Mystery from Another World

Part 37: The Ultimatum

[OP: "No More, No Less"-- mercyme.]

After a brief lull in the conversation, Shine and Wally exchanged some looks as if they were having a silent conversation. Finally, they nodded.

Shine tugged her hair nervously. "Look... maybe it's time to tell you the real reason we're here too... I think you're ready."

"What?" Todoroki looked up, "But... you said..."

"I've been watching you, and you've changed your way of handling it," Shine said. She nodded at Momo and Bakugo. "You must be curious too, right?"

Momo nodded. Bakugo just gazed at her warily.

Shine drew a deep breath:

"I can't break it all down for you yet, but let's cover the gist of it. World Walkers are sent to worlds to help them, as you already know. It's most often to a world on the brink of some great change. I can only think of a few exceptions in my mind. When it's a group of people like this, that's always the case too. Some groups are chosen for a reason and time in history. Our powers usually adjust to the world to offer them the help they need the most. But there's some that are always the same. Like Insight-- I always have the ability to see things others don't see. It's what helps the most usually.

"The person who sends us, as Momo knows, is God."

She got blank stares in response to this.

"God...?" Todoroki said incredulously.

"What that frick is that supposed to mean?" Bakugo said.

"I mean what I say. Literally, God." Shine pulled her Bible out from under her pillow. "This book is like our instruction manual for what to do when we arrive. So many passages fit what we do... Who else do you think could transcend dimensions without being driven mad? But you don't have to believe it. A lot of people refuse to. It's easier to say it's science or some other force. But it wouldn't be true."

She fingered the book. "I don't know why it's required to travel worlds. It would be simple enough to use people in the world to wrought change... but from experience, all I can say is, worlds are inextricably connected, whether we travel them or not, and someone has to take care of that connection. Someone has to try to preserve the right way. If one world suffers, many others suffer with it. What happens here affects people somewhere else. Not usually directly, but in ways it would be hard to trace back, unless you knew about this. So, when things need changing, we're sent. And we help change them."

The 3 students stared at her some more.

"What kind of changes?" Bakugo was the only one able to form words just then.

"Depends on the world," Shine smiled reflectively, "Once, I helped coach a girl who was trying to overthrow her whole system that was corrupted beyond repair. She needed someone who wouldn't try to drag her back into it... Often, World Walking is just a free person teaching someone who no longer wants to be a slave. I've been free longer, and Wally's been free longer, so we help people struggling to get free learn how to do it. Many a rebel has crashed and burned for lack of wisdom and experience, and as an American, I hold my country's example for well informed rebels succeeding the most to be in very high esteem."

She shrugged. "Other times, someone just needs to understand something better. Or their life could be on the line, and they are important. There's no hard and fast rule for what requires our help. God isn't like that. He doesn't make things cookie cutter. The last world we were in, they couldn't defeat this immortal demonized person, and they lacked the powers to overcome them. Our gift to them was a knowledge of what real power is. We were very powerful there, more than we are here. I don't think that's the gift you need."