Standing atop a wind-beaten mountain, a lone girl with diamond-pink eyes stared down at the army below. Rows upon rows of soldiers filled the valley, each one gripping a long, heavy rifle, weapons with thick, dark-brown barrels, reminiscent of the old-world carbines, though far deadlier. A faint hum filled the air as magic circles hovered just centimetres from the mouths of each barrel, shimmering like heat haze. A battlefield where gunpowder met sorcery.
At the front of this force, a single figure stood apart. A young man with radiant, sun-gold hair that fell past his shoulders, and eyes like molten metal. Draped over his shoulders was a long crimson cloak, lined with white fur, thick and wild like a wolf's mane, rippling in the highland wind. He looked every inch a ruler.
The newly crowned Emperor.
And the traitor I once called an ally.
Though... in actuality i never trusted the asshole, I knew the bastarded was going to betray her. But it still angers you, even if you knew it was coming?
"What's wrong? Hurt? Disappointed?" the Emperor sneered, his voice carrying easily over the wind. "Did you really believe I'd let you live after you outlived your use? I even offered you a throne beside me — marriage, power, everything. And yet you just had to spit in my face, didn't you?"
I stared down at him… then laughed.
"Hehehe… HEHEHAHAHAHA!"I pointed a finger his way, eyes glinting with venom."Did you actually think I'd ever want to marry an egotistical, spineless waste of air like you? Please. You think I wasn't using you, too?"
My grin widened."I've had my eye on you since the start. I knew this would be an ambush the moment you suggested a 'peace talk' on a mountain. You've never been subtle."
I reached into my coat, pulling out a heavy, jagged sphere. It was roughly the size of a basketball, its surface a lattice of dark metal plates, interlocked like scales. From its core, sharp, crystalline protrusions jutted outward like a flower forged in hellfire. A faint, cold blue glow pulsed within, steady and lethal.
"Which is why," I said, raising the weapon, "I brought my magnum opus."
The Emperor's smirk faltered, the first crack in his façade.
"This," I continued, the eerie blue glow catching in my eyes, "is a fission-based core. Took me years to find a fissile material in this backwater world, but guess what? Turns out, Nightshades were fucking made of the stuff. Their cores? Pure fucking gold. You thought I was doing a public service? No, I was just getting research materials." I chuckled, voice fraying at the edges. Maybe I sounded crazy. I wasn't. Just… excited.
The soldiers tensed. A ripple of unease went through the ranks. A few stepped back, rifles trembling in their hands.
"Problem is," I went on, casually rolling the orb between my fingers, "it's unstable as hell. Can't trigger it with conventional means. No magic circle, no spark, no match in a powder room." I grinned. "That's where I come in. I'm the only one who can set this off. By accelerating a lone neutron to my absolute limit…" I snapped my fingers. "Boom. Chain reaction."
A thin, pink thread shimmered into existence, linking my fingers to the weapon.
"And now…"
I hurled it, the weight of it slicing through the wind. It soared in a clean arc, hundreds of meters across the battlefield, past the first line of rifles, past the armoured war beasts and enchanted artillery, landing deep within the rear guard.
It hit the ground with a dull, metallic thud.
I gave the Emperor a final, wicked grin.
"Checkmate, Your Majesty. This is for Selene."
The thread in my hand pulsed, as a form of energy passed through it, and onto the bomb, searching deep within the craft. i found what I was looking for, and pushed all my remaining power through, to Accelerate Fission itself.
A crack formed beneath my palm, a jagged, dark purple vein of instability, joining the others that already marred my skin from reckless overuse of my power. My hair, pure black and streaked with thin violet fractures, shimmered faintly in the moonlight like shattered obsidian barely holding form.
Then came the light.
The moon hadn't even reached its peak when a second sun rose in front of me, a blinding, all-consuming burst that swallowed the world in white.
Without wasting another second, I yanked on my spatial rune, a one-time escape tool, forcing the last of my energy through it. It burned. My body tore at the seams. Every molecule screamed in protest.
But just before I released the spell, I shut my eyes.
The light was unbearable. And the sound… Deafening and hateful. Waiting for the jump, I waited.
Except… I never felt the teleport.
No tear in space, no shift.
Only silence.
And when I opened my eyes…
Gone was the battlefield. the rising second sun had vanished. without the teleportion. i had been moved. somewhere completely different than what I had in mind.
"What… the…" My eyes darted left, then right, taking in the scene. I was standing beside a large circular fountain in what looked like a bustling market square. Crowds passed by, chatting and haggling, none of them paying me the slightest mind.
And plenty of them weren't human.
"Fuuuck…" I muttered under my breath.
Demi-humans, a race that was completely instinct before the time when I was even born, it has been so long since races like lizard people and wolfmen, and other animal types walking past, even humans with animal features, such as the ears and tail of a cat.
even the buildings were different, they were more olden, and were reminiciant of a continent from my first life, specifically, they looked to be medieval European-era buildings.
A laugh bubbled out of me before I could stop it. It wasn't the past — even in my last world, nothing looked like this. Another world, though? Yeah… yeah, that tracks. Hilarious, isn't it? My second time at this kind of bullshit. Except instead of reincarnation, it's transportation.
And passing me by… a goddamn raptor-drawn carriage. That nearly broke me.
The creeping fear that had been gnawing at my stomach since I triggered the bomb vanished. Gone. Replaced by something else entirely.
I was free.
In another world, with no chains, no obligations. Free to do whatever the fuck I wanted.
Though, it was very fucking annoying, after getting adjusted to the last world reasonably well, to get sent back even further in time in a different world. "Hah... i miss my phone."
I sighed under my breath, cursing whatever petty, overgrown god was orchestrating this garbage.
Still… maybe I should be grateful. At a glance, this world seemed way less hellish than the last one. Maybe. Or maybe it was just as bad beneath the surface. Wouldn't be the first time.
Well, maybe I could finish my checklist now.
Suddenly, a loud exclamation broke through my Idle thought. "I've been summoned to a parallel world?!" a young man shouted.
My body reacted before my mind did. Instinct sent my hand to my waist, fingers closing around empty air where my Dreamstorm should've been. My eyes shot up to scan the source.
Nothing. No threat. Just… a kid.
Annoyance flared in my chest as I realised my favourite weapon had been left behind in the workshop. "Tch," I clicked my tongue, shoving down the frustration. fuck, that was my favorite aswell. And I don't have anything else, except the prototype revolver I was going to test out. Double fuck. At least I still have the bullets for it.
Still, his words stuck in my head.
Did he just say what I think he said…?
There he was, a young guy with sharp, tired-looking sanpaku eyes, and styled-back raven hair. Awestruck, the idiot was gaping at the scenery, excitement radiating off him like a damn beacon.
But it was his outfit that sealed it. A black, white, and orange tracksuit, the material unmistakably modern. Even his sneakers matched. He practically screamed I'm not from here.
His eyes flicked toward me, and to his credit, he actually yelped. A girlish, high-pitched yelp that almost made me snort.
After a half-second of fumbling, he straightened up and gave me a once-over,
His eyes scanned me from head to toe, taking in every detail. The high-collared, double-breasted military coat, matte black with rich purple lining and gold buttons.
Purple accents traced the shoulders and lapels, subtle but unmistakable. Slim-fit combat trousers, reinforced with dark purple-stitched kneepads, disappeared into knee-high black boots built for silent movement and efficiency.
Long black combat gloves covered my hands, to obviously protect my hands from any danger as they were made from a special fiber i myself had created, but, personally i wore them, to hide secrets i am not willing to tell yet, and scars I'm not comfortable showing to anyone.
Then his gaze landed on the thin utility belt at my waist, where my prototype revolver hung in its... shoddy holster.
His eyes widened slightly, and a flicker of recognition passed over his face.
"You've been summoned too, huh?" He pointed at my gun. "Man, must be nice having better starting equipment than me." He lifted a plastic bag stuffed with miscellaneous store-bought junk, clearly admitting a gun beats groceries any day.
I stared at him for a moment, weighing my next words. "Y-" I cut myself off, then tried again. "What year are you from?"
This would tell me how long it'd been since I died and got dragged into this mess. I wanted to know if my grandpa might still be alive.
He shrugged, dropping a bomb. "2012. Why do you ask? You're acting like it's something important."
I frowned, then sighed. "2025. That's where I was from." Guess this isn't just time travel. It's multiverse or parallel worlds or some crap like that. That meant no straightforward way back to my original world, only the slim chance of finding a way between timelines. well, it's the most likely theory now given the information.
"Welp, guess that means it's just us 2 versus the woooooorld. Isn't that fun?" i smiled, as I gave an exaggerated hand expression.
subaru, not wanting to gloss over the fact that i just admitted i was from the future said "Wait, whaaaat!? did you just say you were from 2025??"
I, the rational adult here, responded with "No, you must be imagining things."
---
A/N hope you liked it, as you can see. there is mystory. from the start i was going to try to be more serious, but then i realised that i am not built like that, and devolved right back into crack.
Sorry for the bad end.
I am tired.
Bye-bye.
(kinda inspired by Death's foresight because I liked Deneb's interaction, but I just threw my oc in there.)