Well hmmm. Been a while. Chapter is quite rough and short, but I've been dealing with a lot of IRL issues, and I feel you've all waited enough. I'll try to be a little more frequent but, hmm...this isn't giving the best of impressions, is it! Well, let's continue with the story!

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As consciousness returned to the young teenager, some facts started becoming clear to her, matters that she didn't notice in her tired haze of yesterday. First, and foremost that she really needs a shower, she can feel sweat dripping down her brow, most likely due to the room having absolutely no windows. Second, it's really, really dusty, and she's silently glad she doesn't have any allergies, as the room looks, for a lack of better term, unhygienic, albeit not in the trashy sense; cleaning products and brooms are all around the room, with a bland stone wall look befitting of a castle dungeon, bringing small flashbacks of her earlier incursions in the store. She smells herself, wincing a bit, and staring for a bit at the detergents on the wall before shaking herself, giggling; third is more like of a conclusion of the other two, piercing that she slept in the janitor's closet. And that her "bed" was actually a bunch of uniforms piled up on the floor.

Well, that does explain the pain on her back, who would've thought! Nonetheless, it's a bright day, bright opportunities, she'll now just have a break- oh...right. She left home. Yep...that's a thing that happened. Nonetheless, she will figure things out as they go, she is quite proud of being a hands-on learner, so with a stretch, and a wince at her back, she leaves the closet, ready to make a statement. Opening the door, she's surprised to see the flux of workers. People a that looked something out of a fever dream, or those sci-fi aliens going around, carrying boxes, pushing karts and all that sort of busywork, not paying her any mind or attention, working in a flux similar to a river.

"Wow…" She admires the ambient for quite a bit, before shrugging and scratching her head, trying to remember where she went to before, and how she'll continue her work...it was the administration, right? Yeah, it was north, most likely. She enters the crowd, and starts walking towards her objective, seamlessly blending in with the crowd, walking towards her next objective…

It doesn't take long to reach the office, even with the crowd. Opening the door, and facing the same reception she saw beforehand, she walks towards the receptionist, who looks at her with a blank stare. Jackie waves, and gives a friendly smile, hands on her pockets.

"Hey, good...morning, right?" She looks at her, the sloth just looking at her with the same, blank expression...she keeps that up with a sigh, before looking at her, the sloth simply pointing out to the same door she applied before. An unspoken agreement went with them, Jackie leaving her be and going to the person that...well, will explain her job.

Same as the other times, the office is empty, and the old looking sloth looks at her with a stare that is as disinterested as Jackie was in any math class...straight, matter of fact it is, as she waits standing until the sloth looks at one of the chairs, nudging his head, Jackie taking it as a confirmation to sit down, folding her hands on her lap and staring at the sloth. Who stares back at her...which keep this second round of the staring contest they had before.

Maybe it goes for some minutes. Maybe for hours. Eventually, Jackie gives up, sighing and finally speaking "I'm the new...employee. I wanted to ask...hm...when I do start? And...training and stuff. You know?" She flashes a smile, the sloth's expression unmoving. She waits patiently, at this point completely embracing the awkwardness that is to deal with her...boss, until it opens his mouth, Jackie widening her eyes in excitement...only for him to yawn.

Thankfully, before she could lose her mind, he started speaking, picking up a piece of paper, probably the one asking for the employment and looks at her, eyes narrowed...Jackie taps her fingers on the desk, keeping the smile, while he reads...and finally, as seraphs sing back home, speaks.

"You applied for the delivery job, yes?" He says slowly and meticulously, looking at her again.

"Yes sir" Finally, some progress!

"Do you have a method of transportation…?"

Jackie nods, reaching for her bag at her side, putting the pair of scissors on the table, the sloth nodding disinterestedly.

"Have you ever worked on interdimensional deliveries?"

"No sir."

He sighs, slowly rubbing his temples with his claws.

"Should have conducted an actual interview...sigh…"

"Well...you did hmm...contract me, on the spot…" She fidgets a bit, really self-aware now.

"Yeah...guess can't go back. You'll want some...training, right?" He sounds almost defeated, reaching for a phone at his side, Jackie nodding. Jackie shrugs, but hey, she isn't being kicked out! The wait goes for quite a bit, before another sloth comes to the door, looking as displeased over being alive as her own boss...seriously, Jackie's smile is starting to hurt. Thankfully, it is fairly brief the exchange between the employee and the boss, and soon Jackie follows him to be instructed in the basics...and to get a shower.

Yes, she agrees. She really needs a shower.

"Welcome to QuestBuy, as you took the job, I assume you agree with the terms and conditions seen in your employee's contract, right?

"...Employee's Contract?" She looks at him as if he grew two heads. The sloth looks at her eyes for some moments, before nodding.

"Yes. By accepting the job, you accept the term and conditions." He explains, completely matter-of-fact.

"But I was...oh...oohhh…" She comes to realization, putting her hand on her hips.

"Plausible deniability!" Both of them say at the same time and laugh loudly...before sighing and looking eye to eye

"This job sucks."

_ X _

Jackie right now is currently holding Marco's scissors, a bemused expression on her face while he tries his best to get at it; she really appreciates the spirit, she really does but…

"Come on Jackie, I'll just give them a piece of my mind!" He tries to push her and get to the scissors, looking genuinely furious

Jackie can't help but laugh loudly, before finally getting Marco off of her. He tries to go to her again, but Jackie just shakes her fingers, still holding his scissors out of his reach.

"Jackie, I...really don't know what's keeping you on the job, but you have to agree that this is unacceptable! It's completely unethical and dangerous, you virtually signed a contract without even being given a chance to agree to the terms!"

"Yeah, I agree completely, that kind of sucked."

"...Tell me that the job was at least completely riskless. Please."

Jackie's silence spoke everything he needed to know, and soon she had to struggle to keep Marco's scissors out of his reach and calming him down before continuing the story.

_X_

Besides the realization that she got in a job that is possibly as shady as smuggling drugs if their employment was that simple, and she wasn't even allowed to see the documents, Jackie was glad that the tour was fairly simple, being told of her job: As a delivery woman, her job would be to open portals to dimensions of clients that would order products and deliver them...fairly simple stuff, but Jackie was very much aware of how dimensions could be dangerous, and her guide curious absence of note about any safety measure for them confirmed more and more that this job dealt with trouble quite a bit more troublesome…

So that's how foreign students feel, huh…She's shown the shower rooms, similar to the ones at school, and the bedrooms, which are eerily similar to those medieval barracks she would read in book-

Play video games of it, who is she kidding. Dressing rooms, leisure rooms, all the generic employee's areas, which would look more comforting if it wasn't set in stone making it look like a dungeon, and lighted by torches. She does notice the lack of any of the usual sloths she did say on the store proper, but she simply assumes there are different places for them.

"Now, you will be introduced to your team…"

This gives her a pause, an eyebrow raised at the sloth "Team?"

"Yes, the persons you're going to work more closely with." He stretches, looking bored...well, more bored than usual.

"I mean I guess" She replies, pocketing her hands, and following him down as always.

More walk, and she's finally directed to a side room, having only a couch and a coffee table. She blinks at the sloth, who just nudges her, and she sits down the door closing. Looking around, the room seems to be fairly less...medieval, looking more akin to the department store she's supposed to work...even if, oddly familiar.

The same female sloth looks at her again, and Jackie doesn't know if she should feel surprised, disappointed or confused that all that walk apparently led to the same office she was before. She rubs her eyes, voicing her frustration.

"You know, if I was going to be the same office, we could have like…" She thinks for a bit, humming. "Wouldn't have it been better if it reunited all of us inside here before the tour you know?"

She keeps staring at Jackie's eyes, but this time Jackie isn't unnerved or uncomfortable. She taps her finger against her leg, waiting for a reply, eyes boring into the recepcionist...the silence builds for some moments, the tension building up as the sloth's receptionist eyes slowly narrow, and Jackie gulps, wondering if she has said, by any circumstance, something offensive. She is already ready to apology-

"I've never seen you in my life?" She speaks, looking confused as a bit suspicious, and Jackie can't help but blink in surprise and tilt her head in confusion.

"Hmm...no, you were here when I applied for the job."

"No, not really. I think I would remember if I saw someone as ugly as you"

"Excuse me?" She speaks, frowning at the gratuitous offense, before sighing loudly, rubbing her face in, and counting…"No. I was here yesterday, this same office, your same lady." She waves it around again, pointing even at the magazine rack "This magazine is the same I've left that day!"

"I think you're mistaking me for my twin"

"Your two-" She is ready to continue before a bell rings "Jackie Lynn Thomas, please present yourself to office 4. Jackie Lynn Thomas, please present yourself on office 4" She looks up and glares at the sloth receptionist, who is back at work as if the whole exchange never happened. Jackie narrows her eyes, pointing at her and herself "This isn't over…" She whispers, following the corridor, the sloth staring as if she's crazy.

She probably is, this place really is getting to her. Taking some breaths, she heads to the office, getting ready to...meet her co-workers? The stale, cold air hits her face, and she notices some faces, none of them familiar from Marco's stories. One of them is like one of those...harpies? No no, he's much more like...Ludo, right? Yeah, Ludo! Much like Ludo, the person sitting by the left has the same green like...feathers, or fur? It's so small…the same beak, yellow eyes, and frankly she probably would have called him Ludo, if it weren't the fact that most of the similarities seem to end there, this one being bigger, like, way bigger than what Marco told her Ludo was, and slimmer too, wearing nothing short of jeans and a white tank-top. He waves at her casually, Jackie replying with a nod before looking to the other side, taking notes on what appears to be the second co-worker.

The second person...honestly, she's adorable and she wants to squeeze her, immediately. Some sort of...princess? She's wearing a princessy enough dress, a magenta dress with a pink tie, holding all the fluffy goodness doing like a fluffy cloudy collar around her neck, her arms shaved besides the wrists, and below the small dress, the fluffy continues like a heavenly-

"...oh...ah...hmmm…"

"Ms. Lynn Thomas, please let go of your co-worker," The sloth says in a tone that borders on having almost any emotion at all besides boredom, this case a hint of annoyance, as the girl hugs the princess tightly, Jackie right now just truly appreciating how soft and fuzzy and warm and-

She's being a creepy and now really weird, but...she's been dealing with monsters and oddities all the time! For once, something weird that actually doesn't look menacing and fluffy an-

"You'll have to pry her from my cold dead hands," Jackie says gravely, simply hugging her tighter and glaring at both sloth and Dennis...well, the sloth. Dennis already is slowly giving her space, like one would give a cornered animal.

The princess, really, looks at both of them with a mix of acceptance, and wariness...like if it wasn't something unusual, but still weird. Nonetheless, she tries nudging Jackie off by pushing her shoulder. She eventually gets the tell, or the urge to give in to her girlish, cute worshiping desires fades away, the literal stars in Jackie's eyes going away, and leaving the teenager to watch herself hug a stranger that looks quite uncomfortable, if resigned, and two others looking at her quite weirdly.

"..."

"You got it...out of your system?" The not-ludo says, and she truly, truly appreciates the friendly tone.

"...yes."

"...then please get it off of her. You're scaring everyone.."

"I'm okay. It ain't the first time, really." The ram princess says almost nonchalantly

"..."

It took a whole five minutes for the awkward aura to just lower enough for anyone to have the courage to speak anything.

_O_

After the pause, things were straightforward and admittedly much more professional. Well...as professional as a sloth telling about your work in an extra-dimensional department store can get away with it. Dennis and Ram, yes that's her real name, were respectively her "team?"

She would have asked why would she need a team, but that was explained rather quickly too, even cutting her off as she was ready to ask.

"You three are responsible so the deliveries are as smooth and without problems. Most clients that order products are from...dimensions or circumstances that don't...like, let them come, or whatever."

Dennis and Ram mutter among themselves, leaving Jackie to just look at them and take some details...they seem to know each other well enough, really. Not really, intimate, but there's no...uneasiness of talk, of talking to a complete stranger like her. Probably they applied together? She's not sure…

A cough cuts whatever the three are doing, refocusing on the trainee. He points at Ram, who bleats in our- Oh my god did it just bleat that's so-

"Your job is in the package, and delivery control...you're like, you receive the delivery orders and get the products from the storage. After this, you'll keep watch of the two…"

So...like a control center? That's cool! Sounds easy enough, just get on the back and hand it to her…

Wait, why is he giving her a sword, that looks...really sharp. Ram seems to have had the same thought, looking at him in bewilderment, Ram wiggling a bit as she tries to move the heavy sword off of her chest.

"You'll need that. And you two…" He points at both Jackie and Dennis, the two of them pointing to themselves, eyes wide open as to take in the information of their roles.

"You both are the delivery duo. Your job is...y'know, to deliver the package to the client. Pretty straightforward stuff." He finishes, shrugging...and not giving them any sword or anything; Jackie glances at the side, as Ram finally got the sword off of her chest and shakily tries to raise it to head level, her knees trembling at the effort, and her face quite red.

"Wouldn't…" She glances at Dennis, then back at the trainee "Wouldn't it be better if we both did our own deliveries instead of going together? Efficiency...and all that?" Secretly, Jackie is just nervous about her partner...it's judgemental of course, but if the story of Ludo is true...are all of them like that? Would she get dragged into some evil plot to steal Star's wand?

...in retrospect, that is both statistically impossible. Unless he's like, his brother or something, what are the odds?

Look at him, preening off his own feathers. Pure, unadulterated, statistically impossible evilness!

...what's happening to hi-

"Studies show that there are better odds of successful delivery if you have a partner to rely on. Most delivery employees before tended to fail with higher frequency and those that survi- I mean, kept on the job tended to show signs of PTS- clear stress. The formation of a team is to alleviate stress and frustration, as well as save money on psycholo- resources and management."

He isn't even trying to hide it anymore, what did she get into…

The rest of the lecture was, thankfully, more akin to what she expected of a department store, and not what seems a blatant job for a mafia; uniform for work, lunch time, locations of importance, the regulamentations as employees of Quest Buy, and general stuff that she could ignore and find in the booklet held to her.

"Your delivery work will start in an hour. Get to your rooms and prepare yourselves."

"...are you sending us to our work or to a war." She finally speaks what is probably on everyone's mind, as they help Ram carry her unreasonably heavy sword...seriously, a claymore? Does it look like someone like Ram could even use something like that, she doesn't even start to have the muscle mass for it!

"What's the difference?" Is that a smirk?! She can't elaborate further, as the trainee quickly leaves, and they get ready to prepare for their job...like before, Dennis and Ram begin to chat, something about an upcoming ball? Jackie looks at her nails, grimacing a bit as, expectedly so, most of it is damaged. She's not exactly girly, but she did like to paint her nails a bit...nostalgia hits hard, her eyes softening and she thinks of her room, her home...would her parents be looking for her? Are they even back home yet?

The semester's probably starting. Sabrina is...probably okay, really. She hopes. With Star out, Brittney is probably the """queen""" of the school again, and is resting on her """laurels"""; the girl is probably sticking to her like glue, hoping or even a second of attention…

The scissor on her pocket hasn't felt heavier than it is now, and the thought that all that is but a cutting motion away is fairly maddening.

No going back however...it would be her defeat if she did. She'll persevere, she'll survive...she'll befriend them all! Marco did, so can she!

...Right?

_X_

"The more I hear of this job, the angrier I am getting you know?" Marco replies his scissor firmly on Jackie's grip. She shrugs and gives it back to him, Marco taking with a huff...but at least not opening a portal there.

She really y'know, rather not lose her job.

"You really don't have a lot of ground to speak, you know Marco."

Marco glances at him, and opens his mouth to argue...and then thinks better; he tries again, probably remembering another example, but that is also shot down, Jackie amusedly watching as Marco goes a mental checklist for anything that he can use…

"Well, I...uh...I'm not b-being p-paid for...any of it!" He finally finishes lamely, Jackie just staring at him before giggling. Marco blushes a bit in embarrassment, rubbing his face.

"Dude, chill." She speaks, putting a hand on his shoulder with a warm smile, Marco reciprocating, when a voice echoes, cutting their "moment". Another voice approaches them, Jackie turning and blinking. A long haired teen, wearing a striped long-sleeved shirt, and circular glasses with...no nose? She turns to Marco, smiling slightly and punching his shoulder.

"What's holding you, man? I was waiting for practice all this time! You thought you would take like, 20 minutes top like you said!" the girl speaks, Jackie making an oh as well as mentally filling up what seems to be another of Marco's friends.

"Oh, r-right!" Marco jumps in surprise, rubbing his knuckles on his head, shaking it "Hmm...Jackie that's Kelly. She's a really great friend of mine, we practice sword together." He finishes, nodding. Jackie gets up, dusting her...duster, and shaking hands with Kelly. She doesn't really...look like much of a sword fighter, but then again Marco used to be a safe-boy and she used to be a skater.

Funny how life goes, doesn't it? She doesn't really remember the last time she skates seriously that wasn't to save her life.

"I don't think I've seen you anywhere, though…" She rubs her chin with her hand, analyzing Jackie scrumptiously.

"She's Jackie Lynn Thomas, a friend from Earth. Well...another" He mumbles the last sentence, Jackie nodding and smiling ear to ear.

"Another female friend, huh" She looks at Marco with a playful smile, Marco already sighing "If I didn't know any better…"

"I mean…" Jackie tries to butt in, albeit already giggling at Marco's embarrassment "Marco did have two male friends...Alphonso and...hmm...eeer.."

"Ferguson."

"Yeah, Ferguson."

This does take Jackie by surprise, tapping her chin "Oh really? I always thought Marco was kind of…"

"Sissy?"

"Yeah, totally!"

"I am not sissy!"

Both of them fistbump and laugh at Marco's expense...well she seems pretty chill!

"So, what were the two of you doing?"

"Oh just some catching up!" Marco gets up, stretching his arms "Practice is now, isn't it?" To Kelly's nod, he turns to Jackie, offering a hand, which she just rolls her eyes but takes, getting off the chair.

"You wanna come with us?" He asks innocently enough. Jackie freezes, looking at Marco like he grew two heads...for a moment at least.

"Oh! Eh...hmm… I...gueeeess?...sure, sure!" She replies quickly, some nervousness sipping on her voice, throwing Marco and Kelly off a bit.

"Oh...well, okay!" She says, probably unaware, and picks her own scissors...while that happens, Marco looks meaningfully at Jackie, who just sighs and rolls her finger in a circular motion.

Later. She rather not opens that can of worms now. And as Kelly and Marco both cross the portal, Jackie enters the place she has dreaded the most since she got out of Earth.

I won't make these short chapters a habit. Writer's block a beeetch. Don't forget to rate and review!