I pulled Guppy out, grinning as I saw them again for the first time in a while, hugging their leg.

  Mumbling, ”Missed you, buddy.”

  “Come on,” Bug Jacob chided, “We can’t waste time, don’t want anybody noticing we’re gone.”

  “Just let me hug the dragon for a moment, I never got to process that I have a DRAGON.”

  They let me have my moment for a breath before dragging me onto Guppy's back. After securing ourselves, I gave Guppy the order to fly. I felt their mussels move under me as they galloped, extending their wings to gain lift like a plane, having trouble with the trees, but they found enough space to lift off with a mighty flap.

  After a few more wooshes of their wings, we made it past the canopy of pine needles, the branches slapping us. But we quickly made it past them, and when I opened my eyes again, I saw a field of pine needles, like grass; it was so solid I felt like I could walk on.

  But we eventually flew high enough above that I could see the forest stretched out as far as the land could reach, the vegetation climbing up a mountain range to my left. Stopping only for the ocean to my right, the cold dark water falling into the abyss.

  I watched all this with the wind blowing against me, whipping my hair around and stinging my skin, the tip of my nose turning red from the cold. Then I remembered what we were doing and pulled out the Souls of Second and Urg, paying attention to where they pulled and pointed Guppy in that direction.

  After that, I decided to rest and lay down, looking above and found there was no ceiling from the ring of platforms having merged into an octagon. I sat up and looked around, finding no trace of them, then I pulled out the Soul and looked in the direction they indicated. Finding the ring I had been stuck on for the past two months, hidden behind the mountain, only the top poking out.

  And now that I looked around in the void more, noticing other islands floating around, most of them significantly smaller than mine.

  “Hey,” I said to Bug Jacob.

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you know what this place is?”

  They gave me an odd look, though I suppose any looking coming from an insect would be odd, “The Great Debate?”

  “Look over there,” I pointed towards the Ring and the islands around us.

  “Oh, that's weird. But I have no clue about any of this.”

  “And that quest the System gave us, it’s never done that. It’s given requirements to pass a phase, but it’s never phrased as a quest, and who was the Operator that removed us from it. He?l, why did the portal open in the first place?”

  “Terra, or maybe one of the other gods?”

  “Terra couldn’t, she promised not to interfere in our lives with some sort of magically binding contract… That contract will hold right?”

  “She bound it to every part of her being, and she couldn’t loophole her way out of it since those things make the parties come to a mutual agreement. So if you think it broke the contract, then it would.”

  “If it isn’t her, then maybe the other gods, maybe they aren’t happy about how I won? And are trying to restart the thing to win.”

  “Why wouldn’t they just call you back then? There’s nothing stopping them.”

  “Maybe it’s a new batch of gods, the system was created for any god to settle a dispute nonviolently. Well, by their standards.”

  “Why would they create a portal to Earth? That would just piss off Tera.”

  I put my head in my hands, “Gah, we don’t know enough about how the System or the portals work to actually make any good guesses.”

  “Might as well sleep on it.”

  I sighed, “Might as well.”

  I layed back down, closing my eyes, drifting off to nothing, and coming to an hour and a half later when Bug Jacob shook me awake. After the urge to kill the thing that woke me up passed, I looked around and saw we were on the ground again, a familiar landscape surrounding me.

  Craters pockmarking the scarred earth, a crust of ooze covering the ground from the thousands of corpses covering the ground, giving off an unholy stench. But three giant corpses dominated my sight, a Deer, a Lizard, and an Eel rotting away.

  After covering my nose, Bug Jacob and I separated our core, then I pulled out Second and Urg's souls, finding their bodies a few minutes later. They were untouched but catatonic, and shriveled from not eating for three days. Then I put their souls back into their bodies, seeing the wisps of energy merge with their cores.

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  Their eyes fluttering open instnatly, Seconds' eyes burning with emotion as they turned towards me, saying “What… what did you do?!”

  I pursed my lips, “I’m sorry about what I did, but I did it because I had to.”

  “By killing us.”

  I rubbed the back of my head, “Yeah, sorry, didn’t think it would be this hard to get you two your bodies back.”

  “No need to be rude Second: Statement,” Urg cut in, hydrating their flaking skin with water,

  Second slumped, sitting on the ground, “I know, it just feels… wrong. And it didn’t even work since he’s still here.”

  I cleared my throat, “Well, about that,” I explained the portals.

  After taking a moment to digest, Urg said, “Can we make these portals to our homes; Question?”

  I shrugged, “Don’t ask me, I have no idea how they work.”

  “Would your world accept us; Question?”

  “Maybe, it’s probably not the best time since my world's a bit on the unstable side right now. Y’all probably should wait a couple months till it calms down.”

  After that, a depressive lull in the conversation began until Second brought up.

  “This is a bit of a non sequitur, but how are we talking to you, Jacob, without the Moon Silk?”

  I rubbed the back of my head, “Well, to get your souls, I somehow had to claim them. So I used Lunar Scale Dust, and it’s replacing Moon Silk in that regard.”

  Second gave me a weird look with both of their heads, “Would that mean we're your slaves?”

  “...Yes.”

  “Can you undo that, please?”

  “Got you.”

  I felt for the connection between us and sniped it, a burst of energy coming from them, then I saw Seconds’ and Urgs eyes roll into the back of their heads. And they plummeted. I ran to the side in panic, trying to avoid getting squished by the Kaiju-sized ape.

  When the dust from their fall subsided, I looked at their bodies in confusion, then turned my attention to the spiritual. Finding their souls and cores had been ejected and were dissolving in the void. I desperately grabbed them and tried to put them back in, but their bodies were completely uncooperative.

  Then I felt Bug Jacob tap my shin to get my attention, but I was too focused on putting their souls back into their bodies until Jacob slammed their Core into mine and screamed.

  “Monsters, RUN!”

  I turned around and found two giant beasts with the tri colored domains of the bosses. One a chimera with the body of a Horse, the head of a Dragon, the antlers of a Stag, and with clouds of flame surrounding them like fog. The other was a Bison made from a gray stone and dull crystal, exhaling plumes of smoke and embers. The two of them staring be down, their bodies tensed to move at a moment's notice.

  A million plans flew through my head till I picked one and refined it to perfection with my skills honed over the past two months. And I enacted it, moving my legs as rapidly as the mussels of a shut in could, climbing onto Guppy as we ran the fuck away.

  The two beasts followed me, but I distracted them with a wave of my minions, giving me enough time for Guppy to get me away. I left behind the Bison, who was snorting smoke with frustration, but the chimera made a pathway from their clouds of flame and galloped toward me.

  I put all the pressure I could onto it, but it just created an impenetrable shield out of its clouds and kept following, quickly gaining ground. I then activated Stealth and flew to the ground, dismissing Guppy and hiding beneath the canopy.

  I saw the chimera fly by, but then I felt it reach out its equally chimeric Domain, looking for me. I pulled in all of myself that I could, like sucking in my stomach in a narrow passage, but I couldn’t squeeze past it.

  I felt its attention turn on me, and come towards me. I tried to pull in all of myself in a vain attempt to hide from it, then I found something I never thought of before, my Skills. A little construct that pulled in energy and shaped it into the desired effect.

  I found stealth and crammed my Domain into it, the construct breaking at the unfamiliar energy. But I just forced it to stay together with more Domain, replacing unfixable parts with even more Domain.

  Then I felt the presence of the boss nearby, clouds of flame above my head warming the air. I prepared to pull out all the stops against it, but I saw it pass by. I waited a few more minutes for it to gain distance before I pulled out Guppy and waited an hour before I dropped Stealth.

  But I shortly had to put it back up as I arrived at the portal. I struggled with Stealth for a few minutes since it was damaged, and I had to shape my Domain into the missing parts. But the rest of the trip home was thankfully uneventful.

  O O O

  Robert Jenkins, the man in charge of keeping an eye on the people who were around the Portals that opened three days ago, sat at his desk sipping his fifth cup of coffee. It was one of the monster orders with a list of ingredients longer than the history of Rome that every employee cursed you for.

  He clicked through his emails with dull eyes, letting out a small groan when he found one labeled ‘Important’.

  ‘Just more work on the already gargantuan pile.’

  After massaging his temples, he clicked on it, finding a video attached. He opened it and leaned in to try and make anything out on the grainy security footage.

  It was a video of the portal that had opened in Oregon, specifically the fence during one of the protests. There was a boy approaching the guards, then he started climbing the fence… and nobody reacted. The video cut to another angle, where it showed the portal, which just showed up as a bright disk on video. Then the boy appeared at the edge of the frame and ran into a person, got scared, then fled the scene.

  Robert leaned back in his chair, running his hands through his salt and pepper hair, muttering, “Another one.”