My entire body feels like it is floating, while my skin feels like it has been set on fire. I try to scream, but even my voice feels off. I try to move, but it feels alien, like I am underwater or something like that. I try using my sensors as well as turning around my head in every direction.

But there was still nothing around. I try my best to stay calm. Focus on the positives. Nothing being around me can also be a good thing, no enemies or angry Samurai around to bother me. I try to connect to the net, but somehow that is also offline.

I quickly open my inside server and place our digital consciousness in there.

“Lyssa, why is everything dark?”

It looks like the photoreceptors of your mask got damaged when you teleported away. Turning up the luminosity of your eyes should allow you to bypass the defection and allow you to see.

Well, that’s not that bad then. I turn on my eyes to full brightness, and what I see is breathtaking. Countless balls of lights floating all around me, making the world look truly beautiful.

“Ooh wow, Lyssa, what are those?”

Those are stars.

I pause, all of my excitement coming to a halt. “Stars? No, that can’t be right. Stars are like these small pinprick dots you see at night, not this.” I say, waving at what looks like an orange cloud that is glowing.

Lyssa would like to inform you that the amount of light exuded by your cities greatly reduces the visibility of the stars. This is what stars look like when you are far removed from any source of light.

Something about those words feels a bit off. “Lyssa, where are we?”

There is no good answer Lyssa can give that is in a coordinate system that you are familiar with. Instead, Lyssa would like you to turn your head to the right.

I do just that, but besides a dark sphere, I don’t see much. That is, until some beams of light appear around the sphere, lighting it up in a cascade of blues and greys. Slowly, the light becomes more visibly shining like a bright yellow light.

“Lyssa, please tell me that is not what I think it is?”

That is the sun

“Why is it so small?”

That is because you are about 38.8 times further away from it compared to normal.

“Uhm, in human terms?”

That sphere that you are orbiting is called Pluto in the English language

“Ah, well, good thing I am space-proof, right?”

Yes, Lyssa estimates that as long as you focus all your points on survival, you can survive this for an almost infinite amount of time.

“Almost?”

Surviving old age would require a significant point investment.

“Right, so, important question: how the fuck did I even get here?”

Your teleportation drive malfunctioned, multiplying one of your directional vectors by several millions. The error most likely occurred because of the bullet that is stuck in the drive.

“That sounds bad. Can we get it out?”

Not with current equipment.

“Then can we teleport away somehow?”

The drive is severely damaged, and all the fuel was used up getting us here.

“So that is a no on that then. Okay, time for plan M.”

Lyssa hates to ask, but what is plan M?

“Plan ‘call my new mother’,” I say as I connect to the weird device she gave me. “It’s a lot better than plan W.”

What is plan W?

“Plan ‘call my wife’,” I answer

How would Cierra solve this situation?

Evelin suddenly speaks up. "It would not help much, but sometimes little Maniac needs to be called a good girl.”

Trying my best to ignore my little sisters' taunts, I connect to the little device Mom gave me. The thing pulses for a bit, then connects to a signal. It beeps a few times, and Luna picks up.

“Hello, this is Foxfire.” She says.

“Uhm Mom, can you come pick me up?”

There is a long pause, then a sigh. "Where are you?”

“Pluto.”

“I- What- How did you-?!”

“I did not go there by choice. It is just that my teleport equipment is a lot cheaper than it's supposed to be, so the vector was a bit off.”

“...Right I’m going to just not ask questions. Do you think you can wait there for like an hour? Give or take 15 minutes? If not I’d need to upgrade my car to bypass general relativity.” Luna asks, sounding concerned.”

“Uhm yeah, sure, no rush. I'm pretty sure we can survive for a while out here.” I answer, a bit confused.

“That’s not what I am worried about.”

I try my best to think of what she could mean but come up short, “What do you mean?”

“Kid, I will say this in the kindest way possible, but you have the attention span of a puppy,” Luna says in a slow tone. "What I'm asking is if Pluto will still be in one piece if I get there without violating the laws of physics.”

“Okay there goes about half my plans.” I lament.

“Just throw the other half away as well while you are at it. Just to be sure.”

I sigh. “Fine, I will let Crow make the planes then.”

“Great.” Crow pipes up “We still need to fix the backend routines for our internal server system.”

Both me and Evelin groan at that particular suggestion.

“Anyway I will be off then,” Luna says, “See you later.”

“Thank you Mom,” I say in my sweetest voice.

I cross my arms, ready to wait in the silent void of space, but Evelin seems to have other ideas.

“Hey Maniac?” I hear the giggle already in her voice.

I smile “what?”

“Do you want to build a space base?” she says in a singsong voice.

“The fuck?”

“Come on, let’s go and create.” She continues.

“And they say I am the crazy one.”

“We only have each other. It’s you and me. What are we gonna do?”

“Really?”

“Do you want to build a space base?”

“You know what? sure let’s build one.”

“Okay bye.”

I take a deep breath to centre myself. “Okay where did that come from?”

“lack of oxygen?” Evelin hedges.

“We are still at ninety eight percent oxygen,” I point out.

“yeah but I got that stupid song stuck in my head and building a space base sounds fun.

“I mean sure, but do we even have the points for that?” I wonder “Lyssa, how many points do we have?”

You currently pose 271 points.

“Ah right doesn't matter if we are a samurai or not, we are still poor,” I complain.

“Just be happy the number is positive for once,” Evelin points out.

“Lyssa, anyway can we start building a space base with that?” I ask, just in case.

No, but you can place a teleportation anchor.

“What is that?”

Basically, it creates a spot that is easier to jump through when teleporting. So you can come back later and finish it.”

“I nod. Sounds like a start. Also allows us to come back here to look at the stars whenever we want.”

I get out my fire sword, turn it in the opposite direction of Pluto, and turn it on hoping it will allow me to head to the surface.. To my surprise, nothing really happens, and I put the sword away in disappointment.

“Lyssa, any idea on how to get to the surface?”

Lyssa has an idea. Reach out a hand!

I do as she says, and a little can of pop appears. “Lyssa, why are you giving me a drink?”

There is no friction in space, so you would only need a minimal amount of thrust to move. The can has a ten times larger concentration of carbon dioxide. It should give you enough thrust to get to Pluto’s surface.

I pause. Well, if it works, it ain’t stupid. I shake the can a few times just to be sure, then aim it as some kind of booster and open the tab. The fizzy soda or whatever it was, Lyssa decided to stick in the can, explode outwards in the most pathetic stream I have ever seen.

Luckily, we don’t need all that much thrust and I start descending to the planet. Is it still a planet? Whatever, it does not matter. We land, and you know it feels kind of weird. Like, I don’t know, I still feel floaty. And like the air feels kind of inconsistent.

“Okay, now that we are here, what do we do next?” I ask as I try to stop the ground for a bit.

You should find a flat area with sturdy rocks so that you can fasten the anchor properly.

I nod and start looking around the place. But Pluto seems to be rather rocky, so I opt for the next best thing. I get out my gravity hammer, carefully aim it at a rock that sticks out a bit and smash down.

Even in low gravity where I struggle to get a proper swing, the hammer is still a menace. As soon as it hits and releases its stored potential energy, I am flung away together with a good part of Pluto’s surface, creating a new crater.

“I thought Luna told you not to destroy Pluto.” Evelin points out.

“Mom won’t find out about this as long as we keep quiet.” I say.

I take another look at the crater. Okay new plan “Lyssa any chance you have some solutions for this?”

Lyssa can select some cheap tools for you from your search and rescue catalog.

I nod. “Yeah, let’s get some of those.”

And just like that, with a drill and some hammers, I get to work destroying the surface of Pluto in a way only an unskilled foreman can. Luckily for me, there is no pesky government here with building codes and the like and after about a half an hour of work, I have a somewhat flat area. I then spent about another ten minutes collecting fancy rocks to, you know, appease the maidens back home.

Installing the anchor is quite simple, as it’s just this massive plate with some spikes attached to it that need to be hammered into the ground. Which takes an embarrassing amount of time and I blame the low gravity for it.

“Okay done. That was way more difficult than I thought it would be.”

“Yeah, we only destroyed like a quarter of the planet. Luna won’t notice that at all.” Evelin taunts me.

“Well, I like to think of it as groundwork for later.”

“You did something to the ground alright, but I would call it a massacre rather than work.”

“Are you done?” I ask?

“I am yeah. You think we should give one of those rocks to Luna?” Evelin asks.

“Yeah, she will get one too, but I want to make one of those homemade children's necklaces with it first. I think that would be appropriate.” I say with a grin, "If she wants to play mother, might as well give her the full experience.”