the poly thing.”

Reignbeau’s scowl didn’t drop. “Sex is sex, but this is different. I'm not looking to get replaced as Cyl’s adventure partner.”

Kat blinked. “Oh. Geez.” She glanced back to where Cyl had left. “Wait, why would you think that? I really am just curious to see the Beyond, and I just thought it would be best to go with someone. And, well, you two are the regular Beyond-divers, so I asked you. I mean, Cyl said yes, and I assumed you were okay with it, or she’d have said something.”

“She didn’t even ask me. She just told me at the last minute.”

“Oh. Um. I’m sorry?”

“Don’t be. If she had asked, I would have said yes, and maybe I wouldn’t be feeling like this right now.”

Kat shifted her stance a bit. “Are you two… fighting or something?”

Reignbeau shook her head and sighed, unfolding her arms and putting her hands on her hips. “No, we weren’t. It’s just that I feel like something’s changed between us. She’s real good at hiding it, but at some point after RoseGold Ascended, something shifted in the way she looks at me. Maybe she doesn’t even realize it. But it’s like… like she sees me differently, just a bit. I dunno, maybe it’s paranoia on my part, but I can’t help but feel she’s gotten a bit… I dunno… detached, slightly?”

“I guess I don’t hang out with you two enough to see it. She’s never confided any worries over you to me.”

“Not to anyone. I’d probably know. Privacy isn’t really a thing in the Omnyverse. We can all spy on each other’s conversations, and just don’t out of respect. Even our thoughts are open to one another, unless we really lock something down. And the thing is, there’s this sliver of Cyl I can’t see into these days. I’m not trying to dig, but I can’t help but notice it, every time we get intimate. And I think it may have to do with me.”

Reignbeau sighed again and gestured into the infinity of the Beyond. “Sorry I’ve been copping an attitude. Cyl and I, we’ve been out here together a long time, just the two of us against the Multiverse you know? And like, I don't know, it’s a different sort of relationship then what the other Omnys all have with each other. Different than even the Progenitors have between them. This isn’t a lovers thing, it’s a… a Sisters-in-Arms thing, if that makes sense?”

“Aren’t you both part of the Five?”

“That’s also different. That’s home defense. Out here, we’re a team of drifter-heroes. Or we at least try to be.” The rainbow-haired warrior paused. “I know you're not trying to horn in on things. It’s just throwing me off, and it’s making me want to jump to conclusions.”

Kat nodded. “Alright. Rest assured I don’t want to take your position, and I cannot image Cyl wants to replace you. But if my being here is stepping on your toes, then I’ll bow out.”

Reignbeau shook her head. “You don’t have to do that. This is my problem to get over.”

“Are you not going to just talk to her about it?” said Kat.

Reignbeau hesitated. “I don’t know. That’s the obvious thing to do, but I also don’t want to push it. I feel like she’ll tell me when she’s ready.”

Kat frowned in thought. “That’s fair enough. And far be it from me to pry. But while she seems like the model of competency and confidence most days, I know she worries about things. She puts a lot of pressure on herself, and maybe there’s something she’s keeping bottled up, because she doesn’t know how to broach the subject. Even people like her sometimes need an invitation, or the right moment, to open a topic.”

Reignbeau frowned back. “Maybe.”

“Well, I won’t push things. But if you want me to maybe nudge her to get it off her chest, I don’t mind helping you.”

Reignbeau smirked. “Look at you being little miss social. Not-So-Scaredy-Kat anymore, huh?”

Kat smirked back. “Hey now, I stopped wallflowering a while ago, y’know.”

“Still haven’t popped your Omny cherry.”

Kat blushed, looking to the side. “I’ve been… considering it…”

Reignbeau raised an eyebrow at her. “Really?”

Kat shifted a little uncomfortably. “It’s just… awkward, still. How much of it is genuine curiosity versus just the nature of being an Omny? How much of it is really my own desires versus me thinking I should do something just because all my peers are doing it?”

“I wouldn’t overthink it. If it feels right, and it isn’t going to cause the Five to come beating you down, go for it. If you really aren’t feeling it, don’t let what the rest of us do dictate your thinking.”

“I guess. Though I suppose immortality eventually opens a girl up to anything.”

Reignbeau grinned. “Opens up being the operate phrase here.”

Kat rolled her eyes and smirked. “Oh, shut it.”

Reignbeau nodded towards where Cyl had left. “If you want your first to be with Cyl, I won’t mind. I’d recommend it, even!”

Kat glanced back. “Ah, well. She’s lovely. But I don’t think we’re close like that.”

“Jax, maybe?”

“He seems nice, but no. We haven’t really interacted much, either, and I don’t want to pick him just because he’s the one guy. I, um, do feel like if I’m going to do it, I should cross my boundaries all the way.”

Reignbeau grinned. “Megan?”

Kat glared at her. “I will fucking punch you!”

The rainbow-haired warrior laughed and spread her arms in “try me” gesture. “Gimme your best shot!”

Kat crossed her arms. “Hmph. I don’t feel like it right now.”

“Aw, don’t blue ball me now!”

Kat winked. “That’s one of my specialties!”

Reignbeau shook her head and rolled her eyes. “The Author sure loves his cockteasers.”

The two broke up into giggles, then floated for a few minutes in silence. They both glanced towards Cyl’s exit point, then Kat glanced back at Reignbeau. “Um, so, are we good?”

“Yeah, sure.” Reignbeau looked her over and parsed her words for a moment. “You know, my own timeline before I came to the Omnyverse was really rough. I don’t tend to think about it too much, but being blunt about the facts, I really did lose everybody I knew. Even if it was actually a false memory situation, and I was literally born the moment I appeared in the Omnyverse, that’s the past life I know, and it wasn’t the same the Progenitors knew. Even the versions of them I remember weren’t the same.” She smirked. “Well, Collette’s about the same, but the Cyl from my timeline was more of a bubbly gamer girl, at least until things got serious.”

Kat could almost imagine that, and smiled at the image. “I kind of hear you there. My own origin is, well, I’m a new Omny in the context of the Omnyverse, but you know my Core Character Concept has been in previous stories, most of which were not erotic. So, I kind of have all these extra life experiences I inherited from my other incarnations, most of which don’t align with how the rest of you were formed, whereas all of you started as Omnymphotents from conception.” She paused and thought it over for a moment. “Hmm. I guess that’s why I had a hard time integrating at first. And, well, yeah, I get out more nowadays, but I still fly solo a lot. Even after all this time, I don’t quite feel like I fully fit in.”

Reignbeau shrugged. “You’re alright by me. But it is funny to think about. You’re kind of the opposite of Cyl. She was a porno character who became an adventurer. You’re an adventurer who become a porno character.”

Kat blanched. “I like to think I’m not just a porno character now. Which is partly why I wanted to join you two. Get back to my roots, outside of the context of one of Demi and Wyllows Realplay Adventures.”

Reignbeau cocked an eyebrow at her. “Does that bother you at all? That Sal was only ever able to really write and publish you as your erotic self and not your adventurer self?”

Kat waved her off. “Oh, no, not at all. That’s the thing, he actually did write a few things with me before the erotica stuff. It’s just he wrote it all before he established himself online, and didn’t get much traction with that side of his stuff, so those versions of me didn’t get hardly as many readers. But that’s okay. There’s still a couple decades of his adventures that I was a part of, and from this side of the Meta, it doesn’t really matter how many readers either version of me got. So I’m not bitter about that.”

Reignbeau smirked. “How convenient for him.”

Kat smirked back. “I know, right? Maybe I ought to bully him over it when we get back, just on principle.”

Reignbeau grinned. “You want some help?”

Kat hesitated a bit, but made herself consider it seriously. “Hmm. I’ll think about it.”

Just then, Cyl reappeared. “Alright, well, that took longer than I thought it would. Sorry about that. But everything should be stabilized now.” She glanced to her two companions, noticing their bearing with each other. “Everything good here?”

“Right as Reign, boss!” said Reignbeau with a grin.

“Just a little girl talk,” said Kat, smiling primly.

“Sounds nice,” said Cyl, smiling slightly. She beckoned them along. “Let’s go. We still have a few more places to check.”

***

The rest of the circuit remained mostly quiet. Kat would glance at Reignbeau, who would glance at Cyl, who would keep her gaze resolutely forward. They checked three more universes, and managed to stealthily skirt around the creeping gaze of a Geometer Sentry. Not that they couldn’t have dealt with it, but doing so would have alerted the Conceptual Cosmic to their location.  Depending on the Order Fiends’ priorities at the moment, there was a non-zero chance it would have forced a fight, and Cyl didn’t feel like risking Kat getting killed on her first outing. Thankfully, the Sentry was keeping to the edges of the Erotic Multiverse Cluster, and there were no other external threats trying to get in.

Kat did her part though, helping Cyl and Reignbeau stabilize things in one of the more chaotic Sex Mage Worlds, teaming up with the Centurions disguised as a trio of cosmic superheroes to help slightly tilt the course of a galactic war towards less planetary damage, and as a send-off, indulged in a little tryst with some mythical gods. Well, Reignbeau and Cyl indulged in the sex part. Kat still wasn’t going to loosen herself up enough to just sleep with anyone on a dime, no matter how impressive their fertility gods were! Instead, she let herself be guided on a sightseeing tour of the universe, until her companions were finished.

Afterwards, Cyl declared they should return home.

“That’s it? Just a short loop this time?” said Reignbeau.

“Well, not to coddle our companion, but the other Multiverses are a lot more conflict-inviting. I’m not sure you want your first Beyond-dive to end with you getting beat up. Or killed.”

“Aw, come on, we love punching stuff!” said Reignbeau, smirking at Kat.

“Well, it is fun sometimes.” The raven-haired Omny smiled back, then looked to Cyl. “I appreciate your concern, but I think I could handle myself. Unless you really want to go home for your own reasons, I don’t mind going further this time.”

“Hmm.” Cyl considered for a moment, sort of half-looking at Kat. Her gaze shifted to Reignbeau, who gave her an eager look. Then she frowned and shook her head. “If you really want to push further, I can take you to the next Multiverse over, but I don’t want to tarry too long. I feel like we should head back.”

Reignbeau and Kat shared a glance, then looked back at her. Reignbeau opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it, her expression a little strained. Cyl met her gaze, held it for a moment, and despite her outward calm, the other two could feel a flicker of anxiety from her. She turned away, facing towards the nominal “direction” of the Omnyvese. “I would like to head back.”

Reignbeau scowled at her back, tried again to speak, but seemed frustrated with herself. “If you need to, Cyl, then fine.”

Kat spoke up. “Um, Cyl? You really don’t have to use the kid gloves with me.”

“I understand. But it’s not just about you.”

Kat glanced to Reignbeau. As the rainbow haired warrior looked back at her, Kat motioned towards Cyl and mouthed “go on.”

Reignbeau gathered her resolve and said, “Is it me then?”

Cyl actually flinched, turning towards her. “What? No. Why would you think that?”

Now that she’d gotten started, Reignbeau could let it all out. She put her hands on her hips and gave her sister-in-arms a stern look. “Because all of a sudden, I feel like I’m losing touch with you.”

Cyl blinked. “We just had a seven-day orgy with a pantheon together.”

“Yeah, you still kiss with all your heart,” said Reignbeau. “But somethings off. You look at me different. I can just tell. Something changed after RoseGold came around.” She smirked. “What, you secretly got a thing for her, cuz she’s Asian, and I don’t cut it anymore?”

Cyl’s expression darkened for a moment, before going flat. “I see you’ve been enjoying Shady’s company.”

“I’m just kidding,” said Reignbeau. “But I caught that reaction. It’s something to do with her, isn’t it? Something happened during her Ascension.” She gestured towards the Omnyverse. “Is it that she semi-rebelled so quickly? You’ve tried to downplay it, but I know you’ve been a little on edge since she came around, and the Second Omnyverse proposal just made it worse. And at around the same time, there was suddenly this little wedge between us. Paper-thin, maybe, but it’s there.”

Cyl glanced down, frowning in thought, and said nothing.

Reignbeau scoffed. “Maybe I’m out of line here. But what we got is special! I know I’m not a Progenitor. I know I came from out of nowhere. But you and I, these Beyond-dives, being in the Five, we’re a team. I don’t want to lose that.”

Cyl looked up at her again, her expression pained. “We won’t. I won’t ever forsake you.”

Reignbeau’s expression softened, and she drifted closer to her, grasping her by the shoulders. “I know you won’t. But there’s still something there, isn’t it? I just want to clear the air on this. I don’t want this to become a rift that keeps widening over the years.”

Cyl grasped her back, then kissed her softly on the lips. “It’s a silly thing for me to worry about.”

“So we should talk it over.”

Kat just watched the two, keeping silent and stepping back a bit, watching the not-really-a-fight play out. She glanced away, giving them as much privacy as she could without losing track of where they were with her senses. And that’s when she saw it. A pale blue star, so faint, so tiny, she almost missed it. In the muddling space of the Beyond, where their cosmic senses petered out if they didn’t have an anchor point to latch onto, this little blip of ethereal light was almost too dim to catch. But with nothing else to focus on in the near distance, she managed to spot it. There was something odd about it. Was it… coming closer?

“Um, guys?” Cyl and Reignbeau had paused, trying to collect their thoughts, and so were primed to be interrupted. They looked to Kat. She held up a hand, pointing at the pale blue dot. “I’m really sorry to interrupt, but what is that?”

The two other women turned and looked. Reignbeau squinted at it. “Uh… I dunno… looks like a pocket reality, but it’s… kinda coming right for us?” She immediately shifted into a battle stance.

Cyl, meanwhile, had turned to face it, her expression slightly confused. Then, as it got closer, her eyes widened, and the pale woman went paler. Both of the others noticed.

“Cyl? You recognize it?” said Reignbeau.

Cyl didn’t look back as her crimson energy wings flared up, and the Mark of Temael shone brighter. “Stay here. I’ll deal with it.”

“What is it?” said Kat, floating closer to the other two and taking a defensive stance.

“Nothing you need to worry about it,” said Cyl, about to rocket off. “I’ll deal with it.” She paused, then turned and grasped Reignbeau, giving her a deep kiss, before looking her squarely in the eye. “I mean it. This is personal. Please just wait here, both of you.”

Reignbeau gave her a look of confusion. “Cyl, what…?”

“Please,” she said, her firm gaze almost pleading.

The rainbow haired warrior slowly nodded. “Alright. I trust you.”

“Thank you. I’ll be right back.” Cyl looked to Kat and put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. This shouldn’t take long.”

Kat pat her hand. “Okay, Cyl. I trust you, too.”

“Thanks.” With that, she whirled around and shot like a crimson comet straight into the pale blue orb, which was nearly upon them. From their perspective in the Beyond, up close, it resembled a jagged ice crystal, almost like a large snowflake, small enough to fit in the palm of one of their hands. A tiny world indeed. But as Cyl made contact, she vanished completely into it. Past the Barrier of Existence, the other two Omnys lost sight of her. The little world stopped its approach, leaving Reignbeau and Kat to hover on either side of it, waiting for their companion to come back out.

***

“This is taking too long,” said Reignbeau.

“Is it?” said Kat. “It’s hard to tell. Time is all wonked between the various universes, even different timelines of the same world sometimes.”

“We usually synch up to the median time flow of a Multiverse when we get within its proximity. A single universe like this, we should be on pace with it. And it’s been a week already.”

“How long should something like this take?” said Kat.

“I don’t know,” said Reignbeau. “Sometimes we’re in and out of a world in a couple days. Other times we’ll hang out for months. One time, I got stuck in one of Sal’s superhero universes for a year.”

“Stuck?”

“Yeah. Sometimes, when we enter a universe in one of the other Clusters, our powers get stripped down. Narrative forces and existential disruption and all that heady shit. We’re cosmics, but we’re also fictional characters, so even our Author Access abilities get stunted in other Multiverses, since we’re outsiders to their paradigms. Sometimes, we eventually we get our full powers back, once we attune to the cosmic fundament of those worlds, and then we can leave again. Other times, we may not be depowered, as such, but cosmics from other universes have a home-front advantage if we end up fighting them.”

Kat looked to the pale world. “You think Cyl might be stuck in there? Depowered?”

Reignbeau gave a frustrated grunt. “She shouldn’t be. The Erotic Multiverse Cluster is our home turf. Other than Temael and a few outlier entities like the Abyss and the Geometer, we’re pretty much the top dogs in every universe in here. And that’s why I’m worried. She said she’d be right back. She shoulda popped out by now.”

“Maybe she’s just having to take her time? Whatever’s going on in there might be more complicated to fix than she thought?”

“Then she’d give us an update!” She grimaced. “I can’t even see into the thing from here.”

Kat gazed hard at the strange little universe. “It doesn’t seem particularly resilient. Like, I dunno, even right up close, I’m having to squint with my senses just to fully perceive it.”

“Yeah. Less like it’s shielded from view, and like it’s only half there.” She shook her head. “Alright, no, this is ridiculous. I’m going in for her. Give me a day, if we aren’t out by then, then head back to the Omnyverse and get help. You can get there from here on your own, right?”

“Well… yes, but… what if this thing moves when I leave? I can spot the Omnyverse, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to find this thing again! Maybe one of us should go back, and get back up while the other stays put?”

As if on cue, the small universe suddenly began to move again, bolting away like a comet. “HEY!” said Reignbeau, chasing after it in a streak of colors.

Kat shot after her. “Damn it!”

“This is clearly some kind of trap!” said Reignbeau. She waved Kat off. “GO! Go back! Worst comes to worst, we get killed and resurrect through the Meta!”

“If it’s a trap, then whoever set it will know that and keep you in it!” said Kat. She bolted ahead. “I’ll go in! You have the most experience with Beyond-diving, you’ve got the best chance of finding us again!”

“I’m not leaving her behind!” yelled Reignbeau. She flew faster, almost overtaking Kat. Then suddenly, the pale blue shard halted, and the two slammed into it, vanishing through its Barrier.

***

Reignbeau popped out into a dim, wide hallway, utterly featureless. The walls were a deep gray-blue, made of an unidentifiable cold stone. The only source of light was a series of pale glowing crystals that jutted from the ceiling like luminescent icicles, perhaps one every hundred feet. The Omny had no difficulty seeing, but any mortal would have struggled.

She immediately cast her senses wide, gazing across the whole of the universe. What came back were twisting visions of endless corridors, scrambling her cosmic awareness. She couldn’t even sense her two companions! Such a thing shouldn’t have been possible, if the world really came from within their native Multiverse. But maybe this strange reality was more than it seemed. Maybe it was an alien intruder, conflicting with their powers.

The one thing she could tell was that the universe was small. Barely ten miles across, a spherical knot of wriggling tunnels.

“CYL! KAT!” Reignbeau projected a psychic signal along with her voice. A warped echo sounded around her, audio and telepathic, reverbing erratically from all sides, completely scrambling any sense of where the sound might be coming from.

She touched the wall and tried to concentrate her senses just to follow its surface, to see if she could at least map out the hallways by “handspanning” along its length. As soon as her senses went past a nearby turn in the path, the signal scrambled again.

Worse yet, she realized with a start that she could no longer find the borders of the world. Now the snarl of hallways didn’t seem to end, as if the exit to the World had been shut and sealed completely in the seconds since her first attempt at a scan. Her extended awareness simply bounded back into itself, looping and fractalating in a dizzying whirl. If she wasn’t already cosmically resilient against navigating twisted spaces and seas of chaos, her senses would have been immediately overwhelmed and her mind shattered!

She was able to dial back her senses and shake off the dizziness, but this was notably more discomfort than any other World had naturally given her before. This was some kind of deliberate suppression effect!

“Shit,” she muttered, scowling at the featureless walls. She floated up off her feet and started flying forward. The corridors bent and turned and twisted and corkscrewed around, widening and narrowing at random, sloped at times, stepped at others. Despite having only one way to go, flying too fast and turning the corners too quickly managed to disorient her again. Several times, she somehow found herself doubling back the way she came, before she realized the error and had to turn back around to proceed. At some point she got frustrated and tried to just walk through the walls, but one step inside the cold concrete caused her senses to spasm, knocking her for a hard loop, and spitting her right back out. She was going to have to travel the halls the hard way.

Eventually the hallway opened up into a large chamber. A wide open, circular amphitheater was carved into the material of the floor, rows of seats funneling downwards to surround a central platform. Sitting upon the stone benches, shivering and shuddering, were hundreds of people, humans to all appearances. Men and women, naked, sitting with legs spread wide and arms pinned up behind their heads. Upon a second glance, they were not just sitting in the seats. They had been impaled upon them. Jagged iron blades, rusted and coated with frozen blood, stabbed upwards from the seats, piercing their limbs and torsos, bent so they could not pull free.

Something was scuttling over them all. Metallic, chittering, spider-like creatures, some small as an ant, some large as a housecat, crawled over the humans, their needle-like feet stabbing bloody tracks into their flesh. The spiders worked and worried at various wounds already inflicted on the humans, cutting and stitching and re-cutting and re-stitching. Some people had been gutted, the metal spiders working hideous designs with their intestines. Others had had their genitals torn out, the frayed nerves spread thin to be stabbed and raked. Still others had their heads dug into, holes drilled into their skulls, their gray matter picked and pried. Steam rose from the freshest wounds, and from the ragged mouths of the victims as they huffed and wheezed in pain.

Somehow, despite their injuries, the mortals remained alive. The bitter cold only enhanced the agony rather than numb it. Those without eyes or ears could still perceive everything around them. They were all screaming in their minds; all of their throats had become too torn to function.

Reignbeau blanched. “Well, Domina would like this place.” It was gruesome, but she’d seen worse, and she could tell immediately that something about the scene rang hollow. She went up to one of the tortured humans and touched their head, flicking one of the metal spiders away. Despite her ability to shrug off the sight, she was nonetheless a little relieved to confirm that there was nothing actually in there. No mental processes at all, just unthinking nerves reacting on reflex.

So, it was all a pantomime? Maybe an illusion to further disorient those trapped here?

Suddenly, the central stage of the amphitheater brightened. A spotlight from above had turned on, cold light spearing down to draw the crowd’s attention. All the human shells let out a ragged chorus of groans, as their spidery tormentors chittered excitedly.

A woman emerged from the floor, slowly rising through the stone like a ghost. Reignbeau’s eyes widened as she revealed herself, a tall, silver-haired woman in a pale blue kimono. Slowly she turned to face the crowd, sweeping her gaze upon her captive audience. Wherever her eyes passed over, the bloodied and gored victims shuddered and heaved as if struck with electricity. As the woman completed her slow spin, the whole captive crowd was left shuddering. She smiled slightly at her handiwork, until she noticed the rainbow-haired Omny watching her. The woman’s smile flattened as her gaze locked with Reignbeau’s, her eyes glowing a piercing blue.

Despite the shift in appearance, there was no mistaking her. It was Cyl.

Reignbeau teleported onto the stage, right in front of the blue-clad woman, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Cyl! What’s going on? What is all this?”

The woman gave her a curious look, tilting her head to the side. “Ah. The bastard daughter. You entered. She told you not to. That was bad of you.”

“Cyl? What—” Reignbeau teleported a foot back as the blue woman’s arm arced in a silvery streak. Her fingers had converted to foot-long blades, which she’d just tried to use to take the rainbow-haired warrior’s head off. “Hey! What the hell are you doing?”

The woman blinked and Reignbeau staggered as a mass of blades erupted from the air all around her, attempting to pierce and crush her from numerous, impossibly overlapping angles. Reignbeau countered, though, strengthening her skin to halt the blades. With one sweep of her arm, she shattered every blade, bending space at hundreds of points to extend the power of her strike to each one. Silvery shards glinted as they fell around her.

Reignbeau grit her teeth. “Alright, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but snap the fuck out of it! We’re getting you out of here!”

“We?” said the blue-eyed Cyl, tilting her head in creepy curiosity. She glanced to the side, as if noticing something past the walls. “Ah. Yes. I see.” A long pause as she tapped her chin in thought. “Hmm. No. This won’t do at all.”

Reignbeau took a step forward, but stopped as one of blue-Cyl’s eyes swiveled out of synch with her other to focus on the rainbow-haired Omny, while the either eye kept staring into the distance elsewhere. The creepy woman held up her hand of blades between herself and Reignbeau. “These won’t do either. Another type of cut, I think.”

“Cyl, you better—” Reignbeau was cut off as a figure bolted out from the shadows and punched her hard enough to send her straight through the rows of seats, boring a hole into the cold stone, careening through more of the twisting, senses-fraying hallways. The figured followed after her, slamming her feet into Reingbeau’s gut, smashing her through at least another mile of the twisting stone, falling into another great chamber. This one was run through with huge webs of razor wire, numerous pantomime people writhing in pain as their bodies were caught in the cutting weave.

Reignbeau wasn’t harmed by the wires, but the new figure waved her hand, and several such cutting threads glowed crimson, before winding around Reignbeau’s limbs to entangle her, spread eagle in the middle of the chamber. The rainbow haired warrior shook her head, orientating herself instantly, only for her eyes to widen in shock. Before her floated Domina, taller, dressed in a gown of pure shadow, her skin blood red, her eyes burning gold, her hair dancing with crimson fire. This was Domina as Reignbeau first knew her, the tyrant Demon Queen and Acolyte of the Abyss!

***

Kat, meanwhile was still trying to navigate the twisting labyrinth in another part of the World. Instead of open chambers, she had occasionally stumbled upon wider hallways, on either side of which held rows of dungeon cells. Within these cells, men and women were lashed spread eagle and broken-limbed onto rusted racks. Vaguely humanoid creatures, tall, gangly things that looked to be golems made of various gnarled chords of metal, were inflicting hideous, cutting torment upon the human captives.

The metallic creatures were vaguely feminine in shape, with porcelain doll masks bolted onto knotted rods that served as their heads. The humans were mostly men and the occasional futanari; among the torments they suffered, the human’s genitals were being mutilated and stitched back together in agonizing configurations that somehow re-wired the nerve endings to interpret pain as pleasure, and vice versa. As their tormentors stabbed and twisted and clawed at their genitals, blinding bliss held the humans at the soul-searing edge of orgasm, but they were unable to release, due to the effects of the sadistic surgeries. In reverse, as the torturers lovingly caressed and suckled and tickled those same spots, the humans felt equally mind-rending pain. The whiplash of sensations would have been enough to kill even the toughest mortal.

Kat shuddered at the sight, but as she moved to try and rescue a few of the human victims, she realized they were all fakes. A quick scan with her senses told her they were effectively just recordings of human reactions to torture, being replayed over and over. While it gave her some relief to discover, it also made things even creepier, and she tried to fly through the corridors as fast as she could. After crossing the fifth such hallway, however, she let out a frustrated sigh, not able to tell if she was actually entering new sections of the maze, or if she was going in circles.

She had already tried phasing through the walls to no avail. Teleportation was likewise useless when she couldn’t orient to a location. This time, she pointed a hand at one wall and emerald fire lanced out in a tight beam, boring a hole through the material. The cold stone resisted her efforts, but with a push of will, she started rapidly drilling through the material. Behind the wall was yet more hallway. She couldn’t even tell if this hallway was connected to the one she’d come from, or if it was a different passageway. Either way, she figured this was likely the most efficient method to get through.

Several minutes later, she’d cut approximately thirty miles of tunnel, and despite the hope that the hole would give her a sort of “breadcrumb” to orient herself, she was dismayed as the straight-cut tunnel now seemed to curve away as she looked back. Back tracing her steps, she found that as soon as any opening of the tunnel was fully out of sight, it was gone. The walls either repaired when the damage was out of her line of awareness, or they moved and reconfigured whatever parts she wasn’t in.

Well, so much for that trick! With a frustrated scoff, she once again pulsed her telepathic signal hard to try and reach Reignbeau or Cyl, but all she got back was the dizzying echo.

She grit her teeth and bolted forward, going as fast as she could while still being able to tolerate the disorientation effect. She rounded another corner, only to come to a screeching halt as a figure stood in her way. She blinked and set her feet on the ground, thinking for a second that she might have almost run into a mirror. However, the figure didn’t follow her movements.

Kat stared at a vision of herself, who stared back, casual as could be. Hands in her pockets, stance relaxed, the other Kat gave her a once over, before locking her gaze to hers. She was identical in every way, save maybe the green of her eyes was slightly darker. She even wore the same blue jeans and white tee-shirt Kat wore as her standard. Kat coiled her senses around this other her, trying to figure out what she was. Her senses told her nothing, as if the vision was just that, another illusion.

Kat relaxed her own stance, but not fully. “Alright. What’s up?”

OtherKat tilted her head slightly and looked her over once more. “Hmm. So he really did make a super-slut version of me. Well, he is a guy, and I am his Dream Girl, and he started writing porn, so I guess it was inevitable.”

Kat blinked and cocked an eyebrow at her. “So, who are you, then?”

OtherKat smirked sardonically. “I think you can guess.”

Kat pursed her lips. “I know who you seem like. But there were multiple versions of her, too. And what would any of them be doing, stuck in this little maze, in a whole other Multiverse?”

She shrugged. “I met Cyl once. We traded notes about our Multiverses. I got curious to meet you.”

“Doesn’t answer either question. Which one are you? The superhero? The dream warrior? The adventurer? Or was there another cosmic version of me I didn’t know about?”

OtherKat laughed. “Can’t you sense it?”

“I can’t sense you at all.”

OtherKat blinked, then nodded. “Ah. Right. My shields are up.” Something in her shifted, a slight crack in her armor, and Kat suddenly could peer into this other her’s mind. She gasped as a torrent of visions struck her, all the lives of her other selves, unfiltered by the bias of her own perspective. Kat stepped back, eyes wide.

OtherKat smiled coldly. “I am HER. The Original. The Archetype. His Anima. I am the Kat that you, and all the others, are the fragments chipped off from.” She re-sealed her cosmic shield, cutting herself off from Omny Kat’s senses.

Kat let out a breath, having to actually orient herself. “Holy shit…”

The Anima took a step towards her. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”

Despite being powerful enough to literally create and destroy universes, Omny Kat suddenly felt very small before this vision of her Core Character Concept. Theoretically, the Anima was a direct alter of the Author himself, while she was just one of his characters. But it was more than just the scales of conceptual power at play. Kat knew she was just a piece of the woman before her.

Omny Kat swallowed nervously, feeling a strange sense of acute self-awareness. She’d never felt any sort of shame or resentment about being a sex fantasy character, but for the first time, she felt uncomfortably naked, facing this more complete version of herself. Maybe… maybe she did feel a little regret over herself. Of all the Kat’s she could have been… even for as powerful as the Author had made her… he really had taken an adventurous action girl hero and turned her into his little fuck pump, hadn’t he?

Wait, no… why was she thinking that? She’d come to terms with what she was long ago, she knew she was just one of many incarnations, who all had their own focuses and lives.

Lives she should have lived… finding glory… finding thrill… instead of being relentlessly obsessed with playing with cocks like some braindead bimbo…

NO! She was already more than that! Even in her first erotic story, she had a normal life, normal ambitions, and normal relationships! Her time with Ben had eventually evolved into more than sex! Becoming an Omny had transformed her into a goddess! She did more than just fuck and think about fucking, even if her erotic author decided to focus on that part of her life, due to the genre. And even then, the Omnys had long ago lost the erotic as their sole focus, so they really were more than just horn-dogs horning around! They all had their own depth and pathos and…and…

And what was her depth and pathos? Always talking about her relationship to the Author, to the various incarnations of Ben, the Author’s more idealized self-insert. Even her genre fiction selves were usually hooked up with some genre fiction version of Ben. She was just his little whore, always had been, in every universe. She was…

Omny Kat clutched her head and hissed. Her thoughts were boiling over with existential angst. She tried to fight it. She’d been over this whole self-identity conflict multiple times, and had found it ridiculous to fret over each time. So why was she freaking out about it now? She let out a cry and dropped to her knees. She glared up at her other self. And the answer came to her.

Because, in the face of her Truest Self, Omny Kat knew that she had never truly faced what she was with clear vision. The bias of her concept blinded her to its problematic nature. She hadn’t had the perspective to truly see what she was to the Author. She was just the wet part of his dream girl, the picture he jerked off to and tossed aside once he’d let loose his seed. And she wasn’t even his number one at that! All the other erotica women he’d written and stroked off to over the years, the real women he thought about. Even among the Omnys, he fantasized more about some of the others than her, because they were newer and more exciting than her stale concept!

Oh, he tried to ease his own guilt about it by “letting” her Omny self have her many flings and sexcapades not involving him. But in the end, those never lasted. She would always be obsessed with Ben. And even though Sal insisted Ben wasn’t him, and that he himself wasn’t the Author, they were all reflections of him. She’d never said so, but all those other flings she’d had between the two? They’d been with other variations of him. Created copies, or other characters tangentially spun off from Ben’s own concept, albeit much more loosely.

Jake. Jamin. Doug. Benny. Zero Mage. Shadowfire. Speed Demon. A string of redheads, hapless boytoys from the Sex Mage Worlds, or Adventure World heroes who kept finding themselves facing femdom foes. All reincarnated across the Omny Worlds, some Kat herself had Created to play in her world of Paramour Powers. They were the flings and trysts she’d sought out, soothing her own internal struggle with wanting to be monogamous with her dream boy, and being forced into the life of a polyamorous nympho. If she had to be a loose lover, she’d do so with men who reflected the man she’d been made for.

And it was all supposed to be okay, because it meant Sal could be with her and all the other Omnys, and it’d be even. Even. As though her entire existence was anything more than Salamando’s ideal woman, reduced by the lowest of crude male desire into nothing more than one of an endless procession of disposable fuck puppets!

Kat fell to the floor, gritting her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut as she clutched her head so hard, blood ran from where her nails dug into her skin. She fought with herself, her once-impervious self-assurance being flayed by the maelstrom of deep existential rage and guilt and resentment and disgust. She curled into a ball, and shook and sobbed in a pain she’d never imagined she could feel.

Consumed by the mental assault, she couldn’t see her “Anima self” smile with wicked bemusement. Her form shifted, rippling to reveal the silver-haired, blue-eyed, blade-fingered version of Cyl. The pale tormentress stood there for another few moments, savoring the show, before sinking into the floor and vanishing, leaving Kat to suffer in an agony far deeper than any blade could have cut.

***

The whole of the world shook as Reignbeau was slammed through wall after wall, chamber after chamber, Abyss Domina battering her about like a cat playing with a mouse. She was too fast, too strong, striking from angles Reignbeau couldn’t even perceive! The walls of the world repaired themselves and continued their twisting configurations, and even though Domina seemed to be battering her in a relatively straight path, the two never reached the edge of the sphere.

Reignbeau was actually bloodied, mortal pain and damage imposed upon her form. Abyss Domina said nothing, only grinned and laughed maniacally, as Reignbeau’s mind was assaulted by memories of a timeline that never was, yet had nonetheless been her past. Visions of her world’s Domina gleefully flaying and shredding dozens of Omnys and their Grands, hurling them into the burning black holes that warped the cosmic women straight into the maw of the Abyss! Of the hellish, infinite landscape their entire universe had been converted to, where every mortal that had ever lived was being tortured by Domina’s demons!

A world that somehow, some way, Reignbeau alone had escaped. A world that hadn’t been real, and yet she’d manifested from it regardless, a sudden new lifeform cursed with a history that only served to remind her what an absolute nobody she really was. She hadn’t been anyone special among her lot, a foot soldier barely learning cosmic combat when it was already too late. A completely random Omny who had no business being the last survivor. Who had failed to stop her world’s end, had failed to avenge her fallen sisters. And now that failure was here to finish her illegitimate existence!

How was this even possible? Had her timeline actually existed after all? Had the Abyss just consumed it completely in the end, erasing all traces of it, but allowing his Acolyte survive? Had Abyss Domina been roaming free through the Beyond this whole time? Was this small, cold World her creation, floating between Multiverses, ensnaring cosmic travelers? Did Cyl fall under her spell once caught, and was now working for her? All the torture chambers were somewhat similar to Domina’s dungeons—

But the aesthetic was off, wasn’t it? This world was a strange, icy stone, the dim, warping hallways designed to inflict the despair of being lost, until one finally stumbled on what looked like some kind of shelter or resources, only to find rooms filled with shredded people being picked apart by cold, unfeeling metal figures.

Domina’s motif was always the classic depictions of Hell or bombastic renditions of apocalypse. Fire, brimstone, hideous demons, savage monsters, toxic mutants, ravenous undead. This was—

Reignbeau’s thoughts blurred as she failed to parry Abyss Domina’s next strike. The devil-woman’s clawed hand easily pushed through Reignbeau’s block, stabbing her clawed fingers straight into the rainbow-haired warrior’s skull! Reignbeau instinctively tried to teleport and recover the damage. Abyss Domina should have grabbed her then and continued to savage her body to pieces. She would have, if she was actually trying to kill her. Instead, the devil-woman paused to let out an ear-shredding laugh, giving Reignbeau a few seconds to recover and jump back, before she charged at her again. As Abyss Domina advanced, a flashback of a similar brutal battle in the old timeline cut across Reignbeau’s thoughts, throwing her off and staggering her so much she barely dodged the next hit.

No. No, something about this didn’t make sense. She forced herself to think through the haze of flashbacks and concussions. They would have… if her Domina had survived… they would have known by now… encountered her in the Beyond… or she would have broken into the Omnyverse and attacked them… she would have called forth the Abyss into the Erotica Multiverse by now… she would have… but…

Reignbeau was slammed through another few miles of the twisting hallways, her body cannonballing through two more torture chambers, bits of mortal bodies flying about as she was ensnared in a great web of hundreds of victim’s nerve endings, stitched together in a gory net. Metallic spiders picked and bit at the nerves, and a chorus of screams sounded around them as Reignbeau tore through half the net. Reignbeau ignored the scene, and braced herself for Domina’s next charge. She felt another flashback trying to intrude upon her mind, painful memories trying to claw at her attention; these weren’t her own intrusive thoughts bubbling up. This was clearly a psychic assault meant to keep her paralyzed.

And that wasn’t Domina’s style. The Domina she knew was a brute to the core, all physical force and monolithic presence. She didn’t, to Reignbeau’s knowledge, also keep clawing at your brain with memory attacks. She didn’t pause between decisive blows to let her opponent recover.

Reignbeau stopped trying to fight back, and concentrated all her power on steeling herself, maximizing her defenses from physical and mental attack. Abyss Domina beat her like a drum, banging her off and through the walls like a rubber wrecking ball. But Reignbeau just warped in on herself, transforming her body into a bubble of rainbow light, denser than the walls of a universe. She let herself get wailed on, “Abyss” Domina not letting up, undeterred when her hits no longer did any noticeable damage. Reignbeau found it telling that the short-tempered didn’t seem to be getting frustrated at the sudden lack of effectiveness.

This wasn’t real. Or, at least, this wasn’t Abyss Domina wailing on her. This was something else. An entire world of cold, stark, Eschering hallways, shock-inducing pantomime torture scenes, and horrid thoughts constantly sniping at your mind. This whole thing was a psychological torture trap! Pretty much the total opposite of Domina’s style, despite the surface resemblance.

Reignbeau concentrated further, steeling her mind, reaching deep into the point of existential resilience. She reminded herself that her past was the past, that she alone had survived a timeline that had only existed to force an “origin story” on her. That as terrible as it had all seemed, it had never really happened. There was nothing to fear. Nothing for her to fear. This whole world was just an illusion, and it wasn’t even meant for her. It had been heading for them, but it was Cyl who had recognized it. It had been a trap for her. Reignbeau had just been caught up in it. All she had to do was remind herself of who and what she was. Reignbeau. The survivor. The warrior. Cyl’s sister-in-arms. The—

“The bastard daughter.”

Reignbeau risked her meditation to ponder that. What had that fake-Cyl meant by that? Was that something Cyl had been concerned about? Reignbeau certainly hadn’t considered herself to be that. Did Cyl? Why? Maybe that was tied her comrade’s recent behavior.

Well, Reignbeau wasn’t going to let herself be shaken by it. Her concern now was saving Cyl. And she was going to do it. She set the goal clear in her mind. Nothing was going to deter her from rescuing her comrade. Her beloved. Yes, she could say that. She loved Cyl just as much as any of the Progenitors loved her. And she knew Cyl loved her just as much back. Her sister-in-arms just needed to be reminded of that, to hell with whatever petty worry was giving her doubts.

Also, she was going to save Kat, too, of course! She hadn’t forgotten about her!

With her resolve set, Reignbeau peeked out from her incandescent shell, and realized that “Abyss Domina’s” attacks had ceased. Reignbeau was now hovering over the smoldering, blood-soaked remains of another torture chamber. As gory as the sight was, she was even less impressed by it now, knowing it all amounted to nothing more than cheap horror movie props. She unfurled herself back into human form and took a breath.

She glanced around, casting her senses forth. The twisting hallways now seemed clearer. Still winding and gyrated and sliding about, but she could now follow the motions. She could even see the edges of the world, the border of the sphere. She could have stepped right outside of it from here. But of course, she had comrades to rescue. She carefully scanned the World, not wanting to alert the fake Cyl as she looked about.

She didn’t find the real Cyl, and she forced herself to re-enforce her mental resolve as a horrible thought occurred to her. However, her senses picked up the roiling anxiety of Kat, miles away. She frowned. Kat had been right. This trap was designed to keep even beings like them indefinitely ensnared. Abyss Domina hadn’t tried to outright kill her, she’d spent the whole time just beating on her, and could have done so forever. If Reignbeau hadn’t snapped herself out of it, she might have been stuck here, kicked around like a ragdoll forever, not allowed to die and escape via Meta resurrection. Clever. Disturbingly clever.

Reignbeau had barely managed to slip her shackles. Kat didn’t seem like she was going to anytime soon. And if what she suspected had happened to Cyl was correct, then even the veteran Beyond-Diver might not make it out. Reignbeau frowned. Getting into trouble out in the Beyond was inevitable, but it was just bad luck Kat had gotten roped into such a hard wallop on her first trip, especially since they’d gone for a casual short loop this time. Still, this was why it was smart to travel in groups. The rainbow-haired warrior still wasn’t sure if teleporting was reliable, so she just smashed through the walls like a guided missile to her new companion’s side. It was her duty as Kat’s senior to look out for her, after all, and in turn, she was going to need her help pulling out Cyl.

***

Kat sensed another presence near her, and she scrambled back, gasping and crying out. Reignbeau kneeled down and reached for her, and Kat flailed, swiping at her with bloodied nails. Reignbeau avoided the swipes and caught Kat’s hands by the wrists. Gently, but firmly, she held Kat’s arms apart and looked her over. The panicking Omny’s clothes had been shredded off, her body cut open in dozens of places by her own fingernails, and she had barely noticed the physical pain as she drowned in her mental anguish.

“Kat! Kat snap out of it! It’s all a mind-trick! Whatever she did to you, its all just bullshit designed to keep you trapped in your own terrors!”

“Get… off… me… you… fucking… whore…” Kat sucked in a shuddering breath. “LET GO OF ME! I’m not… one of you… you sick… degenerate… AAAAAHHH!!!”

Reignbeau cocked an eyebrow at her. She took a breath, locked her grip, and dared to open her own shields just a crack, to peak at what was whirling through Kat’s mind. She flinched back at the sheer torrent of self-loathing.

“Oof. Jeez, girl. That was all it took?” She pulled Kat closer, getting right in the other woman’s face. “Hey! Listen! Ain’t nothing wrong with being a hot honey sexpot and being a thrill-seeking adventure girl! You can be both! You can be both and more besides! That’s what being an Omny is all about! Having all the fun you can imagine, without being beholden to any storyline’s destiny! The best of all worlds! How many of your other selves get to make universes, make magical love, and make their own destiny? I dunno about this Anima Kat or whatever, but you really think she’s more than you are? Seems to me she’s just the collection of you and your other selves. She only seems like she’s more, because you’re seeing all your possibilities reflected in her. But that’s the thing. All those other yous? They’re stuck as they are. They aren’t even being written any more. You? You can be everything they are and everything they’re not and enjoy the best damn orgasms in the Multiverse while you’re at it! Are you really gunna convince yourself that’s not something worth being?”

Kat had stopped struggling, and seemed to be fighting to focus on Reignbeau, looking at her through tear-blurred eyes. “I… but… you say that… but in the end… we’re just…”

Reignbeau cut her off. “His jerk off fantasies. Yeah, we are. We’re also more than that. We’re adventurers, philosophers, worldbuilders, explorers, drama queens, metafictional co-writers. We’re his rawest explorations of his writings. If we were really just his little waifu spank harem, do you think he’d ever write anything about us that didn’t involve just playing with his self-inserts’ cocks?” She scoffed. “I mean when’s the last time he really dug in and did a full-throated sex scene with one of us? We’re basically just a soap opera at this point!”

Reignbeau grinned with sardonic amusement. “And you know what else we are right now? The only fucking series he’s able to consistently write about. Even after retiring from the smut scene, we’re still coming back, again and again. He just can’t kick us out of his brain bed, because we got way more to talk about than just how much we wanna fuck.”

Kat shook her head. “I know… I know we’re more, but… I can’t just… I…” She grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. “But I can’t… I can’t stop… it’s like I can’t… unsee…”

Reignbeau frowned in thought as she tried to think of how else to reassure the tortured woman. She wasn’t very good at the psychological stuff. Punching things was her expertise! But, as she mulled it over, there was one mind she knew better than any other in the Multiverse. The same mind every Omny had dug into and picked apart. One that Kat was too caught up in her trauma to recognize the parallels to.

Reignbeau gave her a stern look. “You wanna know what I think? I think all that crazy vision of you did was ram Salamando’s own guilt about you into your brain. He loves you, so he feels guilty when he thinks about how the only version of you he wrote about was the kinky version. He has all these regrets about his writing failures that he just loves to wallow in, so he lets himself always feel like shit for some perceived failure to do right by you. That’s not your problem, Kat! You’re an Omny! The whole point of us is that we’re as free from his influence as any character of his can get! His guilt isn’t your regret, it’s his!”

Kat blinked her eyes open. She stared at Reignbeau, her vision focusing. “I… maybe…”

“No maybes about it!” said Reignbeau. She could see Kat teetering right on the edge of shaking the induced spell of self-loathing. She was almost there, but the spell had it’s hooks in deep. Reignbeau smiled in reassurance, but she knew this had already taken too damn long. She needed Kat to get over this now.

Reignbeau grinned sheepishly. This might completely backfire, considering how locked up Kat normally was about it. But maybe, as she pushed back against the spell of doubt, a solid jolt to the senses, Omny style, would help jar those hooks loose! “Alright, Straight, think fast!”

Before Kat could even widen her eyes, Reignbeau pulled her close and planted her lips on hers. She clutched the shaken woman to her, growing another set of arms to grasp her torso while keeping her wrists secured. Kat’s mental and physical defenses were flayed wide open as Reignbeau concentrated and projected her erotic energies into Kat’s body, lighting up her raw nerves, taking her pleasure receptors from zero to six million in an instant, jamming the accelerator to keep going higher!

Kat squealed and thrashed as a pure pleasure ripped through her, electrifying every cell in her body! Caught completely open, Kat had no time to steel herself, and she jerked and spasmed and screamed as Reignbeau obliterated her with waves of orgasmic power!

Absolutely helpless to the assault, Kat’s mind went blank as climax after climax machine-gunned through her whole being, until her physical form began to fray. It didn’t even really feel “good” the way an orgasm should, hitting her too hard, too fast, but the relentless tsunami of ecstasy burned the spell of existential anxiety completely out of her! With one final, planet-cracking climax, Kat’s cosmic essence did a hard reset, her body immolating in emerald fire!

Reignbeau pulled away, withdrawing her energies, shivering as the psychic feedback forced mini-climaxes on her own body. She managed to steel herself from giving into the temptations to keep going. She waited, senses alert for any interference, as she gathered up the energies of Kat’s form, hugging and holding the cosmic flames as they reformed and reconfigured back into the woman.

It hadn’t been a full Energy Climax, so Kat had not been knocked completely scattered and insensate. Still, it took another minute for her to fully come together, and she was still a little woozy for another minute. Reignbeau held her steady, wrapping her own cosmic shield around the woman, until Kat could orient and shield herself.

“Whew,” said Kat, shaking her head. “That was… awful.” She looked at Reignbeau, who was still hugging her. The other woman gave her an apologetic smile. Kat blushed and gently pushed the rainbow haired warrior off of her. “Not that last part. That was part was… well, it was better than the first part.”

Reignbeau cleared her throat. “Sorry, Kat. I figured if anything was going to re-anchor you, it would be… well… we are still sex goddesses, whatever else we decide to be.”

Kat took a breath and let out a long sigh. “Yeah. I get it. Probably the best tactic.” She gave Reignbeau a small smile. “Thanks.”

“Sure thing.”

“That doesn’t count as my first!” said Kat, holding up a finger. “That was just foreplay!”

Reignbeau laughed. “Hey, we can follow up any time, any place!”

Kat smirked. “I’ll put you in my little black book.”

The two sobered up and looked around them. The hallway they were in had been blown into a wide spherical crater from Kat’s explosive climax. Both could perceive the twisting knot of halls and chambers clearer now, clear enough that they could finally pick out the presence of their third companion.

Sitting in the center of the World, Cyl was waiting for them. Both of her.

***

EARLIER

The World was exactly as she remembered it. Bitter cold, oppressively dark, the piercing sounds of agonized screams and scraping metals, the stench of blood and bile stinging at the nose and staining the tongue, distorted space keeping the inhabitants perpetually lost. Sterile hallways and stained chambers, like a nightmare version of a hospital, where people’s lives were extended indefinitely for the purpose of perpetual suffering.

Cyl spent hours wandering the bitter memory, old guilts and new misgivings coaxing her to stew in the black thoughts this place dredged up within her. Certainly, this was a pale imitation of what Domina or Illia might devise in their dark indulgences. In timelines past, Shady and Lettie had even come up with worse.

But this was her personal evil. One she had thought she left behind for good. One she had outright obliterated from existence when she was done with it, deleted like a page from a journal too shameful to risk the possibility of anyone seeing.

So why was this echo still here?

“Because, like your own Creator, you refuse to let go of the past.”

Cyl had entered another large chamber, where the pantomimes of young women were being tended to by human-sized, metallic wasps. The robotic insects were slowly sawing through the women’s bodies with serrated claws, while they dripped acid from their mandibles into the screaming women’s mouths, and violated the women’s lower orifices with jagged stingers.

A particularly brutal scene based on a nightmare Cyl had once had during her mortal life. She’d forgotten which mortal life it had been, but this nightmare never quite managed to leave her long memory. She’d thought she’d gotten over the horror of it long ago; it was just a silly, harmless nightmare after all.

But then, she’d thought that about this World of hers, too.

“For all you pine to be an Angel, you’re so very obsessed with Devils. All of them, every Omny, your most cherished lovers, you cling to them so tightly, because you never truly want to let go of that shadow you refuse to indulge in yourself.”

Cold hands gently clasped her shoulders, chilled breath tickling her ear as pale blue lips leaned close and whispered. “Devil. Trickster. Genie. Asura. Demon. And you, the Good One, the Angel, soaking in the pit of sin with them. How convenient that you need be responsible for keeping them in line, in such easy reach for them to seduce you.”

Cyl closed her eyes and lowered her head.

“You think you love them? Don’t lie to yourself. You use them for your pleasure, while denying your accountability in choosing it. You convince yourself you’re the shining paragon among lowly succubi. And then you have the unmitigated gall to strike at them through proxies.”

Cyl flinched, but said nothing. The cold lips brushed her cheek, the breath freezing against her skin. “You didn’t want a companion out here, you wanted someone to beat Domina to death for you. You didn’t want to save the Sex Mage Worlds, you wanted to preen in Temael’s gaze. You didn’t even want to guard your beloved Omnyverse, you dumped the job on a surrogate the moment you got the chance.”

Cyl opened her eyes, slowly turned, and faced herself. The speaker was just as she had once been. A paler, blue-eyed, silver-haired copy of herself, dressed in a light blue kimono, fingernails sharpened into silvery knives.

The Queen of Blades. Torture-Goddess of her own freezing, twisting hellscape. An identity she’d spent a subjective century in, tormenting mortals she had copied from their old, abandoned timelines, brutalizing them in ways even Domina would be impressed by. All to see what the other side of the moral coin felt like.

“Has it really been any better since you left me? How many more universes did you build and ruin, as you and your little band of selfish harlots pranced about the Beyond? Did you ever manage to build that fabled utopia, where you all could frolic and fuck and fantasize without risk?”

Cyl’s words were a soft whisper. “No.”

The Queen smiled coldly. “And so you choose to forsake them, returning when your desires demand a tryst, and leaving again once your base thrills are satiated. An absentee lover, selfish as the rest of them.”

Cyl frowned. “You don’t know me.”

“I am you. Don’t kid yourself with your delusions of grandeur. Come. Let us play here, again, where you can be your real self. If you must see yourself as an Angel, then do yourself a favor and acknowledge you are, at best, a Fallen one.”

“No.” Her words were firm this time. Cyl steeled herself, standing tall, her expression hardening. “You’re an echo of a role I played. Nothing more. You were never me.”

“Spare me your self-denial. You played me too well for the role to be inauthentic. Even if you want to deny it, I am at least some part of you.”

Cyl paused, frowning in thought. “Fine. Certainly, that potential is there. But I reject it. You can pluck at all my little strings of guilt and regret. Been there, done that. I know who I am. I know what I am. I accept my flaws. And you know what? Even when I tried to be you, I was a pale imitation of the horrors I’ve fought since.”

The Queen of Blades remained unrattled. She shrugged. “Ah, well. It hardly matters, now that you’re here.”

Cyl crossed her arms. “Your confidence is unwarranted. This place is a bitter memory, but I will erase it again.”

“Certainly. Until you crack again, and manifest me once more.”

Cyl frowned, and the Queen laughed. “You’re an Omnymphotent! Your thoughts define your reality. Every dream, every urge, every fear. It echoes through the Beyond, the same as all Cosmics who dwell in Salamando’s Megaverse. You keep your influence locked down most times. But all it takes is another chink in your armor, another niggling anxiety that won’t go away. Being an Omny doesn’t protect you from your own misgivings.”

The Queen stepped closer. “The Omnyverse is bounded by the rules you all imposed, your interwoven wills keeping each other in check. Out here, your cohesion frays. And so you forged yourself a little sidekick to help keep you anchored, not realizing she was just another fragment of you. And now that you know what she is, she’s no longer so reliable, is she?” She grinned, a wicked glint in her eye. “What better time to test out a new sidekick, hmm?”

Cyl felt a flash of anger, and her hands balled into fists. “That’s not why I brought Kat along.”

“Isn’t it?”

“I—”

“She’s a unique one among you. A New Ascended, but with old ties across the whole of Salamando’s Multiverses. A character of equal, if not greater, significance to you Progenitors, but unbound by any prior relationship with you. A fresh companion, both valuable as an anchor and an invested traveler, but in a form raw and young enough to still be dependent on you.”

Cyl sighed, unclenched her fists, and calmed herself. “We’re done here.” She raised her hand, and energy began to coil around her palm, preparing to eradicate the World once more.

The Queen smiled with amusement. “And once again, you prove incapable of facing yourself.”

Cyl just stared back coldly. “I’ve faced myself more than any other Omny has bothered to try.”

The Queen’s smile widened. “So I was right after all. You really do think less of them, don’t you? No wonder your Worlds keep failing. They’re all just there for your convenience, your cozy little harem, tucked away in a cupboard for you to sample when you’re feeling peckish.”

Cyl should have let loose her blast right then and there. But she found herself hesitating. She knew the Queen was an expert at psychological torture. That had been her schtick. It was all just gaslighting, trying to claw every inch of pain she could out of whoever was in her reach.

But the words wouldn’t sting so badly if there wasn’t some truth to them, would they?

She had made a real, serious effort to build a new reality with her fellow Progenitors, the women she had fought and bled with, had loved and hated more than any others in existence. More than a pantheon, more than a coven, they were a family, dedicated to finding that ideal world where they could all be happy. And yet, after everything, it still hadn’t been enough to for her, had it? To simply enjoy being with them, enjoy making Worlds with them to play in. She’d had to leave their best reality so far to find fulfillment elsewhere, coming back when it suited her needs, not theirs.

She had created Wyllow to pass the mantle of Resident Guardian onto, so she could indulge her wanderlust. She had very likely, subconsciously, created Reignbeau so she could also have companionship on her Beyond-dives. Even her co-claiming of Salamando as a Plaything, that had been largely for show, a favor to him and Kat, and a flex of her authority over the other Omnys, without actually having to obligate herself to being Sal’s lover. So many instances, she had maneuvered things to have her cake and eat it, too.

Deep down, she knew the other Omnys had tolerated her den-mothering, just as she tolerated their own selfish impulses. That didn’t actually make it even, did it? Whitney had let herself fall for her after Wyllow was made, indulging in the idea that perhaps she and Cyl could be more than just two lovers in the group. But in the end, Whitney had remained just another member of the polycule for Cyl. Whitney had gotten over it by now, but it didn’t change the fact that Cyl had ditched her chosen Mingle-partner so shortly after making their daughter, more concerned with her own wants at the time than Whitney’s feelings.

Shady was another mess. Of all the Progenitors, their relationship had been the most turbulent. They’d loved and fought each other fiercely, killed each other in a previous timeline. And still Shady had been the one to come support her right after the Omnyverse was formed in the Grand Reboot. Afterwards, Cyl was the one who kept reminding Shady to dial things back, and Shady always acquiesced. To “make up for it” Cyl let Shady play with her, dominating her in BDSM roleplay. Cyl got to have her way over Shady, and got rewarded for it.

Devi and Lettie? Flings indulged and dropped on random whim, neither bothering to rattling the cage, perhaps in part because it would be too much trouble to have to deal with Cyl smacking their wrists. They made things easy for her.

And Domina? The perfect target for Cyl to fret over, their long, violent history being a baggage that she could always rely on to give herself that sense of “heroic” purpose, even when she was at home. After all this time of Domina resolutely keeping to herself and not causing trouble for her once-sworn enemies, Cyl had never let go of the idea that the redheaded tyrant could someday be a problem again. Perhaps, deep down, Cyl had hoped she would, so as to give her something to take out her heroic needs on, even at home.

They all knew this about each other, deep down. They had all long ago accepted each other’s flaws. But had she really accepted her own? And even in acceptance, did that really make it all okay, to keep perpetuating the bad impulses?

The energy blast she’d been charging had faded, her hand lowered. Cyl just stared at the floor as her misgivings fought with her assurance. She’d been through all this anxious self-exploration before, but had she really resolved any of her feelings? Or had she simply shoved them down and buried them, like she had the memory of this World?

The Queen of Blades slinked up to her, wrapping her in a gentle embrace. Cyl shivered as she started to try and push her off, but found she couldn’t bring herself too.

“Shhh, shhh. It’s alright. It’s alright to fear. To hurt. This is why I’m here. To help you face the things you can’t. Let us indulge once more, in the fields of pain. Come home, and be your truest self, unburdened by your misguided expectations.”

Cyl’s body flickered, turned incorporeal, and sank in the bosom of the Queen. The blue woman gasped, shuddered in a wave of ecstasy, and laughed. She raised her hands and grinned wide as her finger-blades glinted in the dim light. Time to play again!

***

NOW

The two Omnys made a bee-line for Cyl, phasing through the material of the world to pass through the miles of hallways like ghosts. Holding hands so they wouldn’t lose each other, the two narrowed their focus to keep their companion dead-center in their vision, ignoring everything else. Not as fast as a teleport, but they managed to reach the central chamber in under a minute, gritting their teeth through the twisting mire of fractallating space.

Cyl was there, sitting on a throne of tangled blades. Her body was stiff, parts of her spasming, her face contorted in conflict. Her body flickered between two forms, parts of her shifting between her blue-clad self, and her normal self. Her eyes strobed between icy blue and gold/red. Her hair flashed between pure white and silver. Patches of skin paled and flushed. Even parts of her outfit kept altering between the blue kimono and her black body suit.

“Cyl?” said Reignbeau.

Beneath rapidly blinking lids, Cyl’s eyes swiveled towards her. “Ah, the bastard daughter returns.” Cyl’s voice was distorted, as if she were gargling her words through a rusted throat.

“Why are you calling me that?” said Reignbeau.

Cyl just laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know!”

Reignbeau balled up her fist, grabbed Cyl by the throat, and got right in her face. “Yeah, I would! So snap out of it and tell it to me straight! C’mon, you’ve been through way worse than this pansy little rat trap we’re in! Are you really trying to break out? Or are you so afraid of talking to me now that you’d rather hide behind whatever the hell this thing is?”

Cyl cringed, and her expression twisted into one of sorrow. “No! Please, I… I don’t want… to hurt you… again… I… don’t want…”

Kat came up to her and put a hand on Cyl’s shoulder. “Cyl? What can we do?”

Cyl looked up at her and winced. “Oh, Kat… this was… such a mistake, I… I…” Her express distorted into a mad grin. “Hahahahahaha! A mistake you’re going to pay for forever, you little whore!”

Kat and Reignbeau shared a glance. “What do we do?” said Kat.

“I don’t know. This thing is in her head, so even if we could get her outside, she’d still be under its spell, and I don’t want to risk her escaping into the Beyond like this. But it seems like you and me might be part of what’s got her trapped, so I don’t know if we can talk her out of it.”

Kat hesitated, then said, “I don’t suppose we can… fuck her out of it? Give her the same erotic brain-shock you gave me?”

Reignbeau frowned. “I don’t think sexual self-doubt is the root of her problem. Even if that could work, us trying it probably wouldn’t help her shake this off.” Reignbeau hesitated, then raised her fist, making it glow with cosmic fire. “I really hate to say it, but we might have to kill her.”

Kat winced. “Are you serious?”

Reignbeau stared grimly down at Cyl. “We’ve only done it a couple times, but at those times, we ended up in some really bad spots, to the point our only escape was to rip-chord ourselves out through a Meta resurrection. I’m gunna to be honest, I’ve never seen this happen to her before. I get the feeling this whole trap was meant for her in the first place. If we can’t get through to her, I really don’t know what else to do.”

Kat shook her head. “This is a mind-trap. If she’s as stuck in this as I was, then how do you know it’s not going to follow through to the next incarnation? And then whatever this is follows us back to the Omnyverse?”

Reignbeau paused and lowered her fist. “Shit.”

Cyl laughed, her voice cracking. “You really think you can keep your little play pen safe? You think you can keep it tucked away, hidden forever, when you stupid, meddling cunts keep letting the whole Multiverse know you’re out there? You can try to cover your tracks, but one day, you’re going to slip up, and lead the sharks right to your shores!” She grinned wide and pushed up against Reignbeau’s grip. “So keep brainlessly indulging in your little jaunts! Keep thinking you can shove your noses where you don’t belong, and then skip back home when things get too hot! Keep pissing off the Pantheons and the Horrors until one of them finally decides to exterminate you!”

She gave a rattling laugh. “Until the Abyss finds you! Until the Godslayer discovers you! Until Temael changes Its mind about you! Until the Cosmic Coalition betrays you! What will you do then?”

Reignbeau gave her a steely glare. “When that day comes, we’ll face the consequences, together, like we always do! So just shut your goddamned mouth! I got your number now, you wannabe boogeybitch! You’re just rattling off whatever you can think of to try and get back into our heads! Well it ain’t gunna work!” She reared back her fist. “So, one more fucking time, sister! SNAP! THE FUCK! OUT OF IT!” With that, she socked Cyl so hard, the woman flew from her grip and impacted the floor of the chamber so hard, the entire world around them cracked to pieces! The twisting hallways tried to keep twisting as they fell apart, and the whole structure quickly chipped away at itself, cascading into World-wide crumbling. The blue Cyl screamed as her little universe ground itself down to a fine powder.

Hovering in the blue-grey cloud, Reignbeau and Kat floated to Cyl’s side. She was sobbing, but also gritting her teeth and grunting as she fought with her own mind. She clutched at herself, digging her nails into her clothes. The Mark of Temael blazed hotly on her face, even when her eyes were shifted to blue.

Reignbeau and Kat each grabbed her by a shoulder, and hugged her from either side. Cyl tried to curl into herself, as if to escape them. She spoke, her voice cracked to the point they could barely make it out. “You… two… leave… while you… can…”

“No. Never.” Reignbeau held her tightly. “I don’t know what you think of me right now, but under all of that, you know I’ll never abandon you. I love you, Cyl, no matter what I am to you, and I will never leave you behind!”

Kat leaned in as well. “I’m not totally sure what’s going on here, or between you two, but you don’t have to feel so guilty about it. It’s okay to question yourself sometimes, but there’s a difference between reassessment and self-annihilation. Whatever you’ve done, whatever your feelings, you’re still you at the core. And you are what you make of yourself. So, what is it you want to be?”

Cyl stopped shuddering, hanging there as the two held her, her breathing ragged. She curled in just a bit further. And then, with a wrenching cry, she tore her clothes asunder, spreading her arms and legs wide and unleashing a rapturous scream. The other two floated back as waves of energy blasted from Cyl’s being, her body glowing until she was nothing but a blinding light, a golden star in the shape of a woman.

Then, after several long moments, she calmed. The light dimmed, until she stood, looking like her old self. White hair, golden eyes, her black bodysuit clothing her naturally pale skin. She turned and smiled at the two, then winced as the Mark of Temael imposed itself upon her left eye again. She reached up and flinched as she touched the Mark, but took a breath, letting herself relax. Her relationship with the Dark God was also a part of her. As was the World she had tried to forget.

***

After taking a few moments to orient themselves, the three stepped out in the Beyond. The dim blue World flickered faintly between them, looking almost non-existent. Cyl reached out and cupped it between her palms. Kat and Reignbeau gave her a moment to collect her thoughts.

Cyl kept staring at the tiny World as she spoke. “It was after the Paradise timeline, but before we tried the Good vs Evil timeline. I had come to the conclusion that evil was an unfortunate necessity, yet I couldn’t imagine that if I wanted to be truly good, that I could allow evil to exist at all. But I also knew the hubris in attempting to paint myself as the Good One. I failed to make utopia work, after all. Part of me wanted to blame the others, to say that their darker impulses undermined things, that we were all just too different in taste from each other to make a stable reality we could all enjoy. But I’d been the one to propose the Paradise idea, then rushed to create it while neglecting too many important details.

“After Paradise collapsed, we spent some time drifting in the Beyond, wondering if we could ever make things work. I wondered if we were just bad together as a group, tripping over one another in our attempts to force a cooperation between us. I proposed we separate for a while, that we each do our own thing for a time. The others agreed, but we knew we’d start missing each other soon enough. We gave ourselves a hundred years to try some personal experimentation, after which we’d rendezvous, trade notes, and try a new timeline again, hopefully with some fresh ideas. In that time, I thought that, if I was going to have to live in a world with evil, I would try to understand it.”

She paused and the blue glow of the world glinted off her eyes. “I made a Devil of myself. The Queen of Blades. I made myself indulge in a sadism that, to this day, I still feel some revulsion for. Even when I performed the role, I couldn’t help but disassociate, studying myself as I acted. I didn’t really manage to get into the head of someone who truly enjoyed inflicting torture, but I suppose I saw enough to understand it a little. Still, when the experiment came to an end, I felt ashamed to have even play acted it. I tried to obliterate it from having ever existed.”

She smiled sadly. “But, like our Author, I have a hard time letting go completely. Just like after we tried to reinvent ourselves in the Grand Reboot, I could never truly forget all the things I’d done. And I suppose something out here in the Beyond reacted to that. Despite my best efforts, this little echo of memory continued on like a ghost, until it finally found me again.”

Reignbeau and Kat glanced to one another. Reignbeau put a hand on her shoulder. “Cyl, it’s okay. We’re goddesses. We have eternity to play with our identities and our existence. And when we fuck up, we try our best to fix things. That’s what us Omnys are all about, yeah? Finding ourselves, each other, and our place, adapting as we go.”

Cyl smiled softly at her. “Yes. I know. It’s an old lesson at this point.” She looked back at the World in her palms. “I don’t like what’s in here, but I accept why I made it, and I don’t regret that it helped me gain a little more perspective.” She took a breath, then held the fragment of the World to her chest. There was a brief blue glow, and when she pulled her hands away, they were empty. She had re-absorbed the essence of the World, accepting it as a piece of herself, just like all her Worlds were.

The other two looked warily at her for a moment, but Cyl smiled at them, clearly still completely in control of herself. Having accepted it all as just a bitter memory, the Queen’s psychic trap no longer held sway over her.

“Okay,” said Reignbeau, crossing her arms and giving Cyl a stern look. “Now that we have that old regret addressed, we’re going to hash out what it interrupted. So. One more time. What’s going on between you and me? Does it have something to do with your other self calling me your daughter?”

Cyl closed her eyes and took a moment to gather her words. When she opened them again, her gaze was sullen. “I think, existentially speaking, you might be one of my Created. Born from my loneliness out in the Beyond, my need for a like companion. And of course, because I’m me, I had to make you exceptional and tragic. My memories and biases giving you some twisted rendition of our past. One where I got to actually die for my sins, and Domina became the ultimate Devil I feared, in service to a cosmic horror even grander than Temael. And from all of that, out came you, a lost light of hope. An orphan strong enough to survive an apocalypse, but still needing a guiding hand. A hand I could give you, in exchange for your companionship out here.” She bowed her head. “I can’t say with certainty how much I am directly responsible for your existence, but I have not been able to shake the notion that I am at least partly to blame for the suffering you experienced. I am so sorry, Reignbeau.”

Reignbeau gave her a confused look. “Where’d you even get that idea?”

Cyl looked up at her again. “Illia theorized it, while we were discussing possibilities for how Ascension actually works. This was during the experiment with RoseGold. Looking at the grand scheme so far, with how Ascension has behaved, it made a little too much sense to me.” She sighed. “It is just a theory, but I suppose my propensity for dramatic thinking kept me from letting it go. I wanted to talk about it with you, but I just wasn’t sure how to broach the subject.”

Reignbeau frowned in thought. “Well, it’s real easy to connect dots in hindsight. Bear in mind, Salamando also just had an idea for a cool, kick-ass rainbow-haired Omny, and as usual, wanted to break his own lore to make her unique. So eventually, I show up, all mysterious, breaking the rules right away. And it just happened to also be timed with you returning from the Beyond to make a grand show of your upgraded power levels and reveal the return of Temael’s Mark. So, it’s easy to look back and extrapolate it to be more than it is.”

Cyl pondered the idea. “I suppose that’s another way of looking at it. But we are Authors ourselves, within the purview of our conceit, in a world where our whims do control reality. Maybe you would have showed up anyway. But the way you appeared, the form you took, and the memories therein, I can’t help but think I had a hand in that, the Ascension Force responding to my subconscious desires. Maybe your potential being was hovering, waiting for the opening, and it was my window of angst that you fell in through.”

Reignbeau gave her a studious look for a moment, then shrugged. “Eh, so what?”

Cyl blinked. “Hmmm?”

“We come to be how we come to be, and that’s just how it is. Maybe you made me outright, maybe you just guided me in, maybe the whole thing is a total coincidence. So what? My timeline didn’t happen, yet I remember it, so to me, it did anyway. You and the others retconned your timelines out of existence, but you remember them, so to you, they still happened. We’re fictives living in the dreams of an Author, reality is what we make of it.”

Reignbeau made a searching gesture as she tried to find the right phrasing. “Look, I’m not good with the philosophy mumbo-jumbo. What I’m trying to say is, whether I’m your unintentional Created or not doesn’t matter to me. You got made. I got made. We met. We’ve had each others’ backs, and been on each others’ backs, ever since. My past life sucked, but so did multiple of yours, but now our lives are awesome, even when things get rough. We’re peas in a pod, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!”

Cyl blinked again, stared for a moment, then let out a half-chuckle, half-sigh of relief. “Gods. For being the hot-head of the Five, you’re pretty level-headed about yourself.”

Reignbeau grinned. “I just call it like I see it. And I can see you got so worried about it, because you really do care about me.” She floated forward, wrapping Cyl in a hug, and kissing her deeply. “I love you, Cyl. And I don’t want you feeling guilty over me. I haven’t forgotten my past life, but it’s in the past. Just like your lives. Just like the Queen. I’m me now, and you’re you now. And if you really want to make it up to me, then please just don’t forget that. Alright?”

Cyl smiled warmly. “I promise I won’t, partner.” She leaned in for another kiss, and they lingered together for a while. And then they remembered they had another companion with them this time around.

***

Kat was politely floating off to the side, busying herself “universe gazing” across the depths of the Beyond, decidedly opposite to where the couple was hovering.

Cyl cleared her throat. “Sorry, Kat. You got wrapped up in a rather unusual sidetrack, even for us.”

Kat smiled knowingly as she looked back. “If you two need some lovers time together, don’t let me stop you.”

Reignbeau grinned and reached a hand out. “You wanna join us? Cross the hurdle the rest of the way?” Cyl raised a curious eyebrow at that.

Kat let out a little grunt of a laugh. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want to insert myself into your moment.”

Reignbeau shrugged. “Eh, we did the mushy romantic part, now’s usually when we get into the hot harcore part!” She looked to Cyl. “I mean, unless you mind?”

“Not at all,” said Cyl. “But let’s put a pin in that for now.” She turned and gave Kat a serious look. “I know I hurt you very badly as the Queen. I am so very sorry. Is there any way I can make it up to you?”

Kat shook her head. “You weren’t in your right mind. You were hurting yourself even more. I forgive you.”

“Nonetheless, if it’s within my power, and within reason, I’m willing to do anything you ask of me. If you can’t think of anything right now, then you can call in a favor later.”

Kat smirked. “I suppose this is the part where any other Omny would say all that’s needed is some payback in the sack.”

Cyl blinked, then smiled softly. “If you’re ready to expand your horizons, I would certainly be willing to help you.”

“We both would!” Reignbeau cut in.

“Yes. But I would not consider it proper compensation for what I did to you. So with or without that, I am at your service.”

Kat thought it over. “The other me I saw. The Anima Kat. I guess she was just an illusion made by the Queen. But she claimed you’ve had contact with some version of her. Is that true?”

Cyl nodded. “Yes. I met a Cosmic version of you once, in one of Salamando’s genre fiction Multiverses.”

“Cosmic? Really?” Kat frowned. “Was it the Anima?”

Cyl shook her head. “I don’t think so. There was a great Multiversal War that happened in that Reality Cluster. Multiple characters were temporarily Ascended into Conceptual Entities in order to stop the Crisis going on at the time. One of them was you, your various genre selves merging into a Cosmic Kat. One of my early jaunts was me butting myself into that whole mess. I’m ashamed to say I wasn’t much help.”

“Ah. Is she still around? That Cosmic Kat?”

Cyl paused. “Technically, the Character Gods returned to their various mortal selves, but the Concepts should still exist in some form over there. It’s quite a distance to travel, though.”

Reignbeau cut in. “Hey, you’re not still shook up over what the Queen showed you, are you? Do we need to do another Believe In Yourself speech?”

Kat laughed. “No, no. I mean, I already ran a simulated meet-up of my other selves a while ago. But I would like to actually talk to one of her for real. I guess this Cosmic Kat would be the most fitting, considering.”

Cyl nodded. “I can try to arrange a meeting, if that’s what you want.”

“Yeah,” said Kat. “That’d be great.”

“Alright,” said Cyl. She closed her eyes. “It’s been a while since we interacted, but I may be able to contact her through the Meta.”

Kat blinked. “Wait. You can call her from here?”

“Meta-communication is easier in the Beyond,” said Cyl, her voice a little droning as she focused on the conceptual plane beyond the Beyond.

“She’s also banned from re-entering our Reality Cluster, so making the trip would be a waste of time.” Kat and Reignbeau both jerked back in surprise as another Kat was suddenly there behind them, with zero warning of approach.

“Holy Hell!” said Reignbeau, instinctively getting into a defensive stance. “How the fuck did you do that?”

“I’m projecting through the Meta, using Cyl as a relay,” said the new Kat, motioning to the white-haired Omny, who appeared to have gone into a trance.

The woman floated over to her counterpart. She was the spitting image of her Omny self, save that she was wearing black jeans instead of blue, and her white shirt had black trim on the sleeves and collar, as well as a black cat-head emblem over the chest. Her eyes also glowed a slightly lighter shade of green.

“Um, hi,” said Omny Kat.

“Yo,” the other Kat said. She gave Omny Kat a thorough once-over. “So he really did make a super-slut version of me.”

Omny Kat sighed and scowled slightly, crossing her arms. “Could we not rehash that whole conversation, please?”

Cosmic Kat smirked. “Fair enough. Sorry. It’s just kinda funny to me. No offense.” She put her hands in her pockets and took a decidedly relaxed stance.

Omny Kat dropped her arms. “Fine.” She opened her mouth, but found herself at a loss for words. She looked to Cyl, who remained in trance. “I, uh, sorry, I gotta be honest, I wasn’t really prepared for this yet. I didn’t expect we’d meet this quick.” She glanced to Reignbeau, who hovered near Cyl, but didn’t interrupt. “Or, um, to have an audience for it.”

Cosmic Kat shrugged. “No rush.” She held out a hand. “Give me your psychic signature, and I’ll give you mine. Then we can talk through the Meta directly, whenever you’re ready.”

Kat reached for her hand for a moment, then hesitated, glancing to Reignbeau. “Would that be… safe…?”

Reignbeau frowned. “I’d say she’s probably trustworthy if she’s another you, but I guess Cyl got in trouble with her whole Character Pantheon or whatever.”

Cosmic Kat rolled her eyes. “Trust me, the last thing we want is to go to war with another Multiverse’s gods. Besides, we already know where your Omnyverse is. Long as you stay out of our hair, we’ll stay out of yours.” She looked to Omny Kat. “That said, I wouldn’t mind being pen-pals with a me I didn’t already merge with. I’m sure we’ve got some interesting stories to swap.”

Omny Kat nodded, then took her hand. “Sounds good to me.” She felt a little tingle in her brain, and a sudden spark of intuition came to her. She’d never actually tried Meta-communication before, but she suddenly found she knew how. Or at least, she knew how to contact people she had a conceptual reference point to signal.

They broke contact, and Cosmic Kat made a “call me” gesture. “Just ring me when you’re ready. Later.” She vanished. Then a split second later, she popped back into sight, turned, and gave Reignbeau and Cyl a studious once over. She turned back to Omny Kat, giving her a knowing smirk. “Have enough fun for the both us.” Then she vanished again, for real this time.

Reignbeau and Omny Kat’s eyes both raised in surprise. Cyl snapped out of her trance with a blink and looked to Kat. “That was a quick. Were you able to talk to her?”

Kat smiled sheepishly. “I, uh, kinda wasn’t ready yet, but she gave me her number so we can talk later.”

“Oh. Sorry. I thought it would take me longer to make the connection.” Cyl frowned slightly. “Is there anything else I can do?”

Kat shook her head. “Honestly, that’s enough. Really. Thank you.” She gestured to the Beyond. “For all of this.”

Cyl smiled softly. “You’re welcome, Kat.”

The three hovered in silence for a moment, not sure what to say next. Kat was looking the two Omnys over, weighing her feelings. The other two could feel a little awkward tension build.

Reignbeau cleared her throat. “Um, we really do mean it. We’re happy to have you join us. But we don’t want to pressure you into doing something you’re not ready for.”

Kat blushed slightly. “You’re both… very lovely.” She took a breath. “To be honest, though, I was working up the nerve to ask Demi and Wyllow, since we’ve been doing Realplays together.”

Reignbeau muttered and gave a flat look to the fourth wall. “Not on screen.”

“We do a lot of stuff off screen,” pointed out Cyl.

Reignbeau threw her hands up. “I’m just saying, he should actually write one of those Realplays sometime!”

“We’ll work on it,” said Cyl with a wry smile. She looked to Kat. “If you’re set on the Mingles, though, we won’t cut in.”

Kat swallowed nervously. “Well, that’s just it. I’ve been insisting on staying platonic with them for so long, it feels weird to just come out and impose my Omny deflowering on them. Plus, it’s like, we’re friends, we even share a mutual lover, but am I really interested in them that way? Or do I just want to know what the Energy Climax is like, and I’d only be asking them because they’d be the most convenient?”

Reignbeau let out an exasperated scoff. “God, you just love to overthink the sex thing, don’t you?” She suddenly teleported right up against Kat, grabbed her around the waist and by the back of her head, and kissed her.

Kat jumped, flailing for a second, bracing herself for the surge. But unlike before, Reignbeau didn’t ram her Erotic Energies into her, just kissed her with fierce passion. Kat grabbed her, but didn’t push her off. As the Erotic Energy naturally started flowing between them, she decided to go for it. She relaxed, embraced the other Omny, and returned the kiss with gusto. Cyl just watched, eyebrows raised, waiting to see where this led.

After a minute of passionate mouth-wrestling, Reignbeau broke the kiss and looked Kat in the eyes. The raven-haired Omny was flushed, her breathing husky, as she matched the rainbow-haired warrior’s gaze.

“How was that?” said Reignbeau, her voice more tender than usual.

Kat swallowed. “Good. That felt good.”

“You want to do more?”

Kat took a moment to simmer on it, before nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like to.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. If at any point you need to stop—”

Kat cut her off with another kiss, until they shivered together in a mini-climax. She broke the kiss, huffing. “I’m ready. I am.”

Reignbeau grinned. “Then let’s get it on!” She looked to Cyl. “You coming?”

Cyl smiled with bemusement. “Let’s not overwhelm her right away. You start her off.”

Cyl didn’t have to wait long. Kat and Reignbeau kissed and caressed each other until they reached a proper orgasm together. Then Reignbeau stepped aside, and let Cyl take over. The two switched off to ease Kat in with a few rounds of one-on-one, then the three came together in a tangle of sapphic lust. Their cosmic tryst managed to last a whole week, before Kat finally hit her limit, and all three let themselves go. Their Energy Climax lit up the Beyond-space like a triple-super-nova!

As the three recovered, they started drifting back home, hovering cozily together. Cyl and Reignbeau guided the way as they let Kat sleep off her first post-Omny-coitus hangover. The two Beyond-divers smiled at each other, no doubts or worries between them, while Kat mused on all the opportunities now open to her, both intimate and adventurous!

THE END