Unifier (Worm / Minecraft)

[We Just Write]

Preface: In this story, Taylor Hebert gets dropkicked into the world of Minecraft prior to the locker, gaining all the capabilities of a Survival player. That said, this is Minecraft when it's taken seriously as an actual universe, rather than Minecraft adhering totally to video game logic. As such, the world will not be cubical and boxy all over, nor will it be heavily pixelated. Villagers meanwhile are actual people who actually arm themselves to try and get through the constant nightly monster raids, rather than cowering in their homes and hoping the local Golem takes care of everything; sadly they don't have the Crafting superpowers that they'd need to fortify their villages to the point of impregnability by the next night.

That said, anything doable in vanilla Minecraft can also be done in this version, though the methods may differ somewhat to account for this being a universe that's actually being taken seriously. As an example, pistons can still be used to construct a flying machine, however they will be a source of thrust rather than just shoving the machine around in one meter steps. Similarly, Enchanting is a fair bit less random, Redstone machines can be miniaturized much more effectively, and there's nothing stopping someone with a sizable supply of Gunpowder, Iron, and Flint from making themselves a Blunderbuss.

On a story beats note, this story will be partially told in anachronic order, alternating between chapters in Brockton Bay taking place after Taylor's triumphant return, and chapters in Minecraft, showing how Taylor got that way.

---

It was my first school day after winter break, and against my better judgement I'd actually got some hope that Emma would stop making my life miserable, since she'd been letting up a bit before the break.

This hope was immediately dashed before I even made it to Winslow, and the reason had nothing whatsoever to do with the trio of bullies after me. No, that blame laid squarely on Uber and Leet having obstructed traffic with a rectangular frame of some black material, while also dressed up in medieval-looking armor. I stood gobsmacked as one of them pulled out a microphone and said "Residents of Brockton Bay, welcome to Uber and Leet's pig zombie defense minigame! Waves of putrid porkers will come out of that portal as soon as we light it up, and whoever takes down the most will get a prize! Ready, set, go!"

Immediately, I turned around to leave, only to be confronted with a transparent, shimmering force field keeping me and a few dozen other pedestrians contained. I heard that infuriating voice again shouting "Of course, leaving before the fun even starts is strictly prohibited."

Turning to look again, the rectangular frame was now filled with something glowy and purple, which immediately spurred a reaction best described as "ALL the NOPE!". This only intensified when shambling, rotting creatures started walking out of the portal, each wielding a golden sword in one hand.

There were screams of panic and fear for a few moments before it quickly became apparent that despite their horrific appearances, the pig-faced zombies were pretty much just wandering around aimlessly and not really bothering anyone. I figured that since the undead pigs weren't really bothering anyone and no-one wanted to take the first shot, Uber and Leet would get bored soon and shut off the force field. So I went back to walking down the street towards Winslow, figuring I might as well go back to what I was doing. Big mistake.

Turns out that Leet (or was it Uber? Hard to keep track through their armor) was none too happy about how the pig zombies weren't bothering anyone, and decided to take out his frustration on the nearest one by smacking it in the face while shouting something I didn't hear over all the guttural grunting. Immediately, every single pig zombie whirled around to face the villain, and the entire mob started charging at them, swords at the ready. Though the undead pigmen were careful not to poke me with their swords as they charged, I still got shoved to the side as they passed. I got a brief glimpse at the portal as I was pushed into it, then my entire field of view went purple.

When I could see clearly again, I was somewhere else entirely. The air was hot like there was a fire nearby, the rock was red and soft beneath my feet, and I could clearly see lavafalls in the distance, along with a ceiling to wherever I was. Then I heard a high-pitched, keening cry followed by a sound like a firey explosion and whirled to see where it came from.

For my troubles, I got a view of a white flying tentacled creature the size of a weather balloon, and a ball of fire streaking towards me at distressingly fast speeds. I ducked and the fireball soared over my head, exploding behind me. The soft red rock I'd been standing on gave way, and I fell, dropping straight towards a glowing orange sea of lava. I didn't have time to process what was about to happen before I was suddenly immersed in agonizing pain.

A few seconds later, I was dead, but strangely I could still see things happening around where I was. Almost immediately I felt like there was an option to keep going, and I immediately grabbed onto that certainty like a lifeline.

The ocean of lava containing my mortal remains vanished around me, and abruptly I found myself in a completely different location. Looking around, it was clear I was in some sort of building, albeit one that had seen better days. Cobwebs were all over the place, the whole place was dusty, and looking around it was immediately clear that the door had been ripped off its hinges. There were also several bookshelves, each of which had a few books on it. I also noted that there was a torch mounted to the wall, casting light across the room. Rather incongruously with the rest of the building, it was still burning.

Immediately looking for any possible distraction from the fact that I'd just fallen in lava and died, I immediately set about investigating the bookshelves. Looking a bit closer, the faded tags at the bottom identified one of the bookshelves as being fiction, and the other two as being nonfiction. Looking closer at the nonfiction section, there were a selection of titles such as "A treatise on the construction and use of interdimensional portals", "Practical implications of the World Curse", "Known Realms of Existence", "Practical self-defense against the undead", "Basic Metallurgy", "Wilderness Survival", "Redstone Engineering for Beginners", and "Practical Enchantment and Potioncrafting".

Well, the titles themselves weren't all that weird, but their inclusion in the nonfiction section definitely took a bit for me to accept. Still, it was pretty clear I wasn't exactly in Brockton Bay any more. Frantically crushing any thoughts that this might be some sort of dying hallucination, I settled in to read.

 

[We Just Write]

Over the last two months, Danny had put together quite a power base for himself. Something changed just after getting the news of Taylor's disappearance, followed by reading the journal of the torment she'd suffered. He remembered purchasing a sizable jug of whiskey and pouring the first glass at home, then the next thing he knew he was in the basement staring at a spherical hovering drone and holding a tablet showing a feed from said drone.

Some more quick experiments quickly proved that whenever it came to making unmanned robots and systems to remotely direct them, Danny was capable of putting together devices with an utterly ludicrous level of advancement. After a few moments of thought, the term 'Tinker' drifted to the fore of Danny's mind.

From there a plan had coalesced to permanently rid Brockton Bay of the murderous would-be warlords who ran roughshod over the people and provided excuses for the authorities to act in such a corrupt manner. The resources of the Dockworkers Union would provide enough for some low-level Tinkering in an untraceable manner, and with his drones information gathering was incredibly easy; especially once he'd installed some proper stealth systems.

It only took a couple weeks to uncover Kaiser's secret identity by the simple virtue of having a stealthed micro-drone follow and observe him until he took off his armor, revealing the face of Max Anders. A few days later, a couple other drones infiltrated the different clinics across Brockton Bay, and made off with Max's medical records.

Danny then spent a few hours combing through said records, looking for any health issue he could plausibly use as an excuse for Max Anders' sudden demise. Unsurprisingly, nothing major came up, which made sense when you considered that Othala was part of the Empire. Either way, Danny wasn't going to let that stop him; if he couldn't fake a massive medical issue then he'd just need to make it look like an accident.

The next day, a set of specialized drones had suborned the controls for Max's fancy fly-by-wire car and were monitoring the passenger cabin. When Max inevitably went on a drive with no-one else in the car, Danny sent the command to the drones to take over once Max was on an open road. Mere minutes later, Max's car had slammed into a boulder at about seventy miles per hour, a 'mysterious airbag failure' adding to the crash's lethality. In the aftermath, Danny's drones scuttled off into the wilderness, buried themselves, and self destructed. There was no way whatsoever that Danny was calling those units back to base; better not to risk any possibility of being traced.

Things had proceeded relatively smoothly after the death of Kaiser fragmented the Empire, as Danny added more and more exotic infiltration capabilities to his drones and started keeping tabs on more and more people. That's how he eventually found out that one of the PRT's consultants - one Thomas Calvert - was moonlighting as a supervillain. Almost immediately Coil's actions landed him a spot on Danny's hit list, but Danny stayed his hand for just a bit, trying to analyze Coil's power to figure out if there might happen to be any unexpected curveballs should he move too soon. A week or so of observation (during which Fenja and Menja were mysteriously gassed in their sleep) was enough to determine that Coil was some sort of precog with a bunch of weird limitations. Danny simply shrugged and scheduled a time of death a couple days in advance; when the timestamp rolled around, one of the drones observing Coil in his base immediately blew his brains out with a laser before self-destructing, leaving nothing but fine ash behind.

Subsequently Tattletale, that teenage Thinker who Coil had been keeping 'employed' pretty much immediately took over what was left of Coil's operation. Immediately afterwards, she'd sought out Danny and they'd joined forces, also bringing the remaining Undersiders into the fold. Shortly thereafter, Hookwolf died of 'natural causes'.

As for the authorities who had been woefully inadequate so far, Danny sent them a little anonymous message. In the absolute strictest sense, it was blackmail: he had proof that one of their Wards had been torturing innocent people in her civilian identity for months without getting caught. They would clean house and stay out of his way as he disposed of the truly awful supervillains, or he would single-handedly obliterate all hope they had of good PR.

Of course, Piggot had called Danny's bluff, being a notorious hardass. In response, Danny had immediately fired his PR nuke, not only revealing Shadow Stalker's actions in her civilian ID, but also calling attention to the PRT's near-total inability to actually keep villains in custody and publicizing hundreds of other cases of corruption in the ranks, and that was just for Brockton Bay.

The effect was immediate and severe, as parents of Wards started pulling their children out of the program, the public became a lot less inclined to report information to the PRT unless absolutely necessary, and Piggot's funding was pared down even further.

This brings us to the present, Danny sitting in his control room watching the readouts of his various spy bots. Lisa was standing over his shoulder, asking "So Support, who's next on the list?"

To this, Danny smirked before answering "Well, now that the neo-Nazis are a mere shadow of their former power, we can afford to focus a bit on some of the other targets in town. To be more specific, I'm planning on gutting the ABB's Cape roster in one fell swoop. They've all murdered several innocent people and show no sign of stopping. Meanwhile the PRT shows no signs of wanting to engage with either Lung or Oni Lee, meaning that getting rid of them is our job."

In the LED lighting of the command center, Lisa nodded before she said "Support, Monitor 41 is showing something really interesting."

Immediately Danny changed windows to show the feed from the drone he'd designated as Monitor 41, getting a good view of one of the defunct loading areas that used to handle freight from container ships. There, beneath the gantries was a spark of shimmering white light. A half-second later, this spot suddenly expanded into a glowing rectangle like the display of an old raster television. The edges solidified into a frame of some white material, while the interior was a shimmering curtain of seemingly random colors.

A few seconds later, a group of ten people came through, all wearing shimmering grey armor plating and obviously heavily armed. Strangely, four of the people present were inhumanly tall, coming in at roughly 2.5 meters.

One of the human-sized individuals turned to one of the tall individuals while somehow averting their gaze and said something that the drone's systems quickly recovered as "Sergeant Groff, go make initial contact with the local authorities while the rest of us here secure the portal frame. Don't take offense if they look you in the eye, they don't know any better."

To this, the tall being now tagged by the drone as Sergeant Groff performed what was obviously some sort of salute as they stood to attention and put their left hand on their right shoulder, before they replied "Affirmative, Queen Taylor Hebert." and suddenly vanished in a brief flash of purple.

Then the armored figure who'd given the orders briefly turned so that the drone had a clear view of her face as she went to help with securing the area. Immediately, Danny brought up the freeze-frame of the face in question and silently gestured to Lisa.

A few moments later, Lisa nodded and said "Well, the name Taylor Hebert certainly matches. Meanwhile her face looks basically the same, though older by anywhere between five and eight years. On the other hand, I don't recall the Hebert family ever being royalty. It's a possibility, I guess?"

Immediately, Danny got up from his seat and said "Lisa, we're headed for the car."

Following after as he walked, Lisa asked "Shouldn't we really be using the hardlight telepresence units for this?"

In response, Danny answered "Some things just need to be done in person."

 

[We Just Write]

Yes, Danny is connected to Queen Administrator, which is currently expressing as a Tinker power.

 

[verycoolname]

Meanwhile, at Cauldron:

Alexandria: Alright, someone in Brockton Bay is messing with our poorly thought out schemes to make everything worse save humanity. We need to stop them.

Contessa: Path to finding the dude who's actually getting shit done.

...

Eidolon: ...Did it work?

Contessa: It did. Now, who wants to go?

Doctor Mother: You aren't going?

Contessa: Oh HELL no!

Back in Brockton Bay:

Lisa: Mister Hebert, why are you mass-producing drones designed to look like bees and spiders?

Danny: Oh you know, just in case.

 

[We Just Write]

Turns out that once I started reading, it was nearly impossible to stop. I suppose it helped that these were texts focused first and foremost on practical knowledge and skills, which I could really get behind. I started reading in the morning, and I didn't stop until I ran out of books. Apparently, I really liked learning when there wasn't anyone else around to ruin it for me.

Still, as I closed the last book (one detailing the fauna native to the Nether, which I recognized as that hellish dimension where I'd fallen in lava) I looked out the window of the cobweb-filled library. As I saw the sun setting, my blood ran cold. The book on the World Curse had been extremely clear: any dark place would spawn life-hating monstrosities that would happily murder any person they found.

Quickly, I eyed the torch on the wall and remembered the broken door. I had no idea if whatever force had resurrected me after my impromptu lava bath would do it again, and I had no desire to find out. Quickly, I dashed out of the library and started looking through the other abandoned buildings, frantically checking through the leftover chests for anything useful.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I didn't find all that much. Especially since as I was digging through the third chest I heard a menacing hiss behind me. Whirling around, I got a brief look at a frowning leafy plant monster. Half a second later, my entire body was very painful for the fraction of a second it took for me to die again.

Immediately, I flashed away from the site of my death and emerged in a fresh body, though this time I popped up just outside the library. Looking around, I quickly spotted the building where I'd just been blown up. I also saw a squad of skeletal archers drawing their bows, their empty lightless eye sockets staring right at me as they did so. Hurriedly dodging to the side, I barely managed to avoid getting perforated and I ran for my life.

Looking ahead, part of the shadows seemed to turn, revealing a tall coal-black figure with glowing purple eyes. I met their gaze, and they opened their jaw wider then the height of their head and screamed. Immediately I froze in fear, suddenly feeling stabbing pain from behind as I was presumably shot by the squad of skeletons who had already been chasing me. Dying again, I saw the tall dark flicker vanish away from a volley of arrows in a flash of purple.

As I came back to life right behind the library, I found myself catching another glimpse of that tall dark figure out of my peripheral vision. I had bigger problems right now, like the biggest spider I'd ever seen dashing right at me, along with a pair of green rotting zombies. A mere moment later all three of them tore into me as I met the gaze of the purple-eyed being again. The tall person briefly screeched again, then vanished out of sight.

Not that it much mattered to me, seeing as I was dead at the moment. Actually, come to think of it, I didn't need to come back to life right away, did I? The book said that monsters only appeared in an absence of light and tended to not be there if someone checked a formerly-dark place later, so why not just wait until sunrise before coming back to life? It'd certainly hurt less, and it's not like I'd be able to deal with the monsters tonight anyway.

So, in my currently disembodied state, I settled in to wait. This turned out to be somewhere between being really boring, and really zen. On the one hand, there wasn't really all that much I could actually do while dead aside from looking around the place where I'd just perished. On the other hand, it also meant there wasn't all that much to distract me from planning what exactly I'd be doing come morning. Either way, the sun eventually rose and I got a front row seat of all the zombies and skeletons burning to death.

As soon as that was done, I returned from the dead once more. This is about when I realized that I was looking straight at the tall black creature who apparently didn't die in sunlight. Abruptly, the... person I guess gently grabbed my head and turned me so that I wasn't looking him in the eye any more. Point taken, tall dark and teleporty didn't like eye contact. Carefully looking away but keeping them in my peripheral vision, I gestured to myself and said "I'm Taylor."

The being gestured to themselves and said "Chev" in a distinctly raspy voice. A moment later, they pointed at me and hesitantly said "I'm Taylor" while quirking their head to the side.

I facepalmed, before gesturing to myself again and saying "Taylor."

Quickly grabbing one of the arrows from where I'd gotten shot by skeletons I scratched out a stick figure in the dirt and pointed at it, saying "Taylor" once more. I then proceeded to scratch several more stick figures into the dirt, before saying "Human" as I pointed at the large group.

Looking just to Chev's side I could see that he was thinking for a moment, before gesturing to the arrow I'd used as an impromptu drawing implement. Obligingly, I handed it to him and he scratched a somewhat taller stick figure next to mine before repeating "Chev", drawing another group of taller stick figures he then pointed to them and said "Endermen".

I nodded, thinking for a moment about how I would explain how I got here, grabbing another arrow to scratch with. As I scratched a crude diagram, I said "I'm from Earth Bet. I got pushed into a portal. Died in Nether. Revived here."

Thinking for another moment, I clarified "Earth Bet is not here." while adding appropriate diagrams.

Chev thought for a few moments, before he suddenly pointed behind me, shouted "TAYLOR!" and teleported away. Whirling around I got another up close and personal view of one of the exploding plant creatures. Said exploding plant creature obligingly exploded right in my face.

When I revived myself a split-second later, I couldn't help but unleash a fountain of profanity including but not limited to "That mutinous blasting bilge rat DARED прервать ..." Wait, when did I speak Russian? For that matter, since when was Pirate an actual language?

Also, my hand was somewhat sore. Looking over to my left, I saw that I'd somehow punched down a tree while I was incoherently furious, the upper trunk and branches of which had somehow vanished while the leaves lay on the ground. Also for some reason it felt like I was carrying a sizable chunk of wood with me, even though it wasn't anywhere on my person. Huh.

 

[We Just Write]

Just a thought, since physics are a thing in this does that mean some of the common non magical mods are now possible? Or something like tinker's construct with the alloys and smithing? It'd be neat to see tinker's vs tinker.

Click to shrink...

I will not explicitly be using content from any particular mod. However, suspiciously similar technologies are likely to appear in a number of cases, simply due to being good ideas.

 

[We Just Write]

As soon as I came through that portal and smelled the long-forgotten slightly-polluted salt air of Brockton Bay, I sent Sergeant Groff off to make initial official contact. The highly trained Enderman soldier saluted, then vanished in the characteristic purple flash of Enderman teleportation. Meanwhile, I and the rest of the Beach-head crew got to work constructing initial fortifications.

Seeing as undergoing the Build Enhancement process was now mandatory for citizens of Luminaria, everyone here had versions of my matter manipulation abilities and the subspace storage to go with. That said, I was still the only immortal (Totems of Undying notwithstanding); that's one of the reasons I had insisted on getting the entire Army fully enchanted Netherite armor, despite the truly ruinous expense it presented in terms of Essence and replacement Anvils. Ore duplicators ensured that the Diamond, Lapis, and Netherite itself weren't problems.

Musings aside, it only took us ten minutes to build the basic physical structure of what we'd planned to be the Embassy. We were getting the ammenities set up (including such things as the toilet and the rooftop vegetable garden) when Poson, one of the Villager guardsmen in this unit called out "Queen, a motorized vehicle is approaching the perimeter!"

I replied "Thanks for the alert. Arcos, Chev, we'll be making contact with the new arrivals."

With that, my first two friends from my time in the Cursed World followed after me as I walked out the front door of the Embassy. Flanked by a Villager on one side and an Enderman on the other, I watched as a battered old pickup truck rattled to a halt. I felt like I should be recognizing that truck, but after the twelve years I'd spent away from Brockton Bay my memories were a bit fuzzy. It only hit home whose truck that was when I saw my father get out of the driver's side door.

Pulling my helmet off, I called out "Dad!" and dashed forwards. I didn't keep my hair long any more due to problems associated with keeping three feet of hair inside my helmet, but what I did have flowed behind me anyway as I rapidly approached my remaining parent.

Mere seconds later, I pulled my father into a hug as I asked "How long was I gone? It's been twelve years on my end, but you certainly don't look all that much older."

My father answered "You've been missing for two months. I... I was so worried."

As we pulled out of the hug, I said "Well, I'm here now at least."

That's when Arcos noted "Doing the mathematics that comes out to a time gradient of seventy-two to one, meaning that we've been away from Luminaria for about a day by now."

Immediately, I panicked and told dad "See you again soon, but I have to take care of my citizens!"

With that I dashed back to the portal, leaving my flabbergasted father behind as he tried to process what I'd just said. I scooted into the shimmering curtain of shining colors and mere moments later I came out the paired Nether Quartz frame in Luminarian Portal Command. Immediately turning to the technician on portal duty while carefully averting eye contact, I asked in fluent Ender "How long have I been away? It's been ten minutes for me."

To this the Enderman in question replied "You've been away for two hours, Queen Hebert."

I thought for a moment and pointed at Rallackos, one of the guardsvillagers on duty and said "Your new assignment is to walk back and forth through the portal until the time gradient either reaches one to one, or stabilizes at a fixed value. If you're doing this for longer than two hours from your perspective you shall request to be relieved by another member of the Guard."

With that, Rallackos saluted and we both walked back through the portal to Brockton Bay. Rallackos got to pacing back and forth through the portal, while I exited the Embassy building and got to see my dad talking with Arcos and Chev, along with a blonde-haired teenager I didn't recognize.

As I caught up, I said "Good news, the time gradient has started collapsing. I've got someone measuring it so we'll know when it reaches one to one."

This is about when I turned to the teenager who looked like she was having a downright awful headache and asked "Are you alright?"

In response, the blonde snarked back "No, I've got an awful headache that just keeps getting worse."

I just shrugged and accepted the answer, before asking dad "So, mind filling me in on what happened to Brockton Bay while I was away?"

To this, my father answered "Well, several supervillains have mysteriously died of either accidents or natural causes, the Empire is a shadow of its former power, and the PRT's budget got gutted after someone aired all their dirty laundry."

I slowly nodded as I raised an eyebrow, asking "Any chance you had anything to do with that?"

My dad just grinned and answered "No comment. How'd things go on your end?"

As I took in the sights again, I answered "Well, I've discovered I'm immortal by dying repeatedly, founded a prosperous nation in a post-apocalyptic nightmare world, liberated an entire sapient species from their oppressor, headed a research project into interdimensional travel, and freed what's probably billions of deceased souls from eternal torment."

Blinking, my father said "Well, that's quite the impressive resume. That said, I hadn't been aware souls existed."

I pinched the bridge of my nose and groaned, before I said "Right. You've never been to the Nether. You haven't seen Soul Sand, or heard it screaming in pain. I can't really fault you for that. Anyway, I guess now we just wait for someone from the US government to show up so I can start opening diplomatic relations."

Speaking of that, I hoped Sergeant Groff was having a good time making initial contact.

---

Groff was most emphatically not having a good time. All the people looking him in the eyes seriously ticked him off for one, though he at least could take solace in the fact that the people here didn't know any better. Finding a government building was meanwhile a bit easier said than done; even teleporting multiple times per second it was taking a significant amount of time to get anywhere with how big this city was.

After finding City Hall was the problem of finding the appropriate office to talk to. Groff looked around reading the signs for various departments, unsurprisingly finding no-one whose job was remotely related to foreign relations. After several minutes of wandering around and unintentionally intimidating several of the other people here, he gave up and got in line for a random desk.

After a little while, the Enderman in question reached the rather nervous bureaucrat and stated "I am Sergeant Groff of the Luminarian Expeditionary Corps, here to initiate diplomatic relations between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Luminaria."

The man at the desk blinked once, before stating "Sir, this is the zoning office. I don't have anything to do with international relations." reaching under his desk as he did so.

To this, Groff grunted an affirmative, before stating "I am aware of this fact. There was no desk for international relations, so I picked one at random hoping I'd eventually be directed to someone whose job it actually was. Congratulations, you're it."

The bureaucrat thought for a moment, and said "Certainly, if you'll just let me go talk to my superiors?"

Groff teleported into an open corner and out of the clerk's way. Said bureaucrat then proceeded to walk right out the door of the office. Less than a minute later several armored troopers burst into the room and shouted "Unknown Parahuman, stand down immediately!"

"GO LOOK YOUR ELDERS IN THE EYE YOU INCREDULOUS CURS!"

 

[verycoolname]

Sergeant Groff: So let me get this straight: not only do your people look each other in the eye, it is even considered polite!?

Taylor: Yes, that's right.

Sergeant Groff: I think I'm gonna be sick... What is wrong with you people?

Armsmaster: That is why you're having everyone wear sunglasses? To avoid staring contests?

Sergeant Groff: ...What's a staring contest?

One hour later:

Director Piggot: Before we begin, why is your armor covered in vomit?

Armsmaster: I don't want to talk about it.

 

[We Just Write]

It had taken all day for Chev and I to fortify a building sufficiently that we could sleep through the night in relative safety. As we lay on our respective beds staring at the brightly torch-lit ceiling, I asked in the mix of English and Ender that we had painstakingly pieced together "What's your homeland like?"

After a few moments, Chev answered "Barren. There are only one, maybe two types of plant there, the rest is all rock and void. Dangerous. We suffer a terrifying dragon who can invade our minds whenever it pleases. Most can't keep the dragon out long enough to escape."

There was a pause as I digested what Chev had just said about the place he came from. After a moment or so, Chev returned my question as he asked "What's your home like?"

It took me some time to answer before I said "Slowly dying. Each year unstoppable monsters destroy several cities. Hope has been forgotten as our society crumbles around us. Random people gain power, and most of them use that power to make life miserable for everyone else."

There were another few moments before Chev noted "We are both from broken worlds, and have found ourselves in a third broken world."

After a couple more moments, I thought aloud "Maybe we could un-break it? Clearly this village was inhabited fairly recently, or none of the original buildings would still be standing. I want to create a place where people can live in safety without fearing that their futures will be crushed by unstoppable monsters, mind-slaving dragons, or any of the other things the world can throw their way."

Chev was silent for several moments, then said "If you want to un-break an entire world, we will need far more people to do it. We can plan more in the morning."

Gently smiling, I closed my eyes and tried to get to sleep despite the bright lighting in the room. Neither of us were willing to put it out, given the problems with the World Curse.

---

A week later, Chev and I were geared up to travel. I'd managed to instinctively forge a suit of full-plate armor for each of us along with tools and weapons. On top of that, we'd discovered that the plants here grew orders of magnitude faster than on Earth Bet. Some improvised agriculture later we had plenty of bread and berry preserves to keep us going for several months. Stuffing my pocket dimension storage with freshly quarried building stone, Iron doors, torches, and spare beds also made it easy to set up blockhouses each evening along our route.

Preparations complete, we set out across the land to find someone who was still alive. A quick experiment had proven that while Chev could technically carry me while teleporting, it was far more temperamental than was practical. To be more specific, there was a quite high probability of accidentally leaving body parts behind. After the first time I got to experience being decapitated, we both decided that this was not a viable option. Which meant walking.

So, one fine morning, we picked a direction and started walking. Well, I walked; Chev still teleported on occasion to get better vantage points and such, but he stayed in the same general vicinity. We left the evergreen forest we'd started in after a few days, eventually coming to the boundary of a deciduous forest and a grassland after a week and a half. There, on the horizon as the sun was going down, we could see a village.

I immediately said to Chev "That's where we're going, and we'd better hurry. I can see the monsters starting to attack."

The Enderman replied "Understood" and started blinking ahead towards the village at top speed while I dashed onwards behind him, weapons at the ready. What followed was utter blood and mayhem as the two of us joined in with the local defenders to hack, slash, shoot, and otherwise kill the seemingly endless onslaught of undead horrors assaulting the village.

In between brutally stabbing with my sword and using my crossbow, I made effective use of my matter manipulation powers. Exploding plant monster? In less than a second I'd build a small stone wall to absorb the worst of the blast force. Zombies? Being able to dig a ditch in seconds was great for those, since they couldn't climb out effectively. Either way, by the end of the night I was just exhausted, as was Chev. Still, I forced myself to keep going, quickly digging out a ditch around the town for a foundation and building a solid defensive wall. After a quick hour spent underground to get more building stone and some other fancy things I put the finishing touches on the wall, including a drawbridge, a massive iron gate, and a moat of lava.

As soon as this was done I wordlessly handed out several bundles of the ever-burning torches I could somehow make and collapsed from exhaustion.

When I woke up again, I was in a brightly-lit room, being watched by both a bald person with a very large rounded nose and Chev. In Chev's case, his gaze was politely turned just to the side. Groaning slightly, I asked "How long was I out?"

To this, the man(?) replied "You have slept for an entire night and much of the following day. It is now midday."

Levering myself upright, I introduced myself with "I'm Taylor Hebert."

The person in the room with me nodded, before he answered "I am Arcos, and you have my thanks for saving my family and greatly improving the village's defenses. For the first time in years we didn't lose anyone in the night."

Thinking for a moment as I started getting my armor back on, I noted "Well, I'm glad that I helped improve matters. I'm guessing Chev told you the basics of why we're here while I was sleeping?"

Arcos nodded again, before saying "Yes, and being able to successfully converse with an Enderman was quite a pleasant surprise. The language barrier was impenetrable before now, so we Villagers and Endermen simply stayed out of each other's way."

Nodding, I noted "Yeah, languages seems to be a knack I've picked up recently. Anyway, now that I'm awake again I do hope you'd be willing to show me around the village."

 

[We Just Write]

Dad and I had been catching up on events for around twenty minutes when I heard sirens and Ender profanities in the distance. Soon enough Sergeant Groff arrived and saluted as he said "I have made contact with the local authorities and convinced them to come here. Unfortunately, they think I am delusional and seem intent on arresting me. I have not returned hostilities."

I nodded and said "Alright, I'll handle front-line negotiations. Arcos, you help Dad and Lisa hide the truck and get out of sight. Everyone else, go to the Embassy's battlements; weapons hot, don't shoot first."

The group I'd brought with me called out in unison "Yes Queen Hebert!" and immediately got to work on their respective tasks. Arcos quickly made a concealed garage space in the Embassy's ground floor that Danny drove the truck into, then the opening was walled up with polished Andesite. Subsequently, Danny and Lisa were quickly shuffled through the portal to Luminaria. Meanwhile, I switched to my fancy helmet, the one with an added gold circlet mounting rubies and sapphires. It was still enchanted Netherite underneath that mind you, just prettied up for when I needed to make an impression.

Either way, a few moments later three motor vehicles pulled up. Namely, an armored van full of PRT agents, along with Armsmaster and Assault on motorcycles. Idly, I performed the pre-arranged hand signals telling the soldiers on the roof to load the incendiary ammo; if this came to violence I didn't want my troops to simply be feeding Assault additional kinetic energy.

As the law-enforcement officers approached, I introduced myself "Hello. I am Queen Hebert of Luminaria. I suggest you go fetch someone from the State Department unless you want to cause a diplomatic incident, as my country is quite firmly outside your jurisdiction."

This is about when Armsmaster tried to strong-arm me like I figured he'd do, saying "You can't just throw up a building, call it a country, and expect to be taken seriously. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't arrest you and end this farce."

I grinned evilly and stared the Tinker right in the eyes as I said "How about three? First off, that building has our end of a portal leading back to Lux Primaris; it's intended to be a diplomatic office, not a micronation. Second, all the soldiers on the roof are armed with anti-Brute rifles that would make short work of even your armor, especially if they aim for the obvious weak point known as your chin. Third, I don't stay dead so a mutual kill is perfectly acceptable to me."

My already downright malicious grin widened as what I could see of Armsmaster's face went pale, and I continued "So, unless you want to get yourself killed single-handedly kicking off an outright interdimensional war, I heavily recommend that you kick this to someone whose actual job is international diplomacy."

After a few moments of awkward silence, Assault asked the first intelligent question I'd heard any of the local authorities ask, namely "Can we please see the portal, so we don't have to just take your word for it?"

I thought for a moment; this was a perfectly reasonable request. On the other hand, I could easily see how other 'reasonable requests' could be used to walk all over me if I let it happen. That's why I answered "Certainly, however I insist that all weaponry has to be left outside. Armsmaster, that would include your suit, since I really have no way of knowing what kinds of ridiculous functions you might have included in there."

Tipping my hand a bit too much? Maybe. On the other hand, I was immortal and Luminaria held basically all the cards here, so I wasn't too worried. Either way, there was some general grumbling from the group of PRT troopers and the two capes before eventually Assault and two agents came forwards, all three of them being currently unarmed.

Shortly afterwards I brought the impromptu tour group through the lobby of the Embassy, then past the security chokepoint into the portal room. There, leaning against the portal frame was Rallackos. The Villager snapped to attention as I approached, saying "Queen Hebert, the time gradient stabilized at one to one after six transits. Mind if I ask why you have three people with you?"

Gesturing to the pair of PRT agents and Assault, I said "These three skeptics thought that we were lying about being from another dimension, so I'm showing them the portal before they go get the actual diplomats. On that note-" I spun to face Assault and the PRT agents before I continued "Do you actually want to see the other side of the portal, or is this enough?"

One of the PRT agents indicated that they'd rather stay on Earth Bet, thank you very much. Meanwhile Assault said "Well, I for one would be interested in seeing this Lunimaria place after hearing so much about it."

I immediately corrected him "It's Luminaria. And sure, you can go through for a few moments, but you can't leave the immediate area on the other side of the portal since we don't have customs set up yet."

With that, we both walked through the shimmering curtain of rainbows. A mere moment later (though distinctly longer than normal for a portal transit) we both emerged in Luminarian Portal Command. Admittedly it didn't look like all that much, just being a subterranean bunker done up in hazard paint and glowstone lighting with a few Ender technicians. Either way, after a few moments Assault said "Well, this is a lot more boring than I thought it would be, though it's certainly big enough to dispel all remaining doubt about that being a real portal."

---

Just after Assault went on his way with the rest of the PRT (and a much-grumpier-than-before Armsmaster), I skipped back through the portal to Luminarian Portal Command and asked the technician on call "Alright, what happened when I came through with Assault? The portal transition took longer than normal, and that is a major cause for concern."

Scrolling through the logs, the Enderman in question answered "Looks like we got some Portal Instability; nothing hazardous since the Gate Controller caught it almost instantly, but it's still quite bizarre. Same thing for your dad and that other person who came through earlier."

I nodded, saying "Yes, that is rather bizarre. So far the only things capable of causing Portal Instability that we've found are breaking the portal frame or shoving one portal through another. Since the Gate's frame is clearly still intact, that means Assault brought a portal with him, along with Dad and Lisa. I need to go talk to them, now."