Light aberrated all around in a phantasmagoria of astounding colors and patterns that were indeed so bewitching and confusing that watching them felt much to Kahli like the parts of her mind that sensed visual input at all were akin to an egg - an egg that had presently been splattered against a frying pan, drizzled with fresh poil and put over a raging flame. It felt like her body was being pushed and pulled and twisted and torn in every which way, and indeed at the same time in no way at all. None of it, truly, made any sense... and indeed, at the same time, it made all the sense in the world, and felt all the more similar.

Regardless, so it was that in that amazing flash Kahli found her consciousness and her body seemingly divorced, if for only a temporary interim. For a while, she seemed to sense everything through her big left foot, and then indeed it was like she had lost all present ability to sense, or indeed even the cognitive understanding of what it was that sensing pertained to be, that is to say, she could not so much even as to imagine what it meant to sense a thing in that dreadful yet sublime moment.

But then, there she was - in all the blinding lights, floating in some sort of disorienting anti-void completely different from the dark, empty void she was so accustomed to. And standing before her were both Taubitha and Princess.

"Well, like, oh my gods! Howdy, Klikli!" Taubitha bared fangs and transformed into her gruesome beast form. Her wicked wings grew thrice the size, almost blocking out more than half of Kahli's view of the disorienting space she'd entered.

"Uh, where are we?" asked Kahli, dumbfounded as she summoned up a big rock. "Also, where is the other version of me?"

"You, like, totally mean the past version of you, don't you, Klikli?" said Taubitha accusatorily.

"What?!"

Taubitha pointed a long, arching finger at her ex-friend and let loose a deep, booming cackle. "It's like, so totally crazy! See, my [class] gives me extra system based awareness, Klikli!"

Kahli tried to move, but indeed she couldn't. Why couldn't she move? She looked at her big left foot. It just hung there in space. All she could do, was move her eyes! It reminded Kahli of when she'd be under the thrall of that sinister, big jellyfish when she first gained her ability to enter into [checkpoints] in time.

"Are you... Taubitha... are you a consumer?" said Kahli with a gasp. At least she could speak.

"Like, what?" said Taubitha, genuinely confused.

Princess whinnied and huffed in a sinister frustration. Clearly, this sparkly, glitter-encrusted fony was out for blood. Kahkli could see so within the rainbow sparkles of its eyes.

Hearing the confusion in Taubitha's voice, Kahli immediately realized that her ex-friend did not know what a consumer was. That was fairly opportune - she'd have to keep it that way by attempting to shift the subject immediately.

"Listen, Taubitha, I don't know what you mean about [class] awareness. How do you know you're not..." She tried to think of a lie or something that she could use with [Tale Teller]. Taubitha was, after all, pretty gullible. "How do you know that you didn't just hallucinate whatever it is you think you saw about my system? After all, there are all kinds of crazy things going on right now. I mean, I think I've been pretty upfront about being able to duplicate people, and-"

"Like, oh my gods, Kahli, shut the fuck up!" spat Taubitha with a hiss and a shriek as she transformed yet again, this time getting a little smaller yet also apparently more powerful. This time, though, her beast form's voice was several octaves higher than her normal speaking voice, which had a bit of a comical effect whenever she spoke that negated a lot of the threateningness of her words. "You see, Kahli, you stupid fucking slut, I've become [attuned] to your system. Do you, like, totally even know what I mean when I say [attuned], Klikli?"

"...No," said Kahli through a snort. It was hard to take Taubitha seriously when she sounded more like an angry gerbil than an actual threat.

"So, like, when I [attune] to your system, I can totally see whatever it is you're using in your system, even if your whole character sheet is, like, totally obfuscated or whatever. So I know that you're using [Tale Teller] to lie me, and that you're a [Time Manipulator] who can make [Minor Time Rifts] and that the whole reason we were all, like, totaly stuck in that weird void was actually because of your [Seismic Sense][skill]. That is to say that, Klikli, I totally know all the nasty little tricks you've been playing on me! I finally understand, like, what it is and how you've been able to beat me before! It never made sense, but like, now it all does. But it's, like, totally okay, because I'm here to nerf the everloving shit out of you, you whore!"

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Nerf me?" asked Kahli dubiously. It sounded threatening enough, but she wasn't entirely certain what Taubitha was getting at. "Are you saying you're going to steal or otherwise remove some of my systemic power?"

"What?" Taubitha suddenly sounded a little disappointed. "Like, that would be so totally cool. But, like, no. I'm really just planning on killing you!"

Kahli saw that Princess was festering with rage. It indeed seemed that the fony was about to explode in fury in but a mere moment, surely taking out all that cruyel energy on herself. Kahli wondered if Froufrou was here in this strange anti-void with her, or if it was just herself and Taubitha. And then, she had a thought. It was a bit of a reach of a thought. She figured that it was her best move, regardless. She was just going to try her best to stall and get Taubitha talking until she could think of something to do.

"So what all do you see about my system, Taubitha? How do you know that everything you see isn't a hallucination, anyway? And what do you plan to do after you kill me? Go find another person to befriend for a decade and a half or so and then turn on them and try to kill them, Taubitha?"

"Like, oh my gods. Kahli, are you really implying that I would intentionally become enemies with someone?"

"That's really what it seems like, Taubitha," said Kahli. "That's what it seems like. Why, I still remember trying and failing to headstand the way you wanted me to. What a way to end a friendship."

"Like, you're just totally dredging up the past. And that's perfect for a [Time Manipulator]! Hell, I bet you're trying to manipulate me right now!"

"That's not the kind of manipulator I am, Taubitha," said Kahli with a sigh.

"Oh my gods, Klikli, like I don't totally already know that! I was just making a comment about your behavior and how-"

Before Taubitha could chirp out another word, a huge rift tore open in the blinding, bedazzling anti-void. With a loud vrooming a large, all-white motorbike zoomed through the anti-air, leaving burning anti-flames hovering around brilliantly.

"Cowa-fucking-bunga, bitches!" shouted a voice. Before anyone could react, a burly yet cloaked arm tossed a flaming bottle of beer at Taubitha that immediately burst over her body and ignited in a brilliant purpe flame.

[Critical hit]

"OH MY GODS!!!" cried Taubitha as she crumpled and wailed in pain. Tears streamed down her ghastly beast-form face, her beastly eyes' mascara dripping like fresh, wet paint. "Why does it, like, totally hurt so bad? This is, like, my second beast form! I'm, like, mega powerful!!"

"Yea, mega powerful at being weak, you fucking dweeb." The figure scoffed and spat in her general direction. Then, they popped a wheelie in mid anti-air and turned around three hundred and sixty degrees, and then they turned around another one hundred and eighty degrees to face Kahli. They were wearing a bright white robe, somehow even brighter than the Supreme Time Protector's was normally, and their face was covered in the shrowded shadows of their cowl. They pointed a finger to her accusatorily. "This is some fucked up shityou've got going down around here, Kahli. Half-bit [Dimensional Wizard] noobs trying to kill you, evil fonies - if that's even what that fucking thing is - trying to blow your head open with an admittedly pretty gnarly yet obviously not too overpowered [skill], and this whole weird anit-void. You know this is actually the fabric of reality, right? Fucking Taubitha's so damn stupid that she actually ripped you out of a [checkpoint] in time and put you within a rift in the fabric of reality itself to try and kill you. She's got to be a complete fucking imbecile, like, the dumbest fucking person ever. Do you know that if she sneezed the wrong way, she could potentially annhilate all consciousness in the universe? Like, what fucking idiot gave her the [Dimensional Wizard] [class], anyway?"

As she beheld them, it became - at least, it seemed to become - clear that they were the Supreme Time Protector. Or, was that who it was? They seemed... different, and yet familiar all the same. Either way, Kahli felt strangely safe around them. "Supreme Time Protector?" she asked dubiously.

"Oh, no, no, no," said the figure with a shake of the head. "I'm not that dickhead. I'm the Exalted Time Protector. I could tell you my whole title too, if you like, but I have a feeling neither of us want to spend the time - heh - on that bullshit right now."

"Oh... okay..." Kahli was trying to take all this in, and it was very difficult. Taubitha was still wailing and sobbing in a huddled bundle, it was honestly kind of sad. "Wait, why isn't Princess attacking us?"

"The creepy fony?" replied the Exalted Time Protector. "Oh, I froze that fucking thing in time. Motherfucker won't even experience time passing until we've done what we need to do here."

"Okay," said Kahli, feeling obligated to voice her understanding as much as possible due to the fact that she was paralyzed except for her eyes and mouth. Only, the more she tried, the more she found she was able to move again. "Hey! I can move again! Did you do that, too?"

"Not directly," said the Exalted Time Protector. "It's just because I fucked Tabuitha's shit up. But if I were you, I'd hurry up quick and come with me. Things have gotten way too fucking serious right now for me to sit idly by and not meddle at all."

"Meddle?" Kahli asked. "What do you mean?"

The Exalted Time Protector sighed. "Time Protectors are supposed to advise and bestow [classes], not jump into rifts in reality and fucking fight people. But shit is getting out of hand, and if we're going to fix it, we're going to have to fucking work together, world be damned. And if not, well, you can give the fuck up on saving the world, because all of existence itself might just be fucking doomed, too."