The Last Play Rewarded

Gordon woke up suddenly. The bedclothes around him were warm and rich, and the bodies of the women he'd taken to his bed last night were still curled around each other. Their steady breaths rose and fell. For a moment, he sat still in the dark, there was no light in the room, but he didn't need light to see anyway. Not since he'd used his rulebook to strip away everything about himself that was weak or inferior. He could see anywhere, and as he looked around, he could see that nothing was out of place. Yet, he still felt as though something was wrong. He couldn't place it, but...

He looked around, shedding the blankets and rising to his feet. The female servants that lay on his bed didn't move or wake, which was odd because they usually knew better. But then again, light night had been tiring for them, he thought with a grin, so just once he'd let them off.

He reached for a dressing gown and drew it over his well muscled shoulders, shrugging it on, and then holding out his hand. The first thing he did was to will his rulebook to him, it had been literally the first rule that he had ever written. He held out his hand in anticipation of its arrival.

But it didn't come.

Feeling alarmed now, Gordon started towards the chamber where he kept the rulebooks. His mind was moving fast. Surely, no one could have gotten to them, could they? He'd made defences that should have triggered if anyone but a member of his staff or himself had gone in there, and all of his staff members were one hundred percent loyal to him. He'd made sure of it with a rule. Not a single one of them believed in magic either.

Hmmm. He didn't like this. Luckily, he'd made preparations. A swift detour to a secondary room that he didn't often show anyone else, and he returned armed. A pistol was a poor weapon for a god, but in the circumstances, it would have to do. He moved slowly along the corridor, his weapon aimed and ready. Darkness surrounded him, but he could see through it easily.

No one greeted him as he moved along the corridor. Not intruders and not staff. That was more worrisome. There should have been some staff by now, but there was no one. He felt a shiver race along his spine, but mercilessly crushed it with an effort of will. He was a god, a god! He didn't fear being alone in the shadows.

As he finally reached the rulebook room, he laid eyes on the first person besides himself to be awake since he had woken up. She was standing between the rulebooks, still naked. Her dark hair hung by her shoulders, and he felt a thrill of pleasure as he remembered all of the things he had done to her so far.

"Diana." He said, "It's good to see that you're here. Something had gone wrong, and the rulebooks have-"

"That was me." She said, and there was an edge to her voice that he had not heard before. Gordon felt a tremble of uncertainty.

"Why don't you step away from the rulebooks, Diana."

"I don't think so."

"I am ordering you to step away from the rulebooks."

"I said no."

He reeled as if struck, his mind flashing.

"You have to obey me!" He snarled, "I made a rule! You're my **** just like the others, and you have to do what I want! Now step aside!"

She looked up at him, her eyes seemed to pin him in place. There was no meek acceptance or submission there, no surrender. Only fury and rage, Gordon felt his hands curl into fists.

"What is it that you said to me?" She said, "Older rules have priority over newer ones. You made me a ****, but I made sure that I could still make my own choices in the end."

"What? That's stupid, I burned that page of your rulebook, and checked the rest of it too! You had no more rules protecting you!"

She rolled her eyes.

"Of course I did you perverted sadist. Or else I wouldn't be standing here now, would I? Before we even met, I realised that something like this might happen. As soon as I had begun to see just how much power a rulebook had, I knew that I needed to defend myself. My only problem was that I forgot to do the same for Lisa. That's why I had to go through with this whole thing, pretending to be your willing ****, letting you humiliate me and use me."

"That's... no, that's not possible. You had the memories that I gave you. You acted exactly like you should have."

"I didn't make myself immune." Diana said, "Not exactly. You see, it occurred to me that a fight between rulebook users would be the sort of fight that was either decided by overwhelming **** or cunning. That was why before we even met, I tore out a page of my rulebook, and wrote a set of backup rules. I made myself immune to the rules of others, but only the direct effects. That way, I still had the memories of the altered timeline, and was able to act as your ****, but all the while, I was still myself."

"You tore out a page?" Gordon snarled, "Why would you do that?"

"What, are you annoyed you didn't think of it before me? You checked my rulebook for any other rules I'd made to protect myself, but you didn't search for hidden pages. Not to mention, your arrogance betrayed you."

"My arrogance?"

"That's right. After you had beaten me, you wanted to drive it in. You wanted to make it so that even if I couldn't remember, it was right in front of me. That's why you kept talking about free will, and even showed me where the rulebooks were kept. You were taunting me, and you thought I didn't even know it. But I did know it, Gordon, and I kept my mouth shut, and you showed me exactly where to go to get what I needed."

"But the wards I set up-"

"Don't trigger against servants." Diana smiled at him in a nasty way. "And you made it damn clear to everyone that this was exactly what I was. And just to make damn sure, I stayed for several days, and let you all do whatever you wanted to me. You fucked me, humiliated me, made me just one of the other slaves. Just one of the other servants. As far as your rulebook was concerned, a servant is exactly what I am. Too bad you didn't define servants as someone who was loyal to you in your rule, you just made it so every servant was automatically so. it wasn't a criteria, it was a modification.."

She looked pensive for a moment, reflecting on the last few days.

"I knew that if we had a direct fight as rulebook users, you would win for sure. You were more experienced and had a bunch more rules set up to defend you. But if I just gave up right away, you would know something was up. You'd know that I would never abandon my sister, so you'd be suspicious right away. That was why I attacked you on the balcony. **** and caught with no way out, so I lashed out. That's what you thought, right? You said it yourself. It was the most stupid thing I could possibly do.

"But, because I did it, and because you ''beat'' me, and stole my rulebook, you had absolutely no doubts about your victory. And as soon as I didn't have a rulebook, you stopped really thinking of me as a person, didn't you? You absolute bastard, you literally think that anyone who doesn't have a rulebook is just a thing for you to use. You told me you were going to make Lisa part of this? I'll make sure you pay for that."

"Clever." Gordon said, "Very clever. I admit it, you're much better than I thought. I never thought you would be able to endure everything I put you through without breaking, but it seems you've made a fool of me... but don't think that you've won! There's only a little distance between the two of us, and I have a gun. You don't have time to write a rule before I pull the trigger, and all my defensive rules are still intact, so even if you could write a rule, it would do nothing to me. You played a good game, but I've won again. I swear, Diana, for this I am going to punish you even more severely, do you hear me? I'm going to make it so the whole world gets in on it! The woman who is hated by the whole world! Shamed and mocked wherever she goes! Your life is going to be a hell! I'm going to take your own sister and make her hate you!"

"Gordon..." Diana spoke softly, but her voice was razor edged, "If I were you, I'd stop speaking right now and think about your situation. From the moment you woke up, you had already lost."

"Bullshit!" He raised the gun and pulled the trigger, it barked once, the bullet slicing through the air. But before it could strike Diana, it turned aside, slamming into the ground with a loud burst of sound.

"Very well then." She sighed, "If that's how it's going to be."

She flipped open one of the rulebooks as he desperately barrelled forwards. Gordon knew that he was faster than her, that he would reach her before she could write a full rule to stop him.

But unfortunately for him, Diana had learned. Just as he had done before, she had pre-written the rules, leaving only a single letter absent from them. As soon as he started to charge, the pen she was holding flicked once, and the rule was complete. Gordon slowed to a crawl, feeling a sudden horrible emptiness.

"What did you do?" He screamed, "What did you do to me?"

"It was a simple rule." Diana said, looking down at him with no pity at all. His muscles were shrivelling, the darkness was becoming harder and harder to see in.

"What do you write?"

" ''New Rule: all of the rules written by Gordon in this rulebook are now invalid.'' "

"But...but that shouldn't have worked! Old rules override new rules!"

"You're really an idiot, you know that? Don't tell me you never noticed. That only counts if the rules are written in different books. After all, if the rules are altered by the same rulebook later, it's not fighting any other book, and the reason that priority exists doesn't come into play. You fucked up, you thought I was no threat just because I didn't have a book, and you never put any real thought into the books themselves."

"I'm going to kill you! I'm going to ruin your life! I'm going to-"

"No, you're not. You're not going to ruin anyone's life ever again. This is the end for you, Gordon. For all that you have done."

Diana's hands moved again, finishing a second rule which she had prepared before allowing Gordon to awake.

Old Rule: Gordon never existed. His life and the consequences thereof are undone, and remembered by no one except Diana. His ruleboom becomes her property. All of the damage he did is undone, and all of the lives whose freedom he stole will have it returned.

"You bitch! You absolute bitch! I'll kill you! You can't do this to me, I'm a god! I am a-"

And like that, Gordon was gone. So were his mansion, his staff, all that he had done. The world spun, and shifted, whirling like a gyroscope. And right in the centre of it, there stood Diana, with two rulebooks.

"I don't want to kill." She said softly to herself, "But for you, I make an exception. Go away Gordon, go away and be undone. If you ever return to this place, try to be a better person, or I will find you again."

And then it was done, and only she remained. With the flash of a rulebook, Diana was returned to her home, where she set to work on the hard business of fixing what had been broken.