Mash walked through a portal, returning to his world to even more confusion. His domain was massive, and the sudden shift of setting flooded his mind with information. He staggered as he got accustomed to his surroundings. He barely managed it, only to be flooded by more information as the many bodies of Priscilla sent a month’s worth of information into his head. A little under a week in the dungeon had been just under a month here, and a lot had changed. He could see a lot with his domain, and he didn’t sense a single adventurer within it. The information Priscilla gave him, told him why.

The war started soon after he entered, and it was keeping the adventurers busy. His friends were all fine, he could tell that much. Priscilla mentioned that something had happened to Lisa’s mark, which made sense considering how his own skill had changed. His siblings had been devasted by his supposed death. Mash was more than a little shocked to hear that they had assumed he had died. Although, it was a fair concern. He was one of those who should be able to leave a dungeon so long as he was alive. The only good reason for his sudden disappearance being death, made a lot of sense.

[Mash, you're okay! What happened? Why did you just disappear like that?]

Luna and Arthur berated him with questions, soon followed by a series of messages from his friends as well. Mash couldn’t answer them individually and told Priscilla to update them on what happened. Although, he told her to leave out the brand. A discussion like that should be handled in person.

Mash turned toward the directions of his friends. He was certain Jill would teleport to him in a moment, but he wanted to test his own capabilities a little. Wings grew from Mash’s back. Not wooden, but a pair of real draconic wings sprouted from his back. Then he added more, another layer of wyvern wings grew just beneath him. The energy cost was small, insignificant compared to before. In the past, the mana cost would be immense and sustaining the form even more so. Now, the transformation took little of his energy, and he used none to maintain it.

He shot from the ground with so much speed that he practically struck a solid wall of air. The more he sped up, the closer that wall felt. The skies seemed to want to trap him. To deny his flight, but he pushed through it. With a little bit of wind magic, he broke through that wall and felt the freedom of the skies. It was his to roam now. He considered going higher, to break into the skies where he had seen the dragon before. No, it wasn’t the time yet.

The wind blew past him in a blur. Jill teleported beside him only to get blown back by the wind. She spiraled through the air and fell. Mash watched in his domain as she righted herself and teleported again. This time Mash did stop for her as she chose to teleport in front of him. His sudden stop didn’t stop the wind and it crashed into Jill, sending her tumbling through the air. Her next teleport sent her directly beside him, and she threw a punch at him. Mash easily dodged out of the way.

“I swear to god Mash. Whatever happened to you; I think I can still teleport you to the bottom of the ocean.”

Jill smiled widely, though tears ran down her cheeks.

“You can’t teleport me there unless you went there while I was gone.”

She didn’t respond as she struggled to form words through a half sob. Instead, she grabbed one of his hands and the world around them warped. An instant later he found himself in the middle of a tent. Then his domain caught up to him, and the battlefield had far too much going on. It felt like the information was literally banging on the inside of his skull. He lost his footing and nearly fell. Luke caught him and healed him without any questions.

“Mash? Are you ok?”

Mash nodded.

“Yeah, my domain is a lot bigger. It takes a little bit for me to adjust when I teleport.”

Luke didn’t step away from him after healing him. Instead, he pulled Mash into a hug. Lisa joined pressing into him from behind. Jill grabbed Red and joined as well. With how big Luke was, Neither Red nor Jill could actually touch Mash. Even still, he felt reassured by each of them.

They lingered like that for a moment. Red was the first to separate, followed by Jill and Luke. Finally, Lisa let, go whispering something before parting.

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“Thank you.”

She backed off before he could say anything else, and he felt like asking her in front of everyone wasn’t appropriate. He didn’t understand why she would thank him. And it wasn’t a simple thing either. He could feel her emotions a little and knew how genuine she was being. What had he done? As he thought about it, his eyes drifted toward the flowers on her arm.

“Huh, that looks a lot better on you than me.”

The flowers bright colors only highlighted Lisa’s strangely blue hair. He stared at her for a moment. When he noticed her staring back, he turned abruptly. His face burned with embarrassment.

“You’re different somehow.”

Lisa spoke as she continued to stare at him. He could both see and feel her eyes on the back of his head. He tried his best to explain what he thought she was mentioning.

“Yeah, a whole lot. I’m a great monster of calamity now. And my name is no longer Mash. Also, I gained this thing called an aspect. Actually, I have two of them.”

“Stop. Mash you aren’t making any sense. What exactly is your class? Priscilla didn’t tell us everything, just that you were okay and advanced.”

Red cut off his poor explanation, realizing it wouldn’t lead anywhere. Mash calmed down and answered her question.

“It’s not really a class. I got rid of the class system for something else. So, it’s the name of my, uh, species. I’m now ‘The Chimera of the End and the Beginning’.”

Jill pantomimed cleaning her out.

“Care to run that by us one more time?”

“The Chimera of the End and the Beginning.”

He replied automatically.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought I heard. So, are you going to need our help destroying the world or do we just watch? Honestly, I’m down for either.”

Mash gave Jill a flat look.

“I’ll help. It…sounds like fun.”

Lisa added in but she was better at sounding genuine. She seemed genuinely eager to help him. He decided to play into it.

“I don’t know, maybe after a couple of days. I just got back and need to test a few things first. You know like forcibly changing reality by manifesting the aspect of change.”

“Explain.”

Red stopped the joke with a single word. She seemed to realize that his words were more than a joke.

“Yeah. I don’t really understand everything about them, but I got my aspects when my system changed. I had the option to become a king or a god, and they said I would receive something similar. The king was a throne of some type of power, and God would grant me a piece of divinity, whatever that is.”

Mash stopped talking when he saw the empty stares and open mouths. They seemed frozen, and he waved his hands to get their attention. Jill was the first to speak, her voice laced with incredulity.

“You can’t be serious. You chose not to be a god to become some monster.”

“Wait, that’s your concern. How did you qualify to become a god?”

Luke’s words cut as he said them with some notable hostility. He seemed to reject the very idea of it. Mash just shrugged his shoulders.

“I think it's just a kind of power, not really about moral character or right.”

Those were not the right words, and they devasted Luke. He took a few steps backward as if Mash had slapped him. Red stepped closer and asked Mash a more pointed question.

“What did you do that you’re not telling us?”

He took a half step away, wondering where she pulled that from. She was right, but he wondered what he had said to give it away.

[I believe it was when you mentioned possessing your aspect, you referred to it in the plural.]

Priscilla was just as sharp as Red and had noticed his slip. He sighed.

“Fine, I got one more thing. Well, two technically. I have the aspect of change and was offered the aspect of freedom as well. I took it, but it had some consequences.”

Mash hesitated a little. He knew that they would get angry if he told them what those consequences were. He wasn’t really all that worried since they usually took things well enough. He was surprised when Red spoke first.

“We won’t get too angry. When we thought you died, we talked about a few things. One of those was about our decision to stick together. At least tell us what to expect.”

She sounded regretful and abashed. Even with what they said, he wasn’t sure how the reality would come across.

“It’s probably going to cause some problems. I got this thing called the Brand of Change and Freedom. It does some crazy stuff, including marking me as an enemy of those who would maintain. Also, I’m an enemy to all those who would bind people. I don’t think the method exactly matters. So, slavers, gods, kings, and maybe even parents will see me as some great villain. I don’t exactly know the details, but I imagine plenty of people are well aware of my existence.”

Red looked like she wanted to get angry but visibly restrained any biting words.

“Is it strange that I’m a little jealous?”

The words didn’t come from Jill as he expected but from Lisa. She looked at him so wistfully that he couldn’t take it as a joke.

“We were already hiding my class from the gods, what’s one more? Pretty sure my next advancement will create more enemies.”

Jill spoke clapping Mash on the shoulder in congratulations. They were doing a good job of not being angry. But the support was creepy. Luke and Red remained quiet for a few moments. Then Luke came over and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“It could be worse. You could be a necromancer or slaver. This sounds like you’re the literal opposite.”

That was true enough, even though he would likely never be offered those options. Red seemed to swallow her previous words before speaking.

“You know, I genuinely expected worse. I still have dozens of questions for you, and you are going to answer them.”

Questions were something he could handle. He wanted to hear some of their thoughts regarding his abilities too.