Heretical Edge

"Wait, what?" That was Shiori, cutting through my conflicting rush of thoughts as she stumbled forward to grab my hand. Avalon had already taken the other one, and both of them were squeezing tightly. Tabbris had been right in front of me and turned to hug me then, pressing her face against my shoulder while giving a shudder that… actually, that might've been me doing the shuddering. Or maybe it was both of us. At that point, it didn't make that much of a difference.

Shiori continued. "Are you saying Flick has to go live hundreds, maybe even thousands of years through the whole timeline until she catches up with the present, and even then she won't be able to umm… join up with her other selves? She'll just end up being a completely separate Flick forever? Not that I don't like the idea of having as many Flicks around as possible, but, but… you can't be serious. There's gotta be another way, a way that doesn't leave Flick stranded."

That started a whole rush of comments from everyone, trying to shout out ideas, suggestions of what we could do to fix the rift, even immediately volunteering to go with me and live through all that so I wouldn't be alone. All before I had even started to digest the actual problem properly.

Aylen winced, giving me an apologetic look. "What I'm saying is, she's the only one who can finish shutting down the rifts so that dragon energy doesn't get to the Fomorians. We know that can't happen. If it does, if the Fomorians get the upgrade, we might as well pack it in because life will be over. Flick has to stop that energy, she's the only one who can. To do that, she has to go through every rift, including this one. And yes, if she does, she'll be cut off from the rest of her other selves and it will be impossible to skip forward through time. She'll have to live out every year from the moment she arrives in the past, and do it without altering the timeline."

"Well," I managed a bit weakly, "at least I have the handy monocle now to help with that."

"Don't joke," Avalon snapped, turning to face me. "You can't seriously be considering this." She looked like she wanted to punch the person giving us this news, and was even more frustrated by the fact that it was one of the only other people in the world she actually cared about as much as she did me. It was a good thing Aylen was the one talking right now, because with those Phoenix upgrades, Valley could probably end up doing some real damage if she lost control.

"Considering it?" I opened and shut my mouth before giving a weak, "I don't think we have much of a choice right now, Valley. That's how it works, if I don't go through the rift, the Fomorians get dragon-boosted. If that happens, it's like Aylen said, life itself is over. The universe is over. Pack it in, we're done. We have no chance, zero, zilch against a whole army of dragon-boosted Fomorians. We can't let it happen. I can't let it happen. If being stuck living through a whole bunch of years cut off from all you guys, from everyone I know, is the price I have to pay, I'll do it. No question. I don't like it. I'm really scared. I feel like I'm gonna throw up. But I'll do it. To stop the Fomorians, I'll do it."

Yeah, that didn't exactly stop all the conversation and arguments. Everyone was talking at once, trying to come up with other solutions, ways I wouldn't need to be alone, anything they could say. Tabbris was still clinging to me and immediately insisted, "You won't be alone. I can still possess you, we can do it together, live through all that time together. At least you won't be by yourself." She sounded as worried about the whole idea as I felt, but still determined anyway.

It was comforting to think that she could do that. Hell, it was comforting to think that any of these guys could come with me the way they were offering. I wasn't exactly looking forward to the idea of being on my own like that for so long. But I only entertained the idea for a few seconds before shaking my head slowly. "You can't do that, Tabs. None of you can come with me. First of all, it's not safe for you to go through the rift anyway. It wasn't exactly safe for you to go through the original rift even before Invidia messed with it. Now that she did all this, who knows what could happen if a person who isn't me goes through the thing? And yes," I added before Tabbris could even voice her next bit, "maybe you'd be okay while possessing me. Maybe. You were before at the London rift, from what you said. But this is different, the rift has been changed. And I'm not willing to take that risk. We know I can go through the rift, but the rest of you? We don't know what'll happen."

I could see the arguments already starting to form, but pressed on quickly before any of them could interrupt. "I'm glad you all want to help, seriously. But this isn't-- if you go through the rift and get torn apart, I couldn't live with myself. And if any of you going through it messes up the dragon energy so it goes to the Fomorians after all, the entire universe won't be able to live with itself. We can't risk something like that. Not just to stop me from being lonely. I'll live with that."

I could see a few of the others exchanging looks. When they saw me staring, Vanessa hesitantly spoke up. "If you do live through all that time, it might explain the other Jacob sightings, the ones that don't seem to be part of a rift situation." She proceeded to explain what she meant. It turned out there were lots of stories about Jacob the Necromancer showing up at various points in history. And like she'd said, there were plenty of them without any apparent connection to a rift.

Aylen confirmed that much, that there had been moments of Jacob being around but absolutely no sign of rifts when she had investigated. So either there was someone else going around as my own made-up identity (one I still couldn't believe was actually a known figure), or I really did have some version of me living through all that time. Or possibly it was a whole different time travel situation, but I really didn't want to consider that. I wanted to be done with time travel forever.

And hey, apparently I really would be done with it after this if Aylen was right. No more time travel for me, at least this version of me, after I went through that rift. I'd be stuck living every year after that, one after the other in the proper chronological order. So, uh, yay for me?

No one wanted to have this conversation right in front of the rift, to be honest. It was just looming right there, somehow even more ominous now than it had already been. And given what the thing was, that was saying a lot. By mutual agreement, we all made our way back out of the cave. Laein left some ghosts behind to watch over the place, and I did the same. We didn't actually talk about what was going on until we were back outside by those tents. But once we were, the whole conversation started up again once more, and there was a whole lot of arguing back and forth. Basically everyone thought I shouldn't have to go by myself like that. And I agreed, I really shouldn't have to. Unfortunately, none of us had anything close to a better idea.

Finally, after several minutes of back and forth on that, Avalon turned to punch the air. Only when she did so, a massive geyser of flame erupted off her arm and went flying into the sky. She didn't scream, didn't say anything at all. She didn't need to. The fire did the talking for her.

"Yeah, what she said," Shiori agreed quietly, her own voice straining a bit. "I hate this. I hate it so much." To me, she added, "Flick, you'll be all alone, for years and years and decades and even centuries probably. A long time, way too long. You can't just go through all that by yourself."

"She won't have to." That was Asenath, who waited until everyone was looking at her before clarifying. "If she's living through all those years, she'll make her own friends, other friends. She'll make allies. It's not like she has to be alone forever. She can interact with other people. She already knows the general way history should go, so she knows what to avoid. And she has the stone there, or the monocle. That should help too. She doesn't have to act like a leper. With her disguise, she can even interact with some of--" She cut herself off then while visibly wincing.

It was Sarah who spoke first, who realized what was going on immediately. "You met Jacob before, in your past. You met Jacob and didn't realize who he really was until this happened."

"Until I found out Flick was Jacob, yeah," Senny muttered, giving me a brief, considering glance. "I didn't want to influence your future, but… just… yeah, I'm not gonna say anything specific. Just know you did-- I mean will meet me and… stuff will happen. And you never let me know who you really were. You meet Seth too, actually. I'm surprised he hasn't said anything about it."

That was the Ghost Seth's cue to step into view while scoffing, "Hey, I'm much better at keeping secrets than you give me credit for. I couldn't influence things, just like you're trying not to. What was I supposed to do, say, 'Hey Necro-boss, I think you're gonna show up in my past and--" He paused, shaking his head before finishing that a bit awkwardly. "Uh, you know, do some stuff."

"Good save," I murmured, shaking my head. "I'll try to keep it in mind, I mean, assuming I actually remember any of this by the time meeting you guys comes around. It--" My voice choked up a little despite every effort I was making to keep myself calm and collected so I wouldn't upset any of the others. "It's gonna be a pretty long time before that comes up."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

By that point, I was swarmed in hugs from Avalon, Shiori, and Tabbris. And the others weren't far behind. Everyone wanted to give me a better solution, wanted to say that this didn't have to happen. But we were beyond all that. Not only because none of us could come up with an alternative that wouldn't mean risking letting the Fomorians become dragon-powered, but it was like Senny and Seth had said, me living through all those years and eventually meeting them as Jacob had already happened, at least in their pasts. This was absolutely how things had to be.

All of which was to say, this wasn't something any of us wanted, especially me. Even knowing there were other versions of me, the ones from all the other rifts, who wouldn't have to do this and would actually go straight to where we were supposed to be didn't help that much. The prospect of needing to spend so many centuries living out what could be as much as the entire human civilization timeline wasn't exactly filling me with warm fuzzies. And unlike Aylen, apparently, I couldn't skip over huge portions of it with stasis. I had to experience all of it.

Yeah, I was nervous and definitely looking for any other possibility. And boy did we do our best to find one. Not only did I have every single person here trying to come up with something else as they studied the rift and the spell that has been put on it, but the entire active Flique had been called on deck to help Story research in our Archive library. I called in the Cryptseeker to check the records it had, and Laein checked the Roundabout to scour everything in there.

Yeah, it wasn't until then that I thought to wonder why Laein had shown up as her younger self even though this was several centuries ahead of when I had last seen her. It turned out the Laein I had been interacting with wasn't the real one at all. Or rather, it was her, but a golem version. She had created a flesh and blood copy of her younger self and was remote piloting it from the actual Roundabout, where she was still running her classes and keeping students in line. She claimed it was because she couldn't leave 'some of these idiot children' without her supervision for that long, but I was pretty sure the bigger reason had been to mess with me. She'd wanted to see if she could slip a puppeted golem body past me. And hey, it worked.

Suffice to say, we were doing everything we possibly could to find another solution. We weren't about to send me through the rift immediately without at least trying. There were still a few days before it would be too late, after all. Although just in case, we did have plenty of lookouts to make sure Invidia couldn't sneak up on us. There were teleportation blockers (that I was exempted from), an entire arsenal of various detection spells, and more. If it came down to it and that bitch tried to show herself or throw one of her armies at us again, I wouldn't take any more chances. I would just go straight through the damn rift before anything else went wrong.

But it didn't matter. None of it mattered. We searched and debated and read over the next day and a half until my eyes felt like they were going to bleed. We did everything possible until I finally called a halt to it. Avalon objected loudly, as did Shiori and Tabbris. And the others weren't exactly happy about it either. But I pointed out that we clearly weren't getting anywhere and that I would rather spend the last day I had before going on this whole thing having fun with the people I cared about. And yes, I did feel a sharp pang at the fact that my parents and other siblings weren't here. I wouldn't be able to say goodbye to them, wouldn't be able to tell them I would see them on the other end of this whole trip, hopefully. I couldn't hug them one more time before being sent away for… for way too long. But I could enjoy my time with the people who were actually here.

It may have seemed strange under the circumstances, but we had a party. I suppose it was kind of a going away party. Which was strange for them, I was sure, since they would see me again immediately. They were just going right back to meet with the other versions of me all being pulled together. Hell, even this version of me would be right there with them again from their point of view. As soon as we caught up with a modern timeline, I would be able to walk right up to all of them and my original self and say hi. I still wasn't sure exactly how that would work. But the point was, as far as they were concerned, there would be basically no time between when I walked through that rift and when I made it back to them in our present.

Yeah, this going away party was entirely for me and we all knew it. But that was okay, because I seriously needed something like this. I was going to hold onto this memory, to the thought of spending this entire day being with all these people I cared about so much. Whatever happened, no matter what sort of life I experienced in my long road through history, I wouldn't forget this day. I would hold onto it, treasure it, and remind myself of what was waiting for me.

Obviously, I spent time with everyone. I tried to do as many group activities and individual ones as possible with every person there. And I had a good bit of alone time with my girlfriends. Not to mention some time with my sister. Tabbris clearly wasn't happy about not going with me, but she understood. None of us were happy about any of this, even if we did our best to push that aside and focus on enjoying this last day that I would have with them for a very, very long time.

But what didn't last a long time was that final day. No matter how much we tried to stretch it out, even while spending every meal and doing as much as possible within Aylen's time dilation tent in order to squeeze even more out of this day (which was closer to several thanks to that), eventually it was all over. We had pushed this thing as far as any of us really dared to.

The rift was becoming unstable. That much was clear. It was making weird noises and trying to twist in on itself. There was no more time. There were no more excuses. I was left standing in front of that rift while everyone else took turns coming up to embrace me. I kissed my girls, accepted a few gifts they gave me, promised to be careful and accepted the blatantly disbelieving stares that they gave me in response to that promise, and assured all of them that I was absolutely going to get through this extended trip and see them all on the other side of it.

I wasn't going to cry. I absolutely wasn't going to, no matter how scared I was about what I was walking into. I wasn't going to let my emotions get the better of me here. I would see all these people again. I would live these next centuries year by year. I would find ways to pass the time. I would find ways to blend in. I would even be able to spend some time at the Roundabout eventually, once I caught up to when it existed. Unfortunately, I had no idea exactly what year I would be sent back to. Just that it was at one of the earlier rifts. Some part of me thought I might get lucky and only go back a little bit. After all, we were in the middle of World War I right now. That was practically only a hop skip and a jump from the present. It was possible I could go back a very short time, relatively speaking. Except I already knew that wasn't true. Because they had seen Jacob at various points through the entire timeline in moments that had nothing to do with rifts. So obviously, I would be going back pretty far. It was a prospect that honestly terrified me the more I thought about it.

Shiori was holding Tabbris. I genuinely wasn't sure which of them was keeping the other from running up to me. Maybe they were both stopping each other. That actually sounded more likely. But either way, they were there, standing next to Avalon, who was rigid with her hands clenched. I could see a flicker of flames playing at her fingertips and in her eyes. She was angry about this and frustrated. Everyone was, but it showed more with her and that fire.

No more delays, no more wishing, no more hesitation or dragging it out. Hefting the backpack I've been given that was completely full of supplies and food (seriously, the thing was one of those with extra space inside and it was still crammed to the absolute brim), I looked over each of them in turn and tried to keep my voice as even and light as possible. "Right, well, see you guys pretty soon. I love you, all of you. And thanks for absolutely everything. You're all amazing."

With that, I did what was possibly one of the absolute hardest things I've ever had to do. I took a step backwards. I wasn't going to turn my back to these people as I went through the rift, not a chance in hell. The rift could go fuck itself. When I looked back on this moment as the eventual years and centuries passed, I wasn't going to remember stepping forward into the damn thing. I was going to remember watching everyone there, all these people I cared about so much, while I moved backwards into the rift and allowed it to take me.

I stared at my girlfriends, then at Tabbris. She was the last one whose eyes I met before I finally hit the edge of the rift and felt it grab onto me. The world twisted, I felt my stomach flip, I saw colors as streaks of light across my vision. I heard the others call out to me one last time, wishing me luck, telling me they cared about me, promising to see me once I caught up with the present. I heard all their voices at once, blending into one another as a chorus of love and hope.

In that last possible moment, I shifted into my Jacob appearance, just in case I appeared right in front of someone who knew me. Then I was gone. The vision of the cave disappeared, the streaks of color had vanished, and I was somewhere else. I was somewhen else. But where, when?

With a thick lump in my throat, tears burning my eyes, I slowly looked around and took in my new situation. A situation I would be in for quite awhile. Because I was definitely a long way off from World War 1. The first thing I saw was a thick forest straight ahead of me, though the space I was standing in was an open field. Open, that was, aside from the massive rocks lined up around me. Very familiar massive rocks.

Stonehenge. I was standing in the middle of Stonehenge. Except this was an unfinished version. This Stonehenge wasn't completed yet. Which meant…

If we're in the middle of it being built, Story, who had taken the copilot seat, informed me, it means we're probably around 2500 BCE. She hesitated before adding, That's like a thousand years before the Seosten show up.

My eyes closed as my head slumped. The air went out of my lungs. I stood there by those rocks, fists clenching. Stonehenge. 2500 BCE. A thousand years before the Seosten arrived.

Two thousand, five hundred years before we even reached the common era.

Four thousand, five hundred and twenty years before we made it back to my present. Give or take.

This was Day One of over one million, six hundred thousand.

A long, heavy sigh escaped me, and I adjusted the backpack on my shoulder while forcing myself to straighten up. At least I wasn't alone. We were in this together. "Okay, guys," I announced to the entire Flique.

"Let's go find a way to pass the time."

A/N - This is the end of the separate rifts storyline and the end of this arc. Next arc will pick up immediately with Flick arriving on the other side of the main rift on the Fomorian homeworld with (almost) all her separate rift memories. Thank you all for sticking with this extended storyline and I look forward to getting back to the present day with you!