Vivi held back the night.

He was tired, his mana pool was numb, his heart was wrung dry of emotion and he didn't know how he was even still awake; yet his will still whispered, hold on.

He held on because if Vivi, that coward, ran others would die, again. He ran when the ritual went wrong all those years ago, he saved himself and the others were rendered impossible, wiped from the universe. He had to run, he told himself, he had to, otherwise the rift could have grown and become uncontrollable. He knew the truth though, that he had run because he was terrified.

He was terrified now, and even now he still felt that voice in his mind telling him to flee, telling him that he could still save himself.

Vivi always listened to that voice. His entire life, that voice kept him safe, yet, it also kept him alone. He'd been alone a long time listening to his fear, to his wisdom, and he couldn't stand it any longer. Better to die here than suffer an eternity of life, an eternity of running away and abandoning people in need. Better to have lived a short life of meaning than experience eternal emptiness.

The gremlins had formed a torus around their position, a thick ring with a hole in the center; their formation would look like a doughnut to a hungry person. They were methodical in their attack; those that could do magic, did so to the exclusive effect of keeping their enemies contained. Those who could fight rushed forward, always charging when Vivi's back was turned. Those who could neither fight nor do magic sung a gremlin's song, which in this event had both the energy and speed of 'Making Christmas' from Nightmare Before Christmas, but only the annoying and frightening parts.

All the while, the Eldest Gremlin of the Overcavern Forest held back his claws, held back his magic, held back his song and watched with patient, cautious eyes. He knew what a prize he'd stumbled on, not one, but two Quasar souls had wandered into his furry clutches.

Above them, the Bladed Slayer began to kick and heave inside of its yolk, its eyes fluttering like someone caught in a dream. The monstrosity had to have been a hundred and fifty feet tall, and it was waking up. The Eldest gremlin watched it, then spat, because he was completely out of time.

He put two fingers into his mouth, avoiding his jutting lower teeth, and whistled. Other Elders, who had been hidden in the crowd, revealed themselves and rushed towards their leader.

Vivi, watching this, sent an earthen spike at them, but the spell was intercepted.

All the while, Ben's world was confined to sight that was white static, and sensation which was only pain. He kept trying to get up, but fell back down with each effort. Forget about flying, he was like a big, clumsy male ant crawling on the ground, waiting to get picked up by drones, have his wings cut off and be used by the queen to spawn-

Ben's brain clenched, and he screamed in agony. He needed to black out, but he couldn't even rest!

Short Bus was unaccustomed to being bothered by pain as a general concept. Sharks don't have much use for it in the ocean, and his experiences with pain thus far left him feeling superior and above such puny inconveniences. In this moment, he was learning what every other creature knew; pain was the worst. The massive shark-man screamed, his voice both physical and psychic, sending a fresh wave of agony through the mana-stricken party and disrupting everyone else for a moment.

Ghost Ears had just straight up gone blind and numb, he was the only member of the party to have any sense of relief out of this mess. His senses would come back with his mana, but for now he was paralyzed and laying on the ground with blind eyes.

Red. . . now she was in the same pain as everyone else, but the thing about Red was, this was nothing new. Before being plucked from The Beyond, she had spent eternity, like, from deep cosmic night to the current cosmic sunrise on the battlefields of forever, the warring ground where possible futures fought it out to be expressed.

She was no stranger to this situation, even though it was her first time experiencing it in such vivid and exquisite detail. The pain meant nothing to her, and in truth, it was just another sensation she wanted to explore. What mattered was her inability to move, and what mattered even more than that was killing the gremlins.

She turned her antlered head to face a dead gremlin and wrinkled her nose in disgust. She had no time to contemplate what it meant, to contemplate her new role in the eternal war against chaos or the unique position she found herself in. She had no time to revel in the sheer physicality of her new nature, as much as she would have liked to. Instead, she only had time for this.

She extended a shaky, weak arm, her eyes of energy dim from her lack of magic, her own natural powers suppressed by the gremlin’s song. Instead she used the ability which The System had gifted her, the ability which he claimed was equal to levels and classes and skills.

“[System Looting],” she said in her deep, hoarse voice, and options became available in her mind. They didn't need a sword, or a neatly bundled gremlin pelt, or raw gremlin steaks, or any of the other numerous ways the corpse could be transformed.

What they needed was what they got. The gremlin's body dissolved into nothing and left in its place was a paper star standing on two points. It was deep blue, almost purple, and would always appear to be facing whoever was looking at it. Red snarled when she saw it was out of reach, and part crawled, part dragged herself towards the new item.

To her it felt like an eternity, but in reality it only took a few seconds. She cried out, her new abdominal muscles yelping in agony as she extended herself out, her fingertips just barely, just barely able to brush against the innocent looking paper star, and the second she did; the pain lessened dramatically.

She gasped, her eyes of energy brightening visibly and fluttering, like she was blinking. Five seconds, she realized, five seconds was the cool-down on her only skill.

“Vivi, hold the line,” Red said, her voice husky as she got up on shaky legs, “help is on the way.”

She dragged a gremlin corpse over to Short Bus and looted it, transforming it into another blue star of mana, which fell directly onto the shark-man. His eyes fluttered open and he stood on unsteady legs. He looked Red dead in the eyes and knew she had saved his life, possibly all their lives, and said nothing that didn't need to be said. He knew, and she knew. A bond had been formed.

Short Bus ran to backup a grateful, weeping Vivi. He also started urinating as he ran and shouted 'For Ben!', then fired off an [Anima Blast]. The gremlins caught in it were not paralyzed, or stricken insane, but rather they were amplified. All rational, conscious thought was banished, and they started just doing whatever the hell they wanted to do at that very moment. Some gremlins sat down to eat, others ran away in fear, some started fighting their rivals, and others just stood around with dumb expressions on their faces.

Red revived Ghost Ears in the same way, the plentiful gremlin corpses around them serving as fodder for her ability. Ghost Ears gave Red the same look of respect, one warrior to another, and went to join the fight.

Finally, she found Ben, still trying in vain to get up, and still failing. She looted a nearby gremlin and picked Ben up. The sensation of holding him in her hand was. . . very strange, and she didn't care for it. Her hands had done too much violence to feel comfortable holding a life in them.

“Lords of The Beyond,” she whispered, her mind in another faraway world, “what has happened to your people? What terrible plot has laid humanity,” she said a different word for humanity, one not easily written or pronounced, “so low?”

She placed him next to the star, close enough that he could reach it, but not so close that he would be guaranteed to find it. Then, in a twist of cruel dispassion, she looted another gremlin, this time producing a simple ring of iron too small to fit around a finger, but just the right size to rest upon the brow of a fairy [Prince]. She put the crown in the opposite direction as the mana star and left Ben in the middle.

She had seen how he depended upon the crown on his head, and how he had crumbled without it. Such things were obvious to her eyes. Red leaned down, her lips larger than Ben's head, yet she none-the-less whispered in his ear.

“Choose.”

Then, she got up to join the fight.

Red had many names on the battlefield, given by allies and enemies alike, but none of them had been flattering. She was the greatest of servants to the strong, and a scourge upon the weak, drawing blood as she rooted out the unworthy from her own army. None counted her as a friend, for fear of what she would do to make them great, for the terror of the knowledge of how far she would let them fall.

She had walked countless battlefields and arranged an endless number of scenes just like the one she left behind now, and with her numinous eyes she had witnessed both triumph and failure; but it was she who chose who to test, and she who both destroyed the future and created it.

The armies which opposed the eternal forces of chaos were strong because of her. They knew it to be true, but none could claim across the eternal war to not have lost a friend to the cruel machinations of Red. She weeded the army, looking for any who could not pull their weight, any who would be a liability and gave them opportunities to become strong, however hateful the opportunities could seem.

They had called her the Daughter of Chaos, for she had been born of it and rejected it as unworthy. She gave herself, body and soul, only to the future which could endure, to the future which was superior to all others, to the future which was inevitable and eternal, in her eyes at least.

In not so many words, Red was a difficult kind of friend to have.

Ben was on his knees, heaving and oblivious to the world. Here's what he saw; dry dirt, the grains too large for his sensibilities; stains of wet on the ground from vomit and from him once again pissing himself. His arms were straight, elbows locked, pale white, and hairy, and his palms were against the moist dirt with fingers spread all the way out. His knees were sunk-in just a bit in the mud he'd created, and his feet were sunk almost to his ankles. Garish, pink and purple wings, more magnificent and beautiful than ever thanks to his recent [Evolution], lightly pressed their weight against his back. He'd never taken a good look at how they were attached to him, and never intended to; the act would make them too real, to apart of him.

This is not what I am, he thought.

Battle raged around him as he stared in the dirt, but all his ears could hear was ringing from his own head.

“Aahhhhh,” Ben's stomach clenched again, and he felt pain so intense he saw white. Nothing came up, but his mouth still opened as wide as it could and he heaved, saliva falling from his mouth like drops of water on the damp dirt.

All of this was happening, yes, and it consumed ninety-nine point nine percent of Ben's brain.

But point one percent of him was watching it all very calmly, in a completely detached manner. Ben took refuge in detachment and felt a real lucidity wash over him. His body was doing its thing, Ben couldn't stop that, but he didn't have to participate for the moment.

This isn't who I am, Ben thought. His thoughts turned to his life before, to the sensible, adult job he'd been working; the sensible, adult career path he'd charted out and poured his energy into pursuing; to his apartment, which was always about sixty-five percent clean, his old computer, his old chair, his old bed. His old life.

That's not who I am either, he thought.

His thoughts turned to his commute to work, and how he'd loved watching the sunrise in late spring as he drove to his job. He remembered that regular, twice daily thirty minute period of time in which his mind went wild. Oh, the things he had thought on those drives! Ideas that could have saved the world, ideas that could have made any man rich, ideas of such profound meaning they made him weep. He remembered playing video games as a kid, and watching anime, and reading stories and feeling them resonate with something deep, deep in his soul. Resonate with the shared mental heritage all humans are unworthy heirs to.

That, Ben thought, that is who I am.

[System Update]

[You have advanc-*!` Error]

Ben felt the system updating inside of him and he cast it aside. He didn't need it to tell him what he already knew. He felt his racial trait, [Evolution], activate. Ben sat in a rare lotus of perfect mental control, a state which can be sought for a lifetime and never achieved; a state which can be achieved but never mastered; a state which humans both covet and fear.

He was at the center of his being with no illusions of what he was, or who he was. Ben saw the skills, saw his levels, saw the entire system of magic that suffused his being and assisted him. In his state of heightened awareness, it was still magical gibberish, and he felt a thrill of excitement that even at his best, even if he tried his hardest, that some things were completely beyond him.

The [Evolution] trait flashed, and Ben dispassionately interacted with it, then activated it.

He watched as The System stripped away the power of his levels, and felt his body-

The pain lessened, his focus was interrupted, and he was him again and-

Ben tried to hold onto the memories, but they slipped through his fingers like water, or sand, and faded to wherever dreams go when they die. He'd been on the cusp of enlightenment!

“Fuck!” Ben shouted, then blinked several times, because the dirt was wrong. He clenched some in his hands, looking for the mud, but all he saw was a small puddle somewhere under his stomach.

Ben shook his body, the lack of pain feeling almost alien. Something else was wrong, and he shook his body again. His back. . . his wings!

Ben felt around and started laughing, because his back was smooth, no wings to be found.

“Yes!” Ben shouted, jumping up and running to join the fight, “I'm regular sized again! I'm a Human Bein-”

Then Ben stopped, looked around, and realized he was not regular sized. He was bigger, but not regular sized. Quick mental calculations put him somewhere around two and half and three feet tall. He was still completely naked.

[System Update]

[You have forcibly activated the Evolution Racial trait via [REDACTED] means. Congratulations! It's always fun to watch people circumvent the rules!]

[You have lost many of your skills.]

[You have lost the Racial Trait: Flight]

[You have lost the Racial Trait: Extremely Tiny]

[You have gained the Racial Trait: Small]

[You have gained the Racial Trait: Kinetic Leap]

[You have gained the Racial Trait: Impact Immunity]

[You are now classified as a Tier 1 Species: Leap-rechaun Human]

Ben held back an explosive tirade of expletives, as well as the totally non-system related urge to start doing an Irish jig.

“A fucking Leap-rechaun? What the fuck- never mind, fuck this, fuck that, fuck everything; ooh, is that a crown?”

Ben, to his own absolute indifference, was already playing into the leprechaun joke and using an Irish accent. He skipped over to the crown and examined it. It was too small, then it grew larger for some reason, so he put it on his head, and felt his mental state accelerate.

“Oh, that's the ticket laddy,” Ben said to himself in an almost musical way, “that's the fucking ticket,” he said again, then saw the little purple star and picked that up as well. His mana pool, which was still near empty, filled about fifteen percent, which was pretty awesome, all things considered.

“I need a little green outfit,” Ben said idly to himself, then really looked around and remembered he was in the middle of a fucking battle.

“No, I need some fucking Ritalin,” Ben said, then rushed over to Vivi, who was sagging gratefully behind Short Bus, who was acting as tank for the group and giving everyone a chance to figure out what to do next.

“Ben's here,” Vivi said, sounding loopy and exhausted, “hey big guy, oh, you're a big guy now! Wooo-hooo!” Vivi said, then started laughing, well, more like giggling to himself. Red turned to face Ben and gave him a brief, mysterious smile, before her face turned serious and she started to brief him.

“Vivi's exhausted, Ghost Ears has been abducted by a swarm of wild fairies, Short Bus isn't going to be able to hold out for long and my power is neutralized until someone puts a stop to all this singing.”

“Awesome,” Ben said, and nodded his head.

“Awesome!” Vivi shouted, his eyes rapidly fluttering as he seemed to fall asleep, then wake up again.

“You have a plan?”

“Nope!” Ben said, then sighted the swarm of fairies up in the canopy of the trees, the sight of which put a scowl on his face.

“I'll be right back,” Ben said, then bent at the knees and JUMPED.

Like, Holy Shit, hulk jumped. Ben shot up like he'd just casually shaken the effects of gravity off like a dog shaking water after a bath. He shot up like him and gravity had just had an explosive breakup, and they weren't going to be boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. He shot up like a bullet, if a bullet was propelled by a bubble of inertia or magnetism or anti-gravity or something.

Ben hit the canopy hard, the entire branch shook violently. The impact should have killed him, it should have turned his bones to powder and shot his liquefied flesh off at a million miles an hour into the leaves like the world's worst experience at Sea World.

It did not harm him in the slightest. The fairies, who had surrounded Ghost Ears and were tormenting him by not letting him leave and get to the battle below, took a second to realize that someone who had previously been down there, was now currently up here. There was a dull second of non-reaction, then one of them belatedly screamed and pointed.

Ben eyed the fairies with a malicious, royal glint in his eyes. They were much smaller than him now, about the size of a small mouse to a large cat. Ben felt himself effortlessly clinging upside down to the tree sized branch, crouched and coiled to spring forward. Ben smiled like a cat looking at an innocent family of rats it’s uncovered and was about to play with.

“Hello.”

The screaming spread, and Ben Jumped again, this time straight through their swarm, missing Ghost Ears. Ben was moving too fast to really take in the details, but fairy's got hurt. Fast as could be, he impacted against a nearby tree and instantly repeated the process, this time taking a moment to slap one of them on the way.

Fairies got hurt, again. Ben did it a third time, and fairies started to think this really wasn't a fun game at all because they were going to start dying at this rate.

They started to flee, but faster than they could believe Ben was in front of the swarm again, with that same expression of joyous, predatory aggression on his face. His crown started to grow hot, the iron ring turning red, but the heat could never burn him. Shimmering waves of heat rose from his head, his eyes sharp and glinty.

“You all belong to me now,” he [Proclaimed], and they cried out in terror, because they knew it to be true. Ben pointed at the singing gremlins with force in his hand and spoke again.

“Go and shut those idiots up, now!”

The fairies rushed down in a frenzy of fear and anger, unable to disobey. Ghost Ears looked at Ben with a mixture of pure hatred, and awe.

“I've spent my entire life,” he said, looking at the red hot crown on Ben's brow, “my entire life, trying to get little assholes like them to follow orders. Apparently, all I needed was a fucking crown!” Ghost Ears shouted.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Ben asked.

“No I don't want to fucking talk about it!” Ghost Ears shouted, then flew towards the fight, swearing up a storm.

It might have been a tactically unwise decision, but Ben let him actually get to his destination before he launched himself at the ground. Otherwise, Ben would have beaten Ghost Ears there, and Ben was pretty sure the [True Elf Fairy] wouldn't ever forgive him if he did that.

“I'm gonna hire that guy,” Ben said for the second time in his life, then jumped into the final phase of the battle.