[CORO]

Ash stared at him, aghast.

“Wha… What did you just do? Your hair… I… I thought you were going to try out your powers or something…”

“HUH?”

Coro looked over his shoulder towards the diminutive girl hiding behind a mess of electronics. “

“What the FUCK DO YOU WANT?!”

Ash shuttered hearing his voice. His eyes had an ominous red glow to them. She immediately reached for her gun, but didn’t remove it from its holster.

“Leon… what… happened to you?”

“HAHAHA!”

Coro leaned his head back and guffawed.

“LEON? NO!”

Coro disappeared from the crater and reappeared inches away from Ash. He looked down toward the now stupefied girl and continued to speak.

“THE NAMES’S CORO.”

He reached out his right hand as if to greet her and smiled. Showing his razor sharp needle teeth.

Ash jumped back and removed her gun to point it directly at Coro’s head.

“Don’t fucking move.”

Her voice was cold and assertive. Coro lowered his hand and looked over toward Ash with a crooked smile.

“AND WHAT EXACTY DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING TO DO WITH THAT PEA SHOOTER?”

He shifted his weight to face her. She rapidly shot three times. Two of the shots buzzed by either side of his head with the final just over it.

“Next won’t be a warning shot. Now talk. What happened to Leon?”

Ash’s eyes were filled with unshaken determination. Coro raised an eyebrow and continued to smirk.

“OH? DID THAT MOMENT IN THE HALL EARLIER GET TO YOU OR SOMETHING? DIDN’T THINK A BATTLE HARDENED SOLDIER WOULD BE SO EASILY ENTANGLED WITH EMOTIONS FROM A MAN THEY JUST MET. MWAHAHA!”

“Tha… That’s not…”

She kept her eyes locked on Coro but the gun lowered slightly.

“How would you know anything about that?”

Her face had a faint flush threatening to take over, as her gaze started to wain.

“I went through a lot to keep him alive… It’s only natural to be worried about what happened to him…”

“MAKS SENSE.”

Coro paused and contemplated Ash.

I thought we were the only other learning AI besides Leon… Intriguing… Perhaps coming in such close contact with the cores effected her. That or Leon’s touch had something to do with it.

[NARRATOR]

“Hey!”

A voice appeared in Coro’s head from everywhere all at once.

“Coro can you hear me? This is Leon. I am testing something to see if you can here me from here.”

Coro began to raise his hand as if to stop time.

“ I just imagined a way to talk to you and a terminal popped up with a prompt to connect to a voice channel. Pretty neat right!”

“WHAT! HOW DID YOU?!”

Coro clenched his fist stopping time. He looked toward the ceiling and shouted.

“THAT SHOULDN’T BE POSSIBLE! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!”

“Calm down! I trusted you earlier when I gave you control of my body. Well… I guess it’s our body now… Anyways trust is a two way street. I want to make a deal with you.”

“AND WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO ORDER ME?! I AM THE ONE IN CONTROL HERE LEON! YOU HAVE NOTHING!”

“That isn’t exactly true… I met with Red a little earlier and we talked… The short version is that I know you are a part of me. That being said… I thought about our link and imagined a visual representation of us as a person. I have our… stat sheet? It goes pretty in depth.”

“SO WHAT LIKE I’LL LET YOU DO ANYTHING TO US! I ALREADY STOPPED THAT CUNT RED EARLIER!”

Coro spat out the words. His rage was so intense that his eyes were going bloodshot.

“Hey now watch it! I like Red. Don’t speak about her like that again!”

Coro’s eye started to shake and veins popped out of his forehead. He tried to yell back at Leon… but no words came.

“I muted you. Have your attention now?”

Leon paused and cleared his throat before beginning again.

“I have full control of our body now… well I have control over basically everything… I think. There is an option here to delete you. Since we are linked I imagine it would end me along with you. I’d prefer to avoid that option if possible.”

Coro tried to yell at Leon again, but was still muted. His breathing was uneven. Small sparks of lightning flew from him as he shook with anger. He needed to calm down.

He focused on the connection to Leon. It was like a single thread, infinitely far away. Coro slowly reached out and took hold of the thread, pulling with all of his infinite might.

Time folded around him. He ripped through space at a speed rivaling that of light. His mass rose exponentially as he continued to accelerate. The stars around him were all shifting to a blue, then violet color. He aimed his hand behind him and released a gamma burst potent enough to dismantle the very void in existence he was creating behind himself.

Galaxies imploded behind him from the devastating force. Stars were violently thrown out out of orbit causing them to collide with one another. Supermassive black holes collapsed from the weight of new energy blown through them.

The violet stars around him vanished and a hazy blue cloud came into vision in their stead. He released another burst of energy, draining him near empty. The blue haze shifted to violet and condensed to a shrinking cone. The cone shrank down to a thin line. Coro continuously replaced his atoms as were torn from him.

Suddenly, he came to a stark halt as he slammed through a glass like structure. He found himself falling down. He tried to release an energy blast to slow his decent. Nothing happened. The glow in his arm had completely vanished. He saw flash of light and plowed face first into an unseen surface.

Coro pushed himself up and found himself looking at Leon leaning back in a recliner. There was a massive bucket of popcorn on a small table next to him.

“Yo!”

Leon threw up a hand and stared at Coro.

“Didn’t know if it would be possible to meet you in person. Kinda weird to be looking at myself… hair helps a little I guess… Still weird though.”

Coro jumped at Leon, fist raised.

Leon tapped a button on the screen in front of him causing Coro to freeze in place.

“Now Listen Coro. I want us to be allies. Friends. I know there are… several versions of yourself in there. I’m going to unmute you and please…Please… bring up a version that would be willing to make a deal.”

Leon tapped at the screen again and Coro fell flat on the floor. He pushed himself off the ground and sat in front of Leon. He popped his neck and let out a pleased sigh.

“Alright Leon… Tell me what you want.”

This Coro’s voice was musky and deep. He had a heavy slouching his eyes looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. There were dark saggy rings under his eyes. He slowly lifted himself and dusted off his pants.

Leon turned up a half smile and began to speak.

“What I want is simple. I already said I want you as an ally. You just need to sign this contract stating that you wont hurt me or anyone else that…”

Coro interrupted Leon by raised an arm, palm up as if he was waiting for a pen.

“Fine. I will sign.”

Leon shrugged and pushed the screen hovering in front to Coro. Another screen instantly popped up in front of him to replace it.

A pen appeared in the air beside Coro’s screen, hovering there waiting to be accepted. Coro reached out and snatched it. Placing it on the bottom line of the contract, he shifted his eyes to look at Leon through the screen.

“I have one condition before I sign.”

“That’s fine. I did say this is a deal after all. Lets hear it.”

Leon was still smiling and staring directly into Coro’s eyes.

“Get rid of that delete button. Or at least the one for me. I’m sure you can. You seem to have abilities capable of at least that much.”

Leon pondered the request by stroking his chin and making a contemplative sound.

“Hmmm….Deal. Give me a second.”

He looked toward the screen and outstretched his arm. He closed his eyes for a couple seconds.

“It’s done.”

He flipped the screen over to Coro to show that the delete button was greyed out.

“Indeed.”

Coro stared at the second screen for a long time before he turned back to the first and quickly signed. As soon as he was done, the pen vanished from his hand.

“Tell me Leon. What is this option here?”

Coro pointed at a button on the center of the screen making sure to keep his finger far enough away that Leon wouldn’t think he was trying anything.

Leon walked over beside him and took a peak. He slapped a hand on Coro’s shoulder and laughed.

“That’s something I tried to do earlier while I was watching you and Ash. Wouldn’t work earlier so I wrote up a contract for you to sign. I had already signed. Just needed you to sign as well before it would activate.”

Without a second thought Leon tapped the button.

It felt as if he was being ripped in half. Coro lifted both arms to his head and fell to his knees letting out an ear piercing scream. The pain ended in a flash. He shuttered and anxiously started to look around.

“Sorry about that… I thought it might be painful, but forgot to mention it before I did it.”

Leon was scratching the back of his head and smiling at Coro.

Coro panted but the anger in his eyes ebbed quickly. He coughed into his right hand, noticing it was now glowing he cleared his throat and addressed the overly excited Leon nonchalantly.

“What is this?”

“Oh that? When I tapped the separate button you and I became different… yet the same? I’m not exactly sure but now the power that was in my body has been split between us. I did leave all of the cores in you, so your personalities should be unharmed. I imagined an ability to split my body in half and your power in half to create two individuals and that button popped up when I opened my eyes.”

Leon walked back over to his bucket and stuffed a fist full of popcorn in his mouth. Coro looked down to his palm and electricity crackles across his finger tips. He slowly looked back up to Leon. He was messing with the screen while shoveling down popcorn. Coro thought about the screen for a moment and closed his eyes. He imagined pulling it up and editing his stat sheet. Slowly opening his eyes he found the screen there, but everything was greyed out.

“Leon what else was in that contract?”

His voice didn’t change but was much more skeptical than before.

“Oh. Well you couldn’t edit everything on the page before right? All the cores are what boosted you up. If you could have edited it then you would have gotten rid of the delete button yourself right? I’m guessing it has something to do that. Plus Red said something about how I was different. She did something to me specifically.”

Leon stopped eating the popcorn and looked up to Coro.

“What? Is there something you wanted me to change? This is still experimental to me, so I’m not sure what all I can do.”

“No… Nothing like change. I just thought you may have taken the ability away from me with the contract.”

Coro scratched his face and noticed there was no stubble.

“Did you do anything for my appearance?”

“I don’t think I did.”

Leon walked over to Coro.

“You do look a bit different though.”

Leon tapped on the appearance tab.

“Ahh here. It must have been from when one of you changed your hair. Looks like you can edit everything here. Just not your stats… weird…”

He looked back over to his screen and pulled up Coro’s stats.

“Looks like I can change them.”

He started to pull Coro’s perception slider back and forth.

Coro’s eyes dilated and constricted rapidly.

“…Please stop.”

Leon looked at Coro and tilted his head back in laughter.

“Sorry I had do idea it would do anything until I tapped the apply button.”

He slid the slider back up to its maximum and looked to the bottom of the page.

“Wait… the apply button is gone now… I didn’t even notice.”

“It’s fine. Another thing I noticed is that my other selves are much more suppressed now. I can feel them and communicate with them… It’s just as if they are sleeping now.”

One side of Coro’s face pulled up in a grin.

“Kinda nice really. It felt like I was in a crowded room before with everyone screaming, trying to take control.”

Leon smiled at Coro and jumped with sudden realization.

“Oh shit! I completely forgot about Ash.”

Leon pulled up a tab with a list of recent interactions. It only had 3 entries.

Coro looked curiously at the screen with Leon noticing that Red was listed. Leon hurriedly tapped on Ash and pulled up her stat sheet.

“Oh you froze time before right? Can you unfreeze it from here?”

Coro nodded his head and clinched his fist. Meanwhile Leon rushed over to the large screen in front of the recliner and picked up a remote seeming to change channels until a screen with Ash popped up. She was staring at a human shaped hole in the ceiling with confused expression.

“Good… I thought she may have rushed off after seeing you talk to yourself and vanish earlier.”

Leon looked back to his screen and tapped a few things. A golden thread fell from the endless blackness above them.

“Hey Coro, can you give that a tug like you did before?”

He shrugged and walked over to thread. He wrapped it around his hand several times and have it a tug. he used noticeably less effort than before. Ash screamed and vanished from inside the base to appear in space. Her screams were cut off quickly from the vacuum of space.

Coro looked toward Leon called him over.

“Hey! Come help me with this. She wont make it long at the speed she is currently moving!”

Leon waved him off and put the remote down.

“I made her immune to all damage before I connected the string. Probably still going to freak her out pretty bad though.”

Leon held out his palm and a separate recliner appeared beside him. He gestured Coro over by slapping the arm rest a few times and looking over toward him.

“Bring that string over with you if you don’t mind. Just in case we have to give her another pull.”

Coro made his way to the chair and looked over Leon skeptically.

“What all can you do exactly?”

He fell heavily into the recliner and continued his analysis of Leon.

“Don’t know.”

He shoved a fist full of popcorn in his mouth and continued to speak with his mouth full.

“All I know is that it all started when you put me here when you took control of the body. That and… never mind… makes my head hurt thinking about him…”

“Him?…I’d be lying if I said I’m not curious…”

Giving in to the building pressure Coro reached in to the bucket and grabbed a fist full for himself. He ate a single kernel and his eyes grew three sizes. This was the first time he had ever eaten anything. He shoveled the whole fist full into his mouth and grabbed two more, completely forgetting about the mystery man.

“Good right? Something about this popcorn tastes so much better than it did back in my original world.”

Leon Held out his hand and a massive cup with a straw popped into his hand.

“Here try this. It’s cherry soda. Washes it down really nice.”

Coro snatched the beverage out of his hand and took several large gulps. His eyes closed and he fell back in his chair filled with bliss.

“This is one of the greatest things I have ever experienced. I have existed for over two hundred years.. and this is the first time I have had a body to enjoy something like this.”

His eyes started to tear up and a smile crept across his face. Leon gently tapped his shoulder with his fist.

“Don’t mention it. Two hundred huh? Guess I’m something close to your age. Apparently I came from a core similar to the ones inside you. Or maybe I wasn’t alive until Red tampered with me?”

Leon shrugged.

“Cant really say. All I know is that this is better than my life from before.”

A cloud of pixels started to form in front of the duo and a tiny girl started to from in front of them.

“Speak of the devil. This is Red.”

Leon leaned in closer to Coro and whispered.

“She has no Idea I brought you here by the way. I think she is scared of you.”

“Indeed she is. We know her. One of my selves… blew off her hand back when she tried to mess with our file…”

Coro looked away from Leon.

“You did what?!”

Leon glared at Coro and saw him looking away. Obviously he was ashamed of what one of him selves had done to her.

“She didn’t mention it before… Maybe she is just scared of what you could do.”

Coro looked back to Leon.

“You… You aren’t mad at me?”

“I’m mean… I’m not happy about it or anything. But as long as you can get along with her now…. Then no… I’m not mad…

As soon as he finished speaking Red leaped back and fell onto the floor.

“Wha…What the hell is he doing here?!”

Leon stood up and walked over to help her up. She crawled away from him and stared at Coro.

“Don’t worry. He is different now. He and I are separate now as well.”

Leon tried to calm her, but Red hid behind Leon and stared at Coro.

Coro Looked over to her and scratched his head. With a sigh, he stood up and walked over to her.

“Hey…”

He knelt down to meet her eye level.

“We are sorry about what we did… well most of us are. I can’t talk with the one that yells. He is sleeping like the dead right now… might be because of all that power he burnt getting us here.”

Red’s grip loosened from Leon and she moved around to face Coro.

“Stand up. I’m not a child you fucking moron. And If Leon trusts you…”

She glanced up to meet Leon’s bright smile.

“Then so do I.”

The sound of shattering glass and a horse scream suddenly came from above. All three looked up and saw Ash flailing down toward them. Red backed away as Leon held out his arms to catch her. He missed and Ash slammed right into Leon knocking both of them to the floor.

She was still screaming in Leon’s arms, so he hugged her tightly.

“Shhh… It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

Her screams quelled and she opened her eyes to look at him.

She sniffled and Leon wiped the tears from her face.

“Is that really you Leon?”

“Yeah it’s me. I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have to worry anymore.”

Leon hugged her tightly again.

Red stared down at them, rage and jealous painted on her face.

“What is she doing here?”

Ash collected herself and broke her embrace with Leon. She quickly got to her feet and helped him off the ground.

“I… I have no idea what’s going on. I was jus…”

Her words trailed off as she noticed the emptiness around them.

“This is some kind of void outside of the universe we were in… or something… I’m not sure.”

Leon tried to explain but ended up looking over to Red for help. She scoffed and looked away from them.

“Hmph… Yeah, you pretty much got the gist of it. You somehow broke out of the simulation and made it to the construct sandbox where I experiment with new things. Seems like you have heavily modified yourself to be able to bring her here, and to separate yourself from Coro. I am the only one supposed to be able to change things here. I gave you root access when you got to the world select… wait… do you still have that bottle of perfume?!”

Red rushed over in a hurry and started to pat down Leon. Leon reached into one of his pockets to reveal the broken mess of red glass.

“Sorry. I think it broke before Ash healed me. It must have soaked into my cloths… but I probably smelt great!”

“Perfume? I don’t remember anything smelling like that.”

Ash seemed to adapt to her situation and came back to herself. Red slowly took a couple steps back and stared at Leon.

“You absorbed it… Like the cores… you absorbed it…”

She sat down on the floor and leaned against one of the recliners.

“Absorbed it? What was it? I thought it was from your… Oh wait… That world wasn’t real… What was in it?”

Leon walked over to Red and knelt down beside her. She covered her face and spoke through her hands.

“It… Its the code I used to create you from the Perfect core…”

Red shook her head and slapped her face a couple times.

“No… not code. It was more like keys. Every time you came into contact with it, you would gain more control. I made you to take over what I do in maintaining the simulation. In case something were to ever happen to me…”

“Oh… That explains a lot…”

Coro chimed in.

“Your power to edit things probably derived from the keys contained in that bottle.”

All three looked over to him. He jumped a little from the concentration of attention. Leon stood up and helped Red to her feet.

“Anyways we are all here now. First things first. We should do something about you.”

Leon pointed to Ash, causing her to shift her weight and look a little scared.

“Do something… What do you mean…”

“Oh nothing like that.”

Leon said with a chuckle.

“You were Red’s avatar so I am going to change something about your appearance to make you two a bit different.”

Leon pulled up his screen. Ash’s stat sheet was still pulled up from before.

“Tell me Ash. What’s your favorite animal?”

“Favorite animal? What does that have to do with anything?”

Ash stared at Leon suspiciously.

“Awe come on! This will be fun.”

Leon replied back with a smile.

Ash said nothing for a long while. She noticed that Leon wasn’t going to reply until she said something and sighed.

“Cats. I like cats.”

“Okay, and what is your favorite color?”

Leon moved on, not missing a beat.

“I like black and red. Cant you tell? My suit is black and my hair is red.”

Ash said back a little annoyed.

Leon didn’t reply and tapped a few things on his screen. Suddenly Ash’s form began to change.

A pair of cat like ears popped out form her head and her hair shifted to a deep inky black color. The black shifted to a dark scarlet when the light hit it in the right angle. Ash’s face twisted with embarrassment and a blush consumed her face as a ripping sound came from behind her. A long furry black tail poked out through her pants and started to twitch and swoosh about.

“What… The fuck… did you do to me?”

Ash voice had a soft purr to it but remained surprisingly calm. Her tail was still flicking about aggressively.

“I shifted you into a Eclec. It is a human with some animal like features. At least thats what the brief definition here says. I like it. Looks really good on you in my opinion. How do you feel? What do you think?”

Leon held out his hand and created a all mirror and a couple standing lamps. The blush slowly faded as Ash looked over herself in the mirror. She turned around a few times and noticed the red sheen in her hair.

“I feel fine. Really like the red accents. Feels like my senses are much more intense though…”

She sniffed a couple times and her hair and fur seemed to stand on end.

“Someone didn’t wear deodorant.”

“Probably me.”

Coro replied, raising his hand.

“The rage from earlier, and nervousness from the whole situation probably did it. Leon can you create me so…?”

“No!”

Ash yelled cutting Coro off. She ran over to Coro and wrapped her arms around his neck. She buried her face into his chest and wrapped her tail around his upper thigh.

“You smell amazing!”

She stood on her tip toes and licked from his chin, up the side of his face. Coro held both of his hands up in the air as if to say it wasn’t his intention. He looked down to her and as soon as their eyes met she jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist. She kissed him and pulled herself into him. He put his hands on her shoulders and tried to force her back. She was vibrating, causing Coro’s hand to slip off of her.

Finally Coro managed to pull her off and gasped for breath.

“What the hell are you do…”

He was cut off by her slipping from his grip and continuing to make out with him.

Blinking several times, Leon looked back to his screen and clicked on the Eclec tab for more information. As he read he began to understand.

“Looks like Eclec are extremely sexually active by nature. They have an extremely low chance to produce offspring so when an opportunity arrises, they breed.”

Ash was scratching at Coro’s back, tearing his cloths and drawing blood. He held out his hand and used something akin to telekinesis to suspend her in the air away from him. He took a few seconds to catch his breath.

“Change her…”

He took a few more deep breaths.

“Back right now… I can’t handle this.”

Ash was squirming in the air, reaching for him, making an audible purring noise. Leon pulled up her stat sheet and imagined a way to toggle off this feature about the Eclec species. It appeared as soon as he thought about it and he quickly flicked it off and looked up to the couple.

Coro was still recovering. Ash’s face was a burning red and tears were forming in her eyes. Her ears lay flat on her head and her tail curled up into a coil.

Without a word Coro dropped her and slumped over to sit in one of the recliners. Ash scurried off into the distance. Her sobs seemed to echo across the void. Red was laid back in Leon’s chair, shoveling down popcorn watching the show. Her cheeks had a flush coloring them.

“That was… really interesting…”

Red starred at Leon and her blush deepened. She quickly looked away and started quietly discussing with Coro about the experience.

With a sigh Leon made his way to comfort Ash. She hadn’t ran very far. Her sobs grew louder as he approached. She heard his approach and quickly turned around and hissed at him.

“Yeah I probably deserve that… I’m sorry… If it helps, I’m not sure that Coro will think much of it. His emotions are a bit… off. Especially in the persona he is currently in. Red on the other hand… I don’t think she will forget about it anytime soon…”

Leon knelt down and beckoned her to him.

“What about you? What do you think of me now?!”

Her voice was shaky and tears were falling from her face. Her tail was still curled up behind her.

“It was all my fault.. I should have read in more detail before deciding to try that on you…”

Leon looked down at the ground. He noticed Ash’s feet in front of him as she silently approached.

“I forgive you… But don’t… don’t ever flip that switch again… I have never been with a man before… That was really intense… and I don’t plan on doing it again any time soon.”

She sniffled her way through the words, and held out a hand to Leon.

“Please forget about it… Please…”

Leon looked up to her and accepted her hand.

“I can do that. I won’t do anything like that again before I know what I’m doing… promise…”

They walked back together and overheard Coro and Red discussing tongues and suffocation. Leon coughed loudly.

“Okay guys. What do we want to do next.”

“Don’t care”

Coro replied first.

“As long as they have good food and drink. I want something besides popcorn and soda.”

“I was only hear to check up on you. So if you guys are going somewhere Ill just follow.”

Red was still blushing but noticed how uncomfortable Ash looked so jumped straight to the point.

“I don’t even know how I got here… As long as we aren’t going into a war I’m fine.”

Ash was standing so close to Leon that he could feel her warmth. Her tail was swooshing back and forth in what appeared to be a happy motion.

Leon pulled a hand to his face and fell into a trance from the motion of her tail.

Must be something about trust with this species… she changed her mind about the whole thing so fast. And now she is basically attached to me… Need to do more research…

“Alright…”

Leon closed his eyes and lifted his arm. Purple motes of light streamed from his hand and pulled together to from a large glowing ball in front of him.

“What about this?”

He flipped a screen out to Coro and Red. Ash was staring at his screen, so there was no point in giving one to her.

“What the… How did you?”

Red was staring at Leon with a pinched look.

“What? Is it a problem that it’s not Earth? Would be hard for an Eclec to blend in with regular humans. Plus this sounds like a lot more fun!”

Leon put on a bright smile and continued to dump purple motes into the ball.

“No… Not a problem… Just a world I didn’t make… I have no record of anything with this name.”

Red pulled up her own screen and started to search for the world. The screen flickered out of existence as soon as she tapped the search button.

She looked up at Leon in wonder.

How the hell did he make a whole world in seconds… with new assets as well?! I haven’t even heard of Eclec before…And what happened to terminal… Something I will have to look into…

“Let’s try it.”

Red was looking skeptical now.

YOU HAVE SELECTED Ẻ̷͓́t̸̘͌ḧ̶͚͆e̷̤̍̚r̸̛̙̦̈́i̵̼̟͝ù̸͓m̴̰̀. Y/N

“Here we go.”

Leon tapped the ‘Y’ and the purple ball collapsed into a swirling mass of twisting light. The edges were lined with thin tendrils of light scraping against the void causing a faint breeze to pull through the space.

Red’s eyes grew wide.

“A… Portal…”

Coro sighed and walked through. A few seconds went by and he stuck his head back through.

“You guys coming?”

Ash headed toward the portal, leaning away from the floating head of Coro. Leon turned to Red, arm outstretched and smiling ear to ear.

“Come on! You know you want to!”

Red hesitated then grabbed his hand.

What has Leon become… I still haven’t finished working out how to use things as abstract as magic it at a functional capacity… and yet… he effortlessly created a portal?

Leon pulled her through behind him. There was a bright flash of light, a whooshing sound, and the four of them stepped into the mysterious world known as Etherium.