Maze World
Nero jumped as a portal appeared next to him and Chris walked out, interrupting the council meeting. [Evening.] Chris nodded to assembled heads of the foxkin clan as he took a seat. [Feel free to kill me if you like, but it won't do much. Mostly just annoy me, honestly. But there are things which need to be discussed, and you all don't seem to be doing a very good job of it. Yes, Nero is my minion now. That's a thing. But you're all going to have to realize that you don't have a survival scenario outside becoming my minions. No one is going to stop the elves and the doppelgangers from invading, and they aren't going to just ignore you. Of course, this is the Maze, so the odds are they won't get all of you, but this whole Empire thing is going to be over for sure. Unless you think you're capable of fighting off the surface races, which I doubt. Feel free to try though. It'll just give me more time to evacuate my people.]
[And why should we trust you when all you've done is kill and enslave our people!] One of the foxkin snapped, glaring at him. [Maybe if you'd actually tried talking to us we'd have listened, but you have proven yourself utterly untrustworthy!]
Chris cocked his head. [Talking is literally the first thing I tried, and it resulted in your people dominating me. Not that it worked out for them, but still, I'm not under any illusion that I'm untouchable. So instead of risking getting dominated again, I sent my newly acquired minions to you to spread the news, and do you know what your people did? They tortured them. And then I saved them. Which then forced me to stage an escape so you all wouldn't catch wind of my existence and send omega-tiers after me, which would have been annoying. I almost made it too, but then… Well, things got weird after that, but the point is that the only reason I've killed or dominated anyone is to protect my own.]
The foxkin all shared a few uncomfortable looks, not because Chris's reply was shocking, but because it wasn't. That was exactly how they'd expect their people to act, and in any other situation they'd be supporting them. However, in this case it'd all led to chaos and death, and now… now they didn't know what to do. They certainly didn't want to submit to this creature, but if what he was saying was true… [Be that as it may, you'll have to forgive us if we don't take the word of a creature who we can only prove has caused us harm at face value.] The foxkin who'd previously spoken replied with a hint of disdain.
Chris raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. [Fair enough. I don't particularly need you to believe me right now in either case. The truth will be apparent soon enough. Unfortunately, there's still one more issue I have to comment on. I seem to have opened a portal to the Multiverse outside your front door, and it's going to be expanding pretty quickly since it grows as I grow, and I can't stop growing with the elves and the doppelgangers coming. So, you know, say hi to your new neighbors and try not to start any fights you can't win. Which, in that territory, is all of them.] Chris sighed, shaking his head. [Alright, that's all I've got, take it or leave it. I'd rather you all not die, but if you're going to be stubborn, I'm not going to force you. I've got better things to waste my time on.] He got up, opening a portal and leaving them to talk things over. “Well… I'm not sure if that made a single bit of difference, but at least it got said.” Chris announced, falling onto a couch next to Beth, with Nadia and Tori sitting on another couch and Greg and Andrew on a third.
Beth groaned. “I don't think this could have gone any worse. The foxkin are completely aware of us now and we can't even avoid them because you created a freaking portal to the Multiverse outside their tribe!”
“Well… someone could have died?” Chris pointed out. “But yeah, other than that, this went pretty poorly for us.”
Nadia grimaced. “So what do we do now?”
Beth sighed. “What else can we do? We keep hunting and growing our power, doing our best to spread awareness of the elves and the doppelgangers as we go. If they hunt us, they hunt us. There's really not much we can do about it at this point except make ourselves as hard to find as possible. At least the Kin won't kill everything just to deprive us of potential growth.”
“Which just means they're that much more likely to find us, since we won't be alerted by the massive amount of death in the area.” Nadia grumbled.
“So we'll be careful.” Beth replied. “More scouting, fast engagements… maybe less fighting and more traps? Do whatever we need to do to get in and out as quickly as possible, so we spend as little time as possible at risk.”
“I'm good with traps.” Greg offered. “Holes, spikes, cages, trip wires, whatever you need, I can make it.”
“And I'm good at scouting.” Andrew added. “Even at my weakest my aura sense has a sixteen meter radius.”
“We can work with that.” Nadia agreed. “But first we should probably explain everything to the rest of them.”
Chris nodded. “Sure, sure, but counterpoint.” He sent everything about the territory and the Multiversal bullshit to everyone through the connection. “Now they know.”
“Fuck!” Derek's muffled curse came from the next room. “Damn it, Chris!”
Chris grinned. “See?”
“Fucker, I was sleeping!” Derek growled, stomping into the room, pausing for a moment as he noticed Andrew, Greg, and Tori, before shaking it off and refocusing his glare on Chris. “You couldn't have waited the two hours it'd take for me to wake up naturally before dumping reality altering info directly into my brain?!?”
Chris took a moment to consider his question. “I suppose I could have… but I honestly forgot people were sleeping. It's been a day.”
“Yeah, I got that when you drilled it into my mind.” Derek deflated, hanging his head. “What the hell are we doing about it?”
“Not much. At least not on our end.” Chris replied. “We're kind of the weak link in the reality chain.”
“I wouldn't say you're weak… It's more like your reality is on hard mode?” Greg interjected. “Mine, Tori's, and the system one are more like medium difficulty, while Andrew's is easy. At least when it comes to getting stronger.”
“That's- is that good or bad?” Derek frowned.
“Both?” Andrew offered tentatively. “I mean, it makes it harder to get stronger, sure, but my reality has to worry about things that have been getting stronger since essentially the dawn of time, so… trade offs, you know?”
“I guess…” Derek muttered.
“Anyway, we still need to focus on hunting, so I'm going to get us away from the foxkin then we can get started, alright?” Chris commented. “In the meantime we should probably get everyone ready and set up with the system.”
Derek paused. “Right… ugh, this shit is going to take a bit to get used to. Also, I think some people owe me twenty bucks.”
*
“So… Can we get the system?” Greg asked after everyone else left to spread the system, just leaving the four of them.
“That- is a good question.” Tori muttered, frowning slightly. “I don't see why you wouldn't be able to have it?”
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“Maybe because you don't have cores.” Andrew muttered.
The others turned to him. “Excuse me?” Tori asked.
“You guys don't have cores?” Andrew repeated. “Like, at all. Super weird, since my previous understanding of how life worked was that cores were where abilities came from, but… well, we're weird, so who knows what's up? My aura abilities aren't associated with a core either, now that I think about it…”
“What does that mean though?” Chris asked, cocking his head.
“It's probably just more Multiversal bullshit.” Tori sighed.
“I'm sure, but I meant more practically.” Chris replied. “Though, I may already have an answer to that… I don't have an ability unless I borrow one from someone in my space. Probably because I lack a core to give me an ability otherwise.”
“Wait, hold on.” Greg interjected. “I have an ability. I mean, all it lets me do is make smoke, but still! Plus, if I transform into anyone I can use their ability!”
They turned to Tori, who shrugged. “My reality doesn't deal with abilities, so I wouldn't know, but I haven't had any issues with cultivating.”
“And I always have cores, so that doesn't help either…” Andrew muttered.
“Wait, do you have a core now?” Chris asked.
“Huh? Of course- uh… huh.” Andrew blinked, focusing inside himself. “I- don't have a core… I don't know what to do with that.”
Greg chuckled. “Welcome to the club. But I feel like my original question could be answered by Tori just giving me the system, ya know?”
Tori rolled her eyes. “Obviously, but it leads to a bigger question if it does work, namely if the rest of our abilities work on each other. For example, if you guys can use my system, can Chris turn us into his minions too?”
“Sure, but just freaking give me the system so we know if it even matters!” Greg retorted.
“Fine!” Tori growled, giving him a poke to transfer the system, only to pause as something felt… off. “Did it work?”
“Ye- uh…” Greg cut off as the red screen that'd popped up in front of him turned black. “Huh… Well, I have it, but it's black now, so… not sure what's up with that.”
Tori frowned, trying to figure out what felt so off about it. It seemed like any other system she'd given out, letting her add and delete pages, turn it on and off, all of it, except- Her eyes widened as she realized what it was. “Huh. I can't read your thoughts.”
Greg blinked. “Wait, that's a thing?”
Tori coughed awkwardly. “Well… yeah, kinda. It's not something I'm exactly in the habit of actually doing, but the system does let me take a peek into someone's mind if I want to.”
“But not mine?” Greg asked.
“Apparently not?” Tori confirmed. “It's strange, it's like you're connected to the system, but you're not connected to me, if that makes any sense?”
“Interesting.” Greg muttered, glancing at Chris. “Do you think it'd work the same with you?”
Chris raised an eyebrow. “Would you like to try? I'm not against it.”
Greg considered it for a moment, before shrugging. “Fuck it, go for it. I only got the system in this reality, so even if it ends up going poorly, I'm probably only fucked here, right?”
“And in the territory.” Chris pointed out. “Which is only going to grow.”
Greg paused at that. “Eh? I'm still not particularly worried, and there's no way these two would test it out, you know?”
Tori frowned at him. “You say that like it's a bad thing, and not a perfectly reasonable response to potentially being enslaved.”
“I wouldn't necessarily put it like that, but… yeah, I wouldn't be comfortable being the test subject on this one.” Andrew agreed, glancing at Chris. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Chris shrugged. “For you connecting to my space is lots of risk with little to no reward. Doesn't really make sense.”
“It'll be fine.” Greg waved dismissively. “Come on man, hit me!”
Chris shook his head as he extended the connection to Greg, which he immediately accepted, both of them pausing as it clicked. “Weird.” Chris muttered.
“Neat.” Greg grinned as he opened a portal with smoky black edges. “Anything on the authority front?”
“Seeing as you aren't currently juggling your own head, it seems you were right.” Chris shrugged. “It does feel weird though. Like Tori said, it's like you're connected to my space, but not me… not entirely sure how I feel about that, honestly.”
“It's kind of off putting.” Tori muttered. “Like watching someone else try to flirt with your girlfriend while knowing she'd never go for it.”
Chris blinked. “That is an eerily accurate analogy.”
Tori smiled. “Thanks. Pity the two of you don't have anything like that or we could see if it works between all of us.”
“I do, actually.” Greg corrected. “I can connect my smoke to people and use it to transform them and make them fly and shit. But I'd need to get some smoke before I could actually do it.”
Andrew frowned. “I've tried connecting to cores but it's never worked. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?”
“It'd be kind of weird if you couldn't, since we can all do it.” Chris agreed. “But then again, our power sets don't necessarily have to match up…”
“True.” Andrew muttered, still feeling bothered by it. His aura had to be capable of more, right? He wasn't just here to kill things, was he?
“Don't worry, we'll help you figure it out, buddy.” Greg assured him, grinning slightly. “But in the meantime, we should all get connected to Chris's space and the system, right? In all the realities. Doesn't seem to be any downside to it.”
Tori narrowed her eyes at him. “How do we know that Chris isn't just making you say that in some play to get control of all of us?”
Greg rolled his eyes. “Ask a me in another reality, duh. The connection doesn't transcend realities any more than access to your system does. Plus you saw my smoke portal! If I was under Chris, it would have just been a regular portal! Probably. I don't know since it didn't actually happen.”
“Plus, if the connection did transcend realities, I could just force it on the both of you now.” Chris pointed out. “Particularly since I'm currently the strongest out of all of us, as evidenced by the size of my portion of the territory.”
Tori eyed him suspiciously for a moment, before grunting in acceptance. “Fine, you have a point. But I swear, if you fuck me on this, I will find a way to make your life a living hell.”
Chris nodded. “Noted. Shall we then? Or would you prefer to hand out the system first?”
Tori sighed. “Either way is fine.”
Chris paused. “Then…”
“Fucking hell people, Tori you go!” Greg rolled his eyes. “Are you guys averse to just doing shit or something?!?”
“For something like this? Yes.” Chris replied as Tori got up and poked him and Andrew. “My connection isn't something to take lightly and forcing someone to make a decision before they're good and ready will only lead to problems down the line.”
Greg paused. “Well… I suppose that's fair. But seriously, y'all need to learn to just do shit sometimes. Not that taking some time to think is wrong per se, but there's a freaking limit, man.”
Chris paused then shrugged noncommittally. “Fair enough. Shall we then?”
“You're literally- fuck, just go man! If anyone had anything to say they would have done it already! Anything more is just nerves!” Greg complained.
Tori rolled her eyes, turning to Chris. “I appreciate the consideration. But yeah, let's just get this over with.”
“Yeah. I mean, I'm nervous, but like he said, nerves.” Andrew agreed.
Chris shook his head as Greg gave him a ‘get on with it’ gesture, offering Tori and Andrew the connection. “There, we did it. Happy?” Chris asked as the connections clicked into place.
Greg cocked his head. “Usually, yeah. So! Now that we're connected we can go explore on our own, right? Since we can always portal back?”
Chris blinked. “Yes?”
“Great!” Greg grinned. “I’mma go get me some smoke and pick up some new forms! Peace!” He flashed them peace signs as he opened a portal and zoomed out in a cloud of smoke.
Andrew paused. “Should one of us go with him?”
“One of us should definitely go with him.” Tori agreed. “But I'm not sure I can keep up without any points. Particularly not if he's picking fights. And Chris is driving, so… pretty much on you.”
Andrew sighed. “Yeah. Eh, I can at least experiment with my aura a bit, I guess. Pick up a few cores, too…” He muttered to himself as he opened his own sickly green portal to follow after Greg.
“See if you can bring back some ability cores.” Chris added. “It'll help grow the space.”
Andrew nodded as he stepped through the portal. “Will do.” He closed it behind him before pausing as he realized he didn't know what an ability core looked like. “Eh, probably just what they call an ability crystal here.” Andrew shrugged as he jogged after Greg. “Yo, wait up!”