As we let ourselves fall upon the coarse reddish ground, we realize the raid was beyond the scope of the previous ones.

  A wave of spider. We should not have survived this raid, again. I smash my fist on the ground in frustration. We only won through luck and coincidence. Again!

  If we had not collected the necessary materials to enter the nether, we would have been swarmed by the spiders. We were lucky that the dimension was filled lava and that the spiders were highly flammable. Actually, that last point might be important. Hold on...

  "Mewtwo... I think we made the raid harder than it had to be." I pant out.

  How so? My friend asks, almost fully lying down on the hot floor.

  "Fire. You could have just blasted the spiders with fire, every time they reached us. Fuck I'm so stupid!" I berate myself.

  Hey, I did not think of it either. We were in a bit of a hurry for a solution. He tries to comfort me, but a wince of his face tells me he is also internally berating himself.

  We panicked, and failed to see the easy solution. And now we have gone to the nether, without any preparations. Well... we still have the portal. I look back at that thought, making sure the obsidian frame is still here. Thankfully, it is, as is the passage to the Ezian plane. The blue sky beyond the frame clashes with the omnipresent red of the nether. Even as I look further away into the cavernous ever expanding chamber we are in, a reddish fog obscure the distance..

  We stay on the ground trying to regain our breath. Well, Mewtwo is, I am mostly breathing to cool myself off. Yet it seems the longer we try to cool off, the hotter we get. I can even see a sheen of sweat forming upon Mewtwo's skin. Even I am feeling the heat. Faint wisps of smoke escape from my body in little white swirls. That makes me a bit concerned as Even when I ran myself a bit hot, the smoke swirl never happened. I check my coolant levels and open my eyes wide.

  "Mewtwo we need to move! I'm going to run out of coolant in a minute!" I send him my dwindling coolant tracker. And he eyes the floating windows with sunken eyes.

  He tries to come up, but stumbles, almost tripping on himself. I feel dizzy. He complains. His eyes are becoming unfocused. He tries to take another step and wobbles. The heat is also affecting him.

  "Here, lean on me, the portal is not too far." I offer my shoulder.

  He gratefully accept my offer and almost falls on top of me. The moment he touches me however, he jumps back with a scream of pain. The pinkish gray skin of his left side has turned an angry red. How are so hot! He sends me as both a reproach and genuine concern.

  The pain seems to have shaken him enough for his body to ignore his growing dehydration for now. Now aware enough to realize how dire our situation is, he rushes for the portal, and I follow close behind.

  We manage to make it out without interruption. Mewtwo moves to the side of the portal, letting himself slide against the surprisingly cool obsidian with a sigh of relief. He quickly summons an orb of chilled water and start sipping it slowly.

  On my part, the moment I clear the portal, my entire body seizes as my mechanical parts are hit by the cool air of the Ezian planes. With a lot of creaking and popping, my entire body cools, and I soon regain my full range of movements.

  By that time, Mewtwo is soundly asleep, recovering from the scorching heat of the underground dimension.

  While he rests, I observe the portal, and the dimension beyond. There is so much to say, so much to understand. I look at the tutorial section, finding the new nether subsection. An entire subsection. Another one has appeared, now regrouping all the entries centered on the Ezian planes.

  From the succinct epitaph written about the dimension, I learn mostly what I am already seeing. The nether is an underground dimension with a scorching atmosphere. The temperature is such that specialized systems, abilities or gears may be needed to overcome it.

  Something that my system seems eager to provide, at a price. For the low price of 50000xp I may purchase the Internal temperature regulator system. From the short description, it will allow my body to become more resistant to hot temperatures, the drawback however, is that my energy consumption will be tripled while that subsystem is active. It is a drawback that I have already overcome in my opinion, but the price is a bit too steep for my current budget. I almost have enough, but I still come a bit short, about 15000xp short.

  As I muse on my future upgrades, or if I should wait for the regulator system, Mewtwo wakes from his short restorative nap.

  Well that was rough. What now? Do we try to go back in? He joins me before the portal, letting the heat coming through roll over him. It feels rather nice right here... He comments.

  "Speak for yourself. I am actually consuming almost about to start consuming coolant again." I object,

  Need some? Mewtwo proposes, already summoning another orb of chilly water.

  "With pleasure." I eagerly accept the free water and let my coolant levels rise back to full. "And for your question, I'd say yes for more exploration, as we have a new quest to fill in there, but I have no ways of countering the heat right now. Unless you got something, it might be too dangerous for us right now."

  New quest? Show me. I might have a solution, not sure if it will work though. He cryptically answers.

  I display the new quest that unlocked from crossing the portal, waiting for him to elaborate.

  The quest continues with another long list of materials and items to acquire. "It is a lot of things to do." I comment. This is the first time we had a quest grouping so much different tasks in one singular quest.

  Wait is that not what we need to make runes of fire! Mewtwo points at the nether wart line.

  I check the recipe. "Yep, it sure is, and we just need some netherrack to make the nether bricks, which is the ground of the dimension itself." I confirm. "It might be worth exploring a bit. So? What's your idea for the heat counter?"

  Instead of answering me, he concentrates for a minute, and a faint shimmer envelops us. My system let me know I am now under the safeguard effect, and so is Mewtwo.

  It seems to be working, I am no longer feeling the heat from the portal. He declares. Shall we try the real thing?

  I check my coolant, finding that I am no longer at risk of overheating, and nod. "After you" I jokingly say, taking a bow and gesturing for him to go.

  He smirks and steps through the portal once more. I follow after him and join his side.

  The safeguard seems to working. I barely feel the heat anymore. "Okay it works for me. Partially I would say." As I notice the tiniest rim of emptiness appearing around my first square of coolant level. It seems to simply appear, and not move much more after that. I move around a bit to confirm and indeed, it remains mostly stable.

  "Okay, I'm putting a waypoint on the portal. I do not want to loose our only escape out of here." I open the map and place the marker.

  Well, we still have plenty of obsidian left for another one. Mewtwo points out. Which is true, he collected enough that we can make about three more actually. Do we leave it open? He adds.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  And I ponder the question as well. Do we let a passage to a dimension that maybe no human ever went to open?

  As if to prove my point, I notice a slugma slowly sliding toward us. The lava slug pokemon eyes us. Its large yellow eyes look at us in curiosity. Then I notice its level, and my own eyes open wide. Level three hundred, and still it is unevolved. Is it by choice? Are pokemons stronger from the start here? More questions that may remain without answers until our next raid.

  The slugma suddenly frown, and a hole opens beneath his flat head, letting out a torrent of fire. Mewtwo reacts in time conjuring a protect, but I am too surprised to act.

  The flames wash over me, shattering the safeguard. Astra! I hear Mewtwo's cry, but I cannot answer. My vision fills with red and yellow, then white, then nothing. I catch a glimpse of a warning window, before blackness fills my vision.

  I do not feel the wave of flames peters out after a minute, or see the slugma observes his work. I can do nothing. Somehow I am still alive, but I am stuck within myself. Just me, and Aster, panicking.

  Do not move! I am trying to lure the slugma away. Mewtwo sends me, and I have no choice but to believe him. Aster soul fragments scream in horror, some already accepting failure, others uselessly banging on invisible walls that do not exist.

  After some time, maybe a minute, I fell something shift within me, and a sense of vertigo takes hold of me. What happened? Wait, I cannot feel touch either? As I realize the extent of my sensory deprivation, Aster's fragments become rabid. Screaming for me to do something, anything.

  Okay, I managed to convince him to leave us. He took you for something called a piglin. No idea what that is- Oh Trio! Astra! Astra? If you can hear me please think so!

  Okay how bad is it for him to panic like that? I shut down the panic of Aster, and let the thought of me still being alive be at the forefront of my head, and hear a psychic sigh form my friend.

  Thank the Three. He sends in relief. Eh, that's a new one. So how bad is it?

  Well... He then imposes his own vision upon my currently nonexistent one for a moment. And... wow. Okay yeah that might be bad.

  I am a charred metallic corpse. Well almost. The more armored parts of my body are only warped and slagged. Most of the damage is on the fleshier side of my body. All of my skin is gone, letting what remains beneath on full display. The cables and synthetic muscles are either completely burnt or partially melted. My metallic bones are partly covered in soot, and some appears have partially melted as well. The worst is my face however. The metallic skull half turned downward is a disturbing sight to behold. Also now I know what the vertigo was, my shins have bent in half, and I have collapsed forward. Further proof that my metallic parts have also been heavily damaged.

  Yep, I'm fucked good. Mewtwo, get us out of here. Nether is a no go.

  Yes, sorry for trying to go back in.

  Eh, not your fault, no way of knowing the pokemons would be so powerful here, or so aggressive, but then again the environment might make it a prerequisite to even think of surviving.

  Alright I am going to move you. Mewtwo warns me.

  Vertigo takes hold of me once more, and I feel myself floating. After another minute or so, The sensation stops, and I am left unmoving.

  We are out. I am going to dismantle the portal, The heat might make you worse.

  I think my approval, as well as a request for him to share his vision with me.

  A second later, colors return to my world, from a point of view that seems higher than I have become accustomed to. The weird snout barely visible at the edge of my new set of eyes tells me this is Mewtwo's raw sight. Seeing his three finger hands is also a good giveaway.

  I watch as he slowly cut out one of the sides of the portal. His sharpened psychic blade slowly cuts through, and once he cuts all the way to the inner part of the portal frame, the passage shatters into purple shards. The jump that happens when it happens tells me there might be more than just a visual effect.

  It shattered with a sound like broken glass. Mewtwo specifies. It startled me. The shards are ethereal though, the few that fell on me just passed through without any effects.

  I thank him, and the return to dismantling the portal. He looks back toward me at time, and I can see a slideshow of my own healing process.

  At first, a faint silver glimmer can be seen within my empty orbits and between the cables still remaining all over my body, growing more and more each time Mewtwo looks back. Until it starts spilling out. The moment Mewtwo notices that happening, he moves closer, inspecting it. Still okay?

  'Still okay' I think hard. With another psychic sigh, he returns to the portal. He has removed one of the sides of the frame, leaving a the portal as an inverted C shape.

  The fact that he managed to break apart the frame is a good thing, as I created it using the builder tool. Him being able to destroy structures I build is something we had not tried too in depth, and should help us in future situations.

  Another look at my regenerating body shows I am now covered in silver goo from head to toe. The nanomachines that are repairing me are working hard.

  A sudden rush of static fills the silent void that is my actual body, making me internally jump, and throw Aster's fragment into panic once more. I calm them down quickly once I realize what has happened. I have regained my hearing.

  The static quickly clears, replaced by the faint buzz of Mewtwo's psychic sword, the chitter of my nanomachines repairing me, and the loud sound of the breeze blowing over our platform.

  I hear Mewtwo's feet tap gently as he turns toward me, having sensed my sudden burst of distress. I can hear again, it's loud.

  I hear and feel his sigh this time. the faint huff of breath leaving his body as he calms himself.

  I am surprised spending merely a couple minutes, or is it more? stuck in absolute silence was enough for the return of sound to feel so overwhelming. Yet it is nothing compared to the next sense I regain. One I barely ever acknowledge to this point: smell.

  The crisp air feels like a burn to my nasal cavity, mixed with a faint sulfur smell, as well sweat and stone dust. Again, my sensitivity lowers back to only being only noticeable if I concentrate on it rather quickly, but the first jolt has me reeling internally.

  Smell is quickly followed by taste, something I had not realized I had lost, but the metallic taste that fills my mouth is more than happy to remind me I still possess the ability. It appears whatever false flesh normally fills my mouth must not have rebuilt itself yet, as I can taste both the nanomachines and then plastic on top of the metallic taste. No gag reflex though, I simply suffer through the horrendous taste.

  Then Mewtwo's sight broadcast becomes covered with a white sheen as my vision returns. Along with a plethora of warnings, messages, and lines of code scrolling at high speed.

  It takes a couple seconds for my sight to adjust itself again, but soon, I can see myself looking at Mewtwo looking at me, both vision superimposed on top of each other.

  Hey I can see now. From Mewtwo's point of view, two eyeballs have filled the empty eye sockets of my shiny metallic cranium. He shivers as they look around, in their glorious wholeness. He cuts the mental feed and I watch him work from the ground.

  I still cannot talk. So he gets to work in silence. He still glances at me once in a while, but I can see he is a bit more relaxed now.

  While I wait for my body to once again be mobile, I check the messages, groaning internally when I notice I have consumed almost two third of my power, and at the rate I am still consuming it, might soon run out.

  As I check my inventory, I pat myself on the back for having converted most of my system chips out of manasteel. Speaking of, I have lost no items from my internal storage. So the inventory storage has still not been damaged, or I have back ups or something. My tinker armor is gone though. I now have a scrapped version of it in my inventory. A glace tells me it is merely broken and may be repaired with the right materials. This reassures me as the armor had gone up a few levels of familiarity, and I would have been a bit peeved to loose that small bit of progress.

  Also, do I still have the bands? Mewtwo? Can you check?

  My question reaches my friend, and I watch as he moves next to me and lift my left arm, where he knows I should have the bands. I still feel nothing as he does so.

  Still there. In a surprisingly good state. He tells me.

  Well that's one less thing to worry about.

  After another couple minutes, my sense of touch finally returns returns. It feels like electricity runs all over my flesh-like parts, while only a mild tickling sensation passes through my more metallic limbs. With touch comes movement. Jerky at first, but quickly becoming better with every minutes that passes.

  The first thing I do is ingest as much food as I can, just to stabilize my power consumption. This little accident almost left me dry. Thankfully our food supplies are enough to staunch the power drain, and my body safely finishes repairing itself.

  I am quite amazed at how much punishment I can take now. I still remember how the first Praetor we faced almost got me over my far weaker limit from before.

  Once I am certain I can move without glitches, I get up. I join Mewtwo and start collecting the obsidian blocks he broke down. While doing so, my voice finally returns, as does my hair, signalling the end of my repairs. "Not going back in there until I can resist your flamethrower." Is the first thing I declare.

  Mewtwo turns my way in confusion before nodding in agreement. That would be a good way to see how resistant I am.

  We finish dismantling the portal, then the platform and return to the ground.

  The savanna floor, once covered in short yellow grass, is now a trampled mess of overturned dirt and spider corpses, some still smoking from being set on fire. I collect as much as I can from them before we turn back east, and continue our journey. If we manage to keep our previous pace, we should reach our next land mark, Raging Lake, in two to three days. It will depend on what we find on the way.

  The group of hunters looks at where, two hour ago, they saw a pillar rise to the sky, then turn into a floating platform. A trick performed by a single person. A trick no one had ever done before. And now the platform has gone, nothing remains but their memories of the act.

  "Again, please tell me we all saw that." One of the armored men asks for maybe the eleventh time.

  "Yes Joan, we all saw the cyborg build a pillar of stone fifty meters into the sky, then make a platform and, against every rules of physic, destroy the only pillar supporting the platform, only for the platform to FUCKING FLOAT!" The other armored man roars at his colleague. "Now I am more curious about that whole gone and returned shit Rosie. Explain! Again!"

  Rosie, the only woman of the group, and the hunt mistress chosen to lead the group, covered in pokemon leather and bones gears, looks at where the platform floated.

  "I... I don't know Dan. They got to the platform, we saw them defend against the spiders, then they did something, disappeared, and returned then disappeared again. And now they are continuing east. I don't understand how they did it. I don't even understand how they destroyed all those fucking spiders. that like a sixth month raid for year 5 to 10 on crack. I've never seen the spider wave grow so big! I didn't know it could grow so big!"

  "So... let us resume." The man covered in gear similar to Rosie's starts. "Our preys can, one, create structures that defy the laws of physic, two, do so in a rather short time, and three, somehow disappear as well as make more then half a million spiders disappear with them. Did I miss anything?"

  "Add that they can fly to the list, Achilles," Dan adds.

  "And ONE of them can fly, and make the other fly." Rosie corrects. "Dan, Graves, you will need to take care of the half-machine alone, while we Achilles and I deal with the legend. We cannot let them work together. We have got to separate them." She finishes, and her three companions nods.

  "Would have been easier with Carrie." Graves mutters.