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Our humble heroes from years past are Trish and Lydie Valentine (nee Coroba). Intertwined by marriage they are, but not without their difficulties along the way. They've fought enemies bigger than themselves, traveled to worlds big and small, and made a respectable name for themselves as members of Terminal 23.
But a lot of time has passed since then, so the married couple decide to rest in their favorite location...
ALTERNATIVE VERSE 1011
Trish and Lydie lay in their shared bed, one lovingly cradling the other as the night passes them by. However, without their knowledge, a Verse Gate opens just outside their house. The mysterious visitor quietly approaches the house, using a Warp Sleight to sneak in through the window. Using a type of magic that works like a magnet, the visitor separates the couple by lifting Lydie off the bed and levitating her in the air to be whisked away in a Verse Gate. The visitor then follows her through the Gate and disappears.
Trish none the wiser even as the crack of dawn approaches, her back turned from Lydie's...
THE NEXT MORNING
Trish cracks her eyes open, yawns and stretches.
"Hey darling, wanna go for a walk?" she says. "...Darling?"
Trish checks next to her. Lydie's not there. She doesn't respond to that nickname being called, either.
"...Darling?" Trish paces around the room and looks around for her wife. "Darling? Lydie?"
Nowhere. She's vanished.
"*sigh* she went to an alternative verse and didn't bother to tell me?"
Going back to her room, she steps on a note that the visitor slipped her. She picks it up and reads it.
"1577"
"A number? Is this where she went?" Trish does not hesitate to get dressed and prepared to head out for yet another adventure.
ALTERNATIVE VERSE 1577
Trish steps into a rainy atmosphere and looks up. Cobblestone lines the path to a majestic castle overlooking the dark and murky seas. The waves crash into the stone walls as if trying to break them open, and a powerful wind nearly breaks Trish's balance. Trish wordlessly follows the stone path to the castle's doors and meets a pair of guards.
"The queen of the kingdom lies ahead. Tell me your name."
"Trish Valentine. I was led here by a note I found on the floor at home. My wife Lydie is missing and I believe this might be a lead." Trish holds up the note in question and hands it to the guard.
"Proceed. She's been looking for you."
The doors open, and Trish runs inside, desperate to find her wife. She stops for a minute to perceive the castle's interior design. Familiar symbols line the walls, that of a circle with two opposing circles inside it with unknown script lining the outline of the circle. Trish clutches her head, briefly recalling that symbol from somewhere.
"What the hell is this place?" Trish looks around some more. Statues of female figures holding guns decorate the path to the queen's throne. Trish can't believe what she's seeing, but can't put a finger on why.
"I'm getting a lot of deja vu from this..." she says to herself. Red, blue and purple line the colors of the curtains and stained glass windows of the castle, which depict different symbols, like butterflies, the moon, and the crest from earlier.
Before she can even approach the throne from the doors, a lady's voice speaks.
"I see my beloved came right on time."
"Who the hell are you?"
"Don't play coy with me. I'm the one you left for this pasty bitch."
"I don't remember that."
The throne room doors fly open, and the figure reveals herself. She's a purple-furred cat wearing a queenly robe and a crown. On her left and right hands, and left and right feet, are a set of purple guns with keychains hanging from them depicting similar symbols hanging from the curtains and stained glass. She wears a pair of glasses that she adjusts with the business end of her left gun. On her left is Lydie, still sleeping on a bed she prepared for her.
"Lydie!!" Trish yells. The figure fires her left gun, preventing Trish from approaching her wife.
"Ah ah ah. Not so fast. Would you like to apologize for deserting me when I needed you the most, cat?"
"One, I'm a red panda. Two, you haven't even given me your name. Three, how the hell do you know me well enough to take my wife?" Trish asks.
"Silly kitty."
The queen fires a hail of bullets that Trish is quick to cut through before jumping in the air and performing a dive kick that Trish evades. Switching her hand guns for a royal staff, she swings at Trish a few times, only for her to evade and block each hit. A final burst of wind magic throws Trish back a few feet.
"You don't remember me? Freya, the witch who loved you?"
Various foggy images flash in Trish's head, which do nothing to ease her confusion.
"Why does that name ring a bell?" Trish says to herself.
"Hah, listen to yourself talk. If you want your other beloved back, you'll have to take her from me. You may not remember me, but I remember you so well. I HATED how you deserted me for that stupid reason."
"Well Miss Freya, if you could tell me what that reason was instead of attacking me out of nowhere--"
Lydie cracks her eyes open, which Trish catches just out the corner of hers. She sees the position she's in and attempts to bang her way out of the glass cage she's in.
"Darling!" the two simultaneously call out for each other. Trish runs towards the glass cage and throws a bolt of lightning at it. Freya catches the lightning with her magnet Sleight and blows it up before kicking Trish so hard she falls over.
"What the hell was that?" Trish asks.
"Revolt magic. Never seen anything like it until this Sleight practician showed it to me. Lumina is a sweet girl, you would have loved her."
"Whatever. Just give her back to me." Trish says, pointing at Lydie.
"What did I just say?" Freya points her feet gun at Trish. "No wifey time until you take her from me."
"Who died and made you queen?"
"No one died, but someone did make me queen, or rather something did." Freya takes the the time to show Trish her left ring finger. It has an imprint on it. More images flash in Trish's mind related to the ring finger, but they're all hazy.
"...Who the fuck ARE you?" Trish asks.
"Long before you met that girl, me and you were positively in love with each other. Back when you had a different name. Back before you even left that tired place. Back before you knew who you were. Remember me, Yule?"
Trish clutches her head. The flashbacks become clearer. Her past self, dancing with Freya in a ballroom in the castle.
"I don't use that name anymore."
"So that's how far you fell from grace when you left me to chase your dreams."
Freya shoots the glass cage Lydie is in, cracking it. She then levitates it and sends it through another Verse Gate. Freya travels through it, and Trish gives chase.
ALTERNATIVE VERSE 1601
The two jump into a world of clouds, with a different castle overlooking it.
"Welcome to my kingdom. Every Verse you have seen so far meeting me has been a part of it. I call it Reverie. I'll trap her here and you'll never see her again, since you want to be so eager to leave your beloved behind."
"I don't even remember leaving you."
Freya's eye twitches. She grips her staff with fury and rushes after Trish. Trish evades and blocks every swing Freya launches at her. Freya attacks with the speed and strength of a violent animal, flying into a rage at Trish's words.
"I poured my heart and SOUL into our relationship. I did EVERYTHING for you. We danced. We kissed. We loved. We almost MADE love once! What did I even do to deserve your apathy??"
"What apathy? I barely know who you are and you took my wife and are going on about some prior relationship."
Freya lands a lucky hit when she distracts Trish with a shot from her heel gun and pins her down with her staff.
"Tell me, Yule. What did I do to deserve being ditched for this second rate pooch? What did I do for you to stop contacting me altogether one day? What did I do? I even still have the ring you gave me!" Freya pulls a wedding ring from her pocket. It's adorned with the crest from the castle.
Trish closes her eyes and flips through her flashbacks in her head. She sees her past self and Freya dancing by candlelight, sharing a kiss near a bed, and blowing out candles before heading to sleep. She flips through more. Freya firing her guns at something. The two trading theories about Freya's kind.
"Wait..." Trish says, opening her eyes back up. "Weren't you the one who..."
Freya's breathing becomes irregular at the sound. Her lips tremble. "...w-what?" She continues to pin Trish down.
Trish closes her eyes back up. She looks through another flashback. She and Freya are wandering through a ruined city, with the former in despair after she witnessed one of Freya's kind fall in love with someone unexpected.
"Freya... you won't become like her, will you?"
"What do you mean? I'm my own person. I will never--"
"How can I trust you? You've seen the way those events unfolded. How do I know you won't go the same way?"
Just then, a man passes the two by.
"Oh hey! Long time no see!" Freya says, running towards the man and hugging him. The man is wearing a grey hoodie and denim jeans, and wears glasses.
"If it isn't Freya! What brings you here?" The man replies.
"Me and Yule are going on a walk. He's not feeling the greatest after... a certain event so I wanna cheer him up."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Can I join you?"
"Sure!"
The man accompanies the two on their walk. The two talk for a bit, but the part Trish remembers comes up later...
"You know David, I haven't brought this up quite yet, but you seem... cuter than I remember." Freya says.
"Oh, do I?" David says, blushing a bit.
"Yeah, if I wasn't already, you know... I'd probably be all over you."
Yule's heart skips a beat. "No way..." she says to herself.
"I... I never thought you felt that way. I don't know what to say..." David says.
"We don't have to go in-depth, I was just making an observation..." Freya replies.
"No, no, it's fine. It just caught me off-guard, is all."
Yule starts thinking about the witch who fell for a man. Seeing this encounter reminds her of that. Tears start running down her eyes.
"Yule? What's wrong?"
Tears start running down Trish's eyes as well. They say in unison:
"I knew it."
Freya - both the one in the flashback and in the real world - flinch. "Knew what?" they say.
"You say you like girls... but..." Yule and Trish say.
"...no, never mind." Yule says. The flashback fades.
"That man." Trish says.
"...oh my god. Is that why you left me? because I showed interest in..." Freya in the real world says.
"You betrayed me. Wrecked my trust. I thought you would never fall for a man..." Trish lifts the staff from her and kicks Freya a few feet back. She then unfurls a pair of wings that hang from her back. They glow purple.
"Yule...!"
"It's Trish now." Trish responds.
"Yule... Trish! I'm... I'm--"
"I don't want to hear it, freaky kitty. A man would fix you. A man would make you settle down and raise a family. A man would--"
"SHUT UP!" Freya rushes towards Trish and swaps out her scepter for her guns. She slows down time and fires a hail of bullets around Trish. Trish uses similar magic and jumps over the bullets.
"You can't circumvent me. I WILL take Lydie back and you WILL leave me alone, and then you can go back to HIM and start--"
Freya rushes at Trish and knocks her down. Pinning her down with her leg gun, she speaks up.
"I can't believe you would say this. I'm literally bisexual. I still love you, even the way you--"
Trish moves the heel gun out of the way and smacks Freya in her face.
"Highly doubt... it..." Trish clutches her head.
"...Trish. You don't mean it, do you?"
Trish falls silent. Lydie uses a Warp Sleight to pass through the glass cage. She approaches Trish.
"I heard everything." Lydie says. "Your own wife is bisexual, honey."
"...but you never... not with a man..." Trish says. "Fuck, my head hurts."
Lydie runs over and catches Trish before she falls over.
"You know what? All I wanted to do was make her see the truth behind her own actions. I didn't intend for--" Freya says.
"Don't worry about it. I'll handle it from here." Lydie replies.
Trish, barely conscious, attempts to pick herself up from Lydie's arms.
"Men... men... men... gross... smelly, they reek... i hate the way they--"
"Honey!" Lydie interrupts her. "Honey, listen. Please listen."
Trish keeps going. "The... the smell... The... the... why do you like these things..." Trish's wings disappear and the purple haze flows into her eyes, turning them a vivid cloudy texture.
"The... the interests, the vibe, the..."
"Honey!" Lydie shouts. She slaps Trish awake.
"Huh?? What did I miss?"
"Honey." Lydie tugs at the White Rose in her hair. "I think I know why you hate men so much."
"I don't hate men, I just hate it when girls--"
"Shhhhhhh." Lydie calms her down and rocks her back and forth, almost putting her back to sleep. "Masculinity has traumatized you, hasn't it? Are you afraid that a girl hooking up with a guy would transfer his vibe to hers?"
Trish slowly nods her head. Lydie continues cradling her and patting her head.
"It's okay. I'm here. You don't have to worry about your fears ever again."
"Lydie..."
"I understand your trauma at masculinity is hurting you. But you have to remember, not all men are like that."
"Are you s-"
Lydie puts her finger over Trish's mouth. She goes silent.
"You are a vibrant, beautiful young woman. I'm so sorry that men have tainted you with those ideas. I promise you that you're the stunning lady I'm happy to call my wife."
Trish can only look at her with quiet, somber eyes.
"It's okay, princess. You're not a man. You've never been one or will be one."
Lydie gives Trish a tender kiss on her lips.
"You're a good girl."
Lydie opens a Verse Gate back to their home and travels to it, Trish in hand.
"I love you, my dear wife."