"Our current issue is this: The Chathurian, due to its nature as a being of Source, cannot be stopped by known Caretaker technology. Thus, I propose that we block the entrance with a dimensional manifold - a fictive event cycle, populated with specifically chosen multiversal denizens to create a non-Source blockage!" Thirty Three said, gesturing with one of her infinite arms at the glowing collection of glyphs and symbols that she was projecting against the wall. "We pick them from the fictive edge of things, and it'll be quite secure! If you look at the files I've handed out, you can see the selection I've chosen..."
"Hurm." A long slow sigh came from the darkness. "Miss Celestine Nexus Thirty Three...are you aware that the copyright holders of these particular characters have, at this point, filed an injection against the multiverse?"
"Um..."
"Are you also aware that, currently, the Source Caretakers owe the Warner Brothers' Pictures and, through them, the WarnerMedia conglomerate, an astounding seventy six billion dollars in transversal damages, to be paid to Earth-Prime as soon as the end of the year?" The voice was getting angrier now. "We, who have existed since the dawn of time, are now paying royalties to a trumped up inner plane bunch of primate semi-evolved apes, over a copyright dispute of a fictive human being that already existed in the outward spiral!"
"B-But-"
"And you want us to further this shame by drawing the ire of...of the Walt Disney Corporation? Hasbro? Fucking CBS!?" Two palms slammed down from the darkness to the desk, jarring the crystalline projector that displayed the plan to contain the Chathurian. "Do you think that the Source Caretakers are made of money?"
"No, but the Chathurian, it'll destroy the...the everything! The multiverse is at stake, Mr-"
"Find another way, Thirty Three!"
Miss Celestine Nexus Thirty Three yelped as her boss, the Source Caretaker Abraxiaus, practically threw her out of his meeting room with her tail between her legs. In the dizzying torus that was the Source of the Multiverse, she looked out at the massive gridwork of spars and branches and threads that interwove with shimmering perfection that was the Source itself. Throbbing. Pulsing. A beautiful gemstone of pure light and ultimate darkness, intermixing and forming into all the endless potentiality of the multiverse. From it threaded out streamers of light that, in turn, each ended at a sparking light in the grayish sky beyond the inner edge of the Source Wall.
Those points were each a universe.
Thirty Three knew so many by name, and yet, knew she experienced but a fraction of them. Even a transdimensional being had limitations. But she could imagine every cherished place - every weird backward universe where life never formed or where the clouds tasted like candy - being crushed one by one by the Chathurian.
All if she didn't stop it.
Then the idea hit her.
She hurried to her office, where her secretary, Sparky
Sparky
was hurriedly filling out his will.
"Sparky to the Power of Sparky!" Thirty Three exclaimed. Sparky and his infinite recursive echo-selves, visible as a perpetually receding lines of Sparkies, all startled at once, their yelp echoing over one another. "What are you doing!?"
"F-Filling...the...we're all going to d-"
"We're not going to die! Get me the file on Universe...uh...998-118-11-11-11-11-22..." She rattled off the number as Sparky
Sparky
sprang to his feet and started to search. After six or so minutes, she wrapped with: "Zipper Tango Urilla Klendathu."
"Got it!" Sparky
Sparky
said, holding up the file. Thirty Three snagged it, opened it, and yanked out the file on a person from this universe. A bright eyed, scowling fusion of human and cat, with blue and yellow eyes glared out from the shimmering mass of light that was her file. She was dressed in a red tunic, tattered red pants, and did not wear shoes. Her hair was a wild mane of brown hair, poofing around her head like she was a transgendered lioness.
"Why are we looking up Cat-" Sparky
Sparky
asked, before Thirty Three slapped one of her infinite arms over all of his infinite mouths.
"SHHHH!" Thirty Three hissed. She set the file down, took out a pen, then scribbled out the name, before writing in Kittenra. She nodded, slowly, then capped the pen with a fiendish grin. "Yes. That might work."
"You have to be kidding," Sparky
Sparky
whispered.
"If this plan works, they can't sue us. And if the plan fails, they won't be around to sue us!" Thirty Three said, grinning excitedly. "Win win!"
Sparky
Sparky
gulped. "How are you going to swing this past the Caretakers?"
Thirty Three looked down at the chart. "...I'm not," she whispered. "Find me someone from Earth-Prime that can be used for the core of this."
Sparky
Sparky
looked nervous, but slowly, he nodded. "Okay." He sighed. "One truck coming right up. Should we get another Japanese kid?"
"Nah, they're oversaturated," Thirty Three said, already taking out more files and hastily rewriting names.
"Who should I nab then?" Sparky
Sparky
sounded unsure.
"I dunno, roll a die!" Thirty Three said, then muttered. "Supergirl can be...Super...Lady! There! Perfect."
Sparky
Sparky
sighed. "We're going to get sued," he said, then turned to his computer, and started to scroll through Prime-Earth's many potential targets - and cycled through variegated causes of death.
And in the center of the Source, like a tiny knot of cancer, the eye of the Chathurian opened.
Eager for its sport.
***
"WHAAA!?"
Blankets slipped aside and Aiden jerked up, out of bed, and onto the floor with a