Joyce

The ringing of bells.

The chiming of the hours.

The weightless flow-not-flow of time itself.

When the world combusts in its proper place, the zen hits you like a thunderbolt. It is the monument. A movement that comes from within the cosmos that is everyday living. To look beyond, everything you know must be at peace. A rarity in these tragic days. And yet, they are filled with merryment. For even now as the world is burning down, we still have our husband and our dog. If the multiverse burned off the mortal coil tomorrow, we would still be here silently approaching the next bang. Hell, perhaps being the cause of it.

We used to be so full of self-hatred, you see. The alienation germ that manifested in us from birth and cut us away from civilization was supposed to be a curse. A curse from the void. Our curse of living. For a long time, we have suffered because of it. Or rather, because we thought we should. We thought we should be both in the world and of the world. We were always hunting for the puzzle piece to fit just right into somebody’s tapestry. It is only here lately that we have managed to acknowledge this weird little virus in us–the plague of not fitting right–and…accepted it.

And why shouldn’t we accept it? Something so embedded into our psyche that it can’t even be brainwashed out must be there for a reason. It isn’t our friend. Do not understand. But it is no longer our enemy. We are not of the world. We are not of the Multiverse. We are certainly not of the so-called PRIMEverse. That crying child of a ‘verse that refuses the truth even when there is far too much evidence around them. Why else would there be so many cults gathered in one place? Why did a rock sprout from the floor of the MGM Grand? How did we cause the rain indoors? You have men and ladies everywhere being possessed by haunted masks, thinking that they’re berries, schmucks hiding from their pasts while the ancient are trying to figure out their futures.

But nooooo. This is supposed to be the sane universe.

Get fucking real.

Just because we’re slightly nerfed in this place (for now) to make ourself slightly more palatable doesn’t mean this is sane. And one can ignore and excuse all they want to. It doesn’t change the facts, Jack. Once upon a time, we thought the Madness followed us everywhere. But we know better now. The Madness sets in everywhere. It doesn’t even matter if we were here or not.

We are in the world in the sense that we work here. Slowly, we are integrating ourself into it. We hide in a dress made of shadow and slink in the background at the Fighting For Nora clusterfuck. We shoot death glares at perverts clearly there for the promises of drinking too much and maybe finding some easy prey while we rub on our wedding band. We give a passing glance at Bathory as he slinks from the other side of the shadows to try and give a speech. We hear the infighting about who’s dating who. We see the child. Cute little thing. But what are we going to say? “Hey kid. Nice to meet ya. Hope you don’t die?”

An earlier night. We nurse a whole ass bottle of Jack Daniels as Ria Nightshade pours her strange little soul onto the pavement. Many see her as a bitter, angry mess that should be pitied or told to straighten up. While she can be a bitter, angry mess, we know too much

(about ourself)

to where we know half assed attempts at pity and rousing Youngblood-like speeches aren’t going to work here. For better or worse, she–not anyone else–has to come to her conclusions in her own time. All we can do is hear her out, say our peace, and order her another drink because she’s going to drink herself silly anyway. Along the way for reasons we don’t understand, she calls us the big sister she wished she had growing up as the other her nods. And more than few of us travel back to bleeding out on a checkerboard floor, a cotton filled doppleganger of a certain Scotswoman making her escape, and our last moments of Micah.

Yes. Slowly, surely, we are in the world. But we are not of it. The rest settle in swimmingly. Impulse and Cally find a place to live while Timo gets to work on his school, petting his cat like a Bond villain. Dusk makes peace with his kin and Youngblood is haunted by demons of the past. Morty spits on our name while his roof leaks.

The wax starts to form on our skin again. It starts from the vessel’s feet and will inevitably form all the way to our head. We will put on our cloak-slash-cape and our headpiece-slash-tiara and our shirt which we will proceed to display over and over again and stay splattered on your television screens as our shadow punts the stragglers in the skull. Because despite how strict this place is, the fact that we’ve gotten away with thousands of dollars of water damage from playing a wind instrument near a rock tells us that there is always, always loopholes to the owl attacks. Though once again, that’s what we have a gun for.

We do all of this and more while Rezin rants about the system and punk rock. As if he doesn’t know how badly he’s fucked.

________

In between all of the above, taking care of the best dog in any world, comforting her husband after a slight mental breakdown, and preparing for matches–yes, matches, plural–at the next Violence Dream, the Multitudes take a moment to think about Erik Black. On the surface, he is a bumbling oaf. Nobody likes him. Nobody wants to deal with him. Everybody thinks he’s just annoying as shit. These are votes very much won by a landslide. But he is also tough, sneaky, and actually shows glimpses of talent.

“Which is why we must bring our all into defeating this defective human.”, says the militant Five-of-Four.

“ain’t they all defective?”, responds Firebug as she takes another draw of a Death cigarette. The comment, while very much true, is very dismissive. Despite being the worst one of the group in terms of the art of professional wrestling, Firebug looks at all of her other selves and sees the very best in the entire scene.

“And isn’t that smugness what made us lose to Ms. Ryan?”, questions the Prime as she sits on the head of the table. The answer is an obvious yes, of course. For as much as they try to keep an even keel, the Multitudes cannot help but get a little full of themselves at times. But then again if they didn’t do that, they’d get ignored…again.

Belittled. Again.

(It was two years and some change ago when they had to crawl out from the subconscious walls that they formed about themselves and revealed themselves to both the vessel and the world at large. Her own stablemates. The people that were supposed to have her back. The group that she was a founding member of would degrade every. Single. Thing. She did. Even though she did more work than half of them. Fought more than all of them. Put her hearts on the pavement everytime. And she would ignore it, over and over again.

Until they couldn’t anymore.

Because those new indiscretions brought memories of old ones. Centuries of them. Being endlessly spat at by House Mirraflex. Minimized by those who thought she stood a chance. The repetitive insults that manifested. Small amounts of anger that was swallowed down until all those years came rushing back with the swell of boiling blood. NO MORE.

It was never the optimal way to take control of things. But the alternative was self-destruction. And if there’s one thing to take from this, Anna is too stubborn to die and too stupid to quit. Now with that collective wave of memory passed over, let’s get back into this, shall we?)

“perhaps.” Firebug admits, while putting her leather heeled boot clad feet on the table. “but i still say fuck that cunt and fuck this one too.” The figure of He-Who-Hates roars in approval from his cage. “we pointed out his hypocrisy and what did he say? HuRr DuRr I hAs WeIgHt YaR yAr Me EnD yOu WiTh PiLeDrIvEr.”

Yes. She did do the meme while mocking him.

“We are well aware that insults and threats in that area are bland and tasteless, Firebug. But you have to understand that with the acceptance of a few, nobody knows our history of crushing those that have said the same.” 

As much as everyone wanted to admit it, the Prime was right. She rose from her chair and began to pace while speaking.

“The reason why these type of things hit harder there is twofold. First, the ‘verse insists against all evidence that it is the only universe that matters. PRIME and the few other promotions that float around it are the only things that exist here. So of course the fans are dumb. It’s not their fault. It’s just the moment and point of space where they live.”

The vapor-like leader of the Multitudes stops right where she started.

“Secondly, as a result of their self-impossed distance from the wider Multiverse, these words which are old hat and boring for us are fresh and new to them. They’ve never heard such things hurled at us, therefore they will hoot and hollar and say ThAt’S a GoOd PoInT, rEzIn.”

Twice in the same promo? From two different versions of the self? Scandalous!

“Kayfabe.”

Oh. Right. Sorry.

“Which is why I propose the following. Since the PRIMEverse insists on such things, we will play their game. There will be us as we are now, the Multiverse Anna. But the moment we step into the TARDIS to go towards their ‘verse, we will need to shift our role. With the formation of the wax body, we will have to get into method acting and play the role of “PRIMEverse Anna”. This seems to be the only way to work this for the moment. It’s a bandaid. But it’s the one idea I can puzzle together.”

The rest of the Multitudes chatter amongst themselves of the idea as one with no name and no shape raises a hand. “Okay. But what about Rezin?”

Five-of-Four snaps back up again. “Since the ‘verse in question has not seen us conquer such a foe, we wager that neither he nor they know our tricks. If he wishes to make a show of his alleged strength advantage, we will confuse and counter him into oblivion. Remember, the vessel used to be shorter and lighter than she is now. She knows the ways.”

In the Daniels’ bedroom, Anna’s head nods in agreement.

“Should he want chaos, we shall give him that a thousand fold. If he speaks the old high flyer magic to us, we will remind him that we were there when it was written. If his realm is anarchy, we will take over and make it Annachy. Then we will make that into a shirt and sell it for money just to spite the little bastard.”

There’s a ghost of a smirk that almost forms on the soldier’s features as the crowd roars at both this battle plan and the possibility of shirt based defiance. It is only the slightest movement of the black lab sandwiched between the cosmic couple that dismisses the Assembly.

Tea. We need to make tea.

________

New Orleans. Canal Street. Roosevelt Hotel.

No shadow dress this time. We’ve already seen the beginning of this cluster.

It’s time to make an actual appearance. Meet Nora. Pretend to care about the randoms for a conversation or twelve.

Time for the New Era to be in the world for a bit.