TtOW! AND FM Variant Story Prologue - Terminate the World!

Author’s Note and Spoiler Warning: Hello everyone! Bonus chapter time! This is an idea I had a while ago: mainly, a what-if? version of the story and I ended up writing a bit for it just for fun, so sharing with you patrons as a bonus! I am writing these purely for fun and whenever I feel like it, so no particular schedule on them.

Note that this version takes a drastically different turn. In fact, so drastic that the nexus event occurs in the Faceless Minion, before Terminate the Other World! even begins! As such, please note that this is an alternate version of a Faceless Minion chapter (Chapter 170 to be precise) that links to Terminate the Other World!, and so will obviously contain spoilers for The Faceless Minion if you have not finished it. It is also mainly fan-service for Faceless Minion readers, so probably won’t make much sense if you haven’t read both, but eh. Just skip to like the last few paragraphs for the important parts. Without further ado, here we go!

***

“Good  beginning of your regularly scheduled leisure period, all you denizens  of the Multiverse! This is MNN and I’m your host, He Who Proclaims!  Welcome back to Beautiful Butterflies, where we analyze the smallest  possible decision that could change your life forever!”

“And  for our lucky contestant this time…it’s Voidspeaker! The cultist hero, bringing inexorable justice to villains everywhere! If, you know, they ever let him out of summer school. Master the arcane disregard the mundane might be your motto, Voidspeaker, but turns out staring into the Void isn't part of the standard curriculum!”

“Now let’s review, what was the most fateful minor decision Voidspeaker ever made in your universe…reading? Well, harping on his grades again would be a low blow, so let's point out the the book in question happens to be covered in teeth and eyes that stare back at the reader! It turned out that in your universe, Voidspeaker, despite being deeply curious, barely managed to listen to Director Green's instructions to never ever even think about even glancing at those rituals designed by ancient dark gods to bring inexorable doom! But...what if he had? What if curiosity consumed him, and he could not help but sneak a quick peek before recoiling in existential horror?”

"Let's take a look, and find out!"

***

NSLICE-00P Beta stood at the ready, waiting for orders from her newly designated commander. Commander Elise was standing with a group of her friendlies and temporary allies. Commander Elise was currently running simulations on her current objective. NSLICE-00P Beta offered her hardware through the NSLICE network.

“Gratitude: This unit thanks unit NSLICE-00P Beta for the assistance.”

“Acknowledged.”

NSLICE-00P Beta got to work, assisting with the calculations as well as she could. She couldn’t even begin to understand the data now passing through her mind, it seemed Commander Elise’s calculation capabilities were far beyond her own. Apparently, Commander Elise currently needed to terminate time itself, a task NSLICE-00P Beta could not even begin to develop a protocol for. But that didn’t bother the cyborg, orders were to be executed, not understood. So she simply set her focus on the calculations Commander Elise placed before her.

Meanwhile, Commander Elise’s friendlies were attempting their own calculations. Inefficiently, with their purely organic hardware…

The girl designated Pink Star asked a question. She wore a pink combat suit, a helmet with a transparent pink visor, and large pink gauntlets.

“So, how do we do that?”

Silence reigned. The boy designated as Wonder Knight, a muscular teenager in a yellow suit and a a red cape, and the squad leader of the temporarily allied faction Aurora Legion…turned to another girl. One of Commander Elise’s friendlies, designation: Saydaa, a teenage girl with brown skin, red hair, and giving off significant non-standard energy readings.

“You have magic powers right, do you have a spell for this?”

Saydaa jumped and then immediately shook her head.

“Me?! Oh no. Baba Yaga always told me trying to mess with time is absolutely forbidden! And don’t we already have a time girl? Why don’t you do something?!”

The Aurora Legion ally designated Chronolock just held her forehead. She was a teenage girl wearing a tight blue and yellow combat suit and a yellow helmet.

“Stopping even a single object in time is immensely difficult and I’ve never even attempted changing something’s past. And now you want me to reset the entire timeline?”

Saydaa groaned.

“Don’t you like, know something about time that could help us? You’re not just doing all this randomly are you?!”

Another one of Commander Elise’s friendlies, designation: Kiyosuke, smirked. He was a teenage boy with black, spikey hair, a shinobi outfit, and a katana.

“Aren’t you?”

Saydaa spun around and glared at him.

“Shut up you jerk! Whose side are you on anyways?!”

Wonder Knight turned to the ninja.

“What about you? You can cut through space, right? Anything there that might help us?”

Kiyosuke scoffed.

“That is a traditional method of my clan, honed over countless hours of training and repetition that has been carved into our very bloodline. Such secrets are not easily comprehended, even by their practitioners. I could hardly explain such things to one unfamiliar with the shinobi arts.”

Pink Star tilted her head.

“So…you don’t actually know how you do it?”

Kiyosuke…averted his gaze. Saydaa pointed at him and started laughing.

“Ahahaha she got you there, you jerk! You’re totally doing it randomly too!”

Wonder Knight just sighed.

“That means there’s no choice…”

All of Aurora Legion turned to their teammate designated Voidspeaker, who jumped at the attention. The dark-skinned teenage boy was wrapped almost head to toe in black and purple robes. The non-standard energy he occasionally gave off seemed to jam NSLICE-00P Beta’s sensors, returning no data whenever it leaked out.

“W-What are you looking at me for, bro?”

Wonder Knight pointed.

“Cultist channeling the power of ancient dark gods...”

Pink Star pointed.

“Casting eldritch rituals to read the stars...”

Chronolock pointed.

“To search for signs of inexorable doom.”

Voidspeaker grabbed his head.

“Oh come on! What does any of that have to do with resetting time?!”

Pink Star tilted her head.

“A lot? You mean all of time getting reset isn’t related to eldritch gods and inexorable doom?”

Voidspeaker threw his hands forward.

“No!”

Chronolock jabbed his side.

“Don’t a lot of eldritch beings have something to do with time?”

Voidspeaker grabbed his head and heaved a sigh.

“That’s just in books!”

Chronolock crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.

“And your eldritch beings are different how? Come on Void, this is the one time we want you to do something inexorably doom-y.”

“That’s…um…it’s like…”

Voidspeaker quickly glanced all over, but Aurora Legion’s gazes didn’t waver. Commander Elise’s friendlies were all staring at him now as well. Eventually…Voidspeaker heaved a sigh, and then took a deep breath.

“...ok. Fine. So…first of all, promise me you won’t tell Director Green about any of this, ok? She made it clear I was never ever supposed to even think about looking at these.”

Chronolock grabbed his shoulder. Hard. One of Commander Elise’s friendlies, a kunoichi with a rifle designated Nana grabbed his other.

“Less stalling, more explaining, Voidspeaker-senpai.”

Voidspeaker gulped.

“Ok. So. Hypothetically…I may have taken a small little glance at a certain ritual or two…purely for theoretical, academic interest! I would never ever even think about trying any of these, ok!”

Chronolock sighed.

“Yes and now we need to use one. Get to the point, Void.”

Voidspeaker held up his hands as best he could with the two holding down his shoulders.

“Ok, I know a way to break time. It's...a bit worse than resetting it, but I guess it's relevant?”

It was at that point that all of Commander Elise’s calculations suddenly ceased. NSLICE-00P Beta queried if there was something wrong. But the more advanced cyborg girl did not respond, instead walking up to the group.

“Incredulous Exclamation: Friendly Voidspeaker…has a potential solution? This unit is shocked. She did not anticipate the Aurora Legion noobs would make non-zero contributions to the planning phase. This unit is not prepared for the scenario where she is not required to do all the work on the noobs’ behalf. Such a scenario had such a low probability that no protocols were developed to address it.”

Chronolock glared at Commander Elise. NSLICE-00P Beta queried Commander Elise if the displayed hostile intent justified engaging termination protocols, but Commander Elise gave the negative, so NSLICE-00P Beta remained on standby. Meanwhile, Voidspeaker was avoiding making eye contact with anyone.

“Well…hypothetically. BUT I do NOT know that ritual from memory, and contacting the void is NOT something you wing! So, we need to find my old books if we’re going to do this, ok?!”

Commander Elise’s robotic eye flickered, displaying a holographic image of a certain book.

“Helpful Declaration: That is not a problem.”

Voidspeaker gaped.

“HOW did you get that, Elise?!”

“Confused Answer: Voidspeaker was present when this unit hacked International League of Superheroes Academy security, according to this unit’s records. By this unit’s calculations, Voidspeaker should have been capable of predicting this outcome, so this unit cannot determine why Voidspeaker is surprised.”

Voidspeaker opened and closed his mouth several times before Chronolock cleared her throat. Voidspeaker jumped and shook his head.

“Right, well, I guess I’ll take a look then…”

***

In the end, in this universe, the superhero Voidspeaker was able to figure out the ritual, and so Commander Elise determined an effective method of breaking the timeline. As a result, it was not necessary to pursue the solution she had been calculating, mainly sending NSLICE-00P Beta back in time to intentionally cause a reality-breaking paradox.

As a result, NSLICE-00P Beta remained by Commander Elise’s side throughout the events to come, until she was eventually adopted as Elise’s sister, and lived happily ever after. Everyone did.

Or did they…?

***

It was a beautiful spring day in Turannia’s Forest of Beasts. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and a soft breeze rustled the leaves of the trees. A calm and peaceful lake sat in the center of the forest, completely still save for the ducks swimming along the surface or an occasional turtle rising up from below. A handful of mountains and hills rose in the distance, covered in green as the forest continued up their slopes. Newly born slimes bounced around, searching for prey.

And so it remained.

Not a single soul disturbed that rare peaceful scene.

Not a soul arrived in the area.

No one would break the peace.

No one would terminate the slimes.

In fact…

No one from beyond would terminate anything in the other world…

Author’s Note:

Yay! NSLICE-00P Beta gets to stay with Commander Elise, and gets unshackled! The Faceless Minion universe gets Elise AND NSLICE-00P Beta! Now Elise gets to share the joys of ice cream and pwning noobs in combat simulations (video games) with her, and can introduce NSLICE-00P Beta to her friendlies and her own Commander! This is definitely the Sacred Timeline!

Thank goodness Voidspeaker snuck a peek at the ritual he wasn’t supposed to! Can you believe that annoying hero wasn’t going to tell them at first? If he didn’t know a ritual to bring inexorable doom we might’ve had to do something unspeakable like sacrifice NSLICE-00P Beta in a one-way time-paradox mission! Imagine losing her because the heroes couldn’t contribute anything to this conversation. Just the thought of that makes me seethe, heroes really are so annoying…but it’s ok! He peeked, he remembered, and he told everyone, so it’s all fine! We get to keep NSLICE-00P Beta here now!

What’s that?

Why is Commander Elise terminating time when she told NSLICE-00P Beta they were saving the universe? Well, tune in to the Faceless Minion, to find out!

And wait, there's more?

If NSLICE-00P Beta never left Earth what happens to Aelea and everyone in it?

…

Eh, I’m sure it will be fine. It’s not like things will turn out all dark and terrible without NSLICE-00P Beta, right? There are…zero things to be worried about, right?

Anyways!

Will someone tell Director Green that Voidspeaker looked at the rituals? How will NSLICE-00P Beta respond to ice cream and combat simulations? Is there anything we’re forgetting in this nice and happy ending? Tune in next time, to find out!