Odfrir, Nord Mercenary
Returning home after all this time was meant to be a joyous occasion. One in which I’d figure out which of my old friends still lived in Helgen, drank some good old juniper mead once again until we were all well and truly drunk and then I’d repeat that for a couple days until I’d inevitably want to wander again and see just who’d be willing to hire me for protection. With the civil war going on, I’d been so damn sure I’d make a fortune off of merchants.
I hadn’t thought I’d get caught by an imperial ambush near the border instead and now I’d still returned to Helgen. It’s just that, rather than returning home on foot, I got driven there in a carriage and been given a death sentence just for accidentally happening upon the Stormcloaks.
The dragon wasn’t much of a salvation and I felt a burning fury as the beast tore buildings apart and burnt them to cinders but I wasn’t stupid enough to stay still when the gods had granted me a chance to survive, however terrible a form it may have taken. As such, I ran and jumped and generally tried to make my way through the rubble so I could escape.
Except, just as the dragon landed on a wall near me and was about to breathe fire, I saw reality crack and shatter and the sight of what laid beyond the fabric of what I knew stopped me in my tracks.
As a girl more beautiful than any I’d seen before exited the gap, flame swept over me and turned me to ash, my last thoughts holding naught but knowledge I couldn’t retain and that singular vision of beauty.
Missy
‘That’s a dragon.’ My eyes took in the massive black dragon that encompassed most of my field of view after travelling to a new world and I froze in fear for a moment. I came from a world in which the only true dragon anyone had ever seen had been Kamish. Even if this dragon lacked the front legs that Kamish had had, one of the strongest monsters ever in our world had been a dragon and that left an impression.
An impression that saw said dragon burn a man to a crisp before I could even begin to maybe try and protect him. I’d failed at helping people again. Not just that but the guy had been staring at me as he’d died so I might’ve even distracted him from running away!
Lashing out with my aura, I distorted the space of part of that dragon’s neck, tearing some off it apart despite how quickly the dragon retreated.
“Joor, hi fod ni lost nos zu’u. Dir nu!” The dragon said something in a language I couldn’t understand. Then came some words I couldn’t really understand because the monster breathed fire at me while it said them.
Had the fire been slower, I could’ve dodged. Instead, I had to desperately bend space to not end up like the guy who’d just died and I could still feel the immense heat it emitted despite the distance I’d put between it and me.
Swallowing, I had to really ask myself how smart of a decision it’d been to just attack the dragon and piss it off in the process. There’d have been easier ways to doom myself.
Ignoring my doubts, I took out my lightsaber and activated it just as I extended the space the blade would soon occupy. Only, the dragon’s scales weren’t even scratched by the plasma blade. In fact, the dragon laughed at me and swiped its wings at me as if they were claws.
‘I have to hit him with my semblance.’ I thought to myself while dodging the attack. If plasma didn’t work, Aegis Sword probably wouldn’t do much more.
Running towards him didn’t take me long and the monster looked at me almost contemptuously while I threw as much aura as I could at it before activating my semblance, distorting the space of its entire neck. “Feim Zii Gron!” The words the dragon shouted just before I could hopefully kill it echoed right down to my bones and, looking on as the dragon turned transparent and its neck somehow remained attached, I felt as if there were a pit in my stomach.
Apparently, the monster had been capable of surviving my spatial distortions this entire time.
“Yol Toor Shul!” This time, I could hear what it said as it used its fire breath due to being close enough.
Being close enough also meant not having time to dodge and, after seeing it taking my only shot at hurting it without even flinching, I decided to just run away the same way I’d come here. I hated it, though. Hated having to flee when one guy might’ve already died because my entrance to this world had surprised him. Hated having to leave this monster behind to kill and burn more of this town.
But what choice did I have? He could negate my semblance, my lightsaber couldn’t hurt him, Aegis Sword wouldn’t stand a chance and my spatial magic would need him to not kill me.
And warping did work. Except, my right arm got hit with flames in the process, melting my armour on it as well as breaking my aura and scorching my flesh. I screamed as I left this world before the rest of me could be enveloped by the flames.
As soon as I hit the floor of my room in Lily’s castle, I fell to my knees, continuing to scream from the sheer agony until I lost consciousness.
Lily
Missy had been hurt. Badly hurt, even. Badly enough that I was torn between worry and sheer fury at whatever had dared to hurt her to such a degree, pacing in her room after a maid had administered a soda and then rushed to inform me.
I was restless as I simply waited for my twin to regain her consciousness so I could learn what had to die a most painful death.
If not for my decision to hold off on selling the sodas until I had a stockpile large enough for every maid to carry one of those in case of an emergency on top of each guild member getting ten and the maid charged with getting new sodas, Missy wouldn’t even have been healed yet.
‘I need to calm down.’ I told myself, forcing myself to remember that Missy was fine for now and my time was better spent getting stronger to make sure I could actually get the retribution I desired than to pace around as if that’d make Missy wake up faster.
“Tell me as soon as she wakes up.” I told the catgirl maid that had found and treated my sister. ‘Ayumi. Her name’s Ayumi.’ She’d earnt having me address her by her name, at least.
“I will, Lady Lilian.” She promised, bowing low before me.
She brightened up as I nodded after her head rose again and then I left for my own room so I could continue to nourish my zanpakuto and practice my reiryoku manipulation. After all, I had been considering making Missy the leader of her own raid squad now that she had a powerful offensive option so anything that could hurt her like that was dangerous.
‘Missy also needs a zanpakuto.’ I had neglected giving her one because I had yet to get my hands on a second asauchi but, really, getting one of those was probably not all that hard. Meditate on it with the Force, warp and grab one. That should’ve been all that was required. Sure, there was some risk of getting caught but it was much lower than the risk of getting caught while trying to rob someone in Star Wars or similarly advanced worlds.
The quincy in Seireitei’s shadows were more likely to notice my little robbery than the shinigami themselves, especially since I could, by now, just prevent my reiryoku from leaking and supernatural energies that didn’t leave my body could be sensed exactly as well as I myself could be sensed through the Force.
Still, it’d likely be safer for me to help someone out in that world and hope that I’d get a second asauchi for my troubles. My duties in this world made it difficult for me to just leave for relatively long periods of time but, well, I was a masterful teacher. Offering Ichigo my assistance in his training – especially considering the fact that I’d given him aura – should count for helping him save Rukia.
It’d also make the chaos in that world more entertaining. Aura in Ichigo and mana in Urahara should cause some wonderful chaos. And, speaking of Urahara’s mana, I might as well teach him some more gravity sorcery while I’m at it.
…But not now. Not while I was still waiting for Missy to wake up again. Not when I might miss the moment she woke up if I left now.
Besides, it was only a couple hours from midnight now. Soon, I’d gain another power from the Grimoire. I just had to pass some time by refining my skills as Missy rested.
Benevolence: Never Felt the Need to Drink Blood; 600 CP, 800 CP left
Something about you makes it so that you never feel the weaknesses, hunger, or needs that come to characterize your races to a great extent. It may be a stiff upper lip, great will or simply something special about your genetic makeup. As a vampire you would not need to drink blood, could walk in the sun and would take no special damage from stakes, holy symbols or silver. This carries forward to any other race you are, removing weaknesses, and letting you replace whatever special source of food/energy you metabolize with eating normal human food in normal human amounts at no change in strength or speed of power growth.
Well, that was certainly worth the wait. Even if, right now, my only ‘races’ were Traveler and whatever I counted as after copying the traits of Ichigo’s soul with my own and I was unsure whether or not there were any real weaknesses in those races since Ichigo certainly didn’t share the quincies’ weakness to hollows, the Grimoire had several races in it and having the ability to get the positives of those without the downsides sounded pretty good to me.
This ability meant that the Transformations category of powers in the Grimoire wouldn’t be problematic should I get something from it.
A knock on my door interrupted my thoughts on how useful this power would eventually be. “Come in.” I ordered, hoping that this meant what I wanted it to.
And, as I’d thought, Ayumi entered with a smile on her lips, “Lady Missy is awake.”
“Thank you.” I conveyed my gratitude before rushing out of my room as quickly as my feet could carry me. It was only the trust in the sodas the Grimoire had given me an unlimited supply of that I didn’t use enough force to shatter the stone beneath my feet.
It was unsightly. Inelegant beyond belief. Entirely inappropriate in this beautiful home of mine.
It was the only thing keeping me focused on things other than that endless pit of worry in my heart or the cold fury that would see whatever had harmed my sister like that die a slow and painful death.
Running in combat was already something I rarely did because I enjoyed knowing that I beat down my enemies and looked elegant doing it. Because of it, I preferred taking to the skies instead. Minimal, efficient, beautiful movements were what I aimed for at all times and yet all that careful calculation didn’t survive Missy’s injuries for even a second.
I felt a bitter laugh bubbling up in my throat at the realization that all my pretences were torn away so easily but swallowed it down as I crossed the doorway to Missy’s room, High Probability once again being used to make sure that she was completely healed. She also looked as if she were about to cry and that was enough to force me into putting effort my self-control again.
My twin needed a stable sister. Not someone who was about one misstep away from committing genocide and/or throwing an extremely violent temper tantrum.
“What happened?” “Are you okay?” I debated asking either question but, looking at her, sensing her presence in the Force, those questions felt redundant. Instead, I walked towards her as quickly as I could and wrapped my arms around her. “I’m glad you’re okay,” wasn’t an acceptable thing to say, either. Not when she started crying moments afterwards. “Things’ll be alright.” That was better and a promise I was willing to make.
She babbled incoherently as she cried and, curious though I was, I didn’t ask her to repeat anything. I could do that after she’d gotten back some semblance of control over emotions.
No, I just let her cry and vent all those feelings that were weighing her down while patting her back comfortingly. Throughout it all, I worried that I was messing something, anything up because comforting someone was something I remained miserable at but, perhaps, I had managed to stumble my way onto doing well for once.
For nearly half an hour, this continued and what little I understood of her words was enough to paint a picture that was problematic.
I had fully expected things to go terribly in Star Wars. The Republic was rotten in too many places. More Senators were corrupt than I could be bothered to name, several parts of it were so tired of the Republic as a concept that they’d rather leave it entirely and that alone would’ve been enough to give rise to an independence movement. Dooku was merely making use of it.
In an ideal world, things such as governments, currencies or armies wouldn’t have been needed at all for things to go perfectly well. In a flawed world, one needed all of those and a system for rooting out corruption that those in power were usually quite unlikely to implement and which would also need to be rendered free of corruption for things to not turn to shit.
The Republic failed itself. It would inevitably fall apart on its own simply due to the nature of it. That a sith had been Supreme Chancellor was merely a symptom of the rot, not the cause.
‘But can’t it die without making Missy feel bad about it?’ I complained to myself. Mind you, I was definitely partially at fault for this. In hindsight, I should’ve guessed that Missy wouldn’t be happy for me to have done as she’d asked and watch the chaos as the coming war would become entertaining for me.
Except, part of me still couldn’t comprehend the fact that Missy cared so much about saving those people. Sure, I knew humans generally wanted to do what they believed to be good but my personal mindset was entirely selfish. Myself and my loved ones were all that mattered and the rest were irrelevant. I’d neither doom nor save them unless I found it to be entertaining.
And, slowly but surely, Missy’s demands were becoming quite bothersome. I was not even a decent saviour, much less a perfect one.
That she had yet to blame me for how things went was the primary reason why I wasn’t upset at her.
It was still tiresome to essentially be told that I should’ve done better. She requested for me to give the jedi a sith and I did so despite said sith being the head of the government. Somehow preventing the entire crisis that was going to occur no matter what was not what I’d been asked to do and would’ve taken more time than I was ever willing to invest into a mortal government that’d fall apart at some point, anyways.
If she’d wanted a better result, she should’ve spent the decades or centuries required to improve the Republic only for the damn thing to likely show the exact same patterns of corruption that showed up in every single civilization I could find records of the moment she turned her eyes from it.
I had once dreamt of an ideal world. Then I’d looked at history and seen that, time and time again, civilizations would fall to corruption and infighting and all kinds of other stupid decisions.
I loved my sister with all my heart but there was no one for whom I’d try to create an ideal society. Those dreams died long ago and the effort I’d have to go through to resurrect and enact them was not worth it.
Still, I didn’t voice any of those thoughts. Instead, I just listened as Missy bemoaned how she failed to help anyone by removing the sith in charge as if he had been the cause of all evil in that world.
And I stayed silent as Missy described going to another world, running away from the realization of her failure and seeking a distraction only to find a dragon burning a town. A black dragon that burnt a town in which there were men in red and blue armours. A dragon that was immune to lightsabers and spoke as it breathed fire and turned intangible.
‘Alduin,’ Thoughts of retribution didn’t flee me but they were pushed into the far future. Even assuming that having just returned from his fight against the first Tongues and their Dragonrend shout would’ve left him somewhat weakened, he was likely already beginning to recover and the World Eater was not a creature I could slay easily.
There was still a chance that I was wrong but everything Missy described sounded a whole lot like Alduin’s attack on Helgen.
‘If Missy was present, there’s a chance the Dragonborn died.’ My twin and I were, after all, without a Fate of our own. Merely interacting with other worlds would throw them off-course due to our existence as foreign entities. And the Dragonborn likely survived Helgen because of the prophecy that was in play or, at the very least, that was a reasonable explanation for someone with bound hands surviving the chaos that was the first dragon attack in centuries or millenia. ‘In that case, Skyrim and, potentially, all of Tamriel is doomed.’
I’d have to go and check because, if the Dragonborn remained alive, I wanted to copy the qualities of their soul. The Thu’um was a tool that would be useful beyond belief if I could get my hands on it and being a Dragonborn was the easiest path towards acquiring it.
It would also let me get my revenge on Alduin.
But, for now, I had more important things to do than potential schemes that all depended on that world truly being Nirn. “You did your best, Missy.” I reassured her. “If that dragon was so strong, it’s not your fault that you couldn’t beat him. You did your best and maybe you fighting him for a bit gave some people the time they needed to run away!”
“But it wasn’t enough!” Missy shouted at me, her desire to be a hero once again overwhelming her common sense.
Resisting the urge to sigh, I instead forced myself to smile at her, “Missy, we’re young. We have a literal eternity to get better. So you failed to save some people now. Just get better and save some people next time. If you keep thinking about the failures, you’re not going to improve and won’t manage to save anyone next time, either.” The words weren’t comforting but I believed that Missy needed to hear them.
Better she learn to let go of failures now than continue to weep about them. It was understandable that she still reacted that way, in all honesty. We’d barely had our magic for a bit more than a month and, while I’d taken to it like a fish to water, Missy had not. She wished to be a hero and that was a dream that was so terrible that I could only hope she’d abandon it because I wasn’t capable of telling her to drop it.
“Not all of us can just not care about people dying on them!” Missy argued, anger seeping into her tone.
I felt some of my anger bubbling up to the surface at the reminder of our last argument but suppressed it in time before I could talk myself into indulging it. “Then mourn them however you want to. But, unless you want to have to go through this over and over again, you just have to take your time and get better before you’re in a situation like that again. And I don’t think you’re in the right mental state to improve your skills right now.”
Missy slumped in response, “Can…Can we just not? Not now, at least.”
“Sure.” I had said what I felt I needed to. Everything else was up to her. “What else do you want to talk about?”
“…Your powers. What are they? All of them.” Missy questioned.
“What’s it matter? The answer’ll change soon, anyways.” I replied, trying to figure out why she suddenly wanted to know about that when she’d been content to ignore it before.
“I just want to know what you can do.” She told me.
I sighed in response. “Missy, I can tell you right now that I’m not going to run around helping people just because you’d like me to. Heroism is what you want. I’m the one who is content to use all the worlds’ flaws to my advantage. So, if you want to know my powers to figure out some way I can use them to help people, I’m going to tell you right now it isn’t going to happen. I love you but I will never dedicate myself to helping people.”
‘With great power comes great responsibility’ was a sentence that was intrinsically poisonous in my opinion. I had no responsibility just because I had power. There was no great being out there which declared ‘if you’re strong, you must help your lessers’ and there certainly was no one out there enforcing such an imaginary rule.
The only responsibilities I’d ever acknowledge were the ones I myself chose to bear. I loved Missy and so I would forever do my best to see her safe and happy but I also loved myself and therefore had to look out for my wellbeing, too.
Sure, Token of Gratitude generally made helping people worth it but only for the big stuff. At least, I strongly assumed that the less important things wouldn’t give useful rewards.
“Then just tell me your powers because I want to know!” Missy’s anger, restrained though it was, told me that I’d hit the nail on the head with my guess. “At the very least, maybe there’s something in there that you can use to help me grow stronger.”
“Of course there is.” I scoffed. “Missy, I’ve been teaching the guild in lectures you were invited to. You should know how great I used to be at teaching.” There’d certainly been more than enough times Missy had asked me for help with homework or class material and I’d been miserable at teaching her. Steps she needed to learn, I found so trivial that I didn’t even consciously acknowledge or do them so how could I possibly have explained them to her?
“So you have some kind of super-teaching power?” She asked, definitely interested now.
I nodded. “Yes. And, if you wish to learn, you just have to ask me. I can teach a whole lot and the number of things I’m good at is only increasing.”
“Then teach me.” Missy demanded as soon as I’d finished making my offer. “You don’t want to help me help others? Fine, but then I at least want to be as good as I can be for it.” There was a fiery passion in her gaze now that I liked seeing a lot more than the depression that’d clung to her before now.
“Very well. You start your training tomorrow, then.” And I’d probably hand over Token of Gratitude as soon as I was certain she wouldn’t use that as an excuse to throw herself into more and more dangerous situations while trying to make herself feel good about saving people. “Now, how about we play some games together?”
“Sure.” Missy replied as if she weren’t still bothered by all the weight she was only starting to lift off herself. “Just don’t complain when I kick your ass.”
“Please, as if you could defeat me.” Considering how much random chance was involved in the games we usually played, there was actually a decent chance of her winning. I just found it funny to act like this.
And Missy knew I was just joking, rolling her eyes with a bit less sadness being left in them afterwards.
Maybe the best comfort I could offer wasn’t the harsh reality but instead a distraction that kept her too busy, too entertained to think.
I have just one thing to say before ending this chapter: Lily does a lot of lying to herself for someone who’d claim she doesn’t do it at all if asked. Do with that as you will
Anyways, hope you enjoyed and let me know if you have any feedback