Space distorted in the desert surrounding the facility, spitting out Michael alongside his rescued villagers. 

Falling down to the sand, Michael breathed a sigh of relief. It had been close, but he’d managed to get the remaining people out. He’d done something very few explorers could claim to have done, he didn’t completely fuck over a group of people inhabiting the land he was exploring. 

Standing up, Michael instructed everyone to sit and wait, the foundation would be here to pick them up soon.

Not fifteen minutes later he was proven correct. Foundation vehicles pulled up, ushering him and the IKEA survivors into vans.

What little friendliness the guards had during past retrievals was gone as they brought them back to the facility.

The next thing Michael knew, he was back in his cell. 

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No time at all passed before Dr. Hearthgrieve walked into the room.

He sighed, “Mr. Stevens, you really messed up this time.”

Michael was pretty sure he knew what he was talking about, but decided to ask anyways.

“What’d I mess up exactly?.”

“Don’t give me that shit. How in the hell did SCP 096 come out of the infinite IKEA? We lost dozens of guards before we managed to contain it!”

The researcher rubbed his forehead in annoyance, trying to calm himself down.

“Listen, the higher ups are really on my ass about this. I’m going to need a really good excuse from you or things are going to get worse, for both of us.”

Michael had already thought it over before coming here, he would tell Heathgrieve most of what happened, but he wouldn’t say anything about the key he was gifted or about him being an apostle of Order. 

He’d keep the key secret as a way to escape the foundation if he ever needed to, and he wouldn’t be telling anyone about the apostle thing. Who knows what implications that has, it’s probably best to keep it to myself.

With that, Michael began to tell Hearthgrieve what happened.

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After Michael had finished his story, Hearthgrieve sighed. 

“I can work with this, this seems more like a one time fluke than anything. We can still get rid of anomalies through you. As long as you don’t go wandering into another god’s backyard that is.”

He eyed Michael, who shrugged indifferently.

“This power doesn’t exactly have a steering wheel, but I’ll do what I can.”

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Off in a broken dimension, a creature with countless hands sat. What once was a grand being now was withered and broken. It sat there in silent contemplation, for it knew Order was approaching. He’d made his choice the second he’d touched that apostle, it sadly didn’t pan out for him. He used most of his strength constructing that crown and he’d never even got to use it. Time sensitive rituals really are such a pain.

It didn’t take long before space parted, as a tall figure wrapped in shadows stepped forwards. 

“So I hear you killed one of my apostles. You know deities are prohibited in harming my people, right?”

The god spoke reluctantly in it’s dead language, “Please Order, I ca-”.

“No, stay your tongue. I should honestly thank you, that apostle is much more interesting now than he was before, but nevertheless you broke my rule and I can’t be seen showing leniency. For without order, there is nothing in these worlds. Don’t you agree?”

“Please, I ca-”

Ignoring him, Order placed his hand upon the crumbling deity.

The god screamed in pain, perishing in but an instant, with its body separating into thousands of pieces.

“Ah, he made an interesting one indeed.”

Space once again parted for Order, as he smiled an impossibly wide smile.

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Michael held a blank piece of paper, trying to think of anything that would make the shifts easier. 

Honestly, he was having trouble. He had just about all the conventional weaponry he could realistically want, and he didn’t want to weigh himself down out in the field. 

What he needed was anomalous items, but he doubted the foundation would just lend them to him.

That leads him to the next problem, he needs furniture to trade to the IKEA Manager. 

Well, you never know until you ask I guess.

 

1.Anomalous furniture/Furniture not from earth.

2.Anomalyous items useful for dimensional shifts.

 

Once the paper was submitted, Michael continued his workout routine. He was beginning to see some major results in his body. He’d only been working out this body for roughly two and a half months, but he could already see a stark decrease in body fat and growth in muscle.

Honestly, it was progressing suspiciously quick. He’d been running far longer and lifting things he probably shouldn’t have been able to during the recent shifts. I suppose that’s a question to ask the Manager next time he talked to her.

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They eventually decided to move Michael back to his original facility. Apparently they wanted more time to reconsider this whole SCP disposal business, plus there were a lot of rooms in this facility they didn’t want Michael to reappear into after a shift. 

Only a couple of days passed before they ushered Michael back up to the surface, loaded him into a truck and drove him back to the other facility. 

The trip was peaceful, with Michael arriving back without incident.

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The foundation wanted to send in two D-Class with him on his next shift, but Michael refused. They had no prior training and the foundation was still refusing to give them any armor or weapons. They would be liabilities on the other side.

Michael did however say he would take anyone the foundation actually trained and armed.

They didn’t seem to take the request seriously, apparently he’d lost a lot of good will with the ‘Shy Guy’ incident.  Tension between him and the staff was somewhat high, but Michael was confident it would go back to normal soon. It’s not like he directly got any guards killed. 

No, he had several degrees of separation from their deaths. He was practically uninvolved as far as he was concerned.

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Two weeks passed in a very small amount of time. Michael had long since received the answer to his requests, which weren't surprising, everything was rejected.

Well he didn’t really expect it to go through. They covet their anomalies, no matter how useless they are. 

Except for ones like the ‘Shy Guy’, the risk with keeping him is readily apparent. Say it ran through a city trying to get to someone who saw its face. It would undoubtedly be seen by thousands of people during this process. Then what would happen if someone who saw it posted a video of it online, or if a news channel began to broadcast it live. The problem would escalate exponentially, maybe even killing millions.

The point is that disposing of the SCP is worth a couple of failures.

While having these idle thoughts, Michael began to feel disconnected from everything, as space wrapped around him and weightlessness took over his body.

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After the shift had ended, Michael gathered himself and scanned his surroundings. He stood in a lush forest. Michael couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. It appeared to be a normal forest. Maybe he’d finally gotten one of the normal dimensions Tommy seemed to get so often. Not every one of them has to be a death trap I suppose.

Michael shrugged and began walking. He couldn’t really call himself an explorer if he just sat in one place. 

A few minutes of walking passed before he came upon a long line of rather unsettling trees, they were large with low jagged branches that had dozens of animal corpses impaled upon them. I looked like they had simply walked themselves into them, with some even reaching the base of the branch.

Perched atop each tree sat a crow, with the nearest one staring daggers at Michael. Its pupils dilated as its stare grew more and more intense. Several moments passed before it finally cocked its head in confusion.

It didn’t have long to be confused though, as Michael quickly turned it into a fine red mist using his shotgun. 

He could guess what that bird was trying to do. Michael scanned the other trees, but the other birds weren’t reacting. Apparently they didn’t care about him unless he got within range of their tree. 

Walking past the wall of trees, Michael smiled. I wonder what that bird was trying to keep me from?

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AN: If y’all are enjoying the story, I’d appreciate it if you left a rating. They give me dopamine. Other than that, thanks for reading!