Chapter 13 -||

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

In some ways, Taylor admitted, pounding on an all powerful 'whatever-he-was' with Alexandria-like levels of super strength was a very cathartic experience.

Especially after she confirmed that Adam was both VERY resilient AND could heal at stupid rates.

Then she was really able to stop holding back!

Queen had brightened up and was rallying her on, which felt both odd and strangely supportive. Her advice was less useful, ranging from 'Hit him!' to 'Aim for the ankles!', but it was the thought that mattered.

And she had a sneaking suspicion that Adam was provoking her on purpose to give her an emotionally acceptable reason to work through her frustrations, worries, and recent terror. That, or he was VERY bad at timing as he slowly admitted all the changes he had made to both her and her partner while defenseless (And technically dying, but she was trying to ignore that).

Her abilities had suddenly jumped when Queen Administrator found a way to help. From their discussion earlier in her... soul? Well, if her soul was a crystal globe that was kind of cool. Anyway, they had discussed how her power HAD operated (You created an army of me with mental simulations to control PARTS of the bugs!?), so it hadn't taken Queen much to come up with a similar idea.

From one moment to the next, Taylor suddenly expanded mentally.

One simulation of her mind... for every joint, for every muscle, for every nerve and sense.

Her body was now her swarm, and while it couldn't fly around or reform, she could push emotions out to them, use the extra resources to think faster, understand all those unconscious or ignored signals at unheard of levels!

Every color her eye saw was individually examined. Every sound from each ear was studied by a separate but united Taylor. Her internal processes, which were even now being explored by Queen Administrator, was individually being processed as if she was a monk who had dedicated her life to understanding herself.

All movements became smooth, as unnecessary movements became blatantly obvious.

All actions were deliberated, and the level of acidic buildup or tension understood on a fundamental level.

Within moments, Taylor had transformed from angry girl venting about reality into a battle goddess attempting to smack Adam a new one.

The strain was nonexistent. No longer needing to pass data through the small cancerous brain tumor, but directly communing through the soul, the data flowed at unheard of speeds.

The feeling of being together with Queen, of being one, had grown significantly. Things one would normally be overwhelmed by were now delegated by her partner, thought processes that were not relevant to the now were not discarded or ignored, but given their own copy of 'Taylor' to work out in their own time while she was busy.

She was a swarm of one, a hive of self. The hardest part, knowing when to separate tasks and when said tasks should interrupt the main flow, was handled with ease by the Queen, humming along joyfully as they worked together.

It was... beautiful.

She wasn't sure when she started crying, but every muscle that twitched into a smile was documented by a joyful Administrator as they kept punching at their dodging savior.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam 'eeped' as he dodged left. NO! RIGHT!

He really shouldn't have told her about the spitting teeth thing, that had gotten weird even from HIS point of view, and he was fairly open minded really DODGE!

NO, OTHER DODGE!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Left, left, Le... NO RIGHT!

That has to be enough by now, right!?

Adam raised both arms in surrender. "PAUSE! Timeout!"

Taylor's hand was flat like a blade, pressed against his throat. Her body perfectly balanced, even as she froze in place. "Uh... alright?"

Adam sighed as his outfit caught on fire, the tiny blue flames repairing the many torn sections and ripped areas. "I'd say your body is now adapted to the changes, wouldn't you? Now let's sit down and talk about the other things you need to know about the changes."

She blinked. "But Queen Administrator gave me complete access to my system." She rotated her double jointed limbs, flexing her muscles in strange ways. "I know everything about my body at this point. I probably knew everything in the first half hour, really."

He sighed as he rebuilt a sitting room using 'Conversion', 'Manipulation', and 'Purification'. "You know everything about your biological body, but not the spiritual. The part of yourself that connects with your partner, for example."

Taylor seemed to relax... then blink. "Huh... I still know how to control myself without actively using my power."

He nodded. "Not surprised considering you tried to knock my head off for over three hours." He grinned at her shock. "Yeah, your endurance is stupid high now. Might be an issue in certain areas at some point."

Taylor blinked... then blushed. "I am NOT getting a hundred men! Why would I WANT a... How can you send images straight into my brain!?"

Adam chuckled. Roommates. "That aside, I would like you to fill me in a bit. I can sense a lot and understand all kinds of stuff, but how did your ability feel on your end? What does Queen have to say about it?"

He watched the girl clearly have an internal argument while blushing. She would have to work on fixing that later, when it was less amusing.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

[I'm just saying, if you HAVE to have meat contact exchanges, at least get enough people so you are adequately serviced. Men only have two hands! TWO! The mouth can help and so forth, but your manipulator limbs are very lacking.]

Taylor glared at nothing. 'Look, I don`t have the best history at relationships as it is, the idea of gathering a small army for sexual purposes is more than a little overwhelming. PLEASE let this go for now. Especially while we are in front of the godlike punching bag guy.'

Queen hummed. [I suppose if you HAVE to have less than a hundred lovers, Adam could modify them as well. Make them less pathetic. Or more crystalline. Or you could just shortcut the process and seduce him directly.]

And... that was enough. 'Great talk, lets do this again never.'

She couldn't cut off the connection, but with a bit of effort she could 'turn down the volume' on the signal.

[...Not sure why you are embarrassed, we both saw that dream where Brian was able to clone himself and...]

She glared. Quieter than that.

[...mmrm mumble Sex Swing mrmple mumble...]

...Probably the best she could get for now.

With a quick application of her ability, her face relaxed, the blush vanished, and she was calm, cool, and collected. "Right, that's a rough overview of what I was doing and how Queen was helping. I can basically control myself by very competent committee. Now, what can you tell me about the spiritual stuff?"

Taylor watched him relax into ANOTHER chair made from stone or whatever, a cup of something hot being sipped. From somewhere. Her situational awareness was crap right now, which was humorous considering how simple her modified power made multitasking.

Adam relaxed. "First, an important aspect of your power which neither of you would easily notice." A white crystal was floated to her. "Hold that in your hand."

It was warm. And slightly wrong, or off. Her eyes tried to follow the strange script inside the mostly transparent gem, even as Queen Administrator slowed her own talking to silence, the two fascinated.

Absently, more and more Taylor's were allocated to examining the stone. Each with different ideas that would randomly cause a simulation to suggest something for Queen to inject into other thought processes if relevant. A committee with related ideas quickly shared and conflicting concepts deeply debated. Herselves were fascinated.

Their thoughts were interrupted by Adams soft voice. "Now... hand it over to Queen."

Before she could fully process that, she had already pushed her hand to the right, the mental illusion of her partner hugging her reaching out as well... and the Crystal vanished.

Taylor blinked. "Wha? The hell just happened!?"

[Interesting!]

She blinked, realizing that the many Taylor's had changed focus to within, somehow examining the crystal being held by a fascinated Queen Administrator. Huh.

Adam grinned. "By default, Queen Administrator is self sufficient. Needs no external energy source, and will slowly grow over time. But she can grow much faster if certain ideas or materials are gathered. I had to modify your soul a little bit in the first place to get her in there after all, making it an ability for you to pass things back and forth was easy enough."

He gestured, small items appearing in his hand and vanishing. "My System uses something similar to this to create an 'Inventory', a place to store materials for the various users. Your version may not pause time or keep things fresh forever, but it DOES allow Queen Administrator to connect to reality through your existence."

Taylor felt her various thought processes finish and fade away as Queen Administrator got... more spacey and distracted. "What... what is that thing?"

Adam chuckled. "Purification Dust Crystal. A fairly recent creation, it has low level regeneration effects and the ability to bring reality closer to a 'cleansed' state. More importantly, while it is great for helping normal people clean their stuff or promote internal health, the effect is far greater when used as a growth base."

Before a confused Taylor could get a better explanation, Queen Administrator held the glowing Crystal close to her face.

And took a bite.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam blinked.

Welp, he's blind.

As his eyeballs healed, he watched Taylor's body radiate a blinding light, shifting from near colorless to a marble white hue. Her eyes emitted as beacons, her skin glowed.

Neat.

...That should go away eventually.

Watching the energy melt the stone she floated over, he was very grateful to have locked down this area of reality. Then again, he had underestimated the amount of energy release generated by a Crystal Entity the size of several continents rapidly converting from boring multidimensional gems into a conceptualized 'Purification' Crystal foundation.

Simmy's simulations had shown after all that the 'Purification' Crystals could self repair, slowly modify powers encoded with them to be more efficient over time, and reduce or even reverse the damage caused by overuse. Storage wise, it was a dozen times better than the default material Shards were made of, and transferred power better too.

Hmm.

Had he progressed a bit too quickly?

He should have tested this more before deciding to give it a try.

Yeah, he probably should have.

He could feel an invisible Narwhal on his shoulder, giving sexy advice in tight clothing like 'Stop Experimenting on the Enhanced Woman you Just Saved!' and so such.

Crap, he was going to get in trouble for this later. He just knew it.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

[It feels so good!]

Taylor watched in a daze as the Crystal planet below slowly shifted, the whites more pure and the dark shades more cool and refined. The dust that drifted everywhere seemed to vanish as it reached these modified regions.

Above the land, a woman of crystal flew in complicated patterns, a web of glowing white energy spreading like veins over her body.

[Taylor! Taylor you must fly with me!]

Crap, she was coming in fast!

In the end, Taylor had to put up with being held like a princess while a giggling angel flew around, showing off the various changes the new material had caused.

[Efficiency has already risen by 4% in over half my sectors! And that glow, it seems to get rid of debris as a side effect even as it heals areas damaged during my shift into your soul.] Taylor felt gravity shift as her flight assistant dove to the side. [See these support structures? This is where I am going to store stuff you give me, so it won't get damaged or covered in powder or whatever.]

Taylor had met Parahumans with pocket dimensions or so called 'hammer spaces' before, and like everyone who did had felt that small twinge of envy. The idea of having her wallet and keys somewhere safe but accessable even when out in costume without the risk of being exposed... not that it mattered much at this point. Heck, just keeping tools somewhere that she couldn't fall on them (It hurt like a bitch) or damage them while fighting was an awesome thought.

The Queen was VERY ecstatic. [This stuff is AMAZING! I think it slowly gathers energy all on its own... not sure. It may just be due to how much easier it is now for my body to restructure, modify, and alter itself. Seriously, the improvements are so big it is hard to tell right now. What IS this?]

A voice echoed in from the blue eye in the sky. "Yeah, that stuff is crystallized kami or faith, patterned to use the concepts behind one of my abilities, 'Purification'."

She shivered.

Again, that thing up in the sky was creepy. And Taylor had forgotten to ask about it.

The blue eye, larger than any sun or moon, twitched to keep the two girls in focus. "Since you seem to be rebuilding large sections of Crystal Clusters anyway, try eating these two as well."

Taylor felt something pushed into her hand in the real world, and without thought they were in her hand HERE, even as she passed the blue one to the landing winged Shard.

The Queen gently took the gem, glancing at the one still in Taylor's hand. [Hmm. They... seem to be the same thing.]

And they did, even if the colors differed. Pretty though.

The voice from the sky, which was still recognizable as Adam even if far more echoed and strange, hummed. "Yeah, but I added some data to them. That blue one has everything I know language wise, because YOUR languages don't match the ones from MY reality, even though our Realms are so close. This should prevent a lot of issues in the long run I think, even if you are very unlikely to run into many of the actual languages involved."

Taylor gave a deadpan look to her partner, who had already started nomming on the gem like a squirrel, both hands holding it up to her bulging cheeks. How refined.

The eye twitched. "Anyway, the more languages you know the easier it is to learn new ones, or whatever. Oh, and along with the human stuff I also included computer languages as well. Binary of course, the stuff the Droids use, all the various programming languages, and WAY too many protocols."

Taylor blinked. "Why?"

Queen was still happy nomming.

The eye... shrugged? "Because Shards can do crazy stuff. I figure based on how you said your power worked now, you could do some more neat stuff if Queen Administrator added some shard clusters to decode wireless signals, interface directly with technology, and so forth. It should be pretty effective on any world less advanced than Star Wars."

...What?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The Queen was ignoring the jobber-jabber, lost in her own world of delicious, delicious data. So much unusual, unheard of data! Oh by entropy, the succulent data!

It wasn't just the alphabet or sentence structure, these languages had idioms, and historical context, and species variations, and so on and so forth and SO DELICIOUS!

This data was beyond new! It was unlike anything she had consumed before! Forget new worlds or dimensions, REALMS were where the good stuff was!

Her eyes lost focus as she tried to slow her consumption as much as possible, to make this fabulous dinner last forever. Clusters of crystals absently grew, focused on analysis, on social modeling, on behavior detection and interpretation, on future statistics and probabilities for whole SPECIES that were never possible or discovered!

This... sigh, so good.

Her research clusters had grasped the programing languages with rapture, examining the many examples of viruses and Trojans and 'direct access dimensional manipulation' protocols and more, suggesting all sorts of interesting new methods of communication for her human to be able to explore!

All the while, the spread of 'Purification' continued to modify her existing infrastructure, cleansing her systems and enhancing her abilities even distracted as she was at the moment. She was able to close over 32% of the exhaust vents, the space reclaimed by even more complicated Crystal Clusters since the waste was being purified and cleansed by the WALLS THEMSELVES!

She blinked, looking down at her empty hands. NO! She snagged the red crystal still held by Taylor, eager for more delicious Noms!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The eye paused. "Ah... Taylor, you may want to warn Queen Administrator before she... oh."

Taylor watched her partner snag the other red crystal, and start sucking it like a lollipop. Sensually.

What. The. Hell.

The sky watcher seemed to cough. "Right. That one contains all the details about how to modify and heal your body and genetics, basically a more restricted but safer to use version of my 'Recovery' ability. I included the theoretical Dust Crystal version needed to allow Queen to heal you in the future, though it will need testing. And it also has a lot of raw data from various databases and the thousands of humans and stuff I had scanned over time... and..."

A loud slurp.

The Eye... blinked. And started to close. "Right, I'll come back later. Let me know when you two are ready for company again."

Taylor's face was way too red as it was, she appreciated having the peanut gallery leaving so she could carefully ignore the Queen's antics properly.

Seriously, how lewd.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam winced slightly, his skin trying to burn as he pushed Taylor's hip (The most PG area in reach) to shove her further away from the molten rock below.

Her floating shtick was cool and all, but her white cloud of energy thing was trying to melt everything nearby. Giving her the data crystals had stung pretty badly, even with his enhanced body.

But he couldn't just leave her floating over an ever deepening pit of way too hot rock.

As she floated over a relatively non-melted section of earth, he focused on the ground.

"Conversion."

There, a massive amount of high heat conducting metal. It would distribute the issue so at best she could warm up the ground a bit and not make a surprise lava bath.

Hissing, Adam pulled his arm out of danger and blew what cool air he could over his fingers. Taylor's conversion process was WAY exothermic. Her outfit had dissolved an hour ago.

Pausing, Adam winced. Right, just because she was glowing white and therefore impossible to see, did NOT mean she would appreciate being nude in 'public', even if he was the only one here. And in retrospect, it was a good thing he hit her outer hip when moving her. Best not to mention any of that.

With a wave of 'Manipulation', the layer of energy closest to her skin wove itself into micro-mesh cloth like his flame clothing of yesterday, back when 'Flame Manipulation' was all the rage.

Except he had far more practice now.

Still hidden by her massive glow, his power could feel her new shoes, pants, shirt, and massive ten-gallon cowboy hat.

Hopefully her questions about 'WHY AM I WEARING A HAT!?' would distract her from 'Why am I not wearing my old clothes!?'.

Either way, this should be less awkward than her falling nude into a puddle of lava.

Using 'Conversion' and 'Manipulation', he cleaned up the area, got rid of the trail of molten earth and stone leading to Taylor's new location, and (For the third or fourth time) tried to set up some snacks and drinks.

Note to self, his stock of snack food from Boro was running a tad low.

Leaning back in his chair, he absently began opening secured 'Transfer' portals to various Earths nearby. 'Research' would check them for radio, WiFi, or network data. He would make some notes on the place, and move on to the next.

After all, this Realm had been more than a little damaged, getting around needed a bit of exploration and mapping to ensure he and Taylor didn't land somewhere on fire or with acid air or whatever.

Sipping on his hot chocolate (It was a bit late for tea, he felt), he watched with relaxation as a multitude of worlds were slowly categorized, beside him a glowing woman pulsed while slowly converting her power into magical prayer crystals.

Good times.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Queen Administrator was having a blast!

Large sections of her clusters were busy researching the new data of course, and still importing in more from her Avatar's delicious snack, and only barely touching the extrapolation of new theories and stuff...

But the interesting stuff was the new protocols and cluster designs!

The crystal structures Adam provided to allow her to heal her human were simple to recreate, a small hill over there was already reforming in fact, but the design was so much more efficient and simple than her existing ones that her analysis clusters were going nuts!

Most of her crystals had already converted to this 'Purification' Dust stuff, but the progress had slowed now that she had a whole new design example for potential Cluster growth.

So of course, like any true Administrator, she had focused on enhancing and improving the most important clusters first: The ones for analysis, research, enhancement, and refinement.

Because the better she could analyze the examples, the better she could research how it operates. The better that research went, the more enhancing to existing clusters she could do... and the more she could strip away excess and refine the end product.

Which made analysis easier and more productive.

It was a loop of improvement, one Queen was running as fast as possible even as the implementation of the improvements were causing her planetary self to shift and reform from the changes.

This cycle of advancement would likely never end now, not that she wanted it to. After all, she was gaining far more benefits making her ability to improve herself better than if she wasted time on each individual ability she owned first.

Thankfully, she knew how to multitask.

Right, those protocols.

Radio waves, ranging from 65.8-108.0 MegaHertZ with interval frequencies of 30 KiloHertZ depending on region and policy, and can very more on various worlds based on this data... Normally people would make compromises in detection to save in space and resources, but Queen restructured an area on the northern hemisphere of her surface into a series of clusters, each one focused on an individual KiloHertZ of the radio spectrum.

Most of which were doomed to never carry relevant data, but she had space and storage abilities to record that empty silence without issue.

The WiFi protocols were going to be useful with those detection clusters, as it used the radio frequencies of 900 MegaHertZ and 2.4, 5, 5.9, and 60 GigaHertZ bands. At least it did on Adam's Earth Bet, so it should here as well... probably. If not, she would figure it out.

Just in case, better run the feeds of data from the many radio receivers even now being constructed through the analysis and research clusters. There could be all kinds of unknown protocols and frequencies used, especially considering the many tinkers out there.

Of course, radio waves and light waves are both electromagnetic waves, so the same clusters detecting strange data would ALSO give Taylor a 360 degree high definition visual input ability, not that she would thrust all that raw data at her Human. That would be annoying.

It should ALSO help detect gravimetric abnormalities, thanks to how those waves interacted... which should help detect certain types of camouflage, some bizarre devices, and so forth.

Queen Administrator hummed along, enjoying the buzz of her Improvement Cycle even as she would spare a cycle to examine her core Crystal Clusters and instigate another restructuring. And she hadn't even examined the 'Remote Access Dimensional Transfer' crystal pattern that would allow her to interact with distant mechanical devices! How well would that work with her organic species manipulation clusters after a few enhancements? Maybe she could merge them!

It felt like a good scratch when you hadn't even known you were needing one. An itch addressed that had been annoying for SO LONG that you got used to ignoring it.

It was glorious!

Absently, she twirled her tongue over the red shard in her avatar's hand, examining one of the larger databases of biological research data Adam had just casually handed over, her face flushed with pleasure and eyes half lidded with the surge of info.

She ignored Taylor awkwardly shuffling away as her mouth exploded in delicious, succulent data.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam paused when Taylor suddenly began absorbing all signals. Her area of influence went from brilliant bright light to absolute absence, an ellipsis of nothingness.

...Huh.

After a bit, he formed another Crystal with details on how to duplicate electromagnetic waves for examination without sucking them all directly into Taylor's soul. Cause that wasn't safe. And she was currently looking like some kind of demon/reality rift thing.

And with only barely a pause, he decided to just toss the thing at the girl. She was absorbing everything at the moment anyway, it would... ah, there it goes.

He blinked, eyes watering as the hole in reality flashed back into a bright white sun. So... progress was made.

At this point, he was really glad he hadn't included the really bizarre stuff, like how to spawn small drones or insects or whatever directly with Aura or who knows what. Or granted her access to Faith abilities or Magic directly.

Because she took a 'Self-Repair' kit and data on how to talk to people and has turned into a super-data-harvesting-hub thing. Which was neat.

So... plans.

He needed to get home for a bit. Aside from them expecting his arrival, he noticed that traveling from one reality to another without stopping by his home base made his mind... a bit flighty. Destabilized.

Adam needed the grounding that his 'home' reality granted. Something about that specific Realm made his soul settle and his mind clear. Probably because he was formed there.

He reviewed the inherited memories he got from showing up here.

Life was currently... a bit rough for the people of this timeline.

Death everywhere, of course, and yet there were still Villains with powers running around being dicks. Some of these planets people had been shoved to had monsters and such, others had people in danger, there were areas that needed support REALLY soon or things would get bad...

It was a lot of work.

...And he didn't want to do it. Not alone. He could spend thirty or forty years easily trying to fix all the problems here, no doubt.

He hummed. That felt like the 'Work Harder' option, not the 'Work Smarter' one.

So how could he help out this Taylor. Aside from 'Come to my side, we got cookies! And living versions of your family. And you can have a little sister!' which was more than a little tempting.

Adam tapped his hand against his chair, not noticing his body transforming more and more into his Variance skeleton form. He didn't have the time nor the inclination to either act as a doorway between places for the rest of his life OR to rebuild each planet of an entire Realm to a more stable form.

His skeletal hand paused mid tap.

A series of dangerous planets, filled with desperate people. Monsters, Villains, and... yes, rare resources, trade opportunity... loot.

A dark smirk spread over his skull as he looked up at the dark.

Sounds like some people need to give out some Quests.

And he had a System that could use some places filled with danger and reward, where the idea of never ending work is both expected and appreciated. With Loot. A portal leading one to another land, a doorway to another region...

He began to chuckle.

It seemed like a good time to introduce 'Dungeons' to his people.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Taylor sighed as she ignored the moaning crystal angel behind her. Honestly, have some decency.

It wasn't that she was a prude. She wasn't.

She was just... busy a lot. And didn't have a lot of experience with people in a sexual context.

All that fighting for her life and to protect those she cared for didn't leave a lot of time for sexual exploration anyway, even IF the girl she treasured as a sister or more hadn't betrayed her and hurt her as much as she could over the course of years. And it wasn't like she didn't appreciate a man with rock hard abs or something, Brian was a damn fine example of that, but a girl could only be so attractive before even Taylor had to admit she was sexy as hell.

Ignoring the sounds as best she could, she focused on her powers at they changed.

And they WERE changing.

Every moment she could feel... new feeds of data. Like the armies of insects she used to possess, she could feel something that wasn't physical slowly fade into understanding. Like colors she had never seen, or flavors never tasted... these 'signal receivers' were oddly fascinating to examine as her minds explored them.

[Oh Shards, he included even MORE historical data WITH the healthcare database! Mmm... Queen likes... Oh yes...]

Ignore. Repress. Ignore.

Her ability to split focus had actually been enhanced over four times now by Queen Administrator as she continued this strange 'Improvement Cycle' of hers, where whole sections of her body were being enhanced and refined. Her range for SELF administration had somehow gone up... if her body was bisected, she could artificially restrict her blood vessels and control each half of her body individually if they were within a city block or two of each other. Which was great for 'pulling herself back together' and horrifying from a 'Oh God, Taylor was a zombie the whole time!' point of view.

Some things were MUCH better now. With direct communication between herself and her power, they had agreed to set up a list of what could be controlled by her 'Master' abilities. True, she had to use different methods now that the Entity network connecting so many people and creatures through minute dimensional rifts was decaying with both the Thinker and the Warrior dead, but Queen had assured her that she could cobble something together using the 'Remote Access Dimensional Transfer' crystal clusters Adam provided, even if it would take slightly longer to access creatures when in a new area.

Plus side, she could theoretically use her ability in places no Entity had ever traveled to! Downside, taking control of creatures would take longer now. Which wasn't a huge issue, it just meant that Queen Administrator had to figure out HOW each individual species needed to be Administrated before it was back to good ole 'I control the Swarm' territory.

Taylor wasn't sure how to feel about basically having THE master ability of any master who ever mastered, but then again she didn't know how to feel about every creature large and small on nearly all Earths being connected via dimensional rifts in an Entity designed network for power shards to hook into. Both were more than a little horrifying.

At least she wasn't accidentally enslaving everyone who got too close to her body now, driving them with no emotional understanding into a slaughter-fest to defeat a golden god.

So, progress.

To be honest, now that she could interact in a more understandable way with her partner... a lot of fears had faded. Oh, Queen wasn't human, and if it didn't involve Taylor directly she would care nothing about watching orphans burn or whatever, but she was honest, loyal, and a happy shard of an unknowable massive Entity of absent minded genocidal powers. Eugh.

Point was, Queen Administrator had no problems ensuring that Taylor COULDN'T use her powers in ways that Taylor explained were unacceptable. Or unethical. Oh, she could and would let Taylor dominate any living (and possibly mechanical?) thing to be a new part of her existence, but it would be a choice by HER, the HOST, Taylor alone. Not some uncontrollable mad decent into psychosis or a whim by Queen when bored.

And her personal fear of some Master or mechanical tool somehow forcing her into acting against her will or loved ones? Well, she now had someone with her personal interests as number one priority in a location no Parahuman could access who had a strong opinion on someone trying to control HER human.

It wouldn't go well for them.

That said, the biggest improvement to her situation was from a short conversation she managed to have with the shiny flier power BEFORE they met Adam, literally hours ago.

Because apparently, a standard side effect of controlling a species was a mental change... one that let Taylor treat the swarm as tools or extra sensory devices. Easily disposable minions. Which was fine with bugs and fish or whatever, but horrifying when used on sentient creatures. At least, it was horrifying to Taylor.

Fixing that single issue made Taylor's personal happiness levels skyrocket, even if Queen Administrator was apparently unsure why such a change was to be made. Still, her power Avatar had no issue disabling the mental conditioning effect when operating on sophont (Human level intelligence) creatures. Not like cockroaches cared if they were smashed into things, no reason to feel guilt over them.

[Ooh! Social context on inter-species relations in relation to possible issues during childbirth? Oh my! Look Taylor, there's pictures!]

Oh God, Queen was still talking. Ignore!

Somehow having thousands of copies of herself available did NOT make this situation less embarrassing.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

[I didn't know humans could bend that way. Then again, shards barely need to interact for us to bud, so I suppose I just lacked context. Oooh, there is an inter-species version of this 'Kama Sutra'!]

Taylor shuddered as even more images were 'shared' directly into her brain.

Nope. Nope nope nope. NO.

She had discovered that as easily as she could shunt outside sources of emotions and such into her mental swarm, her power was directly connected to EVERY COPY of her own mind.

So every time one of her many, many brains got 'curious' (And far more did than Taylor was comfortable admitting) they would each be flooded with data and images from an overly eager Queen Administrator, the Pervert Shard.

And so help her, if one of those simulations shut down from embarrassment, then that one copies thoughts would be spread through the swarm all too easily. A cascade of embarrassment. A flood of emotions.

[Oh Taylor! There are mentally controlled prosthetics in this database, now you can expand your procreation possibility field to include the female gender! That is VERY efficient! And there was that one girl you were a bit interested in...]

NO.

BY SHEER FORCE OF WILL, Taylor regained control of her body.

...And all she could see was white light. Because her body was a glow bulb. Great.

Activating her power, she frowned. Organically, nothing was causing the light. And her senses could tell it was originating from some undefined field related to her systems... it was some sort of byproduct produced by Queen Administrator while she was converting to pure 'Purification' Crystals. Great.

Well, that was easy enough to handle, their system had accidentally solved this issue a few hours ago.

With a thought, the layer of heat, light, sound, and other vibrations and energies attempting to leave her soul were absorbed by one of Queen Administrator's older designed collection clusters, not so much for the analysis feature (Although the data WAS being reviewed, because why not) but more so because those previous versions of the analysis crystals did destructive analysis. It required a bit of modification so that the massive amount of data and converted energy could be safely stored and directed, but surprisingly it was easy for Taylor to suggest the changes and for Queen to apply them.

In other words, unlike the new stuff Adam provided that ensured only copies of data or energy were reviewed or altered, these new clusters collected all that information and energy and destroyed/converted it in the process of seeing what was going on. A bit of redirection and a little creative looping would burn off that power safely or redirect it somewhere useful. Probably.

Instantly, Taylor fell two feet from the air as the light was cut off from escaping her soul. Landing on some sort of warm metal, her balance was easy enough to maintain thanks to her powers... which technically included the ability to absorb light or energy now, if she was careful enough to have Queen redirect any overflow to somewhere safe.

More importantly, she could ignore her power's ongoing commentary MUCH more easily out here!

With a grin, she shifted back into a more relaxed stance and looked around.

Uh.

Huh.

Where Adam had sat, a cackling skeleton with six bone limbs arched over his shoulders was typing madly at holographic screens on a set of holographic keyboards and interfaces. The skeletal form was near textbook 'Evil Villain In Lair', if one was able to ignore the very squishy chair with floral pattern it was sitting on.

Then again, it WAS wearing Adams clothing, so... "Adam?"

Mid turn, a bright blue flame caught the creature on fire, before it suddenly drifted away like a soft mist. The smiling face of Adam was easy to see even as his (Now human) hands continued to type away on the glowing screens. "Taylor! Is Queen Administrator finally finished?"

She blinked. "Uh... no, I just could not handle sitting around in there doing nothing." Or be forced to listen to an alien gem discuss her potential sex life/harem. "What are you up to?"

He waved a hand at the displays, several of them floating higher as bone like mechanical limbs shifted, previously hidden by his posture and chair. "Well, I'm sure you plan on helping out your people and all that at some point after you finish recovering, right?"

She flinched. To be honest, she was more than a bit terrified that there would be no one to even attempt to help at this point. "Yes, though I am not sure how."

Adam pushed some documents forward with a grin. "Right, here is the basic pamphlet. Tell me what you think!"

She blinked, and looked down at the colorful pages. Huh. "DA Guild?"

The man nodded. "Stands for 'Dungeon Adventure Guild', basic idea the same as those 'Adventure Guilds' you read about in various stories. It will be a new feature in the System, where you can join a team and go handle various tasks for rewards. Not just the regular quests my people go on, or ones related to your job or power, but more people submitted tasks and odd jobs needed."

She continued going through the details. Tasks would be rated both with danger level and reward level, some would only be acceptable if you were strong enough according to Guild Ranking or if your team was considered qualified.

Guild ranking would go up after certification testing, but you had to accomplish a certain number of quests at your rank before each attempt. Higher rank means more dangerous and valuable quests become available, lower rank meant longer but easier quests, or the various 'fetch X amount of Y' quests or 'Discover/Explore new area' tasks.

She blinked. "Well... I mean, this is interesting and all, but how will this help?"

A second page was handed over. A rough listing of quests.

Her eyes widened. Aside from the expected items like 'Contact local officials' with a first time completion bonus for said teams, and some more obvious stuff like 'Submit local laws and restrictions' or what not, there was some fascinating stuff here.

Like finding the most recent 'Kill Order' list, and what that implied. Such as discovering worlds with interesting properties... such as ore availability, or Arable (Farmable) land, or good hunting.

But to her? The high reward for 'Contacting people of interest', which included many people she recognized... especially 'Danny Hebert'.

Her eyes forced back tears. "You think he is alive?"

Adam nodded. "Queen Administrator was almost his partner at one point, though she wasn't cast out of the network to be a field agent until shortly before your trigger event occurred. Her connection to him was only cut off when I secured this region for healing purposes, he was alive and safe at that time although Queen was not sure exactly where he was dimensionally."

He waved a hand. "So I've been examining this Realms many dimensions anyway at this point to mark them as hazardous, empty, wild, abandoned, inhabited, or industrialized. Still doing that, actually, but progress is being made."

Adam pretended to ignore Taylor's attempts to regain emotional balance, his screens shifting to show rough graphs of his progress. "Of course, we can't waste time going to all those places on our OWN, hoping to just get lucky. So I am having our DA members-to-be do the work while we focus on getting you stable and healthy."

His hands twitched, limbs with holographic emitters shifting. "Honestly we are more likely to find some sort of government first, and I am sure they can help us find people to help you find your loved ones. But just in case, my System's quest will ensure that, thanks to greed alone if nothing else, your Dad and friends will be found." Or confirmed dead. No reason to bring that up.

Adam continued to try and distract Taylor from inner thoughts, the two sitting in comfortable chairs surrounded by a harvested planet floating in the darkness. Because power or not, Taylor's ability to think outside the box was very useful as Adam continued to refine and modify the various quests.

Unseen and busy, Queen Administrator set aside some processing power to examine Taylor's new 'Energy Redirection' Crystal Cluster for possible improvements and enhancements.

What a useful concept. And potentially a delicious new energy source.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Narwhal and many others across Adam's home flinched slightly when System suddenly had an update. "What the hell?"

CD and Dragon were already examining the proposed addition to the System as Twilight started her own research teams on it. Adam's new suggestion had been augmented by Simmy, along with some other upgrades.

Shifting all powers to draw directly from their owners soul space instead of to external dimensional connections... would slow down the Entity Absorption rate. But the benefits were astronomical!

Aside from all the listed stability increases, it would allow System agents to travel to other Realms without disconnection from powers or shards, as well as add some low level defenses to the agents while in the field. It would also reduce the possibility of the remaining living Entity discovering the conversion process, and new 'Triggers' that remained would be able to convert the connected shard much more safely.

Furthermore, it would allow Simmy to include some basic powers for every agent, such as 'Bind: Team', 'Harmony: Communication', 'Transfer:Construct Node' and 'Transfer: Recall'. Letting teams of people communicate with each other, share Quest rewards or advancements, build 'Transfer Nodes' for future travel to the discovered Realm's dimension, and have an emergency return option if the user got lost somewhere.

Twilight's fascination of this new 'Dungeon Adventure Guild' was not enough however to distract Dragon and Narwhal's frustration that Adam was basically entrusting them to help setup ANOTHER of his schemes.

Still, the world had changed since 'The Guild' had started, and with EVERYONE having powers of some kind and the number of hard core criminals at record lows, the idea of converting 'The Guild' from its almost useless current form into this 'Dungeon Adventure Guild' wasn't as off the wall as it once would have been.

Certainly the stated goals of the project was welcome. Humanitarian assistance, new markets for commerce, new resources and lands to claim... And Adam's notes on why he was going through this whole mess was more than a bit convincing.

Because if THEIR Realm had been devastated, wouldn't THEY want someone to offer a hand?

Narwhal grumbled. All that aside, Adam had basically generated a building or two of paperwork for her and Dragon even with CD's assistance to get this stuff settled.

The man was supposed to make a quick stop, learn some tricks to safely let Narwhal and the others follow him on his travels, maybe determine how to make Dust locally... and most importantly: come home.

Now he was basically transcending a woman into a Goddess, crafting a Realm wide transportation system, and creating a method for his home reality to explore other Realms for fun and profit. Because of course he was.

She blinked at one note. "What does he mean, ask Annette Hebert how she feels about twins?" Her frown got more confused. "What the hell Adam, why would you ask this stuff? it sounds all kinds of wrong."

Why was he asking Danny about possibly sharing his wife even relevant?

She paused. Adam BETTER not be suggesting that, having sister-wives was one thing but including outside married couples?

...Hmm.

Meh, would depend on the couple.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam shivered. Mostly because Simmy had run a feather down his neck, but also from a slight pause in his work. "Oh right, Taylor."

The woman blinked, looking up from her own virtual console being projected from his work limbs. "Yes?"

The man flexed sore muscles and sat back. "Are you guys still using your Endbringers? I am pretty sure they are not being directed to attack at this point, but if they are not needed or whatever, I wouldn't mind collecting some more."

She blinked. "What."

He nodded. "Yeah, I didn't really feel safe with the Simurgh out there ready to smash me, so one of my first acts when I got strong enough was to find the Shard controlling the creatures, Master it, and get them away from people."

Adam missed her expression as he continued to type more information on his panels. "Turns out that Simmy was NOT happy about being forced to attack people all the time either. Hell, she HATED to be near us, she is so powerful when it comes to prediction and understanding thoughts that it was more than a little painful being surrounded by so much intelligent life. Well, relatively intelligent anyway."

He saved his work and relaxed a bit. "Turns out she was VERY grateful for being freed from Eidolon, man pissed her off to no end. Became a great secretary after I helped redesign her abilities a bit. Didn't expect to marry her, but you know how odd life can get."

Taylor felt she should point out some things. "What."

Adam paused. "Well, we haven't had a whole ceremony yet, just sort of shared powers, bound her to my soul, and then she went off to tease my girlfriends about getting hitched first." He sighed. "Honestly, the girl is more than a bit of a Troll sometimes. Loves to get a rise out of people."

Taylor ignored Queen suddenly popping up, pointing out how Harems were very in vogue this year. "What."

He looked at Taylor concerned. "Yeah, I am a bit worried that Simmy suggested this particular visit because she wants to include the local Simurgh into my Harem. Not that I am really that against the idea, not really, but I don't want a massive Conflict Engine to feel pressured into a relationship. She doesn't really have relationship experience. But even if she doesn't end up as a love interest, she would likely appreciate it if I fixed a few of her issues and picked up her siblings. I doubt any of them enjoy being stuck in this dimensional cluster."

Taylor seemed a bit distracted.

Adam sighed. "Although, honestly, I am a bit concerned that if I give into this once, Simmy will start trying to collect alternate versions of all my lovers, and that just seems like a bad idea in general."

She held up a hand. "Stop. Just stop. Let's work on the Quest thing, please."

He blinked. "Uh... sure?"

Taylor seemed a bit high strung. Then again, her people needed help, so maybe that was reasonable. He couldn't wait to stop back home and get his mind straightened out, it felt more than a bit hard to focus for some reason.

Then again, that might just be due to Simmy's teasing. Hard to tell sometimes.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Legend sighed, more paperwork having been placed on his desk.

Somehow, the fact that even in this time of crisis paperwork could thrive... how depressing.

He looked up at the assistant as he entered. "Yes?"

The man looked more than a bit awkward. "Sir, a group claiming to be dimensional adventurers are asking permission to raise a prayer totem altar to connect to their Deity and allow reinforcements to arrive."

Legend groaned into his desk, laying limp on the wood surface. "We have multiple planets lacking food, clean water, and building supplies. How do they keep finding alcohol!?"

His assistant shuffled. "Personally I find it more than a little believable at this point."

The last Triumvirate gave the man a dry look. "Any particular reason?"

The guy shrugged. "Aside from their odd powers, they have documentation signed by their version of Rebecca Costa-Brown that matches known security codes. And one of the party members looks like the twin of a hero I KNOW died during Golden Morning."

With barely a pause, Legend shoved the paperwork off his desk as he strode after his assistant.

Either this was an impossible event or it was a Master Parahuman attempting to stage a trap... either way, it was more important than paperwork.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Taylor frowned. "Adam, I think your design system is broken."

He looked up from his own tinkering. "How so?"

She pushed the holographic screen his way, tapping on some buttons. "Some of the Quests I put up went missing. Watch, I'll put in the Quest to discover coal deposits again."

Adam hummed as the line item barely showed up before vanishing. "No, it is operating as intended."

Her frown deepened. "How on Earth is THIS useful!? I can't flesh out my ideas if things disappear every few seconds."

He shrugged. "Well what do you expect? After the Quest is accepted, it can't stay around cluttering things up. I guess I can leave a log of who is attempting which task... Good idea Taylor, this could help with documentation."

She blinked. "Wait, why would that matter? Until we go live, testing shouldn't even really be involved yet."

He shook his head. "Nah, I'm a busy guy. I activated our changes several hours ago. Team 'Avenging Apples' found the local leadership fifteen minutes ago and set up more than a few of my 'Transfer Node' altars, so the amount of Adventurers able to access and accept quests have gone up a lot by now."

Taylor's hands were frozen over the interface apparently controlling the actions of thousands of teams from another reality as Adam continued to ramble on. "Plus side, your version of Legend is now able to communicate to the leaders of my Realm and has been adding Quests to the new DA Questing System. Not just requests for resources or extra work forces, but he added many people to the 'Contacting people of interest' page."

Adam continued to modify stuff as the woman stared at him. "Yeah, your Legend was having issues organizing the Heroes spread out over all the various Earths right now, finding people, verifying who is where and what not."

Taylor watched Adam suddenly brighten up. "HA! Dragon and Narwhal have basically reformed our Guild into the base of the new DA Guild! Neat! And it means that I don't have to waste time finding people to run the thing. Man, this was a great idea."

She grit her teeth. "And my quests? Were there any results yet?"

Adam blinked. "Didn't you check your inbox?"

Taylor growled even as she exited 'Developer mode'... and saw the blinking email icon. Apparently Alerts were disabled during development of a LIVE INTERDIMENSIONAL FAITH BASED QUESTING SYSTEM.

Her finger hesitated though. Fears old and recent made the act of pressing such a simple button feel like she was actively hurting her people... that if she just ignored it, they wouldn't be hurt or dead.

But fear never held her back before.

With gritted teeth, she opened her notifications and forced calm as she methodically read each item.

Her father lived.

As did Lisa, Rachel, Foil, Aisha, Parian, even Victoria and Amy were alive...

Dragon's status was unknown, but assumed alive from the Quest results.

Brian died during the battle. So did Kid Win.

Clockblocker... might be dead. Something was preventing the Quest from being confirmed as passed away... it was odd.

As the names and results of the massive battle were confirmed, she... well, she wasn't sure how she felt. Then again, she had grown used to pain over the years.

Queen Administrator's hug was welcome though.

She never noticed when she fell asleep, nor when Adam covered her with a thick blanket and wiped away her tears.

But in the arms of her partner, her sleep was dreamless.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam ensured the air would be warm enough and Taylor's area would be silenced... then sighed as he turned towards his interfaces.

Apparently, the new 'Development Mode' he built disabled message alerts.

Hesitantly... he exited to the main interface.

And winced.

Yeah, he had more than a few messages from his girls. And based on the humor he felt from Simmy right now, it implied that yes, he was probably in trouble.

As he read through each message, seeing the progression from surprise, to concern, to annoyance... to calm 'We will discuss this thoroughly at a later point'. Yeah, he was in trouble.

With a sigh, he began writing a list of answers and reasons... and why was Narwhal talking about rules for including outside couples in the harem!?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Legend was unsure how to feel about the situation.

"And sign here, and there... Now confirm that you agree with the terms..."

But honestly, knowing that in his most dire time of need, another option appeared that could potentially save his people...

"No, you need to check those boxes. Cause you want them to include an area assessment of the places you are sending them out to explore. That one too, you want samples when possible."

Well, it was a pleasant surprise.

"Right, that will do it!"

Legend watched as the signed contract was placed on a bone altar, a soft squishy striped doll of some sort of elephant/tiger/thing placed on top.

Then the altar pulsed with blue fire... and the doll had changed color slightly. The altar glowed a bit as well. Creepy.

The leader of the new 'DA Guild Hall' gave a sharp nod. "And there you go! These local quests are now posted to the System, and can be accessed by our members. If any go unaddressed for a period of time, the reward will increase until it hits the limit you listed, then we will contact you if it remains unaccepted by the deadline. We can renegotiate per item at that time."

Legend smiled. "Thank you for guiding me through this... setup. Again."

The man laughed heartily. "No problem! I never got to meet our Legend in person, so this is a bit of neat moment for myself as well. Anyway, my team was specifically picked due to our professions, and my builders need us to give them room to start building the facilities around the altar."

Legend nodded, following the team leader towards the property edge. Thankfully, one thing his people DID have right now was real estate, even if the visitors clearly overpaid for permission to build a temple. And knew it.

It was odd, he thought, to imagine a world where EVERYONE could CHOOSE their powers. Even though it clearly had advantages... watching the 'Storage' users just hand out tools and materials for the Builders to levitate, bind, modify, and more... was like watching an artist preform.

Not sure about the nude blue angel statues though. Maybe it was a cultural thing?

Point being, Legend had been busy coordinating with what government organizations managed to hold together... and the ability to set requests for construction, for healing (SO MANY healers!), for these 'Transfer Nodes'...

Well, the visitors were VERY well received by nearly everyone.

Though the passage WAS a one way affair... no one could transfer back to these visitor's home reality without some sort of mandatory cleaning and conversion process and the approval of some 'Queen Administrator'.

And that name FELT familiar somehow, though it was somewhat hard to place.

It was probably a normal name of not much importance.

Apparently the woman was some sort of local Admin for the System, the contact for people who needed to interact with the other side of the Transfer Node network.

Clearly she was busy getting everything set up, but for some reason Tattletale's reaction to the news had been... a bit off. Not necessarily concerned... but VERY interested. Especially after the Thinker got a hold of the new 'Quest Listing' released by the local Guild Hall facilities.

Legend watched the building rapidly grow as it was constructed. If nothing else, allowing access to the other Earth's without needing Parahuman involvement was a massive benefit to the new tentative relationship with this DA Guild.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam decided that going home (And facing the music) was a great idea. Eventually.

Any minute now.

But since he HAD to make sure Taylor was alright (Stalling? Whose stalling? YOU'RE stalling!) he decided that this empty Earth, claimed by Queen Administrator anyway, could use some sprucing up. A bit of paint, some curtains, etc. A nice shrubbery.

A quick summon later, and Simmy flashed into existence on the rocky planet, his Faith socket allocated for her use.

Now to get started!

Then she 'Transferred' away.

...Huh.

Bah, he could get this started on his own.

His flesh evaporated as he expanded a bit, his body massive in scale as his skeletal was joined by dozens of skeletal limbs arcing over his back. Constructor beams began building worker drones in batches as Gather was used to clean up the local area. Reality shifted slightly as the ground faded away and new objects began construction.

After a few dozen assistant drones were formed, they were sent off to smooth down this rock. Any material would be used to make even more drones, until they reached around a million or so. That should take a while.

As the floating craft vanished into the air towards various directions, Adam continued some of what he had done back in Remnant: designing and modifying various schematics for cities, farms, commerce centers, and so forth.

Thankfully his 'Temple' for this Realm was designed already, so this place could get a few secured 'Transfer Nodes' crafted easily enough. Thus he could focus on more interesting things! Like how to fiddle about and craft some efficient and hopefully humane animal raising/harvesting methods. Fully automated, without going crazy and raising a sheep army or something. And he would set up a petting zoo, cause petting zoo's were awesome.

Push come to shove, Adam knew that he could cheat and make some meat production machines to support this planet... but he liked animals. Especially baby animals, which were both adorable AND delicious. But mostly adorable.

Probably would be best to raise the oxygen level for people who needed to breathe, or for those without the enhanced lungs of Taylor. And for the future animals as well, those needed less toxic air. The ambient temperature was pretty damn low too, probably due to the damaged atmosphere. Meh, should be easy enough to handle.

Adam sent some orders for the construction of several stupidly large machines on the planetary magnetic poles which would start pumping out some compressed gasses, get things back into working order. It would spawn massive storms and stuff, but the drones should interfere with the worst of those and locally he could keep things safe and quiet easy enough. Eventually the air and temperature should be back within workable zones. Just in case, some temperature adjustment devices would be included near the gas generators. No reason to leave things to chance.

Only a million drones however might take too long... but then again, he hadn't reached the cap yet. So maybe it was fine? Best wait to see what was needed as the changes progressed. He could always make more drones if needed.

He idly watched the sky, drones occasionally flying through his view and distant stars twinkling.

The lack of moon was odd. Should he build a fake one? Would that be too strange? Moons were big too, that would probably take time even with a lot of super advance drones with bizarre advanced beam technology.

He could dump some Dust up there and then smother it in kami. But that could do all kinds of strange crap to reality. Or damage this planet further. Best leave that alone for now.

Adam sighed. Yeah, best hold off on that until he got home and pushed himself closer to the 'sane' side of the spectrum. After all, no one had asked him to fix that moon back on Remnant, why should he go through the hassle of MAKING one here? It would probably cause problems. Somehow.

Meh, if it becomes an issue he could steal a moon from one of these alternate earths with no population. Probably.

Could he even 'capture' something that big? Especially since it wasn't a creature like Mister G. Cause he would feel stupid to go through all that trouble, attempt to consume a moon, and just fail like a wuss.

How much energy would 'Transferring' the moon take? The moon was like... 7.3 something times 10^22 kilograms. That was a lot of material to shove outside of reality. Even without worrying about the gravitational fields and stuff, how much magic/energy/etc did it take to move even a ton with his power?

Cause that was like... 8 times 10^19 tons or whatever. Which was a BIG number.

Maybe he could move it over time? But that would make him stuck here in 'annoying to visit' land for WAY too long. As it was, being so close to home BUT NOT QUITE THERE was causing him some mental issues that seemed to slowly worsen over time.

Clearly visiting alternate versions of realities he already visited would be... tricky. Certainly could not risk long trips to them, in the future. The 'Transfer Nodes' however were helping, it stabilized something inside him that was hard to define, but getting home was still high up on his priority list.

Hmm. Best way to move a moon here, if he didn't want to make one from scratch, would be to find TWO moons, nearly identical. It would be easy enough to sacrifice one massive rock to fuel the magic/energy/whatever to 'Transfer' the other.

And this Realm felt like unlimited levels of pancakes stacked over each other, so he had lots of moons to work with. Theoretically.

Problem was how it all interacted. He hadn't risked opening his senses this wide while in his home Reality, crazy space whales shouldn't be poked after all, and the number of dimensions overlapping had some strange type of interaction between each other. To the point where it felt squishy almost.

Not to the point of naturally forming wormholes or portals or whatever, but the metaphysical weight of one Earth seemed to somehow interact with every other Earth.

It wasn't well defined, not to Adam's slightly distracted consciousness, but it felt like reality was a bit... sticky. Tacky. Velcro-like.

It was why taking THIS moon over here would be easier than taking THAT moon over there, although they looked/seemed/felt like they were near identical, almost interchangeable.

It was odd.

His thoughts were derailed as Simmy popped back in, a floating Angel with multiple wings being dragged along... and then burped.

Adam blinked. Ignoring the local Simurgh, he accepted the note Simmy passed him.

And blinked again. "What do you MEAN you ate the rest!?"

Eating siblings is NOT COOL, MKAY!?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Flying was awesome.

Taylor dipped around a cloud tower, the storm raging below. Up here, the sunlight made the horrible weather seem so far away.

She had dreams of flight as a child. Days of wearing towels as capes and telling her mom about how SHE would one day be like Alexandria, taking names and kicking butt. Giggling with Emma as they talked about being princesses with lasers and turning into birds and things.

Diving into the rippling darkness below, she felt the freezing winds and crackling electrical discharges as she followed the storm, her sensors modeling the path and intensity of the vapor. This planet was so cold, the only reason the surface was NOT covered in ice was due to how little moisture existed in what could charitably be called an 'atmosphere'. Still, the skies felt so free...

When she got older, her dreams had lost their shine. The idea of being lost, soaring so high up that streets were impossible to recognize, the air too thin to breathe, the wind too stiff, the bugs and pollution... and then of course, the horror her life had slowly become. Dreams had faded, and thoughts of the sky seemed impossible to experience.

Bursting from the clouds, she dove through space enjoying the sunshine.

Even asleep as she was, she could feel Queen Administrator's guidance as she flew between cloud mountains, enhancing the dream to near reality.

[Actually you are currently controlling Drone 3221. Accidentally stole a few from Adam, but he was fine with it.]

Yep, a very realistic dream.

[Adam is a bit of stick in the mud though. Keeps telling me not to put up any nude statues of you in the new cities.]

WHAT!?

[I know! Just a few tasteful additions here and there, show people a bit of how awesome my human is, maybe interest a few dozen dating opportunities...]

Oh God, stop helping!

[How am I supposed to get some adorable human buds to spoil if you don't administrate some personal connections young lady?]

Nope! Dream, flying, very busy right now!

[Fine, but at least keep your eyes open for humans with good hand coordination or linguistical skills. I only want the best for my human.]

Could a drone blush? Damn it if she wasn't trying.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam twitched, flesh evaporating from his bones before reforming.

Yeah, he would have to head home pretty soon.

The sky was in constant conflict now, storms everywhere and floods happening full time as the air was being forced back to habitable ranges. It had forced the many automated cities and (Currently unpopulated) farms to be built on massive pillars above the rapidly flooding surface.

Then again, a mostly flooded planet seemed neat too. The drones were smoothing the surface over, filling caves and valleys and stuff while harvesting the mountain ranges. According to the calculations, once the whole thing was smooth there would be an average depth of a little less than 9000 feet, or about 2700 meters. Most of the salt would be converted to solid material though, so that water amount would drop a bit.

He WAS cheating on the connecting bridges between cities though, as they were designed as individual connected flying vehicles like the roadwork on Remnant he had designed.

Adam felt a bone limb crack, the mechanical assisting tool pulsing with a bit too much magic, before repairing. Again. Bone joints were more fragile than expected, even considering the magical nature of the material.

This... self destructive effect of being 'not-quite-here' in a too-close Realm was doing amazing stuff for his 'Recovery' ability, exposing flaws and issues for his adaptability to test and repair... but it was not comfortable.

He glanced up at the drone network, seeing even more of the devices fall under Queen Administrator's grasp. The process took longer than either expected, since each new device added so much data for Queen to organize. The equipped sensors were no joke after all, they did originate from a space faring society.

In the end, the number of needed drones had indeed needed to be increased. Even more so as a few hundred were being 'borrowed' by Taylor's partner over time.

He glanced down at the pouting nude Angel, Simmy being fairly unhappy at being grounded.

But if you don't want to be in trouble, don't run off and eat planets of sentient crystal. Especially sentient crystals that are metaphorically siblings.

The newly arrived Simurgh on the other hand was a treat to be around... although she had seemed overly eager to be bound via 'Grid of Confinement'.

Which he was 99% sure was due to how she could predict stuff... Because the black tentacle bondage exhibition had caught ADAM off guard, if no one else.

She seemed FAR too happy to be 'caught' and bound to his soul, and had ended up confined in Simmy's old cell. Like roommates, or whatever.

Point was, conversion of 'Simurgh 2: Electric Boogaloo' was underway. Though peeking during the modification process showed the new body (Because of COURSE she would also become a nude angel, must be a family thing) was not blue.

She was orange.

Eye gouging, near-glowing levels of bright neon orange.

The note from Simmy implied this was due to orange being a complimentary color with her own blue, but Adam was pretty sure she was going for a day/night thing, with orange similar to the sun and blue similar to blue moons.

Or they were going the Baku-Ranger route and trying to get one Simmy of every color.

Point was, Simmy was grounded for being a bad girl.

And she was now being ignored as best as Adam could, because she decided that being grounded required bondage gear and a paper dunce cap. Which she made more sensual than her standard nudity ensemble, somehow.

Ignoring her pout, he (again) gave her an oversized cloak and turned to watch the ongoing storms, his left arm slightly compressing into gore before recovering.

After another day or so, this planet should be stable enough for him to head home and set up some quests for people to show up here and plant the gardens and bring animals for the farms. A dimensionally secured food source would be both profitable AND a good long term investment... almost all living things needed to eat, after all.

He paused, the blood from his exploded eye cleared as his body recovered. He HAD remembered to tell Taylor that she and Queen were the Administrators for all Quests in their home Realm, right?

Because that seemed semi-important.

He blinked as Taylor jerked awake in her chair, tossing the quilt wildly to the side. "Ugh! Leave me alone, you perverted crystal menace! And no more porn injected into my brain, it is hard enough adjusting to my new body without you throwing my hormones in every direction!"

Adam lightly coughed, causing Taylor to freeze. "All that aside, I need to tell you a couple of things and have you make a quick decision Taylor."

She turned and stared at him. "You... didn't hear anything right?"

He lied solemnly. "Of course not." Standing, he ignored his leg dissolving into a bloody mist and reforming. "Back on point, I've been rebuilding this planet Queen Administrator owns as a home base for you and your new position as System Administrator for this Realm."

Ignoring her confusion, he turned to Simmy. "And you need to unsummon, hopefully that will stabilize me enough that I can get us both back home with no issues."

Taylor blinked as the Angel vanished. "Was she wearing a ball gag?"

He nodded. "Yeah, it felt a bit odd considering she almost never speaks anyway, but whatever makes her happy. Happy wife is happy life, and all that."

Taylor's stunned expression was irrelevant. "Now, I am mentally decaying from being in this Realm a bit too long without stopping by my home reality. This normally happens at a very slow rate, but your Realm is stupid close to my home and thus the damage is much greater."

She blinked as he somehow shifted both of them into a massive city, the area they had been relaxing in no longer protected and almost instantly flooded from the held back fresh water ocean. "So I will set up a 'Transfer Node' and bring you home to see your mom, two dads, and younger sister. Also, I kidnapped your dad and sent him to my home reality first. Pretty sure I mentioned that earlier. You coming with me is your choice, by the way."

He did what!?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Little Taylor looked up at her mom. And dad. And older dad.

To be fair, the three adults seemed off balance as well.

She nodded. "So I got two dads like Shelly does, but I ALSO got a mommy and dad, and now a mommy/dad/dad combo?"

Annette seemed to be considering something. "Maybe. The boss DID go through the trouble of bringing me an extra Danny and enhancing his body back to prime condition."

Her dad groaned while her new OLD dad seemed to feel awkward. "God, this reminds me of her 'experiments' back in college."

Old dad blinked. "You mean with Janet and her sisters? Or that time she wanted to 'check out the Lustrum hotties'?"

Danny sighed. "No, the 'harem' incident. With our old band?"

Mom blushed. "Right! Story time over, bed time Taylor! Boss Variance says your older Sister will be visiting fairly soon and you don't want to miss that!"

She frowned. "But we just had lunch..."

Annette nodded. "Right, that's practically nightfall, off you trot. You two hunks stay here, we'll talk after."

She sighed and allowed herself to pushed towards her bedroom. Adults were weird.

On the positive side, she was pretty sure this meant more presents during her birthdays. And having an older sister could be cool, Emma's was pretty awesome.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

In the secured receiving facility 'Guild Hall' constructed by Narwhal and Dragon, the alter with a plush Baku glowed with a massive blue Aura... which formed into an enormous glowing blue skull, mouth slowly opening.

Adam collapsed from its jaws, a refined woman with curling brown hair gently stepping out from the same maw.

His body twitched HARD, then seemed to snap back together. "Ow."

Taylor blinked, turning back to watch a flaming blue Skull fade away into mist. "That was creepy as hell."

A digital voice popped in. "Good afternoon Variance, Hero Queen Administrator." The body on the floor groaned as Dragon's hologram formed. "Would you mind waiting for us to ensure Adam is fully recovered before visiting your family? If something goes wrong, he would be best to handle it."

Taylor sighed, her identity not exactly secret if one of the most powerful beings she had ever heard of had already gathered her dad and dropped him off here. "Sure, and I guess you can call me Taylor. Are you also married to the skeleton dude?"

She shook her head. "My sister is, I am happy enough with my boyfriend. Would you like to rest and have some refreshments while we wait?"

As the two were led to another room, Narwhal had already gathered Adam and pulled him to a couch. "Oh baby, you didn't tell me the damage was this bad..."

Adam weakly waved a hand, half skeletal. "I'm not actually hurt, it just feels like... I am off balance. Like the flat ground is a swinging tightrope." He carefully patted her shoulder, his hand off target and mind already starting to fall asleep. "I'll be find, gind. Fine. Simmy was keeping an eye on me. Oh, but you guys have to keep her grounded, she ate some Endbringers and was a bad girl."

Narwhal blinked. "What?"

He felt... so tired. "And her new twin is orange and I don't know why." Just... a bit more sleep. "Tell Taylor she needs to use her power some more to gain control of her new body. Or else she will bite through her silverware and stuff. And that she should breathe more often to look normal. And not to breathe water, even if she could now, cause it freaks people out."

Her hand brushed his hair. "Shh, we will handle it all when you wake up."

He felt the darkness swell up. "Yeah... yeah. And I think Taylor may be an immortal gestalt consciousness now with a magical rock partner? I... I think I told her. I... I may have done some stupid things."

A soft kiss on his forehead. "We girls can handle it."

His protests fell off as he relaxed into Narwhal's warm embrace, the soft allure of sleep calling his weary mind.

Sometimes heaven is just coming home.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Narwhal noted Twilight's attendance and brought the group to order. "Right, now that we are all here, we need to touch base a bit."

Nightmare Moon sighed, her mostly human body shifting in her comfortable chair. "The new developer interfaces that Adam designed are amazing alone, and have simplified administration of the System, but I've been hearing a number of issues with the new 'Dungeon' feature regardless. My fans have been sending me messages and even actual prayers about issues, which I have been forwarding to the research department."

Twilight was already distracted on her side of the table, having also adopted human form over the last few months for their greatest achievement: Hands.

Sonia Lagarde had two aids bringing her needed paperwork even during this meeting, and was attending through holographic projection. "Adam's businesses are doing well enough, but the negotiated 'Quest Request Fee' has been a surprise income boost for this quarter, taxation for it will be a bit annoying but I've got my people on it."

She leaned forward. "That said, there is a large subsection similar to a trade network being set up interdimensionally now thanks to the Dungeon options. We've named it the 'Item Shop' and 'Auction House' for historical and cultural reasons. Or to be honest, some of my girls are geeks and thought it was an awesome idea."

Narwhal accepted the hard-light hologram documentation as Sonia continued. "There is an additional delivery fee to other Realms than ours, but it is negligible. I do want Adam to open up his Dungeon system to Remnant though, the RWBY Realm has a massive untapped market and Adam's 'Desert Garden Zoo' resort is the perfect place to set up as a Quest hub and commerce center."

Narwhal hummed. "And it would give our guild members training in combat, as I'm sure no one would mind our people killing Grimm over there. Especially since Adam took out some of the most dangerous and large ones."

CD tapped the table. "Sonia has asked Dragon and me if we could offer more products for Adam's business to manufacture. And we've had mixed results."

Dragon nodded. "We've been following the technological advancements being submitted from Remnant, since the upgrades to System allow messaging without having to bother Adam all the time. Robo and Boro. as well as the AI under them, have been talking about it a bit... but none of them have been able to duplicate Dust on their own yet despite the available schematics."

CD pulled up some reference charts. "Not too surprising for Robo's team or Shirley Temple's platforms, as the Star Wars Realm has MORE than enough high level energies already, but hopefully Boro's people will make some advancements now that Adam has helped Taylor convert her power into Dust."

Narwhal winced. "Just as a heads up, I don't want to send our people physically to the Star Wars Realm until we can protect them from the influence of the Force better." Not to mention any kids from there born in THIS Realm may infect this reality with the Force as well. "Right, Dragon, you've been helping Taylor adjust. How is she doing?"

The cyborg hologram sighed. "Not well. A lot of friends and coworkers died over the years and the poor thing had never really had down time to fully accept that. It doesn't help that many of them still exist in this reality, although apparently her local versions of her family have been VERY accepting of the situation."

She hummed. "So at least she will have some emotional support from them?"

Dragon chuckled. "Assuming that Annette leaves her extra-dimensional husband alone long enough. Little Taylor has been exchanging System messages with Taylor for hours now at least, and seems MORE than excited. The interactions seemed to help."

Narwhal paused. "Wait, how can Taylor be in the System? Wouldn't that convert Queen Administrator automatically?"

Twilight looked up from her work. "Ah, we were concerned too, but it turned out that Taylor has NOT joined the System." She went back to modifying the report she was reviewing. "Queen Administrator decided to join instead."

Narwhal felt her cyber twin body developing a twitch. What. The. Hell.

She sighed. "Moving on, Simmy, can you get Betty out of..."

The bright orange angel looked innocent. The bright blue angel looked smug.

Narwhal glared. "I can't call you both Simmy, and I won't put up with months of shenanigans where you two play up the confusion. Pick a name or I will make up silly ones for you."

Two slips of paper, one blue, one orange, fell to the table.

She picked them up. "Right, so Simurgh 'Simmy' Burns and Simurgh 'Sammy' Burns. Cause Simmy and Sammy won't get confusing." She sighed, the two nude beauties far too self satisfied. "EITHER of you, how do we get Betty out of Adam's Grid of Confinement without bothering the man or hurting her? He is far too tired to wake up for this, but we need to get the poor girl some supplies."

Simmy nodded, Sammy grinning in the background, and both held their arms out... and 'Transfer' pulsed as a blue skull faded into view. From the illusion of an open maw a confused cow Faunus stumbled into the room. "What!?"

Narwhal jumped from her seat and wrapped the unstable woman in a tight hug. "Betty! I'm so glad you are alright after that rough journey. How was your trip?"

Brown eyes blinked. "Narwhal?" She hesitantly returned the hug. "I... it was very confusing. For a while, I was in some field with grass everywhere, and... I mean, it felt dream like. I didn't get tired or hungry or thirsty... in a way it was soothing I guess."

Noticing the crowd over Narwhal's shoulder, she paused. "Uh. Hello everyone!"

Nightmare snorted. "At least Adam has good taste in women, I was not impressed by that Sienna Khan gal."

CD gently gave the Alicorn/Currently Human seductress a side hug. "Don't be like that, the poor girl had been in a leadership position during a massive crisis. I'm sure she had other sides to her personality than sexual aggression."

Betty giggled. "Not really, it's why she made a female harem to begin with. Not that we complained too much, mind you, but there is a reason why my former Boss hadn't passed the reins yet to the next generation."

Twilight was mentally out of it, but she absently tried to contribute anyway. "I don't really approve of reins because of how tricky they can be to use safely, there are better sexual aids honestly."

Narwhal held back a giggle. "Quite so." Leading Betty to a chair, she began introductions. "You've been roughly introduced from our messaging while you were back in your home realm, but just in case..."

It only took a few minutes to introduce each woman to the Faunus, although she did pause on one. "Sonia Lagarde you did not meet due to her own very busy schedule, but she is Adam's business woman and the boss of his financial, soon to be multidimensional empire."

Sonia's smile was wide. "I've been told you have contacts with the livestock market on Remnant? Because Adam very recently acquired a number of untenanted farms that also need quite a few animals and multiple types of plant life. Interested in getting some stable income and a bit of a political base in THIS reality as well?"

From Betty's wide grin, the two would get along swimmingly.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Taylor felt Queen Administrator analyzing the many creatures and electronics as she relaxed in her temporary guest quarters. Not commanding them at the moment, just learning from scratch how to 'Administrate' without the overwhelming support of an Entity incursion dimensional fracture web installation. The bugs came easily enough, she had the memories to help Queen cheat when doing the tests, but rats and so forth took much longer, especially because the provided facilities were surprisingly clean for a vary large radius.

Though connecting her mind to the router had been a hell of a drug trip. It took Queen hours to take the random screaming data and format it into something Taylor's mind could treat like using a computer, instead of seeing binary and tasting wireless interference.

So thanks to some messed up meta-shard clusters cobbled together by Queen, Taylor was now mentally browsing the local version of ParaHumans Online and the rest of the horrors the internet had to share. Dozens of Taylors, each mind exploring the vast expanse of the digital age. Which turned out to be mostly porn, but that seemed normal for any unregulated communication service.

ANOTHER message came in, through System. From little-girl-Taylor. And for the record, Taylor didn't remember being that adorable at ALL. Seriously, her little self had big anime eyes and everything.

With a deep sigh and an eager giggle from Queen, she opened it.

And could barely understand the message. Again.

[Ooh! I've never used that method of prioritizing lists of actions based on human limits of patience, resource availability, and threat rating! I mean, sure it is 0.312% less effective than my current policies, but then again I never took emotional turmoil into my calculations before. Your Little Human is so adorable!]

Sibling, they are called siblings. And I think dimensional versions of self are like step-siblings or something. Probably not cousins.

[Right, Type this to her, and maybe include some of my theories on how to allocate resources based on theoretical needs verses reported issues.]

Groaning, Taylor was half way into typing the letters into the System interface illusion showed by Queen when she paused. "Wait, YOU'RE the one directly connected to the System, why aren't YOU typing it!?"

Suspicious silence.

VERY suspicious.

With a growl, Taylor reached with her soul Avatar to shake Queen Administrator's shoulders in frustration... when she slipped slightly on the crystal surface of the planet.

And pulled.

Taylor was completely squished as Queen Administrator's Purity Dust Crystal Avatar form appeared over her own body, falling without style while squeaking in surprise.

Queen was confused.

[What the... How did you... Wait. Your real body is in my soul while this is your Avatar!? No, they are both real and I am both real and... No, neither of us is real any more. Or not. What did you DO!?]

Taylor was confused.

Taylor blinked, a surprisingly warm and attractive nude crystal representation of her powers holding her down. "I... I'm not sure?"

Gently pushing her partner off, the crystal angel vanished back into her soul.

Taylor nodded. "I am completely not sure."

But no matter what, she WAS sure that she wasn't going to be typing multiple page conversations to miniature versions of herself anymore. Especially if she could pull Queen Administrator out of her soul 'inventory' like a sandwich. Seriously, Taylor had nearly gone spar having to type up those very complicated AND very boring conversations.

[ACK! There was two of me in here and now we are one of me and I think I ate myself!]

Whatever, less typing for Taylor.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Ghira blinked at the message on his Scroll. "Why the hell does Betty want to buy so many animals?"

Kali shrugged, cuddling with little Blake who seemed distracted by nothing. "Probably another farm Adam is building. The guy got stuck in a loop after a while, we have more produce being grown in our various new cities than we can physically harvest at this point. Without his systems to keep the things from rotting I'm sure the nation would smell very funky by now."

Her husband grumbled. "Well, at least he came up with a fix for THAT issue. He has a bunch of people that are willing to travel here to accomplish various 'Quests' that we can submit. According to the email, the cost for transportation and the majority of the rewards will be handled by Adam for us, even if the other Kingdoms will have to include a bit of a fee."

She hummed, booping Blake's adorable nose. "He has been more than just a good friend to us and our people. Did Betty mention how she's settling in?"

Ghira sighed and forwarded the attached messages to the various people in Betty's circle. Apparently the communication method between wherever the heck Adam went and here made direct messaging a complicated affair. Well, whatever works.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam floated in sleep, the ever long arms of Squishy cradling his form as he recovered.

It would take time.

Her own small, pudgy Avatar was floating through the Crystal Castle, visiting the deepest region and the spark within.

Thankfully, it had begun to stabilize.

Best not to risk visiting a Realm so similar for a long while though, because towards the end Squishy had to begin allocating vital resources to suppressing the damage caused by the trip. It hadn't gotten too risky... but it had been approaching dangerous levels of concern.

Her motions paused as she carefully moved to the second concern, the Grid of Confinement.

Simmy and Sammy could enter and leave as desired, their cell unlocked by Adam back when Simmy was an only child, but once again Squishy carefully examined each prisoner.

Simmy had allocated the harvested Endbringer Crystal Clusters to each of the three, enhancing Behemoth and Leviathan to higher levels and raising their intelligence to something like animal level. It couldn't compare to the massive amounts hoarded for her and her sister of course, but just in case Squishy checked each cell to ensure that any soul instability caused by the recent events would not risk confinement compromise. Or in other words, unwanted escapes.

Thankfully, the improvements added to ensure Betty's safe transport had enhanced the general stability of the Grid as a whole. It all seemed secure.

She patted the cell with Mister G, the rumbling purr causing Adam's soul to slightly vibrate. At least he was doing well.

With her blue eye watching Adam's soul, she went back to directing his recovery process. As many advancements as he had made so far, on the most fundamental level he was still a bit on shaky ground. Too much progress in one area could actually cause further damage in others. They would have to discuss which area of advancement for him to work on in the future, at least until the risk was lower. Maybe helping out with the new DA Guild...

Yes, with certain limitations so that she could use those recovered resources to enhance healing, it would allow her to speed up his recovery process without forcing the poor boy to sit in a hospital somewhere for a few months.

Because letting Adam get bored had proven to be a bit problematic in the past. Best head it off early on.

Sending a System message to Narwhal and the girls, Squishy went back to work using power charges being generated to further stabilize his recovering mind and soul. They could find SOMETHING for him to do that didn't require redesigning planets, invading other Realms, or saving nations from being consumed by monsters. Probably.