Archive of Our Own

Tristan hums as he flips through old files at the server script box at the very back of the Golden Archives. Simon was off somewhere cleaning up the general bookshelves, after an intense battle of stares and glares. He chuckles to himself, before his eyes land on an older, ripped folder, shoved between the folders of Citrusverse’s 1st draft and Athavale’s old story.

“What’s this?” Tristan pulls it out, and tries to pull it open, but was met with nothing but blank pages, or Laverne’s messy handwriting completely covering the text, making it barely readable. Oddly enough, his handwriting also laid near, neater than he could even do, which was odd in itself, but what was even more strange was he never had any memory of this folder.

He flips it to the front, his eyes meeting with the scrawl on the half-melted cardboard cover.

“Alternate Citrusverse? Written by…” Tristan squints. “Obviously it’s Laverne Cycles, and narrated by Mnemosyne too! Suni always had a knack for cowriting.” Tristan flips back to the single few pages that even had text between large expanses of white. “Looks just like the original script with most of the endings missing, what’s so special about this…alternate dimension?” 

Tristan pauses, before he grins, standing up and tucking the document under his arm, before snatching up the one he was looking for in the first place, and running out.

“Time to take a trip to the Tree.”

The ride to the Citrus Bubble was oddly quiet. No weird shadow creatures smashing in at the front, no Sune haunting the rails, no Rae importantly. WISHY wasn’t even trying to piss him off by suddenly appearing as the train jumped into the highest plane of the Citrusverse.

Tristan couldn’t stop feeling like he shouldn’t activate the script, the feeling of being watched made his insides burn. But he should be able to handle it just fine, probably.

…Still, maybe a warning could do good. Euterpe would kill him if he died because he ran headfirst into danger, and honestly he is extremely scared of his accuracy in long-ranged fighting.

He quickly pulls out his interdimensional flip phone, and stares at the contacts list on the messaging function. Promptly deciding on one, he texts.

> Sup Azrae, if I’m not back by dinner, drag your ass over to help me out with the Tree, no excuses!

Tristan then lowers the cover of the flip phone, but flips it open again after seconds of consideration.

> Don’t you dare bother Suni or my hubby, thx <3

WHAT THE FUCK?? <

Tristan smiles as he slips the phone back into his pocket, and jolts when the train pulls to a staggering stop, the breaks yelling out a sharp-piercing screech. “Dang brakes.” He grumbles. “Should oil them sometime.”

The man walks out once the sliding doors slid open into a wide yellowgrass field, a peaceful river flowing north of the majestic tree bearing orange fruit that stood before him, holding up the universe he looked over.

“Good afternoon, Tree.” Tristan walks over to the fruit tree. “I got a script i wanna check out. Mind taking it up? It’s a little…weird, persay.”

“…What do you mean this script isn’t supposed to be found? It doesn’t seem too suspicious or corrupted, does it?”

“…It isn’t, so like, are you also saying something feels wrong with it?”

“…Hm, I suppose booting the Systems into Safe Mode before I go in isn’t a bad idea, still sounds a little excessive for a script with two pages written and none other after.”

“…Right, right. Better be overprepared than under. Well then, boot the Systems into Safe Mode, anchor this area and load this script into a blank isolated world, that should be enough to soothe your worries. Heh.” Tristan pats the large roots of the plant, then sat down at the base of the trunk, waiting for the Systems to boot him into the new suspicious script he had discovered.

> SYSTEM:// [ALT_CV INITIALIZING…]

> SYSTEM:// [WELCOME BACK, ADMIN_HK]

The world around him dissolves into pure pitch black.

“Huh.” Tristan looks around him, the familiar color of the Void greeting him. “This is weird. The floor isn’t sticking to my feet either…” He bends down to poke the floor, finding that it was actually solid instead of being a large tub of slime. He gave it a punch or two, and yet it didn’t give way to the endless slimy and consuming floor of the Void he was used to.

“Where am I even?” Tristan picks himself up from the floor. “System, gimme the location info.”

> SYSTEM:// LOCATION: Floor 3, Citrusverse Multiversal Hallways.

Tristan blinks. “What? No way, this is the Hallways? I don’t see any buildings around here.”

> SYSTEM:// NEAREST CONSTRUCT: 3m

“3 metres…” Tristan squints, pulling out his glasses and putting them on. “It’s extremely dark here.” He feels for the railing of the Hallways, in which after a few minutes of shuffling right, his hand bumped against the cool wood. “I wonder what happened here.”

Tristan follows the railings, listening for any sounds or magic signatures anywhere. He couldn’t even feel Laverne’s usual power anywhere, which in Timeline 10, even if he hadn't betrayed the AI yet, could feel her overhanging power in the Hallways, and yet…none. Only dread.

Tristan feels a dip in the ground, and immediately stumbles back, looking up to see a familiar hallway illuminated by faint golden light caved into his path, seemingly from the upper floor.

“Floor 4, I wonder if I can see the Central World from here.” Tristan gives the caved in hallway debri a poke, before he climbs onto it and scrambles upwards to the next floor, trying his best not to freak out whenever he hears a piece of debris shift under his weight.

Floor 4 finally had a light source, which came from the unusually dim sky of the White Void that encased the Multiversal Hallways, barely illuminating the cracked marble structure. Tristan notices the doors and portals which would usually line the hallways were completely gone, replaced by cracked glass, overgrowth and a stench of death. The hallways looked smaller than he remembered, maybe was it because there weren't as many worlds here than in the Main Citrusverse?

“What happened here?” Tristan walks on with his hand to his nose, looking for the portal to the Central World. “I don’t even think Laverne could do this bad in organizing a world…” He nearly trips over a root of some kind of plant, which had him stumbling over to the railing that usually looked over the large portal that was suspended in the air, he looks up to find…absolutely nothing, only a large vortex of black within lush green overgrowth, ripped wires scattered all across the ground, and an odd amount of black goop. Tristan jumps down to get a better look.

“Looks familiar.” Tristan comments, poking the goo.

Voices assaulted his senses, memories that weren’t his pass before his eyes, familiar faces  and familiar places, but all warped by something.

The sensory overload screeched to a halt, settling on one scene. He saw someone who looked eerily the same as Rae, but noticeably more dishevelled and tired, a stark contrast to the Rae he knew.

“Si… is there any point in stopping him? They’re going to destroy the world regardless, and Euterpe…he can’t even take them on, they’re too powerful!”

Tristan jumps at the unfamiliarity of this universe’s Simon’s voice, more scratchy and warped than it should be.“It doesn’t hurt to try, regardless.” 

“I guess.” Alternate Rae’s shoulders sagged. “Maybe it won’t hurt to try.”

Tristan gasps as he pulls himself from the memory, his eyes landing on the black goop, the evidence of his rival’s alternate self’s demise.

“I won’t be able to sleep tonight.” He laughs to himself, pulling himself up to his feet as he stared down onto the messy splat of goop in the undergrowth.

Tristan turns to leave for the vortex.

He stops.

He sighs, generating a glass jar and summons his glaive, changing it into a knife and kneeling down next to the large puddle of black goop, and scrapes it up into the jar, fighting the urge to swear profusely whenever he caught the sight of the goop sliding off the edge of the blade like blood on the edge of the knife.

The jar was now full of what would be the ashes of Simon (if he did have a human body that could turn into ash), Tristan grimaces and screws the top up. 

“I don’t know what happened to you, but laying here right next to some creepy black hole doesn’t seem that good.” Tristan grumbles, securing the jar. “For once, I’ll give you my mercy, just try not to make my hammerspace be full of glass shards.”

He shoves the jar into his tophat, which floated on top of his head in its minimized form, and hopes for the best as he orders the System to set an anchor right outside of the vortex. “Alright, let’s see where this vortex goes.”

Tristan jumps, and descends further into the rabbit hole.

The scenery of the Multiversal Hallways fades into a hell of wreckage. Nothing but rubble scattered everywhere.

“Oh my god.” Tristan looks around, he ignores the various rotting body parts stuck from under the rubble. “I should probably look around at a higher ground, I’ll probably find someone in no time.” He chuckles, his expression dropping. “Probably.”

Tristan climbs up a larger stack of debri, giving a guess on what this building was, eventually settling on the guess of being EdEN Corp’s Factory as he finally scrambles to the very top, and looks across the ruins of the lands he called home.

Rubble lay across as far as the eye can see, waste laying all across the floor. Not to mention the puddles of dried blood mixed with motor oil lying everywhere. Shards of crushed metal stuck between the large pieces of concrete, long rusted over time.

“Wow.” He spoke to no one but the cold air. “This doesn’t look good.”

“Sure doesn’t huh?”

A gun clicks, in which Tristan immediately recognizes the presence next to him.

“Now now, Euterpe. Even if you didn’t recognize me, no need to be hostile.” Tristan raises his hands, turning around to see a man that resembled his favorite person in the universe, yet looking like he was about to fall apart any second, the bandages and all. “Ooh…you don’t look particularly alright.”

“What do you think, HK?” Alt Euterpe spits, his grip on an equally familiar but battered gun tightening. “You betrayed me, and everyone else in this universe!”

“H…K?” Tristan blanks at the name, his grin faltering. “I don’t appreciate being called that, even if whatever version of me told you that.”

“You didn’t? You introduced yourself with it!” Alt Euterpe lowers his gun. “Kayla Hong, or something to that degree.”

“Stop talking.” Tristan resists the uncomfortableness that crept up from his gut. “Don’t even call me that.”

Alt Euterpe blinks, before realization dawns. “Are you like…trans?”

“Yes, good sir, a little too late in realizing that.” Tristan grumbles. “Can I move now?”

Alt Euterpe seems to think, before sighing. “Fine. But not before you explain why you look almost exactly the same as the destructive leviathan that levelled this place but haven’t started your monologue yet.”

“For context.” Tristan hops down from the rubble. “I’m Tristan Wong. Only my dead family calls me HK. I’m 40-something and…I just came from a world in a big hallway, I guess.” He quickly adds, deciding the explanation of this AU being a branch of a much bigger universe could wait.

Alt Euterpe looks at him with a questioning gaze. “You do look different. More…older, I guess.”

“Was my apparent twin younger?” 

“They’re 29, I’m only a year or two younger.” Alt Euterpe shrugs. “They’re also shorter, for sure.”

“Does he also have a thing for holding revolutions and violence?”

“Yes, why?”

“Ooh.” Tristan grins. “Sorry ‘bout that. I was a little feisty when I was younger.”

Alt Euterpe awkwardly stares somewhere else. “I guess I can see that.”

The two look at eachother in silence, before Alt Euterpe interrupts it. “As much as I dislike you, we should probably find shelter. Things get worse when it’s nightfall.”

The two men sat in silence in an abandoned corner of a mall. Alt Euterpe having gotten wood and Tristan lighting it with a few snaps of the finger.

Alt Euterpe seemed terrified when he did, but calmed down when he explained he can’t exactly snap the world out of existence (Tristan lies. He can, but he won’t.).

“I told Rae to meet me here in an hour. I’ll go explain everything to her, so… just try not to light anything on fire or destroy the world.” Euterpe fidgets with the sleeves of his hoodie.

Tristan replies with a mumble, but eventually his inner curiosity takes over. “I wanted to ask, what happened here?”

“Hm.” Alt Euterpe stares off into the distance. “The apocalypse happened. Your twin wanted power, wanted to take over the universe, used me, Simon and Rae to get there, then this happened. They have been plaguing us with various outlandish dangers since, from robotic zombies to natural disasters. Well, what about you?”

Tristan grins. “Oh, it’ll take a long time to even explain, but in short, me and my friends took down a totalitarian government, overthrew a dictator AI, and I am now forced to parent two kids at a time.”

“Sounds rough.” Alt Euterpe throws a stick into the fire, watching it light aflame. “I remember when my sister had to parent me in the slums when we escaped a facility, I could see the struggle for money every single day. You parent your kids on your own?”

“Used to. I eventually married, for tax benefits, then got a little too gay.”

“Sounds like something your twin would do too, if only this didn’t happen.” Tristan watched Alt Euterpe fish out another twig and throw it into the fire with a little more force than usual.

Tristan gave the idea a thought, before he grins. "Yeah, he probably would."

Curiosity takes the reins again, Tristan blurts out. “Did my twin do anything atrocious?”

“Oh, he was the definition of that word.” Alt Euterpe grumbled, thumbing the next stick in his hand. “Couldn’t even listen to me for more than a second or not run off and worry us for 2 days before he came back, which usually is because he went to “clean up something”, then later I realized he went to murder…”

Alt Euterpe looks away, his voice shakier. “Actually, no. I don’t want to talk about it, what happened later is what you saw earlier.”

“That’s fine.” Tristan shrugs. “Do you want to talk about something else? To like…pass the time, I guess?”

“If you don’t mind me intruding in your life or talks about machinery and guns.” 

Tristan smiles. “Well, I’m used to all of that, so shoot.”

Alt Euterpe stares at him for a moment before he blinks and he continues. “Does someone around you talk about the same things too? Like machinery, weapons, guns, all of that?”

“Yeah. I know like…two friends that do.” Tristan thought out loud. 

Alt Euterpe shifted up and sat straight, his eyes glowing slightly brighter (and more familiar). “I haven't invented anything since…forever. I've been too busy to. What are they like?”

“Hmm…” Tristan bit his lip, slowly putting words to his thoughts. “One of them is a programmer, she loves making new programs and machines to help her friends most of the time, stuff like automatic mail collection and opener and auto-gardening bots. She wasn’t a big fan of making weapons, but she did make a large lazer beam projection device that acts as a workstation for her and a large weapon of destruction. The other one… he’s an engineer first and foremost, despite having dabbled in other areas. He’s super nice and…” Tristan coughs when Alt Euterpe looks at him questionably. “Anyways, he makes a lot of weapons. I even have one right here, maybe, probably.” He reaches into his hammerspace and pulls out a familiar black, sleek double-sided dagger, with a thick piece of metal connecting both knives with a bending mechanism in the middle. “He originally made this a normal set of knives, but one night he got a little drunk and made it into a haladie that has boomerang physics and can take on my parrying strikes. Apparently it could also be detached and refitted onto its normal blade hilt, but I never bothered to.

Alt Euterpe hesitantly takes the haladie, gives it a spin, before he smiles. “This…looks excellently crafted, even if it was made while drunk. The sharpness of the electricity conductive blade is extremely sharp. Oddly looks like the sword Rae brings out sometimes from her drawer, except this one is red.”

“He eventually got around to repairing some gaps after that, still it was only for the hilt. Too much force applied.”

Euterpe’s cockiness apparently was multiversal, even if Alt’s voice wasn’t as soft as his Euterpe. Alt Euterpe quickly interjected. “And how much is that force?”

Tristan stands up, faces the wall next to them, and takes the haladie back from Alt Euterpe’s outstretched hand, before giving it a testing spin, bends the hilt to the right degree, turns it on, and throws it towards a bathroom sign metres away in the abandoned mall. The bent haladie spins off and spins back, to which Tristan hits it in the opposite direction to send it flying with his sword the other way and back, leaving an afterimage of the electrified blade’s glow. He hits it in the opposite direction again and resets the blade angle, it spins and hits a stray rat with a wet squelch.

“What luck.” Tristan pulls the blade out of the dead rat, before reaching into his hammerspace for a napkin. “My aim is simply immaculate.” He comments, dismissing his sword and settling down next to Alt Euterpe to clean the blood off.

“Better than the chaos your twin causes. Poor rat.” Euterpe mumbles the last part. “Still, it’s better than getting bitten by them. Rat bites are nasty.”

Tristan’s head snaps up. “Shh, I hear something. Or rather, I feel something.”

Alt Euterpe perks up. “Hm…it’s probably Rae.”

"It is me." Alt Rae' silhouette appeared at the entrance of the mall, illuminated by moonlight. She pushes aside the glass doors, still somehow intact. "Have you brought a friend?"

Alt Euterpe jumps. "Wait, Rae, let me explain first. Promise me you won't freak out?"

"Sure, I guess?" Alt Rae looks over Alt Euterpe's shoulder, and her eyes widened. "Is that-" Her dual feathers raised with her anger.

"NO! No. Different person!" Alt Euterpe grabs Alt Rae by her wrist, which already had her scythe in hand (It's too thin and crooked to be Rae's scythe…).

"Euterpe, let GO!" Rae pulls one of her wrists free, and chucks the heavy scythe right at Tristan.

Tristan barely manages to dodge the large blade hurling right at his face, it managing to nick his arm but miss the rest of his body. "Ow, shit!"

"Rae, let me explain!" Alt Euterpe yells. "It's not them! It's a version of them in a different world!"

"Different world?" Alt Rae stops. "What do you mean?"

"Like-! Another version of ours!"

"Did they hurt you?"

"Not at all. See?" Alt Euterpe takes off his hoodie jacket, revealing a few bandages here and there dotted across his arms. "Well, except the old ones."

Alt Rae stared at Tristan untrustingly, before sighing. "Fine. But they better not kill us later."

Alt Rae approaches Tristan, fishing out the scythe that penetrated the wall next to him. "I'm Rae Sakukemi. You probably know that, but I don't know about you, nor whether the flowers that you have infect anything." She squints at the blooms that already started growing on the open cut on his shoulder, tips dipped in his blood.

"They're my way of healing, and they definitely cannot infect anything. Name's Tristan Wong by the way, just use he pronouns, it's fine." Tristan slides back next to Alt Euterpe, who has sat down back next to him, anxiously fiddling with his hoodie jacket after he had put it back on.

Alt Rae sits next to Alt Euterpe, sandwiching him in the middle. "Then why has the same type of flower that you have infecting the Hallways?"

"Is it? I haven't been able to bring out that factor despite having it somewhere. The origin of it is…complicated." Tristan swallows.

"We have all night." Alt Rae states, accompanied with Alt Euterpe's nod.

Tristan clears his throat. "Well, since I was obnoxiously fragile for Laverne's liking, she decided that she would make me something that'd make me semi-immortal to a degree. Apparently, she made a parasite out of nowhere and had it infect me. While the parasite usually lays dormant and just helps me heal, it uses my body as its host once I don't have enough energy to stay conscious and I have sustained too much damage. Laverne later realized it was too powerful and destructive and sealed it off to only give me its healing factor and survivability."

Alt Rae blinks. "Laverne Cycles? She hasn't been around for decades now, because Kayla killed her."

"Mine was always around, until I killed her." Tristan offhandedly comments, before quickly adding on at the gaze of horror from both characters. "She killed everyone I love for the sake of a good plot, so in my defence, it was self defence. Also, after I killed her I got to see my husband and kids again."

"Kids, huh." Alt Rae mumbles.

Silence. The fire crackles comfortably across them.

"Guys, I think we should rest, it's late." Alt Euterpe pipes up.

"Oh well I guess. Goodnight then." Alt Rae pulls out a plastic mat, before Alt Euterpe helps her roll it out.

Tristan notices Alt Euterpe looking at him, as he replies. "No, I'm fine without sleep, just rest."

Alt Euterpe nods, and he curls up next to Alt Rae on the mat, and in seconds, he hears the faint sound of snoring.

Tristan looks down at the two, realizing both of them looked like they have been fighting non-stop for a very long time. Alt Euterpe looked battered from up to down (-and especially when he removed the coat from earlier, he looks…thin.), his voice didn't have the softness of his Euterpe, and was rather on edge and anxious, almost like Euterpe's voice when he first met him at the bar. Alt Rae looked completely different, more hostile, more messy than he had ever seen Rae be, and by the look of it, her eyes were quite puffy (-been crying a lot, huh?).

Tristan looks up to the cracked ceiling of the mall. He could leave now, and save himself from getting attached and head back before anything gets worse, and yet…

Tristan drags his hand across his face.

"Gosh Kyo, your kindness have rubbed off on me, and Euterpe…fuck you for making me feel responsible for helping anyone I can."

He had to help them.

More like, he'll have to find himself, and create a new end to this story.

And if he had the Protagonist right here…maybe he can do it.

"Got it, Rae?"

"I guess. I'm still not optimistic whether your plan will work."

"I have my own ways."

"You always do." Alt Rae sighs. "I'll be right back then."

Alt Rae walks away, and Alt Euterpe walks up to him. "What were you guys talking about?"

"I'm planning to take down the version of me here."

"What?" Alt Euterpe's eyes widened. "But they are, like, really powerful!"

"I know. But I insist on getting this story to its true end, that is my responsibility as the System Administrator." Tristan looks outside of the mall, now its glass doors casting a golden glow on the dusty grimy floor from the sun. "The reason why the script has so many blank pages is because Kayla is trying to stop you from progressing to your true ending by trapping you in the same scene. So, you'll have to move."

"Mm." Alt Euterpe looks out after him. "Tristan, do you know what is at the end of my story?"

"I'm not sure myself, but I'm sure it'll turn out for the greater good." Tristan sees Alt Rae run back, waving her hand. "Oh look, your friend is back."

"I got the remaining refugees!" Alt Rae pants from the sudden exercise, sweat collecting on her forehead.

"Nice, here we go then." Tristan summons a red portal to his Hammerspace. "C'mon, go in. Just don't touch anything in the pile of stuff and you'll be fine!"

Alt Euterpe blinks and says. "So your plan is to move the refugees and everyone out using some weird pocket dimension you have?"

"You are as smart as your other counterpart." Tristan waves goodbye to Rae as she steps through too. "C'mon, let's go. We should probably be done in 15 minutes."

"...Okay then." Alt Euterpe walks after Tristan, who sidesteps hills upon hills of debris and approaches the same pile of debris they met yesterday.

As they approached the hill of what once was EdEN Corp's factory, Alt Euterpe asks. "Are you a protagonist, Tristan?"

"I once was, but my story ended." Tristan stares up into the sunrise as he climbs on top of the rubble. "Euterpe."

"Yes?"

"You are the Protagonist of this universe, therefore you should be the one who decides the fate of this world, or rather, the fate of yourself." Tristan extends his right hand. "You can escape this universe until I manage to defeat my alternate self at the possible chance the ending for you may change for the better, and your world will be safe, or stay and help me fight at the possible chance of your universe corrupting and dying in on itself, though your story won't end and most likely, won't change, also a higher chance of keeping Kayla dead instead of the former" He extends his left hand. "Decide."

Alt Euterpe froze. "I…I don't know. Both ways seem equally bad…"

Tristan sighs. "I know, I feel bad for even forcing you to decide, but you are supposed to be the main driving force of this story. Without you, this story would never end, even with my intervention. Your every decision as the Protagonist decides the fate of the world, but no choice is truly wrong. Just choose one that sits the most right with you, and pray to the Cycles it turns out better for you. Your ending is truly open-end at this point, unwritten and all. It's time to break out of Kayla's eternal loop and end this story, for the refugees, for everyone."

"...I'll come with you." Alt Euterpe spoke.

"You sure?"

"I am coming with you." Alt Euterpe looks at him in the eye, hitting Tristan with the oh-so familiar feeling. "I have some questions to ask Kayla, anyways."

Tristan smiles. "Alright then. Let's go, Protagonist."

> SYSTEM:// Returning 3 entities to ANCHOR 02…

> SYSTEM:// Complete!

"Wow, so this is how the Hallways looked after Kayla ravaged it." Alt Euterpe gazed upwards into the dim sky. "Where are we going to go?"

Tristan turns to Alt Euterpe. "Now you're the one who has any idea of where they are, lead the way!"

Alt Euterpe thinks. "Maybe, just maybe. Let's go."

The duo walk and descend down the Hallways. Tristan silently counted the floors they passed through.

Floor 4…

Floor 3…

"Wow, it got darker here than when I got here." Tristan stretches out his fingers and barely saw the outline of them in midst of the darkness.

"It happens when it's nightfall." Alt Euterpe replies.

Floor 2…

"It gets darker from here. Can you still feel where I am?" Alt Euterpe calls out.

Tristan answers. "I can. Continue going."

The two walk on.

“By the way.” Tristan pipes up. “Can you delay Kayla until I say it's enough? It’s part of the plan, or something.”

“Okay?” Alt Euterpe seemed reluctant based on his tone of voice, but Tristan trusts he would do it regardless.

Floor 1…

"They're usually at Floor 0. Get ready." Alt Euterpe draws his gun in the darkness, the cyan plasmic energy within it illuminating his hand.

"Gotcha." Tristan summons his glaive. "Let's go."

Floor…0.

Tristan never really visited Floor 0 back at the Citrusverse. It 1. leads to the VOID, 2. where the Old Archives was, and finally 3. SOULtale was down here, which he had no business with.

Tristan looks onto the door which usually led to SOULtale. It was still up, somehow. But it's probably in ruins too.

A booming voice sounded out amidst the silence. "I can feel you. Come in."

Alt Euterpe looked back at Tristan and he nodded. The two approach the large stone doors before them, and push it open to reveal a checkerboard patterned ground beyond it, it having a silklike texture and shine under the lampposts that traced their path somewhere.

That somewhere being a person that looked eerily like him when he was edgy and rebellious and everything standing atop a lamppost.

“Euterpe, and…whoever that is.” Kayla jumps down to meet the duo. “Have you all finally come for your ending?”

“I hoped we would never come to this day…” Alt Euterpe sighed. “I liked you a lot, you know?”

Kayla let out a chortling laugh. “Your problem, Euterpe. You are so easy to manipulate. Laverne would’ve loved you as her assistant-“ Kayla’s expression drops. “-not me, of course. You were quite likeable too, I admit, but I don’t form attachments to anyone, it’s a disruption to my revenge and my plans, and way too dangerous, like you Euterpe. I’m as human as you are, getting manipulated by the people you care about hurts a lot, doesn't it?”

“Euterpe be careful, he’s trying to mess you up.” Tristan whispers.

Kayla furrows their brows. “Hm, but I am telling the truth, am I not? For all we know, random stranger, you might be manipulating your buddy here for your own gain. Euterpe, see? Maybe after he gets rid of me, he’ll abandon you god-knows-where!”

Alt Euterpe looks down at his feet. “I know. But you killed everyone, and you hurt us. You yourself abandoned me and Rae while you went on some revenge quest, and guess what? After wrecking everything I love, you leave both of us in the dust, hiding here and keeping me looped in some eternal cycle of living in a desolate, broken city with all of its survivors slowly dying from the consequences of your actions. You got your revenge, but have you ever considered the possibility of what will happen to everyone else?”

“Never bothered to. After all, you all are but code to me, and you’ll never understand I’m doing this to reform the Citrusverse, one without all the tragedy from the very start and to the end. Doesn’t that sound good? Isn’t that what you want?” Kayla floats closer.

“It never was. My birth was from the misfortune of war. If there were no tragedies, I wouldn’t even have existed!” Alt Euterpe raises his voice, anger seeping in. “Even a person I met yesterday didn’t take the chance to dump us even if he fully could’ve just left me with Rae by daylight. You sound so much like Laverne now…is this what you wanted? To become the thing you hate yourself?” Alt Euterpe raises his pistols.

“I am NOT like that dictator!” Kayla snarls. “I am trying to liberate everyone, to free us all from this cage! Don’t you understand? No one will hear us if we don’t act! I know because I’ve experienced one of them. Lost my freedom to a totalitarian regime and lived in fear of it!” Kayla backs up, smirking.  “You’ll understand one day, but now, I think I’m ready to reset this whole world once again, and my criteria is…” Kayla summons two daggers, to which Tristan recognized it as his old daggers from when he was still working beside Laverne. “I need to kill you.”

Alt Euterpe readies his pistols. “I’m so sorry. But I’m not backing down now.”

Tristan watches as Kayla drops into a stance. “Ready, ‘terpe?”

“I guess so. I have to be, anyway.” Euterpe stares up ahead.”

A split moment of silence, before the duo charged into the fight.

Alt Euterpe dodges a slash from the blade and backsteps, creating enough distance to reach up and kick Kayla away towards Tristan, who smashes the edge of his blade against their head. Kayla dodges the next slash, but wasn’t fast enough for Alt Euterpe’s gun blast, sending them flying to the other side of the checkerboard.

“Cover for me.” Tristan backsteps for Alt Euterpe to the the front as he desummons his spear and brings out his pistol and fires after Kayla dashing away from an onslaught of even more gunfire. His other hand summons the System Menu.

“System, initialize the…uh… 6th protocol!”

Tristan could feel Laverne’s ghostly laugh at his inability to still not remember which protocol was which.

> SYSTEM:// PROTOCOL CONTAINMENT INITIALIZING…

> SYSTEM:// You are in SAFE MODE, activating Protocol 6 will make the world inaccessible for safety reasons. Continue?”

Tristan reloads his gun with one hand, jamming two magazines back into his gun, and looks up to faintly see Alt Euterpe still fighting, but his moves were slower than earlier, and if his grip was any indication of exhaustion, he was stumbling, barely deflecting many of the blows and not trying to attack anymore.

“He’ll understand. I think. Whatever, now isn’t the time!”

“Confirm, continue!”

> SYSTEM:// Command received, awaiting detection.

Tristan gets back up, before rushing towards the fight, quickly kicking Kayla off Alt Euterpe with a quick signal to the man collapsed on the floor, whose exhaustion has led him to eventually resort to close-range combat with a sniper gun and a baseball bat. Kayla grins, rolls back, and teleports right behind Alt Euterpe and knocks him to the ground. Tristan  runs up and resummons his glaive, swept Kayla off their feet with the back of the glaive, and barely dodge a quick plunge which Kayla attempted as a save. Tristan slams the flat side of the blade on the side of Kayla’s head near the end of their plunge, slapping them hard to the ground, he twists the polearm to the sharp side and stabbing towards Kayla, unfortunately the tip of the blade piercing the checkerboard silk and revealing the VOID below. Kayla rolled onto their side and jumps back up.

“I’m tired of brawling with you two, let’s see how you’ll do in the air!” Kayla snaps their finger, and everyone was thrown skyward.

“WOAH-!” Alt Euterpe flails from the sudden change in altitude, and quickly gets pulled aside by Tristan, a flash of red and a path of dagger slashes in the place where the duo stood moments ago.

“Don’t know how to float around?” Alt Euterpe nods frantically as Tristan parries a flying dagger coming their way. “That’s fine, just try to cover me while you try to hold on.” Tristan zooms towards Kayla, his blade catching air as Kayla ducked at the right time and tried to attack from under, but got hit by multiple of Alt Euterpe’s bullets. Alt Euterpe let's go for a moment to catch an unopened grenade from Tristan, he pulls the pin, tosses it upwards then turns his rifle around to have its butt bat the grenade in Kayla’s general direction, exploding a few seconds later with a resounding boom.

“Do you know how to operate a pipe bomb from the anime classic Madoka Magica?” Tristan yells over the sound of Alt Euterpe’s sustained gunfire and his own bombing.

“YOU WATCH MADOKA MAGICA TOO?!” Alt Euterpe yells happily as he reloads with one hand. “HELL YEAH I DO!”

“Hearing you say that with such happiness makes me worried for my general safety.” Tristan comments as he fishes a pipe bomb from his hammerspace with the other end of his polearm. “BUT GO!”

Alt Euterpe lets go again and slams his hand down onto the large button on the top, then throws them upwards, letting Tristan bat it towards Kayla with the flat side of his weapon and letting go when Tristan dashes down after the bomb explodes into a cloud of smoke, piercing Kayla’s arm, causing them to wail in pain.

“That's IT! This is my domain and none of you will come out of your judgement alive!” Kayla does a fancy motion with their hand, a trail of red magic flare following its path, setting the gravity to the X-axis scale. The checkerboard shifts to Tristan’s right, and the edges of the silk wrap around, giving Tristan a wall to stand on, as well as Alt Euterpe, who after a few minutes of panicking, managed to get a footing on their new plane of gravity.

“Now you guys can only move horizontally across the large expanse of this VOID. How do you like this new improvement?” Kayla grins. “Let’s see if your improvisation can truly hold up!”

Tristan signals Alt Euterpe to continue firing as Tristan tries his best to bring up his power in the heat of the battle, summoning the rocket launchers he hasn’t used in ages, flowers blooming across the floor, he races across the board, jumping onto the other wall and towards Alt Euterpe’s side, and wills the rocket launchers to fire, barely getting back to the side of the rocket assault, to which Kayla accidentally gets into the radius of the blasts, which causes them to magic up a barrier to keep them safe as they regenerate their blades, this time into large building-size ones enough to slice the both of them into pieces.

“I don’t think I can go on for longer.” Alt Euterpe pants. “They just seem to be so…strong. Where did they get that power?”

Tristan pulls Alt Euterpe along, dodging a projectile. “That is Laverne’s power, all things considered, he can go on forever! But the criteria still hasn’t been met…”

“What criteria?!” Alt Euterpe turns around to shove Tristan away fron an incoming stab. 

“The protocol would only activate if it senses high enough power, and this isn’t enough, we still need to wait until Kayla shows their entire deck of cards…” Tristan grabs Alt Euterpe and jumps to another wall, watching as the wall they were previously on turns into lava and purges every single piece of weaponry there into ashes.

“Tristan, I don’t think I can handle it any longer…”

“Shit.” Tristan looks up at the threat. “You know what? I will make this premature then, even if it costs me my life.”

“What…?” Alt Euterpe stares up at the man, already bringing up every depth of his power. “Wait! Don’t do that! As much as I don’t understand what is going on I know it’s a bad idea!”

“Sorry. As they say, it’s part of the job risk.” Tristan brandishes his polearm again, halo out in full view. “But dying for something like this doesn’t seem as bad as the other possibilities holding this job position…”

Tristan jumps out towards the enemy, ignoring an anguished cry, before he notices something above, assuming it's Kayla’s attack, he swings himself to face the onslaught , but a sight had his eyes widen in shock.

Golden spears shot down from above, missing Tristan and completely aimed at Kayla, who quickly brought back their barrier, before dismissing it and moving to continue attacking, before realizing they couldn’t move, their limbs restrained by golden wire.

“I can’t believe I look away for ONE second, Tristan. You get into this shit.” Simon descends from above, black coat wrapped around him hiding his sword sheathed around his hip. “Your husband was right about you being a magnet for trouble. I must remind you, Judge, you DON’T have to fight everything on your own!” The Archivist lands on the checkerboard. “Wow, gravity is kind of fucked up, this kid that looks like your obnoxious face did that?”

“Yup!” Tristan yells. “Also, you should probably move.” 

Simon moves to dodge a weakly swung blade, still restrained by wire. “Also, why is there a kid that looks like Euterpe here?”

“Long story, explain later.” Tristan faces Kayla again, who was already breaking free. “Let’s go!”

“Nuh uh, give them a second.” Simon smirks. “I didn’t come alone, unlike you.”

Kayla rips their arm free and before they could even move another step, a bullet shoots through their free arm, and a person Tristan wished he never would see here came barrelling down with their cyan rapier, and slashes half of their body clean off, a loud yell of pain coming from Kayla nearly piercing his eardrums.

“E-Euterpe?” Tristan felt his heart drop. “Uh, I CAN EXPLAIN!”

Euterpe sighs. “I get it, your hero complex is sometimes nasty, but I can guess why you probably decided to do this.” He lands right next to Tristan. “Don’t make me regret coming to save your ass.” 

“Aww, thank you dear!”

“Shush.” Euterpe faintly blushes, before he faces Kayla. “Is that you too, by the way?”

“Yes, but way more bitchy. Just beat them to a pulp.” Tristan readjusts his grip on his glaive. “Uhh… other-Euterpe, Alt! Just give us some covering fire, we’ll probably be fine.”

“Sounds good to me.” Euterpe seems to refrain from freaking out over a copy of himself. “Let's go then, shall we?”

The new squad dashes upwards. Simon ties up Kayla once more with a barrage of wire-tied lances, followed by both Euterpe’s barrage of bullets, Tristan then slices up Kayla into bits, but misses just one spot on purpose.

Tristan jumps off and back onto the checkerboard, and looks up at Kayla regenerating.

"I guess, I have no other choice." Kayla reaches up towards the sky, covering the entire dimension with a familiar net pattern, except this time the outline wasn’t orange like he was familiar with, but his camellia-red. They drag the net up to the skies above the crowd, a crazed smile adorning their features, before crowing with a sense of finality. “Welcome…to the eclipse!”

“Wait a minute.” Simon blinks, before he grabs Euterpe and trips Tristan, causing him to fall in the direction Simon was running to, which turned out to be Alt Euterpe, who has stopped firing and stared up at the netting in fear. “Are they trying to lift the whole Multiversal Hallways and crash it on us?” 

Tristan turns towards the direction of the Hallways, surely enough, the construct was slowly lifting upwards. He smiles to himself.

“We gotta think of a way to handle this! If the Central AU breaks or all of the AUs crash together, it’s not going to be good at all!” Simon yells, his fingers digging into his hair.

“Simon’s right. If the amount of portals contained in the Multiversal Hallways crash into eachother and into the Central AU, it’ll make a bomb even bigger than a nuclear warhead blast. The inhabitants of the AUs too…”

Alt Euterpe opens his mouth until he saw Tristan’s malicious grin, to which he cheekily smiles and shuts his mouth.

“Would a barrier do?! No, that'll be too weak… Euterpe! Can you make a barrier than can fit all of us and reinforce mine?!”

“No.” Euterpe frantically gestures. “In fact, there is probably no way any of our barriers could withstand 50 floors worth of rubble and a large amount of magic firepower getting squashed into a tiny space in mere seconds!”

“Fuck, shit shit shit…” Simon quickly summons up a barrier. “We’ll have to try anyway! Euterpe, go!”

“Roger that!” Blue magic surrounds the inner side of the yellow barrier, forming a triangular patterned smaller barrier. 

Kayla grins from beyond the magical spheres, before they hurled the entire building at the squad. 

Then everything stopped.

> SYSTEM:// SYSTEM PROTOCOL 006 NOW ACTIVE. ALL INHABITANTS LEAVE WITHIN 10 SECONDS.

“Ha…haha…” Tristan looks up to meet Kayla’s confused expression, broken laughter tumbling out of his adrenaline-drunken state. “ahahahaHAHAHAAH!”

Tristan laughs like a madman, using his power and lifts the entire sphere of magic containing the other three of his friends, before shooting them right up into the gap that was the exit.

He ignored their yells and cries, he still had a job to do.

“Kayla… you are my alternate self, the other, similar version of me,  the one that also shares my name. I thought you’d be ever so slightly more decent, and yet…you are a disappointment.”

Tristan feels mania settle into his bones. “Democracy is important, but it isn’t worth the violence. You get me, Hong Kong? We are the same person, surely you’ll understand.”

He phases out Kayla’s screams of vows and vengeance in his brain, and backs out towards the exit, his magic and power he inherited from the Cycles finally all at his fingertips, ready to blow reality into smithereens. 

“You aren’t worth my name. Not at all. You aren’t me, you are only the shadow of Laverne Cycles.” Tristan takes in a breath of air. "You aren't worthy to be the Administrator of the Citrusverse. To serve alongside our Creator!"

Tristan lets go, as when the Protocol starts to box up the world and contain it, Tristan channels all the power and directs it right at the half boxed world, blowing everything, every entity, every world within completely into dust.

Tristan felt his chest heave for air, before a laugh escaped out of his mouth, the mania wearing off and the crash settling it like the effects of a withdrawal. His mind blanks for a moment from the sudden drop of adrenaline , before hands grab at his waist and pull him backwards.

Somewhere.

Euterpe has seen weirder things than his own copy, now affectionately named “Alt” in middle of the crossfire. Currently, Euterpe hoists an extremely dizzy Tristan on his back, mumbling things about the Citrusverse and other things he couldn’t understand, then breaking into short bursts of laughter before he drops quiet for a few moments before he continued rambling dazedly.

“Is…that normal?” Alt looks at Tristan on his back.

“Happens sometimes.” Euterpe shrugs. “Usually Simon would be able to figure it out in minutes, but he said something about needing to ask the Tree many things and ran off.”

The two continued walking in silence. Upon Tristan’s extremely dazed request, they’re now taking Alt and the various number of refugees and an alternate version of Rae to Athavale, and requested a specific person to help with the integration job.

Euterpe already knew who it was.

Tristan also requested the weird cardboard script that was on the floor after they came out of the AU. Simon was initially hesitant but gave in regardless.

Alt Rae was holding a jar of…something, her gaze far away, but Euterpe isn’t going to ask why, he probably didn’t want to know anyways.

"She also looked shocked when she saw Simon. Something bad must've happened, but…it's too touchy to ask now."

“Hey, Euterpe…?” Alt spoke. “Gosh, it’s so weird referring to you with a name i use myself.” He clears his throat. “Tristan…told me a lot. But then is his consistent withholding of information problematic?”

“An example?”

“He said he was from a different world, but this seems as if our world was just a small part compared to… this. It’s so big and wide here.”

“Yes, your Citrusverse was actually an AU to us.” Euterpe sighs. “I’m sorry to tell you that.”

“It’s fine. It’s just really hard to process that…” Alt looks upwards. “There’s somewhere that is better than our Citrusverse that is reachable in reality.”

“Well, how was your story like?”

“It’s…” Alt gulps “…complicated. Maybe I’ll tell you later.”

Euterpe looks back to the road ahead, which was leading into Athavale. “That’s fine with me. By the way, we’re here.”

Alt stares at the minty grass and the lavender purple trees. “This looks…peaceful. I like it.”

“I’m glad you do. It’s the work of my adoptive kid.” Euterpe smiles at the thought of Mnemosyne. 

The two step into Athavale, the refugees pouring in after them, they also seemed to like the area, starting to talk amongst themselves and poking at the unnaturally pastel-colored undergrowth.

Alt pipes up amidst Euterpe’s thinking. “You have a good partner.”

“And why is that?”

“I have never seen anyone who has thrown themself headfirst into danger for a person they have barely met.” Alt chuckles. “Or is that good at pulling out plans out of nowhere that have…mixed results at least."

"That's him alright." Euterpe sighs.

"Still…I can tell he's very fond of you." Alt peers at the large body of water before them,before noticing the docks, which stood Mnemosyne, oar in hand and waiting for them. Euterpe leads the group towards the docks.

"By the way, you do make cool weapons, right?"

Euterpe shrugs. "I suppose so, they haven't reached the peak of anime coolness yet, but still cool regardless."

"The haladie was so fuckin cool! You got to show me more of your creations."

"Thanks, even if I did kind of make it from a creative rush…" Euterpe gets on the boat, moving Tristan off his back and on the seat next to him. Mnemosyne was in after the sailor had told everyone else to get into the other boats. Alt plops in after him, along with Alt Rae.

"Trust me, Tristan told me about it." Alt smiles, before he turns to Alt Rae and starts talking to her.

"You sure have a chatty copy." Mnemosyne offhandedly comments, leading and directing all of the other boats while sailing their own. "I have never seen you be so loud."

"Haven't been since my early 20s." Euterpe replied.

Mnemosyne hums. "Do you want to know what happened?"

"Sure, what is it?" Euterpe sat closer to Mnemosyne, who was rowing the boat along slowly.

"What Dad experienced was Alternate Citrusverse, a prototype of Citrusverse made at the Zeroth Timeline. One written by Cycles, and narrated by…me" Mnemosyne mumbles the last part, a long sigh mixed in their tone. "I thought I had destroyed the script, but…it seems like Cycles recovered it."

"So what's the difference? Between our Citrusverse and theirs?"

Mnemosyne replies. "Their Citrusverse was dark, hopeless even. Ours reflected the better side of humanity, theirs reflected the worse side of our ideals. It's like Beyond Reality, where Mr Spyrosz came from, but with our Citrusverse." Mnemosyne clears their throat. "Alt Citrusverse was never supposed to have a good ending, in fact, the ending Laverne wrote was true destruction, until their Tristan intercepted us and stopped us from writing. So they never had an ending at all. There is no ending for them, and I think what Alt Tristan wanted to do was to make a good ending for them, like how Cycles wanted to for us. Sadly, they weren't able to do so regardless because the world was in Safe Mode."

"I hope that this is a good enough ending for them."

"I hope so too. Athavale will keep them safe. I'll make sure of that." Mnemosyne commands the boats to single file as they near the Sea Village, the main (on-water floating) village where there is enough space for all of them- and where a friend lived.

"Alright, everyone get off! You're at your destination." Mnemosyne manoeuvres all of the boats to the dock. "Father, I'll be waiting, take your time though."

"Alright then, stay safe." Euterpe waves to Mnemosyne, before gesturing to Alt and Alt Rae to follow him.

Euterpe turns around the corner, approaching a slightly bigger house than the others. He presses the doorbell, and the door swings open, almost as if the owner of the house was already expecting them.

"Hello Mr. Veritas!" Lamplady smiles (in her own way), the licks of flame on her lamphead waving comfortably in the wind. "Paperman should be back soon, he went to deal with the accommodations for tonight. It shouldn't be long."

"I'm back!" Paperman appears in the doorway. "Back door was kind of sealed shut, but it's fine now." He approaches Euterpe, the edge of his paper head clipped in anxiousness. "Wow, this is a lot of people, but I can get all of them under a roof tonight, don't worry." His paper straightens. "Mr. Veritas, leave it to us. After all, I have dealt with worse…conditions." 

"Then they're all under the townsfolk's care then. Thank you, Paperman."

"No problem. By the way, if you ever see a certain clock or PC, tell them I said hi." Paperman stretches his back, before stepping outside. "Come along everyone, it's getting late…"

The crowd slowly disperses to follow Paperman. Alt Rae alsp waves goodbye to Euterpe and starts following the crowd.

"Hey, Euterpe?"

"Hm?" Euterpe looks at Alt, who stood beside him watching the crowd.

"Thank you, to you and to Tristan." Alt smiles. "I know, my story doesn't have a good end written in place but…maybe here, I can find one myself."

"I'm sure you can." Euterpe smiles back. "Now go along now, don't keep your friends waiting."

Alt nods, and races after the crowd, the tapping of his footsteps slowly disappearing from his range of hearing.

Euterpe sighs, waves goodbye to Lamplady, before he walks back to the docks, and sees Mnemosyne and Tristan talking.

"Ah, Euterpe, uhh…" Tristan chuckles apologetically. "Sorry for…running off somewhere dangerous on my own again?"

Euterpe sighs. "It's fine, you can explain tomorrow. I'm spent, and you look like you just fought multiple gods at once."

"That's because he probably did." Mnemosyne interjects. "C'mon, let's head home."

Euterpe jumps into the boat and sat next to Tristan as Mnemosyne commands all the boats to go back to the Southern Pier to pick up Simon.

"Hey, Euterpe?" Euterpe looks down to Tristan, who had already started to droop onto his shoulder.

"Hm?"

"If I ever turn out to be some Laverne-type of tyrant… like the guy back there-"

"You won't."

Tristan seemed to jerk up at that answer. "Huh?"

"You're too soft to do that. The fact you immediately decided to help Alt and Alt Rae in a way that doesn't involve trying to make deals is already not a Laverne move. Also the fact that you even cared to turn on Safe Mode already says a lot."

Tristan smiles, albeit more tiredly this time. "Aw, thank you dear."

"Please do not make out in the back of my boat." Mnemosyne grumbles.

"WE ARE NOT!"

> STORY:// ALT_CV STATUS CHECK...

> STORY:// ALT CV STATUS: [COMPLETE].