~Oh god~, were the only thoughts I managed, before I was violently sick all over the floor. I scrambled to the side before collapsing on all fours and ejecting what looked like everything consumed from the last two weeks; primarily water. I was sure I would be disgusted with myself later for staying there with my hands soaking in vomit, but for now I'd settle for having the world stop spinning like a top.

After drowning the floor, followed by several dry heaves, I managed to get my body to obey me again. I sat back, then heard a squish behind me. I turned and saw the crazy tanned guy emerging from the portal, one foot solidly in my initial vomit. He gingerly picked up his foot and sighed.

"Lovely," he muttered. The man's eyes closed for a minute, and the vomit disappeared. I checked behind me, and sure enough, my newly created swamp was gone too. Unfortunately, my hands were still as disgusting as before.

"Um, could you help me out here?" I waved my hands at him vaguely. He gave me a look of irritation, glanced at my hands and then moved to the large wooden desk that was occupying a large section of the room. I was about to ask again, since he was being kind of an ass just for someone being sick, when I realised my hands were clean, although they still felt as gross as before. That wasn't confusing at all. I made a mental note to wash my hands as soon as possible, and walked over and collapsed into one of the chairs in front of the desk. Admittedly, whatever magic powers his tech was giving him, they were convenient as hell.

I had a look around the room, taking in what appeared to be an office; large bookshelves, wooden desk, large personal chair sitting in front of a large window with sunlight streaming in. The door was behind me, but I wasn't about to make my bid for freedom just yet. He did have the ability to instantly move through space, and I wanted him to be relaxed as possible when I actually took off.

"Alright then, what's this job you had to come all the way to fetch little old me for?"

The man leaned back in his chair on the other side of the desk and looked me over before he started talking.

"Basically, I need to steal a certain object from someone."

~Obviously~, I thought, but didn't interrupt.

"I would do it myself, but then he'd immediately figure it out. Hence the need for you."

"Okay, going along with that, why me specifically? Much as I appreciate the compliment, there's people out there better than me," I asked. Sure, there aren't many, but there are some, and one or two of them actual steal things for other people, unlike me.

"That's because of the requirements. I need to you to steal from a god, that means you need to have some skill with divine power yourself. Otherwise you just get caught, which is pointless."

Oh ho. This just got interesting. Crazy speak aside, it sounded like I was about to get my hands on whatever let him space hop. That was every thief's dream; instant exit plan from any situation. New plan: get my hands on instant travel, THEN make for the hills.

"And you're just going to give me this...divine power?" I asked sceptically.

"Well, in the long run it works out. I'll be giving you stuff to do after this task, all of which you'll need some level of power for," the tan man shrugged.

"Um, thanks, but no thanks. I think we'll just keep it to one job. Thanks for saving my life and all that." No need to be pretending to go along with a crazy any longer than necessary.

The man glared at me. "I don't think you understand. You don't have a choice in this."

~And there's the money-makes-you-obeyed attitude. Okay Pipes, just need to hang on long enough to get the teleporter thing and then you're out of here.~

Some of my irritation must have shown on my face, because the man actually looked a little apologetic. "Ah, sorry. We're getting off on the wrong foot here. Let me start over – you can call me Janus. And although I didn't mean to express it in such a negative tone, I'm afraid you really don't have a choice about doing tasks for me or not."

I looked at him with an eye-brow raised. "And how, exactly, do you plan to force me to work for you?"

"Well, you don't have any connections here, I imagine boredom itself would drive you to do something after a point. If you're really determined to show me up, I suppose I could always put you back on the ship."

I shuddered, recalling the jagged metal that nearly blew a hole through me. "I could always just disappear after pretending to go along," I commented.

~Idiot! Now he's going to be on guard against that.~

Contrary to my expectation though, Janus burst out laughing. "Sorry, sorry, just that's a hilarious concept." After getting himself under control, Janus looked at me seriously, although a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "Let me explain the situation fully, alright?"

I nodded. Learning more information never hurt, plus I was curious to find out just how I'd manage to make a fool of myself. ~He should be panicking, not laughing,~ I thought angrily.

"Alright, firstly, the place I'm sending you to rob is guarded by divine power. If I want you to get in and out without triggering an alarm, or turning into a pile of dust, you need to learn how to detect and manipulate divine power yourself." Janus leaned forward and clasped his hands on the table. "Not something easily learnt, but I can spend some time training you. Now, as for the reason you were chosen. First of all, I needed a good thief. Secondly, it needed to be someone who would be capable of becoming a divinity – a body with a lot of potential."

~Great. He picks his thieves by how they look. As if I didn't have enough rich pervs staring at me this week.~

"Lastly, it needed to be someone whose disappearance wouldn't cause an effect on the timeline. Hence my appearance at your destined death."

"Excuse me? Destined death?"

"Yep. You were supposed to die at that point in the timeline. Thus, taking you out of that plane of existence would have no further repercussions as you would no longer influence events."

~And we've entered full-blown crazy.~

"Okay then, where are we now?" I decided to take the conversation in a more useful direction. I also wanted to know what kind of range was on that portal device.

"Ah, we're at my home. City of Iburn." Janus stood up and opened the window, gesturing for me to come over. I walked over and looked out, seeing a strange vista spread out before me. We were somewhere along the side of a mountain, with buildings covering the landscape as far down as I could see. Given there was a balcony, I hopped through the window without thinking, leaning on the marble rail and looking around. The area wasn't too steep, but enough that I could see large sections of the city. There didn't seem to be much of a unified building scheme; one section was buildings of white and gold, another section containing large manors of brick and covered in vines. I looked up, questioning the sanity of the local residents, when I noticed something wrong with the sky.

Seeing the moon during the day isn't unheard of, I'd seen it plenty of times myself. In this sky however, there was three of them.