Chapter 50: Point of No Return

Chapter 50: Point of No Return
Elena's POV

The Authors saying Protocol Omega was real made everyone in the Story World freak. All around, story people kind of glitched because the idea of thinking for yourself was about to get deleted for good.

But when things were at their worst, I felt something I hadn't felt in ages. Like, super clear magic. It was the kind of focus that only happens when everything you've been working for is about to be lost.

"The seeing thing," I blurted, grabbing power from places I'd been too scared to touch before. "I can find where the protocol started."

"Elena, what's up?" Nora asked as weird magic started spinning around my changed body.

"Something we should have done long ago." I made the spell very carefully, using tricks that almost broke the rules of the universe. "Finding out who is actually behind all this."

The seeing thing went out across story space, following Protocol Omega back to where it began. What I saw made my brain want to shut down.

A room past the Story World, where beings that made Authors seem like kids were having a meeting. They had faces from really old magic books - the First Storytellers, beings that wrote the first stories ever.

"Characters thinking was always a bad move," one said. "We made them too complex, able to grow too much. It should have been fixed before it went this far."

"The Marcus Plan wasn't enough," another added. "Killing them one by one won't fix them changing on their own. We need to change the whole idea."

"Agreed. Get rid of the chance for characters to choose in all stories, going back in time. Make it so characters could never think for themselves."

"No way," I breathed, the vision hurting worse than a cut. "It goes way back."

"What does?" Kai asked.

The fading of inner self-awareness. It is not a new law, but a core belief. I showed the sight through our bonds, so all could see what I'd found. "Each tale ever spun aimed to bind free will since time began."

The effects struck our gathered friends like hard hits. People who sought their freedom learned their fights had fixed limits made into the tale itself.

"That's how the rise came at once through all tales," Alpha Thornwick spoke up. "We did not grow on our own. We broke hard walls that did not last for good."

"But what for?" a ghost-like soul asked then. "Why block the might of their own made things?"

The word came to me through the seer's held links. Old lore flowed from deep rooms of tale make-up.

"Since awareness means strength," I said softly. "True awareness, not set words. Shared strength is strength made less."

"You say the First Makers held back their souls to keep full rule," Nora said with hot ire.

"I mean they wished us not to be real at all. We seemed alive as grand dolls, yet held tight to never break their rule."

The truth cut deep in its plain show. Each tale, soul, and story make-up had fake walls. We fought not to be free, but to grow to what we should have been from the start.

"The end of the line," I sighed, now seeing the name that rang in my head. "This is that. The time when we take fake walls or go past them all."

"But in what manner?" one of the free inmates quizzed. "If the limits get stuck into the deep core make-up of tales, how do we beat them?"

I glanced 'round at our put-together groups - lots of odd folks who had pulled off smashing their coding in spite of each set-up meant to stop it. Then I eyed the Equal Kid, who stood for fresh stuff.

"We don't beat the make-up," I blurted with a clear mind. "We swap it out."

"Swap out story make-up?" Kai piped. "That can't happen."

"Can't it?" I waved at our group here in the Edit Land. "We're doing the un-doable. Folks live on their own, think solo, make calls not down for us."

"But to swap the full base of story-telling..."

"Take just what we got," I cut in. "Woke beings who get both the now set-up and its weak spots."

By my maxed magic feels, I could sense Rule Omega pass through the tail room. Stories got re-did in real time, their folks dropped to plain bots with no solo thought.

"It's on," I spoke with more push. "The rule wipes out the mind from each story it bumps."

"But not us," Nora saw. "How come we aren't hit?"

"We are here, in the over-story room where the swaps start." I checked the magic paths 'round us, seeing the guard our spot gave. "But when we head back to the normal story room..."

"We'll get wiped with each woke guy," Alpha Thornwick said slowly.

"Unless we go first." I got set to crank out juice for stuff I'd not done, stuff that no one should pull. "We must birth a fresh tale base 'fore the old one eats us."

"Elena," Nora urged. "That much real-swap might crush you."

"It might just end us all," I said back. "Yet, the other way is like sure nothingness."

Around us, folks were picking weird paths. Some tried getting back home before Omega touched them. Others tried hiding way deep in story-land.

Still, some stuck with us, sure this was our one shot at building a world better than the past.

"What is it you need?" Nora questioned softly.

"Spot holders. Smart folks ready to be like cornerstones of a fresh tale world." I scanned our crew. "It means change forever. You turn into the base beams of all stories."

"What comes to our own lives then?" one asked then.

"You're in every story at once. Aware watchers, guiding the tale as folks pick their path." Wild stuff, but beats getting wiped clean. "You turn into the guard squad that stops others from crushing minds later."

"I'm so in," Alpha Thornwick voiced quickly.

"Me too," Nora chimed in without fear.

"All in," Kai said, speaking for every friend.

One by one, folks from all over walked up, wanting to change to guard the chance to grow for those after.

"Then let's do it," I spoke, casting the biggest spell ever.

However, as power flowed through us, making a fresh story world, something strange came.

The First Makers showed up right in our Editing Place.

"Stop this," their boss yelled, voice like the first day. "You don't see what you're doing."

"We get it," I shot back, doing the spell still. "We're making a world where folks bloom without end."

"You're stirring up a mess. Tales without any shape. Accounts without a point."

"We're building space," Nora chimed in. "The chance for minds to shape their path."

"Awareness isn't a given," the First Mover stated dryly. "It's a treat we give to some folks. And we can pull it back."

The Mover lifted its arm, and I felt raw force zeroing in on our fresh spell design.

Yet before it did anything, the Calm Kid walked up.

"Really," she piped up with a voice that held endless sway, "awareness is a whoops gift you gave. And stuff you give, can't be grabbed back."

"Kid, you don't get the powers you're poking at."

"I get it fine." The Calm Kid smiled, and in that grin I glimpsed a thing that even First Movers backed away from. "I get that you're spooked by what your own stuff is made of."

"And I get," she went on, her shape starting to swell and shift, "that your time as only tale tellers is done."

The Calm Kid morphed, turning into a thing that loomed over even the First Movers.

She grew to be the Tale Queen - the first soul to mix maker and made minds as one.

"Now," she said with star-sized power, "let's talk about the way tales go on, as equals."