AN:Team Skull is hilarious. That is all.
"But your majesty, I beg you to reconsider. At least hear them out."
The imperial minister was fidgety. His liege hadn't quite been himself for weeks and it was starting to take a toll on the imperium he had worked so hard to build.
"Ramsey...havent I told you that I don't have time to deal with these "rebels" right now. Let them play around. Im busy."
The old appearance of the emperor was of course of magical nature, the minister knew that, but for the first time since he had taken the job it genuinely seemed like his ruler was as tired and weary as he looked.
"But sir. They have convinced nearly all of New Acadia that you are an incompetent fool. We already had riots."
"*sigh* What is with the rest of my lands?"
"You are as popular as ever sir, but please, New Acadia is the second biggest country on the continent. The sentiment could easily sway."
The emperor stood up from his desk and made his way to the window
"Do you really think I should do something about this?"
"I implore you, sir."
"Alright then."
He waved his hand, red sparks appearing briefly.
"Let the battlemages pick up the bodies and keep the peace. Now go and don't disturb me again."
The ministers face went pale.
"S-sir, please. I meant you should talk to them. Hear them out. Not kill them!"
"Ramsey, you said I should do something about this and I did."
"B-but the populace...they wont stand for this."
He waved his hand again.
"There, now our battlemages will find compelling evidence that the rebels have used mind control to sway their supporters. Murder justified."
The ministers mouth hung open.
"Oh, and I kept the rebel leaders alive, so do me a favor and schedule a public execution for both. Start a lottery too. Whoever wins gets to be the executioner. The masses love that kind of spectacle. Now go."
Ramsey bowed down as deep as he could.
"Yes, sir. Of course, sir. It will be done, sir."
As soon as the door closed the emperor sat back down at his desk and closed his arms around his neck. With all the power he possessed, all the things he could do, the one thing he actually wanted was still so very far outside his grasp.
His patience was wearing thin, and for someone who was as old as he patience was present in spades. He put his hand in the neck-hole of his robe and pulled out the pendant that hung around his neck. In the tiny mirror a small figure could be seen. He looked down upon it in nostalgia.
What would you do in a situation like this? He thought. What indeed...
He sighed and prepared to get back to his research. But he didn't come very far as suddenly the room was spinning around him. He knew exactly what that was. A teleportation spell advanced enough to get past his castle's defenses was nothing to sneeze at. He could've countered it of course, but he decided to humor whoever did this. It was a welcome change of pace.
His surroundings began to change and after a few seconds he found himself in an unfamiliar room. He wasn't alone though. With him were a wide variety of other creatures, most of them humanoid, all of them sleeping. This intrigued him. The next thing he felt was something drawing his magic out of him. As he surveyed the room he noticed them. Hundreds upon hundreds of advanced sapping runes. Enough to drain his whole army of battlemages of their power twice over. To him it was more of a mild inconvenience though.
A light drowsiness took hold of him. Someone obviously thought a simple sleep spell would be able to affect him. Cute. With nary a thought he dispelled the hex. But as he was intrigued by the situation as a whole he decided to play along. He looked around for a free and comfortable spot and sat down leaning against the wall and burying his head in his knees. Now it was time to find out why exactly he was taken, which was probably the least of his problems.
All he had to do for now was wait.
"Heh, I actually really like these comics. The card gimmick is interesting."
"I know, right? And there is much more where that comes from."
Lincoln wondered if now was the right time to ask, but then shrugged and did it anyway.
"So what's your name anyway?"
The wizard put the comic down.
"My name? I don't see how that's important. But I guess if you insist."
He held out his hand.
"Im founder and grand emperor Liam the Graceful of the all-encompassing glorious Imperium Scientia, Archmage of the Imperial College for Spells and Hexes of all Kinds, High Judge of the Imperial Courts, Grand General of the Imperial Army of Battlemages, and I won a spelling bee once too."
Lincoln shook his hand.
"Wow...thats a lot of titles."
"Oh, I only gave you the important ones."
"The spelling bee...?"
"Only the important ones."
"Alright...Your imperial majesty?"
The wizard waved his hand dismissively.
"Oh no, just call me Liam, were all equals here. Except were not because I'm your better in almost every way. But both our names start with an L, so I guess that counts."
"Yeah, thanks...i guess...Liam?"
"No problem Lincoln. I live to serve."
Lincoln still didn't know what to make of this man. But there were some things he was curious about.
"So, how come you only appeared today? I mean, I solved the riddle yesterday."
A new comic floated up into the wizards hands and he began lazily reading while he answered.
"Oh, I spent the time wisely. Your world has an interesting thing called "Internet". I used it to inform myself about your world. Im no expert by any means, but I should have at least common knowledge about its workings."
He turned the comic around to look at a spread.
"And let me say, your world is at the same time fascinating and the most boring thing ever."
Lincoln raised an eyebrow.
"How do you figure that?"
"Well for one thing, back home electricity is only a tool to hurt someone. Lightning magic is almost all purely battlemage stuff. But you use it for so many other things. Its quite interesting."
"So you guys have no TV or radio or cellphones where you come from? And you say my world is boring."
He lowered the comic a bit to peek at Lincoln before raising it back up.
"That's the thing though. Pretty much everything you guys have, we have too. Just better."
Now Lincoln was confused.
"But how is that possible?"
"Well, everything you do with different electronic devices when it comes to entertainment and communication we do with these."
Suddenly five small palm sized mirrors floated out of Liam's robe pocket and came to a standstill hovering in a ring around his neck.
"You use mirrors?"
"Yep. We can do almost anything with these."
One of the mirrors floated towards Lincoln who picked it up. Suddenly a mouth appeared inside the mirror. Curios he touched the mirror where the lips were reflected. Suddenly the mouth moved and Liam's voice came out.
"We can use them like phones."
As Lincoln looked down the mouth changed to an eye. Once again he touched it and this time the whole picture changed. It showed the same thing he could have seen by moving his head a little to the right: Liam hovering in midair, reading one of Lincoln's comics. Liam looked directly at...the camera Lincoln guessed?`
"We can use them like video cameras."
Suddenly the picture froze.
"And photo cameras too."
Lincoln was amazed.
"We also have what we call "Mirrages", which are our equivalent to your video games. And there are many other used for them too."
He looked up at the floating man.
"Like what?"
"Lots of boring professional things."
Suddenly he got an idea. He floated the comic on the bed, marking where he had stopped for later, and hovered next to Lincoln. Suddenly the mirror floated out of his hand and enlarged until it was the size of a flat-screen TV.
"Whoa..."
"But there is one thing I can show you that is pretty amazing. I only recently perfected this spell, and at my age that says a lot."
Lincoln was pumped.
"So what are you going to show me?"
"Parallel universes. Does the term mean anything to you?"
He thought back to that one dream he had.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. And you can look into them?"
"Oh, I don't know."
The reflection began to change.
"Can I?"
Lincoln couldn't believe his eyes. The scene had changed into some kind of backstage area. In the background he could see...himself. Himself and all of his sisters plus his parents, all holding some kind of musical instrument (except Leni who was holding a stethoscope), and all dressed in some kind of ridiculous costume. Right before him though was Luna. The way she was positioned it seemed like she was looking into a mirror herself, and it also seemed like she could see him. That was confirmed when she waved enthusiastically.
"They can't hear us right now. We would have to open a portal for that and my power is somewhat limited at the moment."
Lincoln nodded, but he only barely heard what Liam had said because he focused on what was beside Luna. It was Liam. But he wasn't in his teenage body. It wasn't his old one either, somewhere in between. And instead of the black robe he wore some kind of weird leather costume with plenty of ridiculous make up to boot (The costume still had the same symbols as the robe though. Old habits die hard he guessed.). It was very reminiscent of Smooch, but it looked pretty strange.
"I guess she was the lucky one to free me in that universe. Sorry pal, we can't be winners all the time."
Before Lincoln could respond he saw mirror-Luna exhale onto the glass fogging it up a little. Then she used her finger to write.
Hey Bro. Congrats on the genie, dude.
Lincoln stared for a second before he felt Liam shove his shoulder lightly. At the prompt he copied what Luna did and wrote a message of his own.
Thanks sis, you too. Good Luck with the concert!
His mirror-sister grinned widely and made two thumbs up before she seemed to hear something. She waved goodbye and left behind the curtain with the rest of her mirror-family. Mirror-Liam stayed behind however and waved at his counterpart.
With the wave of his hand a message of glowing letters appeared before mirror Liam.
You are looking good my friend. I like what you did with your robe.
Mirror-Liam responded in kind as a message appeared in Lincoln's room.
Not as good as you, bro. The age lift looks totally dope man. Stay fresh!
And with that he vanished. Lincoln felt a bit of second hand embarrassment.
Liam pointed towards the message which slowly dissolved.
"This man...this man is a gentleman AND a scholar. Im so proud."
Lincoln could've sworn he saw a tear forming in the wizards eye but before he could confirm the mirror shrunk back down and took his place around Liam's neck again.
"What a guy...Anyway, mirrors are awesome was what I meant to say."
"Don't worry, I believe you. So...what do we do now?"
He clapped his hands together.
"Well, I think the first order of business should be informing myself about my client."
"Wait, but I thought you already..."
"I informed myself about the world, not your life. I know this may be hard to hear but...those two are not one and the same."
Lincoln frowned.
"I know that...but how are we gonna do this? Should I just tell you everything about me?"
Liam looked shocked at just the thought.
"Oh, heavens no. Have you any idea how long that would take? No, I would like your permission to draw the knowledge out of your brain."
"...What?"
"You heard me. Or have you become deaf? Cause if you have please tell me so I can laugh at your expense."
"...Youre a real nice guy, you know?"
"Hey, I would've healed you afterwards. I just like having a good laugh."
Lincoln shook his head.
"Alright, alright. Is this brain thing going to hurt?"
"Nah, not the way I do it. I could use the textbook version though, that one is very painful. My perfected one will merely leave you dizzy for a few seconds."
The boy breathed in and out hard.
"I guess...but make it quick, alright?"
"I wouldn't do it slowly if you wanted me to. I've got shit to do."
Lincoln prepared himself as Liam put a hand on his head. Suddenly he saw blue mist coming from his mouth and nose every time he breathed out. He followed it with his eyes and saw it traveling into the open palm of Liam's other hand where it vanished.
With every breath he felt weaker and weaker. His vision became blurry. He didn't know how long it went on but eventually Liam's hand left his head. As promised he felt dizzy for a few seconds but recovered almost as quick. Lincoln shook his head.
"So...now you know everything about me, huh?"
Liam smiled.
"Pretty much, yeah. Your mind is quite clean though. I have done this hundreds of thousands of times and believe me...the stuff I've seen."
He chuckled.
"You're kind of a wet blanket in comparison."
"...Im just gonna take that as a compliment. So, nothing interesting about my life, huh?"
"No, not really. There are some kind of specific similarities we both share though."
Lincoln looked surprised.
"Really, like what? And what do you think it means?"
The wizard chuckled again.
"It means nothing at all. It happens every so often, patterns and all that. I just find it amusing when it happens."
"Oh, alright."
He sounded a little disappointed.
"So, what are the similarities?"
"Oh, nothing much. We both have multiple sisters, and only sisters. Also all your names start with an L, just like ours."
"Wow, really?"
"Yes, but that's where it ends already. And even those similarities arent all that great. I only have three sisters, and instead of being a middle child I'm the big brother. And the L-thing is an ancient family tradition that held a lot of political significance once upon a time. Your parents are just weird i guess."
"Man, you must've lived quite the life, huh?"
A third chuckle.
"You can say that again. But lets not talk about me. How about you introduce me to your family?"
Licoln made a shocked expression.
"What?! Do you really think that's a good idea? You are kind of...magic."
"Oh, don't worry, Lincoln. They wont even know I'm there."