Archive of Our Own ^beta

Cliff flung beads to the other side of the abacus. Sitting on the floor, doing math with an abacus with a computer for a brain, Christ. He shot a look over at Jane on the floor below him, she was frozen in place over a partly disarmed bomb. The wires spat out sparks, threatening to burn her.

"Jesus Jane, one of you has to be able to figure this out!"

She shot a spiteful look up at him and went back to the wires. Above them, at the top of the ramshackle tower, Mr. Nobody monologued. Cliff was tuning it out, If he didn't solve this math problem with only an abacus *that* barrel of puppies would fall into *that* aquarium of piranhas which would cause the whole tower to destabilize and collapse on top of them. It would also destroy the house the tower was attached to, which was owned by a down on their luck art student who really didn't need the stress. Cliff clacked another bead on the abacus and scribbled some numbers. Jesus Christ, what was the remainder theorem again?

He looked at the rickety catwalk above him, where Rebis *should* have been manning the Dance Dance Revolution machine.

"REBIS!" He shouted, mechanical voice echoing through the rickety tower.

Rebis looked down at him, from about fifty feet up, Mr.Nobody soon followed.
"Hello Cliff."
"Hiiii Robot-Man!" Mr Nobody said, in a way that made Cliff remind himself he wasn't homophobic.
"What are you *Doing* up there!" He shouted back.
"Mr.Nobody was just showing me some of his fascinating collection of magical objects." Rebis said
"I-We- Were fighting him for Christssake!"
"I know we are.” Said Rebis, “I'll get back to that soon." Rebis retreated back to the catwalk to talk to Nobody. End of conversation.
"Rebis? Rebis? REBIS!" Cliff threw his abacus to the ground, beads clattering down the levels of the tower. He stood up,
"Rebis, I'm comin' up there!" He started trudging up stairs, The puppies could fuck themselves.
Mr.Nobody leaned over the banister of the top floor again
"Cliff! What about the puppy-piranha trap! You don't want the puppies to die, do you?"
"The puppies can screw themselves!" Cliff hollered.
"Well, what about Gene? He just got out of art school and-"
"Gene can screw himself too!"

Mr.Nobody leaned back and looked to Rebis, "Is he always so..." Nobody searched for the words "Unfun?"
Rebis shook hir head, "No. He can be old fashioned, sure. He just doesn't like you."
"Oh, boo-hoo! I'm great!" Mr Nobody collapsed onto a cursed fainting couch. He looked to Rebis, waiting for them to provide a conclusion, an, 'Oh, you're great Mr.Nobody!'.
Rebis did not pick up on any of these queues. The top floor of Mister Nobodys' Tower of Art (trademark pending) was a collection of mystic items, leaking incredible power. Rebis picked one up, an iridescent crystal. They gently overturned it in their hand, sensing the vast power it contained.
"What does this do?"
"Oh, that?" Mr.Nobody Scrambled up from his couch to inspect the gemstone. He plucked it from Rebis's hands, "Oh! There isn't much documentation on this. I think it came from a large gemstone, shattering unleashes its powers, though they vary wildly from case to case! One instance a man in Peru met a woman on the exact opposite side of the world as himself, in another a woman re-lived her entire life with her prior knowledge, pretty interesting, no?"

"No, It isn't!" The two of them turned to Cliff, who had just finished climbing fifteen flights of stairs. "Why are you like this!"
"Oh, well," Mr.Nobody was well and truly flattered "I was left alone in a roo-"
"Not you! Him!" Cliff pointed to Rebis "Why are you up here? Why are you talking Nobody!"
Cliff Stepped closer to them, shoving Mr.Nobody out of the way. "Good God, Larry! Why weren't you helping me!"
"Cliff I-"
Mr.Nobody grabbed frantically over the banister.
"Don't even!-you son of a-”

And then Cliff woke up.