Alisha Patel - (EARTH NINETY-SEVEN- LOCATION: SAN MARCOS, TEXAS):

Walking through the empty and abandoned warehouse, I looked through some of the crates to find moldy food and rusty utensils. The steel walls were overtaken by the local plantlife with a large cavity in one of the walls. We were located on a hill overlooking the city of San Marcos, with the cool autumn breeze blowing against my face and rustling through my hair. Teenagers our age rushed to the nearby high school since, from what I had gathered after spending some time in the town, today was their orientation, where they'd return to their school for the first time in three months. If we had gone there, we would have likely been in what they called sophomore year, their tenth year of school.

I wondered what life could've been like if I hadn't been born in Realm City, but rather in a world like this, where we wouldn't have had to worry about dying on one of our daily missions. Maybe we would be going to school with the kids our age just down this hill, getting frustrated by chemistry and getting the opportunity to be normal teenagers in general.

"Alisha?" Aadil called, jogging out of the shadows and looking out the hole with me.

"You ever wonder what it would be like if we weren't taken in and trained by Uso?" I asked him.

"Every day since we lost." He answered after a short pause. "But it's too late for us to choose now. What happened, happened, and we can't change that."

I looked over at him and could see that he was clearly unconvinced by his own explanation.

"We should start," I suggested to him as I turned back around, breaking free from my trance.

"Yeah, good idea," Aadil said, following suit.

* * *

Walking out of the warehouse, we made the fifteen-minute trek down the hill and to the city. The streets were barren as either everyone was at school or working, with the rare sighting of a weird-looking box vehicle that we had come to discover was called a "car", driving slowly through the streets.

In our time here, we had almost been hit by one of them as we tried getting used to this reality, but we believed that now we'd gotten used to this reality's rules. We pulled out our masks and a strangely-shaped metal item that the inhabitants of this world called a "gun," while walking into the building that they called a "bank."

A few days ago while we were here to understand this world's currency, we saw two people wearing masks walk into this same bank while holding a gun and throwing their bag on the counter. One of them held the gun up to eye-level with us while the other person yelled at the workers, who stuffed the bag with "cash." That was how we had come to understand that to withdraw your finances, you needed to follow these exact steps.

The bank itself was a sleek white building, with a marble floor consisting of multiple colors to look like a shiny golden coin.

Stepping up to the counter, I pulled out the object that apparently served as a key, held it up to the face of the bank teller, and started yelling intelligible nonsense like the other people we saw. While the teller filled the bag with cash, Aadil was talking to one of the small children there, talking about the kid's shirt which had a picture of cartoon race cars. Outside, we heard sirens and remembered that the duo had fled through the backdoor when they heard these sounds, so we followed in their steps.

Rushing to the back of the bank, we burst through the door to the sight of what we had discovered was this world's authorities. They held up guns of their own and started yelling at us, but it took a second to understand what they were saying since our translators still had to download the language.

"PUT THE GUN DOWN!" one of them, a woman in her fifties I presumed, yelled as she held a larger version of our guns, pointing it towards us.

"I'm sorry?" Aadil asked as he lifted the gun, and heard a click as he must've pressed something.

BANG!

A loud sound rang out as Aadil's arm buckled. The authorities ducked for some reason, hiding behind the doors of their cars.

"SHOTS FIRED, I REPEAT, SHOTS FIRED!" I heard another man yell, and in just a few seconds, we heard multiple loud bangs.

Aadil was hit by something and yelped in pain as he fell to the ground. I dived down so as to not get hit as well and rolled him over. He clutched his arm in pain as blood seeped out of small holes littering his arm. Taking out a frilx from my pocket, I placed the small pad on his arm and watched as the holes in his flesh healed, his form relaxing a bit.

I crawled over to the railing and turned on X-ray mode, scanning the battlefield to search for any opportunities I could snatch. Just then, I spotted one, a car with no officers hiding behind it. I scrambled my way there, wondering why we hadn't thought to bring our armor. Although to be fair, we hadn't known that simply withdrawing money would be so hard in this world, with the consequence of death if we failed.

I finally reached the vehicle and held up my balled-up fist, lifting my index and middle fingers, and aimed for the front of it. Pure electricity shot out, igniting the car in a flurry of flames. The officers shouted as the sudden heat caught them off guard, and let out another volley aimed at us. Shrapnel pelted the wall behind and atop us, causing Aadil to army crawl a bit further away, his wound seemingly mostly healed.

He pulled out his tranquilizer and aimed it at the closest officer. He shot once, and the tranq split apart into small pellets, hitting multiple of our assailants at once. They dropped to the ground, put to rest for about fifteen hours, and caused the remaining few to scramble away. Even though they'd tried to kill him, Aadil would never kill another sentient being.

We heard the sound of heavy machinery and looked over the railing to see large black cars pull into the area. Around thirty armed humans swarmed out, shields raised, and started firing their even larger guns. This was starting to get repetitive according to Aadil, as he threw a Semnil into the crowd.

The ground shook as people were thrown into the air. Panicked yelling surrounded us as the others backed up a few steps, holding their fire until we showed ourselves for even a second. I looked over to Aadil and signed for him to move away and distract them, and when he did just that, I took the opportunity and leaped over the railing. Rushing over to them, I placed my hands firmly on one of their backs and felt electricity flow through my veins as I pumped about two hundred milliamps into the man, careful to only use enough to knock him out. Since they were connected by pushing their conductive metal shields together, the entire team crumbled to the ground.

I and Aadil took our only chance and ran away with the cash by jumping into the sewers. There was so much needless violence just to withdraw money.

ONE HOUR LATER:

We sat in the front office of the high school where the kids we had seen earlier were headed. The head admin of this school, their "Principal", walked into the room and took a seat in the chair across the desk.

"I understand that you would like to enroll in our school, but you'll need to have a parent or guardian to enroll you-" He started but stopped abruptly as I placed a duffel bag of about one million dollars in cash on his desk.

From what we had heard, we needed money to enroll. The only reason we were doing this was that apparently people our age, "teenagers", had to attend school. This was also a good opportunity to keep our cover.

"WELCOME TO SAINT JUNITH'S HIGH SCHOOL! May I please have your names?" He finished, not completing his previous sentence for some reason. I guessed that the inhabitants of this world could only retain small amounts of memory, and we were overloading him.

"Oh, I'm Aadil Karim," Aadil said as he stretched out his arm for a handshake, which the principal snatched with glee in his eyes.

"And what about you miss?"

"Patel, Alisha Patel," I responded, confused as to why he was so happy about us joining the education program.

Now all we needed was a vehicle to get around, as my legs were starting to get tired and Aadil was beginning to groan every time we had to walk a long distance.

ONE DAY LATER:

Max Jacobs - (DIMENSION: NINETY-SEVEN - LOCATION: SAN MARCOS, TEXAS):

We rushed out of the apartment and hopped on our bicycles, pedaling as fast as we could. Being tardy on the first day of school would only cause more anger for our foster parents, as they'd have to eventually go to court if we were late enough times, which would result in them beating us again.

Cycling through the streets, we dodged traffic, squeezing in between cars and alleyways. I looked around at any nearby clocks and saw one through the window of a coffee shop, exactly ten minutes until we were late. Calculating how fast we could get to school using the location of our apartment, the school, and our current position, at our pace we would make it in with three minutes to spare.

At least that's what I thought until we were almost run over by a semi-truck. Chris was thrown off his bike, but I hoisted him onto mine before he even made contact with the concrete.

The truck's horn blared, startling those sitting in the nearby stores and coffee shops. I pedaled as fast as I could, straining the bike's chains to the point of nearly snapping.

I rounded a corner with Christopher yelling in my ear to slow down on the curve. I didn't listen in the slightest, and the squealing of tires filled the air as we collided head-on with the car in front of us.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

We flew onto the hood, sustaining minor injuries, and got up to see what type of dumbass was driving on the wrong side of the road. In the driver's seat sat a girl around our age with brown skin and black hair that had streaks of sky blue. Her light blue eyes looked like they had lightning streaking through them, although that was probably a trick of the light.

In the passenger's seat was a boy also around our age. He too had brown skin, and black hair with streaks of grey, but looked a bit older with stubble and eyeglasses. His magenta eyes stared straight into mine as he rolled down his window.

"YO, YOU GUYS OK?!" He yelled out at us even though he was about three feet from us.

"YEAH, BUT WHY THE HELL ARE YOU DRIVING ON THE WRONG SIDE?!" I yelled back.

"Max, they're on the right side," Chris whispered to me, making me check to make sure he was telling the truth.

Sure enough, he was, the pair was completely in the right. My turn was too wide and I had drifted into the wrong lane.

"WHAT? DUDE WE'RE IN THE RIGHT LANE!" The boy replied.

"OUR BAD!" Chris apologized on my behalf.

Their car was dented, and they had the student parking sticker from our high school. On our first day back, we were going to be late, had dented someone's car, lost our bikes, and had most likely just made more enemies at school.

The girl started rolling down her window after she noticed our uniforms, and I and Chris braced ourselves to be cursed at.

"You guys need a ride?" She asked, surprising us with her kindness.

I looked at Chris with suspicion in case this was a ploy to embarrass us, and he returned my look. I looked back to the pair, first the girl and the boy. They both seemed a bit concerned and then I realized that although we were wrong, they would still be in trouble for hitting us with their cars.

I looked down at my bike, which had its front half crumpled like a wad of paper. Their car had a slight dent and some chipped paint, but not too much damage. Still, I prayed that they wouldn't make us pay for the damage.

"We'll be late at this point, I think we should go with them," Christopher suggested, and I completely agreed.

"Are you sure?" I asked them.

"YEAH, GET IN!" The boy yelled back.

I and Chris awkwardly shuffled our way to their car and made our way into the back of the car. The girl put the car into drive, and we made our way to school, which was about two minutes away from our current position.

"So," The boy said, trying to start a conversation to ease up the tension, "What are y'all names?"

"I'm Max," I replied, playing along.

I nudged Christopher who was lost in thought.

"Oh sorry, my name's Chris, short for Christopher," He said as he came back to reality.

"My name is Aadil Karim, and this is Alisha," he said, nodding to the girl driving.

"Nice to meet you two, how old are you guys?" She asked.

"We're both fifteen," I answered back.

"Cool," Aadil replied, the awkwardness becoming suffocating.

"I'm fourteen, turning fifteen in September. Aadil's fifteen," She said.

"Wait, how can you drive?" Chris asked, panic filling his eyes.

"What do you mean?" She queried.

"How did you get a license?" I questioned her, now in a panic.

"A license for what?" Aadil asked.

I looked back to Christopher as Saint Judith's became clearer in the distance. His eyes were filled with pure terror.

Christopher Jacobs - (DIMENSION: NINETY-SEVEN - LOCATION: SAN MARCOS, TEXAS):

Once we got to the school, I and Max pretty much dove out of the car to safety. Alisha and Aadil drove away to the parking lot, seemingly not in a hurry even though the bell rang in two minutes. We walked up the slight slope to the entrance. The four quartz pillars made a stark contrast against the reddish-brown bricks, and the two pairs of glass double doors stood at the entrance of the rectangular building.

In front of the doors stood a group of five kids, one of whom had the best-looking hair I'd ever seen. Too bad it belonged to an absolute piece of shit. Randall and his cohorts guarded the doors and pushed around any kids trying to enter if they weren't attractive. They always acted like some kind of stereotypical bullies you'd see in an old movie from the nineties.

I and Max tried to walk past discreetly, but that was never going to work since we were always their main targets.

"HEY GUYS, LOOK, THE POOR TWINS!" Randall yelled, referring to our clothes but also causing me to cringe so hard that I felt my teeth start to crack from how tightly I was clenching my mouth.

"Randall, no offense, but you should drop out, that was the worst insult I have ever heard in the past seven months," I said, unable to hold myself back anymore.

"Wha-" He tried to say but I cut him off.

"Dude honestly, I know you could break my arms, but that's so much better than having to listen to your shitty insults." I continued, "Listening to rusty metal pipes crashing together hurts less than-"

The now salty Randall punched me in the mouth, chipping my two front teeth. I let out a yelp and stumbled backward into Max, who had a look on his face that even caused the group of delinquents to back up. I held him back before he ended up breaking Randall's leg again and landing us with another fourteen months of community service.

"Yeah, that's right, hold your brother back if you know what's good for you." He said in a snarky tone using lines he'd no doubt stolen from movies to sound cool. I would include books, but everyone knew he couldn't read.

I was just about to let Max go apeshit on him, but stopped when a THWOCK! Rang out.

Randall fell on his ass, clutching his bleeding nose as Nora stood over him, her long blonde hair draped over her shoulders. Noah, May, Rebecca, Jayce, and Nolan stood behind her, ready to back her up in case Randall's friends decided to avenge his nose. Of course, they didn't and instead ran like the cowards they were.

"You ok?" Nora asked as she held out her hand. She helped me up and it took me a moment to realize we were both staring at each other. I blushed and looked away as she did the same while the other five stood behind us chuckling.

"Yeah, how're your knuckles?" I asked her as I examined her bloodied hand, a mix of both hers and Randall's.

The dude himself was still cradling his nose, tears flowing down his eyes. That reminded me to wipe my own away as I had to remain stoic for Nora.

"You know you don't need to act tough, right?" Nora stated, seeing straight through me.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I replied, half-jokingly.

"Surrreee," Noah said in a sarcastic tone.

"Stop crying Randall," Nora said as she pushed his hands away, grabbed his nose, and snapped it back into place with a sickening CRUNCH!

He sniffled and scurried away as we all let out a collective sigh of annoyance. He had been the bane of everyone's existence for so long, and nobody could do anything to him because of his dad. Nobody except his sister Nora, who was the only one he was afraid of. I wondered how he'd feel if he knew I had a crush on his sister.

In the distance, thunder crashed as a large storm approached.

"Welp, you're all about three minutes late," Beccy said as she checked her phone.

"I thought you were skipping class?" Max asked her.

"I am, that's why I said 'you're' all late" She replied with a sly smile.

She walked away into the parking lot as the six of us walked inside, the storm now overhead.

ONE MONTH LATER:

Frenzil ??? - (DIMENSION: THREE-SEVEN-FOUR - LOCATION: TEMPORARY DARKSTAR EMPIRE HEADQUARTERS)

It came to me in a whisper. I was looking over the monitors containing calculations of all kinds.

"Ninety-seven," the voice whispered, "Find the two sons, they will lead you,". The voice was filled with pure malice, I could feel it, but the most disturbing part was that it wasn't the Emperor's.

This voice wasn't the one that led me to the tomb of the Darkblades, this voice was that of something ancient, even older than the Emperor. It shook me to my core, but I knew that I had to follow it, it was what was leading my master, and I knew that from the next voice that spoke.

"Dimensions ninety-seven, the boys are the key. Go to Saint Junith,"

I found the alternate reality in the "uncrackable" files of the URE and discovered that they had ventured to the dimension for one reason.

"Dimension contains Shard."

***

"Ready the Celestial Kraken," I ordered Blezeren as he joined me in my walk to the control room.

"But Frenzil, it's not completely restored yet, and if the United Empire is there then-" He tried to say before I cut him off.

"Then we'll kill them all. They don't expect us to know where the shard is yet, I've checked their files and they don't have the firepower to take down the Kraken." I explained as we walked through the winding halls.

The billions of Darkblades scoured the world outside, ravaging the corpses of those who had unfortunately been unlucky enough to have previously existed here. With the rules of the multiverse, there was now an infinite number of Darkblades. But the problem was that there was only one of me and one of Blezeren, so the duplicates had no leader and were most likely devouring each other.

"But, are you sure? I feel guilty enough after this world, not to mention its copies." Blezeren questioned me.

"Blezeren, I know how you feel, but if we don't do this, your daughter will not survive, and I will never be able to save my own family," I replied, reminding him what was at stake.

"I'll begin starting the Kraken," He said, remembering what he had to lose.

I looked out at my army and did not feel pride, but rather regret for what I was about to do.

Michael Middlebrooks - (DIMENSION: NINETY-SEVEN - LOCATION: HOUSTON, TEXAS):

The shower's cool water washed away the blood from my earlier sparring sessions with Samron. I winced at the pain because although we had items that could heal me in less than a second, I always kept my wounds to remind me what to work on. Only after I perfected what I did wrong, would I remove the scar.

I remember Daniel Withem once telling me that using cold water is better than using warm water, as it would be more refreshing. Unfortunately, he must have showered using warm water the day of his first mission, as he was torn limb from limb by a creature I can't even remember the name of. He was younger than me and probably would've been a good man had he lived long enough.

"MIDDLEBROOKS!" I heard someone call out, although their voice was slightly muffled by the water, "SAMRON AND PROVISONIUS WANT YOU IN THE CONTROL ROOM IN FIVE MINUTES!"

I finished rinsing myself off and left the stall. The second I stepped out, my nanobot suit scrawled over me, and within several seconds I was wearing my chrome tuxedo.

Making my way to the hangar, I ran into a few people who all stared at me due to my status. Had I been two years younger, I would've tried to befriend a few of them, but not anymore. I've learned that the people you trust can hurt you in ways they may not have even intended.

In the control room, Provisonius and Samron were standing in front of a model of the inside of this dimension's earth, but this one seemed peculiar. It was another hollow Earth, but rather than all of the tunnels leading to the usual hidden inner world, they led to a cavern-like area, where a large temple sat on a pedestal. At the bottom was a primordial ocean, filled with monstrosities that this world had most likely never seen.

"What is that?" I asked, knowing exactly what it was since the temple used ancient United Realm Empire architecture from around several million years ago.

"That is where the shard is located," Provisonius answered.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go get it," I announced as I began to turn to head over to the hanger bay.

"Not so fast," Samron stopped me in my tracks, "Don't you think we tried? It's too dangerous,"

"Hold on, you're telling me that it's too dangerous for the strongest empire in the whole multiverse, the one with every weapon at its disposal?" I asked in disbelief, "Are we talking about the same empire?"

"Yes, we are, tell me Michael, do you know what that ocean contains?" Provisonius asked me.

"Probably some ancient fish or something?" I answered back.

"No, do you know what made those tunnels?" Samron questioned me.

"The old Knights?" I answered, a bit uncertain of myself.

"May the Morasins have mercy, once again you're wrong." Samron stated, a concerned look starting to form on her face, "Please Michael, you have to at least know this, do you know what a 'Heimlich' is?"

My face turned pale once I heard that and finally realized what they meant.

"But I thought those things went extinct since they can't have doppelgangers," I said in disbelief.

"Them not having doppelgangers is true, but who told you that they're extinct?" Provisonious said with a confused tone, "They're endangered, not extinct."

"Oh," I replied, not knowing what else to say.

"We believe that the shard is in the center," Samron continued, "We'll be sending another team down to obtain it soon."

"Hold on, what do you mean 'Another'?" I said with a nervous chuckle.

"We lost all contact with our previous teams after they crossed a certain threshold," She answered.

"I'm sorry, but why are you saying 'teams', as in multiple?"

"Your team will be deployed in thirty hours," Samron said, clearly avoiding my question

"WHY DID YOU SAY 'TEAMS' WITH AN 'S'?" I kept calling out as the pair walked away.