Micheal found himself floating through the void again, but this time with purpose. He flew past orb after orb. He didn’t spot the strange creature once. There were so many orbs. He passed thousands of spheres that he presumed contained realms before slamming face-first into one. It felt like he was breaking his skull open.

He appeared on the edge of a grassy plateau filled with cherry blossom trees. The Shogun sat peacefully in the center, meditating with his back to Micheal. He didn’t seem to have been noticed yet, but Micheal was sure that was not the case.

“Welcome back Micheal,” The Shogun said.

“Um, hi,” Micheal replied.

“You want answer, yes?” The Shogun asked.

“I am here for answers, how did you know that?” Micheal asked back.

“I have done this lot of times,” The Shogun responded, “what your questions?”

“You’re just going to answer them? No riddles or fighting again?” Micheal questioned.

“I answer questions. Do not cause new issue for yourself,” The Shogun said.

“Ok then. Who was the guy in the gold tuxedo with the eyeball for a head?”

“That is The Businessman. He has realm, like me.”

“I don’t know what that means…” Micheal groaned.

“Then I explain. Multiverse has hierarchy of power. Lowest rank called commoner. They not able to realmwalk. Next rank in hierarchy is realmwalker. You are realmwalker. They have strong magic or strong technology. You have magic sword, magic sword have realmwalking powers. You can improve rank from commoner to realmwalker easy enough. You got magic sword, went from commoner to realmwalker like that.” The Shogun snapped his fingers.

“I am rank above realmwalker. That rank called Lord. Lord cannot be improved to. Lord is a being made from magic when realm is created. Not all realms have Lord. Lord have complete control over realm they born in. Lord very powerful.

“Lord choose whether to have people native to realm or not. I not have native people. I make haven for retired realmwalker. All here from other world.

“Overlord is rank above Lord. I do not know much about them,” The Shogun finished.

Micheal stared dumbfounded at the Shogun. ‘Why hadn’t he explained any of this before?’ Micheal thought. ‘This probably would have been useful at some point.’

“You seem confuse. Do you have more questions?” The Shogun asked.

“Um. Yeah, I think so,” Micheal responded.

“Many or few?”

“I think it's probably a lot…” Micheal replied sheepishly.

Suddenly, white smoke that smelled of gunpowder appeared on the plateau. He resisted the urge to hurl the contents of his stomach. The putrid smoke flowed toward a spot in the Shogun’s view. Wisps climbed on each other, slowly forming something resembling a sculpture of a woman. Micheal watched in awe as the smoke slowly transformed into an actual woman, wearing clothes similar to his universe’s and a magazine on her hip. She had reddish brown hair, and fair skin, and seemed to be a similar age to Micheal, if slightly older. He felt an intrinsic connection to her, in a way he couldn’t explain.

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“Why are you here!?” The Shogun shouted at her, his brows pushed together. “You not supposed to come back so soon!”

“I’m sorry but some shit is going on with the Shadow Core,” the young woman said.

Micheal was puzzled. “Who is she!?” He shouted at the Shogun, flinging his hand wildly in her direction.

That was when the woman noticed him.

“You took on a new apprentice?” She asked somewhat stiffly. She squinted at Micheal, her eyes landing on the sheath at his waist. “Wait. You took on another version of me and Miguel?! You know that it’s risky to interact with any version of us after what you said happened with him!”

The Shogun no longer seemed to be phased by the turn of events. “Mikayla, this is Micheal,” he turned to face Micheal, “Micheal, this is Mikayla.”

“That doesn’t explain who she is!” Micheal blurted.

“Does your universe have multiverse theory?” The Shogun asked.

“Um, yeah, why?” Micheal didn’t understand why this seemingly unrelated topic was being brought up.

“You and her variants,” The Shogun stated. “And Mikayla, Micheal use divine weapon, like you—no evil present to corrupt him.”

“Wait, you’re telling me that she is me, from another universe?!?” Micheal exclaimed.

“Just because he has a divine weapon doesn’t mean he won’t turn out like Miguel! And I really need to tell you some stuff, so can we just ignore him?” Mikayla said.

“Yes, Micheal, she is. And Micheal good-natured, just some confuse. No evil. No need ignore Micheal. He might want help you,” The Shogun said.

“I’m so confused,” Micheal groaned before placing his face in his palm. “But I’m willing to help out if I can.”

“No thank you, I can solve this myself. I just wanted to let The Shogun know how bad this situation is,” Mikayla snapped at Micheal. “One of the wardens of that false hell has been bought by the Shadow Core.”

The Shogun stood up, any discontent with Mikayla’s rudeness to Micheal disappeared from his face with the severity of the news. He opened his eyes and fully ceased meditating.“That is not good. That is bad. That is very bad.”,

* * *

In a well-worn wooden rocking chair, a middle-aged-looking man sat, looking out over molten fields of an early world. He watched lava geysers spew from the ground in the distance and near to him. He leaned forward, staring toward the horizon.

“C-4688-T, come here,” the man stated.

A humanoid robot approached the man from behind. It was strung together from several varying pieces, hand-made, mismatched parts. One glowing red eye in the center of its face gleamed in the midday sun.

“SIRE,” the robot warbled out.

The man raised a robotic arm to the robot. “C-4688-T, give me the latest report on our latest subject.”

“WHAT TIMEFRAME, SIRE.” the robot asked.

“Oh, give me the past week or so,” the man rasped.

“AS OF [1 week ago], SUBJECT #474894 LEFT HIS HOME DIMENSION.” The robot warbled once more.

“C-4688-T, change voice status to voice #4,” the man commanded on a whim.

“As you wish sire.” The machine said in an accent reminiscent of British.

“Where has the subject been since leaving his home dimension?”

“Well, sire, he has been to realms #445, #4899, #21677-W, #21677-S, #21678-W, and #X4,” the British voice replied.

“Interesting. Why would he go to the bounty hunter’s guild?” the man asked.

“He was sent there by a resident of realm #21677-W,” the robot replied.

“Well, contact The Shogun. He’s obviously met with our subject. Where is the subject now?”

“The subject is on Shogun Noryki, interacting with The Shogun and Subject #474882,” the robot answered.

“Well then, what happens next should be interesting.”

The man slowly got out of his chair, before it dissolved into a fine mist that should have evaporated quickly turned to smoke. He walked over and put a hand on the robot’s shoulder. He looked into the distance and stared at the massive tower constructed in the distance.

“We must return to the tower,” he said before calling over three more robots. “C-4679-T, A-34-X, increase monitoring on target subjects. And XZ-77, contact the rogue bot. Something will be going down soon.”

Then he walked off toward the looming tower.