//------------------------------// // 7: Quantum Traversal // Story: Infinity's Edge (Beta) // by Caldoric //------------------------------// The colorless dome momentarily took on a metallic purple hue, and a holographic version of the circumscribed "7" appeared over the Suva, slowly turning. Where the back side was supposed to be, though, there was nothing. In time, the front of the image swung 'round again. "What's that supposed to mean?" Asked Voriki, pointing at the symbol. There was a definite note of anxiety and suspicion in his voice. "It's your symbol, kinda," I explained. "It's unofficial, but it's supposed to signify your position amongst the other Toa Mata, or something..." At Voriki's questioning glare, I raised my hands. "Like I said, man, I'll explain later. Maybe introduce you, assuming they're still alive." He just rolled his eyes, and began investigating the rest of the Suva. I was a bit concerned about Voriki. By rights, he shouldn't even exist. His was a sort of fan creation, from before Takanuva had even been conceived of. He was a hoax, with his own website and everything, and many people fell for it. Most of his backstory was similar to that of Takanuva's, such as having to be found, having his own "tribe" of Matoran, and possibly even "evolving" from a preexisting Matoran (Onepu, the Onu-Matoran who wore a purple Pakari). As such, his continued existence in this reality did not bode well. If Teridax had been defeated for good, then why had Voriki made his appearance? Was he, like the Toa Mata, "made" by the Order of Mata Nui, with a specific purpose in mind? After being concealed for, what, 400 million years or so, had his destiny changed, or was it only now coming into fruition? And most importantly... What would happen if he ever ran into Takanuva? My musings, as they so often had been these days, were interrupted, this time by Voriki calling my name from the other side of the Suva. "What's up, Voriki?" I asked, looking across the Suva at him. "I asked what this weird symbol over here is supposed to be." He crossed his arms and gave me a frustrated look. "Oh, sorry," I said, rubbing the back of my helmet again as I meandered over to where he stood. "I was just thinking about some stuff. I do that sometimes. Now, which..." I trailed off. There was only one symbol on this side that Voriki could've been talking about. It was the same one I'd seen upstairs, and again on the eggshell. "Oh... That one. It's kinda got something to do with me, somehow. I think." I took a moment to explain, showing him the fragment of eggshell that bore the symbol in question, before turning and placing a hand on the Suva. Setting aside the theories I had begun generating about the symbol's significance, I cautiously ran my thumb over the strange image so heavily embossed into the surface of the strange metal. No sooner had my thumb made contact, the symbol glowed green, and a wave of color seemed to sweep temporarily over the dome, just like with Voriki, except it was black this time. With a groan of protesting metal and stone, the Suva slid upward, supported by a pillar of sorts. One side of the pillar was black, and the other purple. This revealed an array of strange weapons, tools, and other implements of destruction, in addition to a few masks. There was also a timer, which was counting down quite obviously. Fortunately for me, the wording above it was a simple English-based substitution cypher, meaning that each letter had a corresponding symbol in Matoran, this time. It didn't take me long to decipher it, though. It read as follows; "Codrex Core Unestablished In:" Beneath these words was a space where numbers would presumably go, which was very long, like it had been counting down for a long time, only to short out or something. Not a good sign. Beneath the sign itself, and embedded in the pillar, was a multi-faceted panel of sorts, which I recognized from a show I liked, called "Stargate SG-1." Anticipating what would happen if I leaned too close to the window-looking bit in the center, I turned to warn Voriki... Only to see him leaning in for a better look himself. "No!" I cried, as the center of the panel seemed to stretch outwards a few inches before pausing, and I shoved him sideways. I, myself, had no time to move out of the way of what happened next. The panel extended forwards a couple of feet, and two prongs wrapped around my helmet, pressing the eyeholes of my mask against the aperture. "No, no no no no no shiiiiiiiiitttt......" I groaned, as lights began to flicker deep behind the viewing window in front of my face. Abruptly, the HUD over my Mask's eyeholes polarized a fair bit, like those reactive sunglasses you see people wearing sometimes, and displayed a message, which read "downloading..." I mean, the three individual dots of the ellipsis were animated for Pete's sake, appearing one after the other, before they all disappeared again and then repeated the process. I could hear Voriki striking the side of the device, trying to free me, but it was no use. A few seconds later, I received multiple messages on my HUD in quick succession: •"Main drive full, compressing excess files to backup drive..." •"Primary backup drive full, compressing excess files to secondary backup drive..." •"Secondary backup drive full, compressing excess files to tertiary backup drive..." •"Tertiary backup drive full, compressing excess files to quaternary backup drive..." •"Quaternary backup drive full, no quinary backup drive detected: switching to direct neural interface..." "Oh, shit..." I thought, eyes widening as the HUD de-polarized the eyeholes. I felt a swarm of information flood into my brain for about a second and a half, including words that may have been "Initiating," and "Quantax," before the device released my head, retracting into the pillar once more. It actually wasn't as bad as I had expected, considering what had happened to Col. O'Neill... "Are you OK?" Asked Voriki, quite concerned. He helped me up as I responded. "Famous last words, but... I think so. Hopefully I'll be alright in the long term..." The sentence petered out as I looked back at the sign on the pillar. The numbers underneath the sign, which I now saw followed the same substitution system as the words above them, had become illuminated, and read something along the lines of four minutes and thirteen seconds, by my reckoning. This, combined with the phrase "unestablished," did not bode well. "We'll discuss what just happened later. Grab everything on the purple side, now!" I said to Voriki, panicking as I stuffed everything on my side into a brand-new Hammerspace pocket, so I could take inventory later. "Um... How do I...?" Asked Voriki, confused, as he watched things apparently vanish into midair behind my back, up sleeves, or wherever else I decided to stick things. "You just gotta try," I replied, distractedly. "The knowing will come. Trust me, it should come naturally, just hang it over your shoulder or stick it behind your hip." Stowing the last three items away, (a solid black Kanoka disk, a strange face-like Kanohi, and a cubic box that was about two feet on a side and bore the likeness of a strange Kanohi Hau,) I turned to Sans and Kapura. "Guys, I need y-- What're you...?" The two of them had been gathering the broken shards of the crystal spires, and were now holding entire armfuls up for inspection. "They've still got power, and they look nice too." Explained Sans, and Kapura nodded hastily. I sighed, swept the shards into Hammerspace, and continued as if this hadn't happened, and they hadn't been completely oblivious to my predicament. "Sans, I need you to flip the Axalera back upright, (that's the red ship by the way,) strap yourself in, and fire it up. The ship'll give you what you need to know." He began to object, on the grounds that he didn't know how to fly it, but I cut him off to speak to Kapura. "Kapura, I want you to get in the Jetrax, the blue one, and warm up the engines for me. I'll be along in a minute." I then turned to Voriki, who had apparently gotten the hang of Hammerspace, and was stuffing the last of his items behind his back. "You, friend, can jump in the..." I trailed off as, with a clang, the panel that had grabbed my head mere moments before extricated itself and whatever was behind it from the pillar and fell to the floor. I rushed over and grabbed it, since it might be useful later. The Suva dropped back down quite abruptly, nearly costing me a few toes for my inattention, before the polished dome opened like a mechanical flower, and a glowing ball of white light appeared. It seemed to burst, and in its place was a new vehicle: pitch black, and awesome-looking. I was in love. "Ok, I call dibs on this one." I said, before turning back to Voriki. "Anyways, you get in the Rockoh, the green one. It'll give you what info you need to fly it. And you," I said, turning to Kapura, "New plan: I'm trusting you to fly the Jetrax yourself. Chop chop!" At that, we jumped into the vehicles, an eerie familiarity stealing over me as I closed the cockpit and turned the ignition. There was a small timer on the controls, which was counting down from 45 seconds. "Alright, wheels up, boys. Let's blow this popsicle stand!" I exclaimed, and led the others up and out of both the chamber and the Codrex itself. A note here: some sources referred to the spherical structure we had been in as the Codrex, while others referred to the entirety of Karda Nui as the Codrex. In this instance, I was using the term to refer to the silver structure. As we ascended, I could hear Kapura whimpering from the speed overload and Voriki whooping with joy over the radio. I had to agree with both of them. This was cool beyond belief, but it was also scary. Less so, since I now knew a few things about how to fly this contraption, due to the magical implantation of the pertinent information by said vehicle, but still. "Now, this is pod racing," I said, slightly sarcastically. "This way, guys," said Sans, taking the lead. "Alright," I said, following at a courteous distance. "Any particular reason for this direction?" I asked. "Nah," came Sans' voice. "I just got a feelin' we should do it." "Hey, Caldoric?" Asked Voriki, cautiously. "Yeah?" "So... Would now be--" he didn't get the chance to finish, as the Codrex sort of imploded behind us with a rather interesting sound that carried for miles, and some parts of the ground around it heaved upwards quite violently. I saw several metallic glints that stood out amongst the debris and, switching to the Kanohi Matatu, I mentally grabbed hold of them and pulled them in for inspection. "Oh, score!" I said, holding up a badly scorched yellow and black beetle-like Kanohi, a black and green mosquito-like one, a blue and silver fanged one, and a green and black mask with mandibles, similar to the Shelek (Mask of Silence) I already posessed. There were some weapons, of course, and everything was rather badly damaged. I kept them all nonetheless, shoving them into my Hammerspace as we flew on. Towards the edge of the cavern, the boggy ground gradually gave way to "clearer" water, if you could call it that. After dodging through an artificial-looking hole in the cavern's wall, we found ourselves flying over an ocean in near total darkness. It seemed that, after 400,000,000 years, the lights had finally gone out, except in Karda Nui. All we could see of each other were the running lights and other minor sources of illumination on our craft. "Uh, maybe we should go back," said Voriki, a definite note of fear in his voice. I looked in the rear-view camera on my dashboard, and my back stiffened a bit. "Heh, I don't think so, Voriki. Not unless you really feel like facing those things behind us." For indeed, we were being followed by a large mass of the dark creatures we'd met before entering the Codrex. Apparently the few we'd left behind had gotten reinforcements. I heard the roars of three distinct sets of engines, which dopplered off in front of me. "Oh, wow," I muttered darkly, my voice dripping with sarcasm, "nice move guys. Just friggin' leave me here, will ya?" I switched on the headlights, and floored the accelerator. The burst of thrust from the engine pressed me deep into the seat, as the light coming from the tunnel behind me faded into the distance. I soon caught up to the others, and slowed to their speed. "What took you so long?" Asked Sans, bemusedly. "Piss off, bone-head," I muttered in turn. "Hey, Caldoric?" Asked Voriki. "Yeah?" "Returning to what I was about to ask earlier, before the thing blew up... D'you think now would be a good time to explain things?" I considered the question for a moment, before nodding. "Yeah, I reckon so. Here, gimme a sec..." I pulled out my phone and checked my reception, but I had no bars. "Ah, dammit. Turns out the robot's shell blocks WiFi signals... if you want me to tell you now, it'll have to be from memory." "Wait, wait. What was that about a robot?" "Oh, yeah. We're currently inside the body of a giant robot that's about the size of a moon, I think. It used to be active---" I got no further, as a new voice joined the conversation, practically in my ear. "Well, well, is it storytime already?" I swerved so hard in surprise, I nearly ate surf for dinner. By the time I had gotten back up to level with the others, I could see our latest addition to the party flying along under his own power, having just recovered from a laughing fit. Voriki was just staring at him, totally shocked and confused. And it was easy to see why. "Discord, you bastard! Don't do that to me! Are you trying to get me to fall to my death again?" I was severely peeved at him now. "No, no," the god of chaos replied, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye with the claws of his left hand, "merely dropping by, since you're in the area." "Yeah, riiiiight..." I said, giving him the stink eye. "Um, Sans?" Asked Voriki, quietly. "Who is this guy?" Sans had barely had the chance to say "no idea," before Discord rounded on Voriki and, affecting an air of indignation, addressed him in a perfect imitation of Mushu from Disney's Mulan. I facepalmed. "Who am I? Who am I?" He drifted closer to Voriki. "I am the guardian of lost souls! I am the powerful, the pleasurable, the indestructible Discord!" "Hello Discord!" Said Kapura, waving. Discord returned the gesture. "He's the spirit of Chaos and Disharmony," I explained, as Discord turned his head to look at me, "and he's supposed to be reformed... I think." "Indeed I am." Discord said haughtily, and turned his attention back to Voriki. "Which is why I'm able to match the quite admirable speed of your incredible ships." He snapped his fingers and vanished, only to reappear on Voriki's dashboard as one of those bobble-headed hula dancer things. "Where'd you get 'em?" I was about to answer, but Sans beat me to the punch. "It's none of your business where we got these. Caldoric?" He threw me a pleading look "I don't trust this guy, he gives me the creeps." With a flash, Discord was suddenly floating next to Sans' ride, giving him an insulted look. "You better trust me, Sans," Discord told him, and Sans' eyes widened, the left one glowing again. "I could be oh so helpful if you did. My powers are beyond your mortal imagination. For instance..." He snapped his fingers again, and appeared on the front of Kapura's ride, in a reclining position. Discord craned his head back, so he was looking upside down at Kapura, who waved again. "My eyes... can see straight through your armor." Out of the blue, he was blasted off the ship, and I turned to see Voriki, his staff raised and slightly steaming, aimed at the place Discord had just occupied. "Oooh! All right, that's it!" Said Discord, still following us. "Dishonor! Dishonor on your whole party! Make a note of this:" He snapped his fingers at Kapura, in whose lap a pen and a pad of paper appeared, then turned back to Voriki and began ticking things off on his fingers. "Dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow, dis--" Without thinking, I used my magic to hold his mouth closed, and then spoke myself. "Stop. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We're just nervous. We just escaped an explosion and stuff." I glared at Voriki and Sans as I let Discord go. I was actually a tad ecstatic that my magic had worked for once. "Then you're all gonna have to trust me." Discord glared at Voriki, who lowered his staff. "And don't you shoot me no more. We clear on that?" Voriki nodded, mutely, and Discord clapped his hands together before continuing. "All right. Okey-dokey, let's get back to why I'm here. Caldoric?" With a flash, he appeared on my dashboard, about a foot tall. "Yes?" I asked. "I've been traveling with Nova and a few others here lately, and we've been tracking some... dangerous entities, and the trail's led to Metru Nui." "Why are you telling me this?" I asked. "Because it just so happens that you and your fascinating little group are headed right for us." My eyes widened. "Oh," I said, "well, that sucks." I noticed a pinprick of light in the distance, and zoomed in on it with my Kanohi Akaku. My now-augmented vison revealed a skyline that was faint, but familiar nonetheless. "Looks like it's too late to turn back, though." "As if we could, anyways," sniped Voriki, "with those things that were on our tail." "True," said Sans, nodding. "I think we should take a look around the old place," chimed Kapura, "see if we can salvage anything left behind. I know I forgot a few things when we left..." "It's settled, then," I said, turning my attention back to Discord, "we'll continue on our way, and try to avoid Nova's group." "Whatever for?" Asked Discord, innocent as a letterbomb. "Why not team up?" "I've just got this bad feeling that, if we run into each other, terrible things will happen," I said, "that, and he'll start asking awkward questions." "True..." Said Discord, rubbing his chin, "I'll try and steer him away from you four, then." He looked at a pocketwatch that he'd pulled from nowhere, and made a "freaking out" face. "Oh, dear, I must be going. My absence will have been noted. He's quite observant, Nova is. And, one last thing, Caldoric." I raised an eyebrow, and he continued. "You should definitely get checked out by one of the local doctors, have that little problem of yours looked at before it progresses too far." With that, he vanished in yet another pink mushroom cloud, which drenched my dashboard in chocolate milk. "What did he mean by that?" Asked Voriki. I had my suspicions. Taking great care, I removed the armor on my left arm, and pushed up the scale-mail sleeve. What I saw was not good. The ridges along my arms had gone from black to dark grey, and black scales had started growing around them, and there were some patches of scales in other places on my arms. Where there weren't scales, my skin had gone dark and leathery, and my wrist seemed to have swollen a bit. To be honest, it looked slightly like the forearm of a night fury... I quickly replaced the armor, and loosened the wrist straps on my gauntlets just a bit. "Caldoric?" Someone asked, though I payed them no attention. Now that I was paying more attention to what my body was telling me, I could feel that the bruises on my back had become somewhat itchy, and... cramped, even. Not to mention the awkward feeling at the base of my spine, or how strange my face felt... The Quantax beneath me gave an abrupt lurch to the left, and I scrambled to right it. That done, I looked over to see that Voriki had nudged me with his own ship, shaking me out of my stupor. "What?" I demanded, startled. "Dude," said Sans, "we've been trying to get your attention. What'd Discord mean when he said 'get your little problem checked out' earlier?" "Not sure," I fibbed, stone faced, staring straight ahead, searching for an excuse. "In case you haven't noticed, his definition of 'normal' is distinctly unique from practically everyone else's." "Yes," said Kapura, thoughtfully, "he did seem a few Mahi short of a herd." I raised an eyebrow, but Sans was the first to speak. "Uh... What's a 'Mahi'?" He asked. "It's like a cross between a goat and a very small cow," I explained. The concerned look I got from Sans encouraged me to do some quick thinking. "Uh, no offense to Toriel, man. It's more of a physical description than anything, since I'm not sure myself what they do." I mean, I knew the two of them were close, like maybe friends or something, because of their love of bad or even "terrible" jokes. But I wasn't sure if that was as far as it went after the events of the pacifist runs of Undertale... I'm not a shipper, but it's a nice thought that they might be together. "Eh, no problem, man," said Sans, waving a hand. I nodded, and idly began humming a tune as I dug a hand into Hammerspace. I then pulled out the tome of magic I'd been practicing from earlier, and by the light of the instruments on the dash, I began reading where I'd left off. (Obviously I set the cruise control and autopilot before doing so.) We had some time before we reached the Metru Nui. I had to admit, this magic stuff was rather fascinating to me. The book explained things in a simple, straightforward manner, listing theories and practical uses for the topics discussed, occasionally giving cautions as the need arose. I mean, some of the concepts were slightly over my head, given that the book was written with the expectation that the reader had grown up around the various forms of magic natural to this world, making allusions I didn't fully understand, if at all. It arguably wasn't the same as the magic of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels. Nowhere did I find mention of necessary patterns of motion for whatever part of the body channelled one's magic, nor accompanying words or phrases needed to make the spells work. Admittedly, there was some mention of the occasional magical instrument, like a staff, an orb, or something else that had once belonged to some mage with a strange sounding name, such as "Starswirl the Bearded," and the like. So, it wouldn't hurt if I had, say, a spruce wood wand, with a dragon heartstring core (12", surprisingly swishy, according to Pottermore... Yes, I'd taken a look at that a long while before I ended up here. I was best suited to Ravenclaw, apparently.) Nor was it like most forms of magic I'd used in Minecraft, though the mod called "Ars Magica" came closest with regard to the end utilization of the spells in question. It was a shame I'd never really gotten far in that mod in all the times I'd used it. In fact, I occasionally did begin referring to certain spells I found potentially useful by the names they might carry in the mod, such as "touch dig," or "projectile light." There were some similarities to the style of Alchemy utilized in the nation of Amestris, from "Fullmetal Alchemist" (FMA). There were certain things you had to keep in mind, like equivalent exchange, and other less easily explained concepts. I made a note to look into that later... The closest thing I could think of was the style of magic that the witches of Discworld used. Well, technically everyone and everything there uses it, but I'm referring to the way the witches use it. To be completely honest, they do their best not to unless necessary, instead resorting to honest medicines, "headology," and plain old common sense when it came to taking care of the different village or town each one was responsible for. They only really used it for emergencies, and sparingly even then. "Headology," and balance. Sort of... getting your mind right. Those were the main things that both types seemed to rely on. Well, the rather flashier magic used by the wizards of Unseen University had some measure of balance needed, too. One couldn't simply just pick up a mountain with telekinesis, since their brand of magic would tend to use your mind as a sort of lever. Try to move something too big or heavy, and you ran a greater chance of "flipping your brain out your ear," or something along those lines. Oh, and they used the "thaum" as a unit of measurement for magical (thaumic) particles. Sort of like atoms, but different. Moving on. Long story short, I had a better understanding, or so I thought, of how this stuff was supposed to work, which was good. The main issue would now be a matter of putting these ideas into practice. Which is where my time in physics class might come in handy... I was still absently humming the song at this point, too, but I made no move to stop. I decided to try and create a point of light, similar to the Lumos spell from Harry Potter. Concentrating on how light worked, (basically, super tiny micro-vibrations,) I focused on a spot just above my upturned palm. Summoning my magic, a small starburst of light appeared in my hand, but only for a moment. The sharp arrival of light in this darkness had nearly blinded me. It definitely caused me to lose concentration, which is why it went out so fast. The others saw (and in Voriki's case, probably felt) it as well, and began trying to garner my attention over the radio. Urging them I was OK, I calmly explained what had happened. Voriki, as expected, seemed both interested and put off by my magic, seeing as he didn't seem to have any. I merely countered that he at least knew his element, and had a basic idea what he could accomplish with his elemental powers, whereas I had no such clue as to what I was even capable of. He had a definite direction to focus his energies through, but I would have to look every which way to find mine. The conversation petered out again, and I was left to my internal musings once more. I was glad that my magical prowess was growing, but... it came at a price, didn't it. I smiled as a character from a certain TV show floated across my vision, his catchphrase playing in my ear... "Magic always comes... with a price." Good old Rumpelstiltskin. The fact did not escape me that this change in ability just so happened to coincide with the acceleration of my physical change. To me, this revealed that what enabled someone to use magic was either a physical presence in the body, a mental mindset or brain chemistry, or perhaps genetics. Either way... this world was altering me in more ways than one, and I wasn't sure I was fine with that. This world... no, this clusterfuck of a universe... had already taken me from my family, and taken five years with them from me. Five whole years of my life. That's not something that could be so easily replaced. And now, it was taking my very self away from me. My physical identity. Admittedly, I was becoming more draconic as time went on, and I'd always loved dragons. I'd even wished I could be one, to a certain degree, hadn't I? Well, half dragon, at least. A hybrid of the best from both worlds. And with powers to boot! But... Could I ever really return home if this continued? People would stare and point, asking me for magical solutions to everyday problems... Not to mention all the folks who'd either want to dissect me, kill me, whatever. Not a moment's peace. No, I couldn't go back like this. I'd either have to find a way to get this reversed, or find a way to shapeshift without the Mahiki. It was a dead giveaway when my head was glowing like a small star. The other option... perhaps the only one... was to remain here, where the folks were at least marginally more accepting, and I'd feel at least partly comfortable amongst the Spherus Magnans. Maybe even happy? After all, I'd spent a good ten years of my life chasing their story. Maybe now I could do something more... I don't know, helpful? Interesting? Something different from my job in the toys department... Then I realized what that thought would mean. Spend the rest of my life, here? in Equestria? Land of the magical, talking, Technicolor ponies? I shook my head as my ever-present internal debate raged on, stronger than ever: Hate this world, and everything in it, or open up to the possibility of acceptance? I was so conflicted, so divided. I continued wracking my brain as we made our final approach to the city, which loomed large on the horizon. Yes. There it was, the City of Legends itself: Metru Nui. It's skyline was a magnificent sight to behold. I could make out the remains of the coliseum, tipped over slightly like the Tower of Pisa, but the other direction. There, too, was that one dome one saw in Le-Metru, where who knows what happened. Probably vehicle testing or something. Maybe chute control? Yes, there were the old chutes, strung between buildings like webs, the entire city shrouded in fog. And there, the foundries of Ta-Metru, which... were still smoking... after all this time... "Ok, guys, looks like the city's still in full swing, which is odd considering it's been abandoned for 400,000,000 years" "Wait, what?" Exclaimed Voriki. "Excuse me? Did you just say million years?" "Yes, I did. And yes, apparently you biomechanical folks can live a good long time, too. I mean, Lewa managed to survive this long, and he's crazy impulsive." Voriki frowned. "He sounds... familiar, somehow. Augh, I wish I could remember..." I peered ahead. There had been an addition to the skyline some time ago. "Over there's where the moon hit the robot's head," I explained, pointing at the jagged edges of the bent bits of metal near the coliseum. "Uh... Yeah, that looks like a long story..." Said Voriki, sitting back in his seat, looking dumbstruck. "Yeah, ten years in the making. Like I said, I'll tell you later." With that, we reached the city proper, and proceeded to land in a low rooftop in Ta-Metru, a couple blocks from the Great Furnace. I chose the spot because I wanted to see what had been powering it all this time. As we stood up, I removed my Mask of Adaptation. Sans looked over at that moment, and gave a great gasp. "Caldoric, wh-- your face!" He cried, rushing to my side. "What?" I asked, and my hand dove into my chest armor, emerging again with my necklace. It bore a dogtag-like pendant, with an image on one side of Toothless the dragon curled up playfully on his back. The other side had a mirrorlike finish, with some copyright information on the bottom. Looking at that side, I saw my reflection and gasped. "Oh, no," I moaned.