“I did not!” Layla denied, shaking her head adamantly.

  “You did.” I teased and she glared at me while crossing her arms.

  Sally actually took my side and helpfully provided a video clip of my sister yelling “RETURN!” then appearing out of nowhere.

  Layla’s face turned red as she buried her face in her hands, only to have a random burst of confidence.

  “Yes I did. Because it was awesome. Anyway, someone wants to meet you.” Layla owned up to it, moving past her embarrassment and forcefully changing the subject.

  “Who? Actually, that doesn’t matter. We need to get home for dinner.” Relief washed over me as I realized our mom wouldn’t be tearing me into tiny itty bitty pieces. At least not tonight.

  “But it sounds really important?” Layla protested and I shook my head as I opened a Gate back to our house.

  “If it’s that important then bring them to dinner, but if you do please don’t tell mom about your disappearance. She’ll kill us both. You were gone for hours.” I pointed out, putting off my questions about where she went or who she was talking about.

  At the mention of what would happen if mother should learn of our little debacle, Layla paled before easily agreeing to remain quiet.

  “Not sure if they can even come to dinner, since I don’t really know what they are.” Layla muttered, mostly to herself, so I ignored it.

  “Talk to you later Sally, gotta go home for the night.” I gave the sapient drone a couple of finger guns before walking backwards into the tiny black hole, my body folding in on itself as I unfolded through a white hole in my living room.

  Where I stood facing myself, since there was an instance already here.

  “Oh. Right.” I chuckled, smacking my forehead.

  Layla followed right behind me as I erased the instance in the living room, leaving only one of me.

  “Man I’m starving! What’s for dinner?” Layla asked as we walked into the kitchen, and we were hit with the severe lack of food.

  “Oh yeah, we already ate dinner.” I rubbed my chin, remembering that mom, Kaity, James and I had already eaten hours ago.

  “...You can’t be serious.” Layla glared at me, betrayal in her eyes.

  “I thought I heard voices. Did you have a fun adventure?” Mom came into the kitchen, uncomfortable with the idea of whatever an adventure might entail as she asked about our trip.

  “Yeah! It was… good!” I awkwardly ignored my sister sending me death threats with just her eyes.

  “It was very fun!” Layla happily smiled at mom, doing a complete 180 with her expression.

  Though every time she looked at me it went right back to pure hatred. Exaggerated of course, but I got the message.

  “I’ll warm us up some leftovers.” I turned towards the fridge and leaned down as I opened the door, retrieving the dinner we ate.

  “Is that chicken alfredo? Don’t warm mine up, it’s best served cold.” Layla rubbed her hands eagerly, a greedy smile on her lips as she eyed the container.

  “You are so fucking weird.” I sighed but did as she wanted.

  Layla loved eating cold pasta. Actually, she loved eating cold everything. Not sure how she grew into such tastes, but I’d bet my entire fortune that it stemmed from laziness. Why wait for your food to warm up if you’re hungry now type thing.

  “Like I didn’t pick it up from you.” Layla retorted and I smiled to myself.

  “I only like cold pizza, you’re the one who took it to a new level.” I waved her off with a fork as I dug out a good chunk of the pasta and chicken from the tub, plopping it onto the plate.

  Handing it over, Layla took it with reverence and carefully went to the table to eat.

  “You didn’t do anything dangerous, did you?” Mom asked, likely having seen the leftover monster blood on Layla’s axe.

  “Course not.” I only half lied.

  “Nope!” Layla fully lied, cheerfully shoveling ice cold alfredo into her mouth.

  “Good, goo-” Our mom screamed as she turned to leave and spotted the Cabold hunched over the kitchen sink behind me, licking the scraps off some dirty dishes.

  The scream startled Layla and the Cabold, and the latter immediately went into a battle stance. Hissing with a sound that wasn’t that different from a strangled dog. That is to say it was incredibly unpleasant to hear.

  “What the hell is that?!” Mom yelled and Layla made a sound of recognition around a mouthful of pasta.

  “That’s Lay! My new friend.” Layla happily introduced the creature that really should have been left behind.

  “F-friend? Can it talk?” Mom asked quietly in a whisper, shuffling closer to Layla.

  “Nope~!” Layla cheerily answered.

  “What is it?” She asked, slowly calming down.

  “A monster.” I answered and I felt our mom’s fear spike again.

  “A friendly monster.” Layla clarified, then took another bite.

  “Isn’t it dangerous? I saw on the news that monsters have started to show up, and several people have gotten seriously injured!” Mom spoke nervously.

  “Nah, of course she’s safe.” I sorta lied, stealthily taking the steak knife from the Cabold and then smacked it across the back of its head.

  “Be nice.” I ordered and the little shit had the audacity to make a ruckus, throwing some claws towards me and trying to scratch me.

  “Get it out of here!” Mom yelled and I shrugged.

  “Right-oh then.” I mumbled and opened a Gate that snatched up the Cabold, where I deposited the monster safely in my pent house.

  …Where she immediately started tearing into my furniture. Fuck.

  “Explain.” Mom glared at me, demanding some kind of answer.

  “Don’t look at me, it’s not my pet.” I deflected, causing Layla to choke when our mom snapped to her.

  “Haha… Ahem, y-you see-” Layla started to explain, and it took quite a while as it involved going over all that we had done in our short outing.

  She didn’t bring up the fact that she got dragged off somewhere that I couldn’t get her from, and I was grateful.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “You can’t keep that… thing here.” Mom sighed as Layla finished up.

  “I kinda figured that, which is why Greg is going to keep it at his place for me!” Layla happily dropped the mess into my lap, like I knew she would.

  “That can’t be legal.” Mom looked at me and I just shook my head.

  “It’s fine, I own the planet and the city that’s on it.” I answered and mom seemed to remember that ‘my place’ wasn’t in America. It wasn’t even on this planet or in this universe for that matter.

  “Where’s Kaity and James at?” Layla asked.

  “They left right after dinner, they have work in the morning.” I answered.

  “I still think they should call in sick and use some of their paid time off.” Mom shook her head, calming down from the chaos that was having a bipedal monster in your home.

  “So… What now? Do I just leave and come back in the morning or-” I offered but got cut off.

  “No!” Both my mom and my sister spoke at the same time.

  “You’re staying here for the night.” Mom demanded.

  “He’ll stay for a month if I can help it.” Layla half joked and mom nodded in approval.

  “Okay, so do I just sleep on the couch?” I asked, relenting to their demands. I knew fighting would be useless.

  “No, that's silly, your room is just as you left it.” Mom answered and I furrowed my brow.

  “So it’s…” I started, then Layla finished for me.

  “A mess, yeah. Get cleaning.” Layla teased, waving as I walked off.

  I could tell that my room was as I left it, thanks to my supremely busted bullshit senses, but having a conversation about it felt more human than just knowing everything.

  Going upstairs, I got some real eyes on the mess I called my room. Junk laying about, a true chaotic pile of disorganized organization. It all had its place, and sometimes that meant overlapping with another to create a haphazard tower of books and boxes.

  It wasn’t dusty, since I cleaned the whole house just hours ago, but the mess was certainly… nostalgic.

  I wouldn’t be touching it.

  I would lay on my bed, but the twin sized mattress was a bit small for my mutated height. Good thing I have a mutated as fuck brain that lets me do some really weird stuff, like bending space to make my bed larger than it should reasonably be.

  And so there I was. In my old room, staring at the old popcorn ceiling.

  Our house was pretty outdated, but having grown up with the weird bumpy surface above me, I found it odd that other houses didn’t have it if they were too recent.

  Recent being ‘built in the last 50 years’, but oh well.

  As I laid on my bed, a very familiar thought ran through my mind once again.

  ‘What do I do now?’ I asked myself.

  There wasn’t anything to do anymore.

  I had met back up with my family, returned home after a couple years of doing ‘villain’ stuff, and I had the power to be considered the peak of this universe.

  That made me think back to just yesterday.

  When I first arrived home, and fucked up. Bad.

  I had reacted on pure instinct at first, at the revulsion of what I witnessed. That is at least excusable.

  What is not, was the fact I kept going after that first slaughter.

  I felt justified in what I was doing, but it was wrong.

  It wasn’t wrong to stop them, no.

  It was wrong to try and assert myself as this big bad threat to stop the heinous shit I saw from every perspective. I should have just implemented The System right away.

  It continued to prove just how terrible of a job I did in trying to save people from bad actors.

  What bothered me even more was the fact that I knew I hated, or at the least disliked, being a leader or almighty thing above others.

  “So why did I immediately resort to acting like one?” I mumbled to myself, drumming my fingers on my stomach.

  Some part of me felt satisfaction that I made a mistake. Since that was proof that I wasn’t some kind of all powerful being, but still a human capable of mistakes.

  But this was a really big fuck up.

  One that sort of has been fixed now that The System has been introduced to Earth, and the people have a way to ‘combat’ me.

  However, there’s still the underlying issue.

  I was this close to becoming just like the faker. The very same person I made an oath to never become.

  Looking over at my nightstand, I saw the time on a clock.

  “10:43 pm? No wonder I’m having thoughts like ‘I’m a terrible person.’” I scoffed and rolled over to my side.

  There’s this sort of universal rule that you shouldn’t trust intrusive thoughts past 9. That’s when the big internal voices go to sleep and the little ones get all the attention.

  Or something like that.

  Of course, trying to ignore those thoughts only made me think about other random crap.

  Like how I had so easily walked around without my space suit for the first time in literal years when I used to feel so uncomfortable without my helmet.

  Then some more thoughts about how stupid I was, before I finally fell asleep.

  …

  The next morning, I was woken up by Layla. Who was turning my light on and off while making a ton of noise.

  “Awaken~! Oh great dark lord~!” Layla hollered and I lifted myself up like Dracula, causing my sister to laugh.

  “Are we having breakfast before or after church?” I asked, already knowing the answer evident by the lack of anyone in the kitchen downstairs.

  “Mom said we’d be stopping at that pancake place you like.” Layla answered before giving me a weird look.

  “What?” I asked and she just smirked.

  “Nothing. I just didn’t know that The Dark Lord Azurath likes dog onesies. That’s all.” She teased before walking away.

  Looking down at myself, I saw what she was talking about. I had forgotten about the pajamas a long time ago, and at some point I guess Jimmy absorbed it.

  However, I didn’t expect him to transform into the thing while I was sleeping.

  Oh well, Jimmy was the most comfortable onesie I’ve ever worn.

  Transforming Jimmy into a business casual outfit was easy enough and I realized something.

  When Jimmy transforms into a shirt and jeans, he only looks like two separate items. He is still one item, which means…

  “Jimmy is a literal onesie.” I muttered, adjusting my Jimmy tie on my Jimmy shirt collar.

  What a ridiculous life I live.

  …

  Church was what you would expect.

  We sat in the back, since I’m too tall for my own good, but the preacher had no issue being heard because of the frankly insane speaker system.

  It felt like one of those mega-churches, but itty bitty.

  “No wonder we stopped coming here.” I heard my mother mumble under her breath, as the preacher continued his tangent about some kind of teaching about greed.

  The same one he started 30 minutes ago.

  He brought up The System a few times, claiming it was the devil offering temptation, and I couldn’t really blame him for thinking so.

  Magical bullshit was, well, bullshit.

  No one knew how it worked or what it truly cost if it had any, so of course people were paranoid about it.

  Layla was struggling to keep her eyes open, only kept awake by our mom nudging her with an elbow every time she drifts off.

  It did eventually end, with a donation basket going around of course, and it felt very encouraged that we donate.

  We did, but it was a dollar from each of us.

  “That sucked.” Layla muttered with a yawn and mom slapped her arm as we were leaving.

  “Hush you! At least wait until we are out of the building.” She sighed, not disagreeing nor agreeing with Layla.

  We got into Layla’s car, where I had to fold in on myself to fit in the back seat.

  The entire back seat, as I had to curl up just so the doors could close.

  It didn’t help that she drove what is possibly the smallest sedan I have ever seen, but the gas mileage was good. Apparently.

  The pancakes at Cake n’ Bake were good, as always, but we haven’t done much and half the day was already gone.

  It was nice to just spend time with my family, but I still had this strange feeling of idleness.

  Like I needed to do something…

  “I think we should go meet that guy I was talking about last night.” Layla told me as we got home and I remembered that there was in fact something I needed to do.

  “Right, yeah. So how do we do that?” I asked and Layla smugly held up her middle finger.

  “...Layla.” I looked at her dumb smug face, as she continued to flip me off.

  “Yeah?” She said, all innocent like.

  “There’s nothing there.” My brow twitched and she frowned.

  “You don’t see the stone ring? I mean it is really thin, but you should be able to see it just fine.” Layla looked at her finger in confusion, then back to me.

  That was strange, and slightly concerning.

  A ring that I couldn’t see or even sense? Very odd.

  “Whatever, just trust me.” Layla grabbed me with her other hand, then held her middle finger high into the air with pride.

  “RETURN~!” She yelled, startling our mom.

  “Huh?” Mom asked blankly in confusion.

  Layla and I vanished into a bright white light while she stood there staring at the now empty entrance.

  Going on yet another adventure.