It was just like any other Friday night, until it wasn't.

I'd left the town's library late at night, just as it was closing, and I'd left behind a large pile of books around my seat. That was my seat, in the left corner of the library, near all the non-fiction books. Books on mechanics, art, science, military tactics, psychology, anatomy and physics, interspersed with the occasional fiction book, mainly murder mysteries and action thrillers. My roommate, Clara Weiss, had sort-of been with me... she had spent the whole time sitting near me, using the smartphone I'd modified for her, repeatedly checking her blog for any new comments, not that there were any. My name is Veronica Anne Blackwood, I'm 17, and this is my story.

We were walking through the town at night alone(A not-so-dangerous task, considering how boring my town was), on my way to our not-so-impressive one-bedroom apartment. I was going to try an actually finish a Let's Play series, and my waitress/online gambler roommate Clara was going to begin her nightly routine of all-night high-stakes online poker games. And I was probably going to spend most of the night helping her. Our feet fell loudly on hard asphalt as we walked through the starless pitch-black night illuminated only by old dull-orange streetlights.

This town may have been boring, but it didn't mean our outfits had to be. My body was wider and taller than most, mainly because I ate like a starved moose and exercised like a madwoman. Square body, six feet tall, and fitter than most guys, but still not fit enough for me. I keep my body in good shape because I keep telling myself that some day, I could run away from this town, and get a job as a Dancer or Mechanic. My Uncle, on the other hand, never tires of joking about how he thinks I'll become the 'other' type of dancer. As if someone with my body type could ever be the 'other' type of dancer.

It was cold outside tonight, so I was wearing a cobalt woolen beanie I'd knitted myself over my head, which had short auburn hair at the front, two long bangs, and a long ponytail at the back. My brown eyes were covered by large Aviator Sunglasses(They were actually Prescription Sunglasses for my minor Long-Sightedness.). I had a marine-blue scarf around my neck, and the thickest white jumper I owned strained to cover my chest. My hands were covered by large black woolen mittens, my heavy "Mountain-climbing trousers" weren't really doing much against the cold, and my feet were covered in large and heavy brown hardened-leather mountain-climbing boots that only covered the foot and ankle. Although it couldn't be seen, I had two pairs of white socks on under my boots, because I really, really don't like the cold.

My rapid(Boredom is no excuse for walking slowly, as I always say!) steps echoed through the boring silent night as my heavy boots hit the asphalt pavement time and time again, Clara's steps in near-perfect synch with my own.

As usual, we walking home, completely alone and completely bored. "Nothing exciting ever happens here." I sighed as I did every night, hoping it would finally jinx things and make something exciting happen. Something fun, something adventurous, something where I could use my intellect for more than just helping my roommate win at online poker often enough to pay our rent, and possibly some day get us enough money to fulfill her dream of starting her own restaurant and my dream of starting my own mechanic-shop-place-thing.

I heard something shift around in the night, and I stopped and tensed, hoping for some excitement. "Stop. I hear something." I muttered darkly.

"Maybe it's a wild animal? Or a mugger? Or a ninja assassin? Or a ninja assassin from the future?" Clara said hopefully, getting excited.

I saw a small black puddle, like the oil slick from a car, slowly move down the street towards me. ...Wow, what a letdown.

"...What is that?" I asked disappointedly.

It was so dark, I'd only noticed it thanks to the off-yellow streetlights, but now that I was actually paying attention and I knew what to look for, it was a little easier to see. I was ready to disregard it, and maybe leap over the puddle to show off and temporarily alleviate my boredom, when something crawled out of the oil- No, the oil was moving inwards. Whatever that stuff was, the creature was made out of it, like a puddle becoming sentient and freezing itself into a living ice sculpture.

The creature resembled a stylized cartoonish black ant, with a rounded jet-black carapace and glowing angular yellow lights for eyes. It stood hunched over on two legs, its arms wriggling and writhing as it looked at me, analyzing me, watching me. I had never seen this thing before in my life, but it looked strangely adorable. Evil and really creepy, but also kinda adorable.

Two more puddles slid up to the creature on either side, forming into identical copies of the same black figure.

I wanted to go up to them and stroke them, but then I remembered something I'd learned from a lame TV Show I'd half-watched, it was about a dog-master who cured misbehaving dogs and educated their unbelievably moronic owners through his mastery of the Dog mind.

First, I had to let these creatures know who was boss. I took a strong, powerful stance, and glared at the creatures. They ignored it, and shambled towards me. Great, that didn't work. Curse you, lame television!

I took a few steps back, trying to keep my distance. I didn't know what these things were, not that I'd tell anyone that. Actually... Considering their liquid-based bodies, I doubt anyone on this planet would know about them. Except for the conspiracy theorists, who'd use this creature as evidence for whatever crazy superweapon Weapon of Mass Destruction theory they were coming up with next. ...They'd probably pay a lot for that 'Evidence'.

I reached into my right pants pocket, and took out a large spherical coinpurse slightly bigger than my palm, the red felt straining to contain a large rock I'd placed inside it. Why do I keep a rock in a purse with me at all times? Well, I'd respond with, I don't tell you how to live your life! ...but the real answer would be, In case of an emergency, I'd have a concealed weapon. An ordinary rock, inside a cheap purse. There aren't any laws about concealed Pet Rocks, are there?

I stood there, with my pet rock in my right hand, waiting for those creatures to get close enough. I decided: I'd knock them out with my trusty Pet Rock, who, funnily enough, was actually named Rocky 'Trusty' DeBrea. And then, I'd take these creatures home, leak proof of their existence online, and sell them to the highest bidder. I'd retire with the money, and go down in history as the woman who exposed how he government created the ultimate superweapon... Giant mutated dog-sized Black Ants made of living black-steel?

Those creatures pounced at me. I swung down my rock onto the middle one's head-

My rock, and the arm/hand that held it, passed right through the black creature's head, as if it was nothing more than a hologram. Then it got in close, threw all of its strength and power into a shaky downwards slash, and I knew it was real. It's weak, dull claws only managed to catch on my jumper rather than cut anything, but I wasn't taking any chances.

"Clara, run. Get back to our house, I'll lead them away!" I shouted. I turned around and ran. I ran- no, it was a tactical retreat! My own body and even my own pet rock passed through that creature, so I could not harm it. I just had to run, and find something else to use. And, I had to let Clara get to safety, and maybe find something she could use on them instead. I wonder if those Black Ant Ghosts were fireproof? Perhaps I could find some oil or beer, and I'd set those creatures alight.

I ran and kept running, and... I might have screamed a little. Okay, a lot. I ran quickly, because I always jogged to school when I was a kid. I was a firm believer that Armageddon would happen any day now, and my fitness, mechanical skills, tactical mind and intellect would come in handy...

Except it was finally happening, demonic creatures were rising up from the ground, and my strength was absolutely useless against them. I... was absolutely useless against them.

I kept running, fighting down the emotions welling up inside of me and trying to keep calm, and focus on what was important: Not getting eaten by Shadow Ants.

"Hey, girl!" Someone female shouted out, standing in the dark area between lampposts. She aimed the fanciest sword I'd ever seen at me, and while it was too dark to see her clearly, I could see the silver blade in her hands just fine. The weapon was like a silver one-handed gladius sword, with sharp golden barbs pointing backwards along the lower edge of the blade and a pearl handle studded with black diamonds. A princess-pink bow edged with platinum was tied around the end of the hilt. "Duck!"

I ducked forwards low and began running like a ninja, expecting her to throw her sword, and to protect my sanity I instantly assumed this was a dream.

She generated a spherical orb of fire at the end of her sword and fired it with a loud "Hyaa!", the recoil from the blast swinging her sword upwards like a shotgun.

The fireball flew towards me, and I dove out of the way, more scared than I'd like to admit.

The fireball hit the Black Ant in the center and exploded like grenade, incinerating all three in a fiery blast that somehow only expanded about five spherical feet and then imploded, not leaving behind a single trace.

I got up, and looked at the girl with the weapon. "Thanks for the save!" I called out.

"You're welcome!" She chirped happily, stepping into the light.

My first thought upon seeing her was: Isn't she cold in that outfit?. My second thought was: 'This girl looks like a bad OC. My third thought was: When was the last time this girl ate?. And my fourth thought was: Who is this girl, how did she get her powers, and how can I get some for myself?

Judging from her face, she was in her teens, but her outfit certainly wasn't 'age-appropriate', as my aunt would say. I assumed her hair was dyed; as her hair was split right down the middle, as though she had drawn a line down the middle of her head or placed a ruler there and used two separate hair dye bottles on each side. On her hair's right side, she had long locks of silver that fell straight down, while the left side was longer, shiny midnight black, and got curlier as it neared the base. Two black cat ears poked out from the top of her head. Her body was supermodel-beautiful but not really my type, it was unhealthily thin, except she somehow had an impossibly-curvy chest and rear along with it. She wore a not-so-modest purple evening gown with a dangerously low neckline, and a long black thin rounded cat-tail extended from beneath her dress. I had assumed the tail was decorative, until I saw the tail twitch and move. Her eyes were glowing an inhuman shade of rave-glowstick neon green that glowed subtly like two small LED lights, and she had inhuman catlike pupils that could probably be from contact lenses instead... but after the tail thing and the magic weapon, I wasn't taking any chances or making any assumptions.

Wow, she looks like a really bad OC. Her parents must be real proud of her. I thought to myself once again. Then again, the moving cat tail... a realistic prosthesis, perhaps? Biotech? Or, if this is a dream and she's the protagonist, then the action will be where she is. I'll follow her, make her give me her powers or weapon, then I'll have my own infinitely-better spinoff show.

"Hi, beautiful!" I began flirting. I assumed she was over 16, but just to be safe, I decided to keep things restricted to nothing more than very light and rather cheesy flirting. "I'm Veronica. What's your name?"

"How funny, I ran into a different Veronica a few worlds back." She said in her light, airy voice that should probably sound pure, but to me she just sounded very absent-minded. "My name's Katherinn Eveningrose Rose-Of-Sharon Rising-Tide Primrose-Chan!"

A very plastic smile formed on my face as my eyes widened and hardened. That's it- If I can't befriend her, I'll knock her out and take her stuff. That's obviously not her real name, and she's obviously some idiot girl that got lucky and found a magic weapon. I hate lucky idiots. I thought to myself. "Wow, you're so pretty!" I fake-gasped, slapping the palms of my hands to my awestruck face like a dumb little kid from a TV advert who'd just seen the latest lame girl's toy. "Can I be your friend, and join your team?"

She giggled. "I'd love to, sweetie, but I already have a team, and we already have five members. Come on, you can't be a hero! You don't even have a weapon!"

Did she just call me sweetie?! I thought angrily, but I kept up my fake smile. "Maybe you could give me yours?" I asked hopefully.

Her weapon disappeared in a flash of silvery light. "Sorry, but I can't. That weapon's mine. And again, you don't even have a weapon."

"Perhaps you could give me a spare one of yours? Or a holdout weapon? Come on, don't tell me you're trying to save the world with just the one weapon!" I said, pressing further.

"No. I'm not giving you my weapon." She said firmly, closing her eyes and shaking her head like an adult trying to make things very, very obvious for her idiotic child. "You can't be a hero, you don't have a weapon. And I'm not giving you my weapon, because this is my weapon and you can't have it!"

Alright, that was it. Time to pull out all the stops. It was time... for Awesome Philosophy Time. I folded my arms, my face a mask of serenity, and I calmly said, "You mentioned that I couldn't be a hero, because I don't have a weapon. Well tell me, hero, which matters more: The weapon one wields, or what is inside one's heart? Do you not fight enemies with weapons larger than yours? But you win, because your heart is pure. And I too, have a pure heart. My heart is strong and pure, and it shall be my heart, my mind, and my soul that slices through my foes faster and swifter than any weapon. A weapon does not make a hero... a hero's heart makes a hero."

My face remained calm and serene and zen as buck, but on the inside, I was fist-pumping. Heck yeah, deep philosophy! 2Deep4You! Suck on that, little miss dumb-luck!

She blankly stared at me, and I could tell from her expression that she hadn't understood a single word I'd said. After a four-second beat/pause, she smiled and said, "Sorry, but I won't let you have my weapon. Go home."

Then you've made your move. I thought coldly. And soon, I will make mine.

I wasn't entirely sure if I could beat this girl in a fight, considering her weapon, weapon skills, and magic. If I was going to knock her out, I'd need the advantage of surprise.

"So, I'm assuming you're not from around here?" I asked innocently, moving closer.

"No, I'm from Traverse Town. My Homeworld was overrun by the Heartless and my parents were killed and eated, so I spend my days adventuring through all the worlds, and hunting down ALL of the Heartless!" She shouted, leaning over and clenching both fists, her chest bouncing as she moved. That caught my eye, and I stared for a few seconds before remembering what I was doing.

I'd never heard of Traverse Town, or The Heartless, so I decided to ask about them. And it's 'Eaten', not 'Eated'. But still, even if this was just a dream, it was the most interesting dream I'd had in a while. "Where's Traverse Town? And what are The Heartless?"

"Traverse is a really pretty town really, really far away from here!" She said excitedly, throwing her arms up into the air to emphasize how far away it was. Her chest bounced again, and it distracted me again. I would have missed everything else she'd said, but she caught my

attention again when she said, "I got here in my Gummi Ship."

I blinked, looking back up at her face. "Sorry, come again? You got here on a what Ship?"

"A Gummi Ship!" She chirped happily.

I tilted my head. "Uh... do you mean a Galleon Ship? Big mast, huge hull, plenty of- tons of cannons?"

"No, a Gummi Ship! She insisted, stamping her foot angrily like a little kid. My attention bounced away, and so did her enormous chest. "It's a Gummi Ship, it's a Spaceship made out of magical blocks of sweets that can work as a ship!"

I blinked, distracted from the alluring show by the voice inside my head that called itself the Voice of Reason. It talked to me in its weirdly calm, all-knowing tone, and it said, "This girl is insane. Stop staring at her chest, get her stuff, and run! ...Wait, did she just say she rode a spaceship made of sweets?!"

"Did you just say you got here riding a spaceship made out of sweets?!" I asked in confused outrage, forgetting my smiling mask.

"Yeah! Want to see it?" She asked happily.

"Y-Yes! Sure, certainly!" I stammered. I took a half-second break to compose myself, and then calmly and happily said, "Absolutely, take me to it!"

She jogged away from the town and into the surrounding forest, apparently not knowing that it's dangerous to go into the forest at night. ...Naturally, I go into the forest at night once every fortnight, armed with only my Pet Rock, in the hopes that something will happen, but nothing ever does. Sometimes, I take Clara with me, and that makes the boredom a little more bearable. By the way, nothing ever happened between us. Just thought I should specify that. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

I followed the girl who claimed to be named Katherinn Eveningrose Rose Rose-of-Something-Or-Other Primrose-Chan for a few minutes, and I was surprised at how slowly she jogged. Heh, some hero. We went pretty far into the forest, the rough dry dirt and dry leaves beneath our feet seeming far too loud on this cold moonless night. The trees were large, thick, healthy and spread apart rather far, yet Katherinn somehow knew exactly where she was going.

I was so bored and going so slowly, I couldn't even do what I usually did when bored: Work out to the point of exhaustion, and occupy my mind with how tired I was, and how much I believed I sucked for still not being as strong or fast as those record-breakingly fit people I saw online and in the Olympics.

"Hey, Katherinn... What are The Heartless?" I asked, my voice completely level. For me, this was no harder than power-walking.

"They're an evil, evil blight upon the Omniverse! They're evil monsters that eat hearts, and stay in the shadows except when they don't, and they kill people just for fun, and theiy steal their souls which are actually called hearts, and they're EEEVIIIL!"

"EEEEVIIIIL!" I echoed, remembering something I'd seen on TV. I then noticed she'd said 'Blight'. Who the heck says 'Blight' these days?! 'Blighters', maybe, but never 'Blight'! "So... you go to other worlds, and fight The Heartless there?"

"Yeah. I hate all Heartless, they killed my parents!" She yelled, shaking a fist at the sky. I kept my eyes on the horizon, trying very hard not to stare at her chest as she jogged in the bounciest way possible.

"...And your home planet?" I suggested.

"That too!" She yelled, waving both fists at the sky.

"So... your entire planet was overrun by those tiny adorable Black Ants?" I asked, not hiding my amusement very well.

"They are not all... that adorable." She pouted adorably. "And those things are called Shadows, not Black Ants. The ones that came to my world were big and scary! They had tentacles, and wings, and balls!"

And now, I was interested. "Sorry, what?"

"Big ones!" She shouted, gesturing with her hands. "They threw dark exploding energy-balls at me! One of them blew up my house-palace!"

"Oh. ...Fine." I said, speeding up. She was too slow for my tastes, in more ways than one.

"Hey, wait up!" She shouted, jogging faster.

Eventually, we made it to a large, blackened smoking crater about the size of my house. In the center of the crater, there was something about the size of a tiny one-person electric car, and it looked like somebody had created a 3D sculpture out of brightly-coloured hot-pink, purple and butter-yellow plastic cubes and Tetris pieces, and they'd tried to make it resemble a rather badly-drawn 8-bit spaceship from an awful 8-bit game.

If the ship down there was made of a more reasonable substance, like wood or metal, and it didn't look like an ugly 8-bit eyesore, I'd describe it as a generic spaceship's escape pod. Or perhaps a space-age one-man rowboat. Instead, the Voice of Reason within me was saying in the most deadpan tone possible, "I'm not sure how this crazy lady crashed an art sculpture into your forest badly enough to crater the earth and singe the ground, and I don't want to know... and I'm not sure any person was meant to know."

I responded by folding my arms, closing my eyes and thinking to it, Shut up, Reason. She's using Magic, it doesn't have to follow logic. I insisted. I then opened my eyes and sadly looked down at the ship. "Or good design sense, it would seem. Seriously, this thing is in a whole new class of un-aerodynamic."

"This is my ship!" Katherinn Rose Something-or-Other 'I forgot her overly-long name already' Rose-Chan said proudly, jumping down to it and crouching down slightly, not fazed by how she'd just jumped into a very big, very deep crater, and she should have broken something upon her fall. Because I didn't have her probably-magic-enhanced strength, I walked to the edge and with a short hop, I landed on the charred powdery dirt and began sliding down. I'd done this before on sand dunes, when I visited my aunts, the ones I liked. I'd never done it with dirt before, but it seemed similar enough.

I slid to a halt about a quarter of the way down, as gravity decided the incline wasn't good enough any more. I didn't care, and I gleefully sprinted the rest of the way down. Oh, how I loved the feeling of running downhill. Gravity pulls you along faster, wind resistance seems to matter less, and it feels like everything in the world agrees with you, and wants to support you and help you to go faster as you run in the direction it wants you to go in, and you're doing what you are meant to be doing. Even the fact that I was allowing gravity to decide what direction I took didn't matter to me in that moment, because I was going fast. I loved going fast. ...I still wasn't as fast as those competing in the Olympics on TV, but some day, I'd get there.

As I reached my destination - The blocky eyesore of a spaceship, and the weird but cute girl cheerfully waiting for me - I slowed down to a jog, and eventually stopped close to the brightly-coloured ugly spaceship. "So... this is your spaceship?" I asked uncertainly, hoping with all my heart that this was just the key/homing beacon that'd summon her real ship down from the skies like an enormous flying bird. I got another good look at this so-called ship, and as I leaned back to get it out of my 'Too close for my long-sightedness, but my sunglasses are helping, it's just kinda blurry now range', I noticed things I'd missed the first time I'd looked, before I'd gotten into the crater.

The spaceship was designed like an 8-bit rendering of a bullet-shaped escape pod, with a rounded point at the front and a circular base at the back, with some butter-yellow and firetruck-red cubes in the shape of either an oversized exhaust pipe, or whatever the fiery part of a rocket was called(I'm a mechanic, not a rocket scientist!). The ship's lower half was made of large purple cubes that appeared to be made of plastic. The top half, garish hot-pink cubes. Near the nose-cone, on the top half, I saw a cluster of bright butter-yellow cubes where a car's windscreen would be, and it'd probably serve the same purpose if the cubes weren't completely opaque. I sincerely hoped the cubes worked like one-way glass, allowing the driver to see outside but not allowing anyone to see in. Finally, the ship had four large blocky forward-facing butter-yellow cannons mounted at the front of the ship, arranged like the four corners of a square.

I liked the cannons, and if the blocky design was a required feature on all ships of that model then I guess I could work with it, but... After I stole this, I had to look into getting this thing re-painted, anything but pink. And maybe I could add some more weaponry.

"Yep, that's my ship!" Katherinn said cheerfully, patting her ship on its side as though it was a dog. A few cubes of pink plastic fell off the other side from the impact, and I facepalmed.

"Oh!" She said, running over and picking up the cubes, gathering them up in her arms. She slowly put each one back onto the ship, and judging from the way electricity arced to the cubes and pulled them back onto the ship with a loud metal clunk when they got close enough, I assumed there was some kind of electromagnetic charge keeping all of those cubes stuck together. "Wonderful, she built a ship out of magnetized plastic cubes." My Voice of Reason dryly said to me. "But can it fly?"

"Can it fly?" I asked Katherinn, sounding hopeful.

"Sure! It's a good one, this here Gummi Ship! Standard-Model, with a lot of modifications made by me!" She said proudly with a wide smile, not realizing that if her ship was modified in any way, it no longer counted as standard-model.

"I love the cannons." I said with a huge grin grin. I liked all weaponry, really, but especially stuff that blew up, big stuff that blew up, or stuff that blew big stuff up. "But... do they have to be bright yellow?" I asked, my grin faltering.

She looked at me as though I'd grown a second head. "Wait a second, you aren't one of those evil people who want their ships to be black and red and purple, are you?"

"What?! No, of course not!" I insisted as I internally deleted my design idea for the ship I was planning on getting: a sleek, aerodynamic red, black and purple ship with at least ten cannons. If those were considered evil colours in cartoon-land, then I'd just go with a different colour scheme. One with no pink. I always disliked the colour pink, maybe because it was always all over those lame girl's toys I was supposed to like as a kid. As a kid, I didn't play with toys, I just exercised and read books. And when my parents or my primary school forced me to play with toys, I'd use a yoyo, and either do awesome yoyo tricks or 'accidentally' hit stuff with it. When I was in primary school, they'd give out toys to play with, and if there wasn't a yoyo, then I'd take the biggest toy car they had, and 'accidentally' crash it into the toy houses and tiny toy people the other girls were playing with. I think the funniest time that happened was the first time, back when I was an adorable little kid and I'd rolled my huge monster-truck toy over towards where the other girls were playing with tiny doll people, one each, pretending to be their dolls and pretending they were all family members. I always hated that game, because the families were lame and they never did cool stuff. My monster-truck rolled over their 'little boy' doll(Sadly, not the nuke, just a generic doll designed to look like a small child. I am now imagining a little girl version of myself dressing up a small low-yield nuclear bomb with a face painted on as if it was a doll, and having a tea party with a room full of impovised toys, like sacks of flour and a pet rock, and it is adorable) and the other girls actually played out a scene where the other doll family members cried over their dead doll son. It was hilarious, because they came up with really, really awful dialogue for it. Heh, good times. Gooood times.

Katherinn peered closely at me, as if she was trying to read my thoughts by staring at my wide, surprised eyes. She didn't seem to notice the minor flashback I'd had. "Well, alright then." She shrugged, looking back at her ship. "Well... I think this is where we part ways."

"You're not going to take me with you?" I asked sadly.

"No, sorry. This is where you must stay." She said sadly, patting the side of her ship. With a pneumatic hiss, the top half of her ship opened up as if it was the lid of a clam. "This was just a quick Heartless-exterminating visit. I'm going back to Traverse Town, to get some more supplies, and meet up with my friends in three weeks."

"Please let me come with you! Can't I sit on your lap? Or you sit on mine, since I'm bigger?" I begged desperately. I could not allow the first interesting thing to happen to me all year to slip away from me like this! As I spoke, I moved behind Katherinn, getting out of the

girl's field of vision and as I moved, I got a better look at the spaceship's controls. The whole thing looked really, really simple, and... were those two arcade-game joysticks where the steering wheel or flight stick should be?! It was! It wasn't from any console on this planet, but I recognized the way the buttons were placed atop the hand grips, just like an arcade game. And I saw two, pedals on the floor, only two. No clutch, so it must be Automatic Transmission. I knew I could figure out how to pilot this thing, I just had to keep this girl talking until I could knock her out.

"Yeah, what's up with that, anyway? I've never actually met a human girl as tall as you, even in the other worlds I've been to." She asked, forgetting everything.

"I'm only six-foot!" I insisted. "...-ish!" I added reluctantly. I was only six-foot-one, that wasn't freakishly tall! ...Right? "Still, I could squeeze into your ship's cockpit as you drive, and I'd get out and buy my own ship when I get there!"

"Sorry, but no, my ship only has room for one, so it won't fly if more than one person is on board. Doesn't matter who that one is, but it'll only accept one."

"What about... what about pets?" I asked desperately, running out of things to say.

"Pets don't count towards the limit, but only non-sentient animals can be pets."

"What is sentience?" I began calmly, resuming my Awesome Philosophy Time. "If you define sentience as the capability to learn, to adapt, to view, comprehend and understand your surroundings, then all living things on this planet have that sacred-"

"Sentient means talking." She said, cutting me off.

I frowned, both at her ignorance on the subject of sentience, and her cutting me off. "That isn't what sentience means." I said coldly.

"Doesn't matter. Talking animals need an extra seat, non-talking animals can ride on your head or lap. It's the rules."

"Well, that's a terrible design!" I snapped. "What happens if you find an injured person, and you need to take them home to a hospital? But you can't, because your ship only has one seat?!"

"If they're alive, they count as people, and they'll need their own seat, or their ship." She shrugged. "Besides, they wouldn't need a hospital if they're still alive, they'd just need a Potion." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small thin forest-green vial the size of a pen, with a plastic cap at the end.

"That's a Potion? ...Can I have one?" I asked, ignoring her weird and rather dumb comment about hospitals not being for still-alive people.

"Yes, and yes. I brought ten of these, and I haven't used one, so here you go." She said lazily, turning around and casually tossing it back at me, as if those potions were worth less than dirt to her. I carefully caught it with both hands and put it in my pocket, and smiled.

"Thank you!" I said to her.

Wow... She'd given me free stuff. I liked her now. So... I was starting to feel bad about what I was about to do. Did I have to knock her out and steal her ship at all? Maybe I could let her go, then I'd go home and find someone to analyse the potion. A Full Spectral Analysis should reveal the secrets of this 'Potion', and how to make more. Then I could sell this stuff, and make a lot of money. Maybe get some factories to mass-produce the stuff, and get some appearances on Talk Shows to promote the World's First Miracle Cure that Actually Works For Realsies. I'd go down in history as the woman who invented and released the miracle-cure for everything except death... and now she has her pharmaceutical company(named after herself, of course), which is now incredibly large and richer than Bill Gates thanks to selling all those 'Potions', has her Research and Development Team currently working on a cure for death... as well as financing other companies' attempts to build better and faster computers, get into space and colonize other worlds, build better weaponry, and make very cheap soup-in-a-cups that actually tasted good. And reduce the price of salads so they'd match the price of cheap and awful food, so poor people can eat healthily.

That would be great. However...

I had absolutely no confirmation that the 'Potion' vial in my pocket wasn't actually a mixture of Snake Oil, a rare variety of Placebo, a thickening agent like Flour, and some green Food-Colouring blended together and put into the clear plastic container of a tube of Bubble Mixture, with the Bubble Wand snapped off the lid so I wouldn't notice what it was right away. In fact, I think that' if I had to make a fake copy of this thing, that's how I'd make it. Even if there was something useful in this weird green liquid, like the dew of a plant that can help with cell regeneration... could I find any plants like that on this world? Could I afford to have the required parts chemically synthesized? Or maybe the 'Potion' was just something mundane, like that all-natural all-fake hippy-herbal-remedy stuff for sale online, but enhanced by magic? Or maybe this 'Potion' was made from impossible-to-find ingredients, like dragon-eyes and zombie hearts and donkey tears, and it only took effect when consumed by an alien, because their alien body could use the nutrients to self-heal faster... or a magician, because their magic would automatically transmute the rare but useless materials into something that his/her body could use, the law of Equivalent Exchange allowing the magician to turn the rare materials into a lot of useful but common materials, like minerals, vitamins, nutrients and cells.

Yes, this 'Potion' may not be the Golden Goose I thought it was after all. So, why should I give up my one shot at real adventure, just so I could go home and hope my lazy attempt at 'Cashing in my chips before the game really begins', as Clara would say, would actually work?

My mind was made up. This 'Katherinn' What's-her-name was going down, and I was stealing her ship and going to the stars.

"So, Katherinn..." I said happily, reaching into my pocket and getting out Trusty Rocky DeBree, my Pet Rock. "What was your home like?"

"Oh, it was lovely!" She said happily, smiling fondly as I crept up behind her. "Everyone was always so nice and kind to me! My Daddy was the king, and my Mommy was the Queen, and my best friends were the Commoners and Ninja that lived in our Space Kingdom of Rosa-GAH!"

I smiled coldly as I watched the magic girl slump to the ground, completely unconscious after just one solid hit to the head from Rocky DeBrea, my trusty Pet Rock. Sometimes, I wish it could talk, so I could congratulate it for keeping me safe all these years. But there was no time for that now... Because I had a spaceship!

I evilly smirked down at the unconscious girl, the pale light of the moon overhead silhouetting part of my face to create a chilling image. "Heh heh heh heh... Everything went exactly according to plan."

I reflexively patted Katherinn down, hoping to find anything else she had. I pocketed her nine other 'Potion's, and a set of five similarly-shaped vials filled with a sky-blue liquid. I'd ask about those later, if I met a Potions Expert or something. Or, more likely, a Merchant that also dealt in Potions.

I climbed up into the Gummi Ship and into its rather cramped cockpit, and grabbed both control sticks/handles, my thumbs stretching and preparing to press the single small red buttons atop each joystick. When I grabbed the handles, the roof closed back down, sealing me in. I noticed two carlike pedals at my feet, and I wasn't entirely sure what they did at the time. ...Meh, I'd figure them out as I flew.

Now that I was in the driver's seat, I looked at the Dashboard and I saw what looked like a Tablet-computer-sized Touch-Screen hidden in an indentation, right beneath the yellow blocky windscreen which, as I expected, really was a one-way screen that I could see out of. I leaned forwards and tapped the touch screen, and it immediately activated. Huh, she must have left it on Sleep Mode. If it had one. ...Meh, it probably had one. Seemed like a god way to conserve power while maintaining its viability as the ultimate getaway vehicle.

The screen lit up a brilliant blue, like the blue of blueprints, as green angular menu boxes appeared on the screen, emblazoned with words written in white giving me options like 'Select Destination' and 'View Current Data'. Thankfully, the spaceship's interior didn't have the ridiculous 8-bit theme going, either. I guess she hadn't gotten around to recolouring the menus, because I actually liked the way this looked.

I chose 'Select Destination' with a loud ding, and the current menu faded away to be replaced by a graphical representation of the current world, and nearby planets. I saw my Earth in the center, and not too far off, there was something that looked like a large town built around the universe's smallest planet. I could actually see the buildings from orbit! I really hoped that was just an icon, and the real place was bigger.

I tapped on the town-planet, and a small info-box appeared next to it as the screen zoomed in to give me a better view of the world I'd selected. The town-world's name appeared to me in logo form, with a very short paragraph below telling me about the place.

TRAVERSE TOWN.

A bustling, vibrant hub of trade and commerce, constantly visited by new adventurers looking for some action in their lives, new merchants looking to sell their wares and make a better life, as well as refugees from worlds destroyed by the Heartless looking to make a new life.

LEVEL: 02.

VISIT WORLD? YES/CANCEL

Out of curiosity, I clicked Cancel, the screen zooming out. I selected my home planet, Earth, wondering what the magical aliens thought of my world.

EARTH, No. 9.

LEVEL: 00.

VISIT WORLD? YES/CANCEL

One of the many imitations of the ancient planet known as Earth, this one may just be the largest and most boring. The original Earth was known for its impressive size, but this version of Earth doesn't really have anything to fill the space, other than the incredibly closed-minded indigenous people who ARE NOT to be talked to. They are not to be told about magic or the other worlds FOR A REASON. This world's level is too low, and so revealing yourself or magic or aliens to any of them is evil, and a Capital Offence of the highest order.

I frowned. So there was life out there on other planets, they were just forbidden from revealing ourselves to us. As I thought. ...Which begs the question: How did that idiot girl accidentally reveal what all the aliens in the universe were unwilling to reveal?

Then again, her Ship was tiny, she was physically weak(Her magic-enhanced jumping was all she had going for her, really), she couldn't run that fast, she had no weaponry skills or combat skills, she relied solely on rather small fireballs, and she was out cold after a blow to the head from an ordinary non-magical rock with a face I'd drawn onto it with a felt-tip pen, swung at her by me, an ordinary female human with no magic or Chosen-One status at all. Her weapon was pretty fancy, but just as Clara's awesome reformed-alcoholic sober-for-eight-years currently-sword-collecting Uncle used to say, even the world's fanciest weapon was worthless in the hands of a moron.

VISIT WORLD? YES/CANCEL

I pressed Cancel, and chose Traverse Town. Hey, the place's description sounded really awesome, so I was definitely going there. Maybe they'd sell some weaponry that could actually harm the Heartless? And hopefully, they weren't selling those weapons at too high a price.

TRAVERSE TOWN.

VISIT WORLD? YES/CANCEL.

I chose yes. I'd have to get my stolen ship repainted if I didn't want anyone recognizing it, and I'm not sure how much the weapons will cost, but... Who cares about that? It was time I went on an adventure. I'd figure things out when I got there, because now, it was time to go.

DESTINATION SELECTED.

AUTOPILOT ENGAGED.

BEGINNING JOURNEY.

My Gummi Ship slowly floated up out of the crater, strong winds around it whipping around and blowing leaves and twigs off nearby trees as my ship turned to face the stars overhead. It suddenly darted forwards, flying away from my home planet and setting out for whatever lay out there in the universe. As I saw my ship leave Earth's atmosphere and enter Space, stars all around me, I knew that my journey... no... my adventure had finally began.