Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 1

“… in other news a massive meteorite has landed in the Northern region of Mexico. The event was witnessed by anyone outside and looking in its general direction from Guadalajara to Albuquerque. Scientists everywhere are stumped by the fact that said object wasn’t observed until it was entering the atmosphere. Even when witnesses report the object to be large and of curious shape, no remains have been found once official forces reached the crater. At the moment both the United States and Mexico are working together to discover more about this confusing incident. ”

The blonde, buxom woman sitting by the kitchen’s table reached for the remote control and turned the news off before placing her breakfast bowl in the sink and turning away.

“Brittany!” She called out loud.

A moment later in front of her stood another woman. She was nearly three meters tall, werecheetah, her body was covered in fur and a feline tail flickered idly behind her.

“What’s up, Gina? We going somewhere? I don’t remember you programming any expedition anytime soon.”

“ I ’m going to visit Shangri-La, I’ve some books I need to return. I’m already running quite late and they should also have some maps I requested last time I visited.” The woman told her sister.

“Great! Because I’ve planned to visit hunny over at El Dorado and I hope you remember I hate when you interrupt my time with him.” Brittany glared down at her sister. “I want to tell him about our little adventure helping Danny.”

And with a puff of displaced air before Gina could say another word, the werecheetah had disappeared. Gina shook her head and picked her hat, she would need Ace to fly her over if she wanted to make it in time.

By the time Gina had left the Diggers’ Home she had forgotten all about the strange object that had landed on the planet just a day before.

The moment the door opened and the mature brunette woman entered the room everyone stood to attention. It wasn’t just the way the mature woman in the suit walked in, her whole presence commanded their fealty. It was that or disappearing into some deep, dark hole to never be seen again, and it wasn’t a euphemism to them getting fired.

The laboratory wasn’t just the top of the line in technology, multiple screens of all sizes decorated multiple surfaces, even some spots on the ceiling were used to project information. It also was very advanced in the use of magic in the field of research and investigation.

The woman’s sharp eyes landed on a man and without a word he rushed to her side.

“Lady director.” He bowed quickly.

She assented and talked. “What can you tell me about the objects we recovered ?” Her tone was as cold as her glare.

“We… ahem,” he cleared his mouth looking nervous, “we know much less than we would want.”

She raised an eyebrow and made it look dismissively. “Explain.”

“All technological and magical scans are bringing close to nothing.” The man shivered as he answered her order. “The ship appears to practically be one solid piece of an unknown alloy. If it hadn’t opened up to allow us inside we doubt we would have ever managed to explore the few rooms we had access to, at least without causing severe damage.”

She didn’t growl, chide or even say a word, and everyone in the room felt like writing a will.

“What about the rooms we do have access to?”

“It’s unfortunately more bad news.” The man swallowed dryly to not stammer. “The available entrance only connected to a hallway and to what appears to be the ship’s bridge. But the current state of the ship has locked down on all terminals and systems. We’ve been theorizing it uses some kind of holographic interface given the existence and layout of chairs in it.”

The man forced himself to look away from her and focus on the tablet he was holding, working through it to bring up pictures captured inside of the ship on one of the larger screens.

“We believe that other rooms exist in the ship. But currently all our scans read as if the space behind the few doors we found is completely solid to the point we receive basically nothing.”

“What about spatial relocation?” She prompted.

“I… We don’t believe it was wise. Without a proper idea of where to aim we feared either hitting a solid spot and causing an explosion from superimposition of matter, or worse, hitting some power system and causing the whole ship to explode. We have only low estimates of the amount of power a ship of this size would need to fly, and making it explode would be destructive to say the least . ”

The woman scoffed. “Okay, continue your work on it, I want some success at least, as minor as it may end up being to show we’re in the right about keeping the ship.” She ordered. “Now, what about the specimen?”

“Good news, we’re pretty sure it’s alive.” The man seemed almost content to have something to give their superior. “The mass, which we have dubbed specimen-one, appears to act as a thick oil and prefers to remain as a single unit. But we’ve managed to take small samples for further study. Unfortunately it seems to be going in a similar way to studying the ship it was found inside.”

The man tapped on the tablet a few more times, keeping his gaze away from the woman. A new set of images were brought up, a tall, transparent cylinder was filled with a purple substance that seemed to stir lazily from time to time. A few other images appeared too, some of the scientists and researchers were looking down upon small samples under microscopes and other tools.

As the woman said nothing, the man continued speaking. “We’ve kept constant surveillance over specimen-one and all of its characteristics, which leads to some strange and curious qualities.” The woman gestured to continue and the man nodded. “It stays at near perfect forty degrees Celsius, about a hundred and four Fahrenheit. The mass lost from the samples taken has been recovered, we would be more curious to know from where if it wasn’t constantly generating energy.” The man explained. “We’re not sure if this effect will continue forever, or stop at some moment in the future, but it’s constantly generating heat and some minor magical readings.”

The man tapped a few more times and brought a video.

“The amount of heat generated is directly related to the temperature it’s exposed to, higher heat given a lower temperature.” The video played and showed how the test tube froze quickly before starting to thaw. “This only changed when we tried to do the opposite and increase the temperature. That’s when specimen-one switched its approach and started to greedily absorb the excess heat to bring itself down to the base temperature.”

“Anything else?”

“So far genetic studies have only brought back errors, and that’s when we use magical approaches. Technology just seems to not work at all, even the old tests result in nothing.” The man turned to her. “The only thing we’ve discovered is that it seems capable of mimicking anything biological it’s presented with.”

The woman raised an eyebrow, showing at least some interest in the discovery. To that the man simply tapped on the tablet and played a new video. It hadn’t been part of a planned experiment, and instead the result of an accident as one of the researchers had touched the material with their bare hands.

The mass had writhed and quickly changed into a finger, it seemed the lack of mass kept it to just the tip of a finger, albeit a recognizable one.

“Any side-effects?”

“We’ve checked the person thoroughly and it seems that specimen-one only copied after consuming the dead skin cells off their finger. But we’ll need more tests to confirm if that’s what it needs, or if it's just a side effect of having touched the sample.” The man explained.

“Good, continue studying it and bring it to my attention immediately if anything changes.” She ordered before turning and leaving the room.

Every scientist and researcher breathed a sigh of relief once the door closed. In many ways they had survived getting strapped onto a table, or worse.

It was just another day in a pretty secretive, and more than a bit amoral, laboratory hidden in New York.

Magnus’ awareness returned slowly.

The first thing he noticed was that he still had his memories, which was definitely an improvement from the last time he woke up from an accident. Second was that he was stuck somewhere small and restrictive; he fit too well.

Since he remembered his father’s words about waking up in strange places and he didn’t feel openly threatened at the moment, he didn’t react in any way. Instead he slowly opened his senses to the area around him.

Finding himself in a very advanced lab was a moderate surprise. Observing the test tube he had been placed in he discovered at least a dozen cameras and definitely two more between other observation tools.

It seemed to be working hours because he could see a large number of people going around, studying samples he could feel were his. It was harder to feel further away as the area was quite packed with magic and technology. Nothing to the point of what his father or older siblings got to, but quite an impressive sight for what appeared to actually be quite modern.

The few people talking did so in English, their exact accent too varied to pinpoint if it was a particular spot on Earth. He wasn’t even sure if he was actually on Earth, it certainly felt so.

“ System? ” He queried mentally.

“ System is online and working, what does User require? ”

He internally smiled, but kept his body from reacting in any way. Better get the lay of the land before giving people any sign he was active.

“ What happened? ”

“ Long Fortune appears to have entered a very complex World. Scans show the World has suffered extensive temporal tampering and is slowly accelerating towards total collapse, exact time span remaining unknown. Current World’s also extremely complex in the number of realities it contains, it also contains extensive buffer zones between these realities. ”

Even without more specific information this was already quite worrying. Magnus knew that Worlds of this class tended to be either Important or Artificial in some way, usually they were both if they were Artificial.

An example of this was his own homeWorld. His mom’s original World had already been quite important, but his father had increased it further by artificially adding more Worlds. In this case it was the Infinite Realms that acted as a buffer between the realities which had been Worlds in the past.

If they were in reality, that meant they had practically crossed all the possible barriers but one or two, it wasn’t a surprise they had gotten knocked out. Most likely even his father would not be having an easy time entering the World.

“ What about my current status? ” He asked calmly.

“ User’s current state is designed to acclimate them to the World, the amorphous form has been designed for survival and is capable of resisting extreme conditions if necessary. ”

It was reassuring to know it was something his body was meant to do, it meant he would recover normally with enough time.

“ How long will it take? ”

“ Exact time needed is unknown given World’s characteristics and User’s Potential. ”

Internally he chuckled, it had been quite a while since the System had pointed it out.

“ Okay, how about my sister? ”

“ Orange is currently recuperating and will awaken in seventeen hours. ”

That was good news, it meant he would be getting some help soon. “ Can you gather information without being noticed? ”

“ System can do a basic read of the close systems, information gathered will be incomplete. For better information gathering, System will need Long Fortune’s systems to be unlocked. ”

“ And for that I need Orange to awaken. ” He grumbled a bit. “ Okay, start gathering the information you can, it would be good to at least get an idea of where we are and if we’ll need to prepare and escape or establish communications. ”

It took nearly ten minutes before something useful came in, which was quite slow since the System could read and parse electric signals much faster. It made him wonder how much security was needed to slow it down this much.

Most information was useless, basically the logged attempts to study him. It seemed all the safeties his father had included were being quite useful. They had deemed him Specimen-One, he hadn’t found any information on the ship as it may have been in some other laboratory, which was obvious given the normal size of the room he was in.

It surprised him to see that his mass appeared keen to imitate biology it came in contact with. It was something to keep in mind, though he doubted they would throw someone into the container, yet.

It took another hour of reading through boring test results before something interesting happened. One of the researchers pulled their personal phone out and logged into some kind of social media application.

The System instantly infected the device with a pretty stealthy virus which would remain in the background until they put the phone away. Then it would become a relay for the System to contact the internet, or whatever local equivalent of it there was, and start acquiring proper information.

Of course it would be limited, mainly by the battery life of the device. And also the fact that it was pretty obvious that the owner definitely shouldn’t have it in the laboratory, even less to sext with their SO.

Actually, there was something weird about the World, he could feel an underlying sense of something that he couldn’t put his finger onto. But the fact that practically everyone in the lab was good-looking was interesting, he wondered if it was because they picked people by their beauty in a lab like this.

He really hoped it wasn’t some kind of porn World on top of everything else, but he hadn’t seen any random pizza delivery or strange fetish experiment yet. The moment they tried to have him duplicate some random dick he was ordering that piece of himself to jump down the idiot’s throat and choke them from the inside before breaking out.

After an hour of waiting for the System to drain the poor idiot’s data plan he had plenty of information to read through.

First thing was that he was definitely on Earth, or at least one variant of it. The World was also in a semi-open masquerade that had been half-way confirmed given the amount of magic going around the lab he was in, but it was nice to confirm it.

Magic was a thing, superheroes were too, villains popped from time to time, non-Humans existed and rarely got more than a look, people suddenly using super martial arts was televised and most countries were at peace; outside of a few hostile places. It was an interesting world, it also appeared to be larger than Earth while still being Earth.

If anything, learning all of this started to make him think he was definitely in some illegal research facility of some kind given the whole vibe he was getting. Which pointed out that the idiot who had brought their phone and obviously set it to connect with the outside was going to at least get fired. It eased a small worry on Magnus that he was burning a nearly literal hole in their pockets by abusing their connection.

Of course soon it became boring and Magnus started to read biology textbooks to pass the time until his sister woke up.

Orange woke up in her personal room for the second time in too little time. She sighed and slowly sat up from her bed before opening herself to the Long Fortune’s systems.

“ Good morning sleepy head. ” Her brother’s voice called out. “ If I knew you would spend so much time asleep I would have asked someone else to come with me. ”

“Fuck you.” She let out without much venom and got up to grab a large mug of freshly made Matutine Coffee, downing it in a gulp and putting the mug to refill as she let the magical caffeine do its part. “What happened?”

“ I’m pretty sure my Potential got us dragged into a pretty complex World. ”

“I'm afraid to ask this, but how bad?” She was fearing reading the logs.

“ It’s like home, but grandpa went on a bender. ”

“Fuck!” She cursed and downed a second cup of coffee and started to feel better.

“ Yeah… we smashed practically every possible barrier but a couple. ”

She nodded absentmindedly. “Yeah, six… wait, no, seven. It was definitely seven barriers on our way in, fuck, what kind of bastard created this mess?”

“ No idea, but I think if we crossed one more barrier we would have ended in someone’s private demesne, or worse, someone’s stomach. ”

“Fuck that, I hate dimensional stomachs, you never get the smell off things for months.” She took the next cup and sipped it slower to enjoy the taste a bit. “So what’s up? You’ve definitely been awake for longer.”

“ Yeah, I was out for a few hours. Though at that time the Long Fortune was picked by some very shady bunch and they scooped me off my chair and stuck me in a test tube to study. ”

“But that means they would have gotten inside, and that means… Of course! Sometimes I forget dad put that safety in place.”

“ I imagined, don’t worry, it’s not that bad. Right now they haven’t been able to do much to the ship given the lockdown and they are afraid to blow themselves up by trying. They have had a bit more luck with my mass, and yes I’m still a puddle, apparently my mass loves to copy biology, I didn’t know that. ”

“Stop and breathe, if you can even, you’re talking like Milo.”

“ Haha, that would be hilarious. And no I don’t breathe at the moment. Anyways, good news and bad news. ”

“Good news first?”

“ We’re definitely in some kind of secret base and the guys are definitely not meant to legally hold us here. ”

“That’s not, no, wait. Yes, that’s good news, it means we can escape and ignore much of the collateral damage in the process without much worry. ”

“Exacto, I would like to make sure we don’t blast through a normal neighborhood on our way out, but I don’t think they would build it somewhere like that. I’m pretty sure we’re in New York. ” She was surprised by this. “ Yeah, no idea how they got the Long Fortune from Mexico to New York without people seeing it, I’m blaming magic, and yes, there’s plenty of magic going around, the World’s weird. ”

“How weird?”

“ That’s the bad news, we’re definitely in a porn world. ”

She instantly started to curse, or at least until she realized her brother was laughing on the other end.

“MAGNUS! You idiot, you know-”

“ I’m kidding, though there’s something still very weird happening here. Too much comic-book pretty going around, there’s also a very open supernatural and fantastical going around. I’ve seen a lot of reports of supers and similar. If this World wasn’t going to collapse on its own time-fuckery in the future I would say it’s a pretty nice place. ”

“That bad?” She sat down on her bed and started to look through the logs properly.

“ Taking a lesson from grandpa, if time can be a spiral, this place’s a spiral spring tightened to the point it’s going to explode. ” Her mouth twisted at that explanation. “ I was mostly reading while I waited for you, my System bugged someone’s phone, but that had a limit. ”

“Don’t worry, the Long Fortune’s systems can do much better without being noticed. What about you?”

“ I’ve been letting them take samples of me, so far they have allowed my main mass to recover between samples taken. It’s been taking me a bit but I’m growing better at looking through them, no matter how small; I’ll have the System share the map of the facilities I built up. ”

“Oh, yeah, lots of magic and tech going around. I’ve to say I’m actually impressed by the ability displayed here. ”

“I know, right? If we’re really in some villain’s secret base it also means we can steal with impunity. Don’t you love having the moral high-ground? ”

She laughed. “I don’t know about a moral high-ground, but we’re definitely not pulling many punches once we leave the place. And… there we go, the full map of the place.”

“ Hmm... we’re definitely much further away from each other than I thought. But it should definitely be possible to get to the ship quite quickly. ”

“Just a few walls.”

“ No one said it would be a clean way there, just fast. Do you still have the ol’ Camera Crash? ”

“The visual virus? I think it should be, yes, there it is. Why do you want it?”

“ Just stacking our side, I’m pretty sure it should work in this World and having an easy way to disable all cameras and blind people for up to half an hour is always useful. ”

“I should be able to test it on an out-of-the-way camera once I’ve fully infiltrated the local systems.” Orange mused as she watched the infestation spread through the facilities.

Her personal stealth suit was considerably more advanced than the technology in the base, and as far as she could see, while there was plenty of magic, there was no defense against magical hacking. And what her virus couldn’t reach, her own ability and strategies easily broke through.

In just a few minutes she was reading the director’s personal emails.

“Whelp, this place’s owned by a rat.”

“ Figurative or…? ”

“Quite literally, it’s taken me a bit of going around. But I’m pretty sure I just found a security recording of them shifting into a rat and leaving through some kind of magical gate.” She explained.

“ I don’t want to stereotype, but does it reflect on their practices? Or it’s just a furry problem? ”

“No, no, definitely a rat through and through. But I can’t tell you just how evil without more information, I will keep an eye on them and expand my searches. It feels like she’s very much of the type with a finger in all possible pies and she definitely was meeting with some conspirator because she turned the private security system off.” She worked for a few seconds. “There, next time she does it won’t turn off and give a false negative.”

“ Interesting, it seems they are wanting my mass to imitate organs, now I’m worried it’s for medical research or worse. ”

“You will fuck it up?”

“ Of course, I want to see what happens when they cut it open and find it looking at them. I may also look for a moment to have some of those pieces escape. Been reading some biology and biotech, I should be able to repurpose those into small bugs to explore further. ”

“Gotcha, enjoy terrorizing people, I will look out into the world and see about gathering more information, though…” She started to grin. “Some trolling would definitely ease my worries.”

Her brother laughed.

“They have been such terrible guests, stepping all over my ship with their dirty shoes and not cleaning up after themselves.” Her grin grew larger. “Let’s see if I remember how to operate a horror house.”

With how pliable the insides of the ship were, she was going to enjoy herself.

Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 2

Doctor Jones liked to think they were quite respected in the fields of aerodynamics and rocketry. That's why he felt conflicted by the fact that he was studying a legitimate spaceship in person. The problem came that he could tell nothing about it.

Most of the ship was inaccessible, nothing responded to their prodding, the scans gave back absolutely nothing and he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched. And that was outside of his superiors hemming and hamming at any negative response he gave about the results on his studies.

He wasn’t the only one inside the ship, and so far he was becoming pretty sure this was some kind of punishment duty for something he wasn’t sure he had done.

The thought was definitely shared by doctors Morisette and Enblanca, it’s the fifth time they had gone over the room and nothing had changed besides the signs that they had walked around the area one too many times and the powder they used to look for fingerprints; unfortunately there no signs that those were left behind.

Though given the fact that a pile of goop was found on a chair, whatever piloted the ship may not have them to begin with. He’s only heard a few rumors about the specimen discovered in the ship from the other departments. Apparently the bio guys are crazy about its strange properties and call it some futuristic flesh or something like that. It’s rocket science to him… or well, to other people, he can understand rocket science quite well.

There’s another moment of being observed, though this time it seems to come with something else. A strange caress against his exposed skin that makes him look up and around. It quickly becomes obvious he’s not the only one to have noticed because the two other doctors are also reacting like he did.

“Everyone felt that?” He asked out loud.

“As if someone touched me very lightly?” Morisette asked. “Yeah, it’s weird, but I don’t see anything.”

“...wait! The floor! It’s clean!” Enblanco points out.

And she’s correct, the floor had been marked by dozens of footsteps. Now it’s pristine, his shoes are clean too.

“I think we should leave and report this change. We don’t know if it was some kind of automatic cleaning or what, but it’s definitely a change and something we can study further.” He decided to take the lead.

“Did any of you feel any aura effect to go with it?” Enblanco prompts as they move towards the door.

“Nothing, but I’m not the most sensitive person.” He replied, the third doctor shaking their head. “At least it’s something to invest our time in,” the three of them stopped when they noticed the door in front of them was closed, “and eh… did we turn around?”

“The door closed, but how did we miss it?” Morisette had a flash of panic go through his face.

“Calm down,” Enblanco calls out, “it could be part of the cleaning process. I’m sure that if we wait it will open by itself.”

Though it’s another door that opens, one that by the small mental map he has in his head, leads further into the ship’s back. Was it inviting them to go through that?

“Should we…?” Enblanco asks out loud, and none of them is sure what’s the correct answer.

“I think we should stay.” Morisette stated after shoring up some courage.

Jones internally wondered if they were weak against ghosts or something.

Doctor Enblanco ignored him and wandered towards the door, Jones and Morisette following a moment later to not be left behind.

The door opened to a long hallway, one Jones was pretty sure was longer than the ship. But given the size of the ship it was a bit hard to calculate distances properly inside. It quickly showed it may not have been the best idea because the door closed behind them once they entered the hallway.

The lights shifted from the soft red they had been until a moment prior into a warm and almost sun-like illumination. Though that didn’t surprise them as much as the fact that multiple doors seemed to grow at equal intervals along the walls.

Jones was the first one to move, approaching the closest door. With no kind of knob or way to open, he could only hope it was automatic; which it did once he was close enough.

He would have called the two doctors to come with him, if they hadn’t already moved after him. And if words hadn’t died in his mouth at what he saw on the other side of the door.

An open space, a blue sky as far as he could see and a large collection of plants near the door. It was large, too large, way too large. Even the more severe calculations would put this area at several hundred square kilometers of size.

“H-how?” Morisette asked out with a dry mouth.

“I’ve no idea.” Jones admitted as he stepped through the door and walked towards the closest plot of land. “It appears to be a collection of some kind, samples? Each plot has only one plant growing.” He observed.

His words made Morisette and Enblanco follow, which quickly showed to not be the best idea as the door closed and disappeared behind them.

The three froze the moment they realized they were alone in what was definitely a pocket dimension of impressive size. The complete silence was broken by an almost inaudible buzz that brought three pairs of eyes down upon a small, crystalline bug.

It wasn’t the only one, there were dozens if not hundreds of the small things, fluttering at different speeds from plant to plant, from flower to flower.

“They are… they are pollinators.” Enblanco noted as she leaned closer to look at the, almost, artistic little things. Their bodies are completely transparent, only the pollen stuck to their bodies making them more visible.

“They are not alive, more like tiny, magical golems.” Morisette noted as he captured one on their hand, where the small thing simply waited to be released before flying away.

Jones looked up and all around, there was a sudden thought that ran down his spine like a chill. “Just how many would be needed to manage this many plants?” The question made the two other doctors freeze.

Enblanco stopped herself from grabbing one and instead pulled her hands back to her body.

“I think we should look for a way out.” He offered and they nodded.

They passed patches of colorful mushrooms, grays, oranges, and blues. It was strange how he could feel the last two altering the temperature around them, or maybe it was necessary to help them grow. There was a small collection of fruit trees, but they were too afraid to pick any of the succulent-looking fruits.

There’s bushes of different types and colors, and soon they find the most curious heart-shaped fruit at the top of a stall. It’s deep red and it appears to mimic a common drawing of a heart, not an anatomical one.

“That must be the first atypical plant we came across.” Morisette noted.

“The colorful mushrooms weren’t enough for you?” Enblanco jokes, mainly hiding her nerves.

“Not really, my dad used to farm mushrooms, you won’t believe how some look. You would think they are some kind of alien species. Now this,” he gestured to the plant, “is curious. I can practically feel the power coming from it, can’t you?”

Jones has to admit he’s not the most sensitive on the facilities, but even he can feel a small and warm sensation emanating from the plant.

“What do you think it is?” He asks. “A fruit of some kind?”

“It certainly is very eye-catching, I can imagine most animals would try to go for it.” Morisette noted and moved closer.

It happened very suddenly, once the man stepped on the plot the heart-shaped object shook like a maraca and exploded. They were pelted with small, hard seeds along with a wave of warm energy.

The three of them were left blinking at the surprise, quickly checking themselves. The surprise didn’t end there as a swarm of tiny crystal bugs appeared to collect the projectiles.

“It was a seed shell!” Morisette laughed. “Though I wonder what that energy was, it certainly didn’t feel dangerous in any way. If anything, I feel great.”

“I’m certainly feeling refreshed.” Jones mused. “Quite an interesting plant, create a very visible shell and coax animals to spread their seeds by healing them. I wonder what kind of world it comes from.”

“I wish we could take a sample back, it would go a long way.” Enblanco let out before sighing. They continued their way.

“What’s that?” He prompted. “It looks like…”

He had to stop and look at it more, it was the size of a melon, perfectly round and smooth, of color blue and seemed to have a wick at the top.

“I don’t think we should get closer to that one.” Enblanco said out loud, the thought shared by the three of them.

Soon they found a way out, a set of stairs going up to some kind of walkway held up by nothing. They would have ignored it or considered it some kind of look out if there were two very obvious doors at the ends of the walkway.

They breathed a sigh of relief as they found themselves back in the hallway, they completely ignored the fear that it may just be another very similar one.

“Okay, should we look for the exit or try another door?” Jones asked.

“I think we should try one door before looking for the exit.” Enblanco offers and wanders ahead.

The chosen door doesn’t appear to be the best as the three doctors end on their asses as the sight scares them nearly shitless. A massive monster glares down at them, three heads with a single eye each, fangs like swords.

It takes them a bit before they realize the thing is dead, very dead. Closer inspection, from their safe spot in the hallway, reveals large amounts of damage to their necks. At least two necks are broken in the middle, one definitely having been bitten down by something larger, while the middle head had the base of the neck nearly ripped off.

“I-I thi-think we shouldleavenow!” Morisette stumbles and rushes towards the just opened door at the end of the hallway.

Behind him Enblanco and Jones follow, the sight of the large room the ship was deposited gives the three of them relief. Which surprises the few people outside of the ship, which focus on the three panting doctors.

The question about why they had run out of the ship only a couple of minutes after entering makes the three of them nearly pass out.

Magnus cackled, in the safety of his mind, as he watches his sister put the three stooges through a time-altered trip. He also noticed that they may have accidentally smuggled out at least a Hearty Radish seed, he notes it for Orange. But she notes that she thinks it won’t hurt.

He sure hopes she’s right, she may end dropping a few more as they leave just to make sure everyone gets to study them and not this obvious evil organization.

On the other hand, he’s been having fun after a couple days of experimenting with the researchers and all the reading he had done had netted him a nice biology and biotechnology perk. It’s ample, very ample, maybe a bit too much for what he wanted. It also meant he would be ignoring a lot of it. It gave him a better understanding of himself, which was always nice.

While growing an ear inside a cow’s stomach his mass mimicked was fun, it’s not the ear that allowed him to listen. Instead he had developed a rudimentary, but quite effective, mix of hearing and touch sense. This gave his mass the ability to listen in and not just feel its surroundings, he may try eyes next.

Echolocation would make that easy, but it would make it hard to read screens which was needed for some pranks.

The basic listening mostly gave him nothing besides a lot of technical jargon, a few curses and a lot of gossip once one of his masses was placed close enough to the water cooler. Though all that lost its shine when they brought something new.

It’s not the first time they brought some exotic organ, which worries him given the size of the heart they placed by his mass and the nature, and current state, of its late owner. Though given its size they hadn’t placed enough of his mass to do anything but copy a small patch.

This was different, there’s power in this piece of flesh, more power than practically everything else in the lab but him. He couldn’t tell what it was at first, and he’s using a lot of willpower to keep himself from actively finding out. They were already going to bring it to him; he could wait.

Mentally he only stopped calling it an organ once they placed it down and allowed it to touch his mass. It’s a finger, an index finger to be exact, he allowed his mass to wrap around it to study it further, giving up some kind of active response was worth learning more about it. Plus it would make it harder to recover before he finishes studying it.

It’s a woman's finger, not manicured, very fresh and… it was cut off while the person was alive. He could practically taste the hormones and chemical responses of someone who was alive and very conscious when subjected to the operation.

Whatever maybe he held about the morality of this place faded away faster than ice in the sun. This was practically them declaring themselves to be evil, to not care, to just aim for advances. A lot of plans for the way out swiftly shifted as he messaged Orange.

All of this didn’t stop his study of the finger, because he couldn’t deny the finger is a masterpiece. It’s not human, he could barely see it on the edge of his limited awareness. It’s still connected to the whole, a part of something much greater.

He couldn’t even deny that he could see his father being proud of this quality of work, it lacks his usual black boxes, protections and traps. But it’s ahead of anything he had seen outside of his father.

After a few seconds he released the finger and shifted the necessary mass into a visibly identical copy of it. He actually created two, the finger slid into his inventory for protection as both fingers on the plate are made of his mass. He wants to see how long until they realize it.

He also makes a promise to take their owner out with them when they leave. He may need to move ahead on their plans, a few messages to Orange to escalate the information gathering. He can’t help but enjoy the idea of screwing every possible plan the owner of this lab has before they leave.

His main mass lets out a few bubbles that don’t go amiss, suddenly the room he’s in is buzzing with activity. Better take advantage of the distractions this causes.

Their teacher had left almost ten minutes earlier and the three of them were still laying on the ground whimpering. The injuries inflicted on their bodies would have been deadly multiple times over in any other species.

Instead the three wererats were slowly healing. Broken bones mended, shredded kidneys regenerated, lacerated livers recovered and punctured lungs cleared from blood.

The short brunette was the first to push her off the ground before spitting a few broken teeth. “Get up you two.” She groaned in pain as she slowly got to her feet.

The blue haired man failed to get up and collapsed, letting out a wet, sucking sound as blood dribbled from his mouth.

“Moisha, help Romeo up, it sounds like his lung is full of blood.” The brunette ordered as she started to clean himself.

The room was a bloody mess, their teacher hadn’t pulled any punches, or slashes. His blade had been sharp, decisive and quite deadly aimed. She wanted to get out of the place as soon as possible and forget just how much of their blood was now painting the ceiling.

“You could help too, Lydia.” The pink-haired Moisha chided as she helped the third of their group heave out. “You know, we’re meant to be, like, a team.”

“I’m the leader here, I give the orders.” She ignored Moisha and wandered, unsteadily, over to the pile of belongings and pulled her phone out to check it.

Moisha dropped their teammate onto the bench as she grabbed her own phone.

“Anything interesting?” He asked tiredly as he recovered.

“Everyone’s still going crazy about that ship they found in Mexico.” Moisha answered.

Romeo frowned. “Isn’t all that under a very heavy lock and key?”

The pink-haired rad chuckled. “All I had to do was flirt with one of the nerds and send him messages I found on some site along with some images of someone else. In exchange he keeps me up to date with all the juicy details.” She giggled.

“So? Anything interesting?” Lydia asked succinctly.

“Well, the rumors said that the ship’s behaving strangely. More than one of the lab assistants went in and swore to have spent up to an hour inside, lost in some kind of immense farm. But instead came out just a couple of minutes after going in.” She read out loud. “They also swear having seen a huge, dead monster inside. On the other hand, it seems that a number of samples have gone missing and people have started to point fingers at each other.”

“Can you imagine having your own spaceship?” Romeo fantasized.

“So you can what? Crash it? Just like the last few cars you stole?” Moisha teased him, making the boy huff.

“Maybe we should look into it, who knows what we could find inside.” Lydia mused.

Moisha giggled again. “It would be nice if it would earn us a break, I would like to go a week without finding my body pushing pieces of broken blades out.” She shuddered after speaking. “I wish we could get better, or at least that Zero stops aiming at my clothes, I’m running out of disposable wardrobe.” She complained out loud.

They finished changing their tattered clothes for some pristine ones before spilling the fuel all over the place and lighting the abandoned building on fire on the way out.

“Hey, if you… if we could not do this anymore, would you-?”

“Stop that.” Lydia interrupted Romeo. “Don’t even say that out loud, the elder has ears everywhere, we don’t have anywhere to run to anyways.”

They walked in silence as they entered a more commercial zone of the city, the only man of the group quickly becoming a pack mule for his two teammates as they worked through second hand sales for some new clothes.

It was only once the three of them dropped into their ratty apartment they shared that they could relax. It had cost a pretty penny, and a couple of artifacts they had ‘found’, but they had managed to get a pretty respectable Aura-user to ward their place from observation. They still did a proper check-through for any other kinds of bugs.

The three of them shifted into their wereforms and started to talk about their day, but that wasn’t the true conversation going on. Instead Lydia’s face started to minutely twitch, the series of gestures was seen and understood by her teammates.

“ Ship. Possible. Escape. ”

“ Need. Look. Up. ” Moisha answered.

“ Sneak. Look. Plan. ” Romeo added.

“ Danger. Distraction. Elder. ” Moisha added.

“ Plan. Elder. Plan. ” Lydia explained, not grinning outwardly.

As their inane conversation continued, they started to plan. The elders weren’t the only ones with ears everywhere, any good wererat orphan knew how to keep their ears to the ground and where the best cheese was.

They were practically under the Elder’s constant surveillance twenty four seven, with exception of a few bits of time they could confirm his attention was somewhere else. Though that didn’t mean they hadn’t heard and learned things while under his view too, They had overheard him muttering things from time to time, and while it had taken time, they had built a few truths and a lot of leads.

Getting into the facilities would be the easiest part, they had done it before out of curiosity and thankfully they hadn’t gotten out of it with more than an extra-hard training round under Master Zero. They weren’t sure how much of that was the Elder Gothwrain’s sadistic pleasure, or his overconfidence about the three of them. But helped form them.

This meant that as long as they didn’t try anything too overt, even if they were caught snooping around they could blame their curiosity. It wasn’t like everyone in the undercity hadn’t heard of the ship having been taken; it was just that rats rarely talked with non-rats.

Deciding how to distract the Elder would have to wait until they had scouted up the place. But they knew of a few people he definitely didn’t want learning of his existence. Dropping an anonymous message to one of them would definitely raise enough for them to get away and hopefully come out clean.

Lydia looked at her teammates, the closest thing she had to a family. She both hated and couldn’t deny she would most likely jump after her two idiots if they fell down a hole.

“ Vote. ”

““ Yes. ”” Both replied without even a nod of their head.

With that done they got up, still talking about absolutely nothing. Dinner would be had watching some cheap and brain-rotting TV. The three hoped they could find a reason for themselves.

Most of Magnus’ attention was currently on the small, roach-shaped mass of his flesh that was sneaking through the tiny air system. He had to give some points to the evil organization, they were barely large enough to let a rat through. Though given the fact that the owner of the place could turn into a rat that painted this decision in a certain light.

On the other hand, his main mass was currently trolling the researchers. Two large bubbles, then one short and one long, then two large bubbles again, then one short and one long. And then they were cursing again as he had just rebutted their question with a ‘your mama’.

Crass humor was so effective at distracting people.

His little bug slipped into the belongings of one of the security guards currently leaving his shift. After a couple days of observing and Orange’s constant monitoring of their systems, he was finally sneaking some of his mass out of the building, hopefully.

Though that was going to take some time, and it seemed they were taking a kidney he had mimicked over to one of the operating theaters. It made him curious to see if they would actually implant him on someone so he hadn’t twisted the organ into a surprise box.

A small and quick subsonic pulse painted quite a grim image as the person laying, and heavily restrained, on the operating table was not there on their own volition, and definitely quite awake.

Magnus may break a few more bones on the way out. Is that of sic’ Milo on the place, and there would be a new tree and a lot of screaming, his brother always gets so messy when he gets angry.

Though a mix of curiosity and something else keeps him from just melting the kidney back into goop. Maybe he can help from the inside and the ship still has plenty of space.

Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 3

She didn’t have a name outside of Persona Simulation Array, or at least that’s what they referred to her as.

She didn’t have good memories, her whole life had been painful experiments from nearly the moment she had woken up. She had never been told anything about where she had been found, it all had been orders and punishments. At the start they would only punish her if she didn’t behave, but as time passed it stopped being punishment and turned into constant torture.

By now she didn’t know what else they wanted out of her, they had removed practically every organ in her body at least once, cut off her limbs, sewn them back together and used more drugs than words she could understand.

Her mind felt broken, so many voices pleading for mercy, all of them herself. Even when her body just healed itself, regrew missing pieces, adjusted and purged all drugs. That only meant they could do it again.

She spent most of her time floating in a containment tube, naked, exposed, observed. She had never had any kind of privacy. Though if she had to say, staying in the tube at least meant they would only experiment using drugs and injectables.

Laying once more on the cold operation table was a familiar nightmare. They had paralyzed her vocal chords just to keep her from screaming as they opened her stomach once more. Though this didn’t stop the many voices in her head from screaming for her.

She wanted to do anything but see how they opened her once more, how they removed one of her kidneys and placed a new one in. A few of the voices were surprised, it wasn’t the first time they had tried that. But it had been a long time since they had done it last.

In the privacy of her mind she wondered if they had stopped trying because it didn’t bring her enough pain. Outside of some annoyance and mild aching as her body rejected the organ, it was one of the least invasive experiments they ran on her. And it was them transplanting an organ into her body.

She tried to close her eyes and distract herself as she felt them work inside her belly, moving organs that would accommodate themselves later. She is moderately surprised to see the organ not getting instantly rejected by her body and instead watch it function correctly. But she couldn’t watch it for long as they quickly sewed her up once more and dragged her back to her test tube, once more being observed by everyone, watching her for something .

She tried to relax as they moved her into the tube and started to fill it up.

“ Well, ain’t this interesting. ”

A voice, a completely new one too, sounding inside of her head just like all others. It became quite more obvious as all of them went silent. The surprise quickly was replaced by fear and she curled on herself, acting as if it had started to hurt; she had plenty of experience on things that hurt.

“ Whoops, sorry to surprise you, and yeah, better not allow them to notice our little talk. ”

She tried to speak, but the oxygen mask over her face had a tube going down her throat, keeping her from articulating.

“ Think out loud, I can hear you, I will try to explain. ”

“ What? ” “ Who? ” “ New voice? ” “ They haven’t chopped us enough for a new one to come up in a while. ”

She quickly curled on herself once more as a current of anger swam through her without words.

“ Oh, fuck, fuck, sorry, calm down, sorry. I’m not angry at you, but angry for you. ” The voice tried to reassure her. “ I’m sorry, this is complicated and I’m trying to make sure we don’t accidentally hurt each other, or I hurt you badly. ”

“ I’m used to it. ” She cockily replied in her head.

“ You may be, but my brother and sister would kill me if I hurt a girl the first time I’m inside of her. ” The comment came accompanied by some strange emotion she couldn’t put a finger onto. “ Anyways, I think the best way to start is presenting myself, I’m Magnus, Traveler. ”

“ Magnus Traveler? ”

“ Oh, sorry, confusing you is not what I intended. My name is Magnus. But I also go by Traveler, you can use any or both. ” The voice was calm and didn’t hold it against her. “ They seem to have implanted some of my mass in you, I’m currently a bit indisposed, and by that I mean I’m just liquid in a tube. The thing is that my body will try to take over any body it parasitizes and implanting an organ made of myself falls under that. ”

“ But you won’t hurt me. ” She guessed, a few voices in the back of her head echoed.

“ If anything, talking with you makes me wanna rescue you from here right now. But there’s such a thing as patience and my sister and I are trying to plan accordingly. We want to make sure the people behind this place get what they deserve when we run, you’re of course invited to come along. ”

She didn’t know what to say, many voices inside of her head wanted to reject the invitation, calling it a trap. But it was also the first sign of hope she had had in forever.

“ I’m so rude, I presented myself but I didn’t ask you for your name. ” The voice continued, either ignoring her turmoil or simply giving her time to think about it.

“ I don’t have a name. ” She replied. “ They call me Persona Simulation Array. But that’s not really a name. ”

“ No, it’s really not. You should think of a name for yourself. Or we could think of one together .”

“ I will think about it. ” She responded, starting to feel a bit overwhelmed.

Idly she looked around, most scientists seemed to be busy with their screens and studies, her few reactions had either been ignored or considered not important enough. She felt terribly conflicted, it wasn’t just the voices in her mind that were divided about what to do, she was too indecisive if she wanted some silence once more or to keep on talking.

Finally curiosity won. “ Why did they implant you inside of me? I thought you were liquid at the moment. ”

“ I’m a shapeshifter, the thing is that entering this World put me in danger and forced me into my current state to keep myself safe. Apparently my mass likes to imitate biology it comes in contact with, if I had to guess it’s to adapt faster. ” The voice spoke calmly, taking its time to let her parse the information. “ Honestly, given what I read in their files, they are throwing things to the wall and seeing what sticks. They’ve planned to see how long until your body rejects my mass, which won’t happen as long as I play along with your body. It should be easy to remove myself from inside you once we leave. ”

She breathed out of her nose in a sigh, the bubbles rising up in the liquid and a few getting trapped in her loose hair. It wouldn’t be the first time they just used her for experiments.

“ Why are you being so nice to me? ” One of her voices pushed to the front and asked the question she wanted to ask. “ I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. ”

“ It’s okay, I’ve no problem answering. Two reasons, mainly because it’s the right thing, as far as I can see they have used you as a guinea pig for as long as they have had you around and that just… let’s say my family has a code on dealing with this kind of thing. Second, you’re definitely the closest person I’ve found to myself. It’s hard to explain, but we’re both created by higher beings of great crafting abilities. It’s in finding someone so similar to myself that presents me with a sense of kinship. ”

Was she being flirted with? Multiple voices in her head, which thankfully the new voice seemed to ignore unless they spoke very loudly, were quite into it. Other voices were wondering why the scientists were discussing possible signs of a rejection as her body temperature rose.

“ I would like to meet you too, outside of here I mean. ”

“ Don’t worry, my sister and I will make sure to get you out of this dull place, there’s so many Worlds out there. ” The voice spoke calmly. “ And talking about my sister, I think I may be able to patch you over, no rush, there’s still a few more days before the escape. I’m sorry for having to keep you here for so long. ”

She wanted to shake her head, but also didn’t want the scientists to notice her good mood. “ It’s okay, a few more days is not difficult, especially if you’re okay and they will be just observing how I deal with the transplant. ”

“ Good, you should still rest and prepare, once we start, it will all go down very quickly. If you want to talk to my sister just ask me. ”

“ I will. ” She felt her eyes heavy, it wasn’t weird that her body felt exhausted after operations, this time it had just taken longer given the few problems.

“Sleep well .” The voice felt soft to her and sleep quickly took her and all the voices.

“ You’re angry. ” Orange just pointed out.

“ I’m seething .” Magnus was barely holding his Darkness back.

It hadn’t felt this angry and hungry in a long time. Though his hold was complete, instead he was very carefully digging under his containment tube, eating through the solid metal in such a way it wasn’t visible or noticeable. It spread through the floors and the structure, like roots or cancer.

The more it spread the more he could see, feel, the faster he would be able to reshape his surroundings once time came.

“ Got some good news. First of all, the Core has synced with the World, once we leave a buoy outside it should be easy to return in the future. ” Orange listed. “ Also, we’ve two names and a lot of threads. Elder Sherisha McKraken owns this place and the man she meets is one Elder Gothwrain, she keeps a pretty tight leash on him; her control is definitely magical in some way. ”

He looked at the recording. “ They are totally flirting and totally hate each other's guts. ” It wasn’t hard to read people in that kind of private environment, both of them knew their game and as far as they knew, it was only the two of them playing it with no witnesses.

“ Yeah, there’s been a few comments that point out that Gothwrain is not his original name and that he was in control of her before. Fucked up shit all the way down. ” Orange laughed dryly. “ They are also old, very old. It took a lot of searching as they have done a very good job at erasing their trails. But those two are several thousand years old. ”

“ Perfect, immortals that are up to the times. Where’re the good ol’ buffoon villains? ”

“ Most likely under these two’s employ acting as distractions somewhere else. ” Orange offered. “ Elder Sherisha has a pretty solid front as director of a large conglomerate for technology and medical, as far as everyone knows she’s old money, knows it and will crush anyone with it if they look at her wrong. Elder Gothwrain rarely moves around without bodyguards, it’s either two dumb bricks, or a Master Martial Artist known as Zero. Of him there’s a few more records. But nothing conclusive, he just appears and disappears at will. ”

“ Will he be a problem? ” He asked.

“ Not likely, he rarely steps anywhere in this facility. He’s only been seen accompanying Gowthwrain when he visits Sherisha. ”

“ But he’s also a master and most likely only seen when he wants. ” He added.

“ On other news, I managed to find a pretty interesting vault on the highest floors of the building. ” Her sister was plotting. “ It’s sealed and warded to hell and back, but I managed to sneak one of the Greenhouse Helpers up there, it’s full of magical artifacts and other things. ”

“ I don’t think taking such a detour is a good idea. ” He mused.

“ That’s okay, because you won’t have to. All you will have to do is increase the chaos down here while I portal one of the spare bodies as I’ve already hacked the security system. Once everyone looks down, I will just open the vault and throw everything into storage through one of the portals. ”

“ Aren’t you worried about curses? ”

“ That’s what I’ve you for. We can properly catalog stuff later and all cursed stuff can be used for your studies, ain’t I a genius? ”

He rolled his non-existent eyes and jiggled his mass to send the researchers and scientists once more into chaos. Part of him wanted to see if he could make someone have a heart attack.

One of the samples that had been ‘lost’ inflated while hiding inside the back of a desk. It reshaped itself and started to play a very low, haunting tune; almost imperceptible. It was enough to make a few people look around confused as the Darkness already spreading under the floor made the shadows in the corners wiggle, something only visible in the corner of your eyes. Only once in a while, just enough to make people doubt what they saw.

Increase paranoia, make everyone do double takes, sow doubt between everyone inside by moving a few things when they weren’t looking.

Meanwhile the couple of samples that had managed to escape the building weren’t having as much luck. The two of them were kinda locked inside the house of the security guard they had hitched a ride on, there wasn’t much of interest there and would most likely be used to call the police once time came before ending themselves.

“ In other news, I think I can waste a good chunk out of Elder Sherisha’s bank account into some very silly projects. Hopefully she won’t notice them going through once the chaos starts and until a bit later. ”

“ Fun, fun. ” He chuckled.

“ And- Oh, something’s happening. ” Her sister’s tone went completely serious.

“ Talk to me. ”

“ I’m reading through some urgent messages going through an emergency line, Elder Sherisha’s coming down herself, apparently the Explorers’ Society is coming to investigate. ”

“ That... doesn’t sound like an organization that would watch over a secret, and definitely some-kind of illegal, lab. ”

“ I thought so too when I first found mention of them. ” She laughed softly. “ The Explorers’ Society is an organization that collects some of the smartest, bravest, boldest people from around the world. These are the people that keep this world safe, some of them have saved the world over half a dozen times. Archaeologists, scientists, magicians, tomb raiders, daredevils, and so many more. They are also allied to some kind of superhero league. But as you can imagine, it can be a bit hard to find proper information about some of those. ”

He would have whistled if it wouldn’t have brought too much attention to himself. “ So a Justice League? ”

“ One much more greedy and solitary, most members work in small teams of at most four or five. And some of these are very old people too .”

Magnus was only mildly surprised when his System hijacked his sense of vision to show him a security feed. Three people walked down the hallway towards the room holding the woman he had made contact with. Two of them were unassuming, a dark-skinned, bald man with a long, white beard and dark glasses. The other was the definition of an office drone, well cut hair, perfectly tailored suit and dark glasses too.

The third was three meters tall and just as wide, a mass of muscles in clothes that must have been weaved with miracles to hold against his herculean figure. While the top of his head was bald, rich red hair grew from the back and hung from his face in a long beard.

He was the most vocal of the three, pointing at his new friend. Elder Sherisha apparently had the law on her side, the dirty and twisted law. He was glad she was deep asleep at the moment, because seeing the pity the dark-skinned old man gave her when they were forced to turn around and walk towards his own room.

He swiftly stopped his teasing of the research and pulled all of his magic back into himself. It made him feel bloated, but he could feel the redheaded man moving in his direction.

The closer he came the more he could observe the man, he was old, ancient even. While Magnus wasn’t the most skilled in observing souls, the man’s soul wasn’t human, and neither was his body. But his body didn’t entirely match with his soul. It took him a moment to put two and two together and realize he was some kind of Golem, a masterwork of impressive power.

It was hard not to react when the man’s presence was practically poking at him. It also hid the two men that had come with him quite well. Not so much the office drone, he was busy talking legalese with the wererat woman, on the other hand the bald, dark-skinned man was looking straight at him.

“As you can see, it’s completely unresponsive. The most we’ve managed to do is study its reactions when in contact with biology.” Elder Sherisha spilled useless information and fed them carefully trimmed videos.

They weren’t buying it, especially by how loudly the redhead was screaming, Magnus could practically feel its containment vibrate with his voice. But apparently they knew their laws and were playing the game.

He noticed the bald man’s eyes wander down and Magnus felt a small chill go down his non-existent spine. Just to test he extended a tiny strand of Darkness down the road he had already created. The man’s eyes tracked the movement from behind his dark glasses, but to his surprise said nothing.

Maybe getting someone to respond to the chaos would be easier if he just…

“Come on, Monty, there’s unfortunately nothing we can do at the moment here.”

Those words made him grumble and turn around, knowing full well that the woman’s eyes bore on his back in victory.

“I still think something stinks here.” Monty didn’t hide his dissatisfaction. This was why he hated bureaucracy, just let him fix things on the ring like good old times.

Elder Bibi smiled and patted his large arm. “Something tells me they may have already bitten more than they can chew.”

Monty raised an eyebrow, but before he could say something about it, he felt something drip onto his shoulder. Out of reflex he smacked his large hand onto it, only to pull back and find a purple smear on his palm.

He gave his old friend a look, but Elder Bibi ignored it and kept on walking. Monty wasn’t stupid, his fist closed just enough to hide the smear and continued walking out of the building.

He only opened his hand again once they were back in private. The smear was still there, though it was now a small sphere.

“Is this?”

“Looks like they don’t know what they have.” Bibi laughed softly before giving the mass a look. “Can you talk?”

“Only a bit.” A soft, masculine voice replied. “This mass’ too small to do much, too far from my body.”

“Who are you?” Monty asked, feeling very curious.

“Magnus, the Traveler.” Both of them blinked as the name had weight to it. Though the act of speaking it had definitely cost them as they shrunk. “Before we ask more questions, I want to warn you, we’ll be breaking out in less than two days, we hadn’t planned to land in your World.”

“Why not? Our world’s beautiful.” Monty shot back.

“Your world may be, but your World’s Time is fucked. Someone’s been messing with it for a long time and I don’t want to be anywhere near when it snaps back. Or worse, attracts anything hungry.”

Both men froze.

“Are you sure?” Bibi prompted.

“Sure? No, I can’t be so, unfortunately. I’ve not studied temporal mechanics much outside of some lessons with my grandfather. But there’s some observable problems from the outside. It’s also why I’m a pile of slime instead of having an actual body. ”

“ I hope you understand that we can’t take such allegations so easily.” Monty stated.

“I sure hope you do not.” Magnus answered. “But someone tied the end of your universe with the beginning of it, it’s spiraling down on itself and tightening harder and harder. I would be very careful when talking about this, because if someone did it, someone will want to abuse it.”

Monty sighed, he knew way too many people that would indeed do.

“What are your plans?” Bibi asked.

“I’m breaking out, I’m taking the girl you saw before me, getting back to my ship and leaving this World for a while. I may contact my father to see if he can do something about it, so I may come back in the future. The problem is that time’s weird when you leave a World, so I can’t promise any kind of stretch of time for me to return.”

“You keep talking about worlds and outside, and I don’t think you’re talking about outer space.” Monty pointed out.

“Oh no, I’m talking about the Outside of reality, what’s even further out, past the buffer zone between the realities that comprehend your World. It’s how I observed the problem.”

Both men froze.

“You’re talking about some very dangerous subject.” Monty let out coldly.

“Of course I know, but getting to the Outside without the proper tools is not only nigh-impossible, but also very foolish. There’s a lot of Nothing out there, very aggressive Nothing that will undo you in ways you never were, are or will be. There’s no return from that.” The tone they used was just as cold and matter-of-fact.

“Anyways, we’re going to be making a big mess when we leave. Lots of noise, lots of chaos.” Magnus sounded almost happy about it. “And if you give me an email address my sister will make sure to forward you all the juicy information she’s been collecting from that rat at the top.”

Monty couldn’t help it, he barked out a laugh.

“Good.” That single word’s full of venom.

Bibi quickly rattled out a private address.

“Good enough for now.” Magnus noted. “Now I will stop holding this form, I’m Lying too much to keep it going.”

And just like that, the sphere wasn’t there, instead what appeared to be a smoking pile of ash. Though one that appeared to have been cooling for a bit.

“Do you think he said the truth?” Monty prompted.

“It worries me if he did.” Bibi sighed, stroking his beard. “If he’s lying, it would be a stretch as it would mean getting into a situation like this just to wait for us to come around and sneak a way out with us before telling us a fabricated tale? I don’t think so, unfortunately.”

Monty grumbled. “I think I know a few eggheads that could help with this, may need to approach the Archmages Council.” He dropped back on the chair, which barely held on. “It’s just that they are so stuffy.”

“Maybe Diggers?” Bibi offered.

“He’s been reconnecting with his wife last I heard, something about finally dealing with a curse that wasn’t a curse or something.” Monty answered.

“No, not him, his daughter. I heard some very impressive things from her technological work. Maybe a young mind is what we need to tackle this problem.”

“Hmm, could certainly try to extend the subject during the next come-together.” Monty mused. “We’ll see, like old times, try things carefully and see how it goes. Something tells me that while Magnus may be right, we may still be talking about quite a while.”

Elder Bibi nodded, the two of them would go their ways. But prepare for the chaos he had promised.

Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 4

The three of them made their way into the building at different times. It wasn’t hard to slip as cleaning or security, even Moisha, the most eye-catching of them, knew how to make herself go unnoticed when necessarily.

Romeo was the first, entering as a janitor and just wandering as if he knew where he was going. He only cleaned a hallway for a dozen minutes before he used a change in the security to slip into a cleaning closet and disappear into the ventilation.

Lydia was second, entering as part of the security made it easy. A glare and a grunt kept people from asking questions as she wandered towards the camera room to replace the tired guard from his night shift a few minutes earlier than normal.

Last was Moisha, she came in with a delivery, showed some cleavage and the guy at the door allowed her to pass. Finding the correct door unlocked allowed her to disappear into the building and down to the secret underground quite easily.

The three of them met in a room Lydia had already removed from the security camera rooster.

“All good?” She asked as the three had changed out of their disguises.

Moisha and Romeo nodded and the three shifted into rats and slipped into the vents. Getting to the ship wasn’t the easiest or faster, as much as they could get everywhere in the underground facility, the vents had been designed in segments to keep an ease of travel for small vermin.

“Ew, I thought they kept this place clean.” Moisha complained as she caught sight of something creeping around the corner.

“Don’t complain.” Lydia chirped back as they carefully unscrewed one of the vent covers and sneaked into one of the laboratories.

Lydia gestured silence to the other two and they waited until they could sneak all the way to the open room unseen. Surprisingly they found the next vent already loose, but didn’t complain about making it easier for them and quickly moved further.

“Do you know how big the ship is?” Romeo prompted while they dropped down one of the vertical shafts.

“No idea, but if all goes well, it will be all ours.” Lydia smirked as the three of them slipped out onto the rafters atop of the large room that held the ship. “Oh…”

“It’s beautiful.” Moisha was amazed.

“It’s also huge.” Romeo pointed out. “...maybe this is not the best idea.”

“Too late for that, come on, we should go down and check it-” Before Lydia could finish speaking, loud klaxons and alarms started to sound.

Panic broke out instantly in the area under them.

“What’s that?!” Moisha screamed.

“No idea, but come on, I doubt they will get far. We should take advantage of this distraction.” Lydia ordered and ran towards a cable that ran down the wall.

Moisha and Romeo shared a look before following her.

“ Everything is ready. ” Orange’s voice made him smile.

Magnus’ perception expanded quite far, having bore through walls and floors. A large chunk of the facility had been infested by his Darkness and awaited his command.

“ I’m... ready. ” The nameless woman spoke softly, the echo behind her voice agreeing in a majority.

“ Don’t worry, honey, we’ll have you out of that nasty tube in no time. ” Orange sent her good feelings her way. “ Anytime you want, Magnus. ”

“ Okay then, starting in three… two… one. ”

Magnus stilled completely, the change wasn’t lost in all researchers as he started to shift. Dozens of cameras tried to record every second of it, but they were saving the captured images into nothing as Orange had already taken care of the building’s databases and servers.

His arm erupted up the slime and there was a scream, someone practically jumped as he started to pull himself together. It was theatrics, he pushed himself off the slime at the same time it reshaped into his body.

His clothes reformed with his body, so no free show for anyone interested as his other arm pushed itself out and his upper body started to push itself out too. His hair recovered just as his head came out and gave everyone a nonplussed look. His lower body and legs were the last.

He grinned, sharp fangs flashing for the cameras as his fist pulled back. Practically every scientist seemed to mouth a no and shake their head in utter terror as he punched through the reinforced material easily.

Alarms quickly started blaring out loud by virtue of Orange starting them. He could feel people quickly start to run back and forth the facility. But he wouldn’t allow it to be so easy.

Oily growths made of Darkness sprouted from all surfaces, covering doors, sealing hallways, eating away lights. Whatever panic had started quickly grew tenfold.

And just to add to that, Stonebell chimed, the sound echoing through all of his Darkness, casting a wide illusion. Shades came to life, scaring anyone that looked at them, wandering around, moving, escaping.

He walked unimpeded to the door before equipping Close&Personal and punching a hole through it before the heat created by the gloves allowed him to reshape the pneumatic doors open.

He wasn’t ignoring the people left in the room, they had been saturated with his Darkness in quite the nasty fashion, at least to the point they would be fearing the dark for a long time. With time it would be purged, but he doubted the fear would leave them as easily.

It surprised him to see a couple of security thugs looking down their guns in his direction. But their doubt allowed him to exchange his gloves for his bow and arrow; a freezing arrow exploded in their midst. It surprised him to see the runes encasing them up to the neck in pure ice, though they didn’t look in danger of more than a flu. He chalked it to the nature of the world, the ice would last long enough to allow him to pass.

“ You have ten minutes. ” Orange announced.

Magnus moved a bit faster, nothing stopped him for long. The facility was more or less under his control and the more time he spent the further it was twisted.

He gave the pink-haired woman a warm smile once he ripped the door open. He gave a much more bloodthirsty smile towards the scientist huddling around the room.

“Open it.” He ordered them. “Open it, or else. ”

That seemed to do the trick and one of the most brave, or the one most afraid of what he could do, rushed to a keyboard and tapped away. Magnus quickly caught her with a towel.

“Let’s get out of here.” He said as he reached to remove the mask she had been forced to use. “And as for all of you.”

His Darkness answered to his call just as he felt a new perk slide into place, a skill based on the use of curses. It was only a bit more complicated than the fear of darkness that he had instilled on the ones before. But it was worlds apart in comparison to the effects.

From now on, anytime they closed their eyes they would see themselves in her place, being operated by her themselves. They would feel every cut, but no damage would be done. He didn’t doubt they would break before long, but he felt untroubled about it.

He didn’t need to check the map or the time to know he had to rush a bit. The ship was practically on the other side of the facility.

“ I’m pulling back from emptying the vault, Zero’s here. ” Orange warned and he cursed a bit.

The doors in his way opened either because they were under his power, or because his sister willed it. Though his advance was stopped, a single man stood menacingly in his way to the ship.

He was tall, his long, dark hair was done in a single ponytail. He wore a pair of long pants and a coat made from a similar material with nothing under it. He wielded a katana on his side. His Soul was also Cursed, but Magnus didn’t care at the moment to look deeper.

“Leave that and stop your foolishness.” Zero said, coldly.

Magnus snorted. “I’m sorry for this.” He told the woman he was carrying and heaved her off.

Internally he giggled at her reaction, but instead of falling to the ground, a golden portal swallowed her. Orange would catch her on the other side.

“Whoops.” He let out playfully before grinning. “Looks like I’m being foolish.”

Zero just sharpened his glare towards him. “If that’s how you want to do it.” He unsheathed his weapon.

Tenlight found its way to his hand, the blade thrummed as eagerly as he did. “Oh, it totally is. I’ve to admit I was feeling itchy.”

A Blink and he was swinging down upon his enemy. The blade cut through the air, but Zero was ready, his own blocking the hit. It still was enough to surprise him and force him to retreat.

“I misjudged you.” Zero glared. “You’re not human.”

“Never was, never will be.” Magnus replied and swept his blade, a halfmoon of Light shot out cutting through the air.

Zero wasn’t caught by it, even at the high speed it flew, it was barely a tease, a poke, a taunt. It caused the man to grumble and change his posture, immediately feeling much more dangerous.

Magnus ran forward, shoulders loose and blade at the ready. His opponent didn’t wait for him, rushing forward too.

“So foolish to waste such an ability so quickly.” Zero smirked and parried his attack, swinging in the opening. “I will teach you a few lessons.”

They clashed quickly, blades bouncing against each other. None managed to touch each other until Zero pulled a second, shorter, blade and stabbed from below, forcing Magnus to Blink away. He glared at the drop that fell from the tip, sizzling once it hit the ground.

“First lesson, always surprise your opponent.” He told him condescendingly as he flung the blade, rushing after it.

Magnus parried the first and fell into the defensive, stepping back.

“Lesson two, learn your opponent well and you will never lose against them.” Zero pushed harder before tugging on his off-hand, a wire connected to the blade he had thrown made it fly back to his hand.

Magnus wanted to laugh. “Oh? Giving me lessons? I’ve one for you too!” He rushed forward, blade up. “Strength’s above all.” He swung down.

Zero grinned before easily dodging the chop. Though to his immediate surprise, his blade went through his opponent’s body, as if they hadn’t been there at all.

He felt the hit before he realized what happened. In an instant it was as if he had been hit by a speeding truck, his whole body was launched sideways and flew until he hit a wall.

“Very important lesson,” Magnus mocked Zero’s tone, “don’t fight illusionists.” He pulled Graceful up and rested it on his shoulder.

Zero could only groan as blood dripped down his lips, to MAgnus it was obvious his torso was more than severely injured. His cloak had fallen off and he could easily see the massive bruise quickly spreading. He just stayed still as there were more than one broken rib, most likely poking at his insides.

“Anyways, thanks for the fun, and see you never.” Magnus called out and walked into the ship. “Oh, just a tip, the police are here.” He laughed as the ship’s door closed behind him. “All ready here.” He announced as he entered the bridge.

“Great!” Orange called. “I got quite a lot of loot for us to check later, all information is being leaked and several viruses will pop in a few hours to add to the chaos. Let’s bail!”

He laughed softly as he turned towards the pink-haired woman. “Sorry about throwing you.”

“It’s okay… it’s not like you hurt me… though, why didn’t you use the portals straight away?” She asked, nervously.

“Oh, I didn’t want to use them unless necessary. Mostly to keep them just in case, there’s too many ways to intercept such portals and relying only on them would have been dangerous.” He explained as he sat down by her side. “Now get ready, we’re leaving.”

She nodded to his words, looking almost afraid, but mainly hopeful.

The ship started to rise before a massive, golden portal opened in front of its stem. It started to accelerate, the hangar was replaced by the starry void of space and the moon glowing silver.

“Get ready, leaving the World in three… two… one…” Orange counted down.

From certain points of view time stopped. Only a few beings across the World noticed this little blip on existence, of course, for these beings it meant scouring high and low for the source. Though none would manage to find anything before it was done.

The cause of this sudden time stop was a woman, old, ancient even, because how old could you consider someone that’s technically older than the universe itself? Even if her skin was perfect, her hair had gone white so long ago, over her nose rested a pair of old, round glasses and behind them a pair of the smartest eyes in the World. Her clothes covered her practically from head to toes, only her hands and a bit of her face were visible.

She walked calmly through the bridge of a ship currently about to leave the area in a way she had never seen before. None of the people in the ship could notice her, or even comprehend how she was there. Neither the woman who was also the ship, the man who had single-handedly thrown so many plans (hers and others’) into chaos, not the woman of whom she had a hand in creating, nor the three wererats that had slipped in amazingly unnoticed.

“Now, who are you?” She asked out loud and reached towards the man.

A single spark surprised her enough to pull her hand away. Said spark grew into a small fire and the image of man’s body, up to its neck, was projected under it.

“ Hello. ” Their voice was strange.

“And who are you?” She asked.

“ Unfortunately I’m not a person, more of an echo in a protection laid on him by his father. ” The strange being replied. “ Though to keep matters simple, call me Guru. ”

“Then you can call me Gina.” She replied with a playful smile.

“ First names already? I’ve to warn you I’m a married man, my wives would kill me if I tried to flirt with other women… or they would invite them to join. Depending on the mood. ” He joked. “ I’ve to admit it’s not frequent that I find someone capable of stopping time like this outside of my father-in-law. ”

She laughed softly. “Oh, this is nothing. I needed to check this closer, it’s not frequently we get visits like this, or not at all. It’s also not useful for more than a quick check up ”

The figure stood still for a moment before replying. “ Hmm, given what my daughter has written down, most likely most burn down in entry, your World’s a bit too complex for most things. But I, my original, made this ship to survive that kind of entry. I hope that’s not a problem. ”

“Hmm… no, at least I don’t think any major plans focused on any of the people you will be taking away. And hopefully this will give them a better future.” She mused and lied a bit.

“ Hmm, knowing my son, he will most likely return in the future. ” They turned to look at the pink haired woman. “ Something tells me her story in this World’s far from over. ”

Gina nodded. “A number of Summoner’s Magends exist in the world.”

The figure rubbed its ‘chin’. “ I think I can do something about it, and… done. ” He shot her a thumbs up. “ Now she will get a reminder to find them in the future, that should be tempting enough to return. ”

She smiled. “Yes, that should be helpful. Honestly, all of the chaos he released should shift things around enough that I’ll be able to push some of my best plans forward and discard a few of the bad, but necessary, ones.”

“ Good to hear, I will have to call it here, I was not meant to exist. ” He laughed softly. “ The protection simply found my simulation to be the most efficient way to respond to the threat you present, I hope you don’t feel insulted by it. But if I stay around for longer then I will waste all energy meant to save his life in actual danger. ”

“It’s okay, this little talk was more than illuminating. I hope I can talk with you for real in the future.” She bowed and watched them disappear.

She easily stepped out of the ship and allowed time to resume, watching it disappear out of reality.

“Quite an interesting thing.” She laughed softly before she frowned and looked around before focusing down on Earth. “Oh my, ain’t that interesting.”

Magnus felt the woman squeeze his hand and shake for a moment.

“And we’re out!” Orange called out and turned towards him. “All good?”

“Give us a moment.” He answered and gave her a smile. “All good?”

She nodded weakly. “It’s weird, I feel like I just lost something… but gained so much more.” She spoke slowly, and at the end gave them a bright smile.

“That’s great, because we’ve stowaways.” Orange called out.

That brought him to a halt. “What? How did that happen?”

“I may have been a bit distracted and three young wererats slipped into the ship during the chaos.” She admitted, some embarrassment showing in her voice. “I didn’t notice until we left the World and the system marked the three passed out in the hallway.” She explained.

“Do we have a brig on the ship?” He asked.

“I’m repurposing some equipment and a room, but until then I’ve the old hamster house.” She answered, making him nearly stumble.

“Hamster… house?” The woman asked.

“It’s…” He chuckled. “Long story short, it’s an enchanted cage designed to hold three super-powered rodents very comfortably.”

“Why would you need that?” She asked, and part of Magnus was pretty sure she was asking because she was enjoying just talking.

“Because my father had three super-powered children and turning them into hamsters was a great way to put us in time-out. I mean, it was still very fun there. The bigger question is why do you have it?” He asked Orange.

“Because it’s hilarious and great for teasing. Also if I wanted to grab a pet I wanted a cage that could hold them safely.” She answered.

He grumbled, but couldn’t deny the cage was pretty good at what it did.

“I’ve already placed the three of them in the cage. I will take care of the buoy and get us to a safe distance. You should help your lady friend.” Orange pointed out and he just rolled his eyes.

“Let’s get you some clothes.” He offered her his hand and guided her towards one of the empty rooms. “This room is yours from now on and as long as you want to stay with us.” He quickly showed her around. “Most of the systems will need you to equip a System, but let’s get you some clothes first, ok?”

He turned to her and stopped, he didn’t need his brother’s empathy to understand how she felt. Instead he sat on the bed with her and pulled her into a hug, just like that, as if a faucet broke open, she started to cry on his shoulder.

“It’s okay, you’re out, you’re free now.” He stroked her back, partially ignoring the fact she was barely wrapped in a blanket. As much as his body was under his control, she was still very hot.

He allowed her to vent, cry and scream against him. All very justified in his opinion, she had a lot of pain inside of her. Still, soon she pulled back, eyes puffy, nose runny and red, looking like a complete mess.

“...I’m sorry.” Her lip wobbled a bit. “I made a mess.”

He chuckled. “It’s okay, nothing that some cleaning won’t take care of.” He reassured her. “You should take a bath, I will prepare some clothes for you.”

She nodded silently and smiled, a renewed warmness in her face as she entered the bathroom. Meanwhile he allowed his clothes to clean themselves as he retrieved some thread and fabric to put together some basic things.

It would be nothing the System wouldn’t be able to replicate, but she would have to equip one to have access to that. He still needed to take care of the three rats, it made him wonder what had driven them to get in.

Magnus groaned as he opened his eyes slowly, a quick look around revealed he was in some dirty back alley. The stench of trash assaulted his nose for a moment before it was ignored. Everything looked so large, but it was looking at himself that made him freeze.

Four legs, a tail, the size of a normal cat. “Ah crap, why am I a Zorua again? Last I remember is that I was leaving this World.” He grumbled as he closed his eyes and checked his System.

“Fuck.” He cursed and looked around before leaving the spot, hoping no one had seen the small talking fox.

He had left the World, but not all of him had done so in the ship. More than a few pieces of himself had gone around, a few even left the lab and wandered around. He had been pretty sure he had ordered all of them to terminate themselves.

But apparently one of them had been eaten by an old, large cat. Unfortunately for the cat, it couldn’t exactly digest him, instead he had carried the mass inside of its body as he left the World. Effectively making this last piece of him, him .

That tiny fragment was about fifty grams of mass, barely enough for anything. But it was also mass in contact with a living being, aka enough body mass to start to recover. The poor cat had been taken over and practically digested from the inside out.

It was strangely reassuring to know he could recover from being barely above a smear. It had been a few days since he had left, his body left to work automatically into recovering. Though now that he was awake he could finish personally.

Full-body illusions would be hard in his current form, so instead he preferred to modify his still flexible body closer to that of a black cat. It would help pass unnoticed. He still illusioned a collar around his neck.

Another unfortunate point was that his stars were barely sputtering sparks inside of his soul, he would need time to amass enough strength before he could reignite one of them; the other would quickly follow. That left how to go forward.

He would need to find a safe space, he knew this world as safe as it was, it was also very dangerous. He could hunt Monty or Bibi, but he didn’t feel like hanging out with that mountain of muscles, his prodding presence and undercurrent of resentment wasn’t fun to be around.

He did feel a pretty strong source of magic in the distance, it felt quite pure too, so it wasn’t the worst lead to start. Though it was far enough that it would take a few days to get there with his small size.

He huffed as his stomach grumbled. With his Stars like they were, he would need to eat. Thankfully he could still eat anything, though he would look for something better than just trash.

Now if he could shake that sensation of being watched off his tail.

Chapter Text

Venturing the Words – 5

Romeo woke up slowly, his head feeling like a well-played drum. He didn’t move at first, half for self-preservation, half because the bed he was laying on was very comfortable. Still, there was no noise besides two relaxed breathings similar to his own.

He sat up and froze. He was inside a hamster cage, it felt insulting for some reason. He looked around to find Moisha and Lydia still asleep. The last he remembered was getting into the ship with the chaos and then hearing some fighting so they hid down a hallway. Then the ship started moving and then nothing.

Had they been found out and captured? Given what he saw that was the most likely. He moved to the edge of the cage and found that there was some kind of invisible and soft barrier keeping him from pushing his hand out. Looking out revealed he was on a table inside an empty room that shared similar to the ship’s aesthetics.

They had definitely been captured. He sighed and turned to wake up his two teammates.

“Wassap?” Moisha mumbled and rolled over

Meanwhile Lydia practically jumped up and looked around, he quickly explained what little he had found. She quickly smacked the third awake.

“Ouch!” Moisha rolled away. “What was that for, sister?”

Lydia snorted and pointed at the cage. “We’re trapped rats.” She said dryly.

“But this is a hamster cage… isn’t that insulting?” The pink rat asked.

“I know, right?” Romeo couldn’t help but laugh a bit.

“Doesn’t matter if we’re rats, hamsters or gerbils. We got caught, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t by any of the elders.” Lydia pointed out.

“Now what?” Romeo shrugged to Moisha’s question.

A moment later the door opened and a man entered the room. The three of them stiffened and tried to act like normal rats, which became pretty obvious they weren’t being believed.

“Hello you three, so we don’t go into a comedy skit I will come out and say that I know you three are Wererats and that you can understand me, ok?” The man said as he sat down on a chair a meter away from their cage.

The three of them turned to look at him.

“My name’s Magnus, though I also go by Traveler.” He presented himself. “You three slipped into our ship just as we’re escaping that lab. Under normal circumstances we wouldn’t have had trouble just dropping you back, the thing is that we left the World you come from.”

The man took a sip of water from a glass he hadn’t been holding a moment prior and wasn’t holding anymore a moment after.

“You three are stowaways we basically know next to nothing about. You’ve multiple options going forward, first is that you stay there.” He gestured to the cage. “Definitely a bit degrading and humiliating, but it’s been enchanted to stay clean, comfortable and you will have food, water and entertainment. You won’t be able to change back, I know, I tried when I was stuck inside. I don’t know if you’ll need to change back for health reasons, but in that case I would just knock you three out and proceed as if it was a real medical emergency, you don’t want that.”

The three of them remained silent and Magnus continued speaking.

“Second choice is that you assume human form and accept to spend it in one of the prison cells. Pros you get to be human and definitely some better entertainment, cons you will be less comfortable as the prison cells are definitely not enchanted for it. You will also be treated as actual prisoners and get less privacy.” His tone was cordial, but serious.

“Third choice, and the one I honestly hope you pick, gets you your own rooms, more freedom, training if you want and can come with us when we visit other Worlds. It requires that you assume your human form and accept taking one of these.” He retrieved an orb. “This is colloquially called a System where I come from, they were created by my father. They are designed as a combination of personal assistant and training tool between a plethora of other uses.” He explained. “They wrap around a person’s soul and provide knowledge, skills, some extra powers and help said person grow to be more while also helping them heal.”

Romeo was pretty sure he wasn’t the only one thinking that was too good to be true.

“Now, there’s a catch for you three. Equipping one of these is near-permanent, only a few people can remove them safely as they are meant to be an armor for your soul; it’s not meant to be easy to remove. It’ll also allow us to know where you are, communicate with you and know your general well-being. Consider it a kind of probation, you misbehave, you go back to a prison cell. You behave and it doesn’t matter, plus you will grow stronger and get training.”

He looked at Moisha and Lydia, no matter how much the man presented it, it wasn’t an easy choice.

“Oh, you three can speak like normal, I will understand you since you’re smart enough.” He amended.

That brought them to a stop before Lydia was the first to relax and speak.

“How can we believe you?” She asked.

He shrugged. “Because you three honestly have more to win from this than I do. You choose one of the first two and all we have to do is make sure you stay alive in your cells or cage, and that’s not really that difficult. There’s definitely enough translation between what your human bodies must be to your rat forms that I can tell you’re trained, but you won’t be escaping that cage or the cells.” He explained. “And before you say this is to trick you into a deal, I do not need your compliance to equip one of these to you. But using them on you would be a waste of resources otherwise, I’m just taking advantage that it would let us keep you under observation.”

“I’m not the smartest here,” Romeo prompted, “but why can’t you just drop us somewhere if we would be too much trouble?”

“Didn’t I say it? We left your World behind. And I don’t mean planet Earth.” The man gestured and a diagram appeared behind him. “I said World, capital W, that means we aren’t near your planet, nor your solar system, nor the galaxy. We left your Reality a while ago, we actually left what contains your Reality. We’re Outside, if I dropped you outside of the ship you would just stop existing as nothing decided you weren’t meant to exist. And that’s in all levels, body, soul, fate, you just dropped out of the board to never be found again, even lost socks have more chances to be recovered.”

He swallowed dryly as that painted a pretty grim and final picture.

“What does it mean if we accept one of those?” Lydia asked.

“The System is designed as an assistant first of all, it’s meant to help its user grow.” Magnus explained. “It provides the User access to choosing a Job, this will help by helping the User develop skills and abilities in line with the Job they choose, with enough time you can upgrade on your Job or choose a different one to spread your skills, but abilities will stop developing at the same rate. It also catalogs your class, or race if you want to be specific, and provides your body with slight corrections like cleaning genetic defects you find troublesome, clear curses and mental programming.”

“What?!” Moisha screamed.

“Oh yeah, dad’s pretty against that kind of thing, so a few versions ago he added the ability to clear mental programming and similar things. Though it can take time to work depending on how deep it is. Anyways, as I was saying, it’ll help you learn and develop skills that fall under your Job. For example a soldier will learn to wield their weapon and master it faster, helping the User clean their form until they don’t make mistakes.” He explained.

Romeo snorted. “We had a teacher, he was… particular.”

Magnus raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” He thought about it. “Don’t tell me, it was Zero?” He nodded. “Oh, I came across him on my way out, didn’t look to me like he would be a good teacher.”

“Oh yeah, he loved to teach us the feel of blades stabbing in flesh.” Moisha answered derisively.

“Then you will love this.” The man grinned and gestured to a video of Zero getting hit with a metal bat and smacking against a wall. “Want to see it again? I love the face he puts on when he notices he was fighting an illusion all along.”

The wererats could admit to feeling a bit of dark pleasure at seeing the man that had practically tortured them for weeks fly like a baseball.

“In my opinion, a terrible teacher. How about I get you some fresh fruit and leave you to think?” Magnus asked, but didn’t wait for an answer as a plate of fruit fell into the cage. “See you later, and if you make a choice, just call out loud.”

He turned and walked away. Romeo noticed there was no chair in the room.

When he turned Moisha was already eating through a pretty good-looking apple and Lydia sighed.

“So?” He asked.

“I don’t know.” She admitted as she grabbed a grape and bit into it. “If he’s telling the truth, the third option is the best one by far. We behave and we get some freedoms and some nebulous things that may help us grow stronger. I want to ask more questions, but I fear that doing so may screw us over.”

“I think we should just, like, ask them more. I’ve no problems staying like this too, this is such good fruit.” Moisha offered.

“In a way, wasn’t this what we wanted?” Romeo asked.

Lydia just sighed. “We would be just changing one leash for another.” She grumbled and grabbed some of the fruit to eat.

They said nothing as she dug in with gust. Romeo couldn’t blame her, it was really good fruit.

Magnus left the three rats to think and instead joined the others in the mess hall.

“Nice to see you chose to equip it.” He said as he joined them on a table, his own System marking the nameless woman as Summoner. “Did you choose that?”

“No, it was actually there when it finished starting up.” She admitted.

“It seems to be her original name or designation, most likely picked from the World’s Akasha.” Orange offered. “It could work as a title, but you still need to pick a proper name.”

She grumbled. “It’s not so easy.”

“Would it help if we offer you some names?” He said.

“That… that could work, at least it would give me some ideas of what I don’t want.” The two of them laughed softly at her comment.

He thought about it. “Hmm… it’s maybe a bit harder than I thought.” He joked. “Molly? Irene? Yasmin? Nicole?”

She shook her head to each one of them.

“Kaiya? Ariana? Eden? Ruby?” Orange proposed.

“No, no, no, n… actually I like Ruby.” She stopped and thought about it.

“Ruby Summoner has a nice ring to it.” Orange nodded to herself.

“You’re just saying that because you suggested and it’s a color name.” Magnus teased his sister. “It’s still a very nice name if you will adopt it.” He directed the last part towards Ruby.

“Yes, I’m Ruby from now on.”

“Then welcome aboard the Long Fortune, Ruby.” Orange congratulated her. “Now that you have a name, you should choose a job, also what class did the System assign you?”

“I’ve to admit I’m curious too.”

She tapped the screen only she could only see. “It is called the Summoner of Selves. How does it know so much about what I can do when I don't?”

“The System is literally in your Soul, plus the Long Fortune’s Core did sync with your World’s Akasha, your existence is written in it, ergo it knows about you.” Magnus explained. “What does it say?”

“It says I’m an Artifact capable of creating Magends at my command.” Orange gestured to her to continue. “Magends are living spells… apparently there’s a number of them already in existence, they appear to be out of reach to recall…”

“Well, we’re not in the World anymore, I don’t think many things could make that distance.” Orange laughed a bit.

Ruby was silent, making Magnus reach to place his hand on her shoulder. “Does it bother you to know you’re a magical object? Because from my point of view I think you should consider it a step in discovering yourself.”

“Plus, we don’t really see a problem with it,” Orange offered, “so you will have us on your side for as long as you can withstand us. I just have to warn you, Magnus snores.”

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t even need to sleep.” He smacked the back of his sister’s head. “But the feeling’s true, the System will help you learn your abilities, develop them and finally break through your limits.”

Ruby looked troubled, but not in a bad way, she gave them a small smile before she focused back on her screen. She tapped a few times. “I chose my job too, it’s called Toybox. It says it’ll help me learn as many skills as toys I can put in my box.”

Orange froze and practically screamed. “I knew it was a porn World, fuck this!” She threw her hands up and walked away, causing Magnus to break out in laughter.

When Ruby looked at him questioning he answered. “The phrasing was full of innuendo, Orange has no interest in sex or getting romantic in general, she understands it. But doesn’t… it never clicked for her. The thing is some of the other siblings always joked about her ending in a porn World, basically a World that follows cheap rules to enforce a perverted status quo. I joked with her after arriving at your World that it was one of those. The way the System decided to phrase it just… well, it’s not like she’s really bothered by it.” He couldn’t help but laugh between words.

“Will it be a problem?”

“Not really, most likely if we return she will stay in the ship and try to interact as little as possible. Also, I don’t think it’s really a Porn World, her reaction was mostly to lighten things up.” He explained.

Ruby nodded a bit unsure.

“Would you like to accompany me to the training room and try your ability to summon Magends?” He offered. “Or if you prefer I could prepare something to eat first, I don’t want to think much of what they fed you back in the lab.”

Comically fitting, before she could speak, Ruby’s stomach made itself known, causing the pink-haired woman to blush.

“Food first it is. I hope you’re okay with being vegetarian for a while, we’ve had an excellent first harvest from the plants I collected on the World I visited before your own.” He offered as he took over the kitchen.

“Would it be okay if I watch?” She asked timidly, to which he nodded. “And can you tell me about that World?”

He smiled warmly as he grabbed a knife. “Of course I can, I can also show you some pictures too.” He answered happily. “The World of Hyrule’s interesting, it’s also called the Land of the Gods, a land blessed with prosperity and cursed by a Powerful Demon King. But worry not, because with his rise two will appear, a Wise Princess and a Courageous hero…”

He easily fell into a rhythm as he cooked, painting the land and weaving some of its legends for his new friend.

Orange snorted as she watched her brother flirt for a bit. She mostly ignored that stuff and turned her attention to the ship.

The buoy had been properly set and would provide not just directions to the World, but also cast a warning about the dangers of coming too close. Two buoys in the area didn’t make a map, but it was certainly the start of the mapping process. It also helped to paint just how far they were from home.

She would feel much better once she managed to make contact. They either were being very far from home, the World they just had left was troublesome at a distance, or worse, there was another similarly troublesome World in the way.

She didn’t like any of those personally. She was a bit more careful this time by scanning for the characteristics of the next closest World before having the ship move in its direction. From the distance it appeared to be a basic one, she didn’t detect any time-meddling. But there were a few Worlds close enough that they may come in contact from time to time; nothing too out of the ordinary.

It surprised her to see that the three rats were calling for attention. With her brother busy and everything else in order, she decided to attend to it herself. It only took her a couple of minutes to reach the room with the cage after telling her she was in her way.

“What can I help you with?” She asked, serious, but cordial. “And yes, I can understand you three too.”

“Who are you? We wanted to talk with the guy.” The brown rat took the leader role apparently.

“I’m Orange, I think my brother named me before? Doesn’t matter, I’m his younger sister and more or less the owner of the ship we’re in, and the ship itself.” She answered. “He’s currently busy with the last person that came along when we left the World.”

The rat huffed. “…Okay, we've got some questions we would like to ask.”

She nodded. “Go ahead, I would prefer it if you didn’t have any doubts about your choice.”

“How exactly do those system orbs work exactly?”

“I’ll take my brother gave you the more technical explanation, right? With soul wrapping and all that?” She sighed and nodded to herself. “Okay, have you ever played a game?” The rats nodded a bit confused. “The System is more or less based on one. You get a Class, which is your race, and a Job, which is what you want to do. The more you train, do and experiment, the more the System rewards you with. It’s at its core a ritual, though instead of magic words, precious materials and some strange knowledge, you are using your time, effort and experience to get rewarded. For example, the more you train and fight with a sword the better you become because the System will literally reward you by helping you improve further.”

“That sounds too good to be true.” The blue one said out loud, he quickly looked embarrassed for having spoken his thoughts.

“Dad liked the idea of people getting rewarded for their efforts, you still have to work for it. Just equipping a System and choosing a Job will get you some basic skills. But they are pretty basic, in most cases they are things you can already do, the System just lists them.” She explained.

“And the class?” The first one asked.

“A Class is what you are, in your case you get Wererat, maybe if you’re particular you get a modifier, things like Lithe, Magic, Dexterous, Gluttonous, etcetera…” She listed a few possibilities. “What it does is affect more passive things in your growth, like helping you grow physically stronger, increase your magic reserves, improve your senses or gain better control of them. It’s rarely an active thing, a dragon may get a Dragon Breath. But if it comes from its Class, then it’s meant to improve on their ability to use it, not the breath in itself. They already can use it, it’s part of who they are. For your case it will most likely help you control your transformation further and slowly deal with whatever weakness you have.”

“You mean, like, silver?” The pink rat asked and if the blue one had been embarrassed, the look the brown rat gave her signaled she really shouldn’t have said that.

“Yeah, don’t expect to kick in instantly. And you may need to test and practice with it. But with enough time the Class will remove those kinds of weaknesses as you consider them something holding you back. It’s meant to help you improve after all.”

“So Class is passive and Job is active?” The brown one changed the subject.

“Yes to Class, Job can have both. Also, not just because you have an ability or skill to do something it will feature under your Job unless it’s related. For a vague example, my job is centered around manning this ship, and while I know how to fight, I do not have a skill related to it.” She explained.

“Can we improve our jobs, is that like in games? Once we level up enough?”

“There are no levels, there’s no numbers associated besides things like age, height and weight. The System has an internal understanding and measuring of how far you are in your path, once it considers you have reached the limit of what you can gain from a Job it will offer you to change it.” She explained. “Then you can do multiple things. You can advance in your path, you usually get one or two options, it’s sort of a refined aim, though that doesn’t mean more focused, sometimes you step up into broader applications.
“You can change your Job altogether and start something new, you will lose some stuff, gain access to new stuff. You keep your knowledge, but unless your new job uses said skills and abilities, the System won’t reward you for working on them. You will also lose the constant correction passive skills give you.” She continued explaining.
“Finally you can withhold from advancing. This means you don’t advance, you stay where you are. You can technically develop things further, but it will be very slow. The main reason you would want to do this is because the System has something it calls Mutations.” She explained. “A Mutation is when something external changes you at your core. Things like enlightenment, heavy trauma, revelations, permanent transformations, etcetera… These are rare and usually not a good thing, so in most cases you should choose one of the above.”

“What would we need to do if we accept?”

“Behave mostly.” She laughed and relaxed a bit. “Don’t start trouble, especially inside the ship, it’s large enough, but we’re literally a few walls away from total annihilation. If you’ve problems then talk with us, I like to think we’re reasonable people as long as you aren’t trying something very stupid. I mean it, I commit crime all the time, the trick is having a good reason and not getting caught.” She noticed that their eyes practically shone at that. “Listen to us, we’ve more experience than you here, if we tell you something it’s because there’s a reason for it. You wouldn’t believe the kind of threats and dangers you can come across in some Worlds out there.”

She quickly continued speaking as she noticed them trying to ask. “Just to put an example, your World’s timeline is severely fucked, as in your World could collapse on itself by how much time was fucked around with. There’s someone actively doing their best to keep it existing.” She said grimly and resumed the subject. “I think that’s pretty basic ‘get along’ stuff. Outside of that you will get food, a room each, training if you want, equipment if you get my brother in the mood and basically infinite wealth.” She saw their eyes glitter at that. “I’m being honest here, the ship literally creates energy out of nothing and can turn energy to matter to shape it into anything. Most wardrobes don’t really store clothes unless they are enchanted, they just save their design and recreate them when you want to use them.”

The three of them gave each other a look and Orange pointedly ignored the talk they were having. After a few seconds they spoke again.

“We’ll accept.” The brown rat stated.

“Okay, I will call Magnus. Since he and Ruby are over in the training rooms we should move things over there.” She opened the cage. “Now follow me and don’t make me regret trusting my brother on this.”

Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 6

Magnus didn’t say a thing about how blissful Ruby looked after having eaten real food for the first time, he could only imagine the difference between what she had been force-fed during her time in the lab and a home-cooked meal by a pretty skilled chef like him.

“Okay, enough of that,” he told her gently, “I promise there will be much more food like that in the future.”

She blushed at the comment.

“Now, first thing.” He pulled the finger from his inventory. “Try to reabsorb this.”

She took the finger and looked at it, a moment later it had disappeared.

“That was easier than I thought.” Ruby admitted and then looked surprised. “The System also mentions that it counts as a proto-Magend.”

He rubbed his chin. “I should check what Orange took from the vault during our escape, they may have put some other of your Magends there.” He offered, getting a nod of agreement in response. “Now let’s try the opposite, you said you need a goal for your Magends, right? How about trying something simple?”

“They are meant to be pretty strong spells, so something like large-scale destruction? Fire control? Earthquakes?” She asked.

“I was thinking more of cooking or hand to hand combat. Keep it that simple for now.” He said with levity.

“Ok,” she nodded and closed her eyes.

And just like that, next to Ruby there was another Ruby. She was a bit shorter, closer to his height than hers by a few centimeters, she was a bit more portly too. Her clothes were similar to the ones he had sewn for her, but the front was almost shaped like an apron as a wooden spoon was held on her hand. Closer inspection revealed said spoon was actually a magic wand, which gave him ideas for future projects.

Magnus smiled. “Was your meal still in your mind?” He asked.

Ruby, both of them, quickly blushed. “Yes.” The second one answered. “It’s like… I suddenly understand all you did earlier. I can understand why you would chop, cut and dice ingredients in different ways, times for cooking each, the use of spices… It’s amazing.”

“If I had to guess you also know a few cooking spells too, no?”

“Yes, but how did you know?” The first asked.

“If I had to guess, with a name like Magend, they are meant to use maigc, so most of your selves will be able to use magic in one way or another. Also because you were thinking about magic before I offered the simple options.”

Ruby nodded and didn’t need to close her eyes before a third appeared. This one went towards the other extreme.

This Ruby fit the definition of amazonian. She’s over two meters tall, arms thicker than his head, a chiseled body up and down. Her clothes were almost minimalistic, barely above a bikini and completely skin-tight.

“Close combat?” He guessed.

“Actually I aimed for a form without magic.” She admitted. “Though this form can still use self-reinforcement. Outside of that, all the knowledge seems to be aimed at fighting, hunting and…” She quickly blushed.

He closed his eyes for a moment and let it pass, they were there to help her discover herself. He guessed something like this would happen sooner or later.

“Good enough, how are you feeling?” He asked the first Ruby.

“Strangely light, but in a good way.” She spoke as she was fighting a blush down. “It also explains why there’s voices in my head,” she admitted, “I though I had gone crazy. But it’s some of the Magends I created in the past and reabsorbed.”

“Are you okay with those?” A bit of worry dyed his voice.

“I’m actually much better now. It’s not just having control and understanding over the process, it’s also the System, one of the abilities under my Class is named Peace of Mind, apparently it helps me with the burden of the situation.”

“Okay, tell me if you need anything. I can think of a few ways to help if it becomes too much.” He reassured her. “But for now, how about we try some basic sparring? I promise I’m not a lightweight.”

The third Ruby seemed to like the idea, but before they could move to the center of the large training room, he received a message from Orange.

“Oh, looks like the three stowaways decided to join the crew on probation.” He stopped himself.

“Oh, that’s… good?”

“It simplifies some things, complicates others.” He admitted as the door opened, Orange entered leading the three wererats. “Welcome to the crew.” He greeted them.

The one that had taken the leading role was the shorter of the three, she had short, messy and brunette hair in the same tone as her fur. Her glare was to the point she feared she would bore a hole through most piece of armor.

“I’m Lydia.”

The other woman had pink hair of a duller tone compared to Ruby, almost lilac, she presented a more ditsy front. But he wouldn’t believe that.

“My name’s Moisha.”

The last was the only male of the group, his height was between the two women, he had blue hair cut short and trimmed down on the side.

“And I’m Romeo.”

“No last names?” He asked.

They shook their heads and Lydia answered, “Yeah, we have them, but it’s usually from the orphanage we’re left in, or if we’re lucky we were old enough to know it.”

He nodded and gestured to Ruby. “This is Ruby, and yes, they are all the same person. If you see someone with her hair color you can assume it’s her, unless Orange or I are playing a prank.”

Magnus retrieved three System orbs and handed one to each of them. “You just have to accept them and they will do the rest of the job, it will take a couple of minutes where you may feel a few tingles here and there, given your nature you may shift between your forms if you feel necessary.”

The three rats shared a silent conversation, most likely confirming they were sure before the three orbs disappeared and left them blinking.

“I don’t feel no-oOoOoohh…” Moisha let out a strange sound as she squirmed a bit.

Lydia, on other hand, maintained a poker face, but her tail had come out and was swaying nervously. Meanwhile Romeo appeared to be the less affected outside of a few patches of fur.

“...It wasn’t like that for me.” Ruby whispered into his ear.

“Different species and personal experiences can alter how the System acts at the start. The three of them are getting a lot of the usual city-born pollution purged out of their bodies.” He explained.

While it was a bit awkward, they watched in silence for almost a minute before the three wererats’ state normalized.

“Good, looks like all went well as expected.” Magnus said out loud, bringing attention to himself. “Now, the System responds to your will, just thinking about it will bring your personal information, most of this information comes directly from your World’s Akasha that means-

“What does it mean that my name’s Lydia Iceron Mckraken?!” She interrupted.

Magnus stopped talking. “Uh… I can see the resemblance. Though I don’t think I have heard about Iceron.”

The three of them shared a look. “I think I should know it, but… I’m drawing a blank.” Romeo admitted while shaking his head.

“Well, who could have thought our Lydia’s the daughter of an elder.” Moisha crooned.

“Big fat of good that did for me, bitch has never even seen me after popping me out.” She seethed before calming down. “...it doesn’t matter anymore.”

He wasn’t going to comment on that. “Okay, moving on, you should all have access to your Class and all the information the System collated about it, Jobs should be open. The System will also guide you to your personal rooms in the ship. We assigned you three consecutive rooms, but that can be changed if you want, those rooms can also be internally connected between them.” He explained quickly. “The ship’s very flexible.”

“What does that even mean?” Moisha asked.

He smiled and ordered the training room to expand, the four-meter high ceiling was suddenly twenty meters away from the ground and the walls expanded to double the size of a football stadium.

“While personal rooms won’t grow to this size, many rooms in the ship can expand considerably to fit.”

“I have, like, a question.” Moisha raised her hand.

“Just ask, no need to raise your hand.” Magnus laughed softly.

“Your sister said we can ask for any clothing?”

He nodded. “The System knows your measurements so you can request any type of clothing and it will produce it for you. Though given that you three are shapeshifters of a kind, you will need clothes that change with you.”

“We've got our bodysuits already.” Lydia pointed out.

He approached Romeo and tugged on the sleeve of it. “It’s not bad, but very basic.” He noted. “I can do much better than that, I will make you much better than that, it’s not even bullet-proof, terribly basic.”

“Oh yeah?” Lydia sneered. “What do you know about shapeshifters?”

Magnus grinned, his mouth was full of sharp fangs before he started to shift. Black fur covered his body as his fingers shifted into long, purple claws. His hair filled, a spiky mane as Stonebell swung lazily behind him. His clothes shifted with him, loosening in some spots and tightening on others.

“Just a tip, no one in this ship’s human.” His change didn’t stop as his Cherry Mask was on his face and his body growing larger and larger. Soon he was looking down at all of them. “ I am showing you this now to keep it from surprising you in the future. .” His voice made the area vibrate before he quickly shifted back and took the mask off.

Lydia, Moisha and Romeo were frozen stiff, holding against each other, meanwhile Ruby was looking at him with stars in her eyes. Meanwhile Orange just cackled, smacking her thigh, this caused the three of them to break out of their stupor and glare at her.

“What?” She asked playfully and her skin and hair melted away, showing her metallic skin. “I’m not human, my brother just told you. Don’t worry, we don’t discriminate, our family’s weird enough for us to be throwing stones.”

“What. The. Fuck?!” Lydia screamed.

“Yeah, I won’t assume that form unless something big needs to get really fucked up. But as I showed, my clothes survived the whole thing.” He gestured to himself. “I will make you a better bodysuit and a couple sets of shifting clothes, the rest can come if necessary. Meanwhile the clothes the ship creates for you can be considered disposable. Just don’t try to abuse this, each of you have a small inventory where to store them and your personal belongings.”

They nodded understandingly once they finished calming down. After that they spent a bit looking through their information.

“What does it mean I’m a wererat mage?” Lydia asked, getting a curious look from her two partners.

“The system simply assessed your magical Potential to be large enough to consider you a particular example of your race. This means it will help you develop that further, for example making it easier to grow your energy pool. Now, this doesn’t mean you two can’t use magic, being wererats already puts you in the magical being category, she’ll just have a much easier time growing stronger as long as she applies herself.”

She nodded understandingly, as he turned to talk with Ruby, he could hear the three of them discussing the weird Job names. He always had a good chuckle at how his father’s bad naming sense had infected the System in that department.

“Will they be okay?” Ruby asked as they moved to the center of the room.

“Oh yes, they aren’t evil, they definitely did some bad stuff in the past. But I can tell it was mostly to survive, so I can’t hold it against them. The thing is to see how they go forward.” He answered as he removed his jacket and ended in just loose pants and bodysuit. It wouldn’t be the first time his family gave people second, or third, chances. “Let’s see what you can do.” He taunted playfully.

In a moment she was up to him, hands together swinging down like a hammer. He easily dodged under her arms and delivered a quick palm to the kidney, it made her jump back and glare at him; being smaller had its advantages.

He moved first next, he kept things as mundane as possible when both of them were definitely above even Olympic-level powerhouses. Their punches sounded loudly as they displaced the air, even grazing blows would bruise badly in normal people. But the two of them were having fun.

If he was honest, while he was paying attention to the fight, a part of him was organizing his schedule. He still had things to be done before they arrived to their next World. The Gleeok corpse had laid long enough, he wanted to personalize the Workshop, he would need to tailor the promised clothes, the loot Orange had grabbed. And that was without starting on a few personal projects that had been bouncing in his head for a while.

If anything, it felt like those ideas had multiplied in his head while he was busy with other stuff. He hoped Orange picked a World a bit more mundane next time.

“Okay everyone, it’s been a few days and I think we’ve proved we can endure each others’ presence enough that we won’t try to kill each other. But the wait’s done.” Orange happily led the meeting as the Long Fortune rested just outside a moderate World.

It had been nearly a week, or at least seven twenty-four hours cycles since they had left their previous World, and outside of a few stumbles along the way, they were indeed coexisting quite well. The main problem had been that neither Magnus nor Orange actually  needed sleep and had forgotten others did. This had led to the establishing of the day-long cycle, the ship’s lightning would naturally dim towards the night and turn nearly completely off in common areas during sleep time.

“Since this is your first time entering a new World, we’ll do things slowly and carefully, I promise that in most cases things aren’t as rough as departing your World was.” Orange continued speaking. “Now, I probed the World, it’s a modern one with some supernatural aspects. Now, this doesn’t mean you can go and use magic in the open, and please don’t spread your curse.”

“If you feel the need to actually bite someone, tell me and I will make something to keep you from spreading your curse… Actually, I may ask one of you to help me study your curse later, the System will fix the weaknesses, but nothing says we can’t discover something new.” Magnus offered.

“New Worlds for the just initiated: some Worlds follow a theme, this is very common in Worlds of this size. For example in the case of the one we’re entering is Fighting, people train, live and bleed fighting. We’ll be coming out in a place that’s called Metro City, it’s legal to start Street Fights in Metro City, you punch someone and they will happily punch back.”

“Wait… what?” Moisha interrupted, feeling lost.

“Yup,” Orange answered, “people just step up to each other on the street and start to fight for the pleasure of it. There are a few rules, yeah, but it’s whoever comes. Old Lady punching a teen? Sure. Two businessmen after hours? Go ahead. Police hitting a teacher? Well, that happens in other Worlds too, but you get the idea. But that’s normal people, you also have the Fighters, people who are by all means superhuman, these are the main sources of the supernatural, or maybe it’s better to call it the extraordinary. They are hard to miss and most of them have world-wide renown, they can also come from any place and any origin, even a bum in the corner could become a Fighter with enough training and willpower.”

Her lips pulled into a grin as a few pictures appeared on the skin.

“Another lesson about Worlds, while I doubt you will find a local variant of yourselves, there’s a possibility of running across local versions of important people.” She pointed to two pictures of a similarly-looking blonde man. “Both your World and this one have someone called Master Ken, they both practice a similar style and have similar abilities, the main difference is their personal history.”

“What would that mean for us?” Lydia asked.

“Would there be another me?” Ruby added her own question.

“For you three, nothing most likely. I honestly doubt you’ll have an easy time finding local wererats, or versions of yourselves. As for you Ruby, you’re a bit more unique. Just like Magnus and I, the nature of our existence puts us in the nearly impossible to have natural duplicates.” She patiently answered. “That covered most of the important stuff, if you’ve questions just ask.”

“What about money?” Moisha asked eagerly.

“I’ll take care of that, don’t worry. Once you’re down there the System will create a credit card for you to pay with, try to not bring too much attention to yourself and only buy stuff you can carry. So no huge pieces of art, please, or multi-million dollars purchases without asking us.”

She laughed at the dollar sign that practically appeared on the woman’s eyes.

Magnus stepped forward. “Now, you three already equipped your new bodysuits, I hope they are comfortable.” They nodded. “Good, that’s what I designed them for.” He retrieved a series of silver pouches with colorful labels. “These are potions, they are straightforward.”

He handed each rat a pack of twelve.

“Green is stamina, chug one and it will give you eight hours of energy, don’t abuse them. Red is for healing physical trauma, I know you have regeneration. Gold is the strong healing. And Silver will increase your body’s resistance against damage for about thirty minutes.” He described them. “Just bite the bag and suck hard.”

He looked at Orange and she nodded.

“That’s all, outside of that just have fun, don’t let people see you can turn into rats and don’t spread the curse.” He shrugged. “Hit it, sis.”

Orange smiled and had the ship enter the World.

Lydia, Moisha, Romeo and Ruby all prepared for it, but the entrance was as seamless and smooth as possible. Once they were inside, the ship parked behind the Moon, far away from prying eyes. But close enough for the portal system to reach the planet.

A golden portal opened in the room. “Just go through, I will stay right here.” Orange stated and watched them leave, her brother being the last one.

They shared a look before he disappeared through the portal and she closed it. She sighed and leaned back on her chair. With that done she could start looking through the internet and see what interesting things she could find.

Magnus watched the three wererats disappear between the multitude with the experience of people who had lived their whole lives in the city and learned how to be unseen. It wasn’t like it wouldn’t take more than a portal to be just a few meters away from them, so for the moment he turned to Ruby and offered his hand.

“Overwhelming?” He asked gently as they walked out of the alley and joined the people going on their day.

Her hand tightened on his own. “It’s… so many people and it’s so open.”

“Tell me at any time if you want to take a break, I’m sure there are nice places we can visit that are more contained and have less people.” He offered as they walked in silence, Ruby practically drinking any and all sights.

They continued walking in silence as they neared the waterfront, the more open area gave a lovely view of the bay. It was also a bit thinner in the number of people. This was also the first time the two of them saw one of the previously mentioned street fights.

It was a surprising fight, a hotdog vendor had suddenly been called out by one of the runners passing by. The second man had carried a basic greeting and both had fallen into stances before the punches and kicks started flying.

It was impressive just how everyone had simply made space and watched. Some even hollered for one of the two fighters. Two bouts of ninety seconds each and the hotdog vendor had managed almost two perfect wins.

Meanwhile the runner was panting heavily and thanking the man for his time. Magnus could see that the runner had definitely not come fresh, there were signs of exhaustion and not just from a morning run. A few bruises barely visible under his loose shirt pointed to him having fought earlier in the day. He still bought a sausage with everything, chowed it down and resumed running as if nothing had happened.

“I can’t believe that just happened.” Ruby mumbled.

He shrugged. “I’ve seen weirder, at least here it appears to be legal and everyone’s consenting to a point.” He bought a couple of hotdogs from the winning vendor and handed one to her. “Nice fight.” He congratulated them.

“Thanks, Mark comes daily.” The vendor laughed. “He used to kick my ass and get a hotdog free with his victory, I had to start training or I would have ended up broke.”

“Curious,” Magnus mused, “you weren’t the first person he fought today, you could see the signs he was in a fight earlier.”

“Was he?” The man rubbed his chin. “Well, there’s been a number of criminals wearing cardboard boxes and starting fights,” they raised an eyebrow at the comment and the man chuckled, “yeah, yeah, but they do so to commit crimes and be a general nuisance. Maybe he got ambushed by a group of them, they like to gang up on people.”

Ruby nodded. “We’ll keep it in mind. Thank you for the information.”

The man blushed. “You don’t want to fight instead of paying?” He taunted Magnus.

“It’s not necessary,” he paid for the hotdogs, “plus it wouldn’t be much of a fight.” He shot back as the two of them walked away.

After a few meters Ruby spoke up. “Are you going to look for those masked people?”

“No.” Magnus shook his head. “Because sooner or later they will come to us. A detail I decided to leave out for the wererats, is that people like us will always have trouble finding us, even if we don’t actively go out our way. Plus we make the perfect target for criminals.” He added with a laugh.

And just like he said, it wasn’t more than five minutes before their walk was interrupted by half a dozen shirtless men wearing oversized cardboard boxes on their heads, only two holes on a side for them to see through.

Magnus had to admit he was quite curious about how they held them in place.

“Hihihi, nice girl you have bro, don’t you think you would look cool if you pay us for protection.” The lanky man pulled a pocket switchblade and opened it.

It was cheap and tiny, barely as long as one of his claws, the edge looked dull and chipped, the blade was dirty and scratched. It made the blacksmith in him want to cry.

He took it off the man’s hand without him even noticing for a moment. “This is not a blade, what have you been doing with this? Scratching concrete?” He felt pity for the thing, so he simply squeezed it down, the cheap metal bent down noisily until he dropped the crumpled ball. “Now this,” he pulled one of the carving knives he had made to butcher the Gleeok, it was closer to a sword in size, “this is a knife.” He grinned.

The masked criminal took a step back.

“I don’t want any problem, so why don’t you and your friends go back home and rethink things?” Magnus offered, but at the same time allowed a bit of his Darkness to dye his words.

It didn’t take more than a second for the group to scamper away, only then he put the knife back into his inventory.

“Told you, problems would find us sooner or later.”

Ruby just shook her head and smacked his arm. “At least nothing more happened.” She then smiled. “Come on, I want to see more things.”

He nodded as they soon were visiting other places, not like this would lead to future problems.

Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 7

Lydia had to admit that this was the good life.

They had found that Metro City had a lot of stores packed in a pretty nice area of the city. Apparently while everyone liked to fight, they also liked to do so while looking good, which had led to a lot of fashion stores with very comfortable clothes.

On top of that having three limitless accounts to buy meant they could splurge to their hearts’ content. The hardest part had been finding a spot to drop their purchases into their inventories.

She watched Romeo vacuum his fourth slice of pizza while Moisha carefully dug into her authentic Chinese food. She had already finished her shawarma, very good and filling. Plus they had plenty of show with their meal as at least four bouts had gone down in the plaza they overlooked since they had sat down.

With that in mind she pushed herself off the table. “Look after my stuff.” She told the other two before approaching one of the entertainers she had watched for a while.

Her target had been there since they had arrived at the plaza, so far he hadn’t fought anyone. She wondered why, while their body was on the smaller side, she could tell they were quite well trained by the sheer control they had on their body.

“Hey, I’m new around her, how about a couple of bouts?” She greeted curtly.

The mime smiled cordially and bowed in greeting before adopting a fighting stand opposite to her. Instantly people pulled back and made space for them. Finally she would be able to beat one of these mute creeps, she just hated how they managed to be more silent than her, a properly trained warrior!

The fight started and she wanted to curse, how did they fight without making a noise. Even when blocking her own hits it was as if she was hitting a cushion. Even her stronger blows were easily pushed away.

And he could so easily slip under her guard, forcing her to step back. She had to fight her reflexes to not transform and whip him with her tail. Instead she tried to take advantage of how close they got to sweep their feet.

Which quickly didn’t work and she wanted to curse as the silent fighter had skillfully jumped back just as the ninety seconds alarm sounded.

The mime gestured that it was a tie and prepared for the second round.

She grunted and pushed forward much more aggressively this time. She also started to move around more. Still wasn’t useful, he simply parried her blows, redirected her kicks and easily switched her grabs to force her to retreat.

The need to shift and lash out was growing so strong that only the alarm of the end of the fight broke her concentration. Once more they signaled it was a tie.

Lydia sighed. “No, it’s my loss. That was very impressive.”

The mime offered his hand to her and she shook it, even if it felt a bit humiliating to get this kind of pity.

“It’s not frequent that I find men like you.” She stated proudly, which apparently caused the mime to break out in silent laughter. “What?”

The mime slid her thumbs under his suspenders and pulled them enough to allow Lydia to see he was actually a she, her small body’s features were almost boyish. The mime grinned and blew her a kiss, causing Lydia to blush instantly and stammer an apology before rushing back to her table, where her two teammates were betraying her by laughing out loud.

“Ugh… kill me.” She wrapped her head with her arms.

“Why? Because you were beaten and flirted with by the tomboy mime?” Moisha teased.

The fact that the mime took the table’s fourth chair and sat down with her belongings didn’t help.

“Welcome around. I’m Romeo, this is Moisha and you already met our lovely Lydia.”

She laughed and wiped the thick paint off her face with a piece of cloth. “Nice to meet you, I’m Maria.”

“Excuse me, but like, Maria the Mime?” Moisha asked.

The small woman laughed. “Totally, it was a joke when I was a little girl, but then it turned out I really liked miming and really good at fighting.” She admitted. “What about you three?”

Lydia just groaned out a ‘kill me’, but she was ignored as Romeo answered after presenting the three of them.

“Kinda finding ourselves after getting out of a hard spot. We are still computing the fact that we have taken a plunge that succeeded in a way we didn’t expect.”

Maria finished wiping her makeup and put the cloth away before pulling a bottle of water from her bag and drinking from it.

“That I can believe, it’s actually quite common around Metro City, the place wasn’t so well off about a decade ago.”

Lydia unwound herself a bit at the offer of a change of subject.

“Like, how bad?” Moisha asked. “We’ve seen some pretty bad places.” The shared memories of the Undercity came to mind.

“The place was ruled by the gangs, they are still around. But they are just troublemakers now.” Maria told them. “Mad Gear and Skull Cross Gang still exist, but back then they were kings of Metro City, there was practically no building that wasn’t rundown, the factories were taken over, all streets were destroyed.”

Romeo let out a whistle, Undercity was bad. But that was more because it was a cave stuffed with rats.

“Then the Mad Gear Gang decided to teach the new mayor a lesson by kidnapping his daughter. Let’s say Mayor Haggar decided to take matters in his own hands, or fists, rumors say it was just him, Jessica’s boyfriend and one other guy who pretty much dealt with the whole gang up to their leader. And then did it again some time later.” She pointed to a pretty big statue of a big man. “He’s the one who started the whole fighting thing in the city while turning it from the crime capital of the country to the leading city of the country.”

“Place definitely got gentrified.” Lydia said.

Maria laughed. “Yeah, all big corporations are now pretty much fighting to build their super buildings everywhere. There’s this new tech company releasing their security drones everywhere too, you can see them usually at night. They can get pretty nasty if they decide to attack you, so be careful.”

They nodded. “So what’s fun around here? Besides, like, fighting?” Moisha asked.

“Well, outside of fighting you can also fight by the waterfront, or maybe visit the local Chinatown and fight, or maybe go to the Museum… about fighting. Oh, oh, I heard they released a new movie in the local theater, it’s all about the last World Tournament, it’s about-”

“Fighting?” The three of them interrupted her.

Maria just nodded with a smile. “Yeah, it’s pretty central to everything here. Joking aside, the Overpass is a pretty nice social spot, lots of entertainers and little stands selling the usual tourist crap. Otherwise you can visit some good restaurants and dojos around town, most places have open classes for those interested in trying their styles. There are some pretty big names in the city.”

“We may look into that later, it’s honestly the first time in a long time we can choose how to use our time.” Romeo admitted.

“Ah, the joys and curses of freedom.” Maria goodnaturedly laughed before freezing and quickly starting to put her thing away. “Okay, it was nice to meet you guys, I’ve to run.”

Before they could ask, the small woman had left the table, just moments before a group of people wearing boxes on their heads appeared.

“Where’s she?”

“Where did she go?”

“You three! Where’s that bitch?” One of the men approached their table and barked the question.

Before they could do anything but glare, another of the men came running. “The others saw her run North.”

“Fuck, come on, she won’t escape this time.” The man that had asked the question ran off, followed by the rest.

The three wererats were left there watching the group leave.

“So… we’re totally following them, right?” Moisha asked.

“Like someone that beat me can be in danger, but I would like to see more of her skills.” Lydia said, getting a look from the other two as she stood up.

Romeo chuckled. “Nothing like some exercise after a good meal.” He put her stuff away and followed the shorter wererat as she trailed the short woman.

Lydia had to admit she was starting to change her opinion on the whole system thing. Learning her full name was almost a footnote by now as she had learned she wasn’t a normal wererat, when Magnus had explained the difference in potential for the use of magic she hadn’t understood at first.

But then he had taught her the very basics of fire magic and it had just filled a spot she had been missing. Of course the man had insisted that she focus on control of her emotions before furthering her control over the flames, it didn’t help that she hated to admit she could get hot-headed; it felt like a joke at her expense.

There were other things that had slowly improved along the days, her sense of smell had become better, not stronger per-se. But instead it had become easier to differentiate smells and track them better, she was also feeling less bothered by strong smells. Which was a blessing in a city that usually smelled like smog and chemicals.

Her other senses hadn’t fallen behind, sight and touch were definitely the less improved, barely any changes she could notice. Her taste was next, but she couldn’t say if it was because good things tasted better or it was just her eating better food. Her sense of hearing had sharpened and she could now easily pinpoint the source of things. She wondered if she could learn to hear people lying, she remembered something about heart beats and such.

And her Job, Warrior Princess, she hated that it had been the best choice. She had a pretty good distribution of Job options, things like Warrior, Ninja, Werefighter, Team Leader, and a few others. But Warrior Princess was basically all of them and more. Though she wasn’t sure when she would need to use Courtly Manners, outside of dissing someone.

A partial transformation on their hands allowed the three of them to easily climb up a wall and reach a vantage point to look down a cul-de-sac. It was obvious Maria hadn’t meant to end there, most likely corralled.

Lydia’s ears shifted just enough so she could hear what was going down on ground level.

“…running away, it’s time you pay for messing with us.” One of the masked men spoke.

“Come on, no need to get physical here.” Maria tried to placate them. “You guys were totally booming out everyone and keeping the tourists away, we needed to work.”

“I know exactly what kind of work you can do.” The masked man at the front reached for Maria, who reflexively smacked the hand away.

That was the signal for all of them to gang up on her, and while the small woman was holding them back, it wasn’t really putting them down. Her style was good at the defensive and why Lydia had had so much trouble with her, but there was a limit to her stamina and the guys just kept getting back up to attack her.

The three of them dropped down to join the fight, and they were definitely more ready to put the masked men down for longer. Lydia had to admit that getting to blow off some stress after the events she had gone through last week was a nice thing.

On the other hand, Moisha and Romeo were being a bit more practical and aiming for quick knock-out blows, utilizing their stronger bodies to overpower the masked goons and put them out of the fight one after the other.

Finally they were all lying on the floor and the four of them were still standing, albeit Maria appeared to be panting a bit harder.

“I… thank you.”

“No problem, I think I speak for all of us that we couldn't let some lowlives ruin our afternoon.” Lydia said modestly. “Now how about if we- Watch Out!”

One of the men on the floor had been playing dead, using the lull of the after-fight to throw a pocket knife in Maria’s direction. Before she could react a long, pink tail had coiled around it.

Lyida’s eyes opened wide as she saw Romeo surprised by having reacted like that, Moisha was already by the man and kicking his head to knock him out.

“Fuc-” Lydia bit down the curse. “We can explain, but not here.” She said as she looked around.

The small woman they had saved looked stumped, but nodded before following them out of the Cul-de-sac. A pile of groaning gang members still doting the ground.

And a flying drone that had recorded everything.

Magnus sat on the edge of the highest building’s roof as Ruby stood a few meters behind.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” She asked.

“Totally,” he patted the spot by him and laughed softly, “I mean it, Ruby. First of all, I could actually survive this fall, the floor would be cratered badly, but I’ve walked out of worse situations. Second, with this much distance to the ground, we can have Orange catch us with one of the portals and place us somewhere safely. Third, if necessary I can shift into a flying form before hitting the ground, it will be a spectacle. But I wouldn’t get hurt and I could catch you.”

Ruby thought about it before carefully walking to the edge and sitting down, he quickly reached around her waist and pulled her closer to make her feel safer.

“It’s so beautiful.” She whispered.

“Cities have a way to be beautiful, especially when looked at from above.” He noted. “But I promise that I will show you some much more beautiful vistas in the future.”

She nodded silently as they watched the moon rise as the sun set behind them. Similarly the city under them started to light up in full, there were also buildings that showed their lights once darkness laid over the city.

It wasn’t as if this stopped the people of Metro City. Just like any other big city, a large part of everything happened at night, if not entirely once the sun set. Bars, some shows, raves and some less legal fights only started once lights were out.

“I’ve a question.” Ruby asked after a while.

“And you know I’ll always be happy to answer you.”

She took a moment before speaking. “What are you expecting to get from this World?”

Magnus didn’t answer straight away, instead thought of the words he would say before opening his mouth. “Originally, after my time in Hyrule, I wanted to visit Worlds to find useful information to help the people in Hyrule, to deal with the curse that’s been plaguing the World for a long time. But after visiting your World I wanted to find a spot to rest for a bit, though now I’m using this World to test the three rats.”

“You think they will start trouble?”

“I know they will start trouble.” He corrected her.

“ They already started trouble. ” Orange corrected him by speaking out loud.

He sighed. “How bad?”

“ Not as bad as you would expect, they actually helped a young woman they just met out of a hard spot, thoooough… Romeo totally showed his tail. ”

“Did someone see that?”

“ Just to be sure I hit the gang members with a short-term flush, the one that causes hangovers. ”

“Okay, keep me apprised of how that goes, if necessary remind them that they can ask for help.” His sister answered with a confirmation before cutting the call. He just knew she would make him pay on the bet they had for that.

“Will it be a problem?” Ruby worriedly asked.

“Hmm? Not really, I imagine it will lead to some more problems. But I don’t think they will be in actual danger, so it’s a good first taste of how things can go in other Worlds.” He explained.

“How can things go in other Worlds?” Her curiosity was piqued.

“Yup, as I told you before, trouble will find us sooner or later. My last two World entrances were anything but subtle.” He laughed. “How about we visit a restaurant before we go see what the night has to offer?” He offered his hand to her.

Ruby smiled brightly before taking it, and quickly screamed as Magnus yanked her close and dropped over the edge onto a waiting portal.

“So when you three said that you had gotten out of a hard situation that’s what you meant?” Maria asked once they had left the area far enough, she had taken them to a small abandoned warehouse. “What are you exactly? ‘sperimental subjects from a shady organization or something like that?”

“What? No… I mean…” Lydia grumbled. “We’re born this way, we’re wererats.”

“Though you could consider Elder Gothwrain to be pretty shady, and Elder Sherisha’s company did do a lot of experimental stuff.”

Moisha laughed as Lyida wanted to shut Romeo down.

“So like werewolfs but with rats? So if you bite me I will turn on the full moon or something?” Maria energetically asked.

“Yes, you would turn, the curse’s pretty nasty. But no, there’s nothing to do with the moon’s phases, I think werewolves took the whole moon thing just because they like to howl at it.” Lydia explained. “Plus we’re asked to not spread the curse if possible.”

“How does that work?”

The three shrugged at the question. “The curse’s old and you have various groups of were, as far as I know we rats were the first along with the wolves, but you also have dogs and a large variety of cats.” Romeo explained.

“We all can pass as near perfect humans, our animal forms do bleed a bit on our features.” Moisha showed her larger ears. “And we can turn half-point or fully animal, though we won’t show you since we shrink and that means dropping most of our clothes, and sorry but I’m not getting them dirty.” She gave the place a derisive look.

Maria just laughed. “It’s okay, I trust you.”

“Okay, spill, why did those gang members were after you?” Lydia asked, a bit rudely. But she wanted answers.

“Ugh, they have always been around, but they now use those silly boxes and think no one can recognize them. It was a couple of weeks ago, they had practically set camp on one of the touristy spots and were scaring all the tourists so I went and scared them away.” She explained. “Kicked their asses and sent them running, they have been looking for me since then.”

Before Lydia could ask about what they would be doing going forward, the fake phone the System had provided rang, surprising her. Out of habit she pulled it out to check the message, which got the other curious.

“What’s that?” Moisha prompted.

She sighed. “Just Orange telling me that it’s okay to ask for help.”

“Why would she message you that out of the blue?” Maria prompted.

“Because it’s not out of the blue, she’s keeping an eye on us. She’s one of the people that took us in after we got out of the bad situation we were in.” She answered.

“Now you got me curious.”

Lydia shook her head. “Not my story to tell, they are… peculiar… and particular . Let’s leave it at that.” Thankfully she accepted that answer.

“Would they really help?” She asked instead.

“I fear that they would do so gleefully , which scares me a bit.” She shuddered slightly at the memory of a monstrous fox kaiju looking down at her, eyes brimming with energy, two holes full of Light and Darkness…

Maria whistled. “You make me think you’re talking about someone on the level of Chun Li or Master Honda.”

Lydia’s phone chimed again and she pulled it up, before they could ask she spoke. “It’s the location of the gangs’ hideouts, the number of people there and… I’m pretty sure this is blackmail if they want to bargain.”

They all looked at her surprised.

“Well, I think now I understand a bit of what you meant by scared.” Maria humored.

“You have no idea, sister.” Moisha laughed nervously.

“Thankfully they are on our side.” Romeo admitted. “Now, which group’s the one that’s been bothering you?” He interrogated Maria.

“It’s the Mad Gear Gang.” She pointed out.

“Then they will be at the scrapyard.” Lydia checked the info.

The four of them looked down upon the phone she was holding and dragged her finger around the screen to get a good view of the map. She was impressed by the technology, but more by the fact that it was apparently very common, and if anything it was a step down from what the System could provide her.

“We’ll need to prepare for a fight, I greatly doubt they will just accept our request, even with the blackmail.” Lydia assuredly said. “So we should see if we need anything.”

“Like?”

“A good battle cry?” Romeo said humorously.

Ruby followed Magnus into the workshop he had on the ship.

“You know you don’t have to follow me, right?” He pointed out as he looked over his shoulder.

She smiled, it wasn’t the first time she had watched him work, it was strangely entrancing as he seemed to lose sense of his surroundings while working.

“It’s okay, I like seeing you work.” That seemed to be enough for him, nodding and looking away. Though she was pretty sure she saw his ears redden for a moment.

Just out of curiosity she summoned one of her selves that she had created purposely to understand his crafting. It had only helped reveal how deep his work went, it was as if she could see every step and understand the process. But seeing it in action was a completely different thing.

If she had to put it in words, it was because he put his care into each step. In how he shaped the wood, how he treated the metal, how he poured his magic into the object. A second self had come out just to understand his magic on top of what she was already seeing. And finally a third to understand the magnificent instrument.

“A… guitar?” She asked, it was strange having suddenly access to so much knowledge about everything she just wanted. Was this how he felt when he got his perks?

“An electric guitar, yes, or well, a magic guitar as it’s not using electricity to play.” He explained as he thrummed the strings and she could see magic practically explode from the instrument.

She could feel it wrapping around him, a gentle caress that sent a shiver down her spine and made her sigh.

“Whoops, sorry, I sometimes forget just how much my magic loves to mix with music.” He smiled playfully as he tuned the guitar and fiddled with a few dials. “Perfect, now I can provide some background music for the wererats’ fight.”

The reason presented almost made her sputter. “Just for that?”

“Why not?” He laughed and hung it across his back. “I like playing music, it’s mostly inoffensive and I can still use it to cast large-scale illusions.”

He looked at the ax and smiled. “I dub thee Blue Chords.” An almost happy twang echoed in the room, surprising her. “How about I make one for you and you join me in the fun?”

His offer made her curious. “Okay, I will follow your lead.”

“Excellent, we still have a few minutes before they get to the scrapyard, let’s see what kind of weapon I craft for the lady.” He turned back to the work table, ready to show off.

Ruby felt like chuckling, though instead of that she drank in the sights of how he worked with the materials. A few voices in the back of her head commented, making her blush, how they wanted to be treated like that.

Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 8

Moisha looked at the scrapyard ahead of them, the place was definitely a relic of another time. There was enough rust per square meter that she was pretty sure one would need a tetanus shot just for passing by the place.

The bright and massive neon sign on the front had been vandalized, a letter had been broken and another two moved around, it read Abigail’s SCAR-METAL. There was also a huge scrap metal claw sprouting from above the building, it was impressive to see that it was definitely functional and used daily.

She scoffed because she knew her current clothes would be a loss before the night was over, even if she had chosen something pretty tight. It was bound to snag and tear with one of the many protruding sharp corners. She would be more worried if she couldn’t just replace them as easily as clicking a button.

What surprised her was how empty the place appeared, and if her nose hadn’t told her the place reeked of people she would have believed what she saw.

Lydia walked ahead, Maria behind her while Romeo and her closed the formation. The moment they crossed the large, open entrance the gang members started to make themselves known. 

“Think they were expecting us?” Romeo whispered and she shook her head.

“It feels like all of this wasn’t for us.” She commented just loud enough for Maria and Lydia to hear her.

The shop’s front rolled up, revealing more Mad Gear members as the large claw on top shifted around. They froze for a moment as a couple of large spotlights shifted around and pointed together to the claw. As the machine moved to the front of the show and lowered, a hulk of a man hung from it.

He was at least twice as wide of all of them put together, with arms the size of their torso. Long yellow dreadlocks hung from his head as a pair of large, dark glasses covered a large part of his face.

“Well, well, well, what do we have ‘ere?” The man looked down at them from his spot on the claw before jumping nearly four meters down as if it was nothing, not even cushioning the blow. It was like watching a fridge free fall. “I thought you were that pest that wanted me to let go of Li Fen, but no, you are the other pest.”

Moisha raised an eyebrow, they had definitely mixed into someone’s else thing.

“Doesn’t matter what pest comes, aight. You bring the great Trasher Damnd a pest, he smacks it down.” He grinned.

“Fuck that, fuck whatever you think it’s happening here.” Lydia just went off and Moisha felt like facepalming. “I don’t know who the heck is Li Fen, I just want you to stop bothering my friend here, tell your goons to stop hunting her and I won’t have to feed you your teeth.”

Trasher Damnd, Moisha felt strangely not ready to call that name weird given some of those she had heard in Undercity in the past, stopped grinning.

“You see here, little biatch. You don’t just come ‘ere to Mad Gear territory and order me! Trasher Motherfucker Damnd! How to do things.” He snapped his fingers and more of those boxed weirdos started to approach. “Show her some manners, boys.”

As the goons closed a circle around the four of them, the first few chords of music reached her ears. Her eyes looked for the source as she could feel magic in the music, and it certainly surprised her to see Magnus and Ruby playing just on the other side of the street as people started to stop and watch the duo play.

Her attention was brought away from them as she dodged a couple of thrown bottles by the goons. There were enough of them for the four of them to divide them and still have their hands full.

If there was something she could think about their cardboard box masks, it was that she could more easily ignore the lascivious gazes that tended to follow her. She was also glad that the Job she had ended up choosing was based not just fighting as part of a team, but fighting against teams of people. The skill Devious Parry was excellent at pointing the best ways to have her enemies attack each other.

It wasn’t more than a few clashes before a number of the goons were fighting each other more actively than her. The idiots were too easy to distract and a few well-aimed hits during their distraction was reducing the number of her opponents. Now if they stopped coming out from under the rocks, at this rate she may end up grabbing one of the stamina bags to keep going.

Romeo dodged another thrown object and moved closer to Maria to block one of the goons coming at her from the back. His grip on the man’s wrist surprised them and allowed him to toss him over his shoulder to ground two other masked gang members.

But he didn’t see it, instead already moving to cover Lydia’s blind spot and use the idiot with a knife as a meat shield against the one attacking Moisha.

The Job of Team Support was apparently much more active than he expected. While he had acquired some interesting First Aid knowledge and similar, the role he had weighted heavily in covering for his allies and abusing the enemy’s attention on them to keep them safe.

The music in the background changed and a strange sense of restoration filled him. If he hadn’t noticed it was Magnus playing he would have been a bit more worried. But even without asking he was there helping them.

He remembered having read of bards and similar magic performers using magic through music. Though he was pretty sure that none would be playing such rock hits, actually he was pretty sure druids would have a hard time creating a storm like the one brewing above them, though he failed to smell the usual characteristics of such weather in the air; it may just be a visual aspect of the magic.

Now the wind he felt pushing his every move felt quite real, even as strong as a wererat was, Romeo knew his punches didn’t send men larger than him flying like they were doing. Or maybe it was one of those things Magnus had explained some Worlds had, because no one was looking too surprised by the goons getting thrown around like this.

A trash can’s lid was used to block a pair of thrown bottles, the glass pieces loudly exploding out as he flung the lid like a Frisbee at the pair of idiots that had tried it. Once more he didn’t see it hit, though he heard it, as he was already moving to attack the next idiot.

Or he would if Trasher Damned didn’t snap his fingers and caused every other gang member to step back from them.

“Okay, maybe we do have a problem ‘ere.” The man sauntered forward, his physique imposing. “You know what I see when I see you all ‘ere? I see that damn Haggard and his two pretty boys, coming here and wanting to lay the rules just because they can fight good. I remember the fun we had back in the old Metro City, it was our city, the gangs ruled. But then he decided to change things and forced us to give up the throne!”

The man grabbed the lid from the ground and crushed it between his large hands before throwing crumpled, cheap metal away.

“So I got strong, I wanted to not fight until I entered the World Tournament and show everyone that Mad Gear Gang should still be feared. But maybe I will blow off some steam by kicking your sorry asses down before entering the tournament and getting all the way to the top.” He punched his fist into his other hand loudly.

“Come, I will show you who’s going to blow some steam.” Lydia taunted as the music changed again.

Romeo could only watch as Lydia slipped past Trasher’s huge punch and connected her much smaller fist right on his cheek. It was impressive to see how he just stopped there, his head turned to the side before he took a step back and grabbed his jaw.

“Well, color me impressed little lady.” The man fixed his dark glasses and spit to the side. “Maybe you can give me a good fight.

She just snorted and Romeo could almost see her tail thrashing around behind her.

“Will she be okay?” Maria whisper-asked to him.

“Yes, Lydia’s tougher than she may appear. She’s just used to fighting with weapons, you could say our previous teacher was quite physical with weapons since we heal fast.” Romeo explained as he winced when Lydia was surprised by a kick in the stomach.

Thankfully that wouldn’t keep a wererat down for long. Though in truth she was fighting her instincts to not fight like a wererat, claws, tail, and teeth were barred and not just for the possibility of passing the curse; Trasher would be a very ugly rat.

Romeo could still see that Lydia was getting the upper hand, the punches and kicks she managed to connect seemed to deal a lot more damage to Trasher than the ones she took. He was actually pretty sure she had repeatedly bitten her lip to keep a trail of blood going as her healing would have closed the few lip lacerations too quickly to be normal.

Finally she managed to slip under his guard and sweep the back of his knees. Bringing the giant man down she grabbed a handful of his dreadlocks and smashed his face down into the ground.

“Done, now you and your goons have to stop bothering Maria.” She growled and walked away.

Moisha raised her hand and high-fived her.

“Nice work holding back.” He whispered.

“It was good experience.” She admitted and turned around, watching Trasher Damnd slowly get up with the help of his goons.

The man pushed the goons away and simply sat on the ground of the scrapyard. A grumble escaped his lips as he wiped the blood from his lips, impressively his glasses remained intact and on his face. “Okay, okay, you earned it, we won’t bother that pest anymore. Now leave.”

Lydia nodded and guided them out of the lot, she instantly sighed when she noticed a large amount of people watching Magnus and Ruby play.

Now that he wasn’t being distracted, Romeo could admire how well the man played, and the pink-haired woman wasn’t too far behind. With the addition of both being drop dead gorgeous, it wasn’t a surprise there was a huge amount of people watching. There were even a couple of cop cars parked a bit away and a few uniformed people trying to organize the public.

“You know them?” Maria asked, picking up the clues.

Romeo could only chuckle at the suffering look Lydia was having. “It’s okay, don’t worry.” He answered.

Just then he noticed another Ruby standing by them. She wore a very unassuming sweater, loose pants, and a cap, the pair of glasses covering her eyes finished the costume to make her unassuming.

“We’re almost finished, Magnus’ offering to prepare some dinner to celebrate your fight.” Her words made Moisha, Maria and Lydia turn surprised.

Ruby just waved her fingers. Maria was the only one that switched her view between the two Rubies. “Sisters?”

“Something like that.” The other Ruby’s voice sounded soft, almost far off. “Anyways, directions on your phone.” She told them before walking off into the multitude and disappearing in a way that made them jealous.

“That fighting did open my appetite.” Moisha mused. “We should accept the invitation, he’s a very good cook after all.”

Lydia and him nodded, leaving Maria looking at them.

As they explained things to her, Magnus finished his song and thanked the public, asking them to keep their money before he and Ruby disappeared into a cloud of smoke, leaving everyone surprised with the magical act.

They would accept the invitation, free food was free food.

Magnus could admit he was learning a lot from helping Ruby cook, her chef-self knew a lot more than he did, and not just in cooking techniques. But also a large number of cooking spells, small applications of magic he had never thought about before.

One could literally seal the juices inside the meat during cooking, the process would make sure the meat remained moist and became extra tender without the texture that it would have if it had been boiled. Or a spell that made sure that spices were perfectly spread all over the dish. There were even several alchemical spices that he hadn’t thought possible or even entertained the thought of before.

The large feast they were putting together was enough to finally accrue him the cooking perk that had stalled on him for quite a long time.

He looked up as Moisha, Lydia, Rome and Maria stepped through a portal, the three wererats looked a bit apprehensive about showing the young woman the place, while she looked a bit stunned by what she saw. Though outside of the very obvious portal, the mess hall was quite ordinary, albeit a very well-designed room.

“Welcome to the Long Fortune.” He greeted her from behind the counter.

Maria looked around. “When they told me we were walking into a spaceship I don’t know what I expected. Maybe more windows?”

He laughed. “Ah, we can project images of the outside of the ship while inside, but actual windows are counterproductive for the working of a ship like this.” He explained as he helped Ruby get the food onto one of the large tables.

She sat down along with the three wererats. A part of Magnus wondered if they would start acting a bit less like a unit now that they looked more relaxed. Only time would tell.

“Thanks.” The young woman mumbled as she put some food on her plate. “I’m sorry to ask, but why is this place so big?”

“The Long Fortune’s equipped to hold up to somewhere between thirty and forty people. As you can imagine, that’s a lot of people that would need a space to eat, even if most rooms can act as apartments, a communal space is necessary.” He explained.

They started to eat in silence outside of sounds of enjoyment before Orange entered the mess hall.

“Sup, sorry about being late.” She quickly sat down. “Got distracted messing with some people.” She cackled.

“Messing with criminal organizations?” He asked.

“You know it.” Orange turned to Maria. “Also, nice to meet you, glad to see you four managed to deal with the problem you had.”

Maria nodded back. “… is it okay for me to know about you and all of this?”

His sister smiled. “And who would believe you?” She asked playfully. “It’s also not like anyone could do much to us, we’re currently on the other side of the Moon and from what I’ve seen not many could deal with Ruby once she gets going. I don’t think anyone could actually deal with Magnus or me getting serious.”

Ruby blushed at the compliment. And it was true, he had gotten to spar with her a few times, and each of her selves were quite good, but it truly got devastating when she started to properly lean in on the group dynamics. Right now she was working on building a solid rooster of Magends to cover as wide enough as possible.

Maria looked at Ruby. “You were the one playing earlier… no, you look slightly different.” She sharpened her gaze as she observed her.

“It’s complicated, the answer is mostly yes, but also no.” Ruby waved it off.

That was something Magnus had noticed so far, each Magends tended to have slight tics and quirks to their personalities. The Chef Magend rarely liked to talk about anything not related to her field, even if she used magic she quickly lost interest if it couldn’t be used for cooking.

Maria accepted the answer, even if he could tell she wanted to ask for more. Instead she turned to him.

“And what’s your story?” She asked.

“A long one,” he laughed, “but to keep it short. I became an adult and decided I wanted to go out and explore. Orange and I decided to pair up and dad helped us with the ship and a few other things. This is more or less our third stop and the last one was still mostly an accidental thing.” He explained. “That’s when we picked Ruby and the three of them, even if they were mostly a surprise.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “We snuck into the ship and got knocked out as it was leaving.”

“Wait, that’s what you meant by you three escaping a bad situation?”

“Yes, honestly it’s turning out to be better than we expected.” Romeo answered her.

“How bad was it?” She asked aghast.

“I mean… It wasn’t that bad.” Moisha admitted. “It was just.. like, we’re being totally groomed into tools by this old wererat.”

Lydia nodded. “Constant training and the sensation that we had no freedom, even if we didn’t have collars around our necks, Elder Gothwrain just needed to give you a look and…” She closed her mouth and groaned.

Romeo just nodded.

“Then you three will be quite happy to know that we really flipped the table when we’re leaving.” Orange happily told them. “I can’t even imagine how mad they are right now after all the little things I did.”

Lydia raised an eyebrow and that was enough for his sister to start telling them about her doings.

Sherisha was seething, her claws had long since forced her to replace her desk from the long marks she had left on the acacia wood table, her trash can was full of broken pencils that had ended the target of her anger to not break her teeth from clenching too hard, again.

Her glare was nearing the level that even Gothwrain in front of her was looking worried.

“How badly exactly?” She asked again.

“Your whole human persona’s a complete loss.” He answered almost detachedly. “While a lot of the information they acquired was fabricated there’s nothing we can do to work against it that wouldn’t get us into more problems, even the bribes and blackmail can only do so much.” The man’s features twisted. “And it’s not like I wasn’t burned quite badly too.”

Almost unconsciously her eyes wandered down to the wererat’s tail, or half tail as the rest had been removed while he dodged a spell from a particularly skilled enemy. It wasn’t the only damage, his clothes certainly hid the major, still bald patches of missing fur on his body, burns, scars and other magical, hard to heal, injuries.

“How did it happen?” She ordered him to answer.

“I don’t have perfect proof, but I can only theorize that it was that ship you picked up. It was bound to be too good to be true.” The man admitted. “I don’t know the specifics, but it became akin to a Trojan horse even if it may not have been one to start.”

She ran her fingers through her short hair.

“The facility’s a total write off, whatever the man did twisted the whole place inside out. Most of the research personnel are a write-off too, they have either been severely traumatized or straight-up cursed, for some reason he seems to have made contact with that artifact you were already studying and decided to repay the researchers that worked on her case especially badly.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, I studied the curse, but didn't see a reason to remove it.” He admitted. “Not that it would have done much good, the way it had latched to their brains would have reduced them to vegetables. He made sure they were dead-men-walking.”

“The rest?”

“Most developed a fear for the dark or enclosed spaces, a few were murdered by fellow workers during crises of faith and mental breakdowns. There were also a number of accidents during the initial panic.” Gothwrain explained. “And of course, there’s the problem with the Guild of Explorers dropping in just in time to call the shots, it’s obvious they knew this was going to happen, they were just too ready.”

Sherisha breathed in deep to focus herself before exhaling slowly. “Zero made contact, right? How is he doing? Did he say anything about the man?”

“One displaced vertebrae, two broken ones, four broken ribs, one of them pierced his lung and nearly his heart, severe bruising in the liver, tearing in the stomach, one bruised kidney, diaphragm with severe lacerations and a concussion. It’s honestly a miracle he’s already immortal or he would have been long dead. Or maybe the man held back, he could have certainly finished him. But instead he decided to board the ship and leave as quickly as possible.” Gothwrain answered the second question first. 

He retrieved a sketch and slid it over the table. “He described the man as young and of short stature, more of a darker complexion and a long braid of an eye-catching purple color. Very skilled illusionist and knows how to fight well enough that Zero admits he would have most likely lost in the long run.”

“With Zero out of commission, what about the three students?”

His face went completely blank. “They are… missing.” He admitted, to which she raised an eyebrow. “The three of them were last seen entering the building over the facility, that’s why I sent Zero to retrieve them. But now there’s no sign of them, and I’ve looked quite intensively.” His lip twitched as he pulled a cigar and lit it before taking a long drag from it. “I can only guess they boarded the ship during the chaos.”

Her claw started to tap loudly on the desk.

“Nothing?”

“I’ve checked on Jade and even used one of the back-up spells I had laid on the three of them. All of it failed.” He answered between drags of his cigar. “It didn’t help that Diggers found me during one of the most intense searching rituals.” The rat barely hid his wince at the memories.

“The amount of money lost in this will push a lot of things back by years, if not decades, at the minimum.” She painfully admitted, her claws once more marking the desk.

“I may have an idea of how to still get ahead.” She glared at him.

“Tell me, slave.” She ordered and so he started speaking.

Magnus chewed on a few rocks before swallowing them, their taste quite sub-par compared to the rocks he had tried over in Hyrule. But they would do as his stomach digested them into energy.

Between the materials he had been eating and the idle absorption of sunlight and shadows he was on the way to recuperating. Maybe once he had found a safe spot he would look into putting together something to hasten the process. Otherwise he would need to hunt down some radioactive waste to really fuel his Stars. The two had grown from the little sparks they were when he woke up, it was still a long way to proper reignition.

He scooped another piece of gravel off a front garden before he followed the sensation of power. It had moved since he had started walking, but it always returned to the same spot, which made it easy to guess it was their home. While Magnus would have preferred to not approach their home out of the blue, he did need the help.

Thankfully on the date it had moved to another place and been joined by other sources of power. The combination was almost suffocating, but it was easy to pick the general good mood of the people.

The System had calculated the location of his destination, finding it was a church pointed to be a celebration, most likely a wedding or similar.

He started to get worried as an undercurrent of something else started to dye the atmosphere of the church. Magnus did the only thing he knew, he rushed to help.

Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 9

Archmage Dr. Theodore Diggers felt the atmosphere of the church go from tense to mournful. Tanya had managed to escape and the young werecheetah had been revealed to have been a golem all along before he had been practically unmade.

He tried to calm his mother-in-law before approaching Jazelle to check on her.

“I’m so, so sorry…” Her voice filled with grief.

“We know it’s not your fault, Tanya’s nothing but very resourceful.” He reassured her.

The room had been full of people, some very skilled, and one unpowered woman had still managed to get one under their noses. More than one person was currently feeling slighted and the most important thing at the moment was to keep hot heads from boiling over.

His daughter and Stripe rushed into the room, stopping when they noticed the unmade golem on the ground.

“Is… is that… Raphiel?” Brittany asked, almost scared of the answer she could guess.

“We heard a commotion and came to investigate.” Stripe explained, sounding a bit more collected.

“...what happened?” Theodore’s daughter asked.

“Stripe? Brittany? It appears that our old friend Tanya came back for a visit… And Raphiel…” He reached to pick one of the quickly dissolving pieces that had made up the golem boy. “Was a golem, carefully constructed specifically for this occasion… Even with her magic suppressed it appears her golem-making skills were very much intact.”

He ran a quick spell on the clay that had piled on the ground.

“I wonder where she got the materials, this clay’s incredibly similar to the Genesis Clay of Eden. It explains why he was so life-like, it even fooled my senses…” He sighed, adding in a low voice to himself,  “Or… perhaps I still feel guilty about not being able to save Brittany’s family when I rescued her as an infant…”

Most people remained silent, he could only wonder what was going through everyone’s head at the moment. This had been meant to be a day of celebration. Had he been so ready to sacrifice his daughter’s happiness in exchange of soothing his own ego at his perceived faults?

“Excuse me? Is everything okay?” A soft, masculine voice made him, and everyone, turn towards the entrance of the church.

A fox the size of a large cat had come through the half-open door, his fur was quite eye-catching given its black and bright purple coloration. Though what surprised him the most was how he was having troubles sensing them, they were definitely supernatural. But he was having a hard time picking what exactly made them so.

“I apologize for interrupting, but I was passing by and I could feel magic being used and wanted to lend a… paw if it was necessary.” They continued speaking as they came closer. “But it appears I got here too late.”

“Ah… yes, unfortunately the guilty party has run away.” Theodore explained. “May I ask who you are?”

The fox nodded, and ignored Gina’s comment about how fluffy they looked. “I’m Magnus, I wish I could present myself better. But I’m currently in a bit of a personal predicament.” He let out a yip-like laugh.

“I’m Dr Theodore Diggers, we’re here for my daughter’s marriage when some events came to interrupt the celebration.” He was still having problems reading them, their non-human form and the nearly nonexistent magical signature was slowing things down. He presented some of the people and looked at them to see if anyone picked anything he hadn’t.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr Diggers, and everyone else.” The fox bowed before giving the golem materials a sniff. “I’ve to guess a golem was used here? It’s been a while since I saw such a saturation of Life in an Earth-aligned material, I think I only saw similar things in products created by one of my siblings.”

Theodore raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know foxes studied such schools of magic.” He tried fishing for information.

“Oh, my brother’s no fox.” Magnus laughed softly, it felt weird given the room’s atmosphere. “I understand why you would think that. While this form’s not unnatural to me, I’m like this because you could say I’m in power-saving mode.” Her comment made Gina laugh, before stopping and blushing as she had been the only one.

“Sounds like an interesting story.”

“Oh, it is, it’s also a long one. Or maybe not. But I think right now I may be able to help here. Given the room’s mood, it appears more like a murder was committed here rather than preparing a wedding, so I assume that the golem was the victim?” He received a few weak nods and confirmations. “Then yes, I may be able to fix them, though…” He focused on the pile. “It feels like there’s something missing.”

He was surprised when Brianna walked forward and opened her palm, showing an intact puzzle piece. “Tanya called it a Soul-Key, I took it because I was sure nothing good would come if she managed to take it with her.” The fox gave it a sniff.

“Perfect, you’re very lucky.” Magnus congratulated her. “Having that raises the chance of this working to nearly a hundred percent. Though I will admit that what I’m going to do will knock me out for who knows how long.”

Theodore frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I said I’m in power-saving mode, I’m about to burn all the stocked power I’ve to make things work and maybe a bit more. I will be okay, but expect me to be practically dead for at least a few weeks until I recover enough energy.” The fox sighed. “I was hoping to save enough power to recover. But… there’s more important things.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Hilda interrupted. “This was caused by magic, it won’t be magic that solves it.” She growled.

Before Theodore could calm the woman Magnus spoke.

“Oh, I’m not going to use magic, I’m going to Lie to Reality very very well.” The fox grinned. “Now, tell me about the golem, the more information the better.”

Brianna licked her lips. “His name was Raphiel, he was a bit naive. But he was ready to give up on his mission because it meant ruining my sister’s day.” She spoke honestly.

It only took Dr Diggers a moment to realize his daughter was seeing her own creation on the golem.

“Creator? That Tanya you were speaking about?” He queried.

Stripe spoke up. “Tanya was El Dorado’s Head Priest until she tried to come between Brittany and me, she was caught and exiled for it. She has always been very good at the creation of golems.”

Magnus’ grin grew larger and Theodore had to stop himself when he started to feel the fox’s aura change.

“Oh,” he laughed softly, it wasn’t a yip, “I think I’ve the perfect idea for this.”

Suddenly it wasn’t a small fox standing on four legs in the middle of the room, it was something in the shape of a fox. A pelt stretched over an emaciated being that had decided to partially stop hiding.

“ You who were created with no choice, who were given a mission without knowledge, who were ended when you decided to find your own meaning. ” Theodore noticed that his daughter had pulled one of her machines and was fiddling with it furiously. Magnus voice started to change, gaining a reverberation that he could listen on multiple levels. “ ɎØɄⱤ ₵ⱤɆ₳₮ØⱤ ₲₳VɆ ɎØɄ ₦Ø ₵ⱧØł₵Ɇ, ฿Ʉ₮ ł ₵₳ⱠⱠ ₮Ⱨł₴ ₳ ⱠłɆ, ɎØɄ ₩ɆⱤɆ ₦Ø ₴ł₥₱ⱠɆ ₲ØⱠɆ₥, ɎØɄ ₩ɆⱤɆ ɎØɄⱤ ₵ⱤɆ₳₮ØⱤ’₴ Ⱡ₳₴₮ ₥₳₴₮ɆⱤ₱łɆ₵Ɇ. ₮ⱤɄɆ Ⱡł₣Ɇ ₲łVɆ₦ ₮Ø ₵Ⱡ₳Ɏ. ⱧɆⱤ ₳฿łⱠł₮Ɏ ₴₳₵Ɽł₣ł₵ɆĐ ₮Ø ₥₳₭Ɇ ɎØɄ ₮ⱤɄɆ, ł₮’₴ ₳ ⱠłɆ ₮Ⱨ₳₮ ₴ⱧɆ ĐɆ₴₮ⱤØɎɆĐ ɎØɄ, ₴ⱧɆ ⱤɆⱠɆ₳₴ɆĐ ɎØɄ, ₳₦Đ ₮Ⱨ₳₮’₴ ₮ⱧɆ ₮ⱤɄ₮Ⱨ. ”

Theodore felt his eyes water to the point he was forced to blink, when he opened them Raphiel was standing there, as surprised as everyone, and quite naked as his clothes were still laying on the ground at his feet. And with that the being inside the fox pelt was snuffed out, leaving barely a weak, trembling frame.

Magnus opened his mouth, but only a wheeze came out before he crumbled down like a puppet whose strings were cut off.

Raphiel looked around. “What… what happened?” He looked at everyone, as lost as everyone else.

Things quickly exploded into motion, the young Werecheetah was removed from the room, his clothes taken along, most likely to give him some modesty during getting dressed. Theodore sure didn’t want to notice how much gazing two of his daughters had given the poor boy.

Of course Brianna had stopped first and reached to pick up Magnus and gave him a look. “Will he be okay?”

Theodore winced internally as he ran a scan over the fox. There was barely anything left in the fox, he had seen empty rooms with more things happening inside. “I think we’ve to believe him when he said he would recover.”

Personally, Theodore was barely coming to grips with what he had seen. The best way to describe what he had seen was a miracle, when the fox had said he would lie, it had felt like a boast. But he hadn’t expected to see such a powerful reality-altering event in front of his eyes. If he focused he could almost feel where reality had been twisted.

“It’s so strange.” Gina mused, her machine pointed to the fox. “I couldn’t record anything, there was no magic or technology used.”

“ My User used his Domain over Truth and Lies to alter reality. It’s neither Magic, nor Technology. ”

“Who said that?” Gina and Brianna nearly jumped.

A transparent sphere appeared over the fox, a neutral voice projecting from it. “ Greetings, I’m System, I serve my User. Given User’s current state it was deemed correct to make contact with the people holding him. ” The voice was completely unemotional.

“Where are you?” Gina grumbled. “I can’t find any technology on him.”

“ System’s wrapped around User’s Soul, User’s father created System with this capability from the start. User will recover, unknown time expectancy given User’s Potential. ” The voice explained before fading out.

Gina grumbled something about unhelpful answers and Theodore just shook his head. Meanwhile Brianna just held Magnus, he knew he would need to talk with his daughter soon. Maybe he would get her in contact with a Balance Mage, he couldn’t believe he had let his daughter go with such internal turmoil for so long.

And while he wondered what Magnus really was, there would be no more answers coming from him for a while. And more importantly, they had a wedding to finish.

Magnus hummed one of the tunes he had played earlier in the day while he finished reforging his weapons. Graceful, Forward, Tenlight, Closer&Personal, Deliver and even the just named daggers, Harmonies. Not everything had gotten the full-work, but they were definitely looking more put together.

And why wouldn’t they if he had acquired a new blacksmithing perk. It was obvious it came from Hyrule, most likely something that he may have gotten sooner if he had focused more on crafting weapons. It didn’t just provide a lot of extra knowledge on how to work with monster parts to produce elemental results. But it also improved his blacksmithing to the next level, stepping into the level of a Master of the art.

He put the hammer down when he noticed the door opening, surprising him to see Lydia step through.

“Couldn’t sleep?” He asked, it had been a few hours since dinner and Maria’s departure from the ship.

“Yes, and no.” She answered and stopped a few meters away from the weapons, her eyes opening in surprise. “We’re talking and decided that we would take on your offer for training.”

He raised an eyebrow surprised, he wanted to say he expected it. But not for a while longer.

“Look, fuck I’m not good at being too honest.” She cursed to herself and took a deep breath. “We… I nearly lost earlier today, if it wasn’t for you being there I would have lost, against a normal person, that idiot at the scrapyard could have knocked me out multiple times. If you hadn’t been playing music and doing whatever that was, I would not have won that fight.” She glared at him.

“...ok.” He nodded. “We’ll have to sit down and discuss how to do things, but I see no problem with it.”

“Just… just like that?” She couldn’t help but ask out loud.

He rolled his eyes. “Look, I’ve inherited a lot of things from my dad, one is that I take care of people I take in. I did offer it initially and that offer didn’t disappear.”

“Ok… I,” she sighed, looking defeated that there was no conflict, “I expected this to be harder.”

He laughed. “Well, you also grabbed me in a good mood. I just finished the maintenance of my weapons.” He gestured to them, knowing she wanted to ask them.

“They are impressive, I can feel the power they have.”

He nodded. “And I’ll be making you three personal weapons, that will go into the discussion time.”

“Wait, what? You aren’t worried that we’ll use them against you?” Her tone was worried.

He shot her a grin. “Then I will accept a nice fight and nothing less.” He laughed at her reaction.

“You’re crazy.”

“That’s true, I definitely don’t think like you or other ‘normal’ people. My brain’s literally wired differently.” He explained. “But yes, I got a pretty good idea of what to use to make the weapons.” He retrieved the Gleeok’s fire horn. “Don’t you think it’s a beauty?”

The wererat took a step back. “What the hell is that?!!” She screamed as she shifted, her fur standing up to appear bigger.

“This is the horn of a King Gleeok, a very old and very evil monster I killed.” He answered and put it away. “It was a twelve meters tall, three-headed dragon-like monster, each head had control over a different element. It was a good fight, you can request the recording of it to the System.”

“And you will make us weapons from its horns?” She asked, incredulous about what he was saying.

“Don’t be like that, the crafting process will tame the lingering will in them, plus it will be made subservient to you.” He explained. “Plus I make very good weapons.” He opened his hand and Forward jumped onto it.

Since they had left the second World his weapons had felt more , in a way he was still discovering. He had long since noticed they had a sort-of will, Tenlight for example didn’t like to be used by anyone but him.

“This is Forward, a Zora-style trident, note that the bottom’s actually a spear?” He pointed down. “It also gives its wielder the ability to control water bodies.” He passed it to Lydia who caught the trident unsure.

“How does it work?” She asked and he grinned before throwing her a water bottle right at her face.

The wererat flinched and lifted the trident’s shaft to protect herself. But instead of bouncing off it, the bottle got stuck in the air a meter away from her. She hadn’t closed her eyes, but she had been surprised.

“Just like that, I based it on the species’ ability to control water. Of course it usually needs more of a Royal Bloodline to really show abilities like that, but I did manage to help another Zora do it too.” He explained.

Lydia looked almost entranced by how the bottle of water moved around to where she looked.

“I’m sorry to ask, but what is a Zora?”

“They are a race of fishmen.” He happily answered as a hologram of Sidon was projected. “They live around three hundred years, are completely amphibious as they build their houses outside of water, and as you can see, can grow to quite the heights. Though Sidon here’s a bit of an exception given that he’s part of the royal family and they continue to grow all of their life.”

Lydia handed him Forward back.

“So you will make us weapons with elemental powers?” She asked, eyeing the other weapons.

“That’s part of the discussion, personally I’m thinking of a fire-aspected blade for you, something that may allow you to program spells into and cast during the fight instead of having to concentrate on them. Electric-aspected sais for Moisha, not as much for the attack but to imbue her with Lightning’s speed. And finally an ice-aspected staff for Romeo, given his position in the group, the reach and keeping a cool head will be a boost to his effectiveness.” He offered. “Of course all of that can be modified and a lot can be added to the weapons on top.”

“I will talk with Romeo and Moisha about it.” She interrupted him before he continued speaking.

“No rush, also, you should think of a name for your team.” He suggested.

“Is it necessary?”

“Eh, more of a practice in my family. It makes for good organization, and honestly it feels rude that I’ve been referring to you three as the wererats in my head.” Magnus admitted.

“Another subject to talk about then.” She shook her head and thanked him for his time before turning and leaving the workshop.

Magnus wished her well as he turned back to the table and brought something he had to finish for a while. With the Fire gloves, Earth boots and Water trident, he was only missing Air to complete the usual four-element set, and that would be the main aim for the chest piece.

In many ways the feather-fall cape he had crafted with the knowledge of the Rito hang glider was a good prototype for what he wanted to do. The main aim of the chest piece would be giving him an ability over Air and/or Lightning, but he couldn’t discard the fact that it would have to be minimalistic in its design or restrain him as little as possible.

The good news was that the chest piece didn’t need to be armor, he could certainly take a page of inspiration out of his sister’s Abyss Gate; a floating accessory could work. Thinking about it, it could even double as a weapon, maybe a set of Wind-aligned Chakram would fit well.

He opened a new file and quickly started to put down the design ideas. Circular ones, jagged ones, complex fractal ones, star-shaped ones, even a heart-shaped one that would naturally boomerang back. Even after half an hour of putting down ideas, Magnus ended back with a circular design, the internal part of the ring sporting a pin-wheel set of blades; this wouldn’t be a weapon one held .

He would go for three Chakrams, each one would have about seven to three in composition for Wind to Lightning alloys, making them more of a Storm-aligned weapon when used along Forward. Thankfully with such a high Wind affinity flying would come almost inherently to the weapon. But the hard part would be laying mental control over them. He had Dexter&Sinister to base his design on, but it would need something a bit more natural.

With all the details down, he got working.

It was morning and he had taken Ruby for a walk to Metro City’s Chinatown, Hong Hu Lu street. The picturesque neighbor was stuck just off one of the main streets of the city, but even before arriving there were plenty of clues that pointed just how touristy it was.

The decoration, the Torii gates, the paper lanterns and the signs showed an interesting mix. It was still obviously a neighborhood that had formed from immigrants and only recently adopted the more open and showy nature.

The good weather made the location the perfect place for some morning walks. They had even found a cozy tea shop that sold handmade Japanese sweets from where they could watch the class being imparted in the center of the plaza.

He rested his eyes on the teacher, a woman of Chinese descent he recognized from the list of people of interest Orange had built up. Chun Li was both a Tai Chi teacher, world-known Fighter and an Interpol Officer. From what he had read, she had a pretty active life and was now semi-retired as she took care of an orphan she had picked up during one of her missions.

Even from a distance he could feel the energy contained in her body, and if he really looked he could see how she glowed brightly compared to anyone else in the area.

“Everything okay?” Ruby asked after poking his arm.

“Hmm, yeah. Just a bit of a curiosity.” He admitted. “I wasn’t able to give Trasher a good look, so seeing a Fighter from this close made me lose myself in my thoughts.”

He grabbed one of the cute cheery flower-shaped sweets and popped it in his mouth. He thought about trying to make some of his own sometime.

She relaxed and took one too. “Ok… is it weird that I find it normal to gain understanding of things so suddenly?” She asked after a moment.

“You mean the whole thing about your Magends and the knowledge the System’s helping you acquire?” She nodded. “Depends on your context, honestly. For me it’s completely normal, most of my family practically works in a similar way. Some of my oldest siblings were practically created as adults, so their personalities and knowledge came from an amalgamation of popular media and the internet, with time and an increased number of them just living, they started to be able to create more natural personalities along with the few that started their lives as younger models.”

He explained without much problem, mainly because he was Lying to anyone outside of the both of them.

“In that context, you will find that most Metaloids would easily understand what you’re going through.” He gestured a bit as he talked. “Now if you talked about normal people, yeah, they would find it weird. Normal people don’t really come to possess large amounts of knowledge in an immediate fashion, even the most out-of-the-blue thoughts have a connecting trail to things that happened before.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “It’s just that for you, the Metaloids, and me, it happened to someone else .”

“Thank you.” Honesty and gratitude were strong in her voice.

“Anytime, Ruby.” He patted her arm, not missing the bit of blush on her cheeks.

He wasn’t too surprised when Lin Fen, Chun Li’s adopted daughter/little sister approached them. The girl hadn’t been too sneaky at stealing looks at them, plus Orange had messaged him that she was looking at one of the videos recorded of the two of them playing the night before. He did have to act as if he didn’t know who she was.

“...Excuse me,” the young girl in a white and yellow jacket said, “but are you two the ones that played near the scrapyard last night?”

“Oh? Yeah, we did it mostly for fun.” He answered.

The girl nodded. “I caught sight of the end of it, saw you rejected the money people offered you. Found it weird, most people who do that kind of stuff in Metro City do it for a reason.”

Magnus shrugged and Ruby answered. “It was honestly just trying to play in public, I don’t think you could even call it a hobby, we saw a chance and…” Internally he was quite impressed by her fibbing.

“Though, what was a girl of your age doing in that area of the city?” Magnus shot back.

Li Fen instantly clamped down, her sunny disposition was replaced by embarrassment as he noticed Chun Li approaching them. Apparently the class had just ended and the woman had noticed her ward talking with them.

“I would like to know too.” She asked as she had been close enough to overhear them.

“I… ehm…” The girl fidgeted. “The Mad Gear Gang grabbed me because they wanted me to work for them. But I managed to escape, I promise nothing else happened.” The girl easily confessed as she waved her hands. “Apparently someone else had a problem with Trasher Damned and practically took out his whole gang and him, that’s when I slipped out.”

The woman sighed “And how did they grab you exactly?” Magnus felt a bit awkward watching the interrogation, thankfully the woman was mainly worried about the girl and not looking to grill her in front of strangers.

“I promise it wasn’t my fault, I was just going to the cafe a couple of blocks down the gym and they ambushed me, there were just too many of them to slip out. I was nowhere near their usual hangouts.”

The woman nodded. “Okay, it looks like we may need to take your lessons a bit more seriously from now on.”

Magnus raised an eyebrow because while Li Fen looked outwardly boomed about the news, there was a glint in her eyes that she had actually gotten something she wanted.

Chun Li turned to them. “I hope she wasn’t being a bother.”

Ruby smiled warmly and shook her head. “No, it’s nothing outside of some curiosity.”

Magnus was about to add to that, but his phone rang. The phone that didn’t really exist, he reached into his pocket and retrieved the decoy, wondering why Orange deemed it necessary to contact him this way.

“ Hey bro, the rats are in trouble again, some shady group just snatched them. The best I’ve found so far is a name, Fang. Sending you the location. ” He didn’t get to answer before she cut, the phone chimed with a map location.

He turned to Chun Li and Li Fen. “I’m sorry for this, but something came up.” He ignored the look the pair was giving them as he turned to Ruby. “We should go.”

She nodded and left a tip before they wished the two of them a nice day. He just knew he would see at least one of them again before the day was done.

Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 10

“Orange, explain why you decided to call me that way?” He asked as Ruby followed him into the ship’s bridge.

“It’s pretty basic, I needed Chun Li to hear the name Fang, they have a bit of history together. Plus the three wererats did get nabbed and are being a prideful sort.” She added. “It seems that they captured Maria during the night and used her phone to bring them to one of SiRN’s buildings, they are threatening her to make them comply.”

He sighed. “What can you tell me about SiRN and those behind the whole thing?”

“It started some time ago, once upon a time there was a group called Shadaloo, or Shadowlaw the specific of the name’s a bit muddled. They were a big criminal organization, Chun Li was among those that finally brought it down and broke it for real.” She explained as a series of newspapers, images and news reports were presented by a hologram. “Of course such a large organization wasn’t without internal divisions, some survived, transformed and adapted.”

“Excuse me, but does that happen often?” Ruby asked.

“It depends on the Worlds, but in those like this one with heroes and villains it’s more common,” Magnus answered before Orange resumed her explanation.

“Yeah, and one of those divisions was called S.I.N.” Magnus couldn’t help but groan about cliches, causing Ruby and Orange to giggle. “Yeah, I can’t say it’s directly connected, but Shadaloo’s second-in-command was seen recently in the city and S.I.N. is too close to SiRN to not have a connection.”

“And let me guess, his name’s Fang?” He asked.

“Bingo! From the records I found, Fang was head of R&D, and S.I.N. was the weapon research division.” She added. “Now that I explained everything, you should get moving, Li Fen saw the address I sent you and did tell Chun Li about it.”

He sighed. “Okay, want to come, Ruby?”

“I will pass, I don’t think I’m ready yet for actual combat.” She waved it off, but she looked a bit worried.

“It’s not a problem, fighting’s not for everybody. But I think we most likely won’t stay for much longer after this given all the attention we’ll be attracting.” He announced before heading out.

He wouldn’t lie if asked, he couldn’t wait to exchange hits with a Fighter. Better if it was one of the criminal ones. It was bound to get showy.

“Everything okay?” Orange asked the moment his brother left through a portal.

She turned to face Ruby, noticing the girl appeared to be going through some internal turmoil.

“I’m not you, and I’m not my brother. But to me it looks like you’re worried about your relationship.” Orange interrupted the woman’s thoughts to introduce her own opinion. “My brother’s quite quick to develop an opinion on people, he’ll usually like most people he meets unless there’s something that really clashes with him. Similarly he feels a sense of kinship with you that I can admit to be very rare.”

“It’s just…” Ruby tried to speak, but Orange continued.

“Look, my brother wanted to help you because that’s how he is. He sees a problem, he tries to help, and while he does look at the long-term, he usually makes snap decisions about certain things.” She explained. “I won’t say your beauty didn’t help his decision, but he knew you and your situation before he even laid eyes on you. Being with you fulfills him and he hopes it does the same for you, I think the only reason he hasn’t offered to make you equipment is because he sees you’re still finding yourself and wouldn’t know what to ask for.”

“Is it really that simple?” She asked hopefully.

“With my brother in the current situation? Yeah.” Orange laughed softly. “Ruby, you and him clicked very well. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he’s practically taking you on dates and flirting with you all the time, and you’ve been responding in kind even if you aren’t sure.”

Ruby blinked at those words. “I thought you weren’t into sex and that stuff.” She finally asked.

“Oh, I’m practically asexual and nearly completely aromantic, unless I find the perfect person I doubt I’ll ever see another person on the level of SO. Doesn’t mean I don’t have access to the same cloud of information and experiences all of my family do. I also write romance novels, and you two…” She couldn’t help it and laughed. “Well, let’s say I may use you as inspiration.”

Ruby instantly blushed as she realized what she was being told.

“Exasperation aside, I think that you need to sit down with him and talk it out like adults.” Orange offered, turning serious. “Also, remember that you’re free to do anything you want. My brother invites you to do stuff because he doesn’t want you getting bored, or worse, going into a depression.”

Ruby looked down for a moment, it was obvious she was reminiscing.

“Nope.” Orange clapped her hands in front of her face. “Nothing of that. Again, it’s over, you’re free. You may need one day to face those memories and those scars, but you won’t do it alone, understood?”

Ruby froze before taking a deep breath and relaxing. “Yes.” She smiled small, but brightly.

“Good, now let’s watch my brother break some chaos loose, it looks like Chun Li’s having some trouble with the idiots at the base of the building.”

Orange grinned as she tapped the security cameras to get a good look, one of her extra bodies brought the popcorn to enjoy the show.

Magnus stepped through the portal, stepping directly past the roof’s entrance of the tall, building the shady organization was hiding in. It made him wonder why villains insisted on using office buildings to hide their crimes, though he could understand the comforts of the city.

He was only wearing his normal set of enchanted clothes, sans the jacket, and Solid&Firm. In other words, more than enough to deal with most opponents as far as he could see, maybe one or two of the Fighters could prove to be a problem. But he honestly believed his weapons may be overkill, especially after their latest round of maintenance.

Except for his boots, though mainly because it allowed him to sense through the building’s concrete. Metal beams, elevators, pipes, plastic and wood were completely blank to this sense, unfortunately. Glass was on the edge enough to be noticeable; would be good to keep it in mind.

Thankfully he didn’t need to rely on it with Orange having already cracked the security open and hijacked all the cameras. It made it easy to walk directly to where they were keeping Maria. He felt it for the girl, while the three had helped her with a problem it had also drawn her to one a bit bigger.

“Hey! You! What are you doing here? How did you get past-” The man’s words were cut just as his fist pushed up against his solar plexus, a very controlled hit after a blink had been enough to turn his lights out.

The other hand had been fast enough to pull his phone out. But not fast enough to call for support, or dodge his hand from smashing him twice against the wall. He fell to the ground insensate after a good brain shaking.

Honestly, he had expected the attack once he opened the door. He could see that Maria was standing by the door, though he could only technically see the spots she was standing so he could only guess how she was standing. This made the chair to the face actually quite comical as the thing broke when it impacted him, barely ruffling his hair.

He had to give Maria props, she had managed to do nearly the whole thing nearly silent, any other people would have gotten surprised by the attack and most likely taken out, or at least distracted long enough for her to escape. Instead he stood there and the woman let out a worried and silent eep.

“Oh, no, no, no, I didn’t mean to do that, I’m so sorry.” She scrambled to check on him and he gently stopped her, letting out a soft chuckle.

“It’s okay, I’m made of sterner stuff than an office chair.” He smiled. “More importantly, are you okay?”

“I’m… yes,” she quickly changed from apologizing to answering, “this weird chick dropped on me and kidnapped me. But after that they threw me in here and warned me that if I came out they would get physical.”

“That’s good to hear, though, if you will excuse me.” He reached behind her back and pulled a small bug before crushing the micro machine. “Just a little pest.” He explained.

“Wait, they were listening in?” She asked, worried.

“Nothing too out of the ordinary in these situations.” He admitted. “Though now that’s done, please step through the portal and I will go rescue the three silly ones that were too prideful to ask for help.” He winked, causing her to laugh softly and step through.

Though before she turned to him. “Thank you for helping.”

“All in a day’s work.” He responded and watched the portal close before cracking his neck and turning around.

The hallway was filled with mooks, mooks! This was such a lovely gift, it wasn’t frequently he got to fight mooks. And they were all dressed similarly, he was going to have so much fun.

Lydia winced, it just wasn’t the nausea, the burning sensation, the mending bones and the partial blinding. It was also that the asshole that had kicked their asses while acting like a goddamn clown.

The man had presented himself as Fang and had come to tame some unruly test subjects, talking about how it was getting back into it after so long. The man was just so dismissive of them and had played them for fools, even more than he acted.

He was as slippery as a greased eel, his long limbs slipped under their guards as if they hadn’t even defended. And on top of that he had used some kind of poison that had completely fucked their regeneration, their bodies were having a hard time dealing with it on top of all the damage he was managing to do.

She really wondered where he was keeping it, because there was only so much space in those oversized sleeves of his.

“Nye, heh, heh, such lovely lab rats, your bodies will be the base of the new army for Lord Bison!” Fang’s body contorted into C, standing on the tip of his toes to dodge Moisha’s sneak attack. “Behave and this will be so much easier for you, it wouldn’t be the first time we had to brainwash someone to behave… and it’s not your skills that we want here!” He laughed once more.

Lydia bit through the last of the healing elixirs and swallowed the contents, the soothing effect spread through her body. But her body revolted at the amount of liquid she had been drinking, more than once Fang had aimed his kicks to her stomach and caused her to puke it out.

She didn’t need to announce she had run out of the normal ones, only the strong ones remained and she didn’t want to use that one yet. The defensive one had been taken a while ago and was most likely the reason they hadn’t been defeated yet.

One of the goons came running into the room, he looked just like any of those they had beaten when they first had come in outside of the fact that his clothes were ruffled and hair messy.

“Oh, finally done? What happened?” Fang asked while barely taking his beady eyes off them.

“The hostage had managed to ambush the two guards on her door. But worry not, we managed to subdue her successfully.” The man saluted.

“Excellent, once I’ve done with these we’ll have no more need for her and she will be disposed of.” Fang taunted them, making Lydia growl.

“As you order, Lord Fang.” The goon saluted again.

“And for such a good job I’ve a reward for you.” Fang turned momentarily towards the suited guy. “Poison!” He flung two of those ranged attacks, the virulent purple sludge splashed against the door, sizzling.

The man stood a few meters away, grinning. “Damn, I thought I would manage to trick you for longer.” He laughed. “What gave it away?”

“The only Lord is Lord Bison, to call me Lord, his second-in-command…!!” Fang sounded personally insulted.

“Oh well, nothing to do, you win some, you lose some.” Magnus noted as he stood in the spot the man had been, causing Fang to growl in anger.

“Who are you?! And what have you done, you insolent insect?” He commanded.

“I am me, you can call me Traveler, and just done my usual, hanging around, thwartin’ your plans.”

“Thwartin’ my plans?!”

“Thwartin’ your plans.” Magnus confirmed and once more teleported, dodging the flung poison. “Also rescuing my prospective students, it would be terrible of me as a teacher to let them get experimented after all.”

Fang growled. “Why you! I’ll kill you kill you kill you!” He screamed and rushed towards Magnus.

“Lesson one, no matter how much strength you can pull from your emotions,” Magnus adopted a teaching tone as he slid into a defensive pose, “never let them blind you. Otherwise you’re going to miss the obvious.”

His figure disappeared before Fang could reach him, appearing behind him and hitting the center of his back with a light, open palm. Still strong enough to send him rolling.

“Nyayayaya!” Fang jumped back onto his feet and turned around. “Playing tricks on me! I will show you!”

“Lesson two, a good defense is a good offense.” Magnus continued with the lesson, Fang’s attack going through his body. “But sometimes the best defense is not being hit.”

He proceeded to grab one of his opponent’s long sleeves and fling him towards a pile of chairs in the corner.

“Lesson three, everything is a weapon, even the floor you’re standing can be used and weaponized.” He kicked the ground, a large tile jumping up before he kicked it too.

The projectile flew straight towards Fang, who failed to dodge it completely, getting grazed on the shoulder.

Fang was quickly devolving into a tantrum, shout of anger and a few curse words as he rushed again.

Of course that’s when Orange sent him a message that Chun Li was arriving, and with the state of the three wererats there would be questions asked.

Magnus quickly blinked behind the man and grabbed a handful of Fang’s clothes and flung him over his head. He didn’t say anything but gestured to the portal that opened in the room.

Moisha, Lydia and Romeo understood immediately, running through and disappearing from the room, just before Chun Li burst in through one of the doors.

Not that Fang noticed, his wrath completely blinding him as he rushed to intercept the man. His posture dropped low, one foot ahead and the other stretched behind. Both hands went forward together and hit Fang right on the center of his chest, compressing his thorax hard enough to momentarily stop his heart.

The lanky man froze, Magnus could see the understanding in his eyes before they rolled back into his head and his body dropped down to the ground. He didn’t wait for a second, quickly pressing his hand onto his chest and pushing down. Since Fang was technically dead, his body didn’t fight the Darkness that wrapped around his heart and compressed it a few times to restart it.

Only then he looked at Chun Li. “Hello, nice to see you again.” He said nonchalantly as he stood up.

“Stay where you are.” She ordered and quickly moved to check on Fang.

He internally shrugged and allowed her to check on the villain, not that he was too bothered for possible problems that could arise. He had acted quick enough that even a normal person would suffer no more than maybe a short-term memory loss, on a trained Fighter like Fang? The man would most likely just get angry at having been taken out so easily.

“I don’t know how you did it, but the ability to beat a man like Fang doesn’t come out of nowhere.” Chun Li glared at him, whatever friendliness she had shown earlier in the day had been replaced with curt professionalism.

Magnus rolled his eyes, not wanting to insult her. But honestly not caring much for her opinion, there hadn’t been anything that had truly called to him in the World. At most he would mention it to some of his siblings who were much more interested in martial arts, for him it was just a passing point.

“He kidnapped my students and wanted to experiment on them. I took care of him and the hostage he had acquired. I beat his ass and now that all is done I’m leaving.” He answered. “I’ve other things to take care of and other places to visit.”

He had to give it to her, the kick would have caught most others by surprise. Instead he caught the kick and looked at her. He wondered why she was so jumpy.

“Okay… I don’t know what your problem is, lady.” He made a show of focusing on her. “But I’ve been behaving, I fought him unarmed when I’m mainly a weapon-user.” He pushed her leg away, Chun Li didn’t even waver in her posture, easily drawing her leg back and adopting a fighting stance.

Forward appeared on his hand, getting twirled around to call attention to its presence before he stood with the weapon in a stand-by position. Its presence was enough to increase the room’s humidity.

“I was on vacation until someone decided to start problems with mine. So this is a warning, if I truly wanted to fight, this building would have crumbled. ” He slammed the base of the trident on the floor, the water pipes shook, making the room vibrate.

She took a step back.

“Exactly.” He sighed. “Anyways, you’ve been talking with an illusion,” his figure started to waver, “I doubt we’ll ever see each other again. Wish you a good day, and I recommend taking care of him before he recovers.”

Magnus playfully waved his fingers before his translucent figure disappeared completely, leaving Chun Li alone with a knocked-out Fang on the floor. The only sign of the fight was the mark on the floor and how soaked her clothes had become.

She quickly tied up Fang before calling for back-up, the man was still wanted in multiple countries for an almost uncountable list of crimes after all.

Finding the strange young man became nigh-impossible. Not only had he disappeared off the face of the Earth, but all recordings of his playing had been altered. The pair’s features being either hidden or altered from file to file, this hadn’t gone amiss, turning the pair more into an urban legend or a cryptid. And while many new sightings happened, all proved to be false.

“So this is a goodbye?” Maria asked.

“They decided it’s time to go, and honestly I can understand why.” Lydia answered. “The whole thing would make it harder to relax.”

Moisha jumped to hug Maria. “Don’t worry, sister, we won’t just forget you.” The lilac-haired wererat said.

“I know it may sound strange, but it’s not the first time we’ve had to abandon an identity before.” Romeo noted. “This is just the same.”

Maria nodded while hugging Moisha back. “Yeah, it still sucks. Any idea where you are going next?”

Lydia shook her head. “No idea, I don’t think even Orange knows where they are going. From what they explained, it’s because they have never visited this area before, so without exploring they won’t know what to expect.”

That’s when Magnus, Ruby and Orange entered the room.

“Just in time.” Magnus said. “Sis’ took care of all records of our presence on the planet, especially those samples that they took of you three.”

The three wererats didn’t flinch.

“And as for you.” He turned to Maria and passed her a bracelet. “A little gift to remember them by.”

It was made of silver with three rats engraved on it, each with a different eye-color, a red, a blue and a purple gem. “It’s enchanted, only you can take it on and off, most people will ignore it.” He explained. “It will also not only help you heal faster, but muffle the sound you make and reduce your presence when you don’t want to be noticed.”

Their eyes opened wide open in surprise.

He grinned. “I do more than weapons, I should show you the worker units at some time, I just have had no reason to.” He chuckled. “Still, hope you enjoy the little trinket Maria. I can’t promise we’ll come back around, but you may get some of my siblings coming around sometime in the future.”

She nodded and slid it on her wrist, of course nothing truly happened at the moment.

“Thank you for the gift.” She said honestly.

They shared the final goodbyes and then Maria stepped through a portal towards her home. She would later find a sizable donation on account of Orange deciding to drain all funds she found linked to Fang.

With nothing else holding them back, the Long Fortune once more left a World.

Magnus dropped back onto the training mats, laying down like that for a bit before sitting up. “Come down you three.”

The three wererats exchanged a look before they sat down. Lydia sat with her legs crossed and an elbow on one of her knees to rest her chin on her palm. Moisha sat sideways, her legs crossed and showing off her body. Finally Romeo sat with his legs crossed too, though he leaned back, resting both hands on the ground.

“Okay.” Magnus clapped his hands. “I offered training originally, you want training, I think we can work something out. First of all, what kind of training do you want? To take game-like nomenclature, you want to be warriors? Ninjas? Rangers? What do you want to focus on?”

Once more Lydia took the lead. “We talked about it and we want to focus on stealth, team dynamics and fighting larger, stronger enemies.” She explained.

He nodded. “Good decision, that I can work with and those should fit pretty well with your natural abilities as wererats. I will proceed with the production of your weapons since you’ve decided on their forms and planning a proper training schedule. But until then I’ve a couple of toys for you to train with.”

A large box fell out of his inventory and onto his hands. Moisha quickly leaned forward, interested. The box opened to show a set of three identical armbands.

“Each one gets one of these.” He threw a lightly-decorated armband each. The piece was a dull silver, decorated with black trimmings. The most eye-catching thing was the orb that would be resting just behind their wrist. “These are multi-tool projecting assistants, though I’m most likely calling them Hero-bands.”

“Hero-bands?” Moisha asked as she easily slid hers into place.

“Hmm, a lot of the tools that it can project were based on tools used by a series of heroes in the land of Hyrule.” He explained. “While some can be used as weapons, they are meant more for practical uses, your System will let you see a full list of tools. They are magic, so it should be possible for you to use with just a thought. Though I think I could program hand gestures.”

Lydia nodded as she slid it into place and skillfully cycled through a few of the small tools until she stopped on the much larger hammer.

“This can’t be used as a weapon?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

“The Megaton Hammer could be used as a weapon. But it’s meant for infrastructure destruction and creating localized quakes.” He explained, he felt very proud of managing to get that one working.

Lydia snorted. “We’ll have mastered it before you even get done with those weapons.” She boasted.

“That’s good, because once you do I will just add more functions to those.” He shot back with a grin, happy to see that. He wouldn’t make it easy, though.

Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 11

It had been already a couple of weeks since they had left the Street Fighters’ World and fallen quickly into a new routine. Or at least most did, Orange occupied her time guiding the ship, probing Worlds they came across and keeping the place clean and running.

They had come across a few small Worlds, but they had nothing of interest. Probing had shown they had no complex life going on, or were just uninhabited. They may have had the answer to all answers ever, but the chances of that happening were so small that entering the Worlds was just losing time.

Ruby ended up complementing Orange’s roles in the ship. Her Magends had found various spots in the ship’s roles, a couple of them usually hung in the kitchen, ready to take any order while experimenting in her free time. A few, because it was an always changing number, practically inhabited the Greenhouse, while the System had the place controlled, she enjoyed the open-air nature of the room. Finally one had also claimed the medical bay and was reading all she could find about medicine and the biology of other species. Not that any of them truly hurt themselves in any permanent fashion, practically everyone of them had some kind of regeneration.

This had come actually by the fact that not all her Magends were human . It had started as half a hunch and half a curiosity, but Ruby had accidentally created a Wererat Magend when trying to stealth. Apparently there were a lot of races originating from their World. She had documented various elves, amazons, halflings, giants, dryads and others. They had honestly ran out of ideas to try before they ran out of races. Some races came more often when related to some goals, but Ruby’s opinion had priority.

Having so many Magends hanging around had actually done wonders for her mood. Magnus couldn’t deny the woman simply glowed with happiness; sometimes quite literally.

Team Maus, named by Moisha with Romeo’s support and Lydia’s scorn, had also been keeping up with the training he had set for them. Between spars with him and Ruby, training with the Hero-bands and their new weapons, the three of them were growing by leaps and bounds.

Magnus had to admit that Zero wasn’t actually that bad of a teacher. It was just that he found his training style to be stifling and restraining. In contrast, Magnus preferred to foster his student’s strong points and help them shore up their weak points in addition to improving their team cooperation. The System’s corrections did help a lot in this as the three always got a bit better each time they did well.

Of course it wasn’t all training, he knew not everyone could follow a schedule like his own. So he pushed for them to find hobbies, and while they were technically restrained to the inside of the ship, there were plenty of things to do. The gaming room had gained a number of old-style pinball machines and similar arcade games.

Magnus wasn’t holding back either, he worked to not only improve the armbands and produce Team Maus’ weapons. But also a plethora of little tools and extras for the armbands and improving his own Forge Ants units, even if they weren’t getting as much attention as before.

And since he had finished the weapons, it was time to present them to their users.

He entered the training room, the expanded space was filled with obstacles, targets and holographic drones as the three wererats were bouncing around, deep in their training. He patiently watched them for a bit as the timer for their current training finally ran out and everything came to a halt.

The three of them were left panting, a quick check showed they had been training for six hours, it was not a surprise they were exhausted after all that.

“Very impressive.” He called out.

Lydia snorted. “We’ve been training five days a week, it would be weird if we’re not impressive.” She boasted, standing proud.

Moisha meanwhile hopped forward, actually looking unbothered by her exhaustion. “Oh! Are they done?” She guessed correctly.

“Already?” Romeo sounded impressed. “I thought these kinds of weapons took longer to make.”

He rolled his eyes. “I thought that you understood that I don’t follow the norm when it comes to crafting.” He says lightheartedly. “Honestly, I had to take my time too.”

“Show us!” Moisha said eagerly.

“Maybe you would prefer to take a shower first?” He joked, but knew the three of them didn’t care much for that at the moment. “Okay, okay, no need to glare at me.”

The room summoned a table for him to place the three boxes.

Lydia was the first to approach her own. The box was a particularly long rectangle, inside rested a Long Sword. The design was pretty simple, the few decorations it had rested on the hilt, an opal in the pommel to provide some fire-resistance and the refined Gleeok’s eye at the center of the guard, which was shaped like a side-ways hourglass. The blade itself was a dull orange, but he was pretty sure it wouldn’t stay that way once she claimed it properly.

For Moisha he had ended up crafting a Scimitar. Similarly low-key in decoration, the refined Gleeok’s eye had been encrusted in the broader area of the blade. Thankfully magic laughed at things like physics and putting such jewel-like objects there didn’t impact the weapon in any disadvantageous way. Said blade was a dull yellow, almost mustard.

Finally Romeo’s was a Broadsword, not as long as Lydia’s own, but definitely wider and heavier. The Gleeok’s eye had been placed in the blade’s fuller just a bit above the hilt. The blade itself was a metallic gray that was almost blue.

“Now, they are very pretty and strong weapons. Not only as weapons, but they also hold something that could be called a Will. You should be able to take and use them, but their true power won’t be accessible until you either tame or prove yourself to the weapon.” He explained as each took the weapon, their blades gaining a bit of color as the eyes gave the impression of focusing on their wielders. “I recommend you get used to them and take some time to meditate with them. I recommend you take turns and the other two support the one connecting with their weapons. Finally, you will have to name them.”

The three weapons seemed to focus on him before rattling, the reaction made him chuckle.

“You say it like it’s hard.” Lydia snorted.

“It can be, but sometimes the name comes to you and it’s perfect.” He admitted.

“Ha! I will show you, it shall be… ehm…” The brunette instantly frowned. “It’s like it’s fighting my ideas for a name.”

He nodded. “They have Wills, that means they will have a preference. So unless you wow them with a good name, it’ll be something you work something out together.” He noted.

The team nodded understandingly.

After that, it would be nine more days before they found an interesting World to visit.

“Okay sis, you’ve been keeping it under wraps for long enough, spill it.” Magnus looked at his sister.

She gave him a grin, one that spoke of her getting something out of this.

“I think it’s time to speak about another curious thing about Worlds.” She adopted a teaching tone. “While the Outside is quite hostile to people and objects, it doesn’t mean that there are no things that can travel through. One of those is knowledge. Sometimes memories, experiences, even minds may travel through the Outside, the latter is the rarest. But the first two may lead to certain things being known as fiction in a World when it actually happened in another.”

“Wait, you mean something like Transformers actually happened in another World?” Moisha prompted out loud, getting a curious look by her teammates.

The question caused Orange and Magnus to chuckle.

“Oh, it’s not just possible, we know of a World like that already. Our parents and a few of our oldest siblings fought along Optimus Prime against Unicron.” Orange answered. “We can show you the pictures later if you want.” She smiled knowingly and resumed the subject. “Though I will note that this is a World that does it, there’s nothing that says that there are no other Worlds out there that do the same, other Transformer Worlds, or even multiple versions of your own may exist. The Outside is truly infinite, though I wouldn’t recommend hunting for such Worlds, you will most likely get lost or worse if you try.”

“Why does that information give me a headache?” Lydia complained.

“Because it’s along the lines of stuff mortals were not meant to know.” Orange answered. “Anyways, going a long way around back to the original subject, the World we just found appears to be a Pokemon World, Pokemon are the general group that covers Magnus’ furry form. And it’s the closest thing you will find to a utopia in most Worlds.”

“Really? A World based on a children’s game?” Moisha asked.

“It’s more of the other way around, those games were based on a version of this World.” Orange corrected. “And yes, most versions of this World tend to be very safe, even with creatures capable of blowing off mountains and rewriting reality, they are very stable. You may get an asshole from time to time, but the World has its many champions more than ready to stand up against them. They tend to be Worlds where the power of friendship will beat the odds most of the time.”

Magnus nodded. “It’s also a World with a lot of interesting technology.” He mused.

“That’s right, that’s why I found an entrance straight to the region of Alola.”

Lydia frowned. “I don’t think I’ve heard of that region.” Romeo and Moisha shook their heads.

“From what I remember checking, your World’s a few years away from releasing that game, so congrats, you get to visit before anyone can play it.” Orange claimed and summoned a series of images. “Alola’s a group of islands, very tropical, lots of beaches and strangely varied biomes for being so close to each other.”

Four islands appeared on screen , each with a name under it: Melemele, Akala, Ula’ula, Poni.

“The idea is stepping out on Melemele, being the most touristic island around. But nothing says we can’t visit the others, as long as nothing truly bad happens, I think we can take a pretty nice and long beach vacation.” She turned to him. “Now, I’ll be parking the ship in orbit, so I will need you to go talk with the large noodle in the sky to prevent them from attacking us.”

Ruby blinked curiously. “Large noodle?”

Magnus sighed, but played along with his sister. “You will see.” He told them.

“Anyways, I will create trainer licenses for all of you, just keep in mind that we are trying to not bring Pokemon with us on the way out. So try to not capture any. Also, remember that the System’s Understanding Enchantment should work on most Pokemon, so you’ll be able to communicate with most of them.” Orange explained. “Also, try harder this time to not turn into your Were or full animal forms, people will try to capture you and I honestly can’t tell if pokeballs would actually work on you.”

Team Maus’ faces went through an interesting set of reactions that made the Metaloid chuckle.

“Now, I’ll try to get you some money. But most of these Worlds can be a bit too clean to easily get the money. So I’ll recommend selling a few products produced by the ship. Gold nuggets, diamond sand and a few other gemstones. Once that’s done it’ll be easier to make more money.” She explained. “I think that’s all.” She looked towards Magnus.

“I don’t think so, just the usual. Don’t start trouble, remember you can call for help or information, have fun, it’s practically a beach vacation.” He noted and turned to Orange. “I think we can go in, I will head outside once the ship’s through.”

The ship entered the world. Once more the screens in the bridge appeared to show a starry void, a large moon on one side and an Earth-like planet on the other.

“So what was that about the sky noodle?” Romeo asked.

“Oh, that’s simple, just watch.” Orange pointed at the screen.

Right on the nose of the bridge stood Magnus, no sign of needing any kind of suit to survive the void of space; albeit his figure appeared to be wavering slowly as the Darkness of space reacted to his presence.

“I’m not seeing much.” Lydia pointed out as she raised an eyebrow.

And suddenly he wasn’t alone, the camera only managed to catch a quick sight of something incredibly large and immensely long zip past the camera. It appeared as barely a green blur at first. But it didn’t stop there, it crossed the screen a few more times, coiling on itself until a massive Eastern-style dragon was visible on camera. So huge, that its body just kept on moving even as its head floated in place a dozen meters away from Magnus.

“What the…” Moisha squeaked. “How can it be so big?!”

Orange chuckled. “First time seeing a Legendary?” She teased. “Rayquaza, the Sky High Pokemon. As you can imagine, a pokemon in charge of the skies and keeping meteorites from impacting the planet must be large enough to carry out their job.”

It was a huge beast, basically a god in its size and power. Nearly a hundred meters long with a head a tenth of that. It just floated in the void of space, completely unbothered by it. Meanwhile Magnus shifted into a Zoroark and started to speak with them.

“What’s he doing?” Ruby asked, a bit worried.

“Basically presenting us, asking for permission and asking if he can help with anything.” Orange answered. “Basic protocol for these kinds of situations. Don’t worry, I doubt anything will go wrong.”

And she was right, a moment later Rayquaza nodded their massive head and slithered away to do something else. Magnus stepped back into the ship.

“All done, we’re free to stay. But they may prod you for help, if something truly comes up, Orange.” He said. “Also they suggested we can harvest a few of the stones floating around, it would make their work easier and we can keep anything we find in them. Just make sure there’s no Deoxys inside.”

She nodded. “Sounds smart, I just finished your local identities, so you can go ahead and step through.”

“Okay then, follow me.” Magnus stepped through the portal that opened, followed by the three wererats and finally Ruby, who exchanged a look with Orange who just gave the woman a thumbs up. It wouldn’t be like she wouldn’t also be staying on the ship in a way.

Ruby stepped onto the beaten path, taking a deep breath and surprising herself at how sweet the air smelled. There was a hint of the ocean in the distance, but the sheer presence of the jungle just a few meters away overpowered it. There wasn’t a hint of pollution in the air, it felt cleaner and healthier.

“Uh, I expected to see some Pokemons already.” Lydia mused.

“With me around?” Magnus joked and retrieved a bracelet. “I made this for a reason.” He slid it on and instantly there was noise in the area.

Ruby blinked surprised, having not noticed the silence outside of the wind.

“I still expect at least one Legendary to come and look around, my presence won’t go unnoticed. But hopefully this will keep people from overreacting.” He laughed.

Ruby giggled, as did a few of the other hers in her head. One of the Magends on the ship was talking with Orange and watching the Metaloid’s extra bodies walking on the moon to collect pretty stones.

“Anyways, we should start walking, Orange will need that money if we want to do anything with capital.” He stated, and they started moving towards what the Metaloid had marked as Hau’oli city.

Ruby followed, just enjoying the view. It was obvious that the people of the island loved the place. The path was made of compacted dirt, but it was also obvious people had seen to remove all rocks before the constant use had turned it into a proper road. People and Pokemon certainly used it daily.

It was a few minutes before they saw their first one, they hadn’t reached the city yet when a small, little rat passed by. It surprised her when the System quickly marked it as Rattata and even mentioned the dark-color was because of a local variant.

The small animal turned and froze when it saw the three wererats, definitely feeling some kind of likeness between them. But before anyone could say anything it scampered off.

“That’s… totally going to come back later, no?” Romeo asked, knowingly.

“Ah, you’re learning.” Magnus said humorously. “But yes, most likely by the afternoon every rodent in the island will know about you three and be very curious.”

Ruby giggled as the three of them looked troubled by it.

“Don’t worry, just take it as a learning opportunity and leave it clear if you don’t want to fight.” He explained. “The System’s translation should work well enough with most Pokemon since they are usually as intelligent as any other person.”

She nodded, she had heard the whispers coming from the bushes. Though they hadn’t been completely understandable unless she focused, from what she had studied in her own time, it was due to a lot of the communication in such species going through body language.

Shortly after the little encounter they reached the city, it was very well developed, the dirt road gave way to paved ground and the five of them moved onto the sidewalk as there was actually some traffic going around.

“Okay, first step, finding a place to sell the large golden nuggets and the diamond dust. If questions come up, our story is that we acquired them by exchanging some food and snacks with some Pokemon we met on the way here, evading answering more. But if truly pushed just admit that it was an abandoned shipwreck on a sandbank and we only stopped out of curiosity, and you don’t want anyone else bothering the spot. That should be enough, it’s okay if it doesn’t truly exist, there’s plenty of mysteries on the sea and a lucky find of a sandbank may not be the strangest.” Magnus explained.

In her opinion it was overthinking it. But there was some sense of at least sharing the same story once they were asked. She followed them, but mainly looked around. It wasn’t like they stood around much, there were plenty of people dressed much more extravagantly. There were also Pokemon hanging around and going through their day almost anywhere she looked.

A few birds pecking the ground over there, a few bugs scooting through some decorative bushes, a couple of bunnies putting on a little show for the people who stopped to watch, a few more rats peering at Team Maus. She giggled at the last one as they reached a shop and she simply stood back.

Magnus haggled a bit, but soon he had sold everything they had prepared and divided the money between them all before leaving the shop.

“Remember, have fun, don’t start problems.” He waved to the three of them before turning to her. “How about we wander around a bit? Or would you like to head over to the beach?”

“We could wander through the beach, it’s a lovely day.” She offered and he nodded.

They stopped on their way to the beach to change clothes into a much more fitting attire. Orange had given her a hand in deciding for a bikini and a light sarong, she did her hair in a ponytail and came out of the changing room.

She blushed when Magnus gave her a very appreciative look, not like she didn’t do the same to him. He just wore a pair of dark-purple swimsuit trunks, his hair still done in the usual braid that practically mystified her.

“I hope you don’t cause any accidents.” He teased her and her blush returned with force.

She huffed. “This is just more comfortable.” She leaned to hug his arm against her body as they approached the beach.

It was impossible for them not to get some looks, Ruby had accepted long ago that this was always going to happen and gave it little to no thought. Instead simply enjoying the sensation of sand between her toes, the warm sun coming down and the sound of the ocean and the people.

“…it’s so different from the last two Worlds.” She mused.

“It’s usually like that.” He agreed. “Not all Worlds follow the same…” He bit his lip and mulled on a word. “...rules. It’s hard to explain, much easier to experience like you’re doing. It’s not just the magic in the air, but there’s other things. In some Worlds basic things just go differently, in Worlds like this you may use your Willpower to hit harder, while in others that is impossible.”

“I see why you say it’s hard to explain.”

“Oh, it’s not hard, I’m just being lazy.” He admitted and made her laugh. “It’s just that a lot of the terms and concepts aren’t normal so it’s a pretty long lecture to set up the basics.” He explained calmly before sitting down and inviting her.

She happily leaned on him and watched the ocean. It wasn’t all she was doing, she was also watching Orange hack some criminal organizations’ bank accounts to fatten their own. Also she was watching over a few of the plants one of the Metaloid’s extra bodies had collected from the world. She was also wandering through the city and watching the sights.

Though her attention was also caught as a small group of Mantykes surfed a large wave, all of them following a Mantine. The small manta rays playing around were completely adorable, especially as they weren’t as experienced as the older specimen and failed to get off the wave before it crashed down, sending them tumbling.

If she concentrated she could hear giggles and other sounds of happiness mixed with the chittering as the Mantine, who appeared to be their mother, scolded them for allowing it to happen.

They weren’t the only Pokemon around. A few Seels were sunbathing down the beach, Wingulls floated on the rising air currents, there was even a dark-colored Meowth sweeping at the water trying to catch one of the many fishes swimming by.

A sound made her turn, finding a Rockruff running towards her as a young boy who appeared to be its trainer ran after him.

“Rocky, stop already.” The kid called out, but the puppy reached her before and started to sniff at her.

“ Nurse Joy? ” The puppy Pokemon barked curiously.

“Sorry, little one, I think you’ve confused me with someone else.” She reached to pet the friendly creature.

“I’m so sorry.” The kid apologized as he finally reached them, leaning onto his knees as he panted to recover.

“It’s okay, nothing happened.” She told him with full honesty as Magnus sat up. “I think this little one just confused me for someone else.”

The boy bowed in apology and picked the Pokemon. “Come on, Rockruff, we have to train if we want to do the Island trial.” He quickly wished them well before running off.

“Who’s Nurse Joy?” She asked Magnus.

“I don’t know the specifics, but it’s a sort of title slash family slash job, they are Pokemon nurses. There’s basically one in every center, and there’s one center in basically any large enough city or town. They are pretty recognizable by their pink hair and similar uniform.” He looked at her and grinned. “And before you ask, no, I can’t say if they are your local alternate. Though it would be a funny thing.” He joked and dragged her back down on the sand.

She shook her head and giggled as he continued. “I’m sure we’ll cross paths at least once with one of them in the time we’re here.” She nodded to his words and relaxed.

There was something in this World that just made her happy, and it wasn’t just her current company.

Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 12

Lydia did her best to ignore how there was a rotating entourage of Pokemon following them; mainly Rattatas and Raticates. She had to admit that she had never seen most of them before, she had only played some of the oldest games and these appeared to have come out only in the recent time; from a certain timeline’s point of view.

When they had been told they would be the area’s gossip, she honestly hadn’t expected to end up like this. It made the skin on the back of her neck itch. Her whole body was wanting to shift into the smallest size and scurry away down to the pipes.

“You think they will, like, approach us?” Moisha asked between sips from her water bottle.

“If it’s anything like in the Undercity? As long as we don’t do anything too interesting, everyone will forget about it by tomorrow.” Romeo offered and Lydia nodded.

“We’ve to just ignore them.” She told the other two before they entered the mall, the tropical heat of the outside was replaced by the coolness of air conditioned units.

Not that any of the two really bothered them much, the System actually provided a certain amount of protection to the elements. Apparently this extended even to the void of space and would allow them to imitate Magnus’ walk on the ship. But she didn’t feel like trying, she preferred smaller, enclosed spaces.

Moisha practically skipped ahead of them and checked the map of the place. “The store’s this way.” She waved at them as she didn’t wait for long, making the two of them pick up some speed to catch up.

“So what should we get?” Romeo asked her.

“Let’s grab a few basic balls, a couple potions just in case the ones we have aren’t enough, antidotes too.” She said as she remembered their fight with Fang.

“I’m grabbing a couple of paralyze and burn heals too, you never know.” Moisha announced to them and dropped the spray bottles she grabbed into their basket. “Oh, cool, they sell those belts that let you latch your pokeballs on too.” She quickly added two into the basket.

She watched Romeo pick a cap with the words ‘Hyper Fang Club’ emblazoned on the front. He sure hoped it wasn’t some kind of ridiculous meme, or worse, some kind of bad innuendo.

She just grabbed a keychain with a couple of Rattatas sharing a piece of cheese. She found it adorable for some reason. Not like she would be able to do much with it since she didn’t really have keys to latch onto it.

They quickly paid for their stuff and headed out of the store, deciding to wander the mall.

It was a bit surprising to find almost just as many Pokemon wandering inside the building as there had been outside. The main difference was that those inside seemed to be behaving a bit more and there were a few that occupied the water feature, doubling as decorations.

Even the ones inside the mall were peeking at them from time to time.

“It looks like we’re still quite the hot new thing.” Romeo joked.

She wanted to say something, but her attention was caught by one of the Rattatas sneaking around clumsily. It was carefully peeking its face from under the bushes while their tail stood up very visibly from the top. It eyed the people, scooting back each time someone passed by, not that people were paying attention to the little rat.

Lydia just watched silently as the little one waited until it could rush through out of the bushes and hide into the next one. And do so just as well as its back half stuck out of the small and well-manicured bush.

The situation repeated a few times as the little rat made its way to her, stopping at her feet and looking up.

“ … ex-excuse me. ” It whispered with a boyish voice.

It was weird, she could hear the soft chittering of his name under the words, but could still understand the words. Instead of just answering, she reached down and used one nail to scratch the rat’s scalp right between its ears.

“ Ah- no, please… I’ve a message and… ah… ” The Rattata tried to speak but her touch slowly made it relax, eyes closing and its body splaying on the ground with a happy expression.

After a few seconds she pulled her hand away, it still took the small rodent a few more to break out of its blissful state and look up.

“ No fair! ” It, he? He huffed. “ The matriarch wants to meet the three that smell like us… please? ”

She turned to Romeo and Moisha, both having noticed the whole situation, both nodding.

“Okay, guide us.” She told the little rat.

The Rattata cheered. “ Fo-follow me! ” It moved towards the exit and the three of them followed.

For being such a small animal, the Rattata still managed to keep them walking at a fast pace. They moved to the closest edge of the city and off the beaten path they went, thankfully they didn’t need to shift to get through the vegetation.

It soon opened into a clearing that had obviously been created to be so. The plants had been nibbled, pruned and weaved to make a natural wall. But there were also a few berry bushes planted.

The area was full of Rattatas and a single, larger, Ratticate. It didn’t take much thought to realize this was that matriarch. Their little guide dropped by her side.

“ I brought them, mother. ”

“ Well done, boy. ” Her voice reminded Lydia of some of the matrons at the orphanage, but not as cold. This was her family and she looked over it, but seeing as she was the only evolved one it was obvious there were some rules in place. “ Welcome to my home, you who smell like us, but you are not. ” She eyed them. “ It’s good to find you alone and without the one who smells like darkness and mischief. ”

Internally Lydia chuckled at the thought that Magnus had been so easily sized up.

She bowed her head slightly, enough to show good manners. “Thank you for inviting us, we’re not from around here, and we’ll not be staying for long. We’re just passing by with our companions. Honestly if you hadn’t invited us, I doubt we would have come in much contact with the locals.”

“ Ah, yes, that disguised fox. We tend to keep our distance from those like him. ” The Ratticate mused. “ Interesting that you’re traveling with one of those. ”

“Will that be a problem?” She asked curtly.

“ No, no, ” The matriarch waved it off lazily, “ it’s just that their kind usually just looks to entertain themselves. ”

Lydia couldn’t exactly deny that fit Magnus quite well.

“It’s okay, they have been nothing if forthcoming with their intentions and helped us a lot.” She calmly explained.

The matriarch allowed them to leave it there. “ Though coming back to it, I would like to know why you smell like us. ”

“It’s just how it is.” She answered. “We’re born like this, and as far as I know we’re the only ones around.”

“ I see, ” her eyes sharpened, “ would you be interested in helping us with a little problem we have? Just recently the Yungoos and Gumshoos ran most of our people out of our main feeding area and it’s become harder to find a new place to feed. We know of a spot, but it’s being monopolized by bird Pokemon, leaving us with little chance to get our share. ”

“And what’s in for us?” She asked, talking for her team.

“ Hmm, you could take some of my children, many of them are eager to find a proper trainer. ” She offered and the wererats didn’t miss that some actually looked eager at the notion.

“I’m sorry, but I think I should explain something. We’re not trainers, nor are we staying in this World for too long. If they came with us, they would most likely not see other Pokemon than those with us for an unknowingly-long amount of time.” She didn’t like how those little eyes bore into her, it was a harsh truth and one that squashed a type of hope she knew very well.

The matriarch didn’t look too happy about her rejection, but it was obvious she was experienced enough to not really show it outwardly. It wasn’t hard to understand, this was a World where Pokemon rarely became truly powerful alone, and especially not those at the lowest groups like the common Rattatas.

The matriarch leaned down and whispered something to a Rattata which ran off.

“ I think I’ve something then. ” She said calmly as the little rat returned with something in its maw before handing it to her. “ This is a Z-crystal, I was hoping to pass it to one of my children once they found a proper Trainer. But if you help my children take over the feeding grounds you can have it. ”

Team Maus shared a look, the two other members shrugged, leaving Lydia to answer for them.

“Okay, we’ll do it.”

“ Excellent, I’ll get in contact with the other matriarchs, you can go for now, I will send one of my children to pick you up once it’s time. ” The Ratticate’s swollen cheeks jiggled in eagerness at getting what she wanted.

The three of them were quickly escorted out of the nest and guided back to the city.

“This is totally, like, a trap, no?” Moisha asked once they were far enough.

“More like they were looking for a sucker.” Romeo said and chuckled. “But if it wasn’t us, there would be another sucker. It's just easier and harder since we can properly understand them.”

“I think we should investigate what exactly happened between them and the mongoose Pokemons. I think that’s the clue to know just how much trouble they are trying to get us into.” Lydia decided.

“Hmm, that sounds smart.” Moisha nodded. “Plus it’s like what Orange and Magnus told us, it’s okay to do crimes, just don’t get caught.”

She just rolled her eyes, as if someone needed to remind her to not get caught, again.

Magnus had returned to the workshop after a lovely day of relaxing along with Ruby. And while it had been a perfect outing, he couldn’t deny a big part of him couldn’t wait for some time with the World’s tech.

Orange had already acquired a nice number of samples from the world. Not just things like Pokeballs, medicines, supplements and other items, there were also a number of pretty confidential files ‘acquired’ from large companies like Silph Co. and the Aether Foundation.

Apparently Porygons were quite loyal until they were bribed with full seasons of good shows.

The information acquired was quite useful in filling the more technical aspects of the local technology, especially that aimed for the digitalization and storage of matter and living beings. Many of these gave him a lot of ideas as there were multiple ways to reproduce in his own ways.

The technology was also definitely Magitech in many cases, there were pretty interesting studies on the working of more primitive Pokeballs, those used in olden times and which were still produced in some regions. For example Johto still had a number of craftsmen that worked with Apricorns.

And now he had about five saplings of each type of Apricorn for a total of thirty five trees that would grow quite healthy inside the greenhouse; along with enough seeds to experiment in the future.

Berries had been a much harder subject. There were at least over fifty different varieties of the fruits, some of them considerably hard to acquire. Thankfully they were quite self-sufficient once they took root, one berry buried into fertile ground would sprout in the matter of days and quickly develop into a full plant with multiple fruit in a week or two.

Those weren’t the only plants that had been acquired, there were also a variety of beans, grains, mushrooms, herbs and a nearly extinct variety of leek. The greenhouse had filled considerably even if some plots would provide plenty of just one plant.

Orange had also acquired a number of materials, a lot would be easily reproduced by the ship and were taken mainly out of curiosity. Though some he doubted would be reproducible like the Elemental Stone or Everstones, though he was pretty sure he could find a way to create more if he studied them properly.

Old Pokeballs were mostly magic, there was little to no doubt about it. It was actually quite an impressive feat and made him wonder what kind of magic actually had existed once in the world to lead to such development. Orange had found a few studies about giant Pokemon held in what were definitely the ancestors of the primitive Pokeballs, massive artifacts of stone and magic; some even still worked to the date.

People had just advanced and technology had simply adopted the magical method, applied science to it until things just clicked and modern balls had become exceedingly common. The whole transport method was also magic, the transformation of matter into energy while maintaining all information and managing to return to matter was an impressive feat.

There was a lot of stuff that was actually impressively similar to the ship’s own energy-matter transformation system. He would have to check on the ship’s documentation and maybe break open a book or two about more advanced subjects.

He fiddled with one of the basic balls, pulling it apart in less than a minute. The miniaturization of the technology was also amazing. There were multiple systems practically packed away in the little button, and that was before coming into consideration that the Pokeballs could shrink to about a third of their size for easy carry.

Each Pokeball would have the digitization/materialization system, capture safety and emergency release, creature comforts, health check-ups, situational awareness, and more. And many of these things were done at a distance .

The fact that they basically just had one button and all you needed to do was press on it and wish very hard showed just how magic was going around to make them work.

Not that it reduced the impressiveness, in many ways it increased since it was obvious these were made by mass production and many Pokeballs were never touched by human hands until they reached their user.

The inside was just as impressive as the interface. While the Pokemon was effectively energy and information, the inside created a holographic representation of the creature’s most comfortable location and allowed it to rest inside. They weren’t awake or asleep, more of a sort-of dream state that allowed them to rest, but at the same time to observe the outside if they wanted. Most Pokemon could stay inside their balls for days or weeks undisturbed and show no problem afterwards.

Studying the Pokeballs also revealed a quick and easy way to keep them from being captured. He quickly put together a series of small accessories that would not only trick normal balls into thinking they weren’t correct targets, but they would also wreck any illegal capture tool that tried to skip the confirmation process.

In a similar fashion he was going to put together a capture system at a later date. One just never knew when they would need to imprison someone, or something. Similarly he would seek to improve his own miniaturization and expanded-spaces technology.

But all that would have to wait, there was something he hadn’t experimented with for a long time.

He retrieved a few of Oran berries and quickly bit down onto one. The fruit was fresh and its juices spread through his mouth. Its flavor was quite varied, quite hearty, he could taste something similar to what the Hearty radishes had, though not as strong. Also the healing power didn’t do anything to him as he hadn’t hurt himself in a while.

He looked at the other fruits, he would need to experiment to find the best way to extract its active components and see how it would mix with other berries. He wondered if he could also crossbreed the berries to develop something he could take back to Hyrule, more healing was always good.

He had the whole night for himself, it was time to have some fun.

“Definitely a great day for ice cream.” Magnus told Ruby.

She nodded, enjoying her own as they came out of the store together.

“Yeah, I didn’t know spicy sweets could be so good, there’s some strange mix in the flavors of the Cheri and the coldness.” She observed.

“Well, then it’s good Orange filled the greenhouse with as many berries as you would need to experiment.” He offered. “It would also be great to expand the ship’s menu without adding meat.”

She gave him a bright smile. “Thank you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure I just said Orange did it.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Ruby said and leaned against him. “Thank you for bringing me along.” She whispers in his ear, sending a shiver down his spine.

Before he can say anything, the sound of running makes the pair’s moment break and their gazes turn towards a young blonde girl in a white dress approaching them. At her feet, a similarly white fox ran by her feet. But more importantly, there were four figures running after her. A blue-haired man, a magenta-haired woman, a Meowth and a Wobbuffet were running after the girl.

Ruby quickly moved to shield the girl, turning toward her to ask if she was okay, meanwhile Magnus stood in front of them.

Taking a page from his brother, he put on the friendliest smile. “Hello, can I help you?” His tone may have dropped a few degrees off the temperature around.

The woman was the first to shake it off. “Yes! Move, we need to get that Alolan Vulpix.”

Magnus turned to look at the little fox. “Well, it looks like it doesn’t want to go with you. I would suggest you turn around and don’t harass young women and their Pokemon, ok?” His words were accompanied by another smile, and the slowly dimming of the natural light.

“No! We work very hard to capture those Pokemon for the boss!” The man called out.

“Yeah, that’s right!” The Meowth said and Magnus was surprised that it was actually speaking the local version of Japanese just like everyone else, and not the usual Poke-speech.

“No matter how you look at things, it’s obvious you’re in the wrong. Go,” he shooed them away, “before you get into actual trouble.”

“Trouble?” The woman said. “We’ll show you trouble!”

They grabbed their shirts and Magnus prepared a Blink just in case he needed to take them out. But against all of his expectations, they ripped their clothes off to show they were wearing uniforms, except for the Meowth. But it was actually weirder since the feline had been wearing clothes until a moment before and he hadn’t found it strange. Stranger yet, was to think they were wearing full uniforms under what had appeared to be normal clothes, light vacation clothes at that.

“Prepare for Trouble!” The woman called out.

“Make it Double!” The man followed her cadance.

“To protect the world from devastation!”

“To unite all people within our nation!”

“To denounce the evils of truth and love!”

“To extend our reach to the stars above!”

“Jessie!”

“James!”

“Team Rocket, yours truly blasts off at the speed of light!”

“Surrender now or prepare yourselves for a fight!”

The man and the woman posed together as the Meowth jumped in front of them.

“Meowth, that’s right!”

“Wobbuffet!” The blue Pokemon joined them, cheering too.

Ruby was clapping, only stopping when the blonde girl and the Vulpix gave her a look. “What? That was pretty fun to watch, also those costumes were very good, it’s actually very hard to wear clothes under clothes.” She offered.

“Oh, thank you.” The man waved it off. “We’ve been doing this for a long time, we used to get all tangled up in the beginning.”

“James!” The woman smacked the back of his head. “This is not the moment to accept praise, it’s time to show these numbheads!”

Orange helpfully was feeding him information about the group, half criminal, half comedy group. Apparently, they were a known group, very slippery and hard to catch. They were also part of a larger organization called Team Rocket, which was a criminal and terrorist group from what he could see. They had been broken down, disbanded, and recovered a few times; they had a pretty grim rep sheet.

Thankfully this group was considered mostly harmless, more of a nuisance and usually dealt with by the present trainers.

“It doesn’t matter,” the Meowth said, “they don’t even have a Pokemon… though that guy smells strange.”

“That’s right!” Jessie threw one of her balls. “Mimikyu go!”

Said Pokemon was small, less than twenty five centimeters tall and most of it the empty, upper half of the costume it wore. They exchanged a look, but it seemed the small Ghost and Fairy type wasn’t interested in fighting as it turned around and scooted over to Meowth to whisper something to its fellow Pokemon.

“Ah, he says he’s not interested in fighting anyone but Pikachu.” The feline translated.

“I’ve to do everything here!” James complained and threw his own ball. “Go Mareanie!”

“ James! ” The water type Pokemon cried out and instantly pounced onto their trainer’s face, latching quite vigorously and making him scream and try to pry them off.

“Do you know them?” Ruby asked the girl.

“Yes, they are criminals that steal Pokemon.” The young blonde answered.

“ Meanies! ” The Vulpix cried out.

Magnus sighed, the comedy routine was pretty fresh, but he was growing tired of it. His braid swung lightly and Stonebell chimed.

“I will repeat myself, leave .” Darkness stirred, and even as it was a nice and clear day the sun seemed to pale, a thick fog flowing covering the ground.

The man finally managed to get their Pokemon off their face, even if he looked a bit dizzy.

“Hmph! We’re Team Rocket, like a threat will stop us. Show them what we’re made of Mareanie!”

“ Yes, James! ” The Pokemon cried out and prepared themselves.

“Ehm… guys, I think we should-”

“It’s not the time to doubt, Meowth!” Jessie cut him off. “Wobbufet, prepare to support Mareanie.”

The Pokemon saluted as James pointed at them. “Mareanie, Sludge Bomb!” The Pokemon complied and unleashed a stream of dark globs at them.

Magnus just snorted and channeled some of his Light before backhanding the attack, causing the globs to explode into a short-lived cloud of smoke. But effectively did nothing.

“ Last warning .” Magnus calmly told the couple and their Pokemon.

The illusion fog spread thicker, some of the shorter Pokemon were having trouble even being visible. Though it also cut off just at his feet.

“That’s… Jessie, I think we should retreat this time.” The man took a step back, even his Pokemon looked a bit worried.

“Team Rocket doesn’t retreat!” Jessie called out.

He blinked forward and allowed some of his hostility to bleed into the Darkness currently holding the illusion, just enough that the five in front of him could feel it.

They instantly froze at the show. “Leave.” He repeated softly.

To his surprise a massive bear-like Pokemon fell out of the empty sky between him and the criminals. The black and pink bear just snorted and glared at him, more than ready to start a brawl if necessary.

They were almost a meter taller than him and looked more like a person wearing a costume than an actual animal. They were still a Pokemon, he could see how their fur was standing up, their chest was full of air and the gaze promised violence.

“Just take them.” Magnus didn’t feel like truly starting a fight.

The Bewear nodded and turned around, wrapping their arms around the two humans and their Pokemon before carrying the still frozen criminals off.

Magnus could only watch and shake his head, he released his hold on the illusion and the fog melted off.

Thankfully no actual fight had started, he turned back to Ruby and the girl, there was a need to make sure she was okay.

Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 13

Ruby knelt down. “Are you okay?” She asked the blonde girl, ignoring the familiar sense of dread going behind her back.

She didn’t fear Magnus, if anything it reminded her the man has carried her to safety while using a similar trick to reduce most people into gibbering mess. In her case it was another kind of mess. But she also knew that not everyone could face such a presence and was using herself to shield the girl and her Pokemon.

“I’m-yes, I’m okay, it’s just-” She flinched when the small Vulpix pressed against her leg. But she didn’t pull away.

Ruby smiled softly to reassure her. “I’m Ruby, and my companion is Magnus, what are your names?”

“I’m Lillie, and this is Snowy.” The girl answered.

“She’s very cute, is she your Pokemon?” Ruby asked gently, aiming to keep her attention on her.

“Ah, not exactly.” The girl looked away.

“ Yes, I am. ” The Vulpix barked, but the girl didn’t understand her.

“I think she has a different opinion about it.” Ruby giggled softly as she pointed out how the little fox tried to get closer, though she still respected her personal space.

A rustling sound made her look over her shoulder, seeing the lack of Team Rocket made her curious. But Magnus was walking calmly in their way.

“They left.” He answered her unasked question. “Hello Lillie, I am Magnus, are you okay?”

The girl nodded.

“And you, Snowy?” He asked the Vulpix, who also nodded. “That’s good to hear, you two must be tired from the run, would you like an ice cream?” He gestured to the shop they were still standing in front of.

“No, it’s okay, you don’t have to worry.” The girl blushed and tried to reject.

“Hmm… I’ve a perfect idea, but I will need your little friend’s help. Do you want to help me make something for Lillie, Snowy?” Magnus looked towards the little fox as he retrieved a bottle of water and a handful of berries.

“Wh-where did those come from?” Lillie asked, surprised by the act.

“Just a little magic, what do you say, Snow?” The Vulpix yipped in agreement.

Ruby watched as he drew the water from the bottle and the fox froze it with their breath. She didn’t miss how the low-key rings he wore beat almost imperceptibly with his magic to control the elements. Not just the water, but wind in a trick she had taught him. The clear sphere of ice was reduced to snow and collected in a bowl. He then did something similar to the sweet berries, frozen and shaved down snow, to mix it with some honey and into the already shaved ice.

“Here you have.” He handed the bowl to the girl. “Some shaved ice made by your friend to make you feel better.”

Ruby pulled a spoon from her inventory. “Here you go.” She gave the girl a smile. “Magic.” She explained.

The girl looked dubious at the answer, Ruby found the girl to be quite sharp to just not accept such an out-there answer. Though it wasn’t entirely a lie.

She took a bite out of the ice and shivered. “It’s cold, but so good!” Her eyes were practically stars as she ate another spoonful.

“ That’s good, Lillie! ” The Vulpix cheered at her reaction.

“Oh, you want some too, Snowy?” The girl knelt down and took a spoonful before feeding the small fox.

They shivered after a spoonful, their eyes sparking in a similar manner. “ It’s very good. ”

“Thank you.” The blonde bowed deeply towards him.

“Hey, hey, hey, no need for that.” Magnus helped her straighten up. “I like to help, you should ask Ruby how we met, though I don’t know if you would believe her.” He joked, causing her to blush and smack his arm.

“Can I ask how you did all that with water?” She asked. “It was definitely not a Pokemon move.”

He laughed softly. “I wasn’t lying that it was magic.” He Showed her his rings, the small silver bands had tiny gemstones encrusted on them. “These allow me to perform small tricks with fire, water, wind and metal.” He explained.

“I can’t believe magic is real… Can you, Snowy?” She asked her companion.

“ Of course! Though, why do you smell like a fox? ” They asked him.

“That’s a secret.” He gave the fox a silence gesture. “Would you like us to accompany you home?”

Ruby was pretty sure the girl wanted to grumble and say that wasn’t an answer. But those emotions only flickered in her face.

“Okay, my friends should be around here.” She answered. “But they should have already been here.” She added with a frown on her face.

“We can stay, we’ve nothing to do.” Ruby offered to soothe the girl’s worries.

The girl sighed. “I just know they got into some trouble.” She admitted. “...and I’m missing it.”

Snowy reached to pat at the girl’s leg, Ruby didn’t miss that while the girl flinched, she appeared to be trying to get over it. She couldn’t imagine what she had gone through given how friendly Pokemon were.

“Why don’t you tell us about them while we wait?” Magnus offered as they sat down.

“Well, there’s Ash, he joined the class just a bit ago…” The girl started to tell them about her friends, calming down and missing the fact that the Vulpix had scooted up to her side.

Romeo finished pulling the mask over his face and the hood over his head, effectively hiding his features with the exception of the small area around his eyes. Not that even that was visible, while he couldn’t see it unless he checked on a mirror, a small amount of darkness hid everything but his pupils.

It was a bit of cliché ninja clothing, but he couldn’t deny it was comfortable, easy to wear and move, and effectively could shift its color to better camouflage with its environment. It even had a hole for their tail to slide out if they shifted.

Moisha hadn’t lost a moment after hiding her face to shift, from them she was the more lackadaisical about not transforming. Not that he didn’t follow a moment later. Lydia just raised an eyebrow at them.

It was just more comfortable for all of them and Magnus had already made sure they wouldn’t be able to get captured, especially as they just looked like a group of cosplaying ninjas more than half-animal people.

“I talked with the Ratticates in charge, you two will be running distraction while I go with the main team to take over an old nest in the area.” Lydia explained.

“I love easy missions, I just gotta make a lot of noise and get out of the way.” Moisha said, followed with a giggle.

“Are you sure about it?” Romeo couldn’t help but still feel a bit worried.

“Yes, I ran a little private scouting mission through the area earlier. The tall trees should provide plenty of shadows for everyone to hide.” She explained. “The teams you will be joining should keep the birds distracted long enough for enough rats to move into the nest, once that happens it will become harder for the birds to root them out.”

“Uh, for some reason I was expecting something more aggressive.” Moisha admitted.

Lydia gave a shrug. “I looked into things, the Rattatas and Ratticates until recently had been feeding out of a warehouse, they got run out of the easy target by the police with help of some other local Pokemon and some trainers.”

“Oh, I see.” Moisha nodded. “It’s just easier to defend a territory you own rather than fight for someone else’s.”

“Yes, the area’s also pretty bereft of other species, so adding some variety shouldn’t be bad. At worst the Ratticates have to move away, at best both find a balance.” She shrugged after speaking.

Romeo couldn’t help but agree. “Hmm, we’ll be long gone by then.” He said,

“Yeah, anyways, you know where to go. Try not to get caught.” Lydia joked before fixing her mask and leaving.

He didn’t miss her tail swaying behind her.

He gave Moisha a nod and headed towards the group of Rattatas he would be joining.

“ Oh, you’re that guy! ” One of the young rats called out when he approached.

“Yes, I’ll be helping in the distraction.”

One of the larger ones huffed. “ What can a two-legged one like you do? ”

“This.” He reached to pinch the Rattata’s nape and pick them up, leaving the rat incapable of breaking out.

“ Hey! Let go! Come on! Not in front of everyone! ”

He placed them back down. “Size and hands are very useful, believe me.”

The Rattata huffed and moved away before the signal came to move.

His team was made up of about a dozen Rattatas and a single Ratticate. The first stage Pokemons were varied in size, from just below average to one that was nearing the Ratticate’s size, though the evolution was definitely on the smaller size compared to the matriarch they had met a day earlier. It was kinda obvious they had been put in the role simply because of their stage as the group followed the largest Rattata more than they followed them.

The leader of the group stopped by one of the trees and gave the order to climb, Romeo would have definitely used his claws for it, but instead he aimed the arm with the band up and activated the hookshot. A barely glowing chain made of some kind of blue energy shot out from the jewel and latched onto one of the big branches up high, quickly tensing and dragging him up.

He could tell it was pulling on all of his body as there was barely any strain on his arm, he once more had to admit it, Magnus was crazy good at what he did. His mind wandered towards the weapon he had been given.

It surprised him to be the first to name his blade. Icy Moon rattled like a diamondback ready to defend itself. Coming with the name had been strange, meditation hadn’t been something he expected to improve in so quickly. But it only had taken a few days before he had made contact with the Will of the blade.

When he had been told the Gleeok was ancient it hadn’t made sense to him. But meeting even a third of the creature had shaken him to the core. A head large enough to swallow him in one gulp, an eye that froze him in place, and the hate… the hate . The ancient being had lived for a long time and had been sealed for longer, and the first thing that happened once it got released was it got beaten, killed and butchered.

It had been a few long and harrowing minutes that felt like hours. But he had managed to come to a certain understanding with the King Gleeok, or at least that head, they would do their best together to beat Magnus. And while the Gleeok had wanted to kill him, Romeo had managed to remind the monster that even them hadn’t been able to beat him once Magnus got serious.

The Gleeok had also wanted to step on the moon, and while Romeo had offered to step on a moon, the monster had insisted it had to be Hyrule’s. It made him wonder if there was a reason for it, but without heading to the World and checking he couldn’t honestly tell.

Maybe it had been that request that had led him to offer the name Icy Moon, as surprising as it had been for the weapon to accept it. The blade had changed, going from dull blue to looking as if it had actually been carved out of an iceberg, and Romeo stopped caring for changes of temperature. If he had to admit, the constant chill was pleasant.

But he wasn’t going to use such a weapon here, he had no enmity with the birds and no reason to kill them.

“ How did you make it up here so quickly?! ” The Ratticate screamed.

“Nin-nin.” Romeo joked and looked ahead instead of saying anything else, he could see a few of the nests and the bird Pokemon eating some of the fruit growing from the branches.

The leader Rattata ignored the by-play. “ Remember our mission, just having them run after us is enough. ” He called out, getting a glare from the Ratticate.

Romeo made a mental note to keep an eye on the Pokemon, that was the kind of glare he had seen plenty of times before. The kind that practically screamed that they were about to do something very stupid if given a chance.

The leader looked at him. “ It’s your turn. ”

Romeo nodded and moved, jumping from branch to branch as if it was solid ground and not nearly a dozen meters into the air. The small Pikipeks didn’t even notice him until he was practically on them, but the birds weren’t his objective. Instead he grabbed the largest, juiciest fruit and ran away once they realized what he had just done.

At the cry of “ Thief! ” The flock quickly took flight and rushed after him.

The Rattatas were ready and surprised the birds, and him, by releasing a barrage of black and purple spheres. And to add to that, the attacks seemed to do nothing more than scare the birds into breaking their flight, trying to dodge attacks that went harmlessly through them.

Romeo quickly reached the Rattatas who turned and joined him in running away.

“ Shadow Ball, Pikipeks are immune to it. ” The leader decided to explain. “ It’s not an attack that we can learn normally, but we stole one of those machines the humans use and passed it around. ”

He raised an eyebrow, not that it showed with his mask.

“ You may not know it, but we don’t normally learn long-distance moves. Shadow Ball is one of the few we can learn this way, unfortunately as you saw, it’s ineffective against the birds. ”

He nodded, that was something he could understand.

The sounds of angry birds only increased as they got the Pikipeks and the Trumbeaks that joined them the go around. They may be able to fight, but they still stopped to dodge the Shadow Balls they launched from time to time.

Romeo also helped too, of course. The armband had a series of nice distraction tools, from noise makers to small flash-bombs. None really dangerous, but certainly was surprising when there was suddenly a flashlight aimed at your eyes. They were also constructs, so once used left nothing behind.

He flung another handful of the flashing pellets behind, mixing a few of the noisemakers mixed in. He made a mental note to ask Magnus if they could be made to float.

There was suddenly a much larger noise in the distance, one that didn’t sound like a distraction. It sounded like an actual fight.

“Was that any of you?” He quickly sent the way of his two partners.

“ Nothing here. ” Moisha answered quickly, not sounding even winded up.

“ Some trainers are helping the birds keep the rats from taking over the abandoned nest. ” Lydia answered a moment later. “ I’m keeping my distance for now. ”

He snorted, she didn’t say anything about not interfering.

He looked at the Rattata leader. “Some trainers are helping the birds, I will keep them distracted, I would suggest you go and support the main group.”

The rat nodded curtly. “ Good idea… thank you. ” They bowed their heads before turning around and barking orders to the rest.

“Hey, you want this, no?” Romeo called out the birds still following them, distracting them as the Rattatas started to move away one by one, soon he was the only one, the focus of their full attention.

Now all he had to do was keep them going in circles for a few more minutes.

Lydia remained hidden, hugging the back of one of her trees and making her presence as little as possible. Her breath had slowed down as she remained completely immobile and observing.

Things had been going well until a Rowlet had flown into the area, a colorful group of young kids followed the bird and released more Pokemon that she could be interested to name.

She was already starting to doubt that the Ratticate’s plan was going to work when the Toucannon flew down from its nest to keep them from achieving their goal.

Unfortunately she couldn’t finish this quickly by pulling her sword out. Even if unnamed, she was pretty sure the monster in it would relish in imposing its presence in the area. But since her side didn’t know about it, it was bound to scare everyone .

Instead she activated the armband to create a small slingshot and loaded it up with the small explosive marbles. She was glad her Job provided some skill in using any kind of small weapon… for some reason. She was honestly a bit confused and had asked about it.

While Magnus hadn’t known the answer, Orange had explained that her Job was most likely based on the feats carried by a pretty old fictional character. She didn’t know what to say to that, but it was very effective and useful. Plus as they had told her, it was only fictional in their World, and it may as well be true somewhere else.

She released the payload and watched it fly before bouncing against a tree and exploding just behind the Toucannon’s head, effectively distracting him and earning the bird a direct hit from the ice attack of one of the matriarchs.

It wasn’t enough to sway the course of the battle, but it definitely had eased some of the pressure on the matriarchs and their Rattatas. She prepared a noise maker and shot it off right into the bushes behind the trainers.

It wasn’t just the Pokemon that were fighting. It had taken her a bit to understand something about the World. When Magnus and Orange had explained that no one reached the top alone, they meant that the relation between Trainer and Pokemon went further than just orders and guidance. Disrupting the Trainers was as effective as disrupting the Pokemon themselves.

She ponders for a moment using one of the smoke bomb pellets, but with so many bird Pokemon around it’s just not going to last more than a second.

She rethought her plan and shifted down into full rat-form to sneak around the trees and unload a few more flash bombs and noise makers. It was working to balance the fight, but it was becoming obvious for the trainers that something was happening.

It was obvious she needed something a bit bigger. That’s why it surprised her when Romeo practically ran through the battlefield in sight of everyone, carving a long trench with his blade from which a wall of ice rose in the matter of an instant.

She wanted to scream at him, but noticed that no one had managed to react, even the few birds that had been running after him looked surprised by the whole thing. The most impressive thing had been that Icy Moon hadn’t scared the lights out of everyone, was naming the damn weapon so damn important?!

The battle had stopped cold, even the few birds that had been running after him were surprised and stopped. The break turned out to be enough for the Ratticates to move into the nest, the old, hollowed-out tree trunk was just the entrance to what they had been explained was an old set of burrows used by other Pokemon, but long since abandoned.

She had asked why they didn’t try to dig their way to it, but apparently there were plenty of other Pokemon that lived underground and would make it much harder, on top of the many tree roots in the area.

She could honestly not tell if she was being fed a load of bullshit, she had never had to dig her way through a forest or anything similar. But with the matriarchs taking the old nest, the mission was completed. It meant they could retreat, she would have to scream at Romeo for his actions though.

Lillie waved at the strange couple as they parted ways with her. She was thankful to them for helping her, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something going on with them. And it wasn’t her feeling extremely jealous of Magnus’ hair, it was just unfair that he didn’t do anything special to maintain such a long braid. She had to work so hard with all the salt in the air.

Ruby had been nothing if kind and understanding with her, not even pushing her on why she didn’t feel comfortable touching Snowy. Maybe it was because none of them had Pokemon on them. Though she wondered what Magnus had done to get Team Rocket to run away, Ruby had been in the way and kept distracting her.

“ Vul. ” Snowy’s cry makes her look down.

She went down to her knees and carefully tried to reach for the fox. She managed to get a finger onto their head before her hand pulled away reflexively. Her heart was beating hard inside of her chest, it felt like it was trying to escape up her throat.

“Sorry Snowy, I promise I’ll get over it.” She sighed, feeling a bit defeated. “Maybe we should see about sharing more shaved ice? You will help me make more, no?”

“ Vul-pix! ” Her friend agreed.

“Thank you, though I doubt I’ll manage to make it as good as Magnus, I don’t have magic…” She grumbled, but couldn’t help to feel amazed by the show she had been given.

“Lillie!” Ash called out, waving as she joined the group.

She didn’t miss the fact that all of them had their clothes rumpled and were slightly dirty, the few Pokemon outside of their balls were similarly dirty.

“Hey guys, what happened?” She asked.

The question caused a series of reactions, a few frowns, a couple of embarrassed looks and even Ash looking nervous.

“Well, Rowlet’s friend asked us for help since some Rattatas and Ratticates were trying to move into their territory.” He quickly explained with his usual energy.

She blinked. “So you made them run away?”

“Ehm… No…” Ash laughed nervously after answering, rubbing the back of his head as Pikachu facepalmed. “Someone was helping them and then there was this strange figure that zipped past and distracted up with a huge ice wall, allowing the Ratticates to move into the spot they were trying to take over.”

“Team Rocket?” Lillie asked, though internally she doubted it.

Ash shook his head. “I don’t think so, they weren’t trying to capture any Pokemon.”

“I think it was an unknown Pokemon.” Sophocles insisted. “I’m sure I saw they had a tail, I bet they are an Ice and Dark type.”

“Unfortunately I failed to get any good pictures of them.” Rotom admitted in a depressed tone.

“We’ll have to tell Professor Kukui about it, he may know something.” Ash said, always optimistic.

“Maybe the Kahuna knows something too.” Mallow reminded them.

“How about, Lillie? Everything okay?” Lana prompted a change of subject, causing the young blonde to blush as all attention was suddenly on her.

“I got chased by Team Rocket, they were trying to steal Snowy,” she took a moment to breathe and quickly added, “don’t worry, nothing happened. I came across a couple that helped me, Team Rocket got dragged away by the Bewear before anything happened.”

“What did they do?” Lana asked.

“I don’t know.” She admitted, laughing similarly to how Ash had done earlier. “Ruby kept me distracted while Magnus confronted Team Rocket. They said they are vacationing, so you may see them around, they are quite eye-catching.” She added as they started to walk towards the Pokemon School.

Unfortunately for her, her friends didn’t stop assailing her with questions. Thankfully Snowy’s presence by her legs helped her relax.

Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 14

Magnus was wandering the island of Hau’oli alone for once. Ruby had wanted to do something alone and he wasn’t going to stifle the freedom she had. He would just have preferred if his sister hadn’t teased him about her getting him a gift.

She had also teased him about Maus getting into something, but since there hadn’t been any mob, call for capture or large forest fires, he could ignore it.

What he couldn’t ignore was a strangely familiar scent tickling his nose. It had become noticeable after a change of the wind and it took him a bit to realize what he was smelling exactly.

It took him a few minutes to track the source and was not entirely surprised to find it was the local Pokemon school. It was a lovely plot of land, a few very open and nicely constructed buildings, and a lot of places for kids and Pokemon to hang out.

It seemed to be break time because there were a lot of children running around and playing. But the source of the smell was nowhere in the large number of them, instead there was a young kid peeking from behind a tree. One with a hard-to-miss black tail behind his back.

He took a moment to study their disguise, they didn’t look local, which made him think they had copied some tourist child. Which was quite smart, less chance to come as a doppelganger if the owner of the look lived in another region.

He dropped down from the branch of the tree and didn’t hide his landing, not as if his landing was loud. But seeing the kid turn around in surprise showed they had heard him.

“ Ah! ” They let out in surprise, quickly covering their mouth as for anyone else it would have sounded like ‘ Zor ’.

Magnus smiled warmly and reached to boop his nose with a purple claw. “Good disguise, but you still have some work for it.”

Stonebell chimed and the boy(?)’s tail disappeared.

“ You?! ”

“Me.” He answered playfully.

“ I don’t think I ever saw you before. ” The young disguise-fox finally said.

“I’m here on vacation.” The answer was honest, even if it left some very big things out.

His nose flared for a moment. “ Why can’t I smell you? It’s like you aren’t here. ”

Magnus pointed at the bracelet hanging on his wrist. “For many reasons, I’m hiding using this. Otherwise it would have everyone feeling threatened.”

He frowned. “ Really? I don’t believe you. ”

Without another word, Magnus placed a finger on the bracelet and gave it a quarter of a rotation, just enough for a peek. The poor fox froze before he restricted it back.

“ Ok! I believe you. ”

Magnus laughed softly. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure everyone noticed my arrival before I placed it on. I just forget to put it on because it tickles.”

The kid’s eyes opened as big as saucers. “ That was you?! Mama will want to meet you, the elder smelled another Zoroark around, but when we looked we didn’t find anyone. We thought they… you may have had a trainer. ”

“No, quite free and happy about it.” He answered before he noticed a dark-skinned man approaching with a cap. “You still haven’t mastered human speech, right?”

The kid looked surprised by the question, then embarrassed, then panicked as he shook his head. He was glad to see they hadn’t missed the man until it was too late.

He thought for a moment before he reached and tapped the kid’s neck. “There we go, it will only last for a couple of hours.”

“What?” The Zorua asked before looking very surprised. “What?!”

“Shh… just a little magic, it should last enough for you to play with the other kids if you want.” He offered and the kid’s eyes sparkled at the notion. “But you better learn how it feels, because you will need to speak the normal way after this.”

He nodded energetically.

“Excuse me.” The man finally came close enough to speak.

His skin tone marked him as most likely local-born, he wore a pair of shorts, a lab coat, a pair of glasses, sandals and the aforementioned cap. He was also very well trained, his physique indicated he wasn’t just a very active person, but actively trained his body frequently.

“Good morning.” Magnus greeted the man.

“I would like to ask why you are approaching one of my students.” The man lied with a straight face, but also didn’t.

Magnus felt a bubble of curiosity go up. “Hmm? Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you about your student.” He looked down. “You should join your friends.” He told and the Zorua didn’t lose a moment, missing a bit of the subtext.

The man relaxed a bit and his presence became a bit more friendly.

“I’m sorry for having given you the wrong impression, I was just following a familiar scent, I just didn’t think I would find someone like me around.” He tested his little guess.

The flinch and understanding look in the man’s face told him he had been right. He quickly sighed as his form relaxed even more, taking a more lighthearted attitude.

“I’m Professor Kukui, I hope you understand why I was worried, especially after that strange presence that was felt a bit earlier.” The man had relaxed, but a closer look showed to not be entirely true. His hand was still close to the few Pokeballs on his waist and his eyes hadn’t left him.

“I’m Magnus, though I also go by Traveler.” He presented himself. “I honestly didn’t know there were others like me in the islands, I thought most lived in the Unova region.”

“It’s not well known, most just live their lives and aren’t interested in trainers if you catch my drift.” He smiled charmingly. “I like to Assist the young ones in learning to fit in.”

Magnus nodded. “Understandable, I would imagine a good teacher wouldn’t miss some of the obvious hints.”

Kukui laughed. “That’s little, I remember staying until late one time making fake fox tails so all kids wore one.” The man reminisced. “I had to work so hard it was like I had mastered Double Team.”

“Well, I gave that one a helping hand, while it will run out, he should be able to speak normally for a few hours.”

The professor looked curious. “… I never heard of that ability.”

“Oh, that was just a bit of magic~” Magnus waved his fingers, some sparks coming from them. “Funnily enough, it counts as a curse since he won’t be able to speak normally in the meantime, but I doubt that will be much of a problem at the moment.”

He looked towards the kid, playing with the other children quite happily.

“I see…”

“No, you don’t.” He laughed softly. “Don’t worry, most people aren’t ready to have their paradigm modified on the fly. I will be around for a few more weeks, just look for me, I doubt it will be hard to find me. Now I’ll go for now, most likely will come back later to pick up the kid as I wanted to meet his family.” He waved before blinking away, just moments before a troublesome entity reached the area.

He would have to be more careful with releasing his presence. But it was so fun getting everyone to react to nothing.

Kukui watched as the strange man just disappeared from the spot.

Braviary, Incineroar and Lucario jumped out of their respective Pokeballs.

“Check from above.” He ordered the first. “Anything down here?” He looked towards Lucario as his starter approached him.

“ Roar. ” His starter checked on him.

“I’m good, just a bit surprised.” He didn’t admit to being a bit shaken too. They all had felt the wave of pressure, a presence had appeared for just a moment and it felt like the sky was about to come down, Sun and Moon along with it.

“ I can’t sense anything, they’ve already left. ” Lucario communicated to him. “ There’s no scent either, it’s like they were never here. ”

Braviary came down and Lucario exchanged a few words with them.

“ They say they saw nothing close-by, but there was definitely someone with purple hair in the far distance. ” They translated as Incineroar was checking the ground.

The grass showed signs of someone having stood in place for a bit, so they hadn’t been an illusion all along. But to move that far so quickly.

“I’ll have to look for them after hours.” He told the three of them. “Though, magic…”

His thoughts were interrupted as Tapu Koko flew down to join them. They bowed at different rates and he may have said something if he wasn’t troubled.

The legendary had a silent conversation with Lucario before the Steel and Fighting type spoke to him with Aura. “ Tapu Koko says that they aren’t dangerous unless someone makes them so. Also something about them having arrived with Rayquaza’s permission. ”

Kukui’s eyebrow rose at the notion. “Rayquaza? But that would mean…” He felt a chill go down his spine. “Now I really need to find them.”

He thanked Tapu Koko before returning his Pokemon back to their balls and turning back to the playground. It had been only a few minutes, with small kids that was always a few minutes too long.

Spear Pillar was a known, but hardly visited, set of ruins on top of Mount Coronet. Legends said that it had been the spot from where Arceus had created everything, it had been ancient even when the region of Sinnoh had been called Hisui.

While the ruins were incredibly damaged, for a set of ruins so exposed to the elements at the top of a mountain, there was actually hardly any new damage to them. Even studies with decades in separation showed startlingly similar descriptions down to the marks on the few remaining pillars.

So it would have been a surprise for anyone observing the ruins when a golden portal opened by the staircase going up into the ruins. One after another, a small group of women stepped through, all of them with pink hair, but with noticeable different bodies.

None of them was really dressed for the weather, but neither of them appeared to be bothered by the chilling winds and the bright sun above.

“All looks good here.” Ruby said.

“ Excellent, I was a tiny bit worried given the nature of Space in the area, but it appears the effect is centralized in the ruins. The area just outside is safe. ” Orange’s voice came through clearly for all of them to hear.

“So it’s true?” She asked. “That this world was created from here?”

“ No idea, the fabric does read as older, but I can’t honestly run a scan that large. There’s also the possibility that the planet technically existed before and the deity just started the work from this spot. There could be multiple ones if they were capable of multitasking! ” She giggled at Orange’s playful tone.

Her Magends spread through the ruins, studying the area. Most of them had been created with the use of magic in mind, mainly for large areas of effect and divination abilities. Not that she had forgotten her own protection, two of her Magends had been created in case some unruly Pokemon decided to attack them. While it would be unlikely, as the area appeared to be mainly ignored by most creatures, there was no sense in not doing it when she could.

She wondered why her more physical Magends came with so little clothing, maybe Orange was right about her World being a Porn World. Thankfully it wasn’t like she couldn’t get them better armored clothes. Which made the pair look quite intimidating at an average of almost two and a half meters tall and built like brick houses.

The two of them simply stood looking menacing and ready for action while the rest studied the ruins.

“Orange, I’ve a question, but I don’t want to come off as weird.” She nervously asked.

“ Just ask, Ruby, the most I will do is tell you I can’t answer. I don’t think there’s much you could ask that would be a problem. ”

“Okay…” She wiped one of the lowest broken pillars to sit down. “Why did Magnus’ father decide for three kids and not one? I don’t think merging the genetic material of the three of them would have been harder than making three of them.”

“ Oh… that .” The tone made Ruby quickly speak up.

“If it’s too much trouble you don’t need to answer.”

“ No, it’s not a problem to answer, it’s just that it happened way before I was born, so I only have the records to talk about it. ” Orange’s tone had turned completely serious, making Ruby give her most of her focus.

“ Technically, dad did make a single child at the start, or at least that’s what he meant to. The problem was thankfully caught before anything actually happened. Neither of our parents is normal, even discounting what dad made to himself, our mothers have their particular cases. ”

A picture appeared in her field of vision, the woman only looked a bit older than she did. Her hair was a mix of black and white, more on the petite side of average, while also looking fit and athletic. Her toxic green eyes seemed to even glow in the still picture.

“ Just to start, Dani’s a clone of two half-ghosts and a normal woman, one of them considers her his sister and he is the king of a realm, at least later on. She was also adopted by the Ghost of Time, who may as well be the Titan Chronos in that World. ” Orange explained.

The picture changed, the woman reminded her strongly of Magnus, her skin tone was darker. But her hair was very similar to his. She was similarly fit and athletic, but her body was slightly taller than Dani.

“ Sabbah was an orphan who was given training to be dad’s bodyguard. Her mastery over shadows later had the Titan Nyx adopting her. ” Orange explained as the picture changed to a man who looked like Magnus quite strongly. “ Dad did a lot of work on his own body, to the point he doesn’t count as human anymore, he’s never truly bothered by this, and to add to the trio, he was adopted by the Titan Gaia. ”

“I’m seeing a pattern.” Ruby tried to inject some humor.

“ Yes, three Titans and a lot of magic going around. The kid’s soul would have most likely achieved some kind of divinity very quickly, even before they could develop a proper ego. That would have been troublesome. ” She continued her explanation. “ That’s on top of the Domains the kid would have ended with: Truth, Life and Abyss. ”

The mere idea sent a shiver, and she knew she couldn’t grasp the full meaning behind that combination. “Yeah, that sounds bad.”

“ Bad? That’s downright Eldritch God characteristics! ” Orange barked a laugh out. “ Thankfully dad caught the whole thing early enough that he divided the proto-soul in three and balanced each domain with another. Life got Nurture, Abyss got Oceans and Truth got Lies. ”

She couldn’t honestly tell how balanced that actually made things, it was obviously a matter of philosophical discussions, and she felt like she lacked the life experience to talk there.

“ And while the three of them are now three, there’s the slight problem that as they have grown stronger there’s some repercussions of that start. ”

“I hope it’s not something bad.”

“ Not exactly, at least not for them. But when the three of them are together they start to, in the most basic sense, resonate and synchronize. Though not even dad knows what would happen then. Since the three have well defined egos now they could maintain their individuality while merging in a single entity, or lose their individuality while retaining all of their memories and life experience, or become a completely new being, they could even birth a new entity. ” Orange’s words were accompanied by a series of adorable hand-drawn pictures. “ Or nothing at all! ”

“It still sounds dangerous.”

“ Completely, that’s why they mostly only meet alone rarely and usually with dad around to provide some grounding to their souls. ” Orange sighed and quickly changed her tone. “ Oh, someone is approaching your position quickly. ”

“Okay, thanks, and thank you for telling me all that.” Ruby stood up and wiped some of the dust off her skirt.

Thankfully her Magends had nearly finished their work when a woman landed on the ruins. She had come on the back of a large, white bird, It was nearly two meters tall and very rounded; looked very nice to hug.

“Excuse me,” the blonde woman in the black dress stepped forward, “I would like to ask what are you all doing here.”

“Hello champion.” Ruby internally thanked the System for providing her with the name. “I was running a test in the area.” True, albeit incomplete, not as if she expected Cynthia to believe it just like that.

“Oh? That’s interesting, I’ve studied these ruins extensively myself.” She stepped closer, followed by the Togekiss, as friendly as the bird looked, it was quite threatening when it was a bird larger than a condor.

“They are very interesting indeed.” Ruby agreed. “But it’s more that I’m studying the area of the ruins, it may be hard to see, but space itself has been altered.” She explained. “The surprising thing is that the ruins themselves seem to have played a part in this.”

The champion’s attitude quickly changed, apparently growing quite interested. “Oh? Tell me more.”

“Yes, I hope you’re not insulted if I simplify some of the terms, otherwise I will never finish the work.” She signaled to the center of the ruins as Orange fed her information. “It’s normally impossible to see, but the ruins in themselves section this area of space from the rest of the area. While it opens up into the sky, the walls are solid enough to keep any effect from spilling down the mountain.”

Cynthia relaxed as Ruby continued the explanation. This meant she had more time to finish her actual goal.

“On top of that the pillars act as anchors for hard guidelines. How to explain this?” Ruby snapped her fingers. “Imagine a soap bubble, poking it would pop it. But if you have the soap bubble land on a spiderweb you could safely pop one of the sectioned areas and not pop the entire bubble.”

“What would happen if these guidelines broke? Or didn’t work?” Cynthia asked.

“In this case the walls created by the ruin would most likely act as a second barrier. But anyone in the ruins themselves would be sucked to the other side.” She explained grimly. “Unfortunately as the ruins are technically open up into the sky the hole would become a funnel and the weather in the area would worsen depending on the other side.”

“Hmm, that seems to fit with the records.”

“Records? It happened before?” Ruby didn’t need to fake her tone at that revelation.

“And it almost happened again just a few months ago when a terrorist decided to try and take control of Dialga and Palkia so he could recreate the world to his image.” Cynthia explained in disgust.

“I’m glad to hear it didn’t come to pass.” She admitted as she got ready as the ritual reached its final stage. “Hmm, looks like I’m almost done here.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, watch.” Ruby couldn’t help but feel a bit giddy as the group of diviners and casters finally activated the ritual.

Her mention earlier of a funnel seemed almost ironic as a large magic circle formed a few meters up in the air. The ring started to rotate as the center dipped all the way down to a small jar one of her Magends was holding at the center.

It took a moment before thousands of small grains of red sand started to fly up from everywhere around and get collected into the magic funnel. There were so many and they were so small it was like a red haze had risen.

It had taken some time to locate all of the remains of the Red Chain, thankfully the ritual had been effective and over half of the original components were currently filling the jar, an impressive show that went for almost five minutes.

“Very impressive, though I’ve to ask, what’s that?” Cynthia interrupted the moment the ritual finished. “And I’m curious, but you’ve spent the whole time talking in the singular.”

“Oh, It’s just you and me here, and well, your Pokemon.” Ruby smiled beatifically as her Magend stored the jar. “And for the other, it’s a gift for my boyfriend.”

“Wait…” Cynthia’s whole attitude took a hundred and eighty as she flung a couple of her Pokeballs, a Lucario and a Garchomp being released.

“Two words, Shock and Awe.” Ruby called out, mostly for Cynthia as the two physical Magends retrieved the shields on their back and cast the strongest fortification spells, Walls of light were erected in front of her.

That was just in time for the two very physical Pokemons to impact the magical barriers before one of the caster Magends used a powerful flash to blind them before all of her went through a Golden Portal, leaving Cynthia all alone.

Once safely back on the ship she couldn’t help but to break out in giggles. She had done it, all by herself and quite successfully.

She retrieved the jar full of sparkling red sand. Now that she looked at it from close, it was powerful, and no one would miss it.

Ruby couldn’t wait to see what Magnus could create with it.

Cynthia couldn’t believe she had just stayed still and watched as someone collected the remains of the Red Chain. She turned her two front-liners.

“What happened?” She asked.

“ It was as if a solid Light Screen had been raised. ” Lucario explained. “ They weren’t lying either, I could only feel one person. It was strange, it was as if every last one of them was the same person. ”

This confused her more, unfortunately she didn’t have any Psychic type with her.

“Was everything they told us true?” She checked.

“ As far as I could tell they were telling the truth or what they believed to be the truth. Though it felt as if they were speaking someone else’s words when they described what happened to space here. ”

She nodded. “Though it fits with what I observed, it may actually be true. Though it surprised me that they didn’t have any Pokemon with them.” She mused.

“ Gar-gar. ” Her dragon spoke softly.

“No, I don’t know why she would smell of fox on her.” Cynthia answered even more confused. The Garchomp called out again. “She felt like a Fairy Type? Even stranger, I will have to get someone to make a sketch of her. Hopefully we’ll get some more info about it.”

She retrieved her two Pokemon and got onto Togekiss back. “Let’s head back.” She held firmly onto the Fairy Flying Type. “Did she really feel like a Fairy to you?”

“ Kiss~ ” They answered.

“Uh, I wonder what that meant.” She mused out loud as she headed back.

Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 15

Magnus smiled as he looked at the very eager Zorua, still in his disguise, jumping around him.

“That was a lot of fun!” He giggled in a very childish manner, which was fitting given the age he most likely was.

“That’s good, now we should go before Professor Kukui gets too curious for his own good.” Magnus spoke calmly.

“Ok, I will show you where the others are!” The kid shouted before stopping. “Uhh, weird, I can’t speak normally.”

“Hmm, that’s the little thing I did for your voice. Allow me.” He reached and tapped the kid’s neck. “There we go, curse over.”

“ Curse?! ”

He laughed at his expression. “Don’t worry, all it did was make you incapable of using poke-speech while giving you human speech.” He explained. “Now, in which direction we should go?”

The kid blinked confused before nodding and pointing in a direction.

“Perfect, now hold on.” Magnus grinned as he placed a hand on the kid’s shoulder before they swiftly sank into the shadow they were standing.

A few meters away Kukui got to see Magnus winking before the ground swallowed them.

Nearly a minute later the two of them stepped out a few kilometers away. He looked down at the kid who looked completely frozen.

“Come on, kid, it wasn’t that weird.” He poked his forehead.

He slowly turned towards him. “ That... was… AWESOME! ” He started to jump around him as if he had given him an energy drink, a cup of espresso and sugar on top.

“Calm down, that was just Shadow Travel. Let’s get walking, we don’t have all day.” He reminded him, his words finally calming him down.

“ I thought only Ghost types could do that, could you teach me ”

“We can try, kid. But I was taught by my mom under specific circumstances.” He answered while he got the kid to start walking. He didn’t believe that Kukui wouldn’t find them again if they just stood in place.

The little Zorua nodded and resumed guiding him. They quickly left the city and took the main road until they reached an abandoned dirt road that was marked as out of use. The dirt road soon led to a dead end from where they kept walking. Soon they were crossing a thick, and familiar, fog bank, coming out to a small village on the other side.

A quick appraisal of the area showed that most buildings were actually quite old. There was none that hadn’t been fixed multiple times with different levels of skill applied onto that. It was also clear that most hadn’t been done by human hands.

The whole area smelled like foxes, though he could identify a few other Pokemon mixed in, even one human if he wasn’t wrong. It took a few seconds before the whole area came to life, dozens of Zorua came from barely visible holes, and a few Zoroark walked out of houses. He also saw a few of the local Vulpix, the Lucario surprised him, but not as much as the Xatu.

All the little ones were instantly swarming his legs, sniffing his shoes and clothes, curious about his presence. The Zorua that had brought him had approached one of the Zoroark and was quickly talking with them.

He didn’t need to ignore the kids’ questions for long because the Zoroark came forward.

“ That’s enough, go and play, that’s for all of you. ” She, and it was definitely a woman, called for order before turning to him. “ Welcome to our village, you can let the transformation go if you want. ”

He let out a soft chuckle. “Technically that one’s not my natural form, but if it will make everyone feel more comfortable.” He shifted. It wasn’t as if he was taking a different form, both of them were him; both sides of a coin.

Now that he stood in front of a proper Zoroark, he was quick to notice the slight difference their bodies had. To start he was standing more erect than them. Zoroarks tended to stand at the ready, their long legs slightly bent and their bodies leaning forward, their manes acting as counter-weight to maintain their posture. Their arms were also a bit longer than his own, though it was barely noticeable. Finally his mane was still braided, so even after it bulked up with his transformation, it was leaner than theirs.

“ You look better this way, though… ” She shrugged. “ Nevermind, the elder will want to meet you, follow me. ”

He nodded. It wasn’t lost on him that practically every Pokemon in the small village was looking at him, he was effectively a stranger, even if of the same race, kinda.

They guided him towards the oldest house, different from the more modern style of most houses, this one was built in the traditional style of the islands. He got invited inside where an elderly Zoroark awaited him.

Their fur had blanched nearly completely, making them look almost like a Hisuian Zoroark.

“ Welcome to our village, stranger. ” His voice was soft and tired, though that was mostly because it’s obvious to his eyes the old man had just woken up from a nap. On the other hand, his eyes were quite sharp.

“Greetings, I’m Magnus, but I also go by Traveler.” He bowed his head towards the elder. “I thank you for inviting me to your village.”

“ Polite .” The old fox said with a chuckle. “ And you’ve a name, interesting, I take it wasn’t a trainer that gave it to you. ”

He shook his head. “No, it was given to me by my parents, while my title was given to me by a teacher.”

“ Makes me wonder, you’re definitely no normal Zoroark. ” He studied him carefully.

“I’m not.” He admitted with a laugh. “But that’s a complicated story, the Truth is that I’m effectively a Zoroark like this, just like I’m a human on the other form.”

His words caused the old fox to raise an eyebrow, but he didn’t comment, the truth of his words helping him accept the fact.

“ I will take your word. So, what brings you by? ” He asked as he shifted his hands onto his knees, leaning forward.

“Just like my Title, I like to travel, this World’s just another in my path. I’m just relaxing, enjoying the sights and seeing what I can learn. I also offer my help to those I find to my liking.” He replied honestly.

He nodded. “ What kind of help could you offer us? ”

Magnus wouldn’t lie and say he didn’t like them already just for sharing his race, there was also the fact that he could show off a bit. “Personally, I’m great at fixing, creating and construction. I could even teach a few of the older ones around better construction and fixing skills.” He explained. “I could also ask my sister to help by creating a number of ids for anyone that wants to properly pass as human.”

“ Hooo, all of that sounds quite useful. How long would it take you to teach construction? ”

He only thought about it for a moment. “… I would say seven classes of two or three hours. While I’m not against teaching, I could also rebuild the village at the same time.”

The Zoroark looked at him. “ A week to rebuild the village sounds quite fast. ”

Magnus laughed. “Oh, no, I meant two hours .” He grinned, giving him his best foxy smile.

The fox growled. “ I’m old enough to know when you little brats are teasing… but something makes me think you’re just not telling the whole story. ”

He nodded. “The answer is both simple and complex, it’s just Magic.” He explained, his fingers were snapped for the show as a small sphere of Light was created above. “During my travels I learned how to use magic to modify large areas, replacing work, time and materials for Power.”

“ I remember tales of magic, I think the only ones that have anything close to that are those of the Fairy type. ” He mused. “ Maybe a few Ghosts. ”

“I could show you, the process is permanent, or as permanent as building a house is. You could show me a clear spot or a house that’s too far gone. It wouldn’t even take that long, maybe a dozen minutes if I really go all out.” He offered, trying not to sound like a sleazy sales-mon.

“ I’ve seen many things during my life, I’ve even hung out with the Tapus on more than one occasion. But I think I’m not too old to see something new. ” The Zoroark got up slowly. “ Come on, show me this magic. ”

Magnus grinned, the corners of his muzzle pulling up. He quickly followed. It was obvious they had been eavesdropped, because everyone was already around to watch him. The same woman that had guided him to the elder guided them to an old house, it was in such disrepair that it was obvious it hadn’t been in actual use except for the obvious signs of Zorua playing in it.

“Looks good enough to me.” He joked. “Okay, everyone stand back.” He warned them and metaphorically pulled his sleeves up before he dropped both open palms onto the ground.

While not obvious at first sight, a deeper observation revealed that the building was soaked in Darkness, which wasn’t that surprising in a village of Dark-type Pokemons. Thankfully it didn’t make things harder, only a bit easier as his own elements soaked into the land and quickly devoured the existing materials.

It was fun to watch, as if suddenly the floor had turned into a dark pool and the house sank into it. Just in case he dropped some pure sand, stone, and more wood. Thankfully he wouldn’t need metal as all the materials already in the sort-of cauldron could be reinforced to a very high degree.

By now he could tell he was doing something different compared to the original version of the spell. Just to start he was using it to construct normal buildings and not dungeons or fortresses, no matter how much a home could be one. There was also the fact he was using the whole trap-construction for the creation of appliances.

At the eight minute mark he finished the preparation process and started to raise the house proper. It was a simple one floor and one basement house. It was something between an igloo and a Hobbit hole. It was stocked with everything someone would need, a fridge with a freezer, flowing water collected from the humid air coming from the ocean, and artificial lighting. All powered by an adapted version of the Blue Flame.

He stood up straight. “There we go.” He gestured to the home. The Zoroarks quickly moved to check it as the elder just stood by his side.

“ Ok, maybe magic can do it. ” The old Zoroark chuckled. “ I assume that you will teach a few of us how to repair it? ”

“Oh, it shouldn’t need to be repaired for, let’s say, one or two thousand years. I build to last and that house will take anything outside of a Legendary deciding they don’t want it to exist anymore.” Magnus laughed at the old Zoroark’s look. “I learned from a race that has been building for a few thousand years, it’s the gift of learning from the best.”

He let out a barking laugh. “ Good, maybe then they will stop complaining to me about things breaking down. ”

“You should see what you like about it and what not so if you want me to do the whole village we can have a better design. But for that I recommend you talk with the others.”

“ That will do. ”

Before Magnus could say something more, he was once more swarmed by the Zoruas, their voices melding into constant yipping, though he could pick up the ‘play with us’ general feeling.

The elder laughed. “ I think you’ll be busy for a bit. ”

“It looks that way, I will look for you before I leave for the day.” He said before leading the kids away to tire them out for a bit.

Lydia looked at the small, black gem. It was curious how the emblem inside was visible from practically any angle, as if it reoriented itself so the viewer could always see the… face? Maw? Bat? Some strange combination of all of the above?

Apparently it was called Darkinium-Z, and it was technically completely useless for them as they didn’t have a Z-ring, which was necessary to use it. And more importantly, a Pokemon.

“That’s done, now what, sister?” Moisha asked.

“Like usual, we keep our noses clean and don’t attract attention to ourselves.” Lydia put the small gem away into her inventory. “There’s still a lot to see on the island and the other three.”

“I’ve been reading the local tourist guide, there’s apparently a pretty nice cave towards the North of the island.” Romeo suggested before stopping his walking and looking down the canal.

Lydia and Moisha quickly joined him, finding three Pokemon wandering towards the area under a bridge. From their position they could see a collection of old furniture and other trash. Lydia also noticed that the small owl appeared to have stuck some kind of metal ring around their neck, a detail that wasn’t missed by Romeo who before she could say anything had jumped over the edge.

Thankfully no one had noticed his sudden disappearance, except for the three Pokemon. Moisha and her soon joined him.

The small cat, a Litten, had instantly turned, their fur standing up straight as they got ready to attack. Meanwhile the Owl, Rowlet, remained stuck inside the same bubble that the last one, a Popplio, had been carrying on its nose like a toy.

“Whoah, calm down.” Romeo softened his voice. “Saw you were in a little predicament and wanted to help.” He showed his open hands. “See, I’ve nothing to attack, nor I’ve any Pokemon.” He showed his empty belt.

The Litten hadn’t lowered their guard, but a heavy and tired Whuff came from below the bridge. “ Enough .” It surprised all of them.

He moved slowly, showing their age. A dog the size of the couch it had been lying on, the System identified it as Stoutland.

“ You shouldn’t deny help when you need it. ” The dog spoke like an old man, his slow movement and generous fur certainly added to the image.

The Litten turned and meowed to them. “ But they smell weird, like rats. ”

“ Would it change much? ” He pointed out and the small cat looked down.

Romeo took a slow step forward and all attention was back on him.

“I just want to help, I imagine thumbs would be useful to get the Rowlet unstuck.” He explained.

The Popplio and the Litten looked towards the captured owl.

“ It would be helpful. ” Rowlet noted with a sleepy tone.

“ Okay, let me get you down. ” Popplio gently lowered the bubble, which popped when it touched the ground. The owl shook some of the moistness off.

Lydia watched as Romeo quickly knelt down the Pokemon and reached for their neck, carefully tucking their feathers under the metal ring, slowly pulling it up their head to not hurt them.

“You okay, old man?” Moisha had moved around the Litten and approached the Stoutland.

The old dog huffed. “ Just my time is coming, I’ve been alive a long, long time already. ” He answered, barely raising a bushy eyebrow to look at her.

Lydia, meanwhile, was keeping an eye out, she couldn’t discard the feeling that something was about to happen. That familiar itch on the nape had only become more clear since she had acquired the System, as if a little bit of her brain occupied itself by taking every bit of information her senses captured and carefully studying it to keep her prepared.

And at the moment, that bit of her brain was calling for caution, so she would keep her ears up and open.

“And… we’re done.” Romeo announced as he removed the ring off the owl’s neck, the bird stretching their wings now that they could move.

“ Finally! ” The Rowlet celebrated by flying around a bit before landing to preen at their ruffled feathers.

Stoutland approached Litten, laying his old body down. “ Remember that accepting help is not wrong. ”

“ It’s just… ” He patted the ground idly.

“ I won’t be always with you, and you have a whole life ahead of you. ” Stoutland spoke gently. “ Now you should accompany those two back to their trainers. ”

“ But- Ok. ” The Litten looked a bit defeated. He walked towards Popplio and Rowlet. “ Come on, I’ll guide you to the Pokemon school. ”

Stoutland turned towards Romeo. “ Thank you for helping. ” He bowed slightly, obviously exerting himself to do so.

“Hmm, it was nothing.” Romeo tried to waved it off, causing Moisha and Lydia to chuckle as they found it funny how he was acting embarrassed.

The old dog let out a dry laugh that was cut suddenly as all of them heard the cry coming from the distance, three small, familiar Pokemons. Stoutland practically launched himself in that direction, Team Maus moving behind. Though at a distance and keeping to the shadows, looking to keep the element of surprise while observing the situation.

Two humans and a Pokemon were standing on the roof of a small house that overlooked the canal. One of them was holding some kind of capture tool with a net that held the three young Pokemon. Their Meowth seemed to be trying to convince the Litten to join them, but only managed to get a face full of embers.

Moisha didn’t lose another second after Lydia gave her the okay. A constructed blade flew with perfect aim, severing the net from the tool and freeing the three Pokemon.

The Rowlet caught the Popplio as the Litten simply twisted and landed on his feet. Stoutland showed an impressive feat of power as the sofa-sized dog leapt two floors up as his mouth was filled with fire.

The Pokemon thieves didn’t get much time to react before the attack connected. For some reason the resulting explosion sent the three of them flying off in a magnificent arc that Lydia was pretty sure would get them to the ocean in one flight. She only worried about them for a bit, if they could fly off so easily, they would have some landing plan.

Stoutland landed, still at the ready. But his attitude didn’t last as his legs quickly lost strength and collapsed down. The Litten was instantly by his side.

“ I’m okay, I’m okay. ” The Stoutland tried to hide his cough. “ Don’t worry, just these old bones aren’t what they once were. ”

“ You don’t look well. ” Litten complained as Rowlet and Popplio approached slowly.

Romeo stepped forward. “You should guide those two back to their trainers, we’ll look after him.” He suggested.

The small cat looked dubious, but a nod from the old dog made him turn around and walk away, albeit slowly and with a couple of looks over his shoulder.

“Let’s get you back to your spot, old man.” Moisha said as the three of them accompanied him.

“ Ho ho ho, it’s been a long time since I’ve been given this kind of treatment. ”

“Maybe if you didn’t live under a bridge?” Lydia harmlessly snapped at him.

“ Maybe. ” He heaved his body onto the couch, wheezing as the small amount of exertion had taken its toll. “ Though you three are very interesting, I don’t think many would have been able to do that throw. ”

“What can we say? We train hard, eat all of our veggies and aren’t human.” Romeo joked before turning a bit more serious. “You’re dying and soon, I can tell you’ve no more than a few weeks, and there’s little that can be done that wouldn’t at best extend it to a couple of months.”

Stoutland nodded. “ I know, it’s not like there’s much left for me to do in this life. ”

Romeo nodded. “That’s why I would like to offer you something that will at least make that time left more comfortable.” He explained as he retrieved a golden bag from his inventory.

Lydia and Moisha didn’t react to it, at least externally. Internally, she was wondering what had gotten into him to go this far for a random dog.

The old dog chuffed. “… well, it would certainly make it easier to teach Litten a few more tricks. ” His tone was wavering.

“Just bite and suck the potion, old man.” Moisha suggested.

“ I really can’t say no to the youth of today. Bring it here. ” He bit down the silver packet and drank the content.

Lydia was still amazed that the potions were made of radishes, magic radishes yes, but radishes anyways. They were the size of her head and there was a need for half a dozen to produce one of those potion packets. But they were renewable, even if only one plant survived to seed, that would give around forty to sixty seeds. And Magnus had a field of a few hundred of them always growing.

The change was nearly instant. There was a weight lifted off the old dog’s body as his body recovered old strength, his fur recovered a shine, even his eyes regained a youthful glow.

He let out a ruff and shook the effects off. “ Oh my! It’s like I’m a young Herdier once more. ”

“Just be careful, this just makes you healthy, you still have some only till your time comes.” Romeo lied.

“ I will, thank you for your help and this chance. ”

They nodded and proceeded to leave, only once they knew to be far away enough Moisha broke out in giggles. “You’re so mean.” She laughed and smacked Romeo’s arm.

“What? I just told the truth, it made him healthy and he will live well until his time comes. It’s just that his time will come much further ahead.” He smiled beatifically.

Lydia shook her head. She would just mark it as a random good action and let it go.

“How about we visit that cave system you had talked about earlier?” She changed the subject.

“Sure, Seaward Cave should still be open. Not that would really stop us.” He chuckled, receiving a condescending look from both of them at the bad joke. “Everyone’s a critic.”

At that they laughed and resumed their walk.

Magnus looked at the jar Ruby had given her.

“You know, there’s something special about you giving me something this red after taking Ruby as your name.” He joked before placing the material down and passionately kissing her. “On the other hand, you’re crazy, facing Cynthia and running away like that?”

“I left before the boss' music started.” She joked back and leaned against him, more than content about the results of her actions.

“I’ve no idea what I’ll do with it. The Red Chain is… was definitely a divine, semi-divine at worst, artifact. One with a very strong alignment to Control, Capture, and Command. Which is kinda funny because they are connected to Wisdom, Benevolence and Valor.” He eyed the tattoo on the back of his left hand.

He definitely needed to add something, it shouldn’t be too hard to tattoo himself. The spare hands would make that part very easy, the hard part would be forging a needle capable of stabbing his skin without breaking and an ink capable of staying in place and not being purged.

His eyes wandered towards the red sand… He would have to study that avenue. He turned to the actually important subject.

“Still, you were quite brave, facing a Champion and part of her main team while stealing something like that from under her nose.” He leaned closer. “You deserve a reward.”

The thoughtful look sent a dangerous shiver down his spine, there would be no crafting time this night.

Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 16

Magnus returned to his workshop after a visit to the Zoroark village, as he had promised he had given those interested a lesson on basic building and maintenance skills, at least the first lesson; half a dozen to go. He had also talked with the elder and the other adults about the new design for the reconstruction of the village.

He had seen to counsel them on their choices, but allow them the last word on the subject. They would also need to move their belongings out of their houses and that would take time, so there was no rush for his part of the work.

He guessed one more visit to discuss things before he would work on the village. But that would be in the future, right now he had something more interesting to invest his attention in.

The red sand resulting from the breaking of the Red Chain was impressive, and thankfully he had a lot of it. A few kilograms may not appear much, if he would just use the sand, but these were the kind of materials one used sparingly and alloyed with other things.

But what he wanted at the moment was to utilize some of it to create a pigment for the creation of tattoo ink. The characteristics of the material should remain in his skin as long as he was the one applying the work.

Otherwise a tattoo would just not remain on his body, it would be quickly purged. The only reason the Triforce and the crests remained on his hand was because they were literally divine in their making.

Though while it would be fun to expand his tattoo into a sleeve, it would be a waste of an interesting material. Thankfully he had an idea for that too, it had been growing in his mind the whole day long and he now could put it into effect.

The Red Chain was meant to impose one’s Will upon a Pokemon, it carried a sense of domination and control, and there were a few things he had wanted to have proper control over, like his weapons.

He retrieved Graceful, it was his first weapon and the most fitting for the circumstances. The weapon would need to be reforged, but first he would need to create the bond, and for that he would need the tattoo.

He would use his existing one as a start, it just felt right to go for some nature design encapsulating the crests. He would also need to add his own crest, a good way to anchor the meaning to himself.

If he was right, this would not only bring him closer to his weapons. But also set up the future for some interesting projects he was thinking about.

(Spoilers for Ghostbusters: Afterlife)

The Spengler’s house was the center of a massive ectoplasmic storm. Hurricane-like winds threatened anyone coming close and kept those already in the area prisoners of the being that had walked out of the fields. Massive electrical and psycho-electric discharges ran down from the clouds of dust lifted by the thunderous winds.

The half-formed figure of Gozer slowly came together after recovering their Keymaster and Gatekeeper. The full access to their powers in the mortal plane allowed the divine-like entity to exert themselves fully. Their power such that their mere presence bled energy into their surroundings and exerted a primal fear onto their figure’s witnesses.

Gozer’s fingers trailed over their hellhounds in devilish delight, their androgynous figure turning their attention towards the mother and daughter that had tried to oppose their return. And with gleeful pleasure they aimed their intents to enjoy the destruction of the child that had delayed their physical return and the one that had been one of had been the enabled of Zuul.

“Oh no…” The woman whispered in terror as she tried to shield her daughter from the being. But before their power reached them someone called out.

“Hey, flattop.” The middle of three old men called out, they walked into the area wearing old uniforms, not used in dozens of years. “Missed us?”

They stepped closer, their bulky equipment coming into view as they stepped into the rays of light cast by the old ecto-1.

“Gozer the Gozerian, in the name of the county of Somerville state of Oklahoma the US fish and wildlife service, all the members of ducks unlimited, and the association for the advancement of retired persons I command you under the National Invasive Species Act to depart this world immediately” Dr Ray Stantz finished his speech.

Dr Peter Venkman nodded. “Bravo.”

Gozer and their hellhounds barked and growled at them.

“I think she remembers us.” Winston Zeddermore chuckled.

Gozer looked at them, studied the three old men before speaking. “Are you… a god?”

“Ray…”

“Oh, come on, Ray…”

“Yes.” Ray said.

“Yeah, we’re all gods.” Winston added.

“Yeah, we’re all pretty damn special down here, on a personal note I thought that we had busted up for good.” Peter said. “I mean, it wasn’t working for me, my friend didn’t think so, I know yours didn’t-”

One of the hellhounds stepped forward to growl, only to be stopped by Gozer.

“Okay, playtime’s over.” Winston called out. “Let’s toast this muffin.”

The three retrieved the guns from their Proton Packs, aiming them forward.

“Light him up.” Peter said and the three charged their weapons.

The familiar buzzing as the packs powered up to life.

“Man, I love that sound.” The black man said with a smile.

“On the count of three, go on two.” Peter ordered. “One, Two.”

The three of them shot at the same time, the Proton streams shot out, latching onto the ghostly entity, coiling around their figure as the three old men moved closer. 

“Yeah!” Ray exclaimed. “Nothing stings like a billion electron volts!”

The streams collided with each other and merged into a much more powerful stream of energy. But it wasn’t enough against Gozer, their hands reached to grab the ropes of energy and forced them slowly apart, uncoiling them.

“Do you feel that?” Winston called out.

“Oh, no.” Peter let out. “She’s uncrossing the streams.”

Gozer didn’t growl, scream or cry out, instead they just forced the streams apart before whipping them like ropes, sending the three men flying back against the parked Ecto-1.

“No!” Phoebe cried out from behind her mother, who looked terrified.

The three slowly shifted from the spots they had landed, pulling themselves closer.

“I don’t remember this job being so painful.” Ray groaned.

“I do.” Winston corrected him.

“You got a lot of nerve, coming back here, crawling back to me.” Peter said. “We could have been the most spectacular power couple, you know.”

The hellhounds growled loudly and threatened with their open mouths.

“My sense of fun,” he continued, “and your personality. But no, you always had to vanquish, and conquer, or always had to maim somebody, and that’s probably the number one reason why-”

A zap of power from Gozer stopped his speech and the powering of their Proton Packs.

“Good try anyways.” Ray offered.

“Now we’re finished, babe.” Peter said softly. “Come on baby-”

Before anyone could say anything else, before even Gozer or their hellhounds could react, a massive, peach-colored cat’s paw came down from straight up. It was larger than an adult man, almost two meters long, and it connected to a leg easily about six meters long.

The sudden event had made everyone freeze. The two hellhounds had been pushed away and stunned. The three old men could only watch. The two teens in the Ecto-1 had stopped their actions. The woman had frozen completely and even her daughter, who had moved away to aim her Proton Pack at Gozer, could only watch.

The massive paw slowly rose before slamming down two times more. The action made everyone look at the splayed figure of Gozer, just as stunned as everyone else by the act, before looking up and really freezing at the titanic figure connected to the arm.

A humanoid cat was becoming visible through the clouds of dust lifted by the storm. A long, sinuous tail swaying idly and almost lazily. They were just floating up in the air, but even its massive size wasn’t as impressive as the sight of those eyes. Huge orbs that displayed intelligence and an alien disinterest. Even Gozer’s eyes had displayed some relatable emotion. But these two looked down with contempt, boredom and an indescribable emotion.

Gozer tried to stand up, to call to its power. But instead received another, almost playful, swat down, burying their figure deeper into the dirt.

“ɢօʐɛʀ ȶɦɛ ɢօʐɛʀɨǟռ, ɨռ ռǟʍɛ օʄ ȶɦɛ ӄɨռɢ օʄ ȶɦɛ ɨռʄɨռɨȶɛ ʀɛǟʟʍֆ ʏօʊ ǟʀɛ ʝʊɖɢɛɖ ɢʊɨʟȶʏ.” The cat-like being spoke and everyone heard it and understood it. Their voice reverberated inside of their heads and each word had a weight of its own. “ʏօʊ ɦǟʋɛ ƈʟǟɨʍɛɖ ʟօʀɖֆɦɨք օʋɛʀ ȶɦɛ ʀɛǟʟʍֆ ʄօʀ ȶօօ ʟօռɢ, ǟ քօֆɨȶɨօռ ȶɦǟȶ ɖօɛֆռ’ȶ ɮɛʟօռɢ ʏօʊ. ʏօʊ ֆɦǟʟʟ ɮɛ ֆȶʀɨքքɛɖ օʄ ʏօʊʀ ȶɨȶʟɛֆ ǟռɖ քօաɛʀֆ, ȶօ ȶɦɛռ ɮɛ ɨʍքʀɨֆօռɛɖ ʄօʀ ȶɛռ ʏɛǟʀֆ ʄօʀ ɛǟƈɦ ʏɛǟʀ ʏօʊ ɦǟʋɛ ɮɛɛռ ɨռ ȶɦɛ աʀօռɢ.”

[Gozer the Gozerian, in name of the King of the Infinite Realms you are judged guilty.] [You have claimed lordship over the realm for too long, a position that doesn’t belong to you. You shall be stripped of your titles and powers, to then be imprisoned for ten years for each year you have been in the wrong.]

Before anyone could react, even Gozer could only scream in pitiful powerlessness, the ground turned a toxic green. Dozens upon dozens of hands sprouted from that green swamp, grabbing Gozer’s figure and starting to drag them down. The hellhounds weren’t left behind, the monstrous beasts getting dragged down as the two captured people were freed from the Key and the Gatekeeper’s forms.

More hands shot up into the sky, grabbing the flying spirits and souls, dragging them down screaming and flailing. Deformed figures screamed and fought, but were unable to break free from that glowing mirror.

The two hounds sank quickly, while Gozer fought hard to keep themselves from sinking in. However it was futile, they sank and sank until only their hand was left protruding from the pool, the whole thing dissipating once the appendage was dragged in.

No one could react, they just stood in place, watching the event.

“ǟռɖ աɨȶɦ ȶɦǟȶ ɖօռɛ” The giant cat started to shrink, their imposing figure becoming a handsome man who cracked their neck. “Much better.” He looked around. “Hmm, anyone needs medical attention?”

[And with that done.]

“What-” “The-” “Fuck?” The three old men said one after the other.

The well-dressed man ignored their reaction and instead walked up to them and easily helped each of them stand up, wiping the dust off them. “There we go, I even added a bit of extra healing for those old age ails.”

Winston raised an eyebrow as Peter and Ray checked themselves up and down.

“Uh, my joints don’t hurt anymore.” Ray mused as he flexed his arms and legs.

“Anyone else needing a pick-me-up?” The man went around, checking on everyone.

“Excuse me,” Phoebe stepped forward, “who are you? And what just happened?”

“Ah, I knew I was forgetting something, being on official duty always bores me out of my mind, I go with the flow until the job’s done.” The young man bowed. “I’m Milo, as I said before, I come from the court of the King of the Infinite Realms, also called the Ghost Zone, Ghost Dimension, Afterlife, etcetera, etcetera. As you can imagine, Gozer calling himself the King of Ghosts went against the current king’s position.”

“King?” Ray let out dubiously.

“Yes, his Majesty Daniel Fenton, he who beat the previous king Pariah Dark. Honestly Gozer only got to run like they did because Pariah Dark had been locked away for the last few thousand years. He was let out a couple decades ago and was swiftly beaten by the new king; it still took a few years until he stepped up into the role proper.” Milo explained.

“How does that even work?” The young girl asked.

“Oh, it’s not royalty like with mortal people. The King is a half-ceremonial figure, in charge of a certain social aspect of the Infinite Realms, and half a necessary part for the functioning of the realm; he’s like the gallbladder, not strictly necessary, but certainly appreciated. Not like things would break down quickly, Pariah Dark was not doing his job for a few thousand years and things were still running mostly normally.” Milo shrugged and maintained his affable smile.

He then turned towards nothing, making everyone confused until he spoke.

“Of course my job’s not technically done, I’ve one more thing to deliver.” He waved his hand and a ghostly figure became visible to the surprise of everyone. “Egon Spengler, for your deeds carried in protection of the living world and humanity you’ve been invited to join the Ghost King’s court.”

“ But I failed. ” Egon’s voice came as a mix of a whisper and a breeze, soft and easy to miss even when everyone could hear him.

“You and your teammates stopped Gozer once and saved the world from its destruction, and you managed to slow his return for long enough.” Milo spoke seriously. “You must understand that even more ghosts would have had trouble dealing with a being like Gozer.”

Ray snorted. “And you just slapped him silly.” He let out.

Milo’s smile tugged into a grin. “I’m neither a ghost, at least not fully, nor I’m a normal being. I don’t want to boast, but there’s only a few beings capable of matching my power.” He let out a soft chuckle.

“Then what are you?” Peter prompted.

“As my brother likes to say, unique .” Milo answered and changed the subject. “Anyways, Egon, you have your invitation, and don’t worry, Winston Zeddermore, Dr Raymond Stantz and Dr Peter Venkman will get their dues once they pass for the deeds carried in life.”

Egon’s mouth closed silently and he turned towards his daughter and granddaughter. By now Trevor, Phoebe's brother had helped Lucky, one of the two people captured by the hellhounds, away from the spot and onto the house’s porch stairs. While Callie had helped Gary, the other victim of the hounds.

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s a very easy matter to fix their economic situation.” Milo reassured her. “There’s always people with more money than sense or right to it.”

Phoebe raised an eyebrow. “Are you talking about stealing?”

“Stealing, schmealing.” Milo waved it off. “Nah, I’m doing capitalism as it’s proper and redistributing money around. If the capital doesn’t move around the economy stagnates, there’s less money going around and that makes governments issue more money, which devalues the coin and that influx of money only ends adding to the money those few people are already accumulating and so on.”

“Oh.” The girl was surprised at having an explanation for stealing.

The younger kid that had been helping form inside the Ecto-1 stepped out, he appeared to be covered in some kind of puffy, white goop. “What I want to know is how you did that.” He said as he approached the large paw indent on the ground, the multiple impacts had revealed the ghost traps half-buried in the ground.

“Just the joys of a Titan’s heritage and not wanting to deal with a megalomaniac ghost’s gigantic ego.” Milo shrugged. “A good smack’s enough to stun and the contact allowed me to strip them off their powers.”

Ray frowned. “Wait, then what was all that about the decree? Doesn’t the king have the power to strip a ghost’s power?”

“Sure, but my uncle would have to be here in person. That’s why I was sent, I can do that normally.”

Peter mused. “How does that even work?”

“Complete control over the shape of bodies, mind and souls lead very well to everything from healing to ghost depowering.”

“That kind of control would make you immortal.” Ray pointed out.

“I’m already immortal and very hard to kill.” Milo riposted. “Anyways, everyone’s been healed, matters fixed and…” He turned to Egon. “I would suggest you say your goodbyes, you’re either coming with me back to court or passing on, you know very well you can’t stay on the mortal plane in your current state.”

The ghost nodded and turned towards his old friends first.

Ray was the first to speak. “I feel like I owe you an apology for thinking you just had run off with the Ecto-1 and most of the equipment.” He started heartfelt, but his tone quickly shifted into a more lighthearted one. “Though I also want to punch you for being such an idiot that didn’t ask for help, we’re a team.”

“Personally I thought you had gone insane, the supernatural was on the down and there was no more work as Ghostbusters.” Peter admitted. “I thought that you running away was hunting old dreams and I decided to just give up instead of reaching out to you to learn what truly happened.”

Winston chuckled. “In many ways being part of the team was the first step in realizing my potential, so I’ve to thank you for that. When things ended I just thought it was time to take the next step.” He smiled. “In many ways, this is the most alive I’ve felt in a long time.”

“That could also be a side-effect of my healing.” Milo spoke up from his spot. “Just a suggestion, but you’ll be a decade or two younger.”

The three looked at him before Egon smiled while shaking his head. The ghost then turned towards his daughter and granddaughter. He approached the younger of the two first, reaching to stroke her head.

“ I don’t have long, so I will say this, you’ve the smart and the spirit to carry you a long way. You can keep all of my research, I can only imagine how much further you will take it. ” He spoke gently before he went past her and approached his daughter.

The two looked at each other before sharing a heartfelt hug, sharing a few words no one, except Milo heard. But he knew better than to speak about such things. After that he turned to Milo and nodded.

“Excellent, now, one last thing.” He pushed his hand into thin air before pulling a small card and handing it to Phoebe. “If your grandfather’s right, you have a lot of Potential in your future, if you ever want to expand your horizons call us, I’m sure my father would be more than happy to foster your intellect.”

The girl looked curious. “Like?”

“Anything you want, though I’ll guess you will prefer more of the hard sciences or paranormal studies. I’m sure one of my siblings is more than up to the task for that.” Milo answered. “Anyways, let’s go, I wish you all a lovely time.”

He bowed before grabbing Egon’s shoulder and both of them getting sucked down into a green portal. Everyone else could only watch.

“Did that just happen?” Trevor asked.

“I think it did, but I missed most of that, so you will have to explain it to me.” Lucky laughed.

The other kid that had been in the Ecto-1 looked around. “Did someone else notice he called the king his uncle?” His question went ignored.

With the apocalypse averted and the adrenaline of the situation running out, more than one felt close to passing out. Except for Ray, Peter and Winston who were feeling quite spry for their age.

Things would change, but most of the world would be unaware for a long time. Closer to home, Phoebe did adopt a pale cat that appeared on the farm the next day, a smart little fella that was well behaved and kept to himself most of the time. It would be a few years until the card she had been handed would be remembered.

But that’s another story.

Magnus was impressed by the result of his work. It wasn’t just the intricate runic design that spawned from the Golden Goddesses’ Crests. It was also the fact that his weapons were now stored inside of it.

They had effectively become an inherent part of him, to the point he could move them around even when not physically touching them. And it wasn’t just his weapons, but also Dexter&Sinister were a part of him.

He had bonded with each of his weapons, Graceful, Forward, Tenlight, Deliver, Close&Persona, Solid&Firm, Swift Petals, the newly named chakrams, even the illusion daggers had been bonded and properly named as Fog and Flash. On the no-weapon variety, Stone Bell and his clothes had been bonded too. It made them feel so much closer to him.

Honestly, just watching Graceful float in the air and move around with just his will was impressive. Especially when the weapon was a few tons of solid metal. He couldn’t wait to fling it to someone.

It had taken the whole afternoon and night, but it was what he liked to do. He only needed to will it to feel the weapon slide into his soul, a tiny speck going around his suns, joining the little bit of Hyrule he had taken with him.

It had grown, but only minutely. From a grain of sand into three, or four. Not enough to be considered anything. But for some reason it was enough to have most weapons orbiting around them, the only exceptions were the Dark and Light aligned ones, which instead orbited their respective stars.

He had also acquired a new perk, working with the Red Chain’s remains had counted towards working with monster materials. And that was all the perk was about, working with bits from monsters and living being to create weapons, armors and other implements.

There wasn’t much it would change towards his current weapons, they hadn’t been exactly created from monster parts. But he could reforge the Gleeok series, or maybe use some of the material he had acquired from the rest of the body to create some new things. He may replace Deliver’s string for one of the monster’s many tendons, the material would certainly be much more suited.

But that would wait, with his personal work done, he headed towards the mess hall, as usual finding a couple of Ruby’s Magends hanging there.

“Magnus, taking a break?” The one by the counter asked.

He gave her a smile before leaning over the counter to kiss her quickly. The action received a reaction from all the Magends around, most likely sharing the experience.

“Hmm, more like I’ve done enough for now. I was thinking of heading down to the Zoroark village soon, and was thinking of inviting you to come.” He answered her question.

“I would love to accompany you, I should be able to join in half an hour, so until then how about something to eat?” She offered.

“Hmm, I can always eat if you’re cooking.” He flirted.

She laughed. “You can eat anything, you would eat a rock if I sprinkled salt on it.”

“So? It wouldn’t be the first rock I eat.” He only half-jokes. “At least it would have been properly seasoned this time.”

She rolled her eyes as her other Magend was already half-through the meal’s preparation.

“Any other plans?”

“Well, I was thinking of leading Professor Kukui around for a while, there’s something very tempting about some mischief.” He laughed. “How about you? Been teasing any other champion?”

The other Magend slid the plate of breakfast onto the counter and leaned over to kiss him.

“No, nothing like that.” She answered. “I’ve been doing a lot, honestly. Mainly I’ve been spending a lot of my attention studying the berries inside the Greenhouse. There’s so many of them and they can be so versatile. People in this World have been using them for a lot of things, I’ve been experimenting with using them to cook.”

The other Magend pulled a series of small, colorful cubes before speaking.

“While they are mainly effective on Pokemon, a few can be excellent beautification supplements. Better hair, supplier skin, etcetera.” She fixed her hair.

“I don’t see much difference, you’re looking as good as when I retrieved you from that lab.” He commented honestly.

The silence while he ate told him he had said the right words.

Ruby huffed. “Anyways, I’m ready to leave at any time you want.” She offered.

“Sure.” He smiled and kissed both Magends in gratitude before heading to look for the main of her. Finding her by the bedroom he offered his hand. “Let’s go, it’s still early and I will still need to reconstruct a whole village.”

“With pleasure.” She took his hand and both stepped through the golden portal that opened in the hallway.

Chapter Text

Venturing the Worlds – 17

Magnus and Ruby took their time walking towards the village, the weather of the islands was mostly sunny and tropical, making any time outside to be an enjoyable time for the couple. He had little to no difficulty to steer them through the fog barrier that covered the village.

“Very cozy.” She observed after looking around.

“Don’t be mean, it’s already impressive that they managed to keep everything so well maintained.” He spoke softly and smacked her arm playfully.

The inhabitants of the small village had carefully packed all of their belongings and moved them out of their houses and burrows. There was more than he expected to see, apparently many families had lived in the area for several generations and accumulated quite a bit. Thankfully given the plans they had discussed, everyone would have more than enough space to store everything back and still have spare space.

The elderly Zoroark approached him, giving Ruby a look.

“ Good morning, and welcome to our little village. ” The old fox smiled. “ When Magnus said you looked like a Joy I thought he was overstating it. ”

She laughed. “It’s not the first time I’ve been confused with one. Though I am quite capable of offering healing, either medical or magical.” She offered.

“ Hmm, well, I’m sure at least one of the little ones will get a scuff or two before the day’s over, so we may end up needing your help. ” The comment made them all chuckle.

“I take everything is ready?” Magnus asked and received a nod in answer. “Then little reason to delay things any longer.”

He pulled his sleeves back and placed both hands down, the work would be as large as what he had carried back in the Gerudo Desert. His Darkness flared up and expanded out, it didn’t take long to cover all of the area and start devouring the materials existing. Of course it didn’t stop there, he would need more metal and glass for what he was planning, and just in case he added some berry tree seeds.

He would need to bring the current fog wall down before he finished, but it could wait until near the end of the process. With everything in order, he got working.

The elder turned towards her. “ So what’s your story? ”

“Well, he saved me.” She answered with a smile on her face. “No matter what I look like, I’m not human, I’m old, very old. Old enough that I don’t really have memories beyond a point in time. I just woke up one day and apparently, I had been grabbed and people were experimenting on me.”

She didn’t miss the look of confusion on the elder's face.

“It wasn’t a good time,” she decided to spare him the details, “when Magnus found me he decided to help me break out, but even then he offered it, and for me it was basically the first choice I had in years. We’ve been traveling together since then. Well, there’s also his sister, who’s in charge of the ship, and three stowaways that were invited to join us as long as they behaved.” She laughed a bit at the memory.

“ I see, what I don’t see is why you say you aren’t human. You may smell a bit peculiar, but it’s mainly fox. ” He added teasingly, getting a blush out of her.

“Well, I can show you, but it can be a bit surprising; so bear with me.” She said and there was suddenly another her by her side. Her clothes were similar in exception for the red cross on her shoulders. “Just like that, I can create more of myself.”

“In addition, my other selves are capable of doing things I can’t, or at least doing them better.” The second Ruby explained. “Like this I’m an excellent healer of multiple kinds.”

The elder now was looking considerably surprised. He stepped over and placed a hand on each Ruby’s shoulder. “ Well, I will be a Mankey’s uncle. You can duplicate yourself, and this is permanent? ”

“I can reabsorb them, though their personality lingers inside me, in a manner of speaking. I do have a number of them active at certain roles for our group, medic, chef, and a few others.”

“ Sounds very useful. ”