It was like walking into one of my worst nightmares. Bugs were everywhere, moving in what seemed to be every direction at once.

“Do not stop; just carefully grab one of my spikes and close your eyes. You can keep on walking with their shut, and it would be bad for you. Still, this is pretty sad that a giant monster would be scared of bugs,” Dani told me as I tried not to freak out every time something touched me.

“I am not scared, what I am is uncomfortable, and I don’t like the feeling of things lightly touching my skin like everything is now! Though I agree with you about closing my eyes, I will end up going silent for the entire trip,” I told the orange and black caterpillar as I grabbed one of her spiked tentacles.

“Promise? Not one word the whole trip?” Dani asked in a harsh voice that made me roll my eyes as I closed my hand around one of her spiked tentacles.

The spike on the black appendages was sharp but not like razors, and I was able to take hold of one with a careful grip. The feeling was smooth and velvety, yet tough, but the spikes were slightly warm.

I forced my body into a simulated auto-pilot mode that would allow me to use the central area of my mind. This would allow me to still walk and observe the area better than my eyes and talk more about the Dark Elementals.

I slipped into the center of my mind, but I was on the bridge of a space battleship this time. It was from some movie I have once seen or maybe something I had read in a book once, but that didn’t matter.

Inside, all my elementals and Harold were in sweats and a matching grey hoodie. I was wearing gym shorts and a hoodie, so it wasn’t like I could really give him a hard time for looking like a slob.

“Coffee?” Harold asked me in as he stood over beside a counter that was entirely out of place and looked like it belonged in a government office break room.

“Does it even do anything?” I asked, and Harold shrugged.

“It’s your mind; make it do whatever you want it to,” Harold said as he came over and handed me a cup that said “SSOB” filled with steaming coffee.

I took the cup and then turned it around to see the other side, and there was something different on the other side.

Stupid Son Of a Bitch

Reverse acronym for boss

Thank me for the free knowledge later

“Smartass,” I growled as I sipped on the bitter and strong black coffee that was just the right temperature before scalding your mouth.

“This stuff isn’t bad,” rumbled Grogvel as he stood at the center console table that had a three-dimensional map floating above it.

Grog was looking like the Thing, but more quartz stone today with a white lab coat, with the stoic Windorf in a guard captain’s uniform. They were both watching the insane amount of bugs that were moving around inside the first layer of the Citipod.

“I don’t know how you all drink that stuff; it runs right through me,” Windorf said as he looked between the two of us.

I refused to look directly at Windorf or laugh at his horrible joke. Instead, I focused on where we were headed; a massive dome and the bottom of the city.

The thing that was interesting is that the mass of bugs that we were walking through right now was only like this for half the way, and then after that, it looked calm, but our progress was plodding.

Still, I didn’t think it would take us more than twenty minutes to reach the next area, so I turned away from the map. I looked around for Fireden, who was in control of monitoring me walking, and he just waved at me, also with a coffee in his other hand.

“Harold already went to the lab he set up down the hall; you can’t miss it. Wataluga is with him, and there is only one door, so you can’t miss it. I got the steering wheel for now,” Fireden explained to me and raised his coffee mug to me in a cheers motion.

I returned the gesture, reading the “I’m Hot” on Firedens mug with a smile as I did. Then I turned the rest of the way around and headed over to the futuristic sliding doors that opened when I got near them.

Out in the corridor were all-metal walls, but it was nothing more than plain paneling. In fact, the whole place felt very bare-bones, like it was missing a bunch of different places and decorations.

Still, this was just a place in my mind, so It wasn’t like anything that I did inside of my head really mattered, or did it? Harold’s words start to run through my head again from when I just entered my mind.

I wondered just how true that might be as I walked down the hall and reached the set of sliding doors at the end. If I could affect the world out there from inside here, this place might become extremely valuable in the future.

I walked up to the door, and it opened to a dim room filled with machines covered up with clothes. At the end of the room, three large glass cylinders were all empty, and three people were waiting for me.

“So you are going to come and try to help rip me apart?” Maelstrom asked in a high-pitched male voice, and I raised an eye at them.

“I haven’t finished explaining what exactly we are trying to do here and what will happen if we do. We need to talk about what happens if the dark energy escapes,” Harold explained, and Maelstrom to him with a pout on their face.

“What?! I thought you said that we were going to do it? I don’t want to feel you violating my other half more!” Maelstrom whined, but it sounded forced, and Harold rolled his eyes, but I felt like I was late to the party.