Territory
“So, how are things going in your reality?” Beth asked Tessa. The two of them were standing around with Cathryn and Li Jing while the four talked with the parental figures. Beatrice hadn't joined them since she and Tori still weren't fully comfortable announcing their relationship yet, so she'd decided not to take part in the gathering at all.
“Not- great, but not bad either.” Tessa sighed. “We're surrounded by a giant forest full of these trees that release some kind of poison and we can't figure out why, so everyone is still stuck on the ship, which… is sort of good and sort of bad? On the one hand, it's keeping everyone in their own sections, so no one has started a crusade to eradicate the Changed yet, which is good, but on the other… We need a way to get food, and the ship isn't large enough to support agriculture. But even then, we won't starve, we'll just start mutating, which… Well, our faction will be fine, particularly with Tori's system. I just wish her points would let us overcome the strengthening limit…” She shook her head. “How about your reality? Any breakthroughs?”
Beth's expression twisted slightly. “It's- pretty much the same as yours. Tori figured out a way for us to gather energy by meditating, which would have been helpful if something hadn't rearranged the entire Maze! As it is, we're pretty much in the same position we were before, only instead of hunting creatures, we're hunting for dense pockets of energy, which are much harder to find. Particularly since Greg and Andrew can't help without losing all their energy. I'm just hoping we can find some place for the tribes to go soon…”
“Are the Tigers helping out at all?” Li Jing asked.
“No, but we're still working on helping them unlock their suppression.” Beth replied. “They need to meditate too, but it doesn't seem to be related to drawing in energy. According to them it's more like taking time to slowly chip away at the suppression, and it seems like the stronger they are, the harder it is, so Elder Barry is working on finding us some weaker Tigers.”
Cathryn frowned. “Is it all or nothing or do they slowly gain their ability back as they reduce the suppression?”
“They slowly get it back, but we don't need them to be strong, we just need them to be effective as soon as possible.” Beth explained. “And honestly your starting level of power is more than enough to be effective in our reality.” She added with a sigh. “Anyway, how are things going in your reality?”
Cathryn shared a look with Li Jing. “Fine? I'm not sure we'd even know if they weren't…”
Li Jing nodded. “I've heard some rumblings about the Orcgod, but people are always rumbling about the Orcgod, so I'm not sure how much credence we should lend to it, and even if something did happen, we wouldn't be any part of it unless something had gone very wrong.” She paused. “At the moment our largest concern is getting Andrew to make some friends. He keeps making excuses and this territory business hasn't exactly helped.”
Tessa frowned, glancing over at where Andrew was talking with Chris, Greg, and Tori, introducing them to his parents. “He seems to get along with the other three just fine?”
Cathryn shook her head. “It isn't so much about him actually having friends, it's about him being open to making them. He's pretty much been forced into almost every relationship he has and I don't- it just doesn't seem healthy…”
“Oh, I get that.” Beth nodded. “Chris has a similar issue, though I wouldn't really say he avoids making friends, he just- kind of ignores anything outside his immediate sphere of influence? Or something similar. The point is, he was perfectly sociable with the squad, but he barely acknowledged the existence of anyone else until we started organizing these platoon game nights. I still wouldn't say he's friends with them, but he's at least friendly. Maybe you could do something similar for Andrew? Maybe start a game night?”
“We tried something like that.” Li Jing commented. “We got him to join a chess club, but then his head exploded and we had to move.”
Tessa blinked. “His head exploded?”
Cathryn rolled her eyes. “Someone shot him. An- ex-friend sold him out to the Monster Hunters and got him shot in front of the whole damn school!” She growled.
“It's part of the reason he's resistant to making new friends.” Li Jing added.
Beth cocked her head, getting a weird look on her face. “Huh… Chris got shot in the head too, and then he made friends with the assassin.” She glanced at Tessa. “Has Greg ever been shot in the head?”
Tessa shook her head. “No, but that probably has more to do with a general lack of guns than anything. I know he's been decapitated more than a few times, though.”
Beth smiled slightly. “There's a joke about them having a tendency to lose their heads somewhere in all that…”
“I wish they didn't.” Cathryn grumbled. “Their ability to attract trouble is starting to make me paranoid.”
Tessa hesitated. “Has- Andrew told you about Narita's significance theory yet?”
Li Jing nodded. “He has, and it explains a lot.”
“But that just makes the paranoia worse!” Cathryn groaned. “I just- I miss the days when my biggest concern was getting into a good college.”
Tessa nodded. “Those were simpler times. Though… I can't say I'd give up anything I've gained through the more complicated times.”
Cathryn sighed. “Neither would I… I just wish I could have both, you know?”
Li Jing poked her. “Greedy.”
“Who isn't?” Beth shrugged. “Everyone wants more. That's just natural. All that matters is what you're willing to do to get it. How many people you're willing to step on along the way.”
Cathryn blinked. “I- Don't want to step on anyone?”
Beth smiled. “Then don't. But no one gets everything they want without stepping on someone else, so you have to ask yourself, which is more important? Your greed or your morals?”
“Oh-ho ho, I see someone is stealing my words again.” David chuckled, walking over to them, Abigail, Arose, and Ertemis wandering over with him.
Beth flushed. “I'm not stealing, I'm quoting!”
“It's only quoting if you cite your sources, dear.” Abigail chided, smirking slightly. “How are all of you getting along?”
Beth sighed. “We're getting along fine, mom. How are the four of you getting along?”
“Swimmingly!” Abigail beamed. “Did you know they used to be gods? How interesting is that!”
“Some would argue we still are gods.” Ertemis commented with a slight smile. “But only the bores insist on it.”
“Wait, hold on, you're serious?” Tessa asked incredulously.
“Completely.” Arose grinned. “Which is actually why we wandered over here. Have you ever heard of Eros or Artemis?”
Tessa's eyes widened. “You're Greek gods?!?”
Arose clapped, turning to David. “I told you she'd recognize us!”
Tessa stared at Ertemis. “Did- Did you actually turn a man into a deer?”
“Oh, no, not at all.” Ertemis waved dismissively. “I simply made the dogs think he was a deer. And it wasn't because he caught me bathing, it was because he'd been stalking one of my daughters, following her to our home after catching sight of her in the woods. An odious little man, truly.”
Arose cocked his head. “Which daughter was that?”
“One of the mortal ones I had with Apollo.” Ertemis explained, glancing at Tessa. “Who is not my brother, you should know, no matter what the myths say. Unless you would consider all the Twelve Hundred my siblings, but that line of reasoning becomes… messy.”
“I never understood the mortals' obsession with creating family trees for us.” Arose agreed.
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Tessa stared at them for a moment, taking that all in, before letting out a sigh and shaking her head. “I was not prepared to meet Greek gods today.”
*
As the girls were talking, Andrew, Chris, Greg, and Tori were talking with Steven, Helen, Mrs. Richardson, Mrs. Veach, Salvador, Jo, Albert, and Melissa, getting to know each other, mostly discussing childhoods and whatnot. “So is having a fucked up childhood a prerequisite for all this?” Greg commented after Andrew finished talking about his issues.
Chris cocked his head. “How was my childhood fucked up?”
Greg rolled his eyes. “Dude, even forgetting the orphan crap and the fact that you're technically royalty, you grew up with a literal death sentence hanging over your head!”
Chris paused. “Oh, right… I forgot about that part.”
Greg shook his head, turning to Tori. “What happened to you? Were you raised by wolves or something?”
Tori frowned. “No, I-” She cut off, glancing at Albert and Melissa, before letting out a sigh. “The childhood I remember was normal. Boring, really. And from what I've been told, the other one wasn't anything special either. At least until the Potion of Awakening… things have been pretty weird since then.”
“Indeed.” Albert grumbled, grunting slightly as Melissa elbowed him and shot him a look. “What!?! We are literally in a different reality right now! If you can't call that weird what can you?!?”
Stephen chuckled. “He has a point.”
Melissa huffed. “Be that as it may, we are proud of how our daughter has handled the difficulties her experiences have presented her.”
Albert only hesitated for a fraction of a second before nodding in agreement. “Of course we are. None of this is her fault.” He added, placing a hand on Tori's shoulder and giving it a slight squeeze.
Helen eyed the three of them warily for a moment before calming as Stephen brushed her with a sense of reassurance. Tori wasn't giving off the sense of a scammer who'd slipped into some poor family's good graces to take advantage of them, though given what he did sense, he got the feeling they needed to take some time to have a long, frank discussion with each other. “It's somewhat comforting to see that our realities aren't that different.” Stephen commented. “Beasts, Cultivators, systems, and mages aside, it's good to see that people are still people.”
“Not that that's always a good thing.” Mrs. Richardson sighed. “It's somewhat disappointing to see the same problems cropping up in different realities as well. Particularly in regards to, as Greg puts it, ‘fucked up childhoods’.”
Chris froze, staring at Mrs. Richardson incredulously for a moment, before turning to Greg. “I can't believe you got her to swear. She never swears.”
Mrs. Veach smirked as Mrs. Richardson flushed. “Oh Chris, Mary swears plenty. She just doesn't do it around children. You should hear some of the rants she has on the Trial sometime. They could make a Vanguard blush!”
Helen grunted. “If there's one good thing about what's happening in your reality it's that that disgusting practice is being done away with. I can't believe your people instituted it in the first place! Who could condone sentencing children to death?!?”
Salvador shook his head. “The situation is- was much more complex than that. Humanity had already been pushed back to the tenth level of the Maze and was continuing to lose ground as the high-tier population continued to decline. If the trend continued, humanity risked losing control of the Maze entirely, at which point the City would be doomed, and humanity along with it. The Trial was a last ditch effort to do something to secure humanity's survival and it worked. And despite what many people think, the government never stopped looking for an alternative. But no one could change the fact that without the Trial, humanity was doomed. I'll never argue that the Trial wasn't a tragedy, but it can't be denied that it was a necessary one.”
Mrs. Richardson glared at him. “But there are other options! The whole idea behind the Trial is that the weak die and the strong survive to pass along their genetics, correct? Then why not simply allow those who know they won't survive to be sterilized!?! At least that way they'd still get to have a fucking life!”
Salvador sighed wearily, obviously used to this argument. “Because the goal isn't just to ensure they don't have children, it's to ensure that the survivors do. The sterilization method would cause some of those who would have survived to choose sterilization instead, which along with partnerships between those who survive and the sterilized, would take too many viable traits out of the gene pool. Maybe if we knew exactly what traits determined the strength of an ability, that would work, but at that point the Trial itself would be superfluous.”
Mrs. Richardson frowned. “That- fine, but what if we developed a system that could pull them out of the Maze the moment before death?”
“Because we can't determine what that moment actually is.” Salvador retorted. “And it still leaves the problem of what to do with them afterwards, which leads to sterilization, and again, that doesn't work. Any method that saves those who would die would require us to essentially remove them from society in some other way, and it was believed that that would only create more discontent, not less.”
“But-” Mrs. Richardson began, cutting off as she searched for some kind of retort.
“You know, we probably wouldn't be here if not for the Trial.” Chris commented thoughtfully. “I definitely wouldn't have met Beth without it, and I would have had to end up in some accident or die of old age before I would have discovered my ability. Which means I never would have encountered Nero and the surface races probably wouldn't be invading. Of course, something would eventually have happened to the other three to draw us into that… Throne room? At which point I would have been very confused, and then we'd be here again… hm.”
Tori frowned at him. “What's your point? That things would be different if things were different?”
Chris shrugged. “Basically, I guess. But mostly I'm just trying to get away from this argument. Also, I like being with Beth, so the Trial can't be all bad.”
Andrew snorted. “Dude, that is not how it works. Just because something bad led to something good does not make the bad thing good. Events inevitably lead to other events, whether they're good or bad. That's just how life works.”
Chris frowned. “How can you judge an event if not by its results? You can say the Trial is bad because people died, but you can also say it's good because humanity survived, and I can say it's good because it let me meet Beth and discover my ability. That doesn't mean it's all good, it's still bad because people died, but that doesn't negate the good either. As Salvador said at the start, it's complicated.”
Greg cocked his head. “Like how if Hit-”
“Nope, no, nuh-uh!” Tori immediately cut him off. “We are not going anywhere near that one!”
“Fine, fine.” Greg waved dismissively, turning to Chris. “But now that I'm thinking about it, you're kinda missing the factor of intent. Sure, events can have good and bad effects, but it still matters whether or not the people who caused the event meant to do something bad or good.”
“Sure, but that's just another factor, not a complete condemnation.” Chris countered. “You can say it's bad because people died and people did it to kill people, but that doesn't mean you can't acknowledge any good effects that came from it as well. And I'm not saying that having good effects means that I approve of an event, it just means that I appreciate those good effects, nothing else.”
Tori raised an eyebrow. “So, if a group of people set out to do an awful thing that ends up having a net positive effect, you'd say it was good?”
Chris cocked his head to consider it for a moment, before shrugging. “Probably? Or… no, I think it's the same trap. I don't want to categorize it as good or bad at all. I think you simply need to say the event happened, and then note which effects were good and which were bad.”
“But then how do you determine if you should do something again?” Andrew retorted. “Because ultimately that's why we study past events, right? To determine what we should do going forward. So you need to say whether something was good or bad, so you can determine whether you should do it again! Or in the case of the Trial, whether you should keep doing it.”
Chris shook his head. “I don't think so. I think you can still boil it down to effects. Like with the Trial, you can boil it down to the fact that it makes humanity stronger. Does that make all the death that happens because of it good? Absolutely not. But because we still need to make humanity stronger, and we have no other way to do it, then we continue the Trial, in all it's good and bad. You know, not considering the fact that we have Tori and the system now. And other realities.”
“But I can still judge people for doing bad things, right?” Greg asked, frowning slightly.
“Yes?” Chris replied tentatively. “Though I think the judgment should be whether or not taking action is necessary or not, not whether the person is good or not. As in what do I need to do to stop this person from hurting that person, not I need to hurt this person because they're bad, if that makes any sense.”
“What if I have reason to believe that someone would persistently attempt to hurt others and I see no other way to stop that other than to permanently remove their ability to do anything?” Greg asked.
“Go for it?” Chris shrugged. “I'm just saying good and bad aren't great ways to judge events or people, because we try to lump them into all one category or all the other, and it just isn't true. I'm not saying we shouldn't stop people from doing bad things.” He paused. “Harmful things?”
Tori rolled her eyes. “We should still be able to categorize actions as good or bad. As in stabbing Andrew for no reason would be objectively bad, but the event of Andrew being stabbed could have both good and bad effects.”
“Why am I the one getting stabbed?” Andrew protested.
“You're the most stabbable?” Greg offered.
“How?!?” Andrew retorted.
Greg shugged. “I dunno. You just are.”
Chris nodded. “It's true.”
“Something about your face.” Tori agreed.
Andrew looked to his parents, who were rather suspiciously looking away, and let out a groan. “You guys better be messing with me.”