The big five hundred

Something felt strange about this whole encounter with an alternate outcome of your combined lives within the being you'd become as Angela, but you felt like you had to know what was going on. You took a chance, and followed Juno up the ramp, into the ship. 'Recalibrating sensors' felt like a strange pursuit, given the enormity of not only the ship but the situation itself, where sensors should be the least of anyone's worry! Getting dislodged from a chunk of inter-multiverse space seemed like the more necessary approach, but it wasn't your ship, so not your decision.

"Right this way, we'll go through the courtyard," Juno said, her blue armor shimmering in the soft lights of the passageway. "This ship was designed to have a lot of people in one spot for possibly generations, so the courtyard is pretty cozy, if I do say so myself. I think you'll like it, because I like it, and I know me." Juno looked over her shoulder and offered a smile. In return, you smiled a little nervously. It definitely felt like you were walking into a situation you were unprepared to handle.

Juno reached one of the airlocks labeled 'courtyard' after a few minutes of walking through the winding corridors of the ship, and tapped a code into the nearby panel. The door hissed, and you braced for whatever might be behind it... Your mouth hung open at the sight before you. It was the strangest thing you'd ever expected to find after walking through an extra-dimensional bit of space between spaces, and you weren't prepared in the least for the sight.

It looked sort of like an annual Hideki barbecue.

You were there, and you were there. And you were there! There were multiple Emily variants, dozens of copies of Chloe, ranging from green and purple slime to human versions. Oh wait, one of those green entities was an Emily, maybe? It was hard to tell. Plenty of Zoe forms were there, you could immediately identify them even when they were worn by others. In the background, one of the Zoe bodies fully removed from extra-dimensional space rested on a patch of grass far in the distance, as the human-shaped portion of her tethered to the larger body appeared to be sipping on a drink while chatting with a pink-haired girl--a variant of Ela. Multiple versions of Ela seemed present as well, ranging from a very humanoid version to a body that seemed like little more than a floating pink goop drifting between conversations about quantum theory or organic chemistry, really riveting stuff.

"Hey everyone, Angela finally made it, we can get this show on the road!" Juno yelled out, and everyone started to applaud. You felt a lot of eyes turn to you, freezing in place. A version of Kazumi and Emily stopped playing games on the screen-like stomach of a Zoe who was munching on some cheese cubes, provided by waiters and staff bearing Emilia King's signature logo. You pointed in that general direction, like you were about to form a question, before new sights erased your train of thought completely. You recognized various other Hideki employees, like Logans and Jasons, talking to a few girls you were less familiar with: the redhead must have been Kim, his girlfriend, sometimes filled with Chloe slime in various capacities, and sometimes all on her own. The same was true for a purple haired girl, or sometimes a purple-and-blonde haired girl, wearing a nametag that said "Hi, My Name Is: \*~WILLOW~\*" on each.

You looked back at a smiling Juno, who seemed proud of the crowd, which was far larger than you'd ever dealt with! "So, uh... now I'm here, what's that mean? What is this? Are we celebrating something?"

"Yeah, the big five hundred, of course," Juno said, waving at someone to come over. A duo of quadrupedal partly-robotic girls galloped over, one with long blonde hair and the other with a boyish cut of her brunette locks. "This is Ivy, and Ivy. They'll take you over to your table, I have to go check if the burgers are ready. Make yourself cozy, if you need drinks... well, you can bend space-time, right? Just reach over to the coolers off to the far left."

As Juno departed, the boyish-looking Ivy motioned for you to climb on, wiggling her robotic lower half. "C'mon, I'll show you around. Chloe asked me to give you the tour. Well... one of them. I'm a big fan, by the way, from what I've heard about you over the past hour. I just started at Hideki, myself!"

"She's the older one," the blonde Ivy said, stepping closer as you climbed on. "I'm still at Sea-U, I'll probably end up at Yabusa Robotics myself beyond my summer internships with them. We've got some big things cooking. ...Well, sometimes, from what I understand about the multiverse that's not always the case? I think it's weird that there are universes where there aren't half-human half-giant-spider hybrid people, but to each universe their own, I guess."

The Ivys took you along the perimeter of the party, past a group of people with Emilia King's employees and group. You noticed that there were clusters of people that seemed to fit into various affiliations: you knew the Hideki group fairly well, but over by the King Enterprises staff, a variety of people seemed to be flipping coins, at times shifting between genders as they did. Some ghostly woman seemed to be terrorizing another, toying with the shape of her clothing in front of some guy who didn't look like he talked much or did much of anything to stop her. That's when there weren't just empty outfits roaming around, chatting with one another! Something about that group seemed rather spooky and chaotic, moreso than you were used to. Some strange armored knights emanating unusual glows seemed occasionally positioned through the group, but they seemed fairly relaxed. You were pretty sure you'd seen pictures of those from photos you'd seen of the King estate online... most of the King estate staff seemed to be in charge of catering and cooking, wearing various Hideki Ascend headsets to coordinate their catering efforts across such a large space.

Ivy--well, the blonde one--hurried over to the others from the Yabusa team. It was a smaller group so far, but there were versions of Ivy and other women and men using their sleek robotic limbs to rapidly erect a stage nearby, with one of those large half-spider robot people you heard about, working with a redhead with incredibly huge robotic arms to get that platform ready. One of the women seemed to be gleefully showing off her ability to use her robotic appendages to transform back and forth to a motorcycle-like shape, something that appeared to make at least one Zoe variant quite jealous...

"Okay, here's your table. It's the VIP table," Ivy said, letting you off as you looked at the others already seated as you took a chair of your own. Some faces you recognized: Emilia King, the billionaire occult collector; Reiko Hasegawa, on the Hideki board of directors; a totally normal Emily, who seemed a bit nervous that she was at this table at all with all the big names, but you knew how important she no doubt was to whatever multiverse she was from. Another version of Ivy with her boyish haircut sat at the table, chatting with a white-haired woman that looked much like Juno--her placecard said "Captain Kelly Lancer". A different woman, whose placecard said "Felicia/Felix Archer", had her feet propped up on an empty chair with a note that said "Reserved: CEO, Yabusa Motor Co." Everyone who was there, at least, nodded in your direction.

You glanced back and forth across the table. "What is the big five hundred?"

"Oh, you don't know?" Emilia King said, crossing her arms. "Join the club. I thought I had secrets, but I can't pull people from dozens of timelines for a dinner party, so I guess my secrets aren't on par. But, I do hope to get to try out one of these Zoe suits I keep hearing so much about, so I've not put much stock into the 'why' of the event."

Reiko shrugged, as she sipped some wine. "I would not be concerned, at least," she said, speaking with a thick accent. "Hideki Labs has a good track record, as you know. You are not from my Hideki Labs. But I would trust that all of my employees are thinking about the well-being of others, and the unity of all different versions of us. You are a good example, Angela, you are more unified than most," she said, smiling. "A shining example of Hideki's philosophy."

"Hmph, I think she and Juno are a better examples of seeking any means of self-improvement, something I admire greatly. Maybe unity is important, but when I look at these ladies, I see a powerful, singular woman, unique from each other. Although, Angela here gives me less of an impression that she is going to at some point decide to try to conquer a universe or two, unlike Juno. Well, Juno with the wrong push... she could go on to do great things, or something quite dark in the name of self-improvement."

You motion toward the empty chair. "And what would Yabusa's philosophy be, if someone at Hideki values cooperation and a King thinks the individuality is important?"

"Probably that we should all be replaced by toasters," Lancer joked. Everyone else just agreed.

Before you could say anything else, you heard someone tap on a microphone, and you turned toward the stage. One of Yabusa's power-armored ladies carried a box onto the platform, while another wheeled out a giant cake with the number 500 on the top. Everyone quieted down, as Juno took the microphone to talk.

"Now, I know you're wondering why you're all here, what this 'five hundred' thing is. I can tell you right now, it's so incredibly important that I was compelled to bring us all here today!" Juno turned to the box nearby, ornately made out of metals and wood, glowing under its lid. "This was found in Emilia King's basement, among all her many strange things. We hadn't been able to open it, but we theorized that it might be created from a source even further beyond the lines within our multiverse--we think it's something from the architect of the multiverse, and it had been counting down from five-hundred on this dial on top before it began to slowly decrease. It stopped at one, not long ago, and I knew the only way to get the dial to roll over totally was to have everyone here, so our combined energy today could roll the dial over to zero. Once Angela arrived, the box did just that."

There was quite a bit of murmuring among the crowd now, spread wide across the large grassy area within the ship as the domed interior shimmered with lights as if they were stars, making everything feel like in this strange inter-dimensional space.

"Before I open the box though, I just want to say that this is such an impressive crowd here, I'm glad we could come together like this, at least once. I know that's not always the case in every timeline, but it's good to see the effort made here! We've made incredible strides with our technologies and understanding of the supernatural. We have machines that turn people into ghosts, chemicals to form others into slimes, headsets that let you control a person on the other side of the planet, and devices that can combine anyone and anything together!" Juno waits for some of the light applause to die down from listing off the accomplishments. "After the opening of the box to see something from the architect of our time and space, we'll have some cake, courtesy of Emilia King. Oh, also, I've secured tickets to the Body Chaos Rodeo, which is in its 97th season and I think quite a few people might enjoy seeing those athletes in action, so we'll have a raffle for those at the end. Anyway, shall we?"

Everyone waited with bated breath as Juno walked to the box, slowly opening up the lid, which hissed and slid open on its own. Juno peered into the glowing box, and reached inside, pulling out what looked like... a single piece of paper. Juno glanced at the crowd, and back at the paper, before she unfolded it and stepped back to the microphone to read the contents.

"It's the five-hundredth chapter! I can't believe it's gotten this far, I never expected things to really grow the way they did. A lot of these ideas just sort of bubble up only hours or days before they're executed, but I'm so glad for everyone that sticks with it and finds the universe interesting enough to keep coming back. Things have only grown bigger and more bizarre with each chapter, which is precisely how I like it, and I'm glad the same is true for all of you as well who keep reading all my works."

Everyone looked around at each other, confused. Reading? Chapters? What on earth did any of this mean?

"I've still got plenty of ideas to work through, paths to eventually get around to fleshing out more. At times I'll likely vanish again, but I'm always looking to get back to writing more chapters when I can. To the loyal readers, thank you. To the characters whose paths seem to take tougher and darker turns: I'm sorry. Kind of. I'm sure things will get better for you later, somehow. I certainly want happy endings for all of you, and we'll get there someday. Maybe. Now, for the most important piece of information. Everyone needs to know this."

The mumblings in the crowd stop, as the silence becomes so pervasive that everyone could hear the quiet hum of the colony ship's internal systems.

"The important thing to know is... the best character is Roxie. Because Roxie is a good girl. Yes she is. Yes, she's a good girl. Who's a good girl? Roxie. Roxie is."

Roxie, Emily's goofy and slobbery dog, popped her head out of the box the letter had come from, amid cheering and applause. Her tongue hung out to the side of her mouth as everyone chanted her name. Roxie! Roxie! Roxie!

You awoke with a start when something bumped your face, looking around at the hotel room near the beach, with Roxie tucked under your arm, fast asleep but twitching like she was dreaming something incredible. You felt pretty normal, pretty complete... all in one piece. It felt like you'd been transported somewhere and back, but that was to be expected when combining multiple people into a single body.

Reaching to Roxie's head, you pet her lightly, sitting up with a yawn. You wondered what was running through that little pup's mind... but you knew that you would never know. Because even though dogs in this particular timeline have an incredible perception of adjacent portions of the multiverse when they dream, they are not very talkative at all. You could only assume she was off chasing squirrels in her head. A sudden craving for some cake hit you, though...