Chapter 1: To Kill A DeWitt

Hello guys and gals. I've decided to do a nice, friendly little thing around the Bioshock Infinite ending since I've just finished it like six hours ago at time of writing. The whole story is canon following the ending, so I hope to keep some semblance of the creative vision of the Irrational team alive while giving my own spin on the aftermath. If viewers of my previous fanfics find it slightly different, that's because the beginning will be action-less rather than the up-tempo I'm used. Okay, enough dawdling. Let's do this... Thanks in advance for any likes and favs you throw my way.

Multiples of her. All around the both of them. One was standing right next to her, still in her tattered white dress and the blood of Daisy Fitzeroy as fresh as the day her scissors plunged deep into her heart. On the other end, an experimented Elizabeth with only her corset to keep her warm after the horrific experience. All of them closed in on Booker Dewitt as the realization leapt right into his mind and soul. He never backed away to his credit, just like he never backed down from a fight.

"You chose to walk away." The bloodied Elizabeth spoke in a neutral tone, her face awash from emotions like a pail of water dripping every last sentiment away.

"But in other oceans, you didn't." Another Elizabeth chanted. Booker's eyes swivelled from one Elizabeth to another. All of them stood clairvoyantly and at the ready.

"You took the baptism." His Elizabeth joined in on the chant, looking back at him with emotionless blue irises.

"And you were born a different man." An Elizabeth in a plain white dress told him. All the pieces fit together. All the puzzle pieces had fallen into place. It wasn't too hard for the Pinkerton detective to join the dots.

"Comstock." Booker incredulously responded, seeing now the price he had to pay to keep her safe. His daughter, his companion, his true mistake. Truth be told, he never imagined he would die this way, underneath the water's briny depths. He pictured a heroic death, one filled with ideals of nobility and honour still floating about in his addled head.

"It all has to end." The bloodied version stepped forward to Booker's left and continued to peer at him with her sapphire irises.

"To have never started." Elizabeth replied to her doppelganger's remark. She too stepped forward an inch with the same expressionless face plastered over her.

"Not just in this world." The white-dress girl reaffirmed him.

"But in all of ours." One of the Elizabeths in the back spoke demurely.

"Smother him in the crib." Booker recanted his exact words to Elizabeth, mere moments ago. Ironic, wasn't it? Here he was advocating killing Comstock in his crib when all along he was following exactly what Comstock had predicted. Self-destruction. Self-sacrifice. But there was no other way. At least one he didn't see...

"Smother, smother, smother." The gaggle of young women repeated over and over again like a prayer at some deranged cultist's house. If he didn't know better, he would have been mad to just stand there while women were readying for his execution.

"Before the choice is made." Went another chant.

"Before you are reborn." His Elizabeth finalized the entire thought process. It had to end. It just had to.

"He's Zachary Comstock." The white-dress Elizabeth grabbed Booker's right hand tightly, Booker making no attempt to delay the inevitable.

"He's Booker Dewitt." The stained red one grabbed his left in the same manner.

"No, I'm both." Booker summarized morosely, his final words before his Elizabeth's hand came crashing down on his skull and shoved him forcefully underneath the shallow water. The two Elizabeths flanking her did the same, pining his extremities under the lapping water in a manner akin to baptism. His entire upper body vanished beneath the waves. For every second, an air bubble rose to the surface of the water. Still their hands remained steady, if not their hearts. How could they be when they were drowning their protector, their friend, their own father? Every second, his lungs filled with more and more water. He could not help but struggle below the water. But even his struggle could not keep him from his fate. Soon enough, his eyes started to falter, his heart began to give out and all senses around him dulled to an immense standstill. The last look, the thing that glanced back at him was his Elizabeth looking extremely unhappy, but resolute nonetheless. In his heart, only one voice echoed within his final drops of life.

'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Be free, Anna. Be free.' And just like that, so ended the tale of Booker Dewitt as Zachary Hale Comstock at the hands of Elizabeth/Anna Dewitt. His body went limp and lifeless beneath the water, the waves sloshing around the hem of the various Elizabeths' dresses. And so ends their existence. One by one, each Elizabeth disappeared from the earthly plane, vanishing like the wind and gone from sight. Even as their bodies entered an ethereal state of non-existence, their heads were bowed down in silence and their hands up in prayer. Soon, there was only just one. His Elizabeth, the one he knew best. The one in a blue dress and white corset. Only she remained behind the longest to contemplate her freedom from Comstock. Till she too was gone and was no more.

Or was it? Perhaps not...

Elizabeth felt her surroundings change from the landscape that once heralded two different men. Now she was in nothing but a pitch black room, with infinite walls and ceiling to boot. The room was only illuminated by a hanging chandelier of modern times. Her blue eyes scanned each and every corner, wanting desperately to make a tear and go back to her father's resting place. Her hands raised itself in an attempt to do so, only to hear a strange voice echo from within.

"Don't bother. You leave when I allow you to leave." A grim voice shot through the room, frightening the young woman terribly. Her hands were raised in a defensive stance, ready to unleash the full extent of her abilities against her unseen foe.

"Who's there? Who are you?" Elizabeth responded back. The voice chuckled lightly at her words, as if it heard something absolutely incredulous spilling from the young girl's mouth.

"My, my. For someone who's seen behind every door and every outcome, you sure can't seem to tell what I am." It crooned in her ears, causing her to tremble slightly in her bones. Her feet remained in a haphazard stance however, indicating her awareness factor.

"Don't play with me. I'm not someone you want to mess with." Elizabeth warned the unseen strange voice.

"Oh, but why would I? It's so much fun to see your little rationalization from afar. It gives me more joy than watching the other dimensions work this stuff out." The voice burst out laughing this time, the echoes of it rumbling across the room like an earthquake.

"I repeat... Who are you?" Elizabeth asked it again, this time with a little more force in her intended tone.

"Better question is who am I not?" It winked from its hiding spot, the glint immediately registering on her radar. But before she could make her move, he made his.

"Come. Sit. I will explain." It offered, conjuring a table and a chair from nowhere, the tear ripping open in a flash of hazy lights and perceptive faded colours. Elizabeth opened her eyelids in astonishment. 'How did... He has the same powers as I do! How... How did it...?' Even so, she chose to mask it underneath her exterior and accept his 'gracious' offer. She had little to no choice. If he said he could control her powers and render it null and void, she was little more than a young woman with zero survival skills. Depending on Booker far too often has been a handicap for Elizabeth. 'I knew I should have asked him to teach me self-defence.' She cursed angrily within her head, only to have her attention swing right back to the voice when his overtones came roaring back in.

"So, I must ask. What possessed you to come to this? Killing your own father?" the voice requested an answer from her, a still image of her hands holding Booker down under the water flashing before its eyes. Elizabeth raised a single eyebrow in response. 'Surely if he had seen it, he must know the reason behind it. Or perhaps he wants to know my perspective.' She pondered before opening her mouth.

"I freed the both of us from the cycle. All the Bookers and Elizabeths elsewhere are free because of us." She steadfastly answered, not a single hint of doubt stuck in her throat.

"And how exactly did drowning him accomplish that monumental goal?" it prodded further into the semantics.

"He wouldn't be able to make that choice. He couldn't become Comstock even if he wanted to." Elizabeth explained in a drawl, as if she was discussing maths with a drug-addled lunatic who can't even form cohesive words.

"So will his choice to remain as Booker Dewitt." It reminded her of the implications she was bringing up. She quickly caught onto the fact and shook her head repeatedly.

"No, we simply... we simply removed the variable of him choosing the baptism. We turned his denial of it into a constant." Elizabeth answered decisively, her words intended to be the final law on the matter. The voice merely laughed menacingly at her ideals being so inclined towards a happy ending. 'This girl must really read a lot of fairy tales to acquiesce to such a belief.' It thoughtfully pondered within the confines of its brain.

"Ah, yes. Constants and variables. The law of the multiverses? I assume you must be well versed in it, after seeing it through the restoration of your powers." It replied after a short silence.

"How did you..." she replied in astonishment as the voice's knowledge of her adventures.

"You're not the only one who can open tears in the fabric of the spectrum of universes." It demonstrated yet again its abilities, bringing through a bowl of fruit right in front of her from another universe. It had the same radio static vibe to it for the briefest of moments before settling into a natural coloured hue. 'Of course, I can't be the only one with these powers.' Elizabeth figured to herself. The odds of meeting another person with the same abilities she had may have been astronomical but the odds were still there.

"I see." She answered, staring back down at the newly conjured bowl of fruit.

"No, you don't." It intoned sadly, seeing right through the facade. If anything, she looked slightly confused by his take on the matter, something he never expected from the well-versed woman with a lot of time on her hands.

"Explain, then. What do you think it really is?" Elizabeth countered with a hint of irritation in her tone.

"Sigh... Misguided intent." It surmised its long-winded explanation. Elizabeth looked taken aback by his words, dreadfully so.

"I'm sorry...?" she asked him to repeat itself.

"Misguided intent." It clearly verbalized it this time, every annunciation and syllable clearly echoing into her eardrums. 'How dare it define... Okay, keep a calm head, Elizabeth. You're better than this.' Her thought process went soon enough.

"Now see here..." she responded in a controlled, calm demeanor.

"People call me Alexander." It conceded. It had to give her something if he expected to expand her scope to the other possibilities laying right out there.

"Alexander, what makes you think that I had a misguided intent? I saw the outcomes. I witnessed the beginning that resulted in those outcomes. We both did, Booker and I. We knew what had to be done to stop the suffering Comstock would have done." Elizabeth argued her point as best she could. She wasn't completely in the wrong. What she saw was a web of threads all ending at different points within the universe in which she called reality. But all those silky, leathery threads all converged right where it started. Booker's baptism after the Battle of Wounded Knee. She bore witness to all that and could see only one way out to ensure the Comstock branch of the Dewitt tree was shorn off completely without damaging the rest of the tree.

"And there is it. The flaw." It clicked its fingers and made a snapping sound, the kind of sound someone makes when they cry Eureka.

"What?" Elizabeth inquired curiously, her hands burrowing into fists and placed directly on the wooden table. What flaw could there possibly be?

"Think about it. Each and every event we choose results in at least two universes to be created. For example, were I to walk down the streets of Columbia to the right, rather than say to the left, that creates an alternate universe where I chose to walk left instead. These are the things you call variables. Changing one single variable into a constant may right the wrongs your loop has resulted in, but it may change a constant into a variable. The law of balance, if I have to say so myself." It finished with a flurry, the speech a mix of intellectual thinking and dull, boring lecture talk.

"I don't understand. How does anything of what you had to say involve me at all?" she raised her eyebrow a little bit higher as she reclined back in her seat. She may not be able to see where the voice's origin point was but she had a general idea of where it might be. 'Strange though that it adopted a human name. Wonder if there's any meaning behind it?' she deeply thought to herself.

"You don't exist anymore, child. You are the product of Columbia and without Booker to become Comstock, Columbia would have never been founded and your life would not play out that way. You destroyed a loop to create a constant out of a variable." It intoned knowingly, quite certain in the knowledge that she at least was open to the possibility and had seen it as a factor within her myriad of options.

"Then I accept my fate. As long as we are both free." She again answered with determination. The voice shook its head in disappointment. Not that she could see it in any case.

"You may be free. That much is true. But the universe or universes have a way of righting the balance no matter what the circumstances." It also stayed true to its interpretation of the matter. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps they were both right. She wouldn't know from this mere encounter, one not even done face-to-face.

"I don't understand." She responded, still unclear of his dictating logic.

"Think of it this way. Any deviation, whether intentional or accidental have rippling effects to compensate for the shift. To change destiny, to change fate is indeed possible as long as they remember the consequences of doing so." It went into his explanation even further, all the while readying something surprising for his intrepid guest.

"You're implying our actions could affect something beyond us." Elizabeth tried to get the gist of it, replying with an awkward tone that did not suit her well.

"You free yourself and your father from Columbia and Comstock. But it will come back. One form or another, it will return." It implied, bringing up an image of the underwater utopia where her beloved Songbird was crushed at so many phantoms below the sea. Still, she would not cave in and start listening to his honeyed words. 'No! I will not end up like my future self once before. I won't!' She figured. They had years to break her. The voice would be lucky enough to get just five minutes with her at best.

"I don't believe you. I stand by what I saw. Nothing else." Elizabeth countered in defiance. To her surprise, the voice merely chuckled in a low-pitched tone to itself.

"If that is your wish... But you'll see that I make sense indeed down the line." It winked again, the glint giving away its position to the omniscient young woman. Still it remembered to multitask, preparing his little present for her.

"I don't exist anymore, remember?" Elizabeth reminded him. She was nothing more to the myriad of universes. Just a woman with god-like powers and an identity that none will recognize. 'Gee, when you put like that, it sounds weird.' She pondered quietly.

"You don't exist as Elizabeth anymore. But Anna Dewitt on the other hand..." it crooned, her thoughts quickly changing to that of her alternate identity, that of Booker's infant child. It wouldn't... It couldn't possibly do what it was implying.

"You... You wouldn't..." Elizabeth nervously replied, backing away as soon as her rear was off the wooden chair. The voice didn't seem to hear that last line because it began to ramble about something entirely different.

"It's funny, really. They call you characters in an interactive game in so many other universes, your voices not your own but the voices of others you will never meet. What was their names again? Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper if I recall..." it scratched its head, trying desperately to remember the details of the game. Ironic that a game was to give her life only to cruelly snatch it away for the sake of entertainment. Poetic was not the word to use in describing such an act.

"But I ramble too much. Enjoy your new life, Miss Dewitt." It gave a white-pearly smile and unleashed his surprise. A ball of white energy erupted from his hand and struck Elizabeth in the chest, burrowing deep within her. The light began to expand within her soul and the brilliant glaze of the shield expanded outwards. Every bit of darkness it touched crumbled in moments, leaving only a white background where it belonged. It was like the wallpaper was being torn off and heaven was staring right back at her. The figure was soon enough visible to Elizabeth who frantically called back to it even as her own body started to disintegrate before her light blue eyes.

"Wait!" she cried out exasperatedly. Her body at this point was completely gone and her outstretched hand and face were starting to peel away into complete nothingness. And just like that, only her bird-like choke was left to clatter nosily against the floor of the now white room harmlessly. Her final gift from Booker and it too was gone as well. How much more could she lose?

Elizabeth's eyes flickered in the darkness, her mind utterly swamped by the multitude of questions she had lingering within her. Who was that figure? What was its agenda and how did it come across the abilities she had? As far as she knew, only her finger, which was accidentally cut off during her abduction still residing in the alternate universe was the source of her omnipotent powers. How then was he able to replicate the results? Was it an alternate version of herself, in the same mould as the Lutece twins? Was it someone entirely different or something different? And most importantly, where did it send her to?

It didn't take long to answer that last mystery. Over time, her vision began to gain clarity and she could finally see her surroundings. It was wallpaper circa 1890 from the looks of it and a dim light was overhanging above her. Her eyes blinked twice at the sight of it. Maybe it had sent her into some kind of storage room. She tried to move her extremities, only to be overwhelmed by shock at what glanced back at her in return.

Stubby limbs, not fully grown were wriggling within her confines. Her movements were quite erratic to say the least and it did not exactly seem to even be possible. Her head spun around to meet her surface. She was nestled on a soft sheet, adorned with puppets and stitches so prominent that it looked comical rather than inviting. But it was the wooden bars towering above that finally clinched the scene.

"Oh, no. It sent me back... It sent me back." She babbled, only to hear her voice echo back in cooes and gleeful laughter. 'Oh, great. Now I can't speak either.' She mused sarcastically. As soon as that thought process passed through her head, the door right in front of her swung open softly with a gentle push. Standing within its frame was Booker Dewitt, her father. He seemed slightly concerned from what she could tell from looking at him.

"Anna, is that you?" He asked, seemingly confused by the turn of events. But one thing's for certain. She was no longer Elizabeth. Now the world knew her only as Anna Dewitt...

Thank you all for reading. I hope this story gets some degree of support. Bioshock Infinite was such a great game to finish off over the course of one day. (What? I play my games marathon style most of the time.) I hope to see you again soon. If not, please enjoy this story as much as possible. Bye, guys. Have fun and be CO-OPERATIVE!