Venturing the Worlds (Second part of Venturing series / World Hopping)
- Thread starter Melakias
- Start date
- Crossover
Hidden One
Not the Boss, possibly a Playa
- Location
- Sol;Terra;EU;D;NRW
This setting is a webcomic that also crosses over with the "Wearing the Cape" superhero novels.
Grrl Power is actually pretty good and the author even wrote his own fanfiction but uh.. not sure if I can go into details about that fandom so just look at his description on the website.
Grrl Power is actually pretty good and the author even wrote his own fanfiction but uh.. not sure if I can go into details about that fandom so just look at his description on the website.
GeekGod_of_Speed
He Who Enjoys The Big Words
I don't know if it's because I was half asleep and just waking up when I started reading this but the first half of this chapter seemed less polished than usual, with several grammar issues that I can't put into words -did it change perspectives at some point?-
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- Home
Yeah, I won't say much, but it definitely has a specific audience (one definitely shared by Golddigger).
I may have had just a bad day when writing it. I try to keep up the quality, but the brain's a mysterious thing that sometimes just doesn't accommodate.
Oh shit, really? A'ight I want to see how this goes.
Some minor spoilers:
Grrl Power, a webcomic. Superhero setting with the twist that superpowers only started showing up a few years ago and no one has any idea what's causing it, or why it has side effects like causing anyone who gains powers to suddenly have a body like a Greek statue. Also has the usual superworld background of secret magic and alien, both of which are even more concerned and confused because they're in a position to realize that not only is this "superpowers" thing new, it's also only happening on this one specific backwater planet for some reason.
Main character is Sydney Scoville jr who is not actually a super; but came into contact with, so far as any of the experts can tell, a clarketech space ship in the form of several pool ball sized flying orbs that now refuse to be more than ten feet from her at any given time. She came to the attention of the government's nascent superhero team/agency and got recruited for both the extremely wide variety of powers her orbs give her and to humanize the team because it gives them a front liner that isn't built like an action movie star.
The others mentioned in this chapter are Maxima, basically this setting's Superman, and Dabbler, a max leveled D&D character/succubus that wandered over from another dimension.
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- Location
- kentucky
thanks for the info btw how did the comic get the ok to use D&D succubus character
Hidden One
Not the Boss, possibly a Playa
- Location
- Sol;Terra;EU;D;NRW
She is the in-universe equivalent. Also more of an artificer/mad scientist/extreme lusty shipper.
With unique dietary restrictictions, racial creation history and all thats, its part of one of the more recent story arcs that basically explains her background.
She even got a university degree from a succubus school.
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Explanation on the Succubus (will put it in spoilers for anyone that wants to actually find when reading the comic)
Wizards created them as a show-off item (they literally made zombie wives before that), being a show-off thing it quickly turned into an improvement race until they reached the modern Succubus, though to keep them in check they actively designed their Souls to have a huge weakness in bleeding mana like a sieve, needing to link themselves to someone else to not die from mana-deficiency. Of course they did a too good of a job at some point and Succubus decided to rebel and get their freedom (which was very easy since they were practically designed for infiltration and seduction, and Intelligence is not Wisdom). Of course they couldn't fix the weakness and developed a sort of master/slave contract to survive by swearing themselves to other people.
Chapter 46
- Location
- Home
Venturing the Worlds – 46
It took a moment for Sidney's brain to remember what had just happened. Her brain felt shaken, she couldn't see anything and she was short of breath. The last was a combination of the dirt currently filling the air, the armored clothes she was wearing, and Maxima's larger, heavier body pressing down on her.
In the golden heroine's defense, she was a lot more resistant than her, when not using her shield orb, and her current position was aimed to keep her safe.
She started to tap her arm until Maxima floated off her body, allowing Sidney to slowly get up. She gave her a look and quickly pulled a water bottle from the backpack she had taken earlier.
Sidney opened the bottle and used the first mouthful to wash her mouth out of the mud it had been filled with before chugging the rest.
"Blegh, blugh, ugh, bleh," she couldn't get the taste of dirt off her tongue, "ugh, what did happ… oh, right, the ship." She looked at the massive, cylindrical ship.
It wasn't any design she had seen before, at least in the many comics she had read, and she hadn't exactly paid much attention while at the space hub. It was green and silver with gold trimmings, it lacked decorations, only having a massive insignia of a circle with four gashes? Claws? She wasn't entirely sure what it represented.
"Eh… colonel?" She waved towards the purple-haired, golden skinned woman.
Maxima ignored her as she reached for the communicator in her ear. "Dabbler," her commanding tone made Sidney stiffen up, "Dabbler, respond, is everyone okay there? Any injuries?"
"Th- -ma- do y- hear me? Do you hear me? Sorry about that, Maxima, the comms went down when the ship came through. We're still picking ourselves up, but it doesn't look like we had anything above bruises, scraps and maybe a sprain or two."
Maxima let out a small sigh. "I see, that's good. This could have been so much worse. Can you tell me what exactly happened?"
"I don't know." Dabbler answered, sounding frustrated.
"What do you mean by you don't know?" Maxima asked again, Sidney raised an eyebrow as she watched their interaction.
As much as Dabbler and Maxima clashed when the former hit on the latter, the heroine respected the Succubus' intelligence and knowledge a considerable amount. Especially in space-related subjects.
"I don't know, what little the scans managed to get is total nonsense, by all that I saw the hole didn't make sense, it didn't exist, it was practically an error in reality. Actually, I'm heading over there, I was to take a closer look at the ship." Dabbler sounded both frustrated and excited, the latter not uncommon for her.
"Halo, how are you?" Maxima turning her attention to her made her stiffen up.
"I'm… tired, hungry, hurty and can't wait to get a shower and pass out for the night." She answered honestly, or maybe she was just done with today. "Also my meds may be running out because I can't stop wondering if the people inside of the ship look more like little green men, tall whites or butt-probing grays."
The woman sighed, but before she could say anything about Sidney's rambling the ship stirred. It quickly started to rise off the ground, leaving a long and deep trench and a crushed building as it righted itself and stopped a couple of meters off the ground.
Then a portal opened a few meters away from them, Maxima moving in front of Sidney as a man dropped from the green disc, landing a few meters away from them. He was a short, well-looking man, his skin tone reminded her that of Anvil, and his long, purple braid or the Colonel's hair; she was jealous of that hair when her own was just a troublesome mess most of the time.
"Greetings." He waved. "I'm Magnus, The Traveler, I apologize for the emergency landing, we didn't expect the hole to open up and drag the Long Fortune through."
"I'm Lieutenant Colonel Leander of the United States of America's Air Force, I also go by Maxima, hero from the Archon group." The heroine presented herself and gestured to Sidney. "With me is Halo, we're running some tests when the portal opened up surprisingly, I apologize for the accident."
"If you had meant to open that hole I would have been surprised." Magnus let out a chuckle.
Maxima raised an eyebrow and Sidney sneakily let the True Sight Orb to float down to her hand. She didn't know if she was glad or not that the man didn't seem to change, still with that beautiful and enviable hair of his.
"May I ask what you will be doing?" As Maxima asked, Sidney turned her head to look at the ship, no invisible guns became visible. But she could see some glowing sigils moving over the ship's surface.
"We're going to need to make sure nothing in the ship is broken. The Outside's too dangerous to leave some tiny damage untreated…" The man continued speaking as Sidney noticed Dabbler rushing their way.
The Succubus didn't go unnoticed, but to the dirty blonde, it became harder to think about anything else as the woman, as usual, was jiggling with each step.
"Damn hypno-boobs." She mumbled a curse as she shook it off.
Maxima, as usual, didn't react to the Succubus, while Dabbler practically stripped Magnus off his clothes with her eyes, and instead gestured to her. "This is Dabbler, she's our expert on magic and advanced tech on the field. Dabbler, this is Magnus."
The Succubus grinned as she approached and offered him her hand, he happily shook. It didn't go amiss to Sidney how she shivered the moment they touched. She also noticed something else, she wouldn't admit she had been looking into Magnus' eyes so intensively. But thanks to what she was totally not doing, she noticed how he eyed her extra arms, the ones that were hidden under her disguise.
"Wait! You can see through her glamor!" She blurted out, eyes wide open and swiftly covering her mouth.
The two women looked at her before turning to look at him. "Illusions, glamours, disguises, stealth and such don't work on me." He said, openly. "I just don't mention it because I lack context for the reasons people use those and it would be rude."
"If you wanted to take a good look at me all you had to do was ask." Dabbler said huskily as she posed, surprisingly Magnus didn't ogle or react much. "Uh, I was pretty sure I had this on."
Magnus turned back to Maxima, making Dabbler pout, and resumed their talk, "We're a small crew of six, so we'll most likely try to stay out of the way until we've finished all necessary checks and resume our travel."
The golden heroine nodded. "Would it be okay if I talk with my superiors for a moment? While it was an unexpected accident, your landing, as much as it may have been partially our fault, on American soil will most likely require answering a few questions if it's okay."
"Outside of the failed attempt at hitting on me," Dabbler pouted once more at the comment, "you've been quite accommodating, I don't think there's a problem with a small interview. Though there's two things, first will it be necessary to have every member to attend? And could it be possible to relocate the ship?"
"… I will bring up the two facts and get you an answer." Maxima said after a moment of thought, walking away and leaving him with Sidney and Dabbler.
"So… I like your tattoo." Sidney said once the golden woman was far enough.
Magnus raised his left hand. "Thank you, I had to complete three divine tests for it."
"Haha, that sounds…" Sidney mumbled.
"Hmm, I can feel the blessing from here." Dabbler offered.
"Wait, they are real?" Sidney's mouth said before she could process the words. She felt the three crests itch in the back of her head, she knew she had seen them before. But she was drawing a blank.
"Oh yes, had to cleanse a corrupted dragon, face the full power of another and finally fight a three-headed evil dragon for it." He explained.
Her eyebrows rose at that, but it was Dabbler who spoke first, "Hmm, that's hot."
Magnus snorted at that as a green portal opened and a pink-haired woman in a tight dress walked out. "I would prefer it if you stopped hitting on my boyfriend." She warned Dabbler as she moved between him and the Succubus.
"Halo, Dabbler, this is my partner, Ruby, Ruby, Dabbler and Halo." He presented them. "And over there is Maxima."
"I know, I was looking." She sighed. "Still, a pleasure meeting you." She smiled towards Sidney. "As for you." She looked at the Succubus.
"Oh, don't be like that," she licked her lips, "I'm not against the fair gender and adding more hands to the fun."
"She's pestering you for a reaction." Magnus said with a hand on the woman's shoulder. He then turned towards Sidney. "Let me guess, she's like that with anyone that doesn't immediately react to her seduction or rejects her?"
Sidney couldn't help but to giggle. "Oh yes, the Colonel's usually her main target. But she's not lying about how she doesn't discriminate."
"Don't go spouting everyone my secrets, Halo, or I will do the same to you." Dabbler's threat made her squeak.
Unfortunately for her, the armor she was wearing still prevented her freedom of movement, turning her attempt to cover herself into a flailing. Only Magnus grabbing her sleeve kept her from falling.
"Thank you." She said once she righted herself.
Thankfully the colonel returned a moment later. She looked glad that nothing was on fire and all clothes were still on. She gave Ruby a look, but didn't comment on it.
"I talked with the general, they would actually be happy if you can relocate the ship to the area outside of the Archon's HQ. As for the presence of your crew, sending only a representative is okay." She announced.
"Thank you for accommodating then, by the way, this is Ruby, my partner, she will be joining me to answer questions." Magnus said. "As for relocating, if you have a map or similar to show us the location of the building we should be able to quickly move the ship."
Maxima pulled out her phone and quickly got a map, showing it to Magnus, who nodded. "Excellent, the ship's portals should have no problem relocating there."
As he finished speaking, a massive green disc opened in the air, it looked similar to the one they had come through. A second, much smaller, one appeared a few meters away. Magnus gestured to it and Maxima walked through first.
Magnus and Ruby followed, Dabbler took a moment to look at it curiously before shrugging and going through, finally Sidney went through, hoping this wasn't a trap. She could already see it, they would come through the other side with slave collars and tiny bikinis… that would only encourage Dabbler actually.
She pushed her imagination away, she really needed a snack and her meds by now.
Magnus gave a look at the building in front of them, it was very modern-looking, glass as far as the eye could see and large, white letters that spelled Archon. The area around was practically empty, the closest building appeared to be a few kilometers away, which was logical if they expected to get attacked sooner or later.
The Long Fortune was already sliding through the portal and landing on an empty field a hundred meters or so away from the building.
He then turned back to the women that were accompanying them.
First there was Maxima, the gold-skinned, purple-haired woman, who was very interesting. She was a powerhouse, he could feel the amount of energy hiding in her body even from a distance. On top of that she knew she was strong and had the experience to leverage it even further. It was obvious that she had served and relied a lot on that militaristic mindset to gauge a threat. But also appeared relaxed enough to be flexible.
Halo, and given the fact that his System had already found that her name was Sidney showed there wasn't much secrecy for government's heroes, was mundane. She was short, nerdy and tomboyish and a feminist from the quick info gathering Orange had done. And she would most likely not be around if it wasn't for the seven orbs orbiting around her head.
Magnus had to admit he didn't think he would come across something so close to a Power Core out in the wild. He could feel the power hidden in those orbs and was pretty sure she had been the one to accidentally open that hole to the Outside.
The last one, Dabbler, was another curiosity. First thing he noticed, outside of the potent glamor that hid her fiendish-looks with her four arms, horns, tail, hooved feet and more, was how many artificial body parts she had. There was practically no extremity that didn't hold a few gadgets, both technological and magical. The second thing is that she was sex-on-legs, and by that he meant that she was some kind of sex demon, Succubus or similar.
The way into the building had Halo leave them while Dabbler and Maxima escorted them up to a room that was obviously used for interviews. It was large, with a nice window facing the back of the building, and right in front of it there was a large table with three people already waiting for them.
"Greetings, and thank you for coming in." The older, white man sitting in the middle spoke first. "I'm General Faulk, with me are Ariana," he gestured to the business-looking blonde woman to his side, "she's our head of PR and this is Mr Zoeng," he gestured then to an older man of Asian features, "he's our current expert on more supernatural aspects. And of course you've already had the pleasure of meeting Dabbler and Maxima."
Magnus smiled and took one of the two chairs as Ruby sat by his side.
"Thank you for the warm welcome. I'm Magnus 'The Traveler' Andes and this is my partner Ruby Summoner." He presented the two of them. "In the ship there's four more people as part of the crew, Orange, Lydia, Moisha and Romeo. Orange's my sister and who takes care of most matters in the ship, meanwhile the other three take on a variety of roles."
The general nodded. "Thank you for the introduction. As a first question, could you clarify where the hole exactly led to?"
"I've no problem with that, foremost I would recommend not trying that again, even as a last-chance resort it would be asking for trouble." Magnus started to explain. "That was what we call the Outside, I don't know how your local cosmology works. But to put a lot of lessons in simple words: The Outside is the space between Worlds."
"You don't mean you're from another reality…" Maxima guessed.
"In a way yes, in another no. Worlds are what you get when you bunch one or more Realities together. So while we came from a different Reality, it's because we're in another World with its own set of Realities." He clarified.
"What are the dangers of this Outside?" General Faulk asked.
"Basic thing is that the Outside is anathema to anything that exists in the Real world, it gets undone. Only a few things can survive the Outside." He explained.
"Like your ship?" Maxima asked.
"Yes, the Long Fortune was built by my father, he acquired the knowledge before I was born and my family has been exploring since then." He honestly answered. "For example my ship's a personal exploring vessel with space for, at most, forty people."
Before anyone could say anything else, Dabbler spoke, "What I want to know, is what are you two? You're definitely not human." It seemed that the question scandalized and confused the rest.
"Oh, we're definitely not human." He couldn't help but to let out a small laugh. "I'm one of my father's creations, not the only one as he's created many races. Though I am blood related to him. It's a long and complicated matter."
"As for me, I could be considered an autonomous artifact." Ruby said. "Though while I'm considerably old, my memories only start about a dozen years ago."
"None of my crew are human. Our pilot, Orange, is a Metaloid, another of my father's creations, and the other three are Wererats." He added. "I hope that won't be a problem."
More than one in the room eyed Dabbler before general Faulk spoke, "No, it won't. It wouldn't be the first time we've dealt with other species. At least you're being non-hostile."
"I'm glad to hear that." Magnus said, with a small smile on his lips..
"What are your plans besides fixing your ship?" Faulk asked.
"Honestly I wouldn't be against doing some exchange of knowledge and services. One of the reasons I travel so much is because I enjoy learning new things… and getting in good fights from time to time." The comment made Dabbler chuckle as she eyed Maxima.
"What kind of services?" The fiendish woman asked as she leaned forward, exposing her generous cleavage.
He just rolled his eyes. "I'm good at weapon and equipment making, especially melee weapons, enchanting, potion making, armor, accessories and large constructions." He explained. "I could show you an example, but I doubt it would be a good idea to bring out a weapon in here, though I can easily retrieve a potion and allow you to run tests on it."
"Meanwhile I can offer medical services and a large variety of plants, both mundane and magical along with a few successful cross breeding experiments." Ruby said.
"I thank you for not pulling a weapon in the meeting," the general said in good humor, "but I think we could accept a potion to run a few tests."
Magnus nodded and reached into his inventory, getting a few looks as his hand slid into the pocket dimension. Could he have just made them appear on his hand? Yes, but sometimes showing less was showing more. He retrieved a few of the potion packs.
He got up and placed them on the table. "Silver is healing, gold is a stronger variant, green is a detoxifying one, red is heat resistance, blue is cold resistance, yellow is electricity resistance and the white one is stamina recovery." He gestured to each one.
Zoeng raised an eyebrow. "That's very generous of you." He said.
"We grow all the ingredients in the ship, it's actually pretty easy to stock them in quantity. Each has a list of the materials that were used in their production and those could be traded too as seeds with their cultivation instructions." He offered.
"How potent are we talking about?" Maxima prompted.
"The silver will heal most traumatic injuries as long as everything's close enough to where it should be, meanwhile the gold will regenerate a lot of the missing pieces, used properly can even regenerate missing limbs. Though I will note that it's a long-term process and I would recommend never drinking more than one a day unless you are close to death, they are very potent."
"That's actually quite impressive." Zoeng praised it. "And you say it's all natural?"
"They all grow normally in the Worlds I acquired them from, maybe a few are rare or need specific conditions to grow properly. But that's mainly making sure they get the necessary nutrients and energy to mature." He explained. "Ruby?"
She nodded and retrieved a Large Hearty Radish, the moment it appeared everyone froze.
"That's…" Zoeng muttered.
"Oh, my…" Dabbler said breathlessly. "The amount of Life Energy on that is impressive, and you grow these for the potions?"
"Yes, Hearty Radishes are definitely one of the top ingredients and need either a controlled environment or an area with a lot of energy. Plus that's a large variety, extremely hard to find in the wild, you usually only find small ones growing alone."
"Of course we also grow weaker plants too that are just as useful." Ruby explained as she put the radish away and retrieved one of the many berries from the Garden. "This is an Oran Berry, they offer some basic healing when eaten raw." She placed it on the table. "If you plant one it will grow into a small tree and produce more fruit quite quickly, each capable of expanding in a similar manner, but the plant dies after fruiting."
"Would you be willing to part with a plant like that just like that?" Arianna surprised them by speaking for the first time.
"Oran Berries are very common in the World they come from, the deity behind their creation would actually be happy to have his gift spread like this." Ruby happily answered. "There's over a hundred different varieties of berries and we've developed a lot more that are quite interesting. We could offer you a list of them and their observed effects, or even show you the place where we grow them."
"Similarly I could show you some of the items I've crafted, while they aren't for sale, they are a good example of what I can craft." Magnus continued. "Though it's getting a bit late tonight, so I imagine it's something to leave for tomorrow."
More than one looked towards the window, the sun had set as it hadn't been too far from the horizon when they had arrived to the World already, and by now it had disappeared completely. A few words were exchanged by the locals before deciding that given the sudden nature of the interview there were many things still undecided and it wouldn't be wrong to let both parties take a step back to think things through.
After a few smaller questions the general spoke again, "Then we can trust you to not start problems?"
Magnus nodded. "I can speak for me and mine that we'll aim to not start any conflict, in the case we're attacked we'll try to just defend ourselves and wait for local forces to take care of them." He answered.
"I wish it wasn't a question of when and not if." Arianna mumbled.
They still got thanked for the promise before they wished them well and stepped through a portal that had opened in the room.
Maxima turned to look at Dabbler. "You've been extremely silent and contained, even that bit of teasing felt fake, what's wrong?" She asked the moment the visitors left.
"You remember how it was a big deal when Sidney saw through my glamor like it was nothing?" She asked rhetorically. "Well, this man did the same, and then made any scan I tried to use on him return trash, both magic and tech kept giving me wrong things, just to list a few, he was a strawberry, not there, a mass of slime, forty two, a bear wearing a tutu, had not a drop of magic and finally made my tech call me ugly."
"That's worrisome." Zoeng said the obvious. "I know of a few information denial spells, but they usually don't work with both magic and tech, and definitely aren't as inconspicuous."
"There's also the fact that he wasn't speaking English but everyone understood him." Dabbler added.
"What?"
"Yeah, it took me a moment to notice it because I know over a hundred and thirty languages, but it defaulted to English only because it's what I've been using lately. I tried changing my way of thinking and the language I heard changed too." She explained.
"Magic?" Maxima asked.
"Most likely, an interesting bit of spellwork that I wouldn't mind learning. I only noticed because their lips didn't always match what they were saying."
"Anything on the woman?" General Fulk asked.
"Thankfully she was a bit better," Dabbler answered, "she didn't lie when she said she was ancient, the scan pointed out that she's easily in the dozens of thousands of years, and she's also very magical. Though I can only guess on her ability given that she called herself Summoner."
"Unfortunately it could very well be just a red herring." Maxima offered. "Personally, I'm more impressed how easily he rejected you." She teased, causing the Succubus to pout once more.
"Personally I'm glad that they behaved." General Fulk said. "Though I can't help but to be a bit nervous about the size of the ship, you think they told the truth when they mentioned how many people are in there?"
"I would like to err on trusting them for the moment." Zoeng said and grabbed the fist-sized berry they had left. "It certainly appears they are more interested in trading than hostilities."
"But what if someone attacks them?" Arianna asked.
"Then I hope we can get there fast enough, because something tells me that Magnus' more than ready to end any fight quickly and succinctly." Maxima said.
Chapter 47
- Location
- Home
Venturing the Worlds – 47
Sidney hated everyone and everything early in the morning… Well, that wasn't true, she was actually doing quite better since her days as a recruit. But after getting kept up later after a long day of testing to answer a lot of questions that were more or less summarized as 'I don't know', she felt in the right to be grumpy.
It didn't help that some of the 'I don't know' answers had more to do with her not remembering things, it was like having the answers on the tip of her tongue and just never being able to answer them.
Thankfully, mentally grumbling about not being able to remember things had kept her distracted from everyone else at the showers after the morning training and her Flight Orb had allowed minimum thought on her way to the usual meeting at the auditorium.
She dropped her ass on one of the chairs and started to nurse on her double triple espresso with lots of chocolate and sugar, the heart-stopping load of caffeine allowing her to feel a bit more awake.
"Hey chica, what's this about you summoning a spaceship that I've been hearing?" The Aztec-descendant heroine Varia asked after dropping on the chair by her side.
"Morning Xoc', ugh, yesterday we're testing my whole Aetherway Causeways opening ability, they asked me to use the only weird option that totally looks broken, even when I thought it was a bad idea, the ship was the result." Sidney answered before taking another long sip of the 'fluid' in her cup. "Apparently it sucked them into reality or something. Maxima dragged me out of the spot and kept me from ending as Sidney smear. Then this cute alien guy came out, he's the most amazing hair, I'm so jealous, I wonder what he uses to keep it like that. Oh! But he's taken, and completely ignored Dabbler's usual Dabbler stuff. Honestly if his, totally also hot, pink-haired alien girlfriend didn't come out I would have thought he was gay or asexual to be so immune to Dabbler."
She gave her fellow heroine a look as she drank more of the, barely legally-called coffee, drink.
"But I don't know much more, I got sent to a debrief when we arrived at the building, so you'll have to wait to see what the bosses tell us." She added.
"Uh, who would have thought some testing would end with another space ship outside of the building." Varia said.
"Also, for some reason I feel like I saw the alien's girlfriend somewhere before, but I can't put my finger on it, or where I saw his tattoo before." She grumbled.
"I'm sure you'll remember at some inconvenient time, chica." The other heroine offered and chuckled.
Sidney nodded and watched as more people slowly filled the room until Mr Zoeng, Arianna and Maxima wandered to the podium. The heroine walked to the center.
"Everyone's here, good." She started to speak and everyone swiftly shut up. "Yesterday at about eighteen hundred hours, when we're nearing the end of the tests we're running on the day, an accident happened. I'm sure the story has gone around a few times and a few details may have changed or been lost, so I will summarize it."
The screen changed to an image of the ship everyone had seen before, but instead of floating it was laying on the ground between a cloud of dust.
"This is the Long Fortune, it crashed through the Causeway we opened, it's crewed by a small group of people." She explained and the single image changed to half a dozen portraits. "These are Magnus, Ruby, Orange, Lydia, Moisha and Romeo." With each name a picture lit up.
"That's some hair indeed." Varia whispered to Sidney, making her giggle.
"It's actually more impressive in person, it goes down past his waist." She whispered back before Maxima resumed her presentation.
"Magnus and Ruby were amenable to come and answer a few questions. They have told us they are mostly looking to make sure their ship's in condition to leave, but until then they asked permission to remain here, they had also offered a trade of knowledge, services and goods." Maxima spoke diligently. "A few things of note, first, none of them are human. Lydia, Moisha and Romeo are Wererats, and yes, this means they can transform and pass on the curse, no they don't need the full moon, no they won't turn you. Ruby has identified herself as a living artifact, but for all intents she's just another person. Orange is apparently a Metaloid, an artificial race completely made of metal created by Magnus' father. And finally Magnus has admitted he's a unique specimen outside of his two blood-related siblings, the three of them created directly and with a blood relation to their parents."
"What does that mean for us?" Someone Sidney couldn't see due to the angle asked.
"It means that we've no idea of his capabilities, neither strengths or possible weaknesses. But he's offered his services in both crafting of enchanted items up to the construction of reinforced buildings." Maxima's explanation got a few whistles.
"How strong are we talking about?" The red-headed woman, Anvil, asked.
"I can't tell you for sure, but my instincts tell me to be very careful if I've to fight him, make up of that as you will." She answered. "They did offer to show off later, but until then, you could consider him at least as dangerous and versatile as Dabbler."
"What kind of goods and services are we talking about?" Someone else asked.
"Magnus gratuitously gifted us a few samples of healing potions for us to test, so far they appear to be not only quite effective, but also have no drawback outside of possible problems from overconsumption of the strongest healing variant." Her explanation got interrupted.
"What would that even mean?" Sidney just knew someone had earned themselves a dozen more laps for next training.
Maxima glared for a moment, but still answered, "Most likely cancer or unwanted growths." Her answer had the effect she expected as more than one looked green at the thought. "They've also offered to trade us many exotic plants, many of which could be used to produce many of these potions ourselves." The screen changed to what appeared to be a blue tangerine. "Ruby handed us this, she called it an Oran Berry, apparently it naturally heals those who eat it." The image changed to a small growing tree. "It was planted eight hours ago after running a few tests, as you can see, it's growing exceedingly quickly and we expect to have new fruit in a day or two."
Sidney couldn't help but to glare at the picture as she felt her brain start to heat up. She felt like she was missing something, like she had a big piece of a puzzle and no place where to put it. She chugged the rest of the coffee.
Maybe it was the extra caffeine finally taking its toll on her, the sugar, or maybe she had finally passed gas. But it clicked and it dawned on her.
"That's from Pokemon!" She cried out before she could even think about what she said.
Everyone turned to her, but she felt like she was on a roll, she was connecting the dots inside of her head. She grabbed the Flight Orb and floated down, pushing against Maxima.
"Tell me you have a picture of the tattoo Magnus had on his hand. Quickly put it on the screen, I'm sure a security camera definitely got a good angle of it." She didn't wait for the heroine to answer and instead turned to Dabbler, who was smirking. "And you! You said you felt that they were blessed, right?"
"Hmm, yes, why?"
"Do you think you could tell what kind of gods gave him those? Whatever domain or power they represent?" She rushed to the Succubus.
"… maybe, why?"
"Elemental! Because that," she pointed to the image that had appeared on the screen, "is the Triforce! And the three goddesses would be Farore, Nayru and Din!" She cried out.
Arianna sighed. "Halo… Sidney, stop this silliness, those are games-" The blonde woman closed her mouth when Maxima raised her hand.
"Sidney?" She asked.
"Well, duh, they are games and fiction here. Let me guess, they said they came from other realities, no?" She looked at Maxima who nodded. "Multiverse Theory for the win then! Woo!"
"That's… actually makes too much sense in hindsight." Zoeng mused. "He explained they travel and pick up things, if one could travel to places considered fiction, how many things one could pick up that simply change the paradigm when taken to other places where they do not?"
Arianna grumbled and pulled out her phone, working on it. "Ugh, eight hours is more or less what the Oran Berry takes to grow into a sapling like we've seen if the wiki's correct."
"Does that mean some of them are from other settings too?" Someone asked.
"Only one way to find out." Sidney cheered as she pulled her phone and started to google.
Though the search results brought her to a stop, making her turn to the screen a few times. "Oh… I think I found them."
"That's good, no?" Anvil asked.
Sidney laughed awkwardly. "Good news, The wererats and Ruby are from the same setting. Bad news, well, they were all villains and…" She tapped on her armband and the image on the screen changed.
While stylized, the resemblance to Ruby was clear.
"She's also called Array, capable of creating dozens upon dozens of high power Magends, each one capable of going toe to toe with even a dragon." She explained slowly.
"That power…" Dabbler murmured.
Maxima turned to her. "Maybe for the rest of the class?"
The succubus nodded, shifting her appearance into a tight teacher outfit as she stepped onto the podium.
"Magends are living spells, originally used as administrators for databases and defense systems, sometimes used to control complex artifacts and similar objects. Their nature gives them excellent or perfect memory along with near complete control of any system they inhabit." Dabbler explained. "In the correct platform they can be a nightmare to fight, and given their nature they can coexist in people's bodies, effectively sharing their minds and memories. In recent times they have started to be recognized as a proper species, but even then they are quite secretive. Though I imagine she's different?"
Sidney shrugged. "I would need to reread the comic, but from what I remember each one of her Magends is said to be the master of the magic they were created to use to a level unseen by anyone but the best."
"Unfortunately," Maxima interrupted, "the same theory that says they are the same people as that story's characters, says that they may as well be completely different beings with just a few similarities, no?"
There were some murmurs going around, but most nodded.
"Then we take it as a cautionary note and a possible, but unreliable, source of information on her abilities." She declared. "So far she has offered her services as a healer and the goods she grows, I doubt she ever did those two in the story?"
Sidney shook her head. "I don't think so."
"Then there's more chances she's an alternate version and not a villain." Sidney couldn't help but to add the word 'hopefully' to Maxima's words. "Still, Sidney, the rest fits strangely well and bringing it to our notice is commendable."
Arianna gave Maxima a look and tapped on her watch, the heroine nodded and turned to everyone.
"Okay everyone, we'll be relocating to the training grounds. As much as we've found out, don't assume anything, I'm sure you all know what they say about that. If you have any questions ask it, I feel like Magnus won't be against answering or just telling you he can't answer it." She finished by clapping her hands and everyone started to move out. "Sidney, wait a moment."
She stopped and floated back towards Maxima. "Yes?"
"I don't want to tell you to behave, but I would prefer not to have to deal with an incident. So try to keep yourself from babbling about their crew's origin. Try to keep it to the," she let out a small sigh, "the games."
"Uh… I will try?" She offered.
"Don't worry too much, still. I will open the subject to Magnus myself. And good job recognizing things." She offered with a smile, making the blonde giggle and float off with a smile from a job well done.
The more physical oriented people were already warming up by the time she left the building. She floated onto one of the benches and sat down by Krona after fixing her hair to keep her brain from cooking in the morning sun.
She watched a green portal open once more and decided to try something. She grabbed the Flight and the True Sight orbs and focused on the green disc floating in the air.
The image projected in front of her was weird. She certainly couldn't read it before, and neither could now, the Aether Causeway information had changed. She could only make a bit of sense that the tunnel was squeezing through something or other.
She quickly took a picture of it, and she would show it to Dabbler later. For now it seemed things were starting.
Magnus had looked into what Archon and the local superheroes got into before they had arrived, and by that he would mean that Orange had taken care of the information gathering as usual.
They had only come up as a public organization in the last few months, even when supers had been a thing for decades or even centuries from the few records he could find. There was also a pretty obvious 'secret world' supernatural community as some checks had revealed a pretty potent spell cast all over the World. It did absolutely jack and shit to him as it was basically a massive Lie supported on the fact that people didn't believe in the supernatural.
Of course that was obviously breaking down as people couldn't help but start asking questions with the increasing number of supers popping up everywhere.
Even then there had been supervillains, vigilantes and a few other mercenaries going around for a while. It was just that most media treated them as questionable and nothing much more. Or at least until the government came up with their own group.
And Archon had a lot more supers than the public knew from what he could see. Meanwhile there were only a few of them, it felt like fun.
"Good morning, Maxima, I see that we had a lot of people interested." He greeted her with a handshake and a smile.
"It's shaping up to be a good day, hopefully it will stay that way. And it looks like you have most of your crew here."
"This is basically all of us, my sister won't leave the ship, believe me I tried before. Better leave her there." He laughed.
"Good morning Ruby," she greeted her before turning to Team Maus, "and you must be Lydia, Moisha and Romeo." She looked at them and raised an eyebrow. "They are pretty well trained."
"I want to say I did all of that, but the truth is the three of them have a lot of innate talent, especially in working as a unit." Magnus praised the three a bit.
Maxima covered her mouth and did a little cough. "There was one thing that was brought up earlier today." She sounded a bit awkward.
"Ask then."
"It came to our attention that the berry you left with us comes from Pokemon." Maxima looked actually embarrassed to be asking about it. In his mind, it made the big and strong heroine look quite cute. "I know it sounds weird, but-"
"No, no, that's right." He interrupted her. "We found a Pokemon World a few months ago, we stayed there for a few weeks, with very interesting materials and curious locals, we stopped in Alola and enjoyed the beach."
"You're not joking."
"Why would I?" He retrieved an empty Pokeball from his inventory and allowed it to expand. "Don't worry, it's empty." A tap let it open and showed how empty it was.
"Then the tattoo on your hand…?" She prompted.
"I got that in Hyrule." He replied with a nod.
"Then the multiverse theory is right?"
"Close enough to be usable in general, the Outside is a weird place. One of the only things that can survive it, outside of specially built things like the Long Fortune, is information." He explained. "For some reason information is not affected and can travel a long 'distance'. It's just that time and space don't exist on the Outside. It just happens that sometimes it affects people in some Worlds in the form of inspiration."
"So we could be a work of fiction out there somewhere?" She asked, dryly.
He shrugged. "It's possible, honestly it's more correct to say that a lot of fiction is true out there somewhere, after all they came first."
"Any work of fiction?"
"Not really. Outside of alternate Realities in some Worlds, it's usually bigger works, those that resonate with the readers, that exist out there." He explained.
"That opens some curious possibilities, and also explains why you are traveling."
"In part, the rest because I really like traveling." He laughed. "So, not changing the subject, but changing the subject, how would you like to do this?"
"Hmm, I was thinking starting by showing off your weapons, it should get everyone's attention before the less showy things." Maxima answered.
"That I can do." He nodded.
"I'll call Achilles over, he's invincible and enjoys showing that off." She stepped away and proceeded to call the man as he watched.
"Proper invincible, or something else? Because you wouldn't believe how many times I found someone sporting that title and they end with something else." He honestly asked.
"Oh, no, complete invincibility as far as we have been able to test. No damage even from effects that should destroy things at the atomic level."
"You called colonel?" Achilles asked, he was a good-looking blonde man with an impressive body.
It surprised Magnus, because as far as he could see, he was definitely immutable to damage, internal and external. He would leave Gentle Lie and Hard Truth out, those could most likely deal actual damage to the man. It didn't need much thought to realize that would be a bad idea.
"I need you to play target." She said.
"No problem, ma'am." Achilles answered and walked over to Magnus. "I'm Achilles, a pleasure to meet you."
Magnus shook his hand. "I can say the same, tell me when you're ready."
"Go ahead, do your worst." The man just stood there.
"Sure, just in case, hold this." He handed him a locator. "Just to make sure my sister knows where to open the portal."
He brought out Graceful. The kanabo was definitely one of his less decorated weapons, even after a reforging it was mostly smooth with only a few round protrusions along the body. The weapon was brought up like a bat and swung with all his might. Its mass ramped up the moment it made contact with Achilles' chest.
The resulting shock wave cracked the ground, only a pair of boots on the floor were left and a small hole in one of the clouds passing high up.
Magnus turned towards Maxima. "Think that counts as a homerun?" He joked.
"What was that?" She asked, an eyebrow visibly raised.
"Gravity and mass altering blunt weapon." He explained. "Should we wait until he comes down? If not, Orange should be able to open a portal to allow him to fall through… actually, I will tell her to bleed his speed and bring him back." He said and sent his sister a message. "Now we wait."
"May I ask, how many weapons do you have?" She asked, sounding honestly curious.
"About a dozen, though some of them are multiple weapons, but work as a unit." He answered, allowing Graceful to float off as he showed off Close&Personal. "Though there's a few I won't show given their abilities being more esoteric."
"Now you're making me curious." She said, her lip tugging into a smile.
"I've a sword that inflicts the concept of True Damage and True Death, it can ignore a lot of types of immortality and such." He explained.
"And you won't sell it?"
He couldn't help but to laugh at the idea. "Oh, no, it would kill anyone who tried to use it. They are a picky weapon." He answered. "Again, I prefer to work custom orders."
She thought about it, watching as Achilles dropped a few meters away, the man still looking completely and utterly undamaged outside of the frost that had grown on his clothes, or how those had practically exploded around his chest.
"What would you make for someone like me?" She asked, curious.
"It would depend on your powers and how you fight. But I would guess you like to get close and personal. So most likely reinforced gloves." He answered. "Not like mine, sleeker ones, providing effects and reinforcement instead of straight defense. And maybe something to provide you with a distance option."
She smirked as she pointed at Achilles before a bullet of energy shot out and sent the man flying back back towards the rest of the heroes, a glowing lasso came from Halo to grab him.
"So you've one already. Then a way to either focus it further, or give you further control over it." He amended.
He could think of a few enchantments that could be interesting. Especially because he could tell the heroine had a lot of power available, he would need to see her using it.
"While it's fun to send him flying with every attack, maybe it would be easier to show off every weapon I've on some targets." Magnus offers. "I can whip up a few disposable ones in a few seconds."
Maxima thought about it for a moment. "Sure, go ahead."
He nodded and activated Solid&Firm, his shoes shifted, their looks had smoothed to the point they almost looked like reptile scales. A quick application of will had vaguely-human-shaped stone spires rise from the ground.
"Uh, for some reason I expected something more detailed." Maxima joked.
"If I went more detailed they would also end too hard and it would make cleaning up harder." He noted.
"Really?" She asked in surprise.
"Yeah, why? Want a statue of yourself that will last a hundred thousand years? It's not that hard and you would be quite the model." He offered, getting her to look away. It was hard to tell, but he was pretty sure she had blushed.
While teasing the power house could be fun, he was here to show off, and when judging the two things the latter won in his mind. A small gesture from his hand, completely unneeded but fun, and most of his weapons slid into reality, setting themselves behind his back, like tails or peacock feathers.
"Okay, those are impressive." Maxima let out a small praise. "You made all of them?"
"Yes. But they aren't all the weapons I have." He answered. "I've three more, two I made and an extra one that won't be brought out unless I need to deal with something truly catastrophic."
Maxima raised an eyebrow. "It feels like there's a story there."
"It's not really much of a story, that last weapon wasn't made by me, it was made by my father for my mother, it's actually half of the complete weapon; the other half is in my sister's possession." He explained. "The problem is that that blade can and will cut through Reality and more. I could cut open a World if I wanted with it. It's simply too dangerous to use."
"What would you even need a weapon like that?"
"Well, it's simple, you read the Yellow King? From the Eldritch Mythos?" He asked and she nodded slowly. "There's no more Yellow King, my mother cut them down with the full weapon."
"Theory of the World as Myth" more specifically. Multiverse theory is "infinite realities with infinite changes mean anything can happen". Theory of the World as Myth is a corollary to that which states that "If anything can happen, then all fiction is a description of true events that occurred somewhere else". Heinlein came up with it to justify crossing over his own books in story.
wait is it that Scissor weapon? I don't remember the book that well ...
- Location
- Home
Magnus holds half of Snicker Snack, Sabbah's Vorpal Scissors, a blade that Severs and has tasted Eldritch God's blood.
Edit: Also, contrary to what Magnus' tone sounds like, Hastur's not dead, they were cut down in size and will make more sense later.
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Jordisk
<Unverified N00B>
- Location
- Blind Eternities
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Holy fucking shit, that is a powerful weapon. It makes the Eldritch make sense to mortals.
- Location
- Home
Yes, but Sidney's more than a bit scatterbrained, specially after a period of not taking her ADHD meds, which leaves her swinging between great and terrible ideas and realizations.
Not just his own books, he also managed to put in Oz, Wonderland, the Lens, and Barsoom. Probably missing something else too. Love Heinlein's stuff.
He did sometimes get into some truly weird shit, but I deeply respect a man who was so godamn good that he got his fan fiction on the New York Times best seller list.
- Location
- United States
That one act earned her enough good karma to last the rest of Eternity.
Chapter 48
- Location
- Home
Venturing the Worlds – 48
Maxima gave the result of each of Magnus' weapons an appraising look. One by one all rocky targets were destroyed. Sliced into tiny bits, exploded in a ball of fire, swallowed by the same ground that had sprouted it, turned into Swiss cheese, sliced and shocked, smashed into mud.
She had to admit that it was an impressive variety of powers, it was true that she had seen much stronger expressions of many of those powers. But it was the fact that these were manufactured that made them impressive. Each of those weapons would effectively turn a trained person into a mid-level super.
That same thought made her give Sidney a side-look. The young woman was currently chatting with Krona about something, given the information-gathering abilities of the latter, she would have to ask the blue-haired woman about what she learned later.
Of course that wasn't all she was paying attention to, she did keep an eye on the rest of Magnus' crew. Ruby, while definitely the most dangerous of the bunch, outside of the unknown the man presented, was cordially talking with Dabbler. For now the Succubus was behaving and answering a few questions while asking a few herself.
Meanwhile the three Wererats were being more open, having intermingled with the people watching the presentation and socializing. Of course that also meant she made a mental note of who talked with who for a later debriefing. They may be tentatively allies, but that didn't discard the fact that Archon was a military organization at many levels.
"Quite destructive." She commented and Magnus chuckled.
"Well, it's usually the easiest way to show them off." He said. "Most of the weapons do have other functionalities, of course since they are my weapons they have been mainly designed to supplement my abilities."
He reached to grab the bow and quiver floating in the air.
"Though this one may be able to show off a bit more, I will note that a big part of its abilities is the use of a Rune dictionary I know more or less by heart." His explanation made Dabbler stop and pay attention.
"So it would be useless for us?" Maxima prompted.
"The bow? I would imagine unless I took my time to learn and program a version using whatever magical programming language or rune set you use in this World." He answered in what she felt was honesty. "I would even say that access to that knowledge could be part of payment if you're interested in anything we can offer."
She noticed Dabbler perking up and giving her a small nod, both of interest and collaboration as part of Arc-light, the supernatural branch of Archon.
"Okay, show me."
Magnus smiled and notched the strange-looking arrow, the moment he pulled the string back, said projectile started to glow, making Magnus explain, "The arrows are disposable delivery frames for the spells written in by the bow."
He launched it, Maxima accelerating her perception of time to watch as it reached the rough, stone doll. The head buried into the material before the whole thing exploded as ice sprouted from the inside. But that wasn't the end of it, instead the exploding bits froze in air, held by barely visible golden chains before the whole thing collapsed as if it imploded into a single sphere of stone.
She watched the stone finally fall to the ground with a dull thud.
"I assume that the effect can be changed?" She asked.
"Yes, that was just the combination of a few Runes. The Sheikah created many of such, some much less useful as they were pretty specific. But many others are useful like the Stasis Rune, Magnetic Rune and a few others." He explained. "They are pretty good for non-lethal takedowns, similarly I've developed something I've come to call capture pods, they were based on Pokeballs and can safely store a knocked out target safely. They double as safe transport too, as a captured target will be kept in a coma and alive, effectively keeping them from dying if stored at Death's Door."
"And you want to sell them to us?" Maxima asked.
"I don't doubt your World has something like it already. So I'm mainly offering the blueprints for my version. All in all, they are a pretty simple version of Magitech." He explained.
She noticed Dabbler biting her lower lip before stepping forward. "What's the most destructive Rune?" She prompted.
"… I would say it's the complete annihilation. Though that's more of a combination of my abilities." He explained.
The Succubus turned to her and gave her puppy dog eyes. Maxima sighed. "Is it safe to show?"
"Yes… I mean, as long as nothing you want to keep existing is inside its area of effect." He explained.
Maxima nodded. "Okay everyone, before any of you idiots decide to try their luck, next one will be dangerous… more dangerous. I don't want anyone losing something by sticking your finger in." She warned, getting a few of the usual hollers and comebacks she ignored. Instead she turned to Magnus. "Go ahead."
He nodded and tapped the ground with his strange boots. A few dozen meters away from them a much larger stone statue rose up, one with a lot more details. It made her raise an eyebrow as she could tell he was using someone as a model for the sculpture, someone she was sure the man had fought before.
While Maxima didn't have super hearing, she was still sharp enough to hear the soft murmurs coming from Magnus' mouth, "I'm of Light and Dark, I control Truth and Lie."
A shiver went down her spine as the arrow started to glow with an unearthly light, shifting between white and black. And then the arrow flew straight at the target. The effect was instantaneous, even as she pushed her personal speed quite a bit, the moment it touched the sculpture it expanded into a white and black sphere that swallowed the whole thing.
It held there for a second, its surface shifting somewhere between a lava lamp and a massive yin-yang symbol before it popped like a bubble, leaving absolutely nothing in its place; she could even see the air getting sucked into the space left behind.
Maxima let out an impressed whistle, eyeing the people watching it was obvious more than a few had understood what happened. The surprise was the look Dabbler was giving Magnus, a mix of curiosity, fear and her usual arousal.
The four-armed Succubus grabbed him by the shoulders. "You need to tell me what that was!"
She thought about it for a moment. "I would like to know too, if possible." She added.
"To make a lot of jargon very simple, I basically made everything inside the area a Lie and then destroyed it by applying the Truth that there was nothing there." He answered.
Dabbler laughed. "Oh, you're hilarious, if that was true it would mean… that you… can affect universal constants…" Her laugh quickly died down, ending up in an existential dread.
"Dabbler." She asked in a serious tone.
"It means he can tell Reality to go fuck itself." She quickly rephrased.
"It's also why I kept two weapons out of the show, they were created on the basis of my own abilities, capable of Lying through any defense and inflicting True Death upon a target." His words made Maxima quickly recalculate the danger he presented.
Magnus chuckled, definitely reading her expression.
"My father didn't skim when making me and my siblings." He explained.
Maxima chuckled and looked at Ruby. "And I imagine you are similar?"
The woman smiled. "I'm capable of creating magical copies of myself capable of great feats of magic. I actually have a number constantly working in the ship, mainly in the ship's medical and garden area."
"That sounds like Magends." Dabbler, not so innocently, dropped.
"Uh, they are actually called Magends, you have them here too?" Ruby prompted, sounding honestly surprised. "But yes, I've a dozen Magends up all the time, they are in charge of growing, processing and cooking in the ship along with making sure everyone's healthy."
"Ah!" Dabbler's exclamation made all turn to her. "So that's why you have been ignoring me. You have your own one-woman harem."
Maxima facepalmed as Ruby blushed and Magnus chuckled.
After showing off with his weapons, Magnus enjoyed sitting back and just talking with some of the supers around. It honestly surprised how friendly they were. Though it was also true they were playing by the local rules, so the locals didn't have much reason to be hostile.
Though he did notice a few looks here and there, maybe there was still some suspicion. But he also noticed a few interesting looks that could either be fuck or fight. It seemed to be pretty fifty fifty for some reason.
He wondered if the high-sexual tension was a World thing or it was just a side-effect of having a Succubus around. It would certainly fit for a species that relied on sexual energies to lower people's inhibitions a bit. Or maybe it was just the fact that there were a few dozen people that were incredibly beautiful and fit, with nature doing the rest.
Lydia had been talked into sparring with some of the supers. The first had been a tall, redheaded, dark-skinned woman. Apparently she went by Anvil and had the ability to absorb and release kinetic energy.
He was actually glad to see that Lydia didn't instantly get frustrated by how the fight was turning out to be stalled for both parties. While most of her student's attacks had little to no effect, her small frame was keeping Anvil from connecting any hit.
Thankfully Lydia pulled ahead as she swiftly melted the ground, causing the larger heroine to trip before she produced the construct rope from her armband and used it to tie Anvil as she tumbled down.
"Oh come on." Anvil complained as she was left trussed on the ground, her arms pressed against her body as her legs were immobilized and half buried in the warm ground. "What the heck was that?!"
"A nifty little trick." Lydia answered. "But if you want to know, I just made the molecules vibrate and move like a liquid without imparting heat. It took me ages to get it right."
"Cool, can you let me go now?" Anvil pleaded.
"I don't know, you called me short… Though I could be the bigger person and let you go without pranking you." Lydia shot back with a grin.
"Please, please, please, they are already taking pictures." Lydia chuckled, but let the construct go, even reaching down to allow the heroine to be pulled up. "Thank you, and it was a good fight, I will have to remember about keeping a good grounding next time."
"If you want to talk about good grounding you should see Moisha." At Lydia's words her teammate sparked.
"Oh, Jiggawatt will want to test her then." Anvil said.
Their conversation continued, but Magnus' found his attention caught by the same blonde that had been there when he arrived in the World.
"Did you need anything, Halo?" He decided to talk to her since she seemed to have been holding back.
"Yes… can I ask you a few questions?"
"Sure." He answered, not missing that more than one person was eyeing them, Maxima between them.
"Maxima said you really have been to a world with real Pokemon, is that right?" He noticed a barely hidden vibration in the girl.
"Yes."
"That means other works of fiction are real out there too?" She had started to visibly vibrate.
"Yes."
"…That means Optimus Prime is real?"
"Yes." He answered, watching the short woman start to reach critical mass. "I do have pictures of me as a child with him since dad helped him before I was born."
Her pupils dilated instantly, to the point he was impressed. "Can I seeee? Pweasseee?"
He laughed and snapped his fingers, bringing one of the many pictures he had kept with him. The picture had been taken shortly after the Prime had managed to finally leave the position of Cybertron's leader. While his stay as the single leader of his race in the years after the war had been received with much support and rejection, from those that had before occupied both main groups, no one could deny he had guided them well and fairly.
In many ways the ex-Decepticons had been less troublesome as he had beaten Megatron in a fair duel, and had gone to beat a few of the most troublesome elements in the later recovery period. Meanwhile many ex-Autobots had more than once rejected the unification of their race or tried to move back to functionalism, as the war between groups had kept some of the most conservationist members of the race from spelling their opinions on many matters.
It had been almost a century in that World before Cybertron was once again flourishing and the new Transformers had surpassed the old ones in numbers and positions of power. Younger minds had allowed Optimus to finally introduce some new politics and gently allow him to move off the near-dictatorship role he had been thrust into.
The growing Metaloid civilization had helped a lot too as they had partially folded into Cybertron even as Minicons started to be produced again. In many ways that had allowed them to mix in much easier.
Finally he had been allowed to move back into the role he preferred so much more, librarian. The picture had been taken shortly after, the Prime was standing with Magnus as a tiny fox on his shoulder, Milo floating over the other one and Claire hanging like a cat from his arms.
"Oh my god…" She whispered. "… but where are you?"
"Oh, right there, I'm the dark one on the shoulder." He answered with a grin.
"Wait, but that's a Zorua…" She mumbled before turning back towards him, moments after he had shifted into a full fox, the change hadn't gone missing in the eyes of many.
Halo's pupils dilated even further. "You- that- but-" She started to mumble and spaz.
Just to finish her off Magnus used his most devastating technique, the blep. Halo froze before falling back on the bench.
"I don't think I've ever seen someone manage to knock her out like that." Another heroine pointed out.
"I don't usually get to use this form for this." He admitted. "But it's fun."
She nodded and offered her hand. "Varia."
"Magnus, or The Traveler. But you should have known that already." He reached and shook her hand.
Instantly he felt a tingle, a strange sensation that could be compared to something asking a question and permission at the same time. It didn't feel invasive, more like asking for a look, and he didn't feel a reason to not allow it.
"Varia!" Maxima glared at the woman, having zipped from her position talking with Ruby to their side in the blink of an eye.
"What? I wanted to see if I could transform like him." She said.
"Uh, I'm missing something here."
"Varia here has the power to copy and combine powers via touch, it works with both supers and some supernatural powers." She explained.
"Oh, then you most likely wouldn't have gotten any of my physical abilities. My DNA is blackboxed to the point that trying to copy it could have led to problems, so it doesn't allow that." He explained.
"What kind of problems?" Maxima prompted.
"If someone actually managed to copy my DNA you would end with it taking over and just creating another copy of me." He answered, making Varia pale.
"Another?" Maxima asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh yes, still not a hundred percent sure how it happened. But there's a copy of me living in Ruby's World." He answered with a shrug. "Though you may still have gotten something."
"Uh… now I'm scared." Varia mumbled before a System screen popped in front of their eyes. "What is this?"
"That's a System, it's basically a combination of personal assistant, soul strengthening armor, ability strengthening and interactive rewarding system. I think a few have described it as a sort of RPG system." He explained. "It basically uses a ritual that takes effort and rewards the user with the increase of their abilities."
"Shame that I will lose it then." Varia mused and he gave her a look. "What?"
"You copied a System, you now have a System." He tried to explain. "Even a tiny part of the System would be capable of restoring the full System, ergo a temporary copy of the System would turn into a full System."
Maxima sighed, sounding extremely tired of the shenanigans going around.
"Explain fully what a System can do." She asked, seemingly having to hold back a complaint. Though Magnus didn't doubt that Varia would get some kind of punishment duty for what she had pulled.
"Okay, first of all, a System won't hurt its user." He decided to clear that up. "It's designed to protect, assist and make the user's life easier. The System will explain everything, but I can give you an overview of its capabilities."
She nodded. "Go ahead."
"The basic System provides a pocket space storage, a list of all of the user's skills, abilities and knowledge. The System taps into the World's Akasha, or Information Realm, to acquire the necessary information. Using it the system can provide information about the User's natural and acquired abilities. The System also doubles as a protection for the Soul, while also nurturing its growth."
"What's this about Class and Job?" The heroine asked as she fiddled with the screen in front of her. "The first says Power Gestalt, so I can get an idea. But the second is indicating I can choose."
"Basically Class is what you are, Job is what you do. Class rarely changes unless you mutate, evolve, jump bodies, etcetera. Meanwhile Job can be chosen and changed at any time, though changing too frequently will prevent the chosen option from being effective; the System will warn you about it." He explained.
Halo sat up straight, it was obvious she had been listening for a while. "That really sounds like a game." She noted.
"Fun fact is that the System's original name, or at least the part that rewards you for your efforts was called Ritual for Potential Gaining." He grinned.
Maxima groaned and face palmed. "RPG? Really?"
"Eh, it works better than the Fixed Anchor Point system." He waved it off, getting a few groans from the people after they formed the acronym.
"I'm afraid to ask, but what did the system do?" Varia asked.
"It allowed an object to move at a fixed distance from another." He explained and did a jerk-off gesture, getting a few face palms. "Silly naming aside, the System will interface with your power and as long as you use and push it, it will allow you to improve on it and with enough time grow stronger."
"Any problem it could bring?" Maxima asked.
"The only problem is only a few people can remove it safely, and no, I'm not one of them. The best I can do is use my administrator role to keep it from being copied by someone else." He offered.
"Do it." Maxima ordered and Magnus complied, sending the order. "I think we should call it here for this part, if you're still up to show the crops to a smaller group."
"I've no problem with that, prepare a group and we can leave in five minutes." He offered.
It only took four minutes for Maxima to put order to everyone and hand out a few orders. After that she came with a group of four. Dabbler and Mr. Zoeng didn't surprise him much. Halo appeared to be brought mostly to keep an eye on the young woman. The surprise was a blue-haired woman who presented herself as Krona.
Magnus didn't say anything, he trusted the heroine to know who she was picking. Instead he signaled to Orange to open the way to the Garden. Ruby was coming, but the three Mausketeers were staying behind as they had been invited to head out to a bar. He honestly trusted them enough to hide their presence once things got heated.
There were a few sounds of surprise and awe the moment they stepped through.
"But how?" Mr. Zoeng asked after he looked around.
"It's quite simple if you think about it, what were the two things I mentioned that can survive in the Outside?" He asked.
"… Worlds and Information." Maxima realized. "The ship's a World in itself?" She asked rhetorically.
"Exactly." He nodded.
"Each room inside the ship's a Reality inside a World." Ruby explained for him. "It allows the ship to manipulate the space inside to keep it comfortable. For example, while the ship holds a total of thirty personal rooms, only six of them can be accessed at the moment."
"How big is this place?" Dabbler asked.
Both Magnus and Ruby shrugged.
"The place is very flexible, as long as we need the space there will be more space." Ruby answered.
"This whole place is geared for cultivation, right?" Krona asked. "I can barely look at the mechanics behind this place, it seems to be helping everything grow."
Ruby perked up. "Yes, you could consider this close to a blessed field, though I've managed to cast something similar in a few places too." She gestured to the distance where fields of wheat swayed in a light breeze.
A few of her Magends wandered over the area. In many ways their work was very easy, there was no bug, sickness or pest, the seeds had long since been improved to keep any genetic problem from cropping up, and all characteristics from the ph of the soil to the weather was controlled.
"Those are your Magends, right?" Halo prompted.
"Yeah, most in this area fall under the category of Nature sprites, Dryads, Elves, Floramancers and similar ones."
Magnus took a secondary role as this area of the ship was practically Ruby's. She happily guided them, explaining a number of their crops, from the original samples to the most experimental crops she was still testing.
"And here we move in the strictly magical crops." Ruby gestured to some of the weirdest fields.
Plots on fire, frozen plots, submerged in swamp water, buried in ash, soaked in slime, and many other strange characteristics some of the crops from the Wizarding World needed to grow. One of the woman's objectives with these had been fixing their strange requirements to allow them to grow in unprepared grounds.
"Is that a sheep?" Dabbler prompted.
"A Lamb Bush." Ruby explained. "It's a carnivorous plant that grows a meat and bones specimen, it uses it, both as lure and predator."
"I feel like I've heard about it before." Halo mumbled.
"It comes from a World of Wizards and Witches based on a series of novels aimed at kids and young adults." Ruby explained.
"Oh! The Handy Postar series." Halo called out. "What?"
Magnus smiled. "No, it's right, it's just that sometimes some names get mixed around for some Worlds. The World we visited had Harry Potter as he's known in most Worlds. But the deviation is not that strange. Since information presents itself as inspiration, it sometimes gets changed by who receives it."
"So the information we have for some of these Worlds may not be perfect?" Maxima pointedly asked.
"Yes, and the reasons for it vary. Sometimes it's the receiving creator changing things due to culture, personal taste, etcetera. Other times it's because the source was actually an alternate Reality, or maybe it's an alternate World." He explained. "As strange as it sounds, there's repeated Worlds out there, there's no sense or reason for them, and honestly finding two identical Worlds is nigh-impossible. If it happens, it happens, but you can't expect to find them."
Maxima nodded and Ruby resumed her explanation of the plant. Thankfully they would finish the tour before the first news of the chaos reached them.
Reducing weekly releases
- Location
- Home
Due to work and lack of motivation to write(And a huge plot bunny that just doesn't want to leave my head) will be reducing the releases from 3 to 2 a week.
A taste of said plot bunny's first chapter, still not a 100% sure it's the final version, but I feel it has pretty good potential, set in the DxD world Grimoire of Dragons - 1
A taste of said plot bunny's first chapter, still not a 100% sure it's the final version, but I feel it has pretty good potential, set in the DxD world Grimoire of Dragons - 1
- Location
- United States
For consuming 2 perks to get 1 reroll, are those 2 perks destroyed or could they be rolled again later?