‘It aches, it burns.’ thought Zack as he put one foot in front of the other. Repetition is hell. Running was a torture for him as each step sent a minor bolt of pain up his leg, the experience unchanging, only the scenery of the road and trees moving slightly. He hated drudgery of any kind, it was why he chose his profession as an E-sport athlete, no two matches were ever alike.

“Keep runnin’.” Akma snorted, floating alongside him while smoking a cigar and cracking a whip occasionally, looking like a deranged slave driver “Yer body ain’t at it’s absolute limit yet, so keep yer ass movin’.”

Sweat drenched every inch of his skin, but it wasn’t an oily kind of sweat like the stuff that came out of him during that one run before, it was thin and watery like it was supposed to be.

He slowed to a walk and Akma’s face distorted into an almost comical rage “I did not give you permission to start walking! Keep runnin’ or else yer not gonna get a willpower point.” which was the whole reason why he was out for a stroll through a minor hell in the first place. Not for agility and not for stamina, but for willpower. By pushing himself to the absolute limit, his will to go on dropped as his discomfort increased. When the willpower energy fell to within 10% of it’s maximum value, he gained more of the stat.

Willpower energy 4/32

The stat was not just used for the supernatural abilities in manipulating the universe, it was also used for any action that brought his mental fortitude towards the point of breaking, like extremely strenuous exercise.

Almost there. He put one foot in front of the other as the muscles in his legs spasmed and an invisible hand twisted the organs in his gut. He took deep breaths but could not get enough oxygen ‘Am I damaging my body at this point?’

Akma said “Slow down to a fast walk.”

After a minute of walking, his calves started burning, two minutes after that and a message screen popped up.

+1 Maximum willpower energy

Zack stopped with his hands on his knees, taking deep breaths when a centaur-like woman with light green skin passed him silently. Startled he took a step back and she shouted back to him “Good morning.”

He yelled back “Good morning.” but she had already disappeared into the distance.

‘I should be getting used to this sort of thing after dealing with it for a month, but I’m not.’

Having half recuperated, he made his way back to the barracks for the other intelligence recruits stationed on the planet Gorzimo in one of Akmadouric’s most protected dimensions. Or Outer Sanctum dimensions as they were called.

Once inside, he was greeted with the usual array of alien bizarreness. A foot and a half tall humanoid creature with black rock like skin waved his paws in the air, throwing a very small fireball between them. Two pairs of octopus like aliens floated around a cube high up near the ceiling, playing a game from their homeworld. And in one corner of the room there was a black and white slimy skinned amphibian with a cranium larger than his body, utensils surrounded by a colorless rippling energy rotated in the air around him. Zack smirked and thought ‘There is no spoon.’

Someday he was going to get psionic powers, it was something that had been the dream of every nerd on Earth and from the list, there were millions of different powers to pick from. Almost none of the systems necessary for such powers had ever been implanted into a human. And some of those cases had shown signs of rejection, like spontaneously bursting into flames. So Zack intended on waiting until much later to get one.

Zack took it all in for a moment in order to acclimate himself to such sights, then he went off to take a shower. After he finished getting ready he went to the training grounds for what would be his role in the battles to come.

“I’m support?” Zack said aloud with a disgusted look on my face. He had the played the occasional MOBA, and everybody hates the support role. Support sucks.

Zackery Taylor Role: Coordinator Rank: Newbie Job description: A soldier meant for the backline whose main job is to observe the battlefield and provide objective updates to the frontline soldiers. Dictating the flow of the battle in real time. Other various support abilities may be learned.

Reading the job description Zackery Taylor knew that he was a perfect fit for the role but his brow still furrowed “I’m going to need some clarification for exactly what I’m going to be doing.”

Then a metallic sphere appeared out of thin air and opened up before him. Inside the cramped interior he could see a desktop set up similar to the one he had at home. Complete with a chair sitting before a clear desk with a mouse, and a keyboard with more buttons than any he had ever seen before.

Zack said “They say home is where the heart is.” then climbed in.

The door automatically shut behind him and a message on the opposite wall in the upper right hand corner momentarily read: ‘Recloaking’ then after another second it read ‘complete’. The walls disappeared, revealing the outside as if the hull of the vehicle was made of glass.

With his surprise-o-meter broken, Zack just said “Akma, bring up the basic stats for this vehicle.” then pressed the plus signs when didn’t already know what something did.

Basic Coordinator sphere Appearance: A metal sphere that is nine feet in diameter Hull: two inches of latticed titanium

Systems:

-Inertia Dampeners

This device allows the craft to accelerate to literal break neck speeds and change direction sharply without harming the occupant.

-Cloaking Device

A system that will allow the vehicle to become invisible to optical based sensors.

-Omni-directional sensor array

An advanced sensor system capable of detecting mostly everything, even if it is concealed

-Omni-screen

This screen makes up the entire interior wall of the vehicle, it can display any image the occupant desires

+Keyboard

+Mouse

Zack scratched his chin, “Something like this would have tutorial software, right?”

In response to the word ‘tutorial’ the screens around him displayed a layout for what all of the various buttons on the keyboard did. Several digital units appeared on the screen before him. Stats screens for each of them displayed almost directly above Zack. They moved without him giving them any orders, he came to realize that unlike the units in the real time strategy games he played in the E-sport arena, the units on the screen before him represented actual people with minds of their own. Which meant that he no longer needed to tell them what to do when the right action was obvious. He learned to update objectives through both spoken and typed medians. Told his troops to retreat when there were other units better suited to dealing with a specific monster. Even sent a unit an energy pack to recharge their shields and weapons upon occasion.

Finally he ended the day with memorizing the stats and abilities of various units. Sargent Becker’s file came up and Zack saw that he had an S+ rating on his marksmen skill, the man could use his semi-automatic laser pulse rifle to shoot five dimes a thousand yards away within a second of each other, while setting his mechsuit to strafe mode. Zack was surprised to see that there were people who specialized in dealing damage at melee range. It was baffling to him that weapons like swords were actually viable in something as high end as an interdimensional war, everybody knows what happened when the Samurai went up against riflemen.

After looking through all of the allied units, the files for common types of enemies came up. All of them nightmares made flesh. But arguably, so were all of the aliens who were a part of Akmadouric’s army. After all, what is terrifying, beautiful or intimidating is always a matter of perspective. The only noticeable difference between the two forces was the dark purple spikes sticking out of flesh of some of the enemy’s units.

Just as he was about to leave, Akma said “One last thing.”

Zack asked “What’s that?”

An image of a creature with six arms shown on the omni-screen. On it’s head were glass goggles with a dozen lenses pointing in different directions. Yet it looked oddly human.

Akma said “This is what your goals are for upgrading.”

Zack looked at the image on the omni-screen with an aghast expression “You want me to look like that thing?”

“Yes. This is the third reason why you were given a second body. Because your form is not optimal to fully utilize the Coordinator sphere. You can’t see everything that needs to be seen and your input speed is not what it needs to be at for some of the larger scale battles.”

Zack protested “It doesn’t even look human.”

”Your true body will look however you want it to look. But the body you are in right now must prioritize function over form.”

Zack just walked away.

An intense blaring sound jolted Zack out of bed and onto the floor. He landed face first onto the ground and let out a groan. He untangled himself from the blankets and looked up to see red lights flashing. All of the other recruits prematurely woke up from their sleeping cycles or whatever their sleep-like equivalents were and climbed out of their mattresses, aquariums and padded nests.

A blue screen appeared before Zack’s eyes.

Situation briefing: The barrier dimension has fallen and there has been an incursion into this dimension. As a human from Earth, you cannot allow yourself to fall into enemy hands. If you are captured, you will end up getting corrupted and then you will divulge enough information to give up your home dimension.

Objective: Escape through the hidden backdoor portal located south of mile marker two on the track.

Fighting the sleepiness in his eyes and the fatigue from the day before, Zack hurriedly put on his clothes and boots. Then ran out of the building. He could see that the predawn twilight was dimming most of the stars as he scanned the sky for signs of battle, expecting to see nothing since the action was likely happening on the other side of the universe, billions of lightyears away. But then he saw it, there was a patch of stars that had already lost their visibility, indicating that something very big was covering them up. He took a long swig from his water canteen without looking away from the anomaly. Then strapped it to his belt and took off down the track.

After twenty minutes of running he stopped a few hundred feet before mile marker two. In the sky above him the patch grew larger and had become a black spot that was visible to the naked eye. He scanned the area around him and saw nothing. The hostile forces had not yet landed on the planet he was on.

Zack asked “How long until they get here?”

Akma appeared out of his vortex and said “It depends entirely on the effectiveness of the enemy’s newest units. It could be anywhere from seconds to days or maybe the enemy deity will just spend the energy necessary to completely destroy this entire universe.”

Zack picked up his pace “They can do that?”

“It doesn’t happen often because it may not be worth the willpower energy spent.”

”That’s it!?” He sprinted past the mile marker and went south. Not slowing until he dove into the swirling blue portal.

The world around him broke apart. Exploding into puffballs in a way that was becoming increasingly familiar. Reforming and then…freezing? Zack looked around as everything went still. Instead of turning into the formless white expanse of a barrier dimension, everything went black.

Akma appeared in front of him, the blue kid’s hair went completely white and a horrified expression crossed his face “Zack!” he screamed and disappeared.