3.1 Assemble

I sighed as I dropped my ass onto the chair. I used its little wheels to swing a bit to the left, and then a bit to the right, examining the conference room. It was way neater than I expected, and almost every single detail screamed 'Tinkertech'. The wall opposite to me wasn't really a wall from what I could tell, but some sort of interactive screen.

I smiled as Akane entered the room and waved her way. She nodded at me, and then motioned someone on the other side to come inside. I focused on my summons' senses and knew it was Myrtle there, she was experiencing fear at all the strange things inside the building.

I was about to tell her to come inside already, when a simple glare from Akane seemed to do the trick. The british girl hurried inside, and when she saw me, she sat on the chair furthest from my own. Akane rolled her eyes and smirked as she walked to my side and sat.

"Sorry about that." She said with a look that wasn't exactly apologetic. I extended my senses to feel her emotions and frowned, she felt protective of the other girl, and was directing some anger my way.

I drew in a deep breath. I really had blew it with Myrtle. The girl hadn't deserved the mistreatment I had given her after I summoned her.

I started to say, "look, Myrtle I-"

But the other girl raised her hands and interrupted me. "Ravenclaw."

"What?"

"Ravenclaw. It's my cape name. Akane helped me choose it."

I slowly nodded. It didn't surprise me she chose that name, considering where she comes from. I shook my head, looking her over. She looked absolutely ridiculous, with a dark blue robe and a pointy hat. Her mask laid on the meeting table in front of it, a plastic (or was it ceramic) mask that resembled the green skinned witch from the Wizard of Oz.

"Ravenclaw." I said, softly. "I don't really have any excuse for the way I treated you."

She shifted on her seat, surprised. She hadn't expected an apology. She wasn't used to them.

I continued. "I wasn't thinking straight. I- I will not do it again."

She blinked, and nodded. "Don't worry about that, you brought me back from the dead, I owe you."

I shook my head. "No. You really don't."

She opened her mouth to say something else, when Andrew Richter entered the conference room, followed by Sue and two women I didn't recognize. The one on the front, I figured was Dragon, her new organic-like body looked like a movie star, tall blonde with lots of curves and breasts as big as my head, perky too. The one on the back looked more… mousy-like, younger also, but not quite as young as Sue, probably Scatha.

My thoughts lingered for a moment in Richter's claims that Dragon and Scatha were Tinkers like him. They weren't humans, of that I was sure, so how did expect us to believe they could possibly have parahuman powers? Sue's claim to a Striker power was also suspect, if anything she had a Breaker power thanks to her ability to change into her fighter mode.

"Hello everyone!" Andrew said, with a wide wave.

Akane sighed and nodded at him. "Hey."

Both Dragon and Scatha sat near the screen, with Sue standing behind a seat between them. Andrew stood in front of the screen and looked us over, waiting to see if anyone had anything to say.

"Ok. We're all here, right?" He said, eyeing me. "No new heroes for the party?"

I shook my head. "No more heroes."

"Excellent." He said, with a large smile. "Now that we have Taylor with us- or is it Blue?"

"Planeswalker." I said. Sure that I had my true cape name now.

He nodded. "Now that we have Planeswalker with us, we can actually start doing some shit." Louder, he said, "we're now starting the third official meeting of the Planeshifters."

It was actually the first meeting I attended in person. Following our fight with the killer snake dubbed by PHO and the media as 'Oroboros', and the summoning of Shen Long, I was left exhausted. I needed three whole weeks of mandatory Hospital stay. At least Sue had gifted me a laptop with Internet connection to entertain myself.

Andrew's smile turned into a grin. "It's also the first time we have our full membership on site."

Akane raised her hand. "Full? Doesn't Sue have another sister?"

"Rodan isn't actually a member of the Planeshifter, nor is Dragon." He said, and nodded at his eldest daughter. "They're merely allies. Dragon in particular is a sponsor for our team, thanks to her vouching for us, we can act as an official hero team."

Akane frowned. She was thinking that she hadn't actually asked about Dragon or our status as an official hero team.

"Since this is the first time we're all here together," he said, eyeing Akane, expecting to be interrupted. "I thought it would be a good idea to summarize what we talked about last week."

I raised my hand. "I actually know what you guys talked about. I can see and hear what you hear, remember?"

"Even so, humor me, please." He said.

I gritted my teeth, but nodded. I idly wondered who had made him team leader. If it wasn't for me, the team wouldn't even exist.

He bowed a little and then pressed a button in a remote I hadn't seen before. On the background, the screen turned on and showed Shen Long. "First, the elephant in the room. Dragon here has been kind enough to share with us the latest developments regarding the effects our wish had on the world." He pressed the button again, and the image shifted to a world map, filled with numbers. "On total, the number of resurrections are close to 1 billion people. This, of course, poses a kind of a problem to all the states around the globe, because they suddenly have 1 billion more mouths to feed."

I gulped at that. We hadn't really thought that far ahead.

He pressed the button again and the map zoomed-in to Japan. "Interesting is the case of Japan, one of the most affected countries and also one of the countries we could more closely analyze." Another button press, and the image shifted to something akin to a radiograph of the country. "Kyushu victims have more or less appeared scattered on nearby islands, and for some reason the radioactivity levels have vanished entirely."

Akane frowned. "What, so it's safe to live there now?"

"Yes. It appears that, even though we didn't specify that, Shen Long saw fit to help the people he resurrected have a chance at living without being instantly given cancer or worse."

I nodded. I knew that already. Shen Long had told me he had tried to do the best he could with the wish I had given him. When I made the wish, I was half expecting him to bring a billion literal zombies to the world, but thankfully he wasn't really like the evil genies that fill all those old stories.

I tuned out of what Andrew was saying, and remembered a recurring dream I had each night during my latest stay in the hospital.

I was back inside. Back in the locker. It was still filled with grotesque toxic waste, plus my own upchuck. I could barely breath, and I was sure I was going to die this time, that Akane wasn't coming to help me, that she detested me for taking her away from her friends, family, and love.

I was crying. I wanted to be a hero, not a victim. I wanted to live my life, to be someone people aspired to.

That's when I felt something deep inside of me ignite with power, greater than my own ability to summon heroes, far beyond it. I felt as if I had more than a million eyes, each one looking into a different plane of existence, and my feet had the ability to take me to any of those planes.

I could leave the locker at any time. I was free to walk across the worlds. Leave Earth Bet behind.

I forced myself to close most of my eyes, to focus on a single plane. On a world where a boy had killed what many would call a god. The boy commanded ice and wind, into a shredding tornado that annihilated his opponent . The boy had tried to save the girl that he loved.

He failed. I could see. Her spirit wasn't even in her own body. Akane was dead.

I was going to take a step in their direction, I knew I could help. I could put her spirit back into her own body. I could be a hero, or at least, help one.

When I realized all the power I had within me, I felt something else explode within me. I had a power beyond that of even Eidolon at my fingertips. But something- someone- was trying to tame me, to block the access I had to my spark. It was a monstrous worm, something that didn't live in any one plane of existence.

A fraction of this colossal being was hidden deep inside my head. I turned my attention away from the boy trying to save the girl he loved, and focused on my own plight. I realized that the fraction was as alive as the whole. It identified itself as a manager, a ruler of sorts, and it was linked, not just to myself, but to my spark as well. It was almost parasitic in nature, but symbiotic at the same time. It wanted to live off me and my experiences, but it also wanted to end me before going on her own merry way.

I got to take a closer look at the whole it used to belong to. The impossibly giant, multi-plane, being, how it danced with its mate, how it was now alone, almost depressed, if such a being could feel depression as we do. I saw deep into the fraction of this monster, in fact we saw each other, and we changed each other. It became more, not just a fraction, but separate from the whole it used to belong, and now it was mine. I changed as well. No longer did I feel my feet had the ability to transcend planes, but in exchange I now could give it to others to aid me.

I focused again on that dead girl. That poor girl who had sacrificed her own life in order to protect the boy she loved, and I knew what I had to do. I had to help myself, but still keep her in one piece. They could have their happily ever after once I had what I needed.

"Taylor!" I heard someone yelling at me, and abruptly opened my eyes as I noticed Akane shaking my shoulders. "Hey, are you alright?"

"I'm OK." I lied. I could've helped her, and instead I helped myself.

Everyone looked at me with a worried expression. "Are you certain?" Dragon asked me.

I glared. "Yes. I just had some trouble sleeping last night. So- you were talking about Shen Long and how he affected the world?"

Andrew nodded, rather slowly. "Also, on a related matter, we have the PRT wanting our heads for the leak on the information regarding Shen Long. I had the Director Costa Brown yelling at me for not being prudent. Something about the Slaughterhouse 9 going on a quest to find all the dragon's balls."

"Dragon balls." I corrected, irritated. "Not dragon's balls."

He smiled. "Same thing."

"That's also why I'm calling them dragon shards, less laughter that way." I said, and closed my eyes, and focused on my link with Shen Long. The dragon balls were indeed being hunted down, only the four star and seven star balls were still missing. "Yes, someone is indeed hunting them."

Dragon and Scatha looked at each other with a perturbed expression painted on their faces. Dragon turned to me and said, as softly as (in)humanly possible, "how can you tell?"

"My link with my summons. I still can talk with Shen Long. And he can give me live feed on where the ba- shards are. Someone is hunting for them, but it's strange, like- they got five in a blink of an eye but two are still missing."

"You can talk with Shen Long?" Andrew blinked, surprised. "Wait, how does that work?"

"Yes, he's at the Earth's core right now, chilling for at least an year. After Oroboros the link to my summons improved, Shen Long in particular was greater in that sense. So, I can have mental conversations with him."

Myrtle furrowed her brow. "What about us? Can you have mental conversations with us?"

I smirked, and sent her a mental image.

She immediately blushed deep red. "Oh, for Merlin's sake. What the heck?"

Akane turned to me. "What did you do?"

"I told her she looks cute, dressed like a witch." I left unsaid the random Halloween witch part.

Andrew nodded. "We'll have to test that later. Ok. So, the PRT is angry at us for leaking the info, and now angry at Dragon for refusing to ban everyone speaking about Shen Long on PHO. What do we do about it?"

"Nothing." I said. "If the Slaughterhouse 9 is really getting the balls together," I cursed as half my audience giggled at the word 'balls', "then, I can always speak to Shen Long as he asks for a wish, and ask for, I don't know, Akane's panties or something."

The japanese girl blushed a deep shade of red. "Hey! Don't be a pervert!"

Andrew looked me over, unconvinced. "Are you sure it works like that?"

"Yes. I'm sure. Also, if it doesn't, I can always change the password needed to make the shards summon him."

Andrew nodded. "Very well, we will continue openly speaking about this then. And the story about Akane here being the one who 'found' the legend of the dragon balls stands. Scatha was kind enough to alter evidence of the balls existing in the past, and even fabricated stories about the dragon being summoned a couple of times over the ages."

"Sounds… difficult to believe." I muttered.

"If the legend is to be believed, he had to be summoned at least once before." He insisted.

"Ok." I just said, not really caring much either way.

He gave me a satisfactory nod and smiled at all of us. "Ok, now that that's dealt with for now. Let's go to the heart of this meeting. We have to choose our leader."

I blinked. "Wait, you're not it?"

He actually laughed at that. "Me? Naw, I'm the wise old man who gives the heroes his wisdom to help them out. Besides, I will never be in the field if I can help it."

I closed my eyes. I could do it. I could be the leader.

Did I want to?