“Finally, can’t wait to be done with this boring academy.” Klim stated grumpily as the squad led by Vardan passed through the arbitrary line that demarcated the boundary of the camp where all of the cadets were reuniting. He tromped off towards a pole tent that had been set up for the administrative purpose of processing all of the cadets that wanted to drop out. There was already a line long enough to need to start snaking around behind other temporary shelters.
Ostap dipped his head towards Vardan in a minimalistic show of gratitude and then made his way towards the mobile pokecenter where cadets could get access to healing and taming cycles as well as requisition use of taming restraints. They’d captured a few more ferals before their weeklong hunt ended and he elected to keep the Titodile they first fought together. The other three consigned their prizes to the academy.
The junior ranked cadet sighed. “Well Isaac, until I next see you. I need to go help herd the freshmen from the first remedial fitness course.” His voice was flat and tone slightly unhappy and unfocused. He’d already received his evaluation for his first outing as a squad leader that morning. While he’d been correct in the fact that there were no rules against cadets dating other cadets, he had missed the fact that within the leadership program there were further expectations. His romantic entanglement with Isaac, no matter how tame, had garnered him a harsh penalty. He didn’t show any regret but had been preoccupied with formulating how he could best work his way out of the deficit in his grade.
With the squad disbanded Isaac stood alone with Jin. “Well, want to set up the yurt and work on more of your starting spell list?” The young tamer asked his young Witch.
Jin’s answer wasn’t quite a word but was probably meant to be an enthusiastic yes.
The rest of the trimester passed broken into similar two week cycles. The cadets all were expected to travel to a new muster location, the freshmen would spend a week in training and conditioning while the ranking cadets would mostly engage in controlling the area. Then they’d split into squads and hunt. Sometimes the hunts were guided by another enrollee in the leadership program, sometimes the cadets were allowed to form squads through self association. During these hunts Isaac and Vardan would pair together and Vardan would use the connections he made through his leadership training to find complementing pokegirls and their tamers to join them.
Isaac was also learning grappling from Vardan in an extracurricular capacity and Jin would also train against Sabina and Andreea while the two young men engaged in their wrestling. The older cadet had identified Isaac’s overall lacking physicality as a source of his unsatisfactory throwing competence. It was challenging given the two year age gap between Isaac and his mentor but Vardan was a good enough sport and teacher to find opportunities for Isaac to win. Jin enjoyed watching the two boys and also liked wrestling with Isaac when they were winding down from the day because the two were much more closely matched in their strength.
It was following this structure and routine that the fifteen weeks that made up Isaac’s first trimester within the Vorona Corps Zaporizhzhia Academy passed by. The passage of time would see more freshmen cadets dropping out, close to half of the enrollees total. The personal evaluation at the end of the fifteen weeks for each candidate was mostly an advisory session for the freshmen. Actual more rigorous evaluations would take place once the cadets completed their second trimesters onward, where they began diversifying their courses to specialize in a pokegirl related career. This was assuming their performance was satisfactory. Too low of marks and a cadet was demoted to an academy recruit where their schedule was made for them and a senior disciplinarian cadet worked with them in person once a week. If their grades improved they could petition to be promoted back up to a cadet. If their grades did not, they were encouraged to reconsider their enrollment or discharged depending on how severely they failed to meet expectations.
Isaac had been expecting low marks for physical fitness, because he felt like he’d struggled the entire time. However, the very last day before the evaluation Lieutenant Sobolvich had led them through a repeat of their very first few exercises from the beginning and every single freshman cadet and their pokegirls were blown away to discover how easy it was; contradicting their memories of grueling hardship.
Isaac therefore wasn’t found insufficient in any capacity and the lieutenant and her sergeants praised Isaac’s academic capabilities and were excited to see his potential further realized. For Isaac, it meant his choices hadn’t been narrowed down and he still lacked a sense of purpose or direction to shape his next fifteen weeks of courses. He settled on choosing general requirements except for the first course in magical studies and the prerequisite for branching into the courses meant for preparing watchers and reclaimers.
He hoped things would go better than his memories informed him of his academic career from his earlier life in his native world. His potential had been recognized then too, but he suffered from lack of guidance and resources that his society had decided were better spent elsewhere. In the years following his graduation from high school his absence of a clear life goal, among other factors, had an absolutely brutal effect on his sense of self worth that he could still feel the pain from in an entirely different universe.
He was doing his best to maintain a calm and rational outlook going forward. Afterall, here the expectations placed on an individual were very different than a world without pokegirls and a century or more of societal regression. Unfortunately, anxiety was born from part of the brain more fundamental than the region where logic and reasoning were processed. Every so often though Jin would notice his worry and do something to lift his spirits, or he’d feel a sudden surge of care and support from across the delta bonds with Elena, Chandrakanta, and Astoreth. Usually across the bond with the Megami, but all three of the ‘big sisters’ made it known they were aware of his apprehension and that he wasn’t looking at a future he had to navigate alone.
Ultimately, no matter what choices he made, Isaac would do what he could to reciprocate their support and he kept going forward with that as the basis for something a bit similar to a sense of hope.
-
Elena could look her notes over until her eyes bled, in fact she may have had to make the conscious decision not to do just that. She wasn’t getting any further without a fresh perspective. Unfortunately, her unofficial exile from the main campus of the conservatory meant perspectives outside her own were few and far to come by. As far as she was concerned though the worth of the faculty opinions regarding the subject matter she was contending with was lacking anyway.
She had been greatly discontent for the three and some months since she’d dropped Isaac off for his first day. At first she buried herself into her work to keep her mind busy but she’d never been one to let herself fall behind. Now she was so far ahead in her obligations she had to wait for more work to accumulate before she could prepare anything more.
So she occupied herself by manipulating the growth of a potted shrub plant, breaking off the green twig branches where she wanted them to split and then shaping the growth of the new shoots until it was time to snip them between her fingernails again. She worked with energy sprung from irritation and little forethought. Every so often, Elena quietly sipped at a cup of tea she made out of herbs she gathered from around her house. It was never really the same every time she made it but tonight it had been brewed strong. The sides of her head were becoming sore, a sign to her that her ears were fidgeting compulsively from irritation.
Then the bell outside her door rang. After Elena landed back on her feet and shook her head to clear the creeping shadows from the corners of her eyes, she answered the door.
The voluptuous Megami possessed of Northern Indian features who was humbly waiting on Elena’s doorstep, eyes off on the horizon, was obviously Chandrakanta. The Grandelf greeted her as such.
There was a flash of white as the Megami turned to face the greeter that was quickly hidden behind the heavily full lashes that graced the celestial’s eyelids. A bright grin filled her face. “Nell!” she squealed out in delight as she threw her arms around the Grandelf’s neck. “It’s been too long, and call me Candi. You always get so stiff on your own.” The Megami felt up Elena’s sides and back. “Wow, you really are stiff.”
“Candi,” Elena started as she peeled the Megami off of her, “I thought you were off playing school teacher in the middle of the Crescent Moon league.”
“That’s only every other week.” Chandrakanta slipped free of Elena’s hands and placed her palms on the Grandelf’s shoulders. She peered intently into her friend’s eyes. “Are you okay? You look exhausted. Do you want me to make you something to eat? I could give you a backrub.”
Elena stiffened as she fought the allure of a backrub. The backrubs were a trap. “Candi, no I’m okay and that still doesn’t explain why you came here when you live in White Lotus.”
“I’m from White Lotus, I don’t live there. I got a call from a friend who needed some help in Kyiv and I was like, ‘Sapphire League? I should go see Nell,’ so I thought I’d drop by, check up on you. See if you wanted some lovin’, maybe a backrub. You really look like you’ve had a rough time.”
Elena knew the backrub was bait. Chandrakanta knew Elena knew. “I’ve just been working a bit too long on something so I was taking a break when you rang the doorbell. It startled me; is all.”
“Something I could help with?” Chandrakanta turned her eyes towards Elena once again flashing that brilliant iridescent white from a flutter of her lashes.
So it’s come to the eye fluttering now, has it, Elena thought to herself. She actually could use the Megami’s help though. Elena turned to lead Chandrakanta in when the sound of fluttering scroll parchment caused the Grandelf to look back. It had been a flashy and easy to intercept missive spell. “What did you just send? Who did you send it to?”
“You want help with magic stuff. I know it’s magic stuff because that’s all you ever admit to needing help with and I always need Star to help me translate from professor speak.” That wasn’t true, Elena and Chandrakanta were perfectly capable of working together without any real difficulty in communication but the trio of veterans had decades of working together. The years of cooperation had forged a potent synergy that would be lacking with only two. “I can give you a backrub while we wait for her to get here.” Elena knew it was a trap, the Megami never stopped at just a backrub, particularly now that she also called in their mutual friend. Elena threw herself into the jaws of the trap anyway.
-
Elena was lying stomach down on her bed while Chandrakanta straddled her knees and kneaded the Grandelf’s upper lumbar. Chandrakanta insisted on skin to skin contact, so she had stripped the willowy blonde bare, letting her various garments litter the floor around the bed. The Megami’s blouse had also spilled open past the point of public decency. Then again, given the mass to be restrained, her preference for fine, satiny fabrics fit loosely, and the energetic enthusiasm with which she applied herself to any task, Chandrakanta had to apply constant small adjustments to nearly any top every other moment she wanted to remain ‘decent’. Elena had long ago given up in pointing out that things were supposed to remain limited to a shoulder massage or back rub or whatever the Megami had promised. She could no longer deny she had needed this. A tight and fluttery gasp, a pleasant pop, and pleasured, drawn out groan saw more bodily tension draining away which had become so persistent she’d become completely numb to it.
“My…” Elena recognized the feminine voice and its reverberating undertone. The newcomer stooped to fit through the doorway, which the one hundred and eighty-plus centimeter tall homeowner did not need to even worry about doing. “It sounds like you two are happy to see each other.”
Elena lifted her head enough to glare flatly through bedraggled hair. “You didn’t knock.”
Astoreth smirked down at the Grandelf. “I knocked. You didn’t hear me.”
“The plants would have told me, you didn’t knock.”
“Fine, I didn’t knock. I didn’t think you wanted to be interrupted.” Elena and Astoreth held their mutual glare until with a pouty harrumph Chandrakanta made another adjustment to the Grandelf’s spine, causing her to let out a sharp double gasp that then melted into content sighing. Astoreth’s sharp jacket and business skirt vanished with a puff of sulphurous smoke revealing the infernals mottled skin; various shades of dark slate blue stretched over her chiseled body. She fell across the bed in her reduced form to lie parallel to the Grandelf. “Me too, Candi, when you’re finished. Full package, dear.”
“Ooh. See Nell. She wants the full package. Star isn’t afraid to show she missed me.” Chandrakanta lowered herself to lay down over the Grandelf’s rump and kissed Elena between the shoulder blades.
Elena let out a languid sigh and murmured, “More hands, less lip.”
-
“I-” Chandrakanta sang out, “-have-” with each graceful bound, “breakfast,” as she danced across the floor strewn with garments. She artfully placed the tray of baked and fried breakfast goods onto a nightstand and pulled the blinds up to cast the high morning light on the two figures trying to stay asleep under the covers.
Chandrakanta blissfully stood nude in the sun as the warm morning rays danced across the graceful arches and sweeping curves that shaped the bountiful hills and fertile valleys covered in buttery white skin. She remained fit, but a soft plump fitness that suggested an easy life or plentiful meals surrounding her workouts.
Elena curled the blankets around herself tighter when the warm body to her back disengaged. Then the Grandelf’s eyes snapped open. “Don’t take my crepe! She makes the apple crepe for me! You don’t even like it and you still take it every time!”
-
Later that day Astoreth found the Grandelf lounging in her greenhouse next to an eternal sapling that Elena had kept for as long as the infernal had known her. It had dark bark and smooth, single lobed narrow leaves, and was incredibly straight and slender with seemingly not enough roots or branches to explain its height. She may not have been a plant type, but Astoreth suspected the tree was not entirely natural.
Elena had her nose in a book and didn’t hold eye contact any longer than to identify the newcomer.
Astoreth was still shrunken down to her non-confrontational form. “What are you reading, Nell?” She smelled like fragrant evergreens and incense from the scent of her bedmates and was poorly wearing Chandrakanta’s blouse that fit her like a poncho.
“Just reading about microorganisms.” The infernal’s eyebrow rose dramatically but she said nothing. She padded over to her friend and lowered herself to lean against the Grandelf. Her eyes scanned the page to get a sense of the contents. Dust mites.
Elena put the book down seeing that Astoreth was intent on sharing something. The infernal was carrying a leather binder with a series of printed photographs inside. “More of your dream photography, Star?”
The infernal was laying out a series of prints propped against a counter where Elena worked with seedlings and cuttings. They looked like aerial photographs of the landscape beneath, but surreally twisted and evoked a sensation of the grotesque and gorey. These were how most of the images from Astoreth’s subconscious turned out. There was a remarkable level of detail fidelity in these prints as well as a recurring pattern in the larger abstraction. Unsettling and bloody abstraction. “Something like that. You already see it, right?”
“This pattern, here, here, there-there-there.” Elena played along. “Were these from different nights?”
“Different days. I’ve been putting myself to sleep while meditating on the delta bond. It gives me just a few minutes but I’ve been mapping things out.”
“Mapping what out? Your dreams?”
“No, his. Isaac’s,” Elena sighed and was suddenly leaning all of her weight into Astoreth’s contact as well. “I mean, not Isaac at academy, Isaac-things Isaac.”
Someone large, warm, and possessed of a softly padded, firm strength took her place behind them. Both of them habitually leaned into Chandrakanta’s embrace “Why are they so creepy, Star? Whenever I manage to make contact with him it’s beautiful. There’s an ancient palace high up above a verdant and blue world and the sun is warm, the breeze steady, and the shade cool.” The Megami wrapped her arms around them.
Elena shook her head. “He’s just a normal human trapped in an abnormal state of being. The environment is shaping itself based on his memories. You make it sound like he’s some sort of mythological god king.”
“That environment is an illusion he’s projecting from below the ocean! The entire floor looks like my fantasiagraphy.” Astoreth insisted with inappropriate intensity. Elena’s tone towards Chandrakanta seemed condescending. Because Astoreth wouldn’t have been nearly killed by a psychic attack from a normal human without any chance of retaliating she rejected Elena’s idea. That meant she imagined Elena, as her opponent in this matter, would dismiss her own argument with the same presumed condescension.
Elena had been thinking deeply and so Astoreth’s sudden burst of hostility caught her off guard and her survival instincts kicked in to react to the unexpected attack.
Chandrakanta breathed in deeply and the two bristling at each other were suddenly pushed so far off where they had settled they had to both drop their hackles to adjust their weight in order to maintain stability. They imitated her inhalation and all settled back together with a sigh. The Megami spoke “So all three of us have managed to contact this greater Isaac with some success although we have three very different interpretations of our contact with him. Shall we proceed assuming that we are the reason for this variation?”
Elena was the least familiar with psychic matters so she waiting for Astoreth’s response. The infernal pokegirl was still irritated and aggressively snuggling in an attempt to deny the Grandelf the most comfy position between their Megami furniture’s great pillows. “I already told you two, he’s projecting an illusion to make you two more comfortable.”
“I don’t get the impression he’s creating any illusions intentionally, Star.” Chandrakanta responded. “Although maybe he is pulling our perceptions of him from our minds while we are there?”
Elena sighed. “You were both dreaming, right? We have no way to verify what you’re experiencing is really a connection with him and not some creation of your own minds. There’s too much we don’t know…” The three’s silent contemplation was interrupted by a gentle ball of light that appeared in front of Elena. It was the two way communication spell she taught Jin in case the Witch needed to contact the Grandelf directly. Elena reached out to touch the shining orb and it expanded and contained a floating image of Jin’s face.
Jin bobbed her head in greeting. She was grinning from ear to ear and her voice was rich with mischief. “Isaac’s figured out his problem and needs help tonight. We’re West of Zaporizhzhia, about thirty kilometers.”
-
Isaac and Jin were sitting wide awake inside the yurt approximately forty-five minutes into quiet hours. Isaac could sense that Elena, Chandrakanta, and Astoreth were nearby through the delta bonds. Astoreth in particular was on her way to retrieve the tamer and his Witch and Isaac weren’t sure how she was so close without alerting any of the cadets or sergeants on watch duty. He tracked her approximate location all the way up to the fabric walls of their own shelter, but there was no sign of the infernal.
Astoreth dropped out of invisibility as she used the Phase technique to step through the wall. She was stooped down to nearly half her height to fit under the sloped ceiling. She offered her hands wordlessly to the two and teleported away with them to where Elena and Chandrakanta were waiting.
Elena nearly pulled Isaac off of his feet with the possessive ferocity of her hug. She then looked down at the top of his head and frowned. “You haven’t grown at all…”
Isaac stared in confusion and then realized that, yes, he was still the same height in comparison to the many centuries old Grandelf as when they’d parted. He hadn’t thought about it because he’d been with her every day but Jin was now nearly as tall as he was and the East Asian pokegirl had been considerably shorter. Given his age, he should have been growing like a weed. In his own time and reality he’d shot up in height so quickly it had left stretch marks on his sides and the joints of his legs when he was around this age. “Oh.” Isaac muttered with disappointment and a hint of shame. “I didn’t get time right…”
The four of them looked confused until Elena remembered a conversation. “When you said you had to figure out how it worked in order to move?”
“Yeah…” Isaac answered with a hint of dejection. “It’s not that big of a deal, I mean, I can fix that too. I guess I must have figured that out while working on the taming thing.” Isaac had thought his idea for what the phenomenon of time was had been elegant, but disproven theories were disproved theories.
“How did you discover the solution to your body not producing tantric energies,” Chandrakanta asked. She had some familiarity with the practices from recreational studying she’d done.
“His boyfriend!” Jin blurted out. “They were wrestling and Isaac got a really good pin on Vardan. Isaac got all shy because he realized he was sitting right on top of Vardan and Vardan was like, ‘I could show you something else but we’d want to go into my tent,’ and they did and I got to watch. Vardan has an entire crate full of condoms and Isaac’s moan is really hot.”
Isaac’s blush was so intense it spread to the three veterans delta bonded to him. Their shared sensations with him also meant they had some idea of what had transpired. “Jin might be right. I don’t know. I just knew what I needed to do the next morning. And it’s not a crate, it’s a lot smaller than that.” Isaac demonstrated the approximate size of the container with his hands.
Chandrakanta took her turn to hug Isaac. “I’m glad things are going well between you and Vardan. I’d like to meet him, for real this time.” The Megami had done sneaky Megami things to be the one delivering something to Cornelius Vardan Paza the Eighth on behalf of his family. The Pazas were her sponsors as a free pokegirl in the Sapphire League. So she knew who he was and was able to form a judgement of the young man but did not have the chance to really talk.
Astoreth grunted in derision. She wasn’t a fan of Isaac’s relationship with the other young man although she wasn’t condemning it either. To her Vardan was an outsider and a rival for her affections. She’d make Isaac moan all for her in less than two months. “So what do you need from us?”
“Somewhere isolated. Like, no chance of anyone else showing up while I... change, I guess.”
“Could we go back to my house? Is that out of the way enough?”
Isaac shook his head. “No, nowhere anywhere close to a settlement. Preferably not even in the league.”
Astoreth nodded. “I know of somewhere perfect.”
-
Tropical ocean waves lapped at the moonlit white sand shore and water smoothed volcanic rocks. Palm tree fronds waved in the cool night breeze as Astoreth arrived via teleportation carrying Elena and Isaac. Isaac released Jin from her pokeball as Astoreth vanished and reappeared with Chandrakanta. The light reflecting off the lunar surface was enough to reveal a palatial compound built on the highest point in the center of the desert island.
“Star, dear. I know you like your secrets but where are we?” Elena asked as she surveyed the scene with her eyebrows slowly climbing her forehead.
“This island is part of the Seychelles archipelago.” When that answer didn’t seem satisfactory to the Grandelf she added, “A chain of islands north of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.”
“And is this your desert island compound?”
“Technically.” Astoreth’s answer was very brusque. Elena didn’t seem satisfied and with a sigh the infernal elaborated. “I was taught here; before I met any of you. Ten years ago my teacher got herself killed. None of her other students are alive either, so I’m the only one who knows of this place.”
Elena had a vague idea of what this place was now. Ten years ago Astoreth had been caught up in an explosion of treachery and covert warfare between her and a number of other ambitious and powerful infernals. Thanks to a small amount of help from her and far more assistance from Chandrakanta, their Star had come out on top of the bloody conflict. The only explanation the infernal pokegirl gave was that she and the rest of the combatants all studied together and the killing was to secure their teacher’s legacy.
Chandrakanta knew more but when Elena asked her the Megami only replied that they were all irredeemably evil. Elena had never heard such a strong condemnation placed upon any living soul from the celestial before. She hoped to know more someday but Astoreth was loath to discuss her sordid past. “Alright Isaac,” Elena returned her mind to the matter of the evening, “what do we need to do?”
Isaac was looking around the beach. “Nothing, really. I can take care of it all. I just need space and I got the impression that only you four should know about it.”
“How much space?”
Isaac began strolling down the beach and waved Jin back when the Witch began to follow. “I’ll be close, but try to stay…” Isaac did some conversions in his head, “eight or nine meters away, about?”
The four pokegirls were unhappy with that instruction. “There could still be ferals here, especially from the water. Do we have to be so far away?”
“You remember the Vasylk farmstead?” Isaac asked the Grandelf. “Something like that’s probably going to happen again and if you’re too close… I don’t know what will happen but no one will be able to survive it.”
Jin raised her hand hesitantly to call attention to herself. “Eehhh, don’t you need to survive it, Isaac?”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah I’ll be here when it’s done, don’t worry.” He didn’t sound convinced himself. There was more back and forth but Isaac was adamant that this was how things needed to be. So the three veterans took up a rough triangle formation surrounding the clearing on the beach Isaac picked. Jin stood with Elena and observed intently as the Grandelf cast a battery of detection spells. The other two big sisters did the same where they stood. If they could not be close, they’d at least have as much information about what was going on as possible.
Nothing happened for a long time, but the three veterans could feel that Isaac was intensely concentrating across their delta bond. They had no frame of reference to determine what his thoughts were so focused on when the moon pulled away further up into the sky and the stars all blinked out. A pale glow rose over the horizon and the air began to swirl gently. Sand started to flow like a river at Isaac’s feet. The motion spilled outward away from him in sweeping arms that rotated counter-clockwise. A palm tree was caught in one of the disturbances and was slowly peeled apart into frayed fibers.
When discussing it later they would all agree that Jin described what happened next best. “It was like he turned into a ball of noodles that was being stirred up really fast.” However, Astoreth saw gashing maws and dreadful eyes covering the surface of the noodles and to Chandrakanta the noodles were made of rays of light somehow captured as a solid. Elena only saw fit to describe what she witnessed as visual distortion before her pupil shared her own interpretation.
The physical form of Isaac peeled apart in a way that was less his body being torn apart and more that space itself had been disturbed specifically where he was standing. The stirring of reality slowed and Isaac dropped down to his knees in the sand. Something wafer thin, stiff, and slightly waxy to the touch was stuck all over his body. He krinkled as he stood up and all four watching pokegirls ran up to him. He looked down at his arms to see a translucent sort of casing flaking away. He looked up, the extent of his confusion making his expression seem helpless. “Did I just molt?”
Astoreth reached him first but only because Chandrakanta stopped and stared in awe once she was within a couple paces. The massive infernal pokegirl delicately lifted and twisted bits of his body to check him over with a wide eyed and frantic expression that only transitioned from worry to elation as she confirmed he was well.
Elena stepped around the mesmerized Megami with a questioning look to her celestial friend but paid attention to Isaac as he was the subject of Astoreth’s inspection. “How do you feel, Isaac? Anything off, any pain or discomfort? That was-”
“Gross!” Jin shouted exuberantly as she poked at the film stuck to her tamer’s arm. She pulled her hand back with a quick, “Eep,” when it dissolved into finer and finer powder until it was nothing.
“Uh, Candi?” Isaac stepped towards the entranced pokegirl.
She blinked and shook herself free of the captivation. “Oh, sorry Isaac. Now that I see what’s changed I was just amazed I hadn’t noticed it was missing, is all.”
Jin cleared her throat and stepped up to lean her weight dramatically onto Isaac. She spoke boldly, clearly, and with no thought to dampening her perceivably haughty habitual tone. “Sorry, big sisters, but could one of you teleport us back there’s something Isaac and I need to confirm.”
Astoreth started to draw herself up aggressively but Elena quickly and flatly informed the incensed infernal, “You’re the one who raised her up until this spring.”
(-[|]-) End 4.2 (-[|]-)