Chapter 35: Memory

FieryKathy

“Granny?” I tilt my head, squinting my eyes in disbelief.

Veanya nods with a smile.

“You look pretty...different.”

“It’s a lot easier to move around as an old lady, attract a lot less attention than, well, this.”

Sam grunts and sits herself a bit more upright against the wall. “She’s got a point there.”

“Wh-wh-...”

“Calm down Amicia, I will answer all your questions.” She puts her hand on my shoulder. “First of, I’ll start with why I’m here right now.”

I nod.

“Well, first, I need you both to understand that on Earth, aether, mana, aura and whatever you want to call it is practically non-existent, apart from certain individuals which I’ll talk about later. So to my surprise I felt an extraordinary huge aura emanating from this place, which prompted me to investigate. And lo and behold, I find Amicia here going full berserk on that individual over there. Now, that’s pretty strange.”

“How so?” Sam takes my hand and forces me to sit next to her for a hug.

“She shouldn’t be able to do that. Two days ago I also felt a surge of aether but that was over so soon that I couldn’t pinpoint it. I guess that was you as well?”

“Hmmm. Two days ago we were at my game.”

“That’s quite possible then I guess. I felt incredibly enraged, just like I did now.”

Veanya guiltily lifts her finger. “Yeah, that’s what I figured out might have happened. And it’s probably all my fault.”

“What do you mean?” My ears perking up.

“You weren’t really meant to possess any form of magic to begin with. It looks like the magic I performed on you has had a strange side effect of linking you to the world of Haurchefaud.”

“So I wasn’t supposed to be able to heal?”

“Nope.”

“Why didn’t you find me when I performed healing then?” 

“The aether you use to heal, is not anywhere close to what this form uses. It barely even registers above environmental fluctuation.”

“Even though it exhausts me?”

“My theory right now is that your current form enhances your capabilities exponentially. Although it does also appear to be enhancing your emotions in the same way.”

“A theory? Aren’t you supposed to be a Goddess or something?” Sam butts into her argument.

“Look, Gods and Goddesses don’t know everything, alright? Just like human civilization has its science, we also develop more and more knowledge over time about systems and magic.” Veanya raises her hand to her chest, clearly a bit offended. “What happened to Amicia is quite possibly a breakthrough.”

“So there’s like a divine society?”

“You could call it that. Normally the Gods tends to their own worlds and we convene from time to time to put together our findings. It also serves the purpose of making sure no God goes out of bounds.”

“Normally?”

“Yes. Earth is indeed not my own world. Earth is a little bit of the black sheep in the community.”

“Welp, that’s fun.” Sam sarcastically laughs.

“The God that oversaw Earth is… well… an irresponsible prick. Come on. Trans people? The Great Drought? Wars? Famine? Like really? That’s just plain cruelty. Anyway, good news being, he has been taken care of. Bad news is we can’t really fix the core issue. We can only work on the symptoms.”

“And why exactly can’t you fix it?”

“You need to see it as a hierarchy. Each God is at the top of the hierarchy in their own system. When other Gods go to the system of one God, we can not overrule the fundamental rules written by the ruling God. Even if that God is disposed.”

“So there’s a vacancy for Earth now?” Sam asks.

“Basically, yes. There’s another world which has the same issue right now.”

“Haurchefaud?” I offer.

Veanya nods. “We are looking for a way to solve the problem, but as I said earlier, our knowledge about existence is limited and even we are still learning new things as they happen.”  

“So, if Haurchefaud is real, then why are we able to visit it? Like, why is it a game?”

“The God that made it got reincarnated and used to be a big MMO fan before they died. And then stuff like this happens.” Veanya sighs. “I hate it when that happens.”

“Not the first time?”

“Hell no. Luckily this is only the first time we couldn’t stop the creation of said worlds, otherwise we’d be unfucking worlds literally all the time… Excuse me for my language.”

I giggle.

At least Veanya seems pretty down to Earth.

“We could’ve stopped Earth players joining with Haurchefaud, but that entire world’s concept revolves around ‘player interaction’. If no one would hop-in, so to speak, the entire world would collapse. We are filtering ‘users’ out as best as we can so we don’t get any murderers running around but a few are bound to slip through the cracks. Please do tell me if you see them now.”

“Are we going to have regular contact then?”

“Well, I hope you understand that I need to keep an eye on you now. Gods get born with an unchanging amount of power. As far as I can tell by deduction, because your power is linked Haurchefaud, yours is not and has no limit for as far as I know. So you could potentially even become stronger than us.”

I nod “Potentially?”

“There was a limit in place to how strong ‘players’ could get in Haurchefaud, so no one could rival the Gods. But since you are also linked to Earth, with your own body, I’m not sure how that affects it. This is pretty uncharted territory.”

Sam finally find the strength to stand up. “But won’t the other Gods start to fear Amicia, if she could potentially outgrow them?”

Veanya nods. “Maybe, that’s why I’m going to keep it secret for now. I’ll speak to a couple of my confidents to see if we could make some sort of pact to keep her safe. But Amicia looks like someone who isn’t a power hungry asshole, so I don’t think many Gods would mind that much.”

“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Just try to not do things like… well, this anytime soon. It’d be a lot easier to keep quiet.” She motions back to my floaty sword and the man against the door.

“I-I’ll try.”

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea to learn how to control it a bit better, maybe Haurchefaud wouldn’t be that bad of a place to practice in.”

“That’s what we were planning.”

“Good.” Veanya pats my head. “And what do you want to do about this situation?”

“With my father?”

She nods.

“What can you do?”

“There’s a couple of options. One of which is killing him, which I personally wouldn’t do as it raises too many questions. We could let him live but erase his memory of today, but in the end that wouldn’t change much.”

“Mhmm.”

“What I could do is erase the memory of both your parents about you and your sister, and change the administration.”

“I need to talk to my sister about this…”

“Understandably so. I can unfreeze her so you can call her.”

I nod.

-5 minutes later, after talking to a pretty confused Élise-

“So, what are you gonna do?” Sam walks over to me and puts her hand on my shoulder.

“We both think the ‘removing the memories of us as their children’ plan is the best idea… but could I ask for a favor?” I look over to the Goddess.

Veanya nods.

“Could you divorce our mother from our father? I mean… she was pretty bad for us as well, but that was probably more my dad’s fault than hers. She was just walking along with his bigotry. And we fear that if he only has her to work his anger out on…”

“That shouldn’t be too much of an issue.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem at all.” She smiles again and gets out a piece of paper. “Here’s my phone number if you need to contact me.”

“You people use phones?” Sam asks.

“These things are pretty useful.”

“Uh...I guess that true.” she laughs.

I take the piece of paper as Veanya steps back a few metres.

“If you have any more questions, just call me ok?”

“Allright.”

The bright light she entered with overwhelms the both of us again, once it subsides the entire hallway is clean. No more dad, no more floaty sword, no more armour, even the milkshake spill is cleaned up. The only thing that's left is a blood stain on Sam's track suit...

It was real. Everything that just happened was real...

The reality of what just happened now only really sinks in. Tears slowly begin to well up in my eyes

“Wow, that was something…” Sam sighs but gets interrupted by the sound of sobbing.

My sobbing.

I collapse to the ground as tears hit the floor, one after the other.

“Babe, what’s wrong?” Sam quickly puts her arms around me.

“You got hurt, Sam...because of me. And then… I almost killed someone…”

“Hey, it was me who chose to defend you Ami. And as Veanya said that other part was your skill’s doing.”

“But what if it really was me…”

Sam gets on her knees in front of me and lifts my face so she can look me straight in the eyes. “Amicia. I know that wasn’t you. Do you think I’d have fallen in love with you if you truly were like that?”

“Y-you don’t like girls who can kick your ass?”

“Okay you’ve got me there.” She laughs and tickles my sides. “In all seriousness though. I might not have known you for that long, but I do know you kitten. You’re my cute, shy, little catgirl. Not some amazeballs angel of vengeance. We just need to learn how to control it together.” Sam kisses my neck.

I start giggling through my sobs. “I love you Sam. I love you so much.”

“I love you too.” She picks me up from the ground in a princess carry, making me blush furiously. “Let’s get you a milkshake and get you home.”

“B-but what about your lessons…”

“That’s not important right now.” She smiles at me, making me melt away instantly. 

Aaaaaaahhhh