Chris growled in pain, slashing at the boar-like creature with his right hand as he clutched his stomach with his left, trying to keep his guts inside from the ragged wound caused by the boar's tusk. "Piece of shit!" He cursed as his claws tore into its neck and it squealed in pain, before a surge of force erupted from it, sending him flying back and crashing into a wall. Unfortunately for the boar, his claws had still been deep inside its neck, and as he'd been thrown back, he'd ripped a large chunk of flesh out, blood spraying out as the boar squealed again, lashing out in distress before finally collapsing from the blood loss.

In the next instant, the wounded Chris disappeared and a completely healed Chris reappeared, rolling his shoulders. "I think level seven is a bit beyond my capabilities." He sighed.

"No, you did great!" Jello applauded encouragingly. "Look, it's dead, you're not. What more would you want?"

"She's got a point, Chief." Dyrdek nodded in agreement.

"Yes, but if I'm dying halfway through every fight, then the only reason I'm still winning is cause I can't die." Chris frowned.

"But that's your ability…" Sidulpek commented. "That'd be like Ka saying the only reason he can defeat his opponents is because he can hypnotize them. It's true, but how is it relevant?"

Chris paused. "Well, I can't exactly argue with that."

While his other self was spending time with Beth and Derek, he'd gotten the old crew together and gone hunting in the Maze. Him, Dyrdek, Jello, Sidulpek, Ka, and T'ka all wandering through the tunnels looking for things to kill and maybe a way up to the eighth level. Probably not the most efficient use of their capabilities, but he didn't want to wander the tunnels alone and he wasn't interested in making himself another team.

Chris waved his hand and a portal opened up underneath the boar, letting it fall into the Immortal World. One of the benefits of being able to shape his portals better was being able to make them flat, letting them slide under objects instead of requiring him to pick them up and toss them through. Additionally, much like how his portal points didn't take up any significant portion of his total portal length, the flat portals were meaningless to his total portal volume, which meant he didn't even need to consider whether any of his other selves were making portals before using it.

He briefly wondered if he should make more use of his portals in combat… if he could reflect attacks, or open a portal leading to a wall… Chris paused as another idea occurred to him. What would happen if he dropped a rock in the Immortal World, letting it get to terminal velocity, then opened a portal? Damage. Damage would happen. Wasting no time at all, Chris set it up, creating a rock high up in the atmosphere of one of his planets and letting it fall. The rock quickly began to pick up speed as Chris opened a portal a few hundred meters below it, pointing the other end down the tunnel and waiting until the rock hit the portal and… plop. The moment the rock crossed the portal it immediately lost all its momentum, simply dropping to the ground.

Chris scowled down at the rock. "Well that was a bust." Why would the rock lose all its momentum? Chris's mind blanked for a moment, the only thing he could even think of as a possibility being the fact that the two were different worlds. That the forces acting on an object in one world didn't carry over into the other… maybe? That suggested that the world itself had more to do with physical effects than he'd previously thought… it did make a weird sort of sense, though. Worlds were internally consistent systems. They had to be. If an outside force was suddenly introduced… well that would be a problem, now wouldn't it?

"My Lord? Is everything okay?" T'ka asked as he stood there for a moment with an expression of consternation, almost glaring at the rock as if it'd offended him somehow.

"Everything is fine." Chris sighed, shaking his head. "Simply bemoaning lost opportunities."

Still, something felt off… when walking through portals, there didn't seem to be any problem, right? Admittedly, he'd never tried running through one… he wasn't much of a runner to begin with, and it'd never really been necessary. But even with walking, some momentum had to have been conserved. And the rock… it'd still gone through the portal, hadn't it? Chris considered the rock for a moment, before he had another idea. He sent the rock back into his world, letting it start to fall again, but this time, instead of pointing the portal down the hall, Chris put it right up against the wall. The rock fell through and… nothing. The rock just hit the wall and stopped. Chris clicked his tongue. "Damn." That clinched it. No using one world to affect the other. Would have been nice though.

"Alright, I'm done." Chris sighed. "You guys ready to go?"

They all nodded and they started walking again. "What were you trying to do?" Jello asked curiously.

"See if I could get objects traveling fast in my world, then shooting them into this one, but it doesn't work." Chris shrugged. "The momentum isn't conserved, so there's no force behind it."

"Aw, that would have been awesome!" Jello exclaimed. "Too bad."

"Yeah, it's a pity, but it makes a bit of sense. Worlds need to maintain their internal consistency. Energy out of nowhere would be bad." Chris shrugged.

Jello frowned. "Why?"

Chris paused. Actually, why would that be bad? He somehow knew it would, but… why? "I think… I think it'd imbalance the rules, somehow… not a lot, but if it happened again and again… yeah, it could be bad." He answered vaguely, working more off a hunch rather than any actual concrete information. He felt like he was right, at least mostly, but he wasn't sure why or how he knew it… it felt weird. Chris was shaken out of his thoughts as a roar echoed down the tunnel, and they all began to prepare. He didn't need to worry about weird knowledge at the moment. What he needed to focus on right now was the hunt.

"Is everyone ready?" Chris asked Debra as he walked into the doctor's office Wednesday morning, making good on his promise to see if he could help some of the more desperate patients.

"They should be?" Debra replied. "The doctor said he'd contacted everyone, but I don't know if anyone is late or not…"

"Eh, their loss." Chris shrugged. He'd done what he could. If people couldn't even be bothered to show up, that was on them. Plus, he could probably do this again in a week or a month or something.

"Debra! There you are!" A man waved them down as they walked in. "Is this the guy?"

"This is him." She nodded.

"Great!" The man exclaimed, grabbing Chris's hand. "Doctor Jenkins, at your service!" He introduced himself. "If you'll come with me, we have everyone waiting in the PT gym. It was the only place with enough space." He explained, practically dragging Chris down the hall.

Chris didn't get his hand back until they arrived at a large room full of people, who all immediately went silent, watching Chris with a mix of skepticism and hope. And for one young man, utter shock. Chris gave that one a weird look, but quickly dismissed it. Who knew what was going on in some people's heads?

The doctor coughed and stepped forward. "Alright, everyone, as I've explained, I believe this young man's ability has a chance to heal you all. We know it can do wonders for cancer, but for things like missing limbs or genetic diseases… it's unclear. But we have to try, right? Just please don't be disappointed if it doesn't work."

Chris frowned. "That's a dumb thing to say. Of course they're going to be disappointed. That's how people work. Hope unfulfilled leads to disappointment. So yeah, if this doesn't work, they should be disappointed, because that's natural. Just don't blame me for it. I never said it would work."

Dr. Jenkins blinked. "Uh…"

"Also, don't blame me if it does work." Chris continued, giving the crowd a serious look. "Seriously, no gratitude, no willingness to do anything to repay me, nothing, you hear? I don't want any of that shit and I don't want to deal with the consequences." He absolutely did not need a bunch of formerly sick people connected to his world.

The room fell awkwardly silent for a moment as everyone gave Chris weird looks and Debra covered her face with a groan of second hand embarrassment. "Shall- shall we just get started?" Dr. Jenkins offered.

Chris nodded, opening a few portals along the wall. "Just step inside and I'll see what I can do." Thankfully he'd learned he could heal without killing people, or this would have gotten awkward.

"What is this place?" One of the- oh, not a patient, just a supporting family member, asked.

"My world." Chris replied.

"But… it's so big?!?" They continued in confusion.

"Yeah." Chris shrugged. He supposed he got the amazement. He hadn't wanted to stick them in a tunnel or anything like that, so he'd brought them to random flat plateau number forty-four on the surface of one of his planets, so they could actually see the sky. And the stars, cause he had no interest in dealing with the sun.

Soon everyone was inside, all lined up again. "Okay, now, remember, absolutely zero gratitude." Chris repeated insistently. "No matter what happens, just don't, okay?" Everyone nodded hesitantly. "Okay, good, now." Chris focused on them all, doing the thing. Immediately, everyone got better, which obviously meant he could at least heal the effects of any illness, which he probably should have expected. A few people even got their limbs back, though that one was a bit awkward because it used his mass… so their limbs were connected to his world? That was just awkward. "And done."

Literally everyone started crying and hugging the moment they were healed, in between celebrating their newfound health. Then they started looking towards Chris, and then it started. "Oh, come on!" Chris exclaimed as the first person connected. "What did I just say!" The next person connected. "Stop it!" And the next. "Okay, everyone out!" Chris yelled, opening portals below them, but it was too late, as like dominoes they all connected to his world. Even the damn doctor! "Fuck!" Chris cursed as he snapped them all back in, pointing a finger at a random person. "You! What did I say about gratitude!?!"

"You- you said no gratitude, sir!" The confused and nervous woman replied.

"And what did you do!?!" Chris continued.

"I- I was grateful…" The woman muttered in embarrassment, looking down at the ground in shame.

Chris deflated at that, letting out a weary sigh. "Fucking- now you're all connected to my damn fucking world, not doing shit for me, just being there cause why the fuck not, annoying piece of shit awareness of every damn thing, fucking shit damn motherfucking fuck!" Chris glared off at nothing, wishing he knew better curse words to properly express his frustration. Maybe Mrs. Richardson had a point…

"What- what does this mean?" A young man stepped forward to ask nervously.

"It means I have to deal with you, while you get to go off and do whatever the fuck you want, because even if it does let me control you, I'm not fucked in the head enough to actually do it." Chris grumbled.

"Um, hi, yeah, I've been connected to his world for a while now, and yeah, it's barely even a thing." Debra stepped forward to explain. "The worst thing he's done is used his connection to appear next to me, after asking permission, and just so he could get closer to a place he needed to be. Oh, there was that one time he sort of kidnapped me while I was sleeping… but that was just to ask me a question and he sent me right back and it only happened once. Also, we were vaguely friendly by that point and he knew I wouldn't mind. For the most part he just ignores my existence."

Chris nodded. "As it should be."

A few people nodded along. Yes, of course, that made sense. Why wouldn't it? If he said he'd leave them alone, he'd leave them alone. And if he didn't, that was fine too. Why wouldn't it be? He was the one in charge. Or… no, a few of them realized that it wasn't that he was in charge. It was similar, but it was more… abstract. Like- like he wasn't over them, or better than them in any way, he was just… more correct? Like his words carried more weight than anyone else's. Maybe too much weight? Enough that it would be hard not to listen to him. But that was fine, because he was correct. Wasn't he?

"Alright, whatever." Chris sighed. "What's done is done. I don't have a way to disconnect anyone from my world, so y'all are kinda stuck. But again, it doesn't really mean anything, so just… keep doing what you were doing. Or at least, what you would have done if you were healthy? Cause you are now. And even if you aren't… Well, you can't die anymore, so no big deal, right?" He shrugged, opening a portal, gesturing for them to leave.

Everyone began to file out, except one. The young man who'd looked shocked when he'd seen Chris walked up to him looking… embarrassed? "Uh, sir? I- I need to talk to you about something?"

Chris frowned at him. "You don't need to call me sir. We're like the same age."

The man blinked. "Uh… okay?"

Chris stared at him for a bit. "Well? What was it you wanted to talk about?"

"Oh!" The man exclaimed. "Right, uh, I needed- I need to talk to you about…" He trailed off, looking around discreetly before leaning forward and whispering. "I need to talk to you about the Elves."