Hail To The King (Part 1)

Sam had wondered what the point of getting out of bed today was.

It had started whilst he was having his breakfast. It had been a quiet, stress-free week so far, full of absolutely nothing to bother him and all day to not be bothered in. Walter was dozing by his lap, still struggling with trying to be a morning dog, and although he'd grown as large as a lion by now the landlord had been strangely reluctant to complain. Things seemed to have finally quietened down, at last as far as the former Destined Hero was concerned, and no longer was life handing him any bum hands for the sake of it's own sick pleasures.

And then the Grandius had started beeping and babbling nonsense about dimensional breaches. Sam's first mistake had been to try and figure out what was going on, despite not understanding hadn't a lick of it - in fact, he hadn't been aware that the Grandius could sense things in other dimensions. Oh, sure, he'd experimented with its safety teleportation feature - Priority Three, to be exact - but he'd never really tested the full capability of it at all. And hey, the disturbance was only a few miles down the road...

Sam's second mistake was initiating Priority Three.

VROP.

And that was how he ended up in the wreckage of a village in a place he didn't recognize, with an equally-confused Walter by his side.

Things got even more confusing when, upon wandering out of the town, Sam located what he assumed were the people of the village, madly evacuating their former homes in a frenzy of panic. All his questioning could get out of them was that something had arrived from seemingly nowhere and trashed the village without breaking a sweat, and it was in the opposite direction he had come from. So Sam made his third mistake of simply flying back the way he'd come, using his newfound powers instead of walking.

It was, admittedly, a lot faster, so he arrived at the massive iron-gray, factory-esque building in a few minutes or so, wondering what on earth it was doing there. And then he ran away from the massive, rapid-firing gun turrets in almost half that amount of time, swearing like a sailor with a stubbed toe. But he'd lingered long enough to notice the familiar symbol plastered on the side - the double-headed, spread-winged crow of the Magpies, the criminal organization who he'd run into on more than one occasion and specialized in... well, being a criminal organization.

So what was it doing here, building factories and raiding towns?

Unfortunately, he never got enough time to figure that out by himself, because then he came face-to-face with a very large army. It was lead by some guy named Caleb, who happened to be the king of that particular piece of country, and had gone up in order to check out reports of super-powered people trampling his villages and ransacking his people. And, of course, when a dude lands in front of you in a pillar of flame, you're not exactly going to ask any questions. Especially when you've already been told about it by the evacuees of that village.

Sam did the sensible thing and surrendered.

He didn't know how long he'd spent in that prison. Not that it was uncomfortable or anything - the food was decent, the cell was comfy, but the chains clearly needed greasing because they chafed like crazy. But the former Destined Hero had no idea what day or the week it was when Walter suddenly prised his door open, took his sleeve in his jaws and lead him out of that camp and across a field or two to a hotel in some other village. On the morning when Walter trotted into his room with the Grandius in his mouth, wagging his tail happily, did he realize that his own dog seemed to know this strange new world better than he did.

So he had no complaints when Walter lead him out of the hotel and through a dozen more miles of countryside. It was here that Sam noticed something very odd indeed about this world - it was like looking at a patchwork quilt up close. One minute, he'd be walking past some farmland, then ten miles later it'd be all steampunk and copper, then farmland again, then early 20th century tech... The blond warrior had a bit of trouble wrapping his head around the whole thing, and wondered just what had happened to get things into such a state.

Eventually, he came to a very large market town, which seemed to be in the middle of a trading convention with a strange civilization of... well, the Grandius translated their name as "Skinweavers", so that was what he was gonna call them. Walter had indicated, by barking, that he ought to have a word with some of these people, and by this time he'd long given up on whatever reasoning the dog had on doing any of this. Also, he was tired, hungry and more than a little fed up with this shit. If the dog wanted him to speak to the scary face-painted tribesmen, then that's what he'd do.

Their first question, when he filled then in on the situation and what he needed, was wherever the local law enforcement could handle the issue. When he told them, in no uncertain terms, that this was extremely unlikely, they decided to take him to their leader instead.

Sam was really starting to regret getting out of bed.

-------

The first notable thing was the gigantic pig. Or boar, rather, though Sam only knew that because someone had removed its head and put it aside. The fact that it was the size of a small elephant was also notable, as was the few dozen men, women, and children carving meat off the corpse and taking it to the score of cooking fires scattered around, half of them with their bare hands, like some kind of cross between primal pack eating and a DIY buffet. 

With everyone around him clad in furs, tanned skins of various kinds, and most of the time not carrying anything more advanced than a knife, Sam was suddenly very self-aware of his synthetic clothing and technologically based sword. The Skinweavers mostly only noted them; Sam only got one dirty look and the female next to said look giver both noticed and disapproved; Sam moved on before he could see more.

The main cooking fire was set out in that while the rest had logs for makeshift benches, it had large stones. A dozen people of importance stood or sat around the fire, Sam mainly able to note their importance by one single factor; they were all wearing facial makeup. After a bit, Sam noticed a second; while the furs of the people he'd passed showed various degrees of wear and tear, any fur on the outfits of the people around the main fire was pristine, like they'd stepped out of a modeling catalogue.

"Madam Ember..."

"I smelled him from across the site." The woman said, turning away from a book she was consulting. There was ostensibly a blonde woman speaking to him, but it was somewhat hard to tell; the woman's face was made up with white paint around the mouth and eyes, and a reddish-brown over the rest of her features, her head and shoulders covered in a large fur cloak of the same color, the rest of her body clad in dull gold leather, a few bags tied at her waist and long, curved claws of bone set onto the shoulders of her fur cloak.

Her expression was neutrally friendly, as she took a bite out of a chunk of meat like it was an apple. "Yeah? What do you want?"

"Um, hi. Your friends said I should talk to you about getting some help?"

"What kind of help?" Another bite. "If this is about the Verdenbaak issue I've got people on it."

Sam gulped, clearly not expecting this kind of a reception. Tread carefully, self...

"Well," he tried, "no, it's not the Verdenbaak thing, whatever that is. Basically, some jerks have turned up and started wrecking villages and building factories all over the place. I asked around for some help in investigating, and I was told to go look for the Fourty-Four, whoever they might be. Only..."

Here, he indicated where one of his sleeves, having loosely rolled up his arm somehow, exposed the faint remains of a reddish shackle-gall. A shudder at the memory of Caleb's dungeon threatened to surface - he pushed it down.

"...it's not exactly been easy," he finished, lamely.

"Someone locked you up? Rude. You should have kicked them in the bum." 'Ember' said, taking one last bite of metal before running a stick through it and handing it off to a male who had materialized. "The guy doing this isn't named Paul, is he?"

"Uh, no..."

It was around then that Walter walked up, and just like that, the woman in red and white face paint's eyes lit up.

"Doggy! Leowolf doggy!"

Walter sat and happily accepted pets and ear-scratches as the woman knelt before him to do so.

"You bonded with a leowolf. That's rare." One of the other skinweavers, an older male, commented. A second, larger, scarred woman offered Sam a piece of cooked meat on a wooden plate.

Sam blinked, simultaneously bewildered by the woman's change in attitude and Walter's apparent chick magnet status. He was starting to feel like even more of a beached whale, and make no mistake. 

"Oh, really?" he said upon finding his voice. "I just assumed they were pets, since this guy I met just happened to-"

And then he noticed the meat, and his stomach rather loudly reminded him that, although the meals in the prison had been decent fare, they were no substitute for real cooking. His hands promptly ensured this mistake was rectified, and for a few moments he was literally speechless as he made up for skipping lunch.

"So yeah," he managed, once the edge was taken off his hunger. "It was some douche named Caleb. Said he was going to check the area himself. And I didn't want to argue - he had an army, after all."

"Caleb Ledonicai? Yeah, he strikes me as a guy who wouldn't trust a good doggy." Ember said as other skinweavers brought Walter his own, uncooked meat. "But a leowolf is no pet. They're as smart as us. He's technically your partner, remember that."

The male returned the meat on the stick, having had it placed in the fire for a bit more cooking. Ember took another bite out of it.

"Sing-Sing or whatever Caleb's country is called, I forget...he's pretty stacked for troops and 5-uppers. Can't he handle it?"

"Well..." Sam shrugged, taking another bite. "I dunno. I mean, he's got a lot of men, but he must have been told what those invaders are like. I reckon some of 'em might be Class C, even B, considering the damage they did to that one-"

He stopped as the realization of what he just did hit him like a sledgehammer. Nice job, Slick, said his inner monologue voice. Now either you explain yourself or get a red-hot toasting fork up the ass. And I don't care how you do it, just do it, she's looking at you funny, and Chakravartin's ballsack, you've got juice dripping down-

Acutely aware of how many eyes were staring at him, Sam swallowed and wiped his mouth.

"I'm from another dimension. Sorry, should have opened with that."

"...what?"

Oh, boy. Sam took a deep breath, and here it goes. The Abridged Introduction to Samuel Baker .

"Basically, I'm from an alternate world where everybody, and I literally mean everybody, has a superpower of some kind and also there's some really fucked-up wildlife, and I'm the designated heroic figure on account of some bullshit prophecy about dark gods and shit, and my amazing robot sword can teleport me between dimensions and it picked up a bad signal from somewhere whilst I was having breakfast, and so I ended up here to try and sort the problem out."

Then he doubled over, gasping.

"The more complicated my introductions get," he panted out, "the harder they are to say in one breath."

Stare.

Stares from everyone.

Ember then whistled, and Sam was abruptly aware of a pair of twins, male and female, on either side of him, inhaling deep through their nose. They were smelling him.

"He doesn't smell like a liar." The male one said.

"Not surprised, but..." Ember said, kneeling down by Walter and emitting a low, trilling call. Walter barked and yapped back.

"I didn't think a good doggy would bond with a liar or a lunatic. Hold on." Ember said, turning around as several of the other Skinweavers gathered around her. Walter trotted and sat by Sam, another Skinweaver giving him a water skin, slowly pouring the water into the dog's mouth as he gulped it down. The twins had backed away, the female one sitting on one of the rocks and eating a large rib.

"...what's happening now?" Sam sounded a bit more worried than he'd have liked to.

Walter yapped again and wagged his tail.

"...I'll take that to mean things are alright and I'm not going to be broiled alive, then."

"Now that would be rude." The female twin said. The waterskin bearer offered Sam it, Walter having finished his drink.

'Rude' was not the word Sam would have personally chosen. But the sight of the waterskin was not only reassuring, but a reminder that he needed to do something about that dry throat. So he graciously (he hoped) took the skin, gulped down as much as he could manage and then handed it back, wiping his mouth for the second time that day.

"So," he said, at last. "Nice place, this. Permanent camp, or do you guys travel?"

"This is our land. Our country. Pulled from the hands of the butcher Maksimov, who sought to use it to drown it in our blood. May his name forever be a curse spat between hateful lips." The male said.

"Forgive my brother, he takes himself too seriously. This is our country, it doesn't have a name yet."

"Quit reminding me." Ember said, having broken away from the grouping. She glanced back at the people, who indicated she should proceed. "Okay, okay..."

She bowed, her long red fur cloak sweeping on the ground.

"My tribe and my land welcome you, stranger from another realm. You are welcome here, and may we find a reason to join strength to strength...blah blah diplomacy diplomacy. I HATE this crap, it sounds so STUPID coming out of my mouth...but I'm in charge. So...these invaders from YOUR place?"

Sam blinked again. Diplomacy? Oh, jeez, did he represent his world by being here? He hoped his clothes weren't too scuffed or muddy.

And to answer the question? Well, no point beating about the bush.

"Yes," he said, now confident he didn't have to walk on eggshells. "In fact, I've made enemies out of one or two of their bunch. They call themselves the Magpies, and they're an unnatural hybrid of a criminal syndicate and a global empire. They have seven major leaders, and mostly do what you expect criminal syndicates to do - trafficking, black market, heists, protection rackets..."

He paused, and took another bite of meat.

"What they DON'T do," he finished, "is invade other people's worlds and break their stuff. So the questions are: How, and Why?"

"Does it matter? They're messing." Ember said. "Well, if that's the case, my brother's probably already charging headlong towards them. You should go team up with him, I kind of have a country now and RESPONSIBILITIES." Ember said, saying the last word like one would normally say 'dirty diapers'.

Sam shrugged. "Sounds like a good idea to me - I was looking for help to begin with, and any is better than none. Although... how am I gonna now him when I see him?"

“Well, he’ll probably have this."

The painted woman produced a medallion, gold worked into the shape of a fire, frozen in a moment.

“Though I dunno if he’d be wearing it out in the open.” Ember said, and began spinning the medallion on her finger. “Unless he’s dyed his hair though, he’s blonde like you and me. Oh yeah, and his sword’s pink half the time. And he yells at it.”

...Wait.

Pink sword that he talks to. Blonde. That sounded awfully like...

"...his name wouldn't happen to be Ash, would it?"

“Last I checked. Are they still telling dumb stories about him in Calebland?” Ember said, producing what appeared to be a toothpick.

This would usually be the moment where, overcome by the realization that he'd ended up in his alternate self's universe, a man would scream out in horror. Or swear the worst word he knew at the top of his lungs. Something like that.

Sam, rather tactfully, decided that this could be saved for later.

"I have no idea, actually," he full-up admitted. "I didn't hear that much from the time I was shut up in his dungeon. But I did get the feeling," he added, "that I reminded him of your bro a bit too much."

“Dumbass. Him, not you.” Ember said, picking at her teeth. “These Magpies…how many of them are there and how much damage could they do if all they wanted to do was break stuff?”

“Madame Ember…” One of the older skin weavers said.

“I still have a darn name you know, Rosenthal.”

“…Victoria, as important as family is…”

“If this ends with ‘forming a country is more important’, there’s going to be kicking, Rosenthal.”

“…just consider that factor, please, miss.”

"...do you mean 'invading right now' or 'overall'?" Sam asked. "If the former, I dunno - could very well just be a small strike force set to gather resources and scout things out. Shouldn't worry much about numbers, in that instance - though considering what I saw was left of that town, that wasn't much of a problem for them.

"If the latter... I honestly don't know. There's seven major leaders, but the actual people in their employ could be in the literal thousands. And if that many Ubers decided to invade this place..."

Sam fell silent. That thought had gone terrible places, hadn't it?

 "...they got an opinion on people different then them?"

"Depends on who you ask, but generally it's 'Fuck You, Got Mine'. Or thereabouts."

"The fact this isn't theirs?"

"Then they'll make it theirs. By breaking kneecaps, if necessary."

“…nah.” Victoria Marsello said, before she spun her 44 medallion around a few more times before letting it loose towards Sam. “Catch.”

"ACK!"

Sam certainly didn't flunk sports - it was mandatory in the Academy. And as much as he wasn't expecting that, he still managed to catch it before it could impact painfully with anything.

He examined the medallion closely, as though trying to find the runes of the One Ring on it.

"...so what's this for?" he asked, feeling rather clueless.

"It'll draw you towards other members of our group. If you're confused, give it to Firecarer...er, Walter. That's his name for himself in his own concept of names. Yours is fine though. He'll take care of things. If it doesn't lead you to my brother, it'll lead you to other people. If we're being invaded from another world, I think the gang is going to have to get back together, and since cell phones don't exist any more, that means the more people gathering, the better. How fast can you move, Sam?"

"Fast?" Sam permitted himself a grin at that. "How does 'flying on star-fire' sound to you?"

"Is that useful when you likely have no idea of country borders, landmarks, or anything else that will keep you from becoming completely lost?" Rosenthal said.

"You are so BORING." Victoria said.

"...probably not. But it helps. And yes, you are boring."

"Maybe so, but it aids me in making certain observations. Can you carry your associate around while flying?"

Uh-oh, slight hitch.

"Dunno," Sam admitted. "Haven't tried yet, but I suspect I'm about to."