***“Damn, didn’t know M.O.T.H. had cars like this on standby,” I said, awed, when a luxurious luxury-class car of some sort that I couldn’t recognize, that reminded me a lot of Bentley but wasn’t one, rolled in.Mobius just chuckled, putting away her smartphone into a purse she carried with that gorgeous dress. She usually never bothered with purses and other such accessories, but then again, Mobius usually was very much a pocket enjoyrt with her lab coat. “That’s because M.O.T.H. does not.” She explained briskly, and with a gesture of her fingers, the doors of the car slid up. I tried to pretend I wasn’t incredibly impressed.“This is one of the company cars for VIP clients.” She explained absent-mindedly, “Do get in.”I gestured at it helplessly. “Company car? Wait, you mean…?”Mobius just looked at me. “Yes, the same pharmaceutical company I happened to be CEO of, the Oroboros. Now…” I understood when her patience was being tested, so I simply got inside. The leather seats were incredibly comfortable and soft, especially as I moved myself deeper into the car. Mobius stepped towards it next and carefully got in.“Comfy,” I commented, trying to glance past a tanned glass to the front, “Who is driving, some poor schmuck on the clock whose job it is to drive corporate VIPs around whenever needed?” I asked, genuinely curious.Mobius seemed genuinely amused.“In a way, I suppose, if you are willing to call an AI algorithm such.” The M.O.T.H. head scientist typed something on her smartphone, the door closed, and the car immediately started to drive. I just glanced towards the front verily. “Is that really safe?” I couldn’t help but wonder. “I’ll survive any crash, but a person as important as you well… won’t it take just one hacked car?”Mobius just glanced at me.“The cybersecurity of Ouroboros was developed by me personally. I still maintain the infrastructure somewhat,” She said, huffing, “The protocols to handle automated vehicles, their updates, and other such things were also developed by me. Unless it’s someone as talented as Vill, I am confident I would have noticed at least the first attempt at intrusion. I did every single time before when actions were taken against the company.” That was said with a casual arrogance, like she was just describing that the sky was blue to an impatient child. Sasuga, Mobius-sama. “So do you have a place in mind?” I asked to at least do some amount of small talk, “I mean, clearly you do, you are you, but is it French? Italian? Some traditional eh… Muing cousine?” Don’t imagine Mobius Mewing, don’t imagine Mobius Mewing, don’t imagine Mobius Mewing…“Is that a genuine question?” Mobius asked, turning to me, her hair moving with her in a gorgeous green wave, as she lifted a single eyebrow, making me notice a subtle touch of eyeliner that somehow made her eyes look even deeper. There was just a shadow of amusement in her voice, “And pray tell me, what would you do if it were a cuisine not to your liking?” She asked, not even hiding her amusement now, “Would you perhaps make reservations yourself?”“Only in an establishment worthy of us both, my lady,” I said, making myself sound disgustingly British with a tweak of my new cosmetic magic, as I placed my hand on my chest and half-bowed like a gentleman, “The local Burger Lord awaits us.” Apparently, the fast-food names in this world weren’t too far off, but just enough to be uncanny. Because yes, they did have religious-themed ads in America in the 60s. Yes, it flopped. She just shook her head in mock disappointment, glancing towards the window, but I could feel that she wasn’t displeased at all. “To answer your question, seeing where this evening was going, I decided to utilize some of my own resources,” She said, picking under her nails, “Atra is the capital of Mu, so naturally, I too worked and lived here, as Ourboros headquarters was located here. There was sometimes a need to bring guests and people of importance to dinners and such, and I, myself, don’t always subsist on cafeteria fare, so a restaurant was acquired.” She explained. “Wait, so your pharmaceutical company bought a restaurant, then?” I clarified. Mobius glanced at me and smiled.“No.” She smiled, seeing my confusion, “I did. It serves the kind of food I like, explicitly, regardless of the country of origin.” She glanced aside, “Not that it’s a widely known fact or anything. Past a certain point, spending some finances on such things is essential in high society, to belong in those circles if nothing else… “ Does… does Mobius sounds kinda embarrassed now?Cute. Adorable. “I totally get it,” I told her, not getting it at all, and also not minding it one bit. Soon enough, we arrived.***Two days later,“...I am simply saying that I am glad that you look more like yourself today,” Elysia said, skipping by my side, and beaming a huge smile towards me. “Love truly solves it all~!”“Wouldn’t say what we have going with Mobius is love,” I echoed back, sparing the girl a glance, as we kept walking across the hangar, “The date not turning out to be a complete failure is already more than I dared to ask, in all honesty,” I confessed, feeling kinda embarrassed to even do that much.“I am still waiting for you to tell me all about how it went when it was just the two of you, you know?” Elysia said, leaning into my personal space, “It took a lot of effort to help you get taken along for the evening, you know?~ A lot of effort that was almost wasted because of the…” Seeing me cringe, Elysia just giggled and trailed off, instead of delivering a finishing blow.“The dinner went fine,” I folded under pressure almost instantly, “We talked, but…” There weren’t really many topics we could connect on. Mobius’s life was… it was a pursuit. Mostly a scientific pursuit, but also administrative, and even legislative in some ways. She didn’t have hobbies. She didn’t have funny stories to share because things like that were probably filtered out by her goal-oriented mindset.All my tricks to pick up chicks would’ve never worked; I knew it from the very start, from just communicating with the woman more or less daily. Because fundamentally, Mobius was the type of person who was always serious, or at least always wanted to be taken seriously, and therefore simply didn’t entertain idle chatter, neither from herself nor others, at least not unless it served a purpose. So, naturally, we gravitated to discussing the only thing both of us had an interest in, and that was…“...she had me explain that gacha game I was referencing when I saw that girl,” I said with a heavy sigh. “All I could remember about it.”Elysia didn’t look surprised, which in turn didn’t surprise me much. If there was someone who would grill Mobius about the topic in less than a day and get her to crack, it would be Ely; the pink demon survived on gossip. Mostly the lovey-dovey, embarrassing kind, but still, she was a living embodiment of the feminine stereotype that way.This was also why I suspected that Elysia had already grilled Mobius for the very same story, and just wanted to hear my perspective.“Which wasn’t much,” I added drily, “I was generally as aware about the game’s setting and plot as I am about that lame Homu stuff.”Elysia expectedly attempted to poke me in the ribs immediately, which I batted aside without looking, forewarned by the danger sense.“Knowing next to nothing about the most popular character in the world is weirdo behavior, Knightmare! Not something to be proud of!” she complained, as she always did when I trash-talked her trashy taste in media. “But if you brought it up… was that Genshin thing as popular back in your home?” she questioned, and I could sense the trap being set from a mile away. “Sometimes it sure felt like it,” I joked back, “But probably no, not even close. The Homu analogue would actually be something arguably even worse; the Minions… or Mickey Mouse…” I said after a second of consideration, “But the Genshin stuff was pretty popular for a while, it sort of blew up back when we had global panic over a pandemic, and everyone got locked up and went stir crazy.” At Elysia’s questioning look, I just sighed, “Listen, it’s kind of a long story, and I am pretty sure I told you at least some of it before? Bottom line is, I never interacted with this stuff much… besides the aspect of a popular anime-esque game you can’t really escape.”Elysia said nothing, but her expression got smugger. I knew the line that was on the tip of her tongue that she didn’t voice.The ‘it was porn, wasn’t it’ hung over me like a guillotine. But the pink one had mercy today. “Why were you so sure that it was the right girl?” Elysia asked, switching gears and sounding genuinely curious, “You said that game was anime-esque? Wouldn’t it be super hard to recognize an anime character if it suddenly were a living, real person?”I shook my head.“No, it was anime-inspired 3D models…” I trailed off, “But you have a point in any case. It’s just that Mei girl sort of… looked the part? The purple hair, that kemono, all that stuff just fit.” I explained sort of awkwardly, knowing how unconvincing it must have sounded.Elysia looked at me weirdly. “Purple hair… isn’t exactly uncommon, you know?” I wanted to argue on principle, but in this world, that was true.Both Mobius and Elysia claimed that their hair colour was natural. I was incredibly curious if all their body hair… well, if curtains matched the drapes. “Well, it wasn’t just the hair,” I argued hotly, mostly to distract myself from a tangent, “It was just… something that gave me an impression. I swear that Raiden woman in Genshin was also called Dei… Grey… well, Mei, or something just like that.” Admittedly, my sources were the half-remembered hentai I wasn’t reading for the plot, and it was a while back, but still.“Issue is, I am pretty sure Genshin was a fantasy world,” I explained to Elysia, sighing, “So Mobius figured that it couldn’t have been this world unless the fight with Honkai would go incredibly poorly… that said, in Genshin, Mei was a god of lightning, pretty sure. So just in case, she said they’d look out for her.” I shook my head, “In any case, without knowing what the hell Genshin is, and what it is impacting, all my knowledge told us was that Mei was the sort of girl M.O.T.H. should keep an eye on.”I glanced at Elysia, who, expectedly, didn’t look very interested.“...you know all of that. What were you actually asking about?”Elysia shot me a brief apologetic smile before actually getting to it.“Did you enjoy it? The dinner you had with Mobius?” I paused for a while. Did I? It was one of these extra fine-dining places that in my world would’ve likely at least had 2 Michelin stars, and most of the time was spent grilling me on Genshin and the type of porn I watched involving it.It was probably the most bizarre date I’ve had, but…“Sort of,” I admitted softly, glancing away from Elysia and looking forward, “Sure beats the awkward evening I would’ve had if I was allowed back in!” I joked, chuckling… the pink woman wasn’t smiling.“You will have to apologize to Vill, you know?” Elysia insisted, leaning forward, “She almost cried, you know?”I blinked, glancing back at her.“Wait, she did?” The image-board dwelling conspiracy-nut genius of ours didn’t strike me like the sensitive type, “Was she that upset to be put on the spot?” I asked, looking Elysia in the eyes.She met my eyes calmly, and somehow, I could tell she was judging my intelligence to be lacking. “She was trying her best to prove her worth as a scientist in the last few months. First big event where she was supposed to represent M.O.T.H. - her new friends, and you leave her and the rest of us to deal with the consequences of your remark,” she explained, and slowly it did dawn on me, as I saw Elysia looked genuinely displeased for once, as she put her arms on her sides, “I expect you to apologize, mister.”I just scratched the back of my head under the deserved, invisible pressure. I did sort of leave everyone else to deal with it as I went on a date with Mobius, didn’t I?A lot of presents will have to be bought and a lot of genuine apologies made.“Don’t blackmail him into it, Ely,” I blinked, as from behind the giant shipping crate, Vill stepped out, looking a bit embarrassed, with a tablet in hand. “...it’s okay.”Vill, in general, is an incredibly beautiful woman, I noted it before and will say it again, yet the uniform our science division wore suited her especially. She was a bit on the shorter side, but was incredibly… feminine, let’s say, mostly due to the bust size. And the incredibly ornate hairstyle, not to mention the eyes. Two years ago, I would’ve probably stared for at least a bit; nowadays, I just awkwardly waved her a greeting.“Hey, V,” I said a bit awkwardly, “Elysia has a point, the whole thing was… well, a huge fuck up on my part, you and the others didn’t deserve to be settled with the consequences,” I offered, “Please let me try to make it up to you at least a bit when you are free. I didn’t mean to ruin it for you guys, it’s just…” I trailed off, not sure how even to put it.“I’ll hold you to this promise,” she said slowly, quietly, before shaking her head, and showing a confident smile, “But it’s not like I don’t understand! I’ve analyzed most of the information you’ve given us about your stories of other worlds, and it’s remarkable how much you’ve gotten right about Bit’s native galaxy, for instance,” she said, looking at me seriously, “If there was even a small chance that this world really is related to that Genshin you mentioned to Mobius - whatever it was - your outburst was understandable…” she continued, doing that adorable thing when she lifted a finger in an almost lecturing pose. That being said, I knew she wasn’t genuine about this. There was a performative edge to her whole lecture. “V,” I called out, making her blink, “I am genuinely sorry I put you on the spot. Ato and Blanca are probably used to it and Elysia here,” I pointed to the pink creature behind me with a thumb, “Can’t care less about being a public embarrassment, otherwise she wouldn’t be wearing what she does…”“...Hey!~” Weak fists started to hammer me in the back. “...but I didn’t think much about how much pressure it would put on you, and I’m sorry.” I finished sincerely. “Now, if you were Mobius, I would offer you to do weird stuff to my body that I would usually find uncomfortable as compensation, but you are decisively not her.” I said with a poker face, pretending I didn’t notice Vill growing a bit crimson at the comment, “So just tell me what you want from me later and I’ll do it.” I said, giving her a thumbs up.Elysia was still striking me in the back and whining, which actually felt great. “...got it,” Vill answers surprisingly quietly, looking down, and embarrassed, like a young woman she was. Then, she takes a breath, and once again visibly perks with energy, shooting us a confident grin, “In any case, you two are probably wondering why I have you all to myself today, no?~”Elysia finally stopped hiding behind my back, her ears metamorphically twitching in attention, as she glanced over my shoulder.“I sure do!” she confessed with a beaming smile.I just nodded to that.“As do I. I doubt Anderson or Klein pimped us out to sate your terrible and unspeakable basement-dwelling desires, so I suppose it’s something boring and work-related after all?” Vill physically stumbled as if struck.I could feel Elysia stifling a laugh, as she was currently pressing herself against my back.“I don’t know, that might be why we were brought here?~” she said with mock concern, putting a finger to her lip, “Vill-chan is a terribly important person now, who knows how she can abuse her authority…” she said musically.All the while, Vill, who just briefly snapped back to her energetic persona, was becoming more and more red in the face and desperate-looking. Until she pouted, looking away from us.“You two… are terrible! How does anyone work with you…” she complained, “Please stop teasing me, I just got in the mood and all...”Behind my back, I offered Elysia my palm, and she struck it with hers. Another victim was successfully bullied. “Well, I assume the head of our engineering department needs me for adamantium?” I asked directly, wiping the teasing smirk from my face, as Elysia too perked up a bit, and stood by my side.“Not as such,” Vill snapped back to her working mode almost instantly, “I need both of you for several projects, many of which were approved after the expo. First, I would need you to bring us to facility 23D5, Knightmare.”At her prompt, a hologram was projected from her tablet on the steel floor beneath us. This was a common procedure for my portal-making. I didn’t physically remember all the places I visited during the tour, but I remembered them enough, it seems. The GoPro analogue I carried with me took photos of things in my field of vision, and the photo I was seeing now must have been the exact angle at which I myself had witnessed the compound before. Which in turn brought a vague sense of recollection, and an instinctive understanding that I can have Yukari Fumo bring us over there.“You have her?” I asked Ely, who just nodded cheerfully.“Yep! Gave her a makeover and lots of snacks last night!” she said, bringing out the Fumo from her tiny bag. Said Fumo somehow looked disheveled despite the smile perpetually stuck to its face. “Here you go!” she told me to pass the creature to me.…I could swear it weighs more now. Not that I will ever say it out loud, or I will never find my socks ever again.“...when you told me she liked cookies, I never expected her to be able to eat the whole cake when I wasn’t looking,” Ely added cheerfully.I glanced at the Fumoid in my hands. Brought it up, turned it around, and looked into Yukari’s eyes. I could swear they were looking aside, instead of directly in front. “I won’t comment on this if you won’t comment on what you’ve seen me do.” I offered it, and then directed my mana, and opened a huge, wide portal. Soon enough, we stepped into another hangar-like area, Vill first, Elysia and me after. Security guys seemed to have expected us, as no one ever bothered to aim guns at us, not to mention that the engineers continued their work without being distracted.The place we were dropped in was much more sizable - nothing like M.O.T.H. HQ, a giant closed building with…“...are we in a shipyard?” I asked, glancing at a gigantic metal carcass hanging above, on and around which a lot of people were working using a variety of tools, equipment, support structures, and such. I could spy a few dozen engineers from down here! “Eh, of a sort?” Vill waved me off, and instead accepted a thick folder from some intern-looking guy who gave it to her almost without a word, before hurrying off, “You’ve been here a few weeks ago, Knightmare, this is our main engineering facility. M.O.T.H. usually can just requisition manufacturing capabilities of private corporations and even countries, but some things we need made in-house, and this is where they are made,” she said, gesturing around theatrically, spinning to face us and give us a cheeky smile, “And this is the mobile fortress project. You can call it a ship, I suppose… as long as the ship in question can fly.”I slowly blinked, giving the thing a double-take.“Wait… did you manage to make an actual Star Wars spaceship already?!” Holy shit, it wasn’t even half a year!Vill cringed somewhat, doing a so-so gesture.“Ah-ha… no.” She shook her head, “Don’t get me wrong, Dot carried a treasure-trove of knowledge inside of him, and I technically do know what spaceships in that galaxy look like inside now! If we were stranded in that galaxy, I could probably repair one! I am confident I would be able to build one if I had people and the resources… from that galaxy,” she explained, sighing, “Most of the things they use to build their ships have no analogue on Earth. The basic military-grade Durasteel alone is a priority recipe to crack, and I am working on it! But then there are ion engines, their weird mixed-fusion generators, a completely separate antigravitational technology, and repulsors that are fundamentally different from what we use, all the other types of durasteel used, and their incredibly advanced semiconductors and…” She breathed out, giving me a shake of her head, “Basically no, I am afraid not yet. This is an airship.” A helicarrier, then. “It’s still incredibly cool,” I assured her, glancing up at the ribs of the ship currently being built, “I am surprised it’s so far into production already.” It’s not that M.O.T.H. really needs a flying mobile base from where I stand… but the top heads know better, I guess. “I would like to take credit, but most of the project was finalized before I was even on board,” Vill explained, “Even your adamantium was only used in the final version a little bit; most of it was actually designed long before,” she said with a small smile, “I still introduced a lot of improvements.” She shook her head.“But that’s not why I needed you two here. Look.” She passed a folder to me. Immediately, Elysia was practically hanging on my arm to look over my shoulder.Sighing, I opened it up and checked the content. Immediately, my eyebrows went up.“A fucking space mission?” I looked towards Vill in actual confusion, “Seriously?”She grinned back, honest excitement on her face.“Exciting, right?” She pointed at Elysia and me, “One of you two needs to get up there, on the International Space Station, so we can open a semi-permanent portal. With it in operation, we can expand the space station almost for free, we can scale it to truly massive sizes!” she explained excitedly, “Do you know what kind of materials, electronics, and equipment we can produce in the actual perfect vacuum and in a zero-g environment? It’s not like we can’t make those things now, of course, but it will be cheap enough for us to be able to do in scale!” she explained emphatically, “Not to mention that we can build spaceships in orbit, bypassing the initial weight of fuel needed to bring any of their components outside of the Earth's atmosphere! We can propel the industry decades in hours!”She seemed genuinely excited about all that, but…“Don’t we have antigravs already?” I offered, bringing my hand up like a schoolkid, “Bringing ships to orbit couldn’t possibly be that expensive, right? Not to mention I distinctly remember something about a moonbase…”“Our current antigravity technology works on creating exotic particles that push against gravitons, thus making the vehicles levitate,” Vill explained the no-doubt incredibly dumbed down version to me, “Which means the further from Earth’s gravity well, the weaker the effect of antigrav, and it’s not proportional. Which is why the hovercraft generally can’t operate 150m above sea level. Our technology isn’t the same as the one used in Bit’s galaxy, Knightmare,” she explained seriously, “Of course, it’s much cheaper to get satellites and other objects to Earth’s orbit compared to the space missions of the 20th century, but it’s still so expensive that it’s unfeasible to build any lasting infrastructure up there. With your help, however…”Once again, she tapped something on her tablet, and a picture was projected in the air in front of us. It looked like a space station that was… tethered to the planet?“A space elevator!” Elysia said, clapping excitedly, “You are going to build a space elevator?!”I blinked, recognizing the term, and scratching the back of my head.“Isn’t that impossible?” I asked, feeling a bit surreal, “Like, the project being pure science fiction because no material is durable enough to-...” Ah. Fuckity fuck.“Yeeep,” V said smugly, nodding to me. “We will need that adamantium chain after all.”…well, alright then, I am getting paid by the hour, not the amount of work I actually do. Whatever, I can transform some chains.“Didn’t you guys have a crisis of confidence in Adamantium after the Second Eruption?” I asked her curtly. I remembered that whole discussion, basically, not long after the second eruption, most honkai beasts started to integrate a… well, Mobius called it dimensional-frequency amplification to their honkai attacks.Basically, they vibrated space a little bit around the attacks they were throwing. Which didn’t make them hit harder or anything… but made the transformed stuff turn back. Coincidentally, this was also how Sirin’s Herrscher was shredding my power armour and the Cap’s shield, though her spatial disruptions were literally millions of times more intense. Which Honkai beasts just learned after the fight?I mean, it’s not like no one believed Mobius when she claimed that Honkai seemed to have a direction, purpose, and a single controlling will behind it, but having confirmation like this was fucking terrifying. As a result, my adamantium was forbidden from being used as any sort of armour - because it frankly was useless in that capacity against most honkai threats now. Instead, my limited time to produce it was dedicated to creating adamantium pieces that can be used to withstand temperatures that no other material can withstand, or structures, or be a crucial mechanical component. Basically, M.O.T.H. collectively decided that making armour and weapons out of this material was a waste, if they transformed back after a splash of a honkai beam from each Seraph shot.Internal components of their shizo-machines would benefit far more from the limited amount of adamantium I can transmute daily, in their opinion. “Sure did, which is why the lift part, that is the chain itself, is engineered to be easily detachable and destroyable if it’s ever damaged intentionally by honkai or otherwise,” she explained with a wide smile, “But until then, between the orbital lift and your portal, we can make space infrastructure a realistic goal we can achieve in a year at worst! Of course, when I crack the proto-adamantium recipe myself, or solve the secrets of repulsors and ion engines from Bit world, that won’t be necessary anymore, but for now, your help can change everything!”Yeah, yeah, sure, whatever. This was a weird fixation of Vill that I never understood, as when she approached me with this question, I honestly told her that even in comics, with super-geniuses at least equivalent to her, people never managed to figure out how to replicate Cap’s Proto-adamantium alloy. Which she seemed to take as a challenge as the ‘great engineer Vill never fails!’.I would shit on the types of jokes and puns she prefers, but being Knightmare, that would be very much throwing stones from the glass house. “What even is the ultimate play here?” I asked, scratching the back of my head, “Just production of some esoteric materials?” It was mostly curiosity that made me ask.Yet, Vill shook her head adamantly. “With your portal and the orbital lift, we will be able to deploy any number of satellites over the entire world. We can position railguns, missiles, laser weaponry… pretty much anything on them, and they will be able to provide direct ground support,” she exemplified, looking me in the eyes and bringing one finger up, “The deal Mobius had with Einstein was about that, actually, with some luck, you and Elysia won’t ever have to face Herrschers alone ever again! All of us, no, all of humanity will be fighting by your side!” she assured me hotly. I exchanged glances with Elysia, who seemed to have the same easy smile on her face as I did. I couldn’t help myself, I patted Vill on the head, making her blink, and look startled like a mouse for just a moment.“You and the rest already do. I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without all of you. ” I assured, and retracted my arm before she could complain, “Anyhow, so you need either Elysia or me to become trained astronauts, that’s what you are saying?”Vill pushed past the embarrassment and nodded seriously.“Mobius wanted me to test the resilience of both of you, so she had me design a sufficient testing environment. Losing either of you is unacceptable, so we need to see which one of you has more of a chance of making it back safely if… something went wrong.” She sounded a bit awkward at that. I frowned, considering her words. “I assume it’s not that risk of Honkai targeting us specifically that you are worried about?” I ask softly. Mostly because while Honkai showed that it could adapt to me specifically, and be surprisingly spiteful about it… It has yet to show willingness to target my person with outbreaks or beasts specifically. Mobius believes it’s a matter of time. But for now… it was a faraway possibility still. Vill didn’t answer, just shook her head. She glanced around towards the technicians around who pretended not to eavesdrop, and approached a few steps closer, before whispering,“Space is incredibly dangerous. And we, as M.O.T.H., can’t design a rocket and a cosmodrome just for a single mission; we will have to use the means provided by one of the world’s governments… and we aren’t sure whose offer is safer to pick yet,” she explained almost in a whisper, “Especially if it will transport you or Elysia.”Right, my and Elysia’s existence wasn't very convenient to the governments. Especially me, Mr. ‘try and nuke me pussies’. It probably helps that those tests will also be used to probe for any weaknesses I might have.Still, it was pretty obvious that between Devil Trigger and danger sense, I would be the one flying on the rocket. But I guess they still wanted to check exactly what Elysia can do with her free-range control over Honkai. She did pull off that energy sphere to defend herself a while back - and never did so again. I halfway suspected that she only used arrows because it was convenient and ‘stylish’ for her, not because it was genuinely a limit of her ability to shape the energy. Slowly, the realization of what was happening was catching up to me. Was I… actually going to be an astronaut? ***A week later,I was strapped into a seat that still smelled vaguely of something synthetic and nausea-inducing - like a new car, my hands resting in my lap, and my brain doing its best to catch up with the fact that I was now, factually, in space.The cabin wasn't the tin can I had half-expected from old NASA footage. Whichever government had won the bidding war for our little expedition (and I had honestly stopped trying to keep track somewhere between the third NDA and the fourth, as well as the constant ‘Knightmare, you can’t post this on the forums, you absolutely shouldn’t even discuss this and that with anyone on the base’) had clearly splurged. Six acceleration seats were arranged in a loose semicircle; only mine was currently occupied. Walls in brushed pearl-grey, padded in the spots that needed it and bare alloy in the ones that didn't, with the occasional indicator panel blinking lazy diagnostics. Two wide viewports flanked the cabin, and the one to my left was currently showing nothing but the slow, blue curve of the Earth peeling away from us.The funny thing was, it didn't even feel like a rocket. Rockets, in my head, were supposed to be violent. All roaring engines and rattling bones and the cheerful sense of being strapped to a thing that exploded continuously and very violently to get you as high up as quickly as possible. This one had hummed all the way through ascent. Whatever the locals had cooked up to ferry meat into orbit was a generation or two past Apollo, and trending in some direction I couldn't really place. Clearly, some of the anti-grav tech has been used, but what and how, I had no idea. I gave up trying to make sense of this world’s nerd stuff. Above me, recessed into the ceiling, a narrow screen scrolled telemetry I half-understood. I’ve been given the express training, of course, but the machine was remote-controlled by Vill. Which normally is a huge no-no for space exploration, but considering the only cargo in the rocket is me, and I have access to portals, they decided to go along with it. Yeah, I expected to at least have some fellow astronauts to be scheduled with me, but apparently, Mobius adamantly refused and managed to get me a private jet experience for security and confidentiality concerns. How can one not love the snek woman?“This is so cool,” a voice sounded from the Reality Edge, the spear resting by my seat, and sounding incredibly awed. I, too, was looking into the viewport to our left, and saw the Earth's blue shine growing more distant. “I know, right?” I wondered back, “Never in my life could I have imagined I would actually go to space…” My voice was quiet and reverent, but could you blame me? Sure, I hoped back on my Earth that going to space would eventually become like flying to another country for a vacation, but with each passing year, that felt more and more like a distant dream… and, well, I wasn’t exactly fit enough to be an astronaut. But now I was here. In fucking space.This made my head spin, and my heart beat almost as much as the first time I jumped a few stories high, or when I first punched something made of metal hard enough to make it fly. “I don’t see anything impressive about it,” a voice that sounded the same as Sirin’s, yet also vaguely different, sounded out. It was hard to tell from here, but it actually came from the other side of the spear. “The space we have crossed this far isn’t that significant, nor is there anything explicitly interesting about the orbit of the planet,” she said, and I could practically picture the ex-Herrscher folding her hands on her chest as she put her chin up, the little nerd.“It’s because you never looked at the stars before,” I told her simply, “Looking up there and wondering ‘will I ever be able to visit’? For Sirin, that’s something she probably did before, it’s… It’s something every kid, at every age, in every country does. But for you? It’s an experience you have yet to have. So give it time.” I said, my voice turning softer.“If she ever will,” Sirin mumbled, sounding, as always, bitter.Her ‘sister’ didn’t reply; she rarely did. Slowly, as the days went by, I started to understand what the two were about rather well. Despite being the same creature fundamentally, they were two different people. Sirin was the girl who lived her life in Belarus, until suddenly, her world ended. Understandably, she hated the other one. Understandably, she also was a bit… absent most of the time. If anything, I was surprised by how cheerful and energetic she was when we did speak. From a person who lost everything and everyone… You would expect more bitterness and anger at the world. But the kid seemed to be almost incapable of it. Except for her views on the other one - the Herrscher.The Herrscher, on the other hand, was very much a child too; despite her attempts to speak seriously, coldly, and emotionlessly, she was still mostly limited by the knowledge Sirin had in life, and it showed. No matter what she tried to show outwardly, she clearly had genuine feelings now and seemed unwilling to talk about them. That said, she wasn’t antagonistic beyond surface-level pointed remarks; those were merely her ways to initiate conversations. And each time Sirin lashed out at her, she went all quiet. I can only assume she felt guilty. But when I tried bringing it up, she brushed me off.Most of the time, the duo was asleep. I woke them up occasionally, and sometimes they woke up by themselves.Having a talking spear was incredibly weird - first time a voice sounded out when I was fighting some minor outbreak in the Philippines, and I almost dropped the spear. But I wasn’t quite Dante, and those two were kids, not genuine demons, so I didn’t have it in myself to tell them to shut up. I did promise to show them as much of the world as I could after all.Hence, this.“HQ,” I said, pressing a small button on the device in front of me, “How long until docking?” I unpressed the button and enjoyed the silence.I actually knew that microphones here weren’t active when they weren’t needed to be - mostly because the space control people brought over to help with the mission weren’t actually M.O.T.H. personnel, and she didn’t want me to ramble too much in front of them. “Knightmare, the initial approach will be in T-12 minutes, do you receive?” asked a voice of some unfamiliar man.“Loud and clear, over.” I unpressed the button before glancing back at the Reality Edge. “Well, girls, we have about twelve more minutes. Anything you want to talk about?”“Oh-ooh!” Immediately, Sirin sounded excited, which brought a smile to my face despite myself, “About Dante, tell me more about him!” she asked excitedly.It was a story I sort of did a re-telling for in front of her and the ‘Void’, and unexpectedly, Sirin got hooked on the unintentional story time. My goal was to just impact on them the potential dangers of being demons, but it ended up becoming a story time about the adventures of a cool demon hunter uncle called Dante.I also ran out of game plot and even the old anime, and was inventing some just to keep Sirin entertained. I wonder if that Netflix show would’ve been worth sharing if I stayed alive long enough to watch it.Then again, it was Netflix; chances are, it was massacred worse than Castlevania. Luckily, this time I wasn’t completely unprepared. Because while I ran out of the stories with the plot of actual DMC games…“Did I ever tell you about that time Dante was summoned into another universe, kinda like me?” I asked, knowing full well I didn’t.“No, you didn’t!” Sirin replied excitedly, “How did that happen?!”“It involved something called infinity stones, the dark kingdom, and the villainous robot called Altron,” I said grandiosely, honestly, barely remembering the plot of that fighting game I watched the cutscenes of once.What stuck to me the most was Dante playing an actual story lore, and Spider-Man rizzing an actual succubus. “...it went like this…” And so I started to tell the story of the game, half making it up, half genuinely retelling it.Before we even reached the station, I felt Reality Edge drift off to sleep. It seems I will not be able to show any of them space this time around.***Docking, getting greeted in the station by very awkward actual astronauts, and being directed to a place set up for the gap was a fun experience. Funnier still, it was made by the presence of the super-cursed fumo, who sat silently on my palm even now, as I watched crates being hauled over through the stable portal.They weren’t transparent. Gaps, I mean. The ‘gaps’ very much reminded me of the depiction in the art I’ve seen of Yukari, being archways into total darkness, with a stylish red bow on both sides of them. It’s another thing that if you step into the darkness, you step out from the other side instantly; there wasn’t any transition. But the portal itself wasn’t see-through. Now the entire block of the space station was transformed into one giant portal - two meters in height. It was actually eating up substantially more of my mana, keeping it open like this. Which meant it ate up much more power from the Fumo too, as my energy merely went into it to compensate for its own expenditures. “I’ll make it up to you,” I promised the literal doll, “Just keep it open like that for an hour if you can. I’ll ask them to let us make the portals smaller next time.”Obviously, the Fumo didn’t reply in any way, nor did it display its agreement, but I liked to think I pacified some of its concerns. “Wow…” I blinked, as a familiar pink figure stepped past the portal… and started to float. Immediately, astronauts panicked. “Wha-”“This wasn’t in the protocol!”“Lady, you can’t be here without wearing a protective suit!”Well, the last guy was wrong, I too was just wearing my shadow armour that I had taken the appearance of the astronaut suit. Still, seeing that she just barged in like this…“Ah, Knightmare!” She waved at me, immediately trying to ‘swim through the air’ towards me. “A little help!”I turned away, pretending I couldn’t see her.“Hey!” A cry out from the one betrayed. Then, from the portal behind, “And where do you think you're going, you menace?” A familiar snek voice. “You aren’t authorized to set foot in there yet!” Mobius leaned halfway through the portal, looking apocalyptically pissed.“But it’s space!” Elysia whined, “I’ve never been to space! It’s probably, like, the only place on Earth I haven’t been to!” She outstretched her hand towards me, “You get me, Knightmare, right?! You already stole going to space first from me! Help!!” I merely inclined my head in a sorrowful show of pity and regret.“I am sorry Ely, if only I were a little bit faster… for you to die like this, in her coils, with me being just a bit too slow to help…” I wiped out tears from my eyes, which I could also create on demand, with my ‘cosmetic changes’ power. “I am so sorry we had to lose you so young, just when she stepped outside of Earth’s confines, only to be sucked in… due to all the extra padding weighing you down…” I said, shooting a glance at her tummy.“You are not fuunyyy~!” She whined as she was snatched out of the portal, screaming dramatically like a horror-movie actress. Show off. Mobius couldn’t have moved her at all if she weren’t willing to be moved.“Anyway, I probably should go too,” I said, pushing off the wall and drifting towards the portal, “Would’ve loved to bother you guys for a suit and some time outside the station, but I’ve actually been instructed not to do that, unless I want to subside on instant ramen until the day I die,” I told them honestly, slowing down a bit before the portal using the rails, and glancing at the man and the women directly in front, “Once again, it was genuinely amazing meeting you guys. When you are back on solid land, hit me up, least I can do is buy you a drink or a few.”The man cleared his throat, professional persona visibly clicking back into place."...You take care of yourself, Knightmare, sir," he said carefully, in the tone of a guy who had been lectured just as much as me, except about what he was not supposed to ask about. "Safe travels back.""Same to you guys," I echoed warmly."I'll, ah. Take you up on the drink," one of the women added, a touch faster than the other two probably appreciated. She didn't seem to care. "...once I'm earthside again.""You got it," I gave her a thumbs up and pushed off the rail toward the portal, "first round is on me, and then I'll bother you about your actual job for the rest of the evening. Fair warning."The third astronaut didn't say anything. She was still staring at the spot where Mobius had been, eyes a little glazed. Couldn't say I blamed her. They were fed some horseshit about this actually being a technology of some sort and had signed multiple NDAs like everyone here, but… You can swallow only so much bullshit before you start a Vill-incident.After the awkward goodbye, I floated through the portal and would’ve fallen pathetically on my face on the other side if not for my inhuman reflexes.“Well, would you look at that!” I said loudly, attracting the attention of Mobius, who was currently signing some leaflets next to a few guys standing with a lot of crates. The woman shot me a glance, I gave her a thumbs up, “See, no explosions, and the world didn’t end! And you were so worried!”Suddenly, all the lights in the building turned red.A siren wailed. “Warning, warning, Eruption detected, this is not a drill.” In everyone’s defence, people immediately broke into activity, as Mobius shouted out orders about emergency portal-closing protocol and that all should go to their stations for this situation.…well, fuck me sideways, this was some legendary timing. At least Mobius isn’t the type to bring it up.Suddenly, a hand landed on my shoulder from behind.“That’s really impressive,” Elysia asked with an incredibly sweet smile, “Letting my first time in space go to waste, and now this. You must have angered God, Knightmare, either that, or Karma truly does exist!” she said, the only thing betraying that she was fucking with me was the subtle curve of her lip, where she couldn’t hold back the kind smile from morphing into an expression to hold back a snicker.“Don’t sneak into portals you were explicitly forbidden from entering next time,” I said, pinching her cheek and tagging on it, ignoring her ‘ow-ow-ow’. “That type of protocol breach will get the command to make the rules more anal for all of us, you dumbo,” I let her go with a sigh, “Let’s go, we have our own battlestation.” I said, morphing my ‘space suit’ into pitch-black clothes I usually wear for battles nowadays.Elysia immediately got serious, nodding shortly.“This time we’ll do it,” she told me resolutely, placing a hand on my chest, “I promise, it won’t be anything like the Herrscher of the Void.”Only then did I notice the slight tremble in my hand. I nodded back, gratefully. It was showtime. I am ready. I can do this. ---Author Notes: My usual beta was away for a week or so, and the chapter was re-written a couple of times, hence the delay. But I think the end product is pretty good.