gmod - The Editor tells a tale

"Ralph who?" Clive asked, cocking his head to the side.

"Ralph the Unwise." The strange man continued, raising his drink up to his mouth and sipping politely from the cup. "A man of unparalleled genius but prone to making..." He hesitated, leveling his gaze at the Australian. "...very bad decisions."

"Nope, still haven't heard of him." Clive muttered, looking at the mug in his hands. "What's this?"

"It's tea." The top-hatted man said calmly. "Or coffee. Whichever you prefer."

"So that means it's...?"

"Whatever you want it to be."

Clive cursed under his breath and took a sip of the liquid. One taste of it was enough to cause him to spit it out, glaring at both the mug and the man who had given it to him. "The hell is this?"

"What were you thinking when you took a sip?" The man offered.

"I was thinking this whole meet-up was bullshit."

The behatted man gave a knowing smirk. Not one second later Clive realised it himself.

"Anyway, yes, Ralph the Unwise." The demoman stood up, placing his cup on the table, which in turn rested on a floating bit of floor in the middle of space. Clive had to keep his eyes on the floor chunk as not to be overcome by vertigo. "Ralph was a very very very smart man, smarter than your 'Einstein', 'Planck' or 'Hawking'. Some might say smarter than those three combined, but we all know that's impossible."

The man turned to face the vertically-suspended second section of floor, which held a small couch, a coffee table and an old type of television which displayed nothing but static, though Clive felt as if it was more that that. "Ralph discovered how the universe worked. How everything moved and acted throughout it, how to alter time, space, gravity, you name it, he probably discovered it before most of your kind did recently.

"But did he share his profound knowledge?" The demo turned back to Clive, grinning cheerfully. "No, of course he didn't. He thought, quite unwisely, that his discoveries were secrets for him to keep, and he hid them down in his laboratory, never to be heard of again."

"Then what?" Clive asked, incredulously.

"Then... heh heh heh." The bizarre man chuckled, then gestured to the far wall. Clive spun around, and where he was before melted into a night-time country view, the moonlight illuminating the small wooden shack. A robed man walked out from it, carrying a bundle of items and strange, pronged devices which he promptly stuck into the ground. When he had finally finished setting everything up, the device looked like some sort of antenna crossed with a mortar. Clive turned to the demoman behind him, and the demo just pointed. "See for yourself."

The man stood back, flipping a switch on the device. It hummed and rattled as if it was going to tear itself apart. Orange and blue sparks of energy curled and danced around the small spires jutting out of the device's sides, and a bright light built up at the top of the device. The ear-splitting whining grew louder and louder, until it finally hit the crescendo and a blinding column of orange light shot up into the sky, piercing a cloud and continuing far beyond.

Clive stood, frozen, with his mouth agape. The demo walked up to him. "And this is when he changed everything."

"What did he do?"

"He discovered how to tap into different dimensions."

Clive spun his head around to face the demoman. "Different dimensions?"

"Indubitably." The demo pointed to the column. "That is travelling to the end of the universe, and will go beyond it, reaching another universe and creating a portal between the two."

"Eh?"

"You have heard of the Aperture Science Hand-held Portal Device, yes?"

Clive shook his head.

"Do search it up later, it's important." The demo looked up. "Of course, it took a thousand years before it reaches any sort of dimension, but when it did, everything changed."

"Wait." Clive spun around. "When it did?"

"Yes."

"You mean it's already happened?"

"Seventeenth of August, 1945, at about..." The man looked at a watch Clive swore he didn't have before. "Eight forty-two PM."

"It happened before I was born?"

"Before many of you were born. Happened right here, too. Of course, without the original device present the reaction was uncontained."

Clive was about to question that, too, when he turned around and saw a mass of burning torches and sharp implements rushing towards them. "Maybe we should move?"

"Pay them no heed, they're only here to inadvertedly destroy the island."

"What?!" Clive turn to Ralph, who turned his hood-shrouded head to the mob of panicked, frightened and ill-tempered peasants rushing towards him. He slipped off his hood, letting his long reddy-brown hair out. Clive took a double take and, for some reason, the man looked a lot like...

"Kaiser?"

"Yes, the resemblance is quite astounding. I'll explain that later, but for now... I suggest you stand back."

Clive reluctantly followed through, and watched as the peasants charged into the Unwise man, knocking him to the ground. The device was not left unattended, and several large pitchforks made short work of it. Ralph managed to pick himself up and, arm extended and in a voice unnaturally like Kaiser's, screamed lamentations about his device, not long after he was dragged off by the mob, most likely to be primitively burned at the stake. Clive just watched in horror, and the ruined device made a low rumbling noise combined with that same whine, both growing in intensity. The sniper took several steps away from it, before the device finally glowed white and sent a flash of light covering everything.

Clive shielded his eyes, feeling the intense light behind his arms and eyelids. Then everything went quiet, and the light vanished. Clive moved his arms down, and opened one eye. He saw, from a distance, a burnt and blackened island slowly collapse into a boiling sea, soon enough being covered up by the ocean. "Woah."

"Yes, and that's why you shouldn't hold onto valuable knowledge."

Clive turned around to see the demoman once again sitting at the table, taking another sip of his drink. Clive turned and sat back on the chair. "So, what dimension did he find?"

"Dimension number two-two-three-dash-zero-nine."

"And that is?"

The Demoman chuckled, shaking his head. "Read a history book, Clive." He once again stood up. "Oh, and I know you're going to want to ask me why I showed you that, and the reason is because I could." He turned his head back to him. "I will be giving each of you a selection of the story. You will need it to stop what's coming."

Clive rolled his eyes. "Right, and why should trust the bloke who kidnapped me to show me an island getting blown up?"

"Because I know what's going to happen." The man smiled, taking another sip of his drink and putting the mug on the table again. "And trust me, I know it's not entirely pleasant for ponies or humans." He pointed to a doorway that has simply appeared without warning or sound behind Clive. "I shouldn't keep you from your job any longer. Do have fun, and try not to let the worlds get destroyed, eh?" And with a smile, he took another door, shutting it behind him as the door faded into nothingness.

Clive slowly turned back to the door, groaned and pushed it open. It lead to a corridor with a rather curious-looking picture across the other end. Clive cautiously took a few steps forward, squinting to look at it. It turned out to be just like any other stupid image, with a Ghastly Gibus-wearing Heavy giving the viewer a thumbs up. Clive sighed, turned around back to the door and promptly fell down a hole that wasn't supposed to be there.

---

An interesting character I'm formulating. I think this story kind of summarises him well enough.

Enjoy.

The Editor and Clive (c) Me
Image (c) Me