A girl with long brown hair (though a portion of it was tied into a ponytail that stuck almost straight up) and maroon eyes, while wearing a red jacket, blue scarf, a pair of shorts to go along with her boots, and a pink backpack along with a white and blue-striped rolling suitcase and a tan carry-all, stepped off the bus that passed through Blytonbury before heading to their current location, Blytonbury’s smaller sibling, Glastonbury, then consulted her map. “Okay, just gotta find that gate-looking thing, then getting to Luna Nova should be a cinch. Probably.”
The skeleton accompanying her made an expression that would be a raised eyebrow on a human, though with how his skull shifted, due to being mostly magic as opposed to calcium, it was fairly easy to tell once you’d seen it a couple times. “why the probably kid?” he asked, hands in his hoodie’s pockets.
“Well, it’s a magical school for teaching witches-in-training. If this were an anime, it’d have some kind of test or else they wouldn’t let you in at all.” she responded, looking around for anything that might hint at where the gate was.
“that seems like the sort of thing they’d tell you upfront.” The skeleton replied. “also, I think you’ve been watching too much magical girl anime lately Akko.” he added.
“But Sans, I’m about to go to a school where they teach kids how to use magic! I can’t do a whole lot of studying past the basics or I might get super bored and sleep through the lesson, like that programming course I took. I don’t want to miss anything.” Akko complained.
Sans gave her a deadpan look. “then keep yourself awake.”
“Do you want a repeat of the caffeine patch incident?” Akko huffed.
“you do know that you can keep yourself awake without chemical cocktails, right?” Sans queried.
“That almost never works for long. We both know that.” They’d pulled all-nighters before. “Anyway, let’s ask around, or maybe go to the edge of town so we can look for landmarks, ‘cause ‘Leyline Terminal’ doesn’t seem like it would be easy to miss.” She suggested.
30 minutes (and a few slightly-freaked-out people) later, no dice on finding the terminal. They’d taken a break on a nearby wooden bench. Everybody said that there wasn’t a bus terminal or a subway within 10 miles. “weird, you’d think that this place would be easier to find. then again, the only route to their school is in the middle of nowhere in Britain, so maybe there’s some kind of pamphlet or something you can only get here... or it might just be some kind of teleporter or something.” he pointed out what looked like a huge tower of wood, which at first glance looked more like a huge tree. Or perhaps it began as a tree? Nah, KND treehouses started as trees, the tower was probably just disguised as one.
Akko brought her map back out and compared the tower to the picture on the map. While usually maps just used symbols, the tree-like picture on the map was almost identical to the building itself, if in miniature. “Oh, that makes sense. It must be to test our dedication. If we can’t even find the terminal we don’t have what it takes to become witches.” she hit a fist into her palm.
“I still think you might be overthinking this, but let’s go. gotta get that Map data before I can take any shortcuts.” Sans said with a shrug.
A moderate walk later, they came across a pale girl with long lilac hair, even darker red eyes than Akko herself, a brown poncho over a green dress and a number of bags with ingredients of some kind sticking out of them, presumably for potions. That was a classic witch activity. Akko hadn’t gotten very far with the basic course, mostly because she ran out of ingredients before she got past the most basic recipes due to some mishaps with one of the KND’s villains (Toriel certainly didn’t appreciate it when she found out what exactly was going on with them shortly after reaching the surface, though when Akko told her that most of the KND’s Rogues were mostly just jerks or well-meaning but relatively harmless nutjobs rather than actually dangerous she calmed down a bit), and she tried not to abuse Reset for such trivial things… any more.
“Oh, hey! You’re going to Luna Nova too, right? My name’s Atsuko Kagari, but you can call me Akko.” she said. Sans seemed to have wandered off, presumably to scout ahead and make sure that the terminal was actually up ahead. When she didn’t get a response from lilac-hair, she decided to fall back on Papyrus’ usual tactics. Keep bringing up different topics until something piqued her counterpart’s interest.
“I’m gonna guess you like potions right? I tried to learn, but I lost some ingredients to a random lunatic before I could get past the early recipes from the starter kits.” Stuff like that happened to everybody at some point, though it seemed to happen to her more often than usual. This was presumably the reason lilac-hair barely glanced at her.
Attempting a different tactic, Akko pulled out her Shiny Chariot card. If this girl was a fan, she’d finally find another. If, as was more likely, she was yet another detractor, well, she’d probably be able to take advantage of the opening to get this girl talking. Of course, if it didn’t work, she was starting to run out of ideas that didn’t involve regaling her with one of her weirder stories.
“This is one of my most prized possessions! These Shiny Chariot cards are super-rare limited editions! It took months to get them all. Though I’m missing the one, so I guess ‘all’ isn’t the right word.” she admitted. “Well, I’m sure she can forgive one of her fans for not managing to ‘catch ‘em all.’ Especially since she inspired me to become a witch in the first place. A lot of people don’t seem to like her anymore since she’s been missing for 10 years, but I say to heck with those fair-weather fans! If you like her, don’t tell people you don’t!” She finally got some kind of response. The girl turned around and offered her hand.
“Ah! Nice to meet you!” she reciprocated with her own hand. Finally. While she didn’t seem overly friendly, this was a good start for less than 5 minutes of work. Undyne had certainly been more of a challenge. This girl hadn’t even tried to ki-
Suddenly there were snakes on her arms, hissing and clearly aggressive. Oops, spoke too soon. In a practiced manner (because things like this had happened to her before) she threw the snakes off the stone bridge before they could bite her. The other girl blinked at her, before attempting the continue on.
“Hey now, that wasn’t very nice!” she huffed as she kept pace. Sure, Determination, especially in the quantities she possessed, provided a great deal of resistance to most forms of harm, which was credited as why humanity had triumphed over the other races that inhabited the Earth, but that didn’t mean getting bitten and injected with venom wouldn’t have hurt!
“Persistent aren’t you?” lilac-hair muttered.
“Ah ha! She speaks!” Akko pointed at the other girl, the shift in weight caused the loose stone under her right foot to slide out of place, making her to lose her balance. She caught herself without getting hurt, but her suitcase scattered its contents across the path. The other girl picked up her Alcor stuffy, as Akko struggled to fit her things back inside the suitcases. Luckily, nothing seemed to be broken.
“Uh, can I have that back?” she asked.
“Sure.” The other girl said, before pouring a vial of some purple liquid on the stuffy, animating it, presumably not permanently. The toy started to hop around a few moments later.
“Wow! I didn’t know you could use potions to bring things to life instead of enchanting them with a wand.” If the other girl’s plan was to distract her by bringing inanimate objects to life, then she had to admit, it could work. She knelt down to get a better look at the toy. “This is so co-OW!” she was cut off by the reflexive cry of pain from getting jabbed in the eye by the same toy.
1
HP: 998/999.
It was more shock than anything else, and the Temmie Armor she was wearing under her coat healed the already almost unnoticeable damage in moments, but still. She grabbed the toy and waved it around, hoping she wouldn’t have to dunk it in the river.
When her stuffy kept struggling, she reluctantly made her way to the river bank and dunked it. This dispelled the magic, presumably by diluting the potion to the point of uselessness, though she’d have to be careful with it since the toy was already more than half a decade old and she’d been hard on it when she was younger. Seeing as it couldn’t dry properly in her pack, and she didn’t have the time to shift things around to fit the toy back in if she wanted to keep up with her somewhat jerkish companion, she simply placed it on top of her head.
Hurrying a bit to catch up. She complained again, a note of genuine irritation in her voice. “What was that for? I’m just trying to be friendly.”
“Well I’m not in-” she turned around when she heard the telltale *Vwoorp* of Sans’ teleportation, a note of confusion in her expression as the background music changed.
For some reason, Sans was holding a stick. “hey kid I wood-n’t worry about the terminal. A bunch of witches were hanging around in front of it, and they seem like regulars.” he explained.
Akko tried to suppress a smirk. “Did you *Snrk* grab that stick just for the pun?” she asked. The other girl merely raised an eyebrow at Akko’s apparent familiarity with a Monster. Seeing as there was less than a single million, and they had at least small enclaves all over the world, it was rare to see them away from where they lived.
“you know-t me, not one for leaf-ing a pun opportunity be.” Sans answered, causing Akko to barely contain her laughter. She knew the jokes were terrible, but she couldn’t help herself.
“I bet Papyrus regrets talking about quotas in front of us every day.” Akko commented as she calmed down.
“probably.” Sans agreed.
“Never seen a skeleton up close.” Lilac-hair commented.
“the name’s Sans. Sans the skeleton.” Sans said, offering his hand. The girl stared at him for a moment. “aw, come on, don’t you know how to greet a new pal?”
“Just watch out for the snakes Sans.” Akko mentioned as the girl started to reach out. Presumably unwilling to try the trick on him when he’d already been informed of it, or just out of snakes, she simply clasped hands. Sans left eye flickered blue a split second beforehand, and a loud, wet farting sound rang out. Lilac-hair took on a deadpan expression as Sans pulled back his hand to reveal a whoopie cushion that hadn’t been there beforehand.
Akko and Sans chuckled. “Don’t worry, he got me with that too.” Akko commiserated.
“I am very conflicted about someone who looks like a human corpse but makes bad jokes.” Lilac hair commented, though Akko got the impression her feelings toward each were the reverse of the norm.
“Are you going to tell us your name or what?” Akko asked.
*She’s just going to keep asking.* Lilac-hair was informed by a Check. A moment’s consideration, a sigh, and she answered “Sucy Manbavaran.”
“Great! First try and everything!” Akko cheered. Sucy raised an eyebrow. How many times was she willing to have tried if she’d refused Akko this time? It was probably less hassle to avoid finding out.
“Let’s hurry up. The school’s going to kick us out if we aren’t there in time for the opening ceremony.” Sucy pointed out.
“Wait, really? Let’s go!” Akko grabbed Sucy’s hand and dragged her along at a pace a bit faster than expected for a person her age. Surprisingly, while Sucy struggled a little in keeping up, the skeleton had no problems. She’d gotten an impression of laziness and a lack of motivation, even in the brief span she’d interacted with him, so why was he so untroubled by the burst of speed he was using now?
As they neared the tall tower, they came across a girl with glasses over green eyes, short orange hair, a Luna Nova uniform and far more items than either Sucy or Akko. She was clearly struggling to carry them all. Sure enough, she tripped and nearly fell. Akko and Sans worked together to keep her from falling on her face, and to keep the more fragile-looking items that had been spilling out of her bags as she fell from hitting the ground.
Akko couldn’t maintain Blue Magic for very long, so she quickly set the girl upright, while Sans gently lowered the items down. The gravity-altering magic required both power and finesse. While Akko had plenty of the former, she was lacking the latter, so extended use often made gravity start acting weird (as in random changes in direction or crushing/ripping apart of the object in question if it didn’t possess a SOUL). Sans and Papyrus had no such problems.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Uh, thanks, mister s-skeleton.” Orange-hair said, a trifle nervously. Most Monsters were accepted by society as a whole, but skeletons reminded people too much of necromancers, and, well, that was a very poor reputation to be associated with.
Zombie outbreaks and necromancers were some of the few things the various heroes and villains of Earth would put aside their differences on, as they were smart enough to know that they were almost always the bigger threat. An omnicidal maniac wasn’t usually interested in there being much of anything left to rule after all. Not that there weren’t any good necromancers, but 99% of the time they were evil and/or insane.
“no problem kid. that’s an awful lot of stuff for one person. your mom overpack?” he asked.
“Well, mom and Janne.” She answered, with a little more confidence since he hadn’t bitten her head off. “I’m Lotte Jannson. With a J, not a Y.” Akko got the impression she needed to correct people on that a lot.
“Well I’m Atsuko Kagari, but you can call me Akko, and this is Sucy and Sans.” Akko pointed to the relevant person as she spoke. “Now, let me take some of your stuff so we can hurry to the terminal.” Akko grabbed one of the bags Lotte had dropped.
Normally, Lotte would have objected, but they were already pushing it in terms of being on time. “Uh, okay!” She didn’t so much agree as decide to let Akko go ahead and do it.
The four of them ran for the terminal at the punishing pace Akko set. She had far more energy than she really ought to, and Sans was still keeping up without any problems, while the two humans struggled to keep up with their compatriot.
*You should slow down. Your new friends are having trouble keeping up.* Chara informed Akko.
Akko slowed momentarily, and, sure enough, Akko and Sucy were breathing hard, sweat starting to show on their faces. Sucy appeared to have taken her inability to keep up with Akko as something of a challenge, while Lotte probably just wanted to make sure they got to the opening ceremony on time.
Seeing as they were at the bottom of the hill from the terminal, Akko didn’t see any reason to push them further. “Uh, you guys okay?” she asked. She kept forgetting that most people didn’t have the sort of adventures she did, though that one time she ran into the Murphy family on vacation was kind of extreme even for her. She’d gotten used to their ridiculous misfortune (at times impressive even by Banshee standards) when she occasionally visited them though.
“huh, you guys don’t run much do ya?” Sans asked.
“I help my dad chop down trees, but that uses completely different muscles, so…” Lotte shrugged as she caught her breath.
“I’m more interested in reading books and experimenting with my potions than running around.” Sucy said, quickly recovering her somewhat bland expression. To her credit, in a few moments, it was almost as if she hadn’t just run a 100 meter dash.
They made their way to the crest of the hill, where the Leyline Terminal sat. A tower that was wooden on the outside, but stone on the inside. As in, actual rocks were stacked up and mortared together. At a guess, the wood was added later to preserve the tower, as while the wood was more easily worn away, it was also more easily repaired.
As they neared the terminal itself, they overheard a trio of witches in their Luna Nova uniforms and holding brooms talking.
“How was your vacation?” The brown-haired one asked.
“It was mediocre at best, and that was before the Kaiju attack. Honestly, what’s the point of tourist locations if the only time there aren’t too many people to enjoy it is right after a giant monster trashes a couple city blocks?” The Orange-haired asked.
“Yeah, that was basically my vacation too, but with the KND and one of their weirdo villains. I’m actually kind of glad both sides are so incompetent most of the time. They get scary when they get serious.” The purple-haired one asked.
“You’re kidding? The KNdorks and the Villainous League of Incompetent Cartoon Rejects?” Black-hair asked.
“Not when they get serious.” Purple hair answered solemnly. Black-hair and orange-hair shared a look and let it slide.
“Anyway, I hear they’ve let a commoner in this year. She’s not from a Witch's family, not even distantly!” Orange-hair gossiped.
“Apparently, the school’s in the red, so they need the extra tuition to stay open. You’d think people would care more about training witches when there’s villains and monsters and other things running around!” Black-hair said.
“Well, with all the new magi-tech and regular advanced technology popping up, people are starting to think they don’t need witches any more, so they don’t bother with funding magical education any better than they do regular education. Since magical education is more expensive if you aren’t born able to use at least some magic like Ebott Monsters, well…” Purple-hair commented.
“Ugh, fine, I guess if it’s to keep the school open we’ll just have to deal with it, but I still don’t like them letting in so many commoners lately.” Orange-hair commented.
“Huh? Who’s that?” Purple-hair asked, inclining her head in Akko’s direction.
“Uh, hi there. I’m Atsuko Kagari, but you can call me Akko. I’m pretty sure I’m the ‘commoner girl’ so do you know when the… elevator is coming? This doesn’t look like a bus or train stop, so I’m not sure-” she was cut off by the trio laughing.
“Wow, you really don’t know anything about Luna Nova, do you?” Orange-hair asked derisively.
Black-hair puffed herself up and then took on a faux-stuck-up-teacher tone. “Miss Kagari, the Leyline Terminal is an ancient magical highway connecting a series of magical pocket dimensions, including Luna Nova itself. This is the only way to get to Luna Nova without ripping your way through the fabric of reality a dozen times over like an irresponsible moron.”
“Making fun of the teachers while they’re still out of earshot?” Purple-hair asked.
“Hey, gotta salvage my vacation somehow, and it’s not over until I’m actually back to school. Speaking of which, we should be going.” Black-hair responded.
“Tia Freyre!” the three witches chanted, holding up their brooms, before mounting the now hovering brooms. “If you can’t ride a broom, then you won’t be able to get to Luna Nova, especially with a deadline.” Orange-hair rubbed in, before they ascended and briefly stretched out before turning green and disappearing.
“And if you don’t make it in time for the opening ceremony, you get expelled.” Sucy repeated.
“ah, don’t sweat it kid. we should be able to figure something out before the ceremony.” Sans comforted.
“Well, I guess I could give Akko a ride.” Lotte muttered softly.
Lotte immediately found herself tackle-hugged. “Would you? That would be great! Thanks so much Lotte!” Akko gushed.
“So, why’s the skeleton here, anyway?” Sucy asked.
“Well, Sans and I can teleport, mostly because he taught me how. I can’t go very far though, and if I want to visit my friends and family on the weekends instead of only during breaks and vacation, I’ll need a quick way of getting there and back. Since I can’t do it myself, Sans agreed. The problem is that he can’t teleport somewhere he hasn’t been. So, the plan was for him to visit for a day, at least until I was put in one of the dorm rooms, so he could teleport to me, and then take me home. On that note, I need to ask you a favor.” Akko put on a puppy-dog eyed expression. “Please let him ride with you so all four of us can go? I’d rather not risk being late, and while I have a backup plan, I really, REALLY, don’t want to use it if I don’t have to.” Akko pleaded earnestly.
Sucy stared at Akko with a raised eyebrow as the brown-haired girl did her best to look like a kicked puppy. After nearly a full minute of resistance, she gave in. “Fine, just stop looking at me like I killed your dog for no reason.” she agreed.
“Yay! Thank you Sucy!” Akko cheered.
“don’t worry kid. most people fall for that at least the first couple times. it’s the social equivalent of a WMD to her. so you can be sure this is pretty important to her.” Sans explained to Sucy as Akko happily babbled about nothing in particular, while placing herself on Lotte’s broom behind the other girl.
“Let’s just get this over with.” Sucy rolled her eyes as he clambered on. Surprisingly, he weighed virtually nothing. Sucy had heard that Monsters were ridiculously light for their size, but she’d expected the skeleton to weigh more than a couple textbooks.
“Tia Freyre!” Lotte chanted, shortly followed by Sucy.
“Wow!” Akko gasped as they started to fly upwards. “This is so COOL!” She shouted, half ecstatically, and half in surprise as she experienced the curious sensation of passing through the leyline’s entrance, briefly stretching out to match the fabric of the space-time continuum, before snapping back
“This isn’t anything like Sans’ shortcuts!” Akko shouted, gazing at the purple tunnel with blue vein-like strands, which quickly gave way to a green tunnel.
“eh, some of the early experiments into this sort of thing kinda felt like that.” Sans commented, before they were hit by a blast of turbulence.
“I’m guessing it’s not supposed to do that?” Akko queried.
“No. Someone must have brought salt in here. The leyline hates salinity.” Lotte answered.
“Salt?! But how does the school deal with bad fairies and human-eating youkai if they can’t bring salt in?” Akko asked, scandalized. Hey, if Monsters were real...
“I take it that you’re the one who brought salt in here then.” Sucy deadpanned, as another, stronger wave of turbulence hit.
Akko dug around in her bags, before pulling out a jar. “Do I really have to get rid of them?” she asked, hoping for a no.
“Yes!” Lotte cried out as a stronger still wave of turbulence hit.
“Aw, and mom made these plums for me special.” she said, glumly tossing the jar overboard.
“Plums?” Sucy asked, honestly curious.
“Mom’s pie probably wouldn’t have lasted, and they’re better waRM!” Akko answered, just as the largest wave yet hit, throwing them and their luggage off the brooms, into a whirlpool of green light, before ending up 3 stories in the air, above a half-dead forest.
Akko grabbed Lotte, who was screaming in terror, and a somewhat nervous-looking Sucy, and dragged them directly behind her, while Sans brought out their Souls and, with seconds to spare, halted their fall, before letting them fall the last foot. Akko quickly Checked everyone.
Sans: 10.9873/1 HP.
Lote: 29.8892/30 HP.
Sucy: 34.9813/35 HP.
You: 998/999 HP.
Luckily, Sans had slept in today, and as everyone knew, extra sleep raised you HP above it’s maximum, so he had a little bit of a buffer. Also, the ground was entirely neutral to Sans’ life or death, so it was unlikely he’d have taken nearly as much damage from hitting the ground as if something alive had hit him.
***Meanwhile: Professor Ursula’s Study. Luna Nova Academy.***
As ‘Ursula’ one of the teachers at Luna Nova, prepared for the Opening Ceremony, her familiar let out a “Wark!” to alert his master to a problem.
“Hm?” the woman paused in her work. She had long blue hair, and eyes the same shade of red as Akko’s. “What’s wrong Alcor?” she asked. Another caw, and Ursula waved her wand, displaying the Leylines and their connected dimensions, including one to the Magic Council’s base of operations, and Father Time’s domain, though those were heavily and extremely restricted, respectively.
What drew her attention, however, was the 4 stars in Arcturus, one green, one white, one purple, and one the rare red color, that shouldn’t have been there.
“Oh no, what are they doing in the Forbidden Forest of Arcturus?!” Ursula muttered with disquiet.
AN: Decided to split the first episode of LWA into 2 parts to avoid a 10000+ word chapter. I'm drawing heavy influence from this guy's threads.
This is, if it wasn’t immediately clear, a megaverse crossover, featuring Little Witch Academia, Undertale, KND, Milo Murphy’s Law (and Phineas and Ferb by virtue of being intertwined universes), Ruby Gloom, Spongebob, and a bunch of others I won’t reveal now to avoid spoilers. Pretty much all of the weird stuff that happens in this verse can be attributed to magic, Determination/Reality-warping (usually tied to Determination) or a third circumstance tied to one of the crossovers. The incidents where people can apparently breathe in space in KND, for example, are because of Waagh-esque weirdness courtesy of Determination.
Basically, humans in this verse can breathe in space, as long as they don’t think about how they shouldn’t be able to. Naturally, this tends to require that the humans in question either be really stupid (like the average Ork) or be experiencing an emotional extreme. Determination also provides a major boost to magic and stamina/durability, along with lesser boosts to strength and speed, with a minor boost to healing. So the average human in our universe would be made of plastic compared to the average human of this verse. Mages/Witches are even tougher.
This provided a huge advantage to the humans in their wars against the other races that ruled the Earth. That’s right, races. See, Undertale’s Monsters were native to America here, but Europe and Asia had their own natives. Humans originally either lived in peace or avoided interaction with these other races, but a number of incidents, and a few cases of malicious and purposeful slander by outside parties, led to the humans of about 12000 BC to declare war on their counterparts, which resulted in ⅔ fleeing from humanity, while the Monsters were sealed away. Spongebob’s specimens weren’t really encountered by most of the human race until thousands of years later, with that and their general inability to spend extended periods out of the water took them out of the running for dominance of Earth at that point.
The Monsters have been freed, but the third and fourth native races aren’t quite ready to come out of hiding. The local governments have been tentatively contacted, but nothing definite so far. One of them has the benefit of a human sympathizer who’s in a position to help ease the impact being revealed to society as a whole would cause, helped in part by miss ambassador’s own efforts. Interestingly, Akko’s focus was less on public speaking, or on appealing to compassion, and more on mitigating complaints against Monsterkind (and all but bribing the relevant governments).
The other 6 human SOULs were preserved following the Barrier’s destruction, and given android bodies constructed by Alphys, in part to knee-cap potential issues with the Monsters having killed 6 children. If nothing else, she successfully muddied the issue to the point of it not being a rallying cry… this time. In addition, this version of humanity has begun colonizing the solar system, due to the very recent advent of FTL making intra-system travel a breeze, though Monsters are currently restricted from colonizing off-world, in part due to practical concerns over basically being an endangered species.
Speaking of which, Ruby Gloom’s monster-people are also a thing here, though they are distinct from Monsters in that they don’t generally possess any inherent magical talent, and are usually incapable of interbreeding. They were already minor races, in much the same way that the Philippines are a minor nation compared to say, the US. As such, they avoided the majority of humanity’s ire, though the Inquisition drove them from Europe into a few small scattered enclaves in America. Ruby’s ancestors were actually disillusioned minor nobility who set up a safe-house for people who were discriminated against a few miles north of the border between the US and Canada, though it’s mostly used by monster-people these days.
An intergalactic Federation has recently engaged in talks with the UN, since they have something similar to the Prime Directive’s ‘Leave pre-FTL civs alone’ policy, though America’s near monopoly on super-scientists, whom were responsible both for basically making the early Star Trek tech tree a thing and a number of other advances meant to keep superheroes and giant mechas from being the only viable responses to the various kaijuu running around has drastically shifted the balance of power in it’s favor. Luckily the scientists are more interested in making the world a better place than playing politics, so while America keeps the absolute bleeding-edge stuff for itself and its agencies, everybody else can get their hands on second-gen tech pretty easily, which means that worries over America deciding to go all Germany on the world are unlikely to amount to anything, especially with all the time-travelers running around to prevent exactly that sort of thing. Interestingly, said Federation is rather nervous about the KND, and less than surprised by the ability of humans to make things work that they really shouldn’t be able to.
There’s also a couple alternate Earths, with the one used in this chapter being Earth Alpha, a recognized dimensional nexus. In part because the barriers that usually wall off other universe have the consistency of Swiss cheese on Earth and its immediate dimensional surroundings.