Sell you a Bridge

by MalcolmTent6730

Have you ever gotten an email telling you you've won a free cruise? Or one for a work out that will get you ripped in ten days? Wouldn't it be crazy if those offers were legit? Well for Morgan O'Malley they can be. Spam becomes real life when his meta powers finally manifest. Hopefully the perks of the super life aren't false advertising.

33. Chapter 33

February 7th 2011 New Genesis 11:00 AM EDT

The inside of the Gummi Ship was, to my complete lack of surprise, bigger than the outside. It was basically a given considering the size of the thing, but it was still pretty jarring to experience when we walked inside. The space was massive and as we walked in Serifan bounced to the head of the group. "Ok, I'll be leading the tour. I realize we can't leave right away because y'all have things going on here, so we don't have to do all of it now, but I figure I can give you the low down on what all is in here."

He led us through an area with an open layout and grated metal floors. "Now this here is out entryway, main area, and cargo bay. It's pretty much independent of the outside so it's mostly stable even when something shoots at us, which doesn't happen much. Even when it does we have shield Gummis so it usually doesn't get through. We don't haul cargo much or anythin' so we mostly use this space for supplies or interestin' things we find while exploring. We found some really neat obsidian on this last trip that seems to be much sturdier than most rocks, so we brought some back with us."

He gestured over to a few large wooden chests that were lashed shut, then led us to the middle of the room. It was wide and open, and I could see multiple doorways and exits from the place, leading off to other parts of the ship. Serifan noticed me looking and grinned. "This is the largest cockpit Gummi we could get our hands on. New Genesis has started studying how to make them actually, and though we're still a ways off from something like this, some of the work our people have done have inspired the engineers from the Wildlands."

I raised an eyebrow at that. "You all are still in contact with them? Dreamer made it sound like your visit was brief?" Though thinking back she hadn't mentioned anything about not being able to talk to them again. Did the Genesisians have some way of maintaining contact across dimensions? I supposed they would have to, considering the traveling they did. I knew the Mother Box wasn't exactly standard issue but even without that Sphere was absolutely massive, the would need to be able to keep an eye on territory near theirs.

Serifan grinned. "Oh sure. Communication Gummi's came with the ship. The mouse king's engineers, a set of twin chipmunk people, are brilliant. The Gummi ships can travel dimensions when needed, and they already figured out an effective, albeit limited way of keeping in contact. Communication Gummi's can be formed in pairs, allowing them to contact each other over any distance, and they gave us one when we left so we could keep in touch. They've been invaluable for upgrading the ship, helping us learn to make low level Gummis of our own already."

He lead us through the cockpit, showing off the space available, before bringing us through one of the side doors. "Here we have the galley. A crew flies on their stomach, especially Bear, so we keep this thing stocked. The food storage uses Gummi technology to keep the ingredients fresh. The same Curaga Gummis that they installed in the med bay for some reason. I don't know how it works exactly but its damned useful." He brought us to a bunch of other places on the tour, engineering, the bunks, even a training room.

Finally we came to the end of the road as he led us into the bridge, an absolutely massive room with a half dozen chairs at multiple consoles. Vykin and Bear were waiting for us when we came in, both of them smiling when they saw us. Bear, as his name suggested, swept us up in a big friendly hug. "Welcome to our ship friends! It will be good to have other warriors onboard. You certainly must be strong to have caught the interest of our Dreamer. She's always been picky." Dreamer glared at him from off to the side, but he didn't seem to notice.

It was sweet seeing them interact, their auras made it clear that they cared deeply for each other. Bear treated Dreamer like his little sister, and while he knew she could take care of herself, the opportunity to mess with her was too good for the big warrior to let pass. He was much less simple than he acted, and knew that people tended to underestimate big brawny fighters. In reality he was plenty intelligent, he just didn't care much for niceties and being blunt and simple was an easy way to bypass them.

Dreamer was actually blushing at the teasing, which was adorable, and I saw Zee's aura spike with the emotional equivalent of one of those anime characters who screamed 'KAWAII' whenever they saw a puppy. Despite the entertainment value of teasing the new girlfriend I turned to Vykin with a questioning look. "So Dreamer said this thing can get us to the Magiclands, do you have a map or something we can check out?" I didn't want to rush them, but I was worried about this trip and the sooner I got more info the better I would feel.

Vykin nodded seriously. "Ah of course. Come." He led us over to one of the consoles and typed in a few commands. When he finished typing a huge holographic circle popped up above the console, the colors riotous as it showed us the layout of the entire multiverse. The thing was...odd to look at. It was basically divided into four spokes, with several layers of circles inside those spokes to represent different layers. Each spoke had a plane listed on it, some sort of pillar maybe? and the plane we were in was labeled 'The Skylands', while the one opposite was 'The Underworld'.

Vykin gestured to where we were. "Now, as you may notice we are technically within the Skylands. New Genesis has it's own area here, so not everyone really counts us as such. Similar to how...the Enemy is technically within the Underworld, but is considered to have their own area of the Sphere. The Wozenderlands are here." He pointed to a general area in the top quadrant. "This is the Dream, and it's connected to the collective unconscious of the mortals. Their placement in the Dream is why the Wozenderlands have seeped into popular culture on your home planet."

He zoomed the map in a bit, showing the area between the two. "One of the main reasons Dreamer picked the Wozenderlands was because of it's placement. There are many terrible areas in the Sphere, and entering most of them is dangerous even for us. The Wozenderlands however, are on the opposite side of Heaven, a vastly preferable shortcut to many other routes we might have needed to take. We can cut through that plane as long as we avoid the Silver City, as New Genesis and Heaven have an understanding with each other, so the trip will be much safer than most."

I nodded. "Sounds good to me, we appreciate the help. How long do you expect the trip to take? I'm not really clear on either the distance involved or the speed of travel so it's hard for me to get an idea of the duration." It was frankly difficult to wrap my mind around the sheer scale of the map I was looking at. My brain wasn't used to registering entire planes of existence, not to mention that space between them was even bigger than expected. Which brought to mind a second question. "Also, will we be flying through the Void? I know that it takes up the space between worlds."

Vykin's eyes widened and he shook his head. "No, that would be incredibly dangerous. The planes in the Sphere all have passages between them that have been formed over the eons. Direct Void travel is horrifyingly risky for any but the most powerful beings. Metron is the only New God that regularly makes trips through the Void. The God of Knowledge is one of the wisest and most powerful of our number, and Highfather's personal advisor, so you can infer just how terrifying the Void is." He shuddered. "The beings that inhabit that place are twisted, unnatural things."

I winced at his reaction, probably best to keep the Void Shaping thing under my hat then. I had to hope that they didn't recognize what Patches was, though Dreamer definitely hadn't, or had just trusted me to know what I was doing. Regardless I knew more about the Void at this point than the forever people did. The Void was omnipresent, and while there were portions of it that housed horrible eldritch abominations, those were mostly the parts beyond the outer limits of reality. The portions between the worlds mostly just had your basic predatory Void Beasts that wanted to eat your soul.

Patches and his ilk came from the sections of Void that had been somewhat tamed by overlaying realspace. the connection with reality stabilizing them and keeping the worst of the horrible beings out of them. I didn't really know what those beings actually were yet, because I'd made it through one page of that damn book so far and I still had a LOT to learn, but the basic layout of the Void was one of the earliest points covered in that first lesson that prepared me for the cornerhound spell.

We went over the trip in detail, Vykin answering my question about trip length with the helpful information that we would be traveling the paths at warp speed so the trip itself would only take a few days. Then he took us through the various places we would pass by, making sure we were aware of any possible dangers. His face was deadly serious as he filled us in. "While Heaven and New Genesis are allies, you must be aware that no part of the Sphere is really 'safe'. There are many powerful beings who live independently among the planes, and they are all very dangerous."

Finally we finished going over everything and headed back outside. Artemis and Wally had waited out here, wanting to give Zee and I time to hang around with Dreamers friends and get to know them without distraction. I suspected the adorable game of peek a boo Artemis was playing with Patches was also a motivator in the decision. Once we caught them up we started getting ready to leave packing everything up via spatial ring.

We left the store full of the magical gear we made, though we locked the place up. We handed the key over to old Stanga and told him he could could keep half the profts if he sold it off for us. Stanga was kind of a local icon so he would probably manage it better than us, and it wasn't like our lease would be up soon, land deals in New Genesis lasted for millennia, a consequence of dealing with immortal gods. Still, we said our goodbyes sadly, Stanga was a good guy and had really helped us out, plus the man was a great cook.

Finally though we finished packing and got everything sorted out. We planned to come back someday to visit, Supertown was gorgeous and the people were nice, a vacation here would be great if we weren't stranded. After we said our goodbyes and took one last look out at the massive metropolis of gold, we climbed aboard the Gummi ship Highwind and prepared to set out on our journey. Vykin and the others were waiting for us on the bridge, where we'd headed to see liftoff through the front windows, and as we set forth from New Genesis, I reflected on everything that had happened. This place had changed our lives quite a bit, and our journey was far from over.

February 7th 2011 Space 8:00 PM EDT

I'm going to be honest. I didn't expect space to be so...colorful. I was on the bridge of the Highwind, an arm around each of my girls as we watched the asteroids and such fly by. I blinked, looking to Dreamer. "So...why are the asteroids blue with yellow polka dots? Also what are those rings, and all those weird flat pieces? I've never been to space before, but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be like that." It looked like we were doing some sort of brightly colored obstacle course, and it was honestly kind of weirding me out.

Dreamer giggled, a very pleasant sound that I thoroughly enjoyed. Dreamer was a happy person, which Zee and I both appreciated, and she was always laughing or smiling unless she had an active reason not to. "It has to do with the nature of the paths between the planes. We don't know who made them like this, but we DO know someone made them, or else they wouldn't be here. The Gummis the ship is made of actually use materials from the asteroids and obstacles, which is why we bother blowing them up instead of going around."

Because that's what was happening. We were in space watching laser cannons blow up asteroids. Despite the weird colors it was pretty amazing to watch. I admit part of me wanted to fly out there and start blasting the things with ectoplasmic energy, but even if I could survive in space (likely given my nature), I wasn't entirely sure we were IN normal space, and even one of my clones was a bit too much risk for me to be comfortable with. "So what's the deal with the Wozenderlands? You told us something about an invasion?"

Dreamer snuggled into my shoulder, her violet eyes locked on the shifting vacuum around us. "Alice and Dorothy Gale overthrew the previous rulers of the two major territories some time ago. They led the Wozenderlands into a golden age, and in general the place is fairly friendly. The Cheshire Cat is a bit mischievous, but still sweet, and everyone else there is generally pleasant to be around. The Wicked Witches have been banished to the Monsterlands for years now, so no issues with them, and the Queen of Hearts died during the coup."

That was slightly more brutal than expected, but then again I was mostly familiar with the Disney version of Wonderland, and I knew they had a tendency to water down their stories to make them more kid friendly. It was nice to know the situation at the very least. "Well, you've been there before, any suggestions on places to visit? We're going to be looking for the entrance to the Gamelands for a while I'd imagine, no reason not to enjoy our time there. What was your favorite place to visit?"

Her face lit up with joy. "Oh! I can take you to see the Emerald City! It's so beautiful there. I haven't been back in years! Or the Tulgey Wood!" She bounced excitedly at the idea and I smiled at how happy she was to share this with us. "I have so many things I want to show you both, the Wozenderlands are so beautiful." She reached out and took Zee's hand as she cuddled up to both of us. "i just know they'll be even better when I can share them with you two." Her aura blazed with contentment as we all stood there together.

I wasn't sure why Dreamer was so attached to us after only a month. Some of it was her connection to Zee, some of it was probably the sex, but she genuinely cared about us and I had to admit I had grown fond of her too. Seeing her like this, so happy and sweet, I decided that I wanted to pick up where we left off last month. We'd spent enough time getting to know each other. I wanted to fuck my little goddess among the stars. Zee felt it through the tantric bond and clearly agreed, stepping away from me and pulling Dreamer by the hand.

She led her to the room we were sharing, with me trailing behind, and once we were inside she kicked the door closed. She pulled Dreamer to the center of the room and gestured for her to stay the while the two of us went to sit on the bed. "Dreamer, we've been getting closer this past month, getting to know each other, and I think we've become close enough to enjoy each others bodies again. Don't you?" Dreamer's face flushed, but her aura pulsed with joy as she nodded. Zee smiled at her enthusiasm. "Good girl. Now, why don't you dance for us?"

Dreamer swallowed, but nodded, and as she did Zee muttered a spell and a low pulse of music went through the room. Dreamer exhaled heavily with a nod to herself and her hips started to sway. Before she could get into it though Zee spoke up. "I'm sorry baby girl, I wasn't clear. You don't need clothes for this dance." Dreamer's eyes widened and her aura shimmered with lust as she began to strip off all her clothes. Zee moaned as she uncovered that flawless body. She leaned back against me, spreading her legs and then leading my hand down to her thigh.

Zee had a skirt on today, and I pushed her thong to the side and slowly started rubbing her clit as out girlfriend began to move. Her huge perfect breasts bounced and swayed as she started swinging her hips. Zee cooed in pleasure at both the show and my touch. "You look so pretty baby girl, god those big fat tits are so fucking hot. Doesn't she look beautiful Morgan? Our perfect little slut?" She was soaked already, just from watching, but she wanted more. "Crawl to me baby, come taste me. I know you love the way I feel on your tongue."

Dreamer exhaled a ragged breath and sank to her knees, crawling across the room on all fours and then up to the bed, leaning forward to lick our girlfriends soaking cunt as if in a trance. Zee gave a ragged moan. "FUCK, princess, your tongue is so fucking good in my twat. You hot little bitch! I love it. Morgan give her a treat. Stuff our little slut up nice and full." She gave a naughty smile. "I know how much you both enjoy when you're inside her." I shuddered with delight as I slipped out from behind her and circled around Dreamer.

Out little goddess was a gorgeous sight on her hands and knees. Her muscles were tensed and she was rubbing her thighs together, obviously needy and feeling fantastic from the act of eating our girlfriends pussy. I imagined the electricity was doing it's work again and she was more than wet enough to take me from this angle. As I stood up behind her I took out my cock and let it smack down between the cheeks of her tight little ass, drawing a moan from her even as busy as she was.

Once again I was struck by the sheer size difference. Dreamer was maybe five two, taller than Zee, but I was pretty sure if I laid my cock sideways across her flat stomach it would stick out the other side with room to spare. I put the head of my cock at her absolutely soaking hole and slowly slid back into the softest cunt I'd ever been inside with a groan. Zee, seeing me go in, grabbed Dreamer by the hair and shoved her face harder into her own perfect pussy giving a sigh of delight as the busty New God squealed into her cunt.

I could feel the electricity in Dreamers twat and Zee's eyes had lost focus with pleasure. "Fuck baby I can feel you in her. We're all connected through my bloodline. She wants you to take her little pussy, to break us both. Isn't that right princess?" Dreamer moaned against her, wiggling her hips to try to get my cock deeper inside her. I pulled back slowly, pulling out of that gripping cunt an inch at a time before shoving back in, tearing a squeal from both my girls as I stuffed Dreamer up nice and tight.

Then I pulled back and did it again, but faster. And again. I picked up the pace fucking into Dreamers perfect cunt with abandon as she screamed into our girlfriends twat. Zee's brain looked about to break down, between the experienced pussy licking from a goddess with mind reading powers (that didn't work on me and she only used on Zee during sex) and the actual sensation of getting fucked and eaten at the same time, she was so blissed out she could barely function.

I groaned at the feeling of being back inside Dreamer. Zee's pussy was amazing and perfect, but Dreamer's was fantastic in another way. Zee's cunt felt like it was made to work my cock in the most flawless way possible, but Dreamer's pussy was soft and welcoming and sweet. Being inside Zee felt like something we did together, like she was made just for me. Dreamers felt like she was inviting me inside and never wanted me to leave. Like she would sit here and take me forever and love it.

She hadn't been wrong before, about her pussy not being able to take literally anything else. She was perfect. She could take exactly what I could give and not a single bit more. Somehow I felt like the constantly building tingle of sex magic lightning from our shared girlfriend was helping too. She was making Dreamer our perfect little fuck toy, stimulating the pleasure centers in her brain to enjoy the taste of her pussy and remodeling her cunt to be the perfect home for my dick. Dreamer knew it too, and she fucking reveled in it. I could see it in her aura, how much she loved this.

I pounded into her, and as I got deeper and took her harder I felt myself connect to that electric current running through her, linking me to both of them. I would never get used to the sensations, to the insane magnification of pleasure from that fucking lightning. I started to get closer, and Zee could clearly tell because she groaned. "Pull out baby, I want it on her pretty face. Paint her for us. Fuck those fat tits." The idea was both insanely tempting and kind of a letdown. I loved this fucking pussy, but I'd be back in it later, I could cum more than once and I wanted to fuck those tits.

I grabbed her hips and dragged her away from Zee's pussy, mewling in disappointment. I climbed up to streddle her ribs and slide my still soaked dick between those fat, bouncy tits. Zee grinned in naughty glee before saying ."Reh stit era bedul dna sa evitisnes sa reh yssup. " She got up an circled around to kneel at Dreamers well fucked pussy, leaning down with a sparking tongue to eat her cunt, and as soon as her tongue touched, our goddess locked up like she had an active current through her.

I slide my dick between her fat tits and groaned at the soft sticky sensation. Between Zee's lube spell and by dick being soaked by Dreamers cunt I slide right in and shoving my dick between them tore a ragged moan from the goddess. Her eyes were rolled up in her head as I held those gorgeous tits together and started to fuck them. Her hips were jerking against Zee with every thrust, even with my girlfriend hard at work licking her pussy, like she felt the fucking I was giving her tits. I toyed with her nipples as I tit fucked her, and she seemed to approve as the moans got faster and higher pitched.

Dreamer's aura was a mess of lust and joy and contentment as I pounded into her and it was hard not to revel in all the sensations as we fucked. Sex with these two was like a fucking drug, and I knew our getting to know you period was over because I was getting this every night if I had my way, and I felt Zee echo that through the bond, and then, vaguely, I felt another presence. Zee was adding Dreamer to our tantric bond. Or she was giving me the choice rather. I had to finish to finalize it. Had to mark her and make it stick. I didn't even hesitate with a groan I blew my load all over her gorgeous tits and face, dragging her and Zee into an orgasm through the bond and cementing it as I collapsed onto the bed to her side. Dreamer would definitely be sticking around.

February 12th 2011 Space 8:00 PM EDT

Touching down on the Wozenderlands was a smooth and seamless thing. No one on board even noticed, and I marveled at the Gummi ship's ability to land so delicately. Despite that, we had been warned we would be landing at some point today, so we were all ready to go when Vykin's voice came over the speakers that I couldn't even see. "We have arrived, my friends. Please make your way to the main chamber and ready to disembark in the Wozenderlands."

Dreamer was bouncing with joy, and Zee was clearly just as excited, though much less overt about it than our shared girlfriend. She grabbed a hand from each of us and started dragging us to the exit ramp and I had to laugh at the enthusiasm. Artemis and Wally were behind us, and weirdly Artemis was just as excited as Dreamer. My best friend wasn't one to get giddy, but she admitted when I asked about it that she had loved Alice in Wonderland as a kid. It was the reason her sister had chosen the secret identity she had.

As the Gummi ship ramp lowered, we all flooded out of the cargo bay, Patches leading the charge. The little puppy was still tiny, but I'd been feeding him and he'd grown slightly. He was about a foot and a half at the shoulder now, though he still had those big dopey puppy paws that tripped over themselves when he ran. It was adorable watching him flop around as he got too excited and his back legs outpaced his front.

Zee giggled at the pup as we followed him out, but before long we all stopped to stare at the sight in front of us. I gaped as Dreamer came up to me, snagging my arm and pulling me against her, Zee on her other side. "It's beautiful isn't it? I'll never get tired of this view." She beamed out over the rolling green hills, and I had to admit that she was right. This was hands down one of the most gorgeous places I'd ever seen.

The grass here was the greenest thing I'd ever seen. Not just brighter or anything it was just...more green. Like all the other greens I'd seen were cheap knock offs of this one, sad attempts to mimic the color from a half remembered faded picture. Throughout the rolling plains I could see a single road winding into the distance, running right by us. Just like the grass the yellow of the yellow brick road was something truly special, and the two colors seemed to almost harmonize with each other, somehow enhancing each other by their very presence.

The yellow brick road was sprawling. It went on for miles in both directions. In the far distance I thought I could see a slight gleam over the horizon, and in the other direction I could see a dark forest much closer to our current position. I turned to Dreamer. "Well, I figure asking people about the portal to the Gamelands is our best bet here. Even if they don't know where it is they can probably point us at some place where weird things happen and I can track it down from there. Which means we need to go somewhere with people. You're the tour guide here princess, why don't you show us where we should check out first."

She was clearly ecstatic at the opportunity to show us around, and she bit her lip cutely as she considered our options. "I think we should try the Emerald City. It has the largest population and its beautiful as well. If we get any answers there we can always stop at the Tungey woods on the way out of the Wozenderlands." With that she pulled us towards the road, specifically in the direction of the gleam off on the horizon.

As we walked Artemis followed behind, with Wally and the rest of the Forever People on her tail. She pulled even with

Dreamer as we walked. "So. I'm curious. How many of the residents of Wonderland will we run into at the Emerald City. Given how integrated this place is, what with the merged name thing, I'm betting there's at least some of them there we might run into. Will we run into the Cheshire Cat?" She sounded so excited I honestly hoped we would, Artemis never got her hopes up about anything, even if the cat wasn't in the Emerald City I'd probably try to track it down.

Dreamer bit her lip again. "Perhaps. Ironically the uncertainty of the cat's nature makes it more likely to appear almost anywhere. I mostly stays in the Tungey woods, but it's been known to appear most anywhere when the mood takes it. It has ever been a creature of unpredictability. It's presence is considered a sign of good luck in the Wozenderlands these days. It's something of a totem for this plane, both due to the rarity of seeing it and it's mellowing with old age. I've met it at least three times myself, and it is quite an intriguing animal."

I remembered her mentioning having run into it, and even considering it a friend at one point. That sounded interesting to hear about. "Did you meet it in the woods you mentioned? You said it moves a lot, so did you just get lucky? Or are there some spots it hits more than others?" I wanted to learn as much about this place as possible, and Dreamer was the best storyteller I'd ever met, though I might have been slightly biased. Still this would be quite a walk it seemed like, so no reason not to enjoy ourselves.

I could have flown us or something but it was beautiful here and we weren't in a rush, plus flying this many people would require a construct and use points, and while I was rocking ten thousand of them after five days onboard the Gummi ship with multiple tantric rituals, that wasn't nearly enough to burn them just for my own amusement. It seemed like a nice change of pace to take a walk without worrying about anything stressful. Specifically being eaten by mutated god beasts or having to trek through a giant forest.

Dreamer seemed excited to tell us about everything. "It had been many years since I've returned, but last I was here, the cat had no set pattern or favorite places. I would not worry however, it tends to find things that strike it as interesting. We're oddities, so it will track us down." She was going to say more, but suddenly froze. Her eyes narrowed on something off in the distance, and the rest of us adjusted our guards, more out of habit than anything else after so long in the woods of New Genesis.

As we watched, a few specks appeared on the horizon, or more specifically, small shapes that turned out to be people when they got closer. Patches growled as he spotted them, stepping protectively in front of Zee and Dreamer. I addressed my goddess girlfriend without looking away from the approaching shapes. "So, did you neglect to mention the flying people? Because I feel like I would have remembered there being flying people here. They look like they're on some kind of hover segway. And gods is that weird to say."

I heard more than saw her shake her head, though I did catch some motion out of the corner of my eye. "Not at all. The technology here was fairly pedestrian the last time we were nearby. Granted that was decades ago at least, but still, this seems like a large change." As she spoke the flying forms got closer, revealing themselves to be tall men in long dark dusters. I raised an eyebrow, genuinely curious what the hell was going on. The flying machines were pretty fast because there were already halfway too us.

Zee let go of Dreamer and stepped in front of our girlfriend, and then I stepped in front of her, getting a glare. I smirked a bit and winked at her and she rolled her eyes, clearly understanding my point, even if she was annoyed. Zee was no more melee combatant than Dreamer was. Of our group she was the least equipped to fight it out directly, and the best suited for ranged combat and support. Bear, Wally, and Vykin stepped up next to me, with Artemis and Serifan drawing their weapons to prepare to shoot the fliers down if they were hostile.

I decided since Vykin hadn't given any orders I'd give them to my people and he and his could follow at their own discretion. "Ok guys, we don't want to make waves here. Unless they attack or reveal hostile intent try to diffuse the situation. We don't want hordes of locals chasing us down, even if we could handle it." It would be annoying and distracting, and since they weren't crazy evil bio monsters we couldn't just put them down. I was getting back in good with Zee and I wasn't going to let some local thugs screw that up by forcing me to face murder them.

Everyone eased up slightly. Mostly superficially, but at least we didn't look like we were getting ready for a war anymore. I was honestly most worried about Bear, he seemed like the type to punch first and then punch again instead of asking questions. Still, it was pretty irrelevant because the flying things got within range and the tall men all pulled out what looked like laser guns, though they didn't point them as as so much as just sort of hold them menacingly as they advanced.

I raised a hand with a friendly smile, though it was the hand with my spatial ring in case I needed to draw my King's Sword of Haste. "Ho there, well met friends. What can we do for you today?" Serifan had somehow condensed the Gummi ship into the Mother Box for storage so we were just a bunch of travelers on the road. Granted they may have seen out ship touching down and be here for that, but hey, unless you've already been caught deny, deny, deny. I wasn't admitting shit unless they had me on video. Even then I would probably claim it was fake.

The men in coats touched down, stepping carefully off their vehicles, their guns still down but out. "Our sensors detected a strong surge of dimensional energy here. It is well know that we must guard the dimensional barrier well, for the Monsters may escape if given half a chance. If you fine people could accompany us back to the Emerald City, we would be happy to clear this up with a few questions and send you on your way." Despite his casual words, his aura was nervous and slightly angry, which really didn't fit.

I gave a cavalier shrug and a smile, hoping to diffuse the situation here by pretending they were actually as open minded as they were pretending. If we could get away I could hide us with my ghost abilities. "We have a bit of a schedule to keep, but we would be happy to ride with you to the Emerald City. We can answer your questions on the way and you can just drop us off instead of going through the trouble of finding somewhere to house us. No need to put yourselves out."

The lead man in the coat gritted his teeth. "I'm afraid this isn't up for negotiation. You've been discovered at the site of a dimensional breach. You WILL be remanded into our custody. On the authority of Queen Azkedelia, you are to surrender your weapons and allow us to take you into captivity." He raised his gun, his friends following suit as they level their firepower at us. "We will not ask again." I blinked, but not at the guns. I was more confused by something else he'd said. Queen who?

February 12th 2011 Space 9:00 PM EDT

We decided to go with them. Mostly because there was still a slim hope that we could talk sense to this...Queen Azkedelia. Of course, even if we couldn't we were more than strong enough to handle pretty much anything we ran into. A bunch of literal gods, my demigod best friend and girlfriend, and a conduit to some sort of god related speed energy vortex, combined with my own pretty terrifying abilities we were pretty much good to take on anything I could think of.

That said, going into this situation with less than a generous amount of information seemed like a bad call, so we took the time during our journey to talk to the men who had come to fetch us. The men in the long coats (imaginatively dubbed 'longcoats' by some absolute master of wordplay) worked for the current government of "the OZ" as they called it. Basically the current queen was a descendant of the original Dorothy, who had taken over Oz after the Monster war.

Dreamer and the others had been here well after that but they hadn't cared much about who was in charge so Dreamer hadn't bothered mentioning the royal family. The Queen who was active when they had visited had apparently vanished some years ago, and her daughter Azkedelia was ruling in her place. The longcoats had nothing but great things to say about their Queen, but with my ability to read aura I noted some signs that they might have just been towing the party line.

Still they filled us in one a few things. The Emerald City (now called the Central City apparently, a fact that made Wally wince a bit) was ruled by Azkedelia and her thugs. Since we were in the company of said thugs at the moment they didn't have too much bad to say about the woman, but in general it was easy to see how unpleasant she was from reading between the lines, and I had the unfortunate feeling that the city wouldn't be as nice as we had been promised.

We were skimming pretty close the yellow brick road, and the closer we got to the gleam in the distance the less of that stunning yellow we saw. The bricks began to look cracked and dilapidated, and I shared an uneasy look with the girls and Wally. I was about to try contacting one of them when one of the further ahead longcoats doubled back, his face a mask of clear panic. "Sir!" He addressed the leader. "The Queen sent word. There was a recent travel storm to retrieve a dissident from the other world, several of our brothers were lost nearby when the dissident came through!"

The man on the flying device I was riding paled before turning to look at me. "My apologies, but we need to investigate. I hope a minor derailment of our course won't go amiss." I was thinking about what had been said, and had no interest in getting involved so I just shook my head. He gave a relieved smile. "You have my gratitude. We should only be a short time. You can wait for us near the path as we head off to search." He touched down near the yellow brick road to let us all off and then sped off in a random seeming direction.

I turned to the others after a few minutes. "Ok. Well. Killing them would have been unnecessary trouble, but honestly they seemed like dicks to me. All in favor of just bailing before they come back?" Everyone raised their hands and I chuckled. "The aye's have it. Now I guess we should-" I was cut off by a loud crack and a scream in the distance. I turned to Wally, raising an eyebrow. "That could be a problem for us, can you check it out?" The redhead nodded and vanished in a crackle of lightning.

He was gone for only a minute or two before he reappeared. His face had an odd look on it. "Ok. So, I followed the sound in the direction we heard the scream from. Took me a minute or two to narrow down the location. I found...well, painted little people in tribal clothing. They have captives. A girl a bit older than us who dresses like she's from back home and a weird guy in a ratty coat with a zipper on his head." He nodded in the direction he must have come from. "They're about a half mile that way. We going to help?" His question was more of a formality than anything. I could tell he would go either way.

Luckily I was down to save some random earth girl. She might have some information for us. Wally set off in the direction of this camp or whatever it was, and we followed him. As we walked into the forest I found my eyes drawn to the sky. The moons were up, but considering there was three of them there was plenty of light, and with my own darkvision it was basically midday to me out here. The others seemed to have a slightly tougher time of things, but I did my best to help in any case, pointing out any spots they might slip or twist an ankle.

Finally we came to a large overgrown clearing. The trees were lined with huts at about three quarters up, with bridges between them to allow easy travel. On the far end of the clearing I saw our old pals the longcoats gathering on their flying devices and off to one side a girl and a tall man with wild hair bolted down a wooden walkway suspended on ropes. The longcoats hadn't noticed them yet. I focused on the shadows, and with a minor effort of will opened a portal under their feet that dropped them right next to us, firmly out of the line of sight of the searching longcoats.

Once they were clear of the line of sight Dreamer cloaked all of us and Vykin and Bear grabbed the two, picking them up and carrying them with us out of earshot. Once we were in the clear they put the two down, and the voices I hadn't realized Dreamer had been muffling poured out, albeit with their volume greatly lowered. The two of them were babbling over top of each other but that was annoying me so I nodded to my Genesisian girlfriend and gestured to the man, whose voice was cut off again completely.

It took the girl a bit to stop freaking out, but when she noticed her new friend wasn't talking she finally quieted down a bit, enough for me to get a word in edgewise. I knelt down next to her. "Hi there. I'm Morgan, in case you were wondering, and my friends and I just saved your life. Do you mind if I ask how you got here?" Because she was wearing a black leather jacket and sneakers, and if she came from Earth like we suspected, we might not need to visit the Gamelands at all.

The girl, who looked maybe nineteen or twenty, with big blue eyes and dark hair, swallowed hard. "I...I was at home, with my parents. The men in the long coats, they showed up and grabbed them, and this storm hit and I ended up lost in these woods. I was trying to follow them but those little people grabbed me as I was passing by." Her big blue eyes teared up. "Please. Please help me find them? They're old and fragile, I can't begin to understand what all this must be doing to them."

Zee stepped forward, looking sad and understanding. She shot the girl a smile. "Don't worry. We will. You're ok now. Can you tell us where you're from honey? And your name, if you're ok with sharing." Her voice was soft and kind, and her Charisma stat was a hell of a social lubricant, plus I was betting this poor girl was terrified, and the beautiful elf girl telling you everything is going to be ok was probably extremely comforting. She seemed to deflate slightly as Zee spoke, almost folding in on herself like the thing that was keeping her going was partly gone.

She took in a deep, shaky breath. "Yeah. I'm from Smallville, in Kansas. My name is DG." At the statement everyone in the group focused on her, paying MUCH more attention then they had before. Because they had heard what I had. This girl was from Earth and had gotten here without the Boom Tube. This storm...what the longcoats called a "travel storm" seemed to be some kind of natural gateway home, bypassing any of the normal means and letting us get back to Earth directly from the Wozenderlands.

Zee reached down to help the girl up and smiled at her kindly, brushing dust off her shoulders. "Well DG. We would be happy to help you find your parents. We've been looking for a way home to Gotham, so we're both after the same thing. Returning to our families." I could see from her aura that this wasn't sweet talk either. Zee really felt for this girl. She'd lost her mother young to cancer, and now she hadn't seen her dad in months. Previous fights aside she wanted her parent back.

Which I got. I hadn't spent nearly enough time with mom since I got powers. I'd been off on one adventure or another and let her kind of fall by the wayside, and I regretted it so much now. My mother had been all I'd had for years, and while she wasn't anymore, and I wasn't all she had either, it still hurt knowing I wasn't there for her like I should have been. I made a promise to myself that I would spend some time with her when I got back. In the meantime I turned to Dreamer and nodded, and she unsilenced the guy in the coat.

He was glaring at us, and when he saw us looking he tried to speak again, jumping when he realized he could. "Oh! You returned my voice. What's the big idea? You can't just take away a persons means to speak. Do you have any idea who I am?" He paused. "No, that was a genuine question. DO you have any idea who I am? Because honestly I'm not entirely sure. Mostly I go by Glitch because sometimes my head glitches." He blinked. "Mostly I go by Glitch because sometimes my head glitches."

I raised an eyebrow. "No. I have no clue who you are man, sorry." That said his aura did look weird to me. I flicked my eyes to my girlfriend. "Hey Zee, come here for a minute." She wandered over and I leaned down to murmur in her ear. "He looks weird to me aura-wise can you give him a magical once over?" She bit her lip, staring for a second at the man before she nodded. She stepped in close and started muttering, magic dancing on her fingers as she employed several new scanning spells from her time studying with the Outer Body light flickered over him and as it did her concentration became a frown, which became a scowl. She stood up after a bit and pulled me over to one side.

"Ok. Something is very wrong with him. Like...horribly wrong. Someone used dark magic to remove his brain. That zipper on his head? It literally opens into an empty skull. Which is awful, and also very scary. People shouldn't be functional without a brain Morgan. That kind of magic is old and dark and very hard to come by, and people who have it mostly use it to do thinks like remove their own hearts for protection." Her face was pale as she relayed what she'd found, swallowing hard. "This is magic even we should be scared of baby, and I don't think he's the only one. This place might be more dangerous than we expected." I swallowed at the look on her face. Guess that was one more thing to be careful of.

February 12th 2011 The OZ 11:00 PM EDT

Getting DG and the others away from the longcoats was a snap with help from Dreamer and my own abilities. We bypassed the queens soldiers and waited, watching them fly off once they realized DG wasn't around anymore. Glitch, a man who had apparently had his damn brain removed by dark magic and was somehow still talking, mostly stayed quiet as we walked, but DG was a big cheery ray of sunshine now that she'd met people from back home. It was sweet to see how the older girl had latched onto Zatanna and my girlfriend didn't seem to mind the attention.

I could see in her aura that DG had been scared and feeling alone in this strange world, and the presence of other people from Earth was a touchstone for the girl. As we walked though, DG suddenly stopped. When she did we all came to a halt with her, and the lack of motion was enough to hear something in the distance. A scream. Again. I had to fight the urge roll my eyes at this dramatic ass place that couldn't seem to leave us the hell alone. I turned to Wally who nodded again, once more vanishing into a blur of sparks.

DG and Glitch yelped and stared at the where the redhead had been as Artemis turned to glare at me. "Can you please stop using my boyfriend as the canary for your coal mine? You can make clones remember?" I opened my mouth to respond, then stopped. She snorted at me. "You forgot didn't you? The great and powerful Random, can't even remember his own powers."

I glared right back. "Hey! I have a lot of them ok? Besides clones take power and they aren't as fast. Wally is still the best call for scouting. Nothing here will be fast enough to hurt him, don't worry." Speak of the devil, our redheaded teammate was back within minutes. I exhaled slightly as he showed up, having actually considered what I'd say to Artemis if he got hurt. "Hey, what did you find?"

Wally's face looked ill. "I...it's hard to explain. Follow me." He turned without a word and headed off into the woods. I shared an uncertain look with Artemis and followed. The redhead seemed shaken by whatever he had found, and that wasn't good. Jokes aside Wally was a fairly season hero, and he knew what he was doing. For him to react like this to something he found meant it must be pretty bad. He led us to the edge of a large open meadow and pointed out to where a group of people stood.

Specifically, the same longcoats we'd ridden with earlier. They had a man between them, beating him, and as we watched they dragged a woman and a kid out of the house and started hitting them. I was used to some serious shit. I'd killed people, slain demons, fought bug monsters. I'd been through hell, literally. But watching those mean beat that woman and her kid in front of the man who I was sure was her husband, I felt sick. Artemis drew her bow to fire at them, but Wally put a hand on her arm, looking sad.

I had no idea why he would stop her, and I was about to demand an answer when there was a ripple in the air and then...it was the beginning again. The men were dragging the captive out again to beat him. I turned to Wally. He swallowed hard. "It's a projection. I tried running in to help and I went right through them. There's some weird device thing in that post over there. High level tech. I came to find you in case there was some kind of magic defense on it somewhere.

Artemis looked at her boyfriend staring at the images being projected onto the air and reached up to hug him tightly. He closed his eyes, and I understood. Where we were from things got bad, but it was the kind of bad you fight. Watching a family get tortured to death in front of one of the parents was...that was a level of fucked up I was not emotionally equipped to deal with. I pulled Dreamer and Zee against me as we all walked forward slowly, relief flooding us when we disrupted the illusion.

We stopped near the post and stared down at the object. I wasn't sure what it was, and Wally, our resident science nerd, didn't seem to know either. Surprisingly it was spaced out Glitch who answered the unspoken question. "TDESPHTL." We all turned to shoot him a questioning glance. "Tri Dimensional Energy Storage Projected Holographic Time Loop. Nifty little thing." He blinked a bit at that. "Not sure how I knew that. Although." He paused. "I think I might have invented it."

Wally stepped up next to him, examining the device. "That's some advanced tech, man. If you invented that you were a straight up genius before you...uh, brain got stolen. I've seen legitimate alien technology that couldn't operate at this level of complexity." He pulled it from the wooden post. "This is just amazing. Though I do wonder why the hell it was out here being projected like this without anyone to watch it."

As he said that we all started glancing around, wondering what we were missing. Luckily I had aura sight, so I was able to notice the captive man in the iron coffin rig off to one side. I blinked at him tapping Zee on the arm and pointing her toward the device. It didn't look like tech, aside from a slight steampunk flavor to it, so I was betting magic. I let Zee go over and do her whole magic sensing thing, though I followed close behind just in case.

The cast a few scanning spells over it, her brow doing that cute furrowing thing it did when she was focused, before finally turning back to look at me with tears in her eyes. "It's...a stasis spell. It keeps the occupant alive and aware, forcing him to remain completely still without even blinking. They made him watch this, over and over again. He's been here for...oh gods Morgan it's been years. He's just been watching this on repeat without end for years. I think he might be the man from the illusion. They forced him to watch the worst moment of his life on a loop."

I couldn't imagine a worse fate than that. Whoever had done this to him was a fucking monster and a sadistic genius, because this was some next level hellish torment. I'd literally seen less imaginative torture methods in the actual HELL I'd been in. We snapped off the rusted bolt's helping the man as he stumbled free, unable to stand. Apparently the stasis spell didn't keep him in perfect health, or maybe it just kept him in the same condition and he had been starving and limp when he went into the thing.

Wally and I carried him over to a nearby stump and sat him down, backing off to give him time to catch his breath. It took him a while. Almost an hour actually, but we didn't rush him. I passed him some clippers from my spatial ring and he shaved his head and face, clipping his hair short and his face smooth before handing it back to me with a stony nod of thanks. The guy had some serious gravitas, which I supposed was fair given the hell he had been through. He saw me staring and cleared his throat, his mouth dry after so long.

I handed him a bottle of water I had in my spatial ring and he took a long deep swallow before coughing a bit from drinking too fast. He handed it back. "Much obliged kid. Thanks for the help. Name's Wyatt Cain. What do I call you?" His voice was rough and hard, even after the drink, and I wasn't sure how much of that was from the time in the box and how much of it was just him. Regardless I could tell without even looking at his aura that this was a man with whom wise people did not fuck.

I debated just saying Random, but we were just passing through here to get home and honestly I felt like if anyone had earned the right to an honest answer it was someone like this. I stuck out my hand to shake. "Morgan O'Malley, nice to meet you Wyatt." I debated saying something about being sorry for his loss, but that felt way too personal for a stranger to say after seeing what we had. I just squeezed his hand and then let go. "So, Wyatt, which direction are you going? We don't know our way around here and we'd love to tag along."

He raised an eyebrow. "I'm headed for the brick route, but no offense kid, as much as I appreciate the help and as much as you all look like you're capable of taking care of yourselves, you're still kids. I don't need you slowing me down or getting hurt. I appreciate the assist, but you're better off just turning aroun-" I cut him off by raising an open palm to one side and sending a burst of ectoplasmic energy into a tree about fifty feet away. The tree exploded. Then caught fire. Then fell over.

I smiled at him calmly. "No offense Wyatt, but I'd say we have to be more worried about you. Now our new friend DG over there needs to find her parents, and we have some very pointed questions for this Azkedelia lady about whatever the hell a travel storm is. Seems to me like that puts us all on the road to Central City." My smile widened into something slightly mocking. "So, big man. How about you take us to the brick route and show us how to get to the city and WE can watch our for YOU."

For the first time since we'd met him Wyatt Cain smiled slightly. Not much, just a small twitch of the lips. He looked over at the tree again. "Well now. I suppose I might take you up on that. Might be I could use some protection." His face flattened again. "If I'm showing you the way though you need to listen and listen good. I don't know what kind of crazy abilities you have kid, but the places we're going are dangerous even to the strong if you aren't careful."

His voice brooked no argument, but honestly I wasn't inclined to offer one. The guy was a local and he knew the ins and

outs of this place better than I ever could. I'd have dismissed him when we first got here, but after hearing from Zee what kind of dark magic existed around here I was much more willing to take threats around these parts seriously. I nodded sharply, making sure he knew that I understood the severity of what we were doing. I expected the others to argue but they all followed my lead, which was nice.

Cain lead us off to one side of the clearing and towards a different spot in the woods. "This next part is going to be tense. Stick close and don't wander off, the creatures where we're going are dangerous." We traveled for about two hours through the woods, and as we advanced the trees got thinner and sicker until all that was left were dead wood and bare earth between it. Wyatt stopped, staring into the dead section of the forest but not entering. He took a deep breath before turning to us. "Don't move too far away and keep your eyes and ears peeled. Noses too, the runners don't like water. Do that and I can try to make sure we all survive." On that ominous note he turned around and headed into the woods. "Welcome to the fields of the Papay."