Kahli and Froufrou braced themselves as the mega bone dragon loomed over them.
We bone dragons are not simply entering your world at whim, for no reason whatsoever, as you may have somewhat assumed. Indeed, we are not just mindless beasts, doomed to wander both the land of the spirits and the land of the living, spreading fear and torment wherever we tread. Now don't get me wrong, we definitely do love to spread some good, old fashioned fear and torment, and indeed we will often spread said fear and torment wherever we tread, but that's not why we're here. This was all done by design.
"By design?" asked Kahli in awe.
"Why are you fucking looking at the dragon like that?" blathered Omar incredulously as he waved his flaming arm. "We ought to be trying to put this awful thing down!"
With that, the bone dragon backhanded Omar with its enormous right talon, sending him sailing through the air aimlessly at a breakneck speed. He cried out expletives in pain as he flew further and further away.
What an irksome fellow.
"You're telling me," said Kahli. "Now, what were you saying?"
It's vital that you understand the truth of why we bone dragons, and indeed why other creatures similar to us are being brought into Nomachiato - there is in fact a reason that is not unconnected to other things happening in your world at this time. Indeed, understanding these strange machinations is of the utmost importance. I am sure you may be skeptical of my truthfulness, but believe you me this is all too real. Indeed, there is a very good reason I've dropped out of my fight with that foul water dragon G'athoong in order to set our issues aside and talk to you about this. See, it is only through understanding that we, the collective we, can ever hope to triumph against the dreadful force of-
[End scenario]
"Ugh!" Kahli groaned, covering her face in her hands. How could she not pick that timeline? Sure, it wasn't exactly perfect, but the conversation with the bone dragon was absolutely tantalizing, to say the very least.
Froufrou squelched in agreeance. Rather stinkily, in fact.
"Ah, well, here we are," said the alternative Supreme Time Protector with a soft chuckle. "So, you've seen all three scenarios. Do you want to pick one? Or, would you rather I tell you what you're going to pick? You know, seeing as I have a super high [CLA] and all?"
Kahli sighed and looked in pain at the alternative Supreme Time Protector. "You really are detestable, you know that? I wish you'd never decapitated this timeline's original Supreme Time Protector."
"That would've hurt my feelings, if I wasn't so tuned in to time that I knew you'd say it anyways and had been holding a preemptive grudge on you since first learning of it," replied the alternative Supreme Time Protector.
"Wow, that's petty," said Kahli matter-of-factly. "But I can't say I'm surprised. That's pretty in step with your alternative behavior."
"Hey! What's that supposed to mean? Are you saying you have something against alternative timelines or something? Because if so, Kahli, it sounds like prejudice."
Kahli snorted. "Prejudice?" She was disgusted. There were many things people had accused Kahli of being, and many other things that she expected them to accuse her of being. Brilliant, thoughtful, kind, magnanimous, protector of the world, heroic, wise... these were all words that Kahli knew described her well. But prejudiced?
"Yes, prejudice, Kahli," started the alternative Supreme Time Protector. "And before you jump to your own defense, before your weird, tendril-clad pet squelches itself to death, please allow me to explain. See, us alternative timeline folks - and this is, may I mind you, directly different from branched timelines, such as your scenarios, or nested timelines such as Froufrou's home timeline, if you will - face a very specific kind of prejudice that other timelines generally do not. We face these negative stereotypes again and again, almost timelessly, and only due to our nature of being alternative - that is, our nature of being parallel.
"If you will, imagine that there are two lines running right next to each other. The lines are the same color - a pale, milky white. The lines are the same thickness, the same girth if you will. The lines are generally straight, save for the occasional bumps of turbulence, and are generally about the same length. That being said, due to the random nature of turbulence itself, these two lines are, at brief intervals, dissimilar. It is this small branching, this very variable difference, that causes quirks and irks that make up alternative timelines.
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"The most important thing for you to understand about alternative timelines, other than of course in that from my perspective, this is the alternative timeline that I have been yanked into and my own timeline is the normal timeline, is that we're the closest timelines to your own while being different in some way. That being said, oftentimes the ways in which we are different are minute, sometimes wholly borne of chance itself. After all, there very well are timelines wherein mops are the dominant sentient life form across the entirety of the space torus. There are timelines wherein the entire universe is made out of pastry. There are timelines where time itself passes backwards, and can only be understood frontwards. There are countless other timelines that are, funny enough, nothing but pure mathematics spooling over itself over and over again, somehow consuming everything in its wake like a hungry infection..."
"Hey, wait a second!" interjected Kahli. "That sounds like Curr. And also like New Curr. Which, as I understand it currently - heh, curr-ently - is just the same as Curr except in that it acts on people who've been inoculated against Curr with the cure for Curr."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," replied the alternative Supreme Time Protector. "But I knew you'd say that."
"Figures."
"Anyways, my point in all this is that you need to understand wholly the nature of alternative timelines. So many people thinking up things like doppelgangers, sinister doubles, evil twins... All of these are terrible displays of prejudice against alternative timelines, and I assure you it goes both ways. Why, if you ever find yourself thinking that I am sinister, you ought to remember that the me from your own timeline stabbed me in the chest with a machete nearly unprompted. It was only after this fact in that I decided to wallop off their head with a blade of my own. Of course, I planned all this out when I saw with my [CLA] and indeed also my [Foresight] that they were going to commit such a heinous act, however, I still persisted in waiting and seeing whether they would actually do it before retaliating. Could a sinister alternative ever do such a thing? No, if I were instead truly sinister, I would've not even cared what my [CLA] saw. I would've planned to attack on my own. Much like they did."
Kahli blinked and Froufrou squelched a few times. They had to take a moment to process all this. It was still quite difficult to grasp that, from the alternative Supreme Time Protector's perspective, theirs was the evil timeline. Along with that, the alternative Supreme Time Protector probably thought themselves benevolent in some way for not immediately fighting against their perceived evil timeline counterpart. What a jerk. It was just as well for an evil alternative such as this murderous alternative Supreme Time Protector was.
"Well, okay," said Kahli, not trying to belabor the point - and also not trying to test her luck. She didn't want to flip the switch that obviously set the alternative Supreme Time Protector into trying to behead people or anything. Clearly, the alternative Supreme Time Protector was evil to some degree, although she wasn't certain how much. They were clearly trying to feed her information to dissuade her from thinking they were evil, which meant of course that the alternative Supreme Time Protector was quite evil indeed.
Froufrou had her own thoughts on all of this. Those thoughts were mostly aligned with Kahli's, save for one specific discrepancy. See, Froufrou was quickly becoming of the opinion that these Supreme Time Protectors, alternative or otherwise, seemed to have a propensity for murdering one another. Which of course was made a little difficult by the fact that, in all essentiality, they were actually killing themselves - whether it be an alternative version of themself, or a past or future iteration of themself. It was all very... strange, that much was for certain. Froufrou wondered if the Supreme Time Protector enjoyed their status as a Supreme Time Protector, considering said propensities.
Regardless, Kahli was ready to choose a timeline. She looked to Froufrou.
"Froufrou, it's been hard for me to settle on a scenario for this [checkpoint]. I hope that you'll help guide me in the right direction here, irregardless of the fact that you are somewhat detached from this timeline due to the fact that you have other scenarios to consider."
Froufrou squelched. She was happy to help Kahli, regardless of timeline or scenario.
"Great. So, it's really between scenarios one or three, seeing as I want to stay alive and I'm sure you would as well. That being said, we're either set up in a situation wherein we could learn clandestine information from the bone dragon, or we could have the choice on load of the scenario to save Omar or let him die."
Froufrou squelched. After all, she understood this well enough. And after much more deliberation, the decisions was made. While it was debated between the two of them, ultimately the chance of gleaming new information from the bone dragon was altogether too enticing to pass up - even if it ended up being a bit of a disappointment as such similar timelines in the past had worked out to be.
"I knew you were going to pick that," replied the alternative Supreme Time Protector.
With that, Kahli looked down at her big left foot. She was ready to get away from this alternative jerk.
----------------------------------------
And so it was that Kahli and Froufrou were there in the air, being addressed by the bone dragon.
See, it is only through understanding that we, the collective we, can ever hope to triumph against the dreadful force of-
[End scenario]
Froufrou was alone in the void. Well, she would've been alone, if it weren't for the younger version of the Supreme Time Protector in their disappointingly off-white robes.
"Well, how'd that go for you, then?" they asked. "Ready for scenario two?"