In the sun-dappled depths of a tropical rain forest, a little crab was having a transcendent experience.
“Food!” he exclaimed happily.
“Fud! 😊” his gigantic companion replied as it shoved another chunk of lavender fruit into its face.
“Foooood!”
“Fuuuuud!”
The little crab stuffed some more of the rich mix of simple sugars, carbohydrates, and lipids into its mouth and chewed with delight.
It was delicious in ways that he didn’t even know delicious could be!
No wonder these guys were so big!
His huge companion looked over at its little friend with a newfound appreciation. Usually, getting the food of all foods opened was a time-consuming and labor-intensive task, sometimes taking days to complete. However, with his little food’s razor-sharp claws slicing through the tough skin and fibers and their brute strength tearing away huge strips at a time, they got into this one in under an hour…
…not that it had any concept of hours. All it knew was that they got the food fast and easy, two concepts it did have.
As they continued to feast, the little crab was aware that the stupids had stopped leaking stupid and were now leaking other things, things about space and time and stuff that it couldn’t comprehend (at least not yet).
He didn’t care, though.
Whatever it was, it was nowhere near as important as the feast before him.
***
A multiverse away, Evangeline (F10w3rchy1d) was not having a good day.
…bump…
“Did you feel that?” she demanded as she crouched and started looking around nervously.
“Feel what?” Faun inquired as she sipped a cup of tea prepared by the faeries for their new favorite person ever.
“That jolt in the background probability for the local reality, that ‘bump’ that just happened!”
“No?”
“Fucking noob!” Evangeline grumbled. “I bet it’s Zvaxus. I knew he wasn’t supposed to start training…”
…bump…
“Oh, hell no!” Evangeline shouted as she started stomping towards the training field.
“Is it just me, or does the grass look slightly different?” Faun asked as she followed.
***
“…(sigh)… Once more, from the beginning, everyone must start marching with your left foot, and you all must advance by the same measure. Keep the ranks even…”
“How is this going to help us fight?” an elf exclaimed in frustration.
“I will let your loss of bearing slide for now,” Zvaxus growled, “but I shall answer your question with one of my own. How is your fight going thus far?”
“And how do we know this nonsense will work any better?”
“Because it is what your foes are doing to you. They just aren’t doing it properly. I shall show you how to do it properly. I shall forge those who follow me into a weapon that will not only destroy but protect. I will give you the means with which you can protect the land and, more importantly, the people that you love. If you wish to be part of that, then heed my words and obey. If you do not, then remove yourself from my sight and never return.”
Zvaxus started to pace in front of the rather shoddy ranks.
“I am a war god, created by the collective will of my people to perform a specific task, and that task is war. Personally, I hate war. I loathe it with every fiber of my being. However, that was the role to which I was assigned, and it is the role that I have faithfully performed for billions of years. I know war, and I am very, very good at it.”
He pivoted to directly face his troops.
“However, in all those billions of years, I never had a choice in the matter. For all intents and purposes, I was, and still am, a conscript. This time, I do have a choice. You are not my people, and I do not have to assist you. Since I am not a conscript, neither are any of you. If you don’t want to heed me and learn from me, then, by all means, go off, keep doing what you have been doing, and die alongside your spouses and children. I do not give a fuck!”
He smiled a vicious smile.
“However, those who do remain and do heed my words will learn what they need to learn to protect those of those among you who are too foolish, cowardly, or pathetic to be able to join their ranks. If you want to cower and die, leave. If you want to charge foolishly at the foe and die, leave. If you want to learn how to fight, win, and survive, stay. I shall teach you that which I despise above all things... war. It is because I hate war so much that I will do so. With what I can provide, you can not only win war but stop it. I can help you make what is happening to your people stop and never happen again.”
He growled pleasantly.
“Now, let us begin again...”
“Zvaxus!” Evangeline shouted as she approached.
“Practice arranging yourself in orderly ranks,” Zvaxus shouted, “Father knows you need it. I shall return shortly.”
He strode from the training field.
“Evangeline!” he bellowed happily. “Do you see how truly awful they are? This is going to be such fun!”
“Fun you are going to stop right this second!” Evangeline yelled, “My Brownian organs are about to jump out of my skull! You are rattling the timeline. Stop it!”
“Ooo!” Evaraxxus whispered to Faun, “It’s the Bitch Goddess!”
“(Snerk!)… Not that I’m disagreeing,” Faun giggled, “But what do you mean?”
“When Zvar descended from the heavens to answer the pleas of the downtrodden, he was confronted by the Bitch Goddess, the cosmic harpy who demanded that he abandon his followers to the clutches of the vile humans and their monstrous champions,” he said, the golden horns protruding from his verdant green scales catching the light.
Faun looked at them curiously. Did he have those horns before? She was pretty sure… no… come to think, he did always have those.
“But the divine gadfly prevailed not,” Evaraxxus said, quoting the ancient tomes as Evangeline and Zvaxus started yelling at each other.
“What makes you think that you can even make these… noobs into anything! Have you seen them? They are pathetic. I honestly don’t know how they’ve survived this long?”
“They have survived because they have heart!” Zvaxus bellowed, “They have courage, valor… and most importantly, love. Something that you have little knowledge of!”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Evangeline groaned, “are you serious?”
“If given a shred of a chance,” Zvaxus roared, “Love always prevails! Anger fades when your rations run thin. Hate gives way to tolerance when your comrades fall. Greed and ambition turn to compromise when the lines shift too close to your lands, or the vaults start to run empty. LOVE! Love of one’s lands, of one’s people, and of one’s family stands fast! No matter the hunger, the odds, or the cost, when one fights with love in one’s heart, they will win even when they should not!”
“What a pantsload!” Evangeline snapped, “The love in their hearts going to bleed out just like anything else when a level twenty champion puts a sword through their fucking chest. Their family will be the last thought in their brain as the arrows from a thousand freaking archers cut loose! That propaganda crap might work on the cannon fodder, but don’t even start that bullshit with me. You know perfectly well what wins wars… numbers! It’s ones and zeros, production and attrition, and we both know it! I know playing soldier is your whole… thing… but this is not…”
Evangeline was cut short by a divinely enraged roar that made the very ground shake and lifted her off her feet, hurling her backwards dozens of meters.
“Love playing soldier?!?” Zvaxus said as he advanced, claws splayed. “LOVE PLAYING SOLDIER?!?”
He loomed over her, eyes literally aflame as Evangeline scrambled to her feet, hand on her sword as she backed away.
“WAR IS NOT A GAME!!!” he roared, causing the containment field to whine and groan as his anguish and rage became nearly physically manifested around him. “It might be a game to YOU in your perverted false realities, sick parodies of the real world where souls corrupted by the phantasms in which you have ensnared them revel in the slaughter that you have deceived them into believing is entertainment. But here, with real lives and real pain and real loss… IT IS NOT A GAME. IT IS NOT A SIMULATION. IT IS BLOOD AND DEATH AND PAIN AND REAL COURAGE AND REAL HORROR! Your ones and zeros matter not!”
“Yeah, you did real good against those ones and zeros, didn’t you?” Evangeline snapped…
…and then immediately regretted it when…
BUMP
“We were outclassed by AEONS!!!” Zvaxus screamed with rage suppressed for over a billion years. “We might as well have been naked savages before your fleet! Love is powerful, but against odds as overwhelming as we faced, we might as well have been them!” he shouted, pointing at the pitiful group looking at them with horror-stricken faces.
BUMMMMPPPPP
Evangeline clutched her head as Zvaxus’s eyes glowed pure white.
He smiled.
“I shall show you the power of love, how love prevails over hate, and how the desire for peace conquers the thirst for blood… personally.”
He turned to the small company of not yet soldiers behind him.
“My people!” he bellowed. “I have said that for an eternity that I have had no choice. Today… Today I choose!”
“Oh God, no… no… please no…” Evangeline pled.
BUMP!!!
“Oh, my goodness!” Evaraxxus gasped, his ashen grey scales pockmarked with thousands of micrometeorite impacts rippling with excitement. “To think I would be able to see this, the choice!!!”
“I CHOOSE YOU!!!” Zvaxus roared. “I shall forge you into a weapon of fire… of justice… of love… and I SHALL WIELD IT AS I STAND WITH YOU!!! With the love in your hearts and the sinew of my arm, we will hold the line! We shall STOP the genocide! WE WILL PROTECT WHAT WE LOVE!!!... ARE YOU WITH ME???”
Not only the training ground but the entire encampment erupted into cheers… including more than a few of Evangeline’s people.
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“Now, my children,” Zvaxus smiled, “Let us build an army.”
BUMP!!!
“Zvaxus,” Evangeline said with as soothing a tone as she could muster, “I’m sorry,” she said, “I spoke out of turn. I was wrong to rub your nose in what was clearly an unfair match.”
“Apology accepted,” Zvaxus said cheerfully.
“You’ve made your point,” Evangeline laughed nervously, “Okay? I’ve learned my lesson. It is clear that… um… intangible factors can and do influence the course of war.”
“I’m gratified that you feel that way, truly.”
“So… You’re going to reconsider?”
“Nope!” Zvaxus said happily as he gave her a cheerful salute, pivoted on his heel, and happily skipped off, leaving Evangeline standing there, eyes wide with horror.
“He… He’s going to wreck the universe!” Evangeline stammered. “We have to stop him!”
“Don’t worry,” Evaraxxus, the Great Serpent, hissed reassuringly, his iridescent purple scales shimmering along the entire length of his long sinuous body as his divine forked tongue flicked out, tasting fate itself. “Everything is proceeding exactly as recorded in the ancient…”
“Oh, shut up,” Evangeline grumbled as Faun tried very hard not to burst into delighted laughter.
So, this is what one of these looked like from the outside!
A terribly naughty thought rose, unbidden and irresistible, from the hidden dark corners of her soul.
“At least it can’t get any worse for her,” she whispered with a giggle.
BUMP!
“That was just mean,” Evaraxxus, the Mallard of Unusual Power, quacked with a little chuckle as Evangeline screeched, “What the fuck was that?!?”
***
At exactly the same time, “Petunia” stood up and, with just enough wiggle to be plausibly deniable but still utterly effective, hopped over to Roderick the Golden.
“Can I see your sword?” she asked, reaching for it.
“No!” Roderick exclaimed as he gently but firmly nudged her away just as her fingers touched the hilt, and a bedbug hopped onto the sword adding one additional authorized user (guess who).
As gentle as the nudge was, with skill greater than the most masterful footballer, Petunia yelped as she flew back and toppled over, clutching her ankle.
“And the mighty Golden Boy prevails once more!” David snapped as he rushed over to Petunia as tears started to form in her eyes. “Tell me, mighty hero, how many expee did you get from beating up a girl!”
“I just wanted to see it…” Petunia whimpered.
“I barely touched her!” Roderick protested as Evika glared at him. “She was going to touch Goldrazor!”
“So that’s your name for it,” Stephan snarked.
“You know how dangerous my blade is!” Roderick exclaimed defensively. “Were its retribution lance be activated, it could kill any of us!”
“You mean the blade that only you can use,” Evika snapped, “that blade? Why did I ever think that this party was a good idea?”
“I think we all know why,” David sneered. “Oh, Rod…”
“Now that we aren’t a party anymore,” Roderick snarled, “I have no reason not to cut you down, David.”
“No reason except that I would kick your ass!”
“What, a level thirty-two basic warrior, defeat me?”
“Perhaps my ‘meager levels’ could assist him,” Stephan smiled grimly as he stood and adjusted his bandolier of envenomed throwing knives. “Now that we are finally being honest with one another, I can freely say that I would relish watching you fall. I even know which of my ‘useless’ concoctions I will use.”
“Do the two of you think you can win against Evika and me?”
“You’re on your own,” Evika said icily. “Petunia, I think we need to go and clean up before the other parties arrive. Why don’t we leave these gentlemen to sort out their differences?”
“But I want to watch!”
“Now, Petunia,” Evika said as she idly waved her wrist, and Petunia levitated over to her.
“Hey!”
“We are going to the creek to wash up,” Evika said, “If I catch anyone nearby, I will kill you, for real this time.”
“Like I would want to see your skanky ass,” David sneered.
“I’m not talking about me.”
“Wha… You think I would… I mean… I…”
“Those harlots in all those brothels you insist on visiting aren’t much older,” Evika said disapprovingly, “I bet some are even younger. With all the gold you waste in those places, no telling what twisted shit you are into.”
“You actually think I spend as much gold as I do for ass?!?” David shouted angrily, “There is no way that’s even possible! Do you know what the jackals that run those pits charge for one of those people, not harlots, Evika, people! People who don’t want to be there!”
“I… I don’t know.”
“That’s right!” David shouted, “You don’t know because you don’t care. They are just some ‘NPC’s’, just some background for your own stupid personal isekai slice-of-life love story. They are people, just like ‘we don’t need to waste a healing potion even though we have hundreds’ Petunia over there. Oh, you care when you think Rod is sneaking a peek, but when she was in agony, you didn’t give a fuck, did you?”
“I…”
“You champions are all the same!” David shouted. “You just walk over the little NPC’s like they don’t matter, just like you did in your sheltered, privileged, safe little lives before you got reincarnated into another privileged life! You make me sick, all of you!”
“My life was not privileged!”
“Oh, really,” David yelled, his façade slipping, “What was the worst thing you faced, did some boy in high school not like you? Or, maybe, you weren’t pretty enough?”
“Fuck you, David!” Evika yelled, her eyes filled with pain.
“Looks like I hit a nerve,” David laughed, “Do you mean that your new face is actually an improv-“
A blast of magical energy lifted David off his feet, scorching his armor and hurling him into a tree.
“You crazy bitch… I’m…”
David fell silent as he saw the tears streaming down Evika’s anguished face.
Evika fled, dragging a still floating and now genuinely screeching Petunia careening through the trees after her.
The three remaining champions all stood in shocked silence after she departed.
If they had been listening carefully, they would have heard the eager munching of popcorn…
“Oh, she’s good.” a tiny voice whispered from a nearby bush.
“Hush. She’s about to make her move,” another little voice quietly purred, “You are about to witness monstrous perfection.”
***
“If you weren’t spending the gold on what we thought you were spending it on,” Stephan asked, “What were you buying in those places?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because if we remain together as a team, I want to know what I am risking my life over.”
“What does it matter? You are risking your life for your cut and share of the expee. What I do with my cut is none of your business!”
“Humor me.”
“Fine,” David replied, “I wasn’t renting whores. I was buying them. I was paying off their debts or sometimes just buying them like livestock and getting them out of there. I found out real quick that if I just charged in there kicking ass, it would just be worse when I left. So, I started just… buying people’s freedom, where I could and when I could.”
“Admirable,” Stephan said, “Why didn’t you tell us? I would have donated at least some of my proceeds.”
“Because I didn’t want to get shit over it,” David snapped, “You assholes would have just complained that I was wasting gold that I should have been spending on gear that I never use or another magic sword I don’t need.”
“And that’s why you never gain levels,” Roderick scoffed, “You waste your resources on…”
“On what, Rod?” David snarled, “Say it.”
David reached for his broadsword.
“Fucking say it. I dare you.”
“Why do you care?” Roderick demanded, “Besides, we are helping! We are protecting all of those people you care so much about.”
“That’s what they always say!” David said as he advanced toward Roderick. “They are always helping. They say that they are protecting you when the shells blow your home apart! That mine that killed your sister? It was placed there to protect you! The soldiers that take the last of your food and… use… your mother? They are protecting you! Those noble sacrifices? It’s always the little NPC’s that make them. It’s always the invisible NPC’s that suffer! ‘Noble champions’ like us don’t suffer. The fireballs and arrows just bounce off. But that town that got burned to the ground so we could have a ‘quest’? Their homes are gone! That body you stepped over? That isn’t some 3D model. That was a person! This is just a game to you, and that’s why I hate you, Roderick. At least Stephan gives a shit.”
David sighed.
“This party is dead. There’s no point waiting, and if I spend one more second looking at you, we really will find out who would win.”
He turned his back on Roderick and started walking towards the road.
He looked back.
“You coming?” he asked Stephan.
“Yeah,” Stephan replied. “I’m sure the mighty Roderick can protect the two fair damsels until The Avengers arrive. Tell Evika farewell for me.”
***
Evika, trying not to cry, silently washed in the nearby creek.
“Um,” Petunia uncomfortably asked, “could you pass the soap?”
“Oh, yeah… sorry…”
Petunia sighed as she removed her shredded clothes and artfully lathered up, the suds just barely concealing what they needed to.
“Um… Petunia,” Evika said quietly, “I need to talk to you about something.”
“What?”
“You are reaching a certain age, an age where boys… and men… are going to notice you.”
“Yeah?” Petunia asked expectantly. Evika was about to expose her throat.
“You probably don’t realize it, but you need to be more… careful… with how you act and how you move. It… It might send the wrong message, and that isn’t safe. I hate that it’s this way but not every man is as decent as the ones in my party, even David… Some men, well… they aren’t nice, and you should be more careful about… and this isn’t your fault. Never feel that way! It’s just that the world isn’t always a nice place…”
Petunia maintained her “innocently oblivious” expression but sighed inwardly. Evika should be furious and jealous, not concerned. Was she losing her touch?
“You’re just afraid that I’m going to steal your man!” Petunia said with a perfectly malicious tone even though her heart wasn’t into it anymore.
“Oh, he’s made it perfectly clear that he is not,” Evika replied with pain in her voice. “I am such an idiot… But… This isn’t about me. This is about you. We don’t have a lot of time before the Avengers arrive, and before they do, I wanted to speak with you privately… Petunia? You just said that I was afraid you were ‘stealing’ Roderick. Are you? Are you doing this intentionally?”
Petunia made a petulantly angry face while she was inwardly more than a little confused. What was Evika getting at?
“So what if I am? You afraid of a little competition? Boys like me!”
“And I can see why,” Evika said gently, “You are a beautiful young woman… but… I know that there are differences in culture between here and where I come from but still… you are awfully young to be acting this way. Where I come from, this is sometimes called acting out and can be a sign that someone has… well… hurt you.”
Wha?!? Pantsu was genuinely surprised. Was this… Was this actually new?!? She reflexively tried to query her memories in cold storage, but she wasn’t fully networked. If this had happened before, it certainly wasn’t a frequent occurrence.
“Has someone done something to you that made you feel uncomfortable or that you didn’t want? If so, will you be safe if you return home? Petunia, I’m leaving the party the moment I know you are safely with the Avengers or the iron rated team, but that doesn’t have to happen. I might not be the mighty Roderick,” she sneered, “But I am a gold rated sorceress. I’m fairly certain that I can protect you until I can get you somewhere you would be safe… If you aren’t.”
Petunia’s expression turned angry as Pantsu’s resolve further weakened. Evika, despite her best efforts, actually cared about “Petunia’s” well-being.
It annoyed her. She had a job to do, and if that meant kicking a puppy, then a puppy she would kick.
“You’re just jealous, you stupid ugly butterface! No wonder why nobody loves you!”
Evika flinched, and tears started to form as she sat heavily in the creek with a sad little splash.
“Please don’t,” she said. “I know you are feeling angry and maybe a little threatened, but please, don’t call me that. It… No. This is about you.”
“Goddamn it,” Petunia sighed. “Okay, I give up. You win.”
“What?” Evika asked.
“What?!?” a tiny demoness hissed in complete shock.
“But, before I go with Plan B,” Petunia smiled gently, “I just gotta know, what is the deal with that word?”
“If I tell you,” Evika said, “will you tell me the truth about your situation at home.”
“Promise,” Petunia said, placing her hand on her bubble-censored chest. “Complete honesty. You might not like it, though.”
“We’ll handle it together,” Evika smiled as she laid her hand gently on Petunia’s shoulder. “Okay,” she said, “do you know that all champions come from somewhere else?”
“No, really?”
“It’s pretty well known, but this is a fairly remote area. All champions come from another world much different than this one. We were chosen by the goddess Trixx when we decided to risk or sacrifice our lives to protect an innocent person. Because of this, we were given powers and asked to help this world in its fight against the Demon King. On our original world, we weren’t all that powerful. We were just normal people, like you.”
Evika looked down.
“There, I wasn’t the prettiest person,” she said sadly, “I was ugly. I wasn’t just fat, or clumsy, or whatever. I was ugly. I was so ugly that people would laugh and call me names, bully me, and treat me like I wasn’t even a person. It just got worse as I got older. I starved and worked out and did everything I could, but I couldn’t lose my face. It was just… wrong…”
The tears started to quietly flow.
“That insult, butterface… It’s from my home world… It was my name!!!” she said with an anguished wail. “It was the only name some people knew me by! It… It…”
She smiled weakly.
“You wouldn’t know what it’s like. You’re beautiful and will only get more beautiful as you grow. As little a thing as David made ‘not being pretty’ out to be, it was horrible. In the end, I didn’t even want friends anymore. I just wanted to be left alone. The worst part was when guys would ask me out on a date. It was so cruel. After the first time or two, I knew it was a lie, or worse, someone literally just wanted… and sometimes I would agree… So, then I was both ugly and a slut…”
“Wow…” Petunia/Pantsu said, the illusion starting to slip. “That’s… That’s fucked up, dude.”
“Right?” Evika laughed ruefully, too distracted to realize that it wasn’t Petunia sitting across from her anymore. “You want to know my big secret, Petunia? The reason why I am done with all of this for good?”
“Is it even more fucked up?”
“The fucked uppest,” Evika snickered, “I didn’t belong in my old world. That you can figure out. But I don’t belong here either. You know that ‘noble sacrifice’, that big decision that all champions made to earn their place here? Let’s just say that it wasn’t a hard choice for me. I had already made it.”
“Oh, fuck me…” Pantsu winced. “You were going to off yourself.”
“Yeah,” Evika sighed, “probably later that day. I will spare you the details, but I just had the worst day of my life, and… that was it… I just couldn’t… couldn’t…”
She looked down.
“I just couldn’t do it anymore… So, when I saw that kid and that truck, I literally dove at the chance. I wasn’t trying to save that kid. Oh, I wanted the kid to make it, but that’s not why I jumped in front of that truck.”
She chuckled ruefully.
“I actually thought that the universe was finally cutting me a break, but no… Instead, I find myself in a fucking isekai because of my ’courage and sacrifice’ when I was committing the ultimate act of selfishness and cowardice. How fucked up is that?”
She looked over at what was now Pantsu looking at her with ancient and sad eyes.
Pantsu gave her a gentle and sympathetic little smile.
“I don’t know why I’m dumping all of this on you,” Evika said.
“Because you are tired of hurting,” Pantsu replied. “I am so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I actually feel bad about this, you know.”
“Feel bad about... what?!?”
Evika looked around in surprise. She was no longer sitting naked by a creek but fully clothed on the tile floor of a richly furnished study.
She scrambled to her feet and whirled to face a halfling sitting behind a desk, her hands raised and reaching for magical energy that wasn’t there!
“What… What’s going on?”
The halfling just smiled reassuringly as Evika realized that there was something sticking to her forehead.
It was a blue post-it note covered with strange, tightly packed runes.
“Now, don’t feel bad…” the halfling said sympathetically.