I'm Jean. I don't know who my parents are.
From a young age, my life was dictated around one major thing. To live or to die.
I gave up believing. I only moved without purpose.
My own parents left me by the seashore of an unknown beach. It was raining that day. I was almost carried away by the sea when a young woman saved me from the waves. She told me where she found me.
That was the day I had almost died to hunger and the cold.
I was transferred to an orphanage eventually.
I grew up like the other children. I played, read, and spoke like how they did. Until the end, all of them left and the old ones would be replaced by new ones. I was losing hope. I was going to be 14 years old.
And a person came to prevent that from happening.
"I'd like to adopt this child."
"Clay! You're good? His eyes opened. He's fine."
"Good job giving him that ancient rune, master." Zed's voice entered my ears. "We got more pressing matters to attend to right now if your boyfriend's fine. The nerdy detective's nowhere to be found."
"What do you mean pressing?" I looked closely and there was a big monster right in front of us. Its scales and size reminded me of those monsters you see in isekai shows. "Oh, that kind of pressing. And we're back in goo world, ugh."
"What's the height of that thing, you reckon?" Zed asked for curiosity. But my mind was heavily focused on the thing running towards us like a freight train. It looked like a more grotesque version of Godzilla but its height couldn't compare.
"Does it matter?" Calli released her scythe out of thin air.
"What happened while I was out..."
"It's one of Jean's fears. Big monsters. It's guarding her paralyzed state right inside the cell above us over there. Looks like the whole nightmare fiasco isn't solely dependent on killing the caster of the spell." Zed was pertaining to a big beating heart against the wall far away from us. Parts of the huge thing keeping her in place tangled around her arms and legs like a crucifix. "If we can just get her out of that enclosure, it's safe to say she'll wake up."
"I can go. You guys keep that monster distracted." They turn their eyes to me. I came up with it on the spot. I did think the plan was rather basic in words but I didn't want to think I couldn't do anything useful. "Believe in me. Just give me a fraction of your power to jump over there and I'll rip that thing keeping her in place."
"Clay...!" Calli held my wrist. "It's dangerous. You could fall down if you don't have a good grip, remain at a far distance from the monsters. Focus on saving Jean, avoid getting into a fight as much as you can. Me and Zed will handle it."
"I got it."
Zed infused a bit of his power with me and I instantly felt my legs become lighter.
"It only looks like a big monster but it's a corrupted megalith. If they attack in numbers, it's akin to a hundred velociraptors intent on ripping you apart."
We felt the ground rumble harder than last time.
"Are there more of those big monsters?!"
"GUYS!!!" Amelia came rushing in the field along with... a bunch of Amelias? "They're unstable! My invention BACKFIRED! WAH!"
Surely enough, her claim was right. Hundreds of smaller Amelia Watsons entered the field, their unified chortles maniacal and vexing to the ears.
"WATSON! Where have you been! Why are there many of you?!"
"No time to explain. Busy dodging bullets! DUCK!"
"Shit!" Zed dodged a bullet from one of the Ames holding a gun and deflected more of them using his scythe. "What the f*** nerd! Get your science fair doohickey in check damn it!"
"I'm trying!" Amelia screeched.
There was so much going on I almost got squashed by the big monster's claws. I jumped away, latching onto a wall that was adjacent to Jean's.
"CALLI, ZED, AME, I'M GOING AHEAD. STAY ALIVE!"
I jumped to the wall where Jean was attached to. She was sleeping soundly here like an angel, devoid of interest on the ongoing chaos that was happening on the battlefield.
I could hear them from afar, even from an angle this high.
"𝒷𝑒𝒸𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓈 𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓈 𝑜𝒻 𝓊𝓈~ 𝒶𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑔𝑜𝑜-"
Zed sliced apart a ton of mini-sized Ames. "Having just one of you is enough!"
"As a friend, I completely agree! Whoa!" Calli managed to send a hundred of Ame's clones blown away by generating so much pressure with her scythe and wounding the monster's palms by spinning away.
"I'll recalibrate it when we get back!" Ame's hat was shot to the floor. "HEY! Those don't come cheap!" The ground beneath her started to crack because of the bullets. "For being my clones, you guys suck at shooting! AIM FOR THE HEAD-"
"WATSON!" Calli grabbed the detective by the waist and hopped off to another spot to avoid getting smushed by the monster's feet. "You gotta pay attention!"
"I am!" Amelia grabbed a gun out and pointed it at Calli, grinning devilishly. "You're the one not paying attention, 𝓒𝓪𝓵𝓵𝓲~"
Amelia's head was shot off. Rather, Amelia's clone's head by Amelia.
Lots of Amelias. Small ones. Big ones. Fancier ones. I think Ame really went overboard with the customizations.
"Even my clones love to badger at you. I think that's one point for my invention."
"You should take your clone's advice of recalibrating that device of yours."
"It's a rave down there..." I focus back immediately to Jean. "Okay. How do I do this..."
I start off by trying to pull away at the muck that was tightening around her waist. If she was awake, she would've shown facial expressions of being constricted. But she was peaceful in her trance. The thing felt like Olympian superglue. Only demigods could have a sprinkle of a chance at denting this. I tried pulling at it once more only to fail after a couple attempts. "Plan number two then... Uh..." I was slapping my forehead for an idea.
I was growing tired and I don't think I could hang on to the wall for more than a minute.
I needed to think.
"I'll recalibrate it when we get back!" Ame's hat was shot to the floor. "HEY! Those don't come cheap!" The ground beneath her started to crack because of the bullets. "For being my clones, you guys suck at shooting! AIM FOR THE HEAD-"
Alright. What are those bullets made of? When I retrace my steps, it seemed like the bullets didn't really destroy the floor but reversed its form.
The thought hit me.
Ame had guns that can reverse time too.
"Zed! Tell Ame to shoot here!"
"YO NERD! SHOOT WHERE CLAY IS POINTING AT!"
"Call me nerd one more time and I'm going to rewind your development stages back to zero!"
"JUST SHOOT AME!" I scream.
"FINE!"
She shot at the heart. Not my heart.
And it was working. The chains locking Jean's body in place were going back to how they were before, reinstating their form back into the insides of the wall and decreasing in size.
"Jean! Wake up!"
I could see her eyes opening. It was working. We'd get out of here. We wouldn't have to fight hundreds of those megaliths. Nor deal with more than one Ame.
For a moment, I thought I'd have to carry Jean in my arms as she was going to fall down because her chains disappeared. But the whole area transformed into a whole galaxy in that one moment.
No joke.
All I could see were the stars and a glass floor below me. The reach of this place spanned without limits. For a second I'd thought Ame shot at the wrong heart but Ame was right in front of me, sitting down on the floor and looking at the stars.
Was this a dream? Am I locked in a nightmare now too? Everything was too quiet. Inside a dream inside of another person's nightmare. Now that was just deep.
"Ame. What are you doing here? Where are we?"
"... Who are you?" She was relaxed, like nothing had happened a few minutes ago. Or the fact hundreds of Ames were shooting left and right like uncontrolled fireworks. "Are you a resident of this space? So even a person exists in this place?"
"What are you talking about? We were fighting monsters and a hundred versions of you and..." Was I talking to someone else? How come her expression is so different?
"For someone who's alone, you sure are loud. Hehe... I'm kidding. You and I probably know each other based on how you're talking right now. Did my future me do something terrible?"
Were we in an alternate dimension? It must've been caused by that bullet Ame shot. But it shot at the cage, not me. What the heck was going on?
"Oh, don't worry too much. I doubt the future will change with you talking to me. This is a space that can't alter real-life events of separate dimensions. At ease." I wasn't actually worried about that but now that she brought it up, I guess that concern is buried in the hatchet.
"How is your Amelia in your world doing?" she asked.
Should I talk like there isn't a battle going on right now? But Jean was already freed from her cage so the monster should've been killed already.
"She's always excited and wants to learn more about what she builds. I think she's more of a creator than a detective but I think you already knew that."
She laughed. "I know myself quite well after all." Then her face shifted to something more serious. "Can I ask you for a favor?"
"... What is it?"
"Since we live in alternate dimensions, my world won't be affected much by your actions so I can say this to you." she smiled like she had given up. "Please treat Amelia better in your world."
"Where are Calli, Ina, Gura, Kiara? Why are you all alone here?" I asked.
"𝓌𝒽𝑜?"