Their journey through the fabric accelerated as the chaos-storms slowly died down. With Okrin sealed, the environment in between universes because a more easily habitable place, though he suspected most of the life would die off without the extra food source.
Still, days later, they were only about thirty percent of the way to the other side… so Dei called it, and dubbed it time for a long-range teleport. He knew they’d get caught in a few traps, but the domain of Edit was something they were familiar with, so he’d know how to react to different threats.
Taking his party, he set his eyes for Earth and slipped between locations, thankfully feeling it pull in the correct direction.
* * *
Madriti fought to stay awake at the control panel, clicking one of two buttons: red or green.
Her job was to watch the Mnemonic Connection Memory Engine, or MCME for short. It was a hyper-advanced piece of technology that tagged anything in relation to a designated set of memories by drawing a continuous string of thought between them. The MCME linked with something called the “True Void,” which was supposedly an utterly uninhabitable, insanely toxic place that would kill anything that touched it.
Well, anything but their targets: Void Beasts. The only things capable of withstanding the space between all.
The MCME worked by storing the memory of a person, then allowing that person to live out their lives. When they died, a resonance would be formed as the MCME detected Void Beasts that’d eaten the memories of the one who’d passed away. Using this connection, the MCME would “Reel in” the Void Beast, to be contained, processed, and transformed into a valuable pseudo-physical elixir that granted… something amazing. She wasn’t sure, as she was far too low-level to ever see the final produce.
‘I’m a fisherman in a way,’ she thought with a chuckle, ‘Put some memory bait on my hook and reel in the bigguns.’
Alas, it was not a perfect process. The machine couldn’t detect memories or continuity perfectly, which is why she was required with her red-and-green buttons. She’d look at the resonance, see if the chances of pulling something up were high enough, and press green if it was, or red if the energy expenditure wouldn’t be worth it.
She got a tag, compared the domestic memory to the foreign resonance and, seeing they were only slightly related, pressed red.
Red again.
Red.
Red.
Green? The machine comes up empty, a false alarm.
Red.
Red…
The machine suddenly goes haywire, and she snaps up. The screen draws connections between a memory and another entity traveling through the Void, but something’s off- it’s not just a single foreign memory, but an entire entity.
She’s dumbstruck for half a second, not because she doesn’t know what it is, but because she realizes some idiot took Void as their affinity! Interfering with MCME procedures will always get you executed, ten times out of ten. People have similar experiences all the time, so it’s easier to simply not earn the affinity in the first place to avoid consequences.
She scowls, having been taught the protocol long ago, and presses Green while also clicking the button under the table, calling for security.
She looks at another screen, seeing the room meant to contain anything hooked fill with not one but four creatures.
Seeing them, she’s filled with fear. An elf, a human, a hooded figure, and some kind of goliath deep-sea abyssal creature.
None of these are native to her world, these are Realmwalkers. Real Realmwalkers.
Before she can even click another button to heighten the danger rating, the thorned vines extend from the bottom of the starry cloak, punching into the walls and trying to tear out the paneling.
The group seems surprised they aren’t able to immediately break through, but Maditri wants to vomit at the display of power. Those walls are meant to contain Void Beasts.
Instead of brute forcing it, the plant-person uses the punctures in the alloy to fill the sensitive electrical parts with ripping tendrils, severing the enchantments and technology.
Seconds later, they’re gone. She isn’t looking forward to becoming the scapegoat for the destruction of such sensitive machinery, she can only sigh in relief that it didn’t evolve into some kind of interdimensional terrorist attack…
* * *
Four Void traps, that’s what they were caught in, and by the end a pattern had emerged.
They were all spherical rooms with insanely durable walls, clearly meant to hold something, and magitech masterpieces. If he had more time, he’d look into what they did, because it seems that “Void traps” are part of the end-goal for all societies, or at least, all societies they ran into.
It’s already been more than twice as long as he wanted to be away from Avium though, so no time to stop. Besides, Aloran mentioned that Avium was once a hyper-advanced society, so he’ll probably know something about it.
In the end, they make it back to Earth without any real trouble, and he stops by to check on his family while letting Jacob, Thadria, and Perumah do their things.
Their old house is, as suspected, walled off. Instead, he goes down to Agartha, to one of the richer areas where his mom said they’d chosen their new house.
* * *
Standing in front of the building, Dei simply admires the work.
“Well damn,” he hears himself saying, as the entire building is a perfect 1:1 recreation of his childhood home.
Walking up to the door, he knocks on it and hears his mom yell “One moment!”
An oven door opens and closes, the sink runs, and he she walks up to the door opening it. There’s a smile on her face until she sees it’s Dei, and it transforms into something waning and fragile.
She knows what him being back means. He's about to enter quarantine, and the chances of them ever seeing each other again will practically disappear.
When he was adventuring around the universe, she could at least say he was within reach but… not anymore. Not when he leaves. This time, it will be for good.
He leans down, pulling her into a hug, and they stay that way for several seconds.
When she pulls away, she has tears in her eyes, but still smiles at him. “You grew a bit, didn’t you?”
He realizes that he’s the natural height of around eight feet tall and laughs, feeling himself choke up. He can only nod, as he doesn’t trust himself to talk right now.
She invites him in, and he shrinks down while admiring how closely everything is to how he remembers it.
* * *
Dad, Sophie, and Jack are all at work right now, but his mom is more than happy to have some time with him. She said that Sophie’s going to be the first one home, and she gets here in about an hour
In the meantime, his mom tells him everything that’s changed. The Champion’s spell slowly wore off the population, but they were so used to magic being real by that point that there was no panic. Instead, there are now online celebrities dedicated to finding and recording the battles between Elite and the monsters created by wandering echoes similar to the one Dei created after his death.
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On top of that, Agartha has become common knowledge, and a hub for Elite activity, as they work to establish balance between people’s affinities. Not every affinity has a counterpart, so they’re experimenting with Dei’s Personal affinity left behind in tandem with a “Partnership” program to create different ways to oppose the overflow madness by putting two people into a contract together, such as what his parents have.
It’s working… better. Although it isn’t the best, they estimate that it’ll increase Elite longevity by somewhere between ten to fifty years.
With Agartha openly stating its existence as well as the hand it plays in most governments, Earth is facing a time of unprecedented stability. Though Agartha doesn’t control everyone, they have backers in most places that no longer have to hide.
On top of that, Dei’s Land Betweens are allowing them to create more soldiers dedicated to containing the problems left behind by echoes, so the safety of the magical world is increasing too.
Agartha has certain universities in its city that apparently allow its top performers to become Elite if they want to take up a military route, and they do accept foreign students, so there’s a lot of competition to make it into these prestigious institutions.
Overall, Earth’s been improved, and he’s glad his family lives here. He thought about taking them to Avium along with him, but he’d have to separate them from everyone they’ve ever known to bring them into a massive war, so he’s not even going to give them the option.
While everything about the planet is nice to hear, he asks her more about them specifically, because his family are the only ones he really cares about.
“What happened with my affinity by the way?” he asks, “The link you and dad shared.”
“It’s helpful!” she tells him, “It makes containing his Wrath a hundred times easier because it lets us share mana quicker and it tells me when he needs my help. I could already tell when he needed me before, but now I can tell when he’s not even here.”
“What about the mana storage I got him? Is he not using it?”
Dei had bought many mana batteries in Gate City, giving most of them to Agartha to help with the worst cases of people losing control. He’d gifted the highest quality one to his father, as it was supposedly rated for powering city defenses, and there was no chance he could ever fill the entire thing.
True, it was the size of a minifridge, but he had no doubt his dad found a way to move it to the new house with his incredible strength.
“He is…” his mom says hesitantly, “But now that madness isn’t going to be an issue… and Agartha is taking care of us and they say they’re doing some intense research into finding a permanent cure… well…”
“...What? What happened.”
“Your father and I decided to become mages together!” she finally tells him. “I got the Kindness affinity from your spell place thing, and he said he wants to see how far he can take his Wrath since he can’t go insane anymore. Now, he’d almost constantly topped up on Wrath, experimenting with it. He even got a job researching the different ways one can use Wrath mana, outside of the obvious.”
“Ma, why would I have a problem with that?” he asked, smiling.
“We felt a little silly when we were deciding this, because you’d just saved your father, and we decided to lean into what almost killed him? We didn’t want to seem ungrateful. Not to mention how we aren’t using your battery as much as we could be, and it seems so expensive!” she practically shouted, splaying her arms out over the counter as she spoke animatedly.
He laughed, “Ma, I’m not going to say you should do one thing or the other. As long as you’re happy, that’s the only thing I want. I don’t blame you for wanting magic, I’d probably do the same if our situations were reversed. As long as you’re aware of the risks, I trust you and dad to keep each other in check.”
“Well good! Sophie and Jack decided it wasn’t for them though, and I can’t say I blame them. It can be difficult to train my Kindness without going on some kind of… helping spree, if that makes sense. Your father’s been good to me, and guides me through the worst of it.”
“He would know, I’m sure. I’ll still never be able to understand how he could curry his Wrath without his own containment spell…”
“He didn’t boy, he’s a vicious man to anyone he doesn’t like; I’m not complaining though! I love how explosive he can get. Speaking of… How are you and Perumah?” she asked, leaning forward.
He didn’t let anything show on his face. “What do you mean?”
“Are together yet or not?!” she openly asked, and he laughed.
“What makes you think we’ll get together?”
“You didn’t say no! It’s true!”
“It’s a complicated question mom, she physically cannot feel love, you know that right?”
“Yes, but I thought you said that was only temporary? You’re a man and a woman journeying the multiverse for months, I’d be more surprised if nothing formed from that.”
“Well, you’re kind of correct. She can’t feel love, and that might change in the future, but we aren’t sure. Like I said, a complicated situation, but my working solution is to just play it by ear. If her personality allows for her to express love once it’s all said and done, I’d be more than happy to marry someone so beautiful and reliable. Otherwise, it’s not going to work out long-term anyway.”
“Oooohh,” his mother said cattily, gently slapping him on the arm, “Talking about marriage already?”
He guffawed, “I feel like you didn’t hear most of what I said.”
“I did! But it’ll be so much easier to imagine I’m meeting your future wife. I want to know who you’re going to love, and I want her to be good. Perumah seems… odd, but sweet. I give her my full approval! And even if I can’t meet them, you better have kids.”
He fought a blush, “I’m sure that will mean a lot to her, and thank you mom, I will. I just don’t want to fully commit myself to something before the most important part is revealed. She cares about me, true, and but neither of us would be happy if she ends up not being able to feel love. I’d be in pain because none of my emotions are reciprocated to the same degree, and she’d feel ashamed that she would fail at something. Perumah takes duty very seriously, and I don’t think she’d be happy with a sub-par outcome, she’d probably end up choosing another person instead that would match her new personality better than I.”
“Aaagh!” his mom shouted covering her ears, “Don’t say that! Don’t say that! I don’t want you to break down what it means to be in a relationship, just follow your heart or something! Or say you love and that you’ll do anything for her!”
He laughed boisterously at his mom once more, “I do love her, and I would do anything for her, but relationships are complicated ma.”
“Not mine…”
“Well you’re lucky, my luck has proven to be quite terrible.”
She pouted, but still said “I know, and I still am very proud of you for being so mature about it. But could you promise me that you’ll at least give her a chance?”
“I was going to do that anyway, she really is a good woman.”
“Okay good. That means you two are getting married to me, because people always say they’ll ‘See’ after the first date, and then get too attached. Ha!”
He could only roll his eyes at her antics, she was probably going to treat Perumah like his only option no matter what, because she was the only known one anyway.
They heard the door unlock, and turned towards it. “Sophie’s home,” his mom said, and they got up to greet her.
When she came in, she ran to Dei and gave him a hug. After embracing for a few seconds, she said “You’re still wearing the same outfit…” directly into his chest, and he groaned.
* * *
He went to take a sip of his water when Sophia suddenly asked “Are you and Perumah married yet?” making him choke and cough.
“You did that on purpose” he finally said, and she grinned evilly at him “Is that the only thing you people talk about? Whether I’m going to date Perumah or not?”
“If only,” Sophia sighed exaggeratedly, “Jack and dad don’t care.”
“Oscar cares,” his mother corrected, “He just doesn’t think it’s our business to talk about.”
“He’s right,” Dei said drily.
They both looked at him for a second before synchronizing a “Naahhh.”
* * *
Jack’s main question was thankfully different as he asked “Are the parallel Champions all insanely powerful?” and “What kind of things do they fight?” which made Dei launch into a retelling of Okrin’s battle.
His dad wanted to know how his Personal affinity was doing, and how it’d grown stronger. He also not-so-subtly requested that Dei give them a little secret Land Between under the house, which made his mom shoot him a withering glare, shutting down the operation before it even happened.
“Why? So we can lose this house too? No! Just wait in line like everyone else if you want to use the temples.”
His dad sulked good-heartedly, and they all laughed at his expense.
‘I’m really going to miss this kind of thing,’ he realized, ‘There are no threats on Earth. No fear. When I’m on Avium, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to truly let my guard down?’
He didn’t think so but… it wouldn’t be the worst. He’d still have a family he loved and could be with. They would protect each other.
‘It’ll be love of a different kind.’
That wouldn’t make him cherish the moment any less.
