Careless

Harmonica dazzled the massive canvas with a kaleidoscope of color, letting an air-sprayer flood it's surface with droplets of many hues each passing second. She used a joystick to move up and down a ladder as she held the handle steady, making sure to accentuate the midtones and highlights on the geometric shapes. Her artistic spirit never ceased in the face of the adventure of true creation, that this canvas would become a world of it's own by sheer incident was merely a wayward fact. What artist didn't create their own worlds with a flick of a paintbrush? Not unless they were, abit too grounded to polish their quills and tighten their chords that is. A blot appeared along the canvas, turning to the figure of a sporty boy in overalls and baggy pants, and a 20's style tweed newsboy hat. She eyes the blot suspiciously, taking her goggles off and resigning herself to that meddling child's intervention.
"Hermes." Her voice carried a sing-song lilt to each syllable, pitched perfectly upon delivery. "To what do I owe your, curiosity?" She reached her hand and brushed away some of the paint around him, wet gooey droplets sticking to her finger. With a subtle smear of said finger, she created a couch behind him, which his blot hopped onto.
"I'm worried about you, Harmony. You spend all your time in a dark room, resigned to your fingerpaints. You need sunshine, fresh air and friends!"
"That's very afterschool special of you, but no thanks." She folded her arms. "If you came here to tease me with facetious jabs like that, you're better off toying with Intellica. She can provide you with better toys than I."
"Ughh, ew no. She always asks me to take part in her dumb experiments. Gets pretty dull with Ms. roboto."
Harmonica shrugged. "I have a few new worlds I painted last week if you want to explore around them. One of them was a commission, an old cosmic bootlegger was looking for something esoteric."
"Oh, really? Well I'll take you up on that offer someday! I'll show you guys a show-stopper when I have a show to stop! Right now, I've got a bigger project going on. But I'm concerned." His flat shape warped and spun on the canvas, moving around to create a thinking pose. "You've been acting like a little pixie, and, I can't stand it. I just want to turn you back into a human someday."
Harmony's eyes darted around for a moment, seemingly unsure of what to say. . Maybe it was guilt, maybe shame, maybe something else. It didn't matter what it was. She felt all of those emotions, and she was confused as to how they happened to arise at all. "Why don't we go for a walk? I can finish this project later." She pulled off her long white apron, taking a creme-dipped brush on a tall rack and slathering it around her body. The sticky, smooth substance formed a toned wintercoat around her body. "Let's go on a journey, dearest Hermes." Her blue eyes lit up with a hint of mischief, and she swung herself into the air. With a few notes, her voice peeled Hermes out of her painting into 3D space and plopped them onto the back of her shoulders piggyback style.
"An adventure! Ahoy! Let's go on exploit- I mean explore!"
"Ehe. Yes, let's."
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Over the vivid skies of Au, the clouds opened up, stretching into long rows which went across the horizon. Electricity and light stitched these rows like an endless fissure forming above the globe, the colors spinning in spirals over the structure. From out of the newly flowing ring in the sky, a marauding force of grey, bumpy leather skinned men on metal bikes in copper platelets. Their engines vroomed through the atmosphere as swarms of the invaders flew down, flying through marketplaces and streets, attacking everything in sight.
Awhooo, carry this parade in your memory you dillying fools! None escapes the Crescent Skies Gang!" Maximor shouted, a tomahawk slashing through a statue along the bazaar. "Stop them, they await judgement!" Templar Reismaus declared, her silver armor reflecting the interdimensional bikers. The Templars prepared spears and began a volley of beams above, some hitting, more often missing. Watching silently over the rancor, the Templaress Tetrador Condesa watched Captain Reismaus command the Templars fresh out the barracks, silvery knights flying through the skies on pegasi to counteract the invading thugs.
"Let the justice of the flying Crescent Skies Gang burn you all!" Maximor roared, riding up to the group, swinging his tomahawk. He swung his weapon in an arc that caught several Templars right in the middle of their armor. The armor broke open and the helmet of a Templar cracked in half, revealing his face covered in burn marks.
"What the fuck? Is this supposed to be justice? It's like watching a bunch of children play knights!" Maximor shouted, swinging his weapon at a few more Templars, knocking them off their feet.  In the heat of the battle, a crackle of pink thunder rang from the skies, distorting the ring from which the bikers emerged and leaving with it hot pink streaks of energy, space glitching around it. Maximor couldn't be certain of what he saw, but he could swear that he heard wry, high-pitched giggling.
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Alicestoria Rosalyn bumbled her way through the hallway. Her voice ushered a frail 'sorry' and 'excuse me' as she bumped past her classmates, hesitant to make eye contact. The flaky cement around brick mortal of these walls grew on her like a weighted fog, causing her to avert her eyes and the heavy bags underneath. Carrying a burlap sack behind her to hold her books, Alice shrewdly sped up her pace to avoid the three shadows casting over her from behind. She hurried into the bathroom, hoping to hide in a stall. Following her inside, Molly Cobblewart leapt around and stopped her in front. "Ohh, I'm so sorry Alice. Feralborne fashion week was cancelled, didn't you get the news?" She and her lackeys, Montra bleu and Dolle Jacques surrounded her with hands on their hips. "What do you want Molly?" Rosayln asked, sounding less confrontational than she'd like. She looked up and down Molly's black cape, her purple vinyl gloves and long gown, the sharp lipstick- villain. The handsome starlet of the villain track, and one so fortunate to have a third of her courses during the the day. "My Biograde professor told me to dispose of these Grime Beetles, if they stay in warm temperature they molt. Needs somewhere.." She pulled out a jar and held it over Alice's face, "Frigid." She took the cap off the jar and swung it forward, sending a slew of insects piling over Alice.
Rosalyn tried not to scream, but gave into the bad smell they gave a shrill eep.
"MOLLY! I'M GOING TO-" "What? Flutter your eyelashes? Please do." Molly picked one beetle out of the bucket and flicked it at Alicestoria. "And keep preaching those crazy doomsday prophecies, you freak."
Alice grit her teeth, lounging forward. Molly held out her palm, a glowing sigil of Writ signifying branded on her hand- the Eclipse House, an infamous villain guild. She was the daughter of House Eclipse's leader, Countesses Cobblewart. Suddenly, Alice felt unable- or unwilling rather, to tackle and retaliate. A Writ barrier. There was no physical separation, but the psychological barricade enhanced Molly's protection stopping any character motivation to charge her. Writ lent to such abilities, and Alice knew her story wasn't to get expelled attacking a villain, much less a prodigy like Molly.
"What do you expect? I'm a villain. Let's make one thing clear, I have seniority in this school, and a disheveled student like you shouldn't dream of being my nemesis."
"That doesn't make it right, Molly." Alicestoria wiped off several beetles, shuddering.
"Why not? Is it because you're still stuck in crazyland there waiting for the end?"
Molly's lackies' head swiveled to her. "We all are, girlie," Montra bleu said, with a hint of an Australian accent that Rosalyn had never heard, but long since given up on recognizing. "Waiting for the end of your bullshit." The cinnamon haired Montra kneed Alice and sent her reeling onto the floor. Dolle spit on her. Alicetoria tried to crawl away.
"Enough! You're not leaving this hallway till we're done!" Molly pulled a blade from her sleeve and held it to the throat of her enemy.
Alicestoria shook, a lump forming in her throat, the blood in her veins and ears, the blood from her brain, running through her, leaving her in a state of complete disorientation. "You'll never be able to win. A girl like you is never going to be taken seriously in a Writcademia like this. "You get in my way again, and there will be hell to pay. Got it?"  
Molly flicked her wrist, the blade in a line with Alicestoria's throat. "I said do you understand?"
The venom that formed from years of torment built up in Alicestoria's veins and she hissed. She convulsed. Fire like she'd never known, Alicestoria lunged with the speed of a striking cobra, her hand striking Molly's blade. She sent her lips towards Cobblewart's hand and bit down, giving purchase and not letting go. "OW! YOU BITCH-" Molly shook furiously trying to pull away, but Alicestoria held firm. Molly screamed, "Get off me!" with all her might, her lackies' efforts futile. Alicestoria's grip increased as the blood-lust overcame her. Molly kicked and punched, but Alice was stronger. She couldn't let Molly go without putting an end to her suffering, even if it cost her her life.
"Alicestoria, let her go." Janberry Ghofina appeared as if out of thin air. The gothic, sullen girl with pale skin and a black bowlcut over asianic features stood on shined latex boots and striped tights. One of the few villains that didn't kiss Molly's ass. Molly sneered, when did she even get in here?
"What are you doing here, you pig headed slut?" She pushed Janberry.
Jan gently threw her arms around Alice and pulled her off, Alice's... fangs? Sharp teeth dragged across Molly's skin as she unclenched, drawing blood. Molly took off her glove for a second to assess the wound, licking it, suckling it and then placing the glove back.
"Whatever. Out of my way. You freaks can share ugly virtues in the shitter." Molly pushed Alicestoria and Alice fell backwards onto her ass on the way out. The three left, leaving Jan and Alice alone.
"Molly.." Jan said, observing the sharp fangs.
"Thanks," Alice whispered, breathing heavily, "I'm going to-"
"Where did you get those? Are you- Feraleborne? Heroes don't have those." She looked over her with curiosity. Jan always had a snarky deposition, she'd earned a cynical reputation for never caring about anyone but herself, to stick her nose into another's business signaled to Alice she felt amiss.
She looked at Alicestoria. "Did something happen to you?"
Alice didn't want to explain, and she was unsure how to explain her current state. With everything happening around her, the last thing she needed was to get more attention.
"I don't know." Alice shook her head. "It feels like my skin is crawling and I don't know why."
"You'll feel better after lunch. "
"I want to leave."
"I overheard Molly earlier. She was mad she saw you out here, busy checking yourself in the mirror during her refresh time. Molly always does her makeup at that spot, after 3rd Karmagrade."
"What?" Alice was startled, "She's lying. I'm not like her." She hated how bad she was at lying, confrontation was unbearable.
"So that's why you wanted to bite her?" Jan gave her a confused look, "You were in here, probably observing those two daggers in your mouth."
Jan's heavily mascara-clad lashes blinked. "Well?"
Alicestoria coughed, she could still taste Molly's blood in her mouth. "Look I've got to go.."
Jan snorted, "Fine, keep your secrets. Well, now that we're friends," she reached out for Alice's hand, "Walk together to class?"
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Harmonica and Hermes stopped in the winter windscape of a thousand icicles, each towering the horizon and forming an icy gateway that shielded the outer world of AU from the arctic mountain ranges. The planet's rotation kept the poles in permanent nightfall, only once a lunar cycle did the light shine on the Aurelius Palace, something the two did not care a quarter of a century to see. Hermes sped into a large blot of shade in the distance and Harmonica followed, the sound of the cold wind and the crunch of snow and their footsteps filling her fine-tuned ears with quantum resonance. They came upon the Palace. It was cold, silent and dark, the only sound being their footsteps and their breathing, and it felt like she and Harmonica were alone in the entire world. She felt her heart sink, and she looked up at her friend.  The pearly gates of the Palace were frozen shut, a layer of iron encrusted with runes that no mortal to break. Harmonica looked on the entrance eagerly, her winter coat blowing in the breeze.
"It's locked! Pooey, why is he always such a stick in the mud?" Hermes mustered between shivering. Harmonica pat his head. Every cheery note of the wind played in her ears like chimes.
"The gate is always locked. No weapon or magic in Au could break the seal.. it'd be trivial for me however."
Hermes perked up. "Really? Cool, then let's go inside already, I'm coooold!"
Harmonica shook her head, before knocking rhythmically gently on the gate, the sound from her knock a perfect tritone.
She hated to disappoint her friend and cherished guest, but..She couldn't be selfish when she was here.
"Cormeum and I have a trust. I wouldn't break it." She looked up and waited.  "If he doesn't wish to come out, we cannot force him to."
"That's why we force our way innnn!!" Hermes stomped his foot in the soft snow.
The wind continued to blow, Harmonica and Hermes stood, watching the snow dance around them, each step it took became a melody. She smiled. There was a small light emanating from the gate, then she frowned.
What came out wasn't Cormeum, but a pure white snout and fangs growling from inside. The ten meter beast pushed it's head through, the great wolf with a horn, he opened it's jaws and shook his coat of crystalline-shimmering fur. The snow around him clinked and shifted back. He stepped out one paw at a time glared at her, tail swishing in the snow.
"Fenirir." Harmonica said, the singular word carrying timeless hostility.
"You're going to have to leave. You should not be here." The wolf responded, staring down at the two.
"We've come for my brother." She stated, matured features looking resolved.
"You are to leave, go on then. If you stay here, I will do everything in my power to destroy you."
"What have you done to him?" Harmonica was frantic, her hands fisted into a fist.
Fenirir growled, "This has nothing to do with you! Take my hand and let me lead you to the forest where we will find your brother. Once we do, I will kill you and leave, not before. You do not want this world. You do not want to be here. There is only emptiness."
"I can't leave him, I'm not. I'm not letting you hurt him."
"He's not the one you should be worried about." He stepped in front of them further twenty meters, leaving her and leaving a silhouette outline of his body where space-time split and converged with that of another. Petal blossoms and fig trees blew in a majestic landscape beyond the Fenirir-shaped hole. Harmonica and Hermes looked at one another.
"Is that-"
"Abyss." Harmonica disdained to be reminded of that awful place. "Something is afoot. Come with me, stay close Hermes."
"Ugh, I hate that place. Everyone I've ever sent.. doesn't do well. The place doesn't allow them to!"
"Yes, foreigners dropped in are oft denied stories. Let's make haste. "Harmonica took Hermes hand and followed him through."
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Condesa watched the marauders stormed in numbers too great to count, their riotous disorder tearing up block after block, ransacking the kingdom of Juan Komtur as if turning it into the tenth circle of hell. "Commander, you're running me ragged here!" She yelled, taking out her silver lance and firing at the swarm of bikers that Reismaus struggled to wrangle. She extended her silvery wings and flew down, lance in hand  to take the fight to the invaders.
Hermes turned around, his heart beat a bass drum in his chest. Within Abyss, they could locate Au in the clouds not too far away. A short minute flight for Hermes.
"There they are!" He let go of Harmonica's hand, and ran off, his boots kicking off the snow as he leaped out of the ice rime that covered his fleece. There was a commotion in the air, some sort of violent roar tearing the sky in two. Harmonica looked up, she could see reflections of Au distorting in the clouds like a ripple in a pond. In the reflection, a pink bolt shot through the skies like a comet and struck into the atmospheric fissure. It transferred from Abyss, to Au instantly, a flock of angelic beings in thick armor following at a cautious pace behind.
The Novus's eyes went wide. "It cannot be.."
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On the other side, the marauders and templars were taken by surprise when a pink thunderbolt reigned down, zipping with a meteoric thud in the midst of all the commotion. With a single pink ponytail on the wide and short spiky hair, a ripped lolita dress stapled together in various points and glossed with layers of hard rubber on others, like crystallized amber welded into a getup, a figure stepped out. Her heels clacked in a rapidly spinning motion. "Eat your hearty farty out, bruds!" The girl said, irises growing with an electrifying pulse.
She spun her arms around and took a deep breath, before turning into a technicolor lightshow. The release of ambient energy expanded out and reconfigured everything in it's wake.
The air around her suddenly turned black and white, a reverberating until all color, even all sound was nullified. In a grainy bubble of reality, the templars of Au and mauraders looked at one another- one side was wearing leathery greaser outfits and slicked hairstyled, and opposite to the leathery men were the Paladins, in letterman jackets and preppy styles. The two clashed, tumbling over each other while the girl stood in a 50's poodle skirt.
A maurader on the other side of the battle ground, snarled and jumped at the girl, leaping at her with his claws and a fist clenched around the hilt of a black and grey, blood-red knife. The girl blocked the punch with her arm and twisted, before smashing the maurader's nose with a heel of her boot, the crack echoing across the mountainside. She was unimpressed and unerringly aimed the knife at him. "F*ck you, you piece of crap!" The girl said before slicing the maurader in two. The blood ran freely, the blood-red blade dripping into the snow. The girl stood up on her own. "Gimme the sword!" She picked it up, eyes glowing again. Her entire body glitched, and another wave of energy released.
The Marauders were now various alien races in campy cheap silver suits, their opponents nylon space officers aboard a starship. The sword the girl held was a beamsword, and conventions of a staged space opera unfolded on the battlefield, one side shooting phasers and blasters at the other. Reismaus wore a starfleet uniform and saluted to Ship Commander Condesa "The full-speed photondrive is set to go capt!"
She nodded, "Let's get 'em, boys." She fired her blaster, a single burst of phasers, and blew the invaders away. They were not as resilient as the marauders had been. The space opera ended with a few surviving aliens on the ground, and a single marauder on the starship floating above, while the Mega-Templar fleet commander of Au saluted. "Thank you, Commodore Condesa."
The girl flicked her hair, pulsing and zapping for miles. Everyone was in a Bollywood musical, the vocals carrying a jingly melody with every hip and shoulder swinging. She observed it with a smirk, before disinterest set in and she flicked again.
Everything was red and black, jagged geometric shapes formed every being. Reality felt dotted with despair. Condesa, herself many sharp diamonds saw her armor formed from the concentric rings connecting her shapely being and looked up, seeing white triangles approaching along the horizon. She was certain that they were angels. As Binarium sneezed, turning everyone into puppets and the universe into a giant cardboard stand, she saw them flying closer on strings. Her marionette body panicked, recognizing one of the shapes.
The Marauders shook and  twitched, the girl clapping her hands as everything flattened and compressed, 80's toyetic music playing. Everything flattened into 2D, her own hair formed into long spikes on her head, eyes formed into sharpened knives that shot out of the tips of her nose, and the strings from her lips formed into hooks, while her skin was hardened into armor plating that crunched into one another to create sharp spikes on it's surface. Her, the two groups and everyone in Au were now robots, animated stylized violence resuming with cheaply animated battles.
The marauders' weapons morphed into large arm cannons, and missile launcher. The Templars were turtles, toads, punk rats and various safari animals who knew kung fu in radical ways. The groups continued to brawl in radical intense ways.
Hermes ran up to the girl who stood atop her throne of spikes with her metallic throne, and she had the blade in her boot she had picked up from the ground in her blood, she had a smirk on her face. The girl was a robot right now, Hermes poked her- and then he too, turned into a borg, overly designed and all. The women turned to Harmonica.
"This doesn't concern you, Novus." They addressed Harmonica, the vocals in their voice sufficiently modulated.
 "Is that any way to address your mother, Paradox?" Harmonica glared. "Where is she?"
The Palaknight looked over at the figure wrecking havoc in the battlefield, changing the landscape and reality every few moments. With a tall leap and clap of their hands midair, the pink shockwave electrified everything. Where Juan Komtur the city of the Cyberformers was, now only a dark noir metropolis. "Temptation is still alive.." The girl said, smoking a cigarette in her slickest, inky evening gown. The city was dangerous, the police chief could smell danger. Condesa fixed her hat, she could hear french music playing in the air. A night for seduction was dawning. The Paladins had run ragged trying to get the seedy crime of this city under control. The gumshoes of this town hadn't seen such chaos in their city for years. Harmonica passed by an old television store, every single monitor in the window displaying showing the girl in about 30 different genres, the media glitching and showcasing her like a greatest hits compilation. She turned and waited for the Mayor to answer her question.
"I'm not sure, but I think you're right. This doesn't concern you." Mayor Paradox said in her grey business suit, turning to Harmonica who was wearing an expression he had never seen before. She had her arms in her own coat, a bag on one shoulder, and a mop in the other hand, a yellow vinyl bodysuit with a pin reading 'Binyl City Sanitation Department'. The women glared at each other before looking around at the city and their men, as a small band of marauders who had the audacity to stand in their way, drew their scythes and axes with chains attached.
"She's always been a pain in the ass. I've got to get her back home."
Harmonica sighed, "Yeah. Well, we'll just have to worry about that later." She said, looking past the city and at the pink lightning storm in the sky above. The two cracked their knuckles.
Hermes hopped on by wearing a 20's pageboy outfit, tossing a newspaper atop the pile of bruised bodies along the streets and pointing to the storm. "Gazooks! She's off her chain over there right? C'mon, let's gooo!!"
The cloud burst, covering half the sky and the landscape, making things a hazy smudge in the noir-themed city, and the women turned to Hermes, taking a stance. "I wonder what the others are up to." They stole a marauder's motorcycle and swiftly drove along, arriving to the epicenter within 20 minutes.
The girl was having a ball, blowing smoke and crossing her legs like a refined dame at the police station. She wore a long robe of fur in back of her waist slung over her shoulders, long latex evening gloves blowing a cig holder, a pink carnation in her hair. Chief Condesa couldn't stop the thick Chicago accent leaving her. "I ain't gonna ask you again, what's your name doll? Tell'em your story, tell me like it is and we won't have no problems. And how did you do this hubaloo to my joes?"
The girl's eyes opened up, the pink color glowing, raising in intensity until another burst was due.
"My name is........" Everything went into upheaval. "BINARIUM."
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Ellie sat on her couch, throwing popcorn into her mouth. The fox girl yawned as she turned the channels on her old television set, watching one clip after another. The same cast seemed consistent throughout, yet in different forms and presentations - a space drama, a bollywood musical, a sin-city styled crime drama with gritty filters and panning camera angles. "Pmmt on smmh cartmmns!" Mika said beside her.
Ellie flipped, and the girl on the screen released a pink resonance that altered the airwaves. The entire city was suddenly a flashy colorful animated display, everyone squishy shapes and wacking each other comically, not a weasel out of place.
"Wow. That's a cmhpff transmffftion." Mika swallowed, she had been following the commotion.
Ellie nodded, "It is. It makes sense that she's a robot- err, well some artificial thingy. But I had no idea she could do that. She's like a little, cartoon remote person, right? She can change reality to any genre she wants?"
Mika rolled her eyes and shrugged, "It's like that one guy at my school... I can't remember his name, but he started a thing in the Hex cinema club. He went around to every movie and he made a series of little cartoons, like a cartoon but they were real, and they had a series of meta-commentary where the universe was a frog, it got a really big fandom which exploded until he ruined the cartoon. Then someone on Hextube made a video about it and he sued them. They made some bad reality movies which tanked, and... he made 'em."
Ellie nodded, "That sounds cool." She said, putting her large furry feet on the coffee table as the girl spoke. "I'm so glad he did that."
"Hey Ellie, I was wondering.. sorry if this may sound weird." Mika scratched her head, pushing her fingers through her blue hair.
. "Do you think that your mom is, like, watching us?"
Ellie shrugged, "I don't know. I guess she might be.." She glanced over at her phone and the text messages. They hadn't been sent since about half an hour ago.
"If she is, she might be sleeping. I can't get her on my phone, you know, she's not on Tower social media or anything."
"Your Tower has social media? Mika's eyes went up.
"Grace installed it last week! You should see some of the pics adventurers sent.. they even have a 'Bad End' section." Ellie snickered.
Mika snickered too. She got a call notification and she went to the phone with her hand, but her other hand stopped her. She couldn't take her hand away. She turned the volume down and looked over the phone's screen.
Mika took a breath, "We need to get me home soon."
"Why?" Ellie frowned.
"I have to be home tonight, mom said she wants me to stop off campus for a dinner out with Ms. Blight."
Ellie raised an eyebrow and shook her head, "If you say so."
Mika nodded, turning the volume up on the television again. She looked over to Ellie.
The two watched the show, both getting a kick out of the trippy visuals and changing topics. The girls were bored and didn't really care. They weren't even following the plot. They were waiting for more magic.
The girl that was BINARUM, or whatever she called herself, had her finger on the PALADIN GIRL, and was wacking her with a mallet. PARADOX shoved her hand through the Marauder leader's rubbery chest and pulled out a beating cartoony heart-shaped object from their chest, crushing it with a neon POP effect appearing onscreen. Maximor spun in an exaggerated fashion and fell to the ground, X's on both eyes.
"Say Ellie.. about your mom. Intellica, she is your mom right?" Mika asked.
Ellie paused. "What's that mean?"
Ellie scratched the inside of her left ear with her pinky and nodded, "Yeah. She's my mom. Isn't that obvious?"
"That's weird. I've been thinking. I was gonna tell you. I've been noticing your face is kinda round, you know? Also, I've never met your dad."
Ellie giggled and nodded, "Yeah. I guess so. My mom says it's because I'm a fox. You know, because I'm a f- I-" She stopped herself and shook her head.
"My father?" She'd never considered that before. "I assumed she made you via, the birds and the bees right?"
Ellie scratched her head. "I think someone told me once I came from fruit.. not sure how tho. How did Intellica make me from fruit?"
She reached for her phone.
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Novus raised one eyebrow. There was a pie baking in one oven and a series of tubes and chemicals bubbling on the opposite side of the room.
"Fruit? That's prosperous. It's a colorful description. You were an embryo, and I gave birth the proper mammalian procedure with lengthy gestation cycles."
"Oh.. so you made me the, usual boring way. Okay, so, who was my dad?" Ellie asked.
"Your father?" Novus glared away. "Unimportant."
"Unimportant? But that's weird. I've been told I'm important by, several other people."
"If a trivial detail such as that is so important, then someday I will explain. Thank you bye." Intellica hung up abruptly.
"Thanks m-" Ellie on her couch scowled.
Taking the pie out, Intellica removed her baking mitts and put on her rubber lab gloves. She made a gesture with her hand and a square portal appeared, cut out of space-time. She stepped over through it, as if squeezing through a vent and emerged down a long flight of stairs. A safe with numerous sentry, Query's stood guard.
"To whom do we recognize?" They asked robotically.
"Mad with the best of intent." Intellica responded.
"Affirm." Their  foreheads shot a laser at the safe's scanner until it opened up into a deep dark flight of stairs.
"I need to change the lock after 200 years.." She reminded herself, before going down and descending.
The last door opened, revealing a damp lap where the tubes were still dripping, the stench of death and morbid decay touching every molecule in the room. The mechanical dungeon contained countless wires and whirling machines that bubbled the tubes, a different organ in each one. Intellica passed by a liver, then small intestines, an appendix and two kidneys, soon going to where 4 tubes labeled 'limbs were kept' in thick cold fluid. Two legs, and one arm- the 4th limb was missing. She looked down, still unnerved to wiggle her own arm, removing the glove. Circuit-like veins filled with nanites flowed with light within that arm. She took out a syringe and injected herself with antigen to suppress the vital forces within. She started shaking violently and screaming in pain, voice tearing through the room.
"To be enemies with her.. there is no game. She asked for forgiveness. I gave it to her." She wiped a bit of blood from her lip and calmed down again, the syringe thrown aside.
"She was so wrong. I did what was right. Right in her face." She walked a few meters to the farthest, spacious tube housing a torso and head atop. Novus could feel her arm rupturing inside, the injection just barely keeping it in check. "You want this arm back that badly.."
The women encased inside the liquid tube had her lower half and limbs removed. She looked much like Ellie, identical in fact- simply older and with a sinister expression, floating dormant, decapitated and unconscious in the tube. Hundreds of wires were connected to her spinal chord in back, data sensors and detectors scanning at all times the lifeless vitals. The closer Intellica got, the more her arm continued to glow and shake.
"..Prime?"
✒――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
Ago
In a lush terrace full of long serene fields and gardens of orchids, there were 7 spoilt children, each a child like any other. Raised in a towering manor built a thousand evergreen acres outside the boundaries of all that was, it's owner conducted their business on the highest throes of creation from a tower on the top floor. The children were oft left to their lonesome, quarreling and playing among the vast expanse allotted to them, from the endless hallways and ballrooms, to pocketspace rooms full of deserts and jungles, right to the orange trees outside and vibrant trees out in the evergreen. All except one. She was different.
Her name was Intellica. She was monitored and watched more than any other, and the master of the household, Prime considered her exceptional even among her peers. A copper-coated man named "the Sovereign Keeper" would follow her at all times, even as she tinkered in her lab. It was a fairly basic lab, a few particle accelerators, two super computers, a 30m aperture telescope, a 4D printer and a few juiceboxes. One  day, the Sovereign took a long whiff of his cigar and coughed repeatedly, his gears cranking and creaking. He told the young girl she should go out, get some fresh air for a minute. All the better, she was a genius and the Sovereign Keeper was nothing but a mere pawn of Prime, she felt. As she left, she paused to glance at the two computers and two particle accelerators left untouched. She didn't like using the third computer's additional processor for her project. She took the stairs two at a time, her small feet barely touching the ground. At the edge of the door, she stretched her hand out to reach the doorknob, and went into the sunlight she despised so much.
Heading to a picnic area in the terrace, Intellica brought a book in one hand and a tiny handheld microscope in the other. She plopped herself on a polished wooden oak-table and sat down. The Sovereign Keeper, a long time companion of hers since childhood assigned by her mother, had gone to find her mother. Left to her lonesome, the young Novus examined the menagerie of cellular life- small yest cells multiplying under the surface.
She heard cheery giggling, followed by a loud "BOO!"
Her microscope almost toppled, she had to grab it quickly.
"Binarium." The lone word came with an implied grunt. "I am busy. Leave thank you."
Her sister snickered, the lone ponytail wagging atop her head. She went back to looking into the lense.
"Wha'cha doin sis? Wha'cha doin wha'cha doin that looks fun can I seeeee?"
She asked, her hands outstretched toward her sister, her legs spread atop the table.
Intellica's expression went from an air of disinterest, to a frustrated glare.
"No thank you," She replied, the lense on her face.
"Can I see?!"
"No." She replied, "You should get back to work organizing your stuffed animals. I'm busy."
"I love work." She said, a little too cheery.
"Yeah, well work somewhere else" She replied, looking her sister right in her bright pink eyes.
"Auxiliatrixxxx," she turned to a redhead with a baseball cap, a cape and a magic kit under an appletree. "Intellica won't let me play with her!"
"Shut up, ya little pixie." The other Novus replied, the only answer she had for her sister.
Intellica sighed and picked up her book, flipping through the pages, all blank.
"What are ya doin anyway?" Binarium asked. "With this shiny toy and that book?"
Intellica  looked at her sister and then over at Binarium.
"This?" She asked, holding her book close to her eyes.
"Well yeah, ya pretty cute don'tcha think?" Binarium asked.v looked at her sister and then over at Binarium.
"This?" She asked, holding her book close to her eyes.
"Well yeah, ya pretty cute with it don'tcha think?" Binarium asked.
"I'm forming new Recipes. The usual method, investigation, analytical querying, dialectics.."
Binarium popped her head up. "You want to BAKE? What about -Imagination?-"
Intellica blinked sternly, as if that was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard. "No."
Binarium chuckled, looking into the microscope. "Hey. What's a.. di-a-lect? That's like an accent right?"
"A dialectic is a means to investigate a metaphysical and categorical conceit, through temporal and spacial contradictions in observation and phenomenological status."
"A whatchawhatnow?" Binary tilted her head, seeing tiny dots in the petri dish float about.  
"A difference." Intellica said more astutely.
"And what happens if you don't cook?" Binarium said, looking into the yeast-cell filled petri dish.
Intellica didn't answer, she didn't look at her sister.
"Hey, you wanna eat something? I got lots of stuff-" Binarium said.
"Different. Like you and me. And our own spacial reservations, required. All organisms have such needs." Intellica insisted, taking back her microscope.
"I guess you're right." Binarium put her head down. "I can't stop you. I'll try though, and maybe we can play together later."
"Yes, dear sister." Intellica expressed nothing, not a single brow showing discontent. "Tell me more about, -organ-isms- tho!" Binarium chirped up.
Intellica frowned deeply. She could see her reflection in her glassed microscope, and her features didn't look right. She was frowning.
"All organisms are formed from either silicon or carbon based amino acids, starting with simple polymer chains of these. They grow from simple to complex through the actions of enzymes, then to organisms such as eukaryotic cells or plant cells." Intellica continued in her monotone, her eyebrows furrowed deep into her forehead. "They exist as a contingency of self-replicating units to gather fuel or resources for their propagation. But with all energy and fuel in the universe, or any given environment, living is limited by scarcity. To better obtain resources, they adapt and change. These limitations in space and time are what form 'Differences.'" She watched the yeast cell's divide, until one became two, the most fundamental drives of life enacted with simple protoplasm.
Binarium's eyes went wide, her lips traced Intellica's words. "Diff-er-ences."
"Yes. In other words, a Dialect. Or a dialectic. The true nature of all things is life thrives by competition." She took out a small disc-shaped device and tapped her fingers as if typing on an invisible keyboard.
The disc created a hologram of two wolves.
"Doggy!" Binarium's smile filled with glee, trying to grab the light innocently.  
The apparition of the two dogs growled, a small piece of meat between them. Their visage turned deadly and sneering with distain. Slowly they circled one another, baring their fangs. The two embraced a callous dance, leaping for the meat and clawing at the other in displays of raw violence. Claw on claw, sharp bite against one another's scruffy necks, they tore into their opponents flesh and left claw marks on every surface. The disc made the sound effects of bone's snapping and teeth crunching, the wild animals meeting might with might, hunger with desperation and destruction. The wolves wrangled until one dismembered the other and began to sink it's fangs into the other's stomach and carotid arteries, Intellica's frown only made it worse. It was a fight to the death. She watched, her lip curled, but did not interfere. "What is the matter?" Binarium asked, a bit more concerned.
"This is the process of life itself." Intellica said, without looking at her sister.
Binarium tilted her head, looking closer. "Ew."
"Life begins with competition and rivalry. Then, the weaker is culled off, the fittest survive, the process of life-giving begins. It's how it all comes to be. The way of your own existence in its very nature."
The hologram faded and was replaced by a series of lines. The first line was a red line, the second was blue and so on. When she was done, Intellica looked up at her sister and said, "What happens if you kill yourself?"
"What? No.. I can't.." Binarium looked afraid. She puffed her chest up.
"Looky sis, you just seemed kinda sad in that moment. You always seem sad."
Intellica's expression changed, a little smile showing in her face, "I'm not sad."
"Come on. I can tell."
Binarium giggled, her fingers grabbing at the hologram's light. "Maybe this will cheer you up!" She concentrated, then her fingers went to the disc and touched a button. The hologram flickered.
Crackling pink electricity altered the imagery, the wolves reappeared, but were sucked into a rubbery mass of light, becoming two shiny, glossy cartoon-wolves with mallets and dynamite sticks. A curvy cartoon skunk alongside a squirrel farted inbetween them. They chased after it in a flight of slapstick.
"How d'ya like it? Silly huh? Look at them slapping Shirley Squirrelly's butt!"
Intellica blinked. "No. I don't."
"Aw. But they're still just puppets. Hoo hoho oho hohohoohoo hahahahaHA!" Binarium made her silly cartoons dance.
"Oh they're more than that. They're alive. They act on their own accord. The nature of life is to do so."
"That's no fun! I want life to do what I WANT! Like Peggy Pig on TV and all my storybooks!"
Her sister rolled her eyes.
Binarium giggled at the hologram's light. "You're not even watching. This is fun. I'll watch it with you later."
She then turned to the book. "This is your book of.. Recipes? But there's nothing in it! It's completely blank." She pouted.
"Nope." Intellica raised her eyebrows.
"You can't cook at all! I mean, I can tell you have great taste in food, but I guess it's like... good taste rather than a talent. I can teach you to cook you know! My Cook-a-lot baking set makes it so easy!"
Her hands slapped on the book. "No. I'd rather not." Intellica grabbed the other end of the book, and the two began to pull. "Let go."
But Binarium wouldn't.
"Enough. Let go! You're crushing my recipes." "You don't HAVE any recipes! But you could, if you let me show you how!"
One sister began to glow an eerie green and cyan shade, the other a brilliant pink. The book began to electrify and glow.
Intellica's eyes closed and she fell to the ground, rolling onto her back.
"Nope." Her eyes opened, red with anger and fear. "Nope." She shook her head, her hands on her thighs. Her fingers moved rhythmically, the book on the ground before her, on its own, as she spoke.
"No, don't do that. No, stop."
She sat up, her hands clasped together. "Stop. Just stop. Just for a moment. Now." Her eyes focused on her sister, intently. "Just stop for a moment. Do that again."
Binarium giggled at the words. "Okay. But I won't stop. I promise."
The light glowed again, the electricity flowing around them both.
The energy of space-time causing the book to vibrate, as if ready to travel anywhere in the multiverse. The pink energy of Binarium's caused the pages to fill with blank ink, ink that could write itself, the ink seeping into the material so it could take any form- a camera, a digital disc, a stone tablet, a laptop, or a simple book.
A recipe book.

✒――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
Sentrimate organisms and entities created through the Synthetisation of two Novus or comparable entities.
Intellica ✦✦✦〖Recipe Book〗✦✦✦ Binarium
Cormeum ✦✦✦〖Hermes〗✦✦✦ Auxiliatrix
Harmonica ✦✦✦〖Paradox〗✦✦✦ Binarium
Harmonica ✦✦✦〖Flora〗✦✦✦ Intellica
Auxiliatrix ✦✦✦〖Algae Mama〗✦✦✦ Grahim
Novus Prime ✦✦✦〖Rānthiraulphs〗✦✦✦ Octavius
Cormeum ✦✦✦〖Sandra (Artifical Embryo)〗✦✦✦ Intellica
☠Novus Prime☠ ✦✦✦〖Ellie (Womb Embryo)〗✦✦✦ Intellica
Cormeum ✦✦✦〖Primebelle \ Binarum of 10000 years ago〗✦✦✦ Binarium
✒――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

"Synthetisation." Harmonica said, looking at the blood-stained Paradox and her sleek metallic armor, the silver plates still dripping with Maximor's wine-red fluids. "The process of combining and embedding power from two sources into a single sentient entity. We called it a Sentrimate.." She held Hermes close. "Like you.. and Paradox."
"And Condesa? Was she made special." Hermes asked.
"No, she's a plain flesh and blood offspring."
Paradox turned to Templaress Tetrador Condesa, the templars were a wreck and the city was in ruins. The rift between Abyss and Au, would remain tethered and open in the sky.
"Mother.." Condesa looked sheepish in front of the intimidating Palaknight, her wide wings each full of daggers sweeping in front of her like steel daggers. The two antennas in back of her head heard the cries of a thousand injustices every passing moment, and her helmet's visor reflected Condesa's distraught face.
"I tried to close the rift." She took a breath. "With the last of my power. I failed." She stared out at the sky, her mother's gaze glaring back." Without hesitation, Paradox flew in and grabbed her daughter by the neck, not a single breath could leave her lips. "You wreckless wretched thing. Condesa, poor poor Condesa.." Her grip squeezed tighter, drawing blood into the girl's neck.
Harmonica's anger grew, Palaknight Paradox was not to be reasoned with. She held up her hands, her fists clenched, red with anger.
She looked at the Palaknight, who could probably fly a thousand miles in a matter of minutes, "Me and Binarium  made her. But she was made for war. I tried to show her to live a peaceful life." She looked at Hermes again. "And to have children. No, I don't expect her to be perfect." She sighed, "Hermes.. don't ever send any folks or foreigners to that world like it's a rite of passage. She's the reason no one can contend with Abyss or reach Binarium again.."
Paradox released her grip, pushing her daughter to the ground. Condesa choked and spit out blood, gasping before she finally could breathe again on the floor. "Such a disappointment.." the three words weighing heavily on the Templar.  
Au felt it's buildings and people thrown like a whirlwind into the sky, then shaken back down to its core. No more skyscrapers, the passing cars and traffic lights were gone. Au was once again as it was before she'd arrived. The Paladins were once more armored spectacles, and the Mauraders rather were a surly defeated bunch. Piles of them stood agape in Binarium's presence, watching as the little girl danced atop a medieval wall.
"H-how.." One asked, his biking helmet crumpled off.
"Shssh, I'm bored." Binarium poked him, and with a quick flicker of pink static, he turned into a funny cartoon hog full of smiles, dancing for her and oinking. The visuals of him being animated and vivid in fully-dimensional, ordinary space caught many onlookers by surprise.
The electricity spread, turning remaining maurader after maurader into cartoony animals fit for a saturated, thick-outlined children's show. She then skipped and hopped along the debris of the city, until she found herself by Paradox's affectionate side. A group were making a last stand, holding energy rifles and pointing them in the direction towards the little girl.
Binarium yawned and stuck both her hands out. "You wanna play with meee?! How about catch!" She concentrated pure light into a pink sphere that grew dense in her palms, growing brighter and brighter each second. When she released, a massive blimp of energy spiraled out and sprayed onto the attackers, leveling the miles to follow and leaving destruction in its wake.  
"I did good?" She asked.
Paradox stroked the top of her head. "Very good."
"That girl right there. She's like you too Hermes.." Harmonica said, bright pink eyes gleaming with mischief.
"That thing, is not Binarium.." Harmonica scowled.
✒――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
Ago
The young white haired boy, Cormeum walked into the outdoor chapel, numerous teasets and chairs were filled with plushies and stuffed animals. At the altar, Harmonica wore a black suit, one slightly tighter and more masculine than the one Cormeum wore. She held a single book in her hand- The recipe book of Intellica and Binarium's, and on a chair was a pillow containing two toy rings.
"Is this really necessary H-h-harmony?" Cormeum shuddered.
"Sssh, just go along with it. Your bride awaits." She said, the two turning to the little Binarium in a wedding dress. She threw flower petals to her stuffed animals as she walked about.
"Typically that role goes to the flower girl, Bina." Harmonica said.
"I know but Intellica wouldn't do it, so shush." Binarium giggled, an electrical spark from her hitting a child's toy karaoke machine until it played classical music. Soon she hopped to Coreuem and held his hand lovingly.
"Ahem.. do you, Bina take Comeum to be your lawful wedded wife, in sickness ahd health, onto death, to love her forever and ever?" She asked.
"I do.."
Cormeum blushed.
Harmonica chuckled, then repeated the oath to her sibling.
"Harmony.. she's my sister. This is silly." He pulled at his white tux, as if to pull it off. Binarium slapped his rear and zapped him, turning the outfit to inky rubber and his whole body into a stylized pie-eyed cartoon in pure black and white.
"What was that? 'I do'! aww I knew it! I love you too! Kiss the bride kiss the bride!"
Binarium burst into fits of joy, moving up and down and pressing her lips in. Cormeum's bright red face resisted, he ran backwards tripping over the flower-filled wraith. When he hopped off, Bina gave chase, turning the scene into a saturday morning cartoon. When she finally caught him, the scene became a grainy B&W film and her hands squeezed his.
She began to waltz, sister and brother, in wedding dress and tux, walking formally around all the plush toys and furry friends. Harmonica took a single snapshot with her camera and laid back on a chair, slipping a tiny bottle of wine she'd snuck from her mother and observing the scene. "I now pronounce you.. yatta yatta, have fun lovebirds." And sighed.
"Always a bachelor, never a bride.."
Novus Auxiliatrix stood behind a tree, snickering, her cape flowing. "Psst.. Harmony. I can see that pit in your stomach." She shifted her magician's tophat, catching a baseball once or twice before waving a magic wand and showing Harmonica her magical playing cards. "Want to make a deal? I can make her disappear! Or turn her into a rabbit! For a simple contract-"
"Save your stupid schtick and leave me alone, 'Trixi." Harmonica belched and slapped her hands, knocking the cards away.
"You're as much a buzzkilla as 'Tellia, Harmony." Auxiliatrix grinned.
✒――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
Time passed. The household grew with rumors and tensions, the uncertainty began to cut through the salad days the Novus once enjoyed. Of these conflicts, Binarium didn't understand, she would tune in when she overheard. The fights, the punishments, more and more restrictions on her siblings. One time they'd been cut off from contacting each other for months.
That long period if isolation was interrupted by one meeting. While Binarium sat in bed, writing in her diary of which many her characters and stories were kept like an encyclopedia of childlike ideas, a hole opened up from a single tunnel in space. Binarium crawled inside, reaching through reality's depths until she stumbled into a room full of maps and charts.
"W-what is this?" She asked.
Around her- Novus Intellica, Grahim, Harmony, and Auxiliatrix stood with severe expressions. Absent were Coremum and Octavius. They all looked at one another and whispered. After it was agreed Harmony would do so, she walked over and offered her hand. "Bina, you really really have to listen to my words right now. What we discuss in here, can never leave this room. Do you understand?"
Binarium was dead silent. She pretended to zip her lips, opened up her diary and then saluted. "This story's not for checkout. Sisterhood Secret promise!"
The nights followed, and the isolation continued. Eventually after weeks, the Novus children were allowed back into the vast living spaces from which they roamed. When Binarium ran downstairs to play, Cormeum snuck into her room, nervous as can be.
He'd return to the top floor of the manor's tower with a book in hand. On a tall chair that may as well have been a throne, Novus Prime accepted the gift. Her tall imposing stature appeared like a goliath to the boy.
"Cherished, love. You really are such a sweetheart, lending me your sister's diary like this. Such a goood boy." She pinched his cheeks. Guilt and fidelity fought inside Cormeum, neither won out. "You may go now sugarpie. That is all."
He almost walked out, but turned around. "Mom.. you're not going to punish or hurt Bina are you?" He asked. "Like.. we're all connected, right? If we could just communicate, we could work together. A.. little bit." He said unsure, avoiding her gaze.
His mother laughed in a deep, mocking voice. "Oh... her? Don't worry dearie. She'll be given a little time out, nothing more. She'll even have all her props and toy friends to keep her company."
"Well that's a r-relief." Cormeum exhaled, his mother could be the scariest when she was calm and whispery like this, which was always. But he knew she'd never do anything to hurt them, he knew.
That 'knowledge' was why his siblings didn't invite him to their session.
Prime dismissed him, flipping through the diary pages, noting the drawn figures of cartoony characters and fairy tail creatures.
✒――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
A door opened up. Two figures walked inside, an imposing adult cloaked in shade and a small girl with a pink haired ponytail, overshadowed by her mother's vast silhouette across the floor.
Binarium was shown to a single chamber, the dome and walls painted with artistic smiling sunshine faces and wide-mouthed clouds in childish, yet quality decals. The room must've been 30m, and inside were every one of her plush animals, even several paper drawings left ripped throughout the ground. Despite the happy wall design, the imagery was dim and poorly lit. Where light was coming from she couldn't say, all Binarium could tell was that look of the dome was dreary and unsettling. The neon plush animals she knew and loved sat in a big circle, Prime guided her to it and sat the girl down.
Prime smiled, her silver teeth glistening. She gently picked Binarium up, the girl's body shaking as she did. She walked towards the glowing door, the pink light of the room becoming a vibrant, neon glow.
Binarium's eyes blinked open and she stared at the girl.
Her mouth was slightly open, an odd grin on her face. She showed Binarium her own diary.
"How did.." It'd been missing for days.
"Shshsh. Telling the truth is very important, you know that don't you ponypie?" She looked down at the toys Binarium usually kept. "Truth. What is real. You know what I hate more than anything, sweetie?" She held the cat-plushie, it's elf hat and princess dress shaking in her grasp.
She spoke. "Reality. I hate it. My dreams are about to come true, and it's not about me at all. But it's too late. Because reality is what keeps me from my dreams, so reality is the one thing I can't stop." She sat down and picked up her teaset, taking a kettle and dropping it to the floor so it shattered.
She closed her eyes and opened them. Her eyes glowed bright. The plushies began to glow briefly.
"Go have a tea break, take the time you need." She smiled, patted the small girl's head, and left the room. She went to close the door, but turned around one last time. "But if I cannot escape reality, neither should you dumpling. What were your little make-believe friends names?" Her smirk widened like the crescent moon across the wide of her face, stretching with malice. "Enjoy your .. friends. I guess, it is better for you to have them than me, dumpling. This is a time out, I'll see you in a month."
The door slammed shut.
Binarium was confused, was this her punishment? There were even cookies and crumpets left on the teaset.
She sighed, "That.." She looked around. "Went well."
The little girl laughed. "You really do know how I like to have fun." She walked around the room, noticing the lights were even dimmer than before, practically leaving the room a tone of murky grey, heavy shadows of the toys casting over the walls.
Binarium paced back and forth, several minutes flying by. She shuddered, feeling unusually cold- a sensation she'd never had before in the Manor. The eerie shadows, the happy content of the walls, the circle of her special madeup friends. It all made her squeamish and uncomfortable, she'd never felt this sense of dread before. "M-mom? Think you could let me out soooon?" She said, no response. Slowly she paced around the walls, reaching near the door. Something behind her seemed off. The toys, were  they in the same position? Missy Moocow was a little off-center, and Wrinkle Thinker McHuggums was staring right at her. Literally, moving. Her heart sank. "Mom??" She said again, a small panic in her voice. She was sure she heard a distant noise behind her.
"Hello there, little ones?" She said in a melodious, soft and reassuring voice.
She rubbed her hands together to try to create a wave of electricity, but found her powers wouldn't work. "Huh?"
What she saw left her speechless.
Her toys all came to life. Not only to life, 'became life.' Plush became flesh, fake fur turned real, the small toy-sized plushies began bloating and growing, reaching full mass like tumors to reach their life sized equivalents, or larger even. Monstrous figures loomed behind. Bissy BearMa grew long sharp claws, her teeth now gritting. Lizzie Sunshine was a vicious alligator, a few feet away the pink bunny in a suit turned into a feral abomination on two legs, holding a pickaxe and fixing his suit. The entire circle of toys were forming an assortment of fiendish animals and demons devoid of humanity. Her favorite doll in the whole wide world, Princess Primella's plush stitches were now stitches on her skin, appearing like a ghoulish princess with dagger-sharp nails.
Binarium was transfixed. This was clearly the work of evil. She turned to look for her mother, and then started banging on the door. "Mom? Mom? Can you open the door, it's really cold out here. Mom? Please mom!" All of her imaginary friends, once so soft, cartoony and cuddly were charging her from behind, as if ready to go on a killing spree. She'd given them all names, she'd made up backstories and personalities and made up their whole words in her world of words that resided in the existential of her imagination. Puppycorn Love-duv was gritting sharp canine teeth, foaming as if full of rabies and wild fleas. Heart Hawkison sharpened their talons, ten feet of wingspan characterized by choking some of the other atrocious entities. The room was overcome with hunger and lust- instinct taking over, the imaginary playpals all infected with pure drive as they turned on each other. Binarium kept shouting. Her voice grew hoarse from the shouting, she was gasping for breath. She kicked and bashed on the door with all her might, the creepy pack ascending upon her.
At some point, Binarium just didn't care anymore. What was happening was too much. She stopped struggling, she just stood there, staring blankly as her friends came closer and closer. Her eyes filled with tears, her mind a blank slate. The pack stood around her and were about to tear her up. And then she heard the door open, the sound of it closing quickly behind her as she watched, eyes wide. The toys,, her own imaginary friends were all real, all alive. They were life. Organic, breathing, hungering, fucking. They were about to tear her to pieces. Gnashing and biting and scratching and full of spit and blood, sinew and bile.
Prime left a single featherpen.
She picked it up, then turned around to see the mob, she'd never been so scared before. All of the toys were coming for her, at least all of the toys had turned into monstrous abominations, with the exception of her primebelle. Primebelle was a doll that looked just like her- it'd been a wedding gift her and Cormeum shared on their play-wedding. "S-stop.. Ruthy rat.. Matilda.. Lemon cuddlekins.. Carnival master, kitty karen, Rollo, Construction pete, ballerina birchy?" The first attack came at her chest, the others had circled around, the monsters converging. She screamed, as much as she could, and with the featherpen in her hands, she jabbed out, hitting all the beasts to the head, as they rushed in. She wailed as if she was a banshee, as they grabbed her and ripped at her body. Gouging at her eyes, shredding her dress, tearing her skin. Hunger and lust. Her mind went back to the imagery Intellica showed her of the 2 wolves as she was dragged away and gored. In her ravaged state, Primebelle grinned and waltzed over, grabbing her hands around Binarium, touching her all over, squeezing and feeling the girl's energies course through her, absorbing, taking what she wanted to take while sliding her fingers towards her crotch. She helped push and hold the girl down while the other creations in all their aggression prepared to fill their two primary instincts.
Lust. Hunger.
"Stop.. stop..StoP.. STOP. DON'T! NO NOONOONOOOOOOO STOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Endless horrible screams filled the room.
✒――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
Coremum finally had created a fake key, it'd taken weeks to do so but he found is way in. The room was soundproof, no one knew what went on inside Binarium's 'timeout.' He opened the door and found every beast in the room either dead or sleeping. Her body was dripping with blood and visceral remains. Prime had made her a killer- with the feather pen alone she'd had to jab it in each of her own friends. She had bloodied scratches all over her.
He could hear her sobbing nonstop. The smell of something unsavory emanated from her hips and legs.. semen. They'd broken into her hymen, and played around inside her.
He stepped into the room and walked over to her. "What have you done?" She said. Prime was an absolute monster, Cormeum realized. Her face, her whole body, one arm, the other leg, all so mangled and scarred. It looked like she'd fought a dozen men, and lost to the end. He helped her to her feet. "Binariu-"
"GRAAAAAAARRRRRRRL! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" Binarium tackled him and stabbed his left eye with the quill pen, drawing blood, destroying the eye and choking him. Her hands, so rough and calloused now wrangled him with the fury of the beasts that had ravaged her, pink thunder crackling from her body endlessly. She bashed Cormeum's head upside the floor again and again screaming. "Binarium it's me, it's ME. I'm okay, ssh it's okay now!" She stopped herself after nearly a minute, struggling to breath at a steady pace. After all the shock and terror, she'd been brutally assaulted and couldn't find her sanity.
Then she screamed and laughed one last time like a madwoman, before sobbing endlessly. When she calmed down, she told him. "What I was doing to them..." she started sobbing and coughing. "What did they do to m.. I.. there was.. my friends.. I loved.. Was.. was to make my own world. The real one... it's not a reality..." Cormeum helped her into a chair. "We can leave." She wasn't speaking coherently, mumbling and babbling, shuddering. When he let her go, she shuddered into a fetal pose and shielded herself in place, curling up, covered in filth and grime, blood and taint. Every part of her felt completely broken.
She reached for the feather pen and grabbed it tightly, it was an old pen, the kind that a kid would play with. She held it to her hand and wrote on her forehead.
"I AM.A.NOTHER.BINARUM." The letters backwards.
Cormeum stood shaking. "B-biny?" What the hell was wrong with her, what could he do?
The answer didn't come, as the gloom and doom figure of Prime stood behind the door, holding up Harmonica who had taken a few slaps and seemed roughed up. She threw her into the room and then put both hands on her hips, looking upon the three disobedient children.
She smiled the wickedest smile Cormeum had ever seen.
He ran.
Ran away and escaped her, Binarium and Harmonica left far behind.
✒――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
The months that followed, Prime set out to separate the Novus. She'd given them too much freedom, and far too much power to exploit. To each of them she gifted a world, meant to punish, imprison and separate.
To Binarium, she gifted a world much like the dome she'd spent weeks in- a dead world, full of fiends and corpses and the only light of heaven an endless ascent away. And yet, despite fighting off and being ravaged for what felt like an eternity in this world. The other Novus would regroup and move towards overthrowing Prime for her crimes. Binarium was lost to them, for the sake of that mission they left her be. She was determined to move ever northward, climbing her way in the rot and evil that her mother had left her to. None of the others knew where she was or how to reach her for the longest time, even long after Prime had been dealt with. Within the Nightscape, all the fears and memories, the horrifying monstrocities that she'd fought with, and those who dared attack her eventually manifested again as her storybook characters, just like those she remembered playing with as a kid, inching closer and closer to this world's heaven. But her stories brought no warmth or light like before, she couldn't imagine a story not fraught with danger, without disease and death, surviving blizzards and broken limbs, starvation and destruction. Reality.
The dance of the wolves became her sole reality.
And so too, did it become the reality of Cormeum, the one eye'd Novus. Burdened for leaving his sister in that state. For running away. For his betrayal of his siblings.
His guilt manifested until it turned into a dark shadow of a lupine shade. A shadowy wolf. He kept the doll, Primebelle from that one night- a copy of Binarium. Or the girl she was.
The wolf pretended to love Cormeum, while poisoning his made. As his own creation it stayed loyal to him, eternally his protector. And as a creation of his psyche, she tortured him, gaslighting and insulting him, getting him swept away in a cycle of sin and dependence. A two-faced wolf, loving him with one side, abusing him with another, the being he himself had conjured up and couldn't escape. The wolf possessing his mother's voice always felt more unsettling to him, but it made it easier for her to manipulate the Novus, ever more easier to manipulate him.
Binarium eventually ascended the world once more, and as she grew, the Novus came to her own power. Her pen was hypnotic, her stories were catastrophes at her fingertips. She could control the course of this world meant to be her prison and make it her palace, guiding all with her diary and the feather pen she'd held onto. No longer a little girl, the maddened storyteller made this world's flow- Writ, her eternal law.
While she came to power, Harmonica spent time.. years.. decades.. centuries tending to Cormeum. To his wounds, physical and mental, to his trauma.
They spent years together, always close, constantly in each other's thoughts and minds. She'd spent them trying to fix him, to give him a light and a way out of the darkness. It took longer than it should have- the years went by and one day she finally understood. It was the wolf that was torturing him. It'd hid it well, the monster with it's fangs hidden but its tongue always out, had taken shape of his guilt. It took every chance to torment and taunt him, and he couldn't let it go. Harmonica sought to free him from his guilt, and so she on the guise of 'going for a walk', released the Wolf.
She lead it back to their home, to the desecrated manor where they grew up. There the Wolf's sense of smell could detect all. She went into the dome playroom where Binarium had been broken, and followed the trail. Harmony followed in anticipation, and Wolf lead her to Abyss, the world of stories and Writ, the ultimate representation of truth. She prepared for a confrontation, but nevertheless found Binarium was was cordial. Clearly unafraid of the monsters that had once been her childhood imaginary friends. She sensed a trap, as well as the fact that her mother had always loved that world.
In a matter of moments, Harmonica discovered the truth. Binarium had put on an emotional wall. She found her book, and on every other page was written
[I AM.A.NOTHER.BINARUMI AM.A.NOTHER.BINARUMI AM.A.NOTHER.BINARUMI AM.A.NOTHER.BINARUMI AM.A.NOTHER.BINARUMI AM.A.NOTHER.BINARUM.]
These words kept Binarium happy. They kept her sane, or perhaps insane, Harmonica couldn't say which. Her sister had lost touch with reality and retreated into fantasy, into her story-ridden mind.
Prime had manipulated her, twisted her to a point where she became one with the monsters. Harmonica set out to someday help her too, but had work to do with Cormeum first. She left the Wolf with her and returned to Cormeum, hoping without the demented wolf she could get through to him.
She ended up leaving Binarium with another creation of theirs after some time- a brave knight.
Paradox.
Still, she found him in a cold, heartbroken shell. Time passed as Binarium and the Wolf bonded, her manipulation of the Novus winning her way into her heart. The two spent so long together by the fireside, writing stories and discussing ideas together, guiding the direction of the world together. Binarium even assigned the wolf a name- Fenrir, and a writ of her own that she did not have before, gifting her with a true soul. One day, the two were confident they could rejoin their siblings again and put the past behind them. Binarium and Fenrir would travel through the worlds and make their return to Au, going to the Aurelius Palace to start anew. Binarium resisted the impulse to knock and rushed in, going inside, she swept aside all reservations. The wolf was by her side.
Fenrir could sense it, and her scent betrayed his rage. Binarium stepped into one of their rooms and could see it with her eyes.
Harmonica, laid with Cormeum, his eyepatch on one eye and nothing else. The two were pressing bodies, one face into the other, their hands around each other.
The two stared at each other, not knowing what to do, Binarium was shocked. She'd come here to return to her family, but instead, she'd see them together, just like any other couple, and see her sister with Cormeum.
With the boy she'd once loved.
Binarium was frightened. She was scared of her sister,
Fenrir growled.
The Novus had had enough, she felt something in her heart, a coldness, a chill breeze that ran from her soul into Fenrir's, the warmth of the girl she'd once known. She knew the truth.
Two wolves dancing to nature's tune played in the back of her mind. And Harmonica, suddenly appeared to her as another wolf.
She said nothing and walked out. Fenrir prevented the two from pursuing her. It would stay back with Cormeum, it's original owner once more.
Harmonica felt sick with herself, sick and confused and in need independence after they'd made love. She left.
But rather than Fenrir resuming the relationship she had before, she took the point of view of Binarium's grief. Her time with her had influenced and affected her, and the manifestation tortured Cormeum worse than before, acting as a sinister mistress. She sadistically ridiculed the Novus and kept him more isolated than ever, judging him for his deviant behavior, using violence, insults, mockery and cruelty to keep Cormeum weak and dependent. She coveted him, and her own jealousy towards the Novus had her tormenting him around the clock, insisting he stay loyal only to her.
When he could take no more, Cormeum brought out his doorknob- the same doorknob he'd taken from Binarium's playroom that horrible night.
He used it to get Fenrir to leave him alone for a little while, by sealing her. The effect wasn't complete- Fenrir split, a male wolf of the same name but with their soul and writ removed, becoming a mere sentry beast and an individual unborn, the 'Tenebrae Paramour' to arrive someday where his lost memories and mind would be sent.
An eternity of torment passed. When she reached her own realm, when she reached the Celestium palace of Abyss again, her heart shattered. Even Fenrir was gone from her. She consulted her Bookseers, who told her that Fenrir was destined to be reborn- Tenebrae Paramour would come in the form of a single individual, and gradually begin to absorb the other existing half of Fenrir, gaining the sealed wolf's power, their soul and memories. Still Binarium was in anguish. She'd found her sister, but it was for the worst. Her sister was with her love- the boy she'd been torn away from. The boy she'd broken hearted for, and for her own love of, and who'd been rejected by all those she loved. The boy she still loved. Binarium stood and wept her heart out. Her heart was torn in two. She went to write her mantras in her book, and started tearing the pages out without stop.
Binarium was split.

Literally.
Binarium split in two.
✒――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
Harmonica and Hermes went and approached the pink haired girl, her glitching body still sparkling with electrical energy like a short-circuiting television. A grainy filter formed around her skin, changing channels on a singular surface.
"That's.." Harmonica glared. "Primebelle. A Synthetisation, or replica. That thing is.. a copy of Binarium as she was ten thousand years ago." She said, glaring at the little girl who stuck her tongue out at Harmonica.
"There was no way you can beat her, or defeat her."
"I'm.. just not as strong as I was." said the Synthetised Binarium. "But I'm much more better than the real one."
"You're not even half of Binarium." said Harmonica. "You're a fake."
"Not to you! To me!"
Harmonica ignored her, rage rising as she turned to Paradox.
"Are you going to stop being coy and let me see my sister again?" She asked.
Paradox turned slowly, her visor so cold as not to give away whether she was looking straight on or glaring from the side. "That one you speak of no longer exists. I serve Shion-C."
"What's she talking about?" Hermes asked.
Condesa brushed herself off, examining what was effectively her mother and grandmother having a confrontation. She didn't want to get involved, and hell had come to her world now that Abyss and Au appeared linked, the two worlds visible within the transtemporal rings around each other's skies.
Harmonica tried, and failed to stop herself from shouting,
"Your world and our world are connected, my mother! That's why when we went to Aurum, the aurum ring was there, and Shion was there! Do you understand?"
 She continued to rant, and continued to fight back tears.
"Harmonica. Calm down." Hermes said. "The Aurum ring isn't a big deal. But that other thing you said.."
The Novus wiped her eye, remembering to tune her voice again, less she accidentally destroy a planet with her voice.
"Right.. at some point, Binarium split into two beings. She ended up creating two Sentrimates.. but normally the Synthetisation process requires two Novus or beings. She did it with only one. The strain of doing so ended up a process of bifurcation. In other words.." She folded her arms. "Shion-O. And Shion-C. Two halves of a Novus.." She calmed herself, seeing Paradox ready to make her escape.
"My liege belongs to no one and owes a debt to none, least of all you.. Novus. Whoever she was before, is of no significance now." Paradox told her. "And I will deliver my lord's justice. Do not get in my way, creator."
"I will bring her back. You'll see." Harmonica insisted.
The Palaknights flew off and left into the Aurum, heading back to Au, carrying the tiny Binarium copy in her arms gently, who'd long since snoozed off into her restful dreams. Harmonica turned back to Hermes, pulling him onto his shoulders. Both were incredibly tired, the air of respectability she liked to carry was all but gone.
"Sorry your sis went loony tunes.. wanna go crash in and find her?" Hermes asked.
She smirked, pinching her cheeks. "What else is left to do? This family's drama is never done.."
They gradually few up towards the ring in the sky where Au could be reached. "So... you and Cormeum..."
Harmonica blushed. "Loooook, my sister used to write erotic fanfiction of all three of us. Sometimes me with her.. sometimes herself with him. But never-"
"-him with, you? Oh.. AHAHhoohoh you messed up. Imagine how left out she felt.."
The Novus breathed out resigned to humiliation. "We seriously need a good therapist these days.."

✒――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
Binarium ✦✦✦〖Shion-OC (self-bifurcation)〗✦✦✦ Binarium
〖Shion-O〗✦✦✦Binarium ✦✦✦〖Shion-C〗
✒――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

Alicestoria checked the reflection in her dorm room, sighting the fangs that grew from her mouth. She had enough time hiding the tail behind her, had she really gone feralborne? She paced back and forth, still reeling from the beetles Molly had splashed over her earlier today. Looking at the mirror, two words began to appear in the mirror.  'Tenebrae Paramour.' A purple woman with violet skin, a black latex suit and dark translucent moth wings climbed out of the mirror, shocking Alicestoria until she fell onto her bed. "W-who are you?" She asked.
"I'm your fairy devilmother, your Paramour." The woman said, holding a skull with a red jewel at the end as if it were a staff.
"You mean, my fairy godmother right?"
"Nope." The fairy woman grit with teeth, sitting on Alice's chair and spinning around. "You've been dreaming about the apocalypse, haven't you Alicestoria?"
"H-how did you know about that?"
"Nevermind that. My goddess, Shion-O has need of you. Wanna come with me down? We're goin' down to hell forever.." She offered her hand and point to the rippling mirror.
"I.. what?" Shion-O, that was a name to send chills down Alicestoria's spine, could this women be speaking true? She didn't look like any fairy she'd ever seen, the black-sclera intensely dark with the purple eyeshadow.
"Go where?" She eeped. The Devilmother bowed, holding a pocketwatch out.
"Treasured Alice, be my guest... Come to wonderland with me.."

Fin