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[color=tomato]"Hey! What gives?!"[/color]

[color=888888]— Mika Fang[/color][/center]

Patrol, patrol, patrol…

While Ashley wason another operation, Mika was on patrol. They had a new recruit and Ashley was using the experience to verify them as a potential addition to Gemini’s forces. Meanwhile, Mika was to tend to other duties. It all sounded a little reckless toi her. Things would get ugly if any harm came to the mayor. It made more sense to send two proven espers on the operation instead of a potential liability. Fritzi was always a little weird, but she couldn’t help but feel this was largely Ashley’s idea. It wouldn’t have surprised Mika if this was a simple oversight on Ashley’s part, but she was sure this was her way of showing Mika she didn’t need her. 

Then, while on a sidewalk, Mika stopped to think. 

[color=tomato]"Huh."[/color]

There wasn’t anyone left that Mika liked. She respected Fritzi, but it was hard to say she really liked her. Anyone that she did start to like either died or turned out to be a horrible person. The only exceptions were Sam and Jacqueline, but they made the wise decision of transferring out before they were killed. Maybe they were dead and Mika didn’t know it yet. Thinking about other people was so exhausting. And what was the point if they were all going to vanish anyway?

[color=tomato]"I guess it’s okay to think about them though."[/color]

Was it though? There wasn’t really any point. She started walking again, looking between all the buildings as she passed. 

Mika had to focus on more immediate problems. Like Ashley. She couldn’t get rid of her, so if they had a problem, it was best to address it. That was something her mother used to say: face your problems directly and get over them. Trying to avoid them just put more work on your future self. Mika wasn’t sure how much of a future she had, but if she planned on fighting monsters for a long time, she should at least address the leader of her crumbling squad. 

[color=tomato]"She’s got nice legs too."[/color]

Did she though? Mika never thought about Ashley that way. While she was okay with the idea of having two mommies, she used to feel it would be ideal to have a daddy help her look after their child. That was when she wasn’t an esper and wanted a big strong man that could protect her. Now it was hardly worth worrying about such things. She wasn’t going to live long enough to have her own kids, and romantic pursuits felt pointless when one of them was just going to die in the end. 

[color=tomato]"That’s what makes poligamy great! Even if half of my harem dies, I’ve still got backups!"[/color]

What the…

Mika placed a hand on her head. That voice that was speaking, that hadn’t been her! Of course it was obvious, but she was just distracted enough to assume it had been coming from her own head. She grit her teeth and turned around to see-

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[color=tomato]"Who the fuck else?"[/color]

[color=888888]— Oros the Mad[/color][/center]

Oros was doing her best to stay out of sight, but it was hard to ignore the giant pink ponytail peaking over the top of some parked cars. Mika sighed. It was difficult to feel threatened by Oros given what she knew about her. She had played nice with Gemini in the past, with the exception to that time she attacked Finn. If anything, that was a plus in her book. Though she was ready to call for backup just in case. [color=tomato]"Why are you here?"[/color]

Oros hopped out from behind the cars and landed on the sidewalk. [color=tomato]"Why are you here?"[/color]

[color=tomato]"I’m on patrol."[/color] Mika groaned. [color=tomato]"Why didn't you walk up to me last time? Why make it so hard to get to you?"[/color]

[color=tomato]"You’re talking about the little outing I had you and the Arknights wannabe go on?"[/color] When Mika didn’t answer, Oros’s grin got bigger. [color=tomato]"Yea, I figured it was that. Welp, that’s because yours truly is wanted by most of the city. I can’t just show up in some place and expect to not get attacked. The Fritz tolerates my presence, but that’s just because I’m not the biggest threat right now. I gave you guys intel about the diver, so she probably thinks she can use me."[/color] She rolled her arms. [color=tomato]"Additionally, that side quest only turned into a cluster fuck because ol’ goldy glocks there went against my wishes. Of course if you talk to her, it was actually a [i]good[/i] thing your ally got killed. What were her exact words? ‘One less GEMINI agent to worry about’ I think?"[/color]

Mika was clenching her teeth, but she didn’t show it. She allowed her jaw to relax before speaking. [color=tomato]"Are you trying to annoy me?"[/color]

[color=tomato]"If I was, I’d say I was [i]succeeding[/i] at annoying you. But no. I just think it’s funny that the second edgiest teenager in Pax Septimus decided to start wearing her former partner’s clothes. I had no idea you were so sentimental, or foolish."[/color] Mika’s brow twitched, but Oros continued. [color=tomato]"Anyway, I also have a lot more muscle this time around. I don’t have to worry about the Hand so much. I can’t chat with you forever, but meeting with you on my terms is possible now so long as I don’t dawdle."[/color]

[color=tomato]"How about you get to the point?"[/color] Mika folded her arms. 

[color=tomato]"On that shit like I was a fly!"[/color] Oros saluted. [color=tomato]"So, have you ever read any HP Lovecraft? You don’t really seem like the bookish type."[/color]

[color=tomato]"Look into your sword and find out."[/color]

[color=tomato]"Contrary to popular belief, I don’t [i]need[/i] my sword to tell me the obvious."[/color] She snickered before resting her hand on her scabbard. [color=tomato]"But if you did read, you’d know that a common element in his stories is forbidden knowledge. Truths that, when known, shape one’s perception of the world to such a degree that they are considered mad by everyone else."[/color] She pressed the tips of her fingers together. [color=tomato]”Mika, I am here to reveal such a truth. I’ll let you ask me anything you like, but in return I’ll make you mad. So choose wisely."[/color] 

[color=tomato]"Just say what you want to say."[/color]

[color=tomato]"I’m sorry, but I’m [i]incredibly[/i] vain, and it would mean a lot more to me if you seemed interested before I spill my guts."[/color]

Mika rolled her eyes. Why did everyone run their mouths so much? [color=tomato]"Why are you doing this?"[/color]

[color=tomato]"This?"[/color]

[color=tomato]"Why are you fighting the Hand?"[/color]

[color=tomato]"Because they look stupid."[/color] Mika rolled her eyes again, but this time she turned her back on Oros and started to walk back towards HQ. The pink haired esper threw up her arms. [color=tomato]"Okay! Fine!"[/color] Oros ran in front of the girl. [color=tomato]"That was just [i]really[/i] on the nose. But sure, I can talk about myself for a bit."[/color] 

[color=tomato]"Then [i]do it[/i] already."[/color]

Oros cleared her throat. [color=tomato]"So, I’m not really from around here. Like, my zip code isn’t even in this dimension."[/color] She placed a hand on her hip and turned to look up at the sky. [color=tomato]"Beyond the Elemental Chaos there are other worlds like this one, a lot more. There’s hardly a difference between some of them, and others are quite different. I was from one of the different ones."[/color]

[color=tomato]"How was it not like ours?"[/color]

[color=tomato]"It would be easier to list off what was the same. There was an abundance of magic everywhere, and how people tapped into it was different. You didn’t even need a grimoire because the magic was so thick."[/color]

[color=tomato]"So much mana must have made a lot of monsters want to visit."[/color]

[color=tomato]”Like you wouldn’t believe! But the monsters weren’t the worst part."[/color] Oros grinned like a shark. [color=tomato]"The worst part was the psycho fucks that wanted to rule over all that. Like, I want you to take all the factions in Pax Septimus right now. Quadruple them, give them all big, scary overseers for no reason whatsoever, and then square them all off against each other. Pax Septimus might be a shit hole, but at least it’s contained to the city. In my old home, there was a cataclysmic event every week, and, well, one week things went a bit too far."[/color]

[color=tomato]"What happened?"[/color]

[color=tomato]"Shit hit the fan, and girl? It was nasty. Like someone had an anal detonation and sent their half solid, half diareea-thing into it. [i]That[/i] shit ain’t coming out with scrubbing alone."[/color] Oros closed her eyes and shook her head. [color=tomato]"Human civilization ended in a week. Some rival faction injected her with enough magic to turn her into a mindless monster. She destroyed our town, ruined the country, and just kind of rampaged around until there was nothing left to destroy. I say she was mindless, but I saw her three times after that. She saw me too, but she never did anything about it. Even after turning into [i]that[/i], she still wouldn’t hurt me. What few survivors were left finally killed her, but it was too late. The world was ruined, and it was never going back to what it once was. Not to mention all the monsters turned the place into a total hellscape. Humanity’s days were numbered."[/color]

Mika leaned against a wall and kept her arms folded. Her eyes wandered from her feet back to Oros. [color=tomato]"Then you came here?"[/color]

[color=tomato]"Wha? No! Hell no!"[/color] She laughed.  [color=tomato]"My mom turned into a demon and ended the world. That’s kind of a shitty ending to our story, so I wanted a re-do. Fortunately, that magic dense environment made it possible to visit other worlds. Turns out there’s a lot of neighboring worlds that aren’t too different from mine! So I decided to check them out. As you can imagine, worlds that are very similar to one that just imploded on themselves aren’t exactly stable. And no matter how many I visited, how much I prepared, whatever sort of events I tried to alter, the world was fucked. Even if my mom didn’t end the world, it would be some other faction, or a horror, or fucking [i]Penny[/i]. Speaking of fucking, I did at one point decide to treat each newly discovered iteration of my home world as a date simulator and just tried to romance all of my old friends…"[/color] Mika reached a hand up to her mouth to stifle a yawn. Oros rolled her eyes. [color=tomato]"...Point is, I was getting bored of reliving the same life over and over again. So I set out to find something different, nay, [i]make[/i] something different. And that’s how I wound up here."[/color]

[color=tomato]"So your home world was destroyed, you found a lot of places that were just like it with the same people, but all of them got destroyed too. Then you got bored and came here?"[/color]

[color=tomato]"Pretty much!"[/color]

[color=tomato]"You could have saved me a lot of time if you [i]just[/i] said that."[/color]

Oros laughed. [color=tomato]"Ouch, kid!"[/color]

It was clear that Oros wanted her to ask another question. Mika had decided she didn’t like this person very much, but she had to admit that too much had happened between them to not still be curious. [color=tomato]"Why the interest in me?"[/color]

[color=tomato]"There’s a few reasons, but the main one is that we’re the same person from different dimensions."[/color]

Mika raised an eyebrow. [color=tomato]"What?"[/color]

[color=tomato]"Oh [i]now[/i] you want the long version..."[/color] The mad esper put her hands on her hips. [color=tomato]"Even in non-parallel universes, there’s more or less a copy of everyone. So you’re me."[/color] 

[color=tomato]"Do you have proof?"[/color]

[color=tomato]"Well, I did, but I forgot to bring my birth certificate with me. I left it a few realities back and it’s probably long gone by now."[/color] She made the stupidest face she could manage and shrugged. [color=tomato]"But you can look at other things. Like, did you notice how similar our esper forms are?"[/color]

Mika looked at the pink haired, katana wielding, Japanese cultist, and then looked at her own short haired, teal dancing outfit. While making eye contact with Oros, she reached up and grabbed one of her cat ears. [color=tomato]"No?"[/color]

[color=tomato]"Look beyond the superficial, Mika! A generic [i]patron[/i] might not be able to look past simple aesthetics, but look at all the other stuff!"[/color] Oros flailed her arms in the air. [color=tomato]"Our esper forms have pretty strange similarities! My sword can rend magic, and so can your claws. We both have ways of escaping harm. We both have magic that’s tied to animals. We can even divine information, and now, your ability to divine things is about as good as mine. Hell, in some ways it’s downright superior! And then there’s the color of our voices! Don’t we have a distinctly ‘tomato’ sounding voice?"[/color]

Mika groaned. For a mad esper, Oros did make a few good points. But even assuming it was true, it was a little underwhelming. Yes, Oros probably did come from another world. There are records that show that she can enter the elemental chaos, [i]and is the only person to have done so.[/i] The only exception to that being Sharr Webber, who claimed to have been taken to a place or two by her. It really wasn’t that surprising  that this wasn’t her home world. Mika found it even harder to care much about those worlds too. There were plenty of people to grieve for in Pax, let alone the rest of America, or even the world. Knowing there were other dimensions winking out of existence that she’d never see had no effect on her. Mika and Oros being the same people from different realities was a possibility, but not one she was ready to accept. Mika had never spent much time thinking about other realities, as it didn’t excite her. There might be a version of her that was famous, powerful, or even happy, but none of those people were her so it didn’t matter. She had more in common with Ashley than this supposed other version of herself. Out of the hundreds of words the mad esper had vomited up, only one sentence of it interested Mika. [color=tomato]"My way of learning what’s going on is better than yours?"[/color]

[color=tomato]"It wasn’t, but now that you’ve gotten stronger it is!"[/color] Oros grinned, clearly pleased that she had caught a sliver of Mika’s interest. [color=tomato]"Have you tried using it recently?"[/color] 

[color=tomato]"No?"[/color] She lifted up her hand and looked into it. [color=tomato]"But… It does feel different."[/color] It was a little concerning that Oros knew more about her developing powers than she did. Was that because of the power of Endless Eclipse? And Mika’s power could rival it? 

[color=tomato]"Why don’t you give it a test drive?"[/color] Oros tapped her foot. [color=tomato]"Oh yea! How about you see who killed your mom?"[/color] 

[color=tomato]"Tch!"[/color] Mika swung her arm through the air. [color=tomato]"I already know who killed my mom! It was-"[/color] She breathed deeply. [color=tomato]"It was that ghost! A-and sam killed it…"[/color] 

[color=tomato]"Oh, I think we [i]both[/i] know that’s not what I meant."[/color] Oros drew her sword. Not to fight, but to look into her blade’s sheen. [color=tomato]"What makes dragon mommy’s death a tragedy is that it was preventable. We [i]expect[/i] monsters to hurt those closest to us. No, Kid Icarus was acting like a brat. Dragon mommy died and then ‘Red Rebecca’ gave that fine legged bitch a promotion. The injustice of it all!"[/color] Oros stomped on the ground hard enough to send cracks running through the concrete. [color=tomato]"I think you should look back and really analyze how she screwed up! Then next time you see her you can get in her face and be like ‘yea! You fucked up! I can prove it!’ or some shit."[/color] Oros tipped her head. [color=tomato]"...But maybe you’re scared you might be wrong? You can keep being a pussy like a certain [i]other[/i] little bitch."[/color]

Mika hissed through her teeth. [color=tomato]"I’m not scared!"[/color] And then she focused on her hand. Faint images of the past started to manifest before her eyes. They were faint at first, but gradually, the image became more vibrant. Before long, it was like she had wandered back in time to that day. Or rather, she had returned as some omnipotent being. She had a bird’s eye view of the Holy Diver’s landing place. She had perfect clarity. Smoke, rain, and thunder did nothing to inhibit her view of the fight. The present bled into the background as the past reenacted itself. 

Su had positioned herself between her squad and Justin. Ashley, Sam, and Jacqueline did battle with a brainwashed Pac-A-Fist and a cluster of cars floating in the air. The cars were being held in place by a ghost. What was his name, Gunther? Even Marrie was present. She was trying to stab Justin, But he had gotten his hands on her and had just flung her towards Ashley.

And there were frogs filled with acidic puss everywhere, among other things.

Nearby, Finn and a brainwashed Betty were fighting. Or it was more accurate to say Finn was demonstrating his ability to run away from his problems, and Betty was a demonstration of how futile such a thing was. In an attempt to show her down, he detonated a melody to fry a bunch of incoming frogs as well as his pursuer. It works, of a fashion, but Mika noticed something that she hadn’t noticed that day.

[quote]

It was an afterthought, but Finn got a glimpse of souls that had appeared once Finn slew the frogs. They sunk into the roof as soon as they appeared.

[/quote]

That’s right, Gunther’s powers had been explained to Mika at a later date. Even at the time of this attack, it was known that Gunther could command the souls of dead things, and with the death of those frogs, he had given him ample power to-

Justin gazed at Su. Something that would cause any esper to freeze in place. Then the souls under the roof took hold of a safe and broke through the roof right under Su’s feet. Souls that Gunther wouldn’t have had if Finn had any desire to do anything but escape. And then once she was up in the air… [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5386664]That was something she had no desire to relive.[/url] Mika clenched her fist, and it all disappeared. 

But this was not a voluntary action. Her emotions were getting the best of her again. Her teeth were clenched, and no amount of waiting was going to let this anger pass. She’d cry if she had any tears left. But she couldn’t, so she stood there, her lips and arms trembled as she processed what she had just witnessed. 

[color=tomato]"Yyyyyyyup."[/color] Oros sheathed her blade before sliding her thumbs into her waistband. [color=tomato]"Kid Icarus might not have made all the right moves, but if someone on your side needs to take the blame for dragon mommy’s death, well, are you even surprised the ‘obedient little killer’ is the one to blame?"[/color] There was no answer, but Oros wasn’t expecting one. [color=tomato]"Can you imagine how much worse this would have been if you actually [i]liked[/i] Penny Jr before this started? Whoaboy! But I guess random visits from tasty interdimensional dogs, hallucinating entire additions to his harem, and trying to make it all mesh with reality took precedence over getting to know people who cared about him. That’s what sucks about kids, they’re all so tied up in their own bullshit and they’re too vain to realize [i]nobody fucking cares![/i]"[/color] She looked over to Mika, who was still staring at her clenched fist. [color=tomato]"Yea, I think we’re done here. You know I was upset when my mom died too. But I was able to get over it when I realized that there’s a lot of universes where she’s still alive. I mean, they’re as different as you and I, but I still found it comforting."[/color] Mika continued to be unresponsive. Oros merely groaned before walking the other way.

Mika gradually came out of her trance. [color=tomato]"This changes nothing."[/color] She said just loud enough for herself to hear. As she prepared to finish her patrol, she stumbled over a paper bag filled with the remains of some week-old takeout. With a grunt, she picked up the bag and flung it at a garbage can. It landed inside, but it hit with enough force that the entire thing tipped over, spilling more garbage on the ground. The feline esper closed her eyes and carefully approached the garbage can. She set it upright and started to pick up the mess she had made. Finally, she had gotten to the bag that she had initially tried to pitch in at a distance. But when she picked up the bag, the bottom opened up and spilled takeout refuse all over her feet. Without a word, she drove her foot into the side of the garbage can, caving it in and causing it to fall onto its side. She then proceeded to stomp on it, denting it more and more as it barfed out trash with every stomp. Once Mika had stomped it flat, she gave herself a moment to catch her breath. She dropped the open bag of takeout and allowed the wind to carry it down the street. 

But she could feel someone’s presence nearby. They leaned in close and whispered into her ear.

[color=tomato]"I told you I’d make you mad."[/color]