Outsider Chronicles: Innovate Dream

Traumatic events have a nasty habit of knocking things loose. On Earth Bet, that includes superpowers. In my case, it also included some existential knowledge I really could have done without. Now I find myself in an unfamiliar city with powers strong enough to put me on everyones watchlist. What is with little girls and having space bending powers anyway?

Right, so here we go with a…potentially interesting idea. You might be able to guess exactly what our MC's power is from the title and my general style of choosing powers for my characters. I also suspect I won't quite be using it right, but theres enough give with Sacred Gears that I can probably get away with it. Anyway, on with the show!

Chapter 1

Have you ever had your life be completely upended? I suspect the answer for most people is yes to one degree or another. It comes in many forms, be it good like a marriage or the birth of a child, or bad in the form of tragic deaths or life changing injuries. In my case its all bad. Not only had I just lost my Parents in a bout of Teeth perpetrated Gang violence, but the attack had also resulted in two rather unusual changes. The first was that I now had powers and the second was…well, you know how in that Isekai where the protagonist is reincarnated as the villain of an Otome game and regains her memories due to a blow to the head? Yeah, that.

So here I am, a newly made orphan sat on an unfamiliar couch waiting for CPS to finish talking to the only family I apparently have left with a thousand yard stare as I try to take in the fact that I, a 12 year old girl, now have the memories of an adult man rattling around in my dome that happen to include some rather unpleasant existential realisations that my world is on the way to literal Armageddon and a power that is currently scratching at the back of my mind, begging to be used while I'm trying to keep from being outed before I even know what I can do.

And thats not all the shit thats hitting the fan today!

You know how I said that I was being left in the care of my last remaining family? Well, not only do they live in Brockton Bay, but they also happen to be people who will put me slap back in the middle of the utter shitshow that was coming. Apparently, my Mother was Annette Hebert's sister. In other words, I was going to be living in the same house as the Lady of Escalation herself at, assuming I was remembering correctly, the very start of her journey when she was a neurotic mess of paranoia. I see no way this will end well.

On the other hand, maybe my presence will help? Nah, this is Worm, the chances of me making things better are pretty low.

"Dorothy?"

I looked up at the sound of my name to see my case worker, Miss Weiss, stood in front of me with a worried look on her face.

"I have to go now sweety," she said, "Will you be alright?"

I glanced over at where Uncle Danny was stood awkwardly in the kitchen door and nodded.

"I think so," I said.

Miss Weiss sighed.

"I'm really sorry about how rushed this was," she said to both of us, "Unfortunately, we are so swamped that if we have somewhere suitable for a child we have to place them."

She glanced at me and pulled a card out of her pocket.

"I'll leave you my number so you can get in contact if you need it and I'll be back in a couple of weeks to check on you."

"K," I said as I took the card.

Miss Weiss stared at me for a moment with a sad look on her face, before glancing at Uncle Danny and letting him guide her to the door. I could hear them talking on the steps, but ignored them in favour of shoving down the pressure building in the back of my skull. I would not release my power here, not yet. I didn't want to add that to the stress on Danny or me. I sighed and sat back as the pressure reluctantly subsided. I wouldn't be able to keep doing that, but I'd be OK for now.

I looked up as Danny reentered the room and sat down in the armchair across from me. There was a moment of awkward silence, before Danny sighed and rubbed his temples.

"I…really have no idea what to say here," he said.

"'S fine," I said, "Sorry for being a bother…"

Danny sighed again.

"You're not a bother Dorothy," he said, "I just…wasn't really expecting…"

He cut himself off and shook his head.

"Never mind, we'll mange," he said, "Come on, lets get you settled."

He stood and led me upstairs to the spare room. Apparently, I wasn't getting the attic unlike some other SIs in my situation.

"My rooms at the end of the hall," said Danny, pointing at the door in question, "Thats the bathroom and thats Taylors room. You'll meet her lat…"

He was cut off by the sound of the back door opening. Danny glanced at his watch and frowned.

"Wait here," he said and headed out, grabbing the baseball bat that was leaning against the bannister at the top of the stairs.

Not sure that was needed, but this was Brockton. I stuck my head out of the room and watched as Danny made his way down the stairs and peaked around the corner into the kitchen. A moment later, he relaxed, let the bat drop and stepped out.

"Dad?" said a startled sounding voice from the kitchen, "What…are you doing home?"

"I could ask you the same thing," said Danny, "And what happened to your clothes?"

I winced. Yeah, this was going to get messy…

I was 100% right. Even considering the gulf between the two Heberts, there wasn't really much Taylor could do to deflect the fact she had come home covered in juices. The entire interaction prompted a minor shouting match between Taylor and Danny, which basically boiled down to them getting the fact that neither of them had really been good at their familial roles lately, leading to Taylor accidentally blurting out that the school had done jack shit and that Emma was the one mostly responsible for the bullying when Danny brought up approaching Alan. You know, the usual drama that came from the Heberts making up. You've heard it before, so theres no reason to go over it again.

Once that was done, I poked my head around the corner to see what was going on. Apparently, the shock of finding her Dad here had distracted Taylor from her localized omnicense, so she hadn't noticed me. Thankfully, my presence served to disarm the fight and prompted the two to call a temporary truce.

"Taylor, this is your cousin Dorothy," said Danny as he beckoned me into the room, "She'll be staying with us for the foreseeable future."

Taylor…honestly looked pretty much exactly like I'd imagined actually. A tall, thin girl with frankly gorgeous curly black hair and large, dark brown eyes.

Taylor looked between me and her Father with a raised eyebrow.

"OK, why?" she asked.

Danny glanced at me, then leaned over and whispered something in Taylors ear. My cousins eyes widened and she went pale.

"A-ah, right, sorry," she said.

The conversation trailed off into awkwardness that lasted until after dinner when I was finally able to escape to my new bedroom.

Once I was safely sequestered with the door firmly shut, I finally released the pressure I'd been holding since I had arrived, letting my power flow with a fervent prayer that I wouldn't blow a hole in the wall of the house.

Fortunately, that didn't happen.

Instead, I was met with the sight of a pink, heart shaped door patterned with a Sephirot appearing out of thin air directly in front of me. I stared at the portal for a moment, then hesitantly reached out and pushed it gently. It swung open without resistance and, after a moment of hesitation, I stepped through.

The moment my foot hit the black void on the other side, a floor of white stone appeared, snapping into place as I kept walking a few metres into the void and looked around. It really was a complete void, an endless field of darkness, with only my door and the small stone platform in existence.

"Is this it?" I muttered, "Come on, if your going to be an endless anything, why not make it a meadow?"

The moment that thought crossed my mind, a massive gust of wind tore through the void, forcing me to cover my eyes. A moment later, it faded, leaving me with a nose full of the scent of fresh grass and the feeling of soft soil and grass under my feet. I dropped my arm and looked around with wide eyes. Sure enough, the void had been replaced with a seemingly endless field of featureless grass.

"O…K, cherry trees?" I said weakly.

A few feet away, the ground erupted and the most cliche looking cherry tree, complete with vibrant pink blooms, popped out of the ground. I stared at it, then concentrated. In response, the meadow crumbled and was replaced with a sideways city, then a sewer with a massive, empty cage, then my old bedroom from my previous life. Another thought snapped me back to the void, only now with a random assortment of furniture and bric a brac floating around.

"Right, so I apparently have full control over this place," I said as I flopped down in a sinfully comfortable wingback armchair and plucked a floating cup of tea out of the air, "Lets see how far I can go with it. How about…a cat?"

There was a puff of smoke and a black feline appeared on the arm of my chair. It looked around, then hopped into my lap, stretched and yawned and then curled up and fell asleep. I idly petted the cat as I considered what to try next.

"Can I…make sentient creatures?" I muttered, "Maybe…something to help me figure this out?"

I pictured a wise old man who could help me, but what I got instead was a book dropping into my lap, disturbing the cat and sending it fleeing into the floating rubbish. I ignored it and read the books title.

"An introduction to the use of Innovate Clear?" I muttered, before my eyes went wide, "Wait, Innovate Clear? Isn't that a…"

I quickly opened the book and started skimming the introduction.

Welcome, new wielder, to the endless dimension of the Sacred Gear known as Innovate Clear…

I stopped reading and swallowed. Yep, thought so. A Sacred Gear, more than that, a fucking LONGINUS! Sure, it wasn't as broken as the High Tier ones, but the ability to create and control a personal pocket dimension was certainly nothing to sniff at, even if I couldn't remove anything from it. Plus, it apparently came with a built-in help system, so that was nice. I'd need to experiment later, but it would help me get started at least.

My thoughts and plotting was brought up short with a massive yawn. Power testing could wait for later, it had already been a long enough day. I stood and floated down to the door, pausing just before stepping through to conjure up a block of steel and a small dagger. Full testing could wait, but this I could do now.

I stepped through the door and watched as the steel and dagger quickly began to come apart, vanishing entirely in seconds and leaving absolutely nothing behind.

"Well, thats a shame," I said as the door faded, "Still, nothing I can't work around."

I yawned widely.

"Later."

With that, I dispelled my door and went to bed.

The next day dawned bright and early with me finally managing to get a proper look at my new body. Yesterday, I'd been far more interested in getting (somewhat) settled in and playing with my power, so it had slipped my mind. Regardless, I quickly figured out that I must take after my Dad because I looked almost nothing like Taylor. Instead, I was short, with shoulder length, platinum blonde hair and blue eyes. About the only thing I shared with Taylor was a wide mouth and slender build, although I was already beginning to show signs of filling out. In fact, after a few moments, I realised I looked almost exactly like Yui Kurata from Trinity Seven. Well thats…certainly a thing. On the up side, Yui is adorable, so I don't have any complaints there!

Once I was done primping, I got ready for the day and was promptly dragged out by Uncle Danny to get some stuff. I didn't have much at the moment due to the fight that killed my parents also destroying my house and most of my belongings, aside from a small suitcase. On the up side, they were prepared and had a fairly hefty bank account for whoever took me in so I wouldn't be a burden.

As such, while I couldn't go nuts, I didn't have to worry about breaking my Uncles bank. I also discovered that being an adorable little girl gave me far more options when it came to outfits, although I think the original Dorothy might be affecting me there. Why else would I end up trying on a Gothic Lolita style dress? Too bad it had an eye watering price tag on it, I looked downright adorable in it…

Oh well, something to look into once I started ripping off the Merchants.

I did manage to get some neat hair decorations though. Since I was now an adorable girl, I fully intended to take full advantage of it.

Once the shopping was done, we all headed home and then Danny headed out to work, citing some paperwork that desperately needed doing, leaving Taylor and I alone. Taylor headed downstairs, leaving me to head to my room and, after a moments hesitation, summoned my door and stepped through into my pocket dimension. It was probably a bit risky to do it with Taylor home, but on the other hand, she was probably distracted and was a long way from being the almost omniscient Skitter. Besides, I needed to do some experiments.

Once inside, I summoned my chair and the instruction manual and started reading.

It didn't take long to finish, it wasn't a long book, and once I was done, I sat back and started thinking. Apparently, it had been written by a past user who took advantage of the Sacred Gears nature to leave behind some information about how it functioned to help their Kohai. According to the book, there wasn't really a limit to what could be made within the space, but anything created ex nihilo would be unable to leave. However, if something was crafted, it COULD be removed, even if it was crafted from items conjured by the user. As an added bonus, the Sacred Gear was capable of saving the skills of past holders that living creations could use.

In other words, I could create a colony of dwarves, give them a mountain full of Mythril and have them churn out weapons and armour for me to use. In theory at least. In practice, I probably couldn't do that because no one who used it in the past could craft with Mythril. Normal steel on the other hand…

I grinned and sat forwards, holding my hands out and focusing. Instantly, the darkness shifted, twisting and reshaping itself until a landmass the size of Manhattan came into existence between my hands. My fingers went to work, reshaping the simple island into a mountainous terrain, rich in resources of all kinds, with a single, massive mountain in the centre. Once that was done, I populate it with animals and then moved onto shaping the inhabitants.

With a thought, a small settlement appeared in a valley by a lake and humanoid forms began to appear. They were a mix of Dwarves, Elves and a sprinkling of other fantasy races, scattered across the area in areas liberally sprinkled with resources. The actual species didn't matter, I just decided to be thematic for what I had in mind.

With that done, I released the small world and let it become anchored. The moment it did, everything began moving as the natural laws I'd put in place took hold and I felt my absolute control fade.

This was the main limit of my world. In theory, I had absolute control over everything, but if I shaped a world, even one as small as this one, it became 'locked in' as it were. I could still manipulated to a degree, add things to it and the like, but I could no longer fuck with the natural world, nor could I control the living things I created. Free Will was something that was apparently sacrosanct enough that any true independent being I created was just that.

Of course, I was still their creator Goddess, so they were loyal to me by default.

With a thought, I appeared in a large, round chamber with a table in the centre that was located inside a giant tree that grew in the dead centre of the new world I'd created. A moment later, I was glomped and pulled into a pair of bountiful boobs.

"Ohhh my, you're so adorable!" squealed my captor as I flailed in an attempt to get some air into my lungs, "I'm so glad our Goddess is such a cutie! I just wanna eat you up!"

"Hey, quit choking her with those saggy meat bags, ya pointed eared ho!" shouted a much more high pitched voice.

The hand running through my hair stopped and I got the distinct impression that whoever was holding me was now smiling a demonic smile at someone.

"Ara ara, no need to be jealous Miya, you'll have your chance with Lady Dorothy soon enough. Although I think if you tried to hug her to that washboard, you'd only crack her skull."

"YOU BITCH!"

There was the sound of a chair being shoved back, followed by an angry hiss, another loud crash and a lot of violent swearing. With the helpful distraction of the apparent fight, I finally managed to get a grip and yank myself out of the vicelike grip, zipping up and away from my captor to finally get a proper look at the room.

As previously mentioned, it was a round meeting room built into the trunk of an enormous tree and, as such, it was composed completely of wood. In the centre of the room, grown from the floor itself, was a large, round table with a 3D model of the world in the centre with the strongholds of the various groups I'd created to inhabit it marked with banners. Around the table were six chairs, each one marked with a different symbol.

Starting from directly next to the large, armchair-like throne that was mine was a chair marked with a staff twined with roses, which was currently inhabited by a tall, busty woman with long, curly blonde hair and green eyes that twinkled with open mischievousness. She was wearing a green and white dress with open slits at the sides and gold embroidery, along with black gloves with green trim, a large witch's hat, black lace stockings, and black high heels. A pair of long ears poked out from under her hair marked her as an elf, specifically the leader of the Elven Mages who would be my main source of Magical equipment and working, Archmage Lisa Rose.

Incidentally, I think my subconscious was inspired by Genshin Impact when creating her.

The next seat was smaller and marked with a hammer over an overflowing mug. It was currently tipped over as its owner was wrestling with one of his fellow leaders to keep her from trying to claw Lisa's eyes out. The man in question was a Dwarf, with all that entailed. He was short and barrel chested, with a wild head of fiery red hair and matching beard, flinty grey eyes and a long, crooked nose that had clearly been broken more than once. He was wearing gleaming mail and a dented, horned helm that was missing one horn was resting in front of his chair, along with a round shield bearing his symbol and a battleaxe. He was the Forgemaster, Bruenor Battlehammer, master of the Icewind Dale in the north. I knew I'd been reading too much Legend of Drizzt.

Next up was a chair marked with a needle and thread whos inhabitant was currently pinned under Bruenor. She was small and slender, clad in simple work clothes, with the addition of a pair of large knives she was trying to stab Lisa with, with close cropped, dark hair and red eyes. She also had four long, spider like legs that were making it remarkably hard for Burenor to hold her down. Unlike the two previous, she was one of my original creations, based on one of the Deities from my original setting. There, she was known as the Weaver, but here she was Ariadne Silk, the Seamstress. Unfortunately, it appeared that her sister hadn't manifested since she'd have been something of a balancing force for the more volatile spider queen.

Moving around the table was an actually inhabited seat, this one marked with a bow and arrow. The person sat in this one was watching the chaos unfold without apparent interest and just looked like she'd rather be anywhere else. She was pretty much the exact opposite of Lisa, small, slight and catty. Literally. She had tabby patterned hair and tail, yellow eyes and dark skin, marked with reddish coloured stripes. Her outfit consisted of a pair of black shorts, a tunic that ended half way down her stomach, fingerless gloves and knee high leather boots, all under a mottled grey-green cloak that did an excellent job of breaking up her form well enough that she nearly disappeared from view, despite the dark wood of her chair. A longbow and quiver of arrows hung from the chair beside her. She was the Ranger and one in charge of finding the natural resources needed by the other groups, other than the Dwarves, to use in their craft.

The final chair was marked with a mortar and pestle and was inhabited by the only non-humanoid member of the Council. She resembled an anthropomorphic husky and was wearing a maid uniform with the pockets visibly stuffed with numerous herbs. Unlike the others, she wasn't visibly armed, but considering what I knew about her, that didn't mean much. She probably had more weapons on her person than Brunor had in his armoury, to say nothing of what she could do with that supply of lethal poisons in her pocket. Like Ariadne, she was also one of my creations, in this case, the Goddess of Healing who also happened to be the patron of poisoners and assassins. In my world, she was known as the Pharmacist, but here she was Pharmako Canid.

Why yes, I do enjoy the old trope of healers actually being a lot more lethal than they appear, how can you tell?

I sighed, floated down into my chair and cleared my throat. The two fighting on the floor instantly snapped apart and were back in their seats before I could open my mouth.

"My apologies for the ruckers My Lady," said Burenor.

"Its fine," I said, "Although, I am surprised that you're…alive enough to fight like that."

"Its a result of centuries of improvement, as well as the fragment of Divine power that dwells within the Sacred Gears core," said Lisa, "We aren't actually alive in the truest sense of the word, we can only really exist in this world after all and we don't have true Souls, but we are still alive enough to grow, learn and evolve. Back when the Sacred Gear first formed, the 'life' it created would have been incapable of doing anything more than following pre-programmed tasks, but it has long passed that point. We are still limited of course, but far less so than other Creation Type Sacred Gears."

"I see," I said, "Well, we can discuss that later. For now, I want to know what you all can do and how quickly you can do it."

Lisa smiled and began her explanation.

The entire meeting took four hours to finish, but I was fairly pleased with the results. After leaving my minions with their orders for creating some equipment for me, I finally left my pocket dimension, utterly knackered and ready to fall into bed. Unfortunately for me, that plan was scuppered when, as I stepped through the door, I realized that there was an unusually large number of bugs buzzing around the room. A moment later, the door slammed open to reveal a remarkably frazzled looking Taylor.

My cousin stared at my fading door, then turned her gaze on me, her eyes narrowing as the swarm started buzzing louder.

"Well shit," was all I could say.

Right, thats done. I admit, that ending could use work, but I can't come up with anything better.

So yeah, this idea was partly inspired by I Want A Refund, but only really in terms of the starting scenario. I have no intention of Dorothy ending up as batshit crazy as Addy, mainly because she doesn't have a completely insane Shard hammering on her brain 24/7. Plus, her power is much more restrained. She will still be acting at least somewhat like a 12 year old girl though. Well, as much as a 27 year old man can manage to pull off at least.

I have my doubts that Innovate Clear actually functions like this, but since all we have is the most basic of descriptions of what it does, I'm rolling with it. Incidentally, Dorothy's entire design and name are references to characters with similar powers I pulled from when coming up with this idea.

Incidentally, I've decided that, as a Longinus, Innovate Clear has something sealed inside. There is a clue in the chapter, but if anyone can guess, I will be genuinely surprised.

Timeline wise, Dorothy arrived on the 8th of April, the day the story proper started. However, her presence wasn't quite enough to get Taylor to break off her plans to go out, so she still fought Lung and met the Undersiders, which is why she was still up when Dorothy left her pocket dimension. She'd just got back from that mess and found her cousins bed empty and no sign of her in the house, so panicked a little. Don't worry though, things gonna derail quicksharp after this.

Technically speaking, all of Dorothy's minions are OCs, even if two of them are based on existing characters. I'm not going to be trying to get them accurate to their canon counterparts because its not really relevant or even likely considering they are in very different circumstances. I'm also glad that I'll finally get to use some characters from my own setting. I might even include some others later.

And with that, I think I'm done. Don't forget to leave a review on the way out!