//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Enough fooling around, We're at War! // Story: Creeper World: Game of Dimensions // by Atomiqal //------------------------------// It was like a drug. Being young again. Petrus could feel like he was a plucky eyed kid just seeing the world for the first time, yet knowing everything at the same time... but the comedown was hard. Every time he was around those peers - if you can call them that - of his, he felt like another one of the boys, of the kids, maybe even the cool kids - since he seemed to have made a cool friend, like Sunset. But the comedown, when he realized that he still needed to get back, to return home and help fight against the Creeper... it drained him. So happy one second, so grim the next, it was like there was no processing period for his thoughts. Luckily he had time now, while somehow "I swear, security's gotta be non-existent in this universe." attending an art class. For some reason, the current art teacher favored quiet at the moment, demanding that every student use this chance to channel their inner artisté and draw a masterpiece from the depths of their soul. Though, from what he gathered, this was not the norm. No, from the previous paintings hung around, she was usually the fun loving type. Today was special, and he was glad for it. He brooded over his situation, really hoping that he would not get too close and start having misgivings about going back home... He made a promise to the military. To serve and protect. To the last Man standing. He was still standing. He had to go back and serve. "I have to go back and serve," he whispered out loud. "Huh, you said something new kid?" "Oh no, sorry, just... forget it." The other guy shrugged, returning back to his painting. That caught Petrus' eyes, because he could have sworn he had seen something similar to that. "What's that you're drawin'?" "Oh this little thing? It's a lightning storm with cube buildings falling everywhere. Cool, eh?" "Yeah, cool." Though, it was more than cool. It was intriguing... "Almost Déja Vu..." Suddenly, a memory got jostled in Petrus' mind. He had been fighting the Creeper before entering this world, and a localized storm of lightning and pixels had followed him and someone else... Something else... "The Creeper... He followed me!" He had a job to do. "Uh, miss?" The teacher looked over to him, "Yes, Petrus?" There was some snickering in the class, as no one was accustomed to his name. "Yeah, like 'Boulder Crash' is any better, you lameos." "May I please be excused ma'am? It's important." She sighed. "Have you drawn anything yet?" "Uhhh..." He looked at the blank canvas he had been staring at for hours. "Almost finished?" "Then finish it and leave it on the board. You can take a hall pass from me when you're done." "Yes miss," he quickly looked both ways before ordering his nano-machines to paint for him a portrait of Superman. "That'll keep her occupied." "Done ma'am," he got up and walked over to her, the other guy next to him shocked to see that Petrus could finish a portrait so fast when he could have sworn he was still drawing blanks... "Well done Petrus, be back." "Understood." He saluted her before walking out. Apparently, few people seemed to question his choice in attire. Likely because they did not want to come off as rude. Kids liked thinking that they were all good people. "Best not to burst their little bubble of innocence." People never like when their whole world is turned upside down and they are revealed for who they truly were. He left the school premises, hoping to find a clue as to how he got here... Then he saw it. The statue. The portal... and Sunset? "What is she doing here?" He questioned. Something felt amiss. So, he opted to hide in the bushes. What he would see would more answer questions than he had planned on asking... and raise a couple more. She started banging the the statue for a few seconds before stroking her chin. "Weird, the portal doesn't seem to be working right today. I wonder what happened." She quickly grabbed her geode and summoned all the will she had before touching the statue. She saw memories - in a sense. Memories of what had transpired before the portal closed on itself. Apparently, it had been overloaded by a sudden entry through it from somewhere other than Equestria. The portal did not know where. Whatever came through seemed to have left no marks or clues that it had come, just the portal being closed. This worried her to no end - whatever that was here could be evil. So, she sprang into action, grabbed her phone and tried to find all her friends. This was something they had to know. ----- "I saw her eyes glowing, and she said something about a portal, what's this mean!?" Now Petrus was beginning to formulate a theory. This statue was a potential Rift Space portal point. Quite an unorthodox design for a portal, but who was he to judge? Yet apparently, it was no longer working after he and the Creeper came into this world. "Maybe that's my ticket outta here!" Then another thought hit him. "I gotta find out more." Then an ominous realization. "The Creeper's gonna want to go back too!" Possibly return back with more of its own. Anywhere that was not choke full of creep was a hellscape in their eyes that needed to fixed by any means necessary... This could go bad real fast. None of the inhabitants here seemed to have any boson weaponry - hell, their security infrastructure seemed non-existent -, let alone anti-emitter weaponry. If the Creeper made it here and somehow broke through that weird glitch that forces everyone who enters here to become... like a teenager? Right, like a teenager. If they got around that, they would be unstoppable, able to engulf this world and countless others. "No more kidding around Petrus, lives are on the line." This was bigger than going home... This was about saving this world. Then going home. ----- The Creeper had been hungry at first, but luckily found out that by violently shaking a nearby "vending machine", as it is called, it could attain sustenance. It tasted so good, so sweet, so... complex. It hated it. Creeper was supposed to like simplicity, not complexity. Taste was a distraction from the basic tenants of growth and spread. It hated its corrupted self for liking it... Hated it more so for not having the heart to spit it out. Though, a part of it was more than willing to endure all this hate as long as it did not have to feel hunger again. That part of it soon died when the Creeper saw a humanoid girl "purchase" the same thing he was eating and told him that he had made a good choice. "Sweet choice," she said. This disgusted him. To think that the Creeper could pick a snack enjoyable to these complicated abominations... Unthinkable. It finished its shameful peanut butter bar before deciding that it knew enough of this impure world to return back to the portal... Not truly, but it really wanted to get out about now. He got up and ran, leaving the wrapper on the floor. ----- Petrus wasted no time. He checked his power reserves - "Still good, that's great." - and materialized a spy camera onto the statue. "Keep tabs on that doohickey for me." Acknowledged. It sent back. Petrus then concentrated hard. Using what little energy he could generate from the space-time continuum without causing a Rift Space or reality tear, he had his nano-machines generate new material - and process what dust and metal they could find - for him. The process generated a lot of heat. Fortunately, much if it was filtered away by the open air and cool breeze. Once he was done, his entire military attire became disintegrated for future use and he donned a skin tight spandex. "Now this is where the fun begins." He thought of going unseen. To be ignored, unnoticed and totally forgotten... Now he was invisible. The invisibility suit worked, using minor infractions in the local space-time curvature to bend light away from its wearer. Though, he could not cloak everything. There were small gaps for his convenience. A spot for him to see through, area for his feet and a bit of breathing room for his back. That way, he would not heat up and get cooked with all the radiation he was storing up. And where there were gaps, a nano-machine swarm had him covered - projecting a false hologram of reality in his stead. If someone was really paying attention, he might be noticed, but he doubted that anyone would care much. "This kind've sci-fi nonsense must be light-years ahead of what they're used to." He figured. He quickly sprinted to Sunset. He knew that she must know more than she let on. Maybe she even knew how to work that rift portal - though, if need be, he could try and operate it like any other portal. Granted, due to its weird architecture and design, he did not want to risk it... A few minutes passed, Petrus having avoided a couple of close run-ins with the student body, but he was still far behind Sunset. In fact, he figured he had already lost her. He immediately ordered a small swarm of nano-machines to go find her. They might take an hour to report back - they were slow... - but they could split up and cover more ground. That was when he saw it. "The Creeper!" As he was waiting around, taking in his surroundings, he saw it running pass the corridor... Complex musculature, almost humanoid body... but he knew it it was not human. "There's no escaping that look." Those focused, determined but malicious eyes. They were dark purple, in an ocean of blue. Its skin was also lightish blue and its hair dark navy blue... but the small purple tattoos along its skin... Petrus would never mistake who that was. It was the Creeper... "And it's heading toward the portal!" Again, he sprang into action. He sprinted after the thing. Luckily, his transformation had not erased any previous muscle growth he had made in the military, merely shortened him and deadultified him. Then something strange occured. As he was running, the thing turned around, "How did he notice me!?" There was no way on Earth, Sol or Via this could happen. He immediately froze up, not daring to make another move and ruin the illusion. ----- It was being followed. The Creeper knew it. It could feel the human's presence. The one from the real space pocket... "The human commander." They had shared a violent confrontation, but both recovered mostly. Thankfully, in spite of its corruption, the Creeper still maintained some quantum physical presence and awareness. He could tell that someone was walking around him, bending space-time to his will... It could only be the human. No one else here held such knowledge or know-how - if the curriculum had anything to say about it. "But where was he?" He searched around, scanning the place. Sadly, his awareness was just that... an acute awareness. He could no longer hone himself onto the human's Rift Space signature, not like when he was a Creeper Spore... when he was pure. He gave up after ten minutes, when more people started filling the halls and one of them asked if he needed help finding something. He had gruffly told her no before continuing on, clearly frazzling her with his abruptness and rudeness. He decided against heading back to the portal... as long as he was being followed, his actions would be hampered. He instead opted to blend into the crowd and disappear. Something that almost reminded him of the glory of the collective. ----- "Damnit, he's gone!" Petrus lost him. It somehow blended into the crowd, away from his sight... He would have ordered a nano-machine swarm after him, but it would be too risky - he was already wearing thin on power and nano-machines. Still, he knew he would have to take care of it sooner or later... later it would have to be. "Not sure if he saw me, though." If he did, then Petrus might have to consider a more... unobtrusive disguise. One without the military attire, one that could help him easily blend in with the herd... A hoody. Maybe sunglasses and a baseball cap? That seemed reasonable. That would hide him. He quickly tried to find a place to change. After making sure that no one was looking, he rushed into the janitor's closet and closed it tight. He stripped himself of the spandex suit, ordered a pair of jeans, shoes, hoody and all that and then allowed his bots to rest and replenish themselves. They needed all the power they could get. "This looks good," Petrus spoke up as he adjusted his hair - making sure every strand of unnatural, dyed hair was hidden. Sunset might have liked his looks, but he hated it - something just felt wrong about it. He quickly opened the door, feeling resistance on the other side and hearing a thud and "Ow". "Oh, sorry." Petrus quickly turned around to check on the poor sot he had accidentally smacked. It was his art classmate. "Uh." "Sorry my ass, you almost smooshed my art piece against the door, Jerry!" But just as he had looked up to rail against Mr. Jerry's clumsiness, he noticed that there was no one there. Petrus had fled the scene. "Uh, Jerry?" He was already a part of the early afternoon student rush. A morass of humanity mostly devoid of individuality, "A Creeper's wet dream..." Whoever that classmate of his was had soon all but forgotten the strange ordeal. He had joined the morass and focused on getting to class. "Good, he's off my tai-" Though, as Petrus was focusing on his would be catcher, he had neglected to realize that not all the crowd walked in sync. Some broke the norm, changed direction and did something out of the ordinary... This one was texting on her phone, heading for a chemistry lab test. "Ow, oh, sorry, are you hur-" "No no, I'm fine. It's my fault miss, don't mind me." Petrus quickly pulled his cap down and tried to get past her. It did not work. "Wait, I know you." "Oh crap." Was she someone who had noticed all the anomalous events surrounding him? He pulled his cap lower, just to be safe. "Yeah, I saw you earlier this morning, at lunchtime." "Lunchtime?" That confused him. He immediately looked up to study his not well met acquaintance. She was purple skinned, wore a standard school girl outfit, glasses and had her hair tied in a bun. "Wait, PURPLE!?" Granted, she did not look as closely related to the Creeper's signature color scheme, but still... If things got bad. "You did, did you miss?" "Huh, Sunset was right, you are just generally gentlemanly." She mentioned Sunset. That piqued his interest. "You know her?" "Why of course, I'm Twilight Sparkle, one of her friends. You're Petrus, aren't you?" "Uh, yes ma'am, yes I am." This was weird. He had almost entirely switched tact from seasoned veteran to awkward teen. Man with a Plan to a bundling ball of nerves... "This is getting old fast." He needed to end this. Diplomatically get himself out of here and on with his mission to find Sunse- "Wait a minute." "Yeah, I'm Petrus! Pleased to meet you, Missus - I mean -, Miss Sparkle. Any friend of Sunset oughta be a friend of mine." He brought out his hand to shake her, not expecting the sudden grip. "Oh my gosh, I'm so glad to meet you. Sunset told us so little about you, I can't wait to find out about you." Her grip was not tight - pretty flimsy, truth be told -, but her excited shake surprised him. He quickly regained his bearings and spoke up. "I aim to please, Missu-I mean, Miss." "Haha, it's the bun, isn't it?" "Yeah, it's the bun..." It made her look like a married housewife, in spite of the school girl clothing. "Apologies Miss, didn't mean to offend you." He took off his hat again and lowered his hoodie - a habit he probably would not lose soon. "Hahaaa, you're really a whole barrel of laughs, I can see why Sunset liked you." That made him smirk. "Well, can't say I blame her, who can resist?" Another laugh came forth. For the first time today, acting all charming and sociable was helping him out with his mission. He would loosen up this lady, get her to lead him to Sunset and gather intel on the portal. A perfect plan! And it was already off to a good start. "So, where're you off too?" "Oh, uhm," how was he to phrase this? He thought for a second. "I'm going to find Sunset Shimmer. I've got me some questions for her regardin' student orientay-tion." "Hahaaa, you really do sound like Applejack." "Applejack? The drink?" "No, silly, another friend of Sunset!" "Oh." Their names just kept getting weirder and weirder. "I see, she sounds like an upright character, this Miss Applejack. Anyone named after such a delicious drink oughta be." "Well, you're right about that." Laughing aside, he finally got what he wanted. She told him that Sunset was gathering some of her friends in Music Room 12, somewhere down the Southwing - "Hopefully the nano-machines've traced that area out." She left, explaining that she had a chemistry test - also why she wore the bun (figures) - and texted Sunset that Petrus would be there. "All comin' together perfectly."