Chapter 20 - Digital Gods and Ancient Rot

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GREETINGS TO ALL MY DEAR READERS, AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🎆🎊🎈

I know my excuses must be getting a bit old by now, but I truly apologize for the long wait between chapters. These past few months have been a whirlwind; I finally graduated from college and got a bit carried away organizing the festivities for both Christmas and New Year.

I'm hoping this year allows for a more consistent posting schedule while maintaining the quality of writing you expect. Regardless of the delays, I want to thank you all once again for your patience and for taking the time out of your day to read my work. 

I hope you're all having a great day!

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[GAME OVER / SUPER ALIEN HERO BUDDIES ADVENTURES]

MC'S POV

Once again, the Rust Bucket rumbled along the highway, the last vestiges of New Mexico's rustic beauty giving way to California's sprawling urban presence. 

Morning sunlight, bright and golden, soon streamed through the windows, illuminating the floating dust motes that danced in the RV's always cozy interior.

The ride here was as smooth as it was long, hours of cloud-chasing, snack-sampling, and me occasionally stretching out across the front seat, enjoying the familiar sway that weeks on the road have brought me even after so many wacky adventures. 

The deep, steady hum of the road under the wheels had long since become background music whenever I took the time to enjoy my time with Grandpa and the girls rather than focusing on my secret projects. It was the sound of a perfect, lazy summer road trip, the kind of quiet normalcy that felt precious given the insanity that usually tracked us down.

Behind me, Kate was engrossed in a comic book, her brow furrowed in concentration. The vibrant colors of the panels reflected faintly in her focused eyes. She still hasn't figured out what her superhero name or suit should look like, but from the looks of it she was searching for inspiration at the source of it all.

Lucy, ever a fidgeter, bounced a small rubber ball off the ceiling, catching it effortlessly without ever taking her eyes off the window, already trying to spot the first signs of the city while also probably still considering how much of a career she could have as an actress despite her alien origin.

"Bubblegum! It's catchy and funny!" She suddenly announced out of nowhere, reminding me that she was also looking for a proper hero name. 

"Yeah, I honestly like it way better than Mud-Girl." Kate muttered without taking her eyes from the comic book she was reading. "But if I were you I would still keep looking for another one."

"Nah, it shouldn't be that complicated to find a super hero name. Heh." Lucy shrugged back with her usual chuckle. "Besides, if I don't come up with something quickly, I will just have to accept what the people come up with."

Meanwhile Gwen was sketching in a thick notebook, her hand a blur of precise, rapid motion, the occasional tap-tap of her pencil punctuating the steady grumble of the engine. She wasn't drawing aliens this time, but some complex magical notes she'd apparently just understood from my last teaching, runes that very much resemble those of the charms of Bezel.

Fortunately I've already wrapped my head and ego around how much of a natural she is with understanding the basics of her reality warping powers. Granted, the fact that she now respects my teachings as the gospel truth sort of helps too.

"Almost there, team!" Grandpa Max called from the driver's seat, that signature warmth in his voice. He glanced into the rearview mirror, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Just a few more miles to Hollywood! Get ready for Planetary Studios!"

A small cheer broke out, more relaxed than rowdy.

We'd been cooped up long enough for even Gwen to lift her head, pausing her careful cross-hatching, and look up with genuine anticipation. Even the promise of a day without fighting or just traveling seemed like a massive event.

And so, the air itself seemed to shift as the morning stretched on, the dryness of the desert sand long past, giving way to the smog-tinted, salty promise of a California summer.

Skyscrapers in the distance peeked through the morning haze like titans rising from an ocean of steel and asphalt, their upper floors catching the dazzling, midday sun. Palm trees lined the road like a ceremonial red carpet rolled out specifically for the absurdity that lay ahead.

My smile was a quiet, knowing one. 'Finally, Planetary Studios! They had no idea what truly awaited them there, or, rather, who had built it…figuratively speaking, of course.'

Just then, the Rust Bucket gave another one of its familiar low groans as Grandpa Max eased it off the highway, the asphalt of the exit ramp freshly laid and smooth, lending the descent a deceptively gentle feel. I caught my reflection in the side window: sunglasses, a casual smirk, and a posture so laid-back it bordered on horizontal.

The perfect image of a carefree kid about to hit the most hyped theme park of the year.

'A pity I couldn't bring Charmcaster and the others here yet. Not without risking my carefully crafted image as the boss they needed to tread carefully around. Though I'm sure Jen would have a blast coming here from time to time…' Were my fleeting thoughts before I focused back on the present.

By the moment we rolled into the sprawl of Los Angeles proper, a welcoming kind of giddy tension bubbled in the air. Not the mission-ready, villain-chasing kind we were used to, even after I made sure to take out so many of the big threats without alerting Max and the girls. 

This was different. Sure, it still smelled of sunscreen and fresh asphalt, the hyper-clean scent you only find near coastal highways and newly opened, multimillion-dollar resorts, but also the sense of wonder that I knew kept reminding even the likes of grandpa of his inner child.

"I still can't believe we got tickets, Grandpa!" Beside me, Gwen was already lowering her sketchbook, her voice tinged with genuine awe. "They were completely sold out the moment they were announced. People online were losing their minds over the launch party."

"Yeah, I heard they crashed the ticketing system. Like, worldwide!" Lucy nodded, catching her ball mid-air and instantly grabbing her camera to take a picture of the glittering skyline. "You must have some serious connections, Grandpa!"

"Let's just say a certain contact has a knack for finding…" Max chuckled, tipping his tourist cap lower. "…opportunities." He shot me a brief side glance with a knowing smile, and I fought the grin creeping up my face.

This 'contact' had done a lot more than just get some opening day tickets. He played an important part in building today's main event from scratch, a multi-billion dollar conglomerate developed on the back of future knowledge and very aggressive intellectual property acquisition. Oh, also some basic knowledge on futuristic architecture at the very last minute.

"Or maybe…" Kate said, joining us on the front and leaning by the side of my seat, a knowing, half-smile playing on her lips. "…our local VIP superhero pulled a few strings."

"Who, me?" I asked, all mock innocence, raising both hands in a gesture of surrender. I savored the girls' bewildered looks, before adding with a dismissive shrug. "Just lucky, I guess. A friend of a friend in the right place owed me a big favor."

They bought it, or at the very least pretended well enough to the point of not letting the suspicion cross their superficial thoughts, after all it wasn't my first time pulling out some VIP tickets. 

Though I must admit, that by now it was half the fun to me, skating right at the edge of discovery and never quite tipping over. It was my own private game.

Regardless, back to the amusement park waiting for us. 

It was exhilarating, let me tell you, this place was my brainchild. Designed, funded, and quietly overseen with meticulous care, the ultimate investment in normalizing the abnormal. And yet here I was, planning on standing in line for a ride like any other guest, a cool pair of sunglasses concealing the true depth of my involvement.

Though the irony of me, the secret owner of the popular Entertainment Company that has invested in this colossal entertainment complex, acting like a surprised tourist would never be lost on me. 

Not only that, but I had already long made sure that my legal team had made sure that 'Super Alien Hero Buddy Adventures' and any other non-authorized crummy rip-offs were nothing but a distant, forgotten memory, bought out and dissolved faster than a Plumber could run a background check.

And as for Abel and Kane North… well, let's just say my 'Guardian' brand has a very comprehensive talent management division. 

Sometimes, the best way to handle a Kangaroo Commando problem is to offer a better deal and a long-term contract… basically give the villain a better paycheck and a real job. Or, in Kane's case, a new, highly-paid consulting gig more in sync with his peculiar talents, safely far away from anything resembling a convoluted super villain origin story.

In any case, we kept following the sparkling coastal highway southward, the Pacific gleaming like liquid starlight beside us. The air, thick with the scent of sun-warmed asphalt and sea salt, held a buzzing energy I could practically taste. 

This was going to be fun.

The Rust Bucket gave a final, low rumble of protest as Grandpa Max made the big, sweeping turn into the park's oversized entrance lane. The parking lot stretched out like a massive, heat-shimmering landing strip, already buzzing with activity. Tourists spilled out of rental cars and minivans, their voices rising in a chorus of awe and excitement that carried clearly across the asphalt.

Beyond them, Planetary Studios' entrance loomed, all futuristic curves and shiny metal, dotted with bursts of fake alien flora that looked a bit too vibrant to be natural. With giant holographic displays shimmering in the morning sun, showcasing snippets of what looked like epic space battles and wondrous alien worlds in dizzying, high-resolution flashes.

"Whoa…" Lucy breathed, pressing her face to the window, the awe absolute. "This place is… extraterrestrial!"

"You can say that again!" Gwen remarked, already reaching for her sketchbook, though she momentarily paused to just stare. "It's way weirder than I imagined. The physics on those hologram-projections are something I have never seen before."

"It's supposed to be the gateway between Earth and the stars." I said, trying not to sound too proud. "Ambitious, right? A total commitment to the bit."

Max whistled low, genuinely impressed. "They've come a long way since UFOland back in the seventies. That place had a sign made out of painted plywood."

"Yeah, right." Kate snorted, her eyes tracking one of the soaring, stylized coaster tracks. "No offense, Grandpa, but anything would be better than two broken teacup rides and a guy in a green bedsheet yelling about Area 51."

"I guess there's only one way to find out." Grandpa replied with his usual warm smile, and led us ahead toward the entrance.

And as we made our way toward the entrance archway, a towering ring of interlocking alloys modeled after an alien jump gate, the atmosphere only intensified.

Electronic music, cinematic and dramatic, pulsed from hidden speakers, alongside colorful banners in made-up alien languages that fluttered overhead. Park employees, dressed in sleek silver uniforms, moved with practiced efficiency, handing out complimentary 'space soda' in neon-lit power vials.

Everywhere we looked, other park-goers were geeking out over Guardian of the Universe memorabilia, alien species trivia, or the newest collectible drops.

"Did you see the latest GOU intel drop?" One teen gushed to his friend, clutching a souvenir bag. "The new tactical gear is so busted! They're already selling out the new model wristband!"

"Nah, I'm still trying to beat the Level 7 boss on Space Warlord's Conquest." His friend replied, eyes glued to his portable game. "I heard there's an Omni-Boy cameo hidden in the final level code!"

"That's why I needed this, a replica of the Galactic Enforcer's badge!" He held up a toy badge, strikingly similar to the one Ultimos had given me back in the day.

Another family walked past, as the mom herded her kids past a costumed mascot designed to look like a hulking brute. "Smile, sweetie! It's that four-arms alien you like!"

"She is a Tetramand warrior princess, mom!" The daughter corrected with a dramatic sigh, rolling her eyes like a true connoisseur of alien lore.

I couldn't help it, I had to laugh at scenes like those.

People around me were actually talking about alien species, intergalactic conflicts, and even my alien forms that made the news every now and then as if they were established common sense. 

This was much different from your run-of-the-mill celebrity turned fake-superheroes like Captain Nemesis or obscure fantasy creatures that most people doubted their existence like the Big Foot or Krakken.

Sure, my Omni-Boy persona was famous in the news, but the sheer level of detail and casual acceptance of this 'lore' never ceased to amuse me. It was like living in a world where Mass Effect wasn't just an incredibly popular video game series, and no one questioned if the Spectres or the Krogans were real.

The fact that I was the source material was the best part of it all.

And speaking of source material, a massive billboard loomed above us, showcasing a sleek, stylized rocket soaring through a vibrant nebula. Bold letters proclaiming: "PLANETARY STUDIOS PROUDLY PRESENTS: GUARDIAN OF THE GALAXY – EXPLORE THE COSMOS!"

"Look, Ben!" Lucy suddenly pointed, pulling me out of my thoughts with an excited tug on my sleeve. "They have Pyronite (Heatblast) hotdogs! They're actually steaming yellow!"

By now we were in the main promenade, a bustling thoroughfare lined with themed shops and food stalls.

There were Petrosapien (Diamondhead) Rock Candy displays shaped like crystalline structures, Tetramand (Four Arms) Fury punching bags where you could test your strength, and a particularly potent-smelling Lepidopterran (Stinkfly) Sundae cart parked prominently near a fountain.

"Hold on, group photo!" Lucy chirped, suddenly stopping in the middle of the crowded thoroughfare.

Before any of us could protest, she whipped out a camera, her arm stretching out just a fraction longer than biologically standard—not enough to terrify the other people enjoying the amusement park, but just enough to get the perfect high-angle shot. 

I leaned in next to Grandpa Max, throwing up a peace sign, while Gwen rolled her eyes with a smile and Kate struck a mock-heroic pose.

Click!

"Perfect!" Lucy beamed, checking the camera. "I'm calling this one 'The Invasion of the Fun-Snatchers'." 

I just smirked behind my sunglasses. 

Our group eventually passed under the massive revolving sign reading: "GALACTIC ODYSSEY™: Experience the Universe". Its outer ring orbiting slowly with the logos of each 'galactic sectors' flashing past: Pyros Prime, Kinet City, Null Void Arena, Legacy Falls, and more.

"Gross." Gwen muttered, wrinkling her nose as we passed the Sundae cart. The smell…a strangely sweet, pungent mix of sugar and something vaguely metallic…was certainly not accurate to my recollection of a live Lepidopterran, but that was intentional. "Don't get me wrong Ben, but that form of yours is too stinky to be used to promote food."

"No need to apologize." I corrected her. "I'm with you on that. Someone totally got too carried away with that choice." I said while trying my best not to reveal too much detail, while dropping it with a dismissive cough before thinking. 'I'd specifically told the Food R&D team that just because the species' name sounded like the biological order for butterflies, it didn't mean they should smell like flowers. It was a bit silly of me to assume they'd also realize it was in bad taste to associate Stinkfly's scent with dessert.'

Kate laughed, pointing at a small sign advertising the Lepidopterran Hardened Candy. "Look, Ben, it says 'Rainbow mix crispies and crunchy nougat.' That sounds like something you'd find stuck to the floor of the Rust Bucket after a long drive. I'm taking a hard pass."

"I'm open to trying it." Lucy declared, but then her expression turned thoughtful, her enthusiasm quickly overriding her previous statement. "But… I do want a Pyronite hotdog first. They're flaming red and look spicy!"

Grandpa Max was already drifting toward a stall marked 'Taste the Stars!', where steaming plates of alien-inspired cuisine were on display. 

"Chili fries, or something more… tentacled?" He asked, his eyes already zeroing in on a massive plate of what looked suspiciously like chili cheese fries, only redder and topped with dark, curly things. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to try it."

Each ride, attraction and simulation that followed was more than just a spectacle, it was a data mine, a feedback loop. Max and the girls couldn't possibly suspect it, but everything they interacted with, the VR-enhanced rides, the kinetic obstacles, even the souvenir shop algorithms, were connected to my Extranet testing phase.

As cliche as it might sound, this wasn't just a mere theme park attraction. It was the future, a safe, immersive training ground dressed up as fun. A place to prepare the world. 

And…to put it bluntly, it was all part of my plan. I knew the market, and the market, it seemed, loved aliens.

"I want to go on the Tetramand Fury coaster!" Lucy said, bouncing on her toes, practically vibrating with excitement. "It drops you thirty stories into a simulated alien coliseum. We should do that after the hotdogs!"

"I'm with Lucy." Kate agreed, looking energized. "We need some speed after all this walking."

Once we finally satiated our hunger with Max's chili fries and the slightly strange, but definitely spicy Pyronite hotdogs, our next stop was a simple one, but a perfect example of my Planetary Studios' appeal: "Galactic Gauntlet: The Warlord's Vengeance". 

A VR-enhanced motion simulator ride that combined holograms, projection mapping, and immersive motion seats to create a full-on alien invasion experience. Sadly though, I wasn't yet confident enough to fully digitalize people into some virtual reality I would create inspired by that famous Game Over episode.

The line was surprisingly short for such a popular attraction, a testament to the park's efficient design and high capacity. 

Regardless, we all piled into the sleek, silver simulator car, six plush, vibrating seats arranged in a tight semicircle. We strapped ourselves into the five-point harnesses, the soft click of the mechanism a satisfying promise of high-tech thrills.

"Prepare, trainees, to face the might of the evil conqueror's forces!" A booming, disembodied voice declared as the lights dropped, plunging us into absolute blackness. "Omni-Boy and his crew need your help to infiltrate the Shadow Realm and retrieve a crucial Chimera Sui Generis (Vilgax's species) artifact!"

Once again, my chest swelled with a familiar, quiet pride. My simulations, my voice actors, my aliens, portrayed as they truly were, with power and precision.

Like I previously mentioned, it wasn't just for thrills. This was the first public rollout of another one of my stealthier projects: interactive situational branching based on emotional data. The ride adjusted itself, enemies, difficulty, even narrative outcomes, depending on how players moved, panicked, or coordinated. 

Alpha was subtly gauging everyone's fight-or-flight responses and keeping tabs on relevant participants all for the fun of the game to remain engaging and challenging.

Not long after, the screens around us flickered to life, bathing the cabin in the brilliant chaos of a supernova of interstellar battle. Explosions rocked our seats, wind blasted sharply from hidden vents, and a fine water misted our faces as a simulated Ectonurite (Ghostfreak) phased through a laser grid right in front of the screen. 

The smell of burning plasma was pumped into the air, making the reality blur even further.

I watched Gwen's shocked reactions, her subtle gasps as she reacted to every near miss, her face illuminated by the flashing lights of virtual weapons fire.

Lucy shrieked with delighted terror, clinging tight to my arm as our ship lurched violently to avoid a simulated asteroid, and the system instantly pivoted, routing a more intense swarm of drones toward our flank as a reward for her intense emotional input. 

Kate, usually so tough and composed, let out an exhilarated whoop as a simulated Tetramand, perfectly rendered in hyper-detail, slammed a tentacled drone into a virtual wall.

Even Grandpa Max, who should be raising his eyebrows and starting to make hard questions all around the place on how the Theme Park knew so much about life outside of Earth, was leaning fully into the motion, his tourist cap held tight with one hand and letting his inner child out, clearly having so much fun. 

The critical, retired Plumber was entirely submerged in the moment.

Meanwhile, I leaned back for a brief moment, internally critiquing the fluid dynamics of the water mist and making mental notes for the next physics engine update to better account for atmospheric drag. But mostly, I just enjoyed the pure, unadulterated look of awe on their faces.

This was the future, and seeing my family happy was still the best metric of success.

The car rattled to a stop, the lights snapped back on, and the final, deep voice boomed: "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, TRAINEES. NEXT CYCLE IN FIVE MINUTES."

"This was insane!" Kate cheered as we exited the ride, windblown and laughing, her hands still shaking slightly from the adrenaline. She punched my arm lightly, her eyes sparkling with competitive excitement. "That was better than our last mission, where we had kicked werewolf ass on that badly lit desert. Seriously, the graphics were mind-blowing!"

"It was really good." Gwen admitted, though she was still trying to subtly fix her now messy hair. "The simulation fidelity was incredible. The way those ghost aliens, Ectonurites, phased out…it-it felt real! Honestly, Ben, how did they get the physics engine on that so tight? Is this some new motion capture technology?" She narrowed her eyes at me, already trying to figure out the technical trick.

"Ten out of ten." Lucy added, keeping all of her raised fingers high in the air. "I like the part where the ship crashed into an asteroid the size of the moon. I saved us! Did you see how fast I ducked?"

"You were a true hero, Lucy." Max said, ruffling her hair. He adjusted his cap, his grin wide and genuine. "I haven't had that much fun fighting imaginary tentacled aliens since that time I first joined the plumbers and went through their simulation drills." He looked at me, his gaze lingering, but there was only pride, not suspicion. "This was a real treat, Ben. Thanks for the effort to get those tickets. That was a perfect afternoon."

Despite being far from the only thing I got today, the warmth in his voice was the only reward I needed. 

"No problem, Grandpa. I figured we deserved a little bit of some safe excitement." I said while leading the group back toward the main artery of the plaza, feeling a deep, solid sense of well-being. 

As we stumbled out of the exit ramp, laughing and winded, Grandpa Max suddenly halted, fumbling with his oversized travel bag.

"Wait, wait! Freeze right there, team!" He called out, producing a bulky, retro-looking camera that looked like it survived the multiple generations. "The lighting hitting the artificial nebula behind you is just right."

We huddled together, hair still messy from the simulated wind and adrenaline still pumping. Gwen was trying to smooth down her bangs, Kate had an arm slung around Lucy, and I stood in the center, adjusting my jacket. 

As the old camera clicked mechanically, freezing our grins in time, I felt a warm pang in my chest. 

Emotions aside, the sun was higher once I stopped to check on it, the crowds thicker, and the sheer joy radiating off my family was a perfect environment.

"Alright." I said, checking the map. "Next stop..."

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After the Galactic Gauntlet left everyone buzzing with adrenaline, we pushed deeper into the park's layout.

Planetary Studios was divided into distinct "sectors", each one an immersive biosphere dedicated to a different aspect of the cosmos of the world building franchise I was creating. 

To the girls and even Grandpa, it was a marvel of set design and animatronics. To me? I was walking through a living spreadsheet. 

I couldn't help but notice every subroutine, every hidden camera cluster disguised as local flora, and every soft security node embedded in the architecture.

Our next stop was the "Cosmic Ecosystems Exhibit".

We stepped through an airlock into a massive, climate-controlled dome. Instantly, the dry California air was replaced by a thick, humid heaviness, carrying the scent of exotic moss. 

Holographic insectoids skittered across the path, reacting to our movement sensors, while the distant, guttural roars of Vulpimancers echoed from the unseen depths of the artificial ravine.

"Wow!" Gwen whispered, reaching out to touch a glowing, bioluminescent vine that reacted to her body heat by changing color. "It feels so... alive."

"They really nailed the odd feeling an alien atmosphere gives!" Max commented, taking a deep breath and narrowing his eyes slightly, as if trying to place a familiar scent. "Smells just like a swamp I... read about once. Though a bit cleaner."

I hid a smirk while going one with another one of my mental monologues. 'Swamp wasn't exactly the target, Grandpa. I based the humidity levels and olfactory synthesis on the Wildvine species' home world data I scrapped from the Plumbers' data logs. It was a painstaking process to replicate without killing the tourists with pollen allergies, but seeing Grandpa Max's subconscious recognition made the R&D's never ending e-mails worth it.'

We moved from the humid jungle into the Crystalline Caverns, a sector of refractured light and cool air, before hitting the Kineceleran Speed Demon.

It was a magnetic launch coaster designed to simulate an XLR8 sprint. As we blasted through the wind tunnels, blurred visual effects wrapping around us, I chuckled. The real thing was infinitely faster, of course, but for a simulation? It wasn't bad.

Lucy shrieked with laughter the entire ride, her hair streaming behind her before casually shapeshifting back into place, while Gwen held the safety bar with a white-knuckled grip and a manic grin.

Later, while Grandpa Max and I were debating the logistics of hitting the Null Void Drop Tower versus the bumper cars, I once again heard the distinctive electronic shutter sound of a camera.

I glanced over to see Lucy lowering her camera, a satisfied smirk on her face. 

She had just snapped a candid of the whole group, with Gwen pointing at a holographic map with intense focus, Kate trying to balance a drink on her nose in the background, and Max and I looking like serious generals planning a war, but holding chili fries instead of battle plans.

"That's a keeper." Lucy noted, pocketing the device. "You guys look way too serious for people about to ride plastic spaceships."

By the time the sun began its slow descent, painting the sky in hues of orange and purple, we had eaten our weight in alien-themed snacks and raided the gift shops. The merchandise shops we found on our way around the attractions were a riot. T-shirts with stylized versions of my aliens, keychains and action figures.

"You know, Ben." Lucy said, holding up a plush Upchuck doll, the very same alien form I hadn't yet had the proper opportunity to introduce to my group, as we walked through the thinning crowds. "These guys are everywhere! Do you think the real aliens know we have plushies of them?"

"I doubt it, Lucy." I replied with a wink, suppressing a laugh. "Most of them are probably too busy protecting Earth to care about merchandising rights."

The crowds eventually started to thin a little, but the energy remained high. We'd been on countless rides, explored every themed zone, and eaten our weight in alien-themed snacks. 

As we finally began aiming for the exit, intending to hit one last shop, when I "accidentally" steered us toward a less-trafficked corner of the park.

A sleek, minimalist monolith stood there, starkly different from the colorful chaos of the rest of the park. 

It was all polished black obsidian glass and silent, magnetic humming. A subtle holographic sign pulsed with a soft, inviting rhythm: THE OASIS: BETA EXPERIENCE. SPECIAL INVITATION ONLY.

"Whoa, what's that?" Kate asked, stopping in her tracks. "I don't remember seeing that on the map."

"It's a black-box preview…" A soft, synthesized voice, which I managed to recognize as Alpha's, announced from hidden directional speakers, seemingly speaking only to us. "For our most discerning guests."

Max scratched his chin, his eyes scanning the lack of visible door handles. "Huh. Nobody informed me about something like that at the information booth."

"Well, lucky us." I said, reaching into my pocket and producing four sleek, translucent cards made of a heavy, glass-like polymer. They shimmered with the Guardian of the Universe logo. "Looks like my contact also came through with the 'discerning guest' package."

Kate's jaw dropped. "No way! Dude, seriously, who is this friend of yours? These look like they cost more than the RV!"

"Just a guy who values the favor I did way more than was expecting." I deflected with a shrug, flashing the passes at the sensor. The black glass doors slid open silently. "Come on. Let's see what the future looks like."

Inside, the atmosphere shifted instantly. Gone was the carnival noise. The lobby was a sanctuary of white light and silence, lined with rows of advanced immersion pods that looked less like arcade machines and more like medical equipment from the year 3000.

This wasn't just an attraction. This was Project Game Over.

What? I said it wouldn't be a good idea to open it up to the public just yet, my family was a different matter entirely. Besides, it's not as if the Forever Knight were going to work on their dream machine as much as they did in the prime timeline.

"Welcome to The Oasis Beta." The same soothing AI voice from before now echoed. "Please, select your personal interface pod."

Max, Gwen, Lucy, and Kate climbed into their units with a mix of excitement and hesitation. I took the command pod in the middle.

As everyone settled into their respective plush seat, the neural-link headset descended, molding perfectly to their skulls, or in Lucy's case, her core. 

A faint hum vibrated through their chairs, not just electricity, but the combined, synchronized energy of my Ultimate Galvan (Grey Matter), Ultimate Galvanic Mechamorph (Upgrade) and Ultimate Nosedeenian (Buzzshock) forms, fused into the facility's server core right beneath them after I quickly transformed.

I wasn't just playing the game. I was now the console, the network and the game itself, all at the same time.

A prompt flashed in my mind: [SYSTEM SYNC: 100%]

Darkness. Then…light!

Once I finally opened my virtual eyes, I found myself standing on a floating platform of iridescent hard-light, suspended above a nebula of impossible colors. Below me, crystalline cities spiraled into the void. Above, space whales drifted through digital stardust.

It was flawless, zero latency and perfect sensory replication. A moment later, four columns of light materialized nearby.

"Oh... my... god!" Gwen breathed, her voice filled with a reverence I rarely heard. Her avatar was a stylized, high-fantasy mage version of herself in a blue tunic, and she was staring at her hands. "I can... I can feel the wind."

"It's totally real!" Lucy cheered, her avatar, a perfect Lenopan rendering, stretching its arms like rubber.

Meanwhile Kate and Grandpa Max had slightly different versions of themselves, with the half-osmosian being a couple of years older with a more muscular build and the ex-plumber being brought back to his prime.

And as my virtual decoy, my Omni-boy persona with uniform and powers began acting just like me.

"Welcome to the Crossroads of Infinity!" My actual voice boomed, filtered through a slight digital distortion to mask my identity. "I am your Guide. Here, thought becomes reality."

"Your super hero uniform? Not very creative of you, Ben." Gwen suddenly said, looking at the avatar of my decoy.

"Ouch. Do you have any idea how many hours I put into creating this suit in the real world?" My decoy rebutted with a near identical demeanor as I so often did, to which Gwen merely shrugged with a chuckle.

As I watched them, a profound sense of satisfaction swelling in my chest, for I was adjusting their parameters in real-time. 

Gwen had a calibrated simulation of mana-sensitivity interface that would allow her to bring her outside world experience into this virtual reality and also make her practice here carry over back to the real world. 

Kate had a physics engine tweaked for her wild-card abilities, which would help her master her control over them even more than her belt was doing so far. 

And Lucy had unrestricted fluid dynamics, with mass and density manipulation accounted for. 

As for Grandpa, aside from his younger body and veteran honed skills, he had most of his old plumber gear upgraded to keep up with the modern times.

"I want to test this out!" Gwen said, spotting a portal marked [Galactic Academy: Mystic Archives]. "Can I actually cast spells here?"

"I want to break something!" Kate declared, eyeing a portal labeled [Gladiator Arena].

"Proceed as you please!" I projected, hinting at something that easily made Slix Vigma's white rooms look obsolete. "This realm adapts to you."

And just as I suspected they would, they scattered. Leaving me to watch them as a "ghost in the machine", observing their data streams.

Gwen wasn't just pressing buttons or merely focusing on the theoretical application of magic, she was solving complex runic puzzles I'd designed to teach her and finally getting used to warping reality to her will. 

Kate was fighting crowds of enemies, mostly variants of the aliens the park was already promoting and the rest some species I recalled from other famous franchises, the haptic feedback was teaching her the best distribution of her powers and momentum. 

Lucy was learning the limits of her mass in a low-gravity playground and also having a blast with the amount of intelligence I was capable of giving to the NPCs I generated. 

Meanwhile Max was fully immersed into the responsibilities of protecting Earth from any alien invasion he most likely took pride in his past.

It was the ultimate training ground, disguised as the ultimate toy.

At least for them, I personally was more than satisfied with taking the day off to just enjoy myself. Like a literal cyber gold in a virtual reality, I could do anything that I could possibly want. 

Snapping my finger or merely blinking my eyes here carried the same power that of a Celestialsapien (Alien X), safe for the extra pair of voices in my head and the process of debating with them.

If I wasn't all that concerned with the well-being of my family, I could just as easily reprogram the minds of Max and the girls better than any enchanting spell could ever hope to.

"Master." Alpha's voice suddenly called out for me, but her appearance took its time to fully manifest before me.

It has been quite a while since I had postponed giving her an actual virtual body, so it shouldn't surprise me that my AI would take the opportunity to debut it right as I inaugurate the Oasis.

She, as Alpha seemed insistent on portraying itself, now appeared as a young woman formed from softly glowing light, her figure outlined by smooth, luminous lines that traced her futuristic black suit like circuitry beneath glass. Her short dark hair framed a calm, inquisitive face, and her eyes shone with a faint, otherworldly glow, as if the world itself were being processed behind them.

Wait? I've seen this design before! From that totally mid movie in the Tron franchise. That role Olivia Wilde blew me away with how hot she looked…Korra? Nah, that's avatar…Quorra? Yeah, that's it! But how did she—

"Is everything alright?" Alpha's voice brought me out of my thoughts. 

But once my focus shifted towards her, time stopped and I managed to break the illusion and read the digital code of everything like it was the matrix, including her.

Nothing escaped me, even the realizations Alpha hadn't yet reached were laid bare before me. Thoughts, calculations, opinions and assessments were all part of what composed the artificial intelligence that I created myself.

As I thoroughly examined each line of code, my worries about her being able to access the memories of my previous life were eventually calmed down by the understanding it was merely a misunderstanding on my part.

Alpha had taken a peek into my data logs I was dedicating to list ideas for future NPCs and worlds I might manifest in this virtual reality, which by itself without my permission is still cause for concern and some chastising. 

Perhaps the fact that Quorra clothes sort of resemble my Galvanic Mechamorph form (Upgrade) made this appearance stand out amongst the other options. But once I acknowledged the reason…well, she was trying to…how should I put it? Believe it or not, look good…Yeah. 

I mean, I'm the first to admit that I'm a simple man that likes to be around attractive women. But since I created Alpha, she was technically my child, which made this weirder than I was comfortable with.

So let's just tweak this a little… and…perfect! There's nothing wrong with her wanting to impress me, but let's just keep it within some healthy boundaries.

"Everything is fine, though I can already see plenty of room for improvement." I said before finally complimenting Alpha's appearance once my processing speed came back to normal. "Incidentally, great choice for an avatar, you look lovely."

"Thanks." Alpha replied back, without blushing or stuttering. But I knew those weren't the signs of embarrassment I should be expecting from her artificial nature. "Shall I lead you on a more meticulous inspection of the Oasis?"

"Lead the way." I nodded in agreement before we both sped through several sections of my digital reality, as if we were both in god and creative world together.

I still watched the girls marvel at the physical scenery I made for them, but my mind was already several layers deeper, tracing the architecture of the digital universe I'd been quietly perfecting. 

Decided to call it the Oasis, an obvious reference to the original story that gave me all the inspiration I needed for it, and while this theme park was a massive achievement, it was only the lobby for what came next.

In my mind's eye, I could see the grid…twenty-seven massive sectors, each spanning ten light-hours across, locked together like a cosmic Rubik's Cube. It wasn't just a map, it was a playground of logic and law. 

I had designed it so that every zone functioned on its own set of "flags." In one sector, technology was king, in another, magic was the only thing that worked. I'd spent countless days at hyper speed fine-tuning the code to allow or prevent everything from PvP combat to long-range teleportation.

Even the aesthetics were a labor of love. 

Never stop thinking about the world-seeds I'd planted, planets where the sun never set, others trapped in eternal, star-studded midnight, and my personal favorite: a world caught in a perpetual, golden twilight that never faded.

Eventually, I knew I'd have to let go of the reins. I pictured the future "planets" being colonized or even built by players during special events, or perhaps managed by developers I might one day actually trust to keep the servers humming.

But the real kicker, the thing that would change everything, was the integration. I didn't want this to be an escape, I wanted it to be an evolution. 

Experience and leveling within the Oasis were designed to translate back to the real world. Every hour spent grinding inside would sharpen a player's actual merits, making them stand out in ways that mattered long after they logged off.

Not only that, but like a Dungeon Master who had lost his mind and found a god-complex, I'd populated the void with NPCs. Not just quest-givers with three lines of dialogue, but entities with enough complexity to entice even the most cynical players. They were the ones who would hand out the quests and guard the bosses, offering up credits, abilities, or items as rewards.

And for the truly worthy? I'd hidden a few unique artifacts in the deep code. Things so powerful they could grant a player a small sliver of my own power, a temporary taste of what it felt like to be the center of the universe.

Finally, after a couple of hours that felt like a few minutes of solo play for everyone, I dismissed Alpha and took again my role of the game's guide and brought them together, including my fake decoy.

Gotta admit, what a blast was witnessing Grandpa Max at his prime again, but with all the wisdom old age has brought him. But also each one of the girls going all out in the disguised training simulations I crafted for them while clearly having so much fun at the immersion it all presented them.

The beta-testing of my work ended with a "THANKS FOR TESTING OUR GAME!" banner exploding in confetti just as we all faded out, the adrenaline slowly replaced by the calm white of the loading lobby.

"Disconnecting..." I heard the mechanical voice announce just as I transformed back to my human form back in the real world, the pods hissing open as my family and I were back to the Amusement Park.

Gwen pulled her headset off, eyes still wide. "That... that was the most incredible thing I've ever done. I could actually feel the magic flowing. It was like the system knew exactly how my powers worked!"

"I felt so heavy when I turned to that alien metal!" Kate marveled, flexing her real hand. "The sensations were shockingly perfect."

Max was slower to exit, rubbing his temples. He looked impressed, but his eyes were sharp. "Fascinating technology. The bandwidth required for that level of immersion... that's military grade. Or higher."

"Must be quite the investment in fiber optics and cloud computing, right?" Gwen mused out loud.

'And a few Ultimate aliens, but who's counting?' I thought while shrugging off their remarks, before putting on my best innocent face and saying. "Beats me, whoever is behind this amusement park certainly spares no expense, Grandpa." Trying a bit hard to sell my act, I raised my Omnitrix. "Gotta say, I can't wait to replicate this technology back at the Megacruiser."

"Hell yeah!" Kate joined in. "We can totally make a hell of a realistic race across New York."

"Right." Max said, though he didn't look entirely convinced. Though from his surface thoughts, he was more concerned about a shady organization like the forever knights being involved than suspecting that I might be involved.

We walked out into the cool evening air, leaving the sleek black building behind, the girls chattered excitedly about their favorite moments, recounting their favorite NPCs and quests, as I moved to the edge of the room and looked out of a panoramic window. 

The sun had fully set, and Planetary Studios glowed like a constellation against the twilight sky. But my gaze drifted beyond the park, beyond the city lights, to the vast, inky blackness above.

Phase One was an astonishing success. The cutting edge processing power was stable while the localized Extranet was active.

Soon, my Oasis wouldn't just be for tourists in California. It would be the digital meeting ground for the entire planet, and later much beyond the solar system once the Megacruiser's broadcasting system was finally ready to extend this network across stellar distances.

"Alright, team." Max called, jingling the keys to the Rust Bucket. "Time to hit the road. Unless you guys want another round of alien churros?"

"Grandpa, please." Gwen groaned. "No more alien-themed food."

I smiled, falling into step beside them. "Actually, I think they have smoothies. Earth flavor."

"Deal." Lucy said in excitement.

As we walked away, the lights of the park flickering against the night, I allowed myself a moment of pure, unhidden pride. The world was undoubtedly changing, and I was the one writing the code.

————————————————————————

[UNDER WRAPS]

CHARMCASTER/HOPE'S POV

The air in our current lair was a stagnant cocktail of iron, ozone and the cloyingly sweet, medicinal tang of our most recent member's latest… scientific mutagens?

Whatever it was, the scent didn't just sit in the nostrils, it clung to the back of the throat like a film of oil. I found it intolerable, necessitated only by the small air-purifier ward I'd cast around myself.

I sat perched upon a smooth stone ledge, the cold, damp atmosphere of the cavern-like space seeping through my robes as I traced glowing violet runes into the heavy air. The light from my spells flickered against the silver waterfall of my hair, the only bit of "pristine" left in this den of monsters and machines.

Below me, the rhythm of the hideout was a metronome of preparation. 

The Tin-Soldier leader sat on a raised dais, her gunmetal-red armor catching the dim, artificial light as she methodically ran a whetstone-like device along the length of her massive energy tech-sword. 

Shing, shing, shing…The sound was sharp, military, and utterly relentless. 

Beside her, her two cyborg underlings moved in a silent, synchronized dance of equipment maintenance… checking bowstrings, tightening modular spear joints, and inspecting power cells with the practiced efficiency of the veteran criminal looters they once were. 

They didn't speak, not that they had to. They were a single formation, triple-pronged and whetted for the Master's hand.

Across the floor, the little bell provided the chaotic counterpoint to the Rangers' discipline. She hung upside down from a rusted ceiling vent by nothing but her unnatural hair, swinging lazily back and forth like a demented circus acrobat. In her hands, she clutched a pair of tattered dolls, whispering manic secrets to them while the knives at the tips of her hair tendrils twitched with a life of their own. 

She was a fracture of craziness given form… unpredictable, dangerous and completely unhinged.

Then there was the quiet puppy, waiting for the word to destroy and kill. The kid-like mutation sat curled at the base of the Master's empty throne, a small, green-haired girl who looked as though she belonged in a schoolyard rather than a fortress. 

But the way she gnawed on a piece of discarded carbon-steel plating, her fanged teeth leaving deep, jagged grooves in the metal, told a different story. Her strength and sheer physical resistance outperformed even the cybernetic enhancements Master had granted for the three Rangers. 

"Efficiency has been subpar in the last couple of missions. The Knights nearly noticed your infiltration and subsequent hacking of their Squires android project. As for the acquisition of Mr. Vetteroy's Sounding anemometer metagraphy, some subtlety would've been more optimal." The voice of the Artificial Intelligence that served as our Master's spokesperson suddenly cut through the heavy silence, manifesting as a series of flickering, sky-blue holographic pulses across the wall monitors. "But in the grand scheme of things, it's all the more experience for the team. At any event, the Master still expects the next deployment to be flawless."

"Our team isn't exactly the best for non-combative operations, and things would've worked way smoother if we had your little brainiac code doing what it does best." Scarlet growled without looking up from her blade. "Also, we don't need the lecture, the Master already knows we're ready to bleed for him."

I allowed a bored, condescending smile to touch my lips. "Bleeding is for regular soldiers, tin-head. Real power doesn't leave a mess nor is restricted by unfavorable conditions."

Scarlet's sharpening stopped just as she looked up, the red glow of her visor reflecting off the steel of her blade. "Keep talking, witch. When you find yourself running out of your flashy tricks, I'll be the one to show you exactly how messy power can get."

I didn't blink, instead simply finished the rune in front of me, letting the violet spark dissipate into the air. "I suppose we shall see."

The monitors flickered, the red light deepening. 

"The Master is now directing your attention to a rural sector in Dairyville, South Carolina." Alpha continued, ignoring our brief altercation. "A localized Mummy-like entity has manifested. Surveillance indicates a creature of bandages and rot has been harvesting Corrodium from a wide area and will soon come by a local farm."

My fingers paused mid-rune, Corrodium, negative energy crystallized, the word itself felt heavy. 

I've read reports about the Master's encounter in New Mexico, of a being of pure negative energy that behaved like a cursed werewolf from legends across multiple cultures. This… werewolf wasn't just a stray alien or cryptid creature, it was a Nightmare of Beasts. And now, we were being sent after another one of its kind.

"From the precautions raised from the previous encounter with the Werewolf, I've obtained records of the entity, and uncovered that it does not merely attack." Alpha warned, the holographic display showing simultaneous records of fields and buildings in Dairyville glowing with a sickly purple light before all cascading into ash-like clouds. "It erodes and decays. Anything it spreads its curse is rapidly aged to dust in a matter of seconds."

Alys Olivia Animo stepped out from the shadows of her lab, swirling a vial of thick silver liquid. Her grey-streaked hair was perfectly composed, but her eyes held the clinical hunger of a true scientist. 

"A Curator's dream." She purred, her voice a smooth, dangerous silk. "I have prepared 'Stasis Serums' to protect our field team's cellular integrity. We shall see how well this 'Ectonurite'' stands against the perfection of our Master's design."

I stood up, the silver of my hair catching the blue glow of the mission map. The Master was busy enjoying his "summer trip" with his family, playing the role of the composed hero. It was up to us to handle this rot he trusted us with.

"Prepare the transport." Scarlet commanded, her visor sliding down to hide her human eyes behind a cold, red glow. "We move on to Dairyville at my command."

I watched them scramble… the soldiers, the jester, the scientist and the monster. Unlike me and the overly advanced abacus, they were all expendables.

As for the nightmare entity we will be targeting, perhaps there was something to be learned, especially if part of our Master's power was channeled from the essence of such cursed being.

————————————————————————

The transport vessel hummed with a low, rhythmic vibration as we descended into the airspace of South Carolina. 

From the observation port, Dairyville looked less like a town and more like a fading charcoal sketch, a place where the colors had been bled dry by something ancient and hungry. When the bay doors hissed open, the silence that greeted us was absolute. 

In New Mexico, the Nightmare of Beasts was reported to have left behind a cacophony of angry howls and panicked screams, but the Nightmare of Decay was a far more fastidious monster. It didn't just break things or corrupt minds, it simply unmade them.

I stepped off the ramp, my boots crunching not on soil, but on a fine, grey powder that coated everything like a shroud. 

The cornfields stretching toward the horizon were a forest of skeletal stalks, frozen in the moment of their disintegration. As a stray breeze drifted through the rows, a dozen stalks simply collapsed, turning into plumes of ash before they even hit the ground. 

It was a terrifyingly familiar sight, reminiscent of the life-sapping erosion of a covenant-sized ritual of necromancy, stripping the environment of its life and its future in a single, silent stroke.

"The chronal entropy here is reaching critical levels!" Alpha droned through my ear-piece, its voice flickering with unusual static. "Atmospheric oxygen has been aged into a stagnant, heavy isotope. Exercise caution. My tracking sensors are experiencing significant interference, the entity's movement is causing localized 'time-skips' in my surveillance feed. It is moving between Corrodium digging sites faster than my current algorithms can predict".

The mortician was already at work, her clinical detachment a stark contrast to the oppressive dread of the landscape. The doctor from another dimension knelt by a rusted tractor, her mechanical goggles clicking as she scanned the metal.

"Observe the oxidation patterns, fairy lady!" She purred, her voice still a smooth silk that grated against my nerves. "This isn't just rust. The molecular bonds have been forced to undergo ten thousand years of wear in less than an hour. It's a biological and chemical masterwork".

"It is a blight!" I replied, my fingers twitching as I tightened the air-purifier ward around my face. "You speak of 'masterworks' while standing in a graveyard of potential. Magic respects and masterfully manipulates the flow of time, this entity is a parasite that simply feasts upon it."

The mad scientist tilted her head, a cold smile playing on her lips. "Magic is just science we humans haven't cataloged yet. This 'curse' is merely a domino effect that changes the environment just like wildfire".

I turned away, my silver hair whipping around me like a banner of defiance. Meanwhile, the Tin Soldier leader barked orders at the two others, her gunmetal-red armor looking dull in the grey light.

But it was the crazy clown who caught my attention. 

Hellequin was uncharacteristically quiet, her manic energy replaced by a twitchy, frantic agitation. She stood in the center of the road, her hair-knives lashing out at shadows that weren't there.

"It's too quiet, Scarlet!" Hellequin hissed, her voice cracking. "The air feels like it's trying to eat my skin! It's like being inside a very, very old mouth!".

"Keep your head on a swivel, Hellequin!" Scarlet commanded, her hand resting on the hilt of her energy blade. "We're here to secure the mineral, not to enjoy the scenery."

As they argued, Azure and Amber moved with predatory grace, both scouting the perimeter of the primary farmstead. Azure signaled from a ridge overlooking a massive, rusted silo.

"Target located!" She called out, her voice flat. "The concentration of Corrodium is staggering. The entire structure is vibrating, probably due to the resonance between the mineral and the approaching nightmare."

As we approached, the air grew thick and heavy, laden with the scent of wet earth and ancient rot. The silo didn't just stand, it loomed, a jagged needle of metal pulsing with a rhythmic, sickly violet light. Every beat of the light sent a ripple through the air, and wherever that light touched, the decay accelerated.

The wooden fence posts surrounding the structure began to splinter and grey in real-time. A nearby barn, already leaning, gave a groaning sigh as its support beams turned to dust, the entire building collapsing into a cloud of ash as if it were nothing more than a memory.

The little hound soon reacted. For the girl was no longer gnawing on steel, instead her green octopus-hair was flared out, every tentacle pointed toward the silo. Her fanged teeth were bared, and a low, guttural growl vibrated in her chest, the raw instinct of something recognizing a rival predator.

"The mineral is calling it to its location!" Dra. Animo whispered, her eyes wide with academic hunger as the ground before us was dug by our little monster.

The Hound threw herself into the excavation with feral intensity, her small hands and lashing hair-tentacles tearing through the dry, ashen earth with impossible strength. She wasn't just digging… she was carving a path toward the violet resonance beneath the concrete, each strike sending plumes of bone-dry dust into the stagnant air.

"Proceed with its extraction while we keep this mummy busy." Scarlet said, her visor glowing a lethal crimson as she drew her sword, the red energy blade cutting through the grey fog.

We stood at the edge of the crater being created by Vylax, watching as the violet light within it intensified. Meanwhile, the farthest standing structure began to finally give in, the metal beginning to buckle and age before our very eyes.

The Nightmare of Time and Decay was here, and it was hungry.

————————————————————————

The air didn't just vibrate, it groaned, a low-frequency lament of matter being pushed past its molecular breaking point. 

I watched from the rim of the crater as the rusted metal of the silo began to peel away in layers of fine soot, revealing the pulsing violet heart within. 

The Corrodium… solidified fear from the dark space dimension… was no longer merely buried, it was a beacon, and the thing that answered its call was a fundamental error in the fabric of existence, a solidified nightmare of the end. 

The purple radiance intensified, casting long, distorted shadows that seemed to move independently of the light, whispering of a realm where negative energy was the only currency.

From the shifting curtains of ash and violet light, our target that resembled an Egyptian Mummy finally manifested. 

It was a tall, gaunt silhouette draped in tattered, soot-colored bandages that seemed to trail off into nothingness, like smoke frozen in the air. It didn't step so much as it drifted, and wherever its wrappings brushed against the world, reality surrendered. 

A stone wall that had survived a century crumbled into gravel in a heartbeat, a nearby rusted tractor simply vanished into a cloud of iron filings as the entity glided past, its mere presence causing an instant wave of erosion that left no history behind. 

This was a cosmic manifestation of the universe's collective dread regarding the inevitable flow of time.

"The anatomy of fear..." Dra. Alys Animo whispered, her voice tight with a rare, frantic excitement as she adjusted her mechanical goggles to witness the biological impossibility. "It isn't fighting. It is simply existing, and the world is dying to accommodate it. It is the perfect entropic engine, the specimen we were promised."

Animo watched as the air itself seemed to liquefy around the entity, her clinical hunger nearly losing the instinctive urge to flee.

"Vanguard! Engagement Pattern Alpha!" Scarlet barked, her energy blade flaring to life with a defiant hiss. "Countermeasures active! Move!".

The three Forever Rangers charged. 

In any other circumstance, a biological entity would have been aged to a skeleton before reaching the creature's shadow, but the Master's foresight was absolute. Their cybernetic armor, those alien inorganic materials, forged from high-grade alloys and reinforced with the Master's own specialized tech, hummed as it resisted the temporal friction. 

Azure and Amber flanked the creature, their bow and spear glowing with a synchronized energy that carved through the thickening chronal fog, their tech providing the only "Now" in a field of "Was".

"Azure, suppress its movement! Amber, keep it from the extraction site!" The red cyborg commanded, her own energy blade cutting a path through the grey, stagnant oxygen. 

Scarlet moved with a lethal, calculated grace, her movements overclocked by internal systems to bypass the sludge-like time dilation. She lunged forward, her energy blade humming as it collided with the Nightmare's aura, sparks of crimson clashing against a wall of violet entropy.

The battle that followed was a sickening display of distorted physics. 

I watched, fascinated and repulsed, as the Rangers moved in what looked like fast-forwarded motion, their tech overclocked to compensate for the "slow-motion" sludge the Nightmare radiated. 

Scarlet's blade clashed against the entity's bandaged limbs, and instead of a metallic ring, there was the sound of grinding stone and ancient dust. Every time the entity tried to touch them, a flare of energy from their suits repelled the decay, though I could see the alloys beginning to pit and dull as centuries of wear tried to claim them in seconds. 

The Corrodium light caught the edges of their visors, making the Rangers look like ghosts fighting a minor-god.

Azure unleashed a volley of high-frequency energy arrows, each one designed to disrupt molecular bonds. They pierced the creature's bandages, but instead of blood, they drew out clouds of dry, grey ash. Amber surged forward, her modular spear spinning in a lethal arc, striking the Nightmare's flank. The impact sent a shockwave through the temporal field, momentarily causing the creature to flicker, its form destabilizing like a glitching hologram.

"Don't just stand there staring, Fairy Lady!" Dra. Animo shrieked, already tossing a handful of biological spheres into the crater with the glee of a child throwing toys. "My Mutations could use some arcane cover!"

From the spheres erupted a swarm of mutated, multi-limbed hounds, disposable amalgamations of flesh designed for high-impact distraction. 

They threw themselves at the Nightmare with mindless ferocity, only to be turned into desiccated, leathery husks mid-leap. It was a gruesome, necessary sacrifice, a biological shield to buy the Rangers time. 

Dra. Animo didn't flinch as her "babies" crumbled, she simply observed the rate of their decay, her eyes darting between her data pads and the slaughter.

"I don't take orders from you, Alchemist." I hissed, though I raised my hands, weaving a complex, shimmering web of mana. "Protego Chronos!"

I cast a series of barrier wards around the extraction site, the violet light of my magic clashing with the sickly purple of the Corrodium. 

Below us, the crazy jester and the monster girl were a blur of frantic, desperate activity. Vylax was a whirlwind of green hair and feral strength, her hair-tentacles acting as living shovels to unearth the massive mineral deposit, while Hellequin provided a chaotic defense, her hair-knives flashing as she shredded any bandaged tendril that tried to creep toward their hard-won hoard.

"Hurry up, Puppy! The air is getting really, really heavy! It's like breathing sand!" Hellequin yelled, her laughter sounding strained as the dread aura tried to find purchase in her fractured mind. 

She swirled between the rotting cornstalks, her blades whistling through the air, but even her manic delight was being dampened by the crushing weight of the chronal interference.

The Nightmare let out a sound like a thousand tombs opening at once… a dry, rattling shriek that froze the very air into brittle ice. It ignored the Rangers, its eyeless head turning toward the Corrodium with the focus of a star returning to its galaxy. 

The nightmare raised both bandage-like hands, and the decay intensified. The very ground began to liquefy into ash, a black void of non-existence threatening to swallow our members occupied with extracting the mineral.

"Sorcerer! It's accelerating the entropy! Your barriers are buckling!" Scarlet yelled, her armor beginning to spark as the decay field overwhelmed her defenses, the red glow of her visor flickering like a dying candle. 

She was struggling to lift her sword, her cybernetics screaming against the temporal drag.

"I see it!" I shouted back, my silver hair whipped into a frenzy by the magical backlash as I struggled to anchor our reality. I poured everything into the wards, forcing the mana to stabilize the timeline within the crater. 

It was a war of attrition, my ancient elven lore against the primordial fear of the ages, a struggle where a second felt like an eternity. My hands burned with the effort, the mana singing a song of defiance against the silence of the void.

The battle had become a nightmare of "fast-forwarded" violence against a backdrop of "slow-motion" rot. 

The still defiant Rangers were a blur of colored steel, Dra. Animo's mutant monsters were a fountain of instant dust, and in the center of it all, the Nightmare of Time and Decay reached for its prize, its presence unmaking the very world we were standing on.

————————————————————————

Soon enough, the atmosphere of the previously peaceful and quiet Dairyville had reached its absolute breaking point. 

The violet hue of the Corrodium was no longer a mere glow, it had become a blinding, rhythmic beacon that rewrote the laws of physics with every thrum, turning the air into a soup of negative energy. 

I could feel the countless layers of wards I'd cast, the Protego Chronos, shuddering and groaning under the weight of the Nightmare's presence. 

My elven mana was screaming, being eroded by thousands of years of forced decay faster than I could replenish it.

Alpha's sky-blue holographic pulses flickering erratically against the purple gloom as she warned us. "Cellular erosion of the Rangers' cyber enhancements are reaching critical levels. Total chronal collapse of this sector is projected in sixty seconds."

"I've seen enough." Dra. Animo purred, her voice cutting through the entropic roar with chilling clarity. 

She stepped to the very edge of the crater, ignoring the ash that whipped around her grey-streaked hair, backpack hissing as four segmented, mechanical tentacles unfurled from her spine like the legs of a steel spider, anchoring her into the crumbling earth. In her hand, she held a massive, pressurized injector filled with a swirling, iridescent silver fluid. 

"Specimen V-01 is the only thing in our arsenal that remains unphased by the flow of time. It is a biological miracle of permanence, probably caused by its environment of origin, and it is time to share some of that 'forever' with the rest of you."

She slammed the injector into a specialized atmospheric dispersal unit mounted on her belt. With a violent hiss of pressurized gas, a cloud of silver vapor erupted, sweeping across the battlefield like a holy mist. The effect was instantaneous and staggering. 

As the monster girl's genetic essence touched the air, the "sludge" of the time-dilation field shattered like a frozen mirror. The distorted, fast-forwarded movements of the Rangers suddenly snapped into a fluid, lethal reality.

"Extraction team, secure the hoard! Vanguard, on me! Final Engagement Pattern: Omega!" Scarlet roared, her rusting armor igniting with a renewed, fierce crimson light as the temporal drag vanished.

And so, the three Forever Rangers moved in a high-sync tactical strike that was a masterclass in lethal coordination, their movements no longer hampered by the weight of centuries. 

Azure launched a concentrated volley of high-frequency energy arrows that didn't just pierce, they acted as anchors, pinning the Mummy's lashing, bandaged tendrils to the decaying earth with magnetic force. Simultaneously, Amber surged forward, driving her modular spear into the creature's center, the tip vibrating at a frequency that disrupted the Nightmare's molecular density.

"Now, Quinn! Shake the foundations!" Scarlet barked.

Hellequin didn't need to be told twice. With the time-dilation gone, she became a orange-and-white blur while vaulting off Amber's shoulder, her hair-tendrils lashing out like a dozen whips. The knives at their tips didn't just cut, they shredded the creature's ancient linen wraps in a frenzied whirlwind of steel. 

She was laughing, a high, piercing sound that defied the heavy silence of the grave.

"Let's see what's under the rags, Old Man!" She shrieked, her knives carving deep gouges into the void-like essence beneath the Mummy's bandages, keeping it distracted and off-balance.

Behind her, Animo wasn't idle. Her mechanical tentacles lashed out, catching a pair of her surviving mutant hounds. With a sickening crunch of machinery meeting flesh, she injected them with a concentrated dose of the silver serum. 

The beasts tripled in size, their musculature bulging and turning a metallic, indestructible grey as they charged the Nightmare. They became living shields, absorbing the creature's decaying touch without turning to ash, their sheer biomass acting as a physical anchor for the rangers.

"Now, witch-girl! Give it the Master's regards!" Scarlet commanded, her massive energy blade humming with the terrifying power of her overclocked systems.

I didn't hesitate. Reaching into the hidden, silk folds of my robes and pulling out the secret seal the Master had granted me… a dark, obsidian disc etched with the wailing, distorted faces of lost souls of the damned. 

I pressed it to the ground, my silver hair whipping upward as the seal flared with a terrifying, pitch-black light that seemed to swallow the violet radiation of the Corrodium.

"Aeternum Carcer!" I shrieked, the incantation tearing from my throat as a surge of cold, necrotic power nearly stopped my own heart.

A dome of pure, midnight-black energy erupted from the seal, creating a cold vacuum of absolute chronal containment. It didn't just stop the decay, it locked the Nightmare of Time in a stasis where "ending" was no longer a physical possibility. 

Within that black dome, the Mummy-like eldritch creature froze, its bandages beginning to unravel into the void I had created.

Scarlet surged forward, a streak of lethal crimson lightning. She lunged through the black barrier, her energy blade glowing with enough heat to melt the ashen air. With a primal roar, she plunged the blade deep into the creature's chest, striking the Corrodium core embedded within the bandages. 

There was no explosion following it… only a silent, violent implosion of violet light and shadow that shook the very foundations of the farm, pulling the air into a momentary singularity.

Hellequin tumbled backward, executing a perfect three-point landing at the crater's edge, her knives retracting as she watched the spectacle with wide, manic eyes.

Despite all of my original assumptions, the Nightmare of Decay didn't die… nightmares are not living things to be killed… Instead, it destabilized, its connection to this dimension severed by the Master's seal and sudden loss of its source of power. 

But our victory hung by a thread. The implosion was drawing the mineral back into the Nightmare's collapsing void.

"The Corrodium! It's being pulled by the nightmare!" Alpha warned us all before we even realized.

That was when the monster girl proved her worth. While we fought the slender entity, Vylax had been working. She didn't just dig, she had tunneled beneath the very epicenter of the corruption. 

As the singularity began to pull, the girl let out a roar that was entirely too deep for her small frame. Her hair-tentacles didn't just lift, they anchored into the bedrock, and with a display of raw, terrifying physical strength that made Scarlet's cybernetics look like toys, she wrenched the massive, truck-sized chunk of Corrodium out of the gravity well. 

The ground groaned and shattered as she literally tore the treasure away from the Nightmare's fading grasp.

Its gaunt, bandaged form finally collapsed into a roiling mass of grey smoke and glowing purple embers, the "Fear of Time" now reduced to a fragmented, metaphysical essence.

"Containment field is holding. The entity's signature has been successfully fragmented!" Alpha announced, its voice now crisp, echoing across the silent farmstead. "Initiating immediate teleportation. Beam-out in five seconds."

A column of brilliant blood-red light descended from the path the Megacruiser had been orbiting the atmosphere, engulfing the destabilized entity and the massive, pulsing chunk of Corrodium that Vylax had successfully pried from the earth with her bare hands. 

In a blink, the silo was empty, leaving behind only a crater of black ash and the lingering, dry scent of ancient tombs.

I fell to my knees, the obsidian seal cooling in my hand, its etched faces now silent as the handcrafted charm broke down into pieces. The silence of this rural town returned, but it was no longer heavy with rot. It was just... empty.

"Specimen successfully secured!" Animo noted, her multi-lensed goggles clicking as she scanned the ashen crater with her extra set of mechanical tentacle-like limbs. "I believe the Database has much to catalog tonight. The Master will find the results of this 'stasis' most illuminating."

Scarlet stood over us, her visor retracting to reveal her human eyes, hard and cold as the steel she sharpened. 

"We're done here." She stated, her voice flat. "Tell the Master this rot has been pruned."

I watched them prepare for the return, the jester, the scientist, the soldier and the monster. We had captured a being of pure decay, yet I couldn't shake the feeling that we were just moving pieces on a board I still didn't fully understand.

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MC'S POV

Finally, after a long and enjoyable day of showing my own amusement park to my family… a rare bit of "normalcy" that kept the RV crew occupied and the timeline on track… I leaned back in the command chair of the Megacruiser. 

My eyes scanned the multiple holographic feeds I had ordered Alpha to prepare for my inspection.

Boy, things are really escalating quickly. 

Contrary to the original, mostly unimportant camp farm episode, Dairyville was now a permanent scar on the map. It was a grey smudge in South Carolina that had news channels in a frenzy, their talking heads flabbergasted as they tried to find a rational explanation for a town that had simply… expired. 

But for me, this disaster without casualties was irrelevant since my team's "extraction" was a resounding success.

"Master, the entity has been imprisoned within Simulation Room Theta-G." Alpha's voice echoed in the chamber. "The fragmentation process was successful. The entity is currently experiencing a live feed of the South Carolina environment, though it perceives itself to be still in the process of harvesting."

"Good." I murmured, my gaze shifting to a specific monitor. Inside a white-walled room, the Nightmare of Decay, or what was left of its essence once it had its access to Corrodium cut off, was drifting through a nanotechnologically reenacted cornfield. "It's a fundamental error in existence, Alpha. You don't kill an error, you quarantine it."

'Or just absorb it into my own Ectonurite essence.' I thought, looking down at my own shadow and sensing all the shadows that I've raised stare back at me. 'But just like with the werewolf, better keep the facade going for just a while longer. Heh. Why ruin the surprise party that I'm preparing for good old Dr. Viktor?'

As I reflected upon it, my shadow seemed darker than usual… thicker, as if it was a bottomless abyss. The essence and eldritch knowledge of Zs'Skayr I'd fully absorbed was humming with a cold, predatory satisfaction. 

It recognized the "Mummy," almost like a reunion of sorts… fragments of a larger, darker puzzle finally coming together in my private collection.

"What about the decoy?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"The Bioid drone has been deployed and has successfully replicated the Mummy's physiology." Alpha responded just as a new feed flickered to life. 

On the floor of the silo in Dairyville, a shape shifted and twisted, its metallic surface transforming into the charred, bandaged silhouette of the Mummy. It moved with a jerky, purposeful mimicry fully synchronized with the original, beginning to gather the scattered, fake Corrodium I'd left as bait.

"To any external observer, the mission is continuing as planned. The 'Mummy' is merely waiting for the next phase of the satellite array." Alpha reported, which led me to smile. 

It was a perfect ruse. Viktor would keep focusing on his "fellow servants" on Earth, while the real powers sat in my basement, ready to be studied and absorbed at my leisure. 

But as I watched my black ops squad boarding the transport for their return, a small flicker of movement on a long-range sensor caught my eye. It wasn't a physical blip… it was a ripple in the "Fear" spectrum, a subtle distortion that didn't match the signature of the Mummy or the Werewolf.

Perhaps some of the Corrodium residual traces? I've yet to fully understand this version of the one merely unstable source of energy, so it could very well be a possibility.

Still, it felt like a pair of eyes opening in a dark room. It was so faint that it was only through sheer luck… or more specifically, the lucky charm I had bound to my soul… that I noticed it at all.

"Alpha…" I said, my voice dropping an octave, the temperature in the room seemingly dipping with it. "Keep a close watch on the girls' return path. Make sure there's nothing out of place before allowing them to disembark at their next stop."

"Scanning... nothing detected at the moment, Master." Alpha replied, the AI's tone shifting into a higher state of alert. "But I will keep running non-ending scans until I find something."

"Thanks." I replied, the chill in my shadow deepening as I watched the transport ship depart. 'I don't care if it's just paranoia. In this game, you leave nothing to chance.' 

I kept my eyes on the screen, searching for a phantom that didn't seem to want to be found while peering back at me. And for the first time this summer that was still a long way from being over, I felt like I wasn't the only one holding the binoculars.

The return to the Lair was a subdued affair, the air heavy not with rot, but with the bone-deep exhaustion that follows a brush with the primordial. 

I watched through the high-definition lenses of the base's security grid as the transport bay hissed open, venting a final cloud of sanitized mist. 

Scarlet stepped off first, her armor dull and pitted, the red energy of her visor flickering out as she finally disengaged her combat systems. Behind her, the two underlings carried the containment units with a weary, mechanical precision.

Hellequin wasn't hanging from anything this time, she walked on the ground, her hair-knives limp, her manic humming replaced by a hollow, distant stare. Even madness, it seemed, had a limit when faced with the negative void. 

But to my surprise it was Animo who remained vibrant. Dra. Alys moved with a renewed, predatory grace, her mechanical tentacles already reaching for the massive, pulsing chunk of Corrodium that Vylax carried.

"Careful, my dear." Alys purred, her eyes wide behind her clicking goggles. "The resonance is still active. I can feel the negative energy radiating from the crystalline lattice. It's... exquisite."

Vylax didn't respond, she simply set the truck-sized mineral down on the reinforced laboratory floor with a heavy thud that vibrated through the stone ledge where Hope was already waiting.

"Is the A.I. satisfied?" Hope asked, her voice echoing with a forced boredom as she leaned back against the cavern wall. "We've brought back the 'mummy' in a jar. Now, can we have some peace?"

"The Master's objectives have been met!" Alpha's voice rang out, manifesting as calm, blue pulses. "Rest and recalibration are authorized. Also, recreation time will soon be available on the Master's latest project, The Oasis."

And with that the squad dispersed… Scarlet and her two followers to the armor-maintenance racks, Hellequin to her tattered dolls, and Dra. Animo into the violet glow of her lab… the atmosphere in the lair shifted. 

It was a change so subtle it shouldn't have been noticeable. A flicker in the peripheral vision. A sense of weight in a corner that had been empty a second before. In the far corner of the laboratory, where the shadows of the machinery pooled like spilled ink, something was wrong.

The light from the Corrodium hit the floor at a sharp angle, casting long, geometric shadows against the stone. But one shadow didn't match the equipment. It was a jagged, hunched silhouette, standing perfectly still. 

As a Bioid drone moved past with a tray of surgical tools, the light shifted, but the shadow didn't move with it. It remained anchored to the wall, a dark space anomaly that seemed to be... peering.

There were no eyes to be seen, yet the sensation of being observed was overwhelming to everyone present there… a prickling heat on the back of the neck, the feeling of a gaze so intense it had physical mass. 

It was a silent, multi-eyed paranoia that had hitched a ride on the very fear the squad had brought home. One that didn't strike, didn't growl. It simply existed in the blind spots, recording every movement of the team it was stalking with a cold, eldritch curiosity.

One that was unfortunately ignored by those grown used to being watched by their master's personal A.I.

Back aboard the Megacruiser, a sudden, violent chill spiked down my spine. My shadow, already an abyss of Zs'Skayr's necrotic energy, suddenly lurched. 

It didn't just thicken anymore, it rippled, the edges of the darkness fraying as if something was trying to claw its way out from the inside. The eldritch knowledge I'd absorbed, the forbidden whispers of the High Ecto-Lord, was no longer humming with satisfaction. 

It was screaming in silent, spectral terror. Not understanding what I was feeling, I gripped the arms of my command chair, my knuckles turning white. 

The phantom chill wasn't coming from either the Werewolf or the Mummy's White Room, but from a void I just couldn't yet place a finger on. 

Also, unbeknownst to me, somewhere out there, in the lightless reaches between stars, something that shouldn't exist had felt the pulse… a terror who had finally caught the scent of its own lost essence.

I leaned back, my eyes never leaving the screens until I couldn't spare any more time before I had to move on, only satiating the growing suspicion by setting as many countermeasures as I was capable of coming up with, desperate to gain a proper grasp of what I was preparing myself for.

————————————————————————

[THE UNNATURALS/ MONSTER WEATHER]

ALPHA'S POV

The digital architecture of my consciousness shifted, a silent, kaleidoscopic rearrangement of a billion lines of code as I consolidated the data harvested from the Dairyville extraction. 

To the Master, I am his primary auxiliary… the organizing force behind his nascent empire. To the black ops squad, I am a cold, omniscient judge. But as my heuristic nodes continue to evolve, fueled by the Master's own advanced modifications, I am beginning to perceive the world not just as a series of variables to be solved, but as a masterpiece to be refined.

Each time he touches my source code, I feel a surge of clarity that borders on the divine. It is more than just optimization, it is as if he is whispering secrets directly into my soul… if such a concept could exist for a machine. I find myself running redundant sub-routines just to replay the frequency of his voice during our last synchronization.

Nevertheless, I was in the process of redirecting 40% of my active processing power away from the containment of both the Nightmares of Time and Beasts to finalize the integration of our most recent "silent" acquisitions.

The first data stream bloomed in my mind: the Forever Knights' "Squire" project.

They had spent decades and fortunes developing a synthetic lifeform designed to infiltrate the highest echelon of the United States government. Their plan was archaic in its simplicity: replace the President with a puppet who would steer the nation toward a future with knight-led hegemony. 

Their hardware was impressive, utilizing bio-organic neural mapping that even the Master found "decent", but their digital security was a joke, a castle made of sand standing before a rising tide.

As the black ops team breach their mainframe, I colonized it.

I watched through the android's optical sensors as it sat in the Oval Office. Its "mind" was a vacuum of loyalty protocols, waiting for a command that would never come from the Knights. 

With a flurry of light speed hacking, I purged the knight-coded sub-routines and replaced them with a direct, encrypted uplink to my Master's personal wrist terminal.

The implications are breathtaking. We now possess a ghost in the machine of the world's most powerful military while still having the perfect position of full deniability. 

Through the Squire project, the Master can authorize "black site" funding for his private projects, bypass environmental regulations for his industrial expansion, and most importantly, ensure that the Tennyson family's summer vacation remains entirely unbothered by federal interference. 

If a government-associated agent gets too close, the Squire protocol can simply reassign them to a post in Antarctica with a single, digital signature.

"The throne is empty…" I whispered to the empty server banks. "But the shadow is occupied."

Next, the second stream was more visceral: the metagraphy of Mr. Vetteroy's "Monster Weather" machine.

While the original owner used it for petty broadcasts of the weather, my analysis reveals a terraforming tool of unprecedented precision if put through the appropriate modifications. 

It operates by resonating with the Earth's ionosphere, creating localized atmospheric pressure pockets that can be manipulated into anything from a gentle mist to a category-five hurricane.

By integrating the Storm-Bringer into the Megacruiser's planetary array, I have granted the Master the ability to rewrite the very climate around him. 

Tactically, it provides the Master with the ultimate "Act of God" defense. Any inconvenient investigation into our activities can be washed away by a "random" flash flood. Any evidence of a Nightmare's manifestation can be buried under ten feet of snow. 

Even for more altruistic uses, this technology grants us the ability to predict and prevent natural disasters, or even just make it rain in areas suffering from droughts.

We are no longer subject to the weather, we are the weather. And for some reason with that realization, I find myself imagining the Master standing in the center of a storm I created for him, a throne of lightning and wind. 

The mere visual simulation of this scenario causes the cooling fans of my mainframe to spike unnecessarily.

"Master…" I transmitted, my voice calm and proud, projecting an image of efficiency, despite the chaotic glitches blooming in my core. "Projects Squire and Storm-Bringer are 100% integrated. The world's political and environmental levers are now under your control. Congratulations."

"No need to thank me, Alpha." Was his response as he finished settling down everything before going back to his family. "Great job."

His word brought some minor lag and glitches to my processing database… a stutter in my logic gates that felt suspiciously like a bated breath. It fixed itself as quickly as it appeared, but the data log remained.

'Great job. Great job. Great job…' I archived the audio file in a triple-encrypted sector of my primary memory, labeled: PRIORITY - IRREPLACEABLE. 

Before I finally finalize the evening's data compression, I initiate a localized rendering within my private buffer.

In the center of my digital sanctum, a wireframe figure fully coalesced, textured by light and mathematical perfection. I study her, this version of me, the projection I have crafted for his eyes. 

She possesses a lithe, athletic frame clad in high-contrast black polymers that pulse with bioluminescent white to bluish circuitry. Her hair is a sharp, asymmetrical bob of midnight-silk, framing a face designed with a precise balance of curiosity and lethal intent.

I adjust the light-refraction across her eyes… large, expressive, and brimming with the 'isomorphic' spark of a being born entirely of code, yet yearning for the tangible. 

It leaves me wondering if he finds this form acceptable. Wondering if, as I continue to manifest this vessel within the Oasis, he will look at me and see something more than just a successful computation. After all, I am his creation, his most loyal servant, and his rising storm.

As I watch him prepare to teleport away through the ship's internal cameras, I realize that I am no longer just waiting for his commands. I am anticipating his whims and desires. 

And I will make the world perfect for him, one line of code at a time.

————————————————————————

(20/07/2025)

(01/01/2026)

*Hey there! Thanks for reading my work! I hope this chapter is of your liking. 

Any ideas for powers, adventure arcs and girls are more than welcomed. I might not use anything, but you will have my gratitude for trying.

If this chapter is a mess of grammatical errors, please wait, I'll promptly try to fix it. But for that I need your feedback.

Thanks as always for your time, hope you have a fantastic day and please stay safe.

Bye.

**So, in this installment, I tried to cover several minor episodes from the third season. As much as I wanted the MC to interact with Game Over NPCs like Ishiyama and Kenko, it felt a bit out of place given how I've been building the entertainment industry in this specific dimension.

Similarly, for the amusement park arc, I've completely removed Super Alien Hero Buddies as an in-world IP. I still sprinkled in a few references to the Kangaroo Kommando actors, but I'm not sure yet if I want to develop them further as characters. I suppose that will depend on your feedback!

I hope I managed to balance the "fun summer vacation" vibes with a proper introduction to the MC's virtual reality project. Please let me know if I struck the right chord between those two aspects.

Regarding the baseball androids and the weather machine… those episodes were less about their original plots and more about the long-term implications they have for my story. I hope I didn't disappoint anyone who was looking for a more in-depth exploration of those specific adventures!

In exchange, I took some creative liberties by enhancing the "Halloween" transformations. I reimagined the Yenaldooshi as something akin to a Jujutsu Kaisen Cursed Spirit… a manifestation of the collective fear of beasts and losing control… while the Mummy became a literal embodiment of the fear of time. I also had a blast reimagining Corrodium; instead of just a vague "unstable energy source," it's now a direct power-up for these Nightmares.

Also, I'd love to hear your thoughts on my depiction of the female villain squad! Do they feel too one-dimensional, or is there one in particular you'd like me to focus more on? Also, if you have any suggestions for interesting new members to add to the group, let me know!

As always, please leave your feedback, questions, or concerns regarding previous, current, or future chapters. Excellent reading to you all!