We never really dated because I'm not actually Herbert. My name is Elias Newton and I'm from another dimension." Herbert said after a pause with his foot suspended on the next step. Shivers rippled under his skin, sending faint tremors through the concrete up her heels, through her Body of Terra. Hazel frowned as her mind caught up to what she was hearing. Mind of Seer sharpened her perception as the stairwell flooded with detail. He stank of sweat and the city.
Had Herbert done a delve into a Dream dungeon and he'd walked away from it delusional?
"What do you mean?" She crossed her arms while she reexamined her memories. Herbert had been acting odd, but she'd been more concerned that it was because of finals looming on the horizon. That or he was pulling away from her before their relationship could really even begin. Not something as outlandish as him coming from another dimension. Mind of Seer honed her memories while she studied him as he pushed his bangs to the side sheepishly.
"Um, well, I was in a fight with one of my parent's old friends who escaped from prison after the appearance of the System. She had a Dimensional Swap power slotted into her Will stat and when she died, she marooned us here." Distortions warped around them with a slight grating buzz. Hazel tensed at the unfamiliar power while she prepared for the possibility of a fight. Minerals in her body pulsed as she pulled strength from the concrete into her. "I've been trying to get my bearings this whole time, but... I feel awful for misleading you."
"You're telling the truth? This isn't a prank or some sick joke?" Hazel raised her eyebrow while Mind of Seer caught the unconscious shift of his muscles, now returned closer to their former bulk. More discrepancies piled up. The way he hunched more than she remembered. How warm his voice was and how often it caught in his throat with more vulnerability than she was used to. Light shimmered on his skin whenever they were outside and even now, in the dim lighting of the stairwell, it seemed to glow ever so slightly.
"Unfortunately," He sighed.
Hazel tuned him out while she narrowed her eyes at who was apparently a stranger.
She had confided her fears, anxieties, regrets and dreams with him under many false pretenses. Elias wasn't even from the same world or universe as she was. Puzzle pieces clicked into place. He was so cautious compared to Herbert, who had a cold rationale and determination to do whatever he must to achieve what he wanted.
"Are you... are you okay?" Elias asked with a wince as he shuffled from foot to foot as if he wanted to reach out to her.
Hazel snorted with a chuckle at the question. How was any of this okay? She didn't really know what to say or do to understand the actuality of what he was saying. Dungeons technically overlapped with other places and occasionally time periods, but they were self-contained. Sometimes spawn were taken out for study, but they always did poorly when integrating into proper society.
And here he was, saying that was from another dimension entirely and that he had taken Herbert's place.
"I don't know." She inhaled a steadying breath as she leaned back against the wall of the stairwell. Body of Terra expanded her strength further as she pulled power from the brick. "So, what happened? You show up here and immediately take Herbert's place? Pretend to be him like you're some sort of shapeshifter or changeling?"
"Shapeshifters do exist then?" He furrowed his brow in nearly the exact same way Herbert always did when he read or studied. It reminded her of when they met last semester in Chemistry. "I looked them up, but didn't really see anything too conclusive about them as spawn."
"Obviously they do. Do they not have spawn where you come from?" Hazel rolled her eyes even while her heart ached. He was so similar to Herbert, even though he wasn't him. Stone cracked behind her as her irritation mounted. "They're a threat, especially if they take the place of a child before they Initialize, but otherwise they aren't too much of a concern."
"How are they not a concern?" Elias shivered as if he found the idea of someone capable of impersonating someone else haunting or distasteful. She wondered if he even realized how hypocritical and ironic that was. "And no, we don't have spawn or anything like that. Just people with powers."
"Spawn have limited power sets specific to their species, so while shapeshifters can mimic someone's appearance and genetics, they can't copy their powers or their species in a system notification." Hazel frowned as she tried to imagine a world without spawn roaming parts of the wilderness or dungeons. What would it be like? She shook her head while she cast a glare at Elias. "Anyways. You didn't answer me. What were you thinking? Why didn't you say anything?"
"Well, I was worried that people would think I killed Herbert first of all. It isn't like I just appeared here alongside him. I'm pretty sure we swapped and he's now in my dimension. But I've also been nervous about what would happen. I mean, we aren't from here at all. I don't want to be trapped in a lab with my powers suspended while doctors and scientists run tests to see how people in my dimension differ from people here. To see if I even am considered human. Fuck, I don't even want to be stuffed with perks or experience so that the United States here can force me to create a portal to conquer my world for resources."
"What?" Hazel blinked while she watched Elias pace and rant. Something shifted and glowed under his skin like smoke until heat blazed from his skin. Body of Terra healed her as deposits of minerals diminished from her body. She glanced at the odd distortions that hung in the air around them. She reached her hand out while she pushed out with Temporal Coil and felt something similar to the localized time loops her powers worked with. Not time, but something else.
An actual pure spatial power.
Hazel glanced at him sideways while she tried to imagine what kind of person Elias was and who he was to have a spatial power like this. It felt as if he'd cordoned them off in space without using a domain power or using another power meshed with it.
Was he a coward or an explorer at heart to have gotten a spatial power when he Initialized?
She'd always been a perfectionist and a bit of an anxious mess, but still proud when she completed something exactly as well as she knew she could, then miserable when she failed no matter how many times she tried. Because of that, she Initialized with the Loop perk when she was thirteen, which evolved into Temporal Loop. It wasn't like she could go back in time and redo things, but what if she found herself marooned somewhere else and someone misunderstood how she could loop the physical state of something back or forward through its own timeline?
It wouldn't be a stretch at all to say that quite a few people would take advantage of her and push her to do the impossible. Elias probably could travel back to his dimension or another one eventually. After all, someone's power sent him here, so his power could take him back.
Unless he was lying.
Hazel narrowed her eyes while she watched him pace and mutter to himself as he spiraled into whatever paranoias he conjured in his head. Discomfort knifed her through the ribs at the sight of Elias, who was so similar he was almost identical to Herbert, looking so lost and broken. While Herbert always had a plan and acted on it with confidence. But what if it was a trick?
If he was so confident that he'd be able to go back, then who was to say that he was actually left here mysteriously? Depending on his power set he could've easily came here and killed Herbert. So, why would he tell her now?
Elias already proved himself a liar by not saying anything. What did he gain from this?
"Sorry about that..." Elias smiled nervously, then winced once he noticed her attentive glower. "I get carried away sometimes. Regardless, I was afraid. I still am afraid, but I don't think I can keep pretending like this. And you deserved to know."
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"Why did I deserve to know?" Hazel arched her brow while she watched the blush spread through his cheeks.
"I really enjoy talking to you and I felt bad. I lo...liked it every time you made a joke, talked about your assignments, or how you wanted to go on vacation and travel somewhere over the summer. None of that was meant for me, but for Herbert. I might have swapped dimensions with him, but I can't take his place. And I'm sorry for trying." He dipped his head in a jerky nod while the spatial distortion around them popped before he started walking back down the stairs.
"That's it?" Hazel called as she clenched her fists at her sides.
Bitterness welled up inside of her while snippets of memory flashed through her mind. Getting paired up with the muscled behemoth Herbert in Chemistry whenever they had to do labs. She disliked him at first. He had been far too cold and distant for her, at first, but she started looking forward to every lab so she could sit by him. Talk to him.
Next thing she knew, the semester had been over and that was it.
They had barely kept in touch afterward other than a smattering of text messages until Les bumped into her a bit over a month ago at the College of Engineering across campus and casually mentioned that they liked to study on the fifth floor in the library and that she should stop by. Herbert's eyes seemed to sparkle when she had walked in that night.
A week later, they went on a date for ice cream. They talked and acted like they were dating, but nothing had been confirmed. Only endless flirting, dates, and the constant promise of more that had continued until now. And it turns out that for a whole third or so of that time, it wasn't even Herbert, but Elias.
"That's all you have to fucking say?" Hazel stepped down until she could look into his eyes that seemed to glow with an inner light far more vibrant than she expected. Every time she looked at him, the more details she caught that were so obvious in hindsight that he wasn't Herbert. "You lied to m— to everyone and you're going to act like nothing happened? Just walk away like you can hide away and pretend none of this happened? I get waiting maybe a day or two, but if you were going to say anything, what made you tell me now after nearly a whole week?"
"I couldn't lie to you any longer." Elias sighed. "I'm not him and I was starting to fall for you. For his life in general. I'm not... I'm not happy where I come from. It's home and I love my family and everything, but I've dreamed of moving far away to see new sights, to travel, for a very long time. Now I'm in a whole new dimension and I see what could have been and none of it is mine. Herbert has gotten almost everything I've ever wanted, and I was starting to believe that it was mine or could be mine too. But it's not."
He left.
Hazel's legs quivered beneath her as her thoughts bucked and heaved like an earthquake. What the fuck was that? She spun on her heel as she marched up the stairs toward the roof. The thought of being trapped in her dorm room so that Cassidy could pester her about what was going on, if she and "Herbert" were official, drove nails of fury down the chalkboard in her mind.
She reached the top of the stairs where the exit to the roof was, but before she could shove it open, Lacey opened it as she shuffled past her down the stairs as fast as she could run. Hazel almost called out to her to ask if she had heard any of that, but she forced herself to step out into the bracing chill of the night instead.
What did she care if Lacey overheard Elias? It wasn't like he was Herbert or anything.
She moved to the edge of the roof where a tall railing with a taller fence blocked it off. Enchantments turned it invisible as she stared out into the Anchora skyline full of twinkling lights and distant skyscrapers. Ideas wheeled around in her mind while she looked at the windows of the other dorms shadowed with curtains.
Hazel tried to imagine what was happening to each person in those rooms, but slumped against the railing instead as she looked up at the stars. Through her ability with Temporal Coil, she'd learned to treasure new experiences more since they became repeatable to her. A single cup of coffee could be rewound to as full and fresh as the day she got it.
Multiple things weren't repeatable for her like the actual day or other events, so they mattered far more to her. So she let herself dream. What would it be like to wander new dimensions and see other worlds?
Unlike the hollow, dangerous thrill of dungeons, dimensional travel sounded far more exciting and fulfilling.
***
Eli had thought about going back into his dorm room, but he didn't want to be trapped with Roman after their conversation. Desire to be away itched at him while he marched down the staircase and out of the building entirely. Nullspace stretched around him while he walked the winding sidewalks outside of the enchanted campus into the city where he'd be able to teleport away from here.
He thought about finding a real dungeon or even one run by people to blow off some steam. But that didn't feel satisfying in the way it normally would have been.
For the moment, Eli was tired of fighting.
"Elias!" A younger woman's voice called out behind him as footsteps thumped on the concrete. He turned around with a small frown as he recognized Lacey's silhouette. Her eyes darted back and forth as she glanced at him and the air around him, as if she were reading something visible only to her. "I overheard what you said to Hazel."
"Oh." Eli grimaced at the thought of being overheard during that. "How much did you hear?"
"Only the beginning and then the end!" Lacey smiled reassuringly at him as she sidled up next to him. "But, I want to help you and Roman find your way home."
"Roman?" Eli's heart hammered in his throat. How badly did he fuck up? He hadn't said anything about Roman, did he? He winced as he realized that he had said 'we' at a couple of different points. Had he incorrectly said Roman instead of Romulus at some point too?
"After hearing what you said, it cleared up so many numbers that didn't make sense, despite Mind of Numeracy insisting that's what they were. You have a set of variables that don't match up with anyone except for Roman, which I've started calling the Dimensional Quotient. Can you already travel dimensionally?"
He shook his head while he numbly listened to her.
"Excellent! We'll be able to do more research! Dimensional Travel has certainly been attempted, but never by someone foreign to our dimension, as far as I know. Imagine what we'll be able to discover." Her eyes seemed to shine behind the reflection in the lenses of her glasses as she practically vibrated in place. "Will the laws of physics, science, and the System be a stable constant from dimension to dimension or will it vary? What will be the same and what will be different? By the Savior, I can't wait! Aren't you excited?"
"Yeah... very." Eli shifted nervously while he crept closer to the boundary of the campus grounds so he could teleport somewhere else.
"Savior's Stars, we could make a comprehensive document about each dimension to further our understanding of our own in a frightfully large universe!"
They stepped over the boundary.
Nullspace surged out from his spatial field as he plotted a teleport across town and up to a balcony halfway up a skyscraper that pierced the canopy of clouds in the night sky.
"Is that your spatial power? It deviates from what I now realize is normal space by roughly 17%! What evolution and level is it at?"
Eli teleported.
***
Lacey tilted her head to the side while she studied the shifting array of numbers that shadowed Elias's abrupt teleportation. Interesting. When he teleported, it carried and linked his trajectory, velocity, mass, and everything else she could see. The space he occupied briefly merged with Dwelling Heights nearly twenty minutes away.
Frustration gnawed and burned at her gut while she etched the location in her mind as she glanced up at the nearly empty flight lanes above the city. She hated it when people ignored her when she got excited.
Her counselor and tutors always reminded her that Lacey was special. No one could see the world the way she could nor could they comprehend the constant stream of data and information that constantly bombarded them all. Only she could. It was only natural for them to run away.
Lacey removed her glasses with a squint as her vision flattened into a blur as if someone smudged light itself. Then she activated each of her stats in turn.
Body of Investment engaged with its core Stockpile Engine power as all the various forms of energy she stored periodically capitalized with dividends. Power flooded her body as the clarity of her senses doubled, quintupled, octupled, on and on it went until her Body of Investment plateaued. Before it could dip, she cycled her current stage of existence back into Stockpile Engine, before activating it again.
Mind of Numeracy sharpened with the uptick of her vitals to the point that the constant deluge of numerical information she saw became a sea of data that she could parse. Infinite strings of equations rattled around in her expanded mind as she swept her gaze across the street and sky while she crunched the numbers on what the optimal flight path would be.
Will of Math turned those inflexible equations into slight extensions of herself as she guided the equations and variables that were always in flux, which mainly boiled down to the various types of energy. A nudge on those numbers made the kinetic force gravity exerted on her slacken as she boosted the usually equal push of the ground against her.
Lacey drifted upward while she finally linked her stats together to use Class Power to finalize her unique vision into reality. Mathematician's Prototype felt like it ignited her bones on fire and melted her nerves like molten glass as her optimal flight path for the best kinetic energy, no collisions, and most importantly, to stay within the legal confines of the law.
She would hate to get detained for being in a flight lane without the proper license for power-aided flight.
Lacey soared through the air after Elias. While she flew, she smiled at the persistent dream that wafted across her imagination. She had finally found what had searched for ever since her Initialization when she got a power that let her engage with the secret numbers of the world.
Lacey Blake would finally make a contribution of her own to not just her world of science, but the multiverse's.