Runes flash.  Elsword straightens up in alarm, unsure about this new addition to the (nearly lost) battle, until he sees a red-haired boy startlingly like himself striding through a heap of burnt demons’ corpses.

“Hey!” the boy yells.  Behind him, Aisha is surrounded by dark magic from a scantily-clad girl who also looks just like her.  “You okay?”

“Fine,” Elsword lies, forcing himself straight even though every muscle in his body screams exhausted agony.  “Are you-”

“Elsword,” the boy replies.  “Glave did something weird.  I dunno.  Need help?”

And then the tide of battle turns.  All around them, Elsword sees new people drop out of nowhere to help with the fight.  Rena’s attackers are driven away not by her bow and winds, but by the swirling kicks of another elf.  Raven’s blade is supplemented by another man’s flaming Nasod fist, both their eyes burning gold and their teeth clenched in the same expression of concentration.

Elsword turns.  Eve and Chung stand side-by-side, Eve supporting Chung’s tired weight, as a protective ring of black Nasod spears surrounds them and bullets ricochet to kill their assailants.  Elesis’ sword whirls, and fire joins her in a deadly dance, a mischievous-looking girl spinning around with a claymore in her hand.

Ara fights in grim tandem with another Eun-possessed girl.  Elsword stares at this for the longest time.  The other Eun is using dark magic, something that makes Elsword wary, but Ara seems to trust it.

Add kicks and punches as usual, his movements sluggish with exhaustion.  But drones circle around him and slice apart his enemies.  A white-coated scientist floats over the ground, screens circling him, and that distinctive laugh echoing from his mouth.  Lu grins at another small demon, while Ciel looks at his apparent counterpart and just sighs, bullets from Marbas crossing magic that sends waves of terror into opponents.

Even Ain is there, projected swords and flashing divine magic keeping demons away from Elsword’s back.  And beside him fights another priestly man, colored lights swirling around him and constant chatter coming from his mouth.

The other Elsword shrugs.  “Glave,” he says once again in explanation.  “So, uh, should we hash this out later and just kill the demons?”

After the initial confusion over the timeline shenanigans that caused two timelines to merge, the El Search Party of both timelines did what any self-respecting adventurers would do: challenge their alternate selves to a sparring match.

Rune Slayer immediately charges towards Lord Knight, summoning a cluster of runes. Taken by surprise and pressured to keep his distance from the magic user, LK gets put on the defensive. However, as the calmer and more rational one of the two, LK waits for his chance to steel himself and counter his magical counterpart.

Void Princess also catches Elemental Master by surprise, but because she’s too in shock from VP’s demon contract to focus properly. The hundreds of mini-Angkors that chase after her leave her confused at first, but after EM regains her composure, she comes up with a brilliant but simple strategy: fry them all. Lightning shower!

Grand Archer keeps her distance from Wind Sneaker, frustrating the latter greatly. Her arrows fly further, and she keeps using the wind to either chase after or push away WS. After one very long goose chase, WS finally takes a gamble, and hollers, “Too old and cowardly to face me properly?” They have a good laugh over it together later, since it’s not every day you see a master archer throw her bow to the ground and charge into enemy range from blind anger.

Reckless Fist tries a taunt similar to what WS did, but it doesn’t work. Blade Master is both calm and especially slippery, and harasses his other self with quick slashes without giving RF time to react. But true to his name, RF pulls off an incredibly risky and reckless feint, which fell out of BM’s calculations, and lands one very, very painful blow.

Code: Empress surrounds herself with servants, ordering them to flank Code: Nemesis.  CN quickly dispatches them with her impressive arsenal of weaponry, but finds herself increasingly worn down by just the sheer resilience of the minions her alternate self can summon. Not that CEm’s summons are only useless shields; she’s an effective commander who knows how to pressure her opponent with her servants’ attacks.

Iron Paladin is quite mobile, despite the weight of his heavy destroyer. Deadly Chaser is hard pressed to keep a safe distance away, but his superior speed and range still keep him at a slight advantage. IP can easily take more than a few hits though, and patiently waits for an opening. It’s quite an entertaining spar for the both of them. Their shouting can be heard for miles.

Sakra Devanam is quite unnerved that her counterpart has strayed so far from their original martial arts, and makes the resolution to prove that she is just as strong as Yama Raja. Although YR’s orbs give her a great deal of trouble at first, SD is persistent and learns how to effectively deflect them, slowly building up enough energy to use her signature Swallow Assault.

Grand Master and Blazing Heart do not see eye to eye on many things, but both of them would never turn down a good spar. BH is a bit of a tease, and singes GrM’s hair occasionally, taunting her. However, GrM’s superior strength and excellent swordplay offers her a sharp advantage in close quarter combat, and even manages to disarm BH at one point, forcing her to roll back and use her flames to erect a barrier to give her time to recover.

Mastermind doesn’t really want to spar at first, but after realising he could collect valuable battle data, he begrudgingly agrees to indulge Lunatic Psyker for a round. To LP’s chagrin, MM merely sits back and harasses him with an assortment of tracking drones. MM sits back analysing LP’s battle patterns, and is both appalled and impressed at LP’s use of brute force. After their battle starts to bore him, MM decides to have a little fun and summons Apocalypse, basically forcing LP to also go all out. The resulting aftermath almost costs MM all his data.

Dreadlord and Chiliarch are a terrifying duo, but Royal Guard’s gatling gun proves to be a formidable enemy, because while his opponents have more raw strength and demonic power, their range is rather lacking. The rain of spears that Noblesse unleashes upon them is no joke either. The gorgeous, almost choreographic combat style of the imperial duo clashes heavily with the messy and brutal attacks of the demons the rebellion duo summons. CH’s Oriax is a powerful trump card though, and every time she activates it, her opponents have no choice but to run. DL tries to put his throwing knives to use, but finds out that they are utterly useless and his aim is awful from disuse. Everyone agrees that he should stick to close combat instead.

“So, I’m here, for the entire day,” Blazing Heart prompts, plopping down on the couch next to Crimson Avenger.  “Whaddya wanna do?”

Crimson Avenger looks up, then she scoots over and puts her head in Blazing Heart’s lap.  Blazing Heart squeaks.

“Sleep,” says Crimson Avenger simply, and closes her eyes.  Blazing Heart shifts her weight.

“Uh… anything else?”

“Hunt.  Later.”

Blazing Heart nods slowly.  “Can I go get a book?”

“No.”

“You little-!”

Grand Master caught Blazing Heart’s wrist before her lover could go any further with that sentence.  Blazing Heart tried to yank away, but Grand Master’s grip was too strong as she silently stared at the blue flames flickering around Blazing Heart’s fingers.

“What,” Blazing Heart gritted out.

Grand Master met Blazing Heart’s eyes.  “Your fire-”

“Oh, no, no, no.” Blazing Heart cut her off, pulling from Grand Master’s slackened grip.  “You do not get to act all concerned about me.  Not yet.  We’re still in the middle of a heated argument.”

“But-!  Is something wrong with your flames?”

Blazing Heart flicked her wrist impatiently.  The flames died.  “They do that all the time.”

“Oh.”

Silence, kind of awkward, stretched between them.  Grand Master wouldn’t meet Blazing Heart’s eyes.  Eventually, Blazing Heart huffed a laugh.

“Were you actually concerned?”

“Of course I was,” Grand Master muttered.  Blazing Heart had to think about that for a moment, but then she smiled.

“Well, that’s… kind of cute.”

Since only DE and DW can access time and space, they all would meet by their meddling.

The three Elswords meeting each other won’t have much of a problem getting along. RS and IS become friends really quickly, and LK is slightly surprised these are his alternative selves. They like to tease LK for his uptight attitude sometimes but it’s all just for fun.

Aishas all want to know what kind of magic their other selves use and study it. EM is slightly bitter her elemental magic seems to pale in comparison to dark magic and even messing with spacetime. VP can be a little uncooperative sometimes, but DW enjoys being with all of them, being the one who brought them here.

Renas get along great. GA and WS are grateful for finding each other because nobody knows someone more than themselves, so they spend a lot of time talking. They pretend to be nice to NW but talk about her behind her back about her prideful attitude. NW does hear and she’s remembering everything.

Ravens are unsure about what to do with each other. BM is cautious around VC and RF, especially the latter because of his explosive anger. VC has no strong feelings about his other selves although he is curious about them. RF probably has the biggest reaction out of them all and always has his guard up.

All Eves’ first reaction to meeting each other is to study each other more, because all of them thought there was one queen of nasods. CN is defensive at first, but warms up to CEm. Both of them are unnerved by CBS’ lack of emotions.

Chungs are wary about each other but slowly start to befriend each other. IP and TT are not agreeable to DC’s job as an assassin… but since they are each other they have no reason to hate him. They share their experiences with each other to improve their abilities.

Aras are conflicted with each other. SD and Asura dislike YR for using demon’s powers, SD dislikes Asura for letting Eun free, and YR wants to give SD a makeover because she is far too plain. When they realize that there is still only one Aren, they get along in some weird friendly rivalry thing.

Elesis three jobs can get along quickly. BH and GM soon see each other as rivals and they constantly challenge each other. Even after CrA threatens them numerous times, they both try to include her in outings as much as possible.

Adds don’t trust each other at all, especially towards DE because he was the one who brought them together. LP and MM do their best to hide their research notes from each other, and DE just watches amused. It takes a while for them to warm up to each other, but they do eventually because of their similar goals. DE probably befriends them, but he’s disappointed that they didn’t date like in some timelines he visited.

There are six LuCiels altogether, so it will get a little chaotic. RG, DL, and DM don’t get along that well, RG doesn’t like DL’s attitude and DM doesn’t really care about either of them. Chiliarch, NB, and Diabla all meet up and Diabla wants to play pranks on the other Ciels. NB and Chiliarch fight over which Ciel they would mess with because it was certainly not going to be one of theirs.

Roses already knew there’s alternative dimensions, so having other Roses doesn’t bother them. They argue constantly over which of their princesses is the better one.

“You took waaaaaay too long,” Blazing Heart complains once Grand Master finally caps her inkwell and lays down her quill.  Grand Master flicks her girlfriend’s forehead.

“You were sleeping on my lap, how did you expect me to concentrate?”

“Your lap is comfortable.”  Blazing Heart laughed and blinked up at Grand Master with the sort of grin that was just begging to be kissed.  Grand Master gave in to that temptation.

Once she pulled away and Blazing Heart sat up, Grand Master blew on her papers to dry them and rolled them all up into a neat cylinder.  “I’ll give these to Penensio on the way out,” she said, standing.  “Shall we go?  Your choice tonight.”

As plush as possible: EM, DW, GA, NW, EE, IP, DC, BH, MM, NB, DA

Stiff mattresses: VP, RF, BM, VC, YR, GrM

Somewhere in between: LK, IS, RS, WS, TT, SD, AS, LP, CH

Wherever Lu sleeps: RG, DL, DM

“Oh my god, how come she gets the fancy upgrades?” Blaze whines, sprawled over the couch. “I mean, I get that they want her to be the “official” Elesis, but how come I don’t get something that awesome?”

From her perch on the nearby table, Crimson snorts. “Just wait your turn. You’ll get your update soon.”

“Yeah, but you’re just saying that because you’re, like, dead inside,” Blaze retorts.

“You get used to it after having updates last for years,” Crimson mutters. “Besides, they can’t only give Empire the cool stuff. Everyone else is going to get cool upgrades.”

Blaze huffs and sits up. “That’s right. I’m going to be more badass than her, just you wait. I’m gonna make them give me flaming hair!”

Crimson watches in silence as Blaze jumps to her feet and takes off out the door. “I AM FIRE, BABY!”

The door slams behind her.