Demonicuss turned to look at the NEB files one last time before he closed up. He read and reread every story he could find, but he could find no evidence of any tampering by DeMonStar.

“Found nothing, huh?” OzBat asked the weary writer/skeptical Cult member.

“Nope. I guess DeMonStar didn’t mess around with the NEB.” Still, after hearing that FlameStar accidentally deleted DeMonStar instead of Jerry Stanford (Flamey’s excuse: “When I see a big red monster, I don't ask questions, I shoot it. It’s a reflex.”), Demonicuss wondered if the fictional character decided to create a way to get back to the CBR.

“Where are you heading now?”

“Over to the hospital to give FlameStar my get well card and book. You think she’d dig Elric?”

“Think so.”

“Take it easy, OzBat.”

“Sure. Quit swearing on the NEB!” OzBat said with a grin.

Demonicuss chuckled as they left the NEB.

_*_

Now, if you were to read all the stories in the NEB all at once, you would get rather tired. You wouldn’t have found any signs of tampering by a fictional character. But, if you were a skilled hacker and broke into the kernel of the NEB master computers, and if you were sharp-eyed enough, you would have found a small little text file called “The Beginning.txt.” If you were to read it, it would start like this..

Of Loopholes and Ways Back - DeMonStar 3/10/01 22:16

As DeMonStar sat at the computer, he knew in order for his test to work, in order to see if he could affect his world by writing, he would have to make sure that his ‘contribution’ wouldn’t be spotted. After hacking into the NEB database, he believed that he found a safe place to put his post. And so, he started to write..

_*_

BrimStar
Another place, another time…

The medical droid found it strange when his creator and master, DeMonStar, suddenly materialized in his hall. “Lord DeMonStar, are you al right?”

“I don’t know.” DeMonStar replied. “I can’t remember what happened after the whelp Z-Mage sent us to Limbo. What has occurred with Khazan and War World?”

“Z-Mage? Khazan? War World? I do not know of these names.”

“What! We were orbiting Khazan! We analyzed War World and located that bastard brat Z-Mage! Look at Khazan over…there?” DeMonStar froze as what was supposed to be Khazan was empty as the rest of space.

“What happened? Where is Khazan? Where are we? Why is it that I know of the events that have occurred but my computers don’t?”

DeMonStar checked his WristCom for answers. Perhaps that would still have data of the Panic in the Sky. “WristCom, identify Z-Mage.”

“Z-Mage: Identified. Subject is young male possessing arcane and magical powers deviating from..”

“Never mind. WristCom, transfer data into main computer banks.”

“Affirmative.”

As DeMonStar read through the events, he felt a nagging in his mind, that he was missing something, something important. He had no idea what had transpired after he was sent to Limbo and fought with Z-Mage. As he read through the data files, he found a small data file labeled “Read Now-Urgent” He started to study the file, and found himself unable to speak as the memories reemerged as he read of what happened. He remembered that after he and the whelp fought, they were somehow sent to another dimension, to a place called the CBR. He found that in this place, they were as fictions given flesh, and he remembered Demonicuss, the young man who created him. He recalled that there was the possibility that if he killed Demonicuss, he could become omnipotent, and remembered that he obtained some trace genetic material from Demonicuss. He would have to study them soon. He knew of the various groups of people who inhabited the CBR, of the conspiracy of Jack Tango, of thinking that whoever poisoned him was responsible for bringing him here. He remembered his alliance with the denizens of CBR to stop the guilty parties, and he remembered Jerry Stanford, the one responsible for everything, of bringing him here in order to obtain revenge and destroy the NEB for his own perverse satisfaction.

As the memories came back, he remembered the theory that if everyone on the CBR could write worlds, perhaps he himself could write and affect his reality. He remembered what he wrote, and went off to check his computer files. Sure enough, they were there, the data that he had written about. The ways to complete the experiments he was currently conducting, narrowing the location of his birthright, the Moon Star of Limbo. He also found a way to reenter the CBR universe. He smiled to himself. He could study and analyze the CBR at his leisure, and return if he found the truth about Demonicuss, or if anything else of interest occurred.

He decided to send a small number of dataprobes to CBR to report data back to him. He wished to know what happened after he was blasted back to his world, to know the fates of those he met, Demonicuss in particular. He had to admit, he respected the man. He decided that, if he found that the way to omnipotence was through Demonicuss’s death, he would fight him, creator to creation. May fate alone decide who would become victorious.

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