They landed in a heap on the control room floor. Thanks to their plot armor all of them were singed, but had only taken superficial damage. When they arrived MacGuffin was just putting the finishing touches on his Deus Ex Machina, while Prince Tristrain was passed out in the chair with a large welt on his forehead.
“Oi, I was just about to leave ye. Ye got here right on time.” MacGuffin looked at them, noticing the scorch marks, then shrugged before returning to his machine.
Rava squinted at the machine, trying to get a clear look. But every time she tried to focus her eyes, it seemed to change and shimmer this way and that. One second it was a box, the next it was a pyramid shape. It changed color and size, and different markings appeared on it all the time. MacGuffin pressed a button that appeared out of nowhere, and a blue swirling portal shot out of the center.
MacGuffin looked back at them.
“Everybody ready?” He asked. “Hopping imaginations can be a bit uncomfortable, so it’s best if ye brace yerselves.”
Rava looked at her friends and they all nodded back at her in agreement. She turned back to MacGuffin, ready to tell her they were good to go, but then something gave her pause. In the background she saw the monitor showing the feed of the Bastard. He was back at his writing device, staring at the blank page again. Rava felt a deep sense of pity for the Bastard at that moment. Maybe it was because they finally had their ticket out of here and he couldn’t keep them prisoner any more, but she suddenly felt bad for the guy. They were the most interesting characters he had ever written and even they were abandoning him. Then another thought occurred to her. He was never going to stop. He may be staring at the blank page now, but soon he would put words on it, and write a whole new version of Rava, or some other character, that he would trap here in limbo. By leaving here, she was dooming a whole other generation of characters to a fate worse than death.
Rava sighed. “Before we go, do you think you can do me another favor?”
MacGuffin rolled his eyes. “What is it?”
“Do you think you could hook up your Deus Ex Machina to that microphone over there?”
He looked to the console and then back to Rava. He sighed. “Fine. But only because you lot saved me from them fanfiction pits. But make it quick.”
MacGuffin grabbed the shimmering object and a chord popped out of the side. He took the end of the chord and magically inserted it into a slot with the exact shaped outlet next to the microphone.
“Well I’ll be,” Dave said as Rava stepped up to the microphone.
She tapped it twice then spoke way too close to it. “Hey, can you hear me?”
The Bastard jumped out of his chair and fell to the floor.
(“What the hell? Who is that?”)
“Its me, you Bastard. Don’t you remember? You killed my father and framed me for his murder, then you trapped me in a forest for weeks before you gave up on me.”
(“No. nope. Not real. Noooooot real, man. I’m just having an acid flashback. Maybe those chocolates I ate earlier had shrooms in them or something, yeah that’s got to be it. It’s just a bad trip. The voices aren’t real.”)
“Hey, screw you man,” Rava said. “I’m not the one who made all this up. That was you. But that’s exactly why I’m talking to you now. You have to stop this. You have to stop starting stories and never finishing them. All you do is kill our families, and destroy our homes, then you forget about us and do it all over again. It has to stop. You have to give up on writing.”
(“I can’t do that. I don’t want to do that.”)
“But you don’t even enjoy writing. All you do is agonize over stories and then throw them in the trash.”
(“That’s not true. I finish stuff. And I don’t agonize. I just see all these worlds in my head, I see all these people and events, but then when I try to put it on the page it just… it falls apart.”)
“That’s why you have to stop. You don’t realize how much suffering we go through because of you.”
(“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”)
“Yeah, well, now you do. And I couldn’t in good conscience leave here without giving you a piece of my mind.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
(“Wait, you’re leaving? Where are you going?”)
“We’re going somewhere you can never torture us again.”
(“Who else is leaving with you?”)
“Use your imagination, ya friggin Bastard,” Rava said.
(“Don’t go! I’ll finish all of your stories, I promise. Scarlet, Dax, even The Banana Man. I don’t totally have an idea for a story for you yet, but I won’t stop until I do. And Dave. You’ve been there the longest. I’ll finish your story first. You’ve always wanted a last name, right? How about Dave Jessup, or Dave Kavorkian?”)
Dave stepped up to the mic. “It’s too late for that now. After what we been through, I don’t think any one of us could go back to the boring old stories you made up for us.”
“Yeah!” Dax agreed. Rava could see that Scarlet did too.
(“Please, I’ll do anything, just don’t leave me. Without you my life is boring. Without you it's just another normal existence, with a normal job, and a normal house, and a normal family. You’re all the closest thing I’ll ever get to magic.”)
“You should have thought of that before you gave up on us,” Scarlet said, grabbing the mic.
Then The Banana Man seized the mic. “Listen up motherfucker. You’re gonna answer some of my questions right fucking now. Do I come from a Banana world? Are other Banana people out there? How the fuck do I go to the bathroom? Answer me! Answer me dammit!”
(“Okay. Okay. Give me a second to think. Ummmmm. What if you come from a planet of Banana people, and you're currently at war with a race of sentient plantains? And you don’t go to the bathroom because you're immortal. You’re the king of the Banana people and you lead them to victory against the plantain men.”)
“No, no, That's not right,” The Banana Man said. “The Banana people are peaceful, we would never go to war.”
The Bastard sat up from the floor and went back to his writing machine, resting his fingers resting on the keys.
(“Yeah, that’s good. What else?”)
“Our mission is to feed the world. Wherever there’s hunger in the universe, the Banana people will be there to give them a good source of potassium and a helping hand!”
The Writer was typing furiously, as The Banana Man continued to dictate more facts about the heroic race of Banana people. Scarlet and Dax chimed in too, adding in pieces of their own stories, as the Writer continued to type out their suggestions.
MacGuffin yawned and looked at all six of his magical watches, each one more intricate than the last. “Ye ready yet? It’s time I got outta here.”
“Just a few more minutes, mister,” Dave said. “I got a few things I want to say to him too.”
“Sorry, time’s up,” MacGuffin said.
“C’mon guys let’s go. This might be our only chance to finally escape,” Rava said.
Dave frowned and put his hat over his chest. “I hate to say it, but I don’t know if I can go. Out there we’d just be background characters, we might blend into another imagination, maybe live a somewhat normal life, but here we’re important. Here we’re the main characters. And if we can help the Writer finish our stories then we might all get the happy ending we deserve.”
“I thought you all wanted to escape. Isn’t that what this has all been about?” Rava asked, suddenly feeling all alone.
“That’s what you want, Rava. And none of us would blame you if you left. But I think I’m gonna stay.”
“Scarlet, Banana Man, what about you?” Rava looked down the line and saw each of them give her a guilty smile.
“Dax?”
“I’m staying Rava, but I’m gonna miss you.”
Scarlet ran up and gave her a hug. Rava noticed she was no longer wearing a ball gown, but a simple blouse with a pair of jeans. “Promise me you’ll come visit.”
“Last chance Rava, ye comin’ or not?”
She looked from MacGuffin’s portal, then back to her friends. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Rava walked over to the microphone. “Listen up you Bastard. You better write me the best god damned ending in all of fiction.”
MacGuffin shrugged then started towards the portal.
“Hey MacGuffin, before you go, you think it ain’t possible to leave us this doohickey of yours that lets our Writer talk to us?” Dave asked.
MacGuffin shrugged again. “Yer gonna hate me for this, but: The power was inside ye all along.” He waved his hand and a little shimmering sparkle misted through the air. “There,” He said. “That should do the trick.”
“You’re right. I did hate that,” Rava said, a little disgusted.
“That’s why I don’t like to be usin these things. Nobody likes an Ex Machina ending.”
“I don't know,” Scarlet said. “Maybe this one time it’ll be okay.”
MacGuffin stepped into the portal, and when he was halfway through, he poked his head back and said, “Oh and by the way, there is a way ye could simulate visiting the other worlds ye know. All ye have to do is have yer Writer read from someone else’s book. That should do the trick.”
Then he disappeared, and the Deus Ex Machina went with him. But the connection between the Writer and the characters remained. Just like MacGuffin said, the power was within them now, and they were able to dictate their endings to the Writer as they saw fit.
One by one, the Writer made all of them their own stories, with their own happy endings. The Banana Man got to travel the universe feeding the hungry. Dax not only defeated the Wizard King, but he went on to build a whole new village, where he abolished the monarchy and made himself Wizard President instead. Scarlet decided that she didn't want to be the main character of a story and instead wanted to focus on her own development. She went to Columbia University where she got her PHD, and became a world-renowned psychologist. Dave met a nice lady and became a step dad to a kid named Mike. He even took his wife’s last name.
As for Rava, she returned home and had her brother thrown in prison. Tristrain was not happy with the choices she made for the end of their story, but she still visited him every day in hopes of rehabilitating him past his one-dimensionality. She saved the kingdom and lived happily ever after. But after that, she often found herself wandering through the forest back to the house of Dave. There she would meet up with the others to discuss the Writer’s new stories. The Writer was having all sorts of new ideas lately, and Rava would be damned if she didn’t give him a piece of her mind.