Dyrdek and Ka'lypso faced off, glaring at each other as they prepared for battle. "You're going down, lizard." Drydek growled.

"Come at me, toad." Ka'lypso sneered.

"Alright, we're fourteen to fourteen, Dyrdek's serve." Sidulpek announced.

"Ha!" Dyrdek swung his paddle, sending the ball bouncing towards Ka'lypso, who sent it right back to him, back and forth until Dyrdek managed to spike it down, scoring the point for the round.

"Fourteen to fifteen, Ka'lypso's serve, game point." Sidulpek announced.

And so the game went back and forth, the two opponents evenly matched as the score went higher and higher, until finally Dyrdek managed to win two rounds in a row, taking the game. "Ha! Take that you stinky lizard!"

"You barely nicked the table! That doesn't count!" Ka'lypso protested.

"Judge?" Dyrdek asked, turning to Sidulpek.

"Contact is contact. The point stands." Sidulpek replied.

Ka'lypso growled. "Rematch! Best two out of three!"

Sidulpek rolled her eyes. "Would you two just stop already? This is the fourth game you've competed over, and neither of you comes out on top. Can't you guys just admit you're both capable and be friends already?"

Ka'lypso snorted. "So the toad has some skills, so what? That doesn't make us equals!"

"All I'm hearing is 'bitch, bitch, bitch'." Dyrdek replied with a smirk. "Just admit it, without your ability, you're no better than the rest of us! And between the Chief and his friends using their abilities to empower us, you won't even have that very long! All that will matter at that point will be skills, and yours are no better than anyone else's."

Sidulpek shook her head. "I hardly think ping pong is an adequate determination of someone's skills."

Dyrdek coughed awkwardly. "It's the principle that matters…"

"We should have a test of leadership!" Ka'lypso exclaimed.

"Like what?" Sidulpek asked.

"What about that place with all the images of warriors on it?" Dyrdek offered, nodding along with the idea, referring to the laser tag arena.

"Let's do it! You're going down, toad!" Ka'lypso laughed.

"My squad will kick your ass, lizard!" Drydek retorted with a grin.

*

"That can't be a good sign." Chris muttered, glancing over at the rising plume of smoke coming from the same direction as a large group of his subordinates, along with a few screams.

"What?" Beth frowned, looking around before spying the plume of smoke herself. "Oh, hell."

"Finally!" Greg exclaimed. "I was wondering when something would go wrong."

"They better not have caused this." Chris grumbled, opening a portal to them and stepping into a burning building. "Ka'lypso! What's going on here!" He snapped.

"Sore loser, Lord!" Ka'lypso replied, gesturing to what looked like a twelve year old throwing around balls of fire, shouting and cursing out everyone. She and Dyrdek had been having a perfectly fine competition between their squads, when this kid had come along and insisted on constantly getting between them, along with a few of his friends. So, since the targets had decided to present themselves, both sides had felt perfectly justified in utterly crushing them until they gave up. It worked for most of them, but this kid had just kept going, getting more and more frustrated until… well, he blew up. Quite literally.

Chris nodded, glancing around to see a few of his subordinates working to get any innocent bystanders to safety. "Greg, can you handle the fire? I'll get the kid."

"Sure thing." Greg agreed, bursting into clouds of smoke that dove towards the fires, smothering them with water and dissolving anything that was actively burning.

"Stay back!" The kid shouted as Chris stalked towards him, holding up a ball of fire. "I'm warning you!"

"So you can keep burning this place down?" Chris raised an eyebrow, surreptitiously kicking a small rock with a portal point attached to it over to him. "I don't think so. You're going in time out."

"You can't touch me! I'm-" The kid cut off as Chris suddenly appeared behind him and gave him a good knock on the head, opening a portal for him to fall into, healing any damage he might have done in the process as he did.

"Young Master!" A man shouted as he rushed into the room just as the kid fell into the portal. "Release him!" He roared as he charged at Chris.

"Eh?" Chris blinked before he was slammed with the blast of wind, sending him flying into a wall, the air creating another burst of fire with the influx of oxygen.

"Hey! No throwing air around in the middle of a fire!" Greg exclaimed, forming next to him and giving him a smack over the head, knocking him out. "Oh, right, high-tier physique… oops."

"Greg, fire." Chris growled as he pulled himself out of the wall. "I'll take care of him."

Greg grunted and got back to work while Chris tossed the man into his world as well, before setting up some portals to drop some water on the fire as well, though nothing as effective as what Greg could do. By the time the fire department showed up, they pretty much had the fire all cleaned up, though they still had to deal with the police. A gruff looking officer walked up to them as they finished up. "My name is Officer Ramirez. You two are the ones who dealt with the fire?" They both nodded. "It's always good to see young people doing their part." Ramirez smiled. "Is there anything you two can tell me about what happened here? We'll of course do our own investigation, but anything you can tell us would be appreciated."

"We know exactly what happened." Chris replied, opening a portal to reveal the kid, who had woken up by this point and looked absolutely pissed. "He did it. Got pissy after losing at laser tag and started throwing fireballs around."

"He's lying!" The kid immediately protested. "I wasn't doing anything and he started the fire! Him and his stupid friends! They're just trying to pin it on me to discredit me!"

Ramirez raised an eyebrow. "And why would they want to do that?"

The kid raised his chin haughtily. "My name is Damien Fiero, of the Fiero Family."

Ramirez froze, swearing internally. He could obviously tell the kid was lying, but since it was just his word against theirs, the Fiero Family lawyers could twist the truth into whatever they wanted it to be. Maybe he'd get lucky and some video evidence might have survived the blaze, but even then, the Families had ways to make sure something like that would never make it into court. The real question here was whether he wanted to stand on the side of truth, or on the side that wouldn't see him busted back down to beat cop. He sighed, turning to Chris. "I'll need you to release Mr. Fiero and come with me for questioning."

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Chris blinked. "You can't be serious. He's obviously lying."

"Can you prove that?" Ramirez asked, giving him a pitying look.

Chris paused. "I suppose not."

"Then it doesn't matter, does it? Unless you think you have better lawyers than a Family, there's no possible way you're winning this. Best to just save yourself the trouble, accept whatever happens, and hope the boy isn't too vindictive." Ramirez shook his head.

"Wait, are you actually suggesting we're the ones who are going to take the fall for this?" Greg asked incredulously. "We're the ones who put the damn fire out!"

"The legal system doesn't care what's true, it cares what you can prove." Ramirez sighed.

Greg grimaced, before pausing as an idea occurred to him. "So, we're going to get in trouble because the kid says we're lying, and when it comes to our word against his, his wins." The officer nodded. "So… if he's not around to lie about us?" He asked leadingly.

Ramirez gave him a stern look. "Son, you better not be suggesting what I think you are. I sympathize with your situation and I'll do everything I can to make sure you get away as cleanly as possible, but I will not condone any criminal acts."

"I wasn't thinking anything illegal." Greg muttered. "Just, you know, an… extended vacation in Chris's world."

"Greg, I'm pretty sure that's kidnapping." Chris commented, a yelp coming from Damien as he was teleported back from the portal he'd been trying to sneak out of. "Not that I'm saying it isn't an option, just making it clear what we'd be doing."

"Do you two understand that I will be obligated to arrest you if you go through with anything like this?!?" Ramirez growled.

Greg snorted. "I'd like to see you- hey, why are we worrying about any of this? They can't even do anything to us, can they?"

"Something about not getting into fights right before a war or something." Chris waved dismissively. "Best to be on the right side of the law when shit goes down."

"I'm sorry, war?!?" Ramirez asked incredulously.

"Don't worry about it." Chris replied absently, before turning back to Greg. "That probably leaves out the kidnapping too, though. I could connect him to my world? Make him tell the truth?"

"Sounds good to me, but that's probably not a good sign." Greg frowned. "We should really get some of the moral people in on this."

"Right." Chris nodded, opening a portal to Beth. "Hey, guys, this kid is trying to get us thrown in jail. How do we stop it?"

"How the fuck- what?!?" Beth exclaimed, jumping through the portal. "Explain!"

"Kid started the fire, we stopped him, he said we started it, and he's a Fiero, which apparently means that since it's his word against ours, we lose." Chris explained.

Beth blinked at him, then she shot a glare at Damien before turning back to Chris. "Chris, you're a Major in the Scouts, and you're engaged to the Scout General's daughter." She retorted, causing Damien to go pale. "This is going to be a mess, but you aren't going to lose on this. The Fieros aren't going to want to start a fight with the Scouts over something like this. Of course, we won't want to start a fight with them either… ugh, the end result will probably be the amusement park getting screwed on their insurance for faulty wiring or something and both of you get off. That's usually what happens when major factions go against each other."

"I usually get off when I go against someone too." Greg snickered.

Chris gave him a look. "That was fine, don't mess with her."

"Fine, fine." Greg rolled his eyes. "Still, that doesn't sit right with me." He added, turning back to Beth. "This kid is obviously a little asshole, and getting away with burning down a building is only going to make that worse. Shit, the only reason he didn't kill anyone was because we were here! Nah, this little shit deserves to be punished, and since we have some clout to bash back against him, I say we do it!" He glanced at Ramirez. "You can arrest him, right?"

Ramirez was doing his best to fade into the background as it became clear he was completely out of his depth here, and anything he did would more than likely end up screwing him over. "I- I don't-"

"Greg, don't put something like that on him! This can only end up screwing him over!" Beth interjected.

"Well someone needs to arrest the kid!" Greg threw up his hands in frustration.

"Is this really where you want to put your foot down?" Chris asked. "Sure, the kid's an asshole, but we have bigger problems to deal with. Besides, it isn't a him issue, it's the fact that there's a system in place that allows people like him to get away with whatever they want. We need to fix that, not worry about individuals who merely benefit from it."

Greg sighed. "I suppose you have a point. Still bugs the shit out of me though."

Chris cocked his head thoughtfully. "Would you like to kill him a few times before we let him go? Get it out of your system?"

Greg paused before shooting Chris a grin. "Yeah, I think I would."

"Guys, that's torture." Beth groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You can't do that!"

"Shit, she's right." Chris muttered.

Greg sighed. "Damn it, now I'm really disappointed."

Chris turned to Damien, who was completely pale by this point. "Alright, get out of there." He pulled the wind ability guy over as well. "You too."

Damien rushed out the moment Chris said the word, not even stopping as he ran away, quickly followed by his bodyguard who shot them dirty looks as he passed. However, they weren't quick enough to get away before Chris attached some portal points to them. As much as he knew they couldn't avoid letting them go, he still wanted to keep an eye on them.

Chris then turned back to Ramirez. "So, we done here?"

"Y-yeah." Ramirez nodded.

"Right then, back to the rides?" Chris asked, turning to Beth.

Beth's expression twisted. "I'm not really feeling it after all this… it's like this day is just set up to shove all the crap I hate about the upper crust of the City in my face. Recruiting anyone with talent they can get their hands on, lording their power over everyone, getting away with doing whatever they want… I just want to go home."

"Alright, we can do that." Chris agreed, opening a portal back to their house. "Come on." He wrapped an arm around her waist, leading her in and plopping on the couch with her, before shifting their cat into her lap.

Greg clicked his tongue as the portals closed. "Well I'm going to get back to the rides." He grumbled, before flying off in a cloud of smoke.

Dyrdek and Ka'lypso led the rest of Chris's subordinates off once it became clear he no longer needed them. "Now how are we going to settle this?!?" Ka'lypso complained.

"We can find a different game?" Dyrdek suggested. "It's a big place, I'm sure there's another game that takes a squad to play."

"You could try paintball." Sidulpek offered, gesturing to a nearby field. "Seems similar to laser tag."

"Fine." Ka'lypso grumbled. "Hopefully no one tries to burn this one down."

*

The rest of the trip to the amusement park passed without incident. Andrew and Penny spent the entire day running around the water park together, to the point that Andrew felt like his bones were soaked, but nothing else really happened. Greg kept to the rides with Thad and Jello, though T'ka elected to return to the Eternal World since Chris left. Ka'lypso and Dyrdek kept competing using various games, neither coming out ahead, though after a while that stopped being the point. The two found that competing against each other was actually kind of… fun. Not to win or to prove they were better than the other, but to enjoy the other's company, though neither would admit that.

Finally there was Victoria, and she had a date. Emily took her to one of her favorite restaurants, the two spent a couple hours getting to know each other and… it fizzled. Emily was cute and sweet, but she was too… normal. Really the only connection they had was the fact that they were both lesbians, at least technically, and that just wasn't enough. It was actually a pretty weird experience for Victoria, because… she'd never actually been on a bad date before. Between Jessica, then Beatrice and Annie, all her pursuits had worked out for her. Honestly, she'd thought that was one of the few benefits of World fuckery, not having to worry about whether a relationship would work or not, because the World just sort of took care of it for you. But now… she wasn't sure.

A part of her wondered if she should just push forward with Emily… maybe she'd just missed something? The World couldn't have made a mistake, right? Or… how much did Worlds actually know? Obviously not everything, since there had been more than a few occasions where they'd ended up surprising them. Definitely a lot though… and how much were their setups the World taking action, as opposed to simply rules the World had set up taking effect? Or was she completely off track and this hadn't been the World at all? Had this truly just been a random coincidence that meant nothing?

Victoria sighed, shaking her head. She didn't know, but did it really matter? If the World was going to force her into something, it was going to happen no matter what right? And if it was completely random, then she could just move on like it never happened. And no matter what, she'd be fine.