Crossover Chapter

Eydis tapped her fingers against a small pink gem. She held it up to the light, observing it inside of her dorm room. A familiar presence stirred beside her.

"I thought you didn't like these kind of things," Astra said with a tilt of her head.

"I don't. This color is not something I enjoy. It is utterly pedestrian and far too pink, but..." She grinned and clutched the gem in her fingertips. The brunette stood up with a start and opened her palm towards Astra. "It might have something to do with that big eye in the sky."

Astra took it and inspected it in the light. Oddly enough, when her hands touched it, the surface rippled. "You think this thing is related to all of the problems at our school?"

Eydis shrugged before slithering over to Astra with a devious grin. "Why don't we test it?"

"Test..."

The way that Astra's eyes narrowed towards Eydis made the latter girl think she was the one who should be studied. Perhaps, but I think this kind of studying can wait until later?

Even as she had those thoughts, she couldn't resist touching Astra's face. Her hand lingered on the other girl's cheek after she moved some strands of silver hair. The red-eyed beauty bored into her with a look that was begging for more, and the soft exhale didn't help.

If Astra hadn't dropped the pink stone to the floor, then maybe they both would have forgotten about it altogether. This time, the rippling effect made it impossible. The ground beneath them vibrated, and both of them leapt away, preparing for a fight.

Envy hissed inside of Eydis' ear. Something's coming...

What followed was a high pitched yelp as the ground opened into a pink ring. Two girls fell from oblivion upwards and crashed into the ceiling of the dorm room.

"Mistress," one of them said, wincing as she held one of her horns. "I told you that was a bad idea!"

"What do you mean? It seems like this was a perfect idea. Look! We made it!"

The pink girl's purple eyes flashed with a knowing look as they caught Eydis in their crossfire.

Eydis could only stare incredulously between her 'roommate' and this white-robed girl with a floppy witch hat. Astra looked prepared to attack, and a certain serpent hissed in Eydis's ear.

And Eydis could feel it to. This strange girl in front of them was completely out of this world or any world, for that matter. She might as well have been looking at something more alien than the floating eye, yet she took the form of what appeared to be something simple, silly, and oddly cute.

The small, pink-haired girl in front of her pulled out a smaller orb, about the size of an apple. However, it was completely different. The thing had a more crystal like structure, and she sank her sharp teeth into it, penetrating past the surface to drink in a blue liquid.

"That was reinvigorating," the girl said, "I can already feel all of my mana returning."

Eydis was immediately able to reconcile that this person couldn't have been from the school. Despite her displaying supernatural abilities, there was way too much else going on. No, she looked more like a character from a manga than anything plausible in reality.

Though, what is reality in a world of the gifted? Maybe it is my assumption that is wrong.

The girl started looking around the room. "Wow, it is quite boring in here, isn't it?" The pink-haired woman's eyes widened for a second and she stumbled forwards in a clumsy display. "I almost forgot! I am Ella, and this is my p-partner, Naela."

Naela grinned. "You get a few points for trying to correct your behavior, mistress." She looked towards the bright smile of the other girl before speaking again. "However, all of your points were lost on the way in which you introduced yourself."

As Ella clicked her tongue and the two started bickering, Eydis looked at Astra. The pair did give her a vague sense of her own relation to Astra. Though, they were much more...

Astra raised her eyebrow at them. "You're definitely not students are you? Not part of the gifted?"

"Gifted?" Ella looked around the room again and studied Astra's silver hair. "Oh shit, did we land in a wrong version of Earth? We might have crossed dimensions."

"Mistress...what did you do wrong this time?"

"Wrong? Hah, there is nothing wrong with this, is there?" She looked towards Eydis for confirmation and lowered her voice. "This is still Earth, right?"

"Yes..."

"Exactly! I arrived precisely where I needed us to be. Sometimes an explorer venturing into unknown lands will make a small mistake, but she always gets the team where they're supposed to go. Should I bring the others here as well?"

"Mistress..."

The silver-haired Astra looked at the two of them in a panic. "Others?"

Eydis picked up on the same energy. If one person is a clown and two of them are clowns, then how many are at the circus? Are they all clowns?

Though, there was a small amount of amusement to be had from this encounter. It was better than continuing on something more mundane. She imagined that if the two had arrived in another room, it would have brought national attention. After all, fame was a popular dream people had. If they could get attention from two aliens, then there was no doubt in Eydis's mind that they would.

"Well, if you don't mind," Ella said, "we will be out of your hair. No need to summon them here."

Naela looked at the girl with admiration and a hint of pride in her eyes.

Pride....something that Eydis understood very well. As she was ruminating, the two of them were already leaving as if it was the most natural thing.

Astra's normally stern gaze turned towards Eydis with a hint of worry.

When you look at me with those eyes, how can I not do something to alleviate your worries?

The serpent within Eydis hissed. The queen has fallen to such temptations before and does so again.

Shut it, Eydis scolded, we can't let two aliens roam free in the midst of all this chaos. Well, we could, and I would like to see that outcome, but that might make Astra mad at me. Though, maybe that has its own perks?

Astra's eyes pleaded again as the pink-haired abomination grabbed the door handle.

Eydis slithered up to the duo and placed her hand on the door, stopping it from opening. "I am afraid that we will have to accompany you two in order to make sure there are no nefarious happenings. After all, Astra is like a sheriff here."

Ella blinked and looked at Eydis before turning towards Astra. "I see...a sheriff? Is this America?"

Eydis laughed and the brief image of a pink cowgirl flashed in her head. It was quite vivid. She could imagine Ella riding on top of a horse with a cowboy hat and a holstered, pink pistol on her side. "You're pretty far away from the United States."

She stared at the white robes of the girl and her long staff. She truly looked like a little pink witch in her own sense. On the surface, she would look like a cosplayer, but deep within, there were vibrations that affected the air around her. Eydis imagined that if this small girl exhaled hard enough, she could level their city.

"Well, we need to be able to leave if I am to show Naela around the place. After all, I plan on bringing my entire family on a vacation here in the near future. Perhaps after we enjoy ourselves a little more in the other world."

Astra didn't seem surprised by the declaration of the other world. After all, Eydis picked up that the silver-haired woman was starting to realize her own existence had traversed here from another world.

Eydis grinned and decided to treat Ella as if she was a kid in a candy store. "We can show you around and maybe take you to get some coffee? Can you drink coffee?"

Ella shook her head. "Though, I like the part where you show us around. Let's see what this magic school has to offer!"

///

Elanore looked around the school, noting everything that it had to offer. Though, for all intents and purposes, she found it to be not that much different from the schools she remembered from regular Earth. Sure, there were gifted students, but the fact that they rarely used their magic powers made Ella feel conflicted.

"Mistress, this place is strange. Normally, I would be able to feel at least more distant signatures of magic power, but this place is almost devoid of it. If it weren't for the students and that floating amalgamation, I think this place would feel even weirder."

Ella nodded her head in affirmation. Now that she had experienced the wonders of magic, going without it would feel strange. It was like something in the atmosphere was deleted. The feeling was as if some creature had turned off the air, and the wind stopped blowing. The only intermittent winds came from the gifted, and when Elanore hovered her eye into the air, she could practically see all of them. Their threads of magic power connected to her, making the feeling a bit more pleasant.

Eydis looked at the two of them with a raised eyebrow. They'd all gathered to drink coffee.

Astra shared a similar look. "Are you two from out of a book?"

Ella shook her head. "I am from Earth just like you, but I guess it's a different version of Earth. Either way, I come in peace." The pink witch threw up a peace sign to emphasize her point. "We are here because I wanted to show Naela and another person what my home plane is like."

"Who is this other person?" Eydis asked.

"She is actually my daughter."

Ella watched as Eydis nearly choked on her coffee from her declaration. Now that I think about it, it's not that weird they would think I am from a story. After all, that was kind of my goal in getting isekaid. And aside from cosplayers, there would be no one wearing a maid outfit with horns.

She looked towards Naela who sipped on her own coffee with a conflicted expression. The dragoness stared inside of her mug with a wrinkled brow, trying to pinpoint what flavors she was being attacked with.

People stared at the two girls as they passed by. Some even started taking pictures with their phone cameras. Ella's face heated as more and more pictures were snapped of her. She wouldn't even be surprised if her face started being plastered on social media websites.

Ella reached across the table, leaving her coffee for the dragon. After all, she had much more refined tastes. The only thing that could satiate her was the taste of dinosaur mana cores. And she was fresh out of those. Either way, she extended her arm towards Eydis with a pleading expression.

"Please, let me check your school's social media!"

Eydis grinned deviously. "It's already too late, miss pink witch. Your face has already become a sensation." She opened her phone to demonstrate.

And there it was. Several people had already started commenting on Ella's appearance and asking similar questions. Where was she from? Why were there cosplayers at their school? Maybe it was some publicity stunt from people in high places? Were they sent by agents of the government to calm down the students after all that had happened recently?

Some had even considered that Elanore might be advertising for her own social media page. They asked if anyone knew the witch's or her maid's social media.

Though, as Eydis scrolled, Naela tilted her head in confusion. She saw the photos of herself and leaned forwards across the table, looking at her horns. "Wow, what kind of magic is this, mistress?"

Elanore groaned, expecting such a response. "This isn't magic at all. It's electronics and technology. This thing has little transistors inside of it that convert electron signals into data. That data is then displayed on this small screen for us to see."

Naela's eyes widened and she stared at the depiction of herself. Her left hand reached up and touched her left horn. "I never noticed that this one is slightly smaller."

It was a detail that Elanore had found endearing, but the dragon seemed bothered by the display. Well, Ella couldn't blame her. There were tons of people that became so bothered by their imperfections that they put on layers of makeup and covered all of their photos in filters.

Speaking of which, she could see that her face also appeared different than she remembered it. It was much more uniform and had very few imperfections like her previous form. It made her feel conflicted, since she had repaired her relationship with her mother.

She grabbed Naela's hand and started pulling her away from the table. The dragon girl looked back towards the second coffee she was working on and reached towards it in longing.

"You've had enough coffee. Remember what we discussed before. You cannot have too much caffeine in one day."

The dragon frowned and looked towards the ground before nodding in understanding. "Yes, mistress."

While the two made their way out of the school, the other two young women followed them.

"Do either of you know where we can get some plushies? I promised my little daughter a snake plushy, and I still have yet to deliver on that."

Ella still couldn't figure out Eydis. She didn't know whether the girl was completely clueless or devious and planning for something. Even as the girl smiled, Ella could feel foul magic coming from within her. It reminded her of her encounter with the skeleton army.

Astra nodded. "There should be a store around here that sells plushies. Are you going to summon your daughter?"

"Naturally..." Despite not yet formally recognizing the snake girl as her daughter, she'd already grown a fondness and was missing the little girl's happy expression. She wondered if maybe that smile would be enough to melt the hearts of all mortals in the area.

They entered an alleyway where Elanore made sure that no one was following them. She even checked the nearby security cameras and coated them with a thin veil of purple magic that obscured their sight.

Elanore channeled her magic power into Manapie and a beam of pink light shone into the sky. Her threads of magic grasped the veil of universes, and she realized the problem right away. She had indeed transported herself to an alternate form of Earth. This one was in a different thread that was very close to her own, yet in this timeline, magic had deigned to enter.

I guess this is why they tell people to never mess with time.

Oddly enough, the world that she came from with Naela was part of the same thread as her original Earth. That meant that everything the scientists knew about the universe ended up being wrong. There was a magic space somewhere out there that encased a planet with dinosaurs full of life. It gave credence to Elanore's theory that the dinosaurs might have come from Earth in the first place.

She didn't want to keep her onlookers waiting. Once she saw her mother and daughter waiting, she wrapped her magic around them. The two looked up eagerly as a pink beam of light surrounded them, and then they were blasted across the multiverse and arrived here, time and space folding as if it was nothing but a piece of paper.

The two arrived, and Penelope, Elanore's mother, looked around.

"That was a very dizzying experience. I feel like I might vomit..."

She pressed her hand against the wall of one of the alley buildings and grounded herself.

The basilisk girl didn't share the same reaction. Neshy was all smiles, and she bounced on her serpentine tail while waving her arms. "Again!"

Elanore smiled down at the little girl. "I am not doing that again, and you should probably change your tail for a pair of legs."

The change was so simple, since Neshy did it all the time. In a flash of morphing magic, her tail became two small legs, and she was quickly hoisted into the air by Elanore.

Ella squished her face against the small girl's cheeks. This is surely a demon in a child's clothing, right?

But how could a demon smile so cutely? Elanore tossed out the idea quickly.

And it seemed that of their two new friends, one of them shared a similar expression to Elanore's.

Astra gave the faintest of grins at seeing the excited little girl.

The group went to the promised plushy store, which was actually a regular superstore that happened to contain plushies. Ella surmised that the same problem which plagued her Earth also plagued this place to some extent. Specialized stores had become even rarer as larger stores introduced more products.

It provided a sense of awe and wonder for both the dragon and their daughter at seeing a store with so many modern products. Somewhere, hidden deep within the toy aisle, there was the promised snake plushy.

They came in many colors, but naturally, there was only one color that was befitting a family of pink. It was a pink and white-striped snake, bearing the same colors as Elanore's outfit.

While it wasn't hard to find, there were so many people shopping in the middle of the day, and wondering what this strange group was doing there. In Elanore's own home country, it was common to see oddly dressed people in the middle of a superstore, but she surmised that cosplayers were definitely less common.

Some of them had even come to ask for her photo or autograph, despite never knowing if she had a social media account or not. It seemed that they just wanted to post the experience on their own accounts.

Others had asked to take a picture with a dragon maid. Elanore and her family spent the rest of the day hanging out with the two students, learning more about the world, and experiencing what it had to offer together.