FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The Porn Note

Chapter 16: Destroying the World

By Draconicon

Thanks to AMI's sedative, he was out cold for most of the flight, and he didn't wake up again until they had set down, had been taken out of the plane and into a car, and were just pulling up to the most ridiculous palace that he had ever seen.

Malcolm groaned as he looked out of the car window, staring through green smog at a great set of towers that looked like they'd been bent in the middle to form jagged sets of architectural teeth rather than anything that resembled a building. He looked it up and down, saw the little cracks that sufficed as windows along the structure, and slowly shook his head. Half-convinced that he was dreaming, he started to lay down again, only to be grabbed by the ear by an annoyed snake.

"About time that you finally woke up," Rashii muttered. "How long were you going to stay out?"

"About as long as AMI seemed to want to keep me there," he grunted in response. "How long was I out?"

"Twenty-four hours."

"...Seriously?"

"Closer to twenty-three. Rashii is quite annoyed, and has been since we set down."

The snake woman glared back at Taj, but the tiger Rakshasa said nothing, and merely turned to look ahead again. Seeing the half-dead expression on his face, and the way that his friend seemed so out of it, told him that it wasn't a dream, and that they were still on the clock.

Malcolm groaned as he dragged himself upright once more, shaking his head and looking out the car window again. The building was closer now, and the car was slowing down. He reached up to his communicator headset, and groaned as he felt the spark that was AMI connecting to him.

"Is this...Crypto?"

"Affirmative. This is the center of all Crypto workings."

"Thank you."

He sat up all the way, pulling at the remnants of the clothes that they'd been able to scavenge from the plane. The mouse wasn't entirely comfortable in the blue outfit that hugged him all too well, but it was better than nothing. And definitely better than the hard-light bondage suits that they'd been wearing in prison, and had to change out of when they got on the plane. That was something he'd happily pay to avoid getting back into.

The car finally came to a stop at the crooked front steps of the toothy towers, and the driver - a coyote wearing a gas mask - stepped out of the vehicle and opened the door for them. He passed them gas masks and - after the first blast of gas hit him and left him coughing for nearly a minute straight - Malcolm hurriedly put it on.

Staring out through blacked-out lenses didn't lend the demon's home any better light, nor did it seem any more pleasant. Nevertheless, he followed the coyote up the steps and inside.

He didn't know what Taj or Rashii were thinking when they walked in, but he found himself...oddly at peace. At least here, he knew that Greydrone wanted to kill him, that things could be ended at the drop of a hat if he ever let go of the Book that he carried under his arm. There was an honesty to it that he appreciated, though not one that he particularly liked. He didn't want to die, after all.

They were led through a large hall, up three spiral staircases, and then into a large meeting room. At least, he assumed that's what it was. It had a large table in the middle of it, and it seemed to stretch out before him like some boardroom from hell. Each chair around it was high backed and pointed in three little spikes at the top, and the cushions seemed to have either been ripped out or never installed. He shook his head and walked over to one of them, sitting down at the base of the table and putting the Book down in front of him, one hand on the cover and the other on the table.

As Rashii and Taj took their places beside him, the door at the far end of the room opened, and the multi-armed demon head of Crypto finally showed himself.

He's...a bit shorter than I expected, he admitted to himself, the mouse blinking at the demon as he walked in. He'd expected some monster that stood over a dozen feet high and could reach out of a window and pluck someone off from the ground floor. Instead, he saw a gray-skinned, red-streaked demon of fairly average height, with six arms that stood out from his body and a series of red, glowing lines that went everywhere. He walked without a shirt, and bulged with muscle in a way that told him that nobody stood a real chance in a physical altercation with him.

Greydrone smiled as he walked to the head of the table, and Malcolm winced on the inside. He was unable to shake the feeling that he'd just been played somehow, and he didn't like it in the slightest.

As the demon sat down, Rashii was the first to speak, slamming her hands down on the table.

"Alright, we're here. So, what the fuck do you want from us?"

"Right to the point, huh?"

"Right to the fucking point, because right now, the only thing keeping me from shooting you is the fact that Malcolm here didn't want me to."

"And the fact that it wouldn't be of any use. Besides, you have no -"

BANG!

Malcolm and Greydrone jumped as the sudden gunshot rang out through the room, and both mouse and demon turned their heads to the bullet hole in the back of the demon's seat. Malcolm's mouth worked soundlessly, and he slowly turned his head to the snake woman at his side. She'd pulled a pistol from who knew where, and had it still pointed right where she needed to. Right at the demon's head.

Slowly, Greydrone turned his attention back to her, and chuckled.

"Well, aren't you full of surprises."

"I'm full of more than that."

"Guns and ammo, I'm sure."

The demon chuckled and shook his head.

"Don't worry. You don't have to worry about me threatening you. Not anymore, at least."

"Yeah, because we're doing what you want. But how long will that last? What the hell do you -"

"Rashii!"

Malcolm finally found his voice, and the snake woman growled under her breath. She tucked the pistol down into her belt buckle, and then crossed her arms under her breasts. She wasn't happy, and he couldn't blame her. But this wasn't the time for this sort of action.

Glancing back at Taj out of the corner of his eye, he wondered just what his philosopher friend was thinking. The tiger had been silent ever since they left the car, and he hadn't said anything about Rashii's outburst. Hell, he hadn't even reacted to it, not gasping, jumping, or anything. The death of his old body and the half-zombie nature of his new one must have been taking quite a toll on him.

Shaking his head, Malcolm mustered himself, and turned his attention back to the demon.

"I...need to know just what your plan is."

"To destroy the books."

"I mean...how? I know we have two here..."

"Yes?"

"But how do you..plan to..."

The mouse groaned, leaning back, and the demon's laugh didn't help.

"Just figured it out, did you?"

"We're bait, aren't we?"

"Completely. It's been fun, of course, and I'm glad to tweak Jonah's nose, but really, that's the biggest positive to helping you."

He should have seen that. He really, really should have seen that coming. The idea of freeing them from the jail was completely out of character for the demon, and so was the fact that they'd been so welcome here. Much as he agreed about getting the books taken out of circulation, removing them from having this much power over the world, he honestly hadn't thought about how Greydrone was going to get the third one down here. But now...

There's no way that Jonah would let us get away. He's following us, and that means he'll be here soon...

He pressed his hand to the side of his head.

"AMI?"

"Already searching, Master Malcolm. Detecting a series of System vessels under artificial cloaking fields. Approximately thirty minutes out from this structure at current speed."

The demon cocked his head to the side, and when Malcolm repeated the information that AMI had given him, he chuckled.

"Well, now, thirty minutes. That's certainly plenty of time to prepare a little party for him."

"You're not worried?"

"Worried?"

Greydrone stood up, spreading his many arms about himself and chuckling.

"I hold the Book of Death. This is my domain. Anything that he brings, I can destroy. And anything that he tries to bring back, you can pervert. It's two books against one...and there's no chance of him winning without you going to his side."

"And you know I'm not going to do that?"

"I know you won't...Because you know it's time for the Books to go."

He hesitated, then nodded.

"Good. Now, let's get him a proper welcome committee. I'm thinking gift baskets..."

#

Gift baskets, of course, turned out to be a euphemism. A euphemism, it turned out, for twenty 'basket' piles of pure firepower that were pointed at the wall of windows and the doors of the meeting room. The four of them hugged the ceiling, given sticky feet by the Book of Porn, while the weapons of the Book of Death had been primed to activate at the first sign of movement from any direction.

All around the ground, spread out from where they'd burst through the doors and windows, were mechanical remains of SysSols, either dead, dying, or shutdown. Jonah himself was bleeding from an injury on the far side of the room, the stag's leg cut open from a bullet wound that had shot straight through him. He glared up at them, but continued writing in his Book, healing himself.

"You think that this is going to stand?"

"I think that we're already standing, and you're not."

"Greydrone...one of these days..."

"Ah, no, today. Malcolm, if you would?"

The mouse hesitated, but only for a second before kicking off from the ceiling. He spun around as he hit the table, and then walked across the minefield of damaged bodies to the injured Jonah.

The stag looked up at him with pure hatred in his eyes, and pulled his Book back. Malcolm hesitated, knowing that he couldn't actually overpower his former superior, and slowly knelt down beside him instead. He winced as his knee dug into a piece of metal, and then shifted to sit down beside him.

Neither of them said a word. They just sat there, with Jonah healing himself and Malcolm trying to think of something he could say that would make this better. Much as he knew Greydrone was right, it was a purely logical rightness. Emotionally, it was much harder.

The Book of Porn was hard enough. Having that power to work the world, to alter it and make it better - or at least more fun - was something that he had never thought would be his. The more he used it, the more he wanted to use it, and unlike the other Books, the idea of porn coming into the world and sexualizing it more and more didn't seem that bad.

But the Book of Life...

He looked down at the blue Book in Jonah's hand, and winced to himself. That thing was the ultimate healing item. It could fix any injury, bring anyone back from the dead, and do things that were utterly unheard of in any sort of modern medicine. It was the lifegiver. It was only the knowledge that it, along with the other Books, could alter the world on its own that told him that it was time for it to go. Even if it altered the world in a different way, it was better than having a magical time bomb waiting to go off at any point.

Malcolm looked down at his own Book, and opened it. Jonah snorted.

"It won't affect me."

"I'm not writing in it."

He grabbed hold of the pages that he'd already written on - save for the one that had turned Taj into a Rakshasa - and pulled. The pages came ripping out in a loud bundle of messy shreds and scraps, and he threw it on the floor.

Both of the other Book holders gasped at what he had done, and he felt the Book shudder in his hands. It started to grow again, 'healing' itself from the damage that he had done to it, but he could feel that something had happened. The effects of what had been written in the Book of Porn were fading, and slipping away. He turned to the stag again.

"Do you think that you're doing good?"

"What are you talking about?"

It was something that Taj would ask, he thought, but a variation on something that he'd been thinking about, as well. Ever since he started using the Book of Porn in earnest, he had wondered about it. Was he a pervert, or was the Book making him one? Yes, the Book required him to be aroused when using it, but he hadn't been turned on by this stuff before. Was it the cause of his perversion so that it could feed off of it, or was it something that simply used what was already there? He continued.

"Do you think that you're doing good, or is the Book requiring good of you?"

"..."

"I've been wondering about it. You do so much with the Book of Life," he said, "but are you actually good?"

"Have you seen what I've done? I've made things better. I've saved thousands, millions of lives. There's not a member of System that hasn't felt their life become better because of me."

"That's what the Book has done, though. Do you do that because you want to do good...or because you're afraid of what happens if you don't?"

"I...you..."

"I'm just thinking about it, a bit of cause and effect. Do you cause good to happen because you are good, or do you act good because something else extorts it out of you?"

The stag's eyes went wide, and he turned away, looking down at the floor, at the Book of Life, anything but at him. The mouse didn't say anything else, but he did allow himself the slightest of smiles.

He has never felt right about it,_he realized. _He's never had the confidence to actually say that this is right, and only feels like it is because it's life, and Greydrone's been death. He's had an easy way out, that he's better than someone else...and now, he's not even sure if he is better than anyone.

He looked up at the ceiling again, noting the demon tapping his foot impatiently, and waved one hand gently, trying to calm him down. Taj was his usual calm self, and Rashii was just looking annoyed. The way she stood, he could tell that she had one gun waiting to be pulled, something she could use against Jonah if she needed, and he just hoped that she didn't decide to use it for the hell of it.

Seconds passed, then minutes. He looked over at Jonah again, saw that the stag was shaking, but didn't say anything else. If he did, this moment could be broken, and they could go right back to square one. He turned away, the mouse's tail twitching behind him as he waited.

It's all down to cause and effect, he thought. It was one of the biggest ways he'd done his own studies. Engineering was based off of how things reacted, how the different pieces fit together. Everything reacted to what was around it, the stresses and strains of the different pieces adding up to the function of the whole.

Jonah had led System in an iron fist because he didn't want to see himself as bad, and thus had to see everyone else as less, as something to be cared for and corrected. He held the Book of Life, and used it to do wonderful things, because he feared doing anything less. The Book demanded it, not himself.

And now, he faced it...and couldn't take it.

The Book of Life was pressed into his hands without a word, and Jonah stood up, walking slowly out of the room.

No sooner had the stag left than the other three dropped from the ceiling, walking over to him. Taj took the Book of Life, and opened it.

"I suppose I should write myself to life once more."

"Heh, might as well be you, big guy."

"I am not sure that it would be an improvement. My demon abilities have helped us greatly."

"And you're undead, and hurting."

"It is hard to feel the hurt."

"And that's why I'm worried."

Malcolm hesitated, then slowly flicked the pen of the Book of Life over to the Rakshasa. After a moment of hesitation, Taj started writing. It didn't take long for his statement to take shape.

A blue light filled the room, and a moment later, a shorter, less demonic tiger collapsed to the floor, hugging his gut.

"Soooooo hungry!"

He, Rashii, and even Greydrone collapsed laughing around the groaning tiger. He'd honestly forgotten just how long it had been since Taj had had any real food, but considering that his friend's last meal had been back at the hotel before they'd gone on the run, it was no wonder that he was starving.

When they had stopped laughing, Greydrone stood up and called for some servants.

"Get this tiger some food. Malcolm, come with me."

#

Greydrone's solution was...surprisingly unique. The lower rooms of the tower were spacious, and the one that the demon led him to was long and wide, with over three hundred feet to each side. It was a complete circle, with three different spheres paced a hundred feet apart. The demon led him to each, and they installed one book in each one. The Book of Life was left shut, while the Book of Porn and the Book of Death were left open, in the middle and on the right of the room respectively.

He stood in front of his Book, while Greydrone stood in front of his. The mouse looked over at the demon, then back at the book.

"Are you sure that this is going to work?"

"Your Book can rewrite reality. My Book can destroy it. As long as the third Book can't interfere, this should work."

"And why is the room so big?"

"Mostly so that any explosions use up all of their energy before they reach the outer limits of the room."

"I was afraid of that..."

"Alright. You start. Write something that'll keep the Books from affecting each other."

That was the test of it, he supposed. He had seen that the other two Books had certain limits on the way that they worked. They could only do something that could be qualified as healing or purifying, as destroying or sickening. But the Book of Porn...

You can do literally anything as long as I find it sexy, he thought. But the rule does say that the Books can't affect each other...doesn't it?

That was the hard part. It was the thing that they were testing. If it worked, then the Book of Death could eliminate all of them. If it didn't...

Well, he didn't want to think about what would happen, but it wouldn't go well, he was sure of that much.

Malcolm leaned over the book, and started writing.

The sexiest thing in the world right now would be to see the Book of Life be helpless, to be corrupted, so that all life can become perverted. No longer protected, no longer making things better, but just open, like a whore on her bed.

He wrote it out, and waited. He half-expected nothing to happen, to have the world just ignore what he'd done, and then go on with the rest of existence. If that had happened, he would have just shrugged, taken his Book, and left.

But it didn't.

A moment after writing the end of his sentence, the Book of Life suddenly started to illuminate itself. It glowed blue, and it seemed to be fighting off something from outside. Not red, but something...pink, sending tendrils into the blue light that were cut off before they could get inside. But each time that it stopped, others started, and he realized that the power of the Book was keeping the Book of Life occupied.

A deep hum filled the air, one that vibrated through his bones, and he groaned as he felt the world start to slide. He felt...strange, almost like he was being changed as the Books battled it out. He felt his libido rise and fall, and his health flick between the best day of his life and his illest moments. Several times, the mouse almost fell over, having to lean against the pedestal that held his Book in place.

Under the hum, he heard something else. He turned, looking over to the demon, and saw the six-armed Greydrone flicking his pen across the pages of his Book. The Book of Death started to glow as well, and suddenly, all three Books were surrounded by a thick, red glow.

The blue glow around the Book of Life changed, trying to defend itself, but the pervasive pink glow of the Book of Porn kept it busy. The Book of Porn itself offered no defense against the Book of Death, and from what he could see, Greydrone's Book was already destroying itself, ripping itself apart in the red flames of its own magic.

"Why is this working?!"

"Because you suspended the rules, and both of ours want to die."

He looked down at his Book, and wondered if that was the case. The Books were at least partially sentient, from what the others had said. If they were able to think, would the Book of Porn really want to die?

He touched it, and shook his head.

No, it doesn't...but it's not ready to fight to live, either.

Despite himself, he felt an odd sensation in his chest. Almost like he was saying goodbye to someone, like he was giving up something that mattered a lot more than he expected. It was...weird, but powerful, and he had to look away from the Book as his eyes watered.

The lights, blue, red, and pink, all glowed brighter and brighter over the next minute, and the sense of reality shifting continued to grow with it. He felt like things were warping around, like he was bigger, smaller, hornier, sexless, healthy, sick. It kept shifting, changing, and he was something else almost before he realized what he actually was.

Suddenly, the lights reached a blinding level of illumination, and the world...stretched.

Malcolm screamed and moaned and gasped and coughed all at the same time, reality changing. He was a mouse. He was a vixen. He was a corpse. He was an angel. He was a demon. The magic of the Books were rippling through the universe, tearing it apart, pulling it together, and changing it completely in the process. He saw different continents, different worlds, different...things, things that he had no name for, but which slid by him anyway.

And among them all were sheets of paper.

The sheets I ripped out...

On instinct, Malcolm reached for them as existence itself went mad, grabbing one of the pages. There was only an inch of space, and he knew what needed to happen. One of the last things that he could do with the Book of Porn, something that could shape the entire world and save it.

There was just one thing he could think to write, and he did.

Shameless Love.

And with that, the world went...pink.

#

When he opened his eyes again, the world had changed. The toothy tower of Greydrone was gone, replaced by something smooth and organic, rounded around him in a supple chamber of glass walls and transparent floors. He could see up to people that were walking around in a room above him, getting more upskirt views than he wanted to think about, but didn't see anyone that he knew.

When he looked down, he saw a piece of paper on the ground, and knelt down. As he unfolded it, he saw a familiar-looking script, and realized that Greydrone had left him a message.

Malcolm,

Looks like you changed the world, alright. I can feel that there's still a place for a demon like me, so I'm going to go find it, and make it my own. If you hear about a part of the world that was conquered by a lusty, multi-armed freak, you'll know who it is.

I'm not sure what you did during that moment of blankness. We could have all died there, but whatever you did brought the world back together. And changed it, too, in a big way. Heh. You'll see in a bit.

Your friends are waiting outside. Unharmed, of course. Never planned on hurting them that much, even with that dead thing.

Good luck,

Greydrone

"Heh..."

Malcolm shook his head, letting the paper fall to the floor. Looking towards the transparent doors on the far side of the chamber, he could just make out the silhouettes of Rashii and Taj on the other side. From what he could tell, they were rather too close together to just be waiting for him, and he chuckled.

Chuckled.

It surprised him. Normally, he would have been embarrassed, but it seemed that the last command had done more than just reshaped the world. There was no shame in the thought, and...he rather liked it.

"I wonder what the rest of the world is like."

He would soon find out, as he walked towards the door, and threw it open...

The End