Esther and Abby enter the Multiversal Portal Generator and go into Lava World.

Yes, its name is Lava World. Designation X-V1338, according to The Goddess, although Abby is totally convinced she is full of shit about everything she says.

Abby used to be King Bodhi of Santa Barbara. She was a freedom fighter who helped overthrow the autocrats of the city and established a kingdom. And in her reign, she came across a lot of people who were totally full of shit. The rich businessmen who installed her into power as a figurehead they could puppet around? A cute teen girl with revolutionary ambitions, obviously the easiest one to manipulate for business gains.

After the brutal crackdowns she initiated against the corruption threatening to topple her new kingdom, she could say very well that she was good at seeing through people’s bullshit. Although maybe not good enough, seeing as her chief economist Brett was able to create a confusing economic system based on in-app transactions and cryptocurrency, and then used that as leverage to try and take over the kingdom in a pirate coup.

But The Goddess? She is absolutely lying about something with this whole affair. Either she’s doing something nefarious behind everyone’s backs, or she’s trying really hard to cover up for her ineptitudes, and it’s too difficult for Abby to tell right now. Honestly, there’s not much difference in her eyes between the two, anyway.

“I’m ready for Lava World,” Esther says.

Yes, Esther, the fifteen-month old baby who is already taller than Abby. Okay, Abby is admittedly kind of short for a sixteen year old white girl, but Esther should probably not be that tall before her second birthday.

Ugh, she really doesn’t want to babysit. Even if she’s babysitting for a genius magic kid who helped build this multiverse dimension hopping whatever in the first place. She wanted to be out in the Mortal Rim or in the Warring Core world, one of those places where combat and intrigue were the name of the game, where she could make her mark and figure out a place to travel once this is all said and done.

Now that Abby knows that a vast multiverse exists and is available to her, she has exactly one goal in life—travel to other worlds. Become stronger, explore new places. Spread the word of kindness, honor, and sportsmanship. But most of all, she wants to leave Earth behind and find a new home.

However, Lava World is not exactly what she had in mind.

“I’m glad you’re ready,” is the most polite thing Abby can say to her much younger companion.

Maybe they won’t have a terrible time. Maybe the lava will be so boring that they’ll just give up and go back home after ten minutes. Or maybe the name is a total misnomer—

Wooooooooosh.

The two girls find themselves in Lava World.

Which, indeed, is an entire world made of lava and volcanic action.

They stand on some igneous rock, large cliffs that make up the only inhabitable area to walk on, and gaze down at the vast lava river that flows before them.

“It’s kind of hot here,” Esther says. “Are you okay with it?”

“I’ve lived in California all my life. I can deal with this.”

“So have I, although I’m still just a baby.” Esther takes out some instruments and begins collecting samples of the soil around them. “I wonder what the magic system here is like.”

“Do all worlds have to have a system?” Abby asks. She stands over Esther with her weapon in a tight grip, just in case something goes wrong. It is, of course, her double-edged boomerang scythe, the treasured weapon Eryk gave to her back in Santa Barbara. He defeated her in ritual combat, and had every right to execute her, and yet instead he gifted her an important weapon. The true role model of a benevolent dictator, that man. If she ever conquers a nation and becomes ruler again, she will certainly follow his lead in governing style.

She’s named this weapon, too. This double-edged boomerang sword is now known as Life Flayer.

And with Life Flayer, she stands guard over a very curious Esther.

“Fascinating,” the girl says. “There’s a little bit of magic in every single pebble. But it’s so different to the magic that Mom and Eryk and Master Keitou use.”

“What does that mean?” Abby asks.

“I’m not sure. But it does mean I need to find a real magical artifact. Or some kind of item with a bunch of lava magic in it. It’ll be the key.”

“I’ll be on the lookout. Any treasure chests we come across, I—”

“SKREE!”

Abby flips around and brandishes Life Flayer at her foe—

A flaming lava bat!

Esther stands up and abandons her equipment briefly. She takes out a spherical device and presses it—a large sphere projects out of it and expands to cover both girls.

A shield generator!

“Thanks,” Abby says, “but I can take this thing. Don’t worry.”

“The Goddess warned us about the lava bats here,” Esther tells her. “Don’t forget.”

“The Goddess is full of shit.”

Abby leaves the bubble of protection and lunges at the lava bat—

...

...

Ten minutes later, after singing off part off much of her hair and using a lot of aloe vera to treat her other minor wounds, Abby Faulkner decides to admit that lava bats are indeed worth being careful about.

Who in the world designs a world with bats that are perpetually on fire? Who makes them so powerful? And most of all, who makes these lava bats have a skree that calls out to other nearby lava bats to join in the fight?

With the carcasses of ten or more lava bats on the ground, Abby smiles at her handiwork. She’s that powerful, even without some stupid RPG system to control her life. Without any magic system guiding her. She doesn’t need anything of the sort.

However, Esther obviously decided to keep one alive and capture it in another spherical barrier device. Some high-tech cage. Obviously they needed a rabid beast on hand at all times, because that made sense.

Esther turns her attention away from the lava bat and looks deeply into Abby’s eyes. “You’re a lot like my Maman sometimes,” she says.

Abby blushes. “Delta? No. We’re nothing alike. No way. Also, it’s really weird to compare people to your mom.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that!” Esther exclaims. “It’s hard, you know.”

The two of them walk away from the bat battlefield (bat-lefield?) and down what appears to be a sort of road made of ash and soot. They are searching for the nearest town, or any kind of settlement whatsoever. The Goddess promised lava people, and by God they are going to find some lava people.

“What’s hard?” Abby asks.

“People. I’m still just a kid, so I don’t have much experience talking and socializing. I spent the last couple months of my life living in a bunker with my mothers and Master Keitou. So I’m worried I might be getting a little old-fashioned.”

Aren’t her moms like, twenty-five or something? Although to a fifteen-month-old, maybe that sounds just as old as someone who’s fifty. A boomer is a boomer is a boomer.

“I know how you feel,” Abby says. “I spent all my teenage years fighting a war, and then I got made king. People start treating you differently when you’re the ruler of a nation, you know. So, I didn’t really get a chance to...”

“Talk to people?”

“Talk to people my age.”

“Yeah!” Esther nods. “I want to talk to kids. All these adults are cool, but it’s a little lonely.”

“Sadly, I’m definitely not a kid,” Abby the sixteen-year-old says, “but I still remember what it was like. So you can talk to me.”

“Like, about anything?”

“Anything at all.”

“What color do you like?” Esther asks.

“Uh, um.” She has not thought about the answer to that question in probably eight years. “Red? Yeah, red. Red’s really good. You, Esther?”

“Green.”

“Oh yeah? That’s nice. Red and green makes Christmas colors.”

“Oh, wow, I can’t wait to meet Santa this year. I was too young last time to see him, my mothers said.”

“Hate to break it to you, kid, but Santa isn’t real.”

Esther pauses and ponders on this thought. “Oh, I guess he’s not. It would be very difficult to keep track of the morality of every single kid on Earth, wouldn’t it?”

“Extremely.”

“Maybe Santa exists somewhere in the multiverse, though. Wouldn’t that be neat?”

“If he exists, we’ll find him.” Abby smirks. “Is that what you want to do? Go on an adventure around the multiverse?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what Destiny has in store for me yet. It’s hard to see beyond the timeline right now. We have to restore The Goddess’s Domain before we can think about anything like that.”

“Yeah, but what about after?”

“Like I said.”

“Well, then,” Abby says, “I’ll just say, I’m definitely exploring the multiverse after this. Nobody’s going to tell me differently. I want to see every world I can. Even if the U.S. wins everything and I’m a fugitive for the rest of my life, at least I can hide out in a bunch of different worlds.”

“Won’t that be a little lonely?”

“Well, I’m used to it, remember?” Abby says. “It’ll be less lonely if I have a friend to tag along.”

Esther’s eyes beam. “We can be friends and have adventures together. I never thought of that.”

“Yep. What do you say?”

“Yeah! Let’s be friends!”

High-five.

Abby feels a strange pang in her heart. Is Esther, like, actually cool????

The coolest baby of all-time????

Soon, amidst chatting and banter, the two girls reach the nearest settlement, but immediately they realize something is off.

Extremely off.

“Shit,” Abby says. “Look up at the town.”

“What is it?”

“A tank! The U.S. military is already here.”

The sound of gunshots in the distance.

“And they’re in the middle of a battle.”

Esther and Abby (and their captive lava bat) rush towards the town. It’s time to rescue some innocents!