I returned home only to find my father's ramen restaurant empty. The water tap was running, so I turned it off. "That's strange... Dad! It's me, Ryuji! Where are you?" I tried to peek up the stairs when I felt something under my feet. It was an artifact similar to the Amalgam, completely smashed on the floor. "Damn it, Dad!" I ran up the stairs without even bothering to take off my shoes. I saw my father lying in the middle of the living room, unconscious, and the place was a mess as if there had been a fight. "Dad, respond to me!" I approached him, pleading for him to answer, but I quickly noticed a kind of purple lump on his neck. "This is no ordinary Amalgam... He must have faced a warrior..." Stella said behind me. I couldn't stop staring at my father, feeling rage and anger. In a single day, my whole family had suffered. I stood up, clenching my fists. "I can tell he's still breathing... Is there any way he can recover?" I asked Stella, trying to calm down. "We can take him to my home; perhaps they can heal him there. I don't know right now what the ailment harming him could be..." I felt a slight relief; there was hope. I couldn't allow myself to lose my entire family in one day...
"Then the time has come; let's go to that world you come from, Stella!" I smiled firmly with a determined look, and she returned the smile with a thumbs-up. "Before that, we should be able to carry your father comfortably. My gun also has two extra charges apart from the laser; one of them is the ability to reduce and enlarge size." She seemed to adjust something on her gun and aimed it at my father. "Cinnamon!" A brown beam shot out at my father, reducing him to the size of a doll. "Incredible!" I exclaimed. Stella carefully picked up my father and enclosed him inside a bubble, just like she had done with the device. "Inside this bubble, he won't suffer any damage." I took the bubble, thanking Stella, and we entered the portal. We traveled through what seemed to be a tunnel of colors. I felt like I was flying but without feeling the wind. In the end, there was a bright light that blinded me, and when I opened my eyes, I was in a completely different environment.
It was an ultra-futuristic place; everything was white with horizontal blue lights. There were large glass windows through which space could be seen—an infinite space full of stars. Hundreds of strange women walked around the place; some looked human, while others were clearly alien. But it didn't take long for me to realize something. "Hey... Is it just me, or are there only women here?" I asked Stella, a bit embarrassed. "Oh, I forgot to tell you. Intelligent males are exclusive to your universe. Here and in all the cosmoworlds, you'll only find women; the only male beings are animals." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This seemed almost like a dream—I was the only man in an entire space station. I wondered how they reproduced, but I felt it wasn't the right moment to ask since there was no time to waste. She guided me to where we needed to go. "I know an excellent doctor; she'll help us." We walked through large automatic hallways. All the inhabitants of that place looked at me strangely, as if I were the alien. Finally, we arrived at a kind of hospital, and Stella asked for someone named "Saró." I assumed she was the doctor. We entered a room, and Stella knocked on the door before entering. "Hello, Saró!" What a crude way to greet someone in a hospital, I thought.
Inside the room, I found the doctor: a female figure with strong light pink skin and curly violet hair. She had a small antenna on her forehead and intense yellow eyes that seemed to pierce the soul. But there was one detail that froze my blood... Did she have three breasts?! She was definitely not human, but that didn't take away from her beauty. As soon as she saw us, she pinched the bridge of her nose. "This must be a joke, Stella... Did you really bring a human from your mission?" Stella seemed a bit embarrassed. "I—I forgot the memory-erasing device... but that's not your problem... This boy's name is Mamoru Ryuji. An Amalgam kidnapped his sister, and we believe his father was attacked by a warrior from the dark cosmoworld... We need you to heal him, please." Saró looked at Stella with resignation, but in the end, she sighed and said, "Enlarge him and put him on the stretcher. I'll see what I can do; anyway, whether you like it or not, we'll return these two humans to their world and erase their memories." I was about to speak, but Stella cut in. "No way, I promised him that I would help him rescue his sister, and he would help me become stronger; we will do it together!" I didn't expect that. Stella really made me feel proud; I felt she was my friend. "Arrgh, do what you want; I don't care." She seemed impatient rather than angry; it seemed she and Stella knew each other too well, as if she had already given up on Stella's motivation and enthusiasm.
My father was enlarged back to his original size on the stretcher, and Saró approached with a scalpel. "At first glance, I'd say this lump is caused by a parasite. I'll perform a small incision." With great care, she made a cut on the lump, and a creature resembling a purple larva with multiple eyes all over its body emerged from it. It fell to the ground, writhing, but Saró quickly crushed it with her shoe. "Eeew, that's really disgusting..." said Stella. I handed the doctor a bit of paper so she could clean the floor and her shoe. In the end, the swelling on my father ceased, and the purple color faded away.
"Now it's just a matter of stitching up the incision and waiting for him to recover. If I were you, I would take that device immediately to the scientists for investigation, and remember you'll have to provide a lot of explanations to your superiors if he stays here." Stella nodded and left the room. "Please, miss, take care of my father." She gave me a firm but empathetic look. I could see her need to save lives was greater than her desire to avoid trouble. I accompanied Stella out of the room, unaware that we were being watched.
Inside one of the ventilation ducts in that room was a tiny warrior, about 6 centimeters tall, with a grotesque appearance—a mix of woman, beast, and insect, with dragonfly wings and thick black hair covering most of her body. She had compound eyes on a human-like face and abnormally large hands and feet for her size. This figure pulled out a kind of floating eye while smiling wickedly. Meanwhile, in the dark cosmoworld, in the grand and sinister castle of its queen, she was sitting on her throne. Her figure was a mix of horror and beauty—dull blue skin with a third eye on her forehead and very short violet hair. Her ears were pointed, and she always had a frown. Besides the third eye on her forehead, she had others on her shoulders, palms, breasts, and knees. She wore a single piece of black latex that left her belly exposed, where there was also an eye, allowing the eyes on her breasts to remain visible. To her right, a grotesque-looking servant served a jar of strange creatures resembling small black frogs, which the queen swallowed whole. To her left, another servant filed her nails, and in front of her, a servant with two heads licked her feet slowly.
Another servant burst in with a floating eye similar to that of the small warrior, kneeling before the queen. "Lady Negura, you have an incoming call from one of your loyal warriors." The queen devoured one last creature before speaking. "Let her speak." The eye projected an image of the tiny warrior through her floating eye. "Your Majesty, it's Mosca from the transuniversal invasion squadron. I've discovered something very interesting, my lady. In that universe, I was capturing humans, but one managed to snatch my capturer and destroy it. I attacked him and tried to recover, but then a human and a resident of the star cosmoworld burst into the room. She opened a portal and took both humans away. Apparently, she allied with that human to become stronger, my lady..." The queen began to cackle, which turned into a laugh that was almost ironic. "What miserable rats. They try to screw me over, and it turns out they're the same... but they're too late... We have gained a lot of ground when it comes to using humans as enhancers of our strength, haha!" The tiny warrior frowned as if she were about to disappoint someone. "I regret to inform you, my lady, that that does not seem to be the case... Apparently, one of our amalgams must have captured that boy's sister... and that space rat must have told him about what happens in this universe... It's more of a personal matter; that girl intends to use him to get stronger, and he plans to use her to rescue his sister. It's not something planned by the higher-ups of that cosmoworld..." The queen looked serious for a moment and then smiled in a malicious yet comforting way. "So, they're just two cockroaches... who think that unity makes strength, huh...? A mere human? Rescue his sister? Where could her soul be? Could it be in the southern containers? In the eastern, western, or northern ones? Hahaha, I'll be honest with you, Mosca, that's practically useless information. Those two cockroaches could be crushed even by you; if it's not a serious military strategy, it doesn't change anything. But at least you've made me laugh, hahaha."
Mosca looks at her queen as if she has just stabbed her in the heart. "But there is one detail that interests me. Tell me, where are you right now?"
Mosca immediately catches what Negura is trying to say. "Of course, you took the opportunity as soon as you saw the portal open and entered, something any idiot would do. Do you realize your position? You're infiltrated in enemy territory. To reach the stellar cosmoworld, one must first pass through the war and amazon cosmoworld; it would be absolute suicide, but you're there thanks to a miraculous stroke of luck. Ignore those human cockroaches and that girl; they are not a threat at all; even if they use the power of those two, it would be useless. With your tiny size and your ability to make your Pink Power undetectable, you are the perfect spy. Gather all the valuable information you can and don't kill anyone; if you do, the security will double. We need to take advantage of discovering all their weak points, hahaha."
Mosca's face lights up with excitement, trying to contain her enthusiasm. "Complete your mission without mistakes; you know I don't tolerate disappointment." The transmission cuts off, and the queen murmurs between laughs. "Rescuing his little sister... hahaha."
End of Chapter 2.