“Take me to some dimension where I can get some good clothes.” I told Aurinko. I really didn’t want to go home in these rags.

The first thing I noticed was screams. Next came my vision. It was all nearly instantaneous but I could notice the changes. I was in the middle of a market. A person exploding into existence in animal skins probably wasn’t the normal shopping protocol.

“I’m sorry people! Please, carry on.” I yelled, which didn’t seem to do much but after I walked off I could practically hear them shrug and continue their day as normal.

I got to a clothing vendor. Finally some. . . damn it. They were all heavy Victorian gowns. There was a reason no one was here, that’s for sure. I continued on. There was a person selling what looked like one of a kind jewelry. I knew this because the sign said “one of a kind jewelry”. I walked over. I decided I was going to start a sort of collection of things on my necklace from other dimensions. I saw one that was perfect. It was a flame suspended in the middle of black steel wires. I touched it and the flame was real. No matter which direction I turned it it was too far away to burn anyone.

“You like?” said a foreign girl behind the stand. “Only thirty coppers! Great deal it is!”

“Ah you dirty cheat! I could get something more rare for half of that price! Make it fifteen and I’ll buy it.” said a man shopping near me. “Hello. You are a sight for sore eyes. How bout I get that for you as a token to remember me by.”

“Okay.” I said. I would never remember him.

“Fifteen will do,” said the girl. And that’s how I got my suspended fire charm. I found that it needs no fuel and I can take a considerable amount of power from it without killing it.

I continued walking on. I didn’t feel bad for making that guy buy me stuff, I didn’t have any money and I protect the multiverse. This is the least they could do.

I found it. The clothing was a little bit flashy but that might be good. If I was a holy protector or whatever, maybe I wanted to be noticed.

I thought of what kind of clothing a person that would do a lot of weapon fighting. Probably something tight. Or that would just come off if something tried to pull at it for an advantage.

It was a hard decision to make. I didn’t want to wear tight leather, that’s just gross. I had very few options. I overall decided that if it was a life or death situation I could just burn off my clothing.

I had no idea what kind of look I wanted.

“What do I want to look like?” I asked Aurinko.

Uh. . .

“Not helpful.” I told him.

How am I supposed to know how people want to see you? Fear? Worship? Ignorance? functionality?

“Mix fear and worship and functionality then we got what we’re looking for.”

Then this is the wrong dimension.

I jumped out.

The next dimension looked like a basic MMORPG. Medieval and seemingly small town but seemed to have really unique problems. Perfect for questing. But great for lightweight armor and cool cloaks.

So I went to the market of the town. I had originally jumped into the pub of the town so I walked out and found an armory of sorts. It was called the shield and spear.

“Armor! Weapons! Charms! Anything you might need for a good battle. Right here! Just stop on by and make sure you got some good rijkdom on you! Good gear is always on the expensive side, I’ll tell you that!” came the voice of the man in front of the shop. He had a slight australian accent of all things.

I walked up to him and told him that I wanted some armor, but the stuff that I wanted might have to be custom made. If I was going to make an image I didn’t want to blend in in this dimension.

“Yes, of course! As long as we get paid we don’t care what kind of purchase made by a customer or what their intentions for those items are.”

I walked in at those words and looked at the armor. I went to the goldsteel armor. Now we’re getting somewhere. I brought some armor over to the changing rooms and tried it on. It fit like a glove. It looked good, with all of my other gear. I looked like a bad-ass warrior. There was something missing, however.

I put the crude animal skins back on and continued looking. I found some white/gold arm bands, like wonder woman’s. I could just sense that they were exactly what I was looking for. I grabbed them and a black cape with a hood. It clipped right onto me perfectly. I was starting to wonder if I was just so common a size that everything made for the average woman would fit me or if I was just really lucky with my choices.

I brought all the armor to the man that supposedly owned the store.

“I want all of this. But they need some changes that I’m willing to pay for.” I told the man before he could ask what I needed.

“Well, if you have the rijkdom, then we will do any changes to these items you wish. Might I also interest you in a weapon? There are some very nice weapons over there-” he pointed to the weapons department. “-Some even have enchantments!”

“I have a weapon. I need these items with a few changes.”

How are you going to pay him? Take it and run?

To be honest with myself, I was still working that part out.

“If you insist. What kind of changes would you like?” he said without skipping a beat as he led me over to his office. Probably.

When we got there I told him the changes I wanted made. “I want a white sun emblazoned on the back of this,” I pointed to the cape. “I want suns engraved on these,” I pointed to the arm bands, “I want an enchantment against damage on this,” I pointed to the armor. “And I want the whole thing enchanted to withstand being thrown into the sun without a scorch mark on it.”

He seemed surprised at that. “That is a lot of enchantments and special order items. I don’t think you can pay for such an expensive purchase. Prove me wrong.”

I didn't want to kill him so. . . oh. I just got an idea.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you now and find some other place to enchant these things. Doing this would give you favor with a holy incarnate of the higher beings of the countless dimensions. I will give you two chances to apologize right now and take back your ignorant words.”

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This might work, unless this man is an atheist. Then this man might be a problem for us.

I don’t know if I can really take his life. I don’t know if I can hurt him. It may all be an empty threat. I thought back.

You don’t need to. You just need to scare him. You will have to kill eventually, though.

I just needed to prepare myself.

It never gets easier. That doesn’t stop it from being necessary for the job. Came a thought from Aurinko. When you need to you will. I trust you, with everything I am. You're the only one I can talk to. It gets lonely, being the most powerful being around for amounts of time with no name to it. Now we have each other, and that should be enough.

I felt relieved. This all happened at the speed of thought so all the other guy noticed was a short gap in my attention.

“Well, I can’t say I believe you. There is only one god, and he has no children or incarnates. He is all powerful, all knowing, and completely impartial. The perfect one to have unlimited power.”

“That was try one. You have one more chance before I kill you and burn down your cheap little shop.” right then I pulled out Aurinko and stabbed the table.

“You think that scares me?-” the table exploded and was a tiny pile of ash in moments and the gear fell to the ground with a clank.

“I implore you to think harder.” was all I said.

“Come tomorrow and it’ll be done.” came the voice of a scared little girl. It was the grown man.

I left to find a quest. Why not? I had time. Maybe I could get another charm without wasting some guys money.

“Help! Monster in my home! I need help! Please! Anyone! I have money, I can pay well!” I walked up to him.

“I’ll help. All you have to do is get me a one of a kind charm for my necklace.” I told him.

He lowered his voice.”look, I’m just bored and want to see a good fight, not a slaughter, alright? A pretty little thing like you shouldn’t have to die for my amusement.”

“You know, I think that I’ll tell everyone that you're a fraud. I think that would be amusing for me, don’t you think?” I shot back. His face paled and he accepted my help.

“It's in my basement. Try not to die too messily. My maids will hate me for it.” he told me as we walked over to his house.

“Maybe I’ll burn down your house, how about that, ass hole.” I responded under my breath.

He walked over to the side of the house and said “I’ll be watching from in here. Hopefully you're stronger than you look.” And he disappeared into the box that I was pretty sure was a hidden staircase. I walked up to the door. It was locked. Couldn’t even unlock the damn door.

I melted the doorknob off. He could buy a new one.

The house was like a maze. Like all the hard mazes in my childhood, I took a shortcut, through the walls.

I found the stairs faster than I should have because they looked like they started on the third floor and had no other openings. Oh well. Can’t be helped now.

I went down the stairs. There was a really big room. Like, a really big room. It was submerged in water so I couldn’t see the floor. I guessed that whatever I had to fight was in the water. So I boiled it.

Something came shooting out of the water, covered in scales that were ready to fall off because of the short cooking session. It snarled at me with what looked like the head of a wolf and it tried to whip at me with a foxes tail. It had chicken legs with webbed feet, of all things, and was digging into the walls with its oversized raptor claws.

“I know you’re suffering. You shouldn’t exist. It's okay. You won't exist after this battle.” it was true. I did feel sorry for it. It had no reason for an existence. It was sad, really. It was an amalgamation of horrible experiments. I could practically feel the pain of being bound to other beings against its will radiating from it.

It lounged at me. It was on the wall then suddenly it was right in front of me, hanging from the ceiling. It swiped at me with its long claws and I dodged under them. I could have just blocked and the fight would be over, but I wanted to have a little fun. I have been training for years for a battle. Shoot me if I’m excited to put some of them to the test.

An hour later and I was still shooting blasts of concentrated heat at it and it was doing minor damage. Maybe if I hadn’t instantly cauterized every wound I made he might have bled to death, but I couldn’t get through his scales without Aurinko’s power and I cauterized the wound when I did that. Every time it started to melt or burn it would jump into the water and I would have to boil him out again. The entire place was so full of steam that I could barely see my hand right in front of my face.

I had used a lot of energy and I needed a pick-me-up so I drained the air of heat. It was still slow but it was faster than the normal temperature air in the inbetween dimension. After a good chunk of time the air was clear and the system started over again.

After a while instead of boiling the water I started diving in after it. I cut off the head of the beast and dragged its dead body out of the water. I cut off all of its scales and brought them out with me.

The ass hole of a man met me outside. “That was. . . no one has ever defeated him before. . . even the most powerful of magic could only annoy him. . . how?” he finally settled on.

“Don’t trust your eyes. They lie more often than the worst of thieves.” I said. It was all nonsense but he seemed to buy it. “Go find me my charm. I’ll be at the shield and spear tomorrow. Or I’ll just have to find you and take you down.” I said cooly. I seemed to have a talent for making people grovel at my feet and give me stuff. He groveled for a minute and then went to go find my charm.

The rest of the day went by quickly. I snuck into an inn to sleep for the night. I was hungry but I was getting used to the emptiness in my stomach and found it welcoming and a good reminder that I was still human. Or I thought that that was how I would view it in the future so I thought I better get used to it sooner or later. I chose sooner.

The next day I went over to the shield and spear at about noon after sleeping in for a while, because why not, and walked in. I found the man in charge.

“I’m ready for my things.” I told him.

“Oh shit. I’m so sorry, ma’am. They’re not ready yet. Just one more hour and your things will be brought to you. If you could stay just outside for that hour that would be greatly appreciated.” he said with a worried expression on his face.

“That's just fine. Oh, I almost forgot, here.” I dumped all the scales I had gathered the other day on the table. “These will make some very expensive armor. See, it pays off to have a holy incarnate in your favor.”

His eyes widened as I dumped them out and he nodded. Then he looked at me and said “you won’t regret this! I promise! You are welcome here at the shield and spear at any time!” he said as he started pulling all of the scales toward himself and started dumping them into a bag.

“Damn straight” I said. I walked out after that and found that I was turning heads. I didn’t want that until I had my image. Can’t be helped, I guess. I was, after all wearing crapier clothes then the worst of them, but had fancy accessories. Too bad all my stuff was left behind when I went to the inbetween dimension. Then I would blow their tiny minds.

Then the ass hole showed up. No not Aurinko, he never left. The other guy, with the frankenstein of a monster that I had to kill.

“H-h-here.” he stuttered. He was shaking in his boots. Good. That heartless jerk should hopefully learn a lesson about finding joy in killing people. He thrust the charm at me.

“One of a kind?” I asked.

“W-well, it has some unique enchantments, it's a mix called starlight burst. It, well, it makes a light like a star when its dark and cold and it gets really warm. I-it’s supposed to, that is.” the man said. It was a simple silver orb with runes scrawled along its surface. I added it to my necklace.

“This is perfect. I accept. You can leave now, coward.” I told him.

“Yes, thank you” he said and ran off. I had just ruined his reputation. Nice.

The next half hour was uneventful. I waited and had a worthless conversation with Aurinko about life, and philosophy and of random crap that made no sense. It hit me then that my best friend was a magic knife that could control and create heat. What has my life become? I had asked myself this very same question many times over the years but this time it seemed to really stick in my mind.

“Ma’am? Your armor, it's ready. I was wondering if you wanted to change in our stalls? Those clothes you are currently wearing seem um. . . well. . .” came the voice of a man sent out by the merchant.

“Shabby? Yah, they're not great. I think I’ll take you up on that offer.” I told him.

“Um. . . ma’am?” the man asked.

“Yes.”

“May I have your name, please?” that surprised me. Why would that guy need my name?

“Yes. . . I am. . .” I didn’t want people to know me by some boring name. Sure tales will spread of my adventures but I needed something more substantial than “Beatrice”. “Just give me a few minutes. I’ll tell you when I have my new stuff on.” I told him to buy some time.

I got into a stall and called for my things. They were laid gently down on the ground and slid over to me slowly under the door.

I thought long and hard about what my name should be. “Great sun priest” went through my mind but it didn’t hit the wall of names in my brain. There was also “wandering sun” but that could be misinterpreted. The “multi dimensional light” was one that had a good bit of ring to it but was ultimately dismissed. I got thinking about anime. They had some cool moves and names. There was one I heard. Amaterasu. I had later looked up what it ment and it was a female sun god of japanese origin. It was perfect. Strange but normal and yet means sun goddess.

I finished dressing in a hurry and walked out.

“Um. . . ma’am? Your name?” the kid asked.

“I am Amaterasu. The holy sun goddess that travels the dimensions to protect them.” I told him.

Then I jumped home, a new me, a me I would never recognize.