Zack opened his eyes slowly and immediately became aware that his body was tied to something that was hard, bumpy and moving fast. Frantically struggling to free himself proved to be impossible, the bindings were much too strong.

“Quit moving, you’re fucking up my balance.” said a guttural voice coming from below him.

Akma appeared in front of his face and said “A lot has happened since you were unconscious.” this time he had chosen to appear with a height of two inches.

Zack asked “Why am I still alive?” then the center of his forehead felt like it was being split open as another set of vision entered his own and disappeared as abruptly as it came.

“What the-?”

The white haired Akma said “I’ve connected you to this Kulabv warrior here.”

Zack shook his head in order to clear it “You did what? And whats a Kulabv?” but an influx of knowledge poured into his mind and he knew a great many things about the creature that had strapped Zack to his back. Then it disappeared as quickly as it had come.

Zack’s eyes bulged “What the hell have you done to me?”

Akmadouric said “Nothing that can’t be reversed and we will talk more about that in depth later but more importantly right now you are in the middle of a combat zone!”

Zack looked around to the best of his ability with his head strapped down but all he could see was gray fog overhead and the brightly glowing vegetables shining through it.

Akmadouric said “Close your eyes. I’m going to open up your connection to Hroyd a little bit so you can see through him.” Zack glared at the tiny blue thought projection and did as he was told.

The new set of vision came into focus out of the darkness. He judged the height of Hroyd to be eight feet tall when running on arms and legs. Two muscular arms appeared out of the sides of the vision and the claws at the ends of his hands dug into the roots for traction. Hroyd looked to the left and right, his vision searching for threats and escape routes.

A bud began to form on one of the roots and Hroyd bounded towards it, bringing his speed up from 30mph to 50mph. Then with his three foot long razor sharp claws he sliced through the vine that connected it to the tree.

Akmadouric’s voice said “I told you not to participate in the battle. You two are the only ones who are not expendable.”

Hroyd gruffly said “My people are gone. No one will miss me, but your flying soldiers have acquaintances back where they call home.”

Akmadouric said with clear frustration “They won’t die! I’ve put in place safety measures for that, whereas in your case the cost of resurrection would be much too high and I wouldn’t be able to do it until I wrest control of the whole dimension from the Deity Ulgroth.”

Hroyd said “Resurrection? Dimension? Deity Ulgroth?” Zack could feel the Kulabv warrior’s confusion through their bizarre link “I don’t know what that means. I’m just going to attack anyway.” then dashed towards one of the glowing vegetables and severed it from the tree. Leaving the vegetable intact with it’s juices still inside.

Akmadouric growled “Grhh, I hate it when things don’t translate. Wait, keep doing that, you just stumbled onto the best method to kill this thing.”

“That I understood.” Hroyd dashed into a patch of eight glowing orange vegetables and severed the vines that tied them to the tree’s roots.

Sharp cracks resounded overhead as the other raid members fought and thorns landed behind Hroyd as he ran.

Zack said “Change direction. We’ll get killed if we are too predictable.”

Hroyd took a sharp 90 degree turn and ran into another tunnel “We’ll take ourselves off the field and come back in a minute or two.” The Kulabv warrior ran on his arms and legs, taking side tunnels without hesitation.

Zack asked “Do you know where you are going?”

Hroyd said “I’ve had a lot of time to memorize the layout of this place.”

They emerged near another patch of radioactive vegetables and Hroyd severed another three vines. Then moved on to the next cluster using a linear path.

Zack exlaimed “Wait! I told you not to be so obvious about your movements!”

But before Hroyd could turn direction his hands stuck to the ground and he face planted. The force of his eight hundred pound body moving at thirty miles per hour drove into his skull.

Whatever connection that Zack shared with Hroyd was cutoff as the Kulabv warrior was knocked unconscious.

Zack felt a bruise on his right cheek as some of the force transferred through Hroyd’s body, his vision was hazy from the blow to his head but began to clear up quickly.

”Sap?” Zack asked himself as he sat up from the loosening bindings and looked down at the dark amber liquid that had formed on the tree’s roots. For it to have stopped Hroyd like that, it had to be an incredibly strong adhesive. The ground was covered in it for a dozen feet in every direction.

Hroyd wasn’t going anywhere and Zack couldn’t help the giant he had been riding atop of, so he began to look for safe areas that he could step without getting glued to the ground. There were none.

Strange woody sounds came from both his right and left. Zack looked up to see brown pods growing until their petals split apart to reveal what must have been thirty thorns pointing straight at him. Immediately he knew it to be the very same projectile platforms that had been shooting at him and Hroyd for the past five minutes. And they new they were aiming at him from close range while he was immobile. Chance of survival: zero. Zack watched the base of thorns retract and glow orange before they launched at him.

But before Zack and Hroyd were impaled by the three foot wooden projectiles, a hand with green hair came down to shield them both. White lights at the end of the fingertips pierced the tree roots and enveloped the pair. Loud thunks came from the outside as the thorns struck the giant’s hand.

Hroyd awoke with a start to see nothing but the dark interior of the giant's palm and immediately started struggling against the adhesive, yelling in a terrified voice he shrieked “Not again!” it was a stark contrast to gruff warrior’s voice from earlier.

Then they were lifted up but not at a straight angle, the hand began to turn mid-air and then let go, sending them spinning. Zack clung to Hroyd’s fur, his blood pressed into his feet and his arms weakened over the course of but a few seconds. Briefly he could see the blue portal getting closer with each rotation and then they entered the crossing. Everything blurred together and changed colors until the blue of the sky dominated half of Zack’s vision. Then they both landed in the dirt of the planet Gorzimo.

Kerink was bored as she babysat the newly initiated backwaters from Akmadouric’s newly acquired dimension. She triggered her Extreme Metabolic Growth skill to enlarge her arm by ten thousand percent and grasped the lost sheep with her newly formed a giant hand.

Extreme Metabolic Growth Rank: intermediate Allows the user to enlarge parts of their body Mid-Tier level skill Requires: activatable metabolic growth hormones

Then combined it with her Deuterium Energy Emitter skill to penetrate the ground and lift the pair easier.

Deuterium Energy Emitter Rank: Master Allows the user to emit a type of star energy from their body and manipulate it according to their will Elite Mid-tier level skill

Kerink dodged a volley of thorns, causing her to throw the lost sheep in a spin. But she wasn’t sorry. After all, a bit of rough treatment is good for newbies.

She slowly shrank her hand back to it’s normal size in order to conserve energy and move easier. Dislodging the thorns that had penetrated her skin using minuscule bursts of energy to force them out, lest they widen wounds that they created.

Secondary Objective Complete +50,000 favor

She looked around at the situation. Half the backwaters were probably shitting their pants right now. Even though they were only up against such a low threat level enemy. The tree might be huge and tough but it is still completely immobile. But it only has ballistic weaponry at it's disposal. The smoke screen may be annoying but with the initiate riflemen flying around marking targets on the exposed energy sources, there was no way that she was going to be forced to resort to any of her high energy requirement attacks.

A rifleman in the distance flew over a patch of energy sources marking the vines as targets for Kerink. She formed a small ball of white light in her hand and released several centimeter wide beams to strike the vines with pinpoint accuracy.

Another rifleman with the tag: initiate rifleman Becker flew dangerously close to the tree for a moment and launched as many grenades into it as he could. Explosions blew apart the tree from the inside. Firing off as many shots as he could before the heat on the reflective barrels became too dangerous to continue using. Doing as much damage as he could to the major intersections where the energy flowed through the tree.

Very slowly the volleys of thorns became less frequent as the tree lost it’s ability to fight back.

Zack and Hroyd flew out of the portal and rolled, then the Kulabv warrior stopped suddenly as the sap that was on him stuck to the ground. Zack laid on the ground and groaned. Then looked around to see a field of alien corpses stretching all the way to the horizon. The smell of blood and burnt flesh hung in the air.

Zack said “I guess Gorzimo saw ground action while I was away.”

Hroyd looked frantically around as he struggled against the sticky sap that still bound him, “What just happened? Where are we?” then started intently listening to thin air, which meant that an Akma had appeared and began to initiate a private conversation. The translator even turned off and Zack could hear several variations of sounds that he couldn’t even identify, airy and hard H’s mixed with guttural E’s that sharply rose and dropped in tone.

Zack looked in the direction that had the least amount of gore, it wasn’t enjoyable scenery to him, then said “Akma.” thus summoning the little blue guy out of this vortex “What was that hand that grabbed us and threw us out of there?” he was back to having mostly black hair but Zack could have sworn that there were a few more white strands than usual.

Akma said “It belonged to Kerink”

”She is not a giant.”

”Transformation abilities are uncommon among interdimensional military personal.”

“What? So she grew an arm that was two hundred feet long?”

Akma simply replied “Yes”

Zack frowned, noticing that Akma had said ‘interdimensional military personal’ and not ‘father’s military personal’ meaning that the enemies he could come across in the future might have such surprises at their disposal. But then again, Hroyd had demonstrated an ability to transform, but not to such an extreme.

Zack overheard bits and pieces of the Kulabv warrior’s conversation and began to understand a few of the alien language’s words “What the hell have you done to me?”

Several strands of hair on Akma’s head turned from black to white “The connection is consciousness and physiologically deep. It can be turned off and on as it is now, but you can spend favor currency to have it modified or removed.”

“Good. Actually talking to someone via telepathy is beyond creepy.”

Akma said “I wouldn’t recommend getting rid of it.”

A screen appeared in front of Zack’s eyes

New Consiousness Skill Eidolon Contractor Rank: Newbie The base skill that allows a person to house anchors for Eidolon minds within their own consciousness Capacity: 1 Mid-tier level skill Note: Speak to Akma later about newly unlocked upgrade skills

Zack looked over at the gray furred Kulabv warrior in order to study him. Before he hadn’t had the chance to get a good look at the alien being while Zack was fighting and running for his life. Aside from the long muscular arms that Hroyd used to support his eight hundred pound body. Looking closer Zack could see that only his clawed finger tips touched the ground. Making his posture very much like that of a gorilla. The Kulabv warrior’s face looked exactly like a bobcat’s but with a handlebar mustache and eyebrows that sharply jutted out to the sides of his head.

Rereading the skill Zack said “Eidolon? Allows a person to house anchors for Eidolon minds within their own consciousness? "What is this?”

“An Eidolon is a being that requires entrance into the Spiritual Ether for rest and rejuvenation. Speaking of which he has been instructed to do so now.”

Hroyd began to glimmer with a green light and disappear, leaving a few shimmering sparks behind.

Zack said “He can travel to alternate dimensions on his own?”

Akma said “No, he stayed in this one but he moved his body into one of the energy frequencies of it.”

Thinking back to his vocabulary that he had learned from certain fantasy games “The word Eidolon is a synonym for the words; spirit or a spectre. Hroyd is clearly flesh and blood.”

Akma suddenly looked tired “Do you have any idea how hard it is to assign names to things when a culture has no concept for most of the things they encounter in the multiverse? Hroyd doesn’t have any words in his language that even come close to the true meanings of resurrection, deity and dimension. So he recklessly charged thinking that his life is worth less because he is the last of his kind.”

Zack blinked with new understanding “How sad. To try and forfeit his life like that.”

Akma shook his head “The last days on his planet were sad. You’ll find out more about it when you open the connection further. Now let’s talk about what upgrades you can get with this Eidolon contract skill now that you have a positive amount of favor.”

Zack’s anger flared up a bit “I think not. I have met one of the conditions for voluntary dismissal from Akmadouric’s army. The positive favor clause.”

Akma paused for a moment, then said “If that is what you want then I will not stop you. But as for your connection to Hroyd, I can’t let you sever it, it’s way too powerful of a skill for you to just throw away. I will however modify it so that you don’t have to experience the ‘creepiness of actual telepathy’ again.”

Zack said “Fine, do what you want. But it better not impact my daily life negatively.” then he walked away.

Akma raised a finger “Actually there is one more stipulation for your dismissal. And we might as well do it now. I have to tell you about the true nature of the multiverse.”

Zack said with more than a little impatience over the information blackout “So I guess the time for me to be kept in the dark is over.” then prepared himself for some uber deep revelation about reality.

Akma stood ramrod straight, waited several moments for Zack to really start paying attention and finally delivered his presentation “The first rule about the infinite multiverse is that if the concept of something exists. Then somewhere in one of it’s infinite dimensions, it also exists.”

Akma paused for a moment “When a person makes a decision the multiverse splits into two. One in which the person took option A and the other in which a person took option B. This is known by your multiverse theory scientists. But it goes even farther than that. There are times in which a molecule or a particle can make a decision, causing another split. Laws of physics can choose to change or modify themselves, albeit very rarely. Everything exists.”

“Everything?”

”Yes, everything.”

Zack thought for a moment then asked “Magic exists?”

Akma said “It’s very rare for it to occur naturally but father will sometimes write physics into a universe to give the inhabitants magic like powers in order to defend themselves from an interdimensional incursion. So yes it exists.”

“What about the superheros that I grew up watching in the media? Do they exist?”

Akma said ”I’ve never met any of them. Father and his minions have scouted through a great many dimensions.”

Zack asked “Is there a dimension in which I’m batman?”

“I wouldn’t say that it’s outright impossible, so yes.”

'I was JOKING!' Zack was reeling “Dragons exist... Mages exist… Giant spiders exist…”

Akma interrupted him “…Dimensions that are made entirely out of playdo…”

Zack took a moment to process that “Wait, what? Playdo? Like the colored putty that little kindergartners mold with their hands?”

”Yes” Akma awkwardly shifted from foot to foot “You laughed at the alien with the high squeaky voice and father laughed at the beings from that dimension.”

“Okay! What about pink telepathic hippopotamuses that travel through time” Zack put his hands on his hips triumphantly, thinking that he had finally presented something that absolutely could not exist.

But Akma just smiled broadly and snapped his fingers, a screen and a video began to play in front of him. On an alien savanna with two white moons high in the blue sky, a pink hippopotamus walks through a patch of swamp.

A voice straight from the discovery channel said “The Chronos Telepathis Hippopotus are truly majestic creatures. Here we see them graze on yisho grass at just the right time of it being the most tasteful to them.” The pink hippo tilted his head to the side and opened his maw to chomp down on a patch of six foot tall reeds. Then there was a shimmering in the background and another hippo appeared, it’s tiny ears twisted and flapped.

The voice on the video said “Here we can see another hippo communicating telepathically with the first one. And although telepathy is a highly advanced brain function, oddly enough their telepathic language is simple to the point where there is only fifty two words and very little grammar structure.”

Then both of the hippos disappeared in the very same shimmering, the camera followed them as they ran down a spark filled tunnel and exited into a field of greenish yellow grass “It appears that Elnu grass from an era five million years prior is now on the menu.” the hippos took another chomp.

Mr. Discovery Channel said “Truly majestic.”

Zack involuntarily took a step backwards and with a bland look on his face he said “I am getting out of here now. I am done with this weirdness.”