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Grey Chronicles
Twelve
(09/30/06 0300 Wolf Lodge, Texas League)
“It’s very simple, Iain. If I catch you, I get to cut something off.” Kerrik smiled without humor. “I’d let one of my women do this, but except for Morwen I can’t trust their urge to kill. As for Morwen, I don’t think she’s ready to hunt you just yet.”
Iain eyed the double bitted battle axe on the table. It looked really sharp. “What exactly does this prove?” He was pleased that his voice remained calm.
“It’s a test of your abilities as well as a test of how you deal with defeat.” Kerrik picked up the axe. “I’ll give you a ten minute head start.” He scooped up the stopwatch that had been next to the axe and clicked a button on it. “Begin.”
Iain ran for the hills.
***
(09/30/06 0440 Wolf Lodge, Texas League)
April glared at Kerrik as her healing magic bathed Iain. “You could have killed him, you bastard!” His shoulder still had a deep cut that showed white from where the axe had cleaved through bone. Thick layers of drying blood covered the right side of his body.
Kerrik seemed amused at her fury. “I could have indeed. All things considered that is a good thing and bodes well for your husband’s future.” He motioned to the three red spots on the front of his shirt. All were in the upper center of his chest and could have been covered by a playing card. “I didn’t get away unscathed, either. I should have smelled his pistol before he used it.” He straightened slowly. “I haven’t been shot with SAP ammunition before today. It hurts more than I thought it would.” The back of his shirt was shredded where the explosive rounds had blown a dinner plate sized exit hole but the wound had already healed. A musing expression appeared on his face. “They’re very effective. If he’d shot me in the head, my powers would have returned. Still, I don’t think I’m going to let anyone do that to me again soon.”
Iain blinked dully. “Why is the fact that you could have killed me good for me?”
Kerrik’s ears flicked. “People do not change except under extreme stresses. Persons who would cannibalize the dead have that potential in them long before they’re starving and around dead people. Magdalene is not under any significant stress as far as I or she can tell, so that means her affection towards you, someone who is not a member of either her family or ours, is in my experience unique. This means that my wife is now displaying behavior towards you that fits into one of three categories. The first is that I simply do not understand the reason for why she’s doing this. It is possible, but something like this should make sense. Second, she has always had this in her but for some reason I have never seen it before in the rather long time that I have known her. Finally, it is possible that she is under some kind of external influence or control. So far she has not seen fit to tell me the reason why she’s doing what she’s doing. In light of that, can you tell me why my being able to kill you is of benefit to you?”
April frowned but Iain was nodding. “It means that you believe I have not found a way through the shields you have taught to Magdalene since you use the same type and therefore I am not influencing her with my magic. If you, in your weakened state, can kill me then she’s safe from my power.” He brightened slightly. “Does this mean you won’t chop me up again?”
Kerrik shrugged. “I won’t promise anything but I won’t do it for that particular reason again.” He frowned, leaning forward. “Your tattoos have moved from the last time I saw them. Explain.”
Iain regarded him for several seconds. “As my teacher, do you need to know everything about me?”
“I do. Any magic you can do or control is important in charting your training progress as well as designing an effective program for improvement.”
“My tattoos are liches that ride my body in order to provide protection against attack.”
Kerrik’s ears flicked. “They don’t do a very good job then.”
“I told them not to interfere in our exercise.”
“Your control is that absolute?”
Iain nodded. “It is.”
“What is their history?”
“The original ones are pokegirl Dragonesses who were created by Eoghan from members of Ygerna’s guard that he stole and killed while trying to understand pokegirls and their place in the universe. At the time he stole their free will. I knew their binding words and bound them as part of an agreement with the then king of the Order in order to win Dominique’s freedom from the Order of Pendragon after Eoghan was killed. One of the original six died while fighting Mhodvitnar. When we decided to come here, their leader approached me about recruiting more liches to increase their strength because we think the Eoghan here will eventually detect their presence and come to attack.”
Kerrik stared at Iain for a moment. “So there is an Eoghan here.”
“Yes, along with a Germanicus and a Ygerna who is currently the queen over a small collection of human wizards who serve as her Order of Pendragon.”
“I never did locate where the Order has their headquarters.”
Iain nodded. “It’s a hyperdimensional realm created by Sidhe magic and is only accessible through the ley lines.”
“That would explain why I couldn’t find it. Hyperdimensional realms are slippery.”
Iain frowned. “I may not be entirely correct about ley lines being the only way to the Order’s base. Eirian knows another way to get there but I’m honestly not sure that Eoghan and Germanicus know about it.”
They did not in our universe, Emerald said softly.
Kerrik sat up. “I’d like to meet them, if you don’t mind.”
Iain regarded him for a moment. “All right. Emerald, please come out.”
Smoke poured from Iain’s leg and formed into the green Dragoness. “My lord.” She turned to Kerrik. “Kerrik Wolf, I am Emerald.”
Kerrik stared at her. “Iain, this is a fully developed lich. I thought they’d be some kind of pseudo lich lesser undead or some bizarre new pokegirl breed. Do you know what you have here?”
“He does,” Emerald replied before Iain could speak. “We are his.”
“And you can create more of your kind?”
“The first ones helped our slayer create the others. We have made more of our kind with our lord’s permission so that when our slayer and his brother come we will destroy them utterly.” She flashed razor sharp teeth and snarled softly. “And come he will when he detects us.”
“Why? Are you a threat to him?”
“We are a threat to him, but he does not understand this yet and will come for an entirely different reason. Simply, we are not his to control and our slayer must control everything he sees. We are the living dead and he is the living dead and he will not be able to stand living dead that are not his so he will come for our lord’s dead harem.”
“And you think you can destroy a three thousand year old lich?”
“Our slayer created us to be mindless minions under his absolute dominion. He used us in his most powerful and secret spells and rituals. Our lord gave us our minds and our will and we remembered everything that our slayer used us to do and everything that we saw him accomplish. It is possible that we could destroy him and his brother now but by adding to our numbers what is possible will become certain.”
Kerrik blinked. “You know everything that Eoghan does?”
“No. This is not truly our slayer. We know everything that our slayer knew three hundred years from now when he was resurrected and destroyed.”
“How many of you are there?”
“That is none of your business, Kerrik Wolf. Unless instructed to we will not involve ourselves in your training of our lord and so our numbers are not for you.”
Kerrik’s ears flattened for a heartbeat. “What happens to them if you die, Iain?”
Iain cocked his head. “Why suddenly start talking to me again?” Kerrik scowled and Iain nodded. “Yeah, I don’t like being told to mind my own business either. If I die things get complicated.”
“We believe that our lord will join us in undeath,” Emerald stated. “No one is willing to kill our lord to see if we are right. His living harem needs him.”
Kerrik looked startled. “The living aren’t supposed to be able to do what Iain did and the bonds that are forged could well extend beyond death.” His ears flicked. “I take it you have some aptitude for necromancy.”
“That’s what my truewizard books suggest.” He grimaced. “They’ve got large sections about necromancy that I’m not too comfortable reading but I’m still working on.”
“Good. The books are a useful guide but not a requirement. Nevertheless, if you can do this you need to study necromancy as much as possible to keep from making any catastrophic mistakes.”
Iain nodded. “That much I’ve figured out. Emerald.” The Dragoness dissolved into smoke and returned to his body
Kerrik frowned. “You said you were increasing the number of living dead,” he broke off and chuckled. “I know some dead vampires who are going to love that description. How are you choosing who to add to their ranks?”
“We’ve been taking enemies that we killed in battle for conversion. As long as they’re freshly dead and have no damage to the brain, my Dragonesses can use them.”
“Interesting. Do pokegirls retain their various abilities as living dead?” Kerrik smiled again.
“They appear to keep their physical abilities. We haven’t tested them when they’re skeletal, though, and that might change things. As for their innate powers,” Iain shrugged. “The Dragonesses still have theirs so it’s entirely possible that the new ones will too.”
“Later I’d like to come back to the discussion of Eoghan and your Dragonesses, but you’re here for training. Today will be a short session, more of a feeling out than anything else. Tell me what abilities you’ve managed to master to date.”
Iain mentally began cataloging as he opened his mouth to answer.
***
(09/30/06 1020 Beaumont, Texas League)
Iain shifted on Zareen’s back and surveyed the ruins with marked distaste. It was nothing but masses of weed choked rubble. Signs of fire were everywhere and the only indication of life was an armadillo which slowly moved from one pile of concrete to another. He didn’t even hear any birds, although he knew they were probably present in the ruins. “I should never have put this in my notes.”
The Nightmare glanced over her shoulder at him. “Oh?”
“The Battle of Beaumont took place at the height of the Revenge War. In late 1996 a large unit of pokegirls appeared out of the Sabine National Forest and attacked the city of Beaumont. By this time, information about taming had made it into the US out of Canada. A tamed pokegirl was traveling with the unit and providing information on force composition and plans. The US military was waiting for the pokegirls here and managed to stop the pokegirl offensive cold with rocket fire, defense in depth inside the city, massed artillery, their own pokegirls and poison gas. The pokegirls tried to force their way through. The battle raged back and forth across Beaumont and both sides took heavy casualties. The humans knew that if they retreated the pokegirls would mow them down. There were some atrocities. The officers on the pokegirl side ordered reprisals and the fighting got personal. In four days of heavy fighting, booby traps and general chaos, Beaumont was essentially blotted from the face of the earth.”
April frowned. “How did humans resist pokegirl forces?”
“They’d learned a lot about how pokegirls fought at that point, had prepared the entire area as a killing ground and had five to one numerical superiority. At the end of the fighting, over three thousand pokegirls and twelve thousand military died in the battle. The complete count was never finished because of the firestorms that swept the city. But the worst of it was that out of a community of over a hundred thousand people, three fourths of them died too.” He gestured around them. “You see, the government decided that if they evacuated the area it would tip the pokegirl scouts off. Destroying the pokegirl unit was deemed to be of more military value than saving the city, so the civilians weren’t warned.”
Eve looked around them, this time seeing the burned out hulks of tanks and the wreckage of a helicopter. Everywhere her experienced eye could see bones from humans and pokegirls alike. Her face paled. “This never happened on our world.”
“Of course it didn’t,” Canaan sneered. “Typhonna had already killed everybody here. This was nothing but ocean by then. One pokegirl and suddenly there are millions dead. It was much cleaner than having armies tromp through the humans, but I’m sure this was more fun.”
Iain shrugged. “It stopped the pokegirl unit cold and destroyed them as an effective combat unit, but it also shattered all of the US military in the region. The manufacturing base had been crippled and so those losses were never made up.”
“And the survivors?”
“The pokegirls pulled back and turned north. The US military chased them for a little bit but never caught up with the unit, which dissolved as it headed for parts unknown. The surviving civilians scattered all over the state, but the bulk of them ended up in Port Arthur and Houston.” His voice was grim. “They got settled in and started rebuilding. Then, in 2003, the Red Plague came and that stopped pretty much everything.” He looked around again and shook his head. “It was all in my head so it was so much cleaner when I wrote it. It is things like this that make me really hope that I just write what I see. If I make it happen when I write it, I killed somewhere around ninety thousand people here.”
Eve patted him on the leg. “Let’s get moving. I’m sure there are ferals here.”
“There are,” Canaan’s antenna were extended. “I can sense them. If I could pin down their location I’d go after them, but they’re definitely around.”
“We’re not here to fight and I’m sure the local tamers are hunting the ruins for new recruits,” Iain pointed out. “We have business in Port Arthur.”
He kicked his heels lightly against Zareen’s flanks and the Nightmare turned partly around to look at him. “I thought the rule was no hitting.”
Iain blinked. “That was a guide movement I use with horses. Did that hurt you?”
She grinned suddenly. “No, I was just funnin’.’”
Iain frowned as she started forward at a gentle trot. “Funnin’?”
Zareen didn’t turn around again. “I learned the word from Chuck. Does it bother you?”
“Ah. It surprised me more than anything else. I haven’t heard American slang in a couple of years now.”
“Except for your own,” Canaan pointed out.
“Yes, but I don’t notice mine.” He paused. “Do I use that much of it anymore?”
“Sometimes you do.” The Splice frowned. “Because Sukebe wanted it.”
Iain blinked. “What?”
“You had a question in your mind about Rosemary and Winifred.”
He gave her a look. “You should let me articulate the questions I want answered. Otherwise things could get awkward.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Want me to answer your question?”
“Fine. Why is it that Rosemary speaks Spanish and Winifred speaks German? Sukebe was an American.”
“He was but he knew that there were going to be regional command posts once the pokegirls took over. There were already regional units and these were taught the local languages along with English. Everyone learned English.” She flashed a toothy grin. “Sukebe didn’t speak any Earth languages but English. He did speak some off world languages because of his travels, but he was an American and didn’t see any reason to learn anything other than American English.”
Eve frowned. “How do you know this?”
“Hunters took their orders directly from Sukebe and so my Amachamp half knew him personally. I learned local languages from psychic pokegirls every time I went to a new country if I didn’t speak them already. Once I returned, the languages got scrubbed from my mind.” Canaan shrugged. “The Pleiades Group’s betrayal made him even more paranoid than he was before and he did not want any individual to be able to speak with every human on the planet. It didn’t make sense to me or anyone that I knew, but paranoids only make sense to themselves.” Her voice turned thoughtful. “After all, technically, a telepath can talk to anyone. I really wish I’d been spliced then so I could have looked in his head. I think what I found would be really interesting.”
Iain shook his head. “We are so not doing time travel.”
“Iain,” Canaan said soothingly. “Time is just another dimensional constant.”
“It’s not just anything. It is, however, a really great way to fuck up everything you can imagine and destroy everything you care about when you try to return to your own timeline.” He shook his head. “The Celestial Alliance people who wanted to reshape the history of their world by going back and manipulating the speech at Dogpatch were lucky they didn’t go back in time in their own dimension. You split the timelines and there’s no telling what you’ll return to. Instead they went to that time in a different dimension, which means they were effectively just traveling across dimensions instead of through time.” He looked around and slid off of Zareen’s back. “This is close enough to the meeting place. Get the others.”
Zareen made a face. “Five minutes.” She vanished.
Iain ran his fingers through his hair and looked at the sky. The day promised to be hot and humid, pretty standard for Texas this time of year. It wouldn’t start to cool off for another couple of weeks. He grimaced and straightened his hat. He was wearing a military hat in digital camouflage desert colors to protect his head from the sun. “After we get done with this, what’s next on the agenda?”
“We’re supposed to meet Caradoc Bishop and talk to him about seeds and stuff for Ninhursag. After that I’m not sure.” April shifted her rifle on its sling. Pretending to be human could give her valuable seconds in any fight. Besides, she was an outstanding shot and had no qualms about using firearms. “Have the arrangements been made to visit Dominique’s queen yet?”
“They’re almost complete.” He shrugged. “To be honest, there’s not that much to negotiate. We’re not moving to Haven. We’re not even staying overnight. All I want to do is go in, get Dominique blessed off by Ygerna and get out. I’m not taking many people and we’ll save any shopping trips for another day.”
Eve was busy scanning their surroundings. “Kasumi wants to meet me.”
“Ok. You can do that while Dominique and I are dealing with Ygerna.”
“Iain, she wants to meet you too.”
“I’m busy.”
“Well, make yourself unbusy. Kasumi is important and we both know it.”
Iain knew better than to argue with that statement. Eve was right. “How did she even learn my name?”
“I mentioned you and that you were training with Kerrik. She contacted him. When we next spoke, she said that something Kerrik told her had made her curious about you and that she wanted to meet you.”
“Aw crap.”
April looked surprised. “Crap?”
“Yeah, crap. Does she want to meet with me to satisfy some curiosity about my relationship with Eve, does she want to meet with me about our lives in our home dimension or does she want to meet with me to see if she needs to kill me?” His voice became musing. “It could be all three.”
“Why would Kasumi want to kill you?”
“If she decides I’m a threat to her family, she’s likely to do something preemptive.”
“So don’t be a threat and we won’t have to kill her.”
He chuckled. “You make it sound so easy. Unfortunately, she’s one of Shikarou’s inner council and we do need to make nice with her unless we want Theodora and Cassiopeia engaged in a shooting war.” He looked up and watched a thin cloud scud by overhead while he thought. “If she’s insistent that I am with you when you two meet and she’s insistent that she gets to meet with us before Dominique and I meet with Ygerna, then I’m afraid you’re not going to be able to spend time with Kasumi. This vow thing with Dominique is critically important to her and I have to find a resolution that she’s happy with. That comes way before Kasumi wants to have tea and insists that it be with both of us.”
April regarded him curiously. “You’re not as worried about Ygerna being able to summon Dominique as she is?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Why not?”
He met her gaze. “I killed the last person who forced Dominique to obey him. I can do it again and I know how to kill a Sidhe. If Ygerna is a bitch about this, well she’s not married to a Wolf yet. I’m willing to risk the repercussions of her death.”
Eve cocked her head curiously. “Not Kasumi’s?”
“Nope. She’s married to Shikarou and, on top of that, Kerrik likes Kasumi too much. He thinks Ygerna is a leech.”
“Do you think Kasumi knows how Kerrik feels about her?”
Iain shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care. What matters is I know.”
Pandora appeared and began producing pokeballs from her pockets. “Sorry about the delay but a small issue cropped up right before we were supposed to leave.”
April scowled. “Where’s Ninhursag.”
“Dealing with the issue. Twelve Elves and two Elfqueens showed up in a group about half an hour ago and Ninhursag is getting them settled in.” Her scowl was, if anything, deeper than April’s. “They’re from Fort Polk. Apparently Ninhursag’s call was powerful enough to convince bonded Elves to leave their tamers and come to her. That’s not supposed to happen and Fort Polk is going to blame us.” The look she shot Iain was speculative. “I blame the person who helped her.”
More importantly, they can move through areas with my sensors without me being aware of it. It must be Elf magic in operation. I shall install additional sensor units and start expanding the energy bandwidth that my sensors can passively scan. This is not going to happen again.
Theodora sounded upset but she was also taking steps to fix the situation so Iain ignored the comment. “We have Elves from the ILA?”
“Don’t forget the two Elfqueens,” Pandora said acidly. “The literate ones are going to write up reports of everything they know about the military and its plans. The rest will record verbal reports.” Her expression brightened. “One of the Elfqueens was bonded to a full colonel in the 1-509th. We might just learn a lot.”
“I hope nobody left a note saying which direction they were going,” Eve muttered. “The ILA is going to have Kittens over losing that many pokegirls all at once. If they knew the girls all went over to Grey Clan, their response is not going to be hard to predict and we’re not going to like it.”
“Kittens?” Iain gave her a sharp look. “Have you been spending time with Chuck too?”
“Rosemary, actually. She finds that saying hilarious.”
“Peachy.”
Canaan smiled a shark’s grin. “You think we’re not going to like what’ll happen if the ILA comes around looking to claim something that’s ours? Pandora, sister, the ILA will like what’ll happen far less than we will.”
The Archangel grinned savagely. “The thought had crossed my mind.”
Iain shook his head. “Pandora?”
The Archangel began activating the pokeballs she held. Allison, Zareen, Raquel, Ryan and Silver appeared. All four equine pokegirls were in their centaur forms and all were loaded down with large bundles of supplies on their backs. Iain had decided that he wanted to use his centaur pokegirls to carry the gear they’d be selling to showcase their carrying capacity as well as versatility. He didn’t, however, want to fight ferals during the trip while they were loaded down, so he’d travelled to an appropriate point and had the rest of the girls brought by Pandora to make it look like they’d come the whole way on foot. Just how mobile his family could be was a secret he was in no hurry to reveal.
Allison headed over to check in with April as Canaan looked the centaur pokegirls over and chuckled. “You know, I can carry more than just about all of them combined. I just don’t have the right frame to carry cumbersome loads of baggage.”
Raquel gave her a wicked grin. “We can fix that.” Her grin widened when Canaan looked surprised. “It’s easy. We can catch a feral equine pokegirl and you can splice her with yourself. That should give Iain a four armed metamorphic pony Splice with all of your enhanced strength.”
Canaan drew herself up to her full height. “Fuck you.”
“You get more powers out of it, since you’d add another type or two,” Raquel said teasingly. “And if we pick a breed that has no representatives in the clan, you still stay unique.” Behind her Ryan suddenly looked thoughtful.
“Yeah, right,” Canaan said. “All I have to do is take a bite out of you and I can fake it.”
“Ladies,” Iain’s voice was firm. “We do have work to do. Canaan and Allison are on point and Eve is overhead. Pandora is with me. April, you’re roving.”
April’s scowl returned. “Who made you the beta?”
“I didn’t hear you getting us moving.”
April blinked and nodded. “Right. You heard the man, ladies. Baggage train is in the middle. You four stay close to Iain and if there’s trouble get rid of the loads without worrying about any damage to them. They are expendable and you are not. I’ll be in the rear. Sing out if you see something before you engage, ladies.” She summoned her fairy dragon and it shot into the air. “And don’t kill my dragon.”
Canaan lifted off to hover before darting forward as Eve launched herself into the sky. Allison scowled. “Bitch forgot about me again.” The Umbrea loped after the Splice, muttering under her breath as she shot ahead.
Iain dropped back to walk beside Raquel as the group moved forward. “How are Vanessa and Sofia?”
“They are respectively irritable and surprisingly upbeat.” She chuckled. “Vanessa is pretty much the same as when you left this morning. Sofia is playing fetch and carry but since you had that talk with her, she’s strangely cheerful about it. What did you tell her?”
“I merely explained to her how important what she’s doing is. She believed me.”
“You have to be very careful with that, Iain. She believes everything you tell her. If you told her fire was wet, I’m not sure she’d wonder about what you were saying until she got burned.”
“It wasn’t a lie. Vanessa’s well being is kind of important to everyone. Besides, she’s family.”
“Have you considered the fact that her baby may be very dangerous to us?”
Iain nodded. “I have. If that turns out to be the case Theodora is building a habitat that we can drop onto Venus or Mars. Vanessa can move there and I’ll commute to see her.”
Raquel blinked and looked at the sky for a second. “What is Vanessa going to say to that suggestion?”
“We’ve already discussed it and she thinks it’s a viable solution. Believe it or not, Vanessa isn’t as self-centered as any other legendary I can imagine. She really doesn’t want to hurt anyone here if it can be avoided and she understands the danger that our d-,” he stopped in mid word, “child or children could represent.”
Raquel cocked her head. “Did you just start to say daughter?” Her eyes narrowed. “I thought nobody knew what she’s carrying, not even Vanessa.”
Iain shrugged. “I’m assuming that she’s carrying a girl.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” Raquel frowned when Zareen waved at her. “I need to see what she wants.” She accelerated away towards the Nightmare.
Pandora leaned down and whispered into Iain’s ear. “You almost never assume.”
“True.”
“Are you lying to Raquel?”
“No.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“No.”
“I haven’t learned Eve’s truth spell. Will you answer that question in her presence?”
“Yes.” He felt Pandora’s eyes bore into his back for a few seconds before she dropped into her normal guard position.
That was interesting. You bluffed Pandora with another lie and she didn’t call Eve down to verify what you were telling her.
Iain gave a mental shrug. She assumed that I was telling the truth since I seemed willing to answer the question in front of Eve.
What would you have done if she’d called your bluff?
Panicked.
***
(09/30/06 1045 Port Arthur, Texas League)
“I should point out that we sold a bunch of these to the league already and if you wait they’ll probably give you one for being in the TDF.” Iain gestured at the GAR-10 rifles that were stacked against the side of the table. “So you might want to reconsider buying one now.”
The man’s name was Joe Morales and he was one of the dozen tamers Dave Pruitt had brought to the trading spot. He grinned, the gap in the front of his teeth showing he’d lost an incisor somehow. “Yeah, they probably will, but the equipment you supplied the league with is all in Austin. I want one of these now and if I buy my own I don’t have to worry about the league trying to take it back later.” He grinned again. “And if they give me one, I’ll have two.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Iain said amusedly. “We’ve set up an ad hoc gallery over there if you’d like to try one out.”
Joe’s pokegirl, a Witch named Samantha, grabbed up an assault rifle and clutched it to her chest almost defiantly. “I want to try one too.” She eyed Iain warily.
Without a word, Iain opened up a box of ammunition and pulled some GAR-10 magazines out of a sack. “The customer is usually right.” He raised his voice slightly. “April, we’ve got two more who need a range mistress.”
The Duelist grabbed the box and a pair of magazines. “I’m on it.” She’d give them a quick lesson in the care and feeding of the Grey Assault Rifle and then let each of them shoot off a full magazine of bullets to get a feel for the weapon. Iain would provide more comprehensive documentation on the weapons at the conclusion of a successful sale.
Business had been brisk. The men and women Dave had convinced to come to the Iain’s trading session knew what they wanted and weren’t worried much about cost, although a few did try haggling if they thought things were too pricey. They were all tamers, too, and each of them had brought at least one pokegirl along. The pokegirls were busy looking over and occasionally sampling the wares. They were really involved in the browsing and more than one set of sharp words had been exchanged over a particular item.
Apparently a love of shopping didn’t have to be learned.
Iain knew that it wasn’t completely fair to malign women that way. Pokegirls were mostly human and human behavior had developed as a result of simple evolution. The fact that men were larger than women meant they’d been the hunters while women had been the gatherers. Gatherers who looked over a berry bush and checked to see if other berry bushes in the area had larger or riper crops ate better and survived to pass those genes along to their progeny. That evolved behavior was the reason women did a lot of comparison shopping.
If a hunter passed up a deer to look for a better one, eventually he starved. So men had evolved to make immediate decisions as to what was suitable and what wasn’t.
It was interesting to note that on Tirsul, where the men and women tended towards equal size and strength, both sexes showed a mix of what humans would consider hunter and gatherer behavior.
“Hey.” Iain roused from his reverie at the sound of Dave Pruitt’s voice. “I don’t see any of that paraspray stuff you let me use on Nanette.” Neither he nor the Vaporita had been interested in firearms but Nanette had wanted one of every knife on the display table. Dave and she had debated for a while before settling on an ornate khukuri that included the traditional kardo and chakmak built into the scabbard. Nanette had purchased a matching belt and now wore the weapon proudly.
Iain gestured towards the table to his right. “It’s over there with the restraints.” The table next to it was the busiest one out of all of them, but then it was where Eve was hawking the feral pokegirls. The Megami-sama was surreptitiously giving each prospective buyer a scan to ensure they’d be good tamers before allowing the sale to proceed. So far she hadn’t had to turn anyone away, unlike two of the beginning tamers from Zwolle that Pandora had refused. Yes, she knew that they’d probably find a pokegirl some other way, but at least she wouldn’t be the one to sell a distant relative into durance vile.
Each pokegirl came with a free sprayer loaded with a single dose of paraspray. Free, of course, meant that April had factored the price of the paraspray and the dispenser in with the cost of the feral involved.
Dave grinned at Iain. “Why have restraints when you’ve got paraspray?”
“You don’t run out of restraints in the middle of nowhere. That and restraints let a pokegirl move in response to what her tamer is doing. With paraspray all she can do is lie there.” Like a corpse, he thought to himself with a mental shudder. Iain kept trying to talk Pandora into using restraints instead of paraspray, but so far the Archangel was still too terrified of hurting him to make the transition. He hadn’t given up hope yet, however.
Dave’s eyes had widened in surprise. “I hadn’t thought about it that way.”
Nanette smirked. “I’d pointed out that he didn’t have to keep buying restraints, so in the long run they’re a lot cheaper than spray.”
“She has a point.” Iain smiled craftily. “But I won’t stop someone from continuing to give me money.” His smile faded. “What I really want to do is find someone in town to sell this stuff for me. I’ve got way too much to do to keep slogging around setting up like this.”
Nanette shoved Dave gently. “I think I just heard opportunity knock really loudly, Dave. Get the door.”
Dave shook his head mulishly. “We’re soldiers, Nanette.”
“We’re volunteers, Dave. The stipend we get isn’t much. So you arrange to buy from Iain at a discount, set up a shop and we hire someone else to run the shop while we do what we want.” Nanette turned back to Iain. “If he’s not interested, I am.”
“Hey, you’re my pokegirl.”
Nanette nodded. “I am, and I will remain so. Don’t worry, Dave, if I get rich I’ll give you a decent allowance.”
Dave gaped at her for several seconds before pulling his jaw shut. “Damn, girl.” He looked at Iain. “Are they like this in Indigo?”
“No,” Pandora said firmly, “in Indigo the pokegirls are scared. Do you want Nanette to be afraid of you?”
“He’s just complaining because he enjoys hearing himself.” Nanette was grinning again. “Dave likes me just the way I am. From what his pokedex says about pokegirls in general, if he didn’t I’d be developing a different personality.”
Dave gave a long suffering sigh. “So, Iain, want to talk about me being a factor for you?”
Iain grinned. “I’d love to have that conversation. Pandora, bring the gentlebeings some chairs please.”
***
Iain Grey
Living Harem
Ninhursag - Elfqueen & maharani
Eve Grey - Megami Sama
April Grey - Duelist & beta
Dominique - Blessed Archmage
Pandora - Fiendish Fallen Angel/ Fiendish Archangel
Canaan - G Splice (Hunter Amachamp & Alaka-Wham)
Zareen - Nightmare
Raquel - Fiendish Rapitaur
Sofia - Peekabu
Vanessa - Evangelion
Dead Harem
Eirian - Silver Dragoness
Aurum - Gold Dragoness
Skye - Blue Dragoness
Emerald - Green Dragoness
Beryl - Red Dragoness
Julia - human
Ling - Cheetit
Matilda - White Tigress
Twau
Armsmistress
Blazicunt
Slutton
Ranch employees
Daphne - Whorizard
Lynn - Growlie
Chuck - Doggirl
Ryan - Ponytaur
Winifred - Rack (German)
Rosemary - Kitten (Uruguayan)
Allison - Umbrea
Silver – Ponytaur
12 Elves
2 Elfqueens - Dionne & Adrianna
Lake Employees
Heltu - Wet Queen
6 Wet Elves
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