by James Riley
“You must have always had this power, but only now are letting it out,” the old man said to him.
“Not exactly true,” Nobody told Owen. “I had to change his story a bit to make it so.”
Mr. Sanderson nodded. “And they’ll learn to be afraid of me. They’ll learn to be afraid of the Dark!”
He extended a hand, and shadows exploded out of it, striking the wall and breaking a hole in it. More shadows appeared and carried the Dark through the hole, leaving the old man behind. He nodded at the exit, then morphed into Nobody.
“You . . . you rewrote him!” Owen shouted. “That’s horrible!”
“Is it?” Nobody asked calmly. “How is it any different from what writers do to us every day? What you were doing yourself, just a few days ago?”
“I wasn’t changing anyone!”
“Oh?” Nobody said. “You weren’t rewriting Charm to have feelings for you?”
“I didn’t steal anyone’s memories and give them crazy shadow powers!” Owen shouted, but he couldn’t help but wonder if Nobody was right. Had he been doing the exact same thing, just with much less horrible motivation?
And then something occurred to him. “But I thought Mason Black was the one writing the Dark comic?”
Nobody smiled, then shifted into the author’s form. “The writer is truly his character’s worst enemy,” Nobody in Mason Black’s form said to Owen, before shifting back to his non-featured self. “All of the portals must be closed, Owen. You know this. Think of the harm that these authors cause, these thieves of fictionals’ life stories! Jonathan Porterhouse intended to kill Kiel Gnomenfoot, perhaps even Charm, where both might have lived if left to their own decisions.”
“He thought he was just telling a story,” Owen said, his mind racing.
“No!” Nobody shouted. “Porterhouse wasn’t telling Kiel’s story, Charm’s story, the Magister’s story. He stole their lives, their life stories, and molded them into entertainment. The Magister wasn’t wrong, Owen. What you authors are doing is horrendous. It’s monstrous, sending the fictional out to dance for the pleasure of readers.” He opened a page in the middle of the nothingness and pulled out a book, then closed the rift and handed the book to Owen. “They’re thieves of fictionals’ life stories, Owen.”
Owen took the book, then almost dropped it when he saw a drawing of himself reaching for Bethany on the cover.
Story Thieves: The Stolen Chapters.
“You’re the one writing these,” Owen said quietly. “But . . . how? And why?”
“The how is easy,” Nobody said. “I learned the technique from my creator, Mason Black. Three times I asked for his help, and three times he refused me. So the last time, I forced the issue.”
Owen shuddered at that, his eyes locked on the book. “But you’re telling our stories. Why? You’re the one who didn’t want people to notice Kiel was gone—”
“Nonfictionals, no,” Nobody said. “But the fictional people deserved to know the truth. I chronicle these books for them, Owen, that they might see who’s actually in control of their actions, their lives. And to teach fictionals that they have the power to change things, to rewrite their stories, to break free of their writers, just like I have. That’s why you had to see my story here, so that they could as well. Then they could learn from my example and free themselves!”
The book tumbled out of Owen’s hand as Owen fell back against the wall of comic book pages. This was all just too much to take in. “Please just let me go,” he whispered. “Bring me back to Bethany.”
“I will, gladly,” Nobody said. “When you agree to help me. She’s a portal as well, and when I finish with the others, we must remove her powers completely, Owen. It’s the only way.”
Owen shuddered on the inside, but outwardly nodded. “If I agree to help you, will you bring me back right now to Bethany?” he asked, his mind racing. Maybe if he could convince the man to bring him to Bethany, together they could figure out a way to stop him. Charm and EarthGirl would be a big help there, too.
Nobody’s face warped like he was smiling. “You forget, Owen. I’ve learned the secrets of your writers. I know what you’re thinking. You’re trying to deceive me.”
Uh-oh. “Of course I’m not! I want to help you!”
“I made this offer to Kiel as well,” Nobody said, shifting the pages behind him, and Owen gasped as he saw the boy magician unconscious in the nowhere space beyond stories. “He refused, unfortunately. Don’t make the same mistake.”
Owen swallowed hard. “So what, you’ll leave me here if I don’t agree? I’ll find a way out eventually.” But would he?
The scene behind Nobody changed again, flying forward this time. “Not here, no,” Nobody told him, nodding backward over his shoulder. “This is the future I’ve written for you. Please, take a look. I want you to understand the consequences of your choice.”
Owen stared at Nobody, then slowly walked past him to the page. The panels had disappeared, and this time there was only text.
The giant Tyrannosaurus rex roared, huge drops of saliva splashing Owen in the face as the creature bent down to devour him in one bite. “No!” Owen shouted.
THE DINOSAUR EATS OWEN.
Turn to page 76.
THE DINOSAUR MISSES, AND OWEN ESCAPES.
Turn to page 40.
“What is this?” Owen asked softly, reaching out to touch the page.
“I believe they’re called Pick the Plot, or something along those lines,” Nobody told him. “And if you refuse to help me, this story will be your new home. Readers will control you, based on their whims. They’ll have the power that you writers have over us, and will of course want to tell an exciting story.”
“That’s not real,” Owen said, shaking his head. “It can’t be. It’s just a story!”
“That’s what your authors think,” Nobody said. “You can imagine how the fictional must feel now. We’re forced to live out their whims every day of our lives. Every choice is decided for us, at least until we break free of our stories and rewrite ourselves, like I have. But you won’t be able to do that, Owen. After all, you’re not fictional. So join with me, or forever be under the control of fictional readers.”
Owen turned and stared at Nobody, completely at a loss of what to say. Trapped forever in a story where he’d basically be a puppet to whoever was reading it? That was almost worse than dying.
“What would you need me to do, to help you with Bethany?” Owen asked, looking down at his feet.
“Ah, this time you’re sincere,” Nobody said. “She has no access to her powers, not since she entered the fictional world through Dr. Apathy’s portal. Given that, we have an opportunity here to use the dark science of Jupiter City’s criminal masterminds to split her in two: a fictional Bethany, and a nonfictional one. Both will live their lives in their proper worlds, and those worlds can finally be completely separate.” He smiled again. “She’ll even have her father back. At least, the fictional version will.”
What? “But you’re splitting her in two,” Owen said, his eyes wide with horror. “What will that do to her? She’ll be missing half of who she is!”
“And yet, she’ll fit in better with each world that way,” Nobody said. “There won’t be any more guilty feelings from her nonfictional side, or longing for adventure by her fictional side. Both will have exactly what they want, and be happy.”
“But she won’t be whole,” Owen said.
Nobody stared at him for a moment. “You will also benefit from the worlds separating, Owen. Your entire world will. Think about it. You won’t have books to distract you anymore. You won’t ever wonder when your time to be special will come, because no one will be special anymore. You can all be satisfied with your ordinariness, the real, down-to-earth, unimaginative lives you all crave. There will be no fanciful daydreaming, or dreaming of any kind. Your imaginations will disappear, and you’ll know only your nonfictional world forevermore.”
“No,” Ow
en whispered.
Nobody stepped closer. “You will be content, Owen. More than that, you’ll be satisfied with your lives. You will never wonder if you could have been more, because you’ll never wonder ever again! Think of how much easier that will be.”
“No,” Owen repeated, louder this time. “I’m not doing it. I’m not going to help you separate the worlds, or betray Bethany.” Somewhere inside of him, he realized he was dooming himself, but it didn’t matter. If that was the choice, then there was no choice. “This is horrible. You’d be taking away the best part of ourselves, our imaginations. And you’d be doing the same to Bethany. No. I won’t help you, and I will fight you if I have to.”
Nobody looked down at the ground and sighed, then nodded.
“I assumed as much,” he said. “But I wanted to give you a choice, something fictionals never have. Good-bye, Owen.”
One of his hands expanded to the size of a giant’s and reached for Owen, while the other opened a rift in the pages to what looked terrifyingly like Story Thieves: Pick the Plot.
CHAPTER 42
Bethany, Charm, Gwen, and Kid Twilight all stepped into the cavern beneath the Jupiter City Observatory, their eyes black as night.
The cavern resembled the safe house that Kid Twilight had led them to below the convenience store in Jupiter City, only this one had more trophies. There was a giant Stegosaurus statue standing up on its hind legs, and an enormous joy buzzer hanging from the ceiling.
In the middle of it all stood the Dark, shadows swirling around him like flies.
“Bethany!” someone shouted from the corner, and she turned silently to look. There in a cage was Doc Twilight, hands on the bars. “Please, don’t hurt her!”
The Dark raised a hand, and a wall of shadows rose up in front of the cage, cutting off any further sound. “I see my shadows have silenced this little revolt,” he said to Bethany and her friends. “You should have known better than to fight the Dark, especially here!”
“The villains above need to pay for crossing you,” Kid Twilight said. “Do I have your permission to join the fight against them?”
“Kill! Rampage! Fight!” Charm shouted, her ray guns held at the ready.
“Rage!” Gwen shouted, stamping her feet.
The Dark stared at them. “Why can’t I feel my shadows within you? What—”
“GET HIM!” Bethany shouted, and Charm immediately shot both ray guns right at the Dark. Kid Twilight threw two flash-bangs right at the monster, while Gwen grabbed Bethany and took to the air.
Their fake black contact lenses protected their eyes from the flash-bangs, but the Dark didn’t seem so lucky. He screamed in anger as light exploded all around him, while Charm kept up her barrage of light bullets.
“Get Doc Twilight!” Kid Twilight shouted at her. “The Dark is mine.”
“I know the plan, I came up with it,” Bethany muttered. Gwen giggled next to her, then set her down right next to the wall of shadows blocking off the cage. “Cover your eyes!” Bethany yelled.
“What?” a muffled Doc Twilight said, right as she threw down another round of flash-bangs, courtesy of Kid Twilight’s collection. They exploded, dissipating the wall of shadows instantly.
The cage’s lock couldn’t hold up to her lock pick, and a moment later she had the bars open and threw herself into her father’s arms. “Dad!” she shouted, a lifetime’s worth of guilt and anger and grief all bubbling to the surface. She tried to say something else, but her throat was too tight.
He hugged her back for far too short a time, then pushed her away. “No, Bethany,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’m not your father. My name is Murray Chase, and I’m . . . sort of your grandfather.” He pulled off his mask, revealing the man she’d seen just a short time ago in a photo from her fourth birthday party.
This . . . couldn’t be. Where was her father? And why was this man in a Doc Twilight costume?
Bethany backed away, shaking her head over and over. After all of this, searching for the Dark, fighting his shadows, leading the supervillains in a final battle . . . and she hadn’t even been saving her father?
“I’ll explain later,” Mr. Chase said, stepping out of the cage. “But for now we need to get you all out of here. You can’t beat him, he’s far too strong. Those emotional shadows of his can’t be destroyed, not permanently. He just keeps making more. Eventually he’ll take you all over. This is a revenge story, Bethany, and he’s been written to win!”
Bethany could barely understand what he was saying. “Where is he?” she asked quietly. “Where is my father, if he’s not here?”
Mr. Chase paused, then looked over her shoulder. “That’s . . . not entirely true.”
Bethany followed his gaze to where Kid Twilight was going hand to hand with the Dark, and somehow, the villain was matching the boy’s moves punch for punch and kick for kick, almost like he knew what Kid Twilight would do before the sidekick did.
“No,” she whispered.
The Dark grabbed Kid Twilight’s arm and wrenched it hard, then threw him into a bank of computers. The boy crashed into the machines hard and slumped to the floor. A shadow was on him instantly, pushing its way into his mouth.
“Bethany, turn into something useful!” Charm yelled, shooting light bullet after light bullet at the Dark, only to have a never-ending wave of shadows fly from his cloak, too many for her light bullets to handle. They reached the half-robotic girl, and before she could speak again, a shadow had made its way inside her as well.
“There’s no time for this,” Mr. Chase said. “We need to escape! Can you jump us out?”
Bethany just shook her head. The shadows grabbed Gwen too, right out of the air. She locked eyes with Bethany as a shadow climbed into her mouth, then she fell to the ground, her jet pack flickering out.
“I can’t,” Bethany said, watching everything she’d done fall to pieces. “Not from this world.”
Mr. Chase nodded, then stepped in front of Bethany, only to be thrown to the side by the Dark’s shadows. The Dark’s red eyes bore down on her, the shadows reforming his costume as he stepped closer.
“You’re learning a valuable lesson here today, girl,” he said. “No one can save you except yourself. You cannot count on anyone or anything. There is only the power and control that you take!”
This monster . . . was her father?
It couldn’t be true. Bethany’s hands slowly clenched into fists as eight years of anger erupted inside of her. It could not be true. Murray had to be wrong. This was not her father.
“And what kind of pathetic superhero are you, then?” the Dark asked, moving closer. “Let me guess. You have the power to betray all your friends and lead them to their doom? Because that’s all you’ve done here today.”
“That’s not all I’ve done,” she said, her voice low and angry. “Let’s see if I can’t cause you a little pain too.”
Then, with a loud POINK, Bethany transformed into an armored tank.
Before the Dark could react, she shot her cannon right at his chest, and the force of the blast knocked him backward across the cavern.
“How does that feel?” she said through her loudspeakers, shooting him again. “Because this is what you’ve brought to this city, nothing but pain. Nothing but horribleness. You’re a monster!”
Shadows poured away from his costume and attacked the tank, crumpling her cannon. She quickly transformed back and leaped for Charm’s ray guns, only to have her friend kick them out of the way, her black eyes now covered in shadows, even over the fake contact lenses.
“You did this to me!” Charm shouted, slamming her robotic fist into the floor so hard it cracked the rock.
Bethany pushed herself to her feet and ran to Kid Twilight, hoping he had more flash-bangs. But as she got to him, the boy slowly stood up, his face a mask of rage.
“I could have saved everyone, but you ruined things!” he shouted, taking out some twilight throwing stars. “You failed us all!”
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As he threw them, something seized her from above, and Bethany glanced up to see Gwen. Bethany squeezed her eyes closed, expecting the shadow-infested Gwen to drop her from a great height . . . but instead, she set her gently on the floor out of Kid Twilight’s reach.
“You’re not angry?” Bethany asked Gwen.
Gwen’s shadow-covered eyes glowed as she grinned. “Guess not,” she said. “Not sure why, but I feel pretty much the same. Weird, huh?”
Of course the shadows hadn’t affected EarthGirl. They needed some kind of anger or fear to latch onto.
Bethany quickly hugged her friend, then turned back just in time for the Dark to take her by her shoulders, and slam her against the cavern wall. Gwen grabbed for his arm, but one punch sent her reeling.
“Was that all you have?” the Dark shouted at her, and that’s when Bethany realized she was looking into the eyes of her father.
The tank’s cannon must have ripped his mask away, or maybe the shadows that had covered his head had been the ones to stop her. Either way, the father she remembered so clearly from her childhood now stared at her with pure hatred.
Bethany tried to struggle, to free herself, but seeing his face, having him look at her in such a way . . . all of her anger just disappeared. She realized she was crying but didn’t care. Instead, she wiped at her face with the back of her sleeve, shaking her head. “I’ve . . . I just . . . I’m so sorry, Dad. I did this to you. It’s my fault! I got you lost, and now . . . now you’re this?”
“Dad?” the Dark said, sneering. “You would mock my loss in such a way? My family was taken from me by a foul villain. I will find him no matter where he runs, and destroy him!”
“Dad,” Bethany said again, shaking her head. “Please, don’t do this. You didn’t lose me and Mom. We didn’t go anywhere, you did.”