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Bella goes to Mercury to do her forking.
She decides - since she can order up a custom fork at all - that her fork might as well have a copy of all her memories since she found Soph. To understand, to know what she's doing in the world, to not instantly want to punch Juliet in the nose for mishandling Soph in some way. To know what day it is, if nothing else.
Wish.
And then there are two.
And the new one cocks her head, and says, "Don't worry, we can merge - well, I will, anyway, who knows if the crystal ball was lying - but first why don't we surprise Sherlock?"
And the not-new one smiles, and says, "Why not?"
And at precisely the same time, they teleport, wearing matching smiles.
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[...Keep her sleeping for now. I'll ask Sherlock. Circumstances may have relevantly changed; we might be back to pick her up. I do need the guy my present killed, though. Are you still of the opinion that if Jane were dead, she'd turn up here in a way you'd notice?]
ending-of
[Yes. If Jane dies, she will become available to me. It might not be immediate, but it will happen.]
The image of Steph disappears.
[The man you speak of is in the catacombs. Should I deliver him to you?]
The image of Steph disappears.
[The man you speak of is in the catacombs. Should I deliver him to you?]
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[I wonder if it wouldn't keep Jane from glitching so dang much if she were, in fact, deceased... And yes please.]
ending-of
Ben appears in front of Juliet, floating upright and asleep the way people do in the catacombs.
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Bella decides to take him home so she can explain what's going on in familiar surroundings. [Thanks.] She tows Ben back through the door, and then back into Jarvis, and then checks his home, wherever that may be, for supervision.
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"It's okay, you're okay, Glory's gone," says Bella. "I'm really sorry about that, I tried to appear you out of the way but you were stuck on but good."
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"She's gone, you're okay," repeats Bella, "I went and got you, I apologize for the unpleasantness, I can owe you three wishes if that'd make you feel better."
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"Okay," shrugs Bella, "bye," and she pops into place on Mercury to start working on her palace.
She leaves a standard pamphlet about how to be technically dead a la Downside on his pillow for him to find later.
An hour after she accidentally inherited the minions, she pops into Glory's house.
She leaves a standard pamphlet about how to be technically dead a la Downside on his pillow for him to find later.
An hour after she accidentally inherited the minions, she pops into Glory's house.
The minions are all collected up in the living room with a neat stack of luggage. Several of them are eating chips out of a large bowl on the coffee table, one has a cup of orange juice, and one is reading a book - I Had Trouble In Getting To Solla Sollew, by Dr. Seuss.
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"Okay." Bella teleports them all to the new Mercury palace, which is tall and made of assorted pretty rocks she has encountered in demon dimensions. The flora she's put in is also mostly demonic - although all magicked nice and nontoxic - although there are some roses, some wisteria, and one variety of tree that she completely made up. She's made the gardens a bit more extensive than planned to give all the demons things to do, with paths winding between and spiraling loosely through little ecosystem-neighborhoods. "Welcome to Mercury. Do you have that list I wanted?"
"Yes, your majesty," says one of the two she was speaking with before. He hurries forward with the list. It is long, and in fairly terrible handwriting, but neatly organized and fairly complete - including necessities for survival (food and water), comforts and luxuries (shelter, books, candy - M&Ms get a special mention), and long-term requirements (visits from Bella at least once yearly; clear feedback on whether or not they are being good minions).
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"Okay," says Bella. "I don't have a good impression of how your social structures interact with housing, or for that matter what they are at all; how many dwellings do you collectively want of what sizes?"
The youngest minion - if she were a human, she might be about sixteen - says wistfully, "It might be nice if we all had our own rooms."
"If that's all right, your majesty," adds the one who gave her the list. "One building, with enough rooms for all of us? And maybe... for a few more, in due time?"
"If that's all right, your majesty," adds the one who gave her the list. "One building, with enough rooms for all of us? And maybe... for a few more, in due time?"
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"Sure," says Bella, and she speeds up and designs a dormitory-style building with twenty-five bedrooms on two floors, and a common space with a TV and some computers and a kitchen and a replicator, and a library in the basement with copies of the entire current contents of the Los Angeles County public library system (absent duplicates). The whole thing's a pentagon; she puts it at the edge of the gardens, perpendicular to the main line of the palace. "There you go. I'm gonna put you all on my telepathy network so you can let me know if something comes up; it'll let you talk to each other too -" [like so.]
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"No problem. So, the plants -" She gestures at the plants. "The red-bordered sections get watered once a week, the blue-bordered ones twice a week, the white-bordered ones every day, I hid a little garden shed with tools in that enormous white-leafed tree over there, the replicator in your dorm will make plant food as well as stuff for you guys, I don't really expect a weed problem because there weren't exactly any seeds on this planet when I conjured the garden up but some stuff might turn invasive I guess, feel free to mess with the locations and shapes of stuff or expand things past the current area if you take viable cuttings or stuff goes to seed, none of this will kill you if you eat it but I can't promise it'll taste any good because none of it's from your dimension and most of it isn't Earthly either so maybe don't try it."
The minions all nod on hearing this set of instructions, and someone gets out a pen and paper to write it all down.