After awkwardly fitting all the Technos into Chris's space, Greg led them back to the anchor point, opening it to where he'd sent Travis and the others during Hiyada's blitz through the battlements. “Greg!” Casey exclaimed as he walked through, sounding almost hysterical. “Where have you been!?! What happened to the ship!?! Are we still under attack!?! And why the fuck is Jake dead!?!”
“I was helping save the ship, it crashed, no, and he was being an asshole.” Greg answered the questions in order, looking around and ignoring the stunned Casey. “Where's T-dog?”
“Do not call me that!” Travis snapped as he walked over, followed by the rest of his team. “I'd rather you get my name wrong than start coming up with dumb nicknames for me.”
Greg grinned. “Oh come on. You don't like T-money? T-slice? T-dizzle? T-pain? T-moo? T-diggity? T-max? T-ma-”
“Stop!” Travis groaned. “Fuck, I shouldn't have even said anything.”
Greg chuckled as he stepped aside, making way for the others to come through the portal, closing it behind them as he transformed back into himself. “No you shouldn't have. Anyway T-ray, I may have figured out a solution to your little mana problem. Chris?”
Chris stepped past him, opening a portal to reveal a small metal closet. “If you step inside, I can most likely drain the excess mana out of you, though you may have to cooperate.”
Travis blinked at him before turning to Greg. “Who is this guy?”
“A new friend.” Greg answered simply.
Travis glared at him. “Are you seriously asking me to step into this dude's strange portal closet and only giving me that weak ass explanation?!? For all I know that could be a literal coffin! This could be some scheme to kidnap me!”
“Okay, first off-” Greg flicked a finger and Travis shot up with a yelp, doing a little loop as Greg swirled his finger around before dropping back down with a panicked look on his face. “-you're already filled with my smoke. I don't need to trick you to kidnap you. Second… yeah, no, Chris you made that creepy as fuck, what the hell?”
Chris sighed. “I don't exactly have much material to work with. For some reason my database didn't carry over from the other reality. Plus I can't let the Technos escape, so it was either this or a dungeon full of women. This seemed better.”
“I mean… tough call, honestly.” Greg muttered, glancing at Travis and letting out a sigh of his own. “Okay, look, Chris here owns a space that he can apparently use to drain the excess mana out of you, but it's currently filled with Technos, so unless you want to deal with a bunch of pissed off Technos or not get rid of the mana that is literally killing you, get in the damn closet.”
Travis grimaced, still looking a little sick from Greg's demonstration. “I- fuck it, fine.” He groaned. The fact was Greg didn't have to do anything to get rid of him. He was already filled with corrupted mana and without Greg's help he was a dead man anyway. Plus the fact that Greg could use his smoke to throw him around like a ragdoll, apparently. How much worse could his position even get? He hesitated slightly at the portal before firming his resolve and stepping through. “Okay, now-” He froze as he felt something grab the mana inside him and pull, draining it out of him in a matter of seconds.
“Is that all?” Chris asked, frowning slightly. Greg had made it sound like Travis was practically overflowing with mana, but he'd barely gotten the equivalent of a mid-tier ability core out of him. Which still basically tripled the volume of his space, even with the drain from the others, but… well, he'd expected more. Especially since that only got him to about the same size he'd started with in his reality.
“That- yes!” Travis cheered. “It's gone! Tha-” He yelped as Chris reached in and ripped him out of the space.
“Fuck that was close.” Chris let out a relieved sigh, before turning to glare at Travis. “Gratitude is prohibited while inside the creepy closet.”
Travis blinked at him, stunned. “I'm- sorry?”
Chris nodded. “Just don't do it again.”
“Did you get all you needed?” Greg asked.
“Eh?” Chris wiggled his hand. “They at least have enough room to all lie down now. It isn't going to be comfortable, but they probably shouldn't be getting comfortable in there anyway, since the goal is to get them connected and out of my space.”
Greg shrugged. “Well, good enough then.” He turned back to the others. “We should probably regroup at our headquarters. Things are going to get chaotic soon and we need to make sure we've got our own shit together before we have to start dealing with everyone else's.”
“What exactly are we dealing with?” Georgia asked, frowning slightly.
“Basically we're stuck on a wild, mana-warped planet for the foreseeable future with limited resources and a crapton of people who are wildly unprepared for the challenges they're about to face.” Greg explained. “Apparently we were supposed to be training for a couple years to deal with this crap, and thanks to the Technos we have to do it now.”
Everyone froze for a moment, then Jen cursed. “Shit.”
“Pretty much.” Greg chuckled. “But, now we have these guys to help us!” He gestured to Chris, Andrew, and Tori. “And they're just about as awesome as I am!”
Travis frowned. “Where did you even find these people?”
Greg paused. “That- is an explanation that should probably wait until we're all together. Answer all the weird questions at once, you know?” He transformed back into Bianca, opening a portal to their headquarters. “Come on, let's go.” He waved, heading through the portal, only to stop as he found it a lot busier than he'd expected. “Oh yeah, this.” He muttered, frowning slightly. He'd noticed it when he'd gone to pick up Tessa and Narita, but he'd been in too much of a hurry to ask too many questions.
“Finally!” Brittany let out a relieved sigh, jumping to her feet. “What the hell Greg?!? Why'd you just run in, grab Tessa, and bolt!?!”
“It's complicated and I'm not answering anything until we have everyone together.” Greg replied as transformed back, closing the portal as the last person stepped through.
Stolen story; please report.
Brittany frowned. “Can you at least tell me if we won?”
“We- survived.” Greg sighed. “Winning wasn't exactly an option, but we're probably in the best position we could expect to be in. The Technos have been dealt with, but we're now stranded on a wild, mana-warped planet we are very much not prepared to handle.”
Brittany grimaced. “So we escaped one emergency to land right in another one. Perfect.”
“Hey, it isn't all bad news.” Greg assured her. “I found help! Well, more like help found me, but same difference in the long run.”
Brittany gave him a skeptical look. “You found help? On a wild, mana-warped planet? What were you even doing outside the ship!?!”
“Oh, it wasn't from outside the ship.” Greg shook his head. “Well… technically it was, but- look, I have some things I have to explain and it'd be best to do it with everyone here.”
Brittany gave him a look before letting out a sigh. “Fine. They're all upstairs, avoiding the crowd.”
“Yeah, what's up with that?” Greg asked as they began to move.
“We weren't going to just sit on our asses while you tried to save us all.” Tessa commented. “We've been gathering all our allies, just in case you failed and we had to make a ‘valiant last stand’, in Victor's words. Or whatever else we might have to deal with, since clearly things weren't going well.”
“Huh. Good call.” Greg nodded appreciatively.
Brittany frowned slightly as she glanced back at the group, realizing someone was missing. “Greg? Where's Jake?”
“Oh, he's dead.” Greg waved dismissively.
Brittany froze. “He's what?!?”
“What happened!?!” Tessa asked, equally alarmed, having missed it when Casey yelled it out earlier since she was on the other side of the portal.
“He and this group of assholes were threatening Travis’s team for some reason, in the middle of the invasion no less! I gave them a good five seconds to shape up, they refused, so I took care of it.” Greg explained, his expression twisting bitterly. Seeing Jake turn asshole like that was incredibly disappointing, particularly since it echoed a path he knew he himself could have so easily taken. It was so easy to let resentment fester when people didn't conform to your expectations.
Brittany took a horrified step back. “You- you killed him?!?”
“Yup.” Greg nodded. “Stabbed him right in the eye.”
“How could you!?!” Brittany snarled.
“He had a knife to Sophie's throat!” Greg protested. “It was either take him out or let her die!”
“It's true.” Sophia confirmed as Brittany turned to her. “He led us into an ambush and took me hostage. We were in a standoff until Greg showed up.”
“He- but- but why?!?” Brittany asked, her expression twisting with grief and frustration.
Travis sighed. “I honestly wish I knew. I know he wasn't happy with us getting involved with you guys, but I didn't think- I can't believe he'd just turn on us like that!”
Narita hesitated. “It- he was probably dealing with more pressure than you realize. Particularly with both you and Greg involved. And I'm afraid worse things are to come.”
Travis frowned at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Narita sighed. “You and Greg are what I call significant existences. People who by their very nature leave heavy marks on the world around them. Being closely involved with even one such existence is bad enough, let alone two. I didn't think Jake would be that far gone but I'm not surprised he found himself in a position to do something so… drastic.”
“Wait, you think this is our fault?” Greg asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Not exactly.” Narita replied, shaking her head. “No one forced Jake to make the decisions he did. However, your significance would have made those decisions easier. Something that may have simply died as a fantasy could have been given birth by a chance opportunity that never would have occurred if not for your significance. It isn't that your significance forced him to do it, it simply ensured he had the means to go through with it. Maybe providing a bit of motivation as well, though Jake didn't appear to be coerced.”
“Would this ‘significance’ cause a kid who suspects someone he knows is supernatural to be put in contact with a group that hunts the supernatural?” Andrew asked, grimacing slightly.
Narita gave him a look. “That is exactly the kind of thing significance would cause.”
“Does it get some kind of godly being to wipe out an entire planet?” Tori asked, narrowing her eyes.
Narita froze. “That- actually sounds like a different issue.”
“Hold on, I'm still not getting this significance thing.” Travis interjected. “You made it sound like he was pushed into this, but then you said it only gave him the opportunity? And why is it worse if there's two of us?”
Narita sighed. “Because just as he was offered an opportunity to exercise his resentment, he was also given opportunities to be resentful, opportunities which would have been compounded by having two people to resent. Again, nothing forced him to resent you, but the resentment he felt was given an opportunity to flourish due to your significance.”
“This all sounds like an overly complicated way of saying Jake fucked up because he was jealous of us.” Greg commented. “I feel like you're trying to turn this into some big thing when it's probably just the fact that the more people stand out, the more people try to take them down. That's just human nature, not some kind of ‘significance’ fucking with people.”
Narita shook her head. “I'd agree if it weren't for the fact that these coincidences seem to abound around significant existences. It isn't abnormal for people to resent those who stand out, but it is abnormal for those people to always have an opportunity to act on that resentment.”
Greg frowned. “I don't know about that… People can be pretty motivated sometimes and we're clever bastards. If there's something we really want to accomplish, we tend to find a way to at least attempt it.”
Narita glared at him. “Greg, I have personally observed this effect hundreds of times, and corroborated it with dozens of other travelers. I can understand your skepticism, but this effect is real, and you'd be wise to be aware of it.”
Greg grimaced slightly. “That's- fair, I guess. I guess I just don't appreciate the idea that Jake could have been better if not for the fact that he got involved with me.”
Narita hesitated. “I- understand that, but you have to remember that ultimately everything he did was his decision. No one forced him to do anything.”
“Well yeah, I got that, but just because you're willing to make bad decisions now doesn't mean you're always going to want to make bad decisions.” Greg retorted. “It's like- I don't know, I feel like this whole significance thing robbed him of the opportunity to be better.”
Narita sighed. “It may have, or it may have simply expedited the inevitable. We'll never know. All we know is what did happen.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Greg agreed noncommittally, glancing over at Tessa as she comforted a distraught Brittany, holding her as silent tears ran down her face. “Still freaking sucks.”
Narita glanced that way as well, her expression twisting bitterly. “Yes. Yes it does.”