Froufrou sailed through the air, flipping over and over and clinging to the inside of the handbag for dear life. She was anxious, of course, and was squelching some of the stinkiest squelches she'd rightly ever produced. Of course, there was no one there to smell them but herself, and her being the squelcher, well, Froufrou was just about as noseblind to her squelches as anyone could be of anything. So with that, it was as if no one was there to smell her squelch. And if that was the case, did they truly smell at all? The answer was yes, and terribly so.
It was only moments later that Kahli realized what had happened, screamed out for Froufrou, and then jumped off the side of the water dragon, ready to save her pet. Only, as Froufrou tumbled down, down, down at an increasing rate, she caught sight of something quite troubling indeed. She noticed that Kahli was not the only person coming to collect her. This was nice, Froufrou thought, as it prevented her from the potential of splatting on the ground like a tendril-clad pancake, but at the same time it was also incredibly troubling. Troubling in that the other person trying to cease her descent was none other than Omar, that wrathful fire elemental that was convinced Kahli was the cause of all semiapocalyptic phenomena as of late. Froufrou suddenly felt filled with more than just noxious bile - indeed, she was full of fear.
But Froufrou couldn't let fear keep her from acting. She'd have to do something, a quick. She could do something, couldn't she?
Froufrou racked her mind, trying to determine what it was she might be able to do. Eventually, she had an epiphany. Froufrou could use her [Putrefy] [skill] to blast out at either Kahli or Omar to slow them down. That would, potentially, mean that Froufrou could now choose who it was that was going to catch her. And of course, she was going to choose Kahli. Right?
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Froufrou was in the void, all alone. It was nice not to be tumbling through the air, although the experience of suddenly not falling after soaring downward at a rapid pace did afford an effect of a kind of psychological whiplash. All that said Froufrou was relieved to be here, in a [checkpoint], given the chance to see her options play out before her before she made a decision. It was, in many ways, ideal. If only Kahli were there to help her out.
"Welcome, back, Kahli!" said the voice of the Supreme Time Protector as they stepped out of a rift in time wearing their familiar head to toe white robes and shrouded white cowl. "So, here we are, and - OH!"
After all, it was only Froufrou there, alone. And she was squelching up a storm.
"Well, isn't this something else! So, it's just you, Froufrou? No Kahli at all?"
Froufrou squleched in affirmative.
"Hmm, that sounds like a yes to me, and I don't see a sign of Kahli anywhere. Sure, this is an infinite void, but if my time calculations are correct - and believe you me, Froufrou, they always are - then it's just you. Well, great. Doubtlessly you're able to be here without Kahli presently because she's sharing [skills] with you, right?"
Froufrou once again let loose an affirmative squelch.
"Excellent. Curious how that all shakes out. Say, is this your first time in a [checkpoint] alone?"
Froufrou squelched in a way that made it painfully obvious the answer was no.
"Ah, I see. I wonder why I wasn't flagged by my system to come into the [checkpoint] and greet you. After all, as a high level [Time Manipulator], it's not like I - heh - don't have time to visit you individually during these [checkpoints] if you find yourself often experiencing them without Kahli now that you have access to the [skill]. That being said, I guess I don't have to if, I mean, if it's annoying you or anything. I don't know, you're a little hard to read, um, Froufrou."
Froufrou squleched and writhed around in an indeterminate manner.
"Yes... Well, are you interested in seeing what time has in store for you? I know I am. Of course, I don't want to rush you or anything... Do feel more than welcome to take your time. It's just, well... You know, we are here in the void. It's not like there's a whole lot for us to really do, you know. I think Kahli might've taken a nap in the void before, other than that, I mean-"
Froufrou suddenly started squelching with excitement. You could nap in the void? That not only made perfect sense, seeing as it was truly timeless, but indeed it was also an incredibly attractive idea to her. After all, if Froufrou was about to experience three alternate realities, potentially dying in one of them, she needed to get all the rest she could! With that, she retreated into the handbag and prepared to go to sleep.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
"Oh my gods, you're going to sleep, aren't you?" asked the Supreme Time Protector in a muffled tone from outside the bag. "Well, fine. That's... I should've known that would happen. Look, I'll, um, I'll come back through am rift in time when you're awake, okay? Don't worry or anything, I won't ditch you."
Froufrou didn't rightly care, but she was thrilled to have this moment of downtime.
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When Froufrou awoke from her slumber, she frankly felt great. It had been a while since she'd slept at a time that perfectly agreed with herself, Froufrou, and not coinciding with Kahli either passing out of choosing to sleep herself. Of course, there were all of those times that Froufrou had fallen asleep while Kahli was carrying her around - which, in truth, there were a myriad of times wherein Froufrou had done this. However, sleeping while others thought she was awake never hit quite the same as conscious, dedicated sleep - and that was what Froufrou got a chance to enjoy in the void. There was no pretense, no need to suddenly awaken and groggily squelch out a sardonically-toned retort. She leisurely stretched out her tendrils, slowly writhing out from the curled up ball she'd made of herself and then comfortably reaching up and out of the handbag.
With that, a rift yet again opened up and out stepped none other than the Supreme Time Protector, however they looked a little different. Perhaps, their cloaks were not as white? It was as if they'd suddenly become a sort of off-white, that is, more of a beige.
"Oh, um, hey. You must be Froufrou?"
Froufrou squelched in confusion. Had the Supreme Time Protector suddenly been replaced or something? What was going on?
"Sorry, uh, I'm the Supreme Time Protector's younger self. They, uh, delegated seeing through this [checkpoint] to me, saying that it would help me learn about... time... or something. I don't know, though, I mean I feel like I know plenty about time already. Why, I'm on track to become a Supreme Time Protector! Still though, they told me to come here and greet you, so here I am. Greetings!"
Froufrou released a small, disinterested squelch.
"They, um, or I guess I told me that your name was Froufrou. It's nice to meet you, Froufrou."
Froufrou squelched.
"So, do you want to look at your timelines? I told me about your [skill], er, your [paired] tauman's [skill] that you're sharing. It's a pretty powerful [skill] for a brand new [Time Manipulator] to have. I also told me that I was the one who gave you the [class]. How are you liking the [class]? Has it been nice to get the new [attributes]?"
Froufrou squelched a few times with differing inflections, forgetting for a moment that this semi-Supreme Time Protector would certainly not understand what she was getting at.
"That's, uh, that's... great... Anyways, do you want to check out your timelines? I'm happy to offer helpful commentary, of course."
Froufrou did, certainly, want to check out her timelines. She looked down at her tendrils and spotted the three spherical scenarios playing out. Immediately she focused on the first. It was time to figure out what she was going to do.
[Now viewing scenario 1]
So it was that Froufrou was tumbling through the sky once again. It was almost nauseating, however, nauseating wasn't a wholly unpleasant feeling for Froufrou. Indeed, in her life, feeling nauseated often equated to feeling quite well, as vomiting was a normal part of her digestive process and indeed was indicative of very fine cuisine - food that was so tasty that she just had to eat it all over again.
Regardless, she was falling. And time was passing quickly. What would she do in this scenario? Would she try to slow Omar down with [Putrefy]? Would she do nothing, or otherwise, would she do something else entirely?
But it was too late indeed for any more thinking. Omar had already reached her, and within a mere moment he had Froufrou's bag in the clutches of his only hand.
"Well, well, well, what the fuck do we have here?" he asked with a sneer in his voice. "Seriously, what the fuck is this thing?"
Froufrou squelched in frustration. She knew that, at times, even Kahli had made reference to the indeterminance of her species. And that was just as well. But this Omar person, and the way he said it, made Froufrou feel in truth so belittled that she could hardly bear it. She detested this fiery tauman, and she knew for a fact that the second she got to look at her second scenario, she'd be hitting him with [Putrefy] to keep him from catching her. Presently, he was holding his flaming arm only breaths away from her tendrils, so taking that action now seemed somewhere between incredibly risky and damn near impossible.
"Omar!" Kahli cried as she bounced up to greet them, kicking off her summoned rock with her big left foot. "Omar, let go of her! What are you doing?"
"Oh, no you don't, Kahli!" spat Omar with vitriol. "I'm not going to fucking let you end the fucking world with this godsdamned thing! And I don't care what you think, if you think you can rehabilitate it or whatever, well, then you're fucking crazy! It needs to be destroyed. And if you won't see that, Kahli, because of naivety or because it gave you a system or for some other crazy fucking reason, well, I'm not going to stand idly by and let you cause yet another doomsday! This thing needs to be killed!"
"Omar!" Kahli gasped. "Froufrou!"
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And so it was that Kahli and Froufrou both were in the void.
That is, a nested void.
"Hello, and welcome back, Kahli and Froufrou!" said the Supreme Time Protector. Froufrou noted that they were in their normal, white robes, not the off-white that their younger self wore. "What a situation you've found yourselves in now."
Froufrou squelched.