This morning a...thing...happened. Jack and I woke up in our hotel room, but we weren’t ourselves. Jack had turned into a book. She’d somehow become a massive six-and-half-foot long, three-foot-wide book with a black cover with a glowing blue-gray gem in the center.

And I...I had turned into a rectangle. Something like an extra-wide ruler. The near-infinite lines of reality-altering data and soul energy that made up the "body" of my Idle-Clicker system had somehow been materialized and made tangible, taking the shape of a pale, not quite white, not quite black, not quite gray, stele or tablet. One that looked remarkably like a bookmark as it...I...woke up wedged between Jack’s pages.

Then suddenly just as we both grew cognizant of what just happened. It un-happened. Suddenly we were back to being two naked people lying in bed. There was a bit of awkwardness and confused arousal that came from the fact that I was still tucked between Jack’s “pages” when I was human, but there was also a great amount of fear and confusion, so neither of us were in the mood to explore the frankly frightening amount of sexual energy that we found flowing through us.

Later after two, nice, extra-long cold showers, Jack and I sat downstairs in the hotel’s dining room. Jack ate a bagel and sipped her coffee and said,

“So, uh...Are we gonna talk about that?”

I finished chewing the mouthful of omelet that I’d been working through and said,

“Um, s-, sure...We probably should, right? Because that was fucking weird, right?”

Then Jack took another sip of coffee.

“Yeah…Real weird,” I agreed.

“Or…” said Jack.

“Or?” I said.

“Or, we can do some research using your archive and pretend whatever the fuck that was...didn’t happen... for the time being,” said Jack.

“That’s an idea,” I said. Surprised to find that burying my head in the sand sounded quite attractive, at the moment. Which made me realize that I was probably much more freaked out and concerned about what was happening to us than I thought. 

“In the meantime, I’m kind of, uh,...sopping...down there. And for some bloody reason, it isn’t stopping…How about you?” said Jack.

“If our clothes weren’t enchanted to prevent shapeshifting-based wardrobe malfunctions, this table would be hanging a few inches higher…” I muttered. My tone grew more bitter, as I felt myself flushing furiously, and my erection growing almost painfully prominent in my trousers.

“Meet you upstairs for a quickie?” said Jack.

“Something tells me there’ll be nothing quick about this time,” I grumbled, without refusing.

“Fair enough…however I don’t know about you but I sincerely doubt that I’ll be getting any meaningful work done in ‘this’ state,” said Jack.

I scowled at my lower body for a moment, and saw that it was doing its best to show me, and the world at large, how mountains were formed, and nodded. Jack teleported away in a quiet burst of shadow and dark energy. I followed her, vanishing in place as if the world was erasing me.

We ended up losing a day sorting that whole “situation” out, but on the other hand, as a silver lining, our strength rose by several stages. I grew increasingly sure that something big was coming, and I couldn’t help worrying about what that change would bring.

*************************************************************************************************************

It was day four, of Jack and I’s time back in Five-Fire City. The tournament hadn’t happened yet. Jack and I were still pretty much just cooling our heels. We were currently in a nightclub that was glaring, neon, and almost painfully loud, but also kind of fun, I guess. I don’t know. The first five minutes were all “get us the hell out of here” but then at the ten-minute mark the vibe in the place just started to gel with us for some reason. Maybe it was the decor, or the mood, or the bomb-ass playlist that the club’s DJ was running tonight. Either way, the place looked and felt like something out of a post-apocalyptic anime, and Jack and I apparently were very into that.

We were with Alina and Sigi again. We’d already, more or less, hashed out our business stuff a day ago. Now we were just hanging out, and maybe we were kind of celebrating all that business stuff too. As predicted, Alina and Sigi couldn’t help us move “all” our excess produce and herbs, but the stuff they could move for us was apparently going to make us all, very, very, rich. Jack and I weren’t exactly hurting for money before, but it was always nice to be financially stable and this would most certainly help that. More importantly, it’d assure that we had something to fall back on, if things with the sect didn’t work out.

For whatever reason, that quiet rabbit-kin girl, Alisha Fayad, was also there. Though I guess her presence sort of makes sense since she was clearly Ms. Alina’s person. I’ll relent and say that even if I wasn’t entirely comfortable with her presence yet, at the very least we’d grown familiar enough to become friend”-ly”, even if we weren’t exactly friends yet. Somehow the girl seemed even shyer and more sparse with her words than I was. Meaning she’d spoken maybe three or four words during the entire evening, and two of those words were, “good evening”.

Jack got up to get more drinks and snacks for the table because waiting for a waitress to come to where we were was taking forever. I got up to help her in case some of it was heavy, or awkward to carry. A sentence that’s basically nonsense in light of the fact that my wife possesses both high levels of super strength, and telekinesis. Yet social conventions are what they are, it would have felt a little awkward if I just hung around with the rest of the group waiting for Jack to come back with our drinks.

Just as I was catching up to Jack I saw this guy approach her. He was tall, he had an athletic build. He wore his dark hair slicked back. He had a pair of sunglasses hanging from a chain made of glowing spirit-jade. And he was dressed in one of that combination part-tracksuit, part-robes, that all the rich, young, pieces of shit seemed to be wearing these days. My charisma stat and data-analysis fed me enough information about the guy for me to be instantly put off.

I stepped forwards. Crossing the distance between where I stood and where Jack the guy stood. I wasn’t trying to be aggro, or alpha, or play the white knight, or whatever other stupid term there was for it. Hell, I’d been with Jack long enough to be quite clear about her ability to fight her own battles. I just hated troublesome things, and thus liked to avoid letting the people around me run into troublesome things.

“Oh, hey, hon,” said Jack. Her cool expression turned into a warm smile as she took note of me.

“Hey, I figured you might need some help with those drinks,” I said.

Jack rolled her eyes and shook her head, both of us well aware that she was currently strong enough to lift this whole establishment with one hand, despite her physical stats being much weaker than her mental stats. All the same, she still said,

“Heh, fine...Thanks for the assist,” Jack said. Smiling lightly as she took a step back to let me grab the drinks off the counter.

“So, the big tournament’s going to finally be starting tomorrow are you excited?” said Jack.

“Meh, I guess I kind of am since I’ve never been to one before, but well with the archive…” I said. As I picked up our table’s large order of several drinks, and several baskets full of snacks.

“Yeah, I know what you mean...that library of yours has filled my head with so many experiences it sometimes gets hard to figure out which are actually…”

“Excuse me, pretty lady...Could I have a moment of your time, please?” said the silkpants, who’d clearly not bought the clue that we’d all but given away for free.

“Mhm?... Sure,” said Jack. Frowning a little as she turned around.

“Well, some friends and I know this really great club...Much more ‘exclusive’, much more high-class, and I was wondering if you’d…”

“No thanks…” said Jack. I watched any interest she had in that conversation vanish and it was almost startling how fast she went from "let's see what this is about" to not giving a fuck. Her expression was now glum and more than a little annoyed.

“Wha-?!... Come now. No need to be so obstinate, beautiful. I’m just trying to take you somewhere fu-...” said the man. Reaching out to grab Jack’s arm. Which was the point where I stepped back in, because Jack was about a second away from disintegrating him, and I could see from the aura gathering around her, that if he tried to touch her, he’d die screaming and the night would be ruined as we either ran, or stuck around to try and explain what happened to the authorities. Also, I might be shy but I was far from meek, and I didn’t really like randos getting overly friendly with my wife, especially when she was clearly not into it.

“Dude...She said no. And in case you didn’t notice, she’s clearly with somebody…” I said. My furrowing.

The man pulled his hand away from me. Or rather I let him pull his hand away after briefly considering crushing the bones of his arm in my grip.

“Tch...I was just trying to be friendly. So what if she’s with somebody. If she knew what’s good for her she’d know to hang with a better class of people,” said the guy. Sneering. Now letting “all” his wealthy second-generation, rich asshole, colors show.

“Whatever, dude...Just bugger off,” I said. Officially over this whole conversation, because the guy was making a scene, and honestly the night had been really relaxing up until now.

“B-, Bugger off?! Do you know who I am? Do you know who you’re talking to?” said the guy.

“Yes, actually...You, numbnuts, are Adrien Deniau, of the Deniau family. Age 23. Height 6’1. Weight 165 pounds. Core-Treasure...is actually a wind-pheasant feather duster, though you pretend it's that sword you carry around in the storage item your dad bought you...You’re the son of Lambert Deniau, a member of the Spice Republic’s Congress and a major shareholder in a number of the nation's major companies including the Rose-Boar Trading Company…And ‘his’ dad, your grandad, is Renart Deniau...supposedly dead, but secretly holed up in your family’s mountainside estate in the north. I know everything about you...from the last time you took a shit. Your dick size. The last person you slept with. Your net worth. Your father’s net worth. Both the actual values and the reported values...I also know all about the numerous skeletons in his and your family’s closet...I know all this...and I am STILL...telling you to bugger the fuck off...Now for the love of all, that’s holy...Please, leave, before this stops being just a matter of words,” I said. My voice getting oddly quieter and flatter the more I talked. Feeling a touch of killing intent leak out of my body despite my trying to keep it and my temper under control.

“Hiiik! This...This isn’t over!?” said the guy. Scrambling away. Running off with his friends and quickly leaving the nightclub.

I sighed as I watched the guy go.

“Should...Should I kill that guy just in case he becomes a problem later, or…?” I said.

Jack just laughed and patted me on the arm.

“Nah...We’ve got work in the morning. You’re the one who the made the rule about no all-night sex-marathons, or killing sprees, when we’ve got shit to do, the next day,” said Jack.

I grumbled.

“True…” I said.

“Still, if you’re worried about him making trouble for our friends, though I sincerely doubt either he, or even his congressman father, or his half-dead grandpa could ever make trouble for us...We can go have a nice little chat after the tournament tomorrow,” said Jack.

“Hm, I guess...Or rather, I’ll just send some constructs to keep an eye on them and their people, just in case...Maybe I’ll feed some of that intel my data-sampling pulled regarding the Deniau family to their enemies while I’m at it,” I said.

“See?... Now, on with our night,” said Jack. Pulling me towards the table where our friends were waiting.