I was pulled into an empty room with a female in the center of it, but that immediately became a sun-dappled grove with luscious green grass. This was a place out behind Katie's farm that she and I had spent time in, and I was here now.
"You think that you can change things?! It doesn't matter now! I have you!" Tiamat cackled as her image appeared in the sky, and a glowing red net started to close in around the world.
"Is your mother always this pleasant to be around?" I asked as the red net stopped, turned blue, and then started to retreat back to its source, Tiamat.
"She is going to pasture you and then kill us both," The woman with strange shifting cosmic skin said.
I assume this must be Calishora in a humanoid form, and she was quite pretty, but that was to be expected of the daughter of a Goddess. Tiamat wasn't too bad looking for herself if she could only get over herself. That didn't look like the case, so we were going to turn things around on her today.
"Tiamat, buddy, ole pal. I hear that you love to hear your own name! Almost like you have trouble remembering it!" I called up as the net closed around her, blocking out all sound. "Oh, wait, that's right I put you in another dimension where you will stay until I leave here. You seem to have forgotten about our visit trip, which was boss here, but I am a kind master. While in that dimension, any word you say will come out as your name, and then it will echo infinitely. Time is also drastically dilated, so you are going to be in there for a while. As a helpful suggestion, you should shut the fuck up."
Tiamat roared and struggled as the blue net crushed her in the sky, but neither of us could hear it. This creature deserved much worse, but I would slowly take strips off these Gods. They had been playing with no challenge for too long. While I may not be able to kill or physically hurt them here, there are other ways to deal pain.
"What are you doing to my mother?" Calishora asked, and I grinned when I heard no emotion in her voice.
"Putting her in a place that should be perfect for a self-centered creature like her. Now, I didn't come to talk about that nasty old space dragon. I came here to see you and to see if I could make good on my promise," I explained.
Over the last week, all my free time had gone into the Memory Gem, and I had used it to transfer many consciousnesses from one body to another to practice for this. The thing was that I had practiced doing this in real life, so here it should be easier. Still, there was no rush. Time had effectively stopped everywhere, and this pocket ran on a different timeline that I controlled.
"Can you tell me about yourself? You obviously don't seem that hurt that I locked and crushed your mother into an alternate dimension, right? Care to go for a walk to tell me about it?" I asked.
"There is nothing to say; she will just read my thoughts after," Calishora said, turning away from me.
"Come, you aren't going back to your body," I said, and Calishora whirled around to stare at me.
"You are going to kill me?!" Calishora asked with shock, and I nodded but wiggled my hand.
"Yes and no. I mean, I am going to kill the body you were in, but it sounds like your mother was going to do that anyways. Honestly, she is a bit of a joke to even consider herself a mother, but she is a big dumb space dragon with a golden spoon up her ass," I explained with a sigh as the warm summer breeze with the scent of fresh cut blew through the grove.
"That sounds a lot like just killing me," Calishora said plainly, and I reached for her hand, but she pulled away.
"Your mother can't hurt you anymore. She can hear or see this, and you aren't going to be here when she gets out. I also have a surprise to leave her with since she decided to plant a trap for me. Come, take my hand, and let us go for a walk," I explained, still holding out my hand, but then I realized that my hand was also Cosmic covered, and I pulled it back to look at it.
"You can take me from here? But this place isn't real, is it?" Calishora asked as I looked over my entire form.
"Hmm? Oh, that! Yeah, no problem. We could leave right now, but I think this is a good time to get to know you better. I am also in control of this world, so I can take us to some nice places to talk. All you have to do is trust me, take my share, and give me permission to take you with me," I explained.
"Permission? You can't just take me?" Calishora asked with a confused look.
"That is not how my powers work. I do nothing by force unless it is kicking the shit out of something, then we use all the force. For things like this, though, force is not the right path. I need your permission so I can gain full control of you and take you from this place when the time comes."
"You are very strange, but since I am to die anyways, I was hoping that you were going to save me. I never imagined that you would come so quick or my mother would try this so soon," Calishora said as she reached forward slowly, taking my hand.
When she did, a light flashed, and we were standing alongside a clear and gently moving spring. This was farther up north and a place where I had come for walks with Melody and her grandparents when they were younger. That reminded me that I should go check to see how Henry was doing. Probably his wife still!
"Strange is almost a compliment coming from an ancient space dragon," I smiled as we started to walk along the gently flowing river.
"I am just part of my mother. I only exist to find her body, and then be reabsorbed," Calishora said as she looked off in the distance.
"That is what your old body was. This, you right now, is not the same. Your physical form was part of Tiamat, but now I am going to give you a new physical form," I explained and then stopped, turning Calishora to face me, pointing a finger at her chest. "This is only you and no one else. This is the consciousness that you have developed, crafted by experiences and memories."
"And you can take this thing out of the body?" Calishora asked, and I nodded as my Memory Gem Appeared in my head. "Oh? You can use Astral Fragments? You really are not much different than my mother then."
Best
"I am your mother's heart in a way, so I can do many of the same things that she can, just on a far less grand scale. Why do you tell me about what your mother has planned with your body? Did she do anything to you?" I asked, and Calishora nodded, but she seemed unsure.
"She told me that she put things in place to make sure that I was killed no matter what if I couldn't defeat you. I don't know what that meant, nor did she tell me," Calishora explained, and I nodded.
"Good, that is all I need to know. I am going to store you in my Astral Fragment now, and then I am going to go leave some instructions for your original body. Once that is done, I am going back to my own. It will be a day or two before I bring you out, but there are some interesting stories that I transferred into there. That would keep you entertained until I can get you a new body, okay?" I asked, but Calishora still looked unsure.
"Is this really happening?! It's all so fast. How can you just do whatever you please?!" Calishora exclaimed.
"Because I don't just believe that I can do things. I know that I can. Since I was granted your mother's heart, I have done nothing but continue to break past all barriers that once limited me. This is nothing compared to what I have in store for the future that I would like you to become a part of. I am not saying to become one of my girls because there is no room, but I would like you to help me fight off Beta and to find Alpha's heart. That is the only way that we are going to stop this all," I explained.
"What will you do when you have both hearts, and you stop both of them?" Calishora asked me slowly, and I blinked.
"Explore, of course! I plan on making my planet transportable! I want to be able to visit new worlds and explore them! Meet new people and species! Come on! You can tell me that that doesn't sound fun, right?!" I asked, but Calishora just blinked at me.
"You don't want to control everything?!" Calishora exclaimed, and I barked out a laugh.
"No, I want everyone to get a bong, I mean along!" I said with a laugh, but Calishora just looked lost and confused.