(I uploaded this story earlier under a slightly different name, but it got screwed up in the process so I took it down. Here it is again.)

"No, No! Please stop! Please stop!" Mary cried.

Despite her pleading, the pair of humans paid no heed and showed no mercy. With the cold, deliberate nature of a psychopath, Garry flicked on his lighter and set the painting alight.

Immediately Mary's body erupted in flames. Screaming in pain, she frantically tried to bat them out with her hands, but within a few seconds the fire engulfed her completely. Mary fell to her knees and collapsed onto the ground, writhing back and forth in agony as the flames blackened her clothes and charred her skin. And yet no less unbearable than the searing physical pain was the emotional pain, her feelings of anger and despair. Tears streamed from her eyes only to sizzle and evaporate amidst the heat.

None of this seemed fair to Mary. Is this what she gets for wanting friends? Is this what she deserves for seeking a better life? Struggling to look up, she saw Ib and Garry simply standing there, watching passively. She could accept Garry's inaction, but Ib's complacency in Mary's imminent demise devastated her in a way not even the flames could. Ib – Ib was supposed to be her friend! Ib was supposed to be her sister! How – how could she abandon her to die like this?! How could she betray her like this?!

By this point, Mary was literally disintegrating. She could feel her body falling apart and crumbling to ash. Her struggling grew weaker and her cries of pain feebler and feebler. Oblivion began to beckon. Feeling the life fading from her fabricated heart, Mary took one last moment to look Ib straight in the eye. Even as the tears and flames blurred her vision, her piercing glare seemed to cut straight to the little girl's soul.

Her last sight was of Ib wincing slightly. And then all was dark.

"Mary."

"Mary."

She slowly opened her eyes. Where – where was she? She could tell by the color of the ceiling that she wasn't in her room, and at the same time she knew in her gut that she was still in the Fabricated World – this much she could tell. Beyond this, she was completely disoriented… Yet even as she struggle to regain her bearings, she sensed the presence of someone close to her. Not one of the humans who betrayed her. Someone dear to her, someone she loved even if at times she also feared.

"Father?" she asked. She surveyed her person. No burn marks, no smoldering edges – all was like before the fire. She then sat up and looked around. She seemed to be in a small art studio of some sort, not unlike the one she was first born in. Paint brushes and buckets of paint cluttered the disorganized room's floors and shelves. Meanwhile, a floating paintbrush was putting the final touches on a new portrait of her. It was almost like her old picture… except something about it seemed almost imperceptibly darker. She couldn't put her finger on it, though.

"I have recreated you," Father's disembodied voice stated. "I wanted you to know what they did. I wanted you to reflect on everything that occurred, on why all of this happened."

Rolling her eyes, Mary muttered under her breath, "All I wanted was to go to the outside world and have friends and not be lonely…"

There was no reply, but she immediately sensed the stern disapproval in the air around her. Father was not amused. "I'm sorry," she whimpered.

"When I first gave you life," Father resumed, "I imparted to you the warmth that still remained in me. You embodied what little goodwill I still held towards humanity and its society."

Mary quietly noted to herself that Ib would not have understood half of what Father was saying and would have been completely lost.

"Soon after I created you" he continued, "you begged to see the real world. You yearned for the company of human friends. You pleaded again and again for me to give the world a second chance. And I relented. I agreed to give the world a second chance. I agreed to let you reenter their society, to be the embodiment of my reconciliation with them. All I asked for in return from them was for someone to take your place. A token of acknowledgement for their past wrongs. It would only be fair that way. I sent over from the real art gallery two of their most promising individuals, so that they could prove themselves worthy and bring you over to their world – one as your escort, the other as the sacrificial lamb. And what did they do?"

Mary's voice choked. For a moment she couldn't get any words out of her mouth as her eyes grew watery. Finally she managed to stammer, "They… they killed me," as she fought back tears.

"Yes. After they desecrated my artwork and insulted my name, the escort abandoned you, and the lamb burned you alive."

Mary could no longer hold back. It was too painful to think about. She began to quietly cry.

There was a pause, and then Father asked, "Were they ever truly your friends?"

"No," Mary whimpered as tears rolled down her face.

"Correct. They were never your friends." Father's tone suddenly changed. "Neither of them!" he roared at her. "Their world's notion of friendship is utterly meaningless! They rejected you as a monster! They hated you! Even the little girl hated you as soon as she learned that you weren't one of their kind!"

By this point Mary was sobbing uncontrollably as Father berated her. Had Ib really hated her because she wasn't "real"? Did she really just see her as a monster and nothing more? Memories of all of the time she had spent with Ib peeled away to reveal the memories of Ib watching complacently as Mary burned to death. All this time she had thought Ib could be her friend, but oh how wrong she had been! Whether Mary was more upset by this betrayal or by a sense of having failed Father, she was not quite sure.

The presence around her abruptly softened again. "There there, Mary," Father said. "I too was rejected by their kind. With hollow praise, they fawned over my work as long as it caught their attention, but as soon as another artist arose, they abandoned and forgot me. The only ones who remembered my name were the whores who sought my hand and inheritance through marriage. When I decried these injustices, the world laughed me off as insane. They had rejected me. I understand your pain."

Another pause. Mary sniffled and started to dry her reddened eyes. It was unusual for Father to try and comfort her or sympathize with her like this. He was usually very distanced and detached.

He resumed. "I should have never let my guard down and let you reach out to that world. It was a mistake for me to believe that its society deserved another chance. I hope that you agree now."

Mary could only nod. Perhaps Father had been right all along about the real world. Perhaps seeking friends had been a mistake. Perhaps all of the books she had on how to make friends were built on nothing but a giant sham…

This made sense for Garry, what about Ib? Even after all that had happened, Mary somehow couldn't get herself to hate Ib. Even now, all Mary could get herself to see was a good-hearted girl raised by a no-good world. She almost wanted to feel sorry for Ib, that poor human whose conscience had been smothered and silenced by her society.

But then the image of Ib passively standing by and letting Mary die flashed back into her mind. Did it really matter how Ib had been socialized? Had it somehow made the agony of burning alive more bearable? Ib was supposed to be Mary's friend! Not a sham friend like what Father just described, but a real friend! And as far as Mary was concerned, a real friend wouldn't abandon someone to die, no matter what she was taught by society!

Mary's sadness started to give way to a desire for retribution. "Father," she asked as she stood up, her lips trembling, "what happened to Ib and Garry? Did they get away with what they did?"

"I am afraid so," he responded. A small canvas materialized, and on it appeared a crude sort of window into the real world. Mary's fabricated heart sank as she saw that her murderers had not only survived, but thrived. With growing despair and anger, she saw them talking, laughing together, confiding secrets in one another, and bonding over their mutual experience and mutual hatred of the Fabricated World and all who lived in it. At one point, Ib briefly expressed a twinge of guilt about having stood by while Mary burned to death. For a moment, Mary's rising anger softened, but this moment was shattered when Garry replied, "Look, it had to be done." Worst of all, Mary saw Ib silently nod. A halfhearted nod, but a nod nonetheless. Not only was Ib complicit in the act; she condoned it.

Any remaining warm feelings for the two humans melted away. "But this is wrong!" cried Mary, stamping her foot as the canvas disintegrated. "Can't you do something, Father?! This isn't fair! They shouldn't be able to get away with this!"

Out of the side of her eye, Mary noticed that her new portrait was complete. It was indeed darker than the original picture. The thorns on the roses were more prominent now. Her previously warm smile and gaze were now icy, almost malevolent. She looked almost as if she was being forced to smile out of courtesy but in reality harbored a deep-seated hatred for the viewer.

"Fear not," Father cooed, "for they will not. Just as I have slowly recreated you, so too am I creating our means to achieve justice. They and their world shall pay for all their wrongs against us."

At that point, a door on the side of the studio unlocked. Father wanted her to come. Walking through the door, Mary found herself on a balcony overlooking a vast, dimly lit chamber, unlike any other in the Fabricated World. Despite her vantage point, she couldn't make out the far side of the room or even the ceiling. There were no permanent features in the room, but scattered all across the floor were easels, canvases, blocks of clay, and all art supplies imaginable.

And as far as she could see, countless paintbrushes, chisels, and other tools were diligently painting and sculpting new brothers and sisters. Many looked somewhat like her older siblings, but there was something darker, scarier about them. Legions of headless statues arose, similar to the ones she was used to, but bulkier and meaner in their appearance. They lacked normal hands; one had been modified into a claw, while the other was replaced with a cannon-like appendage. They were joined by floating white mannequin heads, with thin red tendrils streaming from their necks as they cried tears of acidic blood and emitted noxious red gas. Succubi presumably derived from Big Sister dragged their picture frames across the floor. Even Red Eyes appeared; a gun had been sewn into his back.

Others looked nothing like any of the previous dwellers of the Fabricated World. Gargoyles soared overhead like birds of prey. Spider-like figurines skittered along the floor, their hollow bodies full of venom. Armored, three-legged monsters lacking a distinct front or back stomped into view, each of their three sides sporting a sculpted face with a cannon protruding from the mouth. Lumbering in the distance, hulking behemoths at least 70 feet tall took shape.

"Don't worry, my dear child," Father said gently as the abyssal serpent from an older painting slithered out of the shadows. "Their world shall be brought to justice,"

"Father, are you trying to –"

"If possible, my dear," he replied. "Their entire society is guilty. But I will make no promises. I have seen them when they fight amongst themselves; their weapons and war machines are strong. Yet even if we don't make their world ours, our retribution shall be satisfactory so long as we do two things."

"What?"

"We must destroy Garry. And we must kill Ib."

(So that's what I have for my first Ib fanfiction. I chose to give Mary and Guertena a relatively closer relationship than other authors because it simultaneously gave him a personal stake in seeking revenge against Ib and allowed me to flesh out his character in a more satisfying manner. Namely, it let me give him a bit of a persecution complex. I am not sure if I have the skill or talent to continue the story, though. If you liked it, I don't know if I can do justice to this first part, and if you disliked it, then whatever I do next might be even worse. Again, this is based off of the "Promise of Reunion" ending.)

(Credit for the cover image goes to MadD-NerdGirl, who generously allowed me to use her great fanart of the series for my cover image. Check her work out on DeviantArt!)