Starlit Heroics: A Spectrum of Hate

"Hmmm.... So if it's not affected by Space magic... Whoa!" - Telgard remarks as the jaws come toward him.

Telgard reflexively brings out his sword and envelops it with a blackish-red aura. He charges towards the jaws and slams his sword against the ground. A pitch-black substance oozes out of the blade and encroaches onto the beast.

"I just hope we have the same elements..." - He says with a cold sweat.

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"... Oh dear, this could be worse than we thought." - Ryuno sighs.

"I think we wound up on a parallel universe, sis. That could explain why there's a Ventureni but no Librata!" - Canopy yells out with a stunned look on her face.

"Do you think we might not be the only ones? There might be a global scale space-time distortion on our hands!" - Ryuno remarks with a visibly distressed frown.

The clockwork monster began to claw its way out of the ground. It didn't react directly to Telgard's magic attack, but the void ooze caused the oil to sizzle and boil. When the attack was finished, a section of the oil coating on the underside of the beast's neck and chest was missing, exposing its shiny metal interior.

"Hm, I wonder..." Nintendria mumbled. He pushed a sound blast at the head of the crocodile, just as it finished climbing out of its hole. The magic attack created a similar reaction on the oil near the beast's right eye.

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"P-Parallel universe?" Teruchi exclaimed. "That's a bit of a leap wouldn't you say?"

Then why do they say they're from a place that doesn't exist, Teruchi thought. Because they're nuts, obviously. But I thought I was the one who's nuts...

"That must be what it's weak to." Jaz muttered.  "If I was trained in magic, I'd be up there helping too. It'd probably shake off punches pretty easily...so..."

What kind of mess had she gotten herself into?

"But go on guys, go kill...whatever that is! I, uh, I believe in you!"

Telgard cracks a smile as he swings his blade against the exposed areas.

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"You see, there's a place called Librata that serves as the Kingdom of Balance. We live there, but due to... something, we wound up here. There's quite a distance between Ventureni and Librata, so we can't just get there by walking... or floating, in my case." - Ryuno remarks.

"The fact Librata isn't an instantly known name tipped us off, because that's one of the most influential countries back where we live. We assumed parallel universe because... well, again, there's a Ventureni just like in our universe. If it were any other name, I would have assumed we wound up in a completely different world altogether." - Canopy nods.

This poor man probably thinks we're insane. This will be tough to swallow. - Ryuno remarks in her head.

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Titania sits back in Nintendria Castle and takes another sip of her tea.

"Ah... A question. What's your history, anyway? I can't think straight, so go with me on this one, but... what have you people accomplished in the past that's made you so close?" - She states as she looks at the others.

Queen Diana gives her a confused glare.

"Odd question. Why the sudden interest?" - She asks.

"I mean... I'm sick and there's nothing I can really do but wait for Dan to come back, so... of course. Plus I like hearing how people get together and all that junk." - Titania smiles.

The metal plating and inner gears crack beneath the strikes of Telgard's sword. The beast lurched forward and its neck stiffened as the clockwork jammed. Its eyes blinked red.

"D-damn, you have quite a swing," Nintendria complimented.

But the beast wasn't done yet. Its legs could still move, and it spun around to whip the four of them with its undamaged tail. Nintendria noticed the attack but hesitated a moment too long to respond. The tail was still covered in the acidic oil, and the four were just too far apart to quickly teleport away. Just as the tail was about to hit, a large object, nearly half the size of a man, shot by like a missile and blasted the tail apart.

Nintendria looked at the origin of the missile to see Ranthael, nonchalantly walking toward the monster. He swooped down and grabbed a small stone, only as large as a coin, and threw it. The stone quickly grew in size and accelerated to an inhuman speed to nearly obliterate one of the monster's legs.

"I have to say I'm quite disappointed in you Nintendria," Ranthael said. "I've already thought of five different ways to defeat this... thing, and yet you're here having trouble."

"Hey! Not all of us are Gods of Balance and can... open a fissure to the center of the planet to melt it!"

"...six different ways."

The metal lizard groaned with failing machinery and flailed, spewing more of its oil.

"Sure doesn't give up," Ranthael mumbled, throwing up a magical shield. Some of the oil still spattered through, making Ranthael flinch in pain where it hit him.

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Teruchi crossed his arms and studied the two girls. What was their angle? Maybe they recognized him as the prince and decided to blackmail his family. Maybe they were crazy serial killers. Maybe this was the longest setup for the most elaborate pickup line in history.

Regardless, Teruchi was curious to see where this was going.

"Ok..." he nodded. "So, let's say you are in a parallel world. You trying to get back to your universe? You uh... know how to do that?"

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"Our history?" Serafina thought for a moment. "Well, all us royals have known each other for a while. But the rest of us met up... Geez, it's kind of a long story, isn't it?"

Dante nodded. "Start the abridged version at Zemphriea?"

"That's a good idea. So right, back a while ago, the Moon Kingdom Zemphriea became corrupted by an evil God named Xerizero. We originally went to fight Zemphriea, but once we realized what had happened, we went to Ethernealrus - that's another plante - to save an important artifact from him, and then to Cerphixen -that's his planet- to defeat Xerizero for good!"

"You make a lot of friends saving the world together," Dante added.

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"And here's the portal to Ethernealrus."

Daniel, Merrick, and Purple stood at the entryway to the portal.

"Pretty neat, huh?" Daniel asked.

"Looks like any old portal to me," Merrick replied.

"Man, you're hard to impress," Purple said. "You had a lot of cool Chaos Reaper portals as a kid?"

"For the last time, just because my family was a part of the Chaos Reapers, doesn't mean I knew anything about them. And no we didn't have portals."

"But... you had to though," Daniel said. "The Chaos Reapers mostly operated on Xephixir, but their main grave site is on Ethernealrus. So they had to have a way to travel between the planets."

Merrick blinked and scratched his head. "Huh... I guess you're right."

"Man, such a long way to a gravesite," Purple said.

"Must have been important."

"Who knows."

As Jaz watched the battle, she finally recognized the guy fighting.

"No way, is that Prince Telgard?" 

She had heard of him and seen pictures, but never saw him in the flesh.

"Hope he doesn't get himself killed, then."

As the tail whipped by, she braced herself. When nothing hit, she opened her eyes to see Ranthael go to town on the beast.

Wait, Ranthael?

Jaz fell deep into thought.

Nah, it can't be.

Doesn't Ranthael have bunny ears and such? I thought I heard that from somewhere.

And Ranth would not be caught dead in such a stupid leather jacket.

As the shield came up, her thoughts concluded.

Well, better bite the bullet...

"Uh, hello. Thanks....for saving us?" Jaz asked. "I'm just...you remind me of someone I've heard stories about. I mean, uh, dumb as that sounds? But...there are some things that are, uh, lacking? May I please ask for your name?"

Telgard chuckled when Ranthael made his entrance.

"Perhaps I should help with the seventh." - He sneers as he slides away from the oil, his sword pulsing with a black aura.

He takes a swing and fires off a wave of darkish-red energy that splatters against the mechanical beast with more of the dark ooze.

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The girls shook their heads.

"Not at all. Our mother and one of our sisters tell us about space magic and how it works, but we don't have the slightest grasp of how to use it. I'm afraid we might be stuck here." - Ryuno sighs.

Canopy gives both of them a sour glare and shrugs.

"Hey, I think we've bothered this guy enough. Let's just go, sis."

"Ah... I'm truly sorry for taking up your time, sir. If you'll excuse us." - Ryuno states.

The two sisters turn around and make their way for the distance Teruchi pointed at.

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Titania's eyes sparkle with excitement as she hears the others recount the story while Queen Diana tilts her head at the name Xerizero.

"His name is what? I don't think I've ever heard of it in our world." - She says with a hand to her chin.

“L-lacking?”

Ranthael’s expression turned half puzzled and half embarrassed, and he could barely keep his eyes from darting down. Nintendria’s face turned deep red, but he didn’t make a move to respond.

“I’m… Ranthael…” the God responded hesitantly. Who was this person that looked just like him but better endowed? What stories were being spread about him now? Wait what was he saying, this girl clearly didn’t mean that.

“So uh… about…” Ranthael was interrupted by Telgard’s attack on the clockwork monster. The ooze lessened the blow, sizzling at the touch of the energy wave, but the attack still hit with enough force to cause sparks inside the monster. It stopped flailing and the lights in its eyes flickered off.

“…Impressive. You said you were from another universe? Hm…” Ranthael closed his eyes and thought for a moment. “I don’t suppose this monster is familiar to you then?”

“Huh?” Nintendria questioned. “Why would you…?”

“Well, considering it appears to be man-made, it’s possible it was built in our world. But don’t you think it’s a bit suspicious that two separate objects - well an object and a person - just so happened to appear in exactly the same space?”

Nintendria was taken aback by the insinuation. “So… what you’re saying is…”

Ranthael crossed his arms in all seriousness. “I’m saying there’s a rip in space. Right here. In fact, there’s four of them that opened up. Today.”

——

Teruchi watched the two girls go. Hm, so they weren’t after anything from him. Maybe, they still had time to turn around. Or for something to jump out at him while he was distracted.

…

“So you know I know some people who can use Space magic.” Teruchi ran up beside the two. “I uh, I have some… I know people. Powerful people. The best actually. At Space magic. Could take you to them. If you want.”

————

“Xerizero? Well consider yourself lucky. I wouldn’t wish Xerizero’s existence on anyone’s universe,” Serafina said.

“I dunno I was genuinely curious if he turned out to be a good guy too,” Dante muttered. “But yeah, Xerizero was the son of Puritus. He corrupted a whole planet, killed almost everyone who lived on it, tried to corrupt ours… Pretty bad guy really.”

"...Wait." Jaz muttered. "...Wait, what? ...You're saying Telgard's from another universe but...he's from mine..."

Jaz started laughing.

"Holy crap, you actually expect me to believe I slid universes or some shit!" she cackled. "Alright, kiddos, saw through your prank. Quit it with the space jam, you clowned me good. Musta put a lot o' work into that robot thing, though. That's hella sweet at least. Now listen, there's a bar in Shadre I'm playing in tomorrow...how far did you fuckers teleport me?"

"No, I can't say I recognize that creature from anywhere. It seems to be a construct unique to this world..." - Telgard pondered.

When Ranthael mentioned the details about spatial rifts, Telgard made a curious grin.

"Four rifts in space? Now that's an interesting piece of info. Maybe more of my friends came through." - He says as he puts a hand to his chin.

He hears Jaz's remarks and glances over to her with a confused glare.

"... Excuse me? Prank? What the hell kind of prank would involve someone we don't even know dropping in out of the sky while we fight off some crazy robotic crocodile? Given that you mentioned Shadre, I can tell that you're from Divixus. Well, I'm sorry to break it to you, but we're not in Divixus anymore. This is a parallel world... Oh, and just for the record? Yes, I am Telgard. The very same crown prince of Librata." - He says as he crosses his arms.

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Canopy and Ryuno turn around when they hear Teruchi approach them.

"Oh! You know people that can do Space Magic? Excellent." - Ryuno says with a smile.

"Are you sure this is a good idea though, sis? We barely know this guy." - Canopy frowns as she looks over to her sister.

"Uh, it's fine guys. Obviously this is going to be very confusing..." Ranthael said, though he didn't seem particularly authoritative in trying to diffuse Telgard's mannerism. "You can have Nintendria explain it to you, he probably has a better handle on the situation anyway."

"Not really," Nintendria responded.

"But, if this robot thing didn't come from your world... It's too coincidental that it happened to teleport right over a rip. Sigh..." Ranthael rubbed his forehead. "In any case, I should probably see if I can patch these space rips. Can't say I've ever done it before... And we may need Astra to make sure there's no time rips as well."

"Um... excuse me?" Adanna approached the group, holding her hands at her chest meekly. "I uh... um... Could you, maybe, teach me how to do that!? It was so cool! I promise I won't make fun of you again! Just... please? I have a sword but I've never used it before and I can't use magic but maybe if you taught me?"

Nintendria and Ranthael both glanced at one another.

"Yeah I'm busy, I'll let you take this one."

"H-hey!"

"Tell Astra about the rip thing for me, okay?"

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"Eheh... Yeah I guess it would require you to trust me... There's not really any reason for you to..."

On second thought please don't trust me, Teruchi thought. His adventures always ended in pain and misfortune for him. Not necessarily for anyone else though. Just him.

"Oh yeah, and I guess I heard that Ranthael's been missing, so I can't actually take you to the best. Not that I could get him to give me any of his time anyway..." Teruchi sagged in his walk. "On second thought, you should just see Kaze. Or Jade. They'll actually help you. I don't actually... Nevermind."

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“…and this is where we met the Shyrien tribe and helped them recover an old artifact…” Daniel explained as they walked through the Duskseal Forest.

“And you got into that fight with Kaj!” Purple added.

“…Thanks Purple,” Daniel crossed his arms. “Was going to skip over that one.”

“You got into a fight with Kaj?” Merrick perked up at the question. “What about?”

“It’s not really-“

“Over Luuuunaaaa,” Purple taunted, clasping his little dragon claws together and bringing them up to his face.

“Purple!”

“Should have known it was something stupid,” Merrick mumbled.

Daniel defiantly crossed his arms. He wanted to protest but knew it was better just to let the subject drop. It certainly wasn’t his brightest moment, and hard to believe it was less than a year ago. He felt that he changed so much since then.

“Hey,” Merrick interjected into his thoughts. “What’s Kaj like anyway?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I… don’t actually know much about him,” Merrick admitted. “I only really know him as an annoying eight year old kid. Now he's older than me... technically speaking. I guess I'm supposed to think of him as my brother, but... Just imagine some random guy coming up to you like, hey, we used to know each other way back when, and now we're family! It's just weird."

“Oh,” Daniel thought a moment. “Well, he can be pretty stubborn, and he loves to just snark from the back of the group, which can get really annoying. But, he’s a good guy I guess. Super afraid of undead things.”

“Oh, guess that makes sense."

"You hidden camera guys always are gonna try to one up another." Jaz continued, laughing. "And fuckin'...now I'm realizing you're all just fucking actors. Pretty sure there'd be like...ancient Libratan law that'd get you hung if you impersonated a royal. Nah, you'd probably get iron maidened...or maybe that one torture thing that involves a glass-."

She was interrupted as Adanna walked over.

"Nevermind that, you threw another innocent girl into your fucked up fantasy. Girlie, it's just smoke, mirrors, and illusion magic. Though...these guys seem pretty sold on their lie. Maybe y'all are stupid. Or delusional. But all I'm asking is.....prove it. Prove it right now. Give me evidence that I've entered a 'parallel universe'."

Telgard throws up his hands and sighs.

"You know what? Screw it. I'm done. You guys try explaining this stuff to her, because I'm outta here. See you back at the castle."

He charges towards the direction of Nintendria Castle and vanishes into thin air after the first few steps.

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Canopy frowns when she notices Teruchi's drooping disposition.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you! We're just cautious, is all."

"Hmm... Would it be too much for you to take us to them?" - Ryuno asks.

"B-but..." Adanna looked at Jaz. First she was chastised about not going along with their claims, and now she was being chastised about believing in them. "But... the monster..."

Ranthael stared at Jaz for a moment, lips tightly pursed. Nintendria could tell that he was thinking of all the ways he could "prove" his power. Teleport them to the moon? Summon a meteor above their heads?

"...You know what? Fine." Ranthael shrugged. "Go report us. It'll be fun. I've always wanted to escape an iron maiden."

"S-sir!?"

"You got us. My true identity is actually..." Ranthael walked over to the mechanical monster and lifted its head over his own. "The crocodile man! Or... that actually sounds a bit ridiculous when I say it out loud."

"Sir!"

"Nintendria please escort these two girls back to the castle so they may properly bring us to justice. I have to wave my hands at imaginary rips in space."

Nintendria groaned. "Whatever. I'm going to the castle just to report in to everyone, and then I'm going home. We can start our world tour tomorrow, but if you're serious about training, get a handful of empty crystal shells while we're in town. Understand?"

Adanna smiled and nodded. Seemed her faith in Nintendria's power hadn't faltered.

"And you," he put two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly, before turning to address Jaz. Not a few seconds later, and Nintendria's great dragon roared from the distance. It only took a few mighty wing flaps for the dragon to land beside the man.

"You can get on the damn dragon or walk back."

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“Sure… follow me.”

Teruchi sighed as he led the two towards Ventureni castle. What was worse, seeing all the people who probably still hated him, or his family again? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe they weren’t home and he could drop his new friends off and never see them again.

I wonder if mom misses me, he thought. Didn’t she adopt three new kids? Thanks mom.

“Oh wait, can you fly?” Teruchi asked. “We can get there a lot faster if you can. …I can probably assist if you can’t but… not for very long.”

"Hmmmph." Jaz said, getting on the dragon.

Sure, she didn't trust these guys, but she's not one to turn up a free ride. 

"Nice...nice dragon by the way." Jaz said. "Never...never seen any one like it before."

Must be some rare breed. There's no way I could have traversed universes like these guys claim, right?


"You know what, fuck, I'm not gonna report you." she muttered. "I'm just...so fucking disorientated. Like...everyone's claiming I traversed universes...and like shouldn't that be impossible? Like, I've wanted to, I've tried. Tried to make some multiuniverse radio to hear some jams, but of course, it didn't work. Maybe it's because I've given up on magic...maybe it's because I've given up on science."

Jaz put her face in her hands.

"Sorry for the fucking infodump." she moaned. "Just get me to the castle....Libratan or...whatever...wherever we are."