Chapter Text
If shadows had substance, Cole imagines they would feel somewhat like this.
It's an awfully strange sensation that addles him. Although he doesn't actually hear anything besides a soft "what the actual fuck" from Nya next to him, it feels like there are voices whispering in his brain, fading in and out in a distinct pattern, and as they rise and fall so do his energy levels, oddly.
"Well. I'm not sure what I expected," says Kai.
The water that washes upon the shore is black, like somebody accidentally spilled an absurd amount of food coloring into the ocean. The sky is a dark purple with dusty lavender stars scattered across it, and milky nebulae that seem to be swirling, partially covered by magenta clouds.
They all turn to look at Zane, who still has the scissors in his hand and is staring at them as if he can't believe they actually worked.
"Alright. What do we do now?" Kai says.
"How am I supposed to know that?" Zane asks, not unkindly but definitely a tad overwhelmed.
"Well," Lloyd says, who's finally back to being nineteen instead of fourteen. "I'd guess that's a good a place as any to start looking?"
He points to the side, where a cinderblock tower that sort of resembles a medieval prison building stands, a few feet away from them. Which seems like something everyone should have noticed already, but as it turns out, ripping through time and space into a secret pocket dimension is rather disorienting, so you can't blame them for being a little unaware of their surroundings.
"Uh. Okay," Cole says.
The door is unlocked, which is lucky, he supposes, but if he's being honest he sort of wished it were locked, so he could have an excuse not to go in there.
"So this is...creepy," he mumbles, staring at the cobwebs that line the walls of the massive stone staircase.
It's not exactly silent—they can all very clearly hear their footsteps and the black waves on the shore and the wind rustling the plants on the beach—but it still feels far too quiet for comfort.
The staircase winds up for a long time before they finally reach a room. The dark, splintery wooden door is etched with what looks like stab marks, and the intricate detail on the doorknob seems very out of place within the context it's in...
Wordlessly, they exchange glances as Cole reaches for it and slowly opens the door. The creaking of the hinges echoes down the stairs. This is very unsettling. There's nothing in the room.
"You know what I find intriguing?" Zane says as he steps into the room cautiously. "This...whatever it is...is called the Gemini Project. I believe Liberty was born in early January, making her a Capricorn."
"Why is that weird?" Kai says. "The Capricorn Project doesn't sound particularly mysterious, honestly. Gemini is a much cooler word. That's probably why she called it that."
"I don't believe in zodiac signs," Zane says, "But Geminis are associated with indecisiveness, impulsivity, and unreliability. That would certainly describe the way she's going about this whole thing, wouldn't it?"
"I guess," Lloyd shrugs. "But what does that have to do with anything?"
"...I guess nothing," Zane says. "I just...thought that was an interesting tidbit of information. It might infer that she knew it was going to be this way, even if only on a subconscious level."
"Hm. I don't know."
At the end of the empty room, there's another door that leads to another staircase, but oddly, this one goes down.
It's almost completely pitch black, so Kai and Lloyd turn on their elements to light the way.
These stairs are steeper and made of unfinished granite, according to Cole, which, also according to Cole, is sort of an odd choice of materiel to make stairs out of.
Kai doesn't seem to be interested in his rock facts and tells him to knock it off.
They argue about this for a bit, until the staircase finally comes to an end and they reach another door, a metal door with a large dent in the middle. Everyone goes silent.
A deep sense of panic ebbs its way into everyone's chests when the handle on the metal door turns and out comes a woman dressed in black, with blonde hair and electric blue eyes and freckles partially covered by concealer, and a scar across her left cheek and a cruel smile on her face. "Well," she says in a honeyed voice, "How nice. I wasn't expecting visitors."
"Something must have happened," Delta Libber says softly. She turns to Ice Prime, which sounds like the name of a snow cone but is actually the title of the head of the CKCC—the Cloud Kingdom Council of Continuity.
The CKCC's job is to make sure nobody messes with the timelines.
They have failed colossally.
"We should have gotten the signal already. If we didn't, that means Shadow Libber got to it first."
Ice doesn't respond.
"That means my son is dead."
"It does," says Ice, who was never one to sugarcoat things.
Delta Libber stares straight ahead into the middle distance, hands clamped over her mouth. She'd only met Jay a few years ago. She wanted to visit him before, but she can't leave Cloud Kingdom. Her soul is tethered. She's trapped. "What do we do?" she says finally, voice muffled behind her hands.
"Nothing," says Ice gravely. "There's nothing left for us to do. It's up to them now."
"They can't-"
"They can."
"And if they don't?"
Ice doesn't answer. He doesn't need to. They both know what will happen.
Eventually, all this bending of reality will tear a hole in the fabric of spacetime, which will then, essentially, swallow itself.
"You know what the worst part is?" Delta Libber whispers.
"What?"
"I met her. The other me. At one point, she knew that was what was going to happen."
"She doesn't anymore."
"I know. But she did. And she did it anyway."
"You're not like her."
This time, it's Delta Libber who doesn't reply. She knows she's not like Shadow Libber. But that doesn't stop her from believing it.
"Huh. Would you look at that. I was right, it's gone." Libber Prime shrugs and starts to leave the empty room she'd led Jay to from Usually-Dead-Lilly's house.
"Wait. What's gone?" Jay catches her by the arm, waiting impatiently for an explanation.
"The radio static seeds. The ones that do the mind controlling thing. I wonder if..." She pauses, then shakes her head. "Never mind."
"Wait, I had some of those. They were in the music box."
"Yes. They're very hard to find."
"What exactly are they?"
"That," Libber says, waving her hand dismissively, "Would require a very long story. And we don't have time. You know...because there is no time."
Jay tries to be annoyed, but he can't help but snort. "That doesn't make sense."
"Well, that's-"
"That's exactly the point, I know."
"Nice. You're learning." Libber stops for a second. "Hey, you're learning! I taught you something! How cool is that? I taught my son!"
Despite himself, Jay grins. "Heh, I guess you did."
"Oh my gosh! This is a great feeling!" Libber throws her hands up in the air. "I wish we could have done this a long time ago!"
Jay tears up.
He's quickly knocked out of his sentimentality when the door from the other side of the room swings open. "You suck," Shadow Libber spits. "You had one job, and somehow you failed multiple jobs, when you only had one to begin with! You have to be a crazy level of incompetent to accomplish such a task."
"Hm. What'd I do again?" Libber Prime examines her fingernails, which is something that for some reason makes Shadow Libber very annoyed. She must not hold cuticle health in as high importance as Libber Prime does.
"The other fucking Prime brats are here, you idiot. How'd that happen?"
"They must have found our scissors. What'd you do with them?"
"Seeds," Shadow Libber says briefly in way of explanation. Luckily, she's so distracted with chewing out her alternate self she doesn't notice Jay shoving past her to the stairs. 'Other fucking prime brats'? That has to mean his friends, doesn't it? They actually came for him.
Well, unfortunately, it's not going to do him much good anymore, because, he learns when he pries the metal door open, they're all unconscious.
Shadow Jay is many things—probably too many, in fact—but there doesn't seem to be a word that describes him better than tired. He looks at Beta out of the corner of his eye, whose still-slightly-pudgy face is drawn in a contemplative look; no doubt his inner monologue is focused on his complicated feelings surrounding his companion.
Shadow Jay looks back at the ground and watches his feet carry him across the Beach, the one that seems to be in monochrome because everything is grey, and closes his eyes for a second. If he un-focuses hard enough, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore is almost relaxing.
Almost.
He is so very, very exhausted. He hasn't felt relaxed in...
And...there's that feeling again. A little nagging at the back of his mind that he's able to reach now that somehow, most of the fog is lifted.
He doesn't remember a Before. But, then again, he doesn't remember much of anything either. Maybe he did have a life before the In Between. Maybe he hasn't always been here. Before he can stop himself, he looks over at Beta again and says, "What was your Before like?"
Beta blinks at him in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Before..." Shadow gestures vaguely. "This. Your real life." He sees a melancholic look come over Beta's face and quickly adds, "Don't have to tell if...you don't want to."
To his surprise, though, a soft smile appears on Beta's lips. "No, it's...okay. It, um..." he clears his throat. "I lived with my mom."
Shadow flinches and braces himself for Beta to start yelling at him again, accusing him of being a monster and then feeling like he really is even though part of himself knows it wasn't his fault. He didn't want to kill her. He didn't. He...
But Beta doesn't even look at him. The hesitation is there, sure, but he doesn't say anything on the matter. "I don't remember my dad very well. We lived in a small house. I had a pet frog named Arbor, for some reason. I didn't have him very long because he died but I remember it felt super weird to pick him up. I..." he smiles again, and Shadow's heart flutters with a strange anger at the In Between because he can't remember Beta ever smiling before. "Heh, I haven't thought about that in a long time," Beta continues. "I also had a best friend named Cole, and..."
Wait a minute...Cole?
"And another best friend named Kai, and he had a little sister and brother named Nya and Lloyd. And there was also a robot named Zane who was the least boring babysitter I ever had, no matter what Kai says about him. And I used to go over to Cole's house all the time and have sleepovers, and his mom made the best cookies. We used to play Prime Empire and...Shadow, are you okay?"
Kai. Zane. Lloyd. Cole. Nya.
Shadow Jay doubles over and vomits, clarity washing over him like freezing cold water.
No. No, no, there couldn't have been...
He drops to his knees and vomits again. For some reason, it's bright blue, like the time he'd eaten cotton candy with Lloyd and they both got food poisoning.
But, no, that couldn't have happened. Maybe I'm borrowing Beta's memories. That's happened before, right? But...but I look older than Beta, so it has to be mine, but...there couldn't have been a Before. There wasn't a Before. She said I'd never been...
"Shadow? What's...what's wrong?"
And his heart is pounding with fear and disbelief and betrayal but also unbelievable relief, and he chokes back a sob and his thoughts are back and the fog is gone and he had a real family he had a real life and when he gets out he's going to see them again and this nightmare will finally be over...
He's weeping and laughing at the same time as memories flood into his head, and Beta probably thinks he's lost his mind, but it's quite the contrary, in fact. He...found it.
"I...B-Beta, I remember," he breathes. "I had a Cole too. A-and a Nya and a Lloyd and a Kai and a Zane and..." his breath catches. "And a mom and dad."
Beta looks at him curiously. "You knew your dad?"
"No, I...Libber wasn't always my mom. I mean, she...she was, but I was r-raised by Ed and E-Edna Walker, and..." he begins to sob again, heart seeming to shatter apart and glue itself back together over and over again. "And they were real, and it was real, and I wasn't always here. I...I was...loved."
"So that means..." Beta says slowly. "That means that your name was Jay Walker! Like, like jaywalker! That's so weird!" He snickers, feeling lighter for some reason.
And for the first time in so, so long—he can't even remember the last time—Shadow throws his head back and he laughs, too.
The second thing Jay notices is the unbearable barely-audible buzzing static noise that immediately gives him a headache the second he becomes aware of it.
The first thing he noticed was, of course, his friends, all unconscious on the floor.
Jay has very mixed reactions to this. He kind of wants to cry in relief that they're actually finally here, because there were points where he didn't think they'd actually come. Didn't he quit on them the last time he saw them? It seems like so long ago he can barely remember.
He also kind of wants to cry because of the insufferable buzzing static that's making his head hurt like the worst headache he's ever times two.
And he also kind of wants to cry because his friends came here to save him and now they're all unconscious and Shadow Libber is terrifying and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do and oh yeah, what about Beta and Nightwalker?! He just left them alone! That's a terrible idea; Beta hates Shadow Jay and Shadow Jay is terrified of Beta!
Despite the many reasons Jay has to cry, he does not.
First, he clamps his hands over his ears, because he's pretty sure the static has something to do with the seeds, and the seeds have something to do with mind control, and it's probably what made his friends fall asleep and what's making him lethargic all of the sudden.
Then he surveys the room for the seeds, which he's awfully confused about, but he supposes the technical lack of time that the In Between hosts can explain some of the inconsistencies...
He spots a pale blue glow coming from a box on a table sitting in the middle of the room, which looks like a mad scientist's lab if the mad scientist never finished unpacking...there are cardboard boxes everywhere and not much equipment except for the large computer screens imbedded into the walls, which display what appears to be surveillance feedback, some nonsensical scatterplot graphs, and an image of what Jay guesses is supposed to be the multiverse.
Yeesh. It looks like it's in sad shape. There are timelines with knots in them, some that are so crinkled they look like that cheap paper fake grass stuff you put in Easter baskets, some that look like they have split ends, some that are so intertwined they remind Jay of earbuds that you leave in your pocket and have to untangle.
It's enthralling, but only in the way a car wreck is. It's horrible, but he can't look away.
He has to, though; he's gotta figure out a way to cut off the static. His hands over his ears don't have as prominent of an effect he'd hoped they would.
Something catches his eye before he gets to the box, though. Hanging on a few hooks on the back wall are...Lilly and Libber's matching dragon necklaces?
He'd almost forgotten they existed. Which is rather odd, because that box that Cole found and they were in is the thing that started this whole mess in the first place. At least, the thing that got him tangled up in it. Maybe it's a good thing he's here, though. After all, the multiverse is falling apart and judging by the way things had been going before he showed up, it probably would have completely deteriorated.
Jay finds himself putting Libber's necklace on. He doesn’t know why. It seems like a colossal waste of time. (But then again, there isn’t really any time to waste in the first place.)
It turns out to be a very good decision.
Instantly, all the static comes to an abrupt silence.
Jay stares at the necklace suspiciously and takes it off again—and he can hear the static again.
Huh.
He puts the necklace back on and walks over to the box on the table.
It’s a tiny metal black container, about half the size of a shoebox. Jay stares at it a minute, unsure what he’s supposed to do. How does Shadow Libber control it? Maybe…
Well…they are blue and glowy…and they are staticky like electricity…and he and Shadow Libber do have the same powers…and…and the whole absorbing lightning thing seemed to be an instigator of this whole debacle…
Perhaps against his better judgement (only joking…that would imply that Jay has good judgement to being with), Jay focuses his energy on the seeds in the box, connects with their energy, and then pulls that energy into his.
Woah okay that’s a weird feeling. It’s like there are little bugs crawling around under his skin. Ugh that’s a terrible image. Okay, just…shut up, seed things, Jay commands, not really sure what else to do.
For some reason, it seems rather anticlimactic when it actually works.
Jay feels a snap as his connection with the static seeds is severed.
And then his friends wake up.
“Ughhh…what happened?” Kai groans, slowly sitting up and rubbing his head. “I feel like…I don’t even know, man, just…”
“You’re awake!” Jay cries. “Oh my god! You’re here! I can’t believe it! I thought I’d never see you guys again!”
He launches himself at Nya when she stands up, catching her by surprise and almost knocking the both of them over. When she catches her bearings, though, she throws her arms around Jay in return, burying her face in the crook of his neck. “Oh my god. I’m so glad you’re okay,” she murmurs.
“I’m so sorry,” Jay breathes. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault, I don’t even know why you even bothered looking for me in the first place, I was so awful and stupid…”
“Don’t be ridiculous, sparkplug,” Cole says softly, as Jay detaches himself from Nya and clings onto Cole. “We would look for you forever.” And there’s such a sincerity in his eyes Jay really can’t help but burst into tears.
“Well, yes,” says Kai. “But, uh…not to break up the moment, but an explanation would be kind of nice. I think you owe us one.”
“Right,” Jay sniffs, wiping the tears from his cheeks with the sleeve of his gi. “Sorry. I guess I do. So, it w-“
Unfortunately, an explanation will have to wait. Their reunion is broken up as the door busts open again.
“What are you doing here, Nightwalker?” Shadow Libber demands, in a deceivingly calm voice under which her usual murderous rage is hidden.
“That’s not my name,” Shadow Jay replies—wait, wasn’t Shadow Jay mute? Since when…Jay looks at the box with the seeds in them. Oh. That must have something to do with it, doesn’t it?
He looks back up and finds himself in the middle of a very strange scene.
Shadow Libber has a sword (Why does she have a sword? Where did it even come from?) that…appears to be made out of vengestone. Shadow Jay is there, in front of Beta Jay, glaring at his mother with a strangely protective gaze. Libber Prime is…not there, which is somewhat concerning.
Shadow Jay’s eyes flick to the necklace around Jay Prime’s neck, and then the other one hanging on the hook. He smirks. “You said you were going to destroy those. Why would you keep them around anyway? Aren’t they detrimental to your grand plan, Mrs. Gordon? Why would you keep a way to communicate with the CKCC?”
"What's the CKCC?" Lloyd interrupts. That sounds awfully familiar. Wasn’t that something he read about in the Gemini Protocol files?
"The Cloud Kingdom Council of Continuity," Shadow explains. "They're supposed to keep all the timelines from bumping into each other and branching off into chaos. It's gonna take a long time to fix all of this, but Delta Libber works for them and she's got the same abilities as Shadow Libber! It's-"
"Delta Libber does not have the same abilities as me," she spits, advancing towards them slowly. "If she did, she would have stopped me a long time ago. I am, objectively, the most powerful version of Liberty Castaspella Gordon in the entire multive-"
"Your middle name is Castaspella?" Kai interrupts. "Oh my god. That's even better than Jay's middle name being 'Imperial.'" He has to support himself on the counter so he doesn't fall over laughing.
"SILENCE!" Shadow Libber demands, pounding her fist on the table. "As I was saying, there’s nothing the CKCC could do anyway, even if I hadn’t already destroyed the communication device within the pendant.”
Shadow Jay’s face falls for a moment. Then, his expression twists into the darkest glare Shadow Libber has ever seen on him before. Granted, most of the time his expression is a blank stare, but even before the seeds, before the mind control, she’s never seen him so angry.
“Now, listen,” she says.
“No.”
A large number of things happen in a very short amount of time. First Zane looks at the multiverse on the computer screen and goes about as pale as a nindroid can go. In an instant, everything makes sense to him, and it’s even worse than he could have imagined. Then Kai says, “You know, I want to be surprised, but at this point, two clones of Jay seems pretty normal…”
Then, most importantly, Shadow Jay looks at the box of radio static seeds and instantly clicks into them, directing their power at Shadow Libber and knocking her against the wall. He picks up the sword she dropped and slowly begins to advance towards her.
"Nightwalker, look at me," Shadow Libber begins. "Will you jus-"
"NO!" He startles even himself with this outburst, and there are a few seconds of shocked silence before he follows that with, "You are not my real mom."
"Nightwalker."
"No! Stop it! Just...just stop it! You're not my real mom, and you never will be! My parents’ names were Ed and Edna Walker. They loved me, and they took care of me, and they never hurt me like you do. They were my real parents. I might have your powers, but nothing else about me belongs to you. You are not my real mom."
Shadow Libber swallows.
"I could kill you right now," Shadow Jay says in a low voice. He brandishes the blade in his hand, stepping closer. "I could. Nothing's stopping me. You're helpless right now. Vulnerable. And it would only be fair, anyway. You put this sword in my hand, and you taught me how to use it. You taught me how to kill. You created me. You made me like this. You deserve it, and you know you do."
He stops just as he points the tip of the sword at her face, as she looks back at him with a fear flashing in her eyes that he's never seen on her. He's felt it himself more times than he can count, though. He's just never been on this side before. He's always been the helpless one, with nowhere to run or hide, completely at someone else's mercy with no means of escape himself.
But Shadow Jay drops the sword. It clatters to the ground, and his mother stares at it in confusion mixed with relief.
"I could," he says, quieter this time. "But I'm not going to. That would make me no better than you are."
"What...what are you going to do, then?" She forces a brave look onto her face. "I destroyed the key. There's nothing the CKCC could do anyway even if it still did have communication abilities."
"I'm going to seal off the In Between, and I'm going to send everyone home," Shadow Jay explains slowly.
Libber snorts. "Jay, darling. You can't seal off the In Between. Your soul is tethered to it, remember?"
Beta Jay's head snaps up to look at them. Wait...what?
"I know," says Shadow. His tone is nonchalant, uninterested. There is no fear in his voice, or in his eye, which stares back at his mother.
Beta feels a pit of dread building up in his stomach. "What is she talking about?" he asks cautiously. "What does she mean your soul is tethered?"
Shadow turns to Beta Jay with an expression he can't quite decipher, but says nothing, except for a quiet, "I'm sorry," which he utters when he walks away from his mother, past his other self, and towards the Machine, the small black apparatus in the corner that somehow Jay Prime had missed.
His heart is pounding in his chest—everyone’s is—but he’s frozen with shock, helpless to do anything about the situation unfolding before him.
"Nightwalker," Shadow Libber hisses. "Jay. You...you can't do this. You...you know what will happen if-"
"I do know what will happen," Shadow Jay says steadily. His hand overs over the off-switch on the Machine. "And I won't regret it one bit."
"Jay," Shadow Libber begs, struggling against the static keeping her in place. "You can't be serious. We'll die."
"What?" Beta cries. "What is she talking about? You can't...Sh-Shadow, what's going to happen to you if you...what about your real parents? What about your real life? There…there has to be another…”
Shadow Jay refuses to look at him. He doesn't give Beta enough time to process what's going on. He turns a few dials, pushes a few buttons, and then flicks the switch.
And everything fades to white.
And the static in the air goes silent.
Reality whirls around and begins to fix itself, straightening out the kinks left from being bent for so long, re-weaving infinite paths of infinite futures.
There's a humming noise in the back of his head, that grows louder and louder in Beta's ears until finally, it goes silent with a snap and he falls back against a soft bed.
And when he opens his eyes again, he's just Jay, in his house, two weeks after his 13th birthday, tears and memories rapidly slipping away even as he tries hard to hold onto them.
The last words in his head are "Shadow is gone," but those too fade away and he's only left with a vague sense of grief and a bad taste in his mouth.
"Jay?" his mom says, knocking on his door. "Hurry up, we're gonna be late to that movie you wanted to see, remember?"
He does remember.
And Jay—two different versions of him, actually, each in their own timelines and each in their own blissful ignorance—shakes the bad feeling out of his mind...and smiles.