Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was raining. That wasn’t a good sign.

Foolish frowned, looking out the window of Leonarda’s bedroom. The sky was dark grey, the waves of the ocean crashing as thunder roared. Quite the storm, nothing like Quesadilla Island’s usual warm weather and calm seas. This was usually the sign of a code attack… Etoiles was probably off somewhere, battling away with one in a field or arena or something, attempting to finally kill it.

He had been about to wake Leo, but maybe he’d let her sleep a bit longer. If there was danger of a code monster lurking around now wasn’t the time to head out and do tasks. Hopefully the weather would calm a bit later and he would wake her then.

Well, with his plans to focus on tasks ruined, what to do with the day ahead? Maybe he could see if Jaiden’s awake and hang out with her? Or maybe he should push past his procrastination and work a little more on the Titan-

… Was that yelling he could hear outside?

The voices sounded very distant, he couldn’t make out what they were saying. The muffled sound only occasionally broke through the thunder. And they weren’t coming from further into the island but out on the sea.

Foolish looked again out the window at the ocean, eyes widening in surprise. There was a boat. Not a small rowboat or motorboat like the island residents used to traverse the island, but a full on old-school sailing ship. Made of wood, with large sails, a jolly roger flag, and a figurehead that looked like a weird pink octopus. It was visibly struggling on the waves, drifting dangerously close to the bridges that ran out from the train station. Foolish couldn’t see much on the boat from where he was standing, but he occasionally caught sight of a few figures moving quickly around on the deck. They were probably frantically trying to turn around; the current and wind were pushing the ship straight towards the island’s shore. If it didn’t turn soon, it’d crash straight into the rocks behind the train station, just like the Brazilian’s cargo boat had.

Foolish grabbed his backpack, slinging it on as he ran to the elevator block in the centre of the room. He swiftly took it down to the bottom floor, running out of his dragon tower, instantly soaked by the pouring rain. It was honestly rather refreshing for the part-shark, who quickly ran down to the shore to get a closer look.

Efforts to turn the ship seemed to be fruitless. The only success it had was in finally driving the mast of the boat right into the side of one of the bridges. It creaked, the wood beginning to split and break. One of the figures aboard had been up in the crow’s nest, and as the mast began to topple, they leapt out, diving almost effortlessly into the water. 

Foolish’s eyes widened. With how high the waves were, that person would drown for sure. Even Foolish himself would struggle to swim through that, and he had fins built for swimming.

The ship, now dragging a limp mast and useless sail, continued to careen towards the rocky shore. It was finally growing close enough that Foolish could make out what the voices aboard were yelling.

“How am I supposed to know what to do?!”

“You’re the plan guy, right?! You always say you have a plan!”

“I’m trying to turn, Jay, what more do you want from me?!”

“It’s clearly not working! If we don’t do anything, we’re gonna get smashed against a bunch of rocks!”

“But... Oh fuck it, we’re jumping!”

“What?! We can’t swim in that, we’ll drown!”

“You wanted me to tell you what to do, so I’m telling you! Besides, Gill’s down there, I’m sure he can grab us! Look, Jay, it’s that or the rocks, and I think we have less of a chance against the rocks! C’mon, Ollie, take my hand, let's go!”

“Chip, I don’t- CHIP!”

Two more figures leapt off of the ship, one much shorter than the other, both plunging less stylishly into the sea. There was a moment of hesitation, before one final figure jumped as well, just before the ship finally slammed into land, the wood of the hull ripped open by the rocks.

Foolish’s eyes glanced across the waves, looking for any sign of the four who had jumped from the boat. Nothing.

Well, they were dead.

Foolish turned, about to walk back home. This would at least be an interesting story to tell the rest of the islanders-

“Hey!” Cough! “G-gold guy on the shore! A little help?!”

Foolish turned back to the ocean. To his surprise, he was met with all four of the people who had jumped off the boat alive and conscious, now afloat over the choppy waves. They had swum a lot closer and Foolish could see them more clearly, and it became pretty obvious why they weren’t drowning. Three of the people seemed to be regular humans, but the fourth had bright blue skin, green hair decorated with a crown of coral, and fins instead of ears - they were part fish, even more so than Foolish himself. The fish man had his very strong looking arms wrapped around the three humans, holding them up above the surface as he kicked his legs and swished his tail, moving away from the most dangerous waves.

It was one of the three humans who had called out to Foolish. He had brown hair, kind of long, shaggily cut. He was tightly holding what seemed to be a young teenage boy, only about 12 years old - though perhaps this boy wasn’t human, as he had pointed elf-like ears. The final human was a woman with long red hair. All three were breathing deeply, occasionally coughing, regaining their breath.

“You gonna keep staring or are you gonna do something?!” the man yelled again.

“Oh, yeah! Sorry! Uh… Oh, I know!” Foolish pulled off his backpack, rummaging around inside. Where was it… Ah ha! He pulled out his grappling squok. Once he had his aim lined up, he pulled the trigger, and a tentacle fired out, slapping into the water right in front of the three. “Grab on!”

The fish man let the other three grab onto the tentacle first before letting go of them and grabbing it himself. Once Foolish was sure they all had a firm grasp, he pressed the trigger to retract the tentacle. It rapidly pulled back, yanking the four swiftly from the sea to the shore. They clearly weren’t ready to be pulled at such speed, letting out yelps before falling face first to the ground at Foolish’s feet.

“You’re welcome!” Foolish grinned. “You guys good?”

“No…” the human man groaned as he pushed himself up, only to fall back to his knees as he turned to look at the boat that was still being rammed over and over into the rocks by the waves, the hole in its hull only growing larger. “My ship…”

“Thanks for helping us out there,” the woman said to Foolish as she got to her feet, while the fish man helped up the teenage boy. “I don’t know if even Gill could have swam us safely to the shore with those waves…”

“Hey, it’s no problem! Sorry for the rough landing, though, can’t exactly control the speed of these things.” Foolish put his squok away in his bag. “Anyway, uh, I’m Foolish. Welcome to Quesadilla Island! Nice to have some new faces around here, it’s been a while.”

“Oh, there’s no need to be so hard on yourself, don’t call yourself foolish!” the fish man protested, a reassuring smile on his face, resting a very wet hand on Foolish’s shoulder. “You did the best you could to rescue us, and it is very much appreciated.”

“No, uh, I wasn’t talking bad about myself, I was introducing myself. That’s my name, I go by Foolish.”

The teenager frowned up at him. “Your parents named you that? Did they, like, hate you?”

Before Foolish could think of a witty comeback to the kid, the fish man interrupted, “I’m sorry for the confusion. It’s very nice to meet you, Foolish, and thank you again for saving us!” He took Foolish’s hand and firmly shook it. Foolish winced a little - the fish man’s hand somehow felt even wetter than it should be after just being dragged out of the ocean. “My name is Gillion Tidestrider. This is Jay Ferin, this is Ollie, and the man crying on the ground is Chip.”

“I’m not crying!” Chip protested, getting to his feet again, before turning to Foolish. “Please tell me there’s someone around here who can fix the Millennium Chipper.”

“The Albatross,” Jay mumbled.

“The boat? I probably could,” Foolish said. “I mostly build statues and buildings, but I’m sure a boat couldn’t be too hard to work out. I’ll have to wait until the weather calms down, though.”

“YES! Oh thank the gods… What’d you say your name was? I wasn’t listening.”

“Foolish.”

“Well, Foolish,” Chip slung his arm around the shark-totem’s shoulders, “thank you so much, it’s really nice of you to agree to fix our boat for free. Now, in the meantime-”

“Hey now, I never said I’d do it for free.” Foolish interrupted, folding his arms. “The only people I build stuff for free for are my daughter and my boyfriend.”

“Oh for fuck- Jay, how much money have you got on you?”

“Wha- why me?!” Jay asked.

“Because all my money was on the ship and Gill’s broke. Come on, Jay, it’s for the Chipper.”

Jay sighed, muttering to herself as she checked her pockets. As she did, Chip turned back to Foolish. “How about we call it five hundred gold, huh?”

“Gold?” Foolish practically snorted. “Please, gold is basically worthless with the Nether closed. It’s diamonds or nothing.”

Chip’s jaw dropped. “Diamonds?! What the fuck- why the hell do you think we’d just be walking around carrying diamonds?!”

Foolish shrugged, a little surprised by Chip’s shocked confusion. Wasn’t mining for diamonds, like, the most normal thing in the world that everyone did? “They’re all over the island, they’re not exactly a rare resource. I’m sure you’ll be able to find some in no time. Hell, if you go visit Etoiles, he’ll probably give you a stack each just as a welcome gift.” This didn’t seem to erase the horror on Chip’s face, and Foolish sighed. “Okay, I’ll go easy. Let’s say a hundred and I’ll fix your boat.”

“A hundred?! No way!”

“Wha- you guys are impossible! That is a low ball given the amount of time and labour I’m gonna have to put in!”

Chip huffed, turning and nodding to Jay and Gillion and taking Ollie’s hand. “Come on, guys, we’re finding someone else to fix the Chipper and getting out of here as soon as possible.”

Foolish blinked, unable to help feeling a little offended as Chip moved passed him. Gillion and Jay followed just behind, Gillion patting Foolish’s shoulder as he went, “Thank you at least for the offer to fix the Albatross.”

Foolish frowned, thinking back to Chip’s words as he watched the three head up the hill behind the shore. He called after them, “You know you can’t leave even if you fix the boat, right?!”

Chip looked back over his shoulder, calling back, “Says who?!”

“AH! PA, HELP!”

The scream came from the distance. A child’s voice. It immediately made Foolish’s blood run cold.

Leonarda.

The storm. There was still a code monster roaming the island.

“LEO!” The four newcomers were instantly forgotten as Foolish took off running in the direction of his daughter’s voice, quickly heading back towards his home. He sped along the coast line, fumbling to grab his sword from his backpack as he approached the dragon tower.

To his horror, he was met with Leonarda facing a code monster. It had backed her into a corner in the bottom floor of Foolish’s tower, preventing her from reaching the door or the elevator up. She was trapped.

The code was reaching into itself, pulling a long green sword from its glitching mass. Leonarda’s eyes widened in horror.

And Foolish was all the way on the other side of the bridge. He desperately tried to speed up, but he knew he’d never reach her in time. 

The code raised its sword.

“NO, LEO-!”

Foolish’s cry was interrupted by a crashing of water, but it wasn’t the choppy ocean waves from outside of the tower he had just entered. Rather, it was a massive wall of water that suddenly formed between Leonarda and the code, reaching right from the floor to the ceiling, wall to wall.

The code monster let out a glitchy screech, jumping back away from the water. It seemed to hesitate, before darting away. It pushed past the stunned Foolish, dealing a bit of damage as it did so, and went to fly out the door-

Except its path was blocked by Gillion Tidestrider. The fish man held a sword and, as Foolish watched, his eyes and the coral in his hair began to glow. His hair floated up like static as his sword began to spark with lightning.

“I am Gillion Tidestrider, Champion of the Undersea, Hero of the Deep, and I will not let you lay a hand upon that child!”

He slashed his sword across the code monster. It let out a piercing screech, its whole form violently glitching as the lightning shot through it.

As soon as the sword was pulled away, the code attempted to stabilise and darted out of the door. The lightning around Gillion’s sword had swiftly disappeared, hair and eyes returning to normal, but he still took a second opportunistic swing at the code as it moved past him,

Through the doorway, Foolish could see Jay and Chip on the bridge just outside, Ollie a safe distance away on the other side. Chip held two swords, swiping at the code as it passed. His first slash missed, but the second successfully struck the code. It darted up and out of Foolish’s sight to get out of Chip’s range, but Jay had drawn a pistol. She aimed and fired a bullet into the sky, presumably in the direction of the fleeing code. Even if she missed, it must have been enough to spook the code and make it fully retreat, as the rain abruptly stopped and the sky shifted from grey to its usual sunny blue.

Gillion sheathed his sword, waving a hand towards the wall of water. With a loud rush, it disappeared, revealing Leonarda. She blinked.

“Eso… fue… asombroso!”

“What the fuck was that…” Foolish muttered, staring wide eyed at Gillion.

“I’m unsure. I’ve never seen a creature like that before… Are you alright, young one?” Gillion turned to Leonarda, kneeling to her height. “Did that creature hurt you?”

“No, estoy bien! Cómo hiciste eso? La espada relámpago fue tan increíble!”

Gillion blinked, before he looked up at Foolish. “Are you able to translate? I don’t believe I know the language she’s speaking.”

“I- you…” Foolish stuttered a little, struggling to form words. “Sh-She said she’s fine, but how the hell did you do that?!”

“Do what?”

“That! With the water and- and the lightning!”

“It’s just magic.” That came from Chip, who shrugged as he and Jay stepped inside.

“Magic? You guys can do magic?!”

“You’ve never seen anyone do magic before?”

“No?! Well, yes but also no- just nothing like that! I’ve seen people, like, enchant armour and weapons with enchanting tables and books, and brew potions and stuff, and I’ve seen objects imbued with magic like books and totems, but I’ve never seen a person just… wave their hands and do magic like that!”

“Oh, I assumed you were of the Undersea as well, given your aquatic features,” Gillion hummed. “I guess not if you’ve never known a magic wielder…”

“Even if he isn’t, it’s weird to go your whole life without seeing someone cast spells,” Jay said. “I mean, magic wielders aren’t exactly uncommon.”

“Aren’t uncommon?” Foolish blinked. “There are, like, thirty people on this island, including a demon, a guy who’s part cucumber, a guy who’s part slime, a guy who’s part spider, multiple people who are part bird, and a lot of kids who are part dragon,” he gestured to Leonarda, who fluttered her wings, “and none of us can do magic like that. Hell, I’m part totem, I’m imbued with magic that makes me immortal! And I can’t do that shit!” He paused. “Wait, actually, the capybaras can fly, I guess that’d have to be magic…?”

Chip, Jay and Gillion didn’t seem to have a response to that, just sharing confused glances. Eventually, though, Chip shook his head, stepping forward, “Well, putting our ability to cast spells aside, Gillion just did you a real big solid there, saving… who I’m guessing is your daughter? I’d say you owe him for that.”

“Oh, no, Chip, I don’t want anything. I was just doing-”

Chip put his hand over Gillion’s mouth, muffling the rest of his words. “Wouldn’t you say fixing up our ship is a suitable reward for helping you out? We can call that even.”

Foolish sighed. He looked down at Leonarda, his precious egg, with not even a scratch. He looked back up at Chip. “Fine, I’ll fix it for you. I don’t know how long it’ll take, though - as I said, I’ve never built a ship like that before.”

Chip grinned, taking Foolish’s hand and shaking it. “A rough ship is better than a broken one.”

“Should I call Caspian?” Gillion asked. “Let him know we got a little sidetracked and will be late meeting them at All-Port?”

“Oh, nah, don’t do it yet. Let Foolish see the damage first so he can give us a timeframe. And who knows, the storm might have pushed us closer and we’ll still get there on schedule. Besides, I don’t want Lizzie knowing we crashed, I’ll never hear the end of it…”

“You know, what I said earlier still applies,” Foolish said, stepping forward. “Even if I fix your boat, you can’t leave the island. You guys won’t be heading anywhere when it's done.”

“What do you mean? There’s literally nothing stopping us from just sailing out of here. I mean, we saw when we sailed in, the ocean’s completely open.”

“Yeah, and that’s all there is for literally thousands of kilometres. This island’s at Point Nemo, the point in the ocean farthest from any land. And travelling by a sailing boat? Even if you get off the island, it’s gonna be a really long journey to get to any kind of civilization.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense…” Jay frowned. “How can we be that far from anywhere? We only got back on the ocean a couple of hours ago, we physically can’t have travelled that far from land in that amount of time. And- and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ‘Point Nemo’ on a map of Mana! Where the hell are we and how did we get here?”

Foolish shrugged. “Look, I woke up on a random train that I don’t remember even getting on and it brought me here. Same with everyone else. You’re asking the same questions we all did when we arrived. But really, they don’t even matter, because you’re never going back to wherever you came from! Even if you were up for making the long journey back to land, the Federation won’t let you leave the borders of the island.”

“The Federation?”

“They’re the organisation that runs this whole place. They originally brought a bunch of us here for, like, a vacation package thing, but then we broke the only rule they gave us, and now we can never ever leave the island as punishment. And everyone who’s arrived since is trapped here too, including you guys. So it’s better you spend your time settling in and getting comfy rather than working out where home is.”

“Or, alternatively, you can take us to the head of this ‘Federation’, and we shall destroy them and free everyone trapped here!” Gillion grinned.

“It’s not that-”

Foolish was interrupted by a yelp from outside. Chip’s head instantly snapped to look. “Ollie, are you okay?!”

“Y-yeah!” the boy’s voice yelled from outside. “But there’s this weird bear thing that snuck up on me and now it's just staring creepily!”

“Hahaha.”

“Speaking of the Federation… Hey, Cucurucho!” Foolish took Leonarda’s hand, pulling his egg with him as he led the way outside. They all went across the bridge to where Ollie was standing with a familiar white bear with a speaker in its chest. “Guys, this is Cucurucho, they work for the Federation.” Foolish noticed Gillion reaching for his sword, and quickly added, “He’s not the head! He’s a higher up, yeah, but he’s not the leader. Just trust me and don’t attack him, okay?”

Gillion pouted, but resheathed his sword.

“I am a part of the QSMP Census Bureau. I would like to ask you some questions.” Cucurucho held three books with quills, passing them to Chip, Jay and Gillion.

“Oh, yeah, they do this for everyone when they arrive. Just write the answers to his questions in your books.”

“What is your name?” Cucurucho asked as they all opened the blank books. As they wrote, Foolish read their answers over their shoulders.

Chip

Jay Ferin

Gillion Tidestrider, Champion of the Undersea, Hero of the Deep, The One, Pigeon Lord, Warrior of Rock and Roll, Singer/Songwriter of Gillion and the Tidestrider’s hit single “The Hole in Your Heart”, Moisture Master, Horse Tamer, Loffinlot Liberator, Paramount Champion, Chum of Chibo and Chums, Knighter of Julian that one time, Defenestrator of the Adulterous, Eater of Grass, Beater of Ass, Fishy- (Gillion then ran out of room and on the page).

“What is your age?”

19

21

22

“What was your occupation?”

The three of them all wrote the same thing for this one: Co-Captain of the Riptide Pirates.

“Wait, you guys are pirates? Like, actual proper pirates?” Foolish asked.

“Yeah?” Chip said. “What, the boat with the jolly roger didn’t clue you in on that?”

“Not really. I mean, I didn’t think pirates were, like, still a thing anymore.”

“Not a thing anymore? Jeez, between that and not knowing any magic wielders, what rock have you been living under…”

“Where did you work at?”

The ocean??? I guess???

Aboard the Albatross

Wherever destiny leads

“What do you like doing for fun?”

Fucking shit up and stealing stuff

Hanging out with the crew

Exercising and training with Pretzel

“That is all. Thank you for your cooperation.” Cucurucho reached out, taking all the books and putting them away in their inventory. They then pulled out four communicators, handing them to Foolish. “Can you please instruct your fellow islanders on setting up their communicators.”

“Oh yeah, of course. No problem.”

Cucurucho nodded. “I hope you enjoy the island.” They turned, and walked away.

“They’re creepy… Why didn’t they have me fill out one of those books?” Ollie asked.

“Probably because you’re just a kid. Chip, gimme your wrist.” Foolish switched on the first communicator. “This watch is a communicator. It lets you message everyone else on the island, either publicly or you can ‘whisper’ and send private messages. It also has a map of the island on it, and a translation tool. People speak a lot of different languages around here, so you’ll get a lot of use out of it.”

After Chip, he helped Jay, then Gillion, and then Ollie put their communicators on. The Riptide crew were all met with an open textbox, a prompt reading ‘insert username’.

“There you just put whatever you want your name to come up as whenever you send a message. Like, mine is FoolishG, short for my full name Foolish Gamers.”

The Riptide Pirates began to fidget with their communicators, figuring out how to type. It seemed to take a moment, they didn’t seem all that familiar with this kind of technology. Foolish watched the message screen of his own communicator, waiting for their names to pop up. One by one, they eventually did.

[+] CaptainChibo

[+] JayFerin

[+] GILLIONTIDESTRID

[+] OllieThePirate

“It wouldn’t let me finish my name…” Gillion mumbled in annoyance, frowning at his screen.

“Oh, yeah, there’s a sixteen character limit. Probably should have warned you… Ah well.” Foolish shrugged.

“Right, so now that’s done, the Chipper?” Chip asked. “You able to go have a look at it now, figure out how long it’ll take to fix?”

“That might have to wait. Look at your communicators - there’s a whole island of people who want to come meet you guys.”

True to Foolish’s word, the messages screen was moving fast.

Cellbit: ??????

Quackity: HUH

BadBoyHalo: new people??? :o

iRoier: NO MAMES

iRoier: HOLAAAAA

Ph1lza: o/

Jaidenhere: pls tell me we have another woman

BagheraJones: WHERE ARE THEY FROM

FoolishG: IDK BUT THEY’RE WITH ME AND LEO AT MY PLACE RN IF YOU WANNA COME SAY HI :D

FoolishG: AND YEAH JAIDEN THERE’S A WOMAN

Jaidenhere: LETSGOOO

Etoiles: do they need anything? i can bring diamonds

CaptainChibo: yes absolutely do that

Slimecicle: i just woke up what’s going on

The Riptide Pirates followed Foolish’s lead to an area of the island he called ‘Spawn’, since according to him it would be the best place for them to meet everyone else on the island. Along the way, Foolish directed them to touch and ‘collect’ small stone structures called waystones that they passed, explaining that they allowed people to teleport across the island, providing a quick and easy method of travel. Jay couldn’t help but find it odd - there was clearly so much magic on this island, and yet no one could wield it and cast spells? Why not?

After explaining the waystones, Foolish went on to detail a quick history of the island, getting the Riptide Pirates as up to date as possible. He explained the first arrivals to the island, and how they were separated into two groups by a giant wall; how they then destroyed the wall, dooming themselves to their fate of being forever trapped on the island; how they were then given these seemingly half-dragonborn children, that they referred to as ‘eggs’, to take care of and raise; how two more groups later arrived on the island, becoming trapped and getting eggs of their own as well. The mention of the two most recent groups, who Foolish referred to as ‘the Brazilians’ and ‘the French-speakers’, led to some confusion. The Riptide Pirates had never heard of this ‘Brazil’ place, nor of a language called French. It only got more confusing to them when Foolish referred to the language they were speaking as ‘English’ rather than Common.

Everything was just slightly off here… but the pirates didn’t get too much time to dwell on the thoughts as they soon reached Spawn - a town centre-esque spot located in a big gap in the island’s wall. The area was already bustling with a large group made up of a variety of species - mostly humanoids, a few avians, what looked like a tiefling, more half-dragonborn children, all excitedly chatting about the sudden new arrivals.

“Hey guys!” Foolish called out to the group as they approached, getting everyone’s attention. “Say hi to the new islanders!”

Ollie nervously shuffled behind Chip as all eyes turned to them. While Gillion eagerly went over to the people closest to him to introduce himself (a man with black feathered wings and a green and white hat, and another man who was bald and had a prosthetic arm) and Jay waved a little awkwardly to the large crowd, Chip idly gazed across before focusing on something.

“Well hello…” A smirk appeared on his face, his eyes locking in on a woman with long brown hair and gorgeous black, purple and blue wings folded behind her back. He fixed his hair as he attempted to casually stroll up to her, leaning against the wall beside her and flashing a charming grin. “Hey, what’s up? I’m Chip. Captain of the Riptide Pirates.”

“Ahem, co -captain.” Jay corrected, folding her arms. Chip shot her a quick glare, mouthing ‘don’t blow this for me!’

The bird woman’s eyes seemed to light up - but not at Chip. “Oh, you’re who Foolish mentioned! You don’t know how cool it is to have another woman on this island.” She eagerly stepped past Chip and up to Jay, holding out her hand for Jay to shake. “It was just me for ages. I’m Jaiden, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Oh, um, I’m Jay. Jay Ferin. And yeah, you too.”

“Hey, let me introduce you to Baghera! She’s the only other woman here, us girls have gotta stick together. Baghera!”

Another avian, this one far more bird than human compared to Jaiden, stepped over. She had the yellow feathers and beak of a duck, and wore a propeller cap. While Jaiden introduced Jay and Baghera to each other, Chip muttered under his breath, folding his arms.

“I did not just see you try to hit on Jaiden,” Foolish stepped up to him, snickering a little. “You are so lucky Roier didn’t hear you try that; you’d be dead.”

“Roier, who’s that? Her boyfriend? He’s not strong, is he?”

“No, but he’s one of Jaiden’s best friends and they’re very protective of each other.” Foolish pointed to a man, who along with a few others was currently talking with Gillion. He wore a blue headband and a red jacket with a black spider on the front. He had red marks under his eyes which, on closer inspection, seemed to be extra smaller eyes.

Chip hummed. “Eh, he doesn’t look so tough, I could probably take him.”

“Well Jaiden’s aroace, so it’s probably not worth the risk.”

“Wha- you couldn’t have warned me before I made a fool of myself?!”

“Dude, I didn’t know you were going to flirt with her! Don’t blame me. Honestly, on this island, you’ll have far better luck with the dudes.”

“Huh- I’m not-!”

“Okay, everyone!” a new voice suddenly called interrupting Chip, its owner stepping up onto a small grassy hill just by the wall so they could get everyone’s attention. It was a man, rather short, with black hair and yellow wings, wearing a beanie and blue jacket. Around one arm, a red ribbon was tied. “Since we’ve got new islanders, I think it’d be good if we all went through and introduced ourselves one by one, y’know like we did back when we all first arrived. For example, hi, my name is Quackity. Fun fact about me, I will be the first person on the island to get married! Yeah, my wedding will be in a few days-”

“Ay, pinche culero!” That yell came from Roier, who ran over and gave Quackity a playful punch, pushing off of the hill. Quackity laughed, while Roier stepped up onto the hill. “Hola new islanders! My name is Roier, and don’t listen to this pendejo because he doesn’t even have a boyfriend, while I will be marrying my gatinho, the love of my life, Cellbit, next week!” He pointed to another man, one with a white streak bleached in his hair and goggles on his head, who blushed softly. “That’s my fun fact, and you are of course all invited.”

“Okay, okay, how about we let the new guys go first, huh?” Quackity said as Roier stepped down from the hill, the two exchanging playful glares. “Hey, fish guy, why don’t you introduce yourself?”

“Oh, of course!” Gillion pushed through the crowd, stepping up onto the hill. “Hello everyone, my name is Gillion Tidestrider, Champion of the Undersea, Hero of the Deep, Co-Captain of the Riptide Pirates, The One, Moisture Master, Paramount-”

“Hey, Gill!” Chip called, interrupting. “Maybe for the sake of time stick to the abbreviated titles? There’s a lot of people here to get through.”

“Right, of course, my apologies. As for a fun fact, our crew is actually very experienced with freeing islands that are under the control of malevolent forces. It is destiny that led our ship to crash here, and we promise to vanquish this Federation that is keeping you trapped and free you all, just as we have done before!”

“Uh no, no no no…” Chip gently pulled Gillion from the hill, stepping up himself. “Hi. I’m Chip, also Co-Captain of the Riptide Pirates. And look, we’ve got somewhere we need to be, some friends to meet up with, we really don’t have time to stick around and help. Foolish here is gonna fix our boat, and then we’ve gotta be on our way to All-Port. If any of you know the way from here and could tell us, that’d be great.”

Gillion frowned up at him. “But Chip, we can’t just leave all these people trapped here…”

“C’mon, you saw how open the ocean is, you can’t tell me they’re really trapped. I don’t think that weird bear can do much to stop people leaving.” Chip looked back to the gathered crowd. “But if any of you want to join us and hitch a ride to All-Port, be our guest, we could always use more crew members. That’s the most we can do.”

He hopped down from the hill as Gillion sighed, frowning at the floor. He looked up again, however, as he felt a hand rest on his shoulder, turning face to face with its owner: Cellbit. “You really want to help with taking on the Federation?” he whispered quietly.

Gillion nodded. “As I said, it is my destiny.”

“Come back here at midnight, I’ll meet you. There’s something important I want to show you.”

Cellbit stepped away, returning to Roier’s side. As he did, Jay cleared her throat, having stepped up to do her introduction. “Hi, I’m Jay Ferin, Co-Captain of the Riptide Pirates as well. Uh, I don’t really have a fun fact, but I do have a question. Are we… Is this place where this island is located, this world… Is it called Mana? Does that name mean anything to you? Have you even heard of it?”

Her heart sank as she was met with confused glances and shaking heads from all of the islanders. She gave a worried glance to Chip and Gillion, both of whom had furrowed brows, as she stepped down from the hill.

After her, Ollie climbed up. “Uh, hi. I’m Ollie. I, uh, I snuck onto these guys’ ship a while ago and sailed with them, and eventually they made me a Riptide pirate too! I spend most of my time at home with my mom, but sometimes Chip picks me up to come on small adventures. They had just picked me up again when we got caught in the storm. Hopefully we won't be stuck here too long, I don't want my mom to get worried about me again...”

When Ollie stepped down, various different islanders followed, the pirates doing their best to commit as many of their names as they could to memory. The Etoiles guy Foolish had mentioned, who had bright white hair and green skin, had followed through on his promise, giving all four of the new arrivals not just a few diamonds, but sixty four each. The pure joy on Chip’s face could not be underestimated, while Gillion took it upon himself to open up his briefcase of holding to store all the gemstones within for now.

When the man who appeared to be a tiefling stepped up, all three of the Riptide captains shared wary looks - they were only familiar with one tiefling after all, and that man was certainly not to be trusted. This tiefling, however, had a far different demeanour to Niklaus, noticeably more bubbly. He introduced himself as BadBoyHalo, “but most people just call me Bad”, and for his fun fact, he introduced his egg, Dapper.

A lot of people introduced their eggs as their fun facts, but there were a few exceptions: a man in a hoodie called Pac’s fun fact was that he and another islander, Mike, had a laboratory called Chume Labs on the island; and speaking of Mike, his fun fact was that he and another islander, ‘Slime’, were apparently long lost brothers who only found each other again when he arrived here. Jaiden’s fun fact was that roses were her favourite flower because “they remind me of the happiest day of my life”. Cellbit's was, "I love Roier and hate the Federation". Foolish’s was simply, “I like to build stuff.”

The final islander to introduce himself was immediately notable, but not for his appearance. Rather, it was his voice. As he spoke, introducing himself as Charlie Slimecicle, “you can call me either Slime or Charlie”, both Chip and Jay seemed to have the same thought, glancing from Charlie, to Gillion, and then to each other.

“Is it just me or does he kind of sound like Gill?”

“Yeah, I thought so too, like if his voice was pitched up a little.”

“And a fun fact, uh,” Charlie continued, “well, it’s not really fun, but I don’t have a whole lot else to say: my daughter is dead and my bitch wife left! So, uh, if you see a guy called Mariana around, tell him I absolutely don’t miss him.”

As Charlie stepped down from the hill, Chip hummed. “So someone left, huh?” He gave Gillion a nudge. “See, I knew it’d be possible to get out of here.”

Jay shrugged. “He might not have meant left left. He might mean they just disappeared…” She shook her head. “I’m with Gill on this one, I don’t think it’s going to be so easy to leave.”

“Well, that was everyone.” Foolish stepped up to the pirates, stopping their conversation short. “Now we’ve gotten that out of the way, you want to go have a look over your boat? Then I can gather materials tomorrow and maybe get started on fixing it.”

Chip nodded. “Yeah, let's go. Ollie, come on, we’re going!”

The elven boy had been pulled into conversation with one of the eggs - Richarlyson, he had been introduced as - but looked up and ran over as his name was called.

As the crew and Foolish began to walk away, Gillion waved and loudly called over the crowd. “It was nice to meet you all! Don’t hesitate to contact us if you need any foes vanquished!”

Foolish’s survey of the Albatross hadn’t taken too long. Most of the damage was to the main sail and the hull, while the rocks had been holding it up and preventing any flooding. According to Foolish, it’d only take a couple of days to patch up and be made sea-worthy again. In the meantime, the crew would still be able to climb aboard to sleep in their usual quarters; which they did once Foolish left, as night had begun to fall.

As Gillion tipped Pretzel out into her bowl to let her get some shut eye and Jay led back on her bed, Chip had taken the briefcase of holding, moving their newly acquired store of diamonds to a chest for safekeeping. “Imagine how much we’re going to be able to buy at All-Port with these. We’ll practically be able to kit out the whole ship with new equipment! I’d love to finally get some cannons…”

Jay sighed, turning to face him and propping herself up on her elbow. “Chip, I really don’t think we’re going to be able to just sail to All-Port. I don’t think it was any normal storm that brought us here; I mean, now that I think about it, do you guys remember even getting caught in the storm? I swear, one moment we had just set sail, the next we were careening towards this island with no in between. And everything here is so weird - no magic wielders, no pirates, gold is apparently worthless, they call Common ‘English’, they’ve never heard of Mana… It’s like we’re in a whole different world.”

Chip scoffed. “C’mon, you don’t really think we’ve, like, crossed into a different realm or something by complete accident?”

“Maybe we have! And maybe it wasn’t an accident. Maybe the Federation brought us here, it wanted to trap us like everyone else?"

Chip said nothing for a while, continuing to empty the last of the diamonds as he seemed to mull over Jay’s words. After closing the chest and the briefcase, he turned to Gillion. “Call Caspian.”

“But I thought you said- ?”

“If Jay’s right and we’re really in a different world, surely the magic signal or whatever won’t work, right?”

Gillion frowned, but took out his callnch shell, willing it to connect to Caspian’s. There was a long pause…

“Hello? Is that you, Gillion?”

“Caspian!”

“See?” Chip looked to Jay. “Caspian was able to answer, we can’t be that far!”

“It’s a magic conch shell, we don’t know its limits!” Jay shrugged. “It could be able to work across realms for all we know.”

“Gillion, this isn’t our usual call schedule. Is something wrong?” Caspian’s voice continued to speak from the shell. “Are you still on your way to All-Port?”

Chip gestured for Gillion to stay quiet, but was a second too late. “No, we are not, our ship crashed.”

“Gill!”

“Chip, you know I don’t like to lie.” Gillion then continued to the shell, “We were caught in a storm, and now we’re stranded somewhere called Quesadilla Island. The inhabitants here say that they and all those that land on the island are trapped and unable to leave.”

“Except they’re wrong!” Chip moved next to Gillion, leaning towards the shell. “The ocean’s basically open, and we’ve got a guy who’s gonna fix our boat. We’ll be back on our way in just a few days, tops.”

“Except we have no idea where we are or where to go!” Jay got up, standing on the other side of Gillion. “Caspian, the map you guys have on your ship is more up to date than ours. Can you do us a favour and just look over it, see if you can find any Quesadilla Island on there? If not, then… I don’t know where we are, I don't know how we’ll get back, and I don’t think you’ll be able to reach us.”

There was a pause on the other end, before Caspian spoke again. “I’ll go and talk to Lizzie, we’ll look over the map. If we don’t see anything and can’t give you directions, I’m sure we’ll be able to adjust our plans and do our best to find you, wherever you are.”

“Thank you, Caspian. May we see each other soon.”

“You too, Gillion. Do your best to stay safe, all of you.”

With that, the connection cut off.

“Welp, I’m heading to sleep.” Chip stretched, before falling back onto his bed. “Let me know in the morning what directions Caspian gives us.”

“If he gives us directions…” Jay muttered, but Chip had already fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

Gillion hesitated for a moment, glancing out the window at the night sky. “Jay, do you know if it is almost midnight?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, I think so? Why’d you ask?”

“Cellbit spoke to me earlier; he told me to meet him at midnight so he could show me something, something related to taking on this Federation. I thought, if you also believe they are truly keeping everyone trapped here, you might want to come with me?”

“You sure? You think Cellbit would be okay with that?”

Gillion shrugged. “I’m sure there’s no harm in it. I doubt Chip will be interested in coming along, but we can tell him everything we’ve learned in the morning.” He gently scooped the sleeping Pretzel back into her bottle, reattaching it at his hip. “We should be going, Cellbit said to meet him at Spawn.”

Moving quietly to not disturb the sleeping Chip and Ollie, Jay and Gillion headed out to the main deck and then jumped from the boat, landing once again on the grass of Quesadilla Island. The two followed a torchlit path around the corner, swiftly arriving at Spawn, where Cellbit was already waiting.

“Cellbit!” Gillion called as they went over. “I brought Jay with me, I hope it’s alright. She’s also interested in helping take on the Federation.”

“The more on our side, the better,” Cellbit nodded, shaking both of their hands. “Follow me. I’m assuming Foolish has gotten you up to speed with most of the history of the island?”

“Yeah, he gave us a pretty good overview,” Jay said as Cellbit began to lead them down the right side of the wall.

“Good, that saves me doing it. I can’t speak about where we’re going until we get there; Cucurucho could be anywhere, the Federation has eyes all over the island. In the meantime, I want to know some more about you. Sorry if it sounds rude, but you all… you seem very different to everyone else here.”

“Yeah, I think we picked up on that. What do you want to know?”

“I guess my first question is what the flag next to your usernames is? All of us have our nationalities, but you four have one that doesn’t seem to be for any country I recognise.” Cellbit held up his communicator for Jay and Gillion to see. It was open on a menu, displaying all the ‘online’ islanders. Besides each of the names, there were pixellated icons of everyone’s faces, as well as flags. The only flags Jay and Gillion could recognise were theirs.

“Oh, that’s our jolly roger!” Gillion said. “It’s a shame our mast broke, or you’d be able to see it on our ship.”

Cellbit frowned a little, confused. “Do you know why the Federation would have set your flag as your ship’s rather than the country you’re from?”

There was a pause, before Gillion leaned closer to Jay, whispering, “Am I supposed to know what a country is…?”

Cellbit completely stopped walking at that, turning to fully face them both. “You don’t know what a country is?”

“Look,” Jay started, “all I can tell you is that we're from a world called Mana, which has a bunch of islands in it. I grew up on an island called Featherbrook, Gill comes from the Undersea, and Chip grew up on the ship of another crew called the Black Rose Pirates. And if all of that just sounds like nonsense to you, then you know how we feel when you talk about countries and Brazil and French and English or whatever…” She shrugged. “It just seems like we’re from a completely different realm. And I figure looking into the people controlling this island, it might tell us how and why we’re here, and maybe even how to get back to Mana.”

There was a pause as Cellbit seemed to take everything in. “Well… that explains why you all seem so different.” He turned and resumed walking, gesturing for Jay and Gillion to continue to follow. “It wouldn’t surprise me if the Federation had some hand in bringing you here; they seem to conduct a lot of different types of experimentation, I could see them messing around with accessing alternate dimensions and universes. I wonder if they meant to bring you specifically here, or if it was just a test…”

By this point, the three of them had entered what seemed like a small town near a beach, with paved roads, various colourful buildings, and a large statue with outspread arms rising over it. Cellbit pointed out a waystone, which Jay and Gillion collected, the engraving on it reading ‘The Favela’.

When they turned back to Cellbit, they saw he had moved down an alley between two buildings, staring down at the grass. Before either of them could ask, Cellbit stood on a patch that wasn’t grass at all - it was a solid square painted to look like grass, with a button on it. If you weren’t looking for it, it’d be easy to overlook. “Stand on here, quickly.”

Jay and Gillion obeyed, hurrying over to stand with Cellbit on the square. Cellbit pressed the button with his foot, and the square started to descend, moving the three of them underground.

“An elevator block,” Cellbit explained. “Very useful for hidden entrances.”

When the elevator reached the bottom and came to a stop, they found themselves in a small room with wooden walls and floors, and a doorway that led to an office, with a desk and chair, messy with papers. Instead of going into this office, however, Cellbit stepped up to a particular wall, pressing one specific wooden slab. There was a click, and then a hidden door opened.

“Cucurucho found my office a few weeks ago, so we had to hide our operations a little more. One more elevator and we’re there.”

Jay and Gillion followed him through the hidden door, standing on top of yet another elevator block. It brought them down, and they now found themselves in a room with white quartz walls and floors, corridors branching off of it, and a large logo on the wall featuring an egg with an eye, a book and quill, and a magnifying glass.

“Welcome to Ordo Theoritas,” Cellbit said with a small smile. “A group dedicated to investigating the mysteries of Quesadilla Island and the Federation. It was originally set up by Maximus, Bad and Foolish, but when us Brazilians arrived, they let me take over as the leader. The other members currently include Roier, Philza, Fit, Jaiden, Felps, Mike, Pac, Pierre and Baghera. And now, I’m hoping, you two.” He looked Jay and Gillion in the eyes. “The more people we have working with us, the more we can find out and the sooner we, hopefully, can leave. All being a member really requires is that you share with us any vital information you learn or documents you acquire, and occasionally attend meetings if anything big happens that we need to discuss. Even if you don’t want to officially join, we’ll still consider you as allies. Of course you don’t have to decide straight away-”

“I’m in,” Gillion interrupted, grinning. “Anything to help in any way.”

“Are you sure? Joining will put you at risk. Both myself and Felps have been kidnapped by the Federation in the past. I want you to be fully aware of that before committing - if the Federation discovers that you’re working against them, you will be in danger.”

“Well, we are pirates,” Jay shrugged. “We’re kinda used to dealing with danger every day. And kidnapping doesn’t sound so bad compared to the amount of times we’ve actually come close to dying.”

“So you’re both sure? You’re in?”

Gillion nodded, “We are.”

Cellbit smiled. “Welcome to the Order. One last thing before we move to the meeting room: you’re sworn to secrecy. You can’t tell anyone else about this, not even other islanders. It’s the only way to guarantee that the Federation doesn’t discover what we’re doing here.”

“So we can’t even tell Chip?” Gillion asked, frowning. “But he’s our co-captain. We can’t hide something like this from him.”

“If he agrees to at least ally with the fight against the Federation, then yes he can know. But right now, while he’s so dismissive of everything… You may, but I don’t trust him to not let something slip. If he doesn’t see the Federation as a real threat, I can’t believe he’ll take our requirement for secrecy seriously.”

Gillion still looked visibly uncomfortable, and Jay rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Hey, he’s gotta realise we’re actually trapped here eventually, and we’ll do our best to convince him. I’m sure we won’t have to hide this from him for long, he’ll come around.”

“If you’re sure…”

“Now, if you’ll follow me to the meeting room,” Cellbit gestured for Jay and Gillion to follow him down one of the halls, “I’d like to hear some more about your world, and in exchange I can tell you some things about this one that might be worth knowing.”

It was a few hours later that Jay and Gillion left the Ordo Theoritas headquarters, Jay carrying sheets of notes on what Cellbit had explained. They covered a wide variety of subjects, from the layout of this world and the different countries, cultures and languages of the islanders, to notes about Quesadilla Island itself, such as what was known about the Federation so far, and other mysteries that needed answers. One part that stuck out in particular was the section about ‘binary code monsters’, the thing that they had saved Foolish’s egg from earlier that day. Apparently they were incredibly powerful and hostile creatures of unknown origin that seemed to be unkillable and often targeted the eggs.

The ‘unkillable’ part had very much stuck out to Gillion; when he insisted that he surely could take one out, Cellbit had suggested he visit Etoiles, who was apparently a pretty strong fighter and one of the few islanders who dared to try to fight back against code monsters.

It was far too late for that now, though, so Gillion and Jay made their way back to the Albatross to get a long rest. They used the Favela waystone to warp to Spawn, and then headed around the corner to the ship. Just after they climbed up onto the deck, there was a muffled voice from Gillion’s pocket.

“Gillion, are you there? Can you hear me?”

“Caspian!” Gillion pulled out his callnch shell. “Yes, I’m here, as is Jay! What’s the news?”

“I’m afraid we couldn’t see a Quesadilla Island on the map,” Caspian’s voice spoke from the shell, “nor has anyone else on the ship heard of it. I’m sorry, but we’re completely unaware where you are.”

Jay sighed. “Yeah, we kind of expected you to say that. We’ve talked a little more to the others around here, and it seems pretty likely that we’re in a whole different… realm, world, dimension, I don’t know, we’ve been using different words interchangeably. But whatever it is, it’s definitely not Mana. We’re doing our best to figure out what happened. I’m hoping we can find a way back.”

“Well, that… certainly is a large problem. Is there any way we can help from here?”

“I don’t really know. I guess if you guys hear anything about strange storms making people disappear, let us know? Any information is valuable.”

“I will. I’ll talk to Lizzie about adjusting our plans and see if we can brainstorm any other ways to help you.”

“Thank you again, Caspian,” Gillion said. “We’ll keep you updated when we know more.”

“The same on our end. Speak to you later, Gillion.”

With that, the call ended. Jay and Gillion returned to their sleeping quarters, where Chip was still fast asleep. They both quickly joined him, Jay in her own bed and Gillion in his barrel.

Gillion was the last to fall asleep, guilt gnawing deep in his stomach as he watched his slumbering co-captains, the thought of lying to Chip weighing heavily in his mind.

Chapter Text

Chip sighed as he stretched, eyes blinking wearily open. As they adjusted to the daylight spilling in through the porthole, illuminating the Albatross’ sleeping quarters, he turned to the sound of movement. Gillion was just finishing getting dressed for the day, starting to pull on his sleeveless turtleneck. Chip quickly pulled his eyes away, not wanting to stare at his half naked co-captain. “Morning, Gill.”

“Oh! Good morning, Chip.” Gillion finished pulling on his shirt, and Chip couldn’t help but notice that he seemed… nervous? “How, um, did you sleep well?”

“Yeah, pretty good… You okay? You seem kind of… Well, I was gonna say sweaty, but it’s hard to tell with you when you’re always moist. But you look more moist than usual.”

“I’m fine! Don’t worry, nothing… nothing going on at all! Everything is normal.” As Gillion spoke, he put on his belt and sword sheath, packed his armour into his briefcase of holding, and scooped up Pretzel into her bottle. “Anyway, I should be going. I’ll see you later!”

“Hey, wait, where are you off to?” Chip pushed himself to his feet, grabbing his coat.

“Oh, um, I’ve arranged with Etoiles to meet and do some training together. Apparently he’s quite the fighter, I’m looking forward to sparring with him. And I shouldn’t keep him waiting, so…” Gillion turned to head out to the main deck, and Chip quickly grabbed his hat and swords, following behind.

“Hey, why don’t I come with you?” he suggested. “I don’t really have anything else to do, may as well get some training in.”

Gillion’s expression became even more nervous, avoiding eye contact. “Are you sure? I think Jay is planning on exploring the island a little, she might want someone to go with her.”

“Eh, she’ll be fine on her own. Where is she anyway?”

“I… don’t actually know-”

“No, I’m not giving it away!” Jay’s voice suddenly yelled. Chip and Gillion both moved over to the side of the deck, leaning over the railing. Jay was standing on the grass not too far from the ship, one hand protectively holding the pistol in her holster, and glaring at Cucurucho, who stood before her with their broad ominous smile.

“That item is banned. It will be confiscated. Please hand it to me.”

“You can’t just take my property!”

“Please hand it to me.”

“Hey, what’s going on?” Chip called down, causing both Jay and Cucurucho to look up at him.

“This… piece of shit is trying to take my pistol! But I’m not handing it over, it’s my main- Holy shit-!” Jay jumped back as she turned back to Cucurucho, finding that they held their own gun, aiming it directly between Jay’s eyes.

“Hand me the illegal item.”

“Jay, I think you should give it to them…” Chip said, while Gillion drew his sword ready.

Jay hesitated for a moment, before slowly reaching for her pistol. She gradually withdrew it from its holster, raising it as if about to hand it to Cucurucho.

Before flicking it up to point at Cucurucho’s chest and firing.

Except the bullet simply bounced off of the speaker in the bear’s chest, falling down into the grass. They didn’t even flinch. There wasn’t even a dent where it had hit.

“What the- “

Jay’s words were cut off as a searing pain struck between her eyes. Chip and Gillion gasped as they watched Jay stumble, before falling onto her back. Her body had gone completely limp, lifeless, blood pouring from the bullet hole in her head. Smoke rose from the barrel of Cucurucho’s gun, which they pocketed as they stepped forward. They leaned down, taking Jay’s pistol from her hand, before turning and walking away without another word, disappearing around the corner.

Gillion broke out from his shock. “Jay!” he cried, leaping over the railing, hands already glowing in preparation to cast lay on hands. However, as he knelt beside her, trying to cast the spell… nothing happened. “No… Jay, wake up, please…” He tried again, but still nothing. It was then he noticed, on his communicator, a message:

JayFerin was slain by QSMP

“No, she… you can’t be…” Gillion fruitlessly tried again to cast lay on hands, desperately mumbling to himself.

Chip had been frozen still. Now, he finally moved, stepping back from the ship’s railing. His hands were shaking, his chest tight, breath shaky. Tears pricked the corner of his eyes. No. This couldn’t be happening. After everything they’d gone through, all shit they had survived. This couldn’t be how Jay went, she couldn’t die to a single shot from a fuckass bear mascot thing. She couldn’t be gone.

The sound of footsteps forced Chip back to the present, someone walking up the stairs to the main deck. Oh god, Ollie. Chip couldn’t let him see this.

He turned to look, trying not to choke on the lump in his throat as he was about to call for Ollie to go back downstairs - except it wasn’t the young elf he saw step into view. Chip’s eyes widened as he watched Jay emerge onto the deck, rubbing a brand new scar on her forehead.

“Oh, morning Chip. I just had the most fucked up dream…” She mumbled, before looking up at Chip. She frowned a little at the pure shock on his face. “What? Is something wrong?”

“... Is something wrong?” Chip mumbled when he finally found his voice. “Is something fucking wrong?! I just saw you die!” He glanced over the railing of the ship, doing a double take. “Your corpse is literally still right there!”

Jay frowned, following Chip’s glance and jumping back with a start. “HOLY SHIT-! That wasn’t a dream?! I died?!”

Her yell got Gillion’s attention, his panicked breaths and desperate attempts to cast lay on hands pausing as he looked up at the ship and saw her standing there. “Jay?!”

“How the fuck are you alive?!” Chip yelled.

“I don’t know! I just woke up in my bed!”

Gillion hesitantly poked at the corpse in front of him, only to let out a surprised yelp as it abruptly disappeared, leaving behind only Jay’s bow and quiver of arrows. As he did, Chip raised his communicator.

CaptainChibo: anyone here able to explain how i just saw jay get shot by that bear and now she’s alive in front of me???

FoolishG: OH YEAH I FORGOT TO TELL YOU ABOUT RESPAWNING

FoolishG: NO ONE CAN DIE FOR GOOD, YOU JUST WAKE UP AT THE LAST PLACE YOU SLEPT

BadBoyHalo: how did you forget to explain that to them? they must have been terrified!

FoolishG: SHUT UP FUCK YOU

BadBoyHalo: language

Quackity: this is why i usually introduce the new islanders

FoolishG: YEAH WELL AT LEAST I DON’T GET KILLED BY A FLY

“Okay, apparently this is a normal thing around here?” Chip said as Gillion climbed back up onto the ship, giving Jay a quick hug before returning her bow and quiver. “People just come back to life when they’re killed? I guess cool, we don’t have to worry about dying?”

“So being on this island just makes us immortal?” Jay asked.

“Seems like it.”

“Ms Jay!” Ollie’s voice suddenly cried, the boy running out onto the deck from the kitchen and crew’s quarters. “I saw the thing on my watch, are you okay?!”

“I’m okay, Ollie, don’t worry. Sorry for scaring you.” Jay looked back up at Chip and Gillion. “I’m guessing Cucurucho took my pistol?” She sighed as they nodded. “Figured… Back to just the bow I guess.”

“I was planning on going with Gill to train with Etoiles… You think you’ll be okay on your own after that?” Chip asked. “Or do you want me to come with you to explore instead?”

“I’ll be okay, it’s fine. Honestly knowing that if anything goes wrong I’ll just end up right back here makes going off alone a little better.”

“And I can always go with Ms Jay so she’s not alone!” Ollie added. “If I put on my belt and bring my sword, I’ll definitely be strong enough to keep you safe!”

Jay smiled, looking to Chip. “That okay with you?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Ollie grinned, “Okay, I’ll get ready to go!”, before turning and running off, heading back down below deck.

“C’mon, Gill, let's go. We’ll see you later, Jay!” Chip climbed from the ship, jumping down onto the grass. Gillion, however, didn’t immediately follow.

He turned to Jay, speaking in a hushed voice. “Jay, I don’t know how long I can hide us joining the Order from Chip. It doesn’t feel right.”

“As I said, I’m sure he’ll come around. Hopefully we won’t have to hide it for too much longer. Just… try your best, okay? I don’t like it either, but we need to work with the other islanders if we want to find out why we’re here and how to leave. Cellbit’s been so willing to help us, I don’t think we should risk breaking his trust and ruining that. And Chip… if he doesn’t trust us enough at this point to at least try and understand why we’d keep this from him, I’ll honestly be pissed off. Even if I have to yell at him a bit, I’m sure he’ll be cool with it eventually.”

Gillion sighed, but nodded. “I understand. I’ll do my best to not say anything.”

“Gill, c’mon, we gotta go!” Chip’s voice called.

“See you later, Jay. Message if you need our help or anything.” Gillion turned, jumping from the ship.

“This is where he said to meet.”

Gillion and Chip had made their way to a red building on the other side of the wall. The roof was decorated with a large statue of a pair of dumbbells, a sign below it and above the glass doors reading ‘Fit’s Fitness’. Through the doors, Gillion could see Etoiles jabbing at a punching bag. He was simultaneously chatting with another islander, the one with the black feathered wings - Philza, Gillion recalled from the day before. Three eggs were running around the room, playing and chatting amongst themselves.

Gillion pushed open the door, leading the way in. Etoiles’ expression lit up as he looked over. “Gillion, my bro! I thought you weren’t going to come and I’d scared you off.” He moved over as he spoke, giving Gillion a small playful punch in the arm.

“Far from it! I would never break a promise to spar,” Gillion said. “We just had a bit of a situation to deal with back at the ship.”

“Cucurucho, right?” That came from Philza. “I saw Jay’s death message. Honestly, I think getting threatened by them is right of passage around here.”

“Yeah, they wanted to take her pistol,” Chip said. “She tried to say no but, bam, they just shot her right between the eyes and took it from her body.”

“I really thought we’d lost her for a moment…” Gillion sighed. He quickly shook it off, however. “Oh right, Etoiles, I hope it’s alright, but Chip wanted to join us for our sparring match.”

“Brought some back up to help take me down, huh? I’m kidding, my bro, of course he can join us, the more people to fight the better! And I already invited Phil to watch anyway. Let's head downstairs and we can get started.” Etoiles turned to the three eggs, calling to one with a beret and two patches of scales on her cheeks, one red and one blue. “Pomme, suis-moi, on commence l'entraînement maintenant!”

Phil followed suit, calling to the other two eggs, one wearing a duck floatie and skull mask, the other with black curly hair and a purple mushroom beanie, “Yeah, Chay, Lullah, we’re heading downstairs now!”

Etoiles led the way down a staircase, the group heading into the basement of the building. Within it, there was a large boxing ring in the centre, and against one wall a set of bleachers. Phil and the three eggs made their way over to them, taking a seat. Etoiles, meanwhile, pulled his backpack off, opening it up. “We’ll start with a one-on-one between us, Gillion. I was thinking a stick fight to warm up?”

“A stick fight?” Gillion asked, resting his briefcase on the ground.

“No armour, no weapons. Just these.” Etoiles stood up, pulling two large sticks from his backpack. “First one to knock the other down wins.”

“Oh, I see.” Gillion removed his sword and sheath from his belt, resting it against the wall, before stepping over and taking one of the sticks from Etoiles. “Just know that, even if this is just a warm up, I won’t go easy on you.”

Etoiles grinned back. “It wouldn’t be fun if you did.” He climbed up into the ring, calling over to the bleachers. “Pomme, peux-tu compter à rebours?”

“Oui!” Etoiles’ egg got to her feet, running over to stand just outside of the ring as Etoiles and Gillion took their starting places in each corner. They held their sticks at the ready, both looking equally eager to get started. “Trois… deux… un… Fight!”

Gillion immediately ran forward, going on the offensive. He swung with fervour; the stick felt far lighter in his hands than Destiny’s Blade, and he knew he had to put more of his own power behind his attacks to deal a substantial amount of damage - but with his upper body strength, that was no problem. However, while Gillion was more built for power, Etoiles had a visibly leaner build, which he used to his advantage to keep moving and dodging, evading a lot of Gillion’s onslaught, all the while swiping in plenty of quick hits that Gillion wasn’t fast enough to avoid. Etoiles was landing more hits, but Gillion was doing more damage with each individual strike. It ended up with them seeming quite evenly matched.

Chip had taken a seat on the bleachers near Phil, calling out, “Lets go, Gill, beat his fucking ass! If you can take out Kuba Kenta, you can beat some guy easy!”

“No way, Etoiles, you’ve got this!” Phil yelled. “Remember, you’re the GOAT!”

Chip turned to him, confused. “Goat?”

“Stands for Greatest Of All Time.”

“Oh. Well, I doubt he can be when Gillion is literally a chosen one! Show ‘em why you’re the Champion of the Undersea, Gill!”

The fight stretched on for quite a while, the two continuing to stay pretty even, neither looking more worse for wear than the other. Both of them had bruises forming over their skin, bloody noses, splinters, and yet their pace didn’t slow.

“Gillion can really take a lot of hits, huh?” Phil said, having just watched Gillion take a firm jab to the stomach and brush it off almost immediately, going straight for a swipe at Etoiles’ head. “I think anyone else would have been knocked down by now.”

“Yeah, he’s really tough,” Chip nodded. “And he has a lot of experience taking hits, he always throws himself in front of me and Jay in battles. I’m surprised at Etoiles, to be honest, I don’t think I’ve seen Gill miss this many hits before. Well, except for when he uses prophetic screwup...”

Phil raised a confused eyebrow at that, but didn’t get a chance to ask as one of his eggs, the one with the duck floatie, leaned forward, looking up at Chip. “Are you guys really pirates? Like, sail the seas on a wooden ship and find treasure pirates?”

“You’d better believe it. And not just any pirates, The Riptide Pirates, number one enemies of the Navy. Honestly if this Federation were really trapping us all here, I’d completely understand why they’d target us given the pretty sweet bounties on our heads.”

“If?” Phil asked, frowning. “You really don’t believe we’re stuck here?”

“Doesn’t really look like it,” Chip shrugged. “Foolish is fixing up our ship, we’ll be out of here in just a few days.”

“Right…”

“Augh!”

Gillion groaned, stumbling forward as Etoiles delivered a sharp jab with the end of his stick to the small of his back. For a moment it seemed he would go down, but he quickly regained his footing. But from the bleachers, Chip could see Etoiles going for a strike to the back of the knees that’d surely knock him off his feet.

Chip practically leapt to his feet. “Gill, look out!”

Gillion quickly dodged as Etoiles jabbed again, giving a small thankful nod to Chip.

“Y’know, Gill,” Chip called as the two continued to spar, “you’ve been going easy on him for a while, I think it’s time the fight comes to an end. Why not show him your full power like you did against that weird green monster yesterday?”

“I’m not sure the rules of the stick fight allow that!” Gillion replied between attempted strikes.

“He said no armour and weapons, that’s the only rule! You’d technically only be hitting him with the stick still!”

“Hey, don’t feel like you need to go easy on me, my bro!” Etoiles insisted, pausing a good distance away from his opponent. “I said I wanted to see just how strong you are, don’t hold back on me.”

Gillion took a deep breath, nodding. “Alright then.” He raised his stick, and Chip grinned as he watched his co-captain begin to cast thunderous smite.

Etoiles was the first to notice something strange happening as Gillion’s eyes and coral crown began to glow, faltering a little in confusion. His egg, standing just outside of the ring, was the second, eyes widening as she saw the strands of Gillion’s hair which weren’t tied back float up, defying gravity. Phil and his eggs in the stands were the last, leaning forward as the stick in Gillion’s hands became coated with sparking lightning.

“What-”

Etoiles didn’t get to say anything more as Gillion darted towards him, slamming his stick into the other man’s chest. The lightning visibly shot through Etoiles’ body, who let out a cry as he was sent falling onto his back from the combined force of the strike and the smite.

He was down.

Chip let out a whoop, clapping loudly. The other three in the stands were speechless. Gillion stepped out of a fighting stance, taking a deep breath as the glow faded and lightning dissipated, letting his stick fall to the floor. He had won.

“Papa!” Etoiles’ egg practically leapt into the ring. She hurried over to Etoiles, kneeling down at his side. “Est-ce que tu vas bien?!”

“Je vais bien, ne t'inquiète pas…” Etoiles reassured, but he let out a groan as he attempted and failed to sit up.

“Here.” Gillion knelt down on the other side of Etoiles. He gently rested his hands on Etoiles’ chest. “This should get you back on your feet. Even if it was technically within the rules, I’ll try to avoid smiting you next time. It didn’t exactly feel fair…” As he spoke, Gillion’s hands began to glow, and as they did, Etoiles felt the aches across his body dissipate, while his bruises and burns faded. “There, that should be enough to get you back on your feet.”

Etoiles just blinked at him. “... What the hell, man?”

“That was awesome!” Phil’s egg, again the one with the duck floatie, came climbing into the ring, his sister close behind. “The way you just… conjured that lightning? That was so cool!”

“Oh, thank you… What was your name?”

“Chayanne! And this is Lullah.” The other egg gave a wave as she was introduced - didn’t seem like much of a talker.

“Well, thank you Chayanne.”

“How did you do that?” Phil asked, he and Chip both approaching the ring as well. “Both the lightning and the healing. I’ve never seen anything like that before, it was like… magic.”

Gillion chuckled. “Well actually, that’s exactly what it was. The lightning spell is called thunderous smite, and the healing one is called lay on hands. Where Chip and I are from, the ability to wield magic and cast spells is very common, both of us and Jay can do it. We gathered from Foolish that it’s unheard of around here…”

“... Yeah,” Phil nodded after a stunned pause. “Definitely unheard of.”

“That is so awesome,” Chayanne grinned. 

Etoiles had pushed himself to sit up, and he just stared at Gillion. “So what you’re saying is you’re a magical warrior?”

“I guess? Maybe I’ll add that to my titles; Gillion Tidestrider, Champion of the Undersea, Hero of the Deep, Magical Warrior. It sounds quite nice.”

“Uh huh, okay…” Etoiles nodded… before curling up on the ground, head in his hands. “Oh, I’m so shit… I’m such a shit fighter, man. You can shoot lightning at people, and me? I’m just some guy, a guy with a fucking sword. You can protect the island now, I’m going to give up and become a builder…”

His egg sighed, looking up at Gillion. “Don’t worry, he gets like this every time he loses a fight, he’ll be okay again after a few min-”

Gillion interrupted her with a gasp, grabbing Etoiles by the shoulders. “No! Etoiles, you cannot give up! The only reason I used thunderous smite was because you had gained the upper hand against me, which is something only the incredibly powerful can do alone. You are a natural warrior! It is your destiny! Do not defy it! Here!” He abruptly got to his feet, dragging Etoiles up with him. “Get your armour and weapon. We’ll spend the rest of the day focusing on my spells. I’ll train my use of them, and you’ll develop new strategies and learn how to best oppose them. By the end of the day, you’ll know just how to snatch victory! Take this as an opportunity to become even stronger!”

Etoiles took a deep breath as steadied his footing on the ground. Then, he looked down at Gillion, giving a firm nod. “Let’s do it.”

“That’s the spirit!”

“Oh, can I take part too?!” Etoiles’ egg asked, following the two as they climbed out of the ring. “You did promise I’d get to train with you today, papa.”

Etoiles didn’t answer immediately, thinking it over. “What do you think, Gillion, do you think your spells will be too dangerous for her?”

Gillion hummed, looking down at the egg. “I don’t know… What’s your name, little one?”

“Pomme!”

“Pomme? That’s a very unique name, I don’t think I’ve heard it before.”

“It’s a French word,” Pomme explained, pointing to the red beret on her head that had a decorative leaf attached to its cabillou. “It means apple.”

At that, Gillion’s eyes seemed to light up. “Apple? Your name means apple? We used to have a pet bird who we named Apple! I say used to because she was actually my grandpeepaw who had been transformed into a bird. But Pomme, do you know what this means?!”

“No…?”

“It means that our meeting was destined!” Gillion knelt down to Pomme’s height. “You really want to be a fighter?”

“Yes!”

“Do you have armour and a weapon with you?”

“Mhm!”

“Then, little warrior Pomme, I promise to help train you into the strongest fighter this island has ever seen, for that is our destiny! Get ready and join us in that ring!”

“Yes!” Pomme grinned and did a celebratory fist pump. “Merci, Gillion!” She quickly swung her backpack from her shoulders, starting to root through and pull out armour.

“Merci?”

“It’s French for thank you.”

“Hm, I see…” Gillion quickly opened up his briefcase, before grabbing a notebook and quill from inside, jotting some notes. “Pomme is apple, merci is thank you…”

“Do I get to take part in all of this as well?” Chip asked. “I came here to train too, y’know. I think if the kid gets to fight, I should.”

“Actually, Chip,” Phil stepped over to him. “I was hoping you could maybe come with me for a bit? I need to get some stuff done for these two-” he gestured to Chaynne and Lullah, “and I could use a helping hand. It shouldn’t take long, you can come back and do some training after.”

Chip hesitated. The thought of missing out on training to go do some babysitting wasn’t exactly appealing… He looked to Gillion in the hopes his co-captain would request he stay, but Gillion just gave him an encouraging nod. “It might be a little much to put Etoiles and Pomme up against both of our magic at once. I can train with them while you’re out with Philza, and we can switch out when you’re back.”

Chip sighed. “Fine, then I guess I can help out a little…”

After saying goodbye to Gillion, Etoiles and Pomme, Chip followed Phil and his eggs upstairs and out of the building, back to the sunny outdoors of Quesadilla Island. “So what exactly do you need my help with?”

“We need to, let me just check…” Phil fidgeted with his communicator for a moment, "visit a neighbour’s house. Your ship isn’t far, right? How about you give us all a tour?”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Follow me, I guess.” Chip led the way towards Spawn to pass across the wall, and around to the ship. Chayanne grinned excitedly at the sight of it, while Lullah gave a wave to Foolish, who could be seen starting the repairs to the hull, a bunch of supplies piled behind him. “Welcome aboard the Millennium Chipper,” Chip welcomed, grabbing onto the rope ladder to the main deck and starting to climb.

As Chayanne eagerly followed, Lullah frowned up at the ship. She fiddled for a moment with her communicator, before starting to gesture with her hands, communicating with sign language. As she did, a text-to-speech voice came from her communicator, translating her signing - a good feature to have, since Chip could immediately tell she was using a different form of sign language than he knew. “But it says it’s called the Albatross on the front?”

“Well, this ship is so cool it gets two names. Now come on, you can’t see everything if you stay down there.”

Lullah followed her brother up the ladder, while Phil brought up the rear. Once they were all up on the ship, Chip gestured broadly. “Well, this is the main deck. That’s where our main sail used to be, but it broke when we crashed, so no tour of the crow’s nest today. Up there is the helm, and fun fact, this ship has actually got the soul of Alphonze, one of our crewmates, powering it. He’s an automaton but his body broke down in a battle with an Electrodon, and his soul got trapped in a computer chip, so we’re keeping it in the boat until we can get him a new body- It’s a long story.”

He led the way down underneath the deck, down into the sleeping quarters. “Down here is where Jay, Gill and I sleep. That’s my bed, that’s Jay’s, and that tub of water is where Gill sleeps. Now if we head back up…”

Once back out onto the main deck, he moved over to the door underneath the helm, holding it open to let Chayanne, Lullah and Phil in first. “Here is the kitchen and the crew’s quarters. This is where everyone else usually sleeps, including Ollie. It’s usually a lot more full than this, but we dropped everyone else off at All-Port a few days ago. Us three were only supposed to make a quick trip to Zero to pick up Ollie and then head back to meet the others, but uh, then the storm hit and here we are now…” He let out a small sigh, before shrugging. “Well, hopefully they’ll be okay waiting a couple extra days.” He paused, eyes going to the kitchen section. “Actually, being in here is reminding me I didn’t have any breakfast this morning…”

“Oh, if you’re hungry, I’ve got food!” Chayanne shrugged off his yellow backpack, placing it on the floor before opening it up. He rifled through, pulling out various tupperware boxes. “I’ve got regular toast, avocado toast, baked potatoes, pancakes, big breakfasts, tacos, tamales, empanadas, pepitos, and probably some other things buried at the bottom of my bag. What would you like?”

Chip blinked. “Why does a little guy like you have so much food?”

“I like to cook,” Chayanne shrugged. “Here.” He held a box containing a sandwich, labelled ‘pepito (beef)’, out to Chip.

Phil smiled as Chip took the food, before looking down at his eggs. “How about you two head back out on the deck to look around a little more while Chip eats? We’ll meet you back out there afterwards.”

Lullah raised an eyebrow, signing, “Is this you saying you want to talk to him in private and we need to go?”

“... Yeah.”

“Knew it.” Lullah led the way back out to the deck, Chayanne pulling his backpack back on before following behind.

With that, Phil and Chip were left alone in the crew’s quarters. Chip leaned against the kitchen counter, taking a bite of the pepito (it was really good, Chayanne was apparently a very skilled cook) and watching Phil, waiting for him to say something. Phil was quiet, however, just idly wandering and looking around the room. He seemed almost a little nervous.

Eventually, Chip took it upon himself to break the silence. “So your communicator gives you tasks to do? Is that something I should be looking out for?”

“Huh? Oh, no, not if you don’t have an egg. While we can respawn as many times as we want, the eggs are limited to two lives; if they lose them both, they’re gone forever. The Federation gives us quests to do with the eggs each week, and if we don’t get them done, they lose a life.”

Chip frowned. “What, the Federation just… takes the kids’ lives away? They can die over not getting chores done?”

“Yeah, pretty much. There was one egg, Trump, he was the son of Maximus and Dan. But, um, while Maxo was busy exploring for a few weeks, Dan mysteriously disappeared and Trump’s tasks didn't get done for a while. When Maxo came back, he found Trump had died alone. He’d only been with us ten days.”

“Fuck, that’s… If that’s what the Federation are doing, why don’t you leave? I mean, it looks like you have wings, can’t you just fly with your eggs out of here? Take them away somewhere safer?”

Phil let out a heavy sigh, his back currently turned to Chip. “This is why I wanted to talk to you alone. I’m about to show you something I haven’t shown anyone else on this island except my platonic husband. Not even Chay and Lullah have seen this.” He slowly shrugged off his backpack, exposing more of his large black wings, neatly folded behind his back. “For one, we’re so far out from any other land. I don’t know if I have the stamina to fly that distance, especially if I had to carry both Chay and Lullah. And for two, well…”

He dropped his bag to the floor, and then took a deep breath. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, before he raised his wings, spreading them wide for Chip to fully see.

And now it was clear: each wing had a large section completely bare of feathers. In fact, most of the primary feathers seemed to be completely gone.

“They used to be bigger,” Phil said, voice quiet, “but when I woke up on the train that brought us here, the first thing I noticed was that they’d been clipped. I can’t fly anymore. And every time my feathers start growing back in, I wake up in the morning to find they’ve been reclipped in my sleep.” He quickly refolded his wings behind his back, pulling his backpack back on to hide them again. “So Chip, you tell me: if the Federation aren’t really trapping us here, why would they do this to me?” He turned around, facing the pirate directly. “If we’re not prisoners, they shouldn’t need to stop me from flying away, right?”

Chip didn’t say anything for a moment, struggling to find his voice and formulate a response. Then his brow furrowed. “But… I don’t understand, when we met Jaiden, Quackity and Baghera yesterday, their wings looked normal. Why would they clip yours and not theirs if they’re trying to trap everyone? And the eggs too, they have dragon wings, right?”

“None of them can fly,” Phil shrugged. “Quackity and Baghera have smaller duck wings, they naturally aren’t large enough to support flight. Same for the eggs, they’re too young, their wings haven’t grown large enough yet. And Jaiden, she apparently never learnt how to. No need to clip any of their wings, they can’t use them to leave.” He stepped closer to Chip, leaning against the counter beside him. “The point I’m trying to make is that the Federation aren’t going to make it easy for you to get out of here. Even if the ocean seems open, I guarantee that if you try to sail out, something will stop you. If you still want to try, then by all means do. I’d like to hope it works. But don’t say they aren’t really trapping us. They are. We aren’t idiots who can’t see an obvious way out. We aren’t choosing to suffer here.”

Chip’s eyes moved to look shamefully at the ground. His voice came out as a small mumble. “... I’m sorry.”

Phil’s expression softened, the hint of a smile forming as he patted Chip’s shoulder. “It’s fine, mate. This is a lot for a kid to have thrust on them, I’m not gonna hold your initial reaction against you.”

Chip let out a small relieved sigh… before frowning at Phil. “‘Kid’? You know I’m nineteen, right?”

“Exactly. Pretty sure you’re the youngest on the island aside from the eggs and Ollie.”

Chip scoffed, taking another bite of his pepito. “I’m not a kid, I’m a pirate captain,” he spoke with his mouth full, “and I’ve gotten through worse shit than this, believe me.” 

“Well, maybe you can tell us about some of your adventures on the way back to the gym. I’m guessing you want to get back to training now?”

“Yeah, sounds good. I’ve pretty much shown you guys the whole ship already, so I guess that’s the task done.” Chip hurriedly shoved the last of the pepito in his mouth, stowing the tupperware box away in a cupboard (hopefully Chayanne wouldn’t ask for it back and he could get away with stealing it). “Okay, let's go.”

“You’ve got to stop talking with your mouth full, mate. You’re gonna choke.”

“You know, you don’t have to do that. We aren’t really the kind of pirates that go around calling each other ‘mate’, it just sounds weird.”

“I’m not saying it because you’re a pirate, I’m saying it because I’m British.”

“British? Is that, like, a sexuality?”

Phil paused, his hand on the door out to the deck, having just been about to open it. He slowly turned back to Chip. “... Where are you guys from again?”

If there was one thing Jay had learned so far from her and Ollie’s exploration, it was that Quesadilla Island was a pretty strange looking place. It was clear the residents had only been there a few months and just kind of built whatever they wanted wherever they wanted. The place had the most random assortment of buildings and structures dotted around, all presumably built by different people. One moment, Jay and Ollie would walk through a cute little town of wooden and brick buildings (‘La France’ it was called, according to Baghera, who they’d run into there), and then they’d be in the bold and colourful Favela, and then further up the coastline they’d find an enormous and rather creepy looking gothic castle. It was an eclectic mish-mash of clashing aesthetics, rarely with paths or roads connecting them together. It definitely gave the place a lot of personality, though.

They’d made their way all the way up the right side of the wall, finding it wasn’t actually all that long, just a couple of miles. Jay made a mental note of that; when the islanders first arrived, they were told the wall completely separated them, except it never truly did. The Federation lied to them, like they wanted to motivate the players to explode the wall. All a part of the plan to trap them here, she guessed…

Now, they were making their way back down the other side of the wall. There wasn’t much for a while, and Jay busied herself fiddling with her communicator. She was slowly getting used to how it worked, figuring out how to access the list of ‘online’ islanders and the map - on the latter, she watched Chip’s nametag, which was moving from the Albatross and towards Fit’s Fitness along with Philza, Chayanne and Lullah’s nametags. It was in the middle of this that Ollie let out a gasp. “Whoa, look at that, Ms Jay! There’s another castle!”

Jay looked up from her wrist in the direction he was pointing. Just ahead was a grey stone wall and armaments, built in a square around a very tall tower. Outside of this castle, there was a wooden house to one side, and on the other a square of blue concrete flooring with a trapdoor in the centre. The latter couldn’t help but make Jay curious: it seemed rather oddly placed, with no signage or anything to indicate what it was.

“Would it be okay if I went inside the castle and looked around?” Ollie asked, pulling Jay’s attention back to him.

“Oh, uh, yeah, sure. Just be careful, okay? I don’t know whose place this is, but they probably wouldn’t appreciate us breaking anything.”

“I will be, promise!” With that, Ollie went running to the entrance of the castle.

Jay watched him go, before making her way over to the trapdoor. She didn’t go down it straight away, first kneeling down and looking through the windows in it. She couldn’t see much - a ladder descending down into a room of the same blue concrete. After a cursory look around to make sure no one was nearby and going to stop her, she flipped open the trapdoor and started to climb down.

She stepped off when she reached the bottom of the ladder, turning around to take in the underground room she found herself in-

Only to immediately freeze. There was a child here.

It was a pretty small room, walls, floor and ceiling all made of blue concrete. In front of her was a glass fence, and just beyond that, a bed surrounded by beautiful glowing blue leaves. Lying tucked within the bed was a young boy with blue dragon wings, small horns, and a few scales decorating his cheeks. His brown hair was held back from his face by a blue headband, and he seemed to be wearing a white t-shirt and blue overalls. His eyes were closed, and his hands were resting on his stomach, loosely holding a wilted and dying bouquet of red roses.

Those roses were the first hint Jay had that this egg wasn’t just sleeping. It didn’t take her long to notice the unnatural paleness of his complexion, the way his chest didn’t rise and fall.

Jay had wandered right into a tomb.

Immediately, she felt incredibly guilty. She shouldn’t be here, looking over this child’s body. She turned, but before she could even take a step towards the ladder, the creaking of the trapdoor above made her freeze.

Her eyes glanced around the room as the sound of feet descending the ladder grew closer. The only place to hide was in the leaves surrounding the egg, and she absolutely did not want to cross the fence and risk disturbing his resting place. She took a deep breath, just standing awkwardly as slowly, into view, climbed Jaiden.

She descended the ladder with one hand, the other clutching a bouquet of fresh roses. As she reached the bottom, she stepped off and turned around- “AH!”

“Sorry!” Jay quickly apologised as Jaiden jumped at the sight of her. “I didn’t mean to scare you!”

Jaiden let out a relieved sigh, shaking her head. “I-it’s okay, I just didn’t expect anyone else to be here…” Her eyes flitted between Jay and the bed behind her. “What, uh, what are you doing down here…?”

“Oh, uh, I didn’t know- I was just looking around the island, exploring a bit, and, um, I saw the trapdoor and got curious, I didn’t mean to… I wouldn’t have come down here if I’d known it was a grave, I’m sorry, I can go-”

“No, it… it’s okay. You can stay.” Jaiden’s eyes moved back to the boy. “I think he’d like having some new visitors.” She stepped forward, moving past Jay and going over the glass fence. She slowly knelt down beside the bed and then, ever so gently, she pried the dying roses from the egg’s hands, replacing them with the fresh ones. She let out a soft sigh, running a hand comfortingly through the boy’s hair.

Jay hesitated, unsure if she should say anything, but her curiosity got the better of her. “He was your egg…?”

Jaiden gave a small nod. “His name is Bobby. He was assigned to Roier and I, we coparented together. The house outside is where we all lived together, Roier built that castle for Bobby. We had him for forty-four days. The best forty-four days of my life… There’s this rose field, we all spent the day there once, and it was the happiest I’d ever been, seeing him so happy. Every week, I bring fresh roses from there, so he can stay that happy wherever he is now.”

Jay slowly stepped closer, kneeling down as well and leaning against the glass. “He was lucky to have a mom as good as you.”

Jaiden shrugged, face falling a little. “I wasn’t good enough… A good mom should have been there with him and Roier in that dungeon to help when they were attacked. Not asleep at home while they were both knocked down…”

Jay went to respond, ready to recite the phrases you’d expect - ‘don’t blame yourself’, ‘it’s not your fault’, ‘it was an accident’ - but quickly stopped herself. What reason would Jaiden have to listen to her? She wasn’t even here when that all happened, she didn’t know anything.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She did know something.

She shifted a little, so she was sitting with her back leaning against the glass, facing away from Jaiden and Bobby. “I, um… I had a sister. Ava. She followed the family footsteps, joined the navy while I stayed back to work at our mom’s tavern. But she went missing. When I agreed to join Chip’s crew, I was actually acting undercover at first; I wasn’t there to be a pirate, I just wanted to figure out what happened to Ava and where she was. But it quickly became clear that… that I wasn’t going to be able to find her because she was already gone. Sometimes I wonder if things would have been different if I’d kept up with training and joined the navy with her, or if I’d gone to find her sooner…

“I know it’s not exactly the same as losing a child, but… I know how it feels to lose someone really important to you.” She looked over her shoulder at Jaiden, who stared back at her with slightly teary eyes. “If you ever need to talk, or a distraction, or… anything really, feel free to send me a message or stop by the ship. I mean, ‘girls gotta stick together’, right?”

A small smile appeared on Jaiden’s face, and she quickly wiped her eyes. “Thanks, Jay. I appreciate it. And I’m sorry about your sister.”

“It’s okay.” Jay’s eyes went back to Bobby. “I… I do have one more question, but you don’t have to answer if it’s too much for you.”

“What is it?”

“... How… exactly is Bobby dead? I thought everyone here came back to life when they died? It happened to me earlier.”

“Oh, um, the eggs work differently. Here, let me see your communicator.” Jaiden reached out, gently taking Jay’s wrist. She opened the main menu, before pressing an icon that looked like an egg shell with a heart on it. A screen popped up, showing various egg icons, each with identifying accessories and nametags. Also underneath each icon were two, one or no hearts. The ones with no hearts beneath were greyed out - with the exception of one, which was green with cartoony glasses, labelled ‘Gegg’, and had a question mark beneath it instead of hearts.

“The hearts are the eggs’ lives. They only get two, and if they lose them both, they’re gone for good. Bobby lost his second life in that dungeon.” Jaiden pointed to a greyed-out egg icon wearing overalls with Bobby’s name over it and no hearts underneath.

Jay frowned at the screen. She guessed the decision to limit the lives of the eggs was the Federation’s doing-

Wait.

What the heck was that.

Jay blinked at one specific egg icon. Two hearts were displayed below it. It didn’t look like it represented any of the eggs she’d seen on the island; it didn’t have any of their accessories.

Instead, it had an eyepatch. The nametag above it displayed a name far too familiar.

“Jaiden, why is Ollie listed here…?”

Jaiden’s expression immediately became just as confused as she leaned over, looking again at Jay’s communicator. “I don’t…” She then raised her own, pulling up the same screen. The Ollie egg was displayed there too. “That’s… weird. Maybe because he’s a kid, the Federation decided to classify him as an egg?”

“That means he only has two lives… Oh shit, I left him alone! OLLIE!” Jay scrambled to her feet, hurrying to the ladder and climbing up as fast as she could. Jaiden quickly followed, sparing one final quick glance back at Bobby before climbing.

As soon as she pulled herself out of the trapdoor, Jay ran straight towards the castle. “OLLIE! Where are you, you’re alive right?!”

“Ms Jay! I’m up here!” Ollie’s voice yelled, coming high up from the top of the tower inside the castle walls. Immediately, Jay felt her heart rate get faster. Oh gods, big heights, easy to fall from, easy way to die.

When Jaiden caught up to Jay in the doorway of the castle, she was met with the sight of the tattoo of wings on Jay’s back starting to glow. Before Jaiden could say anything about it, two blue spectral eagle wings burst out from the tattoo. With a flap, Jay instantly took off, flying to the top of the tower as Jaiden watched with her jaw dropped.

“Okay, Ollie, um, no more climbing up to really high places, okay? We’re gonna do our best to stay safe on solid ground, alright?” Jay awkwardly said as she picked Ollie up, before carefully soaring back down to the grass below.

“I was being careful, I promised I would! Besides, if I died, I’d just come back like you did, wouldn’t I?” Ollie pouted, folding his arms as Jay put him down and her wings disappeared.

“Yeah, that’s… We need to go find Chip and Gill, okay? We need to have a serious talk about something. Come on, let's find a waystone to warp and go meet them.” Jay took Ollie’s hand, pulling him along back to the castle entrance, where Jaiden still stood dumbfounded.

“You… made yourself wings…?” she mumbled as Jay approached. “Foolish told me you guys could do magic, but I didn’t know if I actually believed him until now! That was amazing!”

Jay shrugged, eyes darting around to try and spot a waystone. “I mean, you have wings too, right? It’s not really super unique that I can fly.”

“Oh, um…” Jaiden quickly became very sheepish, fidgeting a little. “I actually, uh, don’t know how to fly? I don’t really remember anything from before arriving on the island, but I guess I never learnt how because I just… can’t.” She paused. “... Could you teach me?”

Jay hesitated, glancing down at Ollie. “Oh, uh, I can’t really-”

“I don’t mean right now! I get it, you’ve got other stuff to deal with. But if you’re ever free and are up for it, I would really appreciate it.”

“Oh, uh, then yeah, sure,” Jay nodded. “I don’t know how good a teacher I’ll be, since I learnt more through magic than skill, but I guess it’s worth a shot. Maybe we can meet up tomorrow, if that works for you?”

“Yeah, sounds good! I’ll let you two get going now. Thanks for everything, Jay. See you tomorrow!” Jaiden gave a wave, turning and walking back towards the entrance to Bobby’s grave.

Jay turned the other way, leading Ollie towards a waystone outside of the nearby house, intending to head straight to Fit’s Fitness.

“You’ve got this, Chip! You’re doing great!”

“Papa, tu peux le faire!”

Gillion and Pomme were sitting side-by-side on the bleachers in the basement of Fit’s Fitness, taking a break as they watched Etoiles and Chip spar, having their own warm-up stick fight. The fight was a lot different to Gillion’s own, as Chip and Etoiles had far more similar fighting styles, with quick sharp attacks followed by dodging and evading. The fight was currently leaning far more in Chip’s favour. For one, Etoiles was already pretty tired and beaten up from his training against Gillion’s spells, giving Chip an early advantage. For two, Chip, unlike Gillion, hadn’t been hesitant to use his own magic, casting fire bolt at Etoiles when he got the chance. Still, Etoiles was proving to be a formidable foe, doing his best to stay on his feet.

As Gillion and Pomme watched, they started to dig into some avocado toast given to them by Chayanne - he, Lullah and Phil only stopped by for a moment to drop Chip off and offer some food, before heading off, apparently having a lot they needed to do today. As they ate, Gillion was told by Pomme that on this island, all food had healing properties, something that proved to be true as he ate and felt himself getting more rejuvenated, the bruises and wounds he’d acquired during training starting to heal, disappearing or fading into new scars.

A chirp right next to his ear pulled his attention from the fight; Pretzel had crawled up onto his shoulder, and she was looking curiously at the piece of toast in his hands. “Oh, you want some, Pretzel? Here you go.” He broke off a small piece, holding it out to her. Pretzel let out a happy chirp, wrapping a tentacle around it and raising it to her mouth.

“Who are you talking t- “ Pomme cut herself as she leaned forward, seeing the pink frogtopus and letting out a small gasp. “Oh mon dieu, that is so cute!”

Gillion smiled, gently lifting Pretzel from his shoulder. “Pomme, meet Pretzel! She’s my oldest and best friend.”

“Bonjour!” Pomme smiled, giving a small wave. She giggled as Pretzel lifted a tentacle, using it to wave back. “Can I pet her?”

“That’s up to her. What do you say, Pretzel?”

Pretzel looked Pomme up and down, before letting out an affirmative chirp. Pomme looked up at Gillion, who gave a nod, before gently petting Pretzel’s head. “What is she? I thought she was a small octopus, but her head looks more like a frog…”

“That’s because she’s a frogtopus! The best of both. I’ve had her since I was young, she was a gift from my sister, Edyn.” After a pause, Gillion’s face fell a little, eyes widening slightly in realisation. “Edyn, she… she doesn’t know I’m stuck here… Oh, why did I break that shell…?”

“Shell?”

“My old callnch shell.” Gillion opened his briefcase, pulling out his callnh shell. “It can connect to another and let you talk to someone, no matter how far away from them you are. I guess like the communicators we have, but speaking instead of written words. I used to have one that was connected to my sister’s but… Long story short, I broke it. Caspian, a friend of ours who also gave me my original shell, got me this new one and mailed it to me a few days ago. I have his contact, and Chip, Jay and Ollie’s, but… I haven’t seen Edyn in a while. She’s been off doing something important, so I haven’t been able to get her contact again, which wasn’t too much of a problem until we got stuck on this island, potentially in a whole other realm, for who knows how long, and I can’t tell her! Oh gods, what if something happens and she needs me but can’t find me anywhere…”

Pomme frowned, picking up on the sense of panic building within Gillion. “I’m sure it’ll be okay. If you can contact this Caspian person, maybe they can tell her what’s happened and you can talk to her through them?”

Pretzel had crawled back up Gillion’s arm and onto his shoulder, comfortingly nuzzling against the side of his head. Between that and Pomme’s words, it was apparently enough to keep him calm, as he let out a small sigh. “You’re right. The rest of our crew, the Granberry Pirates, they’re all still there. They’ll make sure she’s okay…”

Pomme smiled comfortingly, before deciding to change the subject, hoping to distract him. “Thanks for letting me train with you, by the way. I love training with just papa, but the magic made it so much more fun! I wish I could cast spells too. The only magic I have is the enchantments on my armour and weapons…”

“Well, magic wielding might not be common in this world, but who knows,” Gillion shrugged. “Chip couldn’t cast spells for the longest time, and look at him now!” He gestured to his co-captain, who once again cast fire bolt at Etoiles; but this time, the other man was prepared and dived out of the way. “Perhaps you’ll get lucky and be the first around here.”

“That’d be awesome. If I could do magic, I’d definitely be able to become a strong enough fighter!”

Gillion’s smile faltered a little, eyebrows furrowing in concern as he looked down at the girl’s determined expression, one that was very familiar to him. He shifted in his seat, turning to fully face her. “Pomme, why is it you want to become such a strong fighter? You’re very young, it’s a very high expectation for someone your age… No one is forcing you to train into a warrior, are they?”

“Huh? Oh, no! Papa Etoiles trains with me, yeah, but he’d never force me to if I didn’t want to. I want to be strong because, well… I’m the only one with all of my lives left.”

Gillion blinked owlishly, prompting Pomme to continue. “You grown ups can all respawn as much as you like, but us eggs, we only get two lives. Once we die twice, we die forever - and I’m the only egg who still has both of their lives left. It means I’m a target for things like code monsters, so I have to be able to protect myself. It also means that, if me and my siblings get in any danger, I need to be the one to protect them; I can afford to put myself in harms way to fight, but they can’t. So that’s why I want to be a better fighter - to keep myself and my siblings safe.”

“I see…” Gillion nodded, giving Pomme a soft smile. “That’s a very honourable reason, Pomme. I’m sure destiny will be on your side, and neither you or the other eggs will lose another life. But just remember, the burden isn’t all on your shoulders alone; if you ever find yourself in danger, with or without the other eggs, don’t hesitate to let me know and I’ll be on my way.”

Pomme smiled back. “Thanks, Gillion.”

“Chip! Gill!” Jay’s voice suddenly called from the floor above. “You guys in here?!”

“Oh, we’re downstairs!” Gillion called back. Soon, Jay appeared, looking pretty worried. “What’s wrong?”

“I, uh, I’ve got some news, we need to talk about something right now. Chip, come on, training’s over.”

“Come on, I was just about to win!” Chip whined, he and Etoiles pausing their fight. “Can’t we just have five more minutes?”

Jay shook her head. “No, we can’t. It… it’s about Ollie.”

That seemed to be all it took for Chip. He dropped his stick, quickly climbing out of the ring. “Okay, let's go. Rematch another time, Etoiles, okay?”

“It’s not so bad, right? I mean, usually we all have just one life! We die once, that’s it! So even if Ollie isn’t immortal like us, him having two lives is still an improvement! It’s literally a hundred percent more lives than he had before! It’s nothing to worry about!”

Chip was pacing in the crew’s quarters of the Albatross. Jay and Gillion were watching him go back and forth as they sat at the table, while Ollie was sitting on his bed. He had fallen very quiet upon finding out about the limit on his lives, just staring down at his lap.

“I’d be with you on that if it weren’t for the fact that, according to you, he could lose lives over not getting chores done?” Jay said. “It’d be one thing if it was just keeping him from dying, since we know from experience that we can do that, but now you’re saying that if we get a little busy or forgetful, that could be a life gone?”

Chip glanced at Ollie, who had visibly tensed up at Jay’s words, before turning back to Jay, giving her a look that basically said ‘don’t scare him like that’. “That’s not gonna happen, Jay. Phil said the tasks are weekly, so we get seven days to do them, and there’s three of us. Between us all, getting the quests done with Ollie should be a piece of cake, right? We just make him our priority. Besides, we won’t have to worry about this long with Foolish starting to work on the ship.” He paused, finally stopping his pacing and looking at Gillion. “Actually, I forgot to ask, Gill, did you ever hear back from Caspian about directions to All-Port?”

“Oh, yes, I did. I don’t think you’ll like what he said though…”

“What did he say?”

“There was no Quesadilla Island on their map of Mana, and no one on their ship had heard of it. He has no idea where we are. I think I’m with Jay on this being a different realm. I mean, we’ve been to the Feywild before, it’s not out of reason to think this might be another world like that…”

“Or maybe we’re still in Mana and just in an uncharted area,” Chip shrugged. “Maybe this island has another name that it’s called on maps but no one here knows. When the ship’s fixed, we can pick a direction and sail, and hopefully we’ll eventually come across something familiar. If not, then I’ll agree you two are probably right, but we don’t know that yet. I don’t want to jump to that conclusion until we know for sure.”

Gillion frowned, he and Jay sharing a glance. “You want to sail out still? You still think the Federation isn’t trapping us here?”

Chip hesitated. “I… I dunno, but I think sailing out is worth at least a try, we might get lucky. It’s better than not trying to leave at all, right? We can’t just stay here, we promised Ollie’s mom we’d only take him for a few days. He’s gotta get home, and we’ve gotta meet the rest of the crew back at All-Port. I’m not gonna give up on that without taking at least a single shot at getting out of here.”

“And if that shot fails, we’ll work with the other islanders, try to find a way to free everyone?” Jay asked.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Alright then. One shot, as soon as Foolish is done fixing the ship up.” She pushed herself to her feet. “I’m gonna head on out, see if I can forage or hunt anything for dinner.”

“I think I’m going to give Caspian a call,” Gillion stood up as well. “I want to tell him to let Edyn know what happened to us if he sees her… I’ll let you all know if he says anything else that’s important.”

He and Jay headed out of the door. As soon as it closed behind them, Jay whispered to Gillion. "See, I told you it wouldn't be long. We'll be able to tell Chip about the Order in just a few days."

Back in the crew's quarters, Chip made his way over to Ollie, sitting down beside him. “Hey, buddy, how’re you doing?”

Ollie’s voice was quiet, a little shaky, as he looked up at Chip with wide, nervous eyes. “I’m not gonna die here, am I…?”

“What? No, of course not! I mean, come on, you survived an Electrodon! No way are some chores gonna be enough to take you out. You’re gonna be just fine. You’ve got three immortal badass pirates to keep you safe.” Chip wrapped an arm around Ollie’s shoulders. “We’ve got you. We’ll get you back home to your mom again before you know it.”

“You promise?”

“Promise.” Chip patted his back. “Now, what do you say we play a prank on Gill? I think we can make him think the ship is haunted if we slip your callnch shell in the room with him and call it with mine.”

Ollie sniffed, doing his best to push away his anxiety and smile. “Y-yeah, let's do it!”

Sun poured through the portholes of the Albatross the next morning, signalling the dawn of a new day. Gillion had already woken bright and early, heading up to the crew's quarters to cook breakfast. Chip was slowly starting to rouse awake, but was still half-asleep, moving his arm to cover his face and shield it from the light.

The first thing Jay felt when she awoke was pain.

It stretched right across the entirety of her upper back, an almost searing, burning pain. She was lying on her side, but turned her head, groaning into her pillow. “F-fuck… ow…”

“Jay? You okay?” Chip’s voice asked between a loud yawn.

“No… Did you pull a prank on me that went wrong or something? M-my back really hurts…”

“No, we only played that prank on Gill yesterday, nothing else,” Chip frowned, sitting up in his bed and stretching. “Maybe you slept in a bad position?”

“It doesn’t feel like that, it’s not in my muscles, it’s like… across my skin…”

Chip got to his feet, stepping closer to Jay. “Lie on your front, lemme take a look.”

Jay did so. Chip was quiet for a moment, eyes widening. When he spoke, it was with a heavy sigh. “Fuck, I should have seen this coming…”

Across Jay’s upper back, the skin was completely red, raw, like multiple layers had been scorched and burned away somehow.

The wing tattoo on her back had been completely removed.

Chapter Text

Phil sighed softly, staring out at the horizon. He was standing on the potato plank that extended from the wall, watching the early morning sun as it slowly rose over the island. He did this every morning as he waited for his children to wake up. Admittedly, it was mostly to search for any sign of his platonic husband; Missa had gone off a while ago, apparently venturing far enough that he had left the range of the communicators, going offline. Phil couldn’t help but be worried that something bad had happened to him… but he held out hope that one of these mornings, he’d see Missa making his way back towards the wall.

And hey, even if Phil didn’t see Missa, it was still nice to just take a moment to enjoy the fresh air and peaceful quiet before the rest of the island awoke-

FWOOOSH!

A sudden noise startled him, his wings throwing themselves out to balance himself as he almost stumbled off the edge of the potato plank. Once he steadied his footing, taking a deep breath, he quickly turned around, looking in the direction of the noise.

It had come from right above his house. There, facing parallel to the glass roof, was a strange glowing… portal? Rift?

“Goddammit…” Phil muttered to himself. “Why does lore always end up on my doorstep…”

He walked along the potato plank, moving back onto the wall to get a closer look. The rift was a glowing blue, the interior of it cloudy so he couldn’t see through it. He started to consider climbing onto the roof to get a closer look. Maybe shooting a message to Cellbit, he’d probably want to know about this-

That’s when someone dropped from the portal.

They landed down on one knee, a fist planted to the glass roof below. Their back was to Phil, but he could see they had very bold crimson red hair, held out of their face by a black headband tied in place. They wore a red cropped jacket, with black sleeves and fingerless gloves, as well as black cargo pants.

As Phil watched, they looked up, glancing around in front of them. “It worked… It fucking worked, lets go!” They leapt to their feet, punching the air. Now Phil could see them a little better, he could see they seemed to be a kid, a teenage boy; not as young as Ollie, more around Chip’s age, maybe a little younger. He was pretty short, but surprisingly strong-looking. “Whoa, this place looks so different… They really fixed it up fast after the Lich…”

Just after he spoke, another person suddenly fell through the rift, letting out a yelp as they landed far less gracefully on their back. “Ow…”

“Ashe! You okay, dude?” The first arrival leaned down, helping the second to their feet.

‘Ashe’ had long light grey hair, and wore a white beanie, large headphones around their neck, an oversized purple hoodie, and black ripped jeans. A brown messenger bag was hanging from one of his shoulders, decorated with an assortment of pins. “Yeah, I’m good… So this is Vyncent’s home?” They glanced around. “Looks nice.”

“Yeah, it definitely wasn’t like this last time we were here- Hold on…” the first boy cut himself off, frowning, looking Ashe up and down. “Your outfit didn’t change!” He looked down at himself. “Hey, neither did mine!”

“Was it supposed to…?”

“Yeah! Last time we came here, Will and I got cool fantasy outfits! I had long hair, and he was like a wizard!” The first boy turned to the portal, looking up at it. “Hey, Professor Cross! I don’t know if you can hear me through there, but your portal is broken! I think- WHOA!”

The boy dived out of the way as a third person fell through the portal, landing pretty steadily on their feet. This one had long purple hair, tied back in a ponytail, and a soulpatch. They wore a cropped leather jacket and a white graphic tee that read ‘KNIFE’. What was most striking, however, was their long pointed ears, tail, and the very large sword they had strapped to their back.

As soon as they landed, they glanced around, expression almost immediately morphing from eager excitement, to confusion.

“Vyncent! Dude, something’s wrong,” the first boy said. “We didn’t get our different outfits and magic and stuff! The whole reason we brought Ashe was so he could see what cool powers he gets here!”

‘Vyncent’ didn’t even turn back to the first boy, just staring out into the distance. “That’s because this isn’t my world…”

“Huh?”

“This doesn’t look like anywhere I’ve been on Fauna. I mean, look, we’re not even on a floating island, I can see the ocean!”

“Oh. Shit. I wonder if we’re still on Prime or in a different world...” The first boy looked back up the portal. “But I guess we should head back through and tell Professor Cross he got the wrong place-”

“AAAH!” He was cut off by a fourth person falling from the rift. This one, Phil didn’t get a very good look at beyond a black and white blur, as they didn’t stop, falling straight through the roof.

Not crashing through it. The glass didn’t break. The blurred form just… passed right through the glass ceiling, and then through the floor inside, disappearing from view and falling presumably into Chayanne and Lullah’s bedroom below.

“Oh shit, Will?!” Vyncent knelt down on the roof, calling as loudly as he could in the hopes of being heard. “Are you okay?!”

A very distant and muffled response called back, words completely undiscernable.

“Don’t worry, William, I’m coming to get you!” The first boy ran to the edge of the roof and, completely overlooking Phil who was standing just below watching, turned around and jumped off backwards. As he did, he grabbed the edge of the roof, using his momentum to swing forward, slamming his feet into the door of the house.

Now, that door was made of pure iron, securely locked with a code, and was reinforced. By all means, it should be impossible for a human to break it open with even a strong weapon, let alone only their body weight.

That’s why Phil’s jaw dropped as the boy not only kicked it open, but completely ripped it off its hinges, sending it crashing to the floor inside.

The boy let go of the edge of the roof, dropping to his feet and running inside the house, glancing around the rather small interior. He looked between the various storage chests, frowning. “Ugh, there’s no way down in here! William, if you can hear me, get out of the way, I might have to kick through the floor!”

That was enough for Phil to finally find his voice. “No, you’re not wrecking my house!”

The three teenagers all turned to him, the red head pausing in the middle of climbing up on top of a chest, presumably to get a jumping start. As he stared at Phil, his eyes drifted to the diamond sword looped in Phil’s belt and then the black wings behind him. The boy’s jaw dropped. “No way… Holy shit, I didn’t think we’d ever get to meet you! Even the Pretender told us he didn’t know what you’re up to now!” Almost fast as a blink, he had run up to Phil, grabbing his hand and aggressively shaking it. “I’m Dakota Cole, D.C., and we’re the Prime Defenders! Maybe you’ve heard of us, we’ve saved the world a couple times, no big deal.”

“Dakota, you know this guy?” Vyncent asked, sitting on the edge of the roof of the house, legs hanging off.

“Yeah, of course! It’s the Winged Swordsman!”

Phil’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Huh?”

“Who?”

“You know! Jax, the Winged Swordsman! He used to be in a team with the Pretender and Dodgeboy!” Dakota turned back to Phil. “I have so many questions! Are you still doing hero stuff or are you retired? Is that why you bleached your hair, so you’d be harder to recognise and can live a quiet civilian life? Were you there when Dodgeboy got popped, what happened? Oh! You used to know Tide, right? Can you tell us any secrets about him?”

“I, uh, think you’ve got me confused for someone else,” Phil said the moment Dakota paused long enough for him to get a word in. “My name’s not Jax, it’s Phil.”

Dakota’s face fell. “Oh. Yeah, now that you mention it, you’re definitely not jacked enough to be him.”

“Uh, guys?” Ashe spoke up from where he was still standing atop the roof. “The portal’s getting smaller, I think it’s starting to close.”

Dakota and Vyncent quickly turned to look, the latter climbing back to his feet, their eyes widening. True to Ashe’s word, the portal was visibly starting to shrink, gradually closing in on itself. “Oh shit, William!” Dakota yelled, before looking back to Phil. “Hey, you said this is your house, right? Can you get our buddy out from down there?”

“Uh, yeah, this way.” Phil led the way around the house, crouching at the reinforced iron trapdoor to Chayanne and Lullah’s room. He started typing in the code to unlock it-

“No time!” Dakota jumped, slamming his feet into the trapdoor; just like the iron door, it instantly broke open. He caught himself on the sides of the ladder, sliding down it into the garden room below.

“I- How- I told you not to wreck the place!” Phil called, climbing down not far behind.

The sight that met them at the bottom was Chayanne and Lullah awake, the former standing protectively in front of the latter in the middle of the room with a sword drawn. Both were glancing around with confused and anxious expressions. When Dakota landed in the room, Chayanne raised his sword, immediately putting himself between the boy and Lullah; however, he relaxed as Phil climbed into view. “Dad! There was someone in the room when we woke up! I got my sword to protect Lullah, but when I turned back, they’d just disappeared!”

“Who’s that?” Lullah signed, pointing at Dakota.

“Dakota Cole, and that someone you scared was one of my friends! William, I know you’re in here! Come on, we’ve gotta go, Professor Cross sent us to the wrong place!”

“He did?” a new voice - one that honestly sounded pretty familiar to Phil, just more hushed and whispery than the one he knew - spoke, though where it came from was unclear. That was, until, a figure appeared from seemingly nowhere, standing in the corner of the room.

Said figure was another teenage boy, with black hair, except for a streak of white, and an unnaturally pale complexion. He had multiple piercings in his ears, black painted nails and eyeliner. He wore a black zipped up skeleton hoodie, black jeans and black combat boots with bright blue laces. Over his shoulders he had a black backpack.

“Will!” Dakota grinned at the sight of him. “The portal’s starting to close, come on, we need to hurry so we can get back before it does!” He ran over to the emo boy, William, picking him up under one arm with complete ease, before running back over to the ladder. As he speedily climbed up, he called back to Phil, “Thanks for the help, now bye!”

Phil huffed - these kids really had a lot of energy - before quickly climbing back up the ladder as well, Chayanne and Lullah both following close behind. Phil reached the top just in time to see Dakota literally throw William on top of the house, the emo boy basically ragdolling as he flopped onto the glass roof. Vyncent and Ashe hurried to help him up, while Dakota jumped onto the trampoline beside the house, leaping from there to the roof.

The four of them turned to the rift above them.

Which was now merely the size of a pinprick that completely disappeared before their eyes.

“Shit!” Dakota cursed. He reached into his pocket, fishing for something. 

“Are we stuck here now?” Ashe asked nervously.

“It’ll be fine, I’ll call Professor Cross, see if he can reopen it and let us back through.” Dakota pulled a smartphone from his pocket. “Good news, wherever we are has service. I’ll put it on speaker.”

As Dakota’s phone rang and the four teens waited nervously, Lullah tugged on her father’s sleeve to get his attention. “Dad, who are they?”  

“I don’t know,” Phil whispered back. “They just kind of… appeared.”

It didn’t take long for Dakota’s phone to stop ringing, a voice coming from the speaker. “Dakota! Hello! Did the portal work? You didn’t get your being ripped apart and scattered across the multiverse, did you?”

“Uh, no, not that, but we’re in the wrong place!”

“Oh?”

“Something went wrong, this isn’t my home world,” Vyncent said, leaning towards the phone. “Are you able to reverse the portal and bring us back?”

“Vyncent! Yes, of course! Just give me a moment and I’ll have you all back in no time! So sorry, I thought it was calibrated to the right place… I wonder, tell me, is the place you’re at an island? Does it have primarily clockwork-based infrastructure?”

“Yes to the island, but the clockwork…” Dakota shrugged. “I mean, we haven’t seen much of the place, but it doesn’t look like it?”

“Ah, so it probably wasn’t me accidentally leaving it set on the previous destination… Well, no matter, the portal should be reopening riiiiiight… now!”

There was a pause. The four teens and Phil all stared at where the rift had once been.

“...Professor Cross, I don’t think it’s working,” William said after a solid ten seconds of nothing.

“Hm, that is. Odd. Let me try again…” There was a pause, the sound of keyboard clacking over the phone - and then a loud, harsh buzz. “Ah. That’s not good. It seems something is blocking my equipment from reopening the portal. An error message keeps appearing on my computers, it just says ‘HA HA HA’. Whoever it is must have a sense of humour. Well, at least you all will have more time to learn about where you are!”

“What, so we’re just stuck here?!”

“Of course not! Or maybe. We’ll see. I’ll look into this some more, figure out if I can get past this block and set the portal back up. In the meantime, it’s probably for the best you settle in, look around, oh! Maybe call me back if you find anyone I can talk to to learn more about where you are. If I could pinpoint your exact location, it’d probably make things a lot easier.”

Dakota’s eyes went straight to Phil. “We’ve actually already got a guy here if you want to ask him stuff.” He called to Phil, “You’d be okay with that, right?”

“I guess?”

“Cool! Here you go, Professor, here’s a guy called Phil to talk to!” Dakota jumped down from the roof again, pushing his phone into the crow man’s hands.

Phil awkwardly accepted it. “Uh, hi…?”

“Phil, hello, wonderful to meet you! My name’s Professor Alastyr Cross. Now tell me, what is the name of the island you’re on? It does have a name, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, it’s called Quesadilla Island.”

“Quesadilla Island, let's see here… Hm, no record of an island of that name on Prime… Nor Fauna… What world are you on, Phil? What’s the name of the planet?”

“It’s just Earth.”

Those three words made all four of the teenagers’ jaws drop.

“Oh! That is interesting!” Professor Cross’ voice over the phone was noticeably excited. “Very interesting indeed…”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” William muttered. “Earth’s been uninhabitable for, like, a hundred years!” He paused, before turning nervously to Phil. “Wait, what year is it?”

“2023.”

“Oh dear god…”

Dakota practically snatched his phone back from Phil, yelling into it. “You sent us back in time?!”

“Oh, no, of course not!” Professor Cross replied. “I didn’t build this portal machine to time travel, I made it to cross dimensions. You see, Dakota, with the sheer number of different universes and dimensions there are in existence, probability dictates that there will undoubtedly be shared characteristics that reoccur in multiple. Clearly, whatever universe you have all ended up in also has this same planet Earth. And that makes my job to find you a lot easier! I just have to find a universe with a thriving Earth that has a Quesadilla Island on it. From there, I can investigate the signal blocking the portal and how to get past it. As I said, all you have to do is settle in and sit tight until I can get that done. So… have fun, enjoy exploring a new world! I’ll keep you updated on my progress! Speak to you later!”

With that, he hung up, Dakota’s phone going quiet. The four teenagers didn’t say anything for a moment, all of them just stunned silent.

Ashe was the first to break it. “My dad’s gonna kill me when we get back.”

“No he won’t,” William replied, face somehow even more pale than it naturally was. “He’ll kill us three for bringing you along. And that’s only if we do ever get back.”

“We will,” Vyncent said, though he didn’t sound so confident, starting to pace up and down the roof. “I mean, we can’t be stuck here! Ashe has college classes to get back to. Will, you have your parents, and Dakota, your aunt- And that’s not even mentioning what happened to Atlas, we’ve just gotten caught up in something really big! There’s too much we need to do back on Prime, we have to get back.” He paused pacing, holding his face in his hands and groaning. “Oh gods, this is all my fault… If I hadn’t wanted to visit home, we wouldn’t have ended up here.”

“No, Vynce, you are not blaming yourself for this! No overthinking allowed!” Dakota climbed back onto the roof, going to stand in front of the other three. “Look, it’s gonna be okay. Professor Cross will sort this out, we’ll get back to Prime in no time. In the meantime, WATCH has the hero stuff handled. Come on, we’re the Prime Defenders, we’ve gotten through worse than this! Besides, it looks like we got lucky with where we ended up, this seems like a pretty chill place-”

“Hello.”

“AH!”

Like something out of a slapstick comedy routine, Dakota jumped away from the voice that suddenly spoke right behind him, stumbling into the other three boys, sending all four of them falling off the roof, landing in a pile at Phil’s feet. Phil huffed, taking hold of Chayanne and Lullah’s hands and glaring at the blank stare of Cucurucho, who let out a monotone laugh, stepping down from the roof.

“What the hell is that thing?” Dakota asked, climbing off of the other three boys to let them get up.

“Cucurucho,” Phil said, holding his glare. “They’re a part of the organisation that runs this island.”

William raised an eyebrow. “Your government is run by people in bear mascot costumes?”

“I wouldn’t say government. It’s more like they’re guards and we’re prisoners.”

“Ha ha ha.” Cucurucho let out another laugh, stepping closer to the four boys as they got back to their feet. The bear revealed four books and quills, holding them out. “I am a part of the QSMP Census Bureau. I would like to ask you some questions.”

“They have everyone who comes here do a survey,” Phil explained to the confused teens, who hesitantly took the books. “Just write your answers to their questions in the books. Believe me, if you try to refuse, they’ll just bug you until you do it, so it’s best to get it out of the way.” Besides, this would be a good way for Phil to learn more about these apparently-otherwordly teens.

Dakota had narrowed his eyes into a distrustful glare at Cucurucho, but he and the other boys all opened their books, holding their quills at the ready for Cucurucho’s questions.

“What is your name?”

Dakota Cole

William Wisp

Virion ‘Vyncent’ Sol

Ashe Winters

“What is your age?”

18

18

20

18

“What was your occupation?”

Prime Defender

Prime Defender

Prime Defender

College student and honorary Prime Defender

“Where did you work at?”

Basically everywhere

I guess WATCH? But we mostly do our own thing now

Prime. Except for that one time we went to Flora. And that time we went to the Spirit Realm.

I mean I’m studying at New Haven College

“What do you like doing for fun?”

Training, eating pizza, hanging with the guys

Writing poetry

Watching movies with Will

Listening to music

“That is all. Thank you for your cooperation.” Cucurucho took all of the books back, putting them away in their inventory, before taking out four communicators. They held them out to Phil. “Can you please instruct your fellow islanders on setting up their communicators.”

Phil didn’t say anything, still holding his steely glare, but he did take the devices from Cucurucho.

Cucurucho turned back to the boys. “I hope you enjoy the island.” With that, they walked away around the corner. Phil didn’t have to look to know they vanished into thin air as soon as they were out of sight.

Dakota looked up at Phil. “So that thing is definitely evil, right?”

“Depends who you ask,” Phil replied, “but I don’t trust them.”

“What did you mean when you said they’re like a guard and you’re prisoners?” William asked.

Phil took a deep breath. Great, it was all up to him to send these kids into a panic. “The Federation, the group that runs the island, has us trapped here. No one who arrives at this island is allowed to leave. And given that professor guy said the error message on his portal thing read ‘ha ha ha’, which sounds like Cucurucho’s laugh, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the Federation interfering so now that you’re here you can’t get out, just like the rest of us.”

The four teens were silent for a moment, just staring at Phil with wide eyes. William was the first to break it. “What was that you said, Dakota? ‘We’ll get back to Prime in no time’? You still sure about that?”

“Well… on the bright side, at least if we’re trapped here forever, my dad can’t kill you guys?” Ashe shrugged in a clear attempt to relax the tension, though his awkward chuckle trailed off, worry clear in his expression.

“No, we’re not gonna be stuck here,” Dakota shook his head, a look of determination on his face. “I trust Professor Cross. Even if it takes a few weeks, I know he’ll find a way to get us back. And he has all of WATCH at his disposal to help! And if it's the group that runs this place getting in the way, then we can just find and beat the shit out of them! It’s like I said, we’ve dealt with worse than this. We can make this island our bitch!”

The other three boys didn’t look all that convinced by the speech. William and Ashe shared unsure glances as Vyncent avoided eye-contact with anyone, staring at the ground. Dakota sighed at their lack of enthusiasm, “Guys, c’mon…”

Phil hesitated for a moment, before he stepped forward, clearing his throat to get the boys’ attention. “I know how you boys feel. I was born and raised on Earth, but I live on another world, and just like you I desperately want to get back there. But you all have something I don’t: someone back home actively trying to get you back, so you’re already doing a lot better than me, and probably most people around here. And Dakota had a point when he said you’re stuck in a pretty good place. Aside from the Federation and a few other things, there isn’t much real danger around here, and we’ve made a pretty welcoming and close-knit community. We’ll do our best to help get you kids settled, and do what we can to try to help you get back home. I don’t know how well ‘beating the shit’ out of the Federation would actually work, but if you want to give it a try, I know plenty of people would be willing to give you a hand with that. Of course you have every right to be scared and worried, but it’s going to be okay.”

His words did seem to ease the teens’ worried expressions a little. William mumbled, “Thanks, uh… Mister… What was your name?”

“Philza, but most people just call me Phil. And these two are my kids, Chayanne and- Lullah? What are you doing?”

The girl had placed her backpack on the ground and was now rifling through it, practically her whole head buried inside of it. When she leant back, she had four flowers in her hands. “I thought they might want a welcome gift to help them feel better!” she signed, before holding out the first flower - a red poppy - to Dakota.

He grinned warmly, taking it and sliding it to rest in the pocket of his jacket. “Thanks! Are you part dragon? That’s so cool! We actually know a dragon back on Prime, he’s pretty chill.”

Lullah continued to pass out flowers to the others. William received a blue cornflower, which he placed in the side pocket of his backpack. Vyncent was given a purple allium, which he threaded through one of the holes in the belt strap of his sword’s sheath. Finally, Ashe received a white tulip that he tucked into his beanie. Each of them thanked Lullah as she pushed the flowers into their hands, and she smiled happily at seeing all of the flowers displayed on their persons. “I’m glad you like them!”

“It was very nice of you, Lullah,” Phil patted her head. “I’ve got something to hand out too.” He held out the communicators to the boys. “Here, these are communicators, probably the most useful item on the whole island. You can publicly and privately message all the other islanders on them, and it has a map of the place so you can learn your way around. You just need to put them on and insert a username and they’ll be good to go.”

The four boys pushed up their sleeves, putting on their communicators. As they started typing, presumably picking and inputting usernames (Vyncent was apparently having some trouble with it, William leaning over to give him a hand), Ashe asked, “So how many people are here?”

“I think there’s about thirty? A few people have ventured further out on the island and left the range of the communicators, though. We haven’t heard from them in a while.” Phil had opened the list of online islanders on his own communicator: 21 currently online, excluding the eggs. Then, as he watched, the number ticked up to 25.

[+] COLESTYLE

[+] xXx_w1sp3r3r_xXx

[+] VyncentSol

[+] Ashes2Ashes

“There, you’re all set up. Now the next step is finding you somewhere to live.” Phil moved to the edge of the wall, overlooking the island. “We can always build you a place of your own nearby, though it’d probably take a few days, so we need somewhere to set you up in the meantime.”

“Why can’t we stay with you?” Dakota asked. “Seems like you have a pretty nice place down there.”

“Sorry, but I’ve already got my hands full with these two.” Phil patted Chayanne and Lullah’s shoulders. “There’s not a whole lot of room for four more. And, uh, nothing against you, but I’d rather not risk losing any more doors.”

Dakota opened his mouth as if about to argue, before glancing between the wrecked door and busted trapdoor. “... Okay, point taken. Sorry about that, by the way.”

Lullah gave Phil’s sleeve a tug, getting his attention before signing, “Chip showed us his ship yesterday, doesn’t he have a crew’s quarters with a bunch of empty beds? Maybe they could stay there?”

“That’s a great idea, Lullah.” Phil gestured for the boys to follow him. “Come on, it’s just this way up the wall.”

As he started to lead the way, his eggs and the teens following behind, Phil looked down at his communicator. Unsurprisingly, it had started buzzing repeatedly following the newcomers’ signing in.

FoolishG: MORE???

FoolishG: ALREADY???

BadBoyHalo: hello!

BagheraJones: should we meet at spawn again?

Ph1lza: still helping them settle in, think we should save all the intros for later. don’t want to overwhelm them all

iRoier: let them know they’re invited to cellbo and i’s wedding!

Jaidenhere: phil you know what i’m gonna ask

Ph1lza: no women this time

Jaidenhere: :(

Then, Phil typed a private message.

You whisper to Cellbit: think you should arrange an order meeting today, the new guys said some stuff i think i should share

As if finding themselves trapped on an island in an alternate universe wasn’t stressful enough, the Prime Defenders had just been told to jump off of a massive wall.

The four of them had followed Phil to the south end of this giant wall that seemed to split the island in half. Once they reached the edge, Phil and his children had pulled out gliders from their backpacks and used them to float easily to the ground. When the three of them had reached the bottom, Phil had dumped out a bucket of water on the ground, and then called up to the four boys still up on the wall, “Jump down, the water will break the fall!”

“No way are we gonna be able to land in that…” Ashe shook his head as he leaned over the side. The water looked like a tiny puddle from up here.

William sighed. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it. Could one of you do something to distract Phil and his kids?”

“I should be able to. Why, though?” Vyncent asked.

“I don’t think we should let anyone here know we’re superheroes yet. Just, we know nothing about this universe, if superpowers are even normal here. I think we should keep it a secret, at least until we know more. Especially with this island having a creepy organisation running it. Don’t you think it’d be a little dangerous if the Federation were to find out we’re superheroes? It might make us a target or something. And Phil seems nice, but we barely know him, and we haven’t even met anyone else. I just don’t think we should trust anyone with that information right now.” William looked between Dakota and Vyncent. “What do you guys think?”

“I think you’re right,” Vyncent nodded. He turned around, holding out his hands. As he did, his light blue irises glowed. For a moment, nothing seemed to be happening, until there was a distant sound of fluttering and three shapes could be seen flying through the air, moving closer. As they approached, it became clear it was three sheets of paper. Vyncent waved his hands, directing the paper to fly swiftly towards where Phil and his children were waiting.

“You guys okay?! Don’t worry about the jump, we do this all the- Mmf?!” Phil was cut off as a sheet of paper planted onto his face, completely blocking his vision. The same thing happened to Chayanne and Lullah, both reaching up to try and fail to pull the paper off of their faces.

“Thanks, Vynce.” William took his chance, wrapping his arms as best he could around his three friends, who held on tightly to him in return. Then, after William took a deep breath, they all stepped off of the wall. As they dropped, a soft blue glow appeared around William, which spread to the other three, and their fall quickly slowed to a gentle glide. They carefully levitated all the way to the ground. As their feet planted onto the stone brick path in front of Phil, the glow around them dissipated. Then, Vyncent let the sheets of paper drop from Phil, Chayanne and Lullah’s faces.

Phil blinked, visibly confused, before his eyes refocused on the Prime Defenders, standing before him like nothing odd had happened. Ashe took it upon himself to make the cover story: “Crazy wind around here, huh?”

“I… I guess?” Phil glanced down at the paper on the ground one final time, before shaking his head, apparently deciding to brush it off. “Anyway, we’re almost there. It’s just around here.”

As he turned away, the Prime Defenders let out a collective sigh of relief before continuing to follow him. They made their way around a large white and grey building - a train station, according to Phil, who explained its where most of the people on the island first arrived.

“Soooo…” Dakota stepped up to walk besides Phil as they moved around the station. “How does a bird guy have dragon kids? Are you married to a dragon or something?”

Phil chuckled. “No, my wife is not a dragon. She’s… something else.” He seemed to look up to the sky with a soft smile for a moment, before turning back to Dakota. “You probably won’t meet her around here. You might meet Missa, though, he’s my platonic partner. The two of us were paired together to raise these two.” He nodded to his children. “Chay and Lullah are adopted. It was a Federation thing, they gave us all dragon eggs to take care of after a week or so into being here. After a couple of weeks, they hatched out of their eggs and here they are.”

William’s eyebrows furrowed. “What exactly does the Federation want? Why trap a bunch of people on an island and force them to become parents?”

Phil shrugged. “We don’t know. All Cucurucho will tell us is that they want to make the island perfect for us. I think it’s probably a social experiment of sorts, but to what end I have no idea.” As he spoke, they turned the corner around the back of the train station building. “Here we are.”

Just ahead, resting on the shore, was a large wooden ship, an engraving on the front reading ‘The Albatross’. It looked pretty damaged - the main mast was seemingly missing, and the hull had a pretty substantial hole in it. However, it looked like the hole was currently in the process of being repaired; a very tall, at least 7ft, man, with golden skin and wearing what looked like a shark hat, was currently stripping and cutting logs into planks, presumably to use to fix the hull.

“Hey Foolish!” Phil called, getting the attention of the golden man.

“Oh, Phil, hey!” The man put down his axe and the log he was in the middle of stripping as the group approached. “What’s up? Are those the new guys?”

“Yep, this is Dakota, William, Vyncent and Ashe. Guys, meet Foolish, the island’s resident builder.”

“Nice to meet you guys!” Foolish grinned, giving a wave that William, Vyncent and Ashe returned, responding with their own ‘hi’s and ‘nice to meet you too’s.

Dakota, on the other hand, raised an eyebrow at the gold man. “You look that cool and you go by Foolish? Dude, you can do better.”

“Wha- Is every new guy gonna take the shit out of my name?!”

“I mean, can you really blame them?” Phil chuckled a little as Foolish shot him a glare, before changing the subject. “So how’s the ship coming along?”

“Pretty good. It’s gonna take a little longer to get patched up than I thought, between putting the hull back together, caulking it up, making a new mast and sail and crow’s nest… It’s a lot of work, but I think I can get it done in a week. Then it’ll be all good to try and fail to sail out of here.”

“You’re that sure it won’t work?”

“You aren’t?”

“Oh, I am. I just wonder why you’d agree to fix the ship if you think it’s a lost cause?”

Foolish shrugged. “Hey, even if it can’t be used to leave, having a big ship we can sail around the island on is still cool. Plus they saved Leo’s life from a code, I kinda owe them this.” He picked up his axe, returning to stripping a log. “So what brings you guys here? You just giving them a tour?”

“Not exactly. We’re gonna head aboard and ask if these four can live on the ship for a bit. There’s a whole empty crew’s quarters, and these guys need a place to sleep, so it seems like a good plan.”

Dakota’s eyes lit up. “We’re gonna live on a ship?! Holy shit, this is even cooler than the winnebago! Oh! You guys can call me Captain Cole! Has a nice ring to it, huh?”

“I’d maybe wait to see what the actual captains have to say first.” Phil had started to climb up the rope ladder hanging off the side of the boat. “They only arrived a couple of days ago too, so don’t be surprised if they don’t let you stay; they’re still trying to settle in themselves, it might be too much for them to have four surprise house-guests.” He looked towards Chayanne and Lullah. “How about you two go give tío Foolish a hand while we’re busy up here?”

The two children nodded, running over to the golden man. Meanwhile, the Prime Defenders all started to climb the ladder, Dakota hurrying excitedly ahead while William brought up the rear. By now, Phil had reached the top, climbing onto the main deck. As he did, he called out, “Hello! Anyone here?! Chip! It’s Phil, I need to ask you something!”

There was the sound of footsteps, and Dakota practically jumped up the last of the ladder, pulling himself over the railing, eager to see just who the captain of this ship was. Surely it would be an older, grizzled sailor, hardened by a long harsh life on the sea, with stories of fighting mutated sea monsters and surviving treacherous storms-

He wasn’t expecting someone who was barely older than him to step into view. He still looked incredibly cool, though: tanned skin, the bare torso decorated with scars and flame tattoos that Dakota was instantly envious of. He wore an open red coat with golden accents, two swords at his hips, and on his head a red bandana under a hat that matched his coat. And not just any hat: a pirate hat.

This wasn’t just any ship. This was a pirate ship. This man was a pirate captain.

Dakota’s eyes narrowed at the man. If he recalled the history lessons that he didn’t sleep through before they dropped out of high school correctly, pirates were thieves. Criminals. Villains.

“Phil, hey, uh, now’s not really a good time, Jay’s- “

The captain was cut off as Dakota yelled, “Cole Style, roundhouse!”, running towards the pirate. In what felt like just a blink, he was in front of the captain and swinging his leg around, slamming his foot into the side of the captain’s face, with enough force to send the guy falling to the ground.

“Ow, what the fuck?!” the pirate cried, holding his face. He quickly started pushing himself back to his feet. “Phil, who the fuck is this guy?”

Phil shook himself out of his surprise, quickly running between the pirate and Dakota, who had assumed a fighting stance, looking like he was preparing another kick. “Dakota, what are you doing?!”

“He’s a pirate, right? Pirates are criminals! So I’m beating him up!”

From where he and the other Prime Defenders were watching by the deck’s railing, William let out a sigh. “This hiding that we’re heroes thing really isn’t going to last long, huh…?” he mumbled quietly.

Ashe nodded. “Yeah, Dakota really isn’t good at the whole subtlety thing.”

“Hey, for the record, we’re bad pirates, alright?!” the captain called to Dakota, pulling his swords from his belt defensively.

“So you admit it!”

“No, not evil bad! Bad as in we’re shitty pirates, we barely ever plunder, we pay taxes, we fight evil and go around helping people!”

Dakota frowned sceptically. “So… you’re, like, heroes?”

“Basically, yeah!”

Dakota paused for a moment longer, holding his dubious glare at the pirate… before stepping out of his fighting stance. “Alright. I’ll give you a chance.”

“You’re not gonna kick me again?”

“Not unless you give me a reason to.”

The pirate sheathed his swords through his belt again, glancing exasperatedly between Dakota and the other three standing by railing, before his eyes landed on Phil. “Who are these guys and what are they doing on my boat?”

Phil let out a sigh of relief as the tension calmed. “This is Dakota, and those three are William, Vyncent and Ashe. They all just arrived on the island for the first time, stuck here just like the rest of us. They need a place to stay while they’re here, and Lullah reminded me that you have an empty crew’s quarters with plenty of beds. Would it be alright for them to live here for a bit?”

“You want me to let a kid that just kicked me really hard in the face live on my ship?” The pirate blinked incredulously. “No way.”

“Chip-”

“No! Besides, the crew’s quarters aren’t empty, that’s where Ollie sleeps! I don’t want strangers sleeping in the same room as him. And we’ve already gotta take care of him, I’m not babysitting four more.”

“Babysitting?” Ashe frowned. “You literally look our age.”

“No I don’t! You’re kids! What are you, sixteen?”

“I’m twenty,” Vyncent said, “and the rest of these guys are eighteen. We’re adults.”

William nodded. “Yeah, we don’t need you to look after us, we’re good on our own. We just need a place to sleep.”

“Look, I’m sorry for kicking you,” Dakota added. “It was just instinct. If you let us live here, I promise I won’t do it again.”

The pirate, Chip, still didn’t look convinced, saying nothing with his arms folded across his chest.

“Look, I was thinking of asking Foolish to build these guys a house once he’s done with your ship,” Phil said. “They won’t have to live here that long. Can’t you take them in for just a week or so?”

Chip hesitated, clearly not wanting to give in. “... I’ve gotta talk with the other two, I’m not making a decision about this without consulting the other captains. Phil, come with me. You four,” he pointed sternly at the Defenders, “don’t touch anything, okay? And definitely don’t kick anything.” He gave pointed glare at Dakota, before leading Phil away down the stairs below the deck.

The moment they were out of sight, Dakota immediately turned to look at William. “So…”

“So what?”

Dakota nodded at the floor. “Go on, poke your head in, see what they’re saying.”

William stepped over, kneeling on the deck, before turning just his head intangible. “They’d better not see me, I don’t know how I’ll explain my disembodied head spying on them…” With that, he leant down, his head phasing through the floor, looking into the room below the deck.

The room contained two beds and a large wooden tub of water. Chip and Phil were standing there, along with who were presumably the other captains. One was a short but very strong looking man with blue skin, green hair, an aquatic tail, ear fins and a crown of coral in his hair. He was standing leaning against the tub, and had a small pink octopus-like creature sitting on his shoulder. The other… William felt his breath catch in his throat a little. They were a very, very pretty woman, with long flaming red hair, one eye a sapphire blue, the other a unique orange-gold. She was sitting on one of the beds.

“-they just need a place to stay for a little while,” Phil was saying, “at least until we can make them their own place.”

“Well, I don’t see why they can’t stay here,” the fish man shrugged. “We have the space in the crew’s quarters, don’t we?”

“But do we really want Ollie sleeping in the same room as a bunch of strangers?” Chip said. “Including one who just almost kicked my jaw off!”

“You say that like Gillion didn’t trap you in an ice arena and almost make you fight to the death after only a week or two of being with us,” the woman said, nodding at the fish man. “Letting people who beat us up stay on the ship isn’t exactly out of the question for us.”

“And Dakota did apologise,” Phil added.

“But still, we have to be careful with Ollie now!” Chip continued to protest. “I don’t know if you’ve seen on your communicator, Phil, but Ollie’s been classed as an egg. He has limited lives. I don’t want him to be at risk.”

“Chip, I understand you’re worried for him, but we’re not talking about some great monster here,” the fish man said. “We’re talking about a group of young adults who are probably freaking out a lot right now and, like us, just want to get home. I don’t think we should leave them homeless on top of that.”

“Gill’s right,” the woman nodded. “I get why they’d be a little jumpy and prone to lashing out after finding out they’ll be stuck here for god knows how long; I don’t think we should hold that against them. If you’re really worried about Ollie, we can move his bed in here and he can sleep with us while we let these new guys take the crew’s quarters.”

“I…” Chip seemed to hesitate, glancing nervously at Phil for a moment. “I don’t think Ollie should sleep in here with us. I mean, I don’t want to risk him seeing… y’know, uh…” He trailed off, adjusting the bandana underneath his hat and giving his fellow captains a look that William could only read as saying ‘you know what I’m talking about’.

Based on Phil’s expression, he seemed to assume Chip was implying something not safe work; William didn’t get that however. Chip’s expression to him read as him referring to something more… serious, something he was genuinely scared of this Ollie person seeing.

At that moment, William felt a poking against his back. He pulled his head back up through the deck, looking up at the rest of the Prime Defenders, who were sitting around him.

“So?” Dakota asked. “What are they saying down there?”

“They’re talking to two other people, I guess the other captains. They’re just debating whether or not to let us stay.”

“What are the other captains like?” Vyncent asked.

“One of them is, like, a strong fish guy, and the other is a really pretty- uh, pretty chill looking woman. They seem nice, they were both pushing to let us live here. Chip’s pretty resistant, though, so I don’t know how it’s gonna go.”

Dakota huffed, folding his arms. “He’d be a big hypocrite if he doesn’t let us stay after telling me he ‘goes around helping people’...”

“What are we gonna do if they don’t let us stay?” Ashe asked. “Do we just… go around asking people until someone lets us into their house?”

“I guess. It’s either that or we camp out under the stars. Maybe Will could ghostshape us a tent and Vynce could make us some paper blankets.”

At that moment, footsteps sounded coming back up the stairs of the ship. The four Prime Defenders quickly got back to their feet, trying their best to look casual and not like they’d been listening in. Chip emerged onto the deck, the two other captains and Phil just behind.

“Alright, we’ve made the decision: you guys can stay,” Chip said, “but while you’re living on this ship, you’re under the Riptide Pirates’ rules. We’re the captains, what we say goes. Got it?”

“Aye aye!” Dakota nodded, saluting, before stepping up to the other captains. “Whaddup, I’m Dakota Cole, nice to meet you both!”

He held out his hand, and the fish man immediately understood the assignment, dapping him up. “Nice to meet you too! Gillion Tidestrider, Champion of the Undersea, Hero of the Deep, and this is Jay Ferin.”

“Wait, Tide strider? No way, we know a guy called Tide back home! He’s like… our dad but not really our dad. Thinking about it, we should probably give him a call and let him know what’s going on.” He turned to the other Prime Defenders, directing that final sentence to them.

Vyncent cringed a little at the thought. “Oh, he’s really going to freak out, isn’t he…"

“Yeah… But hey, at least he’ll finally know how we felt when he disappeared and went to Harttawa without saying anything.” Dakota turned back to Gillion and Jay, “Anyway, thanks for letting us stay here! We thought we were gonna have to sleep outside for a minute.”

“It’s no problem,” Jay insisted. “By the way, sorry if Chip was giving you a bit of a hard time earlier.”

“I think it’s perfectly valid of me to give him a hard time when he attacked me…” Chip muttered under his breath, before looking to the other three Defenders. “What are you guys’ names again?”

“Oh, uh, I’m Ashe. Ashe Winters. ‘Sup.”

“Uh… um…” William’s eyes were practically fixed on Jay, alarms blaring in his head, anxiety through the roof at the thought of talking to someone so pretty. It was a miracle he wasn’t turning invisible out of reflex. “W-Wis, uh, William! William Wisp… That’s me. Hi. Sorry. Hello.” His eyes shot to the ground and he pulled up his hood.

“And I’m Vyncent Sol. Nice to meet you all.”

Jay luckily hadn’t seemed to notice William’s anxious meltdown at her presence, her own gaze fixed on Vyncent - specifically his pointed ears and tail. “Can I ask, where are you all from?”

“Oh, us three are from a place called Prime,” Dakota said, pointing at himself, Ashe and William. “Vynce lives there too, but he’s originally from another world.”

Jay eagerly looked back to Vyncent. “Is your world called Mana?”

Vyncent shook his head, watching as Jay’s face fell as he did so. “No, it’s called Fauna.” He paused, before adding. “Is Mana the place you’re from? Do you have elves there too? There aren’t any on Prime, I always figured we were only native to my world.”

“Yeah, there are elves in Mana. We’ve actually got a half-elf with us on the ship.”

Chip turned, yelling in the direction of the door below the helm. “Ollie! Come on out to the deck!”

There was a pause, before the door opened. ‘Ollie’ was a boy with long brown hair with a single braid tied in it, matching one Chip had in his own hair. The most distinct aspects of his appearance, however, were the eyepatch and very oversized belt he wore, as well as his pointed elven ears.

“What’s going on?” he asked, eyes landing on the Prime Defenders. Dakota gave a big grin and a wave.

“This is Ollie, the small boy we keep on the ship,” Chip introduced. “Ollie, this is Dakota, Ashe, William and Vyncent. They’re new to the island like us and need somewhere to stay, so if you’re alright with it, they’re gonna be your roommates for a while.”

“Oh, cool! I just hope none of them snore as loudly as Old Man Earl.” Ollie waved to the Prime Defenders. “Nice to meet you!”

“Well, if everything is all sorted here, I’ll get going,” Phil said as he made his way over to the side of the ship. “I promised Lullah I’d help her work on her vegetable garden today. Feel free to message me if you need help with anything, though, and I’ll come back over.” With that, he waved goodbye before descending the rope ladder, disappearing off the side of the ship.

“Alright, uh, I was planning to take Ollie and get weekly tasks done today,” Chip said, turning to Gillion and Jay. “You two good with helping these guys settle in while I’m doing that?”

“I can’t, I agreed to meet Jaiden today to give her flying lessons.” Jay let out a small sigh, reaching over her shoulder and rubbing her back. “Don’t know how well I’ll be able to teach her now, but I don’t want to leave her hanging. Think you’ll be okay with these guys on your own, Gill?”

“Of course! You two go ahead, we’ll be fine here,” Gillion insisted with a grin.

Ollie’s eyes seemed to light up with an idea, looking up at Gillion. “Oh, if we’re going off to do stuff, could you bring Puddle back so Chip and I can ride him around the island? Just so we can get around easier.”

“I don’t see why not.” Gillion reached for his hip, where a decanter was hung from his belt. He opened it up, before waving his hand.

The Prime Defenders’ eyes widened as a stream of water, far more than should reasonably fit in the small bottle, rose out of the decanter. Gillion directed the seemingly endless flow with effortless waves of his hands, and gradually, the gallons of water took on the form of a horse standing with them on the deck.

“Holy shit, he really is like Tide…” Dakota mumbled under his breath.

“Puddle!” Ollie grinned, running up to the water horse and throwing his arms around it in a hug. “I missed you!”

As if the Prime Defenders weren’t taken aback enough, the water horse then spoke in a voice that was identical to Gillion’s. “Ollie! It’s been so long, hello!”

“I have so much to tell you! I got to go back home and live with my mom while Chip and Ms Jay and Gillion went to the Black Sea- and then they came and picked me up for what was supposed to be a trip to All-Port, but there was this huge storm that crashed the ship! And now we’re trapped on this island and-”

“How about we catch Puddle up while we move, huh? Jay, come on, we’ll give you a lift.” Chip picked up Ollie, helping the boy to sit on the water horse’s back - he somehow didn’t fall through it - before climbing on himself, though with a little bit of difficulty. Then he took Jay’s hand, pulling her up on the back of the horse as well. “We’ll see you later. Gill, make sure these guys don’t wreck my ship!”

“Our ship- Whoa!” Jay yelped, holding on tight as Puddle leapt over the railing of the boat with a loud and very human-sounding “NEEEIGH!”. With that, Chip, Jay and Ollie sped away upon the horse, Gillion calling a goodbye and waving.

“So… superpowers are definitely a thing here then, right?” Ashe whispered to his three friends. “We just saw it. Gillion’s, like, a mutant fish superhero.”

Vyncent, however, shook his head. “I don’t think those were superpowers. I mean, it sounds like their world is like mine; I’m pretty sure it was magic. I actually think I’ve seen someone do something like that at home before, it’s a spell called shape water. It’s pretty similar to Will’s ghost shaping, but water instead of… spirit energy.”

“Well, only one way to find out.” Dakota turned to Gillion. “Hey, that water horse thing, was that magic?”

Gillion nodded. “Yes it was! Do you have magic where you come from?”

“Not on Prime, but we do in my home world,” Vyncent said. “I can do some fire magic, but I’m kinda undertrained with it. I mean, no one really cared to teach me back on Fauna since magic was just natural, and when I went to Prime, I thought magic was normal so I just… never used it or told anyone about it for, like, a year. So yeah, I’m very out of practice.”

“Oh, Chip might be able to help you with that, he can do some fire magic too!” Gillion said. “Maybe you can come with us to training sometime.”

“That sounds good, thanks.”

“No problem. Now come on, I’ll show you all around the crew’s quarters and you can pick out your beds. And if you’re hungry, we’ve got some leftover eggs for breakfast cooked up.”

Gillion pushed open the door under the helm, gesturing for the Prime Defenders to all head inside first. They were met with a kitchen, a table and chairs, and sets of bunk beds. One of the top bunks was clearly recently used, messy and unmade, presumably Ollie’s. The rest were all empty and nicely made.

“I call top bunk!” Dakota yelled, immediately running over and climbing up the ladder onto one of the top beds. Ashe let out a chuckle as he watched, stepping over and pulling his messenger bag from his shoulder, placing it on the bed below Dakota’s.

“I, uh, I think it’s for the best you go on top,” William said to Vyncent as the two stepped over to the set of beds beside Dakota and Ashe’s. “Y’know, in case in my sleep, I…” He held a hand out, before sharply moving it down, clearly conveying without words that he wanted to avoid turning intangible in his sleep and falling onto Vyncent.

Vyncent nodded. “Sounds good, I’m happy to go on top.”

Dakota snickered a little. “C’mon, guys, save that kind of conversation for when Gillion, Ashe and I aren’t in the room.”

William’s face flushed, cheeks glowing a ghostly blue, and he mumbled, “Shut up, dude…” as he quickly stepped away from Vyncent, sitting on his new bed and shrugging off his backpack. Vyncent, on the other hand, seemed to barely acknowledge Dakota’s comment, just climbing up onto his bed and sitting with his legs hanging over the side.

“Well, there isn’t really much else of the ship you haven’t seen aside from our captain’s quarters below deck…” Gillion hummed. “How about we all go for a walk around the island? I haven’t seen all of it myself, it’ll be a good way for all of us to get our bearings. And we might be able to introduce you to some more people!”

“Sounds like a plan!” Dakota had unzipped his jacket and pulled it off, revealing a black crop top underneath, and hung it on the post of his bed. Much better for the island's warm climate.

“Can we have a couple of minutes to organise our stuff before we go?” William asked, having unzipped his backpack, filled with his ghost hunting equipment and other supplies he’d brought for their planned stay in Flora: changes of clothes for himself and the other Prime Defenders, including his and Vyncent’s hero outfits, snacks, and a first aid kit. “Don’t really want to lug around more with me than I need to.”

Ashe hummed in agreement, opening up his messenger bag. His own hero outfit was stashed in there along with a laptop and, buried at the bottom, William’s old axe, chainsaw and shotgun that he’d gifted to Ashe to hopefully make up for his lack of actual powers.

“Of course, take all the time you need. I need to go and get some things ready myself anyway. I’ll see you all in a bit.” Gillion turned to move over to the door back out to the deck. However, he paused, glancing at his shoulder and frowning. “Pretzel?” He looked down at his belt at a round bottle hanging on his hip next to the decanter. It was full of water, but empty aside from that. He frowned deeper, looking up and glancing around the room. “Pretzel, where did you go?!”

“What are you looking for?” Ashe asked.

“Pretzel, my frogtopus. She’s pink, about this big.” Gillion held out his hands, indicating a rather small creature. “She usually sits on my shoulder or in her bottle, but I think she’s wandered off. Pretzel! Come on, we need to get ready to head out!” He crouched down, searching under the table.

“When’s the last time you saw he- AH!” William abruptly yelped as something plopped down onto his shoulder, instinctively turning intangible. Thankfully Gillion still had his head under the table, not able to see as William dropped through his bed and onto the wooden floor beneath it.

William groaned, crawling out from under the bed and shooting a glare at Dakota, who was snickering at him from his top bunk. As he got back to his feet, William saw what had landed on his shoulder now resting on his bed: the pink octopus-like creature he had seen on Gillion’s shoulder when spying on the Riptide Pirates earlier. It was staring up at William intently with its big black eyes, tilting its head a little to the side curiously.

“Uh, Gillion, I think I found your… Pretzel thing.” William slowly reached out for the small creature. She shrank back a little, hesitant, before slowly crawling into William’s hands. He gently picked her up, carrying her over to Gillion, who quickly got back to his feet.

“There she is! Thank you, William, I appreciate it. Pretzel, let me know if you’re going to wander off like that in the future, okay?” Gillion reached out, going to lift Pretzel from William’s hands.

The moment Gillion’s hands made contact with William’s, something incredibly strange happened.

With just a blink, William found himself no longer standing on wooden flooring inside of a ship. Instead, he was standing in a long extravagant hallway, with white marble flooring and blue and turquoise walls with tall windows. Through the windows, William was met with the sight of the ocean floor, covered in assortments of bright coral, fish dancing through it.

He glanced down at himself. His skin was blue, his arms strong and muscular, body adored in black armour. A sword was resting in a sheath at his hip - a whalebone longsword (why did he know that?).

His eyes moved up. Ahead of him, at the end of the corridor, were two large double doors. Muffled indistinct voices could be heard on the other side.

Then he was moving. Marching with purpose down the corridor. The meeting happening on the other side of those doors, he should have been informed of it. He needed to be there.

His entrance wasn't subtle or sneaky; he slammed the doors open. As he confidently stepped inside the meeting room, all the hazy blurred faces seated at the long table turning to him, he took a deep breath - no, a deep sniff.

Instantly, his focus zeroed in on the figure at the head of the table. No one else mattered. No, just that human with the flaming red hair and red and white uniform. That man was evil. The smell was all over him.

William didn’t hesitate. He leapt onto the table, running down it as fast as he could, wrenching his sword from its sheath. He raised it above his head, and just as he was trained to, didn’t spare so much as a moment for his target to beg for mercy.

As soon as he reached the head of the table, he plunged that sword directly into the man’s chest.

Then he blinked, and he was once again in the crew’s quarters of the Riptide Pirates' ship, Gillion Tidestrider standing before him, in the middle of passing Pretzel over. The two just stared at each other for a moment with wide eyes, before Gillion abruptly pulled Pretzel close to his chest.

“I don’t… Um, I should go get my things ready. I’ll be back in a moment.” With that, Gillion turned, heading hurriedly out the door. William just blinked, replaying the… memory? in his mind again.

“Uh, what just happened there?” Dakota jumped down from his bunk. “You two just went all spacey for a second.” His tone turned teasing. “Did you, like, have a moment with him or something? You got a new crush?”

“No, I…” William shook his head. “I dunno exactly what happened, but…” He turned to face the other three Defenders, “either I have a new superpower or something really weird is going on around here."

Chapter Text

“So what do you think it was?”

“I mean, it has to have been a memory, right? Like, whether it was a new power of mine, a spell of his, or something else, we basically mind-melded and I had one of his memories, like, beamed into my head.”

It hadn’t taken William long to recount his strange vision to the rest of the Prime Defenders. As he’d done so, he’d been unpacking his backpack; he put away most of the snacks in the kitchen cupboards, stored their changes of clothes in an empty chest in the corner of the room, and hid his hero outfit under his mattress so there was no risk of any of the Riptide Pirates finding it and asking questions. All that was left in his bag was his ghost hunting stuff.

“Did the guy die?” Dakota asked, a worried frown on his face. “The one who was stabbed?”

“I don’t know.” William shrugged, leaning against a bed post. “It ended right after, I didn’t get a chance to find out.”

“So what you’re saying is Gillion might have killed a guy…” Dakota’s frown deepened, eyebrows furrowing. A low growl came from the back of his throat as he frustratedly rubbed a hand across his face. “Fuck, I was right! They’re pirates, of course they’re evil! I knew I should have listened to my gut.” He jumped down from his bed, cracking his knuckles. “The minute he gets back in here, I’m gonna-!”

“Dakota, you need to keep in mind these guys aren’t from Prime.” Vyncent’s voice was firm as he climbed down from his own bed. “You guys know full well that killing bad guys is normal where I’m from. It’s probably the same in their world. Their morality being a little bit different because of that doesn’t make them inherently evil. And we don’t even know why Gillion stabbed that guy, maybe he had a good reason?”

William nodded. “Yeah, to be fair the guy who got stabbed did smell evil.”

Ashe raised an eyebrow. “‘Smell evil’?”

“I don’t know, I was, like, sensing everything Gillion sensed and he sniffed the room, and there was this… awful smell coming from the guy that my brain just registered as meaning he was evil. It was all really weird… But the point is, I’m with Vynce, I don’t think we should jump to conclusions yet. The guy might not even be dead, and if he is, we can’t really blame Gillion if he’s only known a culture where that’s, like, fine. I mean, we don’t hold Vynce being a little murdery sometimes against him, do we?” He then added in a quieter, more hesitant tone, “And you were able to forgive me for… what I did back at Bell Tech…”

Dakota sighed. “I guess you’re right… Sorry, I just- It’s weird talking about someone dying like it’s not a big deal, y’know?”

“Oh, are you talking about the respawning thing? I understand, it’s definitely… a lot to get your head around.” The door of the crew’s quarters had opened, Gillion stepping inside. The look of worry that William had seen on his face after their weird memory thing was gone; he seemed back to his regular peppy self.

For the most part, at least. William couldn’t help but notice that, when Gillion glanced in his direction, an expression he could only read as concern came across the fish man’s face.

Gillion now had a sword sheathed at his hip and a briefcase strapped to his back. The sword, William noted, was different to the one Gillion had wielded in the vision. That had had a black hilt, while this one was gold and blue. 

Dakota had reflexively tensed at the sight of Gillion, while William quickly stuffed his hands in his hoodie pockets, as if scared of accidentally touching Gillion again and triggering another vision. Ashe, however, was the most focused on Gillion’s words, taking note of the gaming terminology. “Respawning?”

Gillion blinked, glancing between the four boys. “Did Philza not tell you? Oh, um, I’m not really sure I’m the best person to explain, I don’t fully understand it myself. But, um… Essentially no one can die here? If you get killed, you just wake back up in bed. It happened to Jay yesterday morning, that’s how we found out. It was quite a shock; when my healing spells didn’t work, I thought she was gone… and then she just wandered out from our quarters completely fine. Honestly, I’m relieved I got to tell you before you all found out the hard way.”

“So we’re immortal?” Vyncent asked. “Wow, that’s kinda sick actually. Hey, Dakota, punch me really hard, we can test it out.”

“No, let's not,” William said, before adding to Vyncent in a whisper, “take it from the guy who’s experienced dying, it’s not fun.”

Dakota, meanwhile, folded his arms, still looking at Gillion. “So say you, I dunno… stabbed a guy viciously in the chest and killed him - hypothetically - they’d just come back to life?”

Gillion nodded, not picking up on the red head’s pointed tone. “Exactly! Though, the eggs - and Ollie, apparently - are the exceptions. They only have two lives, so it’s important to be careful with them and make sure they stay alive. That’s why Chip was a little hesitant about letting you all stay earlier, since you’d be sharing a room with Ollie and he’s more vulnerable; but we can trust you to be responsible around him, right?”

“Uh… yeah, sure,” Ashe nodded, though his tone was very unsure. “Responsible. That’s us.”

“Perfect!” Gillion thankfully didn’t notice the uncertainty. “Well, if you’re all ready, let's get going! Time to explore the far reaches of this-”

Ping!

A notification sound suddenly came from Gillion’s communicator - apparently a private one, as nothing had come through on the Prime Defenders’ communicators. Gillion looked down at it, reading, eyebrows raising a little, before looking awkwardly back up at the four teens. “Oh, um, I… I’m afraid we might need to postpone; either that you go out on your own. Um, something important has come up that I need to attend to.”

Dakota frowned suspiciously. “What is it?”

“Oh, nothing! Just a meeting- um, meeting a friend! Yes, that’s technically the truth, and I need to get going right now. Sorry about this. Maybe you can message and ask someone else to show you around if you’d still like a chaperone? Etoiles is a good friend of mine, he’d probably take you if you say I asked him to.” As Gillion spoke, he shuffled back towards the door, opening it up. “I’ll message you when I’m done and catch up afterwards, alright? Bye!” With that, he stepped out, closing the door behind him before any of the Prime Defenders could question him any further.

“You guys picked up on how weird he was acting too, right?” Ashe asked.

“Oh yeah,” Dakota nodded. “C’mon, let's go!” He made his way over to the door.

“Go where?”

“To follow him, of course! Something really fucking shady is clearly going on, and I don’t wanna live on the same boat as this guy if I can’t trust him. First PD mission on this island is to figure out what Gillion’s deal is. Now come on, before we lose track of him!”

With that, Dakota slammed open the door, running out to the deck of the boat. The other three scrambled up from their beds, Vyncent grabbing his sword as Ashe and William grabbed their bags, before hurrying out to follow Dakota.

The plan to follow Gillion hadn’t gone smoothly; they were only able to do so around the train station to Spawn, where he touched this strange stone column and disappeared before the Prime Defenders’ eyes and, according to the map on their communicators, instantly appeared somewhere further up the wall. 

Vyncent was able to sense some kind of magic emanating from the stone column, and as each of the Defenders tentatively poked it, the engravings on the side glowed with a bright white energy. However, none of them were able to use it to teleport as Gillion seemingly had. So, after a substantial amount of goading to get William to agree, they chose a different, more familiar method of transport…

It was ghost golf cart time.

“So much for hiding our powers, someone is absolutely going to see this…” William muttered from the driver’s seat as they made their way towards Gillion’s location. Ashe was beside him, occasionally leaning over to adjust the steering wheel to compensate for William’s lacklustre driving skills and ensure they didn’t go crashing into anything. Dakota and Vyncent both sat on the back seats, holding on tight to the ghostly cart as they sped along the uneven ground.

“It’ll be fine, dude, trust me!” Dakota reassured. “If anyone asks, we’ll just say we found the cart lying around somewhere, they don’t have to know you made it.”

“You really want us to say we found a golf cart made of spirit energy just abandoned somewhere around here? You think they’ll buy that?”

Dakota shrugged. “I mean, they’ve apparently got teleportation magic, it might not be that crazy.”

Thankfully, they didn’t seem to pass anyone for their whole journey, so no awkward explanations were needed. It didn’t take too long for them to arrive at their destination, Ashe keeping watch of the map to see when they approached Gillion’s location. As the golf cart pulled up to a small town of brightly coloured buildings, overshadowed by a large stone statue of a figure with outstretched arms, Ashe gestured for William to stop. “It says this is where Gillion is, just in the centre of this village.”

When the cart came to a stop, the four of them climbed out, and with a wave of William’s hand, it disappeared.

Staying close to the walls of buildings, leaning around each to make sure the coast was clear, the four of them slowly advanced through the town. When the village square came into view, they could see Gillion, standing waiting near an alley between two houses, awkwardly checking his communicator every few seconds between wary glances around the area.

“Gill!” a feminine voice suddenly called as two figures appeared in a burst of purple particles besides a stone column positioned right in the centre of the town square. It was Jay, along with another woman with brown hair, a cool techwear outfit, and black, blue and purple wings. The two made their way over to Gillion, who smiled, waving. The three started chatting once they were close enough, but they were hushed enough that none of the Prime Defenders could make out the words.

“I’ll go get closer to listen in. If they move, keep following at a distance,” William whispered before turning invisible. As quietly as he could, he moved closer to Gillion, Jay and the stranger, until he was able to overhear their conversation.

“-any idea what the meeting’s about?” Gillion was asking. “Cellbit just said to come as soon as possible.”

“No, he didn’t say anything more to us,” Jay said. “Guess we should just head down and find out. The entrance is down this alley, right?”

“Yep, just here.” The brunette woman led the way down the alley, William following them all and watching carefully. The three stood on a platform, painted to blend in with the grass, and the brunette tapped a button on it with her foot. With that, the platform began to move down, taking the three underground.

William ran back to the entrance to the alley, turning visible again and gesturing for the rest of the Prime Defenders to run over. He put a finger to his lips, signalling them to be quiet, before pointing at the open hole in the ground and the elevator shaft it exposed.

“Whoa, secret entrance…” Dakota whispered as he stared down it. “This really is shady. Think you can float us down there, Will?”

William nodded. “Hold on tight.” He wrapped his arms around the other three, a light blue glow encompassing them as they stepped over the edge of the hole and he activated his levitation. He was careful to move slowly, following a safe distance away from the three on the elevator below. In his head, he was just begging, please don’t look up, please don’t look up; explaining the ghost golf cart would have been one thing, but the four of them literally flying? There probably wasn’t any dodging that bullet.

Soon, the elevator below them stopped, and they watched as Gillion, Jay and the brunette stepped off of the elevator platform, moving into a room beyond it. William held himself and his friends still in the shaft, listening carefully. He heard the creaking of a door opening, receding footsteps, and the door firmly closing. He waited for just a moment longer, making sure he couldn’t hear any movement or voices. Once he was sure the coast was clear, he floated down the rest of the way, letting his and his friends’ feet rest on the elevator platform.

The room ahead was small and wooden, with an open doorway to a cluttered office, empty of people. William frowned. “I thought I heard a door open and close. But that’s the only door… Where did they go?”

“Maybe there’s another hidden entrance somewhere?” Ashe suggested, starting to wander the room and glance around, trying to see if there were any out-of-place features. Dakota and Vyncent didn’t hesitate to join in the search, the former heading into the office and looking around in there, starting with hoisting up the desk to look underneath it, while the latter crouched down, pressing floorboards to see if any were loose or disguised trapdoors.

William joined Dakota in the office, but instead of searching for a secret entrance, his attention was drawn to the wealth of notebooks and papers scattered around. He stepped up to a bookshelf, the books filling it each with numbered days written on the spine. Curious, he picked up the one with the highest numbers and presumably the most recent, ‘Days 80-89’, opening it to the most recently filled page. It was written in a language he couldn’t read-

Until a shimmer seemed to go across the page, and suddenly it was all written in English. “Whoa…”

‘Meeting Summary - Day 81
In attendance: myself, Gillion, Jay

• Meeting held following the arrival of four new islanders: Chip, Jay Ferin, Gillion Tidestrider, and Ollie Teach. Known collectively as ‘The Riptide Pirates’.

• Jay and Gillion have formally joined Ordo Theoritas.

• The Riptide Pirates come from a world very different to our own named Mana. Current theory is it is located in an alternate universe

• How they got here is unclear, the last they remember is getting caught in a storm. Something magic on their end? Or possibly the work of the Federation?

• Details of Mana: very small world, mostly flooded, entirely overseen by a naval force called RAFT. Home to a variety of different species, many of which don’t exist here (e.g. Gillion is something called a ‘triton’, Ollie is a half-elf). More magical than here, people having the ability to cast spells and such

• I filled them both in on what Earth is like, as well as details of the island, including the Federation, the function of the Order, and the existence of codes. They should be mostly caught up to speed.

• I think Gillion will be more useful on the muscle side of things, so I directed him to train with Etoiles. With his magic, he may even be strong enough to take out a code.

• Jay seems rather perceptive, she’ll be more reliable for investigating.

• Chip is too dismissive of the threat of the Federation to be deemed trustworthy for now.

• Likely not important, but felt the need to note: the more I hear Gillion’s voice, the more I think it sounds oddly similar to Slime’s? As I said, probably nothing, but it’s a little weird.’

As William finished reading, the page seemed to shimmer again, and it returned to the unfamiliar language. So they’d stumbled upon a secret organisation of some kind… Interesting. He flipped back through, starting to read other pages, which again magically translated as he turned to them.

“Ugh, this is bogus!” Dakota huffed, dropping a cabinet he’d lifted to look under. “I can’t see any secret doors or trapdoors or anything! Where the hell did they go?!”

Vyncent got to his feet, stopping his search of the floor. “Maybe Will could do his soul spying thing and see if he can sense if they’re nearby? It might at least give us a dire- WHOA!” He yelped as he leaned against a wall that let out a click; it was a hidden door that he fell through as it swung open, falling on the ground. “Ow…”

Dakota stepped over to look, eyes lighting up. “Hey, you found it! Good work, Vynce!”

“Thanks, I guess, glad I could help,” Vyncent pushed himself up, glancing around the very small room he’d uncovered. It was empty aside from, at the very back, another elevator shaft going down. “Will, it looks like we’re gonna need you to float us down again!”

William closed the notebook, returning it to its place on the shelf, before hurrying to join the other three. “On it.” He wrapped his arms around them all, before once again floating them all slowly down.

At the bottom, they found themselves landing in a white entrance hall, corridors branching off of it. Overlooking them on the wall was an engraving of a logo reading ‘Ordo Theoritas’. However, they didn’t get too much of a chance to look around before their attention was caught by some voices down one of the corridors.

The four stayed close to the wall, warily peering around the corner down the corridor. Gillion and Jay were standing outside of an open door, through which more voices could be heard, and talking to a man wearing a green jacket, goggles resting on his head, and a white streak in his brown hair.

“Hey Will, that guy’s copying your style,” Dakota joked in a quiet whisper.

“- haven’t missed much, I was just filling in the rest of the Order on everything you told me about where you come from,” the man was saying. “But now you’re here, we’ve got everyone and we can get started on the main point of the meeting.” He nodded his head, gesturing for Gillion and Jay to follow him through the doorway next to them.

William turned to the other Prime Defenders, whispering, “If you hear three knocks, it’s a signal to go and hide.” With no more elaboration, he turned invisible and quickly ran down the corridor, reaching the door just in time to slip through before it was closed.

He found himself in a relatively big room with a large table, scattered with note pages and books, at which many people were sitting. Phil and Foolish were there, along with many others who he hadn’t met yet. Most were human, one had extra spider-like eyes, one was a humanoid duck, one was hooded with glowing white eyes and horns. An unusual bunch, but hey, William knew Bacon Man and Peelbert, he was used to hanging around stranger individuals.

Gillion and Jay took seats at the table, while the man with the goggles moved around to the head of the table. He cleared his throat, everyone falling silent as attention turned to him. As the room quietened, William just about heard the hushed whispers of the other Defenders just outside the door, though they thankfully fell quiet before anyone else heard.

“Óla everyone, thank you for coming to today’s meeting,” the man with the goggles said. “As you all may have seen on your communicators, we had four more new arrivals to the island today. While I haven’t met them yet, Phil has, and apparently he has some information to share regarding them. Phil, I’ll let you have the floor.”

“Thanks, Cellbit,” Phil nodded, before directing his voice to the whole room. “The new arrivals are four boys, all around 18; their names are Dakota, William, Vyncent and Ashe. For now, they’re gonna be staying on the Albatross with the Riptide Pirates, so if you want to welcome them or say hi or anything, that’s where to head.

“The reason I wanted to call this meeting, though, is because of what they said about where they came from. Jay, Gillion, Cellbit said to us earlier that you think your world might be in another universe, right?” The two pirates nodded, prompting Phil to continue. “Well, these four absolutely did come from another universe. They arrived through a portal that apparently was made by a friend of theirs who’s a professor - it was supposed to take them to another different dimension, but they ended up here instead. The professor tried to reestablish the portal to take them back, but it seems like the Federation somehow intervened to stop that. But yeah, they’re a hundred percent from a different universe.”

The man with the goggles, Cellbit, hummed, taking in the information for a moment and collecting his thoughts. “And if that’s the case for them, and they arrived so soon after you two,” he looked to Jay and Gillion as he spoke, “it’s likely the same situation and Mana is also an entire other universe. And either it’s one hell of a coincidence that both you and the new arrivals had bizarre freak accidents that brought you here so soon after each other, or, more likely, the Federation planned to bring you all here”

“It makes sense,” Jay nodded, “but why us? I mean, there’s probably a lot of dimensions and realms out there, why specifically choose the Riptide Pirates and those four?”

“Why specifically choose any of us?” Foolish spoke up from where he sat, shrugging. “Like I said when you guys arrived, none of us know why we’re here.”

“And figuring that out is exactly what this organisation is for,” Cellbit added, “and knowing exactly where we all come from is a step in the right direction. Thank you, Phil, for the information, it’s really valuable. Is there anything else you want to share?”

“Yeah, actually. Um…” Phil hesitated, as if figuring out how to phrase what he was going to say. “The four boys, there’s… something strange about them. Not, like, their personalities or anything, but… Most of you have been to my house, right? You all know all my doors are reinforced, completely unbreakable to keep Chayanne and Lullah safe. Well, Dakota was able to kick them so hard that they completely broke off of their hinges. He’s almost unnaturally strong.”

William let out a silent sigh. Ah. So much for hiding their powers, Dakota had given away his extreme strength before they’d even considered doing so. Well, at least Dakota’s strength wasn’t the result of a supercharged heart anymore, so they weren’t technically superpowers - they could just be honest, say he trained with a sensei to become extremely strong and fast. Him using his combat prowess to be a superhero didn’t have to come up at all, right?

“And then there’s William. The portal they all fell out of, it was above my roof, so all of them landed on it - except William. He fell through it. And I don’t mean he broke the glass, his body literally moved right through it, and then through the floor inside so he landed in Chayanne and Lullah’s room. I… genuinely don’t know what happened, if I hadn’t found him in Chay and Lullah’s room I would have thought I was seeing things.”

Shit.

Great, Phil had blatantly seen William using his powers. Humans can become really strong, that’s explainable - but turning intangible? There was no way to explain that besides ‘yeah, I have superpowers’.

“It’s probably magic, right?” That came from the winged woman the Defenders had seen Jay and Gillion ride the elevator with earlier, who looked to the two pirates. “You guys can do magic and cast spells and stuff, maybe they can too?”

“Unless they lied to me, I don’t think so,” Gillion replied. “They told me earlier, the only one of them that can do magic is Vyncent because he’s an elf and apparently originally from a world like ours. But the others told me there isn’t magic in their world, none of them can do it. And I don’t see why three of them would lie about it but Vyncent wouldn’t.” He paused for a moment, before adding. “I actually have something I want to add. I also experienced something strange earlier with William when I was helping them all settle in.”

William perked up a little, curious, while Cellbit nodded as a gesture for Gillion to continue.

“I’d just shown the four of them to the crew’s quarters on the Albatross so they could all pick their beds and unpack their things. Then I noticed Pretzel here had wandered off,” Gillion petted the frogtopus on his shoulder, “and William found her for me. But, um, when he handed her back to me, our hands kind of brushed against each other, and when they did, well… I had a vision of some kind. I just blinked and I wasn’t on the ship anymore. I wasn’t myself either - my clothes were different, and my hands were pale white, not blue. I’m pretty sure I was William.”

Huh. It honestly hadn’t occurred to William that, as he saw one of Gillion’s memories, Gillion may have experienced one of his. And this confirmed to William that it wasn’t the work of one of Gillion’s spells, if he didn’t know what was going on either.

The question was… what memory had Gillion experienced?

“William - or me, I don’t know- I was standing inside a building, looking around a corner down a corridor. I could barely see anything, it was all dark except for a red light on the wall flashing, and it was completely filled with smoke. I think I was wearing a mask of some kind to stop me breathing it in?”

William felt his heart plummet to his stomach.

No…

“Then I saw someone. A man, I think, though I couldn’t see much of him. His skin looked like it had a strange texture to it, though maybe that was just the smoke making everything look weird. He seemed to be calling back down the corridor to someone else, though I couldn’t make out any other figures.”

No no no, any other memory, literally any one, he could have seen me getting ripped in half by the Trickster for all I care, even that would be better than this-

“Then I reached for something. I wasn’t in control of my hands, they moved on their own. They grabbed something from my back: an axe.”

Stop talking, please, don’t tell them what I did, don’t tell them I’m a monster, please for the love of Hexpert-

“I stepped out into the corridor. The man’s back was to me.”

William’s breathing was turning into hyperventilating. He knew he needed to calm down before someone heard and realised he was there. He couldn’t.

“I stared at his back for a moment.”

Stop.

“My gaze focused on the back of his knees.”

STOP.

“I ran forward and swung the axe right into-”

All the sheets of paper on the table, all the notes and the books, suddenly went flying off of the table, cutting Gillion off. The papers whirled chaotically around the room like a tornado, an immediate distraction to all those at the table who let out various exclamations of surprise and confusion, leapt to their feet, and tried to shield themselves from getting slapped or cut by the sheets.

It was also abrupt enough to snap William out of his panic. He turned to the door - it had been pushed ajar, and through the gap, he could see Vyncent, eyes glowing blue. The elf looked in William’s vague direction, and though not able to see the invisible boy, gave a small comforting smile and reassuring nod roughly where he thought William was. Then he, along with Dakota and Ashe, went running down the corridor. William didn’t hesitate to follow, no one noticing as the door seemingly opened on its own, the invisible boy running out.

The four paused for a moment once they were back in the entrance hall, William letting his invisibility drop. “Will, are you okay?” Ashe asked, concerned.

“H-he saw Bell Tech… He saw fucking Bell Tech! He saw me attack Xavier- And what if he saw more than he said, what if he knows what I did to Cantrip-”

“Will, breathe.” Dakota gripped his friend’s shoulders, trying to ground him. “It’s gonna be okay. For now, we just need to get out of here before they see us and find out we were snooping.” He turned to the elevator, going to hop on the platform-

Only for a metal door to slam down between him and it, an alarm starting to blare down through the facility. “Wha-?!”

“I’ve put the place on lockdown, whatever did that should be trapped. Everyone split up and search,” Cellbit’s voice echoed from down the hall. “If it’s a mob like I think, kill it. If it’s a person, bring them to the interrogation room so we can see how much they heard.”

“Okay, new plan, hide!” Dakota took off running again, heading down one of the other corridors, the other three quickly following. They skidded into the first room they came across - it seemed to be a hospital wing of some kind, with medical supplies, beds and green dividing curtains.

Dakota ran over to a large cabinet and was luckily small enough to just squeeze inside, closing the doors behind him. Ashe hurried to one of the beds behind a curtain, crawling under it. Vyncent pulled his sword from his back, which magically switched forms into two chained knives. He threw one up, catching it on one of the light fixtures, and then climbed the chain, holding himself on the ceiling - completely out of sight as long as no one looked up. And William…

William was still too panicked to think straight, eyes darting around the room but not able to focus long enough to pick out a place to hide. The panic only grew as he heard footsteps approaching outside, quickly turning invisible where he stood right before the door opened.

It was Gillion and Jay who stepped inside, the former clad in a full suit of armour and holding his sword, the latter with a hand resting readily on her bow. All four of the Defenders held their breaths as the two pirates began to look around the room.

“Do you see anything, Jay?”

“Not yet… What did Cellbit say he thought it was?”

“Uh, a breeze is what he called it I think?”

“Do you think your divine sense would pick it up? Maybe it’s a fiend or something.”

“Hm, I don’t know… I guess it’s worth a try.” Gillion paused in the centre of the room, before taking a deep breath in through his nose. His green eyes glowed softly as he sniffed the air, just as he had done in William’s vision. Then, he perked up. “I got something!”

“Where is it?” Jay asked. “Is it fiendish?”

“No, it’s… it’s undead.”

William’s eyes widened in horror. Oh fuck, Gillion could smell him? He could smell that he was dead?!

Gillion turned to Jay, continuing. “You don’t think it’s Chip, do you…? I didn’t say anything to him, but you know I’m not a good liar. Maybe he realised we were hiding something and followed us.”

William frowned. Chip? Why would they think it was Chip?

Jay raised her wrist, fidgeting with her communicator. “Hm… No, Chip’s location on the map is on the other side of the wall. It can’t be him. Didn’t Cellbit tell us that, like, a bunch of hostile skeletons and zombies roam the island? Maybe it’s one of them.” As she spoke, she pulled her bow from her back. “Where’s the smell coming from?”

Gillion sniffed again. His eyes instantly moved to focus right where William was standing; for a moment it made William worry he’d turned visible again, but a quick glance down confirmed he wasn’t.

“It should be right there…?” Gillion looked visibly confused, pointing towards William. “I can smell it, but there isn’t anything…”

Jay followed his gaze, narrowing her eyes. “Just there?”

“Yeah.”

Jay paused.

Before quickly pulling an arrow from her quiver, drawing back her bow and firing.

“WAIT, NO!” William cried as his body thankfully reacted on pure instinct. He turned intangible just in time for the arrow to fire through him and lodge into the wall behind. “Oh my fucking Hexpert, holy shit…!” he sighed in immense relief, holding his thankfully not arrow-impaled heart.

And then his eyes met those of the two pirates, both of whom were staring at him with wide eyes. Oh. Right. When he turned intangible, his invisibility dropped. They’d seen him appear from seemingly nowhere and turn translucent, an arrow moving right through his body.

William just stared back, not sure what to say.

And that’s when Vyncent dropped from the ceiling.

From his perspective, he’d just seen Jay try to fire an arrow right into the chest of one of his best friends, of course he wasn’t going to take that lying down. His instincts took over, and as he let go of the light fixture he was hanging onto, his weapon shifted into a dagger that he plunged into Jay’s shoulder (careful to miss any vitals, aiming to injure, not kill) as he fell onto her.

The last thing Vyncent heard was Jay letting out a cry of shock and pain.

Before he blinked and his surroundings were completely different.

He was standing in a cold, dank room - dark walls, but the specifics he couldn’t quite capture. His focus was fixed, entirely trained on a figure standing in front of him in the doorway: a giant of a man, with flaming red hair, shaved on the back and sides, tied back, wearing a red and white uniform. Immediately, Vyncent connected him to the memory William had described. This was the man Gillion had stabbed.

And now this man stared at Vyncent with an intense stern glare, one that filled him with a sense of pure terror. His voice was low, cold, booming and yet sinister. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

A voice that wasn’t Vyncent’s - similar but more feminine, distinctly the voice of Jay Ferin - came from Vyncent’s mouth. “What are you doing here?”

“You are coming home with me now.”

“I’m not ready to do that yet.”

“This is not a question.”

Vyncent glanced for a second to the side; Gillion and Chip were beside him, though both looked different. Gillion’s hair wasn’t tied back, his armour and sword different. Chip’s hair was shorter, his clothes completely different. There were also two other men. One was propping himself up on Chip’s shoulder, and looked very weak and rough, with long messy black hair, one eye closed and his arms hanging limp. The other was massive and strong - though not as tall as the man in the doorway - with dark hair and mutton chops.

Vyncent only got a quick glance at all of them, then his head turned itself back to the man in the doorway. “I’m not doing that. You can’t make me.”

“Oh, but I can,” the man growled. “What have you been doing? Becoming a pirate? Sailing, like a criminal? Leaving your mother by her defenceless self?”

“She can take care of herself. She’s always handled things alone. It’s not like you’re ever around to help her. And we probably do more good than you ever did, actually!”

The man’s gaze finally left Vyncent for the first time, moving across to Gillion and Chip, staring them both up and down. “That’s right!” Gillion said, standing firmly at attention.

The man looked again back at Vyncent. “So… Is this some crew of yours?”

“This is- this is Gillion,” Vyncent stuttered, “that’s- that’s Chip.”

“Even with a deer’s insight, I can see that they are scum,” the man spat, “and weak. And travelling with them will make you weaker. I am very, very disappointed. But come, and maybe I’ll let them go.”

Gillion and Chip started mumbling to each other, but Vyncent couldn’t pick up on what they were saying. He was still fixated by terror. He didn’t know why; the guy was big, sure, but he looked no scarier than the various villains Vyncent and the Prime Defenders had fought, and yet he made him feel small, like a timid child.

A hand rested on his shoulder, rubbing it comfortingly: Gillion. “Go on, Jay, you’ve got this,” he whispered, but it didn’t help much. “He’s so wide, but you’ve got this. God, just look at him, Jay. Oh shit, Jay, okay, you’ve got this, though.”

“What do you mean I’ve got this, what are you expecting me to do?” Vyncent hissed back, glancing at Gillion for only a moment before looking back again to the man in the doorway.

Jayson Ferin. The name attached to the face popped into his head from seemingly nowhere. Why did Vyncent know that?

His eyes moved across Jayson, as if trying to find the trace of a hidden weapon, but he couldn’t spy anything. “And what if I don’t come with you?” he asked.

Jayson’s glare darkened. “You’re telling me… you’d rather be a pirate? Turn on your family? Just like your good-for-nothing uncle?”

“I would never turn my back on my family. But… what the navy’s been up to lately, it’s unacceptable.”

Jayson’s stare still did not waver as he let out a long, heavy sigh. “My child…”

“Ava died,” Vyncent said before he could continue. So this was Jay’s father. But Ava, who was Ava? “Because of you.”

“And you’re walking around, parading with the kind of people that took her from us,” Jayson growled. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“It’s… much more complicated than that…”

A groan came from the side, the man with limp arms doing his best to raise his head to look at Jayson. “C’mon, bro… Go easy on her, she’s just a little one.” Jayson’s brother, so Jay’s uncle?

Jayson’s eyes finally moved away from Vyncent again, looking at his brother. “It is because she has whatever cursed blood you have,” then back to Vyncent, “that I am forced to discipline you in this way. You want to be a pirate so badly? Is that right? That’s what you wish? Is that what you want to do?”

Vyncent’s eyes dropped to the floor. He took a breath, trying to steel himself. Then he met Jayson’s eyes again. “Yeah. This is what I want.”

Jayson took a deep breath as well, glare darkening more. “Then I will show you how foolish you all are.”

“Uh, sorry,” Gillion awkwardly shuffled closer to Vyncent’s side, “but just to circle back around, to bounce off what she was saying, your daughter has been doing a lot of good out there-”

“I know exactly the escapades of you and your little motley crew,” Jayson interrupted, eyes still not wavering away from Vyncent, who only grew more and more fearful with every second. “I’ve seen your new bounties. And if this is the life all of you chose, then I will show you what you’re up against.”

As he finished, an orange glow appeared in Jayson’s eyes. The hair on his head ignited into a flame, and his skin and clothes turned a bright gold. Gauntlets of flames appeared around his arms.

Then, he outstretched his hands, firing a massive ball of fire directly at Vyncent and the Riptide Pirates.

And then Vyncent blinked and he was back in the hospital room on Quesadilla Island, finding himself pulled off of Jay Ferin by William Wisp.

“Dude, why did you do that?!” William hissed as Vyncent blinked back to reality, trying to collect himself. Over William’s shoulder he could see Gillion helping Jay to her feet, pulling Vyncent’s dagger from her shoulder and resting his hand on her wound, which glowed softly. Jay barely reacted, staring at Vyncent with a small concerned frown.

“I- She shot at you, I wasn’t just gonna sit there!” Vyncent said when he finally found his voice.

“Because she didn’t know it was me! She probably wasn’t gonna shoot me again!”

“What’s with all the yelling, did you guys find the intruder?” Cellbit’s voice came from outside, before he appeared, stepping into the doorway. While he initially looked to Gillion and Jay, it didn’t take long for his eyes to move to William and Vyncent.

“Uh, hi,” Vyncent awkwardly waved. “We’re the intruders.”

“Does this mean we’re not hiding anymore?!” Dakota’s muffled voice suddenly called from the cabinet, making Gillion, Jay and Cellbit all jump in surprise. “Because it’s getting really hot in here and I wanna get out!”

The four Prime Defenders found themselves sitting at the end of the table in the meeting room, all of the members of this organisation sitting or standing before them. Cellbit took a seat at the head of the table, opening the notebook William had read earlier to a fresh page, pen in hand. “Alright, let's begin with introductions. Which of you is Dakota?”

“Why should I tell you, huh?” Dakota folded his arms. “How do we know this isn’t an evil organisation? We’re not gonna just trust you with our identities-”

“He’s Dakota, I’m William, that’s Vyncent and that’s Ashe.”

Dakota’s head immediately snapped to the boy next to him. “Will, what the fuck?!”

“Phil, Gillion and Jay already know which of us is which! Besides, between the books I read upstairs and what we heard of the meeting, I don’t think there’s anything evil going on here. Seems like it’s just a place to collect and share information.”

“Yeah, but for what?! What if it’s for evil stuff?!”

“Cellbit literally said earlier their goal is to find a way off the island! That’s a good thing!”

“Alright, settle down!” Cellbit called, the two boys shutting up. “Now the proper questions: how did you find this place and why were you sneaking around in here?”

“We followed Gillion,” Ashe said. “He was acting really suspicious and clearly hiding something, and we just wanted to know what was going on.”

“Fuck.” Gillion immediately looked incredibly guilty. “Cellbit, I am so sorry, I had no idea they were following me. I should have been more careful, I promised I would keep this a secret-”

“It’s fine, Gillion, don’t worry.” Cellbit looked back to the Defenders. “You’ll be happy to know there’s nothing evil going on here. This organisation, Ordo Theoritas, is a secret to everyone but our members and allies. Our purpose is to investigate the mysteries of the island and, hopefully, take down the Federation so we can all leave, just as William gathered. It’s important that we keep knowledge of our existence limited in order to ensure the Federation doesn’t find out what we’re up to. Now you all know, we need you to promise to ally with our efforts and not tell another soul. Can you do that?”

The four boys all nodded. “Sorry I called you evil…” Dakota mumbled.

“Good, and you’re forgiven. Honestly, I admire the scepticism; it’s a good idea to stay cautious around here. I’m Cellbit, the leader of the Order. Foolish, Maximus and BadBoyHalo here first founded it, and these are the rest of our members, my fiance Roier, Fit, Jaiden, Felps, Pac, Mike, Pierre, Baghera, and of course Phil, Gillion and Jay, who you’re more than familiar with.”

The various members gave waves and nods of acknowledgements as they were introduced, which the Prime Defenders all returned. Jay’s gaze had been flitting between William and Vyncent this whole time. Now, it rested on William as she asked, “Cellbit, can I ask the next question?”

“Go ahead.”

“William, why did you lie to us about being able to do magic?”

William shrunk down a little in his chair under her stare. “I-I didn’t.”

“But Gillion and I saw, you were invisible and then my arrow went right through you instead of hitting you.”

“It wasn’t magic, it was…” He sighed a little, reluctant, but finished his sentence anyway. “They’re my superpowers. We’re superheroes. I don’t know if they’re really a thing around here, but in our world, Prime, superpowers and mutants and stuff are, like… a big thing.”

“And we’re not just any superheroes!” Dakota added with a big grin. “We’re the Prime Defenders! We were specially chosen by the members of the Prime Force, the greatest heroes in the universe, to become the new Prime Force when they retire. So we’re a pretty big deal.”

“No mames, you’re serious?” the man with extra spider-like eyes, Roier, asked excitedly. “So you all have powers? What are they? Oh, how did you get them?! Were you, like, bitten by radioactive insects?!”

“Oh, uh, I actually don’t have powers,” Ashe said. “I’m not really an official Prime Defender. My dad, he is - or was, I don’t really know at this point, to be honest - a supervillain, and I met these guys because of him and we all became friends and I’ve helped them out on a few missions, so now I’m an honorary Prime Defender. But yeah, no actual powers. I’m just a guy.”

“One of the coolest guys we know!” Dakota gave Ashe a gentle nudge. “Don’t sell yourself short, dude. As for me, I was given a supercharged heart that gave me super strength and super speed! But, uh, turns out the heart was too powerful for my body, and if I kept it in me, it’d eventually break all my bones and paralyze me, so I had to give it up and transplant it for a normal one. But since then, I’ve been training with my sensei, Master Cole, the strongest non-powered person I’ve ever met - even without powers, he’s strong enough to literally rip open a portal to the Spirit World with a single kick! Even if I’ll never be as strong and fast as I used to be, Master Cole is helping me get as close as I can. And if I can already kick through a door that’s supposed to be unbreakable, I must be doing pretty good!

“Oh! And I do still have one proper superpower! Long story short, I ate a chaos demon one time and it's still kinda hanging around inside of my stomach, and now in really serious fights, I can draw on its power and enter Chaos Cole mode! It basically gives me a big power up. It’s really cool, maybe you’ll see it one day if the situation calls for it.”

“So which of you did the paper thing?” the hooded individual with horns and bright white eyes, BadBoyHalo, asked. “I’m assuming that was one of you, right?”

“Yeah, that was me,” Vyncent said. “One of the original members of the Prime Force, Origami, had the power to control paper, but he died a few years ago. A few months back, we did a bunch of training in the Spirit World, and while we were there, we met Origami’s spirit, and he was like ‘hey, Vyncent, I wanna do stuff in the mortal world and talk to the rest of the Prime Force, so lemme hop in your brain’. So he’s just kind of hanging out in my head now, he talks to me sometimes, occasionally I let him take control - but before that I used to have the consciousnesses of my dad’s adventuring party in my head, and that was five people who constantly took complete control, so he’s honestly a lot easier to handle. And his powers are mine now, so it’s pretty sweet.”

“You… have a whole other guy in your head?” Foolish raised an eyebrow dubiously. “You’re bullshitting.”

“Wha- you’ll believe Dakota has a demon in his stomach but not me having a guy in my head?!”

“Hey, I don’t know if I believe that either!”

“Alright, gimme a sec and I can show you.” Vyncent closed his eyes, brows furrowing as he concentrated hard… and then he reopened his eyes, though they now shone a brighter blue. When he spoke, his voice was, though a little similar, distinctly that of a completely different person. “What’s up, I’m Origami, Jason King. Cool to meet you all. Been to a lot of different planets, but never been in another universe aside from the Spirit World before, so this is… wild. Honestly, while I can, I just need to say,” he turned to look at the other three Defenders, “you all are not freaking out enough about being trapped in an alternate universe. Like, I know you kids have been through a lot of shit, but you calmed down worryingly fast.”

William shrugged, “I mean, after watching Origami 4: Paper Cuts Deep, nothing really seems as bad, so...”

“You mother fuck- Alright, I’m leaving. Glad I could talk for less than a minute. This is exactly why I don’t take control more often.” Vyncent blinked and his eyes went back to normal. When he spoke again, his voice was once again his own. “Uh, yeah, that was Origami, hope you believe me now. Anyway, as well as his paper stuff, I can do fire magic because, well,” Vyncent pointed at his ears, “that’s normal where I’m from. And then I also have my magic sword, which, Gillion, you still have and I’d like it if you could hand it back. Sorry for stabbing you by the way, Jay, I was just trying to protect Will.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ve been hurt worse,” Jay shrugged as Gillion stepped over, handing the purple dagger in his hand to Vyncent. As the elf took it, it transformed back into a sword, which he returned to the sheath on his back.

Cellbit had been writing notes this whole time, and now looked to William, “And your powers?”

“I have ghost powers, a lot of different ones. I got them when I was sixteen and I, uh… I fell off a cliff and died.”

Everyone’s expressions immediately turned to that of shock or concern - with the exception of Gillion, whose eyes lit up. “That’s why my divine sense picked you up as undead!”

“Yeah, I just died and then woke up again, and now I’m like… half-alive, half-dead? As for my powers, I can turn invisible and intangible, I can levitate, I can summon and control will-o’-wisp flames, I can see and talk to ghosts, I can ghost shape, which is basically being able to create objects out of spirit energy, and I can open portals to the Spirit World. I didn’t really know why I got my powers for a while, the will-o’-wisps couldn’t exactly say much. But eventually I learnt it was because I had been chosen by them to take the mantle of The Wisperer, a being that’s basically the balance between life and death and acts as the guardian of the Spirit World.”

Gillion’s eyes widened further. “...You’re a god?”

“Huh? N-no, I’m not-”

“I mean, you kinda are,” Vyncent shrugged. “The guardian of the afterlife, a bunch of mystical powers… Sounds pretty similar to the God of Death we have in Fauna.”

“Dude,” William turned to look Vyncent in the eyes, “I appreciate it, but it took me two years to accept my role as the Wisperer, please do not add the pressure of being a god on top of that. I don’t want to freak out so much that the wisps give up on me again.”

“One more question:” Cellbit said, drawing attention back to him, “why didn’t you say anything about being superheroes to Phil or the pirates when you met them? Why choose to hide it?”

Dakota and Vyncent responded at the same time, “Because William told us to.”

William shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, we’re on an island run by a shady bear government in a whole other universe, we’ve been here less than a day, and we’d only met, like, four people. I think us choosing not to reveal our secret identities is pretty self explanatory.”

Cellbit chuckled a little, writing a note. “You make a good point. If you’d like, we can keep it a secret within the Order and not tell anyone outside of it? It’ll be up to you who else you tell and when.”

William nodded. “Yeah, sounds good. So, uh, are we done? We can go now?” His gaze moved to Gillion, who parted his lips as if about to speak - but the fish man’s eyes met William’s wide, nervous ones, and he seemed to decide against it, closing his mouth.

“That’s everything for now,” Cellbit confirmed. “Thank you for the information and the promise to keep our secrets, and apologies that you were forced to reveal yours sooner than you wanted.” He closed his notebook, addressing the others in the room. “Today’s meeting is adjourned. Thanks, everyone, for coming with such short notice. Keep your eyes out for messages about future meetings.”

Gradually, people started to filter out of the room, calling out goodbyes as they went, a few of them stopping for a moment to properly introduce themselves to the Prime Defenders before they left. When everyone had mostly gone, Jay stepped up to the Defenders, nodding for them to follow. “Gill and I are gonna head back to the Albatross and make up some dinner. It’s up to you guys if you want to join us, but since we’re going to all be living on the same ship, I think it’d be a good idea to get to know each other a little better - especially now you don’t need to worry about hiding your superpower thing.”

“Does that mean we get to hear about your cool magic pirate adventures?” Dakota asked eagerly. “Because if so, I’m definitely down! Hey, Tide made us a bunch of beef stroganoff for the road, right? I think if we heat it up, there should be enough for all of us.”

With that, the Defenders, Jay and Gillion started to make their way to the door - with the exception of William. He hung back for a second, which Ashe quickly noticed. “Hey Will, you coming?”

“Yeah, just give me a sec, I’ll catch up with you guys.”

Ashe nodded, stepping from the room, leaving William alone with the only two others left: Cellbit and Roier, the latter sitting on the table, chatting as Cellbit collected papers and books into a bag. William stepped around the table closer to them, clearing his throat to get their attention. Roier fell silent as he and Cellbit looked at him. “William, what’s up? Did you have some more questions?” Cellbit asked.

“Yeah, just one. I thought, if we’re gonna be here for... I don't know how long, I’d like to be informed as possible, so I was wondering if I could, like, officially join this group? So I can come to meetings and stay on top of stuff? And I think I could be a pretty useful asset, I’m pretty stealthy and I’m good at investigating and mystery solving. If I have to do an interview or screening process or something, that’s fine, I'm up for it.”

A small smile appeared on Cellbit’s face. “No need for any of that. Welcome to Ordo Theoritas.” He held out his hand, and William accepted it, shaking. “I’ll message you about future meetings. If you have free time tomorrow, I’d actually like to hear some more about your world - and Phil mentioned a professor whose portal brought you here? I’d like to know some more about them; I assume they’re aiming to bring you back home?”

“Yeah, Professor Cross said he’s gonna try. I’d be happy to meet up tomorrow, just let me know where and when.”

“Will do.”

Roier had been quiet as the two talked, but now spoke up, looking to William, “You know, I had a feeling when I saw you that you and Cellbit would get along. Maybe it’s the similar hair streaks?”

Cellbit chuckled a little. “Hopefully William’s wasn’t the result of anything as stressful as getting kidnapped by the Federation.”

“Aaactually, I got mine when I died the second time…”

“Second time?”

“Long story, I can tell you tomorrow. For now, I should probably catch back up with the others… It was nice to meet you guys, and thanks for not being too mad about us sneaking around. Bye!” William waved, heading to the door.

As he left, Roier called after him, “By the way, let your friends know you’re all invited to Cellbo and I’s wedding next week!”

“NEEEEIGH!”

Chip tugged on Puddle’s water reigns as the horse galloped up to the Albatross, bringing them to a stop beside the ship. The sky had mostly shifted to a deep purple, fading to amber where the last sliver of sun was setting on the horizon. “Home sweet home! And with all the tasks for the week done; think we did pretty well.” He climbed off to the horse. “C’mon, Ollie, let’s grab some food and then get you to bed. It’s already an hour past when your mom said your bedtime should be.”

“You say that like you’ve ever stuck to my bedtime,” Ollie let Chip help him down from Puddle’s back. “Thanks for helping us, Puddle!” He petted the horse’s head, and then followed Chip up the ladder onto the deck of the Albatross.

Chip’s attention was immediately drawn to the crew’s quarters - Dakota’s voice could be heard from the other side, as loud as usual, “-and we’re understandably freaking the fuck out, asking how the hell he’s alive when his dead body is literally ripped in half five feet away! And what does this dude say?! ‘Dude, it’s okay, I got better’. Like that explained fucking anything!”

“I mean, it was basically what happened,” William’s voice responded, “and a lot was going on, explaining that I’d been having the shit beaten out of me by Kemuri in the Spirit World for what felt like months didn’t exactly feel like a priority.”

Chip pushed open the door, stepping inside the crew’s quarters. Jay and Gillion were sitting at the table, while their four shipguests were sitting on their beds. All of them had bowls of food - some kind of pasta and meat dish inside, definitely not one of the Riptide Pirates’ usual meals on the sea.

“Chip, hey!” Gillion smiled as the third captain stepped inside, Ollie just behind. “How did the quests go?”

“All good, Ollie’s sorted for the week. I see you guys have been getting along?”

“Yeah, we’ve just been sharing stories. We saved some food for you and Ollie, by the way, it’s just over there.” Jay nodded to the kitchen counter, where two more bowls were resting.

“It’s beef stroganoff, our kinda-dad Tide’s specialty!” Dakota said, taking a big bite of his own serving and then adding through his mouthful, “So you’d better like it or I’ll kick you again.”

“If you do that, I hope you like sleeping outside on the deck,” Chip called back as he moved over to the counter, taking one bowl and handing it to Ollie, who thanked him before going over to sit on his bed and eat there. Chip then picked up his own bowl, trying a bite of the stroganoff; it was okay, not anything too special, but a nice change from the usual rotation of meals Old Man Earl prepared on the ship.

While his back was turned to them, Chip didn’t notice Jay look to William with a mischievous smile and give him a nod. He did, however, notice a bright blue flame hovering right in front of him when he turned around; one he immediately recognised as a will-o’-wisp.

“WAH!” He let out a reflexive cry of fear, back slamming against the cupboards behind him as he leapt back away from the wisp. He practically threw his bowl and fork away so he could grab his swords-

Then he realised his fellow captains were not rushing for their own weapons as he would expect, given the violence they had faced before when faced with will-o’-wisps in the keep on Canella. No, Jay and Gillion hadn’t moved; in fact, they were laughing, as were the four teens.

“Holy shit, I thought you were exaggerating when you said he’d be that scared!” Dakota wheezed. “It’s such a tiny wisp and he screamed like a baby!” He held his stomach, which was hurting from laughing so hard.

“It was not like a baby, and it was deserved!” Chip protested, swords pointed at the wisp, not really taking in the fact it was seemingly docile, not moving or attacking. “We’ve faced wisps before, they’re bloodthirsty! We need to get this fucker off the ship before more of them show up and take over!”

“It’s okay! It’s not gonna hurt you,” William managed to get out in between laughter. “Jay and Gillion told us about the wisps in your world, and mine aren’t like that.”

Chip blinked, frowning. “Yours…?”

William took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down as he held out his hand. The wisp in front of Chip moved away from him, going over to William and gently resting in the boy’s hand. William closed his fist around it, and when he opened it again, the wisp was gone.

“Whoa…” Ollie gasped, leaning over the side of the bed as he watched. “You could get rid of it just like that? That’s so cool!”

Chip just stared, mouth slightly agape. “How did you…?”

“I have ghost superpowers,” William said, “including the ability to control wisps. It was Gillion’s idea to use them to give you a bit of a spook.”

Gillion had a prideful grin on his face. “Consider it revenge for when you made me think the ship was haunted a couple of days ago. I’m getting better at pranking, aren’t I?”

“I… Proud of you Gill, but huh? Superpowers?” Chip looked back to William. “What does that mean exactly?”

“It’s basically Prime’s closest equivalent to magic,” Vyncent explained. “People with superpowers can do cool stuff that normal people can’t, like Will with his will-o’-wisp powers, and Dakota’s super strong, and I can do this with paper.” He waved his hand, sending the map on the table flying around the room before landing back where it was.

“And we use ours to be superheroes! We go around saving the world and stuff,” Dakota added. “But you’ve gotta keep it a secret, okay? We’ve only told a few people around here, and we wanna keep it that way for now.”

Chip looked between the four boys, trying and struggling to compute all the information he had received in the last thirty seconds. In the end, he just turned to his co-captains, “I think I need us to head down to the captain’s quarters so you can fill me in on everything I missed and then I can go to sleep, because it has been a long few days…”

Jay chuckled. “Yeah, it’s getting late, we probably should get some shut eye.” She got to her feet, as did Gillion, looking to the Defenders, “I guess we’ll see you guys in the morning.”

“Thanks again for letting us stay here,” Ashe said. “We appreciate it.”

“It’s nothing, really,” Gillion insisted. “See you all tomorrow!”

“Ollie, I’m trusting you to make sure these guys don’t fuck the place up, okay?” Chip said as he pushed open the door, leading his fellow captains out. “Keep an eye on them for me.”

“Got it!” Ollie gave a small salute as the door closed, leaving him and the Prime Defenders alone in the crew’s quarters.

As soon as they were gone, Vyncent leaned over the side of his bed, looking down at William. “Hey, Will, you know that guy you saw Gillion stab in that vision thing?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t worry about it, he deserved it.”

William blinked up at him. “... Huh?”

“He’s, like, an awful person. Seems really evil. I don’t blame Gillion at all, I probably would've stabbed him too.”

Ashe frowned in confusion. “How do you know that…?”

“I had one of those vision memory things too earlier, back when I fell on Jay. It seemed like it was one of her memories, and I saw that guy too. He’s apparently Jay’s father, and he threw a fireball at me- at her, really. I figure a guy who tries to set his own daughter on fire kinda deserves to be stabbed.”

“Well, I don’t feel quite as suspicious of Gillion anymore, but this is getting really weird, dude,” Dakota said. “You’re saying it’s not just a Will and Gill thing, it’s you and Jay too? Should I have had one when I kicked Chip in the face?”

“What are you guys talking about…?” Ollie looked between the four of them, confused.

“Don’t worry about it, kid, it’s grown up stuff.”

Ollie frowned, folding his arms. “Hey, I’m a Riptide Pirate, which means you guys are basically living on my ship - so I think you should tell me what’s going on.”

“Yeah, well, we’re the Prime Defenders, we don’t answer to the Riptide Pirates!” Dakota turned to the other three. “Maybe we should save talking about this until we’re on our own aga- AH!” He let out a cry as he was given a very strong push in the back, sending him falling forwards off of his bunk bed. He landed with an “oof!”, regaining his bearings before looking up at Ollie, who looked back down at him with a mischievous grin. “How the fuck did you push me so hard?! You’re just a small kid!”

“I’m not gonna tell you. I’m a Riptide Pirate, we don’t answer to the Prime Defenders,” Ollie replied with a snarky tone, before lying down on his pillow and pulling his blanket over himself, ready to go to sleep.

Dakota muttered in annoyance, climbing back onto his own bunk as the four teenagers prepared to go to sleep as well.

William shrugged off his hoodie and replaced his jeans with pajama pants before climbing into his bed. He rolled over onto his side-

And jolted in surprise as he found himself face to face with Pretzel. “Fucking Hexpert, you scared me…!” he whispered. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with Gillion?”

Pretzel just blinked, staring at him from where she sat beside his bed.

“Go on, shoo. I don’t want you sitting here watching me sleep, that’s creepy.”

The frogtopus still didn’t move - in fact, she seemed to squish down a little, as if getting settled to sit where she was for a while.

William sighed. Today had been stressful and exhausting, he didn’t want to waste the time he could be spending asleep arguing with a small pink creature that he wasn’t even sure could understand him. He rolled over so his back was to Pretzel, hoping to forget she was there as he closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep.

In no time at all, Dakota was snoring loudly, all four of the Prime Defenders asleep in their new beds. They fell so deeply asleep that they weren’t awoke by ringtones coming from their phones.

One by one, notifications reading ‘missed call from Tide’ appeared on Dakota, William and Vyncent’s phones, and notifications reading ‘missed call from Dad’ on Ashe’s. The notifications kept on coming through the night.

Chapter Text

Jay was the first to wake up the next morning. Honestly she hadn’t been able to sleep much the whole night. For one, her back still hurt whenever she led on it, which made it pretty difficult to get comfortable. Gillion had used lay on hands to heal the raw skin where her wing tattoo had once been as best he could the day before, but it hadn’t quite been enough to fully ease the burning pain across it.

On top of that, her mind was just whirring too much. Though she’d already been pretty sure that they were in a whole other world, the confirmation that the arrival of the Prime Defenders brought was a lot to take in. Not to mention, when they’d caught Chip up on everything the night before, he’d continued to insist that “just because they’re from another realm doesn’t mean we are, I still think it’s worth it to try sailing out”, which was… frustrating, to say the least. But Chip being kind of stubborn was nothing new, and she couldn’t really blame him for trying to hope for the best.

The other thing that occupied her mind was that strange moment in the Order headquarters when Vyncent dropped on her and stabbed her… It had been so odd. With a single blink, she’d no longer been falling to the laminate floor of the Order’s hospital room, but instead onto hard concrete. She’d groaned, taking a moment to regain her bearings, before finally taking in the world around her. The moment she’d looked up, she was met with complete sensory overload. Noise everywhere. Voices chatting in the streets. Strange metal carriages, horseless, flying overhead, growling and honking. Immensely giant buildings also constructed of metal towering over her. The people walking around, all wearing strange garments. It was all so much, moving so fast. As she stumbled to her feet, her tail swishing anxiously behind her, she’d desperately tried to look for something familiar to no avail.

Then it got worse. All at once, five voices, none hers, had started yelling in her head, repeating the same questions she was already asking herself. Where am I? What’s going on? What happened? What did the lich do?

She felt like she was losing control of her own breath, holding her head in her hands as the voices yelled. It was so much. This was all too much.

She’d stumbled vaguely down the busy street as she gasped for breath, roughly pushing past people and not caring. She just needed to get somewhere quiet, a moment of peace. She needed the voices to stop-

And then she’d been back in the Order Headquarters.

She brought up the vision when she and Gillion were catching Chip up on everything, as Gillion described his own vision of what had seemed to be William’s past. It made sense that what she had seen had been a memory of Vyncent’s. The only question was why? Why had they had those visions? None of the Prime Defenders had mentioned having memory powers, so it likely wasn’t that. The question plagued Jay all night.

When the sun arose, she sighed, pushing herself out of bed. She’d take waking up early as a chance to make some breakfast for everyone, and maybe see if she could get some answers about the memory thing from the Prime Defenders.

She quietly tiptoed from the captain’s quarters, careful to not wake the still sleeping Chip and Gillion. Before she even opened the door to the crew’s quarters, she could hear loud snoring from the other side - evidently coming from Dakota, all four of the Prime Defenders and Ollie still asleep. Jay stayed quiet as she began to look through the kitchen cupboards, grabbing some eggs to cook up-

Only to be caught by surprise at the sudden blasting of heavy rock music from the other side of the room, dropping one of the eggs. She let out a huff, making a mental note to clean it up later as she turned around. All of the Prime Defenders were still asleep, somehow none of them woken by the noise, which seemed to be originating from near Ashe. Curious, Jay stepped over, tracing the music to a pocket-sized rectangular device resting on top of a chest next to Ashe’s bed. Its whole front was a screen, which was currently lit up, reading ‘Dad’, with a green button and red button.

Suddenly, the music stopped, and instead Ashe’s voice spoke from it: ‘Hey, I’m busy right now. You know what to do.’ Following that, there was a loud beep, and then another voice, this one sounding older, gruff.

“Ashe, pick up your damn phone! You can’t leave it to that crazy Cross guy to tell us you’ve gotten trapped in another dimension and then not answer my calls for eight hours! I swear to fucking Hexpert, if you’re hurt, I’m not letting you hang out with those three unsupervised again, they always get you involved in some bullshit- “

Jay had pretty quickly put together that whatever this device was, it was similar to a callnch shell. She’d picked it up, looking over the screen for a moment, before pressing the green button.

Immediately, the tone of the voice on the other side shifted, filled with relief. “Oh thank fucking- Ashe, are you okay?! You’re safe, right?!”

“Sorry, Ashe is asleep right now, but don’t worry,” Jay quickly reassured. “He’s fine, completely safe.”

The relief was gone from the voice, now low and threatening. “Who the fuck are you? And why have you got my son’s phone?”

“I’m Jay Ferin. Me and the rest of my crew also got accidentally stuck in this dimension. Ashe and his friends are staying with us while we’re here. As I said, he’s asleep, so I figured I’d answer for him rather than leave you waiting.”

“Then wake him up,” Ashe’s father practically spat. “I’m not hanging up until he tells me himself he’s okay. And no fucking funny business, keep me on speaker so I can hear everything.”

Jay couldn’t help but flinch a little at the harsh tone of the man on the other end of the phone, but she tried to push past it. “Okay, yeah, will do.” She leaned down, shaking Ashe’s shoulder. “Ashe, hey, wake up.”

Ashe groaned a little, frowning as his eyes wearily opened, taking a moment to focus on Jay. “Oh, hey, what’s up?”

“It’s your dad.” Jay held out the device, and Ashe’s eyes instantly widened.

“Oh shit.” He took his phone, taking a deep breath as he raised it, holding it to his ear. “Heyyy…”

“Eight hours, Ashe. That’s how long I’ve been calling you. I stayed up all night. Tell me, why the fuck didn’t you call me the second you found out you’re stuck in an alternate universe?!”

“I’m sorry, I meant to! A lot was going on yesterday, it slipped my mind. And I couldn’t answer your calls because I was asleep. Look, Dad, I’m fine, we all are. I’m sure Professor Cross is going to get us back home in no time. You don’t need to worry.”

Jay awkwardly shuffled away, choosing to make her way back to the kitchen area and busy herself with preparing breakfast. However, she couldn’t help but listen in, idly picking up on Ashe and his father’s continued conversation.

“Don’t need to worry?! I lose you for a whole year, then only a few months after I finally get you back you’re stuck fucking Hexpert knows where, and you think I don’t need-?!” Ashe’s dad cut himself off, taking a deep breath before letting out an exasperated sigh. When he spoke again, he was clearly trying to keep his tone calmer. “I’m gonna worry about you. Just- promise me you’ll at least text me every day, so I know you’re alive. And don’t let those three drag you into more stupid shit, alright? I know I told you I’d cut them some slack since they saved your life, but you’ve gotta admit they’re real fucking idiots who throw themselves into danger.”

Ashe seemed to smile fondly, glancing at the other still sleeping Defenders. “Yeah, I know. I’ll be fine, Dad, I promise.”

“And those people you’re staying with, you’re sure you can trust them?”

“Yes, I am. Look, Dad, this is just as scary for me as it is for you, but I’m okay. I’m sure I will continue to be, and if I’m ever not, I’ll message you. Just… worry, sure, but don’t worry too much. I’ll be back.”

“You’d better be.” Ashe’s dad paused, before adding, quieter, “Miss you, kid.”

“You too, Da-”

A new voice suddenly came from the phone, sounding distant. “You’re talking to Ashe, he picked up?! Are he and the others okay?!”

Ashe’s expression quickly shifted, eyes narrowing. “Is that Tide? You’re with Tide?”

“I- uh- I mean, yeah, he has direct contacts with WATCH and they’re the ones who sent you to wherever you are; and with none of you answering our calls, we figured we’d stay together until either of us got confirmation you’re okay.”

“Uh huh… Well, hi Tide.”

“Ashe, hi!” The newest voice, Tide, sounded a lot closer now. “Glad to hear you’re okay! You are okay, right? Are the other three there with you?”

“Yeah, they’re just asleep-”

SLAM! “Pretzel?!”

Ashe was cut off as the door of the crew’s quarters banged against the wall, slammed open by Gillion. The loud noise successfully jolted Ollie, Vyncent and William awake, the second grabbing his sword, and the latter instinctively turning invisible. Dakota was the only one still snoring.

“Nevermind, they’re awake. Maybe I’ll switch to a video call so you can see us all.” Ashe pulled his phone from his ear as Gillion moved fully into the room, starting to search around just as he had the day before.

“Is Pretzel in here again? I couldn’t see her anywhere in the captain’s quarters.”

As William groaned, turning visible again as he sat up, he rubbed his tired eyes. When he finally willed them to focus, he looked to the side. Yep, there was Pretzel, right where she had settled the night before, though she seemed to have fallen asleep as well, eyes closed, a contented smile on her face. “Yeah, Gillion, she’s right here.”

“Again? She must really like you, William,” Gillion chuckled, stepping over as William scooped up Pretzel, the frogtopus gently roused awake by the movement. “I don’t think she’s ever spent multiple nights away from me like this.” He reached out to take Pretzel from William’s hands.

Except both of them paused before they made contact, hesitating. Without even needing to discuss it, just a shared awkward glance, both of them shifted their hands, being incredibly careful to not touch as they passed Pretzel between them. As they did so, William’s attention was caught by something he hadn’t noticed before on Gillion’s wrist: a tattoo. A crescent moon, along with two letters: ‘NK’. The initials of a loved one of Gillion’s, he assumed. Both let out small sighs of relief when Pretzel was safely in Gillion’s hands, the triton stepping back from William.

As they’d done so, Ashe had turned on the camera on his phone, switching to a video call. He kept just himself in frame at first, giving a wave to his dad and Tide; the two seemed to be in the Winters household, both sitting on the couch, leaning in to share the frame. Both had deep bags under their eyes, tired, clearly having stayed awake all night. “See, Dad?” Ashe said. “I’m all good.” He looked to Vyncent and William, speaking loud enough for the two to hear him. “Guys, Tide’s here, he wants to see you guys are okay.”

William and Vyncent immediately perked up, the latter jumping down from his bunk, the two rushing to join Ashe, leaning into frame. As soon as they saw who Tide was sitting with, their eyebrows furrowed.

“William, Vyncent!” A relieved grin immediately appeared on Tide’s face. “I’m so glad you’re okay! Lightspeed called me last night and said something had happened and I should come into WATCH, and when I got there Professor Cross explained what happened and I got so worried-”

“Why are you with Mark?” William asked, cutting him off.

“Apparently Dad wanted Tide to stick around so he’d know if Tide heard anything more about us from WATCH,” Ashe explained. “Y’know, since we were asleep and weren’t answering their calls.

“Y-yeah, and now we know you guys aren’t dead, he can go,” Mark said, apparently realising how close he’d leaned towards Tide to fit in the frame, shuffling apart a little.

“Wait, hold on, don’t hang up yet” Tide frowned. “I want to talk a little more. Like where’s Dakota, is he alright?”

“Oh, yeah, he’s just…” Vyncent trailed off, looking up before harshly poking between the slats of the bunk above, trying to jab the mattress hard enough that it’d stir the boy sleeping upon it. “Hey, Dakota, wake up! Tide’s called!”

Dakota’s snoring seemed to hitch for a moment, and it seemed like he’d awoken… but then it continued as normal. Vyncent was about to stand up and go to shake Dakota awake, when Ollie called: “I’ve got it!”. Not even a second later, Dakota’s body was shoved over the side of the bed, dropping down and landing with a heavy thud on the wooden floor in front of the other three Defenders.

“OW, what the fuck?!” Dakota was immediately jolted awake, darting to his feet and frantically glancing around. It didn’t take long for his eyes to narrow, focusing on the young half-elf giggling from his bunk. “Again?!”

Ollie shrugged, a mischievous grin on his face. “I had to, you weren’t waking up.”

Dakota muttered under his breath, fists balling at his sides. Figuring he should change the subject before Dakota attacked a child, William spoke up, “Hey, Tide’s on the phone.”

In an instant, Dakota had squeezed between William and Ashe to sit on Ashe’s bed, leaning into frame. “Tide! … And Mark?”

“Dakota! Oh, you have no idea how relieved I am to see you all alright,” Tide said. “This universe you’re in, it’s not dangerous, is it? You’re safe?”

“Well, no one can die here so we’re basically guaranteed to be fine, but there’s also a shady organisation in control of the island we’re on that’s trying to block our access home, so…” William shrugged, “kinda a mixed bag.”

“A shady organisation that we will tear down so that everyone is free!” Gillion had been helping Jay finish up breakfast, and now stepped over to the four teens as he spoke, balancing five plates of fried eggs in hands. He handed one to each of the Prime Defenders and one to Ollie. “So there’s no need to worry, they’ll be home in no time.” He leaned down into frame, frowning in concern at the phone screen. “The real worry right now is helping you both out of there… Do any of you know the activation word?”

“Activation word?” Dakota asked.

“I think Gill thinks that’s a Mirror of Life Trapping,” Jay said, stepping over as well and gesturing to Ashe’s phone. “It’s a magical item that traps people inside, we used to have one. I think this is more like a callnch shell, Gill, it just lets you see the person you’re calling as well as talk to them.”

“Oh, I see! Sorry for the confusion.”

Jay stopped beside Gillion, looking over Ashe’s shoulder at the device in his hands. It was pretty easy for her to guess based solely on their demeanour which of the two men on the screen was Ashe’s father: the one with blond hair, scruffy facial hair and bandages wrapped around half of his face. He seemed to be one of those people whose default expression was a permanent scowl. The other man had a much gentler expression. His beard was precisely trimmed and styled, his black hair collected in locs dyed blue at the ends. On the left side of his head, three beads were woven into his hair, each a different colour: one red, one blue, one purple.

The two men looked curiously back at Jay and Gillion, before speaking at the same time:

“Who the fuck is the fish?”

“Who are your new friends?”

“Oh, this is Gillion and Jay! Gillion and Jay, meet Tide and Ashe’s dad, Mark!” Dakota introduced. Gillion and Jay both gave waves, which Tide returned with a warm smile. Mark also waved, muttering what only Jay picked up as a quiet apology for being “a dick” to her earlier.

Dakota continued to the phone, gesturing to Gillion and Jay. “They’re letting us live with them while we’re here, and they’re really cool! They’re pirates, but like good pirates, and they’re from a world like Vyncent’s so they can do magic! Oh, Gillion, can you show them the water thing you did yesterday?”

“Sure, anything in particular you want me to shape?” Gillion asked, uncapping the decanter at his hip.

“How about… Oh, is Chip awake?”

“He wasn’t up when I left our quarters, no. Why?”

“Then let’s go wake him up so Tide can meet him too!” Dakota jumped to his feet, grabbing Gillion and Ashe’s hands, pulling them both along with him to the door. Jay and the other two Defenders followed behind, as did Ollie, though he didn’t continue with them down into the captain’s quarters. Instead, he found somewhere on the deck to settle and enjoy his breakfast.

Dakota hushed everyone as he tiptoed down into the captain’s quarters, still leading the way. Chip was lying in bed, seemingly still asleep - at least to most of the group. William, however, almost immediately sensed something… off. 

The first detail he picked up on was Chip’s bandana. Though he’d taken off his coat and hat to sleep, he still wore the red bandana tied on his head. Bit weird, but William could have brushed it off. But then he took note of how stiff of a position Chip was lying in; not the relaxed body of someone deep in slumber, but tense with balled fists. His eyebrows were furrowed, lips slightly pursed. To anyone else, it might look like the grimace of a person having a nightmare; but to William, that was the position he had led in all those nights between falling off the cliff in Deadwood and being ripped in half by the Trickster, desperately trying to will himself to fall asleep but completely unable to. If he didn’t get up and find something else to do, he’d just lie there, the same expression of concentration on his face as his mind replayed memories of first death and visions of the Spirit World. And when he was spared of those visions, he’d just mull over whatever thoughts came to mind.

Often worries about his mortality. Fears that he’d never get to sleep again. Relief that he couldn’t in case he never woke up.

What was that Gillion said yesterday, when he’d smelled William’s undead-ness? ‘You don’t think it’s Chip, do you?’

“Okay, Tide, watch this!” Dakota whispered to Ashe’s phone, before turning to Gillion and whispering in his ear. Gillion chuckled quietly with a cheeky grin and gave a nod. Then, with a wave of his hand, water rose out from his decanter, flowing in a stream through the air.

“Wow, they’ve been gone not even a day and they’ve already replaced you,” Mark snarked, giving Tide a small nudge, which Tide returned with a playful glare.

“I doubt I could come close to a replacement,” Gillion said, guiding the stream to form a ball hanging over Chip’s head, slowly growing in size as more water was added. “I definitely couldn’t make that meal we had last night! Dakota said it was your specialty, Tide?”

“You probably could, it takes like five minutes from the box,” William mumbled, though not loud enough to be heard.

“Oh, you tried my stroganoff? What did you think?”

“It was delicious! Right, Jay?”

“Yeah, it was pretty good.”

“I’m glad!” Tide grinned. “Hey, if you ever end up on Prime, I’ll be sure to make a big pot as thanks for keeping my- um, the boys safe.”

“Thank you, and it’s no problem, really,” Jay replied, deciding it was better to leave out that ‘keeping the boys safe’ had so far involved her almost shooting William in the chest.

“Are you guys gonna dump this water on my head or are you just gonna stand there and keep talking amongst yourselves?” Chip’s voice suddenly spoke up - startling Gillion, who lost his concentration on his spell, sending the now bowling ball sized orb of water falling down right onto Chips’ face, soaking him and the bed below him. Chip didn’t even cough or splutter, just blinked and let out a sigh. “Yep, should’ve seen that coming.”

“You’ve been awake the whole time, huh?” William asked, looking Chip up and down as the pirate sat up. He definitely didn’t look dead - bright skin, no blackened or purpling fingers or other signs of decay, his chest seemed to be moving like he was breathing. Then again, though he still had a ghostly paleness, William could breathe now and the decay that had overtaken his old body was absent from his current one, and he was still dead. Just because Chip looked alive didn’t necessarily mean he was.

Chip gathered up his soaked hair as he responded, saying, “Yeah, I was,” as he squeezed and twisted, wringing water out and letting it drip onto the wooden floor.

Ashe frowned, confused. “Then why didn’t you say something sooner or get up and move out of the way of the water?”

“I was… busy. Hey, Gill, you mind…?” Chip pointed to his head, and Gillion nodded, waving his hands. Chip’s hair, skin and clothes dried as the water was lifted, the moisture also pulled from his mattress and pillow, Gillion guiding the water stream back into his decanter.

“Guess that prank was a failure, huh?” he chuckled a little, capping the decanter once Chip and the bed were completely dry.

“We’ll just have to get him better next time,” Dakota said. “Anyway, this is Chip! Chip, this is our mentor Tide and Ashe’s dad Mark.”

Chip’s eyes flitted over the group, clearly expecting to see two people he didn’t recognise standing there. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion when he didn’t spot anyone, until his gaze landed on Ashe’s phone. On the screen, Tide waved with a warm smile, “Nice to meet you!”

“Uh, you too,” Chip got to his feet, pulling his coat on as he did. “Thanks for making sure I made a great first impression, Gill, Dakota, I appreciate it.”

Dakota snickered while Gillion, not picking up on the sarcasm in Chip’s tone, smiled proudly, “No problem!”

“Well, it’s been nice meeting you all, but I should probably get going,” Tide said, prompting Ashe to turn the screen back to face himself and the rest of the Prime Defenders. “I’ve got a meeting at WATCH HQ, about your situation actually. Professor Cross is going to outline to us his ideas to get you home.”

“‘Us’? Mark’s going too?” Dakota asked.

“Oh, no. It’ll be me, Lightspeed, and Ms G. And Lightspeed said Wordsmith might come along too; apparently he’s been just as worried as the rest of us but doesn’t want to admit it.”

“Wait, Ms G?” Vyncent frowned, confused. “I thought she was still recovering?”

“She was, but after hearing what happened to you… She said she thinks she’s well enough to come back to the administrative side of things and help out. I think she wants to make up for being out of action for you all for so long.”

“Tell her I said thank you!” Dakota said. “Oh, and Tide, I’m gonna need you to look after Bobo for me while I’m here. He should be in my room on Harttawa, so just make sure you check on him regularly and feed him, okay?”

“Of course I will, Dakota. I actually wanted to ask, do you want me to tell your aunt what happened? And William, your parents?”

“I guess it’s for the best,” Dakota said, “but let her know I’m okay and I’ll call her tonight. And you should probably tell Master Cole too so he knows I won’t be at training for a while.”

“Will do. William?”

“Uh…” William hesitated for a second, glancing down at his feet while his hands seemed to go to stuff themselves in the pockets of a hoodie he wasn’t wearing, instead awkwardly sliding down to rest stiffly at his sides. “Nah, I’m good.”

Tide frowned. “You really don’t want them to know about this?”

“It’s fine,” William insisted, though his eyes stayed trained on the ground rather than at Tide - which Gillion was quick to notice. “They’re used to me going off for a while for hero stuff, there’s no point in worrying them.”

“Alright, if you’re sure. Stay safe, alright? And keep me up to date on how you’re doing.”

“Same to you too, Ashe,” Mark added. “At least text me every evening so I know you’re alive.”

“Got it.”

“Alright, talk to you later.”

“Bye! Boys, I’ll text the group chat later and let you know what Cross said in the meeting,” Tide said as Mark picked up his phone from wherever he’d propped it up. The four Prime Defenders called their goodbyes, and then the call ended.

Ashe pocketed his phone, looking to the Riptide captains. “Sorry if we kinda disrupted your morning routine. I probably should have called my dad last night.” He turned specifically to Jay. “And extra sorry if my dad was a bit of an asshole when you picked up, he… takes time to warm up to people.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jay reassured. “He wasn’t that bad. And we’re pretty used to chaotic mornings anyway, we don’t really have a strict routine.”

“I’d prefer it if dumping water all over me was a one-time thing though,” Chip said, pulling on his hat. “So, you guys got any plans for the day?”

“I’m supposed to meet Cellbit later, he should be sending me coordinates to his place,” William said. “We met yesterday, he was curious to know more about Prime, so… I should probably go get dressed so I’m good to go whenever he messages.” He turned, making his way from the captain’s quarters. Gillion frowned a little, watching him go - William’s energy seemed to have completely deflated following Tide mentioning his parents.

As William left, Vyncent instead stepped a little closer to Chip. “I was actually hoping I could do some training with you? Gillion said yesterday that you can do fire magic. I can too, but I’m pretty out of practice. I could use some help from someone who knows a little more than me.”

Chip smiled, chest puffing a little in pride. “Huh. I’ve never been asked to train someone else with spellcasting before, I’m usually the trainee. But yeah, I’m down to help.” He looked to the rest of the Prime Defenders. “And you two?”

“I’m down to train!” Dakota said. “And Ashe, you could get in some more practice with your weapons.” He turned back to Chip. “His college doesn’t allow weapons on campus so he hasn’t had much of a chance to actually use them since Will gave them to him.”

“Alright then, I’m gonna grab some breakfast and then we can head off. Gill, I’m guessing you’re in too? Jay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jay nodded. “Could use the chance to get used to using a bow again.”

Gillion, however, shook his head. “Actually, I was thinking of accompanying William. I don’t think it’d be good for him to go alone in case he gets lost, and I’ve been wanting to see more of the island anyway. I’ll happily join you all afterwards, though, and I can send out a message to see if Etoiles or anyone else wants to as well.” As he spoke, he slotted Destiny’s Blade into its sheath and strapped his briefcase of holding to his back. “I’ll see you all later, have fun training!”

He made his way from the captain’s quarters as his fellow co-captains and the Prime Defenders called goodbyes. He paused before entering the crew’s quarters, knocking on the door. “William, can I come in?”

“Shit- Just a sec!” There was some shuffling, the sound of a zipper, and then William called, “Yeah, I’m decent, you’re good.”

Gillion opened the door, heading inside. William was in the middle of getting dressed, grabbing a fresh t-shirt and a hoodie from the chest of his clothing. Before he pulled them both on, Gillion caught sight of three pale scars across William’s torso; two beneath his pecs, and a long one going straight down the centre.

“So did you want to talk about something, or…?” William asked as he took a seat on his bed, opening up a pocket of his backpack and taking out a small mirror and a black eyeliner pencil.

“Well, I actually came to accompany you to Cellbit’s. He mentioned to us that some hostile creatures roam the island, so it’s probably for the best you don’t go on your own - and I am more than happy to take out any evil we come across.” Gillion patted the hilt of Destiny’s Blade.

“You really don’t have to,” William said, pulling his backpack onto his shoulders once his makeup was done. “I’m sure I’d be fine by myself.”

“It’s no problem, William. Besides, it’d be nice to talk and get to know you better.” Gillion held open the door, stepping aside and gesturing for William to go ahead first. The teen did so, holding his arms close to his sides to avoid accidentally touching Gillion, moving out onto the deck.

While Gillion began to climb down the rope ladder of the Albatross, making his way towards the grass below, William elected a different method. Gillion’s eyes widened as William casually stepped off of the edge of the ship, the triton instinctively going to reach an arm out to grab and catch him mid-fall - but a blue glow surrounded the boy as soon as his feet left the wooden deck. He floated slowly to the ground, fidgeting with his communicator as he did so, pulling up the coordinates Cellbit had sent to him. Gillion quickly made his way down the rest of the ladder, joining William on the ground, a concerned frown forming on his face. “You can fly?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I said yesterday, levitation, one of my powers.”

“I know you said you’re already aiming to keep your powers a secret,” Gillion said, stepping closer to William and lowering his voice so no one but the two of them would hear, “but I think it’s for the best you’re extra careful to keep that one to yourself. The Federation is apparently very careful to make sure no one is able to fly off of the island.”

William frowned down at him, lowering his voice as well. “What do you mean?”

“Phil’s wings, Chip told us the Federation keeps them clipped so he can’t fly away. And Jay, she used to have a tattoo on her back imbued with magic that allowed her to sprout wings - but yesterday morning, when you arrived, we woke to find the tattoo had been burned off. I healed her skin as best as I could, but her wings were unsalvageable. It’s all part of the plan to keep us all trapped.”

“Oh shit… Do you think they’d have a way to stop me flying? I mean, with me it’s not as easy as getting rid of wings, it’s… an innate ability I have.”

“I have no idea, but I think it’d be worth it to keep it as quiet as possible just to be safe.”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

The two had started walking as they spoke, William keeping an eye on the map on his communicator to ensure they stayed on the right track. Gillion glanced around as they went, taking in the sights and keeping an eye out for any dangerous creatures. The silence between them both only grew more awkward with every second that passed, until Gillion finally broke it. “So, um… I’m sorry if this is overstepping, but why did you not want Tide to tell your parents about you being stuck here? I know you said you don’t want to worry them, but wouldn’t leaving them unaware where you are for a potentially very long time be just as worrying?”

William shrugged, his gaze having quickly turned to the ground at the question. “Not really. Like I said, they’re used to me disappearing for a while. Besides, I just… don’t like telling them about hero stuff.”

“Why not?”

“They just… they don’t get it. They’re, like, the most normal people in the world. My dad’s an accountant, my mom is a kindergarten teacher. Any time I’ve talked about hero stuff with them, or invited them to dinner at our base, it just… makes me feel weird. They get so uncomfortable. They didn’t sign up for this stuff, they’re not prepared to deal with it, with me.

“I still remember when I died the first time. After waking up after I fell, I just went home - I hadn’t realised I was dead yet. My parents were used to me coming home pretty late, so they didn’t pay me much mind; I just went to my room. I didn’t think it was weird that I wasn’t able to sleep. I figured it made sense adrenaline was keeping me up after almost dying. At breakfast the next morning, my mom insisted on taking me to the doctor because overnight I’d turned pale and my skin had gone cold. She thought I was just sick. I still remember her expression when the doctor said I didn’t have a pulse and wasn’t breathing, that horror… The same look she had when I accidentally entered my wisp form for the very first time right in front of her. The same look she had when Ms G came to our house and said she wanted to recruit me to the Prime Defenders. I can’t blame her or dad for it - I didn’t want me to become a dead superhero either - and they’ve made it clear that no matter what they love and support me. But it does just… make it so hard to talk to them about anything.

“So yeah, I’d rather not get them involved. It’s better for them and for me.” William had folded his arms, slightly hunched down, gripping the sleeves of his hoodie tightly in his hands - almost like he was hugging himself. He glanced hesitantly at Gillion. The triton’s gaze was fixed intently on William, eyebrows furrowed, a slight frown on his face. William couldn’t quite read the expression. Concern? Doubt? He responded with a small sigh. “Look, I don’t expect you to get it either. I mean, cool magic and abilities are pretty common where you’re from, right? You don’t have to deal with all the heavy hero stuff that would come with it on Prime.”

At that, Gillion did something that took William by surprise: he scoffed. “‘Don’t have to deal with heavy hero stuff’? I did tell you my titles, didn’t I?”

“Uh…” William couldn’t recall. He admittedly had been stuck in an intense panic over Jay’s prettiness when Gillion had introduced himself; it was a miracle he had been able to take in Gillion’s first name, let alone anything that followed.

Gillion’s expression softened. He cleared his throat, before closing his eyes and reciting: “A hero born of moonlight, storm and sea. They shall rise or fall to bring unity. They will be tested or bested by evil’s hand. By their choice one will remain: sea or land.”

William hesitated, unsure how to respond. “Nice poem…? But why?”

“It’s not a poem; it’s a prophecy. The prophecy that foretold my birth.” Gillion finally opened his eyes, a heavy sigh escaping him. “Well, the version I heard for most of my life. From the moment I was old enough to stand on my own and lift a sword, I was taken under the care of the elders of the Undersea. From then all the way until I was banished, I was rigorously trained to be the Champion of the Undersea and Hero of the Deep. Or, to be more accurate, trained to be the elders’ weapon. It was… a lot. Especially when I was a child. It didn’t help that I barely got to see my parents. Visits to the palace were limited and they didn’t bother to come. It was like as soon as the elders took me in I wasn’t their problem anymore. They weren’t worried for me. I sometimes wonder if it’s selfish for me to wish they had been; if they’d cared, losing me when I was banished would have just caused them more hurt.”

“Oh.” William awkwardly shifted his gaze back to the ground, staring unfocused at the grass beneath his feet as guilt pooled in the pit of his stomach. Here he was, talking about making an active effort to push his loving and caring parents away in front of someone who’d probably give anything for that kind of relationship. This is what he gets for venting to someone who he’s only known for two days.

Gillion either didn’t notice or decided not to acknowledge William’s now awkward demeanour, continuing, “I did have one person who cared, though; my sister Edyn. She’d visit as regularly as she could, check on me, make me feel better when I was struggling. She was even the one to give me Pretzel!” The frogtopus on his shoulder let out a happy chirp at the mention of her name. “I have a lot to thank Edyn for. Now, though…” Gillion let out another sigh, this one with what seemed to be a hint of huffed frustration. “I don’t know where she is. Doing something important, I know, but she said she can’t tell me the details, just to trust her. And I do! I… want to. But I don’t know anything aside from the fact it involves the navy. I have no way to contact her, no way to know if she’s safe, if she’s even still alive.” He blinked back the tears that had begun to prick at the corner of his eyes, taking a small breath to collect himself. He turned his head to look at William. “I’ve experienced a lot of scary things, but few things are as terrifying as being left not knowing if someone you care about is hurt.”

“I get what you’re saying,” William nodded, stuffing his hands in his hoodie pockets. “I’ll give my parents a call tonight. Don’t know how I’ll explain this, but… yeah, you’re right, they should know.”

A small smile tugged at Gillion’s lips. He raised a hand, as if about to pat William on the shoulder, before pausing and deciding against it. At this point they’d made it about half-way down the island’s wall, though according to William’s communicator they still had a distance to go.

“So, my turn to ask a potentially uncomfortable question…” William broke the brief silence, kicking a pebble along as he walked. “You said you were banished from your home? Why, what happened?”

Gillion’s eyes visibly widened, glancing around awkwardly as one hand fidgeted with the hilt of Destiny’s Blade. “Oh, um, that… Well, it was shortly before I first met Chip and Jay. I had overheard that there was an important meeting that the elders were attending. Usually I’d also be invited to meetings like that, being the chosen one and all, so I was a little offended at being left out. I headed straight for the meeting hall and burst in right in the midst of the meeting. The elders were there, along with some people I didn’t recognise. And one of them… my divine sense immediately picked up that there was something distinctly evil about them.” He sighed. “The elders had always trained me to attack first and ask questions later.”

William stopped walking. “Oh shit, that’s what I saw. That’s when you stabbed Jay’s dad, isn’t it?”

Gillion stopped as well, blinking, turning back to face William. “How do you know that?”

William didn’t respond immediately, cursing himself in his head as he realised what he’d just said. He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Uh, you know that… vision you had, when our hands touched? The one where you were me? I had one too, but I was you, and in it I burst into a meeting room and stabbed this big guy with red hair. Vynce said the guy was Jay’s dad.” Noticing Gillion’s still confused expression, he added, “Vyncent had a vision too, when he fell on Jay. He saw one of her memories, that’s how he knew.”

“I see. Well, yes, that was what led to my banishment. I’m thankful that it led me on the path to Chip and Jay, but I still regret how I acted. I should have taken the chance to learn more before jumping to violence.”

William shrugged. “I dunno. Sometimes if you do that, you just open yourself up to being manipulated. Trusting your gut isn’t always a bad call.”

Gillion hummed, hand once again fidgeting with the hilt of his sword, his gaze lowered. It idly focused on William’s hand. “... Do you know why we shared memories? It’s not a power of yours, is it?”

William shook his head. “No. No idea why it happened to us or Vynce and Jay.”

Gillion looked between his own hand and William’s. “Do you think if we touched it would happen again?”

“Dunno…”

There was a pause, the two standing facing each other.

Gillion raised a hand, holding it out, palm up. William took a deep breath, muttering quietly, “Hope it’s a better one than last time…” before he rested his hand atop.

In an instant, Gillion was no longer standing on the grass of Quesadilla Island, instead sitting on a couch inside a room that looked far more futuristic than anything he’d seen in Mana. Vyncent was sitting beside him, though he looked a little younger; no soul patch, he had his hair down and was wearing a white and purple tracksuit.

“What are you thinking today?” Vyncent asked, looking ahead at a large screen attached to the wall. A television, it was called - not that Gillion knew why he knew that, he’d never seen one before.

“No, I picked last time,” Gillion replied in the higher, more hushed voice of William Wisp, “what are you thinking today?”

“Oh man, um…”

“REVENGE OF THE WASPS!” Dakota’s voice cried, the boy jumping over the back of the couch, landing sitting on Gillion’s other side, inadvertently pushing Gillion a little closer to Vyncent (for some reason the triton felt his face burn a little?). Dakota looked a little different too, younger, wearing a white tank top with an open red flannel shirt over it.

“I was thinking more the Bee Movie.”

Dakota frowned, folding his arms and sinking deeper into the couch. “Ugh, I hate the Bee Movie!”

“But that’s…” Gillion frowned, confused, “Revenge of the Wasps is a bee movie.”

Vyncent’s eyes widened. “Holy shit, you’re so right…”

“What?” Dakota sat up again, frowning at Gillion and Vyncent. “Wasps aren’t bees.”

Vyncent let out a shocked gasp while Gillion blinked. Was that true? They’re not the same? He’s the smart one of the group, shouldn’t he know that? Wait, no he isn’t, Jay’s the smart one. Oh, but he’s William right now, not himself, so these must be William’s thoughts. This whole memory sharing thing was very confusing.

While his mind raced, he reached into the pocket of his hoodie, pulling out a small notebook and a pen. He flicked through pages and pages of important notes until he reached the most recent page, which had a gap at the bottom. He scribbled down, ‘Wasps are not bees??? Need to dive in further. How deep does it go?’, which he then underlined and circled multiple times.

As he did so, Dakota continued, “We learnt this in biology!”

Vyncent shrugged, “I’ve skipped, like, the last five days of school, Dakota.”

“I mean, but they look like bees, right?” Gillion continued muttering, scratching his head with the end of his pen. “I mean, they’re- Wasps, they’re yellow, they have the- Why wouldn’t they be bees?”

“Because they’re villains!” Dakota said. “And bees aren’t villains. That’s the difference.”

“Well, there could be a bad bee out there. Each bee makes a choice. So what separates a wasp from a bee?”

“I just said. Wasps are evil and bees are heroic, like us! We’re the bees!”

“Wait, what did wasps do?” Vyncent leaned forward to look past Gillion at Dakota. “What did wasps do to be evil then?”

“I got stung by a bee once, does that make me a villain?” Gillion asked.

“No, I think that makes you a bee.”

While Gillion let out a baffled yet amused laugh at Vyncent’s final comment, Dakota just groaned. “Man, I’m fucking tired of this, can we just make some burgers?” He jumped to his feet, before disappearing in a blur, running off at far beyond inhuman speeds. Gillion and Vyncent both got up to join him, but as they did, Gillion picked up an odd plastic rectangle covered in buttons from the coffee table - a remote, his mind told him - and pointed it at the television. As he pressed buttons, the display on the screen changed a few times, until text at the bottom read ‘Now Playing: Revenge of the Wasps’.

“Will, Vynce, come on, burger time!” Dakota’s voice called.

“Coming, I was just getting the movie ready!” Gillion called back, following Vyncent towards the kitchen.

William, meanwhile, found himself standing upon a roof. Beyond, stretching as far as the eye could see, was a city; industrial looking, with grey buildings, steam and smoke expelling from chimneys. Past the buildings, the sun was beginning to set, the sky fading from a bright gold to a deep amber.

Despite the view in front of him, however, William’s gaze was focused entirely on the figure standing beside him: Chip. His hair was much shorter, outfit instead a white shirt and suspenders - his signature coat and hat were missing, though he still wore his red bandana. He seemed to have tear tracks going down his face, eyebrows knit together, voice a little shaky as he spoke: “And if he’s not out there, then what? Okay, Lizzie wants us to go to war with the navy and I… I can’t do that. I’m just… me, I can’t- can’t even captain a ship with three people. I can’t even keep Ollie safe.”

On Chip’s other side was Jay. She looked different too: hair tied back, wearing a blue jacket and white blouse. Her single golden eye was instead blue, the same as the other. “I hope Arlin’s out there too, don’t get me wrong,” she said, “but if he isn’t, then… you’re gonna have to start learning how to live for yourself. Live and be what he would have wanted you to be, y’know. Carry on his honour. I’m sure he wouldn’t want you to be up here on a roof drowning in sorrow because of it if he’s anything like what you’ve told me.”

“And if the real Chip is anything like what we’ve seen,” William said in the deep baritone voice of Gillion Tidestrider, “I have no doubt there are great things in store.”

“Thanks, guys.” Chip took a deep breath as he reached up, wiping his eyes quickly. For some reason, for a moment William was tempted to reach out and wipe the tears on Chip’s cheeks away himself.

“Also, I know technically you’re supposed to be our captain, Chip,” Jay said, “but at the end of the day, you’re my friend first, okay? So don’t put too much weight on it.”

“I mean…” Chip looked between Jay and William, “I guess we could all be captain, right? There’s no, like, pirate law against it.”

“I mean, there is a pirate code, but we only know one rule and, again, yet, none of us has pissed our pants; we’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” William said, immediately confused by his own words. That was a pirate law in this world? Not to piss your pants?

“Maybe someday, you never know,” Jay chuckled.

“Okay. Alright. So we’re all captain!” Chip nodded. “Put your hands in.” He outstretched a hand. Jay followed suit, resting hers on top of his, and then William, placing a wet blue hand on the very top. “I, Captain Chip-”

“I, Captain Jay-”

“Oh, is this a thing- I, Captain Gillion Tidestrider, Champion of the Undersea, Hero of the Deep, The One, Singer/Songwriter of Gillion and the Tidestrider’s hit single the Hole in Your Heart, Walking Fish, Defenestrator of the Adulterous-”

Chip chuckled a little, before continuing, “-do solemnly swear-”

Then Jay, “-do solemnly swear-”

William, “-do solemnly swear-”

“-to fuck shit up!”

“-to fuck shit up!”

“-to fuck shit up!”

“Yes! Okay, to help those in need!”

“To help those in need.”

“To help those in need.”

“And to be the best goddamn pirates anyone has ever seen.”

“Here here,” Jay smiled.

“There there,” William grinned confidently.

With that, the three broke their hands, raising them to the sky, fists clenched. “To us!” Chip yelled as they did so. “The… Guys, we need a pirate crew name.”

“Um… Oh gods, we’ve never had one of those?” Jay blinked. “It’s been so long.”

“The- Check this out, check this out,” William said. “I’ll start a sound and then you guide me through it. The ssssssshsssser…”

The three spent a solid thirty seconds hissing out various syllables, trying their best to land on a word. For a moment, they all said serpentine, but silently seemed to agree that wouldn’t work, switching to try an ‘r’ sound instead. Right as William was starting to beg to himself that he had control over his actions so he could stop all of this, Jay finally followed through, “Rrrip- Riptide Pirates?”

Chip’s eyes immediately lit up, and he raised his fist back to the sky. “To the Riptide Pirates!”

“To the Riptide Pirates!” Jay did the same, closely followed by William.

“Into the Riptide!” he called out to the city before him.

And then both he and Gillion were back to standing on the grass of Quesadilla Island, within their own bodies.

The two blinked, regaining their bearings, and then just stared at each other for a moment. William was the one to break the silence, “You guys have a cool pirate oath. I like the fuck shit up bit.”

Gillion let out a small laugh. “With you and the others living on our ship, who knows, maybe we’ll make you honorary crewmates and have you swear to it too.”

“Yeah, we can definitely swear to the fuck shit up bit - and I guess the helping those in need too.” They idly resumed waking as William cautiously asked, “So, uh… what did you see?”

“A lot of talk about bees.”

A relieved sigh escaped William, who chuckled a little. “Oh, that. When we were trying to decide on a movie to watch, right?”

“Yes, I wanted to ask… What is a movie?”

“Oh shit, right, you don’t have that stuff, do you? Basically, it’s, uh… Do you know what a camera is?”

The rest of the walk was spent with William doing his best to explain modern technology to Gillion; the triton was a good listener, and though a little confused sometimes, did seem to roughly understand what William meant. That then led onto William explaining the plot of Revenge of the Wasps, which then led Gillion onto talking about encountering and battling violent bugs on the island Loffinlot. The two found it very natural to talk to each other, something just clicked; like they were cut from the same cloth.

Eventually, their conversation naturally came to a close; as it did, they emerged from a small patch of woodland, stepping out from tall spruce trees. As they did so, they found themselves before a waystone and a broken bridge of black stone. On the other side of the large gap in the bridge was a sight that sent a small shiver up William’s spine: a large gothic castle, constructed of the same black stone with blood red roofing, eerily towering into the sky. While distinctly different in architecture, it still looked similar enough to Mallard Conway’s castle in the Spirit World to be a little unnerving to the undead teen.

“Oh, this is… Right, okay, we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere,” he muttered to himself, choosing to busy himself with checking his communicator’s map and looking for the coordinates. “Maybe we got turned around in the trees- Oh. Nope, this is… this is it. This is where Cellbit said to meet, in there. Okay, that’s fine. This is fine.”

“William, Gillion!” A voice suddenly called, bringing their attention to the entrance of the castle; Roier was stepping through the doorway an egg in a yellow and green football shirt and a red cow hat walking at his side. One moment the two were standing there on the other side of the broken bridge, then in a sparkle of purple particles, they disappeared, warping onto a tile on the other side of the gap, just ahead of Gillion and William. “Hola! Cómo estás?”

Gillion waved back as he and William stepped forward to meet them both. “Muy bien, gracias! Y tú?”

“No mames, I didn’t know you knew Spanish!” Roier grinned.

“Know what?”

“Spanish, the language we were both just speaking.”

Gillion just blinked owlishly at Roier.

“... Anyway,” the mexican continued, brushing it off, “I’m glad I ran into you two. I won’t keep you long, William, I know you’re meeting Cellbit - he’s waiting inside for you - but I just wanted to ask if you guys had outfits for next week?”

“Outfits for…?” William asked, glancing at the equally confused Gillion.

“For mine and Cellbit’s wedding! Remember, I mentioned it yesterday, the whole island’s invited. I just wanted to see if you and the others have formal outfits ready to go.”

Gillion hummed. “I don’t know if we do. It’s likely if we did have some lying around somewhere they might have been damaged in the wreckage anyway.”

“And we were prepared to venture through a fantasy world for a few days,” William said. “I definitely didn’t pack any formal clothes and I really doubt the other three did. Sorry.”

“No need to apologise, man!” Roier reassured. “I figured that might be the case, and Richarlyson and I are ready to help.” He patted the shoulder of the egg beside him. “If we just get you and the others’ measurements, we can make you some outfits for the day.”

Gillion gave a warm smile. “That’s incredibly generous of you, thank you. It sounds like a lot of work, though, and on top of planning a wedding… If there’s any way I can help with anything to make it up to you, feel free to let me know. I have plenty of free time to assist with set up, and it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve helped organise a wedding.”

“Thanks, man, I appreciate it. The best way to help for now is to help me find where everyone else is so I can get their measurements.” Roier turned to William, adding, “I’ll get yours later, I won’t keep you from your meeting.”

William nodded. “Thanks. I guess I’ll see you guys later. And thanks for walking with me, Gillion, it was cool getting to talk ‘n stuff.”

“It was. See you later! Since we’re training, we’ll probably be at the gym; you can meet us there later - it’s south on the other side of the wall.” With that, the triton gave a wave, turning away with Roier and Richarlyson, a conversation striking up as they walked away.

William turned back to face the castle ahead, letting out a sigh. Seeing Roier and Richarlyson casually walk out of there made it seem a little less daunting. He made his way across the bridge, using the warp plate to cross the gap and stuffing his hands in his hoodie pockets as he crossed the threshold of the doorway.

“Hello? Cellbit? It’s William!” he called, glancing around the small entrance hall - a throne rested just in front of him, while a doorway to the left led to a dining hall. He waited idly in the entrance hall for a couple of minutes, calling a few more times - “Hello? I’m here for the meeting! Cellbit?” - to no avail. Eventually he decided ‘screw it’, and started wandering further into the castle in the hopes of finding the man himself.

Occasionally he’d call out again for Cellbit, but did so less and less as he grew preoccupied with just looking around. That especially became the case when he made his way up some stairs and entered a particularly ominous looking room. Red lanterns hung from chains from the ceiling, shelves of books and red lit candles lined the walls - but where William’s attention was primarily drawn was the floor. Drawn in the centre of the room in white was a sigil of some kind - almost like something Ashe would have used to summon Spirit World entities back when he still had the book. Why did Cellbit have something like this in his home…?

William slowly walked around the sigil, examining it closer. It was a pentagon, encircled symbols at each of the points. William looked at each symbol, wracking his brain for any spiritual knowledge that could tell him what they meant - but none of it seemed familiar to him.

One of the symbols, though, the one with a spiral… It seemed to glow slightly as he stepped by it, a bright white. He paused, just staring down at it. It almost felt like it was calling to him…

He slowly moved a foot, cautiously stepping onto the symbol. The second the sole of his shoe made contact with it, he disappeared.

A shiver went up his spine. It was cold. He glanced around his new surroundings, and for a moment he wondered if he had been transported to somewhere in the Spirit World. He stood in the centre of a greyscale room, the ground a spiralled pattern of dead grey grass and deep black mud. Silver trees with dying leaves hanging limply from the branches stood tall around him, as well as wooden posts with skulls propped on top. Other parts of skeletons, ribcages and spines, were strewn across the room. Black walls blocked every direction, no windows or doors in sight.

“What the fuck…” William muttered to himself, eyes continuing to flit around as he cautiously stepped forward. Why did Cellbit have this in his house? It looked like what he’d imagine Mallard Conway’s backyard would be like. Did all of those symbols within that sigil lead to rooms this creepy?

As he slowly moved, he began to notice signs dotted all around the room. Some attached to tree stumps, some on posts rising from the ground or propped on treetops. All of them had names on them - some he knew, including Philza, Chayanne and Richarlyson, and others he didn’t, like Dapper.

Finally, his eyes rested on the only item in the room that seemed to be in colour: a book, resting on a lectern, open. He stepped closer, leaning down slightly to read. Just like the books in Ordo Theoritas, it was clearly written in another language, but as William’s eyes scanned the page, the words magically shifted, translating into English.

‘Death is the entity of time. It seeks the moments experienced, distorting the egoic perception of the existence of each individual for its own pleasure. The temporal distortion of Death ruins the carnal perception of Blood.’

“Death seemed like the obvious choice for you, but I did wonder for a moment if you’d end up drawn more to Knowledge.”

William jumped at the voice suddenly speaking from behind him, stumbling a little as his feet almost fell through the ground under him as they briefly turned intangible. He spun around to see Cellbit standing in the room’s centre with a calm smile, like he wasn’t surrounded by bodily remains.

“Shit, uh, sorry for, like, snooping around… but also, what the hell is all this?”

“No need to apologise, I was planning on showing this to you after our meeting anyway. That sigil up in the ritual room,” Cellbit said, stepping closer to William, continuing before the teen had a chance to ask why the hell he would have a ritual room in his house, “is a symbol that represents the Other Side; an alternate dimension filled with mysterious and dangerous entities. I’ve been researching it for years, though being trapped here has mostly put a halt on that for now. Each of the symbols in the sigil represents a different element of the Other Side. This is Death, but there’s also Blood, Knowledge, Energy, and Fear. I connected each symbol to these rooms I created to represent the elements; that way I could present them to other islanders and let them pick the ones they connect with most.” He gestured to the sign with Phil’s name, affixed to a tree trunk. “Everyone has a natural affinity to one of the elements - with the exception of Fear. No one can be connected with that.”

“The Other Side? Is that, like, another name for the Spirit World?”

Cellbit shook his head. “No, it’s not an afterlife. And in all my research, I never uncovered anything about a being called the Wisperer related to the Other Side, so I doubt it has anything to do with you - aside from your affinity to Death.” He unlooped his backpack from his shoulder, opening it up. From inside, he pulled a black sign, matching the others in the room, and a white marker. “Do you want to add your name?”

William glanced between Cellbit and the sign held out to him. “This isn’t gonna, like, sign me into a pact with a multiversal demon or something, right?”

Cellbit chuckled. “No, it won’t. It’s safe - just something fun I do to share my research with the island.”

William took the sign and pen, uncapping the latter and then scrawling his name. He glanced around, searching for a good spot, until his eyes landed on one of the posts with a black skull resting atop it. He stepped over, holding the sign against the post. He looked back at Cellbit over his shoulder. “This good?”

“Perfect.” Cellbit had already pulled a hammer and nail from his backpack, moving to stand at William’s side. As the teen held the sign in place, Cellbit affixed it to the post. “It fits well.” He patted William’s shoulder, nodding his head. “Come on, let’s head back to the dining hall so we can talk. I have a lot of questions about your world and this Spirit World.”

He led the way back to the centre of the room, the middle having a single tile of glowing white stone. As Cellbit stepped upon it, he disappeared. William followed suit, finding himself standing once again in the ritual room of Cellbit’s castle. He continued after Cellbit, retracing his earlier steps until the two were back in the dining hall.

Cellbit took a seat at the head of the table, underneath a family portrait of himself, Roier and Richarlyson. He gestured for William to sit at the chair to the right of him.

Except William didn’t move. He seemed to have spaced out a little, eyes just glancing around the room. The dark castle, the long dinner table… It felt a little too familiar to be comfortable.

“William?” He was brought back to the present by Cellbit’s voice. “Are you alright?”

“Oh, yeah. I am. Just… could we do this somewhere else? Nothing against your castle, it’s nice. It’s just…” He sighed. How to explain this without traumadumping on a guy he’d known for two days? He’d already done it to Gillion, he wasn’t going to do it again.

But Cellbit was already getting to his feet, collecting the notebook he’d withdrawn and putting it back in his backpack. “Of course. Would you prefer we head to the Order?”

“Yeah, that’d be good. Thanks.”

“No problem. Let’s get going, it won’t take long if we take the waystone across the bridge.”

The two made their way from the castle, Cellbit striking up further conversation about his research into the Other Side as they went. William listened intently, though still stayed focused enough on his surroundings to let out a sigh of relief the moment he stepped off of the black stone bridge, leaving the castle behind him.

He didn’t know what he was so anxious about, to be honest. They were in another dimension, surely far out of Mallard Conway’s reach. Maybe the more time he spent with Cellbit, the more comfortable with the ominous-looking castle he’d become. At least this meeting would be a good start.