Dimensions Collide: Destiny Bond

Chapter 236: The Faults of Friendship

A month after Prota’s discussion with Ryu, the plan was finally set into motion. Destiny had helped with some of the planning, but his main goal was actually to prepare the others for what was to come. Even without Anta’s explanation, he had a rough idea of what they needed to prepare for.Supposedly, Lupin had approached Destiny in this life as well. It was a little odd, given that Prota had already proposed to solve Zuko’s issue, but perhaps it was a matter of information travelling slowly. Regardless, Destiny was already aware of the issue and had informed the Mystic accordingly. This, in turn, led to Lupin approaching Anta, who managed to convince the wolf that everything was under control.

Everything was almost perfect. There were plenty of things that could go wrong, but in the end, both Prota and Anta felt they could compensate for any unknown variables. Ultimately, this had been a situation they could have handled on their own. The addition of friends only made things harder, but it was still manageable.

“I’m not, um, all that sure about this anymore.”

Danjo was shaking as he stepped through the portal to the land of the Dwarves. The others seemed nervous, too, but they didn’t say anything.

“...you can go back,” Prota offered quietly. “It’s ok.”

“N-no. I’ll stay.”

“Everyone. Last chance.”

At a surface level, it just looked like a field trip. Seven kids standing around in the open, most of which were wearing a school uniform, adults passing by without a second glance.

But each of those children knew it was a lot more than that.

Expectedly, no one refused. For a moment, Prota scanned their faces. The range of expressions was fascinating.

Danjo, obviously, was incredibly nervous. Arthur seemed a little timid as well, although he was hiding it a lot better. Aurora didn’t quite seem confident, but she did seem to be comfortable. Surprisingly, she was one of the ones who’d volunteered to engage in actual combat, something Anta hadn’t anticipated.

Destiny, as usual, seemed calm and collected. He was especially confident after having been told that he’d almost solved the case on his own in Prota’s past life.

Surprisingly, Celestia seemed strangely excited. Well, given what Prota knew about the princess, it wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it was still a little odd. She wasn’t going to fight, but she seemed rather enthusiastic about charging into battle.

The most interesting of all, however, was Briar. Gone was the carefree attitude she usually had. A war hammer hung by her side, one she’d personally crafted. There was a flame in her eyes Prota hadn’t quite seen before, and she was scarily focused.

Well, given what was at stake, it wasn’t entirely strange.

Eventually, they made their way through the streets, with Briar leading the way. When they knocked on the door to Zuko’s home, he answered immediately, carrying a small box in his hands.

“Hello,” Anta said calmly.

It had taken the group a little getting used to, seeing Anta in Prota’s body, but after a while they had no choice but to adapt to it.

“...I suppose this is not something I should comment on,” Zuko said sadly. “Is it time?”

“Yes. Well. No. One last thing.”

“What is it?”

“Do the cultists know what the weapon they’re chasing is?”

“...no,” Zuko said slowly. “I am surprised they are aware of its existence to begin with. It is an incredible tool, but I do not know that they are expecting something such as this. This was an experiment, a dream of mine, and so I do not believe they would be conscious of its capabilities.”

“Right, right. So you’re saying that if we use it, they won’t recognize it?”

“That is… correct.”

“Do you have another sword in the house?”

“I do, but-”

“Give the weapon.”

Zuko hesitantly handed it over to Anta while everyone else watched. Then, to their amazement, Anta gave it to Briar.

“Use it well.”

“Wha- me? But, hold on, I-”

“Shut up and take it. Zuko. Do you have any qualms against this?”

“The dangers-”

“We needed to give it to someone anyway. If it stayed in this town, the cultists would keep coming after it. If we declare that it’s being held in Scholaris, they won’t be able to go after anyone here. At least, they shouldn’t be able to.”

Anta suddenly realized there were potential flaws in this plan. That doubt was quickly erased by the knowledge that it hadn’t been an issue in her previous life. The cultists wouldn’t try to go for such an item that hard, surely.

“I- I can’t take this,” Briar gasped. “This is gramps’ greatest work, I-”

“You’re a perfect candidate,” Anta grumbled. “You understand weapons. You make them. There is literally no one more suited for this than you.”

“...but I’m not-”

“What? Not worthy? Then prove it here!” Anta yelled, poking Briar in the chest. “It’s not about being worthy or not! Do you want to help your grandfather? If anyone is going to inherit his will, it’s you!”

“...she’s right, Briar. You’ve grown into a fine blacksmith indeed,” Zuko smiled. “I hate to put you all in danger like this, but I planned on passing it down to you eventually.”

Briar hiccupped, wiping her eyes before a tear could fall.

“You’re right. Thank you, everyone.”

She opened the box and pulled out the orb, the material immediately shifting into the shape of a hammer as it fell into her hands. For a brief moment, white flames flickered over the thing before it shrank back into an orb.

“Let’s go beat up some cultists.”

~~~

The plan started without a hitch.

Everyone had changed into much more formal wear. Prota found it a little odd to see them in fancy suits and dresses, but it wasn’t the first time they’d dressed as such. And, since Ryu had informed his men of the situation already, they settled into the audience without incident. Zuko and Anta followed moments later, and were joined by Ryu and a bodyguard in a rather familiar balcony.

“Can everyone hear me?”

Destiny’s voice shot out from the earpiece Danjo had made for everyone. Combined with Prota’s knowledge of Danjo’s items from her previous life, Destiny’s knowledge of Earth technology, and Danjo’s prowess, they’d managed to make a magical communicator that worked within close proximity. It wasn’t perfect, but it was more than enough to allow everyone to communicate.

“Yep.”

“Yes!”

“All good over here.”

With everyone present and ready, the lights in the audience dimmed, the stage lights flickering to life.

“Here,” Anta said quietly, handing out some masks. “You’ll want to put this on.”

“...what is it?” Ryu said hesitantly.

“It’s a filtration system, similar to what alchemists use. You’ll need it soon unless you plan on getting your mind messed with.”

“I see. Very well.”

The play soon began. Anta didn’t bother watching. It wouldn’t reach its conclusion, anyway.

And just like that, the lights went out, save for a singular one resting on the stage.

“You-”

“Shh.”

The fog rolled around on the ground lazily, but Anta had already secured her mask on. She’d similarly placed one on Zuko, and it seemed Ryu and his bodyguard had worn theirs as well.

“What now?” Ryu said slowly.

“Alright. We have a team rushing to disable the fog machine. We need to create a distraction for them so the cultists don’t guard it. Once that’s done, I’m going to run around and activate the magic circles we’ve placed.”

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“Magic circles?”

“The fog contains brainwashing ingredients or something. However, it’s easily destroyed by wind. We’ve created traps to push out large gusts of wind, and that’ll wake up the civilians easily enough. The cultists in your organization should stick around to help, so once everyone’s out, I need you to close the portal. Zuko. You stay here, and keep yourself safe. Understood?”

“...you really have thought this through.”

“Don’t think too hard about it. Come on.”

With her explanation finished, Anta leapt down. Ryu and his bodyguard quickly followed, landing on the stage gracefully. Immediately, three Yakuza members rushed forward, all wearing masks.

“What the- you shouldn’t be awake! Hey! Get ‘em!”

“Too bad,” Anta smirked, a giant hammer forming in her hands. “You should’ve planned better.”

She leapt forward, immediately sending one of the enemies flying. Unfortunately, these enemies seemed to be stronger than the usual riffraff Anta had faced so far. Her hammer shattered upon contact, and while the cultist did get launched into the air, he managed to survive.

Thankfully, she wasn’t fighting alone this time.

Ryu rushed forward to engage another cultist in battle, their blades clashing. Then, in a sudden maneuver, the cultist was disarmed, and Ryu’s blade pierced the cultist’s chest, turning red hot as he pulled up, cleaving the enemy’s head in two.

Similarly, the bodyguard was engaged with his own opponent, although his victory wasn’t quite as decisive. His fists seemed to be coated in some kind of stone, and while he was deflecting the attacks coming his way, he wasn’t exactly winning, either.

Anta didn’t have time for that, though. She leapt up, chasing her own opponent, kicking off a platform of ice that materialized under her feet. Driving her foot into the cultist, she sent him flying even further up. Ice coated her fist in a deadly sharp spike as a gust of wind pushed the enemy back down, sending him into Anta’s attack, the spike driving straight through the cultist’s heart.

“Impressive,” she heard Ryu whistle.

This wasn’t the time to be impressing old dwarves, though.

“Prota!” she heard through the earpiece. “We need help!”

Her eyes widened as she immediately dove back toward the ground. Ice coated her feet as the wind guided her back down, allowing her to convert her momentum into a powerful slide, sending her straight toward the curtains of the stage.

“What are you doing?!” Ryu cried out.

“Change of plans! Distract them a little more! I’m going to disable the machine! And get those performers off the stage if you can!”

Anta cursed. What happened?

As she bolted into the backstage, where the fog machine was operating, she saw Celestia desperately trying to heal Briar, who had a dangerous looking gash in her side.

“Anta!” Destiny cried out. “There’s way more of them than we thought!”

Anta’s eyes widened. What was going on?

Indeed, there were a dozen more cultists than she’d expected, and some of them were human, not dwarves.

If she’d been alone, this wouldn’t be an issue. But the fact that she’d left the task to the kids…

“Dammit,” she cursed, charging forward.

The numbers were an issue. She’d have to use everything.

“Anta,” Prota said quietly.

“Yeah. Let’s do it.”

There was a flash of light as the two synchronized, red and blue harmonizing together. Immediately, a sword and shield dropped into Anta’s hands while a volley of blue fireballs formed over her head, stretching into arrows that began to spin violently, creating a hot draft of air.

The arrows shot forward at dangerously fast speeds, immediately killing one cultist and catching the others off guard. While they were distracted, Anta swung, killing another. She watched as Destiny also shot forward, his blade cleaving through yet another enemy.

“Watch out!”

Aurora leapt forward, catching an arrow for Celestia, who was still healing Briar.

“Argh! What happened?!” Anta yelled, tossing her shield to block yet another attack.

Just like before, her allies were proving to be an actual liability rather than asset. Having them present was actually getting in the way of her progress.

But they’d known that would be the case from the start.

The realization, however, was so disorienting that it broke the synchronization, leaving Anta in charge of the body again. That was fine. It was actually better for the two to be focused on two different things at the moment.

With Prota capable of acting on her own, she was now able to focus entirely on blocking the attacks aimed at her friends, while Anta could focus entirely on the offense. Of course, this also meant she would be getting no new weapons, but that was fine.

“Prota!” she suddenly heard.

Just in time, her arm shot up to catch a sheet of paper that had been tossed her way. With a quick glance, it seemed to be a magic circle.

An explosion magic circle.

“Oh, this’ll be fun,” she grinned.

A wall of ice suddenly blocked her path, but it did also catch half a dozen arrows, and in the moment, that was better than having a free range of movement. Anta ploughed through the thing, blocking an attack before immediately slapping the paper onto a cultist’s face. She grabbed onto his shirt and planted her feet onto his chest, pushing off him like a springboard.

“Everyone clear!”

The cultist stumbled backward into his allies, just as Anta fed the circle a little mana. A giant explosion engulfed them, taking out three more enemies.

“Ugh. You couldn’t handle this?” Anta grumbled as she found herself by Destiny’s side.

“Briar got caught off guard. She got a little upset after one of them insulted her grandfather,” Destiny sighed. “And when Cel went to heal her, the cultists kept trying to attack them. It was a little hard to protect and fight at the same time.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

Suddenly, Briar was back up. Celestia had moved onto healing Aurora, who was apologizing for having been hit.

“Sorry, guys,” Briar gasped as the weapon in her hands turned into a mace. “It won’t happen again.”

“It will happen again,” Anta sighed. “But that’s fine.”

“You know, I don’t know how comfortable I am taking orders from someone who looks like they’re at least two years younger than me,” Briar muttered. “Does no one else find it odd?”

“No,” Destiny said, shaking his head. “I think we all find it odd. But what can we do?”

“I’m right here, guys.”

“I like Prota better,” Briar laughed. “Can you bring her back?”

“After the fight is over.”

Still, Anta was rather pleased with the situation. Her allies weren’t exactly war machines, but they weren’t incompetent fools, either. Somehow, they were fine in the face of battle.

“Alright! Let’s go!”

Briar charged forward, swinging her mace like a madman. Her technique wasn’t very refined, but her understanding of the weapon was. She understood its weight, its balance, and that allowed each of her strikes to carry incredible weight and force. She was using the most of her weapon, and while it was somewhat easy to dodge her blows, getting caught by even a single hit might just spell death.

“What the hell are they feeding these kids?!” one of the cultists yelled. “Why are they so freakin’ strong?!”

Anta nodded at Destiny, who nodded back. The situation had stabilized. Anta could go back to the plan.

The machine was quickly broken, and Anta rushed back out to the stage, where Ryu and his bodyguard were holding off a group of cultists. However, the stage was now void of innocents, meaning the next phase of the plan could begin.

“What took you so long?” the bodyguard yelled.

“Problems! Get clear!”

“What?”

Anta’s body began to heat up as flames started to swirl around her in a fiery vortex. Time slowed down as Prota concentrated, making sure to use just the right amount of mana on this spell. Now that she’d used both Casting and Fighting, there was no need to hide it anymore.

“Let’s go.”

An explosion at Anta’s feet launched her forward, sending her right into the enemy. Explosions went off around her as the flames coating her body shot out, mixing with oxygen to knock the cultists down.

Instead of staying to fight, though, she kept running as Prota fed mana into the various magic circles scattered around the audience. Strong winds picked up, the audience waking up nearly instantly.

Chaos immediately followed. The civilians screamed as they tried to get out, scrambling over each other. Anta caught glimpses of Yakuza members doing their best to escort everyone out, while the rest of the cultists charged forward. She had to hold back. It would be so easy to end this if she just sacrificed some lives…

But that would defeat the whole reason she was here.

Suddenly, her friends burst out from the backstage, clashing with the cultist reinforcements who had arrived to help. A full scale battle was breaking out on the stage.

Destiny, his golden blade cleaving through one enemy. Another. Aurora, doing her best to weave through the enemies, planting magic circles on the ground and igniting them as cultists stepped over them. A massive hammer wielded by Briar would knock down a row of enemies, and Ryu would follow up, his blade slicing through the air.

Anta didn’t even need to do anything.

“...they’re not bad,” she muttered with a faint smile. “Not bad at all.”

Sure, they were weak. Sure, they might get in the way.

But both Anta and Prota could only say that in hindsight. If this had been their first life, would they still think this way?

Or would the power of friendship be real?

Perhaps it had its faults. Working alone might be easier.

But that was just a thought. Not a fact.

And in this moment, perhaps that thought would be changed.

To judge everyone by worth, by value, by skill, was pointless. That was the way of a [Reader]. That was the viewpoint of someone who saw these people as statistics, as numbers, as potential.

But to Prota, that wasn’t the case. These were friends. These were people. And in this moment, they were more than just their fighting ability or their worth.

They were simply friends.

And, in a way, there was no greater joy than simply enjoying the companionship of others, liabilities or not.

“Well, we can’t be getting left behind now, can we?”

Prota felt hope rise up in her chest.

Right.

She couldn’t leave all the work to her friends, could she?

She began to focus as the mana before her compressed itself. Thankfully, the cultists were all too busy fighting to notice her, and she just needed some time. It wasn’t as if she had to end things this way, but she wanted to.

Just because.

“Aurora,” Anta said into her earpiece. “Can you set up magic circles around the stage? Just to stop the enemies from running away. We’re going to need to trap them for a moment.”

“Wha- what are you planning?”

“We’re going to obliterate anybody still standing. When I give you the sign, you guys all need to get away, alright? Destiny, help anyone who can’t move fast enough.”

“...are you sure about this?” the hero said hesitantly.

“Obviously. Just stall them a little longer.”

Meanwhile, Prota could feel the mana folding before her. Condensing. Accumulating. But with her current level of control, such mana would be wasted on mere arrows.

No. Mana this dense should be used on spells just as equally dense.

The formation for Frozen Flames began to form, but instead of simple roses, they began to stretch, taking the shape of spears, the spearheads filled with blue flames, glittering in the stagelight.

A few more seconds. Just a few more seconds.

“Move!” Anta yelled.

At this point, everyone could feel the potential of the spell, even the cultists. Unfortunately, they couldn’t afford to be distracted, not with the constant barrage of attacks coming from the other students.

“Argh! Get that girl!” one of them yelled.

It was too late.

“Move!” Anta yelled.

Destiny picked up Aurora while Briar threw her new weapon down, turning into an incredibly long staff that pushed her off the stage. Ryu grabbed his bodyguard and leapt, leaving all the cultists behind.

“Destiny!”

The hero wasted no time in spreading his mana, activating every magic circle trap at once. Flames sprung up high in the air, and while the cultists probably could have pushed through them in exchange for a little damage, the instinctive fear of one’s life kicked in, holding them back.

“Alright. Let’s do it.”

Immediately, above the cultists, dozens of Frozen Flames in the shape of spears formed, the blue flames inside the ice creating a sparkling show of lights.

“So… pretty,” Celestia gasped, staring at the massive spell above the stage.

Anta leapt up, flipping the cultists off with a sadistic grin.

“Eat shit, losers.”

The spears struck down on the stage, splintering the wood and lodging themselves next to the cultists. A few managed to impale their enemies, but the rest missed or were deflected. That didn’t matter.

“Explode.”

Thousands of shards of Frozen Blossoms scattered as the blue flames exploded, slicing through the dozens of cultists that remained. It was an instant bloodbath that was quickly incinerated by the explosions and flames that coated everything that hadn’t been hit.

Anta landed, patting Ryu on the shoulder.

“Sorry about your stage.”

“I… um… that’s quite all right,” Ryu gasped, his jaw hanging low.

Similarly, all the other students save for Destiny couldn’t help but stare.

“...we really are weak, huh?” Arthur said nervously. “No wonder you called us out. Did you even need us?”

Anta smiled, but it was Prota who spoke.

“No. But having friends. Nice. Thank you.”