“Wait, which side are we on?”

“There’s sides?”

* Overheard at the Last Battle

10 Minutes Earlier (Highgarden Time) - Copycat - The Bridge

The thunderbolt fades. Probably. All I see and hear is white, but I’m pretty sure it’s gone. May have overloaded my senses. I’ll give it a minute.

Shapes and sounds slowly come back. Not much around. A gentle breeze. A glassed crater. A huge pile of smoldering dragon meat.

Well, alright. I guess I’m good.

The dwarven fortifications are gone, revealing a shimmering hole in nothing. The Bridge, I guess. Beneath me, the thunderbolt has scored runes into the glassed crater. The Beacon Of Hope. Longstrider’s blade is gone. It’s just a smoking handle in my hand. Dang.

“Good things never last.” rumbles a deep voice.

I slowly look to the side, where the seared pile of dragon meat gracefully unfolds into a multi-ton terror. Lethal wounds pull shut. Shattered scales regrow a beautiful crimson. Within seconds, Apex is back to full health.

Fuck.

“That was incredible.” he says. “Thanks.”

I side-eye the Bridge. Can I make it?

Apex nods. “Go ahead. You win. I kill you again and again, but you keep coming back. I give up.” His wings unfurl and the great dragon ponderously takes to the air. “I guess you want it more than I do. The Burning Man can solve his own problems.”

I’m left alone with the smoking handle, glistening runes, and shimmering hole.

Okay. Let’s go see what I want.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

My portal trip is smooth and easy. The Bridge itself is a small globe of energy adrift in a chaotic rage of cosmic forces. It bobs and weaves through the wrathful destruction, seeming too small and slippery to be crushed. In its center, a powerfully built man sits in quiet contemplation.

The Bridge surfs a wave of high energy death. The wave ripples backwards to hold us in place as a huge spike forms to viciously impale the small bubble that guards our reality.

It’s looking bad, until the man absentmindedly blunts the spike and lets it push us through the standing wave. The Bridge is free again. Bobbing and sliding through a pointedly hostile megaverse.

I watch reality get lazily saved a few more times. Kinda inspiring. Kinda chilling. I wonder how much daylight I’m burning? Things were getting a bit dire in Highgarden.

“Um, hello?”

The man turns to me. There’s a hole in his chest filled with blinding fire. “Goddamn Copycat. You here to finish the job? Wasn’t enough to light me on fire for eternity?”

This is awkward. “I don’t remember doing that.”

He sighs. “Great. Really puts my endless agony in perspective. Where the fuck is Tiger? Weren’t you getting him?”

“I couldn’t find him.” A huge demon face is forming in the chaos behind Burning Man. Its jaws lunge for the Bridge with psychotic glee.

“How could you not find him? He’s, like, half the fucking people out there.” He casually pilots the Bridge past the teeth and out the back of the demon’s head.

“Oh. Hmm.” That adds some texture to my recent problems. “Did you want any Tiger in particular? Or shall I pop out and grab a random one?”

“No need.” The entity known by many names enters the Bridge. He’s brimming with power. “I’m already here.”

“Tiger, good. I need you to…” Burning Man is rudely interrupted when Tiger grabs him and tears him asunder. He throws his corpse through the delicate sphere of the Bridge and laughs as the chaos energy sweeps over us.

I’m blown through the portal as angry forces rush into the realms. Highgarden is totalled before the energy even gets there. The Last Battle clearly ended badly. I’m about to be blown up and away, when a strong arm grabs me. I look down to my savior - and see myself.

An army of orcs surround the portal. I’m pulled into the shelter of their ranks. The chaos energy streams overhead. I look around sheepishly. One of them shrugs. “You called. We came.”

I guess that’s all there is to it. “Everything’s fucked. I don’t know how to fix it.”

“We can’t. Not as we are.”

“We’ll have to come together.”

“Will we still be us?”

“No.”

“Shit.”

Highgarden is cracking beneath us.

“Fuck it. One last toast ladies.”

We grab hold of the orcs next to us.

“To Death!”

We lean in, pull each other close.

“To Darkness!”

Brace.

“And The End Of Everything!”

There’s a loud pop and my brain explodes.

It all comes back to me.