A Flair for Mould Breaking [Celestial Forge / Multiverse]

[Satisfaction]

Hm. So, is this a good guy Megatron from a mirror universe? It kinda seems that way, the color differences, the fact the Decepticons are working with humans easing his worries, the fact he calls Starscream his trusted lieutenant seemingly unironically, and various minor details. Makeshift being called a traitor is a hint too, he seems to be consistently Decepticon on the wiki.
Of course, he could just be a self-righteous tyrant with some minor differences and a better understanding of PR. But that wouldn't be very interesting, would it? A good guy Megatron is much more fun than just 'more Decepticons'.

 

[shypunk]

thanks for another awesome chapter and for writing

 

[Melakias]

Hm. So, is this a good guy Megatron from a mirror universe? It kinda seems that way, the color differences, the fact the Decepticons are working with humans easing his worries, the fact he calls Starscream his trusted lieutenant seemingly unironically, and various minor details. Makeshift being called a traitor is a hint too, he seems to be consistently Decepticon on the wiki.
Of course, he could just be a self-righteous tyrant with some minor differences and a better understanding of PR. But that wouldn't be very interesting, would it? A good guy Megatron is much more fun than just 'more Decepticons'.

Click to shrink...

Yes, this is Megatron from the Shattered Glass continuity, basically the evil twin universe. I would add a picture, but I'm on mobile and there's a blackout going on. There's not much canon for him, so I'm going freeform.

 

[TikiTau]

Helping!

Spoiler: Spoilered for Those on Mobile

TFWiki Link.

There's two versions of Shattered Glass, amusingly. So many parallel worlds.

The first is from a parallel universe where Math isn't evil!

In his universe, he was a thoughtful mathematician from Polyhex who did the mathing to realize a civil war was definitely going to break out among the Cybertronians. Everyone thought he was being a nutter, but when Civil War Did break out after the cruel, mad librarian Optimus Prime (who'd murdered and backstabbed his way up the social ladder) started his conquest, Megatron had already prepared a resistance movement to oppose him, consisting of people like his loyal, valiant number two 'Bot Starscream, the kind, compassionate and empathic Shockwave, or his laid back and gnarly subordinate Sir Soundwave!

We get an intro to him when the canon Cliffjumper (ironically) gets yeet'd into the Shattered Glass Timeline.

The second is a more self-contained Shattered Glass timeline where he was a Miner who couldn't stand the corrupt Senate and so became a prominent and controversial civil rights advocate. Orion Pax was a power-hungry friend of his who eventually drifted apart in his quest for power, Some Things happened, war went into a 'colder' period while the Heroic Decepticons rebuilt in New Kaon. From the sound of it, this Megatron's from the second one, since it mentions New Kaon and Starscream's spark being missing thanks to the SADISTIC and EVIL Goldbug stealing it.

 

[Melakias]

Helping!

Spoiler: Spoilered for Those on Mobile

TFWiki Link.

There's two versions of Shattered Glass, amusingly. So many parallel worlds.

The first is from a parallel universe where Math isn't evil!

In his universe, he was a thoughtful mathematician from Polyhex who did the mathing to realize a civil war was definitely going to break out among the Cybertronians. Everyone thought he was being a nutter, but when Civil War Did break out after the cruel, mad librarian Optimus Prime (who'd murdered and backstabbed his way up the social ladder) started his conquest, Megatron had already prepared a resistance movement to oppose him, consisting of people like his loyal, valiant number two 'Bot Starscream, the kind, compassionate and empathic Shockwave, or his laid back and gnarly subordinate Sir Soundwave!

We get an intro to him when the canon Cliffjumper (ironically) gets yeet'd into the Shattered Glass Timeline.

The second is a more self-contained Shattered Glass timeline where he was a Miner who couldn't stand the corrupt Senate and so became a prominent and controversial civil rights advocate. Orion Pax was a power-hungry friend of his who eventually drifted apart in his quest for power, Some Things happened, war went into a 'colder' period while the Heroic Decepticons rebuilt in New Kaon. From the sound of it, this Megatron's from the second one, since it mentions New Kaon and Starscream's spark being missing thanks to the SADISTIC and EVIL Goldbug stealing it.

Click to shrink...

Actually I messed shit up and didn't know there were two versions, so this Megatron is more of a mix of both. So while he just came from the events in the second point, I also made him a Mathematician since that's what the tf wiki says about him
Again, there's sadly not much about the character, so I had to freeform a lot of details on his personality. It was honestly quite interesting (even if I don't know if I managed perfectly) to make a good Megatron, and not just a repainted Optimus.

edit: Also him being a Mathematician helped me a lot in a few plot advancing reasons so I kept it that way. And if someone asks me again, it was all planned! Everything!

 

[TikiTau]

Edit: Well, as long as we have SIR SOUNDWAVE THE GNARLY, things are probably going to be okay.

 

[Melakias]

Edit: Well, as long as we have SIR SOUNDWAVE THE GNARLY, things are probably going to be okay.

Click to shrink...

Pirate Radio Soundwave's definitely a high point of the comic. There's also pacifist Shockwave who kicks so much ass most bots prefer to not be humiliated like that.

 

[Melakias]

AFfMB – 99

Megatron hated the doubt in his Spark. These Decepticons were so much like his own but at the same time a mocking mirror, but if the Decepticons were like this, who could say how much worse the Autobots would be.

He hadn't been treated badly, he had received as much freedom as he would have given an unknown element in his base. After he had been thoroughly fixed like he hadn't in a long time, he had been guided to the meeting hall once more. There he had been asked to tell his story, Megatron, the local one, had simply listened to him.

It had been unnerving how the bot had just listened, but at the same time he would have done the same. After he had told him of the Autobots' atrocities, how the war they perpetrated had destroyed Cybertron.

Destroyed. Cybertron.

Even now the words echoed in his head, he had seen some of the recordings of the last of the war, images of what had been left after when visited by scouts. It was a dead shell of a planet, practically abandoned except for a few pests that survived the destruction.

Megatron had finished his tale with his honest wish of reviving Cybertron, and he believed the con. He had offered his skills in that pursuit as accessing Cybertron's universities and research labs could very well be the only way he could return to his version of the world.

And what surprise when he had calculated things, the Autobot attack had indeed made him fall through reality and end in an alternate time and world. It wasn't all some crazy dream or illusion. He had confirmed this thoroughly once he had been given a small lab and access to ancient records.

Megatron had asked him to check old encrypted files for the information Cybertron had on the planet Earth, because apparently the planet hid many secrets and the Decepticon leader expected him to reveal useful information hidden away.

The local Megatron had also assigned a more permanent supervisor to him, or something closer to a watcher. One of the Predacon clones had been ordered to shadow him everywhere, which meant they simply stood in a corner of the laboratory he had been assigned.

It still surprised him that the technology to clone long-since dead beings was an actual thing, for Megatron this was close to an actual miracle in technology. It made him wonder all the possible uses it could have to revitalize the abandoned planet.

The clone had unnerved him at first, they were mindless and empty, not reacting to anything except orders. But there was now a hint of something more behind their red eyes.

His work with the codified logs was taking time, the systems were just close enough to those he had learned about that it was becoming harder finding out where he was making errors. It was frustrating.

He stopped working when a soft growl caught his attention. Megatron turned to look at the clone guarding him. "Is there a problem?"

The gold and blue Predacon growled again and shifted in place. "It's nothing, sir.." Their tone was stiff, but sounded almost forced.

He could very well tell that that was a lie. Megatron pulled himself away from the computer and approached the clone, the size difference making him look down at the Decepticon that was about two thirds of his height. The closeness allowed him to notice a small green spark run over their frame before disappearing.

"That didn't look like nothing, soldier."

"It's nothing, Shockwave sir says the process of cloning is not perfect yet. And he had to write a lot of the normal processes himself to make up for the missing information." The Predacon continued with the forced tone as he shifted and went stiff when Megatron placed a hand on his shoulder. "He says that once our Sparks acclimate to our bodies we won't suffer through it anymore."

"I wish I could hold the same hope. You've got a name, soldier? I can't keep calling you Predacon clone." Megatron asked after pulling his hand away.

"It's…" He saw his eyes almost haze as if looking at something in the distance, or remembering. "Dinobot."

"Okay Dinobot, it's a pleasure to work with you."

"No sir, the honor's mine." He growled and kept watching.

Megatron walked back to his terminal, another curiosity to wonder about.

\/AFfMB\/​

Miko was not in the best of moods, just to start she felt guilty about having messed things up during the last mission. She understood why it was a bad idea, but by then she had been in the middle of a jungle and forced to hide as the Autobots and the Celestial Crew were doing their best to keep her safe from enemy fire.

The worst of all wasn't the talk he had gotten, but the disappointed look Bulkhead had given her. Living practically alone and away from her parents meant she rarely liked to be home, the Autobot base was more or less her home when she didn't go to school or slept.

At least while she lived back in Tokyo she had her parents and the family's two cats. But living in Jasper, Nevada turned out to not be what she expected. The place was a desert in more than one way, and if she hadn't come across the Autobots she was pretty sure she would have died of boredom after a few more weeks.

Instead she had learned about aliens living on Earth and how the world was so much bigger. She loved her parents, but at the same time she wanted the Autobot to look at her with pride. Which usually led to her trying to help in any way possible.

And now she had made all the good will she had earned by helping go down the drain in one single moment. She grumbled as she sat on a rock outcropping, having decided to step out of the base for a bit. It wasn't like she was alone, a few meters away Daisy from the Celestial Crew was playing with her two monster pets.

It was strange, the more she watched them play like puppies the more she agreed with her about how cute they were. The longer she watched the more things she noticed, those limbs white and snow that looked incapable of moving them around, turned their movements into an adorable stumble. Their eye-less faces and drooling maws looked less ready to chew her alive and more like happy puppies eager to slurp your face.

Actually, now that she looks at them better… Miko pulled her phone and snapped a few pictures before comparing them with some older ones she had. She could have snapped them with the DIA system, but she liked to use her phone more.

"Daisy, have you noticed they have been growing larger?" She asked out loud.

"What?" The woman turned to her and Miko quickly had the system send the photographs and the comparison. "Uh… They have certainly been eating a lot recently." She mused as she patted the beasts' heads.

Miko hopped off the large rock she had been sitting on and walked over, Charybdis stumbled onto her side and offered its head making her chuckle. "Silly, you can barely feel my touch." She still petted the creature's head, though it was more of a knocking on that metallic material.

"Well, they don't look overweight. If anything it looks like they are using all that food to grow up properly." Daisy observed as she had Siren laying on its back and kicking its limbs in the air. "I really need to get permission to take them to open water to allow them to swim a bit."

"Right, you guys told us they were technically ships." Miko gave Charybdis another look, it was true they looked kind of like a torpedo.

"Yup, should just look for an empty island somewhere in the ocean like dad did and just build a small house to take them there."

Miko snorted and took a few more pictures of the two monsters being oversized pets. "Each time I hear about your dad the crazier it gets." She admitted.

"Dad is… something else certainly." Daisy sat down and invited her to join the spot. She also retrieved a bowl full of ball bearings to feed the Abyssals together. "I mean, it's been nearly two months since we left our World, that's practically longer than we lived with him!"

"...wait, what?" The surprise made the metal balls fall through between her fingers. "That would mean you're like three months old?!"

"Yeah, about that. I'll have to ask dad to check for the correct date, time Outside is weird." Daisy shrugged. "I miss him, hope he gets here soon."

"No, wait, rewind. What do you mean you are three months old? Because I was pretty sure you were an adult." Miko's feeling her sanity slip from her.

"Didn't we tell you before?" Daisy asked as she rubbed her chin and looked up thoughtfully. "We were born at the start of dad's third month since obtaining power, I think it was day sixty two or sixty three. And we left around day eighty eight." A small hologram appeared in front of them, drawing the timeline. "We spent nearly three weeks Outside, and it's been nearly a month and a half since we arrived."

Miko didn't know what to say. If this was true, and she didn't have a reason to call it a lie, then Daisy was a baby. "But you act like adults, how?"

"Oh, that part's very easy. We're designed to speedrun the maturation process, to put it in gamer slang. Between the emotional development algorithms copied from auncle Asos, and the fact that all of us Metaloids can share experiences. Once one of us is mature, they tell the rest how they did it. Then they all take their own versions of it and share it too." She gestured forward. "And so on and on, the more of us the more experiences, the more complete we become."

Daisy shrugged as she idly stroked Charybdis' shell. "The first ten of us used social networks and tv shows to model ourselves and how we interacted with other people. It worked very effectively." She chuckled. "We still have our quirks."

"What do you mean? You all act so normal that you had me fooled, and I'm pretty sure no one noticed."

Daisy snorted. "I mean, it's not that different from a normal person's quirks. Rose likes to surprise people, Aster likes to be alone, Passion likes to hunt, Lily likes big things and I like to stand out." She shrugged.

"That doesn't sound too bad, well besides Passion." They shared a chuckle.

"Yeah, if that was it, but you have to look at it given our codenames." Daisy made a little circle with her finger. "Ghost, like the ones that go boo, likes to surprise people. Minos, the minotaur, likes to be alone. Gryph, the mix between lion and hawk, likes to hunt. Gnome, a tiny being likes things big. And I, the Doppelganger, the monster said to copy others likes to stand out." She smiled.

"...oh."

"Yeah, for example that's the reason Passion didn't take Airachnid out. She enjoys the process of hunting and doesn't have a problem with letting her prey go, nor allow the hunt to last longer than necessary." She shrugged. "They aren't necessarily flaws, but when we adopted these names we adopted more than just a way to call ourselves."

Miko chuckled. "I still think you're all being babies about it, you're three months old, plenty of time to grow up." She smiled. "...hey, if you guys are so young, how old exactly are the Autobots?"

"Honestly no idea, I think Bumblebee's the youngest of them. I remember them saying he was born during the Autobot-Decepticon war, and that kinda went for a few hundred years at least." Daisy admitted and shrugged.

"Wait, they're that old?"

The 'older' woman chuckled. "Miko, while I can't tell you how old, I'm pretty sure Optimus is at least a few ten of thousands years old. While Cybertronians don't live forever, their life span is in the hundreds of thousands of years. You can ask Ratchet more about it." She leaned back and Miko joined her to look at the clouds passing over them. "Honestly for what dad has explained to us about their race, it's very impressive there have been these many fights on Earth. I think it's mostly them accommodating to humans' pace instead of taking things in their own time."

"Wild." Miko commented as they just enjoyed the moment, her worries feeling like a very old memory after the talk.

\/AFfMB\/​

Minos felt angry inside, maybe a bit more than he wanted to let everyone else see. It was honestly the most he had felt since he had been praised by his dad.

The only reason the confrontation with the Decepticons at the jungle couldn't be considered a complete loss was because they hadn't lost anyone. There still had been a number of severe injuries, which thankfully had been fixed without much problem. But it hurt to think he hadn't done better.

He had kept his distance from the rest, simply snorting a warning to be left alone, only Wally for companions as he mulled on his feelings. It had helped him considerably, but right now he knew one thing very clearly; he needed to hurt someone that deserved it.

Behind his mask he grinned as he looked at the Decepticons in front of the group.

It all had started about an hour earlier when Athena had noticed con action, unluckily there was still too much noise to close down on the exact location. This forced them to separate into teams and comb the mountainous area.

He didn't want to bother on why Megatron had sent Knockout and Breakdown, with a small group of Dinobot clones to retrieve the hammer embedded in the stone. He only needed to act now.

"Knockout! Look, we've got Bulkhead all for ourselves." Breakdown announced and grinned as he pulled his weapon from subspace.

"Just send the Predacons to deal with them and help me with this think, Breakdown." The red con ordered as he ineffectively tried to pry the massive hammer off the rock.

Minos slowly cracked his neck and retrieved Maze Dweller in its twin axes configuration. "I hope it doesn't bother you if I deal with this." He told Bulkhead.

The green bot chuckled. "I can deal with Breakdown, take care of those lizards."

"With pleasure." He snorted and charged, his Power Core thrumming.

\/AFfMB\/​

Bulkhead watched as the horns on each side of Minos' head slowly grew larger as each of his snorts came accompanied by a large cloud of steam. He couldn't help but give it to the kid, he had been in his place a lot during his earlier years in the Wreckers.

Not like it wasn't a common feeling between all of them, most of them had been severely injured by the Decepticons during the war, personally or those close to them. He allowed the kid to take all those Predacons.

"Going to leave the bull by himself, Bulkhead? Ain't that cold of you." Breakdown said as he hit his open palm with his hammer hand.

He grinned. "A friendly advice, you shouldn't underestimate them. The crew of the Celestial Triumph may be younglins compared to us, but if you don't pay attention…" He left it hanging as he could feel the change in his current partner as once the Predacons were close enough, the ground itself rose up and swallowed them all. "They will surprise you."

He enjoyed seeing the surprise in Breakdown as he charged, his wrecking ball swinging at the blue con with a bit of extra oomph from his own Power Core's ability.

\/AFfMB\/​

Minos' mind spread through his maze, barely large enough to separate the half a dozen Dinobot clones far enough that they wouldn't find each other easily. The hard stone walls would also keep them from easily digging through with their weapons.

He snorted in a bullish fashion and shifted Maze Dweller into the super shotgun configuration. The weapon was practically a modern naval cannon, and loaded with similar ammunition, a single shot more than strong enough to tear through most cons.

He didn't wander his maze, he knew perfectly where he was going. Instead he stalked the clone, shifting the maze around the practically mindless clone. He saw it wander around and something in him just didn't feel it anymore.

He sighed internally and shifted the weapon into the double ax, silently approaching the bot from behind and decapitating him in a swift strike. Fast, clean and hopefully instant.

He did the same with the next three, one quick sweep of Maze Dweller and heads rolled off. His inner turmoil kept him from noticing that one of the remaining clones had ended up coming across the headless body.

It only reaffirmed how mindless they were, it came across the lifeless body of a clone-sibling and it just ignored it. It made dealing with the remaining clones easier, but at the same time he just felt empty after that.

At least he didn't feel as troubled, or at least not in the same way. He allowed the maze to unwrap around him, once more revealing the mountain area and Bulkhead easily dealing with the pair of Decepticons. The half a dozen bodies stored into his inventory.

"Need a hand?" He offered as he heaved his axe.

"You look better kid, come on. I'm always up to share an ass kicking moment." Bulkhead answered.

Minos chuckled and charged.

\/AFfMB\/​

"So what is that?" Miko asked as she leaned onto the rail, watching as the teams had returned after a successful mission. "Besides a very big hammer."

Optimus ran his fingers down the hammer's handle before picking it up. "This is the Forge of Solus Prime, the personal tool of one of the first thirteen Primes."

"You mean it's not a weapon?" Miko prompted.

Bulkhead chuckled. "It can definitely pack a good punch, as Bulkhead and Knockout learned."

"Bulkhead's right, it can definitely be used as a weapon, Its weight and resilience would already make it a formidable weapon in combat." He shifted the hammer and connected to it with a strand of power from the Matrix of Leadership, the neutron star powering its heart lit up the weapon. "But its real power is to create."

Ratchet nodded. "Solus Prime was the first fembot and the creator of many staple Cybertronian tech. She was a crafter first of all, and without her Cybertron and the Cybertronian race would have never reached the heights we did."

Rose floated up and carefully poked the tool with a finger. "It feels like dad's personal tool."

That made the Autobots turn to her. "Could you tell me more?" Optimus asked, curious about it.

"Can't tell you much, dad honestly doesn't use it much except for especially large projects. From what he explained, he usually keeps it inside his soul since it was crafted from a part of it." Rose admitted and she shrugged. "But they feel similar, a mix of magic and technology, and maybe something more."

Optimus nodded as he listened. "Legends say that while the Forge's real potential could only be achieved by Solus Prime, any Prime would be able to utilize it to create, fix and improve any piece of technology or weapon."

"Hmm, I doubt dad's wrench can be used by others. I mean besides his other bodies." She added with a small chuckle. "I wonder what he's doing." He watched her muss about it and wander off.

Optimus nodded to Ratchet before storing the hammer into the armory, its nature not allowing it to go into subspace nor the inventory. He hoped they would never need to use it.

\/AFfMB\/​

The chisel impacted the ring, cleaving it perfectly in two. The divide went past the physical aspect of having the ring in tow parts. One half contained the Ring of Rage's commanding power, and the other contained, well, all of its rage.

And damn if it wasn't a spicy piece of metal, I was starting to sweat just from the flavor that had invaded my mouth once I had isolated the ring's qualities.

My chisel shifted back into the wrench and got put away in my soul as I carefully stored the rage half into a proper container to deal with later. Meanwhile I looked at the other half, its power was incredibly conceptual. I think the only reason I was able to do this was because the Infinite Realms themselves had allowed me to work with the two relics.

Just this had taken me nearly six hours of work and it was basically me just starting with the first step. I hadn't even touched the crown, and I didn't want to think what that would entail. The mess of flavors that wafted from it made me feel troubled. But that would be taken care of later.

I pushed myself away from the worktable and cracked my neck before allowing my hare ears to disappear as I wasn't needing the boost to my magic they provided.

I would have to start the tournament properly in about an hour too.

That meant my attention would be nearly fully in the livestream I was preparing, the need to troll the world by using both my first and third body was going to make me break into hives if I didn't.

I took a deep breath to relax and checked through the many things I had ignored during the last six hours of focused work. It wasn't like my first body was the only one dealing with the ring that my other two weren't busy. My second body was coordinating not only the construction of a second Gummi ship for my trip to Earth Primus, but also taking over the role Athena usually occupied. I had to give it to my kid, they were amazing at organization and leadership.

My third body, on the other hand, was slowly designing my fourth body. It wasn't just designing the body, but since the idea was for my fourth body to practically be a mix of dryad and druid, along with the usual pack of technomagical advancements, my third body was slowly designing a few new species of magical wood, bushes, lichen and similar organisms that would make up its body.

I had already designed a very literal Iron Bark tree, and was in the process of polishing a steel and titanium version. Just a few of the plants that were being spread through the inside of the Reverse Planet, because if I was going to make a strange magic land, I was going to go full blown fantasy.

Things were still pretty bare in the planet's surface, while the magic sun blasting it twenty four seven was starting to affect the first layer of material, the magic by itself was pretty neutral. That's why I had constructed a series of elemental temples not too different from one too many JRPGs over the years. Honestly the place may end developing a game system from sheer weight of the collective unconsciousness if I wasn't careful.

On more Earth-ly news, Argentina's president had run away like a coward and I had high-fived Asos for the great work at that. The man had been so thoroughly humiliated and destroyed he practically threw the president's band to his vice president and left the government's house. It was celebrated only a little less than the one that escaped on a helicopter during the start of the millennium crisis.

Asos was currently making sure his fall dragged a few other key people to make sure things moved faster and didn't slog through the confusion. I may need to ask my companion about setting up a meeting with the best choice of replacement. I wasn't too enthused about mixing personally with politics, but peace suited me more than war. And mostly because a war with me would be a pathetic flailing against anything I put out.

Honestly I was pretty sure that even if I did nothing about it, my kids would slowly take over the world to please me; especially once Athena returned.

If my kids wanted to take over the world so I didn't have to worry and I could travel and relax, I would happily give them a hand I asked.

I started to check the programs for the live stream, camera drones moving into position as I messaged the competitors to get ready; they still had enough time for a quick shower and a change of clothing before the opening.

I also messaged news, gaming and technology sites to see if they would be interested in watching and possibly an interview with the kids later. My family got an invitation to watch from my tropical island.

I shifted my clothes as my third body joined my first, looking just as spiffy. I placed the Headless Choker on both and activated it.

"Time for some fun."

 

[Melakias]

A.N.: Well, we're on the edge of chapter 100, that's >400k words. Sweet jebus I've written a lot more than I thought I would! And there's nearly 150k more words already written!

Anyways... As I said before, I will be reducing the release rate from three chapters a week to just two, that is Monday and Friday. I will also be taking next week to give the 25 chapters already packed in the buffer another look to make sure there are no plot holes left over from the chapters written.

So I hope all those that are still around enjoy the rest of the trip!

 

[maganam]

So I hope all those that are still around enjoy the rest of the trip!

Click to shrink...

To be honest, hard not to. It's an amazing piece of work, to tell the truth. Personally not a huge fan (or maybe more of an indifferent?) of the parts happening on Primus Earth. They lack somewhat compared to the parts with Rick. But overall I'm in love

 

[shypunk]

thanks yet again for the awesome chapter and for writing

 

[Melakias]

AFfMB – 100

Lars looked at the final ranking list with regret, he had been doing quite well during the first half of the second stage of the Cobalt Combatants tournament. But catching the season's flu had completely wrecked him as he found it impossible to concentrate enough to play the game, even less competitively.

It was frustrating but there was little he could have done. It was honestly more impressive that he had ended in the best fifty anyways.

The game hadn't consumed his life, but it was definitely the main attraction of his livestream. His channel had grown considerably since he'd started playing and was now considered one of the leading streamers for the game. It was a very fun game, one that was still being learned by the community, giving him a lot of material to show off.

Every day new tricks, combos and exploits were found. And most crazy of all was how the game didn't feel any more unbalanced than any other game in the market.

And then the skateboard mode had been found out and a game had suddenly turned into two. Giant robots in skateboards sounded so silly, but at the same time it turned out to be an amazing easter egg/spin off. And then someone had figured out that you could equip the skateboards in normal games and things had gone crazy.

He took a deep breath and pushed the regrets away as he did one last check before starting the stream. The program the game company had provided to watch the live stream was running without problems.

"Hello everyone, it's your pal Larsardonic, today we'll be following and reacting live to the Cobalt Combatants' livestream." He spoke animatedly as he watched people start to log in. "There's still a bit of time till the finals start, but Celestial Gaming has provided a nifty software to watch the show." He tapped a few keys. "For example we can easily switch between cameras!"

He smiled as the program changed between beautiful views of famous spots like the Statue of Liberty, the Big Ben, Christ the Redeemer and a number of others.

"All beautiful views for us to enjoy while we wait till the show actually starts." He observed and laughed softly. He looked at the incoming messages on the chat. "Uh… apparently these are live?" He brought up twitter and saw some of the popular tags, he clicked on the one for public drones. "Well, ain't this interesting? Apparently Celestial Gaming has set live feeds from the drones, but I wonder why?"

He cycled through the feeds available, but stopped on a very interesting one. It appeared to be a look down upon a large castle on some area of gray, rocky ground.

"Strange view, I wonder where it's from." He commented as he read what people were saying, apparently not all streamers got that feed and some got a different one showing some large tree on an area with red rocks.

He occupied some of the leftover time by commenting on the views and some of the pictures taken by people of the drones. There was even a very funny video as one of the Chosen Ones had tried to grab the drone, only for said flying camera to lead them around and trick them into hitting the ground.

It was obvious they hadn't been hurt by the impact, but the damage done to their image was enough for them to run away with their tails between their legs instead of trying to keep catching the drone.

The feed finally changed, showing a countdown from a hundred.

"Looks like we're starting." He couldn't hide the glee as he started to count down once it reached twenty. "...five, four, three, two, one!"

The live feeds suddenly shifted as the cameras rose higher, showing panoramic views of the cities they had been overflying before they turned and started to fly over the ocean. He quickly shifted to the feed of the castle, trying to see where it was.

"What the…?" He mumbled surprised as the view of the castle opened to a large gray, rocky area and a star-full sky of the blackest black he had ever seen. "Is that… the Moon?!" He felt his eyes open up in surprise as the camera moved far enough and turned around, showing the Earth overlooking the area.

He couldn't hide his surprise as the camera accelerated as it flew to Earth, a red glow appearing on the corners of the feed as it entered the atmosphere. It was becoming very obvious the drones were converging into the same spot at the center of the Atlantic Ocean.

"I think I can see something, guys." He commented as all feeds showed a small object quickly growing larger and larger. Soon revealed to be a floating platform that appeared to be multiple kilometers long.

"Haha! I'm sure everyone watching is having questions." A male's voice started to speak as the drones slowed down, but didn't stop moving.

"I'm also sure a lot of people have been very curious about the complete silence from the finalists in the last few hours." A female voice added.

"I'll present myself, I'm Guru, the creator of Cobalt Combatants." The male voice spoke with good humor. "But some of you may know me by another thing."

"Though I doubt many of you will have made the connection. I am the Celestial Forge." The female voice continued. "I hope that does ring a few more bells."

The cameras started to come down upon a pair of figures wearing the same suit and had balls of fire for heads.

"For those of you that don't remember, I recommend you all go watch Eisenritter's official interview." Both of them laughed softly. "Anyways, I think it's time to reveal what's going on in this tournament."

"That's right, as you can imagine, the battlefield behind me is not just for show." The female said.

Lars had been silent so far, barely managing to swallow dryly, not really having a moment to speak as the two figures spoke. But even he couldn't help but gasp as a camera shifted to show a giant Combatant walk into the image. It moved smoothly just like in game, reaching behind its back to retrieve a massive rifle and blast a full magazine into the distance; while the two Guru didn't react.

"That's right! We're having an actual giant robot fight! The finalists are currently preparing for the first few matches, we'll be starting with the first round of the single fights today." The male one explained. "Don't worry we've plenty of other things to show off in the meantime." He laughed softly. "Oh, and before anyone gets that stupid idea, these robots are never seeing anything other than game use like this."

"They aren't for sale, for so many reasons. I mean, they aren't even that amazing compared to the rest of the things." The female said in a very smug tone. "One last thing for those that are getting ideas, Powered can visit and watch live if they can get here, we'll also be offering transport from the Platform. If you haven't gotten there, well, we're not your babysitter."

"Two, any government or organization that tries to get here will be happily deposited back at the location they departed from. We've the technology and ability to do this, don't test us." The tone made a shiver go down Lars' spine. "Or do, it's only your time you are wasting."

"That warning given, how about we start with the tournament by presenting the competitors?"

The two of them continued speaking as the feed changed to the last place in the single fights ranking. Lars could only lean back and lower the volume.

"Okay people, I can't even start to believe what I saw, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one." He watched as the gamer explained a bit of why he had chosen his game style. "I now regret even more having gotten sick and ended up out of this last stage." He admitted. "But I'm mostly reeling from the fact that someone built giant robots and calls it not that impressive."

He snorted as he watched the comments roll in, everything from calling it bullshit to people deeming the two Gurus the new overlord. He also checked some of the comments going online on a second monitor.

"Does that mean the castle on the Moon is real?" He mused as he started to look for further information. "What the fuck…? I apologize for cursing people, but apparently one of the feeds apparently comes from Mars… You can all look for pictures, because words fail me. I think the Gurus were right about the giant robots not being that impressive."

Lars shook his head. "Oh well, I can only hope there will be more tournaments in the future and try to do better." He laughed and leaned back, grabbing his water bottle to stay hydrated, he just knew he would not be stepping away from the computer for a while.

\/AFfMB\/​

While my first and third body presented the tournament, my second body kept an eye on the internet; mostly out of curiosity to see how people reacted. Not that I was the only one looking around, the Pantheon and Asos were keeping a much more active and thorough eye on the web and the reactions to the reveal.

They were also keeping an eye on the world's governments, but those would take between at least an hour to react in any way. So there was no rush to prepare.

"How're things going?" Sabbah asked after rising from my shadow.

"Pretty good, lots of comments about both bodies. Some did realize that I never talked in plural, but most people are just taking it as some quirky way of speech." I explained.

"Having fun?" She whispered as she leaned against me.

My second body was the least human of the three, making more gestures of affection feel more distant through it. Not that I didn't try to show I cared, but when I interacted with other people using it, I felt less.

"Yes. The kids have already finished the interviews. So now they can be played and give us some time as the first fight's contestants get in place." I said. "There's also a few Powered requesting transportation over from the Platform to watch the fights."

"And when does our turn to show off come?" She asked, curiously.

"I was originally thinking of having you and Dani fight against the best two solo fighters from today's fights." I mused. "It's not like it's especially hard for me to replace the broken Combatants."

"I can't wait." She exclaimed.

I nodded. "For tomorrow I'm thinking of the best team going against the Elementals," I proceeded to explain to her how I wanted to show off that the bots weren't that interesting.

Sabbah offered a few tips from her experience as a Huntress, because apparently show-off matches were quite common and frequently used to cheer up the population. We soon were laughing about some dumb anecdote of her time at the Academy, simply enjoying the moment.

"Oh." I commented and she gave me an inquisitive look. "The first Powered are arriving, thankfully my two other bodies are busy and…" I laughed. "Oh dear, let me show you." I couldn't help but grin as I pulled up the feeds of what was happening.

\/AFfMB\/​

I did a quick check of my third body's clothes, not that it was needed, the many enchantments and material that went into the creation of the Ringmaster suit would keep it perfectly clean and presentable; it was practically impossible to get it to wrinkle.

The system notified me about the incoming connection from the Powered Platform, the familiar sight of the Landbridge opening made me smile. Even if it wasn't exactly visible as long as I wore the Headless Choker, the empathy and understanding enchantment on it allowed people to feel that I was smiling.

A very interesting discovery about the enchantment of understanding was how it could bridge individuals. It even worked quite well with animals, even if it wasn't geared for them, though effectiveness reduced with the animal's brain complexity. But the real gem on this was that it could actually help people with difficulties in social interaction like those in the Autism Spectrum.

Of course it wasn't something I could hand out easily, and I would need to properly test it out. Which was a bit harder to do, right now some of my kids were carefully approaching some pediatricians and psychopedagogist to get them into the testing properly. It's going to take some time.

But that was just another long term project. Instead I had to welcome the Powered that were stepping through the wormhole.

"Welcome all of you to the battlefield. For those of you that don't it, I'm Guru." I greeted and gave a little wave. "I'm the one that built the Platform and made all of this possible with the help of the Metaloids, and yes, I also created them." I explained.

I spoke calmly, but imposed enough of my presence to keep them from speaking just yet. It was interesting to note that not all of them were hiding their identities, the Pantheon had identified most of them and happily provided me with names and interesting info about each one.

"Now, before you ask questions let me put a few points forward." A screen with information appeared next to me. "These are the times for the matches, you're free to watch the matches from here or return to the Platform at any time. There's a strong shield protecting this area so you shouldn't need to worry about stray bullets or explosions." I started to list a few of the facilities available and how to access the zoom and camera function.

"Final thing, for the ones of you that want some adrenaline, the battlefield will be available for fighting later on. The field can be customized and will fix itself over time, so you can go pretty destructive and it won't matter." I gestured lightly and had a building grow out of the rocky ground before melting away. "Just keep in mind that I won't be responsible for your injuries, you'll get healing if you get back to the platform and ask one of the healers there. I honestly don't care enough to bring you back myself. Now you can ask your questions."

A cocky redhead sauntered forward as if he was god's gift to the world. "How about you join me to watch the show together? I'm sure it would make the tournament much more pleasurable."

The look that everyone gave the idiot practically screamed 'what the hell are you doing?', making the whole situation hilarious enough that I couldn't help it but throw my head back and laugh out loud at him. Apparently that was not what he expected as an answer.

"Wha- you bitch! You've any idea who I am?" He screamed at me 'face'.

I snorted. "Oh, I know who you're. Gordon Golman, you also like people to refer to you as Goldman even if your power has nothing to do with gold or being a man. You've also received a large number of tickets for drunk driving and going over the speed limit." I grinned. "So yes, I know who you are."

A few of the Powered snickered at how much Gordon looked like he had been slapped. Of course idiots shall be idiots, so the idiot tried to punch me. I easily grabbed his fist before it reached me.

"I think you need some fresh air to clear your head before you do something very stupid." My body started to swell and enlarge, growing to its full demi-Titan size.

I hadn't spent too much time in this form with this body, mostly with my first while working with the death moths or my second for construction purposes. My third body grew in size and complexity, I could feel the systems constructed in my body grow more powerful in ways that gave me ideas on how to develop my technology.

It quickly went from my hand holding his fist to just the tip of my fingers as I reached the full fifteen meters in height, looking down at Gordon as if he was a doll. I easily picked him up, his body tough enough to handle hanging from his hand.

All other Powered had gone stiff as my presence grew considerably stronger in this form, much closer to my 'nature' compared to my normal form. I could honestly feel so much more that it was nearly intoxicating.

I opened a portal under Gordon's feet and allowed him to drop, he would be falling for a few minutes as portals opened and closed to keep him in flight. Not just fall either, some were angled up, sending him in arches after gaining speed. Sometimes thrown high up and allowed to fall again into another portal.

I turned to the rest. "I apologize for that, please enjoy the stay." I nodded and stepped through a me-sized portal, waiting for it to close before breaking out in laughter as I slowly shrank.

Gordon would be deposited down on the ground harmlessly in about thirty seconds, with nothing more than a sore throat from screaming and a wind-swept hair-style.

"Much better." I hummed as that had been quite the effective de-stressing.

\/AFfMB\/​

Pat looked at the thing that walked out of the portal, and for a moment he was honestly afraid.

A veritable giant walked in their direction, its very presence was indescribable as even hundreds of meters away he could feel how the atmosphere around his family and him had changed.

But it was also in how the being's presence felt that he wasn't completely afraid, as it felt warm and playful. There was also the fact that the slowly turning galaxy instead of a head signified this was most likely his son. But when he had gained this ability he didn't know.

As Rick walked closer, his figure quickly shrank down till he saw what appeared to be his female body as he… she… they? Removed the collar that was hiding their head.

"Hello, sorry about the stunt, one of the Powered was being an idiot and needed to learn the pecking order." Their tone made Pat chuckle, it was the same exact tone they used when dealing with someone being an idiot.

"It's okay, we're just surprised." His wife, Karla, spoke. "That was a very impressive form."

Rick just snorted. "It may sound like I'm a villain in a bad movie, but it's not my final form. I just needed to be impressive enough, and size usually does that well enough."

"What did they do?" Lucia asked from her spot on the couch they were using to watch the tournament.

"Hit on me, and called me a bitch when I just laughed at their face. Also tried to hit me, but that would have done nothing." Rick chuckled. "Honestly I didn't even hurt them, I just scared them a bit and threw them into a rollercoaster of portals. The most damage they got was to their ego and falling like twenty centimeters onto their ass."

"You recorded it, no?" She asked and Rick nodded.

"I'll share it later if you want." They offered.

Pat chuckled at the little exchange. He was still surprised by what his son got into, not just the craziness of what he could create, because most of it honestly went over his head by a fair margin. It was things he had done to himself, his first meeting with his second body had been a surprise. But meeting him in his third body had made Pat honestly ask his son if everything was okay.

The answer hadn't been what he expected, learning his son called himself crazy bothered him. Even after Rick had explained what his Madness entailed, it didn't stop bothering him.

"Still can't believe you built giant robots just to make it a game. Wouldn't it be dangerous if someone used them for something else?" Pat asked.

Rick just laughed. "Nah, I mean," they ran their fingers through their hair. "The combatants were designed specifically to match how they would act in-game. That means they were designed to take a certain amount of damage from guns in such a way that it would be balanced in both real life and simulation." They explained. "How to explain this… I can totally make a giant robot that would be nigh-indestructible. I do have the material, the technology and the magic necessary to make something that would laugh at anyone attacking it. But I see no need to create it."

Pat could tell his son was not giving him the complete story, but he decided it was okay for now. Especially as the first fight of the single matches was starting.

Only a small amount of the battlefield would be used, the limits clearly marked by smooth walls. From above it was clear to see that the area imitated the downtown of a large city, large buildings provided not only plenty of cover, but also possible threats if they fell onto the players.

There had been a segment before the start of the fight explaining the two competitor's combatants and how they could do. Not that it made much sense for Pat, and he was pretty sure it neither did for a lot of people that were only now finding out about the tournament's finals, and how it was real giant robots fighting.

The first few seconds of the fight weren't the most interesting, the two players started far apart to give themselves some time to prepare. But it also quickly showed the difference in playing styles. While one player quickly got moving, the other started to shoot the base of the surrounding buildings.

"Is that allowed?" He asked his son.

"It's actually expected for players to abuse the environment, dropping buildings on other player's a pretty basic strategy and the better players are known to set up pretty complicated traps and chain reactions to squash others." He explained. "Just as normal as players accidentally squashing themselves by accident. Or other players taking advantage of the setting up process, like the other player's trying right now, or setting traps that only trigger when a player tries to set up a trap. There's enough strategy in it that it's become one of the leading things to learn in the game."

He nodded at what his son said, the robot shooting the buildings finally moved to hide between some debris and waited for the other player before shooting a completely different building and having them start falling one onto another. Of course the player wasn't caught completely by surprise, quickly using a hookshot to drag the whole robot off the path of the falling building and open fire on the other player.

The fight got resolved very quickly after that, with just two fighters and limited time for setting the battlefield, the two giant robots basically exchanged bullets till one of them was declared out of commission. All was helpfully shown by an overlay on the stream of the bots' bodies and the exact damage they were receiving.

"So how'll you deal with the damage?" Sam asked, curiously.

"Recycling!" His son grinned, which looked slightly weird in his female face. "My production capabilities allow me a recovery rate of a hundred percent of anything I throw into the fabricators as they use nanotechnology to break it all down into atoms and reshape it. It's also pretty easy since the bots are modular so I can build each part separately and simply assemble them like a toy."

"That's surreal."

"I left surreal months ago." Rick admitted with a chuckle. "I can tell you more later if you want. But the second match's starting."

Pat chuckled at the soft deflect and turned his attention back to the screen. The second match was indeed starting, different from the first, the two finalists had a similar play-style. The two rushed forward to meet each other, but quickly shifted into getting in and out of cover to land precise shots on each other.

"Got a question about the matches." He asked his son, who nodded to gesture for him to continue. "If the robots can be customized, are they forced to keep the same loadouts?"

"Not exactly, each player has an allowance of 2 changes per fight, and they accumulate. So they could store them and do a complete change later on." Rick once again explained. "It's similar for the team battles that will happen tomorrow."

Pat nodded almost absentmindedly as the two fighters kept missing the critical areas, but not without reducing the other bot's functionality. Finally it was two giant scarecrows shooting till one finally fell back.

"Well, that kinda sucks, I had set this match with the hope the two players would show off a bit more. But oh well, I can't know it all." Rick chuckled as he replaced the food on the table as the third match started.

Pat chuckled at the private show as he leaned back, life was weird, good, but weird.

 

[JackOfHeart]

Huzzzaah for chapter 100! And thanks for both the story and the chapter.

 

[shypunk]

thanks for the chapter and for writing it is awesome and enjoyable

 

[Melakias]

AFfMB – 101

Max couldn't hide his glee, he stepped out of the pod and stretched his limbs, letting out a very joyous cry as he had managed to get the second victory of the day.

He stopped his actions and gave the pod a look. "This is still sooo weird." He admitted and stretched his limbs a bit more, cracking his spine as no matter how comfortable it was inside the pods, the few minutes the match lasted were tense as fuck.

The experience was like nothing he had lived through before, just using the pods was eerily intuitive. Right from the moment he sat into it and the simulation started, controls he had never encountered before, or even thought possible, were as easy to use as a mouse to click on the screen.

It really made Max wonder just how it was possible, and which was imitating which. Was the game like reality, or reality like the game?

A pleasant chime coming from his bracelet had Max looking down, with a click he had accepted the incoming call; a screen he could barely tell it was a hologram appeared in front of him. "Congratulations Max," his mother said from what appeared to be one of the chairs on the beach outside of the hotel. "I saw your match, it was very impressive."

"Thanks mom." He said while reaching into the mini fridge to retrieve one of the drinks inside.

The brand was a complete unknown, but he was pretty sure it was just another thing the Celestial Forge had decided to make. The name, Celestial Drink, was quite a big clue; it was also quite good.

"You're returning to the hotel now?" She asked.

"Not yet, the schedule asks for the players to remain in their rooms after the matches for an announcement. So I'll most likely be heading back for dinner." He explained and shrugged. "I imagine there will be a large buffet dinner tonight."

"I understand, then I'll see you there, take care Max." She said and allowed him to reply before ending the call. It still surprised him that the bracelet could do so much. Having it chime again surprised him more.

He opened the message and read through it. A moment later he sent a reply and waited for the door to open. If Guru wanted to meet, he didn't see a problem with it.

When the door opened, he was surprised again, when the figure that walked in was female, and not male like he had met earlier.

"Thank you for accepting this meeting." The woman said. "It's a pleasure to meet you personally, Max. As I said before, I'm Guru, leader of the Celestial Forge." He nodded along as she spoke. "Now, I'm sure you must have questions. But first, the reason I'm here."

Max nodded. "So what do you need?"

Guru nodded. "Since you're one of the players dominating the ranking after the first two matches, I want to extend the chance for you to fight one more time today in the exhibition match."

"That sounds very interesting, but who will I be fighting against?" He couldn't help but ask, and quickly added. "And what does it change for me? …something tells me I won't be winning this match no matter what I do."

"Smart of you to ask. First, no it won't do anything for your status in the tournament besides fighting a completely different opponent. You won't have to worry about the destruction of your Combatant as it can be easily replaced." Guru answered. "Second, you will be fighting one of my companions. Either Specter or Shadow, that will be chosen randomly for you and the other fighter."

He just looked at Guru, for a moment taking in their presence. Max had noticed the sensation the first time he had made an appearance. It was like standing outside on a sunny day, But it was also combined with the sensation of static charge by being near a running engine.

"And no," Guru admitted. "The Combatants are toys compared to what Specter and Shadow can do." Even if he couldn't see Guru's face, the sheer smugness radiating from them was unmistakable. "Honestly tomorrow's matches will be done with some of the groups against my teams, the kids have been itching to show off just as much. Those may be a bit more balanced, but not by much. It's mostly the image of a single combatant going against a team of five even when it would have been more balanced, especially compared with my companions."

He thought about it, in a way he got the experience. And depending how little bad he did, he could at least boast about having fought. "Okay, I'll do it." He finally agreed.

"Excellent, then get back into the pod and prepare for a ride." Guru said, and even without a face, Max could tell they were grinning.

"Though, before you leave. I've to ask, what's with your…being female?"

"Oh, this? I have multiple bodies, they cover different things for different reasons. At least putting it simple, just a bit Mad." Guru shrugged after the explanation and left the room, leaving Max to think about it.

"Crazy indeed…" He chuckled and slipped back into the pod.

\/AFfMB\/​

I couldn't help but cheer triumphantly as I finished with the last details on Biomancy, I could finally call it a proper school of magic, one of the biggest achievements in a while; even when compared to a whole new planet. Could it be improved in the future? Most likely. But I imagined any improvement would most likely cover adapting the magic system for other species.

I was pretty sure the first modification of the system would be aimed at treating the Metaloids or the Cybertronians as them being the first non-human races I may need to take care of. Though I may also extend to Ectoplasmic beings and other magical creatures.

I could finally complete the Healing Support Cores, I had a few ideas of how to customize their use. For example the Medics wouldn't be getting the most delicate of the tools such as genetic manipulation, but on the other hand they would be getting a simpler version of the shield generation for their own safety. Meanwhile the Doctors would get practically all the spells and necessary knowledge and scanning abilities.

So far the two teams had mostly provided normal medical attention at the Platform, at most they applied one of the nano packs to heal more troublesome injuries. Thankfully all Powered seem to enjoy at least a small amount of physical reinforcement, along with some improved healing. This meant Powered healed small injuries in just a few hours and broken bones in days, they still came to the Platform to get those healed faster.

"You'll be happy to hear that the kids have relocated another craft back to their launching location." Asos said.

"Wonderful, what was it this time, air or water? And where did it come from?" I asked.

Asos waved their hand and a holographic screen popped in the air. An image of the drones carrying the ship through a portal and depositing it back on the port made me chuckle. "A sea vessel coming from Puerto Rico. As you asked, I allowed them to get close enough to confirm the Battlefield's indeed flying over the ocean before moving them back." They said as the screen shifted to show how close they had gotten.

"Do you think they will try again?"

"Anansi has identified some internal communications about giving it a second try to see if there's a minimum distance they can park their ship." Asos explained. "I would guess they think the system is automated." They shrugged.

"Okay then, if they do try again, give them five minutes before you send them back. Make them think we had to think about it." I said and grinned, Asos nodded. "Thank you." I spoke honestly and they gave me a smile, noting it wasn't much of a problem before wandering off.

I was glad to see them enjoying their independence, even if they were technically soul linked with me. Asos had been going out as with their physical frame, utilizing their dragoncraft to fly around Mars and the Moon, not so much on Earth given the problems that would crop up if intercepted or taken as justification for armed conflict.

I mostly had asked Asos to prevent those from happening by not flying around on Earth because I could very well tell they would take it as an invitation to destroy another government's leader if they piqued their interest. Personally I didn't see much problem given some very acceptable targets, but I would prefer if Asos waited till the infiltration units pushed further and matured enough to be nigh-indistinguishable from normal people.

Anyways, with Biomancy finally completed, I could lean back and watch the show. Making a massive screen be projected in front of me was mostly for the kicks as I retrieved some popcorn, one a side was the official stream, the other was a representation of how the internet was reacting to the tournament.

It was, obviously, topping all the talks and charts. Even the small number of Powered skirmishes that had popped out had been pushed aside by people so fast it had most definitely given someone whiplash.

There was a lot of betting going on online, both legal and illegal. It didn't especially surprise me, Asos had noted a certain amount of it already existing when it was just a game.

Practically every streamer was reacting to the tournament at the moment. Every news channel, not just those about gaming and technology, was talking about it. There's even a big movement behind the scenes in sports news groups talking about pushing gaming into the full consideration of a sport at global level even more than it already was.

I watched as my third body stepped forward once more to talk to the masses, the comment definitely reflecting my skill in appearances. It was a bit grating, but something I could honestly ignore and act as if it didn't exist.

"Welcome back everyone," I could very well hear myself speak since it was me after all. "With the first day coming to a close, we have had eight amazing matches that are the talk of everyone watching." I spoke while walking around a bit, the kids helpfully mixing a few of the best captures from the matches while I continued speaking. "A lot of people are already expecting tomorrow to be even more impressive with the first round of team battles, and I can tell you those will be a sight. But to close today we have extended the chance to the best two players to put on an exhibition match each!"

I took a few moments of silence to allow people to take in what I just said before I resumed.

"Now, fighting between the two of them wouldn't be anything different from the match they will already be having in the next few days. That's why they will be fighting two much more skilled combatants, and that's with lowercase c." I added with a very obvious wink, even if I didn't have a face to show it.

"On this corner, MaxSkull." I presented the kid, I could tell he was feeling quite nervous. But the way he quickly pushed it away made me note him as of interest. "On this other corner, Shadow."

It was a bit unfair for Max, his entrance was basically just his Combatant stepping through the portal. While it was pretty impressive, it was the same that had been shown for each of the eight matches earlier on the day. I would have to see about adding customization of entrances to the game in the future.

Meanwhile my little Shadow showed off quite a bit. Made me wonder if she had discussed things with Dani beforehand. I watched as the shadows on the field darkened till even the lightest shade was a light-sucking void, every one of them seemed to have a weight as they started to slither over the ground, converging at the center of the affected area.

The spot grew so dark that everyone would just see a smooth and flat area, nothing for the brain to calculate depth as the spot rose up, maintaining the visual effect. Once it reached her height, it shrank till it was her silhouette and dissipated to expose her in full business murder fashion.

"With both parties present, let's see what kind of battlefield we are getting!" I announced and made a massive fortune wheel pop out from thin air before giving it a spin. The time it took for it to stop spinning gave all people watching time to comment. "And we get a well-lit stadium!"

It was a pretty obvious descriptor, looking more like a coliseum than a stadium, but the light sources practically erased all shadows in the field besides the hallways behind the stands. It looked like it was stacked against Sabbah as the stadium had a rule about stepping away from the central field. But it was all part of the show.

I made a mock gesture like I was checking the comments going around. "Ain't that adorable? People think this will be a balanced fight." I commented offhandedly as I noticed the bets being against Sabbah, cackling internally and with my first body. "Honestly people…"

I watched the field reshape around the two of them, the lights coming on and illuminating the field so perfectly that the only shadows were those under their feet.

"With everything ready...Fight!" As I spoke the last word, a firework shot up and exploded, signaling the start of the match.

Sabbah didn't move at first, while Max quickly threw himself into the attack. While the complete lack of barriers in the arena meant Sabbah couldn't hide away from the Combatants bullets, it also meant the latter couldn't grapple around easily, as any use of the Grapple would need to reach the edge before dragging himself over.

Though that was a false dichotomy, as a lack of obstruction didn't mean that Sabbah was easy to hit. Max had started the battle by running and gunning, but while he had good aim, none of his shots even graced my little Shadow.

She hadn't moved from her spot, barely leaning to the sides and twisting her body to allow the bullets to move past her. Said bullets were moving fast enough to be invisible to normal eyes. It took him to empty a whole magazine from the automatic rifle he had selected for Sabbah to take a step.

"Ain't this a hot start?" I commented on the fight. "MaxSkull leads in hard with a full magazine, but doesn't manage more than having Shadow take a step away from her starting position."

Of course making her take a step was practically asking Sabbah to teach you a lesson, much more than Dani who was a forward fighter. She was still using the kiddy gloves, as instead of using the whole blade, she only retrieved a small number of the feathers and launched them in an open fan formation.

It was an obvious probing attack, but it wasn't something that was used enough in-game for Max to understand its use instantly. That meant it got him spooked and cut his rush to dodge to the side. Her knives only scratched his combatant before they flew back to her, being caught and getting thrown out once more. Just this time she threw double the initial amount.

"Uff, bad move. Stopping that rush may have cost the Combatant more than just a few seconds, taking a single hit could have very well been worth closing in the distance."

I kept an eye on the comment going online, most people had indeed made the connection between Sabbah's looks and Assassin from Fate. Though most hadn't noticed how the shadows had started to spread out from under her feet, swallowing the light and creating a web of thin, black lines.

Max had quickly adapted to the Flying Feathers, but on the other hand had focused so much on the projectiles that he missed Sabbah retrieving River Snake, the blade held parallel to her leg, practically hidden in her silhouette as he approached.

"The Combatant finally manages to close in enough, but is this really a good move?" I asked just in time for Sabbah to flash past the fighter. "And Shadow shows off by slicing through his ranged weapons." I explain as Max's rifle and backup gun fall to the ground in pieces, leaving him only with the melee, wrist blade.

It's kinda ironic he's forced to use those against Sabbah since the community dubbed them Assassin's Blades given their similarity to the blades from the game.

Honestly, without his ranged weapons, the Combatant's size was working against him. For all the agility the combatants had, attacking in melee was slower than a normal person with a knife, and for Sabbah that was snail's pace. She dodged the attacks, weaving through them as if she wasn't even there to begin with. Just a shadow.

"And the Combatant's reduced to taking stabs. Unluckily for the fighter, Shadow appears to be at least a couple steps ahead and simply leads him along." I commented.

Sabbah turned the poor Combatant into a playground's climbing toy, easily getting up arms and between legs, sitting on their shoulders before sliding down their back. It was pretty much what I expected of her while showing off like this.

It wasn't like she couldn't have ended the fight in one move. River Snake by itself was sharp enough to slice through the whole Combatant like a hot knife through butter.

What most people didn't catch was the small flashes from the knife in her off-hand taking a few stabs at the mecha's joints. It wasn't obvious they were having an effect at first, Sabbah was just that good. Stab after stab it compounded as it became obvious the robot's movements were starting to stagger and lock.

And as the robot moved less and less, the web of thin shadows crept up, slowly and steadily, hiding itself by using the Combatant's painting.

"What's this? Is our brave combatant getting ready to turn the match around?" I asked, my mocking tone was a bit mean. But just too much fun as Sabbah jumped off his head and landed in front of him, facing away as she just stood there. "He pulls back ready to throw an attack, but…"

I leave it hanging as the robot locks a centimeter away from making contact, between the damage to the joints and shadow strings holding it in place.

My little shadow didn't even turn back, instead retrieving River Snake once more and stabbing it down into a dark patch on the ground in front of her. As she stabbed down, the mech practically fell to pieces as the shadows extended in, slicing through the already weakened joints and weak spots.

"And there we have it, people. The first of today's two exhibition matches." I spoke animatedly. "And for those of you who bet against her, oh well, what did you expect?"

I chuckled and moved onto the next match, the bets were very different when it was Dani's turn to kick some robot ass.

\/AFfMB\/​

"You two looked amazing." I praised Dani and Sabbah honestly, the three of us were relaxing in the hot springs island.

"It was fun, though not really a fair fight." Dani said and shrugged.

"I felt a little bit mean." Sabbah mused.

"The idea was to show off, and you two didn't even break a sweat." I observed. "And it earned you two a lot of fans." I added teasingly.

Sabbah didn't look too worried, Dani, on the other hand, appeared to be having traumatic flashbacks. I reached over to pat her shoulder.

"Don't worry, it's not as bad, they haven't seen your face." I comfort her. "And your suit does change the outline of your body."

"That still leaves fanart." She whined and we scooted closer.

"Want me to ask the kids to scour the internet from it?" I offered, mostly joking.

"No… just don't remind me." She mumbled as she pulled us closer.

We sat in silence for a bit, enjoying the hot water. Until Sabbah spoke again. "So what's next?"

"Well, tomorrow it's the start of the team battles and the second day single fights. The day after that is a break so we can celebrate someone's birthday." As I spoke Dani blushed. "The day after that is the third day of singles and the team battles for fourth and third place. The final day will be the last two rounds of single matches, the final team battle and then the award ceremony."

"And what do you have planned?" Dani asked pointedly.

"Well, Biomancy's finally completed, that means I have ten Power Cores to finish, after that I have to focus completely on the reforging of the Infinite Realms' artifacts. Plus I've to finish the Celestial Victory. We should be leaving in a week to a week and a half." I explained as we just cuddled there.

As I laid there with them I felt the Forge activate, it certainly surprised me as it'd been a while since its last time it moved.

You have created a school of magic
Rolling… Perk Acquired
Mythic (Artisan Domain)​

"Well… that's a surprise." I admitted as I internally looked through the new perk.

I quickly explained the new perk to them, how Mythic made me more, once more increasing my potential and all of my abilities. It allowed me to understand things to make them epic, but not in the internet slang way, but in the epics of old.

I could weave the rainbow into a dress, use the sound of the wind to string a bow, sharpen a blade with a song, or cook a fairy fest.

It was a very wild perk that changed how I observer the world, in a way it made everything a possible crafting material. It pushed my ability to use non-standard materials and energy fields to craft artifacts even further than what Titanic Blood and Daedalus Student did.

I didn't rush out to test it, even when my second and third body were busy with other things, my first remained in the hot springs for a bit longer as the three of us watched and enjoyed the day roll over.

Once I returned to the workshop I got working on the calm half of the ring. Once more I realized I was only capable of working with it because I was being allowed to.

Turning half a ring into a whole ring would be easy, but that meant I had half a ring to do whatever I wanted. There was so much stuff I could put in half a ring by now. For example I was working the Fenton's Ectosuit into it.

I had asked Danny's parents for permission and I was glad they had given it. I didn't even need to worry about a power source with the Ring channeling the Infinite Realm's power through itself.

I was modifying its looks, going for something between a royal armor and a space suit given Danny's love for space. It also carried a hint of his hazmat suit beginnings by how the helmet would be close to my kid's full face shields.

It would take me some time, but I was aiming to please...and surprise Danny once he wore the full set.

 

[shypunk]

thanks for another awesome chapter and for writing

 

[Candyturtle]

Yes I quite agree thanks for another awesome chapter

 

[Melakias]

AFfMB – 102

I spent most of the first half on the second day of the tournament working on the Ring of Rage, or well, the Ring of Command as the rage had already been removed. I had taken a number of trips into the Ghost Zone to craft the armor from the free-floating ectoplasm existing in the realm.

The resulting material was incredibly ethereal, only holding itself in place by the memory of being a metal ingot. I used them as a base to create a series of alloys with other materials mostly for the resulting colors. It also really helped in packing the armor away into the ring, as the memory-nature of the ectoplasmic alloys allowed it to be compacted in a semi-energy medium inside the ring.

I was already starting to put an idea of what I would do with all that rage, leaving it hanging was absolutely not a good idea after all; that was the perfect way to get it to come back later and bite me in the ass. That's why I decided to craft it into a weapon.

I had been tempted to go for a scepter at first, but it would clash horribly with the concept. Danny may be able to curb all that rage, but putting it in a scepter was asking for bad decisions. Instead I would put it in a sword, it would hopefully temper the rage properly and give it a more constructive goal, especially since I believed Danny capable of rightfully using that rage to protect.

I was still leaving the crown for later, as I could tell that one would be a dozy.

There were also ten Power Cores constructed during a little break, the two teams were now more than equipped to deal with sickness, trauma and possible maladies to practically any level. The Medics would mostly be staying in reserve for now as the Doctors would start visiting some hospitals in impoverished regions and dealing with patients who would most likely never be treated otherwise.

Finally it had come the time to break away from my work for the second day's fights.

"Welcome back everyone for the second day of the first Cobalt Combatants tournament. And welcome to all of those signing in for the first time." It was my first body doing the presentation once more. "Today we're having the first round of team battles alongside the third and fourth rounds of single battles."

I took a moment to walk around as the stream had a few of the previous day's battles shown on a corner.

"Now, for all you people who only heard about this tournament after the first day. The single battles are part of a round robin, our nine finalists are going to do eight battles each, and at the end of the tournament the one with the most victories will be going home with the big prize." As I explained, the current results popped on my side. "Meanwhile, team battles are on an elimination basis, today's losers will be fighting in two days for third and fourth spot while the two winners will be fighting the day after that for the title!"

Thanks to the Pantheon, I had a pretty good idea of the general threads of comments going on online about the tournament. How most people reacted, the trends, the general reactions, etc…

"Now a lot of people have been asking why tomorrow's empty, and that's very simple. I've made previous commitments and it was decided that the contestants can enjoy a day off." I said honestly.

With that done, I allowed the show to move onto the single battles, that meant I could go back to the Workshop till I had to present the team battles in a few hours. Hopefully nothing would interrupt me.

\/AFfMB\/​

Sumire was quite happy with her situation, being one of her father's infiltration units meant she only had to live a normal life. She was currently playing the role of daughter for Anthony and Yukiko, two of her siblings from different groups. In her opinion, this was the only reason the whole thing didn't feel weird. Or maybe it was something their father had programmed into them, not that she believed this.

She didn't look much older than ten, with a nice mix of features that combined Anthony and Yukiko's human forms; no one would doubt she was their daughter. The three of them were playing the role of recent immigrants in France, with Anthony having taken a job in one of the Celestial Forge's many companies, this secured their situation well and most people wouldn't think much about it.

Meanwhile Yukiko played the role of at-home mother who had a small side-gig selling embroidery online, paired with Anthony's generous salary they had a justification for living comfortably as a couple in their early thirties with a young kid.

Plus they could hide a lot of their weirdness by playing the immigrants' card when they screwed things. No one batted an eye if you said 'things were different back home', it wouldn't work forever. But long enough for them to learn to fit in.

Sadly the school year was practically ending in a week or two, meaning she couldn't attend school yet, and was forced to stay at home most of the time. Except when Yukiko went with her to the park to 'look over her'. Which was all kinds of hilarious in their opinion, but all infiltration units knew they had to play the role and things would get easier with time; it was just growth pains for now.

For now she was spending most of her time hanging out in the park. It was a bit boring without actual friends to talk to; though she easily kept mentally occupied with her thousands of siblings in the Network. it wasn't like everyone was talking at the same time, they had long since created chat rooms to separate subjects. Similarly, Yukiko spent the time watching her from a bench nearby.

It's past school hours, so while there were a few kids in the park, most were keeping a wide margin from her, the unknown kid. At least till a group of her apparent age decided to try their luck and approached.

"Hey you," one of the bigger kids in the small group called her. "You're new around, right?"

She found this to be quite rude, but as far as she understood, kids tended to be like this at this age.

"Yes, we moved last week." She spoke in a slightly stunted French.

"School?" One of the smaller kids asked.

"Not yet, dad says I will start in a few months." She answered and a couple of kids mumbled about her being lucky to not have to go to school.

She honestly shrugged, even boring classes would be better than hanging at home doing nothing. Thankfully the kids did invite her to hang out, which certainly improved her afternoon. She's also glad to see that Yukiko had been approached by some other women, mothers to the other kids she guessed, meaning they were both having a much better time.

"Suspicious guy coming from the North West." Yukiko messaged her through the network.

She replied with a quick agreement as she saw the weird man scooting around in a more bush-heavy area of the park. The fact that the Pantheon was having troubles identifying him at first was quite troublesome.

Worried about the man's intentions with the other kids, she slowly managed to join the small group closer to the creep. She noticed how the playground's toys hid them quite well from the mothers and messaged her mother.

"Need help?" Yukiko sent her way.

"Not for now, but be prepared to call the police if necessary." She replied and her 'mother' gave her a thumbs up through the network.

She joined the three other kids that had followed the man, easily copying their unimpressed looks at him. Things were turning more worrisome when she received a message from the Pantheon, it detailed how the man in front of them was also currently having a job interview in a cafe all the way across the city.

The man had no known twin, had been a single child his whole life, never got into trouble besides a speeding ticket here and there. Practically a saint compared to the average person. The most interesting thing they had found was a complaint from the man to his wife's ex-boyfriend a year before their wedding.

That man, on the other hand, was much more notable. And not in a good way.

Paul had dropped from highschool halfway through, coasting the rest of his teenagehood as a bad boy thanks to his parent's money. The image was reinforced by the expensive bike he used to drive everywhere and show off, getting a large number of speeding tickets and other traffic violations. He also liked to flirt with practically any girl or woman he met, which usually led to charges of violent behavior as the boyfriends, or husbands, asked him to stop and he took exception to that. There were also a number of robbery charges as his taste for the rich and expensive life meant many times he didn't pay for items and services.

His breakup with the wife of the man he was now wearing the face of had been bad. Reacting incredibly violently when she had found just how much of a lazy and greedy slob he was once the bad boy image flaked off. Police had been called by her parents when he had, once more, gotten violent at the news that she didn't want to go out with him anymore, nor support him economically.

And since the Pantheon could confirm the man in the cafe was the real owner of the face, this man was definitely an impostor. Especially as he called himself by the other man's name. Sumire would bet this man was a Powered.

The moment he tried to reach for one of the kids she grabbed his wrist, even if her frame was that of a kid, her grip was enough to twist metal like taffy with some effort. The fact that his bones didn't crack under the considerable amount of pressure she was exerting was enough proof to message their father.

She also utilized the DIA system's emulsion to cast a broad sleeping spell. It wouldn't affect the Powered in front of her, but the children dropped like rocks.

"Hey!" He practically screamed in surprise. "Let go you-" Her grip tightened as he tried to pull back.

While most infiltration units didn't have a Power Core like the active teams, all of their DIA systems had the spell emulation module installed. Sumire had two spells currently running, one to stop all noise from escaping the area around them, and another to anchor herself into the ground.

"Why should I do that, Paul?" She asked pointedly as her grip tightened once more, there's a modicum of terror on his face at being called his actual name.

"Eh he he, I don't k-know why are yo-u calling me that?" He stammered."My name is Dylan."

She snorted. "I was pretty sure Dylan's having coffee half a city away." She revealed and watched his face twist first in disgust at being exposed and further into a monstrous facade..

"I'll show you, you cheeky little brat." His voice became distorted as his skin shifted like clay.

Watching a massive fist coming at her, made Sumire cross her arms in front of her and her NN Flesh harden to the limit. It's an impressive feat by the Powered that most of the material covering her arms cracks and explodes out to bleed all of the impact's energy.

This surprised the man for long enough for a portal to open behind the man, a couple of teams stepping through and encircling the Powered just as her father stepped through next.

And he definitely looked pissed, even if she couldn't see his face, the fireball above his neck had never looked as dangerous. Even the even with the GIW hadn't gotten him to this level. Offhandedly she noticed that a shield had been erected around her and the sleeping kids, preventing the man from reaching them even if he tried.

"You know, I really don't care what most Powered do." His tone was chilly. "Go out, play heroes, scratch your ass, show off, whatever. Just don't involve civilians, and kids?" He looked down at Paul. That glare caused the pathetic man to physically shrink.

"I understand, I won't do it again." He managed to speak through clenched teeth.

Her dad looked down at him. "…I don't trust you." He admitted and shook his head. "I can practically taste how you will go out and try this again, just differently, and now you will feel slighted by me for stopping you here."

Paul's face twisted. "Maybe if you hadn't stuck your nose in you wouldn-" His words died in his mouth as he was rendered mute by an invisible force.

"That's enough, do yourself a favor and shut up." Her dad spoke firmly. She felt a bit of a shiver as the crown flowing around his head flared up. "And no, I won't kill you." He added as his hands glowed. "I'm sure I can find a better use for you."

Paul's eyes showed his fear as strings of energy were webbed around his figure, her father's hands connecting spots with meaning she didn't know, nor could understand. The more points were connected the less and less of Paul was visible until he was completely cocooned away, and a moment later it shrank down to a bead smaller than a fist.

"I'll put this away somewhere safe." He spoke and looked at her. "Well done, Sumire, they will wake up soon. Follow the Pantheon's plan." He gave her a very obvious wink before all the teams headed away with him.

She could only chuckle and allowed herself to drop to the ground just as Yukiko and the other mothers ran to them. Apparently a broken gas pipe would be found nearby and officials would come to the conclusion that a pocket of it accumulated under the grass and came out when kids walked by. It was kinda silly, but there would also be a sizable donation to the city for the improvement of the park. Or at least that was the story.

None of the kids would remember Paul, and that was okay, he didn't deserve to leave them with trauma. It would also help Sumire be accepted to the group of kids, Anthony and Yukiko would make sure she attended the same school too.

Maybe it really was just growing pains, she was already fitting better.

\/AFfMB\/​

I looked at the Prison Core in my hand, while certainly closer to the concept of Sacred Gear, they carried a ton of changes and upgrades I had managed to add given my experience with Power Cores.

Honestly, this was more of an incomplete Prison Core, it was just the prison part, I still needed to add the modules for power control, soul attachment, and other parts.

While not being uncomfortable inside, it wasn't exactly a 5-stars hotel stay. He would be kept in stasis, not even dreaming for now, maybe in the future I would allow him a small amount of consciousness and interaction through the network to keep him from going crazy; maybe even try to reintegrate him into society.

Of course it wasn't that easy, after finding his identity and his past actions, Asos and the Pantheon quickly found that this wasn't the first time he had used his powers for evil.

A large number of small donations to his bank account labeled as miscellaneous movements, a number of apartments, vehicles and other services paid by other people. And that was what we could prove. I didn't doubt for a moment the man slept with women using their SO's faces multiple times, it was very much in line to how he acted previously.

Watching the list of crimes grow and grow, I stopped feeling guilty about keeping him in the Prison Core, even if it turned out to be a few years before I dealt with it. I still set a small alarm for a few months and placed the Prison Core away.

Spending a few minutes watching through the network how the emergency services arrived to check the kids relieved me of any lasting worries. The Pantheon's plan to fake a gas escape was good, not perfect, but I think if it was perfect it would end drawing more attention. I imagined there would be plenty of finger pointing in the next few weeks, hopefully that would muddle things up further.

I left Sumire and Yukiko to their things, Anthony would be 'told' later about it and act like a good parent. In many ways, this was a great way for them to grow closer to the local community. Nothing brought people close like shared hardships.

My attention turned back to the tournament, the single fights had finished for the day and the team battles were currently ongoing. The teams were pretty well matched, which was not a surprise since these were the best players around.

Team battles were considerably more dynamic than singles, the fact that the fight didn't end once one bot stopped functioning forced the rest of the team to adapt. A bot going off also wasn't a sign of a match lost, as there were plenty of suicide strategies coming from well formed teams.

While they fought, the Elementals were training, the five of them had come a long way since they had awakened. Now why they had decided to form a Power Rangers/Sentai team escaped me. It had at least given me a reason to build them a link-up combiner form.

I had no idea what they would fight with it, but it was there. But I could easily see them eagerly showing it off during the exhibition match, it was the whole idea of the event after all.

I watched people's reactions as my third body presented the next fight, trying very hard to ignore the lecherous side of the internet. But in the end it wasn't that hard. I wanted to lay back and just watch the show, but I had a Rage-infused sword to forge after all.

\/AFfMB\/​

Margarita 'Fire' Andes looked at her team siblings. "Okay team, we're about to go out and show off." She received a few happy responses at that. "That means we get to really show off with the vehicles and the combination."

"So are we starting the battle on foot?" Jacinto 'Water' asked. "Or just doing a presentation before getting into the cars?"

"I vote we do a pose, pyrotechnics and then jump into our cars as the battle starts." Offered Violeta 'Metal'.

Jasmin 'Earth' nodded along. "We managed to color those explosions with some metal compounds." She offered.

Ayana 'Electric' just nodded in silence, having already given her opinion on things much earlier.

"Then it's decided," Margarita said. "Though, should we start in human, Metaloid or directly into our armored forms?"

They all agreed to the last one.

"Great," she continued. "Then we should move."

The five of them allowed their NN Flesh to retreat and reveal their Metaloid nature before the armor closed over it. They stepped through the portal that led them to the battlefield in a coordinated fashion. Across the currently empty field they could see the five Combatants looking back at them.

If Fire could say something about them, it was that they appeared to be a bit scared by their appearance. "Okay, like we practiced." She announced. "Hup!"

She took a Y pose, legs together, arms in diagonal from her head, to her direct sides Water and Electric. The two took a K position, making a straight line with their torso and the arm and leg closest to Fire. Finally Earth and Metal took the edges, practically sitting down, making a loose triangle with their bodies.

A moment later five columns of colored smoke exploded behind them, and just as they had planned, their vehicles jumped through the smoke columns and landed in front of them.

"And with such an impressive introduction, the Elementals call the start of the match!" Their father announced.

The five of them broke formation and jumped into their vehicles before accelerating in the direction of their enemy as the field started to shift between and around them. The other team hadn't remained still, quickly falling into their own formation as they advanced too.

Soon the field finished changing around them, revealing for the people watching the two teams were fighting in a half-ruined city. A lack of tall buildings meant there was no chance for traps to be set, debris lay around made movement more complicated, large open spaces left easy to set kill fields.

And just as the Combatants prepared to open fire, the five of them shifted. Their vehicles changed into robots of a similar size as the mechas.

Fire wondered how surprised the other team was by the sudden change, not that it lasted as they quickly got over it and properly opened fire on them. She quickly used her Power Core to stop those bullets, different from her name, her power wasn't pyrokinesis. But instead it was manipulation of energy in an area, and draining the energy from those bullets made them harmlessly fall to the ground inert.

Earth's actions came a moment later, his Power Core wasn't geokinesis. Instead it was closer to large-scale material reshaping, her sibling using it to soften the ground under the enemy Combatants and force them to retreat in search of solid ground. It wasn't even his full power, as the Combatants could still run away.

This was their team's common factor, instead of utilizing their respective code names as Power Cores, they had talked it over with their father about going for alternatives. For example, Metal's Power Core allowed her to grow and control a dangerous strain of the Iron Rose.

Which she quickly used to spread a barb-wire-like briar over the battlefield. The plant's thorns were sharp enough to tear through the reinforced panels of the Combatants. Meanwhile, Electric's Core allowed her to create a controlled magnetic attraction through any metallic material she was in touch with. In this case that was the metallic briar, turning it into a trap most effective.

The only one that couldn't do much at the moment was Water, as her pressure control was useless against non-organic targets unless she went full into crushing depths.

"Ready to combine?" She called through their network, a chorus of 'Ready' replying to her.

Fire couldn't help but grin as the hype of showing off overtook her and her link-up body jumped up high, limbs shifting position as she took the position of the torso. "One!" She screamed out loud.

"Two!" "Three!" Earth and Water followed her example, their robot mods changing much more extensively as they shaped into a pair of identical legs, just with different color patterns.

As they connected to form the legs and hips, her torso fell down to connect. Earth reinforced the ground under them as Electric and Metal went next.

"Four!" "Five!" The two connected to each side as the last few changes went through their combined body.

Different from the usual combiners who just seemed to hang together, the Elemental's whole body shifted to fit in better. Armor panels slid out from subspace compartments to cover their joints and protect the connecting points.

"The Elemental!" They called as one.

Honestly, it could hardly be called a battle after that, more of a complete curbstomp.

There was little the Combatants could do against five minds working as one, if they had previous experience they may have pulled a tie. But the Elemental was a force of nature and made quick work of them.

Once they were declared the winners, all they did was salute to the public before stepping back through a portal. It was time to celebrate.

\/AFfMB\/​

Amber giggled as she watched her siblings show off in the tournament. The massive Empress Bee rested at the center of her Martian hive as she watched the tournament to entertain herself.

Since her last change she only had to lay queen eggs, this left her with a lot of free time for herself. She was taking advantage of this by practicing with her hive's psychic powers and studying architecture and space manipulation.

This has led her to not only refine her hive's construction ability, but also make it larger inside than what it looked on the outside. Her dear father had praised her for achieving this and had recommended to learn how to create wormholes to connect multiple hives. It was certainly much harder, but she didn't want to ask for help just yet.

Her advances on architecture reflected heavily in how much cleaner her hive looked now, it was easier to harvest the honey. This not only allowed her to store it better, but also turn the excess into gift and currency as many of her siblings were more than happy to exchange favors and work for some of the honey her hive made from the metallic crops.

It was mostly flower samples from around the world, stories, personal experiences and other similar things. But it was a nice way to get to know the world outside.

Amber looked at her expanding kingdom, she needed to ask her dad about getting one of her queens to Earth. One planet was starting to feel strangely small for her.

 

[Candyturtle]

great chapter once again and I'm not sure if I've said it before but I do love your ideas with the celestial stuff what with the entities getting together and putting random blessings and items in a weird dispensary kind of thing it's very unique and inspired

 

[shypunk]

thanks for yet another awesome chapter and for writing. and i agree with the dude above

 

[Toki_kung]

Fu*king power rangers hilarious hahahaha

 

[Melakias]

AFfMB – 103

It was finally Friday. After Thursday's exhibition matches things had finally calmed down a bit. And by that I meant that the Internet had exploded with memes and talks about the Elementals pulling a combiner and the Little Ones becoming a guerrilla nightmare squad.

Now the finalists got a whole day on a paradise-like island. I was impressed none of them, nor their companions, had realized they could ask for practically anything. But I wasn't going to tell them.

Mostly because I wasn't interacting with them, I had spent practically the whole night breaking my head over a wild idea. And the craziest thing was that I had managed to make it work.

I had achieved Energy-to-Matter and the inverse, this was such a huge step forward, especially since that if I paired it with the endless energy generation from the fusion generators; I had honestly achieved post-scarcity. I was still not exactly in the Type 2 of Kardashev scale, but that was mostly me not trying to harness the sun's energy.

"Wait, no…" I rubbed my chin and thought about it better. I was technically past harnessing the sun's energy as the Inverse Planet had a massive magitech, artificial star inside that was generating power.

I was actually unsure if that counted, but it certainly was a lot of power that was being worked there.

The inside of the planet was quickly growing green, blue, purple, red and a myriad of other colors. Because apparently magic liked to be showy and mutating plants into different colors was just the start. And with Amber having asked to transport one of her queens to Earth, I may ask her to start spreading into the Inverse Planet too; though it will require plenty of study given the possible changes magic will do on them.

But I was thinking of leaving it for after the whole deal with Earth Primus was done, I didn't want things to spiral out of control while I wasn't around. Still, I had much more immediate subjects to deal with, like planning a birthday party.

It would be us three, the Fenton, Sam, Tucker, Jake, Rose, my family and Valerie. I had met this last one only a few days prior when I took the team that would be learning the 'art' of ghost hunting from her. The young woman had combined her experience with her father's security company, training companies to deal with small supernatural threats and employing some of the Fenton's works to equip them.

This meant she had no problem in teaching them, for a price. Thankfully I was more than ready to pay for it with an upgrade to her personal armor, one that only she could use and was nigh-impossible to reverse engineer.

Similarly the two other teams were learning under the Fright Knight, though that was more of a title, his real name was Halloween Horror. He was the literal spirit of Halloween and its scary stories.

He wasn't too hard to deal with if you could ignore the way his existence made those around him feel afraid, it also helped that I had the zone's permission to be there and work on the ring and crown. I think the ghost was more loyal to the position than the ghost that held the title.

I hummed thoughtfully as I cooked a large buffet of varied snacks, both meat-heavy and completely vegan. I knew a bit of Tucker and Sam's respective tastes on meals, so I wonder what they would think about the red algae-based meta replacement, for all intents and purposes it looked like normal meat even when cooked.

I would need to get Danny into it, he was the key to tricking Sam into eating the burger without checking it first. Tucker, on the other hand, was most likely going to eat it as long as he was told it was just meat. I also made a note to record the little prank.

A small break in the preparations allowed me to pick up the Long. In the process I would also be lending the Elementals over to cover for the American Dragon for the day, the team would work under Lao Shi, Fu and Jake's little sister, Hailey. The team would mostly be acting as muscle and reserve power, as I mainly wanted them to get some experience in dealing with supernatural beings.

I washed my hands and changed out of the enchanted apron, a moment later I was stepping through a portal right into Lao Shi's roof garden. "Rick, it's good to see you again." The old dragon said.

I turned with a smile and bowed to the man. "It's been a while, it's a pleasure to see you in good health."

"And you've changed once more." The old man said knowingly.

I couldn't help but grin. "I can't hide it, can I?" I chuckled and sat down as he offered me a cup of tea.

"Oh ho ho, I've lived long enough to not notice those kind of things." He said with a soft laugh.

I nodded. "Yes, I've certainly changed in many ways." I admitted. "I've also met with Clockwork," that name seemed to get a response. "And yes, he's behind my presence in this world."

"That's…" The old dragon pondered as he rubbed his beard. "Concerning."

I laughed softly before enjoying the tea. "Oh, he's certainly a concerning one, especially because he shortly after asked me to carry out a certain task." I added with a shrug.

The old man shook his head. "Don't tell me, better I know less of what that old ghost gets up to."

I laughed harder and nodded, finishing my tea just as the door to the roof opened and the younger dragon stepped out to the roof garden with his wife in tow.

"Jake, Rose." I greeted them, extending my hand to Jake.

"Rick! it's good to see you again." He said in good humor as we shook hands.

"Thank you for convincing this lizard to take a little break." Rose said and winked.

We shared a laugh at the dragon's look. "Don't worry, I know pretty well how we all need a break from time to time. I'm sure the Elemental team will be more than happy to take his role again if you two decide to take a proper vacation." I offered and she gave me a grateful smile. "By the way, how's Aura treating you?"

She perked up and quickly started to give me a lengthy essay of what she had found about the ability. I made sure to correct a few small misconceptions, hopefully it wouldn't screw her training. But so far I saw a very well trained huntress already capitalizing on the ability.

I recommended that she talks with Dani and Sabbah later to get better ideas about it. The five from the team stepped out of the portal to the Personal Realm and saluted to me before following the older dragon.

Lao Xi just chuckled and wished us a good time as the three of us stepped through the portal right into the back of the Amity Park residence. The space had been expanded magically to fit all of us comfortably, plus a few tables and chairs had been set out even if snacks and drinks weren't all out yet.

"Get comfortable, the rest will be arriving soon." They nodded to my words. "Also, don't mind Drake and his murder." I pointed to the massive Storm Raven, he practically owned the Storm Delfire by now, and it had been helping him grow.

He looked like an oversized condor by now, and the constant sparks that ran over his metallic plumage made him look like a Thunderbird, a black and edgy thunderbird.

I wandered into the house to start grabbing plates, glasses and jars. I needed to at least leave something for the young couple to nibble on while I went to pick up my family. Dani and Sabbah were picking the Fenton, Sam and Tucker would arrive there, same with Valerie.

Better get moving

\/AFfMB\/​

Lucia looked around, it was the first time she was in her older brother's so-called underground base. He had picked them up from the house and taken them to the place in an instant, simply walking through a hole in the air.

"So this is your base?" She asked her brother.

"This is the first local base, but honestly it's been used less and less as of late." He explained as they walked over to the metal ring. She was pretty sure she had seen it before somewhere on tv. "Right now I spend most time in the Workshop or out with work. And the teams do have the no-longer-abandoned mining town they took over. Plus the bases on the Moon, Mars and the Inverted Planet."

"Inverted Planet?" She asked, it was definitely a new one.

"Oh, right!" He said and chuckled, hitting a fist on an open palm. "Been keeping that one a secret from NASA. I built a hollow planet to carry some large-scale experiments. I mean it's not as big as Earth," she looked at him surprised. "Just a bit larger than the Moon."

She boggled at that idea.

"Yeah, don't worry about it. It's mostly empty." He said with a chuckle as the ring in front of them lit up, taking a bright green glow before turning blue.

"What's with the color?" Sam asked.

"Just Amity Park's ambient Ectoplasm, don't worry about it." He said and looked at them for a moment. Before rolling his eyes and adding. "You won't stay anywhere long enough to get it into your system, the food's all been provided and made by me and the portal does filter any small amount that would get stuck to you."

After a moment her parents nodded and the whole family stepped through, leaving the underground base behind for a pretty similar one on the other. It was just smaller.

"This is under the house's basement." He quickly led them through another portal to a normal-looking living room. "You can leave things in the bedroom and then head outside, the Long couple are already here as I picked them from New York before you. The rest of the guests should be arriving soon."

With that her brother headed to the kitchen, most likely to deal with preparations. They quickly left their coats in the bedroom, the bed appeared to have been barely used. Which was most likely because her brother apparently didn't sleep much anymore.

Stepping out into the garden was like visiting a botanical garden, there were just so many thriving plants, most holding ripe fruit too. A few tables had been placed around in such a manner that provided both comfort to stand and talk by them or sit on one of the many chairs. The garden was illuminated by about a dozen small lamps that just floated in the air. It still shocked her how her brother could just do small acts of magic like that. If it even was magic, for all she knew it was some kind of super-advanced technology.

The Long were a couple about her age, the man was a well-built Chinese-American of black hair and a slightly tanned skin while she was an athletic blonde of fair skin. They greeted them, presenting themselves as Jake and Rose.

Lucia was pretty sure she had heard those names before, but she was drawing a blank at the moment.

Some sound made most of them turn and look at the house's back door. A young woman of black hair and gothic dress walked inside, giving a general wave before turning around and giving her companion a dope slap. The black-skinned man looked away from the tablet he had in his hand and apologized before they approached.

These two were a bit easier to recognize, Sam and Tucker were Danny's friends and close confidants. They were quite older than shown in the cartoon, being definitively adults now.

Dani and Sabbah arrived a bit later, the two with Jack, Maddie and Jazz Fenton behind them. Jack Fenton was a beast of a man, she had to look up to him and he was as broad on the shoulders as on the hips; practically a wardrobe of a person.

Maddie looked normal in comparison, for a very fit and beautiful woman wearing a skin-tight hazard suit in her fifties. Lucia wondered if they ever changed into other clothes. Their daughter, Jazz was a regular-looking girl of over a meter eighty in height, definitely having inherited her father's stature with her mother's figure.

She felt it for Dani, she had to go around greeting everyone already here as it was her birthday party after all.

The next to arrive was Valerie, the dark-skinned girl gave Dani the biggest hug and easily lifted her up. Lucia had to admit she was a bit jealous of the muscles the woman had, her arms were nearly twice as big as her pool noodle limbs.

The last to arrive was Danny, Dani's original and older sibling. The fact that he stepped out of a neon-green tear in the fabric of reality didn't get more than a few looks. He quickly apologized for being late as his preparations for the coronation were pretty intensive.

That's when her brother walked out of the house, followed by a line of dishes floating behind him. It took her only a moment to notice the floating gloves that carried them to the table.

"We're all here, so let's mingle and celebrate!" He announced and some music started to play in the background.

She wandered over to Rick, he quickly noticed her and smiled. "What can I do for you, sis?"

"What's that about coronation?" She asked, quite curious about it.

"Danny's finally putting on the Ghost Zone crown and ring." He explained. "So he's having to go through the necessary lessons on it in the Zone. Though it's definitely burning his brain because he forgets Clockwork's literally making the time for him to study."

Her mind stopped for a moment before she groaned. "Your life's crazy."

"You've no idea how much." He admitted with a chuckle.

She rolled her eyes and wandered around, trying every little snack and trying to talk with all the people she had met. She quickly started to realize they were more or less the only normal ones at the party. Especially after Jake's mouth grew into a red, scaly muzzle and he breathed fire on a snack and ate the carbonized result.

His wife just looked exasperated by this, but she did nothing but sigh as Dani and Sam, her sister, laughed at it.

After having talked for a while, she decided to explore the many trees and buses in the garden. But it appeared the surprises weren't done when she came face to face with the largest bird she had seen in her life.

"It's okay, she's a friend." Sabbah spoke gently by her side. "This is Drake, say hi to Lucia, Drake."

The large bird cawed softly and leaned down, offering his head for her. She looked at Sabbah who nodded. Her fingers found that his feathers felt really smoother and harder than they looked.

"What is he?" She asked, a little doubtful if the question was correct.

"He's a magical breed of raven. His size is a combination of living in Amity Park and having a massive source of magic inside of him." Sabbah explained and Drake pulled back to show the electricity running over his feathers. "That's just the basic application of it, he can control storms if he wants."

She chuckled and shook her head. "He's a beautiful bird." Drake crooned at the comment before flying higher on the tree.

"Yes he is." Sabbah observed before she chuckled. "You may want to watch this." She said in a playful tone.

Lucia turned around and looked at the girl, the woman pointed to the snack table where Danny was handing Sam a burger. She gave Sabbah a look trying to ask her what was about it. The other woman just grinned and gestured to keep looking.

"Thanks Danny." Sam said as she grabbed the plate with the burger, if Lucia remembered right, the goth was a vegan.

The problem was that the burger looked like meat, she must trust him quite a bit to eat it without even looking. The girl bit down and chewed through it slowly before realizing the problem.

"Danny! You gave me a meat patty!" She exclaimed looking scandalized.

"What?! Oh! I'm sorry Sam, I'm really, really sorry, that must have been Tuck's burger." Danny quickly moved to try and make up with her, taking the plate with the bitten burger and handing it to their friend. "Sorry Tuck, hope a bite doesn't ruin the burger."

"Are you kidding me, Danny? This burger looks great!" The young man quickly devoured said burger till there were only crumbs on the plate.

Lucia gave Sabbah a side-look, but everything pointed that something more was going to happen. So she kept watching.

Danny approached her brother as Rick was walking out with more plates. "Rick, you gave me Tucker's burger instead of Sam's."

"No, I'm sure I gave you Sam's burger, this one is Tucker's, see? It has extra bacon in it." Her brother spoke in a tone she knew pretty well, he wasn't lying, but he was definitely hiding something.

"Wait, then what did I eat?" Tucker asked as he looked down at the plate he had cleaned up.

Rick walked over and looked at the plate. "That was the vegan burger, the patty's made of red algae extract."

Lucia's eyes sharpened as she watched her brother. She knew his tells, her brother was pranking the pair, and Danny was totally in on it too; it was obvious he was barely holding back his laughter.

"What do you mean vegan?!" Tucker screamed. "It tasted and felt just like meat."

Rick just shrugged. "Well, maybe. But it was red algae extract, fava beans, a number of spices and a bit of gram flour." He explained. "They came out really good, no?" He added with a big grin on his face.

Tucker and Sam's faces finally broke Danny, who fell back laughing. The laughter soon spread as everyone could see the joke about it, and it wasn't like none of the two had been hurt in any way.

After the little prank, everyone looked to try the vegan burgers. Lucia had to admit they did taste like meat, and the party was pretty enjoyable too.

\/AFfMB\/​

The party was a complete success, not just because Dani was having a great time, but also because it helped get my family a bit more used to the supernatural. It sure was a thing when a few of the more friendly ghosts stopped by to wish Dani happy birthday.

Even Vlad stopped by, having thankfully called earlier and not dropping as a surprise. I honestly doubt he would have enjoyed the reaction if he spooked the party. Danny had confided with me after the man had left that he had personally threatened Vlad with a week of soup time and letting Amorpho take his role as mayor if he screwed up.

I laughed pretty hard at that.

Soon it came time for cake, I had prepared a selection of my most popular cakes from the store and made them myself. They were quite popular and I may need to add completely vegan cakes if Sam's opinion on them was that good.

And then came the time for presents.

Jake and Rose gifted her with a small potted plant. It was a Red Spider Lily, though not the normal and mundane variant of the plant. I could tell it wafted with magic, even from the distance I could tell it would thrive if planted in the Dead Forest station.

Dani thanked the couple quite a bit. I noticed Danny was reacting to its presence, so it may have an effect on ghosts.

Maddie and Jack handed her a book titled the Fenton Family, I didn't understand why at first. But when Dani opened it and went to the last filled page she thanked the pair with a hug. I looked over her shoulder and couldn't help but smile, it was a copy of the family book, with her being properly added to it.

Jazz had given Dani a hug and a wrapped book, I caught her whispering for her to open it later. I felt a chill go down my spine for some reason.

Sam gifted her with a book of completely vegan recipes, along with the comment of me learning it. On the other hand Tucker gifted her with a book of 101 ways to marinate meat, most likely for the same reason.

Even Drake had gotten her a gift, a small collection of shinnies he must have been picking up from around Amity Park. Nothing really expensive, but all kinds of pretty rocks and polished glass pieces.

I approached Dani next. "Happy birthday, little ghost." I said and kissed her, before handing her a new jacket I had tailored myself. On the back was the stylized D embroidered in silver.

"Thank you, jerk." She said playfully and hugged me.

Sabbah approached last. "I had to ask Rick for help with it, but I hope you like it." She handed her the tiara she had designed. "Happy Birthday, little ghost princess."

"No… you didn't!" Dani said, looking flustered.

"Yes, if Danny's going to get a crown when he becomes king, the princess deserves one too." Sabbah said teasingly.

I just chuckled, the tiara had been crafted with some of the sun-aligned silver created in the Cathedral of Sand. I had alloyed it with some ectoplasm and decorated it with gems I had crafted from different types of energy.

Sabbah and I pulled her into a tight hug. "There's another gift, but that's for later." I whispered in her ear.

The party started to die down after that, the only subject of note was…

"Ohh…" Rose grabbed her stomach.

"Everything okay?" I quickly asked. "Need an anti-acid? Or maybe a cup of tea?"

"No, it's not that…" Rose said and groaned softly.

"Would you allow me to run a quick scan?" I asked in a hunch.

Jake was by his wife's side before I could even finish speaking, they exchanged a look. "Go ahead." Rose agreed.

"Okay, just don't flinch, it's a bit weird, but really effective." I pulled on my familiar and allowed the two long, floppy ears to come out. I created a small privacy barrier around us, mostly to mute our voice.

That was the easy part, now came the body horror. I grabbed the ear and laid it across my eyes, a moment later several eyes opened all over it.

Internally I was certainly enjoying the reactions, but mostly I was running all necessary and non-invasive scans through Rose. As I expected, she was an incredibly fit and healthy woman with a body that put most Olympic Gold winners to shame.

I also noted that her soul was indeed not normal, I imagine that may be related to her dragon layer… I mean the dragon slayer fate she had overcome. Aura was also doing her great, and I may ask her to run a proper soul-deep scan later to make sure there was none of my Sparkness from me awakening her.

But the most important thing was… "Well, all looks good for you," I smiled warmly, and dropped the bomb. "And the baby."

I watched them nod along and suddenly freeze, realizing what I had just told them sunk in.

""Baby?"" They asked at the same time.

"Yup, a few weeks in. All looks healthy, Aura will help quite a bit with that. But you may want to cut on getting into danger." I explained and allowed my ears to go back to normal. I quickly gave Rose, and Jake since he needed to hear it too, some tips as new parents and recommended they ask his grandfather for more information since I wasn't experienced at all in dragon rearing.

I let the privacy ward drop and the two of them happily shared the news. The party got a second wind from that, celebrating the good news. Though it didn't last that much longer, soon I had to ferry the Long back home, where they would tell his family. Then take my family back home too.

The Fenton, Val, Sam and Tucker went their way and it was finally just us three alone once more. We had headed into the cabin in the Personal Realm to relax, the two sphinx cubs had joined us in a pile as we relaxed.

"So what did Jazz give you exactly?" I asked curiously and Dani just blushed before handing me the book. "Kamasutra for three?" I read out loud and laughed. "Hmm, well, maybe later." Sabbah just giggled.

"You said you had another gift?" Dani asked, trying to very obviously change the subject.

I nodded and carefully took the little box. "Here, happy birthday." I whispered and let her open it.

"Wait…" Her tone got shaky as she slowly opened the box, inside an engagement ring. "Is this?"

"Yes, and there's one for Sabbah too." I said while giving Dani a soft kiss on the forehead and handing our girlfriend her engagement ring too.

I had gone simple with the ring, by that I meant they were masterworks made of platinum that would let us feel how the other two were feeling. It wasn't anything ground-breaking, but I hoped it would be a nice way to feel closer even when we were apart.

I wasn't surprised both of them happily put them on, looks like we're breaking in the new book.

 

[shypunk]

thanks for yet another awesome chapter and for writing

 

[Melakias]

AFfMB – 104

Things returned back to normal on Saturday after Friday's birthday party, and thankfully none of us were aching. With Saturday also came the third day of the tournament, singles continued as expected and the team battles for the third position was resolved too.

I presented the matches and did some commentary about them, but in general the day didn't really matter much.

After the second day the single players had already gotten half-way through their matches and the positions had consolidated quite well. While there were possible reversals in the positions at the top, those at the bottom were more or less screwed. On the other hand, not many were interested in the third and fourth position of the team battles, besides the interest on watching giant robots fighting.

I do have to admit all the presentation and commentary was done by my clones, and felt like pushing aside something I had really worked hard to achieve. But I had more important things to take care of.

The ring was completed, it was still lacking a proper name. I was between Ring of Command or Infinite Realms Ring, I would leave it to Danny to name it properly. The effects of his claim would be stronger that way, just like Banshee had done for Dani.

The crown would be left for last, so I had instead started on the rage-half of the ring. And it was taking quite a long time.

I may have the permission of the Zone to modify the artifacts, but that half of the ring was actively dangerous to hold and work with. It was as if a normal person wanted to carve a red-hot coal with their bare hands. I needed proper tools, work space and to take repeated breaks and allow myself to recover from the expenditure.

Even with my massive power reservoirs and the energy provided to me by the Personal Realm, it was a taxing and very draining endeavor. But I was slowly making progress, the half-ring was now the heart of a sword. A broadsword specifically as it was taking shape.

Though different from a normal broadsword, instead of being about three fingers wide, this was nearly half a palm. Its toughness would be high enough to be used to block attacks. Of course it also meant the sword would be incredibly heavy, but Danny wasn't human, nor was his strength, and I could use that.

One of the current problems was that the Rage at the center of the sword kept it hot, a bit too hot for proper wielding. I was hoping Danny's frost core and his more tempered nature helped chill it down.

A fiery rage was dangerous, but a cold mind to keep it controlled would make it a very effective tool.

On other news, the Doctors would be doing their first visit to a hospital in need. I hoped all went well.

\/AFfMB\/​

Nurse Gomez wasn't sure about the situation.

In front of her stood five people that appeared to have stepped out of a science fiction movie being filmed in Hollywood.

She had been sitting in the hospital's reception. It was honestly quite a slow day all said, just a few trauma patients and a small number of visitors. Their hospital wasn't exactly large, even if they received patients from the surrounding area. And then the five of them had stepped through the door.

"Excuse me, but can you repeat that?" She asked, really hoping they told her it was all a prank.

The projected face on the faceplate of the one up front changed momentarily into a question mark. "We would like to talk to the person in charge to provide our ability in healing and possibly fix the building of any possible problem it has."

"Yes, that's what I heard the first time." She said and sighed. "Give me a moment."

The figure that had spoken nodded, Sandra got up from her spot and rushed over to her boss. Along the hallway, up two stairs, two doors and she knocked.

"Director?" She called.

"Nurse Gomez? What brings you here?" The older man looked up from his paperwork.

"Yes, it's…" She stumbled on what to say exactly. "There's five people waiting at the reception desk to talk with you, it's just…" She started to explain about them a bit.

How the five looked practically identical, wearing some kind of white and gold futuristic armor that hid their faces and held multiple red crosses on their bodies. How they had offered their ability to heal and fix the building.

"What?" He asked, looking at her like it was all a prank.

"Exactly what I asked them." She admitted. "They also said that they are part of the Celestial Forge, and that they will happily prove their abilities. Also that they aren't looking for any kind of payment."

The man sighed and Sandra knew he was making a decision. "Do we have any emergency cases in the building at the moment?"

"No, while we've a high percentage of occupied beds, we don't have cases that require immediate attention."

"Then I think I can give them a few minutes." The man pushed himself up the chair and grabbed his cane before following her down.

The way down was much slower, being forced to take the old elevator meant they had to wait for it to go up and then back down.

Once they reached the reception desk they found the five of them still patiently waiting, she was pretty sure they hadn't moved a millimeter. The moment the two of them stepped up, the one that had spoken with her before, turned to acknowledge them. She wondered if they were the leader.

The hospital director approached them, she would say he didn't look afraid, but the man's injured leg made him have constant shakes if he remained standing for too long.

"So you're the costumed weirdos that were offering free healing?" She flinched at his words, fearing they would attack him for that.

The main speaker just let out a chuckle. "I think we would indeed look like weirdos, but these are no costumes. These are both armors and uniforms designed to complement our jobs." They explained in a perfectly neutral tone.

"So you can take it out and show me what you look like?" The old doctor barked.

The figure shrugged. "Sure, these are designed to present a unified image and keep our nature from scaring the patients." They explained calmly before the armor shifted while still on their bodies. Panels slid around, splitting and moving till the figure standing in front of them was about a centimeter shorter. And completely made from metal that seemed to flex like skin.

"Marie mother of god…" She whispered as the director didn't seem as surprised for some reason.

Instead he moved closer to inspect the figure. "You're not human, what are you exactly?" He asked in a very pointedly manner.

"We are Metaloids, silicon and metal based life forms. We're the Doctor Team, designed as a test run for the use of advanced healing magic and medicine." They explained, though the more Sandra looked at them, the more she thought they were a she.

There were little things, the softness of their face, their general mannerisms, just how they stood. By all intents and purposes their body looked to be genderless, but there was a hint of something that told her the figure was female; something she had learned over the years of being a nurse.

"Oh, fancy magic? And what can you do exactly?" The director looked at the figure and asked. "Wave a stick and sacrifice a chicken?"

The figure shook their head and answered. "We've been equipped with access to the school of Biomancy. This allows us to interact with any living being down to the DNA. This means we can fix any type of trauma, burn or other like poisoning, genetic damage, etcetera."

"How does it work?" The Director's tone had lost the abrasive tone.

"First step to treat any patient is to run the basic scan, this will easily reveal most if not all possible problems on the person. In case it was necessary given a lack of results, but an obvious problem existing, a deeper scan would be used." The figure explained patiently. "There's only a difference in time for the scans, the basic scan takes about ten to thirty seconds depending on the patient's size, the deeper scan may take up to ten minutes in case of genetic damage."

"Could you scan me then?" The man asked.

"Yes, though as this is not an emergency situation, I would request your permission first to do it."

"Is there anything I have to do?" The director said, if Nurse Gomez had to say, he sounded more and more interested.

"Please take a seat and relax," she explained, and before he could speak, she continued. "This is not exactly necessary, but I can easily observe that you shouldn't spend long amounts of time standing."

He chuckled and gave a nod before sitting down, she stepped closer and lifted her hand, holding it above his head. A small light shone out of it for a few seconds before she took a step back.

A few moments later she spoke. "On the more obvious side, the damage to your leg's from a combination of a traumatic injury and genetic damage accrued from unsafe amounts of asbestos. Given your age I would say it was during your youth, especially given the lack of proper safeties in construction during those years. You're also suffering from high stress, I would guess from your current occupation. You're also lacking in Vitamin D, this is also worsening the damage on your leg as the bones have become increasingly brittle."

"That's… worrying. I knew of the first and suspected the second. But I hadn't noticed the last." He admitted.

"You're still in the early stages of Vitamin D deficiency, it would only become a problem if you had an accident. We're also in the middle of Winter, there's naturally a lower amount of this vitamin in most of the populace."

"Ok then, now that you scanned me, what's next?"

"Given your case, there's something I can do for you, and others you'll have to do by yourself." She spoke calmly. "I can easily fix both the damage done to your leg and bones to start, I would also fix the damage done by stress while also providing the necessary elements missing in your body. But some of these are symptoms, I would recommend you make sure to get around twenty to thirty minutes of natural sunlight every day if possible, at least till the last month of Spring. I would also recommend reducing the stress in your life, this could easily be provided if you allow us to heal the patients in the hospital and fix the damage on the building."

"How would you fix the damage on my leg?"

"Given your current weight, I would need to introduce a small amount of biomass to reach a healthy weight while also fixing the damage done to your bones and muscle tissue. Genetic damage can easily be fixed, same with cholesterol and other damage induced by high stress." She slowly enumerated. "This would mean a general check up of the heart and main blood vessels, especially those connecting to the brain to prevent a possible future aneurysm."

"But exactly how?" He repeated.

She didn't speak at first, instead just looking at the older man and nodding. "While the exact mechanism would be harder to explain, Biomancy allows us to work with the genetic code or the very cells that contain it as if they were a machine. We can easily fix damage on them or if necessary recycle them and construct a new, healthy cell." She explained. "As you can imagine, this would be very slow if a human had to do it, having to treat one cell at a time given the amount of information they hold. We, on the other hand, have brains that act more like computers, allowing us to carry out hundreds of thousands of actions at the same time through the applications of mental programs."

He nodded along. "...Okay, do it."

She nodded, and for the first time the nurse would admit she saw the robot-looking female smile. She took a step forward and gently grabbed the director's hand before a similar glow to the one she produced before spread over the older man. It was similar, yes, but at the same time she could feel it was warmer.

Nothing seemed to change at first, and it wasn't till the glow disappeared that she could see how the Director looked better. His skin had a healthier sheen, less vampire-pale and more of white skin, his hair looked healthier and even his posture looked more relaxed.

It was also a moment later he sprung off his chair and patted his leg, apparently surprised by standing without shaking. "Well now, this is certainly much better. And this won't fade away?"

"It won't fade away, the changes are real and material. As long as you keep yourself healthy you won't suffer from any complications." She explained.

"Okay, you've shown you can do what you say. Would there be any problem if I follow you while you treat the patients?" He asked.

"I see no problem with this, but I would like all of my team to act and expedite things. Also offer my siblings' service to deal with the necessary paperwork before we tackle the problem of the building in itself."

"If you can do this well for a person, I can't wait to see what you can do for the building." He said and chuckled.

As the man and the woman, who had allowed her armor to cover her features again left the room Nurse Gomez heard another of them mumble something.

"Gotta make a note about possible euphoria from healing hormonal imbalances." It was low enough that she almost didn't catch it.

She just sighed and sat on her spot, hoping this wouldn't backfire.

\/AFfMB\/​

I put the hammer away, practically falling on my ass, panting, sweated all over and pretty much exhausted.

It had been very stupid, but once I had started with the last part of the sword, I just couldn't stop. A combination of pride at my work and the fact that stopping would have reduced the final quality meant I had to keep hammering even as the Rage in the blade made me sweat buckets.

But it was done, I couldn't help but grin triumphantly as I looked at the massive broadsword. It was a pretty simple design, from the straight guard, black grip and round pommel, to the smooth and polished blade and broad point.

The most eye-catching detail was how the fuller was a bruised green and how those bruises slowly oozed around. If you looked at them for long enough you would soon be seeing faces of wrath and terror. But thankfully it was all a trick of the eye, at least for now.

Just like the ring, I would abstain from naming it, while I could still refer to it as the sword of rage, it wasn't its official name.

After a nice ten minute break to recover, I dragged myself to the baths to clean up. The shower was a good moment to check through the messages and results of the healing expedition.

I was glad to read that the first hospital they had visited played along, even if there was some suspicion at first. I greatly doubted all of them would be so open to taking them, but the more they visited and things worked, the less likely they would be rejected. I also didn't doubt many would try and profit from it, but the Pantheon was already looking into it.

The hospital they had started with was a small one in a rural area, most of their patients were in for trauma from working with large machinery, or more serious, long-term issues from the lower-quality of life.

They received injuries from quite a distance since they were more or less the only hospital in a large area. But the kids had easily healed them all and helped them finish the necessary paperwork before emptying the building and allowing the Construction Crew to 'fix' the building.

They fixed it by going Ship of Theseus at a very fast speed. Plus a number of upgrades here and there. Stain and dirt resistant paint that was easy to clean, honestly it wasn't paint, instead it was a compound that was part of the wall itself. Better lighting all over the building, efficient and full-spectrum lights where possible. Better plumbing, water filtration, gas installations, sewage treatment, etc…

At the end of an hour of work, there stood a whole new building that looked practically the same, from the outside. The inside was a much more comfortable, efficient and cleaner hospital. Plus a number of enchantments in the walls to slowly heal people inside.

I came out of the bathroom with just a towel and smiled when I saw Dani laying back on the bed, looking up to the ring on her finger. I smiled and joined her.

"Happy?" I asked in a whisper.

She turned and pushed against me, burying her face against my chest. "Yes." She mumbled. "Thank you for loving me." She whispered and I couldn't help but hug her tightly.

"As if Sabbah or I could feel anything else for you." I whispered back and relaxed with her, a little Shadow soon joined us for the night.

\/AFfMB\/​

It was finally the final day of the tournament.

The single battles were down to one decisive match between the two players that had won a total of six matches each; the two only had each other to play. Meanwhile the other three matches were a bit less contested, but the players were still giving their all, so I was making sure they got the same amount of attention.

Once those matches ended it would be the final team battle, given how part change quota worked with them, there were going to be pretty big strategy changes since both teams had definitely watched the other fight before.

"So this is the last of them?" Dani asked as we watched the finals.

"Yup," I said. "I can't say I didn't enjoy the whole thing. But it's run its course and the shadow of heading out to join the kids did sour it a bit." I admitted.

"Can you pass me more popcorn?" Sabbah asked and I handed her the bucket.

The snack had been an experiment to see how far I could push a food made with just two ingredients, it was only corn and a bit of coconut oil. The resulting popcorn practically glistened and had a very rich flavor, melting the moment it entered the mouth.

"Is that why you sent a clone of your third body?" Dani asked in a teasing tone.

"No, I sent my third body to announce since a clone of my first is dealing with the Powered watching the fight down there." I explained. "And they will most likely take the field after the tournament is over. The Pantheon will provide them with recordings after and the ability to post them online safely if they want too."

We watched as the last singles match started, this would define the winner of the tournament. Even if they tied, for some improbable reason, the winner would be chosen by points.

"I also wanted to spend some time with you two after studying the crown." I added in distaste.

"What's wrong with it?" Dani asked in a worried tone.

"There are remnants of the old kings inside," I started to explain, but she quickly interrupted me.

"Even Pariah Dark?!" There was both fear and worry in her voice.

"Yes, but you don't have to worry, of all of them he's the least troublesome. Honestly I don't think the previous kings liked him much even when held the position. He may have been powerful and all that, but he was not good for the Zone." I explained. "Plus they agreed by majority to allow me to work on the crown." I quickly added to calm her down, but even Sabbah was looking at me worriedly now. "The problem is that the older ones are very eldritch. The oldest of them all could be called the crown itself."

I thought about it for a moment.

"The thing about the crown is that being a crown didn't come till much, much later of its creation. At first it was more of a solid aspect of the Infinite Realms, in many ways the fire of the crown is more the crown than the crown itself." I tried to explain without tripping into some troublesome concepts. "It doesn't talk with a language, it's too old and too vast to truly be explained. On the good side, it really likes Danny."

"What do you mean by that?"

"As best as I could understand, while Danny hasn't been crowned, it doesn't mean the Crown doesn't have a connection to your brother; it actually has a connection to all ghosts. It's why all ghosts respect the king, when properly crowned the king connects to all ghosts." I explained carefully. "And before you bring Pariah, he was actively shutting that connection down through some twisted train of thought about how being connected to all ghosts weakened him. It's one of the big reasons most don't like him."

"And let me guess, with the old asshole imprisoned in his coffin for thousands of years, the remnants in the crown were practically isolated from the zone?" Dani prompted.

"Pretty much, they were still in the zone, but they couldn't connect to all the ghosts properly." I explained with a shrug. "Some of the older minds in there are more consolidations of 'areas' of the Infinite Realms, most of them don't even exist anymore." I let out a soft sigh. "There's even a remnant of Clockwork, though he was his usual and helpful self and didn't say if it was in the past or the future. He may even be there just for a technicality of being the 'only' ghost at some time and being crowned by default."

Sabbah just snorted at that. "Wait," She exclaimed. "if when properly crowned the remnants connect to all ghosts, does that mean they can see them?"

I nodded. "Yup, the minds in the crown enjoy watching both younger and older ghosts alike for entertainment when the King's not asking them for help."

"So the older ghosts are angry at Pariah Dark because he cut them off their soap operas?!" Dani broke out in laughter after putting together the same detail I had.

We watched as the final singles fight was resolved, it was a good one. Both Combatants had fought with tooth and nail, and both had saved enough part changes to do a complete overhaul of their strategies for a completely different fight than what everyone had expected.

With a little break before the final team battle started, I spoke again. "So yes, I'm still going to modify the crown. Mostly giving it a more regal look since they admit they have grown a bit bored of the simple look it has now."

They shared a chuckle as we watched as the final team battle started, the field that had been chosen for the fight was a multi-layered cyberpunk city. This meant they not only had to worry about buildings falling on them, but also the floor giving up under them. I couldn't wait till they found out they could actually fall off the platform.

The ocean was still under them, and the Combatants would be teleported before they hit the water. They would still be eliminated by it, even if they only fell for a couple of seconds at most.

It was a map that I hadn't added to the game's repertoire, but it would be released after the closing. Along with nine other maps covering completely new and more fantastical terrains.

I was also playing with the idea of adding a new mode for parts with elemental abilities, static skills that would provide more mechanical effects than outright attacking power. Wind-powered dashing, earth barriers, overheating enemy weapons, ice constructs, etc… I may even add some of the ol' Starbound movement abilities I had acquired so long ago.

I may also need to add the ability to transform, but that would most likely be left for the expansion after this one. Plus it would certainly change the game plenty by needing even larger maps to properly move around.

It was a pretty close fight, but soon there was a winner.

 

[ForwardRewind]

Given the 'areas that don't exist anymore', and reconnecting to the Ghost Zone, it feels like that would potentially cause them to pop back up.

Possibly as a 'prevent another Ghost like Pariah Dark from cutting them off'. I could actually see some of those areas ending up disappearing because of the connection was suppressed. Especially if they helped with connecting to all ghosts. Given that they are consolidations of areas, it could easily be a 'help the Ghost King know of any problems in this area', rather than having way too much detail given at once.

Though it might actually end up being a future job, where he's requested to re-build them. Or, given Clockwork possibly build them in the first place. Just they had a 'hiding' capability built in, to only pop back up after Danny was crowned. Would really depend on why they were no longer around in the first place.