Into the Fire
Thirty Six
Author’s note: This chapter presumes that you are familiar with Kelvin’s Choice’s story, Tamers and uses characters and situations from it with his permission. If you have not read it, you are very naughty and need to remedy the situation immediately. It is well worth the time.
Outside the Captain’s cabin, Iain paused to rub his temples. Eve placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Is it any worse than last time?”
“No, it’s about the same.” He looked up to see the Fallen Angel watching him curiously and smiled slightly. It was an odd sight, considering his eyes were full of pain. “I was in dreamtime just a little while before we met. For some reason, being in dreamtime gives me a screaming headache and mild nausea. It lasts for a couple of hours and so far we have found no curative magic or drug that does any good.”
The Fallen Angel nodded. “You must have a psychic ability of some kind. Those with latent or active psychic abilities usually give themselves headaches if they fight dreamtime and can’t break free. In some cases the headaches can be very bad.”
“That’s impossible,” Eve began, only to break off. “It should be impossible. Kerrik is a pure strain human.”
“Was,” he said absently. “Considering everything, I may have to have another genetic evaluation done to be sure.”
“Who says humans have to have blood gifts to be psychic?” The Fallen Angel gave a Gallic shrug when Eve’s eyebrows went up questioningly. “I have heard theories that latent and possibly active abilities of many kinds were most likely present in at least some humans even before they began breeding with pokegirls.”
Iain put his hand on Eve’s arm when she started to speak. “Her theory is better than our worrying that I was getting ready to stroke out.”
“I’ll start doing some research on the subject,” Eve muttered.
“Thanks.” Iain turned to the Fallen Angel. “I am very sorry for being such a clod, but I just realized I don’t know what your name is.”
The door to the Captain’s cabin opened as the Fallen Angel opened her mouth, interrupting her. Eko and Kay stepped into the companionway and stopped when they saw Iain and his group. The Officerjenny’s eyes narrowed. “Keep her on a short leash, Kerrik.”
“Eriko, she hasn’t done anything to you or to anyone else.” Iain kept his tone polite and offered her a friendly smile. “I’m sorry you’re frustrated about something but we’ll be out of your hair shortly.”
“Good.” Eko brushed by them and headed down a nearby stairway.
“Take care.” Kay gave them a quick wave and a smile before she tore off in close pursuit of her sister.
“That’s likely to be the typical attitude towards my presence in your life,” the Fallen Angel said quietly.
“Eriko doesn’t like me because she keeps hearing the word no coming out of my mouth and as an Officerjenny she’s not used to hearing it directed at her. You’re just an acceptable reason for her to dump on me. As for anyone else, they can go suck rocks if they don’t like anything about me or my ladies. And if they’re dumb enough to try something, I’ll crush them like the vermin they are.”
“I see. I’m grateful you will be protective of me. As for my name, it is Pandora.”
Iain abruptly grinned. “Would that be pre-Hesiod or post?”
Pandora looked confused. “I don’t understand the question.”
“Hesiod was a Greek poet who lived over three thousand years ago. Before he wrote about her, historical information suggests that Pandora was an earth goddess along with Gaia and Demeter. According to the same sources, the name Pandora should be translated as all-giving, something which was kind of common to goddesses of the earth, since all the food except fish came from the earth. Hesiod turned Pandora into a mortal woman created by the Greek gods who had been given a bunch of gifts by the gods so she would be irresistible to man and therefore could make man’s life a misery. Hesiod then gave her a pithos, or jar, containing all the diseases and evils that have plagued man. The pithos also contained hope, placed there by the gods so man wouldn’t lose hope and kill himself, which would thereby prolong the torment from the other ills. The whole reason for the punishment, according to Hesiod, was because man had accepted the gift of fire that Prometheus offered them and Zeus got his balls in a twist over it.” He smirked and winced. “Greek gods tended to get upset over a lot of things. Later, some genius scholar named Erasmus mistranslated the Greek pithos into the Latin pyxis and the jar became a box, thus creating the most commonly known story of Pandora and her box of the plagues for mankind.”
Pandora looked surprised. “My first tamer didn’t like having a Seraph in his harem and after he named me he gave me a box I was supposed to keep with me at all times. I didn’t understand how mean his joke was until now.”
“Well then, I think an official change of name is in order. You are no longer the post-Hesiod Pandora. I formally name you pre-Hesiod Pandora.”
Pandora blinked purple eyes at him and frowned. “My name is still Pandora.”
“No, your name was Pandora. Now it’s Pandora.”
“There’s no difference.”
“I’ll have you know Pandora is completely different from Pandora.”
Ninhursag grinned. “This argument is distracting him from his pain and I suggest you give up, Pandora or we’ll be here until one of you caves because he or she won’t pee themselves in public.”
Pandora’s eyes widened.
“That wouldn’t work on me. It’s not my ship and I’d just piss against the wall.” He pointed. “I already picked my bathroom spot out right over there.” He smirked at Pandora. “Have you picked out where you’ll pee yet?”
“You can’t be serious.”
Eve sighed. “I believe you told Eko we’d be gone soon, Kerrik.”
“Oh fuck, that’s right. I did, and I’m not in the mood to play games with her. Fine, we’ll finish the discussion of the subtle distinctions between the two different ways Pandora is pronounced later.”
“You are not in the mood to play games?” Ninhursag’s tone was teasing. “You?”
Iain headed down the companionway. “I’m inclined to give Eko to Eirian and the two facts that, one, I am so inclined to and, two, she hasn’t really done anything to deserve a fate like that bothers me,” he looked at the Elfqueen, “but only a little bit, which bothers me the most.” He rolled his neck to loosen it and groaned out loud before rubbing his temples again. “Eve, let’s go find Miguelito and say goodbye. We have work that needs attended to and taunting Eriko is not going to get it done.”
“Why tell Eve to find him? She’s right here with the rest of us.”
“Pandora, Eve is a psychic and a celestial and might be able to use her psychic powers or her celestial powers to find Dr. Carmen a lot faster than randomly picking passageways and wandering down them would.” He grimaced. “And asking crewmembers leads to the game of ‘I think he was there’, which is a little better than poking myself in the eye with a dull stick.”
Her eyes widened. “The Awareness is not to be used like that.”
“Now you sound like a Seraph. I’ll use the Awareness to find a good burger joint if I want to and can convince Eve to help me out. It’s a tool, just like some of the people we have to deal with. Yes, it has the potential to be a very powerful tool, but so does C4. It’s all in how it’s used. It also has the potential to become a crutch, so we’re careful to use other tools regularly because none of them are so perfect that they can be relied on to the exclusion of the others.”
***
“Why does Miguelito insist on assembling people to wish us a goodbye?” Iain grimaced and leaned against the fantail’s railing. He rubbed his forehead. “I wonder if morphine or ketamine would work on my head.”
Dominique smirked. “Miguelito is just being friendly, Kerrik. Remember that normal people do that.”
“I am well aware that I’m not very good at playing the human.”
The Archmage winced at his suddenly unemotional tone. “Shit. I didn’t mean it like that and you know it. What I meant was that you sometimes don’t understand what motivates people to make gestures that you consider unnecessary.”
Pandora looked from one to the other. “You know, my last tamer had a rule that if someone cursed, they had to give up a luxury for a week. We could try that here.” She smiled proudly. “I helped him put that rule into place.”
“Really?” Iain looked vaguely interested. “What happens when you run out luxuries to confiscate?”
She frowned. “That never happened.”
“It would here. I’d probably end up naked. Sometimes I curse like, well, like a sailor.”
April snickered. “We’d let you keep your shoes. That way nobody would have to carry you.”
He beamed at her. “That’s so kind.” The smile faded. “However, I don’t think that kind of program would be all that useful here, Pandora. Cursing is a form of expression, crude or not, and I will not arbitrarily punish someone for speaking their mind. You’re free to disapprove of someone cursing, but you can’t use force to make them stop. If someone chooses not to curse, that’s their choice, but that same choice applies for someone who does choose to say fuck instead of shucks.”
Ninhursag chuckled. “I know I certainly would never want to get shucked until I couldn’t stand up.”
Pandora blinked and her lips compressed. “Tamed is a perfectly acceptable word.”
Eve nodded. “As long as you ignore the degradation implied in it when it’s applied to sexual contact between people, it sure is.”
The Fallen Angel looked surprised. “What do you mean?”
“In the original usage, a tamer is someone who goes out and breaks wild animals to human control. Tamers also train them to be obedient and, if they’re going to be indoor pets, they learn to wear clothes and not to crap or piss on the carpet. The term was later applied to people catching pokegirls because it was milder and less offensive than slave owner yet carried similar connotations for the pokegirls. So if the people who own pokegirls are tamers and sex with pokegirls is taming, that reinforces the stereotype that pokegirls are animals and can be disposed of without regard.” Iain’s gaze shifted to something behind Pandora. “What?”
She turned around to see Zareen glaring at Iain. The Nightmare folded her arms. “I only peed in the house once. There is no need to discuss me.”
“It was a general observation, Zareen.” Iain glanced at April when she snickered. “Stop that. Zareen, I wasn’t talking about you. After all, I didn’t make you wear clothes, did I? Eve really wanted me to do that, too, and tried to convince me order you to.”
Zareen looked at Eve. “Why did you try to do that?”
Eve nodded. “You are a near human when you’re not in your centaur form. You should wear clothes.”
Zareen looked down at her bare breasts and back up at Eve. “Fuck that. He likes looking at me just the way I am.”
Iain frowned and looked around suddenly. He shook his head hard for a second and grunted. “Wow. What a rush.”
Eve gave him a concerned look. “What’s the matter?”
“I just felt a paradigm shift without a clutch.”
“What?”
“Something profound just changed events. It’s like the universe paused for a second and then changed its flow slightly.”
Vanessa looked at April. “They did it.”
April gave her a slightly sick look and Iain’s eyes narrowed at the exchange. “Who did what?”
“Well, Kerrik,” Vanessa began, only to stop when April shook her head. “Yes, April?”
“While you’re a good friend, you aren’t really a part of the harem yet, Vanessa. I’m the beta and this is my responsibility. I’ll explain it.”
Vanessa looked hurt. “I was involved too.” She blinked when Ninhursag put her hand on the legendary’s shoulder.
The Elfqueen squeezed gently. “Vanessa, why don’t you stop pressing your face against the window and come inside with the rest of us? You want to.”
Pandora frowned when everyone else froze. Vanessa shook her head. “I can’t, remember?” She looked at Iain. “That’s right, isn’t it?”
His voice was gentle. “I never said you couldn’t join us. You said that.” His eyes caught sight of the Fallen Angel’s expression. “Pandora, we have secrets that people outside of our personal family are not to find out about. You’ll get a full briefing when we return home and you’ll get to decide if you don’t really want to release me from my promise.”
Pandora nodded. “I won’t, you know. It doesn’t matter what’s going on.”
“Now there’s something I’d almost be willing to bet money on,” Dominique said laughingly.
Vanessa ignored the byplay and gave him a desperate look. “What about my responsibilities?”
“Most of them are self imposed, but I don’t care. Eve still does favors for Lucy. Don’t forget that’s why we’re here in the first place. April still has friends across Blue that she’d volunteer us to help out. If you need help with them, we’ll help, just like we helped here. Just like you helped us here. Now you think about that for a while and decide what you want to do while April explains what the fuck is going on.”
April took a deep breathe. “Long story short, some of the pokegirls on this ship were going to try to get Kelvin out of the restaurant and bring him back to life the way Pandora did before the doors closed on the portals. It was some of the girls in Brian’s harem. It’s very likely that what you just felt was them succeeding in their mission. Vanessa and I blessed off the mission and gave them information they required on how to accomplish certain things. You and Eve were in dreamtime and I didn’t consult with you.”
Iain stared at her for a long second. “That dull thump you just heard was my jaw hitting the deck. How did they plan to accomplish this? Only the dead or a necromancer could go into the Eatery. I am well aware that there are pokegirls here who can do necromantic magic, but there is a whole world of difference between that and actually being a necromancer.”
April shrugged. “Stupid Fuzzbutt said she was being sent to retrieve him. A spell was used to temporarily kill her so she could reach him in the restaurant.”
Eirian’s voice shivered through his mind. It was close to a true death, but wasn’t. We sensed her death and investigated to see if the corpse could be retrieved for our uses. As she wasn’t completely dead, her body was unsuitable. I did not think it worth mentioning.
To everyone’s surprise, Iain choked off a laugh. “She was mostly dead? All we need now is a Pit of Despair, a Miracle Man on this ship and someone to invoke ‘to blathe’ in the cause of recovering Kelvin.” He laughed harder and suddenly broke off to cradle his head. “Damn, that hurt.”
Eve frowned. “To blathe?”
“It’s from a three hundred year old movie and was supposed to be true love. When we get moved, I’ll see about finding a copy of The Princess Bride to read or watch.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t know about Stupid Fuzzbutt, but I think true love might just apply to certain members of his harem.” Dominique smirked. “Several of them were rather put out when he up and died without them.”
“Iain?” April was watching him worriedly. “We didn’t screw up, did we?”
Ninhursag smacked her on the back of the head. “Kerrik. That’s another secret, Pandora.”
The Duelist flushed. “Sorry.”
Iain looked thoughtful for a moment and then shrugged. “You did fine. There’s no harm done to us, April. If they succeeded, the only way I could stop it would be to kill him again and I don’t see any reason to do that.” He met Eve’s eyes. “Free choice and all that.”
Vanessa smiled in relief. “What do we do about it?”
“We get the hell off this ship before anyone else finds out he’s back. It’s about to become estrogen hell for the next couple of weeks while his harem reassures themselves he’s not going to pop like a soap bubble when they look away. He’ll get in touch with us when he’s ready to.”
Ninhursag grinned. “You mean when they let him out of bed.”
“That too.”
“I got the impression that they were not going to take no from us for an answer and we were ill prepared for a fight with the people who came to discuss the situation with us. April might have been killed.” Vanessa rubbed her hands together. “I really think that they were terribly worried you might want to stop this.”
“That’s good. Hopefully it means they’ll hold off on the unveiling until we’re gone.” He looked at the sky with an earnest expression. “Please? I’m not really asking for much here. Pretty please with sugar on top?”
Eve looked around. “When we leave, we will rendezvous at the third evacuation site. I don’t want to take Pandora to our home until she’s been properly fucked into the harem.”
The Fallen Angel gasped and turned bright red. Iain gave her a lecherous grin. “Yeah, I want to get that taken care of promptly too.” Pandora’s flush spread down her neck and under her blouse and she abruptly looked away.
***
Iain looked disbelievingly at the mass of Megami who wanted to say goodbye to them. Apparently once word had gotten around that he wasn’t a slavering monster, opinion had swung rapidly to the other side. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because of Eve’s presence in his harem. Maybe it was because he had that ever rare and elusive Y chromosome. Maybe, he blinked and shook his head to stop that line of thought. It didn’t matter why.
Whatever it was, he certainly didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t done anything here.
Behind them he could see Miguelito and several members of Kelvin’s harem waiting their turn once the crush had died down.
He hadn’t done anything for them, either.
The crowd parted as the Captain passed through it. She gave him a warm smile. “I know you’re leaving, but could I have just a moment of your time?”
He glanced at Eve. “I’d be honored.”
The Megami took him by the elbow and led him towards the fantail’s railing. “Just a second, Kerrik.” She muttered softly and the sounds around them dropped to almost nothing as the air around them shimmered, distorting the view they could see. “I wanted some privacy, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
She clasped her hands behind her back. “I want your honest opinion. Should I ally with Lucifer?”
He blinked. “I am the last person you should be consulting in regards to that.”
“I disagree, Mr. Wolf. You are one of the few people here besides Eve who has met Lucifer. That makes your input worth seeking out. In addition, while you tend to be very self deprecating about it, when the need arises you have always pitched in and helped others.” She smiled thinly. “Always under your own conditions, I will admit, but when you do help, you help to the best of your ability.” Her smile vanished. “Even when you were almost certain you were being lied to and would be betrayed in the end, you still helped the Blue League government with their Sanctuary spies.”
Iain looked uncomfortable. “I am not a nice person, Captain,” he began.
She cut him off. “You are a just man, Kerrik, and fair. I don’t need nice. I need as unbiased an opinion I can get about Lucifer and the Sisterhood of the Thorn. My intelligence on that organization was apparently very wrong and since the Sunshine League doesn’t know any more than the Navy does about them, I’ll take what help I can get.” Her eyes met his. “So, Kerrik, will you give me your advice in this?”
“I’ll try.”
“Thank you. Now listen to my situation, please. Before Janus and Dr. Carmen came on board, my ship was,” her lips pursed, “a joke.”
Iain shook his head. “No, it wasn’t. While it is true that compared to her fighting strength three hundred years ago she was crippled, the Daisy Mae was still an effective fighting force and you and your crew did miracles with what you had at hand.”
She chuckled softly. “If you would stay on my ship, Mr. Wolf, I would be willing to make you my morale officer. However, after Janus’ and Dr. Carmen’s refit, my ship was completely battle worthy and we achieved some significant victories.”
He nodded. “I understand you broke the back of the local pirate forces, probably for at least the next decade.”
“I doubt it will be that long. They are like roaches and will recover faster than anyone could dream. I expect they’ll be back in strength in three years, five at the outside. The only thing that will really change is that the average age of the pirates will go down seven or eight years since many of them will be the daughters of pirates we killed recently. But you do understand my situation.”
“I do. The Navy may try to draw you more fully into their sphere of influence because you’ve become so much more powerful and the leagues will most certainly take note once the word of your accomplishments gets out.”
She turned to look through the distortion field at the white wake trailing behind her ship. “And that word will. There are spies from too many different groups here.”
Iain moved to join her. “Right now the Navy is the only supplier of the eight inch ammo you vitally need. According to Lucifer, other leagues either are or will soon start manufacturing it themselves, but they’ll have similar wants. Lucifer says she can get that ammo for you, but she will also want things from you for it. TANSTAAFL rules in all negotiations.”
“What is that?”
“It stands for There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. What it means is that anything you want will have to cost you in some way.” He turned to face her. “I would advise you to accept Lucifer’s aid, but not to burn your bridges with the Navy unless they try to take you over.”
“Can the Sisterhood actually supply us?”
“I haven’t managed to catch Lucifer in a lie yet and therefore if she says she can supply you, I believe she can. I also think the fact that she sent Eve to talk to you about it points out just how serious she is about this.”
“What do you mean?”
Iain frowned briefly. “I’m probably not supposed to tell you this, but the Sisterhood has been around since the Revenge War and Lucifer has been their leader the whole time. She and the inner circle of the Sisterhood all have longevity. While I haven’t been able to get Eve to tell me her place in the hierarchy of the Sisterhood, I suspect she was one of the original members and is highly placed in the organization. She and Lucifer are just too comfortable with each other, a lot like you and your XO are. This leads me to think that the reason she wanted Eve to be her errand girl was because she is deadly serious about this offer and intends to throw a lot of support behind you if you accept.” “Why?”
“I don’t have an answer to that question. I know she thinks in the long term in a way I can’t yet understand, and it could be that she’s just hedging her bets against future needs. In the meantime you are doing things that she approves of and so you’d be worth supporting.”
“How big is the Sisterhood?”
“I asked that question recently and was told it was none of my business. However, my impression, from some things that I have seen, is that they’re big and well organized.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wolf, for your candor and for your advice. Rest assured that what we have discussed here will not be repeated to anyone.”
“I think you should tell your XO. Regardless of what you decide, she needs to know in case something happens to you.”
“There you go helping others again, Mr. Wolf, when you don’t really have to. I will indeed tell her.” The Captain broke the spell and led him back to the others.
As Miguelito came forward with his harem, Iain noticed motion at a hatch on the forward end of the fantail. It was Brain and his harem along with, curiously, Cheryl and Underworld from Kelvin’s harem. They paused when they saw the crowd. He snorted and turned his attention to the dwarf. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Miguelito. The same goes for you ladies, Dr. Marilyn, Voltaire and Antoinette.” He nodded to each of them in turn. “Hopefully we’ll meet again someday and I can host you instead.”
Miguelito shook Iain’s hand. “No, Kerrik, the next time you should come to see what I’ll build from what you told me. It’ll be magnificent!” His eyes gleamed with passion at something only he could see.
Iain smiled. “You’ve got my information, so let me know when you’re done and I’ll see what we can arrange.”
“Bye Mister Kerrik! I know you’re gonna kill me for this, but I know it’s all right now!” Iain looked up to see Stupid Fuzzbutt bouncing up and down near Cheryl and Underworld, who were carrying a long bundle. The Bunnygirl exchanged words with one of Brian’s Jokettes and waved at them. “Bye, bye Kerrik! We all think you’re cute!”
“She’s got a good set of lungs,” Dominique snickered. “I suppose that’s her being inconspicuous.”
“I think she’s trying to be subtle and cunning,” from April. “Inconspicuous would most likely involve her announcing that we couldn’t notice her.”
Miguelito gave them a puzzled look. “I don’t understand.”
“You will.” Iain took Eve’s hand. “April, you’ve got Pandora.”
He looked up as Stupid Fuzzbutt tugged her ears down and bellowed at them again. “Bye Vanny, bye April! Roll him in flour and you can have Kerrik-cake!”
The Jokettes dropped like they’d been clubbed.
April sighed. “Let’s get out here before she kills one of them with her subtlety.” One at a time, in a ripple of teleportation, they vanished.
***
The breeze swept across the plain, swirling the ash in the old fire pit. The stars in the clear night sky dimly illuminated the river as it swept down its banks. Then Eve appeared with Iain. She was quickly followed by Dominique, Ninhursag, Vanessa and Zareen. A second later April appeared, with Pandora clinging tightly to her hand. Eve looked around quickly. “Dominique, April and I will sweep the area. Ninhursag, you and Zareen clear the camp and check the riverbank for signs of activity. Pandora and Vanessa are with Iain.”
Iain chuckled. “I’ll start setting up for the fire, but I promise not to light it until we’re secure.”
“That sounds good.” The Megami-sama shot into the air and disappeared with Dominique and April.
Vanessa headed for the pile of firewood they’d left. “What time do you think it is?”
“Early morning,” Pandora replied before Iain could say anything. “I’ve been in the Dark Continent before and can read the stars here. Catgirls, Cheetah and Cheetit are still active right now while Lionesses and Tigresses will be feeding or looking for kills to steal. It’s a good time to be in a blind waiting for ferals.” She paused with an armful of wood and looked around with a sad expression. “Of course, that was before Sanctuary came along and turned this place into an utter wasteland.”
Vanessa frowned. “I didn’t know that people from the leagues came here often?”
Pandora lips twitched for a second before the sadness returned. “They didn’t. My second tamer had a Unicorn whose distant ancestor had been here and had started a tradition of taking her daughters wherever she had been in order to increase their value. The tradition continued through the generations. His Unicorn had been here and she brought us here to hunt ferals. The place was rich with them and we always did very well selling them since many of the pokegirl breeds here were rare in the leagues. A lot of people tried to figure out where we were hunting, too, but never figured it out. After I was dead, Sanctuary released their dinosaur pokegirls and they slaughtered whatever they caught. Humans not under Sanctuary’s control, pokegirls, they killed everything and moved on. It was terrible. They didn’t even bother to eat most of what they killed.”
“This all took place after you died?” Vanessa watched her curiously. “How did you know this?”
“There are places in the Lands of the Dead where we can watch the living and I had nothing else to do after I died so I observed the destruction.”
Iain sat down on a rock. “In less than twenty years Sanctuary completely destroyed the new ecology that Africa had settled into after the Red Plague. A long time ago, believe it or not, Africa was mostly forest. Then came the elephant and under their onslaught the forest receded. Man just helped the process along later. After the elephant went extinct pokegirls took their place. Now, the forest is returning because the dinosaurs don’t eat much vegetation and they don’t give a shit about the trees. Someday soon it’ll be nothing but the trees, rodents, birds and Sanctuary.” He snorted in the dark. “And in my world people said that we were hard on nature.”
Pandora and Vanessa both looked at him. “Were you?”
“Sometimes. The only problem was the people getting upset about it were fat, dumb, happy and far away from the starving people who were doing horrible things to the environment. It’s easy to be indignant if you’re not the ones starving.”
Vanessa began building the wood into a stack for the fire. “What happened to your vaunted bubble?”
“It’s still as small as always. The issue is that they wanted the starving people to stop doing slash and burn, terracing or whatever without having some other way to eat. What that said to me was the indignant ones really just wanted the starving ones to lie down and die. That’s unthinking and hypocritical. Living creatures are programmed to never give up. Granted, it is very efficient to keep the people from slashing and burning the forest by machine gunning them all, but first it’s the use of force against someone not offering force to you and, second it’s not going to happen. Instead, you have to teach the children other ways to live. And you can’t just teach them that what their parents are doing is bad.” He blinked and looked down. “Where on earth did that bloody soapbox come from? I thought I was sitting on a rock. Please forgive my lecture.”
Ninhursag appeared next to Iain out of the night without warning and smiled when he jumped. “An Elfqueen telling the trees to kill every human who gets near them works well, or so I’ve been told.”
“There are no Elfqueens on my world.”
She grinned. “Their loss. The area around the river is clear. We saw some tracks but they were at least a couple of days old. There was nothing to catch.” She cocked her head. “Why are you breaking your own rule?”
Iain frowned. “What rule?”
“We are in the Dark Continent and you are not Austin.”
“I’m not going anywhere near Sanctuary. It’s not a big deal.”
Ninhursag folded her arms over her massive chest. “Then why did you state it was a rule in the first place?”
“I,” his mouth opened and he paused before closing it. “You’re right. Pandora, you’re about to see that I can change my shape a little.”
“Really? Are you descended from a line of Tittos and have some metamorphic blood gift?” Her mouth dropped as Iain changed into Austin. “How did you do that?”
“I’m a mage in training. My real name is Iain Grey. It’s one of the things we don’t tell outsiders. When I look like this, my name is Austin Drummond and I’m affiliated with Kirabo, a member of the Sanctuary High Council.”
“Why are you affiliated with Sanctuary? I understand they did bad things to you.”
His eyes glittered angrily. “They did and I’m going to kill them for it. First, however, I had to maneuver myself into their confidence so I can get close enough. That is, unless, of course, you happen to know where I can get my hands on a kiloton nuclear weapon.”
“Not a functional one, no, but I know where there are two old ones. They are very dangerous since their chemical warheads have become extremely unstable over time and I recommend we stay far away from them.”
Iain stared at her for a second. “Keep that information. When we go to One, we’ll collect those warheads for disassembly and disposal.”
Eve landed next to him. “The area appears clear. Dominique and April will set up the tents while Zareen and Ninhursag will be on sentry duty. I’ll work on dinner with Vanessa.” She gave the Fallen Angel an innocent smile. “And I think you know what you’ll be doing in the meantime with Austin.”
Pandora flushed scarlet.
***
“You can cook?”
Iain looked up from skillet and nodded at the Fallen Angel. “Once upon a time, before I came to this world and found a bevy of beauties who would cater to nearly my every whim, I was forced to venture out by myself to the dangerous supermarket on a regular basis. There I hunted the elusive and terrible wild groceries. I impaled them on my rapier wit and carried them home, where I disemboweled, cleaned and prepared them for consumption. I retained those skills when I sojourned to this wonderful place and I like to keep them from getting too rusty.” He looked back down at the skillet and smiled wryly. “I will admit that preparing a meal of kattle bacon, cheese and toast for breakfast is not a real challenge to my talents, but I still like to take a turn now and again.” He glanced sideway as his Archmage came out of her tent. “I really miss those obedient beauties.”
“I know you do, but you’re stuck with us now.” Dominique settled down next to Pandora. “The real reason he’s cooking right now is because he’s the only person here who likes soft bacon. Everyone else likes it crispy and this way he can put aside some just for him.”
Iain gave them a lofty look. “The fact that overcooked food is a known carcinogen might not mean anything to people who get their bodies completely healed on a regular basis in a pokeball, but that option isn’t available for Mr. Squishy here.” He tapped himself on the chest.
“I like my bacon soft too.” Pandora said quietly.
Dominique groaned as Iain smiled broadly. “Then I’ll make sure to put aside two servings this morning.”
“Thank you.”
They were finishing up breakfast when April’s head came up. “My Dark Magician Girl has spotted three pokegirls headed this way. They’re about a hundred meters away and not trying to hide.”
Eve pointed at Dominique. “You and Ninhursag sweep the area.”
The Elfqueen frowned. “I can’t fly.”
Eve scowled. “You’re magical, you will learn flying spells. In the meantime, Dominique, take Zareen. April, you and Pandora are with Austin. Ninhursag and I will meet our guests. Vanessa, if we get into combat, I want you to replace April while she uses her cards to support us.”
Vanessa dumped her cup into the fire. “I think April should do that now. Pandora and I will protect Austin.” She smiled mirthlessly. “I think I can make up for the fact that you haven’t tested Pandora yet.”
The Fallen Angel frowned. “You’re a G-Poindexter. You are not a fighting pokegirl.”
Vanessa shrugged. “All pokegirls can fight.”
“She’s right.” Eve pointed at Pandora. “You follow Vanessa’s lead. April, you’re with us.”
Pandora started to speak and stopped herself. “Yes, Eve. Iain, I mean Austin explained your title is maharani. Should I be using it?”
“I am the maharani, but we’re pretty informal. That’s Austin’s fault too, but I appreciate it and approve. Come on, Ninhursag.” The two of them trotted off as the Elfqueen slipped her bow off her shoulder and into her hands.
April settled down cross-legged near the fire and closed her eyes as she slipped more of her consciousness into her constructs. “The Dark Magician Girl has landed and is watching from a grove of trees. I don’t think she’s been spotted yet. I’m shifting my Guardian Angel Joan around to intercept if there’s trouble. The pokegirls are an Espea, some kind of very near human and a cat type, possibly one of the cheetah breeds since it has rosettes on its fur.”
Iain touched her on the shoulder and reached into their delta bond to get glimpses of what she was seeing through the Dark Magician Girl’s eyes. To his surprise, the image was solid and steady. This was new and he appreciated the clarity. “It’s a Cheetit and the very near human is a human woman and not a pokegirl at all.” Eve, the very near human pokegirl is a human and probably the tamer of the group.
Eve responded with easy amusement, in spite of the sudden spurt of stress that jumped to him from across their bond. Thank you, Iain.
He pulled his hand back from April and headed for his pokepack. “Pandora.” She joined him as he released his shotgun. “Are you familiar with modern weapons?”
“I was a Seraph and an Armsmistress before that. I am proficient with any weapon.” He held it out and she took it and quickly checked it over. “You have good taste in firearms.”
“It’s yours.” He pulled the tactical sling and magazine belt from the pack for her. “We’ll get you a melee weapon when we can.”
“Thank you. In addition to a sword, which I would prefer, I could move the laser back a few centimeters on the rail and that would leave room for a rail mounted bayonet. The right model of bayonet is designed to work with an attached laser and wouldn’t interfere with its operation.” She quickly strapped the belt on. “It’s a wonderful gift, Kerrik, I mean Iain, uh, Austin.”
He smiled wryly. “Yeah, sometimes it gets confusing for me too.”
Vanessa was watching them with curiosity shining in her eyes. “You’re giving up your shotgun?”
“Pandora thinks like a Seraph and they like having weapons. Besides, Eve asked me to seriously consider trying to become less of an obvious target in fights. I’ve still got my staff, even though I don’t know much about quarterstaff fighting. I’ve also got my pistol and my knife if it goes to close quarters.”
Pandora was holding the shotgun in a ready position and getting a feel for the sight picture. “I can teach you the staff if you’d like.”
“Eve already tried and, according to her, I’m an indifferent student. You’re more than welcome to try too.”
“I will. I don’t want you to be defenseless.” She looked up when Vanessa laughed. “I take it he’s not helpless.”
April didn’t visibly respond, but they could hear the smile in her voice. “No, he’s not completely helpless.”
“That’s good to know, but if he has a staff I’d like to teach him how to use it.”
***
The three people slowed when they saw Eve step into view. Since pokegirls all looked tamed, it was impossible to see if one was feral or not just by sight. Sometimes not even behavior was a good judge, especially not in the short term. This meant that any encounter with a pokegirl in the wilderness, and sometimes even in an urban area, was potentially a deadly meeting.
Eve headed for them slowly, confident both in her own abilities and the fact that Ninhursag was hidden nearby and stood ready to cover her if the meeting went badly. Because she knew the black haired female was a human, she knew that the group wasn’t composed of ferals. However, having the pokegirls being tame as opposed to feral actually increased instead of decreased the potential threat since it meant that the pokegirls were in complete control of their faculties and were therefore more dangerous than any feral could be. Under human control, that lethality could well be maximized against their foes.
The danger they represented was especially acute for a single pokegirl in the wilderness. Ferals were supposed to be captured and tamers didn’t always bother to see if a lone pokegirl was actually feral before ordering his harem to beat her up and stuff her into a pokeball.
So Eve stopped a dozen meters away from the group, taking her cue to halt when the blue furred Espea stepped in front of the tamer and the Cheetit began drifting slowly sideways. “Good morning. I’m afraid you’re too late for breakfast, but there’s still some tea if you’d like.”
The woman looked surprised. “You’re not feral?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then you will address me with respect, pokegirl.”
“No, I won’t.” The woman gaped at Eve’s cool tone. “If you want to get respect, show some. I didn’t come to Sanctuary to sir or ma’am people just because they’re standing in front of me. I could have stayed in the leagues if I’d wanted to do that.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “I am Sergeant Julia Salisbury of the DCWS and you will treat me with the respect that deserves.”
“I am Sergeant Eve Drummond and I work for Captain Austin Drummond of the DCWS. He’s waiting for us back at camp. So, do you want that tea or not?”
“Your superior is a male?”
Eve shrugged. “It has been known to happen from time to time in the shujaa when the patron commands it. I expect that eventually a Sanctuary Goth will realize just how resourceful and talented he is and will take him as her pet, but until then he’s the boss.”
The Espea’s ears cocked and Julia’s eyes went vacant for a second. “I think I’d like that tea after all.”
“Come this way, then.” They headed for the camp.
“Who is your patron, Eve?”
“We work for the High Councilor Kirabo.”
“Really? Me too.”
Iain’s mind touched hers. I am putting April, Dominique, Zareen and Ninhursag in hiding outside of the camp so it will be just you, me, Vanessa and Pandora. They’ll be out of sight with April in charge and they’ll they watching us in case of trouble. That will make it look less like we’ve got overwhelming force and maybe they’ll relax and give us some useful information about what’s going on locally.
I like that. Which Dragonesses do you have right now?
I’ve got Emerald and Skye.
Good. I’m bringing them in for tea.
She felt a mild irritation over the bond from him. We really need to figure out how to make you less friendly to strangers.
It’s a gift.
Dominique’s voice drifted through her mind. That’s not the word I’d choose.
April was next. What part of there’s a fucking Espea in the group did you not bloody well understand? Be silent.
Once they arrived at the camp, Eve nodded towards Iain and the others. “This is Captain Austin Drummond, Private Vanessa and Private Pandora.”
Julia sat down across the fire from Iain and gratefully accepted the cup of tea Vanessa brought her. The G-Poindexter busied herself serving the pokegirls standing behind Salisbury as the human looked around the camp. “I find it hard to believe you’re a captain, Austin.”
“I was a pet until my Sanctuary Goth was killed. Then I assumed her rank and carried on. My patron knows about it and has not rescinded my badge so far. I’ll probably get a new mistress once my current job wraps up.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m working in the leagues to locate certain individuals that the councilor wants found and doing whatever she wants to them once they’re located. At this point, not having a mistress is actually helpful in keeping my cover intact. What are you doing out here?”
She gulped down her tea and held out the cup for a refill. “I’m sweeping the caches.”
“What does that mean?”
“We keep a series of caches stocked with supplies for DCWS teams that don’t have access to teleport capable members. Regular sweeps are made of these caches to make sure they’re kept stocked and to remove ferals that move into the area. There’s a cache a couple of miles from here and we were inspecting it when Sondra,” she nodded towards the Espea, “detected the presence of someone in the area. We came to investigate and found you here. Camping around a cache is prohibited, by the way, so you can’t stay here. You’ll need to move immediately.”
“I didn’t know that. We’ll be out of here in less than an hour, but I’ll be sure and remember that for the future. I don’t suppose you have a map of the caches so we can avoid accidentally doing this in the future, do you?”
Julia shook her head. “No, I don’t. You can get one from the next post you check in at, though.”
“I’ll be sure and do that. Thank you very much.”
Julia finished her tea and rose. “We’ll be getting back to our work now.” She glanced at the Cheetit. “Ling.”
Iain yelped as his head was suddenly snapped sideways with an audible crack. His golden armor snapped into place around him as he toppled backwards. Sondra snarled in frustration when she felt that the telekinetic grip she had on his skull had vanished into nothingness.
At the same instant, Ling surged forward in a yellow blur. She smashed into Eve and sent them both rolling as she pummeled the Megami-sama with a flurry of blows too quick for the human eye to see. She shrieked suddenly as Eve caught her fists with her hands and used that as a fulcrum to knee her in the groin with all of her enhanced strength, the blow shattering the Cheetit’s pelvis and the tops of both femurs.
As Pandora charged forward, for an instant Vanessa seemed to be in two places at once as she used teleport to move right behind Sondra. Using her fist, she hit the Espea between the shoulder blades, her intent to stun the pokegirl long enough to restrain her for capture. The legendary miscalculated the blow and ripped a hole through Sondra’s torso, her bloody hand cracking through the sternum to emerge from the front of the Espea’s chest.
The Fallen Angel grabbed Julia by the front of her shirt and jerked her forward, spinning the human and pinning her arms behind her back. She raised her fist and slammed her forearm into the back of Julia’s head, knocking the human unconscious.
To Iain it felt like hours had passed, but according to his internal clock it had been less than a minute when he opened his eyes to see a fierce argument above him.
“What the fuck do you mean you can’t turn it off?” April’s voice was an angry snarl. She was standing over him, straddling his chest as she glared at Dominique.
The Archmage’s voice was equally hot. “Look, bitch, if you don’t want some enemy to be able to deactivate his armor from outside you don’t build the capability into it in the first damned place.”
He tried to turn his head and his vision flashed white as pain erupted from his neck. He deactivated his armor. “I’m not dead.” His voice wasn’t nearly as confident as he wanted it to be.
April squatted down and pressed her hand against his head, channeling healing energy into him. His neck pain subsided to a deep throb. “How do you feel?”
His memory of events was fuzzy. His view had suddenly gone sideways and pain, lots of pain. “What happened?”
“Do you remember Julia the fucking bitch and her harem?” Eve dropped down to kneel next to him and pressed her hands against his chest. She glanced up. “Get off of him, April.”
“Sorry.” The Duelist quickly moved to the other side and knelt next to Dominique.
Iain looked around him without moving his head. “Who is on guard?”
“Don’t worry, Ninhursag, Vanessa and Zareen are on perimeter watch while Pandora is keeping an eye on Julia. It turns out that Julia wanted your harem for herself and figured that with you dead we’d come along quietly. Her Espea, Sondra, tried to tear your head off without warning. You managed to get your armor up quickly enough to keep her from finishing the job after she broke your neck. Fortunately she didn’t get your spinal cord when she did.”
Iain quickly checked his fingers and toes. “Yeah, I’m just so lucky. What happened to them?”
“The pokegirls are in their balls and Julia is our prisoner. When you get a chance, tell Vanessa she did a good job. She took the Espea apart.”
“That’s hardly surprising, but if she needs praise for it I’ll give it to her.” He slowly sat up. “My neck still hurts, but nothing makes odd noises when I move it so I’m ok.”
Eve wrapped her fingers around his neck and warmth spread through it, easing the pain. “Maybe we should get you a dedicated healing pokegirl like a Nursejoy. April’s great with those cards and the rest of us know some healing magic, but I’m starting to worry about long term damage to you. I don’t want you to turn sixty and fall apart on me.”
“I’m not too keen on bubblegum pink. If we can wait until we get to Pokegirl One I’ll see if I can convince a Glasgow Joy to join us.”
“And if I don’t want to wait?”
Iain shrugged. “I’m not getting another Night Nurse, even if Irena’s mother might be very available.”
“Would you be upset if I went ahead and looked around a bit to see what I might find?”
He began pushing himself slowly to his feet. “Are you likely to not pursue this if I say I would be annoyed by it?”
“No.”
“Then proceed with my blessing.” He started for Pandora and her prisoner only to halt when Eve stepped in front of him. “Yes?”
“Please give me your pistol. I’d prefer it if you didn’t shoot her.”
“Are you backsliding again?”
She had the grace to blush slightly. “A little, but what I really want is to make sure that you don’t do anything you’ll regret later.” When he started to speak, she put a finger on his lips. “To her. I know there are already things you regret doing.” He looked into her eyes and handed over the firearm without comment. “Thank you.”
Julia’s arms had been bound behind her and she struggled to her feet as Iain approached. She held her head up defiantly. “You have no right to hold me like this. Even in Sanctuary, you don’t go hurting human women.”
He ignored her and spoke to Pandora. “Have the pokegirls been healed yet?”
“They have. Eve has them.”
“Eve, please bring me their pokeballs.”
“Hey, Austin, I’m talking to you!” Julia looked at him furiously. “You let me go and we’ll just walk away without any trouble.”
Iain’s knife whispered from its scabbard and he buried the blade in the center of her chest. Her gasp was echoed by Pandora and Eve. Behind him, April made a sound suspiciously like a choked off exclamation of “yes!”
He tore the knife free and stepped back as Julia fell. He spoke in a voice like hammered iron. “Release the Cheetit.”
Eve grabbed his arm. “Iain, don’t do this.” Her eyes met his and she sighed, letting him go. “Dominique, help me hold her.”
The Archmage gave him a grim smile as Eve pulled the pokeball from her pocket. “Let us execute the bitch for you.”
“No. I will be the one to kill them.” He looked at Pandora as she gaped at him. “We were attacked without warning and without mercy. I return that to them.”
Her mouth closed and she bowed her head briefly. “I almost feel sorry for Sanctuary,” she said softly. She looked up again. “I will not release you.”
The Cheetit coalesced in front of him and started to look around when Dominique and Eve grabbed her arms and pulled. She tried to struggle until Pandora grabbed the back of her head and twisted to force her to look at her fallen mistress. The Cheetit froze at the sight. “Accept what is coming.”
The cat pokegirl’s ears drooped and her tail sank. She looked up at Iain. “I will serve y-,” she broke off as the knife sank into her chest. Her eyes went wide in shock and she coughed blood on him as he pulled it back out. Suddenly she sagged and would have fallen if Eve and Dominique hadn’t held her up.
Iain wiped off the knife on the Cheetit’s fur. “Drop her and release the Espea.”
Eve pulled out the pokeball but didn’t trigger it as Dominique tossed the body on top of Julia’s. “I would like us to keep her, if I can talk you into it.”
“You plead for this one’s life, but not the lives of the others?”
The Megami-sama nodded. “I don’t really know if I can save any of them, but if I can save just one, it would be her. That’s why I decided to hold off on trying to reason with you until now.”
“You’ve got a reason. What is it?” He put the knife down at his side.
“Pandora could be right and your headaches from dreamtime are because you’re somewhat psychic and can fight the effect. What I found said that if you can’t learn to work with it, it could cause physical damage. Some tamers became vegetables and a few died. It also suggested that the pokegirl who initiates the dreamtime can help mitigate any effects. I’m psychic, but I’m not a telepath and I don’t really understand dreamtime like Scheherazade did. Espea are telepaths and she might be able to keep you from being hurt.” She put her hand on his arm. “You did not have this problem when Scheherazade was the initiator of dreamtime.”
Iain put the knife away. “We’ll try it. Here’s what we’re going to do. She gets to decide whether she wants to join or not. Nobody is to tell her that she might die if she decides not to.”
Pandora frowned. “Why not?”
“Because if she thinks she’ll die if she chooses not to join, she’ll be under coercion to join and we’ll never be able to really trust her. I will not have anyone in my family that I can’t trust. If she decides to join of her own free will, then someday she may be trustworthy.”
“Will you kill her if she doesn’t join us?”
“I don’t know. I’m not pissed anymore and I might just sell her.” He touched the tattoo on his right arm. “Emerald, come out.”
The green Dragoness poured out of his arm. “My lord.”
He gestured at the bodies. “These two are for my dead harem. Eirian knows what to do.”
Emerald picked the corpses up by grabbing an arm of each and tossing them over her shoulders in an easy motion. “They are not Dragonesses but I am sure they will prove moderately acceptable, my lord. Thank you for thinking of us.” She turned and took a step, disappearing into nothingness.
“Let’s move away from this spot.” Dominique motioned towards the blood. “The Espea might smell that and wonder.”
They headed for the exterior of the camp and Vanessa met them. “I’m glad you’re all right, Iain.”
Dominique grinned and whacked the legendary on the back of the head. “Austin.”
Vanessa rubbed the back of her head and then chuckled. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”
“Damned right I did. How many people get to hit you and live to tell about it?”
“What are you talking about? She is just a G-Poindexter.” Pandora frowned. “There is a mystery here.”
“We still have secrets and informing you of them will have to wait a little while longer.” Iain hugged Vanessa. “I hear you did an excellent job defeating the Espea.”
She shook her head sadly. “I didn’t intend to hurt her that much, but she was trying to kill you and I think I panicked a little.”
He tightened his arms and she sighed before leaning into him. “I think you did wonderfully. After all, she was trying to kill me and, I might add, doing a bang up job of it.”
She nodded. “I know. When we get back home, I think I’ll take Ninhursag’s advice and talk to you and Eve about formally joining your harem, as long as we all still remember that my getting involved with Sanctuary is a bad idea.” Her eyes searched his. “If that’s ok with you, I mean.”
“If you’d said that in the beginning, I’d have agreed with you and then we’d have all been gone in the morning, running until we felt safe from you. Now,” he kissed her gently on the lips, “I think I’d like that.” He let her go slowly. “Now we need to have a talk with the Espea. She’s Sondra, right?”
“Yes.” Eve held up the pokeball. “Dominique can keep her from running, but we might want to have fewer people clustered around so she doesn’t feel she’s being crowded. Our goal is to convince her to join us.”
“What!” Vanessa’s eyes flared angrily. “You want her to join the harem? Who came up with that insane idea?”
Eve’s mouth thinned. “I did. She might be able to help with Austin’s dreamtime problems. Psychic pokegirls who are telepaths can control it better and are able to minimize the problems people like Austin may have.”
Vanessa folded her arms. “I will get you all the psychic pokegirls you could ever want to interview, if that’s your desire. If need be I’ll make sure you have Espeas by the bushel and Alaka-Whams by the gross. But not her. She’s a scion of Sanctuary and she tried to murder him. Nobody in this harem has deliberately tried to kill Iain or Austin or Kerrik or whatever you want to call him. I won’t tolerate the inclusion of anyone we cannot implicitly trust around us. You shouldn’t be willing to trust her either, Eve, and if you think about it, you’ll realize I’m right.”
The Megami-sama’s mouth opened and closed. “Fuck. I hadn’t thought about it that way, but now that I have I don’t want her in the harem either.”
Pandora nudged Iain and spoke in a low voice. “You were right.”
“Oh?”
“Several of you would have run out of luxuries before the end of the week.”
He just grinned. “Eve, scratch this place off of our list. We’ll need another assembly point because we’re never coming back here.”
“What about Sondra?”
He shrugged. “She gets a double dose of level five and sold.”
***
Iain looked around him and frowned. “I’ll be right back.” He jumped out of the chair and almost ran from the room.
Eve watched him go with a mildly annoyed frown. “I know that look. He’s being clever again.”
“I wonder what it is this time.” April was thumbing through a small book on crochet. She’d been considering taking up a hobby and was examining her options.
He returned a few minutes later with some white candles. “Micah likes atmosphere,” he said with a smile, “and I don’t want to disappoint him. Pandora, can you create some hellfire for me please.” The Fallen Angel looked surprised, but obligingly held up her hand and summoned a sphere of black fire. Her eyes went wide when Iain quickly lit the candles from it, giving each candle a dancing black flame. “Thank you.”
She stared at the candles and then looked at Eve as Iain placed the candles strategically behind his chair. “He would use the Awareness to find a restaurant, wouldn’t he? Does he trivialize everything?”
“I don’t think it’s trivial,” Eve replied smoothly. “Remember, you’re the only person here who could have done that. Not even true infernal pokegirls have access to hellfire. Only the Fiendish do.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he’s showing off your abilities to Micah, if Micah cares and can figure out how Iain got black fire onto candles. I will admit the black against the white candle is an excellent contrast.”
Iain smiled slightly. “It was an experiment to see if I could do that, too, and it leads to something interesting.”
“Oh?” Dominique gave him a curious look. “What is it?”
He held his hand over a candle. “I thought maybe it would turn normal colored after it left Pandora’s presence but it stayed black. Since it produces heat just like normal fire does and because the hellfire stays black, you could use it to cook at night without revealing your location to anyone who does not have the ability to see in the infrared. I wonder if we could sell that idea to the military.”
Vanessa shook her head. “Can we get on with this? I’m supposed to ferry this message to Micah and I’d like to do it now so I can get back to my gardening.”
Ninhursag snickered quietly as Iain settled into his chair. “Heaven forbid I keep you from your gardening.” He leaned forward and activated the recorder.
Settling back into his chair, he looked seriously into the video pickup. “Micah, first of all you should only watch this with your personal harem and most trusted friends. I’m serious. I’m going to reveal information that could compromise certain relationships that you might be involved in, even if the personnel you know weren’t directly involved. If they were, it could cause instant violence to break out. Please clear the room before I continue.” He waited for sixty seconds before smiling broadly. “Hello, Micah. It’s time for another installment of strangeness from me. In today’s news, I and my harem traveled to the Sunshine League on an errand for a friend.” The smile died. “While we were there, we discovered that up until just a short time ago Kelvin’s Choice had been there and been involved with a conspiracy involving some of the highest ranking members of the Celestial Alliance trying to cross to a nearby pokegirl dimension and derail Ranma’s speech so they could take over and remake the world into a haven of happiness and joy, at least as they perceived it. This conspiracy also involved a good portion of the rank and file. Considering their idealism, I think it would have ended up a lot like A Brave New World or George Orwell’s 1984, neither of which I would care to visit, much less have to inhabit. Sometimes utopia is vastly overrated.”
Iain took a deep breath. “It’s also interesting to note that at least some of the episodes of the summons of authors by the Sanctuary Goths were research into dimensional travel to aid in this project, although indications are that Sanctuary was unaware of the true nature of the work and did indeed bring us through to remake the world in their image. The end result was a good news / bad news situation. The good news is that Kelvin succeeded and stopped the Alliance conspiracy, although he did not wipe out all of the conspirators. The bad news is that during this, Kelvin was murdered by the legendary Hild. Apparently she doesn’t want us around and so I’m warning you so you can try to protect yourself.”
He fought not to grin. “There’s some wacky news in there too. When Kelvin died, it turned out that Hild was masquerading as a member of his harem. He died alone with her, and after making sure his body was completely obliterated, she sauntered back to this dimension with the rest of the strike squad and reported that Kelvin had been killed by Evangelion for having the temerity to get involved. Naturally this piqued my interest and I used your dimensional travel gate to go to this alternate universe. There I summoned his shade and we had a talk where he obliquely revealed who had actually murdered him. The spells I used had a set duration and I left before they had expired. This is important because after that a few members of the people Kelvin had been involved with, working with a couple of members of his harem, used those spells to bring him back to life permanently and then to return him to this universe.” He leaned back in the chair. “His harem is happy and his friends are happy and so I don’t think the situation needs reversed, even if I could think of a way besides killing Kelvin myself, something I am loathe to do. I didn’t get to talk to Kelvin, and so I don’t know if he is happy, but if he’s not then there is always seppuku. Those choices are up to him.”
“However that does not change the fact that Hild killed him and she might see the rest of us, however many there are, as threats that also need to be neutralized. Right now I’m still weighing my options. I don’t know where she is, so even if I were inclined to track her down and kill her, I wouldn’t know where to start. Then there’s the fact that even if I did corner her, I might not be able to kill her. I think we’re both aware that one does not get second chances when trying to kill a legendary. Right now, I’m leaning towards maintaining a state of heightened awareness but not changing what I have been doing since she hasn’t been a threat to me as of yet.”
“Whatever I decided, I thought it only fair to share what I knew with you so you would be forewarned. After all, you have been much more active than I have and it’s likely you’ll show on Hild’s radar long before I will. That’s why you’re receiving this immediately. So, you’ve been warned and I wish you well.” He leaned forward and turned the recorder off.
***
Iain Grey - Tradesman
Eve - Megami-sama (maharani)
Dominique - Blessed Archmage
April - Duelist
Ninhursag - Elfqueen
Zareen - Nightmare
Pandora - Fiendish Fallen Angel
Dragonesses
Eirian - Silver
Skye - Blue
Emerald - Green
Aurum - Gold
Beryl - Red