Death and Destruction [Ch. V, Nine]

Guess you need to wait to find out what is on my dice list until the dice choose the PM answer. In the meant time, more Nine XD

Hmm somehow the prompt press-x-to-doubt appears at the page quote.

“new-found love for Love” d’awww

Ah okay, we’re a bit further behind Ch4, slowly catching up to Zero’s narration.

Okay, more explanations of fields for me to absorb and hopefully retain. Nine and Six both are kinda mean to each other this chapter, in an affectionate way :3 No wonder he takes his sweet time to help her get off the ceiling. Although I’m not sure how she got stuck there. Was this him bc lack of safety precautions or her with her own power?

“Don’t worry, you won’t die, there are no such possible future timelines where you die.”
I wonder if Salai says this because he didn’t have the same precautions for Leonarda way back when so now he keeps checking Nine’s future to make sure everything is still on track?

“ Not good enough. Sigh.” – First of all, did he say that “sigh” out loud verbatim? I love that. Second of all, Disappointment in full swing. I love this chara too.

“it’s like he holds some grudge against me.” Hmm does he? Bc he’s older than Nine but clearly not as smart of favoured?
Makes me think, considering that all the agents are made from Salai’s DNA, that he kept trying to get things right and finally succeeded with Nine? So ofc everyone else is a disappointment. And the one before Nine is literally disappointment. And now I think of Reuben from Lilo and Stitch @.@

…what is the pride of the pearl? A ship in orbit??

Oha that is quite the thing coming from Nine: “I need to learn all the languages in our galaxy to describe the blood-bending dread I felt at that moment.“ It also sounds like he’s gonna grow numb to that given his reaction in Canta’s dimension.
But Six remains consistently compassionate, despite her being Fury, and focused on the people. I like that. I also like that Nine freezes up instead of helping.

I cant help but think that if the ppl survive this the loss of limb can be sorted out after.

I also wonder that with his power being Love, he can probably become a great healer in addition to the other things he can do. Or maybe he can develop the power to bring back the dead. Maybe even Leonardo. The thing is, idk if that would be such a good thing. Leo probably has changed or rather Zero has changed so much since Leo last lived that idk if this would really solve all the issues Salai has. Kinda reminds me of the Heart Coal thing from The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins.

That said, I don’t think the emotional impact landed with me during the sequence. Too much techno babble and downplaying from all sides except Nine’s.

Yeah yeah, dialogue formatting and stuff but isn’t this just a repetition here and you could have used one or the other?

“I doubt that,” I didn't believe her,

First off we’re not gonna breeze past the Hitler quote because that! Is an incredibly weird thing to do! I see it’s a quote from the story but I gotta say that is a truly bizarre choice, especially to attribute the quote a real person who committed atrocities and was famously anti-science. It’s confusing. Before reading this I went looking for the quote because I thought you were attributing it to the real person but of course only came back with a single result for this chapter. Weird choice. I don’t like it. I don’t like the inclusion of Hitler at all, that’s super weird. Moving on.

I’ll be going in mostly chronological order, save for connections between different parts of the text.

You have a unique sense of voice which is a fantastic thing for a writer. A lot of people tend to sound overly formal or analytical, but this story has a unique voice that makes the narrator feel like an individual. Great work.

I enjoyed the initial dialogue between the narrator and Salai, the discussion of mathematics and logic is a fun one for me and I like seeing it addressed in science fiction. I like the line where the narrator says something doesn’t make sense and is met with “Who said stuff needs to make sense? It is just what it is - nothing more, nothing less.” because that is still an extension of the scientific method! Somethings don’t make sense yet. They just need a foundation under them.

I like the implication that slice of life animes are cannon in this world.

Alright I said that because I thought it was funny. There is also a Bob Dylan reference shortly after. I’m just jumping in on a random chapter so maybe the timeline make sense in context. I just scanned the first two chapters and see there’s some weird time stuff going on but not quite an explained timeline of where we are. Just in case this is something you want to think about, I’d encourage you to think about the implication of the references you include, things that exist in your universe and things that make sense for your characters to know about.

The part where Six gets stuck in the ceiling is reminiscent of that porn trope, you know the one I’m sure. The way Nine belittles her plight and her over dramatic wailing for help read as misogynistic and uncomfortable, then she goes on to flirt with Nine. Gross. I don’t want to be mean but when you put your work out you open yourself up to critical analysis and I can’t not point that out.

And then he tells her, who harnesses the power of fury, to calm down when they are preparing for a huge battle. Aight.

I really enjoy all the thought that went into the science fiction stuff. The evacuation of the planet is cool to read. In an ideal world I hope to see more focus on the action, you know the battle stuff. You have such a fantastic baseline for writing really good science fiction and I hope I get to see that evolve.

I would have liked some kind of emotional depiction of his dread rather than wow I have no words. There is a lot of opportunity for human emotional impact, that’s an area I’d love to see more work in.

Also as I continue I see Nine’s appreciation for media is part of his character. I’d like that to tie in more to the story, and maybe it does in other parts, rather than just being references tossed in there. Perhaps it’s intentional, to build the disjointedness of his character, but there needs to be consideration for the weight of the topics coming up with the way is lead up to. Taking a paragraph to bemoan BBCs Sherlock right before he recounts graphic bloody horror is… certainly a choice. Not to say it can’t be a good or intentional one, but it builds a specific idea of your character, someone who isn’t able to prioritize severity or who is too naive to recognize the emotional weight of an event. If that’s not the intention, then I would encourage you to do some work on what you include in the narrative and how it’s framed. Storytelling is so much bigger than recounting events. Honestly building up implications is one of my favorite parts.
When there is dialogue within action and descriptions of the science being utilized you do wonderfully.

The description of the beings voice sounding like a drumbeat is very cool, I like that. Really truly you do a great job of building up aspects of a science fiction world.

I don’t like that he didn’t really take part in that huge battle. He zooped out of there and then got knocked out. I really struggle with making my main characters too passive, to the point where I have to keep that in mind and intentionally undo that when I’m outlining. We want them to do things not just have thing happen to them. Additionally we want to make sure we are writing a story not just a series of situations.

You do a lot of things really well, creating a voice for your narrator, setting up interesting events, tying in science and mathematics in a way that’s really satisfying to read. I look forward to seeing more from you.

Hello again, Jit! My bunnies and I have come with another review for this ever-greatening story. (I'm here again so soon?? What?? Something truly must be wrong with the world, even more than the 5D aliens coming to destroy the world. XD)

I've gotta say; this is my favorite chapter yet. There's so much in this that makes me feel that way, but a big portion of it is literally just your writing. Every chapter, you improve so much with your storytelling and ideas and characters, and for this chapter especially I wouldn't be surprised to see this in a real published book!

Also, love the designs for Eight and Three as well. Is that a scar on Three? Ooh what happened?

Jesse - my dear diary, my dear friend, my dear brother, my dear bestie - today was the wildest day of my life!

You might remember that I went to check if Sensei was awake - and guess what? I was bubbling with new-found love for Love itself and couldn’t control how much effort I put into knocking on the door. I calculated (after realising what had happened) that the force of the knock could have sent the Empire State Building into the stratosphere - so, well, if that door was not made up of the hardest boron nitride crystals and studded with the strongest diamonds ever created, it would have been shattered to atoms.

So, well, after my little knock thrashed the door seventy feet away into Salai’s Hanging Lakes, he told me to reverse entropy and reset the door as it was. Now, I don’t know about you, Jesse, but it seems pretty hard to reverse the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

“Bene, bene, bene,” said he, smiling, “It’s a ton of a thing to do, quite literally, it’s as heavy as a young elephant. Can you do it, my dear prodigy?”

He said the last sentence tongue in cheek and chuckled.

“Uh,” said I, itching my hair, “I’ll try, I guess?”

He asked, “You figured out tibi emotion, yet?”

“Six, Two, and I came up with Love being the only choice for me… is it right? You know everything, so why don’t you just tell me?”

He chuckled, “What’s the fun in that?”

So, once more I tried tantalising a scintillatingly brilliant door with tremendous amounts of affection as I gazed at it - sparkling in all its shining glory - and I showered it with affection and love from the deepest caverns of my mind. And lo and behold! It danced merrily in the air along with my hands as I refitted it where it was a minute ago. I heard Zero clapping.

“Optime, Nine! You have progressed a lot since last time. Good for you,” he said.

Suddenly, I had a random question knock my mind, “Hey Salai.”

He smiled, “I have a monologue running in my head all the time - I am only human, after all. I just choose not to care. They say I don't have any emotions because I don't express them - my facial muscles have grown stiff after I went through all the suffering and all the joy that anyone had ever been through, but my words do try to express my thoughts. ‘No Emotion’, ergo, is a misnomer, it’s more like ego don’t care.” Then he turned his head towards his Hanging Gardens and said, “You know, Nine, you are the only one I smile at.”

“Hey, c'mon, stop reading my mind - that's not fair!” I replied, chuckling, “But why me?”

“Let’s say,” said he as he shrugged, “you are an exception in existence itself.”

“So,” I said, trying to change the subject (as you know, Jesse, I am flustered whenever I am praised even the tiniest bit), “What more can you do with the Dark Field?”

“Everything, honestly,” he replied, “At least, in this universe and other fini-”

“You mean,” I interrupted excitedly, “there are other universes?! So my theory’s been right all along-”

“Yes, there are, but not exactly the way the Many-Worlds Interpretation aut your theory states,” He replied, “You just gotta keep the 𝚿 function imaginary in that Lagrangian transform and ita, about that Hamilt -”

“Wait, what,” I was demented, “How can that make sense? What does an imaginary quark potential mean in that case? It doesn’t make any - ”

He said, smiling, “Who said stuff needs to make sense? It is just what it is - nothing more, nothing less.”

“But that’s unscientific!” I protested, “I can’t just accept something without evidence! Where are your observations? This is just mere conjecture to me!”

“Well, that’s your choice, Nine,” he said, shrugging.

Then he stood up and went by the window. A bird was chirping at her chicks. He smiled. They lived in their nest on a tree in the Hanging Gardens. Oh yes, Jesse, I have never mentioned Salai’s Hanging Gardens to you, have I? Unlike ancient Babylon, Salai’s Hanging Gardens is literally hanging a hundred metres above the ground. It’s over ten square kilometres wide, sprawling with Salai’s most favourite birds and animals across the universe. Like that bird that’s cooing - it’s a female cuckoo but it’s genetically modified to reproduce asexually and coo in both male and female voices and takes care of her young ones herself.

Salai whistled along with the bird before asking me, “How’s Fury doing?”

I replied, “You mean Six? She’s fine - I mean, I almost died back there, but except that - it’s all fine.”

“Ha, ha, haha, hahahahahaha - I’ve heard that joke over a septillion times, but your delivery was perfect! You should do stand-up, Nine, like - chuckle - that was so funny - cough and chuckle and a silent laugh followed by Joker-esque laughter.” He burst out laughing uncontrollably. I am telling you, Jesse, I didn’t find it funny myself as I didn’t even try to be funny there - I was dead serious.

After he managed to control himself after sobbing litres of joy, “Anyway, let’s go and talk with Six.”

For some reason, I can’t remember what happened to me from this point till I remember myself sitting on Six’s bed in our room and vaguely figuring out some scribbling sounds and yelling at Zero to tell me what it was and him refusing me. Cut me some slack, Jesse! It’s been a long day! You know my memory’s stupid! Like, it will take me at least two minutes to remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. Ha! You’re laughing?! You are no better than me at remembering stuff! Shut up, Jesse!

You know the stuff I’ve told you till now isn’t that wild. It happens all day, every day. My writings to you today - compared to other days - are literally equivalent to the script of a Slice of Life episode in a shonen action anime. What does not happen every day are five-dimensional monsters the size of a planet colluding to destroy all universes with three spatial dimensions. Yeah, Jesse, I know, right?

The next thing I remember vividly was when Four swooped in out of nowhere and told us that we were supposed to be going to the League of Life meeting.

“President,” said Gloom, “You’ve forgotten again, haven’t you?”

Salai, startled at first said, “What are you -? Oh, it’s the Agents’ Meeting today, ita?”

Four replied, “Yes, it’s supposed to start in exactly 53 seconds.”

Six shouted, “Wait, I wasn’t informed about all this!”

I said, startled, “Neither was I, Six-chan!”

“I am afraid,” Four told us, “Two might’ve forgotten to give the message to you… Like father, like son. Nevertheless, let’s get there right now.” Then he vanished into the aether.

Salai said, “And we should be too! Come on, Nine and Six.”

I asked, “But where are we supposed to go, Salai?”

He replied, “To the League of Life, of course!” Then he vanished too.

Six demanded, “But it’s over a thousand miles away! How can we reach there in time?!”

“I don’t know, Six-chan,” I told her, “Do you know how to use the Drive?”

She replied, “No! And that’s the problem!”

“Now this is a bind,” I said, “Let me remember… Ah yes, chapter 296, page 6923 of I’m Kinda Bored says that we can use the Dark Field/Dark Fluid to create negative energy that would form a zone of negative energy density and contract spacetime in front of it and expand it behind which would allow us to -”

“Uh…” said Six with her mouth agape as she stared at me blankly, “Explain in English, please, Kyu-kun.”

“Basically,” I replied, ignoring her snark, “We have to do Math, Roku-chan.”

“I doubt they calculate stuff whenever they Drive, though.” She said.

I hypothesised, “Uh, I guess it’s become an intuition for them.”

She hurried, “Alright, I guess it’s easy enough. Give me the equation, I’ll make a calculator and then -”

“Not so fast, Six,” I said, “If you don’t want Hawking Radiation to pulverise you to atoms, you also need to create a field around your body. And yes, you also need to account for the energy release after the Warp Drive bubble is burst to, well, not destroy the planet and -“

“OH SHUT UP!” Said Six as she made a lollipop and stuck it in my babbling mouth.

As I suckled the lollipop, I said, “Hmm… I really like the mango flavou -”

Fury glared at me furiously, so I went silent. After that, she said, “C’mon, Nine, be serious for a second! We have never used the Drive, we are late for an emergency League of Life meeting we didn’t know about and here we are blabbering about stupid science stuff!”

“Well,” replied I, feeling offended, “Science is not stupid. And if you are so confident, go try it out yourself.”

She glared at me and gnashed her teeth as if she wanted to incinerate me to ashes. Then, she jerked away her head and swooped out of my sight. I sighed and took out my notebook to calculate the amount of energy I’d need.

“Mmm! Hmm-mm!”

I heard a strange mumbling, but I ignored it at first.

“Mmm!!! Hmm!!! Hmm-mmm!!!”

It grew louder and louder till it piqued my interest and made me say, “Who’s it?”

“Kuuuu!!! Kuuuuu!!! Hmmm-mmm!!!” The peculiar voice replied.

I wondered aloud, “What kind of weird cooing is that? I know Sensei has peculiar choices but I have never heard this cuckoo before -”

Suddenly, the voice growled at me, “KYUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!! KUNNNNNNNN!!! LOOOOOOOOOOOK!!! UUUUUUPPPPP!!!”

I turned around and looked up when a flipper hit my face like a tennis ball. After I managed to get back on my feet again, I saw that Six was hanging from the ceiling with her torso stuck in it. I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“YOUUUUUUUUU!!!!! KYUUUUUUUUUU!!! GETTTTTTTTT!!! MEEEEEEEEEE!!! OUTTTTTTTTTTT!!! IIIIIIIIIIII!!! WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILL!!! KILLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!! YOUUUUUUUUUU!!! BAKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!”

Apparently, she didn’t find her situation quite as funny.

“Alright, alright, no need to get so mad,” I said, “You know my emotion is Love and that I need to love doing what I want to do to use the Field, right? You know that you are not really lovable when you’re angry and -”

“I’LL BURN YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!”

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry, I was just kidding,” I said.

I concentrated on concatenating my carefulness, ceteris paribus, carving out the canopy of our room and then caught the cross and choleric Six in my arms as she fell. Yeah, Jesse, I know right? I am a decent poet - I am only the second person after Bob Dylan to get a Noble Prize in Literature for pop music lyrics. Hehe.

“Well, this is awkward,” Six said, “I didn’t know you were strong enough to carry me in your arms.”

“Will you get down already? You are really heavy.” I replied.

“This is why you’ll never get any girl to like you, Nine-kun,” said Six as she got down with her mouth all pouted, “Except me, of course.” She winked at me.

“Well, whatever,” said I, changing the topic, “That’s what happens when you don't listen to the science guy.”

“Yeah, yeah - I am sorry. You win in this battle,” She said, sighing, “But, well, the war isn't over yet! I will win the Flexing War someday!”

You know, Jesse, for someone who blushes at being praised, I love flexing more than I should. Six is ditto. Well, that's why Six and I have been in a ‘Flex War’ since the day we met.

“Well, the score's 439 - 279 after this. You have got a long way to catch up, sis,” I said, “I would have granted you ten points for managing to get there without calculations, but well-”

“Well (Well, Jesse, there's too many ‘well's rolling around), look who’s talking,” Six replied, “As if you’ve figured out how to get to the League of -”

“Of course, I have! I was calculating that while you were stuck up there and -”

“Then, take me there along with you if you are so sure!” Said Six, underestimating me.

I beckoned and beheld the League of Life HQ in my brain as I bated my breath and barraged myself with the betokening of the band of Field Wielders while besotting my anima with the macrocosmic banter of the bucolic beings of the world as I smiled and used the Field to teleport Six and myself to the meeting. Yeah, Jesse, you might need to get a thesaurus to understand all those b-words - because, well, I needed one too.

I looked around and saw that we were indeed in the League of Life HQ. Elated, I shouted, “Yay, Roku-chan, we did it!”

Then, after the split second of excitement, the cacophony of the hallowed halls of galactic history rambunctiously cascaded through me and instantly turned my emotions around 180 degrees before I curiously asked, “Wait, what’s going on?”

Salai turned towards me, smiled, and said, “Not much, Nine - just a hundred overpowered 5D Field Wielders who want to destroy the three-dimensional plane of existence are about to arrive en masse.”

Astounded, I screamed, “WHA-?”

He replied, as if this were another regular Saturday, “Don’t worry, you won’t die, there are no such possible future timelines where you die.”

The roof of the marvellous marble structure crumbled upon itself as loud shockwaves reverberated everywhere. Still terrified and unable to comprehend the unintelligible madness, I shrieked, “What on atheist God’s green Earth are you talking about?! What the hell is happening, Salai!?”

Salai replied, “They have come. All the best. It’s time for your evolution, Nine. I will be watching you, see ya,” before vanishing into thin air.

The femtosecond after he left, a chunk of the ceiling churned about and came crashing down on me. It would have crushed me if it weren’t for Six’s fireball that turned the boulders into ashes.

“Thanks - cough - Six,” said I as I dusted off the ashes, before yelling, “Now, can someone tell me what the hell is going on here!?”

“Agent Five, stop laughing and summon the security bots! Agent Three, stop sitting idle and help Agent Two in evacuating the civilian people and bots,” Eight was harking orders left and right. He was just a year older than me, and yet, his voice carried such a tenor of authority that his commands were instantly followed.

“Hey, Eight!” I shouted, “What the hell is even going on?!”

“Oh, Agent Nine,” he said and suddenly disappeared with a swoop. I looked around, startled, to see where he went when he suddenly reappeared and tickled my neck.

“Hahahaha - hey, what was that for?! You know I am ticklish!” I said, irritated.

“It seems,” Eight replied, “You have increased your Field Wielding capabilities but still lack in reflexes and fighting capabilities. Not good enough. Sigh.”

Well, Jesse, that’s an assessment you would expect from Disappointment.

“Enough lecture! Tell me what the hell is going on!” I demanded.

“Twenty 5D monsters are heading towards Earth, the headquarters of the League of Life. The moon has been kicked out of the orbit, or at least that’s what Agent Two said. They want to destroy the 3D plane of existence because Agent Zero filled their universe with fart - or at least that’s what President Zero said.” Eight replied - adding the last remark a bit sternly.

“I will burn… that rascal… one day…” Six murmured to herself as she gritted her teeth.

“Calm down, Six, we have to evacuate the citizens for now. Take care of him later,” I told her, then I asked Eight, “When are the monsters coming?”

“Agent Two informed us that he could sense one of them near the lunar orbit while the others are still in the Oort cloud.” He replied.

“Wait,” I pondered, “Can’t they use the Drive?”

“Oh,” Eight remarked, startled, “Apparently not - wait, why didn’t I think of that? That’s strange now when I think of it. What do you think, genius?”

There was some extra sting in the last sentence, Jesse, it’s like he holds some grudge against me.

“I dunno, exactly,” I replied, itching my head, “Maybe they are having a hard time acclimatising to this universe? I mean, I haven’t ever jumped to another universe, even more so to a universe with fewer dimensions - this is pure conjecture, not even a hypothesis.”

“Huh, so much for our Sherlock Holmes!” Eight smirked as he said it. Listen, Jesse, I hate guesswork! And it’s not my fault if I don’t have enough information to come to a definite conclusion! The classic BBC series Sherlock has made it a stereotype for whodunnit-detectives to find a needle in a football ground of hay, but that’s not how reality works, atheist Goddmanit! Like, the series doesn’t even do justice to Conan Doyle’s original Sherlock Holmes, the character is so different and - Oh, I am sorry, Jesse, I think I will bother you with my ramblings about popular media sometime later.

“Anyway, Agents Six and Nine, go help Agent Two and the other Field Wielders in evacuating the planet,” Eight said, changing the topic.

Six asked, a bit startled, “Wait, how are we supposed to evacuate an entire planet? And where are we supposed to take all the people?”

“Agent Two planned on taking them to Proxima Centauri B and C, and if required - D.” Eight replied.

I couldn’t help but wonder, “But who has that much Field Control to take over nine billion people and nineteen billion bots to another star system like th-”

Six interrupted me, “Baka desu ka?! Of course, our dear Two!”

Oh right, since Salai’s not here, Two is going to take his place as the Vice President. Honestly, that was truly stupid of me.

“Agents Six and Nine - Agents Two, Three, Four, and Five have gone over to evacuate the Western Hemisphere. The other Field Wielders of the supercluster have headed off to meet the giant 5D reptile that's rapidly approaching Earth. And Agent Seven is already off to Guangzhou to evacuate China. Let's head off there to help her.” He said before disappearing with the trademark swoop.

“Ikkuzo, Kyu-kun!” Six said excitedly as I calculated the amount of energy I'd need to get to the Pride of the Pearl.

The moment we arrived there, I noticed two things - first, the estranged kaharva taal of a peculiarly uplifting Rabindra Sangeet reverberated along the dazzling skyscraper-laden midnight sky of Guangzhou; second, dishevelled shreds of rumpled human flesh scattered all across the now-cratered, bloody-and-scarlet grounds and lakes of Yuexiu park.

Let me tell you, Jesse, I have watched many war documentaries, dozens of horror movies, hundreds of anime fights and deaths - but, none of them could have prepared me for this. Believe me when I say, Jesse, I need to learn all the languages in our galaxy to describe the blood-bending dread I felt at that moment.

Six, however, was not soaked in by the horror - instead, the air around her became hot enough to melt raw alumina. I, still traumatised by her earlier explosive shenanigans and now overcome with newfound terror, ran away from her as fast as my legs could carry me. And it appeared that my adrenaline-induced intuitive fight-or-flight decision couldn't have been more correct - as she was engulfed by her fangs of fire and jumped off with a great bang to stop the meteorites that had manifested such a mess of mashed human mass.

After recovering from the shockwave left after that supersonic boom, I looked around and saw Seven vaporising a meteor to save a humongous mass of masses. I rushed towards her, shouting and panting, “Seven! Wha-What's going-g on?!”

“Can't you see, brat?!” Seven seemed as frustrated as always, “I am trying to evacuate the population of Guangzhou while minimising casualties!”

Jesse, remember that strange music in the air I was talking about? A Fretwurt bot from ω Centauri was trying to sing Rabindranath Thakur's Hey Nuton (Jesse, let’s not get into the ‘Tagore vs Thakur’ controversy for now, please), but their vocal structure doesn't allow them to pronounce human speech - so it sounded like a drum beat. When I asked Seven about it, she said that it boosted morale so she allowed them to keep singing.

I asked with curiosity, “You are surely not trying to Drive millions across interstellar space, are you, Seven?”

“Don’t be stupid, brat!” She replied, “I am trying to gather up all of them to Drive them to Florence where Two is sending them to Proxima Centauri so that-”

“Hey, what's that?”

Someone among the crowd pointed up towards the midnight sky. At first, I didn’t notice anything of importance as it was already midnight. But when I saw Polaris and the neighbouring stars blackout in the sky as the vestiges of celestial fingers slowly endarkened constellations across the horizon - a cosmic horror descended upon me.

The crowd exploded in perturbation as Seven and I tried to control the upheaval of dread. Screams of shock and fright shamanised the ambience of the park, already seething with the shallow, scarlet pools of blood. Seven tried her best to send them all to Florence as soon as she could, but the millions of people wobbled like flies in a sherbet (flies are so annoying, Jesse, don't you hate them when they get in your drinks?). Not to risk people losing their limbs due to uncalculated use of the Dark Field, Seven implored the people to calm down.

“Listen, guys!” She yelled in a ten-metre large microphone she made, “Do you want to die by being smashed by that Fist of God over there or do you want me to slash y’all PIECE by PIECE till I EAT y'all's pieces dipped in soy sauce?!”

Silence. Everyone was Driven off to Florence. Mission ‘Scare The Living Hell Out Of Everyone For The Sake of Saving Them’ Accomplished. Respect+.

Then, I saw the looming Hands of Doom suddenly drift away from the zenith as beams of bright light flashed across the midnight sky like thunderbolts.

“What’s going on?!” I asked, curiously.

“How should I know!?” She replied, furiously.

Talking of Fury, I was just wondering if Six was caught up in the visual orchestra of bright flashes up above when I saw a bright ball of fire crash down in front of me. I rushed ahead and saw that laid in the centre of the crater was Six with burns and bruises all across her naked body.

“Six! Roku-chan! Daijobu desu ka?!” I shrieked as I shook her seemingly unconscious body. She didn't reply. Her crimson hair seemed even more scarlet with hues of blazing fire skimmering down from it. Her fair skin was varnished with the vilest shades of burn marks. Her pupils were dilated and I could feel her pulse slow down. Jesse, I have almost died over half a dozen times, I have seen and been through some really freaky accidents, but trust me - I had never felt so helpless before. I started wailing.

I felt a slap across my left cheek that knocked me off the ground before I suddenly heard Seven shouting at me, “SHUT UP, YOU BRAT! SHE'S STILL NOT DEAD! Let me make a first aid kit and then a resusci -”

As I recovered from the slap and looked up at Seven from the ground, I saw her suddenly being jettisoned off into the sky at Mach 6 and disappearing into the horizon with a twinkle, like a cartoon scene. Then out rose Six from the crater, her eyes glaring towards the direction Seven was blasted off, “YOU. NEVER. DARE. TO. HURT. MY. KYU-KUN!!! Or you will get a tighter slap next time!”

I just stood there sobbing in silence and shock as she stood up and healed herself using the Field. Before making her clothes, she winked at me and said, “Echhi, Kyu-kun, don't stare at me like that! I am naked!”

Then she came over to me, patted my head and hugged me tightly, saying, “Daijobu, Nine-kun, I am alright, it was just an uncontrolled homeostatic shock response due to - uh…” She stuttered a bit, “Oh yes, due to overexerting myself while handling a city-large meteor ejected from the moon and-”

I glared back at her. Her sympathetic smile changed to a sorrowful frown as she murmured, “Gomen'nasai, Kyu-kun… I didn't mean to put myself in danger like that… It just… happened… I am so sorry…”

“Who did this to you?” I asked, violently.

“That monster up above…” She answered, silently.

“Has it been taken care of?” I kept asking curiously.

“No, that bastard's still harassing the Field Wielders. Many of them have perished fighting… And millions across the world died due to meteorite strikes from the moon debris…” She answered, furiously.

“I am going, Six. Is the monster just beyond the exosphere or closer?” I said as I started calculating the distance and energy in my mind.

“Nani?!” Six shrieked, “No, you must not! Nine! Listen! Two's already gone to take care of him! I saw him streak past me as I fell.”

“I doubt that,” I didn't believe her, “If he were indeed Two, he would have saved you before he headed to fight that 5D being.”

“Alright, alright,” She said, giving up, “I didn’t see him - but kitto, I am truly sure that he's going up there right as we speak. The entire population has already been transferred-”

JESSE! This is NOT the time for asking what kitto means! What, you want to know more meanings?! Shut up and google it if you are so curious - just listen to what I am saying, it's been a wild ride!

“I don't care,” I replied - bursting into tears, sobbing and weeping as I spoke, “Th-That monster… th-the bakemono… It… It killed so many people! Pe-People wh-who laughed.. people who cr-cried… people who… who sacrificed to f-further their goals… and ideals… p-people… who… loved-d… I… B-boku… hi-hito ga… aish - no… suki… no, daisuki…”

I couldn’t keep it in anymore: “I LOVE PEOPLE! I LOVE LIFE! I LOVE SCIENCE! I LOVE TO BE! AND I WILL PROTECT BEINGS AS LONG AS I LIVE! FOR I LOVE THEM! Let me go, Six! I can’t just let people die! I love them! They make me happy!”

Without further melodrama, Iused…Aargh… Im sos …

I am so sorry, Jesse, this is my first time crossing through misspelt words when I'm writing to you. Forgive me, please. I swear I will try to avoid them in the future… It’s just… It’s hard to hold back tears after remembering those words… It’s as if I had wanted to say all that all the time all along… Now I realise, I am indeed Love, there is no doubt in my mind about it.

Anyway, after yelling all that, I ‘Drived’ my way out from Six's clutches into the outermost peel of the exosphere and looked around. At that moment, I realised that I had forgotten a key thing for outer space travel - an astronaut suit! But somehow, it didn't affect me at all! I felt as if I were on Earth, except for the feeling of weightlessness. I turned around and saw my childhood dreams manifest. I have been Driven across different planets by different Agents many times but I have never beheld the abyss of space in my own eyes.

The Earth! The blue bead, wrinkled with green patches, carved out by stitches of clouds like pure cotton rags, half of it shadowed by the solar umbra - all of it could fit in the palm of my hand. I felt so great yet so insignificant at the same time.

Then, the Milky Way! The dots and clots of plasma pots, also known as stars, cascaded all across the velvet sky like a paint stroke. I couldn’t keep my head straight as I kept shuffling and wobbling, distinguishing all the constellations, galaxies and nebulae that I had ever known about. The celestial sight completely erased all traces of rage and despair from my mind as I drifted slowly in the vacuum of space.

Suddenly, it seemed like a flashbang burst in front of me - but over a sextillion times brighter. Brighter than the sun, brighter than a galaxy, brighter than a supernova - perhaps even brighter than a Gamma Ray Burst. I was battered back several thousand miles by the shockwaves before I managed to get a hold of myself.

Then I saw a creature as big as the Earth flung back from the other side of the planet at a tremendous velocity, with a trail of light in pursuit. In an instant, with all my fury galloping back to me, I was following the Filius Saurii without any thought before a singular moon debris hit me in the groin at a million miles per hour and knocked me out. Yeah, Jesse, that’s the worst way to get knocked out that you know of - but trust me, I have been knocked out in worse ways, remember the washing machine?

When I woke up, I saw a horde of people surrounding me as I was lying in a king-size bed. I felt like full-body anaesthesia had been applied to me - my limbs were stiff, my eyes dared not to move, my chest felt like it was barely moving, and all my muscles were atrophied. Slowly, all my senses were recovering - starting with my auditory sense.

The most peculiar thing I noticed when I regained my hearing was a man speaking in iambic pentameter, “Telleth me not to vie this child, you doth?/ You who upon us called, Sherlock, but sought/ The source of Field perturbations that plagues/ Existence. And here lies the not-so vague/ Axle d’ phenomenon, can't you see?”

“No, I do not, my dear Shakespeare,” Another voice replied in a peculiarly Victorian accent, “Indeed, the very existence of this young man tickles my psyche and yet, I am sure that he, albeit piqueing extreme interest in me towards himself, is not the cause. My calculations simply do not add up. What do you think, Mr. Ramanujan?”

“I mean,” another voice replied in an Indian accent, “My Maths does point to him, sir. But since there are several infinities in the equations, it is possible that Leibniz's and Euler's -”

By this time, I regained my vision. They didn't seem to notice that I had opened my eyes when I had a quick glance at the people nearest to me - this was the strangest assortment of people I had ever seen. And trust me when I say it, Jesse, I have seen a lot of people all across the universe.

“Maths,” said a small-moustached man with a stark voice in a stark German accent (Did you get the bilingual pun there, Jesse?), “is the language that uses made-up nonsense to make sense of real stuff. It is entirely possible and acceptable for you to make eine mistake. Herr Sherlock here is never wrong.”

“Herr Hitler,” said a monkey standing on a cloud with a long cane, “You don’t know about the Hujubuju Expedition, do you?”

“Oh no, not that again!” An African woman with traditional attire cried, “Please, Sun Wukong Sir, not that! Anything but that!”

“Why, my dear Amina?” A man with native Philippine tattoos said, laughing, “That was Si Holmes’ biggest embarrassment. I am never going to let him forget about that, eh?”

“That’s enough, Lapulapu,” said a cyborg with a female voice, “let’s focus on the issue at hand here, shall we?”

“Yeah, Thena,” said an Arab man with emerald eyes, “Hey, Pythagoras, how’s Nine doing-? Hey, don’t doze off! Wake up!”

The woman referred to as Thena shook an old man with a white garment that looked like an Ancient Greek himation. The old man named Pythagoras shook his head out of sleep and looked at me. I closed my eyes and acted as if I were still unconscious. Pythagoras laughed.

“Hey teknon, you know I can read your anxiety by your pulse, don’t you?” He said to me, smiling, “You are awake, aren’t you? Don’t worry, we are not here to harm sy. You saved us, after all.”

I made that rookie mistake because I hadn’t yet recovered my sense of touch yet. I opened my eyes again, smirked and tried to sit up when Sherlock said: “No, no! Don’t get up, young man. You have lost a lot of energy, Your pulse had stopped and your brain showed minimal activity when we found you drifting in space after that immense blast.”

I laid back and looked up at the sky - the constellations looked familiar. I concluded I was in the original Solar System. I breathed - the atmospheric composition seemed like that of Earth, very familiar too, like the Hanging Gardens. I sighed and tried to talk, “What is going on? And what happened to those 5D monsters?”

Sherlock smiled and said, “You should know better than all of us about the monsters.”

Perplexed, I asked, “How so?”

‘Well,” smiled the cyborg in a surprisingly human way, “You erased them.”

Bamboozled, I said, “Wait, what?”

“Not exactly,” said Ramanujan, “He warped spacetime in a way that would - uh - let’s say, ‘eat’ the monsters by putting them in blackholes and then rapidly used Hawking radiation to erase the blackholes’ information, it was really unnatural for that to happen, so-”

Hitler replied, “That’s basically erasing them. Yeah, Fakir?”

The Arab man replied, “Fakir agrees with that statement.”

Flabbergasted, I yelled, “Nani?! I did what?!”

“Calm down, Nine-kun! Or you will lose all your strength!”

I was a bit relieved after hearing a familiar voice. I replied, ”Roku-chan, daijobu dayo?”

Six replied, “Hai, hai! I am alright! I was so worried about you, are you okay?”

“Ho-ho! What’s going on?” An old man with a large white beard, a Santa hat, an all-red winter attire, and a black belt appeared from the crowd, “A reunion of lovebirds, is it?”

“Nah, an angry freak like her is never gonna be my girlfriend,” I replied and waited for Six’s outburst. You know, Jesse, I love teasing her.

“Nande omae-!” She was about to burst when Sherlock snapped his fingers and everyone around me vanished.

I said, “What just happe-?” before Sherlock interrupted me, “It’s nothing. Don’t worry. We will talk again tomorrow. It’s 10 o’clock, you should better better rest. You are too weak to even have your supper, but Pythagoras assured me that you will be fine by tomorrow due to the saline.”

The moment before he said the last statement, my sense of touch started recovering and I noticed that a saline bottle was connected to my right hand. I asked him, “Can I at least be taken to my room? It’s a bit chilly in the Hanging Gardens at night.”

Holmes snapped his fingers again and we were in my room. I was lying on my bed with my favourite blanket over me.

“Thanks,” I said, before asking what’s been bugging my bacchanalian mind all along, “Can you tell me who y’all are?”

Holmes just smiled and said, “Tomorrow.” before vanishing with a snap.

Anyway, Jesse, just brushed my teeth with my left hand (with a brush that I created, mind you, I am so happy!), and feel a bit sleepy after this wild day and long chat with you. So, Jesse, that’s all for today, see you tomorrow with all the madness beckoning me!