Fight the Fanfic Prologue
Fight the Fanfic
By Captain Gaul
“Gaul! Wheredya want these boxes?”
“I dunno. Which ones are those?”
“Uh…’Chi Memorabilia’.”
“Put it downstairs. Chi’s gonna set up some kind of shrine to her ancestors in the basement.”
Moe hauled the heavy boxes marked ‘fragile’ over to the railing, and dropped them down into the basement. Realizing what he had done just a little too late, he looked down in horror, and listened for the expected tinkling of glass; instead, he heard a cat screeching and a dog whimpering. Puzzled, he chose simply to ignore it and walked over to where Gaul was sitting at his desk.
“Gaul…do you think Magus was mad?”
“Moe, he was screaming that he never wanted to see us again, was threatening to hit us with evil magic if we came near his castle, and sent a bunch of imps to escort us off the continent.”
Normally, Magus was fairly even-tempered—very little was so bad that a good week of searching for Schala alone wouldn’t put him back in high spirits; however, a triad of monstrous misfortunes caused him to, as Moe put it, ‘blow a gasket.’ Chi had forgotten to trigger the “Soundproof” spell during one of her practice sessions, and shattered a glass sculpture of Magus in the next room, along with several stained-glass windows “borrowed” from the palace of Zeal; Moe had accidentally put one of his battlewrenchs through a library wall, knocked over a bookcase, and started a chain reaction that the imps were still trying to clean up after; and one of Gaul’s friends came over, had a bit too much to drink of Magus’s private wine stash—it took Gaul three hours to put out the resulting fire. Magus had chosen to come home at about the worst time possible, with Moe gaping over his handiwork in the library, Chi gingerly picking up glass shards in the gallery, and Gaul screaming frantically while using a combination of ice spells and normal water to extinguish the flames. Enraged, he threw the three of them out.
Gaul, feeling somewhat responsible, suggested that Moe and Chi move in with him until Magus calmed down. The captain owned a house in the mountains, in which he and his fiancee had intended to move in to after their wedding—Gaul was still a bit touchy about the issue, but he tried not to show it.
What he wasn’t aware of was that his two friends were not exactly light packers.
Before Moe could respond, klaxons sounded and alarms flashed. A large Oriental painting on one wall slid to the side, revealing a complicated, futuristic computer display, showing hundreds of unintelligible characters and explaining the alert with a series of arcane wire frame diagrams that boggled Moe’s brain.
Gaul, however, evidently knew what was going on, because he hastily pulled his chair over to his computer (now rising out of his desk with the alarm’s sounding) and cursed in Manatetan. He quickly typed in some input, and the computer displayed much more output. He cursed again. Chi and Moe were at his side a second later.
“Nicholas, what’s wrong?”
“Someone’s trying to write a fanfic.”
“You mean an alternate reality? People create those all the time.”
“That’s not the problem. The problem is that they’re TRYING. They didn’t go through any protocol first.”
“There’s protocol?”
“Yes! If you want to write a CT Fanfic, you need a fresh CT reflection to work with…and those need to be prepared weeks, if not months in advance.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“We don’t have any reflections prepared! If I can’t give them a reflection to start working with, the damn system will time-out to the original CT.”
“That’s bad?”
“That’s really bad! End of the CT Multiverse as we know it—the reflection-universes will be destroyed, permanently! Any new fanfics must reflect the new original; and I highly doubt this person will make changes for the better.”
“That’s bad!”
“Right. We’ve got to hurry and find a reality for him to write to. Computer! Call up the IcyBrian master list!”
The computer flashed a couple times, then displayed the main author list for CT fanfic writers at www.icybrian.com. Moe and Chi were quick to suggest authors for the reality choice.
“How about him?”
“Are you crazy? Demon’s Gate isn’t even finished all the way yet. Icy would bring my head to the Legion of Fantasy in a Tupperware dish.”
“How about her?”
“Hell no! Krazy’s spent way too much time developing her universe. She might be a little more lenient with me, but I’d still be minus a head.”
“Her?”
“Won’t work. None of the CT characters are in the CT universe—they’re all off campaigning in FF6.”
“Him?”
“NO! I fear Nanaki much more than IcyBrian. Do you know what he did to the last person who crossed him?”
“Um…Mystery Fanfic Theater, wasn’t it?”
“What about this Storyteller dude?”
“That universe is way too messed up for anyone to use, safely.”
“How about her, boss?”
“None of the main authors. All of them have way too much power for me to screw up their universe and get away with it.”
“Do you recognize any of these ones?”
“No…don’t read the lower ones as much…and these ones all take themselves way too seriously.”
On the computer monitor flashed the words: WARNING. NO ALTERNATE UNIVERSE SELECTED! TIMEOUT TO ORIGINAL IN 15…14…13….
“Shit! There’s no time left!”
“Choose one, now!”
Gaul looked in the direction of the author for one brief moment. “Forgive me.” He said, clicking on the link marked “Captain Gaul”. The screen flashed: UNIVERSE SELECTED. MARK: CAPTAIN GAUL. PREVIOUS WORKS: A Typical Arrest in Truce Village; A Typical Day on Guardia Patrol; Crono’s Agent; Guardia’s Finest; Patrol Abroad. UPLOADING UNIVERSE TO FILE: PREPARING WRITE TO FILE…WARNING! WARNING! THIS UNIVERSE HAS BEEN EDITED BY A PREVIOUS REALITY AUTHOR! TWO AUTHORS WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SUCCESSFULLY SHARE A REALITY’S CONTROL—PLEASE CONSOLIDATE POWER IMMEDIATELY!
Gaul heaved a sigh of relief, the task for the moment done. But he knew that in order to save his existence, he was going to have a lot to do.
.