Chapter 778 - i

"How hard did she hit her head?!" Vasea exclaimed. "Did you do something to her, something weird?"

"I just wanted a fwiend, I'm Sowwwy!" Nicce sobbed.

"So you picked some poor haunted girl in an alternate prime plane to do 'whatever this is' to?" Vasea accused.

"She was wike this befowe I got hewe, it's how I saw hew. She actuawy wooks heathiew." Nicce attempted to say through her tears.

I blinked and realized that I had been unresponsive for some time. Nicce and a strange girl were arguing over me, or rather the new girl was berating Nicce literally over me.

Nicce clung to me desperately, crying into my side. The new girl was holding me up in one arm, supporting my weight and Nicce's. There was something familiar about her in an awe inspiring glowy way.

"I didn't know Collateral Damage Barbie had an off-brand knockoff." I quipped hoarsely, rising to Nicce's defense.

"Hey you're not a vegetable! Are you ok? Did she mess you up? She's got these weird webs…" the platinum white haired pointy eared short girl with a loose pony tail and silver fantasy inspired clothing said as she looked me disconcertingly in the eyes. I noticed her waving a finger in front of me in a 'see if the eyes are tracking right' fashion. Her eyes were an almost luminescent silver.

I followed her finger and answered. "Yes she did something weird to me. But to be fair she saved my life and gave me another shot at making a difference around here. She also seems to have just gotten rid of my brain parasite. So she didn't do anything bad." I sternly lectured the girl supporting me as I noted my own lack of clothes. "Um can I get dressed?"

"Oh gods sorry, yeah. I'm Vasea, I kinda healed you a lot just now. So uh, you know about Nicce. She means well but well, we try to keep an eye on her, help her make good choices y'know." Vasea said putting me down. Despite the slight frame and shortness she was remarkably strong. Nicce handed me my clothes, I quickly toweled off and got dressed as the other two girls gave me some space and hovered just outside the bathroom, waiting for a relapse of my vegetative state perhaps.

A suspicion came to the fore, a good explanation of where Nicce came from. Not on this earth, castle and elves… mmm not unlike Glaistig Uaine and her Faery delusion. The new girl even had pointed little elven looking ears.

So a couple of parahumans from an alternate earth, maybe back on the Europe equivalent or hell there were castles in North America on my earth, no saying some group of parahumans with a magic theme hadn't set up a base in a castle. Maybe Nicce had the ability to go, even transporting herself between worlds, so a more limited themed version of Clairvoyant and Doormaker on top of the Spider summons and web weaving.

"Wow Nicce the more I learn about your powers the more impressive you get. So your friend does 'magic' too?" I asked through the door both to keep them from checking on me and to get more info on the now mysterious Parahuman group that Nicce was a member or possibly a child of. (Wow with her next to me I was only like 2 steps from being able to go full Khepri)

"Yeah, I'm sort of a natural at druidic magic, that and my racial abilities makes me a decent healer, though my real passion is fighting. Nicce might be able to learn but she's kinda young and hasn't put the time in, her leanings would be a tad more arcane I'm thinking, there's not many gods or forces that would want to deal with a Voidbeast after all." Vasea offered over Nicce's protest. Her presence clearly bothered Nicce, sort of a dominant sibling thing maybe?

"So are you two sisters or?" I asked as again dressed and together I opened the door. I noted my hair was somewhat different, but still nice looking. It had taken on an almost smokey quality and a dark lavender color. It matched my now slightly luminescent eyes. This would all be covered by my costume or actually look pretty cool with it. My personal life was another story. A hoodie would not do to cover this up. Maybe I could pass it off as dying my hair?

"Uh, hahahh, NO, we're not even the same species. Ok maybe we need to have a little talk. Nicce you haven't told her what you are? At all? Course not. Well let's go get comfortable you may want to be sitting down for this." Vasea trotted down stairs and by the sound of it found the kitchen.

"Nicce don't worry, I already know what you are and I'm ok with it, you are a very nice little girl with strange powers that set you apart. People may judge you based on that but I won't. I think all this Voidbeast stuff is a racial thing from where you are from, I think it's silly but by the sound of it your sister may have just been raised to be a bit racist." I said thinking of the E-88 and social in equity in general, people could harbor a lot of toxic concepts about others without realizing it was wrong after all and I had little idea about her culture.

"Thank you." Nicce sniffed. "But wouldn't it be species-ist? I mean, she's a Unicorn."

"Dahhh what?" I said flatfooted as I herded Nicce downstairs.

We got into the kitchen to see that Vasea had already looked through the cupboards for food. Having gotten a jar of peanut butter she was scooping it out with her fingers and eating it greedily by the scoop-full.

"Hey that's for Taylor and her Dad." Nicce scolded her.

"That's fine, Nicce you got us more than enough, and apparently she really likes it." I offered diplomatically, and because we had more Peanut butter than was strictly necessary for the next eight or so years.

"OK so getting down to it, this is really good by the way… Yeah so do you know what a Void beast is?"

"Well aside from you calling Nicce one, no." I added curtly.

"OK so picture all the things in creation as coming from a great light…" Vasea started.

"So Big Bang, gotcha." I interrupted.

"Nicce comes from not any of that. Outside the light, outside creation, outside the laws and strictures of reality basically. Not created by or with the elements, or by the hands of gods or anything else. Not from anything interacting with anything or caused by anything in nature or any reality." She said authoritatively.

"She's not like some alternate universal horror, Old One, Far realms alternate form of life or even demonic or fiendish in nature. Those things we have things in common with, they come from something or someone, they are part of the big cosmic system. She is literally a category of thing that even the greatest of gods or beings can't explain completely." Vasea continued to explain.

"That all being said she is a pretty nice squirt, and helps people out, but we can't control her we just give advice and try to help her where we can. Then again the Falling star adventurers are sorta a breed apart, Nicce is the second void beasty thing they encountered and befriended. The first was Lica, my sparring buddy. She was Nicce's best friend until Lica discovered boys and space piracy. Now she's all too cool for the rest of us." Vasea said sadly.

"After Nicce didn't make any friends at the FBI or other local kids even after her GTA, it was thought encouraging her to go make more friends would be healthy. I'd hang out with her more, but…" And she moved to pat Nicce on the head only to have Nicce recoil and hiss in a fairly inhuman fashion. "…yeah she just doesn't like me."

"This brings up more questions. So do all of 'you' Falling Star characters think you are weird fantasy creatures or is it just the two of you?" I asked as I considered the weirdness of a hybrid mutant multidimensional space whale asking an inter-dimensional unicorn about her friends.

"Well we're pretty much a mixed bag. We've got humans, elves, a couple of dwarves and halflings and some Aasimar, goblins, interdimensional mercenaries who are totally not real demons, some intelligent golems, and probably some other strangeness. We're sorta the blacksheep special forces for the Country of Leithien. We handle threats like extradimensional, old one, undead, plus other weird stuff so the elves don't have as much on their plate. I think the guy in charge of the castle is a count or something and a charter member of the adventuring guild."

"So you guys have government funding? How many of you are there?" I encouraged her to continue.

"Pretty much, far as main members it varies a bit but usually forty or so members of the Guild as far as adventurers go, a lot more if you get into retired members, followers, support staff, people and goblins and faeries and whatnot living around the area. Hell just the FBI has like two dozen kids, that group of golems was like another dozen and there are the Mobats living in the tower, the Treant, visiting adventurers and inter-dimensional traders. So we basically deal with just about all kinds and there's a bunch of us is what I'm saying." Vasea continued, her voice steady strong and convincing.

"These FBI members you keep talking about? Not friends of Nicce?" I prodded.

"Oh those are a bunch of Patrian refugee kids we rescued from a continent taken over by Titans. They're decent but a bit pretentious. They basically work for the local 'guild' tracking criminals and reporting on any suspicious movements, thus the 'Fallingstar Bureau of Investigation' . They're young humans, so we thought Nicce might make friends with one of them, but alas Nicce has high standards for her potential friends. What was it that you did to get her attention again?" Vasea turned the tables, looking for the type of friends Nicce thought acceptable perhaps?

"I'm just a girl with the power to control insects, bugs and spiders who took out Scion, sort of a golden god entity thing we have around here, well I had taken him out before someone pulled me back in time. Though to be fair I was about to die." I explained.

"Ah crap, time shenanigans… Rill is gonna be pissed… Nicce?" Vasea prompted Nicce.

"I haven't told her yet. I'm gonna though; I'm twyin to help Taylow fix tings first." Nicce said recalcitrant.

"OK I'm not even gonna be involved in that, good luck though." Vasea said plainly.

"No comment on the saving the world thing or using swarms of bugs to do it?" I asked somewhat put out despite myself. I mean I wasn't bragging, but stopping a God entity thing trying to destroy the world, kinda a big deal I thought.

"Oh that's cool, so you are an experienced adventurer, good on you using underrated spells like Summon Swarm and Creeping Doom I guess?" Vasea said to mollify me.

"Um, I don't use spells. Rill is Nicce's guardian I take it?" I answered and returned a question.

"Oh so you have a weird, like thing, right that makes sense, descendant of a dark god or something?" Vasea reasoned. "Oh yeah Rill is sort of Nicce's mentor/guardian. She is like that strict fair teacher archetype, only with one eye and a vicious streak, and control over time. She's a priestess of Labelas, she writes books on herbs and makes time anomalies her bitch. I don't think anyone wants to get her angry, she has a 'strong' personality." Vasea said plainly either impressed or scared of this woman.

"I'm not familiar with the strict teacher type, not a lot of those around here. Time anomalies though, huh? You get a lot of them around where you are from? She'd be handy to have against Grayboy." I said as I thought of the nightmare that fighting the Nine and the 9000 had been. That really needed to not happen, ever.

Conveniently I was now in possession of my full shard abilities, had a couple of apparently strong otherworldly parahumans for backup and enough foreknowledge to be a nasty surprise. "Heheheh, hahah heh!..." I realized I had interrupted Vasea's long winded reply, something about magic and metaphysics and sufficient power drawing the veil thinner where she was from. That I had basically ignored her to burst out laughing was a bit off, but it had been a day for shocks I guess.

Nicce and Vasea were both looking at me like perhaps I needed some more healing especially around the head area.

"Sorry! Sorry! I just realized something. I wasn't feeling really well and now that my powers are um… better I know where this group of mass murderers are and was just thinking now I could stop them and save all those people and they won't see it coming." I explained breathlessly.

"Oh, so you are some kinda seer too? Cool. So are these badguys dangerous?" Vasea asked.

"There's a lotta bad people here and Taylors great at fightin them. " Nicce said by way of hero worshiping whisper to Vasea that was pretty obvious.

"So now that you are feeling better you wanna make a run on them, you sound like a typical fighter." Vasea breathed in exasperation while rolling her eyes.

"You don't understand, these guys really need to die. Bad doesn't begin to cover it. I can show you some news of their atrocities if you'd like, but yeah I'm thinking me and Nicce if we do this right can possibly take them, I have inside information due to those time shenanigans.

"Do tell." Vasea leaned in conspiratorially.

"OK but before we can get down to planning, since you seem interested in helping?" She nodded. "I would like to know what you can do so we can plan accordingly." I insisted.

"Ah you're one of those lawful types, right I'm too used to the bunch of crazy guys rushing in… it might be novel to have a good plan. OK so I have all the powers of a Unicorn but better, I'm basically a Forest spirit, greater Unicorn. I have my innate druidic abilities and then a lot of combat training. I'm basically a teleporting melee threat. I can flatten a troll in one swipe…" Vasea explained before I quipped.

"Man if only we could get you on the internet." I giggled.

"Huh?" Vasea blurted reflexively.

"Never-mind, tell me more about what you can do, just leave out um magic? Cause I'm not real familiar with it, just go by what effects you can do."

XXX

The explanation and rules that followed just about gave my perfect shard memory issues. There were a ton of different effects, but very limited uses divided into different power 'levels' or 'spheres' that determined how many of what you could use.

The list was huge, more versatility than most cape teams had, or two or even four teams combined. Each level of the limited 'Druid' Magic had over 20 different effects, And Vase could use six of the seven possible levels of spells. So depending what she meditated or prayed(?) for she could have over 120 different powers. Short of being Eidolon it was way past what I was used to from capes… that worried me somewhat.

Yeah a lot of the effects were minor and the number of castings was pretty limited. Some of the effects were not so minor though.

"So you can bring back the dead!?" I exclaimed.

"No, I can just reincarnate the soul into a new body; give them a push on the whole cycle of death and rebirth. They do get to remember everything and don't have to do the whole grow up and relearn things again, so convenient but still not a raise dead or Resurrection 'you need a cleric or priest for those', still Reincarnating is better than being dead and good if the other options fail." Vasea explained.

"So these things aren't a sure thing, they can fail?" I asked for clarification.

"Well they're pretty consistent, but nothing is an absolute sure thing, magic is a living thing, it grows and changes. It's a bit art, a bit science, there's always weird situations and exceptions. It's a tool, but it's not infallible. Think of it like a crossbow. Generally you pull the thing, put the bolt in, aim and fire, 'thuk' deadguy… except if the guy moves out of the way, or your crossbow breaks, your bolt hits something in the way, you didn't account for the wind, there's an invisible guy in the way, the guy is tough and it bounces off him, or his armor. You get the idea… it's complicated but it's as static as any natural law… which is to say not very." She smiled as if saying that the laws of physics changed all the time.

"Why would you think the laws of nature are changing all the time?" I asked incredulous.

"Well I'm pretty young, but you listen to some of the treants, dryads and fae, whew they love to talk about 'In my DAY magic didn't work like that.' And the thing is, they're right. Heck gravity feels a bit different between here an where we're from. So yeah I'd say as a nature spirit who gets a sense of what nature is like around them, yeah natural laws are just local and not very stable at that, over hundreds of years they tend to drift and change a bit. I'm not saying they drift from moment to moment, but over enough time the little changes add up. Sometimes the little changes are noticeable if you pay enough attention." She explained as if everything she was saying was common knowledge and perfectly sensible.

I shook my head as if to throw off the very ideas she was speaking. "You can't tell me the world you are from, your Earth has changing physical scientific laws?"

"Earth? No we're from a planet called Renedge, didn't Nicce explain any of.. course not. This…" Vasea waved her arm in an all-encompassing gesture. "… is probably all the same to Nicce, but us folks who live primarily in one dimension tend to identify with it to a degree. We aren't from an alternate version of your rock planet, dumb name that; it doesn't even feel overly terran based, more water and metal really. Anyway our world has wizards who are always experimenting and seeing what new twist they can put on the laws of reality to bend them into pretzels, so we have Thaumaturgic and natural laws that determine how stuff works, unless some God or other decides to tweak things, but that's getting into religion, which is a whole other topic." Vasea explained calmly, as if to assuage my broken world view.

That was a problem, as I was just getting frustrated at her world's apparent lack of an education system, or one that taught some seriously wrong stuff. Her and Nicce were parahuman's from an alternate earth, this made sense to my own multidimensional experience and knowledge based on what the entities knew and that was certainly not matching up with their world views and explanations of their powers. In sheer frustration I turned on just enough of my Khepri ability to get an idea of what shards they had, what powers they actually had so I could make a point.

…

Well shit that didn't work.

"Like I said, I'm a unicorn from a magical world, Nicce is a little spider-girl Voidbeast from outside reality. Hi can we get to planning our attack on some evil bastards?" Vasea interrupted my broken musings on how to reconcile my power not sensing anything from them.

My power should, had worked on every possible Parahuman I had been able to sense through Clairvoyant. In all the possible worlds like our Earth there wasn't anything that could fight off the control of Khepri, well for more than a few instants. Normal humans, anything the Entities could interact with, aliens from a hundred worlds across the multiverse, and I had squat for potential explanations on how this was even possible.

My world view shook. I had literally just figured out I was a melding of my power and myself from the future. Now I was finding out that Nicce was perhaps indeed not a parahuman. I tried to focus and figure out any way to bring what I knew to include the fricking self-professed unicorn in front of me.

My shard based reasoning failed me, I went with the human response of 'just roll with it till I have more info'.

I decided to focus on my plan to take out the Nine.

"I think we broke her?" Vasea commented to Nicce, loud enough that I could hear.

"Naw Taylow is pretty smart, she's just thinking." Nicce defended me.

"OK with this new information I have a plan. Hehehe Hahahah!" I cackled with amusement. Jack would not see this coming.

XXX

(Jack Slash)

Things were going ok this morning. Leaving the wreckage of the small village in Oklahoma we had spent the night in, The stolen semi and van along with Manton's van had headed out and travelled down the empty road till the Semi impacted something invisible.

Travelling at the speed they had been, it was shocking to see the 18 wheeler containing Mannequin and Crawler just stop. The trailer had run up into the tractor, shedding bits and crumpling into a pile of wreckage.

Some new hero trying something perhaps? Jack leaned out of the Van window and tried to get a sense of what was going on. From the side of the road where the van had skidded he had a decent view of the lack of terrain. He didn't hear anything and there was nothing but high grass as far as the eye could see.

"Not a great place for an ambush. This could be interesting. "Let's greet our new friends everyone." I hopped out of the car and looked around confidently.

The Siberian leapt to the back of the crash and dug Crawler out. We would need to find another large vehicle to hide him in, but stealing a rig would be easy enough once we dealt with whatever this was.

The Nine exited their vehicles and some were investigating the crash. Others using their senses were scanning for attackers.

That's when spiders started leaping from the tall grass. Hundreds of them the size of a man. The skittering tide screeched and attacked from multiple directions with near perfect coordination.

The Nine fought. Shatterbird swept a cloud of glass through the spiders, clearing the area around her for but a moment before half a dozen leapt onto her directly trying to bite and drag her down. All the Nine were hard pressed. Crawler had dozens grappling and crawling all over him. He gleefully engaged the monsters with impunity, their fangs doing little to his thick carapace. The Siberian was forced to defend myself and Bonesaw. Bonesaw's own spider like creations were engaging and being torn apart by the larger attacking biological spiders. Still injections were made, damage was done. The Nine were hard pressed, but far from defeated. I swept my blade around causing bleeding wounds to half a dozen of the beasts.

This was an amusing bit of carnage, I even approved of the use of spiders of all things. Then over the next wave of man sized spiders I saw a monstrosity. The things were massive, bigger than our vans. They were casting webs in an arc over us. Strands of spider-silk the thickness of ropes in dense geometric patterns descended on us.

This was a new complication. I turned to sic the Siberian on the new threat while awaiting the source of our attack to be made clear.

The Siberian had Bonesaw in one fist and leapt to my side. She picked me up effortlessly and retreated to Manton's Van. Things were desperate there, massive spiders attacking the vehicle. I saw Manton throw open the cargo door and the Siberian nearly launched myself and Bonesaw into the interior. Then things suddenly seemed to stop. There was a girl in the back of the Van. Her hair a whispy deep purple color she looked at me and smiled a feral smile. I moved to sit in the passenger seat against my will. My face slack I realized I could not move. I heard my own mouth form the words. "You are screwed Jack." I saw Manton out of the corner of my eyes as he sat back down in the driver's seat. Countless tiny spiders started to wrap me in a web as we sat there calmly while inside I screamed. The girl came to stand between me and Manton looking with an intensity out the window at the carnage beyond the windshield.

Burnscar joined us in the Van, sitting next to Bonesaw. I then saw The Siberian bring in Shatterbird. As each got into the Van they seemed to calmly take a seat in the storage compartment. Out the front window I could see the web drenched road held many man-sized spiders and several larger arachnid forms.

I then watched unable to move, react or even breathe heavily as a looming shadow passed over us. A mind bogglingly large spider leg came down on the other Van, crushing it instantly flat. I saw the glass from it and elsewhere swirl and seem to form armor around the tip of the leg. That leg then went back up into the sky and was lost to my sight. The shadow loomed further forward and I saw another two legs come into view seemingly a football field away. I then saw two of the now glass armored legs sweep down to impact Crawler.

Crawler was massive and neigh indestructible. I saw the two legs come down from the sky with a casual seeming movement and crush him to paste with almost zero resistance. He had struggled but grappled as he was and webbed he hadn't been fast enough to avoid the descending building sized legs.

I desperately reached out with my power. There was no one left. Hatchetface had been on the opposite side of the road, I hadn't seen him go down, but I now I saw a tiny pointy eared Platinum haired woman dressed in some sort of fantasty inspired sundress holding over either shoulder both his favorite axe and a wooden club carved to look like a massive hoof that was larger than the entirety of the girl. She was covered in gore, not her own and seemed to have a satisfied smirk on her too perfect lips. She seemed to surge forward and her form changed in a blaze of white light.

A unicorn, it's horn covered in blood leapt forward on to the road it approached a lost looking little girl with black pigtails that stepped out of nowhere. The unicorn pointed towards the largely liquid remains of crawler and the young girl walked over the corpse of the fallen Crawler to lean down amidst the gore to apparently have something to eat.

"definitely not coming back now…" The girl beside me muttered.

The little girl stood her face covered in Crawlers odd colored blood and tried to wipe her mouth with her stained silk robe. She looked at the unicorn who seemed to nod and motion in our direction. The two approached the Van and the Purple haired girl leaned down to look me in the eyes. I noted my head twisted up to look directly at her not of my volition.

"So Jack how does it feel to be defeated by three young girls?" She said with a vindictive smile I would expect from someone I had at least met before to manage to piss off to that degree.

XXXLast edited: 5/1/2018 Award ReplyReport253DMfromTheAbyss19/12/2017NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Season's Narative Interupt New View contentDMfromTheAbyssConfirmed Dungeon Master24/12/2017Add bookmark#60AN: Yes I'm writing this because it's the Holiday season. Despite the fact that it made no sense in the timeline (Since this is less than a week after start of canon). So being the author I attempted to MAKE IT MAKE SENSE.

Results... questionable

XXX

Jewel looked out the dirty window. The sky was a pale gray and rain made the dirt on the window into a splotchy mess. There wasn't much to see outside, this new city was more run down and not as pretty as the last city, and the last city they had passed through was somewhere in New Jersey. She wondered if it was a reflection of the state of her life that watching mud get rained on out the window of an old tobacco stained car with muck all over it in silence was the high-point of her weekend.

Her father in the driver's seat was... painful to look at. He had been drinking and swearing and driving all night. His skin was blotchy and he was so angry he just yelled if she made any noise. So she stayed quiet in the back seat and tried not to even look at him.

He had told her she would never see her mother again. They were moving in with Uncle Bruce. The same Uncle Bruce who her father had said was a no good drug dealer. They finally got off the highway and made their way through smaller and smaller streets. On a run down cul-de-sac they pulled up into a driveway next to a beat up pickup truck that was missing most of it's bed. Two by fours and big ugly crude bolts held the ramshackle vehicle together. It looked, well, very Uncle Bruce.

Her father slammed open the driver's door and leapt up. He waved at her with a single crooked finger and the red rimmed manic look in his eyes brooked no discussion. She meekly pulled up her red hoodie that she had gotten for Christmas and got out of the car, following her father.

The entrance to the house was through a garage cluttered with probably stolen junk. They got to the door by weaving through the stolen yard decorations and cardboard boxes filled with dusty light bulbs and neon signs. A grotesque showing of broken commercial advertisements and stolen bric a brac taller than she was.

Her father started hammering on the door, yelling for his brother.

There was no response, wait no there was a noise, a sibilant otherworldly hissing.

A chill ran down my back at the noise. I'm not sure how but I knew that wasn't natural. Some instinct told me to run.

My father grabbed my arm before I made it a foot. He started to yell "God what's the.."

A hand made of darkness shot through my father's chest. His features seemed to wither and his ashen flesh sloughed off him as he looked at me with confused eyes.

I screamed and struggled for a moment, my hand caught in my father's skeletal grasp. The bones themselves seemed to grow weak and broke like rotten branches as I finally managed to break his grasp and run, half tripping through the garbage and useless advertisement signs. I suddenly found that I had taken a wrong turn, it was a dead end. Six feet of cardboard boxes stacked up into a wall that I would not be able to get over.

I turned to go back, find the way out when I saw a legless man sized wraith of writhing black energy noiselessly floating toward me. Behind it I saw another, this one I knew somehow was my father. The two converged on me and I screamed in fear anger and frustration at the insanity that was my life.

I seemed to see something, two things bigger than I could really understand. They made thoughts and seemed to send ideas at me. Then a man, broad shouldered and massive with a crisp white beard and kind gentle eyes was there too. He matched gazes with me and we seemed to understand each other suddenly. I knew he wanted to help me, I just needed to TRY, to help him in what little ways I could. He would reward my faith, my kindness with power enough to save me, no, to save those around me. It wasn't about me anymore, he was about being kind and making a difference.

He was the good King at the top of the world, Holy benevolent and kind. I knew him and he knew me, trusted me.

I stood tall before my father and his killer and held out the first thing my questing hand had pulled from the pile of commercial rubbish.

"Be at peace." I uttered holding forth the cheap plastic candy cane sword with a golden crown for a hilt.

To my surprise a light shone forth from the cheap plastic children's toy and both the Wraiths seemed to fade from existence.

I looked up and saw a massive looming figure of Santa Claus on a decoration meant for someone's front lawn.

"Santa Claus saved me!" I ranted. "I have powers, now I can make a difference, now I can make everyone happy!"

XXX

(Heaven - 6th layer, In a divine castle built near the top of Mount Celestia)

A deity named Kurmuranth, Patriarch of a pantheon of Deities slapped himself in the forehead.

In the middle of a divine intervention to save the young lass amidst the hellscape of the goddless otherworld something had interfered. Two somethings looking like...

"Giant multidimensional space whales?" He said out loud.

The Goddess beside him hummed "Were they evil whales?"

"Oh I'd say so, like they didn't even have a care about what they did to other sentient life, Old one like I'd say." Kurmuranth told his wife.

"Shall I have the boys get their fishing gear, Rantheal has that harpoon if I recall." Leihel, Goddess of miracles asked politely but with a slight squinting of the eyes that meant she was angry at the very thought of evil whales attacking a girl.

"Not, not yet. I'll find out more, get the mortal's take on things, let us get prepared. It's not our fight... YET." The lord of the seven heavens whispered to his wife.

"Besides I have to figure out who this Santa Claus is, some local saint perhaps." The god muttered before returning a thread of his attention to the young girl in the far off universe he had just discovered.

XXX

(PRT, Emilee Piggott)

What a morning. People were out in droves, traffic and congestion everywhere and oddly all her winter clothes were away.. odd that. Only a few days left till Christmas. Where had the time gone. On top of worrying about parahuman crime now she had to worry about what her nieces and nephews were getting for Christmas.

Usually she stayed out of that, but this year she had changed her mind, time to show some Christmas spirit and get them something, perhaps something big, she really never used all the money a Director made, might as well have someone eke a bit of fun and joy out of her work. There was little enough joy in the world. Maybe Wards toys, or Protectorate, mmm they were of that age when it was difficult to tell what they might like.

Must focus on work. The spiders had not been seen in several days. A new Master with colossal sized projections of spiders no less was a fun new addition to the city. On top of all the ghosts and disappearances in town she was beginning to think the theory that it was one Master who could somehow project other's fears that was responsible. Urban legend of the Spider Queen was making it around though and already they had arrested four thugs claiming to be her minions. The fact that they couldn't even remember or agree what she looked like was a good sign that they were as crazy as they sounded.

The damned snow everywhere was making getting around a pain. She was just getting ready to make arrangements to position more teams around the city to cut down on response time when Armsmaster stomped into her office.

"Director. What is today's date?" The head of the local Protectorate demanded.

"Armsmaster you can't just go barging in... it's the 22nd." She answered him as she noted his leveled halberd.

"What month?" He insisted.

"December." The director answered back like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Armsmaster shot her with a tranquilizing dart and proceeded to lean over her desk. Hitting the concealed panel he hit the button that would put the PRT headquarters on M/S lockdown.

"It's April 13th and Bah Humbug." Armsmaster said to the slumped in her chair Director as an explaination.

"Dragon, what else do you have for me." He then spoke into his arm.

The Director registered the Voice of Dragon saying "Next we have three troopers setting up a Christmas tree in the lounge on the third floor." as Armsmaster stalked back out the entrance to her office.

XXX

(Taylor/Weaver/Queen Administrator/Khepri/Spider Queen)

Part of me wanted to keep rolling up all the problems and potential problems on this Earth but I realized I needed time to get everything in order.

Our house was definitely getting a bit full, so it came as something of a relief when after spending the night Vasea left that morning for whatever dimension Renedge was. Earth Resh maybe, er actually they seemed pretty insistent it wasn't even called Earth so that might save Hebrew letters for closer dimensions. Nicce said she would be back in about twenty minutes, she was just going to check in. It was nice to see that there were people who cared about her where she was from. But they were right with her abilities there was no way they could contain her.

My and Vasea's argument about physics and magic still rankled a bit so I was in agreement with Nicce that while Vasea was a potent ally I was less sure 'friend' would be added to that anytime soon. She was too.. I don't know too guileless, kind, forgiving...

I thought back to the fight that had seen Hatchetface bludgeoned to death by a rapidly teleporting girl wielding a club bigger than she was as she ignored his ability to block powers and teleported repeatedly to strike him from unexpected angles more than once a second. She had gotten caught briefly. Even her brute strength was cancelled out by Hatchetface's own and his greater leverage when he had managed to grab her leg. However she had then turned into 4 tons of glowing invulnerable horse and booted him over forty five feet with an equine back kick. After that she had run him through with her horn and thrown him to the ground, stolen his axe and beaten him to death with her club and his own weapon. She was fast, brutal and utterly without mercy once battle-lines were drawn and had been doing what looked like a bit of laughing from what my swarm sense could see.

OK not too forgiving. If she was a Unicorn from this place I'd hate to see one of Nicce's 'Dwagons'. Still she was a good guy, maybe it was me being bitter about the whole being a hero and having issues with her very simple black and white, kill the bad guys mentality. Maybe she had more in common with New Wave then her lack of a mask. She also had not liked my 'I have a use for them' argument for the Slaughter House Nine. If she had her way they would have all been flatter than the pancakes I was making.

I hadn't really been away from the kitchen since we got back, where I was in range of all our prisoners in the basement as I had Bonesaw get them ready for storage. They were too potent a tool to lose. Nicce had helped procure a few items Bonesaw needed and we were down some kitchen appliances but the remains of the Slaughterhouse Nine were getting ready to take a nap that would only end when I needed them. While I was essentially stuck in the kitchen I also made the Slaughter House survivors some pancakes. They would need to have some food in them for the storage process to work well, so Bonesaw's power informed me. They took turns eating at my table.

I flicked batter at Jack's face and thought fiercely 'Broadcast this ya jerk'.

It was not as satisfying as I thought it would be. Because I was controlling him and he could not react. Still I at least giggled a bit.

When we were all set I brought Bonesaw to the table. The others had been bundled for transport.

"Hey Ripley, er what the heck was your real name..." I thought of the internet 30 feet or so too far to get to without risking an escapee at the last minute. My Shard memories could tell me everything about her shard. It didn't translate as well as most into a descriptor, in fact bonesaw, experimenter, or mad scientist would all be about as close conceptually as I could get... but yeah I had all her power information but none of 'her' information. The girl who had the Bonesaw shard I guess, what was her name, it was going to bug me now.

If I flickered my power could I have her undo anything she did. I knew all the weapons she had on her, biological and surgical. Hell I had even had Vasea drag back one of her spider machines that was repaired and even now still cleaning up downstairs after the prep work. She had several ways of killing me. some of them pretty fast. None that would be faster than my ability to control her and work out fixes and cures for them. Why risk it. So I had her fix all the cures first.

This involved too much spitting and her swirling around blood on a plate for my appetite. She applied the.. ick.. cures and I was now immune to advanced forms of biological plagues that could potentially destroy humanity.

I couldn't help it, I wiped some drool off her mouth and sat her down with the remaining pancakes. OK here goes nothing.

"Pancakes!" Bonesaw said as she commenced an attack on the plate. I suddenly knew there would be no survivors to this S-9 attack.

The carnage, the Syrup...

"Hi what's your name again? Sorry I know Bonesaw, but who are you, er were you before you were, um Bonesaw?"

"Pfwmy clurg warf... Riley!" Riley said.

It was at that moment Nicce came back and sensing I wasn't in control of Bonesaw she attacked.

"My Taylow." Seemed to be her war-cry as she was suddenly assaulting Riley from the side of the chair.

All the ways she could have killed her, webbed her, incapacitated, hell bit her from stealth while invisible and Nicce went all berserker instead.

The results were... adorable as she ineffectively beat on Riley, and Riley ignored her while finishing all her pancakes... except for one.

"Sorry did you want the last one?" Riley made a peace offering.

The out of breath Nicce stared at Bonesaw, looked at the pancake then back at Bonesaw. I heard her make a strange noise, it might have been meant as a growl but it certainly didn't sound like one, more of a squeek.

"Nicce I was just giving her a bit of breakfast before we sent them off. I was going to offer to leave her to fix up the place and tinker while she's stuck down there."

"I'm the cute littew sistew, not you, undewstand newgerwl! ... and yes I want da pancake." Nicce said fiercely then meekly asked for the plate.

Riley handed over the plate and looked at Nicce then me, then back at Nicce, then fell out of her chair as she startled.

Picking herself off the ground she goggled at Nicce as she ate the pancake, only slightly less fast then Riley had pounded hers down.

Riley stood up dusted herself off and walked calmly over to me. I recognized that she was being polite to avoid me thinking it an attack.

She leaned over and stage whispered. "Did you know she's not biological!"

"Yeah Nicce's not from around here, she might be a bit strange." I explained.

"No..sorry no. That's not a bit strange. A bit strange is Crawler, with his radical adaptive biology, or Weld who is made of metals in an organic mimicry of life. That is a collection of thread made to look like a little girl by carefully controlled light refraction and something pulling on the threads, something that isn't here, but can see us somehow.

As she said this Riley looked around the room as if to detect the creature pulling Nicce's threads. She looked at all four walls and made faces at the fourth as she googled her eyes around looking for unseen observers, but she didn't see anything.

"Um you mean like String Theory, where everything is made up of resonant threads that contain the information of the particles."

"Nope!" Bonesaw said as she looked back at Nicce, she walked over to her and poked at her.

"Hey I can heaw you ya know. An Taylow's wight, everyting is made out of strings. Or webs and thread."

It was at that moment a lilt of Christmas music made it's way into the house. It seems one of our neighbors was playing Carol of the Bells a bit loud.

Which was odd because it was Apr... wait it was like three days to Christmas. How the hell had I forgotten.

I looked at Bonesaw and Nicce for a moment. "Ah nevermind."

XXX

We had gotten Riley and the other Slaughterhouse survivors set up in Coil's old base. I dropped off enough food and supplies to last them awhile. Riley had seemed rather ok with being locked in a bunker with a bunch of maniacs to clean up dead bodies.

It did have free power and internet, running water and absolutely no way out now that Nicce had informed me the webs she had laid over the entrances were pretty much permanent unless something she called a Memnon or a Gwowy Elf happened by. Since there were none that let me concentrate on other matters. We needed to do something big for Nicce's first Christmas.

We also needed to get Dad some new appliances. So Christmas shopping it was.

First we needed money.

A plan occurred to me. There wasn't two separate problems in getting nice stuff for Christmas, there was just one solution. Clean up Brockton Bay to get money for presents. If we hit enough drug dens and criminal enterprises we could get gifts for everyone.

That's why we started hitting the Merchants drug dens. We hit the E-88 too but they were much better covered and more of their 'businesses' had legit covers that would be awkward for an independent to go after.

So between my swarm sense and Nicce's ability to get info we found drug den after drug den and cleared them out.

We were having trouble storing all the money though it would look weird. If we couldn't spend it all... Ah what the hell tis the season. I had Nicce start making some silk bears and we started stuffing them with the Merchant's ill gotten gains.

As the day approached I regaled Nicce with stories about Christmas, about man showing generosity to his fellow man.

Nicce liked the idea of presents, typical kid. Though she also wanted to get something for me and my father. When I told her about some of the religious significance she seemed kinda lost, but then again I and my father had never been particularly religious so maybe I was not explaining it well.

Now we just needed a delivery method. My high on christmas spirit self came up with an awesome idea. This would be great for our PR.

XXX

Wuzzy was a very smooth ride down mainstreet. It was easy to keep all his legs clear of traffic and he had no problem avoiding people, cars and the odd number of PRT troopers out this Holiday season.

Fezzy was on point, carrying some presents. Paul brought up the rear carrying what was left. I felt bad for Paul suddenly and in a random bit of Christmas spirit threw one of the cash loaded bears at him. It stuck to the side of his head and I couldn't help laughing.

The people were staying mostly in doors. The light snow and sun was great weather for the season. We needed to go somewhere where there was more people to give presents to.

"To the Mall" I stood on the back of the six story spider and directed the convoy of similarly enormous arachnids towards a population center.

XXX

There was something missing... Aha there. There was a mall Santa. I directed Fezzy to lift him and the sleigh onto his back. Once he calmed down I had Nicce take me over to him where I explained his new job. Handing him one of the money stuffed bears I showed him what was inside and told him it was his if he helped hand them out.

Tossing spidersilk bears stuffed with cash at passerby we tried to aim at kids mostly.

Things seemed tense till people saw Santa. That and the Sleigh six stories up seemed to get the point across.

I encouraged Nicce to wave and throw a few presents down and did so myself. The tension slowly ebbed out of the crowd. Despite a few PRT troopers watching us the crowd started to cheer and chant 'Spider Queen'. I think people were finally relaxing and taking recordings of us with their phones. Nicce looked adorable in her super hero outfit and with my own touched up by Nicce costume was better than even my protectorate version.

We made almost three circuits around the mall before we were out of gift bears. I had Fezzy return Santa to the ground. We were getting ready to leave when I noticed someone dressed like an elf waving at us. With my swarm (which was doing surprisingly well considering the light snow) I could hear them ask if they could ride a spider.

What the hell it's the time of year to do nice things for people so sure. Fezzy picked her up and deposited her next to me.

She started waving to the crowd and then I noted she had a power. As I got information on the power I got suddenly suspicious. I took control of her power briefly and noticed that yes, there was no snow... it was the middle of April and there were suddenly a lot of very confused people wearing scarves wool hats and doing Christmas shopping... in April.

I looked at Nicce still enjoying herself waving and smiling. suddenly I didn't care and turned to the girl. "We need to talk. What's your name?"

"I'm going by 'Yule'.

XXXLast edited: 5/1/2018 Award ReplyReport207DMfromTheAbyss24/12/2017NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Player characters ruin a simple plan in an amusing way New View contentDMfromTheAbyssConfirmed Dungeon Master5/1/2018Add bookmark#69After the Christmas in April episode, Nicce insisted she was still getting me and Dad a Christmas present. I'd have explained that Christmas wasn't really a big thing in our household and it wasn't for most of a year, but I felt that might negatively impact Nicce's development, and anything that reinforced her humanity and being nice to people was to be encouraged.

I was a little afraid of what (or who) we might get, but we'd deal with what came.

Dad was still being supportive and nice, I think he really picked up on Nicce's need for a father figure. It was cute to watch, but I found my feelings a touch mixed as he almost seemed to be transferring all the attention he should have been showing to me since mom died over to her.

OK there may have been a bit of jealousy there, but he was being similarly nice to me, so there was that. Is this what siblings had to deal with? Fighting over affection, it was both frustrating and sort of a grounding normal to our otherwise upset lives. Dad had definitely been spending more time with us and taking time off from work. His few trips out to talk to the Dockworkers had settled things and he was enjoying his vacation. That he still kept his hand in and was making calls to a lot of the guys was hardly surprising, but he made more than enough time for us amidst his working vacation. I got the feeling he was handling more politicking and off the books stuff than his usual, probably cashing in favors gained over his years of hard work to get stuff done even in his absence, at least that's what it sounded like over the phone calls I overheard.

It was just me my dad and Nicce in the house. Yule had been dropped off at the PRT headquarters pretty much after us having a discussion with her over using her master power on people. It had been something of a scene.

Riding up on the three colossal spiders doing my best Santa impersonation I had even uttered 'On Fezzy on Wuzzy on Paul to the PRT office from the Mall'. Decked out in Christmas colors including tiny reindeer horns on the spiders we looked absolutely as ridiculous as I with a quick buying spree at the mall and Yule's power could make us.

It had worked, we didn't even get shot at. Armsmaster had taken Yule in and I had yelled down that she was the one doing the whole Christmas thing. Yule had kept everyone in good cheer till we had left. That the city recovered after that told me the Protectorate were doing their job. Apparently almost half the city had been affected and the bump to the local economy had actually helped according to the news anyway. No one had been forced to spend more than they could afford, and while people were confused, few were really upset.

According to the news Yule was going to be a Ward. Her widespread master abilities were thought to be useful for morale and crowd control but not able to actually control anyone, more of a huge area of effect version of Gallants emotion blasts set for Christmas vibes. She was also going to be a seasonal hit for the PR team, though the fact that she was stuck on Christmas and not terribly good in a fight meant the local villains would probably not be seeing much of her.

The house returned to normal. Things were going better, mom's presence was felt in little ways but Nicce said she was still pretty weak. I still wasn't thinking about going back to school and after talking over everything with my father he was not eager to make me. He said he was looking into arrangements to get me out of having to go back. I overheard him asking for some of the DWU workers advice and help on things, Dad was turning into a regular influence peddler it seemed.

Nicce mostly wanted to hang out and talk. She liked doing surprisingly normal little girl stuff. If not for her amazement with television cartoons I would not have had much free time for my own plans. I did note that we were suddenly getting more channels than before, if this was from Dad's influx of cash from our recent shenanigans with the merchants or Nicce messing with the antennae I wasn't sure.

I learned a bit more from Nicce about her world, it was a biased account but pretty consistent. Far from a world of magic rainbows and Unicorns she described it as a slow grinding battle of good and evil, law and chaos, light versus dark. There were kingdoms and civilizations who fought for the stability and safety of their people from all manner of monsters and external threats. Nicce supported that the use of copious amounts of magic were thrown around to achieve this. She was sparse on details but insisted the abilities Parahuman's used were something else entirely.

I was starting to believe her. To be fair I had seen Vasea turn into a huge glowing horse that could heal. Also seeing Nicce summon spiders that should just plain not exist under anything like normal physics was eye opening, if not conclusive.

I mean, yeah technically that could all be from powers, or combinations of powers from parahumans. The fact that I should have been able to control them and was stopped by 'something' was indicative that something else was going on. Maybe they were dimensionaly from outside Scion's exclusion zone of dimensions. Maybe they had powers from an alternate version of Scion, Eden or another Entity entirely.

Or maybe they were from far enough away that physics, metaphysics really, worked differently enough that some kind of force was the source of their powers and they called it magic.

That my memory from being a shard was in no way saying this was not possible despite the multidimensional knowledge and history of all the Entities had encountered was telling.

XXX

I was going out shopping. I was planning on making a spaghetti dinner and we were basically out of everything. I left Nicce watching an episode of some Voltron cartoon I didn't remember. My dad was on the phone with another dockworker who did not sound familiar. I thought of what I needed for dinner and beyond that what I needed for my next target.

Saint was going to be a difficult target. He didn't seem as easy for Nicce to track down and we didn't have a convenient Unicorn to track him down and give us intel on the lay of the land. I knew vaguely that he was supposedly somewhere in the Vancouver BC area, but the main ways of finding or contacting him were all computer based. I'd call on Dragon to ferret him out, but that would just warn him of our attempt and probably get Dragon fried for trying to move against him.

We needed another in. I contemplated this as I made my way up and down the aisles collecting foodstuffs from my local grocery.

I completed my shopping before I had any good ideas on who I could use.

In the checkout line I saw assorted headlines on Newspapers both reliable and fanciful. I glanced over stories about some new shadowy underworld figure running Brockton bay that had engineered the downfall of the gangs. Another that tied all that was going on to occult activity signaling the end-times and another that said there was a monster in the bay eating small fishing craft. Assorted Ghost stories, and conspiracy theories abounded.

Then I noted a story in the Brockton Gazette, usually a comparatively dry publication that had a story on the financial woes of Winslow High.

Hardly anything interesting or new to me there, however the story went on to detail a major accident that was threatening to bankrupt the school. I picked up the story as I waited for the older lady in front of me in line to find her checkbook. (oh yeah I had time)

I realized that with me coming back and my and Nicce messing with the timeline there could be all sorts of butterflies. I had no idea how that had caused all of this. A severe string of bad luck had seemingly struck the school. There was a bulldozer ramming the school off hours and doing all manner of damages from a drunk construction worker that got turned around. Then there was the failure of the school to repair the plumbing that had started taking a drastic turn for the worse, each contractor delivering worse news than the one before. Added to this was injury of the school Principal who would require a replacement after her severe trauma following what the police called an unsuccessful mugging. Several teachers having refused to go back to teach there in the conditions, or complaining about angry parents making working there very hostile was just the icing on the cake of the whole school circling financial ruin.

Taking out Lung, Oni lee, Coil, The Slaughter house Nine, breaking up the Undersiders and assorted pillaging of the Merchants with a very early Christmas should not have effectively wrecked my school. The only other major change was me telling… my father… the guy who had contacts all over the city with every major union and trade guild. My Father, the guy who was seen as the sole source of money and hope for a disenfranchised group of men whose union had a history of violence and family loyalty above all.

The same father I had recently seen experience the loss of his wife 'again' who had driven me around and helped me hunt down Bakuda. My Father who was apparently done with holding back and had recently come into a large sum of money (that I had given him) which he had said he was distributing to his friends in the DWU.

"Well crap!" I uttered to myself in line.

XXX

I ended up reading more and buying several papers while leaving the store, on the off chance there was anything else in there.

Mostly it gave me something to read to give me time to assimilate that my father, always a man of restraint, a man who did what was right even to his own pain and detriment had become.. what , a ah villain.

He did it for me, for revenge, for some small speck of justice in the world perhaps? The morality of it was questionable, but no one had been hurt. Well except for Blackwell which I could not bring myself to feel bad for.

Wow what did that say about my own morality. Would I have done that when I was starting out? No.

Would I have done that as Skitter with the Undersiders? No.

What about as Warlord Skitter, to defend one of my kids against the sort of stuff I had endured? Yes, yes dammit I would in a heartbeat, not for myself but for my people I would give my life and sell my soul to protect them.

Is dad doing anything worse. Kinda yeah but the people he's hurt definitely deserved it.

It looks like between my Mom and her run with Lustrum, Dad being what was looking like a criminal mastermind/conspirator and my own run as a Warlord, given the right situation us Heberts were willing to go villain to protect what we think is important.

"We do a pretty good job of it too." I uttered to myself in disbelief as I started whistling on my way back home with all the ingredients for Spaghetti.

XXX

I got home and yelled to my father "Dad, I'm home! Also I think we need to discuss something."

He spoke loudly enough that I could hear him from his room. "Be right there, we have a lot to talk about."

This whole open honesty thing was working pretty well for a couple of villains, or would I term us anti-heroes… no more like anti Villains. We got the right stuff done by illegal means.

My dad was just walking into the kitchen as I unpacked the groceries. Suddenly from the Basement I heard strange noises, talking and movement. My swarm told me it was two figures. One of them had Nicce.

I hurried to the door, not yet opening it I sensed almost absolute darkness below. The voices went to whispers for a moment before Nicce cried out "Taylew, we got visitows!"

I noted with my swarm that the short one holding Nicce had her in a maternal hug and Nicce seemed glomped on for all she was worth.

The other figure looked like a guy with a pointy sombrero in a robe that smelled of fresh blood. He had a pair of staves and assorted sticks and pouches full of a truly bizarre amount of odd smelling stuff.

The female one holding Nicce seemed to have a shapeshifting outfit, it had changed form from classical fantasy platemail into something looking more like a goth outfit.

She stepped forward after adjusting her hair over her ears.

I opened the door and let some light into our dusty basement. "Hello you must be friends of Nicce's."

The slender woman stepped forward and in a prim curtsy readjusted Nicce. The man in the robe made a less formal bow and said "Eldrin Stormseeker." The woman then seemed to think about it for a brief moment and added simply "Rill" I noted she indeed had an eyepatch over one eye and an elegant sword at her hip. Her general posture and tone of voice was of polite deference and the man's posture was one of curiosity.

"Ah well I'm Taylor Hebert and this is my father, why don't you come out of the dark basement, I think we have a lot to talk about."

"basement seemed pretty nice actually…" The man in the sombrero mumbled, "We're used to a lot worse frankly." Rill responded

They did however come up stairs. Once in the kitchen they looked around curiously and seemed to take in the appliances and peeked into the living room. I noted the two seemed almost coordinated in their movements, watching each others back as a matter of habit. It was almost like they expected an attack from any angle in our house. They seemed to relax after a moment of checking things out.

"So you guys like… an item?" I asked curious at their odd level of coordination.

"NO, no not at all." "Hell no, we're just friends, our respective significant others would kill us. In fact I'm not sure whose would be worse." "That is an interesting point, both are bad, tough call." The two of them seemed to respond almost at once in a familiar chatting manner.

"I'm Taylor's father Danny." My father swept in and played host, seeing everyone seated around our tiny kitchen table. "I believe you are Nicce's guardians then."

Rill nodded while Eldrin waved a denial. "I am her guardian, I'm sorry if she's been any trouble. I've been desperately busy with the troubles in Eminar, Titan invasion and all so I'm sorry if I've been remiss in my duties. By the sound of it she's been well taken care of by the two of you though, it's good to see her making friends to be frank, also I doubt we could have found the place without Nicce bringing us here. So for any costs she's accrued…" She pulled out six coins and pushed them neatly over to my father in a stack.

Holy crap the dang things looked like oversized golden doubloons or something out of a pirate movie. I mean I know I've held a lot of money, but it was just weird to see someone throw around gold like it was slipping someone a twenty for a pizza.

According to my Shard memory, at normal value if those were solid that would be worth well over 8000 dollars.

My father smoothly removed the coins from the table. "She's been a pleasure but I believe Taylor has a few things to discuss about her behavior." He rose and left the room and perhaps deposit the small untraceable fortune somewhere secure. He shook Rill's hand and exchanged a parental knowing nod, which was returned.

"Indeed…" I picked up from my father. When had he gotten so smooth, did that make him a smooth criminal? "Yes well Nicce did have a bit of an issue with, well biting someone… in the head… fatally." I finished quietly as I judged my father to be out of earshot.

"…Explain the circumstances please." Rill said sternly.

Nicce jumped in to justify her actions. "We were helpin Taylews fwiend when da creepy guy shot Taylow. I thauwt she was huwt… I was soo mad. He wan away an I chased im down and just kinda didn't tink bout it, just wrar like it was wefwexes ur somefing."

Rill looked at me as if to confirm the story. I nodded and she then asked. "Was he a bad person… did he deserve it?" in a dead serious tone of voice.

"Yes, he was torturing my friend and he had shot me, if not for my armor I may have died." I explained.

"I see no problem with this then." Rill said like a simple fact. "Good girl Nicce, you saved your friend and got the badguy." She ruffled Nicce's hair and I noticed Nicce smile and blush at the praise.

"You are ok with her biting people?" I asked concerned.

"Only bad people, in self-defense and in defense of others, certainly it is ok to use whatever weapons you have at hand. I did not know she 'could' bite someone fatally so that's a touch of growth on her part, which is good, just keep it channeled towards the bad people that deserve it." She reminded Nicce as she looked down approvingly at her tiny charge who smiled back showing the tips of her mandibles with her wide smile.

Apparently Nicce's mother figure was good with her biting people for a good cause. I looked at her a question forming on my lips when she interrupted me.

"We may have a different take on violence than your local social mores. We come from a world with regular wars and fighting for survival is the norm. So you understand?" She explained.

I nodded.

"So the other thing is she kinda grabbed a bunch of Peanut butter, from somewhere… "

"What?" Rill asked with a single suddenly focused eye.

"Well we were not doing too well and she grabbed a bunch of food for us… peanut butter and some bread." I tried to explain in a soft manner. Something about this slender lady told me she meant business, between her proper speech and body language bespoke of someone who expected respect.

The fact that she was shorter than me seemed to influence her sense of authority not at all.

"Nicce. Where did you get the bread and pea-nut butter?" Rill asked adopting the term as if she had never heard of peanut butter.

"Um I kinda took it from a bunch of places around here that weren't looking, all dusty back shelves no one saw me." Nicce said with both hope and trepidation.

"Young lady one does not steal. You got away with it I this case but you should understand why this was wrong." Rill stood. I noted the other guy, Eldrin suddenly seemed to be out of the room as Rill commenced a simple though thorough explanation about the moral and practical issues with theft.

Ten minutes later I felt like I had just taken a very short course on ethics and their practical applications in a society. Nicce just looked on and absorbed everything. Despite clearly being disappointed Rill did not yell or even raise her voice, just logically explained things and made sure Nicce understood exactly what she had done and the repercussions of it.

At the end when I asked on Nicce's behalf. "Should she take the stuff back then?"

"No don't bother, it is a small price to pay for understanding, besides she didn't get caught." And she winked at me and Nicce with an eye creased with humor. "It's more important that you learned your lesson."

Rill cleared her throat a bit and asked. "So Nicce exactly why else did you bring us here?"

"To.. to make suwe everytings ok, I know I messed up time an you can fix it I wanna make suwe thewes no pwoblems wit all the time stuff I did. Oh and Taylow and her Dad lost taylows Mom. She got bwought back as a spiwit by the magic which might be my fauwt too." Nicce summed up a potential existential threat to reality like a child who broke a vase.

"Eldrin, what do you think, how's the spirit?" Rill asked and I was surprised to see the blood robed sombrero man back, looming by the door. Sitting down I noted the haunted look in his eyes and the odd color of them. Almost like reversed eyes he had black around the outside, it was very uncanny valley.

"Well here's the thing. Death doesn't care. There is no one in charge, no rightful order here, no plan, no gods plans to upset, well except maybe one that snuck in but he's new as we are. Old one too but it's a minor one. But yeah we can do anything we feel like, but the thing is… should we? This place is really not prepared to deal with Magic. We are literally it. We have a responsibility to protect the place and it's simply unprepared for what could happen with the amount of magic available. More old ones or dark gods or who knows what else. It might be better if we could close off the source of magic and let things return to normal. There are some minor undead popping up and they can't even deal with them." Eldrin said doubt dripping from his words.

"OK lets see what we can, investigate the source of the magical disruption and see if time is going to have issues with what Nicce has done. We'll decide what to do then." Rill said with authority.

XXX

Several hours later, after checking the basement and crawling around the house to poke at the spirit of my mother some more and chanting odd mantras and asking me and my father a few questions, the two self-proclaimed wizards conferred at the table again. I invited myself and Nicce seemed to nervously be awaiting her punishment for what they had determined.

Now here's the thing, after seeing them go through the house like hippy investigators and poking around while saying weird chants, I had come to a conclusion.

There were not only two people who worked together that both believed this magic stuff worked. But they used it the same way, checking each other's data and conferring with enough jargon I was convinced it wasn't a con.

A con would not have the unnecessary levels of depth. Well that and Rill and Eldrin were both willing to explain a bit about what they were doing and utterly didn't care if I believed them or not.

Oh and I saw the spell books both produced when it became clear they lacked the necessary tools they needed for their investigation. The 'tomes' were huge and incredibly neatly written. They were more like a nuclear physicist's notebook than the crazy writings of a madman. That and the effects of each of the 'spells' seemed very non-useful and non-general. Like real tools made for specific purposes.

Seeing me poking around Rill had even offered a lesson. Conmen and delusional mental patients don't calmly explain what they are doing with logic like they are giving a math lesson.

Even more telling I independently got confirmation each from the other about what the other had said. They agreed on enough that I was thinking this was far more legit than any fake wizard needed to make it.

So yeah long story short these guys were using strange dimensional energies, calling it magic and it was making enough sense that the shard part of me was starting to get it, or at least be able to categorize it.

Seeing my interest I had gotten tested by Rill with what she called a cantrip. She said with some work I had potential to use this stuff. She even taught me the cantrip, showing me that by reinterpreting the energies, by subjectively ordering the effect via passing it through me I could make it do almost anything by my will, just with about the power of a bic lighter.

Looking at the books they had hundreds of pages of these runic formulae. I was told that in a rough approximation each tier, level or sphere (They were called all of these depending on who you asked) of spells was approximately a page long. Cantrip was about the easiest spell around at a fraction of that. It was about as long as a quote by Mark Twain that my mother had found insightful.

'It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.'

So memorizing a mathematical formulae in an unknown language while visualizing an effect and imagining a charge of energy through the universe, through you, to will into existence an effect.

With cantrip this was a very minor effect, like a 2d illusion or a noise, a spark of light.

Really it was a framework for making your will affect reality. It took a cost in energy though, a cost from the caster.

I know because after the first 45 minutes of trying it I got a spark, it was tiny, I had to confirm with my perfect memory that it was real it was so brief. It tired me out more than a tough test did, which made sense given the mental gymnastics required. But the weird thing was I couldn't remember how to do it afterwards… even with my shard. I could remember the mechanical bits but it was like I had to refigure out how the blasted thing worked all over again.

Still it was like a power, well not a shard power, but it was real… magic was real.

My shard memory helped, somewhat. But what made it work was me, Taylor. It was like seeing your thoughts and dreams made physical. True a tiny spark didn't change the world. But the idea, the very idea that anyone with a talent for this and enough practice could do this without a shard was awesome.

It was with this in mind that I was told the following from their testing around the house as to the nature of what was going on.

"So the good and terrible news is that the timeline is fine. By fine I mean both that it should not be rupturing into an anomaly or destroying all of this reality with a paradox, and that the timeline splits at the drop of a hat, nearly anything that could change the timeline simply splits it forming a new one with the changes while the old one keeps trundling along unaffected. This is both new to me and terrifying in its implications about how different this universe is. So time is totally fine, no worries there." Rill commented with only a hint of sarcasm.

"Strange but OK. Looking through the total effects of what has happened so far, we have been pretty lucky nothing too bad has made it through. A single old one which may or may not have been here is out in the bay and seems to be waking up. Not a very powerful one but probably a problem that should be dealt with or it might affect shipping…" Eldrin was interrupted by my snicker.

"No chance of that Leviathan already has global shipping at a standstill and there's barely anything left around here with the Boat graveyard and all." I informed my mystic visitors.

I got some confused looks. I had to explain everything. The Endbringers, Scion, my own role in things. I got some strange looks but they seemed frustrated and angry more than terrified. Eldrin interrupted me and explained the Entities could be categorized in the admittedly open ended classification of an old one. A new type he was only familiar with via its lifecycle similarities and planet crushing proclivities. He started writing me a set of do's and don'ts on how to deal with it and what may prove most effective. The fact that he continued feverishly writing the whole time I was basically giving my life story was off putting. He did agree that magic might be a good way of dealing with it, but targeting and disrupting it dimensionally would be more effective than shear power. I thought of Flechette/foil's power and nodded.

He apparently knew what he was talking about, I was looking forward to the book he was penning for me at an insane pace.

Rill reminded Eldrin to go over anything else he had detected with his powers and he relented and spoke of the lack of a personification of Death and a lack of Gods, beings or anything else aside from Scion and the old one in the bay. (We briefly discussed going after it only to decide it wasn't pressing and may indeed hamper Leviathan but would probably not do much but play Kracken in the bay.)

The presence of a being Eldrin referred to as a god was mentioned next. Apparently gods had little power without worshippers and this one seemed benign, fatherly and not much of a threat.

Rill and Eldrin agreed to look into more options after they prepared to go out tonight and bring mom back from the dead.

Just like that, like it wasn't a big issue. Go grab some pizza, hop by the cemetery, dig her up, wait we have a spell for that, raise the dead to life, return and then investigate a divine beneficent entity.

My only response to this… "Sure."

We headed out after Eldrin stopped to memorize a Dig spell. Apparently Rill did not have the spell so she took the time Eldrin used to memorize the spell to copy it into her spellbook. I spent the time ogling their spellbooks for all the spell formulae my Shard brain could absorb.

Eldrin teleported us there. He said some words and told me to think about my mother's grave. Taking everyone's hands we were suddenly there. Neat trick, Eldrin even claimed to be a psychic.

We pointed out the gravesite, Eldrin raised a hand and the dirt flew out of the ground into a neat pile revealing a clean coffin. Rill started to go down in the six foot pit to pull up the coffin when Eldrin laughed and said he had it. He proceeds to Yoda the Coffin, putting it down gently and Rill has me and dad back off a bit so she can get down to work. She says it will take a little under an hour of ritual. She starts pulling out religious icons and candles while Eldrin sets up to stop any interference.

A few people investigate the chanting and lights in the grave yard. They leave after Eldrin seems to do jedi mind tricks on them.

I make a comment that what is he psychic. He nods deadpan and I recall him joking about that earlier and having not took him seriously given my history with Tattletale.

So even with me accepting magic, even whatever divine flavor of it Rill was currently using to bring my mother back from the dead, now psychics are real too.

Parahuman's don't have psychic powers, that doesn't necessitate that humans can't I suppose, especially if the powers are weak. Eldrin's psychic powers seemed pretty developed though.

I mentally shook my fist at the heavens and reality. Eldrin gave me an approving nod.

He was knowledgeable about hunting old ones, psychic and a wizard capable of unbelievable powers. If not for the sorta silly hat I'd be a little frightened of him. The fact that this guy deferred to Rill made me a bit more frightened of Rill too. I wondered if these guys went off the chain how bad it would be. Scary thought.

An hour of introspection about the absurdities of my life and we returned to my house in a flash with my sleeping mother, my crying father and two interdimensional wizards.

Nicce was still watching TV, but she had fallen asleep waiting for us. I tucked a blanket around her and caught an approving nod from Rill. My parents went upstairs, my mother was weak but still mad it up the stairs with my father's help.

I then went to speak some more with Nicce's guardian and her friend.

The mood was immediately different.

"We need to talk." Eldrin started and Rill nodded.

"Magic is coming back into your realm through a hole in reality Nicce made. We have it temporarily closed now but we need you, as a knowledgeable native to make some hard decisions." Rill explained her words steel wrapped in sorrow.

"Magic is a two edged blade. Magic is a tool. Your world is already in a bad place. Magic could potentially make it much worse." Eldrin said with a grim certainty.

"But it can do so much to help people, it can be used to stop Scion, stop the destruction of my world." I entreated. Man you make one little spark and you get all attached to something. Really what I was attached to was the idea of magic, the potential it had to make my and everyone's situation better.

Eldrin nodded slowly then spoke with the hollow tones of repressed memories. "Yes it might help, but there are things much worse than Scion, fates much worse than death. Things out there with magic, things that are terrifying who use magic like we use air to breathe, they might see your world as a prize, an easy meal, easy to enslave. You have no one here, no god no protector to stand between you and terrors you can scarcely imagine."

"Yeah but we can use magic to fight them. We have powers, we have goddamn superheroes and guns and… none of that will make a difference will it?" I looked into Rill's and Eldrin's eyes for confirmation.

"It might, you know your people, your world better than we do. But the hole is small, if we want to close it now is the time, and no Nicce won't be stuck if we do… what she does isn't magic. Wither magic exists or not is a non-factor to her. It is a major factor for your world however and beyond a certain point you may never get magic back 'out' of your world." Rill said with the level of seriousness I'd expect from a doctor giving a patient terminal news.

"You should understand, really understand before you decide. Give me your hand." Eldrin said in a coarse whisper.

I gave him my hand. I suddenly saw images of carnage, slavery, demons and other things I had no name for. They used humans for food, for sport. To torment and feast upon their terror. I shuddered despite having seen the Golden Morning. Still once you have seen your civilization crumble before an inhuman all powerful thing there's not much more to lose.

I looked him back steadily in his brown eyes, enshrouded in black instead of white. Still he was recognizably human. He who had seen such things, he knew them, he used magic and he hunted them. Rill too, she was… well not human but an ally against those things. They were part of something bigger, a group, a country that fought these things. It could be done.

Killing Scion could be done but I had to admit it was a one in a million shot. There was a lot that could go wrong if I tried the same plan. Things had already changed so much. An accident, My death or any in the chain I'd need to strike him down. No, hate them as I did for what they had done to people, Cauldron had one thing right, risks were worth taking if they improved our odds even a little. With odds like ours even a slight improvement a sliver of hope was worth grasping.

The two wizards from another realm looked at me expectantly and I gave it serious thought. It was not something to be gone into lightly. They were asking me this as a representative of my species, my whole planet.

Once again it falls to one girl to make a decision that could make or break the world.

"Your world has magic, what is it like… really?" I asked.

"It is a constant fight, powerful groups and individuals striving against each other. Good and bad in turns. Some areas are nice, some are absolutely hellish. For every light there is a darkness and for every saint there is a monster. We have to fight for what we believe in for our way of life against monsters and tyrants. Magic gives heroes as many tools as villains, it's got gods of both light and dark and the most we can expect is a balance, equilibrium. Magic means it's harder to win, the other side always has a shot of turning things around. The world is fifty/fifty dreams and nightmares." Rill said as if quoting someone.

Even odds? I for one would roll the dice for even a chance at a fair fight. "Open it back up. This world needs magic. We may not know how to use it yet, but if there is even a chance we can learn and save ourselves it's a chance worth taking." I said with building conviction.

Eldrin looked surprised. Rill looked impressed. They both nodded and then conferred on how to get it done.

The two of them drifted into the living room, occasionally wandering down into the basement to try something, debating methods for opening the seal they had put down. Nicce woke up and avoiding the wizards making shop talk she came over to me.

"So whas goin on?" Nicce said sleepily.

"Not much, I think things might get challenging, or just weird." I said lost in thought.

"What else is new." Nicce said as she shrugged and took my hand, giving me a fierce grin.

XXX

Me and Nicce were hanging out in the kitchen. I was debating if it was wise to let Nicce make another try at a Peanutbutter and Jelly sandwich, she had supervision now… no probably not.

The Television started acting weird, flipping channels rapidly. What was really weird was Rill seemed to be talking to it, and it was responding by changing channels. I was debating the wisdom of going to investigate when Rill and Eldrin both came back into the Kitchen, excited looks on their faces.

"Do you know a girl named Yule?" Rill asked.

"Yeah she's a new Ward. Handed her off myself, she's probably being semi held at wards HQ." I asked somewhat perplexed.

"We need to know where she is… EXACTLY where she is." Eldrin said with the intensity of a child eying a candy bar.

"Um I can show you the wards set up in the PRT base, how to get there, the works." I said leaving the part where they explain what the hell is going on implied.

That was a mistake. As soon as I showed them by thinking about it the both of them disappeared.

"I recognize that wook. They had a pwan. Thas not good." Nicce said with a mouthful of peanut butter sandwich.

XXX

I got up and made breakfast. Plate for me, plate for Nicce, Plate for Dad… plate for.. Mom. Wipe away tears. Wipe away more tears as I hear mom talking to dad on the way down the stairs. She was complaining about how weak her legs felt. She laughed and apologized for complaining.

"It's not everyday you come back to life. I can't believe I've missed so much." Annette Rose Hebert said

Mom saw me dwelling in the threshold and pulled me into a hug that pulled us both and then my father to the floor in a big hugging crying heap.

I dimly registered Nicce watching the family moment from the living room. I gestured her towards me.

Instead she slowly walked over and waited for us to stand and get sorted.

My mom noticed me looking at her and turned to face her.

"Wewcome back Mrs. He-bew, Hebew, Hebewt." Nicce said trying to get the enunciation right. Nicce still struggled with R's and L's and TH's. But she was getting 'bettew' I thought comically to myself.

My mom looked at Nicce formally and bowed her head before taking a step forward and hugging the young girl. I noticed Nicce's face looked oddly happy being smushed like that.

No more words were exchanged.

Dad had taken over serving breakfast and rescued the eggs from burning.

We ate as a family, almost as if nothing was wrong.

Almost as if Dad hadn't become some sort of criminal mastermind.

Almost as if I hadn't ever been bullied at school.

Almost as if I hadn't done… everything I had done.

Almost as if Nicce was just a normal little girl. A little sister I never had.

Mom turned on the little black and white TV we kept by the kitchen hutch. She always said it kept her company in the kitchen. It hadn't been cannibalized by Bonesaw or unplugged since Mom died, and she was the only one who used the tiny thing.

It buzzed to life, still on the news station and I heard the terrifying and confusing news being repeated.

Last night, Vista, Yule, Kid Win, Clockblocker and Aegis had been kidnapped from the Wards HQ. A potent stranger capable of evading cameras, pressure sensors and all the locks in the way had gotten right into the wards HQ and taken the Wards. The only picture they had of the culprits before all of them vanished was a short video of a slight woman in black gothic clothing with a sword on her hip and an eye patch appearing as almost all the wards seemed to pass out simultaneously. It then shows Clockblocker running in from off camera and the woman seems to take him by the hand as the comatose wards drift towards her and then they all vanish.

Shadow Stalker and Gallant were the only Wards left. Everyone was looking for any information about the perpetrator(s). A huge reward was being offered and the Triumvirate were supposedly in town.

"I take it this isn't normal 'nowadays.' "Mom intoned sarcastically.

"What have they done?" I questioned out loud.

"Yuwp, that's Rill." Nicce intoned around a mouthful of bacon. "They bettew hope dey don't find hew, I don't tink dey have enuff guys to catch hew."

"Nicce why would she, why would they do this?!" I expressed loudly.

"I wawned you dey had a pwan." Nicce said having devoured the bacon.

"But what? Why?" I asked incredulous.

"I got no ideas, but it is kinda funny cuz for once the answew is weally a Wizawd did it?"

XXX

AN: OK this may seem an odd duck in an odd duck series... but bear with me. You know how I said this was a crossover with my D&D game. Well on New years we played this out. My players surprised me with a better/completely different direction for things. (Aetherill Vorethiel aka Rill, and Eldrin Stormseeker are indeed PC's in my usual Renedge game. Yeah they are high in level, yeah they could have rampaged out of control in a world unprepared for them. Instead..yeah.

So yeah Kidnapping the Wards was not a thing I had planned. It made sense and it may help the story along (weirdly enough). If you look really not that hard you can see the obvious plot hook they ignored. They were totally supposed to fight the old one hiding in the bay... instead they roleplayed, figured out stuff made some interesting roleplaying based choices and then stole the Wards and quickly exit stage left. (I think they figured the locals could handle one non impressive old one.. heheh oh dear)

So aside from the whole the author is almost as surprised as the readers (perhaps more) for a change don't worry having the story line go sideways puts me more in my element then my usual. I am a DM first Author second. I live for curve balls in a story.

This brings up an interesting topic for discussion. Namely what classes do you think the wards may take that would work well with their abilities.

What stats would the wards have sans any powers?

Why would they do this? Why do I ask?

Spoiler

Yes Sophia's antisocial tendencies and Gallant having a date are the only reasons they got missed, it was strictly targets of opportunity. Sophia I have other plans for. I didn't just completely forget about Gallant... honest.

Also any characters you the reader would like to see drawn back into this mess to perhaps get their own class levels? Any suggestions?