(If you read this before, it hasn't really changed. I edited it a little bit and then got bored, so...)
Eleven Fabis sat at the same table.
o This dimension Fabi
o The first ParaFabi
o Zombie-fighting AltaFabi
o The Fabi that liked to call herself Alia
o Seven-year-old Mireille
o Fabi who didn't really talk much and looked forty but was probably older ((Forty))
o Teenager Mireille who hadn't discovered magic, but was good with computers and (unfortunately) lying and thievery ((Trouble))
o Fabi who couldn't stand the thought of anything illegal and was very emotionally torn between her values and her loyalty to the other versions of herself ((Heart))
o Fabi who got really upset when any of the other Fabi's assumed something about her, especially when they were right ((Unique))
o Fabi who didn't care, or at the very least, was good at hiding it ((Stone))
o Fabian who was a guy and not really the same person at all, but he'd been brought across from a different dimension the same way, and he'd solved the code, so he was part of the conversation. ((Fabian))
Out of all of them, Fabi knew that she wasn't the murderer, and ParaFabi had been in jail for the most recent crimes. Mireille, Forty and Fabian would look very different in the picture if it had been one of them. That left AltaFabi, Alia, Trouble (if she was faking having never discovered magic), Heart (if she was faking her emotions), Unique and Stone. Assuming the killer had shown up.
They'd talked for a while and shared stories, most of them the same. The other Fabis had been living their lives (some had more interesting lives than others) when they'd felt something calling them. They all agreed it had been their own voice, except Fabian, who said it had sounded like one of his cousins.
Fabi was beginning to wonder what they should do next, when ParaFabi suddenly stood.
"Alright."
The other Fabis turned to look at her, and then there was a ringing/vibrating that Fabi recognized as Martin’s power, the one he’d used back when the dimensions first clashed, when ParaFabi had tried to kidnap her. She’d thought everything was better between them; they’d worked together on a lot of things, but it had been a little odd. She realized this now. How ParaFabi had wanted to keep a lot of things secret, how she hadn’t really wanted to interact with Fabi’s other friends, how she’d been so…bitter. At the same time, though, she’d been the one who cared for Fabi when she’d been stuck in a trance below the earth. And when she’d stayed behind instead of going back to her own dimension, Fabi had been so happy to have a friend… Apparently she really hadn’t. The thought made her stomach twist.
Fabi blinked and realized she was waking up. A few feet away, seven-year-old Mireille jumped to her feet. Fabi stood, looking around. AltaFabi, Fabian, Forty, Trouble, Heart, Stone and Unique all seemed to be unconscious still. ParaFabi and her lackeys were nowhere to be seen.
The room was small, with a chair and a table and a reading lamp and not much else. Fabi tested the door. It wasn’t locked.
“That’s a little too convenient. Unlocked doors are traps a lot of the time.” Mireille muttered. She was getting this information from purely fictional sources, but it seemed logical.
Fabi nodded. “Um, it seems like our best option. Sorry.” She ducked out the door before anyone could stop her. The hallway had chocolate-colored walls and a burgundy carpet, and slanted and curved like a spiral staircase minus the stairs and not very steep.
Mireille appeared behind her. “It’s alright. Traps usually have stupid weaknesses. Up or down?”
“Depends...” Fabi tilted her head. “There are people arguing loudly somewhere above us. Do you want to find the action or find an escape route?”
Mireille didn’t hesitate. “Action,” she said. “If it’s a trap, they’ll expect us to escape.”
Fabi was considerably less certain than her seven-year-old self, but she went along with it.
They walked up the hallway, stopping to listen at each door. Each room was silent, so the only sound Fabi could hear was the song "Little Me" echoing in her head. It occurred to her that she was speaking to a younger version of herself, and she wondered if she could do anything to make Mireille's life better than her own had been. At the very least, she could try.
"Mireille?"
"Yes?" Her younger self checked the next door, shaking her head. "This room's empty."
"I guess I should warn you... You're going to have some tough times ahead of you. Just remember you're never alone, okay?"
Mireille walked over to Fabi and gave her a hug. "Don’t worry. I’ll be okay and grow up to be somebody interesting. Like you are.”
Fabi smiled and hugged her back, swallowing away the tears.
The staircase ended, and the two of them stopped at the final door. They glanced at each other, neither certain of what to do next. The footsteps from behind them settled it. Chances are, it was the other Fabis. Reinforcements. If you were walking into a potential trap, reinforcements were always a good thing to have. And if it wasn't reinforcements, it was trouble, and a lot of it. Hopefully that wasn't the case.
The door led to the roof. The floor was concrete, potted plants were everywhere, and there was a railing around the edge to prevent people from falling off.
ParaFabi was on her knees, and the Fabi known as Alia was holding her by the hair.
Alia turned, making ParaFabi grunt in pain. "Good. I was wondering when you'd wake up. Shall I kill her or send her to jail?"
Fabi gulped, not liking the fact that she was being put on the spot.
"Keep in mind that the jail couldn't hold her before. And she still has lackeys. An example needs to be made."
"If she did it, I want to hear how." Mireille said. “You’re the one who is currently threatening her.”
ParaFabi grunted. "There was another version of Martin, not the one who works for me. I'm guessing that whoever called all of us here used the instability caused when I didn't return to my own dimension. There must be a Martin from around here, and I suppose a similar effect."
"Clever." Alia grinned. "But lies will get you nowhere."
"Alia Renee Simone!" Mireille exclaimed.
"Yeah?" Alia asked.
"Alia Simone. Alia S. Alias."
Fabi nodded. She'd noticed earlier. In fact, she’d thought of the name as an alias quite a while ago, before deciding that it would be too obvious.
"Yeah," said Alia, "It's an alias. My actual taken name is Fabienne." She said it as though she were explaining it to a seven-year-old. Technically, she was, but Fabi remembered hating it when people talked to her like that, which they did a lot.
"Alia Renee, though..."
"A liar," Fabi said. "You're a liar." She wasn't certain if that was it, until she saw Alia's expression.
"Fine. Don't play this the easy way." She threw ParaFabi to the ground with a sickening thud and walked over to Fabi and Mireille. "Someday you'll have to make a choice. A terrible choice, and you'll mess up." She spat bitterly. "My world was destroyed, and I was sent hurtling between dimensions. If not for you, my very essence would have been scattered. As it was, there was enough imbalance for me to end up here. So of course I had to stop you from making the same mistakes. I started by picking off some of the people who would later make your life miserable. Then I realized that running from the law could make you just as bitter, just as twisted. So I decided I had to kill you."
Fabi said nothing, her eyes dark, her hand reaching towards her sword. "I can't believe I'd turn out to be as twisted as you."
Alia smiled grimly. "You say that now, but I was once I nice person. I had friends, family. I'd do anything for them." She paused. "They're dead now. So I'm saving their alternate versions. From myself. I have to." Her eyes danced angrily, and in that moment, Fabi realized that Alia wasn't sane.
"Wouldn't it be better to talk? To make sure we would make the right decision when the time came?"
Alia didn't answer, focused on something over Fabi's shoulder. Fabi turned.
Mireille was holding the door open for Heart, Trouble and Fabian.
"How could you...say something like...like that?" Heart asked, teary-eyed. She lifted the dagger, but her hand was shaking and Fabi knew she wouldn't be able to use it. Not on herself. Or her other self. Or however you wanted to look at it.
"Someday you will, too. That's why I have to stop you." Alia twisted the dagger out of Heart's hands easily and kicked her to the ground. Trouble and Fabian both darted in to help, but the river of scarlet blood gushing from Heart's neck showed them they were too late.
Ten
AltaFabi frowned. Forty, Stone and Unique were waking up slowly, and the rest of them were gone. “It’s a trap,” she decided. “The others escaped, or maybe they are escaping, or trying to escape, or dead.”
“That’s…cheerful,” Stone muttered, standing slowly.
“Do you have a problem with cheerful?”
“Not at all,” Forty interrupted whatever Stone was going to say. “I do have a problem with staying here, though.”
“Fair enough,” Stone and Alia said in unison. Unique winced. She’d probably been about to say the same thing.
The corridor was slanted and curved upward, like a spiral staircase without the stairs bit.
“Up or down?” The clatter of lots of running footsteps from below decided it.
“Uphill both ways, through the snow,” Forty muttered under her breath.
AltaFabi laughed at the inside joke. Unique and Stone didn’t.
They stopped at the final door and listened. There were voices, upset, and a gasp. The people behind them were gaining ground, their boots still thudding loudly.
“We go in, but quietly,” Unique decided, and the others went along with it.
They stopped short as they saw the blood. Alia turned, wiping the dagger clean on her shirt, looking for her next target.
"Fabian.” She frowned thoughtfully. “You're different. You might have to make the same choice, though. And I can't take that chance."
"I know what choice you're talking about." Everyone turned to look at Forty. Fabi hadn’t seen her come in. She was getting sloppy. Forty continued. "Every choice is a crossroads, Fabienne. Things turned out...okay in my dimension. You don't have to do this."
"You're lying," Alia said with certainty. The way Forty's eyes darkened made Fabi think that she wasn't, and she was about to say so when Alia pulled a small glass vial from her pocket and threw it to the ground.
Forty disappeared.
Nine
Fabi, Fabian, Mireille, Stone, Trouble, Unique and AltaFabi jumped back. The unison was...creepy. Alia brushed a stray bit of glass off her shoe ParaFabi was still unconscious.
There was a loud crash as something heavy slammed into the door. Stone pressed her back against it, fusing the lock closed and reaching out for other metal to reinforce it. Trouble frowned. She didn’t do magic, but maybe now was the time to try. At the same time, though, she didn’t want to end up like the others. Their eyes were so much...darker.
She deliberated for a while, and then her shoulders sagged. She went over to join Stone.
Unique glanced quickly between Alia, the bits of glass, and the spot where Forty had been.
"What did you do to her? Did you kill her, too? What kind of person are you?" She felt the Fabi from this dimension try to pull her back and kicked out, breaking free. "I don't know who you think you are, but..."
"I'm you." Alia’s mouth formed a thin line, as if watching the other versions of her hurt, and she wanted it to.
Unique seethed. "I'm the only me. You're someone else. Different dimensions run differently. I'd never kill someone!"
"I thought like that, and look where I am now."
Don’t end up like Heart. Don’t end up like Heart, please.
“Hey!” AltaFabi pulled a long, odd-looking gun-like thing that appeared to be made out of recycled materials.
Alia wrinkled her nose. “Maybe you aren’t me, then. I loathe Styrofoam.”
“So do I, but it has its uses.” AltaFabi popped what looked like a cork into her weapon and pointed it at Alia’s face. “Olive oil-soaked cork. Really useful against the twice-dead. Fired point-blank like this, it might work against you, too. At the very least, you can’t stop it. It’s not metal.”
Alia smirked. “You’re bluffing. There’s nothing to fuel it, and no barrel.”
“Glass. The barrel’s made of glass, and it has fuel.”
“Go ahead then. Shoot me with it.”
AltaFabi smashed the Styrofoam gun (which actually did have a glass barrel) over Alia’s head. “Okay, fine. I was bluffing. It’d be the strength of a paintball at best. Probably less than that."
The weapon shattered into a million pieces, but Alia seemed unaffected. Fabi blinked in shock as she realized that Alia's skin was coated in a thin layer of metal. It was acting as armor, but at the same time, it moved with her, as if connected to her consciousness, and when Fabi tried to influence it, it fought back.
"Well that's just glorious," Trouble muttered.
Alia grabbed AltaFabi's wrist and pulled her closer. "You seem so carefree now. Wait until the fate of everyone you know and love is in your hands. Wait until you slip up. I'm doing you a favor, really."
She picked AltaFabi up as if her other self weighed nothing, the kicks and punches deflecting harmlessly off her metal skin. The guy, Fabian was in her way. Too bad for him. She kicked him in the knee and he crumpled to the ground. She would deal with him in a minute.
She had a moment, though. A moment of doubt. Did AltaFabi's friends need her to help fight the twice-dead she'd mentioned? Was that maybe enough to make things different? Alia couldn't take the chance. Her friends would be better off without her, anyway. No matter which her. No matter which world.
Fabi watched helplessly as AltaFabi tumbled off the side of the tower. She ran over to the railing and looked down, watching helplessly as the other her grabbed at a window ledge. AltaFabi got a grip, but it sent her hurtling into the side of the building, the impact making her scream and let go. She looked back up at Fabi, her eyes sparkling with anguish, betrayal... Fabi backed away so she wouldn't have to see AltaFabi hit the ground.
Eight
ParaFabi still hadn't moved. Fabian, too, was on the ground, but he was conscious and trying not to cry out in pain. Mireille was hiding behind a potted plant, connecting some sort of circuit. Fabi looked over at Stone, Unique and Trouble. They were all looking at her like she'd failed them. She felt sick inside, and she still didn't know what to do.
Alia looked around, deciding who to kill next. She focused on Mireille, and Fabi snapped out of her moaning and groaning about how helpless she was.
"She's seven. Do you really think she's doomed to have the same fate as you? There have to be, like, a million crossroads between then and whenever you are." She sounded reasonable to herself, but was it reasonable to her other self?
"If she doesn't have to meet them, they'll be better off." Alia's eyes were cold.
"Your friends let you think that?" Fabi asked softly.
"None of them even knew until it was too late. They thought I was a good friend, and I tried. I really tried. In the end, though, I failed them. I have to make sure it doesn't happen again. In any dimension."
Several things happened at once. ParaFabi sat up slowly, pulling out her phone. Someone hammered loudly on the door, making several Fabis jump. Mireille turned to Alia and gave her a big hug.
Alia looked shocked for a moment, and Fabi wondered if she was still human enough to care about a little girl. She hadn't been before.
Mireille pulled away from the hug with something in her hand. Alia let her back away.
She looked at her wrist for a moment, then opened her hand and let the glass vial she'd pickpocketed fall to the ground. Stone flickered and disappeared.
Seven
ParaFabi staggered slightly as she tried to help Fabian up. Unique started to freak out, but Trouble whispered something to and her eyes widened. Mireille darted towards Alia aiming to grab another vial from her pocket. Fabi, finally realizing what the vials were, circled around to Alia's other side. Unique and Trouble joined the circle.
“We’re going to get out of here. If that blue liquid is all that’s keeping us in this dimension…”
Fabi thought it might be more complicated than that, but she didn’t say so. She didn’t want them to hate her even more.
Alia’s eyes danced. “You’re here so I can kill you all at once, not so you can go home. I can’t let there be a repeat of my story.”
“You obviously haven’t learned your lesson, then. How are you going to make up for killing people by killing more?” ParaFabi wobbled and careened sideways. Alia sidestepped, but ParaFabi grabbed her ankle, making her stumble.
Alia stomped on ParaFabi’s fingers, then pulled away.“Given the choice between yourself and everyone you care about, which would you choose?”
After a pause, all seven Fabis spoke in unison.“Everyone else.”
Unique’s face went red and she muttered under her breath, “Myself,” just so she could differ from the others. It was the wrong move to make, though. Alia had pulled out a small dart-gun, and she had deadly aim. The feathered needle was moving too fast for any of the Fabis to focus on it and melt it. It hit Unique in the throat and she collapsed.
Six
Fabian knelt over Unique, glad for the excuse to sit down. ParaFabi had given him a stick to use as a cane, but it was so awkward, and he knew he couldn’t run fast enough.
Fabi stared mutely at the dead body. It looked so much like her. Maybe it should have been her. The Sanctuary thought she was a criminal already.
ParaFabi was lying on the ground, the three middle fingers on her right hand bent at gruesome angles. She reached out with her left, trying to pull Alia down with her, but she’d hit her already damaged head on the way down, and it was hard to see properly, hard to judge distances.
Mireille took advantage of the fact that Alia was busy. She was pretty sure that’s what ParaFabi wanted her to do. She climbed on a flower pot, then jumped off, tackling Alia to the ground. None of the vials shattered.
Fabi wondered if Alia had a pocket dimension in her pocket. She thought that would be sort of weird, but it seemed likely enough. It was either that or really sturdy glass vials. She went over to help Mireille, pinning Alia down while the seven-year-old extracted the remaining six vials. Alia thrashed and kicked and swore a bit. Fabi wondered when she’d started swearing. She didn’t really see the point.
“My mom would kill you if she knew you said that in front of a seven-year-old,” Mireille said. “So would yours, ‘cause technically they’re the same person.”
“My mom’s been dead for four hundred and thirty-five years,” Alia snapped.
“If you’re that old, you really should know better.” Mireille looked at the vials. “So, I just drop them?”
Alia smiled. “Be my guest.”
Trouble snuck around the edge of things, not really sure what to do. She frowned at the debate about swearing. She didn’t really see the point in swearing. She’d had enough acting classes to make ‘pizza’ sound like a swear word if she wanted to.
ParaFabi was trying to bandage her fingers, but it didn’t work very well with her left hand. She did the best she could in a hurry.
Alia lashed out, breaking free of Fabi’s grip and smacking her in the nose. Fabi fell awkwardly and rolled to her feet. Assuming she survived, she’d be covered in bruises.
Mireille jumped backward, clutching the vials protectively.
Fabian lurched forward, using one foot and one sword/makeshift cane. He shifted his weight to the foot and swung the sword at Alia. It stuck to her layer of metal skin, making him lose his balance and fall on his bad knee. Alia let go, so the sword came right behind him.
Fabi tried to melt it to a harmless puddle, but Alia counteracted it, and then she didn’t.
You know how in tug of war, you can loosen your grip just a bit and make the other person fall off balance? Well, it was sort of like that, only with a mental-based magic, and Alia didn’t let go. She pushed from the other direction. The sword melted into a metal puddle, which went straight through Fabian’s face, and to the floor. Fabian’s entire head turned red and he was still.
Five
Alia shrugged, as if to say ‘And whose fault was that?’ She turned back to Mireille without a word and took a step forward, waiting to see if the little girl would run.
Mireille squeaked, but stayed still. She even managed not to cry.
“What is this place?” Fabi asked, doing her best to divert Alia again. She wasn’t sure how long it would work, but she had to try.
Alia shrugged. “You can ask her. She brought us here. The Martin from my dimension is dead; that whole idea of making us fall asleep and bringing us here was hers. You really shouldn’t trust her.”
“I trust her more than I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.” ParaFabi frowned at her newly bandaged fingers. “I’m a liar and a criminal and a murderer, though not in this dimension. Above all that, I’m a spy. At least you know that Alia hates you.” She turned to Mireille and held out her good hand. “Mine should be slightly greener than the others. Catch?”
Mireille looked at the vials closely, then tossed one. It fell a bit short, and for a minute it looked like ParaFabi would drop it. She didn’t.
“You knew which vial was yours.” Alia sounded impressed.
“‘Course I did. I hang around intelligent people.” ParaFabi narrowed her eyes. “These things are what offsets the balance of pretty much everything and keeps us all here. So if they break, and you’re lucky, you return you to your home dimension. But…” She turned to Alia, “your home dimension is gone.”
“Who am I without it?” Alia walked towards ParaFabi slowly, a tear trickling down her cheek.
Fabi felt a lump in her throat as she watched them.
“Which vial is mine?” Trouble asked.
“The grayish one,” Alia and ParaFabi answered in unison.
Mireille looked through the vials and found the right one. “Do you want me to break it?”
“Yeah,” Trouble said. “No offence, but I’m not interested in answers. Until you all showed me, I had no idea magic even existed or that I could do it.” She looked down at her hands. “I’m not really part of this world, and I don’t want to be a victim of it. You have a problem with that?”
Mireille looked at Fabi for a second, then set Trouble’s vial on the ground and stomped on it.
Four
“You really should have warned her,” ParaFabi said.
“If it’s that important, why didn’t you?” Alia countered.
“You think after that whole reveal thing about this place, she’d have believed me?”
“You think that after I killed a lot of people, she’d have believed me?”
ParaFabi and Alia circled each other, and Fabi suddenly realized that it was a diversion.
“Mireille, that smaller vial is probably yours. Drop it and give me the rest. I want to find out what happens, but you can go back home.”
Mireille shook her head. “Didn’t you hear them? There’s something bad about the vials. Like maybe they return you home, but not necessarily in one piece. And anyway, it can’t be my vial, that’s too obvious. Besides, it’s much too late.”
“What do you mean?”
Mireille held up her arm for Fabi to see. There was a small puncture in her wrist, and the skin near it was turning a light purplish-blue. “It’s okay,” she said, trying to comfort Fabi, but it really didn’t. She remembered when she was a little girl having to say those same words to the adults even when it really wasn’t okay at all.
“Why didn’t you tell me? What kind of poison is it?
“I don’t know. Whatever it is, I think it’s diluted. And I’m not dead.” She staggered slightly, but managed not to drop any vials. “My vision is getting fuzzy, though…” She quickly handed the vials to Fabi. “It’s getting dark…”
Fabi caught the vials and Mireille, setting her down gently. She mumbled something about roofs not having ceilings, and then she was still. Fabi took a deep breath and smashed the small vial. Mireille vanished.
Three
Fabi knew she should smash the rest of the vials now, but she couldn’t help it. ParaFabi backed Alia against a wall and threw a punch at her face, but it didn’t do more than break the fingers on the other hand, too. She glanced back at Fabi and mouthed ‘what are you still doing here?’
Abandoning Alia, she ran over and grabbed the final three vials, studying them closely.
“There.” She selected one that was almost indigo. “Don’t worry about Alia. She can’t leave unless she uses her vial, and that’ll scatter her into atoms.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” The look in her parallel self’s eyes let Fabi know she was lying. As she dropped the indigo vial, Alia whipped out her dart gun again, letting two of the little projectiles fly. Both Fabis sensed them, but they couldn’t gain enough mental control to stop them. ParaFabi calculated and jumped to the left, and in the instant Fabi disappeared, she saw them hit her. ParaFabi collapsed, and the last two vials fell to the floor.
Two
One
Zero
