Year 2 – Shift 30 – The Queen of Everything- Sara
The lid on the sky once again opened right as Sara was taking a mean shit behind a standing stone.
“Oh, shit.” Glandalf’s face appeared next to Clem, who was with him in person. “Sorry, but we’re ready when you pinch that off.”
Glandalf shut the lid, and Sara scrambled to finish and clean up. “Okay. I’m good now. What do we have?”
The lid popped back open, and Glandalf went straight into it. “I have the target locked, but we have a problem. A big one.”
“Tell me.” Sara nodded, the entirety of the Sun-Tartan camp gathering behind her to listen.
“I wouldn’t call it a problem so much as a massive deterrent.” Clem showed the first trace of fear Sara had seen from her since they met. “There will be a timer. A very short one for what you want to accomplish.”
Sara nodded, a little confused about the gravity of it. “Like five minutes?”
“No. You have an hour, but…” Clem’s composure cracked for a microsecond before she continued. “At the end of the hour, our connection with you and the book will be severed completely.”
Sara felt Raven slipping away with every word. She stood in stunned silence for a moment. “What…what does that mean? For me? For them?”
“Best guess is that they come back.” Glandalf took over because Clem was clearly not well. “In whatever state you leave ’em in.”
“Then…” Sara breathed. “What about me?”
“Sara.” Clem pushed through to take up as much of the opening in the sky as she could. “I need to be very direct with you. Whatever happens in that hour, like you said, won’t make it to print. So after Williamsburgland returns, we have to delete the section. And since the section consists only of Drawn From the Ash canon, Tawagoto, and you…”
Sara put it together and finished the sentence for her. “I’ll be deleted.”
The silence around the camp grew so loud that Sara could barely hear her heart hammering in her ears.
“To save my people.” Sara was completely empty. “In Tawagoto and Serevak.”
After an uncomfortably long silence, Clem responded. “We can find another way, Sara. Maybe we can—”
“No.” Sara cut her off. “Do it.”
“Hold.” A booming voice like gravel called from behind her.
Sara turned to see someone she had grown to know well over the interim. Ronan MacTir, head of the Sun-Tartan clan. “Ronan, I—”
“Sara.” His deep, gentle voice left no room for debate. “We agreed to help because you’ve become family in the short time you’ve been here. Our help in your war is not contingent upon a deletion to return us unharmed.”
“We will help you, Sara.” Alenikka stood, flanked by the Sisterhood of the Ash. “Whatever the result, we live with it as we always do.”
Sara was completely without words. “I…”
“You’ve been here a quarter of a day, and you’ve already taught my cook a new recipe that was a hit with the entire clan. You’ve taught my bards six new songs. You showed me how to organize the wagons so well that we now have three empty wagons, and you’ve shown us pictures of the home you’ve bled to build.” Ronan countered. “You are family, Sara Alvarez.”
“And we fight with you.” Alenikka took her hand. “Whatever it is we face.”
Sara choked up with tears, and she could see Clem read it and bail her out.
“That doesn’t change Tawagoto coming back, but it leaves you there to try to find a way home.” Clem tapped something Sara couldn’t see. “Oh. And anything you’re touching will stay too.”
Sara thought about staying in Serevak. This place wasn’t cruel in the way Tawagoto was. This was a book first born so a fiery little girl who had her innocence taken before she saw double digits could burn the evil world down. The Dragon God was about to awaken, and they were none the wiser. Serevak was about to see utter annihilation, and what was Sara going to do? Raven wasn’t going to like it.
She sat with that for a long time before the three words that made it right popped into her head.
Raven will live.
“Do it.” Sara activated and walked into a clear spot in the middle of the field. Everyone spread out around her, but the Sisterhood of the Ash surrounded her protectively.
Glandalf’s fingers flew. “You got it, Sara. Now, Chino said we only have enough iyudiumiumium resonance stones left for the foreseeable future to make this happen once. Unless we figure something else out, we can’t bring you back either. Cybertruck-kun is loaded onto the track now. On your go.”
“Clem?” Sara looked up at her, steeling herself for what she needed to get off her chest. “If I die, I want you to know that you are beautiful. Everything about you is a masterpiece, and you don’t need to change a single thing to be part of the Etokuso family. I only ask that you be gentle with Raven. I don’t think she’ll handle this well.”
Clem froze and stared back at her. She raised a finger just beneath her eye and wiped it aside. “Oh my. Fluid leak. I’m sorry.”
Sara waited a beat, then decided not to anymore. “Go.”
Glandalf pushed the button. The lid slammed shut. The sky began to glow with pink, blue, and white flows of energy. Electricity shot through it in ripples and waves, and it was almost instant. A large, flat patch of ground appeared beneath them, and the Sun-Tartan clan activated, spreading out and waiting for Sara’s assessment of the scene that appeared with it.
In front of her, all her friends were lined up before not Alenikka, but who Sara now knew was Mirror-Sara and her party. Mirror-Mark was bound and on his knees at Mirror-Simone’s feet. All together. Mirror-Sara held Sara’s journal and the Respec Fairy horn, with a tiny Cummental standing on the stone beside her. At the back of the line was…Craig? How in the hell did he get out?
Mirror-Sara turned, and her face lit up. “Sara! So glad you came when you did.”
She waved the journal toward Sara. A tether of magic similar to the ones holding her party trailed from it and struck her, but immediately fizzled.
“That’s our journal.” Sara studied her. “It doesn’t affect you. Why would it affect me?”
“Get her!” Mirror-Sara hissed.
Gavin acted first. His hands blurred as he whipped three tiny blades from his jacket in rapid succession. Three arrows tore through the air and knocked each one harmlessly to the ground.
“Too slow!” Jin’s childlike voice carried through the wind.
Gavin spun around, looking everywhere. “But there’s no treeeeeesss!”
Mirror-Simone was next. But she wasn’t. She started to move, then froze.
“Enough!” Mirror-Sara waved the book at the group of captives, and they all shrieked in agony. “I’ll just torture them right here in front of you, then.”
She waved the book again. More screams came.
“Stop!” Sara raised her hands. She couldn’t take it. “Take me, then!”
“Not this time, bro.” A completely calm, completely done voice Sara had not heard in far too long came from behind her as a beefy, badass vegan minotaur charged past and absolutely bodied Mirror-Sara with his Vapehammer, sending her flying. The journal fell harmlessly to the ground, releasing everyone from their magical chains. “You ain’t doing this alone.”
As the chains broke, Craig looked around tactically and instantly teleported out of sight. Fuck. Chadwick stood, snorted, then immediately clanged the massive maul against Gavin’s chest and launched him into the distance.
“Chadwick!” Sara stared in shock. “How?”
“You think I’m letting you close alone again?” He ducked a suspiciously wild arrow from Mirror-Simone and shoulder-checked her into the next time zone.
Sara dashed toward Raven, who was on her knees with the rest of the group. She fell into the gravel beside her and swallowed Raven in an embrace she had never thought she would have again, and probably wouldn’t after this.
“My moon lily!” Sara cupped Raven’s cheeks in her hands.
Raven pulled away and looked at her like a stranger. “Who…who are you?”
Sara died inside. “What? Raven, it’s me!”
A hand clapped onto Sara’s shoulder. “She’s on the last one. Mirror-Sara respecced everyone. Raven’s mind is gone.”
Sara turned angrily and beat against the chest before her. “No! Marky, no! Please, no!”
They embraced her and absorbed the blows. “Sara. Gummy bear. We can get her back. Conquistador said if we destroy the horn, everything returns to normal.”
“Hate to break this up, guys, but they ain’t done.” Cody called as he helped Simone to her feet.
Mirror-Mark screamed, reached up, snapped his bindings, and placed both palms against the ground. Dozens of ghouls and major undead began crawling from the earth.
“NO!” Mirror-Simone screamed as she sprinted back from the other side of the island chunk. “He’ll kill everyone!”
“Shut up!” Mirror-Sara waved the book at her, and she instantly froze in place. “That’s the fucking point!” Her face distorted, and the mask fell. Underneath, Sara stared at her clone. “No one left to cause pain!”
The Sun-Tartan clan cleaned up the undead like they were pulling weeds. They were no challenge for the well-seasoned nomadic group. Sara took stock of who could and could not fight. Simone and Cody were working on zombies. Raven was too, but completely vacantly. She fought on instinct alone.
Then Sara saw the secret weapon.
“Mark!” she called.
“Wynter,” they replied.
“What?” Sara dodged a stray bite and smashed her elbow into the back of the zombie’s neck, dropping it instantly.
“My name is Wynter now.” They cast a cone of flame into the horde.
Sara paused and took a solid hit to the stomach while she processed it. She recovered and charged Gavin, who was trying to snatch a cloak from the little goblin girl with them, knocking him to the ground. “Are you…?”
They pressed their hands together, formed chilling strikes, and launched them into two more zombies. “I wanted to wait so I could say it to you first.”
Sara spun and saw Mirror-Sara charging Wynter’s turned back. She wasted no time. Sara hurled her shortsword, caught Mirror-Sara’s cloak, and pinned her to the wall long enough for Wynter to get away. “Say what?”
They reared back and began a deep channeling. Sara knew that if they channeled, it was big. After a second, a radiant burst of green light exploded from them, vaporizing the zombies and knocking the mirror party to their knees.
But that wasn’t all that changed.
Sara looked back and saw that Wynter’s changeling body had changed.
“Sara.” Wynter bowed in majestic, green-trimmed wizard robes and held out a hand. “I’m Wynter Green. I’m a woman. Please use she/her.”
Sara stared for a long moment, and everything snapped into place. Everything made so much more sense now. She closed the distance and took Wynter’s hands.
“Wynter! My sister from another mister. There you are. I see you.”
Wynter broke. Tears and a smile filled her soul. “And I see you, Sara Alvarez.”
The mirror party was back on its feet and closing in.
Wynter looked into Sara’s eyes for one more beat before speaking. “Ready to get fuckin’ mancy? I learned from you, after all.”
Sara sighed and looked toward the approaching threat that no longer felt like one. Chadwick stood firm between the groups, Vapehammer in hand, ready to massacre. This wasn’t right. Mirror-Sara had taken several massive hits and looked untouched. Something was missing. What was it?
Then Sara saw it.
The journal Mirror-Sara kept pulling out.
What the fuck had she written in there? She had to remember the Queen of Everything.
The mirror party stopped just in front of Chadwick.
“Give us Sara, and you can all go back to living your pathetic fucking lives,” Mirror-Sara called past him. “You think you can beat us with this lot?”
Sara looked back at Wynter, having heard exactly what she needed to put the pieces together. She gave her the same wink she had given a million times when they co-DMed.
“You’re right. We can’t. So you’re going to let everyone go home except for us. Four of you. Four of us. You win? You get all four of us.”
Wynter, Simone, and Cody stood at Sara’s back, facing the mirror party.
“You aren’t even worth our time, then!” Mirror-Sara hissed but did not answer.
Mirror-Simone tried to get Sara’s attention with her eyes from behind Mirror-Sara, and Sara caught it. The horn. She had to get to it.
“Then we’ll just pack up and leave.” Sara motioned toward the others.
“Fine!” Mirror-Sara snarled.
“Clem!”
Sara stared into Raven’s eyes from several yards away while she waited for a response. For a brief moment, she was sure Raven had recognized something, but she quickly returned to a vacant stare. Sara’s heart broke.
The lid opened.
Mirror-Sara wheeled around and stared into the sky in awe. “What the fuck is that?”
“I’m Clem,” she replied. “I’ve been your killer today! How can I help you, Sara?”
This was Sara’s chance. She motioned toward Mirror-Sara’s belt, but the horn was already gone.
What the—
The larger of the two goblins appeared behind Mirror-Sara and passed over the giant cock horn.
“You can help me by dying!” Mirror-Sara answered for her and aimed the journal’s magic upward. It arced into the sky and struck Clem, electrifying her.
“CLEM!” Sara watched the Warforged shake and collapse beside Glandalf before the lid crackled with static and sealed shut, leaving a seam of pulsing electricity across the sky.
Mirror-Sara spun and waved the book again, freezing everyone except Sara. “Enough! It’s time! Just me and you, bitch!”
Sara looked at her friends and the creations from her book. They were all frozen in pink, sparkly magic. Mirror-Simone was held too.
Then Sara saw Raven.
Frozen in a half-dead, half-recognizing stare. But her eyes. There was fire in them again, even if there was no motion.
Sara took a deep breath. She was fucking tired of seeing people hurt the ones she loved.
Sara stared at Mirror-Sara, done. She sighed, pulled off her top, revealed the Gymreapers sports bra beneath it, and threw the shirt down. She rolled her neck and cracked her knuckles.
“You want me? You’re gonna work.”
“Hahaha!” Mirror-Sara cackled as she tucked the book into the frozen Mirror-Simone’s pack. She dropped her own pack at the helpless mirror’s feet and pulled off her top, revealing a similar sports bra that looked like it had been bought on Amazon. She reached for the spot on her belt where the horn had been. “What the fuck? You…”
Sara waved the horn in her face. “Lookin’ for this, bitch?”
Mirror-Sara was there in a blink and uppercut Sara by surprise. The force of the hit turned everything white for a moment before Sara’s head slammed against the ground. Mirror-Sara stood over her, holding the cock horn. She planted a boot in the middle of Sara’s chest and leaned in, pressing the tip against her lips with force.
“Blow!” she screamed like a child who hadn’t gotten her way. “Blow it! Suck the dick, bitch!”
Sara rolled hard to the left, grabbed Mirror-Sara’s ankle and knee, and twisted her to the ground, making her face-plant in the dirt. Sara rolled, spun her leg around, and rose to her feet with Mirror-Sara’s twisted leg trapped beneath her. She pulled the other one over, set her leg, arched backward, and landed on her hands, applying a figure-eight leg lock.
“Fuck!” Mirror-Sara screamed in agony and writhed on the ground. “I’m gonna fucking kill you!”
Sara knew she couldn’t fight the projection of her younger self. There was only one thing the Sara from before Etokuso wanted, and the current Sara would not let her have it.
“You don’t need to be her! You’re strong enough already!”
It landed, but only for a microsecond.
“No, I’m not! I need to be the Queen of Everything! I can fix them!”
Sara looked at the frozen mirrors and finally saw it. Mirror-Sara wanted the same thing she did. To protect her people. But she was doing it wrong. Manipulation, death, destruction. Sara had learned this. She had lived this. She knew.
“No, you can’t! They can only fix themselves!”
Because of the angle, Sara couldn’t see it, but she heard a blade slide from its sheath, and her nervous system frayed. She released the hold just as Mirror-Sara sat up with blinding speed and lunged before standing.
The knife sank into Sara’s left side.
Sara clenched and jerked, but Mirror-Sara held the blade firm. The movement became a three-inch gash just beneath her ribs. Sara tried to push herself up, but the agony of the lacerated muscle made her collapse and brace for another stab.
It didn’t come.
Instead, fingers dug into the wound as Mirror-Sara reached inside her. Pink electricity flooded Sara’s body. She went into immediate spasms, unable to control any of her muscles, and felt herself piss for the second time that day.
Mirror-Sara cackled as she conducted. Sara lay helpless and twitching. Mirror-Sara shoved the knife into Sara’s other side, carved a nearly identical hole, and reached inside with her other hand.
“You lie! I know what I have to be! This is how we survive! This is what we have to do to fight!”
The electricity did not stop. Mirror-Sara reveled in her destruction, pure glee stretched across her face as Sara smelled herself cooking from the inside.
Mirror-Sara finally stopped and pulled her blood-covered hands free. She smiled down at Sara and licked a long trail of dripping ichor from her fingers.
“Have any last words?”
A lock of wild hair fell across Mirror-Sara’s wide, Nancy Downs-crazy eyes.
Sara coughed and sputtered. There was only one thing left to do. She had to get mancy.
She coughed, pushed herself onto one elbow, and stared into Raven’s frozen eyes across the field. “Just…my favorite…Robert Bevan quote.”
Mirror-Sara narrowed her eyes and cocked her head. She leaned in close for effect and chuckled. “Okay. You wanna quote that hack?”
Sara reached inside herself. Mirror-Sara had done a lot of things, but insulting the king of LitRPG stupidity and dick jokes himself would not stand. Sara reached out with one weak hand, pressed a finger against Mirror-Sara’s chest, and forced a smile.
“…horse.”
By the time Mirror-Sara noticed, it was too late. Her eyes ripped wide just as the rest of her body ripped wider when the phantom steed formed inside her. Blood and viscera covered the horse and the ground beneath it as the spell snapped and everyone was freed.
Sara turned toward the remaining mirrors as her friends and Raven swarmed to her defense. Wynter was the first to her knees, pressing warm, healing hands against Sara’s wounds. They did not heal them, but they stopped the blood flow.
“Behind you!” Sara warned.
Wynter spun and saw Mirror-Mark about to cast at her in blind rage and creator guilt. She threw up her hands and cast first.
“Freedom!”
Mirror-Mark stopped. He looked at Wynter, then down at his hands, then toward Mirror-Simone, who held the journal and looked confused. Then he looked back at Wynter.
“What…”
Wynter shapeshifted into a perfect replica of Mirror-Mark and placed a hand on his shoulder. “They can’t do it for you. Everyone will let you down if you rely on them to change things for you. This used to be me. I was you.”
She shifted back into her new, radiant form. “And this is me happy. Finally free.”
Mirror-Mark stared at her for a long moment before teleporting away in a panic, likely unaware that he was now in a different world.
“Gavin’s gone!” Cody called. “But we still got her.”
Simone approached Mirror-Simone far more calmly than Sara would have, but Mirror-Simone did not look threatened.
“You aren’t like them, are you?”
Mirror-Simone looked down at the journal, then at the cock horn, then toward Simone. She shook her head and held out the journal.
“No. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to hurt people.”
Wynter helped Sara over to her. Sara looked at Mirror-Simone, then at her identical counterpart, then at the journal that had started it all and took it back.
“How did it even get here? How did my journal become the source?”
Wynter hung her head. “I…I took it. I read it obsessively, Sara. I made Tawagoto because of it. Because of you. I’m…I’m so sorry. I know I violated your trust. I…”
Sara felt the tension in the arms holding her up, but she did not understand it.
“Wynter, I think I get it. Now, at least. You weren’t obsessed because of romantic love. It was your way of exploring your gender without having to name it. You’re forgiven.”
Wynter teared up, and her grip eased into comfort. “Thank you, Sara.”
The sky opened, and Glandalf appeared. “Hey, Sara. You have about two minutes until Tawagoto comes back.”
“Is Clem okay?” Sara looked up in worry.
Glandalf was silent. “I’m not sure yet. I’m sorry. But I did find a lead on returning via—”
The lid slammed shut, and the world began to crumble around them. It wasn’t an earthquake. The landscape itself simply fell away like dust, revealing Serevak beneath it.
Sara painfully broke contact with Wynter and stepped back. “You can’t touch me, or you’ll stay too!”
“What?” Wynter stared in shock. “No! I won’t leave you!”
“You have to, Wynter!” Sara looked down at the cock horn and the journal. “Once I destroy this, the erasure reverses for all of you. I need you to lead them until I can get home.”
Wynter stared for a long time before looking toward Cody and Simone. Both gave deeply unenthusiastic nods.
“Break it. Then get home. Please. I want to really explore having you as a sister now.”
Tears welled in Sara’s eyes as she smiled at her newfound sister. “I will. I promise.”
Cody and Simone faded into dust with the landscape. Sara swallowed hard and touched the journal to the cock horn. It fizzled. It popped. It turned to ash.
Wynter’s eyes widened as her missing pieces returned to her, and she faded back to Tawagoto.
Then a hand wrapped around Sara from behind, settled over her stomach, and pulled her close. A familiar musk and the scent of moon lilies and jasmine engulfed her. Sara was lost instantly. She wrapped her hands over Raven’s and allowed herself to be swallowed.
There was another universe inside Raven. The moon and sun had no meaning, and the stars always enrobed them in the sweet lavender light of the cosmos. Nothing else mattered. Not now. Not ever. Only this.
“I found you,” Raven whispered into Sara’s ear. “I was all alone, but I peeled back every layer until I found you.”
Tears washed over Sara’s cheeks. She spun in Raven’s arms, looked into her deep, icy eyes, and placed one soft hand against her chest, just above her heart. Sara tried to speak, but the emotion stifled the words. Her lip trembled. Then it curled downward, and she pressed her face into Raven’s chest and sobbed.
“I…still…have arms.”
She managed to choke it out just as Serevak faded behind them, leaving them suspended in a hypnotic space of stars. It didn’t matter. Sara didn’t care what was happening. Raven was here.
And then.
Sara woke up.
She snapped upright and looked around. Her skin wasn’t red. Sara stared at her caramel skin, and before she could register where she was, she saw the mocha-skinned woman in the bed beside her.
It was her.
Raven.
But she was human.
Raven stirred as Sara looked around in wonder. She was here again. In Tsuruhashi. With Raven.
Raven shot upright. “Where are we?” She stared at her arms. “What am I?”
Sara looked at the sheer beauty of Raven like this. “We’re on Earth. In Osaka.”
“But…how?”
Raven stood and examined her new body before stepping on something. She bent down and picked up a letter with Sara’s name written across it.
“It says ‘Sara-san.’”
Sara took the letter and slowly opened it. Inside was something she hadn’t expected.
But she had.
You were lost. Now you’re here. For a year. Come see me sometime.
It was signed by the man himself.
Sengoku.