Press-Ganging My Friend Into This Bizarre World

by PSIness11

In which the tropes toll for a duo of JoJo fans, leading to reincarnation in a fantasy world utterly unprepared for them. Fortunes, misfortune, cats and more explosions than Michael Bay could dream of mark the beginning of their bizarre adventure. (Duo SI-OC); co-written w/Teninshigen.

1. Chapter 1

A.N: Dylan is PSIness11, and Doug is Teninshigen

'...There's a point when all of this becomes just too cliché, right?'

I mean, the trope of dying and being reborn into another world was one that had been stretched to its utmost limits already! You've got all the self-insert fanfictions that have been spawned from 'This Bites!' and other works like it; all of the anime depicting the cycle of death and rebirth, as well as all the new 'isekai' shows coming out since RE:Zero; sometimes even comics would get in on the idea!

Normally I wouldn't have been one to judge them - after all, I was the author of my very own self-insert fanfiction; a Fairy Tail story, no less. 'I wonder, is it irony that someone who writes that trope is saying it's worn out…? Or is that just hypocrisy?'

But one way or another, emphasis on the 'was' above - because in the shittiest karma I'd ever experienced I fell victim to a sequence of events eerily similar to the ones I wrote for my story...with some differences.

Such as, instead of meeting my unfortunate end at the hands of a tragic car crash and going out in an explosion of glass and metal, I was done in by another cliché. Specifically, a truck to the face.

Normally the people in my hometown are pretty good drivers. I can walk to school every day and feel safe doing it because I know they'll slow down or stop if they see people trying to cross the street. Since I'm not a suicidal asshole, I always wait for a good, long opening between cars when I'm crossing the street before moving as quickly as I can to the other side...though not so fast I look like an idiot. But of course, it only took one driver from out of town who didn't watch where they were fucking going…

Well, anyone who's seen an action movie or a traffic report could probably guess what happened next. A massive impact on my right side; a split-second of weightlessness that began to feel less important as pain spread through me from my devastated side; then the asphalt rushed up to meet me, there was a crash, and everything went black.

That was how I reached my current position and how I ended up dealing with the problem at hand...and now that I had finished staring blankly into space, I took in a deep breath. "WHY THE FUCK DID I HAVE TO GET KILLED BY A GODDAMN CLICHÉ?!" I demanded of nothing and no-one in particular. "I CAN'T EVEN COUNT HOW MANY TIMES THAT TYPE OF DEATH HAS BEEN USED AS A GATEWAY TO START A STORY!"

If there was a nearby wall (there wasn't), I would've started bashing my head off it. "IF I HAD A DOLLAR FOR EVERY TIME THIS SHIT JUST SO HAPPENED TO OCCUR IN FICTION, THEN AT LEAST I'D HAVE DIED A RICH MAN!"

"Oi, blondie."

At the sound of another voice, I whipped around to face its source - but I was too damn angry to really question someone else being with me. "WHAT?!"

"Are you gonna stop your temper tantrum? It's getting annoying."

I would have launched into another enraged rant and screeched at the source of the voice - but something about their appearance knocked a hole in my anger and gave me a moment of clear thought with which to examine the speaker.

Lying across the arms of a marble throne with a golden back, feet resting on what seemed to be a small marble cabinet with golden panelling that had been placed beside the throne, was a woman that I recognised almost instantly on my second look. Waist-length light-blue hair, with some of it pulled into a loop atop her head and kept that way with a clip shaped like a water molecule, cascaded over the throne's arm. The clothes she wore were a darker blue, closer to navy, and consisted of thigh-high boots, a miniskirt with a transparent underskirt and a vest with detached white sleeves.

She was...beautiful… "Well then, Dylan Anderson, eighteen years of age, welcome to the afterlife I guess." She droned. "You know that you died, so I don't have to give you the usual speech…" She flipped her hair in a way that, somehow, reeked of condescension. "Even though you did just try to blow out this goddess's ears with your whining, I suppose I could forgive that and offer you the same choice everyone gets…"

And a fucking bitch. Yes, that was who I was being faced with. Straight from the world of Konosuba, someway, somehow, I had been 'graced' with the presence of history's absolute most useless goddess.

Aqua.

"It's unfortunate that your life ended so abruptly, as many do…" She continued, but she didn't even bother trying to look sincere when she offered the closest thing to a commiseration she'd yet spoken. "But that's what I'm here for; to offer you a second chance you didn't get in life."

Her words got me to focus on her again, rather than on my musings about just how I had been shuffled into an anime's afterlife and my still-growing anger. "That's right...I was hit by a truck." I muttered to myself. "I guess I...really am dead…" I shuddered, putting a hand over my heart and blanching when I realised there wasn't a heartbeat. "Oh no, I-!"

"W-well, not quite." I looked up at Aqua, verging on having a panic attack, but found that this goddess managed to enrage me even past the point of acknowledging the reality of my situation. I didn't fucking appreciate her struggling to keep a goddamn straight face when I was dead!

"What do you mean, 'not quite'?" I demanded, not quite willing to hope but feeling a glimmer of something like it run through my mind. "Am I not really dead?"

Aqua's hold on her composure seemed to be slipping further and further, her features going red and her mouth twisting itself as it tried to smile while she tried not to. "N-no!" She shook her head. "You're definitely dead; it's just, you didn't die like you think you did…"

'...Wait, what does she mean by-'

"PFFFT!" Aqua's composure finally reached its limit and shattered, reducing her to a giggling mess of a goddess. "You didn't get hit by a truck!" She managed to gasp out around her laughter. "You were hit by something way funnier!"

I blinked. "Wha-"

"YOU WERE HIT BY A SMART-CAR!" Aqua finally blurted out, before transitioning from gigging to full-blown, almost maniacal laughter that should have carried her off her throne and onto the floor with the way she was rolling around...but it seemed that a goddess wouldn't fall in her own domain unless she wanted to, since she just kept going back and forth on the arms of the throne.

In the meantime, I just stood and stared blankly, not really registering anything outside my own mind. 'Somehow, someway...I must have unknowingly committed some ultimately evil sin for God to hate me this much.'

"W-wait!" Aqua gasped. "It g-gets b-better!"

'There's more?!'

"W-when you landed, your b-body came to a stop in the funniest position!" She declared, pausing for effect before throwing out her next words with a whole new gale of laughter. "FACE-DOWN ASS-UP!"

'OH GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!'

Aqua kept laughing on her throne, holding her stomach as tears ran down her face. "Everybody who saw it couldn't help but snicker at the sheer slapstick! Even the paramedics chuckled as they loaded you into the ambulance!"

The anger I hadn't yet finished venting, and which had been growing exponentially with each second I spent in the presence of such a useless, bitchy goddess, gained whole new life and started boiling the blood in my veins, even as Aqua's laughter began dying down. "If you were anybody else…" I growled, clenching my fists, "I would punch you right in your stupid fucking face, Aqua!"

The goddess blinked, finally ceasing her laughter as she observed me from where she was still lying sideways on her throne. "Eh? How do you know who I am?"

'...Oh, fuck! I just made the ultimate 'blow your cover' stupid mistake! Oh God, now she's gonna start asking questions! She can't learn that she's an anime character - especially not while my afterlife is depending on her! Oh fuck me, what have I DON-'

"Oh my!" Aqua laughed, bringing her right hand up to her face and holding it flat at the level of her chin. "It appears that even humans of your world know of the wondrous Aqua-sama - and in America, no less!"

'I suppose it's a damn good thing her ego is larger than her IQ...and seriously, a fucking ojou laugh? Did someone curse me to live a life of tropes or something?'

"Well, even if you've heard of me before, allow me to properly introduce myself." The blunette goddess spoke, shifting on her throne so she was sitting properly. "My name is Aqua; I am a Goddess that typically guides humans who have died young in Japan." The somewhat regal air she had tried to adopt when she changed her sitting position cracked in a second as she snickered to herself. "But your death was too funny for me to ignore."

'...I really, really want to punch her in the face.'

"So, Dylan Anderson," she continued, "I have something nice for you."

Well it was about fucking time she got to that; at least she'd finally stopped laughing. "You see, in a world different from your own, there exists a powerful king of demons whose armies have been wreaking havoc upon the people there. So this world is in kind of a pinch…"

"So you offer people a chance to go there after they die, right?" I interrupted her; I already knew the BS spiel she'd give me.

"Yep!" She cheered, clapping her hands together with a condescending smile. "You're smarter than you look!"

The look she gave me was the kind of look you'd give a kid who just finished his homework, and my eyes narrowed in response. "I'm really starting to hate you…"

Aqua didn't even acknowledge me as she launched further into her sales pitch. "So somebody like you would be perfect to go into that world! Someone who's raring to get started with another chance!"

I hummed. "That sounds all well and good…"

Aqua smiled widely. "Then it's all settled! I'll just ge-"

"BUT I REFUSE!"

My lips curved into a satisfied smirk at the utterly shocked look on her face, and it took her a few seconds to recover. "EHHHHHHHHHH?!" She semi-screamed, questioning without words - though she provided them soon after. "B-but, you just said it sounded good!"

I nodded sagely, turning my back on her. "It does, but what's in it for me?" I questioned, shaking my head. "And it sounds like I'd be working for you…" I began to walk away from the shell-shocked Aqua, counting down in my head. 'Three...two...one...and…'

I felt a tug on the hem of my pants, and turning around I saw that Aqua had dashed across the distance between myself and her throne to latch onto me. "W-wait, you will be getting something out of this!" She declared quickly, spinning me around to face her and grabbing me by the shirt. "Listen! You wouldn't just be sent there with nothing - that would be absolutely ridiculous! We can't have you dying as soon as you get there, so if you do end up choosing to go to the other world, you'll get an amazing power!"

Now, that sounded promising to me - and to be fair, this was the option that I was going to go with, and I knew that from the moment I registered where I had ended up. But I just couldn't ignore the chance to screw with Aqua...or take the once-in-a-lifetime chance to use that line properly. "Exactly what kind of power are we talking about here?" I questioned.

"Well, there are a lot to choose from." Aqua told me, pulling out a book. Where she pulled it from, however, I couldn't actually say. "Let's see here…" She murmured, leafing through it. "There's some amazing powers, ridiculous abilities and, if you want, you could even have a sacred weapon or treasure."

Aqua held the book out to me, and I began to leaf through it, quickly realising that she might have been understating things a bit. There were hundreds of different powers, items and abilities to choose from. I recognised some of them - but that was a minority, really, with the vast majority being completely unfamiliar to me. 'There's no way I can make a decision off the top of my head when there are this many options…'

"Hey, uh, Aqua?" I started, looking up from the book. "Do you mind if I take a little while to look through this and then decide?"

A hopeful gleam that was less endearing and more disturbing appeared in the goddess's eyes. "So you've decided to go to the other world then?"

"Of course!" I replied, nodding. "It sounds like fun!"

"Wonderful!" Aqua cheered, clapping happily. "In that case, you can have all the time you need! Just tell me what you want and you'll be on your way!"

I didn't trust her happiness one bit - anything she perceived as positive was probably detrimental to my health or pride. Maybe both. Still, I was glad that she hadn't asked nearly as many questions as I'd been afraid she might. If she had asked, I would have been in a much worse situation.

Well, that wasn't to say my situation was anything approaching 'good'...but even having died, having a chance to live again gave me the motivation to put up with fiction's bitchiest goddess. Still, I shouldn't waste brain cells disparaging Aqua when her own existence was more than enough insult; instead, I should focus them on choosing the power I'll receive!

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Thirty Minutes Later

"C'moooooon...just pick one already!"

My eyebrow twitched - a motion it had repeated quite a few times in the past several minutes. "Shut up, will you?! I can't decide so easily - there are way too many good powers here!"

Lounging on her throne as she had been before, Aqua let out a low, impatient moan that was punctuated by the crunching sound of teeth on corn products. That is, doritos - her fourth bag to be precise, which would soon join the other three bags of chips, the two sodas and the magazine she had gone through while I was trying to make my decision.

Of course, even in this half hour I still hadn't reached the end of the possibilities. Hell, I didn't even think I'd read half of them!

"Why can't you just choose one?!" Aqua demanded in a whiny tone. "It's been hoouuuurs…."

I glared at her. "It's been thirty minutes." 'I should know; you've been asking the same thing every minute after all…'

"Hooouuuuuurrrrrsssss…."

Taking in a deep breath, I counted to ten silently before once more ignoring the goddess who had spent most of the time I'd known her whining, turning my attention back to the massive book of powers I'd been handed and going back over the page I'd been distracted from. 'Generic super strength type seven, generic super speed type thirteen, another Devil Fruit, Broadsword Weapon powers from Soul Eater, Transformation Magic, Scar's arm of destruction…'

Yes, that was just one page - no, this book didn't have anything useful like an order or an index, and like hell was it making my job any easier. I had so many options available to me that it made choosing nigh-on impossible! I had been looking through them for so long I'd started overthinking things; every single ability I saw listed I began wondering about how I could use it to its utmost potential, or guessing as to just how it worked if I wasn't familiar with the source material…

With so many ideas cluttering my mind it was impossible to reach a decision; I couldn't stop thinking about all the uses each and every power could have! Who the hell put all these brilliant choices in one book then decided I could only have one?!

"AAARGH, I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE!" Aqua screamed, apparently reaching the point of snapping after only half an hour as she threw her near-empty bag of doritos across the empty space we occupied and grabbed her head with both hands. "JUST PICK ONE ALREADY YOU DAMN DITZY BLOND!"

I felt a vein pop out on my forehead and wondered if I could still lose years of my life to a stress-related heart condition when I was already dead. The fact that this happened despite my not having a heartbeat at the moment was just a testament to how far Aqua had managed to raise my blood pressure.

"I'M TRYING YOU WORTHLESS GODDESS! WHAT, DID YOUR BRAIN TURN TO WATER AND RUN OUT YOUR EARS AND THAT'S WHY YOU HAVE NO PATIENCE?!"

"FUCK YOU YOU CREEPY SHUT-IN NEET! SHOW SOME RESPECT FOR A GODDESS AS WONDROUS AS ME!"

"GODDESS?! YOU'RE MORE LIKE A DEVIL! YOU'RE A TRASHY DUNGEON BOSS FROM A TUTORIAL LEVEL WITH DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR!"

"AAAAAH!"

"AAAAAH!"

As we descended into unintelligible screaming that each of us somehow still found insulting, I found myself desperately wishing for a friendly face - someone who could help me or at least be supportive.

My first choice would probably be a relatively recent friend of mine that I'd made online, who happened to be one of the most intelligent people I'd ever met. When I was starting out writing my story, he'd given me all the help and inspiration I asked for with my writing - and all the times we'd bounced ideas about various powers off each other made me think that he'd probably have made his decision already.

Stopping my screaming for air (did I actually need to breathe right now? Even if I didn't, I should need air to speak...right?), I sighed, rubbing my temples. "Man, I wish Doug was here right now…"

"DONE!"

I blinked - then my head shot back upright as I loosed the single loudest shout I had managed that day. "WAIT, WHAT?!"

Doug POV

There are a few sources of humour that, throughout time, have never failed to find an audience. Toilet humour. Sex jokes. Animal noises. Slapstick. The longest-running of them all, though, is death.

It's not even that hard for people to make death funny; there have been some naturally occurring deaths throughout human history which, while tragic, always seem to get a laugh. Take the mathematician Pythagoras, for example. A genius of his time, a Greek philosopher of quite some renown…and the founder of a religious movement he called 'Pythagoreanism'.

What might he have contributed to science if he had lived his entire lifespan…? Well, we'll never know, because the laws of his own religion - in particular that no follower of it may touch beans of any kind - caused him to cease his own escape of a group of assassins because his escape route would have gone through a bean field. The irony of a genius mathematician being done in by his own stupidity certainly made me chuckle.

I, personally, didn't think my own death was that funny...but I suppose that someone out there will laugh at the idea of tripping down some stairs, sticking a 1080 degree somersault, then smacking my forehead on the pavement and knocking myself unconscious before drowning in approximately two centimetres of water. 'I swear, it's the kind of ridiculous thing that would only ever happen in an...isekai...anime…'

I blinked.

I blinked again.

I rubbed my eyes, slapped myself across the face, then counted down from ten before once more opening my eyes. Nope. That was still Aqua from Konosuba - with a really guilty-looking blond guy with blue eyes dressed in tracksuit trousers and a plain white t-shirt.

'...Waitaminute.' "...Dylan?"

"...Fuck."

'Yeah, that's Dylan alright.' I looked from my online friend of several weeks (and this certainly wasn't the way I imagined meeting him in person) to the goddess lounging across her throne nearby, arms folded and a huffy pout on her face, then to the book in Dylan's arms.

Things clicked.

I walked over to Dylan silently and stared at him for several seconds. "I'm going to punch you in the face now." I told him. "I'm not sure when I'll stop."

"...You get one free shot before I start fighting back."

"Fair enough." I punched him in the face. It's fair to say things devolved from there.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Several Minutes Later

Pushing myself to my feet, I brushed some non-existent lint off the shoulders of my hoodie, wiping away the blood from the cuts on my face and ignoring the throbbing bruises littering my body. "Right, that'll do for now."

"You're a lot stronger than you sound online." Dylan remarked, doing much the same and sighing as he looked at his now bloodstained white t-shirt. I might've felt guilty about that, but considering all the stuff that covered pavements in Aberdeen and thus now covered my hoodie back in the living world, I decided that having to wash those stains out would serve as fitting revenge.

"So are you two done with your foreplay now?" Aqua cut in, looking bored out of her mind - though the corner of her lip was twitching upwards every now and again. "'Cause since the homo-NEET over here decided to wish you dead instead of giving himself some useful power, I have to give you a gift of your own before I send you both off."

I grunted, then picked up the book from where it had fallen. Idly, I started leafing through it. After a few seconds I frowned and started leafing faster. A few seconds after that, I hooked my thumb into the space between the back page and the back cover, then began drawing my thumb back to let the pages fall into place. After two minutes of that, I shut the book with a thump. "Alright, fuck this, I'd have better luck doing open heart surgery following a German manual than finding any perfect ability in that mess."

I chucked the tome over my shoulder (and if it was in Dylan's vague direction then that wasn't my problem), then turned to Aqua, considering for a few seconds. 'Fantasy world; gods and demons; devil kings; undead and spirits; magic; RPG mechanics; quests.'

Something that wasn't too far out of place - something we could explain away, but also something which gave us a unique advantage, something that couldn't be replicated or hard-countered. It would need to be outside the box; it would need to be versatile, it would need to be powerful; it would need…

To be bizarre. "Alright - I've made my decision."

Aqua blinked, then turned to Dylan (who was clutching his head in pain), and barked a laugh. "So this is the guy who made your shitty fanfiction into something that literate monkeys could read? Man, you're just a leech on society trying to ride on someone else's coat-tails aren't you homo-NEET?"

My eyebrow twitched. 'I so very much hope that we're both still alive when Kazuma drags this bitch down to earth - I just know that punching her in the face would be the most satisfying thing to ever happen to me.' "For my gift," I told her, "I want - the Stand Arrow, from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure."

I waited expectantly for a couple of seconds, expecting Aqua to get on with sending us on our way with a brand-new ticket to unique abilities we could surely find some use for. Instead, I found that her expression had frozen. "J...JoJo's…?" She stuttered, seeming to grow pale as she began to shake in her seat.

"Uh…yes…?" I confirmed hesitantly, watching as the goddess drew her knees up to her chest and fell sideways on her throne so she was curled up in a shivering ball.

"Oh great Me-sama...the poses...the weird noises...the catchphrases…!"

A single massive shiver started at the crown of Aqua's head and travelled the length of her body until it fetched up at her boots, and I had to swallow to clear my throat and speak. "Er...Aqu-?!"

Abruptly, the goddess had shot to her feet and crossed the distance between us to grab me by the lapels, shaking me back and forth desperately. "Anything else!" She begged. "Please, anything but that! Do you want Excalibur? Or Bahamut? Unit One?! Yggdrasil's master password?! I'm sure I could at least try to get those - so please don't force a tender and loving goddess like me to set foot in that place!"

My normal response when faced with a crying, panicking woman is to try and stop the crying. With Aqua, my response was to take a sharp step back and break her hold on my collar, then carefully back away so she couldn't catch me again. "What's so bad about my request?" I asked, once I had a safe distance between us. "And what do you mean 'set foot in that place'? Can't you just create or summon the blessings you bestow on people?"

Aqua shook her head. "I might be a truly great goddess, blessed with power, beauty, elegance, ability and wisdom, but my domain is water, not blessings or enchantments or creation or any of that stuff." Under her breath, I could barely hear her mutter "Who would want those domains anyway? Spending all my time making stuff for other people or making their lives better? What a waste of such a brilliant goddess's valuable time…"

'Well, I've found confirmation. God - or this goddess, at least - isn't evil...she's just a fucking lazy waste of space. Consider yourself validated, Epicurus.'

"All of the stuff in the catalogue is provided by other gods and goddesses for souls like you to use; so when something is requested, I have to contact that god or goddess and get it myself."

'Translation: Aqua's completely useless, so the other deities shoved her into this corner-office job and managed to restrict all interaction with her to requisition forms.' Apparently the gods were smarter than I gave them credit for.

Dylan finally pulled his hands away from his head, frowning at Aqua. "Then what's the problem? What is it about the Stand Arrow in particular that freaks you out so much?"

"A goddess like me doesn't 'freak out'!" Aqua rebuffed indignantly, before flinching. "But the god in charge of that multiverse isn't the kind of person that a goddess like me should be interacting with."

I raised an eyebrow, and giving voice to the obvious question, Dylan spoke up. "So just what God is it?"

Aqua's face froze once more - then reformed itself into an expression I had only ever seen in Soul Eater before. "...Hirohiko Araki."

Dylan and I blinked in sync. "Wait, the guy who writes JoJo's Bizarre Adventure...is also the God of its multiverse?" I asked slowly, drawing a nod from Aqua, whose expression hadn't changed yet.

Dylan and I shared a look before the blond turned to face Aqua again. "...But just how the fuck does that even work?"

"...I don't like to think about it." The goddess murmured, and I sighed into my following facepalm.

'This is one of the forces behind the continued existence and functioning of the multiverse. I'd say heaven help us all, but apparently they're the problem.'

"Look, can you get us the Stand Arrow or not?" Dylan demanded, drawing a shake of Aqua's head.

"The purity and brilliance of a goddess like me is far too valuable to throw away fulfilling the request of a couple of NEET souls who'll probably catch STDs and die in a couple of weeks," she declared, and I could see a vein rise in Dylan's forehead even across the distance separating us, "but I could exercise the incredible generosity expected of a goddess like myself to equip you two with Stands."

I blinked. "Wait, what? But you just said you can't get stuff from JoJo's because you won't go near Araki!"

Aqua waved her hand back and forth. "Well, I couldn't get the arrow - but Araki's such a scatterbrained excuse for a hack god of writing that he'll never notice if I just grab a couple of his little toy ghosts from one of those messes he calls timelines."

I blanched. "Hey wait a minute, you don't mean you're going to steal Stands from the characters?!"

The blunette glared at me. "Well of course! Those damn weirdos should be glad that they can ease the life of a goddess such as myself!"

I went to continue arguing the point - because I could only imagine the kind of problems with the timeline that kind of messing around could cause for any of the Joestars - but Aqua had already stuck her arms into thin air and started fishing around with her tongue protruding from the corner of her mouth. "Ah-ha!" She declared, pulling her arms taut. "Got them!"

"...I am both excited and utterly terrified right now." Dylan admitted from where he'd moved up to stand beside me, and I couldn't help but agree. Even as Aqua pulled what looked like two balls of light from thin air, yanking on them until the lines of energy that passed from them and into the air which Aqua had produced them from snapped, I felt a nervous kind of energy, the precursor to a whole new life and a grand adventure to come.

I just hoped we hadn't fucked things up too badly for whatever time period those Stands had come from...but hey, it's not like Aqua would have gone and gotten us anything ridiculous, right?

The ball of light that Aqua tossed at me underarm sank into my chest, where it unfolded like a flower in bloom. A connection snapped into place in my mind as a figure formed hovering by my shoulder.

It had a thick green stem for a body, with four large leaves that it balanced on like legs and an entwined set of brown roots that acted like a tail. Two light gray tulip petals with a pattern of long, dark spots on them were wrapped into a feline shape for the face, which possessed eyes on stalks that were fixed on my own. Behind its eyeballs were a line of short orange stalks that waved slightly like whiskers. It had two small holes for nostrils, set above an obviously feline mouth - complete with tongue, although it lacked any teeth.

The figure stared into my eyes for several moments. Then it let out a low, rumbling purr and padded its way down my arm, where it promptly stuck its head beneath my hand. The fact that this left it floating in free space without any visible aid was apparently ignored as the creature emitting a slight, light-green glow. I automatically started to stroke it, idly noting that I was emitting a similar glow. '...I got Stray Cat.'

The Stand which had once been a cat purred happily as it floated beneath my hand, and I felt a massive grin split my face. 'Absolute control of air and a cat into the bargain. This is actually turning out to be a pretty good day. Plus, keeping the little guy out of Kira's hands will help out Josuke, so that's good. Now, I wonder what Dylan-'

My thoughts were cut off there, however, by a sound. It started low and quiet - barely on the edge of hearing. Then, in the following seconds, it grew rapidly, becoming easily recognisable and then swelling until it filled the space.

Listening to Dylan's maniacal laughing, which was the kind of sound which really should have been echoing down from a mountain-top somewhere, I found myself afraid to look. Stray Cat shivered beneath my hand, and I swallowed. If I turned around...I knew there could only be one of two things to greet me.

There were only two possibilities that could elicit a sound like that from Dylan. I knew it - I knew it because I had had nightmares about the mere idea of Dylan possessing either of the two Stands which could bring out such laughter. I began to turn my head, feeling as if my neck were a rusted gear...but I hadn't even made it halfway there before I heard him speak through his laughter.

"Luck has sided, with Dylan Anderson!"

I finished my turn...and I beheld the Stand floating in front of my friend.

A visibly muscular pink humanoid about as tall as Dylan himself, with a flat crown and two sharp, triangular shapes like cat's ears on either side of the top of its head. Its eyes were cat-like vertical pupils in front of blood-red sclera, with no iris. It had no nose, and its thin-lipped mouth was closed, giving it an emotionless, robotic look. It wore dark, studded, leather-like forearm-length gloves which contrasted with the white bandages wrapped around its thumbs, mirrored in style by a garter belt-like band at its waist and ankle-height footwear. Its shoulders, the backs of its hands, its belt buckle, a plate hanging in front of its crotch, both sides of its ankles and the top of its feet all bore the same design - an emblem of a skull with ears resembling its own, though the sizes and colours of the design were varied over its body.

I took in all the details, as I beheld the Stand my friend had been given.

And I knew true fear.

"Well, you've got your little pets now." Aqua brushed us off, casually dismissing the sign of the oncoming apocalypse that was Dylan Anderson in possession of Killer Queen. "So let's get you two off so you can spread the worship of the most merciful and generous goddess Aqua!"

The Stand I was stroking hissed at her. I echoed the sentiment, but judging from the gleam in Dylan's eye and the way the fingers of his right hand were starting to curl into a fist while the thumb stuck out, it was time for us to get the fuck out of dodge before there was no dodge to get the fuck out of.

I wasn't willing to test what would happen if a reality-destroying bomb went off in a goddess's realm and tried to send its progenitor back in time to before they possessed the ability to cause that explosion in the first place. Or rather, I wasn't willing to test it on a goddess as worthless as this one.

"Yes, of course, we'll definitely tell people to prey on yo- pray for you, I mean, so you should probably send us off as soon as possible!" Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Killer Queen's hand mimicking Dylan's movement. "THE SOONER THE BETTER!"

"Sheesh, you shouldn't be pushy with a goddess, you insignificant waste of air and brain cells…" Aqua grumbled, but still waved her hand at us almost negligently, causing an intricate circle filled with arcane symbols to appear beneath our feet.

The following cessation of gravity was, thankfully, disorienting enough that Dylan started pinwheeling his hands, aborting what could have been the end of time and space as we knew them. Or a complete dud - I wasn't entirely sure if there was any 'air' in this domain, since even though my lungs inflated and deflated when I shifted my muscles, it didn't feel like anything was entering or leaving them. 'The apocalypse or an embarrassing failure - that does sound like Dylan.'

Stray Cat hissed a bit as we started floating, so I carefully gathered it in my arms and tucked it against my chest, scratching near the tip of one of its petals like I might behind a cat's ear. It settled down fairly quickly, and its grey eyes followed the same path as my own when Aqua began to speak in an incredibly bored tone that made it sound like she was reading from a script. "Brave hero, I pray that of the great many prospective heroes, you will be the one to defeat the devil king. If you do so, we shall grant any wish you desire as a gift from the gods. Now, go forth on your journey and stop cluttering up my divine home you damn shut-ins."

And having delivered her lines in a complete deadpan, Aqua vanished in a massive rush of light from the circles around us as we were carried off into a new world.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Dylan's POV

There is, in my opinion, a valid possibility that I am the reason superpowers don't exist in my home reality.

When Aqua essentially handed us Stands on a silver platter, I honestly didn't know what to expect. I mean, honestly, of all the Stands throughout JoJo, I was expecting to get something mid-to-low tier. Hanged Man, Horus, Echoes...maybe something from part five which I wouldn't even know how to use. I sure as hell wasn't expecting to get one of the most powerful Stands in history, and one of only three Requiem Stands to ever exist.

[Killer Queen]. The Stand that had the power to turn anything in touched into a bomb of variable power which could detonate on contact or command. That was coupled with its two others abilities; the power to create a nigh-unstoppable, heat-seeking tank-bomb that would track down its target no matter where they went and the power to create an explosion so powerful it could break the fabric of reality and send the victim or the user back in time.

Considering that, I felt rather justified that, when the slim but tall figure of Killer Queen appeared before me, I burst into laughter. No matter how much it terrified Doug.

I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I formed a detonator with my hand. All I wanted to do was get some petty revenge on Aqua, and I didn't really consider the consequences. Killer Queen took its cue from me without any kind of resistance.

Thankfully, before I could end the universe in vaguely-justified revenge, Aqua went ahead and sent us on our way. Honestly, I didn't care about the impact that taking Kira's stand away from him would have; after all, it wasn't like it would be a bad thing for JoJo's protagonists...

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Meanwhile, in Morioh...

Josuke Higashikata, in the days since his nephew Jotaro had come to town, had experienced some pretty fucking bad days by anyone's reckoning. Today, however, looked just about ready to top the list.

He was bleeding all over, beaten to hell and there were balustrade rods blasted through his leg and torso. That wasn't particularly remarkable considering some of the shit he'd survived lately. What was remarkable was the highlight of the day, that he had finally come within his Stand's range of the murderer Yoshigake Kira with nothing to stop him.

Kira had summoned his Stand, Killer Queen. Unfortunately for him though, Josuke's own guardian, Crazy Diamond, overpowered it in every way, easily winning the physical battle and injuring Kira through the manifestation of his spirit. Yet as Josuke had gone in for the final flurry, his Stand's fists had been stopped cold.

Stray Cat - the strange Stand whose origin Josuke wasn't certain of but which Kira had somehow managed to put inside Killer Queen - had used those damn air bullets as a shield, halting his attack. With Josuke's momentum lost, Kira had used the chance to create another one of his exploding air bullets through the combination of the Stands' powers, and even if Josuke couldn't see it, he knew it was coming for him. Josuke strained to try and reach a piece of glass on the ground beside him, to intercept the attack before it could reach him and detonate...but as he did, his leg finally gave out, leaving him slumped sideways on the pavement with no way to dodge the oncoming attack.

Kira, the demonic killer Josuke had been chasing for so long, laughed as he stretched his arms forward, madness in his eyes and blood on his face from a blow Josuke had dealt him. "I've won!" He declared. "This always happens when life deals its worst to me! Luck has sided with Yoshikage Kira!"

Josuke grit his teeth, preparing for the explosion to come. Then he blinked as two arms, clad in blue sleeves, appeared out of thin air behind Killer Queen. One of them grabbed the pink humanoid by the back of its neck, while the other stuck itself through the Stand's back and into its stomach cavity, where Stray Cat was nestled.

Then, with a yank and an odd pop sound, both Stands vanished into thin air.

Josuke stared.

Kira stared.

Hayato screamed as the air bullet came within half a centimetre of Josuke's face...then popped harmlessly.

Hayato stared.

Okuyasu poked his head around the corner and saw Yoshikage Kira staring at Josuke, who was down and bloody. "[THE HAND]!"

Josuke kept staring - but since Kira's head had just been scraped off his body and out of reality entirely, Kira couldn't do much staring at anything.

Hayato gurgled slightly and kept staring.

Kira's headless body fell backwards into the street, drawing the attention of Jotaro Kujo, Rohan Kishibe and Koichi Hirose.

They stared.

Jotaro idly wondered if this was the work of an enemy Stand. Then he dragged the brim of his cap down over his eyes and sighed. "Yare yare daze…"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Back with Dylan

When Doug and I phased into another world, I was expecting to lose my lunch. Either from the sheer weirdness of the experience, or from Aqua being a vindictive bitch and turning our transport into some kind of spin-cycle. To my surprise though, the experience was actually rather pleasant. When the light faded, our surroundings had smoothly become a grassy patch on the side of a road.

It was almost nice...though Doug's incessant ranting put something of a damper on the experience. "...the irresponsible, logic-defying things she could have done, this takes the bloody cake! She's got a newly-dead soul with high emotions and a bad temper? Well, of course the best choice of action is to give them the power to blow up the universe!"

Doug threw up his hands, while on his shoulder Stray Cat extended its forearm leaves to the sky and yowled, having been sitting on his shoulder and staring at the teen's face for the duration of the rant. "I'm done! I quit! If this is the reality of reality, then I'll kill the damn Devil King and wish for an audit! I WILL REJECT THIS REALITY AND SUBSTITUTE MY OWN-!"

"[Killer Queen]!"

As I called its name, my Stand manifested in a blur of purple light, looming over Doug with its terrifyingly blank expression. Then, following my command, it did the one thing that should always be done when dealing with a friend who's ranting themselves into a fury.

It slapped him solidly across the face.

Even as Doug went from vertical to laid out in the grass in barely a second from the hit, I couldn't help but grin at the immense power which I now had at my disposal. 'I wonder how people will react to us in this world…speaking of which...'

Taking a second look around the area where Doug and I had appeared, I decided it seemed like a fairly ordinary spot. Somewhere near the centre of Axel judging from the buildings around us, there was a single tree growing on the patch of grass Doug was now lying in, while the street itself was bustling with people. A lot of those people were shooting us confused glances. Probably wondering about the weirdly-dressed strangers who had showed up between one blink and the next...or in a rush of light, depending on how little Aqua cared about subtlety. 'So probably the rush of light.'

Then again, it might have been Doug's sudden smack-down that drew their attention, since there was a crucial detail about our situation that I couldn't help but notice.

Not a single person was reacting to Killer Queen. Even as it hovered beside me, clear as day in my eyes, it didn't seem that anybody else could perceive it. 'Perfect.'

Keeping true to the admittedly...loose...laws of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, it seemed that only other Stand Users could see Stands. Even as I willed Killer Queen to move around me, no-one took notice of it. Well - no-one besides Doug, that is.

Unfortunately, my newfound partner didn't seem to have the same advantage. People were shooting looks at the cat-like Stand which was sitting on the grass beside him and batting at his cheek with a leaf-paw. Some of them seemed mildly interested, others seemed disgusted or afraid, but mostly they just whispered to one another.

"A Stand with B-rank strength and the ability to turn anything it touches into a bomb and he fucking slaps me with it." Doug grumbled, laying on his back in the grass as Stray Cat grew bored of tapping his cheek and curled up in the sunlight, resting its petals on its forward leaves and closing its eyes as its roots curled around its stem so that their ends were almost level with the Stand's face. "If this world has something like revival beads I'm going to need to learn how to make a necklace, or this is going to be a really short reincarnation."

"Oh, don't be such a baby." I told him, willing Killer Queen to mimic my movements as I shook my head. "You were working yourself into a fit."

The horizontal teen shot me a glare. "Oh yes, I was definitely the one acting without reasoning here, mister-attempted-deicide."

"We're in a brand new world!" I declared. "A whole new plane of existence!" I clicked my teeth, presenting my closed right hand palm-first towards him so I could waggle the index finger back and forth. "And you want to complain?" I asked condescendingly, Killer Queen mirroring me behind my back. "For shame, Doug - for shame."

Doug's eyebrow twitched and he let out a long sigh. "So this is my life now. I think I'd almost prefer to start life in a new world from zero."

"But then you would have to give up that little guy." I said, pointing to Stray Cat. "And I don't think you'd do that, would you?"

Doug reached over without looking and lifted the Stand from the ground to rest it on his chest, where he scratched behind the tip of one of its petals without changing his expression. "That's true. At the very least, I'll have some intelligent conversation when I have to spend more than five minutes in your presence."

"[Killer-"

"Nope." There was a loud bang as all the air directly in front of my face shot away, forming a vacuum - one which was then filled in an instant by the surrounding atmosphere, simultaneously dragging my head forward and bringing in a rush of air to meet it. My head was subsequently slammed backwards, the rush of oncoming air feeling about as pleasant as a punch to the face.

The force yanked my body along with my head's new trajectory, and would have taken me off my feet if not for Killer Queen catching me before I could achieve liftoff.

As my Stand set me down, I reached up to feel my - surprisingly - unbroken nose leaking out a stream of blood. Now, even with that, I wasn't all that upset about Doug's actions. All things considered, I'd probably deserved that.

But Killer Queen certainly didn't think so. Almost the same instant that I registered the blood on my face, my Stand took up a combative stance, its slitted red eyes focused intently on Doug and Stray Cat, its hand already formed into a detonator.

On Doug's chest, Stray Cat uncurled itself in an instant, its grey eyes vanishing into the concealment of its petals as they swirled together, forming a shape not unlike the mouth of a cannon. Behind it, Doug brought a cupped hand to his face, holding it over his mouth where the air bent and distorted, the same effect then occurring again in an area covering his entire body.

Yeah, I wasn't about to reenact Kira's fight with Stray Cat on a crowded street.

I almost immediately enacted the will necessary to control a Stand, stopping Killer Queen from pushing the detonator; I didn't know if it had actually primed anything, but it was better safe than sorry. Thankfully, the cat-like humanoid responded to my mental command without even a momentary delay, dropping out of its combat stance to stand idly in front of me. "No." I told it. "That's a bad kitty; no blowing up my friend and his Stand."

Somehow, the Stand had the audacity to try and look innocent.

Stepping around Killer Queen, I placed my body between it and Doug - glancing between it and my fellow Earth-native.

Doug kept watching for a moment. Then, there was a pop sound and a momentary breeze as the distortion over his body vanished, leaving him free to drop his hand while Stray Cat's features were revealed once more. The Stand shook its head and shot Killer Queen a condescending look before turning away with a huff to curl up on Doug's chest again.

I kneeled down next to Doug's prone form, willing Killer Queen to do the same. Stray Cat glanced up from its position on Doug's chest, hissing at Killer Queen. My own Stand responded with an emotionless look. "You two are going to play nice." I said, glaring at the two Stands like a mother would glare at a pair of children. "Wouldn't you agree Doug?"

The other teen hummed, rolling upward into a sitting position with Stray Cat in his lap, then wrapping one hand around the side of the Stand's head to scratch its 'ear' with his thumb and stroke beneath its chin with his index finger. "I'm sure we won't have any trouble from my little friend here. Right?" The Stand turned its head a bit to look over its shoulder at its user - then, after a moment, let out a lazy yowl before butting its head against Killer Queen's face and then curling up for more stroking.

I looked over at my Stand. "And you won't start anything...right?" Killer Queen didn't verbally respond, but when it reached out and scratched right behind Stray Cat's ear, I knew its answer. "Alright, now that we've settled this little matter, how's about we find out where the Guild is?" I asked, Killer Queen offering Doug a hand.

Doug grunted, taking the proffered hand while holding Stray Cat in the crook of his other arm. "Well, the sooner we get started, the sooner we can get a roof over our heads. I'm not sleeping in a fucking stable."

"Amen to that."

I quickly willed my Stand into action, Killer Queen lifting me up into a seated position on its shoulders while its hands grasped my ankles, securing me in place. "The faster the better Doug!" I called, the people around me gaping at the sight of a man floating in mid air. "AWAY, MY VALIANT STEED!" Killer Queen sprinted off in the direction I was pointing, while I laughed happily all the way.

Behind me, Doug watched blankly, Stray Cat's eyes bobbing up and down as they focussed on my back. "A total dud...or the apocalypse." He sighed, then looked down at the Stand in his lap. "We're really going to need to practice those vacuums."

"Mrrrrow!"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Doug's POV

I finally managed to catch up to Dylan by following the people who were talking about some weirdo with a levitation spell, tracking the living antithesis of 'low profile' through Axel with Stray Cat draped over my shoulder and purring lazily in the sunshine. That was one thing Axel had over Aberdeen, at least - daylight.

I'd shrugged off my zip-up hoodie, which was a fairly hefty thing done in dark brown that I wore on cold days, and tied it around my waist above the belt holding my jeans up. That left my blue t-shirt bearing a white box with 'Ah' inside it on the front visible, while the legend 'The Element of Surprise' was printed underneath.

My Stand (and man, I actually had a Stand - the sheer potential I could feel in the little critter dozing on my shoulder was staggering) drew a fair number of looks from people on the street, which confirmed my personal theory that my Stand was rather unique. Since it was basically the reincarnation of Tama the cat, it had originally been, effectively, a flower which had mutated to take on a cat's characteristics and then hosted its personality, along with the Stand ability to manipulate the air around it.

Now, though, it had become my Stand. I wasn't even sure how the hell that worked, all things considered...but my best guess was that Stray Cat had become something close to a familiar, a bonded creature that served as both companion and assistant. It retained a certain level of sapience, though it seemed to have had a rather positive personality shift, and could still use its powers. I had access to those same powers now. however, and in exchange it wasn't limited by its physical plant form anymore, instead being able to move under its own power. 'I wonder if this has negated its need to rely on photosynthesis? That would basically remove its main weakness if so.'

Resolving to test that later, I broke out of my thoughts when I finally found myself standing in front of the Adventurers' Guild Hall. It was a wide, deep two-storey building, with a sloping red-tile roof that started as the building's highest point forming the walls of the second floor and walls made from sandstone bricks. There were thick glass windows with wooden lattices set at regular intervals, with a more elaborate, circular stained-glass window set high in the clocktower-esque protrusion at the front of the building where the doors were.

Walking along the road towards it, I caught sight of Dylan just pushing through the front doors, and I stepped up my pace to make sure I was hot on his heels. I kept the doors open with an almost thoughtless flex of the new 'muscle' I could feel in my mind, launching a compressed air sphere forwards to get in between the two doors while they were closing and cause them to bounce back open after it absorbed and reversed their force like a spring.

'So my range, speed and power are all greater than Stray Cat's. Is it because we're linked now, or because a human's Stand is simply more powerful? Probably the first. Iggy, Pet Shop and that Orangutan who controlled Strength are all proof that animals can have powerful Stands. Still,' I noted, feeling the control I could exert over the gas around me, 'my range can't be more than half a metre for direct control...and that's about on the same ratio of range to body-size as Stray Cat's. So, the range is more like 'within such-and-such distance of the user's body'...I hope I can somehow find a way to extend that.'

I slid through the gap in the doors, half expecting to find that Dylan had already either blown someone up, caused irreparable (and expensive) damage to something or started the mother of all bar-room brawls. At the very least, if it was the latter I could be fairly sure he'd win now.

Still, what actually greeted me when I entered the building was the sight of him politely extending his hand to the lady in the service window to the right of the entrance (she was called Luna, if I remembered right) and introducing himself. Admittedly, of all the things I had expected from him, manners and a courteous demeanour were pretty far out there.

The building wasn't very brightly lit, getting most of its illumination from the sunlight coming in through the windows, but it wasn't too dark to see either. Directly in front of the entrance there were four lamp-posts in a square pattern, while beyond and between them was a stone statue of an armoured man, his hands resting on the pommel of a sword that was standing in front of him. Gravestone-like obelisks with purple markings stood on either side of the statue, extending to about half the man's height.

To the right side of the hall were the open windows that were for the staff to use when serving members of the Guild, set into a stone-brick wall.

On the left hand side of the hall, set before a staircase leading to the balcony which ran around the edges of the room and served as the second floor, there was a manned bar, with several barrels and some clear bottles filled with amber liquids behind the counter and several stools set in front of it. Filling the space between there and the entrance area, which effectively divided the building in two, sets of tables and benches had been put down to serve as an eating and drinking area, with two horizontal rows of each at the front and back of the hall with an empty corridor between them.

I closed the gap between myself and Dylan, coming to stand behind and just to the side of him in time to hear his introduction to the rather well-endowed blonde with hazel eyes who was leaning her clasped hands on the stone shelf of her serving window. "Hello! My name is Dylan Anderson," he greeted her, smiling, "and I'd love to join the guild! I've just gotten into Axel you see, and my friend and I have been looking for work."

The blonde shook the offered hand with a practiced smile. "Well, alright then. Though if you're new in town, do you have enough money for the registration fee?"

"Oh, yeah! Sorry about that! I do have the money...a thousand Eris, right?" Dylan asked, pulling out four coins that he definitely didn't have when he left our arrival area. "This should cover the fee for my friend and I."

Luna took the coins, swiping them underneath the counter after glancing at them and then smiling once more. "Alright then, I'll explain the registration process as soon as your friend gets here."

"I already am." I spoke up, waving a bit when they both turned to me. "I ran to catch up when I considered the progressively more horrifying possibilities of what might happen if I left Dylan unattended, but it seems like everything's still in one piece."

The blonde raised an eyebrow. "He seems well-mannered enough; I'm not sure why you'd worry about someone like him."

'...I feel like there should have been ominous thunder and lightning right then.' I glanced around the hall, scanning it for any signs of devastation that had occurred or was yet to occur...and noticed that, fetched up against a support pillar near the centre of the room, there was a quivering figure in armour.

It was female, with long blonde hair done in a ponytail that fell down their back. A yellow surcoat was worn over a long black skirt, while white armour panels hung down the legs from the belt and a white breastplate with yellow detailing covered their chest, attached to a normal pauldron on the left shoulder but an armour piece that jutted out like feathers on the right shoulder. That was Darkness - a member of Kazuma's party from the show.

And the only reason for her to be shivering like that would be…would be… 'Dylan somehow managed to make a perfect first impression; he's calmer than before; he collected those coins even though I forgot there was a registration fee; Darkness is quite possibly the most masochistic masochist to ever exist in the history of anime.'

I turned slowly to look at Dylan, and hissed my next words between my teeth, quietly enough to exclude Luna from our conversation. "Just how many times did you use Bites the Dust in the time it took me to get here?" The way he started to whistle and refused to meet my eyes was all I got off of Dylan, but it told me all I needed to know. "...One more." I said.

"Your next line is-"

""You're going to do it one more time, on yourself this time, and then we're going to do this again without clueing Darkness into the fact that you can cause her to explode without consequence.""

When Dylan spoke the words at the same time as I did, I got a sinking feeling - and that was before he turned away again, with Killer Queen fidgeting with its hands behind him. "About that...I...kinda...can't use Bites the Dust on myself." Killer Queen shrugged.

I facepalmed - and on my shoulder, Stray Cat gave Dylan the kind of condescending, deadpan look that only a cat can summon. "How. Many. Times?"

Dylan had the gall to look only a bit guilty - like a kid who was caught with his hand in the cookie jar instead of a rampant serial murderer. "...Four."

"Four." I repeated, feeling an emotion I couldn't quite describe eclipsing most of my mental state, leaving me unable to shift my expression out of blank. "Four."

"...Yeah…"

"...You blew up Darkness - and subsequently the fabric of time and space - FOUR times. In a row."

"...It sounds kinda bad when you put it like that…"

I dragged both hands down my face, pulling my jaw to its full extension before it snapped back shut when I moved past my chin. "...We didn't even make it a quarter of an hour." I noted. "We've been here for all of ten minutes and already you've killed four timelines and enabled Darkness more than anyone should ever have done."

"...Yes."

"...Excuse me for a moment." I turned around and headed back outside the guild building for a moment, where I paused. Then, through Stray Cat, I sealed the atmosphere in a bubble around myself, creating a solid shell of still air that stopped even sound from passing through. I took a deep breath...

"HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY SHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!"

Coughing, I patted Stray Cat as we collapsed the sealed atmosphere and returned to the guild. "Alright, I've temporarily unloaded my urge to kill you until you stay dead." I told Dylan. "But we should probably get our registration done before you fuck up anything - or anyone - else."

"I agree."

We both turned to Luna, who had been waiting patiently as we conversed, and I smiled. "So, you said something about an explanation?" Luna nodded, standing up from her chair behind the counter and taking an odd contraption with her.

As she rounded the corner of the dividing wall between the main hall and the registration office, her height - a bit shorter than both Dylan and I - was more obvious, as well as her outfit. A loose, shoulderless cream shirt with a low neckline that had black cuffs at the top and bottom of the sleeves, jean shorts of some kind, brown ankle-height boots and a white collar around her neck with a red bowtie.

Once she was standing in front of us, she deposited the device - which largely resembled a short square tunnel made of wood, with a teal crystal in the shape of a balloon suspended in the centre of the topmost 'wall' amid several steel rings adorned with markings and brass cogs - on the counter in front of her window, then turned to face Dylan and I. "Alright then, allow me to formally explain the system."

Reaching into a pocket, she produced a blank parchment-coloured card. "Each adventurer has their own occupation, which is indicated on their registration card." She raised the card she had produced earlier to make sure we understood they were the same thing. "Among other things, it will keep track of the monsters you kill, and will organise the 'EXP' you earn by devouring or killing any creature into a system of levels that grant improvements to your stats and skill points you can use to learn skills. Make sure to try and level up a lot so you can make a difference." Finished with her quick explanation, Luna gestured to the contraption with a sweep of her arm. "Now, both of you, please hold your hands over the crystal."

Dylan and I glanced at one another. I moved forward, extending my hand over the crystal, which immediately lit up from within.

Stray Cat let out an inquisitive purr as the rings started to click around the crystal, moving back and forth as the cogs spun. White and blue particles seemed to manifest from the glowing crystal, focussing downwards through a series of three progressively smaller gold discs with holes in the middle into a needle-like conical piece that shook rapidly before disgorging a blue laser beam. It focussed down on the card which had been laid beneath the contraption, and I had to put a mental effort into not letting Stray Cat pounce off my shoulder and try to eat the glowing dot where the laser focussed as it swept back and forth along the card.

"With this process, you will each learn your current status, which should let you decide what profession you want based on what's most compatible with your stats." Luna told us. A few seconds later, the laser and the glow of the crystal died away, leaving Luna free to retrieve the card from beneath the device. "Thank you very much." She said absent-mindedly as she scanned the card, and I wondered if she was thanking me for using the service or thanking the machine.

"So, it's Douglas Macintosh, is it?" I nodded, and Luna mirrored me. "Well, let me see…" A moment later, the blonde frowned - the first expression I'd seen her make that wasn't part of her rote customer interaction. "That's strange…"

When she looked up and saw me raising an eyebrow, she elaborated. "Well, normally stat points are on a numeric scale," she explained, "but yours seems to have been graded by letter." She flipped the card to show me, and I read off the stats there.

Vitality: C

Strength: D

Intelligence: A

Magic-Pow: A

Agility: D

Dexterity: C

Luck: F

"Well, assuming C's average, that looks about right." I sighed, shaking my head. 'I really should have kept myself in better shape. Ah, well - better late than never.' "So is there anything else on the card?" I asked, vaguely curious, and Luna turned it back towards herself, scanning it.

"You already have a few basic skills - Calligraphy, Orienteering, Basic Swordsmanship…" Abruptly, her eyes shot wide. "Wait - that's…!" She looked up from my card to give me a shocked look. "You...have a Unique Skill."

When I failed to be summarily shocked and awed, she gave a slightly better description, while also peering a bit more closely at me. "A Unique Skill is something that a person needs to have been born with or worked incredibly hard to develop; they usually can't be taught, and they're almost without exception more powerful than even high tier magic. I've never seen one in a level one adventurer before…"

"What's the skill called?" I asked, already quite sure of what it was, but wanting confirmation.

"It's called 'Tama Kazetora'." Luna relayed, tapping something on the card and scanning it again. "A skill which naturally allows perfect control of surrounding air?!"

I glanced sideways at Stray Cat, who gave me a smug look and purred happily. I grinned, reaching up to scratch one of its petals. "You hear that little guy? You're a big deal." The Stand tossed its head dismissively, as if to say 'Of course I am!', then closed its eyes and returned to being draped over my shoulder.

The interaction drew Luna's attention, and as she passed me my card, she eyed Stray Cat curiously. "That's a very interesting pet you've got there." She noted, and I smiled.

"I'd say he's more of a partner than a pet." I replied, drawing a momentarily louder purr from the feline plant. "But interesting's definitely right."

Luna smiled in a way that made me think she wasn't quite sure what to think of me, then gestured to the device again. "Well then, mister Anderson, if you'd like to do the same?" The lightshow happened once more, and Luna ended up frowning down at Dylan's card as well. "The same scale…?" She wondered aloud. "Is the registration device broken or something?"

Dylan and I glanced at one another, both fairly sure that the 'break' went a lot further than just the guild's power-testing device. A look at Dylan's card revealed that his stats were:

Vitality: D

Strength: D

Intelligence: A

Magic-Pow: C

Agility: B

Dexterity: B

Luck: B

So, primarily above-average across the board - though this time, I was expecting it when Luna's eyes damn-near bulged out of her skull. "Another Unique Skill?!" She yelled, drawing a resounding "WHAT?!" from a crowd of voices.

Jumping damn near out of my skin, I looked over my shoulder to find that what seemed like everyone in the hall save Darkness had gathered themselves in a semi-circle behind us, watching our registration. 'They must have been there at least since Luna found Stray Cat's skill.' I noted. 'So much for the element of surprise, I guess.'

"Named 'Geijutsu wa Bakuhatsu da', it…" Dylan had been growing progressively paler ever since she listed off Stray Cat's skill. As Luna stared at his registration card, he could have been mistaken for paper.

Luna's voice trailed off as she stared, staying silent for several seconds until a voice among the crowd behind us spoke up. "Uh...Luna?"

"...It allows the user perfect control of Detonation Magic on or through anything they can touch." She finally spoke, still staring at the card.

Silence reigned in the hall, even as I carefully stepped forward and gently tugged the card out of an unresisting Luna's hands before passing it to the pale Dylan. There was still silence. "...Tell you what, put me down as a Mage for now." I decided. "And Dylan as…."

"...Thief." My accomplice-in-apocalypse managed, still paper-white, and I grabbed him by the shoulder.

"And while you're doing that, we," I continued, dragging Dylan along with me to the wooden request board that was set on the hall's back well, just next to the end of the registration counter's wall, scanning the papers on show for a moment before grabbing something that had a number and the word 'kill' in it, "will go and get started with the day's work."

I then frog-marched Dylan past the rather vacantly staring crowd and out the front door without once looking backwards or sideways. Once we were out in the sunshine, I looked up at the sky and sighed, Stray Cat bumping the side of my head with its own encouragingly. 'Our first impression was an ambivalent disaster, as expected.'

"Y'know, this is the second time you've dragged me out of the hall." Dylan noted, and my eyebrow twitched.

"...God DAMMIT!"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Dylan's POV

If I was being honest with myself, blowing a hole in reality to make a better first impression was most likely an incredible misuse of Bites the Dust. It was just that after the absolute disaster which my first first impression had been I'd sort of…reacted.

I'd really rather not dwell on what had happened before I reset the timeline. I don't ever want to remember the horrendous details of my attempt at-

"So, what bloody stupid thing did you do that made ending the universe seem like a good idea, anyway?"

'...Dammit.' "Well," I began, "the first time I reset it was because I had crashed through the doors at max speed, knocked over a load of people then hit someone, cracking their head against a table." I shuddered, a cold shiver running down my spine. "There was blood everywhere…"

Doug sighed. "So of course, having committed manslaughter, you chose to then instantly murder someone via spontaneous detonation."

"Well...the person whose head cracked on the table was Darkness." I admitted.

The other teen blinked, then glared at the thin air in front of his face for a moment before slamming his head forward. The air made a crack noise like he'd headbutted a wall.

With a bright-red spot now forming on his forehead, the scotsman turned a blankly deadpan look on me. "What the fuck even is this?" He asked. "You got B-rank luck and this shit happens? Is this just my F-rank luck? Is fate screwing me over by screwing you over?"

"That's a real possibility." I decided. "And if you are screwing me over with your shit luck, then you're gonna do everything in your damn power to raise that stat." I sighed, then continued with my retelling. "Anyway, you can guess how she reacted…"

"I don't need to guess, that woman's the punchline to her own joke." Doug replied. "Did she try to challenge you to a 'fight' or just skip the pretense?"

I quickly went pale, recalling the horror of what happened. "She grabbed me by the front of my shirt and said...well, her exact words were 'Don't worry! I will deal with this villain alone! Even if he drags me off and proceeds to have his way with me I'll definitely never break - not even if he keeps going on, and on, and on, and on…!'."

Doug shivered, a similar movement running from Stray Cat's tail and all the way along its body to its head. "It seemed funnier to think about that kind of person when it was just Juvia on the other side of a computer screen."

'...I'm going to ignore that.' I decided. 'Now isn't the time to convert him to the wonders of having Juvia as a waifu.' Even if he was totally wrong. "Anyway, Killer Queen just sort of reacted," I recalled, "there was a flash of rainbow light, and then I found myself back to right when I was about to walk in the doors. I figured it was Bites the Dust - but I remembered what had happened…"

I shivered again. "And so did Darkness."

Doug looked a bit like he wanted to cry as he rested his face in his palms. "I went eighteen years of my life without any major incidents…" He muttered. "Then in the same day I was wished dead by my friend, made into a Stand User, transported into a different world and became a four-time accessory to the murder of the time-space continuum. And now, to top it all off, I'm attached to a person who can offer Darkness an infinite cycle of lives and deaths with any experience she can get in between them." Stray Cat let out a sad yowl to the sky, while Doug shook his head. "Mum...Dad...where did I go wrong…?"

"It took me two more resets to convince her I wasn't a villain and explain what was happening." I continued. "And...well, I didn't mention it before - but each time I reset the timeline, she exploded." I honestly felt bad for Doug. He was a fairly rational person usually, and this was all pretty insane. "I reset it a fourth time because she kept jumping me the second I walked through the doors. I had to get her into a state where she was too…" I searched for appropriate words. "...Far into bliss...to move."

Doug just stared at me for several long seconds, Stray Cat's slitted grey eyes focussing along the same path as his human ones, before speaking. "So what you're saying is we should start running before the afterglow wears off?"

"Yes." I agreed. "But before we do that, could you pass me Stray Cat?"

The scotsman narrowed his eyes, reaching up with his right hand to stroke the Stand on his shoulder as it growled lowly. "Why?"

"Because I need something cute and cuddly to hold before I go off the deep end."

Doug blinked, then sighed. "I did think you seemed like you were handling this too well…" He turned to his Stand, raising an eyebrow. "Well?" The feline plant met his gaze for a few seconds before turning to look at me, its tail-roots swishing behind it as it thought. Then, after a couple of seconds, it lazily jumped down from Doug's shoulder, padding along the ground to stand at my feet, looking up at me. "Mrow?"

Crouching down, I gently lifted the Stand into my arms, resting it comfortably in the crook of my left elbow while my other hand became occupied with scratching it under the chin. Stray Cat eyed me lazily for a moment, before its eyelids slid closed and it burrowed its way a little deeper into my arm, starting to purr. The simple action of petting and scratching the catlike Stand served to help me furiously repress all my feelings over my actions. "Alright, now we can run."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Rolling Hills, A Few Minutes Later

"Hey Doug, what exactly was the request you took?" I asked, catching my breath on the grass of Rolling Hills.

Exactly as its name described, Rolling Hills was a completely uneven area of grassland due West of Axel, where every step was either uphill or downhill. There weren't any trees on the planes, nor was the grass particularly long; and while it was hemmed in by the same mountains which defended Axel from the South and East, it was still more than a large enough area to serve as a hunting ground. Which was convenient, considering the sheer number of monsters which inhabited it.

"It's actually the same quest that Kazuma and the others did first." Doug replied, breathing heavily himself, Stray Cat once more on his shoulder.

"Giant Frogs? The very same ones that look rather funny, but are actually a deadly plague on the land and its residents?"

"Toads actually," he corrected me, "and yes, the very same."

I stood up, making sure to crack my back as I did. "So what's the plan here then?" I asked, glowing with a menacing purple corona as Killer Queen faded into existence behind me.

"I'm thinking we'll treat this like an RPG grind." Doug responded. "I'll form a solid air bubble around myself with Stray Cat then go and aggro as many of them as possible; they won't be able to get me with their tongues so long as I keep the shield up. Then, once we've gathered them all together, I'll try and trap them all in another bubble so you can have Killer Queen turn it into a bomb."

"That sounds really well thought-out, Doug." I complimented him. "It's a great plan…"

Doug narrowed his eyes. "Why doesn't you saying that fill me with confidence?"

"EXCEPT FOR THE FACT I HAVE A BETTER ONE!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, my voice carrying over the hills.

The ground began to rumble, various mounds of earth rising and breaking open on the hills as the Toads, which were each thrice the height of a grown man and almost two-thirds as wide discounting their leg-span, came up from their homes to investigate the noise. Beside me, the scotsman let out a long sigh. "I don't want to watch this…"

I couldn't help but grin at that.

I looked over my shoulder, locking gazes with Killer Queen, and a mutual understanding passed between us. I willed my Stand to raise its left hand, and a mass of dark-purple light formed in its palm. Over the course of a few seconds, the light coalesced into a spherical shape, growing into a round object in Killer Queen's hand.

When the light faded, it left behind a blue-plated hemisphere with a brown knob on its crown and tank treads on either side of it, turning it into a vehicle. Embedded on its designated front was a raised cat-skull similar to the shapes on Killer Queen's belt, with the addition of a golden, downward-facing dagger design on its forehead, a jaw with teeth similar to a vampire's and a short spike as a nose.

"Behold, Doug!" I announced, unable to keep my grin from spreading even wider. "Killer Queen's second bomb! A mobile, automatic bomb that will follow its target 'till the end of time, no matter where they go...[Sheer Heart Attack!]"

Doug groaning was music to my ears.

"Sheer Heart Attack, your target…" I pointed to the Giant Toads that were beginning to hop towards us. "Is them. Killer Queen," I called, "if you would do the honors…" Willing my Stand into action, Killer Queen reared its arm back, then - with speed that transcended human eyesight - it tossed Sheer Heart Attack directly at one of the Toads.

The resulting explosion, and the multitude that followed, put an honest-to-god smile on my face.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Doug's POV

Two Hours Later

I stared at the landscape before me, my arms crossed, my expression inscrutable. Stray Cat had tried to mimic me, but didn't quite seem to know how to bend its leaves properly, leaving it to instead sit on my shoulder and stare forward in a deadpan while its tail swished gently from side to side.

Starting at the leftmost point in my field of view and then sweeping my gaze over to the right, I took in the scene. The cratered earth; the clumps of dirt; the scorched grass; the furrows and tread-marks in the grass. Rolling Hills looked like a warzone. Largely because it was one.

Sheer Heart Attack trundled after another toad, implacable and unstoppable in its pursuit, while Stray Cat and I watched. No sooner had the device come close to the toad than it detonated in a towering cloud of smoke and cinders, moving on and leaving an obviously dead monster behind it.

I added another tally mark to the mental scoreboard I was using to keep track, putting Dylan's kill-count at thirty four.

A rippling air-front, the displacement wave of something large moving quickly, broke over my back, and I closed my eyes as Stray Cat turned to face behind me. Looking through my Stand's eyes was something I had been sure I'd be capable of, and it was nice to be validated as I stared at the giant toad hopping forward from behind me.

"Kazedan." I commanded, and Stray Cat's petals swirled into a shape like the mouth of a cannon before the air around us was drawn inside it. The air filled the container, packing itself tighter and tighter and swirling faster and faster, until in a few seconds the bulb contained a spinning, atmospheric cannonball.

Then it fired.

Unlike the attacks Stray Cat had managed on its own in the show, the shots it fired under my command were rocket-fast, covering the gap between where I stood and where the toad was advancing from in under a second. The densely-packed payload of air molecules dug into the monster's stomach, its rotation twisting the flesh there as it bit deeper, before it lost cohesion and detonated, expanding rapidly as it re-assumed its natural volume. The pressure wave ruffled my hair and levelled the grass in concentric circles around the toad, while the monster itself was lifted off its feet for a moment before it came crashing down on its back.

I knew from prior testing that the shockwave from the detonation would have already killed it out of hydrostatic shock, which the creatures were even more vulnerable to than humans through the same high-water-content flesh and fat which gave them their immunity to blunt weapons. "Nicely done." I praised the little Stand, opening my own eyes and reaching up to scratch underneath Stray Cat's chin with my right hand, drawing a purr from it as it happily closed its eyes.

"That puts my own tally at twenty five." I noted, turning at the sound of another detonation to see Dylan's thirty-fifth toad go up in smoke. 'That should do it for now.' I decided, glancing up at the sun. 'It'll be twilight soon, and we still need to get our reward money from the guild and then get ourselves some rooms somewhere.' "Dylan!" I called, attracting the teen's attention. "That's us done enough for now - let's go get our pay and find some place to sleep!"

"Alright then." Dylan replied, Sheer Heart Attack dematerializing into purple light and returning to Killer Queen's left hand. "I kinda wanted to get to the forty mark, but I suppose-"

On the crown of the next hill over, a toad suddenly appeared as it hopped over the rise, bringing into our view where it had been previously concealed by the slope. As it hung in mid-air, my eyes only beginning to widen, its mouth opened wide to reveal a coiled pink tongue that launched forward like a rocket toward Dylan's exposed back.

'Two metre separation; more than thrice my operational range.' I noted in the split-second I had to react. 'Kazedan requires prep time and travel time; my speed isn't enough to get me in range in time.' I didn't have enough time to do anything, and I knew it even as Stray Cat began to curl closed and I went to step forwards-

But then, my Stand's stats weren't anything really special. Killer Queen on the other hand?

It was already moving.

The pink humanoid burst into existence out of Dylan's back, its hand closing around the tongue and bringing it to a complete halt half a metre from Dylan. It barely even moved as it absorbed the momentum.

The eternal frozen moment which I had slipped into as the toad appeared vanished into time's normal flow, and I stumbled to a halt as Dylan turned to stare down the length of pink tongue at the toad. It seemed to be trying to retract its tongue - not that Killer Queen was acknowledging it at all.

The blond reached up with his left hand, laying it on the end of the pink flesh, and kept staring into the toad's eyes as he spoke. "Hakai." A flurry of crackling red energy seemed to spread from his hand like electricity, dancing up the toad's tongue to its main body; and, once it was there, the toad started to disappear.

Its flesh glowed bright orange and then faded away into cinders and ash, spiralling into the air as large swathes of its body burned away, starting from the outside and working inwards. Only a few seconds after Dylan had spoken, all that remained was its tongue and a pillar of smoke.

My friend tossed the length of flesh onto the grass beside him, Killer Queen doing the same, leaving it to also vanish in a cloud of sparks as the mucus on his hand also seemed to burn away. Then, he turned to look at me again. "Thirty-six...I guess that's enough for today."

"...Right." I agreed, turning to head back to Axel. "That's enough." 'There's really no middle ground with this guy...'

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

When we re-entered the guild hall (I went first to make sure Darkness wasn't there), we drew every eye from the benches, as well as the serving staff.

Whispers started spreading as we headed to the wall of serving windows, where Luna quickly headed after seeing we were back, taking her seat and managing to put on a convincing smile as we approached. "Welcome back!" She greeted us. "Did you manage to complete the elimination quest?"

I nodded, producing my registration card from my back pocket and handing it over as Stray Cat looked smug on my shoulder. "Yeah; we both went...eh...a bit over five, though."

"Well that's fine," she assured me, "this particular elimination quest is mostly just a notice. It pays per completion at 5,000 Eris per toad killed, and can be taken as many times as you want during the mating season. The reward is paid for by the mayor's office since it technically counts as a public service.

"Of course, you also get a percentage of the money that craftsmen and chefs pay for the corpses." She continued. "There's a certain amount deducted to pay the labourers we have sweep the areas to cart them away, as well as for the guild itself, but at this time of year when the toads are in their prime, it's still an average of 17,000 Eris per toad.

"Now, let's see…" She murmured, tapping a corner of the card and causing the writing on it to wriggle and change, revealing a list with a single item and a number beside it. "Giant Toads killed…" She blinked a couple of times, then looked up. "Twenty-five…" She said, almost to herself, before shaking her head and smiling again. "That's a very impressive number for a level one adventurer; I can see you don't waste time."

I smiled, rubbing the back of my head as she handed my card back. "Well, that's five completions so you've earned yourself 125,000 Eris for now, and as the corpses are sold you'll get your cut of the earnings there. Make sure to check with me at least every couple of days, alright?"

I nodded, storing the information away, and Luna turned to Dylan, holding out her hand a little hesitantly. "So, how about you mister Anderson?" With just a little hesitation, Dylan handed over his own card, and Luna repeated the tap she had given mine. "Giant Toads killed…" Her voice trailed off, and she stared at the card for a few moments before looking back up a bit shakily. "...Thirty-six."

There was a crash from further into the hall, and glancing over my shoulder I could see that someone had just fallen backwards off their bench.

"T...that's a new record for the first day…" Luna continued, shaking slightly as she gingerly handed the card back to Dylan. "C-congratulations; you've earned yourself 175,000 Eris." Shaking herself, she stood up, heading back around the side of the wall to head for the upper floor. "I'll just go and get your payments…"

As she walked away, Dylan and I found ourselves the focus of most of the hall's attention. It was a bit uncomfortable to have all those eyes on us, and I found myself getting a bit twitchy as whispering broke out, becoming gradually more heated until someone finally got out of their seat.

He was a big guy. Heavily muscled too, which was obvious because instead of a shirt or armour, he wore black metal pauldrons with an attached high collar that were secured to his heavy trousers by light-purple straps like suspenders and white armguards. His head was shaved except for a reddish-brown mohawk, as well as a short beard that started at his ears and followed the line of his jaw while being paired with a moustache composed of two separate lines which boxed in his lips without joining each other or his beard.

"So uh...you're the new members of the guild." He stated/asked awkwardly, holding himself like he didn't know what to do with himself as we both nodded slowly. "Well...uh...we just wanted to welcome you." He continued, looking a bit more confident as neither of us reacted negatively - though he did keep glancing at Dylan. "It's pretty incredible that we have two Unique Skill users here...oh, and congratulations on setting a new record."

I let out a breath, my tension leaving with it. 'He was just giving the welcome. He must have been the one left holding the short straw.' "Well, thanks for the welcome." I smiled at him, extending a hand. "I'm Douglas Macintosh, but I prefer Doug."

"I'm Arakuremono." He replied, relaxing as well as he shook my hand. "I'm a Warrior, but I hope to become a Berserker soon."

"Seems fitting." I noted, feeling the strength of his grip, and he grinned.

"Yeah; Ma always said I was born for it."

"Well, I wish you success." I told him, before looking sideways to Dylan. "This is my friend Dylan; he and I are a party."

"Yo." Dylan said, waving hello.

I glanced around rather obviously, then leaned in and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. "He has a terrifying ability," I admitted, "but he's not really a bad guy. Just…" I searched for a word. "Well...a bit excitable."

Arakuremono sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I guess I was being a bit obvious…"

"It's perfectly understandable." I told him. "I mean, his ability scares the shit out of me - but he's not a very scary person." 'Normally…'

"It's funny that you say that, when your ability perfectly negates mine." Dylan countered, crossing his arms.

"Not perfectly," I demurred, "but I guess you've got a point."

"Fair enough."

"You two are pretty good friends, aren't you?" Arakuremono mused, looking between us. "You're really not like the other guys with Unique Skills who've come through…"

I perked up. "You mean we're not the first two you've seen?"

Arakuremono - who I decided to tag as 'Kure' in my head - shook his head. "Since Axel is a fairly peaceful place that has access to some areas with relatively weak monsters, we get a lot of adventurers starting here." He explained. "And for some reason, we also seem to get a lot of weirdly-dressed foreigners with powerful weapons or strange skills."

I sighed internally. 'Aqua hasn't even been trying for subtlety, huh? Somehow I'm not surprised.'

"But a lot of them are really overconfident punks with no idea what the world's like, usually with their heads up their asses." The warrior complained, folding his arms and glowering at nothing in particular. "They look down on all of us normal adventurers and treat us like children, even though they're a lower level than we are."

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Dylan's jaw grinding back and forth, his fists clenching at his sides. "That's some serious bullshit." He said, seeming to get more and more pissed off. "Some random-ass teens shouldn't have any right to lord over you all. Please tell me you don't seriously take their shit?"

Letting out a frustrated sigh, Kure shrugged. "Well, we don't really have much choice. Even if they're low-level, they have advantages that could be really useful against the devil king, so we've got to play nice and make sure they hang around."

I grunted. 'Of course - all of those kids are probably the Japanese teens that Aqua sent here, who don't have the foreknowledge we do. This would be just like becoming a Main Character to them, so they'd treat everyone around them like NPCs. What a deplorable attitude…' "Well, I think I speak for myself and Dylan when I say that I don't think we're much different from any adventurer here." I told him. "I mean, we have our abilities - but it almost feels wrong, since we were g...born with them. We haven't had to work as hard to get anywhere."

I looked past Kure to the rest of the hall, seeing that many of the people there had turned to look at his, craning their necks to put their ears closer. Near the back, I could see several figures in dark clothing mouthing words to the other members of their table. 'Probably Thieves; they must have some kind of Listen skill.'

"Everyone has their own reason for becoming an adventurer." Dylan said slowly, picking his words. "For me, it's because this is the only way I think I can go about making a difference; it's a selfish reason that I can only have because I have an ability I didn't earn which gives me an advantage over anyone who isn't lucky enough to have something like it.

"But you - all of you - have stood up without that advantage and you've made a difference on your own merits. A lot of you are probably doing this to support yourselves and your families, risking your lives for others' benefit.

"And that's a more amazing power than anything I have."

As Dylan finished, I spoke up again. "We're new adventurers who don't know much about the area, the state of the world or the kind of things that can benefit or oppose adventurers; so, we'll be counting on you." I inclined my head. "Please take care of us."

Dylan followed my example. "Yes, please."

There were a few seconds of silence - then Kure put his hands on his hips and threw his head back to laugh. "You guys are really alright!" He declared, clapping a hand down on each of our shoulders. "Welcome to the gates of hell, you two!" He winked. "I'll look forward to watching your radiance!"

I smiled up at him, while behind the warrior I could see the various tables of people read the mood and jump to their feet, many raising flagons or mugs.

"WELCOME TO THE ADVENTURER'S GUILD!"