Arriving in the parking lot safely had been a relief.

  Not that I was particularly thrilled to see this world, especially as Ahri’s grimace as I opened the portal let me know it was another low-magic world, but because it would give me a chance to sleep.

  Anko had been just as much of a slave driver as I had hoped… and feared, but we had been holding up surprisingly well.

  It might have been because we were already past peak human. Amy had been experimenting with muscle structures. Even back on Runeterra we were already low-level superhuman. In fact, she had been spending a lot of time fine-tuning our bodies to balance both strength and speed and we already knew that Harry Potter magic would bump that up just a bit more.

  Yet that pure biological improvement was still basically nothing when compared to the wider multiverse. The elemental nations were perhaps one of the better examples of speed, strength, and stealth that no amount of biological engineering could achieve. The thing was, these weren’t mutually exclusive, once we had both a super human baseline and the empowerment methods, we would finally be a force worth reckoning with. The utility of Harry Potter magic would probably raise that by another order of magnitude.

  … Unfortunately we didn’t have said boost yet and that increased baseline just meant that Anko felt she could throw us right into the deep end.

  Yet as sadistic as she was, I had to admit she wasn’t a terrible teacher. It had only taken Anko a few hours of explanation, demonstrations, and letting her chakra flow through us to let us get a feel for it before we learned to stick a leaf on the back of our hands.

  I really should have seen that as the warning it was. My memories of the anime didn’t have them focusing this hard on active chakra usage until much later..

  Her next order had been to get up and RUN.

  No warning, no explanation. Just RUN!

  Then she had started throwing her kunai at us.

  Everyone except Hinata and Taylor had dropped their leaf when Anko had attacked us. Maybe they had noticed what she was about to do.

  Dropping the leaf had been a mistake.

  Next thing I knew I was laying face up staring at the grey bubble that made up our sky in the pocket dimension.

  Feeling a moment of dread, I rolled only to see another kunai sticking in the ground where my shoulder was a second ago.

  This time there was a bit of annoyance in her voice.

  “… RUN!”

  I remember turning and spotting a circular obstacle course about a half kilometer in diameter. She must have been creating it using earth jutsu while we were working on the leaf exercise.

  The next few hours were a blur of pain and desperation while we tried to keep a leaf stuck on the back of our hand, then head, then multiple leaves at the same time.

  The entire time Anko followed us lazily, demonstrating that she was barely putting any effort in at all, throwing kunai and water bullets at anyone she didn’t feel was putting in enough effort.

  Even Hinata seemed a little intimidated by Anko’s pace.

  Hermione had still been hesitant to have Amy modify her and had declined the training at the start. However, the longer we had trained the more often I saw her looking pensive while watching us. Despite her bookworm and teacher’s pet status in the story, she threw herself into danger just as often as Harry so I suspected that she was going to ask for chakra once she had worked up the nerve to talk to Amy and ask to be biologically modified. That would probably be soon since she had been making baby steps towards that by asking for a few cosmetic touch-ups from Amy, including fixing her buck teeth. That said, I suspected she would struggle at the brutal pace even with Amy’s help getting her to at least peak human.

  On the other end of the spectrum was Hinata, who performed better than any of us in the ninja movement portions of our training.

  The surprise that really shouldn’t have been was Ahsoka. It was embarsing but I had never really realized how far beyond standard human a Jedi was. She was used to avoiding moving obstacles and throwing weapons and running for hours barely phased her. She had previously made it clear that without chakra, having not asked for it yet, and the direct connection to the Force in her home universe she was weakened somewhat and this low-magic world seemed to make that worse. Yet she easily outpaced the rest of us never being hit by anything Anko threw.

  In fact, Ahsoka’s superior performance was doubly impressive since Hinata still had 360-degree vision, and I had no doubt that Taylor was trying to track Anko using her bugs but the two of them still got hit occationally. Ahsoka’s performance was so impressive that I wondered how I could get the same precog abilities. Was Amy going to have to put the Midi-chlorins in my cells just so I could sit in years of meditation?

  That much effort might have been worth it considering how hard it was to keep my attention split between the leaf and the thrown weapons. A little extra warning would have saved me multiple times. Worse, whenever I lost concentration and let the leaf drop Anko ‘punished’ me by hitting me in the butt with a stone too fast for me to dodge. My ass had roughly two dozen purple bruises when she had finally let us stop the first time two hours in.

  I had gotten my hopes up only to find out that she hadn’t forgotten about Amy’s abilities and after a quick refresh, we ran it again… and again… and again, making small improvements each time we ran the course. Thus by the fifth session, I had only 14 bruises.

  So… progress?

  So yes, the nearly 12-hour boot camp was working even if I could feel myself burning out.

  Ahsoka had asked for chakra on the second break when Anko demonstrated how much of an advantage there was to running on walls and ceilings.

  The good news was, by the end of Anko’s first chakra boot camp, I could stick to walls while running using nothing but my feet for almost two seconds at a time. That was incredible… and terrifying when she smiled and said, “Good, now we can finally get started with your real training.”

  I knew it was funny, but I couldn’t laugh despite how I knew not one of us had any blood left in our faces as we stumbled back through a portal to the shuttle.

  Shaking off those thoughts and focusing back on the present, I looked out of the portal into the wider world again. It was still an empty parking lot with no indication that anything would change any time soon. Shaking my head and slumping in exhaustion, I waved at the small portal. “Thea, if you would be so kind, please watch the area and let us know if anything happens.”

  It was annoying not knowing what was going on at the moment, but without Luna or Dinah, we had no way of magically knowing where in the timeline we were. I wanted to help now, but this chakra training would make going into the facility both safer and easier.

  Thea’s amused, “of course” was a little too happy and I wondered if she had been entertained watching us. To be fair, none of us were hurt once Amy had gotten the chance to touch each of us so Thea might have found our training session funny.

  Telling Thea “Thanks” I turned around and found that everyone else had already split up and were heading to bed under Anko’s amused smirk. I thought about saying something snarky, but I realized I didn’t have the strength, doubly so after the jump. Making my way to the master cabin, I only had the remaining strength to fall into bed, face down, next to them.

  Blackness claimed me only a few moments later.

  The next morning I was awoken with a knife pressed against my neck.

  I felt a surge of adrenaline hit my system before I was bodily lifted and thrown across the room. As I twisted to get my feet underneath me, my panicked brain tried to figure out what was going on… right up until I saw Anko’s sadistically smiling face.

  Instantly, my mood soured even before I slammed into the wall, my back protesting the sharp impact. Having the wind knocked out of me was not my idea of a pleasant wakeup even if her training had ensured it was at least not head first.

  Next to me, Ahri hit the wall and we were forced to catch Taylor and Amy as they were thrown at us. Sabah had at least woken up at this point so she was able to turn and almost managed to get away before Anko sped up and grabbed her by the shoulder and launched her at us, forcing Ahri and me to drop Taylor and Amy.

  Amy, who had never been a morning person, was beyond pissed as she practically growled out. “What the hell!”

  Anko’s laugh was a little unhinged as she smiled at us. “If you couldn’t detect me, you should have put up defenses.”

  I wanted to retort that she was a guest and we trusted her. But… but yeah, that was stupid. We had keyed her into our primary defenses, which was still probably justified, but hadn’t set up a second layer for those we had allowed to join us temporarily.

  Anko wouldn’t have been able to find our hidden compartments where we had put multiple layers of notice-me-nots and locking charms, but it had been stupid not to put those on our cabin.

  Next to me I could see the other girls coming to a similar conclusion.

  The kunai that Anko threw at my face forced me to jerk my head to the side and snap out of my thoughts. “Now you had best get breakfast ready as we won’t be stopping halfway today.”

  I felt the blood leave my face at that.

  We had trained for a full 12 hours yesterday, was she expecting us to train for 24 now? I felt like I got even paler as I remembered that days in her world were 36 hours. So maybe training for 24 hours straight was something that elite ninja actually did.

  Amy and Taylors simultaneous “Fuck…” made it clear they were just as worried about that implication as I was.

  Seeing as we hadn’t changed clothes before collapsing last night and I doubted that Anko was going to wait for us to change, I simply turned and headed towards the kitchen only to find Hinata making breakfast.

  Some sort of fried rice wasn’t a normal breakfast food for us, but I wasn’t about to turn my nose up at anything currently.

  As I suspected, Hermione made up her mind and Amy spent the time to give her chakra followed by the minor tie-in soul surgery I did to connect the chakra system to her soul. Then, five minutes later she was sitting down and trying to learn how to stick a leaf to the back of her palm while the rest of us ran… again.

  Thus the second day of training started. This time with even more kunai.

  Yet this first session was shorter as after only a half hour we stopped. My confusion didn’t last long as Anko quickly divided us into pairs so we could fight hand to hand.

  This was something none of us had ever done and it showed. Irelia’s training had primarily been in shields, knives, swords, and spears. That made sense as since, despite popular opinions, just about any pre-modern battlefield was made up of lines of shields and spears with arrows and slings in the backline. The swords and knives were backups for when the enemy got too close or you were separated. I didn’t have much to compare ourselves against there, but I suspected we were at least not incompetent in skill and obviously above average in strength and speed.

  That may have sounded vague, but there were a lot of factors going on. On the one hand we had Amy’s modifications, had a top notch instructor, and we had worked hard. However on the other hand we still only had less than a year’s worth of training. And none of that training was directly hand to hand.

  Unfortunately, that meant that we quickly and painfully learned that Ahsoka and Hinata could wipe the floor with us.

  That was a big oversight and I felt like kicking myself. Why hadn’t I trained our grappling?

  Even our duels at Hogwarts had been exclusively with our magic and skills, nothing with hand-to-hand.

  So we were shown another entire world of pain. Yet, it seemed to be working as the fifth time we stopped for spars and I was paired off with Hinata and managed to last 20 whole seconds.

  Oh we were cheating for everything we were worth, but it was working. Amy had admitted when we stopped after the next run that she had done something with our brain chemistry that would theoretically make us learn faster. Something about increased brain plasticity. Hermione had looked like she could have kissed Amy right then and there.

  Amy was also able to rebuild our muscles back significantly stronger. Sabah had asked why she hadn’t just done that in the first place, but Amy had explained that doing too much at a time would have messed with our hand-eye coordination something fierce, and this way she knew what muscles exactly she needed to target.

  That made sense as, despite what some people thought, bodybuilders actually made pretty terrible martial artists. There needed to be a mix between muscle mass and speed. It was the mistake she had made back on Runterra the first time where she had focused too much on strength and not enough on speed and flexibility.

  Amy’s work was then combined with my work on the soul side. Specifically, after a little experimentation with my own soul, I found that I could slowly soothe our souls to build them back stronger. This was already happening naturally, but my efforts resulted in us growing much faster than normal if Hinata’s surprise at our growth was anything to judge by.

  Thus the morning passed. Running, jumping, and fighting like our lives depended on it… and I didn’t doubt that it would eventually.

  To our relief, that evening we were given a little bit of time to practice the henge no jutsu. Honestly, the ability to place an chakra shell over your body to display an illusion was less effective than just using magic to transfigure ourselves or having Amy modify us. Not only did it not work for touch, but it was detectable using by both our chakra and magical senses.

  But it would be a big help for Ahsoka in the short term so she wouldn’t have to be attached to the hip with Ahri any time we were in a human only reality… which was most of the time.

  That evening, despite being exhausted, we spent nearly an hour carving runes into our doorways and enchanting them to stop anyone we hadn’t personally invited into our rooms from breaching the doorway.

  To my surprise, with a blush Hermione actually keyed me and my wives into her room.

  Ahsoka had watched us and had looked amused the entire time then when we left, she walked forward to probably tease the now beet-red bookworm.

  I would have had to be blind not to see that Hermione was a little interested. She was nearly 17 and a half now, since her birthday was in September. A while back Luna had not so subtly hinted that 16 was the age of consent in the UK on the muggle side. I didn’t want to know what it was on the magical side, considering how there were married dorms in Hogwarts for any year. I had declined those dorms to keep a low profile. She also made it clear that multiple wives, or more specifically, a wife and mistresses, was not uncommon pretty early on. Obviously the books hadn’t covered any of that, but I wasn’t sure if it was because the books were written for kids, the author didn’t want to deal with real Victorian or pre-Victorian era culture, the author didn’t want to deal with the pagan undertones of the culture, or becaust starting at 11 instead of 14 meant they could more realistically assume everyone graduated end before marriage..

  Regardless, the awkwardness about Hermione’s age was due to the fact that, while I slept with Taylor when she was 17, I had only been either 19 or 20 at that time.

  Deciding to metaphorically and literally run away from the topic again I had returned to our cabin, exhausted. Not having the energy to take a shower, I cast a quick cleaning charm and flopped back into bed.

  I didn’t dream.

  This time I felt my body rebel as I was metaphorically dragged kicking and screaming into consciousness. Instantly, I was hit with an excruciatingly terrible smell.

  It made my eyes water and my lungs burn.

  Not waiting for anything else to happen, I opened a portal to the outside of the shuttle and jumped out, noticing the rest of the girls in the room following me out a moment later, Sabah and Amy losing the remains of their dinner on the grass.

  Before I could do as much as roll over I was kicked in the side and landed in a heap where I had the wind driven out of my lungs as my girls landed on top of me.

  Anko’s grinning face was just as sadistic as I remembered. “You forgot to protect your air supply.”

  Behind us, I saw Ahsoka and Hinata leading a shaky and teary Hermione down the shuttle ramp only to have the three of them hit by Anko’s water bullet jutsu.

  Since none of us could handle whatever tear gas she had used, we were unable to get to our food and our third day of training had seen us starting hungry.

  Again, I still hadn’t forgotten about world outside our pocket dimension, but I figured another day couldn’t hurt if nothing else was happening.

  It was during lunch, after Thea had ventilated the shuttle for us, that we heard the explosion through the still-open portal.

  Shoveling the last of the bread and soup into my face I turned and looked out at the parking lot of the Aperture Science Center.

  All around I saw equipment falling from the sky. Some pieces fell on the rusty shells of the abandoned cars while others fell on the crumbling remains of the above-ground buildings.

  It made me wonder how exactly Chell had managed to survive since she had been right at the blast center.

  Moving the portal forward, I looked for the raven-haired protagonist of the portal games. I hoped she was still wearing the white tank top and orange coveralls she used as pants as it was hard to spot anything in the massive mess the parking lot had become.

  A minute or so later I was actually starting to get worried. The parking lot was surprisingly huge and looking for one body in the middle of the still falling debris was hard. The small pieces of insulation, dust, and foam almost looked like a strange form of snow, giving me flashbacks to something I couldn’t quite recall so it must have been one my soul fragments.

  Those flashbacks had been getting less and less common and I momentarily wondered if that was a good or a bad sign.

  That delay was unfortunate because when I finally found her unconscious body, she was already being dragged back into the hole by a long extendable clamp.

  Immediately, I shot a portal forward to try to catch her, but perhaps sensing something, the clamp yanked her back into the massive hole in the center of the devastation.

  That didn’t stop me as I shot my portal down into the hole in hot pursuit to try to catch her again.

  That was when I got kicked in the metaphorical teeth. As my portal traveled down into the hole I felt my portal pass through some sort of energy field that popped my portal like a bubble and kicked me back like I had taken a taser to the chest.

  I blinked in shock.

  No one… absolutely no one had managed to stop my portals before.

  Oh, Hogwarts had made it extremely hard to use them and I expected that Dumbledore could have figured out a way to shut them down if he had ever gotten a chance to study them. It was why I had no intention of ever showing him. Out-of-context bullshit for the win!

  Conversely, the Nara clan had managed to restrict me from being able to make new portals.

  But nothing had just shut my portals down completely before.

  However, regardless of my shock, this low-magic world had managed it.

  Bloody Buggering Hell…

  Turning to Anko, who was undoubtedly the fastest, I asked urgently. “Could I ask you to grab her before we lose her trail?”

  Yet, to my dismay, Anko looked unbothered as she studied the hole. “No. You all should be capable of handling this.”

  I momentarily wanted to rage at her as this was no time to be playing games, but… I had nothing I could threaten her with, we hadn’t even managed to keep her from messing with us in our beds. I was sure, given enough time, we could kick her out of the pocket dimension, but Chell’s rescue couldn’t wait or we really would lose her in the labyrinth that I knew was under our feet.

  Turning back to the hole I grimaced. “Damn it! We are going to have to go.” Glancing at Hermione, who was still nowhere near as fast as us and Ahri who didn’t do well in low-magic worlds, I turned fully to them. “Ahri and Hermione watch the shuttle for us.” Not waiting for an answer, I jumped forward towards the edge.

  I trusted that Amy, Taylor, and Sabah would be right behind me even without being asked, but I was pleasantly surprised to find Ahsoka on my right, lightsaber out, albeit deactivated.

  We were only a hundred meters or so from the edge of the crater in the center of the parking lot so it took mere moments for us to reach the edge. Looking down I spotted Chell being dragged down one of the tunnels.

  Yet above that I spotted the energy field that had popped my portal. I wasn’t sure how the AI had realized that I was controlling a portal it could defeat, but it might have been as simple as putting up alll the defenses it had and luck it had worked. Regardless, I wanted to grab one of these before I left.

  In the game these energy fields were called fizzlers and they not only stopped portals but also could disintegrate matter. It had never been used to disintegrate the player, but this was the real world, was there anything to say jumping through one wouldn’t be a death sentence?

  It wasn’t worth the risk even if going around slowed us down.

  Grimmacing I called out a warning. “Let’s not test if the fizzlers are set to dissolve people shall we? Even if they don’t dissolve us I have no idea if they can shut off our soul portals. I doubt it because our souls are keeping them open, but again, let's not test it.”

  Jumping down onto a small outcrop of broken twisted metal, I spotted four emitters being held next to each other on one side of the crater, being aimed across the hole by a set of robotic arms.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  A little surprised and reluctantly impressed at the quick thinking it didn’t stop me from jumping over and sticking myself to the wall long enough to pull out my wand and cast a cutting curse at the robotic arms and a moment later the fizzler, fizzled out.

  I momentarily grimaced at how hard it was to cast magic in a low-magic world and I mentally moved solving that issue a few places up on the list of problems to address. Having a world where Ahri and Luna couldn’t even leave the shuttle wasn’t a long-term solution. Chakra had seemed to help since Ahri hadn’t seemed quite as pale as she had on Earth Bet, but we needed something better.

  Focusing on the here and now again, I looked down. With the fizzler gone, I was able to jump to the ground on the next platform down and I made sure to portal the emitters to the shuttle before looking back behind me.

  Behind me, my girls dropped down and looked around wearily.

  I looked over to the tunnel where I thought I had seen Chell taken, but a robotic arm was already moving to cover it up. Hell more arms were being moved forward to probably cover up everything. Already the gaping chasm down to what I had to assume was Glados’ chamber was being sealed off.

  It was impressive, the explosion had been, at most, 30 seconds ago.

  I felt a pang of loneliness as I thought about Luna and Dinah. While they could have just told me where Chell was being kept, their absence also made me realize they were often our group’s emotional support.

  Shaking that thought off, I turned to ask Taylor if she could track Chell only to be surprised at the presence of Hinata, looking determined, next to the four others.

  “Taylor, can you spot her with your bugs? Hinata, can you see her?”

  Taylor didn’t bother discussing the details, only giving a curt and slightly worried answer “Yes, I think I can find a path.”

  Hinata sounded frustrated. “The walls keep changing. I can see her, but finding a path may be tricky.”

  Thinking about it, that made sense. Even with Hinata's eyes providing the equivalent of wall hacks, finding your way through a maze wouldn’t be easy via sight alone from inside.

  At my nod, Taylor jumped forward with a chakra-infused leap. Managing a dozen meters or so from a standing start was impressive and once again I realized that despite being run by a devil, the training was really working.

  Now following Taylor and Hinata, I tried to drop down into the same careful breathing that had helped with my chakra control. Next to me I could see Ahsoka doing the same and behind me I could hear Amy and Sabah bringing up the rear.

  Arriving at the first barricade we simply ducked under the still forming barricade.

  Looking around I spoke up as the hall narrowed significantly, to the point that only two people could stand shoulder to shoulder. “Stay together as much as possible. Hinata please watch for traps. Everyone else, weapons out and stay on your toes.”

  Now running much faster than an olympic sprinter, I hoped we could catch up soon.

  On and on the tunnels went, yet even when the hallway branched, Taylor kept us heading in the direction we needed to go. Left, right, down a staircase, around a corner and then down another.

  It was when we were passing an empty room that I noticed a companion cube. I shrugged before opening a portal and dropping it into the shuttle.

  A little souvenir, why not?

  The current hall ended abruptly as we were greeted by the sight of several turrets that woke up and began to train their guns on us. However, Ahsoka didn’t even break stride as she shoved her hand forward in a Force push and the turrets were sent blasting away from us. I noted that Ahsoka’s Force abilities were still formidable even if she seemed to slump slightly after the effort.

  That led us to a crack between walls that we dropped down followed by two lefts and a long straight run.

  Internally, I wondered how they were managing to keep Chell in front of us, we had only been delayed by 20 or 30 seconds by that first fizzler. However a moment later I remembered the pneumatic pistons, deployable fizzlers, and the moveable walls the center was probably trying to use to stop us. Taylor was probably being forced to navigate around those.

  That assumption seemed to have been proven correct because, as we made another right and down another staircase, Taylor stopped in a small chamber that had three different doors and a broken floor we could drop through and instead of following our route she stopped.

  Clicking her tongue, Taylor was trying to scout the path when Hinata, probably just as annoyed, pointed to the right side dragging her finger forward and then down further past the door. “What about there?”

  Taylor frowned, but after a moment, she nodded. The rest of us picked up the pace, probably feeling a little of my concern about being cornered despite the knowledge that I could just portal us out at any time. I couldn’t just send my portals forward willy-nilly as that first punch to the chest had shown, but nothing was stopping me from just portaling back to the shuttle.

  It was after the next left, up a 3 meter sheer wall, and then ducking underneath a fan that we found our next road block. A piston suddenly activated, slammed down and nearly catching Taylor and Hinata despite their abilites, but it took only a second before I had a short-range portal to the other side where we continued our mad sprint.

  I was aware that despite running well over a mile in the last few minutes and nearly half of that up and down, most of that distance had been backtracking as routes as Chell’s path was closed off to us.

  I was suddenly jolted into full awareness as two panels suddenly started sweeping out towards us, perhaps trying to knock us off down to the void to our right or just to try to squash us like flies. However, before I could call out a warning, Ahsoka, who had seemed a bit annoyed at all of this, jumped forward and cut the panel and the robot arm behind it in two.

  It was impressive, even if it seemed to have cost her as her breathing had gotten a bit more ragged that I would have expected at this point and I wondered if she had been falling back on her Force training for all of this instead of trying to use her chakra.

  Regardless, the slight delay had still cost us as the path that Taylor and Hinata had been tracking was once again gone now.

  Hinata grimaced again as she slowly turned around in a circle before gesturing to something we couldn’t see to our right. “It's cut off now.”

  This time, it was Taylor’s turn to gesture to the left, down, up, and then around something in front of us. “It looks like we have a path around there.”

  Hinata considered the path before she frowned. “We would have to wall walk while being shot at by those pod things again.”

  Eyeing Ahsoka’s slightly heavy breathing, Sabah spoke up. “We have our shield charms for bullets.”

  I spoke up from behind as well. “That, and we have explosion spells too, we just won’t have as much as normal.”

  Taylor huffed before she looked at Hinata. “Yes, I know, most of the rooms we have been avoiding have those fizzlers or some sort of gas. I don’t know what type, but the bugs start dying pretty quick whenever it is introduced.”

  I winced. “Yeah, the game just said the science center had neurotoxins. Let's stay well away from any of that.”

  This led to several seconds of quiet discussion between the two before they pointed toward the left side of the room. “We think our best chance is bursting through there or a blind portal.”

  I frowned but nodded. “Let's avoid blind portals for now, I don’t want to be surprised by a fizzler we can’t see unless we are sure Hinata can see any potential traps.”

  The nods prompted an impressive jump and several swings from Ahsoka before a screech of metal on metal cried out in the mostly silent room. A moment later the massive chamber wall fell to the ground and we jumped through.

  This led us into another office that had a class window on two sides. Unfortunately, now it was a dusty mess and we were forced to kick open the rusty exit door onto another catwalk.

  As we exited the door Ahsoka and Hinata suddenly flinched and called out a warning. “Watch out!“

  Seeing two robotic arms swinging down on us I raised my wand and saw Amy and Sabah doing the same thing.

  Amy’s immobilization charm didn’t seem completely effective, but Sabah and my bombarda maxima hexes exploded against the arms in a thundering crash.

  Watching the arms being blown backward, I winced at the strength that had taken. Yeah, we needed to fix this low magic world issue soon.

  Taking a deep breath, Taylor grimaced at being snuck up on like that, but even if she controlled every bug in this factory, she would only know something was happening if she covered every single surface with a bug. That would take a lot of effort without the alien shard doing most of the heavy lifting. However, from her face, I think that was what she had just decided to do.

  Normally that might have been excessive, but in a place like this where any wall could become a threat, it was probably necessary to try.

  When we reached the end of the walk way we were greeted by a door that looked too rusty to open anytime this decade and Ahsoka simply cut it out of the wall.

  This time we ended up in another office before jumping down into another test chamber. This one actually looked recently used. To my surprise, Taylor pointed in two directions. “They are taking her that way, but the gun thing she had is being taken away in that direction.” Seeing my slightly conflicted look she clarified. “It is only a hundred feet or so through that wall at the moment.”

  Ahsoka didn’t wait as she dashed over and cut a hole before she reached through and telekinetically yanked the portal gun out of the robotic arm’s hand.

  As she jogged back to hand me the portal gun, the pause gave me a moment to look around to try to figure out where we were. It was clear this was a testing chamber, but without the little light-up information panel, I couldn’t confirm if this was one of the ones from the roughly 20 chambers in the first game or the several dozen in the second.

  There was a pause when Taylor and Hinata didn’t say anything, probably trying to find a way to find Chell since we had let them widen the gap again while we paused to get the gun.

  In said silence, I had a moment of whimsy where I wondered if they were expecting us to solve the puzzle with the portal gun, but another few seconds later Hinata pointed at the floor a third of the way through the hall. “Cut there, please.”

  Ahsoka swiped her blade in three long cuts and we once again dropped onto another walkway between two chambers.

  However, as we landed, I spotted turrets beginning to lock on us. I momentarily considered trying to take a page out of Chells book and use some fancy portal work to knock them over before good sense took over again and I simply pointed my wand and sent a gust of wind.

  The narrowly spaced legs of the turrets only resisted the wind momentarily before they fell over, calling out a “Waaaaaaaaaaaaa.”

  I blinked in surprise that they had built-in AI but hadn’t bothered to make a reasonable, stable firing platform.

  Behind me I heard another “Waaaaaaaa” and I realized that there were two more groups and Taylor and Ahsoka had taken care of them with another bombarda and Force push respectively.

  Now with nothing to stop us, we jogged forward only to reach another blank wall which Hinata pointed to. Specifically the top right where Ahsoka cut through to get us to another catwalk.

  I was getting tired of catwalks.

  That gave us a moment to look around. When I got my bearings, I realized that we were on the edge of a huge cavern.

  Honestly the size of the Aperature Science Center was insane. I remember reading that it was theoretically placed on an old salt mine or something, but the sheer size was still baffling. This chamber alone must have been several hundred meters across in all three directions.

  However, I didn’t have time to ponder this as on the other side I saw a grid of chambers hung up in rows. Taylor looked over and pointed to one that was four rows down from the top and five over from where we were looking. “She is in that one.”

  I blinked in shock as I realized that these must have been the facility’s ‘test subjects’ storage. That was a nice way of saying that the artificial intelligence running this place had kidnapped hundreds of humans to run experiments on them until they died.

  That made my frown grow deeper as I asked somewhat rhetorically. “How many of those are filled with people and how many of those people are alive?”

  Hinata looked pained but actually took my question seriously as she scanned the thinly veiled cages, counting. “There were… one hundred and sixty seven people. Now there are ...four of them still alive including this Chell we were chasing.”

  I winced and felt like sitting down at that. “Are you sure? I don’t know the specifics of what is going on, but the story we know of this place said they would use some sort of suspended animation or death-like-state to preserve their… test subjects.”

  Hinata just shook her head. “No, even if I can’t see their chakra systems” Then almost too quiet to hear, she added ‘as horrifying as it is not to have chakra’ before continuing at a more normal volume, “I can still see their nervous systems firing very slowly.”

  Amy nodded. “Even if they were put into some sort of suspended animation, the heart would still need to beat every minute or two which would require brain activity.”

  I sighed and ran a hand across my face before I glanced around, hearing a rumbling as gears began to turn, and wondered who exactly was controlling all of this. Glados was supposed to have just been defeated, but obviously, something was still in control.

  That question needed to wait as I spotted a massive door that began to slide shut, starting to cut us off from the facility’s test subjects.

  Sighing and now with visual confirmation of what we were looking at, I opened a portal to the other side, bypassing the massive door and landing on top of Chell’s cage.

  Turning, I asked Hinata and Taylor. “Can you three move to the location of the surviving test subjects? Once you are in location, I can open a portal next to you directly back to the shuttle. Just be careful.”

  Amy called Ahsoka over to cut her an entrance before Ahsoka followed Taylor and Hinata as they searched out the remaining 3 survivors.

  Not waiting for me Amy, Sabah jumped inside while I took one more look around the hanging chambers and huffed in frustration at the loss of life.

  Shaking my head at this place, I turned and hopped into the hole to be greeted by the sight of a 70s or 80s hotel room. It even had a strange abstract painting on the wall over the bed and one wall that separated the bathroom and bedroom a different color for no discernible reason.

  Shaking my head, I noticed that Chell was already unconscious on the bed and I gestured for Amy to go ahead and check to see if she was ok.

  That was when whatever AI was currently controlling the Aperture Science Center decided to cut its losses… literally.

  Suddenly I felt the butterflies rise in my stomach as my body processed the weightlessness of falling while my ears heard the ‘click’ of a lever being disengaged.

  Suppressing my panic, I focused hard on the portals I needed to make.

  The one next to us was easy but I needed to get the portals up for Ahsoka, Hinata, and Taylor.

  For Ahsoka and Taylor I could have just opened up a portal based on the location of their soul portals, but Hinata hadn’t gotten one yet. It was something I would have to talk to her about soon, but for now I had expected to be opening a portal at her location so I had a portal stuck to the back of her shoulder.

  That got a portal next to all three of them which only left the one we needed for Chell and three of us.

  Focusing on the side of the bed, I opened a slightly larger portal in our room and watched as Amy and Sabah grabbed Chell between them and then jumped through. Momentarily sticking my feet to the floor with chakra for leverage I followed them only to land on the grass outside our shuttle.

  Next to us, I spotted Ahsoka and Taylor grabbing two young adult men while Hinata was carrying a small girl, probably only 14 or so.

  Behind us I closed the portals, and apparently just in time too, as the sounds of tearing and crushing metal were suddenly cut off as the chambers hit whatever was at the bottom of this cavern. Looking around, I was just glad I had gotten them closed before any debris could follow us through.

  With the realization that we were safe again I flopped back against the grass and tried to calm my breathing and let my racing heart slow.

  We were safe, we had saved Chell and three other victims.

  Better, we were all perfectly fine and we would have time to get better prepared for the next time something like this happened.

  I was also getting really tired of being dropped. It hadn’t gotten any nicer since either my semi-conscious crash into Star Wars or the drop in a cage on Yamatai.

  Still, the chakra helped significantly. I had noticed that Amy, Sabah, and I had instinctively stuck ourselves to the floor for the second or two it took to orient ourselves and I wasn’t sure I would have gotten out in time without it at the end.

  Finally ready to deal with everything again I sat up and looked towards Amy who was taking her hands off of the small girl.

  Seeing my questioning look Amy grimaced. “They all have some sort of chemical cocktail swimming through their veins. I am unsure how quickly I can clear it out because it isn’t biological.” Amy’s sigh seemed more annoyed than usual, “I can try to get their bodies to break it down faster, but we might have to wait for it to clear out naturally which could take a while. Possibly multiple weeks.”

  Nodding slowly, I looked around and spotted Anko looking at us.

  I wasn’t sure what face she was making, but I suspected it was somewhere between boredom and impatience. “Well, you had your little break. It is time we get back to training.”

  All of us paled, including Hinata and Ahsoka.

  Raising my hand I pointed towards our rescued survivors. “Uh, Anko, we really should help these four before we do anything else.”

  Anko actually clicked her tongue at me before she shrugged. “Fine, you can delay your training if you want, but you still have six more hours of training today. Now, where is the booze?”

  I winced as we really didn’t have any alcohol and I looked at Amy who frowned before she looked back at me. “I can make some, why don’t you get these four into one of the beds.”

  Then she looked like she was hesitating about something before she continued. “It is hard to say, but I suspect they might have been in suspended animation for a very long time. I don’t know if they have anywhere to go back to after this.”

  Wincing I looked down and studied Chell’s face for a moment before I gave a little shrug and picked her up princess-style before I opened a portal into our last remaining magic tent.

  Behind me Hinata, Ahsoka, and Taylor picked their respective survivors back up and followed me through so they could be placed down on the now free beds.

  Amy followed us through the portal before she made her way towards the kitchen to attempt to speed up some fermentation on whatever juice she could find. Anko was already looking pretty impatient.

  In the meantime, I realized that I shouldn’t waste this opportunity and I turned to our bedroom as I considered how best to keep Anko out completely. Maybe some sort of filtration on the air passing through the door and a permanent silencing spell.

  As I considered what runes or enchantments could be used to accomplish that, something else occurred to me. If the fizzlers were able to disable my abilities, then could the sensors in the facility figure out a way to break into our pocket dimension?

  Grimmacing I sat down on the floor to consider how best to protect us.

  After the instruction from Xeno Lovegood, I had already been planning some defenses.

  Runes that would force anyone or anything that arrived in our pocket dimension to arrive in a specific location that we could put outside our defenses, including me. His warning about building in back doors was very clear on that.

  Specifically, I had been toying with the idea of building a gatehouse in the wall that could be shut. Maybe even with a killbox like medival castles.

  However I was going to design our home to be completely unable to contain anything via any method. That would make it impossible to trap us in our own home and that Hermione, Xeno, and Luna agreed would paradoxically dramatically reinforce our defenses. An absolute restriction on entering and an absolute enabling on leaving would reinforce each other symbolically.

  The only way into the pocket dimension itself would then be to physically walk through said gatehouse and the defenses. We could even make multiple layers so things like Anko wouldn’t be able to infiltrate our bedrooms or critical items again.

  I momentarily felt a great sense of relief that we had hidden our soul gem necklace along with the message tubes and dangerous technology in the smuggling compartment in the captain’s cabin with a half dozen notice-me-not charms and concealing wards.

  Deciding on a simple purification and cleaning enchantment I started carving the runes on the inside of the doorframe. The purification and cleaning enchantments may eventually need to be recharged or fully remade if they were running continuously, but they would remove anything on us or the air that shouldn’t belong. Better yet it would be based on my understanding of what belonged so there shouldn’t be any way around it. I just needed to do the same to the air vents in the room.

  Wrapping up, I noticed that Anko had wasted no time in getting sloshed so I looked around at everyone else.

  Seeing my girls all trying to recover in the living area of the shuttle before Anko inevitably decided we had had enough of a break, I brought up my idea. “I think we should move away from the area. I don’t know the limits of the portal technology the AI has down there, but I have already started moving us south.”

  Everyone was a bit surprised at that, but it was Taylor who asked the obvious question. “Where are we then?”

  I shrugged, “I don’t really know exactly. The games were never clear on that, but I saw a sign for Clevand Ohio 69 miles west so somewhere near there I guess.”

  I saw Amy snort with an amused but quiet, “Nice…”

  Rolling my eyes at her I muttered a, “maybe later” before I looked around. “Does anyone else have a question?”

  Sabah had a slight blush but still tilted her head. “Where are we headed then?”

  This time I simply shrugged. “I am not sure. I just figured we would head south to get out of the area while we waited for the survivors to wake up. Maybe look for some a quarry or something for building materials for our eventual home.”

  Hermione perked up at that. “The world’s biggest open pit granet quarry is in North Carolina. I think the town’s name was Mt. Airy or Arry or something. If we are headed directly south from Cleveland, then we should come across it eventually.”

  I blinked in surprise. “Huh, I had no idea” before I tilted my head, “I was planning on just finding some stone lying around, but there may be some benefits to getting some that have never been touched by magic if we are going to engrave them to be indestructible and immovable. Another exchange of gold should be more than enough to get us the stone we need to build a wall around the entire non-expanded perimeter.”

  Hermione was the one to ask. “Did you decide how high the walls should be and how many towers?”

  I nodded. “I did, I think. I was thinking of 10 towers, with the last two being a bit longer and forming a gatehouse. I was also planning on making the walls about 6 meters high or about 20 feet, then engraving the tops and bottoms to be impassible. Although I am still working out how best to do that. Then once we have figured out how the fizzlers I grabbed work, I want another layer of those running across the top in a sort of dome as well. I should also mention that I was planning on using Himiko’s soul from Yamatai to create and power a weather bubble on the outside of our defenses just like she did to her island.”

  It was then that Anko snorted before taking another swig of the wine Amy had given her.

  Glancing at Anko I then continued. “Inside our main walls I was thinking of putting a small set of townhomes where guests can stay temporarily and next to that in the center, there will be another wall, this one more ceremonial but with the same type of wards, where we will build the center manor where we can all live.”

  Considering if I wanted to explain this now I looked back at Anko before putting up a silencing charm. I hesitated for a moment before I included Hinata inside my spell. Her jumping to help us without asking deserved a portion of trust. Plus I was starting to get the feeling that she was enjoying her time with us and seeing new places. Ahsoka and Hermione also deserved a lot of trust.

  Focusing back on the conversion, I continued. “The thing is, I was planning on making the manor a distraction and putting our real home inside its own pocket dimension inside a Fidelius charm.”

  Seeing the approving looks was nice but Hermione glanced at Ahri and grimaced before she asked the million-dollar question. “Have you considered how to keep the magic inside the pocket dimension?”

  Shaking my head, I answered “Short answer, no.” Then I sighed as I explained. “The long answer is there are some options. First I have noticed the chakra seems to be helping.” Ahri nodded and muttered an agreement at that, so I continued, “So just getting enough strength should let us ignore it. The second option would be Dragons. Dragons are supposed to be a source of magic in the multiverse and the Harry Potter universe has them. We could store a dragon in our pocket dimension from the Harry Potter universe or conversely somewhere else if we find less aggressive breeds. Conversely, I had briefly considered some sort of extremely powerful soul or artifact that could act as a battery.”

  Everyone looked introspective as we thought about the future.

  I then looked around at my girls and the others that very well could end up joining us and braced myself. I wasn’t going to be pressuring anyone to do anything, but I needed to show my girls the appreciation that they deserved.

  I had been melancholy for too long and they deserved the thanks and fawning over they had earned. However, if I was doing that I needed to add in the appreciation for the others as well.

  Turning, I faced Amy. “Amy, I want you to know that you have been working harder than just about anyone else. Your help with the food, physical growth, and healing made you crucial to everything we do. Honestly, you have done the most good for others out of everyone here.”

  Amy looked surprised and then pleased at the praise. Better yet, the rest of the girls all gave small nods or quiet ‘yeahs’ in agreement with my analysis.

  Turning to Sabah, I smiled. “Sabah, you have been the quiet heart behind the Family. Your support and help in cooking, preparing, and supporting everyone else has been the thing that has made this trip possible.”

  Sabah blushed a little, red visible even across her dusky skin as she smiled at me. Amy leaned over and gave her a hug as the girls agreed

  Seeing as Taylor was next to me I put my arm around her waist. “Taylor, you have often been my support in tactical engagements and your abilities have helped in virtually every situation we have been in. Then you have been there for us the entire time, being the rock of our core group. Not to mention I have been exceptionally happy with such a beautiful girl as you in my arms.”

  Amy and Sabah smirked at Taylor’s blush and I was happy to see her smile. I wanted to know how crucial she was, how we all cared about her, but also to ensure the body issues didn’t come back.. The rest of the girls’ agreement in her work was just icing on the cake.

  Facing Ahri, my fox girl smiled at me. “Ahri, you are a mature example to the rest of us and I am happy to know that you decided to stay with us. Your illusions and skills have been crucial multiple times and I love your empathy. That and I absolutely love your tails.”

  Ahri scoffed at me before getting up and walking around the table, yet as she passed me she made sure to run her tails up both arms and one circled around my neck making me shiver a the softness and intimate carress. That actually got some good natured ribbing about how we should ‘get a room’ which obviously didn’t faze the vixen. Especially as the loudest was from Amy, who was probably hoping to participate.

  I turned momentarily somber. “I will admit that I miss Luna and Dinah. They were a bit of my moral compass, and heart. Their abilities would have helped here, but I admit that they simply brightened any room they were in.”

  Despite my mood, I still smiled at my girls’ agreeing nods.

  Turning to Hermione, I continued despite her suddenly wide eyes. “Hermione, your genius is already starting to prove crucial to our efforts. Your bravery has been demonstrated even before you joined us with all your help with Holly…”

  Taking a breath, I hesitated as my insecurities flared up. Yet, just pushing her away wasn’t right. She was getting old enough to choose for herself and I had hinted at it so pulling it away now would just hurt her. I also didn’t have to bond with her until Luna and Dinah proved it didn’t change anything… and I really did like her.

  Making the decision to once again move forward, I smiled at her. “Plus, I wouldn’t mind another beautiful woman on my arm.”

  Hermione looked like she was somewhere between happy and mortified but her smile at me looked promising. The support she was getting from everyone else definitely didn’t hurt as just like in canon she was someone who wanted friends and the Family provided that.

  Looking at Thea’s server rack I smiled. “Thea, I know you haven’t been as involved as you may have liked, but I promise we will get you a body and your help with the shuttle was already more than helpful enough to earn your place for as long as you want.”

  Thea’s avatar looked pleased and I smiled back. The agreement from the girls seemed to make her happy even if I was pretty sure she was still learning to feel emotions.

  Turning to Ahsoka, I shrugged. “I know that you haven’t decided what to do long term, but I have to say that your help, bravery, and skills have been top-notch. Honestly, we would be more than happy to have you join us.”

  Ahsoka looked a little proud and gave me a little nod. Maybe not a full agreement to join, but she looked happy to be included. The smiles from the girls didn’t hurt either.

  Facing Hinata, the last of the girls, I smiled. “I know that you were pressured into joining at first, but I have to say that your incredible skill, obvious empathetic nature, and graceful beauty would make us complete fools not to want you to join us. That said, it will forever be up to you on what you would like.”

  Hinata looked at me and I was thrilled to see a small smile gracing her face as she looked at the rest of us. The nods in agreement and welcoming faces were probably doing more than anything else than had happened in breaking down her barriers.

  As I finished talking the silence this time was a comfortable and content thing. I felt like the girls all enjoyed being recognized for their achievements and I was glad I took the time to do it.

  In fact, it was something that I wanted to continue so I didn’t say anything, just enjoying my girl’s company.

  That was right up until the moment that we heard a snort from behind me that made me jump a full foot in the air.

  Swiveling around I realized that I hadn’t even heard or noticed Anko move, and from her smile, she knew it too. “Well, breaks over, now… RUN!”

  There was another near-unanimous muttered “Fuck” that went around the room before I opened a portal back to our obstacle course and we jumped out and started sprinting to get away from the demoness.

  Anko’s shouted encouragement about how we, quote, “weren’t completely useless anymore” didn’t help.

  That night when we collapsed after several more rounds of dodging, sparring, and chakra instruction saw me falling asleep near instantly.

  It was only when I woke up the next morning, to feel my girls still sleeping around me that I realized that we might have succeeded in keeping Anko out.

  Taking a quick shower, getting a little distracted then having some fun with Taylor and Ahri, cleaning up again, then heading out to the living area saw us greeted with an amused Anko.

  Looking at us she simply snorted. “What? It's a rest day.”

  Suddenly feeling the good mood of managing to keep Anko out evaporated, as it was clear she hadn’t even tried this morning, and I slumped in place.

  Sighing again, I turned to help Sabah make breakfast before everyone gathered around the table to eat.

  Seeing as we were all pretty much starving, the meal was done in more or less silence before we made plans.

  Looking around, I sighed. “First things first, I guess. I wanted to find the quarry Hermione mentioned and buy a stupid amount of stone for the wall. Then we can slowly start preparing the engravings and foundations.”

  Amy spoke up next. “I would like to finally plant our chakra plants and Pokemon berry trees.”

  There was quite a bit of agreement there. Especially as the food we had been eating without chakra had become a lot less filling now that our bodies needed to produce their own chakra.

  Sabah then grimaced before she brought up the survivors. “Should we try to wake them up again? If they want to stay here, then it would be better to drop them off before we leave so we don’t have to come back.”

  I nodded but hesitated. “Admittedly, Chell is supposed to be a genius and I was kind of hoping that she would be willing to travel with us, but she was a silent protagonist in her games so we need to know a bit more about her character before I make the offer.” Rubbing my forehead I rocked back and forth for a second before I shrugged. “If we can’t wake her, then I think we will just take her with us. Worst case scenario we just bring her back. Probably just drop the other off in a hospital.”

  Hermione asked the next obvious question. “When can we make the jump back to Hogwarts?”

  I sighed. “Right, regardless of how much we can finish today, we should jump away tomorrow. By my count, we are almost two weeks late for the semester.” I tilted my head. “I mean, we are obviously way ahead, but I have to assume that Holly is probably pretty worried and I know you want to support her, Hermione.”

  At Hermione’s nod, I decided to stand up and clap my hands. “Well, lets get to it. We have a lot to do and only about 24 hours to do it.”

  It was at that moment that Thea spoke up. “Max, please be aware that the survivors seem to be waking up. However the subject you named Chell, still seems to be asleep, probably due to the more recent sedatives being administered more recently.”

  I nodded. “Sounds good, that is one less thing to worry about.”

  Interlude Riley:

  Riley stared at her Eevee. She had named her Woofles after the dog she could barely remember.

  Her dog that Uncle… No, Jack Slash, had made her kill with her own hands when she finally broke.

  Recognizing the signs of her panic attack Woofles yipped a “Vee, Eeevee, Vee”. Trying to bring her out of her spiral.

  Desperately holding Eevee she did the breathing exercises that Luna had recommended.

  Slowly, ever so slowly she felt something in her chest unclench again.

  Woofles watched her carefully, as she calmed down. Woofles had been almost overly paranoid careful ever since he had seen her staring at a cliff’s edge with a vacant look.

  Finally calming her breathing, she stared out at the small docks and beaches here in Celadon City.

  The trip through Mount Moon had been incredible even if Luna and Dinah had insisted they help clean up after Team Rocket’s failed attack.

  She had worried that Woofles wouldn’t be ready to take on the water gym, but the training that they had all been going through seemed to have worked as all seven of them had gotten their first badge.

  Hearing a soft “Shit!” from around the corner, she sighed. Aisha had been getting on her nerves with her cursing. She already knew that telling her ‘language’ was a useless request, but it really did irritate her.

  Looking down again, she focused on the little tear-drop water badge, rubbing her forefinger along its smooth edge.

  Hearing the crowd cheer for her and Woofles had… it had been nice. No one knew who Bonesaw was here. Even the Earth Bet natives had started relaxing around her.

  Biting her lip she looked up at the sky. Maybe… maybe things…

  Really, she was starting to finally feel like maybe things might actually get better…

  Interlude Hinata:

  Hinata winced as she relaxed in her bed.

  It was nice to have her own room even if she was somewhat overwhelmed by all of this technology.

  Her world had television and radio, but a metal craft that could fly in the sky and an artificial life was almost unbelievable if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes.

  By the sage, she didn’t even understand a quarter of what she saw when she looked back at the inner parts of what Max called the engines despite Anko’s request for her to analyze it.

  Shanking her head she tried to relax again.

  If she was being honest she had been afraid that she was going to be dragged into his bed whether she liked it or not.

  Her father had made it pretty clear that she wasn’t not expected to endure abuse or torture, but if he pushed for an immidate marriage, she was to comply. Their skills were just too important for Konoha to ignore and she suspected that Max and his wives understood that.

  Instead he had included her as an equal.

  He had gorgeous women surrounding him, ones that actually made her blush a bit when she realized that Amy was flirting with her, and yet he still made some time for her.

  The Family, as they called themselves, had also been proving themselves truthful with their actions.

  Of the three survivors, one of the middle-aged men had requested to be returned to this world. He was given some money and left in Orlando, Florida, after he requested to be moved to that city to start over.

  The stop in Florida had also gave them all a chance to enjoy sitting on the beach for an hour or two since it was early summer here.

  The other two survivors had taken up Max’s offer to be moved to a world with magic. Probably because it had been nearly forty years for them and they had nothing left to go back to. Max had said he would give the girl magic and ensure that she could attend Hogwarts. The man was actually a native of France and so Max was going to get him some money and send him off there.

  She shook her head. That was more kind than she expected and he hadn’t even done it in front of her unless he somehow knew she was spying on him.

  Once again turning to watch him through the wall, she spotted him moving massive blocks of granet into his pocket dimension. There would be an absolutely huge pile soon enough.

  Shaking her head, she had to admit he took safety seriously even if he wasn’t paranoid enough yet for Anko’s standards.

  It just left the question of what she should do. Her duty was clear, but Max has been just a clear about the fact that she could do what she wanted

  So what did she want to do?

  1) Yep don’t mind me with another 11k words instead of splitting it up like I should… no I don’t have a problem, you do.