Save STate Hero 3 - ch 14-

Chapter 14

No sooner than the big bright Dragon settled down on the ground, then Edmund quickly adjusted the cinch around her throat. Bringing it tighter and making sure she wasn’t going to try and snatch him off her neck.

She groaned, said something, and shuffled forward a few steps and then laid down on the ground.

“Oz, what’d she say?” Edmund asked, looking backward the way they’d come.

Iren and the Gold Dragon were but specks on the horizon. This Dragon had flown so far, and so fast, that she’d left the other two in the literal dust.

Edmund sat there, waiting for Oz to respond.

Except he didn’t.

“Oz? Srit?” he tried.

There was no response from either of them. They were silent.

Panicking, Edmund ripped open his Save-state ability. Terrified that he’d ended up into an identical situation to what he’d been in previously at the start of the universe.

The Save-state system opened immediately and he watched as they unfolded for him.

Except they were all unknown to him.

What was laid out in front of him wasn’t his own Save-states, but the Dragon he rode even now. With the start of her life not being that long ago and her life winding outward from this point.

Except all of the Save-states were a bright red color before this point, and purple from the point Edmund was at and onward. The angry red-ness of all the Save-states made him think that they were perhaps a single use away from cracking.

Yet when he looked at them, they all seemed whole. Whole and undamaged yet still angry and terrifyingly red.

Reaching out to it, Edmund found that it was responsive. That he could utilize it just as he had with all the other Save-states. If he wished, he could even slide into the moment.

A day ago, Cashatok was approached by Skipper at college. Cashatok had been leaving after finishing up one of her courses to go to work.

Skipper had come to her and offered her a great deal of money to do a job. She needed muscle and was willing to pay a great deal for it.

Cashatok had agreed to it, as she needed a great deal of money.

Even as Edmund looked into the Save-state, he felt it close.

That was the only way he could describe it.

It closed to him.

From a vibrant red, to a cold and dead gray color.

Upon attempting to access it, Edmund found that he couldn’t. He could get a surface feeling from it, but nothing in depth. As if it’d been a front door left open, that was now shut. Edmund could only peek at the contents through the windows.

Deciding to test that closed door, Edmund put his focus on it and started to grind his will and power into the gray colored Save-state. Digging into it as if here working at ripping the door right off it’s hinges.

Even as he pushed on the Save-state, he found it was slowly giving way to the force of his insistence. The entirety of it collapsing inward as he pushed.

Then the gray colored Save-state did a strange inversion. As if the proverbial door broke.

It was once more bright red, but it was also torn and frayed. Just looking at it he could tell he could probably access it once before it faded away into nothing.

Hm.

Well that’s not great.

So where-ever I am, when-ever I am, Save-states work, but also don’t work.

At least not in the way I was expecting.

This is something new and entirely different. I can’t just access Save-states willy-nilly here. I have to be frugal and sparing. I can look at one in depth, but it’ll lock me out.

I can break the lock, but it’ll become a one-use.

Alright, I got this.

After having broken the door off the Save-state, or at least as he mentally pictured it, Edmund was able to once more scan through that particular Save-sate.

Cashatok was a young woman taking on large debts to pay for college. Doing gig work whenever she could and that it wouldn’t set her further back than what it’d cost her to take the work.

Her car was run down, it didn’t always start on the first try, and she didn’t have an urban-flying license to transform and fly about as her Dragon form.

Skipper’s offer had been the difference between eating for several months, not working herself to death, and still being able to save a bit while going to college.

Edmund opened his mouth, hesitated, then blew out a breath.

Cashatok wasn’t just some random Dragon.

It was a young woman doing a lot of the same things he himself had been struggling with before he’d joined Legion. Before Harper had stepped into his life.

Unhitching the chain around Cashatok’s throat, then just letting the chain hit the grass, he dismoutned from her back. He went to reach up and pull off his helmet when it gave him a flashing indicator.

There was no text, but it was the picture of a face, instead of the helmet that it had normally been in the bottom left corner. He had no idea what it meant.

Except it didn’t matter. If he pulled his helmet off, Cashatok wouldn’t be able to understand him anyways. Because it was actively translating for him to Cashatok’s actual language.

“You’re a college student?” Edmund asked, turning to look at Cashatok who was eying him in a strange way. Her large horned helmet tilted to one side.

Yet the moment he asked the question, her eyes went wide and her head rocked backward.

Her response was immediate and it sounded like several different questions almost at the same time. Ending with her moving her head in close to him and peering at him with large platinum eyes. Her head seemed larger than Iren’s now that she was directly in front of Edmund.

“Uhm, I’m sorry I have no idea what you said,” Edmund admitted and put his gauntleted hands onto her snout. “I’m going to guess you’re surprised that I know what I college student is? Or something like that?

“I never went to college. Couldn’t afford it. Fucking debt and the percent I’d have to pay back would’ve clobbered me. That and you can’t discharge education debt where I’m from with a bankruptcy.

“Like a pair of stones around your neck that just never goes away. Got a job instead and that did me a lot more good than going to college. At least for me.”

Cashatok blurted out a single word, her head moving away from him. Then she leaned in and sniffed at him loudly. The inhale was quite strong. To the point that he ended up taking a step forward.

With a shake of her head, Cashatok shifted suddenly and appeared in front of Edmund as a young woman of about twenty years of age. With hair and eyes the same color as her scales her.

Even as she shifted, she turned away from him, putting her back to him.

She said something, glanced at him over her shoulder, and then looked down to her feet.

Then, without warning, a strange slithering fabric moved around her and covered her. Eventually taking a form that seemed a lot like a type of coverall that went from shoulder to mid thigh.

After several seconds the woman turned back to him and she gave him a smile, pointed a finger at him, then did a finger wag. All while speaking with a wide smile.

Then Iren settled down into the ground next to her, laughed, and transformed into her naked, tall, and beautiful Green self. Her nakedness not a bother to her in any way it seemed.

“She said you shouldn’t stare at her so,” Iren translated with a warm laugh. Even as the platinum eyed Dragon looked to Iren and gave her a wide eyed stare. Apparently shocked at the very naked and large Iren. She was easily six or seven inches taller than the other Dragon. “What? Oh, guess I’m a lot bigger. Ha. Mm. I’m not really a Green anymore am I? Uh… one… second, Teddy.”

Iren looked to the Platinum Dragon and said something in that language she and the other Dragons clearly shared. A quick back and forth between them that ended with a question from the Platinum.

Edmund took a step back as the large Gold Dragon landed in the grass and transformed into a flaxen haired, golden eyed beauty. One that quickly put her back to Edmund and a similar transformation took place, a strange material that covered her from shoulder to thigh.

Not waiting, she went to Iren and the other Dragon and joined in the conversation. Only to end up staring at Iren and her absolute nakedness.

Ignoring the three Dragons since he couldn’t participate in the conversation, Edmund instead went to his Save-state power again. He pulled it back up and started to flick through all the Save-states available to him.

All the purple ones were from his involvement and onward it seemed.

The two new Dragons, the Gold and the Platinum, were red colored before meeting him, yet purple afterward.

Yet all of Iren’s were of course, blue colored. As had Edmund’s been when he could see them.

As he went to follow Iren’s Save-state’s backward, he saw the current one was purple as well. As if the current one was being affected by their location, just as it seemed as if Edmund was affected the Save-state’s of others.

It meant there was two variables here that could change how a Save-state behaved.

Edmund and this location.

Giving up on that thought, despite it being true, he instead tried to do something useful. Because if Iren was here, that meant her Save-states would go back to his own at some point.

So long as he followed them.

He began immediately tracing Iren’s Save-states backward. In a strange way they went downward a short ways, then shot far to the right. Straight off the entirety of the Save-state board that he could see.

Endlessly moving to the right he watched as it crossed what seemed to be numberous uncrossable boundaries. Places and locations that no Save-state should be able to move past.

Iren’s did.

Then he found where her Save-states rejoined the other blue colored Save-states. All of them laid out exactly as they should be. Her birth, meeting him, and everything in between.

He did note that there was one particular golden Save-state but it didn’t seem out of the ordinary at a glance. Rather than look into it he moved to his own Save-states.

It was exactly where he expected it to be thankfully.

The long tree that started with his birth and ran upward was of course here. His own line of Save-states moving upward and outward into their mutliple branching paths that he had always come to expect.

All of them were there along with all the points that intersected with everyone that mattered to him.

He wasn’t sure if reaching out and attempting to access them would turn them purple however. That if perhaps the location variable of where he was right now might taint them and twist them.

Holding himself back, Edmudn didn’t engage them. He knew they were there though and if push came to shove, he could try to access them.

He promised himself he wouldn’t be waiting for an end-all be-all situation.

At some point, likely tonight when he had more time to think and experiment, he’d attempt to see what would happen if he accessed a Save-state. One that wouldn’t matter and wouldn’t matter much at all.

Like one of hte boring Austrlia ones.

That’d be a good one to test.

“Okay! I’ve uh… okay! Information. I definitely have some but I don’t think it’s everything or probably even what you want to know but… well anyways,” Iren said, then laughed. “We’re in a modern world. It seems fairly normal from what I can determine from them. A bit heavy on capitalism but nothing horrible.

“Dragons are more or less everyday here. A lot like humans. Strangley though apparently Dragon and human parents just have humans or Dragons. No inbetween, which is weird but-anyways.

“Dragons are everyday. Lots of licenses and things needed and kinda weird but… yeah. That’s where we are. This is Farady! She’s actually a Gold Dragon like Goldie. Farady is a uh… she’s a civil-engineer. She does a lot road stuff.

“And Cashatok is a college student working on getting a degree in biology!”

Edmund opened his mouth, blew out a breath in a sigh, then nodded his head.

“Hey Farady, hello Cashatok. I’m sorry. I speak your language, but I don’t understand it,” Edmund muttered. “Something I’ll need to fix I guess. That or learn your language.”

Farady made an odd noise at that, said something, and gestured at Iren. Most likely commenting about the beautiful Green Dragon’s nakedness.

Iren responded, shrugged, then looked to Edmund.

“Farady wants us to come back to her house. Cashatok, too,” Iren translated. “Apparently she didn’t trust Skipper and never actually gave her her real address. So her place would be safe. Though uh… they’re not happy I’m naked. Haha.

“Whatever. Not like I have a choice. I don’t have that fancy doohicky they do on their wrist. Should probably buy one though.”

Farady said something, gestured at a distant building that was on a dirt road.

Iren responded, nodded, then looked to Edmund as they stood there in the outskirts.

“She’ll pull her car over there. She has a license to fly through the city so… shouldn’t be hard. Before you worry about trusting them,” Iren said, apparently catching where Edmund’s thoughts were starting to drift. “Skipper saw both of them clearly coming back through the portal. Given how Skipper is… she’ll kill them just as quickly as she’d kill us. They both know it, too.

“We’re all in the same boat now. Disposable problems to Skipper and she’ll do all she can to stop us.”

“Good thing we’re not taking any action against her,” Edmund put in quickly. He wondered if his theory was correct but it’d be hard to test it without putting himself in danger. “Yep, no actions against her at all. We’re going to ignore her and pretend she doesn’t exist. As if she were nothing more than a stranger. If we saw her, we wouldn’t even recognize her.”

Iren blinked, stared at him in an almost stupid way, then shrugged.

“Okay,” she said, then laughed, stepping closer to him. “Hey… so… I’m not just in my ‘ready for Teddy’ clothes, but in the ‘how about right now’ outfit I know you enjoy.”

Iren had finished the statement by gesturing at herself. Cashatok was watching now with raised eyebrows and a partially opened mouth as if she might say something.

“Wanna go behind those trees over there and make me clutch again?” asked Iren in a throaty whisper. “Because my eggs aren’t here… and… and I want my clutch. Which really just means I need to clutch again.”

Her words had gone from a throaty whisper to a full on purring growl

“Maybe tonight,” deferred Edmund, not really wanting to try such a thing out here in the middle of htis weird field with Cashatok not far.

Farady was already a golden blur on the horizon. She’d transformed back into a Dragon and was flying away quickly toward the city. Though she was taking a very long route around it, and was quite low in the sky.

Clearly making sure she was avoiding Skipper as she went.

“Poo,” complained Iren, who turned to Cashatok and asked a question.

To which the Platinum became a dark red color and quickly shook her head. Only to slowly nod her head once.

Iren laughed at that and then looked to Edmund.

“Well. How’re we looking? What’s the situation? You seem a bit spooked,” she asked, clearly carving straight to the heart of the matter.

“Honestly not as fucked as I thought we were but it’s really strange,” Edmund said with a shake of his head. “The Save-states are red, except for where they cross over with me. There they’re purple. Our original color was blue, by the way. In case I never mentioned it. Your Save-states are blue, except for where they intersect this place. There they’re purple, just like mine, Cashatok’s and Farady’s.

“When I inspect the Save-states they turn gray and I can’t access them without forcibly doing it. Then they lose durability and become weakened to the point they’ll break if I use them.”

“Oh, so… we’re in either Skipper’s world, or Zeus’ world, yeah?” Iren asked with a loud laugh. “Adeena had said something a while back and now it makes sense. She wondered if her powers would be different if she went to a world owned by ‘our enemy’. She said it in that silly tone of hers so I thought she was just being crazy again.

“Guess not. Though it makes sense in retrospect. She really knows exactly what information to lay out for us to pick up on later. Kinda weird at the same time but… that’s our Adeena.”

A Zeus world… that’s… that’s exactly-exactly what this is.

Exactly what it is!

This is a Zeus world and that’s why my Save-states are weird.

It’s probably even why it turned gray when I accessed it.

Zeus might’ve seen me try to do it and tried to intercede.

That’d be the only thing that makes sense.

But… wait… doesn’t that mean that Runner has been able to tell the entire time that I was doing this? It means he would’ve known everything I was doing from the very beginning.

Has he been just playing along with it atll?

Like a parent letting a kid tell him how to do something, that he himself had already mastered a long time ago?

Shit.

Well.

I guess that makes more sense. A lot more sense.

Doesn’t that also mean that Runner might actually know what’s going on with me? From Save-state to Save-state? Each and every move I make?

It’s why I felt like I didn’t actually kill him, too.

He let it all play out like that just so I could… grow.

To push out, changed, and become myself.

The same way Ryker won’t give me information that might change things, Runner let’s me do whatever I want in the Save-states.

“Well fuck me,” Edmund muttered.

“Sure!” Iren crowed immediately.

Cashatok only opened her mouth, her brows pressing together, and then tilted her head to one side.