“Ah, a-alright then, Goodbye, Crystal!!” I yelled at her to make sure she heard me.

After that… strange magic ritual, I just went to sleep, a bit tired from all this practice. I think we spent one or two hours doing that, anyway.

The next day…

After I woke up, I rubbed my eyes and proceeded to get up from the bed. Stretching as I yawned.

Hmm… Good morning to me, I guess. I feel… oddly well. Maybe my interactions with Natalie, Crystal and the others are helping me out… I suppose that’s good.

As usual, I walked to the kitchen and started to make some nice coffee to help me focus and a quick sandwich to eat.

I pulled the hiring advertisement out of my pocket and took a look at it, looking for the address of said company. I didn’t realize it before, but it actually wasn’t that far from my house. Interesting.

With that done, I looked at one of my coffee cups in the distance while sitting on the couch. Wondering if I can use the basic magic Crystal taught me…

Pointing my arm forward and aimed at the kettle, I held it in mid air with my magic and moved it towards the coffee cup. After gulping out of nervousness, I tilted it and the coffee was pouring into the cup. 

Quickly, the cup started to overfill. “Oh no.” I moved the kettle aside and pulled the coffee cup to myself.

The cup splashed slightly although I managed to hold it. “AGH. HELL… OWOWOW!!” I blew my hand and flinched in pain. I almost wished I was a natural at magic instead of Architects. “G-geez… That hurt, but… I did something. At least. That was…” That was fun? That was fun. Definitely, oddly enough. 

Unsure what to think of that, I couldn’t help but laugh it off, I managed to use that weird lazy and convenient magic to get my coffee from far away. I just drank it, then got a taxi towards the Stellar Site yet again. I rubbed my hand a bit, but fortunately the burn wasn’t that severe. I think Crystal’s influence is getting to me already...

Soon, I arrived. I noticed everyone was already there, including Crystal. “Huh? Crystal’s here before me?... Crystal is early?!” Not gonna lie, this was a HUGE shock to me. She’s been early two days in a row, and arrived before me.

“Yeah!” Crystal wagged her tail yet again. “But don’t worry, we’re all early, so it’s no problem! Everyone wins!”

“Yeah sure…” I put my hand behind my head and rubbed my hair awkwardly out of embarrassment, then went to sit down with them. “So, where’s the protective gear we needed?” I asked, I didn’t notice anything regarding it yet.

Arthur replied in a quiet, low voice. “Don’t say that too loudly, Matt… Natalie and I brought them stored in our magic pocket dimensions to not cause a scene.”

“Ah… Sorry. “ I apologize to him in the same quiet voice, I had completely forgotten we couldn’t talk so loud about this. Oops… “This pocket dimension talk… Isn’t it hard to carry those things?”

“Yeah, I can feel the weight as if I was holding it for real, but my status as a former King sure gave me strength, I’m carrying a lot more than Natalie is.”

“Alright.” I looked at my phone for the time… “I think we should go now, everyone’s here and I don’t wanna waste any more time.

We nodded, and began our move towards the ship again. The same process from last time happened, and we started our second journey to space. Dennis looked nervous and hit his index fingers together though.

I walked towards him. “Uhh Dennis, you alright?” I put my hand on his back. Dennis sobbed. “Yeah, I’m alright… Just worried, you know. Worried that something will happen to us…”

I looked at the others, they seemed pretty fine compared to Dennis and me. “Yeah, I’m worried too, but I think it’ll all go just fine. The anxiety is definitely normal and understandable, but deep down I know it’ll be fine. We’re all professionals here. And friends too.” I can’t believe I said something so corny…

“Right… Thanks...” Dennis then started to take deep breaths. Poor guy…

“Hey, Matt.” Natalie approached me. “Oh, yeah Natalie?” I looked at her wondering what she wanted. “You mentioned the Emptiness could be a moving layer, so Arthur and I figured he could investigate that. I don’t know if you knew, but he’s practically immortal. His life is linked magically with relics etc etc… You get the idea.”

“Wait, what? What the hell Natalie?” I’m not able to take this information so fast, why is she saying that so lightly?

Arthur laughed. “Ah don’t worry Matt, basically: If my body is destroyed, my being is backed up somewhere else, it’s more like a respawn than immortality.” “Oh… That makes more sense.” I looked at Natalie visibly annoyed. “Do you think the body you have right now can resist that… thing? Though?”

“To be quite honest with you, I have no idea, but I’m confident in myself and the protective gear we have. Speaking of…” Arthur and Natalie had now summoned some strange dark cubes out of their magic storage.

“Cubes?...” I looked at them and poked one gently. Suddenly, the cube shaped into a suit of armor that matched my body size. “Huh… neat.” I looked around. “So we’re putting these along with the travel belts?”

“Yes, that should keep us more protected than needed.” Replied Arthur, we then all put on our travel belts, and our armor suits.

Dennis struggled to put on his armor. “Aaah, I can’t… Put this on. Can you guys please help me?”. “Alright! I’ll help you, little guy!” Crystal chuckled and helped Dennis put on his suit, like a big mom helping her needy child. Weird to watch, but kinda funny nonetheless. “T-thanks… Crystal.” Dennis blushed a bit and Crystal chuckled, soon enough, we had everything ready.

And when we were ready, we made a stop at the Colderes planet, near the wall of dark goopiness that was blocking so much of the universe. The gates opened, and Arthur looked at us.

“Hey, if for any reason things don’t go as expected… Just promise me you folks will take care of things for me.”

I leaned my head back. “Arthur? You and Natalie said that you will be fine. Why the sudden different speech?”

“Just a small precaution, this whole situation is still a huge mystery for us. Now then, take care. I’ll go explore this thing.”

Arthur jumped off the ship and submerged himself into the horrible, possibly soul draining goop of absolute darkness.

…Darkness. Absolute darkness. That was all there was to welcome me in this strange portion of the world…

My name is Arthur Gold, I was once the king of planet Meex, but now that things are so much better, my position is no longer needed. But you already knew that, didn’t you? I just wondered for so long if there was a time where I would be needed once again, and I guess that time is now…

Strangely, this goop doesn’t seem to be doing anything to me, compared to that poor, poor plasmatic who lost his life. Nonetheless, I ventured forward through this… insanity, using a heat detector thanks to my robot body’s functions. But no matter how much I moved, it didn’t seem like there was an end to this anomaly. I reached to press a button in my suit, activating a communication system to the others.

“I hate to say this, but it doesn’t seem like the Emptiness is a moving, traveling layer. It looks like it has entirely consumed the rest of the universe…” How… disgusting, yet interesting.

“What?!” I heard Matt’s voice reply to me in shock. “That… That’s for real, Arthur?” He really sounded deep in fear there.

“Yeah, sorry lad, that’s how it looks to me. I’ll take a closer look though, I want to see if I can find anything important through this side.”

“Stay safe… please.” Appreciating Matt’s caring, I walked around in the darkness… Then I spotted some oval shaped objects.

“Huh?” I walked towards them. They looked… big. What’s… this?

I started my scanning function and checked this oval shaped object. The image was then transferred to my mind.

“An… egg?” Nervous, I quickly looked around me. The same shape was everywhere, no matter the distance, wherever I looked around… It was there. Everywhere. Wasting no more time, I turned on communication to quickly inform them. “Hey, you all… Remember that weird spider alien I shot last time?

“Yeah?” I heard Dennis’ voice answer nervously.

“Those things… They reproduce. A lot.” Backing backwards slowly, I resumed. “We’re gonna have to deal with much more than I thought…”

I can’t deal with this, especially not right now… For now, I should just return to the others. I fled the scene with all my might…

...Back there, Natalie, Crystal, Dennis and I, Matt were watching the barrier of Emptiness.

“Geez… He’s been there for a bit. I seriously hope he’s alright, like, doesn’t the thought of so many alien things get under your skin?” Dennis pouted.

“Yeah, it really does…” I noticed Dennis was shivering.

To our surprise, Arthur came out of the goop sprinting and fell over.

“O-OH! Arthur!!” I screamed at the top of my lungs and we rushed over to him. I quickly used telekinesis magic to get the goop off him.

Arthur panted. “Don’t worry, I’m alright… When did you learn magic though, Matt?”

“Ah... A friend taught me some recently.” I looked at Crystal for a moment, then back at him. She smiled slightly. “Doesn’t matter now though, it’s good to know you’re alright.”

Crystal and Natalie began to check him. “Yeah, it doesn’t seem like he’s injured.” Said Natalie. “No marks, no bruises, nothing… You’re just… scared, aren’t you?”

Arthur sighed. “Yeah, I get it Natalie… Ugh... “ He then stood up and cleaned himself.

Shaking my head, I said, “When we get back, we shouldn’t hide these details anymore. We need to do something about it, and we need all the help we can get.”

The others just stared at me. “Huh?” I started to question if what I said was a good idea, but… Natalie sighed.  “Well, first let’s investigate this place some more, then we can do that.”

“Ah.” My eyes opened wide and I smiled. “Thank you, Natalie. I wasn’t expecting you to agree… But I’m glad you did.” Crystal butted in. “Not gonna lie, I think we should tell everyone else BEFORE we investigate more.” Arthur replied to Crystal’s words. “Well if we got more Shielders involved it’s possible we wouldn’t be given so much freedom around here, so for now let’s enjoy that a little bit, let’s not waste too much time though.”

You should probably bring someone with you, right? I’m sure you can carry someone on your back or something…”

Dennis looked visibly disgusted. “Not it!” Natalie then followed his answer. “Not it.”

I looked at Crystal… She gave me a goofy smile… “Ouch.” Was the only thing I could say. Really, ouch… I awkwardly got on Crystal’s back and she then quickly took flight, oddly enough, she was kinda comfy.

“Agh… I’m not gonna fall off, right?” It would be a bit scary to fly like this, but my career in architecture made me not fear heights, thankfully…

“You’ll be fine! Just hold on tight while we look around! Plus, if it makes you feel any better, you can now tell everyone you got to ride a big woman!”

“H-how will that make me feel any better?!” Crystal laughed hard and we just kept flying… desperately looking for answers and clues.

“Hey, you see that over there?” I pointed at a crowd of… spider things. “Actually, can we call those things Usurpers from now on?” Crystal sounded a bit annoyed. “I’m getting bothered by the fact that we’re referring to them with no name and just saying stuff like, ‘that thing’. I think giving them a name would be nice.”

“Right… So what should we do with those Usurpers? Do we kill them or something?” The words kill already had escaped my mouth, but honestly, am I really to blame? “No, I think we should observe them a bit. Let’s see if we can learn anything from them.”

“From animal documentaries to alien observation… My life is really spiking lately.” Crystal chuckled a bit as I finished my sentence and we looked at them from a safe distance.

We noticed the Usurpers walk around in a herd in a direction, continuing to follow them, we saw… “That’s… Is that a dead body?” [Gulp]. “Is that the one you found with Dennis?”

“No, that’s another one. I didn’t see it before. Probably one of those detectives that died here… Let’s see what happens!” “Crystal… Are we gonna watch a bunch of creepy freaks eat a body?” …“To be fair, he’s already dead, and it’s all to find out more about them.”

“What was I expecting when I agreed to come with you?…” We watched the scene, with me doing so reluctantly. The spiders just… drained the body out of its remaining soul.

I looked at Crystal. “They don’t even do anything with the body itself, they just drain its soul energy. If that’s it, then there’s nothing else to investigate. Can we please go back?”, “Alright, fine you crybaby.” Frustrated and annoyed as Crystal mocked me, we returned to the others.

When we got back, we just explained to Natalie, Arthur and Dennis that we didn’t reach any new conclusions.

“This is stupid.” Natalie groaned annoyed. “Let’s just go home before something dumb happens.”

With that done, we went into the spaceship and sat down. As always, Dennis drove the spaceship back to Stellar Site.

I looked at Natalie. “Hey, Natalie, you got a moment?”

“...What is it?”

We looked each other in the eyes, I could tell the entire situation was frustrating her. 

“I’ve been thinking about building houses, so I wanted to divide my work hours to do that. I think it’d be a good idea to give everyone a home that can withstand incredible damage.”

“...Alright, that’s fine. I’ll do the necessary paperwork when I get home.” Natalie calmed down a little. “Thank you.” I smiled a bit at her… After several seconds, she couldn’t resist and smiled back at me.

The noises of the spaceship and the usurpers being so close were killing me with anxiety, but our smiles calmed me down. 

We eventually got back to Stellar Site and we parted ways without saying much… Of course, then, everyone went home… But I went to that company that advertised to me instead.

Just before my hands reached towards the door’s handle, a strange man appeared right on my face, as if dropping from the ceiling.

“HELLO THERE!”

Remaining completely silent and motionless, I just stared at him.

“Woah, the death glare huh? That’s got some skill, who are chu fam?” … “...I’m Matt Brown. Architect, Shielder. You literally gave me a flyer…”

“Ooooh yeah! That guy! Now I see that badge on your chest isn’t just for show, yes yes mmhm...  I remember now. Come in!”

This man… seems to be weirder than Crystal, which is an achievement by itself, but I walked in nonetheless. As I looked around the company, I noticed that the walls and floor were all decorated to resemble royal colors. Kinda interesting, I guess???

Well, alright. I talked to him. “Alright, uhh Mr. I brought this folder with all the documents you need to register me, including my academic titles. Uhh where are you?” I looked behind me and I completely had lost sight of him.

“OVER HERE SILLY!” I almost jumped from his yell and looked in front of me. Somehow for reasons I couldn’t explain, this man had moved to a desk in front of me without me even seeing him go there.