Froufrou was back in the third scenario, and she was listening to the big jellyfish mind speak incessantly about how great it was. However, Froufrou also had two things sitting beside her inside her fluffy purse that had not been there before she'd twisted the scenario - two little books, perfectly sized for her tendrils to page through.
These books hadn't just appeared randomly out of the blue in this twisted timeline. Froufrou learned, immediately, by function of her own memory, what happened to bring them to her present posession. See, way back when Kahli and Froufrou were fighting Lloyd in the air, Omar had inexplicably - at least in this twisted timeline - brought up a large satchel full of books. Froufrou remembered him monologuing about how these books proved how dastardly and evil Kahli had been to bring New Curr to Nomachiato through her mindless meddling. He had even flame-farted over and started walloping her with the satchel of books, and during this slightly absurd attack, the two small books had tumbled out of the satchel and slid right into Froufrou's handbag. It seemed an unlikely enough chain of events, and yet here the books were, and Froufrou's memory knew that it was true as any other chain of happenings. How incredibly bizarre.
One, was a book called Tall Tales of Nomachiatan Zest, a popular old book of folklore that she just knew would be enough to convince Kahli to start using her [Tale Teller] [skill] on the big jellyfish. She grasped that booklet promptly and raised it up to Kahli's frozen eyes, hoping against hope that her [paired] tauman would see and understand what exactly she was hinting at. And, indeed, Kahli seemed to grasp it, for she soon started to mind speak back to the jellyfish regarding a completely improbable story about how she was concealing half of her [skills] from it and that, in actuality, she wasn't frozen at all and could destroy the jellyfish in an instant. Froufrou knew that this was nothing but a work of trickery, but the jellyfish seemed somewhat convinced, which was impressive - it must've taken a lot of fortitude, [skill] or no [skill], for Kahli to control her thoughts to such a degree that she could keep from giving herself away. Froufrou would've applauded her, if she wasn't busy reading the other book.
The other book was the Encyclopedia Taumanica for the letter J. Froufrou was flipping page after page for one specific entry - the entry on jellyfish. Specifically, she was looking for a passage on giant jellyfish, but she figured any jellyfish would do as long as it looked similar enough to the jellyfish that was currently threatening to absorb herself and Kahli. She was looking to read up on their anatomy and determine where any weak points might be. Eventually, she reached a passage that discussed their gonads - this immediately reminded Froufrou of the first timeline, when the evil jellyfish had complained about one of her hits landing on its gonads.
The gonads of the jellyfish, both giant and regular sized, are the most fragile of an already fragile organism. The gonads, if hit, will almost always result in a crit - unless your aim is absolute dogshit. Along with this, critical hits on jellyfish gonads will drain triple the amount of [HP] as critical hits anywhere else on the creature by nature of the amount of pain it causes them.
Well, that settled that. Froufrou studied with her stalks the copious diagrams of jellyfish diagrams, seeing that they could really only be viewed by looking through the jellyfish's mouth - it was painful how close she had been in one of those past timelines, but oh well, now she knew what to do.
And so it was that Froufrou floated around the infinite void, unnoticed by the jellyfish, who was currently on a tangent about the impossibility of time as a concept and how wasting it was tantamount to murdering someone a billion times over and over again.
Froufrou looked up, as she was directly under the jellyfish now. It smelled predictably fishy, not that that was anything compared to Froufrou's own stench - and indeed, it almost reminded her of her old home in the Pit of Despair. Still, she couldn't allow herself to be at all distracted. Froufrou looked up at the jellyfish and watched its large mouth flapping around. For a moment, she wondered why exactly the jellyfish mind spoke instead of using this enormous mouth - that is, until she realized from remembering a passage she'd skimmed that jellyfish lacked the biology for physical speech. Just as how Froufrou lacked that for not only physical, but indeed also mind speech as well. Oh well.
Still, the jellyfish's mouth was waffling around in the void, and after careful consideration Froufrou was able to catch sight of the jellyfish's gonads tucked away their within its bodice. After focusing her vision, Froufrou even noticed that they were slightly glowing - that would certainly make aiming easy enough for her! She prepared herself and charged up the energy of [Putrify] to its fullest capacity, and then she kept holding it. She had to make absolutely certain that this [skill] would be powerful enough to absolutely destroy the jellyfish - Froufrou had a cooldown, and this was her last chance.
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[End scenario]
And there Froufrou was, in the void, alone.
Wait, what?
So, Froufrou had just seen her twisted scenario, but there had been no... resolution? She didn't get to see whether her attack worked or not before she made her decision on which timeline to stick with?
[Clarification: There is a fuzzy limit to how long each scenario can last. If Kahli levels the skill up further than it already has, this may increase in the future. You had hit the absolute limit of time allotment for a scenario in this instance.]
Well, so that was that, then. Froufrou was stuck not knowing what was going to happen until, well, until it happened for real. Suddenly, that prospect became incredibly terrifying. Especially so considering the fact that she'd died in, well, every scenario expect the twisted one - and it was hard to say whether she'd die in that scenario as well, considering the fact that it ended before the result of her attack on the big jellyfish could be known!
Then again, Froufrou had an inkling of a thought. She was starting to really fear this [skill] that Kahli had, when she had this thought, because it was empowering, but it was also bleak. Froufrou realized in that moment that, really, in all essentiality, there was no genuine way to know whether or not she would die in any passing moment from day to day. Sure, there was a bit more certainty of the risk of death in this jellyfish battle, but really, was she not always somewhat at risk? Especially around Kahli. Hell, it seemed like one doomsday scenario after another presented itself on a silver platter to Kahli, almost as if she was the embodiment of chaos itself or something. Froufrou wondered, silently, if possibly Kahli had gotten the prophecy all wrong. What if Kahli was the Harbninger of Doom?
No, that made no sense. Kahli didn't grow up from an egg in the Pit of Despair. Only, Froufrou just didn't feel like she was really a Harbinger of Doom, is all. She just felt like Froufrou, nothing more, nothing less - just Froufrou.
Regardless, even though the void was timeless, it was silent, and lonely, and Froufrou hated being unable to squelch - it was her biggest form of self expression and she felt completely confined. It was a real wonder to her that Kahli seemed to take such a level head around this [skill], if Froufrou had to use this alone all the time, she was certain she'd lose it! And yet, Kahli seemed totally fine, if not totally unshaken... Froufrou was really impressed by her strength of character. Froufrou wondered how many deaths Kahli had experienced, and how many decisions like this Kahli had faced, where she didn't even know whether she'd live or not.
Froufrou knew what she had to do. She looked down at her tendrils, seeing the two timelines - the original third timeline, and her twisted version. There were two options, but she only had one choice.
Froufrou focused with all her might on the twisted timeline. It was the only true way forward.
[Scenario 3 (twisted) selected]
[Loading scenario]
[...]
[Scenario loaded successfully]
And there Froufrou was, charging up all her power and holding it afterwards, long and hard, ready to release a burst of [Putrify] all over the big jellyfish's gonads. It was time.
Froufrou released her [skill]'s new attack, and in a brilliant flash a huge, green globule shot out at light speed from her tendrils, soared through the mouth of the big jellyfish, and exploded in a flurry and a flash all over the inside of the jellyfish, coating the inside of its semitranslucent bodice and thrashing against its glowing gonads.
[Critical hit]
AAAAAAGH! cried the jellyfish mentally as it shook and quivered with pain and agony.
And then, the most amazing thing happened. Suddenly, Kahli was able to move her entire body - just as Froufrou was.
"I can move! I can talk! Froufrou, you're amazing!" Kahli rushed through the void up to Froufrou and hugged her tightly. "You're the best Harbinger of Doom a girl could ask for.
Froufrou squelched with joy and a little embarassment.
How very dare you insolent fools! thought growled the jellyfish as it floated up, up into the air. It was quivering and shaking, and its form was starting to shrink and grow and rescale choppily, over and over and over again.
"What the hell is going on?" asked Kahli. Then, with shame, she apologized to Theseosus.
Fuck this shit, continued the jellyfish. Kahli noticed that its mind-voice was much higher pitched than it normally had been. I'm going to show you my real form, and then I'm going to really fuck you two up!!
Kahli held Froufrou tight to her chest and summoned a big rock with her left foot. "We'll see about that, you big, evil jellyfish, you."