Me, Myself and I

[Maharg67]

0158: WE WERE JACK, JACKOMAN, JAKEMAN AND JASMINE

Despite the assurances, by the LittleFatBoy, that he would be fine along with his 'toys', the 2nd Thirteen, of the ThirteenThirteen, materialized to assist the noble fight.

With them came robotic toys, more plastic soldiers, plastic dragons, plastic knights on horses and other such allies. The 2nd Thirteen did not know where the extra allies came from but where glad to see them just as the rest of us were. The plastic soldiers, in power armor, were most impressive but the big Transformers were very powerful additions to the Free Toys Army. These were war-machines that turned into big humanoid robots in weird and wonderful ways to display strange new powers when they did so.

We went to the big wooden door that was very out of place in a vault apartment, made our way through the pet door, that was big to us, and were in the late 19th Century British style upper middle class urban building. We made our way over carpet that was fairly thick and 'sensed' just where to go as we did so.

At first there was no trouble though we did spot spiders in a corner web that were big to us but quite normal in relationship to the house size. They ignored us as did the 'giant' houseflies that hummed through through the air like bizarre aircraft. A couple had become trapped in the spider webs.

They came at us in a rush, the mouse-warriors of strange mice humanoids in exotic armor and with a mixture of sword-guns, spear-rifles and other weapons. Yet they stopped as if 'sensing' we were not the enemy and a leader came to us riding a big mouse. A few of the mouse-humans rode big mice.

She spoke in an oddly gruff voice. “Welcome to the First Floor Empire of the Free. We are the Mice of Carpet Hallway. Will you assist us against the invasion of the Sewer Rat People and the Alley Cat Raiders?”

I, Jackoman, stepped forward and bowed briefly a shallow bow. “We will be glad to assist you against the enemy. We need to continue onwards that way.” I pointed in a particular direction.

She climbed down from her mouse steed, gave it a fond rub on its snout, and spoke again. “Maiden Knight of the Order of Crusty Bread Crumbs, is who and what I am. Proudly has the order fought off rogue mice and other such threats but now we face rat-warriors much bigger and stronger than us, though we do outnumber them at least two to one. The direction you point to will take you to the Great Main Stairs that will take you to the Ground Floor where ferret, cat and small dog peoples fight against the rats and alley cats. We do not go there for we feel that we would quickly be overwhelmed in battles involving warriors much large and more powerful than ourselves. We are needed here to protect our own peoples.”

[Maharg67]

0159: WE WERE JACK, JACKOMAN, JAKEMAN AND JASMINE

But battle was to come to the mouse-humans, just as it was to come to us, for a big army of rat-warriors charged into view, each riding a larger rat. They came in black leather armor and with big strangely shaped battle-axes, battle-hammers and other things not so easily defined. The big rat steeds showed big yellow fangs and bizarre horns were sounded off.

Once again we went to the assistance of local forces. This time we formed up in a defense formation with the mouse-warriors on either side of us. Despite earlier words of caution, the mouse-humans showed only courage when an actual threat appeared.

The battle was a savage one but we beat back the rat-warriors fairly quickly. It soon became evident to us that the mice-warriors could never have fought off such an enemy by themselves and yet was it luck, or chance, that we had been there at the right time and place?

The mouse-warriors were clearly elated at the victory but were fearful of more enemies to come. We left them the 4th Thirteen of the Thirteens, they materializing out of mid air to assist the mice people.

We had given over two of the Thirteens of the ThirteenThirteen and had one with us. The 1st Thirteen was Command of the ThirteenThirteen so we would never call upon them unless it was vital to do so. The next three were active, being already allocated to service, and the last nine were normally in reserve. We suspected that too soon we would be calling upon those nine Thirteens.

We kept on going and soon were making our way down a gigantic set of wooden steps complete with a special strip of carpet running down its center. One step at a time we went, making good time, and being glad that we were going down stairs instead of up. We rested at the place between steps and were not alone.

Refugees, many of them wounded, had come up stairs as far as they could go. We provided them with what resources that we could and continued onward after a rest.

As soon as we began to approach the bottom of the steps, to reach the ground floor of the building, we could observe the horrific remains of a great battle. We went amongst the dead to rescue the wounded as best we could, even the enemy. The dying we managed to send to the Ringdom to be saved.

It was there we saw a giant vacuum machine, primitive and bulky, and on the side was a factory number plate with the code C13PF, which was also the chamber that we were seeking. So, of course, it was no coincidence. We could have investigated closer but something we 'sensed' had use being more cautious than that. We kept back from it.

[Maharg67]

0160: WE WERE JACK, JACKOMAN, JAKEMAN AND JASMINE

The vacuum cleaner sprang to life, humming with incredible loudness and hard energies emanated from it that hurled back all but we four; that is Jasmine, Jackoman, Jack and Jakeman. Instead the vacuum cleaner hose rose up like a neck and we were drawn into the mouth of it, through the attachment, by a form of energy tractor beam.

It had been a trap and we had fallen for it!

We four found ourselves in a big domechamber and at its centre were thirteen capsules that each held a human teenager. They were naked but bits of machinery made the scene modest. There was something very odd and troubling about them.

AlphaOmega stood there, all fancy in strange energy power armor, grinning an evil grin. “Did you like the scene in which the LittleFatMan seems to humble me and force me into internal exile into the AlphaOmegata. Truth was I was instructing him what to do for truth is that I, AlphaOmega of the Q-Continuum, have always been the real core of the TwistedGod.”

I, Jakeman, shook my head. “Poor deluded AlphaOmega. You are not even the real AlphaOmega. None of the Q-Entities, that came to the Marslands, were real. The TwistedGod created you out of deceptive cunning gone out of control. A mind so twisted that it manipulates and deceives itself. The LittleFatMan was playing you along, not the other way around. We have been regaining knowledge that we do not want to acknowledge for we, the JaeiouThirteen, are the real core of the TwistedGod and those bodies there, those are our real selves.”

We were the evil at the core of the TwistedGod, or at least we had been. Question was what had taken our place?

Trant, of the GeniusThirteen, stepped out of nothingness almost as if he had always been there. He was tall, beautiful, distorted and ugly. He wore outrageous super power armor and held a long electrum staff. He pointed it at the fake AlphaOmega and zapped the other, disintegrating him in an instant.

Then he laughed. “The JaeiouThirteen were once the GeniusThirteen but decided to become the JaeiouThirteen while replacing themselves with a fake copy of the GeniusThirteen. Unfortunately the new GeniusThirteen was much greater than the original, was more real than reality.”

I, Jack, shook my head. “Nice acting but not good enough. The real GeniusThirteen copies are still in Marstopia. It is time to take the first major step to ending this madness, to undoing all the terrible death and destruction that has taken place. It is time to begin the unrolling of history and the restarting of time back at Mars Doomsday, if not before. Yes, it can be done. Somehow we know it to be so. The LittleFatFolk slipped us this knowledge.”

[Maharg67]

0161: WE WERE JACK, JACKOMAN, JAKEMAN AND JASMINE

Trant vanished, that is the Trant that had not really been Trant at all.

Then there was the Living Goddess who had been the one who would have been the Empress, of the Circling Circles, if the amazing Living Goddess Child had not been born. Her face was twisted with incredible rage and outrage. “Do you have any idea how much energy, focus, cunning it took me to be born amongst the Circling Circles and to fool those Living Gods/Goddesses into taking me as one of their own. Then that damned upstart comes along and ruins everything before I could take the Throne of the Circling Circles and create a great new empire.”

I, Jackoman, then spoke. “The Circling Circles knew were an infiltrator, an imposter, from the very start but they did not know what to do. So they went to great lengths to create a story that you would believe, doing so even before your birth. You see the so called 'runt' is the real Empress to come. Her younger sister took up the role for to decoy you from her older sibling, she also being amazingly gifted and powerful even for a Living Goddess. Ironically they gained the assistance of the real AlphaOmega, and Q-Continuum, to trick you into coming to this realm. You linked with the twelve teenagers there, genetically engineered super geniuses suffering from various forms of problems. You seduced them and absorbed them, drawing them into your insanity. Thus was created the Marslands, and other realms, as based on super virtual reality software. There were also other influences you found in the troubled minds of those teenagers.”

I, Jackoman, went on speaking. “Only the thirteen were put there just for you, to draw you, to start the whole horrible process. Why? I suspect so that God the Goddess could come to better understand you, to be aware of just what you had become. Only this way could God the Goddess deal with you compassionately and in a way that caused no harm to others, at least no harm that could not be 'undone'.”

The Living Goddess actually growled and then wiped bloody spit from a corner of her mouth. She clearly was not believing a word of it. “You have brought to me the three artifacts that I wanted so badly to be brought to this place of destruction and rebirth into wonderment of true destinies knitted together of mind, body and spirit.”

I, Jack, smiled. “Five artifacts! An AlphaKey, an OmegaKey, an AlphaOmegaLinker, a RealityStabilizer and a WantMaker.”

The Living Goddess gave us four a look of confused contempt. “What is it that fuels your obvious lack of rationality. An AlphaKey, an OmegaKey and an AlphaOmegaLinker is what I want, what I need, what I am owed by the destinies of the ever whirling universes.”

We arrayed the five ancient artifacts on the floor before her and the TwistedGod stared at the extra two in obvious surprise. Her eyes literally glowed with changing colors.

[Maharg67]

0162: WE WERE JACK, JACKOMAN, JAKEMAN AND JASMINE

Then she laughed. “You are most amusing! Look before me, solid illusions of no real importance. What I want to happen, well it must happen.”

I, Jack, spoke again. “Something still needs to be explained and that is Brother Rogue.”

The TwistedGod shrugged in an overdone manner. “There is no need to explain that one of no importance, a mere trifling of....”

The TwistedGod halted and looked puzzled. “Yes, he came here to hunt the 'runt' and to hurt her badly, to destroy her. I was certain of it and when...”

I, Jasmine, took over speaking for us four. “Not certain at all! Perhaps you were not so much manipulating him as he was manipulating you in your insanity, your amazing arrogance. Well, we do not think you have the answer and it is time to act. The AlphaKey and the OmegaKey will be joined, and activated as one, by the AlphaOmegaLinker. That is what you expected to happen and then you would remake Mars, the Marslands, Marstopia and much else into a new wondrous super realm to suit your tastes. Only we have the RealityStabilizer and you will not control what happens. Instead we will do so. The WantMaker, a most extraordinary device, will assist us in this.”

The TwistedGod screamed out and lunged towards the artifacts but they began to glow and then they merged together with amazing speed to become a blazing sphere of hot golden white light.

The TwistedGod cried out as the golden white light exploded outwards to engulf the whole domechamber in a couple of seconds.

We ceased to exist as Jack, Jakeman, Jackoman and Jasmine! Yet we still existed as part of the JaeiouThirteen. We swirled through timespace and were drawn to the RingBase. There we became part of myself, Jaeiou.

Great shivers ran through the whole Ringdom and it transformed. Now it was much larger, more complicated and sophisticated. Three BubbleWorlds were now at its core, along with the much larger RingBase. The Domelands continued to exist but others had been added.

The BubbleWorlds were as of the Marslands, Marstopia and a new realm also like Mars. The real Mars was left behind, the Mars that had been there before Mars Doomsday had taken place. Except that changes had taken place when it came to the Marslands and Marstopia.

[Maharg67]

0163: I WAS THE EYE

The DC Wastelands were relatively quiet because time had been unwound. The Marsclave had not arrived with its military forces. The Brotherhood of Steel had yet to arrive to occupy the DC Citadel. The New DC Republic had yet to be formed, if it ever would be. Certainly others had not made an appearance. Other matters were altered but not all reality shifts had been undone, far from it.

RivetCity was still a small fleet of ships including the battle-carrier that could once fly fairly low through the air.

Professor James was still to escape from TekVaultDC101. Jasmine dwelt there, as his daughter, but this Jasmine was not part of the JaeiouThirteen. Jasmine had a plan to explore and discover other vaults, to find out what had happened to them.

Jack was in a still much larger Megaton. If anything the crater was even larger as was the population. This 'new' Jack was not part of the JaeiouThirteen. He was going to be a Regulator one day, or so he hoped.

Jakeman wandered the Marslands, often halting for long stays in RivetCity. She was not the Jakeman of the JaeiouThirteen. She was a so called artifact hunter but also a bounty-hunter, a scholar, an artist and a bard.

There was still violence in the Wastelands. Factions fought for power. Mutated creatures struggled for survival. Deathclaws howled loudly and packs of savage dogs prowled while giant molerats dug deep warrens. Gangers, false raiders, real Raiders, cannibals and others fought each other and the Settlers.

The Subway Union was larger, more powerful, was expanded out through the underground and was taking on rhouls as free citizens. It was still UnityWays.

No strange parachute-canisters fell from the sky, or had fallen.

Jackoman had yet to come to the DC from the west but was on his way. He was no longer of the JaeiouThirteen.

Jackoman, Jasmine, Jack and Jakeman were all linked to the JaeiouThirteen and each other.

One day the old factions would return to the DC and wage war once more. 3Dog, high in the 3DTower, would broadcast this and more to the DC as he was doing with other matters already.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0164: I WAS THE EYE

Jade, Jaze, Janz, Jadekin, Jadekia and Jadekor were now not directly of the JaeiouThirteen but were strongly linked to it as were Jasmine, Jack, Jackoman and Jakeman. In the future they would be part of a new Thirteen.

Jade, Jaze, Janz, Jadekin, Jadekia and Jadekor were in the RingBase.

All were getting used to the idea that the Marslands, and Marstopia, were now part of the Ringdom as BubbleWorlds.

The irony was even richer that the vast majority of peoples of the Marslands, and Marstopia, were totally unaware of the changes that had taken place. This was for good reason for the Marslands, and Marstopia, were much as they had been for centuries.

The third BubbleWorld was the 'temporary' home of two Living Goddesses and many others who dwelt with them including refugees of living toys, mouse-humans and others from the oversized vault apartment and 1890s house along with the bizarre vault along with other places.

The ThirteenThirteen was back in service to the JaeiouThirteen, as it had become, was becoming. The JaeiouThirteen was I, Jaeiou and I, the Eye, so far but nothing else more definable. We were fully integrated into the Ringdom and the RingOfRings.

I, the Eye, had wondered if everything was over and that now the danger was gone. Yet I could not get rid of the troubling feeling that this was not so. What had happened was a reprieve, a chance for a better future.

There were many questions left unanswered, many puzzles to solve and many clues to discover.

Was the TwistedGod really gone? Had it really been that simple? I had grave doubts that it would have been so. Yet I could find nothing that indicated that such did exist in the Marslands or Marstopia.

There was no sign at all of the LittleFatFolk or the Mysterious Strangers.

The real Uncle Leo wandered the DC Wastelands and he, the friendly behemoth, had great but subtle and positive power over everything, everybody, that he encountered. With him went a slowly, steadily, growing number of many kinds of lifeforms. There were also friendly behaving robots, androids and even mutant monsters.

Edited April 20, 2013 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0165: I WAS THE EYE

The GrandThirteen had transformed but were still a robotic entity, three shapeshifters often appearing as animals, three metahumans, three cyborgs and three neobabies. They were sundered from the JaeiouThirteen, were no longer of the 'I'.

The GrandThirteen had their major base in NewNewYork. While they searched for artifacts, assisted people, learned what they could of many mysteries, their main focus was on helping the Rebel Alliance to fight the Dominion that controlled much of Marstopia but not the Marstopian Deathlands beyond the main Marstopian Territories. The GeniusThirteen were part of the Dominion and their evil super technologies were a major reason that the much hated Dominion survived.

As with the Marslands, Marstopia had gained a reprieve but trouble was coming and not too far in the future because matters had not been fully resolved.

The TwistedGod was gone! Its evil no longer had a dark, distorting influence on reality. Yet, with the realization that the TwistedGod itself had been a puppet of another, that was not as good news as it otherwise could have been.

The Marslands were bigger, as was Marstopia, and each had its own versions of Phobos and Deimos, the Martian Moons. There was no Solar System Federation linked to either set of moons as there was with the Mars that had been left behind; the real Mars! Thankfully there was also no Skynet and, perhaps because of this, no Marsnet either.

There was no He-She-It, nor the Twisted Other that had been linked to the JaeiouThirteen.

The DominatorThirteen did not exist either but there were strange, twisted individuals with exotic powers and other abilities; they were the Mechanist, the AntAgonizer, NukaColaWoman, the Phantom Regulator and others. They were generally good, neutral or evil in nature.

Benjamin Washington ran the DC Preservation Centre and Society in RivetCity. Sheriff Lucas Simms was the law and order of Outer Megaton. There were many like them all across the Marslands and Marstopia.

A strange, twisted creature, long harshly treated, sat on a rock projecting out of a big cold underground lake. The creature clutched a shiny golden ring in the light of the glowcrystal growing high on the rocky cavern roof high above. He muttered to himself. “My precious, yes, my precious, you are mine, yes mine! Nobody, nothing, will take you from me. Me will be big special and me will show them all that Golemert will not be forgotten and thrown away into some dark, damp, hard place like so much second hand garbage.”

[Maharg67]

0166: I WAS JAEIOU

The Mars, that was not in the Ringdom, had nothing about it of the Marslands. There were no factions like the Orders of Steel, the Marsclave or any other. There were no deathclaws, radroaches, ghouls or anything like that. There was no NukaCola or Captain Cosmos or SuperDuperMarts or anything of that nature.

Huge crawler machines moved across the red face of Mars. Settlements were domed surface areas but were mostly underground. Thanks to Mar's lighter gravity, aircraft moved more easily through the air. Massive trains, on monorails, carried much bigger loads than they could have done on the Earth.

I remembered now, clearly, that super virtual reality game worlds had been somehow made 'real' to create the Marslands but there was no Marslands there or Marstopia. Figures of adapted humans did move in power armor, many of them having some level of cybernetic work done on them. Big, awkward looking, mecha were able to work on Mars in a way they could not do on Earth, again thanks to the weaker gravity.

I could detect nothing going wrong with the Terraforming Process except that it was taking longer than humanity had previously planned it would. Had that been a falsehood, had there really been a need to deal with a Terraforming disaster? It did not seem so. I observed the 'real Mars' and suspected it had been part of the trick of manipulating certain things to happen, of manipulating certain minds.

There had been no Martian Invasion of the Earth in the very late 19th Century. I hacked into many computer network-systems and found an Ebook novel of a fictional invasion of the Earth as written by one HG Wells. It wrote of such an invasion taking place and had been published about the same time. The Martians were different, in a few ways, from those that had emerged in the Marslands.

Cybermen, and daleks, were fictional monsters in a 3DTV Series called Doctor Who.

Godzilla, KingKong and many other figures had come from other fictional sources of the Earth.

All these things had been in the minds of the original teenagers found in the C13PF, the strangely named Chamber of Thirteen Phased Focus. I had the strong impression that the chamber, the thirteen teenagers, were far from gone and that they would be confronted again in future events.

Then there were the TallThinMan, and the TallThinWoman, just where had they gone? I hoped that we, the JaeiouThirteen and its allies, did not have to deal with them in future but suspected that that was not going to be.

[Maharg67]

0167: I WAS MAHARGIARTA

I knew that everything had not been resolved, that a great threat remained; it was greater because it was amazingly well hidden and yet I, and others, could 'sense' it. Yet the folding back of time, the freeing up of the 'real Mars' and the creation of the BubbleWorlds had given valuable time for various forces to prepare for trouble. It had also destroyed the TwistedGod but sent the transformed TwistedGod to some other dimensional realm where it could begin to heal, to become some kind of new entity.

What had been the real price for that reprieve, for that dealing with the TwistedGod?

My TransOrb flew slowly through the skies above the ocean, east of the DC Wastelands, where mutated whales fought against kraken, creatures like giant squids. The mutated great whales were far from being easy prey.

I passed over the EagleEnclave Islands for that reality change had remained, even back in time. The EagleEnclave was a hard nation but, compared to the Marsclave, was a wonderful civilization to live in. There were over twenty islands, two being very large, and all were fairly close together.

I moved further eastward, leaving the EagleEnclave behind, passing over other islands that were mostly inhabited only by flora, fauna and some exotic mutated creatures. I wondered why I was being drawn in that direction but something was doing so.

Then I observed what I first thought was a volcanic island but the volcano was more of a crater and at the bottom of that great natural structure was a small land. There was the TransOrbShip as once used by the JaeiouThirteen. It was transformed, was five silvery globes fused together in a row with two half circle struts lowered from each globe.

The small land was of subtropical type forest, some grassy areas, a lagoon and even a small settlement busy with different kinds of people, androids and robots. But what drew my attention was the LittleFatMan sitting on a deckchair, looking very comfortable as he used a fancy straw to sip cold drink from a frosted glass. Somehow I knew he had changed, that he was 'sane', that he was no longer linked in any way to the TwistedGod.

Soon my TransOrb was parked fairly close to the TransOrbShip, being one smaller globe with three lowered half circle struts. I found a deckchair waiting for me, complete with fancy drink, though I had observed nobody place it there.

Once I made myself comfortable, had taken a sip of a delicious cold beverage that adjusted itself to fit my desires, I turned and studied the LittleFatMan with some care for a while. Yes, he was no longer of the TwistedGod but was linked to something else both ancient and powerful. “So, what happened?”

Edited April 23, 2013 by Maharg67