A familiar darkness enveloped Michael.

This was the space between, the void that fills in the cracks. An expanse in which all worlds sit. Though at the Agency for World Development, it was just called the In-Between.

Michael could see nothing as he drifted, but he was far from scared as a small spark of excitement ran through him. Since entering this fragmented world, it was the first thing with a direct connection to their work. All their calling had gotten no response from the Overworld, but creaking a realm, that seemed to do the trick.  

“Michael?! By the Mother’s Under Branches! Michael!” The sound was sudden as Michael slightly flinched at the call.

“Dahlia?” Michael looked around but saw no screen. Still he knew that panicking voice. Dahlia’s soft breathy tone filled the space as her long-distressed shout was followed by a series of concerning cracks and bangs.

Suddenly a small rectangular screen opened in front of him, momentarily blinding him. However, once he got his sight back, what he saw was a welcome scene.

The otherworldly face of a young woman was stuck close to the screen as if she had a hard time judging the distance. Her beauty was something that could daze the masses as large watery fuchsia eyes were filled with a mix of relief and worry. Her entire look could be considered sweet, a fresh flower with her soft round face, perky nose, and delicate lips. Only those who worked with her knew the trouble that lied beneath the floral façade.

The flower metaphors wouldn’t stop there either because Dahlia was far from mortal. Her semitransparent pale green skin was a major marker of that. Along with thick yellow petal like hair that flowed over the plant woman’s shoulders and puffed up as she gripped at the screen. Her worry morphed into excitement as a row of sharp white teeth became visible

“By All That Sit! You’re alive!” She nearly shook the screen as her voice rose. “Pollenate me and call me a daisy! Guys! Get over here!” Her shouts made Michael’s everything hurt. He fought against the urge to just close his eyes and sleep. No, he had to stay awake.

“Dahlia, what is going on?” As great as this was, he was still in the dark on why they hadn’t been able to contact the Overworld.

“No clue.” Dahlia’s response was straight to the point, but it was not exactly the answer you want while you floated in the In-Between.

“When we went to extract you after the last mission, something happened, and we completely lost your signal. Me and Dandelion have been working hard to find you, but it was like you two were never there. Poof. Gone.” Her shoulders shrugged. Definitely not instilling any sense of confidence as Michael sighed.

“Then how did you find me now? Is it because of the World Root?” He didn’t know how much time they had to talk, but there were somethings that he needed to clear up.

“Almost blowing the place up.” She said nonchalantly. “It’s been a while since you’ve had such an explosive near character break. Dandelion saw it and hooked on.” Dahlia then paused and gave a sheepish smile, “Also it seems that one of the World Roots nearly blew up as well.”

“What?” Michael honked out the words. Shit, that was bad. The Mother Tree already didn’t like him. To blow up one of her roots, even on a fragmented world, oof. For a second, he turned green before he thought of the Banyan Maiden. Had it been her? But he had been far away during his break and when they approached the Banyan it seemed weaker, not overcharged.

“We don’t know either. But there was a large surge in the root system that accompanied your almost break. Large enough that I’m shocked we haven’t been messaged by the Caretakers yet. Even the three of us felt it.”

“If they did call, would you pick up?” Michael raised an eyebrow. Like hell any of the Triplets would answer to the Mother Tree’s people. But Dahlia said nothing as she pulled up a side monitor.

“Things are busy up here.” She changed the conversation. “Everything is distorted, and half the system is garbage.”

“Is the link stable though?” That was the most important thing.

“Aaaaa-“As Dahlia went to answer she was swiftly yanked away off screen. In her place appeared a man with strikingly similar features. The only difference besides from slightly smaller mint green eyes and a stern atmosphere, was the stronger yellow tone in his face and a crown of pedals that helped to highlight his regal air.

“No, it’s quite unstable.” Dandelion’s tone was flat as he stared at Michael.

“Shit.” Michael hissed.

“It’s not all dreadful. Leona managed to get an old program in place. It’s not as stable as a link, but we will be able to stay in contact.” He paused. “More or less.”

“Does Boss or Big Boss know?” If anything, one of those two could definitely fix this mess.

“Big Boss is out of office and the Goat left early due to a home emergency.”

“Well, fuck.”

“Exactly.” The words were an exhausted sigh as Dandelion rubbed his forehead. “It’s a conundrum. Our normal solutions aren’t working and even the patches we jerry-rigged in are barely passable.”

“Anything from the other teams or departments?” Even if they weren’t known as the most…sociable team, there were other veterans of this developmental fuckery who should be able to help.

“Radio silence. We aren’t sure if this is a system wide failure or unique to you.”

“Have you even left the basement to check?” Michael glared; these plants were such anti-social hermits. Their office connected to the rest of the building, what did he mean by ‘radio’? Stairs, elevator, teleport, all those were available options.

“Don’t get angry at me.” The glare did nothing to disrupt Dandelion’s placid mood. “It’s not that simple-“

“Take the elevator!” Michael wanted to punch something as he thought about how his retirement might have been lost because one shut in flower didn’t want to take the stair.

“It’s already stressful enough around the office. Don’t start.” Dandelion shut him down. He was even more of a veteran of Michael’s moods than Alexander, but unlike that neutered demon, he would not stand it. “Sun is still locked in a development mission. Daffodil is keeping an open line with him to make sure he doesn’t get stuck as well. Dahlia and I have been trying to catch your tail this entire time and Leona was searching up solutions to patch the system. We’ve been a bit preoccupied.”

“Sorry if I’m a bit antsy. It’s just we could potentially, you know, die.” Michael spat back but didn’t pursue it farther.

“Look, Leona just headed up to see if she can find out more from the other departments. But like with anything, that takes time. You need to be patient.” His sigh seemed bone deep as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Brother, we’re losing the connection.” Dahlia’s voice chirped up from off screen.

“Look, just keep up your development.” The words came quickly as the screen began to waver. “Maybe once everything stabilizes, we’ll be able to figure something out. Don’t break the world.” The last words came out half garbled as the connection faded and Michael was violent thrown from the In Between and plummeted back into Hunter.

 

“Jesus Christ!”

Michael’s ears rang as Giselle half shouted the words at him. Knelt over him, her hand hovered halfway behind her head as she prepared another slap to try and wake him.

“Did…Did you slap me?” Everything hurt, but his jaw was suffering from a particularly spiteful spike of pain. Before he got his answer, Giselle pulled him into a rib breaking hug. “Ah! Fuck! Stop! Stop!” If he didn’t get a punctured lung from this, it would be considered a miracle.

“Giselle, stop it.” Ellen’s exhausted voice cut in from the side as she pulled Giselle away. Freed from her death hug, Michael fell back onto the ground in defeat.

Above him a peaceful blue Florida morning passed by. Thin wisps of clouds lazily crawled as he was bathed in the warmth of the sun. The world wasn’t quiet or loud, just the normal hums of birds and insects as curls of wind rustled the trees.

“We’re alive?” In shock he breathed out the words. He went to turn his head, but stiffness had already set in as loud chorus of pops emanated from him. It was probably ok.

“Somehow, we’re still breathing.” A rarely heard laugh left Ellen’s lips as she rubbed the back of her head. Everything about her was a mess. Her clothing destroyed by cuts, gore, and fire. Her hair had fallen from its braid and now was half over her shoulders as a layer of grim coated her skin. It looked like she had just been mudding through the Everglades. “And only we came out.”

That was the best news to her. When she had broken the cornerstone, she had no idea what would happen. There was a chance that everything would be dumped out with them. But when she opened her eyes, she was standing alone under the Banyan. The glow was gone, and the town was empty, but they were back in the real world. After kissing the ground and offering up her thanks to those cruel fuckers in the sky, Giselle found her. The woman had also made the transition back safely and could even summon her wolf as a mount. The only one they weren’t sure about was Hunter.

Giselle lost track of him the moment the realm shifted. It took an hour-long manhunt and Giselle’s raven to find him on an abandoned rooftop unconscious. At first, they feared the worse but found him still breathing.

“Are we still in Banyan’s Hallow?” He wasn’t even sure if this town was real or just a fever dream by this point.

“Yup.” Giselle nodded over the roof top. “It’s the same as we left it. Well sort off. A bit more abandoned.”

“I should rephrase that. Why are we still in this hell hole?” Even though mentally he felt a lot better, Michael had no desire to stay in a town that had nearly murdered them moments before.

“Well, we had to make sure you came back you.” Michael followed Ellen’s eyes as they momentarily moved to Giselle’s gun. She had one bullet left. If Hunter woke up the wrong person, well, they would deal with that.

Michael could barely hold back his stuttering dry laugh as he rested a dirt encrusted hand against his forehead. “Thanks for not shooting me.”

“Anytime!” Giselle was giddy from their survival as she patted him on the thigh and jumped up. Her adrenaline was still going strong as she yanked him to his feet.

“Since I’m me, can we please return to HQ now? I feel like death warmed over.” Michael groaned as he leaned on the two women. They easily dragged him back to Ellen’s car. They would send a tow for their vehicles later, right now, it was time to get back.

Michael slumped across the back seat as the other two sat up front. A sense of quiet harmony overtook the rivals. They say beating death together is enough to mend any relationship and it seemed to be working on these two as Ellen let Giselle fiddle with the radio until they landed on a station, they could both agree on.

Michael had no say, but he really didn’t care. As soon as the car started moving, all the pent-up exhaustion hit him like a ton of bricks. It was impossible to keep his eyes open even as he heard Ellen take a call. He wanted to know what new plot element had shown up. But he lost the war against sleep and nodded off instead.

 

“It didn’t explode now did it Dandelion?” Hidden within the canopy of the Protector tree, Alexander hadn’t moved since last night. In the beginning his vigil was in hopes that any other fluctuations in Michael’s contract could be solved with the tree’s help. On top of that he believed that the best cellphone reception was up here as well. However, instead of a call from his missing husband, it was Dandelion who had contacted him first.

Alexander had been begrudgingly pleased with the call but to tell the truth, it was less important to him than getting a call from Michael. Unfortunately, they were the ones to reach out to him first, so he couldn’t say no. After a quick briefing on the situation, the eldest of the Triplets filled him in on a few more details that he had grab about the fragmented world.

“You are worse than your husband.” Dandelion felt another headache coming on as he processed the fact Alexander had recklessly used a World Root as flood line.

“If the Caretakers have a problem, tell them to come and find me.” Alexander hardly feared the bunch of plants who watched over the Mother Tree. As important and pompous as they acted, they could barely survive being separated from their big mama for more than 5 minutes. Like hell they would get their robes dirty and descend.

“Easy for you to say. They’ll harass me instead!” Dahlia whined in the background. Even if they all sprouted from the same place, the Triplets had a complex relationship with their brethren. Dandelion gave them both a look and pushed his sister back to work.

“Look. You need to be careful and Michael needs to be even more careful.” It felt like he was dealing with children as Dandelion flatly scolded the man. “This world is frankly a mess and not in our immediate queue. It’s not even a fragment that would be on our radar. If things go south, we can‘t just grab you. Dahlia is trying to establish a pseudo link—"

A string of loud curses echoed in the background as the woman’s normally breathy voice solidified into harsh shouting.

“But it’s going to take some time.” Dandelion finished his sentence right before Dahlia popped up over his shoulder.

“Couldn’t you have crashed onto a closer world?!” She bared her teeth as her numerous monitors floated behind her. Lines of letters, numbers and characters created a mind-numbingly blurred mess as the system processed her request and spat out another error.

“It’s not like we had a choice.” Alexander sighed and played with a bit of the tree trunk. “At least we landed somewhere.” They still had no idea how they got into this mess, but it could have been worse. While it was rare, Developers had gotten lost in the In-Between before. Afterall most who worked as Developers for the Agency could not traverse easily through the In-Between like gods and other higher beings. Instead they relied on the Agency’s system monitored by their team stationed at Home Base. Alexander didn’t know what would have happened if they had been stuck in the void.

“I guess that’s true.” Dandelion replied flatly. “Also, even though I’d hate to admit it, you nearly destroying the root actually might have helped your case.”

“Oh, really?” A cockiness infected his words as Alexander smirked.

“Shut up you horny satyr.” Dandelion hissed as he brought up his own neat monitor and displayed a few readings. “This Root, while strong in context of this world, would have taken another few centuries to grow into a stable bridge. With your sudden energy flood, it basically grew to that state overnight.”

“Meaning?” Alexander drew out the word a bit impatient.

“Meaning that you aren’t completely dead. We can actually provide a little help.”  

“So ‘exceptions’ are possible?” Alexander perked up. Exceptions were the bread and butter of World Developers. Everything from abilities for their host bodies to world information was available through them. The only thing was their usefulness was determined by the Developer’s energy and status. That was of little concern for the husbands as they had accrued more energy than was technically safe.

The face Dandelion gave did not instill a sense of confidence in Alexander though as he scowled. “At the moment, I can’t really say. The root is partially stable, but untested. On top of that it’s more powerful than the fragmented world it’s connected to. Using it might cause the world to collapse.”

“By this point I feel that a moderately strong breeze will cause this place to collapse.” Alexander rolled his eyes.

“I wonder whose fault that is?” The two glared at each other. Dandelion broke it first as he shook his head and gave in. “Fine, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Can I at least get the plot?”

“Ha.” Dandelion gave a dry laugh. “Plot? What plot?”

“Don’t be a dick.” Alexander growled.

“I mean it. This world belongs in the trash. There’s a reason why it was not in the queue. From what we could see, there was no plot.”

“You should get better at your job. This world has a plot, Neil along with Hunter have scenes and backgrounds.”

“Oh. Oh.” That last oh dropped an octave as he rushed to look through his monitor again.

“What is it now?”

“Well, even if there is an overarching plot. We have no idea what it is.” His language had devolved into heavy sighs as he flicked away his monitor. “Only story that is coming up are scraps of what you guys have personally developed, such as your character relationships and locations.”

“You got to be kidding me?”

“Look, I’ll see what I can do about Exceptions.” It wasn’t like he wanted to put more on his plate, but Dandelion still quickly jotted down the task on his note pad. “No promises.”

“Make that a top priority.” Alexander demanded. Even if he hated to admit it, Exceptions were just too useful for their work. If he couldn’t get a plot one, there were all sort of abilities that if he had on hand would make it easy to deal with both the witches and his pack. Also, it would probably calm Michael as well. Something familiar in their odd situation.

“Like I said, we’ll see what we can do. I’ll have Dahlia work on it.”  

At the sound of her name the middle triplet glared at her older brother. He did not respond to it though, only prompting her to aggressively point at her six others monitors as her white robe sleeves crisply cracked through the air. ‘How dare you’ was etched into her expression, but Dandelion replied with a placid unwavering smile.

“How long is a few?” Alexander asked, flicking a twig out of the canopy.

“About five days in your current world’s time.”

“Quite quick.” The taunt could have been better placed as Dandelion glared at him.

“I can make it two weeks if you’d like?”

“Five days it is.”

Dandelion was happy that demon could understand his place as he went to wrap up the conversation but remembered something.

“On a side note, we picked up something weird when we talked to Michael.” It had been brief. So brief in fact that Dahlia hadn’t even seen it. Dandelion had thought for a moment it was only a glitch on the monitor until he saw it again.

“Well he did nearly break character. You know how that can be.” Michael’s situation was more than a little unique and the tension of being stuck in this world without his normal restraints had done nothing to help with it.

However, Dandelion shook his head. “No, it wasn’t that. Trust us, we know your energy signatures quite well.” He then frowned. “This one was completely alien. It only flickered for a second twice, very faint. But for the moment I did see it, it reacted as if it noticed me looking. Slipped away before I could get a proper reading.” That was troubling. There were many things that existed out there, but most avoided the Fragments because of Big Boss’ claim on them for the Agency. If this had been a Developer, the system would have recognized them, but this was something else. “Be careful.”

Well, ambiguous cryptic warnings were Alexander’s favorite as his scowl deepened. “If you say be careful one more time, I’m going to reach through this screen and throttle you.” Even as he said that, he felt an itch as he thought of whatever had happened to Michael last night. He knew his husband was alive, but…he gritted his teeth.

Completely unphased, Dandelion continued. “We’re shutting down the connection for now. In two days’ time, expect our call. Till then, keep safe and don’t break anything.” While the words sounded light-hearted, his expression was grim. “Try not to die.”

The connection faded before Alexander could respond. Left alone, the quiet was deafening as the worry and frustration that had been brewing all night mixed with his lack of sleep. He cut into the tree in an attempt relieve some of his pent out stress. But it did little as a long deep groan escaped his lips.

Once more he pulled out his phone and checked for any missed calls or messages. Anything to update him on the situation. He trusted Michael, but his heart was stuffy. When he was about to put away his phone again, it suddenly lit up. Like the answer to his prayer, Alexander’s heart soared as he answered Michael’s call.

 

A/N

First of all, Lucky number 13! Also, the close up for the stuck in a bloody domain section of the arc. But so much dialogue. Ahhhh, I can’t wait to get through these plot chapters and get to fluff. It’s coming soon. Fluff is a breeze to write when compared to playing the game of give and take when it comes to backstory seeding. Like as an author, I know what’s going on in the background which can make it hard to not give away information that shouldn’t be known yet. When I originally wrote the roughs I was so into it, but now having to look at everything critically, it’s only pain. Almost skipped a chapter too since in the document I keep all my rough writing in the chapter numbers no longer line up. I’m like 3 chapters ahead in the numbering of my editing document. D->