Huang Wenwei was at peace.

As the top player in World of Falan, the game that had taken the world by storm, he had a fulfilling hobby for his nights. As the only Mage who could use the magic from the game in real life, he had a well-paying job with the government as they studied him and tried to replicate his abilities. Most of his time spent in the real world was dedicated to teaching the crew of people who were trustworthy enough to know about magic that he sensed had the most potential.

Snapping his fingers, a glowing blue hand the size of his own appeared in front of him. He manipulated it with a thought, flexing its fingers as it floated there. It was one of the first pieces of magic he had ever learned, a level-zero trick that magic apprentices used in the game to hold things, bring reagents to them, and draw with higher accuracy. He had turned centuries of superstition on its head by weaponizing it, optimizing it until he could crush people in its grip and punch with several tons of force.

The spell's derivatives, his spiders, puppets, and favorite miaodao, were all applications of that same level-zero trick brought to the same level as a level-two spell through his innovation. The only spell that he had invested more time into over the past four years was his signature spell – the self-destructing inferior fireball.

With a blink, the floating hand disappeared. He was feeling particularly nostalgic this afternoon, the events of the day bringing him back to the first time he had ever taught one of the magic apprentices how to increase the size and strength of their magic hands. One of his crew of real-world magic apprentices had finally managed to cast their own Hand of Magic, a weak one half the size of his own hand. In World of Falan, such a weak spell would be ridiculed by the average magic apprentice, but in the magic-deprived reality, it was a feat to celebrate.

Standing up from his meditative position on his bed, Wenwei rolled his shoulders. The success of another person in casting magic may have devalued his position slightly with the government as he was no longer the only one capable of such a feat, but the comparison between the two of them was far from equal. What it meant for him, for the time being, was that he no longer had to remain in the facility at all times. His request for leave had been granted, and he was looking forward to meeting the rest of F6 that afternoon.

Taylor Hebert was suffering.

For the past year and a half, she had been abandoned by everyone that was supposed to be there for her. Her mother had died in a car crash, causing her father to spend more and more time throwing himself into his work to forget the loss. There were far worse coping mechanisms, but it meant that he wasn't at home very often when she was awake, and that the two of them didn't interact more than a few evenings per week.

Her best friend, for some reason that she couldn't know, had abandoned her over the summer between middle and high school for her new best friend, a girl named Sophia Hess. Every other friend she thought she had made abandoned her throughout the first half of her freshman year, not wanting to be associated with the bullying victim. Some of them left silently, walking around the next day with her tormentors, while others let her know before they stopped associating with her. Each time it happened, regardless of which way, it broke her a little more.

The past few weeks before winter break had been almost tolerable, with the bullying easing off. She dared to hope that it would come to an end, leaving her free to go about what remained of her life. As she entered Winslow High, she felt a spark of hope inside her heart. Maybe the new year would bring an end to the bullying, with Emma and Sophia having tired of targeting her.

Walking through the halls, she noticed that although the other students at their lockers were glancing at her, it was no longer with contempt. She couldn't identify what it was, but any change was a welcome one to her at this point. Closing her eyes and breathing evenly through her mouth, she made her way to her locker.

The first sign that something was wrong was the sight of the lock on the door of her locker, hanging open. She pulled it off and opened the door, but before she could do anything she felt a blow to her back, pushing her into the locker. Her right foot stepped on the floor of the locker, making a squelching noise on whatever was there as she tried to push back. The air had been driven from her lungs with the hit, and as she inhaled through her nose for the first time in the past two minutes she was struck by just how horrible it smelled.

Turning her head around before anything else as she tried to get a breath of fresh air, she looked behind her and saw Emma, Sophia, and Madison standing behind her. As she struggled to find the words to say, Sophia, the closest of the three to her, moved forwards and shoved her the rest of the way into the locker.

Before the door was shut, she caught one last clear view of the hallway. In the limited angle she could see, she briefly locked gazes with the few people there that she could have called friends in the past. Each time, they looked away, clearly unwilling or unable to help her.

The locker door slammed shut, the click of a lock other than the one she was holding in one hand magnified as it trapped her in there.

And now, more than ever, Taylor Hebert was alone.

[DESTINATION]

Liang Lidong was having a wonderful day.

The sun was shining, it was warm enough for the breeze to feel cool but not warm enough to sweat. He had spent the first half of the day practicing the miaodao at the saber club that Wenwei had recommended to them, and he felt that he had made some progress that morning.

Lidong's role in World of Falan was a Divine Noble, a class that was a jack of all trades. He could learn a limited amount of magic, battle techniques, and skills from other classes; he could hunt down unclamed wealth, empower his followers, and was recognized as someone of noble stature by all NPCs. He was the mayor of Wetland City, the only player-made city in the game and he used his territory management, knighted NPCs, and scroll-making to ensure the safety of the city from those who would leech off of it.

Although the other classes received more tangible benefits from the game, such as the Warriors keeping their memories of fighting techniques or the Mages retaining some intelligence and patience, Lidong's gift was far more subtle. It had taken him far longer to notice it in reality than it had in the game, but the people he interacted with on a daily basis were far more friendly to him than normal. As a test, he went on a blind date and carefully observed the entire experience, eventually declining a request for him to come over to his date's place to spend the night.

It had haunted him for a few days before Wenwei had picked up on it, and when the situation was fully explained he had thought for a moment before replying.

"It's not magical, Lidong. What you retain is your body language, your way of speech, and all of the other things that being a Divine Noble assists you with. You aren't mind-controlling these people, you've just become more regal and confident and the people around you react to that. Even if you were controlling people, the fact that you're worrying about it instead of abusing it is more than enough. Think of it like Kunpeng's alignment requirements and you shouldn't falter."

The person mentioned was Betta's cousin, Yu Kunpeng. His class in the game was the Saint Samurai, a class that could only ever have seven bearers at one time. As the chosen figures of the Goddess of Light, they were held to a high moral standard, with every action they took judged on its alignment. If they ever failed to uphold their morals or the commandments of the Goddess of Light, they would fall from their position and be hunted by the rest of the church. Although it was stressful to think about at first, he spoke with Kunpeng afterward and received insight into how he went about his daily life in-game.

Shaking these thoughts from his head, he continued walking along the path of the park he had stopped at on his way to the bar that Kunpeng and his wife owned. Wenwei had sent a message earlier that his request for leave from his new job had finally been approved, and he would have the next week off to meet them. Their reunion was only half an hour away, and he knew that Wenwei and Kunpeng would be there already.

While he was crossing the street immediately after leaving the park, however, disaster struck. The crosswalk light was green, and he was one of three people crossing the street at the time. Coming from the other side were a mother and her daughter, the two of them holding hands as they crossed. On the otherwise empty street, however, one car was barreling towards the two of them without slowing down for the stoplight.

In the split second before he moved, Lidong noticed several things. Firstly, the driver of the car was slumped over the wheel and was probably passed out or otherwise unable to stop. Second, the mother had just noticed the car and was beginning to pull her child backwards, hoping to spare her from any impact before even moving herself.

The third thing that he noticed was that he was already unconsciously moving, diving forwards to push the two of them out of the way of the accident. Before the car hit him and his world turned to pain, he was rewarded with the sight of the mother and her daughter both clear of the path of the oncoming vehicle.

An unknown amount of time later, when the pain stopped clouding his vision, he saw the hazy figure of the mother hovering over him, her head blocking the sun. Her mouth was moving, but he couldn't make out what she was saying. Her daughter's face appeared at the edges of his vision, and in the last few seconds of his life he realized what the mother was saying.

Thank you.

And as his lips tugged themselves into the beginnings of a smile, Liang Lidong died.

Wenwei and Kunpeng were sitting in one of the private booths of the bar, reminiscing on the events of the game while Wenwei described his job as much as he could without revealing classified information.

Suddenly, both of their phones buzzed in unison. Expecting it to be a message in the group chat, Wenwei pulled out his phone to read the message aloud. Before he could, however, the contents made him freeze.

'Automated Alert: Liang Lidong's device has experienced an abrupt change in velocity exceeding 40 kilometers per hour and may have been in a car accident. Attached is the approximate location of the accident and emergency services have been notified. As an emergency contact, you and 7 others have been notified.'

"Kunpeng, check your phone. I have somewhere to be." Casting several buffs on himself to increase his speed and stamina, he employed a spell that had only undergone minor testing in the real world – stealth. In a flash he was out of the bar, and less than a minute later he had arrived at the scene of the accident. Letting the stealth fall, he knelt beside the woman who was hugging her daughter while staring at Lidong's body.

As he began to cast every healing spell that he could with his physical body, he listened to the story through the tears of the woman. Before he could finish casting, however, he saw the ghostly figure of Lidong – no, of Betta, leave the body. Changing his focus, Wenwei pushed his magical energy around and into his friend, trying to prevent his soul from shattering the same way that he had seen the one man's soul at the wedding several months ago.

What he tried seemed to work, as Lidong's soul showed no signs of breaking, dissolving, or disappearing. Keeping his focus on the energy holding the soul, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed Kunpeng.

"Wenwei? What's the situation?"

"It's complicated. Lidong's body is dead, but his soul is still here. I'm holding it for now, but maybe only for ten minutes. Please record this, if I can't save him I hope to at least get his final wishes from him. How close are you?"

On the other end of the phone, Wenwei could hear the sounds of Kunpeng's car as he stepped on the gas pedal. "I'll be there in a minute, maybe two. Not all of us can run eight blocks in fifteen seconds."

Wenwei nodded. "Don't get into an accident yourself. I'll see you soon."

Ending the call, Wenwei cast Unhindered Communication on himself and began to speak to Lidong. "Can you hear me?"

The specter nodded, his mouth moving but no sound coming out.

"I see. How are you feeling? Any pain?"

Lidong shook his head. While this happened, Wenwei tried to cast Unhindered Communication on the soul in front of him but the spell failed to take hold, floating inside his spiritual body as it tried to take effect.

"Well, that's good at least. Did you write a will or update it recently?"

Lidong nodded twice, which Roland interpreted as an agreement to both parts of his question.

"Is there anything not in your will that you want done? Do you want us to talk to someone, any spouse you didn't tell us about?"

The response was two nods, followed by a headshake. Tiring of the slow communication, Roland created a hand of magic and expanded it into a board. "Write on this, it'll be faster than trying to guess your wished with yes/no questions."

He pushed the board into the bubble of energy, and as Lidong began to write Kunpeng pulled into a parking space, jumping out of the car and rushing over to Wenwei.

"How is he? Can you let me see him? I'll need to talk to his parents immediately but they won't make it here even if we had an hour."

With a wave of his hand, Wenwei created a scout spider and linked its senses to Kunpeng, allowing him to see everything that Roland could. "He's not in pain, and I created a board for him to write messages on. I'd cast Unhindered Communication on you, but that's a level-four spell and it would take at least a minute off of the time we have."

By the time they had finished speaking, Lidong had finished his first message. 'Tell my parents that I love them, and the same for F6. Tell the woman and girl I saved that they shouldn't feel guilty. Tell everyone in Falan what happened, and I leave all of that to F6 if my parents don't want it.'

Wenwei relayed the message to Kunpeng, who was having a hard time reading the message backward. "If I can, I'll bind your soul to an object and look into necromancy. Nia won't like it, but I'm sure I can persuade her that it's for a good cause. There are still a few liches that the Winterwolf clan haven't killed, I'm sure I can do it. Would you want me to?"

Before Lidong could reply, something odd happened. A hole in space was opening up behind Lidong's soul, growing wider and wider until it was large enough for a person to fit through. Sensing the pull on his containment field, he threw a pair of spatial coordinates and a scout spider through the portal and waited until they landed.

Every second was nerve-wracking, especially as the pull of the portal continued to increase the strain on his field. After nearly thirty seconds they landed, showing him a forest covered in snow. The ambient mana there was somewhere between Earth and Falan, but there was none of the nether energy that had been present in the Underworld or the Wall of the Faithless nor was there any divine energy from the various Paradises he had visited. The demonic energy from the Demon Plane was also, thankfully, nowhere to be found.

"Kunpeng, there's a different world through that portal. I'm going to follow Lidong through, and I'll do my best to return. At the rate I'd grow there, assuming a similar difficulty in growth, I'll be back here in a few years. Tell my parents that I have to travel for work, and take my work phone to call my work and tell them what happened here. Tell Andonara the same, and let her bind the Floating City to herself. Ask her to kill a few evil gods for me while I'm gone. I promise, I will save Lidong."

Kunpeng wanted to protest, but seeing Wenwei's conviction and determination he nodded in agreement. Ever since they were children they had been stubborn, and he knew better than to get in Wenwei's way once he was set on something.

"Tell everyone I love them too, okay? Even though F6 will be down to five members, stay strong. Don't let what we've built collapse. We'll be back in three years."

Kunpeng nodded once more. "Stay safe out there, 'Roland the Mage'."

"You too, 'Schuck the Dragon Knight'. I'll be back."

And with that, he enhanced his body with every spell he knew and jumped into the portal, allowing the pull to bring Lidong with him.

[TRAJECTORY]

The closest description to the inside of the portal was a wormhole, in more ways than one. It closely resembled the theoretical phenomenon, but more strikingly were the two massive worm-like beings spiraling around them as they traveled.

Wenwei wasn't idle while he was in there, however. He knew that he only had a limited time on the containment sphere for Lidong, so he was taking a risk and using a spell that he had only use once before in reality – Lesser Benediction. Causal spells were far more taxing on the body than any other type with spatial being a close second, but he had grown enough since first using it to risk it now.

Crafting a spell model based on the Spell Puppet, Roland wove in the Lesser Benediction in a way that he had only ever seen in Mordenkainen's spells. The goal of the spell was to bind his soul to a construct that rejuvenated itself from the ambient mana. That way, he could free up his magic and concentration to work on restoring his body and getting back to their world.

Building up the magic in his body, Wenwei cast his spell. 'I wish that this spell will sustain itself with ambient mana.'

The backlash, even with his higher strength and boosted resistance from the buffs, felt like a punch to the gut. Just as they were about to exit the portal, the two of them split off into different directions, each falling away into the new world. Lidong's temporary body was the last thing Roland saw before they parted, and a smile crossed his face before white filled his vision.

Taylor was still in the locker as classes let out, and the few cries she made for help with her hoarse voice were drowned out by the sounds of other students going about their days.

As if her isolation wasn't enough torture, she heard the snide voice of her former best friend come through the door of the locker. "Still kicking in there, Hebert? I'm surprised."

"w…why…"

The laugh from the other side was almost victorious. "Why? I thought you'd have figured it out by now, Hebert. I'm strong, and you're weak. The strong win and the weak lose, the strong live and the weak die. This is the truth of the world, but you're too blind to see it."

"you used to… be…"

"Speak up, Hebert."

"you used to be my friend… what… why…"

This time, the laugh was much crueler. "Oh, Taylor. You were never my friend."

And Taylor broke.

[TRAJECTORY]

Alone once again with tears flowing down her face, Taylor had given into despair. Her eyes were accustomed to the near-darkness by now, and she could see what she had been standing in for the past hours – used tampons. It made her throw up once she realized it, and now she was standing in that too, shivering while she waited for someone to let her out.

When she heard the voice in her head, she thanked every god she had ever heard of.

"Hello? Are you there? Are you okay?"

She didn't trust herself to speak, but she tried her best to form a reply. "…n…o…"

The voice, whoever it was, replied promptly. "I'll try to get you out of here if you'll let me help you."

She nodded, realizing belatedly that whoever was outside couldn't see the motion. It didn't seem to matter, as before she could speak her body began to glow a light blue. Outside of her control, one of her arms pulled away from the door and then slammed into it, causing it to shudder and leaving a dent.

As she looked on, amazed and confused, the arm stuck again, breaking the hinges and knocking the door away. Faster than she could have reacted, her body moved again, catching the door before it could hit the floor and stepping out of the locker. After her eyes adjusted to the light of the hallway once more, she watched as her body moved to place the door back on, making it seem like it was unbroken.

Her head tilted down, looking at the blood covering her sweatpants and shoes before looking back up and around for the nearest bathroom. Finding it, she was walked towards it until she noticed that whoever was controlling her was trying to walk into the men's room.

Unable to speak, she still panicked, sending the impression of wrongness and hoping that whoever was causing this would pick up on it. Fortunately, it seemed to work. She stopped moving, and the voice sounded once more.

"Not the men's room? Are you – oh. This is going to be awkward."

As she moved a few feet further and entered the women's room, she contemplated the fact that her jaw had never moved while the voice was speaking to her, now or earlier. These thoughts were thrown from her mind as she walked up to the mirror and saw what was looking back. She was still there, though she looked simultaneously worse and better than she ever had, but surrounding her body was a translucent blue replica of someone else. The man in the mirror looked similar to her Chinese classmates, but none of them would be caught dead helping her like this.

"Who are you?"

With that question, she felt her head sag a little, noticing that the head of the blue body had disappeared from the mirror.

"tay-" She coughed. "Taylor Hebert. Who are you?"

Though the head didn't reform, she heard the voice once more. "My name is Liang Lidong, but your name sounds English. I guess that's another thing to thank Wenwei for. If it's easier for you, you can call me Betta."

She nodded. "How- Why- What are you?"

Her shoulders shrugged, pulled by their blue counterparts. "A lost soul? A dead man walking? I'm not the man to answer these questions. I died nearly fifteen minutes ago, but a friend of mine was able to prevent my soul from fading after it left my body. I got pulled through a wormhole and he followed me, giving me this body before we got separated. Then I found myself in that locker with you, stuck inside your head. I feel like Betta, not Liang, and I can manifest this form around you."

"So… you're another person in my head? Are you a parahuman? Am I a parahuman? Am I like the Butcher? What-"

"Woah, woah, calm down. If I wasn't keeping the rest of you like me you'd be having a panic attack right now. I'm definitely another person, but I have no idea what a parahuman is. If it's anything like a professional, then the answer is yes. But if your earlier situation was any indication, we need to get out of here before we do anything more. I can change my body to be more opaque and change the face so we don't get recognized, but if there are any professionals here we need to recover before we do anything else. If you give me directions, I'll get us wherever you think is safe as quickly as possible."

Taylor nodded, getting in one last sentence before Betta's head covered over hers. "I know a place."

Huang Wenwei woke up lying on the ground, a circle of people in animal furs standing over him. One of them tried to speak to him, but apparently the effect of his Unhindered Communication had worn off while he was unconscious. Judging by his full magic reserves, it had been at least ten hours. He snapped his fingers, causing his body to glow. The people around him stepped back, though the one who had spoken earlier repeated himself once he was a few feet further away.

"Who are you? What was that?"

Wenwei rolled his shoulders. "That was something to allow me to understand you. Where am I?"

"You are in Canada, stranger. Again I ask, what is your name?"

Wenwei took a moment to observe the people around him, finding none of them to be a professional. Should he tell them his real name, or keep his alias?

"My name is Roland, Roland the Mage."