Chris, Tanya, and Christine disembarked to find a car waiting to take them to the first location. Tanya took the passenger seat, while Christine and Chris slid into the back. "Hey, Chris… could you guys sort of… tone it down a bit?" Christine asked after they got situated.

Chris blinked at her. "What do you mean?"

Christine sighed. "Look, people aren't used to dealing with people with abilities like yours. They aren't used to people with abilities like yours even existing! When you're so open about what you can do, it- disturbs them. I understand there are things you need to use your abilities for, but if you could just… not throw it in everyone's faces, it'd make people a lot more comfortable."

Chris frowned. "I suppose we could do our best to not be… obvious about what we can do. I mean, once we set up the beacons, we're pretty much done here, and all that takes is Greg doing some smoke stuff."

"Done?" Christine asked with a frown.

"Well, yeah. There's not much for us to do around here." Chris replied. "The Abductors are a problem, but not one we're equipped to solve until you actually catch one, we're not getting into politics, because politics suck, and the only other issue we have to deal with is Gaia, which we're just waiting on a replacement for. So, after this, there's no real reason for us to stick around. I'll leave you a way to contact us, but that would only be for emergencies, which, you know, we're hoping won't happen."

Christine frowned, not sure how to feel about that. The less involved these people were, the less chaos there would be, but… she could think of so many things they could be helping with! Stopping terrorists! Taking down dictators! Preventing disease! Solving world hunger! Saving the environment! She meant what she'd told Tanya. If Chris and the others got involved, it'd be a mess, but the end result had to be better than what they had now. "I- think there's more you could do here." She commented. "Not everything that needs to be fixed is some obvious catastrophe. Think of how much you could do just by providing healing and food for people!"

Chris cocked his head. "I suppose we could do something like that… but wouldn't that defeat the whole 'be more subtle' thing? Hard to hide our abilities when we're using them to fix the world."

Christine rolled her eyes. "There's a difference between subtlety and hiding that you even have abilities. Subtlety is filling a container with food and sending it to a third world country that desperately needs it, instead of descending upon the country in a cloud of meat and vegetables."

"Okay… but we don't have a container to fill. That requires resources, logistics, employees… things we have little to no interest in dealing with." Chris pointed out.

"So find someone to work with!" Christine retorted. "There are plenty of charities out there you could help, with their own supply chains you could use!"

Chris frowned for a moment, before shrugging in acceptance. "We can look into it I guess. But if it becomes too much of a pain, I'm not opposed to the meat cloud."

Christine shook her head. "As long as you're helping people, I suppose it doesn't really matter."

*

It didn't take long for them to arrive at the site for the first beacon, which was the roof of a small office building. Chris went to open a portal for Greg and the others, when he paused glancing around at the small crowd of construction workers, city officials, and the building manager watching them. He turned to Christine. "I don't suppose opening a portal right here is very subtle, is it?"

Christine blinked, surprised he'd taken to her advice that quickly. "Not- particularly, no. You could step into the stairwell for a moment?"

"Sure." Chris agreed, heading to the stairwell and opening a portal there for the others, before returning.

"Alright, where do you want this thing?" Greg asked, looking between Christine and the city officials.

Tanya stepped forward. "If you'll simply create the device, the city will handle its inspection and installation." She explained, gesturing to the waiting construction workers.

Greg raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? I mean, I can create it already installed… seems like a lot of unnecessary work."

Tanya sighed. "There are… official employees designated for any and all installation of government fixtures per the contract with the construction workers union."

Greg blinked. "I think that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard someone say."

Tanya groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Please just make the damn device."

"Fine, fine." Greg rolled his eyes, sending some smoke into a nearby pile of cement blocks, which quickly merged and shifted into the teleportation beacon, to the shock of everyone involved.

"Okay, how could we have done that more subtly?" Chris asked, turning to Christine.

"We could have a truck wait by the airport full of the necessary materials, create them there and send the truck to deliver the beacons while we move to the next location?" Christine offered.

"Good plan for the next city." Chris nodded, turning to Tanya. "You should get that set up."

"Of course." Tanya nodded nervously.

"Are we done here then?" Greg asked, glancing at the government people who'd started looking over the beacon, looking more confused than anything. "They're not going to break that, are they?"

"We need to wait for the inspectors to finish, since they need to meet us at the next location." Tanya replied.

Greg sighed. "Fan-fucking-tastic."

*

Andrew looked off the edge of the fourth and final building of their tour around the city, wondering why he was even here. It felt more and more like he was just along for the ride while the others got things done. Thinking back, he hadn't actually done anything since they'd met up. Hell, he'd never really done anything… Even in Beast World, he was always pushed aside and told to focus on getting stronger while others focused on handling the actual problems. Admittedly, they were more suited to fixing those problems than him, since he did need to get stronger, but… it still didn't feel great.

The problem was, what could he actually do? Create Bonds? Kill people? He paused. He supposed the first step would be to figure out what he actually did. Greg controlled matter, Victoria controlled energy, Chris had his world and the rules thereof, while he had… aura and cores. Aura was a medium of information transfer, while cores stored that information. Then there were Bonds, which… Andrew blinked. How was that related to information? It was just a connection between two people, with qualities based on the intents infused in it… the intent was information, right?

Andrew frowned. Was he focusing too much on information? The information was obviously important, but it couldn't be all his ability was about. The Bond was more about connection. And cores connected all the disparate cells of a body into a unified whole. And the information explained how that connection was supposed to work! Which meant… his ability was about making and breaking connections? That didn't exactly help him… he already knew he could make Bonds, which was useful but not exactly on the level of the others. Maybe he could do something with the intent of the connection? Like when he formed Bonds, he could put different intents into them to alter their nature… could he do the same to cores? Sort of like adding additional instructions for how- Andrew grimaced. That was just what cores were weren't they? Collections of intents that told the body, mind, and World how to interact with each other. Though… if he could figure out how to actually manipulate that, there could be something in it? Something to consider, after he dealt with that person who'd just appeared out of nowhere.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Andrew blinked, staring down at the alley where a cloaked person had literally appeared out of nowhere. He'd been staring down there, lost in thought, and then bam, there they were! He… should do something about that, shouldn't he? Andrew glanced back at where the others were finishing up with the transportation beacon, before shrugging and jumping down into the alley, landing in front of the person. "Hello." He greeted them with a quick pulse of aura healing some minor injuries. "You wouldn't happen to be an Abductor, would you?" A pair of red eyes blinked at him in shock, before the individual turned and booked it in the other direction. "Hey!" Andrew called out as he rushed after them.

The two bolted out of the alley. "Someone stop-" Andrew cut off as they crashed through a mailbox without even flinching. "Do not stop them! Get out of the way! Run for your lives!" Andrew cursed, waving bystanders away from them. "Fuck you're fast." He grumbled, before shooting a beam of light, hitting them in the leg and sending them tumbling. "Ha!" Andrew exclaimed victoriously, before freezing as they disappeared. "Oh, right, telep-" He cut off as he sensed their aura reappear, turning to find them limping into another alley.

Andrew quickly rushed after them, turning into the alley to see an energy building around them. "Shit, stop!" He called out, hitting them with another beam of light, but the beam was warped away as the energy continued to build. "Fuck!" Andrew cursed as he tried to tackle them, but ended up getting thrown back by the energy. He glared at them as they glared back, space slowly warping around them as they began to warp back to wherever they came from. Andrew gritted his teeth, sending his aura at them, gripping their core to tear it out, because at least then they'd have a body to study, before pausing as an idea occurred to him. Cores were intents that interacted with the World to determine what it could do… so what if he added an intent to tell it to stop?

Andrew focused on the core, pushing the intent at it. There was resistance, the core fighting against him, but a moment later, the energy winked out. The two of them blinked at each other for a moment. "So… ready to talk?" Andrew asked with a smirk, stepping forward.

"St-stay back!" They, or apparently she, cried, stumbling away from him as they desperately tried to trigger their teleportation.

Andrew grimaced, focusing on keeping the 'stop' intent going. It wasn't permanent and he had to focus to keep it going. "Who are you? Why are you here?" He demanded, stepping forward to pull off her hood.

"Don't!" She cried, clutching at her hood. "You'll kill me!"

Andrew blinked. "Really? What are you, a vampire?" He paused, before pinching the bridge of his nose. "Fuck, you're a vampire, aren't you?"

She froze, glaring at him. "Who are you?!? How did you get to this place!?! No one like you should be here!"

Andrew raised an eyebrow at her. "I could say the same to you. And also, shouldn't I be the one asking questions here? Who captured who?"

She gritted her teeth, struggling to activate her ability again. "I'm not telling you anything!"

Andrew opened his mouth to retort, before pausing as an arrow drove into the ground next to them and a portal opened, Chris stepping through, followed by Greg, Victoria, Christine, and Tanya. "Andrew, why did you jump off the roof and accost a random person?" Chris asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"They appeared out of nowhere, and that seemed suspicious to me." Andrew replied. "I'm about ninety percent sure they're one of the Abductors. Also, they might be a vampire."

"A vampire?" Christine blinked. "The Abductors are vampires?!?"

"They are a group that would be interested in a steady supply of vulnerable sources of blood." Victoria muttered thoughtfully.

"Hey, before we get off track, can we get her into Chris's world? I'm suppressing her ability and it's starting to give me a headache." Andrew interjected.

"Sure." Chris nodded, opening another portal. Andrew grabbed the possible vampire and dragged her inside, the rest following after.

"Could you make it dark too?" Andrew asked. Chris nodded, snapping his fingers as everything went dark. "Alright, let's get a look at you." He muttered, pulling the hood off to reveal a pale skinned, red-eyed woman glaring at him. "Yup. That's a vampire."

She sneered, revealing her sharp fangs. "I'm not a vampire, I'm a Damir! Vampire is the term these humans labeled us with."

"But you're still a blood-drinking, sun-averse monster, right?" Andrew retorted.

She crossed her arms petulantly. "I'm not a monster." She grumbled.

"But you eat people." Greg pointed out.

"I do not!" She protested. "Yes, I drink blood, but that doesn't kill anyone! You people donate blood all the time! It's the same thing!"

Greg blinked. "Well… that is better, but you're still kidnapping people and forcing them to do it, aren't you? Still a little monstrous."

"We do what we have to to survive!" She snapped back. "We provide everything they need, making them as comfortable as possible, and all they have to do is provide a little blood! How is that monstrous?!?"

"Because you're still forcing people into it." Victoria sighed. "But that really isn't important right now. We're going to need you to tell us everything you know. Where are you from?" She asked, sending some points at her.

"Wouldn't you like to know." She sneered.

"The Dearthmare Mountains?" Victoria muttered. "Is that on Azza?"

The Damir's eyes widened. "How-"

"Yup, it's on Azza." Victoria nodded. "How do you get here? Family line ability. How many people have you grabbed? About four dozen. How old are you? Four centuries? Really? Damn, you really are unaging? No wonder you need so many people. Your population must be huge. Or not… low birth rate? Yup. Still, a couple million people need a lot of blood. Actually begs the question of why you don't grab more… oh, that's interesting. You need to breed them on Azza because you can absorb ability energy from their blood, slowly growing your power. But no ability means no ability energy. Too bad it doesn't do anything for your physical power, though… oh, that grows over time, huh? A long time… a thousand years to become a cultivator? Seems a bit long, but immortality does skew things."

"Please, stop!" The Damir cried, clutching her head. "I'll tell you whatever you want! Just- please, get out of my head!"

Victoria blinked at the sheer horror the Damir was feeling. "I- okay." She agreed, pulling out her points. "So… what's your name?"

"Giana." She answered bitterly.

"Well, it's- nice to meet you?" Victoria offered tentatively. "Sorry, just- we need information so we can… stop you from kidnapping people? Which you need to do to survive… ah, crap, this is another monstrous race thing, isn't it?"

"At least they aren't a race of murder rapists." Andrew grumbled.

"True." Victoria agreed. "So, I guess we have to get to these Dearthmare Mountains and talk to the Damir about not kidnapping people, huh?" She turned to Giana. "I assume you wouldn't want to take us there?"

"I couldn't even if I wanted to." Giana grimaced. "In order to cross worlds, I need to burn ability energy to enhance my ability. I only had enough for two jumps. One to get me here, and one which he prevented." She turned to glare at Andrew.

"Wait, you can burn ability energy to enhance your ability?" Chris blinked.

"Damir can." Giana replied, lifting her chin slightly.

"Can I get a piece of you?" Greg asked. Turning into a Damir seemed like the perfect answer to his ability energy problem!

"E-excuse me?!?" Giana asked incredulously.

"Actually, I just need to get some smoke in you." Greg muttered, sending a bit of smoke at her.

"Wh-what are you doing!?!" Giana yelped, scrambling away as the smoke wormed its way under her skin.

"Just getting some DNA, don't worry." Greg waved dismissively, pulling out the smoke as he shifted into a copy of her, before slowly adjusting back to normal. "There we go!" He chuckled, running his tongue over his new fangs. "Now I just need to find something with an ability to drain…"

"That's what the Maze is for." Chris commented.

"Who are you people?!?" Giana asked in horror, looking between the four of them. First there was the man who could suppress her ability, then the one with the portals who turned day into night, then the mind reader, and finally this one who stole her form! What were people like this doing on Earth?!?

The four of them shared a look, before turning back to her. "We're the Eternals." Victoria answered with a shrug.