Disclaimer:
This work is fiction. The work has no relationship with any person existing at any time anywhere whether real or imaginary or copywritten. Everything in this work is mea culpa.
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You should not read this work if you are under the age of legal consent wherever you reside. This work may or may not contain any and/or all of the following: death, dismemberment, violent acts, implied sex, explicit sex, violent sex, rape, cannibalism, blasphemy (depending on your religion), BDSM, torture, mimes, and just about anything unwholesome that you could consider.
The pokegirl universe was first documented by Metroanime and to him all of us who reside or visit there owe a debt of thanks.
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Bhavacakra
Ten
(09/13/19 1650 Dark Continent)
Whisper’s construct floated a hundred miles above the remains of Africa. In it, Misery was leaning into a blister in the side of the craft. The cabbit had created the window specifically for observing the planet underneath them. Even at this altitude, the extent of the changes that had been made three hundred years before was very much evident, especially when maps of their world were superimposed over the reality below. “Typhonna did all of this?”
“That’s the accepted explanation.” Kerrik rubbed his eyes. “There weren’t any survivors to confirm that she did it all, but it matches the kind of damage she did to other parts of the planet. The other first generation legendaries probably had a hand in the destruction, but it all gets laid at Typhonna’s feet.”
Raven settled down next to him and snuggled against his left side. Whisper was already curled against his right shoulder. “What happened to them?”
“Typhonna killed most of the other first generation pokegirls, while humans did for the ones she didn’t kill.”
“What about Typhonna?”
“One day she just disappeared. Nobody is sure where she went, although there are rumors that put her in various parts of the planet. Several of them have her sleeping somewhere in the Indigo League. It wasn’t important at the time, so I didn’t investigate the rumors.”
Why didn’t this happen to our home? What stopped Typhonna and the others from doing this to our world too? The cabbit’s tail thumped against his leg in a regular pattern.
Kerrik turned to look at her. “I did.”
Her eyes went wide and her tail stopped. What did you do?
His ears flicked as he shook his head. “I’m not ready to discuss it. Suffice to say I stopped them before they could really get started.”
Misery’s ears slapped against her body as she twisted around to stare at him. “Will you tell us someday?”
“I will.”
“That’s good enough for me.” The mini-top went back to staring down at the surface. “When is the satellite due?” The equipment Kerrik had pulled out of his backpack wasn’t capable of detecting Graeme’s pokedex or any twees below them. The satellite had much more capable detectors and so they were waiting for its arrival.
The com on Kerrik’s collar spoke with Virtue’s voice. “One thousand seconds until the satellite is in position and in full acquisition mode.”
“That’s about seventeen minutes.” Kerrik leaned back against the wall of the construct and closed his eyes. “Not long at all. In those seventeen minutes, children will be born and people will die. It’s an eternity for some and yet an instant for others. For the rest it’s just seventeen minutes out of their life.” He sounded faintly tired.
Raven rested her head on his chest and glared at Whisper when the cabbit shifted as if she were going to join her. “What happens when we find them?”
Kerrik’s ears flicked back for an instant. “First we rescue them. Then I determine if I’m going to beat Graeme within an inch of his life or not.”
Why would you do that?
He didn’t open his eyes. “I knew his pokegirls. They were good women and if they died because he was fucking around and didn’t call me earlier than he did, I’m going to be a tad upset with him. Graeme has always had a tendency to treat his harem as tools more than as people, but Poppet let him and I was trying not to alienate either of them. She means well, but she’s a product of her environment. Even she treats pokegirls like property.” He shifted around slightly. “Jamie is different. He thinks more along the same lines I do as far as what I think pokegirls are. I try not to play favorites, but he’s one of mine.”
What are we to you?
“Pokegirls in general are people who should be allowed to be as free as they can, within the limits of what they are or what they can become, just like everyone else. Here, domesticated pokegirls have spent the last three hundred years protecting their masters from oblivion and I think they’ve won the right to be treated as they wish to be treated, not to be summarily put down or discarded when their owners think they’re no longer useful.”
What about in specific?
Still looking upward, Kerrik’s eyes opened, and he frowned. “The only specific situations that matter to me involve pokegirls who are part of my family and you three. The women and children of my sons are family and I’ll protect them as I would any others, which means I’ll protect them as much as they’ll let me.” He looked down at Raven. “I’m not sure what you three are. Sometimes I think of you as family, like I’d think of a wife. Other times, I catch myself considering you as a part of a gestalt identity that includes all four of us. I think it’s because of the bonds developing between us.” He chuckled softly. “I’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that I understand most of the things that happen around me but what’s taking place with us is something that is unique in my experience.”
That frightens you.
“A little,” he admitted softly. “In my life, the word new so often turns out to be just another name for bad.”
Raven slid her arms around him and squeezed herself against him. “It’s new and scary to us, too.”
“It’s also wonderful to us.” Misery came over to straddle his lap; settling down so she was facing him, but sliding back a little to avoid Raven’s head in his chest. “I never thought I could belong like this, even when I was a snugglebunny. I know a lot of this feeling was built into me by Sukebe and I still wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He smiled gently and took the mini-top’s hand. “I feel that way about this too, and Sukebe didn’t touch my genes. However, while it might make me feel a little better not to be alone in being concerned, what it really means is that we’re all clueless together. Catastrophe could be looming just out of sight and we’d never know it until it hit.”
We would too know about something disastrous. You would not allow yourself to get into a situation where we would be in such jeopardy without warning yourself and us about it, just like you did with Jamie and his family.
Kerrik shook his head. “I don’t warn always warn myself about the problems about to beset me. Things are always too chaotic around me for such warnings to mean anything.”
Misery smirked and pulled her ears around to rest in her lap. “That’s good to know. So if we’re all going to die, then at least we won’t be warned so we worry about how it’ll happen.”
Raven gave him a fierce look. “Nothing will defeat us.”
Virtue spoke. “Commander, I need to inform you that the satellite is in position and beginning a complete survey of the Dark Continent.”
Raven sighed. “Back to work.” She pushed herself to her feet and offered Kerrik a hand. “Can we cuddle like that more? It’s almost enough to let me forgive you for not sleeping.”
He grinned and wrapped his free arm around Misery as he took Raven’s hand. “I think I’d like that.” The mini-top made a surprised noise as he lifted her with him. He kissed her on the forehead and let her go. “Ladies, let’s go find my wayward grandson.” His voice became crisp. “Virtue, see what you can do to assist the satellite in expediting the search without compromising the thoroughness of the final results. You and Vice have a lot more processing power than the satellite does; use it.”
“Commander, the best way to expedite this search would be to use the detection equipment you have set up in conjunction with the satellite. This would require you to drop to within five miles of the surface and follow a designated flight plan. It could expose you to surveillance from the planet and there might be an attempt to intercept you.”
The construct began dropping towards the planet’s surface as Whisper lifted off to hover over the deck. Virtue, feed the flight information to me and I’ll follow it as closely as I can. Kerrik, depending on how complex this flight path is, it could take a lot of my attention and may require you and my sisters to stand watch for possible interception attempts. Granted we’ll still be at 25,000 feet and the air is too thin for most pokegirls to live in, but we all know that you never know what’s going to happen.
Virtue’s voice came again. “Very well, Whisper. I am sending the flight path to your twee.”
“No problem.” Misery patted Whisper on the hip. “I can’t fly, so Raven will have to do most of the fighting. I can, however, keep watch.”
Whisper bared her fangs in a snarl the echoed throughout the construct. All you have to do is alert me to anyone who gets close. At that point, I’ll be more than happy to focus my attention on them and work out some of the frustration we’re all feeling. Plasma began to glow around their ship and curled above them in their wake as they drove into the atmosphere without slowing. I have wondered how fast I could enter an atmosphere without taking damage. Later, perhaps, we could test and find out. It might be important someday to know.
Kerrik smiled in the light of the plasma. “I love experiments.”
Raven frowned. “How can Virtue hear Whisper?”
“My commander has dealt with pure psychic types before, so the com unit he wears has been designed to interface with thought. Thought is just another form of modulated energy as is all other types of non-written communication.”
“When did you start talking to us?”
Virtue managed to make the com unit add a haughty tone to her voice. “My commander has authorized me to acknowledge your existence. As per his instructions, you three all carry the brevet rank of major and, although not our commander, we will assist you if possible.”
Raven glanced at Kerrik and smiled craftily. “What is Kerrik’s rank?”
“He is our commander, but his rank before retirement was General.”
“That’s enough of my history for now. Raven, aren’t we supposed to be watching for intruders?”
The archmage nodded. “I’ll connect us with the delta bond spell and then we’ll be able to alert Whisper faster.” She grinned. “After all, milliseconds count and there is no prize for coming in second.”
Kerrik’s ears canted amusedly. “Are you sure? Death is probably the prize for that and my three deaths have been quite the prize indeed.”
“It’s a different kind of death. One that’s not as cuddly as we are.” Raven shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m bantering with you about something that I used to kill people for saying in my presence.”
“Banter is a lot easier on the clothes.” Misery laughed at his words as she headed over to begin watching. Raven and Kerrik moved to where the three of them formed a triangle around the hovering Whisper. Without speaking, they divided the area they had to watch into three sections. Kerrik glanced back at the cabbit. “Make the construct as transparent as you can. It’ll help us look and make it harder to localize us.” The construct became almost invisible as Whisper complied.
We are at cruising altitude and I’ll be starting the flight path in one minute from mark. We’ll be hitting some of the less populated areas north of some cities that Virtue says are associated with Sanctuary. This will allow the satellite to use all of the processing power available to it and your AIs to focus on filtering out any stray electronic signals while looking for Graeme and Celestine. This will allow them to clear the cities much faster than if trying to generally scan all of the Dark Continent.
For the next several hours silence predominated on the deck of the construct as Whisper followed the flight plans sent to her by Virtue. A few pokegirls were sighted flying below them, but they were so far away that Raven and Misery only spotted them because their twees allowed them to do motion analysis of the specks they were at that distance.
Finally Kerrik’s com link spoke. “The satellite has detected the presence of a twee. Uploading navigational information.” The construct swerved as Whisper changed direction. “Twee confirmed as belonging to Celestine Wolf.” There was a pause. “The twee has vanished again, but the energy surge before it vanished is well within the parameters expected of a pokegirl being pokeballed.”
I tried to contact her as soon as her presence was reported, but I’m not sure if I got through to her. I’ll be ready if she reappears. There was a sudden shocked silence. Whoever has her had better have her in a maternity ball or I’ll feed them their own liver.
Misery hissed in sudden anger. “Only after I make them eat their balls.” She grinned cruelly. “Both natural and plastic.”
Raven looked at Kerrik. “You don’t have anything to add to this discussion?”
He shrugged. “I don’t normally posture. If Celestine was hurt, I’ll try hard to make sure that whoever did it won’t ever be in a position to hurt anyone else again. Dead usually fills that requirement nicely, but I’m not fussy about how they die or who kills them.” He glanced at Whisper. “If you do get in touch with her, the first question you need to ask is who is doing this to them. We need to know who our foes are.”
She nodded. I should have thought of that. Our ETA is five minutes, but I’ll slow as we approach so that we might keep the element of surprise.
“You heard the lady.” Kerrik grabbed his pack. “Let’s get all this gear stowed in case we have to leave here in a hurry. At this point the rough plan is to insert via teleportation and rescue both Celestine and Graeme, if he’s alive. This supersedes any delaying for revenge. Is that clear? Celestine and Graeme are your top priority.”
Raven shook her head. “Protecting you is our top priority. You can have other grandsons and Celestine can have other kids. We don’t get a second Kerrik.”
His ears went flat. “I figured you say that. That means before the assault, I’ll need dropped off somewhere on high ground. I’ll provide support from a distance.” He grimaced. “That way you can hit them without worrying about protecting my butt.”
Raven touched his cheek and smiled sadly when he twisted away from her touch. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”
His eyes almost glowed with anger. “You have no idea. Becoming young and locking away my powers was a huge mistake.”
The archmage reached out further, not letting him pull away this time when she touched him. “Was it? We needed this. Now you have to decide who is more important, us or them.”
His eyes met hers for a long moment as the very universe seemed to hold its breath. “You are.”
The archmage wrapped her arms around him and held him with all of her strength. “As you are ours, so are we yours, now and forever.”
Misery murmured her agreement while there was a feeling of contentment from Whisper. Now and forever, she echoed.
His ears rotated to focus on Raven. “That sounds ritualistic.”
She smiled slowly. “Does it?” Her smile grew when his eyes narrowed. “You’re not the only one who can avoid answering a question.”
He shook his head. “Let’s go rescue them. I’ll figure out a way to learn what you’re being cryptic about later.”
A few minutes later they hovered overhead. Night had fallen and at their current altitude of about a mile, they could see a flickering dot that revealed a campfire. The satellite had moved to orbit above them and all three pokegirls crowded around Kerrik’s pokedex as he switched to holographic display and patched into the satellite’s video feed. His ears went flat. “Mother fuck.”
The image showed seven pokegirls lolling around the fire. Six of them were identical beings that stood over seven feet tall. Their skin was a greenish gray and they had a light coating of identically colored feathers that ran from their heads to about halfway down thick tails. All but one of them was eating something that they’d pulled from the fire. The last pokegirl was on sentry duty, but kept looking over her shoulder at her sisters as they fed.
Misery cocked her head. “They’re eating a pokegirl of some kind. That’s a tail and that one has a leg with the foot still attached. Are they feral or domesticated?”
Kerrik’s ears were still flat. “They’re called dameosaurs and that’s about as domesticated as they get. They were made by scientists in Sanctuary. They’re not that bright but they’re supposed to be impressive combatants and unrelenting foes. They are metamorphic and can transform into an analog of a velociraptor.” A window in the hologram opened to show a repeating cycle of a dameosaur transforming from normal form to battle form and back. It froze with the pokegirl in battle form as he continued. “In this form they’re still not as bright as a real velociraptor, but they are more dangerous than in their normal form. They like to gut people with that sickle toe.” He reached into the hologram and touched the seventh pokegirl. “She’s their leader and is a Sanctuary Goth. She’s also not Celestine. Celestine has dark skin and red tattoos that aren’t as extensive as hers.” As they watched, the sentry changed to her velociraptor form and began idly swinging her tail back and forth.
The seventh pokegirl was a very near human with bright pink hair that was pulled back in a bun. She was wearing a short sleeved shirt and pants, with heavy sandals on her feet. On her arms could be seen series of black and green tattoos in some geometric pattern. The Sanctuary Goth was leaning back against the trunk of a newly chopped down acacia tree and was lazily watching a pan set in the coals of the fire.
Kerrik glanced up and at the faces around him. “Sanctuary Goths often know magic and all of them can teleport, so she’s the primary problem. The dameosaurs are just cannon fodder, so we need to get our hands on her to find out if she knows anything about Graeme or Celestine. I’ve got something to stop her from teleporting; it’s a collar that will keep her from accessing that ability. Raven will have to come in behind her and put it on her while you two distract the dameosaurs. Nobody gets away, ladies. If they do know where our missing charges are, we have to get that information from them.”
“You said the dameosaurs are stupid. Are they of any use if we catch the Goth?”
“Not really. She’ll know anything they do.”
“We’ll take care of it, Kerrik. Now let’s find a place to safely drop you.”
Whisper’s nose wrinkled. Did you have that anti-teleport collar for us?
He chuckled. “Of course not. I have a couple of them in case one of you became pregnant. All of your children will be capable of teleport and, since I can’t teleport right now, it would allow me to get my hands on them and correct any misbehavior without having to wait for one of you three to catch the errant child.”
Raven looked surprised. “You have them in case we get pregnant?”
“I have them in case you get pregnant during the time my powers are so limited. I like kids, so if you three stick with me there will come a time when I will work very hard to convince you to give me children. Parthenogenic children will be loved just as much as any other.” He smirked slightly. “I can be very persuasive and if you do stay with me, there will eventually be kids.”
What about our pokeballs? We do use them, if only on an infrequent basis.
“Your pokeballs don’t have the contraceptive effect in their circuitry. That would infringe on your right to decide for yourself if you want a child. I can and will plead and wheedle and beg, but I will not force you to either bear me a child or to not have one if you are pregnant.” He frowned slightly. “And now we need to get back to catching us a Goth. Most of them are determined to upset the current situation and put themselves on top, with humans as their pets. They also tend to run to arrogance and use fields of energy to control their harems of pokegirls. I’m uploading the information on the dameosaurs and the Sanctuary Goths to your twee. I’m sorry I don’t have any videos of them in action, but the information on them is pretty sparse, even with access to Poppet’s database.” He widened out the field of view while his pokegirls absorbed the information and communicated amongst each other with their twees. While in Wyoming, he’d worked to teach them to use their twees to conduct planning sessions since nothing available could tap their com signal. Whisper had improved on the technique by including her sisters in dreamtime, allowing them to do detailed contingency planning in less than a second.
Raven blinked and her gaze sharpened. “Did you find a place for us to put you?”
Kerrik nodded and highlighted a ridge a half mile away from the fire. “This is the best bet. It’s close enough that I can assist and far enough that at top speed the dameosaurs will still need almost four seconds to reach me if they figure out where I am. Of course, they’ll have to be able to see in the dark to move that quickly. They’re diurnal hunters and don’t have night vision. I’ll be using the spare 30mm rifle and at that range it can reach out and touch someone in about half a second. Add in my reaction time and the fact that the entire distance between me and them is fairly flat and an army of dameosaurs coming from that direction will only get to me after I run out of ammo.” He looked from face to face. “I know, I know, I’ll only shoot if I have to. For the next twenty years, it’s your show.” He pulled a thin spun metal collar from his pack and handed it to Raven. “Just slip it around her neck and close it. After that, she won’t be able to teleport or remove it.”
“Yes Kerrik.” The three pokegirls spent another half second communing with their twees before Raven slipped her arm around his waist. “Time to hunt.” She disappeared as she teleported out with their tamer. A second later Misery and Whisper followed her. Behind them, the construct dissolved like a sand sculpture hit by a wave.
They came out on the ridge in a defensive formation. Kerrik pulled a long case from his pack and opened it. “I’ll need three minutes to find just the right spot and get situated. No more.” He slipped an earbud into his right ear and flicked the ear back and forth to get the speaker settled. “Com check.” The bone induction mike in the earbud picked up his whisper and transmitted it to the twee of the three pokegirls.
Misery nodded. “We hear you.”
He didn’t look up as his hands flew while assembling the rifle. “Then why are you still here? Be careful.” They vanished and ten seconds later he slid the scope into place and activated the diagnostic function before moving to a good spot and taking up a firing position. The rifle diagnostic checked out clean and he peered through the scope. The scope extended his vision range into the low infrared and high ultraviolet. Heat waves shimmered off of everything in the image and the wild colors would have been completely confusing to anyone not trained in how to interpret the view. He made one final adjustment and became almost completely still. Only his ears slowly rotated as they sampled the night for threats.
About a hundred feet from the campfire, Raven, Whisper and Misery floated three hundred feet above the ground as they watched the people around the campfire. The cabbit held the mini-top with her telekinesis. In their minds, a timer ran down as they waited for the three minutes to pass. It ran to zero.
Aubrey Laurie poked at her gruel with a spoon and spared a glare for the dameosaurs as they loudly gulped down their food. Before becoming a Goth and leaving the Indigo league, she’d enjoyed a burger as much as anyone else, but watching them eat pokegirls always turned her stomach and she’d become almost a complete vegetarian after starting patrols. It didn’t make the meal of boiled sorghum any more palatable.
As instructed, they’d captured the renegade and her male and in the morning would begin the trek to convey them to the rendezvous point. Eventually they’d end up back with the renegade’s mother, who was understandably upset about her daughter’s flight. Aubrey was a bit unhappy that her superiors were unwilling to pick a rendezvous that she’d already been to, since she could have teleported there, dropped off her prisoners and been home in time for a long soak. Instead of some quiet music, she got to listen to the repulsive sounds of her hunting pack sucking the marrow out of the bones of a pair of cheetit they’d stumbled across.
Aubrey didn’t begrudge them their meal, she just wished she didn’t have to listen to or smell it while trying to eat hers. Finally she gave up and pushed the pan away, wiping the spare bit of gruel from her gloves as she did so. A flicker of motion near the sentry caught her eye and she turned towards it. She completely missed the other two flickers, one of which appeared in the middle of the feeding dameosaurs. The other was directly behind her.
Whisper came out behind the sentry and grabbed the much taller pokegirl around the middle. She probably could have taken out the sentry from a distance with her psychic abilities, but, like most hunters, she preferred to take her prey up close whenever possible and now she used her enhanced strength to immobilize her victim. Using her telekinesis, she spun the dameosaur’s head three hundred and sixty degrees, severing the spine and instantly killing the pokegirl before she knew she was under attack. Whisper tossed the corpse sideways as it started to void its bowels and bladder.
Raven appeared behind the Sanctuary Goth and grabbed her by the bun, jerking her backwards and slapping the collar around her neck with one hand. It clicked shut and the latch glowed softly for an instant. She lifted the Goth off the ground by her hair and shook her like a toy at the group of dameosaurs. “Stand down or your mistress is dead meat.”
The dameosaurs changed to their battle form and turned to face the archmage just as Misery appeared in their midst. The mini-top had an energy blade in each hand and she stabbed the dinosaur pokegirl on either side of her through the chest as she kicked the one in front her in the middle of the back, catapulting her target at Raven. The archmage summoned and tossed a glowing amethyst sphere which took the oncoming dameosaur in the stomach and imploded, crushing her stomach, chest and hips into a ball less than a foot across. She fell to the ground in front of the archmage and her prisoner, her tooth lined mouth moving feebly as it oozed fluid.
The other two dameosaur reacted instinctively and jumped Misery, the murderous claws on their feet ready to eviscerate the mini-top. They were in midair when Whisper’s sapphire exploded into blue brilliance as she fired a full power laser pulse that speared the rightmost dameosaur. Designed for combat at ranges approaching a light second, the energy beam vaporized the upper half of the hapless pokegirl and covered everyone else with a slimy liquid that shimmered in the moonlight.
Misery vanished and reappeared behind the still attacking dameosaur in a flicker that seemed to be in both places at once. She drove both energy blades into the girl’s torso and ripped sideways, tearing the rock type in two in a gout of blood that drenched the fire and put it out in a cloud of hissing smoke.
Kerrik blinked and sat up, his hands automatically beginning to dismantle the rifle. “I see why they were called death.” He froze at a small sound behind him. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He glanced behind him and relaxed when he realized it was the branch of a bush scraping against a rock. He was putting the rifle away when Misery appeared. He jumped “Gods.”
She was wiping at her face. “Fucking Whisper. This shit is nasty.”
“We’ll get you a good bath when we get out of here.” He slipped an arm around her waist.
She looked surprised. “My furry skin is trying to hide inside my clothes. Why doesn’t this gunk bother you?”
Kerrik let go her waist, took her head in his hands and began licking her face clean. “What gunk?” The mini-top looked startled for an instant and then wrapped her arms around him as she leaned into his ministrations.
“Should I be jealous?”
Kerrik looked up to realize that they’d teleported while he was cleaning Misery. Raven was watching them with neutral eyes while Whisper was securing their prisoner by the simple expedient of putting her eyes out with a claw. “I don’t think so. If you want a lick, all you have to do is join in. Misery shouldn’t mind.”
Misery made an odd noise and Raven frowned. “Did you just giggle?”
“Me, giggle? Fuck no.” She glared at Kerrik and pulled free from him.
He managed not to smile in satisfaction as he turned to Raven. “Good fight. I can see why you three were feared all over the planet.”
Raven looked surprised and then pleased. “Really? They weren’t all that much competition. If this is what is considered the nightmare of Pokegirl Prime, they must have forgotten what we were like during the war.”
It has been three hundred years and they haven’t had to fight a real war in a very long time. Apparently they have forgotten what it was like. They kill and eat an unsuspecting feral and call themselves killers. Whisper spat on the Sanctuary Goth, who jerked and shrieked in fear. She leaned down and exhaled on the Goth’s face. If you didn’t have answers that we seek, you would also be meat for the eating. Where are Graeme and Celestine?
Aubrey moaned until Whisper shook her. “They, they were taken to the Council to face judgment for their crimes.”
“Fuck.” Raven scrubbed at her face with the bottom of her shirt. “What do we do now?” She glanced at Kerrik. “Ok, why are you smiling?”
“Our little Sanctuary Goth is lying to us; that’s why. Apparently she doesn’t know that she shouldn’t do that. I don’t have time for her games. Whisper, would you get what we need to know?”
You will either give me the information I seek or I will open your skull like a boiled egg and eat your brain. At that point you will give me the information I want, only you’ll be dead. Your choice. Her antenna unfurled and quested in the direction of the Goth, who turned a blind face covered with vitreous fluid and blood towards the cabbit. I am pleased that you want to live, Aubrey Laurie who was once a battle angel. Abruptly, Whisper became motionless, not even her tail moving.
Kerrik blinked in surprise when all three of his pokegirls swung to stare him with almost identical expressions of sorrow on their faces. “What?”
Her body stiff with anger, Raven kicked the Goth flat on her back and knelt to dig through the prisoner’s pockets. She stood and moved over to her tamer. “I’m sorry.” She held up her hand to reveal two pokeballs. “Here they are.”
Kerrik looked that the two small spheres and his ears plastered themselves to his skull. “Graeme?” Raven indicated one of the balls and he took the other, turned and hit the release.
Celestine’s hair had grown out a bit and she now showed she was pregnant, but otherwise only the fear in her eyes was different from when he’d seen her before. She stared around at the four of them, the corpses and Aubrey before cringing away from them all, one hand going protectively over her stomach. Kerrik took a deep breath and forced his ears up. He kept his tone artificially light. “When we last met, which was, bye the bye, the first time we met, I was with Graeme’s brother Jamie and his pokegirls, a demoness named Ginevra and a duelist named Madison. I looked older then, but the hair and the ears are more or less the same.”
She stared at him. “Kerrik?”
“I came as soon as I got Graeme’s message.”
“He didn’t send it, I did. We were out of ideas and he still didn’t want his mother getting involved. I had to sneak the parchment from his pack when he was asleep.” She gave kind of a gasping cry. “Sometimes he’s so stubborn.”
“Do you know what happened to him?”
The color drained from her face and her voice was a whisper. “Aubrey got him.”
You know Aubrey?
She nodded slowly. “She is my adopted sister. My mother took her in to raise her after she became one of us. Like a lot of the adopted ones, she’s very militant and very loyal to mother. When mother ordered me returned, I’m sure she leapt at the chance to prove her love.”
Kerrik took the other pokeball and activated it. The pokegirl had Graeme’s hair and eye color. She was nude, and her large breasts seemed to defy gravity as they hung proudly from her chest. She blinked slowly and her chest rose and fell as she breathed, but otherwise she gave no sign of being alive.
Celestine moved to stand next to Kerrik. “He was turned into a doll.” Her voice was heavy with grief.
Kerrik nodded and spoke to the doll. “Can you hear me?”
Her voice was a sweet contralto as her eyes focused on him. “I can.” Beside him, Celestine gave a sob.
“Am I speaking to Graeme?”
The pokegirl’s expression never changed. “Who is Graeme?”
“I’d like to speak to Graeme.”
“I do not understand.”
“Who are you?”
“I am nothing.”
Kerrik scowled. “I want to talk to Graeme’s twee. I know you survived the evolution. Now I need you to take control so we can talk. If Graeme cannot give that permission, you will still have to act.”
The doll’s lips moved without any sound coming from them and then she shuddered once. “I am here.” The voice was the same, but there was somehow even less emotion than before.
“Can I talk to Graeme?”
“Graeme cannot contact anyone. All I can tell is that he is completely isolated inside his brain and can only observe what this shell experiences.”
Kerrik nodded. “I was afraid it was something like that. You are part of Graeme and you can speak for him. This shell can be trained and Celestine will need help during her pregnancy. She needs you. You must release me from my oath.”
The doll’s eyes blinked. “No.”
Kerrik tried again. “The circumstances are something that we never conceived of when I made Graeme that oath. Surely he would want to help Celestine with their child. Surely he would want you to help if he could not.”
“The circumstances are unchanged. Graeme did not love Celestine more than he hated this. You are not released from your oath. He would never have wanted that. Kill us.”
Celestine gasped and closed her eyes as a determined look crossed her face. Several seconds passed and she sagged. “He won’t say anything else.” She turned to Kerrik. “He told me about your oath. Now I think he made sure I knew because he knew I’d fight you about this, but I can’t. I know you have to keep your promises. He told me what could happen if you didn’t.”
What oath?
Kerrik slipped off his pack. “Before Graeme became a tamer, he got me and his mother together and made us promise to never let him live as a pokegirl. I swore to kill him within one hour of finding him unless he changed his mind. He made sure she understood that I had given my word, which I will always keep. Hopefully it means that someday Poppet will forgive me.” He pulled a knife from the backpack. As he drew the blade from the scabbard, it shimmered through the spectrum of color and made the eyes hurt if someone looked at it too long. He looked at Celestine. “I am sorry. You and Graeme were a couple and that makes you family. You will always have a place with us, if you want it.”
“They’ll only keep hunting me if I stay here and you’re right, I’ll need help with the pregnancy.”
“We could probably convince Sanctuary to leave you alone, if you’d like to remain here.”
I’m sure there could be a meeting of the minds, once I know all of Aubrey’s secrets.
Celestine shook her head. “You’d have to destroy Sanctuary to stop my mother. She sits on the Council. From what Graeme said, you could probably do that, but I don’t want all of them to suffer just so I can get revenge.” She straightened up. “I have to see you do it. Maybe I can help make peace with Poppet, somehow. I’m not sure that your knife will kill him. Dolls are almost impervious to physical damage, even that caused by magic.”
“The entire blade of this knife is not only enchanted, it’s only three molecules thick.” Kerrik drove the knife into Graeme’s forehead. The doll’s body shimmered just like the blade and there was a tremendous gush of warm steam that shot out in all directions as the body instantly incinerated, leaving only an ash husk that dissolved and flowed into the knife. Kerrik carefully sheathed the weapon. “I’ll release his ashes at the family plot on Haven when we get there.”
“What about her?” Raven pointed with her chin at Aubrey.
Kerrik moved over and squatted next to the Goth. His voice was soft and empty. “Aubrey turned Graeme into a pokegirl and gave me no choice but to kill my grandson.” The Goth turned her head at the sound of his voice and stared sightlessly in his direction. She reached out blindly with a hand until it touched his leg. It slid down until she found where his pants bloused over his boot as he twisted and looked at Celestine. “She’s your sister and therefore you have a hand in the final decision, but also remember that she took Graeme from us. Do you care what happens to her?”
“She was taking me back to mother to be punished. She’s already dead to me. Do with her what you will.”
Aubrey whipped her other hand from behind her and slapped a dull black stone against Kerrik’s bare ankle. “I won’t die alone!”
The kami reached down and wrapped his fingers around Aubrey’s gloved ones. He tightened his grip and she moaned. The moan became a scream as blood began to run out of the back of the glove as he crushed her hand around the stone. He pried her broken fingers free of the black stone and held it up in his bare hand. “Ladies, this is an oil stone and if a pokegirl or a human with pokegirl genes touches it, they’ll become a doll.” He tossed it into the remains of the fire where it grew hot and shattered amongst the coals. His voice grew softer, like the wind does before a storm. “Aubrey, if I had my full powers, I think I’d take the time to make you into an example that people would talk about for the next three hundred years. Fortunately for you, I don’t.” He tore out Aubrey’s throat with his claws and rose as she began choking on her own blood. “Celestine, I’m not sure how Poppet will receive you, but I promise you that you will always have a place amongst the Wolf family. If you have to or want to, you can live with us in Texas, as long as you understand one thing. You are my grandson’s mate and I don’t ever want you in my bed.”
Celestine looked relieved and nodded.
Raven was watching Aubrey die. “Do you want that collar?”
Kerrik nodded. “Thanks, I almost forgot about it.” Raven created an energy blade and removed Aubrey’s head. She picked up the collar as the catch glowed and it fell open in her hand. “Here.”
Kerrik slipped it and the knife into his pack as Whisper created the deck of her construct. Now we go home.
“You forget, we’re supposed to meet Elizabeth.” Misery grinned. “Why don’t we just teleport to the Conservatory?”
Raven shook her head as if the mini-top had missed something important. “What does your file on Sanctuary say about people’s reaction to the Goths?”
Misery blinked as her twee supplied more information. “Oh, right. People might overreact.”
“That’s putting it mildly.” Kerrik turned to Celestine. “You don’t have to go into a pokeball, but I’d like you to be as unobtrusive as possible until I can talk to Devon about you.”
The Goth shook her head. “I don’t mind the pokeball. Graeme had it made just for me. It has no conditioning cycle and won’t abort my pregnancy. It’s primarily so I can be healed if injured.” Her eyes began to tear in the corners. “Oh, god, I’ll never see him again.”
Raven made a motion and Whisper’s eyes flashed. Celestine dropped bonelessly and only Misery’s quick catch kept her from crashing to the floor. “My call,” the archmage stated coldly as she plucked Celestine’s pokeball from Kerrik. “We’ve got enough on our hands right now. We don’t need a grieving pregnant girl on our hands, too.” She met his eyes as Celestine disappeared into the capture field. “She needs healed anyway. How are you doing?”
“He’s not the first of my family I’ve had to give mercy to. He won’t be the last and they all hurt the same.” He smiled slightly. “I’m as ok as I’m going to get.” Taking Celestine’s pokeball, he stuffed it into his pack. “Since we don’t have her out anymore, we can teleport back to the Conservatory and track down Elizabeth before we go home.”
Misery shook her head. “No, first we need to find someplace and bathe. Remember, we look like someone sprayed us with a hose filled with gore.”
Whisper nodded and the construct grew around them. We’ll find a nice stream or river and bathe. I think Misery needs to stand watch first while we bathe our tamer.
“Hey! You made this mess! You stand first watch.”
You needed help.
“The fuck I did. I had everything under control, bitch!” Still arguing, the construct accelerated for the sky. It paused for a moment at a thousand feet and blue lightning erupted from it to scour the remains of Aubrey Laurie and six dead dameosaurs from the face of the Earth. The lasers played across the area until the very ground glowed an angry red and everything flammable was ash. Then the vessel climbed and disappeared.
Name: Wolf, Kerrik
Age: Unlisted
Residence: Kingdom of Haven - Currently Texas League
Status: Active
Rank: NA (5)
HRA rank: Colonel
Security Clearance: Omicron
Licenses
Tamer Y
Master Tamer Y
Researcher N
Watcher N
Breeder Y
Active Harem
Raven Archmage
Whisper Cabbit
Misery Mini-top