Pellan Rise

I wasn’t unconscious for long, maybe a second or two, but when I opened my eyes again I was in a thoroughly different place. The space around us was terrifying in its strangeness. It was difficult to describe, as it kept changing in large and more subtle ways. It was like a kaleidoscope of glass that shimmered and fractured from moment to moment. Additionally, there was spinning fragments of glass around us like scattered confetti floating on a hidden breeze.

Each of these little shards of glass held flickering images. A woman made of glowing magma in one image, and a scared girl clutching a set of drums in another. It wasn’t until we drifted near one that held two arguing women in what appeared to be some broken futuristic corridor that I realised the broken bits of glass were way bigger than I’d thought.

A squeak brought my attention closer to my body, and I looked down to see Nia in a very small version of her dragon form clutching at huge baggy old guy shirt I was wearing. She was watching our surroundings like a hawk, her huge eyes darting about with the look a cat has when it’s on alert.

“Nia?” I asked with a croak.

My voice echoed strangely in this space, both muted and somehow reverberating across the place. It was eerie, and it made my anxiety skyrocket.

“Yeah, I’m here,” she said softly, her voice warped in the same way mine had.

“Yeah… but where is here?” I asked as quietly as I could.

“I don’t know… I can’t shift my form here. My magic is all whacked. I think that thing I stabbed broke my body weave because all my usual protections are down,” she told me, speaking in a fast and nervous whisper.

“What are you talking about? Sorry I don’t really understand magic at al-” I started, but I was interrupted by a sharp crack, then a shuddering boom.

The whole strange reality we were in flickered for a moment, as though I had blinked even though I definitely hadn’t blinked. I think. It’s really hard to tell with blinking you know? Sometimes I give myself a fright by blinking and not realising it was a blink, and then the world goes dark for a split second and I’m like wait what was that? Anyway, that’s what it was like.

In the distance we both saw a spot on the shifting horizon. It was strange, a spot of rioting changing colour in a reality made of spinning glass. That spot rippled, then erupted in flickering changing colours. A wave of it crashed through the void, and every time it impacted one of the free floating pieces of broken glass, it sent it spinning off at odd angles. As the shards of glass spun this way and that, they were also infused with the strange multihued energy of the wave. I watched those pieces of glass flash one by one with white light as the colourful energy settled into them like a pet getting comfortable on its person’s lap.

Something shot out of the spot where the wave had originated, a dark shifting bolt of glass that seemed to be coming straight at us. Pieces of it were cracking off as though the thing were a dark comet entering the corona of the sun. Before it could hit us, it impacted a shard that showed the image of an incredibly advanced and bustling metropolis. I saw strange creatures, some of them looking alarmingly similar to Nia’s dragon form run in fear as it impacted their world, and then the shard was gone, spinning off into the void.

“That was the one we came from…” Nia whispered in awe, “But... but it… the city… it was whole and unbroken. I’ve never seen a builder city that wasn’t broken before…”

“It looked like the thing you stabbed,” I commented in the same hushed tone.

“Yeah it did, it looked like all those creepy glass bastards,” she nodded.

“Another wave just happened,” Nia blurted, and I looked back at the spot to see she was right. Another wave had exploded out from the originating spot on the horizon.

The advancing wall of colour finally reached us, sending us spinning and careening through the void, but it didn’t affect us like it had the shards of glass with the images in them. As it had passed us, I could have sworn for a moment that I’d seen a woman in some sort of toga thing riding in a bubble. It had been for only a moment, but I was sure I’d seen her.

We had gained a lot of speed as the wave passed us, and a slight spin that brought something into view. We were speeding towards a shard of glass now, and I saw the first wave hit it and cause it to light up in multihued brilliance before flashing with a blinding white light. The impact of the wave sent it speeding towards us, and I watched with wide eyes as it loomed closer. It didn’t seem like it was going to hit us, but it was going to be a near thing.

The second wave crashed through and past us at that moment, and suddenly our trajectory had changed. We weren’t going to miss the shard now, there was no way we could!

“Shit! A third wave is coming!” Nia squeaked in alarm as she looked over my shoulder.

The next wave didn’t have time to reach us before the shard loomed closer, engulfing our view into the void for almost a hundred and eighty degrees. It was how I imagined landing on a planet, it seemed small at first, but as you approached it grew and grew in your vision until that was all you could see. I closed my eyes at the last second with a chirp of fear.

I felt the moment of impact, but it was unlike anything I’d expected. The impact was like falling a foot onto concrete. Blinking, I opened my eyes to discover that we had in fact landed on concrete. What the hell?

“Nia?” I asked with a pained moan.

“Yeah I’m here, but you’re on my tail,” she grumbled, and I quickly rolled over to let her up.

When I turned over, I looked up into a very normal seeming light polluted sky of a city. What on earth? Where had we ended up? My mind was spinning as I tried to figure out what had just happened to us.

“What the fuck are we doing in New York?” Nia asked incredulously.

“How do you know what New York looks like?” I blurted.

Seriously! She’s from like, Pellan right? Crazy fantasy land? How could she possibly know what New York looks like?

“I’ve been here before? I grew up in New Zealand after all,” Nia’s little feathered shoulders shrugged, “Now I’m gonna try and get back into human form. Being small like this is fun, but it can be a pain in the ass.”

Her form dissipated into a swirling starscape, then reformed into her human form.

“You grew up… in New Zealand,” I said slowly as pieces connected in my mind.

“Yeah that’s what I said,” she smiled down at me, then offered a hand to help me stand up.

Nia isn’t a common name right… should I ask? I’m gonna ask.

I took a deep breath and posed the question in my mind, “Do you… do you know um… a girl named Karen? Cos I know one and she had a sister called Nia.”

Nia’s expression dropped and she looked away, her eyes closed tight. Her whole body slumped and she wrapped her arms around herself protectively.

When she finally spoke again, she nodded, “Yeah. I had a sister named Karen.”

“You still do,” I told her gently, standing up on my own and moving towards her.

She turned towards me, surprise on her face, “What do you mean?”

“Well like, I know this really cool chick called Karen. She plays soccer and stuff. She’s a year above me at Wellington Combined College… and I’m kinda dating her. She talks about her really cool trans sister named Nia from her childhood. Ten years ago she and an entire lecture hall of people just went poof and vanished. No one knew what happened,” I explained carefully.

Nia wobbled as though she’d been struck, and her half shot out in reflex. I glaive coalesced out of starlight and she used it for support, leaning on the pole portion of the weapon.

“Say again?” she gulped.

“Karen is alive and kicking Nia… she misses you. She talks about how much she loved you sometimes. Mostly she’s upset over you not being in her live anymore. You should see how pissed off she gets when your parents misgender you when they talk about you,” I said stepping forward and taking the taller woman’s hand.

“They still do that huh? I’m not really surprised… but I am definitely surprised she hasn’t been brainwashed by them. And she’s a lesbian? Wow mum must have flipped her lid!” Nia grimaced.

I nodded, “She did kinda, but Karen isn’t out to anyone but our friends yet. There was this thing where a rumour got around school and your mum found it. It turned into this whole thing.”

“Damn… I wish I’d been there to help her,” Nia sighed.

“Maybe we can get you back to New Zealand with me? Then you can see her again!” I said excitedly.

Karen would be so happy to see Nia again, and the thought of her happiness made me happy too.

“We can certainly try, although we’d need some stuff first. My portal gauntlet is out of power and I doubt there will be any power crystals just laying around in the outskirts of New York,” she said thoughtfully.

Yes! She’d broken out of her sadness over Karen!

I was about to ask what our plan was, when we heard large wingbeats nearby, which was weird considering we were on normal boring Earth, then a high cute voice complaining.

“You know, every time you carry me like this I get the heeby jeebies! There’s just something not right about not flying under my own power!” the voice complained.

“Your stupid jet things are way too loud, and plus it was your damn idea to come to New York in the first place! Penrith was nice and warm this week too which is hella rare,” another huskier voice retorted.

“Oh that’s just fucking weird,” whispered Nia, “We’re in New York and there’s another New Zealand accent?”

The first voice piped up again, this time in a quieter tone, “Wait! I heard someone speak!”

How in the hell had she heard Nia talk? I’d barely been able to hear it myself! Who were these people? I tried to get a look through the darkness and around the air conditioning boxes at whoever had landed on our building. It seemed to be about ten stories or so high and otherwise fairly bland. I couldn’t tell what it was used for from on top of it.

Nia moved in front of me and spun her glaive in her hand and somehow the action turned it into her pistol that I’d seen during the battle. She aimed it at the source of the shuffling and squinted into the darkness.

“Anyone there?” a voice called, “Helloooo? We won’t bite! Well, Vulptrix might when she’s got the zoomies but I’ll use the spray bottle on her to fix that.”

“Hey! Don’t tell them that Nightbinder! I have a reputation to uphold! That’s super rude,” the voice named Vulptrix complained.

“It’s your fault for nipping me this morning. Just because you woke up in a strange place doesn’t give you the right to go and tear up the furniture,” the voice named Nightbinder chuckled.

What in the hell? Who were these people? Zoomies? Like a dog or something?

One came into view first and immediately raised her hands when she saw Nia pointing the gun at her. She was impressive looking, and the exact opposite of what you’d expect to find wandering around on Earth. She had six huge dark wings that were folded neatly against her back, and hair to match it. The tips of every feather and strand of long curly hair glowed a subtle violet that was like really pretty.

She was wearing a form fitting black leather outfit that seemed way too perfect and I questioned how she’d gotten into it. Lots of wriggling I guess. That would be funny to see. And dirty! No! Naughty teenage hormones! Bad Syl! I blinked that image away just as another girl came into view.

She was shorter than her companion and so so so cute! She was wearing a hoodie that had holes in the hood to allow her two huge fluffy orange fox ears to stick out the top. The ears were pointed forward at attention, trained on Nia and alert for anything they might hear. Her hoodie was too big for her, but underneath I could see she wore a bodysuit of some kind too. This one was different, made out of carbon fiber and matte black metal that seemed to weave and interlock together. Behind her swished the biggest fluffiest fox tail I’d ever seen, and I was almost overcome by the need to rush over and pet the fluff.

“Wow alright then, that’s a bit of a hostile hello,” Nightbinder commented with raised eyebrows.

“You’re the ones intruding. Who are you and why are you here?” frowned Nia, her arm not wavering in the slightest.

“Well then, this is Vulptrix and I’m Nightbinder. We’re here because the flaky but fluffy one here said she wanted to be here,” the girl with the glowing violet eyes and hair said sarcastically.

Worming her way around Nightbinder, Vulptrix frowned up at her feathered friend, “Hey look, I just had a feeling alright. I had to find… whoa…”

She trailed off when she set eyes on us, her gaze flicking between both myself and Nia. Her tail had stilled and her eyes were wide.

“You’re two of the girls from that vision! The one that I got when I touched the edge of that portal!” she exclaimed excitedly.

“Vision? What are you on about?” Nia frowned, still not trusting the two strangers.

“Um Nia… I don’t think they want to hurt us, maybe you should put the gun down?” I asked gently from behind her.

Nia turned slightly to look down at me, then nodded reluctantly and placed the gun in a holster at her hip.

“Alright, gun’s down. So what are you talking about?” Nia asked warily. She was being so confrontational. Maybe she was rattled by our little trip through weird space. I was calling it weird space now by the way, cos it was super duper weird.

“So like, months and months ago I made the dumb mistake of touching this portal thing, and then I saw a bunch of people! I saw… you Nia in a ruined building throwing weird star void stuff around, and I saw you little elf girl in some sort of big fight. You blew everything up with a wave of power,” explained the fox girl, bouncing from foot to foot.

“I haven’t done anything like that. I’m just a healer, I definitely don’t have the power to blow stuff up,” I replied, shaking my head.

Vulptrix shook her head right back at me, “Nah it was definitely you ay. You look exactly the same, apart from your ears are heaps shorter.”

“Alright, that’s all well and great girls, but what do we do with this information? Is there some skull lord off in his skull fortress that we need to defeat or what?” Nightbinder said, patting Vulptrix between the ears.

“H-hey stop that! I’m trying to talk to p-people!” the fox girl grumbled, even as she made a happy noise in the back of her throat.

Ignoring the public display of cute in front of us, Nia turned away and began tracing magical lines of power into the air, weaving them into a spell. She wore a frown on her face when she finished, staring into space in thought.

“What was that? I’ve never seen a power like that before,” Vulptrix breathed.

Power? Did she mean ability? Why did everything seem strange here?

“I have… Mystrix Pallas does the same thing. She’s one of the founders of-” Nightbinder started, before Vulptrix cut her off.

“Yeah yeah, the poncy superheroes tea club, I know who she is.”

“This place is strange, it seems almost drained of power. It’s flowing back in, but… this isn’t right,” Nia muttered, “There’s something off about how it feels. It works the same way, but it feels like… like someone bought a different brand from the supermarket. Functions the same but it feels different.”

I was so confused… “What does that mean?” I asked.

“The magic here feels weird,” she mumbled in reply, already weaving another spell.

This one was far more complex, and I could feel the air around us become almost excited with the power she was weaving together.

“Damn, that tingles,” Vulptrix remarked as she watched, her bright yellow eyes shining with the light the magic was giving off.

When the spell went off, Nia began swearing a string of curses that my parents would have scolded till the end of time. Damn girl… there’s little ears here! They weren’t mine or Vulptrixes though… gosh. Big ear club!

“What’s wrong?” I asked timidly.

“We’re not on Earth. At least, not on our Earth. This one is honestly fucking weird. It’s got all sorts of strange energies and shit, and as we can see by our superhero friends here, isn’t the same in other ways,” she explained in frustration.

Okay… so Nia was probably right when the weird glass fragment thing we flew away from was our own… glass thingy? Reality? Wow this was getting more and more wild by the minute! The only thing that would make this more crazy was if… I jerked my head up and took a good look around at the city.

“I don’t think we’re in the right time either Nia,” I said softly.

Nia followed my eyes out into the city, “What do you mean? Everything looks the same?”

“Yeah, for you… ten years ago. For one thing, there’s no space elevator!” I said excitedly pointing out into the ocean.

“Space… elevator?” Nightbinder asked, “Oh fuck are you from the future? When’s the space elevator go up? Have we got FTL yet so I can get the fuck off this doomed rock and away from all the idiots!?”

“That is very specific, my cute feathered girlfriend,” Vulptrix laughed up at her.

“That’s cool,” Nia nodded, “When does that go up?”

“Spoilers girls, spoilers,” I giggled.

“Oh that is really unfair!” Nightbinder complained while her apparent lover laughed at her.

“It won’t be for a few years yet cutie, our tech isn’t there yet,” the Vulptrix said gently patting her on the shoulder.

“Okay so what year is it then?” Nia asked the two superheroes.

“Two thousand and nineteen,” they replied in unison.

“Right, well that means we’re like ten years too early and in the wrong damn reality to boot. This is going to give me a headache getting us home I can feel it,” Nia sighed.

Just as she said that, the sky above us seemed to birth rolling billowing clouds out of nothing. The clouds rolled and spilled across the sky, filling it to bursting with their foreboding weight. Once the sky was filled horizon to horizon, they began to flash and pulse with strange multihued lights, and I was reminded of the waves of colour we’d seen just a few minutes earlier. Oh gosh… it was the third wave!

Beside us, the two super girls spoke in unison once more, “Ah shit! Not again!”