Ch 156
As Rudan readied for what was sure to be a tough fight next to what were sure to be uneasy allies, Matt's five puppets rushed towards each of their targets. Each puppet had shifted its appearance to look like an owl-man at first glance after Rudan had left them. They had chosen this disguise because humans stood out too much in a sea of animal-people, and any bit of help in going unnoticed was welcome. Thankfully, Rudan had done his job, and most of the attention was focused on him as each of the puppets slipped into the crowd.
Unlike Rudan, who ran for everything he was worth, Matt's puppets each moved slowly as they tried to blend in with their surroundings. Matt wished he had better skills for stealth operations, but once more, the situation with Rudan had everyone acting strangely, which worked to their advantage. When they spotted someone heading into the tunnel leading back to the world they had just left, they knew their time was very limited. Thankfully, five minutes was all they needed, and Rudan had seemed confident that Godfrey Enterprises would need more time than that to coordinate any meaningful response.
Yet, that didn't make them feel any more confident as they each got closer to their goals. For a moment, they all thought they would make it. That was until they saw several figures auras of authority running past them, scanning the crowd with narrowed eyes. One of Matt's puppets was just ten feet from his target and decided to go for it. He dashed to close the distance and dropped the first part of the pack on the ground, only to feel a firm hand on his shoulder pulling him back as he made to jump into the portal. Thinking quickly, that puppet slung the other half of the pack through the shimmering gateway, separating its hand as it shifted itself to the new puppet that vanished through the portal.
That seemed to set things off for real as shouts for everyone to stop started to ring out, and the remaining puppets all started to sprint towards their targets. Two of them were caught instantly as they moved, but one of them had split itself into three, and the two raccoon-sized puppets it was hopping between managed to carry the packs right to their target, only to find an A-rank individual waiting for them. Yet rather than panic, they split with one going right while the other went left. This let one of them slip through their teleportation gate as the other traded being captured for tossing their pack right in front of the gate.
Had the orders been handed down in an orderly fashion, the rhino-man holding Matt's puppet as it threw its pack wouldn't have let it happen, but orders were anything but orderly at that moment. A moment marked by three more bursts of power as all but one of Matt's puppets succeeded in their tasks. The last one was currently being restrained as it stared at its target just 100 feet away, the shimmering teleportation gate flickering with untapped energy. A circle of Godfrey Enterprises members surrounded him, their weapons drawn and faces tense with anticipation. For a moment he thought about doing as the others had done and splitting his body, but neither of them had needed to move more than 20 feet to reach their target, and he knew 100 feet was too far with so many eyes watching his every move. So, he just sighed as he put up his hands, shifted to looking like Matt again, and spoke with a calm confidence that belied his predicament.
"It would seem that I've been caught, but you all should be more worried about the other guests who are sure to be arriving any time now."
As if his words had been a signal, screams and shouts echoed from other tunnels leading to other teleportation gates. It was only a moment later when Matt saw a new figure rush into the tunnel he was in and head straight for him. This figure was an owl-man with sleek brown feathers and piercing yellow eyes that seemed to glow with fury. Matt's puppet couldn't help but chuckle as he set down his pack and thought about how much trouble he had caused that particular species. He had just finished this thought when he found himself being lifted by his neck, taloned fingers digging into his skin as the owl-man spoke in a threatening tone.
"Do you have any idea what you have done?"
"Me?" asked Matt's puppet, trying to act as close to how he had seen Greg handling similar situations. "As in the consciousness that is in this body, I have done nothing but get caught trying to do what others seem to have succeeded in doing. Now, I suspect that you're dealing with a few disgruntled neighbors who you have a bit of time to figure out how to deal with, as they are likely less than happy about things."
"Why?" pressed the owl-man, his yellow eyes narrowing to slits. "What could you possibly gain from doing this?"
"You mean besides more options?" retorted Matt's puppet with a smirk. "Simple, I don't take kindly to being treated the way I have been, and I figured I could start making things interesting. See, I think that all the organizations out there are too isolated and could use a bit of a shakeup. Just be grateful that we didn't wait until right before the penalty period ended, as then there would be no hope for any negotiations."
"Right, I look forward to seeing you ripped to pieces as those negotiations start," the owl-man snarled, his talons digging deeper into the puppet's neck.
Matt's puppet couldn't help but laugh as he looked at the owl-man, his feathers bristling with rage.
"What's so funny?" demanded the owl-man.
"Nothing," replied Matt's puppet, his voice strained but triumphant. "It's just that you really should have been paying attention to your surroundings a bit more."
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Just then a burst of energy came from the gate that was 100 feet away as every eye had been on Matt's puppet. Meanwhile, the moment the owl-man had come into view, Matt had created a puppet the size of a raccoon that had quietly slipped away with his packs. The small puppet had moved with deliberate stealth, keeping to the shadows cast by the crowd's legs. The fact that everyone had been watching the owl-man shouting at Matt's puppet had been more than enough to keep those present from noticing the action. He really wanted to thank all the owl-men who were his unwitting accomplices in so many ways.
"Now, I think you should ask yourself what you've done," mocked Matt's puppet, a smirk playing across his face despite the pressure on his throat. "I really have to say that I thought I had failed until you drew all eyes to us and created the opening I needed."
"How, when, what?" stuttered the owl-man, seemingly at a loss for words.
"You can kill this puppet if it makes you feel better," offered Matt's puppet. "I mean, this isn't my real body, none of the ones who did this were my real body, other than the very first one that really could have been done by any puppet just as easily as it was a sure thing."
Everything went dark for that puppet a moment later as the owl-man's grip tightened, and he clenched so hard that Matt's puppet's neck exploded in a spray of blood. Not that the self in the puppet even experienced that as he was already in the raccoon-sized puppet's body as it ran to hide and recover on the world it found itself in. This left just two of Matt's puppets back at Godfrey Enterprises' teleportation hub. Both of them came from one puppet and were both significantly reduced in size after splitting into three parts, each barely larger than a house cat now.
Meanwhile, Matt's main body had a complicated expression on his face as he greeted the new guests that stepped through the portal back on the world he was in. It was an all-female group of five, and they looked like an eccentric group to Matt as they wore no uniform, or at least none of them matched. Though they fit perfectly with the description of what Greg would have described as an "adventurer party." As for the two golem-like guards, they simply took up positions on either side of the Gate before seeming to power down, their crystalline eyes dimming to a dull glow.
"This isn't the Mithril Pits," commented the largest of the women, who stood at six and a half feet tall with a greatsword nearly matching her height strapped to her back. Her features remained hidden behind the polished visor of her full plate armor, which gleamed with faint runic inscriptions along its edges.
"That is rather obvious," retorted a woman with dark grey skin and pointed ears, her features almost too perfect to be natural as she looked Matt up and down with glittering violet eyes. "Tell me, human, where is it that we've come, and how did we end up here?"
"This is a world that until recently was under the control of Godfrey Enterprises and is home to a dungeon that maxes out at the peak of C rank," answered Matt, not sure what else to say.
"Trash," muttered the dark grey-skinned woman, her lip curling in disdain. "Wait, Godfrey Enterprises? I've never heard of them before. What kind of focus do they have?"
"I'm sorry, but I don't think they really focus on anything other than lording over the planets they control," retorted Matt. "May I ask what organization controls the planet or teleportation hub that all of you just came from?"
"An organization controlling a whole planet?" asked a fox-woman holding an ornate staff as she pulled back her hood, revealing russet fur with white markings around her amber eyes. "That would never be allowed to happen where we just came from under the watch of the Interstellar Administration. The entrance to a dungeon, sure that's not too much to see, but a whole world would end up with the rest of the organizations bringing their full might to destroy any such organization. Tell me, did you disrupt the coordinates of this gate such that it would connect to another at random?"
"Yes, and just checking, but if I say Tempormr or Radoznaormr, do either of those mean anything to you?"
"Yeah, they are ormrs, and that means it's best to avoid them unless you're trying to reach for the heavens," retorted the smallest woman of the group. Standing at just three and a half feet tall, she wore dark leather clothing adorned with multiple hidden pockets and a hood that cast shadows across her sharp, wary eyes. "Don't tell me that they are involved in whatever happened."
"Not directly, but definitely at least tangentially," replied Matt, thankful that it seemed he wasn't dealing with a pocket that had been completely isolated from the rest of the universe. "So, what happens now?"
"Now, we take you into custody and let the Interstellar Administration sort things out," answered the fox-woman, her amber eyes narrowing as her clawed fingers tightened around her staff. "I would dare say that things aren't going to go well for you."
"Yeah, not too worried, as anyone who tries to kill me will end up dying, and I'm about to be forced back to my home world as my integration finishes."
"What the fuck is some newly integrated trash doing messing with things they have no business with?" scoffed the grey-skinned woman as she stepped forward, her violet eyes flashing with contempt. "Not that it matters to me, as that just means they will need to hurry the judgment along. If it wasn't for the penalty period, I would go ahead and kill you now to save them the trouble—"
“Sorry, but that’s not happening,” Matt said firmly, shifting into a defensive stance. “I’m all for sitting down and talking with anyone who’s interested in a civilized conversation, and I don’t mind considering having this planet and my home world fall under the Interstellar Administration’s jurisdiction—or whatever you folks call it—as long as they’re reasonable about it. However, I'd suggest you ladies focus on something more pressing, like informing the Interstellar Administration that the other gate you were headed to has been linked to Godfrey Enterprises' teleportation hub... along with up to six other random groups.”
The five women looked shocked as the final one of their group spoke up. She resembled the grey-skinned one in features, but her skin was a deep azure blue that seemed to shimmer faintly with an inner light. Matt pegged her as a healer based on the lack of weapons and the ornate silver amulet hanging at her throat that pulsed with a gentle glow.
"You really don't take half measures, do you?" she asked, her voice melodic yet firm. "What I don't get is how someone newly integrated could pull anything like that off."
"Name's Matt, Matthew Pierce, leader of Scattered Stars and someone who has had enough of others underestimating what I can do," he replied, squaring his shoulders.
It took a long second before his name and organization "Scattered Stars" seemed to register with the five women, but with how rare new organizations were, it wasn't too long. Matt could see when the metaphorical lightbulb lit up in each of the women's heads. Their expressions shifted from dismissal to wary recognition. Now, it was just a question of what they would do with said information as he braced for both a positive and negative reaction.
