The Looking Glass

Weirdly sweaty palms. Their hand hadn’t even touched the knob yet but they knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant. Behind the door, their adversary, their foil, a person they knew next to nothing about. Their hand never touched the knob as the door appeared to get bored and opened itself. The office it hid wasn’t as large as Lore was expecting but still effectively signalled Crait’s superiority. Out of nowhere they felt a tightening around their waist. Time slowed as whatever had lunged at them forced them to the icy cold below. Apart from the expected pain, the polished floor’s reputation for poor heat retention threw salt in the wound. Crait straddled them.
“So you’re alive then.” A familiar voice came from the background. Its owner stepped out of the shadows. “You going to try again.” She pulled a pistol from her jacket and levelled it at Lore’s head.
“Charrlene?” Lore tried to adjust Crait but they couldn’t. “What in the hell is going on?”
“Lore?” She let out a relived sigh. “Thank the gods it’s you.” She returned the pistol. “Not the same one darling.” She smiled, gently prying Crait from them.
They all took a moment to take in their situation. Silent but necessarily so.
“What the hell happened here?” Lore shattered the quiet.
“It’s a long story and you know most of it.” Charrlene poured herself and Char a drink.
“We met in training. I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. Everything about you was beautiful. Then Illia.” Crait began.
“Illia?” Lore cast their mind back as far as it would go but came back blank. “What happened on Illia?”
“You met her.” They scowled. “Misha Undulia. She was the one that started it all. You went to Illia for a quick progress report before beginning the experiment and you fell in love. She convinced you to break up with me and focus more on your career. She was using you for your connections.” Crait paused, genuinely worked up. “When you came back, you were a different person. Confident but cold. Everything about you I loved was gone. You were meant to take up a mission to Quatarr to prepare it for mass mining but you delegated it to me.”
“And that’s where the major changes started…” Lore nodded in understanding.
“According to Char, yes. I was ready to start a fight when I saw the locals. Tented communities within the walls of their own cities, rubble and rocks littering the streets. I couldn’t do it so I joined them. Created a time loop and in fourteen days, we won.”
“Far faster than you.” Char and Charrlene joked.
“After that, I was brought in for trial. Escaped and went on the run from the person I loved.” Crait removed their Breacher and cradled it. “The only thing connecting me to you. We got them at the same time.”
“I’m guessing this is when you two met?”
“No.” Charrlene and Crait shook their heads. “We didn’t meet until a few weeks ago.” They smiled. “Glad I did though.”
“So what happened next?” Piper was on the edge of their seat.
“I changed my Breacher ID tag and went about my business, preparing the galaxy to fight The Guild. I amassed a small army and took the fight to them. Lore met me on Quatarr’s surface. They hadn’t started mining yet so the locals came out to watch. We agreed, same weapons and winner takes all.” The lump in their throat grew. “It was one of the most intense moments of my life. I had you right where I wanted you, trapped, but you beat me.”
“How?” Lore looked confused. They weren’t alone.
“I wanted to spare you but I just couldn’t. You took that option away from me.”
“Lore slit their own neck on Crait’s sword.” Charrlene gave a depressed head shake. “Bled out in moments.”
“So you stopped them from taking Quatarr?”
“Yeah. And became the head of The Guild. But it’s never enough. There’s always one more something that needs me.”
“If I’ve got this straight, I became the big bad of this universe and you killed me. What went wrong?”
There was a pause. Neither Crait or Charrlene knew who was going to talk. Charrlene decided. “After this universe’s Lore died, The Guild fractured. The majority honoured Lore’s request, the rest formed their own organisation. They’ve been looking for a way to bring their leader back without the paradoxes such an action would create.”
“Is that why you knew we were coming because it’s a little weird that you knew we would be at the train station.”
“We weren’t expecting you to be alive.” Charrlene spoke solemnly. “They’ve created a device that can transport individuals or objects from other universes to this one. Every so often, we see a spike in radiation signatures and then a body appears outside of the train station. It’s all a part of the Breacher’s protection protocol. So far, they’ve had twelve of you.”
“Well, I’m one of the last. There are only three of us. Each.” Lore flicked between themselves and the Chars. “We’re all that’s left.”
“Apart from the clones. “ Char added. “We’re still getting an official count on the clones.”
“Why are you here then?” Crait took a sip from their glass. “If you’re looking for clones you’re in the wrong place so why are you here?”
“This universe is dying. We came to make sure it doesn’t. If it does, a load more people die, we’re talking universes full of life, gone.”
“Where do we start?” Crait had slumped back into their chair. The camel’s back was nearly broken. Charrlene was in charge now.
“We need to work out what’s gone or is going wrong in this universe. Then we can fix it.” Lore smiled. Crait couldn’t help but join them.
“So we just work out where, in all of the lives of everyone in this universe, where something went wrong and hope we can fix it?”
“Sort of.” Piper spoke up once more. “You’ve got to get the right one or you might make things much worse.”
Lore looked to him confused and terrified. “What on Earth do you mean, much worse if we choose wrong?”
“It’s like the butterfly effect, it all builds up.” Piper looked at them somewhat scared himself now.
“Then lets tread carefully.” Lore winked. Not the First.