Metafauna behaviour can be divided into three groups based on their behavior before and after manifesting being further classified by species. Typical, in which despite having powers the behaviour of the fauna does not significantly change most commonly seen in insects and other low intelligence animals. Atypical, In which the animal changes its behaviour to take advantage of its power and aberrant in which the metafauna goes completely insane and acts completely unpredictably.

Mickey woke to the air conditioner set to freezing and a warm body snuggled up next to him. Checking on the time he found he had four hours before his work alarm would go off. Since he couldn’t leave the bed without waking his girlfriend he decided to be productive for an hour or so by tinkering with his dungeon followed by a bit of power practice.

He let one of his arms fall off the side of the bed and spent five minutes opening the required portals to link him to his dungeon.

The first thing he noticed was that the capacity of the pocket dimension had noticeably increased as he had intended. It had doubled in size, now large enough to contain four or five soccer fields. There was also more psi binding to the stone walls and floors then he expected. He checked the entrance pillar and found that somebody had entered while he was resting. Only one person so it was probably that vagrant again.

This reminded him he really needed to get some cameras setup.

The third thing was that some of the psi had bound to some of the rats. Most were either fine or mildly sick but one of them had mutated. And then, from the torn up bodies in breeding cell 3, gone on ratticidal rampage. The culprit was a twisted rat monster the size of a labrador. He briefly considered killing it but decided against it.

Nah. It’ll make a nice surprise boss fight for those teenagers. When they’re a bit less green. Heh.

Mikey then considered making the next level of the dungeon, but ultimately chose not to since he would need his notes and plans to do it properly, but he really didn’t want to wake Elly.

Instead he opted to move onto power practice. Like most exercises this was a simple technique repeated over and over again. Mickey dismissed the portal and manifested a ring around his smallest finger before reabsorbing it into his pocket and manifesting the same ring around his next finger.

His body occupied with the simple monotony, his mind drifted to the state of his dungeon. It was progressing faster than he anticipated. He could remember coming up with the idea with his sister.

While lounging on his sister's couch Mickey told her about his power progression and its new ability.

"So you can open portals into your inventory now?"

"No, they open into independent stationary pockets. There's no real connection. The size of the portal pockets is larger too. Big enough to walk around in them."

"Can you control things inside them? Like how you cool or heat up in your pocket? Because it'd be cool to go full poltergeist on people."

"I haven't really tested it out that much. But by feel it looks like I have less fine control and what I do have is more like a suggestion then a command if that makes sense. But only when I'm there. I have to be physically present to do anything."

Michelle considered this.

"And it takes a while to make a portal. So not something you could open up underneath somebody in a fight anyway. Right. Let's get to testing it out then."

Some time later

Michelle threw a tennis ball towards a bare wood wall and watched it "fall" upwards towards the roof then just before hitting falling away from the wall back to her.

"So in summary. You can change the direction but not intensity of gravity in a local area, reshape but not change matter and direct but not generate various energy forms."

Mickey nodded. " Yup. Oh and I'm pretty sure I'm screwing with space somehow. It's just hard to notice what's going on from the inside. I think if you punch through one of the walls you'll loop around back into the room."

Michelle shook her head in wonderment.

"Well broseph, looks like you got yourself a personal metaregion." She thought about it for a second.

"Shit. We need to figure out how much of a metaregion it is. Can you make metamaterials? Or God forbid metahumans?"

Mickey could feel the stress bubbling from her like smoke.

"Ahh this is probably not the best time but I can feel your stress, which is concerning since I'm not an empath. It's like a kind of energy but different."

Michelle Closed her eye and took a deep breath.

"It just keeps coming. Okay what kind of energy?"

"Like hot electricity but… Sticky?"

"Okay first things first we need more testing equipment. Some rats to start to test on living creatures. Secondly we need a worst case game plan if you can actually make metamaterials and cause manifestations in people. The big nations would kill to be able to reliably power up their armed forces through equipment or manifesting."

" Well. We could hide it. Or make it available enough that they don't try to steal it. Neutral territory. Casa Blanca style. Come here, power up go home. Like a gym or training retreat. Even have mixed unit war games maybe?" Mickey mused.

" That might work actually. Common theory is that metaregion are shaped by group consensus of a region. Like the football stadium that turns into a colosseum at times. A gym metaregion would be a place to get stronger and wouldn't necessarily have a person controlling it." Said Keith, blood running from his stump arm.

Wait Keith wasn't there, that was years back.

Keith continued "I don't suppose you'd consider not using your new abilities. They seem troublesome." Said Michelle from the couch.

This happened before-

"Nope. The Ekengle syndrome is real. I have superpowers so hell or highwater they will be used, Common sense be damned." Mickey laughed, stomach wound bleeding into the sand.

It's out of order. That was a long time ago. Michelle wasn't there.

"The Caliphate Meta's have begun to target these villages in the southern area of-" The captain gestured, decked out in his General's dress uniform.

No. I'm out. I have a job and an apartment and I'm Home. This is a dream.

Mickey pushed the blanket down as he sat up, his heart rate elevated but not quite racing.

He scanned the dim room checking doors, windows and corners. A loud graceless snore drew his attention to the sleeping form of Elanore.

Right. Home, safe. Fucking bad dreams.

He checked the time.

Still an hour and a bit before I need to get up for work.

Laying back he went to sleep. Again