Arriving At Makoto's Pub 2

Just a few minutes before Huey parked his ride out front, the drunken vagrant in the back alley edged nearer to the shimmering, undulating square portal he had observed taking shape. He swayed to and fro, utterly captivated.

He took a big swig from the glass bottle of liquor in his grasp.

The luminous fissures expanded and contracted, forming three straight lines—two vertical and one horizontal across the top—enclosed by a glowing sheet. The inebriated man's nose was now just inches from the surface.

The surface of the glowing sheet tensed and instantaneously turned transparent, making the bricks seem to vanish. The scraggly man's eyes widened in shock at what he could now see, just before a dark gauntlet burst forth and yanked him inside.

"UURRRKK!"

The bottle slipped from his grasp but never touched the ground; instead, an eerie purple aura emerged from the mysterious doorway and encased it. The alcohol poured out, controlled by this energy, transforming into a suspended sphere of clear liquid.

The bottle was gently set down, and the glowing aura withdrew as a childlike figure, garbed in a robe and small leather boots, emerged from the portal. The figure, whose head was concealed by a hood, drew the energy and the liquid sphere toward them. If one were to gaze upon the face of this shorty, they would see nothing but a shadowy void, save for two large, glowing yellow eyes.

Those eyes closed for a moment and then spoke in a language not known on earth, In a child like tone.

"Record whispered that its safe to drink. Also, I could feel my magical power growing for making contact with another iteration! I wonder if this reality has secondary dimensions like ours?.....MMMMM delicious!"

Those large, yellow, glowing orbs for eyes now squinted like a fox's would if it was smiling, after sucking the magical aura and alcohol into its face and drinking it somehow. It was difficult to discern the exact size and location of the mouth.

"Disgusting! You have no idea where that other-worlder has been, Ota. You're like a little magical garbage bin, aren't you? Control your appetite; we need to secure the target and return before the portal shuts. We have roughly 20 to 30 of their time units remaining. So, quickly locate it... Gath, dispose of that... creature."

A handsome man, clad in a robe akin to the one that the shorter figure was sporting, emerged from the portal. He grimaced at the sight of the diminutive figure in the hooded robe, thinking to himself, 'To consume the same substance as the first local encountered. How typical of a Jackarian.'

He drew an obsidian-black sword from thin air, unsheathing it as he surveyed his surroundings with suspicious almond-shaped eyes.

Glowing red lines enveloped the sword, then retracted as quickly as they had appeared. 'Good, this iteration's record has not interfered with our totems; it has yet to gain consciousness.'

The brief red glow illuminated the handsome man's face, casting a light that made his eyes sparkle. He possessed the kind of 'calm before the storm' eyes that regularly performed 'murder math.'

Regardless of whom such eyes observe, regardless of the apparent kindness or lack thereof, they would have already concocted multiple plans to end you, should the necessity arise, devising various methods for each envisioned scenario. Dangerous.

An imposing figure clad in shapely armor stepped through the gate next. The most striking feature of this fully armored figure was the breastplate. It was notably designed to accommodate what lay beneath, adorned with an emblem on the front that corresponded with the emblems on the cloaks of the other two. The emblem depicted a skull ascending through the center of a flower.

The tall, well-endowed warrior flung the lifeless drunkard aside, and his body hit the ground with a dull thud. Having been utterly overpowered and shattered by her in an instant, she paid no mind to the delicacy of her actions now.

"Hey, long-ears, its funny how his drink's vessel survived, but his own vessel did not. Funny right? So weak its…FUNNY!"

The woman looked over at the beautiful man for confirmation.

He shook his head and started playing with one of his long elf like ears while thinking, 'Damn pugilists, this one thinks she's a philosopher…they're all idiots'.

"Yes, Lady Gath, that is indeed a thought-provoking notion, and it may just rob me of sleep unless the gods intervene... Now, we must locate the totem before the Record of this iteration fully awakens, gains self-awareness, and discerns our intentions! Should we not secure the totem, the consequences from Zather, or worse, Lord Grem, are dire. Zather has foreseen that this totem might host a sub body."

The imposing and shapely warrior, Lady Gath, appeared pleased with herself for a brief moment before recognizing that the accursed, silver-tongued elf was taunting her. However, she was quickly preoccupied by his mention of who was behind them.

As she thought about her 'boss' and then his second-in-command, the "Seer-Fist" Zather, she licked her lips. She harbored both lust and desire for strong, fierce, violent men.

Lady Gath looked behind her into the portal and waved her gauntlet forward while getting back to the task at hand, excited about their mission now.

Ten swift shadows clad in armor similar to hers raced by and knelt before her.

"Shadow fist warriors, these are my orders, go find the totem and bring it to m…"

BANG, BANG, CRASH!

"O& j4\!"

The 'Shadow Fist Warriors' all slightly moved their heads in the direction of the loud noise and strange language that their translators had not automatically converted over for them.

"Do you think that the natives here also swear using sewage words like we do Iver? From the sound of that noise around this building it seems that way. They drink in this building here, I can tell, I can smell!"

The small, shadowy being's luminous yellow eyes shone from beneath his hood as he hovered at eye level with the elfin Iver, speaking words in the same peculiar language that had been shouted just moments before, rather than the one indigenous to their own realm.

The moment the little imp had stepped out of the portal and gathered his magical energy back, Ota had gained the ability to understand every word that the now dead, drunk man had ever heard or spoken before.

Iver brushed the magical imp aside with a sweep of his arm, giving it a quick glare. He strode to the fallen homeless figure, knelt, and pressed his forehead with his finger for a brief moment. A red glow flickered in Iver's eyes momentarily before they reverted to their usual state.

He turned to Ota and warned him in the English language he now understood.

"Just because the three of us can now understand and speak their tongue doesn't mean you should speak it Ota; don't get attached to the natives here or communicate like Duval did. You know how that ended up for him, do you want to have to hide for the rest of your pathetic life too?"

"Fine, killjoy, don't get your elfy undergarments twisted in a knot."

Ota kept speaking in English, even though he had agreed to not do exactly that seconds ago, pissing Iver off even more.

The small creature then reached his tiny hand out.

A two-foot-long, 1.5-inch-wide, bright-white pole materialized from white sparks that seemed to emerge from thin air. Once it solidified, a faint layer of translucent green energy detached from it, forming a thin protective layer around both the pole and its wielder.

He looked over at Gath's people and spoke in their language, as they had no way of quickly learning English like their leaders.

"Well, warriors of the super tough Lady Gath, make a path! Lets see who can find it first hehehe!"

With that, Ota floated up the wall of the three story building, onto the roof and down into an open hatch.

"Go."

Lady Gath nodded her head and her minions started to encircle both sides of the building, being stealthy and swift in their motions.

Several shadow warriors slipped through the building's rear entrance, typically utilized by chefs for discarding waste and accepting morning deliveries of beer, liquor, and various provisions.

Once they vanished from view, a subtle ripple and distortion appeared on the interior of the Elf's cloak. He extended his hand into the anomaly and extracted a device resembling a small tablet.

The cloak itself was a mysterious piece of equipment that could hold a large amount of items in a sub space dimension. There were several items like this in his home 'reality' capable of sub space storage, achieved either through magical means or certain types of technology.

He turned the tablet on, then held down one of the virtual buttons on its dimly glowing screen. A look of surprise showed on his flawless face after getting the results.

'There is three E Grades in there, one is at E+!? Humans of this iteration are all supposed to be fundamental Grade…one freak or mutant would be concerning enough but three?!'

He glanced at Lady Gath and gestured for her to join him at the screen. She moved closer to Iver and peered over his shoulder at the display as he relayed the information the device had provided him.

"The Sleeping Record has drawn guests in to protect itself…It has managed to raise three Grade E supers without self awareness somehow."

"Interesting! Let me see!"

Gath closed her eyes and telepathically viewed the insides and outsides of the bar from multiple angles, using her minions eyes as her own, all ten pairs at the same time! 

Lady Gath frowned. It was now six pairs of eyes. Four of her Enhanced Grade warriors, who had charged in through the rear door, encountered five cooks in the kitchen. After disposing of two of them quite violently, they proceeded towards the remaining three. Abruptly, their connection was severed. They were dead or incapacitated. 

"You go. I'll hold the gate, only two of them died."

Iver looked concerned as his scanner indicated their deaths to him as well.

Lady Gath ran to the edge of the alley and disappeared around the corner like a swift specter, headed towards the front of the building at an inhumanly swift pace, she wanted to approach from the opposite direction her men had been killed from, not that a Grade E, E+ or even a Dynamo Grade for that matter, could threaten her.

'What in the gods names is Ota doing in there? Damn that imp, he isn't even one of us...we should never have brought that scum along.'

Iver ground his teeth while his eyes darted back and forth between the scanner and the glow coming from the blue portal he and his partners had come through earlier.

His eyes paused on the glowing doorway, for a moment it had flickered violently.

'Its waking up…'

His eyes looked back down at the screen and grew wide.

'Grade C?! Oh no!'....'Is it a armorer!? No...there isn't any electromagnetic disturbance...Wait...it cannot be...a oracle!? No…Something else...'

The glowing dot on his tablet representing the E+ Grade human had turned into a Catastrophe Grade super!

His eyes darted back and forth between the gate and the screen while the elf weighed his options.

In the end, he entrusted the task to his two partners. Lady Gath and the impish mage Ota were more than equipped to handle a lone Grade C; they were, after all, Catastrophe Grades themselves.

Even if their opponent were an Oracle, it had barely been a minute since its emergence. It was improbable for it to have adapted to its newfound power so quickly. Gath and Ota's capabilities were the very reason they had been chosen for this mission.

One minute, he would give them one minute before he acted.