It took a while for him to wake up. Or maybe moments, as he really couldn’t tell how long he was out for.

Slowly, ever so slowly as his head wasn’t pleased with moving about yet, he got up with the help of his chair. Then just about fell over as his foot slipped in the vacated remains of his stomach.

A frown, then a grimace.

Then he realized that his ears were ringing. So that probably meant that he’d been out for not too long as tinnitus usually didn’t last that long. Unless the damage to his hearing was permanent….

Looking about, he noticed that the room he was in, the living room/kitchen, hadn’t really been damaged all that much. Sure, his tv was on its back, and his dinner was spilled across the floor, but it wasn’t that bad. Though the hole clipped into the outside wall that was attached to the next room over made him pause, then curse as he quickly slipped his feet into a pair of sandals (after quickly wiping one foot off on the door mat), then ran to the second bedroom.

Well, he tried, but the hallway was nearly blocked off by what remained of the wall, and that large black thing that had crashed into his apartment.

He then stepped back to the patio door and grabbed some work gloves off his shoe rack and then went back to the remains of the hallway.

After a few moments of his eye twitching, and wondering where the emergency vehicles were, he began pulling off busted drywall, 2x4s, and the door frame, throwing it all behind him.

After he had cleaned off a fair amount dust and debris, this blood ran cold at the sight.

Right. So, I guess I’m dead. Not exactly what I had pictured the afterlife being like… but what else makes sense?

He promptly sat down and coughed at bit, then sneezed, not particularly enjoying the dust. Damn allergies.

After an indeterminate period of time, for he never bothered glancing at the health tracker on his wrist, he sighed again, then promptly began hacking up a lung. Or, well, he made a good go at it, but they remained stubbornly in his chest.

He then got up and grabbed a cup from over the sink and turned on the faucet. Then blinked.

Did that knock out the water main or something? He wondered as he stared at the dry sink.

Then the sound of his phone, still playing music, distracted him. So, he walked over and picked it up off the floor, dusted it off, then paused the music and sat down in his now dusty chair and glanced outside.

Then immediately turned back to the window, jaw dropping.

Where there should have been the remains of a house, not to mention the rest of the street he lived on, he saw nothing but rocky terrain interrupted every now and then by a spot of greenery.

“OK, maybe I really did die…” he thought to himself as he stared at the alien landscape. Well, not “alien”, but unfamiliar, strange, not home.

Then he looked down at his phone as reality crashed into him, looking at the service bar.

“No Service”.

No WiFi.

Well.

“I need a nap,” he said to himself softly as he leaned his head back against the only slightly damaged wall and closed his eyes.

But really, who could sleep in a situation like that?!

He got up again, slipping his phone into his pocket, reached for his work boots and began putting them on as he kept glancing at all the debris that was now in his kitchen. Then something caught his eye, or rather the lack of something.

The little clock on the stove was blank. Not blinking like it would if the power went out then came back on. But blank. Then it occurred to him that his fan was off.

Huh.

Well, that would kind of go with not having any cellular reception, never mind the whole new landscape outside. Oh, and no sound of emergency vehicles rushing to the rescue.

Effffff……

Well, at least the food in the fridge and his mini-freezer would last about a day… Huzzah for canned food!!

Another sigh. He wasn’t some kid that got isekai’d in the prime of their life. He was now past forty, terribly out of shape having taken… some time off. Nor was he an outdoors enthusiast who loved going camping with a backpack, a canteen, and a knife.

Well, at least he had several water-bottles he could use, if he found a potable source of water. He also had a variety of kitchen knives, not to mention that hunting knife he had found in a pizza box when he was ten…

Shaking his head from the many distractions that his brain tried to throw his way, he once again entered the hallway with the object that made him think that he was in some sort of afterlife. Maybe just a coma? He thought with a chuckle as he walked over to something that was way too familiar.

Never mind that it shouldn’t exist.

That was the thing: what was it doing here? It should have, literally, only existed on paper. Well, digitally, because he did all his writing on his computer or phone these days. Who wanted to keep track of stacks of paper for the dozens of stories that they wrote, but never published?

Hello Brain, nice distraction there.

With a sigh, and another coughing fit, he made his way over the black thing and into the ruins of his daughters’ room and sat down.

There was nothing left. The bunkbed was splinters, the mattresses shredded. Their toys, what had actually been in their small room, were also gone. Some of their clothes were scattered about, but he suspected that most were under the black thing that had destroyed everything in there.

He slapped the metal he was sitting on and immediately regretted it as he waved his stinging hand about.

Well, if this was indeed the object he had written about, then things might work out.

Then again, a coma dream was a very real possibility. Sure, he was aware of string theory and the multiverse theory. But the odds of all of this aligning were about the same as him winning every single lottery draw that had happened since he turned eighteen. On the planet.

So, coma dream was the highest on his list of possibilities as a regular dream would end shortly after it became a lucid dream for him. Every time.

Once again shaking his head, he slid off the top of the sarcophagus and began inspecting the “bottom”. Well, it would be the end where the feet would go, not the actual under side of the thing. There was no way he could even dream of moving this thing without a crane.

All-in-all, the thing was about three metres long by one and a half wide by one and a half tall/deep. All made of a black metal. No, it wasn’t just lacquered, or plated; the metal was black. And if it was indeed the same thing as what he’d written about, it was solid adamantine.

Yes, that fantasy metal. The nigh unto indestructible metal from legend. Sitting in his apartment.

And if it was indeed the sarcophagus that he imagined, then there should be…

Yup, there it was.

A plug.

Why a plug you ask? Simple.

To drain the contents.

But if it was indeed her prison, then maybe he should get a few containers to save the stuff…?

Yes, good idea brain.

So, he spent ten or so minutes going through his apartment, gathering any sealable containers that he could find and gathered them all at the foot of the sarcophagus.

Really. I’ve never had a coma dream, but you would think things would be… more fun? Like flying! Or maybe actually winning the lottery? Well, to be fair, if this is what I think it is, and if who I think is in there is in there, then I guess that this would count and winning all the lotteries at the same time…

Another shrug as he squatted at the foot of the sarcophagus, readying his first container, an old OJ bottle that he hadn’t gotten around to dumping into the recycling bin behind his building.

He was glad that he was one of those overly nice people who rinsed their containers before dropping them into the bin. Though, his ex cousin-in-law ran the recycling pick-up crews for his city and claimed that most of what was picked up just went to the landfill anyway…

Anyway!

Back to it, Brain!

Then he paused and took a deep breath, steadied the funnel at the top of the jug, and reached for the plug. Then paused, trying to remember what he had written about it.

Don’t touch the sarcophagus until all of the quintessence is drained or you’ll get hit with a lightning bolt.

Hmm, maybe a snack first? He hadn’t had dinner yet after all.

Bah!

He reached over and turned the plug counter-clockwise three quarters of the way around, pulled slightly, then turned the plug all the way around to the original orientation then pulled it the rest of the way out. He then quickly placed the funnel under the hole, catching the oddly reflective and translucent fluid.

It was thick as molasses and began giving him a mild headache almost instantly.

OK, maybe just one container of the stuff…. Who am I kidding? I’m getting it all! He thought to himself as it slowly leaked out.

Well, this will take a while. Let’s look outside.

With that thought he turned around and really took in the hole in the side of his apartment as he stepped through it.

It was then that he really took note of the air. It was much fresher than it had been in the city he… came from? Does that count when you’re having a coma dream?

It was also cooler, closer to what he preferred actually.

May as well be comfortable in your dreams, eh?

He laughed, a quick and loud event in the quiet landscape. Then stopped as he took in the mountains around him.

It did indeed look as though he was in the mountains somewhere. Also, those were some very tall mountains, almost all of them surrounded by clouds that were surely nowhere near the tops of the mountains. He could spot where the snow-line was on them, which happened to be not far below the clouds themselves. Odd.

Then he turned around and just about fell over. Not because he was clumsy, he was actually quite agile even being as out of shape as he was. No, what caused the sudden lack of balance was the impact of seeing a small chuck of his apartment building just sitting there on the… plateau? Clearing? Flat piece of a mountain.

The part of his building that… came along for the journey was only about the radius of his apartment, spherical, as he could see parts of the apartment above his, missing its side walls. That resulted in the roof/ceiling having fallen in on most of the apartment.

He really hoped the family had been out when it happened, because the floors were a foot of solid concrete and now occupied what had once been their flat. Pun intended. He was, after all, a father….

Another moment of silence.

With yet another shake of his head, he took the gloves from his back pocket and began piling up rocks on the side of his apartment, the side that had once been the neighbouring unit. Well, both sides of his apartment seemed to have come with chunks of his neighbouring units. We’ll call it the south side of the apartment then!

Looking into the southern apartment he saw that, yup, it still yellow. That was why he had passed that unit over when the management had showed him the available units in the building. Heck, he’d even turned down the unit he was trying to get to in favour of having a patio door. Purely pragmatic, as he didn’t want to juggle groceries and kids going up to the second floor of his building.

Not to mention the ability to avoid the inside of the building with that damn pandemic going on….

“Damn, I really am out of shape.” He panted out as he had to stop after having only moved a couple dozen rocks into his pile. Well, debris anyway. There was a lot of masonry and chunks of concrete to move after an “accident” like that.

“Maybe I should wait for her to get out…?” He mused as he walked through the doorway and went to the fridge. No sense letting the juice spoil after all.

He really should have just used the patio door to access… the room. Well, can’t always be thoughtful and efficient in my dreams!

Well, he wouldn’t have any company here, so he didn’t bother with a cup and just drank from the container. Who knew when he’d be able to wash dishes again? Besides, if it was who he thought it was in that black sarcophagus, then she didn’t need to eat or drink anyways.

He looked around again, this time appreciating the fact that most of the damage to his place had been localized to the second bedroom. Laptops? Check. Printer? Check. Textbooks? Yup. Well, he had paid enough for them, so he might as well make sure they were good. Aside from a few things that were knocked over, the place was surprisingly whole.

That was something at least.

He looked at his fridge again, this time actually looking at the childish artwork covering it and sighed.

If this wasn’t a dream, and he really was in one of those worlds he read about in those stories he liked to read to pass the time… then maybe it was a good thing? Maybe he could have something no others had here?

With a bitter chuckle, he put the OJ container back into the fridge as quick as he could, to keep it cool as long as possible. What would be the odds of that happening? The real odds, not just the lottery analogy?

He walked back outside and turned left to get to the hole in the wall and looked over and noticed that the old OJ container was almost full, so he went back in, gritting his teeth against the headache, and put a lid on the container of quintessence and swapped it with another container. That done, he walked it outside and put it beside his little pile of rocks.

Back in the bedroom, he began gathering up the balls of the stuff that hadn’t made it into a container, that also hadn’t evaporated back into the ether, and walked them to the pile and dropped them beside the container. Several trips later and he’d cleaned out the quintessence and just watched as the last of the stuff dripped down into the last container.

How did he know what it was? Yes, it was due to the stories he had written. His favourite heroine. The one whom he’d written about more than he could properly remember. Well, that wasn’t true. He remembered every story he’d ever written about her.

But he really wished that he’d recorded, or at least taken notes on, the campaign that he’d played. The one where she had taken form, where she had become the amazing person that he wrote about so often afterwards.

Was it just inspiration that created her? Or was it some sort of divine providence that had brought all those thoughts together for him and his friends as they played through that campaign that shaped those characters?

Either way, he’d know pretty soon.

So, he sat upon the remains of the foam mattress that he’d stacked up and waited.

And waited.

But soon enough he heard a confused voice through the drain. Heard some shuffling. Well, some metal scraping on metal, as she would be in her armour in there. Then it stopped. A moment later he heard a voice.

“Hello?”

He smiled. Her voice was as beautiful as he’d imagined. Well, to be honest, it was even more beautiful and melodious.

“Hello,” he said. “Do you need help getting out of there?” He asked in a tired, but kind voice.

There was a pause, then a grunt as the lid slowly lifted and then slid to the side then stopped as it caught on the wall.

“One second.” He said as he got up and peeked into the sarcophagus.

Yup, that’s her. He thought to himself with a smile.

“Try pushing it that way,” he said and pointed to the hallway. “But not too hard. I don’t want it to crush the storage room.”

He just got a blank look in return, then the lid disappeared.

Should have thought of that. He thought with a wry grin on his face.

More metal clanked then she stood up, looked about, then the rest of the sarcophagus disappeared and she dropped the rest of the way to the damaged concrete below her. She didn’t seem to notice.

He just stood there, less than a metre from her.

Gods, she was beautiful.

Sure, some might have thought that a person who appeared to be an iron angel - with wings! - in full-plate armour might have been intimidating, but it was quite the opposite for him.

For he had not just written down what he’d imagined of her (or was it some sort of divine connection?), he had dreamed of her, had written many stories of her. And now she was standing in front of him, in the ruins of his daughters’ room… That sobered him up.

So, he looked up at her, for with her armour on she was a few inches taller than him. Well, truth be told, she would have been about an inch taller than him anyway. Her brilliant emerald eyes practically sparkled at him as she looked him up and down. Heck, they really might have been sparkling at him for all he knew.

”Where am I?” She asked, now looking around, eyebrow quirked.

“Well, you would be in my home – apartment really,” he said with a half-grunt half-laugh. “But as for where that is… I have no idea.”

That got him the pleasure of seeing her other eyebrow going up.

“I see,” she said in the kind of tone you would recognize if you ever told someone that the sky was blue. “Maybe you should tell me what happened.”

That was all sorts of reasonable, so he motioned for her to follow him and led her to the messy living room/kitchen and offered her is comfy chair, as he really didn’t think that his other chairs would support her in her amour.

Ten minutes later she was still looking at him with one of the most incredulous looks that had ever been directed at him. Well, at least she didn’t outright laugh at him.

“So, you were sitting down to dinner when I crashed into your home?”

“Yup.”

“And you somehow knew how to release me from my prison?”

“Yyy-up.”

“You know, I can tell that that isn’t the whole story, right?”

“Yyyyy-up.” Man, he was doing that Earth Pony proud.

She looked around again, this time making a show of it. “Well, I certainly believe that I am no longer in my realm.”

“Well, I know that you can easily skim my thoughts to verify it all; and you’ve already likely done that,” he said with a half-grin. “So, you probably already know about how I know about Asmodeus and that little prison and all….”

Nod-nod.

“And you probably already know that I would have saved you, regardless of the circumstances?”

Nod-nod. Good bobble-head there.

Another raised eyebrow. Yup, she’s listening in all right.

“But I will ask anyway,” he started, but stopped as she raised a hand.

“What makes you think that I would agree to that?” She asked, that perfectly arched brow still in place.

“Because you don’t want to see me die in a foreign, and quite possibly hostile, environment when you could help?”

Yup, that half grin was getting strained. Sure, this might be a coma dream, but could also really be, well, real. And if that were the case, then him asking that of her was probably a little bit more than a little bit far-fetched. Hubris incarnate to think that she would help just a random Joe just because he asked. Especially for what he had asked for.

Sure, he had released her from her prison. But that really didn’t matter to someone trapped in temporal stasis. Who knows? She might have been let out the next day, or a million years later. But she wouldn’t have been touched by time, not in the least.

Why? Well, there was the quintessence, but also because she was Altaea. A goddess. Functionally immortal even before she ascended to the divine. Someone who had passed the test of the gods to join their ranks. Someone who had ruled her people for a thousand years (give or take) as a God-Queen.

OK Brain, back to the topic at hand!

That got a quirk of the lips from Altaea.

“True enough,” she said with an actual smile. “I don’t know how you came to know so much about me, nor how I came here. But what I do know is that I do owe you a, not insignificant, debt of gratitude.”

He smiled at that. She really was how he had pictured her while writing about her.

“So, are you really sure that you wish to shed your humanity and become…?” She asked, trailing off as she saw the look in his eyes as he thought about his life.

-

Pain. Sorrow. Loss. Anguish. Regret. Despair.

Altaea nodded as she regarded the man in front of her. He was of a height with her, though slightly shorter. Fair of skin and dark of hair, though his beard had more silver in it than not. He was broad of shoulder, though out of shape if his waist-line was any indication. But his eyes…. They were not of one clear colour, but primarily green, with some brown, blue, and even gold flecks in there. Big, soulful, eyes.

“I see,” Altaea said as she got flashes of images from him. Aside from thoughts of her and being in a coma, they were primarily of his daughters.

“Can you do it?” He asked. “Make me like you?”

“I can see what you mean, but that would be… an involved process.” She said, a little hesitant even though she knew how much he wanted it.

“I know, I was there for it too,” he said with a sad smile. “Would we still have to do the ring, or can you, I don’t know, combine the steps?”

She gave him a level look. They both knew the answer to that.

“Doing it in two steps will have a greater chance of success.”

“I know,” he said. “But I…” He trailed off, his gaze drifting to a small tree in a planter on the windowsill.

More memories flashed by. She kept herself from reacting visibly. Those were some powerful emotions and memories.

She started talking to reassure him. “You know, I’m not really in a rush to get anywhere.”

He looked over to her and took another breath. “Yeah, I guess there’s not much to see.” He said with that half smile of his as he glanced outside.

There really wasn’t that much to see beyond cloudy mountains and some scrub here and there. They were probably above the treeline.

He cleared his throat and looked at her again. “You know,” he started, “you should probably get changed and rest up. You had quite the time of it before getting here after all.”

She blinked and then smiled. That was the understatement of the week. Probably century, if not millennium.

“True, but we should probably do something about our accommodations,” she said as she looked around.

“Yeah, not much we can do with you being tapped out,” he said with a wry smile.

She gave him a mock glare. “Please, I can at least fix the place up before resting.” She said as she concentrated for a moment, focussing her mind and activating one of her innate abilities.

The apartment began righting itself, debris sliding across the floor, the wall reassembling itself, the cracked floor becoming smooth once again.

Altaea watched as the man across from her got a twinkle in his eye, the tell-tale signs of wonderment etched on his face.

Soon enough it was all done, and he was standing on his feet again looking down the hall. This time, though, his eyes were filled with gratitude, a little moisture gathered in his eyes.

Clearing her throat, Altaea stepped up beside him, silent as a shadow. “Where can I rest?” She asked, snapping him back to the here and now.

“Oh, ah…”, he started, glancing around for a second. “I, ah, hmm. Maybe this room here?” He said, pointing at the second bedroom. “I can stack both mattresses to make it more comfortable for you?” He asked/said, suddenly looking like any other concerned host.

She smiled. “No worries. I am sure it’ll be fine as is. Especially without the armour.”

He blinked and her and did that short laugh of his, half-grunt half-laugh. “Yeah, there’s that.”

With that said he did a silly bow as he motioned to the room. Once she stepped in, he smiled and closed the door behind her, giving her her privacy.

-

I am going to have a heart-attack! He thought to himself as he stood on the other side of the now-closed door.

He was loath to admit it, but after… everything that had happened, she had sort of become his waifu. Yes, it was ridiculous to the extreme, but after all that had happened, he needed something to hold onto. And given that he had tumbled into a depressed funk – no he hadn’t had it diagnosed, but he was pretty self-aware – and that was all that had kept his mind from spiralling…

Ahem.

So, here he was. Standing on the other side of a door from not only his waifu, but someone who had become, well, his friend.

Like when you read a novel, or a series, and become attached to a character, imagining how you could be friends or some such. How their triumphs and failures affected you just as much as, if not more than, them. Or how you have a favourite movie to tv show and get attached to one of the characters. Same thing, but this was to a character of his own. The main character of many stories he’d written.

And now she was here.

On the one hand, he really wished that it was a coma dream and that he would just slowly fade away so that….

On the other hand, well, this was a literal dream come true.

Meeting her! Being able to speak with her, maybe get to know her!

Now, he wasn’t delusional – well, he was if this was indeed a coma dream -, he knew that he was nowhere near her type. And honestly? Who would be able to fall for someone they worked on? Saw them in all that gory detail. Saw all of their memories, their fears, desires, and wishes?

He knew that he was broken. Heck, he had practically decided to die single after everything that had happened! Become that recluse that he’d joked about being for so many years…

But maybe. Maybe he could start a new life. Maybe he could do the things that he had always wanted, dreamed of.

And maybe he would just sit in a corner and do nothing but remember…

-

Altaea stored her armour away, in what her friends had called her “stuff space”, and changed into a simple beige shirt and earth brown slacks, pulling on a pair of knee-high leather boots that were slightly darker than her pants. Not the shiny kind of leather boots, but a matte finish. Not that she really needed boots, given that she was about to rest, but it never hurt to be prepared.

That said, she looked at the bed, ruffled her wings, and sighed. If she laid down on the bed, her wings would shred it in seconds.

With a quiet sigh, Altaea instead sat cross legged on the floor on a colourful mat of some kind. Blue, red, yellow, and green squares all connected by a pattern of… teeth? Whatever it was, it was much softer than the tile floor, so she was happy enough.

She then closed her eyes and began to meditate.

-

Well, that corner got boring very quickly. He thought to himself as he got up and glanced outside.

It was starting to get dark as the sun set behind his apartment. Well, if things were the same here as back home, that means I’m facing east. That was at least something.

The next problem was light. Normally, he would just get by on the ambient light of the city if he was disinclined to turn on the lights at night. Heck, he had great low-light vision, so it never really bothered him.

Unless he was visiting his dad out in the countryside, then things got right dark without all the light pollution. Even then, though, if the moon was out he could still see really well in the dark.

That being said: this was a new and potentially hostile environment. So, off he went to grab a flashlight and a couple of batteries. At least he was in the habit of keeping them charged up. Those 18650 batteries (the ones that looked like oversized AAs) were definitely useful.

Next, it was time to rummage in the storage closet.

Being a geek for pretty much his entire life, he had collected some random things. The thing that he was searching for just so happened to be one those things. A sword.

Yup, he was one of those types that had liked collecting swords when he could. Most were just useless show pieces, of low quality stainless steel, blunted, or just unwieldly (as the one replica of his favourite strawberry-haired Shinigami proved).

No, the one he grabbed was the only high-carbon steel sword he had: a katana. It was almost a foot longer than a normal katana, though proportional. That really didn’t matter though, as he was built “like a brick shit-house”, as an old friend had once told him. That made him smile as he remembered how she had said it, the expression on her face.

Another smile as he also recalled her being fairly slender, a good half-foot shorter than him, and half his weight. Almost anyone would have been described as a tank compared to her.

Back in the present, he undid the cloth wrapping and admired the blue-lacquered wooden scabbard. He then drew out a foot of steel and smiled as he smelled the pine of the scabbard, the oil on the blade, and even a bit of the scent of steel. He had always had a good nose.

Then he slowly re-sheathed it, walked back to the living room to sit in his comfy chair, and look out the window.

It was going to be a long night.

-

Altaea opened her eyes, a glint of light flashed in the darkness.

It seemed to be the middle of the night, wherever she-they, were. But she was refreshed and ready to tackle the challenges of the day.

The first of said challenges was to see if there were any gods here.

So, she closed her eyes and began to meditate, not to restore herself, but to search, to let her consciousness roam.

But what she found was… a void. The plane that she was on, or realm, as others liked to call them, was peculiar.

There were traces of divinity here and there, but not what she would expect.

The other thing that she discovered was that she wasn’t… whole.

Her divine flame was but a spark in the darkness, a candle to the roaring bonfire that it had been.

But she could still feel her paladin side. Not like when she and her companions had been stripped of their abilities after saving the universe.

She breathed a sigh of relief at that. It had been traumatizing enough that she didn’t wish a repeat of those events.

But again, this plane was odd. If felt… artificial, created. But whole. But a fragment. It was the weirdest feeling that she had ever felt.

But that was another matter entirely. For now, now she needed to help her benefactor. So she concentrated on herself this time. Feeling, seeing, all that was her. Then reaching in and changing herself, suppressing her celestial heritage, pulling her wings back into herself. Her skin changing from shining iron to supple flesh, glittering scar-tattoos and all.

The funny thing was that her hair remained the same. It was a brilliant sapphire bordering on indigo at the roots that changed to the most amazing purples then changed to a brilliant ruby colour at the tips. All-in-all, about 1/3 for each colour scheme, each blending seamlessly into the next.

Once she was done, she looked like just about every other human out there. Well, except the hair. And maybe the very faint, sparkly, scar-tattoos….

She was well pleased though, so she got up, stretched a bit, and opened her door. She was pleased that these hinges seemed to be well oiled, for the door opened - and now that she thought of it, had closed - without a sound. The door handle was exactly that, a handle. Not the knob that had been popular back home before she… left.

With a slight frown, she placed a hand on the door and concentrated for a moment, getting a layout of the man’s home. It was a useful power that she had picked up at some point. It allowed her to “delve” her surrounding. She could get the layout of a building in seconds, or she could find a particular substance in the earth if she wished, or the substance of an object. The power had been quite popular amongst the miners back home, not to mention healers, alchemists, and smiths of every kind.

The building was certainly… unique. Whoever had built the place had used materials that she had never seen before, and others in such a way that had never been done before.

For instance, what was all the wrapped copper in the walls for? It was also quite the novel idea to use iron bars inside the concrete to support the structure. Even the concrete wasn’t of the variety that she knew; this was much denser.

And so Altaea, instead of going to the living room where her host had fallen asleep, explored the small dwelling.

And wasn’t that a marvel? She found so many things that she had never seen before, nor even imagined could exist! In the other bedroom, there were many devices that had such complex and miniscule parts to them, let alone the strange materials with which they were made, that it boggled the mind. It pushed the accuracy of her delve to its limits, then beyond as she concentrated harder and harder on the wondrous items.

Not that they were magical or even psionic in nature. That was the amazing thing! They were all mundane! If one could even call such amazing things “mundane”.

As she explored the items, she noticed that they all had a cord of some sort (well, copper wrapped in a new substance) and they all led to either a small receptacle in the wall, or an item make to attach to the ends of the cords, then that thing was attacked to a wall receptacle. And those receptacles were attached to the wrapped copper wires in the walls which suddenly ended in what appeared to be a metal box in the wall of the storage room, but then a slightly larger wire left that box and ended where the building did.

Huh. Maybe she’d ask her host about that later.

For now, she would continue delving and studying everything that she could!

-

He awoke with a crick in his neck. Yup, he’d fallen asleep. Sigh.

Maybe this wasn’t a coma-dream? Who went to sleep and then woke up while in a dream? Dreams in a dream…

He took a moment to half-process that line of thought then proverbially tossed it out the window.

He then looked out the actual window and saw that the mountains across from him were brightening in preparation of dawn. Then he looked to his right and nearly jumped out of his chair.

Sitting almost within touching distance was Altaea. Not that that was the most startling thing. No, it was the wide-eyed stare that she was giving him, almost expectant.

Who was he kidding? She was practically sparkling.

He took a second to realize that she had not only changed her clothing, which was quite flattering given the earth tones, but she had also changed.

Gone were the wings, gone was the glossy iron skin. Her hair was the same, but her skin was once again that of a mortal.

Well, that wasn’t quite right.

If anyone from back home could have such beautiful skin, soft-looking, lustrous, and full of vitality, then there would have been global wars for it. To put it mildly, she was the most beautiful person that he had ever seen - or imagined. For what mortal mind could imagine the beauty of divinity?

With a start, he snapped his mouth closed as he realized Altaea was now blushing. Her. Blushing.

Then he was waking up all over again.

Huh, must have overloaded the circuits….

Ahem!

“So, ah, how are you?” He asked lamely and immediately berated himself for his lack of cognitive ability in front of her, all the while trying to keep a good poker face.

“I am recovered, thank you,” she said with a smile that told him she knew everything.

He was going to die.

“Glad to hear it,” he said, somewhat unsteadily. “So, ah, about the procedure…?” He asked, trying so hard to get his mind back on track.

“Yes, that.” She said as she leaned back a bit.

He just about had a nosebleed then and there.

She grinned at him.

She’d doing it on purpose!!!

“Yyyy-up,” she said, doing a very good impersonation of him from last night. At least that broke the tension.

“So, what do I need to do to prepare?” He asked, knowing that there probably wasn’t much.

“You’re right, there isn’t much to do beyond answering a few questions,” she said as she sat up in her chair, now the very image of proper.

“What would you like to know?”

“Many things, but I’ll keep in on the current topic,” she said with a beautiful smile. “The first is: would you like to retain your memories?”

That hit him like a tonne of bricks. He knew that that was a thing, but to have to decide right now was… hard. He looked to the windowsill, seeing the little spruce sapling, and zoned out for a bit. But, eventually, he came to his answer.

“Yes, please.”

She gave him that look that told him that she knew all of what that meant.

“Next: any requests for your new form?”

It went on like that for a few more minutes, her asking questions that he really would have wished to never answer, mostly because of the embarrassing nature of said questions. But finally, the questioning came to a close.

“So, ah, can I become like you? Well, half of you anyways. We don’t really have planars back home, so I wouldn’t quite qualify as being an aasimar.” He said with a wry grin.

“That is something we shall speak of later; your old home,” she said with a sparkle in her eye, but then with a serious face. “For now: yes, you can become an elan. Even a High Elan that you, for some reason, know about.”

Before he could say anything, she continued, her expression more serious than he had seen on anyone in a very long time.

“This will be the most profound and physically painful experience of your life. You will might try to beg me to stop, I will not. Your mind will feel like nothing you have ever experienced; I can guarantee that.” She paused to let that sink in. “Are you still prepared to do this? I know everything has been so sudden. Usually, any initiates prepare for years before taking the lesser route. So, again: are you prepared?”

He couldn’t help but crack his second-best smile at her.

His first-best smile had died.

-

“No, I am not,” he said, his eyes becoming more focused, more serious. “But I am ready and willing.”

Altaea looked at him and saw a glint in his eye that she recognized. She had seen it in too many people she had known. Yes, past tense. Most of those people had known that what they were about to do, be it to hold the line against the enemy, let go of a hand, or any number of things. But each and every one of them had known that they were likely going to die.

And yet he smiled at her with those soulful eyes.

“All right then,” she said. “Strip.”

He blinked at her. Twice.

“We both know that you can’t be dressed for this,” she said. “Also, I will need to alter the floor a bit, as I’ll need to add some restraints.”

Another blink. Then full-on blush.

*Cough!*

“You know what I mean,” Altaea said as she tried to hold a smile back. At least there was a bit of humour.

“Yeah, but one can dream, right?” He replied. They both knew that he was more than likely not going to be able to say anything of the sort in the future. Because Elans, and High Elans, didn’t actually dream anymore. Also, he’d likely be dead.

Shaking her head, Altaea concentrated a bit and pulled the iron out of the concrete under the tiled floor, shaping it into closable wrist and ankle restraints. Next, she pulled forth a large iridescent crystal the size of her arm. It slowly broke into smaller pieces, arranging themselves into a pattern on the floor. Then the rest of the crystal disintegrated into a sand that seemed to catch all the light and refract it countless times.

Altaea didn’t have to look over her shoulder to see the expression of utter awe on her host’s face. And because he couldn’t see her face, she allowed herself to smile.

For she had gathered that he came from a place where there was no magic, no psionics. He had faith that there was a God, but that’s what faith was: believing without knowing.

Soon enough the preparations for the procedure, or ritual if you wanted to call it that, were complete.

“Just in case, I’ll secure the area so that we won’t get interrupted,” Altaea said as she concentrated, pulling up six-foot-thick stone walls around the piece of apartment, raising them up and then bringing them together into a dome. Not that he could see that, but Altaea knew.

Then the only light in the room was from the glowing crystal on the floor.

“So that is what Dust looks like,” he said as he gazed at the pattern on the floor.

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll teach you how to make it one day.”

“I’d very much like that,” he said, then took off his colourful shirt, cleared his throat, then started on his pants.

Altaea turned around so that he wouldn’t be quite as embarrassed, though it made no difference to her; she saw everything around her anyway with her sphere of perception. Then she motioned with a hand and a dish towel flew over into that same hand.

“If you’d be more comfortable, you can lay this across yourself.”

He grinned sheepishly as he took the offered towel, then laid down on the ground, placing the towel over his pelvis, then placed his hands and ankles in the open restraints.

“Well, here goes nothing,” he with his usual grin.

Then she waved her hand and he fell asleep.

Altaea looked around in the near darkness. I didn’t really bother her as she could see in perfect darkness anyways. What she was looking for was a refuse container of some sort. Then shrugged, opened the patio door, and formed a bin of stone and placed it next to the circle. This was going to get messy.

-

He was having a nice dream, something about meeting his waifu, but then he was unceremoniously pulled out of it by excruciating pain; like nothing he had ever felt before.

It felt like his skin was being peeled off, layer by layer. Then, suddenly, he knew that it was so because his eyelids were suddenly gone.

He tried to scream but found that there was something in his mouth keeping his jaws apart. He didn’t have the faculties to register that it was a bit of cloth wrapped wood, designed to keep him from either shattering his teeth as he clenched his jaw, or biting off his tongue. Or both.

Either way, that pain was now gone. But what replaced it was something almost worse. He felt his muscles twitch and squirm all by themselves. He felt his bones breaking and sliding about.

No kidding this would be the most profound pain he would ever been in.

And that was the last thought he had before everything went black.

-

Altaea tuned out the moans, cries, muffled screams, and other sounds that he was making, like she had done countless times before as she made new elans.

At least the skin was done. That had to be completely regrown and restructured, and that was happening in the air beside her as she got to work on the muscles.

She could tell that he had never been one of those people who had worked out to constantly build up their muscles. But she could also tell that he had, at many times in his life, had a respectable muscle mass and density, along with his bones.

But now, now she needed to rework most things. Realign bones, regrow all of his teeth and straighten them slightly (even allowing new wisdom teeth to grow in with the needed space), rework muscle and its memory. Adjust organs to their new functions (rework the lungs, as it seems that they had been damaged at some point), or completely remove others. Pancreas? Spleen? Appendix? Who actually needed that many feet of intestines?

Well, she supposed humans did, but elans didn’t, never mind High Elans.

Then she reworked his spine. Specifically his neck. How in all the multiverse had he managed to not only get a reverse curve on it, but had then twisting it like a spiral staircase?! How had he survived?

With a sigh and a mental nudge, she fixed his spine, fixed a bone that wasn’t set properly after a break and just generally worked to get his skeleton in top shape. His marrow was then reworked along with his bones, allowing for energy to be easily stored in the porous tissues.

Then came the reworking of his essence, what made up every bit of the body. Curiosity struck as she wondered if he knew what it was called. So, she paused in her work and peeked about in his memories attached to biology and was astonished.

He knew! They called it “DNA” and had names for the other things in the body that her people really didn’t have names for, but knew of. Well, they called them something else, but this was much more interesting.

She had to stop herself from getting too distracted, but made a mental note to get as much info out of him that she could. Which meant doing her utmost to ensure his survival.

Then she was back to reworking his DNA and such, making adjustments here, taking something out there, adding in what was needed, and what would allow him to become… like her. Then there was the Dust that she broke down further and added to every new cell in his body that was rapidly growing to replace the old, obsolete, cells.

It was a tricky thing, as you had to keep ahead of anything mixing, getting rid of old tissue before it became an issue. Hence the waste bin.

She not only had to accelerate the growth of the new tissues, but she had to make sure to create the nutrients the cells needed, not to mention providing the energy.

Soon, it came time to cloak the body in his new skin; a task that was always tricky. She first had to levitate him slightly off the floor, [Cleanse] his body again, then wrap him up like a gift, being extra careful around the wrists and ankles.

Now, one might wonder what happened to all the blood? Well, it was in the waste bin. She had been sustaining him psionically this whole time, including his brain. What did that involve? Too much to be said but suffice it to say that she kept his brain in working order throughout the procedure. Even while working on it.

On to the tricky part.

What few people knew, was that you could copy someone’s psyche, all their memories, knowledge, feelings, emotions, and experiences. In short, everything that made a person who they were. Impossible? No. Tricky? Definitely. It was why most initiates didn’t keep most of their memories when undergoing the ritual.

But this? Well, this was a High Elan she was making. This was far beyond any lesser ritualists, possibly beyond anyone but her. But she could not only do it, but do it well.

So, she copied everything that made her host who he was and began reworking his brain. No longer would it need the mundane to sustain itself but would only need the psionic energy that his being would produce. No more eating. No more drinking. No more bathroom breaks.

Well, if he didn’t want to. High Elans could indeed still consume food and imbibe fluids and would even have to use the facilities, albeit at a reduced rate as their bodies processed things much more efficiently than other races/species. But the point was that they didn’t need to. It was more for social graces that any elan consumed anything after their transformation. Well, that and habits from their old lives.

Back to the issues at hand.

She looked at her work. He wouldn’t have the sparkling scars that she did, scars that looked like nothing more than faint glittering tattoos all over her body for anyone that didn’t know what had happened to her.

He would also be a lot less hairy, at his request. She couldn’t blame him there.

But getting that extra inch of height, fulfilling his childhood dream to being over six feet tall, well, that was all her. And maybe his nose… Just a little. She had come across a memory of his little sister teasing him that he had a big nose. It really wasn’t that big, just slightly larger. Most people would even think it normal.

Shrug.

Soon enough, Altaea had gathered all the old waste materials and paused. Some people liked to keep a memento of their old selves. It was kind of weird, but to each their own. She had wanted her womb back for the longest time after she’d become an elan, before everything was… fixed. So, she gathered his old teeth and a lock of hair and set them aside after cleaning the blood off the teeth. No one wanted to see a bunch of blood laying about.

Then she once again concentrated briefly and sent a green ray into the stone bin, disintegrating the remains, followed by an apartment wide [Cleanse] to get rid of the smell, and the bits that had dripped…

Lastly, she copied over his consciousness into his new brain, making adjustments as needed. The mind was used to a very specific environment, and she had just messed all that up for it.

So, she took the time to work through the muscle memory for him, adjusting things like the length of his limbs, his manual dexterity, putting in what he needed for muscle regulation so that he wouldn’t accidentally injure himself or others (though she was the only one around, and he couldn’t hope to actually hurt her), or even just breaking something by accident.

By the time she was done, the apartment was pitch black, all the Dust having been used up in the ritual.

-

The state his mind was in was… well… inexplicable. Indescribable. There were just no words to describe what he had gone through.

But what he felt now, well, there were words.

Queasy, disoriented, dizzy. Full of life, vitality, energy. He felt like he could run a marathon, and he had never been able to do that before, even at his best. Most of all? There was no pain.

He hadn’t realized exactly how much pain he had been living through up to this point. His neck felt, well, great. No constant pinching, or feeling like someone had stabbed him. His hands, damaged while working in the cleaning room of a foundry, felt great. In short, everything felt great.

Then he opened his eyes.

He wished he hadn’t as a wave of vertigo and dizziness hit him like a freight train. Not that he knew what that felt like, but he imagined it was a very sudden thing, and felt that the analogy was appropriate. Well, in as much as he could actually think about anything.

It took him some time to get over the vertigo, dizziness, and twitching to just sit up. Even that felt good. He opened his eyes and looked around. Everything looked normal. Everything looked different.

He could tell that there was no light in the apartment, and none coming from outside given the massive stone dome overhead. But he could still see everything as though it were daytime. It was the weirdest sensation. There were all the colours that wouldn’t normally be there with his low-light vision. Huh.

Then he looked at Altaea, still in her earth-tone outfit, looking much the same as before, except there was something… more. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was definitely something different about her.

Shrug.

“How are you feeling?” She asked, looking down at his mostly naked form.

“Like I don’t think I have ever felt before,” he replied, then paused before he continued. “But good.”

Altaea smiled at him then held up a simple gold ring with a grin on her face.

Because she knew what he was thinking when he spotted it.

More blushing after he’d recovered from the stunning sight of her smile.

“Are you ready for the second part?”

“Wait, wasn’t that supposed to happen at the same time?” He asked, blinking at her.

“Well, it works out better this way.” She said, copying his grin.

He was so in for it. She nodded.

“Take it.” She said and tossed it to him. It wasn’t far but he still managed to bungle the catch, causing it to bounce on the ground and roll over to her foot.

“Oops,” was all he could think to say.

But Altaea just smiled at him, picked up the ring, then took his left hand and slid in onto his ring finger.

The look of schadenfreude on her face nearly knocked him over. He had forgotten how mischievous she was – is.

“You’ll need to meditate for a while to get used to your body. Then you’ll have to meditate and bond with the ring.” She explained as she stood up and went to the patio door. “In the meantime, I am going to go exploring. Sit tight and stay safe.”

With one final grin for him, she went through the door and walked over to the dome. She didn’t do anything fancy like make an opening in it. Nope, she just walked through the thing.

“Well, that was unexpected,” he muttered to himself as he stood up and realized the dish towel wasn’t where he had left it. It was, in fact, laying on the dining room table with what looked like teeth on it, and a lock of hair.

Standing there, he slid his tongue over his teeth, noticing the different spacing, the lack of his crown, and weirdest of all, four new teeth at the back of his mouth.

“Did my wisdom teeth regrow?” He muttered to himself as he inspected the teeth on the table. He reached up and felt a smooth scalp. His hand slid down his face and realized that his beard was also missing. And his eyebrows. Then he looked down and, yup!, he was completely bald.

He really hoped that this wasn’t some prank of hers and that at least some of his hair would grow back.