Broken Hourglass (Sanscest Multiship)

Chapter 17 - Cycle 1 End

He tried to be a good daughter. He really did, always playing along with whatever was expected, followed the rules, but it never made it feel right.

Of course, without the words to explain how he felt, Outer had no way of communicating what was wrong.

"Can't you just be normal for once?"

"Sorry, dad," Outer apologized. He then scurried off to his room, away from the houseguests.

"She needs an attitude adjustment if you ever expect her to get married," one of them said. Thankfully, that was all he heard before being safely back in his bedroom.

At least in there, he didn't have to be worried about what everyone else wanted from. It was hard to see how it would ever get better.
—
Outer wondered how in the world he ended up in this situation. Not all that long ago, he had been on his way to grab a notebook that he forgot.

"Dammit, Outer, you've been out of training for a month. You can't start forgetting things now," Outer scolded himself. The report needed to be done tonight but without his notes, there wasn't much he could do. Although there wasn't anything to report, as the people they were watching for hadn't shown up yet, the higher ups still expected a report. The only solution was to run back to base real quick and get the notebook.

Simple, right? Wrong.

Outer walked back towards the base, talking to himself quietly, when he almost ran into someone. Whoops.

"Oh. I am so sorry about that. I was just thinking about something important, didn't see ya there." Outer apologized as he crossed his arms over his chest tightly.

"It's no problem. Just watch out next time," the stranger responded. He looked a bit familiar. Speaking of familiar, Outer saw Razz, aka, the bitch who wanted the report, which was nowhere near done, along with a couple others he had seen in passing. Fuck. Time to get out of here.

"We should probably get out of here. They look angry." He said, pointing at the approaching group.

The stranger took off, Outer following close in a near sprint. Dang, was he fast. They took cover behind a building only to be confronted by another group, these ones pointing pistols at them. The ones behind them had caught up. There wasn't anywhere else to go.

"What do you think you're doing?!" One of them shouted, Outer would have recognized them if not for the fact that he was very much panicking.

As he was about to explain what a funny misunderstanding this was, his new acquaintance opened a time portal and it finally clicked where he had seen the other before. Alas, it was too late as Outer was tackled through the portal before he could do anything.

That led to him planning on breaking into one of his complexes with the people who basically kidnapped him. Great. At least he already explained what was going on, but now he was being forced to play along and get intel on these people, which was not something he was excited about.

Having trained in surveillance and data collection, Outer was not prepared at all for any of what this surprise mission was bringing his way.

Classic was going over some last minute expectations for the mission when Outer found himself being dragged off to the side by Reaper. He held out a metal cylinder a few inches wide and about as long as his forearm. It took him a couple seconds, but Outer recognized it as a biorod. "What is this for?"

"I want you to have it," Reaper said. "If anything goes terribly wrong, I have my powers, but I feel bad leaving you defenseless."

It was a sweet sentiment, and the starry skeleton felt terrible for accepting the gift while actively working against these people who were so nice to him, but he couldn't exactly refuse without causing suspicion.