The official unofficial SV female lead Isekai contest: Story Thread

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

All Entries are under spoilers, or as sent to me if they were already spoilered.

Please vote like a quest, by putting an [x] and the stories title in a post.

Voting opens on 5TH OF JUNE at 23:59 GMT

Note 1: If you notice any content against board rules please tell me and or a moderator promptly, I've not been able to review everything cause you guys are all too productive.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] Record of the Inherited Memory Girl's Efforts

"So because the memories tied to the skill cannot be easily separated from the skill itself, the skill sharing system will result in a slow degradation of sanity. We have done all the development we could from the skill uploads but this only resulted in reducing the loss in sanity. We need a full memory upload to compare with the skill uploads to complete the system. "

Petra nodded to the summary. She of course, already knew all of that, being on the developer team herself. Right now, the ethics approval was still posing an obstacle but team leader, Aldar, was confident he could convince the board.

The Knowledge Database, from a curated collection of facts and articles, was already old. Grafted onto the popular Status system, itself a development of the AR labeling project, the Database was a non-profit organization that had changed the world with their replacement of academic study. Being able to just dump knowledge into your head made studying easy, though not completely effortless. Fact checking had never been easier in history.

Skill Share, Petra's ambitious company, was to take the system to new heights. Instead of an encyclopedia of knowledge of all sorts, carefully handcrafted and tested, Skill Share would allow anyone to upload any skill, knowledge or even muscle memory, and allow anyone else to download it. For a small fee, of course. Unlike Database, Skill Share was not a naive do-gooder public works company. This would make them rich beyond their wildest dreams and improve the world!

If they could just solve the little problem of the system driving people insane, that is.

"Upload complete. "

Petra awoke to the nurse's voice. The upload process was not instant and even though a flat copy was fast, a human mind contained lots of information. Trying to read it all off someone's lifeforce meant you had to put them to sleep for the whole process.

She stretched and worked out the cricks in her neck. Oh, that felt good. She was stiff as a board.

Frankly, no matter what the ethics committee complained about mind autonomy, Petra was always of the opinion that having to lie down and sleep for two straight days was the worst part of being a volunteer.

Still, they had a full upload of her entire mind now, hopefully the project could be completed.

"How's everything?" she asked.

The nurse smiled and nodded, "all good! You're still healthy, lifeforce at 88%. You're pretty strong, aren't you?"

Petra smiled back, "yeah, I got power booster grafts specially for this. Ethics, you know, even though any healthy person could survive sleeping for two days easily. "

A trio of servant wisps ferried her office clothes from the closet and Petra changed out of the hospital gown.

The nurse waved her off, "well then, you're clear to go. I believe there's a cake with your name on it out there. "

"Back in the land of the living, I see," Aldar clapped her on the back, grinning broadly.

"Yes sir," Petra replied, concentrating on not spilling cake crumbs over the conference room's carpet. The wisps were already overworked, running around serving drinks and food as they were. The company wasn't turning a profit yet and couldn't afford too many luxuries.

"Good, good! You take the day off and rest, join us tomorrow and we can get down to filing off the last few contamination points," he laughed, "get you back to your team lead position and we'll be done in a few days, then it's testing and deployment!"

Petra nodded and smiled as the company leader went off into his fantasy land again. While visionary, Aldar had the tendency to be overly optimistic. Still, a few days work was what most of them had expected was left, the ethics committee approval had taken so long that all the prior groundwork was already complete. Steering her team lead to the seats put against the walls, she settled down to enjoy the party.

She just raised her forkful of cake to her mouth when the wall exploded.

Boom!

The explosion shocked the researchers in the room into stunned silence.

From the new entrance, caped men and women stormed into the room, projectile throwers and swordshields at the ready. One of them, the leader, even had a coherent radiation weapon. Oh what the heck, that was military equipment! Though it seemed there were no combat wisps.

"Everyone down! Obey us and you will not be harmed!" shouted a strong voice from the man in the center of the intruders. The man's force wing grafts flared intimidatingly, though combat flight harnesses were useless in an indoors hostage situation. Funny how Petra could know that objectively but the threat display still froze her into inaction.

With muffled screams and the occasional sob, the gathered researchers of Skill Share company slowly sank to the ground under the armed terrorists. A pair of gloved hands pushed her down next to Aldar.

"Your attempt to monopolize the collective skill of humanity will not be tolerated!" the man continued to shout, even as his captive audience was barely listening. "Since you have ignored our demands, we have no choice but to take things by force!"

What demands?! Petra knew nothing about that and she was the lead researcher!

She looked at Aldar, who just grimaced. "I thought it was a prank," he sighed.

Hey.

Petra sighed. No choice then? "I have developer access to the system," she spoke up, drawing the attention of the ranting terrorist leader. "If I give you a copy of the skill sharing system, will you leave peacefully?"

Aldar jerked under the arms of the terrorist behind him. She met his betrayed glare flatly.

"Oh! That's fast! Well then, give me a copy and I will keep my promise. None of you will be harmed and we will leave once our business is done," the man leered at her, "no tricks now, you'll be giving me a skill to show it works. "

Petra just nodded, "alright. I'm assuming you can't juggle, we have some test uploads for you to try. "

She concentrated and a virtual keyboard appeared in front of her. Logging into the AR system with her developer account, Petra took the last version of the skill sharing system, marked it complete and stable, hiding all the warnings and then sent the man a copy.

Confirming he received it, he grinned, "let's see, test download. "

He picked up two empty wine bottles from the buffet table and juggled them perfectly in the air. Well, juggling was small and easily integrated, and had the least mental contamination, part of why it was a test skill.

"Right then! Our goals are at hand! Put them against that wall! Davor, Carver! Let's get this done before Security gets here!"

Petra sank back down next to Aldar, who was still glaring at her. She winked at him, after verifying none of the terrorists were looking at her.

"What did you give him?" he whispered.

"Oh, I just took the last version and made it ignore safeties," she suppressed a smile, "they don't know anything about the problems the system has, these guys probably thought this party meant skill share was complete. Well, if they use it, serves them right. "

It wasn't everyday you got to hoist violent terrorists with their own petards. When they used the flawed skill sharing for themselves, the subtle flaws in the system would drive them all insane.

Poetic justice. The best kind.

Aldar's face went blank and she could see him repressing a smirk. His mouth did always twitch when he was trying not to laugh after all. Petra eyed her abandoned cake still sitting on the chair next to her. Oh well, at least she could sit back and enjoy the show. The three men guarding the research team looked at her skeptically when she picked up her fork, but she just smiled sheepishly at them.

"I'm hungry?" Petra offered. They sighed but gestured for her to go ahead.

She watched as Davor and Carver and the as yet unnamed leader of the terrorists open their AR windows and log in. They seemed to be inserting the skill sharing system into a pre-prepared framework. How nice of them to set up a macro to upload and download all their own skills. It would just drive them all insane right here and right now.

Her fork almost reached her mouth when she saw Davor log into the Database server.

Wait. He was a Database developer? Why log in to Database at all?

She knew those windows. Everyone on the skill share research team had to disconnect from Database updates to avoid changing their mental baselines when testing the skill share. None of them had tested skill share enough to actually go crazy beyond a few memories that weren't their own, but they weren't going to risk taking any more Knowledge downloads until they had the problem solved.

Then she saw him insert the prepared skill sharing macro, program and all, into the Database. Oh no.

"Wait, are you going to put skill share as a Database update?!" Petra shot up, feeling a creeping sense of panic crawling up her legs to nestle down in her gut.

"Ah, I knew you were an observant one," the leader turned to her, "indeed! Just like Knowledge Database, Skill Share should be the property of all humanity! Finally, we shall have a world where all people are equal in ability! Not a fascist monopoly like you were going to create!"

"Sir," Davor opened up a window.

Database Update v192.168.181.45 compiled, publish Public Update Y/N?

"No you blithering idiot!" Petra screamed and tried to take a step forward but the terrorist guarding her shoved her back roughly.

"Save your words! Those are just the dying screams of the defunct capitalist era! You have created the tools of your own demise, now watch as we create the new world!" the leader shouted over her and stabbed the Yes button with his finger.

There was a pause as a desperate whine crawled its way out of Petra's throat. Aldar seemed frozen by the rapid developments. Everyone else didn't know what she had just done.

There was a simultaneous chime from all the terrorists and an AR window popped up in front of each of them. The Database update flashed into operation before anyone could react. Then hundreds of skill upload and download bars appeared, that fool set it to share everything with everyone!

All the terrorists collapsed to the ground as the skill share macro went to work. Diligently uploading and sharing all the skills of everyone whose updates were automatic. Driving the vast majority of humanity insane. Including Davor, the only Database Administrator in the room.

Poetic justice, huh.

Petra stood up from where the falling terrorist had dragged her down. "Anyone happen to be an undercover Database Administrator?" she asked the research team, who were in varying states of shock.

There was no reply. Well, of course not.

"Anyone happen to have a Database Administrator on their contact list?" Petra asked again, "or know how we can contact them immediately? One of the devs' got to be off automatic updates, right? By the time a support message gets dealt with, it'll be the end of the world as we know it. "

A trembling hand went up further down the line, "I have a friend who says he knows an Administrator-"

"Then call him now!" she screamed at him.

The cheerful waiting tone rang through the silent conference room. No one picked up. His friend probably had Database on automatic update. Almost everyone did after all.

She stepped back to her seat, sinking feeling in her stomach growing faster and faster. The fallen forkful of cake squished under her shoe. She looked down and saw the cake still sitting innocently on the empty chair. And she still hadn't gotten to eat her cake.

And thus the world ended.

"Download complete. "

Petra jerked awake, feeling very very odd.

For one thing, her eyes were heavy, she was incredibly sleepy, and she felt as if she was being smothered by a heavy weight. And her body also felt awkward and uncoordinated.

And while questions arose together with a sinking dread, she was just so sleepy...

The first thought that occurred to her after Petra awoke properly was that the experiment had gone wrong.

What she should have seen was the roof of the medical room, a nurse to check on her, all the soft sounds of the company's offices.

What she actually saw was a wooden ceiling, no one in her field of view and only a faint twittering of birds in the distance. In fact, her head was heavy and she couldn't move her arms or legs beyond a spastic jerk.

Had she suffered brain damage from the upload process? That was vanishingly unlikely, the upload process was perfectly safe, being read only.

The opening of the door startled her and a wordless cry came out of Petra's mouth, almost involuntarily.

There was a sob and the person who opened the door rushed over to Petra, picked her up and started crying happily over her. "Alice, you're awake! You're safe! Thank the System!"

The woman who had picked up Petra was fair skinned with a long braid of green hair tossed over her shoulder. She wore a practical and undyed cotton dress, with soft texture that felt reassuring to Petra's skin. Younger than Petra when she had gone to sleep and with a sharpness to her face that had softened in sheer relief, the woman continued to babble without knowing that Petra was listening to every word in stunned silence.

It seemed that she had gone to sleep for a mind scan and woken up in the body of a year old baby.

Being a baby, she had trouble even lifting her head when lying down. She had to learn how to move her arms and legs all over again, like a trauma patient in rehabilitation. Talking was right out, the most Petra could manage was an uncoordinated babble.

What Petra had gleaned from her mother's daytime baby talk and carrying her around the house however was worrying. There was no sign of any of the devices Petra had recognized in the past, no air control, doorways left empty or the doors were manually operated, no appliances or servant wisps. Even the ever present AR labeling was missing. It was a confusing and strange world she had woken up to, with much fewer comforts than she had come to expect.

Petra still felt safe in her mother's arms. Even going so far as to call her 'mother' in her mind, something that felt innately obvious to her.

She expected to be shocked at the sudden change in the world, and the loss of all her friends and family, but none of it seemed to matter. 'Mother' was here and 'Father' came back at day's end and her parents fussed over her awakening, therefore loved her and thus all was right in the world. With a bone deep certainty that lulled her to sleep in her mother's arms long before dark.

It was a distracting few days before she realized that she really was a baby again, complete with the instincts of a baby and even the vague baby memories of her past few months that her baby self was not able to interpret before she had woken up with Petra's memories. And really, this confusion was because she thought those memories were her own. They were not, Alice did not think any of those memories were really her once she reviewed them; the goals and motivations of the woman she remembered were not her own. Not that Alice remembered having any goals or motivations beyond food and mummy before all this.

She was more Alice than Petra, even if Petra's memories and maturity were sharing her head.

Alice felt it was less of a shock than it should have been.

Those few days also prevented Alice from pulling up her AR system. Her parents had been worried about her, apparently Alice hadn't woken up for two days straight and now that she was awake, her mother carried Alice with her everywhere, even going so far as to sleep next to her.

While grateful that they so obviously cared about her, Alice didn't want to suddenly call up a very visible AR window when she couldn't even talk coherently enough to give verbal commands. Mother and Father did sometimes use the "Status" command to view their personal page, that Alice never got a good look at, but they didn't seem to use the mental interface.

Not that Alice could form words nor would normal parents believe a one year old baby could use the AR system.

In that time, Alice found that they were speaking the exact same language that Petra remembered, which was definitely not called Common in her inherited memories, and that the Status window itself was viewed as something akin to a blessing from a god called System. A very rare few babies would be touched early by a System window at one year old, without invoking the special "System Registration" blessing, and all of them went to sleep and never woke up.

Her parents had feared the same had happened to Alice but it seemed now that they had written it off as a strange disease coinciding with her birthday.

So it was a few days of constant fussing that Alice was happy to indulge in and yet impatient for it to end, before she managed to find the privacy when her mother finally ran out of energy and had a midday nap together with her.

Alice woke up first and rather than wake her mother, she opted to try opening the System.

Status. She tested the mental command but nothing happened. Hm, she wasn't registered?

System Registration, Name Alice.

The characteristic blue window of the System appeared in front of her, a simple hovering box.

She dutifully waited for the loading bar to fill, the window disappeared before Alice called up the Status page.

That was totally barebones. Self maintenance would allow her to convert lifeforce power to maintain her body condition, a basic civilian grade healing ability that mostly prevented you from dying so you could reach proper medical services. It also let you get away without food or water for two or three weeks before your power ran out. One did not generate lifeforce power when starving after all.

She had nothing more than the basic set, none of Petra's lifeforce power grafts nor any modules. Not even Database or Skill Share. Then again, lifeforce grafts were not part of System even if the AR system could detect them, needing specialized medical facilities to add to one's lifeforce. Alice was not Petra after all.

Strangely, Petra did not remember any such thing as a Skill Analysis. While such a function to label your own skills had to be present for their skill share to work, Petra definitely did not remember it being integrated into infrastructure as fundamental as Status was.

Sighing to herself, Alice sent a mental command. Logout.

A confirmation window appeared and she confirmed, her status window disappeared. Time to see if Petra's account was still active.

Log in, Account Name PetraZivoska91, Password *********

Using the mental interface to type was slow and terrible but the results of her effort was well worth it.

Right as the welcome page finished displaying, another box appeared on top of it.

She blinked at it for a moment before opening her personal details page. Status was Local and wouldn't have changed apart from her new messenger module, but account details was on the System network. The difference between the Local and System was well hidden but Petra, being a module developer, knew it all like the back of her hand.

That said, the fact that her log in had worked meant that those memories were very real.

Huh. So it was over three hundred years since Petra's last login and her account had not been archived. Judging by Petra's 115 years of age at her last memory before the upload process, that would put the current date at least over 2617. Petra also wasn't a System Administrator, a government access level that could change someone's System permissions, perform routing actions on the System's grid network and even commit updates and changes to the underlying software the System ran.

A module developer would only have access to an experimental System grid within their local offices to prevent crashes from affecting public utilities. Likely Petra was dead, there was no way an admin would get away without logging in for hundreds of years. And having a System Administrator account remain active even after death was a major security no-no, someone with administrator access had to have prevented the automatic archival.

Alice had a very bad feeling that something terrible had happened. Three hundred years would have made the world unrecognizable to Petra, and while this wooden house was unrecognizable in its lack of everything, that was not what Petra had imagined when she speculated about the far future.

She set Privacy Mode to ON and the windows faded into a mental construct that only Alice could see.

The Messenger module finished installation into her Local and another box popped up, Petra had evidently set a macro. This one was a long message.

Alice sat in her mother's arms stunned. Petra's memories had no indication that the end of the world was approaching. Even now, all her memories were ones of accomplishment, progress and optimism. And her newfound maturity wasn't any help in deciding what to do.

Alice was a one year old baby! Even if she could think clearly and had a century of memories in her head, that didn't mean she could just accept the old Petra's desire for her to... to do what? Improve the world?

Ah, this must be a bad dream of some sort. Petra had told her to live her life as she wanted. Fine! Alice would do just that. She might end up a very intelligent one year old, with some strange memories and System permissions, but Alice was just going to grow up like a normal kid and decide what to do later.

Mhm.

Alice rolled over deeper into her mother's embrace, wriggling her cloth pajamas into a more comfortable position. Time to sleep.

Growing up in a peasant farmer's household was far harsher than any of Petra's experiences, but Alice decided to take life as it came. After all, her mother, father, two older brothers and one younger sister, all of them were her family. They had enough to eat, even if bland and unvaried compared to Petra's food. Potatoes, root vegetables and chicken was their feed.

Alicia, her mother, was weather beaten with age and work and her body showed signs of her four pregnancies. Still, one could see in her fair skin and decent figure that Alicia had been relatively pretty when she was younger. It gave Alice a bit of hope of her own appearances, which were similar to her mother's. Long dark hair and expressive black eyes were the family traits. Nothing like Petra's dazzling raw perfection of lifeforce modification though.

Her mother was stern and occasionally snapped at them irritably, but Alice could tell that the harsh realities of their life was wearing on her mother. None of the outbursts were truly angry and Alice always made sure to hug her mother whenever that happened. It never failed to melt the steely mask her mother put on outside of their home.

There was apparently a custom that the oldest daughter would inherit a shorter variant of their mother's name, until there was no possible contraction, upon which a new long name would be picked. So Alice's first daughter would be Ari and her granddaughter would have something new, preferably not starting with 'A'. The same applied to the first son and the father.

Denka, her father, was wiry and not much taller than her mother. But his body concealed a strength and stamina forged through countless hours of fieldwork and hunting. He shared her mother's black eyes but his hair was more a dark brown than black. Quiet and not outspoken, her father was still knowledgeable about the forest and land, paying great attention to his farming and hunting in order to feed the family. Yet, if any of the family were truly threatened, Denka would show his seething anger and deal with the threat coldly and ruthlessly.

Alice still remembered crying for hours after seeing her father use his hoe to grind to a fine paste a poisonous snake that had almost bit her. The cold fury on her father's face was not something she would ever forget and she had to comfort him in slow lisping words afterwards. The sadness in his eyes was heartbreaking for the short time when he thought he had frightened Alice. She lied that it was not her father's face that had shook her, just the snake.

Her elder brothers, Den and Erias, were almost clones of their father. The same pointed nose, slightly short stature, only their black hair was at all like mother. Both of them were hardworking, like father, though Erias was more adventurous and dreamed of leaving the village one day. Den however, wanted him to stay and help on the farm, dreaming of an extended family like the bigger households nearer the center of the village.

Alice's younger sister, Rishiamaher, was clearly the subject of high hopes from her mother, what with the absurdly long name to cut down through the generations; the family nicknamed her Ri. The mischievous little monkey was fast and she dodged all of Alice's attempts to rein her in, her feet were fast and sure and Ri had never tripped a single time in her life. Only a year younger, with golden-brown hair and fair features, Ri was also set to be the most beautiful girl in the village of her generation.

They had no cousins and only Den remembered their grandparents. Denka's brothers and sisters had all left the village, leaving Denka the farm.

Alice loved them all, and ignored the way her father and mother sighed at Ri when her sister wasn't looking. Her parents treated Ri and Alice fairly and equally. Unless a problem appeared, Alice would do the same too.

Still, Alice kept her memories a secret. Alice wasn't sure if her family would treat her differently if she told them, and she was already considered a weirdly intelligent child as she was unable to act her age. While childish amusements did distract her easily, Alice quickly grew bored of non-physical games she learnt too easily. Some day, Alice would find the courage to tell her parents, when she could trust them more.

On her third birthday, Alice was taken to the governor's building and the man in charge of the entire village had recited the same guest registration process and activated skill analysis for her account. Alice was deathly afraid her secret memories were about to be exposed but he didn't even look at her AR display. Nothing strange appeared on her Status however, only the lone Common Language line was shown.

She quickly swapped back to Petra's account though, after changing all the personal details to match Alice's. At the same time, the redundant language blessing was given and Alice decided to no longer conceal her adult like vocabulary.

This drew a little suspicion but it was eventually written off that her language developed faster than others. Children took time to integrate the language blessing from the System and while most were completely fluent by five years, Alice's sudden development of language mastery in a week stood out.

Alice dutifully kept her mouth shut about the truth about the language blessing. Whoever it was that had made a language skill a default download for all accounts, it wasn't Petra, judging by the contents of her letter.

The results of the Skill Analysis was also surprising. She had nothing at all, despite having all of Petra's memories. Querying the System using Petra's access, she found out that Petra had adjusted Skill Analysis to ignore any memories gained from downloading Petra.

So it was with some relief that Alice got through her third birthday without raising too many questions.

Helping out on her parents' farming efforts, Alice could only peel and wash vegetables or grain. After all, no matter how mature she was, Alice was just a five year old.

Their village was a small one with only three hundred population. Growing food and hunting wildlife were the main activities, even if the grain tax to the governor took half of all the produce. But the villagers could do nothing about that.

The village was in the domain of the Elemental Empire, itself composed of four magical clans that each manipulated one of the four elements, Fire, Air, Earth and Water. The governor of Alice's village, Lochar, was an offshoot of a branch family of the Divine Fire Clan, essentially a nobody. A third son of an unimportant family, whose only prospect was to be consigned to squeeze taxes from a small village, protecting it from monsters and keeping the peasants in line.

He and his daughter could shoot fireballs from their hands. Upon arrival, Lochar had demanded all the virgin women in the village line up in front of him and chose the prettiest one to be his bride. Mindful of potential inheritance disputes, the governor had not ordered any others to his bed, much to the relief of everyone else.

No matter how much the villagers resented this state of affairs, what could they do against someone who could easily burn the whole village down if he felt like it one day? His wife's brother had objected to her forced marriage by attempting to poison the governor and had been made an example of.

No one else said a peep as the man was sold off as a criminal slave.

That said, Lochar was not stupid or lazy. He had ended the dispute between two of the older farming families by force, rallied a tiny militia to beat back encroaching monsters and used his powers to clear swathes of forest by fire. Abusing his absolute power, the governor conscripted sons and daughters into reclaiming the cleared forest land and even tried to start a pottery work with clay from the river.

Underneath his fiery boot, Lochar had quashed all the petty squabbles by uniting the village with the threat of force. Within this tiny pond, Lochar was king. Of course, the governor had did that to improve tax yields and thus his position in the clans but the villagers did receive some trickle down benefits. By the time Alice was born, in the same year as Lochar's daughter, all thought of rebellion had ended and the villagers had adjusted to living under his firm yoke.

All of this wasn't an unusual state of affairs in the Elemental Empire, as the governor's speeches to the children said. The Clans were familial in structure, their magical abilities were all dynastic, and each family had a network of relatives to call upon in case they needed extra firepower. On top of clearing monsters and ruling by force, their magical abilities were also indispensable. Fire was used to clear land, metalworking and as the strongest element for military use. Water could adjust water supplies and control floods. Earth was suitable for terraforming and mining. Air could predict and influence weather, as well as control rainfall in conjunction with Water.

If a village had a clan family attached, the governor would use their abilities as well as trade favours with the other three clans. Together with the familial hierarchy and the discipline expected of clan members, they often caused their territories to develop rapidly. At the cost of a tyrannical government that viewed the no-ability villagers as nothing more than raw labour force.

Of course, Petra's memories spoke of the real truth. Humans didn't normally have magical abilities like that. Alice recognized those as variants on a certain class of lifeforce grafts. Those with that series could expand their lifeforce boundary outside their skin, and with lifeforce to power the active abilities, create changes in the environment within that expanded boundary. Originally experimented on animals to create self-replicating cannon fodder for war, some of Petra's memories aligned roughly with what Alice heard of monsters, the same innovations had been applied to humans.

Those artificial soldiers with extensive combat mods eventually became known as Alva, created as a black project by a military scientist. What to do with clone soldiers who could demolish whole city blocks with enough lifeforce power, or with many in concert and an external power tap could unleash destruction on the scale of strategic weapons, was a thorny question not yet solved by the time Petra's memories ended.

It appeared that some of those had not been drive insane by the faulty Skill Share. And of course, Alva would have no trouble surviving hordes of zombies. Likely they would have been able to shelter some normal humans too and with their power, would naturally float to the top in the post-collapse society where military strength would rule.

Alice sighed mentally and closed the window. Accessing the account activity logs in the system, even when out of date by a year for AR nodes on the other side of the planet, had revealed that no Administrators or Supervisors had logged in within the last two hundred years.

She would have started studying the lifeforce modification notes that Petra wrote but her fifth year was full of chores. Much more than usual. She couldn't find the time or energy after the work was done to test the manual rune writing used before rise of magical technology in Petra's history.

Alice dumped the basket of wheat chaff she had painstakingly picked out of the harvested brans. Petra's memories of what farms were like pre-collapsed only told of large magical devices that automatically harvested, sorted and even milled the wheat. Obviously, Alice had no ability to reproduce any of that, Petra didn't even know how they worked.

She bent down and swept into her basket a another load of fallen chaff her mother had fanned to the floor with a wooden rod. She had to pick out the small amounts of wheat from the chaff.

Normally, chaff was separated from the wheat by blowing air over the harvest with a fan. Chaff would fly further than wheat and the fallen wheat that fell nearby could be collected. With multiple rounds, most of the chaff would be blown away. Inevitably, this also blew away some wheat with the chaff but retrieving those was deemed to be not worth the labour to retrieve manually.

Not this harvest. Every child too young to work in the fields was pressed into this task during the harvest sorting.

"Mama," Alice looked up at her mother, seeing the lines of exhaustion on her mother's face.

"Yes Alice?" her mother continued to fan the wheat.

"Why are we doing this, mama?"

Her elder brothers paused and looked conflicted but resumed their fanning work when her mother glared at them.

Her mother sighed deeply, "the first time this happened was when you were born. That was a difficult year. Harvests were falling, just like now, and Lochar demanded the same improvement in yield. At the time, no one knew what was going on and some youths were even discussing trying to attack the governor. "

The wheat yields had been falling as Alice was growing up too, Petra's memories indicated that the continuous planting of wheat every year was exhausting the land, but in the village meeting before the wheat planting, Lochar had given instructions to the entire village that the harvest was to be increased by a third. Yields were to be made up by expanding the farm area. Hunting and gathering activity was to be at a minimum until after harvest, whereupon every able bodied adult would strip the land around them clean.

Alice had wondered at the unused farmland all around the village that was much larger than the adults could normally plow and plant. Supposedly, that area had been cleared of forest by Lochar after he arrived.

"We knew, from stories of other villages, that Lochar's demand to plant wheat all the time for tax was going to result in this situation. And yet, there was nothing we could do to him. That year, a branch of the Divine Earth clan sent thirty Fingers and one Palm to consecrate our village. The huge harvest we sweated and bled for was taken away by them," her mother sighed again, "they came, we threw large feasts every day, forced to wait on them. The sorcerers set up a huge ceremony in the middle of the village, did their magic that none could see, took as much as they could and left. In the end, we were left with nothing for our efforts. But what could we do? Lochar was bad enough, but he's just a Finger of Fire. The Palm of Earth could destroy our village with a wave of a hand. "

She continued, "the next year, the wheat yields were twice what they were before Lochar arrived. That is what the Consecration cycle is, as explained by our governor. Every five years, when our land grows poor, we have to make an extraordinary effort to pay the Divine Earth clan to restore the land. Then we plant wheat every year until the land is exhausted again. "

Hm. Wouldn't that mean that her family was going to eat poorly for the rest of the year? Alice did think that her food had reduced a little, so it wasn't just her imagination! And more importantly, she wasn't going to get the time to herself to 'play'. Alice did want to start testing the ancient runic script that Petra had made notes on.

"So there's no chance I'm going to get any time to play for the rest of the month?" Alice asked.

"I'm afraid not, dear. "

The grueling month of work came to an end two days before the Earth clan arrived in their village. Their harvest was collected, the wheat, fruits and meat stockpiled in their barns. The village was overflowing with the collected food, with earthenware pots of pickles, bread and fairer delicacies stacking high in their houses.

The day the Earth clan arrived, Lochar had the entire village, down to the last newborn baby, turn out along the road that afternoon to welcome them in.

"Ri!"

The excited shout turned heads but Toli's gang of boys paid no attention. Alice grinned at them as her sister paled and hid behind her back.

"Toli, Jo and Bachi, aren't you supposed to be with your parents?" Alice asked innocently.

The three boys were dressed in the local best clothing, which was still terrible by Petra's standards, all the festival bead decorations hanging off their caps in a jingling mess. In contrast, Alice and Ri had their beads woven into their braided hair by their mother earlier today.

"Hey, Alice," Toli grinned back, peeking around her shoulder. Ri shuffled around her, keeping Alice between them. Without looking, Alice already knew her sister's face was totally red.

That childish crush was so adorable!

She would have fun teasing her sister into a puddle of embarrassment once this hell of work was ended. Toli, in his dense insensitive way, just thought it was funny how Ri acted so differently in front of him.

"Hey. " "Hi!" Jo and Bachi greeted her as well. Alice nodded back at them.

"Don't think I didn't notice you're dodging the question," Alice said smugly.

Toli ended his game of chasing her sister and looked sheepish, "well, every time I see them, we get told to do something. There's just no time to play any more! I wish the Earth people didn't have to come. "

She frowned and looked back at her parents but they were distracted with talking to old man Tas, a neighbour.

"Shh, you don't want Lochar to get angry with you," Alice hissed. Inwardly, she was glad none of the adults had noticed Toli's words. He would surely get scolded.

"Eh, you can't scare me with that, Lochar doesn't care about us," he waved a hand dismissively, grinning at his friends. It was something of a childish game, to show that one wasn't afraid of even the governor. A way to reinforce social status, Petra's ghost whispered in Alice's ear.

"Anyway-"

Alice's words were cut off with a shout from the front of the lines. The crowd lining the dirt road stirred and everyone looked to the village entrance. Out of the corner of her eye, Alice saw Lochar and his daughter position themselves in the middle of the open space at the center of the village. Right in front of the rows of tables and chairs laid out by the villagers last night.

The Earth sorcerers had arrived.

The travelling group contained more than fifty people, but the brown robes of the Earth sorcerers were obvious. There was also the way that none of them held any baggage, leaving it up to their white robed servants to struggle with the horses and masses of empty carts.

Lochar greeted the leader of the group of Earth sorcerers with a deep bow. A hand wave into a fist sent out a serpent of fire as thick as his arm to drip angry flaming droplets onto the dirt ground of the village center. His daughter beside him, golden curls bouncing, did the same hand wave but all that happened was a small gout of flame shooting out from her fist.

The two Palms of Earth, marked by their greater ornamentation of iron and gold, brought their hands together with a clap that was echoed immediately by their entourage of Fingers. In an practiced motion, they all stamped their feet at the same time. There was a huge deep noise and the ground vibrated beneath their feet, as if someone had hit the ground like a drum.

They bowed back to Lochar, but distinctly shallower.

Having proved their identities, Lochar guided the Earth sorcerers to the tables and barked at the villagers to set out the feast they had prepared.

Alice carried a small basket of bread, standing around as rehearsed for any of the thirty or so sorcerers to fill their plates with. Lochar sat at the head of the table, with the two Palms of Earth sitting on either side. Despite his position, it was clear the two of them were the superior in this meeting and they only let him sit there because he was the host.

Ri stood beside Alice, holding another basket of forest fruit. Her sister watched the feast with envious eyes and Alice had to nudge her occasionally to get her to keep up.

"More bread!" called one of the Fingers of Earth close to them. In the setting sun, their faces all blurred together and the way they treated the villagers as if they were just made of air did not help Alice in remembering who they were.

Alice stepped forward to place a hard loaf in front of the man. He snatched it up and bit into it without even looking at her.

As she moved back to her position in the line, Ri sighed beside her. "I wish we had something to eat too," she whispered.

There was nothing she could say to her sister. They watched the raucous feasting in front of them silently.

"Gah!"

The shout behind them was not early enough for Alice to dodge. The boy carrying the flagon of mead tripped into her and they went down messily. Wine and bread flew everywhere, drenching Alice's clothes with the yellow liquid and the smell of alcohol. Ri bounced away from her, ignoring the hit on her shoulder with nothing more than skip back, not even dropping a single piece of bread from her basket.

The catastrophe attracted the attention of the feasters as the sorcerers all stared at them. Alice could only look up at them in terror, the boy next to her sniffled in a vain attempt to stop his panicked tears.

No. They were not looking at Alice, all their eyes were focused on her sister. Who met their looks with a confused and worried frown.

"Lochar, who is this girl?" asked the female Palm of Earth mildly. Despite her gentle tone, the words made Alice shiver. They were like a hidden knife, a hair away from unleashing death and destruction.

"Lady Erina, that is Rishiamaher, second daughter of Alicia. The one on the ground is Alice," Lochar answered.

"And her father?"

"That would be Denka. One of the farmers. He owns a plot-"

"He's not her father," snapped the woman.

"Did Alicia serve at the last Consecration?" asked the male Palm of Earth on Lochar's other side.

Lochar didn't answer. Instead the three of them just stared at Ri. Similarly, all Alice could do was watch.

A few seconds of uncomfortable scrutiny let their parents rush up behind them. Alice brushed pieces of bread back into the basket as her father checked her for injuries. Ri seemed frozen to her spot.

"Alicia, who was it, five years ago?" Lochar asked her mother.

"That was Broma," she replied with a hurried bow.

The two Palms shook their head. The woman, Erina, spoke up, "no. He's Palm now. And the nephew of the Eighth Valley branch head. You would have thought he would be more careful but I suppose rumours have to come from somewhere. We can't take her. The scandal would make us all enemies of him. "

Another silence.

"What do you intend to do?" Lochar asked them, no doubt the same question running through Alice's parents' minds. Though Ri was still completely confused as to what was going on, Alice already had a hunch and judging from her parent's reaction, it was correct.

The woman shrugged, "we can't train her. Keep her away from Consecrations, don't let her have children. Untrained, nothing will happen. If something does happen, it won't start with me. I'm not going to risk that sort of attention. "

It was with great relief when Lochar let her family be excused from the rest of the feasting duty.

Her parents hurried them back to their home with haste, both to wash Alice's clothing and to avoid further attention. All the way, Ri was still stunned at the strange happenings, and mother and father were in no rush to explain.

Ri was going to be insufferable when Alice told her she had magic. Not until the Earth clan had left though.

The Consecration ceremony lasted from dawn to midday.

The two Palms sat in the center, backs to each other, with the Fingers sitting in two rings around them. Occupying the center of the village, everyone had once again turned up to watch them, all work in the fields and travel into the forest beyond was prohibited by order of the governor.

It was boring. Really really boring. All they did was sit there.

According to her mother, the first time was the same. According to what Petra knew of how lifeforce grafts worked, each of the sorcerers had to be expanding the boundaries of a huge magical effect outwards over the land. That covering such a large area was not how grafts were supposed to be used was understating matters. It was inefficient and would consume lifeforce power just to expand that influence. It was almost always easier to travel there yourself, throw the results of your magic or even move the whole effect itself, rather than cast at a massive distance.

The fact that the thirty Fingers were sharing their power with the two Palms was the only reason why the Consecration could work at all.

If Alice had a Sensor class graft, something that was clearly part of their set, she would be able to see the boundaries they had set up. If she had an Analysis class graft, she might even be able to take snapshots of the rune base describing the effect they were using. Since they had so kindly included her in the boundary, it would be trivial to intercept whatever they were doing.

Having none of them, she saw and felt nothing at all.

Beside her, Ri gaped down at the ground, seeing things that no one else could. If the feast last night hadn't convinced Alice, this would. She clearly had a sensor graft as part of the whole Earth sorcerer package.

At midday, the Earth clan sorcerers were done. Most of the Fingers just sat there, groaning with exhaustion. Alice had discreetly used her Administrator powers to observe their Status pages.

Most of them had lifeforce power in the single digit percent or actually at zero. Having zero lifeforce power remaining would shut down the self maintenance graft that everyone had, which explained why they were so exhausted. Not a healthy state to remain in for a long time but without further drain, they would recover quickly. Switching to quantified view showed most of them had maximums of hundreds of units, according to Petra's memories, magical devices could demolish a sturdy stone building on a budget of four or five hundred.

The Palms, however, were at eighty percent and a maximum of about a thousand units. None of Petra's memories had indicated that anyone in the pre-collapse society had that much power. How they managed to get that much lifeforce storage and power generation, Petra had no answer for. Plus, they were the leaders of that magical effect, how did they avoid spending most of their lifeforce on this? Not every question could be answered by consulting Alice's inherited memory, however.

That said, from what Petra's memories contained of the Earth strain Alvas, the Consecration had likely just adjusted the contents of the soil. Conjuration of matter at its most wasteful. That sort of magical adjustment of soil makeup was only used in the most exacting of requirements, like the attempts to recreate wine from a specific year. Physical fertilizers were just easier and more efficient. A few quick words with her sister had confirmed that no magical effects remained on the fields.

Alice's family was excluded from the feast but obviously not the tax.

"What was that? The sorcerers were doing something to the ground!" Ri's excitement had been clearly suppressed through the day and now exploded as the family sat around their much poorer meal.

Her brothers looked at their parents curiously, but Alice's mother just sighed and buried her face in father's shoulder.

No matter how young she was, even Ri could tell the mood was unpleasant. At their parents' continued silence, she grew quiet and worried.

Alice had more on her mind than possible indiscretions in the past. Petra knew, vaguely, that farms needed fertilizer, especially with the monocropping their governor was forcing them to do. Added to the massive payment for Consecration, the lowered yield meant that everyone had to exhaust themselves farming far more land than they normally could do.

Petra's memories did not include how to make fertilizers, especially since the pre-collapse society had chemical fertilizers that were specially made in factories. But of course, they just had to take the soil from somewhere that wasn't using it. The forest surrounding their village except in the southwest had soil that did not suffer depletion. If they just took the soil from the forest, they could maintain high yields and work far less to pay for the Earth sorcerers to come Consecrate the forest.

And since the forest was much bigger than the village's farmland, they could take a bit from everywhere, Petra's memories indicated that soil would recover over time. Then the Consecration could probably be shorter or rotate between sections of forest, so they wouldn't need so many Earth sorcerers.

So maybe this was what Petra had meant by improving the world? For once, Alice agreed. If her inherited knowledge could help her family, then why was she ignoring it?

Why was she afraid her parents would treat her differently? Her sister was the result of that Earth sorcerer Broma in the last Consecration, her mother wouldn't be in any position to refuse. But in all four years, her parents had never treated Alice and Ri differently, even her father who wasn't her sister's father.

"Mother, Father," Alice spoke up, drawing her family's attention, "I have something I need to tell you. "

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] Lonely Dreams
Genre: Fantasy/adventure

"Hey. Hey, kid, you need to wake up."

The tip of a boot nudged her ribs in time with the words, and Mae had no choice but to wake up and smell the variety of bodily secretions that gave the subway such a welcoming charm. Combined with the burn of not nearly enough industrial cleaner it was as unmistakeable as the security guard's blend of sweat, cheap aftershave, and cheaper booze.

Not that she had any room to throw stones on that front. Two days since she'd last found an unattended public bathroom and all. Yet where she could forgive him for being a sweaty sack of lard and waking her up, Mae had far stronger feelings about the pity in his voice. In his eyes.

"I'm sorry kid. I have to clear you out of here. Do, do you want to come to the security office? There's tea, and-"

"Tea alone with a strange man, sounds great, not creepy at all." Mae ignored his denials, focusing on bundling up her things and getting away before he decided to call someone nosy and well-meaning.

She was pretty sure she was too old for any more foster homes and orphanages, but between a small build and her endless damned hunger she didn't exactly look it. The last thing she needed was the guard deciding she could be his good deed for the day and making the usual half-hearted attempt at saving her from the streets.

It wasn't her problem if he felt bad looking at her. Not as long as she didn't let him make it her problem.

So she shrugged on both of her spare coats, stuffed the ratty old blanket between her shirts and slung the meagre weight of her bag up onto her shoulder. Already walking for the exit before he'd finished assuring the world at large that he wasn't a predator and he'd only been trying to be nice, not planning to add her to his collection of dismembered women.

If she took a little satisfaction at the way his vague kindness had turned into indignation at her lack of gratitude? Well that was just proof of what she'd known for years.

"People are..." Mae trailed off, losing her vicious grin to a wave of frustration and misery as she rounded the last bend on the way out and saw a wall of water pounding the street above. The noise had been hidden by the busted sounding ventilation, and she cursed it even more than she had when she was trying to fall asleep the night before. If she'd known the weather had turned then she'd have taken Greasy McGuilty up on his offer of a hot drink and all the condescension she could stomach.

Hell, she might have been able to wheedle an umbrella out of the guy. She'd definitely have been able to charge her phone, and running out of battery was the whole reason she was being caught off guard by something as predictable as rain in a city with free (or poorly protected) wifi on every block.

All of it traced back to the bitchy new manager at Bits and Beans who had refused to let her just buy a coffee without any of their 'optional' toppings. Stranding her on the wrong side of the city to charge her phone, all because that cow hadn't wanting her sitting inside with all her precious customers.

Hesitating now, just a few steps from the waterfall that the clouds had seen fit to arrange for the sake of her misery, Mae was far too seasoned to reach for where she kept her money but that didn't stop her counting it. One bill and a handful of coins wasn't enough of a bounty for her to forget it.

It also wasn't enough to risk spending it on anything but food. She'd have to walk to the nearest spot, a library whose day staff would let her sit for a few hours so long as she didn't push her luck. She'd have to walk in the pouring rain, instead of taking shelter, or else risk wandering around without any information source but her own eyes. Not an option after the bridges she'd burned in the last few years.

At a sound of movement from behind her, Mae knew her time was up. Stepping out into the rain before the guard could throw her out was a small victory but with how quickly the rain began to soak through her layers Mae doubted she was going to have any more of them any time soon.

Good thing she'd gotten so much experience making small pleasures tide her over for a long time.

Beneath the din of the rainfall, her stomach was growling its familiar complaints. The usual low rumble that had earned her dirty looks and punishments and eventually medical check-ups back when she'd been in the system. Though she couldn't be certain any more, she definitely hadn't had a parasite of any kind back then, so Mae had no idea why she was always at least a little hungry. Instead she had a lifetime's experience in ignoring hunger pangs and a solid grasp of how long she could go without eating.

If she sat around and did nothing but beg all day, then she would probably be fine with just her earnings for the day. The supermarket a few streets away would let her squeeze more out of the money than the usual fast food, one of the few advantages to being out on the edges of the city.

If she spent the day walking, circling around the dangers of downtown, then begging wasn't even an option. Her other source of funds was too risky without a good crowd to hide in. Meaning she'd have to spend her reserve and she'd still be going to sleep hungrier than she had the night before.

Shoulders hunched and already shivering, she considered stopping. Maybe trying to build up cash over a few days. Or she could try to stretch the journey out over a few days.

Mae snorted and kept walking, shoulders hunched in against the cold. She might not have many friends, or any friends, but she still had enough ears out and about to know where she needed to not be on any given day. Losing access to that information could do worse than leave her hungry.

Then again, she might get unlucky and stumble across the wrong person on her way across town. The right call from the wrong person and she might as well throw herself out into traffic, no matter where she was at the time.

It was all, to borrow a phrase from one of her foster parents, a calculated risk.

Which was what gave her the idea.

It was too early for regular buses, but she got lucky with one just a few minutes after her brain wave, and parted with all but a few coins out of her stash to spend twenty minutes huddled in a seat surrounded by people coming to and from their shitty jobs and feeling sorry for themselves. Hopefully she gave them a glimpse of how much worse it could be. A flash of inspiration for the ungrateful shits.

Mostly she spent the journey alternating between trying to hide in her seat and staring at each and every person who got on the bus after she had. Each stranger reduced the ball of tension sitting in her gut just a little, and yet it kept growing as the buildings got steadily newer and the streets significantly busier despite the combination of awful weather and early morning.

When she finally got off the bus Mae had her hood drawn up as high as it would go, and her eyes couldn't rest on one spot for more than an instant. Appropriate behaviour given she was in the one part of the city she hadn't just been asked to stay clear of by implication, but clearly told to keep out of.

The consequences if she was caught had none of the slight ambiguity that a chance encounter might have had going for it.

She reminded herself that ambiguity almost certainly wouldn't have saved her, and headed for the busiest street she could find. Busy enough that even a girl dressed in rags and stinking of stale sweat wouldn't have any personal space. All the better to get herself the bus fare she needed and get back to the relative safety of the outskirts.

She rubbed her hands together to fight off the chill that might slow her fingers, and thought warm thoughts about the library she would hopefully be waiting out the rain in. Quickly spotting a juicy looking target in the flow of the crowd, Mae's thoughts jumped all the way to the luxury of a hot breakfast as she manoeuvred herself for the pass.

Normally, with better hygiene on her side, Mae would have simply bumped into the yuppy, muttered an apology, and been free and clear before he finished his phone call and realised he was missing the contents of his jacket pockets.

Once, with much better hygiene and clothes that didn't look as well worn as they were, she might even have tried to distract him with something gentler than a collision. However beauty was as much about effort as the base materials, and coming from beneath hair gone stringy with grime any smile she might muster would do the opposite of putting him off his guard.

So instead of all that, she kept her eyes on the ground as he came closer and picked just the right moment to tangle one of her feet with the woman behind her. Tripping the older lady and setting off a short line of dominoes that went from the lady, to her, to the suit. Though the press of the crowded street kept them all on their feet, that was no comfort to the man who found himself playing one piece of bread in a hobo sandwich.

She expected the shove, but not the one from behind, and a faceful of dirty puddle was her reward. That and the wallet and keys she shoved into the depths of her clothes instead of protecting her face from the fall.

Pain and cold and something slimy on her cheek all went ignored. If she'd chipped another of her teeth then she'd live, but a lift gone wrong would draw exactly the attention she wanted to avoid.

Lucky for her, she looked up to find the guy she'd robbed giving the woman she'd tripped an earful of abuse and getting just as bad back in turn. Neither spared her more than a glance, which was...well it had never quite lost the sting, but a fat wallet was a hell of an emotional anaesthetic. She'd live.

Only, as she pulled herself to her feet before anyone remembered their conscience and made her life difficult, Mae found reason to doubt that declaration.

It came in a stranger's face, from eyes she'd never seen before.

Eyes wide with recognition.

Not knowing who he was meant nothing. Street crime was a high turnover business, and she knew it better than most. What mattered was that her face was known and it had just been seen.

Any thoughts of conserving energy were abandoned with the arguing pair and the man suddenly yelling at her to stop. There were absolutely no thoughts of doing as he asked. Dashing out into traffic was a much safer bet.

Mae left a trail of horns in her wake as she crossed the road, sprinting for the nearest break in the buildings and running down the alley as fast as her legs would carry her.

Either her pursuer had braved the cars or he'd had a friend across the street, because she could already feel someone close behind her. Hands grasping for her bag and catching the trailing strap with a jerk that might have taken her off her feet if she hadn't let go of it.

It had been empty but for some clothes and a toothbrush that even she'd been intending to replace. Mae left it behind without a second thought.

She was far too busy remembering the last time she'd been caught to have any room for even a first thought. Then she burst from the dimness of the alley and saw a shape close ahead, looming in the rain.

It might have been a random person, or another conveniently positioned 'friend'. The risk was enough for her to throw herself past them and keep running without ever seeing a much larger shape that was coming down the street.

The horn was the last thing she heard.

And pain was the last thing she felt.

*****

It was warm, and familiar. She knew the dream well.

How could she not? She'd been dreaming it all her life. It was only dream she'd ever had.

Other kids had described abstract nonsense, or told her about dreams all about doing things. Then she left the system behind and it was her forays into the internet that told her how dreams were supposed to be.

Knowledge had never changed her reality however. In spite of what was supposed to happen, Mae had kept on dreaming her dream.

A dream of a place. A great hall, stretching out of sight in every direction. Majestic and still. It was a place of rest and peace.

A place that changed.

Sometimes the pillars that supported a distant roof were trees, or roots, and the floor was a soft carpet of wildflowers like a storybook meadow. Sometimes it was towering marble that held the roof above her, and she lay on a floor of cushioned velvet.

Materials changed between blinks sometimes, or lingered for months and years. There was no pattern that she'd been able to find.

The only constants were her inability to move, or speak, or do anything but lay in comfort and stare in whatever direction she chose to.

Somehow it had never bothered her.

When she was awake it was hard to understand how she wasn't losing her mind each night. Yet in the moment what should have been torment became undeniable comfort.

She was safe and at ease and it was simple enough to fight off any traces of boredom if she cast her gaze to the shadows that danced around her.

No matter the decorations, she had never seen a light source anywhere in her dream. Yet there was light, and there were shadows. Cast by nothing at all, they were easy enough to ignore when she wished to, and when she longed for diversion they would answer.

There was no form they could not take. Like a film made with just two colours, they had never failed to entertain her. Sometimes even spelling out words to let her read in the same unbroken silence.

It was familiar.

The agony was not.

Mae arched a back that would not move, and screamed without making a sound. She wanted, needed, to move, to vent the pain of her broken body in any way she could. Her mouth would not open and her tongue would not move, but she could still breathe and she blasted the air from her lungs as if she could expel the pain with that alone.

It did nothing to numb her suffering, but it got the shadows' attention.

The sight of them surging towards her marked the first time Mae had ever looked at them as anything but friends. Though her apprehension vanished just as quickly, buried by a pool of contentment that spread across her skin and began to seep inside her-

The cough split the air with a noise that somehow managed to be more chiming bells than dying cat, and the spell was shattered.

Mae screamed, and shook, and she would have curled into a ball if a single one of her limbs had been willing to obey her instead of sending hot spikes of agony pulsing through her nerves.

She was broken. Broken and bleeding enough to feel the heat of her blood pooling beneath her. All the while the shadows around her surged and roiled and finally erupted and exploded with light.

Light became water, and where a shadow had stood she now saw a mermaid swimming in a floating pool of water.

She was naked and so beautiful it should have been intimidating. If she hadn't had such impossibly kind eyes. If she hadn't twisted and swam towards Mae, cool water flowing ahead of the mermaid and soaking every inch of her ruined body in something far better than the illusionary comfort the shadows had offered.

It wasn't the absence of pain. More like numbness, exactly like she'd grown too cold to feel anything, but without any discomfort. Mae looked down and saw frost concealing her body, already going red in several places. She'd definitely hurt her head and neck, but she didn't feel anything when she moved them. In fact-

"Princess! You must not move!" The woman spoke the same language that the shadows had used to write things out for her, and for the first time Mae realised that she'd never seen those symbols anywhere but in her dream. She didn't even know how she understood the language, because it was nothing like anything else she'd ever heard of.

She held still, because the woman was doing something with light and water and her hands and it felt nice enough that Mae figured she had to be a doctor of some kind, but her mind was racing.

Whatever had kept her from thinking clearly before had vanished, and Mae found herself aware of the place she dreamt for the first time. Not as the blurry dream, but crystal clear reality.

Not that anything had changed. She just felt like she was seeing it all for the first time.

The grand hall had lost the aura of peace she had always seen it through, transforming the space -currently made of grey stone and endless abstract tapestries- into something vast and intimidating. It made her feel very small, like an insect in the home of giants, and when she looked down to escape the feeling she found something else.

Though she'd always been able to look around freely enough, somehow unimpeded by the body that should have gotten in the way of her vision, Mae had never looked at the ground she was lying on. Only felt it and seen the matching texture some distance away.

Now that she finally looked down, she realised for the first time that she had lain at the centre of a pattern. A sign of some kind, like, well, like something out of a fantasy story.

She glanced towards the mermaid healing her with hands that had become light and water and ice. Then the shadows that she recognised for the first time as people, men and women, all made of shadow as surely as she was made of flesh.

They surrounded her at a short distance, looking like they'd like nothing more than to crowd around her and soothe her pain again. Maybe plunge her back into the dreaming state she'd always known their home through?

She didn't know. She didn't know anything. Which only made it worse that she was falling asleep.

By the time she realised it was too late to fight it. She could hardly keep her eyes open long enough to look at the mermaid as she turned and spoke to the shadows like they'd said something.

"Of course we cannot renew her seal! Unless you are a high elf and have kept it secret until now? Do we have some nibelung I do not know about? No? Then..."

Whatever the absence of elves and nibbles meant, Mae was too tired to listen any more. Too tired to do much of anything. Only she didn't fall asleep like she normally did at the end of her dream, but drifted instead. Floating on a sea of light that whispered to her in words she didn't quite understand, but was sure she'd heard before.

The words called to her. Called to something inside her. A...something. Something bright and dark and calm and chaotic all at once. Something that was an endless number of things, or could be them, or had been them, and eventually Mae fell asleep trying to wrap her head around it.

*****

Beeping woke her. A beeping so cliché that she recognised it despite having as few opportunities to watch medical shows as she had had.

Sure enough, she opened her eyes and found herself in a hospital.

Specifically, she was in a hospital bed and wrapped so many casts that she felt like something out of a dimly remembered cartoon. Like she should have been nursing a stack of tiered bumps and cursing something small and fuzzy.

Of course this wasn't a cartoon and she was almost certainly crippled. She certainly felt like…

"The hell?"

She felt...fine.

Within the confines of her casts, she could move as easily as she ever had. Not at all like the agonised twitching that she should have been just barely able to manage after being hit by a truck.

Yet she didn't even feel fuzzy. In open defiance of the tube that vanished into her arm and should have been pumping her full of drugs. Mae felt normal.

She got to spend almost an hour feeling very normal indeed and staring at the clock, wishing she hadn't woken up quite so soon, before the curtain around her bed twitched and a doctor ducked through it. Walking with the busy stride of someone with things to do and no time to waste explaining themselves.

At least until he looked up from a clipboard and saw Mae staring back at him.

"Ah. Miss, I mean ma'am, you're awake?" He was already walking to where her arm tube connected to a bag full of drugs, plucking it from its place and staring at the label like it was about to bite him. Mumbling, "She's tiny, how-? Another screw-up? Seriously?"

"What's going on?"

"Ma'am." The doctor looked at her like he wasn't sure what to say but was very sure it would get him in trouble, and Mae found herself very aware of how young he was. Barely a few years older than her, if that. Not that she was inclined to let him off easy for being new, but it did fit her expectations for how an organisation treated the people at the bottom.

"That bad huh?" She had spent the last hour bracing herself for bad news, having realised that since it made no sense at all for her to be fine, she had to be so messed up that she couldn't even feel the pain of her injuries. "I can take it. I promise."

"Oh don't worry, there's absolutely no charge Ma'am. This mistake was ours, I mean, you didn't do it on purpose so we can hardly hold you accountable."

She paid his frantic babbling no mind, "Yeah I don't care about that. I wanna know how badly hurt I am."

"You're not."

"What?"

"I see why you'd think that, with all this," he waved to the casts and tubes and abundance of beeping monitors, "but you're in perfect health. I'm afraid you somehow got confused with another patient, though we have no idea which one or where the mix-up happened or, I mean, it's all fine though. Everyone in surgery knew as soon as they rolled you in that there'd been a mistake and got a fresh round of x-rays and..."

She stopped listening.

She stopped paying any attention at all to the world around her.

Because she had very definitely been hit by that truck, with the mind shattering pain to prove it, and she had a doctor telling her she was healthy and not in any way resembling a sack of shattered bones and blood.

Except the only thing that had happened between then and now, the only thing that could possibly explain what had happened to her, was a dream.

It had to be a dream.

Didn't it?

*****

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] The Ups and Downs of A Villainess
Genre: Fantasy, Medieval, Politics, Kingdom-Building, Economics

"Ah, thank you, Alice. Hmm, as usual, your tea is always so refreshing."

"Of course, milady. Only the best tea leaves for you."

The red-headed young woman smiled with a silent pride, as she bowed towards her mistress in front of her. Oh, how she was so fortunate that she could serve her.

She had no idea however that her mistress was thinking the same thing.

Lune von Eirhenbact. The sole daughter of the famed Eirhenbact House, one of the strongest and most influential house of the Grandberg Kingdom. With her father serving as the prime minister under the king, she enjoyed a considerable status in high society among other nobles. She wasn't just beautiful, with her illustrious silvery blonde long hair that flowed down to her waist, but she was also famous for being the very epitome of grace. But recently, her name had spread around as the genius reformer who had elevated her family's territory miles further than any other territory in the kingdom.

It wasn't always like this however. In fact, just a while ago, she almost ended up being a disgraced noble, stripped of from her title and banished from the kingdom.

How did she dodge that, you wonder? Well, she had a help from a certain someone.

Someone that was not of this world.

Her name was Misaka Miyako. 30 years old. Single, unmarried office lady of Japanese heritage. Looks? Average. Nothing worth mentioning. Brains? Well, she liked to think she had those, but in the end, she merely ended up being a drone in a corporate office, working as their tax accountant. Love live? Ha, don't even ask. It wouldn't really matter anyways if she had one or two suitors in her office. She would reject them as none of them fulfilled her type 100%. The handsome newcomer? His income was lower than her. The rich one on another department? His nose was too big.

Her maiden heart could only be sated by the games she played.

Otome games, as they were often called. They were video games where you could choose between a bunch of cute and hot guys to be your love interest. Most of them came in the form of visual novels where the only gameplay involved was just you choosing between the various choices the game threw at you, but some actually had gameplay like a more mainstream videogame. She preferred the former by a mile. She was never good at playing normal games. She once tried an otome game with time management and crafting elements in it but she never really got far, always getting the bad end where the heroine was deemed as a failure. It eventually pissed her off to the point that she stopped playing it entirely.

What, you say she should've played with a guide? Hah! She was too proud for that! She had pride in completing every game and getting every route with her own efforts and knowledge. To her, looking up a guide just meant that you let others finish your game for you.

And so imagine her surprise when one day she was transported into the world of one of said games.

She still wasn't sure what happened even until this day. The only thing she knew that she had a car crash when driving home late from work, and then, the next thing she knew, she already ended up in this world.

The game's name was Wish on The Shining Star; just another cheesy title the games tend to have in this genre. The story was about the star-crossed romance between a lowly noble the girl (your character) and all the various high-ranking and influential nobles that existed in the school the game took place in. The setting was in your average Middle Ages Europe-inspired world that the games in this genre tend to have. It was really a pretty cliched game, come to think about it, but she still enjoyed it nonetheless.

The problem was, what she ended up becoming when she arrived in this world.

Or to be more exact, who.

She had become the villainess character, the kind you often find in this genre that would stand between the main character and her quest for love. As usual, unlike the heroine, the villainess held quite the power in the society inside the school. As the daughter of the Prime Minister himself, she naturally was respected by the other noble children in the school. Her words and opinion held weight over the masses, so it was easy for her to make the heroine a pariah in the school, especially since the heroine came from the lowest rank of nobility. They saw her as an upstart who tried to hook up with a high-ranked noble just to improve her own standing in society. Such was the logic that prevailed among their society.

Of course, in the end, the villainess received her downfall.

She ended up taking the blame for all the bullying the heroine received and, after being humiliated in public, was forced to apologize to the heroine, forever losing her face and social status amongst her peers.

Thankfully, she arrived just before that could happen.

With her knowledge, gained from both her obsession with European middle age era politics, her genre savviness, the villainess' own knowledge of manipulation, and her own wits in traversing office politics, she managed to stop her fate from being the trainwreck that was about to happen. She failed to stop the heroine from getting her admirers, which surprisingly didn't annoy her that much, even though they included her own little brother and her (former) fiancee, but she managed to get out from the school in time before the heroine's lovers could join together and put the blame on her, saving her face and social status in the first place. She dodged the scene where her own brother slapped her and called her terrible, terrible names. She even managed to keep most of the school sympathetic to her, resulting in the heroine and her groupies losing face instead amongst the other nobles.

And now, she ended up receiving the authority to rule over her family's territory from her father.

Normally, it would be the male son who received said the authority, that being her little brother, but said little brother had disappointed her father for being a lovestruck puppy towards the heroine. Instead of supporting her older sister and upholding the name of their family, he instead went off to the heroine's side, cheering on for her own sister's downfall. He very well knew her sister was on the right. The upstart noble was making moves towards her sister's fiance so she deserved every bit of humiliation she received. Every person born in this world should know their place after all, whether or not they were a commoner, a low class noble, or even the king's family themselves.

And so began her new life as Lune von Eirhenbact, free from the shackles of her old life and the game's script. With the plot of the game derailed like this, who knew what would happen next. However, she knew that she would live her life to the fullest in this world. She had always dreamed of being part of royalty, wearing pretty dresses and being taken care by servants loyal to her. And she got just that. She was now the daughter of the second most powerful person in the kingdom and her family possessed a considerable amount of influence and wealth. And now, she had the authority given by her father as well.

I shall make the name of the Eirhenbact Family the greatest in the land!

Said thought did not just come from her own mind. It also came from Lune's own thought, who had merged with hers when the transfer happened. Lune also wished for the everlasting greatness of the Eirhenbact Family, so she was not just fighting for her own will. She was also fighting for the happiness of the girl who had graciously allowed her to stay in her body.

And so began the reforms in Eirhenbact Family's territory.

They were not just done out of a mere whim. As someone who used to work as an accountant, she had quite the knowledge about economics, both at the macro and micro level. She knew that to improve her territory to an acceptable level, she would require at least a hundred years worth of planning and consistent managing. There were still so many things that were backwards compared to modern day Japan. Naturally, their technology was backwards, but there was nothing much she could do in that aspect. She was no engineer or scientist after all. But socially and economically speaking, there was a lot of things she could do.

To start, she desired compulsory education to all her citizens. There was a huge gap of wealth between the upper class and the lower class in her territory. As a stern believer in capitalism, she believed that the best way to tackle that was to employ the poor with the skills needed to advance in the social strata. Most peasants in her territory could barely even read, thinking of it as a useless skill only suited for scholars and the like.

To do that, she obviously would need quite a lot of money. So she had to reform the tax system, as well as look for another source of income that she could use to fund her projects. She also thought of starting a bank, so that her territory could get loans more easily. Just like in the real world, all nations had debts. As long as said debts were used to develop the nation, and not just for mere consumption, then it would be advisable to take as much debt as your nation could handle.

Of course, she would also use said money for infrastructure building, particularly roads as after some inspection that she attended personally, she knew that so many already existing roads in her territory was in a poor state. Not to mention that there were still quite some remote regions where roads didn't even exist yet, limiting trade incredibly. With her knowledge, she knew that if trade increased, that would mean jobs would increase as well. That meant there would be more wealth to share with the common poor.

As for the other source of income, she already got a good idea on what to do for that.

Chocolate and cosmetics.

It seemed the locals still didn't know how to produce both of them well even though the raw materials were quite readily available. And as she was a woman after all, she was well-versed in both the process of chocolate and cosmetic-making. The warmer part of her territory had cacao in abundance, while the colder part had many herbs that she could use to make some natural beauty products from. She was relieved that the flora in this world was relatively similar to the flora back on Earth.

Her customer target? Naturally, the nobles. It would be too expensive to sell them to the common folk. And besides, she could market them as an exclusive item, making those loaded wives and daughters even more willing to buy them.

But surely, they wouldn't be taken in easily to purchase and consume such strange food and items they had never known before.

Not when Lune's mother was in charge of the marketing.

If Lune had a major influence at her former school, then her mother had a major influence on pretty much the entirety of nobility. She was a trend-setter that everyone looked up to. If she were to introduce Lune's products at the many tea parties she attended, there would be no doubt that they would become popular in an instant.

Of course, Lune's mother would do this willingly. After all, she wished her daughter to be successful just as her husband did. Just like her husband, she also had written off Lune's younger brother as a lovelorn fool who would not amount to anything. Instead of inheriting the name of the family properly, he instead chased around some low class noble girl. It was a well-known taboo to bring him up in the tea parties she attended.

The result was a major success.

The demand for both was so massive that they could not keep up. However, instead of increasing their production capability, Lune decided she would keep it as it was, so that the scarcity factor would stay high, thus keeping their price high as well.

Just like the diamond corporations back in Modern Earth… she thought to herself with a smile. From a poor person's perspective, this might look unfair, but to her, who was now the owner of her own corporation, it was just another business tactic to maximize her profits.

And speaking of mimicking rich corporation tactics, she also made sure to brand those products, so that if one day a competitor appeared, she would have the advantage of brand loyalty on her side.

The next step she took to fund her plans was the establishment of a regional bank.

The concept of a bank hadn't really taken off in this world. Sure, you could store your money (meaning, gold, silver, and copper coins) in the various branches of the Merchant's Guild (for a fee of course), but the concept of pooling said coins for a large investment was not there yet. Instead, each branch mostly just kept the coins in their storage. They were other people's money after all. They couldn't just use them as they wished.

She came down to shatter such a naive belief.

After calling on all the leaders of the branches of the guild for a meeting, she explained to them how they could use the money stored to them in a much better way that would benefit both the owners and themselves. Similar to how a modern bank operated in her world (though obviously massively simplified here as this world was nowhere near ready for a stock market), she told them that they should loan back those money they got to businesses that needed them so that they could bloom and enrich the area. Normally, they would only give loans using the guild's own money, massively limiting the amount of cash they could give. With this modern method of hers, more businesses would be able to flourish. And more flourishing businesses meant more jobs. More jobs would mean more wealth. Trickle-down economics.

And then they asked, "What if the business failed and they couldn't repay their loan?" With a smile, she answered, "That's why you have to make sure the business they run are actually healthy, with the capability of paying their loans."

And here, she gave them the idea for the double entry ledger. All this time they had been only using the classic single entry ledger, with no matching accounts, and the terms they used were not standardized at all, leading to a lot of confusion and even scams. For her, a simple double ledger journal was child's play to make, but for them, it was like a revolutionary invention. This quickly won them over as they realized that Lune was not a mere noble girl who knew nothing about mercantile. She even had written a couple of books for them to read themselves so that they could learn the method on their own, which they gladly took, as they were already convinced on how much superior Lune's method of bookkeeping was to their own.

And when they had begun to respect her, Lune gave her the plan for her regional, Eirhenbact Family-owned bank. She proposed a cooperation with them, saying to them that she would like full access to the funds collected by the banks, which would be established in the already existing Merchants' Guilds' branches. The reward for them would be a percentage on what they collected. She assured them that she intended to use the funds to further enrich the region, pointing at the already successful selling of her chocolates and cosmetics by her company. With this arrangement, they would be able to continue as usual, not really thinking on how to invest the money they had received. All decisions would be made by her instead.

And so, a deal was stroke that day; a deal that satisfied her very much indeed.

***

"Haah, that's one done deal…" Lune said as she rested in her aromatic bath, right after the guild representatives had returned back to their respective offices.

"That was amazing, Miss! You clearly dominated them back then!" Alice said as she washed her lady's back.

Lune just smiled proudly to herself in response.

"This was only the beginning, Alice. Now that we have secured the funds we needed, we could begin doing all the development I have been talking about."

"The academy, Miss?"

"Yes. That would be a priority project. We could not let our citizen's hidden talents be wasted after all."

The academy she was talking about was nothing like the academy all the noble children attended in the royal capital. It was more tailored for usage by commoners. Nothing really fancy like the nobles' academy. It would just be a comfortable place well-suited for academic purposes. Really, the noble's academy seemed to be more about the luxury instead of the education itself.

Her plan was to have basic classes that everyone must attend, where they would be taught reading and writing. She believed that increasing the literacy rate of the populace would pay off immensely in the future. Perhaps not in the immediate present, but her plan was a long term one after all.

After they finished said classes, then they could choose to attend the more advanced ones. These would be classes tailored to a specific skill mastery. She planned to start with an agriculture, administration, and medicinal classes.

For agriculture, she wished for the farmers in her region to be able to cultivate their fields better. They didn't even know a simple thing like crop rotation, leading to them just continually opening forests up from new farmlands. Such a thing would be far less efficient, and it would have a negative effect on the environment as well.

For administrative classes, she was anticipating the necessity of expanding the government she ran. She would need well-qualified people to act as her hands and legs.

For medicinal classes, there was still a major lack of qualified doctors. Most of them only worked for the nobility. The commoners had to rely on shady folk remedies and herbalists that didn't really know what they were doing. She intended to bring a culture of science to this world, where every medicine would be really examined and questioned on their efficacy and effects on the body. She already invited some of the famous doctors to tell them about bacteria, viruses, and microorganisms in general. They didn't believe her, until she gave them a look with a makeshift microscope she had ordered her servants to build. She was so thankful that she still remembered her lessons about lens magnification from high school.

And speaking of doctors, she also would fund the research and development for new medicines. Any new medicines would be developed under the name of her company. Too bad the concept of patents still didn't exist in this world. She planned to petition the king to change that soon enough. Same with the farmers doing agriculture. She would also fund research for new and better crops. If she could sell them to the rest of the kingdom, or even beyond, her company would surely profit immensely from it, while at the same time, raising the living standards of the people as well. Two birds with one stone.

The other project she would prioritize was the road improvement project. She knew that some of her subjects would not see why establishing her academy was important. But they would all agree that improvements on roads was something they could all get behind with.

***

Six months had passed since then, and every single project that Lune started was running smoothly. The academy was not quite ready yet for operation, but the bank had already received many funds, even more than she had expected, to be honest. With the extra money she received, and the partial reserve policy she had set for her bank, she could fast-forward the road construction project quite massively. She also had expanded her company's business to cater to middle-class commoners as well. Of course, the goods it sold would be more cheaply priced than the ones sold to the nobility, so she made sure to brand them as less exclusive and good as the latter, just so the nobility would keep buying the more expensive ones. With this move, her company alone had opened so many jobs to the populace; mainly cooks and herbalists. If she made sure to only use the best of the best to produce the goods aimed at the nobles, then she opened the gates high and wide to all kinds of people who had the skill to produce the goods aimed for the commoners, as long as they met a certain minimum standard. The difference between the two goods lines was more about the prestige anyways. But she knew how much prestige was important in the eyes of the nobles.

Meanwhile, back at the capital, the heroine and her harem were still naively living their day to day lives in the nobles' academy. Lune's mother, being heavily sympathetic to her daughter, made sure to rally the other nobles against them, weakening the influence they had in high society. She even declared one day to Lune that if it weren't for him being Lune's brother, she would have crushed him as well.

Lune felt really blessed that her mother was on her side that day.

One day however, Lune's mother expressed something that had concerned her lately.

"Lune, do you know about the kingdom of Wernard?" she said as she sipped her tea.

"Wernard?"

Lune seemed to recall having heard that name before.

"I wouldn't blame you for not knowing about them. They are located quite a distance away from our kingdom after all. Across the Eastern Ocean, to be exact."

"The Eastern Ocean?" Lune replied.

She knew about said ocean quite well. It was a really dangerous ocean filled with malignant storms and oceanic creatures that could sink a ship or two on their own. It was the reason why they had barely any trade and contact with the kingdoms on the other side. It was simply not worth the effort trying to brave such a horrid sea.

"Indeed. And the other day, their ship came to this kingdom."

Lune's ears perked up..

"The strange thing is, it was quite the small ship. There were barely any people in it for what I have heard. The envoy only had a couple of servants with her. For her to brave such a dangerous sea with such a minimal force, it was simply unbelievable."

"But that wasn't the most outrageous part. After she landed, she immediately headed to the royal castle to meet with the king alone. Naturally, the guards didn't let her in at first, especially since she was dressed in such an odd and impolite dress--really, her dress' hem ended up midway through her tights--but in the end, she gained access thanks to that fool of a prince.

Ah, Mother must be talking about Arthur.

Arthur was the prince of this country, and Lune's former fiancee. Like your usual princes and princesses, their arranged marriage was more about politics than love. However, Lune herself, the original Lune, that is, actually loved the prince. Unfortunately, it seemed the prince himself wasn't that fond of her. But he went along with it anyways as he felt it was his duty to do so.

Until he met the heroine, that is.

He fell in love with her. A pure, romantic sort of love the bards loved to sing about. It was also an obsessive sort of love as it overturned his own sense of duty that had been nurtured to him ever since he was but a fledgling. He ended up rejecting his arranged marriage and took the heroine to be his bride, politics be damned.

Naturally, the original Lune wouldn't stand for this. She became consumed with jealousy and she took it out with the heroine.

The Lune now no longer had any love for the guy. She thought of him as an immature, love-obsessed young man who would abandon even the kingdom itself just to chase a girl. This was also the opinion of her father and her mother, and many of the other high-ranking nobles. Marrying a low noble like the heroine would just invite future chaos and instability for the kingdom. The prince should know his duty and devote himself to it, instead of being selfish like this. Lune remembered how in the game, he would ascend to the throne at the end and rule together with the heroine at his side. The way his popularity was now, she had no doubt that he wouldn't be the true ruler of the kingdom. Her father, the Prime Minister, would be the one running things. He was simply too unpopular with the influential nobles. You may think that a king's authority is absolute, but more often than not, he needs substantial support from the nobles to be able to rule properly. The prime example of this would be the French King just before the Revolution happened. He was a weak and unpopular person, with his Austrian wife not helping matters. The nobility didn't really heed his authority, instead choosing to do their own things.

Thankfully, this kingdom had the Prime Minister as a "backup" ruler. And he was still as popular as ever amongst the nobility, with his wife making sure that their family's name remained as exalted as ever.

Really, Yune preferred for the Prime Minister to be the one to rule instead. And that's not just because he was her father. She viewed the prince as too much of a lovesick hot-headed fool to handle the power and authority that would be bestowed upon him. She imagined if he had to drag the entire country to war just to make the girl he loved to be his wife, he would do it with no hesitation.

He still wielded a considerable amount of influence however, If it weren't for his protection, and Lune's brother being on their side as well, Lune's father and mother would have definitely use their influence to crush the upstart family of heroine, just to say to them, "Know your place, o lowly one".

Naturally, he would be the one to break the much respected protocol this country had for decades, if not centuries. Ever since he met the heroine, he began disrespecting the country's customs and protocols more and more. A messenger or an envoy from another nation would be required to dress appropriately in front of the king. This rule projected the strength of the kingdom, saying to the other nation, "We are a sovereign kingdom. When you step into our land, you must follow our ways."

But instead, the foolish prince just told the guards to let her through. She ended up breaking in in the middle of a court session. And she outrageously walked forward right to the king, not caring how she had broken the decorum, and announced her purpose of coming here. She didn't even bother to hide her weapon; the silver staff she was carrying with her. The king's royal guards naturally had their hands on the handle of their swords, ready to unsheath them and attack if she made any suspicious move.

At this point in the story, Lune was fully invested in the story. Such an outrageous entrance. There was no way this would end up well for her.

"So, how did the king react?" Lune asked

"At first, he was naturally angry at her sudden appearance, refusing to even hear on what she had to say for the insolence of just strolling into his court unannounced. But she immediately shut him down by presenting to him bars and bars of pure gold from the bag she was carrying. She said it was a tribute from her kingdom to his, and that she still had more in her ship that she would gladly give if he would listen to what she had to say."

"Bars of gold?" Lune exclaimed, surprised at the sudden turn of events.

"Indeed," her mother replied. "It's truly a disgusting thing to forwardly bribe someone like that, as if the pride of our kingdom had a price. If it had been me or your father who was on the throne, we would certainly have sent her away. But that fool of a weak king, he was immediately taken by the glitter of the gold and the praise the envoy was giving to him. She said that it was a tribute to the great kingdom of Grandberg and its great ruler, from their tiny and insignificant nation. She hoped that it would be enough as proof of the commitment of their nation to establish a trade with our kingdom, so both sides could gain profit from it."

For old and well-established nobility, flaunting your wealth and being obsessed by money were a sign of a commoner's soul. It was what divided old wealth and new wealth, the so-called nouveau riche. A handful of commoner merchants in this country were actually wealthier than some of the smaller nobles. But they would never be accepted as one of them. They weren't like those other, less honorable countries where you could buy a noble title with money. Nobility should only be earned by blood or by performing an extraordinary service to the kingdom.

"I don't know much about that kingdom, but if this is how they're going to introduce themselves, I say we shouldn't trade with them. It's too risky and costly anyways with how far and how dangerous the route is."

"Now, now, mother, don't write them off just yet. They may be disrespecting us, but we could use them to increase our own prosperity. They just give us so many gold after all, just so they would be allowed to trade with us. We just have to make sure that we get the better half of the deal."

Lune might say that but she didn't really trust them as well. There was just something about them. Her instinct was telling her that there was something strange going on. Why would they give out that many gold so easily? Were they that rich of a nation? If so, then why would they need to trade with us so badly?

"Mother, I would like to have our company's spies and informants investigate all they could about them."

Just like a good businesswoman would act, Lune always kept a close eye on her competition. If they were going to be trading with this country, that could mean she would have another competitor to her trading company. Even today, she already had a few. To stay ahead on the curve, she would have to continuously improve her business and react accordingly to the changes occuring in the market.

"Are their ship still harbored in our port?"

"Oh, are you going to send a subordinate to go with them? I'm afraid that would be too late. I hear they're returning immediately after meeting with the king and giving their gold."

Lune cursed internally. She had just missed a great chance. With a spy going along with them, she could gain an intimate knowledge on how their country worked and what kind of trades they were going to make. And no doubt they knew a secret route across the seas that this kingdom's sailors never knew, if they could get here safely with just a single ship. If she knew that route as well, that could become a major advantage to her in the future once she decided to expand her trade overseas.

"...No matter. Then I would just have to wait until they returned. I shall tell my subordinates to keep an eye on our port town so that they could inform me immediately when they returned back. Ah, that's right. I should give them an invitation for a tea party, just so I would know their personalities well. No doubt their big traders would come along in their next excursion. Mother?"

"I know, I know. Keep an eye on the court's reaction to them, right?" Her mother replied with a smile. "Your father's doing the same thing, you know. He's the Prime Minister after all so it's his job to keep an eye of things."

Lune smiled as she finished her tea. This was no major cause of concern. This could even be a golden opportunity. For now, her production could only fulfill national demand, but once she expanded even more in the future, she could start doing exports. And that small country might be a good place to expand her business, especially since it most likely had a different weather and terrain than here, meaning, something common here might be rare over there.

However, there was still one other thing that bugged her.

Wernard… Wernard… I seem to have heard that name before…

***

Three months had passed since said event, and sure enough, they returned, this time bringing with them five ships. Lune's subordinate immediately sent to them a letter inviting them to her party. The title would be a welcome party, to greet and welcome the people of Wernard to their kingdom.

Naturally, some of the other nobles had the same idea. But Lune was confident that her invitation would be received. She had made quite the name recently as the young miracle entrepreneur lady that had boosted the prosperity of her territory by leaps and bounds. Her company had gained quite the significant influence over the kingdom's economy. If they were wise, they would certainly accept her invitation, even if it was just to have a good relationship with her.

Meanwhile, the prince was also inviting them to his own party. His engagement party. With the heroine.

Ignoring the backlash from the other nobles, he decided to make their engagement official at last. Of course, he also invited other nobles to his party, but thanks to his declining influence, not to mention Lune's mother who actively sabotaged any good opinions the other nobles might have towards him, it seemed only a few would come.

Only that all the visitors from Wernard chose to attend their party.

"Apologies. We have chosen to attend the prince's engagement party instead. If you would like to talk, then it would have to be at another date.

Ah, that date would most likely be quite far away from today, unfortunately. We would be quite busy setting up shop for the next few weeks."

So did the rejection letter that Lune, and the other nobles had received, say. They didn't even bother to change the message. Everyone got the same generic, repeated message, as if they were not important at all. It reminded Lune of those copy-pasted customer service response that got sent to your email.

What's most baffling about it was how they added the part about them being busy for the next few weeks. Any dignitary with an ounce of common sense would know that saying that would mean you were snubbing the person who was inviting you. It would be a death sentence to your popularity.

Could it be that they were expressing their views to the high nobles, that they were not important at all to them?

But then, why did they bother to attend the prince's event? And all of them for that matter. One would be enough, just to have a representative.

Lune was now reminded of how the envoy was let in by the prince. Was it payment for that time? There were also rumors that after meeting with the king, the envoy met with the prince's soon-to-be-fiance for a short while.

She just couldn't figure out how these people worked. It was as if they came from an entirely different world.

...A different world…

Different...world…

And just like that, it dawned on her.

N-no way! B-but that couldn't…

...No, it's definitely in the realm of possibility… this world is originally a game world after all… it wouldn't be strange if it actually happened…

"Alice, contact Father at once. Tell him I would like to attend the prince's party."

As the Prime Minister, he was pretty much obligated to be there. If he refused to come, it would bring down the wrath of the king. The old man spoiled his son too much, which might be another reason why he ended up becoming such a useless prince.

"T-the prince's party? But I thought--"

"Just do it, Alice. I have something I must check with my own two eyes."

Yune knew that by attending his party, she could be seen as giving approval to his union with the upstart noble, which she really did not want to do. But her curiosity won ever over. She just had to meet those Wernardians right away.

***

With the help of her father, she managed to get an invitation for the party.

Originally, they had no plans whatsoever to invite her. In their eyes, she was still the evil villainess that bullied the heroine. Such a narrow way of thinking, Yune thought.

She would've arrived together with her father, but unfortunately, due to his schedule, they couldn't meet up first. They had to arrive separately.

When she arrived at the party, it was immediately obvious that they didn't really want them there.

Her own brother, which should be there, didn't open her carriage door when she arrived like a proper gentleman. Instead, a mere guard had to be the one to do it. This meant they were saying that she was no special noble that should be treated like a VIP guest.

Her father could be the one to open her carriage door, but perhaps he hadn't arrived yet. Or he was not informed at all that her daughter was arriving. She could just imagine them doing such a petty thing like that.

She went straight to the main building. Like a proper lady, you were not supposed to stand and gawk around, even though the mansion she was in right now was more luxurious and big than her own.

When she arrived at the dining hall, the first thing she noticed, other than the really lavish state of the room, was that the number of the people attending was quite low. Just as she had expected, most of the other nobles had decided not to attend.

What she didn't expect however, was the look of some of the attendees..

Right in the middle, there was the heroine. And beside her, the foolish prince. But all across the room, there were a bunch of outrageously dressed girls whom she had never seen before.

...No, she had seen them once. A long, long time ago, when she was still in her old world.

I was right…

The company that made The Wish on The Shining Star--they didn't just make otome games. They had branched out here and there, making games that belonged to other genres. And one of said side-series was a kingdom-building, crafting-focused role-playing game set in a fantasy world. The game's title was "Blessings of The Emerald Tablet". In there, you took the role of an alchemist, which was a lost, ancient art of sorts in the setting that was just recently discovered from the ruins the kingdom had. You then helped your small kingdom to grow with the items you created with it. She barely knew anything about it, as the gameplay really didn't interest her whatsoever. She might have taken a look at it closer if she heard that there would be some romance subplot in it, but the developers had clearly stated that there wouldn't be any romance whatsoever as they didn't want it to take away from the focus of the game.

However, she had seen images of the characters that appeared in it. Just a small look but the information was stored on her brain, which only now returned to the surface.

And sure enough, the images she had seen matched perfectly to the people she was seeing in front of her. And their outfits really showed how they had come from a different game entirely.

First, there was the blonde girl with the pink dress, well, more like a woman as she seemed to be the oldest of the group. Her hair was gathered up into one curly buns on the back, with some sort of a hair decoration attached to the left of her head. Her eyes were as golden as her hair, and her face certainly could pass off as an elegant noble daughter's face. Her dress was quite provocative, with an exposed shoulder and detached sleeves. Her chest area was only covered by her white underdress that came with buttons, making it look more like a shirt than the usual underdress noble ladies tend to wear under their gowns. Her legs were exposed up to her mid-thighs, as the front of her pink dress was raised up, tucked to the small round handbag she wore on her belt, so only her white underdress covered her legs on the front. On the back, the pink dress actually covered up to her knees. To add to the outrageous look, she wore a pair of loose white socks above her pink shoes. She was currently talking to her father the Prime Minister, which made Lune worry a little bit, though she was sure that her father could handle her just fine.

The other blonde girl was dressed less provocatively than the other. She wore a peach-colored square hat adorned with a blue jewel on the front. It looked like it was about to fall down from her head at any time since it was quite smaller than her head and it was just put on her head instead of being worn properly. At the left side of her head, just above her left ear, she wore a similar blue gem, only it was larger than the one on her head. Unlike the previous girl, her hair was let down, reaching to her waist. The dress she wore was also a peach-colored one, with a white undershirt and a small brown shoulder cloak. Her dress reached down to her knee (which was still not acceptable for a formal gathering like this) and she wore brown leather boots underneath (which was also not acceptable for a formal gathering like this). She carried with her a peach-colored sling bag on her shoulder, which just added to the impression that she was a traveler. Really, why would she still carry that thing around? Anyone with common sense would not bring something like that to a noble party like this, unless if the bag was just a small purse bag. This one was having a chat with the heroine. Both seemed to enjoy the other's company very much.

The next girl returned back to the trend of scandalous, leg-showing clothing. Like the previous girl, she also wore a square hat, though this time her hat was actually properly-sized. She had a similar blue gem on it. The hat itself had two colors on it, pale red and cream. The pale red part was on the top, and the cream part was on the bottom. The two colors were also seen in her actual dress, with her waist-length cloak being cream-colored, and her actual button-up dress being pale red. She wore a brown leather belt with a small bag attached to it on her waist. Just like the first girl, her dress ended on her upper thigh, with the rest of her legs being covered by a pair of black leggings and a pair of white boots. She had quite the extraordinary hair, with a fluffy and wavy long brown hair that reached down all the way to her knee. Her hair was actually longer than the hem of her dress. She was also carrying with her a plate with a slice of cake, which she was eating with a blank expression on her face as she stood around the table where the food was served. Perhaps she was the introvert of the group? Lune could not see any attempts from her to socialize with the other attendees. An introvert and shy noble was a weak one, Lune thought strongly. You need to make friends and connections with other noble houses after all. This attitude was also one of the reasons why the heroine became bullied so easily. She always preferred to keep to herself as she was not brave enough to socialize with the other nobles, especially the ones more high-ranked than her.

The girl who was smiling giddily beside her wore a more conservative clothing, though it was clearly still not suited for a party like this. Unlike the others, she wore a two piece, with the top looking like some sort of a casual, ethnic-themed dress, with long and wide sleeves. It also showed quite a bit of her cleavage, The bottom however looked somewhat like the plaid skirt schoolgirls would wear. It was blue and it reached just a few inches above her knees. Her hair was a really light pink, reaching down to her waist, and she wore a cloth headband above her forehead. Oh, and she wore white socks and brown derby shoes, which also reminded Lune to the type of footwear schoolgirls would wear. She was shamelessly gawking around, as if she had never been to a party like this before.

The last girl probably looked the most outrageous of them all. She wore an outfit that resembled something a hunter would wear; a large, billowing brown cloak complete with a dark red hoodie that reached down to her lower knees, a white buttoned low cut shirt that strained to cover her breasts while showing off her cleavage at the same time, and a red short skirt that showed off her legs generously, ending on her mid-thigh. She carried on her what looked like small vials of various colors on her belt and pocket, which were attached to her brown bodice. Lune imagined would be used against her enemies, which meant she was actually carrying weapons to a party like this. Her legwear was a pair of brown boots and black socks. Her middle-length hair was brown and its long two ends was brought to the front, one of them resting right in the middle of her cleavage. She was happily chatting with Lune's brother, Lune could tell how he was being flustered by her presence. She could even see her stealing glances to her cleavage multiple times as she talked.

What is this? Aren't you supposed to be in love with the heroine? Are you just going to abandon her now when you meet a prettier girl? You are really a useless man, aren't you?

The heroine had her own charms for sure but she was more of the cute type, while this girl he was flirting with was more of the daring type. As for herself, obviously, she was the beautiful, elegant type. She always liked those kinds of female leads the most in her games. Unfortunately, the market just had to prefer cute and clumsy leads instead.

Anyway, Lune knew these five girls. She was sure that they were characters from Blessings of Emerald Tablet. And the name of the kingdom there was indeed Wernard.

B-but that game should have no relation whatsoever to Wish on The Shining Star! So why are they here?

She approached the blonde girl who was talking with her father. Even from a distance, she could tell that they were having quite the heated talk, even though both parties were still being courteous to each other. This was a skill any noble should have; to know how to annoy and insult the person you were talking too without actually saying outright insulting words. Her father was subtly trying to provoke her, but it seemed the blonde girl was deflecting everything he was throwing at her.

"Ah, my dear Lune. You finally arrived," her father said once he noticed her presence. "Miss Lettmann, please, meet my daughter, Lune. Lune, this is Maya Lettmann, one of the representatives from Wernard."

The blonde woman smiled brightly at Lune and said, "Good evening! Nice to meet you, Miss Eirhenbact!" She curtsied, raising the hems of her already short inner dress even further upwards. Now Lune could definitely tell she was not wearing bloomers, the traditional undergarments for ladies in this era. She probably wore panties instead. Panties were definitely not a thing on the game's setting, so it must be from her game world.

"Good evening," Lune curtsied back, raising the hem of her own dress. She chose only the best dress for this occasion, just so no one could blame her fashion sense. She wore a flowing silvery white gown that matched perfectly with her silvery blonde hair. Her maid said how she looked transcendental in it, as if she was no Earthly being. And after seeing herself in the mirror, Lune had to agree.

"So you are the president of the Eirhenbact Company? I didn't expect you to be this young when I heard about your accomplishments. You're quite the talk of the nation, you know."

"Ah, you flatter me too much, Miss. I'm merely running a little family business," Lune replied with a smile.

Inside her mind however, Lune didn't really take her compliment to heart. In social gatherings like this, compliments were nearly obligatory. You had to play all nice and keep up your pleasant appearance at all times.

"You sent a letter to invite us to your place, correct? I apologize once again for not being able to come. Our schedule is just too busy to accommodate any more parties other than this one. We only came here because Lady Tira is a good acquaintance of ours. We see great potential in her ability as an alchemist. Ah, forgive me. I got ahead of myself. I don't believe our art of alchemy have spread to this land. You must be confused on what I was talking about."

"A-ah, no worries. I understand perfectly well how busy one could get when running a business."

W-what? The heroine is already that close to them even though they only have met recently? And what's this about her being an alchemist? That's never a thing in the game! There's no such thing as alchemy in the first place! The setting has no magic whatsoever!

This gave quite the confusion to Lune. All of a sudden, the world she thought she knew very well was introduced to a foreign element. No, to be more exact, the foreign element was there all along. She just had never realized or noticed it.

"Anyways, I also would like to express my appreciation to your efforts of improving your domain. We would hope that we could also do a similar thing in this land. We wish to share the bounties of alchemy to everyone, you see. We first started with our own kingdom, then the nations on the eastern continent, and only now we are starting our efforts on the western continent."

Do a similar thing? Did she just declare that they were going to be a rival against my company?

Lune knew this was a possibility. But for her to just declare such a thing bluntly…

She looked at Maya's expression. She couldn't see any malice in her smile.

Did she just not realize the implication of her own words or was her acting just that good?

The rest of the party went quite well, even though there was a noticeable lack of guest. The heroine and her prince were clearly not bothered at all by it, which was another sign of their lack of awareness of the politics of this kingdom. Lune's brother was still acting all derisive towards Lune, but his partner, the girl he was flirting from before, told him not to act so cold towards his own sister.

"But Rebecca! You know all the horrible things she had done to Tira!" he protested.

"Well, that's all in the past, isn't it? Tira doesn't seem to hold a grudge against her. And she seems to have changed as well from her old self. You've heard of all the amazing things she has done lately, right?"

"Still…"

The blonde man gave another cold glance towards Lune. Lune didn't mind at all though. For her, she had disowned him as her brother in her mind. And her family seemed to feel the same thing.

The other members of the harem the heroine had also attended. There was the son of the current knight general and the son of a duke. And the two of them were socializing and chatting merrily with the visitors from Wernard, just like Lune's brother. Lune felt disgusted by their attitude. She remembered how they declared their undying love to the heroine one by one in the game. And back when she was still studying on the nobles' academy, they all acted so coldly towards her.

Where's that undying love you guys blabbered on about, huh? Where is it? Now you're all flirting with other girls!

In the end, Lune ended up being the isolated person in the party. The other nobles who attended were more fond of talking with the heroine or the Wernardians. Lune consoled herself. At the very least, she got some info about what the Wernardians were going to do in this country, even though that info was not good at all. Their plan for business pretty much went against her own business. Firstly, they were also going to establish a confectionary chain all over the country. They told them their business would be more oriented towards the common people, but with their current product, she had no doubt that the nobles would prefer theirs over hers. I mean, who could compete with cakes and sweets that would never make you fat? Such a thing would be the dream of every sweets-loving girls, even back home. Unless they tasted really disgusting, which Lune seriously doubted they would, the people would flock over to their products for sure. Sure, they could also be lying, but she really doubted that also, as they said they would make their products with alchemy. And she knew that magic could accomplish things science could not do.

And secondly, they did not stop there. They would also produce and sell beauty products as well. They didn't give much details but Lune knew those products would probably be miracle products as well as they would also make them with their alchemy. Stuff like instant weight loss pills would be insanely desirable to anyone, especially to girls.

T-this is unfair! I can't compete with them like this!

N-no matter! I would just have to get my own alchemists!

Later on however, she would find out that doing that was far easier said than done.

For starters, the only alchemists she could find were those affiliated to the Wernard Kingdom. And only a handful of really skilled alchemists could make all those wonderful stuff. The five who came to the party belonged to said rank, along with a couple more back at their kingdom. So then you ask, how could they mass-produce their goods then? Why, by employing their homunculi, of course! Artificial life created by alchemy, they would obey their master's orders without any complains. Naturally, only a really skilled alchemist could create one, so only those handful of people had them. And they could also do alchemy just like their master, so their master could order them to continuously make something he or she could already make, as their aptitude in alchemy seemed to be tied to their master's own aptitude. There were no bribing to bring them over to your side as they were perfectly loyal to their master, just like the ideal servant. And to make matters more unfair to Lune, they were perfectly content to barely get anything from doing their jobs as they viewed their sole reason of existence to serve their master. It was like slave labor only the slaves were all smiling. Slavery was already forbidden in Grandberg but who would really care if none of the slaves were complaining? This, logically, made their company much more profitable than normal.

***

Three months passed from that party, and already, Lune could see the effects of the Wernardian's trade against her own. Sales were slowly declining as more and more people preferred their products over hers. Lune's father had already brought the matter to the king, saying how their trade was ruining our own local trade. But the king didn't listen. They paid their taxes, which was actually higher than the rate the kingdom charged for local companies, so what's the problem? Lune's father could only shake his head at the short-sightedness of his king. He suggested adding more tariffs on top of their taxes so local produce could compete, but the king dismissed his advice, while snarkily remarking that he was just asking that so his own daughter's business wouldn't go under.

"No, I would not do that," said the king, "Especially not when they had generously used their own money to improve public facilities."

Lune's father could not really argue with that. But he knew very well the danger of trading with the Wernardians this way. They barely exported anything to their country but the Wernardians sold so much stuff here. He already researched and investigated the kingdoms across the ocean, neighboring kingdoms to Wernard, and what he found worried him deeply. They were all so dependent on Wernard that they could barely be called independent nations anymore. There were even rumors that they were planning to do a merger, with Wernard being the dominant nation. Wernard itself was not-so-secretly being controlled by the alchemists, as the king there always followed whatever the alchemists instructed him to do. He could not let this happen to Grandberg, the kingdom he loved so very much.

Lune herself on the other hand tried to stay afloat by turning to exports to the neighboring countries; places where the hand of Wernardians hadn't reached yet. She knew it was just a temporary solution however, as eventually the Wernardians would expand there yet.

She felt like she was a small department store who tried to compete with big department store chains that could supply their goods cheaper and with a higher quality.

Three more months passed, and Lune's business was declining further and further. The Wernardians were already starting their talks with neighboring kingdoms to expand there. To make matters worse, Lune was starting to lag behind on her company's debt payment to her bank. This, of course, caused liquidity problems to the bank, leading to bad rumors being spread around that it was going to fall. She ended up having to stop all the improvement projects to her territory, including the funding of her commoners' academy. With bitter heart, she handed the ownership of the academy over to Wernardians, which they accepted with a big smile.

Before you ask, yes, Lune had tried to learn the Wernardian's alchemy herself, along with all the scholars and scientists she could get. But none of them could really understand it at the level that the top-ranked Wernardian alchemists could, especially Lune, who always had bad grades at chemistry, biology, and other "hard science" subjects. Lune was convicted that those Wernardian alchemists were geniuses comparable to the likes of Albert Einstein. They probably even had inhumanly high IQs, although there was no way of determining it in this world.

Six more months passed, and Lune declared bankruptcy on her business, and her bank for that matter. After a terrible bank run, her bank just didn't have the needed liquidity anymore to function.

It wasn't just her however. Many other merchants were badly affected by the domination of Wernard in the markets. Many of them went bankrupt as well, and those that did ended up becoming employees of the Wernardians.

They had petitioned for help to the king, but he did not care in the slightest. The masses didn't care as well, as their needs were fulfilled, with cheap and high quality goods that would not be possible before the Wernardians came. And speaking of the king, he had replaced the prime minister with Maya Lettmann as his de facto adviser. She would often be seen in the court, officially as the representative of the Wernardians, but the king was clearly more fond of her than the rest of his ministers. The prince also supported her greatly as well. The two often talked about the great reforms they were going to do to this country. This, of course, led to great distrust against the king, along with some rumors about plans for a rebellion, but that quickly ended once the people implicated in said rumors mysteriously died due to illness afterwards. No poison was detected in their bodies.

As for the heroine, well, she had joined the ranks of the alchemists. Lune had no idea where her talent came from, especially since she was never that bright when she played her game. But being socially bright was not the same as being intelligent. And it turned out that the heroine was quite intelligent indeed. Lune suspected that she was filling up the empty spot of the protagonist of Blessings of The Emerald Tablet, since the protagonist there was a completely blank spot for the player to enter, complete with character creation at the start of the game. Seeing the opportunity to finally have a top class alchemist on her side, Lune swallowed her pride and asked her to join her company. But she just gave her annoyingly innocent smile and said to her, "Sorry, I can't. I want to help Miss Maya, you see."

She was utterly, completely defeated.

***

And so ended the tale of Lune von Eirhenbact. She rose as quickly as she fell. After this, she still enjoyed a relatively well-off life as a noble, though she could only watch in the sidelines however as her territory, and the rest of the country for that matter, was transformed by the Wernardians. Just like the other countries they meddled in, Grandberg ended up so dependent on them that they pretty much surrendered their autonomy, as every major decision the country made would need to be approved by them first. The people didn't care though, as they enjoyed a much higher standard of living once they stepped in. That included Lune's territory, as her citizens there slowly but surely forgot everything Lune had done for them (the whole bank fiasco certainly didn't help). The nobles who went against them would lose their influence and power. Only those who chose to side with them would keep their prestige, and even so, they knew who were actually running things around. The Prime Minister belonged to the first group unfortunately and he was eventually stripped from his position by the prince who had risen into power as the new king, with the heroine on his side. He was replaced by his son, Lune's brother. Officially, it was the previous Prime Minister inheriting his post to his son, but everyone knew he did it involuntarily. As you would expect, the new Prime Minister ended up marrying the alchemist he was fond of, tightening Wernard's grip on the kingdom even further.

This, along with her pride, led to Lune to refuse to cooperate with the alchemists. She could've given them ideas of all the modern inventions from her world, but she knew if she gave them that, they would get all the praise while she forever would live under their shadow. And Lune could not stand that thought.

It was never really about making her people happy. It was always about satisfying her own ego.

Just like a villainess.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] All the Stars in the Sky

Kiran swallowed hard, her stomach twisting as though entire swarms of bottle flies were swirling down there, and forced her shaky legs to carry her forward, the swishing of her colorful sari deafening in the silence. The grand doors, enameled with ornate scenes from the past, the same scenes captured in plainer fashion in her childhood scrolls, opened in a silence that spoke to both their craftsmanship and to the skill and diligence of the staff of the Maurya Great House.

She had thought herself ready to face this when she had donned her sari, a garment far finer and more expensive than any she had worn previously. It was emblematic, she had felt when she had admired herself in the silvered glass mirror, so much clearer than the beaten silver mirror she had used throughout her childhood, of the lift her own house, her own clan would receive if she succeeded.

She had spent the past two weeks being groomed and trained for her summoning, and now, as she walked through the great doors into the three-level summoning chamber, and saw the golden glow around the great summoning crystal hovering above its resting cushions, with success and failure racing towards their inevitable conclusion, she found herself wishing it had been much longer.

She knew she could never be as ready for this as a Maurya, or a Gupta, or a Chalukya, or as a Haryanka summoner would have been before the Dissolution, for they could be chosen and trained for much of their life to seize the opportunity and bring honor and glory to their great houses. She could not even hope to be as ready as one of the minor houses. The Para house could never have afforded this opportunity for her on their own means.

"Breath, young Para." She looked at the kindly face of Tarkesh Maurya, seeing in his mien a reminder of her own father's look of pride, and she breathed deeply, forcing her stomach to settle, and straightened her spine. She gave him a small nod, and continued forward, trying to project an air of strength and self-confidence. Hitesh offered her a grin as she passed him. She resisted glancing left to follow his pleasing form with her eyes. He was not in the direct line, but he was still above her station, out of her reach until and unless she succeeded to the greatest degree.

The aura of the mana of the summoning stone washed over her as she reached the first of the flight of steps that led to its normal resting place. It pressed against her, ruffling her sari and lifting the pallu, the loose end, the golden light from it washing out the gold threaded zari ornamentation she had so admired. Soon it was difficult to take the next step. She knew it took time to so charge the giant crystal, which limited the number of summonings that could be performed in a year, and kept it from being used as a simple or direct means of supplying materials for the war effort.

Teams of acharya, mystics who had risen to the rank of teachers or masters, would channel the mana of their acolytes into the stone for hours every day. The exact amount of time thus spent was not publicly known, for indeed it was something of a secret of the Great Houses. Actually knowing that the Maurya spent, say, seventy-two hours charging their stone, the Gupta might seek to exceed the time to achieve a greater result, and then the Chalukya to exceed them, and finally the Maurya to exceed both their rival Great Houses, and on and on until far too much time was spent charging. Indeed, some feared this was what had led to the Dissolution of the Haryanka. Alternately, they might seek to undercut the times, and thus achieve more summonings in the same time, of close enough mana to be indistinguishable in quality, and thus race to the other extreme, summoning faster and faster in ever diminishing quality. This too was claimed by some as the cause of the Dissolution, and the end of the Haryanka Great House.

She pressed forward, beginning to chant a sutra under her breath to clear her mind and focus her intent. The Maurya had strong precepts to their summonings, to avoid potential disasters that were likewise theorized by some to be the cause of the Dissolution, of summoning an unwilling yet powerful entity, or an ultimate weapon that like the sand mystics tales of djinn might turn against the one that sought to wield it.

At first, Kiran had feared the requirement that the summoned person be from a world starved of mana had been added to ensure she failed, but Acharyra Adi had reassured her in this. It was a fairly new prescription but she had been given the tales of three such Outsiders whose summonings had been deemed successes to reassure her. Apparently it had been the Gupta who had suffered when an Outsider from a mana-rich world had managed to pervert the limits of the summoning and make it through even though it did not match the rules, and thus had been lost an heir and several high members of the house.

The other two houses had added a proscription limiting the mana, but according to Adi, only house Maurya had gone so far as to seek someone from a mana-starved world, and they had such success that now they alternated between summoning those with and without mana. It was just a coincidence that she had this requirement, and not any action against her.

The strongest precept the Acharyra had impressed on her was that the Outsider had to be willing to be summoned. This, above all, would increase her chances. To be sure, once the summoning was complete, she still had to go forward and attempt to convince the Outsider to accept the emblem of Vāc, the charm that would grant them to speak the language of the nation.

She knew, as she forced her hand through the pressure, now akin to pressing through a meat pudding, to rest on the hand-shaped imprint on the crystal, that the Outsider might seek to instantly slay her. Just because someone was willing did not mean they would be compliant. An Asura, or especially a Rakshasa, a man-eater, might be very willing to be summoned, as a guest at a buffet in their honor as it were.

She paused then, and focused her mind very clearly on what she sought. A willing female human from a world without mana yet familiar with the concept of mana, of the age of competence in her society, knowledgeable and inquisitive, strong of both body and mind, from a culture dissimilar to her own. She knew that each addition beyond the prescribed ones increased the chances that her Outsider would fill the role she wanted, and yet correspondingly decreased the number of such that could possibly fill her summons, and so made her failure more likely. This limited how much she could add and still hope to succeed. But she had not forgotten anything, she thought... she hoped.

She wanted more than just success, though. Merely succeeding would lift her own status in the world, but it would not bring the Para with her. To bring honor and glory to her family, she needed something more. She stilled with horror when she realized that she had accidentally let an image creep into the summoning, and she quickly threw her minor pool of mana forward, catalyzing the immense spell and sending its feelers hurtling across space, hoping against hope that her brief image would not disrupt the summoning.

Her elation was immediate when she felt it take hold of someone and draw them swiftly across whatever immaterial distance lay between. When they coalesced on the summoning platform, on the third level down below her, where the Outsider had the low ground compared to the observers on the balcony above, however, her stomach twisted within her. The Outsider was holding a sword outstretched already!

Kiran drew her hand away as the crystal sank to rest on its cushions, its glow and the force of its aura dissipating with the expenditure of its vast reserves, and stepped around it to look down on her Outsider. Fear shortened her breath as she gazed on the dark figure. Black skin shone in the steady white-orange light of the gas-lamps, and the light glinted off of gold in her hair - a crown, of sorts - and her ears, and adorning the top of her armored choli. She had no sari, and her parkar, if such it was, was short, not quite reaching to her knees, and it too was edged in gold. Far from simple sandals, she wore elaborately decorated boots that nearly reached her knees, and on her waist hung a sheath for the blade she held, and opposite, a loop of golden rope. Her hair floated about her head like a cloud of fine black curls.

Had she summoned a Rani, a princess or queen? Surely she had remembered to exclude nobility? A willing commoner female she had thought, definitely... The evidence spoke against her, as the Outsider turned in a slow circle. Her choli, a gleaming red that looked possibly metallic, joined to her blue parkar as if it was one piece, and it was sculpted as if displaying muscles. Her arms spoke of strength where they were not covered by silvery wrist guards, but even more so her legs where the light caught and picked out the play of powerful muscles. Not just a princess, but a warrior, too. She held the blade out defensively as she turned in a slow circle, looking all about her, and called out a challenge.

The only element that stood out incongruous to the rest was the bag hanging from her left shoulder. Kiran focused on that, a bag of purple that looked more like it should contain currency, perhaps a small hand-mirror rather than sling-stones or a hidden knife, as she started down the stairs. Her hand dipped into the fold of her sari where it was draped and tucked into her parkar, and drew forth the image of the goddess of speech, Vāc, holding it out as an offering. She held her other hand open, palm facing forward, her arm out to her side to display that she was defenseless as she approached.

---

Samara suppressed a groan of frustration when she saw the arrogant tosser she had turned away was waiting outside the building. She was momentarily tempted to turn back to the driving music of the still lively college costume party behind her rather than deal with him, but she did need to get home. It was passing two in the morning already, and while her next midterm was not until that afternoon, she knew if she hung around, she would end up having another drink. She was at her limit now, three beers down but over the course of two hours, so just a bit past tipsy still. Fine for her, since she was walking and not driving, though her costume was a bit chilly since she'd let Dana borrow her jacket.

Hopefully he was not about to... no, of course he was stepping in her way, of course he was going to make a scene.

"You've had too much, darling, you shouldn't be driving, how 'bout I bring you home?" He gestured to a fancy black car with red highlights. It was not even parked, the ass had gone and driven it around and just left it in the street running. Like she was going to let her head be turned by a car, even if it did probably cost between a quarter and half a million dollars.

"Back off," she said, not slowing. "And hands off!" she snarled, twisting away from his reaching hand as she slipped past him.

She had missed the over-privileged rich boy's jock friend waiting in the shadows, and with her attention on rich, white, and grabby, she bounced right off his over-muscled companion. "You should watch where you're walking," he said, fairly mildly all things considered, without any of the aura of threat she had been keyed up for when she realized she was boxed in. She spun to avoid grabby, ducking under and around the big guy and backing into the street. Big and mild did not look too bad, but she did not like the ugly look on the rich boy's face.

It was a very unfortunate move just then to reach for something to defend herself with, coming up with her costume's sword just as a police car turned onto the road, its lights illuminating the far too real looking sword, well larger than the legal limit for knives. Shit! And she was so damned close to making it out of university without any of those bad ends she was warned about. Red and blue lights blared to life as the car screeched to a halt, and she just knew she was about to get shot, but her hand had tightened convulsively, grasping at her only defense against being threatened, even though it was what was going to get her killed, and God, she just wished she could fall through the ground right now. Be somewhere else, anywhere else but here on this street about to get shot for not wanting to let some rich brat drive her home in a vain attempt to score.

Time seemed to stretch out interminably, she could see the sudden horrified realization in the eyes of the twit, could see beefcake's eyes widening as he looked at the direction of the cops, could hear someone shouting a command. Unaccountably, she found herself considering what held her tied to the world. What would she lose in being shot?

Her family, sure, but hey, she was already moving out, already loosening those threads as she prepared to go her own way, carve out her own life. No significant other at the moment, she had been properly focused on getting through school, and getting the most out of it she could without completely sacrificing having a life. She had her track and field, her competition archery, and her swimming, but she could continue what she wanted out of that anywhere, once her scholarship was played out and she was out of school. Anywhere! Anywhere was better than dead. "I don't want to die," she said aloud, almost startled to hear the words come out of her, but even as she spoke, she heard a bang, and she knew...

Then she did not know. Everything had changed in an instant, the lighting, her footing, her surroundings, everything! She turned slowly, her heart racing, trying to come to grips with what had happened. Holy fuck! Someone was really up there, someone had listened to her!

"What the fuck?!"

Samara Dorsey found herself in something akin to a fighting arena, surrounded by steps leading up in all directions, a soft orange-white light casting dozens of thin shadows from her in all directions, and high up, above the steps or seats of the stadium, a balcony and on it faces looking down at her.

And one lady in very recognizable Indian garb, though Samara could not remember the right name of it, coming down the stairs towards her, one hand held towards her, the other held out and up and open. Samara was a little surprised not to see the little dot on the forehead she sort of expected. That was a thing with Indians, right? Indian girl looked pretty nervous as she approached, taking the stairs one step at a time, her trailing leg catching up on the same step rather than leading with alternate steps.

She was not very threatening, and after a moment, Samara remembered the sword she was holding, and forcing herself to relax, sheathed it. She had not been able to make the back sheath work for her costume, so her sheath was at her side. It was a proper, well-made sheath that had come with her replica sword, which itself was a proper steel sword though one that did not have an edge, and she suddenly worried that she would be in trouble for the leather it was made of. There was something about Hindu and cattle, right? Like they revered them or something. No beef, she could probably live with that, if they did not throw a fit about the leather.

---

"No, seriously, this little pendant is straight up magical?" Samara fingered the emblem curiously as she followed her new guide.

"Yes, Princess. It is a token of Vāc, goddess of speech, and is the reason you can understand me."

"And bringing me here? That was magic, too? From that big crystal thing up at the top of the stairs you came down?" They had company as well, two jock-types not so different from the big guy she had bumped into just before all this went down. Guards, she supposed. They had slender curved swords belted at their waists, and funny hats that she thought she might have mistaken for turbans had she only seem them from a greater distance. Like her new bestie Kiran, they had the brown complexion of the Indian subcontinent from her world, but the general evenness and symmetry of features and clear, unmarked skin of Bollywood stars. No scars, no pock marks, straight teeth albeit tea-stained - perhaps they had magical healing as well.

"It was."

"You do that a lot, just reaching out and picking up people from another world?"

"It was my first time, but if you mean in general, then yes, it is not infrequent."

"And that doesn't backfire? I mean, like, you get someone who is just really jacked off about being pulled out and goes wild on everybody?"

"It has been known to happen, before they started adding restrictions. Now we only summon the willing."

Samara laughed. "Yeah, willing. I was pretty happy not to be where I was, though I'm still not sure..." She trailed off as Kiran slowed at a doorway.

"Here are your rooms, Princess Nubia," she said, swinging the door wide, and gesturing Samara in. Samara grinned to herself as she stepped in. She was definitely happy she had gone with the impulse of giving her costume's name instead of her own. Well, technically, she was going as Wonder Woman, and thumbing her nose at anyone who said she couldn't cosplay as WW just because she was black, but there had been a black sister of Wonder Woman in the old comics, and Princess Nubia had been what popped in her head as a safer answer when she was asked if she was noble.

As Winston Zeddemore had said, "Ray... when someone asks you if you are a god, you say yes!" She figured the same ought to apply to being asked if she was nobility, when they had no way of verifying it and might treat her quite differently depending on the answer. After all, as an American, literally everyone was the same theoretical class, even if in practice it did not work that way, and with no genuine nobility, she did not want to discover that on this world that meant being a serf or a slave. Her ancestors had more than enough of that, thank you muchly.

"This looks..." she paused. It looked hella nice, actually, a posh suite at a swank hotel, but if she was a princess... "acceptable." She moved into the room, Karin following behind. The door was closed behind them, presumably by one of the two beefcakes. She let herself fall gracefully into one of the cushioned wooden chairs.

"So, why are you going around summoning people, willing or not?"

Karin sat and began to explain. They were interrupted a short time later by a servant bearing drinks and finger foods. Samara listened with interest and growing fascination. This was almost certainly an alternate Earth, she mused, as Karin touched on historical events such as invasions of horse-riding barbarians from the east, and desert nomads from the west. But with magic, as every now and then Karin would casually mention that so-and-so wove the first flying carpet, such and such a person first bound a genie to a ring, this king was the first to unite the land against the devils and drove most of them out of the land.

The stories of waves of crab and beetle people attacking from the sea and driving them away from the vital coastal regions, though, put her in the mind of El Hazard, an anime she had enjoyed that had also had students from Earth being brought to a magical world, though it had more resembled Arabia than India. If there were such things as Demon Gods, androids of ancient technology and immense power here - and she had no idea how to ask about it when they had already mentioned devils and gods as real things - then that was more than a little worrisome. Not that waves of attacking bug and crab things was not bad enough, of course, and that was really all she had going on there being any connection to El Hazard. Not very much at all, actually, given the number of anime that had someone from Earth traveling to a magical world.

Samara refocused her attention as Karin got to the part of the tale that involved summoning. Bimbisara, friend of Buddha, had convinced his friend to create the first great summoning stones, that let them reach far beyond their world in search of a way to throw back the hordes of the East. That was interesting. That would not have been the Mongols, Samara thought, she was pretty sure the Buddha was alive well before Christ, while the Mongols had invaded Europe at least a bit and been turned back only because one of their leaders had died, which meant Europe was a thing, so that had to be after the Romans, right? The specific dates eluded her, but she was pretty sure that was... well, then again, that would have been the time the Mongols were massively successful and conquered a significant portion of the known world, but maybe they had been a problem for a long time before then? Or it was just different in this world.

The upheaval that followed sounded like the result of the Industrial Revolution, or the introduction of computers; a whole series of new... was technologies even a relevant term when it sounded like so many of them were magical? techniques or devices being introduced.

"Huh?" She looked up, realizing that Kiran had stopped. "Come on, don't look at me like that," she protested, realizing that Kiran had stopped because she had noticed that she was distracted. "It's a lot to take in, all at once."

"Indeed, Princess," Kiran apologized tartly, clearly not actually happy about it.

"Look, we'll come back to that later, I'm sure... right now, can we skip ahead to why I'm here? Why are you summoning people? I mean, I'm sure all this background is relevant to the ultimate reason, but what's the proximal reason, what's the immediate cause that has you summoning people? Are they going to want me out there fighting these bug guys?"

Kiran looked startled and then understanding. "Oh, no, not all, Princess Nubia. Though if you wish it, I'm sure arrangements could be made in the future. I think it would be clearer if I explained the background, but basically, you are here to do what I did, and summon something. Only, not a person, as I did, but something else, something that would be useful to society or particularly the defense of the nation."

"They want me to use that big crystal thing? It doesn't need skill or training to use, or magic?"

"It does require mana, the rest is having a clear visualization and set of limits. Not everyone can do it at all."

Samara sat up straighter, an icy hand gripping her spine. "And if I can't?"

Kiran pouted. She had good lips for that, Samara noted, full and soft. "I surely hope that is not the case, Princess, but fear not, you would not suffer greatly for it. Yet, neither would you nor I be rewarded. You would be as a widow then, a responsibility that the Maurya would provide for, but no more than was needful to maintain you in reasonable comfort, and I, I would go back to my family, and..."

"And if I can, we get rewarded, you said?" Samara leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. "What kind of rewards?"

When she smiled, Kiran's face actually looked more relaxed than she had when pouting, and Samara got the sense that the other girl was generally cheerful, when she was not a ball of stress. "Oh, wonderful things, riches and comforts, privileges for learning and access to magics and the fruits of smaller summonings. How much depends on what you manage to summon, whether it is something that can be successfully resummoned, whether it can be recreated by the mystics or the crafters, and how long it remains usable, or how hard it is to get the materials to keep it usable."

"Remains usable? What, like how much gas it needs? Or batteries?"

"Yes, like batteries," Kiran nodded sagely, and Samara realized she had half-expected the other girl not to even know the words. Was that a trick of the translation device, had it translated it to a word the other girl knew and back, and she had really affirmed something different?

"Some have summoned tools that need oils or serums, or little round cylinder batteries. But there is some limit to what can be summoned from nearby realms, and the smaller the summoning stone, the less mana it can hold, and the nearer its reach. Sometimes, someone brings in a thing that is unique, and no more can ever be brought no matter how we try. If it only lasts a time, this is not looked on highly, but if it is a Grand Creation whose existence defines itself, so that it remains forever undiminished, then even that could be highly prized, and if it grants some great martial advantage, then the Outsider that summoned it is highly exalted for it, and wins renown, especially if it brings glory and honor to a champion who wields it and their glory reflects well then on the Outsider.

"Things have been summoned that can be readily summoned with little effort, though, and if individually they are of some value, then that too could be highly valued. Sometimes a thing can be summoned with a small stone, but each summoning takes more effort, until eventually only a great stone can retrieve another. That might balance one way or another," she offered, tilting a hand back and forth in demonstration, "but if the mystics were able to understand and reproduce it, then it might have even more value for being hard to summon, because it means no enemy can recreate it merely by summoning their own."

"Ok, so like, you are being real vague here - thing, something, it? Is there a reason you haven't been using concrete examples?"

Kiran frowned momentarily, looking puzzled. "I don't quite understand the question, I think. But if you mean why I do not name what another has summoned, well, that goes to what you called the 'ultimate' cause. We summon Outsiders to attempt summonings because of the importance of visualization to the success. Things no-one has ever seen or encountered before have been successfully summoned, it is true, but they were known in our tales for years before. As I was trying to explain by giving you the history, we have been doing this a long time, and in some ways, I suppose, our inventiveness in summoning has been exhausted. Who can think of a thing no-one else has seen or imagined in several hundred years? One who has a totally different background, one who has seen things no-one here has seen or imagined, of course! An Outsider. You, Princess Nubia."

"Well... then shouldn't you still tell me what has been summoned before, so that I can avoid summoning the same thing as the last ten people?"

Kiran shook her head. "I am still pondering on the examples to give you. I may only tell you of three, for it was theorized, and none has yet proved this to be wrong, that it is the knowledge of the many many uses of summoning that we all know that shackles our mind and keeps us from thinking of more that are not simple variations on the rest. This, this is the way we have learned is best. A very few examples, to give you a taste, but not so much as to satisfy your palate."

Samara frowned thoughtfully. "And how long do I have to come up with something?"

"Well, that depends, but do not be too worried. Two weeks, at the least." Kira frowned. "You could take as long as six weeks, but I do not suggest it. You see, we have up to three chances to use the summoning stone. They will charge it for the next six weeks, and we can try up to three times. One week is too little - you would barely be reaching beyond our world and its closest environs, and the chances you would be able to get something you knew that was not known to us would be slender at best. You were two weeks of charging away, after all. Well, it is not so precise as that... perhaps better to say, you were within two weeks."

"So, three shots... so we could do one every two weeks, but then we'd only have the reach to get to my world or just a bit beyond. Or we wait longer, and have a greater reach, but if we wait the whole six weeks, we only get one shot, and failure means we lose big, that it?"

"Yes, basically."

"If we get something the first time, can we still try again, for a better result?"

"Until the six weeks are up, yes, though if there was only a week remaining, there would be no point, and I don't think they would be happy about wasting the week's charge when they could have just used it as a boost on their next Outsider summoning."

She must have gotten an avaricious expression then, for Kiran leaned in suddenly, face serious. "I must warn you, whatever you summon is not for you, not to use, not even to touch. It is for the nation, and the Maurya clan will take it and examine it, decide what its value is. If you want something for yourself, it must be something that we can end up either recreating, or summoning with lesser stones, in which case you can petition to obtain one."

Samara was not dissuaded. It would take some thinking, but from the sound of things, this was her one shot at the real big-time, at a summoning that could bridge the gap between this low-tech high-magic world and her own high-tech low-magic world. Not that she had seen much to confirm her low-tech assumption about this place, aside from the general feel of the similarity to ancient India, and the absence of any visible or obvious technology. Though they did have shaved ice in the drinks, which was nice and refreshing and hinted at the possibility of tech. Beyond that, the lighting she had seen was glowing stones, there was no apparent wiring, and all this talk of magic but no talk of high end technology. And the guards had swords instead of guns.

"So, we try first at the two week mark, pull something valuable from my world that can be recreated here. Then we hit the four week mark and blow their socks off?"

Kiran grinned, flashing her teeth and inclined her head. "I can hope. If we succeed beyond my dreams, then while for you it will mean riches and benefits, for me it will lift my entire clan, my family up to be a retainer house of the Maurya, and I, I will be their heroine! And if after that you still want to go fight in the war, we can be wonderfully equipped and none shall stand before us!"

"So," Samara leaned back, and sighed, "now I get two weeks of history lessons? And... I don't know? Meditation? Yoga? Ooh," she leaned forward, "any chance I can learn to pick up some of your magic?"

"You were drawn through the space between worlds while cradled in mana," Kiran nodded sagely, "you have now within you a kernel of our mana that will grow with time. If you have magic of your own it should not displace it, but you ought eventually to be able to use our form. That is one of the benefits you might gain if we do well--access to the Maurya library, or even the time of their Acharyra to train you. At the very least, if you succeed at least once with the summoning, even if the item summoned is poor and of little worth, you would be granted access to the Maurya Lifestone." She smiled brightly, looking suddenly happy beyond words.

"I succeeded in summoning you. I am only just beginning to realize it, that I actually succeeded. I so feared I was being set up to fail, but I did not fail! Now I will have access to it as well! But of course, you do not even know yet what it is, and I am meandering. I used my family Lifestone, poor as it was, and so I passed my childhood years in good health, and any injuries I took were soon healed. I shall live a quarter again as long as those who have never touched a Lifestone; but now I shall access the Maurya Lifestone, the Lifestone of a Great House, and if you succeed, so shall you, and our life shall be twice that of a pauper, and even that only if you never chance to touch it again."

My ambitions go well beyond that, Samara thought to herself. She had been given a miracle, and she was going to reach for the stars. Already, ideas were percolating. She did need to think of what to pull for her first attempt, though. Then she would have to figure out how she could genuinely draw something immensely valuable for this family, house, whatever, preferably something that fit that super-high-value combination of 'unique, useful, and everlasting' that seemed to be the winning trifecta here, while simultaneously getting even more for herself. Tricky, but worth every iota of the attempt.

"A goal worth striving for, then," she conceded verbally.

If she was here in a world that not only had magical monsters attacking, but was as she suspected in the equivalent to her own world's distant past, she did not want any part of experiencing the dark, dirty, or painful side of that past. She wanted the magic, sure, but she did not want to give up all the benefits of the twenty-first century, and if she could grab for the benefits of centuries well beyond that, it seemed a more worthy goal. She had not said for whom the Lifestone was a goal worth striving, after all.

---

Kiran had been exceedingly nervous about revealing to the princess that they were supposed to share the suite of rooms, but when she had finally gathered the courage and broached the subject, she had found Princess Nubia surprisingly accepting and genial about it. It had not reduced her intimidation any when she had introduced the princess to the clothing provided for her, since of course she had only had her armor when she had appeared, besides that small bag.

Then she had to assist the dark-skinned warrior in disrobing and show her how the unfamiliar garments worked. Kiran had formerly thought herself not displeasing to the eye, but around the Princess, she felt positively outclassed. Not only was the Princess nearly a full head taller than her, she was tautly muscled - practically every moment, one movement or another was showcasing hard muscles moving under that smooth skin. Her skin, again, was a point of surprise. Outsiders were frequently like the lower-classes. Having never touched a Lifestone, they scarred, they bore the marks of pox, the wrinkles and toughness of skin that had long been in the sun, sand, or salt air, the natural effects of occasionally insufficient food, or illness; their history was writ for the wise to see upon their skins. Nubia looked like she had already touched the Maurya Lifestone, her skin was smooth and free of blemishes. Her legs were impossibly smooth and free of hair, her teeth were even and brilliantly white, even beyond the contrast with her skin, her facial features remarkably even and symmetrical. Even her hands were smooth and surprisingly lightly calloused for one who was clearly a warrior.

She had brought in the concept of a world without mana to go with the familiar with mana, she knew she had, but she also knew she had slipped there at the end, in her visualization. She was not confident that the woman she had retrieved was not a traveler from a mana-rich world that had simply been in a mana-starved world when she had been summoned. The way she had asked if she could learn their magic, as opposed to simply "can I learn magic" hinted to Kiran that Nubia might have magic of her own.

She was reasonably sure that the smart talking stone Samara had used occasionally, treating so carefully, was not magical in spite of bearing some resemblance to mana-based talking stones, but she was not so sure of the armor and weapons she had borne. They seemed to be steadily collecting mana. It was still a tiny amount, far too little to accomplish anything, but it put her in mind of some of the unique artifacts she had seen, artifacts that had the strength of a world's belief behind them, that grew their own power from that belief. At any rate, her lessons in moving her mana had been quickly successful, so she was confident that Princess Nubia would be able to accomplish the shift of her mana needed to activate the stone.

When she had questioned her on what her first attempt was going to be, the Princess had claimed it would be entirely technological, with no mana used, but that if it succeeded, they would probably come to value it nearly as highly as a summoning stone. That seemed ambitious to Kiran, especially when Nubia admitted that it was not an item that actually existed on her world, though she insisted that it was well-known on the world she had come from, and that almost anyone who was worldly there would both recognize it and value it.

Hope was burning in her breast as she followed the princess, now in the finest silks and jewels appropriate to her station--she had not exactly admitted as much, but they basically had access to most of the merely material components of their eventual reward now even before they had succeeded, as an incentive to succeed, and she had taken advantage of that to ensure that the princess was seen as such by her peers. If you make a mistake, own up to it rather than trying to hide or conceal it, and you may yet be respected for your forthrightness, where the one who hides her failings will see them found anyway, and be seen forevermore as honorless. She had failed to retrieve a commoner, but she would not hide that failing. It was hardly unknown for someone to fail to apply one of the restrictions, for even if you deliberately held it in mind, if another that you held more strongly could not be achieved with it in place it might be disregarded, if your desire to summon something rather than failing entirely was strong enough. This was known.

There were the doors before them, already opening.

It had been the shortest two weeks of Kiran's life, she felt. How could the day already be here? She had spent so much time guiding the Princess through sample visualizations, and explaining their history, and telling stories of her life and the world she lived in so that Nubia might not be taken advantage of when she was finally permitted to move beyond the walls of the Maurya and enter her new life. Had it been enough? Could it have been?

There was the great summoning stone, glowing at the top of the steps, hovering over its cushions.

Princess Nubia had refused to reveal what she intended to summon. "You will see when I succeed, or it will not even matter," she had asserted. In the end, Kiran had only yet revealed one of the three summonses she was allowed to reveal, and she had chosen the example of the first Ring of the Djinn. She had told of how for years the desert nomads and the people had alike had tales of items that could control the desert spirits of one land, the rain and flood spirits of the other, before finally a summoner had determined that it must be true somewhere, and successfully summoned a ring that could indeed bind a djinn into itself, and thereafter wield its power at man's command. The spirits of the air had been wroth at being contained, and tricked the man unto his death, but over time success had been forged, between more summonings, and the finding of ways to communicate, ways to bind agreements, ways to find and give rewards that could motivate even such fickle spirits.

The princess strode forward proudly and strongly, seeming hardly slowed by the intense aura, though her own mana had grown enough that she could surely by now feel its pressure pushing against her own reserves. That this was one of the ways that a person's mana reserves could be forced to stretch and thus grow she had not mentioned. She had not wanted to chance the princess deciding to bask in it to grow her reserves only to find the pressure growing too great and forcing her to fail the summoning for failure to even reach the stone. For what could be stretched that had not also the point where it would fail, and be torn asunder?

She could not see Nubia's face from here, could not see if her friend, for yes, she could say that now, was wide-eyed, or had her eyes closed in meditation. She had only her hope to hold onto while the princess reached the stone. She paused but a moment, before her hand pressed down into the indent.

Kiran felt it then, as the mana rushed outward like a driving wind. Before, she had been at the center and had felt it reaching out and searching, but had not felt it pass through her. Now, with Nubia driving the search, for the first time Kiran felt the mana flow outward through her. She knew it was a gamble, as Nubia had admitted that her goal was not actually on her world, so it might therefore be beyond the reach of two weeks worth of mana, and Kiran felt her breath catch in her chest as all the world seemed to still for an interminable passage of time.

The mana flowed back in a rush, and Kiran had to struggle to resist trying to run up the steps. She could not see the summoning platform from here, she could not see if anything had appeared! The princess stepped to the side, much as Kiran had done, to look more clearly past the crystal as it slowly settled down to its cushions. Her face as she turned around, her silk sari swirling about her, spoke of triumph. She stepped easily down the stairs, reaching out her hand, and Kiran felt like a firework had been lit in her chest.

"You succeeded!?"

"It sure looked right to me, and larger than the ones we see in the vessels, so I think it is the right one. Fully independent and self-contained, with its own computer system, power supply, and material storage buffers." She led the way out of the doors, heading back to their rooms with a lack of concern that was startling but also reassuring. "That is a colony-class bi-function industrial and service Star Fleet replicator." She laughed delightedly. "Oh, Kiran," she let go of Kiran's hand and spun in place like a dervish, her trailing pallu rising up as if it was still being pressed outward by the stone's mana. "That big grey box is the next thing to magic without a drop of magic in it. I'll tell you all about it when we get inside. Come on!" She started running then, her long strides eating up the halls in a way Kiran could not have achieved without a pair of seven-league boots. Kiran hurried behind her, curiosity burning within her.

---

Kiran's amazement when she learned of what the replicator could do had been delightful to Samara. When they received confirmation that the mystics had succeeded in getting the device to speak their language, and had it operating, and that beyond merely looking right, the thing actually worked, she was over the moon! She was a little disappointed that they rated it about the same as a 'moderate wish-granting device,' but Kiran had been over the moon herself at that.

Apparently that was more than enough to assure that Kiran's family was going to get the upgrade she had talked about. And yes, it was the sort of thing that apparently she could submit requests to either access, or get the creations of, so that was a good backup.

But as awesome as it was, Samara wanted more. She had no idea that her firm intention that she would get more, and that one of the things she would do with it was give her costume the legitimate powers it pretended at had already touched into her world's belief in those items, and started causing them to draw in mana. She would not really have cared much, either.

Star Trek had been merely a test. She had summoned something from her world's fiction, and it had worked. That meant there was either a flipping full-scale multiverse out there, or it was imagination made real. She had an imagination, and she had plenty of fiction to draw on. If she had been able to perform the summoning herself, for her own use, then there were any number of simple power granting items she could summon. A Power ring, a Lensman's device, a Transformation Rod from any of dozens of shoujo anime... the possibilities were basically endless. But she needed something she could summon for them, for these people, that would give them power without giving them power over her, and at the same time give her what she wanted, hopefully without revealing to them that it had been done. And it needed to put a Star Trek replicator in the shade.

That would take some doing, and some thinking. But she had been thinking for two weeks already. She knew now what she wanted. The replicator was a great example of Clarke-tech, of technology so advanced it might as well be magic. She wanted the ultimate example of that, and if the distance between this world and not merely hers, but even Star Trek's universe was two weeks, then two more weeks beyond her and them might give it to her.

She made two requests from the replicator, each of things from her world that she had at one point, but had not had on her when she was transported. One was a large battery for fast charging her phone, the other a foldable solar panel for trickle charging the battery. That gave her back free use of her phone.

Well, mostly, she had still needed to kill most of the apps and block them from auto-starting, and put it into moderate power saving, and dim the screen. But it gave her a place to write a story that was behind a lock, with a key that she could only hope they could not bypass with the wave of a wand or a hand. She kept it on her, though, so it was not too much of a worry, and she remembered to close the program before turning the phone off, so they would also have to figure out how to navigate the phone's OS. It would not help them as much as the replicator's computer doubtlessly had.

Here she began to sketch out her idea, and then to flesh it out, creating a background for it, to make the features sensible and logical rather than ad-hoc. She wanted it to all flow.

Finally, the day came.

---

At first, Kiran had been disappointed with the tale that came back. She had been allowed to watch from the balcony above the second time, once it was confirmed that the princess could summon without needing her aid. The item that appeared looked like nothing so much as an ornate bathing tub, albeit one with two levels, and filled with glittering golden sand. Princess Nubia had been closed-mouthed about it when they got back to her chambers, not wanting to reveal what it had been.

Another moderate wish-granting device, had been the initial verdict, leading to Kiran's disappointment. The princess had still seemed smug, though, so Kiran held out hope they would soon hear more.

Shortly after, they did. It was a duplication device, capable of replicating items like the replicator, though without the fancy display screen and voice activation. This had been discovered fairly early in the testing, and no-one had quite understood why the princess would summon something that could only do what her first achievement could. Then someone had duplicated a magic-bearing blade, and the replicated blade not only appeared identical, it still bore the spell! That lifted it to the level of a major wish-granting item, and Kiran was ready to throw a party.

The princess had acquiesced, and they had enjoyed themselves intensely, and eaten and drunk to excess.

The next morning, Kiran had informed Nubia that they had one more week at the suite, while her family's new home was being completed, and then Kiran would be moving to that new home.

"You're welcome to join me there, of course! But with your success, the Maurya will also be glad to house you if you would prefer somewhere more suited to your station."

"I cannot decide yet," Nubia told her. Ever since they had learned that the item could replicate magical spells on items, which had been confirmed now several times over, Nubia's smile had gone from smug to brittle, her eyes watchful and waiting, though for what Kiran was not sure. She did not think that Nubia was expecting some disaster to befall after her great success, but she did not seem as enthused as she should be either.

"At the end of the week, then I will know, I think."

Kiran was not sure what difference the week could make, but she was riding an unstoppable high, and her friend's sudden bout of uncertainty could not bring her down.

For the next several days, she noticed Nubia's mood swinging up and down, as if at one moment hopeful, and the next fearful or even expecting of disappointment. Then word came that access to the mana-replicator had been approved for them. Nubia's had flared up with a strange aura of determination and intensity, as she had handed over the coil of yellow cord that she had worn, asking strangely that it be placed first in the upper bath, and then in the lower, with no replication requested.

"What was that about?" Kiran asked, trying to gauge Nubia's mood.

"The upper bath scans, the lower replicates, and also consumes materials. It can do more, though. It can also repair and recharge. Beyond that..." She sighed suddenly, and stretched, before jumping to her feet. "Come down to the courtyard," she said, speaking on an inner courtyard Kiran had taken her to the first time she confessed to requiring a run every morning. "I need to run or I'm going to explode."

---

Samara was on edge. This was the culmination of everything, she knew, as she ran the perimeter. She had been as successful as Kiran had needed her to be, but she was yet to learn if she had been as successful as she desired. The summoned construct had looked just as she imagined it, the sort of thing a magical society might construct, gleaming and over-wrought with tremendous details, as if entire lives had been poured into creating it, like the grand cathedrals of Europe.

At the same time, if she had done everything right, it was a grand bit of magic-aware Clarke-tech, a faux pair of nano-bot baths capable of molecular reconstruction and mana manipulation. Faux, fake, Clarke-tech on top of Clarke-tech, because there were no actual nanites. No, if she did everything right...

Someone had come in, and her eyes snapped to the brilliant glowing lasso he held. She veered across the inside of the courtyard, pulling up hard just in front of him, and opened her hands gleefully, accepting what had now become the veritable Lasso of Truth.

"Wow! That really increased the mana it is holding," said Kiran. "It's literally glowing with it now. Was it just drained by the summoning?"

Samara shrugged, not wanting to explain. The delivery fellow bowed and left, leaving her with her brand new glowing Lasso of Truth, though, if her hopes were not to be denied, he had also left her with something far more important. But nothing had visibly changed yet, and she did not know how long it might take, so in the meantime, she might as well give it a try, under the pretense of a demonstration.

She spun and let the lasso unfurl. She could not crack a whip yet, but she had practiced with the costume element a bit, to make sure she would not fumble it embarrassingly if some geek boy called her out on it. Geek boys were prone to that when you let your geek flag fly a bit, like they were in such disbelief they had to poke at you, expecting you to pop like a bubble, or evaporate like a dream, especially the less socialized ones.

She whipped her hand forward, sending the lasso curling out, and following her intent perfectly, it lashed out and the end spun around a decorative pillar and held fast. She tugged lightly, and it stayed put, then she tugged a second time and it obediently unwound and came loose, then with a flick was coiled back in a neat set of loops about her hand. She let it fall once more, and lashed out again. This time, it blatantly disregarded the length it had originally had, and formed a cat's cradle between two posts.

She laughed in delight, and Karin clapped.

---

It could not take more than a day, in her estimation, so when she lay down that night, Samara was even more nervous than before. She had the lasso still beside her even after changing into the nightclothes she had been given.

Her sleep that night was disturbed at first, as she kept awakening, thinking she had seen or heard something. After a time she fell more deeply asleep, and slept soundly the rest of the night, dreaming strange dreams that vanished with the morning light.

She opened her eyes, and immediately felt tears of joy flowing down her cheeks. "I reach for the stars," she said aloud, and Shirley Bassey sang to her as she wept. "Mine, all mine."

Status: 0.1% unlocked. Training mode initiated.

There were words hovering in her view, and beyond them, everything she saw had knowledge lingering about it, not obtrusive, but available. She focused on the cloth draped above the bed, and knew it was silk, but more than that, she knew the threadcount, she knew the number of fibers woven into each strand, she knew how many individual silk fibers were in the entire piece of fabric.

She held up her hand and looked at it, and with the slightest effort of will, her nails, which she had cleaned of the chipped and crumbling polish that had been on them, were suddenly decorated once more in a nice deep blue.

She threw off her light coverlet and jumped out of bed, feeling remarkably light on her feet. She put a little effort into a jump, and easily touched the ceiling. "Point one percent," she muttered. She hurried over to the low chest that held her things, and drew out her costume sword. It was a real blade, of course, a proper replica of a movie sword. She focused on it, and words appeared in her view. "Pattern found. Infuse? Hell, yes!"

Golden light and particles, like dust dancing in a sunbeam, flowed from her arm and sank into the sword. The dull edge brightened to a gleaming sharpness, and the balance of the blade shifted. She repeated the process with her costume armor, watching as painted and gold-leafed leather became true metal. Her bracers, she felt quite sure, would now deflect bullets just as the ones they were patterned after had done.

Her tears dried and her face was cleaned as she glanced in the mirror, the redness in her eyes fading away. She smiled, and her smile widened as her hair obeyed her whims, suddenly straightening and coming together, then plaiting itself into a neat braid, which then twirled and undid itself, like time running backwards, and her curls were restored.

"Utility fogs rule," she proclaimed happily, "and mana-capable femto-fogs kick all kinds of ass."

She glanced at her armor, then tested her interface by mentally picturing a process, and questioning its viability.

High-speed spin-based visually cloaked costume change procedure created.

She activated it, and the world vanished into a swirl about her for the briefest instant, and then she was standing again, facing the mirror while fully armored, her sword belted on and in its sheath, her lasso by her side, her hair neatly braided.

One last test. She held out her hand, waiting and hoping. A very familiar looking crystal formed in it, tiny, and slowly grew. She received a warning about insufficient resources and mana, and just laughed, letting it be reabsorbed.

What did any of that matter when she had a working utility fog? Enough time and resource gathering and it could create a fully realized summoning stone, which meant that Star Trek replicator computer, with all its patterns, was within reach too, even if she couldn't get to the one here. Though she felt pretty sure she would be able to at some point, and her cloud would surely have no trouble snatching its contents.

"You sang it right, Shirley," she said, walking to the window and looking at the sky. Almost casually, her fog looked beyond the veil the sun's light cast in blue across the sky, and the blue peeled back revealing more stars than she had ever seen.

"All the stars in the sky, Are mine, all mine."

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] Scars

Scars

He shouldn't be here. This meeting was a sham and he knew it, even though he didn't want to accept it.

"Tell us, Master Cyne. How does our unfortunate visitor fare?"

"She is alive and well, Grandmaster. We came close to losing her several times, but she's stable now."

Sitting on a lone chair in front of a semicircular table, apprentice Aerin stared at the floor with a dark look. Even now, they reminded him of his failure as they discussed the unexpected results of what had been gross miscalculations on his part.

Or so they would have him believe. There was a reason they hadn't addressed him yet, despite requesting his presence, after all.

"I see. Her injuries?" Grandmaster Idho asked.

"Definitely not a sight for the faint-hearted. Twenty six broken bones between limbs, hands and feet among others; those of the legs were shattered repeatedly. Additionally, over half her skin sported multitude of cuts which varied in length and width and in some parts, the outer layers looked as if they'd been flayed off by a frenzied pauxena. Her throat was pierced in multiple areas as well and it was on the verge of collapsing when we got to her," Master Cyne said, listing off the woman's injuries in a dispassionate voice.

Aerin could only grit his teeth as the memory of the crumpled woman that the Calling had spat through, broken, bleeding and screaming. He only dreamt of that blood-curling scream now.

"Akkala's mercy, how is that woman even alive?" Master Agrios asked, disbelieving.

"Who knows? Perhaps it was the strength of her will that made her hang onto life or maybe simple luck; however it is, she survived crossing to this side," Cyne explained with a shrug.

The Grandmaster nodded. "Anything else, old friend?"

"There is, in fact. Putting aside the extent of her injuries, the most interesting part is that the outsider has no trace of magiachilite in her except from that of the Calling as far as we can tell. I ignore what exactly apprentice Aerin did to accomplish such a thing, but it seems that his botched Calling brought forth a woman with no amount of magiachilite to call her own from the void."

Said apprentice didn't react to being mentioned, doing his best to maintain his composure as several Masters broke into badly concealed murmurs. He didn't look up to see the look of utter calm in Master Cyne's wizened face.

The disappointment in his eyes had been enough.

"Is that even possible?" a Master Etros questioned with that gravelly voice gravelly voice of his. Aerin could understand the skepticism – such a thing was hard to believe.

"We have theorized several times about others worlds. The void is proof there is something more beyond our little corner of life. It is not farcical to believe, merely unexpected," Master Isabila proposed, tapping the table in boredom. "Besides which, magiachilite was once reserved only for gods and myths in our own world. It's not so unbelievable that the outsider's world could be in a similar situation."

"Master Isabila speaks truth," Grandmaster Idho mused as he agreed with his protégé. "Master Cyne, I assume the wounds are still proving difficult to heal?"

"Indeed. With no magiachilite in her system, her external injuries are resisting treatment since they're infused with residual energy from the Calling. The Healers assured me it would eventually… bleed out, for lack of a better term. We're keeping her asleep while we work on them."

A burly and bald man with a lame eye spoke up in that moment, a thoughtful frown on his face. "Why her, though?"

"Why does the oxfly have purple wings and not yellow ones? Why does lightning strike a house but not the tree next to it? Though we endeavor to understand the secrets of this energy within us, some things are governed by mere chance, Master Kilran," the Grandmaster replied with the proverbial shrug.

"Regardless, the outsider isn't in immediate danger anymore. I suggest we turn to the other pressing concern: the apprentice's punishment."

Aerin had to use all his willpower to remain seated when the measured words of Master Lyram filled the room. However, he couldn't keep ignoring his situation any longer.

Looking up from the ground, he crossed gazes with Lyram, a middle-aged man with piercing grey eyes and lips vaguely curled up into a ghostly smirk permanently etched into his face. Aerin couldn't remember a moment where he hadn't hated that face.

'Remember the lessons: mind and body, one and the same. From the union, attunement. With attunement, hûbra. And with hûbra, revelation.'

"I stand by my claim of innocence. I followed all the correct procedures, with the sigils and protective wards set up in the appropriate order," he declared.

"Then how would you explain the magical backlash during the Calling to open a portal to Obsydius? Would you say the combination of Vivitrandite and Cronokita arrayed into a half moon bow shape performed to your expectations?" Master Lyram questioned with a faint smile and Aerin had to summon all his years of experience to refrain from snapping at him like some ignorant kid during his first Kur'os.

He took a deep breath. 'That smug snake… Mind and body, one and the same.'

"I can only give an account according to what I saw, Master Lyram. I clearly remember not making a mistake during the procedure. You were there as the Mastery Overseer, you saw it," he challenged.

However, the man simply shook his head. "What I saw was an Apprentice who let his ambition get the better of him. You are clearly gifted but that blinded you. You used a full Chant for something relatively trivial such as a portal Calling and moreover, used several gemstones rarely tested together, all in order to surpass all previous attempts. This is the result of your ambition."

"I know what I saw. Those weren't the gemstones I used," Aerin replied, hands curling into fists. He'd never commit such a rookie mistake as junctioning untested gems together! Everyone who had a certain degree of skill knew the result to that and he had skill in spades.

Grandmaster Idho chose that moment to intercede, stroking a beard of graying hair as he gave him a reproving look.

"Apprentice Aerin, you have been pushing past your limits these few months and exhaustion is the Wiseman's bane. Regardless, you pulled someone who doesn't belong here to this world, knowingly or not. That has consequences."

"Then what is to be my punishment?" Aerin demanded to know with gritted teeth. There was no point in trying to appeal; their minds had already been made up. He'd thought Master Cyne would stand up for him – he'd always had a soft spot for him – but the old man stayed silent.

Swallowing, Aerin avoided meeting his eyes.

"Hm… apprentice Aerin, you will clean all of the experimentation pits without any magiachilite aid during two full months. You are also forbidden from attending any of the advanced lessons until deemed otherwise, for it seems that you must return to the basics. And lastly, you shall be barred from applying to Mastery trials until this board of instructors considers you have learnt from your mistakes."

Aerin gaped. They were practically kicking him down to the level of a lowly snot-nosed brat still in his first Kur'os, on top of having to clean for two months the most wretched place of the Tower. They… they couldn't do that!

Face twisted in anger, he shot to his feet. "Masters, this is-"

"Entirely warranted! Be grateful we haven't done more, apprentice Aerin," Grandmaster Idho coldly rebuked, shutting him down. "Consider yourself dismissed."

"Suffice to say, you failed to pass the trial for Mastery of Higher Practices," Lyram added with a bland smile and in that moment, Aerin very much wanted to wrap his hands around the neck of that insidious vhorulspawn and throttle him until he breathed his last.

Barely capable of containing the snarl that threatened to escape his throat, Aerin fled the room.

xxxOOOxxx

Everything hurt.

Unfortunately, such truth had become her newest friend these last few days ever since she'd woken up.

It felt like red hot knives were being stabbed into her body, an agony to which she couldn't even scream against. From time to time, strange people came to her and did… something, which lessened the pain, but that meager comfort just made it all the more insidious – it became a dull throbbing, a ghostly feeling that would never leave her body.

It was never far from being at the forefront of her mind and it was maddening.

Cassandra opened her eyes to the sound of knocking on the door of her room. Turning her head to the sound, she didn't answer. Her throat still hurt like hell and even if it didn't, the person at the other side of the door would understand nothing of what she said.

But she needn't worry because a young man who looked to be in his early twenties promptly stepped into the room. For a moment, Cassandra could swear she heard faint music reach her ears, but she quickly dismissed the thought in favor of inspecting the man's appearance. He looked vaguely nervous, with large dark bags under his eyes and a disheveled mop of slick brown hair plastered onto his forehead.

Cassandra recognized him. He was the guy that had been visiting her ever since she'd woken up in this… this place. He'd told her his name, but she'd happily forgotten it in favor of calling him Bastard in her mind.

"I told you to never show up again, you son of a bitch."

Bastard couldn't understand her, but Cassandra didn't really care. She was angry… no, she was livid and he was the perfect target for her anger, whether he could understand her or not. After they'd told her what happened when she was deemed strong enough to endure it, she'd wasted no time in raging whenever he showed up. It was a shame she couldn't raise her voice. She'd found that out the hard way.

Without reacting to her words, Bastard approached her bed and raised a hand with two fingers extended. Cassandra knew what he was trying to do; hell, she'd experienced what it did before! And yet, despite what she told herself, she still violently flinched away from him the moment his fingertips lit up with a strange whitish light.

He immediately reared back, an apologetic look on his face. Cassandra was intimately aware of how her body was shaking but no matter how hard she willed it, she was incapable of making it stop.

She was scared of it and she hated even admitting that much to herself… but she hated even more being unable to speak to anyone. No one here understood English and if it wasn't for the strange shit they did to allow them to communicate, she was afraid she'd lose her mind sooner or later.

Cassandra finally inched her body towards him; it was a small movement at best, hesitant, but she still did it. Bastard raised his fingers again and despite the instinctual terror that gripped her, Cassandra stayed put as they moved towards her face and tapped her forehead. A slight zap of electricity ran through her, making her whole body shake for a moment before settling down. Something shifted in her mind.

"So – huh, how are you feeling today?"

In any other situation, she'd be amused by the vague awkwardness, but Cassandra found she had few reasons to laugh about. In fact, now that he'd made sure they could speak to each other for a while, she was determined to make the most of it.

"Fuck you; fuck you and your freaky cult," she spat. He let out a weary sigh, but screw him – she had no reason to play nice after what they'd done!

"The Crystal Tower is not a cult, it's a school for – oh, why do I even bother? Look, I get it, I'd be upset in your… situation too, but I already apologized for what happened, I can't do much more," he retorted with an annoyed look.

Unfortunately, that only served to make Cassandra even angrier.

Sitting up with a groan of pain from the effort, she glared daggers at the idiot who had the gall to say that to her face.

"Sorry? Sorry? You're sorry, but it's me the one stuck in this fucking place I know shit about. It's me the one separated from the people I know. I almost died, you piece of shit, and you say you're sorry?!"

She could feel a burning sensation building up in her throat but Cassandra paid it no mind. It was just too bad they hadn't replaced the vase she'd thrown at him in a fit of fury when they'd told her of where she was and how she'd gotten there.

"So what I'm supposed to do now? Should I just smile and say everything's alright?! Because it's fucking not – some sort of bloody freakish portal abducted me from my own home and now I'm stuck with some assholes in robes that just so happened to almost kill me!"

"Please, calm down. Your injuries –"

"I don't give a fuck! You think I'll accept a simple apology after what you did?! You almost killed me, for fuck's sake! You–"

Cassandra's rant stopped dead on its tracks when she coughed. Ignoring Bastard's expression shifting from self-commiserating to genuinely concerned, a confused Cassandra brought hand to the bandages over her neck when she felt something warm running down from it. She could only stare in mild shock when she took it back and saw it was covered in warm blood.

"Oh."

"Karsuj! Press on the bandages now!" the brown-haired Bastard exclaimed, rushing to the bedside.

"Don't – touch me…" she said in disgust and fear when he raised a hand glowing with faint light, but it just came out as a weak whimper. Her body felt heavy all of a sudden and small black spots appeared in her vision; she was dizzy, light-headed.

She opened her mouth to say something, anything… and then only darkness.

xxOOOxx

"I am relieved to see we prevented your premature passing to Roa's embrace. Such a thing would be most unfortunate."

Propped up on her bed, Cassandra made a point of not looking at the old man – call me Master Cyne. The bandages around her neck were heavier and it made her feel uncomfortable; wrapped tightly as they were, she couldn't help but feel as if they were a chokehold around her neck. It had been a few hours since her outburst and the reopening of her throat wounds, but they'd apparently treated them while she'd been unconscious.

"Yeah, whatever. You guys made this mess and you are the ones who have to fix it. I want to go home and I want to go there now. Preferably, without dying," she clarified icily.

His rebuttal was swift.

"Unfortunately, I'm afraid that is impossible." Seeing how rage twisted Cassandra's features into an unflattering snarl at his response, the old man quickly followed up his words with an explanation. "It's not that we don't wish to make amends for our mistake and return you to your place of origin – we simply lack the ability to do so."

"Why? Explain it to me."

Cyne paused for a moment, clearly considering his request and though he looked downright skeptical, he finally acquiesced with a resigned sigh. That really pissed her off – sure, she wasn't some highbrow genius but she wasn't a simpleton, she could follow a topic well enough if it wasn't an overly technical or scientific topic.

"Your situation had been theorized before, but considered highly unlikely to achieve. Whatever happened, the Calling apprentice Aerin was casting to attain his Mastery of Higher Practices backfired, sending its hooks too far into the void and catching you in its net. As one without magic, you had no real way of fighting the pull; moreover, the portal couldn't take magic from you to create a stable bridge between the two end points. As such, it forced you through the portal in the harshest of ways… thus the wounds," he explained, sending a quick inscrutable glance at them.

Cassandra made a point of not following his gaze. She'd tried very hard not to think of them too much so far. She'd vaguely seen them from the corners of her vision already and what little she'd seen scared her.

But she'd needed to make sure they were real, that they felt real to her own touch beyond the constant flares of torment they gave. Cassandra wished she hadn't done so. She still couldn't find it within herself to move towards the life sized mirror placed in one of the corners of the room to take a look.

"That's interesting and all, but that doesn't tell me why you can't send me back."

"Simply put, we can't recreate it."

"What? You did it already, doing it again should make no difference," Cassandra questioned with a disbelieving look.

The old man waved a hand dismissively. "All Callings are inherently different due to the preparations beforehand – the gemstones used, the type of wards set up, whether a Chant was used and if it was a full one or not… all that could be recreated, but not an individual's magic and that is the most important component in a Calling. Just like there are no identical two people, their magic is likewise unique."

"So what? Just have him do it again, but making sure he doesn't fuck it up this time. Don't want to bring someone else, heh?"

"Given Master Lyram's account of the event, apprentice Aerin was reckless in extreme due to his… haste, but he had no way of knowing something like this would happen. None of us did," Cyne said, raising a hand in a placating manner.

"And that's supposed to make me feel better? He messed up so badly that he almost killed me and you just wave it off?" she hissed, seething. She had no intention of playing nice with a bunch of condescending old men in tunics and their fuckup students.

However, the old man looked genuinely scandalized by the insinuation. "Believe me young lady, apprentice Aerin is most definitely regretting his blunder right now. However, none of us ever expected such a thing to happen and he never intended to do you harm. For that reason, we can't place the harshest sentences on him in good faith."

Cassandra wasn't feeling particularly charitable at the moment. They were obviously biased, but her throat was already itching again and she'd rather not open her wounds again with more shouting.

Instead, she settled on giving the old sack of bones in front of her a fierce scowl, which he easily shrugged off.

"In any case, the biggest hurdle is not the magic itself, but rather your own world. I'll be frank; we know nothing about it – its position in the void, its path, its attunement to the hûbra and several other details that would be essential to opening a portal to your world and that we have no way of knowing. In short, it would take a miracle for you to return home. "

"But – but there's got to be a way! You have – you have magic! Christ, wizards are supposed to be able to do anything!" she cried before breaking into a coughing fit.

"Please, be mindful of your own injuries," he said mildly before continuing. "I appreciate your faith in our abilities, but there are limits to what we can do. Despite what the populace thinks of us, we are very much fallible men and women, not demigods."

Her anger surged at his words. "Then what good are you for? Just leave me alone," Cassandra spat out before shifting on her bed and turning her back on him, face twisting in pain from the movement.

Was her reaction been petty and childish perhaps? Yes, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

Cassandra knew the old man was still sitting on that weathered wooden stool he'd pulled up when he'd come. He hadn't stood up yet, but the small sigh he then let out was impossible to misunderstand. However, Cassandra remained stubbornly silent and he left the room not long after that.

Now alone, Cassandra lied down on her bed in an attempt to rest but her thoughts were a raging maelstrom of disjointed thoughts keeping her awake as minutes slowly passed by in silence.

If these guys weren't even capable of sending her back, then what was the point? She knew nothing of their… magic and she had not a single drop of it according to their own words. Her only option was to rely on others to return to her own home and the only people with the means to help told her they couldn't. What then, what was she supposed to do?

She shouldn't be here. She should be in her two-bedroom flat in Balham with Alice, her flatmate, seeing a movie together or just finishing reading her ancient copy of Ten Little Niggers, not writhing in pain in a bed not her own! She should be doing her late evening shift at The Regent and saving some money to apply for a Master next year, not wondering if she'd ever see her family again!

Why her? Why?! She didn't belong in this place and yet she was stuck in this bed, maimed, crippled and ignorant of who these people were or anything that could help her! She couldn't do anything to fix her own problems and it was so… so…

No.

Cassandra took a shaky breath.

She had to stop thinking like that because once she started, there was no stopping it. She couldn't wallow in her own misery, wasting away until there was nothing left of her! No matter how hopeless it all looked, how uncertain everything in her life had become, she had to do something.

She needed to do something.

Turning her head to look at the mirror in one corner of the room, Cassandra hesitated. She knew sooner or later she'd have to confront the truth and yet, she didn't move. She wasn't sure of what she'd see once she stood in front of it and the uncertainty… it was terrifying, if only because there was a good chance her suspicions would be confirmed.

Some people were content in living while lying to themselves, but Cassandra knew she couldn't do that; she couldn't afford the luxury of ignoring such an issue. She couldn't let her own fear control her to such extent because…

Because fear is the mind killer.

Cassandra fidgeted under the blankets of her bed, still hesitant despite her own silent encouragements. Gathering all her courage, Cassandra finally threw the covers aside and moments later, wobbling legs touched the ground.

Wincing from the spikes of pain travelling up through her legs, she didn't think of her next action, she just did it. With a heave, she sent all her strength to her legs and pushed.

Growling in pain, Cassandra stood from the bed. The sudden change of position made her feel nauseous as her whole world spun around. Squeezing her eyes shut, she waited it out as the flickering colors under her eyelids stopped glowing and darkness became the only thing she could "see". Only a sharp pounding in her head was left.

Cassandra opened her eyes once again.

Her legs burned like nothing else but she was relieved that they were merely throbbing from her injuries and not bleeding like before. Even now, a week and half after she'd woken up, her wounds still looked all too raw and recent. It would take them time to fade.

She stumbled towards the mirror, which seemed to loom over Cassandra as she hobbled over to its position. Her steps were awkward – limping and uncomfortable to compensate for the constant agony of every step she took. Her body hurt like never before, but much as she wanted she couldn't curl up in a ball and rest, not when she'd finally decided to do this.

At long last, she reached the mirror and she placed her hands onto the frame with a tight grip, partially in reassurance that she'd reached her destination and partially to steady herself and not fall to the ground from the effort.

Her legs ached terribly and closing her eyes, Cassandra let the cool surface of the mirror's glass soothe the burning of her forehead when she leant her face on it. It was only to stop the shaking of her own body, but the woman was acutely aware of the tight lump in her throat, feeling as if she were standing at the edge of a bottomless pit while looking down.

After a moment, Cassandra lightly pushed against the mirror with a deep breath and stood in front of it, eyes still closed. The imperceptible shaking of her body wasn't due to any pain she could feel in her body and yet, it was still a pale imitation of the wild bucking within her chest.

Fear is the mind killer.

With no small amount of trepidation, Cassandra slowly opened her eyes and stared at the woman in front of her.

The first thing that grabbed her attention was her hair. It was a mess, a dull mane of brown locks with most finishing in frayed and split ends that framed the average features of her face. Said face had never really stood out to Cassandra: the nose was a tad too large, the cheekbones too low... the only remarkable thing she'd ever liked about her face was her striking, clear blue eyes. However, they were now overshadowed by the newest addition to her face.

Angry red lines, both thin and thick, crisscrossed all over it. Over her nose, over her cheeks, over her brow… there were only a scant few spots where her skin was clear, unmarred by the angry, jagged scars.

Scars.

The face staring at her with some sort of horrified rictus was still her own – but it was a chilling face now, marred with the proof that something incredibly horrible had happened to her.

Cassandra stared as trembling, equally scarred hands rose and traced the jagged line that started near her jaw line and zigzagged over to her nose. A dull throbbing erupted over her cheek but Cassandra paid it no mind, numb as she was.

She couldn't look away from the injuries. She… she…

Looking down with wide, bloodshot eyes, Cassandra couldn't avoid the small choked gasp that escaped her throat. The loose dark tunic they'd slipped her in was sleeveless and there was no way to miss the array of numerous lines traversing her arms, turning them into something that vaguely resembled a grotesque puzzle made out of arm parts.

Something bitter rose up her throat and Cassandra doubled over, heaving and hacking. Panic gripped her. She needed to get out of these clothes. She had to see. See her body – see them. This couldn't be real. This couldn't be happening to her. A nightmare, it had to be. Yes, an horrible nightmare.

Hyperventilating, Cassandra tried to grab the hems of the tunic and pull the tunic over her head, but her entire body screamed in protest and she wheezed from the agony, stopping immediately.

Shaking violently, she took a deep breath. Clarity slowly came back to her.

She couldn't get out of her clothes, but it wasn't necessary. If her arms looked like that… how would her entire torso look? Her mind, traitorous thing that it was, was quick to supply her with plenty of sickening imagery to answer the question and Cassandra couldn't suppress the grimace on her face.

She was lost in some god-forsaken place, cut off from her parents and her little brother Dani, cut off from her friends and with little hope of going back. As if that wasn't enough, she was surrounded by people she didn't know and who were capable of things she always considered fantasy.

And yet, the thing that brought her down to the floor, unmindful of how much her body protested, was the realization that she'd been marked; no matter where she went, the scars of her body would accompany her until the day she died.

Scarred, maimed… that's what she was now. She never asked for this and yet, she'd have to live with such reminder on her skin from now on whether she liked it or not. It felt like a deeply intimate part of her had been mindlessly violated.

'I look like a monster,' Cassandra thought, numb.

Her eyes couldn't look away from the sight in front of her: a monster straight out of a children's fairy tale; the woman with horrifying scars, carved up as if she were a piece of meat. A monster that never wanted her fate but could do nothing to change it.

Cassandra blinked furiously, struggling to keep the tears from her eyes but her efforts proved meaningless; when the first sob racked over body, nothing could stop the flood. On the floor of her room, Cassandra finally broke down and the tears flowed freely.

Fear is the mind killer.

The Litany never mentioned that hopelessness could serve just as well.

"God… Oh, God…"

xxOOOxx

Days passed by.

As life went on around her, Cassandra kept to herself, sullen and morose. Very few people came to visit: Aerin –the Bastard– visited her the most and a few people checked her bandages regularly and soothed her pains with their… magic.

'Magic is real. It's not fantasy here,' she thought from time to time and she couldn't help but shudder when remembering that the scars she had were also the result of magic.

Old man Cyne sometimes stopped by as well; once, he'd been accompanied by a middle-aged guy called Lyram. Apparently, he was Master Lyram, just like Cyne, but he hadn't said a thing and he'd never showed up again.

Cassandra was glad for that. The intense stare of his grey eyes as he regarded her was nothing short of fucking creepy and it had left her feeling very uncomfortable.

Regardless, her injuries had forced her to be bedridden so far, especially since she forced herself when she looked in the mirror… but that was fine with her. With little to do and even less enthusiasm to go outside, her own thoughts were the only reliable distraction Cassandra had, apart from looking at the world outside her room through the window next to her bed.

She could only see the end of a mountain range and a small stretch of land with snow-covered trees. Beyond that, water and since there was no end in sight, Cassandra assumed it was some kind of sea or an ocean. If she strained her eyes, she could spot a small point of light far away into the ocean; during the nights, the point of light became a bright beacon.

It reminded her of those summer nights when she and Dani would stay up during a thunderstorm and watch as lightning lit up the dark sky. God, what would he be doing now? What about her parents, for that matter? How long until they realized she was missing? Her father would go frantic and her mother would try to keep calm but she worried about Dani's reaction.

Annoying little shit that he could be, he'd been really excited for the two-week vacation to Italy she'd planned for them both and Cassandra would be lying if she said she hadn't been looking forward to it too. But now–

Resolute knocks on the door brought Cassandra out of her thoughts. Turning her head, she watched as the Bastard slipped inside, giving her a nod of acknowledgement. He… Cassandra didn't know what to think of him, the guy with the ever-present dark bags under his eyes.

She'd made abundantly clear she hated his guts the first days after she woke up and they'd told her what happened… but much as she tried, it was hard to hold onto that blinding rage and with each passing day, her resentment drained out of her bit by bit. She didn't know how to feel about that. He'd been the one to get her here, almost killing her… but he'd visited her every day without fault despite her outbursts and he'd apologized for that absolute mess, even if he'd been kinda an asshole when doing so.

Well… no one was perfect.

"What's that?"

He looked up in mild surprise when she spoke and though his reaction miffed her, Cassandra had to admit it was to be expected. She hadn't replied to any of his attempts to he engage in conversation whenever he visited and he eventually stopped trying, simply giving her some company.

However, there was only so much sullen silence she could bear.

His eyes followed the direction her finger pointing to the roll of parchment in his hands and connecting the dots, a light dusting of pink colored his cheeks. Without saying anything, he quickly brought a glowing hand up and Cassandra had to congratulate herself when her flinch wasn't as pronounced as before. She'd take whatever victories she could get.

"What is that?" she repeated once they could communicate properly, curious at his reaction.

"This is… a hobby of mine. I like to draw maps," he told her, only the tiniest bit embarrassed.

Cassandra gave him a deadpan stare, but he merely coughed, valiantly trying to hold her gaze.

"Maps."

"Yes."

"You draw maps as a hobby," she repeated, unable to keep the disbelief entirely out of her voice.

He gave her a vaguely irritated look. "I said that, didn't I? I enjoy doing it, okay? It helps me relax."

Cassandra raised her hands in an attempt to placate him as her lips curled into an amused grin. Even that much hurt. "Alright alright, no need to get defensive. I was just curious – so that's one of yours, then?"

The Bastard looked suspicious of her, but Cassandra was honest in her interest. In her defense, she couldn't remember anyone who liked to draw maps as a hobby. It was just amusing.

"Yes, this is my latest project." They fell silent then, each not quite sure what to say after that until he seemed to make his mind up about something and he held it up. "Would you… like to take a look at it?"

Cassandra's eyebrows shot up to her hairline in surprise; she hadn't expected that. Sending a dubious look to the parchment in his hands, she took a moment to consider the question. Did she want to look at it? It was just a map, but…

"Okay."

The parchment had that distinctive smell of old books she liked. Smiling softly despite herself, Cassandra unfurled the roll and was greeted by the sight of unknown lands and unfamiliar islands.

Cassandra took the time to inspect every trace and outline drawn onto the parchment but it only confirmed her fears: she recognized nothing of this map, effectively crushing whatever remaining hopes she had of this being just a bad dream.

'I guess this is what Dorothy must have felt...'

"This is… huh – I don't really know much about maps. It's incomplete, right?"

"Of course, I haven't finished yet. So what do you think?" He looked especially interested to hear her opinion.

"It looks good, I guess? I just don't recognize any of these places," Cassandra muttered, trying to hold down the rising lump in her throat. She gritted her teeth, clenching the covers with her hands.

His eyes widened in realization. "Of course, I should have remembered. Do you want me to give you a brief explanation of everything?"

"… Alright."

And with that simple agreement, the Bast - no… Aerin started telling her of every place marked in the map: she learnt of the Akkalan continent, the map's eastern landmass and of the Imperium that ruled over there, both named after Akkala, the Goddess-Queen that descended from the heavens to guide them to enlightenment.

She learnt of Archades, the smallest continent south of Akkalan and of the Naval Confederacy that controlled its lands, a loose coalition with the sole interest of protecting their independence.

She learnt of Treumenica, the westernmost continent divided between numerous monarchical kingdoms, like Herreus or Liboria with its Slaburg Dynasty, and all of them locked in a veiled struggle to control the others.

And lastly, she learnt of the Simadara archipelago, nestled in the Walled Ocean between Akkalan and Treumenica; a smuggler's haven with a disorganized government at best and a squabbling pit of backstabbing scum at worst, according to Aerin's words.

"So where are we exactly in this map? What is this place exactly, anyway?" she asked.

In a mocking gesture of grandiosity, Aerin swept his arms outwards. "In reverse order – you are currently in the Most Ancient and Esteemed Institution of Natural Practices, the Crystal Tower," he explained with fake solemnity.

Despite herself, Cassandra snorted. "Natural Practices?"

"Something of a misnomer. In layman terms, magic," he helpfully supplied. "The technical term would be magiachilite, but magic's simpler; some of the older fossils that pass themselves as Masters frown on such bastardization, but it's not like they can enforce such opinion."

Magic…

Ignoring the painful tingling that ran through her body, she pointed at the map. "So where is this Crystal Tower?"

"See that building up north in Treumenica? That's us, that's the Crystal Tower."

Cassandra didn't take long in locating it. It was an isolated building in the map, placed very close to the coast, which was drawn with several fjords of irregular borders that looked more like savage cuts into the earth made with no finesse, only with the intent to tear it up.

'Just like my scars,' she thought before she quickly shut down that line of thinking. Morbid as it was, she couldn't let such mindset take hold.

"You guys are in the arse end of nowhere. Are you monks or something?" He rolled her eyes at that, but Cassandra didn't see why: it was a legitimate question. The robes they wore were loose and wide-sleeved and with the ornate patterns she'd seen on them… they very well could be some sort of monk's habit.

"Despite what the simpering psychopaths of the Church would have you believe, religion had no role in the appearance of magic. No, the Tower was built here, isolated from almost everyone, due to the location itself." Aerin pointed at the smaller landmass closest to the Tower's landmark. "See that large island up there next to us? That's Magic's Bay, where Sigil Tower still stands to this day."

"And I assume it has something to do with this?"

"Of course." he said with a nod. "Folk tales say this is where Mittur reborn clashed with Asfvarthal, the Demon's Heir, and ended up frozen in an eternal clash from which magic was spread over the world. To this day, we give thanks to humble Mittur who gave us the gift of magic at the cost of his life," Aerin recited, though it sounded like something born from rote repetition to Cassandra. "No one can get close to the island due to the violent churning of the waters around it and the constant discharges of raw magic, but the closer someone gets to it, the stronger their magic is."

"And of course, as people who study magic, it was obvious where you'd set up shop."

He gave her a pleased grin. "Exactly."

It made sense to Cassandra. She wasn't sure she believed what the folk tales Aerin mentioned recounted, but the individuals he spoke about sounded more like semi-mythical figures born from legend than anything else, just like the oldest kings of Mesopotamia or perhaps more fittingly, king Arthur.

They might have existed at some point, but it sounded very much like whatever conflict they had eventually grew into a religious myth. Perhaps the Church Aerin had referenced had something to do with that?

Regardless, she didn't pry further. He usually dropped bits of information whenever they talked – places he'd visited and people he'd met. None of it was familiar to her but she didn't say anything about it; it was obviously not conscious on his part but she never mustered the nerve to ask for clarifications whenever it happened. Perhaps it was foolish of her to ignore it, but the entire thing was unnerving to her. It was easier to deny the truth, even though she knew it couldn't last.

Aerin told her a bit more of Tonophria, the world she now lived in, but he eventually stood to leave. However, faint music reached their ears the moment he opened the door. It was hard to make out, but Cassandra was pretty sure it was a slow piece, with long notes that hung in the air.

"Oh, they must be practicing their attunement," Aerin mentioned offhandedly, peering into the hallway.

"You do music here? I thought it was a school for magic," she asked with a surprised look. Actually, now that he mentioned it, hadn't she heard music from time to time before?

"Yes and no, music helps us in attuning our magic in order to reach hûbra. Actually, do you want to come and watch? It will be easier to show you."

Cassandra hesitated. Did she want to take him up on the offer? Maybe not, but she realized that the spartan décor of the room would simply mean more hours of staring out the window. Unable to speak or read their language without their help, she couldn't pass the time reading books and there was nothing else to occupy her mind with except for thinking.

After being cooped up in this tiny room for close to three weeks with almost nothing to do, it definitely beat staying here.

With determination that she didn't quite feel, Cassandra quickly threw aside the covers and slipped her feet into the shoes they'd brought her, a strange style of sandal with several vertical stripes that clamped onto each side of the feet to hold the thing in place.

It was a snug and comfortable fit, so she didn't think much about it.

Standing up, her body only made a mild jerking motion when a familiar uncomfortable tingle ran up her legs. The pain from the wounds faded a bit more with each passing day, but it still acted up regularly. However, she had already decided to go and she wasn't going to back down now. At least, she could stand the pain better now.

"Let's go," she declared and with those simple words, they left the room that had been Cassandra's entire world ever since she'd arrived.

Despite her initial reluctance, Cassandra couldn't suppress her curiosity. As their steps echoed through the empty hallways, her eyes roamed over every nook and cranny, taking in everything they could see: the corridors were large and spacious and the many windows carved into the stone walls allowed plenty of light into the building.

Looking out of one of them, Cassandra was greeted to the sight of a sheer cliff of rock, the stillness of a frozen river down below and irate gusts of icy cold wind that buffeted her face.

She quickly reared back in shock, teeth chattering. Sending Aerin a scowl of displeasure, she rubbed her cheeks to bring blood black into them.

"Since most of this area is located in the middle of the Glacial Ring, the founders of Crystal Tower quickly ensured the building would stay warm at all times to protect against the yearlong frigid temperatures."

After that explanation, Cassandra decided to give them a wide berth. 'Bastard, he could've warned me first at least!'

"Where are we going exactly?"

They hadn't stumbled upon anyone else so far but since the sun was still high, she guessed most people were still in their lessons. This was a school, after all. In any case, the music's volume had been steadily growing as they walked so at least they were going in the right direction.

"To the main Hall of this floor. Students practicing their attunement usually go there – there's always a group of us at any given moment," Aerin replied.

It was strange, Cassandra considered as she resumed her inspection. Nothing in the architecture of this place gave the impression of being a school of magic… or even a different world from Earth. Really, if she didn't know better, she'd have assumed it was some kind of historical building from the Middle Ages still in use.

'But it's not. It's the farthest possible thing from that,' she thought with a scowl.

The two kept on walking for several minutes and they eventually started seeing a few other people walking around the halls. If it wasn't for the fact they were studying magic, Cassandra's brain would've pegged them as unremarkable.

Just like Aerin's, their distinctive clothing was comprised of cloaks, robes and other types of cloths with ornate patterns woven onto them, but other than that they looked exactly like people from Earth: there were men and women in equal measure, some younger and some older; some had blond hair and others had manes of dark hair; some had black skin and some were fair skinned. All in all, none of them would have stood out too much back home.

However, she couldn't miss the shocked and horrified glances sent her way and though she tried to ignore it, it didn't take long for Cassandra to start feeling self-conscious. It was obvious what they were looking at and it was… Her cheeks heated up from shame and mortification, an unpleasant flush that spread to the entirety of her neck.

"They're staring at me. Why are they staring at me?" she hissed at Aerin when there wasn't anyone around and she absolutely hated how her voice hitched for a moment. She had no reason to feel humiliated!

"Forgive me, I should have thought something like this would happen. Most of us know everyone by sight at the very least so your appearance is bound to attract attention." Aerin gave her a vaguely contrite look, but she couldn't even tell how genuine his gesture was and it was really annoying.

"Just… just let's go."

However, the damage was already done. They were looking at her as if she was something to be pitied; they weren't even being subtle! She didn't need that shit on top of everything else!

As Cassandra fumed in silence, they eventually reached a large room which served as the main Hall of this floor, according to Aerin.

The first thing that caught her attention was the stone staircases that flanked both sides of the room, leading up and down to different floors. Next to them, huge tapestries of landscapes hung on the walls… but looking at them, Cassandra didn't miss how the water flowed freely or how the treetops swayed to the gentle action of an inexistent wind.

Overwhelmed, Cassandra gulped and directed her attention to the center of the Hall, only to be further shocked from what she saw next.

In the middle of the room were seated a handful of people in cushioned chairs and armchairs, arrayed in a haphazard formation without any real rhyme or reason. Some were just like the people they'd passed by, but others… others were completely different.

She could see a girl with a very obvious purple hue to her skin, with unnaturally sharp facial angles that gave her a haunting, gaunt look despite the peaceful expression on her face. With unnerving long and slender fingers, she held an elongated piece of dark wood that looked like a flute with two connected mouthpieces and quite a lot of finger holes.

Wide-eyed, Cassandra watched as a red-haired man of pale complexion directed the six arms he had in an harmonious choreography of movement, playing a bizarre instrument that resembled a guitar only in the most vague of terms… except for the fact it had three sets of strings instead of just one, all located in different parts of the instrument.

A mature woman whose robes shifted in shape and color with strange flickering held between her knees what could only be a bastardized set of bongo drums, bouncing her hands rhythmically over the strange sigils etched in a metal disk along drums' rim which glowed and produced a wide range of notes as she struck them.

Startled, Cassandra watched as her dark hair flickered to a long ponytail of blonde hair and her features changed to youthful ones for a moment before changing back.

Cassandra could only stand there in shock as they all played their instruments with their eyes closed and even though it should have been a chaotic cacophony of mismatched sounds, all the sounds somehow blended together into one single melody of various layers, woven one over another.

There were no mistakes made, no mistaken note that contrasted sharply against the result of several people playing music in concert; there was only surety in their movements as they created music unlike anything Cassandra had ever heard before: a slow tune of long, deliberate notes that hung in the air before fading.

It struck a chord in Cassandra. Despite the solemnity, there was an uplifting element to the song that resonated deeply within her to the point tears welled up in her eyes… but this time, she made no move to stop them.

For the first time in a long time, she felt much lighter, as if a great weight had been suddenly taken off her shoulders.

"It's beautiful…" she murmured, blinking but unable to look away from the musicians. There were other people milling about in the Hall, listening to the music, but Cassandra only had eyes for the musicians doing their magic.

"It certainly is. Music is one of the wonders of this world. Notice how their music weaves together in perfect synchrony? That's a skill only the Masters and the oldest apprentices can accomplish: to immerse in yourself deep in your own attunement practice and yet be able to reach out and join the others as one single voice," Aerin explained, a soft smile on his face. "It's shame you don't have magic, you simply can't feel the beauty of it."

Cassandra could barely understand the importance of such accomplishment but she kept listening, even though Aerin's thoughtless remark earned him a tart glare that quickly faded in favor of more pressing concerns. "How can that man do anything at all with those arms? There are six of them," she questioned with a dumbfounded look.

"It's magic, Cassandra. When magic was spread all over the world, people eventually started changing – they were born with different traits. More arms like Pamex over there, different set of eyes, unusual color of skin… They all are signs that the individual has been given a stronger connection to magic," he explained, looking away from the silent musicians for a moment to glance at her.

"But… how can he even live with them?" Never mind artificial limbs, the man had been born with them.

Aerin shrugged. "We adapted. We learned to live with it, some better than others. Magic wasn't going to go away, what else could we do?"

It was such a deceptively simple answer to something that boggled her mind that Cassandra could only look at him in utter surprise.

'He makes it sound so simple.'

But perhaps that was the beauty of it: to break down something as complex as life into small little blocks. Do this or do not. Accept this or do not. With such a life-changing event hoisted on them, what else could they do but shrug and adapt?

As she considered his words, Aerin suddenly put a hand on her shoulder, shifting her attention to him. "Come, I wanted to talk with you about something."

With some confusion, she allowed him to lead them to an alcove carved into the stone wall outside the Hall. It had open windows that overlooked the snowy mountains outside and two small stools for sitting. Once they arrived, Aerin turned around with a grave expression on his face.

Seeing the seriousness of his demeanor, Cassandra tensed ever so slightly. "What is it?"

He didn't answer immediately, obviously considering his words. If anything, he looked nervous and hesitant. "I didn't want to drag you into this, but... I need your help," he eventually revealed with reluctance.

Cassandra gaped. "My help? You realize I've got no magic, right? What could I even help you with?"

His face twisted into a scornful glare. "I have reasons to suspect that Lyram – the Master overseeing my Calling when you appeared – sabotaged said Calling. I know I followed every instruction correctly and put every failsafe possible in place, but the ritual still backfired. That bastard has had it in for me ever since I dared question the validity of his application of the Karlessian theorem to a loopback-fed Calling and I'm sure he tampered with mine to spite me," Aerin growled, not even noticing how Cassandra stared in bafflement.

"That's great and all buddy, but my point still stands. What could I even do?"

"I don't know," he admitted, "but Lyram has a lot of respect in most circles of the Tower. Roping some student into going against him is unwise, but you're an outsider. He can't leverage anything against you and you'll be free to move freely eventually due to your lack of magic," he explained.

"So what, you want to use my shitty situation to your advantage and bail your sorry ass out of your fuck up?" she asked with a glare, wholly unamused by the situation.

"It's not like that, woman! Everything in the Calling was set up with utmost care, I swear; I know better than going into something like that half-cooked! I'm telling you, I'm sure that Lyram had something to do with it. Think about it: if I'm right and he sabotaged the Calling, he is the one responsible for bringing you here."

"Yeah well, what if you are the one mistaken?" Cassandra asked, crossing her arms over her chest with an angry frown. "Besides, what if I'm the one to get into trouble?"

"I'm not, I'm certain of it. And you have nothing to fear, if something goes wrong, they will punish me, not you – they have no real power over you and I'll make sure to tell them I coerced you into this, anyway. Will you help me, please?" Aerin didn't look particularly pleased to have to beg her for help, but he was apparently humble and desperate enough to go for it.

Cassandra considered his request. She'd rather stay entirely out of this kind of power plays. She had no time to play spy amongst the members of a place she knew nothing about… but on the other hand, she couldn't stand doing nothing forever and besides, that Lyram guy had been a creep. Cassandra wouldn't be surprised if Aerin turned out to be right.

Perhaps things really could be simple, as long as you wanted them to be.

"Alright, I'll help you – but I want something in return," she quickly said when she saw the relief on his face. He still nodded eagerly regardless.

"I'd expect nothing else. What is it?"

"First, I can't keep moping in my room. I need to do something or I'll go mad. I want to learn; if you want my help, you'll teach me about Tonophria, about its lands and its people in return. I also want to learn the main language. I don't want to rely on that spell of yours and if I have to start living in here, I need to know."

"That's a sensible request. Teaching you Akkalanis might be tricky, but I'm confident I can give you the basics and we can go from there," Aerin acquiesced.

"And finally, you'll help me find a way to send me back home," she finished, narrowing her eyes when he winced. "Is there a problem? Because that is non-negotiable."

"Depends on what you consider a problem. I'll do what I can, but you've got to understand that it's very likely we won't find anything. I don't think we've ever had a case such as yours."

"I don't care, I'm not the one asking for help. I'm not going to sit down and wait for a miracle to happen and besides, you owe me. You got me here somehow, it's only fair you help me find a way home," she told him, daring him to deny it with her eyes. "So, deal?"

"Yes, of course. On my honor as a Toorkow, I shall help you and all that," Aerin announced as he quickly crossed one arm over his chest before bringing it down.

"Great! Then perhaps we can start right away," she declared, moving to sit on one of the stools. Her legs were already starting to hurt too much and they'd thank her for it. "Let's see… tell me more about this music magic?"

Perhaps she was stuck in some sort of fantasy Land of Oz isolated from everyone she knew, but only Cassandra herself could decide how to react to that. Maybe it was just a matter of accepting it and adapting, as Aerin had said. She wasn't so naïve as to think it would be easy at all, but sometimes, maybe a single step forward was all it took to get everything moving.

She had to believe in that.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] Termagant

Genre: [Original/Fantasy/Comedy/Genderbend/Overpowered Protagonist/Crackfic/Isekai]

[Disclaimer: This story is meant to be a comedy and not to be taken seriously. I expect that will be obvious, but just wanted to make that clear at the beginning just to be on the safe side.]

August woke up to find himself lying on his back. It was very hot that day and he was very wet. August opened his eyes and saw a bright, hot sun beaming down on him from right overhead. He felt water all around him, so he knew that he must still be at the beach, lying on the shore where the tide rolled in. Except, strangely, he didn't feel sand under him. Instead it felt like he was lying on a flat piece of stone. August bolted up into a sitting position and looked around in surprise. He wasn't at the beach anymore. Instead he was lying in the base of a shallow stone pool that was placed in the middle of a courtyard that was full of plants. There were trees, grass and bushes planted all around him; and behind them he could see four walls that surrounded the garden (or whatever it was) on all sides forming a rectangle. The walls were ten feat high and made of smooth, tan stone. One of them had a door in the center of it and there was no roof at the top which explained how it could be that there was bright sunlight shining down on top of him.

"Huh…"

It was all August could think to say as he looked around the courtroom in confusion. It was unlike any place that he had ever remembered visiting before. August tried to remember how he had got there. He remembered going to the beach and… he may have lied down to take a nap on the sand? Or did he go swimming? August tried to think of it but for some reason he could not remember what had happened no matter how much he tried. He sat down in the pool (it didn't matter if he got wet because he was already wet to begin with) and closed his eyes trying to concentrate and think of what could have happened. But even then nothing came to his mind. Everything after him arriving at the beach was a blank spot in his memory. It was as if if something had stolen that part of his mind away leaving just a blank spot in its place.

Nothing like that had ever happened to him before and that scared him. His heart started beating a little quickly. Opening his eyes and standing up, August decided that if he couldn't remember what had happened he could at least try to figure out where he was now. He saw the door in one of the walls, he thought that he'd look outside to see where the weird place he was in was. And also so that he could begin searching for a doctor immediately. He was starting to be worried. But before he could leave, August noticed something even weirder. He noticed that there were bits of red around the edges of his peripheral vision. He had been seeing the red all along of course, but he had been so surprised by his surroundings that he hadn't really started paying attention it until just then. He reached up and brushed it with his hand. When he did he realized that it was silk or something like it. Then something else that had been confusing him clicked in his mind, August wasn't wearing his swim suit anymore. He could feel the clothes clinging to his back because of how wet they were. The red was just part of whatever outfit that he was wearing at that point. When had changed his clothes?

August barely had time to begin wondering what that meant, when the door in the wall opened and a strange looking man walked in. He had dark skin and several scars over his clean shaven, handsome face. But that wasn't the strange part. The strange part was that he was wearing metal armor with an opened face helm and had a sheathed curved sword at his side.

"Huh…"

August said again as he was still unable to think of anything else. He had reached the point at which he had absolutely no clue what was going on anymore. The man seemed confused as well. He stopped, stared at August in shock and his mouth opened into a wide 'o' shape. He stammered out something unintelligible before managing to say a complete sentence.

"So, it is true then?"

"What's true then?" August asked him. August's voice sounded weird, but that might be because of… he had no idea what could be wrong with his voice. "I have no clue what's going on."

"Are you the one that was spoken about?" The man's eyes were wide with awe and surprise. August was starting to be creeped out (especially because the
apparently crazy man had a sword).

"How should I know? I have no idea how I even got here."

The man nodded his head then gave a quick trembling bow.

"Yes, that's just what I had thought that you would say. I must go for a moment, I will be right back, please stay here."

The man left through the door that he had came through. That left August to wonder about all of the nonsensical things that were happening that day. Why did his voice sound much different then it had last time he had spoken? And thinking about that made him start to think about how he had gotten changed into a new outfit without remembering it. August reached up to his face and figured out that he was wearing some sort of head wrap that covered his head all around except over his eyes. He was also wearing a veil of all things that covered his face and was wrapped around the back of his head. August reached into his head dress and felt around the back of it causing him to realize something that was strange even by the current day's standards. His hair, which had been short that morning, was very long but was all contained in his outfit. His hair currently reached down to about the bottom of his shoulder blades. That was so surprising that his mind went blank for a moment. It was the first thing that he had experienced that wasn't just surprising but completely impossible.

Am I dreaming? As soon as that thought entered his head, August started to feel much calmer. He realized that he had been on the verge of panic before then. But as soon as he thought about the possibility that he could just be in the middle of a dream, he started to feel a lot better and the panic left him. August took in a few deep breaths and exhaled to calm himself down. He remembered a dream he had several years ago before he had taken an important test. He had dreamed that he had missed the test. That freaked him out, but then he had thought to himself 'this is so stupid, I must be dreaming' and sure enough that was the case. August thought that it must also be what was going. He was simply in the middle of a rather realistic dream. August looked down and saw that in the dream he was wearing a featureless long sleeved red outfit that completely covered his body except for his hands. It jutted out in a weird way that seemed very seemed to August. It took his addled brain a few seconds to work out that what he was looking at were breasts. Feeling embarrassed, August poked his chest and, sure enough, he now had breasts. It had taken him a while to notice because their shape was obscured by the loose fitting red outfit he was wearing. He had noticed a strange weight on his chest when he had stood up earlier. Feeling nervous, even though he was pretty confident that he was dreaming August did a quick check of his genitals that confirmed what he had suspected. He had somehow become a she. August laughed a little when she figured that out. This wasn't the first time that she had a dream like that.

Suddenly the door opened again, and a crowd of people walked in. The man with the sword from earlier was with them and there were a few other armored figures as well along with about half a dozen women each of whom wore a red or teal outfit that completely covered their bodies except for their hands along with a veil obscuring there faces except for the eyes. August was apparently wearing the same thing as they were. Everyone of the gathered crowd seemed shocked and stared with wide eyes at August. August wasn't sure why since she seamed to look not much different then any of the gathered women. but then again it was all (hopefully) a dream so she didn't expect anything to make sense. Was she dreaming? It didn't feel like a dream to her, but it didn't feel anything like real life either.

"So it is true?" one of the women in a teal outfit said. "She is here now?"

"Is the sorceress coming?" someone else asked from the back of the crowd asked.

"She'll be here soon." The man with the sword from earlier said.

"High everybody." August said interrupting them. They all became dead silent. "Um… one question. Is this all just a dream? Because I'm pretty sure I'm just dreaming right now." Usually when August asked, the people in her dreams were very open about the fact that she was dreaming. So she assumed that the same would be the case this time.

"I don't think so." The man with the sword she had seen earlier that day said. "This all seems real to me. And besides, if you are dreaming then what does that make me? Anyway, the sorceress is coming to speak with you. She can explain it all better then I can."

August was about to say something else, but then the crowd parted and a woman, presumably the Sorceress walked into the courtyard. She had dark skin like everyone else that August had seen so far, but otherwise looked much different from the other gathered women. Unlike everyone else, most of her body was uncovered. She wore what looked pretty much like a bikini except made of some sort of gold material and with a golden veil over her face. She was barefoot and had several golden anklets on her left ankle and had a golden headdress of some sort over her long brown hair. She also wore a small silver ring on her left hand. She seemed to be in her late forties (though it was hard to tell exactly since August could only see her eyes and forehead) and was rather overweight. August stammered when the sorceress walked in and couldn't manage to say anything coherent.

"Ah yes, you have arrived," the Sorceress said as she walked forward "I suppose I must introduce myself, I am Nalsa the Sorceress of this kingdom. May I have your name?"

"I'm uh… um. August. My name is August. Um… are you guys sure that this whole thing isn't just a weird dream?"

As far as August was concerned that was the only way that any of this could make the least amount of sense. On the other hand it felt too real to be a dream. But on the other other hand dreams rarely felt unreal when she was having them.

"No, this is no dream Aguste." Nalsa said. "And I'm glad that it is not because now that you're here there is hope for our land after all."

"Huh?"

"As you must already know Termagant is in danger and you are destined to save it Aguste. Before you meet the Sultan would you mind a test of your strength?" August scratched her head in confusion.

"Um… I guess so. I'm still thinking that this has got to be a dream."

Nalsa laughed and then she gently tapped the ring she was wearing on one of her fingers. There was a bright flash of light and a human shaped mass of flame appeared in the air next to her. It gave off no smoke. That was the point at which August became confident that she was just dreaming.

"My djinn will carry us to the place where the test will begin." The sorceress explained. "My apologies for this, we just want to make sure that you're what the legends make you out to be before we begin. I'd hate for you to die in the fight if such a thing was unnecessary."

"Okay, but…"

The djinn grabbed the Sorceress with one arm and August with the other. It didn't seem to give off any heat. Then the djinn flew off, literally. August screamed in surprise as she looked down and saw that they were rapidly flying away from a city and into what looked like a sandy desert. After the initial shock passed though, she started to enjoy it. The experience of flying did remind her of a few other dreams that she had before. But the flight lasted only a few seconds before the djinn dumped them onto the desert's sandy floor before flying off again. A short time later it came back carrying the man with the sword and a women in a turquoise outfit. August stood up from where she had fallen and brushed sand off herself.

"Where are we now?"
August asked while looking around the desert in confusion.

"We are in the Great Desert near the ruins of the ancient Niatpieg civilization." The Sorceress explained "I'm surprised that you didn't know that already."

August looked and, sure enough, there were broken stone pieces of an ancient structure peaking out from the sand. Other then that the entire place was a barren wasteland for miles around. It was also hot and windy but the veil and headdress she was wearing helped to alleviate it.

"So what exactly is the test that you were talking about?" Since August had no clue what was going on anymore and believed that it was all just a dream, she had decided just to run with all of this and see what happened.

"As you are no doubt aware…"

"I have no clue what's going on here."

"Okay then… The Niatpieg were a very magically advanced civilization I wish for you to test your powers against one of their creations. A great War Sphinx" As soon as the Sorceress finished speaking the sand began to shake and move in golden waves as August felt a vibration from deep below.

"What is…" Her question was answered when a giant arm ending in a cat-like paw broke out of the desert's surface. It was made of rough stone and was covered in blue symbols that glowed with a soft light that was just barely visible under the bright sun. Then a massive head pushed itself out of the ground as well. It was human looking but made of stone and the left half off it was missing. The sphinx finally pulled itself all the way to the surface causing an avalanche of sand to fall from its body. It was a huge monster with a stone lion body, one wing (the other seamed to be missing) and it was covered all along its body with glowing blue writing.

"You… you want me to fight that thing?"

August took an involuntary step backwards.

"Relax," The Sorceress said with a laugh "I have put a spell on it to prevent it from harming anyone. Daeda, would you please demonstrate?"

"Certainly." The man with the sword said as he walked towards the sphinx with a smile on his face. He stood right next to the monster, and then with a loud sound like grinding stone it raised its arm and then crushed him with it's paw using a lightning fast movement that August could just barely see. Blood flew everywhere and splattered all over August and Nalsa. August screamed, fell backwards, keeled forward and got her veil off just in time in order to avoid getting vomit all over it as she puked onto the sand. If it was all just a dream then clearly it had become an outright nightmare.

"Well…" the Sorceress said. "I wasn't expecting that."

The sphinx turned to August and raised its arm for a moment, only to stop. August thought she saw surprise in the things one black marble eye as it looked at its arm. Then its arm snapped off and fell to the desert. The sphinx exploded in a massive burst that knocked August and the Sorceress back. Bits of stone were thrown everywhere (somehow missing the two of them) and the main body of the thing fell down as the light disappeared from the writing all over it. It crashed into the sound with a loud sound that shook the desert and it sent up a plume of sand into the air

"It's true!" The Sorceress said as she hastily got up to her feat. "You are the one!"

"What did I do?"

"You defeated the War Sphinx, we must go back to speak to the Sultan."

"I made the Sphinx explode?"

"Yes! Come on, we must be off at once. I have to report this to the Sultan. He will be delighted to hear about it"

The Djinn picked them back up and flew off again leaving the women in turquoise standing in the middle of the desert. This time as they were flying August saw that they were heading towards a palace that was located on top of a hill in the middle of a walled city. The palace was mostly made of tan stone, but was decorated with turrets and blue domes and was surrounded by a wall on all sides. The courtyard that August had woken up in was on the inside, connected to the outer wall. The djinn didn't stop there though. Instead it headed towards a dome shaped structure near the top of the palace and flew in through an open window. The Djinn dropped them off in a large chamber full of people before flying off through the window. August wiped her mouth and then hastily pushed her veil back up over her face. She didn't want to accidentally offend the sensibilities of whatever this place was. The room that she was in then was a massive rectangular chamber with a rug running down the middle of it and elaborate tapestries along the left and right walls. There were dozens of people in there, and guards carrying spears standing against the walls. At the front of the room was a golden throne that sat on top of a circular stone platform. Sitting on the throne was a man that August presumed was the Sultan. He was an old man with deep laugh lines and dark skin. He had a full beard and was wearing an ornate golden robe with a thin gold circlet on his head.

"It is true!" the Sorceress said taking a step towards him and giving a quick bow. "This woman really is the one that we have been waiting on."

"Are you sure about that?" August asked. "I still really don't get what is actually going on here."

The Sultan nodded his head and smiled.

"After all these years, who would have thought that it would happen? I had almost given up on hope. But now there is no reason for me to do so. I trust your word on this Nalsa, thank you."

August also took a step towards the Sultan and rather awkwardly bowed.

"Hello, could you please tell me what's going on here? I'm still very confused."

"After twenty years you've come!" the Sultan said as he stared into space. "I never thought that I would have seen it with my eyes. It appears that I will have a kingdom to give to our descendants after all. Termagant will not fall as long as… what is your name again good lady?"

"August?"

"Termagant will not fall as long as we have August here with us!"
Upon hearing this everyone in the room cheered and the guards all raised their swords into the air. That made August feel happy and confused at the same time.

"So um… what am I supposed to…"

August tried to say something, but the Sultan interrupted her.

"Even now the Rakshasa king, that vile demon, is laying siege to our fair city of Constant. The monster's army is made up of three thousand Rakshasa demons who are each as strong as a dozen normal men. That's the equivalent of an army of thirty-six thousand humans. He also has almost a hundred War Hellephants and his own squadron of personal guard each of whom is said to be as far above a Rakshasa demon as a Rakshasa demon is beyond a normal man. And of course, there is the Rakshasa king himself whose one eye paralyzes anyone who sees it."
Suddenly August's throat felt dry.

"So… you guys expect me to fight all of that…"

"We could not hope to defeat this monster on our own. As I need not tell you already three of our cities have been burnt to the ground, destroying much of our art and scientific knowledge along with thousands of lives." A single tear slid down the sultan's face as he spoke. "But now all that pain shall be avenged when August leads our army to victory."

August barely knew how to respond to that.

"Wait what?

"Tomorrow she shall take a contingent of five hundred of my best soldiers and twenty Djinn and will do battle against the Rakshasa King and his hordes."

Everyone except for August cheered after he said that.

"But tonight, she must rest and there will be a feast to celebrate our coming victory! Now, I beseech everyone to wait for a few hours because we didn't know that the Mighty One was coming today so we do not currently have a feast prepared for this event."

That seamed to be a que because when he said it one of the women wearing teal ran out of the room through a door in the back, presumably to get some people to work on the feast. The Sultan stood to his feet, it took him awhile as if standing up was an effort for him.

"One more thing needs to be done, there are some items that the Mighty One must be given so that she will have the edge against the Rakshasa King. Her own strength should be sufficient, but I believe that it is always better to overdo things then to underdo them."

The sultan tapped a ring on his right hand and three djinn appeared around him. They flew out through the windows and came back a few seconds later carrying things. The first carried a small pillow on which rested a tiny silver signet ring with the symbol of a crescent moon on it. The djinn presented the ring to August and, after hesitating for a second, she put it on her own finger.

"The signet ring will let you summon and command Moonbeam. She is the strongest djinn in Termagant's arsenal."

"Thank you." August said bowing to the Sultan again. "But I really don't see how I'm supposed to fight the army you want me to fight by myself."

The Sorceress laughed.

"After seeing you fight that War Sphinx I am confident that no power that the Rakshasa king can field will be enough to stop you."

"Yeah but…"

The second djinn flew over. In his hands he carried a long polearm that ended in a short curved sword blade.

"This is the Spear of Falling Stars." The Sultan said with reverence. "It was my father's own weapon and he used it to drive out the barbarian hordes from the west. It will serve you well August and will be the only weapon that you'll ever need."

August took the spear in her hand feeling more nervous by the second. She hadn't known that she was supposed to be fighting an army of demons. Though the fact that she was most likely dreaming did give her some comfort.

The final djinn came forward as the one who had brought the spear pulled back. The djinn held a platter on which sat…

"This is the armor worn by one of our heroes many years ago." The Sultan explained.

"That's not armor." August said. It looked a lot like what the Sorceress was wearing except maroon colored instead of gold. It was basically a bikini.

"It doesn't look like much, but the magic in it is powerful protection." The Sultan explained.

"Yeah, I'm not wearing that." August's cheeks turned a little red. It was a good thing that her face was veiled. Then she thought about it some more.

"Actually, I think that I can make this work. Thank you." She took the pieces of the 'armor' in her left hand and held the spear with her other.

"Now come on." The Sorceress said to her. "I'm going to take you to your room where you can stay for the time."

"She's not going to stay so that we can ask her some questions?" someone asked from somewhere in the room.

"There will be plenty of time for that during the feast tonight. Right now she needs some time to rest after her fight with the War Sphinx."

Hearing her mention the War Sphinx made August feel so ill that she felt almost like she'd throw up again. The sorceress started to walk away, and August followed her. They passed out of the room's door and down some steps that went to the left. The two of them continued through the massive interior of the palace for a while passing past several more people as they did so. Eventually they reached a door that the sorceress opened with a key that she then handed to August.

"We'll send someone for you when the feast is ready, get some rest please. Everyone is counting on you." August walked in through the door which was closed behind her. She stood in dead silence for several seconds.

"Woah."

August couldn't think of anything else to say. Nothing made sense anymore. August pinched her arm. She felt some pain but didn't wake up. August didn't know if she was dreaming or not or how long the dream could last. If she was dreaming, then it was the longest most complex and most realistic dream of all time. If she wasn't dreaming… August didn't even know what to think of what it would all mean if it was real. She started to wonder, what would her family be doing now if it was really happening. She would have been missing for a while by that point. That thought made August feel sick, but there really wasn't anything that she could do about it.

The room she was in was huge. There was a coach against one wall and a few dressers with drawers along the opposite one. August tried opening them, but they were all empty. The room didn't seem to have a bed in it, or a bathroom. August didn't need to go though, which was a relief. Lying against one wall was a mirror, which let August finally get a look at her appearance.

She had become a woman all right, she even had hips now. She was wearing the same outfit that every other woman except the Sorceress was wearing, it completely covered her body except for her hands and the area just around her eyes. August took off her veil and headdress and examined her reflection more closely. Her face looked different, it still had features of her normal face but had changed. She still had a wide nose and blue eyes, but her skin was darker, and her features were more round, soft and feminine looking. Her hair was very long, as she had noticed earlier, and was straighter then it used to be. It was a testament to how strange all of this was that her sex spontaneously reversing was comparatively tame compared to a lot of the things that had been happening that day. August poked her chest a few times. She really didn't know how to feel about any of it.

And thinking about it made her think about how she didn't know how to get back home which made her feel ill again. August would have been near to throwing up, except that there was nothing in her stomach because she had already thrown up earlier. She hadn't yet given up hope that I fact she was dreaming though. August tried pinching her arm a few more times, but it was still to no effect. When that didn't work she lied down on the coach and tried to close her eyes in the hopes that she could clear her mind from all the nonsense of that day. With any luck she would wake up back home…

…But that didn't happen. Instead August woke up back on the same coach a long time later. So long later that the sky outside of the room's open window was a dark blue. She was also feeling very hungry but she had heard that there was going to be a feast soon, so she was actually okay with that. Unfortunately, the fact that she had woken up there meant that she was either in a coma or that this was all really happening. August couldn't decide what option was worse. Not long after that, she heard a knock coming from her door. She got up and almost opened it before remembering something.

"Just a second."

After a minute of struggle, August managed to get her headdress back on in a rough approximation of the way it had been earlier and put her veil back over her face. August didn't care about it herself, but she did care that the people living in whatever the strange place she was in might care about it and she didn't want to risk offending anyone. After she finished that she opened the door. The Sorceress had been the one knocking.

"Glad to see your awake Aguste." She said. "The feast is almost ready now."

"That's uh… good. So do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

"Of course not."

August was surprised to get a clear answer for once.

"Okay, so let's start with the obvious. Why am I a girl now? That doesn't make any sense even given all of this."

The Sorceress laughed when August said that.

"Haven't you always been a girl? What kind of question is that. Now come on, we better get going."

She turned around and started walking down the hallway and August followed behind her.

"Okay." August said. "So I went to sleep on a beach and next thing I know I wake up in this place, I have no clue what's going on, my gender has been inverted, no one's explaining any of this to me and… so basically what I'm trying to say is that I don't know what's going on or what I should think about it. I'm honestly still holding out hope that soon I'll wake up and this whole thing will have been just one sick, twisted dream. But really after all this time I'm starting to think that's not really what's going on. This is real isn't it."

The Sorceress laughed again. August was starting to hate the sound of it.

"Of course, this is all real Aguste! How could it be anything else. And I'm glad it's all real to because as you can probably tell we'd be in rather dire straights without you."

"That's another thing though. Why do I have to be the one who saves uh… whatever you call this place again."

"You're the only one who can save this place. You're the only one that's strong enough to do so."

"But why?"

"Why not? You saw how you fared against that Sphinx."

"You're not being very helpful. Anyway, the way that Sultan guy had been talking about it makes it seem like a lot of people are going to get hurt or die or something along those lines. So, if that's true, then I can't really walk out of this. Whatever this is anyway. So that really means that I have to stay to see the end of this even if it kills me so really there's no point in going back even if I could go back. Which I can't because I don't even know why I'm here. So, what I think that I'm trying to say is that I think that I have to stay until the end, but after that I need to find a way to go home. Did that make any since or am I just rambling now? I might be legitimately insane at this point."

The Sorceress looked back at August seeming concerned. Even August was confused by what she had just said.

'Um… okay then. I think we've just about arrived. Maybe you'll start feeling better after you've eaten something. Hopefully."

They stepped from the hall that they had been in into a room with a table at the center of it. The table was covered with food of different types that for the most part August didn't recognize. Getting something to eat would be nice…

After she ate August had immediately returned to her room and gone back to sleep again. She slept on the coach because she still didn't know if there was an actual bed in there anywhere. So, when she woke up in the morning to see bright sunlight streaming in through the window she was feeling somewhat sore. August was once again disappointed to find that the whole thing had not turned out to be just a mad dream after all. She had no clue what to think about anything anymore. She felt rather ill and would have liked to stay in her room if she thought that she had a choice. Which she really didn't. August put on the 'armor' and then put the red clothes she had been wearing the previous day on over it. August picked up the spear, which had been lying next to her coach, and tried waving it around in a crude imitation of what she had seen in movies occasionally. The spear was strangely light, it barely seemed to weigh anything at all. She was fine with that because she had no training with weapons and had no idea how to even use the thing anyway.

August was feeling very nervous. She knew that everyone living in that place was convinced that she'd be able to save them from demons or whatever, but that didn't change the fact that she had no clue what she was actually supposed to do. So she just shrugged and walked out of her room. She walked down the hall holding her spear in her hand for a while and passed by some people all of whom smiled and cheered when she walked by. After wandering around aimlessly for what felt like a long time she finally bumped into the Sorceress.

"I was looking for you in your room." The Sorceress said. "We need to get to the roof."

"The roof?"

"Yes, the roof! Let's be off."

After that they both started walking through another series of twisting confusing passageways through the palace before finally reaching a set of stairs that led to a door that led to the roof which was painted blue and bathed in intense hot sunlight. August started sweating almost as soon as she got up there, she had thought that it was hot enough on the inside of the building, but on the outside it was much worse. And to make matters even worse it was crowded up there as well. The one hundred soldiers that the Sultan had mentioned the previous day and the Sultan himself were stationed on the roof. The Sultan sat on a short chair and the soldiers stood in ranks in attention holding spears in their hands and with bows on their backs. When August showed up the Sultan looked at her and nodded.

"I was wondering where you had went to. There's no time to wait and you all must leave soon. Even as we speak the Rakshasa King may have already began his assault.

"Quick question." August said. "What exactly do you expect me to do against this guy."

"Don't worry Mighty One. We are all confident that you will find something out just as the ancient legends have described."

"What legends? I'm still really confused here."

The Sultan was about to say something, but then one of the djinn picked August up and flew off. The Sultan shouted something after her, but she was flying up so fast that she didn't hear it. The djinn also picked up the Sorceress, carrying them up high over the city and then away from it. First, they passed over a region containing a massive river surrounded by fertile farmlands, but then they left that behind and entered a vast, windswept desert. The desert looked nearly empty except for...

"What's that in the desert?" The Sorceress said, though because of the sound of wind rushing passed them August could just barely hear. The djinn slowed to a stop and began hovering over a part of the desert where a small plume of smoke could be seen going up into the sky. The djinn flew down towards it and quickly reached the desert floor. What they found was a large herd of camels and people wearing long flowing robes. The camels were carrying lots of bags and what not so August assumed that they were a caravan of some sort or another. Also, several of the camels and people were dead, and one women was busy trying to pull an arrow out of the arm of a man who was lying on the sand groaning in pain.

"What happened to your caravan here?" the Sorceress asked, hearing that confirmed August's guess about how it was a caravan. One man holding a sword, who hadn't seen them fly down, jumped and turned around. But he seemed to recognize the Sorceress and when he saw her he had a wide grin on his face.
"I recognize you Nalsa." He said. "And I'm glad that you're here. We were attacked by bandits, they pulled back, but they seem to be returning judging by the fact that I can see them riding back over there in the distance." Far away across the sands, a dozen or so men on horseback were running towards the caravan while brandishing bows and swords. They didn't seem to be firing any arrows though, so August guessed that they might be out of those.

"Is there anything you can do about these men?" he asked the Sorceress. "And by the way, what's wrong with your friend?"

Seeing all the dead bodies and wounded people had made August feel queasy so she had to sit down on the sand and start breathing deeply.

"That's Auguste. And don't worry about her. In fact, I think that she might be able to solve your problem."

The Sorceress tapped her ring and the djinn picked her and August up and carried them up into the air. Then he put them back down right in front of the horde of bandits all of whom came to an abrupt stop. There was a twang as one of them, possibly accidentally, let an arrow loose, but the djinn grabbed the arrow out of the air before it could hit anyone.

"You have got to be…"

August tried to say but was interrupted by the Sorceress beginning to speak.

"Turn back now."
The bandits looked at each other, and then one who sat on a horse near the front of the group asked a question.

"Why?"

"Because if you don't I and Auguste here will kill you."

The bandits looked at each other in confusion and for a while there was no sound other then that of the wind blowing through the desert. But finally, the bandit who rode at the front of the group spoke up.

"And do you have any idea who it is that you are speaking with? I guess that I need to introduce myself. I am Vekkis Vellis. Most just call me Vekkis though. I am the leader of us band of desert bandit. I am the robber of thousands and slayer of hundreds."

"Yeah, so?"

"Maybe we should get going…"
August said. She didn't like the direction that this conversation was heading.

"Maybe a demonstration should be in order." Vekkis said. "Do you see that black vulture over there to my left?"

"Yes."

"Then witness this."

Vekkis pointed his bow to the left and looked to his right, He released the bow and the arrow flew through the air before striking the vulture dead and knocking it out of the sky.

"That was… not really impressive." The Sorceress said.

"I hit the vulture without even having to actually look at it."

"Yeah, but I've seen better."

Upon hearing that Vekkis put another arrow in his bow, pulled it back and shot at the Sorceress. But the djinn just grabbed the arrow out of the air again. That seemed to enrage Vekkis who kicked his horse forward and swung with his sword. He missed the Sorceress as she dodged backwards. The other bandits started riding forward as well and some of them started aiming with arrows. But then Vekkis tried to slash at August. She screamed and ducked back, but as soon as he did so he exploded in a massive burst that knocked August over. This caused the rest of the bandits to stop in their tracks with an equal mixture of surprise and horror on their faces. And then the Djinn attacked them, running forward and punching the first man in the face so that his head exploded into a shower of gore. The djinn moved insanely fast and ran threw the horde of bandits killing them with punches from its fists. August looked at it all in shock and disgust as the djinn finished off the last of the bandits.

"I knew that there would be nothing to worry about as long as you were here!" the Sorceress said as the djinn flew back over to them. "you did a great job with them."

"Thanks, but I'm not really sure what I did, or how I did it."

In the background she could hear the members of the caravan cheering.

"We need to get going now, but I'll make sure to send someone back to make sure that this caravan is okay."

The djinn picked them both off and began flying again. They passed over miles of similar looking desert.

"So we're going to fight the Rakjshatha king right?"

August asked while they were flying through the air.

"Yes, he has preyed on these lands for too long. With your aid we will no longer have to live in fear of him and our kingdom of Termagant will be free of his evil after so much waiting and fighting."

"That's great. So you're sure that I'll be able to beat this guy right."

August felt a little better after that… whatever it was that had happened involving the bandits, but she still felt nervous. She was sorely wishing that she had stayed at home instead of going swimming.

"Of course you will! You already proved your worth against the Sphinx and the bandits. I don't see any reason to think that you'll disappoint us after that. And furthermore, you have the Spear of Falling Stars now. It is said to be the greatest weapon in this entire kingdom. And besides, I will also be there to offer any assistance that I can if it is necessary, which it won't be."

"Okay, well thanks then. So, I do have another question though, do you know how I got here in the first place?"

"We found you in the pool in the garden remember? How could you forget that so fast? It happened literally just yesterday."

"I meant how did I end up in that pool in the first place?"

The Sorceress laughed.

"How should I know that? I wasn't there. Why don't you tell me?"

"Because I don't know, the last thing I remember was… is that the city?"

They were flying towards a walled city built next to a river. It was smaller then the capital city that they had just left and built on level ground instead of a hill top, but it still looked impressive. It was made all of tan colored stone and was surrounded by farmlands. The farmlands were burning.

"That's Constant. It looks like the Rakshasa king is already attacking. We need to get down there right now."

The djinn swooped down and placed them on top of the city walls where the one hundred men that August had seen earlier that morning were standing.

"What took you both so long?" one of them asked.

"Sorry, we got distracted with bandits. Is there anything we missed?"

While the soldiers and the Sorceress were talking, August walked up to the side of the wall and looked down. She saw that in the middle of the burned field was a massive sea of tents that were each the color of blood. Figures were walking through the group of tents, but they were so far away that August couldn't accurately make out any details about them. Except for that they all seemed to have four arms each. Worse yet, a horde of giant monsters were approaching the city walls.

"Are those the hellephants?" August asked.

"Yes."

The hellephants were monsters that looked much like elephants except three times too big and with skin that was salamander smooth instead of rough and leathery. And they each had a long forked tail that ended in two wicked looking clubs and their bodies were longer then an elephant's with eight legs each of which ended in a twisted bird-like claw and they each had two eyeless bird heads at the end of two long necks and smoke came from their nostrils and each of them had a dour four-armed black furred tiger headed man riding on top of them. That pretty much proved that the whole thing was a nightmare if it really was a dream. Though at that point August was starting to think that all of it was somehow real. The hellephants approached the walls and soldiers from along its perimeter shot arrows at them. The arrows stuck shallowly in the monster's slimy skin and they responded by breathing out great gouts of flame that licked at the top of the walls.

"This could be bad." The Sorceress said. "Let's fly down to fight the Rakshasa King himself while the rest of the soldiers keep these archers occupied. That's what one of the heroes in the old stories would do."

"Um… Okay."

August's heart was beating at an increased rate and her throat was feeling very dry, but she went along with it anyway because she didn't know what else to do. The djinn picked them up and flew them over to the perimeter of the tents and placed them down on the ground in front of them. August could smell smoke. The djinn had just put them on the ground, when suddenly another djinn, this one made of blue flame instead of the natural looking fire of the first, slammed into it and knocked it away from them causing it to slam into the ground hard enough to send a plume of dust up into the air. The blue djinn turned around and looked at the Sorceress and August, but the Sorceress just sighed and grabbed it on the shoulder. She squeezed, and her hand ripped through the djinn as easily as through wet tissue paper. The blue djinn exploded scattering sparks everywhere. August had been so surprised that she wasn't even able to speak, when she looked and saw that a group of monsters were walking towards them from the direction of the blood red tents.

The monsters looked like men, but were covered in black fur, had tiger heads and possessed four arms each along with being seven to eight feat tall. They all carried an array of brutal looking swords and other weapons, and there were around a hundred of them. The one at the front was even taller then the rest and had only a single eye in his horrifically scarred face. He was wearing several rings on his fingers, but as August watched one of the rings corroded and broke apart before falling off his finger.

"Ah, so at last you show yourself Nalsa." He said. August caught a glimpse of the gaze from his bright yellow eye. Her muscles seemed to lock up for a moment, but then it passed. "Why is it that you have come here? Surely you must know that not even you can defeat all of us."

"Your right, I can't but she can." The Sorceress pointed at August who was trying very hard to avoid wetting herself or fleeing in a panic. She leveled her spear at the tiger headed monster, but really didn't know how much good it would do.

"And you are?" he asked her.

"I'm uh… Auguste. I think. Who are you?"

"I am the Rashasa King."

"Okay, but your name is?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you really just called the Rakshasa king?"

"Yes."

"Oh, okay then."

"You do not seem very strong girl." He said with a horrid grin that showed a mouth full of double rows of sharp teeth. "I actually would be surprised if there wasn't one man in my army who could not kill you on his own. But I suppose that if you must stand against me I should give you the honor of telling you more about myself before I kill you. I am the great demon king who rules over the Rakshasa tribes. I am the bane of this land and its destroyer. For thirty years I have pillaged and ruined this place and you certainly won't stop me on this day. Before you challenged me thousands have tried, including this lands former ruler, and they all fell to me. My might transcends all your kind! Three mighty cities have I already destroyed and their people I have slain with my own hand and the hands of those who are with me. If you stand against me you will perish just as they and all their defenders did. For no member of your weak kind can hope to stand against a demon such as I! Turn back now and I'll let you live until later today when I destroy this city with fire."

"Well okay then," August said while she considered her options. "That really doesn't sound like that much of a better deal." If August was going to die she at least intended to die fighting. "I guess that I have no choice but to fight you in that case."

"Then you will die at this very moment."

The Rakshasa King leveled all four of his swords and ran at August while laughing. But then he exploded sending blood flying everywhere. August could feel the heat of the explosion from where she was standing, and she was momentarily blinded by the light. The other monsters stopped in surprise before they roared and rushed at her and the Sorceress. The first few monsters exploded. And then the ones behind them did as well. Soon the landscape was filled with the sound of dozens of loud explosions and August had to put her hands over her ears because the sound was so loud. When the smoke cleared all of the demons were dead leaving only a burnt-out crater wracked field stretching for hundreds of feat in front of her. Augusts ears were ringing. Ffrom the tents beyond them even more Rakshasa came out probably attracted by the noise. There was a vast horde of them, likely a few thousand strong. They saw the field full of craters, and then began rushing towards the city brandishing weapons in the air. Starting to feel annoyed, August stepped forward and swung at them with her spear. Several small meteors fell from the sky and wiped out the entire army in a single volley. The Sorceress was so happy that she hugged August briefly before letting go.

"See! You did it! There was never anything to worry about. I had known that you'd pull it off. And look, it appears that the soldiers finished off the hellephants!"
August turned around and, sure enough, the hellaphants had all been killed by concentrated archer fire.

"I guess that's all then." The Sorceress said as she sat down on the smoking field. "Strange, I can't believe that after all of this time it's finally over. We should probably get back to the palace now that the battle is over. There's is something that the Sultan wishes to speak to you about."

The Sorceress tapped her ring and another djinn appeared. This one appeared to be female. It picked them up and flew them over the burning fields and the dead monsters towards the palace that they had been at earlier. They landed on the roof of the palace where the Sultan was still siting in his chair and staring at the sun.

"So it is true, you have defeated the Rakshasa king?" he asked not turning away from the sky.

"He is no more." The Sorceress said. "August slew him and his army just as I knew that she would." The Sultan turned towards them and smiled, but there was also a single tear on his cheek.

"Opposing the Rakshasa King has been my only goal ever since he killed my father in the same battle in which my father took out his right eye. Now that he is gone I have nothing else to do with my rule and I am increasing in age rapidly anyway. This kingdom owes you a great debt, August, you have singlehandedly saved Termagant and ensured that there will be a future for our people. Friend, I never intended to continue my reign after the monster was defeated. Would you be willing to reign as Sultaness in my place?"

August thought about it. She still wanted to find a way to get home (assuming once again that she wasn't dreaming), but that still seamed like a nice deal. And it would give her more opportunities to find a way back.

"Um… sure I guess. Thanks!"

The Sorceress hugged August again and the Sultan stood to his feat and bowed to her. It could have been a lot worse all things considered.

The end

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] The Princess and the Student

Genre: Fantasy, Kidnap, Politics

Part One: Returning Home

When you look at it from the air, Naha is a giant donut. A great expanse of midrise cityscape surrounding the long, unsafe runways of the base USAF base. I watched it resolve out of distance, from a window midway down a slim commercial airliner that reminded me of a flying cigar. As the plane came down, I saw the brightness of the bay and the way the July sun caught the bay and found myself, for the first time in two weeks, feeling a sense of contentment. It was strange. I'd done so much to try to get out of Naha, to go to the bright lights and gleaming towers of Tokyo, and now I was back and feeling content.

Maybe it was the weather. I've always had difficulty feeling anxious when it's sunny. It was gorgeous in Okinawa that July. When we landed and got out into the boarding tube fancied I could smell the sea. I couldn't, but I would when I got outside. Maybe it had been the unseasonably bad weather of Tokyo that had finally brought the overextended disaster that had my relationship of two years had become to a head. Or maybe Tokyo itself had just started to feel too familiar. Had started to become another lace I lived, another prison.

Maybe I was wrong about the sun. Maybe it didn't make me feel better at all.

My mother met me at the exit gate. She was about as I remembered her, short, elegant and beaming up at me from under short pixie cut hair. I'm always a bit jealous of my mum, as I'm honestly rather too tall. "Sakura!" she hugged me. "Did you have a good flight? You didn't get too wet on the way from the airport?"

"It was fine Mum." I smiled at her and hefted my bag. "How's Dad and my sister?"

"Both, unfortunately, out of town. Your Dad has business, your sister is apparently delayed by something with that fighter pilot of hers. So, it's just the two of us."

"It's fine. Thanks for paying for my ticket." I had only a small bag, my laptop, and some clothes. Most of my stuff was just here. "And thanks for meeting me."

"It's no problem." She looked around, deciding on the best direction out of the airport. "So, tell me all about this idiot thug who used to be your boyfriend." The glass of the airport terminal let in clouds of brightness. It was tourist season, and the whole place seemed packed full, every bench and surface playing host to people from everywhere. I wondered who they were, entertained, as I did every so often, the fantasy of talking to them, of finding out about their lives.

I paused, unsure. Trying to think how to say what was inside me.

"You don't have to say anything if you don't want too, but I think you do."

"He was keeping secrets." I looked up at the bright windows of the terminal, the aircraft passing across it. "I don't really know what they were, but he was."

"How did you find out?"

"I phoned him at the campus and he told me he wasn't there but then I saw him. That was the when it started. And I guess I started to notice things. There was a ticket stub in his recycling to a concert. Usually, we'd have both gone to something like that. And there were just… dead times, when he would say he was meeting me, and then he wouldn't or say he couldn't but there wasn't a reason for it."

"Oh Sakura." She squeezed me.

"Did I do the right thing? It might have been nothing. He told me it was."

She shook her head. "Just because someone tells you they're a good person, doesn't mean they are. You're better off without him." Her expression turned sly. "Besides, if you want a replacement, this is a perfect time. The beaches are full of tall foreign men this season."

"Mother!" I laughed, performatively scandalized in the way that daughters must always be by their mothers, feeling my tension broken as we stepped onto the monorail platform. As with any airport, there were people from all over the world here. Indians and Chinese and Europeans and South Americans. By far the majority though, apart from locals were American service people and their families, some in uniform. "How are Dad and Sis?"

"Out of town. Your Father is on "business" again, by which I mean he's off in Tokyo playing gulf and complaining about the weather. Your Sister is somewhere in America, sending me pictures of her and her Air Force Captain." My mother grinned again. "Of course, there are upsides, your sister having a girlfriend gives me something to scandalize Mrs. Yamagusuku next door with."

I laughed again, realizing just how much I'd missed her.

The monorail swept into the station and the doors opened. I pushed my case's handle down and picked it up, and in the moment of standing up, someone passed me. Long black hair and blue eyes. Tall and perhaps a little inelegant.

I stepped into the train and looked back out but all I saw outside was my reflection, looking back at me with puzzlement, then a strange, building rage.

#

Below the monorail, there were military vehicles on the street. It's funny what university does to you. I would never have thought I'd be someone who would recognize the types of US military vehicles. However, now after of an exchange program in America, and in various international security modules I'd looked through enough military publicans to recognize these and find them strange.

The armored carriers were eight-wheeled, thickly armored looking things, that you could mistake for marine LAVs or JSDF type 96s. Turret placement and general look told me that they were Stryker dragoons, with an old MGS in support. While the guns were carefully pointed upwards, I couldn't help notice that the troops riding in the air guard hatches were in full war gear, with helmets, not caps.

It was unusual, but not unheard of to see military vehicles nosing down the streets of Naha, but it was unusual to see so many, and I hadn't heard there was a Stryker unit in residence.

"What are they doing down there?"

"They're rolling around the city a lot recently, them and the JGSDF." My mother said, following my gaze. "A lot of people don't like it. They're saying it's an anti-terrorism exercise."

Anti-commando more like. Chinese or North Korean special-forces assault on US facilities in Japan was one of the scenarios you almost always found mentioned in US publications. "It's murder on the traffic. Everyone is riled up."

I nodded and looked around again. From as high up as the monorail was here, you had a good view, and there seemed to be a surprising amount of military activity: helicopters and Ospreys, the Strykers down on the street. As we went on I saw a number of police with submachine guns and full tactical gear talking with a group of US Marines standing next to a pair of Humvees, passers-by staring, annoyed, or ostentatiously pretending not to notice.

"We're getting off at the next stop. We need to buy some stuff for dinner."

"You're still using that convenience store?"

"The owner is a very handsome man, and my husband neglects me."

"You're terrible."

The car swung into the station and we stepped out of the doors. The heat hit me immediately and uncomfortably. I really felt for the JSDF and US marine platoons drawn up on either side of the street in their fighting vehicles on the street, the amphibious fighting vehicles must have been uncomfortably hot inside. Oroku Station hadn't changed much, nor had the mall connected to it.

There was the coffee shop I'd hung out in with my high school friends, the convenience store where I'd brought manga. My mother steered me towards it, picking up a basket. I looked over at the manga racks. "Are you still reading those magazines?"

"Some different ones. I guess I've grown up."

"I'll treat you to some if they have any that aren't in Tokyo yet."

"You don't have to Mum. I can buy my own manga."

"You're looking after your lonely old mother disserted by the rest of her family. I'll reward you."

I pushed my hair back, a bit embarrassed, but went over to the rack as she started to pack food into the basket. This was really too much nostalgia. I reached down for the rack and had my hand on a copy of LaLa the world fell in around me.

I was on my knees, my ears filled with a terrible ringing. There was glass everywhere, fallen all around me, small sharp flakes on my clothes and against my skin. Customers screaming silently at me. The lights had flickered and gone out, leaving only the intense sunlight pouring in through the now shattered windows of the food court.

I looked up at them and saw a fighter aircraft falling out of the sky, a comet of fire pouring from its after section. It passed the building and there was a bright, distant explosion.

"Mum!" I couldn't even hear myself screaming through the awful sound in my ears. I was afraid, deep down terrified I'd been hit by the glass and hadn't yet felt it. I tried to fight it down, had to look for her. I crawled across the glass-strewn floor.

I looked for her, crawling across the glass-strewn floor. She was in the food aisle, looking confused and scared but not hurt. My ears were starting to clear and I heard her calling my name.

"I'm alright! I'm alright." I hugged her, crying.

Outside there was another crashing sound. One of the American armored vehicles reversed back into the mall's lobby, shattering the doors and sending people scattering out of its path. The whole vehicle was scorched, one track threw, its grey paint bubbled and blackened all across one side. It crashed into a clothes shop and the ramp fell, marines stumbling out, smoke belching out of the troop compartment.

They gestured to one another, their leader pointing at the door. Guns were pointed and they spread out, finding cover. Some ran up to the floor we were on, sheltering behind the pillar outside.

When the knight entered, they gave her a fusillade of fire. She was tall, her whole body clad in the armour of silver and blue except for her head and flowing hair the color of the bay. In one hand she had a long glaive, which hovered, almost but not quite held in her hand. Across her shoulders, a sword dripped green fire. A halo of knives spun around her as she walked, gait seeming almost jaunty. The marines fired, rifle and machine gun rounds, even a rocket. She wasn't there when they impacted, instead reappearing in a series of flickering instants, each one leaving one of the Americans cut or impaled.

She made a mistake on the second floor, appearing by one marine and stabbing the glaive through him into the pillar. His partner, a heavy set African American man turned, screamed and fired at her on fully automatic as her weapon was trapped. Bullets sprayed and sparked across her armor without expression, but though most deflected impossibly around her face, one hit home, opening up a long bloody wound. The knight swung around, the scar closing up and leveled the sword at him. The marine dropped his rifle and went for his pistol, then green fire tore down the blade and sent him flying backward, cored out.

The knight pulled the glaive free and looked at the cowering civilians around her, pleased. It was only when she saw me that her expression changed. She gasped, prostrated herself, head pressing to the ground.

I must not have reacted in the way she wanted, because she raised her eyes, and an expression of anger and a peculiar exaltation came over her face. She stood again, laughed, and raised the green fire sword to point at me.

I did the only thing I could do, screamed and covered my head. For a moment I saw the Knight's eyes flick to the side.

Another figure flashed in from above her, silver-armored but wearing a full mask helm. He, I was sure it was he from his silhouette smashed a long, heavy lance into the spot where she'd been as she vanished back. She spoke, saying something in a language I didn't know, then swung her sword up and sprayed a line of green fire at him. The lance spun, parrying it away each bolt.

She snarled, cursed him in words I didn't understand and attacked again, glaive and sword swinging together in perfect, too fast arcs. The other knight met her every blow, knocking them aside, seeming just about able to keep up with her attack with the most frantic defense. At last, he knocked the glaive aside, overextended slightly. The knight jumped back to give her sword room, blade leveled.

Another figure stepped out of the shadows behind her and there was a sudden flash of green fire.

#
I woke up on an overwhelmingly large, incredibly comfortable bed. Above me, the ceiling was an unfamiliar, intricate mosaic, sprays and waves of reds and blues and greens and yellows curling around solid squares of white and black, seeming as if the wind around city towers had been rendered in color and abstraction. Below the abstract ceiling, the room was an intricately painted forest scene, and for a moment, despite the stylization of the art, and the window on one side, I was convinced that this was some strange forest, and I was inside an open-air pavilion.

None of it had the slightest commonality with anything I'd ever seen before.

I sat up and looked myself over. Nothing hurt. Nothing even ached. I felt, incredibly, strangely good. It took me a moment to realize that this was the feeling of perfect health. That the slight congestion of my nose I'd had since Tokyo, the slight twinge and stiffness in my back from bad posture, the scar on the right leg that I always hid with socks, even during the summer. They were all gone. My eyes and my ears worked better. I hadn't even been aware of how unclear my view of the world had been.

Also, I was naked. That was mostly an afterthought. This situation was too strange for me to really care about modesty. I wrapped the bedsheets around myself and walked to the window. It was a single sheet of glass, covering one entire wall, perfectly clear and finished. Outside, there was a city.

Great buildings, platinum and glass bells far larger than any skyscraper I'd ever seen rose in long, ordered roads beside tree-lined streets and huge, elevated parks in giant bowls of the same shiny material. Bronze tracks and sky rails linked between the buildings, pods rocketing along them.

Above, in the sky and attached to some buildings there were huge aircraft, long, fat cigar shapes that hung at their docks without apparent lift mechanism.

I was in another world.

That was when the door opened. It was carefully concealed in one wall, hinging open with a click as I looked around. The man standing there was tall and had the same long aqua hair and unworried beauty as the knight. Unlike the knight, he wore not armor but a black outfit that combined robe and bodysuit. I wrapped the sheet tighter and he politely averted his eyes. "Ah, Glory, you are up."

"You're calling me Glory. I am a Royal?"

"A good joke Mistress. You are of course the first Princess Satsari of Bethran, the unquestioned ruler of an empire of one hundred worlds."

"Of course I am."

"Shall I have you dressed Mistress? Then perhaps we can discuss things."

"Please."

He nodded, withdrew through the door, closing it. I paused and then slapped the sides of my face hard. I didn't entertain the idea that I was dreaming or similar notions. I know what being awake feels like and it doesn't feel anything like being in a dream. But if this wasn't a dream, that meant there could be real consequences. I needed to get my head in the game.

Two women entered, both blond, Western European and smiling. They dressed me in a flare sleeved dress of soft, black and white material that seemed not to be actually silk and a succession of bright jewelry. Makeup was applied, and I was ceremoniously crowned with a small golden circle with long points. Thus equipped, the servants showed me down into a covered balcony that seemed made out of a bubble of glass, decorative bracing climbing up the inside, gold and intergrown with vines and floors. There, the man waited for me, seated next to a cloth-covered table holding a golden standard of cakes and snacks, and a large insulated vessel that smelled of some kind of spiced coffee. As I looked at it, I realized I was very hungry. Beyond the glass, air traffic moved in great profusion, lines of great skyships coming in over the ocean. I blinked, realizing suddenly the familiar shape of the bay.

I was in another world, but I hadn't moved very far.

He stood as I entered, bowed slightly and resumed his seat only when I did. He seemed to be waiting for me to speak, but I didn't, let him back the first move.

"You're probably wondering what happened. How you came to be here?"

"You're the same people who attacked Okinawa. I'm wondering who exactly you are?"

"My name is Alshas, In a way, so are you." He poured me coffee. "In a very real sense, you are the one who led the attack. You are Princess Satsari. The version of her born on your home world."

"That's…" I looked at him. "A little absurd. How could the same person be born on two different worlds with what must be very different histories?"

"Chance perhaps. The law of very large numbers. There are very many worlds and very much chance for such a coincidence. In truth, we have altered you slightly, with our arts, to resemble the Tyrant more closely. We wish you to pretend to be her you see. To rule instead of her, so no one knows what we did."

"The knight who found me was going to kill me."

"The Knight? Oh, the royal guard, of course. Your very existence is a danger to someone like Satsari, and one of her loyal women would, of course, be well rewarded for your slaying. It is fortunate that I was able to find you in time, to save your life."

"Were you the one who saved me?"

"I had that honor."

I took one of the snacks off the table, some kind of creation of cheese and meat, and began to eat it slowly. It was of course, delicious. Better when I washed it down with coffee. I ate another, then a third, knowing it wasn't good to eat this much but not caring, the situation too strange to bother with. I seemed to have an endless hunger. Was it the changes they'd made to me? This strange feeling of perfect health? Or was I just using food to give myself more time to think how to ask the question I needed to ask?

Finally, I just asked it directly. "What the hell is going on? What is this Bethran? Who are you? Who do you serve? What do you even want me to do?" I ran down slightly, looking at him, feeling my own worry pulse in my stomach, "and, what happened to my Mother?"

"She is alive, and in our care. You understand that the presence of the last queen, who Satsari killed to make her ascension, would undo our scheme immediately. The invasion of your world would resume. We Bethran are a mighty empire, as you can see outside. We have plumbed the arts which your people believe to exist only in stories. Magic. Thaumaturgy. The ways of dealing with gods and demons. The power to break through from one world to another." He looked at me seriously. "We are an empire of conquerors. Great in art and in power, but ruled by a tyrant queen, whose heart goes out to the joy of conquest. I serve a number of interests. Noble houses, merchants, those skilled in magic and priests of divine power. We wish to overturn the Tyranny of absolutism, to have a system where the best rule society, not those of ancient blood."

"And what happens if I refuse? Ask you to send me home." To whatever ashes my home might be in.

"I would hope you would not, and if you did, then the invasion of your homeworld would certainly resume, and you would be conquered. Tell me, do you believe that you could stand against us? You witnessed the power of a single royal guard.

I thought about it, then shook my head. "What happened at my home?"

"Somehow, your people learned of our intentions and dispatched forces to attack the scouts, including her Satsari. The Royal Guard counter-attacked. I extracted you, and then, as the First Princess was returning, my confederates destabilized the gate. She was killed in the collapse of the portal."

I finished the coffee and put my cup on the table. "It seems like I don't have a great deal of choice. I'm not that good at acting though."

"My art will let you act as she did, all you need to do is say the words that I put into your head."

Part two: The demon in the mirror

After the interview, I was taken back to the royal chambers. "It isn't unusual for the Princess to spend a long time alone in her rooms. You should avoid contact with other people, who might notice that you're different." Alshas told me before we left the balcony.

"But… I won't be able to do that forever."

"Don't worry, you won't need to. Only for as long as it will take us to put things in place to take power officially. I glanced at him but kept my thoughts to myself. "This way, I'll walk you." He led me down some steps to an elevator which fell, seemingly forever, to someplace deep in the earth. "The Princess's rooms are traditionally at the lowest level of the palace. Closest to the Earth, which is the source of all strength, and the best defended in the event of an attack."

I nodded, accepting this explanation, as strange as it seemed to my sensibilities. "There's one thing I was wondering, what exactly is your position in the court?"

"I am the Princess's Castellan. It is one of the few positions that require blood or money, and the Princess distrusted it, but it wouldn't be surprising to see us meeting in private. We did so regularly."

"You were lovers?" I guessed.

"On occasion. Most men of the court as handsome caught the Princess's favor at one point or another." He took the question with the same lack of emotion he seemed to take everything.

"I see." I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with that, so I let him lead me along the painted corridors to another artful wooden door, this one banded with metal in patterns that seemed decorative, but also thick enough to reinforce it.

"I can go no further. The wards prevent anyone but a member of the blood royal from entering her sanctum. You need only touch the plate here to enter. I will call you when the first council meeting takes place." I put my hand on the plate and the doors swung open. Inside there seemed to be only darkness. I stepped through it, into a set of rooms whose color and opulence dwarfed anything I had seen before.

Rather than merely painted, every wall was decorated with elaborate silk hangings that fluttered as if in unseen breezes, giving the impression of being outdoors, in a friendly forest or garden. Both floor and ceiling were inlaid with artful patterns, with waves of color that suggested sky and ground, as if I walked, a colossus, across the whole world.

And this was just the entry chamber. Doors led off on all sides. A lonely palace within a palace. I walked around, finding a room full of war gear of diverse sorts, gold and silver armor, swords and glaives like the ones I'd seen but also guns, spears, and other devices I couldn't really fathom. There was a cavernous vault of books extending into the distance in the way I'd only seen from national libraries before, a sitting room, a bedroom, what might have been an office, a giant swimming pool painted so it seemed to be a distant lagoon in such realism I wasn't sure if I could swim out and make my escape through the gap out to open sea.

Finally, at the end of the corridor was a large but bear room, its floor decorated with strange geometric designs like nothing I'd seen previously here, with a mirror at one end.

In the mirror, standing across from me was the reflection of a man.

He was quite as attractive as Althsas, with perhaps a similar long-haired beauty, but a wholly different cast. If Althsas was stern, smiling only on occasions, this man wore a smile which promised… quite a lot. Small horns extended through his red hair.

"Ah. So you've returned." He said, then laughed suddenly. "Or, no, you have not. Oh ho! The Princess will be so mad."

"She's dead." I kept at the edge of the designs.

"Dead? No. I would know if she had been slain. Who told you that?"

"Who, and what are you?"

"Ah. I am the Empress's Demon." He walked forward, till the width of characters separated us. "Her lover and confidant. My name is… well, I'll let you find that out for yourself."

"Fine." I turned back towards the door.

"Leaving so soon? Did your people have some myth you should not talk to demons?"

"Yes actually."

"Yet, I suspect, as you're here, you're willing to go along with a conspiracy you know nothing about. I bet they haven't even told you how the royal line kept its power have they?"

I shut the door on him and went to the library.

Part Three: The Throne of Black and White

The throne room of Bethran was both just as I had expected, and nothing like it. I sat at one end of a vast space, waves of color like those on the ceiling of my chambers radiating out from me towards the far ends as if I was the center of some rainbow. The vast chamber was almost empty, with only a half-dozen people standing around it. When I'd asked Alshas, had told him that on my Earth the monarch's private meetings were conducted in smaller, more reasonable meeting rooms he'd laughed. "So primitive. The First Princess can hear her advisors from any distance thanks to the throne and see their faces up close. In turn, they must regard her at a distance, and guess at her reactions. That gives her an advantage." He'd handed me a small silver coin. "Keep this with you, it will allow you to act just like the Princess would. I will be feeding answers into your ear through it."

"What kind of issues will I encounter?"

"For this meeting, it's best you just go along with what I say."

And now here I was, sat in the cushioned comfort of the Imperial throne, its gleaming top, made out of pure diamond rising up behind me. White and black, apparently, were the royal colors. Of the five in the room, three were women, two men, all kneeling, both knees down, on cushions. The women were another of the warriors, dressed in silver armour and with her weapons holstered, an older lady in the same kind of robe suit I'd seen Alshas wear, and a young woman of my own age with long dark hair and blue skin whose figure was shown off by an outfit that mostly consisted of jewels. The men were less flashy, both older, one a handsome actor type, the other an enormously bearded sage. I sat, legs stretched out, watched them.

"Your Glory." The silver armored woman said. "I am glad to see that you are fully recovered from your injury. We stand ready to burn that world to ash for its impudence."

"Your loyalty and willingness to fight for me is welcomed General, however, for now, the invasion will remain on hold." I felt Alshas speak through me, felt like I could override him, but didn't."

"But, Glory, surely the insult cannot go unavenged."

"My injury is of little note next to that done to my guard, and the units of the imperial army that accompanied them. I will not lightly spend your lives against an enemy of unknown power Thesra. You are too precious to me for that. Until we learn how such primitives knew of our coming, and how they were able to collapse the gate, we will seek other avenues of expansion. For now, let us turn to other matters."

"The city of Olkon was hit hard by the collapse of the gate. City authorities report over ten thousand dead and much damage. They ask for royal assistance in their rescue and recovery efforts."

He hadn't told me that.

"Grant it. Let no expense should be spared in helping the victims of this tragedy, and let the local nobility be repaid for any money they spend on reconstruction efforts."

"Glory." The Blue skinned one said. "Is that wise? That will essentially allow the nobility to gain much benefit with the people while spending none of their own cash. Surely it would be better if royal authority were to see to the reconstruction itself, thus granting you the popularity of largess."

I smiled, feeling my face try for weariness. "I think it will do no good to make my noble's bankrupt themselves to score a few points at their expense Masni. Let the Imperial house be magnanimous."

"Of course Glory."

There were other matters, minor and administrative, compensation of the dead royal guards. Finally, the Blue skinned woman spoke up again. "There is one other matter Mistress, it is not related to what has happened, but it is urgent enough I wish to bring it to your attention."

"Please then."

"There is another dispute in Hirokuni. Representatives of the population have petitioned my office for redress. They say that House Olni has broken the edicts, enforced codes of dress and behavior, while failing to enforce the edict of fair working conditions. How should I respond?"

I'd seen the country of Hirokuni in the atlas I'd found in the library. It corresponded to no land on my earth. I wanted to ask. I'd even found reference to the Edicts, which seemed like some kind of constitution. I wanted to ask: "is this accurate."

Instead, the Talisman overrode my voice. "I don't think we need bother with the complaints of churls. Let the Olni deal with it as they see fit."

I saw Masni's mouth thin. She didn't like that. "Of course, Glory. I serve at your will."

***

"What will happen to the Hirokuni?" I asked Alshas as we walked out of the audience chamber.

Alshas shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"Well yes! If you'd let me, I could have prevented that."

He shook his head. "No. House Olni are far more important to our enterprise than are the population of Hirokuni. Besides, if the royal house becomes unpopular for allowing its own edicts to be broken, so much the better."

I looked at him, horrified.

"This is a revolution Sakura. Do you think it will be entirely clean?" He looked at me, then sighed. "Shall I have you returned to the royal quarters?"

"Please."

We went back down. I noticed, at the door, a guard now stood, a tall woman with the same straight sword I remembered strike the killing blow back on earth. I passed through the black curtain and into the royal chambers.

******

"Back so soon? Your meeting did not go so well?" The demon smiled at me. He was naked now, his silk robes of earlier gone to reveal a sculpted body covered in black and red tattoos. I was not in the mood right now.

"I'm not so naïve." I rubbed my eyes, feeling the makeup smudge and not caring. "I realized that they maybe didn't have my best intentions at heart. This conspiracy. They have my mother. What can I do?"

He laughed, a beautiful, corrupt sound. "In your world, you are without the arts are you not? And I suspect, without Queens or Princesses."

"Royal families exist, but they don't have any power."

"I've seen many worlds." He sat down next to me, leaning on the line of text that constrained him. "Many without the Art. They were my darling's primary target. Because their overthrow was so easy. Some few keep absolute monarchies into the industrial age, but most, most fall. Power spreads, people become richer and they won't accept a queen or an empress or a first princess anymore. Sometimes nobles stay in power, or nobles in all but name as with your world, but in general it is the lesser rich who wield the power, even on many worlds who do have the art."

"So why didn't that happen here?" I asked the question he wanted me to ask.

He turned to me and smiled. "What will you give me to answer you?"

I looked him over. "How about a book to read?"

His smile dropped to an expression of anger, then he laughed. "Not just a naïve but a virgin."

"The library here is very big. I bet I can find my own answer if you prefer." I got up.

"Wait! No! Don't just leave me!"

"Then answer my question."

"The royal blood, that which runs in your veins as much as hers gives power. If your family had known the technique, you would have ruled your own world too." The demon stood and glared at me. "I can teach you those techniques. You may find them in the library but do you have time to learn. There was a guard at the door was there not?"

"And what will it cost me to accept your teaching."

"I only want one thing from you." The demon looked at me, beautiful face devoid of its earlier humor. "I only want my freedom."

I looked at the door and thought of the guard beyond.

"Alright," I said finally. "How exactly would we begin?"

End of Book One

Epilogue: In another world

The thing I noticed most about this place was the stink. Not just the smell of battle, of burned flesh and ruined war gear, though I could smell those too, metallic smoke and thick sickly sweet pork of cooked flesh. The industrial smell, thick and unclean, the smell of the primitive's vehicles and industry. The air was thick with it, fouled. I envy the crews of the skyships above. They are primitively built, battlefield constructs far lesser than what I could control at home, but at least their crews can be up in the cleaner air.

The fighting was only just done. They'd tried six times in the last seven days, to take the fortresses I'd placed in the heart of their civilization, tried with every weapon they had, even with atomic fire. It had not worked. I had their measure. A useless, wasteful, courageous war.

I looked out at the shattered rubble that bomb and spell hade made of the buildings around me, the abrupt end of the rubble where I had allowed their city to survive. They stood there, a council of old men, clad in the shapeless dark suits and camouflaged uniforms of their officials.

Behind them, the city's streets were empty, military vehicles drawn up, covering the street with their guns, men covering behind the brightly painted petrol cars that they road in.

I left my guards back and strolled forward to meet them.

One by one, as I approached, they knelt and touched their heads to the ground.

"Please Gentlemen. Rise and look on me. You have fought well, even if I and mine are the victor." My voice is infused with the power of my blood, and they can only obey, staring up at me.

One speaks, an old man from the land they call "China": "So, you have us all at the point of your blade. What will you do now? What will become of us?" He sounds defiant, but I let it go. No one likes to lose.

"Gentlemen, I have no desire to rule you. I came to this world as a conquer, that much is true, but it is cursed. Unlucky. You've spoiled it, even before you tried for me with atomic bombs. You've shown that it'll be too much trouble to conquer you."

"Then, why all this? All this dead?"

"Well, the problem is that I can't go home. The bridge I used to get here was destroyed, I suspect a conspiracy among my underlings, among noble houses. A coup." I look around the kneeling men and the ruined, primitive city. "I will not let that lie, no one of my blood can. I won't let it lie and your world is the only weapon that I have to restore my throne."

"You want us to build a dimensional gate?"

"I want you to take my gifts, to become more than you are. To become a civilization in my image, my clay to mold." I sniff the foul air. "I shall make you into a nation as strong as mine. And then, and then I shall return, and we shall see, we shall see exactly what this Usurper is made of."

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] Falling Far (From The Tree Is Fine, but This Is a Little Extreme)

Genre: Fantasy/Adventure

Falling Far (From The Tree Is Fine, but This Is a Little Extreme)

A too-blue ocean surrounded impossibly white beaches, in turn surrounding a jungle more idyllic than wild, all palms and shrubs and orchids. Frog-people frolicked all over the island, the younger ones darting in and out of ponds as they played tag, their elders industriously at work near the volcanic caves. I overlooked it all from the top of a tree I couldn't identify, easily twice the height of the tallest palm. The tropical paradise that was my afterlife.

I considered dying again.

Not suicide. Disrespectful, to call it that when I was counting on another rebirth, which... was probably its own kind of disrespectful, not to mention a whole new league of presumptuous. I couldn't help feeling I deserved another try though. Because my island? Great weather, gorgeous scenery, pleasant neighbors, and human population: zero.

I was in the giant tree, and not in the sense that I climbed it.

Flowers burst on my upper branches, budding and blooming in seconds. It was the only method of expression this body was allowed, and I'd needed to purchase a skill to do even that much. My sighs blossomed white and blue.

Past lives, what did you do to saddle me with this kind of karma? I didn't know enough about every faith to claim I'd lived without damnable sin, but I'd like to believe I was a good enough person to at least stay a person. Did every dead soul go through this, spending lifetimes as nature? Was it all just a big game of chance? Did I, perhaps, come back as a tree because that truck pasted me into one?

Dearly hoped it wasn't that last one. The appropriate reaction was difficult without a face, as the only tree around that wasn't a palm.

Detached as I could act about it now, when I first woke up, enough days ago I'd stopped counting, life had been a nightmare. A conscious mind in an unmoving body, unable to do anything except see without eyes, listen without ears, and wallow in the guilt and regret of having left life behind at twenty-three.

Oh, and get burrowed into by bugs. That didn't help.

If there was a single point where I began to calm down, it was my first level-up, when I bought my flowers. They were something I could do, distract myself with, the only thing in this life I could control. As far as coping mechanisms went, certainly my most flattering.

Black flowers filled those first few months. I still grew them sometimes, but not as often, fewer when I did. There was a different kind of guilt there, about having begun to move on, but I deserved to deal with that much.

Nowadays, I could tell myself my afterlife could've been worse and believe it. It wasn't heaven, or I wouldn't consider leaving it every other day, but it wasn't hell. The view was stunning, sunbathing wasn't something to carefully manage anymore, and the frog-people were interesting neighbors, lovable in their own ways. One of the gray-skinned ones kept me company sometimes. The little imp liked my flowers.

But even if it wasn't bad, it was difficult to call my life worth living. I had no attachments, besides one to the freaking ground. If I found a way to die, perhaps sabotage my photosynthesis... would I really end up someplace worse? I struggled to think of a—wait, no, sea cucumbers. Yellow-green disgust bloomed on my branches. Eating sunlight was heaven compared to breathing through your anus. Blossoms showered down as I shuddered.

Existential hazards to my dignity aside, I wasn't about to make sea cucumbers my reason to live – I'd have to kill myself on general principle. Got me nowhere.

By now I'd reached the point where I'd given myself a headache. I could consider death again tomorrow. If not me, it would at least kill some time.

=∬=

User Status

『Te»Φ-rM※ excelsa』

Class: Tree
Level: 4
Experience: 98/100

HP: 130/130
MP: 110/110

Attack	0
Defense	6
Speed	0
Mystery	4
Virtue	1

Affinity: Earth

Skill Points: 50

Purchased skills:
Flower control. Virtue+1. User may control flower growth.
Resistance I. Defense+1. User repels minor pests and pathogens. No effect on sapients.

Class skills:
Photosynthesis. User regenerates HP/MP while active. Scales with leaf-like surface area. Diminished effect outside sunlight.

Unique skill:
Thanatochorous. Mystery+1*. User maintains capability of growth. Removes zonal level limit. Removes zonal class restriction. Removes essence role restriction. Removes lateral transition taboo. Remov»Φ-dR※

=∬=

While my will to live fluctuated throughout the day, being a tree, it had little impact on how I spent my time. Photosynthesis, more photosynthesis, with occasional flower-based distractions. Once in a while, I'd open my system menus to check if anything changed, because it was nice to have a different flavor of disappointment sometimes. For a clearly magical process that governed my body, it offered absolutely no solutions to my body problem. It just wanted to make me a better tree.

Skill Menu: Skill points: 50

Available skills:
Root control (100 SP)

Stem control (100 SP)

Leaf control (100 SP)

Flower control (50 SP)

Scent control (50 SP)
Nectar control (50 SP)
Pollen control (50 SP)
Fruit control (100 SP)
Shape control (150 SP)
Toxin control (150 SP)

Resistance I (50 SP)

Resistance II (200 SP)

Like tracing branches, I could feel the capabilities that lay beyond the skills I saw. For the most part, they expanded toward defenses – from thorny roots to toxic leaves, from camouflage to lining my cellular structures with microscopic crystalline needles that could, quite unnecessarily, also explode.

Root control seemed promising at first, except no skills branched off it that allowed locomotion. Its shape control might allow me to... crawl, I supposed, but limbs weren't in the cards. More control over my leaves was also attractive, but even if it would let me write notes, the only intelligent life on the island hadn't invented script yet. The frog-people were in their stone age – some of the red-skinned variants at least knew how to spark a fire, but I'd only seen them do it four times. Three funerals and once some kind of lunar ceremony.

The unfortunate gist of it was, I could spend years becoming a vicious fortress of a tree, and I'd still burn when lightning struck. For anything less, I was already covered. The pests and diseases on the island hadn't evolved to affect me, and the dreadful few inclined to try anyway were nowadays repelled by resistance. Thank whichever god wasn't responsible for stranding me here in the first place. I wasn't fussy.

I'd still choose to grow, of course. Perhaps, at some point too far for me to see, with knowledge I didn't yet have, there would be a combination of skills capable of creating a humanoid body. Or at least let me chat with someone. That wasn't asking too much, was it?

I brought up my status. One more experience point, and I'd have enough skill points to buy another skill. If I went about this strategically, it would have to be stem or leaf control. Considering my photosynthesis seemed to generate experience, and regenerated more MP than it cost to keep active, growing more leaves or more branches to have leaves on sounded sensible. Not that I expected dramatic results. Photosynthesis was as automatic as breathing used to be, and it'd still taken months to get to where I was. I shouldn't complain. The skill description said nothing about experience points at all, so it was a nice bonus. Certainly preferable over having to kill for it. The frog-people hadn't shown me any hostility despite my nonsensical existence, and I couldn't betray that.

『Level 5 attained』
+50 SP
+5 HP
+5 MP
+1 Mystery

Ah. I—

『New class advancement(s) available (1)』

Excuse me? I mentally fumbled around until I found the new class menu.

Izam Aen (New!): 『Tree』→『Izam Aen』

Class conditions:
Apex species, immotile plant class, Earth or Water affinity, Mystery 5, 50 SP.

Overgrowth terminus. A moss-lichen composite of unrivaled growth. It is known to monopolize entire regions, depriving all other plant life of sunlight. It exacerbates erosion and flooding, and uses this to propagate. Warring nations commonly call ceasefires to unite against the threat of this devastating plant.

No. Just no. I liked to think I could look at cold-blooded nature and accept it as the circle of life, but there was a limit. A monstrous moss that could trivially depopulate my island and quite possibly sink it into the ocean went firmly too far.

Really, what was wrong with this class? Would a tree normally get this kind of option at level five? I'd been assuming the system displayed illegible characters because parts didn't translate to Earth scripts, but now I suspected something was legitimately wrong. Orange flowers of alarm were popping up across my branches.

Down by my roots, a frog-girl carving stone in my shade noticed the spontaneous eruption of color. She was one of the rare gray-skinned ones, an urchin that wouldn't have reached past my human waist, and one of the few individuals I could recognize by the pattern of pigment – black stripes across her limbs. For some reason, she seemed to consider me her personal tree. I'd retaliated by naming her Rill, after a sound she made. The other frogs never addressed her, so it would have to do.

Rill stood, put some distance between us, looked up, then opened a mouth riddled with more fangs than I could count. And squeakily beeped at me.

An inherently comical sound, like air escaping a balloon. My blossoms snapped back to their regular pink. She giggled at it, then plopped herself back between my roots to resume her handicrafts.

With a wry smile in mind, I grew a large flower from the branch nearest to her head. She promptly launched her tongue at it. A practical sort, my frog. I'd loaded it with as much nectar as basic flower control allowed.

I had to admit, the frog-people were a large part of why killing felt so unacceptable to me. Part of it was their child-like appearance, and part of it was me latching on to the closest thing to human contact I had, but I couldn't see them purely as herbivores to defend myself against. They simply weren't inhuman enough.

In fact, I was suspicious there was at least a little human in them. Bipedal, opposable thumbs, five only slightly webbed fingers, omnivorous, hair on their heads. They did have some inhuman features, like their damp skin, their tails, uncannily large eyes with triangular pupils... but still. They were closer to humanity than any ape on my past world.

Not that a sentient tree had a leg to stand on when it came to biology. Or a leg in general.

Somewhat reluctantly, I turned away from cute distractions of nature and back to the unnaturalness of my system. I reread and memorized the description of my one available class, then carefully dismissed the menu. No choice but to look at this optimistically. I had one more option than yesterday, and more importantly, I might receive more in the future. There had to be humanoid classes somewhere down the road. And the faster I got there, the better.

I navigated to my skill menu and selected stem control. More branches, more leaves, more photosynthesis. Likely less than pure leaf control, but this afforded me more protection and stability. The trunk was just a big stem, apparently? More efficient leaves would have to wait until later.

As a hundred skill points drained away, a deeper level of awareness opened in my trunk and branches. Like rousing a sleeping limb, it almost felt like regaining control, even knowledge. I knew what I could do, the nutrients it needed, how much MP could compensate, the size I could afford to grow with the roots I had. Stem control was a lot more costly than my flowers. Disappointing, but fine. Practicing patience was my life.

I moved my perspective to my crown, where a handful of little shoots were emerging from other branches. A quarter of my MP spent. I'd recover it while I planned precisely—why was the ocean black?

In the distance, a massive blotch of darkness was homing in on my island. Here and there, the water foamed where bodies broke the surface.

I knew what this was. They weren't supposed to come back this soon.

Orange-red flowers. Not indiscriminate like before, but a single line, from roots to peak. After a split-second of confused hesitation, Rill shot up the flower path, a combination of natural dexterity and powerful legs taking her to the highest branches. She spotted what I'd seen immediately.

Rill gasped. Not out of surprise – for air. She inhaled enough to visibly inflate her torso, then howled, loud enough to hurt ears I didn't have. Incomparable to her cutesy beeps, a piercing wail that likely reached across the entire island. Was she spending MP to do it?

Perhaps a fourth of the frogs within my vision turned to stare at me. The remainder ran for their weapons and their lives. Their enemy was coming.

The approaching blackness was now close enough to make out individuals from the squirming mass. Serpents, some prehistoric mockery of moray eels, easily two or three times the size of giant anacondas. I still couldn't tell if they were sea-snakes or eels that could hunt on land, and I hated how those were equally possible options.

This would be the fourth time I'd see them attack. The last hadn't even been two weeks ago.

Nervous yellow petals budded on my branches. I wasn't itching for a fight by any means, but it wasn't comfortable being a complete outsider either. The eels had no interest in trees. If the previous attacks were any indication, they wouldn't have an interest in Rill either – the gray-skinned frogs were poisonous to the point of being outcasts even among their own people. The eels were after the vulnerable greens. Hopefully the early warning would help the reds coordinate the defense.

Rill slammed the stone she'd been sharpening into the base of one of my smaller branches, shaving off some bark and a sliver of HP, not enough to round up to one. There wasn't a trace of her usual impish expression on her face. What was this look? Frustration? Desperation? Another strike, knuckles pale from clenching branch and stone.

It took me a second to realize what she was doing. The branch would make a good spear for her size.

Rill was a gray variant, not in any danger so long as she stayed out of the way. The green frogs didn't speak to her, the red leadership was likely to blame for her kind's isolation. And she still wanted to fight for them.

Worry and a strange pride played tug of war with my heartstrings. Could I stop her? Should I enable her instead? Rill was the headstrong sort, and reckless, considering how she interacted with the clearly alien tree the rest of her species avoided. Was it to an extent she would charge the eels with just a sharp rock?

Better for her to have the reach of a spear.

I held my breath, my regeneration, to allow the damage Rill was doing. Smooth the branch, make it straighter, wider, stronger, as much as stem control allowed on short notice. Uneven growth to sharpen a point, aborted shoots to create grooves for better grip. I had to leave the smaller branches – she could tear them off, and I didn't have the MP to spare. Nothing left, now.

The spear was small, maybe four feet. As Rill finally broke it from my body, I wished this wasn't the only role I could play.

『Class shift registered』

What?

『Er»Φ-iH※. Consolidating...』

=∬=

Darkness, like a slow blink. Did time pass? I couldn't feel my roots anymore, or my crown, and the rest of my body was violently shaking. My epilepsy?

No.

Movement. The first true motion I'd felt in months, intensely nauseating. My perspective shook as I tried to find my bearings – a suddenly much larger Rill was carrying me as she dodged and jumped forest obstacles. What? The spear. What. Confusion left me short of breath, though that might also have something to do with Rill ripping off the branches I breathed with. I made a wild mental grasp for my status window, for answers.

User Status

『Te»Φ-rM※ excelsa』

Class: Small Spear
Level: 5
Experience: 26/100

HP: 21/21
MP: 1/25

Attack	3
Defense	3
Speed	0
Mystery	5
Virtue	1

Affinity: Earth, Death

Skill Points: 0

Purchased skills:
Flower control. Virtue+1. User may control flower growth.
Stem control. Defense +1. User may control stem growth.
Resistance I. Defense+1. Repels minor pests and pathogens. No effect on sapients.

Class skills:
Photosynthesis. User may regenerate HP/MP. Effect proportional to leaf-like surface area. Diminished effect outside sunlight.
Spearpoint. Thrusting attacks receive Attack correction (Mystery).

Unique skill:
Thanatochorous. Mystery+1*. User maintains capability of growth. Removes zonal level limit. Removes zonal class restriction. Removes essence role restriction. Removes lateral transition taboo. Remov»Φ-dR※

Information yes, answers no, only more questions. I was a spear now. My stats had shifted, I had a new skill, even a death affinity? Weird leap in experience, too. Things to contemplate and freak out about later. Rill had cut her arm on something during her run, probably intentional, and was dabbing my point in her blood. She had reached the battlefield.

The jungle floor was unrecognizable. I saw no soil, no fallen palm fronds, no orchids, only black skin. The hand that held me trembled, in part because the ground trembled. An army of huge serpentine bodies whipped into trees, the ground, each other. Violently unpredictable and frighteningly fast.

All over, green frogs had climbed the palms, were harassing the eels by slinging down bright orange stones. A whirling film of water around each eel deflected the projectiles, though some of the orange coating transferred into the shields. Poison, borrowed from the red frogs, not the most vicious kind. Not if the greens were handling it.

Most of the eels were clearly advancing in one direction – the volcanic caves. Five or six decided to try the trees instead, coiling around trunks to slither upward, or pull the entire tree down. The frogs evaded by leaping from palm to palm. Tried to. A young green misjudged her jump, and I couldn't look away as the eel that caught her chewed.

Rill's jump launched her forward. Her face expressed everything she wasn't screaming.

My point raced at the eel's flank, the gray flesh bordering back and belly. The thrust wasn't perfect, but it was better than anything anyone could expect from someone who hadn't ever practiced.

I slid off.

Magic. From the outside, the layer of water around the eel seemed too thin and too still to deflect anything, and it did it anyway. Rill's head-on stab became a graze, not even breaking skin.

The eel whipped around, eyes dull and unfocused, its attention focused to a point sharp enough to feel. Non-existent blood roared through veins I didn't have. The monster opened its maw, lined with with needle-like fangs, glassy, gleaming red in the sunlight. Rill raised me a fraction. Aiming for the unprotected mouth? Did I give her enough reach for that?

The eel raised itself, cobra-like, poised to lunge forward and bite. Then it whirled around for a tail-slam instead. The thing could feint?

Moving with impossible reflexes, Rill kicked the ground and shot at a palm. Not to evade, not for cover. She braced the base of my shaft against the tree, using her own body to keep my point aimed squarely at the incoming eel. No no I'll break—

I swam through flesh and blood and bit into bone.

『-4 HP』

What? That wasn't right. I'd cheated nature, wrung every scrap of durability out of my limited control, but I was still a thin stick.

The eel thrashed, flinging its tail and me skyward – and Rill with it, because she wouldn't let go. I came loose at the apex, where her tail shot out and coiled around a palm. With a wild look in her eyes, she swept the area for other foes. None. The other eels in the vicinity were moving on – not fleeing, moving toward frogs that did rate as prey. Rill's expression calmed as she slid down the tree.

『Level 6 attained』
+50 SP
+1 HP
+1 MP
+1 Mystery

Already? The eel Rill attacked was still alive and flailing, if mindlessly. To the system, was it already dead? Did I get experience just for fighting? I guessed that was what experience was, come to think of it.

Watching the writhing eel left me ill at ease. It had feinted. Was there an intelligent mind in there? Like me, like Rill? It would be the mind of an aggressor and murderer, but... killing was one thing, torture was another. Stupid, probably, but it felt important to at least pretend I was still that human.

Rill, for her part, ran after the other eels. Fight first, pity foes never, apparently. Fair.

Now that the level-up recovered my MP, I could use my skills again. Stem growth to resharpen and reinforce my form... damn it. Growth that would've cost me one MP as a Tree now took ten. Was there some kind of penalty?

What else did I have like this? Flower control would have the same problem and wasn't useful in the first place, photosynthesis needed leaves I didn't have, the new spearpoint... was passive. Rill didn't seem to benefit from it. Did she have no Mystery? Or was the skill supposed to improve my thrusting attacks? The hell was a spear supposed to thrust itself?

Be productive. Fifty skill points. Were there Small Spear skills I could buy? Apparently not. I couldn't even access my Tree skills anymore, even though the ones I already had still functioned. Made no sense, though that might explain my durability. It was just a gut feeling, but if Small Spears couldn't ever have more than one defense... exactly how durable was I with three?

My suspicion that real life was bugging out was profoundly worrying, but I'd save the anxiety for when it wasn't clearly in my favor.

Rill was nearing the mountain at the center of the island, the area with fewer trees, where the main body of frogs was mounting a defense. Zigzagging half-circles of palm stakes jutted from the ground, forming defensive lines around the caves. Even here, quite a distance from the worst of the fight, three eels already lay bleeding on them.

Not enough. Not enough stake-lines or impaled eels. The attack had come too soon.

Dozens of green frogs were fighting desperately, reinforcing the lines, harassing the eels with spears, rocks, knives, clubs, even flinging small buckets at them. Every tool they held dripped with poison, even as it blistered their fingers. The only red frog of the group spewed a wave of pink liquid at an eel cluster, more than his body could've contained. Within seconds, his targets were moving with half the vigor.

Even so, the eels advanced. They made their dead and dying into bridges and slithered forward. As far as I could see, none had reached the actual caves yet, but they got perilously close. Did the caves have to be protected at all costs or were there more defensive lines inside? I'd never seen an attack get this far.

Rill charged the eels, and not the crippled ones. A kick sent pebbles at her target first, to test the water shield, then she aligned her spear thrust with the direction of the current. Almost trivially, my point raked open skin. One eel, poisoned, then another before the rest even caught on.

『Level 7 attained』
+50 SP
+1 HP
+1 MP
+1 Mystery

If I doubted the frog-people had their own version of the system before, no longer. I didn't need to see Rill's status to know she'd leveled up. Even now, she was visibly improving between eels, started to use their shields to propel herself between different targets, slipping through a chaos of tail-slams and bites. Toward the end of it, she had enough leeway to flick drops of her blood into incoming maws.

『Level 8 attained』
+50 SP
+1 HP
+1 MP
+1 Mystery

What was this? What made Rill special? Compared to the other frogs... some of the reds might be more powerful, hell if I knew, but she was still a clear outlier. I doubted the one frog who got attached to me just happened to be a once-in-a-decade prodigy.

Rill broke away from the eels and caught her breath behind the stake defenses. Every frog within sight spared a few seconds to stare at her. Some with slack-jawed awe, others with eyes just as wide, but with fear in them instead. Not panic, but they were definitely worried. What?

The red who'd spit poison earlier approached Rill, shrilly yelling. He looked like an adolescent to my human standards, though the stone beads around his neck marked him as a leader-priest. He gestured wildly – at me. Demanding an explanation for where she got a spear? Demanding I was handed over? I couldn't tell. Were gray frogs not allowed weapons? Even in this situation?

Rill beeped at him, and I could more or less tell the message was for him to go beep himself. Yeah, you tell him. She ran off then, and whatever the red's problem was, it wasn't urgent enough to abandon his position in the defense.

I wasn't myopic enough to believe Rill was completely in the right here, but she had to be helping more than doing harm. The frogs could sort out their differences after the fight.

Rill made her way through the lines, stabbing eels where she could or needed to, though moving with clear purpose. I was fairly sure I saw her target.

In the distance, spearheading the most advanced eel offensive, it rose above the forest. An ivory serpent, easily half again as big as the other eels. Where the others had smooth gray-black bodies, this one was encased in plates of bone, overlapping like scale armor. The beast wasn't completely limbless either. Back in my world, I would've guessed the stumps on its back were vestigial arms. Here, I suspected it was becoming a dragon.

All of the previous attacks had brought one of these monsters to the island. A commander, a problem-solver that hunted down the strongest red frogs, and, I suspected, the single member of the eel swarm with the brawn to smash through cave barricades. When it was forced into retreat – or killed, once – the others would follow.

Normally, the red frogs would've made progress by now. This time... there were too few stake-lines, not enough time to barricade all the caves. It would've been worse without Rill's warning, but even then, the fighters had needed to spread themselves too thin. There were only four red frogs defending this position. They hadn't left the bone eel completely unhurt – one startlingly blue eye was surrounded by burned skin – but most of their attention was clearly occupied with the eel infantry. Two of the reds fought with waves of venom, one with bullets of acid. The last, a particularly crimson frog, launched a stream of liquid that caught fire, which would've been formidable if it weren't for the water-shields and the unacceptable risk to the forest. Perhaps there were red frogs with less indiscriminate skills defending choke points inside the caves, but here, the situation didn't look good. All four were flagging, only half of them uninjured.

Despite everything, not one of the fighters ran for shelter. Not the reds, not even the greens, who had to know they weren't more than distracting snacks. This was the culture that had birthed Rill, outcast as she was. Those who could fight, fought.

I felt a vague pang of guilt at that.

Rill circled around the fight, uncaring about pools of poison, though wary of the fire. Her tiny gray body darted through a sea of gray-black while most eyes were aimed elsewhere, and she reached the bone eel unnoticed. And struck.

『-2 HP』

Her thrust didn't even chip the bone. Stem control shored up my damage, resharpened, but I needed to do more than repair. How could Rill fight this thing? I was vaguely aware scale armor had fallen out of favor at some point, but had no idea if that was because of an exploitable weakness. Maybe a hook to get underneath? Increase my weight to hit through the armor? Not viable options, didn't have the MP either way.

I grew my point thinner, flatter, surgical. Fragile. I'd compensate with growth.

『Level 9 attained』
+50 SP
+1 HP
+1 MP
+1 Mystery

Rill was defending herself against some of the less disciplined eels, distracting the offensive if nothing else. The bone serpent had noticed, and it didn't seem to care. A single frog with a stick, not a concern. Its lower body was protected. Its only obvious weak point, the eyes, rose beyond her reach.

Whipping her head to the red frogs, Rill trilled a screech. Two ignored her or didn't hear. The frog with the acid bullets spared her a glance, turned away from the eels he was fighting, and refocused his fire on the bone serpent's eyes, firing high. The beast lowered its head, just a little.

Enough for Rill. She bounced herself off an eel's shield, accelerated, steered herself onto another shield and launched herself toward the eel commander. Her legs swelled to an almost grotesque width as her body prepared to do what it was most designed for. Like a released spring, she shot into the air.

Her target wasn't an eye. The monster didn't give her that angle. Instead, she hurtled at the back of its skull, ramming my point beneath a scale.

The squelch of drawing blood.

Not much. I hadn't pierced more than the upper layer of skin, not an inch deep. I was a twig to this monster. It shook its head, not even all that wildly, appropriate for dislodging a minor annoyance. Despite the skin tearing on her palms, Rill didn't let go. More of her blood was running toward the wound, but not enough of it, not fast enough. I'd come loose, and she would fall.

I did the only thing I could.

Stem control. All my MP, thrown into growth. My point extended into flesh, not even half an inch deeper. Virtually nothing.

But the system considered it a thrust.

Green lightning crackled along the length of my body. Spearpoint activated, interpolating nine Mystery into my Attack score of three. Four times the offensive capability any Small Spear should have.

Four times the Defense I had.

I shattered, pulverized, snapped at five different points. My vision fractured, now a mosaic as I saw out of every fragment. The largest piece that remained of me was my handle, not even a foot long. But, as though the world was honoring my attack score too, the splinters that were once my spearhead burrowed deeper. Inexorably.

The bone serpent froze. Blood dyed the whites of its eyes. A heartbeat – around me, inside me, I didn't know. Heavy. Final.

The dimming awareness of my smaller pieces told me precisely what my splinters had ended up inside. It was over.

Rill safely slid down the serpent's back, doubling my relief. Which lasted a second. A new problem screamed for attention – it wasn't just the smaller pieces I was losing awareness in. It was all of them.

『0/25 HP』

Ah. I mentally blinked at the information on my status window. No notification for catastrophic damage, apparently. Not something the dead would need. Dizziness, as reality slowly caught up to me. I... I was going to—

『Class shift registered』

Oh. Not dying, then. Well, that was... good? Maybe? I thought I'd be able to accept my death when it happened, but it seemed I didn't want it to be sudden. How picky.

『Er»Φ-iH※. Consolidating...』

Darkness. My vision filled up with a sequence of system messages.

Experience: Experience gained. Temporarily suspended.
Achievement: 『Heromaker』(minor)

Achievement conditions:
Bestowal of name to unit, mentorship of named unit (accomplished: feed, equip, assist), instrumental role in major accomplishment of named unit.

Rewards:
+500 SP

Effects:
Lesser Poison Atolli『Rill』ascends to hero species.
『Atolli (Death)』→『Atolli (Dark Hero)』
Class: Class shift complete.
Experience: 『Level 10 attained』
+50 SP
+1 HP
+1 MP
+1 Mystery

=∬=

I regained awareness after what must've been some hours. Night had fallen. The area outside the caves was lit by crackling bonfires, with hundreds of frogs casting huge dancing shadows on the face of the mountain. The frogs themselves weren't dancing. Where groups had formed, there were subdued exchanges, more somber than I imagined beeps could be. Most stood alone.

Rill was one of them, still holding what was once my handle. I wasn't sure what she was doing. She held me strangely, with both hands, resting against her forehead. Mouthing words, inaudible.

She walked forward, and laid me on top of a pile of wood.

A chill as I realized what was happening, what I was. No. Don't. Stick me in the ground somewhere. I might grow new roots.

Despite my pleas, Rill left me there, in what would soon be another funeral pyre.

I felt breathless, empty. Phantom pains in my chest – more painful than death, and I couldn't blame anyone for the betrayal I felt except me. Me, and my naive thinking that communication existed between us. Me, who had at some point begun to think of Rill as a partner.

A delusion, just so I'd feel a little less lonely. Idiotic. We were user and tool, and now I'd broken.

I'd been telling myself I'd be able to accept my fate when it came, but I hadn't a moment ago when I broke as a spear, and I couldn't now. I didn't want to die. I wasn't okay with it. But even as my MP uselessly drained into skills, there was nothing I could do to stop the torch approaching my pyre. Don't burn me.

What would happen? Would I class shift into a speck of ash, floating on the winds?

No. I didn't think I'd be coming back from this.

Resin teardrops vaporized as I burned.

=∬=

I woke up back in my tree. As level eleven, because apparently Firewood gains experience for burning.

...

A storm of emotion, a thundering cascade of one into another... there wasn't. My mental energy was spent. The storm was more of a drizzle, the cascade a few especially loud drops. The hell was my distress for? Frustration warred with the relief of survival, which was itself conflicting, because I was still inhabiting a tree. More conflict, then, when I realized how comfortable this body had become. That wasn't okay.

Numb, I stared out over the starlit sea, away from the frogs' pyres and their licking flames. The stillness I'd grown accustomed to now felt like a strange and alien thing. Hours passed like that, trying to recover my equilibrium.

Eventually, darkness fled before my breakfast. The sun's warmth, the deep breath its light felt like, the calming effect of imaginary endorphins... they helped.

Okay. A small thought, careful, mental gears groaning as they resumed motion.

All other considerations and uncertainties aside, at the most simple level, it was clear I wanted to live, even like this, no matter what corners I could reason myself into. If this tree body was acting as something of a... rebirth anchor? Then I needed to make it the best I could. As soon as possible.

My focus fell on the system message taunting me from the corner of my eye.

『New class advancement(s) available (4)』

Fine. I could handle some reading. Let's see what horribleness it had in store for me. Though even as I tried to stomp down my expectations, I couldn't help hope a little.

Izam Aen: 『Tree』→『Izam Aen』

Class conditions:
Apex species, immotile plant class, Earth or Water affinity, Mystery 5, 50 SP.

Overgrowth terminus. A moss-lichen composite of unrivaled growth. It is known to monopolize entire regions, depriving all other plant life of sunlight. It exacerbates erosion and flooding, and uses this to propagate. Warring nations commonly call ceasefires to unite against the threat of this devastating plant.
Mors Hylde (New!): 『Tree』→『Mors Hylde』

Class conditions:
Apex species, immotile plant class, Life or Death affinity, Mystery 5, 50 SP.

Addiction terminus. A small but bountiful fruit tree that appears at grave sites. Despite its ghoulish habitat and preferred fertilizer, its fruit is regarded as a delicacy in all six major cultures, and both bark and leaves have many attractive properties for industry and trade. Naturally hardy, and often jealously guarded by local lords and merchants.
Urasa-Haj Uzu (New!): 『Tree』→『Urasa-Haj Uzu』

Class conditions:
Apex species, immotile plant class, Earth affinity, Mystery 10, 50 SP.

Subterfuge terminus. A subterranean orchid known to ancient civilizations as the Warstarter Bloom. Far from its concealed main body, a sprawling root network captures prey by excavating pitfalls, typically filled with stake-like thorns. Due to its mimicry and immunity to magical discovery, most intelligent species regard its trap holes as enemy constructions.
Heen Zay'le (New!): 『Tree』→『Heen Zay'le』

Class conditions:
Apex species, immotile plant class, Fire affinity, Mystery 10, 50 SP.

Infernal path. An invasive plant native to a lower plane. It assumes the appearance and functions of a local tree, sometimes for centuries, until its patience expires. Then, it and all its progeny assume a form of magical flame, growing toward the most central conflagration. Oracles remain divided on what would happen should this reunion fully succeed, but even demonists are known to cooperate with efforts to stop it.
Aliph Nox (New!): 『Tree』→『Aliph Nox』

Class conditions:
Apex species, immotile plant class, Death affinity, Mystery 10, 50 SP.

Assimilation terminus. An expansive shrub system that ensnares other lifeforms. It combines an array of gaseous poisons with prehensile vines covered in nigh-inescapable adhesive resin. If a victim's cries for help seem likely to lure in more members of its species, they are integrated into the plant system, their lives maintained. The wailing bog of Giffa was comprised primarily of this plant prior to its ascension to Dungeon.

... I was a little glad for the warning at level five. Someone seriously needed to have a word with whoever was in charge of plants on this world. Not me though. Seemed unhealthy, and if there was a designer, they weren't my kind of sane. I shivered, shedding some older leaves.

No classes that evolved from Small Spear or Firewood, I noticed. Just as well. Options were options, but the system could keep career opportunities as super death stick or infinity bonfire to itself.

Giving morbid non-options the consideration they deserved, I moved on. My skill menu, at least, was encouraging. Eight hundred skill points.

With an odd feeling of shopping after payday, I immediately selected leaf control and root control. Leaves meant photosynthesis, photosynthesis meant HP, MP, and experience. It'd pay for itself eventually. Root control had some interesting applications, but I mostly needed it to regrow my roots if I ever lost them again. Six hundred points left, though first things first.

Nutrients and MP exploded into two thousand newborn leaves, which immediately began to soak up the midday sunlight. My crown grew visibly denser over the span of seconds, the shade I cast darker, more complete.

Shape control for my leaves... better not. My leaves worked well, and I hadn't a clue what I'd change about them. Even if I fiddled with... heat dispersion? Water retention? I doubted I could make an improvement worth a hundred and fifty skill points. I'd consider it after I experimented with the basics. Quantity over quality, for now.

I did buy shape control for roots, and the slightly more expensive version for stems. I was still aiming for a humanoid body, but as long as I stayed a plant, mobility would always be valuable. Two hundred and fifty points left.

Finally, I bought fruit control and the seed control it unlocked. One hundred points each.

To ensure I was sterile.

If my species trapped human souls from earth inside trees, it could end with me.

If my species birthed intelligent minds in sapling bodies, it could end with me.

If my species matured into country-killers at level five or ten, it could end with me.

I refused to be responsible for that kind of anguish and misery. No offspring until I had a body that would let me be a mother to children who would get to be children.

The expected emptiness of having spent all but fifty of my points... didn't happen. I was at peace with my choices. Good.

User Status

『Te»Φ-rM※ excelsa』

Class: Tree
Level: 11
Experience: 7/100

HP: 220/220
MP: 230/230

Attack	0
Defense	10
Speed	0
Mystery	11
Virtue	4

Affinity: Earth, Fire, Death

Skill Points: 50

Purchased skills:
Flower control. Virtue+1. User may control flower growth.

Fruit control. Virtue+1. User may control fruit growth.
Seed control. Virtue+1. User may control seed growth.

Stem control. Defense +1. User may control stem growth.

Shape control. Defense+1. Additional control of growth shape.

Leaf control. Virtue+1. User may control leaf growth.
Root control. Defense+1. User may control root growth.

Shape control. Defense+1. Additional control of growth shape.

Resistance I. Defense+1. Repels minor pests and pathogens. No effect on sapients.

Class skills:
Photosynthesis. User may regenerate HP/MP. Effect proportional to leaf-like surface area. Diminished effect outside sunlight.
Spearpoint. Thrusting attacks receive Attack correction (Mystery).
Conflagrant. User may catch on fire.

Unique skill:
Thanatochorous. Mystery+1*. User maintains capability of growth. Removes zonal level limit. Removes zonal class restriction. Removes essence role restriction. Removes lateral transition taboo. Remov»Φ-dR※

For a good while, I created leaves while staring blankly at the class skill from Firewood. So I could combust on demand now. Lovely. I couldn't deny the use of it, especially if circumstances ever trapped me in a troublesome form, but... it felt a little too utilitarian to happily receive what could be seen as a suicide pill. Said something about the life you led. Better to have and not need, I supposed.

As the sun rose, the island roused. Green frogs poured from the caves, most sluggish, all solemn. The battle had left its marks on them, like it had on the island. Toppled palms, stained earth, bodies that hadn't been retrieved due to the darkness. The dead eels, most too poisoned to be food, were being gathered at another pyre. The bone serpent, at least, was being torn apart for material. The scene didn't fit the beautiful weather.

I cast another glance over the island. As expected, the number of red frogs had noticeably decreased. I could only hope they were resting instead of at rest, because as it was, the frogs were critically undefended.

And that, of course, was when the attack continued.

=∬=

They arrived by ship, a large double-masted vessel, pristine save for some patchwork repairs. Not predators like the eels, or if they were, it wasn't a natural predation. They looked like feline humanoids, muscular, more like clothed upright jaguars than anything as cute-sounding as 'cat-people'. The immediate impression was power, not elegance. I'd loved cats in my previous life. These, I loathed on sight.

They had chained frog-people on their deck. Slavers.

This couldn't be a coincidence. These cats had either followed the eels, or somehow herded them toward this island in the first place – it explained the unexpectedly early attack. And now the frog-people's most powerful defenders were dead, crippled, or exhausted.

Close to sixty of the jaguars disembarked, almost leisurely, unconcerned. Most were armed with steel and armored in leather, but two carried cudgels mounted with fist-sized crystals instead. They'd even brought magicians.

I didn't warn the frogs. I tried, through leaf and flower, but no one understood.

I didn't prepare for combat. I would need ten thousand times my current MP to even get there. Maybe, just maybe, there might be something I could do if I upgraded my class... but if 'terminus' meant what I thought it did, it would sacrifice my future. I couldn't afford it.

No. I was too selfish to.

Fuck it all.

The wailing alarm of frog scouts signaled the slavers' detection. What followed wasn't a fight. Slung rocks coated in poison did nothing against magical barriers of solid air, against proper armor and reflexes comparable to Rill's. The cats didn't retaliate, didn't venture into the jungle except to gather some fruit. This wasn't a fight to them. They were stocking up.

The only thing they did to the frogs was send out one of their slaves.

An hour later, my frogs surrendered.

I understood. Even as my body creaked and cracked and seething roots churned the earth, I understood. If they resisted, win or lose, they'd be in no shape to survive the next eel attack. They couldn't afford to fight, not against opponents whose departure could be purchased with sacrifice.

A hundred frogs volunteered for the chains. Greens and grays. One familiar pigment pattern among them.

A treacherous voice inside me told me to say goodbye. To tell myself there was nothing I could do, because I was a poor pitiful human stuck in a powerless tree. The me of half a year ago, she would've listened. I didn't want to be too uncharitable to the me of yesterday, but her too, maybe.

I would at least try.

Professionals, magic, their ship and their actions. Scraps of information connected. It wasn't brilliant, it wasn't likely, it wasn't even something I could influence all that much, but there was a chance.

Magic radiated out of my heartwood. Knots deep inside me revived, migrated to the surface to become branches once more. Internal gaps drew back together, the grain of my trunk realigned. I scoured my body of as many weaknesses and imperfections as possible without looking eerily artificial. As the tallest abnormality of the forest, it was only a matter of time before the cats investigated me. I needed to be ready.

It didn't take half an hour. A party of five males, one pitch-black, four with typical jaguar coloration. I couldn't understand their expressions, but they exchanged words in my shade. Didn't understand those either actually – it was a mess of growls and hisses, aggressive, often verging on a roar. Could something please use a language I could at least try to learn?

They left me, took their machetes and retreated back into the jungle. I held my mental breath. Had I failed? No. They'd return. They had to.

Eventually, the same group did return, with three more cats in tow. One sailor with gray flecks in his fur, a better-dressed male the others seemed to tread carefully around, and the first female I'd seen up close, one of the cudgel-wielding magicians. The elder rumbled some at the one I'd pegged as an officer. Still couldn't understand a word, but I could hazard a guess.

I was the timber of carpenters' dreams.

Without warning, the woman waved her wand, once, twice. Two thundering impacts, as masses of sharp solid air hacked huge chunks out of my body.

『-97 HP』
『-123 HP』

I toppled in a cacophony of breaking branches, a heavy thud its finale. There was a distant keening, then, a high-pitched wail. Probably reached the entire island. I smiled softly.

『Class shift registered』

Rill needn't worry.

『Er»Φ-iH※. Consolidating...』

I called this success.

Let's see more of this world.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] So this is my life now, being a living battery in an unknown world

Genres: Isekai, FeMC, No humans, Science Fantasy

'So this is my life now, being a living battery in an unknown world'

Have you ever felt a random pain? Okay no, stupid question. What I mean is more a you're going about your day, nothing special there, when all of a sudden your whole body lights up in a crushing feeling, skin to bone in heat and needles. Well, see, that's what kind happened…..or, is happening to me.

My life is….simple?….average?.....relatable? That's what dull people call themselves to sound more sympathetic right? Yeah let's go with relatable. Wake up, wash body, eat food, go to and do my job if I'm scheduled that day, go home to sleep, any and all off time spent online doing….who cares. I'm not that attractive so I'm not asked out often and those that do are far too desperate for me to agree too. And friends? They left our no name wasteland as soon they could with no way for me to follow without so much as a glance back. Family? I don't think there's a limit to how many things could be said about them.

Where was I?

Right, so the day was just like any other day I suppose. Work was over and I was heading home when for no real reason everything 'hurt', like I was hit by something big and heavy, my last few moments of consciousness was laying on the ground unsure if I was face up or face down and someone's foot next to me.

That more or less sums up everything important in less than two hundred and fifty words.
.
.
.
Wow, when said out loud like that you kind of realize how barely functional our existence is.
.
.
.

Huh? Oh right, that's in the past, what of the present.

The first sensation I recognize is touch and oh is there a lot to unpack there.

The warm needly feeling is still there but not as strong, more like how you feel clothing, there but at the back of your mind after a while. What's more of a problem is how floaty everything is. My arms outstretched alongside my head, something pulling on my ankles, a dry pressure over my mouth and nose. The heaviest part of me are my eyes as I struggle with the recognition of everything going on as I begin instinctually stretching as I always do when waking up but not really able to move at all.

Head and face, check. Shoulders, lungs, and fingers, there. Torso, legs and toes, haven't lost them yet so I guess I'm good.

Sight and hearing come on at about the same time. I think I hear some rhythmic motor first sounding as if it's linked up to my breathing. My eyes however are blinded by a dull orange color causing them to hurt more than anything for a few seconds. All the while non-rhythmic sounds, voices I guess, mettle through mixing with the motor noise, my own groggy groans and…bubbles?

"Commander, it appears to be waking up."

Commander? As in military? What the hell happened to me?

The orange light seems to be lessening as things come into a blurry view going to a darker red or brown, globs of white running around to blinking orbs of green.

"The readings are rising again, more than double when it was dormant."

What, like heartbeat or brainwave readings? Wait that was a different voice. The white…things are people. Four, no five of them. Lab coats?

Ah, the pressure on my mouth, it's a breathing mask. A little big but I'm not suffocating and everything else feels wet in comparison.

!

Shit. I'm in a liquid filled tube being researched by a bunch of military scientists. What is this, Sci-Fi? No, hold that thought, my vision is getting clearer to see the people in front of me. They aren't human, they're….rats?...or rat like, like a ratman….thing. Yeah, perfect description there gir, 'ratman thing', you should write for a living.

Okay, better detail. They seem closer to upright mice at first what with their long thin tails and large ears, but they seem very human too but having short fur as well as hair and human like limb proportions, except for clawed digits. Ah, those are hazmat suit they're wearing not lab coats.

The hell have I gotten sucked into? A half assed Lord of the Rings rip-off? So Fantasy, not Sci-fi…..but with computers? At least I think those are computers, very fifties. Wait no, those are crystals. Magic…science? A~nd the headaches have begun.

"Director! It's looking mighty angry."

"Shut up Ralph. So long as we keep draining the radiation it cannot do a single thing."

"Are we sure the restraints will hold?"

Restraints? Oh right, the reason my arms are up like that is because something's holding them, ankles to. Not like I can look and see them, something's holding my head as well.

"Director. It just tested the restraints."

"A coincidence Ralph. The Goriji do not understand our language. They are far too primitive for that."

"Are you sure? It's looking right at me."

"Ugh. For the last time Ralph, shut up and wait for the Commander to get here so he can review our data. If I hear you speak out of turn again I'm throwing you right off this train with no care where in this backwater land we are. Have I mad-"

Goriji. Primitive. Train? Info for later I guess. Not like it does me much good in this state, not till the Commander gets here, if I'm lucky. Whenever that'll b-

On the far side of the room came a noise as a small light changed and something slid open, a door I suppose as it's too dark to tell. A figure walks forward from it, a small pack of similar but lesser dressed people behind them, as the scientists stand as straight as they can putting a stiff arm over their chests. A salute? A strange one if it is but this person is returning it speaking to the rat….person that I guess is the director of this whole debacle.

"How is everything coming along Clause." The Commander said, or someone very commander like at least. They are of the same species that's for sure but they seem a bit taller than the rest by half a head, their garb very uniformistic as would be for a military person in a dull blue gray with bits of black along the edges, either yellow or plain gold pieces along the chest and some sort of speaker box over his heart, the face a bit aged, their whiskers droop like a mustache and cuts on the right side of the face and ear.

"Nothing much of a change. It's being unexpectantly docile for a Goriji though I suppose draining all its excess like this is not leaving anything for it other than basic awareness if it's even capable of that." The Head scientists mixes between respect for his officer and vile toward me. Rude rat doesn't even look any different than the other four so 'neh'.

"Speaking of, how much are we getting off of her?"

"Oh tons of it sir. Even using it to power the carrier it still has not run out. In fact we are still draining so much it has increased our stores by a full month in just this past day. I feel it could power an entire city with little effort."

Did….did it just call me a battery? AM I A FUCKING DURACEL TO THEM?

"Ah, it seems to have gained too much energy back. Ralph, reengage full drai-"

"That will not be necessary Clause. This is why I asked you to call me when it woke up in the first place." The leader mouse said to their ass shaped associate while coming closer and attempting to break the ice. "Hello ma'am. Can you hear me from in there?"

"With all due respect Isle I do not think this 'thing' is capable of conversat-"

"Ah, hello? I can hear you if you can me." I try to say as both respond in silence, one in acceptance the other in fear, a faint echo of my voice rolling around the room. "Oh, good. I was fearing I would have to stay mute this whole time."

"See Clause." The Commander smirks off to his…friend? I think I'm starting to like this guy. "Yes. I ask forgiveness for our troubling. Are you able to remember?"

"Remember? Remember what?"

"Anything. We found you in a hole so we know little."

"A hole? I know my life was in a rut but I did not believe it was that bad." The tall rat chuckled at this. YES! HEADWAY! "Um, my last memory was myself leaving work for home and before blacking out from pain. Then I was here."

"Work? Then you had a tribal task?"

"I got paid, however low that was, so maybe. Felt tribal."

"Ahm, Commander. I'm not saying I'm intrigued but, what is it saying?"

"Oi Ralph. Could you get off your high ass and stop acting as if we were speaking some unknown language for even a second?" The whole room froze at my words all looking at me, some things were even dropped completely. Hope those weren't dangerous. "Uh….I'm not speaking the same language I take it."

"IMPOSSIBLE!"

"…..No. You are not. What, did the one I first use to you sound like?"

"…Odd grammar choices and a funny accent. Compared to the one you're using right now which sounds more….formal. I guess."

"And how much did you hear from my colleges who were unaware of this and thus freely spoke their minds." An angry tone rolled from the Commander's tongue. O~h, someone's in trouble and if I can word this right it won't be me this time.

"Ah, let's see. I'm radiating something that you people are draining off of me. It's so much that even in my sleep I'm not only giving you a city's worth of stored power but you're also using me to propel my transport, which means you have not had me for long. This transport being a Train, and if it's the same thing as where I come from it's a large vehicle that rides a pre-laid out rail or rails to make moving things easier."

"Yes, that is correct."

"How?"

"How, what exactly?" The Commander returned my question.

"How, uhm, how anything really?" I try to gesture as best as I can in my restrained position. "All I've gotten past what I just told you are some proper nouns with no context to link them together. So, like, think of me like a newborn that can talk. Or maybe a Goriji that you think me as."

"So, you are not a Goriji?" It's the Director that speaks up this time. His voice a bit shaken but his body language no less prudish, for as prudish as a ratman can get.

"Hell if I know. My species call ourselves 'Humans'."

"Hue-mans, Hughmens, Houwmeens?" The Commander rolls the word around scratching the fur beneath his mussel. "No, I do not believe I have heard any Goriji tribe call themselves that."

"Which is odd as we sort of rule the whole planet." I'm actually bragging about our Manifest Destiny obsession. Boy have I hit an all new low.

"Now that is impossible." The Director feels prideful enough to boast. "There is not one single species that rule Grain, though we Nazelve own the most."

"Oh come now Clause, the Raigees are far more wide spread."

"I would not call what those beasts have anything resembling a kingdom."

"But they do have a culture no matter how split their territories are. We need to negotiate with three of them just to have proper trade routes between our cities. And that is not considering how far the Marrow lands stretch or how many hives of the Faireek there are."

"Bawgh. This is no time for one of your political talks Isle."

"Yes, please stop." I conjecture. "You're using too many proper nouns. And none of this answers my question."

"Ah, yes, eheh." The Commander, Isle, seems I bit bashful at this. "Well, as far as our scientists can tell despite you being fairly organic your body seems to be mostly made of Manacite 5."

"Proper. Nouns."

"Hold on, I am getting to that." Isle holds up his hands. His right one has a glove while his left does not. Strange. "Manacite is a crystalline material that either absorbs, transfers or radiates the planet's life energy." Okay, where have I heard that before? "However the compound in you is an extremely rare mixture that can do all three, more than a thousand times than it was ever thought possible to find in one place in fact."

"So, I'm a living battery to you?"

"A simplification of it, seeing as you can talk and be reasoned with, but essentially yes." Point blank and dry. I never thought there'd be anything that'd make me wish for my old life but here I am, being used as a lab rat by a bunch of lab rats. Nazelve, Nazelves, Nazelvites? Whatever.

"Then, I'm just going out on a limb here and say inbetween being your personal power source this train is taking me somewhere, maybe even your headquarters, where I'll be poked and prodded so you can replicate me, chained down all the while so you can strip me of all my….." No. Nonono! NONONONONONONONONO! WHY DIDN'T I NOTICE BEFORE? ALL THAT I WAS FEELING BEFORE I REALIZE WHAT WASN'T ON ME. "…..OH MY GOD I'M NAKED!"

White light fills my vision as I desperately pull at what is holding back my limbs, screams and electrical sounds threaten to deafen me as I'm engulfed in heat burning my exposed skin in all failed attempts to gain cover.

"Release her restraints. Now!""But Commander it-""Would have already done so if she could. Do it now! THAT'S AN ORDER!"

Freedom, in a sense. My arms and legs could move again, their first task to wrap themselves around me in an all too needed hug. The lights died down past my clenched eyelids, ringing static pulsed through my body as I attempted to calm my aching, shaken nerves. 'They didn't see me as ugly, how could they as rats.'

That thought doesn't help in the least.

"Damage report?"

Don't.

"Massive power leak Sir. Many of the circuits were melted and most of the Governors are busted."

Don't look.

"We experienced a massive burst of speed but luckily we are still on a major straight. If we were on a curve-"

"That is still a few hours away." The Commander rang through the room, little comfort that was. "Get everything back to proper speed. Drain as much as you can from it to go dormant again."

Don't look at me.

"Sir. We may be able to do that but we are running out of storing cells, especially after that outburst."

Don't look at me!

"Then expel any excess and use the cells in rotation. I do not care if we are in Sylfilis' territory. He can deal with a little mana storm better than we can breaking down or crashing in his lands. This 'Human' is as of now being moved up to a Con 2 rating priority."

DON'T LOOK AT ME!

"I apologize Ma'am. If I had known you found this distasteful I would hav-"

"DON'T LOOK AT ME!" That was, me. It didn't sound…human anymore.

"….Of course. Seems we uncovered a trauma. Clause, try to cover the tank as best you can if the draining doesn't relax her enough."

"Isle. Why are you even bothering to be nice to this thing?"

"She's a living being Clause. One with an alien mind and possibly origin, or at the very least one vastly different than anything else we know. We could learn many things about our early world from this 'Human'."

"Early world? Commander, you are not suggesting that this thing is a-"

"Celest? It may very well be considering where we found her. Besides that she is missing a lot of fur and a tail to be a Goriji and many Raigees stories tell of creatures that can speak many languages at once like her. Legends or not however, we now hold something with immense power in our possession. We had better not lose this chance."

Everything feels numb again. Like how I how I woke up in this tank but in reverse, the lights before anything else leaving a faint glow. Myself it seems now that nothing else can see me but myself, everything still human except this light and heat I radiate.
.
.
.
.
.

"That fool." I'm…not asleep yet? My insomnia or did the Director's annoying voice wake me up? "Bunch of children's faytales just because of some stupid glowing…..thing. We could rule the world with its power and he just wants peace. An idiot who gained a rank he doesn't deserve." Yep, his voice is what did it. Who does cliché monologues at this hour? "Where are we?"

"About an hour before the turn at Shire Ridge, about four hours before we leave Raigees Sylfilis' territory, and approximately twelve hours till our station in Anaheim."

"Bloody Hell." Oh hey, they say that here to. "I do not get enough recognition for this. Change our course for Jalphaine."

What?

"But Director, the Commander-"

"Had a terrible accident when an outburst from our new experimental power source electrocuted him. And as he is our negotiator for the Anaheim Empire we had no choice but to travel to a neutral city where we can sell our loyalties and new experimental weapon to the highest bidder. My sister will understand the loss."

"…..Very well Sir."

That…That…THAT RAT! Is that how it works? Can that really be done? They're going to kill their commanding officer to profit on continuing some possible war?

"Report to me when we leave that lizard's lands, that is when the 'accident' occurs. I will find a way to deal with his troops. Until then I will be in my quarters contacting a 'Certain person'."

All is silence but the ambience of machine rhythms. Are they really going through with this?

"Are we really going through with this?"

"Why not? It's not the military that writes our paychecks but Director Clause. If he gets paid more this way we get paid more."

Greed. I guess it's the same everywhere.

Heh. Ha. Hahahahahahaha. So this is my life now, being a living battery in an unknown world.

Not a single thing I can do.
.
.
.
.

No. Fuck that. Take that thought and dump it in the farthest levels of 'Fuck that' I can find. I am not going to be someone's object again.

But what can I do? 'Manacite is a crystalline material that either absorbs, transfers or radiates the planet's life energy.' He had said, and I have something that can do all three in me. I can release high amounts of this energy when….angry, afraid,…..embarrassed? Doesn't matter, 'About an hour before the turn at Shire Ridge' one of them had said, and I happen to be the fire in their engine.

Under one hour to train….heh, a funny. Focus, one hour to practice and find out how to burn like that again.

"Thank you sir. Your contributions towards Nazelve kind have been noticed." I was told by the other person as I closed the line. Success. I had secured my future as the new scientist of the coming regime. All the recognition I ever needed and all the money that could come from it.

Why had I not thought of this years ago? Likely because everything I had was owned by the Anaheim Empire but this. This thing, whatever it was, had enough power to drive a kingdom to the edge of the world and back if that little outburst of its was to be believed. With it as a bargaining chip I could get more tools, better equipment and lackeys, I would have to get rid of my current ones of course as traitors to the crown they would be, both quality and quantity everything. Not like how those nest fondlers that keep their money back for the needy. I'm needy, why do I not see any of it?

Oh my tail will not stop twitching from excitement of the deed. This was far too eas*BOOM* "WHAT IN ZALRINE'S NAME WAS THAT?" An explosion? But from….the front car.

"Status." I called as soon as could get back to my line.

"Director, it's woken up again. The energy its producing is off the charts."

"Then expel the drain and engage the brakes you fool."

"We are not able to sir. It went and fried all the control panels."

Idiots, the lot of them. Grabbing my emergency pistol I head out of my room and to the front of train as fast as I can. "Clause. What is happening up front?" Followed by the world's largest imbecile and his ever present 'troops' it seems.

"Your little experiment by the looks of it. That thing is sending the engines into overdrive and fried the control panels so my crew cannot stop it." That seemed to quiet him down for the first time in his life as he followed where he should have always been.

Getting to the engine room was surprisingly easy even with the train at full speed as all gates were open from being tripped by this thing's tantrum. Immense light and heat awaited me from passing the last portal as the 'Human' screamed louder than a Myoki in labor pains.

"Troops, cooling spray on the double!" Isle commands his slaves as they extinguish the panels with an electrical retardant and pump the thing's tank with a heat one, its anguish to the unexpectantly chilly foam return a form of joy to my heart.

"Commander." What, it's still awake? Was its heat strong enough to resist the extinguishers? "Do charaid bheag .... Planaichean airson do mharbhadh."….Goriji? But why would it change to…..No! NONONNONO! It was not asleep at all and overheard me talking to the crew.

Me and Isle draw our guns, both in our left hands, on each other at the same time, I at his heart and him to my head due to our slight height difference. Damn it all. I was so close but as I am now we would shot at the same time but I have a higher chance of dying.

"Clause. How long were you planning this?"

"W-what would that be I-isle? A-as far as I can see this Goriji looking creature has convinced you that I, your longtime friend, am planning something behind your back. Other than that unreliable source what other proof is ther-"

"It's true Sir." Ralph? "He was planning on selling out to the Halbean Kingdom in order to continue the war against the Lapine, killing you and maybe your troops before we got to the edge of Sylfilis' land to show his new loyalties."

"Traitor!"

"No Sir. If it was not for the Anaheims I would not be here today. My heart will always be for them."

"There you go Clause. You could have just called the boy a liar but instead you said 'Traitor'. You always were a bad liar under stress." DAMN IT! ONE SECOND IS ALL I NEED JUST ONE SE-"Now, can someone stop this train?"

"….Ah…n-no Sir. The brake controls were part of the control panels….t-that were fried…"

"And how close are we to Shire Ridge?"

"About ten seconds."

"Oh. Right." This was not what I was asking for at all.

"Duilich," The Human spoke again. "Ach thagh mi saorsa."

"Heh. I cannot blame you." With his right hand Isle reached his radio speaker, his eyes never leaving me for a moment. "Attention all personal, this is Commander Isle. I would advise you all to hang onto something stable, as we are about to crash." Dry and to the point, even in dire times. "Also, blame this on Director Clause if you get the chance. And sorry." Wait what?

At that moment the train jostled and turned to my back, more than I could balance with my tail causing me to begin tumbling backwards. Using my fall as an opening Isle quickly stole the gun from my hand. The room spun around, myself floating in between, but he however just stood there in the same spot, as if the world never changed at all.

"I do apologies for how this came to be my friend. But my wife will understand the loss."

When did you change so much? Did you-?

Have you ever burned yourself?

Ow.

Okay, I need a better icebreaker. Like fire.

Ow.

Let's just jump to the point. I, am on fire. Ow. The train I road on and crashed, is on fire. Ow. The woods said train fell into, Ow, are also on fire. The ground I'm Ow trying to walk on Ow is fire Ow.

And you know what, I'm not sure how I Ow got out that metal Ow coffin. After all the tumbling Ow I woke up already in Ow motion painfully limping Ow away.

Hey. I think I understand Ow what's going Ow on. This is a dream. A fever Ow dream. All this fire is just a reference to Ow how my body is trying to kill the Ow germs. Rat people, Ow disease. Being in a Ow tube, likely my Ow bedsheets, meaning I could be Ow sleepwalking right Ow now. I don't remember Ow going home but Ow I'm sure that's just Ow how dreams wor-

Somewhere between thought and step I tripped or my legs gave out, one or other, causing me to land face and drift first onto the dry, but surprisingly cool dirt.

For the first time since leaving the train my lung fill up again, I not even realizing I had shallow breath till now. I hurts a lot less down here. Am I actually immune to fire like this? Wait, I thought this was a dream? What does feeling cool dirt mean? Get back to your roots? Nope, I finally got to where I have a place to myself so that's not happening. Maybe someone is a damp towel to cool me off. But then again I still live alone. Am I in a hospital? The bills are going to be huge. Where am I going to find the money to-

Oh this is stupid. Stupid animal people world. Stupid magic light and fire energy producing body. Stupid betraying Director rat. Stupid train. Stupid….stupid me. If I hadn't of freaked out like that the Director wouldn't of thought about going turn coat. I could have lived a decent life. Sure one where the places I could go were pretty limited and had my life energy drained for other people's existence but since when was that not the norm? Is that why I did that? Guilt?

Oh well. I guess where I am now is good as any. Too weak to move, face down, naked in the dirt as the world burns around me. Sounds like one of those songs I used to listen to.

A~nd now a bird is circling above, a scavenger looking for some wood smoked meat, very well done, like a crow…..or a…vulture…or A HOLY HELL IT'S HUGE!

The impact of a creature that's about the size of a bus rocks the world about as much as you'd expect even with wings to slow its fall. Heck, the wings make it even worse by causing gale force wind strong enough to knock me into a nearby tree and putting out the surrounded fire. Plus side, no more lying on my back or being on fire, which, minus side, means I have a clear view of the creature that just came tumbling down gazing right at me.

It's as if someone mixed a snake, gecko, and a bat into a genetic blender set to fine. A face wider than high and large floppy ears but with a far stretching mussel and nostrils as large as its eyes that it's using to smell me on an extended neck. Its front legs double as wings spread out far to its sides to let it closer to the ground, the hind legs of the beast out similar but with no wings, and of course it had a tail but looked more like someone had taken one from a beaver and pulled it far past its breaking point curling like an 'S' and shifting side to side in curiosity, a mixture of fur and scales upon its hide.

But the front should have more importance in this sort of situations. Oh god it's right on me. I can feel the vacuum of its breath trying to smell me. Said me balling up as small as I can to look unappetizing and…oh right, I can light up and heat things naturally. Better keep that under contrOH No, I'm strobing, I'm strobing. Not Good Not GOOD NOT GOO-

"Greetings Star Child."…..huh? "It has been a long time since one of your kind has visited this realm."

HUH?! "WHAT?....S-star Child?...W-who, me?....What?" The dragon like thing backs away at this sitting on its hind legs like a dog. In fact if it wasn't for the long neck, wing arms, floppy rabbit like ears, squirrely beaver tail and, you know, THE SCALES, it kind of looks like a dog. That's actually kind of calming.

"Ah. My apologies. It seems you are still an infant star child."….what. "Where are my manners? I am Sylfilis of the Northern Raigees tribe." Sylfilis? Sounds like a disease. Am I sure this isn't a fever dream?

No, back up. Didn't those rat peop-I mean the Nazelves on the train say something about the guy? I think it's a guy as it's kind of hard to tell by anything other than voice. More like a teenager than an adult really.

"O-oh, s-sorry for the intrusion. I…sort of got brought here against my will and…" I look at the charred remains of the forest we were standing in, I mean sitting in, still smoking even with the wing wind blowing it out, the train nowhere in sight, not that I'd know what it looks like from the outside anyways, "…things happened. Sorry about that."

"Oh it is fine. This is but a small part of my lands, plus it drove out some tasty meals for later." ….Right, large carnivore. But it's full so it won't be after me, for now. "Ah! Be not afraid. We do not consume those that who come from the sky. You would give me indigestion if I even attempted either way."

That's….calming?

No, hold on.

"From the sky? I fell…from…is that you mean by 'Star Child'?" The hole they found me in, was a crater? This does not help my self-esteem.

"Yes. A Star Child falls from their world to ours spreading the knowledge of the universe and gaining power to return or rule. Or so says my Grandfather. I have never met one myself."

Return, or rule. So I can go back? If want to that is. But that raises an even bigger question.

"So, Lord Sylfilis," His floppy ears shoot straight up at being called that, his tail wagging even harder. Oh god he's so cute for a giant murder beast. ",you are saying there are others out there like me?"

"Not currently to my knowledge." Oh. I'm not sure if that's good or bad though. "The last one my people knew of was the friend and soul head of my grandfather many centuries ago. His name was Todd."

Todd? That's a human name alright. English at least.

"Speaking of which, do you go by anything?" Huh, name? Wow. WOW! That's right, I haven't introduced myself yet, to anyone. When was the last time anyone asked for my name that wasn't for business? I don't think I've even thought about my name since coming here.

"AH! Yes. M-my name is R-ruth." A~nd flubbed it. Great going there-

"Ruruzuru?" WHAT? NO! That's, "A very strong and powerful name. I like it."

….Well, when put that way, I mean, what good is my old name in this world anyhow? So yeah, Ruruzuru, Star Child. Not bad.

For a five year old.

Wait, I'm missing something in this conversation.

"Lord Sylfilis." He still looks so happy about that. It's sort of contagious. "You called Todd a 'Soul Head'. What did you mean by that?"

"Oh? You do not know? Ah, yes. I remember Grandfather saying your people do not know of soul union. I will admit it is rare for even our kind to do such." I think I've made a mistake. "A 'Soul Union' comes when two willing souls wish to imprint themselves on each other. One with knowledge and one with power."

"So, say, I give up my memories to gain your strength?"

"No, not 'give up', 'imprint'. And less memories and more just general information about what you know of. In fact, yes," Sylfilis bends back down close to how he was earlier reminding me he could eat me in one bite. ", would you like to union with me?"

WHAT?! A dragon wants to bond with….NO! Head, out of gutter. You are NOT into that.

"I-I, I'm not sure. I do not believe I'd give you much. And I'm not one for fighting."

"Oh it is much more than just that Ruruzuru." He backs away just a smidge. "Grandfather knew so much from Todd then even a fraction of what he learned will make me feel so much closer. And power is not just for muscles but for skill and control as well. Something you may need considering what are doing to that tree you are sitting on."

Eh? Tree? I turn to look at what I'm leaning against to find it engulfed in fire once again. In adrenalin induced fear I try to get away from it before previous injuries cause me to fall once more. I didn't feel the heat all while we were talking.

Actually, since when has it been night? Things look like it's been daytime or was that the fire?

"Ah, you are injured."

"Oh this. Yeah just…a lot of 'train'ing." Heh, I'm stupid.

"Oh? So you are learning to control yourself then?"

"N-no that, that was a pun. Sorry, I get snarky when tired."

"Then you are injured. That is fine, a union heals both parties when performed."

Wow, isn't this just getting more and more convenient. You know what-

"Fine. What have I got to lose?" Sylfilis seems real happy, I think I even heard a little 'Yeh' escape his maw. "So…how do we…union?" That sounds so weird.

"Here." He uses the claw on his wing arm to help me up. "Look into my eyes and repeat what I say, exchanging words as need be. And be sincere about it as that is the most important part."

Sincere. Free of deceit. He's being truthful with me about this as I look him in his basketball sized eye, my image reflected like a mirror upon it. This is the first time I've had a good look at myself since coming here. Not beautiful, but not ugly, just normal, and glowing I sort of laugh at myself. I can do this, I can be….powerful.

I nod, more to assure myself than to tell Sylfilis to start.

"I Sylfilis, give all the power of my being to you, Ruruzuru."

Here we go. No backsys.

"I-I Ruruzuru, give all the….knowledge of my being to you, Sylfilis."

"To learn and grow. Two bodies and souls coming closer to one."
"To learn and grow. Two…bodies and souls coming closer to…one."

This feels strange. We are both big and small, cold and hot at the same time.

"The same being in two growing from each other so as to never be alone."
"The same being in two growing from each other so as to never be…alone."

Oh. OH. We see. We have been missing something like this in our lives. This intimacy that someone should not violate but has at one time or another. The want of control and stability we've seen in other people but lacked ourselves. The things Grandfather spoke of. Hovels of stone and wood, tower of steel and glass. So many cultures, so broken, so angry, so fearful of themselves, so much like mine, but all, them and ours, striving for the chance of a better life. We have that chance now, the words slipping from our mouths.

"One being, two bodies and minds.
As close as we are we will never be the same.
As far as we are we will never be apart.
Come sickness, come health. Till life or death do us part."

WHAT!

Did I just….what?

I push away from Sylfilis and fall to the ground, my body aching. I feel cold, exposed, I feel something pulsing from within, bubbling, wanting to escape my skin. I look down to my hands as it glows and hardens like magma, like….armor. I flex and it bends, the heat trapped within, shown through little crack like veins, but able to be released whenever I choose.

"Oh my. OH MY. This is. That's what he. Oh my."

Sylfilis. He's confused, sad and…happy?

"Sylfilis. Are you okay?"

"Oh Ruth, I…I mean Ruruzuru, or would Ruth be better?"

"No, Ruruzuru is fine." I shake my head to comfort both him and myself. "I was just going to roll with it but, I think a new name should cement this new life of mine." I felt calm, like I'd just found my sense of balance after so long, still having the chance to lose it again but right now I'm in control.

"I believe I understand. The world, it is so much bigger, and so much smaller than I could imagine." He keeps changing where he's looking, from me to himself to the trees and night sky. "So many things to see and do. So many things to learn and ways of doing even the simplest and tasks. I'm so….overwhelmed. Thank you. Thank you so much."

"No it's, it's no problem. And Thank You." He almost looks shocked at this, as if he wasn't expecting me to say it. "I found a part of myself in you. Something I'd never thought I'd have again. I fell….driven. I want to see this world I've become a part of. To learn from it and…tell me, can I do that with others? Teach them about my world as I did you?"

"Well, yes. There is nothing against it." He brings his head back down near mine as I begin scratching the ridge of his mussel. "But doing so may spread yourself thin and giving more to someone then they can give back could cause them to lose something rather than gain it."

"So equal in exchange? Wait, we traded a large amount. Are we-"

"We are fine. The common knowledge of a Star Child for the strength of a Raigees. It's a very equal trade."

"No. Bad drago." I lightly boop him on the snout. "No unioning yourself with strange women."

"Raigees."

"Drago."

"Raigees."

"Same thing really."

"….Essentially, yes, but in practice, no."

"How much about fantasy and Sci-fi do you understand?"

"As much as you do I believe. All the literature you have read I have a recollection of but not a memory of every word as well as what movies are and the ones you have seen, like that one with the two cowboys on the moun-"

"Shush. Quite you. We do not talk of that."
.
.
.

After some odd seconds of us staring each other down we slowly, but heartfully, laugh. A deep laugh I haven't been able to share in ages. Oh how I missed these.

"You know," Sylfilis begins talking again first. ", with your outer shell like that you look like a Gabirol."

"Oh? Am I supposed to know what those are?"

"A creature of a non-organic form of life." Huh. I take a look at the reflection in his eye again. The rock like armor is rather bulky on me but not by much, almost bug like in a way. But my face is completely covered hiding my face in one piece and my mouth in jagged teeth like protrusions. How am I even looking out of this?

"So a Golem?"

"Gabirol."

"Golem."

"Gabirol."

"Golem."

"Raigees."

"Ugh. Gabriol, Raigees, Nazelve, Marrow, Goriji Is there any way I could have you share your knowledge with me like I did with you so I know these thing mean?"

"Uh…sorry, no. By keeping a connection with me you can now only give knowledge, not take." He turns his head away in shame.

"So….the best to learn about this world is?"

"To go out and see it yourself."

"In other words, what I was going to do anyways?"

"Yes."

…..Did that make things easier, or harder?

"Uhm, are you coming with?" I try to give the best puppy eyes I ca-shit no one can see them behind this mask.

"I am afraid not, Star Child Ruruzuru." He sits back up, a sad look on his face. "Though this land is my hunting grounds, it is also my kingdom as you have taught me. There is much to do and protect here. Now more than ever." Oh. That's….disheartening. "But worry not. No matter the distance we are one. If you need me just reach out and I will answer. You will know the way."

Right. Alone, but not. I give him one last hug to his face before he leaves, a tornado like wing flap that barely pushes me now lifting him back to the sky.

One more glance at my new rocky body, one more look at the burnt wood cooling off as dawn makes its way in the clear sky.

Breath in, breath out.

So this is my life now, exploring a human less unknown world.

A~nd I'm hungry. Great.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] All Roads

Arck 1: Life and Death

-o-

"I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as a plant and rose to animal,
I died as an animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?"
― Jalaluddin Rumi

-o-

I've never really liked death in movies. They get shot or something falls on them and their friend or lover holds them in their arms and has some long drawn-out talk with them while they lay dying. It always irked me. That's just not how it happens it real life. People rarely have the chance to make peace with a loved one or hear their final words before death. In real life, death either comes far too quickly... or far too slowly.

And when you die slowly... You start thinking about your life. I haven't led a great one.

I was born in New York City in October of 2005. I've never been what you would call blessed. My mother died due to complications giving birth to me. My older brother died in the ongoing war against terrorism. Little sister was hit by a drunk driver while playing in traffic. No aunts or uncles, grandparents gradually died one by one as I got older. From age ten to later it was just my dad and me. Dad had lung cancer from smoking but he said he just wouldn't die until I was old enough to take care of myself. I think it was the sheer willpower that kept him going, just to keep that promise. It seems everyone in my life succumbed to something that modern medicine could help, but not enough. Injuries, diseases.

Even I wasn't immune to it. I found out I had AIDS at age eleven. It had been lying dormant in my body for ten years. No clue how I got it, but I suspect it was something sharp I stepped on as a barely-walking baby. It was a long battle against it but I stayed smiling for my dad and what few friends I had. I was often avoided because, ya know... AIDS girl. I was pretty much a walking zombie contagion to most kids.

You can imagine why I turned to anime, manga, video games, and the Internet for entertainment. I wasn't exactly fit for athletics or socializing, after all. I even planned that, if I made it to graduation, I'd try to become a doctor, and I usually played MMOs as a healer class of some sort. I loved RPGs, especially, and I also got really into isekai manga and anime. The idea that there were other worlds out there that you could get sent to just fascinated me.

I was just approaching my sweet sixteenth birthday when I could tell my end was coming. My immune system had weakened considerably from my disease and I had just caught the flu, of all things.

I lay in my hospital bed, barely conscious and staring up at the ceiling. It was a feeling that not many people are familiar with... facing your own mortality. I didn't know what was on the other side. Was it like a toy that was just turned off, existence completely vanishing entirely? Would my consciousness be cast into a void with only my own thoughts to entertain myself for all eternity? Would I be reincarnated with no memories of my previous life? Or was heaven, hell, or some other mythological afterlife real?

My body grew cold and my eyes closed. Oh, I wasn't dying, not yet. That was the sedatives kicking in. They were putting me out while they did what they could to keep me going, but... yeah, I didn't have high hopes for that. When the anesthesia finally stole my consciousness, I felt myself drifting in a black void, my last thoughts turning to how how much my life would've been better if injuries or diseases were as easy to fix as waving your hand and wishing them away. That was when I opened my eyes again.

I was staring up at a wooden ceiling, composed of old-fashioned rafters instead of the blank whiteness of the hospital ceiling. I must have been moved to somewhere after whatever miraculous medical procedure they used to save my life. Wow, maybe I was wrong to doubt modern medicine! Oof, I felt a bit stiff, though. Best get up, go for a walk around the building, maybe see what kinda place I was moved to. I felt a little disoriented and woozy, but there should've been a doctor or nurse or two nearby to help me.

But... I found I couldn't really move my arms and legs. They seemed to be tightly wrapped within a blanket. I wriggled and wriggled, but found that I just didn't have the strength to get out of them. Perhaps I was still weakened by whatever surgery I'd undergone or whatever drugs they'd given me for pain? I managed to tilt my head enough to look at something other than than ceiling and what I saw shocked me!

I seemed to have found myself in a wooden crib. More importantly, I realized how large everything was! The room was the same wooden planks as the ceiling and was decorated with kiddy wall decals. Okay, now I was starting to get worried... Had I shrunk somehow? When I opened my mouth to call out, instead only a crying sound emerged. I tried to speak, but again more crying. So I did the only thing I could do... I cried. I cried and cried and after a solid minute of crying, someone finally came.

Shuffling caught my attention and someone walked into my field of vision, looming over me. She had black hair and dark brown skin, like an African-American woman, but it was the strangest thing... She had floppy ears coming out of the side of her head where her human ears should be, covered in brown fur, while little nubby horns emerged from her long, curly black locks. She stared at me with big, doe-like brown eyes, a maternal warmth in them. She seemed far larger than she should've been, reaffirming for me how small and helpless I was. She reached down and lifted me up into her arms, causing a feeling of security and safety to wash over me. She held me to her chest, undoing her blouse to reveal a surprisingly large breast. Bringing me to her nipple, instincts took over and I began to suckle, relieved when thick, warm milk trickled down my throat. It was sweet, at that.

She cooed and whispered soothingly to me, but I couldn't make out what she was saying. It was like she was speaking an entirely different language. I reached my far hand up to grasp at the bosom I was held against and suckling from, surprised at the tiny size of my hand. Before I could properly contemplate this, the sweet, warm, thick cream filling my belly made me sleepy and my eyelids fell shut as the horned woman placed me back in the crib.

I briefly wondered if this was all some kind of fever dream... Maybe when I woke up, I'd be back in my hospital bed again?

-o-

I awoke and this time was able to fully grasp my situation. I was a baby. Reincarnation was real, and I'd been reborn, but somehow with my memories of my previous life intact!

I wasn't sure if the woman taking care of me was my mother or nanny, so for now, I referred to her as my "caretaker." My caretaker returned after I slept and lifted me up into her arms once more, again giving me a fulfilling feeling of safety and security. She began walking me across the room and I took the chance to look her over a bit more.

The woman who was tending to me, besides her ears and horns, also sported a long, whip-like tail with a tuft of fur at the end that emerged from her skirt. The source of the clacking on the wooden floorboards that I assumed was heels was actually hooved feet complete with brown fur going up her legs into her dress. It was clear that she wasn't human and that meant one of two things. Either this was the future and animal-human hybrids had been genetically engineered, or this was some kind of fantasy world where non-human races were aplenty.

She took me across the room to a rocking chair and sat herself down, holding me to her chest and singing some unknown but soothing song as she rocked. I took the opportunity to look down at my hands, where I saw I had the same dark skin as I had back home, but something was off. I felt something present on the top of my head, but couldn't reach to feel what they were. I also felt something twitching against my leg in the folds of the blanket, but just didn't have the strength as an infant to extricate myself from its folds and check.

As my caretaker sang, I tried to study the words, but I made no progress in comprehending them. I soon heard footsteps and turned to see someone walked in. I was quite surprised to see it was a man who looked not even four feet tall yet had the features of a youthful adult, not a little person. But more importantly, he had the ears and tail of a mouse and digitigrade furry mouse legs! He was wearing a simple tunic and breeches and spoke with my caretaker briefly before departing. I still couldn't understand what he and my caretaker said. Other people occasionally came in to speak with her, and they either looked fully human or had the ears and tails of various breeds of dogs. Others still were extremely short and petite, too much so to be human but not like the little people back on Earth. Their clothes consisted of tunics and breeches and some even carried daggers or short swords, further leading me to believe that this was some medieval fantasy world. Time would only tell what kind it was...

-o-

The first time I soiled my diaper wasn't pleasant, but I'll spare you the details. Luckily, a lot of crying got the attention of my caretaker. The cow-like woman came in a hurry, giving a sniff to the air. With the care of a woman trained and experienced with babies, she took me to a nearby flat surface in my nursery and unwrapped me from my wrapping, then began changing my diaper. I call it a "diaper" but it was just a piece of cloth and judging from the stains it had been reused many times. I shuddered at the thought.

My first changing gave me my first chance to better examine myself. To my surprise, like my caretaker, I had a tail! But this one was long, thin, had a rounded tip, and was quite prehensile. Like a monkey tail, but covered in black fur. I didn't have much dexterity with it due to my underdeveloped muscles, though. Maybe when I was older I could use it as an extra limb?

My legs were also a shock. Digitigrade and ending in paws, covered in black fur all the way up to where my thighs met my hips. It was then I realized that the presence I felt on top of my head were ears. I was some kind of cat-human hybrid! Question was... was I a black housecat or a panther? Hmmm...

Also worth mentioning, I could see I was female, just like my previous life. So... that was a plus. Yay.

-o-

As the days passed, I found being a baby again wasn't really all that bad, especially now that I had the mental maturity to actually be able to enjoy it. It was like being waited on hand and foot! I could sleep when I was tired without having to get up, I got to enjoy the soft, warm body of a matronly woman and listen to her songs, I didn't have to use the bathroom since I only had to cry to be changed, and I got to enjoy suckling the richest, most delicious milk I'd ever drunken whenever I was hungry. While I didn't have a libido due to lacking sexual hormones, I still had my mental perversion, and I must say, my caretaker's breast was probably the loveliest I had ever seen.

Unfortunately, after a while, sleeping became an issue. The first few nights were fine, but eventually I started to feel like something was missing. Every time I tried to close my eyes and fall asleep, I felt an intense feeling of longing, like a piece of me was missing. I only ever felt it just as I was about to doze off too and it always jerked me awake and set me crying beyond my own control. My caretaker would rush in and rock me to sleep against her bosomy chest. Feeling her warm body against mine seemed to complete me somehow and I would happily fall into a sweet sleep.

However, when my caretaker placed my sleeping form back in the crib, the lack of warm softness against my infant body would cause me to stir awake again and begin crying. Eventually Caretaker found a solution.

She brought in an old teddy bear. It was clearly a hand-me-down and had been patched and mended several times. What was likely brown fabric at one point had long faded into a kind of beige. She placed it against me and I happily wrapped my arms and legs around it, even suckling on its ear a bit. The feeling of that stuffed animal's soft, plushy body against mine, while not as warm as Caretaker's, still fulfilled my need to have something close and pressed against me. I had no issues sleeping once my caretaker had given me 'Theo,' as I called him.

-o-

Solid foods were a problem. After a while, I was fed a kind of goop that was bland and wasn't as flavorful as my caretaker's milk. She still breastfed me a bit, but was slowly weening me onto this stuff. It was gross and wasn't as satisfying, but... Ah well. Hopefully I'd get to have actual food instead of slush soon enough. I'd just have to be patient.

-o-

The days passed quickly. You know that sense of wonderment you have when you're a kid, where every new experience is an adventure? Yeah, I kinda had a dumbed-down version of that due to this new and exciting world I was in. On top of that, time just passes by quickly for kids due to all the energy in their systems and the speed of their brains. It wasn't long before a year passed. Even with all that time passing, I couldn't help wondering if this was just a long-term coma dream...

I gradually began to notice subtle patterns in the words Caretaker and the people around me were using. Certain repeated words stuck out to me and it wasn't long before I was completely fluent in this language as if it were English. Still, whenever I tried to actually speak it, only crying came out.

My caretaker was named Cremia, so I figured it was about time to stop calling her 'Caretaker' in my head. There was a woman with pointed dog ears and blonde hair who helped out named Sheba and a human woman named Kate. They were dressed similarly to Cremia. Modest long dresses with buttons on the chest, aprons over them, and bandannas over their heads that honestly reminded me of spring cleaning. Sheba's made sure to make room for her ears and, in Cremia's case, horns. The mouse-man I'd seen during my rocking sessions was named Deril, by the way.

I still didn't know what exactly Cremia, Sheba, and Deril were, but I could gather they were some non-human race, possibly similar to my own cat-like one. I was old enough to sit up and reach up to my head, so I could confirm there were indeed flicking, twitching, live cat ears atop my head. I also found that my tongue was rough like a cat's and my teeth had noticeable felines fangs.

Cremia stood over my crib, running her hand through my hair, when Sheba walked up.

"Do you think it's time for her first bath, Cremia?" she asked.

Cremia sighed contentedly. "I'd say so. Get Kate and fill a small tub. Oh, and have Deril get the soap and baby shampoo. It's time Kaya got clean."

Kaya... I guess that was my name. Good to know!

Cremia lifted me up, holding me in her arms, and carried me over to the changing table. She held me there and I got a look at my face for the first time in the mirror on the wall. Sure enough, my eyes were golden and had slit pupils, and I could see that my hair was the same black as my fur. I also seemed to have a youthful smattering of freckles across my cheeks and nose!

Soon Kate and Sheba brought in a small tub filled with hot, steaming water. Deril also came in with a bottle and bar of soap, but he didn't say anything and left before Cremia started to remove my diaper.

"Is that the new baby shampoo from Hub?" Sheba asked.

Kate nodded. "Yeah. Supposedly it's made by alchemists there so it won't irritate a baby's eyes."

"I take it Deril brought it in from his last trip there?" the dog-girl continued.

"Yup! Came out of his own pocket. Spent a good bit of dolla getting it past the guard into the United Federation. Luckily Doormice are found all over, so he wasn't searched and tariffed getting it into Grandia's city limits. I'm just glad Hub exists. We'd never be able to get quality goods we can't make ourselves with all the nations at each other's throats without that neutral trade town."

"It's like they say. All roads lead to Hub."

"Shhh," Cremia shushed gently. "No discussing politics in front of the baby."

"Right. Sorry, Cremia. You're the boss," Sheba said.

"Speaking of, Cremia, I always wondered..." Kate began. "Minotaurs aren't native to the United Federation. Why'd you open an orphanage here in Grandia?"

Cremia was silent for a time as she began mixing the shampoo into my wet hair. I couldn't help noting how the water matted the fur on my legs, and I was briefly grateful I probably never would have to worry about shaving my legs ever again.

"That's a long story... But I guess I can tell it to you later."

There was a loud bang, then the sound of crying. A little dog-eared boy came running into my nursery, bawling his eyes out.

"C-Cremia! I-I scraped my knee!" he cried.

Cremia giggled. She squatted down and pulled the neckline of her dress and apron out, reaching between her breasts and pulling a small, straight stick from her cleavage. She pointed it at the boy's knee. "O healing power, come to me... First Aid!" There was a green glow that shined on both the tip of the wand and the wound on the boy's furry, digitigrade knee, and I watched as it closed up and soon was good as new. "How's that, my child? Feel better?"

The little dog boy giggled. "Thanks, Cremia!" He then scampered off, tall wagging.

Whoa... healing magic existed in this world? Would I be able to learn it someday? I hoped so!

-o-

I was two years old when I started walking lessons.

Cremia, Sheba, Kate, and Deril gathered around me while the matronly Minotaur held me up by my arms.

"You can do it, Kaya!" "Yeah!" "Use those cute little paws!"

My paws touched the floor and after a brief moment of build-up, Cremia let go. I stumbled forward, but managed to catch myself and stand on my own two paws. I began a slow, wobbling walk. It was strange, walking on paws instead of feet. My knees were digitigrade instead of plantigrade, so at first this felt completely foreign. It was like learning to walk all over again. I mean, it literally was, but in a different way than you might think. I was so used to feet and plantigrade knees that having paws and digitigrade knees meant I couldn't rely on my past life's knowledge when it came to walking. On top of that, my two-year-old body just didn't have the strength to walk for long. Luckily my tail was such a big help! Every step I took, I felt it move on its own, like the rudder of a ship, to correct my balance. Still, after seven steps, I fell right on my rear.

"Awww... Poor dear." "She did so well her first time, though!" "Well, you know what they say about cats landing on their feet."

Cremia picked me up and cuddled me to her prodigious chest again. "Such a good girl, Kaya! You'll be walking like a pro in no time!"

She was right.

-o-

It wasn't long afterwards that Cremia took me from my crib and down the halls.

"Kaya, guess what? We have a new person here at the orphanage, and he's your age! Do you want that, hm? Someone your age to play with?" Cremia asked, using a baby talk-like voice.

I could only coo in response, not having the oratory skills to use proper words yet.

"I thought so!" Cremia exclaimed, taking me into a side room. She set me within a fenced-in pen, where a toddler my age was seated. "Kaya, meet Runey!"

Runey? I was pretty sure that was a pet name of some sort. I looked him over and saw he had dark brown skin like me, but his hair was white. While his eyes were yellow like my golden ones, they lacked the slit pupils. He looked human otherwise, but his ears were long and pointed. Was he a dark elf? Probably! It kinda excited me, knowing elves were no doubt a thing in this world.

"You two place nice! I'll be back in an hour to check on you!" Cremia cheerfully explained. She turned on her hooves and clopped off, her bovine tail swishing behind her.

I inwardly shrugged and stood, teetering over to the little boy. Like me, the lack of a diaper indicated he'd been potty-trained by now. Yeah, I spared you the details of that tale for obvious reasons, but suffice it to say that aside from the dexterity issues, I had no mental maturity issues with swapping from diapers to potty seats, and I was relieved to find that this world had indoor plumbing. Unfortunately, they still used straw for wiping. We can't have everything...

Anyway, with both of us potty trained, Runey was wearing some black breeches and a black tunic. I was wearing a white dress with a modest skirt and thin straps. I have to say, I think I looked cute in it.

Runey watched me curiously as I gathered some blocks and started stacking them between us, hoping he would join in soon. He just watched at first, but as soon as I got a good stack going, he knocked them over, then laughed with great joy. I shrugged and began stacking them again, but he yet again knocked them over when I got a pretty good structure up. This repeated until I eventually got frustrated. I tried to chastise him, but instead only goo-goo ga-ga noises and the occasional almost-word came out. The dark elf boy responded to this by bonking me on the head with his fist, eliciting yet more joyous laughter.

I sighed and felt immensely grateful that, while I had mental perversion, I didn't have physical hormones yet. Not until puberty. I shuddered to think what I might think of Runey as we got older. It'd be weird, developing a crush on a ten year old while I had the mind of a fifteen year old girl going through life a second time. Oh crap, I'd have to go through puberty again, wouldn't I? Dammit...

Anyway, I did my best to entertain and play with Runey, and he took every opportunity to mess with me or even occasionally bonk me on the head. I don't think he meant any malice in it, since he always laughed gleefully whenever he did it, but I still decided to keep an eye on my first friend, just in case...

-o-

"Cow!"

Cremia stopped in the middle of reading to me from a picture book, her eyes widening.

"What did you say?"

"Cow!" I repeated.

Cremia stood up and set me down on the rocking chair with the animal picture book, then ran to the door to the nursery, her hooves clip-clopping on the floor. "Everyone, come quick! Kaya just said her first word!"

In no time, Sheba, Kate, and Deril came running and gathered around the rocking chair. Cremia picked me up and held me upright in her arms. "C'mon, say it again, Kaya!"

"Cow!" I proudly repeated again.

"Oh, wow!" "Her first word!" "You must be so proud, Cremia!"

I couldn't help but grin. I'd been trying to talk every day just to see if I could finally get it. Looked like my mouth was finally developed enough to say my first word! I even made sure it was a word that would show my caretaker I thought of her a lot! I mean, I thought of making it "mama," but I didn't want it to be too weird for her, considering she was just the orphanage owner. I felt "cow" got my point across. Hee hee! About two and a half years old and I'd already said my first word! Give it a year and I'd have my oratory skills down pat!

-o-

At three years old I was talking like a pro, but I held back any questions that might hint at an overly precocious nature. I didn't want to alarm anyone by showing I pondered things I couldn't have pondered.

I played with Runey most days and he continued his habit of being a little bully. As I was on my hands and knees one day, scribbling in a color book, I felt a sharp pain that actually made me let out a very cat like "Yoowwwwww!" I whirled around to see Runey standing there, laughing, evidently having pulled my tail.

"I'm telling Cremia!" I exclaimed, turning to stand.

The Dark Elf just stuck his tongue out at me. "Go ahead, it was worth it!"

I left and ran down the halls. I stumbled on occasion, but each time I recovered easily, likely due to my feline nature. I eventually made it to the kitchen where I found Cremia cutting vegetables. I wandered up and tugged on her skirt.

"Mith Cremia, mith Cremia!" I exclaimed, my poor grasp of the letter "S" apparent.

Cremia glanced down at me, even as she chopped parsnips. "Hm? What is it, Kaya?"

"Runey pulled my tail! It huuurt!" I cried, tears welling up in my eyes.

Cremia set her knife down and squatted lower to meet me. Holding her arms out, she wrapped them around me and hugged them to her generous bosom. Wow, I loved these things. So soft, so warm, so full of delicious milk... What? Like I said, no physical libido, but I still had my mental perversion.

"I'm sorry, Kaya... I'll talk to Runey. I promise," she soothed, stroking my back. When I stopped crying, she stood up and returned to preparing lunch. Hmmm... Runey giving my tail a hard tug and running to cry to Cremia about it actually gave me the perfect opportunity to ask something very important.

"Hey, Mith Cremia, can I athk a question, please mith?" I asked, tugging on her skirt once more.

It was odd how a lot of my speech was involuntary. While the words were clearly formed in my head, I spoke them with a lisp without meaning to. Also, that 'please miss' on the end? Totally didn't intend to say it. There were also words I knew, but simply couldn't say. Usually big, smart words. It was as if my mind knew them, but my mouth didn't.

Cremia smiled down at me. With the tail-tugging incident with Runey, she seemed to understand what I was about to ask. She knelt down and reached up to rub my ear. I was deeply surprised by how good it felt. I even felt something I didn't know I could do until that point welling up from my chest: A purr.

"You're a Cait Sith, Kaya. They're part of the Beast Races. Your's is... kind of a race of kitty people," she explained.

"Mmm... Prrr... Prrr... What about you, Cremia, mith?" I asked, downright enthralled by the ear rub.

"I'm a Minotaur. We're cow people. You've seen cows in your picture books, right?" She said with the patience and warmth of a mother.

"Yeth, mith! Oh, what about Katey? And Sheebee? Oh, and Derry! What're they, mith?"

"Well, Kate is a Hume. They're really resilient people. Sheba is a Hellhound, a race of doggy people. Deril is a Doormouse, a race of mousey people. Oh, and you be sure to show him a lot of respect, because while I'm in charge around here, Deril is my number two! You got that, Kaya?"

"Mmmm... Prrrr..." Damn, those ear rubs felt good! "Yeth, mith! Bu' how come we're the only cow and kitty here, mith?" I asked. In all my time here, watching people come and go, they'd all been Humes, Hellhounds, or Doormice. Also, I'd intended to say 'Minotaur' and 'Cait Sith,' but it somehow came out like that. It was like my mouth couldn't keep up with my mind.

"Well, Minotaurs aren't native to this country, sweetie. As for Cait Sith, well... Um..." She seemed downright uncomfortable at something, and I couldn't fathom what. Was my race dying out, or something? "Your people just aren't usually in orphanages, hun. Okay?"

She was clearly covering up a mature matter, but I just smiled and nodded up at her. "Oh, oh! Mith, mith! Prrrrrr... What are na... nati... from here? What is from here? Oh, oh! And mith... Where is here?"

Cremia giggled. It was a mature, matronly giggle. "Such a curious, precocious child... Well, this is Grandia. It's a city in the United Federation. The native races are Humes, Kerdils, Hellhounds, Cait Sith, and Doormice. Your little friend Runey is a Dark Elf, by the way! They're native to Alvos. I'm a Minotaur, and we're native to Fertile Valley. Fertile Valley is a big country with lots of farms and ranches! Cows, sheep, chickens, pigs, horses... Most of the world's food comes from there!"

Huh... This was really interesting! I'd have to milk this opportunity for all it was worth!... Uh, bad phrasing! Sorry!

"What'th a Ker... Ker... Ker-dil, mith!" Odd word for a three year old, but I pulled it off!

"Kerdils are the tiny people in the hoods. They all wear hoods of some kind, be it from a cloak, a cape, a robe, or a coat, so they're easy to recognize! Oh, and the races are actually put in categories! You read about categories in your book, right? Humes, Kerdils, and Dark Elves are part of the Human Races, while Cait Sith, Hellhounds, Doormice, and Minotaurs are part of the Beast Races!"

Huh, so races were categorized in this world? Fascinating! "But mith... Mmmm... prrrrr... Why do Kerdils all wear hoods?"

Cremia smiled, still rubbing my ear. "They just like hoods, dear!"

That... seemed like a silly answer you give a child, but... Hey, I was three years old. I'd let it slide.

"What other rathes are in those groupth, ohhhh right there, mith Cremia?" I asked, leaning further into Cremia's ear rubs.

Cremia just giggled. "Don't worry about it for now, dear. They'll be plenty of time to go over that when you're older."

Being young sucked... But it was hard to stay mad about it when these ear rubs felt so good!

-o-

Cremia had long since begun feeding me actual food. Problem was, my senses were much higher than in my previous life. Mostly taste, smelling, and hearing. My ears would flick and pivot in response to any sudden sound and I was noticing smells I wouldn't in my last life. Cremia often had to be careful with spices and sauces in my food because of how sensitive my tongue was to taste and texture. I notably had a huge preference for seafood and dairy products. The orphanage had quite a supply of Cremia's milk, since it was apparently natural for female Minotaurs to perpetually lactate without pregnancy. Go figure.

Another thing I found was that my teeth were noticeably sharper than a Hume's, more befitting of a carnivore than an omnivore. It was mostly my canine teeth, though. The others were only subtly sharper. I found pure vegetable dishes were a bit hard to chew and weren't as satisfying as meat, poultry, seafood, or dairy.

"What's wrong, hun?" Cremia asked, noticing my pickiness with my food.

"Um... Mith..." I began, stirring my veggies with my fork. "The veggies are... hard to chew. A-And they're... th-they don't make me feel as good as meat."

Cremia, ever accommodating of her children's needs, just smiled and nodded, setting my mind at ease. "I understand, hun. I'm sorry, I forgot about a Cait Sith's dietary needs. I'll try to make your veggies as a side dish or when they they're mixed with meat."

I smiled up at my caretaker, my tail swishing.

-o-

When I was four years old I realized I was getting too big for my crib. Luckily Cremia realized the same thing. One afternoon after lunch, she lifted me up and carried me down the hall.

"I have a surprise for you, Kaya!"

"A thurprise? Yay!" I cheered.

Cremia carried me into Runey's room. I was delighted at what I saw.

What was originally a second nursery had been converted into a child's bedroom. There were two child-sized beds, a toy trunk, a bookshelf, a dresser, and a rug for a play area. But wait, why two beds? And where was Runey going to slee- Oh, no...

"Mith? Why are there two beds?" I asked, trying to play it innocent.

"Oh! Because you're going to be sharing a room with Runey, of course!"

I fidgeted uncomfortably. "But, mith... Runey's a boy!"

Cremia got a confused expression on her face, a rarity for her. "Uh... yes, he is. What about it, dear?"

Wait, was there no taboo about people of the opposite sex sharing a room in this world? Good lord, I could only hope it wasn't the same for bathrooms!

Sure enough, that night, I shared my room with Runey. It was kind of weird at first, sharing a room with a boy. I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it had I had a natural child's mind, but currently, I still had the mind of a fifteen year old girl! Still, once I was snuggled up to Theo, I slept fine. Surprisingly, Runey didn't pull my tail or bonk me on the head when it was time for bed or to wake up. He was too tired come bedtime and too out of it in the morning.

-o-

Time to switch from the potty to the toilet! I'll spare you the details, other than that it was fairly painless due to my previous life. In fact, the only real thing to note is that toilets in this world are made of metal instead of porcelain and there is no taboo about boys and girls sharing a bathroom! In fact, I can't say for sure since I've never left the orphanage, but I'm starting to think there are no gender-segregated bathrooms in this world! Also, straw for wiping... Thaaat's still taking a while to get used to.

-o-

Yup, still four years old. What can I say? It's been a busy year. Anyway, I'm now running like a pro! Still on my bare paws though, but... Well, these things aren't like feet. Cats run around on their paws all the time, so why can't I? Cremia doesn't wear shoes, and honestly, I'm kinda liking running around barefoot. Errr... bare-pawed.

Besides, what can I say? My paws are just adorable! Black-furred, pink-padded, little claws! I'm liking them a lot more than feet! And like I said earlier, with fur going all the way up to my pelvis, I'll never have to shave my legs again! Hee hee! Feet suck, paws rule!

Though this raised a question... Did races with paw-feet like Cait Sith, Hellhounds, and Doormice even wear shoes in this world? I didn't notice Deril wearing any, and Cremia had hooves, but she didn't wear shoes... Time to ask my caretaker.

I started looking for her, but I was surprised when I ran into a small person in a green hooded cape, the hood up and shading his eyes. Under it I could see he was wearing gray breeches and brown boots.

"Oh! I'm sorry. Almost didn't see you there," he said.

Wait... This was a Kerdil! Had to be. "Oh! A Kerdil!" I exclaimed. "Hey, hey! Mithter, mithter! Why are you wearing a hood?"

He shrugged. "I like hoods."

I sighed. "B-But why do all of the little Kerdils wear hoods, mithter?"

He shrugged again. "Kerdils just like hoods."

Was this some kind of conspiracy?

"Oh, Kaya! I see you've met Kilk."

I looked up to see Cremia step in from the kitchen. She squatted down and rubbed my ears again. Sweet sugar, didn't she realize how damn good that felt? I immediately felt a purr emanate from my chest.

"Kaya, this is Kilk. He's going to be working here from now on! Kilk, this is one of the good little girls at the orphanage and currently my youngest girl, Kaya!"

Kilk smiled, giving me a friendly wave. "Lovely to meet you, Kaya. Cremia and I are old friends. She realized she needed more help here, so she called me in from Metia."

"Mmm... Prrrr... N-Nithe to meet you, thir! Oh, oh! Prrrr... Cremia, mith! Cremia, mith! I have a question!"

"Oh? What is it Kaya?"

"Do they make shoes for paws and hooves?"

Cremia giggled. "I take it you've been wondering about Runey's boots, huh? Well, they do, Kaya, but most don't wear them. Paws work just fine on dirt and stone without shoes. There are sandals and specialty boots made for paws, but most people don't bother with them when they don't need them. In fact, shoes for hooves like mine are so unnecessary, I don't think you can get them unless you actually ask a cobbler to make some custom for you."

Huh, so shoes for paws and hooves are more of an unnecessary luxury item in this world? Good to know! I won't ever have to worry about shoes ever again! Yeah, I know, I know. Most girls adore shoes and some own more pairs than outfits. But I always found shoe-shopping to be a hassle. Like, a total chore! And I was in the hospital so much, I kinda got used to not wearing shoes. With paws, I would never have to worry about shoes ever again!

"Good!"

Cremia cocked an eyebrow. "Good?"

"Runey's bootth are yucky! Imma go bare pawed forever!"

Crema burst into a motherly laughter, and even Kilk couldn't help chuckling.

"Cremia, she's adorable," the Kerdil said.

"Isn't she?"

I couldn't help blushing.

-o-

In addition to no shoes, I usually wore dresses. Cremia chose my clothes and hairstyles, in fact. I had at least persuaded her that I wanted to grow it long, and it was typically tied into braided pigtails. Unlike a black person back on Earth, my hair in this world was soft and wavy despite my dark skin and black hair. Still, I liked the dresses. They were cute and comfortable! I was a little concerned about my lack of, er... underwear. So I walked up to Cremia while she was wandering the halls and tugged on her skirt again.

"Mith?"

She stopped. "Hm? Yes, Kaya?" She squatted down and once again reached up to rub my ears. Ohhhhh goooood why did that have to feed so good? It was like a relaxing massage!

"Mith, thith feels... breezy. Do I get to ohhhh... prrrrr... Wear thomething under my dreth?"

Cremia looked surprised... and then a bit uncomfortable. Guilty, even. "Oh... I'm sorry, Kaya. I really should've considered doing this sooner. I was just hoping to avoid having to get you underwear until you were old enough to be more self-conscious. Money is tight, you see. Yes, it was wrong of me, and I'm sorry. I hope you don't think less of me... I'll have some undies specially made for your tail ready by tomorrow, I promise."

Oh... it was a monetary issue? I kind of felt bad now... In fact, I was kind of starting to think that there just wasn't underwear for tails in this world, but... Hey, if Deril had pants with a hole for his tail, why not underwear?

-o-

It was, sure enough, the next day. Cremia came into my room with a bundle of undies.

I'll spare you the details to avoid making you uncomfortable, but they were quite modest panties. But rather than built-in holes for my tails, they typically had a dip in the waistline for them. I also noticed that there was no elastic! Instead, the sides had threads that you tied together, almost like a side-tie bikini bottom! Then again, I think I read somewhere that that's what was actually used in the medieval era.

I looked guiltily in the mirror as I modeled one, worried how much Cremia shelled out for them... They looked brand new, too. Great, now I had guilt... But at least I was more modest in my dresses, now.

Feeling bad, I walked up to where Cremia sat in her chair and I hopped into her lap, curling up against her chest.

"Thank you, Mith..." I said softly.

The matronly Minotaur said nothing, just holding me to her chest and rocking me gently back and forth.

...Holy hell, why didn't anyone ever tell me laps were so comfortable? Was it a cat thing? It was probably a cat thing. I could just... ohp. Yup. I woke up in my bed. I really did fall asleep in Cremia's lap. Yikes! Note to self: Beware the power of laps!

-o-

The floodgates were opened. The switch had been flipped. I was now a lap kitten like no other.

Every chance I got, whenever I found Cremia sitting down, I'd climb into her lap and just cuddle. It felt so good. Comfortable, secure. It was fulfilling. I felt complete! Protected, safe. It was kind of similar to how I needed Theo as a body pillow whenever I slept.

"Miiiith..." I whined as Cremia rocked me in her lap. "Why do lapth feel tho good? Is it thomething to do with Theo?"

Crema sighed, but it was a happy little sigh. "I figured this would happen sooner or later... You see, Kaya. Beast Races tend to be more in touch with their instincts than Human Races. Female Minotaurs like me, for example, feel bliss and fulfillment when we're... well, when we're milked. Hellhounds love being pet on the head and told they're a good boy or a good girl, and are incredibly loyal. Doormice live to serve and hate being in the limelight. As for Cait Sith, well... They can't physically sleep without something to snuggle up against, like your Theo, and laps are just the comfiest thing in the world to them. When you're in my lap, you feel something deep down, like you've found the place where you belong, right? Like you were meant be in my lap, yes?"

I nodded, my face nestled against the matronly Minotaur's bosom... What? How many times I gotta tell you, I may not have had a physical sex drive, but I still had my mental perversions, and those chesticles were primo!

"That's your instincts, Kaya. Cait Sith are natural cuddlers, with laps being just irresistible to them. Just... Kaya, please don't try and climb into Runey's lap or anything? If you need some good lap time, you can use me, Kate, Sheba, or even Deril or Kilk. Just don't try it on anyone who it'll make uncomfortable, okay?"

I just nodded, too content and absolutely complete to really put up much of a fight. "Yeth, mith..." Was it weird? Maybe. But it felt so right, who was I to argue with it? Mmm... Call me crazy, but laps were sweet, sweet fulfillment.

-o-

Yet another event from when I was four years old? Again, like I said, busy year.

I was nearing five and, like I covered earlier, was running around like I'd been doing it all my life. I occasionally tripped, but I seemed to have a talent for landing on my feet. Must have had something to do with my feline legs and tail. Since I was more ambulatory than usual, I took great pride in more independence. Going to the bathroom on my own, examining my new body in the mirror (my feline eyes were so cool!), running away from Runey. You know, typical kid stuff. Still, I noted that I always ate meals in my room with Runey. Runey and I had a private bathroom, but that was it. The furthest I was allowed to go was the kitchen. Beyond that was a locked door.

It was actually during one of my mirror-examinations that I actually started to test some things about this new body.

My toes had extendable claws, but I didn't seem to have claws on my fingers. I also noticed I was pretty flexible, so... time to test that.

I began some stretches, reaches, and contortions. I found I had a limited ability to reach my own back and, more impressively, I could bring both legs up beside my head at once! Wow!

I also found that, to go with the kitty ears atop my head, I had no human ears on the sides of my head. It was honestly kinda weird at first to look at...

I tried purring on command, next. And it worked! Sweet, I could purr when I wanted to! Huh... And it looked like I could purr whether I was breathing in or out!

I examined my ears and tail one more time, reflecting on the fact that my ears and tail had a very unintended drawback to all they gave me, besides their sensitivity: They tended to make it very hard to hide my emotions. My tail dropped when sad, went between my legs when scared, hooked its tip when I was playful, and swayed vigorously when I was happy. It was the ultimate betrayer to any poker face I could attempt, and my ears weren't much better. How any Cait Sith managed to lie was beyond me.

-o-

It was also thanks to my newfound freedom of movement that I had access to Cremia's room, which was back there with my room and the bathroom. I rarely had nightmares, but... I occasionally did. Usually about things from my last life. Being in a hospital room and feeling hopeless... things like that.

When I got my first one, I got out of bed and went out into the hall. It was my first time being awake in the middle of the night, and to my surprise, I found that I had really good low-light vision! Like a proper cat, my eyes adjusted nearly instantaneously to sudden changes in light and I was able to see very clearly in the dark condition, though I had no ability to see color in total darkness. It would be really useful since Cremia was teaching me to read and I could read in the dark like this! I ran back inside my room and checked the mirror. My eyes seemed to reflect light in the way you usually see your pet cat's doing and widened to take in more light in the dark. Awesome!

I ran back out into the hall and down to Cremia's room, dressed in my little nighty and bloomers, and clambered onto her bed. She was sitting up on it, reading a novel before bed.

"Oh, sweetie! Did you have a bad dream?" She asked, worry in her face.

I climbed onto her lap, immediately feeling calm and content, nodding as my lip stopped trembling. Wow, laps were like living Prozac! Cremia set her book down and cuddled me to her breasts. Her soft, warm breasts, mmmmph!

She stroked my back and whispered soothing words into my little kitty ear, which flicked in response to her breath. After a while, I posed a question.

"Hey, mith? I have claws on my paws... Why don't I have them on my hands?"

Cremia giggled. "Oh, don't worry, little one. You'll get them when you're older!"

Ah. Puberty, I assumed. Made sense. "Oh... Oh! I have another question!"

"Yes, my child?"

"Why am I not allowed patht the kitchen?"

Cremia sighed. "I swear, you're too precocious for your own good. And that's... partly why. There are plenty of other boys and girls in this orphanage, but they're all older than you, and none of them are Cait Sith. I was... holding you back until you were ready. But... yes, you're surprisingly smart and mature for your age, Kaya. I think it's time I expanded your world. I'm sorry."

Dammit... I swear, this woman was way better a parent than I deserved. I never had a mother, so... this was honestly a new experience for me, but I knew most mothers weren't this good. I sighed and nuzzled into her bosom and lap, when a thought struck me.

"Hey, mith?"

"Yes, my dear?"

"Cow-cows like you feel good when milk comes out, right?" More of my forced childish wording at work!

"Uh... yes. It's... fulfilling, much like when you sit in someone's lap."

"Mith Cremia... C'n I drink thome from you? I want to make you feel as good as I do when I'm in your lap..." I offered.

Cremia was silent for several moments, and for a while, I worried I might have said something extremely inappropriate... But then, she began to unbutton her nightgown, sighing with a smile on her face. "I swear, child, you're too smart for your own good."

I just giggled.

...And I swear, I didn't offer that to Cremia for perverted reasons! Well... not entirely.

-o-

My exploration of the rest of the orphanage began. I found out there were about fifteen kids there including myself and Runey. Sure enough, while there were plenty of Humes, Kerdils, Hellhounds, and even two Doormice, I was the only Cait Sith.

I noticed that all the Kerdil children were wearing hoods of some sort. I was determined to get to the bottom of that! But I also noticed that Hellhounds and Doormice all had different ears and tails. Not just fur colors, either! Ear and tail shapes, too! And, like me, they had the legs of the animal they were based on complete with shoeless paws and fur.

While Cremia was stirring a stew, I ran up to her and tugged on her dress again.

"Mith Creamia! I has a question!" I exclaimed.

Cremia giggled, looking down at me while still stirring her stew. "Oh, my curious little Kaya. Did you discover something new?"

"How come the doggies and mouthies have different ears and tails?" I asked, cutting right to the chase.

My caretaker, infinitely patient, giggled. "Well, all the Beast Races are based on different... breeds of their animal, I suppose you could say. Sheba for example is a shiba inu breed of Hellhound, while Deril is a dumbo rat. Even Minotaurs are based on actual breeds of cows! I'm a jersey cow, for example!"

Really? Wow this was actually really interesting! "Oh, oh! Mith, mith! What breed of kitty-cat am I?" I asked, eager to find out.

Cremia stopped stirring her stew and squatted down to rub my ears. Ohhhhh... Laps were great, but this still felt like heaven! "You're a bombay, Kaya! Though, considering how much smaller you are than most Cait Sith your age, I think you might be a munchkin Bombay."

"Hmmm? Prrrr... Munchkin?" Like that cat sub-breed that was just starting to get well-known back on Earth?

Cremia nodded. "Yup! Any Cait Sith born has a small chance of being born a munchkin version of their breed! Munchkin Cait Sith are a full foot shorter than average and tend to be one or two cup sizes larger than average!"

Wait, cup size? Were there bras in this world? Okay, play it cool, Kaya. How to phrase asking that? "Cup thize? Why would munchkins have bigger tea cupth?"

Cremai bit her lower lip, even stopping her ear rubs. "Oh, dear... Um... I'm sorry, Kaya, I shouldn't have said that. I'll explain when you're old enough to need one, okay?"

So there were, in fact, bras in this world! Good to know! Hopefully when I got older, I could go bra shopping with Cremia! Growing up with only a dad, I didn't really have a mother figure to do a "my first bra" thing with. Not to mention I was flat as a board, so I never really needed anything more than a training bra...

...Wait, was I hearing all these animal breeds after Earth places and measurements in Imperial because that's how my brain interpreted them, or were they named after some ancient language?

-o-

As I explored the rooms, I generally avoided the older kids, and they avoided me. Just as well. We likely wouldn't have had much in common, and I would've hated to make Cremia worry. Still, I found what was no doubt a classroom! Did classes get taught at this orphanage? Curious, I woke up bright and early one morning and came to the classroom. Sure enough, I found children lining up and taking their seats. Cremia stopped me as I entered, though.

"Whoa, Kaya! What do you think you're doing, young lady?" She scolded.

"Wh-What'th thith, mith?" I asked, trying to play innocent.

"This is school. I make sure all my children get a proper education, at least in math, history, reading, and writing. But you won't have to attend until you're five, young lady," she explained.

I stomped my paw. "But... but... I want to learn! Please, mith! Please c'n I jutht thit at the back of the room and watch? I won't bother anyone! I promithe!"

Cremia's gaze was stern for a bit... but then she smiled and sighed. "Oh, how can I say no to a young heart aching to learn? Fine. Just don't ask any questions during class, okay?"

I jumped for joy. "Yay! Thankth, mith!" I hugged her and the matronly Minotaur patted me on the back of the head.

-o-

One of the first interesting tidbits I learned was how time worked on Arck. That was the name of this planet, actually. Arck.

Arck had a twenty-five hour day, and each month was one hundred days. However, there were only four months in a year, and nine days in a week!

The months were Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. So... yeah, seasons and months were interchangeable.

The days of the week were Fireday, Iceday, Waterday, Lightningday, Windday, Earthday, Natureday, Lightday, and Darknessday. I could only guess that they were named after the elements of magic.

Time was measured in fifty seconds per minute, fifty minutes per hour, and there was no AM and PM. It was like military time, with a twenty o'clock and such.

The years were also measured kind of different. Every millennium since the calendar began was an era, then followed by a nine digit year. The current year was Era ten, Year ninety-five. This was abbreviated as E10 095, but the E10 could be easily omitted outside of historical documents.

Complicated system for someone like me so used to Earth time, but I had a lot of time to re-learn things.

Oh, and I also found out that the language we were all speaking in the United Federation was called Common, and our currency was called dolla and was made out of hemp! So... I guess that meant other nations had different languages and currency?

-o-

Sitting in on Cremia's lessons plans became a regular thing.

"Okay, that's enough math. Let's learn more about the history of Arck," Cremia addressed the class, composed of a mix of Humes, Kerdils, Hellhounds, and Doormice.

"Arck's history only goes back roughly ten thousand years. All records before that just go blank, no matter the location, culture, or civilization. What we do know is that life on Arck seemed to exist before that since we've found cave drawings and ruins that pre-date our own history. But the curious thing is that no matter where on the planet these cave drawings and ruins are located, their etchings on the walls seem to indicate the same thing, and it is from this that we gained our world's name: All the races of Arck came to this world... on a giant ark," she explained.

The class all set to murmuring amongst themselves. Even I was incredulous. It just seemed so farfetched!

"I know, I know, class. If it helps, scholars continue to question and debate the merits of this theory. There's no records of where the people of Arck could have come from in the first place and the numbers needed to sustain so many races to repopulate an entire world would mean the ark used was not only capable of traveling worlds, but enormous! If so, you would think that some trace of that ark would exist on Arck, but so far, no evidence of such a ship has been found. The distribution of races also doesn't suggest a single point of origin, unless the first to embark from this ark decided to divvy up the continent between them. So far, we have only ancient etchings and faith to go on, but it might explain why official historical records just don't go back further than ten thousand years."

A few more history lessons and Cremia put her book down and clapped her hands once, smiling at the students. "Okay! Class dismissed! Go do your chores then you can go play."

As the class scattered, I got up from my spot at the back and pattered up to Cremia, tugging on her skirt.

"Hm? What's the matter Kaya?" She asked, turning and squatting down, hands on her knees to better reach my level.

"Um... Why am I not doing chores?" I asked, hands awkwardly fidgeting with my skirt.

The matronly Minotaur giggled in response. "Honey, you're too young. Children don't get chores until they're old enough to attend classes. Give yourself another month and you can start."

I stomped my paw. "But, but mith! I am attending your clath, mith! Please, I want thomething to do to help out around here!"

Cremia's eyes softened. I just... I didn't want to spend my first few years of life just playing with Runey or cuddling in Cremia's lap. I wanted a head start. And I wanted to help the woman who worked so hard to take care of me!

"Well, I suppose you could do some cleaning around here, but... nothing beyond your ability, okay? When you're older, I can probably upgrade you to helping me cook."

"Yay!" I cheered, jumping up and down. "Thankth, mith! I promith I'll do a really good job! Promith!"

Cremia giggled. "You're such a dear... There's a lot of roads on life. I can't help but wonder where yours will lead."

Ignoring that kind of philosophical statement, I turned and ran off, grinning to myself. Finally, a chance to do some good!

-o-

My days continued like that. I'd stop by the classroom and sit in the back to attend Cremia's lesson and then do cleaning around the orphanage. Mostly scrubbing floors or walls and dusting with a long rod whenever I could. I still hadn't gone outside. I wasn't allowed until I was at least seven years old, it seemed. Cremia's rule.

A strange thing happened as I was scrubbing the floor one day, though. A voice entered my head. Androgynous and monotone, and it clearly wasn't my own thinking voice.

"Skill proficiency reached. 'Cleaning: Rank I' has been granted."

What was that? It honestly scared me. My tail poofed up and I jumped twice my height and everything! Was I hearing things? Was I crazy? I think... it was time I asked Cremia more about how this world worked.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] Doors Unclosed
Genre: Fantasy, Horror

The Present

WITNESS. The word rang in my mind, a sepulchral tone that wormed its way into my thoughts. A million eyes, invisible but all around me, watching, peering at me. It came from the creature that held me aloft, Its massive hand clutched around my torso. The touch burned, an icy sensation that leeched any warmth and life away, leaving naught but the void in its wake. No desire - not to fight, to resist, or to live - just emptiness and the knowledge that there was nothing left to fight for.

There wasn't anything the fight for. Not since I had charged, charged to this place. Spurred into rage, into bloody minded vengeance. Sightless eyes and blood-marred walls weren't things to fear - they were things to kill, to tear, to destroy. Death had been my only concern since; theirs or mine did not matter. One of us would be no more.

Gratitude. Uncountable hordes, bowing in supplication. A door, an opening that I didn't pass through, and then did. Left open in my wake as they followed. Was it saying this was my fault? Had I not come here, that this would not have happened?

Had I not…?

Something sparked at those words, memories of the past year, how I had come to be here, shoved into a life that wasn't mine. Everything that had happened since, everyone that had died… was my fault?

No.

The grip around my torso tightened for a moment, drawing me upward. I was brought closer, staring into the face of the thing. The shifting darkness of its form flowed languidly. There could be no clear impression of what his face should be, but murky, formless hunger. If it even had such a form. or was more than a cursed shadow.

Embers. Myself, a tiny flame in my heart, faint but growing larger. Feast. Hordes falling upon me and others, ripping and tearing, their hunger still unquenched. No matter what they killed, what they consumed. I was drawn closer still, the deathly chill of its breath caressing along my neckline. I shivered in spite of myself, trying to find the defiance to frame words and deny it. That I was not at fault for their victory.

I tore my gaze from its face, the weighty bell-toll that was its 'voice' fading to insignificance as I wrestled with my whirling thoughts. He had shoved me here, changed me. Was this why? Just to see the death of everything I had grown to care for? To be killed after I had borne witness?

"Were another option presented, would you take it? A path to escape and choose your own future?"

The words - an eternity ago. A year ago - danced across my memory as my eyes fell on the wide expanse of the creature's chest. There, hanging around its neck, pulsing slowly and radiating with a tenebrous sheen, was something. A pendant? Some piece of crystal?

"One day, Alison Warren, you will reach out and then, then you will understand."

Those had been his final words to me. That had haunted my dreams for months before I had buried them deep, accepting how things were, how I was, as the way of things. I had built a life and now…

Blood-marred walls and sightless eyes.

Bianca.

My arms shot up, the motion awkward due to how its massive hand enveloped my torso, but I clearly had surprised it as my left hand encircled the object. It was barely longer than my palm, a section jutting above where my fingers closed, through which a chain was fed, leading up and around the neck of the creature.

Foolish. Myself, charging at the hordes in the square that now surrounded me. It, staring at me with contempt in its eyes for my ill-thought assault. It shook me roughly, trying to dislodge my grip on the crystal. Ash. Departure. Buildings shattered and burning, the hordes around me leaving, to seek greener pastures.

I held on as another bone-jarring shake was administered. There was something in its words, beneath the mockery, that I could not identify. It brought its free hand up, reaching toward my arm where I clung desperately to the oddly shaped piece of crystal. It gripped the chain that it was attached to, pulling on that while drawing me backward in an effort to remove it from my grip.

"Maybe it is," I ground out, both arms shaking as I flung my right out, clamping it over my left in a bid to keep it from slipping free. "But what you did to her? For that... I will resist. Always. Even if I die doing so!"

Futile. Mocking me, that my resistance was pointless. But there was something beneath it, an undercurrent that I recognized. It didn't, or couldn't just kill me. It was afraid. Another violent shake rattled me but I held on and squeezed my hands down tighter. I felt the edges of the crystal bite into my palm, blood welling up between my fingers in a rush. Something rushed through me, a flood of emotion that left me feeling hollow and a deep thrumming sound pulsed outward in a wave.

Crimson eyes that had regarded me with contempt this whole time turned to hate, a taloned claw rising in a strike that I knew would see me dead when another sound erupted outward, driving the chittering hordes that had been cavorting around us all this time flat to the ground. A snarl emerged as it flinched, flinging me away with a vicious gesture.

I held on to the crystal though, felt the chain stretch… then snap as I tumbled through space like a piece of thistledown on the wind.

Light blossomed, a brilliant pillar of silvery blue that burned all shadows from it, spreading outward. It rushed over me and I felt nothing, knew nothing else.

Bianca…[/color]

~~~~~~~~

12 Months Ago

Air exploded from my lungs. I hit the floor. The hard impact barely reduced by the sole virtue of landing on a thick rug. I shifted immediately, swinging my legs around to get on my feet.I was hampered by pants - they wanted to slide down my legs from where they had once sat snugly at my waist. I arrested their movement with one hand and awkwardly managed to stand upright after kicking aside shoes that felt like boats on my feet.

I was alone. Obviously. More important and more worrying was that I was no longer in the library. It was a long moment, looking and staring, before I identified my surroundings. It was complicated - everything was the same but different. Just slightly. My apartment, but wrong. Changed in subtle ways that were only noticeable when I focused.

I'd never in a thousand years have the money to buy all this. Furnishing worth more than I could imagine. Rich, real wood and black, luxurious leather. I'd considered them, browsing things I'd never be able to afford, but the money I had left from my parents' will was not something I spent frivolously. It wasn't money to fritter away. My apartment was - is - should be? - spartan. Functionality over aesthetics. This… was what I would have liked my apartment to be. What I would've dreamed my apartment to be.

Things that were actually mine littered the room. A vase that had belonged to my mom, filled, whenever possible, with fresh lilies. The signed collection of novels sitting high on the bookshelf. I turned slowly, trying to reconcile what I was seeing. I didn't want to think about it. What had been changed. That had been changed. By him.

I restrained myself, barely. The panic, rooted and buried deep in my mind, refused to fully subside. I held it at bay but only just. Ignoring the unfamiliar weight against my chest, the way everything felt wrong, alien, bizarre... Weight that shouldn't be there in one place, absence where there should be weight, where there should be feeling.

"This is all a bad dream," I muttered aloud, the last word cracking despite my efforts to remain calm. My voice—

I shook my head firmly. "Hallucination. I have got to remember not to eat vending machine food. Or to check the dates on those. Any minute now, I'll come down off this, whatever it is I am on. Gas leak, maybe. Or someone slipped me LSD? I haven't really been turned into a girl by a God who just walked up out of nowhere."

I stopped my rambling. I took a step, grimacing at my awkward movements, my body not responding how it should. Holding my pants up with one hand didn't help matters at all, either. I stopped moving and reached for my belt. It was easy to reason that I hadn't tightened it enough when I went out. Maybe I missed a notch when securing them. Either way, I struggled with them for a moment, and then released the hold on my waistband. Relief flooded me as they remained in place. Elated, I took a step forward to test my balance.

My foot caught on the cuff of my pant leg and I stumbled, trying to compensate. My arms windmilled comically. I saw the floor rushing up and, for the second time, I landed on carpeted floor and this time, my chest took the brunt of the fall.

I squeezed my eyes shut at the pain rushing into my chest from the impact. Slowly, I pushed myself up into a kneeling position, holding an arm against the pair of impossibilities on my chest and trying not to wince. I looked around, feeling my breath quicken with the stirrings of panic once more.

"Ok, this isn't fucking funny!" A stranger's voice emerged and I dug the fingers of my other hand into the carpet. This was a bad dream. It had to be. Any minute now I would wake up. Silence followed and I gulped air, looking around the apartment for anything that might recognize. Something that I could jar myself out of this nightmare.

"Fucking change me back! This isn't funny!" The scream shattered the silence. It met with no more response beyond a thump below me and a muffled voice that sounded like they were telling me to shut the hell up.

"Change me back," I repeated in a quieter tone, squeezing my eyes shut as they began to burn and vision blurred. I wasn't crying. I wasn't.

~~~~~~~~

Now

Rain on my face. Cool droplets splashing against my face. I pulled myself from the void of unconsciousness, slowing clawing back to wakefulness. I shoved myself upright, water cascading down my back. I looked around wildly, expecting to find shattered storefronts and broken skies filled with chittering shadows.

But there was only an empty field. Iron-grey skies pouring rain. The field had seen better days - grass and dirt that had been ill-kept, the downpour having churned it into a muddy mess. I wiped at my face with my right hand, then swore as I had smeared mud and felt its taste on my tongue. I spat repeatedly, grimacing at the taste and looked around. Confirmation was a unwelcome but now expected weight. I couldn't see any buildings nearby through the veiled curtains of rainfall that were drenching me.

Had they dumped me here? If so, why? I remembered falling, and my vision being eclipsed by a silver pillar and then...I woke up here. Wherever here was. I braced myself with my right hand as I twisted to gain my feet, feeling something shift in my left hand. Halfway risen from my crouch, I turned to stare at my other arm. A broken length of chain danged from what my hand was wrapped around.

I fell back onto my ass. The piece of crystal. The one I had grabbed from that thing before blacking out. Gone was the ebony aura that had infused it. It was just a piece of crystal. Plain, simple, a little shiny. It resembled one of those old fashioned keys that you never saw anymore, but in the cinema. The chain had been fed through the hole of crystal's mounting. It slowly slithered free as I watched, dropping into the puddle beside my legs.

Wincing, I shifted my hand, carefully peeling the piece of crystal free and staring at the damage where it had bit into my skin. The rain slowly washed the blood away, leaving an impression of the crystal's shape. It looked, to me, cut into my hand that, just like a key.

But a key to what? Or to where? Was it the reason I was here, and alive? And not back in the city center, about to die? Where was here, for that matter?

I clutched my head with my free hand. Too many thoughts. They whirled about my head as I stared at my ostensible prize for resisting that thing. here was no sign of the shadows that had suffused it. It was clear now, with just the faintest hint of a bluish silver at its heart. I couldn't be sure it wasn't just a trick of what little light there was with the grey skies emptying themselves around me.

I climbed to my feet. I gave my surroundings another once-over in a search for any recognizable landmarks. There was nothing familiar. Expected but unwelcome and not insurmountable. I started toward what I thought was a line of trees. Wherever I was, I needed to get out of the rain and dried off. Maybe I would find some cover there.

Slogging across the field was easier said than done. The rain had saturated the ground and concealed any signs of holes that might trip me up. A fact I discovered at the cost of an aching ankle after several missteps. By the time I reached the tree line, I was sore and filthy, my clothes stained with mud. The constant movement had kept me warm but I felt a noticeable change in temperature as I stepped into the shadows of the trees.

I looked around slowly and carefully. I could feel a chill trace it's way down my spine as I looked at the shadows that permeated the forest. I was fighting against the certainty that something would come roaring out of the dark at any moment, hungry for my blood. Swallowing past the lump in my throat as I pushed down thoughts of where I had been and what had happened, I shoved the key or whatever it was into my pocket, wincing as wet fabric scraped against the injury to my palm.

The rain slacked off once I had constructed a crude lean-to. I was no expert, but I managed to make it from some sticks and the oddly shaped leaves of the trees. They were wide and flat, like palm leaves. Though none of the trees looked like a palm tree. More evidence that I wasn't where I had been.

I didn't want to think about where I was. Had He thrown me somewhere else? The light I had seen could have just been him indulging in theatrics. I wouldn't put that beyond something he would do simply because he found it funny. Was everything that had just happened because he found it amusing? Had everyone I knew and countless more I didn't died just for one being's amusement?

Huddled under my lean-to, with the cold beginning to seep in as it night's curtain settled over the sky, it was not hard to believe that as truth.

~~~~~~~~

9 Months Ago

I settled onto the bench carefully. I winced a bit as I placed a bit too much weight on my arm. The marks there - still not fully healed - protested muscles being flexed. I was, thankfully, alone for the first time in months. No appointments I couldn't miss, or doctors asking how I felt. Just myself and my thoughts. Alone, finally alone, I watched people moving across the grassy sections of the park.

Months of talking to doctors. Visits from my parents. My sister showing up when she liked. Things were finally settled, or as close as they could be. Landing in my bizzaro apartment was just a faded memory.. Now, I couldn't help but wonder t if my past was even real. If those memories were the problem. If the doctors had been right the first time - when they'd thought I was crazy. But I'd learned not to bring it up. When the doctors had first started treating me, I'd overheard them telling my parents things. Like that I had suffered some sort of psychotic break.

But my doubts were real. That my past was real. Even if everything was similar and familiar - I remembered. The memory of attending my parents' funeral was still too vivid. And yet… It was easier to bury those thoughts. Tell the doctors what they wanted, and let them hear what they expected. It let me brood alone on my change, my life, and here.

Did it matter if what I remembered was real or not? I was here, my parents were alive and I had a younger sibling. I was changed, an entirely different person now. It was a fact I was still not reconciled with, but I had gained so much. Was it not a small price to pay for what I had gained?There was no easy answer to that question.

My only certainty was that there was no way back. Even if it there was, if there was a real way back, He did not strike me as the type to leave an easy out to anything he did. I wanted to fight it. But there was no 'magic', or whatever you'd call it, here. This whole world was depressingly mundane, save for me and no one in their right mind would believe me. I wanted to be believed, but I knew I wouldn't

Sighing, I closed my eyes, letting a gentle breeze rustle my hair as I turned my face upward toward the sun. I made a sound of disgust at my thoughts. Too much reflection, too maudlin. I stopped my inner pity party, and looked at the park again.

More people had arrived while I had been brooding. The park still wasn't close to full, but it was now sparsely populated with newcomers. I looked around, watching the people trickle in, and settled on watching a father and daughter playing together with a frisbee. Watching them, a happy, whole, normal family. Contrasted to my own - and the oddities in it. I had memories of my parents passing. But now I had them alive, and I had a sister. Who just wanted that - to play in the park with a frisbee with me. To be a normal, happy family.

Of course, the 'me' that I had - overwritten? Replaced? Become? - had done those things. Had been a member of that happy family. I just had no memory of it. I couldn't smile like they did, remembering birthdays and holidays. It ate at me, the burden of faking those experiences every time I met them. I was used to being on my own. It was jarring, acting the opposite from how I had grown up, like it had never existed. My first reactions before I learned to playact my part had not been great. It'd taken a lot of talks with doctors and stays in the hospital, but now there was something of an unspoken accord between us.

Based on a lie, because I wasn't their daughter. A farce forced on us by him. But trying to explain that would not end well. Me back with white walls and lots of friendly-faced people asking me how I felt.

I stood up, grumbling again. I still had no solutions but acceptance or running away. The latter was possible, with a few options. One of which I had already tried, as the marks on my arms could attest to. Neither option was particularly palatable to me presently, which left me at an impasse.

My hands worked their way into my pockets, or rather started to. They bounced off cloth. My pants didn't have pockets anymore. It was a small thing, an oddity, but an unpleasant reminder. Pants without pockets was just so weird to me, another thing about this that made everything feel slightly off.

My morose train of thought was at least derailed. It prompted a half a smile. Pants without pockets as my biggest problem would be much preferable to everything else I had going on now. I dug into the pack strapped to my leg, fishing out some cash while angling toward a food cart that someone had set up in the park.

"Could I ge-" I began, before a hand reached past me and closed around mine.

"Two double scoops of the mint brownie, Ernie," a cheerful voice said. "I've got the bill for the cutie here."

Oh, someone being nice was my first thought. The second was, Well that is… wait.

"Cutie?" I repeated, turning to face my surprise benefactor, my voice coming out as a squeak. She was roughly my height, which meant she was not that tall, maybe five and a half feet at most. Blonde hair with streaks of red done up in a braid capped a heart-shaped face. Hazel eyes regarded me with a cheerful expression as the ice cream cones were handed over. I took mine, still trying to parse the cutie remark as she grabbed hers, then took my hand and pulled me away from the cart.

"Um, I'm sorry, have we-"

"Nope," she cut me off. "But I've seen you sitting there looking down the past few days while I was running and decided today that you needed ice cream."

"Oh," I said. She had noticed me coming out here this past week? While out running? I glanced down and saw that she was wearing running shorts and a matching top "I'm… well, I'm Alison."

"Charmed," she said, wiping away a bit of ice cream at the corner of her mouth. "I'm Bianca."

~~~~~~~~

Now

"...hey!"

I shifted, ignoring the sound and trying to burrow my head. Away from the light that was disrupting my sleep.

"Listen!"

Growling, I opened my eyes to see a man standing a short distance away, looking at me with what I thought was concern. A person? I blinked, sleep fading away in a rush. I scrambled back up along the ground until I bumped into a tree. I hadn't seen any sign of a person for days. Now, one just appears?

"Hey, now, easy," he held his hands out so I could see they were empty, but didn't move from where he stood. "I was passing by and saw you laying here. Was just checking to see if you were alright and not dead or such."

I pushed myself upright, trying to settle myself. Everything felt like it was spinning. "Sorry, I just… am a little lost."

The look on his face did not shift from one of concern. He looked kind. "You look like you've had a rough go of it, if I am any judge. I can't speak on whatever ye might be running from, but perhaps a good night's rest will help you? My mate would clout me if I left someone in need unaided."

The thought of a bath and a warm bed must have shown on my face as he chuckled and lowered his hands. "Come, I need a good morning's walk and you could stand to sit for a spell, I wager. My pony won't jostle the cart, I promise."

Blood-marred walls and sightless eyes. "I shouldn't impose," I forced the words past a lump in my throat, trying not to break down at the images dancing behind my eyes. For all I knew, they were out there, just waiting to pounce on this man and his family as soon as I was comfortable.

The man did not move from where he stood, but his expression softened into one of understanding. "So, it's like that, is it?" Without waiting for me to speak, he lowered into a crouch so that we were at eye level. I scooted back further against the tree, fighting an impulse to bolt.

"Look, I understand you are scared," he said after a drawn out moment. "But you have my word as surety, that no trouble will come across our threshold while you rest there. I can promise that."

I shook my head. "You can't keep that promise. You don-" I cut off, unwilling to voice the things that I had seen, or expose anyone to that danger.

He chuckled softly. "Trust me, lass, when I say I can. But, I understand. You've had some loss. Quite a lot if my guess is right, and recently."

My eyes widened. "What. How do yo-"

He waved a hand. "Questions for later. For now, know this. No harm shall come across our threshold, nor has anything followed you here, which is a ways from home, I wager."

I looked away, squeezing my eyes shut as I tried to quell the panic that gnawed at me.. "Yeah, I guess I am."

He nodded. "I thought as much. You have the look about y'self, lass. If you truly wish to stay out here, I will not begrudge the choice, but I suspect a hot meal, being clean and rest will do wonders for you."

I swallowed, then nodded once, a curt motion. After days with nothing to eat and out in the cold… my needs outweighed my wants. Fears and objections were shoved aside. The man seemed absolute in his certainty of both his and my safety.

Something about him was familiar. Not his face, unremarkable and forgettable, but a familiarity about him. It nagged at me. A mental itch I couldn't reach. I could learn more if I went along with him. And it was true that whatever threat might await me, it was not likely to compare to what I had escaped from. And the question of who he was, to glean so much about me - on first glance - might be answered as well.

I gained my feet quickly, and immediately regretted the action. The world spun violently, the contents of my stomach rebelling as well. Thankfully, I fought off the nausea and vertigo, bracing one hand against the tree while my other curled inside my pocket. The familiar shape of the key pressed against the wound there and I drew in a sharp breath at the brief surge of pain. Perhaps there would be medicine as well. Or something to to treat whatever infection might have set in.

"You said you had a cart?" I prompted, forcing a smile that I hoped was not too terrible, given my filthy and disheveled appearance.

The man nodded and turned on his heel, his mood turning boisterous. "It's back by the road. Come, a full meal and a night's rest await!" I exhaled and began trudging after him, the nagging doubt that this was a horrible mistake warring with the hope that it wasn't. The man didn't speak as we walked, instead beginning to whistle a cheerful tune that I didn't recognize.

"Do you see many travelers here?" I asked as we reached the road. The cart that he had promised was there, allaying some of my fears. It was a simple thing, with the bed filled with an assortment of jars and baskets that all appeared full of food.

"Och, not for a long while, I have to say," he murmured, patting the shoulder of the pony that was hitched to the cart. "T'was a surprise to see you there, to be honest. We're a bit out of the way for travelers to just wander by."

Something about the way he said that drew a frown as I gingerly climbed up into the seat of the cart that he indicated. I blinked once I was settled, realizing there was only space enough for one. "What about you?"

He made a dismissive gesture and retrieved a straw hat from the cart bed. "Been sitting all morning. Best to let the young ones like you to endure the bumps and bruises of a cart ride. Old bones can't take the jostling about." A click of his tongue and the pony began moving forward at a steady, measured and surprisingly smooth pace.

The man matched it, his stride even and showing no signs of the age he claimed. I settled against the backboard, mulling over that and the oddity that, I realized now, I could not think of any specific feature of how he looked. The only image I could draw was a generic farmer with an indistinct face.

Panic set in at full force. Something terrible awaited me. I gripped the key in my pocket again, to prevent it from showing on my face. It was likely just my own body heat, but it seemed to warm to my touch, a gentle pulse that eased the ache of my injured palm. Slowly, I relaxed, taking a deep breath, then another, the whirling doubts in my mind fading into silence. The man did not say anything else, merely resuming his whistling and before long, I felt my eyes drooping, the days of walking with little food or water and poor sleep weighing me down.

~~~~~~~~

6 Months Ago

"You're a dummy, you know that, right?" Bianca asked, turning her head to face me as we sat on a spread out blanket, watching the fireworks for the festival going off in the distance. The pyro was accompanied by loud, raucous music, a rock band with a female lead blasting out some angry-sounding song while people danced and cheered.

"I am?" I blinked and looked away from the throngs of revelers to her, confused at the abrupt statement. "What did I do?"

"This," she waved a hand at the blanket, then out toward the crowds milling below and the other blankets with people sitting on them. Some of them were pairs, others held families. "Just two friends hanging out. Are you going to ask, or do I?"

I looked away, catching on to her meaning. "I don't… I mean, I can't… I couldn't…"

"Dork," she interrupted, reaching over to tug on my braid as a means to make me look at her. "The answer, bee tee dubs, is yes."

"What's the question?" I responded and Bianca grinned, leaning toward me with a spark of amusement dancing in her eyes as they reflected the luminous explosions shattering across the night sky.

"No more dancing around whether we're going out or not," she whispered, barely audible over the thunderous reports of the fireworks. "No more, let's just hang out as friends. Tomorrow, we're going on a date."

"Ah… isn't this a date?" I asked, my throat suddenly dry as I realized she had scooted closer. The autumn weather had brought an early cold snap in and I could feel her warmth where our bodies touched.

"Tomorrow," Bianca repeated, her fingers playing with my braid where it lay on the right side of my neck, before moving up to trace across the skin there. "Tonight's just for us."

"What do you me-," I began, a pleasant tingle following in the wake of her fingers. I felt lightheaded, like I could just lay back and float, drowsy and warm. It was a feeling I had felt before, over the past few months, but also one I had tried to ignore.

This wasn't like those other times, though, it felt different, more pronounced. Stronger. And it scared me a little, carrying thoughts from the most unsettled parts of my mind; that acknowledging or acting on the way these feelings, the way Bianca made me react, would close a door on how I had been before.

"Dummy, I'm sure you can figure it out," she said, forestalling any response from me by the simple act of kissing me.

Kissing me

Bianca was kissing me. My thoughts short-circuited as I tore at them for what to do. My body, however, suffered no such confusion as I turned more fully into the act, my right arm crossing over to slide along her stomach toward her back.

Against my lips, Bianca formed a grin and then parted and I- was that her tongue?

My next conscious thought was of laying on my back, Bianca half draped across me and breathing heavily. My lips felt swollen,my own breath escaping in rapid pants and the warmth had settled all over me, leaving me wishing it would never go away.

"How's that for fireworks?" she asked before giggling. "You make the cutest sounds, bee tee dubs."

"I… thanks?" I said, hoping that was a good thing. Lying here, with Bianca beside me, it was hard to think about the past months and the things that still kept me restless at night. All of that just fell away, especially right now.

"What'cha thinking about?" she asked, shifting her head from where it had been resting on my shoulder to look me in the eyes.

"Nothing really," I answered. "Just happy to be right here and now, with you."

"Awww, that's sweet," she said, a smile forming as her hand returned to playing with my braid. "You should grow your hair out more. I think you'd look good with it longer."

"Really?" I asked, glancing at the braid she was toying with. "I had it longer a few months ago, but there was a thing and I cut it in frustration. Did an awful job too. You don't think I should get it cut, then?"

"Nah, you should definitely let it grow longer," she told me with a nod. "You can keep the braid or whatever, but short hair doesn't seem right for you."

I didn't reply, thinking of months ago and how my thoughts warred with her statement. The short hair felt right for me, but it had grown long enough that I could braid it to keep it out of the way and I hadn't thought anything of it until now. I looked up at the stars, trying to picture myself with longer hair and whether that was something I wanted to do. The image didn't feel me with revulsion or disgust and I exhaled.

"You really think it'll look good if I let it keep growing and just get a light trim to keep it in order?" I asked finally.

"Absolutely," Bianca replied. "Decided, have you?"

"I don't see why it isn't a good idea, so yeah, I'll give it a try," I grinned. "I reserve the right to change my mind though."

"Dummy, once you see what I do, you won't want to change your mind," she said, smirking. "And if you do, by some chance, decide to? Well, I'll persuade you to change it back."

"And how," I asked, turning my head to look at her again, "are you going to do that?"

"Let me show you," Bianca said as her smirk turned into a smile and she shifted so she was leaning on one arm and lowered her head toward mine to do just that.

~~~~~~~~

Now

I opened my eyes as I felt the cart coming to a halt. Slowly, I sat up from where I had been laying on the cart's seat, glancing at a folded up square of cloth that had served as a pillow. Once clean, it was now marked and streaked with dirt that had from me laying on it. I frowned. I had done that to his belongings, after being gifted shelter and a ride. The sun was much higher in the sky,so I knew a few hours had passed, but I wasn't sure exactly how long I had been asleep. Stretching, I glanced toward the man who was unhitching the pony from the cart. He looked up at me and smiled.

"Ah, you're awake," he murmured. "I thought it best to let your rest continue when you nodded off. I image that sleeping on the ground like that wasn't particularly restful with the sticks, roots and such, yes?"

"No," I agreed softly, though not for the reasons he said. My reasons were not so simple. What I saw and heard when I closed my eyes, not a lack of comfort. I blinked away those thoughts and moved to climb down from the cart. "Did you need help putting anything away?"

He shook his head before answering. "Nay, that will be easy enough. If you venture around behind the house, you'll find the bath house. I believe we have some clean things there that might fit you, if you wish. You may leave your other things and we'll see about cleaning them."

"Thank you," I replied honestly and started off in the direction he had indicated. I took the time as I did so and looked toward the house that he had lead the cart to.

It was modestly sized, with a rustic, log cabin feel, though the structure was very angular and unfamiliar in style. Another sign, like the trees and their leaves, that this was a different place than any I knew before.

More, I had understood him, as if we both spoke English, which I found terribly unlikely. The worry from before I had chosen to climb onto the cart resurfaced and I bit my lip lightly in contemplation as I walked across the yard. The main house was larger than I had thought. Far two large for two simple traders.. He had mentioned a partner, however, so perhaps there were children as well.

The bath-house was a low-sitting affair, with a set of steps that descended down, indicating that much of it was underground. I picked my way down the stone steps until I reached the simple wooden door. A simple leather cord served as a latch and I unwound it, pushing the door open to find a wide, dimly lit space with steam wafting upward.

The bathing area was large, and clearly built, I assumed, with a more eastern design in mind. Benches sat around the rectangular space that was filled with steaming water, and there was soap and a stack of towels and washcloths. I gathered up some of both and placed them on one of the benches before making sure the door was closed and latched from the inside.

After a moment, I fished out the key from my pocket and stared at it.

"What are you?" I asked aloud, and immediately felt stupid as it could not answer me. I dropped it on the ground and stripped, glancing toward the door several times in worry that someone would burst in, but I was left alone, apparently.

The water was almost too hot, and I hissed audibly as I lowered myself in, slowly acclimating until I was resting against the edge on a low bench beneath the water's surface. I didn't move for a while, simply tilting my head back and closing my eyes, the heat easing the countless aches and pains from days of walking and sleeping on the ground.

The steam from the water made visibility low and I pushed off the seat, floating out on the pool's surface, staring at the ceiling above me, lost in shadow as it was. After a while, I stopped and tended to myself, cleaning thoroughly, though it take several submersions and much effort before my hair felt clean. As I climbed out of the water, my eyes fell on a neatly folded stack of clothes, with something glinting faintly atop it.

I knelt, pulling the towel close around me and squinted, feeling suddenly chilled despite the heat within the bath house. The stack of clothing wasn't some random clean clothes that had been left for me. It was my clothes that I had taken off before entering the bath. And they were completely clean, I found, devoid of any rips or tears or any of the stains from days of travel and the mud I had landed in days ago. The key had a leather cord threaded through the opening, looped around and tied off with enough length that it would rest around my neck and the piece of crystal could hide beneath my shirt, out of sight. Even my socks and boots were clean and almost like new.

Who the hell was this guy and his partner? The thought occupied as I dressed, having no desire to run away while naked and barefoot, even if the oddity of my clothes was triggering all the worst impulses that had haunted me since that moment days ago. I finished dressing, tightening the laces on my boots before I looked at the one thing that I had left. The key lay beside my foot, somehow glinting in the dim light of the bath house.

"One day, Alison Warren, you will reach out and then, then you will understand."

His voice, again. I didn't know what this was and I certainly didn't understand, but I couldn't bring myself to leave it here and picked it up, steeling myself before I put the leather cord around my neck, expecting something to happen.

After a moment, I opened my eyes and found I was still in the bath house and I made a disgusted sound. It probably was just a useless piece of quartz and I was just being jerked around by him. Even so, I pulled the collar of my shirt out and let it fall beneath it, out of sight before heading toward the door.

The sun was beginning to set and I glanced upward with a frown. Had I been in there that long? Another thing that was weird and left me wondering what I had walked into now. Looking toward the main house, I wondered whether staying was a good idea, but the rumbling of my stomach and appeal of having a proper meal really was outweighing my unease.

Taking a deep breath, I started toward the house.

~~~~~~~~

3 Months Ago

"So, what's the occasion?" I asked, shifting in my seat and reaching down to adjust the dress. Shifting it so that the slit in it didn't bare my legs to the whole room. I wasn't comfortable with wearing a dress. Especially a black one with a slit high up one side. It made me look like a vampire, among other things. Bianca had asked, however, claiming that tonight was special. I was curious to see what she had in mind, so I went along with it. We were mostly through dinner now and she had ordered dessert without telling me what it was.

"Anniversary, dummy," Bianca said, rolling her eyes as she gave me a mock-offended look. "Six months, remember?"

I did some math in my head real quick. "But we didn't officially start dating til a few months ago."

"As far as I am concerned, we started dating that day in the park," Bianca informed me. "I can't be bothered with the fact that you're a bit slow on picking these things up."

"Okay, okay," I said, holding my hands up in surrender. "Six months, as you say."

"That's right," she said, pointing at me with a stern glare, though her grin ruined the effect. "Know your place!" I smiled and ducked my head, my cheeks heating as I thought of the last time she had said those words to me. That was most definitely not something that we could do in public so I pushed the images to the back of my mind, for later.

"Anyway, it's been six months, like I said," she continued. "And I felt that we should celebrate, thus, dinner." Her hands made a gesture at the table and their mostly cleared plates. "We haven't been out for a proper dinner in a bit, so why not!"

"Just dinner?" I asked, gaining a grin and a wink in response.

"Secret," she sing-songed in reply. "That aside, are you alright? You've seemed out of it for the past few weeks?"

I stared at my plate for a moment, thinking of a small box I had hid at home, not having worked up the courage to show it to her, or even if I should. It was only six months as she said, but…

"Just busy focusing on studying to finish my dissertation," I deflected. "Stress is building."

Bianca stared at me for an increasingly long time without saying anything before breaking out into a smile. "Come on, we'll settle the bill and get dessert packed up for taking home."

"Change of plans?" I asked, with a curious lilt in my voice, and she nodded.

"We're going to take care of your stress issues," she said firmly, beckoning our waiter over. "Don't want you getting too stressed out and screwing up."

"Ah," I said, then scowled at how stupid I sounded as I stared across the table at the look she was giving me as she told the waiter about the change in plans for dessert. Yeah, she definitely had plans to decrease my stress, that were probably going to involve a lot of screaming, the good kind.

"Come on, we'll take care of the bill at the counter," she said when the boxed dessert was brought to us along with the bill. I followed, taking charge of the box as we made our way from the back of the restaurant toward the front.

The manager had a small office adjacent to the desk and was standing in the door, his eyes fixed on a small television that had some sort of news report playing. Bianca said something to try and get his attention but he seemed totally absorbed in whatever it was. The ambient noise of the restaurant kept me from being able to hear what was being said, but the little I could see of the screen sent a chill down my spine for reasons I couldn't identify.

I switched the box to my other hand, so that my free one could twine with Bianca's, the familiar, comforting feel of our fingers tangled together banishing the chill. She glanced my way with a smile and leaned over for a quick kiss before returning to trying to get the manager's attention, which she finally did, though his face was pale from whatever it was he had been watching.

We left a few minutes later and I glanced back at the restaurant once while Bianca was climbing in to the car, wondering what had upset him so, as I noticed there were other people standing around on the sidewalk with their phones, uttering expressions of disbelief audibly.

"Ali?" Bianca called from inside the car and I shook myself, sliding in beside her. Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with me or us.

"Sorry," I said, giving her a smile. "Let's go home."

~~~~~~~~

Now.

The table was laden with dishes containing food of every kind. Hearty, filling dishes and it was all I could do to restrain my hunger and eat at a measured pace.

My hosts, however, appeared to realize this, regarding me with bemused interest, but did not deride or make fun of me. The cart-owner's partner, I was surprised to discover, was a man of similar height to myself, with thick muscled arms and calloused hands. A blacksmith, by trade, I was told.

Neither man had provided a name yet and with both before me, there was definitely a sense of familiarity to an encounter I had a year and change ago. For now, I enjoyed the food and wondered what the purpose of all of this was.

"You are not from around here, are you?" The taller man opened the discussion with a curious smile.

"As I don't know where here is, that isn't a question I can give a proper answer to. But, most probably not. If you were anywhere near where I came from, you would be dead right now." I said, surprising myself that I was able to keep my voice even.

"As I said before, whatever threats shadowed the path behind you, they cannot trouble you here," the man said, inclining his head, an air of seriousness settling around him.

"How… why are you so certain of that?" I asked, the food before me forgotten as I stared at the pair. "You don't even know what-"

"No one passes through here that hasn't come from some place that has fallen to shadows," the shorter said, his voice rough with some emotion that I could not identify. "It has been some time since we last saw a new traveler, but you came here through violence. Rest assured, as Mez has said, that the way you came here is closed to whatever would hope to follow you."

Mez, as I now knew his name to be, leaned forward. "Hef is correct, albeit lacking in one detail. The way is closed to all, except you, Alison Warren."

The use of my name, that I had not given, flew past as the last sentence rang in my mind. I looked from one man to the other, parsing their statements as, beneath my shirt, I felt the key grow warm."Who are you? You're not… not human, are you?" The feeling was clear now, identical to his presence, from a rainy afternoon when I had been studying, before all of this began.

"Your perception is excellent," Hef said. "You have encountered one of our kind before, as I see his touch upon you."

"Undo this!" I screamed, losing hold on my temper completely and shoving to my feet, the chair I had been sitting in toppling over. "Rewind time, send me back, undo all this shit that has happened to… to me! To her! A whole world! Why the hell was I sent there? Why did everyone have to die? Tuh..t-tell me!"

Neither said anything as I ranted until the energy left me and I dropped to my knees, sobbing. "...why."

"Time is outside our purview, I am afraid," I heard Mez speaking after a moment, thought it felt as if I were far away. "To reverse what is, lies beyond us."

"Then why the hell am I even here, alive? Is this just to jerk me around?" I shouted, snapping my head up to look at the pair over the table. "Getting your jollies off like he did when he dumped me on my ass?"

"You are here because this is a place between," Hef told me. "And because you can make a choice."

"A choice?" I blinked at the statement, then laughed, a harsh, uneven sound. "Well, that's just fucking great. Now I get a choice. Fucking wonderful."

Neither appeared to be upset by my ranting as Mez took over speaking again. "Most who come here have no choice in their fate. If you wish, you may leave here and follow the road away from here. That will bring you to a place, much like our own here, where you may spend your days and be content, at peace."

"Or…?" I asked, wiping at my face and standing up. I righted the chair and sat back down.

"For you," Hef said, his eyes dropping from my face to my chest, specifically right at the spot where the key rested beneath my shirt, "there is a way forward, away from here. Neither Mez nor I can say what following that path will lead you to, however."

"You say this like I'm different from anyone else that you've had come here," I noted.

"You, Alison Warren, stood before the shadows that crave all life and defied them," Mez said softly. "You grasped the means by which they came into your world and made it your own. That burden sets you apart. The Paths are yours to walk, but only you can follow where they lead."

"The Paths…" I repeated, reaching to rest my hand. "What are those?"

"Once," Mez said slowly, "they allowed you to step from world to world as easy as walking out your door. They were severed long ago and only one who has a Key may walk them. As to what truths may be hidden away on the paths now, who can say?"

I stared at the two of them, at a loss for words. What the hell had I been dropped into? What the hell had my life become?

Mez rose from his seat and began to collect plates. "Think on it tonight. There is a room prepared for you and you may rest tonight. Tomorrow, you may choose."

~~~~~~~~

Several Days Ago

Months. That was all it had taken. Three months at the most. That was how long it took for the world to die. The first thing - a news report about a disturbance in Eastern Europe somewhere, a small country whose name I couldn't remember.

That was where it began. And they swept out from there; an unstoppable tide that overran everything they crossed. They didn't communicate any demands, they only slaughtered. Communications across the world stopped working, with no one maintaining it. Food, at least, was still available in our area, but fuel for cars was scarce now.

I glanced toward the sky, glad that it was clear. But if I ducked out and looked toward the horizon, there would be only a wall of ebony, of winged nightmares. Cavorting across a soot-stained sky. I pushed aside my ruminations and crossed the street quickly, my hand slipping into my pocket and closing around the small box there to reassure myself.

I had put this off, but no longer. If this was the end of the world, I wanted it to be the end where I could honestly say I was hers. I had stepped out on the pretext of a supply run, but it was just to retrieve the ring so I could ask Bianca.

How long we might have, I didn't know. The demons or whatever they were had been steadily closing on us, a tightening noose on civilization and life. . I couldn't help but feel a nagging worry that it was centered on me; that I was the ultimate target. One time I had braved thinking so. A look at a map and a ruler had put my relative position at the time as equidistant from the edges of their advance.

They were coming here. For me.

I couldn't shake that thought. It hadn't left me, no matter what I did. But whatever the truth of the matter, they weren't here yet. We still lived. Which was why I was rushing across town, to where we and some friends had been staying before all this. I checked for traffic before crossing the street, as even with the fuel being drying up, there were still a few vehicles out running on conserved fuel..

The courtyard to our apartment building, which we had reinforced, was eerily silent as I crossed it and I frowned, looking around for a moment. The barricades were quiet, and the chairs outside the main door were empty. There were usually people around, even if scarce few the past couple of days.

"I'm back," I called as I pushed the door open, pushing aside my worries as elation welled up. I was finally going to ask her. "Bianca, where ar-"

...the rest of the sentence died in my bone-dry throat. I couldn't understand what I was seeing. A picture that changes from every angle, an illusion. Only it didn't change and it was just wrong, no matter how you looked at it. A wrong that you couldn't pin down, or identify… or accept.

I was the only moving thing in the room as I dropped to the floor. My legs lost any ability to support me. I felt the fabric of my pants dampen at the knees and calves. I did not look at the source. My eyes stared at the walls and the blood marring the paint before they moved to her eyes, open wide and unseeing.

Sightless. The word rang in my mind as right. They were open, but did not see. I swallowed, the act drawing a wince due to my raw throat. From screaming? Had I been screaming? I wasn't sure, as all I could bring to mind was the scene before me, of blood-marred walls and sightless eyes.

"Bianca?" I said aloud, crawling forward an inch. "Come on, this isn't funny, at all. Y-you can stop pretending, you know. I've been pranked, now let's everyone have a laugh at Alison, right? Haha and all that."

I moved forward another inch when there was no response. "Nikki? Stop playing around, really. It isn't funny. Dad, you… you shouldn't encourage this…"

"Mom, are you going to-," I trailed off, the words dying as another took their place. "Mommy?"

I pleaded, calling to each person I know and gaining no reply until I had scooted amid them, drawing Bianca into an embrace.

"I got you something," I said quietly. "I know I had been putting off asking and you were just humoring me that you didn't know, so you would be surprised. Then all this happened and I couldn't find a moment that seemed right, until I decided that it would be today."

"I had it all planned out," I continued. "I would do the whole on one knee thing and you would… you would…"

My hands fumbled through a veil of blurred vision as I brought her and up, awkwardly sliding the ring onto her finger. I stared at the sparkle of the gemstone, ignoring the flecks of red reflected in its facets.

"Looks like I was right," I told her. "It does look great on you. I wish that we..." Distantly, I heard something roar, an unnatural sound. Fear was a distant feeling.

"Don't worry about that, Bianca," I murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "I am gonna take care of that, of whatever did this. Then…t-then we can… then we will be together, right? Get married and go have a blast on some beach where it's tropical, right?"

I settled her on the floor, then pulled off my coat and folded it as a pillow under her head. "You just rest, okay? I'm going to go for a moment and… I will see you in just a few."

Just one thing.

Just one more thing.

I'd see her again.

I climbed to my feet and walked toward the door. My teeth clenched, hands trembling, adrenaline and hate in my veins.

I just had one thing to do.

It'd be easy.

We'd be together.

~~~~~~~~

The ceiling was an unfamiliar one as I opened my eyes. I raised a hand, wiping away the dampness on my face. The impulse was there, to roll over, to say good morning. Or wake her up, if she was sleeping. But I was alone in the bed. Bianca wasn't, wouldn't ever be here beside me.

I exhaled slowly, thinking of her. She wasn't here, but what I had tried to do, what lingered at the back of my mind still? She wouldn't want me to do that. Would probably hit me for even thinking it. I wasn't sure what I was going to do. But what Mez had offered, to simply stay here, or go forward and find my own place in this world I was in now, that wasn't what I wanted.

"They were severed long ago and only one who has a Key may walk them," I repeated Mez's words out loud, tasting the feel of them, the weight. As it had done last night, the Key grew warm and with it, certainty that the statement was true settled around me.

I could leave here. Walk out the door and follow where it lead. Maybe find a place to call my own? A place to call home? But what was that? The world I had originally been cast from by him? The one I had just lost?

I didn't have an answer to that, but I did know that home wasn't here.

The downstairs was quiet as I stepped off the stairs. There was no sign of Mez or Hef, though beside the door that lead outside, was a backpack that appeared to be well stuffed, with a note that had my name and nothing else pinned to it. I took the bag, slipping my arms through the straps and stared at the door for a moment.

Then I reached up to my neck and drew the Key from beneath my shirt. It rested in my left hand, settling against the marks it had left like… like a key fitting into a lock. I thought of that moment, of how I had felt then, before coming here. I didn't know why, but i felt those same feelings rush from me.

Then I walked out the door.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] World

1054 words

In the room there is only the puzzle and myself.

The room itself is a plain white cube three metres to a side. There are no doors or windows, no ways in or out. The light emerges softly from every surface, allowing no shadows. The air is a comfortable neutral warmth, maybe 25 degrees. There is no sound, save the noises of the puzzle and myself.

The puzzle itself is a grid nine by nine, set in one wall. Each square is a light, some red, some blue. I touch one and it changes and the change propagates across the board by arcane rules I by now mostly know. Laws of adjacency, laws of sequence.

I myself am here, alone, with no memory of arriving. No possessions. No explanations. Clothed in thin abstract black with no seams or makers' marks. I'm not hungry or thirsty, or tired or ill.

In the hours, I think, since my awakening, these are the things I have determined.

***

I found a solution, and the wall opened and showed me a second room, with another six boundaries and another grid waiting for me. I stepped through and it closed behind me and all was as before, save the puzzle itself. This one is symbolic, a grid of unknown heiroglyphs that rotate at my prompting, sometimes. The challenge here will be to find legality, determine what is possible within the boundaries of the symbol set and its configurations.

They organised room escape outings at the office. I went along sometimes. I was good at them. But they wouldn't have liked this one - too hard, too austere. No theme. The escape room is a puzzle embedded in a myriad others - booking, gathering friends, negotiating the social space with one another inside. Some of these puzzles they could solve by glance and instinct but puzzles they were, that placed the room inside a world that gave it texture and compulsive force. There's no world here. It's just a room, with a puzzle.

Ah, I see it now. Most of this is a distraction. The trick is very simple, and with it in mind I go straight to the solution.

The puzzle chimes, and vanishes, and the wall opens to show me a third.

***

This is the sixth room and it has given me time. The puzzle changes on a regular beat, step by step unfolding its logic. It didn't take me long to construct a counter and now I sit here watching it, letting it increment the moments of this world. Each is a little more than a second, I think. I can't be sure anymore what a second was.

Ten thousand just passed. Something like three hours. It took me a long time to solve the last room, and there were four before that. But still there is no hunger, no thirst, no sleep - it's as if my body is just an abstraction, an interface between my mind and the puzzles. Like a bare soul.

Am I dead? Is my body rotting in the ground? I don't know how I came here. I might have died. I don't remember an accident or murderer, or some angel or devil disposing of my fate. I think I went to bed. It's hard to remember when the days were so bland. If not death, then aliens? The military? Is there a prize of ten million at the end of the chain? It doesn't matter either way when there is only one path forward.

The others wouldn't have been satisfied. They wished to see the world, to see one another, to traverse the web of human connection in search of creatures like themselves. Salves for their loneliness. So they would be asking - why this, why the rooms, the puzzles? As if by imagining a face behind it they could connect with a world implacably alien in which they are implacably alone.

The puzzle is more interesting. I think I see the way now, after watching it for so long.

***

Thirty-third, I think.

The line enters the grid on one side, there's a mark on the far side where I think it has to go. The forest of symbols it must navigate beckons to my mind. Some of them I recognise, some of them I don't - but none of them have a meaning based in anything that went before. There have been geometric puzzles and algorithmic puzzles. Puzzles of construction and puzzles of dissolution. Puzzles that must be scraped out layer by layer with a blunt and bleeding mind, and puzzles that dissolve in a blink of realisation.

Is there a master principle? Are there rules governing them all? Is there a puzzle to the puzzles that must be unlocked? There are similarities - each one in the same place in each room, each one utterly abstract and pointing to nothing beside itself - but they lead nowhere. What patterns there are to their rules and presentation are as meaningless as the patterns that define each puzzle in itself and may as well dissolve the moment I cross the next threshold. Maybe something will reveal itself in time, but maybe not. And even if it did, it would not move me on - most likely I would still simply be here, facing a puzzle in my way, with nothing else to do and nowhere else to go.

***

I lost count, long ago. The count seemed pointless. I do not starve, and my mind has an eternity of occupation before it. Surely a wonder that my needs are met so fully, and yet a wonder shared with the old world. An infinite possibility and yet the infinitesimal point that let me live was the one chosen. In its abstraction this place incorporates all the mysteries of where I was before. At each turn I am presented with challenges, which demand to be overcome.

Maybe this is the old world, but in a different lens. Maybe as I solve these puzzles my body rises from its bed and dresses and navigates the streets and people and assembles lines of code and all the others see this in a way that suits them.

And maybe it doesn't matter, for this is all I need. This is not a prison, nor is it a tomb. It is a world, satisfying and entire.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] More Sophisticated Magic

"The time is now ten-fifteen. The Roths train is currently running twenty minutes behind schedule due to advancement of a stormfront, and the Prosco is running five minutes late due to the same storm. Please remember to pack appropriate precautions for areas outside your native tolerance, and stay clear of all of the less-domesticated breeds of scrub plants. Have a nice day."

Groaning, I rolled over. Stupid announcers, trying to interrupt my nap. I hadn't been able to afford a sleeper car, so ten hours of Amtrak had pushed me into taking a nap on a bench in the station, head on my backpack and coat curled up around me like a scratchy wool blanket.

Wait a minute. I didn't have a wool coat. My bag didn't smell faintly of campfire smoke and old cologne either. Blinking my eyes open, I sat up, feeling a floppy hat fall off my head and onto the flagstone floor. I certainly wasn't in Minneapolis any more, that's for sure! Looking up into the tall glass roof of the station, I gasped awkwardly as I took it all in.

The building was almost built like a cathedral at first glance, arching ceilings held up by proud beams. Hanging from them were dozens of garlands of flowers, apparently still growing as their violet blooms dropped the odd petal into the station's wind. Below the magnificent roof were dozens of shops and parlours, dark stone bringing the windows into fierce contrast, warm wooden fronts blunting the look. The trains themselves were great wooden beasts, iron engines showing proud the history of their ilk. No sleek diesel-electrics here! These engines puffed smoke and steam, water lines filling them at rest while coal bunkers at each station rested on mezzanines still draped in the same flowers to refuel the beasts. As I watched, a repair crew came along, caulking over one of the cars with a professional speed and grace, laughing all the while.

"Any room on the bench, miss?" a voice asked, and I jumped slightly. Turning around, I met the eyes of a tall man, dressed impeccably in a well-worn greatcoat.

"I don't mind." I replied, scooching myself over to let him join me. Sitting himself down, he withdrew a thin silver case from his coat, and I expected him to offer me a cigarette. Instead, he pulled out a faint black crystal, catching the light and playing a rainbow over me as he stuck it behind his ear carefully. I kept quiet, soaking in the air of the station while trying not to watch the man next to me, and failing miserably. Finally, he cracked, taking the crystal out and lighting it on a fire after rubbing it between his fingers a few times.

"Never been to the Grand Station before?" he asked, chuckling.

"You could say that."

"Ah, don't worry. If that note on your sleeve is anything to go by, you didn't oversleep your train."

I blinked, and looked at my arm. There was a paper pinned there, with a train ticket stapled to it- Roth's train, ten thirty. "Wasn't that train running late?"

"Yes, Roth's trains are normally late. Lots of storms come in from the mountains over there, and it gets bad."

I really needed to watch when I opened my mouth. Shaking my head quickly, I got ready to get back to the conversation. "So… what's your name?"

Real smooth there, Czesha. Real smooth.

At least it earned a chuckle, though. "Kastechi Volsmar, miss…?"

"Czeslada Marikovana. Just call me Czesha, though."

"Then I can be Markus, then." he said, chuckling. "Kastechi is too formal by half, if you ask me."

"All I know about names is that if your mother uses too much of it you're in serious trouble." I replied, smiling. "That was mostly for my brother, though."

"You're not wrong. I remember how my father's voice would echo through the shelter when Efrus started playing tricks when the great storms came in, and Mother chided Lisa about wasting parchment for paper mache. It does bring back memories."

"Are the storms that bad?" I asked, looking up at the glass roof nervously. Markus grinned, and shook his head.

"I thought you came from a light area, but not to get serious enough storms to need a cast shelter? I didn't think I'd meet someone from Cragschild today!"

"No, not Cragschild." I corrected, before sighing and looking at him carefully. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Of course."

I sighed. "I know this sounds crazy, but… I'm from a different world."

The smoldering stick of crystal fell out of Markus' mouth, before hitting the flagstones. "Are you serious?" he asked, grinning.

"Yes."

"Wonderful! We can finally prove that other worlds exist!" Markus said, crowing and pumping his fist. "If we take the Roths train to Cariggan, and then get on the main line, that'll let us get back to the College easily enough!"

"You're… not exactly surprised."

"Well no, not particularly. If something was to slip between worlds, even by accident, it would probably happen here. The walls of reality are thinner than normal here, and considering the rest of the strange things we have running around up north, like sky bison, it seems easily palpable."

"Sky bison?"

"Flying six-legged mammals with broad flat tails. We don't really have any explanation for how they got here, but they're a thing."

I had to chuckle. "So I'm a large, odd mammal that flies?"

"No, just a young woman who's thaumaturgical differences could be key to solving a decades-old debate that's permeated the College."

"Thauma-whatsit?"

Markus grinned, and snapped his fingers, flames dancing on the end. "Thaumaturgy- the study of magic, the national art of Blackrock, and our gift to the world that curses us so."

My eyes widened. Magic. Legit magic.

"Yes, it can be a bit much to take in when there's someone who isn't liable to start smoking and choking-"

Gasping, Markus turned around to look at the angry worker behind him holding a water bucket.

"No magic in the station!" the worker yelled. Nodding, Markus just sighed, flicking the water off his fingers.

"I suppose more tangible demonstration will be needed for later." Markus groused, sighing. "In the meantime, I think that's our train coming in."

---

Boarding the train, I sighed as I leaned back into the well-worn leather bench. The carriage my ticket for was an older commuter car, each seat a mildly padded couch to buffer me from the frequent shocks and rattling of the car. As we left the station, the train whipped and swayed, the rattling and creaking nothing like the Amtrak lines I'd been on, or any subway either.

Digging in my bag, I was mildly happy to find out that while it wasn't the same, most of the contents were similar. I still had my lunchbox, a few wrapped sweetbreads, some assorted hygiene products, and my makeup container had been replaced with a small tin of lotion. An experimental rub showed it worked fairly well as a base and concealer, so I was covered as long as I didn't need to do a ceremony or something.

Unless Markus was some sort of prince, I didn't think that would be an issue. If he was, I could probably beg off enough time to get a good dress and whatever passed for makeup here. That was a pretty drastic worst case scenario, though. Until then, I had my pocketbook and my pen- even if the later was a steel tipped quill- and I had some notes to take.
For starters, wherever I landed spoke English, or I spoke their language fluently. Probably the latter, considering the amount of coincidence involved. Second, they had advanced tech for something that would be better serve as background in an Lewis Carroll novel. If I had ever expected to end up in a foreign world, I would have expected swords and sorcery, not some mildly-Victorian gentleman who made fire dance on his hands between pleasantries. Telling him I wasn't from this world had been a risk, to be true, but it was a reasonable one. Worse, I didn't want to get pegged as being from somewhere, only for a native to grab on to the falsehood. An absurd truth would be easier to get over than a whitewashed lie.

Coughing slightly into my elbow, I blinked angrily as I tasted copper. Why… why would I be coughing up blood? Why was I doing it right now? Why couldn't I stop coughing for one second? Argggh…

"Are you alright, miss-" someone asked, before looking at the red stains on my mouth, and gasping. "Doctor, anyone! Someone get a doctor! There's blood everywhere!"

Wheezing, I glared at the man. It was just a coughing jag, I'd gotten them before. If I could just school my lungs into behaving for a minute, then I could get this under control!
Naturally, then, I could barely keep from falling over into the isle by the time some sawbones was rustled out of the front of the train, followed by a beady-eyed conductor. Pressing a handkerchief over my mouth, the doctor started sighing, before shooing away the busybodies.

"It's just airshock, you cads!" he yelled, glaring. "We're almost into the stormwall, so get your own damn masks on before I need to start uncanning air!"

As the majority of people in the compartment shuffled off, the doctor looked over to the conductor for a minute, and sighed.

"She doesn't have a safety mask. We'll either have to give her one- and that's unlikely to help much, considering she's started reacting before we even get seriously close to the stormwall- or we move her up to a better sealed car."

The conductor frowned, but nodded. "Can we move her up? I don't want her to get any more sick, not when we're charging near straight into the stormwall."

Getting my breath under control, I growled lightly. "I'd like to move up."

The doctor shot the conductor a look, and the latter folded. "Fine, fine." he muttered. "I'll take her up, if you can make an emergency mask for her."

"Not a problem."

Hands shaking, I worked with the doctor to get the mask on. It wasn't a very complex system, just a heavily scented pad tied into position over my mouth and nose with a strong length of scarf. As the doctor helped me to my feet, the conductor opened the front end of the airlock and we all shuffled into it. As it was carefully sealed behind me, the doctor looked at me with a gimlet eye.

"Any history of trouble with your constitution? Asthma, rock lung, consumption, malrois, or violet fever?" he asked, frowning.

"No, although I am curious to why you need to ask."

"The air will be bad outside, and we're near a stormwall. Those pick up enough debris by themselves, and the thaumaturgic effects are already going to be racking your frame."
I blanched. Thaumaturgy energy, magic- same thing.

"That's bad."

"Yes." the doctor muttered.

As soon as the doctor finished talking, the door slid open. My eyes started watering, then, and it was like I had been hit by a hammer blow. Pulling in a breath, I tried to look out. To the right of me was the gap between train cars, and as I focused I saw horror. The term 'stormwall' was completely accurate, I saw now- because it was a wall, with towering cumulonimbus clouds full of rain and lightning pushing the belly of the beast forward. Even from here, I could smell the destruction mixed in with the ozone, raw death and annihilation pushed forward on the breeze.

Then I fell into the next airlock, clean air hitting me just as hard as the tainted wind did. Gasping, I leaned on the wall, trying to focus. Forcing myself to stay calm, I hissed. I could do that again- wouldn't be too hard.

---

Today, I decided, was the day I needed to stop lying to myself. Sweating bullets and trying not to vomit everywhere, I vainly held onto the wall. Looking at me, the doctor just shook his head and helped me get my mask off.

"Easy now, easy. You managed to keep it through all that without losing your guts. Well done."

"So how'd you do it then?"

"I had a lot of practice back in the Army." he said, chuckling. "I started out as a stretcher bearer for the Aslan's Own, fifteenth regiment to the Crown. Come to think of it, we haven't been introduced, have we?"

I shook my head, prompting him to stick out his hand.
"In which case, I would be Doctor Illya Hetrej, miss."

"Delighted to meet you, Doctor Hetrej. I would be Czesha Marikovana."

Coughing slightly, the conductor looked at us carefully. "Doctor, I'm afraid we've passed the stormwall. You can stay with us in the bow of the car- there's still some room. In the meantime, Miss Marikovana, we had a gentleman by the name of Volsmar invite you to his compartment. He seemed very apologetic."

Volsmar, Volsmar… oh! The gentleman back at the station! Nodding, I followed the conductor to the small compartment, a mere two benches facing each other, one occupied by two men, the other by coats and odd baggage.

"Hello?" I asked, entering quietly. Volsmar- no, he'd asked I call him Markus- was asleep, dozing fitfully on the shoulder of the other man, who smiled at me.

"You must be Czesha, no? Come in, we don't bite."

Nodding, I came in and set aside my coat. Under it was a plain blouse and goodly-length skirt, coming down past my knee and passing well over my stays. "Did Markus mean to invite me here?"

"Oh yes, once you were on the train. Still, he's been pouring his soul out into his work recently, so I'm not surprised that the thick air put him out like a light. He would smoke himself to a bone if the storms didn't force some life back into him, occasionally."

"I do have to ask, though." I said, looking out the window as the dancing wall of rain and mayhem approached closer. "What is so significant about this storm?"

"It all comes back to magic, now doesn't it. Each storm comes from the north, and inherits it over the greater expanses of the northern wastes. Then it comes down on us like a hammer blow, all ruinous might." the man waxed poetically, sighing. Before he could get really warmed up, Markus yawned, and tried to shh him by patting his leg.

"That's not how it works and you knooow it…" he said, yawning. "That's just the weather. The ruina is totally different…"

"Yes well, I needed to start somewhere." the man complained, shaking his head. "Academics…"

I just shrugged, before sticking out a hand. Handshakes seemed fairly common here, so it felt safe. Naturally, the blasted idiot had to take it and kiss the back, smirking all the while.
"Fryderyk Dering, if it so pleases." he said, the energetic attitude making me almost squint. I wasn't expecting a dandy! "And your name, miss?"

"Czesha Marikovana" I replied, trying not to bite it off. Why did he get on my nerves so much? Was it that the handsome man I was in no way interested in sprawled over him like a lover…

Waitaminute. Very well dressed gentleman, flouncy manners, irked me in some primordial way that made no sense? Why hadn't my gaydar gone off sooner- this man was as homosexual as a Swedish submarine flying a rainbow flag while running out of Copenhagen harbour with a load of Marines on board!

Stealing a look at their necks, I twitched. Their cravat pins were from the same set, all red and black whorls even! I was going blind, I swear!

After putting my mental house in order, I straightened up and got back into the thick of the conversational fray. I couldn't let my realization slow me down! "So, are you a good friend of Markus?" I asked, smiling. "He seems like the type."

"You could say that!" Fryderyk said, chuckling. "I'm a committed bachelor, though, so mostly I help Markus with the little things like travelling. He had quite the job, setting up the gardens here, and then the remittance from the university left me quite well-off to take care of him."

Well, unless I was misremembering my misspent youth's reading of bad victorianesque romance, that was a polite admission that he was as straight as a turnpike interchange and in a committed relationship with Markus. That cleared some things up!

"Although, I do have to wonder- how did you meet Markus?" Fryderyk asked, turning the tables on me. Ah for a derringer with one in the chamber, not this game of conversational hot potatoe about the last few hours! Trying to bat aside the questions and social niceties, I sent my most pitiful glance to Markus for help, but to no avail. I was soon dumped into a smorgasbord of information, from the fact that Markus had a terrible habit for collecting strays (he owned two cats because of this; I was ecstatic that cats were a member of the world) I had to reveal I had a bachelor's degree in archival science had been a county librarian, which then went into a long tangent on an American county versus a county in the Kingdom and Domain of Blackrock (the name of the political entity we were in) and the fact that I was from a plutocratic and meritocratic society versus an aristocratic and oligarchic society that was dabbling with democracy on the side as a form of bread and circuses. Once politics was handled, things descended into history, and our mutual astonishment at the other's national origin had to be seen to be believed.

"So… let me get this straight." Markus muttered, totally awake and alert after a cup of coffee analogue and a spritz from the bar cart. "Your country was initially settled in the face of hostile natives and terrain, a hundred years after these Spanish started, and then rebelled a hundred and fifty years later, successfully defeating their mother country in a war that lasted five years with great outside involvement, and you weren't claimed by another great power?"

"Essentially, yes. It leaves a lot out, of course, but once the English lost their hold on us, their infinite money supply ran out and they needed to go back to interfering in the affairs of the Continent. A short-lived burst of teamwork to spit in their eye, and that was the end of it until Napoleon."

Markus and Fryderyk shook their heads in amazement, prompting me to act.

"You say this to me, 'oh your world is amazing', and I'd believe that if you didn't live next to the roaring corpus of an empire divided! The myriad of tributary kingdoms struggling for independence and liberty, the core divided amongst the combatant houses, the raw power of theology being brought to bear despite such sophistications- why, this must have been what the Holy Roman Empire was like in it's height! And here you are, the remains of hundreds of thousand refugees and exiles, developing a nation state in the middle of an inhospitable wilderness? That alone is a miracle, never mind the fact you've kept it running for four hundred years!"

"I believe both our nations were forged under extraordinary circumstances, Miss Czesha," Fryderyk chuckled, sipping his own drink, something called a soixante-quinze in what tickled the back of my memory angrily. "However, ours handles quite a bit more evolutionary pressure, and to be perfectly frank it has suffered for it. At least you weren't brought in wartime, else they'd have crammed you into uniform too."

"Women are drafted?" I asked, startled.

"They have been for several decades, yes. There are too many roles off the line of battle that need filling that go to the less capable, and oft do women take them. I myself served in the last war as a lineman apprentice with the Signals Corps, working on the telegraphy wires. Markus was with the university then, too- right?"

"Yes, back in '55 I was part of the Experimental Weapons Program. After the war was over, I took to acadamia like a falcon to wing. Haven't really left, after all that."

Things quieted down after that, the gaslamp on the wall flickering as the train kept rocking. The storm might have buffeted us, but honestly I was too tired to care. There wasn't the possibility of sleep, though, as every few minutes I felt a tightness in my chest as a puff of atmosphere leaked in from outside. It must have been what asthma was like, the innsessent pressure when the train shuddered wrong and a little more of the outside came in. The work of the caulkers back at the station made so much more sense, now, as I could feel what they were trying to protect against.

---

Yawning, I started to wake up carefully, my head throbbing lightly. Above me was a collection of springs and leather, all holding itself together around a wooden frame caked in dust. Yawning slightly, I observed the interaction of metal and fabric carefully, smiling at the peace and quiet. A moment later, someone tripped over my foot, there was a loud squawk, and someone hit the piece of furniture I was under. Gagging from the barrage of attacking dust bunnies, I tried to scooch out carefully. More squalking ensured, and as I realized my skirt's hem was at about my waist I finally got out from under the love seat. Looking up, I saw Fryderyk looking some combination of nauseated and bemused, while Markus just chuckled.

"We got shitfaced, didn't we." I groaned.

"Yeah. You want a tincture?" Markus called out from the kitchen, dumping ingredients into a mortar handily.

"Please." I grumbled, watching Markus whip something up in the kitchen next to the sitting room. Groaning, Fryderyk looked up from a chair across from me where he'd relocated to after finding me under the last one and stared grumpily.

"I have no sympathy at all for you. Six shots of seljec is enough to kill lesser drinkers, and it barely got you on the floor!"

"I'll pretend to know what that is when my head stops hurting."

"It's a distilled grape and plum liquor that's usually used to fortify a port, Czesha." Markus called out from the kitchen. "I'm more surprised that she got challenged to that drinking contest by Fergusson, though. Normally she's not the type."

I threw up my hands, letting them back down after the percussion section in my skull decided to let me regret that mistake in peace. Drinking the night away was apparently just as easy here as it was back home.

"Since I was the only one to not get absolutely plastered last night," Markus began carefully. "The consensus is we'll be able to get started on your tests in about three days, and be done by the end of the week. Unless you want to go squat in a dormitory, you're probably going to be taking the guest bedroom. You're probably going to want to go shopping later with Fryderyk- I have a class in a few hours."

I groaned. "Just when I thought I got out of university…"

"Listen, you want to get labs to yourself, you have to teach a few idiots how not to light themselves on fire." Markus shot back, slinging on his coat and a satchel. "I'll be back in about two hours, and Fryderyk knows the combination to the lockbox for pocket change and has one of my chequebooks. Two or three serviceable dresses, maybe an evening frock, just…. Don't go nuts. Fryderyk, you know we're still saving up for the new bed, right?"

"Yes, dear." my new friend in hungover moaning said, shooting a baleful eye at the one of us three who was gainfully employed. "No fancy things, dear."

"Very good! I'll be off then."

---

About three hours later, I discovered the joys of shopping for clothes in what felt like Year of Our Lorde 1852. Most everything was premade, there was some tailoring done, and I quickly began to miss my bras. Fortunately, Fryderyk was sensible enough to take a trip to the tobacconist shop across the street while I handled undergarments, and shortly enough we'd had lunch at a fairly decent pub. In the afternoon, I ended up getting dragged to a recital of his, as he did tonal poetry in the evenings. They had held it at a small hall off a club, and the atmosphere was smoky and choking to me, rich tobacco smoke trying to cloud out my lungs. Ducking out for air, I sighed carefully in the alleyway behind the club, hoping nothing happened.

"Miss Marikovana?" I heard a voice ask. Turning, I saw Dr. Hetrej coming up to the same door I had exited, holding a light medical bag.

"Hello, Doctor!" I said, smiling. "Fancy meeting you here!"

"Quite, quite!" he replied. "Looks like you're settling in well, it seems. Good on you."

"Truth to tell, I'd be lost without my friends." I admitted frankly, looking him over. "Here on business?"

"Sadly, yes. Some damn fool idiot was doing knife tricks he learned with the Hussars, and sliced himself open proper. The house doctor called me in to double-check his work and sign the boy's bill of health."

"Bill of health?" I asked, opening the door for Doctor Hetrej.

"Bill of health, doctor's note, whatever you call it. Screwball's probably gonna use it as a way out of skipping his muster date, I don't know. It's gonna get me a thaler, though, so it's worth doing."

"Thaler? I thought money here was in kreutzer?"

"It is; just one gross of kreutzers to the thaler, and if you're richer than sense it's a score of thalers to the dovar."

Learned something every day, I guess. "Well, best let you at the poor lad then, doctor. Nice meeting you."

"And you too, miss. If you ever feel like stopping by, I'm sure the College has my address in the alumni books- I'd welcome some company that isn't screaming for laundum and amsec."

"Sometime soon, I hope." I replied, opening the door for him. "Good luck!"

"Ha! Wish it on the lad, he's the one who'll need it!"

It was a few minutes before I braved the inside of the performance area again, looking for Fryderyk. Finding him packing up, I smiled shyly for a second. With his long black hair streaked back from sweat, he reminded me of something almost fey, crouched protectively over his cello.

Damnit girl, he's taken. I reminded myself sharply. He looked up, smirking, and I had to hold back a gasp. The fine lines of his face were acentuated in the lamplight, motes of dust caught in the beam of a bullseye lamp overhead adding to the mystique.

"Did you enjoy the show?" he asked. I nodded, mute, before pulling myself together.

"It was wonderful. I just needed some air, out towards the end."

"I thought so. When I get going, they seem to think that's best time to start acting like a forest fire."

I looked to the sky. "How do you stand it up there? With the light, the sound, the smoke…"

He grinned tiredly, before standing up in a motion not unlike a Jacob's ladder unfolding. He was lean, and if I dared to say it classically beautiful. Every motion was sure, from checking his watch to packaging his bow. For a second, his mouth moved, but I swore no sound came out.

"I said, are you done looking?" Fryderyk asked, moving in on me quietly. "I'd say it's rude to stare, but at least you're appreciating rather than envying."

I just turned to the side, embarrassed. Flicking my hair over my shoulder, I struggled to retaliate.

"Not that I mind." Fryderyk said, chuckling. "I put too much work into this for people not to look."

Now I had to gape, and just shook a hand at him in a vague, confused and annoyed gesture. "You!"

"Yes, me."

"What about Markus?"

"How do you think I met Markus? The university had a concert, and he was the manager of the pyrotechnical elements. Two showbirds, we were… but that was before he took up that teaching position."

I sighed. That… well, Markus was a bit showy with his magic. That little stunt with smoking a piece of amethyst in the train station certainly showed that off.

"You know, you never answered my question." Fryderyk said, smirking faintly as he looped an arm under mine. "Did you enjoy the show? Or our little day together, even?"

I thought about it carefully, and smiled suggestively, waggling an eyebrow slightly. As he clapped his hands, I then went forward to kick his shin.

"Ahhh ow ow ow why?!" Fryderyk said, hopping up and down on one foot.

"That's for trying to exploit a maiden's curiosity." I replied, before taking his arm into a bear hug. "And this is for actually showing me a good time."

"...You're a jerk." he finally said, glaring at me. "At least you're a pretty one."

"Same to you! Showbirds always know how to fluff and strut!"

"It's what I'm good at, and it's a lot of work too! You try suffering through Markus' cooking after a show, and not lose what's left of your weight! Or suffering through some blasted 'medicine' because he's worried about you performing in damp old buildings like this and coming down with consumption!"

I blinked. "Wait, Markus can't cook?"

"Neither can I, to be honest. It's why I dragged you out of the flat before he could make breakfast." Fryderyk said, rubbing the back of his head at the admission. "It's… well, we can't afford a housekeeper, and living off pub food is how one loses their figure."

"Can you at least make a sandwich?" I asked, despairing.

"No?" Fryderyk asked, blinking. "What's a sandwich?"

"Cyka blyat… we have along ways to go…" I muttered, shaking my head. "When we get home I'll see what's in the pantry and make something for you two that isn't sausage, potatoes, and a side of grease."

"If you're that desperate, we can stop by a grocer on the way home. I know one that's open."

Grinning, I watched Fryderyk lift up his cello case. "Lead on then, MacDuff."

"What?"

"Old joke, forgot you wouldn't get it. Let's go."

---

The next days passed like greased clockwork, with me attending classes by Markus to kill time and spending the evenings with Fryderyk at soirees and other parties. In the meantime, I had to teach both the habitual bachelors (the polite term for gay here) the absolute basics of tending house. Laundry and cleaning was already something they understood well enough, but cooking was a disaster zone unto itself. Once I'd seasoned all their cookware, without magic that tended to shatter the cast-iron pots, slow cooking seemed to be going well enough. I'd just worked them past a simple roast the night before things started taking off, and that's when things started kicking themselves into high gear.

When the laboratory was finally freed up, though, I found my time was strictly curtailed. Armed with a novel, cushion, and water bottle, I got to sit through hours of thaumaturgical doohickeymabobers and a lot of professors with white hair yelling at each other about contagion and counteraction thereof. Markus' smug looks at all the chalk-flinging whiteocats didn't help my mood much, either. That much concentrated smug was reserved for cats and women that stole the rich bachelor's heart, damnit.

Naturally, three days into the testing was when it all went wrong. While Markus was a perfectly competent scientist… magician… professor… whatever his job was, the faculty here weren't all to his standards when a lab down the hall blew up. As the whitecoats all started rushing to fix it, I heard a faint hiss, followed by a zap as something else in our lab started breaking down.

"Well, there's that experiment…" Markus muttered, striding out as magic started wrapping his arms in violet smoke. "Sounded like the blowout hatches worked, so we're gonna need to help clean up."

Dusting off, I sighed. "Well, I know some first aid, if it helps."

"We always need another bandage holder, so come on."

Walking out into the hall, I gasped. The lab five doors down from us was absolutely trashed, daylight leaking in through holes in the wall of the hall. Several students were already breaking down the door, and a smoke plume grew out to meet them.

"Raishu, get a hose- there's still fires in here! Jackyl, get your kids to grab fire axes- the back wall needs to go! Anyone who's not fighting the fire, get people out!"

Watching the people pouring in, I screamed a little when an axe came through the wall as some enterprising students made a second exit for the still-burning chambers. As he bulled through it, another person came behind him dragging a student, their clothes still covered in sparks and crystalline dust.

"Jenma?" he asked, as I pointed over to the area I'd be doing triage in.

"No, now shhh." I muttered, pulling out a knife to start cutting his clothes off. He mostly seemed dazed from a bump on the head, and his grip was still strong. Yelling for help, I got someone to get him out of the way and for some bandages, because the next person being brought to me was bleeding profusely. Using what was left of the last's coat, I tried to tourniquet a leg that was more haburger than limb, while yelling at him to keep his eyes open and stay awake. It didn't work, and as his eyes flickered shut I swore violently. He was dead, or as good as- and three more patients had been lined up for me. It was back to cutting off clothes again, this person burned severely. Hissing, I was nearly sick when I figured out this was a woman, her chest scorched into a soot-covered mess. I roared for water, and tried to wash her burns out, but she soon passed into unconsciousness. She wasn't bleeding out, and frankly I had more to handle.

I could be sick from the horror later. Right now, I had work to do. Wrap wounds, clean burns, stabilize punctures. Pray they wouldn't lose the eye, when I found part of a beaker buried in one. Wish for a nurse when the gut wound inevitably showed up. More tourniquets, unfortunately, as life and limb turned to life or limb. My sense of time dilated out of proportion, each patient taking the shortest eternity to treat, the line of injured endless. When I finally came to a stop, I realized it was only because I had been treating the rescuers now, the students in shirtsleeves having injured themselves in the environment.

Snapped out of my fugue, I looked around for Markus, trying to see how he was doing. He was holding onto something… no. Not something, someone. They were burnt to a crisp, the only thing identifiable on them was a… cravat… pin…

Looking over the red and black swirls, I gulped, trying to hold down my gorge. The clothes on the corpse had been charred away, the pin driven into his thorax, and I finally stopped resisting the urge to puke. By the time I was done, Markus had moved on, and the doctors who had arrived took me away. I couldn't blame them- the front of my dress was stained with blood and bile, my face and hands sooty from the smoke, and eyes bloodshot from it all.

---

The next day was hell, getting away from the hospital. As much as Dr. Hetrej vouched for my well-being (and the fact I was 'passable' at triage from the accounts of my patients) it took a promise to stay with him to get me released. Naturally, being without a good guest room or the desire to have me clogging up his examination room for a few days, Hetrej made sure to drop me off at Markus' apartment post haste with a clean bill of health in one hand and a letter of commendation and recommendation in the other in case Markus had an incident. Walking up to the door, I found it unlocked and guarded by a drunken owner, with Markus flinging a half-empty tumbler of something over three hundred proof by the smell when I opened it up.

"Out! Out!" Markus roared, trying to stumble towards the door. Coming in, I easily evaded a clumsy shove and shot him my best Look. He should know better!

"Markus, it's me, Czesha." I growled.

"Don' care." he muttered drunken+ly. "If'n I gotta go home, I don' care."

"Markus... " I groaned. He was three sheets to the wind, I needed a shower, and to be perfectly frank I could probably hide the liquor later so tomorrow it would be easy enough to get a straight answer out of him. In the meantime, I had to get my own affairs in order now that my friend-slash-meal ticket-slash-only contact in this other world seemed to be pretty far flown off the handle. The shower was easy enough thanks to a building with a community hot water heater, and shortly after I had to make an inventory of the kitchen. Food was a little lean, but there'd be enough. I still had one of the chequebooks from when Fryderyk and I had gone shopping, back before the tests, so money was… about as handled as I could get it.

"It's not fair…" Markus moaned, throwing himself over a chair in the sitting room before looking for a bottle of… something. "I don' wanna go home…"

My attention ratcheted onto his drunken mumbling like a laser. "You have to go?"

"Ahhmmm." he responded, vaguely affirmative. "That bitch talk'd Mother into wanting me home since… he died. Want's t'get me married off nows that I'm open season… the whore."

Alright, so it looked like Markus' home life was a bit of a mess. Nothing I couldn't handle.

"Damn demon whore and her cocksucking cuckold husband always trying to fuck around with me just because I'm the heir." Markus grumbled again. "KASTECHI VOLSMAR BOWS TO NO MAN!" he finished, bellowing.

Yeah… he'd need some help.

"Do you even want to go?" I asked, carefully.

"No." he replied, grimacing fairly clearly for someone three sheets to the wind. "I wanted to get away. Join'd th' war to leave, got send here. 'T was enough, I got my letters… I stayed… I'll stay…"

Shaking my head, I sighed as sleep tried to overtake him.

"Fryderyk…" he said finally, eyes looking to a place no one else would ever see. "May th' land open 'o her own accord, t' take you into her grasp… the winds blow so hard, th' dust take all th' tears… an' when th' earth ha' you en her arms… th' rain' will come o'er th' wind… an' weep such tears wi' men for the passing o' one so great… a poet… scholar… lover… friend."

I blinked a tear away for the eulogy, and just helped him to bed. Once he was tucked in, I went back to clean up the living room. Under an empty bottle of brandy, there was a telegram. The neat linotype, was of no importance to me, but an attached train ticket was. To Boch station, by way of Grand Central, for the day after tomorrow.

It was poetic, in a way. I'd entered this world on a train, in a way, made friends, made allies, made discoveries. Markus had been there to help me along, at every important step. Now it was my turn to lead him home, and shield him along the way. He'd earned that much, and more besides.

When a stranger paid into karma, it payed back unto them. I didn't know what I'd done to deserve coming here, or what Markus had done to lose Fryderyk, but we were both here now, doing what we could for each other. It would have to be enough.

No. It would be enough.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] Afterlife

-.-.-

Crack.

Blue. Dust under my fingers. Head resting against - a tree? I craned my neck back and there it was. White bark. Shrivelled in the sun. The sky was - the sky was so blue. Deep blue, between the sparse branches.

Crackle.

A fire. A small tent of sticks on fire - people actually made fires that way, so neat and orderly? - surrounded by a ring of rocks.

Something… smelled nice. What was -

I'd been… shopping, right? Was I dreaming? It felt too - vivid to be a dream, but they said you couldn't tell you were dreaming when you were. I hadn't been able to, sometimes. I bit my lip, pulling at the bits of chapped skin.

Footsteps in the dust behind me. The rattling of a beltbuckle, of boots.

I half turned, back still against the tree, hauling myself up. Dust-stains on my shirt. Fuck. I'd liked it a lot, and - if this was a dream it'd be clean when I woke up. Right? Nothing to worry about.

"Ah, good, you're awake." The man had a thick accent - not drawn out enough to be southern, not clipped enough to be English. Something that felt like a mix of the two, with a faint rolling burr to some of it. He groaned a little as he sat down on a cooler bin. "A pleasure to meet you. I'm Harris."

I blinked. This had to be a dream. Why else would I be leaning on a tree in front of a campfire next to a cowboy sitting on a cooler bin next to what looked like some kind of… hovering motorbike. With skewered sausages roasting over the fire. In the middle of a - a desert?

I sat up straighter. The tree was warm and hard against my back, but I shivered.

"How're you feeling?" He smiled, taking off his wide-brimmed hat and revealing a head of long, ashen-grey hair. The bike wasn't kicking up any dust as it floated there. Weren't hoverbikes meant to kick up dust? They did in movies. Then again, this was my dream.

I blinked. "I, uh. I don't suppose you - " I didn't want to say this. It felt like such a cliche. "I - is this a dream?"

He nodded slowly, then sighed. "Well, I'm afraid not. I know it can seem that way, what with the hoverbike, the cowboy, and this thing," he rapped his knuckles on the cooler bin, "but you aren't the first and I doubt you'll be the last to ask." He stroked his stubble-coated chin, a distant look in his eyes as he stared at the fire. "It's - difficult to explain." He grimaced a little. "But that can wait until we're in town."

"If I'm not dreaming…" I stood. Tried to. My legs trembled and gave out under me, collapsing me back into the ground hard enough to sting.

"Whoa there," he was by my side in an instant, hand on my shoulder, "Don't try too much too soon. It'll take a while before you feel like yourself again."

There was an odd silence in the air. The sound of the wind rustling the tree's branches, the crackling of the fire, what might have been the crashing of waves in the distance…

Nothing like the city I'd been in.

My legs scrabbled under me again. There was an odd clenching sensation in my stomach, feathery, like my body was too heavy and too light all at once. I was panicking.

"Easy now." He had his hand up, like he was calming some kind of frightened animal. "It's a shock, but it'll pass. And you're not alone. I know it feels like it, but -"

I should be - I should be at the pharmacist's by now. I was going to buy more toothpaste. I'd been drinking one of those sickly-sour energy drinks. I'd been - I shouldn't be here. The individual pieces of grit seemed impossibly large under my fingers, digging into my skin. Oh god oh fuck oh god.

"Ahhh, I've been losing my edge." Harris shook his head with a sigh, his gaze dropping. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Home. W-what happened." Focus. Deep breaths. Bark against my back. Deep breaths.

"That'll be easier to explain once the shock has passed. I know a better place to have that conversation, too." He stroked his chin thoughtfully. I stared as he started packing up, putting out the fire by simply kneeling next to it, covering his mouth, and muttering something.

The ashen sticks collapsed against one another into a little pile. Harris heaved the cooler onto the back of the bike and strapped it down like I wasn't sitting here trying not to have a panic attack. Hugging my knees against my chest. When had I drawn them up to me?

"My lady." He was standing over me, offering a hand up. His smile was - something about it seemed storybook. Fake. Like the handsome love interest's dad in one of those trashy romance novels that sold for two dollars each at gas stations. "I'd like to take you to the city. I have some friends there that can help you through this better than I can."

Can't trust him. The thought was sudden, sharp. Firm. Can't trust him. But I have to trust him or I'm not getting out of here.

"... okay."

He hauled me to my feet, and gave me a pair of goggles and what looked like a leather helmet. "These'll help keep the dust out." It covered my ears.

He gestured to the bike… thing, the second padded part of it, towards the rear. It was warm, not just from the sun, but something inside it, some heat from its operation. Straddling it felt… weird. I'd never even learnt to ride a normal bike.

"Handholds here." He pointed and I leant back, grabbed them. Better than having to hold onto him. Harris revved the engine twice and we lifted into the air. The seat felt just a bit warmer -

We dropped, and almost skipped like a stone on a lake. One blink and the ground was racing under us like a blur. I looked back, at that single tree, shrinking so rapidly it was almost invisible in mere moments, the grass and dirt around it.

Plains. Dry, rocky, bare patches of brown grass that I could blink and miss. We seemed to be somewhere high up, cresting down a gentle slope made harsh by the speed we were descending, skidding past smooth red-brown rocks..

A minute later, we crested over the edge of the plateau and came hurtling down along the edge of a cliff. Ocean as far as I could see, starting a long way below us. But the grass grew green down here, the trees were a lot more plentiful, writhing with life and - my eyes had to be playing tricks on me.

And on the horizon…

There was - something. Something huge. Grey. Dark chrome steel, the top shimmering like a bubble, glints of sunlight against the goggles.

I got the feeling Harris said something, given how he turned his head slightly, but even if the helmet wasn't protecting my ears I doubted I'd be able to hear him over the wind.

Birds flew overhead as we slowed down to navigate a well-trodden path through the forest. I - couldn't recognise any of them. Brief glimpses showed - red and gold, four wings stirring the air like an insect. Something in black and green with no wings but wisps of cloud. A floating skull, hovering above a nest filled with smaller, chattering bones.

Where… was I?

The trees started to get further apart. The tangling vines less. A grassy plain and those walls I'd seen earlier. So much bigger close up, dominating the skyline, more like a storm front than a set of buildings. It was like we were heading into a citadel - a fortress.

The gates opened up as we got closer. Shimmering, opening, dissolving. Some strange mix of living metal and hologram? Energy field? Melting away into shimmering pixels and flowing metal, runes appearing and disappearing across their surface. We were finally slowing enough that I couldn't hear the wind whistling past me.

"Welcome to Dawn." Harris waved to the first person he saw, a blonde woman with a long ponytail and an even longer rifle resting in her arms. She rolled her eyes at him, and sent me a look I couldn't quite read.

"Don't worry about Vera, she's just been a bit on edge lately." Harris conveniently didn't mention why.

"What - " I cleared my throat. "What is this place? Where - "

"This is Dawn. The city of… the lost, I suppose you could say." The architecture was concerning. This building was made out of stone with flaming torches in metal baskets lining the outer wall. The one next to it looked like something out of a cyberpunk film, all neons and steel grey. The one next to that was a cafe that looked like something from a sci-fi B-movie from the 50s. Complete with a stylized pin-up waitress riding a red rocket with cloudy exhaust.

We stopped outside a building that looked… fake, almost, in how quaintly medieval it was. Wooden beams hemming in stone, a half-rotted sign creaking in the wind. The door was ajar, but through it… the tables were wooden, but the bar was modern, gleaming glass and steel. Floating metal… things, with arms, were delivering food on plastic trays to the occupants.

And oh, what occupants. I couldn't - there was a knight, something like a laser gun slung over his plate armour, bargaining with a robot with a sword longer than he was tall. Something like a slug but scaled, resting on a bed of something, cards floating in front of it while a stereotypical wizard cursed and handed over a bundle of wands. A person with black and white cat-like fur cuddling with what looked like a tired business executive.

"Harris!" A deep, triple-toned voice - treble and bass echoing around the core sound - coming from an exceptionally tall man… lizard… bone-plated lizard man with very sharp teeth and claws. Six arms folded across each other, tongue poking out of his mouth to swipe at his four, flickering eyes for a second. "Lyss is -" He paused when he spotted me. "Oh - did you acquire a, uh, a visitor?"

Harris chuckled, a brief burst of humour across his lined face. "Not quite. Picked her up out by the tree. On time, just like you said."

"Ah," the lizard man nodded slowly in understanding, "so -"

Harris removed his hat, his face solemn. "I haven't told her yet, Dekker."

"Why not?" Half of Dekker's arms gestured to her in some form of exasperation. "You must be horrified by everything you've seen."

"Told you he was better." Harris mentioned sideways to me.

"Uncultured muskbag."

"You know you love me." Harris smiled, holding his arms out lazily, letting them drop. "You were saying something about Lyss?"

"She came back from her venture." Dekker rolled his eyes - but the movement carried his whole head. I was almost reminded of a stick insect. "You'll find her in the corner booth."

"Thanks, buddy." Harris took a step forward to pat him on the shoulder - the middle one - before turning back to me, face serious, only slightest traces of his humour remaining. "Dekker - he can take care of you."

Take care of?

"I am terribly sorry for the inconvenience and mud-like clarity of my acquaintance!" Dekker shot at the retreating cowboy, much to the amusement of a few patrons, "But I would like to set the record straight, miss…?"

"I'm - I'm Elsie."

"A beautiful name for a beautiful woman." I think he smiled. The scales along his jaw tilted in a way that kind of reminded me of it.

I wrapped my arms tighter around myself. "What - what is this?"

"This is Dawn. The city, that is. This bar is the Rusty Hound - I don't know who picked that name, but everyone seems to recognise it," another eye-head-roll, "Do you… know where you are?"

"N-not really."

He gently guided me to an empty booth near the bar as he spoke. "Then this is, I'm afraid, not your world. Can you…" He winced, or something close to it, top shoulders pulling in as he looked down at the table, "Tell me what your last memories before waking up were of?"

"Why? I - why am I here? Why do I have to tell you that?" He was big. I hadn't noticed it before, but with him near me - he was big, and the way he moved, the way he formed words it was so… inhuman. So blatantly inhuman it hurt to look at.

He sighed. "You've - we've all - had a near, or otherwise certain-death experience. But - we didn't die. We woke up in this world." He glanced towards the slug thing. "Hryyk over there was a factory worker, but the railing snapped and he fell into a vat of chemicals. Harris was - he says he was saving a damsel that had been tied up and left on the tracks in some heroic effort, but I've heard he actually tripped." A chuckle, a grimace? "I was at war, Lyss was caught in some kind of magical detonation…"

"... I was shopping. I was - I was crossing the road." I swallowed. I could remember it. The sun. The building near me. "Scaffolding. There was scaffolding. Someone actually - someone shouted something." A shadow over the sun.

Dekker opened his mouth - closed it again. "I am sorry. I - am glad it was over quick enough that you do not remember the pain." He hesitantly reached out, almost like a praying mantis - like he wanted to give me a comforting pat but was aware of how horrific he was. No. That was unfair. He just wasn't human.

Oh god, oh fuck he wasn't human. I was - I'd been -

"Oh - she's panicking. Elminster, could you - "

A man with spiked hair in something that looked like a hooded jumpsuit's eyes flashed and - calm. Sudden and flat, like spreading butter over toast. My breathing slowed. "What did you do to me?"

"A, er - fast acting anti-anxiety shot." Dekker starting purring a little in the back of his throat, but his face was not happy like a kitten's. "We've all died. And yet, we live. But we live here, far from home. Homes. We all come from such very different places, it's a lot to take in. Magic, science, deities, other powers." He licked his lips. "I apologize - at first you didn't seem so shocked at our appearance I thought you might have had experience with xenologicals - I must revise and stop assuming." He was speaking quickly, nervously. "Most of us are warriors, yes - some by past, some by choice, some by necessity. Dawn is a - quite varied place and - I - I'm terribly sorry for what happened to you."

"I - I'd rather panic, please." It felt like a violation. Like my feeling had been stolen from me. And I couldn't even feel angry about it. "I died. I - I died."

"We all did." Harris, leaning on Dekker's side of the booth, a beer bottle in hand. "We just don't want you hurting yourself - or one of us - when it happens." Quieter. "That has happened. And, no offence meant lady, but we don't know what you're capable of."

"You're going to lock me in a padded room to have my panic attack later? Worried I'll - hit you with my bag?" The words felt bitter. Too bitter. I was still - there were so many of them, so strange, so odd. An otter made of metal. A collection of what looked like giant ball bearings, their reflections showing different horizons. A man with the kind of armour that I'd always thought would be horrendously impractical in real life, shoulder guards larger than his head, musket across his lap.

Dekker raised two pairs of his hands. An appeasing gesture. "None of us are good at dealing with this. Delaying until understanding is reached can help newcomers through it."

The bar had become a lot quieter. More murmurs than bustling.

"... we have some rooms out back if you'd like some privacy to panic in." Dekker finally relented after a lot of staring.

"I'd like to go home. I want to - I want to leave."

The bar went very quiet.

"That is…" Dekker wrung his hands - at least four of them - and shifted through a series of expressions that were painful to look at. He even looked to Harris - who was avoiding the question by chugging his beer with a stern face. But that only lasted so long.

"Everyone wants that at first." Harris put the beer down gently, but the kind of gentleness that suggested extreme control, a desire to slam it down. Anger. He's angry with me. "It's okay to want that. We'll even help you. We've all wanted that, one point or another. But it's not going to happen."

Looks of sympathy from the other patrons. Looks of despair. Longing.

"Why not?"

"We don't know how." Dekker's face was still, his voice low. "And even if we did - it is unknown if we would arrive alive, or reinhabiting our deceased bodies, with all the implications that entails."

"Can't we work - can't we work out how?" All these people. Just sitting here drinking.

"We've all tried. There are records going back… centuries." Harris flung his hand out haphazardly. "Suggesting everyone who's come here has tried. But no-one's succeeded." He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "We're all…" He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "Stuck here. Trapped."

"Some consider it a second chance -" Dekker hurried to add. "Many of us - were not exactly in a prime position in our old lives."

"You're only sayin' that because you were losin' the war." Harris nudged Dekker's shoulder.

"I never wanted to be a part of that." Dekker pushed him away, middle hands clasped together on the table between us. "It's - it's not easy, I know. We'll happily revisit the Archives with you to watch every idea you can think of - and if you think of something new, well, we'll happily do what we can to try it." He tried to smile. It didn't come out very well. "We've accepted our fates being here but - we all do still long for home."

One of the other patrons warbled, I didn't catch who.

"Except him. And possibly some others - the point is - I think you understand what I mean." Dekker sighed, and even his shoulder scales seemed to flip in sympathy. Was every member of his… species this emotive?

"... okay. So - what's next?"

The hubub began to return. Perhaps I wasn't the most interesting thing in the room anymore.

"Well," Dekker coughed politely. At least, I thought it was a cough. It had a lizard-like purr to it that made it hard to parse. "I believe Harris brought you to me due to my position as Immigrations Officer."

"I - what?" I blinked several times, opening my mouth - closing again. "You're - an immigrations officer? Really?"

"Oh yes," Dekker nodded enthusiastically, scales almost rattling in his excitement. "We need to get you properly registered - not for surveillance reasons or anything like the dreck I've heard from the more dystopic worlds, but - we do need to figure out which world you come from. It wouldn't be good for you to accidentally be given food from a universe whose primary produce is toxic to your physiology, would it?" He pulled out a pile of scrolls from under the table and laid them out. "Do you recognise any of these?"

Two maps, completely foreign to me. One of them was even topographic, which made it harder to decipher. Not that I really had an interest in trying. It clearly wasn't home. Not - earth. Or my earth.

I shook my head.

"Alright - how about these?"

"I don't recognise any of these." I frowned. One of them looked a bit like a projected terraformed Mars, the other just… forests, from one side of the map to another. Another was - lots of dots and symbols? A constellations chart?

"Hrmm… perhaps not that sector of the galaxy." Dekker tapped his chin for a moment before ruffling through the pile I couldn't see. "Not that one, or that one… ah." He held up the sheet triumphantly. "Does the name 'Earth' mean anything to you?"

"She's human, you jackass!"

"And were the last three humans I dealt with from Earth? No they were not!" Dekker shot right back at - it might have been one of the robots. "You know as well as I do that there are several human template worlds!"

It was a map of earth. Slightly older, given the fading of the print, but it was earth. All split up into countries just as I remembered.

"Yes. I'm - I'm from Earth." I shook my head. "Template worlds?"

"Oh," Dekker's eyes shifted back and forth and he rolled his shoulder. Nerves? Or had he not meant to say that. "Some worlds appear to be the… default, shall we say, that others are based upon. For example, my world's template isn't space-capable, but my actual world is. We were at war with humanity, whereas the template was still warring with itself in nationstates rather than the interstellar empire I am familiar with."

At war with humanity?

"The multiverse theory - that any reality is possible, but only in parallel - well, it's kind of true, maybe. And here is proof of it. The issue is - well, the laws of physics seem different between everyone's universes. And we carry some of that with us. Harris comes from an actual flat world, for example. My version of the hundred and fifteenth element is different than the one that J'rroth over there talks about. But… all the laws seem to work here. Even if they should contradict each other." He paused. "Though… there are exceptions."

"Like?" My eyes narrowed a little. Why volunteer so much information but not that?

"The first that comes to mind is gravity." Dekker shrugged. "We once had an engineer from a world that constructed massive machines without any sort of gravity manipulation - almost her entire world revolved around ignorance of the square-cube law. And while she could still make them there were… flaws. Issues. Things like that. Powers that revolve around communion with outside sources, or draw on something inherent to the source universe tend to work differently here."

"It's a sore subject for some of us." Harris hid behind his hand, casting a cautious glance to another table.

"Which brings us to the next question - what… powers did you world have? What did your world have that you believe another, blander Earth, would consider extraordinary?"

"... television?" I shrugged. "I don't - I can't think of anything that special or important."

Dekker actually frowned at that. "I… see. Hrmm. What level of government do you remember? The most common form of inter-judicial transport?"

"Cars? Each country has its own government. Um. Lots of democracies." I shifted in my chair. This was - I wanted home.

"So definitely not an interstellar race then." Dekker stroked his chin and began typing on a steel-framed glass slab, his claws folded over in a way that looked painful. I don't know where he pulled it from.

"We put a man on the moon?"

Dekker paused. "... tell me, was Pluto's designation as a planet a controversial topic of discussion? There were two world wars, and an infamous being named Hitler that caused atrocities?"

"Yes?"

"Okay. We're looking at something from Sub-Template C, then… there's a possibility of powers you might not be aware of but… how attractive are billionaire industrialists in your universe?"

"... not very?"

"We can rule out superheroics then. Magical powers are generally harder to spot… but I take it you were, ah, a civilian?"

"Yes. My great-uncle was in the army at one point and used to tell me bedtime stories about it but - I'm a civilian."

"... hmm." Dekker put the maps away and began focusing on his typing. "There's a strong possibility you are actually from a template world."

"Does that mean anything? Does it make it easier for me to get back there?"

"It's difficult to say, given nobody's succeeded, but at the same time, it could be more possible…" He grimaced, tilting his head back and sideways a little. "It does mean significant difficulties in the road ahead - most of us are accustomed to… paranormal things."

"Ghosts?"

"Not quite, more like - aliens, non-us species that are sapient, with their own societies and cultures - are a part of everyday life for most of us. I should have seen it before, your nervousness -" he shook his head sadly. "It - I am terribly sorry, but a lot of us will have - very different cultures compared to what you'd be accustomed to. And we have not got very many measures in place to help with that."

"English, please."

"You're not accustomed to living among physically and culturally different aliens. It's a difficult switch to make." Dekker sighed, running hands over his shoulders. "It's happened before. I should find a human officer from a closer world to help you."

"I can't hold this anymore, Dekker." That man - glowing eyes, the one Dekker had spoken to before, I couldn't remember his name, but he looked exhausted, and there were chills down my spine.

"Thank you, Elminster. Hopefully we've passed the worst of it."

A sudden pressure I hadn't even noticed gone and it all came rushing back, the smells, the sounds of everyone shifting and talking. Slowly I buried my hands in my hair, covered my ears. Tried to curl further into my seat. When - when had I sat down?

"Is there anything you'd like? Other than going home, we can discuss that later, but uh - would a drink help?" Dekker was trying his best but maybe he should have gone and gotten a human officer for me. No. No I wouldn't be - racist. Speciesist.

I shook my head. "Water. Water maybe."

"Waiterbot..."

-.-.-

After I'd finally calmed down - not my fault this place was a nightmare made real - or that I'd been told I was dead on arrival - Dekker had sorted out a room for me. Apparently a friend who was also human - from a 'Template-H Earth, Pantheon class 4' - would be my roommate, and… I had no idea what that meant. It should've been exciting, being here. Story book, film, comic made real.

But it wasn't. It was terrifying.

They all had weapons or were - strong or dangerous. They'd all tried to get home and had failed. And they pitied me for wanting it.

I sat down on the bed and rummaged through my things. Apparently, some of my shopping had made it over with me. No explanation why or how because of course nobody would have answers for that, but… it was nice. Though what I was going to do with a package of ham and three boxes of eggs I wasn't exactly sure. The wetwipes… well, I suppose I could use them to clean things.

My bag had made it through, too. Tablet, charger, phone, wallet, assorted receipts and knick-knacks that I always promised myself I'd sort through when I got a spare moment. I guessed I had that moment now. I think I had at least three pens and a couple half-done blister trays of painkillers in there.

The room was nice. Felt more familiar than the bar or tavern or whatever it had been had.

It was just like a motel room - a couple of beds, a dining table, a kitchenette, a fridge - it reminded me of home. It reminded me too much of home. It would've been - it might've been easier if more of the building styles I'd seen were part of it but it was just like a million and one other motels.

I was lying on the bed and reading through the 'newcomers' guide' pamphlet, wondering why they hadn't just started by giving me this, when the door burst open and an armoured silhouette staggered through.

Almost immediately, I was hit by the smell of a brewery. The second scent was… something earthier, like a forest after rain. But primarily, the smell was stale beer, sharp and pungent.

"Um... Hi?" I tried.

They flinched away from me and stumbled for a couple of steps before steadying themselves against the dining table. Their hair was - aqua? A kind of blue-green, like water. "Hhhh… hey." The rest of their armour was… strange. It didn't look like metal so much as a gnarled tree had grown around her - and it was definitely a her from the voice, and something in the shape - and a pair of lanterns hung from the pauldrons.

"Are you okay?" I frowned. I - was this supposed to be the roommate Dekker had mentioned?

"Mmm - I'm. I'm fine." She waved me off almost callously, staggering over to the bed opposite mine and collapsing against it. The bed creaked under her weight and she rolled off it onto the floor. The impact shook the floorboards and the rather nice holographic chandelier that lit the room swayed ominously.

She was drunk. She was very very drunk.

"Ohhhkay..." I averted my eyes as she started doing something that looked an alarmingly lot like undressing.

"Th'fuck?" She turned to look at me properly. Her eyes were the same colour as her hair. Glowing. Her face was twisted like she'd only just realised I was in here with her. "Person here? Why?"

"I'm… new here." I sighed. I think I was all panicked out for today. Who knew starting life in an entirely new world could be so fucking exhausting. "According to Dekker this is my new room and that I'd be sharing with someone - which I assume is you."

"Don't want a roommate. Told Dekker often enough." She grunted, undoing some unseen fastening that left the top part of her armour thudding to the floor - I looked away before I could glimpse more than a grubby under-top.

"If I'd known I - could have said something, I guess. I could - go ask for a different room, if you'd like?" I grimaced. I didn't know where to find him or how to contact him.

"Do that." She paused, and made a noise somewhere between a burp and a groan. "Ugh."

I nodded and sighed. Of course. Just when I'd gotten used to the room, its quirks and peculiar blend of technologies.

"Whaddya - ugh." She stumbled, thumped her head on the bed. "F - fuck. Fuck - "

I was already pulling her hair out of her face when she vomited. It was liquid, mostly, and stank even more of alcohol than she had already - thin and yellow-brown, spattering over the floorboards. I did my best not to wince.

"Would there be a bucket around here?" Not that it would help with what was already… out, so to speak, but if there was going to be a repeat -

Her hand lashed out, catching me in the side. She was strong, and the blow left me gasping as she staggered forward, hands splashing in the vomit.

"Fuck away from me! Don't - leave me alone!"

Didn't really have the breath to reply, so I just pulled myself to my feet, scowling. I don't know what her problem was, but that was a hell of a thank you for trying to help.

I took another look at her discarded armour. Everyone around here had a theme. Aliens, fantasy, or some other genre they adhered to. And she had armour made to look like exquisitely carved tree bark. It was metal, but the way it was made… something to do with nature. Definitely not something to do with being a drunken buffoon.

The shoulders in particular - lit by the lanterns, details of a woman-like figure.

Time to put all that time spent delving into mythology to good use - some kind of holy knight for a nature goddess? A paladin, maybe, if we were using fantasy terms.

"Th'fuck are you still doing here -" She was getting to her feet, hands already clenching into fists.

Courage to the sticking place. I squared my shoulders. "Apparently, I'm looking at a drunken idiot who won't accept help. Is it a religious thing? No, I doubt a goddess of… trees, or whatever, would want her servant parading around like a drunk fuckwit." I took a half step back. Not too close. She wasn't tall, but she was taller than me, and given the last hit I'd taken I'd rather not take a blow from her again.

"You would - dare -" Fuck she was buff. But she was also drunk, and still nauseous if the way she was holding her stomach was any indication.

Just like dealing with an unruly customer. "Yeah, I'd dare. I'm not exactly thrilled to be rooming with you either, asshole, and I'll talk to Dekker in the morning about moving out. But for tonight? I'm here. And that means I don't want you choking on your own vomit, or coating my things in your spew. So sit the fuck down, and tell me where I can find a bucket." I paused. "And a mop for the mess you already made."

She grit her teeth and raised a hand -

SMACK.

Okay that stung my hand quite a bit but she was sent reeling so I considered that a win.

She glared at me, hand on her red-marked cheek. She glared at me for a very long time before sitting down and glaring at the floor instead. "Sink cupboard. Bathroom."

"Thank you." I spun on my heel. Poise, poise, don't let the customer see they've nettled you, keep going -

She made a noise, and I threw the bucket at her. Must have been a lucky moment for me - she caught it just in time to use it instead of the floor.

This… was going to be a long night.

-.-.-

The man in the hooded cloak crouched next to the ring of stones, whispering to the pile of sticks and ash. Sigils burned in the air like afterimages on his retinas. Burning into his memory. Ah… so there had been someone here.

He looked to the horizon, looked to the glow of Dawn. "The traitor city got the newcomer."

"Oh, come now, Brother," a second man, climbing out of the whispering shadows, "Everyone knows that any man worth his salt would come to recognise the lies they preach."

Izul looked up to the moons. Almost in alignment, now. Just a month more. "The more we save from them to begin with, the better. They're one of the last bastions to hold onto that falsehood." He sniffed derisively. "The fools."

"Well, the Flood Moon is coming." The second smiled, tilting his head, eyes wreathed in darkness. "We'll get our chance when the Deep rises."

Izul tensed, fists clenching. "We're all screwed if that thing gets there first, Ireleth."

Ireleth merely grinned wider. "I'll inform the Oasis Council of your recommendation for haste, dear brother." He bowed, swallowed by unnatural darkness once more. Izul snorted derisively and shook his head.

"Drama queen."

-.-.-

It was a warm night. One of summer's last.

He walked slowly up the ramp to the walls, to the last line of defence.

"You should be asleep." She said it without turning, of course. She always did.

"I dreamt of you." He replied, looking towards the sky. He always did.

"You always do."

"It's hard not to."

Standing next to each other. He cautiously reached out, as he always did. She firmly squeezed back, as she always did.

A comfortable silence.

She leaned her head on his shoulder. His arm came around her shoulders. "I saw the newcomer today." She admitted.

The only thing they could hear was the beating of each other's hearts. Not the wind in the trees. The crickets in the nighttime. The eternal life of the city behind them.

Up here on the walls, it was only each other.

"I don't think we did too well with her." He sighed.

"Oh?"

"She panicked - much more than we're used to."

She glanced up at him. "Template-worlder?"

He nodded. "Template-worlder. C, actually. It's been a while since we've had one of those."

She chuckled, softly. "It has."

He squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.

They stayed like that for a long time.

"Resources are getting scarcer." She sighed. "And I can't figure out if it's our fault - or if there's something wrong with the world."

"I would presume ours…"

"Except the Horizon colony has been reporting the same."

"Oh dear."

A bird fluttered by, snatching glowbugs out of the air one by one.

"I'll bring it up with Administration in the morning." He promised. "Perhaps attempt contact with Oasis and Eden. But there's only so much we can risk on expeditions -"

"I know."

Silence again. Leaning on each other.

"... I put her in the same room as Lyss."

She pulled away in surprise. "You what."

"I bunked her with Lyss."

"Dekker, that is -"

"Utterly irresponsible of me and a total abuse of my Offitorial privileges, I know."

"I was going to say brilliant."

He remained quiet. Contemplative. "... how, exactly?"

She laughed. "If anyone can convince a newcomer that we still want to get home," she pulled him down, pressed a kiss into the side of his head, against the fluttering scales, "Then it's the woman who drinks herself into oblivion every second day from longing."

"It sounds depressing when you put it that way." He purred, brushing his forehead against hers.

"It's not a happy world."

"It's ours."

Almost no glowbugs left. Only a fat and happy sparrow sitting on the railing and preening.

"I don't think I want to go home, Dekker." She sighed, resting her face against the plates of his chest.

"I don't want to think about what would happen if we did, Vera." He ran his claws softly through her golden hair.

Deep breathing. Silence in each others arms. He wiped away her tears and she found comfort in his embrace.

"I'll send her to you for the tour tomorrow."

"You bastard." She chuckled softly, shaking her head.

"I love you." He said. As he always did. "I'm sorry I killed you."

"I love you too." She said. As she always did. "I'm not."

They stayed together until her watch ended.

-.-.-

I wondered if saying 'that woman snores like a chainsaw' would be considered blasphemy.

I glared at the figure 'carved' into the pauldron.

Probably would be. But on the other hand, if she was snoring, she wasn't choking. Didn't mean I got as much sleep as I'd like, but I didn't have to worry about her dying in the same room because she was being a drunk fuckwit.

I groaned and rolled onto my back, shoving the pillow on over my face. Now if I could just find a way to comfortably keep that in place with my arms while I got another five minutes...

There was a knock at the door. More like someone hitting the door as hard as possible to be heard.

"FUCK OFF!" the woman shouted, before quickly falling asleep again.

"Lyss, there are -"

"I said FUCK. OFF!"

"I'll come back in an hour then." I couldn't recognise the muffled voice from here. Might have been Dekker.

An hour… maybe long enough for a nap. Was her name Liss? Short for Elizabeth? Or… something else? The vowel sounded wrong, different.

Silence. So she was probably awake. I was just… drifting off…

A touch on my shoulder woke me with a start. "Hmnn?" I pushed myself upright, rubbing at my eyes. Murgh. Couldn't have been asleep for more than half an hour. The clock on the wall agreed.

"Are you awake?" My roommate's voice.

"Well, I am now you've woken me up." I squinted up at her. "What the hell is it?"

She pursed her lips. "I would… I apologise for my behaviour last night. It was unbecoming of a - it wasn't right. My troubles are not - your troubles. And burdening their effect on you was - "

"Rude?"

"Yes. Rude."

There was an uncomfortable silence. I kept staring at her, probably waiting for my brain to kick into gear. "So… is there anything else, or can I get back to sleep?" Not to say her apology was unappreciated but working on two hours of sleep in ten minute chunks was not the easiest thing to be doing. Hell, the sleep deprivation might make this place seem more dreamlike.

So I didn't have to deal with the fact I'd cleaned up after a drunk knight after going through paperwork with a giant stick insect after being maybe abducted by a cowboy on a hover… cycle… thing… and taken to a bar full of wizards and aliens and robots.

"No. Merely that - I do not overly object to your presence. If it would be difficult to - move. You can remain." Her hands were… too big for their body, or looked like it. One stretched across her face, rubbing at it, little finger digging into her closed eye. "I will modify my hours so as not to disturb you."

"That would be…" I blinked. "Nice, actually. Thank you." I lay my head back down, exhausted. "I'm Elsie." I wasn't going to say it'd been a pleasure to meet her because it really hadn't been.

"Lyss." There was something more to the vowel there - a slide, a lengthening. "Paladin of Othruda."

"I'm afraid I don't have any title like that," I yawned. "Part of being a… 'template worlder'?"

Lyss' eyebrows went up slightly as she rubbed her cheek. "You hit quite well for a template worlder. And not everyone has a title."

"Maybe I was thinking of job title." I pulled the blanket back up. "Like… Harris is 'cowboy' and Dekker is 'Immigrations Officer'." I sighed. "Why does no one want to go home? How can everyone be so - so happy here? They all pity me for wanting to go home. I just know it."

"We all want to go home." She turned away. "But we've all given up. There's no getting back. No returning, no matter how dearly we wish we could. You can't even really die here unless you give in and kill yourself, or someone kills you."

That - was a wakeful and sobering moment. I sat up a little, resting on my elbow. "How long have -"

"Long enough to forget the faces of the ones I love most in this world. In my - old world." She rubbed her wrist. "It's not pity. It's envy." She set me a quick glance. "To have your hope - your optimism of getting home again… a curse and a blessing in one."

A curse and a blessing in one? Oh. Oh, I knew this one. "Ignorance is bliss."

"It is." She sighed. "Very much so. Now, I will go and drink. I will see you later, Elsie."

I yawned and snuggled down. "Nigh'night…"

"Rest well."

-.-.-

"No. You will leave her alone."

"The first days are the most important -"

"You put her with me knowing full well she would not rest easy."

"None of us have ever rested easy on the first-"

"It is considerably more difficult when dealing with my habits, and you know that."

"I will collect her for lunch then!"

"Better."

Something was…. Happening outside?

I rolled over and didn't give it a thought more.

-.-.-

Breakfast had been… weird.

Dekker had given me a wristband that snapped on and then shapeshifted itself until I almost didn't realise it was there until he pointed it out again. Something from the 'sci-fi' end of the spectrum that I barely noticed was there. Apparently, holding it up to the 'breakfast bot' would give me a menu.

Was all the food here automated? Because while it wasn't… great, it was edible at least. Then again, it wasn't like I had any experience with actual automated food. Maybe all the fiction about it being awful was just… fiction.

The band would serve as my ID for all the things here they didn't necessarily have control over. Automated systems built by previous inhabitants of the city - the walls, certain other areas.

Which was kind of concerning. Because now that I was spending more time taking in my surroundings rather than panicking, there were some pretty big guns on those walls. I wondered where the breakfast bot had come from - one of the inhabitants, or the city itself?

Where did the city come from? Had someone, centuries ago, decided to just build it? How?

"... don't worry, Vera will take good care of you." Dekker smiled and I realised I'd missed half of what he'd said.

"Uh… sorry. Didn't - quite catch all of that." I took another bite of my sandwich to hide my face.

Dekker chuckled. "We're going to see Vera. She's one of our head security officers, and she's going to give you the tour. She'll take good care of you and if all goes well, you'll be able to visit the Archives with her and ask all the questions you'd like."

We stepped around a building and down a small alleyway. There was a metal ramp starting at the end of it, one that went up and up and up and over the rooftops. Looking back - this place was bigger than I thought. But also… smaller? Tighter-knit. The patchwork buildings were pressed close into each other - often on top of each other, wooden shacks built on top of gleaming bunkers.

And the people. There were several running across the rooftops, all cloaked and hooded. Like… cosplayers from that video game, or the parkour enthusiasts you occasionally saw in the city.

And in the sky… "That is a big set of wings."

Dekker looked up and smiled. "Don't worry about her. She's a bit of a show off."

It explained the series of tricks that started when I stopped to stare. "Can she… see us down here?" The wings were gleaming like steel, glittering feathers in the noon light. And I might have been able to hear the hum of something? It was difficult to tell with all the background noise going on.

"I'm told Isabel has extremely good vision, yes." Dekker chuckled. It sounded almost like rattling. "But I've never been able to confirm it - her flight helmet doesn't fit my head."

I felt a little self-conscious and zipped up my jersey.

"Dekker." My attention was drawn to the woman I'd seen yesterday. The lady with the long blonde ponytail and the even longer sniper rifle. It looked like a sniper to me, anyway. "You're late."

"I bunked her with Lyss and underestimated how much that would impact the schedule." Dekker was wringing his hands - all three sets.

"... she didn't want to kick her out?" The woman raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"So you deliberately bunked me with someone who's enough of an asshole people know about it?"

Dekker's hand-wringing was starting to sound like someone using a stone to sharpen a knife, only exacerbated by having three sets of arms. "Iiiiit's… not that simple, but - we - I was hoping she wouldn't be that inebriated by bedtime -"

"She's abrasive, but she's not usually that bad." The woman blew a stand of hair out of her face. "If she let you stay, you must have found her soft spot."

"I shouted at her when she tried to throw me out for stopping her vomiting everywhere. That doesn't sound like a soft spot."

Dekker's jaw dropped and the woman laughed. "What - but - oh my goodness, I am - I am so sorry -"

"I like her." She grinned, and held out her hand. "Vera. Anyone who can get Lyss to vouch for them sleeping in is definitely worth their weight in zeryntenium."

"Elsie." I shook her hand firmly. "So where are the Archives everyone mentions?"

"We'll get there soon. First stop on the tour, actually." There was a flash of something in her expression - concern, maybe? No. It wouldn't be.

"Good." Then I can start - trying to think about how to get home. I ignored the pity, Lyss' voice saying that it was impossible, that everyone had given up.

A tri-layered cough. "I believe this is my cue to leave…"

Vera put her hand on her hip as she pointed back to where we'd come from. "Go apologise to Lyss."

"Yes, yes…" Dekker rolled his eyes and head again. "Take care of Elsie!"

"I wouldn't dream of doing anything else." Vera shook her head with a smile. She began to walk, gesturing for me to follow. "You came by pretty late in the evening." I was sure the next thing she was going to say would be something about 'does everything look better during the day?'. "Welcome to Dawn."

"Is there a reason for the name?"

"We think at some point it was meant to be symbolic about how this is a second chance, a new day, a new life. And things are always said to begin with a 'dawn'. Synonymous meanings - whatever it was, it fits." She shrugged. "And it'd be too difficult to change at this point. So we just… deal with it."

Forests outside the walls, more of the same… scrubland and rocks. There was still the muffled crashing of waves - if I craned my neck I could just see water over the edge of metal and land. Coastal city. Made sense. There was something in the distance inland, too. Tall and too uniform to be some kind of stunted tree. Ruins?

"It's not like - it's not like most cities I've been in."

"Yeah. Mixed heritage coming in there. Whoever built it first was from a very technologically advanced world - then something happened to them and a group of mages moved in. And so-on and so forth. The construction's a mess, and there are some buildings that are still locked, by magic or demons or biosecurity or nanites. There are expeditions, occasionally. To try and unlock more of it. But I doubt you'd be interested in those."

"I want to go home."

She sighed. "We all do. We all did. I've got a good reason to stay, but I know my sentiments aren't shared by many. Well. Definitely not many on their first day, at least."

Off the walls now, down into the streets. From this height it was clear Dawn's walls were shaped like a pentagon, with one side cut off for access to the sea. Each corner had a street leading to the center, smaller alleys spawning off them. So all the buildings were in big wedges rather than blocks.

"We've had some of the mages put up wards around the locked buildings, so if you approach somewhere and a voice in your head tells you to head back or 'go back from whence you came' or anything like that, heed its advice. Getting too close… isn't pretty." Vera shivered. Her gear - I didn't know if fiction translated to reality, but she looked like the kind of soldier who, in a movie or game, would have seen some shit. For her to look this disturbed -

"I'll keep it in mind." I drifted a little bit closer to the center of the road. There was a tank parked in my path anyway. It looked a lot like one I'd seen at a museum, actually. "Is that - a… Template-C world thing?"

"Nah. Tanks evolve almost everywhere, eventually. So - I guess yes? Given that you recognised it. But I don't think whoever built it, or came in it, came from Template-C in particular. Maybe an offshoot though."

We kept heading to the center. The walls only seemed to go from coast to coast - unless there was a wall underwater on the other side. "Does the seaside have walls?"

"Surprisingly enough, yes. Took us a while to figure out, actually, but they need to be raised." Vera nodded. "Up ahead is the control center. Where… everything is. The controls, obviously, but also the generators and the Archives." So that was where they were. "Access to the underground hydroponics, something we think might have been an armoury at some point…"

I'd kind of stopped listening by then. Too busy thinking up what I wanted to search in the Archives.

My first thoughts were of magic. Surely someone around here had to be capable of making portals, right? That was something that was in lots of books - different kinds of portals, sure, but it'd be a good starting point. Or FTL drives that did the whole going into another universe thing.

"..not really listening, are you."

"I was."

"What'd I say?"

I thought. "... underground… farms?"

"Exactly what I thought." Vera rolled her eyes. "Since you aren't paying attention, I'll drop you off and let you browse through the Archives until you're ready to continue."

"How… long are you going to let me browse?"

"I'll get a waiterbot or someone to deliver meals for you so you don't forget to eat." She sighed.

Hours then? Days? I wanted to find a way home, but I wouldn't work well without breaks. Did people normally do that? Just throw themselves into it until they collapsed? No wonder they gave up eventually. "It's okay. I'll just familiarise myself with it today. A couple of hours only." I managed to muster a smile. "If you don't mind, it would be nice to see the rest of the city. Might give me some ideas."

She gave me a raised eyebrow like she didn't fully believe me. "If you say so… most people keep going at it for a week on and off until they think they've found something new. One guy went through the entire attempt history - took him nearly a month - before we could drag him away."

"That sounds… did he give up?"

Vera pursed her lips and shook her head. "He… didn't make it home." That's not a yes or a no. What are you hiding? We walked into shade - the control center towering over us.

"Well. Taking breaks is important to concentration. And with something like this, where I know fuck-all to start with - it's better to go guideline teacher handbook in my approach rather than try and cram it." I wanted to go home, but it wasn't… urgent, I supposed. No parents. No outstanding bills, or job offers I'd be declining. I'd miss some TV, some movie releases, but that was what the internet and DVDs were for.

"I would say something about the most obvious solutions have already been tried, buuut the definition of obvious always seems to differ from world to world." She hopped down onto a steel platform and hauled open a hatch - a hatch on top of a huge wedge of stone and metal. I couldn't see the front, but I could see the steps leading up to it. Neoclassical, it might've been called. I didn't know much architecture.

Cautiously, I followed her down.

The inside of the building was just as spacious, looking like an even bigger version of a Star Trek bridge, the walls lined with monitors and graphs and consoles and buttons. Holographic display tables filled out the floorspace, a triple set of glass elevators in the center of the room. Below, through the gaps, I could see something more like a traditional library - green and dark and bookshelves, and below that something in gleaming marble.

"I'd recommend not touching anything. They were - damaged, recently. We're not sure how to repair them. There were manuals, but..."

"There are manuals?"

"Yes… but some idiot put them away in a drawer and the automatic translation doesn't work on the symbol language they're in, which means we have to do it manually and it's an absolute pain." She sighed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. It wouldn't stay there, though, her visor was in the way. "Thankfully we have Ops."

A man in a tank, connected by so many tubes it looked like something out of the Matrix. He looked comatose.

"Is he okay?"

"He's fine, just resting. I can introduce you two later." Vera guided me towards the elevators and we went down. "He's… a cyborg, I think is the term you'd recognise. Hooked up to the system. Is the system." She paused. "I think the term the techheads used was 'UI'?"

There was a lot of glass here. It was… dirty though. A couple of the monitors had been busted. Scorch marks subtly lined the walls. I swore there were a few bullet holes in places.

There's more than what she's telling me.

"Welcome to the Archives."

It was a library. A library that stretched on and on and on. Shelves upon shelves upon shelves lined with books, densely packed and… I took a closer look, running my finger over them. Leatherbound books. Paperback, hardback, one or two laminated. Metal - I pulled that one out a little. It was a datapad. No. It was several data pads, hastily ringpunched together, wire binding them into a single volume. There was a shelf of scrolls, another with what looked like mobile phones - some flip phones, some touchscreen, some looking more like communicators from some SciFi show. And labels, on every shelf - Third Era Technologist Scrolls, Surving World B-32 Fictions, Notes on Deific Connection. That last one was sealed behind glass, locked, like a display cabinet.

"Would I be able to -"

"No. Those are… there's magic in the pages. Forms a mental connection with the reader. We think whoever wrote it was looking for a kind of immortality. It overwrites the minds of whoever's reading it, and given that it was designed to be read by those with holy powers, and the issues inherent to those powers - well. We do have a microfiche of the texts which is… less enchanted, but you'd need to agree to psychological observation if you wanted to read them."

"That is…" I swallowed. "A bit bigger a reason than I thought for them being locked in a case."

"Oh, there's plenty like that. There's some tablets on the lower level that are some kind of mathematical proof that drives people not from its source universe insane. One of the few examples of a negative cross-universe interaction. Some restricted observations and diaries, more because of what was observed than any inherent danger in them, but they make for fairly traumatic reading. Equally some of the video transcripts - it's not going to kill you to see someone turned inside out by the dimensional portal they tried to make, but it will… hurt. Mentally."

"That sounds eerily like personal experience." I had chills running down my spine as I struggled to think of something other than that horrifying mental imagery.

"I'm a soldier. See a lot of things in war I'd rather not have. Guess the desensitization helped." She shrugged and grimaced. "We should - move on from that. Is there anything in particular you'd - like to look for? There's no specific section on escape, but - "

"Are there any - beginners' guides? To magic."

"Which kind of magic? At least a third of all encountered worlds had some kind of magic, and about half of them left some notes here. There's magic that you need to be of a particular bloodline for, which won't help much, and ones for which you need instruments - wands and the like - but even leaving those out there's over a thousand different magic systems with 'beginner's guides' here."

"... well." Shit. "That's a lot. Anyone around who could tutor me in one of them?" I leaned on a table and folded my arms, plotting already. Magic was a… nice idea. I imagined there would be some kind of costs involved, rather than the usual 'magic words mean magic things and that's all you need' that happened in books.

"Again. Depends what you're looking for." Vera shrugged. "I'd suggest browsing the index of residents to see what styles are available and then reading up on them to find the kind that would suit you."

"Any you can recommend?"

"Later, perhaps." I got the feeling she really wanted to move on from this. That this sort of thing was asked by every last newcomer she had to give the tour to. "I guess… guidebooks of various kinds are stored here. I'd recommend staying away from anything bound in leather for the moment, especially black or white leather. If it has some kind of embossed symbol on it, especially if it's a skull - "

"It's bad news?"

"More likely to be useless and pretentious, but yes, potentially bad news as well."

"So… is there an attempts section?"

"This whole thing is the attempts section." Vera leaned her gun on the table and traced her finger along the spines of several books, before coming to a metal cover braided with an intricate gold trim. She pulled it out, pressed a button, and the whole thing burst into life. "Everything we have here is… a study of our new world. Records of our old worlds. And every single piece is searched for a possibility of a way out." She blew the dust off the pad, before scowling and wiping it with her sleeve.

"What's that one?"

"This is… attempts Dekker and I made."

"How long did you try for?" I tried to envisage it. The calm stable Vera, the excitable Dekker, feeling the same panic I had. The same determination. I didn't - I couldn't see it. Maybe that was unfair of me.

"Six months." She sighed. "Then again at two years." A grimace. "Then we… figured some things out. Thought about it properly. I've decided I don't… I don't want to go back. He agrees, but for different reasons."

"What'd you try?"

"First we tried one of his species' bio-engineered portal drives, which… hm. Didn't end well. He lost an arm. Spent the next two years trying to build one of the Collective's FTL drives, with some magic involved. It wasn't that hard to convert it into one of my humanity's FTL drives, and that went even worse." She sent a regretful glance over her shoulder. "Lost some good people that day."

Dekker lost an arm? Then again, given all the fancy stuff going on here, someone having the skills or abilities to help with regenerating limbs didn't seem like as absurd a prospect as it would have last week.

"That's… a bit disheartening." Is it, really? I didn't have that kind of inspiration - but that meant I might be open to more options. "Bio - bio engineered?"

Vera looked at me for a moment, blinking. "Right, template worlder, how to… oh! Have you ever seen any movies where the antagonist is an alien species that does genetic tampering to create it's soldiers and ships?"

"Yes. Ah, but I mean more - how do they do that? How would you have the tools to do that here? I mean - in movies and stuff. That requires laboratories. Like, special specific laboratories, and some kind of plot specific mineral or something."

"Oh, that." Vera coughed. "He lays eggs."

"What."

"Ah, I'm only kidding. We took some genetic samples - he's still sore about how enthusiastic I was about cutting off that chunk of arm - and there are actually some labs here. Turns out he has a lot of backup, unused genome sequences in his DNA. How to do it though… we had to do a lot of extrapolation from his military academy classes, from spy reports I'd read. Used some life-magic to fill in the gaps. That might have been why it went so badly wrong."

I winced. "How… how much is… I don't really have a frame of reference for badly compared to… I don't know, could have gone better."

"We lost a mountainside and several of our more powerful… warriors." Vera sighed, putting her hand over her mouth and looking at the ground solemnly. "I recognised it was starting to malfunction - had to pull off a couple of those deliberately back in the... old world - and couldn't get the warning out in time. All vanished. No idea if they made it out or not, given how we got in, but when we found the corpses, they were…"

"You… don't know if that worked?"

"That's probably the biggest problem we have. To get here we left corpses behind in our old world - some of us have actually have had descendants arrive here to confirm that. Our bodies don't vanish like we do. It… stands to… some form of reason that getting out of here… doesn't necessarily mean the body will make it too." Vera gestured sadly. "Every chance is the ultimate gamble."

It's worth it though. This place was dangerous. And getting out of here, getting back home, even if it was dull… "Okay." Deep breaths. Don't think about how far on the endless shelves seem to go. Or how many locked cases I could see. "Where should I start? For magic."

Vera nodded, and guided me to an enclosed corner. Full armchair, blankets, lamps and everything. "This isn't magic specifically…" She gave me a sympathetic wince. "But among other things, details the most common magic types and who's available to teach you when you're done reading."

"That'll do. Thank you."

-.-.-

My phone's alarm went off. Two hours. I finished the page - no, chapter, thankfully - and put the book down. Hardback. If it weren't for the excitement of new things, it would have been incredibly boring reading - dry descriptions of styles and methods of magic, all done in cramped, tiny print, complete with woodcuts.

I yawned and stretched, wincing at the aching in my leg. Hadn't taken enough micro-breaks. Gotten too absorbed in… what was it. Spacial Diagrammatic Distortion.

This place was a nightmare.

The things these people could do. The things they had done. There was a diary snippet from a mage who'd attempted a healing spell and thanks to spoiled preparation materials accidentally started a plague - in warning of proper care for setting up spells. Of 'interdicted spell interactions', where summoning one kind of magic's form of demons caused another universe's to manifest, and thus containment methods were ineffective. Pocket dimensions - like the traditional 'bag of holding' types, went… oddly. Putting things in carried the risk of never seeing them again, and trying to take something out was a gamble that could cost a hand.

More than that the methods were so - this one required words and precise gestures with magically made wands. This one required some kind of… energy manipulation field, moved by will. This one required genetic predisposition and arcane 'symbols'. These two used, completely different, 'true languages' which described the nature of things in such a way that it forced them to act.

The science would be just as muddled.

I could have plans. But I didn't - it would take me years, to look through everything that might work. Decades to think of combinations. I could be patient. I wanted to be patient. But - I could see how it could grind down at me. Failure after failure, with terrible side effects. Working by myself.

I needed something faster. Something to keep my morale up. Someone to work with.

I went back a few pages to a diagram that stood out to me. Another summoning sigil, one that could be exactly what I needed. Or could be the swift road to getting myself killed on accident.

But was it worth it? More worth it now than ten years down the road when I have so much more to lose. Right now I had next to nothing. Nothing to risk. Everything to gain. Just - something extra. Something more.

Checking my phone's clock - still had another hour until Vera said she'd come back. Should be enough time.

I got to work.

-.-.-

A flash of ethereal energy. The girl's body was flung back against the bookcase, wisps of thought curling around her skin.

I opened her eyes and grinned.

"Guess who's baaaaack~"

Mmmmph.

"Ohhh it is so good to have a body again." I ran her hands over her form. Not as strong a host as I could have had, certainly not the shapliest, but there was a certain attraction to being what most would consider not-at-all-noteworthy. Just the thin brunette girl next door.

She was - worried? It was hard to tell from inside. Fear chemicals in the brain.

"Mmm, you afraid of lil' ol' me running around as lil' ol' you~?" I licked her lips, chuckling darkly. Or seductively. It'd been so long. "Don't worry. I take good care of my hosts." I ran her hand slowly down the side of her face.

Hm. Definite worry there. Her hand shook, pulled itself away.

"You're a strong one, aren't you?" I giggled, hauling myself to her feet. "Let's just - cover this up, shall we? Wouldn't want the others to know what you've done now, would you?"

"Nn - listen to me - "

Impressive. Or I was getting lazy. Hard to tell.

"My dear, you've summoned an archspirit. What makes you think you're the dominant one anymore?" I sighed, rolling her eyes. "But very well. It's been so long since I've had any form of entertainment."

Relinquished control. Well, most of it. I still needed her hands to cover up the summoning circle -

"Help. Need - help learning. Understanding this. Someone to talk to." She rubbed at her throat. "Fuck."

A blink and she carried my violet eyes once more. "You've summoned me to tutor you? To be a friend to you?" That was - completely and utterly absurd. I liked it. "I have to say I like the novelty."

"Figured - you'd appreciate the balls involved."

I checked - getting a yelp of surprise from her - "Must be a turn of phrase, then, because you really don't have the -"

"Phrase!"

"Mmm." I brushed aside the wood chippings, and pondered which way would be best to cover it up. Perhaps a repair sigil - though that always left the repair sigil itself on the damn thing, and that kind of defeated the purpose. "How much time do we have before we're walked in on?"

Using the small metal key, I started scratching the repair sigil into the underside of the table. Nobody ever looked under those. It was dreadful.

And even then I could probably cover up the sigil with all the used gum under here. Urgh. "Told her I'd be about three hours so - another ten minutes?"

"Hrmph. You certainly like to cut things close, don't you?" Her hands were dextrous, moreso than most of my former hosts'. Quite a pleasant surprise, really. Well-maintained too - nicely clipped nails, fine skin. A quick kiss on the carved wood and there was a flash of energy - I felt a sensation like part of myself going into it, pulling the splinters together into the whole again.

It was like unbreaking bones.

"Why are we - ngg. Why are we hiding it?"

"Did you not see the warnings?" Her face frowned. "Are you… aware of what I am? Of who I am?"

"Yes. But everyone here's done - just as bad or worse. I think."

"If you're caught… oof, we're in for a rough time." I grinned, standing up and putting her hands on her hips. "They don't have fond memories of me."

"You've - been here before? You got - got out?"

"Oh, yes." I purred, enjoying that sweet, sweet rush of adrenaline flooding her system, flushing her cheeks the most delightful scarlet. I bit her lip softly. "Mmmm, keep me happy, and I might just have to tell you how~"

My grin spread like a shark's.

Showtime.

-.-.-

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

TRIGGER WARNING: Body horror, alcohol use

[ ] Needles In My Mouth, Mead in My Belly

Genre: Modern Fantasy, Horror

Foam erupts from the top of the bottle I hold. The bitter smelling liquid spills onto my fingers, making them wet and sticky. I wipe them off on my sweatshirt and take a swig.

The party is in full swing and I can't stand it. The bright costumes, the raucous atmosphere, the destructive empathy rampaging on hormones, and the feeling of always being watched. My stomach is turning on empty and this beer won't help. I break from the table holding a pile of snacks and wander around the edge of the swaying teenagers, my friends in revelry.

"Hey Fig, come dance with us!" Two girls yell at me from the dancefloor.

"Fuck off. I'm not drunk enough yet."

The world of the wallflower holds a contemplative simplicity in it, just lean and drink. It's solitude in a mess of raucous socialization. It's mine, at least until I finish my first drink and the party stops feeling so loud and broken.

I gulp down another quick moment of carbonated courage, wait 'til a lull in the music and the warmth in my chest coincide.

"I heard this house was used by witches." A small figure in a bird mask slid across the wall as they leaned into it, a red cup of a clear liquid in their hand spilling as their back ran across studs in the wood paneling . "They used to sacrifice sheep and stuff to satan, or something."

"That's what you said about the warehouse dumbass. It just turned out that it used to be a chicken farm," I said in to the neck of my beer bottle.

"Well, I was right, they did kill chickens there and someone might have used the guts for fortune telling." The figure lifts the mask revealing the brown face of my friend Tabby.

"Allegedly."

"Allegedly only means that you don't want them to sue. Anyway, I have it on very good authority that this place was a real life witches coven in the eighties. They even made the paper because of some kids ratting them out to the feds. Real bad stuff like sex magic and blood rites."

"So, during the satanic panic the FBI found kids who said that the people who lived here were witches who prayed to Satan. Right, this isn't like the goddamn chickens, it's the plot to an X-files episode."

Tabby purses her lips and slits her eyes at me.

"Angela asked you again, didn't she," she says, poking me between my ribs.

Foam sprays down my front as as I spit the swig I'd just taken back into the bottle. I look down at my ruined sweatshirt and flicked the beer drops from my sleeves. Staring right in to Tabby's eyes I poured the rest of the beer onto the hardwood floor and then dropped the bottle with it.

"I gotta go get a new beer."

The other girl slides her mask on her face and watches me leave, her eyes shining in the dark behind the feathers.

I cross in front of the dance floor again, this time more in tune with the thumping bass. The alcohol is stroking my anxiety, making me pliant and loose. I laugh along with the splendor going on around me forget what I'm doing just long enough to bark my shin on the refreshment table.

The selection fills the small card table completely. Liquor, spirits, wine, and beer lay before my wandering eye; all for my tasting and all for my consumption. I pluck a bottle of whipped cream vodka from the table and read the label as my sweet tooth ached.

"You don't want that stuff. It's worse than if sugar icing and candy corn had a bastard child."

I look up to find a kid in a Charlie Chaplin costume. Black pants, cane, bowler hat, and a mustache made of velcro glued to his upper lip, I really hope he'd used spirit gum and not elmer's glue.

"It's too sweet, you see? It's only good for if you're already drunk or if you're trying to mask the taste of something like Absynth. Or Jagermeister," he says while blanching "Though I don't know why you'd drink that."

"You seem to know a lot for a twelve year old," I say as I set the bottle of vodka back down on the table.

"I'm 103 actually, I just look like this because I ate some magic beans." He smiles at me and holds out a green, glass bottle. Inside smokey liquid swirled, like a dustorm trapped inside jade.

"This is the stuff you really want." He pops the stopper and the smell of expensive wine mixed with honey fills my nose; my mouth fills with drool instantly. "Homemade honey mead made from comb I harvested myself."

I feel dizzy as he waves the open bottle under my nose. The smell overtakes me and I close my eyes. I feel the fresh honeycomb, the way the wax gives way while still giving a satisfying crunch, the honey bursting out in sweet pops as the comb begins to melt from the heat of my tongue.

"Almost everyone at the party's already had some, just a small cup but it's enough."

He sets the lip of the bottle on the edge of a red party cup and the liquid inside flows, the golden drops hitting the plastic bottom. I lick my lips and reach to take the cup. He backs away.

"You have to really want it, you know? Not just want actually, you have to need it."

"Yeah, yeah. You convinced me. Just give me the fucking cup already."

"Are you sure you want this mead?"

"Yes," I say and take the cup from his hand. I tilt my head back and feel the thick ambrosia flowing down my throat, reminding me of warm cups of cider at christmas.

Beneath me the floor drops and I fall. The cup is wrenched from my hands as I hit the rotted wood beneath me. The music stops and people began to scream.

I can still taste the mead. The golden sweetness overpowering the salty taste of my split lip. Even as I'm screaming, I'm smiling at the memories of warmth and home flowing along with the warmth in my stomach.

I stand on unsteady feet. Blood leaks from my palms and my knees, trickles staining wherever they touched a dull red. I hold the sopping card table for support and look at the crowd that was dancing just a moment ago.

"Everyone alright?" Someone from the throng yells.

The music has stopped and the formerly brilliant lights have faded and the room is steeped in darkness. The dance floor is a shadow moving against the night, the only defanition coming from the moonlight filtering through yellowed windows.

"What the hell happened?"

Static rips through the shuffling quiet as a voice coalesces, inhuman, from the silent speakers.

"Hail the chosen, kin of fear, for drink a drop we hold ye near."

Gasps and whispers fill the room. I limp to the the wall and wait to stop shaking from shock, the impact still ringing around my body.

"For thirty has the penance moved, from cost deferred to whole cloth doomed, ye forfeit lives are mine to use, ye forfeit minds are mine to lose."

The wood paneling is rough against my abused palms as I pull myself toward the door leading to the stairs. Just a few more feet until I can run from this shit, until I can forget the mead and the voice and the stupid night.

"Rise, my chosen. Rise and greet the moon."

I lift off my feet, my hand scraping on the wall and then parting from it as I float above the confused crowd on the dance floor. I grin, my lips cracking at the corners as the honey fills me. I turn towards the light of the moon filtering through soaped windows and the moon flairs.

Hands flow from the walls, their pale arms becoming more slender as they stretch to take me. I can't move as the long fingers slide against my skin and hold me firmly in place. My mouth opens on its own, a hand pushes a bundle of wire and steel in. I bite down.

Rods of pain circle my gums and steel presses in. The needles I'd been forced to chew stick firm and root my jaw in place. I moan and my mouth smiles. The hands pat me and then release me to fall on the floor, the wood's earthy smell sticking in my nose.

Another person lifts into the air behind me and I hear the screams of the former party, not of joy this time. Then the pain takes me away.

-----------------------------

I smell dust, long fallen with a cinnamon tinge. I feel pain sweltering from my jaw, like a toothache that's turned abscess. I open my eyes and see the moonlit ceiling, the silver light dancing in shadows of rafters and pipes.

I try to talk but feel a sucking ache as the metal in my mouth moves. I moan into the dark and breath, the pain enveloping me again. I push myself from the floor to my knees, my head swimming as the pain turns from immediate to an abstraction.

The room is quiet and empty. The party's gone on without me, same as always, all that's left is trash and spoiled beer. I finally stand and start limping towards the stairs.

I reach up and touch my mouth, feel the split lip and where my gums have swollen around the needles. Blood drips to the floor as I hold my head low, a headache growing from my forehead.

Shadow fills the staircase but I find the first step. One eye closed against the migraine knot, I descend the groaning wood one step at a time.

As I walk the air gets cleaner, the dust flows less, and I can smell fresh cut grass below me. The darkness shifts and becomes less defined as moonlight filters in from an opening down uncountable steps below. Too many stairs for the one story I climbed earlier in the night.

I reach the bottom and the walls fall behind me. I'm in a clearing, a thick and snarled forest ringing a giant tree with the staircase buried deep in its trunk. I smell the grass, fresh and alive, and my headache lessens enough so I can lift my head and look to the full moon.

The moon grins back at me. The smile is wide and honey filled, the teeth detailed and gray against the white orb. I gasp and hold my hand against my aching mouth.

"I was right. I was right," A bird squawks from deeper in the forest. I look from moon to trees, then back to moon. I pinch my split lip and pray that this is all just some fucked up drug trip, that the kid had just spiked the mead with LSD.

"Fig, Fig! Witches! No alleged. Witches."

The bird is closer now and the squawking becomes more familiar. A black beak nudges a dry thicket aside and a human sized crow struts into the clearing.

"I found you! You sleep. Like a log, you sleep. I found you. I'm proud."

The voice, the colour of the feathers, the way that the down curls around the squinted eyes. I reach out with my hand and poke the crow in the side. It yelps and tilts its head at me, her head at me.

I gasp again, my eyes wide and my lips curled back from my mess of a mouth. Tabby leans in close and looks at the metal in my gums. She shakes her head and stomps the ground with a clawed foot.

"They changed so much. Yours is bad though. I wouldn't want it. Nuh uh."

Something large and brown slams into Tabby. A mix of wire hair, feathers, and bodies slam the trunk of the staircase tree. Tabby screams as red drops fall from one of her wings.

"MIne," The animal that had just gored my best friend spat on the the crumpled figure before it. It turns and raises malformed hands to the sky as it lets out a scream. Hair like copper wire fell from its head, tusks spit from lips that lead to a too wide mouth,

"Angela?" Tabby asks, still slumped against the roots of the tree.

"No," I say. My tongue is like glass against the strings piercing it. I can't stop the words as the leave my mouth and shred my tongue.

"Fig is mine."

She charges me. I turn to run but trip over myself, falling to the ground. She towers over me in shadow, her back to the moon. I stare up at her, bleeding and shaken.

"Why? Is there something wrong with me? You don't like boys, I know that. What's wrong with me?"

She starts sobbing as she walks toward me.

"You're just my type and we're so cute together. We've fucking kissed, I know you like me too."

She drops to her knees and starts crawling toward me. I can see the remains of her shirt stretched over new muscles. I back away from her, eyes wide.

"Say something? Please? Why won't you sleep with me?"

Her sobs turn to squealing wails and I can finally see her eyes, the tears that shine on her cheeks. I look down and away, a guilty lump forming in my throat.

"I can't, I don't…" I say, the needles loosening their hold for a moment. Then the pain tightens and the reason dances away from me, the revelation lost to the night air. Angela sags against me and sobs into my jacket, I hold her head.

Tabby plops down next to us and puts her feather covered hand on my girlfriend's back, her soft caws soothing. I point to my friend's bloodied wing and she shrugs. I motion to the world around us and again, she shrugs.

"Witches cast a spell. We got taken. Now we're here. No more. No less."

I stare out at the forest, at the grinning moon above, and then I let a breath whistle through my new and shining teeth.

"Fuck this place. Right?" Tabby says.

I nod.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] Work Hard, Play Hard (I reincarnated as a living doll?!!)

Genre: Fantasy, Reincarnation

After dying on Earth and reincarnating in a fantasy world, Rosa will have to work hard to ensure her new life as a living doll is both survivable and enjoyable...

Long synopsis:

Rosa didn't have the best childhood—"All work and no play" described it pretty well. So when she died and came back to life, she thought it was a second chance at living a life she had only dreamed of.

Unfortunately, she was reborn into a child-like living doll, becoming something more like property than a person. Now she needs to figure out how to survive in a fantasy world—the kind that she had only ever read about and never thought she would experience. Turns out, life is tough for her as a homunculus, but maybe she'll find a way to make her own fun…

______________________________________

Chapter 1
______________________________________

I was finally dying.

I felt my mind drifting off, a sensation surprisingly like sleep despite the obvious differences. No matter what the nurse had said, I knew that I wouldn't be waking up from this bout of unconsciousness.

It had been months—almost a year—since my diagnosis. And while my parents had initially met it with disbelief and shock that progressed into desperate treatments and even more desperate prayers, my own immediate denial had quickly faded into calm, almost grateful acceptance. No more worrying about grades, sports, recitals, clubs, getting into a good college—no more anything, really, to worry about anymore. No more pushing from my parents, no more facades to put on during my limited windows of social interaction, no more forcing myself to get up far too early to do things that I didn't really want to do.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't resent my parents. They had sacrificed so much of their time, money, and lives to raise me from childhood to where I was now. How could I, in good conscience, have thrown all that had I received back into their faces? So it wasn't resentment, not really. Perhaps something more like frustration, the pent-up kind that made you want to just collapse in the face of pressure rather than scream and shout. Maybe it was an untreated case of depression that our household environment just wasn't conducive to bringing up. Maybe it was just a combination of stress and exhaustion. Or maybe the disease had been subtly messing with my brain chemistry for years.

Whatever it was, well, my time was coming to an end. I didn't leave behind a lot of regrets or things I wanted to do, perhaps due to the sheer lack of meaningful social interaction with my peers and the absence of any unstifled personal ambitions in my life. I didn't have any real crushes I could dream about in my dying moments, or future goals that I looked forward to but would never achieve.

I was just so...tired. And now everything would finally be over. My life ended not with a bang, but with a quiet, grateful whimper.

It all faded to nothingness.

__________

The thrumming, pulsing sound was probably what woke me up. It didn't exactly sound like something I'd hear in the afterlife, although the existence of some kind of afterlife made me feel a little better about not feeling bad enough about my death.

I didn't expect that I would feel so groggy, though. Surely heaven wouldn't have spawned me in with a mild headache—you'd think it would kind of ruin the whole experience.

An indeterminate amount of time later—most of which was spent being in awe of the fact that I was still alive—something nudged my arm. I'd have instinctively jerked my arm back, but my body didn't seem to be responding, and the sensations that my skin felt were muted to the point of numbness. Maybe it took a while to "wake up" in the afterlife? My eyelids also weren't responding properly, but after a bit of effort I had a little more success on that front when a sliver of light appeared in my field of view.

A few low, muffled noises came from somewhere to my left. Not only could I not hear it very clearly, I also wasn't able to understand what the heck they were trying to say.

And then something popped—no, snapped? Descended?—into place in my head. It was hard to describe, but the closest description I could give would be as though the world suddenly righted itself and made sense again.

"Huh," a gruff voice said. "Come take a look at this."

I paused in my attempts at movement. That wasn't what I expected an angel to sound like. Maybe he was another denizen of the afterlife? Or, maybe this wasn't the afterlife? Assuming this was another case of my terrible luck in life, then what was going on?

...Had I been kidnapped? Or maybe I had actually woken up in the hospital bed? Or, worse, I had woken up in a morgue, and I was also somehow zombified and still conscious. Considering my luck, I wouldn't even be an urban fantasy "zombie" that was just a superpowered human with a mild craving for brains, but instead one of those ravenous zombies that people shot on sight. It would be unfortunate if zombies in movies and books still had people inside of them that couldn't express themselves, since that would mean I was one of them.

I conceded to myself that I might have read too many urban fantasy novels and webfictions during my stay at the hospital. It turns out that books, especially fiction books that I wanted to read, were actually quite addicting.

As all of that passed through my head, the sounds of a pair of shoes crunching through stiff grass grew closer. Probably not the hospital, then, unless they had installed a lawn in my room while I was asleep.

A young, feminine voice spoke next. "What's wrong?"

"Seems like there's still a bit of mana left in this one," the person said, nudging my arm again. "Almost finished digging the grave before I noticed."

Okay, so this was almost definitely not the afterlife. I immediately started panicking before I forced that feeling back down. Panicking wouldn't help me, and I didn't want to startle whoever these people were. I didn't want to be buried alive, though, since I'd heard that suffocation was a particularly horrible way to go. So I did my best to either fully open my eyes or start moving my limbs, whichever turned out to be easier.

"Look," the gruff one said. "It's opening its eyes again."

Good news and all, but it would be better if you'd stop digging already.

"Does...does this happen a lot?" the girl asked again. She sounded like she was around my age, although the Internet had shown me that there were a surprising number of people who had voices that were entirely divorced from their actual age.

There was a low chuckle. "Nope, only seen it twice before. They power down pretty quick afterward, so no point waiting around for it to go back to being fully functional."

The sounds of digging continued, which only intensified my efforts at opening my eyes. I was mildly successful, in the sense that I was blinded by even more light, but sensation of pain from my eyes being forced to adjust was oddly dulled. It was probably related to how I could barely feel anything on my skin, although at this point I was just guessing due to my lack of information.

"You told someone about it, right?" the female voice asked worriedly. "I mean, these things are expensive, even if they do just end up being buried."

A what now? Even when my parents were frustrated with me, they didn't call me a thing. That was just rude and uncalled for. Unless I actually was an artificial zombie or something, in which case it was totally understandable. If you disregarded the silliness of the idea, me coming back to life, the dulled sensations that I felt, and the way they talked about me kind of pointed in the direction of artificial zombiehood.

"'Course," he responded. "Asked after the first time, even showed him the body, but the mage just shook his head and said it was probably due to a defect in some kinda magical part of it. Something about the mana battery not discharging right, and that he'd bring it up with the designers."

Um. Was I actually some kind of artificial magical zombie? I made a note to pat myself on the back if that was actually the case, because wow, that would be one heck of a guess.

"Whoa, you really seem to know your stuff," she exclaimed. "Didn't think you had it in you, Uncle."

"What're you tryin' to say, missy?" the already gruff voice replied in an even deeper tone with a faked accent. "That I can't learn them magicks properly?"

Were they seriously cracking jokes while preparing to bury me alive? Although, when I thought about it, the dichotomy was kind of funny in a morbid way. I would have chuckled if I wasn't partially paralyzed and still worrying about being buried alive.

My vision eventually cleared up, but I was left staring at what looked to be an afternoon-ish sky as I struggled to sluggishly move my eyes in some other direction than straight ahead. I couldn't even feel what I was laying down on top of, but I didn't seem to be inside of a coffin.

She giggled at the man's mock scolding. "Oh come on, you know I didn't mean it that way."

There was a snort. "Alright, alright," he said. "Get back to working, sun's going down soon and you know your mother doesn't like it when you work too late. Don't you have a project due in class or something?"

"But I want the spending money," she retorted. "Besides, this is way more interesting."

I mostly tried to ignore their byplay, especially considering my immediate issue, but I couldn't help but notice the odd things that they were saying. If the situation was what I thought it was, well, I was getting kind of excited, despite my pending suffocation-by-dirt. My enthusiastic consumption of fiction while on my literal deathbed had given me enough awareness to recognize this genre when I was so blatantly smacked in the face with it. Maybe it was bad to interpret everything through the lens of a story, but given that I probably would have died reading if the nurse hadn't taken my laptop away, it was the first thing I thought of.

As they continued talking about balancing school and work, I was able to shift where I was looking through a combination of eye movement and my neck finally responding to my attempts to turn slightly. A foot away and to my left was a man with a stocky build wearing rather simple baggy clothing and shoveling dirt onto an ever-growing mound on his right. Crouched next to him was a young girl, maybe around my age, who was staring in my direction with a shovel slung over her shoulder.

"Ugh, it's still moving," she said, shuddering slightly. "Kind of creepy, but it also really seems like a waste to bury these things after seeing them move around like that. Also feels kind of wrong, like we're burying them alive."

I agreed with her, and really hoped that she would eventually tell him to stop digging.

"Still moving?" The man frowned, setting down his shovel as he clambered out of the grave. "Don't think I've seen them move around for this long."

The girl immediately took a step back. "Wow, way to make me feel better. You know, this is reminding me way too much of those undead things adventurers always talk about. The doll looking like a kid makes it even creepier."

Kid? I wasn't able to feel or really even see my limbs, but being even shorter than I was in my, well, previous life, was somewhat upsetting. Not nearly as upsetting as this entire situation, though. Well, maybe upsetting was too strong of a word. Unsettling, maybe? I decided that I was pretty happy to be alive and seemingly free of the nausea that had plagued my previous body. I had my fingers figuratively crossed that the sickness was gone, too. At least she confirmed I wasn't a zombie, but "doll" was such a vague word that I didn't know whether it was better or worse.

"Bad omen to even mention those things, girl," the man said, reaching up to touch a metal ornament of some kind hanging around his neck before looking at his dirt-covered hands and deciding against it. "But no, this is just a homunculus, even if it's behaving oddly. And yes, burying these things is always a waste, since they use so much precious metal to make 'em. But the customer wanted it, and they're the ones paying us."

Welp. Pretty sure "homunculus" was a word that was firmly near the end of the "words that I didn't want to hear" spectrum. Other words I hoped I wouldn't hear in this situation included "incinerator", "ritual sacrifice", and "food source".

He grabbed a nearby towel and wiped his hands off, his face clearly scrunched up in thought. "Lalla, go home for the day. I'll have to send a messenger to the customer and ask how they want this handled. Might be nightfall by the time I get this sorted out."

She shook her head, almost clipping her jaw on the handle of the shovel resting on her shoulder. "I want to stay," she insisted. "We don't learn about magical stuff like this in school—well, we kind of do, but more on the boring stuff about how our city is special because it's good at making homunculi or something. I didn't even think I'd see one in person until today."

Was it bad that I was almost beginning to regret my reincarnation? The idea of being owned by someone was profoundly disgusting in a very visceral way. If I had more control over my body, I'm sure that I would have shuddered.

He sighed, setting the towel down next to the shovel. "You can stay until the sun sets, but no longer. I don't need Jeril yelling at me about giving you this job."

She grinned and gave him a quick hug. "Thanks!" Before the man could respond, she had already hopped over the open pit of the partially dug grave and crouched down at my side.

I managed to tilt my head a little more to stare at her. In the corner of my vision I saw the edge of a plain, if neatly crafted, board of wood that I had been laid down upon. Pretty weird. A blanket of rough linen lay in a messy pile next to me.

I think that if I was actually going to be buried, I'd like to be placed into a nice coffin. Maybe with one of those bells that I could ring in case I actually wasn't completely dead so people could dig me back up again. Actually, being cremated and shot into space sounded pretty nice too. Or perhaps my ashes could be used to grow a tree—preferably a bristlecone pine, if only because of their long lifespans. So many options.

I knew, on some level, that I was being a bit silly. In my defense, I had just come back to life when I should have, for all purposes, been completely and irreversibly dead.

The girl poked at my clothing, which was hard to get a glimpse of from where my head was positioned. "Pretty dress, if kinda formal," she said. She glanced back at the man. "No fancy coffin or anything?"

He shook his head. "No, the customer specifically requested that it be a very simple burial. No coffin, no grave liner, nothing. Strange, but nobles are strange people. Also, don't touch it."

She withdrew her finger. "Sorry, sorry. What now?"

"You keep an eye on it while I go get the messenger," he said. "Tell me if something happens, I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Can do," she replied, turning back to face me.

She watched me in silence for a few minutes as I struggled to control the rest of my body while also doing my best to avoid drawing her attention. Controlling my body was surprisingly tiring, as every time I managed to barely twitch my leg I couldn't repeat the action for another few seconds. It didn't feel like my leg actually got tired, but more as though my entire body as a whole grew tired from any sort of physical exertion. Kind of like I was doing cardio. Maybe something to do with how I was reincarnated?

Hmm. Did I really want to move? Maybe if I went back to playing dead, they'd bury me, and then I could claw my way out of the dirt. Then again, with my current lack of strength, I'd probably suffocate without getting anywhere.

Wait, double check, was I breathing? After a moment of contemplation, the answer was yes, I was, but very shallowly. So yeah, I'd probably start suffocating the moment he started piling dirt on top of me.

Okay, then the next plan was to regain as much control over my limbs as possible. Preferably without the girl noticing so I could just get up and run away while she'd be too surprised to stop me. The good news was that this plan was already starting to work. My sense of touch was returning, and I could feel myself getting less tired as I continued flexing my muscles. The bad news was that it was growing increasingly clear to me that this body wasn't very strong, each flex of my arm only weakly pushing against the surface I was lying on top of.

I shifted my head minutely, glancing down at my body. As the girl had said, I was wearing a simple, but pretty, black dress. No fancy embroidery, as far as I could tell, but I probably wouldn't know for sure until I looked at myself in a mirror.

"Uh," the girl suddenly said. "Hey, if you can understand me, could you maybe stay put until my uncle comes back?" She gave me a nervous glance. "Oh wait, you guys are supposed to obey people, right? Well, I, uh, I order you to stop moving?"

She raised a good point—not the moving part, but the understanding her language part. I focused a little more closely on the words she was actually saying, then compared it to my knowledge of English. The two languages were definitely different, so I forced myself to consider the two side by side in my head. After a small period of disorientation, something seemed to snap into place in my mind. Blinking that feeling away, it became clear to me that the structure or whatever it was called of the two languages was pretty close. At the very least, it was quite easy for me to translate words and even letters between the two languages. It was basically the same, really, and if I squinted a little I might have been able to mistake some of the words as English.

With that issue resolved, I turned my attention back to the girl. She was still staring at me, one hand tightly gripping her shovel. Even if I was able to get back on my feet, she would be an obstacle toward my freedom. I briefly considered some way of disabling her, then discarded that plan just as quickly. Not only was I in a small and weak body, I also had no guide to whatever this world held in store for me. Besides, she was the one with the shovel, while all I had were my barely functional limbs.

Perhaps becoming more friendly with her would be the best idea? I could use someone to watch my back and teach me about the culture here so I wouldn't stand out. I wasn't very good at making any real friends, but I thought I'd at least be able to handle making an acquaintance.

As I laid there and continued thinking, the girl started to relax. I couldn't keep calling her the girl in my head, though. What was her name again? Lalla? Well, Lalla didn't want me to move, and she was under the assumption that I would follow her orders, so for now it would probably be best if I stayed put and refrained from arousing any suspicion.

However, she didn't say anything about speaking—unless she meant that I shouldn't move my lips either, but that seemed kind of pedantic and not following the spirit of her words. Besides, complete stillness would mean I would have to stop breathing and suffocate, and Lalla probably didn't want me to kill myself.

"Where am I?" I asked. I almost twitched when I heard my voice—it was higher than it used to be, more melodic, and I had a brief moment of melancholy when I realized that I probably wasn't getting my old voice back. I hoped that my singing voice would still be passable, at least.

I also hoped she'd answer my question. It was innocent enough, and it'd be pretty obvious that I had no clue where I was the moment anyone started talking to me.

Lalla flinched, immediately swinging her shovel out in front of herself with surprising speed as though she were trying to fend me off. She must have realized how dumb it looked, though, because she ducked her head in an unsuccessful attempt to hide her face behind her short brown hair before sighing and looking back toward me.

After regaining her composure, she frowned. "You don't remember?"

I just stared at her. "No moving" possibly included shaking my head, so I didn't want to risk it.

"Right, I did say 'stop moving'," she said, coming to the same conclusion. "Well, you're in the city of Antitium. Does that sounds familiar?" When I stayed silent, she scrunched her eyebrows together. "Umm...home of Millia's Faithful? Has an Adventurer's Guild that ranks in the top ten?"

I continued staring blankly at her.

"Is that a yes or a no?" she asked.

I waited a beat. "No."

"Well, uh, I don't know what to tell you, then," she said, rubbing the back of her head with a dirty glove. "Ah, crap."

As I watched her frantically try to sift particles of dirt out of her hair, I continued moving my body as surreptitiously as possible and thinking about what other information I could get out of her. The Adventurer's Guild was an obvious starting point, if only to confirm my suspicions about this possibly fantasy world, and I was curious as to what kind of "top ten" the guild was in. Was it ranked by the strength of the guild members, or some other metric? Millia's Faithful sounded like some kind of major religious group here, maybe it was one that the city was known for?

While Lalla was preoccupied, I attempted to make a fist and happily discovered that while my hand moved far more slowly than I was accustomed to, I was coordinated enough to actually curl all of my fingers together the way I wanted them to.

"What do you want to know about?" Lalla finally asked. "I—oh wait, homunculi can't actually form, uh, memories, I think. So it'd be useless if I answered your questions."

Wait, seriously? I had a brief, violent urge to smack whoever designed this thing I was inside of—because, jeez, that really threw a wrench into any plan I had of hiding my capabilities. There was a chance Lalla was wrong, though, since she didn't seem very sure about the information she was giving me. If homunculi really couldn't form any kind of memory, how would they even function? Wouldn't they be tripping over themselves whenever they tried to walk, if they forgot every step that they took? So I didn't really think Lalla was right. Maybe she had simply mixed something up, considering her professed inexperience with "magical stuff" like this situation.

In any case, pretending to be some kind of prototype that could actually form memories might work if I only had to interact with Lalla, but that would probably fall apart quite quickly if someone more knowledgeable about homunculi checked up on me.

Lalla gave me a pitying look. "If you can't remember anything and you can't learn anything, well, you might actually be, um, useless." She raised a hand as though to pat me on the head before pulling it back. "M-maybe they can fix you, though?"

She gave me a tentative grin, then frowned at herself. "Okay, Lalla, time to stop talking to the magical doll before Uncle gets back."

I wanted to ask her more, but I couldn't think of a way to phrase it that wouldn't give me away by the time her uncle came walking back across the grounds. I heard him before I saw him, as he approached somewhere from outside of my field of view, but Lalla immediately stood up and waved to him.

But the first person who spoke wasn't her uncle. "So this is the aberrant unit?"

Whoever this was, he had a slight hitch in his voice, as though he had sprinted all the way here and was doing his best to hide it. But he also sounded clinical, detached, and if I could sweat bullets I definitely would have started doing so. If anyone was going to immediately realize there was something off about me, it would probably be someone who actually knew something about homunculi.

Fortunately, this body didn't seem to support sweating, so I did my best to play dead and hope he went away. Kind of like a hognose snake? Or an opossum? Anyhow, I did my best fake dead animal impression, which is to say that I just went back to doing nothing and staring straight ahead at Lalla. I didn't really feel the urge to blink, but back before I died I was already pretty good at staring at things and not blinking for a long period of time. Assuming that transferred over.

Did I even have to blink? Now that I thought about it, I couldn't remember if I'd ever had a friendly staring contest with someone before. Maybe I'd get a chance this time around? Although being a homunculus might be cheating. Well, I'd figure it out if I survived this.

I was pretty sure Lalla's uncle had said something, but I'd missed it while lost in my own thoughts. In the meantime, the newcomer had crouched down in front of me. At first glance, I pinned him for a stereotypical wizard or mage of some kind. He was young, with a slight bit of stubble on his chin, but he looked like he knew what he was doing as he gave me a considering look. His outfit consisted of practical clothing, with dark blue robes over a similarly colored shirt and trousers. Solid light-blue trimming decorated the bottom of his robes, but everything else was pretty plain. I was mostly staring at his knees and his comfortable-looking leather boots as he pulled out a small green crystal that was flecked with shiny metallic bits and dropped it onto my chest.

"Your suspicions were not unfounded," the magical-looking man finally said after a few seconds. "It's...it's almost as though the mana battery was completely refilled." He picked up the crystal and examined it, the green surface looking a little shinier than before. "I'd have to perform a more thorough examination on this area and on this unit, but I'd hazard an extremely localized mana surge as the potential cause of this unit's 'resurrection', so to speak."

"So...that means?" Lalla ventured.

The probably-mage shrugged. "Not much to you, I suppose, but"—his face paled slightly as he looked around the graveyard—"maybe it would be wise to make sure that the other occupants of these graves don't also arise from their slumbers."

"What." Lalla just stared at him.

Meanwhile, I was feeling pretty great about my guess. Sounded like he probably was a magic user, which made me a little more confident about treating this world like a mostly generic fantasy world.

Also, apparently I was basically a zombie. An artificial, magical zombie, even. I settled for a mental pat on the back because I was supposed to be pretending that I was some kind of obedient magical doll who had been ordered not to move.

"I can't deal with that many undead on my own," Lalla's uncle said, his voice surprisingly steady. "Would it be possible for the Academy or the Guild to send some help in watching over the graveyard?"

The wizard-mage-whatever dude hesitated for a moment. "The Academy of Magical Arts will handle this," he decided. "I will send a message first, then wait here until reinforcements arrive."

A magical school? Okay, that was definitely something I wanted to take a look at. A certain book series about a wizard and his lightning-shaped scar was one of the only sets of fiction novels that my parents had let me read when I was a child, under the guise of them being part of a class assignment. The eclectic sources of the fiction I had read when I had been sick had also colored my expectations of what a magical school would be like. Maybe it wouldn't live up to my expectations, but surely it would be at least somewhat interesting?

Actually, on second thought, going back to school—even to learn magic—didn't sound that fun. I think I might have had my fill of school for an entire lifetime. Hah. But I guess it wouldn't hurt to take another shot at it—after all, people do say that knowledge is power. Well, assuming that I even had the ability to perform magic and I somehow had the opportunity to attend.

"And the payment?" Lalla's uncle asked bluntly.

"I cannot speak for my superiors," the young man admitted. "But it is likely that you will not be charged for our services, as long as you allow us to work freely and examine the nature of this phenomena and any possible resulting undead."

Oh, that was nice of them.

Lalla's uncle nodded. "Fine with me."

The lightly-stubbled man glanced down at me. "As for this unit, the Homunculi branch of the Academy would be quite happy to take it out of your hands." He reached into one of the pockets of his robe as he raised an eyebrow, looking pointedly at Lalla's uncle. "I understand that you have an agreement with your clients, but perhaps I could arrange for you to look the other way?"

Okay, that was not nice of them. Maybe it was just me, but purchasing the bodies of the recently deceased without prior agreement from their families seemed pretty scummy. Unless this was one of those places were bribery and corruption was a thing, then I guess it was fine? At least in terms of the local law? It wasn't fine for me right now, though, since I wasn't particularly in favor of being sold to the highest bidder.

"Sorry, I've already sent a messenger to the customer," Lalla's uncle said, not sounding sorry at all.

Oh thank whatever deities people worship or exist in this world. Being dissected by curious wizards would probably have put a pretty big damper on this whole reincarnation business.

"A shame," the man said, pulling an empty hand out of his pocket. "I'll be sending a message now, please remain silent."

Holding a hand up in front of his face, palm facing upward, he began to gently blow air into his hand. A silver bracelet at his wrist with little charms attached to it began fluttering, a softly glowing ball in his palm coalescing as he breathed into it. I noticed that one of the charms, a simple bird, was fluttering the most and also slightly glowing. So I guess they were actually charms in the magical sense, kind of, not that I knew how magic actually worked.

Yet. If I got out of this situation, that was going to be one of the first things I learned, if possible.

The man began speaking. "This is Tuneth Evensoar. Requesting mage support at the Daneper Funeral Home. Possible mana surge and possible necromantic constructs. Confirmed revitalization of a single homunculi. Sir, I suggest sending a mage squad and possibly requesting a cleric from the local church. Message end."

By the time he finished speaking, the little glowing ball had slowly been built, strand by glowing strand, into the shape of a small, sparrow-sized bird. It pecked at his palm once, then flapped its ethereal wings and took off, quickly disappearing into the distance.

From what I could see, Lalla was staring at the act of magic in awe. I was staring, too, and hoped that the mage hadn't noticed that my eyes had locked onto his palms. He seemed quite pleased with himself, though, and didn't appear to notice when I averted my eyes after the bird had flown away.

So magic was kind of rare here, I guessed, if Lalla was so astounded by it. Or perhaps he just cast it really well. Or maybe because it was kind of showy, with how the bird came further into being with every word he spoke. Unfortunately, I simply didn't have enough information.

If magic could perform feats like this, then maybe my life could be a little more fun this time around after all. That is, assuming I could perform magic, and assuming I didn't die here or get dissected—but once all those rather large assumptions were made, I felt that the future looked pretty interesting. And even if I couldn't perform magic, the little bit I had heard so far about this magical fantasy world already had me fascinated and eager to learn more.

The moment of awed stillness was broken by the sound of a very muffled crack somewhere out of my field of view. I couldn't see it, but I could just watch for Lalla's reaction.

Lalla proceeded to point at something, scream, "Oh sweet Millia, that's a skeleton!", and start running in the opposite direction.

Welp. I guess I kind of asked for this.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] Death Maid of the Revolution

There had always been something special about Grambach Town's Central Library, Lucy thought. She had been three years old when her mother first left her alone in the children's section while she sought out the advanced study guides for her university course work. It had taken Lucy three minutes to get so utterly lost she could no longer find the exit. It had taken her mother two hours to find her curled up between two shelves with a photo book about the wonders of the deep sea. Ever since then, Lucy had carried with her a sense of wonder with every return to that place.

Through the eyes of a child it seemed endlessly big, shelves with books up to the ceiling towering over her wherever she went, aisles that seemed to fade rather than ever really stop in the distant gloom of ancient overhead lights coated with layers of dust. Here and there, comfy armchairs were placed to give the weary traveler a spot of rest along the path of knowledge. She had found and taken advantage of them all before she ever entered school. At five years of age, she had discovered the stairs to the first floor. It was like finding a whole new world to explore altogether.

As Lucy grew up, however, the mystery of the library started to shrink as all things must. More and more limits were imposed on her fantasy. When reality intruded, the unknown spaces became well-trodden paths. While the library was uncommonly big for a small town like Grambach, she had seen bigger, in the nearest city even. Still, her inner romantic could not help a certain fondness for the first gateway into other worlds she had ever found.

If anyone had told Lucy that she would follow in the footsteps of the Pevensies for real, that she would become like Wendy Darling or Bastian Balthasar Bux, leave her ordinary world behind for an adventure in a fantastic land, she would have called it a fanciful dream. If she allowed herself to imagine it, however, she would certainly have thought of the library as her starting point. Maybe a wrong turn as the clock struck midnight would have taken her into a section that should not exist, shadows moving strangely without people to cast them, whispers from a childlike empress luring her in with a request for a new name.

It was therefore a huge letdown and more than a bit of a cop-out when one Friday evening Lucy, age twenty-five, fell through a yellow circle that had just popped up on her smartphone's touch screen. I wish, she thought as a starless void greeted her, it would have let me comment on that latest Zero no Tsukaima fan fiction first. That was bullshit. The world deserves to know. Sadly, it was starting to look like it never would.

Death Maid of the Revolution

Verse 1

"Ooouuuhn..."

A hard, wooden plank.

"Nnnnnng..."

Creaking canvas.

"Sir."

Howling winds.

"Sir, are you conscious?"

A hand on her shoulder. A light shake. Pain.

"Mmmrffuuuck..."

Bright. Too bright.

"I think he's awake."

"Shut up and get me that stretcher."

"Should he really be moved in his condition?"

"Nnnnnnr..."

"He can't stay here. The rudder is damaged. And that part looks like it could fall any moment. Let the doc sort him out."

"How'd anyone even survive a drop like that without magic? Kid has the devil's luck."

"Shut up, I said. Now get."

"Wilco, sir!"

"Wilco!"

Strong arms held her up and everything was pain.

"Shhhh. Shhhh. It's alright, lad. It'll be fine."

* * *

It had not been fine, Lucy thought. Being placed on the stretcher hurt while it lasted. Then she was tied to it, which also hurt. Then she was carried and roped up and down way too many creaky floors. It hurt. When her helpers set her down at last, she was internally cussing up a storm. At the same time, someone was externally cussing out people, which hurt her ears. She groaned.

"But, doc-"

"Don't but doc me, imbeciles! You could have done serious harm to his spine with that stunt! If I have to bust out a Greater Heal because of you, I'm going to be spent for days, and where will you be then, eh?! Get out of my sight!"

"Wilco, sir!"

"Bah, children..." the voice muttered, growing quieter at last. Lucy groaned once more. Unhurried footsteps approached her side.

"Here you go, lad." She felt a small prick in her arm, then sweet, sweet relief. Lucy groaned appreciatively. "Thank God!"

The voice at her side harrumphed. "Don't thank God for things other people did for you. It's impolite."

She would have complained about the lecture, but at that moment she could not muster the strength to be contrary. "Is it? Thank you then." Daring to open her eyes once more, Lucy blinked until her sight cleared at last. Large blue eyes made even larger by the thick pair of spectacles they were residing behind regarded her from way too up close. Lucy shrank back and winced as another twinge of pain rocked her body.

"Don't move too much now, lad. You aren't healed yet." A round face entirely too big for the rather unassuming body clad in white robes it sat on grinned up at her, showing off pearly white teeth framed by seven-day stubble. The appearance was completed by a single strand of chestnut hair on top of his scalp, combed forward in a roguish pretension at coiffure.

Something had been bugging Lucy for a while now.

"Who're you calling 'lad' anyway? Can't you see I'm a woman?"

"Eh? You're wearing boys' clothes. I didn't just want to assume."

"Are you telling me girls can't wear trousers?"

"That's not at all what I'm getting at, lass. You must admit it's a tad confusing."

Lucy was beginning to lose confidence in this man's credentials as a physician.

"Confusing?! I'm clearly a woman! These aren't that subtle." She put her hand on her chest and squeezed through her blouse. "How can you call yourself a doctor and not notice?"

"Don't go fondling yourself in front of me now!" He huffed and averted his gaze, crossing his arms. "Honestly."

"Ah. Sorry?" A wave of confusion hit her. This whole situation was just way too strange. Why was this guy so odd? What was this place even? How did she get here? Oh, wait. She could ask, couldn't she? "Er, doc? I'm a little confused myself about what's happening."

The giant face nodded. "That's understandable, lass. You took a nasty tumble. Be glad our airship was passing by when it did. A drop in the ocean from that height would have killed you, shield charms or no. Though it doesn't look like you're suffering from magic exhaustion. What were you trying to do anyway that got you in this position?"

Lucy blinked at him. Large eyes shone back at her with undisguised interest. Asking obviously hadn't helped at all. She focused on what she could understand. "I'm on an airship?"

The "doc" tilted his head and moved one hand to scratch at his tress, but seemed to think better of it at the last moment. "Well… yes. What were you expecting to be able to pick you up at this altitude?"

"Altitude?"

"Elevation above sea level."

Lucy glared at him. "I knew that! I meant to say, what altitude?"

"Why, just about fourteen thousand wings, I'd gather."

"… and that's supposed to mean something to me, is it?"

"Girl, if you don't even know that much, you have no business violating our airspace."

Lucy took a deep breath. Whining probably would not help in her current situation but God damn it she had earned it, hadn't she? She had, she decided. "Give me a break! I don't even know how I got here! Magic spells and airships and wings and I don't even know! Where the hell am I and what's going on?!"

"Oi! Oi! Calm down! I still haven't healed you up yet." The doc turned away from her and started rummaging through a cupboard, grumbling about patients who agitated their wounds over the smallest things. Bereft of her host's attention, Lucy found she could not keep up her agitation. Letting her gaze wander distractedly around the room, Lucy tried to make sense of things. She hadn't really taken it in before, but now that she could focus on it, there was nothing special about it, for an infirmary. There were white walls, white cupboards, two sinks, two beds with drawable curtains, one closed door with a round window she could not see out of from this angle, and a smell of disinfectant hung in the air. There was no window showing the outside though, and the floor was parquet rather than linoleum. This was an airship? She swallowed and felt her ears pop. Yes, she probably was high up somewhere.

The strange doctor–she still had to learn his name, she noticed–turned back around holding a bottle with some sloshing red liquid. "Here, lass. Drink up!"

Lucy took the bottle and squinted at the label. "BL5NH6 – Exp. Dt. 15, " it read.

"What is this?"

"Medium healing potion. Says so right here." He tapped the label. "Your translation spell acting up?"

"My what?"

"Your translation spell. You know, the thing that lets you understand what I'm saying, even though you're not from around here."

"I'm… not?" Aren't we in Germany?

"Clearly not. Lass like you wearing trousers even though you claim to be a lass. Don't know what your deal is, but that's just odd."

"Could we please stop focusing on what I'm wearing and get to the more important things?"

"Right you are, lass. Take your medicine already before I need to dig up something stronger."

Lucy eyed the bottle skeptically. It looked an awful lot like cough syrup.

"What's this supposed to do for my injuries anyway?"

"Well, hopefully, make them go away. Medium healing, you know? It's not steam engineering."

"How much do I-?"

"Bottoms up!"

Lucy bottoms upped. When the taste hit, she grimaced. It was just like cough syrup.

"Ugh. Why does this taste like Irn-Bru?"

"You've never had a healing potion before? Of course it doesn't taste that good. Way too valuable to have people drink it when they don't absolutely have to."

"I don't-" Lucy stopped. Something felt different. Whatever pain medication she had been given before had only dulled her pain to the point she felt functional. Until a moment ago, she had still noticed faint twinges in places she did not even know she had. Now she felt completely fine. "It… doesn't hurt anymore. What did you just give me? Is this… the good stuff?"

"The very best! Well, the very medium, but that's a given. Now get up and let's see how well you can move now!"

"Get up? But I thought I shouldn't move with these injuries?"

"What part of 'healing potion' did you not understand? You are healed. Come on, get, unless you want a more invasive check-up."

In… vasive?

Lucy jumped out of bed. "I'm good!" She looked down and patted herself. Her clothing, a simple blouse and jeans combo she habitually wore on errands, had been scuffed by the fall, but otherwise she felt fine. "I'm… really good. This swill seriously healed me up?"

"Well, if that's all, you can stop wasting space in my infirmary."

"Wait! I still have so many questions..."

"Ask the captain. She probably wants to meet you."

"The captain? I guess. Well, thank you for treating me." She held out her hand. "My name's Lucy Turmherr, by the way. I didn't catch yours?"

Instead of taking her hand, he grabbed her by the shoulder. "Just call me doc, everyone does." Before she knew what was happening, he guided her towards the door, opened it and shoved her out. "Off you go."

"But-" Lucy turned back, but could only catch herself before the door slammed in her face. "Jeeze. What's the rush?"

"Sir!" a voice exclaimed right next to Lucy, making her whirl around in shock. It was a guy looking rather sharp in a peaked cap and uniform she did not recognise. She grimaced.

"Don't do that!"

"Sir! This way to the bridge. Follow me, please!"

He about-turned and marched off down the hallway as if fully expecting her to follow. Lucy sighed. This getting mistaken for a guy thing was getting old. Maybe she should see about exchanging her jeans for a skirt when she got the chance. These people clearly needed a visual aid to get the message. Though with an apparently female captain that just raised further questions. Not seeing a point in disobeying, she hurried after who she assumed to be a steward and at least someone who knew what he was doing.

The way was longer than she would have expected from an airship gondola, if that was indeed where they were. She had not seen a single porthole to the outside, only round windows inset in the identical looking doors upon doors lining the hallway they were walking down. Seeing as the infirmary had been placed behind just such a door, she assumed they contained other facilities or maybe just cabins. Most of them were dark, so she could not say for certain. The rapid gait of the steward did not leave her with any time to explore. She wondered if this place was big enough to warrant a kitchen. Plumbing seemed to be a thing at least. Lucy's hand patted her empty pocket where her phone should have been. Not being able to read while walking was a craving she did not often have to go without satisfying these days. Hopefully, someone had recovered it for her.

When finally they approached a door ahead, what lay beyond was another hallway, this one running perpendicular to the direction they had been going before. They took a right. Damn, this place is big, Lucy thought, for an airship, anyway. What's the use if you can't look outside anywhere? At last, the sameness of their route was broken up as a set of double doors came into view on their left. Lucy's assumption that they must have reached their goal was quickly proven right as her guide turned to knock before opening the door for her and making gestures for her to go inside. She nearly, thoughtlessly took him up on the offer, her foot already raised to step through when she noticed that she would be stepping on nothing at all. Hastily taking hold of the door frame in a death grip, she stared. There was no room behind that door, just open air and a long drop down to the briny depths of the sea, lending credence to the claim that they were on an airship in the worst possible way.

Before she could panic overmuch and turn to her escort for an explanation, she finally noticed some things that had not wanted to enter her brain at first glance. The lack of a room in front of her was occupied. Just as she was watching, another man dressed in the same uniform her guide filled out so well walked past her. Seemingly stepping on nothing but air, he made his way across the sky to a heavyset figure on the far side of the nothing and saluted.

The other guy had been sitting at a table with his back to the entrance and using a pencil to draw on what looked like a map. Even from the back she could see his uniform looked a lot fancier than that of the man who was reporting to him. For one, it included a greatcoat. Since he had foregone pulling it over his muscular arms, the sleeves hung freely. Lucy counted at least four golden bars and a star. She… had no idea what that meant, but it looked important. There were other people in the… void still, all working on other hovering contraptions, but none of them drew the eye just like this man. Even sitting down he had a presence that pulled one's gaze like the earth spiraling into the sun.

Conversation apparently finished, he put down his pencil, stood and turned towards her. The second impression he made on her dwarfed his first. There was a true bear of a man approaching her across a floor she still could not tell was more than imaginary. His hips swayed sensually, making his conservative skirt flutter about his legs in a way that made Lucy put on the mental breaks, because–oh my God, that's a woman!–Lucy swallowed nervously. So this was probably the captain coming towards her now, throwing her head back to clear a lock of ebony hair from her face and combing through her truly majestic beard that really brought out her pretty cheeks and was well complimented by her eye-shadow, which–oh my God, that's a man… wait no, huh?–He, she, the captain winked at Lucy and made her lose her train of thought.

"Why hello there, darling, who do we have here, hmm?"

The voice was deep. Very deep. No attempt to soften it at all. A man, had to be. Right? Lucy swallowed again, "Good… Good afternoon… ma'am? Ah. My name. Is Lucy. Lucy Turmherr. Are you the captain of this ship?"

The captain drew herself up to his full height and then fluidly dropped into a marvelous curtsy. "Indeed I am, Mr Turmherr. Heidrun Erlanger, captain of the LZ 341, at your service."

She curtsied. Do women curtsy in the military? Wait, no, that's a man, so that doesn't apply. Of course he can curtsy whenever he wants to. No, that doesn't sound right. I'm a woman. No, he thinks… she thinks I'm a guy. I'm also a civilian. Right, a captain wouldn't salute a civilian. Therefore, curtsy. Right? Right. What's the protocol? Do I curtsy in return? I mean, I'm the guy, so I should have bowed. Wait, no, I'm the woman here! Stop confusing me with your sexy wink!

"You seem… occupied, Mr Turmherr."

Lucy shook herself to clear her head, but all she managed to do was send her thoughts tumbling in different corners of her mind.

"I, yes. I'm sorry. This is all a bit confusing. Could you please not call me that? Mr Turmherr is my mother. Father! Yes." What am I saying, I don't even know what his name was, but that wasn't it! "Please just. Please call me Lucy."

"Oh, if you insist, Lucy. Is that short for Lucas by any chance?"

"No! No. It's not short for anything, sorry."

"Well, then, Lucy. But in return you simply must call me Heidi." She leaned in and whispered in Lucy's ear, "It's short for Heidrun."

Lucy's smile was strained. "I'd never guessed. Captain Heidi."

Heidi threw her head back and laughed. Lucy's ears popped once more.

"Captain Heidi! I like it! Come in, come in! The floor may not look it, but if it can carry me, it can certainly carry you!" Not waiting for Lucy to comply, the captain grabbed her by the hand and pulled, causing Lucy to cry out in fright as she tumbled into the void and… stood. Huh.

The floor felt like the same hard wood parquet she had been walking on this whole time. It just was not visible. This was no mere see-through glass floor. Something else clearly was at work, but Lucy did not want to put a name to it. Magic, after all, simply did not exist in reality.

"Absent again, Lucy? Did the doc not do a good job healing you up after all?"

"Ah? Ah! Yes, the doc! No, he was great! That healing potion was really something. I mean, woah!"

Heidi smiled warmly at that. Lucy just wanted to cry.

"I'm glad. It would have been a real shame if we had saved you from that fall only to have you die on our watch. But say, Lucy, what made such a strapping young lad like you decide to drop by my little old airship?" Heidi cocked her head coquettishly.

Right, this had gone on long enough. Averting her gaze, Lucy cleared her throat. "Erm, sorry, Heidi, but I think there is a misunderstanding I need to clear up before we have this conversation. The truth is, I am a woman. You see?"

There was a pause. Mustering her courage, Lucy looked up to see how the captain was taking it. She looked really taken aback. Wow. Now this is awkward. Good job, Lucy.

Heidi's lip quivered slightly. She pointed at Lucy. "A woman? But… but you are wearing trousers!"

"Believe me, this is just as confusing for me as it is for you."

Nodding to herself, Heidi crossed her arms. "No wonder. Cultural differences can really trip you up. I'll have you know, young lady, in this country cross-dressing is frowned upon!"

Lucy took a good, long look at Heidi and frowned bemusedly. "I see."

Heidi huffed in feinted indignation. "Well, here I was getting all excited over nothing. You shouldn't tease a girl so, Lucy!"

Yeah. Not touching that with a ten-foot-pole.

"Ah, well, if you must know, where I'm from, it's perfectly normal for women to wear trousers."

"Oh, but that must be so confusing though! With physical sex as transient as it is the polite thing to do is to at least dress the way you mentally feel. Otherwise, how would people know how to address you?"

Lucy blinked. "That… So that's why… Gosh, that's really progressive!" Wait, did she say transient?

"It is what it is. Honestly, I don't know how you manage it. To wear trousers when you actually think of yourself as a woman! What if you turned into a man one day? You'd break so many hearts without even meaning to!"

"Yeah, I don't think that will ever happen."

"Don't say that like it's a given! I mean, look at me. Would you have believed I was a woman if I didn't dress the part?"

"That, um…" Is a trick question, damn it! Stop thinking of me as a guy! "Really, Heidi. You have such a lovely countenance I couldn't possibly take you for a man!"

Heidi's smile could have lit up the room, if there had been a room to light up. "Oh ho ho, Lucy! You are too kind!"

"Eh he he… Yeah, well. All that aside, could we please get to that conversation we should be having?"

Heidi snapped her finger. "Right, point being, what were you doing falling down from the sky above our airship?"

"I, yes. Did it really happen that way? The last thing I remember, I was reading on my phone and then… things got really trippy. I have no idea how I got this high up in the air."

The captain tilted her head. "I'm sorry. My translation spell might be acting up. Did you say you were tripping over your phone while reading something?"

"Ah, maybe? I like reading while walking, and I kind of remember falling into my phone, now that you mention it. But that's just ridiculous. I don't really know what happened."

"Magical travel over a phone line? By accident?!That does sound outlandish. Not to mention really dangerous! What if the line had been cut while you were in it? There would have been no receiver for you to get out of!"

Lucy blinked. She was beginning to notice a pattern in the direction the tangents of their conversation were leading and she did not care for it at all.

"I think," she said, "I would like to know what you mean when you talk about spells and magic. That doesn't really sound like military terminology to me. Am I on some kind of fantasy role-play cruise? Because if so, I want to call a break for an actual explanation!"

"Fantasy role-play?"

Lucy carefully examined Heidi's expression. When she could not read anything but confusion in it, her face fell. Heidi shook her head.

"I'm not familiar with that term, but yes, even though the crew is technically still military, we are a cruise ship these days. Our genuine ambiance is our main draw for tourists, you see? Real marine air-force, real cannons, everything on board the LZ 341 is authentic. We are one of the last dirigibles ever built in Friedrichshafen towards the end of the great war efforts of the Kingdom of Schwaben."

Okay. This raises more questions. Why do I keep asking?

"You call Swabia a kingdom? Don't tell me you are some kind of fringe nationalist who thinks the borders from before the Napoleonic Wars should still be intact?"

"Eh? What are you talking about, dear? We've been a kingdom again ever since the British Zone of Occupation was lifted. Not much point calling it an empire anymore. We just don't have the same clout we used to ever since the North was sunk."

Lucy sank her fingers into her hair and pulled in frustration.

"I, okay. Hold on. I think I'm still missing some things and this conversation doesn't feel very productive to me. Do you know if someone found my phone? I need to let my mom know I'll be late. Or is it prohibited to use phones on a dirigible? What's the connection like up here?"

Heidi scratched her beard thoughtfully.

"What you're talking about is some kind of portable phone, isn't it? Don't think we have that around here. Radio transmission might work, but I'm guessing that's not what you're thinking of? I don't suppose your mom has access to a crystal ball?"

"You." Lucy swallowed. It was no use. The weirdness just kept piling up. Something had to give. "You aren't joking right now, are you?"

"Afraid not, Sweet. Sounds like you are rather far from home?"

"This is some kind of alternate world thing, isn't it? You think you are in some kind of parallel dimension where magic exists and Swabia is independent and whatnot."

"Another world? Now there's a story I haven't heard in a while! Should have expected it with your getup, sorry. Now things make a lot more sense!"

"They do?"

"Sure! Geeze," Heidi said, her gaze following the distant coastline below, "if you haven't even heard of magic… But I digress. Speaking of Swabia," Heidi said as she pointed and nodded towards the horizon, "that's it, coming up over there."

"Are you kidding?" Lucy stepped up beside her on probing legs. "Swabia is nowhere near the sea."

"Maybe not where you come from. We happen to be crossing the Sea of Hessen right now."

Lucy boggled. "What?" she mouthed weakly.

"Told you." Heidi shrugged languidly. "The North. It's sunk, Sweet."

"Sunk? As in, really sunk? All of it?"

"You're looking at the ruins of the German Reich."

"Oh, come on! Please stop already! Your story isn't getting any more believable."

"What reason would I have to lie to you?"

"I don't know! I don't know anything about you! What is this place?! What am I doing here?! You don't just get to erase the worst part of our history… from history!"

Heidi hummed. "Things got pretty bad before the end. To tell the truth, not many are sad to see it gone. Though a lot of innocents were hit as well."

"No," Lucy shook her head. This simply could not stand. "Even if I believed any of that, how do you just sink a country like that?"

"No-one really knows. We made plenty of enemies, but none of them came forth to claim they did it. In fact, most today think we did it to ourselves. Some sort of secret weapon gone horribly wrong."

"What weapon would do this?"

"Beats me. It's a secret, obviously. Only reason we weren't subsumed in some other country after the war, even if they occupied what was left of us for a bit. They were all afraid we might try it again."

Lucy took a deep breath. "Look, I don't know." She gestured around herself. "This is a pretty swanky setup you have going for you, but it's all a little much for me. I don't want to seem ungrateful, but if you don't need me to join some weird cult or something, I'd like to get off at the next stop, if you don't mind."

"Ah, I'm sorry. May have come on a bit strong there, but with you being from another world and all, I thought it'd be best to get the big shocks over with right quick."

"This is not another world! I can't just fall into another world through my smartphone!"

"Hey, you said it, not me! I don't know where you're from or why all of this seems unbelievable to you, but it certainly makes sense to me."

"None of this makes sense! Please! I don't know what this is! I just want out!"

Lucy noted to her shame that she was getting close to tears. Heidi seemed to notice it too, as she raised her hands placatingly. "Alright, alright, calm down, lady! No need to cry me a river. Speaking of…" She turned around and gestured towards the approaching land once more. "See that estuary over there?"

Lucy sniffled. Following Heidi's gaze, she indeed spied a big river mouth that broke up the coastline. It was hard to tell from afar, but there appeared to be no small number of houses clustered around it on both sides.

"That's the river Gram. Around there is the town of Gramsmünde where we'll make a quick stop for refueling. You can hop off there if you want. I'd recommend staying with us until we reach Neu-Aachen though. Big city further south along the Gram. If you're looking for answers, probably better to start in a place with a big library. Also, to register, if you're planning to stay in Swabia."

"Ha," Lucy said tiredly, "very funny. The Gram is a rivulet at best. Hell, the biggest place it flows through is Grambach. This is all too silly to be true."

Heidi sighed. "Very well. Nothing for it then. Just wait till we reach Gramsmünde. Heinrich will escort you down. For what it's worth, I'm sorry we have to part on such a note."

Lucy sniffled again. Despite Heidi's words she could not bring herself to feel remorse for her outburst. As the captain stepped away to talk to one of the men stationed in the still inexplicably incomplete room, she pondered her lot. It was not like she asked to be taken from her comfortable life in her sleepy little town. Whatever these people had done with her, if she had actually been prepared for it this could have been a nerdy wet dream.

The captain and her subordinate seemed to come to an understanding. The man saluted and began to stretch in a strange set of calisthenics. Fifteen-year-old Lucy would have loved this. Why did it have to happen now when she was a disillusioned philistine. If she had her phone right about now, she could have distracted herself from her circumstances at least. She knew it was not quite healthy to sink as much time into the small screen as she was used to, but nothing else was going right these days anyway. She had to face facts. Lucy missed her phone.

Finished with his warm-up, the marine saluted once more, then turned into a small pigeon.

Lucy blinked.

On second glance the pigeon could not be described as small after all. As pigeons went, it may even have been larger than average. It certainly was a lot smaller than a grown man, however.

Lucy blinked.

Captain Heidi held out her hand. A second later, the pigeon alighted upon it in a flutter of wings and held out its right leg. The captain then tied a message to the proffered limb and threw the bird against the invisible wall.

Lucy raised her hand in an aborted motion of impotent sympathy.

The bird passed through the wall as if it was not even there.

Lucy had enough.

"What. The. Hell."

Heidi turned around and watched Lucy stalk across the floor of questionable existence towards the spot where the messenger pigeon had left the confines of sanity and was now winging its way across the sky in the general direction of Gramsmünde. Lucy reached for where her brain told her absolutely no wall existed whatsoever. She touched lacquered wood. Lucy patted the wood. In the distance, the pigeon flew. Lucy raised her fist to bang on the wall. A large, meaty hand landed on her shoulder. "Are you alr-" Lucy screamed.

"Oh, damn. Sorry, I-"

Lucy whirled around, fist still raised and ready to knock something.

"No!"

"Come on, Lucy. Let's step away from the-"

"No!"

"Deep breathes, Lucy! Come on, breathe with me."

"No! No no no no no! I-" Lucy wheezed. "I can't. Take this. Any. More." She sank to her knees in despair.

Heidi hummed. "At least this proves to me you've never seen magic before. For what it's worth, I really am sorry to have caused you this much distress. I didn't realise how this must seem to you."

"Please!" Lucy said, folding her hands in supplication. "Please tell me this is all some sort of trick! Some clever illusion! You got me, alright?! You got me! I'm fooled completely!"

"Wish I could give you better news, Sweet," Heidi said softly, "but the only thing you could call an illusion in here is the transparency spell on the walls and that's stretching it."

"That guy turned into a bird. He turned into a bird and flew away."

"Well, yes. I thought it'd be a good idea to send word ahead about you. Get someone to show you around. No offense, but you don't really seem to be in the best state of mind to take care of yourself right now."

Lucy ignored that. It did not really bear dwelling on. Still, she screwed up her eyes. "You sent word ahead of an airship. Using a pigeon?"

"Well." Heidi shrugged. "I could go into the specifics, but I doubt it'd do anything for you right now."

Lucy laughed in spite of herself. "You might be right."

Heidi smiled down at her. "Come on now, let's get you up on your feet. The floor can't be too comfy."

"I'm not done feeling sorry for myself though."

"No-one's claiming that, but you don't have to go making yourself feel even sorrier by scuffing your knees now, do you?"

Sighing long-sufferingly, Lucy held out a hand and let herself be pulled up. She supposed Heidi had a point, among other things. What even was her life right now, she wondered.

Once Lucy stood on her own, Heidi kept holding her hand and patted it consolingly. "There there, now, Sweet. How do you feel about getting a bite to eat while you wait for your stop? Gramsmünde is still half an our away. Get some grub into you and give your stomach a proper workout, eh?"

Before Lucy could make up her mind, a marine approached the captain's side and saluted. "Ma'am!"

Narrowing her eyes at the interruption, Heidi said, "What is it, Gefreiter?"

"Unknown airplane approaching from our twelve. Pilot reporting altitude intersect at top fuselage. Collision estimated in three minutes."

Cursing into her beard, Heidi made her way over to the front console of the bridge where another man sat at the steering wheel. Unsure what to do with herself, Lucy followed. It figured that there was more coming her way now she was showing signs of coming to grips with her predicament. Heidi accepted a pair of binoculars from the pilot and peered into the distance. Curious, Lucy narrowed her eyes to try and see what had everyone so excited. She could still make out the departing form of the pigeon messenger which distracted her from her search for a bit. The hiss of the captain's voice brought her back to the present.

"Hail them."

The pilot obligingly picked up the radio device which snarled at him in response. He ignored the noise and depressed a button before speaking into it.

"This is airship flight Delta Lima Tango Zero Zero Six One to unknown steam plane. We're picking you up on collision course with our position at altitude One Three Niner Niner Six, do you copy?"

The assembled group listened to the radio noise for a few seconds. Finally, the pilot tried again.

"Unknown steam plane on collision course, please respond."
Lucy whispered, "What's going-" Heidi shushed her without turning around.

"Unknown steam plane on collision course-" The pilot broke off his attempt at communication. At the same time, lights flashed in the distance. Heidi swore.

Lucy's eyes widened as she watched the pigeon tumble slowly, then ever faster downwards.

"What? What's happening?"

"Bastards shot down our messenger. Gefreiter!"

"Captain?" the airman queried.

Heidi bit her lips. "Relay my orders: Sound the alarm. Enemy sighted. Prepare for immediate evac. Prioritize civilians and medical personnel. Ready the Flaks. Genuine ammo, not the authentic one. Once you're done, find Heinrich and send him to me. Hop to it!"

The airman saluted, shouted acceptance and turned about to hurry away. Glancing at Lucy who watched the proceedings with worried bemusement, Heidi said, "The age of airship warfare might be over, but that doesn't mean we can't give 'em a swansong they won't soon forget." Lucy nodded. It seemed to be the thing to do.

"Who is attacking us?"

"Good question. Swabia is at peace."

"Some peace."

"Indeed. If it's not a foreign agent, it'd have to be a raiding party."

"Those are common?"

"Not at all. There's no real money in air piracy. Not enough to risk going up against the military… Unless something exceptionally valuable were to be transported."

Heidi gave her a meaningful look at that, which made Lucy blanch.

"Me?"

"They've got some suspicious timing going on there. Not an hour since a strange girl with a strange story drops in on us, we're under attack. Certainly makes one wonder. If you aren't with them, they're probably after you."

Lucy shook her head violently. The last thing she needed was to be treated like a spy or saboteur. "I'm not with them!"

"I'm willing to believe you, for the moment, but that's beside the point. No matter what, you're in danger. Once Heinrich gets here, I want you to follow his instructions and evacuate immediately. An airship under attack is not a safe place for a civilian to be."

Lucy thought about that. "Yeah, I'm not complaining." For some reason, Heidi eyed her suspiciously. "What?"

"No short-sighted heroics? Offering yourself up for the sake of people you haven't even met?"

Lucy looked at her incredulously. "Why would I do that?"

"It kind of seems traditional for otherworlders to meddle from what I hear."

"Yeah, I'm not feeling it right now, sorry."

"No, no, that's good. Perfect!" Heidi slapped her back. "You stay right here where you'll be out of the way until your escort arrives! I have to plan our last glorious battle."

"Y-yeah!"

"Pilot, take us down below them. Provide cover for evac. Hold course towards Gramsmünde. If we can hold out until then, they'll get what's coming to them!"

"Wilco, Captain!"

"Captain!" another man interjected from one of the devices stationed around the room. "Missile incoming! I'm getting strange energy readings! Possibly anti-magic!"

Heidi's eyes widened. Not taking a moment to think, she grabbed the pilot's chair with one hand and Lucy's arm with the other. "Brace! Brace! Bra-"

Verse 2

Darkness.

Light.

Darkness.

Light.

Breathe.

Darkness.

Crunch.

Two glimmering embers.

Sirens.

Shouted commands.

Shouted reports.

Shouted shouts.

Wood.

Air.

Wood.

Air.

Breathe.

Running.

Tumbling.

Being dragged.

Breathe.

Shouting.

Being shoved.

Falling.

Breathe.

A slamming door.

Silence.

Breathe.

Distant noise, retreating.

Silence.

Breathe.

A round, glowing circle.

Breathe.

A window illuminated from the hall outside.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe.

The dark silhouette of a woman with two smouldering embers for eyes.

* * *

Lucy's breath stuck in her throat. Whatever that was outside her window, it was looking right at her. She watched it raising an arm in preparation for a solid punch, the action accompanied by the incongruous hiss of hydraulics, when the hall outside was filled with loud bangs and smoke. The figure jerked and turned about to face away from the window. She could see metal gleam where skin should have been. Then there was an ominous sound of cracking wood which caused the figure to stop in its tracks and drop its gaze. The rest of it followed swiftly as it dropped out of sight. Running footsteps approached from the right. The next silhouette in the window wore a peaked cap. When the door opened to the clean-shaven face of her steward, Lucy let out a deep sigh of relief. "Lucy Turmherr?" the man asked as he helped her to her feet.

Lucy nodded, but kept quiet. She did not trust her voice at the moment.

"I'm Heinrich. We need to make haste to the evac point. That won't have stopped it for long."

"What-" Lucy coughed "- what was that?!"

Heinrich shook his head and pulled her along, but still said, "Death Maid," as if that explained anything. Lucy decided to save her breath and pay attention to her surroundings as they picked their way past a hole in the floor that was emanating a rather familiar orange glow. More shouts and the distinct noises of gun fire reached them from below. When they were clear of the damage, they picked up their pace.

One thing had become abundantly clear. This place was far too big to be contained inside an airship gondola. Now she was dealing with multiple storeys as well? Lucy had the feeling that, unless there was magic to make things bigger on the inside, the ship was constructed rather differently than the picture of a zeppelin she had in her mind. Were they moving inside the hull? Even then, how big could this ship possibly be?

Focusing on her thoughts became more difficult as the blaring noise of sirens picked up again. Some part of Lucy felt relief at hearing the tinny but firm voice of Captain Heidi echo down the hall. The words spoken offered little comfort, however. "General alert! All passengers and personnel evacuate immediately! I repeat, all passengers and personnel evacuate immediately! This is not a drill! Code Death Maid is active! Abandon ship! I repeat, abandon ship! Code Death Maid is active!"

Lucy and Heinrich raced onward through hallways distressingly empty of any activity. Doubt gnawed at Lucy's nerves. Had they missed the throng of the crowd? Were they in the lead? Were they the only ones who made it, and if so, what had happened to everyone else? Were they next? "Understaffed, actually," Heinrich informed her, when she finally managed to ask. "This used to be a troop transport for battalions up to one thousand two hundred people. Lots of space for tourists these days, so we're running on a skeleton crew–no actual skeletons, mind–and these are service passages. Pretty much abandoned except for maintenance crew."

"So you're telling me," Lucy said between puffs, "that we're on our own, if that thing attacks again." Heinrich offered no reply, which was telling enough. "What can it do?" Lucy pressed.

"It's the only enemy on board. We're evacuating. Does that answer your question?"

Lucy thought for a beat. "Pretty much."

"Almost there," Heinrich said consolingly, which, as so often the case, was the moment things took a turn for the worse. With an almighty hiss-and-crack a fist broke through the wooden floor and grasped Lucy's foot in mid-run, causing her to shriek and fall on her nose. "Fugh 'o!" Kicking wildly, she tried to dislodge the iron grip of the monster, but at a panicked glance it seemed to be literally made of steel. Heinrich was at her side in a second and pulled her shoelaces. Understanding his plan, Lucy did her best to slip out of the trapped shoe and left it behind. Thinking on her feet, she also struggled out of her other shoe so she could keep running in her socks. After that, Heinrich pulled her along even faster. They reached the door just in time for another crash behind them to reach their ears. Heinrich quickly tore it open and pushed her through, keeping his body between her and the hall behind them. When he tried to follow her, he suddenly stopped and let out a pained groan.

Lucy gave a cry of despair as she noticed the metal hand clamped on his shoulder. She tried to reach out to help in some manner, but Heinrich just shook his head and closed the door in her face. Sniffling, she turned about and ran on, leaving muffled noises of fighting behind her. In the end, she thought she heard an elephant's trumpeting sound, followed by more crashes, but for her own peace of mind she pretended to think she imagined it. Behind the next door was utter chaos.

Birds was the first word Lucy thought of. The exit point was filled with birds of all shapes and sizes. Some in families, squawking at anything getting too close, some in entire flocks, coordinating through some untranslatable bird sense, some big enough to push their way through the crowd. It would have been scary if any of them payed any attention to her. However, the only thing these birds seemed to be interested in was getting out. The still human staff was clearly outnumbered, but still valiantly trying to keep some kind of order in all the mess. There was a single bright square two meters across cut out of a wall which was otherwise covered in canvas. A steady stream of birds scrambled out of it, falling over each other in their bid to be first, squawking and chattering in an overpowering cacophony.

Lucy did not have time for this. Standing on tip-toes, she stepped out of the service door and sidled her way across the hall towards one of the airmen, an action which earned her no small share of protesting caws, clucks and coos. Some enterprising birds took the chance to rest on her shoulders. A small owl hooted in Lucy's ear. The broad-shouldered airman, spotting her approach, tried to shoo her away. "Please get back in line, sir! Unless you have a disability, we can't give preferential treatment-"

Lucy interrupted him. "I'm not a sir, I'm a miss! And I don't know how to turn into a bird!"

Raising his eyebrows, the airman took a second look at her. "Lucy Turmherr?"

"Yes!"

Nodding to himself, he grabbed her arm. "Follow me."

Being pulled along by a big uniformed man with stomping boots let her make good time through the crowd, but given her hurry, it still seemed way too long. At last they had reached the portion of the hall right next to the exit where the service personnel had sequestered themselves. One familiar face looked up to greet her.

"Lucy! What in the world are you doing?! Where'd you leave Heinrich?"

Lucy swallowed. "I'm sorry, doc. He had to stay behind to buy time."

"Ah… That is unfortunate."

"Please, doc, it was right behind us! We have to hurry!"

"Yes, yes, don't fret now, girl! Little old uncle doc will take you under his wing, or on his back if you prefer. Yes, yes, that'd probably be better!"

Not wasting any more breath for explanations, the weird little doctor turned into a giant white-winged albatross complete with a human-sized saddle and harness. Having accomplished this feat the bird turned its head sideways and looked at her expectantly through one eye. Lucy stared back with the expression of a teenager who had not studied the material and was presented with a surprise quiz. Two strong arms grabbed her from behind and helped her into the saddle. If Lucy made a noise of protest at that, it was drowned out by her surroundings. "Here, miss. Put this on! Winds are murder out there!" An aviator hat with attached goggles was thrust into her hands. Lucy fumbled with the strap as her gaze kept wandering to the exit. The glare of sunlight was as relieving as it was intimidating when she knew what was to come.

Oh God, I can't do this, Lucy thought. It was at this moment that the door to the hall behind her banged open and admitted a female figure with eyes of burning coals. Oh God, I can't not do this, Lucy thought. All around her, panicked birds cried out and took flight. The hooting in her ear grew more frantic. "Alright! Alright! Go! Go! Go!" She kicked the docbatross' sides, which was rude, admittedly. Luckily, it got the job done, as the giant bird began to waddle towards the exit amongst flying feathers. Despite the deafening noise all around Lucy, the hisses of approaching doom behind her were distinct enough to alarm her. "Doc!"

Clapping with its bill in agreement, the docbatross spread its wings, pushing the last mass of birds in front of it out into the air with one massive stroke. A few quick stomach-turning hops carried it towards the edge where it stood just long enough for Lucy to realise the position she was currently in. "Oh God, oh God, oh God! I get it now! Fourteen thousand wings!" The sea was a long way down. The white head of her transport turned to look at her sideways. Tiny claws dug into her shoulder reassuringly. "Hoo-hoot!"

Lucy took a deep breath, put on her hat and nodded. "Alright! I'm alright! Yes! Let's do this!", she said as she adjusted the goggles in front of her eyes. The docbatross nodded back, then turned to face the exit. Shifting its weight, it slowly tilted forward like the lead car of a roller coaster that had reached the end of its climb. A hydraulic hiss sounded right behind Lucy's head, but she only had eyes for the drop. Oh God, oh God, oh God! The albatross trilled and leapt. Oh God, oh God, oh…

The bird fell. Lucy yelled. The wind blew. Her ears popped.

Powerful wings spread to both sides of her. The albatross flew. Lucy's stomach kicked her in the ribs. They had escaped.

Gasping, Lucy beheld the world spread out in front of her. Water and skies and the clouds below her was all she could see for a moment, until the albatross banked in and the kingdom of Swabia came into view. Beyond an unfamiliar coastline shored up with grey, pebbly beaches ravaged by the sea lay familiar fertile land. Checkered fields of crops and grassland spread towards the distant hills which were dark with fir trees. Small, toy-like settlements spread out in the valleys like lazy cats. The river Gram–and it was still hard to call it by such a familiar name when she new it as a little stream–snaked its way across the land like a blue dragon on its way to the Hessian sea. There, a harbour town had been erected; Gramsmünde, if Captain Heidi's account was correct, which she had no reason to doubt anymore. Should she still even go there with a terrorist on her tail? Though thinking about it was moot, when she had no choice but to trust in the doc's judgment of where to take her.

Why the hell am I here? Lucy thought. This is… too big for me. What am I going to do?

She shifted in her seat a little and turned to look behind her, remembering that she had yet to see the airship from outside. It did not disappoint. What hung in the air above her was the familiar cigar shape of a zeppelin. She had seen pictures, but they did not do the real thing justice. Her sense of scale was screwed up by the difference in altitude, but the dark square of the exit point in the hull through which even now swarms of birds were escaping gave her at least one point of reference. It was a true colossus.

Then again, maybe zeppelins had never gotten that big in her world at all. The fate of the Hindenburg had been the last nail in the coffin of a declining technology. Airships were slow and unsafe. When planes advanced enough to travel long distances, the days of dirigibles as passenger transports or even warships were numbered. Still, the romantic in her sometimes wondered how far they could have come. Now she had an idea.

If only it wasn't on fire, Lucy thought as the upper half of the hull was hidden in smoke. That's kind of a downer.

She wondered if everyone had gotten out alright. She could not see the gondola clearly yet, since the ship was still a bit too close to look fully underneath. She also had the feeling that a lot of tourists had been evacuated through the hull. Had they been on a guided tour? At this point, it would not surprise her.

Come to think of it, wasn't it further away before?

Blinking, Lucy's eyes raked the zeppelin, trying to gauge its movement relative to hers. Did it seem to be speeding up? It did, she decided after a moment. As she watched, the tip of the airship was starting to pull ahead of her again, and also started to sink faster than her ride could keep up with. Already the exit point was approaching her position once more, a scant three meters overhead, and to Lucy's horror, the sun was reflecting off something shiny standing just inside of it. She dug in her heels.

"Pull away! Pull away!"

The albatross trilled and veered off, but it was too late. The figure above her crouched low and with a mighty leap that caused wood to crack crossed the distance. Lucy got a glimpse of black and white fabric, dark blonde hair and familiar red coals, before a grasping hand reached out and managed to clamp down on the tail of the albatross. Her ride let out an inavian cry of pain and upended itself. Lucy fell.

Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! He dumped me!

The world tumbled around her. Sky and sea revolved and switched places as Lucy struggled to stabilise herself. How did skydiving work?! She had no idea. It probably was not good posture to fall facing upwards with your arms and legs flailing about as she ended up doing, but since Lucy did not have to worry about opening a parachute, she did not particularly care.

There were worse last sights to see, Lucy thought. Her assailant had let go of the albatross and now seemed to hang above her like an angel of death. Her black, poofy servant's dress billowed around her knees. The large white, frilly apron she wore over it flapped in the wind. Her hair was short and styled in a perm adorned with a white kerchief. If it was not for her cruel metal hands and face that looked bolted together, trapping a smouldering fire within, she could have been the very picture of a noble house's maidservant. The zeppelin behind her took this chance to burst apart in a violent explosion that rocked the sky and lent the apparition a pair of fiery wings. It looked kind of amazing.

Well done, Captain Heidi. Perfect timing.

Lucy closed her stinging eyes. This was the end. She had had a good run. She only had one regret.

She missed her phone.

As Lucy crossed her arms against the cold air, tiny claws pricked her hand. Then things stopped making sense for a while.

To be continued...

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] Shiny

Shiny
An isekai story

It was always going to happen sooner or later.

I mean, think about it. We live in an age where the vast majority of the population is glued to their smartphones; all day, every day. From the moment you wake up in bed, all groggy and in desperate need of your fix; to spinning up your intellectual turbines, as you munch on some questionably satisfactory breakfast; and then to having something to take your mind off the dull monotony of existence, as you embark on your great daily commute to whatever place of work your life choices have led you to.

It's this last one that's of particular concern to us right now.

See, the ever so enlightened protagonist of this tale just so happened to be reading her smartphone… while crossing a road.

During peak hour.

I hope I don't have to explain what the inevitable result of this scenario was.

If it's any comfort, she really didn't feel like going to work today.

----------

The first thing Sarah noticed, upon being rudely jerked out of her smartphone-induced intellectual stupor and into the real world she despised so very much, was just how loud everything was.

She found herself huddled on her knees before she really knew what was happening, her hands over her ears in a vain attempt to muffle the sudden cacophony.

At 162 centimetres, Sarah Jones wasn't exactly an imposing figure, with brown hair that wasn't particularly lustrous, and green eyes that weren't particularly piercing. People tended not to pay very much attention to her, and all of a sudden she fervently wished that trend would continue, at least for the next few minutes, until she knew where she was and what she was doing here.

With that priority in mind, she risked raising her head to take a peek.

One thing was immediately evident: the lightshow occurring before her eyes was more dazzling and immersive than any concert she'd been to. Wincing and blinking furiously through the glare, Sarah witnessed individual beams of light crisscrossing between the walls of a crumbling alleyway, burning out deep gouges wherever they struck. Exotic projectiles of all kinds followed them, ranging from glass knives and powder bombs to duck bills and spears the length of a telephone pole. When she turned around to attempt to discern the source, hands pre-emptively covering her eyes, she caught only the merest glimpse of features amongst a canvas of blurs, ponytails and berets and frilly dresses zooming across the street and up seven storeys onto rooftops.

In response, tracer bullets zipped from Sarah's other side, nearly invisible in all the commotion. Their effects were likewise underwhelming, flashing briefly upon impact as their contents sputtered and burnt out on the concrete. But there were a lot of them, and as Sarah watched they became denser and more focused, and the blurs became less and less willing to expose themselves. She couldn't see any of the shooters either, except for their dampened muzzle flashes in the shadows.

Over the course of several minutes, the indistinct noise resolved into distinguishable reports and echoes. Sarah came to notice that the loudest of these were associated with the brightest of flashes in the shadows, and that these repeated in a pattern of five every few seconds. A heavy machine gun of some sort, then, she recognized from all those violent video games she played, being used to intimidate the enemy into keeping their heads down and not shooting back. It was certainly keeping her intimidated alright.

She decided that it would probably be a good idea to crawl away from the machine gun. Both sides were being rather profligate with their attacks, but the risk of being hit by a stray bullet seemed somewhat more visceral and imaginable than that of being bisected by one of those flashy and powerful beams of light.

Slowly, lest her motion attract somebody's attention, Sarah lowered herself to the ground and began to slither towards a nearby alleyway.

She didn't make it very far.

There was another commotion above her, the rattling of corrugated metal as heavy boots thundered across it. A man yelled "They're breaking out!" somewhere behind Sarah, followed by a torrent of focused gunfire at something that looked to be right above her head. Everything around her was abruptly lit up by a brilliant marine blue, exposing her horribly against the asphalt. Then there was a single, loud, authoritative bark, and a body fell from the rooftops and thumped in front of Sarah.

It all happened so rapidly that her mind didn't really have the time to process the idea of death happening right before her eyes. Nor did Sarah pay attention to the way that the body of a teenage girl with purple pleated tails, one who wouldn't have been out of place in her old high school, began to disintegrate into a cloud of metallic sand. The one thing that did draw her eye, showing just what youths of Sarah's generation really considered important, was the shiny crystalline object that just fell out of the girl's hand.

In the middle of a deadly gunfight occurring in a darkened alleyway, between two sides which seriously wanted to kill each other, the only thought that went through Sarah's mind right then was SHINY! I WANT!

As boots clattered on the pavement behind her, Sarah's hand darted out and closed around the shiny.

It was the last thought she remembered having for a while.

There was a sensation of searing heat, burning through her hand before spreading to the rest of her body. Said body then began to glow an incandescent white, shooting dazzling rays in all directions that had the unfortunate side effect of highlighting the boring underwear she'd worn that day. There were screams and yells behind her of "My eyes!", and then everything became a series of exploding lights and zigzagging blurs as Sarah made her bid for freedom.

A pair of soldiers blocked her path, flinching away as she approached, hands coming up to shield their goggles. One retained enough discipline to raise his carbine and fire a shot in her direction, the bullet whistling past her ear. Then he was screaming too, as a beam of pure white lanced out of Sarah's hand and vaporized half of his torso.

He toppled to the ground, and Sarah blew past him, leaving the carnage of both sides in a gloriously bloody trail behind her.

The gunfight didn't continue for very long after that.

----------

It was a rather long time later, though it couldn't have been more than a couple of hours, when Sarah found herself blinking consciously up at the sky above her. She was lying on her back in some other anonymous alley, this one thankfully gunfight-free, and she had no idea how she'd gotten here.

Her whole body hurt to move, and anything beyond a feeble groan seemed beyond her right now. Without anything else to do, Sarah kept watching the sky.

The sky was kind of interesting to look at. There was no moon, or stars. At first glance it might have simply been a cloudy night, but clouds didn't resemble anything like the thick black masses up there, swishing and swirling in all directions. And then there was something else, too: a chill that ran across her spine as she continued staring, the feeling that there was something up there, and that the longer she spent doing so, the sooner it would notice her and reach down to pluck her from the surface, submerging her within its depths forever more.

That, more than anything else, made her realize that she wasn't in the world she lived in anymore. Not the vicious gunfights in the middle of the street, not the girls leaping onto rooftops and firing lasers out of their hands, not the lack of service on her phone.

She found herself surprisingly calm about that, all things considered. Sure, there was an immediate desire to go home and lie down in bed, but as soon as she thought about just what kind of home it was anyway, that desire faded away just as rapidly as it arrived.

The simple truth of the matter was that, despite all the First World luxuries she enjoyed as a young adult living near a major city, she never really liked home anyway. Oh, certainly, it beat starving in some anonymous slum somewhere without even a decent book to distract her from living, but in Sarah's mind both alternatives were equally and pointlessly degrading. What was the purpose, she frequently asked herself, for both her and to wider human society, of dragging herself out of bed every day, grovelling before her boss, customers, and landlord, and being told by her government that she should be grateful to have the pitiful scraps they were willing to dole out to her? Where was the human dignity in that?

That, and there was that whole thing about being hit by a truck and everything. If she was still back in her own world, Sarah Jones would no doubt be on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in medical expenses right now, because who cared about giving the plebs affordable healthcare when there was a nice captive market to profit from? Years of financial prudence, scrimping and saving between paydays in the hope of a better future, wiped out in an instant of inattention.

So, really, it wasn't as if she was missing anything by staying here. Might as well make the most out of wherever she was now, right?

At least they seemed to speak English here, if the few clipped sentences Sarah made out earlier were any indication.

Speaking of which, now that she had the time to think about it… what was all that noise and light back there about, anyway? There'd been a lot of gunshots, people bleeding and dying on both sides, trying to outmaneuver the other, but for what purpose?

For the same reason anybody in human history had fought: because there were shinies to be had.

Much like the one she still held in her hand, now dormant and quiescent.

Sarah turned her head, getting a proper look at the shiny for the first time. In a way, it appeared rather boring, with the stereotypical cut of a diamond and a translucent beige coloration. But there was something about the way it twinkled along the edges, about the electric tingling in her hand, about the light that seemed to soothe her very soul. And then there'd been the transformation into something she hardly recognised, the heady rush of power as she enforced her will on the world for the first time in her life.

Sarah didn't know what it was supposed to be, but one thing was for certain: it was valuable. Extremely valuable. So valuable that at least two very different factions were willing to kill for it.

And now they'd probably be trying to kill her for it.

That thought should have been enough to have Sarah throw the shiny away then and there, but she didn't. Maybe once upon a time, in another life, when she was another human among the faceless masses, working shit jobs for the sake of money, the only form of power people in her world understand. Now, she had power. Power that could kill, power that could defeat professional soldiers with firearms and magical girls with lasers – and she knew, without doubt, that it was the shiny that was responsible.

As long as she held the shiny, Sarah Jones had power.

And she was never going to give that up.

It took her a long time staring up at the sky before she realized it, but she was absolutely unquestionably starving in a way that a girl of her socioeconomic status had never been before. There was eating frugally or skipping a meal every now and then to make sure she had enough for rent that month, and then there was this, a blackened pit of utter metabolic despair that yawned wide within her stomach, threatening to swallow her whole if she didn't give it something else to chew on.

She was concerned that this might become literal if she didn't do something about it soon. Didn't the human body eventually resort to consuming its own reserves of fat and muscle if it wasn't fed for a long time? Sarah was already so skinny that she didn't know what else it'd do, but she was certain that her flawed and malfunctioning human body would find some other way to screw itself over in the long term.

With a belated start, Sarah realized that she still had her satchel slung over her hip. It would probably be a good idea to take stock of what few supplies she'd brought with her to this world, so with slow and painful movements she reached down and tipped out the contents onto the pavement where she could see them better.

It was then that Sarah noticed that both her hands were stained with dried blood. It definitely wasn't very sanitary, but she was far too hungry to care, so she brought them up to her face and tried licking it off. Alas, the blood was already too crusty for her to really drink any of it.

Much more appealing was the leftover bagel she'd swiped from her workplace the day before, sealing it inside a plastic bag for today's commute home. That obviously wasn't such a concern anymore, so she gleefully tore it open and stuffed her face with the contents. She had the vague memory that this bagel was supposed to be sort of stale and that the ones her workplace served weren't particularly flavoursome anyway, but right now she'd never tasted anything better.

It still wasn't anywhere near enough.

Unfortunately, there'd only been so much that Sarah could swipe from her workplace without attracting the attention of her extremely bossy, and micromanaging, and ever so slightly attractive manager. The only other items she carried suitable for putting in her mouth were a bottle of water and a pack of chewing gum, neither of which would do her hunger much good. She still had her wallet, but given her circumstances, she doubted that the minuscule quantity of cash in it would be accepted as currency here in this bizarre world she'd found herself in.

But then, she had these strange powers now, didn't she? Surely she could simply take some by force. She'd already killed quite a few people upon her arrival in this world she had even less attachment to than her old one, so what was a bit of petty theft for the sake of survival in the scheme of things?

With that cheerful thought to spur her on, Sarah found the strength to drag herself up off the ground, recollect all her belongings, and stagger out of the alley into the main road.

Road was perhaps too generous of a noun. The surface she now stood on looked to be more potholes than pavement, nearly impossible to make out in the shadows cast by the surrounding buildings. There were some impressively wide craters too, streaked with blood and ash, fenced off by yellow police tape that glowed in the dark.

Fortunately, there were no vehicles in sight, so Sarah was able to hobble down it with only the barest hint of irony.

Neither were there any people around, nor did any of the buildings lining both sides look as if they were inhabited or maintained. If it wasn't for the intermittent rattling and thumping of machine gun fire and explosives in the far distance, the world would have been oppressively silent.

Sarah wondered if perhaps she shouldn't be trying to go towards the gunfire. Gunfire meant soldiers, and soldiers usually carried food, didn't they? There was, of course, the problem that she would have to take it from them by force, or that in doing so she might run into whatever they were fighting. But having some plan was undoubtedly better than starving.

Just then she caught sight of something up ahead: some kind of shelter with open sides and a corrugated metal roof, lit up by an array of fluorescent lights. She could just about make out various furnishings underneath, and figures moving amongst them. It couldn't be all that far if she could see it, so she gritted her teeth and carried on, hoping that these mythical people would have food she could eat.

Her hopes lifted further when low voices began drifting across the distance.

For some reason, there was a lot of broken glass littering the ground now. Even though Sarah was still wearing her boots, she made an effort to avoid it anyway. At least it gave her something else to focus on that wasn't her pernicious stomach.

A searchlight flickered on somewhere far away, blazing up into the sky. Sarah watched, fascinated, as the swirling black tendrils recoiled and scattered from the light, scoring a long glowing path across the sky. The procedure repeated with more searchlights in an expanding spiral pattern, burning out the darkness in a moderate radius. Where darkness fled, a ceiling of navy blue was revealed, one that Sarah eventually realized was the real sky. When she focused on that ever so tenuous patch, and not on the swishing darkness, even that cold feeling seemed to lessen and fade.

How interesting. Maybe one of these people could tell her what that meant.

In her moment of distraction, a pile of glass crunched under Sarah's boot, a mere twelve metres from the shelter.

Instantly the group of people huddled beneath it whirled around, conversations cutting off as they looked directly at her. A half dozen people seated at a table abruptly dropped their cards and ducked behind it, in a maneuver that was far too adroit to not have been practiced. Generally, anyone who was near an object large enough to cover them rapidly hid behind it, peering out cautiously at Sarah.

"What was that?"

"Not sure, I didn't see anything."

"Is it the shadows again? We'd better call Govcentral!"

"You'd think they'd make more of a ruckus if it was."

There was something strange about the way everyone was looking at Sarah. They were all looking around her, or behind her, squinting to make something out in the darkness. It was as if they couldn't really see her, even though it wasn't all that dark, considering how intense the fluorescent lighting above was.

"Maybe it's not a shadow at all. Could be someone sneaking around."

"Looters, you mean?"

"'Unauthorized salvagers', yes."

"So do we call Govcentral or not?"

"We'd be damn stupid not to."

Govcentral? Were they who the soldiers worked for? They certainly sounded like some sort of authority. If that was the case, then Sarah had better step in quick, before she had to fight more of them.

"Hi, guys," she called, stepping forward in the hopes that they'd see her better in the light. "No need to call the cops, I'm not here to loot anything."

The tension shifted as everyone focused properly on her, but didn't ease. Now that she was close enough to get a proper look, Sarah observed that they were all… really hobo-like, for lack of a better term. Both men and women wore ragged blue uniforms of some kind,

"Someone walking around alone?"

"Think it's some kind of shadow infiltrator?"

"You never know, the shadows can do… things."

"Who are you?" an older man barked. He looked maybe sixty or so, with a square face, set on all sides with frizzy white hair. "What are you doing out there?"

"I'm Sarah," she answered, deciding to stick to the truth; she could never get away with lying, anyway. "I'm new to this place; just arrived a couple hours ago, actually! I've got to admit, things seem a little weird around here, but maybe it's just cultural differences? What about you guys, what're you doing?"

"You're… new?" It was clear he didn't believe her. "Which camp are you from?"

"Camp?" Sarah frowned. "You mean like, refugee camp?" Because that reminded her of her government's policies in that area, and those were something of a controversy back in her world. It'd certainly explain why everyone here looked like hobos, at least. "I'm not from any camp, I just… got here."

The man's eyes narrowed. "You're a magical girl, then?"

"I'm a what now?" Inadvertently, Sarah glanced down at the shiny she was still holding. Too late, she realized that she should have put it away before approaching these people. What sort of idiot walked up to a bunch of strangers whilst flashing jewellery about? It must've been the hunger. She wasn't thinking straight.

"Look, it's her gem!"

"Shit, not again! What's she gonna do now?"

"You are." A tone of real anger crept into the man's voice. "What more do you want with us? There's nothing here for you. We don't need you."

"Look," Sarah waved her hands in what she hoped was a conciliatory gesture, using the same tone she used to calm irate customers. "I think we got off on the wrong foot here. I only just got here, I don't know anyone around here, and I'm honestly really starving! If you guys could just point me towards some food or whatever, I'd be really grateful."

"You want our food?" the man sputtered indignantly. "You can't even stop the shadows from eating us, you kill the soldiers who defend us, and now you're taking our food?"

"Please," Sarah entreated, gaze darting erratically between the various hobos, all poised to do something she was sure wouldn't be good for her. "I'm asking nicely. Just tell me where I can find something to eat, and I'll leave you guys alone. Okay?"

"To the darkness with you, magical girl!" he spat. "I hope the shadows eat you long and painfully!"

"Yeah, go away!"

"Leave us alone, damn you!"

Sarah sighed. Why was it that people could never just behave reasonably? She might've been in another world, but people were just the same as ever. And especially when food was involved, too.

"Okay," she said slowly, taking a single measured step forward. "I'm not going to hurt anyone. I just–"

There was a distinctive clicking sound near her feet.

Brilliant white light flared from the shiny, engulfing her body with power.

Sarah leapt aside as the claymore mine detonated, showering the area where she'd been standing with steel balls.

As she landed she found herself focusing on the environment around her, stretching out a split-second into a whole minute of appraisal. The various hobos, around thirty in all, were ducking and running away from her. The iconic sound of an air raid siren echoed throughout the street. An array of searchlights positioned around the shelter activated in sequence, searing back and forth across the ground and sky.

Her focus, however, was taken up entirely by one particular structure within the shelter, a tall metal box that reminded her of a refrigerator. In fact, it probably was a fridge. And fridges meant food.

That was the only impetus she needed to propel herself across the defensive perimeter in a single bound, triggering another pair of claymore mines in the process. All thoughts of ethics and morality went out the window as a shaft of light emanated from her hand and speared into the fridge, tearing it in half.

A small stack of packages spilled out.

Sarah was oblivious to the cries of fear and outrage as she bent down to scoop up one of the packages, ripping it open and stuffing her mouth with the contents before she even saw them. She didn't know what it tasted like, but it was good.

But it wasn't enough, so she snatched another package and promptly devoured it. And another one. And another one. She was probably overeating at this point and needed to slow down, lest she puke it all out later, but it was just so damn good and she needed to have more of it!

Her savage feast was rudely interrupted by the arrival of civilization behind her, a trio of Humvee-lookalikes screeching to a halt. Each was armed with a heavy machine gun and a searchlight, already locking onto her and letting loose with short bursts. Soldiers were dismounting in the same moment, taking cover in nearby doorways and alleys, adding their carbines to the attack.

Sarah instinctively fired a beam of light at the lead vehicle. Surprisingly, it didn't explode or even catch fire, merely suffering a smouldering hole in the bodywork. Then the tracers began kicking up near her feet, and she decided it was probably time to get out of here.

The world became blurs again as she moved, a bundle of packages in her arms. Unlike the dizzying blurs from before, her brain seemed to be actually following what she was doing this time, allowing her to react as soldiers began to fire grenades and rockets into the nearby walls, spraying shrapnel everywhere but where she stepped. Another beam of light shot back in retaliation, sweeping across the ground and bisecting a pair of soldiers where they stood.

A loud gunshot rang out above all the others, and another soldier with a rocket launcher had their head blown off in a crimson mist. Half of the other troops instantly swivelled, ceasing their fire and taking up new positions as they searched for the new attacker.

Then Sarah was jumping seven storeys and leaping across rooftops, and all the fighting and dying seemed to become distant and abstract again.

----------

As Sarah munched on yet another package (she still had no idea what the contents were, but damn if they weren't good!), she wondered exactly what she was supposed to do now.

The escape from the Govcentral soldiers, if that was what they really were, had become a lot more exciting than she'd anticipated. Apparently, they'd also invented helicopters in this world, and several of them made valiant efforts to pursue her over the rooftops. Those efforts included rocket pods with some kind of incendiary payload, spammed all over the rooftops in patterns that even in her magically hopped-up state were difficult to dodge.

Fortunately for Sarah, a massive spear had risen from the ground and impaled one of the helicopters with a rather spectacular fireball, and the subsequent distraction was enough for her to evade them. That led her to her present location, standing on a rooftop so that she could look out over the landscape of the world she'd found herself in.

It was a curious sight, reminding her a bit of that satellite photograph she'd once seen posted on the Internet, contrasting the radiance of prosperous South Korea with blacked out impoverished North Korea. In this case, most of the brightly lit areas resembled the shelter she'd just looted, little islands of fluorescent light in an ocean of darkness. They were arranged in concentric circles, with their size increasing as they went deeper into the formation. Between them were even tinier shoals of anglerfish, the running lights of vehicles prowling the depths, turret-mounted searchlights scouring the barren landscape for any hint of prey.

The arrangement of shelters and vehicles soon converged on a reef of skyscrapers and airfields, the closest thing to a recognizable city landscape Sarah had seen since arriving here. If there was anything like a central government in this world, no doubt it would be residing there.

And at the centre of it all was that tower of light Sarah had glimpsed earlier, dwarfing every other structure such that even the tallest skyscrapers were mere barnacles clinging to its base. Before, she'd assumed it to be some kind of human vanity project like so many others in her world, but now that she had a better view there was a marked difference between it and the architecture around it. Where the skyscrapers and military structures were basically blocks of concrete with little windows of light peeking out, the tower was made out of some transparent glittering material, visible glimmers running up and down its smooth crystalline surface. It was almost as if–

Sarah brought the shiny up to eye level, holding it in front of the tower. The outline was just barely visible, and they were otherwise nearly indistinguishable.

Things were slowly starting to make sense to her. This was a world of darkness, where the forces of light stood valiant against the inexorable tides of shadows. Govcentral was one of those forces, and she the magical girls had something to do with it too. The two didn't really agree on things, and fought each other as a result. Somehow, the shiny was considered important, even though all it did was produce a lot of light and give Sarah superpowers.

Wait.

It was something that produced light in a world of darkness.

Of course it would be considered valuable.

It was obvious that the shiny and the tower were connected somehow. The next obvious conclusion was that something special might happen if they were brought together. And that something special was probably along the lines of "make a lot of light". Sarah had seen enough fiction in her time to know this.

That was probably why Govcentral and the magical girls were fighting over the shiny. You couldn't just give everyone light; that would be silly! And communism! Somebody responsible had to be in charge of it, and it just so happened that they disagreed on who it should be.

Maybe Sarah should be in charge of it.

That would be nice, wouldn't it?

It sure beat skulking around in the dark with nothing to entertain herself, only venturing out to steal food from hobos, then skittering away before she got shot by the Govcentral soldiers. Or maybe those magical girls would catch up to her eventually, and suddenly she'd be on the receiving end of all that laser spam. Or even worse, duck bills. Now that would be a humiliating way to go.

That settled it, then.

----------

It was a long walk to the base of the tower.

The sky remained malevolently dark and overcast, and the brief patches of navy blue etched out by searchlights were all the same to Sarah, so she could only guess exactly how long. Like many of her generation, she didn't bother wearing a watch, relying once again on the ubiquitous smartphone if she needed to know the time. Unfortunately, her own phone was long since crushed under some anonymous truck's thick tyres in another dimension altogether.

Idly, Sarah wondered what was happening back in her world. It felt weird to be thinking about it now, considering how much she disdained it; but seeing as she was currently on a path to hopefully change this world for the better, it was also appropriate.

Would anybody be missing her right now? Obviously her boss, who would no doubt be salivating at the chance to fire her lazy deadbeat ass and get some real honest and hard-working youths in this business, who wouldn't mind labouring from dawn 'till dusk on less than minimum wage.

Mum and dad? She still spoke to them on the phone now and then, though if she had to hear one more thrilling tale about bootstraps and home equity she'd probably burn down their house with lasers or something.

Her friends on the Internet? They might wonder when she didn't appear for a while, but would likely just assume she was busy all of a sudden.

It occurred to Sarah that if she was here, with all her belongings, then her truck-ravaged corpse probably wasn't anywhere to be found back home. There wouldn't be any late-night news stories about another youth with a bright future ahead of her being tragically and senselessly killed on dangerous roads, or any interviews with an overworked truck driver who couldn't help being dangerously high just to stay awake on the job, or any new ham-fisted laws being passed that were meant solely for pollies to look good and suburbanites to feel that Something Was Being Done. If she had just up and disappeared from everyday life, it might take a long time before anybody missed her.

But in a sense, she knew that already.

All the more reason for her to do something meaningful with her life in this world.

At last Sarah stood some distance outside the defensive perimeter, heavily patrolled as it was by Humvee-likes and helicopters. They'd been an abstract concept when she was observing from the rooftop, but being this close to them made her realize that there were actually quite a lot of Govcentral forces in her way, all prepared to shoot her on sight.

For a moment, trepidation rose in her mind, quarrelling with the excitement and lust in her heart. The shiny granted her powers she didn't really understand, and even with that, she was still only one woman going up against an entire army. Did she honestly believe that she could prevail?

Only one way to find out.

Taking a deep breath, Sarah brought the shiny out before her, displaying it to the world.

Light flared, heat surged, and power flowed.

As expected, air raid sirens immediately wailed, searchlights rotating to pin her against the backdrop of darkness. Sarah was already off and running as the first mortar rounds started to bracket her position, their detonations mingling with those of landmines and helicopter-launched rockets. Shrapnel and incendiary substances washed right over her, rebuffed by a curtain of light that enveloped her body.

The no man's land passed by in the literal blink of an eye, bringing her to a motor pool in which an assortment of armoured vehicles was parked. Soldiers were still scrambling to respond to her incursion, dashing out from sheds and among the vehicles, bringing up their carbines as they registered her presence. These soldiers weren't wearing goggles over their helmets, which meant that Sarah was able to look them in the eye before she cut them apart.

Was she always this much of a psychopath? She might have gradually turned bitter and misanthropic over the years, but that was a far cry from some of the casual searing death she was inflicting on these men and women right now.

Maybe she just never had an outlet before.

Two vehicle-mounted heavy machine guns opened up from unexpected angles, bringing her up short as she urgently sought cover. No sooner did she identify a pile of promising crates than they were promptly torn apart by autocannon fire, their contents cooking off and ricocheting all around. Ducking behind a concrete pillar, Sarah fired a beam of light at one of her aggressors, but it didn't even scorch the paintwork.

Another soldier leaned out from a doorway, rocket launcher in hand. Then there was a thunderous gunshot, and a gaping hole appeared in her body armour, uniform, and torso. She glanced down, befuddled, and then clattered to the ground.

Sarah barely spared a thought for her mysterious protector. Another burst of autocannon fire dissuaded her from leaving her cover. Over the constant blasts she was dimly aware of the helicopters circling the motor pool, seeking a better angle.

Ahead of her was a clustering of skyscrapers. If she could just get in amongst them, she could probably shake off the threat of armoured vehicles. Then she would only have to worry about helicopters chasing her down. One step at a time.

There was another overly loud gunshot, and an angry grinding started to emanate from one of her aggressors' tracks. Sarah didn't hesitate, leaping out from cover and rolling between the two armoured vehicles hounding her. A shaft of light formed, and as their gunners began rapidly turning, she sliced and diced under their skirts.

Then she was off again, leaving her immobilized enemies behind her as she bounded a series of walls and reached the skyscrapers proper. She'd vaguely hoped that they might cause Govcentral to hesitate from the possibility of collateral damage, but machine guns raked her barrier all the same.

It wasn't just her imagination; the curtain of light was markedly less vivid now, her own attacks taking just a little longer to burn through concrete and body armour. It appeared that the shiny's power had limits after all. It was far too late to back down now – Sarah could only hope it would last long enough.

Loud gunshots rang out from nearby skyscrapers as she leapfrogged across them, heavy bullets slamming into her and knocking her out of the sky. She caught sight of them just before she fell, sniper teams crewing massive tripod-mounted rifles. Then another series of gunshots echoed from behind her, and the snipers found themselves with brand-new airways.

More Govcentral troops stood in her way, manning towers and checkpoints and barriers, all armed with machine guns and rocket launchers and sniper rifles. She killed them, too.

Sarah had become so immersed in what she was doing that she was very surprised when no more soldiers appeared. It took a few seconds for her to blink back to consciousness, reluctantly pushing down the bloodthirsty berserker she'd allowed herself to become.

She found herself standing at the base of her target, the gleaming tower that extended all the way up into the sky. It had been impressive from afar, but now that she was finally here, it was easily the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

Instinct made her raise her hand. A wide ray of light shot out, softer and calmer than the instruments of death she'd been wielding moments before. A hazy bliss filled her heart as it played over the tower's base, sending sparkling rivulets propagating throughout its crystalline structure.

A quiet thump occurred behind her.

Sarah reflexively spun, arm already outstretched, only to stop as the source of the noise made no move to attack. He was a devilishly handsome man, with dark hair, a chiselled jaw line, and obvious muscles; the kind of grizzled action hero type she'd swooned over when she was younger and more impressionable. She was interested to see that he wore the same kind of uniform and body armour that the Govcentral soldiers did, yet he held himself in such a different way. But the most prominent feature was the massive anti-materiel rifle he cradled in his arms, still smoking from its barrel.

"Going up?" he said in a jolly upbeat tone completely at odds with the deep baritone she expected, gesturing behind her with a grin.

It was probably a trick, and yet, that grin…

Sarah glanced behind her, blinking at what she saw. A section of the tower had unfolded into a wide hexagonal platform, complete with safety rails and even a roof.

Well, she'd come this far. And the man was still waiting patiently in front of her, even as the lights of helicopters gradually grew brighter in the distance. He probably wasn't going to try and kill her, like everyone else she'd met so far in this world. Although he might kill her anyway with that grin of his, oh my…

"Sure," she said breezily, turning her back on him and sauntering onto the platform.

A warm and fuzzy feeling flowed through her as crystal chimed under her boots. It was as if she was at peace just by standing here.

The moment was spoiled somewhat by the sniper hopping aboard with her, dragging the corpse of a Govcentral soldier who was only scored through and not dismembered with him. Sarah stared at him suspiciously, then at the blood that was splattering all over the platform. Then he crouched and started stripping the equipment from the dead soldier's harness, and her questions were at least mollified, but the whole experience was simply profoundly weird.

The pattern of light flowing through the platform shifted, and without warning it started to rise off the ground, climbing the tower smoothly and noiselessly.

It was a literal elevator to heaven. Or whatever waited on the other side of the swirling darkness.

An awkward silence stretched between the two of them as the platform climbed. Sarah found herself at a loss as to how to talk to this guy. She was never really good at that to begin with, much to her eternal dismay, and that was before all this shooting and looting business.

"Hey," she blurted out, anything to break the silence. "I'm Sarah."

"Alex," he responded in that weirdly cheerful voice of his. He seemed unable to meet her gaze, focusing intently on removing his victim's grenades and stuffing them into his own pouches.

…No way.

"So…" she dangled casually. "I really appreciate the help and everything, but…"

"You're wondering why."

"Pretty much."

"It's a long story."

"It's a long elevator ride."

The sniper chuckled, looking up at her for the first time. Then down at her chest. "Are you aware you've been shot?"

"I've been whaaaat?" Sarah glanced down obligingly, seeing a layer of slick red coating her T-shirt and jacket. "Oh, man. I'm never going to get these out." She swiped a little with her fingertips, but thankfully resisted the urge to lick them at the last moment. Now that would've been weird.

"It's okay, you can drink blood if you want to. I don't mind."

"Say what?" Sarah stared at him, wondering if that made her or him the weird one. Then she noticed he seemed to be distracted. "What's wrong?"

"Not sure." He walked towards the safety rail. "Something's coming."

As Sarah moved over to get a better view, streaks of multicolour light blazed among the skyscrapers below, hopping between rooftops like she'd done. Then those streaks were coming right at her, trailing sparkling rainbows through the air. She realized what they were, and hurriedly took a step back.

A magical girl alighted onto the crystalline platform. Her nature was obvious from the Victorian-era dress she wore, the staff she gripped tightly in her hands, and the aura of power she exuded. Then her compatriots started to land alongside her, a dozen in total, flaunting a most intriguing variety of fashions from all over history. There was even one with some kind of feathered gown and wings, presumably the originator of the dreaded duck bills of doom.

Interestingly enough, there were quite a few boys amongst their ranks as well, who were also forced to suffer the ignominy of hair ornaments and frilly dresses. Some were even rather cute – going by what Sarah considered cute, anyway. Maybe she should look into this whole harem business after she became queen of the world and everything.

"Alexander," the magical girl in front sneered, a crystal chime accenting every syllable. "So nice to see you again. I've spent a long time wondering how to punish you for your betrayal."

"Nice to see you too, Royce," Alex grinned, and pulled the trigger.

The noise was deafening in the confined space. Royce was already blurring, a sheath of green light flickering over her, the orb at the tip of her staff beginning to glow. Then the anti-materiel round struck her waist, blowing her apart.

"Shame all that thinking had to go to waste."

The other magical girls exploded into action. Sarah's world instantly degenerated into a series of blurs again as beams of light barraged her from multiple angles, reflecting off the crystal structure into a dazzling disco.

She had no time to appreciate the sight. Two magical girls bore down on her with melee weapons, slashing and striking viciously. They were incredibly fast, even with the shiny boosting her reflexes, and a glass knife plunged deep into her torso, missing her heart by the merest millimetre.

Her own shaft of light formed in response, burning with righteous fury as she batted at her assailants, her blows blunted by shimmering light shrouding their bodies. She ended up overextending herself, irritation at their obstinacy getting the better of her, earning a slash below the armpit for her trouble.

The two of them drove her back, cornering her against the centre of the elevator. Sarah snarled as they closed in, searching desperately for an opening. It couldn't end like this, not when she was so close–

A hand grenade clattered on the floor behind them. They had just enough time to glance in its direction before it detonated, the hail of shrapnel shredding their shields.

Seizing her moment, Sarah charged in and brought her light down upon them, dissecting them where they stood.

She risked glancing around. Alex had his own merry dance happening on his side of the platform, his arms and legs a blur as he fended off various magical weapons. She fired a couple of beams into the backs of their users, seeing their shields flicker and fade.

An enormous spear leapt from Sarah's peripheral vision and impaled her, pinning her to the wall she'd just been fighting next to. One of the boys was the culprit, teeth gritted as he gripped the haft and held her there. She shot a beam at him, but his barrier held steady. Another magical girl standing near him fired back, light searing across her shoulders.

Sarah brought forth the shaft of light again, slicing through the tip of the spear. The boy found himself unexpectedly off-balance, his momentum carrying him towards her.

As he righted himself, Sarah grabbed hold of the remaining spear and shoved the other way.

The base of the spear caught him in the stomach, and the boy was sent flying over the safety rail, screaming as he fell to his doom.

Then his companion did something crazy, and Sarah responded in kind, and everything became simply another blur after that.

----------

"Still alive?" Sarah called, surprised at how much bravado she projected.

"I think so," Alex replied with something between a chuckle and a cough. "How much blood did you lose?"

"Um." It was hard to tell, face down on the floor like this; the only clue Sarah had was the delightfully warm liquid pooling beneath her cheeks. "I'm not sure. Maybe a litre or so?"

"That's fine. Magical girls can lose that much no problem."

"I don't think I really count as a magical girl."

"Then you'd better hope that shiny keeps you alive."

"Got me this far, didn't it?"

"Guess so." Another chuckle. "Think you can move yet?"

Sarah tugged at her arm experimentally. It didn't feel too unsteady. Blood sloshed as she gradually dragged it underneath her, gaining the necessary leverage to push herself up off the ground.

"I can move," she reported, then promptly stumbled and fell to her knees again.

"Great." That was definitely sarcastic. "Get over here and give me a hand. I think we can get up if we hold onto each other."

"Sure." It was a major effort to even breathe now, let alone shuffle on her knees, but somehow Sarah managed it. "So, you're a magical girl too?" she asked, mostly to fill the silence.

"Yep."

"But you're a guy."

"Your point being?"

"…Never mind." Sarah reached Alex's side. He looked to be in even worse shape than her, blood caking the front of his uniform, his body armour torn to shreds. Even his beloved rifle had been neatly sliced into quarters. "What now?"

"Grab onto my arm. Push off your legs on three."

"Got it."

"One, two, three!"

Miraculously, the two of them staggered to their feet.

They'd reached the top of the elevator, sometime in the midst of all their convalescing. Sarah wasn't really sure what she'd expected to find. The tower's six sides tapering into a spire seemed rather minimalist to her. The darkness flowed and writhed all around her, held at bay at the edge of the platform.

As she watched, the air appeared to part right above the tip of the spire, allowing a faint glimmer of light to shine out into the world. She knew it was merely a hint, a promise of what could be.

Sarah felt the power shifting inside her, a part of her yearning to float free. "What do I do now?"

"Make a wish," Alex said. "Anything you want, it's yours."

"That's it?" Sarah turned to scowl at her ally. "This thing is just one big wish-granting machine?"

"Well, it's also meant to burn away all the darkness and bring light to this world again, but yes." He chuckled again. "I wouldn't take too long if I were you. I don't know how long we'll be able to stay here."

Sarah regarded him oddly. "You seem to know a lot about this thing."

"Well, yes." He sounded confused. "Doesn't everybody?"

"…It's a long story."

"Just like mine, huh. Ah well." He closed his eyes. "Go on, then."

"Don't you have a wish you want to make?"

"You're the one with the shiny. And I never really wanted it for myself, anyway. I just didn't want Govcentral or the magical girls to have it."

"Because they were gonna use to take over the world?"

"You got it."

"You know, I'm going to use it to take over the world."

"Yeah, but… you seem nice."

"Nice, huh."

A contented silence fell between the two of them. Their breathing became shallower.

No sense putting it off, then.

Sarah gave into the impulse, letting herself go in a metaphysical sense.

There was no certainty in her life anymore. All she could do was move forward, and make the best of whatever came.

And truth be told, she rather liked it that way.

"I wish–"

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] Return from Isekai: A blade in the dark – Emma

Description: First chapter of a larger story but complete as is.

Word count: 10110

Genre: Tragedy (main), Scifi/Dystopian (secondary - I'm not sure if this is needed)

Oh, Adventurer, you have who have been ensnared by the Winds of Fate, your quest is over and your origin beckons once more as the bonds of fate that once bound you fray. So, lay down your arms – the trials are over, say your goodbyes if you wish, and close your eyes and return from Isekai!

---------------------------------------------

Emma jerked as someone rapped her on the shoulder, looking up from her phone for the first time in a while.

She blinked as the presence of her friends registered, when had the game finished? She hadn't noticed anyone return… she had likely blanked out reading again. For all Emma knew it could have finished ages ago. Now she just felt embarrassed, she hadn't meant to miss the whole game.

"Emma, what do you think?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about. I wasn't listening." She said bluntly to the slightly younger boy who looked resigned as everyone else rolled their eyes or made some other sign of exasperation. "And when did the game finish?"

That got a laugh.

"Around 30 minutes' ago?"

Lunch was 45 minutes long, it started after 5, leaving 10. She had missed almost the entire brake. "And no one told me?

"We did," Mark pipped up from where he sat near his, on again off again, not really-girlfriend, Jessica, aka 'Jess'. "You said you would be a few more minutes and were taking bets on when you'd lookup or if we'd have to tap you. I won, and now Jess owes me a movie and dinner".

"Fuck you guys," Emma grumbled as her face flushed, suddenly realizing how thirsty she was. It was approaching the end of November, around midday and the sun was harsh, even in the shade of a tree you could feel the burn. The air itself was scorching, like standing in front of a furnace, made even worse when the wind blew, pulling away whatever moisture you had.

"Anyway, we were talking about what Isekai people would like to go on if the Winds took them," Zack said, the blond haired 16-year-old leant back against the table Emma was sitting at, his school uniform slightly crumpled from the recent game of touch. "Jess and Mark got into an argument about..."

"If a low S&S was better than pre-dynastic desert one?" Emma glanced at the two now slightly pink teenagers, Mark sitting against a nearby wattle as Jess lay sprawled on the grass next to him. They constantly had that argument and she bloody didn't care. Both would suck.

Being taken to another world on some likely harrowing and insane adventure and then being unceremoniously dragged back after everything was done was not appealing to her. Even if Jess seemed unsettlingly giddy at the idea, regularly looking up all manner of random facts and prepping for an adventure that would likely never come or destroy her if it did.

Jess was a brown-haired girl with short cut hair, freckles and hazel eyes, and rather easy to get a reaction out of, though she was liable to give as good as she got. At Emma's words, she ducked her head, "We're not that predictable, are we?" She mumbled as everyone laughed, Mark included.

While Australian born and raised like his grandparents on all sides, he was pure… well, not pure – no one in the current generation was pure anything anymore – but ethnicity Japanese as far back as anyone could trace. Which made his almost stereotypical occa accent highly amusing as well as his total inability to learn Japanese. And he had tried, repeatably. "We kind of are, though." He grinned, stretching back and looking very smug as Jess shook herself, realizing she had been watching. "How many times have we not been on a date and had it end in the same manner?"

"That's you two being idiots and unable to talk or commit. And then you both sulk and Jess focuses more on prepping than normal, which is disturbing. You're both stubborn and refuse to stop dancing around things or compromise on things you don't care about out of some misplaced sense of pride and persona" Emma said as she rummaged through her bag for a bottle of water, it would taste terrible from the heat, but it was better than using a school bubbler. Not allowing them to have a chance to respond, Emma answered the question Zack asked before, "And I don't think any Isekai would be good."

"If you had to?"

Opening the pop-top with her mouth Emma began draining it with long mouthfuls, mulling over the question. She could see out of the corner of an eye Mark looking down, more subdued than he had been with Jess looking slightly uneasy. Emma wasn't sure why she had said the same thing more than once.

It sucked seeing her friends hurting and neither willing to break character or suck up their pride.

Well, they would either listen or not, not much else she could do.

As for the Isekai question… she had thought about it, everyone had since the Breaking and the appearance of the Winds of Fate. But she only knew of individual world-frames she would want to end up in and it was a damn near certainty if she was caught by the Winds and ended up in one of those worlds the frame would be wrong making whatever she knew useless or worse, harmful. Preconceptions could be far more harmful than the unknown, at least in the later you knew you knew nothing.

An Archetype though?

"One I could live in, and preferably where I don't end up going there alone." She said finally, putting the horridly warm water away, "One S&S could be safe and even somewhat fun, while another would be a Nightmare. Same with every Archetype, I don't have any real attachment to one."

"That's no fun," Jess flopped back onto the grass, staring at the clouds building in the sky, there was likely going to be a storm this afternoon. She seemed determined to not focus on her discomfort and continue with the conversation instead "Come on, there must be something. What about…" she cast her mind around for an Archetype, "Myth?"

"And get screwed by the gods?"

Zack smiled, well tried to, it came out more like a grimace, "Screwed in what way?"

"Both, and neither consensually."

"I think that goes with the metaphorical by default," Mark noted semi-lazily, eyes hooded as he looked to be drifting off. An off note to his voice betrayed that appearance, to Emma's practised eye, he seemed to be responding by route, his mind elsewhere.

Emma shrugged while glancing at the clock on her phone, Lunch would end in 10, and she hadn't finished reading that update. Mentally shrugging she closed the phone, she could finish it later. "If anyone was dumb enough to accept a quest or make a deal then it's consensual as you asked for it."

She stood up, wincing as her injured ankle twinged. Torn ligaments and multiple shattered bones took time to heal. "I'm going to the toilet and then heading to Quantum, are we still meeting at Towers at 4?"

She really hoped her comment hadn't caused a problem. But she had said the same or similar before, so why was the reaction worse this time?

She had been gone week, what had she missed?

-----

The night was noticeably cooler than the day but still warm, even cooled by the storm which broke only an hour ago. Emma leaned back and closed her eyes as the warm night wind blew past, carrying with it the sounds and scents of ozone, rain, wet earth, the soft hum of cars and rustle of trees.

It felt fresh and renewed like it always did after rain.

It was peaceful, she could even detect a hint of magic in the air. That faint tingle-hum that was totally unknown a little over 28 years ago. So much had changed since then… reading up on it for history had really brought it home this past term.

Fates and bonds ebbed and swirled, stirred by emotions and actions as people lived and died, and the cycles of the world. Learning to sense it, feel the bonds of the heart were taught at most schools now. Even if advanced magic was out of reach of most people, or at least, without years of study or an Isekai where most magic came from, making it an unreliable source for anyone else, at best.

Scientists were still working on the basic principles and trying to use some mash-up of various chaos words was suicide, at best.

Emma opened her eyes and glanced up at the moon, bright in the dark sky, but half shrouded in clouds. A familiar tugging that felt around her heart made her glance around just in time to see her wayward friends exit the large sliding doors as they left Castle Towers almost 8 minutes late.

"Sorry!" Jess ran over, her backpack in had as she fumbled for the zip, pulling out a stuffed griffon toy and handing it to Emma. She was grinning, "But Zack got caught up in an argument with a pure-strainer who was yabbering on. I won this in a claw game while waiting, Michel likes cat-birds right?"

Thinking about what her little brother's reaction to a… Emma briefly glanced over its form, eyes finally settling on its rounded tale, Etherium Gryphon being called a cat-bird made her bite back a snort of laughter. "Thanks," she smiled at her overly excitable friend, tossing up and catching the toy, "And I'll make sure to pass on your cat-bird comment too.

"ACK!" Jess's eyes widened as she waved her hands frantically, lips twitching slightly, "He will badger me for hours the next I see him. Don't you know mercy?"

Emma swung her backpack onto her shoulder after putting the toy away, give Jess a sideways glance and smirk, "Well, I can spell it. Does that count?"

"You're evil." Jess laughed as they walked back over to the others.

"Emma! You should have heard it, seeing Zack rip that pureblooder a new one…" Mark kept speaking at a kilometre an hour with Zack interjecting occasionally when Mark went off the rails with his recount as they walked down the darkened streets, lit by soft yellow LEDs. The harsh white LEDs having been replaced, finally, earlier in the month letting the night really seem like night.

Next to her, Jessica seemed to be buzzing, fluctuating more than normal from upbeat too anxious in moments as her eyes drifted to the Mark, the boys walking slightly ahead of them. An odd twinge of her heartbond to them both let Emma confirm something was up, even beyond the obvious nerves and excitement the two were displaying.

"You seem excited," Emma said quietly as they turned a corner to the bus stop, "I can feel the resonance."

"He asked me on a date, I mean a actual… um, that is," Jess stumbled over the words as she fiddled with a lock of hair, "Not not-a-date, but actually asked me straight out if I would go on a date with him on Thursday, the day after our not-a-date movie." Her voice dropped to almost a whisper, "Thanks, by the way, for what you said at lunch." she fidgeted, looking away as though ashamed, "We both needed a kick."

She had missed something then, otherwise, the comment would have got an eye roll and otherwise ignored.

That was… good? Hopefully?

Emma tilted her head, suppressing a smile her confusion, honestly happy that they had finally started dating. "Hmm, I'll head into the pharmacist on the way to school, I need to get some new bandages anyway, and get you some condoms. Don't worry about the cost."

Jess started choking and Emma laughed, hugging her with one arm. She got herself under control after a few seconds and opened her mouth to retort, red-faced when she froze.

Something mirrored by everyone else on the street. Adults who had been out for an evening shopping froze. Many turned their eyes to the eastern horizon, obscured by the buildings, with pale faces. Some had grim looks on their faces, others resignation and in a few cases tears with parents holding children close.

Others looked to the horizon with faces filled with anticipation and eagerness. Many young adults, teenagers and those younger, who could understand what was coming and dream, had faces filled with anticipation and hunger mixed with dread in equal measure.

Emma slipped her arm off Jess's shoulder and slipped her hand into hers. Feeling someone else take her other hand, knowing that Zack now held her hand and Mark, who held Jess's and as well in turn.

A crystalline tinkle of prismatic sound resonated in her bones, and Emma tightened her grip as her heart began to race, the taste of oblivion blew through the air, carrying with it the chimes of eternity.

The predictions were off, they weren't predicted to come again for another quarter moon and were supposed to start over the Atlantic and move north-east.

The Winds of Fate were coming

Isekai approached.

Tearing at the Weave and bonds to drag people to other worlds as time stretched and bent, returning alive those stolen and lucky enough to not surrender to Earth when the winds came once more. Changed, damaged and adrift once more in a world different to what they had lived in for years or decades.

"Run," Mark whispered.

They ran, jostled and pressed by countless others as and they ran. Many fleeing, in the vain hope that they could hide, others ran towards the Winds. Eyes alight with hunger, despair, or in some cases, desperate, fragile hope.

The chimes and resonance of the winds grew. The night was broken by the light of the Aurora Diaspora as it heralded approaching winds. A shimmering river of prismatic light danced and wove through the sky like a living creature as unheard chorused sung, carrying with it frozen shards of reality.

Time froze.

And reality skipped a beat.

One instance Emma was racing around the corner holding her friend's in a vice-like grip, the next they were sprinting towards the sliding doors. Emma now holding Mark and Zack's hands, with Jess to her right holding onto Mark, with one hand.

And the Bells of Silence rang with a deep thudding rush of purple that bathed the world in tinted light as the sound died. Words cut off mid-sentence, cries ceasing as mouths moved but produced no sound.

Emma clutched her friend's hands as ran, she could no longer hear her heartbeat, just the false sounds of the Winds and Aurora. Deep inside herself, Emma could feel her heat bonds strain, the weave vibrating faster and faster as it started to fray. The howl of shattered eternities clawing at her and her friends as the maelstrom increased.

She started to run faster, no longer aware of the pain of her ruined ankle as space started to stretch and distort.

Running was pointless, you could not outrun the winds. Any benefit was entirely psychosomatic in nature

Large amounts of electricity around you did seem to make the chance of being taken drop slightly, but it was barely significant and debatable at best.

Still, they ran. Focused on escaping the winds. Racing to reinforce the one thing that would hold them down. Each other.

it was the bonds that made the difference. Those with nothing to hold them to the world and others were more likely to be taken. People who felt lost and adrift, not knowing where or what to do. Introverted teenagers, isolated and lost in virtual reality or other computer games rather than living in the world as is.

Those who couldn't handle the pressure of society.

They were the ones taken most of all and the ones most likely to die and not return. Facts that had caused society more harm than anything else as people turned inwards out of the hope to be taken.

Emma didn't know what had happened, one moment they were rushing towards the sliding doors and then she was inside, the horrible clawing tug was gone. So was Jess.

"JESS!"

Emma heard Mark scream, but the noise was blurred and resonated oddly as the air began to crack and splinter. Emma turned, already bolting towards the glass doors that seemed so far away now even before the movement had finished.

The heartbond to Jess was ringing, strained and painful.

Every movement was agony, [something/nothingness] spilt forth from the growing rents and cracks, joining with the building tempest of iridescent chaotic energies and shattered fates.

Jess had fallen to the ground, half on the pavement and half on the road. She was crying and shaking, whispered pleas and choked sobs echoing loudly in the unnatural silence, blurring with cries both mournful and gleeful. Her form was lit by the Aurora, the awful lights burning brighter and brighter with every passing.

Eternity stretched, Emma reached for the straining and fraying heartbond and held, dimly aware of Mark trying to follow but faltering. Every breath was agony. Each footstep harder than the last as she fought against the winds, the weight of cosmos bearing down.

She could see countless stars and galaxies being born and dying, sliding into and out of each other in a fathomless celestial dance. Taste the power that wove through the space between spaces and realities unseen.

I can't reach her…

The door slid back as the thought was made. Emma couldn't see now, her eyes blurred with tears as she tried to push the thought aside. It was the bonds and actions that mattered, and she had known Jess for years.

That's what mattered.

The world took on a skewed perspective as everything shattered. Crystalline shards torn loose and dragged into the maelstrom. Nothing looked right anymore.

They raided together in VRMMORPGs and had overcome the most difficult quests – the universe didn't care if an act was virtual or real. Only the story etched into a person's wyrd and soul mattered.

Emma forced herself to remember that, to bring up the bonds and acts in those virtual worlds. The positions they played and duties. It may have been a game, but it had happened. She was the Tank, it was her duty to take hits for the party – and now her party member and the fragile DPS was in trouble.

The door started to edge closer; the Winds reaching their crescendo.

They had gone camping together when Jess wanted to play at an Isekai – they had bonded in blood from cuts and bruises and sleepless nights and hunger. All of them. And laughed about it and mindless talk about going travelling through other worlds. Who would go where if they chose, who would go first

Her eyes glowed in the hellish light, the door was in front of her and then Emma was outside. The horrible crushing weight weighed down her legs, and a horrible endless vista spread out before her, filled with evanescing nothingness and colours with no hue.

She grabbed the heartbond, pulling at it as she threw all she had into the Winds. One for one – the exchange was equivalent, and it would be accepted.

They had promised to be there for each other – words spoken, screamed and bellowed many times over, in so many ways and places. Against bullies, when her mother had died, for help with homework, in raids where and more.

Emma felt power resonate in her soul, ripping at her heartbonds and threatened to tear her apart at the seams. Her bonds to others strained and echoed with desperation and fear, pulling her back and down.

It hurt more than anything Emma had ever felt.

You did not command the Winds of Fate.

She didn't care, not now with the Winds shrieking and howling. There was no thought to what she was doing, no hesitation, just reflexive action. And she would follow the path she chose to the end.

Jess was in her arms crying, the words unheard and unneeded. Emma smiled and spoke words unknown, pulling on their bond. Letting the power flow from one to the other and cast herself backwards into the void, pushing Jess forwards and through.

Then it ended.

The cracks and rents vanished as though it was just a dream. The Aroura Diaspora snaking across the distant horizon. And it was quite, bar the rustling of wind and muffled sobs. The Winds passing as they swept away to encompass the world, leaving gaping wounds in the Weave and loss.

Mark ran over to Jess as she sobbed, whispering that it was her fault as she hugged an Etherium Gryphon tightly to her, apologising over and over between sobs. Mark pulled her closer and spoke softly to her, tears running down his face as he looked numbly at the spot Emma had been moments ago.

Zack didn't move, rooted to the spot in shock.

Around three months until the Winds returned and the Lost, the 'Adventures', would return from Isekai.

Dead or Alive.

---------------------------------------------

Life among the stars and infinite void of space was a nightmarish collage of hunger, fear, disgust and cold isolation and bitter apathy.

I hate this reality.

Emma had long since lost count of how many times she had thought that or similar. For three months she had been living aboard hab-cylinders, now on her second and she had never felt so isolated or hopeless.

In the Free Stars, hope was a concept twisted to the point of obscenity.

Emma swallowed thickly trying to dislodge the lump of mucus lodged in her throat, the long lingering remnants of a minor illness that had almost been her death. People pressed in around her, the rank stench of unwashed and sickened people, choking and vile.

The sensation of touching them made Emma want to recoil and shudder.

The Rapid transport system – which stretched the entirety of the length, breadth and height of the habitat – was crowded, unpleasant and very dangerous; both from people and from the system itself. No one cared if a few thousand died; they would just rebuild.

20 minutes until her stop.

The maglev system tilted and stuttered.

Emma stood as close to the door as she reasonably could, her back to the wall watching and listening. Many of the people around her were gaunt or showing signs of malnutrition with their eyes blank, staring into nothingness absorbed in virtual worlds – be it games or in the constant work needed to make a pittance.

Others were tense and hostile, glaring at those who seemed better off with naked longing and hate.

The ebb and flow of destiny and the Weave giving a far better insight into when someone would snap than plain eyesight but even that could be fooled. Paranoia had become Emma's standard state of mind since the Winds had come.

I wish I had ended up in some predynastic area or something, at least people tended to give a fuck about others. Well, on the upside I suppose I could give some input onto that argument now. Scfi and super corps suck.

The shuttle came to a stop at her destination and Emma pushed through the crowd to get off, emerging on a stark metal platform that was marginally cleaner than the train. Grime and things best left unmentioned cacked the floor and passages leading up, down and to the sides, over and under other platforms and out. Air whistled and shrieked as the shuttles pulled in and out, hurtling off in a dizzying array of directions.

Her gait was quick and determined as she headed through the dark tunnels, old and poorly maintained lights flickering overhead. Stepping past people squatting in the putrid conditions without a glance. The sounds of Gunshots, violence and abuse echoed through the corridors, the stench leaving a rancid taste in her mouth.

A would-be assailant faltered as Emma shot glared at him; a tug at the Weave and mote of magic made her eyes burn and caused a fleeting sense of fear and uncertainty. A parlour trick on Earth – mostly used for Halloween of similar events and utterly useless on anyone with the most meagre magical skill or willpower – it was indispensable here. The best part was it couldn't be recorded.

It took about half an hour to reach the end, having to navigate the festering catacombs and packed malls selling 'luxuries and services' that made Emma swallow back bile. But leaving offered no relief.

The air cylinder's air was freezing, stale still as Emma stepped from the hot, rank and crowded tunnels and venues to the equally unpleasant raised streets of the Hatama System Void Cylinder 127. It made her long for a real breeze.

The Three months since she had flung herself into the Winds felt much longer. The days dragged on without end, an endless blur of hunger, paranoia, isolation, disgust and longing.

I can't wait to get the hell out of this system, of all the world-frames I had to end up in a dystopian space future. Well, if I survive the Return at least I'll have some interesting things to bring back.

The city was bathed in a dull twilight even during the middle of the day-night cycle, making it looked washed out and grey. The great beam that was to simulate a sun was a pale shadow of what it should be that only worked for two out of the sixteen months, a simulated 'summer' to keep costs down. All other light was from whatever people happened to have themselves.

Even the temperature was what was generated by the teeming masses and constant working. It was not unheard off for it to drop far below zero when the power cut off sporadically. Which could take years to bring back online – no one outside cared.

If she was to look up, beyond the twisted towers and webs of bridges, Emma knew she would be able to see the curvature of the cylinder was just visible arcing overhead. It was a site that had left her reeling and nauseous when she had first arrived.

It glittered with faint lights and metal towers that stretched tens of kilometres top to bottom, linked by labyrinthine webs of platforms, elevated buildings and bridges that blotted out much of the pale 'sunlight'. Archologies filled with millions living and dying for generations in the same hives.

Emma's face was set into a mask of cold indifference that hid her thoughts and feelings as she stalked through the icy streets. Bearing, posture and expression was key to being safe, a whisper of power upon the Weave a final safety measure. The streets were crowded with people stepping over and around the destitute and homeless as they moved from one place to another, lost inside virtual landscapes and utterly indifferent to what was going on around them. Bodies frozen in the perpetual winter were ground into bloody slush without notice or scavenged for meat by starved sickly people living in gutters and allies.

Sunken eyes filled with hate and hunger for what other had but they did not.

The site caused a dull and distant ache in Emme's heart that was ever easier to ignore. Once she had tried to change things, to help however she could, but that urge had been ground away slowly but surely. If she had some spare cash, saw a person she could help she did, had done so many times, only to be backstabbed, stolen from and tried to have her generosity abused.

The teeming hordes of wanted to take and destroy more than letting go and trying to live. Just like everyone else in this forsaken reality.

She had learned to be more careful after losing everything the first time.

I don't want to become like everyone else here, I need to get out and to a better place.

Emma felt out the ebb and flow of bonds and fate without conscious thought as she headed to her apartment. Watching and waiting for the disturbance that was the hallmark of any world-frame a Lost would be sent to.

To run into it – to ride the winds to death or victory and try to bend the turmoil to your will.

Or stand on the sidelines and live amidst the aftermath – for good or ill.

No one escaped untouched and there was no shame in either path. No Adventurer, no Lost, was expected to do anything but live the best they could. Glory was rarely glorious, and adventures rarely ended in a just reward.

What would she do when the Tempest started?

The Weave in this reality was fragile and desolate; starved of heartbonds and hope. The tattered gossamer thin strands were often severed and with drawn or forming a tapestry of hate, envy and indifference that made Emma recoil. A self-reinforcing cycle of destiny.

Murky thick clouds of depression, hate and loneliness drenched the O'Neil cylinder, underpinned by rampant treachery and mad, unchained avarice and desire. No one did anything for another without expecting payment in turn. No one would stand by and let another have what they did not.

People focused only on themselves, as liable to crush another underfoot or blend into the shadows and stabbing another in the back. Loyalty to another nothing more than an outdated concept in the name of advancement. But loyalty to a company being the pinnacle of grace.

I hate this world-frame.

To the naked eyed things were drab and nondescript, no signs or colour beyond bare metal and plastics but to Emma's new – crude – augmented reality implants it was a cacophony of colour, music and Noise. Advertisements blared, customised to each person by dumb AI's to differing levels of success.

I want to go home.

People all overlaid by idolised and fake images of themselves projected onto the net', linking to social media pages, contact information, Corporation and other nonsense. People, selling themselves, be it for sex, wet works or anything else imaginable.

New reports and alerts flashed in the corner of Emma's vision with fake and real news headlines; lies and truth blending until almost inseparable unable to distinguish between what was what. Email's and messages blinked and beeped insistently never giving Emma a moments peace.

It was hell.

If hadn't been for magic and the genetic augmentation, long since standard on Earth, then she would have been dead or insane.

But the nights were never restful – sleep was plagued with nightmares and paranoia, the toxic Weave and isolation causing anxiety attacks and a deepening depression. Hunger gnawed at her insides on a weekly basis, foregoing food to keep a roof over her head while wracked with illness and diseases she had no immunity to. Every day was a struggle to navigate a civilisation alien to anything Emma had known.

But she had managed to scrape by better than most.

Her apartment wasn't much, the jobs she was willing to take few and far between, but she made do. Stowing away a bit more each week. In a few years and if she kept her head down she could get off the station, find a better place to start again.

Around and around, higher up the endless walkways, Emma walked. Focused on getting home, into cleaner air and solitude. The gravity getting weaker the higher up she went.

Her home was in sight, the lower middle section of a massive pillar massive of plastic and steel bereft of windows or decorations.

As she approached, an ominous shadowed-thunder echoed across the weave. A building storm that rumbled as it swept closer, that would shake the world to its foundations with its fury if unleashed.

Emma kept walking, the entrance passing her by and a cold shiver ran down her spine, following the growing discord that had enveloped the station and echoed beyond into the fathomless void.

I just can't leave things alone, can I?

Echoes of hate, violence and death stirred on the stings of fate and destiny

Actions and intent cascaded across the ever-changing weave of fate and bonds, feeding back into themselves. And if a person or group was determined to do something and, in a place to act, then the reaction to that outcome could feedback disturbing what was.

The future was always murky and never set, never sure. It could always be averted, but a storm leaves changes even when passing.

The bigger and immediate the chaos was, the greater the feedback.

Railings and people flashed by in a blur. Emma wove around people as she poured over the news and forums for a hint, a snippet of the linchpin; chasing the transient bond of hate and destiny through the ever-darkening future.

Cold isolation pressed in. The cries of the damned – souls bound by malice and echoes of malevolence cried and jeered, the words resonating across the weave disturbed by the growing disaster.

Death walked. One. Five. More. A Million and more. All blurring together with ruin and death.

No.

Emma forced herself to ignore the dead man behind her, inputting access codes to hacked files and cameras. The linchpin. A man wearing a cooperate logo: A spinning vortex underlined with foreign text. A position: Head of R&D. War Vessels hours away as insurance. A bounty: poster unknown.

Cries and screams haunted Emma as she hurtled through the hot, stinking hives and slums, jumping and rolling over debris and railings. Old skills at free running and acrobatics coming to the fore as she scaled broken filtration units pumping polluted and caustic air into the tunnels.

Her hands were slippery with blood.

It was hard to breath; every breath was agony. Syringes filled with stimulants left in her wake. The stale polluted and putrid air stung her eyes.

I won't let that happen. Millions should not pay the price for a few.

Shadows crept up walls, watching with unseen eyes beyond the omnipresent surveillance. To touch and stare into the Weave, to try an avert what may come, was to invite the same upon yourself.

An image of a man played in the corner of Emma's AR vision. The man leaving an upper-end archology, his business concluded and minutes from ambush point. Guards apathetic and promised escape.

The docks were seconds away; it would be simple to steal a shuttle and be gone before the vessels came. She could start a better life easily.

At the cost of trillions and blood-drenched stars.

Jeers and curses, praise and laughter echoed from within the building chaos. What was not yet, wished to be. It would not abide by interference without action.

Emma leapt off a platform, shrouded in a cloak of fate and chance with a gun in hand. Surveillance glitching as she tapped into the swelling pandemonium-to-be. Claw marks and scratches dripped blood, born of the wrath of what was not.

Hitting another deck with a roll, Emma ignored her broken shoulder and wounds, racing past the docking bay, oblivious to the startled looks as she ran into growing Tempest.

-----

Emma sat in a dimly lit cell, staring at the roof unseeingly. Doing her best to ignore the pain of her battered, broken and poorly treated body as she conserved her power. Her right arm was numb now, discoloured unpleasantly, filled with an infection that had set in far too quickly. The echoes of the Tempest had not let her interfere without repayment.

Her head felt hot and dizzy. Septicaemia, blood loss and stimulant overdosage taking its toll.

It would take more than 10 days to heal, assuming the infection was drained, but if given time to gather strength and focus then she had a chance. If.

I stopped it, that's good… Right? Trillions won't die, the war won't come.

That is good right?

The thoughts were hollow, the memory of slaughter and death that followed her interference fresh in Emma's mind.

I did the right thing… didn't I?

She closed her eyes tiredly, ignoring the pain that shot through her heart and into her jaw. She knew hadn't expected any different assuming she had lived and not got away. But in a corner of Emma's mind, in the haze of desperation and adrenaline, there had been whimsical fantasies of being rewarded for stopping the executive from being killed.

In some worlds that would be right; this was not one of them.

Being accused of causing the assassination then stopping it as an attempt to garner had been an absurd stretch. But no one cared, a scapegoat was a scapegoat. And who knows? Maybe they even believed the bullshit they spewed.

But at least for now she could enjoy spending some time in a place not filled with waste and with fresh air.

I wonder what happens when you die?

In some places winning was never an option. The Winds didn't care about fairness or chances any more than a cyclone did. And this might be one of those places.

Time slipped away and ran, flowing weirdly as Emma sat in the vast void ship's cells. Chunks of recent memory fading away, leaving gaping holes interspersed with points of blindness and sensory loss. The featureless cell only exasperating her disorientation, giving no indication of time. The agonising harsh removal of her AR implant had obviously been done like that for a reason.

What power Emma could muster was fed back into keeping her alive and repairing critical damage, not lucid. A mistake in thinking that the only time she needed to remain alert was when others were nearby. How was she to heal if she wasn't aware, couldn't think?

I should have dealt with the infection first, shouldn't I?

But did it matter? It took a week and a bit to heal a broken bone with magic and it would be weak for longer. Time was slipping away, moment to moment. But she might have a chance to escape.

'Might' was all she needed to keep going.

It wasn't over until she fell. She had not yet fallen.

The door slid open and a tall, shaded figure walked in, cybernetic eyes glinting green as the man looked down at Emma who met his eyes with difficulty, blinking at the sudden light.

"Emma, odd name. Even odder genetic profile. Military, correct?" It wasn't a question, but she replied all the same.

"Not completely." Emma struggled to sit straighter as she replied, her voice raspy.

"Oh? Do explain?" A hint of menace swirled around the dark-skinned man, it was the bearing of a person who was used to being in command and not used to being corrected on something that seemed self-evident.

"After a series of off-world diseases and the fear of other worlds having super soldiers and being out completed, the government implemented mandatory gene therapy for all assisted reproduction and later everyone else."

The global pandemonium that had occurred in the first few years after the Breaking was studied in school, as was the controversy around the UN's declaration and subsequent implementation around the world. It was amazing what fear could do.

"Government, are you sure you used the right word?" The man stepped deeper into the cell, towering over Emma.

"Yes, and all businesses and cooperation's were regulated by the government." The flicker of rage in the man's eyes gave Emma a fleeting sense of amusement, even knowing she should really shut up.

"I know of no 'governments' left in the Free Stars." The man's voice held a razored edge, a glimmer of anger at the idea of Cooperation's being regulated.

"And I hadn't heard about the Free Stars until I was in an FTL accident and I woke up being pulled out of a wreckage."

The man nodded sharply, his face emotionless again. "I traced your actions; three months and managing to secure a decent home in a different Cylinder after losing your first due to misplaced kindness and false expectations of loyalty. You didn't ask for anything after saving Executive Ahdonido, simply saying it was the right thing to do. Why?"

"There was no other path to take," Emma said with a forced calm, refusing to look away as a point of pride.

"By you records and Implanted data, you could have easily stolen a ship and escaped. During the aftermath, no one would have known."

"And the stars would run red."

The man fell silent, looking at her with an inscrutable expression.

A minute ticked by. The silence dragged on. She couldn't tell what he was thinking, and not having the faintest of heartbonds forming when interacting with another made things far more unsettlingly. On impulse she reached out to the man's heart, forming a transient heatbond. Almost letting the bond wither and fade upon feeling the cold apprising soul.

To Emma, it was a small thing not worth mentioning normally.

On Earth it would have been common courtesy among those who used magic and instinct to others, showing they cared and were listening. The effect no more than the slightest tendency to trust another more and sense of empathy. Something that went both ways. The effects faded and vanished within minutes of ceasing contact.

People always reached out to others, it was reflex, but at the mercy of the mind and culture.

For a person staved of bonds and trust, it was apparently no small thing.

The twitch and ripple that thread through the man's soul telling that more vividly than anything else. The uncertain and confused acceptance rather than rejection speaking volumes about something Emma hadn't even considered.

The silence stretched onwards.

"You have strong principals. You want loyalty and are willing to give it in turn, and you desire more than you have now. It's clear in your actions and the data trail left behind since being rescued." The words were low, "Those are rare things." He paused, mechanical eyes unreadable. "In the Voidstar Syndicate, such things are prized and cultivated. With what you achieved in the last few months and what happened here, along with your augmentations, you could be an exemplary operative."

Emma blinked bleary, not sure if she heard correctly with her head burning. Voidstar? That was one of the Military based Super Corporations and not the one she saved a member of. Or who owned the ship.

The man extended his hand to Emma, "Would you be interested in enrolling in the Academy, child?"

---------------------------------------------

Everything was quiet bar the faint hum of machinery,

A lone figure walked the metallic halls, armoured boots not making a sound as the woman walked through the space station. Light power armour covered her head to foot, as she made her way around the bodies littered the halls.

Many had just fallen where they worked, dead of asphyxiation and poison. Others had tried to run, to get masks or armour on. They lay dead none the less, pools of blood glinting darkly in the semi-light.

The killer entered a locked room sealed by a personal airlock, the keypad and scanner offering no resistance. Why would it? She was in the system after all and had been for years.

As she stepped through the airlock into breathable air, she glanced around the room. It was the same as it always was. A false wall showed the great void beyond the station's walls, hiding a door that led to an escape vessel. Near the wall lay a desk filled with top of the line computers and equipment, while a mini-bar and kitchenet lay at the other side of the room near a section of chairs and a couch in the corner which formed a semi-formal seating and meal area.

Scattered around were plants and pictures of landscapes from many worlds – some inhalable other not, but not less striking for the lack of life.

Behind the desk sat a dark-skinned man, furiously moving things around on an unseen, AR screen. He was shaking with a combination of hidden fear and fury, stress. As the door closed once more, he looked up. Seeing the armoured woman locking the door, he almost invisibly relaxed, tension draining from his posture. Stopping what he was doing, the man got up, he very carefully did not run as he crossed the floor to greet her. Stopping formally in front of her as he spoke.

"Emma, what's the situation?" The words were crisp and calm, belaying his tension, concern, and very dangerous anger.

Emma removed her helmet and rubbed her eyes tiredly, feeling hollow and washed out. "Total casualties, sir," She replied trying to keep her voice level though it still shook slightly. The images of a knife plunging through the temple of people she had drank and laughed with coming to the fore. Just more bodies torn apart by drug-induced psychosis as far as anyone else would know. "I can't see any evidence of sabotage, it looks like a fault in the munitions vault but I'm not certain. It appears to be caused by a flaw in GX224Z-alpha's containment vessel and it all leaked out. The sensors needed replacing so we didn't know, I don't think maintenance had been doing their job correctly, or either that or it was sabotage."

The Weave vibrated, Emma could feel the otherworld bond spun by the Winds chime with silver light. An ever-growing pull at her soul, beckoning her home.

It's not really home now, is it? But then, I don't have a place to call home. Not anymore. I just want it to be over.

The man – Osidus – gritted his teeth, fury building up to a towering inferno now, "Which meant it would have got into Galactica's order if the entire lot leaked out?"

"It did, sir."

"Then the reaction would have caused the fumes and set off a chain reaction, driving everyone insane even if they got oxygen masks on. Blades in the dark! I hate clerical errors, that nerve agent should never have been sent to this station," He spat, starting to pace. "And of all the flags and parliaments, it happened now? Sabotage…" Osidus scowled as he turned the thought over, "It's a possibility," he said reluctantly, "But the number of people who knew this trip was scheduled numbered in the single digits. And even in the best Corporations failures and slips in procedures happen… people always seek the quickest way, even if it means cutting corners."

She remained silent, her hand aching to reach for her blade. End it all now, it should be enough to sever her bond to the local Weave and return. But there was still too much to do.

I want to end everything.

Life in the 'Free Stars' was hell.

Nothing was free except avarice unchained from sanity or compassion.

Osidus looked ready to kill someone and his dark green glass eyes flashed with fury, the only visible sign of the cybernetics which laced his body. After a few minutes of pacing Osidus managed to reign in his temper and the CEO of the Voidstar Syndicate – one of the three largest super corporations in the Free Stars – stopped his pacing and headed over to the mini-bar. "Sit, daughter," He said gesturing to the chairs. "Rest and let your mind relax. What mine is yours."

Emma nodded and sunk into one of the seats and closed her eyes, completing the ritual reply by rout, "Thank you, father, for your generosity," The words made her feel sick from conflicting emotions and thoughts wrapped up and around each other.

Why had it come to this?

I feel the call… the Diaspora…

I can hear it.

Her armour and weapons felt so heavy.

Emma didn't know when she drifted off to sleep, just that it felt like moments after she had closed her eyes she was awoken to the smell of meat and herbs, standing around a meter back from the chair with a gun pointed at Osidus.

Huh…?

She blinked in confusion, her sleep-muddled mind not able to processor what was happening clearly. Did she get found out… was it a dream…?

"Sentinel! Calm yourself!" Emma twitched at the familiar voice, harsh and sharp, and full of anger held in tight control, before softening in tone. "There is no danger here, Sentinel, whatever happened on the station is done. Either from incompetence or sabotage and if the latter they have either long since fled, being killed or are incapable of getting in."

"Sorry, sir," Emma flushed and stood stiffly at attention, relaxing as Osidus gestured for her to sit back down.

Right… keep it together, Emma. Only a few more days. Just a few more days. You haven't been found out yet. A few more days.

Emma nodded wordlessly as she sat back down, Osidus placed a plate of thin strips of just boiled meat, seasoned with herbs in the centre of the table along with a jug of a spicy alcohol and two small bowls.

He filled the two bowls up and handed one to Emma, and bowed his head, "Eat and drink freely, for over this meal all is open."

The traditional meal and words a father (or superior to a subordinate they care for and trust) would offer when inviting the child to speak as an equal and to ask for help if needed. That the father was willing to give help if need be with no expectation of interest repaid, and himself ask for help and assistance the same

Something that implied implicit trust almost non-existent but highly prized in the corporation-dominated stars.

"Thank you, father." Emma bowed her head for a moment before eating a strip of meat and sipping the drink. She didn't like either, but it was part of the ritual only when the plate and bowl were emptied would the ritual end and normal protocol resume.

Osidus's face was insurable as he sat back in the chair – one of only two people living in the blood-drenched city – eating with his trusted traitor.

His own personal Blade in the Dark.

"Do you think it was chance and mismanagement? Or a Blade?"

"I think it was both," Emma said honestly, that chemical had been delivered by accident, she just found out about it being enroute before it arrived. Galactica was due to make their regular order and maintenance had been slacking somewhat. She had just used that to set things in motion a few months earlier than planned

"You recall the error last month."

He nodded, "We never traced the cause of it." The fury in that statement was palpable.

"According to the logs I found here and cross-referenced, that was caused by a glitch in the distribution centre EXC452-31's AI. That was why we got that order of grenades sent to the slums of Mediscope among others." Emma grimaced, professional and personal pride rearing its head, "I thought I caught all the mistakes, but I was never sure without finding the source."

It had been an unpleasant surprise for everyone when a query came in asking why a shipment of prototype anti-matter rifles had ended up at Raiment Extractions. Resulting in a message being sent in return asking for 'help' in return for not selling the designs onto competitors.

"The damage to the tank was looked like corrosion caused by a poorly designed tank breaking at the seams, but that looks off to me." She paused, "It looked like it was meant to look like an accident and some of the dead… the wounds looked wrong."

"How?"

Emma shrugged wearily, "Too neat and clean for someone killed by the psychosis, and to many of the airlocks had failed even taking into consideration how people's reasoning would have been compromised for about an hour before anything else set in. The damage to the tank didn't quite match with what was expected.

There was also a missing vessel, taken without leave, from the docking bay. Any traitors could have escaped on it, or there was just some log error. I didn't look that closely with everything going on." She grimaced, all of that was the truth, she had no idea where that vessel was, a fact she found highly disturbing. "It would have taken too much time to comb through everything and it's not my field."

"You have all the files." It was not a question.

"Yes."

"Good." He nodded, obviously expecting nothing less, "We will get every looked over by analysts on Omega."

The conversation continued as the meat and drink were consumed. Each word a blade that sunk ever deeper into Emma's mind.

I wish I had never accepted employment, that I had just let myself be executed for conspiracy.

It would have been less painful.

Twenty-three years of screams, blood, murder and sabotage.

Emma placed her helmet on as she began start-up procedures on the escape vessel, Osidus's person shuttle. All the files on board.

Of causing and prolonging wars.

Her mind connected to the vessel's system, her augmented vision giving way to a more integrated feeling and control. The pulse of electricity flowing through the crafts in mind-bending patterns. The vicious cold-roar of the gravity-fusion core. The arcane twisting of space and reality as the FTL drive started up.

Human resources and experimentation.

The doomed space station began to recede into the distance, Osidus spent the first four and a bit hours working before drifting off. It would be another seventeen or so until the Faster than Light engines could be engaged. An inherent limitation on a drive placed on such a small craft; it took time for everything to start up.

Greed, shares, intellectual property and the logical pursuit of profit. Profit before lives. Profit before compassion.

Imaginary numbers on a database and a crumbling civilisation. No point, no reason. Further, harsher, running from the collapse ever chasing faster.

The FTL drive engaged with a shuddering howl resonated through the void as reality fractured and bent. Causality being accelerated in one direction; frames of reference shifting. The one magic this reality had uncovered.

It will fall.

All the corps will.

The pieces are in place.

Blood will stain the stars and void.

And for freedom, humanity will rise once more.

Behind the featureless helmet, blue eyes sparkled with the light of the Aroura Diaspora. Her heart bonds torn or withered leaving the Blade adrift. A call rang through Emma's soul, one she recalled from decades ago. Earth beckoned, and dead or alive, she would soon return from Isekai.

I wish I was dead…

… but I still want to live….

-----

Drip

Drip

Drip

Emma sat slumped against an armoured door, lacking the energy get to the pilot's seat just beyond.

She was dying.

Blood seeped from countless wounds and mingled with the blood that drenched the ground and slowly dripped over the edge of the nearby landing.

Drip

Drip

She refused to look up.

--

'You were the blade, daughter…?!' Horror and incomprehension waring with betrayal and fury unchained.

--

Omega, slowly drifting away into the void, was silent. As were the few ships that yet remained docked to it.

Drip

Only corpses remained, of Voidstar and EIM, and others. Some named, other not. It didn't matter anymore.

Her eyes blurred, and for the first time in years Emma let herself cry freely; deep heaving sobs interspersed with wet, hacking coughs. She recalled the betrayal as she severed the brainstem and smashed the skull of the one person she had come to truly care about in this hellhole.

Drip,

Drip

Drip

The screams and roar of combat and massacre echoing endlessly through her fading mind.

Dreams and nightmares about the Holocaust that was to come now that the fuse had been lit plagued her thoughts.

Drip

Drip

Drip

Emma could still feel the disgust and contempt from those she had allied with as they shot her in the back – an outcome she expected and accepted. Words heavy with revulsion and hate as they spoke of never trusting a blade and of thanks. Thanks for giving them the keys to the domination of the stars.

Jeers of those who were as much traitors as she was. Worse. At least she realised it.

I fucked up.

And so did they. Thinking could profit from my crimes and betrayals, all the while betraying their own.

Emma's lips twisted into a spiteful sneer, even as tears ran freely down her cheeks, mingling with the blood seeping from her head. The corpses lay kilometres away from the ship, torn apart and left to rot on the doomed station.

Trust no one. Never have only one plan. Burn in hell motherfuckers.

Drip

Drip

Drip

The world was darkening now.

DRIP

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

Her arms and legs felt weak, weighed down with more than her useless armour.

DRIP!

DRIP!

DRIP!

A crystalline tinkle of prismatic sound resonated in her bones and the taste of oblivion blew through the still air. The chimes of eternity carrying across the shattered void.

DRIP!!

Everything was dark now. Emma could not see the Aroura Diaspora she knew must be now be wrapping around her.

DRIP!!

DRIP!!

DRI...!

Bells of Silence rang unheard throughout the drifting voidship.

Time froze.

Reality skipped a beat.

-----

A corpse tumbled through space, its head smashed open like a rotten egg. Slowly falling towards the distant star, now and forever alone in the void and stars.

---------------------------------------------

Sixteen-year-old Emma Lakes' eyes snapped open with a strangled gasp of pain.

All she could see was utter darkness. The broken remains of armour, now too large to fit her, sent waves of agony through her body. Connectors and wires pierced and cut into her flesh as they tried to connect to ports that no longer existed.

She could barely move. but to sit still was to just surrender and die and moving too fast would just spell the same fate.

She had come this far. She would go the rest.

Time was meaningless in the dark as she slowly pulled the armour off, as much as she dared, and stumbled blindingly through the dark corridors. A metallic scent filled the stale, the floor still drenched with congealing or dried blood.

Each movement was an uphill battle, her renewed strength leaking out of gaping holes and cruelly implanted, ill-placed and ill-fitted cybernetic adaptors. Emma blindly moved through the vessel by memory, desperately hoping it was the same, the Winds had not changed anything. That the emergency release would work and not open into the void.

There was one spacesuit fitted for a teenager of her build, but its location slipped Emma's haze filled mind. And she would never survive re-entry with her wounds.

Her hands grasped blinding across the metallic wall, it was getting harder to stand. To move to think. False colours spinning around the darkness as she searched for the emergency release, finally finding the glass box.

Hands grouping for the leaver no longer behind glass, razor shards lacerating her hands as she went through the process by reflex.

Light pierced the dark as she stumbled out and, searing hot wind blasted her face rather than the desolation of space.

She fell.

Arms caught her as people started screaming in a language she had not heard outside her personal logs for so long.

'EVACUATE! I REPEAT EVACUATE! ALL INDIVIDUALS ARE TO MAKE THEIR WAY TO THE BUS STOP TO BE MOVED TO A SAFER LOCATION…'

'I'VE GOT THE LOST! MEDICAL HELP NEEDED ASAP!'

'Fuck!'

'What happened to her, why…?'

'WHERE'S THE AMBULANCE?'

'Get her on her side! Keep her still, stem the bleeding.'

'EMMA!'

"Is it shut down? Lost…

'NO ONE IS TO GET ON THAT THING OR REMOVE ANYTHING UNTIL WE KNOW MORE!'

'WHAT'S HAPPENING…!'

'…we need to know if it's safe.'

'GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

"Someone restrain her!'

'JESS! STOP!'

She knew some of those… she could feel the torn and aching heartbonds reaching out to her… but there was a person speaking to her. Asking a question with a profound desperation.

Emma tried to open her eyes but failed to see anything, her mouth moved sluggishly. It was difficult to think, to put the words in order. Only managing a faint whisper.

"Fusion core. Inert without power, offline. All systems. Bioweapons… Chemical weapons… in physical containment. UN signage plus other. Physical containment of all things… don't know if still there… wind changes unknown.'

There was more, so much more to say. But the darkness was rising quicker and her mind was fading fast.

She could hear a siren approaching.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] Travel

The rhythmic 'chug-chugga, chug-chugga' of passing trains filled the open aired station. Rebounding off cobbled floors and the shelter's polished rafters, the sound mixed with the bustle of the city. It would have been overwhelming to Lizbeth Peddlemen if long experience hadn't already accustomed her to the noise. She was used to trying to sleep in loud places. What the brown haired girl wasn't so used to was ignoring the not so quiet argument her brothers and sister were having. It was early in the day and the train ride looked to be a long one. She could sleep on the train, theoretically, but the rickety, unstable cars they had in this world made that impossible. So she needed to get her rest now when she could. Sadly, it didn't seem she'd be getting much. Honestly, why were they still arguing over their destination?

"I'm just saying we should consider our options," Erick said. "We don't have a lot of money as it is, and once we make the decision there's no going back."

"So you suggest we seriously consider going to Patherk, the one country everyone agrees we should avoid?" Sheila said, the older girl's voice breaking with incredulity. "I don't even know why we're discussing this. We agreed yesterday that we'd go to Broont."

"No, you three decided that and I was too tired to argue." Erick said, "Besides, most of the people we talked to were from Kalsh or Broont. Of course, we're not going to hear nice things about Patherk, they just won a major war! Only reason Jahur stayed out of it is because of luck and real politik, and all of them have been talking up the Patherkan military. In this kind of world, where monster attacks are regular things, I think the skill and reputation of their military shows how safe Patherk is."

"He does have a point, Sheila," Percival spoke up. "I mean, Broont might have the largest army, but the amount of territory they control means their border cities are also the least defended. Well I mean, that fits with what information we got, maybe...sorry." With the way he trailed off at the end, Lizbeth could just imagine her older sister glaring down their youngest sibling, and the nerdy thirteen-year-old curling in on himself. Sheila got to be overbearing when she was angry.

"Well, why don't we go to Kalsh then?" Sheila said. "They barely lost any territory and everyone speaks well of their naval fleets. That must count for something."

"Yes, and they're also a collection of large islands connected by fragile shipping lanes. Shipping lanes that are frequently attacked and destroyed by pirates, monsters, and 'pirates,' meaning they're less a country and more a loose coalition of feuding provinces," Erick said. "I don't know about you, but I'd rather not live in the aquatic version of the Holy Roman Empire."

"So instead we should go for the totalitarian dictatorship where you can be enslaved for a dozen different reasons?" Sheila bit out. "And even if we did go to Patherk, the only city we'd be able to reach was once a territory of Broont, one they really want to get back. Being there will practically be a death sentence when the war flares back up. God, why did we have to end up in a place like this." Silence hung in the air for a quiet moment.

Emel was not a peaceful continent by any measure. It was divided up into over a dozen different nations that had long histories of fighting with each other for various reasons. Medicinal practices were still in their infancy, religion was deeply tied into every aspect of society, and things like mandatory basic human rights hadn't even been conceived of yet. The country had had its industrial revolution over a century ago, but the runaway feedback loop had stalled out at 'able to rapidly produce weapons of war.' Innovations were seeping into the civilian market, but it was slow going. At least they used trains for public transports.

Although, Lizbeth wondered how much that fact played into their arrival in this world. Normally, sitting in an isolated train compartment did not just magically transport you to another world without any other visible sign, but that's what happened to the Peddlemen siblings as they were traveling across the country by train. They hadn't even realized the material of their seats had changed at first. The first sign they'd had that things had changed was when the conductor had stopped by their compartment, with a pair of ram's horns curling around the sides of his head. The man, a satyr they later learned, had been more than a bit put out by their reactions and had quickly left after punching their tickets, goat tail swishing behind him. Their tickets had also at some point changed from blue stubs of paper into long strips of paper smudged with the imprecise ink lines of early printing presses. They now proclaimed their destination had been the independent city-state of Jahur, sitting atop the borders between four of Emel's nations.

That sparked a memory in Lizbeth's head, and she gave up on resting. She leaned forward and reached into one of the travel bags sitting at her feet, sorting through papers and bundles of cloth. They'd been in Jahur for about a week now, and after investigating to the best of their ability the only decision the four siblings had been able to agree on was to use what little money they had left (which again had changed into one of the local denominations without them noticing) on another train trip. The problem was where they were going. They all hoped that what had happened before would happen again, but there was the chance that it wouldn't. Which meant they had to seriously consider where they were going, as they wouldn't have the money to try again. One of the things they'd found in their scavenging was a set of maps Lizbeth had 'borrowed' from a grey-bearded scholar who had passed out at the inn they'd been staying at. It gave a good picture of the surrounding landscape and even showed how the borders had shifted over the past centuries. Given how rare maps still were in this age, it was an invaluable find.

Lizbeth quickly flipped through the maps, keeping her eye on the small wedge of blue-green to Jahur's southeast. The borders across the region changed and shifted regularly, with a few other countries appearing and disappearing even. Jahur itself had changed hands as well. But the almost triangle like patch of color nestled between two mountain ranges and a river stayed exactly the same.

"Why not go to Terth," Lizbeth said, pointing at the patch on the most recent map.

Her siblings glanced at each other. "Well it is an option, but why there? No one ever really has had much to say about it. It's not that interesting a place," Erick said.

"Exactly," Lizbeth smiled. "Terth is unremarkable. They have a good amount of natural resources, but not an overabundance. They have a strong military, but not of the size that could be considered oppressive or make other nations warry. And most importantly," she held up the map. "Their border hasn't really changed for several hundred years."

"She does have a point," Percival said. "Since the Redstone Mountains border most of their territory, there's only one practical route for an invading army. But Broont has always had too many other problems to deal with another hostile neighbor, so they've left them well enough alone. And that one seamstress we talked to mentioned that most of her wool wereTerthian imports. They would be a good bet."

"I don't know," Erick said. He bit his lip, playing with the hem of his tunic. They'd had to buy more clothes after life in Jahur had ruined their old ones. Now they all had a collection of thigh-length tunics and ankle length trousers. Despite how antiquated this world felt, women wearing pants wasn't seen as odd. Maybe it was because rural folk regularly needed to run for their life? "Sure they don't have any real enemies, but what if that changes? Could their army be able to handle that?"

"That argument goes for everyone," Sheila said. She rested her head in her hands and blew out a breath, a sign they knew meant 'I need to think.'

"It's not like we have a lot of options," Lizbeth said, placing her hand on her sister's shoulder. "And a lack of major conflicts doesn't mean no military."

Sheila let out another sigh. "You're right, and all things considered, I can't think of any good arguments to not go there." She looked over to the eldest sibling. "Well, Erick? I think Lizbeth and Percival have made a good argument. It's not like you or I can convince each other of our choices."

Erick shook his head. "Alright, fine, you guys convinced. Didn't really want to go to Patherk anyway, just figured they had the best chance of guaranteeing security."

"Of course," Sheila scoffed. "Anyway, the sign says that there should be a train going to Terth in an hour or so at track 3. Let's go get the tickets now so that we don't forget."

----------------

The ride to Pan, Terth's northernmost city, was taking much longer than Lizbeth expected. Then again she was used to cross-continental transport, so that wasn't entirely fair. Still, they'd be traveling hours and were only now passing through the mountains that separated Jahur and Terth. She stared out the compartment's window as fields of wheat gave way to rocky crags covered in tough grass and stubborn trees, the summer sun painting everything in stark bright colors.

"Attention all passengers," the conductor's voice filled the cabin. "We will be entering a tunnel on our journey to Pan in just a few minutes. Please light the candle in your cabin for illumination and to prevent accidents. Once we exit it we will officially be in Terth itself." The echoey reverb that was the train's speaker system was almost, but not quite, like the speaker systems from back home. Lizbeth wanted to say it was those voice pipes she'd seen used on ships, but that didn't mesh with the train having multiple carriages. There was still so much about Emel they barely understood.

Just as Sheila was shaking out the match she'd used to light the candle, the carriage passed under the mountain and into the tunnel. The window turned opaque and Lizbeth could see her reflection staring back at her. Shadows danced in the corners, and the train's rumble grew louder as it rebounded off the tunnel walls which were surely only a few feet away. It made everything feel more isolated; like they were the only four people in the world. Silence hung over them like a blanket. Percival tucked the book he'd been reading away, a history book that he'd been using to pass the time, and scooted across his seat closer to Erick. The older boy scoffed but put his arm around his little brother's shoulders all the same. None of them liked the dark that much, but Percival had always been the worst at dealing with it.

"You know," Erick said. "I just realized that this whole situation is like those cartoons you're always watching, Liz." A grin spread across his face, and he shook Percival shoulder conspiratorially. "What did she say they were called again, Percy? Isaki?"

"I think Isekai is the proper term," Sheila said with a grin of her own. "And what did you say they were, Lizbeth? That they're anime, not cartoons, right? Because they were sophisticated and high minded and not meant for children?"
Lizbeth felt her cheeks inflame with color as horrid memories from years ago rose to the surface.

"Yeah, and then when Percival took an interest and looked some up, there was that one with all the almost naked women," Erick continued, nudging his now blushing brother in the ribs. "You were so embarrassed when the fosters walked in. They immediately decided they had to give you 'the talk,' right?"

"Oh God could we please not," Percival said, wilting into his hands as he tried to disappear.

"Don't forget that time they caught Lizbeth watching that one with the naked wolf girl," Sheila said, laughter in her voice. "She had to sit through an hour-long lecture about how it was okay to like girls, she had nothing to be ashamed about, and she didn't need to hide herself from us or them."

"I'm with Percy," Lizbeth said, eyes fixed on the wall just above Erick's head. "Why don't we talk about something else?" She liked imagining an anvil hanging there, waiting to deliver divine retribution. But really, the fosters just wouldn't accept that they got the wrong idea and let up. It hadn't even been a sexualized scene, just a moonlit backdrop as the merchant character met the main love interest! Animes did worse all the time, even when they had no reason too! Although that didn't really do much to help her case.

"Alright, alright," Erick said, waving his free hand dismissively. "What do you think we should do when we get to Terth? Considering the amount of animal products they produce, I was thinking something to do with livestock."

"Won't there be too much competition?" Lizbeth said. "If livestock is a big export, then there's a lot of people with their own herds. We wouldn't be able to make much money off of it."

"But it would be easier to get into the business, once we have some starting money to buy some sheep or cow," Sheila said. "But that's going to be the real problem since we don't have even that much yet." She drummed her fingers against her thigh, turning to look out the window as bright sunlight filtered back into the carriage. "To start with maybe we should what the hell!"

All of the Peddlemen siblings started at their sister's curse. As bad as she could get when she felt strongly about something, Sheila was proud of her self-control. She almost never swore unless the situation deserved it.

Something large slammed into the ground just to the side of the train, sending the cars swaying dangerously back and forth. She barely caught herself on the overhead grating, the metal digging into her fingers as her body was sent right then left then right again. There was a loud 'ker-unch' and a shudder went through the train. Somehow, Lizbeth knew that the engine had jumped the tracks. The others hadn't managed to react in time, and so went tumbling around the interior of the car, banging against her and each other. The ear-piercing screech of metal on metal filled the air, and the train lurched to a sliding halt.

"Ow," Erick said in monotone, arms and legs akimbo, crushed between Percival and the floor of the compartment. The younger boy was shaking his head, blinking blearily from behind skewed glasses.

Sheila was the first to recover, scrambling from her position next to the door to the window, unheeding of her brothers' protests. She stared out the window, mouth agape.

"Sheila, what's wrong?" Lizbeth said, releasing her hold on the grating and looking out the window beside her sister.

She saw a giant, six-limbed beast standing on the grassy field that tracked along the side of the mountain. It looked like a horrific cross between an ape and a lizard scaled to twice the height of the car. The body was covered in deep green scales, with a long quadrupedal stance and a whip-like tail trailing behind it. The front legs were longer than the rear legs, and from beneath them stretched two long, spindly arms that even folded up look to be twice the length of its body. Its head was large and menacing, a narrow, lipless maw full of razor teeth set beneath four pale yellow eyes.

The beast roared and leaped towards the train, phlegm and spittle flying from its mouth as it raced forwards, the entire body rippling like water. It's right arm lashed out, fingers together like a spear tip and tore into the side of the train car ahead of the Peddlemen's. It came out with a man desperately flailing in its grasp. The left hand shot forwards as well, moving like lightning to dig someone else out of the cart. This time it came away with a woman, more of a girl who looked to be barely older than ten. She was struggling, beating her little fists against the beast's fingers. To no avail. It brought both captives up to its face, head swiveling from side to side like a bird's. It was weighing them, evaluating them. It settled on the man, maw pointing directly at him. The head shot forwards.

Lizbeth looked away, but she could still hear the beast's chewing, the girl's high pitched screams. Her gaze met Erick's, who had pulled himself up from where he fell. His face was drained and pale like he'd just been exsanguinated. He whispered a single word.

"Run."

They scrambled for the windows on the other side of the train.

----------------

People were screaming, and shouting. Lizbeth thought she heard someone trying to give directions, but she couldn't be bothered to pay attention. Running away was more important. A loud roar filled the air, coming from behind the train, giving new energy to her legs. Percival's hand was clasped tightly in hers, and they ran as fast as they could, Sheila just ahead of them and Erick behind. Other people were running with them, some lone individuals and a few families. No one spared a thought for others. She could see trees up ahead, a forest of dark, closely packed pines that in any other circumstances would have been foreboding. But now they promised shelter, safety. If they could get to them they could lose the lizard monster within the trees.

More roars sounded ahead of them, high pitched but still deep, coming from the forest ahead. Three more lizard-beasts snaked their way out of the trees, hungry eyes fixed on the herd of humans racing towards them. They were much smaller than the original one, but that still made them all larger than a car. The baby beasts sprinted forwards, heading straight towards them.

"Go back!" Sheila shouted, and the entire Peddlemen family turned on their heel.

They'd only made it a few steps before the mother started clambering over the still standing train cars, its clawed feet halfway to being hands that dug into the armored plating. Flesh stood out from beneath the green scales, thick muscles stretched taut.

"Right!" Erick screamed this time, and Lizbeth hurried to follow, pulling Percival along with her. He stumbled for a moment but regained his footing, and was hurrying along right beside her. Another high pitched cry filled the air, and the screams from those behind them grew in volume and fervor. At least they had more time to run. The ground was shaking as the beast leaped from the train. It hit the ground running, eating up the distance with long loping steps like a gorilla, its movements smooth and sinuous like a snake's. It was angling straight for them.

"It's catching up to us!" Lizbeth shouted. Her lungs heaved with air, and her limbs felt hot with fear. Someone was shouting encouragement, telling her to keep running, but she couldn't tell who. She just had to keep moving, to not stop, to get to safety and away from the predator. Then the beast was upon them, it's hand darting out. Percival shoved her, shoulder pressing into her back and his hand slipping free of hers. She went skidding, dirt and grass and rocks digging into her skin. Lizbeth whirled around and saw her little brother lying several feet from her, the beast's hand buried inside the ground, the arm a pillar of scarred green flesh. She looked up and met the yellow eyes staring down at her, motionless and still.

An explosion filled the air, and the beast was sent reeling. Red fire bloomed from its shoulder, and let out a pained yelp. A second explosion was hot on the tail of the first, and this time she saw the cannon shell impact against the torso, cratering scales and skin. The beast stumbled its right leg buckling. It pushed itself back to its feet and turned, roaring at what had attacked it.

Lizbeth didn't even spare a glance before she scrambled forwards, pulling Percival to his feet. Her hand clamped over his wrist like a vice, she rushed to where Erick and Sheila were pushing themselves to their feet.

"Are you hurt?" Sheila said, voice high and panicked. Lizbeth just shook her head, breath, coming in heaving pants, not trusting herself to form words.

"No time for that!" Erick said, "We have to keep moving!" He caught Sheila's hand in his own and turned back to the forest, taking off at a jog. Lizbeth and Percival hurried after them, sparing the occasional glance at where the explosions had come from. There were ten vehicles that looked like tanks coming over the hill, covered in copper piping and with stacks belching columns of steam into the air. One of them fired, a conical shell racing forwards to slam into the beast's side, just above the hip. Six tanks rushed past as fast as they could, ignoring the beast and angled directly for the younger ones that were attacking the others.

Those that remained banked to the sides, turrets turned to fire one a time, shots staggered and keeping the beast distracted. A shell would sail through the air and explode against the scaled hide. It would lose its footing and start to recover, then another shell would come zooming in. They all had an impressive firing rate. But for all that the tanks were haranguing it, it didn't look like they were doing much damage. Blood trickled from where previous shots had impacted, but they weren't the massive wounds Lizbeth thought they'd be. Its scales were like steel. As she watched, one of the circling tanks fired again, but this time the shot glanced off the beast's shoulder and skipped into the air where it exploded harmlessly. In the lull that followed, it lunged forwards towards the tank. The tank swerved to the side but failed to dodge the blow. It went flying into the air, right track breaking apart and pipes crushed together, and skipped across the ground like a stone. The other three tanks responded as one, firing their cannons in rapid succession. One after the other, 'bang, bang, bang.' The beast tucked its head and curled into a ball, weathering the assault of blasts. It had to let up eventually, and when it did, the beast reacted instantly. Its front legs dug into the ground and it sprinted forwards, past the wrecked tank and the broken cordon. It leaped into the air, heading straight for the Peddlemen siblings, maw open in a roar.

Sheila screamed and Percival ducked his head. Erick grabbed onto his siblings and threw them all to the ground. Lizbeth just watched on, eyes fixed on the beast.

Engines revved, treads ate through turf and gravel, and one of the tanks sped forwards, crashing into the beast just before it landed. Speed and momentum sent them both through the air, past the huddled siblings. They landed in a heap, digging into the ground and burying themselves in the ground. The tank's cannon fired an angry explosion of fury aimed point blank at the beast's chest. A great hunk of flesh was torn free, and blood flew from the wound and scattered in the air.

Lizbeth watched with bated breath, waiting for the beast to rise once again. Long seconds passed, tension filling the air as she waited for the next shoe to drop.

The moment was broken by a hatch on the side of the tank popping free, releasing a billowing cloud of steam. A figure emerged coughing from the smoke, quickly followed by two others. They stumbled away from the wrecked vehicle and cooling corpse, hands waving through the air and disbursing the smoke. They wore simple uniforms of trousers and long sleeved tunics colored red and silver. The cuts were unflattering and combined with their short cropped black hair to make them look identical at first glance. Lizbeth realized that one of them was a woman, and that the two men were satyrs like the train conductor.

"Well, that's one monster dealt with," the woman said as they neared. She scratched at the side of her head, looking over at the Peddlemen siblings. "Any of you four seriously hurt?"

They traded glances. "Um, not that we know of, miss…" Erick trailed off, voice uncertain.

"Sergeant Ameria Croft," the woman said. "T-34 gunner and commander, of the third tank group of the tenth northern battalion." She jerked a thumb at the two men of similar appearance next to her. "These are my squadmates, Ammer and Ferl Trunit. No need to thank us, all in a day's work." She placed her hands on her hips and blew out a breath, eyeing the beast lying on the ground. "Got to say though, that demidrakon really had it in for you. Lucky we were here, aye?" She gave them a cocky grin. Ammer snorted, burying his face in his hand, and got an elbow to the side for his trouble.

"Yeah, I guess so," Erick said. He glanced back across the fields where the other tanks were fighting the younger beasts, demidrakons. One was already dead, and the other two were being driven away from the civilians. "I'm Erick Peddlemen, and these are my siblings, Sheila, Lizbeth, and Percival." He shifted in place, glancing around. "So I guess your job is monster hunting?"

"And guarding against other nations," Ameria said with a nod. "But mostly we deal with monsters that get too close to the rail lines, yeah." She glanced back at her wrecked tank, scratching her head. "Strangest thing though. A mother that size should have known better than to attack a rail line, and even if it didn't our Conductor should have caught it. First sign we had of trouble was when the scout saw the family leaving their hunting grounds. Barely had time to mobilize the fast response group." She cut herself off with a colorful oath, backpedaling away from the demidrakon corpse.

Only, Lizbeth realized, it wasn't a corpse. With great, ponderous movements, the demidrakon leveraged itself onto its feet, its movements slow but still self-assured. Its chest was a bloody ruin of blood, scale, and bone, and she could see bits of shrapnel caught in the muscles. But it was still moving. The damn thing was still alive.

"Easy now," Ameria said, arms held out to either side. "Move back slowly. She's injured, and if a beast like her has any sense she'll retreat to lick her wounds." Ferl looked like he wanted to faint, and Lizbeth didn't feel much different. "We've still got a chance to get out of this without much issue," Ameria continued. "Just have to not draw its attention…" The demidrakon rounded on the group, all four eyes narrowed into a glare, pupils shrunk so small as to be invisible. "Nevermind, run." Putting words into action, the brunet turned on her heel and sprinted away, everyone else close behind her.

The demidrakon roared.

The last two tanks fighting the demidrakon were stopped by the one that had been tossed into the air, helping pull the survivors free of the wreck. The crew for the closer one ducked back into the vehicle, the engine letting out a few putters as they tried to bring it back to life. The other was slower to respond, and Lizbeth could see two of its crewmen supporting a third, bloody body.

The first tank fired a hasty shot, the shell passing just over their heads only to miss the demidrakon. Lizbeth swore she could feel the wind tossel her hair. It wasn't moving as fast as it was before, its pace almost like a pained limp, but with its size it was still rapidly eating the distance between them. It's engine finally sputtered into life, and the turf was mulched beneath its treads as it charged forwards to the side, racing past the foot bound soldiers and passing daringly close to the monster. However, it didn't take the bait, eyes fixed on the fleeing humans.

Finally, the other tank began to move, its crew having lowered their injured comrade into the turret. The shot it fired hit true, digging into the demidrakon's exposed chest wound but failing to truly penetrate. By now the thing was almost on them.

Lizbeth glanced around, filled with dread certainty that they'd all die if they stayed out in the open. It'd catch up to them and shove them all into its fanged maw, chomping them up into little tiny pieces. But there wasn't much shelter on the exposed, hilly terrain of rock and turf, with even the largest boulder barely coming up to the demidrakon's knees. The only viable cover was…

"Head for the wreckage!" She shouted out, putting on a burst of speed, Percival right beside her. "We can hide under it!"

"No! Don't go there!" Ameria called.

"Lizbeth, Percival!" Sheila screamed. She made to go after them, but Ammer caught her by the arm, Ferl doing the same with Erick.

The demidrakon shifted course, ignoring the tank shells raining around it to angle straight for the two children who had split off from the group. Doubt filled Lizbeth, but she kept running. Even if she had just doomed her and her little brother, there was no turning back, they needed to press forward. She was committed to the path now.

Lizbeth dove forwards as the demidrakon's arm launched forwards, shooting past her and smashing itself into the tank's broken skirt. Not stopping, she scrambled forwards, worming her way under the tank, the back of her sweater catching on pieces of metal. Percival wasn't with her, but she didn't have time to worry about that. The wreck shuddered as the demidrakon passed over it, momentum carrying it several feet before it could stop. She could see a hatch in the bottom of the tank, blown open when it had landed, and made for it. She'd die if she stayed out in the open.

The interior was full of steam pouring out of the ruptured engine, and Lizbeth pressed her sweater sleeve against her face. The inside was splattered with blood, and she deliberately ignored the visible lump of something near the front. A mad idea entered her head as the tank rocked back and forth, the demidrakon's hand slamming against the metal. The tanks had done the most damage when firing point blank, and its chest was already a bloody mess. Maybe she could do the same with the wreck's cannon?

Lizbeth glanced out of the open side hatch and saw in the distance that three of the other tanks had turned and were heading straight for them, but were still some distance out. Another blow shook the tank she was hiding in, accompanied by the distinct sound of metal being peeled away. She needed to act now before the beast fished her out like sardines from a can.

Worming her way up into the turret, Lizbeth sat down in the seat and glanced at the arcane array of pistons and levers surrounding her. What the hell was she thinking? She had no idea what any of these things did! Taking a wild guess, she grabbed a silver wheel and gave it a tug. The turret shuddered and spun a couple feet to the left. The air was filled with a surprised snort that was far too close for comfort. Okay, so, the wheel turned the turret, and unless she was very wrong that device would fire the cannon. Was it loaded? She hoped that red slider on the side meant it was because she couldn't see how she'd load a shell the size of her torso. She just needed to get the barrel lined up with the demidrakon's chest, and she could kill it. She had this, she could do this.

The tank was rocked by an even harder blow, tossing Lizbeth about like a sack of grain. There was the terrible sound of metal grinding on metal, and she stared in horror as four large claws pierced through the wall right in front of her. The edges were still sharp, not even chipped or dulled. What kind of evolution would give an animal something like that?! They flexed once, twice, and then slowly pulled away, taking the metal with it. Dull green scales were becoming more visible, the opening wide enough for Lizbeth to crawl through. Or be snatched through.

Lizbeth almost fired then and there, but she didn't. Her breath was coming in quick gasps. Blood was pumping in her ears. She tasted the adrenaline in her mouth. Sweat coated her palms. But she didn't fire the shell that she knew was loaded. It wasn't in position yet. It was clawing away the covering in front of her, but it wasn't in position. She was exposed, vulnerable. All the demidrakon would need to do was stop peeling away the armor and shove its hand inside the tank; she could die at any second. But firing the cannon at the wrong moment would get her killed. That fact didn't calm her, didn't center her. It just made her all the more aware of her surroundings. Aware of Percival crouching behind the crushed tread, shivering with fear. Aware of the soldiers desperately holding Erick and Sheila back from rushing in. Aware of the six-limbed monster straddling the tank, right foreleg peeling away at the armor, its weight shifting as it peered through the hole, the chest wound lowered to just in front of the barrel-

Her hands squeezed down on the firing mechanism and Lizbeth let out a scream. A flash of white orange light blinded her and ringing filled her ears. She curled up into a tight ball as the world shook around her, arms wrapped around her head. For a time she sat there shaking, certain that she had messed up and at any moment the demidrakon would reach through the hole and gobble her up.

When such a thing continued to not happen, and the ringing in her ears faded, Lizbeth wits returned to her. She could hear shouting, Sheila's if she wasn't mistaken, and pained inhuman noises that were not unlike someone blowing bubbles. She crawled forwards, out of the hole torn in the front of the turret and into the open air. The sun seemed so much brighter after the darkness of the tank, casting everything in a painful luminance. The demidrakon was on the ground in front of her, blood pooling on the ground. The limbs were twitching erratically, and the small hands at the ends of its arms were grasping at empty air. The thing's eyes were rolled backward, the jaw working up and down.

As it moved Lizbeth saw the blood bubble as it left the body, and she realized that she must have punctured a lung or esophagus. With one last shudder, the beast stilled, limbs going limp.

It was dead. For real this time.

"Lizbeth! Percival!" The shout shook her from her thoughts, and she turned to see Sheila running towards her, face streaked with tears and short brown hair frazzled. Erick was hot on her heels, eyes watery and face stressed. Lizbeth stumbled forwards, towards her siblings, and missed the drop from where she stood on the turret to the tank's pipe covered body. She slipped before she could catch herself and went tumbling to the ground, banging her shins against the metal. She was pulled from the ground by a pair of strong hands and found herself held tightly in Erick's embrace, quickly joined by Sheila and Percival. Her little brother wasn't hurt, was he? he'd been hiding behind the treads.

"Oh thank God, thank God you're both alright." Sheila was babbling, her mouth running a mile a minute. She was talking about Mom and Dad being upset, even though it had been years since they'd died, and then about how she'd been so worried, what she thought might have happened, why had she been so reckless, what on earth had she been thinking. All Lizbeth could focus on was how tight Erick was holding her, her right arm pinned against her chest and left side feeling like it was being crushed.

It was around that point where her memory grew fuzzy as she finally broke down. Her breath came in deep, messy sobs. Her arms were wrapped around her family as best as she was able and held them tight as tears ran down her face and her cries caught in her throat.

It was over, and they were all alive.

----------------

"And that's all you have to report on what happened, Sergeant?" The tall, well-dressed man asked Ameria, glancing at the cooling demidrakon corpse.

"Yes, sir," Ameria said, right hand held flat across her chest in salute. She desperately hoped her face didn't betray anything. Around them the rest of the third tank group were busy with the after-action recovery, taking stock of the damages and giving the shell-shocked civilians blankets and fresh stew. More like broth with some grass thrown in, but it was the best they could do with what they had.

The man in front of her was Cain Tabberanth, leader of the tenth battalion's tank groups and her commanding officer. He possessed the ranks of both Captain of the Armored Cavalry and Adept Conductor and had done much to earn her respect. Out of all the Conductor's stationed along the northern border, he'd been the first to respond when the scouting teams had reported that the demidrakons were moving, mobilizing the third tank group as a forward force, understrength but fast enough to hopefully save some of those caught in the attack. He was the one who had left her and the other three crews to contain the mother while he and the rest dealt with the offspring.

Cain eyed her, then directed his gaze towards where the civilians sat huddled together, specifically towards the four Peddlemen children. The meaning in the motion was clear.

"Sir, I am certain none of them have been trained as Conductors, or even possess the ability to become one." Ameria didn't really believe her words, but she'd rather have failed her superior than put those kids through even more trouble. She had no idea what their circumstances were, but this was definitely their first personal encounter with a monster. The fear, the confusion, the desperation...it was rare to find people so honestly out of their depths like that. It reminded her of her little brother.

"You are a loyal and capable soldier, Sergeant Croft. In your time under me, you have done much to reflect that." Cain reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a tin of cigars. "So I will believe that is your conviction, and make note of it in my report." He lit one with a casual flick of his lighter, pausing to take a long, deep puff. "However, in light of present circumstances and their unusualness, I feel it will be necessary to perform Examinations on the survivors, once we return to base. Thorough, Examinations."

Ameria blanched, and barely bit back the objection that rose to her lips. Instead, she settled for a sour glare.

Cain met her eyes, expression unreadable. Although to Ameria's mind, he looked tired. But that might have just been the crows feet at the corners of his eyes and the shocks of grey through his hair. "Fewer and fewer people with the ability to Conduct have been taken in for training in the past years, let alone those with any appreciable talent. Either people have gotten good at hiding and patriotism is gone, or our stock is running dry. Either way, we need to take every chance we find. Furthermore, four fully trained Conductors of Novice rank and two of Adept rank were unable to anticipate this situation. Demidrakon's just don't pull this kind of shit on their own. Protocol dictates the Examinations be performed as a matter of course if only to catch any would-be infiltrators. Your record is exemplary, so you have little need to fear this reflecting poorly on you. Honest mistakes happen from time to time." He took another puff, looking out to the torn up and bloodstained ground. The wrecks were already loaded onto the railway for easy transport. "We move out in thirty minutes, I suggest using that time to talk to the children, if you feel so responsible for them. They could use some advice on how things in Terth work, I think."

He walked away, his bum leg putting a noticeable limp into his pace.

Ameria blew out a slow breath through gritted teeth. Damn her but Cain was right. They needed more conductors, and if that Lizbeth's talent was even half as good as she suspected, they couldn't afford to let it slip by. Damn her if she didn't hate that.

The sergeant tromped back towards where the Turit brothers were chatting up the Peddlemen siblings, regaling them with some old barracks gossip. Probably one of the raunchier stories based on the embarrassed laughs the children were trying to smother. Then she caught the tail end of the story and had to fight down a blush of her own.

"Now just what sorts of stories are you telling them, hmm?" She said, arms folded across her chest.

"Ah, speak of a beast and it shall appear behind you!" Ammer said, whirling around. He was still grinning widely, but she could see the flustered sweat on his brow. He had no idea when or where, but he knew her payback would come for him soon enough. It always did. "I was just telling these wonderful children about your bravery and skill, Sergeant!" He glanced at his brother for aid, but Ferl just stood there fighting down his own smile, reveling in his brother's precarious situation. He was smart enough to know when to clear the line of fire.

"No doubt," Ameria said. "Now go, shoo, I need to talk with the kids myself for a bit." She waved them onwards, letting the two escape her wrath, for the moment. Turning back to the four siblings, she noticed how their relaxed smiles faded as they took in her grim posture. If there was one thing they weren't, it was dumb.

"Is something the matter, Sergeant Croft?" The elder sister, Sheila if she recalled correctly, asked. She was huddled up close to Lizbeth, and her free hand rested on Percival's shoulder. Erick sat next to them, back straight and chin raised, exploiting his height and broad frame to the best of his abilities. "We're not in trouble for anything, are we?"

"No, not yet at least," Ameria said. She crouched down on her heels, hands clasped together and gaze level with theirs. "Tell me something, how familiar are you with Conductors?"

The siblings traded glances, confusion and apprehension clear in the ways they held themselves. "You mean like a train conductor?" Sheila said, her voice leading.

"No, I mean as in Conductors, capital C." Gods, she wished she didn't have to do this. But any hope they'd had of going unnoticed had gone out the window with the demidrakons. Better to find out now rather than later, when the tests happened. "I don't know how much the common folk of the other kingdoms talk about them, but I'm guessing you know the basics. Blessed with supernatural awareness of their surroundings, ability to predict the future, enhanced reflexes, yadda yadda yadda. Everyone uses them in their armies, kinda have to, you know?" She glanced away, towards the distant tunnel entrance in the mountaintop, where the train tracks emerged from. "Thing that makes Terth different from elsewhere is that service is mandatory for anyone with Talent, no matter how great or small. It's what gives our armies the edge they have, what with our small territory but dense population." She turned back to the Peddlemen's to see confused caution on their faces, except for Lizbeth's. That girl seemed to have realized what was going on and was none too pleased about it. "It's not all bad. Conductors who make it past Initiate always receive a good pay, and a good living conditions for their family as well. And with the current political climate, I don't see anyone declaring war on us for some years yet, if ever really."

"Not that we don't appreciate the information," Erick said, eyes narrowed. "But why are you telling us this?"

Ameria smiled at him. "Trained Conductors can get pretty good at know how something's going to work out, and how to direct events. So when something unexpected happens, it tends to get noticed. Captain Cain's a Conductor himself, and I think he's already got what caused this pinned down. Once we bring you all back to base, you're all going to get examined for Conduction talent. Anyone found is going to either get tried for endangering lives and damages caused, or be forced to join the army and become a citizen of Terth. Sorry to say, but you kids aren't gonna be able to pass through without notice." She stood up, brushing imaginary dirt from her knees. "Me and my crew have gotta get back to helping with the cleanup, Ammer and Ferl have wasted enough of their time already." She made eye contact with Lizbeth and nodded in respect. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. If there's anything I could have done, I would have."

She turned on her heel and left.

----------------

"What was that about?" Sheila said.

Erick scratched his chin. "She was definitely trying to tell us something, but what about is anyone's guess."

"Maybe a Conductor snuck in among the passengers?" Sheila said. "I just wonder why we never heard about them before now. Wouldn't someone have told us about them, if they were so important?"

"No, you'd be surprised." Percival sighed, rubbing at the knot that had formed between his eyebrows. "Think about stuff back home for a moment. No one would think to explain who police officers or firefighters are to a teenager, it'd just be assumed they knew. Now that I think about it I do remember a few people mentioning 'Conductors' when we were gathering information, but I just didn't think it important."

"Still," Erick said. "If that's the case, wonder what they wanted sneaking into Terth like this."

"Well whoever they were," Sheila said, "It was very irresponsible of them to do so. Look at the people who have died!"

Silence hung in the air for a few moments, and Lizbeth licked her lips. Unlike her siblings, she had a pretty good idea of what was going on. "I think I'm the Conductor."

Her siblings boggled, looking at her like she'd grown a second head.

"What are you talking about Liz?" Erick said. "You can't be. You're smart but your not some master planner like what the Sergeant was describing. And besides, you're not even from this world. How could you have some strange power like what she was describing."

"Even their existence is a bit hard to believe," Sheila said. "Only reason I'm willing to buy it is because monsters exist, and the anachronistic levels of technology we've already seen."

"I'm not sure I really believe it either," Lizbeth said, hunching forwards to wrap her arms around her legs. "But it's the only explanation I can think of to explain things." She swallowed, her throat dry. "When the demidrakon was chasing us I knew it was going to get us if I didn't run off when I did. It was foreboding, or fear, or anything like that. I was more certain of that fact than I'd been of anything in my life."

"Yeah, but that was-"

"And then in the tank," Lizbeth didn't let Erick finish, rolling right over him. "For a moment I knew with perfect clarity where each of you were and what was going on. I don't remember the details now, but I saw every facet of the demidrakon all once. How it loomed over me, where the injuries in its chest were, the bits of flesh caught in between its teeth. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before."

"You were riding an adrenaline high," Sheila said, tone placating. "Everyone becomes more aware of what's going on at those moments, and experiencing audio and visual illusions is far from unheard of."

"That's not it!" Lizbeth shouted, burying her face in her knees. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes but she stubbornly forced them back. She was shaking, her fingers twitching in and out of closed fists again, her breath hurried. The people nearby them had looked over at the shout, but they slowly turned back to their own affairs. Sheila and Erick were both looking at her with worry, expressions conflicted. She could see the way her elder brother was tearing at the grass and was scared about what that meant.

Percival shifted so that he was behind her and leaned forward, resting his weight on her back as his arms came around to hug her. "It's been like this for a while now, hasn't it?" He asked, voice quiet.

Lizbeth nodded.

"Do you want to talk about it now, or later?"

She forced a deep breath through her lungs and ignored the watery lilt to her voice. "Ever since we got to Emel I've felt off. Like, I was hyper-aware of the things going on around me. Remember those pickpockets? None of you even noticed them until I pointed them out, but to me, they couldn't have been less subtle if they tried. Or what about at the train station? None of you gave Terth a second thought until I started arguing for it. I just thought it was me being more alert, unfamiliar circumstances forcing me to be more aware of things. But with what happened with the demidrakon, and after what Ameria told us, I'm certain it's because I'm a Conductor."

Erick and Sheila traded a look, and after a few moments, they moved to sit on either side of their younger siblings, wrapping them both in a hug.

"Okay, we'll believe you on this," Erick said. "But that means that we can't go to the military base with everyone else. You heard what Ameria said, you're going to be forced to join up with them."

"But what else can we do?" Sheila said. "We can't just run off. Not only would that make us all look guilty and draw more attention, but there must be other monsters out there. We'd never survive."

"Join up with her," Percival said. "We can't keep Liz out of the military, but we can go in with her. You two are fifteen and sixteen, and I can just say I'm a few years older if they have an age limit. None of us have any conditions that would stop us either. Besides Sergeant Ameria, we can see there are some female soldiers, so even Sheila should be able to do it."

"Hmm, you're not wrong," Sheila said. "And if we volunteer when she gets drafted, there's a good chance we'll be put in the same unit as Lizbeth. With my management skills, I can get myself working under the quartermaster. Erick, you've always been good with machines. Think you work on tanks?"

"It's worth a shot," Erick said. "Besides, how bad could their last century rust buckets be compared to motorcycles?"

Lizbeth looked at her siblings, mouth agape. "You can't all be serious about this! Do you really want to join the army?"

"Not at all." Sheila frowned, lips pinched together. "But there are no real options for getting you out of joining, and splitting up isn't really an option now is it?"

"But what if I get sent somewhere that's only for Conductors?" Lizbeth said. "Ameria said some stuff about training, and since I have none they'll definitely need that. There's nothing we can do about that!"

"Then we'll improvise," Percival said. He was fiddling with a notebook he'd pulled from his bag, retrieved from the train earlier. "If it's in a city, we'll move there and buy a house or something. A military training facility, we'll just go and join up there."

"We fought every attempt the foster care system made to separate us," Erick said. "Like hell we're gonna give up in the face of some forced enlistment."

"The point is, Lizbeth," Sheila leaned forwards, hands on her knees. "You're stuck with us, like it or not.

Lizbeth pressed her hands to her face, a sob mixed with a laugh welling up in her throat. She threw herself forwards and pulled her siblings into a hug, tears leaking from her eyes and emotions overwhelming her rational thoughts. Worries about what else this strange new world would throw at her were for later. For now, she'd just focus on this moment, and the love she shared with her family.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] 254

Artillery thundered, machine guns rapped, and rifles cracked. The sounds of war filled the burned out hovel that used to be a town. Smokey black clouds blocked out the sun as a filthy burning drizzle fell.

As I moved past a house, I saw something move next to me on my left. Without a thought, my hand swung through glass reflexively. Glass fell to the floor and red eyes peered back at me from reflection of the glass on the floor.

Sighing, I wiped my hand on my appropriated green canvas uniform before pushing a lock of white hair under my tin hat.

"Eins, where are you?!" I yelled while sweeping over the street. The damp ground giving under my feet, I trotted on, "Eins!"

A soldier jumped out from cover, saw me, stuttered something in what sounded like French to me while pointing his riffle up at me.

I briefly imaged what it looked like to him, running around alone in a war-zone then running into what looks like a person riding a giant monster boar. Which is completely the wrong impression, I'm not riding anything. The monster is me.

The brief distraction was enough time for the soldier to get his nerve back and start shooting. He got off three shoots that hit me on the lower body's snout and right shoulder and the upper body's collar bone right through the canvas. While the shots didn't actually do much damage to me, I returned fire with my rifle and missed while he dived back to cover.

Not wanting to waste time, I picked up speed and ran passed the soldier's position. Unfortunately the ground did little to suppress the sound of my feet carrying ten tons of muscle moving at fifty miles per hour. Or maybe it was a good thing and soldiers would think it was more artillery?

Slowing down at a pile of ruble that I picked up the smell of blood from, I began to dig out the source of the blood with my front legs. Under the ruble were 5 bodies; four in one type of uniform and the fifth in a different type.

From my lower body, four bodies fell out. A mix of human and boar, each one had different specialties with brains, brawn, scouting, and a balanced one. All stood one 2 legs while hunched over so they could put their nose to the ground while keeping their eyes up and had hands they could use to hold things or shoot with.

Already knowing what I wanted they began looting the corpses and equipping themselves. Once they were done, extra loot was put in a sack that sat behind me on my boar back, the bodies we fed to the giant murder pig, and I sent them off knowing that I would most likely never see them again. I began making the next batch and it's better not to think of where they come from.

Fires burned, bombs went off, and while I couldn't hear it I knew men were yelling screaming and dying all around me under the din of the fighting. I was getting closer to the thick of it and I saw a man stumble out of a cloud of yellow smog trying to retch up his own lungs. I reached behind me and put on the mask that smelled of piss and other fluids. While I had run through a cloud of poison before and knew I could live through it, it was far more unpleasant than the mask and I had another head that didn't have a mask.

Taking a detour around the yellow cloud, I came to an open square with a church with a bell-tower. Standing in-front of the church was a figure clad head to toe in metal armor. His armor had no gaps and glowed blue in certain patterns. In his hand was what looked like a cross between a tanks main cannon and a knights lance and by his side was a shield to match but neither were at the ready.

In the street leading out of the square and to where I would place where the fighting was fiercest, was a machine gun nest made out of sand bags. In the windows of the church, I could see offices staring out. I looked back at the armor, its head tilted to the side, and met its gaze.

"Merde," well I know what that meant if that was French. Slowly so not to make them raise their guns, I backed away slowly and, as soon as I had concealment, turned and ran.

Back trekking to the yellow cloud and detouring around the other way, I stopped when I smelled blood again. There were the remains of a field hospital. Rows of formerly clean white sheets were mostly abandoned say some unlucky few that were either shot down running, got hit by the gas, or trampled on by others running away.

Leading away from the hospital are what looks like a stampede of footprints in one direction and a trail of blood, scales, battered soldiers, and crushed brick. Eins probably made the bloodier one.

Following the bloody trail while being careful not to step on anything important, lead to more of the same but the battered soldiers and crushed brick became less common. I had traveled the better part of a mile when I caught up to Eins and who she was fighting. Of course being part giant angry murder pig, they saw me first and decided to shoot first.

I wasn't able to count the bullets that were hitting me as they were shooting faster than I could count but the ones that hit my lower body would break the skin and make me bleed a little and the 2 that hit my upper body put 2 more holes in my shirt. One got lucky and hit my lower body in the eye. The sting of the bullets and getting hit in the eye made me flinch, stumble, trip, then crash through a building.

The building crumbled and blinded me. Not wanting to run into Eins I slowed down and kept my eyes closed. They were easy to keep track of from the bullets hitting me. Then something exploded under the boar's jaw.

It felt like I fell even though I was still standing. The under side of my body felt like someone had just scraped off. As my body continued to say I was falling I put one foot in front of the other. My upper body's breath was ragged as I dry heaved.

Opening an eye to try and find the bastards shooting me. The dust made my eyes water, everything was moving the wrong way, and it was hard to tell one thing covered in dirt and blood from another but the riffle flashes made it possible.

My lower body sucked in a breath in preparation when I was forty feet away, at thirty feet away my body was lit on fire, and at twenty feet my lower body roared as loud as it could. Energy channeled through my body amplifying my roar. The fire was pushed back, the bastards shooting me fell, and a building next to me fell.

Maneuvering my boar body on it's side so I cold pick up Eins, I crushed two or three of the men. Wrapping my left arm around Eins, I tossed aside my looted rifle and dug out a uniform for Eins to wear. I let out a few more human boar hybrids and tossed my loot sack away.

I caught a glimpse of my monsters attacking the still stunned soldiers before I left. I ran without caring what was between myself and the forest outside the hovel. Buildings fell, an artillery shell hit my hind leg, people were crushed if they didn't move. But none of that mattered, Eins was hurt and we were going back.

Eins eyes were bleeding and her hacking sobs had blood in them so I put my mask over her mouth to help her breath. Her panicked struggles continued so I pet her head and hummed to her as I would whenever us and our sisters ate together. Hopefully that calms her down and doesn't stimulate her appetite.

Taking stock of her, Eins was a mess. What was left of her lower body was a mess and more torn flesh than intact. Of the snake four tails she had made for herself, only two remain attached. There are gashes, bruises, and burns on her upper body. She's also exhausted and poisoned. Prognosis probably won't be good but she's still alive.

"Damn," I grimace as I hit my leg again. Taking a indirect path through the forest, we arrive back to our homely cave dungeon. Blood has soaked into the canvas Eins was wearing. I'm still unsure weather a prolonged death like my own is better than a sudden one but if there's a chance to live a good life it's worth dragging things out.

Deeper in the cave, Un, Uno, Alpha, A, Ichi, and Aon were sleeping. I slipped past them and further into the facility. I pulled a handle and the door opened. Out stepped what I best describe as a mad-scientist, wizard, Nazi who is also Italian. The dungeon overseer and our master.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] Everybody Wants to Rule the World

Everybody Wants to Rule the World

It was, in Robert's opinion, one of the better jobs he could have. Sure, sitting around in a room all day wasn't the definition of fun, but he had all the sensor readings and his partner to stave off the boredom with. It was much more preferable than an actual guard job. He shuddered. Those guys never really lasted past a few years, one way or another.

"Yo, Rob. Did you hear about the new restaurant up on Fourteenth Level? Apparently it's some Asian-Northern mix," That was his partner, Dave. He certainly wasn't the worst partner Robert could have, but his conversation topics tended to stray towards a certain topic.

"Yeah, supposed to be pretty good from what I've heard. Isn't Park's squad stationed up there? Lucky her."

Dave hummed in agreement, looking like he was about to say something, but returned to face his monitors. He fidgeted a moment in the awkward silence, before breaking it. "Man, those guys have it way better than us. I mean, here we are stuck in a box, and they're out there facing down the real threats. Like, I know it's dangerous, sure, but nothing's we never do anything. I'm going to go insane here!"

It wasn't anything Robert hadn't heard before. Yadda yadda yadda, I'm so bored, it would be so much more fun to go gun down some monsters, blah blah blah. Dave never would actually act on those feelings, though. His partner was just all talk. That was why he was stuck down here with him.

Still, he was wrong about one thing.

"Actually, the Breach Events are increasing in frequency. There haven't been any in our area, but overall, there's been a noticeable uptick."

"Wha- really?" Robert smirked. He knew that would get to him. "How did you figure that out? I mean, what about the quarantine filters?"

"It actually wasn't that hard." He turned with a grin. "The sensors don't show anything past our sector, but that's because they aren't supposed to. Just connect directly to the physical instrument, and bam, there's the raw data. I didn't even need to process that too much, only the real big readings could possibly be Events."

Dave raised a finger.

"Ehhh..." He grimaced for a moment. "Wouldn't Command not like that? Like, not like that a lot?"

Sure, Command wouldn't really be pleased about the fact that he was getting past the sector net, but it's not like they would ever find out.

Robert waved his hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it."

"You know you say that, but it doesn't really convince me at all."

"You're just too paranoid."

"And you aren't paranoid enough, dude."

Meh. He turned back to the monotony of the sensor readings. Really, what was the chance that-

++Warning: High Energy Event Detected. Possible Breach Event Occurrence.++

The word just slipped out of his mouth. "Motherfucker."

To his side, his partner let out a high pitched giggle. "Told you, ha, you totally jinxed it. Oh geez, oh man... I don't want to end up like Site 23, man. That was some really bad stuff that went down there because of the-"

It had taken him a moment, but Robert collected himself. "Stop rambling and get Command on the line. I'll raise the local squads. It's not going to be as bad as Site 23, that was a one in a million occurrence. Now, hurry up."

Both of the leapt into their work with a newfound energy. For Dave, it was barely redirected panic that sent his fingers dancing across his station's controls, sending and receiving a flurry of reports to and from Command, who had already jumped on the situation. It was important to get on top of things as quickly as they could, lest the situation grow out of control. Not that anyone quite knew exactly what the situation was, yet. That was what Robert was trying to coordinate.

His board lit up with response lights, indicating the plethora of security forces checking in after the emergency message he sent out. Half of the lights were lit up in a ready to go green, and more were clicking on with an increasing urgency. Even as he murmured commands into his microphone, his real attention was on his sensor readings. The initial readings were still processing, but he could infer some things from the raw data right away.

Most importantly, the magnitude wasn't that high. Rating in at around a medium-low level, it wasn't the worst that could happen by far. That didn't mean it would be harmless though. Whole sub-sectors had been lost to far less because they had been unprepared. Robert frowned. He had heard the horror stories of course. Wild tales of horrible twisted monstrosities pouring through tears in reality, massive explosions borne from which no man knows, of accidents utterly breaking the minds of all that tried to understand it. They had all been exaggerated, of course. All gossip was, that was the whole point. The thoughts crept in, regardless.

He had to stay calm.

The positioning data flashed up, promising him a distraction. It was hard to triangulate these signals, given all the background readings, but he could at least get a general area from it. It was most likely... the housing wing of Fifteenth Level? That was somewhat strange. Breaches, even the smaller ones like this, tended to need large amount of resources. Hiding the use of them was difficult, and doing it in one of the more heavily surveyed areas of the Site seemed like a needless risk. Still, he had a location.

Turning to the comm board, Robert readied a message for Security. "Breach located, most probably in Fifteenth Level's housing wing. More precise information will be updated as it is processed." He turned back to do just that as a wave of confirmations poured out of his headphones.

As he did that, he spared a glace towards Dave's position. Robert's partner was frantically trying to parse reports from what seemed like half of Command while answering queries from the other half.

"How's it looking?" Robert asked.

He got a nervous chuckle in return, Dave not even looking up from his screens. "Command's gotten all up in arms about this, man. They've already sent for one of the special task forces. Like, that's standard for this, right, but I'm pretty sure they called up one of the really hush-hush ones for this. Couldn't even see who they are, Command's gotten really quite about it. About the whole thing, really."

Robert felt his eyebrows raise. "Really? This is only a lower-level event. Do they know something we don't?"

"Well yeah," He snorted, "but the Breach only just happened. Oh man, you don't think there's something special about this one?"

He stayed quite, his eyes involuntarily tracking back over all the data he had received. Nothing stood out, same as his first pass over it. Then again, maybe something was buried deeper down in the mess of numbers?

"I'm not sure. Command seems to think so, though. Keep on your toes, just in case."

"Yes sir, on my tippy-toes, full alert."

As they both got back to their respective stations, Robert pulled up all the data again. He still kept his attention on the status of the Security forces steadily closing in on the Breach location, but he had to check again. Just in case he missed something, anything that would hint at an anomalous Event. Even if Command had some other perfectly reasonable purpose for their extra measures, he couldn't take any chances.

He skimmed over the recently compiled report the computer generated, as well as constant streams of raw data he probably shouldn't of had access to. The summaries held nothing new, power levels, energy analysis, and all the other readings falling comfortably within their tolerances. The data direct from the sensors, however, told a slightly different story. Everything was mostly the same as reported, except for the energy analysis. Something was just slightly off, compared to what he would expect. Not that Robert had any real experience with Breach energy, and it wasn't anything the computer picked up, but it still tickled the suspicious part of his mind.

He pulled up some reference material onto his screen. A compilation of past Breach Event data. Not something that he should really have, but Robert wasn't the best at keeping his nose from where it didn't belong. He brought up the sections of data where the discrepancies seemed to be the largest. Referencing them to his current readings, Robert saw that there was indeed a change, one bigger than he had first thought. Still subtle, though. It was spread across enough of the data that one section by itself didn't constitute as a departure from the norm, only when taken as a whole did it look unique. He couldn't even guess at what the changes would bring.

Whoever was responsible for this must have been very knowledgeable, or very lucky. Robert didn't know which he preferred.

…

"I swear I have no idea what happened."

The woman across the room from Angelo shoots him a pointed glare. He cringed down further, trying to get away from the accusing gaze. "Really, I didn't try to do anything."

Angelo was telling the truth. He hadn't been trying to summon some random lady from who-knows-where, in fact he hadn't been trying to summon anything at all. All he wanted was to print a nice new piece of art for his dorm, but then it just had to go explode.

The lady didn't look impressed. "Yeah, then how did I show up here, huh? Fifteenth Level? Housing Unit? What does that even mean?"

He sighed in defeat. If she didn't even recognize those locations he had told her, then she probably isn't from anywhere near here. Another Site, maybe? Angelo just hoped that this whole situation could with the displaced woman didn't wouldn't take too long. The quicker he could get back to his art and the strangely dressed lady back to whatever she did, the better. Really, who even wore shirts and pants anymore?

He gestured with his robe-clad arm towards the scorch mark on the floor. "I was just printing a piece I found the intranet, and when I took it out, there was an explosion or something, I guess. Then you were there." It had been quite surprising. Nobody expects a bright green explosion going off in their room, even if Angelo had worked on some... well, unique pieces before. "You were there when I got back up, you asked where you where and I told you, and now you're asking me more questions. That's all I know, okay?"

He didn't know it was possible, but her glare got even worse, somehow. "Look, I just... I'm just as confused as you are."

Her terrifying glare lasted a moment longer, before she sighed and looked away. "Sure. Okay. So, I just ended up in your apartment or whatever by magic, then?"

Angelo tilted his head. "What's magic?"

"You- you don't know what magic is?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "What is it? Like, some sort of teleportation method?"

Maybe she was experimenting with some experimental tech, (magic?), and ended up here by coincidence. It wasn't his fault, or the fault of the art he got off some shady site. It was just an accident.

"What?" The woman's face scrunched up in confusion, her dark hair bobbing back and forth. Maybe not then? "I- don't you have fantasy? You know, supernatural powers, fireballs? That's magic."

"Oh." Guess not, then. "Nope, never heard of it. Is... that how you got here?"

And now her glare was back. He shivered. Angelo didn't know what he did wrong this time, but then again, he wasn't the most social of people.

"No- I don't- gah, nevermind. And what did you mean by teleportation method? Is that a thing you people have?" She shook her head, then turned to the side, muttering. "No, he doesn't know anything about magic or whatever, so it can't be that."

"Anyway," she coughed. "Take me to your governmental authority, or whatever. They'll be able to sort this out better than you."

Angelo figured that was probably the best course of action, anyway. "Sure- sure. That would be Site Command, I guess. Shouldn't be that far away." It would be for the best to hand off this whole issued to someone else, seeing that the lady was getting confusing to talk to, not to mention more frightening.

Nodding in satisfaction, she turned and started to walk to his door. And for that matter, it was getting annoying having to refer to her as 'she' and 'that lady' in his head. "Hey, what's your name anyway?"

She stopped and half turned back, meeting Angelo's eyes again. "My name is Kirsten."

She turned back just in time for the door to explode into her face.

…

"DOWN DOWN DOWN ON THE FLOOR!"

Angelo had been standing up, and now he found himself on his carpeted floor. How did he get here again? He had been... talking with someone?

He could see smoke roll over the floor in front of him. It looked kind of weird at this angle, sort of like fog creeping up a wall. Or something.

He had been talking with someone. A girl? Girls didn't come to his place. She had- she had appeared? His thoughts were fuzzy, a thick molasses dripping down into his brain, sticking in the cracks. Mmm, molasses.

He realized his arm was vaguely hurting, and realized he was on top of the appendage. Propping himself with the other arm, he caught a quick glimpse of some black-clad people crowding into his room. Man, he hadn't had this many people over, like, since last Happiness Day.

Angelo tried to say something, to apologize for the disheveled state of his place, but nothing came out. He realized his vision was unusually narrow and filled with static. That probably wasn't a good thing. Angelo let himself fall back down to the floor. Nice soft carpet, nice and gentle on his face. The darkness overcame his vision.

He felt someone grab his arms. Was someone- trying to... help him? Whooo, there were so many little annoying buzzes flying around in his head. Gah. He gave his thanks for- for the nice person helping him up.

Maybe- maybe he could-

Darkness.

…

"So, that's it?"

Dave nodded. "Yup, it's been confirmed by the guys in Alchemy."

"Hmm." Robert nodded. "What about the other one?"

"Pretty sure he's an instigator, willing or not. The Event did originate in his room, we did narrow it down to that."

Strange. This whole thing was off, he thought. Robert never put much stock in the rumors, but even they had to be rooted in some truth. For nothing besides an undocumented woman appearing to of come from the Breach? So improbable it might as well be impossible. Where were the rampaging monsters, the impossibilities of the Ether? Where were the special forces, the elite warriors of Command?

Nevertheless, he had a job to do, and he would see that job carried out no matter what.

"Both of them are still unconscious, correct?"

"The guy's still out cold, but the Subject seems to be waking up right now."

Both the Subject and instigator had been secured down to their hospital beds, their restraints capable of resisting forces far beyond those that a baseline human could produce, just in case. The subject, just now waking, seems disoriented. The chemicals must not of worn off yet.

"Whu- where am I know?"

Of course, the Subject wouldn't get an answer. "Subject, designated 055-S, please remain calm. Site personnel will arrive shortly."

Sh- the subject snarls out in response. "The hell-"

"Told you oh-five-five wouldn't take it well. Looks like standard psychology so far, seeing it shared a room with, are we calling him oh-five-six? Yeah, since it didn't straight up murder oh-five-six or whatever."

"Hmm." Ever more curious.

"Wait, does that mean there's been fifty five Events? I mean, that seems like a lot, right Rob? But, well, Command probably isn't stupid enough to actually number the Subjects like that. Right, that would be a terrible idea."

Even now, in the midst of a potentially catastrophic situation, Dave never stopped rambling. Typical.

Shifting his attention back to the subjects in an effort to block out the cognitohazard that was his partner, Robert took note of the awakened subject's actions.

"Oh-five-five seems to of quieted down. Determined looking, too. Might try to outlast the interrogation."

He wasn't used to observing humans that much, he was always more comfortable with data. Robert touched the datapad in his pocket just to make sure it was there, just in case. Still, it wasn't too hard to figure the reaction to waking up restrained wouldn't be the most positive. Necessary, though. Too many unknowns, too many risks. S- oh-five-fie would most likely be terminated afterward as well, for the same reason. Safety, security. Humanity couldn't afford to take risks. It was the correct choice.

(Even though his mind was ever so softly whispering that it still wasn't the right thing to do.)

…

Angelo had never really drank that much, but he had experienced some hangovers. What he was currently feeling was kind of like that, but a hundred times worse.

"Gaaaah..."

Hot little slivers of twisted their way through his body. He opened his eyes, and they tightened. Painfully. He realized that movement of any kind meant pain, but movement was kind of necessary.

But.. why, again? He had- there was something that was important, something that he was forgetting. What was it?

The blurry mess that was his vision resolved in that moment. In that instant, the realization hit him like a wayward vehicle.

"Oh no, no no- Kirsten!"

The bare concrete ceiling above him held no help for him, but moving was still agony for him. Angelo did it anyway. The pain, setting fire to his nerves, was easy to ignore for one frantic moment.

There, next to him, was a bed containing the person who had appeared quite explosively in his room a short time ago. "What happened? Where are we? What's going-"

A screeching noise rang out, metal on metal. "Fucking shut up." Her eyes met his, bright with fury. "Did you call in those soldiers? Did you do this?"

She thought it was his fault? (it was)

Angelo's thoughts flashed back to what he had been doing before all this. The printer, the art. It had to of been that. Why else would Kirsten appeared in his room? It couldn't be coincidence. It wasn't.

Something heavy settled in his gut, a block of ice he had only just noticed. But it wasn't like anything bad would happen, right? It was the government. They acted in the best interest of the people, and he was part of those people. They were going to help them, right? He hadn't caused anything really that bad to happen, right?

The hard blue eyes drilling into him said he was wrong. His mouth was open and nothing came out.

"Don't talk to me." Kirsten rolled to the other side, her gaze leaving him.

His mouth closed. The ice sat burning. Angelo's lungs squeezed, a hiss of air escaping his body. He could almost imagine his apologies riding the stream, carried by a parabolic course destined for the ground.

There wasn't any point in talking, really. Kirsten's silence said as much. Angelo turned back to the ceiling, it's minute imperfections now infinitely more interesting than the person at his side. He hadn't even known her for ten minutes, and now look where they were. Must be a new personal record.

Angelo hadn't thought about them for a while. Of course, ruined relationships always found a way of slipping his mind, but his current events couldn't help but remind him. The unwelcome memories came flooding back like they had never been left behind.

He had thought he was doing what was right at the time, of course. How could he not? His friend, sneaking away to who knows where rummage through dangerous tech. A secret, he found out and she wanted him to keep. He knew that the Administrators would know what to do.

Her face, flush with the thrill of forbidden knowledge, with trust and excitement in him was the last Angelo ever saw of her.

Officially she had been missing, of course. She had probably even ran, for a time.

Angelo knew he had made a mistake when he had been questioned. The men draped in shadows asking for everything he knew. Their silky, gentle voices coaxed the answers they wanted out, not like he had really wanted to resist, even then. It was when they had smiled, thanked him for his time, and glided out his door, leaving him alone that he knew.

It had been his fault.

So lost in his memories of that night, Angelo didn't notice that the sickeningly sweet words in his head were not, in fact, just in his head.

"Ah, hello there Angelo. It's such the pleasure to meet you again. Quite unfortunate that it has to be under such circumstances, heh."

They were back. As if they had crawled freshly out of his head, there stood the flock of grey draped figures. The glint of their smiles was exactly the same.

The lead figure, not a man for they had to be missing some part of a person that made them human, took a stride, and another to the foot of Angelo's bed. The other moved and was at the foot of the adjacent bed.

"Now, Angelo. It seems you've been mixed up in some trouble once again. How curious. But it's not like you caused this to happen." The figure made a gesture of dismissal that would of looked natural coming from anything else. "Of course. We still must make sure that we know all there is about this thing you've been caught up in, Angelo. The Watchers must know, after all."

He was peripherally aware that some sort of interrogation like his own was happening to Kirsten but for the life of him Angelo couldn't pay attention to it. The Watcher in front of him commanded his sole attention. His tongue searched around his mouth for any words to say, but there was nothing there.

The Watcher loomed. "The design you printed. Where did you find it? Why did you use it?"

Familiar territory. More familiar, at least. Words tumbled down from his brain like an avalanche of boulders. "Th- the design. Yeah, I got it from, from some intranet site, you know, one of the file repository ones. I don't, don't, remember which one, it was a while ago, I don't really remember, but well, it wasn't anything special, I think, I would of remembered it, I mean."

"Most interesting, Angelo. Please, would you continue?"

The purpose, he thought, it was just something that looked cool, it caught his eye. "The design, a circle- more of a, an, ovoid, kind of a..." Angelo went to gesture the shape in his mind, but remembered he was locked down. "Basically a big sphere of things. Looked cooler than it sounds. Not that great at explaining things, really."

Angelo made a face, caught up in his sub-par clarifications. "There were some stars, some pentagons, that sort of thing, really. Some geometric shapes. Went together really nice. I had wanted to put in- on my shelf, would of looked good with some of the other stuff. Guess you would of seen that by now, I guess?"

If the figure had any reaction to the probing question, it didn't show it. Really, it didn't show a lot of anything. Most of the watcher's skin was covered by it's robes and a wide brimmed hat.

"Hmm. We shall take this into account, Angelo. Now, tell us. What did you hope to achieve by bringing the Anomaly here?"

"Hey, look-" Angelo scrambled to order his thoughts in a way to prove his innocence. "I didn't, I wasn't trying to do anything by printing the thing. I mean, you see- it was just some sculpture I thought looked cool, that's it. I had no idea that it would do anything like that. Like what happened, brought her here, I don't know. Just, I didn't mean for that to happen."

"And yet it did, Angelo." The monotonous tone nevertheless had some sharp edge to it, cutting away his false bravado built up in his rush of words. "That will be all for now, we think. Thank you for your cooperation, Angelo."

The figure moved back from the edge of his view. The mess of feelings in his gut did not leave with it. Fear, disgust, dread, hints of anger and shame, Angelo didn't know what he was feeling. What he should be feeling.

He had liked to play with dominoes as a kid. Simple cause and effect; once the first domino falls, the rest shall inevitably fall in an ever advancing rush. Mathematical structures, perfect spirals all collapsing in time, chaotic lines randomly placed as he went, it was all the same fun to him. Every single time, the reaction started with that one first piece falling over.

Dimly, he realized that he caused the first domino to fall over. He was the one to press the button, to start the creation of the sculpture, to set in motion the series of events. Angelo could trace the path back to him. He was the start.

He realized this, and accepted it. Just like all those times before, all the times he had messed up, caused bad things to happen. Angelo had to take on the burden of responsibility for his actions, his actions that always seemed to end in disaster.

He closed his eyes and breathed in. His chest expanded with his lungs. He exhaled.

Angelo opened his eyes a bit calmer, a bit more saddened. He stole a glance to his side, at the person who he had yanked away from everything she knew and subjected her to this terrible experience. In his head, he nodded resolutely. He would make it up to Kirsten, somehow.

Now he only had to see how this current chain of events would end.

…

"So..." Dave drawled out nervously.

He was uncertain. Well, he was uncertain most of the time. Who wouldn't though, in his position? Dave had so much responsibility it made his head spin sometimes. A whole sector, under his watch? He shared it with Rob, but still! He had no idea how he would manage without him, honestly.

"Everything appears nominal. The Watchers finished with the instigator, and are now continuing with the Subject. It looks like everything's going smoothly."

Robert was always so collected and calm, the complete opposite of what he was like. A steady figure opposed to his bumbling inadequacies. Dave almost felt like laughing. It was easy to divert those feelings into mindless boasts or complaints, nobody cares about that. But now, when actual consequences rested on his work? He shuddered.

"Well, maybe this'll all be over soon then? It doesn't look like she's going to blow up or anything." And wasn't a relief that was.

Robert looked contemplative. "Even though the Subject hasn't shown any sign of anomalous activity, that doesn't mean the Subject isn't anomalous. The Watchers will most likely find out, and will advise Command what do do after that. We probably won't have too much of a role in all that."

Well, that was that apparently. Dave sighed in relief. He had found emergency situations very much not to his liking, and a return to normal was very welcome. Who knows, maybe things would get bett-

"Then again, I'm getting some borderline readings from the containment room. It might be the Subject, the Watchers, or maybe both. Or nothing, it is borderline. Better to be safe then sorry." Robert nodded resolutely, and turned back to his screens, completely absorbed.

Oh. The good feeling Dave had suddenly evaporated like mist in a spotlight. Sure, maybe it was nothing. Maybe nothing bad would happen. Sure. A creeping feeling of inevitability came over him, infusing his limbs with a familiar nervous energy.

He tapped a rhythm his subconscious beat to on his cool armrest. His eyes darted between the security feed of the containment room and the emergency line. Nothing would happen, probably, but it payed to be ready just in case. Just in case.

"Ah, that sounds... worrying. Does it seem, dangerous or anything? You know, like, I don't know. Just, something out of the ordinary." Please be fine, please be fine...

His partner hardly looked up from whatever analysis he was doing to answer. "I'm not sure. That's why I said borderline. I'm checking it out though, so don't worry too much."

Dave risked a peek over Robert's shoulder. Wiggly lines he sort of recognized waved across the display. "Hmm," It sort of looked like a sine wave? Or was it cosine? They were way to similar for his tastes.

Sighing, he turned back to his station. There wasn't that much he could do, after all. He could wait for Rob to finish up his work, though. It wasn't even halfway through the day and he was already freaking out over what was probably nothing. His foot joined his fingers in their rhythm.

On the cameras, the interrogation was proceeding as planned. The instigator, Angelo Whatsitsname, was just laying there. He looked kind of sad, or maybe just resigned, now that he looked at him. Dave wondered what the Watchers questioned him about. There wasn't any audio feed, ostensibly to keep secrets secret. He didn't need to know the deep dark secrets of the Watchers anyhow. The Subject, however, was still surrounded by the grey clad figures. Creepy buggers, those Watchers.

Interestingly, her expression was quite different than the other interrogee. Perhaps a mixture of confusion and anger? Interesting. Dave wondered what could be going through her head. If there was anything of substance going through her head, that is. Seeing that she's the Subject, and who knows whether or not the Subject is even human, or just a human shaped thing. Well, the Watchers would, presumably.

There were rumors about the sorts of things that came out of Breach Events. Tales, really, to make little kids behave and obey their guardians. Boogeymen, really. Most everything about them was classified to civilians, and large portions were unknown to him and Robert, but that had never stopped gossip.

The Subject looked so human, though.

All the more reason to be on the lookout.

…

"You sure this is it?"

"Yes I'm sure, now hurry up with the explosives. I don't want to be the reason we fail at the mission."

"Geez, I'm coming. You gotta learn to relax a bit."

"We're in the middle of what's probably the most important mission this season, you should be more worried."

"Hey, nothing good ever comes from frayed nerves, so you just have to take a step back and let it go, man."

"Sure. If we die I'm blaming you."

"Sure, if that makes you feel better."

"Asshole."

…

The Watchers huddled around the bed of the Subject. Questions were plentiful, but answers were less forthcoming. It seemed to have decided to ignore the emotionless questionings of the tall figures.

"I shall repeat myself again; what are you, Subject Zero Five Five?"

The Subject's eyes were closed tight, bound by spite and a creeping fear. It's lips were pressed together with the same resolute tension. If not for the Subject's chains, one would imagine it would of long since fled the Watcher's presence.

"I shall repeat myself again; what are you, Subject Zero Five Five?"

The dull voice repeats, words looping around again to reach the Subject's ears. Unfortunately, one's ears are not so easily closed as one's eyes or mouths. Still, the Subject bears it the best it can, for it can do nothing else. The Watchers might give up after a time. Or, perhaps not. An untiring mind and body would not be thought unusual for the Watchers to possess. Their white orbs stare down at the subject of their interrogation.

"I shall repeat myself again; what are you, Subject Zero Five Five?"

The Subject twitches, a sign of stress not displayed in the least by it's questioners. Pale lips part for a fraction of a second, contemplating the advantages of explaining itself once again, or even lying to make the incessant barrage stop, cease, halt for just a little bit. The Subject's shield of anger and scorn is strong, but it cannot last forever. Such is the nature of reality. The Watchers take reality and use it as their tool.

"I shall repeat myself again; what are you, Subject Zero Five Five?"

Close by on the other side of the room and separated by an insurmountable gulf, lays the instigator who brought the Subject to this world. He lays quietly, consumed entirely by the steady stream of thoughts running through his brain. Engrossed as he is by his own melancholy, he takes no notice of whatever else is happening in the room.

"I shall repeat myself again; what are you, Subject Zero Five Five?"

Two technicians watch from above, by camera and by sensor. They both look for the answer, the enemy to defeat, the disaster to prevent. One watches data stream by, numbers and letters and symbols that only mean something to their watcher. He stares intently, for there is an anomaly somewhere in reality and it is his job to find it. His partner sits quietly by, heavy in himself as he turns his anxiety into sound waves echoing across the room. His duty is to the screen in front of him and the button to his side connected ever so faintly to his superiors, circled around and brooding in darkness, anticipating what is to come.

"I shall repeat myself again; what are you, Subject Zero Five Five?"

Apart from everyone else, two people scurry through closed off hallways and passages infested with the dust of old age. They are the first of many, the harbinger of revolution and change, or at least they like to think so. They know that nearby is an asset, an advantage they could lever against the ones they want to overthrow, if only they could reach it. The explosives are set, the rebels ready for action. A red light blinks softly in the dark, reflecting off pieces of detritus hanging in the air. It's almost time.

"I shall repeat myself again; what ar-"

The explosion shakes the floor, a solid slab of metal and concrete. The walls, made of similar material, shatter and are sent hurtling into the room in which two unfortunate souls lay imprisoned. Through the dust, the Subject, Kirsten, can make out the Watchers she found a burning hate for fall to the ground, impaled by glistening shards and buffeted by solid waves of force.

They leak a black fluid, something that gurgles softly as it spreads.

The two technicians are panicking in their room, present in the midst of the crisis in all but body. The young man starts from his reverie, eyes wide and not quite comprehending, yet. New players enter the stage, clad in motley robes with a quite danger to them. Weapons are clutched in their tight grasps, pointing at anything and everything new.

The wave of noise leaves a curious silence behind it. The thumping of heavy boots is drowned out by a subtle ringing. The group of invaders, rescuers, stand still in the breached containment cell as if surprised that their entry was already over. For a single moment, everything but the settling dust is still.

One of the insurgents moves towards the restrained people in the room, shortly followed by the other four. There is no need for words between them, only quick gestures conveying intent back and forth. Two go to each bed, while the last takes his time to line up shots with the cameras installed into the roof. He fires, and fires again. Video feeds dissolve into static, and the prisoners are freed.

The Subject and instigator, Kirsten and Angelo, are grabbed and thrown over shoulders. Time is of the essence for their saviors. The fifth leads the way back into the corridor now showing signs of people and gestures for the others to follow.

The corridor is cramped with the seven passing through. Rusted pipes and jagged edges reach out to grasp the edge of a robe, but the fabric is toughened; it does not catch. The light is poor and the two rescuees cannot see where they are being taken. The masks of the others allow them the clarity to navigate their way.

One of them speaks. It's hard to tell who. "Just got to get to the lower access tunnels, and we're set."

The lead turns left at an intersection, and ducks back. She's followed by trails of bright light leaving smoking craters where they land.

"Everdamnit, Fox."

The figure behind the first is unperturbed by the hostile development. Reaching into the folds of his robe, he withdraws a small cylinder. A grenade. A quick toss nets them an opportunity to continue, but their lead won't last forever. The dark tunnel seems to stretch out in front of them forever.

"It's two sub-secs from here. It's the Specs chasing us, too. Probably won't make it like this, they'll be everywhere soon."

The figure carrying the Subject sighed, and lowered her to the floor. "Told you this is how I would go out. Give Daniel my regards." With that, he unslings his gun and turns back. He nods once before moving out, his visage quickly lost to the haze.

The departed figure's partner reaches out to carry the Subject, but she brushes him off to walk under her own power. Kirsten's face is a mask.

The group continues on without a word. A quite determination settles over them all, somehow rendering their gaits just a bit more urgent, just a bit more on edge. They continue on.

The crack of exotic energies and harsh retorts echoes behind them, bouncing from wall to wall to reach their ears. It gets quieter before stopping. A moment passes, heads turned in unconscious anticipation. One final crack rings out, somehow altogether more loud and quite at once. The group takes a left and moves on.

The other recently freed prisoner, still half in and half out of his thoughts, wonders whether they are traveling beside or under the normal walkways. He ponders the fact that there appears to be some sort of insurgent group striking against the only authority he's ever known. He contemplates the surprisingly comfortable should he is slung over like so much luggage. He thinks that perhaps this is a dream he forgot to wake up from.

They encounter the red flashes of light again, but never as close as the first encounter. They are answered by loud retorts from handheld weaponry. It is rewarded by agonized screams that go on longer then they have any right to. Still, they move.

Just as sudden as their entrance into the holding cell, the group of rebels comes to a stop next to a section of wall identical to every other section of wall except for a painted lowercase 'i.' The lead crouches down and turns a section of rusted tubing and straightens up. Nothing happens, until faint light outlines a hairline crack running around the edges of the metal sheet. Muted clanking sounds from behind the wall, and then it swings open. They all hustle in like they've stepped over the faded tan lip a thousand times, except for the Subject who scrapes her toes walking over it. She looks and finds herself in a tight room with the people she has no knowledge about save for the fact that they saved her and waits, silent.

More hissing and clanking marks the closing of the secret portal, and flickering lights shines hesitantly down on her. She looks around again and sees they, still silent, are in something that could resemble an elevator. She is proven right in her observation when it shudders alarmingly and starts to descend. There is nothing to see below but shadows of ink and night.

Finally, the figure carrying Angelo lets out a breath, letting his burden down and intruding on the silence. For one reason or another, the person that was at the head of the group finds this breach of unspoken agreement funny, and further violates the silence by letting out a chuckle. With that, the spell ends and sound once again returns.

"That didn't go too bad, even after we got jinxed." She let out another laugh, followed by a quick exhale and stretch. "Whooh."

The figure next to her shot her a glance. "Really, at least pretend to be sad about Raul, Fox." He sighs in resignation. "It's not like we didn't expect it, but at least try and show some decency. Especially in front of the newbies."

Heads turned towards Kirsten and Angelo as if remembering they were in fact right next to them. Both of them looked blankly back. The elevator continued to rumble in the background.

"Well... as first introductions go, that wasn't to worst." The person that had up until now been carrying Angelo reached for his mask, pulling it off in one smooth motion. "I'm Rustle. The crazy one's fox. The other two are Dee and Sam." The pair in question waves hesitantly.

Rustle looks at Kirsten and Angelo, staring them both in the eye. After a moment, he lets out a small grin.

"Welcome to the Silent Revolt."

…

"Well, that went to shit pretty quick."

"Shut up, Dave. Nobody asked you."

The two of them were standing together outside of the meeting room. The people in charge knew something went bad, and they wanted someone to blame. Hence, them standing and waiting to be 'interviewed.' Robert was only a little nervous. Just a little.

"Hey, at least it wasn't our fault. We just watched, basically. Whoever was in charge of perimeter control or whatever screwed up." Dave, on the other hand, was strangely unaffected. It was probably just his terrible personality, though.

It was starting to get to him more than he'd like. "Everdamnit. Please, be quite."

He waved dismissive. "Sure, fine, whatever man."

Robert sighed, and went back to kneading his forehead. He went over his script one more time in his head, just to be ready.

We had just been observing. I had noticed a few strange patterns, but nothing too far out of the ordinary. It wasn't anything related to the incident, either. You can double check that. Dave was the one that saw the explosion first, and by the time he had pressed the emergency button, they had already left. That's all.

Running his hands down his sides, he felt the fabric beneath his fingers smooth out. The black and blue ensemble wasn't exactly the most pleasing to the eye, but Robert was committed to making due. No reason to give the higher ups another reason to punish him.

His hand found it's place back on his forehead. Robert had joined the Sensory branch of the Enforcers because it was the fast track to promotion. Just bag some neat cases, make the data look all pretty, maybe even coordinate some Security forces, and he'd be set. That's what they had said, anyway.

Dave, on the other hand, probably joined to get the furthest from danger he could. Fucking coward.

The pain his growing headache caused dug into his head. Gah. He tried to tone back the bad thoughts. Robert always got this way when he was irritated, but at least he was aware of it.

The two spent the next few minutes stewing in the awkward silence, Robert muttering under his breath and Dave the very picture of calm. Finally, the door in front of them swung open, their destination revealed. Both hesitated a moment, before stepping forward.

As the door closed behind them, Robert's eyes began to adjust to the lower light levels of the room. Seeing an open chair in front of him, he pulled it out and took a seat. His partner did the same next to him. Looking across the wooden table (quite rare, quite nice), he saw seven figures. All of them were officially dressed, so much so that Robert actually felt a little self conscious about his own state of dress. The fancy hats alone probably cost more than his monthly salary, and the formal robes all had tasteful patterns sewn into them.

The center figure raised their fist to their mouth to clear their throat. "Robert Rivera and Dave Coleman, you are here to give your testimony about the Incident that occurred earlier today. Please give your account of what happened."

Robert started quickly to ensure that he got first say about what happened. He didn't need some off-color comment from Dave to screw things up. His pre planned speech was rolling off of his tongue in an instant.

As he gave his report, with supporting testimonies from Dave, he looked around at the seated figures. The council members in charge of the whole Site kept all of their faces to a polite neutral. Somewhat irritating, given that it would have been nice to get at least some sort of hint about their fate. Ah well.

Before he knew it, Robert was done with his report, and Dave stopped blabind out his version. Finished, they sat in silence for a moment.

"Thank you for your testimonies. You may return to your jobs."

Well, shit. He would have to wait even longer to see if he would be reassigned to some low level sewer squad or even worse. It would come up when it came up, then.

Both partners got up to leave. "Not so bad, eh?" The doors closed behind them.

On the other side of the doors, the Council remained seated in silent deliberation.

After a time, a question was raised by one of them. "Punishment?"

The figure third to the right turned to the speaker. "Oh come on now, Capricorn. The kids did their jobs. It's not their fault the Breach happened, or the Revolt got word of the Anomaly."

"And yet the Revolt did find out about the Anomaly, and then proceeded to steal it out from under our noses. Fat lot of good those 'elites' did, Sigma."

Sigma, on the far left, shrugged. "We took a gamble and lost. It's not like the Anomaly was that useful, and now we have a potential lead on a Revolt base."

The figure in the center scowled. "You clearly don't know the value of the Anomaly, then. Still, those insurgents don't have the equipment or knowledge to make use of even a fraction of the Anomaly's full potential. We hardly do, and I suspect they only stole it because they somehow found it was useful to us."

Capricorn lifted a finger. "Regardless of Sigma's ignorance, there still is the matter of the, Sensory duo. Still, it seems the blame would fall more on others than them. Motion to absolve?"

A chorus of 'ayes' followed.

…

"So, what do you think?"

Kirsten was scared. She had been scared when she suddenly appeared in some random guy's room, she had been scared when some military forces blew up a door in front of her, she was scared when she was chained to a bed and questioned, and she was scared when she was carried away from there in the middle of a firefight. She was still scared right now, touring the base of a violent rebellion. So really, there was only one response she could give.

"It's cool, I guess. Could use some more propaganda posters and stuff."

She needed to keep her facade up. Don't let them see her fear, don't let them see weakness.

"Hah, yeah," laughed Fox, "Maybe a slogan like 'The Truth is out there! Join the Silent Revolt to find it!'"

"That's terrible." She needed to find out what's going on. Nothing was making sense.

The woman waved her robe covered arm. "Screw off."

Kirsten took stock of her situation. Fox, one of her rescuers and a part of the 'Silent Revolt' was leading her around on a tour of the base they were in, or something. She wasn't quite in the best headspace right now.

The two passed through the wide open walkway. Other people, presumably other rebels, headed their own way past them.

Kirsten took in a shaky breath. "So..." She led, hoping to get at least some information about what the hell was going on.

"Ah!" Fox grinned suddenly. "Right, you probably want to know those 'hidden truths', am I right?" She made air quotes to go along with her statement.

Finally. "Sounds like something I would want to know, yeah." Like anything about where she was at all.

"Guess what?" The other woman's grin was stretching across her face now. Was skin supposed to stretch that much? "Magic is real!"

"What?" What? That wasn't like anything she had been expecting, even if she wasn't expecting anything. A trickle of uncertainty wormed its way through her gut.

"Oh yeah, you probably don't even know what magic is, silly." Fox laughed. At her or herself, Kirsten couldn't tell. "Well, they're," she pointed a finger up, "lying to you about how everything works. They throw out some jargon, bullshit excuses, and say that's why teleporters or those everdamned Watchers work. That's a lie though. The real reason is magic."

That was not what she had been expecting at all. Not letting any of her inner confusion show on her face, Kirsten motioned for her guide to continue.

"Magic isn't like any sort of technology, it doesn't work by sticking wires in electricity or whatever. Magic is the result of souls exerting their will on reality, and reality changing because of that."

That made absolutely zero sense. Was her guide crazy? Had the world gone insane when she wasn't looking?

"So, that means we can do stuff like shoot fire from our hands and stuff. Oh, yeah, there's also things like enchantments and rituals. Here," she lifts up her gun, "we use enchanted bullets. Causes a bunch of pain for whoever's unlucky enough to get hit by them." Fox grins. "Pretty nice, eh?"

"Y- yeah." She opens her mouth to try to force out more words, to try and say something to continue their conversation, but the words die in her throat.

Was magic the reason why she had been taken? Had that kid preformed some foul ritual to reach out and grab her from her home? Kirsten had been cooking dinner at the time. Was her apartment going to burn down? Would anyone notice she was gone?"

An elbow to the side brought Kirsten out of her thoughts. "A lot to take in, I know. Bastards even lied about why everyone's been kept down in these 'arcologies' beneath the surface." Fox's eyes looked right into hers, despite their continued forward motion. "They claim the entire surface was devastated in some war long ago. Would the very same government that hides the existence of one of the fundamental forces of the universe be stopped by some fallout or radiation?"

In the midst of her tirade, Fox directed both of them to the right, through a slightly rusty doorway and into a smaller corridor. Where she was taking her, Kirsten had no idea.

"It's just an act. They only want power, the complete control over humanity. What better way to to that then keep everyone under their rule, thinking that they're the only reason why the remnants of humanity continues to exist?" The speaker stops for a second, her momentum lost. She turns to face forward, then turns back to the person she had been guiding.

"We're going to defeat them. We're going to overthrow them and free everyone under their rule." Kirsten saw a tiny light gradually build in her guide's eyes. "We have the tool of magic that they have discarded. We have the determination, the drive to save humanity." For one moment, Fox's face is entirely serious.

Then it passes. "So, how was that recruitment speech, huh?" The grin sent her way is just a tad to wide for Kirsten's taste.

"I think I'm halfway convinced. Six out of ten." She wasn't. She wanted to get as far away from the possibly insane revolutionist, but the only other option was capture and interrogation and who knows what else. Maybe it would be best to stick with them for now, on second thought.

"Ha, nice!" Her guide takes a moment to quietly fistbump. "Well, good timing. We're getting close to the Ritual rooms. Want to see the truths of the universe firsthand?"

Kirsten had always been a bit of a reader. Sci-fi, fantasy, fiction or not, odds were that she would like it. She had spent weeks reading through the Harry Potter series, barely even taking a break between books. The fantastical world of magic enthralled her then, leaving Kirsten with idle daydreams and fantasies about magic long afterward. So, despite her caution, the ice in her chest telling her to find someplace to hide and stay there forever, Kirsten was intrigued.

It wasn't like it was just curiosity that drove her to follow her guide down the seemingly never ending passageway. It was- it was important to find out the how much of the truth Fox had told her about magic. Right.

"Sure."

She was lead into a sudden right turn, and then through a maze of short hallways and corridors. The bare concrete walls all looked the same to her, and within a few seconds, Kirsten found herself entirety lost, relying on her guide to take the right path. She would ask Fox could remember the right path, but then the answer would probably only be 'magic' or something.

After passing an innumerable amount of identical doors, they stopped in front of a door that was no different from the rest. "Ah ha!" She palmed the side, and then swung it open towards them. A gust of warm air flowed out.

Her guide held the door and gestured. "After you."

Kirsten stepped in, and stared. She felt something heavy, like there was a weight upon her shoulders she only just now noticed. She took a hesitant step forward, suddenly much less enthusiastic with her decision.

It reminded her of those pictures of the catacombs beneath Paris, or something. Walls lined with the bones of the dead. Arm and leg bones decorated into twisting, spiraling shapes, creating continuing patterns across the expanse of the room. She took another step forward.

Skulls hung from chandeliers, grouped together with green fire burning from mouths and eyes. Their light illuminated the narrow platform she was walking across, and the railing to her left. It looked like the dead were laughing down at whoever dared enter this domain. She took another step forward.

Chanting rose from the center of the room. Foreign words snarled and sung and spit from the lips of five figures standing at equidistant points across from each other. Stairs to her left connected the platform she was on to the floor below. The words felt ever so strange, and somehow just a tiny bit familiar. She took another step forward.

The floor had been inscribed with sigils and runes glowing with ethereal light. She might have been able to make out patterns in the lines if they weren't been constantly shifting. The engravings seemed to writhe to the chanting of words that seemed like they made sense, if only you just ran them over one more time in your mind. The four chanters rose up higher. She took another step forward.

It seemed like light was being bent the wrong way, somehow. Was the air somehow bent out of place, or was it the very space in which the air resided in? Each word coming from the lips of the three chanters was a physical blow, pounding at the very substance of reality. Each impact weakened the very foundation of the plane, cracks spreading out from the point of impact. Dust fell into the air, glimmering softly. She took another step forward.

The duo in the center of the tear now seemed to command her attention. She couldn't look away, for there wasn't anything else to see. She no longer heard the chant with only her ears, but her eyes and skin and tongue and with a hundred other senses she had no words for. The pressure beat against her like a newborn heart. Green fire flickered and dimmed. She took another step forward.

One lone figure stood in the middle of everything, radiant. Swirling sensations revolved through the chamber, little flashes of despair and fear and the scratching of chalkboards on nails. The figure, stark against the slowly shattering plane of space, was somehow not alone. Something else approached. The other, a fraction of the depth and dread she felt, pressed itself up against the tear. The heartbeat took over, her own being pulsing to it's rhythm. She took another step forward.

There was a noise, or perhaps a sense she could only resolve as a noise. The room in front of her was empty, for it always had been empty. The runes were dead, inert on the ground. The air was still. Stale and pervasive, it carried only a hint of something wet, humid and rank. A moment, and the damaged reality fixed itself, and then had never broken at all. The only hint that anything had just taken place was whispers of strained memories, and the mewling of a tiny creature. She stopped.

"So, magic!" Fox's exclamation behind her was jarring. It carried none of the dread, the wrongness that must have effected her. Kirsten turns. There was her guide, still splaying her arms wide as if presenting the horror that had just happened. Wrong.

She continued on oblivious to the way that she should have been acting. "This is the ritual chamber. What we do here is lay down some runes and fancy lines and the like, give it a blast of power or something, and bam! Something gets made. Probably. I dunno about the specifics."

Striding past the still frozen newbie, she walked over the already fading signs of the ritual to the small cat laying in the exact middle. Picking up the cute orange ball of fuzz, Fox cuddled it.

"Aww, isn't it cute?"

She didn't see how wrong it was, she couldn't see what Kirsten saw. It wasn't right. She had liked cats, back when she was a kid. Their idle curiosity, their haughty demeanor. The mimicry of life hanging from her guide's grasp was not that.

Like a picture frame a degree off, or a video with the audio not quite synced. There wasn't anything she could say. One thought ran through her mind, again and again. She looked again over everything here, everything she had seen. It was all wrong. Her gut feeling, already lead, somehow turned colder.

She had made a terrible mistake.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] Galactic Endeavor

Chapter 1: A Rude Introduction

While the term 'Scum of the Earth' didn't technically apply to anyone on Karn-chu's spaceship simply because they weren't by-and-large from Earth, the general epithet still rang true. After all, anyone who willingly worked with that particular individual had to be completely without morals; not only able to watch people suffer without feeling remorse, but to enjoy it and smile with glee as their victims were shuffled off to some unpleasant fate. After all, in this day and age where fabbers for nearly any good were readily available, there were very few commodities that still had any form of rarity value. One of these commodities were new and exotic forms of sapient life, readily forced into domestic servitude, highly unethical research, or gladiatorial fights watched by people looking for a bit of blood sport.

Yes, Karn-Chu, and every other sapient willingly aboard the ship known in the captain's language as the Gory Details were sapient-traffickers. The business model was quite straightforward: They would find some poorly-defended planet, grab as many people as they could beat into submission and stuff into the hold along with enough of the native food and drink to keep the cargo alive until reaching its destination, and then travel to one of many spaceborne freeports that would take said cargo away. After that, the crew would live lives of luxury on their ill-gotten goods, before putting back to space to do it all again.

The worst part of this whole affair was mostly that it was simply unnecessary; thanks to automated manufacturing of most goods and the proliferation of sub-sapient 'servitor' units throughout the galaxy, a life of luxury was easily available to anyone who wanted to have it. No, the only reason someone would get involved with this operation was because they were either coerced into doing it, or they genuinely wanted to watch people suffer as they were delivered into the hands of extremely unscrupulous individuals for unknown purposes.

At the present time, the head scumbag himself, Karn-chu, was talking with his sensor tech as they orbited high above a watery world near a star in what had to be one of the least-developed parts of the galaxy he'd ever been to. Speaking in radio, the six-limbed quadruped inquired "It is quite obvious that we have stumbled upon a previously unknown world playing host to a sapient species. Foretji, have you discovered any additional information that might be of use?"

The being who responded would be described by any human observer as looking a lot like someone had frankensteined a large crow and replaced its head with that of a giant spider, before undertaking significant cybernetic enhancements. Of course, as far as Foretji was concerned he was quite handsome.

Either way, the individual in question was shaken out of his thoughts by the query, and immediately replied "It looks an awful lot like we're lucky enough to stumble over a pre-warp species that still has a good deal of technical know-how. They have a large number of artificial satellites in orbit of their planet, but the only objects of any significant size seem to be a few small space stations that don't have the hab space to support a permanent population without resupply. Most of the major population centers are along the planet's coast, and there's enough electromagnetic communication going on that these people almost certainly have computers."

There was a brief pause, before All in all, we should be able to make a good haul, but there's still a chance that we might lose a few if we get jumped by the local militaries."

A vicious grin-equivalent adorned Karn-Chu's face, before he replied "Excellent. Deploy the shuttles at once for settlements on the night-side of the planet. We're going to come in fast and loud, grab as many items as we can cram aboard without hitting mass limits, and bug out before the locals can organize a response. Now let's get going!"

With that, Karn-Chu left the bridge and checked that his augmentations were still in good working order, before making his way to the shuttle. It took a dark and disturbed individual to enjoy what was about to happen, and the heavily modified Rogio definitely fit the bill.

Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, Earth, Sol System
Earth Date: 22 May, 2018

Under normal circumstances, Isabella Cadaval would be sober; after all, the ability to think clearly and not have massive hangovers in the morning was quite useful when one was studying medicine. The key word here is 'was', seeing as Isabella had just graduated at the top of her class, largely due to putting in an utterly obscene amount of effort through the years of her education. As a direct result, Isabella had found herself roped into attending a rum-saturated graduation party stretching far into the night, with strings of holiday lights arcing through the air above the courtyard.

As the now graduated medical student traded anecdotes with her fellows, her speech somewhat slurred by the sheer quantity of Ethanol in her system, trails of lights weren't the only thing arcing through the air. As the glowing streak shot across the sky, a man named Jonatan who Isabella had known for some time pointed up in the air and said "Look Isabella, a shooting star! Make a wish!"

Isabella glanced up, her alcohol-addled mind still having enough neural activity to know that what she was seeing was in no way a shooting star; it was coming in far too low for that, and on top of that it was rapidly slowing down. Soon, the plasma flare of the object re-entering the Earth's atmosphere petered out as the object slowed down sufficiently that shock heating of the atmosphere on its path was no longer a significant factor. A few moments after, the object arced directly overhead, the party lights dimly illuminating its underside, revealing a vaguely triangular underside to the massive object.

Without any further fireworks, the massive craft hovered to a stop before descending, jets of hot exhaust gas blasting Isabella backwards as the landing thrusters were deployed to bring the craft to a gentle touchdown. By sheer chance, she wound up landing in the ice-filled cooler where the bottles of rum had previously been kept, at least until they had all been consumed earlier. While this wasn't exactly the softest of landings, it did a good job of mitigating the burns she received. Unfortunately for Isabella, it also meant that she was in good enough condition for the beings who had just so rudely crashed her party to bother taking her; after all, they didn't want to risk any of the cargo dying en route, and that meant healthier victims were preferred.

A hulking four-armed figure wearing what looked like a spacesuit marched over to Isabella after a few moments in the cooler, carrying what looked an awful lot like some kind of bludgeon. The alien raised its arm, and the baton came crashing down upon Isabella's forehead. Combined with the alcohol, the mild concussion this caused was more than sufficient to deprive Isabella of consciousness. It was a mixed blessing, then, that she already had enough rum in her system to have erased her recollection of the past hour leading up to this event.

Similarly, the sheer quantity of rum in Isabella's system ensured that she didn't really dream for the vast majority of her time before regaining her consciousness, as she was simply unaware of this time passing. This state lasted for nearly a day and a half, and the aliens who had taken Isabella away were starting to strongly consider the question of if they should jettison the comatose victim to save on Delta V when she finally woke up. Considering the absolutely horrific headache she had from the hangover, dehydration, a concussion, and the brutally bright light mounted in her cell's ceiling, Isabella was strongly wishing she hadn't.

BiopunkOtrera · May 21, 2018

[ ] I am the human!

Genre: Magical girl, Superhero, Family-friendly

On a TV, a girl in a burgundy dress raises a silver wand.

On a city sidewalk a girl with a blue school uniform and round glasses runs through the bustling crowds.

Hey there! My name is Louise Xanadu, and though I'm a little late, I'm on my way to school once again today.

The girl on the TV draws a circle with the wand, and a cloud of flower petals begin to circle her.

On the street the girl's two brown braids bounces up and down as she pushes through a dense group of people, her backpack occasionally catching on someone

Hundreds of amazing people pass me on the street every minute, and it makes me a little embarrassed to be so ordinary.

The girl on the TV jumps into the air and the swirling wind spreads her skirt just slightly as she rises higher and higher.

On the street the girl pauses to catch her breath as she passes the threshold of the school's gate.

I'm not especially smart and I've never been good at sports. But... I do have one amazing secret.

The girl on the TV flies up through a layer of clouds and looks up at the moon, her long brown hair fluttering in the night sky.

At the school gate, the girl sucks in one last breath and looks up, a determined smile on her face.

I am the human!

I am the human! #1: "Take flight, young girl!"

Weddings, Louise had decided, were boring. She had spent what felt like hours sitting through the mind-numbing ceremony, and then the party afterwards was nothing but weird food and weird music. When she got married, she decided, it would be a fifteen minute ceremony and lunch at a fast food restaurant. She wasn't quite sure which restaurant yet.

Finally, an hour or so into the party, her mother finally told the kids to play outside, with only a cursory reminder not to get her nice dress dirty. Personally, she wouldn't mind not seeing that dull shade of burgundy ever again.

The kids spent a little time sharing their complaints about the wedding, but soon it turned into a game of hide and seek, the gaggle of kids running and shrieking as they finally let loose. Other kids remained close to the party hall, hiding behind bushes or benches, but Louise went farther, past the edge of the forest and through the tangle of vines. No one was going to find her that easily. She was running, she was jumping, and her long brown hair was flowing in the wind.

Suddenly she reached the end of the earth. The ground disappeared beneath her and she was stumbling over and over and over and-

OOOOO

Car horns were blaring, speakers babbled, and a wave of congealed conversation washed over her. Louise reached for her head as she began to wake up, wondering if she was already being driven home. That fall had really shaken her, so it was no wonder her parents didn't wake her up but-

Asphalt. Cars don't have asphalt.

Louise winced as she pushed herself up off the hard road, feeling tiny stones popping off her face. Her hair had fallen in front of her, obscuring her view of the city around her.

"Are you okay? You took a pretty nasty fall there so we..."

Louise couldn't quite concentrate on the boy behind her as she convinced herself to stand up. She wobbled a little when her legs shook, but she was far more scared of falling again.

"If you could tell us your address we can provide transportation to..."

Louise flicked her head forward to gather her hair in one place, gathered it up into her hands, and flicked everything, head and hair together, back again. With the hair out of her eyes, it was easy to see the people milling around her, cars waiting to get through the intersection she was in, and tall brick buildings on every corner.

"Sorry." she said. "My hair gets in the way sometimes."

No one answered her. Belatedly, she realized that the wall of noise around her was disappearing. Not just the people nearby, but the entire city seemed to become quieter and quieter with every passing second. Louise turned around to face the boy who had been talking to her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Did I say something... uh... ah..."

There were actually two people behind her. One was a boy about her age with light brown skin, grey hair, and suspiciously pointy ears. His tiny police uniform, complete with a black cap, almost made him cute, but Louise couldn't focus on him. Behind him was a bear that was also in a police uniform.

Louise stared. There had to be a good explanation.

The boy and the bear stared back at her. Obviously a bear wearing a uniform had to be tame so she shouldn't be scared, she should remain calm and try not to look like an idiot.

Louise forced herself to look away from the spectacle in front of her to the people circling the intersection. They must laughing at her so hard; She couldn't believe her parents would do this to her. She was the one who hit her head. They should be calling the school and arranging days off!

But as she looked at the people around her, the details she started to notice were all wrong. The people weren't laughing, they were confused and even scared. A lot of them wore normal clothes like t-shirts and skirts, but peppered into the crowd were men in bulky robes or old woman in fluffy princess dresses. Even weirder were the wild animals, like foxes and ferrets, all milling around people's legs. That didn't even include the people who had cat ears sprouting from the top of their heads, or bushy tails or fluffy wings.

Louise pressed her fingernail into her palm, but she was definitely awake. She slowly looked back at the people in front of her, the boy and the bear in police uniforms.

"What's-"

"Officer Shirley." The boy said as his eyes locked onto Louise's eyes. "Please bring the human into custody." The bear behind him growled and began to move forward.

At this point, Louise felt fear was reasonable.

"AAAAAAAAAHHH!" Louise screamed and spun around, entering a dead sprint the minute her back was turned to the bear. She hoped one of the people around her would stop her and tell her everything was a joke, but instead they stumbled over themselves to avoid her, letting her run without the slightest interruption. For some reason silver yo-yos flew past her as she continued running through the street. As she weaved between the cars parked in the street their drivers exited and ran.

Louise's legs trembled as she started to reach her limit. Why couldn't she run for more than a minute? Why was she stuck in this crazy situation? Why did she have to be so stupid and weak?

"Stop in the name of the law!" she heard the police boy yell. Louise glanced behind herself to see him chasing after her with perfect running posture, not showing a single sign of fatigue. The next second she hit a car mirror and barely caught herself before she hit the ground again. Stupid. Stupid and weak. All around her she could see people leaving the street.

The police boy paused and snapped his finger at her. In an instant a silver liquid flowed from his hands and formed itself into the shape of a yo-yo. Louise saw the yo-yo flying at her and immediately ducked, hearing it whistle over her head. She looked up to check the boy's movements only to feel a string wrap itself around her right arm. The string pulled tight, so tight her hand began to lose feeling. This was going too far to be a joke.

"Stop it!" Louise yelled as she grabbed her arm, and was confused to see a silver yo-yo wrapping its equally metallic string around her. Louise grabbed the yo-yo and tugged at it as hard as she could, but the metal discs refused to be pulled away from the string wrapping. Essence of metal formed into the shape of a toy. Louise flinched as she felt a needle-prick of pain in her chest.

"Please surrender." The police boy said as he walked up to her. "I can assure you that you will receive a fair investigation and be allowed a full trial."
This wasn't funny. Louise didn't care if this boy looked cute, that was no excuse to act like such a jerk to her. All his policeman nonsense didn't even deserve an answer. Louise raised her head and gave the boy the best death glare she could muster.

"Your pretty calm for someone who just got caught." the boy said. "Hold out your hands. I need to properly secure you for transportation."
Louise kept staring at him and rubbed the string around her arm. She wasn't going to do a single thing this jerk said.

"Hey, do you understand Tirnian?" the boy said. "Arms. Now." He held out his arms to demonstrate, as if Louise was a complete idiot.

"Are you done playing?" Louise said. Stupid. She had just told herself not to answer him, and she was already losing control.

"P-playing?" Even through his brown skin, the boy was clearly blushing as he stuttered and yelled. "This is a perfectly legitimate magical technique that efficiently combines..."

It dawned on Louise that this boy really liked to talk.

"...It may not seem like much to a mighty human, but these skills are the results of years of..." the boy's rambling response continued. As far as Louise could tell, it was completely nonsense. With her attention free, she went back to work trying to free herself from the yo-yo wrapped around her arm. Weak.

"...and you just had to interrupt us right when we were about to catch the Hase-Dasher, I can't believe-"

"Hase-Dasher?" Louise said, noting the shift in the boy's tone. "Is that dangerous?" the boy let out a huff and placed his hands on his hips.
"Not compared to a human but-"

Whatever he said next was drowned out by a mighty surge of wind that filled the street behind Louise and forced her to close her eyes. Essence of wind, interpreted as a spring storm. Once again she felt like a needle was pricking her heart.

"My hat!" the police boy yelled. Louise peeked with one eye, watching him try to grab his black cap as the wind carried it into the sky.

"That's right. Taste the sorrow of having your beloved headwear torn away from you. If I can't wear hats, then I won't allow anyone to wear hats EVER AGAIN!"

Louise turned around to look at the person who had started talking. The raging wind bit at her face, forcing her to shield her face with one arm. Still, she could make out the shape of a young man making wild gestures with his hands. Essence of wind, formed with the desire to push. Louise felt more needles pushing themselves into her, even as the wind tugged and tangled her hair.

"Um..." Louise said. The man broke into laughter. "Excuse me." Louise said. The man continued laughing. "HEY!" Louise shouted. The man stopped laughing. The wind slacked enough that Louise could lower her arm. The two looked into each other's eyes. Even though he wore a pinstripe suit, the man looked young and unfocused. "Why can't you wear hats?"

The man lifted his hands and pointed at the two rabbit ears sprouting from his fluffy white hair.

"Couldn't you just poke holes in the hats?" Louise asked.

The man began to shake. Louise checked behind her to see the police boy weaving through the rows of cars still chasing his hat. Louise looked back a the man, who had started to bite his lip.

"How dare you." he yelled. He gestured at her, and the wind began to blow even harder than before. "How dare you suggest desecrating the perfect form of the hat?" Louise covered her face as she felt the wind pushing her back. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream her frustration into the sky. But that was "wrong". She wasn't supposed to do such things. "Pay for your crimes." the man yelled.

A chip of asphalt flew past her, cutting her cheek as it passed.Another rock clanked as it struck the metal yo-yo string still wrapped around her arm. A whole symphony of drum beats played out as rubble struck the idle cars around her. She didn't know what was happening. She couldn't do anything about what was happening. Stupid and weak, just like always. The wind blew, and Louise felt one more needle piercing her heart.

Essence of wind, poured through the spirit.

Understanding. It was a strange thing, not knowing where the wind came from, but understanding how the wind was moving. The wind was not just biting at her skin, it was flowing through her, carving its effects into her heart, filling her lungs even though her mouth was clamped shut. Louise gave up fighting it.

In front of her, the man with rabbit ears was holding both hands forward, his fancy clothes untouched by the monstrous wind.
She spread her arms and accepted the wind, breathing it in through her body, filling her lungs until they felt like they'd burst, then forcing a little more inside. Only then did she finally open herself, her mouth and her inner self, releasing everything in a single loud roar.

"STOP." she said. With that one word, felt all the wind inside of her release itself, making her skin tingle as she felt it flowing through her body. On her arm, the metal yo-yo shattered into pieces, freeing the blood to start flowing back into her right hand. Around her she felt the monstrous wind disappear, and she saw the rabbit-eared man rock back. His pinstripe suit fluttered in the wind and a look of horror covered his face.

"My wind." the man whispered. Without the roaring wind or the bustling noise that belonged in a city, Louise could hear him clearly. "How could you copy it so perfectly?"

Louise inhaled through her skin, raised her right arm, and exhaled, wishing for the wind she released to circle around her. It was a strange sensation, using lungs she never knew she had. But Louise felt something else, a sense of pride she hadn't felt in too long.

"Don't ignore me." the rabbit-eared man shouted. Louise glared at him. Just because he was older didn't give him any right to be so rude. "And get out of my way."

"Could you please stop bothering me?" Louise said.

"I refuse." the man he said. He raised his hand and Louise felt a river of wind strike her, tugging at her clothes and throwing pebbles of asphalt all around the street. She forced herself to keep looking forward. Once again she breathed in through her skin, filling her lungs as much as possible, and he pointed her hand at the rabbit haired man. Focusing as much as she could, Louise let out a wordless battlecry.

She felt a river of wind pour out from hand, colliding against the wind around her and then moving forward. The rabbit-eared man covered his face as Louise's wind hit him. Louise breathed in and breathed out, pouring as much wind as she could into the gale pouring from her right hand. In front of her she saw the man's pinstripe suit began to rip along the seams. She breathed in and she breathed out. The suit coat stretched and then with one last tear it was gone, its many pieces flung high into the air. Louise lowered her hand, and watched as the rabbit-eared man gawked at his shirt.
Just when she was hoping for things to calm down, Louise heard a voice she had quickly started to hate.

"Alright, hold it right there. Both of you."

Louise turned around to see the police boy standing behind her again, his black cap attached to his head with a loop of string. The boy snapped his fingers at her, and Louise saw the liquid metal forming into a yo-yo. She swung her arm as quickly as possible and watched as a gust of wind knocked the yo-yo away. The boy locked eyes with her. Louise readied herself for whatever would come next. Then a blast of wind came from behind and knocked both her and the boy down.

"You'll never catch the Hase-Dasher." The rabbit-eared man started laughing as his footsteps echoed on the asphalt street.

"Wait!" the police boy shouted. Louise watched him stand up and run past her. She didn't care anymore. What little elation she had felt from controlling the wind had been replaced by tears finally pooling in the corners of her eyes. She stayed lying on the hard asphalt, hating her weak and stupid self.

"Fly." someone said. Louise couldn't call it a boy or a girl or any kind of adult. It sounded too squeaky to be human, more like a cartoon character than a human.

"Huh?" Louise hated her reply.

"You've mastered the wind, haven't you? You want answers don't you? Then fly."

Louise slowly stood up, looking around to see where the squeaky voice was coming from. Teardrops left dark spots on her burgundy dress.

"That's impossible." Louise cried out. That would be too much. That was beyond anything she could justify.

"No it's not." voice said. "If it's you, anything is possible."

Louise clapped her hand over her mouth. If it's you...

She was crying. She was sobbing without any way to stop herself. But she wanted to try. She wanted to believe just one more time. If everything around her was going to be so strange, then why shouldn't she fly?

Louise sucked in her breath. She held up her hand. She looked up at the sky. Breathing in. Breathing out. Louise felt the wind swirling around her, ruffling her clothes as he forced more and more strength into the wind.

"I can fly." Louise said. Positive reinforcement, her mother called it. Louise bent her knees.

"If it's me..." That's what the voice had said. Louise pulled the wind close to herself. She heard a roar as Officer Shirley came barreling down the road, running on all fours. There was only one more thing to say.

"UpupandaWOAH." the moment Louise jumped the wind caught her and flung her into the air. Louise saw bricks and windows fly past as she rose through the air. She reached the top of the buildings and suddenly she wasn't rising anymore. Louise sucked in her breath and summoned another gust of wind, flinging herself up even higher. The moment she felt herself slowing down she summoned another gust, launching her far above any of the buildings.

"Hah." Louise gasped. "Hahahahaha." she burst into laughter as she looked at all the empty air around her. She saw a cluster of skyscrapers in the distance and she summoned a new gust of wind, launching herself flying towards them. City streets whizzed past below her and the skyscrapers grew bigger and bigger, until they completely filled her vision. Louise let herself slow down as she reached the nearest skyscraper and brought herself to a halt, a foot in front of her pressed against the skyscraper window, and a gale of wind below her holding her aloft.

Inside she saw people with pointed ears and animal features staring at her, first with confusion and then with shock. Louise winked and then launched herself up again. Dozens of stories flew past of her in the blink of an eye and then she was above even the skyscrapers. With a few more gusts she landed on the highest needle of the highest building, resting her feet as she looked at the city around her. On one side sun was setting behind distant mountains and on the other side Louise could see an ocean streaked with brightly lit ships. A familiar squeaky voice interrupted her thought

"You really are a quick learner."

"Wah!" Louise stumbled and barely held onto the needle, suddenly reminded that she was very high above solid ground.

"Sorry about that." Louise heard the soft fluttering of bird wings, and a strange creature moved to hover in front of her. It mostly resembled a white rabbit, but the wings flapping on its back and the two antlers growing from its forehead were impossible to ignore. "My name's Jackie."
Louise stared at it.

"Come on, what's yours?" Jackie asked.

"Is... Jackie short for jackalope?" Louise said. The strange creature let out a huff.

"No." Jackie said. "...but my parents did have questionable tastes in names."

"Right. Then I'm... I'm Louise." she said. What did this thing want with her?

"Nice to meet you Louise." Jackie nodded her head. "Now, I'm guessing you're probably confused-"

"Of course I'm confused." Louise shouted. "I woke up in the middle of a city, I got chased by a bear and this huge jerk, and then another jerk showed up and is obsessed with hats, and somehow I can control the wind, maybe I'm a witch, I don't know, no one's told me anything, and now I'm talking to a jackalope but that's okay because at least it told me its name and..."

Jackie's paw covered Louise's mouth. All around them the dusk sky was painting the city orange.

"It's okay." Jackie said. "You must be very brave to have come this far. You could have turned back at any time, but you chose your own path instead."

"I was not going to let a bear eat me." Louis said.

"I happen to know Shirley is one of the finest officers on the force, and she would never eat anybody." Jackie said. "But she can be a little... enthusiastic in pursuing her duties."

"Right. The police." Louise rubbed her head and squeezed her eyes. "What did I do? Why is everyone mad at me? Why does everyone have funny ears?"

Jackie's own ears twitched and she started rubbing them with her paws.

"Are they really that funny?" Jackie muttered. "I try to groom them properly, but-."

"I mean, there normal for a rabbit, I guess." Louise adjusted her position on the needle so she had a hand free for gesturing. "But everyone's like that. There are animals and elves and animal people, but I haven't seen a single normal human since I came."

"Normal, huh?" Jackie said. The jackalope crossed its arms as best as it could. "Of course you haven't. Humans don't live here."

"In this city?" Louise asked.

"No." Jackie locked eyes with her. "This whole world hasn't seen a human for at least a thousand years."

"A-a thousand years?" Louise stuttered as she tried to process what the jackalope was saying. She was clinging to a radio needle high above a strange city, she was talking to a flying jackalope, but to think that she was the only human in the city, no... "Wait, did you say this world? What world is this?"

"What world should it be?" Jackie said. Jackie white fur was being stained orange by the dusk sky.

"...Earth?" Louise answered. She could tell Jackie was leading her on, but she couldn't imagine any other answer.

"Well, I can't say we don't ever call the world that, but the formal name is Domhan." Jackie said.

"I don't think Earth has a formal name." Louise said.

"Either way, you're definitely not on your Earth, and I'm sorry to say that I don't know how to go their." Jackie said. Louise heard a wailing siren echoing from below. "Dang, looks like we need to move."

"Wait, I'm not supposed to go anywhere with strangers." Louise said.

"It's okay, I'm not going to kidnap you." Jackie said, giving Louise a big smile. "I know the perfect place for you to lay low."

"Where?" Louise asked. Jackie smiled at her.

"Where else should a child be? School, of course."

OOOOO

"Hello everyone, I'd like to introduce you to a new student. She was supposed to arrive this afternoon, but with all the confusion she was naturally a little late." Jackie gestured to the side, where a girl in a plain white t-shirt and black skirt was standing with her hands clasped around the handle of a briefcase, fingers intermittently tapping the plastic. Her brown hair was parted into two large tails and she wore a pair of round glasses. On the other side of the room a small cluster of girls in pajamas observed them with varying levels of interest.

"H-hello. My name is Louise." Louise took a second to adjust the unfamiliar glasses, and then ran her hand through her hair as an excuse to scratch the itchy rubber covering her ear. "Louise, uh, Xanadu. I'm new here but, um, I hope we can all get along." Was that right?

"Right, right." the girl in front, a ponytail girl with skin like dark chocolate and relatively small points on her ears, waved her hand as if she could brush Louise away. "Nice to meet you, the toilet's next to the stairs, are we done now?"

"I'll try to dampen the sound, but we'll be a little busy moving her into the spare room, so don't worry if you hear something." Jackie said. Louise fingers twitched and she gave the other girls a thumbs up. Ponytail and the other girls let out small acknowledgements before splitting up to go to their own rooms, one for each of them. There were seven doors from the square room, one on the stairwell side and two more for every other side. Every door had a label, either a girl's name on nice paper or a plain description carved into metal. Louise felt a little embarrassed as Jackie led her into the room marked "storage". Louise made sure to close the door behind her and watched as Jackie clapped three times and released a flash of purple light.

"That should keep anyone from overhearing us." Jackie said. "As long as we keep our voices down."

"So, where am I supposed to sleep?" Louise could see the corners of a bed on her right, but it and almost every surface was covered in dusty cardboard boxes.

"Well, you'll obviously have to make space. The bedding should still be in here somewhere..." Jackie's voice trailed of as the jackalope started flapping from box to box, diving in to ruffle through their contents before quickly emerging again. Louise let out a sigh. It seemed this was one job only she could do. With great reluctance Louise set the briefcase down and started pulling and lifting boxes to free the bed. Jackie had already done so much to help, including buying her disguise, that Louise couldn't muster the will to complain.

"So... do you own this school?" Louise asked. Jackie's head poked out from a box and the jackalope started chuckling.

"No, goodness no. I'm just a teacher." Jackie said. Louise frowned.

"Won't the principal know I'm not supposed to be here?" She allowed herself a small grunt as she placed a particularly heavy box back on the ground.

"You wouldn't be the first walk-in student, though you are younger than usual." Jackie said.

"That can't be right." Louise shook her head. "Isn't there supposed to be a lot of paperwork and stuff?" She could still remember her older sister's complaints about starting high school.

"Well, they'll want some personal information tomorrow, but it's not like anyone else needs to be involved." Jackie smiled as she lifted up a set of sheets from one of the boxes Louise had already moved. Louise let the box she was holding fall.

"What about my parents?" Louise shouted. She heard muffled noises from the next room over and dropped her voice lower. "I still don't know how to reach them." She had convinced Jackie to try using pay phone, but the phone had called the number "unlisted".

"It's your education." Jackie said. Louise moaned into her hands. She may have viewed them as somewhat fantastical, but she could understand the basic concept of a boarding school. The idea of a school completely disregarding a student's parents? That was almost as unbelievable as flying.
"Could you please finish clearing the bed? You're going to have a busy day tomorrow."
Louise begrudgingly continued her work, clearing the bed and helping Jackie put on the bedding. The moment the bed was finished Louise threw herself back on it. She was tired. More than she had ever been in her life. She tilted her head to look at Jackie.

"What are you going to do with my old clothes?" Louise asked.

"Why wouldn't you keep them?" Jackie asked.

"You're the one who said they were too recognizable."

"That's no excuse to throw them out."

"They're ugly." Louise kicked her feet in frustration. "I'm never going to wear anything that color ever again."

"Call it a favor then." Jackie said. "I'm not going to throw out perfectly good clothes, and I even bought those glasses for you tonight, even though they're not going to help your disguise." Louise sat up instantly and pointed at Jackie.

"Glasses are the most important part." Louise said. "That's what separates the mysterious hero from the ordinary human." Jackie seemed to be physically restraining herself from rolling her eyes.

"Alright, alright. You should try to get some sleep now. There's a lot you need to do to get caught up to speed." Louise groaned but nodded her head. Jackie had definitely mastered an adult's annoying combination of overbearing and right. At least she wasn't a bear. Jackie left the room and Louise went about getting ready for bed, changing into the one set of pajamas Jackie had bought for her and brushing her teeth with a brand new brush and fresh toothpaste. The amount of new things she needed for a single night was disconcerting, and she couldn't help but wonder how much all of them had cost Jackie. Once she finally lay down in bed, sleep was mercifully quick.

The morning was anything but merciful. When a morning bell woke Louise she was briefly confused to be surrounded by wood paneling and unadorned white sheets. Then her mind pieced together the events of yesterday, starting from when Jackie brought her to the school dorm and progressing back to when she arrived in a world full of elves, animals, and animal people. Suddenly the room seemed far too big, and the air felt like it was crushing her. Louise started pulling the sheets up around her, then threw them off. None of that today. She wanted to face this world head on. Someone rapped on the door.

"New girl." Ponytail called in. "There's a uniform outside the door. Don't make me wait."

Louise waited until she heard Ponytail walk away and then quickly cracked open the door to grab her uniform. Louise had gone to sleep with her fake ears still on, but she was still slightly worried about being seen without her glasses. The uniform itself was more annoying than Louise had expected, with a blue vest over a button down blouse and a matching skirt, plus tasseled sailor's cap. Putting it on once was enough to make Louise glad she went to public school back home-

Louise shook her head. No time for that

She made her way to the bathroom to finish getting ready, and ended up having to share the mirror with another girl from last night, one with dark blue hair and fins on her ear, an experience they both found incredibly uncomfortable. The two ended up heading downstairs together, Fins with her backpack and Louise with a briefcase everything she owned. Thankfully Fins wasn't interested in small talk; Louise was sure she would just slip up and reveal something if she tried.

When they reached the bottom of the dorm Louise had begun breathing a little heavier. Even going down, twelve stories was a lot of stairs to cover. It was a pity the elevator she used last night was marked "staff only". The bottom floor had a table with fruit and toast for breakfast, and Louise saw Ponytail waiting around just long enough to see Louise arrive. The moment Louise walked in Ponytail immediately left the dorm. Next to where she was standing was a boy with light brown skin, pointy ears, and silver h-

"Wah!" the moment Louise recognized police boy she immediately grabbed Fins' shoulders and hid behind her.

"W-wait. Stop. W-what are you doing?" Fins shook herself as she tried to look at Louise.

"Oh. She must recognize me from TV." Police boy said. He was dressed in a masculine version of the school uniform, with blue shorts instead of a skirt, but the same vest and hat. "It's okay, I only work with the police part time. I'm a student here. Your the new student, right? My name is Basim." He held out his hand.

"If you're working for the police why are you still in school." Louise muttered.

"Ha." Basim said, his face suddenly looking a little stiff as he pretended to laugh. "Ah.Ha.Ha. I'm not amazing enough to skip school. You know? Now. What was your name again?"

Louise grumbled and grabbed an apple from the table as she came out from behind Fins and walked over to Basim. She grabbed his hand, looked him in the eyes, and shook the hand once.

"My name is Louise." she said. Pleasantries done, she bit into the apple and briskly walked out the door, hearing a squawking noise as Fins followed behind her. Louise winced and looked down to see that her "apple" was actually a large cherry, before shrugging and going back to her meal. It was a short walk to school, going past a few stores and more than a few people. Many of them wearing similar school uniforms, making it easy for Louise to follow them to school. At the same time she couldn't help but look around as she walked beside elves, centaurs, and at least one dog with a backpack and a blue vest. By the time she met Jackie at the school gate, she felt more than a little overwhelmed.

"Buck up." the jackalope chirped as she waved to Louise. "You'll fail your placement exams if you keep looking so gloomy."

"Are you sure I can't just focus on getting home?" Louise asked. Jackie had dismissed the option last night, but Louise had to try.

"The taxpayers aren't going to fund a dropout, Louise. Wouldn't you rather take the chance to learn something new?" For some reason, Jackie's smile seemed a little strained. Louise let out a sigh and followed the jackalope into the school.

OOOOO

Jackie placed the four marked up tests on the wooden desk in front of Louise. The classroom as a whole had an old-fashioned look to it with wooden flooring and bricks covering the bottom half of the walls. The windows were already beginning to dim as the sun reached its peak. Louise had left her briefcase and her hat on the floor during the tests, leaving her to wonder why the school even bothered adding hats to the uniform in the first place. Was this world just obsessed with hats in general?

"Now, I'm sure you did your best, but overall your results were... mixed." She pointed to the test on the far left. "You did very well on the Tirnian test,"

"It's mostly the same as English." Louise said with a nod. Jackie moved to point to the next test.

"You did perfectly in math,"

"Are you sure you gave me the right test? Because that was way too easy." Louise fidgeted with her glasses as she looked over the math test again.

"It's good to see you're so enthusiastic." Jackie said.

"I'm serious, we covered most of that test in third grade. And that was years ago, by the way." Jackie coughed and moved over to the next test.

"It's when we get to natural philosophy that your results begin to slide. You did excellently on the half dealing with biology and physics, but when it comes to magical phenomena... " Jackie was clearly waiting for Louise to respond, and Louise rubbed her forehead in frustration.

"It's not like I actually know any magic, I was just trying to copy stuff from books I read. The only real magic I know is that wind magic I learned yesterday, and I don't know even know how I learned it."

Jackie nodded as she listened to Louise's response.

"I'll keep that in mind. Now I suppose I shouldn't really blame you for not doing well on the history test, but I was hoping you'd get at least one answer right." Jackie said. Louise stood up and slammed her hand on the table.

"I'm from Earth! Of course I don't know any of this." Louise picked up the history test and began pointing at random questions. "Who is "˜Queen Titania' supposed to be?"

"Pretty much the founder of modern civilization." Jackie said.

"Where the heck is "˜New Tairngire'?"

"The exact city you're standing in."

"And did someone actually name their kid "˜Lord Edgemaster the 662nd'?" Louise said as she pointed at a multiple choice answer she hoped was a joke. Jackie scratched her chin.

"So you don't recognize the name?" she asked. Louise sat back down.

"Why should I? I don't know anything else on this test."

"Well, there's a lot of debate on whether Lord Edgemaster existed, but most of the legends about him say that he was a human." Louise froze.

"R-really?" Suddenly the sun shining through the classroom's windows felt much hotter.

"That's right. He's an infamous villain known for hunting innocent dragons, randomly starting wars, and forcing hundreds of woman to marry him." Jackie listed the information with an easy familiarity, as if she had heard it hundreds of times. Louise scratched her head.

"Is that why everyone's so scared of me? Because one human acted like a villain?" she asked. Jackie merely continued to list facts.

"A human called Leslie Wright is said to have waged war against Queen Titania. He proclaimed an "˜objective and rational' philosophy that led to massive famines, and is said to have been ultimately overthrown by his own citizens."

"Um..." Louise wasn't sure she could handle in depth politics.

"More recent is Lady Purity Angelfeather, who scholars generally agree existed, though there is uncertainty over whether she was actually human or merely claiming to be one. Her most notable involvement in history was sabotaging several arranged marriages between noble families-"

"Hey, that's a good thing." Louise said as she stood up and pointed. Jackie kept going, as if ignoring Louise's interjection.

"- Leading to several wars that might have been otherwise prevented-"

"It's not her fault that they were so quick to fight."

"-And she was also caught poisoning several nobles who opposed her policies." Louise fell back into her chair.

"Okay, that sounds kind of bad. So, does every human have that kind of reputation?"

"Pretty much." Jackie nodded. "But their behavior is only half of the reason for humanity's reputation. You said you didn't know any magic until yesterday? After you encountered someone else using wind magic?"

"Yes?" Louise said. She could only guess that the "Hase-Dasher" had been using magic. He hadn't exactly announced what he was doing.

"Then that would fit the common description of humans being able to "˜steal' magic." Jackie said. She moved to the blackboard at the head of the classroom and held a fat piece of chalk between both paws as she drew a circle filled with blotches. "It's not impossible for someone to copy a magical technique after experiencing it, but usually the differing impurities in each person's spirit-"
Louise tilted her head as she tried to figure out what a spirit was.

"That's the metaphysical organ that allows people to absorb mana and use magic." Jackie clarified. "As I was saying, each person's spirit has a unique set of impurities that restrict what magic they are capable of, which is why some people have different talents than others and why it is difficult to copy another person's talents. Usually learning magic is a matter of experiencing and working around a person's limits." Jacke hugged an eraser and wiped away the blotches inside the circle. "Humans, on the other hand are said to have "˜empty' spirits. Most people who discuss humans say that this allows their spirits to memorize any magical techniques they are exposed to."

"Huh..." Louise rolled the information around in her head. She hadn't done any magic since yesterday, and a lot of what she had done she could only half-remember through a haze of fear and euphoria. Then her eyes widened as she realized the implications of what Jackie had said. "Wait, any technique?"

"That's right." Jackie smiled "You've already done it once, with a very complex technique no less, so there's no reason to think you couldn't do it again."

"How much magic do people here normally learn?"

"Everyone without handicaps learns a mix of useful techniques, but they usually only excel in one or two elements. For example, I have an exceptional talent for erasing, amplifying, and projecting sound, but I am only capable of using basic techniques with other elementals. It takes most of a lifetime to become a sage who can handle four or more elements, a lot of which is spent forcibly removing impurities from the spirit."

"So humans can learn any magic in the world?" Louise was starting to feel a little scared.

"Yes."

"And every single one you've ever heard of has been a colossal jerk?" Louise''s voice began to strain.

"The ones that people remember, at any rate."

"No wonder everyone's scared of me." Louise put her head in her hands. "I really do look like some kind of superhuman."

"Super elf." Jackie said.

"That's not funny." Louise shouted. "Why are you even helping me?"

"Because I didn't see a human." Jackie said. Louise looked back up at her. "I mean, I saw that you were human. All the cameras were focusing on your ears. But I didn't see a monster. I saw a girl the same age as my students who was scared and confused, and if I couldn't help her it would make me a failure as a teacher."

"Really?" Louise asked.

"I mean, getting to talk to a real human is also amazing." Jackie started laughing until she saw Louise glaring at her. The jackalope coughed into her paw and shifted back into a serious expression. "Well, now that we've explained that, it's time for lunch and changing into your gym uniform. We've still got the P.E. and P.M. tests coming up.

Louise was thankful that lunch was a normal combination of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a chocolate-studded granola bar, but changing into the white t-shirt and blue shorts of the gym uniform in the middle of the school day was embarrassing if understandable. Thankfully the locker room had changing stalls and named lockers for every student. The P.E. test was ordinary if humiliating, with Louise's final run around the school's track being more of a stumbling walk. "P.M", it would seem, stood for practical magic.

"Now, let's start with the basics." Jackie said as Louise positioned herself in a sandy circle. "Can you create earth?"

Louise breathed in with her extra lungs. No. Louise absorbed mana with her spirit. Now that she understood it better, it was easier not to mix the process with her actual breathing. She held out her hands in front of her and concentrated on the image of rocks appearing between her hands. Louise carefully channeled mana from her spirit. Nothing happened. Louise tried again, and still nothing happened.

"Can you create water?" Jackie asked. Louise performed the same steps, imagining a shimmering orb of water appearing between her hand, but again nothing happened. "Can you create fire? Away from your clothes, naturally." Louise shook her hands in frustration as she glared at the empty space between them. Still nothing. "Metal?" Nothing. "Something easy then. Try summoning wind."

Louise forced herself to calm down. She breathed in, she breathed out, and then she began absorbing mana with her spirit. Louise held out her hands in front of her and channeled the mana she had absorbed, remembering the sensations from yesterday. Sand was flung into the air all around her, circling her body without touching it.

"Good, good." Jackie said. "Now, what's the smallest amount of wind you can summon?"

"The smallest?" Louise asked.

"Control is important." Jackie said. Louise nodded and began absorbing mana again. She held out her hands and imagined a tiny tornado appearing between them as she channeled the mana. For a few seconds she was pleased to see small swirls of dust circling between her hand, but the next instant the sand flew out in every direction as Louise felt wind buffeting her face. "I see. You only copied what you directly experienced, not the entirety of the Hase-Dasher's skills. That's going to make teaching you more difficult."

"You know basic magic right?" Louise said. "Can't I just copy you?"

"I'm not going to let you cheat like that." Jackie said. "You can practice with your classmates starting tomorrow, but for now we need to be getting you ready for life here."

After Louise had changed back into the regular uniform the rest of the day was spent on a crash course about Domhan and New Tairngire in specific. Topics ranged from the demographics (60% elves and 40% beastfolk), to the geography (New Tairngire was on the east coast of the local continent), and as much history as Jackie could fit in. Jackie tried to explain all the little differences in public traditions between Earth and Domhan as they came up, but ultimately it seemed they were destined to rely on a cover story about Louise coming from a remote foreign town. When a bell announced the end of school Jackie handed over a small stack of papers to Louise.

"The good news is you don't have to be held back a grade, but you have a lot of work to do to catch up." Jackie said as Louise stuffed the papers into her briefcase, covering up the burgundy dress and the other supplies she had accumulated. "Go back to the dorm and review these, and we can talk again at dinner. While your at it, think about anything else your going to need to live here. I can't make any promises beyond the standard school supplies, but it's good to have a list." Louise groaned but nodded her head. Stuck in a world of magic and she already had homework.

Without anyone to talk with or any after-school activities Louise left the grounds well ahead of everyone else. The people she passed on the way back to the dorm had nothing in common with her; they were just adults and teenagers dressed in fantastical outfits and professional clothing. The bottom floor of the dorm was empty, and Louise skipped up the twelve stories of stairs with careful gusts of wind. What use was magic if she couldn't use it to make life easier?

Louise walked into her room to find half the boxes replaced with a wooden desk and matching chair. With a sigh she hoisted her briefcase onto the desk and fell back on the bed. The moment her back touched the sheets she felt the same urge from the morning, a desire to hide herself away and never leave the room again. Vaguely, she wondered what would happen when the other girl from her floor arrived. Louise eyes closed as she felt her consciousness fading. Then they flew open as a massive wind buffeted the dorm, rattling the window to the point that Louise was sure it would shatter. The shaking paused for a moment only to resume with even more force, and Louise glimpsed a tasseled sailor's cap flying past her window.

"Oh." Louise said. The moment the window stopped shaking Louise leapt up and dashed to the window to confirm her suspicions. Sure enough, a familiar rabbit-eared man was standing down in the middle of the street, ducking and weaving as Basim hurled volleys of silver yo-yos at him. Dotted around the street she could see dozens of students gawking at a cloud of sailor caps hovering in the air above them. It seemed the Hase-Dasher was dedicated to carrying out his silly grudge against as many people as possible. Louise fell back as another gust of wind rattled the window.

She couldn't interfere. If Basim saw her fighting the Hase-Dasher the same way she did yesterday, he was sure to connect the dots. She'd lose what little peace she had found. Basim would throw her in jail and she'd never get a chance to go home. She had to stay put. As Louise rubbed her head in fear her hand traced over her glasses. They were basic reading glasses, enough to sharpen her vision up close but nothing more. Back home she only wore glasses for school work and reading, but in this world she had started wearing them regularly because...

Because they were the ultimate disguise.

Louise forced her mind to correct two mistakes. The first correction was that if Basim saw Louise Xanadu fighting he would recognize her. The second correction was that it didn't matter if anyone hated her. She wanted to fight. Louise glance over at the briefcase sitting on the desk. Keep the dress as a favor, Jackie had said. She smiled as she took off her glasses. It was a good thing no one had come upstairs yet.

A minute later the door to her room opened and a human emerged, clad in a burgundy dress and wearing her hair in one long sheet, rounded ear poking out from behind her bangs. Louise rushed to the stairs and climbed up, past the highest floor of the dorm. A door at the top had a lock and a sign forbidding students from the roof. Louise blew it open with a single gust of wind. As she stepped out into the daylight Louise saw the cloud of sailor caps fly up past the edge of the roof. No more time to hesitate. If it was her, anything was possible. Louise leapt into the air and let a funnel of wind carry her above the rising cloud of hats.

"Stop! Right! There!" With each word she shouted Louise buffeted the caps with a new gust of winds, until their ascent finally reversed and they began falling back to the ground. Louise followed the hats down, landing on the street behind the Hase-Dasher as numerous sailor caps rained down on the ground. The rabbit-eared man turned to face her, his pinstripe suit fluttering open to reveal its stitches.

"You." the Hase-Dasher whispered.

"Everyone, get behind me." Basim spread his arms out and the other students, even the older ones, were quick to listen. Apparently his job with the police was well known. Louise tilted her head to the side and sneered, hoping to distort her face away from what Basim had seen up close.

"Now listen here, "˜Hase-Dasher'." Louise said in her best impression of a queen. "I've had quite enough of you raising all this ruckus and I'm giving you one last warning. Stop now before I ruin more than your suit." That much was true. Louise wasn't unfamiliar with being mad at someone, but it was usually a temporary feeling directed at friends and family she would never dream of hurting. The Hase-Dasher, as well as Basim, were making her feel something different, and the urge to make them stop bothering her was overwhelming.

"Who are you to be making demands?" the Hase-Dasher asked.

"I'm glad you asked." Louise said. She was only going to get one shot at an introduction, so she had to make it good. "Faster than speeding rabbit, stronger than a hurricane, able to leap straight up tall buildings. I. Am. Super-Elf!" Louise pointed to the sky as she finished her speech. Basim's face was twisted in shock and confusion. The Hase-Dasher scratched the side of his head.

"You don't seriously expect me to believe that, right?" The Hase-Dasher said.

"Geez, It's a metaphor." Louise said, her foot tapping on the pavement. "Oh, nevermind. Time to go to jail, jerk." Louise thrust her hand forward and launched a tunnel of wind at the Hase-Dasher.

"Just what I wanted." The Hase-Dasher grinned and swiped his hand in front of him, dispersing Louise's wind tunnel before it could reach him. "It's time you learned that the spotlight doesn't belong to you." The Hase-Dasher slammed his right foot on the ground and launched himself forward, dust and hats flying up in his wake. Louise panicked and summoned a gale of wind to fly up, flipping around to keep her eyes on the rabbit-eared man passing through where she had been standing. Her relief was cut short when the Hase-Dasher's left foot hit the ground and he leapt up into the sky. Of course the rabbit person had super-jumping. He was the person Louise had copied her wind magic from in the first place.

"Wah." Louise yelped as the Hase-Dasher turned to face her and began stomping on empty air. Louise flung herself backwards and heard a roar of wind as the Hase-Dasher followed behind. Louise flew up above the street as fast as possible, zipping past the surrounding rooftops and into the clear air. Louise turned back and threw a gale of at the Hase-Dasher, but he dispersed it with a single swipe of his arm and continued flying towards her. Louise leapt to the side and let the Hase-Dasher zip past her, only to see him lift one leg and rebound off empty air.

The world turned into a flickering blur as Louise zig-zagged through the sky, dodging and making desperate feints, sometimes escaping the Hase-Dasher's grasp with only inches to spare. Whatever had happened yesterday, Louise came to realize that the rabbit-eared man had the edge when it came to controlling the wind magic. The moment she had room to breath Louise turned and rocketed straight towards the city's skyscrapers. If she couldn't win with skill, she might win with concealment and surprise. Louise glanced behind her as the skyscraper surrounded her and was confused to see the Hase-Dasher had disappeared. Before she could process what had happened a large hand grabbed her right arm and lifted it up.

"Ah." Louise nearly bit her tongue in pain as the Hase-Dasher pulled her arm up past his head, allowing them to see face to face. Fortunately a gale of wind appeared below them, keeping them steady in the air and reducing the strain on Louise's arms. Apparently the Hase-Dasher had the edge in concealment too.

"It really is annoying fighting someone with the same talent as me." the Hase-Dasher said. "Or should I say a copy of my talent?" Louise tried to shake her arm free, but the adult's strength was too much for her. Suddenly she heard a voice whispering in her ear.

"Keep him busy." Jackie said, her voice clearly worried. "The police already have an aerial squad on the way. Don't worry about getting arrested and just stay safe." Well, Louise thought, there was one sure way to distract a villain.

"What do you want?" Louise said. Up close she could see that his pupils were a dark, bloody red color, an odd contrast to the sky blue irises surrounding them. "In case you didn't notice, I don't have a hat."

"Huh?" the Hase-Dasher tilted his head as he looked her over, then shook it and went back to staring into her eyes. "That doesn't matter. Human or not, you need to learn your place in the world." Louise saw the Hase-Dasher lifting his foot to continue moving and knew she was out of time. Louise felt her hand brush the Hase-Dasher's long ear. No time for a better plan. She squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on the smallest tornado she could imagine, even as she gathered as much mana as her spirit could handle. Louise felt the rapidly swirling wind tearing at her hand and clenched her teeth. The Hase-Dasher let go and released the wind below her but it was too late.

"GO!" Louise wanted to say something clever but all she managed was mindless yelling.

Louise let the wind free and there was deafening shriek as the sky exploded in front of her and the two were flung away from each other. Louise felt her ears ringing and her head throbbing but she forced her eyes opened. She was falling faster and faster past the glass and steel skyscrapers, and she could see the Hase-Dasher tumbling through the air far away from her. Pain shot through her head as she began absorbing mana, but there was no use stopping now. She launched herself at the Hase-Dasher with a gust of wind and wrapped her arms around his waist the moment she reached him, ignoring the way his body was trembling.

Louise lifted her head back and yelled in pain, forcing as much mana through her spirit as she could in a storm of wind that did its best to slow her and the Hase-Dasher. Even with the wind pushing against them the hard pavement down below was still approaching too fast. Louise saw so many events play out in her mind: mistakes from her past, running from police bears, flying through the sky, and for a moment she felt the world around her disappear. Then her feet hit solid ground and she felt the full weight of an adult dragging her down.

"Oof." Louise said as she collapsed next to the Hase-Dasher. The moment she caught her breath she scrambled away and stood up, leaving him on the ground clutching his ears. They had landed in some sort of memorial garden, on a brick path circling around a statue of two regal woman clasping hands.

"What were you thinking, I'm going to have tinnitus for years." The Hase-Dasher moaned as he planted one hand on the ground and pushed himself up. Louise readied herself to continue fighting but flinched back when she saw the Hase-Dasher open his eyes. His pupils were black now, any trace of dark red entirely gone. ""What... were we doing?" The Hase-Dasher looked around himself. Louise was confused herself. Had he really forgotten what just happened? "What were we doing? I remember the guy, and the bell, but then-" the Hase-Dasher stopped as he took a closer look at Louise. His eyes widened and he stumbled back. "A- a human." he stuttered. "Stay back." That wasn't just a loss of memories, that was a complete change in personality. Louise heard sirens wailing and stepped away.

"Stop right there, both of you." Basim yelled out from far away.

"Sorry." Louise said. "I know it's rough to get arrested out of nowhere, but I've got to run." Her head beginning to clear, she summoned a gust of wind and flew up into the air, zipping past a half-dozen winged humanoids in police uniforms.

OOOOO

"Hypnotism?" Jackie asked. Louise was back in disguise and all around them the school cafeteria was bustling with noise, but their conversation was completely unheard by the people around them. Louise still felt compelled to hide her mouth behind her hands as she spoke. Jackie was seated at a two person table, while Jackie was sitting on the table itself across from her.

"That's right. I thought he might have just gotten amnesia, but he mentioned something about a guy with a bell." Louise said. She stopped to take a bite of pasta and turned back to Jackie. "I think someone gave him that stupid hat obsession." Jackie sighed and rubbed her head.

"What possible reason could they have-"

"I mean, I obviously don't know why someone would do that." Louise said. "I'm not a hypnotist."

"Maybe you don't know this, but hypnotism, love potions, anything that directly affects a person mind are highly illegal." Jackie said. She paused and nibbled on the salad sitting next to her.

"I'm pretty sure attacking people with hats is also illegal." Louise said. Jackie sat up and finished chewing the lettuce in her mouth.

"Well, freeing a hypnotized person or no, you still have detention for the rest of the week."

"What?" Louise slammed the table, causing enough noise that a couple people actually heard and turned their heads look. Louise smiled awkwardly and waved before turning back to Jackie. "What did I do wrong?"

"You can't possibly think I'm okay with you engaging in vigilante justice like you did." Jackie crossed her arms, making the finality of her decision clear.

"Vigilante?" Louise asked. She wasn't familiar with the word.

"It means justice delivered by someone outside the law, which isn't justice at all. Besides," Jackie said. Then she smiled in a way that made Louise more afraid than falling half a skyscraper's height. "You're already starting school at the bottom of the class. This should be a wonderful opportunity to catch up. And if we're having private lessons, that's the perfect chance to research travel between worlds."

Louise sighed and hung her head. It seemed her bothersome new life was going to continue like this for a long time.

The official unofficial SV female lead Isekai contest: Story Thread

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class