Okay, what chicanery, SyFy channel D-grade movie bullshit is fate throwing at me now from her trusty binder of "Fucking Ayden's day" up? I thought we were doing Fantasy this season, not middle-grade Light Novel edge.

Am I being punked? Is Aston Kutcher going to step out of a bush and point a camera at me? Do kids these days even know that reference?

"You know, The Committee of Dens sounds like the world's self-masturbatory Model United Nations club," I tell Farfallah/Lee/Fortuna, as Aiden wraps his arm around her.

"You're so lively and witty. That's what I like about you, Ayden," says Aiden. He tries to cop a feel of Fortuna's "divine chest of wonders," but he gets swatted away pretty easily. "I'm sure you have many questions."

"And I'm sure you will monologue interminably even if I don't ask, so do us both a favor and stop with the foreplay, lover-boy, 'cuz I'm getting drier by the second."

Aiden gives me a wry smile, followed by laughter from all the other bad boys around us. "Very well, the condensed version it is. Babe? Care to help us?"

The goddess rolls her eyes, but moves her hand in a circular motion. The ice wall changes to an image of a short-haired Aiden, still colored blue, but wearing a leather jacket, leather pants, and a smug grin. "See, my friend. I was once like you. A bad boy wanting to get on with my life, graduate, and become a ghost-writter for middle-aged romance writers on Fiverr. You know, a job without much drama."

The image cuts to the hallway of a school. A school I've been in for the last few months. A hallway I know all too well, from the rusting lockers, to the stained walls, to the water fountain holding every pathogen known to man from decades of pubescent spittle. There's no denying it: It's Hill Valley Mountain Woods High.

And at the end of the hallway is a man, smiling broadly, with pearly-white teeth, short hair, and holding a thermos. The man I love, Hayden.

"Wait, wha-"

"Shhh, don't interrupt daddy," says Aiden. "You see, I, like you, also feel for the charms of one Hayden Wilson. And our love burned red like a flame."

The pair go outside, holding hands, getting into a red convertible. "He was a beautiful man, with beautiful dreams. Dreams we were going to achieve together. We would graduate and move to Belize. There, he would pursuit his love for food, and revolutionize the culinary world with his recipes!"

As the car drives by an intersection, a school bus loses control, smashing against the car. The car flips in the air like a bad Sonic game(They are all bad, and if you insist otherwise, that an L, you furry freak) and crashes against a lamp-post. Aiden crawls out of the wreckage. Hayden does not.

"In the blink of an eye, our dreams, and Hayden's life, was snuffed," says Aiden, wiping a tear from him dumb whore face. "And I cursed. I cursed at the world. I cursed at the universe. I cursed at God. I cursed at fate itself. And you know, when a bad boy, a being of such unimaginable cosmic weight that can challenge destiny itself, curses at a god, the god listens. That's when you come in, right, babe?"

Despite Aiden's continual poke at her cheeks, Fortuna doesn't look neary an ounce more annoyed than her usual self. A godly feat, given how annoying Aiden is. "He wanted to rant, so, I listened, and made him a proposal he could not refuse."

The ice-wall crumbles before me, and instead, a book appears from the water. A book of shining letters and red seals, surrounded by concentric circles of a soft golden light. I dunno what that is, but it screams important. Fortuna shakes the man off and approaches the book, grabbing it with sublime reverence. "See, I'm the goddess of fate, of what was, what is, and what will be, but I can't meddle in the affairs of humans, nor can I change the destiny of anybody. I'm merely the glue that holds reality together. You can see me as an old book you put under that wobbly table to make it stable."

She opens the book, and a blinding light overtakes the empty sky. I find myself floating in space, as the stars, the sun, the moon, and the Earth spin around at an accelerated time. I can see cities and towns being built up at double time, only to crash back down, burn down by time and plagues and wars. I see civilizations rise and fall. Empires ebbing away. Brother killing brother. The end and the beginning.

"Humans are interesting creatures," says Fortuna. "But predictable and boring. Time is a flat circle that repeats over and over again. Eventually, I found myself wanting to intervene, to play 'what if' scenarios, to involve myself in a plot I've never been a part of, and have only been a passive observer of. But you know who can defy the power of fate and twist it to their likings?"

It's a rhetorical question. We all know the answer: Bad boys.

"So, we reached a deal," says Aiden. "I agree to give her my essence, my time, and my soul so she can use me as a peon when she sees fit, if only she would help me save Hayden."

The goddess closes the book, and just as the stars and planets unfurled in front of me, so too they disappear.

"A tit-for-tat. She agrees, and off we were. Of course, it was too late for my Hayden to be saved. But another Hayden? Well, that was more possible."

The confusion in my face must be palpable, for they all laugh at me. I mean, all of them.

"See, son of Adam," says the goddess, thumbing the book around, "is that, when you are the one holding a table in place, you can make the whole thing fall apart. And so I did. I flipped reality's table, and reset time itself."

The book in her hand starts burning up, but she quickly blows it away. "Well, more like, 'burnt it down,' but you get it."

"And so," says Aiden, "we redid everything, this time, using me to change the fate of the next Aiden, and the next Hayden. Let's see how that went down."

The ice wall forms again, and the fuzzy images inside return. This time, it shows a young Aiden once again, but this time, he has red hair. The same scene plays as before, but just as Haiden and the new Aiden get in the car, the first Aiden steps in front of them, disguised with a baseball cap, of course, preventing them from driving off for just a few seconds. Enough to make them miss the rampaging bus.

"It was a success! We changed fate," says Aiden. "For about three minutes."

Cut to the car driving through the suburbs near my house. Hayden is going at full speed. A ball bounces towards the street, followed by a child. Hayden swerves off the road, and into a house. Dead on impact. Other Aiden, however, survives.

"Seems it would take a little more than a little meddling to fend off the clutches of fate," says Aiden. "So, what do we do now? We run it again, but not before hearing the pleas of my dying other-self. Why don't you take it away, Aiiden?"

A boy dressed and acting just like Aiden, but with long, red hair steps from the crowd, looking equally as hot and punchable. "Hey, I'm Aiiden. My Hayden died in a car accident, and I cursed fate. Fortuna heard my cry, and offered me the same deal as Aiden. Three heads can think better than one, right? So, I joined them, and we started yet another timeline. Aiiiden?"

Yet another boy looking like Aiden, but with yellow hair, steps forwards. "Sup? My name is Aiiiden, and my Hayden died from choking on a chicken bone. Aivden?"

A boy with a short blue bob cut steps forwards. He has nice leather boots. "Hello! My name is Aivden, and my Hayden died eating a sharp-edged samosa. Avden?"

Of course, a boy with a yellow bob-cut steps forwards, but he's interrupted by Aiden. "You get the point. Avden's Hayden died of a football injury. Aviden's Hayden of carbon monoxide poison. Aviiden's from another car accident, and so forth."

"The point is," says the goddess and flashy images of different Aidens and Haydens getting into progressively gruesome and wacky deaths play in the ice-wall, "is that, at some point, we realized that the problem did not lie in trying to prevent Hayden's death by changing something small, but something big. In the end, we all reached an agreement: if Aidens can't be with Hayden without him being killed or maimed, they will be without him. It would be best if Aidens were not in the picture at all."

Aiden gives his comrades a low bow, which they return. "And so, we had a new objective: Keep Aidens away from Hayden, at all cost."

An Aiden dressed as a pirate with a fucking eyepatch and all steps forwards. "Y'arr! If it t'was only that easy, matey! Changing even a wee bit o' the ol' past sends Hayden down Davy Jones locker! We have to be careful navigating the waters of time, or you can end up as a scallywag like me!"

"Just as Alviiden says," says Aiden, "we have to be careful about what we change or not change. The universe really wants us to be together, and trying to go against it is proven to be nearly impossible. Nearly. That's when you come in, Ayden, the one-hundred-and-fiftieth iteration, denominated by roman numeral 'Y,' are the one Aiden who has managed to keep Hayden alive the longest. Not for long, though. But we are so close. So close to achieving our dream. We made you two break up. Now, if we can replicate it, but earlier, it would be an incredible breakthrough!"

"Could've used one of you a couple loops behind," says a barely-recognizable Aiden, head to toes full of hair and leathery-bat wings. Oh no, he's a furry!

"Hush, Anden," says Aiden. "No time for your furry pessimism."

"I'm a vampire, not a furry!"

"Same difference," says Aiden. "So, what do you say, Ayden, my brother, my other me, the 150th Aiden to step into this holy land, will you join me and your other selves to save Hayden?"

Okay, I've heard enough nonsense now. If this is what life will throw at me, then, like all my life, I'll have to throw it back.

"Let me get this straight," I say, finally speaking after hearing all this bullshit. "You're trying to say that my whole life has been controlled by a cabal of incarnations of my previous life that made a deal with the personification of fate to sell their bad boy essences to her so she can canonize her human fanfic in exchange for her help trying to break me and my boyfriend up? Did I get all that?"

Aiden chortles loudly, making the gaggle of clones behind him laugh as well. "Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous. But we all love Hayden. Hayden understands us. Loves us. He makes us whole. But being with us is toxic for him. We all bowed to make him achieve his dreams and be happy. And we are so close to doing so. Another loop and maybe, just maybe, we might pull this off."

"You all talk as if my Hayden is already dead!"

Ah, that shut them off. That small caveat in their whole arrangement here. "He's still alive, in his truck, going to Brayden's house as we speak. He's not dead or maimed yet."

"But he will be, Son of Adam," says the Goddess. "I showed you-"

"You showed me what can happen," I say, interrupting her. "But you said it yourself. I'm a bad boy. I can defy fate. And I will choose to defy fate. So, shove your circle jerk club of misery up your ass until it comes out your nose and leave me alone. I'm the only one in charge of my destiny, not you, bozos!"

There's a beat of silence, of staring at me like a madman, before the laughing resumes. This is really rustling my jimmies. I like my jimmies unrustled. "What's so funny? Wanna lemme in on the joke, slick?"

Aiden tries to grab me by the shoulders, but I'm sick of that as well, and slaps his hand away. "Oh, my brother. It's not a joke. You just remind us of the one before you. The only Aiden to ever reject the call of the Committee of Dens. Fortuna, dear, why don't you show him?"

Fortuna doesn't invoke a book, or an ice-wall, or anything. She simply grabs the bottle of unknown contents, uncorks it, and dumps the liquid into the vast ocean under us.

"Let me tell you the tale of Ayden the Jackass, the one who was supposed to be the 150th iteration. You might also know him as... Jayden."