Dr. Gina Babette Diggers was many things. Archaeologist, Adventurer, Super-Scientist, Mechanic, Chairman of the Board, Rescuer, Teacher... and most recently: Complete and Total Fuck-Up.
As the only natural child of Theodore and Julia Diggers, Gina was one that grew up with a most unusual and unique genetic ancestry. Her mother’s side consisted of the Barbarian/Giant Clan, plus the Spiritual Monks, while her father’s side was comprised of strong mages and the mysterious power of the Enigmas. Not to mention her background included becoming an older sister at the tender age of three to what—had at the time—to the last werecheetah in existence, and at the age of six, her grandfather was killed by a custom spell he created that turned him into an undead magic-user of untold power... which he used to phase her mother out of reality for the next two decades!
Oh yes, Gina realized from the start her life was going to be anything but ordinary. A most unique biology, nine college degrees, intelligence that only grew, joining the Explorers Society and becoming a registered archaeologist, finding Time Rafts, Lost Cities of Gold, Lost Sunken Cities of Atlantis, Lost Frozen Cities of Shangri-La, the Lost Garden of Eden, getting a clone daughter/sister, saving her mother, saving an entire Realm of Reality... and all before the age of twenty-one.
But from there, her interests grew and the dangers increased. After an altercation with a time-travelling canine genius and his pet boy, Gina soon started to delve into deciphering ‘ribbon’, the language of magic and trying to reverse-engineer Beta-Tech, the technology of the beings from the universe that existed before her own; a universe that had been lost in what people of her day were calling, “The Big Bang”. With these achievements, she had the ‘basic tools’ to really delve into the histories she sought to uncover: the Artificers, the Gardeners, the Phantoms...
And herself.
Yes, it would seem that ANOTHER version of herself existed; one that remained rather tight-lipped at the time, but gifted her a new high-compact computer-operating system as well as advice... cryptic advice to be certain, but advice nonetheless. Sure the older woman refused to give anything major away but there was one exception: she was trying to break a stable time-loop and that this meeting of the minds would be the beginning steps to succeeding.
From there, Gina concentrated her focus on the Artificers, expanding her research efforts and her knowledge of both the people and their Beta-Tech. When she first discovered the technology in Civ-Alpha, she had assumed it had been the technology of the Saurians, the dinosaur-like race that were the first highly-evolved forms of intelligent life on the planet earth... instead, it would turn out that this was the technology of the universe that came before and the Saurians were merely borrowing the principles of it. In turn, it would be revealed that the Saurians’ version of Ribbon that was used to code and power their tech was actually modern Draconic, the secret of the Dragon races’ spell-casting capabilities!
Beta-Technology, Draconic, Ribbon: all were so similar that the blonde archaeologist knew it had to be more than coincidence. With this understanding, Gina came to create a literal “Rosetta Stone”, which allowed her the basis she needed to delve into all three practices, to become ‘literate’. Not just decipher, but to actually understand and create her own; to even cast her own ‘spells’ or ‘hack’ into others’ work. She might not have been a mage by any stretch but she was coming to realize the kind of power she had at her fingertips. It both amazed and scared the woman... and more importantly, it urged her on. She was coming close to the answers she wanted, that deep down, she needed.
From there, the super-scientist uncovered and unlocked Dragon Mymiors, the highly-coveted spell-circles of the draconic races, gaining more insight, coming to where she could literally project her own SOUL into a piece of magic or tech, a ‘Soul Dive’ to study magical constructs and machines down to their deepest core. With the knowledge she usurped, came new crafting capabilities, allowing her to create ‘Beta Keys’ and giving the woman the power she needed to take control of machinery of all sorts: magic or science, ancient or modern, legendary or mundane... it was ALL at her fingertips now. Indeed, she was finally starting to understand how her Ancient counter-part was as powerful as she was, as Gina herself started to gain those skills for herself. Gina knew she would succeed as her future self had hoped...
...And that hubris had been her downfall. The archaeological digs became more important to her than anything else, including her family. Sadly, especially her family. Gina would be gone constantly and taking as many resources, (be it her tech or friends) with her to uncover more and more, more secrets, more wonders, more truths brought to light! Everything would be hers!
And all it cost her was her family.
While on what would be her LAST Mymior Dig, her family had been attacked. Attacked on ALL fronts. It would seem that an enemy of her family—her father’s in particular—Gothwrain had attacked... a plan that had been in the making since Theodore first crossed paths with the wererat bastard during the massacre of the werecheetahs. A horrible, ingeniously plotted machination that destroyed their safety and world, specifically saved to unveil when the family would be at their weakest.
Gina had the majority of the power-houses with her at the time; Genn the Rakshasa, Séance the Aura Mage and Apprentice to her father, and Brianna... especially Brianna. And it didn’t help that others that were available to her folks and brother-in-law were either out of commission due to prior engagement and thus unavailable or were taken simply down early by the undead assassin, Zero. Even with so the others they managed to recruit, it was just her parent, Stryyp, and her lab assistant Dao who managed to head into the belly of the beast, to delve into Dark Home: Realm of the Wererats. The battle cost the lives of Theodore’s friend Jzu-Jzu, Gina’s grandmothers Brunhildagard Brigand and Oracle Diggers, nearly killed Dao, Gar, Stryyp, and D’Bra... little Tifanny, her niece...
...And left her sister, Britanny, lost in the Astral Rifts, the space between realities.
Needless to say, archaeology lost a lot of its importance as a guilt-stricken scientist shifted focus on what was really important, and doing so by any means necessary. Any means... no matter how legal or shady.
She was lucky her situation was being handled by friends of the family as she knew the punishment via the traditional court-system would have been a lot more severe. She’d attempted to steal an artifact from Erwin ‘Pee-Wee’ Talon that she had sold him years prior: the Infinity Pearl. With its secrets to molecular regeneration, Gina hoped to use the power of the pearl to repair an ancient Titan—the Gigliathon—enough to gleam its secrets so she could use the knowledge to create a ‘life raft’ to throw into the Astral Rifts and save her sister... instead, she was caught in the act, and was sentenced to two weeks in prison, three months community service, and three years probation.
Still, she got what she needed, and while the initial ideas to at least save her sister Britanny didn’t go to plan—again, another friend was killed, this time Britanny’s friend and fellow survivor, the gaoblin Crescens—the fact was they did return home... and this time, with a brand new and shiny toy for Gina to play with: a Gardener’s Castle!!!
Over the years that followed, she slowed down, becoming a teacher while that sentient castle, Kia, acted as a lab-assistant/work-bench. She didn’t give up her career as an archaeologist but she instead, shifted her focus. Where once she sought the secrets of the universe, the blonde now cherished the knowledge of what Gina herself dubbed as, “The Age of Wonder”: the time after the Ice Age but before the Age of Magic. A time when there were pretty rainbow princesses, purple piemen of porcupine peaks, armored super-heroes of land, sea, and air, wheeled-warriors, snake-themed terrorist organizations with weather dominators, and princes who lived by very homoerotic overtones and pledged their strength to the power of grayskull. It was a rather magical and impressive time, and with her personal lack of experience with it, gave her students something that they could discover and claim as their own accomplishments.
Gina could admit, she had slowed down, going from the field to behind a desk most of the time... and in being honest with herself, it really was just poor timing on her part. Hindsight is 20/20 after all, and she could admit that where she went wrong was she was going too fast in the beginning when she should have been careful, and in her later years was too calm and controlled when she needed to haul ass and throw caution to the wind! When the Universe started to collapse, just as her Ancient Self had warned her it would, everything went to shit.
True, the bespectacled blonde could have simply escaped to the Jade Realm with a lot of the people they sent there for safety, but the Earth Realm, her home universe was endangered: and she knew if she didn’t take care of this then and now, she’d be stuck looping, and probably BECOME her Ancient Self next. She couldn’t allow it. Gina knew that not only was she counting on herself, but that the fate of everyone in the universe, earth and all other alien planets with life on them, were dependent on her being successful too. With the use of Kia at the very center of the universe, she sought to undo the damage, even as she was attacked from either side by the Dynasty King Rio and a very vengeful Dreadwing, both of whom wanted to take Kia for themselves to save their own asses as the universe collapsed...
And then... once she had a grip on the pulse of reality, she saw the truth. The universe was ‘coded’, and thankfully much of which she understood due to her studies. Sadly, that lead to the horrible truth. The problem was the universe was just ‘old’. It was breaking down, going into ‘The Big Crunch’ so it could start anew once more a third time—that she knew of. No matter what she tried everything was slipping away and no amount of coded repairs or ‘patches’ were taking: the universe was on a one-way course to reformat itself. With precious little time left, Gina did the only thing she could do to bring a stop to the final destruction and put a stop to everything crashing down around her there and then. Hacked into the fabric of the universe itself, the blonde scientist tried one last desperate gamble and input one final command.
She divided by zero.
“Well...” the woman groused as she floated there in the nothingness of the reality that surrounded her. “That could have gone better...” the blonde grumbled irritably, spinning head-over heels slowly. There was no sense of gravity, no physical laws whenever it was she had ended up. She also had to assume that more than just the laws of physics were broken as she was, technically, breathing rather than imploding or exploding like one would do if they were dropped out into the vastness of gravity-less space.
Speaking of which, this place reminded the Gold Digger a lot of outer-space too. Inky blackness with little specks of light here and there twinkling in the distance... oh, she hoped she wasn’t going to be stuck in some pocket aspect of existence akin to the ending of, “2001: A Space Odyssey”. I could do without all the mind-fuckery, thank you very much!
Although the other possibility—eternal existence in isolation—was not appealing at all either. It would be a fitting punishment for someone who pretty much destroyed everything but it wasn’t like she’d done it on purpose!
As the blonde woman mentally cursed, she continued to move head-over-heels, unaware that she was on a collision course with—
“OOPH! Watch where you’re go—GINA!” the spotted blonde cried out as the impact with her sister caused both women to spin in place like they were tops.
“Britanny!” the blonde called back. Oh yay. Perhaps she wouldn’t spend eternity alone and slowly go mad. “What are you doing here!?”
“Beats me!” the werecheetah shouted back. “I was just arguing with Muffin over who would stay on Jade to keep Tif safe and who would lend you their aide when all of sudden, BAM! Everything goes white, people are screaming and then nothing...” she frowned. “Or rather there WAS nothing until I found myself floating here before bumping into you...” the spotted beauty frowned as she did her best to right herself up, moving her arms and legs as if she were swimming. “Gina, WHAT happened? I thought you said you could fix this!”
Frowning as she struggled to try and stop the momentum caused by her collision with her sister, the scientist shouted, “I did, I did!” she groaned as in waving her arms and kicking her legs, she was spinning in place as if she were inside one of NASA’s G-Force Cyclotrons, moving every which way but essentially remaining in one spot as she spun. “I even managed to successfully break the time-loop!”
Raising her right eyebrow, the expression Britanny gave her sister conveyed the disbelief she was feeling. “Okay... so you broke the time-loop. Great. Whoop-dee-friggin’-doo. Then where is everything!?” she snapped, starting to breathe heavily as fear gripped her. “Where are my husband and daughter!?” she yelled.
Wincing, it was with a heavy sensation of guilt suddenly rising up in her stomach that the bespectacled blonde admitted, “I only managed to break the time-loop... I never said anything about saving reality.”
The werecheetah’s eyes snapped wide-open. “GINA!!”
“I tried! Believe me, I tried!” the woman cried out, finally slowing down as going limp from the depression stole from the momentum she’d built up. “I did what I could to force reality from crashing in on itself and going through another ‘Big Bang’... unfortunately, my plan had its own repercussions that I hadn’t expected—didn’t even have time to consider as a possibility!” Gina shouted, trying to explain what it was she had to do. “I was stuck between a literal rock and a hard place! That rock being Kia and the hard place being two of my worst enemies homing in on me with the intent to KILL!”
Staring hard at her sister, Britanny demanded to know, “Gina, tell me. What. Did. You. DO!?”
Wincing at the glare she was receiving from her beloved little sister, the blonde carefully answered, “When it came to the coding of the universe, I... I divided by zero.”
“YOU WHAT!?” came a cry from ‘above’ the two. Both women turned their heads in the direction of the voice to see the youngest of the trio floating there; her armor cracked, wrecked, her right shoulder exposed, and all her weapons missing. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIVIDED BY ZERO!?”
Raising a right hand to scratch her head, all Britanny could inquire was, “I don’t get it... how would dividing by zero cause...” she waved her hand out towards the vastness of ‘space’. “Well... all of this?”
“Damn it, Gina,” Brianna growled as she started to reached her arms out and then wave back, trying to force herself to ‘swim’. Once she was at eye-level with her sisters, she met the werecheetah’s gaze. “Britanny, in mathematics, division by zero is an expression to say that mathematics has no meaning; there is no number which, when multiplied by zero, gives an absolute number, and so division by zero is undefined. Since any number multiplied by zero is zero, the expression has no defined value and is called an indeterminate form. In computing, a program error can be caused by attempting to divide a number by zero. Depending on the programming environment and the type of number being divided by zero, it may: generate positive or negative infinity by the floating point standard, generate an exception, result in a special not-a-number value, generate an error message, or cause the program to terminate!”
Despite having fur on her face, the only full lycanthrope of the group managed to pale. “You mean...” she looked at Gina for confirmation, hoping to all hope that what she was thinking wasn’t the case.
Looking ashamed, the scientist whispered, “I was running out of time and options. I had ahold a physical hold over the programming, the very essence of the universe, over reality as we knew it... and it was breaking down! No matter what I did, our universe was going to be a lost cause. Sure, we could have escaped—”
“Could!?” Brianna snapped, interrupting her sister. “You SHOULD have! I was right there, damn it! I drove the Ginamobile into that hellhole and reached my hand out to you! I was your ticket out, right then and there! You ignored me! WHY DID YOU IGNORE ME!?” the blonde lycanthropoid screamed, demanding an answer.
“I HAD TO TAKE THE CHANCE!” Gina screamed right back. “I... I had to take the chance...” she repeated in a much quieter tone. “It wasn’t just earth that was in danger. Think of all the alien planets, all the people we knew. Sure, we could’ve tried a last-minute exodus to Jade, but then what? THEN WHAT!? So many lives, so much history, places, resources, so much of everything would have been lost...” she took a deep breath, neither of the woman’s sisters able to tell if she were trying to calm herself or make herself believe what she had to say. “I had one choice and one-choice alone. The universe was very much a ‘TI-82’ and not only was it crashing, it was on fire and the bandwidth so buggy, no program of any considerable memory could run. I had to do the simplest thing I could with the universe and hope for the best. I divided by zero in an effort of either generating a positive continuous infinity or get the exception and force it to ‘skip’ the crash.”
Having listened to her eldest sister’s explanation, Brianna nodded her head slowly. “In other words... you were aiming for a manual reboot.”
Again, Gina nodded her head. “At best, the universe would be missing an entire second of time as I booted it back in ‘safety mode’, all the ‘junk’ and ‘malware’ of the universe abetted, giving me the time to make the real fixes needed. Instead...” she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Gulping as the severity of the situation dawned on her, it was the spotted feline lycanthropy that finished, “Instead, the universe terminated itself...”
Cringing, the blonde archaeologist had to tell them the full extent of the truth. “Not... not just the universe. ALL reality...” as both her sisters gaped at her, Gina explained, “Why else would Britanny be here if she were in the Jade Realm with her family at the time? The universe self-terminating was a fatal error that rippled out to the neighboring dimensions. In trying to prevent the universe from ‘upgrading’ to a new ‘OS’... the whole unit just experienced the equivalent of a power surge and caught fire. There’s not even a ‘computer’ anymore...”
All three sisters were quiet, not one knowing what to say... hell, what could be said? By some small twist of fate, some GLITCH... they were all still here, all alive... in the expansive nothingness of—
“Hey!” Britanny chirruped as she noticed something. “Is... is that a BAR!?”
Frowning, Gina was about to snap at her sister for making light of their situation when Brianna piped up with, “Holy crap! That IS a bar!?”
Doing her best to turn around, the human blonde could only marvel. It was a floating bit of landmass but there was a building up top; neon signs for ‘Coors’, ‘Bud Light’, ‘Miller Lite’, and ‘Sam Adams’ in the window sparking and flicking in and out. It was small and rickety-looking with the weathered wood paneling and a shaded front porch with a couple of rocking-chairs, almost like something out of the movie, “Roadhouse”. To the right of the building was a bit of asphalt parking lot with faded white divider lines; not much space but enough to fit four large vehicles or eight motorcycles. And finally, on the roof was a large neon sign, ‘TOLTIRR’S PLACE’ in bright purple capital cursive writing.
Nodding her head, the lycanthropoid replied, “Sure looks like it...” before silence reigned amongst the Diggers sisters once more, the building slowly but surely getting closer.
“...Well... I’m game!” Gina said after a moment. “After the day I had, I could REALLY get smashed...” she grumbled as she started to roll her arms in a circular motion and flip her feet, effectively performing the breast stroke.
Looking at each other for a moment, both Britanny and Brianna could only shrug. Really, what else was there to do? And getting drunk sounded like the only real solid plan right now. So with that in mind, both sisters also began to ‘swim’ through the vastness of wherever they were and head towards the bar...
...At least until Britanny decided to use her ether vents and encase them all within a shield of magic. Granted, all three were still floating inside of it as if it were Jell-O mold, but the werecheetah at least had control over it. She was able to float them right up to the front door before dispelling it... and causing all three to just drop to the ground in a heap. “Well, good news,” the spotted blonde piped up. “It seems the bar has its own gravity.”
Nodding her head, Gina could only reply, “Indeed. Now would you two please get off of me? You’re heavy!”
Silence reigned once more for a few seconds. “Gina,” Britanny growled. “Are you calling me fat?”
Sighing, the bespectacled blonde really didn’t want to have to deal with this right now. “Just... just get off of me. Please? It’s been a long, LONG day...”
Deciding to have some sympathy for their sister—total fuck-up that she was—the two younger siblings stood up and got off from the downed scientist. Bending over, each grabbed an arm and aided Gina to her feet.
Upon being released from her sisters, the super-scientist patted herself down, trying to clean off the splinters and sawdust that got ground into her clothing from the impromptu crash landing. She looked between the other two ladies, who merely nodded their heads in agreement. Placing either of her hands on the set of swinging doors, the sensual genius pushed forward, opening the entrance.
Upon entering, the trio of sisters could see it really was a bar... a rundown one like something out of the 1950’s, but it was definitely a bar. The Bar itself was off to the left, a mirrored wall behind it that had shelves stocked with bottles of various liquors and its counter aligned with stools with a kickstand pole for the feet. The central area of the room had numerous tables and chairs, some of which were actually clean. To the back was a stage filled with all kinds of props: podiums as a live band, a standing microphone for comedians, poetry readers, or singers, a trio of poles for go-go dancers or strippers, and even a karaoke machine for drunken jackasses to sing with—a small hallway with a sign reading ‘Restrooms’ off to the right of the stage. The entirety of the building’s right wall was aligned with booths for privacy and there were a few more at the corners of the bar, although the corner booths had circular tables with aligned cushioned seating rather than the traditional square shape and cushioned length seat. Oddly enough though, there seemed to be what looked like a stone wishing well in the direct center of the place, the side facing them beset with the polished bronze plaque of, [Mimir’s Well].
Allowing themselves a moment to simply bask in the presence of the bar and take it all in, it was eventually Britanny who spoke. “Just where the heck are we?” she queried, not really expecting an answer.
However, she got one. “Why, you’re at Toltirr’s Tavern my dear,” came a smooth voice from off to the left. “A church for down-and-outers and those who romanticize them, a rare place where the high-rise and low-income rub elbows—bums and poets, thieves and slumming celebrities, plaything mortals and fickle gods. It’s a place that wears its history proudly and will continue on from now into eternity!”
All three women turned towards the source of the voice, shocked by what it was that had spoken. Gina took off ahead of the sisters, taking a closer look. Sitting on the back was a black-furred cat with purple highlights, sitting on its back haunches while its right arm was wrapped around a mug; cleaning the inside with a washcloth swirled around its left arm. “...A talking cat?” she inquired with a curious tone.
Looking up from his work, the small black cat smiled at her in a way only felines could. “Not just a talking cat, my dead Dr. Gina Diggers,” the feline replied. He paused in his washing to meet her gaze firmly. “I am Toltirr, Elder God of Chaos and Mischief, one of the primeval race of powerful deities descended of the Earth and Sky, ruler during the legendary Golden Age of the Heavens. An immortal being of incredible strength and stamina, of power beyond your comprehension...” he smiled as he added, “And for you... I have a gift!”
That made the blonde perk up considerably. “A gift?” she cooed, wondering what he meant; when gods proclaimed they had a gift for mortals, it usually meant a boon, a legendary artifact... or butt-rape—she REALLY hoped it wasn’t butt-rape. Still, she watched in curiosity as the small cat-like being released the mug and waved his arm a few times, finally dislodging the dishrag before disappearing under the counter. When he came back up, the cat was holding a large golden medal by its red ribbon; moving his head as if beckoning the woman to take it.
Accepting the offered medal, Gina studied it for a moment; the medallion itself was the relief of an older heavyset man that, while balding, had thick muttonchops on the sides of his face. “What is this?” the blonde queried. “He looks familiar. I would swear I’ve seen this man... before...” she trailed off as it suddenly hit her. “Charles Darwin?”
Nodding his head, the ebony-furred feline deity explained, “Yep! Congratulations on winning the Darwin Award: you’ve been officially recognized as having contributed greatly to human evolution by self-selecting yourself out of the gene pool via sterilization and/or death due to your own—unnecessarily foolish—actions. Seriously, congrats on being the first person to ever receive this sucker non-posthumously! That’s a REAL feat!”
Doing her best to keep a chuckle down, the youngest of the Diggers sisters still piped up. “But isn’t that award usually reserved for removing yourself from the gene pool?”
Looking towards Brianna, the tiny black cat comprised of chaos and happy thoughts merely shrugged in response. “Well, technically, who can she breed with now? Ergo, she deserves the Dawrn Award beyond all others before her!”
“...It’s at least real gold, right?” the glasses-wearing blonde asked hopefully, trying to find some good in having her already fragile pride further ground into the dirt. It really didn’t help that both of her sisters were laughing this up.
Shaking his head, Toltirr replied, “Pyrite.”
A twitch went through the scientist’s body. “...Fool’s Gold... should’ve known...” the woman groaned, getting the pun all too well as she pocketed her newest award. The worst part about all this was she couldn’t really argue that she hadn’t earned it.
“Well, it’s not like the recipients are normally around to complain,” the elder god admitted as he walked about the counter-top on all fours. He was simply glad she didn’t look at the back to see all the names scratched out as it had be re-awarded time and time again—hey, why mint a new one when the ‘winner’ wouldn’t be around to accept it?
Toltirr then continued, “In all seriousness though... you input the command of division by zero into the ‘mathematical equation’ that comprised the essence that made up your reality! What did you THINK was going to happen!?” he then stood on his haunches and held up a paw, motioning her to stay silent. “And before you say anything, yes, I know what you were thinking... but seriously, the odds in such scenario were against you... horribly so. Haven’t you ever heard of Murphy’s Law for cryin’ out loud!?” At the ashamed look she had on her face, the small cat rolled his eyes. “Oh Me Damn It! I can’t believe you so willingly destroyed all reality!”
“I had no more options and was running out of time! And besides, what about this place? Or us!?” Gina demanded. “How are we still around if I destroyed everything?”
Now a look of being utterly perplexed crossed the feline’s features, not sure how to answer that right away. “Well, okay, so you destroyed 99%,” Toltirr offered.
“What about the 1%?” Britanny asked.
“Fuck the 1%!” Toltirr stated firmly.
Brianna frowned as she looked over the small black cat. “But aren’t we technically the 1% now?”
Snorting, the small black feline motioned across the bar with his right paw, to a device covered in equal parts rust, dust, and spider-webs, beside it was a matching equally-empty tip jar. “Try telling that to my cash register...” he grumbled irritably.
“Excuse me, Toltirr?” Brianna piped up, trying to get the small feline’s attention. “Not to be rude or anything, but my sister—reality destroyer that she is—did have a good point. The way I understand it, everything should have been wiped from existence. Everything. So—not that I’m complaining, mind you,” the blonde with an eye-stripe interjected quickly. “How is it this bar and all of us are here?”
Turning to look at the youngest of the Diggers sisters, the diminutive deity replied, “An excellent question, with an excellent answer. I am around because, as I stated previously, I am the Elder God of Chaos... I was already ancient when the universe was new. No matter the changes that take place over the course of eternity, I will always be here. Nothing can destroy me—nothing. And believe me, people have tried!” He tilted his head, giving the woman a most devious smirk, trying to unnerve her. “There is a reason the theory of ‘Schrodinger’s Cat’ came into existence, you know...”
Gulping a bit, the lycanthropoid didn’t know how to explain it, but it suddenly felt like she was a prey animal being stared down by an apex predator. “And us?”
“Simple. You’re still here because of me,” Toltirr stated bluntly. As all three women were staring at him, the ebony-furred feline shimmered with a violet sheen for a moment. “I told you, I am chaos: the unordered state of matter. One of the two metaphysical forces of existence, in opposition of order. I am its truest medium; the absolute in which something exists or lives is by my whim. You are all here because I willed it!”
He then jumped from the counter, managing to get more air time than should have been physically possible, before coming down on a table. The small cat then jumped off and started padding across the floor on all fours. “I felt this reality snuffed out suddenly; billions upon billions of voices screaming out in agony before being thoroughly silenced. It wasn’t too hard to discover what happened, so I brought the cause forth... to render judgment.”
“Judgment? But we didn’t do anything!” Britanny snapped. At he odd look the cat was giving her, the werecheetah amended, “Brianan and I didn’t do anything!”
Nodding his head in acceptance, the tiny feline turned from her and continued walking. “Be that as it may, the fact is, Gina is going to need help if she’s going to have reality remade for her.”
That caught everyone’s attention. “...Remade?” the glasses-wearing blonde asked hopefully. “You can remake the universe?”
“Oh yeah, such is easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy for me... or at least, it would be if I did... but I’m not,” the rather fickle feline explained with a haughty tone...
...Before he found himself being strangled by the werecheetah. “BRING BACK MY HUSBAND AND CHILD!!” she roared in the small kitty’s face as she shook him violently.
“BRITANNY!” Brianna screamed as she grabbed onto her sister’s right arm, forcing her to break her hold over the mini-god and causing him to be dropped to the floor. “Don’t go pissing off the only thing standing between us and our home!!” she chastised her older sister. “Now apologize!!”
Righting himself up, the small feline shook his head. “Nuh-no,” he told them, coughing. “No need, it’s quite all right. My own fault for forgetting that a mother of ANY species is this most dangerous creature in reality...” he shook his head to clear it. “But as I was saying, I’m not going to remake your reality... for free, that is.”
All three stared at the small black cat, whose left side had shifted to a solid purple color while the right remained pure black. “So...” Gina said slowly. “What is it you want?”
Smiling, Toltirr quietly asked, “Tell me, Dr. Diggers... have you ever heard of the Chaos Theory?”
“Chaos Theory?” Britanny chirruped. “You mean that thing Jeff Goldblum was talking about in that dinosaur movie?”
“Somewhat, but that was a very shallow, water-downed version,” the cat-like deity replied. “No, I’m talking the TRUE Chaos Theory, the field in mathematics.”
The werecheetah looked horrified. “NOT MORE MATH!!”
“Yes math!” the small feline cackled. “However, unlike the core of reality, chaos also has it applications in several other disciplines of knowledge and life including physics, engineering, economics, and biology.”
Brianna spoke up next. “What does that have to do with us? As you’ve seen from previous experience, Gina isn’t so good with handling ‘math’ as she’d like you to believe...” noticing her eldest sister glaring at her, the lycanthropoid was quick to reply, “What? You’re not...”
Sighing at the familial camaraderie he usually found entertaining, Toltirr knew he needed to make his ‘sales pitch’ before things got more off-track. “What you need to know is, Chaos Theory deals with behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions: an effect which is popularly referred to as the, ‘Butterfly Effect’. Small differences in initial conditions—such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation...”
Britanny groaned.
Ignoring the outburst, the Chaos God continued, “Wield widely diverging outcomes for such dynamical systems, rendering long-term prediction virtually impossible. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved.”
“In other words,” Gina interrupted. “This deterministic nature of these systems you’re talking about, be they biological or mathematical, does not make them predictable?”
“Precisely,” Toltirr chimed, pleased that at least one of them was keeping up with what he was saying. “This behavior is known as in math as ‘Deterministic Chaos’ or simply put: CHAOS!!” the now fully purple feline chimed gleefully. “When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future!”
It suddenly clicked with the eldest of the Diggers sisters. “You want to interject us somewhere to save someone or something?”
Nodding his head firmly, the small feline god replied, “Bingo! You want me to remake your reality? Fine, I can do that. But you’re going to have to earn it. A reality for a reality. You save this one, and I’ll save yours...”
“How can WE save a reality!?” Britanny demanded to know. “It’s not like we’re gods!”
“No, you’re not,” Toltirr replied. “You are, however, MORTAL. That means you have every right to interact with the material plane of existence. There are some realities that... well...” he seemed to frown as he mulled over his thoughts. “They didn’t turn out too well. I want to help them but the forces that be which area already in place block me. They don’t like foreign gods toeing their turf, as it were...” he smirked again. “Mortals on the other hand can go without notice for the most part; not to sell you short or anything but your kind is pretty interchangeable across the span of existence, hence why you get to do all sorts of dimension hopping and whatnot. Gods, even us Elder ones, are bound to certain laws and traditions that are unbreakable and so we must abide by.”
Gina winced. “I’m suddenly beginning to understand WHY you referred to this place as being the realm of ‘plaything mortals and fickle gods’...”
“Correct, but it’s not all THAT bad,” the small feline countered. “And I won’t be just dropping you in, oh no. You’re going to get something of a ‘rebirth’. You need to be interjected in a natural if not organic way as to neither arouse the suspicion of those beings in power nor to outright piss them off. By being born there, you are a part of it and beneath notice, just another piece of the vast game-board of life... however, I’ll make sure you have the tools you need,” he replied firmly. “You’ll not only maintain the memories of your previous lives and eventually grow back into your skill-sets but in growing up once more, you’ll have the chance to develop new skills along the way.”
It was Britanny who questioned that. “How’re you gonna do that?” she queried with a nervous tone. “I prefer being a werecheetah... and...” she looked back and forth. “I don’t know about any realities that would have well... people like me.”
“Not to mention,” Brianna piped up. “I happened to come into existence by being cloned... and why I would like to have a childhood, I...” she shrugged. “I don’t know. How will you explain the cat ears, strength and everything else in between? Like Britanny said, I LIKE being me.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll find a way,” Toltirr promised them. “Like I said, I can interject people. It will be difficult and take some planning but the right people born at the right times and places will go a long way... to...” he trailed off as he considered things. “Yeah, that WOULD work...” he chuckled a bit, tapping his two front paws together in a devious fashion as ebony streaks started to swirl over his tail. “And it would allow me to have some of your family and friends there as well... or at least analogues...”
“Analogues?” Gina queried.
Nodding his head, the small feline replied, “You’d be the only ones I’d be sending back ‘as is’, as yourselves. If I send much more in, everything could be rejected as that reality warps itself to exterminate the foreign influences, much like the body’s white blood-cells do when a virus is present. The others would have to be born and be part of that reality but at least you’d have some familiar faces...” he then sternly added, “Just don’t believe they’d be exactly the same. While I know there’s the whole nature vs. nurture debate, the fact is nature will only go so far.”
Looking up at the three faces, the purple-furred feline asked, “Will you three accept? If not, I could ALWAYS use some help around the place; maybe having three sexy waitresses will actually bring in some business again—haven’t seen much since the Bets ended over fifteen years ago...” he mumbled that last part.
Looking back and forth between each other, it was Gina that decided to answer. “That depends, Toltirr... just where would you be sending us?”
Grinning much like a Cheshire cat, the small god replied, “Oh, that’s the other reason I chose you. I know how much of a fan of manga, anime, and Eighties entertainment you are, Dr. Diggers. This is a reality you probably know a lot about... that gives you an edge in making sure it goes ‘nicer’...”
“And what reality is that?” the blonde scientist queried, wanting a real answer.
Jumping up onto the stone frame of the well at the center of the bar, Toltirr cried, “Come! Come and observe for yourselves! I want you to save the world of...”
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(Posted Mon, 13 May 2013 20:59)
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