Terra Stellis, a planet not unlike Earth, and yet so vastly different when one took a closer look. From its greater size to its somewhat alternate geography and topography as well as the difference in its geological makeup, countless little things were marking the two worlds as different, but the greatest distinction of all came from their respective universes themselves, for Terra Stellis was from a world with new laws of reality, Aspects, primordial truths of existence that gifted those that dwelled in this universe abilities beyond Earth's scientific knowledge, and even Terra Stellis' often found itself incapable of explaining those phenomenons.

Those that were gifted with the ability to make use of one of those Aspects were entities beyond the rest, and the mere connection itself granted strength beyond the norm, no matter the power they were wielding or how mighty it was. Body, Mind, Soul, Might, Will, Faith, Creation, Destruction, Creation, Transformation, nine Aspects, sometimes so ingrained in a species most of their members were free to wield one or more of them, but most often accessed through a biological catalytic oddity, Cores. Often present from birth, sometimes hidden but Awakened through dire circumstances, and sometimes spontaneously created by the body in a Chaotic fashion to guarantee survival or in response to trauma, Cores were both mundane and miraculous, an everyday circumstance that let some change the color of their eyes on a whim and gave others the ability to forge reality itself to better fit their desires through the harnessing of one's Aspects.

Such an incredible difference between those planets and their worlds put them on vastly different paths. Terra Stellis became host to both a great magical culture, though dwindling as its opposition rose, and an incredible technological evolution. One might expect that the common citizen would live in a flourished utopia, but it was not meant to be. Magic and technology squabbled, both sides preferring to stay isolated or being beaten back when it tried to snuff out its opposition, resulting in a modern world not quite as alienating to an inhabitant of the Earth as one might expect, bar the presence of Supers, Heroes and Villains only possible in fiction on Earth, and a few other oddities.

Zalcien, the relatively forgettable Core member of the ACS, the Alliance of City-States, was a great example of this. At a glance, the city would have been at home on Earth as a minor Metropolis, if one were to forget its foundation of dark grey stone, a towering circular hollow structure built with a slope that as a whole acted as a bell to cover the ruins of the old Zalcien, ravaged by a Super fight decades ago, as well as the base for the new city to be built, the sides of the foundation going higher than needed to also offer walls to the metropolis, shielding it from strange weathers and close outside attacks.

Yes, once one dismissed this strange foundation and the reason behind its origin, the city built atop it was quite banal. Tall buildings of glass and steel and cement formed an eye-catching center for the city, occasionally interrupted by small parks of green and the odd building here and there, such as a museum with marble walls. This urban center was reached by two perpendicular lines that met in Zalcien's very core, perfectly dividing the circular city into four sections, and each of these lines was an avenue framed on both sides by various stores, unique buildings, and tourist traps. The urban center was surrounded by a simpler downtown, where countless smaller buildings of cement with fewer stories cohabited with houses with a garden now and again, this inhabited mass also presented supermarkets, public swimming pools, and every other sort of notable spot that would without fail become a landmark for the surrounding neighborhoods. Around this downtown was the industrial area of the city, where the large factories and energy plants stood close to its walls, as far away from the eyes of the passers-by and the pristine cleanliness of its beautiful center as possible.

Yes, at this point Zalcien looked like it belonged on Earth, but that wasn't all that there was to the city.

For one, there were its slums.

Such a thing wasn't unique to Zalcien, it was sadly rather common for large cities to have small areas like this, but those were usually in the periphery. Zalcien's were quite different, not only were they in the city itself, but they were massive, occupying nearly most of the South-Eastern quadrant, roughly a fifth of the city itself. They were not simply a place of misery where the unfortunate dwelled, no, they were the remains of a past catastrophe, the entire area had been infested by a creature whose death had never been truly confirmed, and in the wake of the damage the rest of the city chose to abandon it, deeming it beyond saving, leaving the survivors, their descendants, and any who had no choice but to go there to rot in buildings falling to ruin and infested by mutant creatures and monsters, trapped between walls of steel erected by the city to keep its filth quarantined. To its credit the method worked on the common folk, those too weak to do anything but survive, as well as the beasts themselves, too stupid to find a way past the frontier, but those with powers made use of the unique circumstances of Zalcien. Everyone knew the city's Villains dwelled in the heart of the slums, beyond the reach of most and far from the reach of the law, and they happily came and went to the city itself to steal and rampage as they pleased, often escaping to return where Heroes couldn't follow.

But its slums weren't the only thing distinguishing Zalcien from a city on Earth. One would expect its incapacity to expand and lack of farming land to greatly damage the city and its economy, but it wasn't the case. One didn't need to expand outwards when adding a floor to a building was as easy as hiring a Super with impressive powers or an army of robots at their beck and call and could be done in the blink of an eye for the right price, and one didn't need large farms to grow produce when they could be teleported from elsewhere or made in large quantities in highly developed greenhouses that spanned multiple floors above or below ground. And these facts of life were reflected throughout the entire city. For every street of two or three stories buildings, there would be an odd shop with magical illusions on its roof, a floor on a building entirely covered by plates of steel that didn't match the rest of the edifice, a car that looked more at home on an alien world than a city, a poster for a romance movie featuring a woman with a fish for a head as the main protagonist, an ad for a singer with cat ears' latest album, hidden away graffiti that shimmered in the light and occasionally shifted to depict something else...

It was reflected in the inhabitants, too. For every two dozen humans walking down the street, there'd be one with strange features, oddly colored hair or eyes, slightly too sharp teeth, scales on their limbs, and for every dozen of those there'd a truly bizarre sight, a harpy sitting on a bench and browsing the internet on her phone with her dexterous taloned feet, a pink marbled orb the size of a beach ball with a fedora on its head floating over the pavement, a mechanical man twice as tall as any other pedestrian walking on his four blocky legs and wearing a blue cap on his triangular head gathering letters from every mailbox he came across and placing them in a storage compartment in his chest...

As he walked down the streets, dressed in clothes he had prepared for the occasion, James felt normal for the first time in ages.

He wasn't certain of the exact timeline given his confusion and difficult beginnings in Zalcien, but he knew it must have been months since he first arrived here. He had a mundane pizza delivery boy back in his hometown on Earth, before being stabbed and left to bleed to death by a mugger, only to find himself in this world of Supers with an unfamiliar body. To this day he still didn't know how it came to be, how this slime-like thing was created, and how he was reincarnated into it, but what he knew was that he was used to it by now. Controlling a form of shadows turned into a living creature had been odd at first, especially since it could change between the states of matter on a whim and modify its density up to a certain degree, but James liked to think he was doing well. He was still alive, for one, despite having encountered multiple monsters and experienced fighters and killers. He had done things he wasn't proud of, but he was alive, free from the slums, and with hopefully enough money to start a proper new life, one as a citizen of this city and not a minor crime boss, both for himself and the children he had adopted without realizing it.

He never thought he'd be a father, even less this early on in life. He was still in his twenties, and though he had a few friends who started families he had yet to find a stable relationship. The way he had adopted his kids was quite peculiar too, he had found them right as their biological parents were killed by a machine built by one of the city's most infamous Villains. He hadn't expected those small ratlings he had mostly saved to vent out his own trauma and to have a friendly companion to keep his sanity to grow so attached to him, and he hadn't at all considered they might become sapient and closer to human children than smart pets. Still, choices had been made, and he would do it all again. Becoming a single dad of five very active and slightly murderous kids was difficult, but so were adapting to a new life as a non-human entity and leading a group against a gang of wizards and thugs with magical weapons, and he had managed on all fronts so far.

His hands in the pockets of his dark blue jacket, James walked down the street, his head and body staying steady while his senses took in with wonder and joy the sights around him, a little something so that his curiosity wouldn't be too noticeable. Looking like a country bumpkin who set foot in a city for the first time would attract attention, especially so close to the slums and away from Zalcien's proper doors to the outside world. Slum-dwellers weren't welcome in the nicer parts of the city, and truth be told James couldn't be too mad about this considering his own experiences there. He had met wonderful people, most of which he had hired one way or another, but he had also encountered several people who would kill someone without hesitation if it would benefit them, with a handful that were sadistic enough to do it just for fun. The average citizen couldn't afford to risk determining which is which, not everyone had a body as resilient and regenerative as his. Still, he'd rather avoid facing the police after a nervous passer-by made a paranoid call if he looked suspicious. He still didn't have an official ID, and for all he knew truth detectors might be much more common and effective in this world, and he'd rather not find out what happened to people who were caught breaching the slums' quarantine.

It was the reason for this first visit, in fact. He was currently scouting out the area around the path he had taken from the Sunken City - Zalcien's literal underworld - to see if he could notice any seedier part he might visit as Silhouette to get some information and potential contacts to obtain fake documents, and ideally find a place he could buy with only cash. The slums weren't known for their ATMs. The trip was pretty simple in the end after he had gotten rid of the various creatures and gangs that were in his way, and its pair of operators - a snail person below and a rusty robot above - had let him through easily, and after all the time he had spent in his lair in the sewers he easily navigated his way through these new unfamiliar tunnels to a quiet and remote area where he was free to emerge, after a quick spray of perfume. His sense of smell may be diminished, but he could still guess that a trip through canals meant for sewage wouldn't leave him fresh as a rose, and though the slums were used to a lack of hygiene due to the limited resources and ambient filth, Zalcien's citizens may not be as understanding.

James wasn't just taking in the scenery and walking in circles around the passage while letting his thoughts run wild, however. Not so long ago, when he had been looking for a warehouse to acquire to fool his enemies regarding his plans, a man had tried to scam him. James had planned to only scare him a bit once he was sure the man was just an opportunist and not a spy or saboteur sent by another group, but he had revealed he was from the proper city of Zalcien, and he had found a way to go past the guards and defenses surrounding the slums that he used to scam the poor locals. Out of curiosity James had infused parts of the skin of his back so that he could track him through his connection to all things affected by his transformative powers, and when he first walked out onto those clean streets he had immediately felt the presence of this magical tattoo nearby. Hence, he was not simply scouting around his passage to the Sunken City, he was also tracking down where precisely the scammer was. If he was in luck the short fat man would be able to help him with his official document issue, or at least be able to point him in the right direction. If not, just scaring him some more would be a nice way to introduce Silhouette to Zalcien. Besides, the man was supposed to contact him after he had let him go the first time, yet he had never heard from him again.

James passed by a poster encouraging people to sign up to try joining the Hero Union, and though he did not stop walking, his senses went into overdrive to study it to the best of his abilities. The background was pretty forgettable, a simplistic depiction of the city with tall buildings under a clear blue sky, and the text was the usual thing you'd see to advertise joining the police or the army, but what stood in the foreground caught his non-existent eye.

Three people posed together, joy and pride radiating off of them at the idea of the onlooker joining, clearly having a lot of fun in their line of work.

To the left was a young woman with bright pink eyes and short magenta hair in attire that could be best described as a mix of a stereotypical witch outfit - wide black pointy hat included - and a pop singer, a small black cape attached over her collar with a silver brooch with a pink gem at his center and draping over the top of her exposed shoulders before ending around her waist while purple fingerless gloves covered her arms and a purple and white bustier on her torso, continuing past her black pants to turn into a pair of long lines, likes an exaggerated tailcoat's namesake tail, while knee-high purple boots with small heels completed the look. She was floating in the air, her feet off the ground and dangling from her lightly bent legs, a black wand with a glowing purple tip in one hand while the other was turned to the camera that had taken the photo with its palm opened to the sky, a mischievous smile on her lips as she invited anyone to join her.

To the right was a more masculine figure with broad shoulders, though with the metal covering him, James couldn't quite tell if it was truly a man or not. Silver armor that reminded him of Techlord's suits covered the Hero from head to toe, with small groves and curves everywhere on the metal. James wasn't sure if those served a purpose or were only decorative, but he had to admit it made the whole thing appear more impressive than the smooth surfaces his inventor preferred, when he wasn't installing cosmetic lights or strange gadgets that is. The only things that weren't covered by metal were the visors covering the eyes, two large circles of blue glass-like material that couldn't be seen through. The armored figure had a hand on their hip and the other raised to show a thumbs-up.

In the center was the least humanoid of the trio. What James could only describe as a snake person stood, almost twice as tall as either of the other two. Their head was like a cobra's, with a wide puffed-up hood, the inflated beige skin visible behind the otherwise dark green scales covering it, aside from the red ones on the sides that formed spots that one could confuse for eyes if their vision was blurry enough. The head itself was dark green, with two small eyes with round black pupils so large that the dark brown irises were nigh unseeable, a thick black line continued from the corner of the eye to the back of the head, with an even thicker red mark on top, before the two converged and stopped where jaw began. The pale yellow thing was broad and thick, and had it been any longer it would have given the snake an impressive underbite, instead, it approximated something that could be called an impressive chin - despite normal snakes' chins being made of tendons rather than bones since it connected the two mandibles that made up their lower jaw. The impressive snake face was made even more intimidating by the scars on it, beige marks that went from claws to cuts, and even a few darker spots probably left by burns, they weren't numerous to the point of being of there being more scar tissue than scales, but it still felt like either a quarter or a third of the snake's head had been damaged in some way. The eyes had a few marks over them but the orbs themselves were perfectly fine, and the hood was oddly untouched.

Below the head, continuing from the lower jaw, was a vertical line of thick pale yellow scales, shaped like a snake's underside, and from what James could see it was exactly what it was, probably continuing down to the end of the tail, though he couldn't know since it wasn't visible. The snake's neck was long even on the gargantuan frame, and if all three of the Heroes had truly posed together for the photograph with no modification and trick of the eye, the muscular tube had to be as long as a human's entire arm and thicker than a thigh. It was attached to a large broad chest, where the plate-like pale yellow scales widened to cover the pectorals before thinning back down until they reached the waist where the snake person's body turned into a more bestial form, making up the silhouette of the anaconda equivalent of a centaur. But there was something else to the torso, namely the fact it had two sets of pectorals and two pairs of shoulders, for the snake had four arms. They were quite humanoid aside from their dark green scales and how the fingertips ended in small little pale yellow claws rather than nails. The snake's body was as covered in scars as the head, but over that reptilian physique was what James could only describe as gladiatorial equipment. Leather harnesses ran from the top of each upper shoulder and below the lower armpits to keep a plate of shining bronze attached to the torso, covering the vitals, as well as a pair of pauldrons on the upper shoulders, while a skirt of flaps of studded leather covered the waist, a gladius and a net dangled from the leather belt while a large trident appeared to be attached to the back, presumably to the other end of the torso armor. The upper pair of arms were crossed over the chest, partially covering the bronze, while the lower ones were extended to the side, inviting any onlooker in.

James wasn't completely oblivious to those three's identities - he had searched Zalcien's heavily censured internet to know as much about the place after all. He knew about Miss Malice, Mecha Man, and Serpent, the city's best and most beloved Heroes, or at least those that were the most popular. But there was a difference between seeing a small picture on his phone and seeing them on such a large picture in the street. It felt more real, more genuine.

James knew the ratlings wished to become Heroes, following their adoration for the Hero Captain Cyan after they watched his show, and though he wasn't a little uncomfortable at the idea of them putting themselves into unnecessary danger, he didn't want to hinder their dreams. Besides, Hero training should hopefully make them better fighters and thus better able to defend themselves. Maybe he could into whether the Union had a program for children, something to provide basic training but also schooling, financial aid wouldn't be unwelcome too.

James' senses tinged, though his walk didn't falter. He knew he was extremely close to his target.

He turned to head into an alleyway, where he would be able to have a quick change of look in private. It was Silhouette's turn to enter the city.

It's showtime.