Reincarnated as Interdimensional Agents

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

Here I go again making yet another entry to the Kitsuverse. This time with my buddy Hakon. I'm sure all of you will look at it and say "This is cringe." "It ain't Canon to the MCU or Tensura Slime" and "REEEEEE HOW CAN YOU DO MY FAVORITE CHARACTER SO OOC?????" but honestly? I do it this way because it is more fun to write. If I'm not having fun writing it, I don't write it. Especially since my other friends are of the exact same opinion in this case.

This story is about an AU version of Aiko Tsuniki from Our Wandering Time, and a Young Arachnoid named Tom making their way in the worlds of a very AU Slime Tensei and extraordinarily AU Marvel universe that's close to the MCU in terms of appearance.

I'm going to release the first chapter today, and we'll see about releasing more soon.

This has been a fun experience, and I honestly hope that my Collaborative Fanfic Universe inspires some people into doing collaborative fanfics with others. and myself. Can't get enough collaborators you know.

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

<June 2011>

The feeling of stepping between worlds was an odd one, even for one who had done so countless times before. Looking around the alley she found herself in this time, a nine-tailed fox girl with long red hair and steampunk-esque clothing found herself wondering if she had actually gotten the coordinates right for once.

She had been trying for over a century to get back to her home, mostly because there was a galaxy-spanning war going on in the dimension she was summoned to for the hundredth time, and she didn't want any part of it.

Sighing, Aiko looked up between the buildings to check the sky while she reminisced about the latter part of her adventures in that universe. "There's only so many times you can build system-destroying super lasers before you get bored of people asking for the same damn thing but bigger."

After walking out of the alley, she noticed that the people were yelling about something — or someone blocking the middle of the road.

Reaching up to her ears, she turned the background noise volume up on her headset just a bit, so she could assess the situation. Upon doing so, she heard the loud honking of horns, and much louder yelling, which caused her to cringe for a moment.

Walking over to the nearest human standing on the corner of the sidewalk, Aiko figured she should ask what was going on. Her ears perked up and her tails wagged innocently as she clasped her hands in front of her in an attempt to be seen as cute. "Hey, Mr. Suit guy. What's happening here?"

The suited man turned away from his vigil, a single eyebrow raised as he regarded the otherworldly woman next to him. "Miss… May I see your dimension-jumping license? Because I do believe you aren't from around here." His brown hair was fairly short, and receding from his forehead, yet despite this, he appeared to be just above his prime in terms of age, his dark blue eyes having a keen edge to them despite the peaceful expression on his face.

It took a moment for her to register that statement, but considering all the crap she had been through, she figured that she probably should have known better. "Dimension-jumping license? Ah! I didn't know I actually needed one of those. You mean to tell me what I've been doing so far is illegal?"

His expression slowly changed to one of relief. "Ah, don't worry about it. If you'll just come with me, we can get that taken care of, register you in our system, and all that. Procedure, you know." He winked, smiling a genuine smile as he waved his hand in the general direction of a parked car nearby.

Nodding with a small smile, Aiko shifted some of her tails back inside her and put her thumbs in her pants pockets. Doing the math in her head, she realized she would need to build up some more quest points soon so that her goddess didn't chastise her again later. "Right, I'll follow you then. Better to get this stuff out of the way quickly so I can go find myself a few quests."

The man didn't even blink at the strangeness in front of him, opting to guide the fox girl towards a nondescript black sedan. "I hope you don't mind that I call my boss. To let him know to expect you, you know." His eyes were full of mirth as if remembering a good joke. "I'm Coulson, by the way. Phil Coulson." He extended his hand for a shake.

Taking his hand in a gentle grasp, she shook it twice professionally, making sure it wasn't too hard, or too soft. It was unfortunate that she based this on a world full of physically and magically superhuman individuals, so it might have been just a bit much for the average human. "Aiko Tsuniki! You can call me Aiko."

"Nice to meet you, Aiko." Coulson nodded, holding open the car door for the fox girl. She stepped into the car, not seeing anything wrong with doing so.

The window was rolled down, and he slid into the driver's seat with haste. "So, what do you do, Miss Aiko?" He began chatting, drawing out his cellphone and hitting speed dial.

"I assume a woman such as yourself has some hobbies or work that draws your interest." He held off on hitting the call button for her answer but started the engine and began driving down the road.

With a smile as bright as the midday sun, Aiko began to speak in an excited tone. "Yup! I fix things. And build stuff for people that can help their society! Really though, I mostly just go on quests to get enough materials to build cool stuff for people. Hell, I brought a space-fearing civilization to the stars for my first main quest line, and they love me for it!"

"That's quite the achievement." Coulson complimented. "It should only be a ten-minute ride, so feel free to listen to the radio while I give my boss a head's up." He pushed the call button and was soon engrossed in the conversation over the phone, words like 'DH-101' and 'Dimension-jumping license' were thrown around, but otherwise, it sounded like a completely natural conversation.

After they parked at a spot in the underground parking lot, Aiko waited for Phil to open the door. She didn't have to wait long, as he soon made his way over to her door to open it. Exiting the vehicle, she followed him to the elevator and rode it with him until they reached his desired floor.

"Now… My boss can be a bit… Direct." Coulson chuckled to try and diffuse any tension. "He might ask you a few more questions, but it's strictly routine." They were walking side by side as they exited the elevator. Near the end of the hallway was a single suited individual standing in front of an unmarked door on the left.

"But just a word of caution." He eyed her from the side, the smile still on his face. "Don't ask about the eyepatch. He's a bit sensitive."

Turning towards Phil, Aiko gave a slight smirk and a wink. "...Aye aye captain." She breathed to him in a near silent whisper.

Coulson's lips tightened, but he said nothing more as he led her into the office of Nick Fury himself, the man already sitting behind a desk and reading a written report. Looking up at the two of them when they entered the room, the dark skinned man almost looked bored. "So this is the illegal dimension jumper you told me about?"

"It's an easy mistake to make." Coulson agreed, a light hint of humor in his tone. "Please take a seat, miss Aiko, and we'll have this sorted out in no time."

Sitting in the offered chair with her hands on the table, Aiko put the rest of her tails away since they'd only be in the way, ready to take whatever documentation they might need her to read through to get her license.

In her experience, it was generally better to play along. Besides, if they already had a system set up specifically for dimensional travelers, it had probably happened quite often, and she did not want to end up on the bad side of interdimensional time cops or something. "I never realized that even dimensional travel would need paperwork. I guess you really can't escape bureaucracy."

"Yeah, we hear that a lot." Coulson began laughing, which prompted the boss to do so as well.

"My name is Nick Fury." The dark man with the eyepatch said, peering at the dimension jumper. He offered his hand for a shake. "I'm glad you could meet with us on such short notice… Not all dimension jumpers are as considerate as you."

Tapping a finger on the desk while she thought about that for a minute, Aiko nodded. "Well it would make sense. Not every universe has the same common sense we do. Hell. There is even a universe where a sentient vending machine is carried through a dungeon to provide food and drink for those who have the coin."

The confessions caused both men in the room to slightly widen their eyes, Coulson leaning forward and asking a quiet, "Really?" While the boss kept silent, but seemed to be chewing his tongue.

Shrugging, Aiko nodded with a flat expression. It was one of the more mundane examples she knew of. She really didn't want to tell them about the dimension that swapped your sense of taste with your sight while you were there, or other such embarrassing mishaps. They probably already knew about them anyway, so there was no need to bring up past trauma. "Yup. That's not even the strangest one to be honest. Luckily you probably won't need to worry about most of the nasty ones. After all, those universes are pretty isolated and hard to get into, let alone out from."

"Well… It's my job to worry about stuff like that." The dark man offered, his mouth set in a line. "That's why I work here." The side of his lip rose minutely as it became apparent that this… fox girl didn't seem to have hostile intentions.

Looking over to the laptop on the desk, Aiko decided she'd offer her assistance. "Well, if you need a brief rundown of what I've seen, I can whip up a connection to my phone to send you the stuff I've recorded, but most of it is pretty mundane. Humans are literally everywhere for one."

Seeing a chance to get a deeper look into the fox girl's recent past, Fury smiled, turning the laptop around to show the standard green field windows background. "Go ahead. I'm sure you've had some interesting experiences."

Aiko nodded, before connecting to the laptop via an ad-hoc wireless connection to her phone, since it didn't even have a tight beam laser connection, let alone the hyper quantum connections she was used to. Watching the progress bar slowly move, Aiko's ears slowly began to droop. "Bruh, it's so slow."

"Maybe for you." Coulson soothed. "This laptop was bought less than three months ago, so it's literally among the peak of what we are capable of in terms of mobile computing speed. Our stationary devices have a bit more processing power, but it seems you are on a different level."

Hesitating for a moment, Aiko shrugged. "Yeah, I'll have to find someone with the resources to build some better stuff soon. At least that way if someone from my dimension follows me, they won't just walk off out of frustration." Making a face to show she was joking, she put on a senior citizen voice and spoke with a hint of irony. "Feh, kids these days. They're all very impatient."

"I might be able to set you up with someone…" Fury's lone eye widened as his harddrive filled up. For the size of her device, it seemed to have an incredible amount of storage space. "For now, we'll print out a Class 1 Visa that you'll be carrying around at all times for identification purposes."

Checking to see if her pouch would have enough room to hold it, or if she'd need to move some stuff to her Secure Subspace Storage System, she found it had more than enough. "Alright, I'll be sure to hang on to it."

Fury seemed to look both directions to make sure they really were alone in the room, before lowering his voice a bit. "Your fox-like features… Could you just pretend you are a cosplayer or something? Unless you are able to hide them, of course… Humans aren't really used to seeing them in daily life, you know."

Winking at the Bossman, Aiko responded back in hushed tones. "That's what I usually do in worlds that don't have contact with either aliens or the supernatural. It tends to actually work surprisingly well. People seem to believe me when I tell them it's just my kink."

"That's good to know." Coulson sighed in relief, having come back at the tail end of the discussion. "With the Visa you also have our contact information in case you have any questions or concerns… I suppose we'll also set you up with the local currency so you won't be stranded here without any means of providing for yourself." He handed over the laminated plastic card that had Aiko's picture, name, a serial number and the 'Class 1 DH' in big letters.

Taking it carefully, she pulled a lanyard from her pouch, and slipped the ID into it absently while she decided to put a data cube near the computer, switched the download processes over to it, and let it run. "It is probably gonna take too long to download from my phone, so you can remote into this and browse from there as needed. Don't worry bout charging it. It won't need it for about a decade."

"K1tsu_N3-hotspot-1?" Fury questioned as a new wireless connection option popped up on his laptop. "Suppose this will be my sunday entertainment, then." He lightly patted the cube. "Coulson will show you out. Thank you for your time, Aiko." Fury extended his arm for a handshake, signifying the end of the meeting.

Shaking his hand, Aiko responded with a smile. "Thanks. I'm sure Inari will bless whatever projects you have in the near future. Maybe try your luck sometime!"

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

Spoiler: Actually...

SO.... I'm going to post the first three I guess. Because it will give a bigger sample size.

Walking among people was a bit of a chore, but a necessary one. To mitigate most of it, Tom preferred shopping in the early morning or late at night, where the least amount of people were around. Less chance that he might bump into someone by accident.

He wore a gray singlet and brown slacks. His pale white hair and black eyes stood out a bit, but it was easier to maintain the illusion when some parts of him were represented in an accurate way.

As he walked down the street in the fading light, it was perhaps ironic that the eight eyes behind the illusion didn't notice that he was being watched.

"Coughing meds for my sister… Chicken soup… Black tea…" He rattled off his shopping list as he walked down the aisle that was barely wide enough to allow him to walk alone. That was one of the reasons he had to be careful. His true form might have been cloaked by the illusion, but he still took up the space. People would notice something was off.

Thanking the cashier for bagging his purchases, Tom left. One of the lamp posts outside rattled a bit as he bumped it with a leg by mistake, but there didn't seem to be anyone nearby, so he breathed a sigh of relief as he began the trip back home.

Measured footsteps became apparent at about the halfway point between the store and home, but Tom paid it no mind, as it was probably someone just going for an evening walk.

The trip back home was uneventful, and Tom greeted his little sister when she met him at the door with a hug. "I'm home, Serena. And I got your cough meds and some chicken soup."

"Yaay! Thanks… *Cough cough* Tom! I've been looking forward to chicken soup all evening." Serena's shoulder-length blonde hair was waving back and forth as she clung to her brother, a faint glimmer of gold could be seen around her neck.

"Let's get cooking so you'll get well quickly. If you are feeling up for it, I'll take you to the park tomorrow." Tom's proposal was answered by a cheerful "Yippee!" before he closed the door, preparing supper for his younger sibling.


It was the next morning and Tom had just finished washing up for the day… It took a while with his body, so he had to start early if he wanted to eat breakfast with his sister. However, as got out of the bathroom, throwing on a different singlet for the day, a knock on the front made him pause on his way downstairs, as his sister beat him to it.

He could only hear muffled voices, until his sister yelled out for him. "Tooooom! There's someone here to see you! They are wearing a suit!"

Caught by surprise, he just managed to get the illusion in place without stumbling down the stairs. He caught himself on the rail, before calling back. "I'll be there in a minute." Before walking a bit faster than usual. They lived in a two-story building, with the stairs ending on the opposite end of where the entrance was, which meant Tom had what felt like a very long time to take in the person standing in the doorway.

"The hell?! Is that… Hawkeye? Why is he here?"

It was fortunate that the surprise didn't show on his illusioned face. He approached the man carefully. "You can begin breakfast without me, Serena. I'll be with you soon, and we'll go to the park if you are still up for it, okay?"

His question got a smile from his sister, so he considered it a win, even as she had to push up against the wall to move past him.

Turning his attention to the suited man in his doorway, Tom closed the remaining distance, a bit of trepidation in his voice. "What can I do for you, Mr…? I wasn't expecting visitors today."

Clint Barton seemed to take on a relaxed, but formal posture. The briefcase he was carrying in one hand rattled minutely. "Mr. Barton. I work for SHIELD. Mind if I come in for a chat?"

"Ah…" Tom thought for a moment, before eventually forming a small smile. "Yeah, sure… Do you want some coffee? I assume this isn't just a social call…" Beckoning with a hand, Tom didn't wait as he began walking back into the house, past the stairs and into the kitchen at the end of the hall.

Following him inside, Barton politely declined the offer. "No thanks, I just had one." He stated, taking a breath before continuing. "You're right that it's not a social call, but I'm sure it's no big deal."

The sound of boiling water could be heard as Tom prepared two cups. Serena was eating some cereal with milk at the table, but that wasn't a problem. There were three chairs around the table, so he offered the second to Mr. Barton. Removing the boiler from its power source, he poured into one of the cups and added a tea bag before leaning on the counter.

"So what can I do for you today, Mr. Barton?" He asked. The smell of the tea as it set helped to calm his nerves somewhat.

Putting the briefcase on the table, Barton opened it, and pulled out a few files from a folder inside. They were photos of him taken by both a normal camera, an Infrared camera, and even sonar imaging. Two of those happened to show his spider body in crystal clear quality for their image type, and one showed only the illusion, but had a good view of his face. "Is this you?" he asked with the most deadpan face he could muster. It was clear something serious was on his mind, but he was doing a good job hiding it.

"Oh…" Tom glanced at the pictures. He felt like he could be forgiven for not making an illusion that covered those spectrums, considering he didn't have access to any of the tech necessary to actually display what he looked like. "Yeah… Funny thing, one day I was a regular person, and the next I'm this." The words sort of rambled out of him as the illusion unraveled before their eyes.

The human torso remained, but instead of the pants, there was a white spider's hindquarters with eight legs, each leg had three bands of gold along the lower part, and a wide golden line extended along his back. His arms took on a similar colouration, as well as his face. However, the change to his face was the most noticeable. Instead of a regular mouth and human eyes, there were now pincers and eight pitch-black eyes that stared at the agent in the room.

The dropping of the illusion caused Serena to stop eating as she ran in front of her brother. "I won't let you take Tom! He saved me." Her arms were to each side, and a line of gold along her neck glittered.

"You got that?" Barton paused for a minute before looking at the young girl. "It's going to be fine, miss. Your brother will need to come with us for a short while so we can make sure everything is alright, but he'll probably be back before dinner."

Tom gently hugged his sister from behind, causing her to calm down a bit. "I'll call Frank so he can watch over you while I'm gone, ok?" He asked. Their big brother would do it. In the absence of their parents - who were on vacation - that was the best outcome.

Putting the files away and closing the briefcase, Barton motioned for the spider-boy to follow him. "Let's go kid. We have a van waiting outside for us."

Finishing his call after explaining what was going on, Tom hugged his sister one last time. "I'm just going to reapply the illusion again… Don't want the neighbors to see things." Within a second, a regular person stood where the spider-man was moments before.

He drained the mug of tea, before walking after the agent. The van was indeed outside, a beige one, and Tom stepped into the back portion, causing the van to dip slightly in the rear before closing the door.


The trip to SHIELD, and the subsequent questioning was… It wasn't as bad as it could have been. Within Tom's mind, scenarios played out where any wrong answer would lead to scientific experiments or torture. But it had just been a few questions, a lie detector, and they wanted to draw some of his blood just to make sure it fit with his birth records.

Tom was exhausted as he got home, but Serena was there to hug him as he walked through the front door, having apparently waited up for him even as it was starting to get late.

"Frank put me to bed and left an hour ago, but I wanted to wait up for you." She explained as she clung to her brother. It was obvious she had been worried by the red rims around her eyes, so Tom tried to sooth her the best way he could as he walked the rest of the way inside.

"It was just some questions, nothing to worry about." He stroked her hair as he put her on his back, taking his time to carry her up the stairs. "Your brother is here, and I'm not going anywhere. Now let's get you to bed so we can go to the park tomorrow."

Serena snuggled up to his back, drifting off by the time he reached her room. With soft eyes and gentle hands, he managed to lift her into her bed and tuck her in. His hand went to her neck for a second. With his vision, he was able to see that the glittering line of gold was actually a very fine spider web.

Clasping his hands in prayer, he repeated how grateful he was for the assistance his deity had offered before kissing his sister on the forehead. He went to sleep in his own bed minutes later, thinking that maybe this turn of events was a good omen for things to come.

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

Having been in a coffee shop for most of the night due to lack of a place to stay in the city on short notice, Aiko was waiting for a message back from either Coulson or Fury about potential help in finding a place for her to sleep. She would have been just fine camping in the 'Central Park' place, but she didn't feel like being chased out of the park by some overenthusiastic patrol officer with a grudge again the next time she tried. "Haah. I should have just asked if they had any places available at the time. If they get Interdimensional travellers so frequently, surely they'd have a place for them to sleep?"

Getting up from her spot, she drained her 43rd coffee of the night - she counted - and began to walk out the door. For some reason, as soon as she opened it, she crashed into a young male Arachnoid. She hadn't seen one of those in ages. Taking a step back, she allowed him space to enter first so she could leave. "Ah, sorry. Didn't notice you there."

"It's my fault," Tom exclaimed. "I didn't see where I was going." There was something odd about the woman he bumped into… The ears and tails seemed far too real to his sharp eyes. "Can I get you something as an apology?" He asked, curious enough to want to get to the bottom of this.

"Well, if you want to be the one to buy me my forty fourth coffee in twenty four hours, I'm not going to say no." She responded.

"Do you take it with anything?" The arachnoid asked. "I'm Tom by the way. Again, sorry I bumped into you. I didn't think there would be anyone here so early."

Giving him an indulgent smile, as if she was only doing this to humor him, Aiko shrugged. "It's fine. I take my coffee as an extra large cup of straight espresso. Tall, dark, and strong."

"Sure." Tom responded, buying the requested coffee, and a smaller cup for himself. His voice lowered slightly as he handed the cup over, nearly a whisper. "By any chance… Are you a real fox girl? I've never seen anyone like you before."

Giving him a playful wink, she stuck out her tongue a bit before speaking in a light tone, indicating her humour. "Who knows? Maybe it's just cosplay, or maybe I'm an Omniverse travelling Kitsune who happens to be under orders not to reveal such things in public. You never know these days." She tapped her 'ID' badge on her shoulder strap to prove a point.

Tom's eyes widened at the badge, remembering the one he had gotten from Shield a while ago. He quickly scrambled for his wallet, before pulling out his own badge that had the words 'Class 3 EC' in big letters. "What are the odds, right?" He carefully slipped it back into his pocket as he beckoned her to join him outside.

As she sipped from the coffee he bought her, Aiko followed closely behind. "I'm sure this happens quite frequently here actually. The agents seemed to know what they were doing at least."

"Frequently?" Tom asked, tilting his head. "Considering you're the first I've met… How many have you seen?" He questioned, sipping at his own drink.

Taking another sip, she counted out the people who looked different, but could just be a slightly odd form of human. "In this world? Just you. I've been to a lot of worlds however, and I've seen a world of people that look just like you."

"Ah… So you can see through my illusion, then?" The arachnoid nodded his head. "It works against regular humans and some cameras, but as I've been shown, I haven't been able to filter out all the visual spectrums yet."

Shrugging, Aiko drained the rest of her coffee. "A Kitsune's magic sight will see through most illusions. Especially if you overcharge it. Though even if you didn't, I'd still be able to smell the difference."

Now morbidly curious, Tom somehow still managed to steer the conversation away from an answer he was fairly sure he would regret asking the question for. "I'm in New York on vacation for a few weeks… I suppose if you are a dimension traveller, then so are you?"

"Well. I'm just trying to find my home world to be honest. I can barely remember what it was like, but this one seems like it's probably fairly similar, so I saved this location in my favorites in case I want to settle down here instead."

As they walked down the street, Aiko noticed a strange build up in the flow of the world's mana, and decided to go check it out. "Hey, I bet something strange is going on in this direction. If you don't wanna get caught up in shenanigans, you might wanna call the director from here. However, if you're up for some fun, I can get us back no problem anyway so it's fine to tag along."

Tom looked around, not seeing anything out of the order. "Is this one of your illusion eye powers?" He questioned, fumbling with his phone for a bit, before he took a deep breath. "You know… I think I'd like to see what's going on. Just… I'm fairly new to this kind of thing, you know?" He smiled a thin smile, hoping he looked braver than he felt in that moment.

"Right. Let me just follow the overflow of mana, and we'll see something right about…" She began to speed up towards an alley not far from where they were walking. Pointing down an alley to what appeared to be a jagged crack in reality. "Here."

Tom rubbed at his many eyes, blinking to make sure he wasn't imagining things. "Is that a… crack in the air?" Disbelief was in his voice, despite being contracted to an eldritch god, as well as talking to an apparently dimension-jumping foxgirl.

Shaking her head, Aiko began to puff up from holding in her laughter. "Nah, it's just an ass in reality." After a moment, she flicked her tails at the arachnoid. "You should probably use Inari messenger to contact Fury. It'll work no matter where you are. Even out of cell range."

"That's…" Tom brought up his brand new Samsung Galaxy S. There were zero bars of signal, which shouldn't be possible in New York City. He also noticed a fox icon on his home screen that definitely hadn't been there earlier. "Magic stuff…" He muttered to himself, opening the 'Inari Messenger' app. It had a strange layout, but it was fairly intuitive once he opened it up. There was even a direct message option, and Nick Fury was listed as one his only options.

"So I just message Fury?" He questioned, noticing the small profile pictures for the first time. Shrugging his shoulders, Tom quickly typed out that he had met a foxgirl named Aiko and that the two of them had found a rift in reality in an alley in New York, with the current location, and adding at the end that they'll be walking through it to investigate.

~~RIA~~​

At the Shield HQ, within a room specifically designed not to let outside signals in, and layers of heavy Faraday shielding around the building, with all the repeaters off, and the place on lockdown, Nicholas Joseph Fury, Director of the biggest spy agency in the world, received a message from his phone. <Kon Kon~>

He looked around very slowly, trying to find the source of the message, when his phone screen lit up, with the image of a winking fox, which opened up and barked at him again. <Kon Kon~>

Now, Nicholas Joseph Fury was a paranoid man at the best of times, knowing that with his past he would have made enemies that could come for him at any time. That paranoia was now dialed up to eleven, as his phone started acting very weird.

The fox on his phone appeared to get impatient, and pawed at the screen. <Kon Kon~>

This was clearly enemy action. And the easiest way Nicholas Joseph Fury had for dealing with enemies was to draw his gun and shoot them. So he placed three bullets into a phone that he had owned for barely a week.

For a moment after he did that, everything was quiet. Then, his computer began to whine. <Kyooooooooon~>

Nicholas Joseph Fury breathed in and out very slowly, counting very fast to ten within his own mind before rebooting his laptop. This was all just a bad dream, he was sure.

The moment the computer booted back up, he heard the fox trying to mimic the sound of windows booting up. <Kon kon Koooon~> and a messenger app loaded on the screen in front of him, with a single message from Tom Olsen, and many from Aiko Tsuniki.

The laptop got the same treatment as the phone. It was a shame. He had liked that background. But this was now past levels of what his sanity could withstand.

After a few minutes of silence, he thought he was safe. But when he went to put his gun away, it barked at him as well. <KON KON MOTHER FUCKER!>

"What. Do. You. Want?" He spoke very slowly, feeling his sanity stripping away as he saw the fox decal on his gun of all things.

"You have unheard messages! Seriously! My Mistress' new friend called for you!" the fox said. "Pick up the damn phone next time!"

"Fine. Play back messages, starting with most urgent." Nicholas Joseph Fury just lay his head down on the desk, hoping to wake up soon, but knowing within his mind that it was unlikely at this point.

<Tom here. Met foxgirl named Aiko Tsuniki, and we found a rift/portal in an alley in New York City at 5th Street. Going to investigate. Message back on Inari because no reception. :spider_smile:>

"Well… Now I'm sorry I shot my phone. It'll be difficult to call someone to check up on it." Nicholas Joseph Fury said partially to himself, but also to the fox on his gun.

<KON KON~> "Well Exuuuse me Director, but you just so happen to have your own personal Inari! Just point the gun at something, say your message, and end with a Kon~! If you do that, the next bullet fired will warp to the recipient, and give them the message directly. It won't do any lasting damage, unfortunately, but it will still hurt like a bitch."

~~RIA~~​

Walking out into the middle of an open square, the two of them were swiftly surrounded by armed individuals wearing magical armor.

Still looking at his phone to see if Fury would respond, Tom finally looked up, seeing people in what looked close to medieval armor, which caused him to jump. "Why are they pointing spears at us?" He asked, a slight hint of panic in his voice.

As Aiko raised her hands slowly, a mountain of a man holding two large shields in front of him tilted his chin towards the two, and began to speak loudly in a slow manner, testing to see if they understood his words. Aiko was beginning to pick it up via her divine boons from Inari, but she would need time.

The arachnoid tilted his head. "Did he just ask if we are hostile to their kingdom? It's like a weird Norwegian dialect, almost…" Tom rubbed his chin.

Aiko smiled pleasantly. "If you manage to tell them we are inspecting the rift here to make sure it won't be a danger to our world, and would like to ask that they assist in keeping the area free of people who could potentially get lost in it by accident, I would be extremely appreciative."

Tom spoke back, and it seemed like the shield man relaxed marginally, even if he was using a finger to dig into his ear. "I think we can understand each other." Tom cheered. "It's been years since I spoke Norwegian, though, so I fear I might be a bit rusty."

Her smile brightened in response to the good news. "Oh! That's good. I usually have to resort to pantomiming until I get enough examples of the language for my boon to kick in. Or get messaged by them via Inari messenger in a language I don't currently know, which speeds that up a bit."

One of the soldiers began chatting with the dual shield bearer in a slightly relieved tone, clearly glad this wasn't going to be a fight. The shield bearer chuckled, and motioned the soldiers to stand aside.

Walking up to the arachnoid, the shield bearer began to speak.

"He's… Requesting we… join him? His boss wants to ask us some questions, I think." Tom squinted his eyes.

As they followed him, the others kept a rough perimeter around the rift. Soon, they made their way to a busy building filled with noise and action. There was a sign out front, but Aiko still couldn't read it yet.

"Those letters look… Strange." Tom shook his head, before asking something of the shield-bearing man. Getting what sounded like confirmation of sorts, the arachnoid explained for the benefit of Aiko. "It's basically the Norwegian written language, but with substituted letters. It'll take me a few days to relearn it."

Nodding, Aiko continued to follow the man of shields. "Right. No problem. I'll only need a few days to get it myself anyway."

As they walked through the building, the first thing Aiko saw was a large poster board, filled with requests. Then she spotted the guild counter while weaving through the full tables of alert and rough looking stereotypical isekai world adventurer types. "Oh. It's one of those worlds. Oh god. Legit, this is just my luck."

At some point they had come to a stop in a hallway near a heavily reinforced door. The shield bearer knocked five times rapidly, before resting a palm on the door. It slowly opened as he pushed, and the three of them walked inside.

As soon as they were inside, the man waved them to come closer to his desk and either sit in a chair nearby, or stand in front of the desk.

Aiko shrugged and stood in front, and she figured they'd not be there all that long. Opening her Inari messenger, she began typing to Mr. Fury. After sending a quick text mentioning that they might just be about to open diplomatic talks with a nation in a foreign world, and needed someone who could speak fluent Norwegian that has actual diplomatic training. "So you wanted to ask some questions?"

Tom began speaking again, and after receiving a retort from the person behind the desk, who might look kind of like a pirate if you squinted, the arachnoid turned back to the kitsune. "He's asking us to elaborate on our intentions. This world apparently has some experience with people from other worlds…"

"Well, I personally originally just wanted to show my new friend here the joys of world hopping safely. You know, since we found a dimensional rift, and I have a safe way to get us back if it closes. Turns out that now I'm just tempted to go back and close it, but I figured I should wait for- OUCH!" The coffee still in her hand went flying out the window. Feeling rather annoyed, Aiko rubbed her ass on her left side, and listened to the message only she could hear.

<It hasn't even been two days… *An audible sigh was heard* A portal in New York? For the love of all that is holy, please don't start a war with people from another planet. I'll keep my ears to the ground for any diplomats, but for now you are on your own. Fury out. Kon>

"Heh. Oh well. Don't tell that guy, but it looks like we're on her own for now." Aiko said with a shrug. "What you can tell him is that it would be nice if they would leave any diplomatic talks or politics to trained diplomats and politicians, which we are not."

Tom relayed the message the best he could, from the pirate's reaction, it looked like the message wasn't perfectly clear, but he still nodded and responded, which prompted the arachnoid to nod his head.

The pirate man took out something from his desk that anyone with knowledge about fantasy worlds would recognise as adventurer tags. "He says we can use these as identification while we are in this world." Tom supplied.

Looking over them from afar, Aiko smirked. "Okay. They seem to be the kind to lock onto your magic signature once you have them, so they can probably be used to locate us if we go missing."

"That's handy…" Tom commented, before nodding his head to the guild leader. A few more exchanges of words later, and they were free to go.

"He said that there are currently quests near some forest if we get restless, or just want to see some different places. It even pays…" Tom sounded excited as he took in the guild common area now that their pressing business was dealt with.

Aiko's grin was filled with mirth as she chuckled "Sure. It's probably a fetch quest list, but it wouldn't hurt to check."

They immediately encountered a problem, as the guild quests were all written in the same script as the sign outside. "Guess we'll ask a receptionist or something?" Tom suggested helplessly, still unable to read the strange letters.

The receptionist proved to be quite snarky, even after Tom explained that they were from another world. With a bit of cajoling, the arachnoid managed to sway the receptionist, and she let out a sigh before explaining.

"Seems like you were partially correct." Tom smiled, having earned the small victory over the reception lady. "It's half fetch quest, half escort mission. Seems there is a merchant going that way, so we'll have to protect them, and bring back some stuff once we get to the forest." The arachnoid tilted his head. "There isn't exactly a time limit for when we need to return, so I suppose we can take our time as we wander."

Aiko chuckled at what she perceived as a joke. "That was a bad pun. I like it. I'mma use it."

Soon, her vision singled out a young goblin attempting to drink her coffee. "Ummmm. You probably shouldn't drink-"

He drained the cup in one gulp, and slowly began to vibrate. Not long after, he raced off in a straight line back into the forest at Mach speed. The sound barrier was clearly shattered multiple times over, but Aiko had already adjusted her headset's hearing limiters to avoid being knocked out. Once she was sure the danger had passed, she fixed the limiters back to normal human levels. "Well. That was a thing."

 

[HeyaUser]

People seem to believe me when I tell them it's just my kink."

Click to shrink...

Lmao, I probably would believe her as well

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

Lmao, I probably would believe her as well

Click to shrink...

Same.

Spoiler: Spoiler

She actually wouldn't be lying though tbh.

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

I almost wonder if I should upload the next chapter soon. I have 8 ready, and the 9th is almost finished, but idk. If enough people decide to say they want the next chapter right away, I'm not opposed to putting it up via mobile. It's just that I usually wait until I can use my pc for it. Still need more collab partners though, lol.

 

[Odd1todd89]

Thank you for the interesting story so far.
I'm looking forward to reading more and I hope you have a pleasant day.

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

Thank you for the interesting story so far.
I'm looking forward to reading more and I hope you have a pleasant day.

Click to shrink...

Thanks for the reply! Hakon and I had a lot of fun writing this, so there will be more eventually. I hope you have an epic weekend yourself!

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

Spoiler: Just some notes

There will be some other language stuff in here for a bit this chapter, but it shouldn't be a problem going forwards, since the characters do both get the hang of the language rather fast.

Keep in mind, the pov changes per chapter unless special circumstances arrive where an npc needs their timeslot.

Spoiler: My personal thoughts / ideas

I had a talk with a buddy, and decided that if people feel inspired for some reason, and want to make omake for this, they certainly can.

I still need to find someone to help with doing Morgan Freeman as president some time, since that's canon to our au anyway, so feel free to post omake of anything, from stuff like the universes Aiko has visited, or Fury reacting to them, or really how the others in the MCU area are taking this stuff. Literally anything can be an omake, and if my partner likes it, I'll make it canon to our au.

Tom rubbed his head as they exited the adventurers guild. If he had known about this dimension travel beforehand he would have definitely brushed up on his Norwegian skills. However, it was what it was, and at least Aiko seemed to have a way to quickly learn the language, which meant they wouldn't be so reliant on his translating skills for long.

The air was crisp and clean, with nary a cloud in the sky. It was the perfect weather for an adventure.

"The quest said the merchant we are supposed to escort is waiting at a nearby inn." Tom pointed down the road, where a sign with the picture of a drinking mug and a bed was proudly displayed.

Following her new adventuring buddy to the inn, Aiko figured she should probably ask a rather important question. "Hey, I know that it was rather dumb of me not to ask this before, but you do know I can get you back home at any time if you need it right? We don't need the portal now."

The arachnoid's eyes widened. "Well, that's a relief." Tom rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. "I'm kind of hooked on this adventure right now, you know? But it's good to know that you have an easy escape if we need to leave for whatever reason."

With a smile and a nod, Aiko walked ahead and opened the door to the inn. The instant they opened the door, they were greeted to the sight of a small red clad witch clinging to the back of a brown haired man while he attempted to keep a blue haired girl from drinking another bottle of wine. Soon, a blonde haired female crusader sitting next to them fell as the chair collapsed under the weight of her armor. At the sight of this, the only thing Aiko could say was: "Bruh."

"Hey, Aiko… Those people…" Tom kept a wary eye on the strange party while his remaining eyes searched for the merchant they were supposed to escort. "Don't they look kind of familiar?"

The look on Aiko's face was indiscernible, and when she opened her mouth, the language that spilled forth from her lips was also incomprehensible. "Ōi, Kazutorasshu! Dō shita n da?"

The man turned to eye Aiko with a tired glare. "Don't call me that, I hear it enough from these three."

"Wait?" Tom stopped looking for the merchant for the moment, all eyes focused on the strange party in front of them. "Someone else who understands us?"

The blue haired woman managed to get the bottle from Kazuma, and began to chug. Kazuma looked at the two of them with a tired expression, bags under his eyes. "Of course I understand you. The kitsune there speaks Japanese, and you're speaking English. I don't need any special skills for that."

Aiko beamed at him. "Spoken like a true MMORPG fan. I bet you learned English just so you could play American games online, right Satou?"

"Kazuma Kazuma! Kjenner du disse folkene? Du prater det rare språket igjen, jeg ser det på munnen din at den ikke er i synk med lyden som kommer ut." The red wizard on the back of the now named 'Satou' said at a rapid pace.

"Vi trodde det var noe kjent med dere." Tom replied, tilting his head. To Aiko, he translated roughly. "She's asking if this 'Kazuma' knows us, and she's also commenting that she's aware we are speaking a different language."

Chuckling at the thought, Aiko spoke in a clear voice. "Don't worry, I'll understand you fully soon. As for if we know each other? Only if you've met Kitsu on Discord."

Tom jerked minutely, as if struck. 'Discord? Wait, what the hell?!' While thoughts were running around in the arachnoid's head at a blistering pace, on the outside it looked like his shoulders slumped and he was just staring into nothing.

"Hey hey!" The blue-haired woman suddenly shot out, rambling a bit with a bottle of booze still in her hand. "What's happening with you? Are you okay?" Without waiting for an answer, she lined up her hands and cast one of her Sacred Dispel spells, thinking the guy was inflicted by some random curse.

Tom jerked back to his senses as the divine energy washed over him. To his horror, it also brought down his illusion spell, so where a regular guy stood a second ago, now a full blown arachnoid with a white carapace lined with black stripes. "Whaa?!" He could only look on in surprise as the blue-haired girl's expression went from drunk-curious/concerned to frightened in a second.

"Exorcism! Sacred Exorcism!" The blue-haired girl screamed, a rainbow beam shooting out of her forehead and engulfing the arachnoid fully.

Seeing the murderous aura beginning to leak out from the kitsune, along with the audible growl, Kazuma decided now would be a good time to panic. Grabbing the blue haired girl, he began to shake her. "Hey! Aqua! Cut it out! We can't just go around attacking people here!"

"But he's clearly a servant of the devil king! He was even in disguise and everything!" The now named Aqua shouted, flailing with her booze bottle, having forgone her spells once she was grabbed by her party member.

"Devil king?" Tom asked, puzzled as the exorcism spell hadn't seemed to do anything to him. "And maybe I was using an illusion like that because I don't want people to attack me anywhere I go. Did you think about that?" He huffed, crossing his arms now that the truth was out.

Aqua just pouted, having calmed down marginally after the jumpscare. "It's not my fault you look like you came out of a horror movie." To take her mind off it, she drank deeply from her bottle.

"Kazuma Kazuma! Hva skjer? Hvorfor angriper Aqua den edderkopp-fyren? Kan vi kjøpe noe mat, jeg er sulten!" The red wizard ranted into Kazuma's ear, refusing to let go of his neck.

Making her best attempt to speak with them in their language, Aiko soon found that she would need more practice. "Vi mø finne kjåpmannen vår. Vi skule møte ham her. Kan du hjelpe ås?"

Tom gave her a sidewise glance, before lightly patting her on the shoulder. "Good job on your first try. But you could use some practice."

All the commotion seemed to attract the attention of the inn patrons, which included the merchant they were looking for. He was a middle-aged guy with brown hair, except his fringe which was blond. He had a fine moustache, and extravagant colourful clothes with some animal fur for padding.

"Jeg er kjøpmannen. Er dere de som tok oppdraget å beskytte meg?" The merchant spoke, a glint in his eye as he rubbed his hands together. If greed was a person, then this guy was clearly cut from the same cloth.

Looking back and forth between the merchant and Kazuma, Aiko tilted her head. "You guys related to each other?"

Aqua nodded along, while on Kazuma's back, the red wizard had a thoughtful frown on her face. "Nei. De er ikke like i det hele tatt." She spoke with certainty a few moments later.

Coughing into his fist in an attempt to get the group's attention, the merchant spoke up. "Bra. Dere er alle her. Jeg har penger å tjene, så la oss komme oss av gårde."

"Adventure awaits!" Tom cheered, which caused some weird looks by the non-english speakers, but his enthusiasm was easily understood. It was a group with smiles on their faces that exited the inn, ready to see more of the world.

There was only one question on Aiko's mind. "I wonder if they have coffee?"

~~Translation corner. We likely won't need to do this again, but it was necessary this time to show that yes, there are other languages in this world.~~


​

*"Ōi, Kazutorasshu! Dō shita n da?" = Poorly translated version of "Oi, Kazutrash, what's up?"


* Kjenner du disse folkene? Du prater det rare språket igjen, jeg ser det på munnen din at den ikke er i synk med lyden som kommer ut.
Do you know these people? You speak that weird language again, I can see on your mouth that it's not in sync with the sound that comes out.

' Vi trodde det var noe kjent med dere.
We thought there was something familiar about you.

* Hva skjer? Hvorfor angriper Aqua den edderkopp-fyren? Kan vi kjøpe noe mat, jeg er sulten!
What's happening? Why is Aqua attacking that spider-guy? Can we buy some food, I'm hungry!

* Vi mø finne kjåpmannen vår. Vi skule møte ham her. Kan du hjelpe ås
We moo find —-- our. We glared meet him here. Kan you help hill

* Jeg er kjøpmannen. Er dere de som tok oppdraget å beskytte meg?
I'm the merchant. Are you the people who took the mission to protect me?

* Nei. De er ikke like i det hele tatt
No. They aren't alike at all.

* Bra. Dere er alle her. Jeg har penger å tjene, så la oss komme oss av gårde."
Good. You are all here. I have money to earn, so let's get going.

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

They did not, in fact, have coffee. This was a travesty. "Oh man, am I really going to have to go get coffee plants from Earth just to get a good brew here?" Aiko began to complain as they sat inside a building waiting for Gard to finish his business.

"Just make sure it doesn't become an invasive species." Tom had his arms folded behind his head. After the illusion had been dispelled he had decided to not reapply it since it didn't seem like many people cared in this world.

After a while of waiting and sipping on some complimentary juice, Aiko's ears perked up, and she turned to see a blue slime be carried in on the chest of a purple haired Kijin.

Before it could begin it's introductions, Aiko chuckled deeply, before meeting its gaze with her own. "Hello there!"

"Hello to you as well! Are you enjoying your stay so far?" The slime responded giving the impression of a smile.

Aiko slumped to the table, clearly unimpressed. "Bruh, I was fishing for a Star Wars reference, but I guess you wouldn't know about that."

"General Kenobi!" Tom shouted, making his voice deeper on purpose. "You are a bold one."

Smiling at the fact that someone got her joke, she winked at her spider buddy, and looked over at the slime with a smirk. "I will deal with this Jedi slime myself."

Unfortunately, he was already busy playing checkers with Megumin. "Your move."

Aiko could tell he wasn't a fan of star wars at this point, so she decided to move on. "So, we heading back to the other town or what, Mr. Merchant?"

"Well… The roads were much safer than I anticipated, so I think it should be safe to travel on my own for the way back. You'll still get paid, though." The merchant waved a hand back and forth. His eyes were filled with money symbols at what this would save him in the future.

Shrugging, Aiko didn't really have much else to say to him. She figured she should make sure to get paid sooner rather than later, however. "Well, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it if you paid us before you left then. I might just stick around here with my buddy Tom for a bit until it's time to move on."

"Okay, okay. Don't need to remind me." Gard shook his head while fishing for a money pouch on his belt. "This should cover pay for all six of you." He casually threw the bag onto the table where Megumin and the slime were playing checkers, causing a clinking noise.

Kazuma grabbed the pouch and began to count it, pulling out an equal portion for each of them. It came to roughly fifteen silver coins each in the end. Handing them out to each of his party members first, he passed the last amount to the two newbies. "Here. It's more than you'd normally get for a mission like this at your rank, but I don't want to be accused of cheating a team of newbies."

The purple haired Kijin adjusted her secretary glasses with a smile. "Anyone who would do something so low as that would be stripped and sent into the forest as monster bait for the hunters."

Beginning to pant heavily, an atomic blush became apparent on the face of the lady knight. "Kazuma! Let's keep the reward to ourselves! Just imagine all those monsters pinning me down, violating me in such a way! Ah~"

Kazuma was having absolutely none of that. "Hell no, leave me out of your perverted fantasies Darkness."

Looking between the two of them and noticing the look of rage on Megumin's face, Aiko silently made sure Tom had his coins, and led him outside. As she did so, she got another message from Fury. {You've been gone for a while. Are you able to give a status report? Kon!}

Checking the temporal link and timestamp, she figured she should probably hurry with her reply. "Sorry, the time-delay is quite large at the moment, I'll bring Tom back right now, and then we can talk in person. Not much has really happened however, just helped guard a merchant wagon to another town."

Walking Tom over behind a building, she pulled out a small device from her pouch, and slapped it on Tom's chest. "Don't panic, and let the suit adjust first. I'll tether you the first time we go, so that you don't get lost in the quantum foam."

"That's a lot of words I didn't understand." Tom was visibly trying to keep still, as a thin layer of self-replicating nanobots began to create a metallic suit of armor over his entire body. Even his spider parts were not left uncovered. It soon shifted colors to become black with glowing yellow highlights running in jagged lines over his body.

Putting her own suit on, she let it adjust to her body, before attaching a line of energy to his chest from her back. "Well, take a deep breath, and don't close your eyes. You'll need to remember how this feels in the future."

Opening the portal in front of them with a swipe of her hand, Aiko led the two of them through it and into the quantum realm. Inside the quantum realm, they began to shrink, and time seemed to stretch around them, with space becoming a mere suggestion. The physics of this place were alien, even to those with forbidden knowledge, the perfect place to train in eldritch magics.

Not that she would know, as she had never tried to learn the forbidden spells. Aiko was told by her goddess they would corrupt the mind of those who use them. "We're entering the quantum tunnel now, it won't be long."

They accelerated through an ever-shifting network of passages at speeds exceeding the realms of possibility. Lights blurred in front of them, seeming to stretch ever further. And then, as if they had never been moving at all, they stopped in front of an identical portal, and Aiko guided them through it.

When they reached the other side, Aiko closed the portal behind them, let her suit put itself away, and smiled. "This is our stop. I wonder if Mr. Fury is around."

<July 2011>

"Oh. They brought the foxgirl and spider I ordered for Fury's birthday party." A somewhat stern woman rattled off, concealing her surprise. "Agent Hill. I assume you are here to see Fury?" Straightening her dress, she took in what looked like a multicolour kaleidoscope as it closed behind the strange duo.

Shocked at the new information she believed she was getting, Aiko began to fret a bit. She knew he was an important person in this world, though she didn't know how much. He did give off that kind of feeling however, so she figured she should try to think of something to build for him, and fast. "Ah? It's his birthday? Crap, I should have brought him a gift. What does he even like? I can make him something on the way?"

"Aiko…" Tom failed to whisper, as his eyes flicked from side to side. "Did you just teleport us where I think you teleported us? We are so dead… I swear. Also, I highly doubt it's Fury's birthday, can't you see Agent Hill is just distracting us?" He threw his hands into the air before covering his eyes in a double facepalm.

Aiko shrugged with a laid-back smirk rising on one half of her face, her tails swaying lazily. "Hmm. I don't see the problem~ It's just Fury's office right? Besides, he wanted to see us, so I didn't want to make him wait. That would probably be a bad idea."

"No, no." Agent Hill tried to placate with a far too wide smile on her face. "Go right ahead. I'm sure Fury will be happy to see you if he called you here on short notice." The fingers on one of her hands twitched a bit, but she pointed towards one of the doors nearby.

Noting that she couldn't smell Fury in that direction, Aiko figured she was just being cautious, and sighed as she opened the door to the room knowing she'd probably have to wait a while.

As the door closed behind the fox and spider, Agent Hill quickly picked up her phone as two armoured and armed agents turned a corner holding silenced submachine guns. "Fury! There is a foxgirl and a spider who appeared out of thin air right next to me." She didn't wait for Fury to acknowledge her before speaking, rushing out the words.

The line was silent for a bit before she received a response, which caused the woman to sigh. "You should warn me next time we have extraordinary people on the way… Also, I'm going to need a stiff drink after this."

Hanging up, she opened the door and beckoned for the occupants. "Sorry about that, I messed up the room number. Please follow me." She looked towards the armed guards, making a shooing gesture towards them, she added quickly. "Don't mind the armed guards, they were just heading towards the gift shop for a late present to Fury."

Deadpanning towards Hill, Aiko tilted her head and flicked her ears in an obvious reminder that they were not just for show. Staring at her for a moment, she began to follow. "... So what does he like? I can make something along the way."

Agent Hill just rubbed the bridge of her nose, before complying, knowing the gig was up. "Some shaving equipment or leather gloves. You really surprised me, you know… Also, he doesn't like his gifts to be wrapped with a bow."

"Aww. I didn't bring a gift." Tom's shoulders slumped. "And I doubt the gift shop takes silver coins…"

Thinking fast, Aiko looked at Tom, and began to chuckle ."Well, if I could borrow some of your spider threads, it would make building the gifts much easier, and of higher quality. I could probably enchant them pretty well with that kind of material."

"How much would you need?" Tom asked in surprise, beginning to spin some web between his hands.

"Enough to stitch and line two pairs of gloves." Aiko began, as she put on a fancy glove of her own, and ran her fingers through her tail fur, taking an even amount from each tail. She then began to hold her glove out in front of her, and take the thread as it was spun with a deep red beam of light. "Just a little more."

"Don't worry. I can do this all day." Tom cheered, keeping his eyes fixed on the strange process happening in front of him. "So… What are you getting for Nick Fury's birthday, Agent Hill?" He asked with a smile on his face.

"Maybe a beanie or something…" Agent Hill spoke absentmindedly, also fascinated by the Kitsune's crafting process.

When she received enough thread, she began to make the gloves. First a strange black leather that seemed to absorb light began to form, then it was stitched together and lined with the spider silk, processed in two very different ways, lastly, it was lined with Aiko's own fur, and enchanted in a flash of magic, golden runes forming for a moment over the gloves for a brief moment. When they disappeared, the vivid image of golden gears in motion took their place, and the fur began to glow a soft golden light.

"Remind me to ask for collaboration ideas when my sister's birthday comes up…" Tom looked at the gloves with wide eyes, hardly believing what he was seeing. And that was after traveling through the quantum realm for a bit.

"Fury will see you now…" Agent Hill coughed into her hand to regain some composure. She gestured to another door, that even had a Nick Fury nameplate in brass.

"Right." Aiko walked into the room and used her glove to put her present to Nick Fury on the table in front of him. "One pair for winter, and one for summer. The winter pair has more fur in it, so it will be nice and warm."

"Are those gears moving?" Nick Fury took one long look at the gloves, before a smile stretched over his face. "You shouldn't have…" He shook his head before gesturing towards the chairs in the room. "I'm glad you could get here so promptly, but next time, maybe give my agents a heads up before popping up in front of them." He ran a finger over the gloves, not feeling the 'gears'. They did feel like high quality leather, though.

"I'll just stand, if it's the same to you." Tom spoke up, gesturing to his body. "Would be a bit awkward…"

Within a few minutes of silent searching, Aiko brought out a chair from universe 790-Z. The Arachnoids of that dimension were great crafters, and their chairs were very comfortable for those with spider bodies or a large amount of tails. "Use that one. I have a different one I can sit in." She claimed before she brought out a different chair that was essentially a normal office chair, but with special gel seating, and an area out the back for her tails to hang if needed.

"Wow. That chair looks like it was made for me." Tom inspected the craftsmanship of the alien wood? that was masterfully carved into a seat where he could plop down his spider body. He tried to carefully position himself, before sitting down with a sigh. "It's really comfortable."

"I'll bet. It was a gift for helping the Vatia family build an engine for their ship that could be run on salt water as a fuel source, and produce clean water and pure salt separately as a bi-product." Aiko shrugged.

"As impressive as that is… And thanks for the gloves, by the way…" Nick Fury brought the attention back to himself, now wearing the summer gloves with a small smile on his face. "I wanted to hear your opinion on the world beyond the rift you found. How were the people there, were they hostile?" He leaned forward, the smile slipping away as he turned more serious.

Aiko frowned as she began to speak. "The people we met directly were not as of yet, however, I have knowledge of similar worlds, and the magic purity of the world is beyond high enough to support existences known as Demon Lords. Despite the name, not all such existences are evil, but they are universally dangerous, and not something you could handle without the support of a team of master sorcerers, high quality mages, and experienced warriors with an army to back them up." She paused for a breath. "Though it may be dangerous, there are a few benefits that can be had by doing trade with them."

Fury was resting his chin on top of his gloved hands, the gears turning ominously as he seemed to go through a series of events in his head. "Then it's a good thing I'm setting up a team. However… As the two of you seemed to do fine in that world… It might be a lot to ask, but I would want the two of you to be in charge of fostering better relations with that world. If you are willing and able, I'll be sure to compensate you fairly for your time." He promised, his eye flicking from kitsune to arachnoid.

"Working with Aiko has been a fair bit confusing, but also a lot of fun." Tom admitted easily. "I'd be open to continuing working with you," Here he turned towards the kitsune directly. "So long as we can take regular trips back to visit my sister. I don't want her to worry about me being gone too long."

Aiko tilted her head in Tom's direction, a brief smile forming to reveal a fang on one side of her mouth. "Well, it's a quest, and quests are worth points. I liked working with Tom so far, but the timeline is very different over there than it is in your world here. My only question to you is will we be paid based on our time, or your time Mr Fury?"

The dark director observed the sly kitsune with a steady stare. "I'm sure you'll file your hours fairly, and I'll be sure to pay a fair rate. Hells, I'll even add a small stipend for food and board. So do we have a deal?" He extended one of his gloved hands.

Aiko stared at the hand for a minute before deciding to be cheeky, taking hold of it and placing it on her head.

"I… I think you are supposed to shake his hand." Tom blinked. Had Aiko just given herself a headpat with Director Nick Fury's hand?

"Yeah… We usually shake hands when a deal is struck." Nick Fury managed to collect himself before he could embarrass himself by getting into it. "I'll make sure you have the finer details in writing at a later date."

Looking up at Fury with a smug smile, Aiko took note of his unconscious reaction to it. "I know. I'll need you to send me a timesheet on Inari messenger. Just, put your messenger in your laptop please. I can't fill a timesheet that shoots me in the ass."

"I've kind of gotten used to my gun… But… Fine." Nick Fury brought out his gun, that had a snarling fox at the side of it. "So… How do I do this?"

Aiko sighed, and made a fox hand sign. "Just tell Hitama to come out of your gun and into your computer. He's your personal divine messenger after all. Oh, if you're wondering about payments, don't worry. He gets paid by Inari based on his service and will grow stronger the more you rely on him. He'll be a great guardian in a pinch, so make good use of him."

"I'll be darned." Nick Fury looked at his gun, then at his new laptop. One without bullet holes. "Well… Hitama, as much fun as it was to shoot people a message, could you do as the lady said and jump over to my computer?"

"Sure thing boss! Here we go~ kon Kon KOn KON~" Hitama jumped into the screen of the computer from the gun, making a Super Mario upgrade sound with his barks. He then opened up 'Inari messenger'. A prompt soon appeared on the computer, with only one option. "Would you like to set Inari messenger as your standard messaging program? [Yes/Yes]"

Nick Fury dutifully clicked the left 'Yes' button, before turning his eye back to the kitsune and arachnoid. "Glad to have you both on board. A written contract will be delivered to you both soon, where the details are fully negotiable, and I'll get on that timesheet as soon as Coulson finishes his 'surprise' birthday party. He's wanted cake in the office for over a month now, since Agent Hill refused."

Aiko began to wonder what someone like him would eat at a birthday party. "I hope the cake isn't almond flavored."

"It's usually strawberry. Coulson can't stand almonds for some reason…" Nick Fury gestured for the door. "Thank you for your report. If you'll excuse me, I have some documents to file with Hitama, and a birthday to attend. I'll send you both a message when we are ready to proceed with the other world."

With a small bow, Aiko tapped Tom on the shoulder, and waited for him to move. "Let me just grab my chair first."

"I'll have to get me one of those chairs one day. It was very comfortable." Tom was quick to rise, moving towards the door. "Enjoy your birthday, Mr. Fury."

Putting the chair away in her storage, Aiko followed the arachnoid out of the room, not pausing to say her goodbyes, just giving a slight wave over her shoulder.

"So…" Tom trailed off, reapplying his illusion now that they were back among regular people. "Do you have a place to stay while we wait for word from Fury? Because we have a guest room if you'd like to stay. I might have to go buy more coffee, though…" The illusion avatar rubbed the back of his head.

"That… would be much appreciated. I don't actually have anywhere else to go." Aiko began with slight hesitation. Turning to Tom, she clasped her hands in front of her, and looked at him with a beautiful smile, a bright twinkle in her eye."I'll be in your care, Goshujin-sama!"

"Yeah, no problem. Serena will be happy to meet you, I'm sure. That's my younger sister by the way." Tom cheered. "My parents are usually away, though. And they don't know about… me. So please don't mention it if you meet them."

"I can be discreet about things. Though it's not a good idea for me to hide all of my tails for long, or take off my mana siphons. Unless you want the equivalent force of five fusion bombs to detonate while I sleep." Aiko shuddered at the thought.

"I can probably explain it away to my neighbours, and my sister won't mind. She knows about me, after all." Tom tried to reassure, wincing at the destruction Aiko described. "We'll figure something out."

Aiko nodded as she adopted the thinker's pose. "So. Where to?"

"Well… I have the coordinates from google maps…" Tom explained, having opened up his phone in anticipation of the question. "28.376431, -81.569710. Can you get us there?"

Rather than answer that directly, Aiko waved her hand and opened up a portal to the area, looking back at him with a raised eyebrow. "Can I?"

"I'll be in your care, Gåsh u jin-sama" Tom tried unsuccessfully to copy Aiko.

Tilting her head at the poor man, Aiko blinked. "...I'm not a guy though? I also don't own a house…"

"Is that what it means?" Tom asked in surprise

Seeming as if she was lost in thought, words continued to spill from Aiko's mouth, eyes crossed in confusion. "I mean, I guess I could be your husband, I don't discriminate, but that's kinda strange. I don't think I'd fit very well in that role."

"Remind me to never quote Japanese again, okay?" Tom sighed, but a small smile was on his face nonetheless. "Let's get home, get you some coffee, and meet my little sister."

With one foot through the portal, Aiko turned to give him a smile. "Okay!"

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

I almost wonder what it would take to get more people involved in writing collaboratively, or get more people interested in writing omake for my stories tbh. Mostly because I do want to see the audience enjoy themselves.

If even one of my collaborations or other fics manages to inspire someone, and allow them to have fun, I'll be happy.

I don't have a set day that I'll pay chapter 6, but it might be out sooner if chapter 11 gets finished up next time and Hakon and I get close to finishing chapter 12. Or if lots of people start talking on the thread and discussing what would be fun to see.

Who knows? I might just use your ideas.

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

Florida hadn't changed in the short time he had been away. The birds were chirping in some trees, the head of a crocodile could be seen peeking out of the small pond near the road, and the sales clerk still looked at him a bit weirdly. Maybe the last part was more relevant, as he was carrying two shopping bags full of only coffee beans.

"I hope we can write this off as a business expense with Fury. Because if this is your weekly consumption, we might have to start selling stuff to afford food." Tom had a fond smile on his face. The bags didn't feel heavy in his arms, and it was honestly fun to go shopping with someone else for a change.

Holding a potted coffee plant in her hands reverently, she used her nine fluffy limbs to carry the rest of the groceries they needed. "That will last me a while if we drink sparingly. The bags are way bigger than I usually get after all."

"Then it's just meeting my sister, and preparing the guest room for you left." Tom mused as he led them the short way from the store to their apartment building. Hefting both bags on one arm, he opened the door and called out. "Serena, I'm home. And I brought a guest."

"Big brother!" Quick feet tapped down the stairs, until a blonde girl stood at the far end of the house. She charged the rest of the way, before leaping to hug her brother. "I missed you… Mom and dad already left again, saying they would be away for a while." She peeked over the currently illusioned arachnoid's shoulder to peer at the person her brother had brought home.

"This is Aiko Tsuniki. She's… Different, like me." Tom patted his sister on the head, trying to explain. "We are working together on some secret stuff in a different world with magic. But for now we are back."

"Uhh, this world kinda had magic too though. Just not as much." Aiko began. "Anyway, I'm a kitsune contracted to Inari-sama, so I'm way better than a gumiho, or a huli-jing. You don't have to worry about yokai of any kind bothering you as long as my scent is lingering here."

The young girl got down from the hug with her big brother and scrutinized the fox lady with narrowed eyes, as if trying to intimidate her into going back on her word. But after a moment, she smiled. "If you work with big brother, then you are cool too."

"Well, that settles that." Tom clapped his hands. "Let's get the groceries stored, and then we can all clean the guest room so Aiko has a place to sleep."

"But if you are working with big brother…" Serena had a finger on her chin, appearing to be deep in thought. "Shouldn't you two be sharing a room?"

Aiko nodded, a satisfied smile on her face. "I have zero problems with this."

"You'll have to sleep on top of each other, though… Big brother takes up so much space." Serena smiled, as if she had figured out the mystery of the universe itself.

Aiko's smile became smug. "Zero. Problems~"

Tom blushed a deep scarlet, unable to come up with a way to correct his innocent little sister without shattering her world view. "We are not sharing a room." He bit out. "But we will be having dessert after dinner if you help clean Aiko's room." He tried to change tracks and bribe Serena, which seemed to work, as the young girl was bouncing up and down.

Aiko shifted slightly, seeming to pout for the briefest of moments, but it was gone as soon as it came. "Hmm. I can make coffee cake if you'd like?"

"Promise my sister won't die if she eats it, and we have a deal." Tom grinned, offering his hand for a shake.

Noticing the hand, she remembered to shake it this time. Tilting her head in confusion, she gave Tom a complicated look. "Right. But why would you die by eating coffee cake? There are only two teaspoons of coffee per cup of flour."

"Ah… I might have an exaggerated view of how much coffee you drink. My apologies." Tom blushed again before leading them into the kitchen.

"... I haven't slept in a week, so I'm relying on coffee and magic not to just collapse." Aiko admitted with a lazy drawl, a light blush on her face.

"Then you can borrow my room and nap a bit before dinner, if you want." Tom offered, putting down the bags.

Aiko shrugged with a grin. "I'll get the coffee cake started first. I did say I'd make it after all. I can function for another few hours easily enough. I'll probably sleep right after eating though."

"That settles it, then. You can take my room after dinner, and I'll sleep in the guest room until it's cleaned up." The arachnoid stated with finality, releasing his illusion now that he was home. "Eggs, flour and sugar is in the pantry, and we have cake trays under the oven." He directed, as he and Serena began placing groceries in the fridge.

Taking note of his directions, Aiko got to work. "On it."

~~~~

Dinner that evening turned out to be a stir fry made of chicken, leek, sweet pepper and rice. The Olson family had a few different sauces on the side, and Serena chose a brown bbq chipotle sauce for hers before digging in.

"I'm sorry if it's a bit bland. That's why we have the sauce on the side, so people can choose what they want themselves." Tom explained, having piled his plate high with the stir fry and adding a heap of bèarnaise on top.

First Aiko began by clapping her hands together twice with a pair of chopsticks that she had retrieved from her pocket space with a swipe of her hand. Then she smiled. "Itadakimasu!" She said, and began to pick up a bottle of soy sauce and drown her entire meal in it, before munching with a smile on her face. It was clear she hadn't eaten a meal she actually liked in a while, as the moment she started eating, a tear rolled down her face.

Tom took a good big scoop of the stir fry from his plate and put it on a small platter that he set to the side. "My deity somehow likes my cooking…" He explained, as the content of the plate was consumed by an eldritch fire that was a mix between burgundy and black.

Serena mirrored her big brother, but no fire consumed her food, which caused her to pout. "Hey, don't worry about it." Tom tried to console her, rubbing her hair fondly. "I'm sure she'll take your food some day."

Making sure to note the interaction for later, Aiko nodded her head minutely as if she was responding to someone, before her nose seemed to twitch. Finishing her food at a record pace, Aiko looked over to the oven and back at Tom. "The cake is ready, I'll go get it."

"Cake!" Serena cheered, as she quickly shoveled the rest of her food into her mouth. "Cake, cake, cake!" She seemed extra excited, causing Tom to smile. "I'm kind of excited as well. Been a while since I had home-made cake." He admitted while rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.

"So, Aiko…" Tom tried to fish for more information about his work companion. "Do you like sweets? I figured if you are good at making cakes, that would go hand in hand."

Aiko placed the cake on the table, leaning in to speak softly as she cut everyone a slice each except for herself. It was clear this wasn't supposed to be common knowledge, and that she didn't want the younger sibling hearing it, but it was also obvious that she wasn't exactly embarrassed by it. It just wasn't really dinner table friendly. "I prefer meat, but sweet stuff is pretty good as well. Hell, rats are pretty much candy for kitsune in general. I do like the bitter taste of coffee as well. It pairs really well with fresh peppermint, or jerky."

"Good to know." Tom nodded, keeping a curious eye on the cake. "My own eating habits have changed somewhat after I turned into this…" He gestured to his own body. "I can eat whatever now. Some of the stuff I eat even has an effect on the webs I can make." The arachnoid eyed his fork for a moment, before placing it back on his plate with a shake of his head.

A slight pause in conversation occurred as Aiko began to process the information. Her ears pinned themselves back as she gained an intense look of concentration. "... So if I feed you Radium you can make me a radioactive glow in the dark thread, and if I feed you copper, you can make me metal wire?"

"I mean… I've tried to keep away from commonly harmful substances, you know. But copper is no problem." To show he wasn't joking, he began spinning a metallic orange red thread between his hands. "Copper is kind of soft, so I figured I'd try it one day." He quickly had a small ball of thin copper wire that he eventually placed on the table. "It keeps most of the properties of the element I eat too."

Scanning over the wire with her eyes, Aiko delicately poked at it for a bit, before pulling her fabricator glove back on to scan it further. "Huh. You know, if you were to braid that, and make it about as thick as a normal wire, it would be much stronger than normal copper wire, with only minimal loss in electrical efficiency."

To distract himself from the thought of eating radioactive metal, Tom instead moved his gaze towards the cake Aiko had so helpfully cut for him. It was a tall cake with a dark frosting and beige whipped cream on top. "This looks really good." A glance showed that it likely was too, considering how Serena hadn't made a single sound after eating a few spoonfuls. She was holding her cheeks with her eyes enraptured by the cake.

Taking a small spoonful for himself, Tom made sure to not eat the spoon… this time… "It is tasty. Very good. The cream mixes really well with the cake itself. Almost as fluffy as you." He laughed lightly to show it was meant in good humor.

All nine of Aiko's tails puffed up as she tried to hide her face from the two of them. An intense blush had made its way up her neck to cover her entire head as she sat back at the table, her tails wrapping around her as they squirmed around. "M'not that fluffy." She mumbled into her arms.

Serena had a strange glint in her eyes as she quickly polished off the remainder of her cake. "It was delicious. Thanks, Aiko!" With an exaggerated wink, she left the table, calling out a 'good night big brother' before she went upstairs.

"Remember to brush your teeth before bed." Tom called out after her, getting only a giggle in response, which caused him to shake his head in confusion.

With a large yawn, Aiko began to droop a bit. The lack of coffee and sleep seeming to catch up to her.

"Ah, right… You've been awake all this time. Let me show you my room, so you can rest for the night." Tom stood up, leaving half of the cake unfinished in his hurry.

Aiko pushed herself off the table with another yawn, before shaking her head and moving to follow him. "Kay."

Tom traversed the stairs with practiced ease, having been up and down enough times by now to not miss a step, not that it would be easy, considering he had six legs. "To the right is the bathroom. If you want a shower tomorrow, I suggest going before me. I need a bit of extra water to clean off properly. Not sure if you can use Serena's shampoo for your tails…" He quickly shut his mouth, and instead directed his companion towards a door at the end of the hallway. "Try to ignore the posters…" Tom blushed a bit at the reminder of what he had plastered on his walls.

The room was painted with light blue colors, and on the walls was a pinup poster with a girl standing over a motorcycle, and another with a poster of the Battle Angel Alita comic book appearance. A writing desk had a closed portable computer resting on it. However, what drew the eye was the huge bed in one corner. The comforter ironically enough had a spider web design printed on it.

"So yeah… We'll fix up the guest room, but for tonight at least, you can call this room home." Tom said, making sure to grab his laptop, as it was still a bit early for him to go to bed.

Walking over to the bed with her eyes closed, Aiko's nose was twitching. Without much of any warning, she pounced face first into the pillow and started snoring.

Seeing the kitsune sleeping peacefully, Tom gently closed the drapes. After a moment of consideration he whispered a quiet 'good night' before shutting off the lights and closing the door.

Hearing soft giggling from the middle bedroom that belonged to his sister, Tom just shook his head in exasperation before walking down the stairs again. The cake was too good to leave unfinished, and maybe he could place the rest in the fridge if Aiko wanted some in the morning.

With a plan forming, Tom opened his laptop to watch a short movie. The cake really was delicious and fluffy, he thought, but he would likely miss his own bed tonight.

~~~~

When Tom woke up the next morning, it was to the sound of the shower cutting off. He figured he would wait for a few minutes before walking down so he didn't accidentally walk in on Aiko or something. That would be embarrassing.

After a few minutes he got up, figuring he had given whoever was in the shower enough time to dry off and get ready. He was still waking up himself, expecting the shower to take away the last dredges of sleep, so when he turned the doorknob and walked into the bathroom, he wasn't expecting it to be full of steam and a person.

"Ah… Um…" Tom could admit, if only to himself, that Aiko did look rather stunning. However, for their working relationship to go smoothly, he was prepared to never mention that to her. Now that he was in the bathroom, with a woman that was clearly not his little sister, as shown by the tails sprouting from her backside he panicked.

"Sorry!" He cried out, as he quickly shut the door, an embarrassed flush on his face as he rushed back to the guest room. One thing was for sure… Breakfast would be an awkward experience.

 

[HeyaUser]

as the moment she started eating, a tear rolled down her face.

Click to shrink...

me when Boiger

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

me when Boiger

Click to shrink...

Boiger is gud tho.

 

[HeyaUser]

Boiger is gud tho.

Click to shrink...

ye that's why i cry happy tears

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

Waking up surrounded in the scent of the wonderful young arachnid from yesterday, Aiko looked around the room in a groggy haze. "Mrrrrg. He's such a tease."

As she became more aware of the fact that she was rubbing her scent all over his bed in her tired state, she looked up at the ceiling and began to smile in a mischievous way. "How about I give him something to remind him of me when he sleeps?"

Pulling out her fabricator glove, she pointed out at the ceiling, and printed an image of her at a beach from the Arachnoid homeworld, Zldrtch, in universe 790-Z, with a phrase under it in their language. It looked like a spider blowing a kiss at another spider that was tied up.

With that completed, Aiko got up, and walked to the shower with a smug smile. Walking into the bathroom, Aiko looked into the mirrors over the double sinks set into the counter, before noticing something behind her in the mirror.

Turning around in a slow deliberate manner, she stared at the 'marvel of human engineering', with the odd urge to cringe. It honestly looked like it used forty gallons of water a minute, with its 80 omnidirectional water jets, and water vacuum drains. It even had two sets of special UV ray bacteria removal systems for cleaning the shower when they were done. "Huh. I'll have to upgrade this later. The water bill must be insane."

Stepping down and stepping up into the shower, it almost closed itself on her tails, but she managed to move them out of the way in time, before it seemed to scan her, and start pumping out hot soapy water, and blasting her with it. "Wawawarglewah!"

According to the image on the touch screen, it was on 'Family Dog mode: Large, Long hair, Dirty, Maximum clean.'

It took over an hour for it to ease up on her a bit, and she couldn't open the door without bringing down the whole house while it was working due to family dog mode. "Ah. Ah! Stop already, you stupid machine!"

When it was finished, it blasted her with hot air to dry her off, causing her tails to become a serious mass of fluff. "I'm so done with this."

As soon as the shower let her out, she jumped out of the shower at high speed, and pulled out a fresh set of clothes from her fabricator. A simple set of black lingerie with a spider web design, a pair of tight jean shorts, and a rather snug light blue crop-top with a gear logo were pulled onto her body. She figured this was more than enough to tease the poor boy back, as a small bit of revenge. Equipping a more modern looking version of her normal sensory overload protection kit, a pair of goggles, work boots, and a pair of worn work gloves to complete the look.

Soon, she heard a rhythmic set of steps coming towards the bathroom, with a stepping pattern like someone who had six legs, and the door opening. The moment the door began to crack open, the scent of Tom wafted over to her, and Aiko noticed that because she didn't turn on the fan, the amount of steam that was still lingering in the room was more than enough to cover her perfectly. Using her magic to strategically cover certain areas, she made sure it was just opaque enough to make it appear as if she was actually naked.

"Oh… Um. Sorry!" The arachnoid yelped, as the door was quickly shut.

His reaction to what he saw was pretty funny if she was honest with herself. "Heh. I should probably get out of the washroom now. I'll probably talk to him about fixing the goddamn nightmare bath later though."

Collecting her stuff from the floor and putting it into her pocket space, she made her way out of the bathroom, following his scent to the kitchen downstairs.

When she entered the room, she saw him looking around in the fridge for some breakfast material. He already had a carton of eggs in one hand, so she figured she would wait until he had at least put that down before she spoke up.

Tom was looking through the fridge, his hand moving a bit erratically until he finally grabbed a packet of bacon to go with the eggs. Sliding both along the counter, he also brought out some bell pepper and mushrooms. With one of his back legs he closed the fridge gently, before jumping nearly half a metre into the air. "Aiko! I-I… I didn't see, I mean I saw, but… I'm sorry!" A flush covered his face as he turned halfway, holding a hand against his chest.

Aiko figured she had probably teased him a bit too much by this point, and that she should probably let him off the hook. "Tom… I'm flattered you find me attractive enough that you're actually worried about such a thing, but I'm very old, and have been through many many different worlds. Even if I actually was naked, I wouldn't mind if you looked. It's a natural thing for a young man like yourself to be interested in. Besides," Her face then became a bit smug. "It's good to know I still got it."

"Huh… Currently processing that." The redness on his cheeks seemed to refuse disappearing any time soon. "I usually make omelette for breakfast." His attempt at changing the subject was fairly obvious, but necessary as at least one stomach chose that moment to grumble loudly. "I can just make fried eggs or boiled if you'd rather have that." He suggested, eyeing the pans and kettles he'd need.

Shrugging, Aiko sat at the table, ready to help if he needed anything. "I'm good with whatever. Well, as long as you don't give me cornflakes. I'm not that picky."

"Good to know." Tom considered for a moment, before bringing out a dicing knife and a cutting board. "Do you mind slicing the pepper and mushrooms? I'll get started on the omelette batter, and we'll fry the bacon when the rest is nearly done."

After spraying some food prep grade hand sanitizer solution on her hands, and wiping them on a nearby cloth, Aiko nodded her head and started her work. "Sure thing. Just give me a moment and they'll be ready for you soon."

Just then, Serena stepped into the kitchen, a bright smile on her face as she noticed her brother near the oven. "Yay! Big bro's omelette is the best! And I don't have to eat cereal." She plopped down next to Aiko, surveying the kitchen to see if there was anything she could do. Eventually, she brought some plates and drinking glasses from one of the cabinets and began setting the table.

"Good morning, Serena." Tom said happily, most of the blush having left his face by now. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah. I had this strange dream with a big woman that looked a bit like you… It's probably not important, though." Serena said absentmindedly, as she brought knives and forks for all three of them. "Why did you leave the shower on auto, though? You never used to do that before…" She stared at Tom with a questioning expression on her face, the golden spiderweb on her neck glinting in the morning light.

"Wait…" Tom's face slowly morphed into one of horror as his eyes turned towards Aiko. "I'm so sorry I didn't explain about the shower yesterday, Aiko." He hid his face with the palm of his hand, barely looking at the kitsune. A new sense of embarrassment washing over him.

With a sharp intake of breath at the mention of the shower, Aiko let out a long hissing breath. Then, in a tone that did not match her words at all, she began to plot a bit of revenge on the terrible design of the shower. "Don't worry. I'm already planning on tearing it apart anyway. I'm going to make it much, much better. And easier on your wallets."

"Do you need any help or materials?" Tom asked, intrigued by the thought of an improved shower. "I wouldn't mind, but you don't have to strain yourself." He began pouring the egg and milk batter into one of the frying pans that were sizzling on the heated stove.

Finishing up with the vegetables, she decided to make her way back upstairs for the hour it would take to fix that travesty. "I should have what I need if I just reclaim what's there, and reuse it along with the materials I have stored away. I'll even make it look exactly the same as it does now, but more efficient, and with better programming." She paused as she neared the hall. "Leave me a plate, I'll be fourty minutes to an hour."

"Sure. I'll set the omelette to low heat." Tom clicked on the oven, before leaning on the table and talking softly with his sister.

When she made it back up the the bathroom, she immediately got to work, putting on her fabricator glove to replace her left work glove, she scanned for the pipelines, and set to shutting them all off. The shower didn't seem to like that, and began raising several warning alarms in frequencies that could likely shatter glass.

Finding her way to the power conduits as she lowered the volume on her headset to dampen her hearing a bit, and stared at the evil, evil wiring. It was hooked up to several nuclear batteries, which were cooled by the water supply, and hooked into the local power grid. "What the fuck…"

Aiko had never seen a more deliberate act of sabotage within a family in her entire life. If this was allowed to go on, they would probably end up as super mutants or something. Hell, perhaps they were already well on their way to such a horrid fate.

Reclaiming those before they could go critical, she disassembled the entire thing, before loading up a design program. After 20 minutes of cutting out the crap that was completely unnecessary, she streamlined the water flow, before reassembling it fully, and installing a proper shower Digital Assistant, with voice control and safety features.

Even the self cleaning program was much better, using lasers to sweep the entire shower and remove all dirt dust and grime from within the shower, in a way that was safe for pets and people if they were inside at the time. She even had a water recycling system setup within it.

When she had completely finished, she turned the water back on and started a test cycle to make sure it was all connected properly. "System dot test, one. nine. eight. four."

"Test name Big brother is watching you, starting now." The shower displayed on its screen, before a set of images from a certain movie began to display from a foggy glass pane on the shower.

Cackling to herself evilly, Aiko figured that this was going to be the perfect prank, and right when they least expected it. "Muahaha, this will be good. Play this program halfway through the shower if anyone is showering, but only on April fools day."

Closing up the pipe access she walked back down to the kitchen, and entered the room, sitting down beside the younger sister. Looking at Tom and Serena, she realized that their lips were moving, but there was no sound. Taking a moment, she reached up to turn the volume back to normal, before staring at them for a moment, waiting for them to repeat themselves.

"I asked if you needed more time." Tom clarified. "The food is just about ready now, if you want to eat with us."

Aiko shook her head, an amused smile on her face as she thought of what she did to the shower while she was in there. "I fixed it. It's way better now, but it looks the same. Mostly."

Tom nodded his head, bringing the pans with sizzling bacon and the flipped omelette that had melted cheese on top. Meanwhile, Serena was looking at the kitsune with an uncertain look in her eyes. "What did you do to fix it, miss Aiko?"

As she was cleaning her hands again, Aiko realized she should probably take off her gloves this time. Turning to Serena as she did so, she cleaned her hands with a cleaning solution this time, before wiping them off on a sanitary wipe. "Well, I made the water flow more efficient, so that it takes less power and water to clean yourselves, removed the nuclear batteries that were just casually being kept cool by the water supply, and added some safety features. Also, redid all the programming, so that I could add a Digital assistant with voice control. Hell, even the self cleaning routine was fixed, and made safe. You can now clean yourself without water if you need to."

Tom put the pans down a bit harder than necessary, causing a small clatter as the plates on the table shifted. "Go back a bit… Radioactive batteries?" His voice was incredulous, going towards anger. "Why did our shower have radioactive batteries?!"

Staring at him for a minute, Aiko thought about why it never so much power, but only one or two things really came to mind. "Probably because of the absurd power requirements of the computer that was hooked up to it just to run the programs. It was entirely unnecessary for the computer to draw that much power however, and it was sending a constant signal somewhere, so I just removed that. The new shower assistant is incapable of sending data anywhere, since it doesn't have outside or extended network capabilities." Taking a breath she mentioned the other reason. "The water flow was also crap, so it used way more energy than it should to pump the water, and then again to refrigerate it so that you could actually have cold water, and not just steam."

"Oh…" Tom deflated at the explanation, leaning heavily on the table. "Do you want coffee for breakfast?" He tried admirably to change tracks, clearly wanting to to stop thinking about how dangerous the shower had been. "We also have juice, milk and tea."

"I'll take orange juice, please." Serena cheered, already stealing a few slices of bacon. It gave a satisfying crunch as she chomped down on it. Serena held her cheeks as a smile was on her face. Tom helpfully poured orange juice with pulp until her glass was full, opting to drink milk with his breakfast.

"This old fox is coffee powered." Holding out her hand as if to grasp a cup, Aiko smiled. "Please insert mug of coffee here."

Despite himself, Tom chuckled at the display. "And how would you like your coffee?" He asked, a small smile on his face.

Placing her right hand on her chest, she used her left to cover her eye as she spoke in a wild, emotional, and dramatic tone. "Darker than dark, blacker than black. I desire something that can combine with my deep crimson, and awaken my inner power!"

"So a double mocha with two caramel pump, pumpkin spice and extra milk?" Tom deadpanned, before going to the coffee grinder.

Placing the back of her hand on her forehead in a dramatic manner, tails wagging happily as her ears pinned themselves back to really sell it. "Gasp! No one has ever understood me so perfectly before! Clearly you know the secret language of coffee!"

"I'll make black coffee, and you can add whatever you want afterwards. Deal?" Tom said more than questioned, a wink over his shoulder showing he was joking. Soon the kitchen smelled of bacon, omelette and coffee, as the ground beans mixed with the other breakfast aromas. Soon it was strained in a french press, and poured into a cup which the arachnoid handed to the kitsune. "I didn't have time to write your name on the mug, so just imagine that it says Ayku or something on the side."

Serena watched the interaction with obvious interest, sipping at her orange juice while cutting a piece of the omelette so she could serve it to her plate. A small smile was on her face at the back and forth.

Taking a sip of her coffee, Aiko hid her smirk, chuckling a bit as she did so. Then, she put the mug down and began to dish out her food. "Coffee in my mouth / is something I do enjoy / any time I can."

"Whaaa?!" Tom had a confused expression on his face as he 'sat down' to eat, lowering himself until he was more level with the table. "Well, I'm starving, so dig in." Like the previous evening, Tom set aside a small portion of his own meal, which was consumed in eldritch fire a moment later.

Noticing her phone was buzzing, Aiko checked it while she ate. {We have your contracts ready, and we have also made some guidelines for you when you travel to the other world. Please come to my office at noon today if you are able. Fury}

Nodding to herself, Aiko typed out a quick affirmative, and forwarded the message to Tom. Finishing the food at record speed, she began to speak without thinking. "You'll probably need a shower before our appointment, so I'll wash the dishes. We have to be there by noon anyways." Quietly she added one more part to herself, figuring no one would really pay all that much attention while they were busy eating. "Not that it matters much."

Tom made no mention of having heard the last part, instead focusing on the device in Aiko's hand. "Is that your smartphone? I haven't seen any like it before."

Aiko tossed her phone up and down before placing it on the table again. "Yup. Six point six inch screen, waterproof, fireproof, radiation proof, drop proof up to 90 G's, bullet proof, shock proof, electric shock proof, acid proof, scratch proof, oil proof, magic proof, pretty much everything proof. The only thing it's not immune to are the gods."

"Impressive… Is it made in Finland?" Tom winked at his own joke. "But yeah, I should probably get going with that shower. Serena, could you help Aiko out if she needs anything?" The arachnoid asked, whereupon his little sister gave him a thumbs up in return.

Spoiler: Fun stuff~

Nuclear batteries in the shower? That's not part of a larger plot, right?

 

[Odd1todd89]

Thank you for the chapter.
I hope you have a wonderful day/ night.

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

Thank you for the chapter.
I hope you have a wonderful day/ night.

Click to shrink...

Thanks for the reply, and I hope you have an epic week as well!

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

The shower did look mostly like how it did before Aiko upgraded it. However, the new interface was an improvement in his mind. Aiko had even mentioned voice commands, hadn't she?

Getting undressed, he lamented that he should have probably asked for a user manual, or maybe a list of commands, but that would have to be for later.

"Shower… Erm… scan?" The arachnoid half-asked, half stated.

The digital assistant on the screen –a gray haired fox girl wearing goggles and a swimsuit– seemed to look him up and down, holding it's chin in thought, before giving him a thumbs up. "Looking good there spider-man~ Just hold tight and I'll get you cleaned up real quick!"

Stepping inside with some trepidation, Tom closed his eyes to block out the digital assistant from his view as he tried another command. "Activate morning shower routine?"

The digital assistant was suddenly holding up a basket of soaps and colognes on the screen with the labels fully visible. Labels such as 'The Boss' and 'Basically monster bait' were among those that were available. "Sure thing chief! What do you wanna smell like when you're done?"

"I think I'll try something a bit more neutral for a start… Might experiment later, but for now, try sandalwood." Behind his back, he crossed his fingers.

"There goes my collection of sandals." She sighed, before sticking her tongue out playfully. "Just kidding Chief~ One Sandalwood scented morning shower, coming right up!"

Tom right away noticed that the new shower was a lot more precise than the previous one. He didn't have to move around much for the water to reach the correct places. It felt nice to just stretch out his limbs while the shower did the work for him.

The automatic drying program was less noisy than the previous one, which the arachnoid supposed would be appreciated if anyone wanted to sleep in while others used the shower. And before he knew it, he was sparkling clean and smelled kind of nice.

Grabbing a towel, Tom hurried to his room so he could grab a change of clothes. And then he was down the stairs and ready to start the day.

"All done. The shower is great, Aiko." He cheered as he peeked into the kitchen to see how much progress the kitsune and his sister had made.

By the time he made it down the stairs, Aiko and Serena were seated at the table, watching as a set of robotic arms on the sink washed all the dishes for them automatically, and got them extremely clean. Once again, that same digital assistant was there on the screen, this time wearing a maid outfit, and giving Tom a wink when he looked.

"You made a… dishwasher?" Tom tilted his head. He would have expected something similar to the shower, but it seemed like it was doing the job.

Aiko blinked at him with an amused look on her face. "I guess? I don't really know why we needed one, but Serena was adamant that we should have one." A literal tank rolled down the stairs, cleaning them silently. It also had the digital assistant on it, this time dressed in military fatigues, and holding a toothbrush. "...And a better vacuum mop."

Tom blinked all of his eyes slowly, just taking in the insanity that he was slowly starting to realize emanating from the kitsune he had invited to live in his home. "Yeah, okay… If you ever wonder if you have to pay rent for living here, then don't. Free of charge."

Tilting her head, Aiko didn't really seem to understand why he was offering to let her stay for free, but she must have decided not to look a gift spider in the mouth. Walking over to him as if to examine him more closely, she patted him on the chest with an open palm, before seeming to become distracted. "Huh? Okay I guess. Just means more money for materials."

"Anyways…" Shaking his head, Tom pulled his eyes away from the dishwasher and the tank cleaner with some effort. "Should we get going and meet Fury?"

"Sure! Let me just send him a message first." Typing out a quick message, Aiko waited for a few minutes, before opening up a portal to just a bit behind Fury's desk, and walking through.

"Um… I'm not sure if… Oh, damn it, Aiko!" Tom yelled as he jumped after the kitsune, already fearing the worst.

His fears turned out to come true, as gunshots rang out once he stepped across the threshold. "Please don't shoot." He held his hands in the air. "I'm not sure I'm bulletproof."

Aiko turned to look at him, and pointed to his chest where she placed a portable shield generator in stealth earlier. "Bruh. Shield. It's active."

A raised eyebrow and a smoking gun greeted the duo, but the eyebrow was twitching slightly, and the gun was very steady, which didn't bode well. "Please don't ever come out of a portal behind my office chair." He seemed to take it well, as the pistol was slowly put away.

Tom's eyes quickly zeroed in on Aiko's ears, as he imagined the gunshots wouldn't be well received. Pointing at his own ears and miming speaking, he also did a 'turn around gesture' with his other hand. "I'm terribly sorry about that, Mr. Fury…"

Slowly blinking, Aiko nodded and turned around with a wobble. Holding up her index finger, she pulled a hypo-injector from her pocket space, and placed it against her neck, before pressing the big button on it. Soon after, she seemed to begin regaining her balance, though she seemed a bit drunk on the medicine as she recovered. "Ssssrrry about that Furry. Ddn wannoo be held up by the suit mafia again."

"Nobody likes that." If there was a bit more snark in Fury's voice than usual, Tom figured they had earned that one… Yeah… At least they didn't traumatize Agent Hill again.

"Well…" Tom tried to break the uncomfortable situation by getting back on track. "You wanted to see us, Mr. Fury?" His legs twitched a bit in agitation.

"Indeed." The director formed a pyramid with his hands, leaning slightly forward to regard the duo more closely. "We are finalizing the preparations for when the two of you head back to that world. To pick the best suited person to join you, I'll want you to tell me a bit about the world you visited. Its inhabitants, the relative technology level, that sort of thing."

"The inhabitants were pretty chill, though they were understandably worried about what they first believed might be an invasion from hell or something. We managed to calm that down pretty quick by virtue of well, not being demons hell bent on eating their souls." Aiko began as she pulled out a bolo-projector from her pocket space.

Turning it on she showed a digital recreation of the area from her memory. It wasn't perfect, but it would do. "The tech level system I have rates them as a Magic 12, Tech 3, Resource 9. They have plenty for us if we wish to trade, and having that rift stabilized would only be good for both worlds, to balance the overflow of magic before it wrecks theirs utterly."

"And how does your system rate our planet?" Fury had a glint in his eye as he sat back in his chair. Tom would say he looked like a cat who had caught the canary.

Going over the readings for a brief moment, she pulled up a map of earth as gathered by a scattering of her magic particles throughout it, which is much easier than one might think. "Currently a Magic 3 plus, Tech 6, Resource 2."

Fury nodded along, as if he could understand what those numbers meant. Meanwhile, Tom was scratching his head in confusion. Aiko hadn't even said what that scale was. "Um… For those of us who haven't graduated from MIT… What scale are you using when ranking the different aspects?"

Aiko's ears jolted straight up in surprise, and she looked over the two of them in realization. "Ah! I knew I was forgetting something."

Changing the view on the holoprojector to a set of data showing examples of some of the worlds she had been to, she began her lecture. "The level of tech is an exponential level scale from one to ten. There are some exceptions for the absurd, as you can probably tell, but a level two in magic for example, would have not just two times, but an exponential amount more mana than a level one. This is also true for a level three resource compared to a level 2."

"And how far does the scale actually go?" The director's perceptive eye seemed to have caught on to the fact Aiko only mentioned levels one to ten.

"It goes as far as it needs to. Though I've never seen anything sustainable past 15 before the collapse of a universe personally." Aiko stated with a casual tone.

"So the people can be nice, and they have an abundance of resources that they might be willing to trade with us?" Fury summed up the conversation, giving a satisfying nod. "I think I know just the guy to accompany you when you are ready to travel back."

As if on cue, Phil Coulson came through the door, holding a plate with what looked like strawberry cake in one hand. "Did you have an assignment for me, Sir?"

"There was leftover cake?" Fury looked surprised for the first time since they met him. "Why wasn't I told?"

"I saved the last piece in my office fridge." Coulson took a small bite with a fork. "It's even better once it's been sitting for a day." He had a happy expression on his face as he chewed.

Fury looked frankly put out… Tom had to rub his eyes to make sure he hadn't seen Nick Fucking Fury pouting over strawberry cake.

"In any case…" Fury's mask of professionalism was back, although there appeared to be a glint of vengeance in his eye. "You've been assigned to go with Aiko and Tom to another world and negotiate a trade deal for their local resources."

"I'm honored…" The words from Coulson's lips were in contrast to the swift look he gave the odd duo, before turning back again as if nothing had happened. "But are you sure I'm the best suited? What about Hill?"

Snickering in the background, Aiko gave him a once over. "I'd say you're definitely the best suited. Where did you even get such fine drip."

"It's actually Armani." Coulson seemed to straighten up a bit as he mentioned the suit brand, and Tom recognized it as an expensive one. "But are you sure there isn't anyone else?" He was almost-pleading, while keeping a straight face. "What about Barton, or Natasha?"

"Steve isn't going anywhere. This trip will be good for you." Fury retaliated, steepling his fingers in front of himself, as if that closed the matter. And it did.

Coulson visibly slumped, taking a consoling slice of cake. "As you wish."

"Then it's settled." Fury clapped his hands together once, the gears on the back of his leather gloves glinting in the light. "How long would it take to stabilize the rift?" He turned to Aiko with an inquisitive stare. "I think that should be our first priority, and then the three of you can coordinate when to cross over."

Nodding her head, Aiko brought her hand up in a clawing motion, but paused. "Got it boss. No one will mind if I casually open a portal there right? I don't feel like getting shot twice in one day."

"The section is walled off. We set up some construction worker signs and did it overnight, so the inside should be clear." Fury mentioned with a so-so motion of his hand. "Only the outside is monitored, so if you can teleport inside the walled-off section you should be good."

The color seemed to rapidly drain from Aiko's face, and she checked something on the holo projector with a few swipes of her hand, and taps from her finger. "... That's incredibly reckless. Please tell me you at least have cameras in there."

"Oh… Yeah, we might have that the next time you visit." Fury's fingers began drumming on his desk in agitation. "If you could begin stabilizing it right away, that would be appreciated." He nodded to himself, as if coming to a decision. "It'll naturally be on company time, so you will get paid extra."

"Okay. No problem. It's not like this would have been a big problem unless you let it sit for a few years and forgot about it, or someone came through the other side, which is the more pressing problem." She opened the portal near the rift, and tossed a strange looking ball at the rift, which began to fly around and unfold into a set of ten rings with a built-in shield and scanner to keep people from going through unless they were authorized.

When the construction was finished a few minutes later, she stepped through the portal, and into the stabilized rift, tails lashing out like an angry demon as she went through.

"Did… Did something piss her off?" Tom wondered quietly to himself. "I suppose we should follow her, though…" He hinted, his many eyes flickering between Fury and Coulson for confirmation.

"Probably for the best. Keep an eye on them, Coulson." Fury said by way of dismissal, as he began shuffling some papers on his desk.

Taking the hint, Tom got up from his 'sitting position, moving towards the portal Aiko had casually created. "The first time might be a bit disorienting…" He warned as he moved forward. A new adventure awaited, and he couldn't help but feel excited as The Phil Coulson would be joining them. The agent didn't know it, but Tom was a big fan.

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

The moment Aiko walked past the rift, a rather nice smell wafted towards her nose, and she began to walk with a happy bounce in her step, her tails wagging as she took off towards the nearby scent. A bar was open despite the fact that it was mid day, and there were quite a few patrons talking about a new form of apple wine. "Hah, they discovered cider. Nice! I know what I'm saving up for."

Turning around to look back at the rift, she waved at Tom and Coulson. Looking at the worried expression Tom was showing, She paused all motion, before making her way back over to the two. "You guys alright? The rift wasn't too turbulent this time around was it?"

Relief seemed to wash over the arachnoid's face, as he stuttered out a response. "I-it looked like you were angry when you stormed off. I got worried."

Looking cool as a cucumber, Coulson tilted his head. "I didn't notice any discomfort. Is that how all portal travel is?" His keen eyes seemed to take in his surroundings quickly.

With a slight wince, Aiko looked off to the side, barely willing to look in Coulson's general direction. "If you stabilize it properly, it should be very smooth. If not, or if you are going through the quantum realm, check for missing organs." Pausing for effect, she continued. "Unless you have a special suit. Or you're going through a mostly stable rift with an anchor. Then you might probably get motion sickness or vertigo at worst."

"We did promise that guild leader to bring someone with authority to negotiate trade." Tom reminded them as he looked around. They weren't far from the adventurer guild in the human kingdom. He seemed remarkably relaxed about the whole dimension jumping thing for someone who was so new to it.

"I guess it's off to see the guild leader then!" Aiko began, as she walked at a quick pace into the guild nearby, ringing the bell multiple times to get the attention of the guild staff.

A cat girl was sitting there ignoring people's requests to do, well, anything really. Most people gave up and left, but not Aiko. She just kept ringing.

The staff member soon slipped her hand in between and stopped her from continuing, growling out a response. "What do you want, you hyper fox? And don't ring it when I'm right here."

Taking a deep breath, Aiko began to rumble deep within her chest. The sound began to deepen, and her chest began to swell, before she let out a menacing bark. "TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER!"

A hand squeezed lightly on the kitsune's shoulder. "Aiko, whatever you are doing… Please stop, I feel like sneezing." Tom's voice was agitated and low.

Noticing her Blatant aggression towards the lazy catgirl receptionist must have been a bit much, Aiko backed off. "I'm not going to apologize, but I get that was a bit much. Guild Master in today?"

"Uhuh, sure thing tough girl." The cat girl said with a lazy flick of her tail. Yawning quietly, she continued. "He's in. I'm not gonna announce you though. I'm warm where I am, and the sun hits this spot just right. I wouldn't expect a walking mass of fur like you to understand though…"

"Thank you for your time." Coulson had apparently decided to stop observing as he nodded his head to the receptionist. His eyes barely flickered towards the feline appendages, before meeting the eyes of the catgirl, blinking slowly.

Yawning once more, the catgirl placed her head on the desk nearest him. "Nyaat a problem."

As they turned to walk towards the guildmaster's office, Coulson's hand lightly brushed over the catgirl receptionist's head, eliciting an involuntary purr from the woman.

In a slight twist of irony, Aiko was amused by Coulson's ability to seduce anything fluffy, snickering as she opened the door to the guild master's office. "Guess who's back~!"

"I see there are three of you now." The guild master drawled out, sitting behind his desk and shuffling some papers.

The office was a bit of a mess, with papers strewn everywhere, and poster boards all over the place, but that wasn't a problem for what they came there for. It did, however, help to hide the many other actually important documents for his other job.

"Master Fuze." Tom greeted, having been the one who did most of the talking when they met the first time. "We brought someone to negotiate, like we promised."

Coulson extended his hand for a shake, which was accepted by the guild master. A quick introduction ensued as both tried to crush the other's hand without trying to hurt each other too much.

Aiko watched the proceedings with mild interest, her mind racing with ways to help seal the deals about to be made.

The guild master looked slightly apologetic as his eyes focused on the newcomer. "If I had known you were here for that, I would have prepared drinks."

Pausing for a minute, Aiko put her finger in the air to hold the conversation at that point. "Wait… If I let you know in advance for these things, you'll get us drinks? Damn. That would have been great to know."

"We could come back later…" Coulson inquired. His expression giving nothing away, except for modest politeness.

Setting down the papers on the desk, he quietly rang a small bell that was stationed near the edge. "Something can be arranged. Please sit down so we can talk business."

Nodding at this, Aiko pulled out the chairs she had from before for her and Tom before bringing out a Boss level reclining Armchair for Coulson.

Showing a minute sign of surprise by way of raising his left eyebrow, Coulson relaxed into his chair just as there was a knock on the door. Without waiting for a response, the catgirl receptionist walked in with a tray of glasses and a wide bottle. Depositing the bottle and tray on the desk, she walked out, but not before she lightly brushed against Coulson's arm on her way out.

"I think you made a friend…" Tom spoke up from his comfortable chair. Coulson for his part only shrugged, before focusing on the matter at hand.

Fuze poured the amber liquid into four glasses, before raising his own in toast. "To a fruitful negotiation."

Raising a glass herself Aiko smiled. "Kanpai!" She said, clinking glasses with him.

Coulson seemed to sip lightly from his own drink, before going straight to business. "What we want is mining rights at first…" Coulson made a pyramid with his hands while he leaned back in his big armchair. "Metals are a priority, but if you have oil as well, we would be willing to trade for a fair price."

The guild master got a calculating look on his face as he rubbed his chin. "Our kingdom is already selling some metal to our neighbour, the kingdom of Dwargon." Fuze drank a bit more from his glass to buy time, setting it down slowly as he spoke. "As for oil… How would you go about mining oil? It's a liquid."

"That would be for us to worry about." Coulson had a small smile on his face, as if he had just eaten a canary. "If we can buy or trade for mining rights, that would be excellent. We can offer processed goods, improved technology or even crafting techniques to massively boost productivity."

"Can you give some examples?" Fuze was obviously fishing for information, but Coulson didn't seem afraid to share.

"... Well. If you want examples, how about I let you examine this casual clothing wear from 21st century Earth? It's light and comfortable, and great to wear on a hot day! Just one of many millions of styles!" As Aiko said this, she brought out several mannequins stocked with swimsuits of both male and female styles, and sat back down to slam down another glass of alcohol.

Coulson smiled behind the empty glass in his hand, holding it out for a refill. "We also have devices like this, that can tell the exact time of day by use of precise gears." Pulling back the sleeve of his left arm, the well dressed man removed a fancy metal watch that had a transparent face. It showed all the internal gears moving, which in turn moved the hands around.

It was clear that the guild master was captivated by the display in front of him. His eyes were flickering between the watch and the bathing suits, although… His eyes did seem to linger a bit longer than necessary on the mannequins.

"This is of course just a small sample of the goods we have available. We are able to produce most goods in large quantities, and in a short time period." Coulson's smile was winning as he accepted his watch back.

"And all you want in return is mining rights?" Fuze asked for clarification. "Even with mining rights, you would still need equipment and manpower to extract the ore."

"Oh, we'll bring in specialized people for that, so don't worry." Coulson offered his empty glass again for a refill.

Blinking a bit at the full glass in her hand, Aiko shrugged and drained it in one gulp.

"I would need to get in contact with guilds in other nations, and maybe even the king…" Fuze had a determined gaze directed at the suit-clad man in front of him. "But I think many will be interested in making deals with you if this is just a small sample of what you can offer."

"Well, it's been a pleasure, Mr. Fuze." Coulson rose from his grand armchair. "I imagine we'll be sticking around for a while, so take your time reaching out for anyone that might be willing to trade with us."

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

Well, I have up to arc one finished with hakon now, so I can literally post whenever. However, I want to see more people interacting here, so I'll hold off for now. I still have to edit it a bit anyway, not like it's really that big of a deal, but there are some things that might wreck the flow on my end atm. And yes, we rushed chapter 14 so that we can work on an overlord project for a month or two while we watch the avengers and agents of shield to see where we can take it since we are going to diverge so far off the rails of mcu that stuff might be unrecognizable to any marvel fans who've only seen avengers. Also,

Spoiler: Spoliers

Rolling for combat is way too fun.

 

[Odd1todd89]

Well I don't know about anybody else but I'm greatly looking forward to reading more of your story.

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

Well I don't know about anybody else but I'm greatly looking forward to reading more of your story.

Click to shrink...

Thanks! I'll try to get editing done before the weekend, and I'll just post one at a time as I remember. Maybe one per day ish

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

Spoiler: Read my Author's Note!

We're at the final stretch for arc one! This means Hakon and I will be working on a different fic for a few months before coming back to this one. Gotta keep our brains fresh you know? Starting this chapter and going for the next few months after chapter 14, submit your ideas for changes we can make in the MCU before avengers 1. If I like it, I'll bring it up with hakon, abs we can use it during the start of arc 2.

Interlude: Coulson.​

Phillip J. Coulson was looking at an image Agent Barton had brought him. It showed a regular boy in his late teens walking towards a grocery store after dark. "So you feel like something is off about this person?" He inquired. Barton did have an extraordinary sharp eye when it came to certain things, which is why he hadn't brushed it off.

Barton looked about as concerned as he was capable of allowing himself to be at work without being told that he was to go home and take a mandatory vacation. Or that he was compromised, one of the two. He sat on the edge of his seat, fidgeting with an arrow head to relieve a bit of tension. "Yup. His movements are just a bit off for someone of his size and stature. He also tends to give people a wide berth when he moves, as if he is much larger than he appears." He took a breath as he thought over how to say the next bit. "I would also like to say that his physical appearance doesn't seem quite natural. It's almost as if someone tried to draw a picture of a young man by a description, but had never seen one in their life."

Phillip J. Coulson thought about it for a moment. Presented like this, and by Barton of all people… It was likely something to look out for. The agency had been on high alert after the events in New Mexico, where apparently the god of thunder from Norse mythology had been up to some shenanigans, after all.

"We will grant you resources to do a more thorough investigation of this… Tom Olson?" He read from the accompanying file Barton had handed over. "But nothing intrusive. If you even suspect that he is aware of your surveillance, back away." His voice was firm as he looked Barton in the eye.

Barton nodded his head to that. He was well aware of the necessity of such a thing. Putting the arrowhead away in its case, he seemed to become much more focused. "Don't get caught. Got it."

Phillip J. Coulson shuffled some of the papers on his desk, and Agent Barton took that as the dismissal it was. Time would tell, but Barton had been in the thick of it during the New Mexico incident.

~~~~​

Agent Barton's hunch had been dead on. Phillip J. Coulson rubbed his head after the first meeting with Tom Olson.

The kid had been a bit nervous, and they sadly couldn't offer him a chair to make him more comfortable, as none would fit his large arachnoid body. But Agent Barton seemed to have a soft spot for the kid, so he took that as a good sign that they didn't have some nightly serial killer with a spider theme on their hands.

The interview had luckily turned out fine, as Tom didn't seem to be a very secretive person by nature. They also did a small sample of tests where the arachnoid could show off his abilities.

Phillip J. Coulson did have a hard time keeping his face straight as Tom easily seemed to walk up the wall of their testing facility. However, what did manage to break his mask was Tom's ability to produce webs from his mouth. An unknown mechanism inside the arachnoid's body could somehow break down metals and use them in the creation of said webs. The illusion power was honestly not that impressive in comparison.

Finishing his report to Director Fury, Phillip J. Coulson sat back in his chair and silently wondered what would be next. Because he had a feeling this was only the beginning.

~~~~​

To say this was a nightmare was an understatement. Captain America had woken up, and ran off once it became clear that he hadn't been fished out of the ice in a timely manner. Now he, Phillip J. Coulson, had to stand guard on some random street to coordinate the other agents. He regretted not bringing his vintage Captain America cards, but they were mint condition, so he couldn't bring them for everyday stuff.

His forlorn musing about unsigned collector cards was suddenly interrupted by a voice behind him. "Hey, Mr. Suit guy. What's happening here?"

It took all of his willpower to not jump a metre into the air. He managed to contain it into a simple raising of his eyebrow as he turned around and saw a… fox girl? With many tails and some strange contraptions full of gears in what looked to be brass that covered her fox ears.

The words came out of his mouth unbidden. "Miss… May I see your dimension-jumping license? Because I do believe you aren't from around here." And at that point, it was too late to take it back.

"Dimension-jumping license? Ah! I didn't know I actually needed one of those. You mean to tell me what I've been doing so far is illegal?" The fox girl responded, and the agent would have sighed in relief if it wouldn't be such a big deviation from his normally calm countenance.

Deciding to simply go with the constructed narrative for now, he tried to calm the fox girl who appeared to be somewhat distraught by his earlier words. "Ah, don't worry about it. If you'll just come with me, we can get that taken care of, register you in our system, and all that. Procedure, you know."

What followed was an impressive display of acting by all parties involved. Phillip J. Coulson patted himself on the back for a job well done by the end of it, as they managed to convince the fox girl that apparently went by the name Aiko Tsuniki to not cause too much chaos while they figured out what to actually do with her.

~~~~​

Of course, before they could come up with something for the foxgirl to do, by some minor miracle, Aiko Tsuniki met up with their local arachnoid Tom Olson. Phillip J. Coulson heard the report from Agent Hill about how they had nearly scared the living daylight out of the poor agent, before barging into Fury's office.

It was a pure coincidence that this was the day he brought cake to the office. Phillip J. Coulson usually didn't indulge in sweets outside rare occasions, but it played nicely into the narrative Agent Hill created to keep the fox girl with teleportation powers from doing something reckless.

Of course, Aiko Tsuniki went and did something reckless anyways. Later, Phillip J. Coulson could only marvel at the leather gloves his boss had gotten as a 'birthday present'. The golden gears on the back moved on their own, even if it looked like stitching.

~~~~​

Of course things wouldn't stay… normal. Not after Tony Stark announced himself as Iron Man, not after a big green guy destroyed parts of Harlem, New York and especially not when the literal god of thunder from Norse mythology descended onto Earth.

So naturally, Phillip J. Coulson was barely phased when a portal to another world opened up in the middle of New York. He was kind of surprised when Fury 'suggested' that he go with the fox and spider duo, but mostly sad that he was again robbed a chance to interact with Steve Rogers.

Fury had said it would be 'good for him', and… Well… After interacting with a catgirl receptionist, and talking with an adventurer guild leader about mining rights in a magical world, he supposed it wasn't all bad.

 

[Odd1todd89]

Again wonderful story so far.
I am greatly looking forward to reading your next chapter.
And I hope you have a wonderful day/ night.

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

Again wonderful story so far.
I am greatly looking forward to reading your next chapter.
And I hope you have a wonderful day/ night.

Click to shrink...

Thanks! I'll hopefully get the next one out later today, but no promises

 

[Odd1todd89]

Thanks! I'll hopefully get the next one out later today, but no promises

Click to shrink...

Regardless thank you for writing.

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

Spoiler: Authors note

I didn't get a chance to edit this one fully yet, but I said I'd put out a chapter today if I could, and I'm sure it's not too terrible.

Tom noticed that Aiko wasn't all 'there' the instant they left the meeting with guild master Fuze, so in order to keep the group together, he voiced an offer. "Hey, Aiko. Feel free to lean on me if you want. I suppose we'll go look for an inn or something, so it would be best if we aren't separated."

Walking around to his back, she gently flopped down on it, and smiled. "Hehe. Taxi? I'm down. Grab the chairs first."

"That works, I guess." Tom shrugged, before moving closer to the chairs the foxgirl brought from her… pocket space? With wide eyes, the arachnoid watched as the chairs vanished in front of his eyes. "You saw that too, right, Coulson?"

The agent just made a 'so-so' hand gesture, before turning towards the door expectantly. "As I've never been to a magical world before, I hope the two of you have a currency we can use to secure lodging for however long it takes to organize negotiations with what I can only assume is the local royalty."

"Me and Aiko got some money the last time we were here. We did an escort quest, and were awarded fifteen silver each." Tom explained as he began walking. Aiko wasn't very heavy, and in either case he was quite a bit stronger than a regular human anyways, so it proved no difficulty to maneuver with her on his back. He had some experience with his sister riding on his back anyways.

Just before they exited the guild, they were hailed by the catgirl receptionist, who offered an adventurer's license to Coulson. "Since you are on official business with the leader, I figured you might want one of these." She winked.

Coulson thanked the catgirl, and then we were off. An inn didn't prove very difficult to find, as the city was a hub for commerce and adventure. As he was the one with money, it was up to the arachnoid to barter for a good deal.

"So we have the option of separate rooms, or a single room with bunk beds. Food is included for both, so we don't have to worry about that." Tom informed the party after a bit of discussion with the receptionist.

It was clear that Aiko wasn't drunk enough to miss the major details yet, and that she was more than comfortable just sharing with the two of them. She just didn't seem to see anything wrong with it. "More rooms would cost more though. It's better to get the cheapest option, and go on local quests in the morning to keep up our funds."

"Well…" Tom blushed slightly, turning his face to the side. "If privacy isn't a problem, I suppose we could go for bunk beds. Not sure they'll fit me, but I can always just spin some web."

"I call top bunk." Coulson shot in before any of the others could voice their opinion.

Placing her hand on her belt near her hip, Aiko began tapping the machine strapped there in thought. "I'll just put a mattress on the floor for Tom. There's no way he's gonna fit on that kind of bed."

"How big is that mattress?" Coulson asked, giving the fox girl a calculating look. With how she had taken chairs from seemingly nowhere, he probably wondered what else she could conjure.

Giving him a deadpan stare, Aiko spoke in a dry tone. "It's floor sized."

"So we are all in agreement, then?" Tom eyed Aiko's hand as it tapped, getting distracted for a second, before turning back to the receptionist to order a room. "Looks like we can afford a room for about ten days with our current funds, so that should give us some time to get our bearings while we wait for Master Fuze to get back to us."

The inn was clean, a mix of wooden walls and what looked like stone slabs making up the ground floor. It was sparsely decorated, with woven tapestries depicting some magical creatures or crude landscapes.

Their room was on the second floor, and it looked homely enough. It had a single bed after the suggestion from Aiko, a writing desk and a window that opened towards the market square nearby.

"Guess we'll be staying here for a while, so make yourselves at home." Tom lightly walked on the wooden floor, finding that it didn't squeak as he moved, which was a relief. "You have reached your destination." He lightly joked towards his passenger.

Sliding off of Tom, Aiko stood up and reached for the middle of the belt near her chest, before pulling out a cube of dense material with a button on it. She proceeded to toss it in the air, slapping the button as it fell, and standing back as an entire bed expanded until it filled the floor space, and expanded with air to become comfortable. Pointing down at it, she nodded. "Tom's bed." before finding a quiet corner of it to fall asleep on.

The arachnoid eyed 'his' bed, and then the bed of straw before shaking his head at Aiko's antics. "Probably for the best. The money we saved on the room went to upgrading our eating menu instead." He experimentally tried to sit down on the bed, and it was surprisingly soft.

"I hope you aren't an agitated sleeper." Coulson eyed the bed that took up the whole floor with some sadness, likely because he couldn't have the top bunk when everyone was sleeping on the same level.

"It shouldn't be a problem, but feel free to take the bed if you are worried about us invading your space." While speaking, Tom was slowly weaving a blanket from his webs. He didn't know if Aiko would prefer it or not, but since they only had one bed and he could deliver it wouldn't hurt. "I can make you a fluffier pillow if you want, though…"

"Yes, please…" From out of seemingly nowhere, the agent pulled a collapsible wire hanger and placed his vest and jacket on it for the night. "Sleep well."

Blatantly ignoring that he carried a wire hanger on him at all times as she'd seen much worse, Aiko pulled out her brush along with a bag to collect her fur. "You need some floof to fill the pillow with?"

"I wouldn't mind." From out of the corner of Tom's many eyes, it looked as if Coulson's smile was a tiny bit bigger, but that might just be his imagination before he fell asleep.

~~~~​

As the arachnoid slowly woke up from his slumber, it was to the sight of Aiko tinkering with something, and Coulson looking on in fascination. The agent's suit was wrinkle-free, and so Tom rubbed his many eyes to get the last vestiges of sleep out of his system. "Did you guys have a good night's rest?" He inquired, sitting up while his own hand-woven blanket covered most of his form.

Without looking up from what she was working on, Aiko shrugged, tails wiggling in an amusing pattern, drawing heart patterns on the bed. "Meh. It was a bit too warm for me."

"I'll keep that in mind for the future." Tom responded, covering his maw with a hand to hide a jawn. "At least you seem to be in a good mood. What about you, Coulson?"

"The pillow was nice." The agent responded, not taking his eyes off what the kitsune was working on.

"What are you working on, though?" Tom couldn't really see what the kitsune was doing, as she had her back to the arachnoid at the moment.

Aiko held up what appeared to be a can of monster at first glance. "A battery. The town needs a way to store energy for a communications tower after all."

"That's quite the large battery… What kind of capacity and output can it manage?" The arachnoid inquired, having a smidge of electrical knowledge from school.

Tossing the battery up and down, Aiko passed it underhanded to Coulson. "A little over 300 Terawatt hours. Charge should last all day at that output."

"Should I be wearing lead gloves when handling this?" Coulson asked, some apprehension in his voice at holding what looked like a soda can with the power output of a large state.

Giving him a cheeky smile, Aiko shook her head and chuckled. "Nah it's fine~. It's less radioactive than your food after you take it from a standard microwave."

Tom shared a look with Coulson, shrugging his shoulders in a 'what can you do' sort of way, before experimentally getting up from the bed. "So I guess you two haven't eaten yet? There should be food waiting for us downstairs as part of the cost we paid for the room."

Putting away her tools and equipment, Aiko stood and patted the dust from herself. Turning to look at the two of them, Aiko held her hands up as if in prayer, and her eyes dilated as her ears folded back. It was an obvious attempt to make herself look cute. But for what reason? "Food? Food is good. I would like some food. Please?"

"I made sure we had an upgraded food menu, since we are saving on our room." Tom took a few moments before he put together that maybe the Kitsune was in fact very hungry at the moment. "So let's go right away."

The look in Coulson's eye was either him being eager to try out otherworldly cuisine, or just an excuse to not have to hold the massive battery Aiko was previously working on. Really hard to tell which was which.

Looking over at Coulson, Aiko gave him a nod. "You might as well hold onto it. Keep it in your pants front pocket, it will make it easy to remember where it is."

Seeing as the arachnoid didn't have any pockets, Coulson made a defeated sigh, his shoulders slumping visibly, even as he somehow managed to press the beer can-sized battery into his pocket.

The trip to the eating hall was a swift one. Coulson earned himself some looks as he walked with a slight hitch to his step, but very soon they were seated around a table and served the kingdom's version of an upgraded breakfast.

On the table were some dishes Tom recognized from back in Norway. He imagined some of it would be what was eaten in the medieval period if he were to guess. Herring pickled in tomato sauce, bread, butter, boiled eggs and some kind of porridge with forest berries on the side.

"I hope everyone finds something they enjoy." Tom brought a plate to the side and clapped his hands together in prayer. The food was engulfed in eldritch fire like usual, and then he began digging in from his own plate.

Coulson was wide-eyed as he looked at where the plate had food on it one minute, and then it was scraped clean. "What just happened?" His voice was deadpan enough that unless you saw his eyes he could be mistaken for asking about the weather.

Already finished with her Japanese style 'Itadakimasu' Aiko hadn't batted an eyelash at the occurrence. Holding up her chopsticks with a piece of fish on them, she metaphorically waved it off. "Oh don't worry. He's just feeding his eldritch spider god."

"That is the short version of it, yes…" Tom reluctantly admitted between bites of boiled egg on bread. "The long version is… Yeah, probably best not discussed in a public setting." Tom looked around furtively, seeing many people who were casually leaning in to hear what was going on. "It's completely safe, though."

Coulson's eyes did a rapid flutter, as if his brain just rebooted for a bit, before he slowly took a bite of his porridge with red berries mixed in. "You'll have to tell me about it later." He said conversationally, but the way his off-hand was tensing slightly against the table suggested it was probably going to be filed under 'top secret'.

"Yeah, sure. I figure you deserve to know if you are sticking with us for a while." Tom placated, trying some of the tomato-pickled fish.

Staring at the two of them, Aiko began to make sounds as she ate, since she was close to finishing her own meal already and trying to slow herself down. "Om Nom Nom."

"So after breakfast, should we go see if the adventurer's guild has some work for us? Doesn't hurt to be on the safe side of pocket change." Tom suggested, drinking some water to wash down the last remnants of food.

"That sounds reasonable enough." Coulson agreed, likely hoping the day wouldn't continue in the same vein with world-shattering revelations.

 

[KitsuneObsessedFreak]

Spoiler: Authors note: Read me if you dare!

So. Two chapters left in this arc, then I'mma be working on an overlord fic I've got for 3 arcs. I'll be back to this one after that, but that one is super well planned out so far, so I'mma have fun with that. I might be a couple months before I'm back to planning this one out, which will give it more of a concrete direction that my friend can actually see, rather than not really knowing what's going on in my head, lol.

As they entered the adventurer's guild, they received quite a few sly looks from the cat girl receptionist.

"So…" She had that sly look of someone who knew more than they were supposed to. "You three… Are here for a mission, right~?" With a slight lift at the end, it came out teasing as she slowly blinked her eyes.

At the side, it appeared as if Tom was getting a bit flustered, since he was looking away. "Y-yeah, of course. Right, guys?"

"What kind of missions do you have for us?" Coulson inquired, as he locked eyes with the ruffled raven haired catgirl. She was wearing a navy blue blazer over a white undershirt. From where she was lounging on her chair, they could also see a long black skirt with some stocking beneath.

"For you, stud…" Her golden eyes dipped towards his pants for a split second, where the huge battery was still stored. "Maybe something relaxing? How about an easy escort mission?"

"W-what other missions do you have?" The arachnoid asked, even if it was clear to see that he obviously just wanted to get out of there with how charged the air was between Coulson and the receptionist.

"Weed-picking, monster extermination…" The catgirl rattled off, seemingly bored now that her staring match with the agent was over.

Raising her finger in the air imperiously, Aiko was quick to make a royal decree. "Not weed picking. I know where that leads, and it's not fun."

"Let's try monster extermination, then… Preferably around our own level, right?" Tom inquired. His feet tapping softly against the floor.

Aiko stared hard at the page with a defiant expression. "We should probably pick one from a different page. That's probably still the same mission."

"Oh, phooey~" The catgirl flicked her bangs in defeat. "But that's soo much work…" Despite her words, she did rifle through the stack of papers quickly.

"We have another monster hunter job, unrelated to plants. Babysitting, cannon fodder for a more experienced adventurer team… There's also a few we just got about scouting for precious mineral deposits…" The receptionist made a so-so hand gesture, as if telling them she didn't have all day.

Aiko's face lit up like a Christmas tree. She was very excited to go spelunking for materials. "Ooh~! Let's take the mineral one. I can find those deposits just as good as a dwarf can, but from a longer range!"

"Sounds good with me." Tom cheered, raising his hand in victory.

"What areas would we be looking at?" Coulson inquired, stepping a bit closer as the catgirl seemed to flourish a map of the region.

"There's a bog with some black liquid… A desert and a mountain for starters. If you check these areas first, I'll give you a few more locations later." The catgirl circled three distinct parts on the map with an inked quill.

Taking a photo of the map with her phone, Aiko nodded at the cat girl, before realizing she was literally just calling her 'cat girl' this entire time. That was unacceptable. "I got a copy of the map, but I forgot to ask your name. I figure I should probably at least do that much if I'm going to be working with you, right?"

The receptionist blinked her eyes, as if just coming to that realization herself. "Nyaah… It's fine, just call me Rita. It's the least I can do when you are giving my friend so much paperwork."

"You and Mr. Fuze go way back, then?" Coulson inquired with a polite tilt of his head.

"We were on the same adventurer team." Rita purred, extending a claw from a finger and dragging it with the rounded side against the desk. "Although… I bet he would come up short compared to you~..."

"We should be going now, shouldn't we…?" Tom was tapping his clawed fingers together in agitation. His multiple eyes flicked towards the door.

"You've been a great help, Rita. We'll stop by once we finish this mission." Coulson reached out to rub the receptionist's ear again, before turning on his heel.

Following Coulson and Tom out of the guild, Aiko made sure to bring up one specific fact. "This is gonna be much easier if I open a gate to each spot for us. Also," She brought out a set of scanners from her pocket space, passing the one without a battery to Coulson, "Plug the battery into this for now, it screws in like a lightbulb if you pop the handle open like this."

Twisting the end of the handle and pulling it popped open, with more than enough space for the battery. She then passed it to Coulson.

The arachnoid carefully accepted his, while the agent with some effort extracted the large battery from his pants pocket. "I think I'll have to invest in a backpack or something if this is going to be a regular occurrence." He examined the two parts, before slowly twisting the battery into place.

Giving a nostalgic look at the scanners, Aiko began to sigh. "I know it looks like a weed whacker that's meant to be used with one hand, but that's just so it can hold all the high end scanners inside its frame without any of them getting in the way of each other."

"I thought the design looked familiar…" Tom commented, doing a few experimental passes along the ground with his detector. "And I'm really glad you can just use your portals to get us there, Aiko. It's not that I'm against walking, but the three points looked quite far apart on the map…"

Shrugging with a yawn, Aiko's ears pinned back as she opened the portal with a small device she tossed onto the ground. "Alright, I'll be making a gate now."

Opening the portal to the desert, Aiko noticed a massive golem waking up and making its way over with slow lumbering steps that shook the earth. It was a good thing she already had all the data she needed, because she had to close the portal immediately. As soon as she did, she turned to the others with a grim smile. "Well, lots of resources, plenty of oil, gold, iron sand, Magisteel, Mythril, Orichalum and Adamantite deposits. Major problem however… You'll need at least a fleet of bombers carrying nuclear armaments to take out the adamantite golem guarding it. Try to keep the core intact, because I can reprogram that into an infinite material factory that runs on magic. Same with any golem."

Swapping the portal to the bog, Aiko opened it up once more, immediately scrunching her nose up at the horrid smell of rot. "This one should be safe, but I won't follow you in there. Don't go too far if you decide to look around, but we can do it from here anyway."

Coulson gave one look towards the portal, then down to his shoes, before shaking his head. "I think I'm good."

Tom pinched the bridge of his nose, and only stuck the scanner through the portal. "Oh, it's picking up some stuff…" He read from the pie chart that the machine typed out. "Oil again… Something called… Liquid Morkite, amber, fossilised wood and some diamonds… Oh, there's a Morkite golem as well, but it doesn't appear to be hostile at the moment." He rattled off, removing the scanner from the portal.

Swapping the portal yet again, Aiko waited to see what the others would find first, since she wanted them to get more experience with the scanners.

"The mountain for last, then…" Coulson commented as a sheer rock shelf looked back at them from inside the portal. It was fairly steep, so none of them were inclined to step out to get a closer look. "Diamond…" The agent said, surprise in his voice. "Just one big diamond, and apparently a docile diamond golem."

Feeling rather disappointed, Aiko pouted, her tails drooping a noticeable amount. "Diamond again… Ugh. I have so much diamond that I could make a whole planet out of it… Who even likes diamonds anyway."

"If we report our findings to the guild, we'll be able to buy us a very nice meal with the reward." Tom quickly shot in.

With a quick look of surprise, Aiko realized that some people in the party might actually need to eat more than the average fox. "We can go eat if you're hungry Tom, but I just ate. I'm just a fox, my stomach isn't actually that big."

"I can go on for a while yet. But I thought since we finished the mission so quickly that this might be a good time to practice some of my eldritch magic." The arachnoid rubbed the back of his head in apparent embarrassment. "I don't really want to test some of this stuff back in our world, for obvious reasons…"

Nodding her head at that thought, Aiko fully understood the reasoning behind it. "We can do that. If Coulson would go to the receptionist and print out the data via the print button on the scanner, We can just leave the portal open for him to join us by the mountain. It's connected to my implants, so I've already uploaded the language for it. It just needs to be printed."

"I can do that…" The agent nodded, hitting the print button and waiting for the pages to complete. When the last page was out, he slowly unscrewed the battery before putting it back into his pants pocket and walking into the adventurers guild again.

"So I guess you have a lot of experience with magic, Aiko…" Tom prompted now that they were alone. "Do you have any pointers for me, as I've mostly just tried to figure things out on my own up until now."

"Let's go through the portal and sit far on the other side while we talk. But to put it bluntly, my form of magic is mostly focused on making things. Sure, I can hold the power of the sun in the palm of my hand, but the air I still very much need to breathe would burn up in an instant, so I'm not that dumb. That's why you don't see me flinging fireballs or screaming 'Unlimited Powah' while shooting lightning from my fingertips. I can do it, but it's just not an efficient use of my power." Aiko explained as if it wasn't absolutely terrifying to hear about for most people.

"I… see…" The arachnoid went through the portal and flopped down on the slope leading up to the mountain they had just scanned. "I'm not sure I'll have that much power under my command, and it's been a while since I talked with my deity, so I suppose bouncing some ideas off you might be the best I can do at the moment."

Following him through the portal, Aiko pointed out some things that seemed rather obvious for her. "I could connect you to your diety via Inari messenger, you know? She's probably the best option to speak about your magic with. If that still isn't an option, then I can only recommend basic mana exercises."

"Oh, you can do that? I'd be grateful if you would do that for me." Tom perked up where he was sitting, and just in time for a slightly disheveled Coulson to walk through the portal.

"Rita got a bit excited about our quick findings…" Was all he said, before unfolding a handkerchief from somewhere and sitting down daintily to listen about magic.

Looking up from her phone Aiko peered at Tom with a slight grin. "...Aaand you should have her on your contact list now, so just pick up your phone and give her a call. Or a text. We can do the basic mana exercises when you're done."

"Thanks a lot, Aiko!" The arachnoid seemed to be moving up, but thought better of it and sat down again. Flipping up his phone, there was indeed a 'Mother Spood' in his contact list. He could only shake his head at her antics before pressing call.

What followed was a bit of back and forth between the eldritch spider god and her disciple about how to better utilize mana, as well as hints on potential spells to look into in the future. When Tom hung up, there was a small smile on his face, although his eyes were blinking without rhythm. His hands quickly searched for something on his person, before finding a notebook that he began writing in like his life depended on it.

Taking a seat beside Tom, Aiko smiled at him, waiting for him to pause for longer than a moment before she spoke. "You keep a journal? I do something pretty similar. I record everything via my implants just in case I need to remember something. Let me know if you ever want to see a recording of my memories with you here, or leave some behind for you when it's time for me to go."

"Yeah… Since the first time I had a conversation with Arachne… Figured that's important to remember, you know?" Tom smiled, before turning to Coulson. "So I figured you have some questions, right?"

"You could say that." The agent looked serious for once, which was offset by his ruffled hair.

Tom appeared to be in thought for a moment, before flipping over his notebook to the first page and showing the drawing on it. "I don't have the skills to convey the eldritch stuff properly, but this is basically what she looks like." The picture showed a frankly terrifying spider goddess with the upper body of something that might look humanoid if it was dark and you squinted really hard, while the lower body was that of an enormous spider with eight barbed legs that looked like they could rend flesh from bones with ease.

Aiko looked over the drawing with a critical eye, smiling at the attempt. "Hmmm. It's not dark enough. Or angled enough on the E axis. Pretty good though."

"Now that you mention it…" The arachnoid rubbed his chin while tilting his head. "Suppose I do need more experience conveying what my eyes can see…"

Meanwhile, Coulson looked at the image in a mix of fascination and horror. "You've seen this… in person? And she's your patron goddess?"

"Yeah." Tom rambled on, explaining what he knew. "She seems to like my food, and she's also the source of the magic I can do, like the illusion I use to hide myself back on Earth. I guess I also partially got my appearance from her after I made a pact with her that one time…"

"I… I'm going to need some time to process this. You should just continue with these… mana exercises, and we'll come back to this later." The agent seemed to be on the verge of a breakdown, at least if one considered his minimal reactions to things compared to now. Coulson was rubbing the bridge of his nose while keeping his eyes firmly away from the eldritch spidergod drawing.

Bouncing over to stand exactly between them, Aiko chuckled. "First, you two are gonna need to follow my movements as closely as possible, until you get into the flow. Once you do, I'll tell you the next step."

"Wait… Me too?" Coulson looked bewildered between the kitsune and the arachnoid. "I'm pretty sure I'm just a normal human…"

The arachnoid made no fuss, and tried to position himself like Aiko did. It was a bit difficult with all the extra legs, but he did his best.

Correcting Tom's stances with taps from her tails as they stretched out and started moving, Aiko began the next step. "Now focus on your inner energy, try to draw it out as you move, and push it out from your hands."

"Wait…" The agent's perceptive eye seemed to have caught something. "Is this just the basic steps of Tai Chi?"

Tilting her head Aiko looked over at Coulson with a smile. "Yes? What… Did you think magic was gonna be hard? As long as your world has enough mana to jump start your core, it's really just that simple."

"I've done these exercises since I finished High School…" The agent's deadpan tone was back, but his eyebrow seemed to twitch a bit.

Nodding at the man, Aiko was happy he had done so. It would make it much easier to do the best step without accidentally popping him. "Ah! That explains why your core is so developed at your age despite the low mana concentration in your world! Good job! Just keep at it, I'll start on the next step."

"What's the next step?" Coulson inquired, looking with some apprehension at the kitsune.

A couple tails rose behind each of them, and an audible buzzing was heard in the air as the gravity seemed to increase several times over. It was only a mental pressure at least, so while they wanted to collapse, their bodies were actually fine. "Just keep moving, and try to get rid of this energy I'm to give you, okay? Just push it out of your hands and feet."

She then pushed her mana into their bodies slowly, ensuring they wouldn't get hurt from the process. "Here we go, just push it out."

"This… Your mana is just burrowing deeper…" Tom huffed, as there seemed to be a small bit of his own mana forming around his hands. "Just expelling it like this is fine, though?" He inquired, following the earlier steps Aiko had shown.

Pushing a bit more mana in Aiko's smile grew wider. "Yup, it will help stretch your core out like warm taffy. That's very good for it. Try shooting an eldritch blast into the sky. I'll provide the mana, you just keep it up."

"Just got to imagine a Final Flash, then…" Tom's arms went to each side, before slowly centering near his middle with the fingers like claws directed inwards. Purple energy began gathering into a spearhead of eyes, before the energy was unleashed towards the sky in a display much like a firework.

"Huff… Huff… Again?" The arachnoid returned to the basic movements, attempting to keep his energies balanced.

Meanwhile, Coulson was shooting small mana bolts from his hands in rapid succession, a testament to his adaptability, but also familiarity with the stances. "Magic really is that easy, huh?"

"Yes. We just need to practice this twice a week for the next while, and you'll be good to continue this type of practice on your own in a month. That's when I'll start you on finding your affinities." Aiko stated, her hands on her hips while she kept pumping her mana into her new students.