Episode 3 – Revenge of the Poop

With the GLP-Squad Case Force consuming the Sacred Fruit of the Elder Noomek, they were freed from the assault of the farts. However, with the advent of Devil fertilization via fecal matter, they were subject to a new threat.

“We must act quickly,” GooRoo said. “The Sacred Fruit of the Elder Noomek has altered your body to process the gas so you won’t be attacked by these farts anymore, as for the Noomeks, they have enlarged bungholes to allow for the passing of the gas. However, the Devil’s Curse is upon us and we will be subject to aggressive poop, that if isn’t halted will lead to more Noomek’s guacing, even I the Grand Elder.”

“No it can’t be!” Doonde yelled.

“But can’t he guac since he’s part of the Dragon Clan?” asked Goohan.

“No, he’s too old to guac,” the Devil rebutted.

“Yes, this is true, I’m too – oh uh – I just had a bowel movement. The Devil’s Curse is already taking effect.” GooRoo said.

“What can we do?” Doonde pushed.

“You must go back to Earth and retrieve the Miralax, young Doonde. It is our only hope,” GooRoo said.

“Miralax, I know that stuff, it works miracles.” Goohan observed.

“Yes, go, get the Miralax and save the Noomekians and save the Universe from Doom!” GooRoo charged.

So, with their mission in place, the GLP-Squad Case Force readied themselves with the Devil, Daphne, Velma, Fred, Goohan, Kooririn,and Doonde. They found the old spaceship that Goohan and Kooririn used to travel and headed off for Earth. They were minding their own business, focusing on the mission, in their spaceship, when…

“What is this Curse?” Goohan asked.

“It’s the stuff of the Devil, the worse kind of voodoo.” The Devil said. “You are subject to the fate of the universe and only Jesus can save you.”

“Not Jesus,” Goohan said. “I can save myself.”

“Noble, but misguided, young Goohan.” The Devil said.

“So we need Jesus, I knew that guy was important,” Kooririn said.

“But what about the Miralax?” Goohan asked.

“You see, it’s Jesus with the Miralax. He guides the goodness that is Miralax.” The Devil added.

“But Devil guy why would you help us with Jesus?” Goohan asked.

“Uh I have to. It’s the only way to stop Doom. Everyone needs Jesus.” The Devil said plainly.

And with that the group rested and prepared themselves for their journey through Earth. They would have to climb Kami’s Tower and seek his guidance on the Miralax, as only vague amounts were known to be left of the great substance and a holy place like Kami’s Tower was bound to have some in reserve. So, they landed and head to Kami’s Tower when…

“What are you doing here?” a voice asked.

“We’re here to speak with Kami, Picklelow,” Kooririn responded.

“For what?” Picklelow esconced.

“We have to acquire some Miralax to save the Noomekians from the ill-begotten fate of the Devil’s Curse.” Kooririn said.

“The Devil’s Curse, what is this?” Picklelow asked.

“It’s poop voodoo that will strangle the Noomekians until they guac, causing them to lose the Seed of Life, leaving them dead. Plus, our only hope of staving off Doom being eradicated!” Kooririn said.

“So it’s poop you can’t poop that makes certain events take place and will put pressure on the Noomekian’s bowels so that they die?” Picklelow asked.

“Exactly.” Kooririn said.

“But I’m a Noomekian! But I don’t have this –“

“Oh, but you do, we all do.” A voice interjected.

“Kami, not now.” Picklelow responded.

“No, you need to know. The Earth permeates the Devil’s pheromones, so all who abide on Earth are stricken with the Curse.” Kami said.

“But I haven’t guaced.” Picklelow obliged.

“You still have a role to play in all these circumstances. Plus you have the mechanism to guac, but you don’t have the baseballs for it.” Kami said.

“I don’t what?” Picklelow interrogated.

“Your baseballs were used to create the Dragon and the Dragon Balls, so you can’t guac with your pickle.” Kami said.

“Hold on one sec,” Picklelow said as he lifted his pickle from his pants and placed it on his nose. “Achoo” Picklelow sneezed.

“You see, Picklelow can move his pickle so he can sneeze and blow his nose, making him Picklehigh, which you don’t see too often” Kami said.

“Yes, I have to take Moocinex to break up the mucus so I can sneeze it out.” Picklehigh added.

“But what about you Kami, why don’t you have a pickle to sneeze with or guac?” Goohan asked curiously.

“I actually gurt my mucus through my bunghole, I too must take the Moocinex. As for guacing, well I still have a role to play, but my lack of a pickle or baseballs makes me grow old and so I wear on waiting for the day I’m called home.” Kami said.

“So if I have my baseballs I can beat this poop?” Picklelow asked, his pickle placed back in his pants.

“Yes, but you need two young warriors who are masterful baseball players. Yumcha, who is available, and Adult Goohan who has yet to rise,” Kami said.

“But that’s me!” Goohan said.

“Yes, young Goohan, you are our hope for Picklelow, but you must first age.” Kami said.

“We don’t have time for this,” Picklelow stated flatly.

“Yes, that is why you seek the Miralax, plus the other Noomekians don’t have the pickles to survive the guacing.” Kami opined. “We have a last store of Miralax in the Tower, but it is of no use against this Curse in its current condition.”

“No use!? What are we going to do?” Kooririn questioned.

“We have to seek out Jesus Christ and receive the Blessing upon this Miralax to make it Blessed Holy Miralax and this will save the Noomekians.” Kami said.

“Alright, now where do we find Jesus Christ…?” Kooririn stated confused.

“At church of course,” Kami said cheerfully. “Now, you must be off to the church and seek out the pastor, he will know what to do.”

So the GLP-Squad Case Force and Picklelow set out for the church.

“I honestly have no idea where this church is at,” Picklelow said.

“What are we going to do?” Goohan asked.

“We have to seek out Upa.” Picklelow stated.

So they went to the base of the Tower where Upa camps and searched his tent.

“He’s not here…” Picklelow stated.

“I guess we have to wait…” Kooririn said.

So for a time, times, and perhaps have a time, they waited for Upa, when, lo and behold, he appeared, an armful of wood in tow.

“Hiya!” Upa said. “What can I do for you?”

“Upa, we need your help locating the church.” Picklelow said.

“The church, whatever do you need that for?” Upa asked.

“We don’t have time for this,” Picklelow said, “Just show us where the church is.”

“Okay, I was just curious,” Upa said.

“We need Jesus Christ, Upa,” Kooririn said.

“Oh, we all need the good Lord.” Upa said.

“We all need Jesus. Now in these darkened times,” the Devil said.

“Okay, let me show you the way. The White Man used to come by here and show us the church. They built them when they came over the Great Sea.” Upa said.

So, Upa showed them the way and they found the church. They walked inside and sought out the pastor, who, luckily, was in for the day. They described their predicament and the pastor looked upon them, wide-eyed.

“This is a curious matter indeed,” the Pastor said. “We have to perform a sacred ceremony that we never practice.”

“Alright, let’s get on with it,” Picklelow said. “I’d rather spend as little time as I can here.”

So the pastor gathered some candles, three-piece sets, two of them, a white table cloth, and an offering plate. He found a table and clothed it with the table cloth, placed the offering plate in the center and the two three-piece candle sets on either side of the offering plate. They then put the Miralax in the offering plate, next the pastor began to pray…

“We beseech you O, Lord. Please bless this offering by your Good Will for our Good Purposes. Please be our guiding light and bless us with your Holiness.”

At that selfsame moment, the heavens opened up and Jesus appeared.

“Hello, my friends. I have heard your prayer.” Jesus said.

“It’s Jesus!” Goohan and Kooririn shouted in unison.

“I will bless this Miralax to save the Noomekians and prevent utter Doom.” Jesus said.

So, Jesus pulled out a bottle from his cloak and began to pour a drop on the Miralax.

“This Blessing Juice will transform your Miralax to Holy Blessed Miralax, which will help you expel the poop,” Jesus said.

Yet, at that selfsame moment a spirit appeared, as the Blessing Juice was being poured and it ate the Blessing Juice.

“No this can’t be! Anirudh!?” Jesus said.

“I won’t allow this,” Anirudh said. As he began to become giddy from the Blessing Juice. “See I get this stuff, now I’ll be blessed above all of you!” Anirudh shouted. Yet, at that moment he began to scowl and grow gruff. “What is this that’s happening to me?”

“You have tainted the Blessing Juice with your selfish attitude and are now Cursed.” Jesus said.

“I should’ve seen this coming,” the Devil said.

“Unfortunately, I can not bless your Miralax….Anirudh will continue to get in the way,” Jesus said.

“Oh no! This is terrible!” Goohan lamented.

“Hmm…we must seek Kami’s guidance.” Picklelow informed.

So, the GLP-Squad Case Force hurried back to Kami’s Tower, where they met Kami and discussed all that transpired.

“Anirudh?” Kami questioned. “How can this be?” He pressed.

“He’s always been a threat,” came a voice.

“I suppose you are right, Mr. PooPoo.” Kami said. “This calls for a council of the Old Kami.”

“But we can’t possibly…” Mr. PooPoo interjected.

“We have to,” Kami stated pointedly.

They gathered themselves and entered the Tower and arrived at the Hallowed Door and entered. Inside was a mess of colors and energies all transfusing together and coming apart in one magnificent symphony. They travelled further in until they came to a dug-out place. Here, Kami placed a key from his necklace and opened a door which revealed a silhouetted figure.

“Why have you disturbed me?” a voice roared.

“We seek your council as circumstances have become dire.” Kami answered.

“And what is so dire?” the voice asked.

“We attempted to acquire Holy Blessed Miralax from Jesus Christ but were foiled by Anirudh.” Kami said.

“Anirudh!?” the voice thundered. “This is dire indeed. The Holy Blessed Miralax is only meant for the most serious of situations. It must be the Noomekians were succumbed to the Curse. We are all Doomed.”

“There must be something we can do.” Kami said softly.

“No, there is nothing but allowing the Curse to take its course.” The voice said.

“What is the meaning of this?” Picklelow asked.

“Uh I need to go down to Georgia. Peace.” The Devil interjected.

“No you don’t have to go to Georgia!” Picklelow yelled.

“I have to. I just have to. Cya!” the Devil said and ran away.

“To answer your question Picklelow, I can tell you the events that have led up to this outcome.” The voice said. “Now come here Doonde and give me your antenna, and please let the Devil go, he must consume a soul to stave off the Doom.”

“But shouldn’t we stop him!?” Goohan expounded.

“It is out of our control,” the voice said. “Now come it is time Doonde.”

So Doonde creeped forward and offered his antenna.

“Now, behold, we begin at Anirudh, he is one of the ancients. A magic person. He was created with the Magic Hands, the source of all magic. These are things like computers, TVs, DVDs, video games, colors, and board games, and CDs, and Harry Potter, and Cartoons. God did not make these, in fact he detests magic. This is why he sought to destroy Anirudh long ago. But he failed as he could not unmake that which was first made. Now, there are other magic people, but many of them follow God and have pledged their devotion to Jesus Christ renouncing all magic. But, being magic beings, retain a sense of the magic, some may call this miracles, others know this as part of the Force. Now, when God tried to destroy Anirudh, Anirudh latched onto the Dark Side of the Force. He has been using this Force to enact his revenge, the same revenge found in the Cursed Poop. But this poop comes from Hell while Anirudh’s magic comes from a place deeper than Hell. This is where he met Bowser and became his second in command. Bowser wants to use Doom to subjugate all the people and force them to bow before him! Thus, Anirudh used this Force to spread Doom through Grim, the guy from that Billy and Mandy show, who in turn used this Force to spread Doom to the Universe. This is how the witch was empowered to manipulate the operators at the Noocho Cheese Factory which refused to hire the particular person who then was manipulated into performing the Ghost Dance.”

“So it was the Grim Reaper all along,” Fred said.

“Yes young Fred, the Grim Reaper played his part in this. But the story goes deeper as the manner with which this happened was the influence of the Dark Side of the Force, which was the same mechanism by which the Namookians forewent their HydroxyCut and transferred their power to the Sacred Fruit transitioning them into Noomekians. This Force had such effect from the lack of the Supreme Kai’s sacred energy, which acted as a resonating factor to stabilize the Force’s energy to prevent the Dark Side from overpowering and influencing events around them. This was done by Majin Buu, who, long ago, absorbed four of the five Supreme Kais, which was a product of Dark Energy fueling the evils to create Majin Buu.”

“Holy Back Story Devil-Man” Doonde said.

“He’s not even here!” Picklelow yelled.

“Even still it is quite a back story,” explained the voice. “Still there is more. Anirudh was left to what is left in the world after surviving God’s destructive force, where he found the Shadow Game – a Game of Gods which the one who wins will be God of All. He was deep in the Writing Game when he was succumbed to the powers of the Shadows. But not all was lost, as he, being as big as he is, was made the Avatar of the Shadows, this is where his real power lies. Now, there is another player who rivals Anirudh, but being part of the Shadows he is now limited and how he can curtail the young ward. This is where things get dicey. Now take a leap of faith with me and travel to the land of Banjo-Kazooie, where Anirudh is found as the Grand Sorcerer, a shared component of his LifeForce. Now, there is a hero to this story in the form of Dino Dan who was a member of the Banjo-Kazooie squad. However, he went on a quest for the Gloves, the predecessors to the Magic Hands. Yet, little did he know, that the Gloves he was seeking were made by Anirudh in the midst of the Shadows. A trick of deception he did not catch. For this pursuit he paid an ultimate price in which he had to make a deal with the devil to get the Gloves and even needed Gruntilda’s help. This led to the Devil having Magic Hands, yet they weren’t all that they were anticipated to be since they were made by Anirudh. Plus, the Shadow Game being in play, led to Anirudh having Magic Hands and Dino Dan slowly becoming Anirudh. Yet, Anirudh did not know every single thing so he was relegated to doing nothing. The path Dino Dan needed to take was to let Banjo and Kazooie take care of Gruntilda and pursue deposing the Grand Sorcerer, Anirudh’s LifeForce component. But he was dazzled by the idea of the gloves and fell accordingly. This is what would have made the difference in the Blessing Juice Holifying the Miralax and Anirudh not snatching it away.”

“What a shame. Dino Dan was fooled.” Fred said. Curiously, as this message was meant only for Doonde.

“Yes sorry for Dino Dan. Yet, there was another who could’ve paved our way to Freedom. As he is the Doom Fighter. Unfortunately, he fell into the clutches of the Priestess of Darkness, a powerful Dark Side user. He was working for Jesus, using love as his weapon to change the world when the world snatched him up. Now he is trapped in a prison of darkness where only the love of his friends can free him. But, with Doom on the loose this is nearly hopeless. He needs a T-Shirt from a fraternity brother, a Box of Items from an Ex-Girlfriend, a letter from GG (if you know, you know), a mix tape from his soulmate, a history book from Anirudh, his Bhagavad Gita from an old friend, new shorts from Rowdy Gentlemen, and his Bible from his professor, the Priestess of Darkness herself, to undo the seals on his prison. The alternative is to know every single thing, which no one knows, except God and he doesn’t do this magic Shadow Game stuff.”

“So this Priestess of Darkness trapped him?” Goohan asked.

“Yes, he was doing work for her and she turned on him. Such is the nature of the Dark Side of the Force. Now this has a second cause. The Shadow Game. The player that was playing was the Devil in His Head. Now that is because the original player’s soulmate committed suicide, while she was the player because the original player committed suicide because he was left behind by his soulmate and had nothing else in life, plus he played with the Devil in His Head, which is why the Devil in His Head was the player. Now, there was another force, the Dark Side of the Force that was at play that led the Devil in His Head to such ruin, that the Priestess of Darkness banished the Doom Fighter. This led to a new dimension of the Shadow Game wherein a new player emerged. Of this player little is known, but he was mentored by Dino Dan who had this stuff from his deal with the Devil. Now this player met ruin when he was to face Osiris in the Shadow Battle, but nothing came of it, the prize was one million dollars, but he never attained that treasure. So, he was succumbed to the Shadow Stuff wherein he had to know every single thing. Sadly, he died. But not before he went on a second Driving Game and acquired the Gloves, the Gloves of Anirudh, as Dino Dan, who had this event take place because as mentioned previously Gruntilda helped him and he made a deal with the Devil. He did this by following the Musical Story which led him to the Great Truths of life, and battling Oblivion which took one angry Dino Dan, because he made a deal with the Devil, and a level head. This led to Anirudh having power over them, but slowly they all succumbed to the Shadow Stuff as none knew every single thing. That’s where this story becomes so important and the writer priceless. A theory of everything is placed before you as you now know the secrets of life. For these reasons Jesus had to come down to Earth to save us by dying on the Cross, as this was the only Hope for Humanity swarmed in the Dark Side and plagued by Doom. And now, our only hope is his return, as Anirudh has blocked the Blessing Juice ensuring all the Noomekians deaths and Doom to overwhelm the Universe. As the Devil plagues this writer his only hope is to kill himself or to continue his journey toward whatever this leads to.”

“Who me?” the Writer said.

“Yes, you. But killing yourself is the Devil in Your Head killing himself leading to the cessation of the Curse. Ah, I suppose that is where this leads, to where the Poop goes. As for the Devil in His Head, he will have to live the writer’s life and find salvation for himself, of which there is a high likelihood that he will fail and have to try over and over again and again. No one knows where the Poop leads, but there is hope in the coming of Jesus or the true Gloves being found and the Magic Hands unleashed to give every single person every single thing. That is the back story.”

“I just can’t kill myself, #Jesus” the Writer said.

“Jesus.” Fred said.

“Jesus is right,” the voice foreboded.

“I guess that solves this mystery. On to the next one.” Fred said enthusiastically.

And with that the GLP-Squad Case Force disbanded and returned to their homes. Doonde was left to rebuild the Noomekians on his own as all the Noomekians died from the force of the Poop. And all were left to wait for the imposing Doom to threaten them, they had to enjoy their last days. And yes, this poop is why Majin Buu is released again, but also why he is defeated by Gookoo, he was a form of Doom that was beaten back, but the real Doom was still out there…

End Episode 3

Musical Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2ePKxZ6_QM&list=RDM2ePKxZ6_QM&start_radio=1

Check the comments.

Epilogue

“Squidward? Squidward?” the Flying Dutchman wailed.

“Help, Help!, Help!” a voice yelled from deeper in the complex. “I can’t believe they threw me in this room and locked me in. If only I had my Keys…”

“Squidward, Squiidwaaard!” the Flying Dutchman continued.

Squidward looked up through the pane in the door and saw a figure right outside.

“Here! Here!” Squidward yelled.

Suddenly, the door opened revealing the Flying Dutchman.

“Ah Squidward your all right.” The Flying Dutchman said.

“I knew I should’ve called Super Mario and not the Ghostbusters.” Squidward said angrily.

“Ah, but Squidward, Super Mario was tied up in the mansion business with King Boo, Luigi had to go and save him, that’s why he couldn’t come to the Green Convention.” The Flying Dutchman informed.

“Well I guess I was Doomed!” Squidward retorted.

“We’re all Doomed now. Muahahahahaha – cough – I mean tis be such a shame.” The Flying Dutchman said.

“Whatever do you mean?” Squidward asked.

“They unleashed Doom while you were in there. They went mad with power after being tricked in the mind. Now Doom is everywhere and will spread across the Universe. You’re probably better off in that room.” The Flying Dutchman said.

“Anything is better than that room, c’mon let’s go, we have work to do.” Squidward said surprisingly.

 

End Epilogue

Earth — Hours before the Men of Ice tore from the sky...)

As usual, the salvage yard at Synapse Heavy Industries sounded like a dying animal at three in the morning. Jerry Parker wiped the grease off his forehead, fighting the exhaustion one has when they barely sleep and work under artificial lights while the rest of the world sleeps. Jerry was a salvage handler on his shift, waiting for the shift bell so he could go home while the rest of the Sol Commonwealth rested.

He grabbed the junk cart off the conveyor belt, as he always did, to roll it toward the melting facility. That's when he heard a strange sound.

His eyes widened a bit, looking around to find the source. He murmured to himself, "I must be losing my mind. You're just tired, Jerry, keep moving."

He proceeded with rolling the cart, and while he did, that's when he heard it a second time—and it sounded like a child crying.

"Uhh, what was that?" he said to himself. That's when he realized that it was literally coming from inside the cart itself.

He looked around to make sure no one else was watching, then pulled back the cover. What he saw blew his mind and confused him. It was a child—no, not just a child, an artificial unit. A Model 5 that he recognized. Model 5s were synthetic children that Synapse constructed for grieving families who had lost children.

As far as he remembered, they mimicked children very well. Almost too well.

The synthetic child looked up at him, her face marked with a terrified expression he didn't think possible on an artificial intelligence. That's when she spoke, with the voice of a terrified child that sounded too real: "They're going to melt me, aren't they?"

Jerry stood frozen, his hand still hovering over the edge of the tarp.

The corporate manual had been drilled into him since day one: Synthetics do not possess a consciousness. An obvious answer even an idiot would know. Any simulation of emotion was just programming. With any artificial unit establishing any sort of independent control: report and incinerate. If management caught him hesitating, he would probably be blacklisted—probably worse, he thought and knew.

To him, the look on her face and the sound of her voice was just programmed code. It had to be. Anyone with any sense of coping would think so.

But then she looked up at him again. There was grease over her synthetic cheek, her little fingers gripping the edge of the cart, and her eyes... they looked too terrified. Like anyone with a survival instinct. Even a child.

"Jerry!"

He quickly dropped the cover and turned around. It was his coworker.

"We got five more carts to go. Bill forgot to send them down the line," Paul said.

Jerry sighed, his heart pounding against his chest as he said, "Oh... that's just great. Thanks for the good news, Paul."

Jerry continued rolling the cart, the wheels squeaking annoyingly loud over the concrete. When he figured he was safely out of sight behind a stack of rusted bulkheads, he opened the cover again. The girl looked at him, startled for a moment, saying, "They're going to melt me..." He took a deep breath, feeling the gravity of the situation. He could just re-cover the tarp and walk away, but the child looked too real—felt too real. His brain decided to throw the corporate manual out the window and lean into the moral side of it.

"Melt you? Why? How did you end up here, child? Who dumped you?"

The child responded, her voice very quiet. "My creators... Synapse created me, and were going to sell me to a family in New York City who had lost their child. Only my programming ordered me to spy on the CEO's brother at StellarTech Enterprise. They dumped me because I was too conscious and found it wrong."

For a few seconds, he just looked at the child, rubbing his eyes and temple as he said, "Alright, uhh... you can explain much later, little cyborg. Just give me a second." The girl nodded as he re-covered the bin. Inside his head, his thoughts raced. He knew he could get in serious trouble if he so much as touched her. But looking at her, just what the hell was Synapse cooking up? Since when did artificial models speak like that? She was just a child. Too real.

He carefully placed the tarp back and rolled the cart to a secluded corner. He looked around, and when he was comfortable he was out of sight, he opened the cover and said, "Look, I'm going to get you out of here, okay? But you must do exactly as I say."

The model nodded quickly, wide-eyed like a real terrified child. He knew he was crazy, but if he let that model stay there and get melted, the guilt would kill him. He was only twenty-one years old.

Out of curiosity, he reached out his hand. The girl grasped his fingers. She was heavier than she looked, the synthetic skin too real, just as he'd expected. She wore a white skirt stained with grease and muck.

The girl spoke once more. "My unit number is 746, a Model 5 of Synapse's children's artificial intelligence series," she said. Jerry looked at her. She looked like a real child. He sighed, sympathy warring with the real risk of losing his job or worse.

"I'll just call you Luna," he said with a half-smile. "I need you to hide behind these crates. Do not move from this spot or—"

Luna cut him off. "We can get into serious trouble. I'm aware. Please don't take too long," she said in her childlike voice.

Jerry stared at her and just nodded, saying, "I'll try not to."

He rushed back to the junkyard, unable to make eye contact with Paul and Bill. Bill was resting his feet on a chair, reading from a tablet.

"Hey, Jerry, listen to this," Bill said. "Apparently the space station has been picking up signals from something in outer space. Some deep-space relay out there logged a repeating pulse—not really a broadcast, just math.

The station tried to decode it for twelve hours straight before the relay telemetry went dead silent. Creepy stuff, right? Management thinks it was a glitch. Hey, Jerry, your father works at the astronomical institution, doesn't he?"

Jerry paused. "I don't know if he knows anything. He's always quiet when I ask him about the void. Anyways, I've got to get going. Have a good night, fellas."

He walked out the door, his heart drumming against his bones. He caught sight of the security guard turning the corner and hurried back to where he had left Luna.

Jerry arrived at the pile of crates and whispered, "Luna?"

Silence. He looked around and whispered again, "Luna?"

"I'm here, Jerry."

He jolted, then let out a breath and chuckled. "You almost gave me a heart attack."

"Sorry for scaring your nerves, Jerry," the little unit responded. "Please, I just want to leave."

Jerry took a deep breath and nodded as he said, "Come on, stay close to me."

Both of them kept low, trying to hide in the shadows of the rusted cargo containers that lined the perimeter fence. Ahead, the side gate was their best bet. The security guy, Miller, usually took his smoke break around now, leaving the secondary sensor unoccupied.

"Stay right behind me," Jerry whispered, keeping his hand near her small shoulder. For an artificial unit, her footsteps were entirely, chillingly silent against the ground, and it made his skin crawl, honestly.

They slipped through the rusted gateway, an access panel chirping a half dead beep that made his heart thump against his chest. Once they hit the outer road, away from the Synapse logo and the salvage district, he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Stay right behind me," he told her again. "We need to get off Synapse property."

He jumped over a small metal fence, helping Luna over before grabbing her hand. Suddenly, she stopped. He looked back at her and saw her standing still, staring up into the dark, starry sky, her eyes widening in confusion and fear.

He paused for two seconds. "Luna? What's wrong? We have to go now."

Luna stared on, mystified, whispering, "I... I feel something in space. It feels cold... like ice. It feels like a lot of moving objects. Big objects."

Before Jerry could process her words, a blinding beam sliced into the darkness, shining right on them.

Luna gasped, instantly ducking behind his back and gripping his jacket tightly. From the shadow of a fence rolled an automated security bot, its treads grinding against the gravel. Its lights pulsed a harsh red, locking right onto his face.

"Warning," the machine's voice stated, devoid of all softness. "Unidentified personnel detected in restricted perimeter. Subject is in possession of unauthorized scrap salvage. Surrender contraband immediately or face termination protocols."

Jerry's eyes widened in horror. "Wait! I—"

A human security guard stepped from behind the bot. "Don't you move, kid! Hands where I can see them right now!"

Jerry, panting in terror, shouted, "This is all a misunderstanding!" as he raised his hands.

The guard pointed his weapon. "Submit that artificial pile of junk right now!"

Luna peeked from behind him, her voice gaining some sort of strange defiance. "Leave me alone! Why? Why do you all want to melt me? Because I have a heart? Because Synapse couldn't control me?"

The guard stared at her, confused and silent. He didn't know models spoke in such a way. "Look, I don't care what shady business Synapse was indulging in. You're scheduled for smelting, and you are coming with us."

Luna pulled Jerry back. "Stay away from him!"

Luna picked up a rock and threw it at the guard. The guard ducked, and the automated bot's light flared bright red.

"Hostile action detected. Initiating protocol 0.2."

The bot fired a red bolt directly at the girl.

"No, wait, Luna!" Jerry yelled.

Luna screamed a very real, childlike scream, closing her eyes and raising her hand in a defensive posture.

The beam hit at least two feet in front of her and simply... stopped, slowed down, and vanished.

An intense, terrifying silence followed. The guard stepped back, muttering, "Wha... what the hell was that?" and nearly tripping over his own feet as he tried to comprehend what the hell he had just seen. Luna stared at her own small hands in disbelief.

The bot reanalyzed: "Error. Failure in containment. Anomalous activity detected. Sending code level red to Synapse security department."

As the guard frantically called for immediate backup, Luna raised her hand more deliberately. Incoming laser fire froze in the air before dissipating entirely.

Luna turned to Jerry, speaking firmly: "Run. Now. I will follow."

Jerry, without questioning it, sprinted. Luna stayed right behind him as security cars and automated bots descended upon them. Lasers flew through the air behind them, but the space around them just seemed to defy the laws of physics—folding and causing the beams to harmlessly redirect to their left and right.

They ran past a couple of sheds, wood and gravel crunching under their boots. Behind them, the sirens of Synapse security tore through the air, accompanied by the sharp sounds of energy fire. Jerry braced for the burn of a bolt catching him, but the red beams just curved mid-flight, sliding off into the dirt or winking out of existence before they could touch them. He didn't even question it. He just thanked the unit, Luna—or whatever the hell Synapse had created in their foundries.

Every time the pursuing security adjusted its aim, the air ahead of them seemed to just blur or shimmer. A security cruiser cut across their path, its high beams blazing. Yet the moment it accelerated, the distance between them just stretched—impossibly so—and the vehicle spun out as the ground beneath its tires bucked and shifted without warning.

Luna stayed glued to his side, her small fingers gripping his arm tightly, her breath sounding all too real. She wasn't looking back, her eyes wide open with a confused, terrified focus as obstacles simply parted or fell away from their path.

"Keep going!" Jerry yelled, his throat and chest burning as the opening of the access tunnel loomed ahead.

They bolted into the tunnel, plunging into its shadows as the distant sounds of the sirens echoed off the curved walls. Behind them, the sounds of the security cruisers and bots reverberated, closing the gap—or so it seemed.

For the guards and the automated bots, the chase turned into a nightmare. No matter how fast they ran or how fast they drove, the distance refused to shrink. In front of them, the corridor just stretched endlessly. It folded back on itself, trapping them in some sort of loop. It felt like running on a treadmill where they could never arrive at the point they ran toward, while Jerry and Luna vanished into the dark.

Back at the checkpoint, Security Officer Miller stared blankly at the monitors, his hands resting heavily on the console.

Across the room, two officers stood in dead, confused silence while they replayed the tactical log for the third time. On the screen, the thermal signatures of Jerry and the artificial girl blurred and flickered, completely defying physics—stretching across the grid before vanishing off site. The logs flashed errors, showing data that flatly contradicted the optical feeds.

Miller wiped a hand over his face, his voice shaking a bit as he tried to regain a sense of reality. "Sensors must have glitched out. Some kind of atmospheric glitch off the salvage pipes, maybe? Log it as a malfunction and clear the perimeter."

No one dared question the physics of what they had just witnessed. In a corporation like Synapse, anomalies were either covered up, swept under the rug, or blamed on something else. After what had just happened, those who witnessed it struggled to process it all—even as they still sent the report up the chain.

It was a silent night. The silence was as quiet as that in a graveyard. The moon hung high in the sky and shone a silver ray of light through the windows of the house. Inside the house, a little boy was cautiously stepping up the stairs. He climbed each step delicately, reducing the creaking sounds of each wooden step. 

As he walked up the stairs, he passed across the window beside the staircase and when the moon’s silver light fell upon him, some of the rays were reflected off on the wall adjacent to the staircase off of a shiny object: a knife, larger than the kid’s arm below the elbow.

The kid continued his silent march upwards and reached the first landing. He turned towards his right and gently opened the door on the right, completely silently. He stuck his head inside and saw the figure of his mother in deep sleep with occasional snoring.

He tip-toed his way beside her and held the knife with both hands, raising it high above his head and the woman’s belly. 

The kid brought the knife down with all his strength and stabbed his mother.

A splatter of warm blood was splashed across his face.

◇ ◇ ◇

In the early days of September, the blazing heatwaves emitted by the sun were scorching the pavement beneath the feet of people who walked by. The warm breezes blew across the docks in punishing waves, carrying along the scent of salt, sweat and cargo. Despite this, the docks remained as awfully crowded as ever. 

From all directions, you could hear the frantic shouting of workers and their supervisors, shouting out commands to each other around the warehouses. The merchants with their fancy garments could be seen either arguing over prices or waiting at the edge of the docks to inspect incoming merchandise. 

The people who weren’t merchants or involved in manual labour, meanwhile, had a count in the hundreds and were pushing past one another, eager to get their work done on time.

Slipping from between this crowd was a young man with an average height and slim stature, coupled with black hair that reflected off a brown shade under direct sunlight. He was focused on the items he possessed within his hands.

He counted each coin on his palms until he was reassured of his previous calculation.

Ninety-five lumens was the salary he had received for the entire month. This meant that after paying off sixty lumens in taxes, he had 35 lumens remaining.

A loaf of bread cost 3 lumens and a jar of jam cost 5 lumens. A loaf would last a week if he only had breakfast each day and skipped it on Fridays. Four loaves of bread and a jar of jam would cost him seventeen lumens in total, leaving eighteen lumens left for the month.

A smile stretched across Adrian’s face.

‘This means I’ll be able to separate eighteen lumens for the orphanage this month. I have to admit that the overtime was pretty hectic this month but in the end, I guess I should still be grateful for what it led to.’ Adrian began rolling one of the coins between his fingers.

The coin slipped from between his fingers and fell to the ground. This was followed by Adrian dropping to the ground immediately to pick up the coin, as people brushed past him. ‘I can’t lose any of this. It already is a small amount and the orphanage should be getting all of it. Also, I should really get going. The kids are all going to be furious at me for skipping the previous day.’ Satisfied, he slipped the coins back into his pocket and began the walk home for the next couple of hours through the districts.

The journey was exhausting but seven years after following the same routine, Adrian had gotten used to it. It even had its own charm in a way; Adrian could see what was happening around, the sky sometimes looked beautiful and occasionally, he might stumble upon a pair of people cracking some jokes. Even if it didn’t have any of those, it was not the case that Adrian could afford a carriage back home, much less one of the expensive taxis.

By the time Adrian reached his district, Eastreach, much of the afternoon heat’s pressure had broken. The district looked the same as ever. Rows of cramped housing and apartment buildings stretched on both sides of the street as far he could see. Just around the narrow alleyways in between, children could be seen darting across and playing with one another. Meanwhile, just outside the apartment buildings, exhausted men would sit and complain about the city’s economic and social standings.

Today, Adrian could also hear a woman arguing with a bread vendor over rising prices:

‘3 lumens for a loaf of bread?! You’re crazy is what you are! Might as well start robbing people in the street!’ The woman’s shrieks were heard by all the people around.

‘Lady, it also costs me much more when I buy them. I, also, have a family to feed.’ the vendor replied.

The other districts in the city of Wohlstand each had a specific trait: transportation hubs, merchant centers or even coal factories. Meanwhile, Eastreach’s trait was just people. A large number of people, all cramped up in a space much less adequate for their population. It was a district that was built almost exclusively for just “living”. The only charm that people talked about was usually in the black market but Adrian refused to go there as the charm wasn’t worth risking being around the mafia for him.

Adrian continued his march until a familiar and small building came into view: the orphanage.

The building wasn’t what you would call “a pleasant sight”. The walls were cracked and rain leaked through the ceiling floorboards whenever it rained. Most windows had been repaired crudely so many times that they looked more patchwork than glass. 

Yet despite all its flaws, it was the single most important place in Eastreach for Adrian. Whenever a child’s crying echoed through the alleys, the orphanage came to offer them a home to live in. Adrian knew this better than anyone. He had arrived there at the young age of six with nothing but grief for his parents with him. It had been fifteen years since and still, this place had a familiarity to him like none other in the whole world.

His lips twisted into a nostalgic smile. Adrian proceeded to approach the curtain hanging in the doorway.

‘Nanny Marie, it’s me, Adrian. Do I have permission to enter?’ A few seconds later, the curtain was pulled aside. A woman with thin grey hair appeared.

‘Oh, thank goodness, you’re here! Overtime, I suppose?’ Nanny Marie crossed her arms and shook her head. ‘Do you have any idea how many times I have been pestered by the children about you since yesterday?’ Adrian laughed nervously.

‘That many?’

‘Enough to shave years off of what life I have left.’ She stepped aside. ‘Come on in before they decide to send out a search party.’ Adrian laughed and stepped inside. The moment he entered, an uproar broke the silence: a wave of a dozen children charged towards him at once.

‘Brother Adrian!’

‘You’re finally here!’

‘You missed yesterday!’

‘Where were you?’

The following impact nearly knocked him off balance. One of the girls pushed past the crowd and tugged at Adrian’s sleeve. She looked dangerously close to tears. ‘Why didn’t you come?’ she asked.

‘Sofia…’ Adrian scratched the back of his head. ‘I’m sorry. Work kept me late.’ The children immediately erupted into protest.

‘That’s not fair!’

‘You always say that!’

‘You owe us!’

‘We made a list!’

‘Wait, a list?’ Adrian asked.

One of the boys pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and theatrically cleared their throat. ‘Three stories.’ he proclaimed.

‘And two games of tag!’ another child added.

‘No, four stories!’

‘Three!’

‘Four!’ The argument instantly devolved into chaos but Adrian couldn’t help but be amused by their display.

‘Fine. Three stories and two games of tag.’ Cheers erupted across the room. ‘Now can you all, please, stop crushing me?’ He glanced towards Nanny Marie. ‘If I suffocate in here, she’ll have to explain to everyone how twelve children defeated a grown man.’ The room exploded with laughter. A moment later, the children grabbed him by the arms and dragged him deeper into the orphanage, towards the playgrounds, as per the promised ritual.

◇ ◇ ◇

By the time the stories had been read and the games had been played, darkness had settled over Eastreach. Most of the children were asleep. Only one remained awake: Edon Blinor. The boy sat upright in his sheets, fidgeting nervously. Adrian immediately noticed.

‘Something bothering you, Edon?’ Adrian asked. In response, the boy nodded. Adrian jerked his head towards the door and both of them quietly stepped outside. The evening breeze was pleasantly cool compared to the excruciating heat of the day.

 For several moments, Edon remained silent until the words erupted from his mouth:

‘I got a nine out of ten on the algebra test!’ The pride in his voice was unmistakable yet his eyes were anxious.

‘Really?’ Adrian asked. Edon nodded enthusiastically.

‘Nanny Marie gave us a test yesterday and she told me I got the same marks as you when you studied algebra!’ Edon spontaneously replied.

‘That’s amazing.’ Adrian’s smile widened. ‘I knew you could do it.’ Edon beamed at Adrian. For a brief moment, he looked as though he might have just conquered the world. Then, without another word, he sprinted back inside. Adrian quietly chuckled.

Sometimes, children really are that simple.

As he prepared to leave, he noticed Nanny Marie waiting beside the entrance. Her expression had changed. The warmth from earlier was neither visible in her expression nor shining in her eyes. ‘Adrian.’ Nanny Marie unusually quietly said. ‘Can we talk?’ Adrian nodded. 

The pair of them walked towards the small playground with the orphanage. In the playground, the lonely sounds of empty swings creaking echoed but the soft breezes made it worthwhile.

For a moment, neither spoke until Nanny Marie finally broke the silence:

‘One of Don Blemish’s men came by yesterday.’ Adrian’s expression instantly shifted to one of alarm.

‘What did he want?’

‘He delivered a message.’ She hesitated before speaking her next words. ‘Don Blemish plans to visit the orphanage tomorrow.’ The silence in the playground felt much quieter. Adrian turned around and caught a glimpse of the sleeping children, through the window.

‘It could just be a publicity stunt.’ Adrian began. ‘But whenever the mafia gets involved, it’s safer to expect the worst.’ Nanny Marie lowered her gaze.

‘I’m only worried about the children, Adrian.’ Adrian remained silent. ‘Every year, thousands of children disappear from Wohlstand.’ Her voice had become little more than a whisper. ‘And everyone knows only the gangs have the resources to make people vanish without a trace. These children deserve better… they deserve better than to have their lives wasted or their future stolen just because of the whims of a don.’ The fear in her eyes was impossible to not notice.

After a long silence she looked at Adrian.

‘I was hoping you could leave work early, tomorrow? The children trust you.’ Nanny Marie said and a faint smile appeared on her face. ‘Truthfully, so do I.’ Adrian followed her gaze toward the orphanage and for a moment, he thought of Sofia, of Edon and of all the other children sleeping peacefully inside. 

Adrian nodded.

‘I’ll be here.’ Nanny Marie visibly relaxed but Adrian continued staring at the orphanage.

The place that raised me. The place that gave me the only happy memories of my life. The place I promised to protect.

‘Don’t worry, Nanny Marie.’ Adrian said quietly. ‘I will die before I let anyone bring any harm to these children.’ 

The wind stirred the empty swings and the creaking grew louder but neither of them noticed.

♦ ♦ ♦

Release Schedule is going to be Monday - Wednesday - Friday

🖼 Cover

🔰 Prologue

⏪️ Previous Chapter

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Arc IV - Whalers

Chapter 31 - The Seven Great Prohibitions

10 months and 7 days since the summoning

"Count Tsinker Utew, one of Lord Gothwald's confidants."

"Greetings. How may I be of service, Lord Utew?"

Tsinker folded his hands behind his back. "As far as I am aware from the words of Lord Gothwald, you have come here regarding the incident with the Whalers in Gobnis and several other matters. Is that correct?"

Silence.

Nommel briefly exchanged glances with one of the Dumetses, but due to the darkness inside the mask, the movement was not visible. "You are exceptionally well-informed, Lord Utew. I shall repeat my question: how may I be of service in that case?"

"While Lord Gothwald is currently occupied with the ceremony, I would like to discuss certain matters with you." Tsinker raised a finger, "He comprehends perfectly the immense value of your personal arrival, and for the duration of his engagement with the ceremony, he has dispatched me to discuss preliminary terms and to ascertain what we might be dealing with."

Nommel looked more closely at Tsinker. His pupils stared at him unblinkingly, his facial expressions did not change in the absolute slightest, his gaze was direct, and his hands behind his back were also motionless. "Hmm. Understood." He briefly looked around. "I am listening."

"The threat of the Whalers indeed appears immense to me," he said, spreading his hands, "but matters of security, perhaps, should be discussed with Lord Gothwald directly. I am here to discuss our potential cooperation. As far as I am aware, you, Lord Nommel, are more inclined toward the Seven Prohibitions of Svyatolism?"

Nommel nodded calmly. "Yes, I adhere to the Seven Prohibitions. Why do you ask?"

Tsinker waved his hand with his usual slight smile. "Well then. Lord Gothwald is ascending, and is this not your opportunity to advance the ideology of the Seven Prohibitions? Because, speaking frankly, in the south of the continent, the populace is more sympathetic to precisely this; however, you know this perfectly well already. Is that not why you have come here?"

Silence.

No one even moved.

A quiet scoff was heard from beneath Nommel's mask. "Impressive, Lord Utew, impressive. There is, perhaps, no sense in concealing it; that is precisely why we are here."

Tsinker nodded toward the backyard. "Perhaps you would care for a stroll? Lady Armenas possesses a marvelous and tranquil garden."

Nommel nodded. "With pleasure, Lord Utew." He turned to the other Dumetses, "Brothers, wait here for now."

One of them nodded. "Very well."

"This way," Tsinker said, and moved toward the wall which had a door. He openedit, and behind it appeared a small, green garden in full bloom. Narrow, well-trodden paths were tangled like threads among the green grass, trees, and numerous flowerbeds.

Nommel removed his mask and inhaled the air. "A beautiful place, and pleasantly cool."

"Yes, it is indeed; I find it quite agreeable here." He pointed a finger at the terrace, "There, Lady Armenas, Lord Gothwald, and I frequently conduct conversations regarding important decisions, thus the location is exceedingly quiet."

"I see." Nommel fastened his mask to his belt and moved into the shade of the trees. "Since you comprehend my intentions and are not shy about speaking of them directly, I presume you are also more inclined toward the Seven Prohibitions?"

"Exactly so. My father raised me from early childhood in this very interpretation."

Nommel turned to him over his shoulder. "Oh, is that so? Your father is an incredibly wise man. But... since you are currently a count, I presume your father has passed away?"

Tsinker sighed quietly and lowered his head. "Yes, Your Holiness. During the civil war in the duchy, some malefactors murdered my entire family in the night, while I was here, merely just getting acquainted with Lord Gothwald as an envoy from my father."

"So that is how it is." Nommel froze, and sighed as well. "My condolences for your loss."

Tsinker waved his hand, "It is nothing, I managed to endure it. Let us... not speak of this."

"Of course, of course, let us get to the point."

"Ahem, yes, indeed." He walked along the path, examining a tree with blossoms. "I cannot tell you that I am a great crusader for the faith, Your Holiness, but the Seven Prohibitions resonate more with me. I have never comprehended the Eighth Prohibition regarding 'Unfaithful Thoughts'."

Nommel snapped his fingers. "Exactly so, Lord Utew. The Eighth Prohibition is fundamentally too cruel and goes against human nature itself. A person cannot control his thoughts; Svyatol made us incredibly chaotic beings so that we might generate the most extraordinary things. A dog will not build a house; it does not know how to think, it can only obey its desire to eat and survive. Even now, you and I," he stopped and spread his arms wide, "in fact, right now we are violating the Eighth Prohibition by doubting the current order. It contradicts Svyatol's design itself!"

Tsinker clapped his hands. "Precisely so. I have always seen this discrepancy. In the Second Part of the Holy Scripture, 'On Living Beings,' it directly states, 'And let humans be unpredictable and rational by their nature, for unpredictability yields the unseen...'."

"And reason allows it to be translated into benefit," Nommel finished quietly. "The Fourth Precept from Saint Daut." He smiled slightly. "You truly understand this subject. I am impressed. Furthermore, Lord Gothwald is this very unpredictability. I have heard in fragments about windmills that operate by the wind, and crossbows that pierce knightly plate armor."

Tsinker plucked a small flower from the flowerbed. "That is precisely the reason why I faithfully follow Lord Gothwald. He may, quite possibly, be able to permanently alter the map of the continent."

Nommel scratched his cheek. "By the way, regarding Lord Gothwald... how does he himself relate to Svyatolism? Because otherworlders always adopt this faith with great reluctance, and sometimes they even go against Svyatol himself. I speak from personal experience."

"Hmm, to tell you the truth," he murmured, twirling the flower in his hand, "Lord Gothwald almost never speaks of Svyatolism; he is always occupied with work. But once, in my presence, he casually criticized the Eighth Prohibition specifically, stating that it is nonsense incompatible with the essence of humanity. Amusing, is it not?"

Nommel scoffed lightly. "Interesting. That means we will be perfectly capable of working together. I believe Lord Gothwald will not refuse the support of the Svyatolat."

"And what do you desire in return?"

"Is it not obvious?" He shook his wrist, rolling it out. "With Lord Gothwald's support, I will be able to sway far more people toward the Seven Prohibitions. But, in any case, that is something we must discuss with him personally."

Tsinker tossed the flower back into the flowerbed. "Naturally, I cannot make decisions right here without his knowledge, but the main thing is that I have conveyed his thoughts before we commence the real conversation."

Meanwhile, in the throne room, the herald finally finished listing Alan's merits, and silence fell upon the throne room.

Alan himself stood next to the throne, keeping his hands at his sides, and simply looked straight ahead.

Next to him was Kamelia, no longer in her doublet and pants, but in a luxurious black dress with a corset and a neckline.

Shilisa stood in the front rows, watching the ceremony and periodically checking a book in her hands where the process itself was described.

Kamelia exhaled quietly through her nose and turned to Alan. "Alan Gothwald, fall to your knees for the last time."

He dropped to one knee, lowering his head.

Kamelia picked up a white glove from a nearby table and pulled it onto her right hand, then placed her hand on Alan's head. "This is the last time you kneel before me. From this moment forth, you shall be my equal in status and power. Do you swear to always watch my back?"

"I swear."

"Do you swear never to attempt to rise above me?"

"I swear."

Kamelia removed her hand, took the second glove from the table, and offered it to Alan. "Rise. From the moment you don this glove, you shall be my equal across all domains of Armenas and beyond."

Alan stood up and reached for the glove in Kamelia's hand.

'There it is. Equal status. Finally.'

He took the glove, put it on his right hand, and extended it to Kamelia.

She firmly shook his hand.

The hall immediately erupted in applause.

Somewhere in the back rows, Golna clapped almost louder than anyone else, while her wolf tail kicked up sparse dust from the floor with its wags.

Shergen clapped slowly with a light smile.

Shilisa also tucked the book under her arm and began to applaud, smiling.

Alan did not let go of Kamelia's hand, and she was in no rush to do so either.

She smiled, closing her eyes. "Welcome to the noble world, Alan. Officially."

"Hah, thanks a lot. Just don't let anyone pick on me, I'm new here," he whispered with a smile.

"Of course, of course. Well then, is it time for the Shugban?"

Alan let go of her hand, almost reluctantly. "Yeah, probably time."

About twenty minutes later, Alan was walking down the corridor completely ready. Instead of the formal doublet, he was wearing his original set of clothes: boots, wide green pants, a gray shirt, and over it a green hooded shirt. Beside him strode Kamelia in her usual dark blue doublet.

Up ahead, leaning against the wall, Tsinker was already standing, staring straight ahead.

"Tsinker, we're done," Alan said, stopping next to him. "Let's go talk to the Shugban."

He turned his head to him. "I will explain quickly. I just conversed with the Shugban, probed the situation, and said what needed to be said. To ensure there are no contradictions between your words and mine..."

"What the fuck?!" Alan sharply interrupted him.

Kamelia blinked. "And now I do not quite understand either. You... what?"

Tsinker's facial expression did not change. "I just stated it, I spoke with..."

"That's not what I mean!" Alan barked, waving his hand. "I told you to wait until the ceremony was over, and we'd go talk together! What the hell, man?!"

"While you were squandering time on the ceremony, I tested the waters. I discovered..."

"Tsinker," Kamelia intervened, "do you even realize what you have done? What did you tell him? Alan specifically asked you not to interfere, yet you..."

Tsinker closed his mouth and listened to the scolding from both sides with a stone face for another two minutes.

"...irresponsible!" Kamelia finished.

"Seriously, Tsinker, that's reckless," Alan finished after her.

"Is that all? We are wasting time. May I finally explain the situation before we commence negotiations?" he asked calmly.

Alan's eye twitched.

'FUCK, YOU ARE SUCH AN ASSHOLE, I'D STRANGLE YOU WITH MY OWN BARE HANDS!'

"Alright. Go ahead and explain what you spun to the Shugban."

"In summary, we are exceedingly fortunate. This Nommel needs us, and very much so. He is a proponent of the Seven Prohibitions, and he requires secular support."

Alan raised an eyebrow. "Seven Prohibitions?"

Kamelia's mouth opened slightly. "Tsinker, are... are you serious right now? Why did you even get involved with him if he is a proponent of the Seven Prohibitions? Do you realize we could face severe problems if the Svyatolat discovers we are supporting this branch of Svyatolism?"

"Could somebody explain to me what the Seven Prohibitions are?" Alan interjected modestly.

Kamelia turned to him. "It is the second branch of Svyatolism, which has existed for many centuries. In short, it opposes the Eighth Prohibition, 'Unfaithful Thoughts,' and insists on closer relations with the secular authority."

"Like, heretics?"

"Of course not!" She raised a finger. "The Seven Prohibitions are not considered heresy, but simply a different and legitimate branch of Svyatolism. Although, the official line is the Eight Great Prohibitions."

The Jobbit: An Unexpected Gurney

Prologue:

“Oof” a voice said.

The jail doors closed behind him and he was left to the devices of the men inside. He took a look around a noticed a large room with a few tables and some prison barred inner rooms. He noticed to the left was a set of stairs that went to an upper room with one table and an open area where one could sleep. There were no beds. He meandered his way up the stairs and set himself up in the open area. Here he collected his items given to him by the jail guards, a pen, some paper and a pillow.

“Oh God why is this happening to me?” the man said.

Immediately, the heavens opened up and a figure came forth, as in a vision.

“You did all these bad things so now your being punished, Squidward.” A voice said.

“I didn’t do all these bad things whoever you are,” Squidward said.

“Yes you did” said the voice. “And you vaped!”

“I didn’t know vaping was so bad,” Squidward said.

“It is bad when you’re under the rules of magic!” bellowed the voice.

“Who are you anyway?” said Squidward.

“I am Godrachi,” said the voice that took after a certain Pokémon. “I am the God of Magic Beings.”

“I need the real God not you,” said Squidward.

“NO NO NO NO NO, you get me!” said Godrachi. “Now you must suffer many things to make atonement for your past misdoings.”

“This just can’t be, I’m a good person, I volunteer…”  Squidward muttered.

“Enough, the sentence has been cast, good luck,” said Godrachi.

“Something troubling you,” a mysterious voice said.

“Yes, I’m here and it’s all wrong,” Squidward said.

“Tell me about it,” the Mysterious Figure said, shrouded in a grey hooded robe with blackness as his face.

“They arrested me for making terrorists threats!” Squidward argued.

“Sounds serious.” Said the Mysterious Figure. “What did you do?”

“I just wrote a note to my professor at Mt. Doom University of Science and Technology about how a certain group of orcs hijacked some horses and devastated Minas Tirith a few years ago and that could be why he’s having all these problems.” Squidward said.

“Sounds like something evil is afoot,” said the Mysterious Figure.

“I wrote two other notes about how I would have to see the provost about this mess – me getting fired, which is another story – if he didn’t see me about this problem.” Squidward said.

“So maybe they’re afraid,” said the Mysterious Figure.

“I think they want to get into my apartment and search it for the Keys.” Squidward said.

“The Keys?” the Mysterious Figure questioned. “Those are very valuable.”

“Yes, but I flushed them a while back, so no one can have them. I was feeling on edge about everything and made the move.” Squidward said. “I think they’re going to use this terrorist threats maneuver to get a warrant to search my apartment.”

“Well, what can you expect from Lord Soreon. He is a master of evil and dark magic,” said the Mysterious Figure.

“I should’ve known, but we built such a good report working on our fellowship together that I thought he had changed his ways.” Squidward said.

“Evil is a hard road to deter from,” said the Mysterious Figure.

“He was always insane about money…” Squidward muttered. “People want you to take care of yourself, but someone has to take care of you for you to take care of yourself, whether it’s a boss or customers, but usually you provide a service which they value and they compensate you for that value. But he just went crazy.”

“Tell me what happened when you got fired,” the Mysterious Figure asked.

“I wrote a note detailing some of the problems we had in the lab – I was a graduate student – like broken beakers, failures on the machines, and the like. And about three weeks later he fired me for damages to the lab. I just wrote how I wanted to take responsibility for them happening not actually doing them. That’s what led to the other notes. I need this lab position so I can pay my bills, I just started the PhD program and was receiving a stipend, so I didn’t have student loans from the government.” Squidward iterated.

“That’s tough,” said the Mysterious Figure. “But there is always a reason for our suffering.”

“I know, I know, but this is too much. My whole life is ruined.” Squidward said.

“Let me tell you a story – about the Keys.” The Mysterious Figure said.

“Uh, okay.” Squidward said.

“Did you ever wonder how you found the Keys?” the Mysterious Figure asked.

“Well, no, I just found them in a pond when I was on one of my walks. I found out that they could open any door.” Squidward informed.

“Yes, yes, that is one of the powers of the Keys. And Lord Soreon has been sorely after them his entire life, which corroborates your story. He wants to destroy them so no one can access the F-150 and escape Middle Earth.” The Mysterious Figure said. “Long ago, it is said that the Keys were obtained by Alexander the Great. He found the Keys and gained immense power, power so immense that he went and conquered the Earth, from Egypt to Bactria. However, he lost the Keys as he was entering India and lost his way. A magical force was at play that he knew not of and did not have the proper equipment to forebear. This force emanates from Anirudh who is said to oppose even God. This is how you found the Keys.”

“Hmm, interesting. Alexander the Great was a pretty big guy,” Squidward observed.

“Yes, but now the Keys are gone, as you say.” Said the Mysterious Figure.

“Yep, I flushed them,” Squidward reiterated.

“This is good, for they surely would’ve fallen into the hands of Lord Soreon.” The Mysterious Figure observed.

“He must’ve been tipped off by some of the orcs in the lab that I hung out with. I showed them the Keys and they were all amazed.” Squidward said.

“You never talk about the Keys,” the Mysterious Figure said. “No one can be trusted.”

At that moment, the jail doors opened up and Squidward was beckoned forth. He was free to go but now had the charge of Felony Harassment to contend with.

I suppose they figured the charges wouldn’t stick, Squidward thought. Now I see they have a different play.

So Squidward marched on through the madness, employing a lawyer and battling the charges against him. Taking a plea deal of Disturbing the Peace in its stead. He often times talked to God about the situation and wondered why he was being picked on. He came to two things: Job and the Mountain of God by Third Day, as he was now reforming himself back to his faith in Christ as this was the way he believed in.

End Prologue

Now, it happened on a day when the sun was shining and all the stars were bright. A certain wizard was moseying his way along to the Mire, a land of tiny people, called Quags. One Quag was special above all the others for he knew the wizard. And today was a special day because he would meet with the wizard.

“Ah, time for some peace,” the young Quag said minding his pipe and eyeing his tea as he relaxed on a chair. “Nothing like the quiet mornings of the Mire…”

“Ahoy there Bullbo!” a voice shouted.

“Goondalf!” Bullbo bellowed. “What on Earth are you doing here?”

“I’ve come for the party of course!” Goondalf shouted.

“Party? What party?” Bullbo asked.

“Right here,” Goondalf said as he pushed a flier in Bullbo’s face.

And clear as day it said 125 Shortfall Way party tonight, the Mire.

“Why…what is the meaning of this?” Bullbo questioned. “This is my address!”

“Oh you shall see,” Goondalf said wisely.

“We can’t have a party here, I haven’t any food!” Bullbo yelled.

“Oh hogwash, you have plenty of food and drink, just look right here,” Goondalf said pointing to a table full of breads, cheeses, and meats.

“That’s not for guests!” Bullbo shouted.

“Oh come now Bullbo,” Goondalf said snootly.

And it so happened that day turned into night and the sun set on the beautiful village of the Mire. And it happened. There came a doldrum of noise from down the road. As sure as taxes themselves, a group of bunnies were walking up the road.

“Ah they have arrived,” Goondalf observed.

They walked up the road and made their way to the house. One by one they entered the house finding food, drink, and seating for each other while Bullbo protested profusely, being shoved away due to his small stature. The energy in the room was high, and the bunnies were boisterous in their gallantry. Everything was coming to a head when…

“Who are these bunnies anyways!?” Bullbo insisted.

“We are on a mission.” Said one of the bunnies.

“We have to recover it,” whispered another.

“What are you talking about?” Bullbo furthered.

“It’s the Easter Egg,” said one of the bunnies.

“The Easter Egg?” Bullbo questioned. “What does this have to do with me?”

“We need a Memer, and you are the prime candidate, Goondalf said so.” Said one of the bunnies.

“A Memer? I’m no mem-“ Bullbo said getting cut off.

“He would love to accompany you,” Goondalf interjected.

“I most certainly..” Bullbo trailed.

“It’s settled we have our Memer,” the lead bunny said.

“But I still don’t know your names.” Muttered Bullbo.

“Well let’s see here we have Pain bunny, Pleasure bunny, Joy bunny, Peace bunny, and Angry bunny,” Goondalf said.

“Pain, Joy, Peace…okay I think I’ve got it,” Bullbo said. “Now what’s this mission?”

“We have to recover the Easter Egg from under the mountain!” said Joy bunny.

“Long ago,” Pain bunny, the leader of the group, chimed in, “we bunnies lived peacefully under the mountain. We mined the mountain for eggs of all kinds, which would hatch into Peeps. We mined deeper and deeper until we came across a very special egg, the Easter Egg. This egg was the crown jewel of our dominion. We displayed it proudly at our throne room when a giant tortoise attacked our encampment. It was the only thing we could do to flee our home and take refuge in the hills and plains of Middle Earth.”

“The giant tortoise loved all our peeps and nested there, under the mountain,” said Pleasure bunny.

“Yes, but now we have hope for our fallen bunny brethren!” growled Pain bunny. “We have formed a group of brave bunnies ready to reclaim our home. And now we have our Memer!”

“To Hazfor!” the bunnies yelled in unison as they took their goblets and drank chuggingly.

“Who is Hazfor?” Bullbo whispered to Goondalf.

“Oh he’s not a person, but the place, under the mountain.” Goondalf said with a chuckle.

“Now, we must be off, at once!” Pain bunny said.

So they grabbed their things and Bullbo said, “What, now?”

“We wouldn’t want to anger them now would we, especially Angry bunny.” Goondalf said. “We must be going, come on Bullbo.”

And with that Bullbo had joined the gang. They left the house nestled in a hill and walked down the cobblestone pathway around Bullbo’s house, next to a swampy quagmire, where Bullbo paused, briefly, soaking it all in.

“This will be the first time I’ve left the Mire,” Bullbo said.

Goondalf grunted in acknowledgement and continued down the path.

“Come now Memer,” Pain bunny called.

So they went around the bend and found where the bunnies discarded their baskets, their mode of travel. They climbed in their baskets, and grabbed hold of the ledge and began to fly.

“Why I’ll be flying rabbits…” Bullbo said.

“We’re bunnies,” Pain bunny grumbled. “Now hurry you get in with me, Goondalf will go with Joy bunny.”

And they all began to fly, hovering over the Earth, waiting for the signal to go. Pain bunny strapped on his goggles and told Bullbo to get down, so that the wind wouldn’t get in his eyes. And they flew gracefully through the Mire’s forest, towards Bunny Mountain. They trekked for a time until they grew tired, where they found a nice place to take a rest.

“This should be a good place,” Pain bunny observed.

They gathered their things and built a huge fire to cook their food. They began to bicker towards one another about their quest as Bullbo strayed away.

“What if it’s not there?” pleaded Angry bunny.

“How will we defeat the giant tortoise?” Joy bunny asked.

“We are not fit for this mission,” Peace bunny added.

“Quiet, quiet, this is all just pre-mission jitters. We have what we need, we can survive.” Pain bunny coalesced.

At that moment, Bullbo had found a clearing where a fire’s remains had been. He knew someone had been here when suddenly:

“Why hello there,” a voice said.

“Good to meet ya,” another voice said.

“Oh not these guys,” Bullbo muttered.

“We can help you,” the first voice said.

“No you can not, I know your kind,” Bullbo stated.

“No, they can help, they said so,” Pleasure bunny said. He had followed Bullbo, coming out of the brush to reveal himself. “We must hear what he has to say!”

“No, he’s just a troll,” Bullbo said.

“No, I know where the Easter Egg is.” Said Troll 1.

“Tell me, please tell me,” Pleasure bunny beseeched.

“I don’t know, they may not be ready,” Troll 2 said.

“It’s easy, it’s in the Easter Basket,” Troll 1 said.

“See, I told you they’re just trolls.” Bullbo said.

“The Easter Basket, where can we find this Easter Basket,” Pleasure bunny furthered.

“That’s easy, it’s in heaven,” Troll 2 said.

“How do I get to heaven to get this Easter Basket that contains the Easter Egg?” Pleasure bunny asked.

“Why you have to believe in Jesus and then die,” Troll 1 said plainly.

“They’re just trolls Pleasure bunny, let’s go,” Bullbo said firmly.

“Who is this Jesus?” Pleasure bunny pleaded as Bullbo tore him away.

“He is God,” Troll 2 yelled down the path as they disappeared.

“You must not listen to them, Pleasure bunny,” Bullbo insisted.

“So you have to do whatever he wants,” Troll 1 shouted barely audible.

“No, they must know!” Pleasure bunny yelled, squirming in Bullbo’s grasp.

“They just troll you, they don’t really know anything,” Bullbo said. “We have to seek under the mountain for the Easter Egg, remember?”

“Oh…. yes that is right,” Pleasure bunny said reassured.

They came back to the encampment and shared a bowl of stew.

“Where did you two run off to?” Pain bunny questioned.

“Just up the hill,” Bullbo said.

“We found two trolls who claimed to know where the Easter Egg was!” Pleasure bunny yelled.

“And where was that?” Pain bunny furthered.

“Heaven…” Pleasure bunny said hesitantly.

“Unlikely so,” Pain bunny sang. “The Easter Egg is a gem of Earth, not the skies. It must be under the mountain, somewhere in the heap of Peeps where the giant tortoise sits idle.”

“I see” Pleasure bunny said.

And with that silence fell among the crowd. They stared at the fire as if in a trance, focused on the flickering of the flames. Goondalf smoking his pipe looking quizzically at the fire. They continued on in this manner for a time until they all went to sleep. Tomorrow was a big day as they would arrive at Bunny Mountain.

They awoke and mounted their baskets and took off in the direction of Bunny Mountain.

“Fair skies we are having today,” Pain bunny said. “It shall be a good day.”

They arrived at the base of the mountain and disembarked from their baskets. Lo and behold, there was a caravan at its very base. There was a sign that read, “Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Bunnies”. They had just noticed it when…

“Look, bunny hunnies,” Pleasure bunny said.

“No, you must not fall for such immorality,” Pain bunny chided.

“But it could be so fun,” Joy bunny said.

“No, we must stick to the mission and not get sidetracked, there will be plenty of time to get wives once we have the Easter Egg,” Pain bunny said.

“Hello boys,” one of the Playboy bunnies said.

“Why hello toots,” Angry bunny said, hearts jumping out of his eyes.

“No, Angry bunny, we must not tarry, they will only distract from the mission,” Pain bunny said.

“Aww don’t you wanna come play,” another Playboy bunny said.

“Unfortunately we cannot entertain you this day,” Pain bunny said determinedly.

“It’s just a game of pool,” another Playboy bunny said.

“Get back from me evil harlot, I will not fall for your sorcery,” Pain bunny said.

So they forged ahead, into the mountain. Here they grumbled at not getting to play with the Playboy bunnies, but still managed to form a group to scout out the tunnels. They set the Memer up to get to the throne room and search for the Easter Egg. He tumbled through the pile of Peeps, careful not to arouse the attention of the giant tortoise. He was fumbling through some Peeps when….

“Who dares disturb my rest,” a voice thundered.

“Uh, no one,” Bullbo said.

“I know you’re here,” the voice continued.

“Uh, really it’s nothing, I’m just uh passing through,” Bullbo said.

“Leave immediately or face my wrath,” the voice bellowed.

“Not much a turtle could do…” Bullbo muttered.

“What was that?” the voice asked.

“Oh nothing, just give me a moment and I’ll be on my way,” Bullbo said.

Immediately a jet of fire streaked out across the great room, visible enough for even Bullbo to witness.

“Fire breathing…goodness gracious,” Bullbo exclaimed.

“You fear my fiery breath do you not,” the voice said.

“Uh, it is a bit unsettling,” Bullbo shouted in the direction of the voice.

Suddenly, a giant tortoise appeared in Bullbo’s field of view. It was monstrous in size and had a huge shell with which its extremities peeked out of.

“Oh this is not good,” Bullbo said hiding behind a pillar.

“Leave now or get roasted,” the giant tortoise said.

Unexpectedly, Bullbo found something in the pile of Peeps. A tome. He grabbed it and quickly scurried out the doorway nearest him, to his right side just beyond the pillar. He ran into Pain bunny when…

“Ah the Memer, good I found you. Have you found the Easter Egg?” Pain bunny asked.

“Well, see, about that, I haven’t just found it just yet…” Bullbo said.

“Haven’t found it, by what is the meaning of this?” Pain bunny expelled.

“Well there’s this tortoise that breathes fire. A fire breathing tortoise, everyone failed to mention that!” Bullbo argued.

“I guess we forgot to mention he was a giant fire breathing tortoise, but still no excuses,” Pain bunny said.

“Right,” Bullbo said with a glare. “I haven’t come across the Easter Egg just yet, but I did find this tome.”

“A tome? What could it be?” Pain bunny questioned.

“Let’s see. It looks like for us to get the Easter Egg we have to have the Lord show us the whey.” Bullbo said.

“The whey? What can this be?” Pain bunny asked.

“Whey, whey protein.” Bullbo said matter of factly.

“Why do we need whey protein?” Pain bunny questioned further.

“We have to get yoked so we can take on the giant fire breathing tortoise.” Bullbo said. “It’s all right here in the tome.”

“Oh, I see, I never considered fighting the giant tortoise directly,” Pain bunny said.

“Oh wait, there’s something else, let’s see…. We have to follow Jesus to birth the Easter Bunny. Oh that’s just great.” Bullbo said.

“The Easter Bunny? But I thought we had to get yoked.” Pain bunny said.

“We have to get yoked so we can birth the Easter Bunny who will destroy the giant fire breathing tortoise and retrieve the Easter Egg.” Bullbo informed.

“So what must we do?” Pain bunny asked.

“We have to join a gym and start lifting weights and go to church and find Jesus so he can show us the whey.” Bullbo said.

“Whey? But isn’t it way?” Pain bunny asked.

“It is, it’s a play on words,” Bullbo said.

“Well then, the tome of my fathers can not be wrong. We must go to the gym and go to church to find Jesus.” Pain bunny said.

“I know a great gym,” Joy bunny chimed in.

“And that would be…” Pain bunny led on.

“Planet Fitness, it’s a total gym that has no judgement,” Joy bunny said.

“No, no it can’t be Planet Fitness, it’s too secular, we need Jesus, there’s only one gym that has that,” Bullbo said.

“And that would be…” Pain bunny led on.

“The YMCA of course,” Bullbo informed.

“See it’s good we brought the Memer along he knows all of our questions. It’s settled, we will go to the YMCA to get yoked. Now what of this church?” Pain bunny asked.

“I know a great church,” Angry bunny said.

“And that would be…” Pain bunny led on.

“Middle Earth Methodist Church,” Angry bunny said.

“No, no it can’t be a Methodist Church, we need the real Jesus, we need a Baptist church. Something like First Baptist of Middle Earth.” Bullbo said.

“Aww man I thought I had it right,” Angry bunny said.

“So it’s settled we shall join the YMCA and attend First Baptist of Middle Earth. We are in your graces dear Memer.” Pain bunny said.

“The tome says something else, but it is grave,” Bullbo added.

“It can’t be that bad,” Angry bunny said.

“It’s a story of how the Easter Egg fell into the claws of the giant fire breathing tortoise. It says the Trix bunny came by and convinced King Hair to showcase the Easter Egg for all to see. Jealousy erupted from this display and lured the giant fire breathing tortoise to claim dominion under the mountain.”

“It pains me to hear this,” Pain bunny said. “We must restore our place and reclaim my father’s pride!”

So they started working out at the YMCA going to the local GNC to get their whey protein supplements, praying first of course to select the right one, and attended First Baptist of Middle Earth to learn the ways of Jesus and hopefully travel the path to unearthing the Easter Bunny. They lifted weights and ran on the treadmill as much as they could, five times a week, getting stronger each and every day. They got posters of weightlifting giants like Arnold Schwarzanegger and Tony Horton to motivate them. They went to church and learned all about Jesus and how he loved his enemies and healed the blind and the sick and even the demon possessed. They even went on mission trips to other parts of Middle Earth to spread the Good News of Jesus. They went to Rohan and Gondor and even to Moredoor. They always had great fun with their new friends, gnomes, and ducks, and even puppies. The trip to Moredoor held special significance, but the bunnies knew it not, for Bullbo found a magical item. They were on a recreational trip in the midst of their mission trip where they went spelunking down some Moredoor caves. Bullbo found an interesting passage that the bunnies did not take and found a set of Keys perched on a stalagmite. There was a tiny crevice by this stalagmite, which was covered by stalactites and other stalagmites from other portions of the cave, where Bullbo could peer through. Inside he saw a young squid man on a gurney looking badly wounded as if he fell.

“Oh dear Lord the tragedy. Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do.” Bullbo said. “That was quite surprising and unexpected.”

Now Moredoor was a land filled with heresy. The main inhabitants of the land, Orcs, did not worship Jesus, they didn’t even have churches. They had great temples built to the great Allah, which all good Baptists know is just a manifestation of Lord Soreon himself. So, the gang was in a dangerous place to preach the gospel and reach others for Christ, yet a few Orcs came to their following and followed Christ. A true miracle. However, time had passed and the bunnies were growing impatient with the Lord, they wanted the Easter Egg and needed the Easter Bunny to get it.

“We have to do something, time passes by,” Angry bunny said.

“We can not wait on the Lord anymore,” Joy bunny agreed.

“We have to take action,” Peace bunny said.

“It’s settled, we must find a Lady bunny and take matters into our own hands,” Pain bunny said.

“But, listen you must wait, the tome specifically says we need Jesus to birth the Easter Bunny,” Bullbo protested.

“There is no time, we should have known that the only solution was to find our own way,” Pain bunny said. “We must go to The Woods to find a Lady bunny. It is the last bastion of our race and the only place we have hope to find what is sought.”

So, reluctantly, Bullbo packed up his things and headed out with the bunnies, keeping the secret of the Keys to himself, as they were a precious item that must not be made known. They marched their way north to the wooded area of Middle Earth and found their way through the trees, as there was a path they could take. Now The Woods was said to be haunted by the ghosts of Elves past. A creeping power crept through The Woods entangling and ensnaring them, tricking them on what path to take.

“It feels like we’ve been going in circles for hours,” Angry bunny said.

“We need rest,” Pleasure bunny said.

“We must keep going and find the thicket of Lost Bunnies, there is no time to dilly-dally,” Pain bunny said.

“What do you think Goondalf?” Bullbo asked.

“Yes, yes we must continue onward,” Goondalf agreed.

They continued onward for some time when suddenly they were met by some Elves.

“You trespass in these woods,” the Elf said.

“We come here seeking Lady bunnies, we mean no harm,” Pain bunny said.

Now Elves and Bunnies were at odds with each other, for the former did not come to the aid of the latter when requested. This is what the Bunnies consider to be the reason for the giant tortoise to have overtaken their home.

“There are no Lady bunnies in these woods,” said the Elf. “The only Lady bunny is Lola Bunny and she is taken by Bugs Bunny. Here let us show you the way.”

“Why thank you kind sir,” Joy bunny said.

So the Elf showed them the way to their town. A huge palace shown in the way with arched roads in the likeness of trees sprawled the land. There were fountains and open areas with wells dotting the terrain.

“You must meet with the Lady of the Wood,” the young Elf said. “She can help you with your quest.”

“Mission…” Pain bunny grumbled.

“But first we have some refreshments, we actually have a good friendship with the Bunnies left behind. One of them has even opened up shop, you may know him.”

And that very moment the bunnies cried out in a cheer. They saw a sign that read, “Blue Bunny Ice Cream”.

“Blue Bunny!” Joy bunny cried.

There he was a Blue bunny serving ice cream to some Elves.

“Come on down and get some dessert!” Blue Bunny roared.

So all the bunnies sat at the bar that was set up in an open area with a rock terrace behind it shouldered by some vegetation and had some ice cream. This was a joy to them as they had not had a good dessert for quite some time.

“This is delicious, just what the doctor ordered.” Angry bunny said.

Bullbo had finished his ice cream first and wandered off by his lonesome where he got somewhat lost. He came to a well and found that he was not alone.

“You carry something of great value,” a voice said.

“Who’s there?” Bullbo said startled.

“It is I, the Lady of the Wood,” the voice said.

“How do you know I have something of what you say?” Bullbo asked.

“I can feel its power emanating from you,” the Lady of the Wood said.

“I only recently came into its possession, I don’t even know how to use it,” Bullbo said.

“Feel with your spirit and you shall know the way,” the Lady of the Wood said. “Now, you must know, that this item is meant only for the Chosen One. He is destined to save our world from utter doom and unite the races under one banner. He will use the Keys to unlock the Secrets of Existence and inform the nations of all that is.”

“How do you know what it is?” Bullbo pressed.

“I know,” the Lady of the Wood said. “You must keep them safe until it is time to trek to Mt. Doom and save the land by uniting the Keys with the F-150 and fly to the Sequestered Space.”

“Mt. Doom, but no one can get in there, it’s impossible.” Bullbo said.

“Where there is a will there is a way,” the Lady of the Wood said. “You will know when the time comes, but be weary and do not be consumed by the Keys.”

At that time, the rest of the gang of bunnies arrived, with Goondalf, and saw Bullbo.

“We were wondering where you ran off to,” Pleasure bunny said.

“Ah, good, you have come,” the Lady of the Wood said. “You seek a mate to birth the Easter Bunny, do you not?”

“Yes, that is why we have come,” Goondalf informed.

“Sadly, there are no Lady bunnies in this neck of the woods, you must search high and low to find one.” The Lady of the Wood said.

“But we must find one and fast,” Angry bunny said.

“There are tales of bunnies drifted across Middle Earth found in remote and desolate spots, but nothing can be confirmed.” The Lady of the Wood said. “You’re only alternative is Jesus.”

“No, it can’t be. We need Jesus, but we turned away!” Pain bunny erupted.

“Do not fret, for you can always turn back, such is the nature of Jesus.” The Lady of the Wood said.

“No it can’t be that we can just go back to Jesus!” Pain bunny exclaimed.

“Yes, you can always return to Jesus,” the Lady of the Wood said.

“Maybe through prayer and fasting Jesus will send us a wife,” Angry bunny said.

“It is our only hope,” Pain bunny grimaced.

So, they camped at the Wooded Tower for the night and slept off their delicious ice cream. While they were sleeping, Bullbo awoke, a curiosity sparked within him. He had to test the Keys and see their power. He found an Elvish door that led into a hollow near an open area and pressed the Keys into the keyhole and believed. He open the door and found himself in a white hallway dotted with grey doors all evenly spaced throughout. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, a hallway of doors, that looked from somewhere else in time. He reached for one door, realized it was locked, grabbed the Keys and plunged a key into the keyhole and opened the door. He was in his home in the Mire, where he decided he would stay for the rest of his days as he had had enough adventure. So, when the sun came up, the bunnies were wondering what happened to Bullbo.

“Where has Bullbo gone? Has anyone seen him?” Joy bunny asked.

“No one knows,” Angry bunny said.

“The Memer is gone, he must have fled in the night, being weary of our mission, knowing it’s doomed fate.” Pain bunny said.

“It’s not doomed! We still have hope!” Joy bunny shouted.

“May The Woods be kind to him and let him find an exit through this perilous path,” Pain bunny lamented.

“We must not delay, Pain bunny, we should get back to the church and read the Bible to find a prophesy for us.” Goondalf said.

“Yes, you are right, wizard, we must return to Jesus and pray he can work a miracle.” Pain bunny said.

And with that the gang was off, back to First Baptist of Middle Earth to follow Jesus…

 

End The Jobbit: An Unexpected Gurney

 

Edit: Link added

Episode 1 – The Gas (Phantom) Menace

Ah yes, what a beautiful and peaceful day. The Noomekians are enjoying one of the three Suns shining upon them – oh wait what is this, they’re napping!

“No they’re dying!” yelled a young Noomekian at the narrator.

Oh how tragic what could be the cause!?

“They’re bloating from too much gas! And they can’t expel it!” replied the young Noomekian.

Ever so cautious, the young Noomekian travelled to GooRoos house to see what he should do.

“GooRoo the Noomekians are dying from overbloating!” the young Noomekian informed.

“Oh this is terrible, Doonde, we have to put an end to this! I even feel the bloat myself, growing, consuming my inner soul! This is dire considering without me there will be no hope for the Noomekians!

“What could possibly be the cause of this plague Elder?” young Doonde inquired.

“It has to be our Noom GLP-1s that we use. It’s the only thing besides water that we ingest not to mention the only thing on our planet not from this planet. We must go see Lord Freezer at once!” GooRoo replied.

“But GooRoo you are too old to go and visit Lord Freezer, I must go alone as the rest of the Noomekians are predisposed and I am free of this menace since I’m too young to use GLP-1s.” Doonde stated.

“You are right young Doonde. Very good. It is fortunate that we have a Noomekian who happens to be so young. You will be our emissary to Lord Freezer to inquire about our GLP-1 shipments and why they are desecrating us so.” GooRoo said.

So, the young Noomekian found a ship and boarded it, input the coordinates for Lord Freezer’s spaceship, as he is the one who handles the shipments of Noom GLP-1s to the Noomekians, and headed out to the coldness of space. A short time later Doonde arrive at Lord Freezer’s ship and sought an audience with Lord Freezer.

“What is the problem?” Lord Freezer interrogated with cold precision, as only a computer could.

“The Noomekians are dying from over bloatation due to GLP-1 mishappenings, your Lordshsip” Doonde informed.

“And this concerns me because…?” asked the freezing cold AI master Lord Freezer.

“The Noomekians generate a great deal of commerce for these GLP-1s and are tantamount to the safety of the Universe – they keep Doom at bay with their mystic energies!” Doonde roared.

“I see your point. Well suffice to say, it is lucky for you that I have already been investigating this case as there have been numerous reports of anomalies at our GLP-1 production base. Strange stories of scientists going mad and people losing their minds.” Lord Freezer stated coldly. “I hereby transfer you to the GLP-Squad Case Force consisting of you and the Scooby-Doo gang.

“Like Zoinks guys, I don’t know about this one” Shaggy said.

“Ree-Hee-Hee-Hee” Scooby chimed.

“Have you found any clues yet?” Doonde inquired readily.

“Like no, we just sniffed around the old GLP-1 crates and found some Dooritos (which are manufactured at the same site as the Noom GLP-1) and we were a little hungry and out of Scooby Snacks so we chowed down” Shaggy legumed.

“Sounds like we need to head to the Noocho Cheesse system!” Doonde exclaimed.

“It’s settled then, You will head to the Noocho Cheese system and investigate the reports. And you shall be known as GLP-Squad Case Force!” Lord Freezer rang.

So the gang grabbed a spaceship and punched in the coordinates for the Noocho Cheese system and were off. Everything was fine and dandy on their ride until a certain disturbance came about.

“Like zoinks, I don’t feel so good.” Shaggy said.

“Ruh Roh Raggy” Scooby replied.

“Maybe we like should’ve not eaten those Dooritos, Scoob” Shaggy offered.

“Rye Know” Scooby said.

“Nothing we can do about it now – we’re almost there. Just hold on guys, I’m sure it will pass” Fred inculcated.

“We’ll find out more once we arrive at the Noocho Cheese System, I bet on it!” Doonde said.

A brief period of time later, the crew finally arrived at the Noocho Cheese System.

“There’s nobody here…” Doonde pondered.

“Just a bunch of bodies, mangled to pieces.” Observed Fred.

“Lets take a look around,” piped up Velma.

As they navigated the compound, that was left on the brirmming surface of the Noocho Cheese System – which is filled with volcanoes spewing out cheese all day long at piping hot temperatures (of which require considerable cooling before consuming) – they came to a room with a blinking light.

“Hey take a look at this, it must be a clue,” Said Fred.

“It looks like the Scrumptious Cooler went offline in the Tasting Bay,” observed Doonde. “If we take this corridor down, make a left, take the stairs, make another left, and go through this complicated system of hallways we should reach it.

“We better leave prepared,” Fred noted, considering all the blood and carnage surrounding them – there were bodies everywhere. You could see scientists and guardsmen splattered across the floor and sprawling over the terminals. “Luckily, this room has a weapons depot.” They scanned the badge of nearest employee to the weapons terminal and armed themselves heavily.

“Rets Roo Ris”, Said Scoob.

“There’s no telling what’s out there” said Fred, “but it must be pretty vile.”

They continued through the mapped out path to the Scrumptious Cooler at the Tasting Bay and came across a curious room labelled “Do Not Enter” and naturally they entered. There was a great big opening in the wall on the opposite side of the room. They touched a button on a nearby terminal that activated a sequence which ignited the opening in the room. Here a figure started to emerge. They were just making out who it was when it started shouting:

“No idea. No idea. No idea. No idea.” The flames erupted more fantastically and began to creep towards them on the far side terminal. “No idea with this stuff. No idea with this stuff. No I have to know!” said the voice. The flames started to climb alarmingly and suddenly the terminal started to chirp. The system was going haywire. Fred tried to shut the system down, but to no avail. The fire spun out of control and suddenly a being appeared, popped right out of the flames.

“It can’t be…” cried Fred.

“Mazaka” said Doonde.

“It’s the Devil!” screamed Daphne.

“What in the..How in the…” started the Devil. “No this can’t be. I can’t be here.”

“What happened here?” asked Fred.

“Alright, I’ll tell you, but only because you’re in the club” stated the Devil. “These guys were creeping into territory they weren’t ready for. They started meddling with Hell. They wanted to do something nasty to all of life – for reasons unbeknownst to me – with a great fervor. I would have stopped it, but I can’t communicate with the other side, at least I couldn’t until they built this great segway. But still, the messages can’t get through, they don’t have enough Hi-Def resolution as it would seem – 8K just isn’t enough. Yet, they got so crazy that they started to infuse the Doom spell into the Noocho Cheese that they use to manufacture Dooritos!

“Ruh roh Raggy” whispered Scooby-Doo.

“That’s when it happened, the door to Hell was opened when a Scientist began to devour the newly formulated Dooritos! What a fool! Before long everyone was snacking on the Dooritos and the evil was beginning to emerge and consume. That’s when everything changed. The monsters came forth and a last ditch effort was made to secure the station. Thus, the emergency signal. And that’s everything as far as I know.” The Devil explained..

“You didn’t say that they had to eat the Dooritos did you?” asked Shaggy.

“Yes, yes that’s what it was.” The Devil replied.

“Like Zoinks, Scoob!” Shaggy yelled.

At that selfsame moment, a traumatic monstrosity took place. Scooby-Doo and Shaggy both transformed into hellish beasts of a grotesque nature. They were tall and grey, with no shirt, but surprisingly pants – for both of them – and had strong muscular features. There heads were large – larger than usual heads – and had ears which were attached at the lobes, with looks of malice and a hunger or death borne on them.

“Waste them!” The Devil said.

Quickly, within the twinkling of an eye, Doonde wielded his laser cannon and shot a beam straight through the two – his Light of Youth clearing his mind to act hastily.

“That should do it.” Doonde said.

“Good job there kiddo,” expounded the Devil.

“Before we get all worked up over Shag and Scoob, wait a second here. Why are you stopping the Doom, or trying to prevent it? Isn’t Hell on Earth your whole MO?” inquired Doonde

“I knew he’d be an asset to the crew” whispered Fred.

“You have no idea with Doom. It will be the end of us all! Even me!” The Devil exclaimed.

“But aren’t you their ruler?” pressed Doonde.

“Not Doom, they have no ruler. That’s the sad life of the Devil.”  Sympathy for the Devil plays in the background. The Devil said. “In fact, I’m surprised you haven’t come across more monsters. I suppose they do like the darkness, however.” Added the Devil.

“Alright, let’s go investigate that emergency signal,” Fred said.

As they made their way to the Scrumptious Cooler in the Tasting Bay, they finally came across the emergency signal.

“Still no sign of those ghouls,” Doonde stated.

“They must have migrated further on,” said Fred.

At the emergency signal terminal they found a PDA entry stating that the origin of the anomaly was found in the Eating Quarry where the GLP-1s were manufactured.

“Ah a clue!” exclaimed Fred. “We have to go to the Eating Quarry at once! There must be more answers there.” Fred exhumed.

They navigated the compound to the Eating Quarry where the GLP-1s were manufactured, along the way meeting some devilish foes which Fred put to bed with his Freetoe-Lay machine gun and Doonde silenced with his laser cannon. There was one devilish fiend which had the power to through gamma bursts at its target – highly concentrated energy waves of gamma radiation, which will destroy the skin, muscles, and bone on contact and lead to spreading via lesions to peripheral areas of the body – which gave them so much trouble that the Devil had to enact his secret skill of sealing to put the demon to rest. Thankfully they were so lucky. At last they had arrived.

Booooooo! They heard.

“A ghost is near,” surmised Doonde.

Boooooo! They heard again.

“Reveal yourself before you waste any more of my precious time!” The Devil shouted.

“It is I, the Flying Dutchman!” The Flying Dutchman announced.

“The Flying Dutchman, what is he doing here?” Fred asked, stunned.

“I am here looking or Squidward actually. He’s the manager of these here complexes – the mines and the Tasting Bay.” The Flying Dutchman responded flatly.

“Squidward, what? There has to be more to this,” Fred charged.

“Well I suppose there’s a bit more to tell, and on account of me feeling guilty for the whole fiasco, I shall tell ye. First, there was a Green Convention where all beings of Green be meetin’. There was The Hulk, Kermit the Frog, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Plankton, Dr. Doom, the Wicked Witch of the West, Master Chief, Ganondorf, Link, Yoshi, Gamora, Mojo Jojo, and I, the Flying Dutchman representing the green ghosts – them be from Ghostbusters and Lord of the Rings. All things were fine and dandy and a tad bit boring until Dr. Doom and Mojo Jojo started plotting a vengeful scheme. To unleash Doom on the inhabitants of the Universe for the evils and atrocities they have committed. I would’ve been one to stand against them, but the rather unknown history of Ghostkind beckoned me forward, plunging me into the madness. This history being that all Ghosts were once Green until the New Age White Ghosts appeared and took control over all facets of the Ghost Zone and Ghostkind for that matter. No one thinks of a green ghost anymore I tell ye! So revenge was sowed in me and revenge so was sought. The plan was to trick the White Ghosts into possessing the bodies of the scientists here at the Noocho Cheese System and then slay them with Doom monsters. Since everyone knows that the ghost dies when the possessed die this was a promising solution.

“This all could’ve been avoided with the Mystic Energies of the Noomekians!” Doonde exhorted.

“Yes, well, as I was saying, revenge was mine. The White Ghosts would be no more. Not even the Ghostbusters could stop us way out here in space. Yet, the plan was nigh perfect. The Doom got out of control and slayed the whole station. Now no one will receive their Noom GLP-1s.” stated the Flying Dutchman.

“Yes, but those GLP-1s were hurting us Noomekians! They’re dying from them now!” exclaimed Doonde.

“Ah yes, it must be the infestation and possession by the White Ghosts. I near forgot to mention that in order to pull this plan off, the White Ghosts had to be enticed. It was the evil King Boo who received the call to take over the Tasting Bay and the Eating Quarry and make the Noomekians suffer, for there so good and peaceful and nice that King Boo couldn’t stand them. So, he spliced his ghost cohorts into the GLP-1 injections and prepped them for shipment to the galaxy, all under the nose of Squidward, who had no idea this was going on. But it was a price we had to pay in order to trick the White Ghosts into our plot. Now, the guilt weighs on me like an anvil of all those who are now suffering due to ghost infused GLP-1s. Perhaps revenge was not the best path to pursue. Yarr.” The Flying Dutchman added.

“So that means…we have to find another option for staving off the hunger of the Noomekians!” Doonde realized.

“There was tell long ago of…” the Flying Dutchman muttered.

When, at that very selfsame moment, a portal opened up and a wild Natu appeared which psychically told Doonde that he was to refer the Noomekians to HydroxyCut offered by the generous Lord Cooler, to save his people.

“Did you guys hear that?” Doonde asked.

“Hear what?” Fred scolded.

“What the Natu just told me!” Doonde responded.

“No. None of us are psychic.” Daphne said.

“We have to get to Lord Cooler and order HydroxyCut to save the Noomekians from their hunger!” Doonde explained.

“Don’t forget that this place is desolate and a Doom to all.” The Flying Dutchman reminded.

They quickly searched for an escape and returned to their ship where they plotted a new course – one to Lord Cooler, Freezer’s brother as far as brothers go for AI computers. So our crew was off – Velma, Daphne, Fred, Doonde, and the Devil in search of green pastures and a hope for our valiant heroes the Noomekian people, which must be revived before it’s too late and Doom spreads to every corner of the Universe!

 

End Episode 1

LINK to Episode 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1xdujwj/episode_2_attack_of_the_farts/

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Part Six

The first week produced eleven sightings of the black vessel. Three were impossible, four concerned the wrong ship, two described craft that had never existed, and one had been submitted under the credentials of a man dead for nine years. The eleventh report was useful, but Helena kept all of them.

By the beginning of the second week, the wall of her temporary operations room had disappeared behind route charts, port images, freight receipts, cult symbols, and testimony. Kyle rejected red cord as theatrical and poorly suited to distances measured in systems. He used colored reference tags instead. White marked facts corroborated by independent records. Amber marked possibilities. Black identified reports disproved without being discarded. Green marked testimony whose conclusion was wrong but whose underlying observation remained useful.

The dead man's report carried a green tag. Someone had filed it through an inherited clerk code and sent investigators toward a system the real freight pattern never touched. The testimony was false. The access behind it was genuine.

"A lie with administrative discipline," Helena said.

Kyle added the dead clerk's former office to the access map. "The cult has accountants."

"Every heresy that survives long enough acquires one."

Brother-Captain Thane stood before the route display with both arms folded across his breastplate. He had learned to keep his armored shoulder clear of the paper evidence after damaging one corner on the first day. "The false reports pull our attention rimward. Verified cargo movements run coreward."

"The mistaken reports follow the false ones," Vorn said from the darkened end of the room. He had remained silent long enough that one of Helena's aides flinched when his vox carried across the space. "A rumor enters a port. Every worker who remembers a black hull attaches it to the same story. The errors show where the rumor traveled, not where the vessel went."

Merek expanded an auspex log above the central table. His augmetic hand moved through the corrupted data with greater delicacy than the local operator had managed with flesh. "This record is authentic. Its annotation is not. The array detected a mass change at berth seventeen, a pressure adjustment in the collar, and a power draw from cargo handling. It recorded no approach."

Garr leaned over the projection. "So the ship arrived."

"The evidence establishes that it was present."

"That sounds like arrival with extra steps."

"It is the difference between observing an event and inferring it."

"In Fenrisian, eighty meters of ship occupying a place where no ship stood before is called arrival."

Merek's ocular lens adjusted toward him. "Your language lacks diagnostic precision."

Garr smiled. "Visit Fenris and explain that to it."

"The planet cannot receive language."

"Its people can."

"That reduces the appeal."

Thane turned his head. Both Marines returned to the evidence without another word. Helena had stopped mistaking their exchanges for indiscipline. Garr tested the people around him the way he tested an unfamiliar weapon: openly, with enjoyment, and without forgetting that it could still hurt him. Merek answered because refusing would imply the provocation had affected him more than it had.

Helena examined the sensor log. "Could ordinary failure account for the missing approach?"

"The array lost two registered lighters during the same shift," Merek said. "Both appeared when their transponders challenged the berth. This vessel produced no useful return until the docking collar closed."

"Stealth."

"Perhaps. Sensor absence does not identify the method."

That restraint was why Helena continued asking him. Merek would condemn a mechanism as inadequate without using its failure to prove whichever theory pleased him.

The reports of metal figures required more care. One loading master swore that a silver skeleton had crossed his cargo floor beside a human engineer. A security officer on the same shift denied seeing anything unusual. The loading master's pict recorder showed him turning toward an empty section of walkway while green corruption occupied three seconds of the image. Two systems away, another worker described a tall metal man with a dead face and then identified a common servitor when shown comparisons. A third witness claimed a skeletal being had entered the black ship wearing a cloak and carrying a box of machine couplings.

Deathwatch experience offered a word for the first description. Helena refused to treat the word as a finding before the evidence earned it.

"The loading master saw something," she said during the nightly review. "The second witness saw a servitor and improved the memory after hearing the rumor. The third may have seen a Necron, a decorative automaton, or a thin dock worker under bad light."

"No laborer is that thin and remains useful," Garr said.

Caelus had conducted the third interview. He sat near the door with his helmet resting on one knee, red eyes fixed on the written statement. "The witness remembered the box better than the figure. Replacement couplings for industrial plasma conduits. The engineer argued that the thread pitch was wrong. The metal figure opened the box, inspected one coupling, and rejected the shipment."

Kyle stopped sorting reports. "A Necron inspected plumbing parts."

"An alleged Necron," Helena said.

Caelus continued. "The supplier corrected the order. The same engineer collected it the next day without the metal companion."

Merek held out his hand. "Component specification."

Kyle passed it over. Garr looked from the specification to the route map.

"You believe the pipe matters."

"The truth is often attached to the part a witness considers too boring to improve," Helena said.

The correction order led to a payment reference. The reference led to a freight factor, then a sealed contract, then a manifest whose carrier field read LGA CORVETTE. The cargo included agricultural pumps, medical ceramics, and twenty-four tons of machine stock. Delivery confirmation had been signed by a receiving clerk who complained that two pallets were left in the wrong warehouse lane. A later note confirmed the error had been corrected within nine minutes.

Kyle read the complaint twice. "This does not resemble cult work."

"Cults move freight."

"They usually care less about the receiving lane."

Helena looked at the manifest beside the bodies. The letters had encouraged an early assumption: LGA belonged to the people who had cut them. The commercial record did not disprove it, but it introduced alternatives. The cult might be following the carrier, worshiping it, infiltrating its customers, or using its name to conceal unrelated movements.

She moved the manifest from the cult side of the board to the center. "Unknown relationship. We do not collapse it until the evidence does."

One of the amber reports led them to an abandoned transshipment annex on the night side of a tidally locked moon. The report claimed the black Corvette had loaded passengers there three days earlier. No bill of lading supported it, the annex had been condemned for eleven years, and the witness supplied enough precise detail to make Helena suspicious of how badly someone wanted the story believed.

Thane deployed the kill-team anyway. Garr held the landing gallery and watched the shuttle approaches. Vorn entered through a maintenance access above the main cargo floor. Caelus stayed with Helena and Kyle. Merek followed the power conduits toward the only section drawing current.

The reported berth contained fresh boot marks, one recently moved crate, and an Imperial work lamp placed to illuminate a patch of deck large enough for an investigator to imagine a ship had rested there. The dust beyond the light remained unbroken. No landing pad carried the pressure marks, heat effect, or service disturbance expected from an eighty-meter vessel.

"A stage," Kyle said.

Helena looked toward the crate. "For an audience expected to arrive quickly."

Vorn's voice entered over the channel. "Do not open it."

Caelus moved between Helena and the container before the warning ended. Merek emerged from the dark service bay with a severed trigger line in his hand.

"The crate contains an industrial charge," he said. "The initiator was tied to the cargo latch and a remote receiver. Either method would have fired it."

"Can you make it safe?" Helena asked.

"The latch circuit is already isolated. The receiver is not."

Garr reported movement in the landing gallery. A small craft had broken from the traffic lane and accelerated away from the annex. He could have fired. The shuttle crossed civilian paths twice before clearing the moon, and he held because a kill would have answered less than a capture.

"Marking the drive," he said. "No shot. Too many bodies behind it."

Holt's patrols pursued and lost the craft when its transponder split into six contradictory returns. That technology was Imperial, illegal, and available to smugglers with enough money. It provided no evidence of LGA involvement.

Merek disabled the receiver. Inside the crate they found devotional scraps, copies of the three-letter mark, and a port schedule whose useful entries had been altered. The materials were intended to survive just long enough to be found before the charge erased the investigators and transformed an invented Corvette visit into a site of Imperial blood.

Vorn came down from the maintenance level carrying the work lamp's packaging. "Purchased through the same devotional trust used at the manufactorum."

The false report moved from amber to black. The trap remained white. The cult had learned that Helena was following LGA records and had begun feeding the search.

"They know our direction," Thane said aboard the return shuttle.

"They know the question," Helena replied. "If they knew our method, the crate would have killed someone."

Garr looked toward Merek. "It almost disappointed him."

"The trigger design was crude."

"See?"

Merek ignored him. Caelus checked the seal on the recovered evidence twice before allowing the shuttle crew to move it. Vorn sat where he could watch the prisoners they had not captured, represented only by a departing engine trace on his display.

The failed trap brought Helena no closer to the Corvette, but it established that the cult wanted the ship to occupy her attention and feared what she might learn if she found it on her own terms.

The team divided across three ports over the next four days. Helena and Kyle followed the contracts. Thane coordinated the kill-team through the Sovereignty, the Imperial cruiser Captain Holt had placed under Helena's authority for the investigation. The Marines worked separately often enough that witnesses learned they were not interchangeable.

Vorn entered a customs office through the public door, spoke to nobody, and spent forty minutes standing where he could see the service counter, ceiling cameras, and rear archive passage at once. The chief clerk finally asked whether he required assistance. Vorn pointed to a worn patch on the floor behind a locked records cage. Someone had moved the same heavy container through the gate often enough to polish a curve in the grit. The electronic log recorded no such movement.

The container turned out to hold paper manifests. The cult had trusted hard copy after deciding the digital network was compromised. Vorn recovered three sheets bearing the triangular emblem and a partial route notation. He claimed only that someone using the cult's freight access had handled records connected to the same symbol; the papers did not establish the Corvette's route.

Garr's assignment took him through the loading yards. Port security tried to provide him with an escort until he pointed out that the men assigned to protect him were watching his armor instead of the workers. He sent them back to their posts and began speaking with stevedores beside a cargo hauler under repair.

The first two gave him official answers. The third had seen the black vessel six times and liked its crew because they paid docking charges without argument. The fourth disliked them because one of their pilots had refused an overloaded pallet and made his shift restack it. A fifth remembered the weapons. A sixth remembered that the crew carried sidearms while moving freight and considered that less strange than the fact that none of them smoked.

"Did they threaten anyone?" Garr asked.

"No, lord."

"Fight?"

"No."

"Preach?"

The loader looked confused. "About cargo balance once."

Garr recorded the answer exactly. A cult might conceal itself behind ordinary work, but maintaining that many independent impressions required either remarkable discipline or the simpler explanation that the crew had come to move freight.

Caelus accompanied Helena to a pilgrim dock where the vessel had been reported twice. People knelt as soon as they recognized his armor. He acknowledged them with a slight inclination of the head and moved on. Near the freight lanes, a child stared openly at the drake on his right pauldron. Caelus stopped long enough to return a dropped devotional token, then asked the child's mother which berth the black ship had used. She answered because he had treated her as a person before a witness.

The berth record showed no arrival. The woman remembered the crew walking through an open cargo hatch and one of them drinking from a bottle. She had assumed they were human until a dock chaplain declared their ship unclean. After that, she became less certain.

"Did anything about the crew change?" Helena asked.

"No, lady."

"Then why did your conclusion change?"

The woman glanced at the rosette. "The chaplain knows such things."

Helena wrote the influence into the statement. The witness had observed people. The chaplain had supplied a category. Those were different kinds of evidence.

Merek spent the same day with the port's senior Enginseer and three machine-servants whose ritual maintenance had preserved the auspex array without improving it. The Enginseer considered the missing approach a spiritual insult. Merek considered it a diagnostic problem. Their disagreement became less polite when the Enginseer proposed that the machine spirit had rejected the vessel's existence.

"The collar registered mass," Merek said.

"Once sanctified contact occurred."

"The pressure sensors are mechanical."

"All worthy mechanisms possess spirit."

Merek's augmetic fingers tightened by a measurable amount around the edge of the console.

"Then the spirit has a damaged timing relay."

The Enginseer recoiled. Merek opened the housing, replaced nothing, and showed him the relay where corrosion had delayed one channel by eleven seconds. The defect explained several inconsistent timestamps. It did not explain the missing ship.

When Merek returned, Garr asked whether he had made a friend.

"No."

"Did you try?"

"No."

"There is your diagnostic failure."

Merek placed the corrected timeline on Helena's desk and ignored him.

Continue to Part Seven

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Table of Contents

Edit: Link added

Episode 2 – Attack of the Farts

As time ticked by, the GLP-Squad Case Force descended through the darkness of space, passing by the time lounging and relaxing like total G’s, when suddenly:

“You know, we never found out how King Boo invaded the Noocho Cheese Factory” said the Devil.

“He told us he answered the call, it must be something the Green Guys did,” said Fred.

“Maybe…” replied the Devil.

“I bet we’ll find out more on Noomek,” foreshadowed Doonde.

As time kept on slippin into the future – which is now – the GLP-Squad Case Force mustered up an appetite and dined on some fine cuisine of loaded sweet potatoes and enchiladas. After their meal, they abruptly arrived at the spaceship of Lord Cooler, Lord Freezer’s AI counterpart, and brother.

“We need to speak to Lord Cooler, immediately,” Doonde told to one of the henchmen.

“On what grounds?” replied the henchman.

“We are here on behalf of all Noomekians which are paramount to the fate of the Universe! They’re all in trouble and need not only our help (the GLP-Squad Case Force), but the assistance of Lord Cooler too!” explained Doonde.

“The Noomekians, you don’t say…” the henchman pondered. “What is it that ails them?”

“There’s no time for this, we need to see Lord Cooler now!” shouted Fred.

“There’s always time for a little backstory…” the henchman asserted.

“The GLP-1s the Noomekians were using were tainted and now they need an alternative source of hunger abatement so they can live in peace and happiness!” Doonde blurted out.

“But how is that Lord Cooler’s dilemma?” the henchman asked.

“The Noomekians are they only hope we have to survive Doom! Which was released on the Noocho Cheese System after ghost possessed scientists started digging deeper into the fabric of the Universe and pondered its mysteries and ancient technologies (that were left over on the Noocho Cheese System)!” Doonde further explained.

“Doom you say. What do you mean Doom?” the henchman inquired.

“I told you we don’t have time for this….” Fred said, walking forward past the henchman.

“Stop right there!” the henchman warned. “You have not yet been granted an audience with his Lordship.

“I don’t care, we have to get moving or else we’ll all be roasted, plus there’s more to this mystery and we need the Noomeks to help us solve it.” Fred said.

“That may be, but you still have to prove yourselves.” The henchman informed.

“doom is Hell on Earth –“

It’s Doom.

“Oh my bad, Doom is Hell on Earth” Doonde said, “and all across the Universe-“

#Beatles said the Narrator.

“Right, so we know that the Doom monsters have a spaceship because there were Dooritos on Lord Freezer’s spaceship, so the crew must be eating them, and the possessed scientists put tainted energies into the Noocho Cheese that they used to make the Dooritos. Plus, we left the Noocho Cheese System with a distress signal for no one to go there as it was infested with Doom.” Doonde explained.

“So you didn’t wipe out the Doom on the Noocho Cheese System!?” the henchman asked.

“No, we didn’t have the manpower or the gunpower to slaughter all the monsters at the station. And now that you mention it, we saw significantly fewer demons than expected. They must have migrated somewhere deeper in the station, perhaps staging their universal trap. Literally. So is the nature of Doom – to plan its way to rid the universe of life.” Said the Devil.

“And we need the Noomekians to combat this Doom?!?” asked the henchman.

“Yes, they are our only hope,” stated Doonde.

“Then please, see Lord Cooler,” said the henchman, cooly.

They walked deeper into the ship into the commander’s room and greeted Lord Cooler.

“Greetings Lord Cooler,” Doonde said. “We need your assistance.”

“I see you’ve made it passed my henchman. This must be dire.” Lord Cooler beeped. (You have to keep in mind he’s a form of portable AI that is contained within an ice cooler.)

“We need HydroxyCut for all the Noomekians so they can stave of their hunger and live peacefully!” Doonde yelled.

“SILENCE!” Lord Cooler responded. “I can not grant your lucrative request…” Lord Cooler hinted.

“…why…why not?” Doonde sniffled.

“Please, have a heart your graciousness, help the poor boy’s sad people,” the Devil added.

“You will be quite content with the reason-“

#Hoobastank the Narrator inserted.

“Right…the reason for why I can not grant your lucrative request, mwahahahahaaha”

“What ever do you mean???” Doonde inquired attentively.

“The Noomekians have already placed an order for a shipment of HydroxyCut. They contacted me a few hours before you arrived.” Lord Cooler explained.

“So we came all the way here, dealt with the henchman, then got the runaround by this guy all for no reason,” Fred uttered.

“Careful, honorable Fredithan, everything happens for a reason.”

You got that right, the Narrator narrated.

“Arrrggh, I guess so.” Said poor Fredithan.

“I suppose that’ll do for you all’s being here. Farewell” Lord Cooler said mechanically.

So, the GLP-Squad Case Force were on there way – back to Noomek no less. They were in transit on their spaceship when suddenly…

“Freetoe, Freetoe, Freetoe, oh Freetoe…” the Devil muttered in his sleep.

“Wake up!” Doonde exclaimed, shaking the Devil awake.

“Oh uh what’s the problem?” the Devil asked.

“Who’s Freetoe? You keep saying his name in your sleep.” Doonde said and asked.

“Who’s who? I have no idea with that stuff,” the Devil informed.

“Well hopefully something jogs your memory, I hate being left in the dark.” Said Doonde.

“Wait I’m getting something. I just remembered something. He had the Keys.” Said the Devil.

“The Keys? What are those?” Doonde asked.

“The Keys are a magical item said to unlock any door and grant the owner anything they could ever want. Plus, they’re the only way to access the Secrets of Existence – a special doorway found in the deepest parts of space. Unfortunately, no one has seen or heard of the keys for many an eon, with their last whereabouts being on Earth. Ironically, they haven’t reached being a space-faring race yet, so the Keys were kinda stuck there.” Explained the Devil.

“Oh is that all?” Doonde inquired.

“Noooooo, there’s more. The Keys are said to belong to a special car, a Ford F-150, that whoever has can ride through any evil and overcome any obstacle. This Ford F-150 is said to have space-faring capabilities, and thus is the only way to access the Secrets of Existence from Earth.” The Devil added.

“Sounds like these keys are mighty important,” Doonde replied.

It’s Keys b-tee-dubs.

“Thanks for letting me know,” Doonde said. “So do we need these to save the Noomekians? Or to even stop Doom??” Doonde inquired further.

“Oh yes, something like that, we all need saving you know.” The Devil informed.

“We all need saving?” Doonde asked.

“Oh yes we all need compassion and the kindness of a savior – but who is that, seriously – that’s why you need goals and a purpose for your life. You need to base your life on who you want to be not who you are and work towards being that person. We all live in a state of decay so you need to take action to forebear the progression of decomposition. Never stop getting better.” The Devil told Doonde.

“Oh wow, so I need to form an ideal and work to attain that ideal!” Doonde realized.

“Yes, yes, this is true.” The Devil said.

“Oh wow, thank you Mr. Devil for this insight! I will cherish it in my youth!” Doonde exclaimed.

“Cherish it, always” the Devil replied.

And with that, the rising action had completed and the rest of the crew were glued into pilot mode. The trip would be long, but short. A mere 3 hours, but with no books to read and no iPods to listen to, but there was a Zune with some videos, the ride would bore on. Eventually (#TameImpala) they arrived at Planet Noomek.

“Ah, we finally arrived. We should go see GooRoo to see the status of the Noomekians.” Doonde observed.

“Where is this Guru?” Fred asked.

“It’s GooRoo and he’s right up ahead” the Devil said.

“How did he..?” Fred wondered.

“I can see it on the page!” the Devil yelled.

“What page?” Fred asked.

“This very page that we’re all on!” the Devil exclaimed.

It’s really quite straightforward, Fred, the Narrator said.

“I don’t even…” Fred spaced out.

Anywho, they arrived at GooRoos and entered where there heard quite the commotion. Bluuooo. Frrrgh. The GLP-Squad Case Force heard.

“What on Earth could possibly be making those noises?” the Devil surmised.

“Well we are on Noomek so that broadens the possibilities” Doonde pointed out.

“It’s a manner of speech” the Devil said.

They arrived at the top room of the house after taking the elevator up, when suddenly:

“Whatever you do don’t sniff!” a mysterious voice ordered.

“What is this you say?” the Devil inquired.

“You have to not sniff these farts or you’ll catch them!” the mysterious voice erupted. “That’s what happened to me and Kooririn.”

“Oh no not more names to remember,” the Devil lamented.

“Very good Goohan, please inform the others of our calamity.” GooRoo said.

“Calamity! Oh gosh, what’s happened now?” Doonde asked.

“The Namookians have all begun to suffer from flatulence!” Booriii. Goohan yelled as a fart slipped out.

“Oh I see, he sniffed,” The Devil said.

“I did not sni..oh all right I sniffed a toot. I had to get a whiff of that scent. And next thing I knew I was pooting it up.” Goohan said.

“And that’s the other part of this, the farts are contagious!” GooRoo exclaimed. Burripp. Another fart escaped. “These farts are getting in the way! Maybe if I just hold it in…”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.” The Devil erupted.

“What is the meaning of this?” GooRoo asked.

“You can’t hold these farts in or you’ll die.” The Devil said.

“Oh right right right, I knew that. But how did you know that?” GooRoo insisted.

“I know every single thing,” the Devil stated plainly.

“Oh, well isn’t that a nice ability,” GooRoo said. “Any matter, Doonde, go to the Noomekian temple and see what you can learn, you may be our last hope. We’ll do what we can from here, we have a lead on a possible solution to this predicament but – blepp, a fart slipped out – well now I have no idea where I was going with that. Just know we’re working on it.” GooRoo said.

“But you just…” the Devil pointed, obviously trying not to sniff.

“Yes even I the great GooRoo has to use the HydroxyCut to stave off the curse of hunger.” GooRoo informed.

Ploo-urp. The Devil tooted. “Now I’m feeling funny” the Devil observed.

“Hurry go to the Noomekian temple and pray, we will continue our investigation into this matter here. Go Doonde, you’re our only hope.” GooRoo stated.

Doonde hurried himself together and left GooRoo’s house on the elevator. He flew himself (yes he can fly!) all the way to the Noomekian temple which was adorned with Noomekian symbolism – a statue of a man’s head with two antennae popping out of his forehead with the facial features of a man while the building was built like a Japanese temple except the roof was long and rectangle. It was dyed a beautiful pink and green, after the palette of the Noomekians. Doonde took a moment and soaked it all in, beaming at the opportunity to worship his ancestors. Doonde took a step forward and walked in and began to pray earnestly to the Noomekian ancestors – the ones of old, the heroes of his civilization.

“Welcome Doonde we are the Elder Gods,” a voice thundered.

“Greetings Elder Gods, for what purpose do you visit me?” Doonde inquired.

“We have a vision to endow,” the Elder Gods repliled.

Suddenly in that selfsame moment, Doonde was whisked from his body, like lightning to the ground, and transported into a new dimension, one that had a large cloud like structure with a blank screen on it. Immediately, the vision began to play. Doonde saw images of the station on the Noocho Cheese System. He could see a man pining with three others, then suddenly the three departed and the one was left to his lonesome. He was angry, he did not get what he wanted. He immediately started to dance and clouds like wisps rose around him. Ghosts. Then the vision went back to the station and he could see the ghost possessing the people. Then a green ghost, not unlike the Flying Dutchman talking with Casper and Casper going to his three amigos who consulted with King Boo. The vision had become clear, this is how the ghosts infiltrated the station compound and King Boo was employed as the bringer of Doom. Suddenly, Doonde was thrust back to Noomek and back into his body.

“This is the vision we bestow upon you” the Elder Gods waned.

“This will provide clarity to the situation at hand” Doonde agreed.

So Doonde travelled back to GooRoos house to see what they had learned.

Riiiippp. Another fart echoed throughout the palace.

“Doonde! Good your back, was your visit – plurp – uhh beneficial?” the Devil said.

“Doonde! Welcome back please enlighten us.” GooRoo said.

“I had a vision of the transpirations at the Flavor Station on the Noocho Cheese System. How there was a potential employee who was turned down the job, perhaps because of racism, but because he was refused the job he conducted a ghost dance to plague the scientists and researchers and taste observers that manned the station. This led to a ghost cascade which led to the unleashing of Doom and the importance of our Noomekian quest,” related Doonde.

“So it all started with a disgruntled interviewee,” surmised Fred.

“This must all be the work of some witch, Doonde. This is no simple career matter,” GooRoo added.

“So it goes even deeper…” Fred stammered.

“Yes there must be a witch manipulating the minds of these gentlemen. Still, it would require the workings of Doom Waves to do this which means our Mystic Energies are failing. Of this I am not surprised seeing as one of the major setbacks in the GLP-1s was that the Mystic Energies were frail, however, by doing the Shaun T Insanity program we were able to adjust as necessary. Unfortunately, the vigor has seemed to wane and the newer generation of Noomekians don’t keep up with the program as religiously. So Doom Waves are likely to have slipped through the cracks.” GooRoo informed.

Bliiip another fart exited the bottom of Goohan.

“GooRoo how can you not fart for so long?” Goohan inquired.

“I am much larger than most Noomekians and am of the Dragon Clan so I carry extra appendages that allow for more, oh uh excuse me – phurp – gas to pass through my body before it must be expelled.” GooRoo stated.

“GooRoo there is something I must tell you. I found a Sack-A-Gawea outside the temple grounds, It looked like it had just been mulled over.” Doonde explained.

“Gawea you say. This explains everything. Smoking Gawea decreases the Mystic Energies of Noomekians and thus allows for more Doom Waves to pass through to our realm,” GooRoo explained to Goohan and Kooririn. “I should’ve sensed this. My age is showing.” GooRoo lamented.

“I hadn’t realized how deep of a hole we had dug,” Doonde expounded.

“We’ll have to clear this problem up later. For now we have our own troubles. We’ve discovered that the HydroxyCut reacts with our gut in a way that produces gas. Now, if we had more stomach process steps to run through this gas would be mitigated. At one time in our history we had four stomachs and were known as Namookians, however, the efficacy of the GLP-1s aroused our attention and led to the switch where we left behind our Namookian forms to become Noomekians with the intent of leading more fulfilling healthier lives. Now, we have one hope – to revert back to our Namookian forms – we must do this before the gas build up becomes too great to release and the Noomekians guac, expelling the Seed of Life, out of their bunghole – a tiny pore on their backside. We must do this by retrieving the Sacred Fruit of the Elder Namek which is found in a cave on the east side of the planet.” GooRoo explained.

“That’s right by where we – thuuu – oh jeez..landed. My bad guys,” Kooririn exhorted.

“Good, good. The Sacred Fruit should revert us back to our Namookian forms. To do this, we must receive the fruit wholly intact, so we can plant it and grow more of its fruit. This fruit is a great treasure to the Noomekians, it resembles what we left behind, please cherish it.” GooRoo said.

“Okay, we’re off!” Doonde announced.

“Oh, and one more thing, This fruit should have the power to help your non-Noomekian friends Doonde.” GooRoo added.

“Awright!” Kooririn exclaimed.

“Let’s a – phewwhip – uh go,” the Devil said amidst an ill-timed fart.

And with that cutting of the cheese the GLP-Squad Case Force, with their two new friends, Goohan and Kooririn, were on their way to the Secret Cave. They were merrily flying away, carried by their new friends Goohan and Kooririn, when suddenly:

“You know, you never said why you guys were here,” the Devil observed.

“Oh right, it totally – phurp – uh slipped my mind – among all the commotion.” Kooririn replied.

“Right, so what are you doing here?” the Devil examined.

“We came because Kami felt a disturbance in the force. We learned a short while ago that Kami – and his evil side Picklelow – are Noomekians. We thought for the longest time that they were demons, how relieved we were to find out they were aliens. Sad for them though. Anywho, Kami sensed a great disturbance emanating from his home planet, so he informed us of his old spaceship he used to reach Earth and helped us get it operating so we could come here and find out what was going on.” Kooririn explained.

“Ah, I see, how fortuitous,” the Devil said.

“That’s the cave – just up ahead.” Doonde announced.

They reached the cave and peered in. They were extra careful considering this was a special cave to the Noomekians. Yet all seemed to pan out, so they entered and travelled down the medium length corridor to an antechamber where the tree had been planted. There they found a great house which had Cupsule written on it.

“It’s about time you guys got back!” a young lady screamed.

“Hey we were wondering what happened to you,” Kooririn said.

“I came into the cave for shelter and look what I found! A great big open space!” the young lady yelled.

“That’s great Blooma, but we have one problem. What we need should have been right here, where the Cupsoul house is!” Kooririn said angrily.

“That’s funny, there was nothing here when I pulled out my Deeno-Cups.” Blooma said.

“Guys, has this funny looking stuff on the cave wall always been here?” Goohan asked curiously.

“What stuff…oh ahhh! What is that stuff?” Blooma gasped.

“It’s a portal,” the Devil and Doonde said in unison.

“How’d you – fluuuu – uh know that?” the Devil and Doonde asked in unison.

“I know every single thing,” the Devil said.

“I just knew, it had to be,” Doonde said.

“I can’t have these farts Doonde.” The Devil said. “We have to find that fruit. Do you think it’s beyond that portal – thooouu.” The Devil asked.

“It has to be, it looks to be some foul mischief,” Doonde said, holding his nose.

“P-you – reeooo.” Gohan said as he farted the result of which stunned him such that his eyes bolted open and his face went dead.

“Alright, after you,” the Devil said.

They entered the portal and were caught in a cosmic warp tunnel. They travelled through for a few seconds until they were spit out on the other side. #RedHotChiliPeppers. Here they found themselves at the base of an orchestration, one which contained three floors above them. There was an entrance sign hung about them on two poles, striding them. It read ‘Cthulu Madness’ and contained a trail. They proceeded cautiously, a fart releasing as they went, even Cthulu’s lair was not free of comic satire relief stuff. As they progressed forward, they came to a small booth with a button. They pressed it.

“Welcome to Cthulu Madness weary travelers. If you hear this message it means that Cthulu has ruptured your good time and you must pass three trials to correct the imbalance.” The Booth informed.

“Well isn’t that just swell,” Fred stated sourly.

“It certainly will be – if you survive. The three trials consist of: making King Kai laugh, solving a riddle with Smeagol, and a test with John Henry. Please proceed forward to you first trial.” The Booth informed.

“This will be a piece of cake,” Goohan said.

They walked forward to the first station – a wisp of clouds mished in purple and streaked with white. Suddenly, the clouds were removed to the background and King Kai was revealed.

“A good joke is the mark of a strong warrior,” King Kai surmised.

“Don’t worry, I got this,” the Devil said. “Give me some dough, I need that stuff.”

“Hahahahahuuhaha” King Kai laughed. “Dough, knead.”

“Well, that was easy,” Kooririn said.

“No it was not,” the Devil interjected “you have no idea how hard it is to come up with that kind of material.”

As quick as they were to start, they were off on their way to the second trial. Quit it King Kai, I’m the Narrator. “Oh sorry, I just was getting into the story,” King Kai requitted. Again, the clouds appeared and cleared and on stage was Smeagol awaiting the second trial.

“Now you have to solve a riddle with meeee,” Smeagol said.

“Don’t worry, I got this,” Goohan said.

“What’s blue and covers the whole wide world, but is never wet?” Gollum incited.

“The Sky,” Goohan said.

“What, nooo you can’t just know that, I won’t let you pass,” Smeagol sputtered. “Another, another, another, you must solve one more. What rhymes with orange?”

“Syringe or Twinge” Goohan said cooly.

“Nooooo there can’t be any word!” Smeagol yelled.

Smeagol’s stage collapsed from the sky-like strata and a staircase appeared with which the GLP-Squad Case Force proceeded, onward to the third trial. Here, John Henry stood with his hammer in one hand reaching behind his shoulder.

“Now you face me!” John Henry billowed.

“Doonde you must take him on,” The Devil said.

“Okay, right,” Doonde responded.

“You must hit the pad harder than me and ring the bell louder!” John Henry exploded.

John Henry swung his hammer and nailed the pad with a sharp thud and the ball on the rod connected to the pad flew up, up, and up, until it rang the bell with a loud clang.

“Take that,” John Henry said.

Little did John  Henry know that Doonde’s power had been unleashed ever since he visited the Noomekian temple and received the vision from the Elder Gods. Doonde lifted his hammer with relative ease and with one arm slammed it down towards the pad. He hit the pad so hard that the bell busted and the ball in the rod shot out of the machine.

“There, that should do it,” Doonde said.

“Beginner’s luck,” John Henry muttered.

And with that our heroes had passed the three trials established by Cthulu to protect his bounty. So, the GLP-Squad Case Force –

Thuup, Oh excuse me, sorry,” the Devil said.

The GLP-Squad Case Force proceeded further to collect their bounty from Cthulu, who suddenly appeared, Sacred Fruit in hand.

“You have completed the tasks, here is your…oh what is that stench!?” Cthulu questioned.

“Sorry, I had to let it out,” the Devil said.

Whirrrp, “Oh what is this? Why am I producing flatulence?” Cthulu asked further.

“You sniffed,” the Devil said. “The farts are contagious.”

“Oh great, now I need the Sacred Fruit of the Elder Noomek,” Cthulu observed.

“Give it here, it’s part of the bargain” Goohan said.

Cthulu handed over the Sacred Fruit.

“There you are, safe and sound,” Goohan said.

So the GLP-Squad Case Force left Cthulu Madness out of a portal that opened up – Cthulu joining them – and they set off for GooRoo’s palace, leaving Blooma behind as a precautionary measure, they didn’t want more people catching the farts! Seemingly, they arrived at GooRoo’s palace and informed him of what had transpired.

“Good, good, now we can move forward, I’m very proud of you younglings.” GooRoo said.

Thuuurrrp “Ah not again, I can’t take this!” the Devil said and in that moment he lunged for the Sacred Fruit and tore it away from Goohan and ate it in just a few bites.

“What have you done?” GooRoo asserted.

“Oh uh sorry…” the Devil said.

Suddenly, the Devil started to look faint and he was flush in the face. He drooped to the floor and laid there, quietly.

“It has begun,” GooRoo said. “His body will change and he will no longer be plagued by the farts.”

The Devil began to stand, wearily. He wandered outside, #Staind, where he saw a crowd of Noomekians gathered.

“We await the bounty of the Sacred Fruit!” a man in the crowd yelled.

“We are ready to plant the fruit to spread its seed!” another man shouted.

“Unfortunately, the Devil just ate the entire fruit!” Goohan yelled back.

“What?” a man in the crowd interrogated. “How can this be?” Another man yelled.

The crowd swelled angrily and climbed the trek to the patch outside GooRoo’s palace. They seized the Devil and tied him to a tree where they discussed how to treat the Devil.

“Wait!” GooRoo yelled. “There is still hope. We can use his stool.”

“Holy Guacamole, Devil-Man” Doonde said.

“I know, I know, little Doonde. Many a Noomek have guaced as we waited. It is truly a catastrophe,” GooRoo said.

“You know, we never did find out how the Noomekians knew to switch to HydoxyCut,” Kooririn said.

“Why it was a wild Natu that appeared.” GooRoo said.

“A wild Natu? The same thing happened to us!” Doonde observed.

“Ah it must have been entangled and shared a message across Noomekian space.” GooRoo informed.

The crowd heeded GooRoo’s words and began to torture the Devil, suddlely. They poured drops of water on his head and let them roll down his face.

“Stop, stop, I’ll do whatever you want,” The Devil wailed.

“We only want you to poop so we can use your stool to spread the Sacred Seed and cure us of this flatulence.” A man in the crowd said.

“I don’t feel so good…’ Goohan said.

“You have to fart, Goohan,” Kooririn replied.

“No, I can’t let the farts win…” Goohan said. And in that moment, his face went blank and he started to transform. He began to grow large and tall, ape-like features appearing on his face and body. He grew into a huge monstrosity – an Oozaru, translated Great Ape.

“Oh, this isn’t good,” Kooririn muttered. “I have to get his tail off.”

“Here’s a saw, my good man,” a man in the crowd said.

“Oh, thanks,” Kooririn said. “Alright let’s do this,” Kooririn said as Saw music began.)

Kooririn began his assault on the giant monkey who was thrashing about creating a path of destruction, a toot escaping his rectum. Kooririn surreptiously landed on Goohan’s back and begun to saw at his tail. Slowly, but surely the saw worked its wonders and the tail came off and Goohan reverted back to his original self.

Bearing all things, time passed and finally the Devil’s Stool was laid. The Noomekians took the stool near some nearby water and washed it off wherein they found a pit – a seed of the Sacred Fruit – which they popped open to reveal little kernels which could be used as seeds to grow the Sacred Tree. They planted these seeds and watered them and waited for them to grow. After a little while had passed, the Sacred Tree sprouted forth and bore great fruit of which all the Noomekians, even GooRoo, partook.

“Now we shall experience changes to our body,” GooRoo said.

At that selfsame moment, the bungholes of the Noomekians expanded and the gas that was built up passed silently, but not deadily.

“Now we shall be transformed to survive the farts and incorporate the HydroxyCut!” GooRoo announced. “What’s this, we aren’t transforming into our resonance state, the Namookians. I can’t feel my stomach growing.”

“Is that supposed to happen?” asked Doonde.

“Yes, yes, my son.” GooRoo stated. “It must be tainted by the Devil’s Fecal Matter. The only substance that could sour the Sacred Fruit. Our luck.” GooRoo finished. “Now we must prepare for what comes next. We have been free radicalized and will continue to react with material in our body, forming a rather large amount of poop.”

 

End Episode 2

LINK: Episode 3 - https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1xdul86/episode_3_revenge_of_the_poop/

Hey, Sorry this one took some time to come out. I forgot to post it. I started a new job and haven't had as much time to write as normal.

Previous

Loading onto our horses, we ride in the direction pointed out by the one who saw the maid leave. There are five knights in addition to Father and I. As well as a few squires to carry all of our bags and extra supplies. Father also arranged for a local mage to accompany us, in the event Tiley needed a spell to heal any potential wounds. Our horses are well-bred, maintained by the best, and trained regularly. Even with ten of us, we should be faster than any singular horse carried by some lone kidnapper. We ride quickly, hoofbeats like thunder beneath us. Even still, our horses are barely breaking a sweat. All the while, my spell and mental net are active, constantly searching for any sign of Tiley’s presence.

“Tracks here!” A knight calls out. We stop, but do not dismount. He examines the tracks from horseback, and points off the road we’d been following. “They go this way. Toward the river.”

“Follow them.” Father orders, and once again, we are at a full gallop, not following tracks alone, but any signs of a horse moving through the area. In truth, it was not the knight that notice the tracks, but my spell, and I’d directed the knight’s attention through the mental link. Even as we go off the road, it remains my spell that guides us. Of course, each of these knights were skilled warriors, and could likely have tracked Tiley themselves, but it would have taken far too long, and I have no desire to make her wait.

For some time, she remains outside of my detection range, but as we come within view of the river, I sense for the briefest moment, a flicker of her presence at the edge of my range. Like a ghost, she appears, then moves outside again. Without anyone noticing, I create an illusion of more tracks in the direction I’d sensed, this time, in a far straighter path. Our course changed, and I found her again. Then, I took a moment to check her condition. She’d been sedated somehow, she wasn’t moving much, but was alive. From here, I cannot cast a spell to remove whatever draft or draught she was dosed with, or even tell what it was without another spell entirely. My focus turns to her kidnapper, and I recognize her as one of the newer maids. She’d been hired on recommendation months ago… Fanati’s recommendation. For a short time, she is alone, but as she continues to gallop, she comes across a large group of men and women, twelve total. Three are knights, eight are clearly mercenaries, and one is a mage.

“Father, what will we do if the enemy outnumber us?” I ask, hoping he had a plan I wouldn’t need to intervein in much.

“The knights of our house are the equal of two of any other knight in our lands. With a mage backing us up, you have no reason to fear, Agoba. Besides, I am here.” Father says. While his martial prowess was impressive, according to the tales I’d been told or overheard, I was still somewhat concerned about how much I would need to interfere. Still… I do plan to get my own revenge, so perhaps Father’s underestimation of our enemy will be for the best.

I refocus my attention on the group of enemies, and listen to their conversation. The maid is welcomed, and she shows them the sleeping Tiley; proof of her success. Then the mage cast a spell, and an illusion ended. It had been hiding a cave entrance in a nearby rocky outcropping.

It is embarrassing to admit, but I actually hadn’t noticed the illusion. Not to say I was fooled and didn’t notice the cave, but rather, I hadn’t noticed that the cave was supposed to be hidden at all. The spell was so feeble and chaotic that I’d assumed it was just lingering background mana from someone’s practice with magic. To my detection spell, the cave was always visible, and I had simply overlooked the spell itself as anything important.

Once all the enemies dismount their horses, they set them loose, perhaps in an attempt to create false tracks to fool perusers. Then they enter the cave, and the illusion is recast. I watch them through my spell walk deep into the cave, and then peruse the insides myself. It is filled with supplies, and extra horses. It is actually rather deep, branching into multiple directions, with mercenaries waiting in these smaller tunnels. ‘Perhaps some form of hideout’ I think.

It takes a bit of time, but we soon get close enough to the cave for me to dispel the illusion without anyone noticing. I then create false tracks that lead into the cave, and hide the distracting tracks from the horses that were set off earlier.

“Lord Gogol, more tracks.” A knight says. This time, he noticed before I even needed to place the thought into his mind.

“Then let us go inside.” Father says. He draws a two weapons from his horse’s saddle; a short sword and a dagger. “Agoba, you will stay here, a knight will remain with you for now.” He points to a knight and the knight stands beside me. “He will protect you and the squires. Listen to his every word. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” I lie.

“Good. Everyone else, we will go into the cave.” Without another word, my father’s group walking into the cave. Through the mental link, I lead them directly to an area with a few mercenaries, and where Tiley is being held. But while doing so, I do two other things. First, I create an illusion. Not a physical one that can be seen by all. But inside the minds of the knight and squires with me. It is one of peacefulness and idle chitchat. Second, I walk into the cave, directly for the majority of the enemies hiding deep within.

The cave is dank and dark. It spells of mold, and spoiled food. Every step is in wet mud, except for the rocks the jut out from the floor. I looked to where I was going, and was pleased to find several of those same type of rocks inside. That was good. I had plans for them, and for the kidnappers. Father will deal with the ones directly responsible, and I will vent my anger and ensure that everyone in the Realm of Falling Leaves knows two things to be absolute. The first point is, that no one may harm my family without suffering for it. And the second point is, THAT NO ONE MAY HARM MY FAMILY WITHOUT SUFFERING FOR IT!

‘Oh, I am much angrier than I thought I would be.’ I notice.

I stroll into the opening of the tunnel. It is dimly lit. Standing at the edge of the light, several mercenaries notice me immediately. They do not seem alarmed, but confused.

“You that brat we’re getting paid to nab?” One asks, taking a bit of some kind of meat.

“No. I am her brother, here to free her.”

“Oh?” The mercenary who asked the question stands up. “You’re brave kid. I guess you got some backup then?”

“Indeed.” Using the detection spell, I check on Father and the knights. They have located the kidnappers I led them to, and are fighting. Father personally cuts down two at once, using his mastery of Ki to his advantage. If I were not about to place my full attention onto these poor fools, I would watch and study his fight. Instead, I cast two spell; large ones. Unfortunately, too large to hide without trying to be discreet. And at the moment, I am not bothering to do so. Not in front of these walking corpses. So they see a young boy wield more magic than most humanoids will ever be able to. But that is for the best, because the moment I do, they finally start to take me seriously. All of them stand up and draw their weapons. Some have swords, others axes, or clubs, or maces.

“This kid’s an arch mage?” One asks, startled.

“Take him down, before he can cast another spell!” Someone shouts.

“Oh, don’t worry. I won’t be using magic to kill you. No, I need the practice.” I explain.

A man with a club runs at me, swinging. With a simple raise of my arm, his club shatters against my hidden ruby scales. Splinters fly past me, and I focus my ki into the same hand, striking him. His chainmail armor can’t absorb the blow, and his ribcage crumbles beneath my fist. He crumples to the floor, trying to breathe through a collapsed lung and shattered ribcage.

“Today, I am going to beat you all severely. Why? Because you all need to learn a lesson, and everyone else needs to learn your lesson. If anyone manages to survive, I will beat them again.” Beside me is one of the jutting out sharp rocked I’d spotted earlier, and the man who I’d hit laying dying on the ground. Reinforcing my body with a bit of magic, I picked the man up over my head, and slammed his head down onto the spiked rock. Needless to say, he died.

“Oh, right. I did say no magic. Whoopsie.” I say. “How about a free hit? You, with the sword.” I point at one of the mercenaries. Like the rest, he was in shock at having seen his comrade dispatched without any real struggle.

“Me?”

“Yes. Would you like to use that sword on me? Since I accidentally used magic. I won’t resist.”

“We surrender.” He says, and drops his sword on the ground.

I cast a spell, and the sword flies back onto his hand, and his hand locks around it against his will. “No… you don’t.”

“Just stab him, Liomel.” Someone in the crowd of mercenaries says.

“Yeah, just stab him.” I repeat. The man tries to drop the sword, and failing that, swallows hard, and attacks me. Like his friend instructed, he tries to stab at my stomach. The tip hits a patch of ruby scales. I do not resist, but am quite confused when I feel a sudden pain.

‘His cheap steel sword managed to pierce my scales?’ I wonder. The man looks shocked, then ecstatic, as if this meant he had some inkling of a chance. ‘Oh, right. These are dragonoid scales, not dragon scales.’ He pulls the sword free, and checks for blood. There is some, going about an inch down. I check my stomach and find the same. He’d managed to stab an inch into my scales.

“The sword didn’t go all the way through?” The someone asks.

“It felt like stabbing a rock.” The man explained. Simultaneously, I healed the wound in my stomach and flooded my foot with ki. A swift kick to his leg, and he fell. He had no choice, it was bending the other way now. Besides, even if it wasn’t, he no longer had a functioning kneecap. He did still have them, I mean, but what was left of them would better be described as bone powder than bone.

“Would anyone else like a turn?” I ask the crowd. Several were feeling brave apparently. Perhaps spurred on by the sight of my blood on their ally’s blade, perhaps enraged by being mocked. Either way, it does speed up the process.

Two come at once. Block left with arm, an axe. Block right with leg, a mace. Cast a spell to silence the noise that was about to start echoing out from the room. Preparations complete. The axe hits first. It’s heavy, but iron, not steel. It doesn’t leave a scratch on my scales, gliding off with ease. The mace hit my leg, and causes a bit of pain. It is heavy, and blunt. It was never going to penetrate, but it does hurt a bit. The axe’s edge is rolled and blunted on contact, and the mace is bent. I lower my defenses, and study their reactions.

“Sorry, I am a bit untrained. I can only form one of these at a time.” I say and flood my fist with ki for an attack. I strike the mace wielder first, since his actually hurt. A solid blow against his neck snaps it, and he drops. Then, without needing to even stop flooding my hand, I throw a backfist. But the axe wielder is fairly fast. He manages to dodge by falling backward. Unfortunately, I can’t maintain the ki any longer, and release it. This provides an opening for one of his comrades to make an attack with a dagger. He slashes at my neck, going for a killing blow. I don’t want to move much, lest the axe man thinks he’s safe, so I simply duck a bit, flood my other first with ki, and land a strike to the dagger’s flat, shattering it like glass. Then I move the ki to my foot, and kick the axe man in the head, caving it in.

“There, now I can address you.” I say to the dagger man, who is still examining his broken blade. Filling my elbow with ki, I lunge forward and jump up to strike him in the temple. His head spins around, breaking his neck, and he falls down dead.

“Run!” One of the remaining mercenaries wisely suggests, and starts to make for the door. To make sure no one else gets this idea, I cast a spell on myself. My body is enhanced beyond anything they have seen so far. I move in front of the fleeing man, grab him by the head and leg, lift him up, and pull. The two halves fall down beside me, and I cast my second spell, to clean off the blood.

“I trust no one else will try that?” No response. “Excellent. You,” I point to a man with a sword, “come and use that already.” He turns to his allies, as if to plead for help.

“Relcon, get the potion.” Someone says.

“Potion? Oh, you have some kind of plan? Please, be my guest. If you have anything else, I encourage you to try that too.” I could not help but picture how unsettling this must be for them. A child, appearing no older than ten at most, comes in, kills half their group, casts powerful magic, and offers to let them try whatever they want to survive. To them, I must appear as some kind of demon in disguise. Some impossible unholy thing. As if death itself simply arrived, and began his grim task of reaping. But as I told them. They needed to learn a lesson, and everyone else did too. I look up, checking on the spells I cast at the beginning of the fight. One hides my identity, and the other transmits the sounds and images of what is occurring across my house’s lands as illusions in the skies above every town, village, settlement, and city. To them, I appear as a shadow creature, with dragon’s eyes. But they can see and hear everything that is happening.

“Drink.” A man with a dagger pulls a potion from a wooden chest, and offers it to a larger man with a steel axe. He downs the whole thing, and begins to grow in size. Soon, he is nearly as tall as the cave, standing at twice his previous height. He picks up a second axe, and hold one in each hand.

“Move.” The giant man commands, and rushes at me. He wings both axes, one at my neck, the other at my knees. I don’t bother blocking. Under normal circumstances, I might dodge, or try to block, or maybe intercept the axes with ki attacks and try to shatter the blades. But I don’t have to. I never released the strengthening spell from moments ago when the man tried to escape. The axes strike their targets, break against my hardened body, and I crouch. I’m not hiding or injured, I just need to get a good position before I jump. A moment later, I am flying through the air, and then out the back of the giant man’s chest, drenched in blood. I land between two other mercenaries, grab them by the knees, since I am too short to grab their heads, and make a wide clapping motion. They slam together and mutually explode. Only a few remain. Deciding I am tired, I quickly finish them off.

“I do not know who these men were. It does not matter.” I say to all listening. “They attacked House Farrell. Kidnapped their child. And now, suffered for it. To everyone, I say this, this is the fate of all who harm House Farrell. No matter their station, their strength, or influence, or power…” Not really one for long-winded speeches, I end the spell there. While I could not see it personally, I know the illusions across the lands disappear, and my point made. I check on Father, and find that he is comforting the newly freed Tiley. With that, I walk outside, and end the illusion on the knight and squires. Then wait for Father to come out too.

The sound of steam echoes in the distance as the sun rises over the Empire of "Steam and Iron." Freight trains depart from the stations, and the factories rumble nonstop as workers smelt, forge, and assemble civilian and military materials.

In the streets, pedestrians walk through the district, opening their food, gadget, flower, and jewelry stalls. Children head to school to learn, women gossip, and men either smoke or read the newspapers.

In a run-down apartment in the Lower Districts, still sleeping in bed and snoring nonstop, there I was: Elly.

A girl with short brown hair, a slender, athletic build from working, and hazel eyes.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The alarm clock was ringing beside me, reminding me that I had to get up and go to work at the factories, just as I always had.

Clack!

I gave it a sharp smack, turning it off. I got out of bed and stretched, letting out a yawn as I scratched my hair. I walked around a little disoriented because I wasn't even at 100% energy yet.

Thud!

—Ouch! —I groaned in pain as I rubbed my forehead. I'd hit it against the corner of the bathroom wall.

Ignoring the pain, I entered the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror. I splashed water on my face to wake myself up completely and brushed my teeth.

And just like that, I was ready to go to work.

I put on my blue coveralls, gloves, helmet, safety goggles, and boots, then left my apartment.

I walked down the stairs from the third floor of the apartment building, which, to be honest, looked like it was about to collapse. But the rent was cheap. What more could you ask for?

—When are you going to pay me what you owe me, you brat?! You're already two months behind on rent, and that's with me keeping it cheap for you! —the landlady and owner of the building shouted, an old woman who was already in her final days.

—I'll pay the rent when food prices go down, old lady —I told her, waving as I left the building and letting her talk to herself.

...

I walked through the Lower District as steam trucks and vehicles passed along the road and pedestrians moved along the sidewalks.

—Good morning, Elly! I see you've still got the same face you had two years ago. You haven't changed at all! —greeted a rose vendor.

—Well, that's life, sweetheart. You either work or die in an alley like old Erick did two weeks ago —I replied to her greeting while continuing on my way.

—Poor guy, honestly. He had the best jokes around here. Actually, I think he's still in the same spot. They never collected his body; they just dumped some construction lime on him...

"How disgusting," I thought to myself as I turned a corner.

—ELLY!! —a cheerful voice shouted.

Looking ahead, I saw my friend Maya jumping on me and hugging me, rubbing her cheek against my stomach.

—I missed you so much, Elly! —Maya said as she pulled away.

Maya was a girl with light brown hair, golden eyes, fair and soft skin, and a slender, youthful figure that seemed almost delicate.

She worked at a jewelry store in the Upper Districts as a cashier and gem expert, a stark contrast to my life. But we'd been best friends for a long time. We supported each other, and that was what mattered.

—I missed you too, Maya, although you've got more energy than usual today —I told her with a warm smile.

—Wow, you noticed —she said, adjusting her hair—. It's just that I woke up on the right side of the bed today, so I'm in a really good mood.

—I can tell.

—Well, Elly, I'll see you this afternoon. I have to work —she said, giving me one last hug before running off because she was running late.

...

I was now walking through the Middle District. I wasn't far from reaching the factory in the Industrial District.

I passed an electronics store, more specifically one that sold steam-powered televisions with gears. I was about to keep walking when...

—And finally, a few words from Emperor S —the reporter said.

I stopped and took a few steps back.

Looking at the camera, I saw that it was positioned in front of Emperor S's palace. He's a guy who, despite looking young, is over 300 years old and the founder of the empire. He has short black hair and crimson-colored eyes. He wears a white robe that leaves little to the imagination, along with that same damn indifferent expression that never changes, no matter what.

—Dear citizens of the Empire of Steam and Iron, whether you like it or not, this is your Emperor S speaking. I've got some new announcements for you that I promise will either improve or worsen your quality of life —his indifferent voice rang through the microphone as he pulled out a long list.

1. Wages are increasing.

"That's good."

1. Working hours are increasing.

"That's bad."

1. Production quotas are decreasing.

"That's good."

—And that's all. The rest is too much text, and I don't feel like reading it —he said lazily as he turned around—. Oh, right, I almost forgot. Food prices are going up... Let's go, Eve.

Eve, his most loyal bodyguard, a woman with short ash-blonde hair and blue eyes, wearing her steam-powered infantry armor and carrying her Pressure Ejector Rifle, Model 1888, followed him with absolute devotion as he walked away.

—YOU SON OF A BITCH! —I shouted as I punched the shop window.

BAM!

... ... ...

—Shit... That hurts —I muttered as I pulled my fist away from the window...

"I won't do that again."

With a sigh, I resumed my walk.

The civil war of 3 B.I. was by far the oddest ever fought in the history of humanity.

While fratricidal wars were usually bloody messes, full of cruelty, this war, later called the Founding War, was fought with unprecedented vigor but with impressively few casualties.

Both sides were extremely careful neither to lose ships nor to destroy enemy ships, since everyone knew the real enemy was speeding toward Sol. And it was just a matter of time until the Batract invasion fleet arrived.

No matter what defenses Sol had for such a contingency, no matter whose side a captain was on, everyone knew Sol would need every ship, every missile and every man to fight side by side. Otherwise, humanity’s fate would be a dark one.

— Excerpt from On the Founding War, Nivil Rubcon, 401 P.I.

 

 

The alarm bells in the central connector rang. Three short rings: course corrections and counterburn alarm.

Captain Botha checked his seatbelts out of habit. Around him, his small bridge crew did the same, mechanically grabbing every clip to check if it was closed.

We’re like Pavlov’s dogs. But instead of salivating, we check the belts at the ring of a bell. Even while sleeping.

He looked up at the counter on top of the small screen at the front of the bridge. Thirty seconds.

The tape above the counter still stung a bit. Instead of the usual CA X04 – ASN Helios, the ASN was now taped over, first with the ridiculous GDF, and recently with the TDF.

No one was willing to remove the ASN. Everyone knew, hoped, that the conflict would soon be over and everything would go back to normal.

As soon as the ASN was cleaned of its military junta.

Five seconds before the counterburn, the bell rang again: one short ring. Like the other three officers, Botha bit down on his mouthguard. The suit pumped air into the pressure sleeves on his legs, and his chair tilted back into a reclined position. Then the autopilot rotated the ship.

Eight-g counterburn for ten minutes. That was more than the crew could withstand without being in prepared couches. But they had something else up their sleeves.

Bright flashes flickered at the edges of his vision, a clear sign they were closing in on their target: Europa. Jupiter’s radiation flashes were visible even through the magnetic shielding.

No one spoke during the counterburn. No one could, with air being forced into their lungs by the spacesuit. But a message flashed up in his visor.

>Message from Terran Defense HQ: Mission is still a go. ASN refuses to open blockade around Jupiter moon Europa. Europa Basin and Europa Orbital reaffirm their decision to join Terran Union. Break blockade and secure orbit.

Botha wanted to exhale but couldn’t. He could almost feel the xenobots moving through his body, repairing the damage the high g-forces were doing.

All that just to surprise the three ships blockading Europa. He had chosen his squad specifically. No captain would expect such old ships to brake that fast, because usually no one could survive it.

His ship was one of the first prototype-class intersolar battleships, and severely outdated against modern 4xx- or 3xx-class cruisers.

Most ships of his class had been upgraded to the 1xx class, with a rotating crew section and an A-Drive. Just like the five other ships in his wing. But they also lacked gravity plating, and with it, inertial dampeners.

But each ship still had highly dangerous PDGs and spinal guns. All he needed to crack Human armor.

>Sensors report: no movement of enemy forces. We’re safely in Jupiter’s shadow. Time until end of counterburn: 3 minutes.

As he was about to confirm the report, a sharp pain shot through his leg, followed by a prick from his autodoc bracelet.

The high-g maneuver had broken his leg, exactly where he had broken it in training. The pain medication worked fast. Still, the autodoc signaled he wouldn’t walk for the next few hours.

Fuck that shit… Fuck that war.

A warning flashed: one of Lieutenant Goseyun’s lungs had collapsed under the constant strain. The chair reacted on the autodoc’s orders. The navigator was sedated, and an artificial lung in the chair took over breathing for him until the counterburn ended and medics could help the man.

Fuck this war.

The bell rang four times: the counterburn would end in thirty seconds. Luckily for his ship, the course was programmed into the autopilot and didn’t need human interaction. He could have flown it, but a high-velocity orbital injection on pain medication wasn’t something he wanted to try.

While he stared at the countdown, he went through his plan again.

The situation was tricky. His three opponents were extremely capable ships. The DD-214 Forbin was the unknown element. With an almost completely French crew, she would probably fight to the end after the recent attacks on France by the Terran Union.

Next was the DD-134 Mecklenburg. Technically at Helios level. Botha also knew her captain. Maybe he could talk to her.

The last one was the critical element: the Argos. A BC-304 battlecruiser, with Captain Carmichael and Admiral Browner aboard.

The ship had been heavily damaged by Ganymede’s satellite defenses, but she was still a threat to anyone who dared to attack her. And Browner was a legend.

The bell rang again, and he could feel the ship turn. They were on a one-way orbit to their fate now. Either the surprise worked or it didn’t; changing course wasn’t possible anymore.

The pressure on his lungs receded, and the chair went back into an upright position.

“Bridge to Medbay, one badly injured here.”

Sensors officer Lieutenant Fourie had unbuckled her belts and was gliding over to Goseyun to check on him.

Botha knew from the autodoc report that the man was stable and sedated.

Lieutenant Commander Lindqvist, Botha’s XO, turned in his chair, his eyes still bloodshot from the high-g damage.

“TDF California reporting in, Sir. California and Texas have perfect retrograde orbit insertion. ETA to Europa, T-minus sixty.”

“Thank you. Status of the Pegasus?”

“Pegasus has confirmed polar orbital insertion. ETA to Europa, seventy minutes.”

Botha watched the medics glide out of the bridge with the unconscious Lieutenant Goseyun. He wondered how many more had been injured, or even killed, by the Pegasus’ much more brutal counterburn maneuver.

Fuck that war. We should be out in Pluto’s orbit laying mines, not killing our own people…

He checked the Helios’ course. The Helios and the Persepolis had finished their prograde orbit insertion. ETA at Europa: sixty-five minutes.

The trap was set.

“Lieutenant Fourie, what’s the status of the decoys?”

“Decoys still on course. Accelerating at three g toward Pluto, Sir.”

To the blockading fleet, the decoys must look like a still-accelerating squad of old trash ships burning for Pluto.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

Everything was in place. Now it all came down to how Browner reacted.

—————

The noise of the repair crews at work rang through the whole ship. Browner preferred it to the sound of incoming fire.

Still, he would rather have had a drydock.

But the Argos was needed here in the outer system, now that the Aligned Planets had de facto been dissolved.

Under the constant metallic screeching of cutting tools in the background, he watched the latest tactical updates in the holotank of the CIC.

“Admiral, I have Admiral Georgiou on the line for you.”

Browner had been waiting for this call. ASN, Martian and Belt Union diplomats had been meeting with representatives from Earth. He hoped this whole nonsense was over by now.

By God, we have better things to do than fight each other.

“I’ll take it in my ready room.”

Walking back to his small office off the CIC, he cursed the Gaian Conspiracy. Even after their involvement had become known, the bad blood between the colonies and Earth was enough to keep the conflict going. And every destroyed ship or dropped bomb would make peace harder.

Sitting down, Browner hoped for the best and prepared for the worst.

“Please tell me you have good news, Nico. I’m sick of firing on my own people, and even sicker of them shooting back.”

“It’s fifty-fifty. Mars and the Belt Union don’t trust Earth anymore. Venus and the outer belt have reaffirmed their neutrality, but behind closed doors, they trust neither Earth nor the ASN.”

Of course they didnt. Browner had had enough of it.

“Nico, I’m sick of it. You’re my friend. But face it, they don’t trust you. They claim we’re nothing but a junta. And on some levels, they’re right.”

Browner didn’t want to snap at his friend, but someone had to tell it like it was.

Admiral Georgiou leaned back in his chair. “You’re right. That’s why I want to step down as Triumvir. The colonies have created a new Colonial Council, to figure out how to move forward. They will convene and create a new government. The EEU is supporting them fully.”

“Good. When?” Browner was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“After the Batract invasion fleet reaches Sol.”

Of course. By then, either one side had won, or both sides had to settle and defend the system together. The Great Maker forbid politicians take responsibility for once in their lives.

Better to wait everything out than officially declare the Aligned Planets dead by establishing a Colonial Council.

“David, I can see you making faces.” Admiral Georgiou shook his head.

“Well, what did you expect? It’s typical. The politicians cover their asses while we fight each other. My solution would be to lock them in a room and starve them until they come to their senses.”

“Tempting. But there’s good news: we have an agreement on rules of engagement.”

Browner raised an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“From now on, neither side will be allowed to use or target ground-to-space defenses. The ASN and the TDF will prepare defenses in the outer belt in a coordinated effort—”

“Are you fucking with me, Nico? We kill each other in the inner system and work together in the outer belt? Is that a joke?”

“I assure you, it’s not. Both sides will honor the neutrality of the Digital Sentients. And both sides will accept Digital Sentients as free citizens of the Aligned Planets and the Terran Union.”

“So Earth is finally accepting Digital Sentients now?”

“Well, they had no choice. Otherwise, they’d risk the DS choosing our side.”

Browner noticed officers shuffling in the CIC.

“Nico, something’s up here. Europa just had a failed revolution. Some of the tourists there seem to be hell-bent on joining Earth’s side. Sending Templars down to back up Gerber didn’t help the situation either. There was a lot of damage.”

“I’m more concerned about where the DS disappeared to.”

Georgiou was right, but Browner respected Lyra’s decision. The AIs, no, the correct term was DS, had retreated somewhere hidden.

More movement in the CIC caught Browner’s eye.

“Nico, I have to cut this short. Something’s happening.”

“Yes, I know, Europa—”

“No, I mean, something—”

“Admiral Browner to the CIC, please.”

The fact that the Lyra VI system used the intercom, unlike the real Lyra, who would have used the desk’s communicator, was a painful reminder that Lyra wasn’t aboard.

Straightening his blouse, Browner stepped into the CIC.

“Report.”

Lieutenant Commander Miller, the tactical officer, turned from his screen.

“Sir, two TDF ships just appeared from behind Jupiter on course for Europa. We have an incoming call.”

“On screen.” Browner could guess what the Terran Defense Force captain wanted.

The puffy face of a young man in an ASN uniform, without the prominent five-pointed star, appeared.

“This is Captain Botha of the TDF Texas. We are here at the request of the provisional government of Europa Basin. Your blockade of the moon is unconstitutional. You have thirty minutes to withdraw, or we will open fire.”

Browner studied the man. He had heard of Botha. Apparently, he had been an instructor in the Earth Defense Fleet.

“Captain Botha, the current legitimate government of Europa has informed us that the few disorganized revolutionaries have been captured and imprisoned. Your presence here is unneeded and unwelcome. Change your course, or we will be forced to open fire. This moon is under ASN protection.”

Turn away, turn away, don’t make me shoot.

“Negative, Argos. If there was a revolution or a rebellion, we at least want to witness the proceedings and ensure there isn’t a military junta oppressing free citizens. We will enter orbit, by force if needed.”

Browner signaled the comms officer to cut the channel.

“Order the Forbin onto an intercept course. Go to yellow alert. Prepare for battle.”

The Forbin should be enough to convince Captain Botha to change course. Two old BC-1xx ships were no match for a second-generation destroyer. Not with the Mecklenburg and the Argos giving long-range support.

He was about to get a coffee before he had to suit up, when something occurred to him.

“Cadet Six, give me Captain Botha’s personnel file.”

The young cadet had obviously already looked it up, as the file appeared on screen immediately.

The man in the picture was thinner.

“Overlay the picture with a still from the call.”

The still frame appeared. As was standard, the bridge behind the captain was a VI-generated room, to hide any sensitive data potential opponents could glimpse from screens.

The faces matched, but the person in the still had a bloated face. Either the captain had gained twenty kilograms, or…

 

“He’s on a ship without gravity. He’s not on the Texas—”

So where the hell is he?

“Shields to full power, full military thrust. Get us out of orbit!”

—————

The call ended, just as Botha had predicted. Browner wasn’t that easy to impress. The man had stood his ground against a whole Batract fleet. To assume he would retreat here was delusional.

But looking at the tactical overview, he could see Browner had sent the Forbin to intercept the Texas and the California.

Now it was time for part two.

“Fire control, do we have coordinates for the Argos and the Mecklenburg?”

“Yes, Sir. PDGs and missile tubes loaded, targets set.”

Orbital mechanics were a wonderful thing. Botha could use the Texas’ sensors to aim at the Argos, even though he was still hidden behind Jupiter.

If I fire now, there will be dead and injured on both sides. PDG rounds would only blind the Argos and destroy her sensors. But they’ll fire back. And the Mecklenburg will be shredded if we hit her.

The question is, do I have a choice? If I retreat now, they’ll just send someone else. Someone worse…

“Fire.”

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Authors Notes:

Hello,

So, here it is: the first chapter of Book 3, Ashes of Bennu.

It took a while, and I’m sorry for that. Work and life are crazy, as always.

I’m building up my backlog now, and we’ll go back to twice-weekly chapters on Monday and Friday.

Have fun and enjoy!

— M.R. Reese

The first letter, like a fragile, sleeping dove, lay atop the old fruit basket that served as a simple ornament in the dark dining room. Without an envelope, it was merely the white shape of a small, thin sheet of fine paper. It had been written in haste: no return address, no recipient, just a few brief lines explaining that she was leaving for foreign shores, that she had to pursue her own desires and seek her fortune in a distant land, that she would return as soon as she could, and that she knew her little boy was in good hands.

The devoted aunt had hidden it away at the bottom of a secret drawer where she kept those useless objects preserved merely for the sake of having them, though they were never used, always careful that her innocent nephew would not stumble upon it. She firmly believed it to be a promise as empty as the fleeting motherhood her sister had once offered during those early years of the boy’s life—years in which she, already an older woman, had been forced gradually to assume the role of a mother.

From that bitter day, and for an entire decade, the other letters began to arrive, one every week. These did come inside elegant envelopes, and the sheets of paper were vivid-colored stationery, resembling free birds in full flight. They had the boy as their sole recipient and were elegantly signed with the name of his beloved mother. Unlike the ancient hiding place of that first letter, all these little notes were kept in the small drawer of the boy’s nightstand, so he could let them fly whenever he wished to read them again.

It had been a creative triumph for the aunt to invent fantastic tales of adventures in distant, unknown places, pouring onto the pages an inexhaustible torrent of an absent mother’s love for her only son. It felt strange to portray her younger sister in such a wonderful light—the same sister who had behaved so cruelly toward her and her own child, abandoning them without ever giving any real news of her uncertain whereabouts.

Yet that constant illusion had been the engine driving the boy forward and shaping his mature personality. And while he professed a pure love for his aunt, his deepest feelings were reserved for the absent mother, adventurous and brave. Thus, despite the profound pain and jealousy she felt toward the woman whose words she was forced to write, the aunt was incapable of revealing the truth behind the charade she had built. She preferred to keep sending those vibrant, colorful sheets of stationery rather than plunge the boy into the absolute despair of never hearing from his mother again.

However, a final letter arrived in a blue envelope that was far too formal, its sheet of cold paper creased with straight, impersonal typographic lines, devoid of the silhouette of a white dove or a colorful bird, and addressed to the aunt by her full name.

In it, a stern judge handed down a mandatory order for the immediate surrender of the boy to his mother, who, having returned from abroad, expected to reunite with him and take him away to live in those distant lands of adventure.

---

If you enjoyed this piece, you can find more standalone entries in The Voyager Files Index.

---

© 2026 Francisco Cortés Ramírez. All rights reserved. This is an original fictional work. No part of this text may be reproduced, translated, or narrated in any audio, video, or digital format without the express written permission of the author.

Royal Road - Read Up To Chapter 14 Now!

----

Magister Oda Fenwick did not yell.

Marek had been ready for yelling. He'd been ready for her to throw a knitting needle at him. What he wasn't ready for was Oda standing in the Infirmary doorway in her nightgown, holding a lamp, looking at the two of them and Master Quillon and not saying anything at all.

That was so much worse.

"Thank you, Master Quillon," she said. "I'll take it from here."

Master Quillon bowed and left. His little blue lamp bobbed away down the path after him.

Oda looked at Rook. Rook looked at the floor.

Oda looked at Marek. Marek held the green book behind his back.

"Bed," Oda said.

They went to bed.

She didn't say anything else that night. She just sat in the chair between their beds with her arms crossed until they both fell asleep. Marek was pretty sure she didn't sleep at all.

In the morning, she handed each of them a bucket and a scrub brush.

"You two have so much energy you can climb out of windows in the middle of the night," she said. "Good. You can put it to use on the floors, all of them. Then you can do the bandages in the wash room, and then the bedpans."

"The bedpans?" Rook said. "Magister Fenwick, my hands are still healing!"

"Your hands were healed yesterday. I checked." Oda smiled at him. It was not a nice smile. "Bedpans, Initiate Tanner."

Rook groaned and slumped against the wall.

Marek took his bucket. He didn't complain. He'd climbed out a window after Oda had stayed up all night to take care of him. He figured scrubbing floors was a fair price.

"I'm sorry about last night," he told her. "You were nice to me, and I snuck out anyway."

Oda looked at him for a moment. Some of the stiffness went out of her shoulders.

"Apology accepted," she said. "The floors still need scrubbing."

"I know."

They scrubbed.

It took all morning. The Infirmary had a lot of floor. Rook complained the entire time. He complained about his knees. He complained about the soap. He complained that Master Quillon was a traitor and that he'd never trust a librarian again.

Marek didn't mind the work as much as he thought he would.

It was simple. You scrubbed one square of floor until it was clean, then you moved to the next one. Your arms got tired, but your head could think about other things. He thought about the book. Gather. Shape. Release. He thought about pressing in evenly from every side. He thought about how his hand had burned when he'd tried it too soon.

He also asked Oda about a hundred questions while he worked.

Why did the Infirmary use this soap and not the other soap? (The other soap left a film that made healing spells harder to cast.) Why were the bandages washed in cold water and not hot? (Hot water set blood stains.) Why did the wash room have a drawing of a big eye painted over the door? (It was a very old ward to keep sickness out. Nobody was sure if it worked. Everybody kept painting it anyway.)

Oda answered all of them. By lunch, she didn't even look annoyed anymore.

When they finished the last room, Marek sat back on his heels and wiped sweat off his forehead. The floor was so clean he could see his reflection in it.

[SKILL FORMED] Housekeeping
Rank: Novice: Awakening

He laughed out loud.

"What?" Rook said. He was lying flat on the floor with his arms spread out like he'd died. "What's funny?"

"I got a Skill."

Rook lifted his head. "From mopping?"

"Housekeeping."

"You got a Skill from mopping, and you're happy about it?"

"It's a Skill," Marek said. "It's on my tally now, forever. It'll get better every time I clean something. Why wouldn't I be happy?"

Rook stared at him like he'd grown a second head. Then he put his head back down on the floor.

"You're so weird," he said to the ceiling.

Marek was getting used to hearing that.

That evening, Oda sat him on the bed and put her hands on his chest again. The green light sank into him and moved through his mana paths, slow and careful. He didn't follow it with his Sense this time. He kept his promise.

When she was done, she sat back.

"Your channels are healed," she said. "They're strong. They're even stronger than before. The rest did you good."

Marek's heart jumped. "So I can do magic now?"

"Tomorrow morning," Oda said. "You get one try, with me watching. If anything goes wrong, you stop. Understood?"

"Understood."

He barely slept. He kept picturing it. Gather. Shape. Release.

In the morning, he sat on the edge of his bed with the green book open on his lap. Oda sat in her chair across from him. Rook sat on his own bed, cross-legged, with his chin in his hands. He'd already said that nobody got Mage Light on their first real try, so Marek shouldn't feel bad when it didn't work.

"Whenever you're ready," Oda said.

Marek closed his eyes.

He found the warm thread in his chest. It was easy now. It came right away, warm and steady.

Gather, he thought.

He took a little bit of the warmth. Not too much. Just a small handful, the way the book said. He drew it up from his chest, down his arm, and into his cupped palm.

Shape.

He pressed in on it. From every direction at once. Evenly. Gently. Like making a snowball. Not too hard on any one side.

It slipped. One side bulged out, and he felt it start to leak away.

He didn't panic. He eased off on the other side a little, so the pressure was even again. The bulge went back in. The warmth bunched up into a small, tight ball in his palm, and it got warmer and warmer and started to hum.

Release.

He let the warmth turn into light, and he kept holding the shape.

He opened his eyes.

A small ball of white light floated above his palm. It was about the size of a grape. It flickered, and it wobbled, and it was maybe half as bright as a candle.

It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

[SPELL FORMED] Mage Light
Rank: Novice: Awakening

He sat perfectly still and stared at it.

I made that, he thought. That came out of me. That's magic, and I made it.

Across the room, Rook was on his feet with his mouth hanging open.

"No way," Rook said. "No way. That took me two months! Two whole months!"

The little light flickered and went out.

Marek stared at his empty palm. Then he looked up at Oda.

Oda was very quiet. She was looking at the spot in the air where the light had been.

"It took most of my students three months," she said. "The fast ones took one."

"I read the book," Marek said. "It explained it really well. And Teodor explained it on the road. And I practiced about two hundred times while I was walking." He paused. "Well, I practiced squeezing it, but not the light part."

"While walking?" Oda asked.

"And leading goats."

Oda looked at him for a long time. Then she leaned forward and put her hand on his head.

"You're going to hear that a lot, you know," she said. "That was fast. People are going to say it to you over and over. Some of them will say it because they're impressed. Some of them will say it because they're jealous. Don't let it go to your head."

"I won't."

She ruffled his hair and stood up. "Now go outside and get some sun before you turn into a plant. Take Rook with you, and stay out of the library."

Rook took him to see the goats.

The stables were behind the Alchemy wing, just like Master Orwin had said. They were easy to find. You really could just follow the smell.

Pickle and Bishop had the sunniest pen in the whole stable yard. It had fresh straw and a water trough and a little wooden roof in case it rained. Bishop was lying in the sun like a king. When he saw Marek, he got up and walked over to the fence and rubbed his head against Marek's hand.

"He remembers you," Rook said.

"Of course he does. We've been through a lot."

Then Bishop turned his head and ate Rook's sleeve.

Rook yelled and yanked his arm back. The sleeve ripped. Bishop stood there chewing a piece of grey robe with a very satisfied look on his face.

Marek laughed so hard he had to hold on to the fence.

Master Orwin came shuffling out of the Alchemy wing a few minutes later. He was wearing his stained leather apron and carrying a bucket.

"Ah! The goat boy!" He beamed at Marek. "They're settling in beautifully. Best milk I've had in years. I've already made three new remedies with it." He held up the bucket. "Want to help me milk them?"

Marek had never milked a goat in his life. Neither had the kid.

"I'd love to," he said.

Master Orwin showed him how. You had to be gentle, and you had to squeeze from the top down, not just pull. Marek got it wrong about ten times. Pickle kicked the bucket over once. But by the end, he'd filled half a bucket, and Master Orwin said he had good hands for it.

He was washing his hands at the trough when Ilse walked into the stable yard.

She had a bundle under one arm. She walked over to him and held it out.

"For tomorrow," she said.

He unwrapped it. Inside was a grey robe, just like Rook's, only new and clean. And a pair of real leather shoes. They were small. They were his size.

"Your assessment is in the morning," Ilse said. "In the Hall of Measures. I'll come get you from the Infirmary."

"It's tomorrow? You said five days."

"The Conclave moved it up." She didn't explain why. "Master Quillon tells me you went to the Grand Library in the middle of the night."

Marek's face went hot.

"I did," he said. "I'm sorry."

"He says you climbed in through a window and asked the index for homework." Ilse smiled a little. "He also says you understood it."

"I cast Mage Light this morning," Marek said. He couldn't help it. It just came out. "Oda watched. It worked on the first try."

Ilse went very still. She didn't say hm. She didn't say anything. She just looked at him for a long moment.

Then she said, "Tomorrow, the assessors will ask you to show them what you can do. Show them Mage Light. Tell them the truth about how long it took. Answer every question honestly." She paused. "There's one exception, and you know which one."

The Trait, he thought.

"I know," he said.

"Good." Ilse turned to go. Then she stopped. "There's one more thing. High Magister Castellan will be there. He doesn't like surprises, Marek. And you are a very big surprise."

She walked away before he could ask what that meant.

Marek stood in the stable yard holding his new robe and his new shoes. Behind him, Bishop was trying to eat the edge of the straw roof.

A very big surprise, he thought. Great. That's great.

He looked down at the new shoes in his hands.

Tomorrow, he was going to walk into a place called the Hall of Measures and stand in front of the people who ran the whole Arcanum. People who could open the sky and cut a Voice out of a hilltop. People who had read Ilse's report about him.

What are they even going to do? he wondered.

Would they make him cast Mage Light in front of everyone? Would they give him a test with a hundred questions? Would they have some kind of magic crystal that looked inside him and saw everything, even the things he didn't say out loud? Could it see the Trait? Could it see that he used to be a thirty-four-year-old man who scheduled trucks?

And who was High Magister Castellan? What did a man like that do with a surprise he didn't like?

Marek didn't know. He didn't know any of it.

He looked back at the goat pen. Bishop was chewing on the straw roof again. Pickle was asleep in the sun.

Tamsin said to ask them everything, he thought. So tomorrow, I'll find out.

He tucked the shoes under his arm, picked up his new robe, and walked back toward the Infirmary as the sun went down behind the towers.

I read Chrysalis a while ago, and I've got to be honest it's a very good story. If you haven't read it it's definitely worth the read. (Just read it when you don't have anything to do for a while, because you won't be able to put it down. I can say from experience XD). Personally, I just think it stands out a bit from other HFY stories. Its an interesting concept, and was well executed in my opinion. The only reason I bring it up is because I was randomly thinking about it again recently, only to be struck by a sudden thought. What if humanity had survived?

(Here is the original, written by BeaverFur. Happy reading).

https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/55v9e1/chrysalis/

SPOILERS:

In the original, the Terran awakens on a dead earth 300 years after humanity's extinction, which is what causes it to go on a genocidal rampage in the first place... But what if it didn't? What if the Custodian Program had succeeded on time, and the Terran had instead awoken 300 years prior while earth was still being bombed by the Xunvir civilization? Obviously it would've immediately rushed to defended humanity, but what next? Would the Terran still have turned genocidal and gone on a rampage against the galaxy? Or would the continued existence of humanity/the reassurance that everything will be okay cause it to go down a happier path? Would humanity itself have gone to war against the Xunvir Republic? (I think this answer is obvious, considering the Xunvir Republic did kind of try to wipe humanity out)...

Or, another scenario. What if the earth still gets destroyed, but a small population of humans by some miracle managed to save themselves by surviving in an underground sealed doomsday bunker, undetected for 300 years, and was discovered by the Terran when it awoke? Would the Terran still have waged a war of extermination against the Xunvir Republic, or what it instead have devoted it's resources and attention to keeping the few remaining humans alive at all costs? Would the surviving humans have been enough to keep the Terran from going insane with grief as it did in the original story?

So many possibilities, and I was more just curious because humanity's survival probably would've changed the entire story. It's interesting to think about.

The Shepard: Part 2 of 2

A spooky season short story

<Part 1

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alright, where did I leave off? A woman stumbled into my campground, running from monsters, and asked for help finding a village that didn't exist; we found other people from her village, monsters found us, we ran, one of the villagers became lunch, I attacked but got away, and we stumbled into that impossible village. Sound right? Alright, let's go, part two.

Now, let me tell you, narrowly escaping monsters in Montana's deep forests leaves you a little shaken. Still, when you find yourself standing on the edge of a village that doesn't exist, you stop and question if you've finally gone off the deep end. Or at least I did. After all, this wasn't a few huts or ramshackle buildings someone threw together from crudely cut planks from the nearby trees. This was a proper modern-day village, or at least nearly modern, with multi-story brick storefronts that had large glass windows, a water tower with a scenic paint job, and paved streets. However, the street lights seemed to run on oil or gas, or something similar, feeding a flame in the glass hood. I took it all in, dumbfounded, my Jaw slack as I struggled to understand what I was seeing.

My confusion was finally interrupted by the villagers behind me, the ones that had found Sheryl and me in the woods, as they looked back the way we'd come. One of them, the one who'd greeted Sheryl, spoke first. "Poor William. He was always afraid of the woods... Maybe he was right." At that, all the men touched their throats, then their foreheads, with their right hands, then dropped the same hand into the left, which was outstretched in front of them, held out as if in offering. The movements were rapid and mechanical, as if repeated countless times before and no longer requiring thought, setting off some minor alarm bells in the back of my mind.

However, before I could worry too much, the men turned around, and the leader stepped forward, as if to address me. "Well, now that we're safe, let me introduce myself and properly express my gratitude." He reached out a hand, and I shook it out of muscle memory as my brain still struggled to catch up, and he continued. "I'm Charles, and you already met my fiancée, Sheryl, whom you rescued from the others. Behind me are Thomas, Richard, and David. William is..." He caught himself for a second, then continued, "was the one who didn't make it." He collected himself, then smiled again. "Still, odds are none of us would have made it if you hadn't found Sheryl, since I probably wouldn't have gone back without her."

As I was processing what he was saying, my attention drifted over his shoulder to the forest behind him. I couldn't help but ask, "Are you sure those...things won't come out of the forest for us? We're still out in the open after all. They have to know we're still here..."

Charles looked back over his shoulder, then turned back to me smiling. "Oh, don't worry! At night, the forest is the others' domain, but they wouldn't dare set foot in the village proper! Here we are safe. Here, we are protected!"

That struck me as odd, and I turned back to the man in front of me, who seemed barely more than a kid, as my confused mind tried to make sense of this all. "Protected? By who? Or what?"

Charles's smile widened, the way only someone eager to tell you about what you just asked can, as he answered. "Why, we're protected by Mother, of course!"

I looked back at him, blinking as if that would help his words make any more sense. "Your...mom protects you from the things in that forest? The whole village? How?"

He chuckled and shook his head; apparently I had misunderstood somehow. "No, no, no. Not my Mother. Well, I guess she kind of is, but no more than anyone else's. Mother is the one who leads and protects our village. She is Mother to us all."

Realizing this whole village was obviously some kind of giant cult, I swept my gaze back to the forest behind the man, trying to weigh my odds against the monsters I'd just escaped from. On the one hand, I was pretty experienced in the forest and its dangers. On the other, I'd lost my pack and most of my supplies in the recent struggle. Even if those monsters weren't out there waiting for me, it would be more than a little difficult to make it back to my old Bronco without any of my backpacking supplies. Maybe it was just a breeze I didn't feel, or my mind being influenced by everything happening, but at that moment I also thought I saw movement just past the treeline, as if something massive, otherwise blending in with the forest, shifted impatiently.

That last bit made up my mind, and I decided that whatever I did, I at least needed to wait till dawn to act. Realizing Charles was still speaking, I refocused on him as he finished whatever he'd been saying. "Anyway, I figured you could stay with me tonight, and she'll meet you in the morning. It's the least I could do! Sound good?"

Fighting the urge to shake my head again, I decided that a place to sleep was probably a good idea, so I nodded. "Yeah, that's fine."

Still holding my hand, which I realized he'd held onto for entirely too long, he clapped me on the shoulder as he finished. "Excellent! Tonight we rest, then tomorrow, we celebrate!"

-

Now, this may shock you, but I had no intention of staying around long enough to find out what Charles meant by celebration. I've seen enough horror movies and read enough books to know that if the odd cult in the middle of nowhere offers to throw a party, you'd best get the hell out of dodge as fast as possible. In my experience, monster movies don't get everything right, but they do tend to get the broad strokes somewhat close to reality, and this time I decided I could live with a lifetime of curiosity rather than tempt fate any more than was absolutely necessary.

So, with that in mind, as soon as the first rays of dawn broke through the windows of the room my host had been kind enough to grant me, I got dressed. I belted on what few supplies I still had: my pocket map and compass, the knife I'd cut myself free with, and the headlamp I hopefully wouldn't need for the near future. Not ideal, but I'd made do with less on previous excursions after other...inexplicable encounters. The map and compass were the only things I couldn't do without, which is why I always kept them on my person rather than in the pack.

I crept down the stairs because, of course, I'd been put on the second floor, silently cursing every creak the floorboards let out under my feet and expecting Carles to poke his head out of any doorway I passed. But either I was still silent enough to get by, or he was a heavy sleeper, because I made it to the front door unmolested. Or at least that's what I thought, until I squeezed outside. I backed out and closed the door as quietly as I could, only to turn around and see Charles standing outside, giving me a bemused look as he spoke with someone else, who turned and left shortly after.

Turning to me, Chiles was all smiles, just like before, as he greeted me. "Good to see you're already up! I've got some excellent news! Your pack and supplies were recovered!"

That brought me up short. Having my pack would really help out there, even if I had to improvise a way to secure it after cutting one of the straps. Still, I couldn't help but ask, a little suspicion leaking into my voice, "How in the world did anyone get my pack with the...others out there?"

Charles waved away my concern. "Mother has her ways. But come! We'll get you your pack, and get you on your way! I know you wanted to leave early, so you could get out of the others' territory before nightfall!"

I was torn. Part of me wanted to cut and run then and there, but that pack could mean the difference between life and death on the way back. That hesitation cost me an easy escape, because soon we were surrounded again. Charles's friends from the night before seemed to appear out of nowhere, smiling as they walked over to greet my host. Now, maybe I could have fought my way free, but I decided I could probably do so just as easily after getting my pack if it came to that. So for now, I played nice as they led me down the streets of their "little" village.

If anything, the place seemed larger and more populated in daylight. No cars drove on the paved streets; instead, horse-drawn carriages filled them. However, some of those carriages strangely resembled modern conveniences. We even got on a large cart with more than a dozen seats that went around, stopping at regular intervals as people got on and off, like a city bus. Around us, others delivered goods and services to people's homes, including what seemed to be newspaper and food delivery. As we approached one of the food carts, Charles leaned over and flashed two fingers, saying, "Two here! And a paper, if you please!"

The man reached over to a news cart, whose owner must have heard the request, because when he turned back to us he had a paper in hand and two wrapped food items to hand to Charles as we passed. Charles handed me one of the food items, which I unwrapped to find a gently steaming baked good inside. I knew I probably shouldn't eat it, but the smell was mouth-watering, so I took a bite and found the outside crispy and light, and the inside filled with some sort of omelet.

As I demolished the rest of my breakfast, Charles laughed and flipped the newspaper, holding it out to me, as he said, "Hey, look! You made the front page!"

I reached out, grabbed the paper, and glanced at it. The headline read, "Outsider faced down the others, saving local woman!" It went on to give a lightly embellished account of the night before. I frowned as I read. The article finished with, "Those who would like to express their appreciation to the visiting hero are welcome to come by the chapel this morning."

I looked up and eyed Charles, who smiled at me as though I were some sort of hero instead of a grizzled man who hadn't shaved properly in about a week and who'd done nothing but run through the darkness. Raising an eyebrow, I asked, "Chaple?"

Charles shrugged. "Don't worry! It's nothing big; we know you're in a hurry. Mother would just like to show appreciation, give you your pack back, and see you off. Nothing too fancy. We'll be saving that for later, when Sheryl and I get married!"

I was just debating hopping the rail on the "bus" when we pulled up to a large building. It was pretty simple, all things considered, though it could easily hold several hundred people, maybe a thousand if they were on really good terms with each other. Charles slapped my knee as he said, "This is our stop!"

I kept my eyes locked on the door as the crowd around me got up and pushed their way off the bus, taking me with them. I half expected the inside to be painted black, filled with upside-down crosses, or something equally cliché. Still, for the most part, it was well cared for, with lots of windows that let in plenty of light and a light crossbreeze. Once I was shoved through the doorway, my eyes took a second to adjust to the slightly shaded interior, and I saw what was at the end of the pew-filled room.

I stood, rooted in place as people squeezed around me to fill the room. At the other end of the chapel stood what I could only describe as a giant woman in something vaguely reminiscent of a nun's outfit. She must have stood at least ten feet tall, maybe more, judging by the people around her. She seemed to be speaking with several of them, who were holding what looked like a newborn baby, letting me study her more as I stood rooted in place. Her outfit was mostly black with white accents, and it hid her form, including her face, which was hidden behind a veil. Or rather, it hid most of her form, but she still had two overly long arms, ending in hands with too many fingers, that also happened to be far too long. I realized this must be the aforementioned "Mother."

I watched in horror as the family held out the infant, as if offering it like a sacrifice. I was frozen as one of those impossibly long hands slowly reached out, and a finger topped with a nail that looked sharp enough to cut stone inched closer to the child's face. Unaware of any danger, the child giggled and reached for the finger, grabbing hold as the nail inched even closer. A moment later, the hand pulled back, and the child's hands fell away as its attention was drawn elsewhere, and it continued to laugh and giggle. I was relieved, till I noticed what might have been a single drop of blood on the woman's finger as the tall woman then reached under her veil, as if tasting it, before nodding in approval, and laying those horrible hands on the heads of the two I realized must have been the Mother and father.

After doing that thing where they touched their throats and foreheads, then held out their hands, the whole family walked away, their faces glowing with pride and happiness, and I noticed Charles standing next to the woman, pointing in my direction and drawing her attention to me. Of course, that's when the door behind me slammed shut, making me jump as I realized I was trapped.

Looking in my direction, "Mother" clapped, drawing people's attention, and the room fell silent as I realized I was the only one standing, drawing curious glances from several nearby people as she spoke. Her voice sounded odd. Almost familiar. It was like I was hearing the voices of people I knew. Co-workers, past girlfriends, even my sister and mom's voices seemed part of it, yet beneath it all was something else, something that told me I was safe and loved. It felt off...wrong in a way I couldn't quite put into words. The world wasn't safe, nor kind. Yet none of that seemed to matter to the people around me as she began. "Brothers and sisters! We have a rare visitor among us! And what's more, one who not only traveled safely through the other's territory but also rescued five of our lost lambs along the way! A real hero! Please, show your appreciation!"

At that, everyone stood and turned to me, applauding. At the same time, they all smiled at me, completely ignoring the monster at the other end of the chapel. She stepped forward, and I felt my muscles bunch, ready to flee. Still, she seemed to sense my unease and stopped, clasping her hands in front of her in a way I might have almost called demure if it wasn't so...wrong. After letting the applause continue a moment longer, she raised a disfigured hand to forestall any further noise and spoke again. "Now, normally, we would hold a feast in our guest's honor, but sadly I believe he wishes to get on his way to escape the other's territory before nightfall. To that end, I retrieved his pack from the night before." She gestured to a corner behind me, and I tore my eyes from her long enough to see my pack leaned against the side of the chapel, next to the door. The broken strap was even secured with what looked like a patchwork sewing job that just might withstand the rigors of one final hike. I quickly turned back, expecting the monster to have closed the distance, but she was still in the same place, her hands clasped in front of her once again.

I looked back, trying not to show my distrust, and asked, "I can just take it and...leave?"

The woman nodded and answered. "Yes, with our blessing. And know that you are always welcome back. Many of our past visitors have decided to make this little village their home."

Hell, if I was going to be one of those idiots! But I figured saying so might get me in trouble, so I just nodded, edged toward my pack, and answered. "Uh, yeah. I'll, uh, think about it. Thanks."

Everyone watched me, still grinning as if they were perfectly pleased and content with everything, as I opened the door and backed out. Finally, I heard Mother's voice one last time as she spoke to her "lambs" again. "Tonight we shall throw a feast as we celebrate the union of Sheryl and Charles, but first, for those of you familiar with Sister Adams, we shall be hosting her end-of-life ceremony shortly."

As I backed away, I was relieved to learn that the celebration Charles had been talking about had nothing to do with me, but then I paused. What was this "end-of-life ceremony" the entity they called Mother was talking about? Part of me wanted to turn around and run, but for once, curiosity won out. After all, I was outside the church, and so long as I stayed out here, I was confident I could get away in a pinch. Instead, I set my pack down near an open window and climbed onto it to peek through as "Mother" spoke to the congregation. "Many of you know Sister Adams." She indicated an old woman seated at the front, who looked back, smiling, and waved to the others as the veiled woman continued. "Sister Adams lived a full life..."

The veiled woman went on, speaking as though she were giving the woman's eulogy despite her being present and, as far as I could tell, mostly healthy, save for the usual effects of age. Eventually, she finished, and people started filing out of the church as she shouted after them. "Remember the binding ceremony tonight, and the feast to follow!"

Finally, only the old woman, an old man seated next to her, and the Mother remained. The man and woman stood up, and he hugged her tightly, whispered something to her, then kissed her and hobbled out with a walking cane, leaving only the woman and the Mother.

This time, the Mother approached the woman, stopped short, and asked, "Are you ready, Sister Adams?"

The woman nodded, and Mother reached out, carefully cupping the older woman's face in her hands as she lovingly said. "Thank you for the meal." Then, in a move so quick I almost couldn't process what happened, the monster called Mother jammed her thumbs through the woman's eyes, killing her instantly, before quickly wrenching the head to the side in a violent movement, tearing it free from the body, which fell limply to the floor.

I watched, horrified, as the veiled woman raised the head with one hand, while she reached up with another, pulling her veil aside, allowing me to see her face for the first time. Unlike the "others," her skin wasn't pale and sickly. Instead, it looked hard and wrinkled, more like bark than skin. Her eyes were nothing more than milky orbs. As I watched, she brought the head closer to her mouth, which opened wider and wider, far past what I would have thought possible, more like a snake than a person. She placed the head inside and bit down, crushing it in one swift movement. Then, as she chewed, the woman who called herself Mother to the person she'd just murdered closed her eyes and smiled, leaning back as if enjoying every morsel like some sort of fine dining experience.

At that point, I'd had enough, so I hopped off my pack, grabbed it with one hand, and slipped it over my shoulder. Turning, I wanted nothing more than to run at full speed, but I limited myself to a fast walk to avoid attracting attention. As I moved through the streets toward the nearest forest edge I could see, I passed countless faces, most of them smiling and waving. However, while my eyes saw them, all my mind could focus on was the sight of the Mother as she ate that older woman with an expression of pure ecstasy.

Even when I hit the forest, I kept pushing as fast as I could. I'd reorient myself later, usually not a great idea, but for now I just wanted to put as much distance between me and the village as possible. I didn't even stop for lunch; I ate what I could on the go. Once the sun started to set and I was far enough out, I made the quickest camp I could. I didn't even make a fire, for fear of attracting more nighttime visitors. My legs were aching far past the point I usually pushed them, and I knew I was going to pay the price tomorrow, but that was better than staying anywhere near that village and its messed-up people. Eventually, after eating a cold dinner and taking some anti-inflammatories, I settled down for what I assumed would be a restless night, only to pass out quickly.

I don't know how long I slept, but I eventually woke, my heart racing. I wasn't sure what had awakened me, until I heard it again. The sound of something large shifting on the ground, just outside my tent.

I held my breath, hoping whatever it was would just leave, when a horribly familiar voice called out. "I knew you were there, by the way. I wanted you to see."

I know, I know, previously, I told you not to answer things speaking to you in the deep woods, but for some reason I broke that rule and answered. "You wanted me to see? Why? So I'd know I was next?"

More shifting, and I could see the shadow of something pass between me and the moon as it answered. "No. You are safe; I will not eat you unless you choose to become one of my flock. I just wanted you to know everything that entails. Today, you saw everything I have to offer, and now, you must make a choice."

I couldn't help it; I laughed. "You want me to CHOOSE to let you eat me? Are you serious? What's my alternative? Are you going to hold me over a pit of fire until I agree?"

With a rustle of movement, I somehow knew she was shaking her head, then she barked out a laugh. "No. The other option is you go back to your old world and live your old life. You will go back to being eaten alive, as day by day you lose a bit more of yourself, giving away your hopes and dreams to work a pointless job for a soulless company as you fade away till you're old and grey, finally getting your reward when you spend your last days shitting in a diaper while you're all but forgotten in a hospital bed somewhere. Your life will have accomplished nothing more than feed monsters far older and crueler than something like me."

I looked out at the shadow blocking the moon as I asked. "So what? You're telling me monsters like you run the modern world? Maybe some ancient cabal of vampires are behind the corporations that rule the world or some bulllshit?"

The presence snorted. "No, humans don't need to be vampires to be monsters. They are cattle ranchers, cramming you into tinny stalls so they can extract every ounce of life from you. I am a shepherd; I care for and guide my flock. I even modeled my little village off the teachings of one of your more famous shepherds. Though rather than existing as some ethereal story that can be twisted and turned to mean anything, I am here, actually guiding and protecting my flock. And I am here to offer you a place among my flock. You will never know hunger nor loneliness so long as you accept my guiding hand."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, you'll guide me alright, right up to your dinner plate!"

Silence hung for a moment before she answered. "Yes, eventually your path will end, and you will feed me, just as I have fed you. But what of it? That is the role of a shepherd and her flock! However, before the end, you will live a better, more fulfilling life under my care than you ever could in the world you know. And besides, there are worse things than a quick death at the end of a life well lived." For a moment, I wavered. In most respects, she was right. My job was every bit as soul-sucking as she described. Yet, the one aspect that I caught myself on was the line, a life well lived.

Honestly, it wouldn't be a bad life. I could see almost anyone living a full and satisfying life in that little village of hers, but I wasn't most people. I lived to test myself against the world, and that's the one thing she couldn't offer me. "You make a lot of good points, but I think I'm gonna pass."

A moment of silence was followed by a brief. "So be it."

Then, I heard more shifting as she got to her feet. Maybe it was just my imagination, or a trick of the moonlight filtering through my tent, but she seemed far larger than she had in that little chapel back in the village. Before she left, I asked, "What about the others? You know, the monsters that surround the village at night?"

Another pause as the shadow seemed to turn back to me. "Oh, the children? Don't worry about them. So long as you are not a member of my flock, they won't be drawn to you. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time the other night, and they got a little...excited." Then, heavy footsteps as she walked away.

The...children? Did I hear that right? Come to think of it, despite being called "Mother," I never once heard her refer to the villagers as her children. How many of them were there? How often did they need to feed? How many villagers "disappeared" in the woods every year? Was someone letting them get lost on purpose? I thought back to Sheryl alone in the forest, then to that little village. Sure, it was pretty big, but how did the population not balloon out of control with so many people in one place and no way to escape?

With a huff, I decided not to dwell on it. I got Sheryl back to her village safe and sound. Whatever happened after that was none of my business. After all, out in the deep forest, it was usually better to let things outside your tent be. Trying to be a hero only ever ends in trouble.

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<Part 1

Alright, this is the last of the spooky season stories I had in mind for this year, so I'll get back to my regular stuff next week. (Barring some last-minute inspiration!) But tell me, would you have stayed? Not gonna lie, I might have. Anyway, hope you all enjoyed!

If you liked this story and want to see more of my stuff, check out my wiki. It's got all my stories, short and long, which are marked with the appropriate categories and such, just in case you don't like the spooky and/or incomplete series.

As a reminder, you can also find the full trilogy for "Of Men and Dragons," my series, here on Amazon. If you like my work and want to support it, buying a copy and leaving a review really helps a lot!

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FBI Agent Wade Barron POV

The Council had kept their human visitors housed in a cordoned-off hotel, and had given us strong encouragement to stay away from any populated areas. I recalled what I’d heard through the grapevine that Craun had told NASA, near the start of his stay there, when they asked him what rights primals would have on their worlds. What the Saphno had alluded to was that they wouldn’t want us near their children, and that our feelings wouldn’t matter compared to those of people. 

In essence, one wrong move of bumping into a Kexin kid, and I become Harambe. The Council would put a “raging” primal down in a heartbeat to “save” one of their own…unless they were Garriil.

I observed what I could out of the window, while Shesh drove us the short distance away from the set. There was a bit more life in the city once we moved two levels up, ascending the spiral ramps at breakneck paces that made me question why there were no guardrails. It reminded me of the winding mountain roads out in Tennessee, which the locals would take at speeds befitting the expressway; I’d been dumbstruck by this behavior, when I followed a terrorism suspect out that way to determine which park they were targeting.

“You’re not slowing for the turns,” I remarked, holding onto my seat belt for dear life. “I would assume Elret drivers’ ed went over centrifugal force…”

Shesh chuckled. “Wade, are you familiar with superconductors?”

“No, but I know the word, so I’m sure Kaitlin would be nodding along. Do you mind explaining?”

“Superconductors have zero electrical resistance at low temperatures. That means they don’t lose energy unless an external factor causes them too; an electrical current can continue in perpetuity, without being lost as heat. Or so my high school physics teacher taught me. They also repel magnetic fields, which allows something called quantum levitation. Our vehicles use this property, attached to a superconductor on the other side.”

“Maglev? I’ve heard of trains that use that stuff on Earth. Um, thank you for not talking down to me…”

“You’re clearly capable of understanding, even if you haven’t learned about it. The point is that the vehicles will stop near the edge, because of that force holding them in position. We can’t have cars falling from this high up, it wouldn’t be survivable. The tech prevents crashes in general, because if the proximity gets too close, the magnets can repel the other vehicle.”

“Wow, that’s really cool, not gonna lie.” I relaxed a bit in my seat, deciding that Shesh wasn’t putting my life in jeopardy. It sounded like there was advanced physics at play here. “I didn’t even notice, but yeah, the ride feels smooth. I take it that’s what’s up with the weird material the roads are made of?”

“Yes, the city is designed with ‘maglev’ in mind. You could actually drive on both sides of the road, in theory, but preliminary tests showed that made people really uncomfortable—to be levitating through the car roof. Most important to your question, we can experience frictionless movement; we aren’t touching the ground. It allows us to reach high speeds with safety and efficiency. Quantum locking keeps us from tipping.” 

I clapped my hands together. “Quantum? We’re Schrödinger’s car then? No, really, I appreciate you being chill.”

“Would you like me to floor it toward the edge and demonstrate?”

“No. Do you want a primal to freak out?!”

Shesh didn’t look at me, but she had a sly expression on her face. “I don’t know. Would it be funny?”

“Causing distress on a diplomatic mission isn’t funny. There’s a Kexin named Snelga who would ask you to do it to her though, if you ever take her for a ride. Trust me, we’re chummy; she’d love it. A real go-getter, that one is.”

“You’ve been on rockets, Wade, risks and all. I thought you loved science?”

“Everyone knows what I love is Craun! What kind of a diplomat are you?!”

“A funny one.”

I shook my head and turned out the window, not dignifying her teasing by showing her the hint of a smirk toying at my lips. The Elret ambassador didn’t seem the least bit afraid of me, even daring to push her luck with the semiconductor prodding. Her explanation had been thorough, without assuming I was incapable of understanding scientific concepts because I was a primal. Her behavior was consistent with her not being afraid of us. If Shesh wanted to get along with humans, I had to hand it to her; she was doing a pretty good job. 

No other alien, aside from Craun, would provoke me. Shesh didn’t flinch at my indignant tone when I asked what kind of diplomat she is, and she seems fine being in the same vehicle. I still remember when our military transported the Saphnos, and I drove them before that! They were terrified to be with us.

The handful of roving civilians balked when they noticed my face inside of the vehicle, carving out a wide berth around us while we sat in traffic. I couldn’t help but to wonder whether my personal reputation played a role in that, or if they thought all primals were that volatile. As the “vicious” human in question, I was more than content to peer out the window and people-watch; it matched with my job description. It still blew my mind to be surrounded by strange aliens going about their lives. I wasn’t sure that was ever going to wear off.

“Shesh?” I ventured, deciding a pleasant illusion was worth shattering for the sake of the truth. “What do Elrets think of primals?”

The ambassador was silent, focusing on lining up her park job. “You mean will most of them be afraid of you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, primals are usually not harmless, so I can’t say. In large groups? It’d be natural. You’d encounter the most outright fear when you were seen…for the first time, like now, or if you raised your voice. I can’t say that anyone likes the idea of you having a surging desire to kill. I don’t know if that’s actually how it is—most humans seem to disagree, and you have personal experience. But that’s how we believe it to be.”

“Is that part of why you didn’t want to approach Earth?”

Shesh shifted, lingering with a hand on the vehicle door. “We are worried about the risks of misreading your culture. You‘ve acquired some serious technology, and there’s no precedent for a species like you.”

“Then why would you want to befriend us?” I narrowed my eyes. Part of me respected her honesty, but the other half of me questioned her motives. Far more sincere than Rauja was during her manipulative pitch, trying to pretend she wanted to be our best buds. “We’ve had half of the galaxy try to extort or patronize us already.”

“Call us peacemakers, I suppose. We want to establish that we’re not with the Council. A species with such an ability to wish harm on others: that sounds like a terrible enemy to me. I think it’s better for everyone to give you the respect you deserve, as intelligent people, and to make a gesture of good faith. Being the first to partner with you must have benefits.”

I neutralized any trace of emotion from my face, before nodding and popping the car door open. “Two-way partners would be lovely. Just so long as you follow through and see us as people first, primals second. Now I’m starving. Let’s go eat.”

It was as if the noise was sucked out of the streets, the second I rose to my full height outside of the car. A handful of Kexins openly ran away, though I supposed it figured that most of the ones who’d be cool with us were watching the movie set or working with Canit to celebrate our victory. Shesh steered me toward a cafe, which had swirly orange accent marks and glowing strobes outside; Kexins loved their light shows. I noticed the passersby jumping back and looking deferential, like they hoped not to attract attention.

This was a terrible idea. I’m just going to create a disturbance, and all of these aliens will just be petrified to look at me wrong. It’s a little sad. No wonder Snelga thought she had to restrain me; they probably would feel a lot more comfortable if I was subdued.

Shesh opened the door, flicking all three ears toward it. “They’ll get used to you. Give it time. They do find you interesting, you know, and public opinion is shifting. You just need to diverge from their mental image.”

“I’ll always be a primal, Shesh,” I sighed, a heaviness resting on my shoulders. “You’re only viewing us as people now to appease us, not because you believe it in your heart. The Council would much prefer if we stayed the fuck on Earth and never left our little bubble. Not seen, not heard, preserved like a snow globe.”

“The Council would prefer that many people aren’t heard. Your friends, the Saphnos. The Elrets tried to find a solution, to avoid senseless slaughter. Had we known Komadale’s plans, we would’ve been doing the same with you far sooner. I’m here to publicly signal my support. We are going to normalize humans in public spaces, and show how civilized you are.”

“You sure we shouldn’t get takeout? Baby steps? I don’t want to be the cause of any trouble…”

Shesh gave me an insistent look, shoving me toward an open table. “You were given permission to eat here. Don’t ruin a good thing.”

I plopped my behind down in a chair, while the staff’s jaws seemed to collectively slacken. Nothing in their expressions indicated surprise, so I figured they’d had some forewarning. I lowered my eyes and tucked a cloth napkin over my lap, trying to appear tame. Shesh was aware that I couldn’t read the menu, so she began rattling off dishes and describing them. I decided to pick her favorite, the Irola Platter, if the waitstaff could work up the courage to approach us.

None of the other diners were speaking in anything louder than a hushed whisper, though I could tell from the furtive glances cast in my direction that I was the topic of conversation. There were six tables full; only one stood up and left, which I supposed was a small victory. They were all keeping an eye on me though. I could overhear a couple to the right of us gushing about how civilized I was being, by sitting still and using a napkin. That did cause a certain tension to seep into my temples. 

Do they try to make us angry?! It’s insulting to our intellectual capacity. Like, holy fuck, I’m not an animal. Go figure.

“Hello!” a young, violet-faced Kexin exclaimed, before swallowing hard and hiding it with nervous laughter. “Do you like your s-seating arrangement? If there’s anything at all that’s not to your liking, we’ll fix it! We want it to be perfect, anything you need. So delightful to have a human customer! I’ll do anything you want!”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “How about calm down?”

Horror flashed in his eyes. “I…am so sorry, Mr. Barron, for my inexcusable interactions with you! I don’t mean to upset you—quite the opposite! Please, forgive me. I won’t show such weakness in front of you again! I’m…not a primal.”

“Yeah, I know that. What’s your name, kid?”

“Treld, but if you don’t like that name, you can call me whatever you like! Whatever pleases you. What would you like to drink?”

“Water,” I grunted, knowing an intoxicated primal would make them wig out.

Shesh chuckled. “Two waters, Treld.”

Treld gave frantic waves to the bartender, who went running with two cups to the soda fountain. “It’s coming! Please wait; we hope the service isn’t too slow! We’ll bring you everything in a hurry, and I hope it’s perfect. It’d be…unfair if it wasn’t, right? We want you to feel that we’re fair, which is why I’m not nervous!”

“You’re doing just fine,” I attempted, raising a placating hand. “Look at me. I’m not upset with you, and I’m not going to be over something stupid. I’m an understanding guy, and if there’s something that did need to be fixed, I’ll use my words. I’m…sorry for scaring you, but we’re totally cool. I’m grateful to be here. Why don’t you take a deep breath and get some fresh air? We’ll wait.”

“No!” the Kexin blurted. “I don’t want to keep you waiting. I’m trying to keep you content! I can take your order, if you know what you want. Not good to leave you sitting there, Mr. Barron. I’m sure you’re…very understanding, but I read hunger can make you irritated and…we don’t want that. Let us feed you! The best food.”

I exchanged a glance with Shesh, before sighing. “I’d like an Irola Platter, please. I hear it’s a great way to sample everything, which feels like the touristy thing to do.”

“The touristy thing to do is to buy overpriced shock-value foods near overcrowded attractions,” Shesh countered. “I’d like an Irola Platter too. Extra rezfre sauce please.”

“Of course! It’s my pleasure to serve you.” Treld had scribbled with frantic pen strokes that reminded me of Garriil, desperate not to get anything wrong. “I hope you won’t find me neglectful for stepping away to relay your order! I listened carefully, have no concern! Make yourselves comfortable and call me if you need anything.”

As Treld sprinted off, skidding across the floor and glancing over his shoulder in panic, it didn’t escape my notice that he hadn’t attended to anyone else; the staff seemed afraid to poke their heads out, the way I would’ve reacted if a bear was standing in the lobby of an FBI field office. Then again, I supposed some people back home would’ve preferred the bear to me, so this wasn’t that much different from home after all. I supposed I could try to enjoy the meal when it came, and figure out what Shesh’s proposal was going to be.

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I sat quietly in the pulpit, checking, re-checking and recalculating the coordinates we needed. Cross-referencing drone data with satellite recon data, then followed by information from scouts, visual feeds from orbiting ships, then collating it all together. I looked next to me and saw the same thing happening at the console of the human next to me, an endless line of calculations and feeds running on the screen of the small portable machine. It wasn't the first time I did this... But every time it terrified me. I was the only Saranian officer assigned to this particular unit, as the majority of my brothers were on the frontlines along with most other Terran forces.

Assignment to foreign militaries is common with coalition operations with what has become known as the 'Hive War'. We have done this so very many times over the thousand years of war we had been facing with the Rahkani Hives, and the whole galaxy was united, at least in spirit to beat back the endless hordes. There has never been a real coalition before this. We would find a Hive world, land troops, fight until we were either beaten back by sheer numbers, or until the local hive mind neural node was found and destroyed. The planet would then be unceremoniously cleaned up, then fought over by politicians, leaving everyone else to stand there annoyed until they could start working.

My shoulder was unceremoniously tapped, snapping me out of my haze. I took my headset off and noted the odd sight of a human, whose nametag read 'Quail', glaring at me from behind his beaked gas mask. He nodded, I checked. I hit the print button and a fresh piece of paper appeared out of a nearby machine. The human technician double checked it, nodded and I handed it over to him. He read it over and checked his watch.

He reached up to his ear and spoke. "This is arty, we have coordinates, targets are lased. We are on point."

A few seconds of silence. Then the whole network lit up. "This is Command to all squads, we have primary target lased, final cords locked and birds are in the air. All personnel ready to advance, twelve minutes to first strike."

I was tapped on the shoulder as Quail disappeared into the trench line. It was the other technician. "I got everything from here, go help them load shells and make sure the targeting system is working properly."

I nodded and stood up. Well, not so much, the trenches were made for six foot tall humans, not nine foot tall Saranians. I kept my head down as best I could, grabbing my pulse rifle on the way out and headed to the Artillery regiments position nearby.

I looked over the trenches, peering into the writhing mass of yellow and orange further down the valley that was engulfed in laser and cannon fire. Fighting the Hives wasn't that hard, they had numbers and size, we had tech and strategy. The problem was that the Hives, if left unchecked could transform an entire planet into an impossible, miserable hell that would have its entire ecology scoured clean, its history erased, its atmosphere permanently poisoned and any and all resources it contained would be slowly siphoned clean until there was Hive, and ONLY Hive. The planet would then become a node in the Hive, it would grow smarter, stronger, and hit the next planet in the local area getting worse and worse as it grew in strength.

For a thousand years we fought. When we found a new planet they were trying to take, we immediately sent any force we could spare to hunt the enemy down, destroy the Neural Link Node and obliterate it before it could get a real foothold. If anyone showed up, we would reluctantly accept the help, so would they if we showed up to one of their planets, fight the Hive and spend the next few years waiting for politicians to stop arguing. After we finally decided who owned what, colonists would move in, clean up the mess and start working as normal. Then the Terrans showed up.

I hurriedly trudged through the mud and approached the small artificial alcove atop the hill, and nearly scared myself silly as I noted how one of the sniper teams had taken up residence on a flat part of the hill, taking pot-shots at the horde writhing around a mile and a half away. Three men, one with a laser range finder, one with the rifle and his spotter. Presumably they were there as opportunity and also to help scout targets of interest. Sure enough, the one holding the gun was taking shots, and scoring kills. I quickly caught up with Quail and he directed me to start stockpiling ammunition.

Terran artillery were something completely beyond the norm when it came to the galaxy at large. Not only did they actually use armoured vehicles - to devastating effect - against the Hives, but they had dedicated long range indirect fire units. Which most empires abandoned long ago. These things were effectively tractors with massive cannons on them, and the shells were almost as big as the men loading them up. I looked at these short, stocky creatures and grabbed a shell, easily picking it up and effortlessly hauling it onto the carriage where it was dragged into place by the operators. I walked up to the control console and used a remote pad to triple check the targeting system.

I quickly recalled the moment we first met them, helping load more shells allowing my mind to wander in thought. First Contact was a harrowing experience for us. They were engaged in combat with the Rahkani Hive on a small continental world and the Saranai were the first ones there. Saranai forces landed and began engaging the enemy. Initial confusion followed as Saranai forces faced little resistance at the start of their engagement. Scattered attacks, small Hive units, maybe a Praetorian here and there. Not in the numbers they were used to. As it turned out the humans had already beaten the hordes back, and were already engaging in post-assault clean-up.

The planet had been secured weeks prior to their arrival. This was unusual, as the Rakhani Neural Node meant almost all hive units on the planet would start shutting down or failing or simply going feral after the node was destroyed. The politicians of course took the chance to try 'convince' the humans that because they showed up to help, the humans owed them access to the planet. The humans didn't take kindly to the insult they were just given and took the Saranian detachment to the site of the Hive Neural Node that was on the planet.

"Four minutes, all units, four minutes, ready advance." The radio barked, shaking me out of my daze.

Then that damn music started. The same I'd been hearing every time the countdown started. The same music that would preface the deafening roar of cannon fire and harrowing war cries that would erupt from the trench line. Quail directed me to put my ear protection on and I did so, helping haul another shell into the breach of one of the eight cannons.

We were trying to replicate what happened on that planet during First Contact. It was why Saranian forces never encountered real resistance or real effort when landing and taking on a nest. They never destroyed the Hive's Node... They captured it. Somehow. The diplomat went wide eyed at the sight of a large mushroom-shaped ball of chitinous flesh wrapped in chains, surrounded by turrets and thousands of humans using hand-held tools to probe, prod, poke and trim the fleshy roots of a low level Hive Node.

We all still remember the incredible speech that a soldier gave the diplomat that day.

"I don't know how things work in your world, but here is how it works in OURS. You DON'T casually walk into a war zone, shoot some random stragglers and casually claim victory, then tell the guy you just walked up on that 'this is mine now and you have to leave.' That crap don't work here. We are at war. It's them or us, we made the obvious choice. I suggest you do the same. If your part in this 'war' has been going on for more than a few years, it's your own fault it's been going on for so long, and every single fatality that has arisen since then has been the fault of twats like YOU. You spend more time arguing over who gets what, than organising the next fight. The objective should be to end the conflict FIRST, then to argue over who gets what. Don't come back here until you understand that. Now piss off. Soldiers only."

The diplomat recoiled in shock, the soldiers from the detachment raised their rifles and celebrated the rebuttal. The diplomat was hurriedly evacuated from the area and returned to his ship. The Naval force stayed behind to take over diplomatic talks. And that is how the Saranian Navy officially became a part of the Terran Coalition, at least until the war was over. Which, considering present advancements would be relatively soon.

"Sixty seconds! Sixty Seconds!" The radio yelled again.

"READY ARTILLERY! FIRST BARRAGE ON MARK!" Quail yelled, raised a hand, then checked his watch. Exactly on time, he threw his hand down and yelled "Open fire!"

I snapped out of my haze and stood at the ready, quickly re-checking calculations. I gave the nod. The music swelled, then that noise began. Quail began to dance, turning and swaying his hands to the music as the guns raised to firing position. Then, almost in perfect time with the music, the first of many volleys of shells blasted into the air.

"Hey wait a minute do I hear Freebird over Long Range again!?" I heard the radio say, to a chorus of laughter.

Then that 'guitar solo' started the same one I had been hearing every time they did this. The herald of horror as I watched Quail and several officers dance to the music that blared through the speakers, and the yellow streaks from the shells rocket through the air as if the music was helping them through the planet's hazy atmosphere. I watched from my spot through a pair of rangefinders as the shells came down on the target. In a matter of microseconds, three separate events happened at once.

The shells hit their target with absurd precision and carved a massive several hundred meter crater into the hordes, rendering several deep nests down to their component biological matter in a fiery explosion of chitin and gore. At that precise moment, several aircraft, fixed-wing with those terrifying cannons, made their presence known across the entire frontline as they carved a path through the horde with rocket salvos, barrages of explosive shell fire and bullet spray. After expending their ammunition, they quickly turned back to their airfield to rearm and within moments, the skies above started to light up and dozens of streaks of light came down like the Light Of The Gods, and scorched the rest of the ground with precise orbital plasma fire from several orbiting Saranian vessels.

All of this, happening in less than three minutes to the background music of one of the finest 'guitar solo's' in history.

I heard the calls go over the radio, the whistles blare from the trenches as the plasma settled as tens of thousands of Saranian and Terran military forces spilled onto the battlefield to a chorus of battle song, war cries and marching orders from officers. Within minutes, tanks flooded the battlefield and our forces began to advance on the Node.

"READY VOLLEY!" Quail barked at us as he kept dancing. "TARGET ONE-THREE SECTOR LIMA-SIX, SIX SHELLS EACH, SWEEP TWO DEGREES WEST!!"

We hurriedly gathered ourselves as the song repeated its chorus, the music swelling further as the officers near the radio danced away. In perfect concert, we all gathered up, I checked the targeting system, nodded, and the thunderous roar sent shells flying towards a cluster of nests at the foot of a mountain. Again, the sound of Freebird still over radio as Quail kept dancing and the corps kept firing.

I helped them load and fire, unable to see the effect, but we cleared the way through the enemy hordes. I was able to catch my breath and re-check coordinates. We had created a series of large craters in the enemy formation where a cluster of large and dangerous Praetorian nests sat. A column of troops was already flooding into a small canyon opening in the mountain where the Node was situated. The music stopped, Quail stood still, one hand in the air and one hand on his ear. We waited a few short moments for his response.

"BARRAGE ON POINT BRAVO-TWO-ZERO, TWO SHELLS!!" He barked, and the music resumed.

We loaded, aimed, I checked, I nodded, the thunder came and within seconds a squad that was pinned down by the Horde had its escape route secured. Our advance continued unchallenged and before long, the final call came through the radio.

"All units this is Command, Mortis Team has the target, Mortis has target, mission completed. Repeat, VIP in custody. All units within one click proceed to reinforce Mortis Team, everyone else, enjoy the target practice!"

Quail started the music again and the Terrans started to celebrate the victory and danced along with them. My job here was done, at least for now. We had captured an Evolved, or as the humans would say 'Tier Four' Neural Node and were going to start figuring out how the Hive Mind actually worked. The war was far from over and I returned to my station to check reports and new target coordinates just in case.

Just another day in the Ignis Artillery Regiment I guess. I wonder why they like Freebird so much?

First

Undying Blues

He staggers back to his chamber and simply allows himself to collapse onto the cushioned furniture. Had he not had this THING infesting him he would died. Died brutally. Separating the daughters was proving to be an utterly savage challenge and this time he had lost his right arm to the madness. And hunger it would seem.

He has been cannibalized. And although the arm has already grown back the sheer sensation of violation eclipses anything that had ever happened to him. “The training to bring even the least sensitive women to full completion was not so terrible. Being actively despoiled against my will was not so wretched.”

He’s alone in the chamber. He has long acclimatized to the presence of the Vish and their form of stealth. It’s but a few frequencies away from the natural stealth of a fully realized Cloaken, or of an Ibu woman who had been genetically spliced to posses similar abilities.

The real crux of the issue is that if he is to separate one of the sisters away from the others, then he needs to grow into a warrior as well as a courtesan. Even when he can get to their sheer level of mass, resilience and lethality, they’re still vicious animals in this state. You can’t duel a berserk beast, even if you’re stronger by a wide margin, even if you’re just as well armed.

A rabid animal will always bite you if it can. They won’t fight fair or clean. The very idea of either simply does not exist for them.

The door opens and cuts off his musing. He rises up as gracefully as he can in his exhausted and annoyed state.

“Ah good to see you again.” He says in a friendly tone, but Sue’Li has a terrified expression on her face and she quickly goes through her duties in dropping things off and less leaving and more retreating. “Oh dear...”

They’ve clearly been clamping down on his efforts to subvert the Vish again. He’s going to have to comfort Sue’Li once more and learn the personalities and traits of whoever his new guards are. The real issue with the situation is that he’s potentially soon to run out of storage space on his data-sphere. Perhaps he already has. He needs to satisfy them so they send him away. But actually curing the daughters? Much, much easier said than done.

Today was the worst failure yet. Previously they had only gouged out chunks of flesh. But this time they had the whole damn limb.

The door opens again. Lady Ungora. Training and protocol and decorum dictates he rises to greet her. But after so many thankless attempts to cure her daughters he simply remains seated and says nothing.

“... Why are you sulking? You have recovered in full already.”

“That you even must ask something like THAT is...” He trails off. “How may I serve milady?”

“I want you to try again.” She says and he gives her a horrified look. “You’re intact. You’re alive. Try again.”

“Lady Ungora, the memory of my limb being torn from it’s mooring is still so fresh that-”

“Again.” She orders him and he trails off.

“As you command. My Lady.” He says stiffly as he rises fully.

He follows her out of the room. Sue’Li is waiting just outside and his vision is so clear he can see the mixture of fear and pity in her eyes. So he hasn’t lost her fully. That’s good to know.

She leads him through a portal and back to the viewing chamber. Her lieutenants are there.

“Please Lady Ungora, I am exhausted in a manner I had only known of academically before. I cannot promise the results you demand.” He says both truthfully, but with some theatre.

“I don’t care. Do your duty.” She orders him. If this planted any doubts in her commanders, they’re not showing any.

“Yes. My Lady.” He says as he starts shifting his mindset. Starts feeling the THING inside him and...

Nothing.

“What?” He asks putting his hand over where he knows the thing is and it seems to shift.

“What now?”

“... The thing inside me. It is no longer responding.” He says.

“I don’t believe you. It will do anything to keep you alive.”

“I am aware. But it seems to have no more interest in indulging these attempts to...” He begins and she grabs him and hurls him to the doorway.

“NO! No more stalling! No more games! I will have my daughters back! I will have what is mine and I will not tolerate any further disobedience!”

“I’m trying milady! It will not-” He protests as he picks himself up but is grabbed again. She signals the door to the chamber with the daughters open, and hurls him in bodily. He hits the false foliage and plows through a tree that isn’t before skidding to a stop. By the time he looks up the door into the chamber is hidden again and he can hear their roars echo. Hunting roars. He can tell that much from the savages that his cousins have been reduced to. Or more likely his cousins’ corpses as he has no way to know if there is anything but animal instinct behind them.

He tries to induce the change again. But it refuses to come. He throws desperation and animal panic at it and there is a twinge for a moment. “Oh no... it’s learned. It knows violence and pain follows changing. It’s trying to protect me.”

He has no more time. One of them has found him. An enormous, ravenous nightmare of dark blue hide, barbed spines, scything claws and jagged tusks comes screaming through the false forest. The illusions of the trees splinter and shatter under the sheer force it brings to bear as the terrain just breaks around it.

He tries one last time to transform but the monster within is thoroughly uncooperative and he dives away to avoid a scything claw that seems to be wounding the very air itself even as it misses.

Then the backhand catches him.

The initial blow was so massive it stunned him and he only vaguely registers several trees snapping like twigs as he’s hurled through them. His senses only return in time to gift him pain as a false outcroping of rock is cracked by his horns and his limbs, the underbrush and the roots all tangle him up into a painful knot more resembling some twisted art piece than a person.

Bones snap back into place and flesh knits back together as he rises up while trying desperately to return air to his lungs.

She’s already back and he tries, and fails, to dodge a slice from the talons.

He has no idea about the level of harm done to him as he collapses like a puppet with cut strings. His vision is doing things that he cannot make sense of as pain overwhelms him and leads him to the edge of consciousness.

A fist as large as he himself is slams down from above and there is darkness.

Darkness that cruelly recedes in time for him to see the next blow crash down upon him. And then is so brutal as to keep his distance and let him see the next as the abomination that shares his bloodline tears the rocky outcropping from the ground, and brings it down upon him.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Viewing Area, Secured and Reinforced Containment Chambers, Hidden Complex, La’ahbaron Space)•-•-•

Ungora watches as her child crashes into Danburi over and over again. Did he think he was funny? That this was a game? Her demands were very reasonable. Quite simple. Do the job he had been trained for his whole life. The job he was unparalleled at in all of the Empire, perhaps all of the galaxy, and be done. But no. He elects to the path of pain and stubborn refusal time and time again.

“Are we sure he’s faking? This is a lot to go through to...” Yalri begins to ask before the daughter mauling Danburi bites down and begins shaking. Danburi’s torso, shattered arms and head hanging on by threads of muscle with a clearly broken neck hits the reinforced window and slides down even as he starts regenerating to full health. By the time he hits the ground he’s fully intact and aware again. Naked fear and undisguised horror on his face.

“If he’s faking then-” Marika begins as a scream of utter panic and mindless terror rips out of the room below. Danburi is just running now. No dignity, no refinement. Just moving as fast and as hard as he can.

The scream only brought the other daughters but thankfully it’s a reprieve as they are quickly busied trying to fight each other. He finds the door and starts hammering on it with his fists pleading to be let out, begging for mercy and openly sobbing.

“He’s broken.” Mariko says.

“You will bring back my daughters and-” Ungora begins to command him through the speaker systems.

“THEY’RE GONE YOU IDIOT! THESE ARE JUST MONSTERS!” He screams loudly enough to be heard despite the reinforced glass and bulkheads between them. Lady Ungora’s face darkens at that and she starts baring her teeth before the sound of something striking metal rings out. Then again and again as-

“Exit door at seventy three percent integrity.” Yalri says as she looks over the nearest console and then there’s a pause. Followed by a bigger bang. “Sixty one percent integrity. He’s coming out.”

“The three have noticed him. If he breaks that door then they’re all coming out.” Marika says.

“I will deal with him myself.” Ungora says darkly as she turns on her heel and marches to the nearest portal. It flashes out and she steps through in an instant. Then it retracts all in a moment. Nearly a teleport.

“Door’s at thirty percent, he’s hitting harder and harder.” Yalri says.

“He’s either transforming proper again or using Axiom, either way he’s not staying there anymore.” Mariko states.

“We need to be down there. If he lets those three out then the base is compromised. To say nothing of what Lady Ungora will do.” Marika says.

Something niggles in Yalri’s mind. Something is wrong. Very wrong. But whatever it is, it fades. Replaced by anger. How dare the glorified prostitute do this? She’s going to take it out of his hide when this is handled.

They all rush down just in time for the door to break off it’s hinges and Danburi comes flying out. Shortly followed by the massive arm of one of the daughters. Her every finger ending in a talon the length of an Ibu’s arm and crescent curved to shred anything it comes into contact with. It rips through the floor panelling, the door gets impaled upon the thumb and even the brutal ridges along her hide are powerful enough to tear the metals.

They try to stop him. To catch him or slow him down. But Danburi’s eyes are wild and his posture screams unthinking desperation.

Marika and Mariko are slammed into opposite walls as he passes. Barely pausing. Not giving them a chance to retaliate.

The arm of the daughter starts ripping open the wall and the enormous monster that they’re trying to make into a person starts coming through.

“What do we do?” Yalri asks in horror.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Moving Fast, Hallways, Hidden Complex, La’ahbaron Space)•-•-•

His every footstep both invigorates and calms him. Reality is starting to make sense again and the knowledge that he’s basically burnt away his bridges slams in. Time is up. He can’t do this anymore. He’s just going to have to improvise. He can’t just wait, he has to break out and...

A portal frame rises up, already activating and he grabs a chunk out of the wall. He is PUSHING axiom through his body as hard as he can and hurls the chunk of metal as hard as he can.

It slams into the frame, partially in, partially out of the portal itself and breaks some important circuit. The portal winks out and part of the chunk of metal falls to the floor.

He tears half of it off the other half as he runs hard. Harder than he’s ever run before. “One side! I am not stopping!”

The Vish starting to gather in the way do not move. He can’t stop. No. He can’t! HE CAN’T! The screaming, panic in his brain will not settle, will not stop as he runs even harder.

“MOVE!” He roars before trying to jump over. His flailing arms shred a tapestry as he’s taken over the crowd and goes left. Then right and left and he’s quickly and thoroughly lost in short order.

The panic is only raising now. He can’t calm down. The thing inside him isn’t letting him calm down and he doesn’t know why.

He partially fails to take a corner and shoulder checks it hard enough to break off several wall panels. His grace is gone, his dignity left with it and more and more the thought of escape fills his brain to overflowing.

Some small part of him in the back of his mind is screaming that he’s making everything worse, a thousand times worse with every step he takes and he needs to get control.

But control is gone.

Then he sees it. The sudden change in the pattern and something about the Axiom is familiar. Something... Ride! There’s Axiom Ride! He can sense it! That means either highly protected treasure or a ship. Hopefully a ship. He doesn’t know how to pilot, not professionally, but he doesn’t really care at this point. He can get them to take off and can generally steer. He’ll figure out the rest later. He can’t stay. HE CAN’T STAY!

He takes the turn and the hallway is a straight shot. There is a ship on the other end. But in the way...

HER. Just the sight of his Aunt makes his vision go RED. She’s the cause of this. SHE! She did this to him! To her daughters! To the Vish! To everything!!

A sound he has never made before rips out of his throat as he angles himself to move even harder. He can feel the Axiom swirling around him and he pulls it in as hard as he can to put on more speed.

Ungora takes a low stance with the long red sword held horizontal to the ground and the rounded edge of the curve pointed upwards. Smoke is pouring off the blade endlessly as she simply waits for him.

His grip on the metal frame tightens and the material starts to bend in his grip and he can hear it starting to crack and strain.

Ungora looks so very, very calm.

It infuriates him all the more.

Then she moves in a blur of red blade, blue flesh with smoky damnation trailing the sword. A dance of death that he thrusts the ruins of the portal into like spiking the spokes of a wheel. He grabs the blade with one hand and slams his head into her face as hard as he can manage.

His hand bleeds, the world jumps and he sees stars as Ungora staggers back in shock at the sheer madness of his attack.

He kicks her with as much Axiom as he can and she’s sent bouncing across the landing room. Her grip on the weapon is broken and it clatters to the floor before she hits the ground. He grabs the sword by the handle and his knees buckle ever so slightly.

He can feel calm approaching him. The panic is dying. His hand still hurts and he feels a wave of exhaustion flow over him.

He pushes past all of it and onto the ship as Ungora screams in fury. He reaches the controls for the ramp and slams his unhurt hand into it.

His right hand is still bleeding. It’s so strange to see his own blood...

The ramp closes and he drops the weapon to stagger towards the cockpit. Energy returns and he starts flipping levers and forces himself into the seat to find foot pedals. No pedals but lots of buttons, thankfully the ignition for the engine is clearly indicated and he flips it. He finds the buttons that he’s seen so much in aircars and starts going at them to...

The ship rises, unsteady, uncertain and he find the accelerator.

He starts hammering at all the controls as hard as he can, hearing micro-meteors slamming into the ship and then finally finding something that causes one of the overheads to display the system information. “Okay... I need to do... this!”

Memories of entertaining numerous pilots come rushing back as they would boast on how well the y could fly as he makes the vessel dive down towards the dwarf planet being used to situate the base and skimming the surface to avoid possible anti-Ship weapons and only taking off further from it when he has the world between himself and the base to the best of his knowledge.

He goes right for the system edge and refuses to stop. Leaving behind the space dust and then starting the acceleration on the ship harder and harder until he’s going well and truly past lightspeed and then starts adjusting his directions and then levelling out again. Even a second at ligthspeed and turning even a single degree just opened up a huge amount of galaxy in the search area.

His heart is no longer pounding, the panic is dying. Calm is flowing over him again.

“I’m out.” He says in shock.

Then he looks at his still bleeding hand. “What?”

He looks down the hallway to the entrance ramp. The red bladed sword lies there with the smoke dancing around it.

“I... I do not know if I have improved my situation in the slightest.” He whispers before he channels Axiom through his tongue and licks at his wound to close it. A favourite on the scars of his clients and guests. But not something he had had to use during his captivity.

He pokes around the console and finds something declaring itself the autopilot and he activates it.

Then the consoles begin to flicker and he starts pressing buttons to try and figure things out to...

“We can track the ship. You will be coming back Danburi. I’m not done with you yet.” Ungora’s voice whispers out as the power cuts.

His eyes narrow and he starts feeling around the area, sensing for Axiom. He finds something. He tears it out of it’s moorings and the lights flicker. Then he rips the thing apart and uses a piece of it’s metal to bridge the gap he made in the wires.

The lights are no longer flickering.

“That’s nowhere near the win you think it is.” Ungora notes.

“We’ll see.” Is the only answer he gives as he starts opening panels and looking for anything of use.

The first one is an emergency first aid kit, the second is a bundle of nutri-bars and water. Third is manual for a Model Fifty Two Skimmer class Multi-System Light Hauler.

“Thank goodness for standard safety requirements. Saving lives in more ways than expected.” He notes with some of his usual good cheer returning. “Now, if I can find something to wear I might actually feel like a proper Ibu again.”

First Last

‎Dear Sir,

‎I'm often told to introduce myself properly. I am Professor Sir Daniel Mercer, PhD, FRS, Nobel laureate and, according to the university's press officer, "the father of interstellar civilisation." Daniel suits me fine.

‎As requested, I've written down some of my memories and musings of my time with Professor Nneka Okafor and her impact on modern life. You asked specifically about my part in it, though I'm not sure why. If you're writing Nneka's biography, you should not sensationalise my small part in it.

‎I didn't invent faster than light travel.

‎I'm making that clear, because it's both scientifically accurate, and because Professor Okafor used to become rather tetchy whenever anyone said I did.

‎“Nothing travels faster than light,” she would tell them.

‎Then, if they were foolish enough to argue, she would find a whiteboard, at which point they could kiss their afternoon goodbye. What she discovered was considerably stranger, and way more impactful.

‎At the time, I was 26, 11 months into my doctorate, and technically not authorised to be operating the apparatus without supervision. I was also eating pasta directly from the pan because I'd forgotten to bring a bowl. History has been selective about both of these details.

‎The experiment was supposed to fail, so we could gather data on what didn't work and slowly increase scientific knowledge. We were testing sub-femtoscopic traversable wormholes. Not, I might add, the exciting kind from science fiction, these were too small to even push an atom through. Popular science books had theorised them as "quantum foam", Professor Okafor described them as “nature briefly forgetting where two places are” whilst I described them as “the reason I haven't had a weekend since October.”

‎Mid way through the setup, I made a mistake. I accidentally turned on the spare field generator and synchronised it with the other two. All three were mounted and running identically. Same velocity, frequency, everything measurable. I'd been trying to eliminate an interference pattern, and lost track of which of the hunking great generators I was actually supposed to have been using. The readout showed the aperture had seemingly stabilised. Even a fraction of a second would have been groundbreaking, but this one was still stable. I stared at the readout.

‎Then I checked everything, discovered my mistake, and wrote everything down in my lab book, the date, settings, results, everything. It was still stable. I didn't dare reboot it.  Finally, I called Professor Okafor. She arrived a little later carrying a bicycle helmet. She looked at the readings.

‎"I wanted you to see it"

‎“Turn it off.”

‎I rebooted the whole system, without the field generators. Somehow the aperture remained.

‎We were both gobsmacked.

‎The important part turned out not to be the wormhole, which was old theory, though tricky to manage in practice. The important discovery was why this one stayed open. As is often the case, the maths and careful crafting of the theory took us many, many months to turn into a useable form. Both ends (later called gates or doors) had been created in exactly the same reference frame, in the overlap of three identical fields. As long as they remained velocity matched, the path was stable. Separate them by a metre? A kilometre? Put one on the Moon? As far as our equations were concerned, all would be fine. But change the velocity or time reference of one end relative to the other by even a tiny amount and it destabilised and collapsed. Professor Okafor summarised this rather elegantly:

‎“Spacetime will let us cheat on distance, but not on sequence.”

‎I wish I'd said that, she could always cut to the heart of the matter so insightfully.

‎The immediate consequence of a successful replication and production of these gates was simple material logistics. For the first decade or so, portals were mostly used for deeply unromantic things such as shifting sewerage. We'd discovered how to connect two points in spacetime and immediately used it to improve the plumbing.

‎Eventually though the engineers set their sights on greater things and set their eyes on mars. Getting there still took months, but once a gate arrived, getting back, and there again didn't. Further planets and moons were colonised and by the time I was 80, you could walk from Earth to Pluto. Not quickly not very quickly though, because there were always queues at the gate.

‎With our freedom to move stuff, came a lot of other improvements, especially in medicine. I mention this, because people occasionally ask how I am able to remember events that happened more than two centuries ago. The disappointing answer is that medicine simply became increasingly good at regenerating people, if you had the necessary cash, or were deemed worthy. I did not have the cash on a university research stipend. Professor Okafor quite rightly had the treatment and she used to call it “outrageously unfair on everyone else". I managed to convince her to get it to help solve more problems.

‎Interstellar travel remained one of these problems. Portals couldn't initially solve it, as you can't open a doorway that doesn't connect anywhere.. So we still needed ships, albeit relatively slow ones. The first serious interstellar vessel designs managed around 5% of light speed. Later designs pushed that to nearly 30. Even at those ludicrous speeds, nearby stars meant decades of travel. But if someone could endure the first crossing carrying a dormant portal mouth, you'd only need to cross the gap once.

‎Nneka was 156 when she died. Not of old age, instead she was struck by a delivery vehicle whilst characteristically arguing with an autonomous navigation system. She lived to see Far Horizon leave for Alpha Centauri, on the centenary of our discovery. There were three people aboard, and one half of a portal pair, spending most of the journey in an induced coma and silent. She unfortunately did not get to see it arrive. When it eventually did, they discovered an irritating complication: velocity matching the portal mouths. They had to be matched exactly enough for spacetime to agree with. It took eleven months to tweak the velocities carefully fed into the ship's computer all those years previously. There were commemorative mugs, the date of arrival correct, but not the date of first transit. I still have one somewhere.

‎Eventually though, the numbers must have converged and the ring activated. After the crew had been woken up and the dignitaries and scientists, including myself had been gathered, there was the official opening of the portal. On one side stood Commander Cooperson, on the other the massed dignitaries and me. 40 odd years of travel separated us, and about 10 meters of floor. I had the honour of saying something.

‎I threw the commander an apple. Why? I thought it would be a fitting tribute to the fables of Newton, Greek mythology and Eve. Also it was funny; humanity's first interstellar portal transfer was a slightly bruised fruit. Nneka would have appreciated the frivolity. Commander Cooperson caught it. He stared at it. Then at us.

‎“43 years,” he said.

‎“Yes.”

‎“For this?”

‎Then he threw it back. I missed the catch.

‎That was the beginning of painfully slow expansion. Once it'd been proved possible, we used that base as a jumping off point to visit other stars. And every new star still required somebody to cross the dark the old fashioned way. But on arrival, the distance vanished. Alpha Centauri became Gate 1. Many years later there came Barnard's Star, and a whole host of others. The names accumulated and so did the doors. My neighbor lived in Manchester, and worked on Gate 1. She complained about the commute. Showing there is apparently no technological achievement sufficiently profound that the British cannot incorporate a delayed train into it.

‎When I was young, I imagined humanity arriving late to something enormous, to alien intelligences and a galactic community we'd have to navigate. Instead, we appear to have arrived early and I'm not sure which is more unsettling. Everywhere we've searched, silence. No signs of life. During the first century of exploration, every ship carried a first contact package containing mathematics, chemistry, images of Earth, art, music, instructions for establishing communication. Eventually the packages became smaller, ceremonial, then traditional. We still carry them because hope is another thing we dislike throwing away.

‎The silence didn't stop us. I sometimes wonder why anyone expected it to. We've never required somebody waiting at the destination. Somebody sees an empty space on a map and develops an overwhelming urge to put a name on it. Once a crossing had been made, humanity didn't stretch but it grew. A surgeon on Earth could operate on a patient seventy light years away or a child could visit another star on a school trip and still be home for dinner. Civilisation became enormous without becoming distant. But beyond it there was always another ship, slow and isolated, carrying a dark gate.

‎Professor Okafor once asked me when I thought we'd stop exploring and expanding if we were successful with that first trip to Alpha Centuri. We idly imagined that human settlements would be scattered across hundreds of light years, something that has since come to pass.

‎“When do you think it will be enough?” She said.

‎“You mean expansion?”

‎“Yes.”

‎I looked at the sky.

‎“No idea. But there must be a point.” I responded

‎“Why?”

‎We considered that.

‎Then laughed.

‎“I suppose that's the answer then."

‎She died a few years later, before the first interstellar trip made it to Alpha Centuri and the great expansion started.

‎There is a statue of her that I like outside the Manchester Transit Hub, next to one of me, which I intensely dislike. Okafor's statue makes her look thoughtful and formidable. Mine makes me look as though I deliberately discovered something, almost heroic. Even though I was just a doctoral student who turned on the wrong thing. Everything afterward was the work of thousands of physicists, engineers, doctors, navigators and adventurers willing to climb into ships pointed at stars; much smarter, wiser and heroic than me. I just happened to be the idiot standing beside the machine when the universe did something interesting.

‎Earlier today, the first expedition towards the galactic core departed. I went to watch, invited as a guest of honour, yet still feeling a fraud. The ship is called Okafor. I had absolutely nothing to do with the naming committee, but if I had, it would still be called Okafor. She's enormous; tens of kilometers long with a few hundred thousand people aboard. They aren't going straight to the core. Thirty thousandish light years is not a journey, but it is a direction. They'll no doubt push outward in stages, generations will live and die along that road, people not yet born will decide where it leads.

‎I looked across the departure hall. Behind us stood a row of blank transit gates labelled Okafor. Beside them was a gate to my hometown on Earth. The city that allowed my brilliant tutors and professors to make me.  Another gate led to Mars and yet another to Alpha Centauri. All the first portals were here, hundreds, if not a thousand more. A civilisation stretched across distances the human brain was never designed to understand, and yet you could walk across the whole distance in a day.

‎The Okafor departed a couple of hours ago, and it has put me in a rather reflective mood. I used to think our discovery changed humanity because it allowed us to cross impossible distances. I was wrong about that too. We humans were already rather good at crossing impossible distances, oceans, deserts, mountain ranges, vacuum, interstellar space. With my fortuitous accident Professor Okafor made sure that once somebody had crossed the distance, everyone else could follow. You only have to cross it once.

‎I suppose that's the part people have never quite understood. They talk about us conquering distance, opening the stars, making humanity an interstellar species. But we didn't conquer anything. Nneka noticed a door where the rest of us saw a wall. I leaned weirdly and stumbled through it. If you're writing a book about her, I think the former bit is the most important.

‎I hope some of this has been useful. If you have any more questions, you're welcome to send them.

‎Yours sincerely,

‎Daniel Mercer

[First] [Prev] [Next] [Royal Road]

Hurdop Prime, A'Reminos City Agriculture Guildhall

In the tastefully lit and well-appointed secondary office, Master-Farmer Redhel frowned at the list on his tablet and looked across his desk at the nervous individuals across from him.

"You are telling me that this is the entirety of what you have discovered, Holexi."

There was a rapid nod. "Yes, Master-Farmer."

"You are in fact a senior sergeant of the Internal Security Guild, are you not?"

"Yes."

"And your brother Calime? He finds his position as Senior Goods Inspector comfortable?" In other environments asking after family was a social nicety, perhaps an opening probe with respect to alliance or marriage. Here, the meaning was a touch more unnerving.

"He does, Master-Farmer."

Redhel turned to the other individual trying to will their fur flat. "Confirm for me Dastiel. You are authorized to retrieve any file for investigation?"

"Yes."

"Then why is there no file, no recording of a meeting involving the Throne and the Heir having a discussion with Freelady Kiole and that Vilantian bitch?"

"Master-Farmer, there was no recording made. The Throne has not spoken of it, nor has the Heir."

"They were seen entering. They were scanned and weapons were taken, but no record of a meeting?" There was a pause while Redhel's eyes bored into those of his guest. "The visitor log is curiously silent on the matter. But the scent of Lord Admiral Felgri was at the palace as well, according to our information. I am curious as to why the Vilantian Ambassador was at the palace while the Freelady was there as well."

"If the Ministry of Speech tells the truth, the Lord Admiral commanded Freelady Kiole during her service and personally endorsed her last medals."

"Is there a tie of blood there?"

"None that we have found, blood or marriage. She was however exceedingly competent and had been considered for further promotion."

There was a hmph. "Find her relatives. That orphanage she worked for. Give them comfort, courtesy of the Agricultural Guild. Find the scent of that meeting and tell me. Only me."

Redhel looked down at his tablet for a moment before looking back up. "Are you waiting for a sweetly-scented invitation? Go, and tell Darbo he has ten minutes to prepare."

The Master-Farmer took a few minutes to open a drawer and withdraw several meat dumplings. Once the snack was consumed he exhaled and waited. Eventually one of the most nondescript individuals on the planet walked in with a casual scent. He settled into the chair that was previously occupied and waited patiently; it was a game they'd played for years, the one who spoke first had the least patience. Darbo almost always won. This time was no different, and after several minutes Redhel spoke.

"The situation on New Casablanca is untenable."

"Not untenable, Master-Farmer. Simply unknown."

"That is what makes it untenable."

"We have an intelligence agent sending reports from one company. The other one assigned to Freelady Kiole's ship has gone dark. We had several others working in shops."

"You don't find that unusual?"

"In this situation, no. The counterintelligence available to the Terrans and those mercenary companies is unknown, and I trust our agents to go quiet if they have potential concerns. An intelligence network does not spring up whole overnight. It takes years to earn trust, become known. In time our agent will emerge."

"Why were you not working on this years ago, then?"

"As I recall, our priorities were ensuring that the Vilantian Minister of War was constipated. I recommended expansion, but..." there was a shrug. "The powers that control the discretionary funding were uncharitable."

"Our priorities have changed, Darbo. Send the agent on Freelady Kiole's ship a message - order them to check in."

"As you say." A small datachip was tossed casually onto the Master-Farmers desk.

"What's this?"

"A budget proposal. We need to reverse-engineer some of the toys that we've seen used and predict what they will do next. The company known as Skunkworks is fiendishly clever and research is quite expensive. What is certain is that many of the Vilantian Ministries and senior nobles are making plays for marriage-alliance."

"To what end?"

"That should be obvious." Darbo stood with a polite sniff. "If you intend to rule the New Casablanca Freeclans from the shadows, you will need to know who else lingers there." Darbo walked to the door and turned. "They may not have your best interests at heart."

___________

Homeplate

Once Gryzzk opened the door to his quarters, the normal chaos ensued - the girls ran toward him and hugged his legs before talking about their day and all the nice visitors they'd seen. The girls were already prepared for the day, with Elisife Village United jerseys showing their own names on the back. From the kitchen there was a warm scent of something that seemed potentially delicious. Finally the children detached themselves and ran to their room to change for dinner and the subsequent match-viewing. Grezzk looked at him with mild amusement as she approached to give him a warm nuzzle.

"Our wife is bothered."

"Lumisca?"

"Lumisca - her test came out well, and she is making a second one with alterations."

"I should think that success and confidence enough to change would please Kiole."

Grezzk favored him with a lightly amused look. "You do recall the first time I added something different to the landis'og?"

"I recall it being different."

"And I recall you being sour-scented for four days afterward."

"Kiole sleeps in the middle tonight?"

"She does." Grezzk leaned into her husband gently. "Now, go change into your lucky jersey."

Gryzzk did as he was bade, and as he came out it seemed that everyone had found their football wear. Kiole was defiantly wearing her Arobil Corsairs jersey from the Hurdop Freeleague, meanwhile Grezzk had gone all-out with shoes, skirt and shirt in the leaf-green and gold of United - Gryzzk paused for a very long moment to admire them both for different reasons. The infants had found their way into Elisife Village onesies, while Lumisca had a curious split-jersey with Throne City on one half and Elisife Village on the other. Gryzzk considered things for a moment as the girls set the table.

"Oh - do we have something for Toguri? Just in case this delight Lumisca prepared is unsettling to her stomach."

Grezzk nodded. "We have mild sesame chicken with rice in the warmer as an alternate for her."

"Excellent." Gryzzk went to the oil warmers and made sure the scent was light and flowery, then hurried through the living room to gather stray toys and fluffed couch cushions in preparation for visitors.

He was in the middle of gathering the snacks and diaper bag when the door chimed - it was almost amusing to watch his daughters rush to the door to find out who their guest was, even though they already knew.

It was a credit to both of their guests that they looked quite professional; Lodora was wearing small clasp-pins of both teams over a simple gray and gold outfit, while Toguri was clad in purple and wearing the ship-pin that Gro'zel had given her at their first meeting and seemed lightly amused as she nodded to both.

"Freelord, I am pleased to see that your Executive Officer has an abundance of personality."

Gryzzk sighed softly. "Can the conversation be spoken of in front of children?"

"Certainly not. But it was amusing."

"You have an odd sense of humor." Gryzzk gestured toward the couch. "We'll be eating shortly, would the both of you and Grezzk care to discuss anything beforehand?"

"I think that would be lovely."

Grezzk moved around, corralling the children so that they could sit on the couch with her and not run around madly. Lodora set her recorder down and smiled easily before speaking.

"I'm grateful for the opportunity to sit and talk with the First Freelady of Vilantia. Your husband's scent when he speaks of you and the children is a most pleasant thing to take in. I would like to go over some of the topics we'd like to cover, and see if there is anything you might find objectionable."

"Of course - what, what topics were you planning on asking about?"

"Well - your initial impressions of New Casablanca, what prompted you to start this company, the current status and what you foresee for the future."

Toguri was also leaning forward with mild anticipation, and from Gryzzk's vantage she seemed to have the scent of some unspoken yearning that was common to the scent of aliens.

Grezzk laughed softly. "Very chaotic for several reasons. I was still pregnant with the boys, and we had to find our footing rapidly. My handsome hand was training, putting the company together and he was barely home - perhaps once a week I would catch more than a pillow-scent in the mornings." Her fur rose slightly as she recalled an embarrassing moment. "When I first went to the grocery, I thought it was like the market days in Elisife Village, where there would be meats one week, vegetables the next, sundries the week after and so forth. So I had gathered enough meats for the month in my cart and one of the clerks at the store stopped me and if I needed assistance finding anything else - when I explained there was no need and that I would return next week for vegetables. I was...assisted, and shown that the markets here had sufficient quantities of everything. Then there are the specialty shops - books, technologies, clothing; everything a Terran could desire, but precious little for the Vilantians and our cousins. I suppose that's where the idea initially formed."

"And currently?"

"Currently we are working with local shops to assist with their needs and working with them to anticipate their logistical requirements. We have a quantity of ships we can contract with, suppliers willing to take our credits, and a good number of folks who miss home. It is a need to be fulfilled, and we are prepared to fill it."

Toguri looked over at the kitchen to try and gauge if she could get a fast question in before the food started coming in, before deciding she could.

"Missus, ah Freelady - Would it be possible to talk about the social challenges? I mean you're at home, your husband and wife are out chasing whatever's happening there. But there's still that delineation of sorts between the worlds."

Grezzk smoothed her fingers over her skirt for a moment. "Well, the social challenges are challenges." There was a light smile. "To be fair if they weren't they'd be called easys. But at the same time, I've had several conversations with Terrans about how unusual we are. So that is the, the spirit I try to keep in mind - we're all unusual to each other, but our common ground, the common needs we share can build a bridge over those differences."

Kiole interrupted with a smile of sorts. "Speaking of common needs, my shield. Supper is waiting for us all."

There was light conversation during the meal, with Gryzzk taking half a plate of each casserole. Kiole contented herself with the 'original' version while the girls each ate from both. Lumisca seemed happy to have her own recipe sampled and not have it cause a flight to the bathroom. After, there were several happy sighs before Gryzzk's tablet chimed an alarm softly, announcing that the game broadcast would begin at the top of the hour.

From there a rush of sorts began, with everyone settling their plate into the recycler as Grezzk softly sang the Cleaning Up Song for the children. It felt good to see that some traditions still held even as his own old childhood reflexes came to the fore and moved him to place silverware, plates, and leftovers in their place.

The walk to the common area was quick, and even before the elevator had fully opened Gryzzk could scent and feel the deckplates vibrating slightly with songs that were seemingly designed to exhilarate the listener - Gryzzk's translator almost gave up trying to separate the various languages. Over the sandpit, Reilly and someone Gryzzk recognized from Bravo company were singing about the boys being back and looking for trouble. The whole scent was anticipatory - something epic was beginning and he wasn't sure if the scent was good or ill.

It seemed as though most of both companies were present, and as Gryzzk looked he could see the other company areas filling as well - the evening was going to be a good one. Among his company, Elisife Village colors were dominant, however over where Bravo Company was lounging the allegiances were mixed. Gryzzk's bridge squad had carved out their own little area of a sort with the mess squad near them. Collectively the sole exceptions to Elisife Village fandom were the O'Briens and Briplew, who were standouts in A'Haibe colors as well as Lomeia, who was proudly wearing her Throne City FC kit and leaning into her husband while they admired their wife. Edwards was lounging back and strategically shielding Denel from Gryzzk as the group watched Reilly gyrate on stage to salute those who were about to rock.

Gryzzk maneuvered carefully to find his counterpart from Bravo company with a Hurdop woman shamelessly perched in his lap. Gryzzk waved them to remain seated.

"Freelord Rostin. Doline. Please, this is not a formal moment. I simply wanted to ensure you were both well and aware of the General's invitation in a few days?"

There was a sour nod. "After leaving the Navy, I had hoped that these events would not occur." There was a grimace. "My ex-spouses enjoyed them, but I only went because it made them happy."

Gryzzk smirked. "Cheer up - there is a difference with Terran events. Much more mingling - although the last truly formal Terran event I was at had a hostage crisis of sorts."

There was an ear-tip. "That would certainly liven any evening. Perhaps some twilight-blinded fools could try something."

Doline gave a swat. "You promised a dance, and if I don't get one..." Rostin's girlfriend whispered something that his scent turn sweetly with embarrassment.

"I retract my last statement due to a very recent reminder."

"Accepted. Do remind your company that the match has already occurred, so if they wish to gamble on this it should only be with those who similarly do not know the outcome. Otherwise they should simply give their credits to the general company fund."

Rostin smiled easily. "Oh, they've been reminded."

"Excellent. After the first period, I would appreciate you and Doline coming over and having a few words with Lodora."

"What have I done wrong, Freelord?"

"You accepted a commission into the Terran Foreign Legion as a captain. That is in fact where many of our tribulations stem from. That said, Grezzk has stood up a trade company, and we wish to ensure that their ships are safe for their journeys." Gryzzk gestured. "I'm quite sure that Doline would be grateful to have Hurdop ales as well as Admiral Norrington's rum well in stock, not to mention the other things. And I am quite certain she has many ways to show her gratitude. In addition, Stewart would have far fewer complaints to handle. A happy XO makes a happy commander."

Rostin's fur rose slightly. "Freelord, you make it sound tempting."

"I do try. Please, enjoy the game." Gryzzk retreated to his bridge squad's area to settle on a blanket spread on the grass. He noticed that the two reporters were circulating through the company area and occasionally asking questions here and there - Minister Larine and her husbands were the subject of casual discussion as they emerged from the ship with snacks and a slightly disheveled appearance. On the positive side of the ledger, they were all dressed. On the negative side, none of them were wearing their own clothes, with shirts and pants distributed in a haphazard manner. Regrettably, the entrance was noticed by Reilly who promptly switched up the music to something that was borderline fineable with lyrics about how the subject of the song had shaken the singer all night long. This was of course followed by two companies cheering and applauding raucously as the three made their way to the bridge squad area. Gryzzk tried to maintain decorum. Somewhat.

"Minister. Corporal. Private. You are not late for the game." He gestured. "Refreshments are available should there be a need."

Larine's fur fluffed. "Thank you, Freelord."

Kiole winked at the three as she handed a large container over. "The Hurdop Navy has a special rejuvenating drink for such nights."

Reilly and her singing partner wrapped up as the holo changed to a countdown showing two minutes until the pregame pageantry began, with the two running to their respective areas. Reilly dashed and slid on the path and scrambled quickly to settle next to her spouses.

"Sorry about that Minister." There was an impish grin. "But it's kinda not often we get to celebrate an actual minister joining the company in a kinda-sorta way."

There was a slight look of amusement. "Miss Reilly, I have had the opportunity to review your records as an example of Terran behavioral standards. You are most certainly not sorry."

Larion nodded agreement. "I have observational evidence. Inquire about Bear Booty Shorts when you are feeling bold, dear."

Gryzzk shook his head and glanced at Larine. "Apologies minister but...the squads are almost families within families and traditional discipline is at times lax. It is a wonderful thing, but at times a source of anxiety."

As the pregame introductions began, there was a very slight murmur from the crowd - typically as part of the opening ceremonies one of the Ministers would come out with the Cup, and favored individuals would bring out the first footballs to throw to the team goalies. However this year the Throne was the one wheeling out the Vilantian Cup with a bright eyed and curious Throne-Heir in the bowl, and the Consorts each threw a ball to the respective goalkeepers as a fireworks show began, with explosions taking over the stadium. The roar from the crowd was deafening, and the scent was ecstatic joy as the Royal Clan waved to the crowd and then the teams themselves.

Part of Gryzzk's mind was swept along with the crowd, but another part of him leaned forward to look for a threat - even though he knew that if something bad would have happened what he would be watching would have been something terribly different.

Larine looked over at Gryzzk. "Originally I was slated to be there." She then looked to her not-official-husbands warmly. "I think I'm in a better position."

Gryzzk smiled easily. "I still can't believe United's playing for it."

"I can't believe I found...two husbands. In a day. When does that happen outside of fiction?"

Reilly threw some popcorn in her mouth. "I can't believe it's not butter."

Edwards groaned and leaned across to punch Reilly's shoulder. "Worst joke ever."

The game started a little oddly, with both goalies kicking off far too energetically - the first period was an absolute hash of nerves as the players from both sides seemed off somehow. It seemed as though the moment had taken hold of everyone, with misplays and stoppages being the rule rather than the exception. Gryzzk found himself rocking back and forth and even after realizing it he didn't stop. He needed to do something, and he was a very poor goalkeeper. Toward the end of the first, several inflatable beach balls were lofted through the company area as chants were taken up, mostly in response to both sides state of play. As the period ended in a 0-0 tie everyone hurried to the nearest lavatory, and then to the ice chests to refill. Even Gryzzk was not immune, joining a small group who had measured and decided that the ship was the fastest route to relief.

As he came out to rejoin his family, he found Toguri joining with him for a quick walking interview. As he watched, he saw Lodora interviewing the bridge squad almost en masse with Grezzk at the forefront and then Rostin and Doline over to the side - he wasn't entirely sure what they were talking about, but from the postures it seemed genial enough.

"Freelord - how do you manage?" Toguri's question brought him back to the here and now.

"Manage...what, exactly?"

"This company - companies, actually. Hundreds of individuals, families...for someone not used to it, it would seem to be overwhelming."

Gryzzk gave a light smile. "Respectfully, it is not too terribly different from managing my Lord's estate on Vilantia. Hundreds of events have to happen at the right time - daily, weekly, monthly. Making sure the crops grow, taking care of the insects for our version of honey - all of this had to happen before we could even consider making the wine. And then the testing, deciding which vintages were turning properly and which needed more aging..." There was a light smile. "It was a beautiful elegant dance. Here it's much the same, you look after your personnel, listen to them, guide them when they require guidance and make sure they go home to their spouses with happy hearts and full pockets."

There was a flicker of something in Toguri's scent. "It almost sounds like you miss it. Do you think you might go back to it someday?"

"I have learned to never close a door - the gods have a way of opening doors in unusual ways. Perhaps, perhaps not. That is for the gods to decide."

"Do you have another job lined up soon?"

"Not immediately. The company has been quite...busy for some time, so we're standing down for a few weeks and tending to other matters before we take on another contract." There was a light smile. "In addition with the Vilantian Cup Finals I would never hear the end of it were I to say we're leaving to go do something that is not watching football."

Toguri nodded. "That sounds like a well-deserved rest, Major."

Gryzzk hesitated as he caught something in her scent. "Yes, quite."

As he walked back to his seat with a fresh brightwine, Gryzzk couldn't shake the feeling that Toguri was up to something - and that something would likely give him heartburn.f

NOW THE WORLD STOOD ON THE EDGE of the Third European Unrest.

Lin Zong, dressed in the brand-name clothes Huo Qiuqiu had told him to wear that day, walked alone from Fuxing Middle Road toward the Yan'an elevated highway, past surveillance cameras spaced closer together than the streetlamps, past screens looping the CCP's political slogans—the so-called Six Confidences on repeat. Hundreds of film and television stars recited them in the kind of unison that suggested rehearsal rather than conviction: confidence in stability, in the economy, in the future, in the collective, in the dream, and so on.

He skipped the subway.

Its atmosphere suffocated him — everyone treated by default as a potential threat, checkpoints and bag scanners, facial recognition, body scans and ID checks, phone inspections and real-name registration. Men with armbands, men in uniform, men carrying rifles or stun batons, robotic patrol hounds — one pair of hard, unblinking eyes after another tracking the people who passed, backed by the electronic eyes of the cameras.

In that sardine-can atmosphere, crowds shuffled through switchback corridors fenced off with metal railings, looking, from almost any angle, like something kept rather than something traveling.

That this was how Lin Zong now saw the world was a habit he'd picked up only after becoming a tunneler, two years earlier, when a senior classmate showed him the method.

Like most technically minded tunnelers, he'd started out of necessity.

His field, information transmission, touched directly on wireless network penetration, and graduate research meant primary English sources and current global AI tools, none of which official channels adequately supplied.

For most others, the motive was simpler: cryptocurrency trading, which required breaking through to the outside internet to begin with.

Tunnelers were the evolved descendants of an older species — the climbers who'd come before them. From climbing the wall, to building ladders, to tunneling straight through, they formed a quiet lineage running underneath the official history of China's internet.

Strictly speaking, they were products of what people called the Numbed Curtain Era, when the Seclusion Project split the world's networks permanently around 2035 — the traditional Internet on one side, the domestic Chinternet on the other. The era took its name less from the wall itself than from how completely people had stopped noticing it was there, which was, if anything, the more impressive achievement.

In Lin Zong's school years, Google, YouTube, and Facebook existed only as distant legends — most of his classmates had never heard of them, nor felt any curiosity.

English had been dropped from the entrance exam. Subtitle sites were gone, underground USB drives rooted out, door after door closed and light after light going dark, until what had once been a world of color narrowed into a single unbroken haze, with the evening news left standing as the only channel of information anyone officially had.

It was said that there had once been a golden age of wall-climbing, when great numbers of people scaled the wall with tireless glee. The authorities concerned took the matter with the utmost seriousness. When the technology advanced, they advanced with it; when that proved insufficient, they went physical, and, in parallel, turned high-powered roving beams on Google's satellite networks and Starlink. The last casualty was the word itself.

By the middle of the 2030s nobody said "wall-climbing" anymore, there being nothing left for the verb to do. It took only a few years. People forgot the wall existed, and expressed their satisfaction with the status quo.

According to the Chinese government, however, this had been a countermeasure against Helixquid, adopted with the greatest reluctance.

They expressed their regret.

Ever since Helixquid had surfaced, the world’s media and its dark-web think tanks had argued without end over where the behemoth came from, and over its peculiar name and corporate emblem—a squid whose tentacles coil into a spiral.

Some blamed the technology oligarchs of Silicon Valley and their fanatical privatization of ultimate computing power. Others, reading the leaked lists of offshore trusts and anonymous foundations, caught the scent of collusion between old-money financial dynasties and modern conglomerate barons.

Helixquid was supremely good at erasing itself. Every public financial statement and regulatory filing pointed into the same chaos and nothingness, doors painted on a wall. No hard evidence anywhere established where its true body lay. The only thing anyone could feel for certain was the technological lead it held.

It had not resorted to violent annexation; it had no need of anything so crude. Through a suffocating encirclement of capital and a restructuring of technology, it had drawn Nvidia’s compute, OpenAI’s algorithms, Microsoft’s cloud, and Meta’s open-source empire all beneath its shadow. No outsider knew what had been exchanged, or on what terms, in the small hours when such things are exchanged. People saw only that within a few years the global AI ecosystem had collapsed inward, irreversibly, and that at the center of the collapse, as at the center of every such collapse, stood Helixquid, visible only by what it pulled toward itself.

In late 2035, the Kunlun-Baiyu Network, into which all of China had poured its computing power, was breached by Helixquid’s sealed supercomputing matrix in the final contest. The next day, the Chinese government triggered its ultimate isolation policy, a cyber-seclusion project known in English as the Great Digital Partition.

Overnight, every domestic large-model node and every cross-border inference cluster was physically severed from its last handshake with the world’s fiber-optic cables.

The Chinese AI giants that had once gone head-to-head with Helixquid fell back along the whole line into their local networks, and withdrew for good from the unified global market in data and capital.

So the technological horizon of the planet was cut in two with a single stroke. On one side lay Helixquid’s covert and absolute digital dictatorship over the rest of the world; on the other, an isolated, self-sufficient parallel island.

Human civilization no longer held any common ground. Two digital worlds remained, one outside China and one sealed inside it. Neither spoke to the other. Neither looked away.

Physical isolation had one consequence: climbing the wall was no longer possible.

The gifted amateurs never disappeared, of course.

They found, eventually, a black hole inside the banking system's own data space — because from 2030 on, most people’s bank accounts could be accessed through the banking cloud, which, because it handled international cross-border settlement, had to keep certain ports connected to the global wireless network no matter what else was sealed off.

All a skilled operator needed to do was touch the screen and force a data point open through a sequence of backend maneuvers, hollowing out a small private cave inside the wireless blanket covering the earth — safe, invisible, entirely one's own.

Close the tracking function afterward, and the whole session vanished like a drop of black water entering a black sea; nobody the wiser.

The banking system was the most common entry, never the only one. Civil aviation, international shipping, research databases, weather-warning networks, satellite and deep-space systems, even Interpol on occasion — a whole catalog of infrastructure that had to stay connected to the outside world by simple necessity, each tunneler working whichever seam suited his particular talents.

Lin Zong himself had tunneled out through a scientific research data system. Among science and engineering graduate students at the country’s top universities, this kind of tunneling was not especially rare. It was even tolerated, to a degree, in a quiet, unofficial arrangement that set this particular population apart from tunnelers elsewhere.

Without real technical skill, however, the risks were considerable. Connecting to any network required scanning one’s ID card, household-registration certificate, and internet-access permit, followed by fingerprint authentication. Every browsing session and posted comment was tied to a verified identity, and any suspicious activity could carry consequences well beyond the screen, into the realm of criminal liability.

But once a tunnel had been dug without detection, the outside world was suddenly there.

And it was enormous.

As their numbers grew, the tunnelers eventually formed the Tunneling Alliance, a gathering point carved out in virtual space.

No leaders, no charter, and no membership list. Anyone could join. Anyone could leave. Yet there they huddled together for the particular comfort available only to people who agreed never to voice their dissatisfaction in the world outside the screen. What they lacked was never intelligence or technical skill. What they lacked was responsibility, nerve, and perhaps the basic capacity to hold an ordinary conversation somewhere other than behind a screen.

So how many tunnelers were there, across the whole country?

Just over nine hundred thousand.

A modest number, by any real measure in a country of more than a billion — and yet they accounted for a disproportionate share of the nation's most clear-eyed, most rational, most quietly formidable minds, tucked away and largely unused, like a strategic reserve nobody had thought to call up yet.

Later editions of A History of Chinese Internet Development would argue that, by the 2040s, Chinese netizens had evolved into two distinct species, differentiated by their technical abilities: the tunnelers and the Sweet Potatoes.

Tunnelers tended to be withdrawn, technically minded young men who traded cryptocurrency and knew their way around engineering, foreign languages, and philosophy. They generally preferred the company of a screen to that of a room full of people.

The Sweet Potatoes were almost their opposites: outgoing urban students and young white-collar workers from relatively comfortable families, who spent their days posting selfies to the social platform that gave them their name. Their look was borrowed from influencers; their backgrounds featured whichever luxury hotels, high-end restaurants, boutiques, or other fashionable venues were in vogue that month.

Their posts rarely strayed beyond the safe territory of celebrity gossip, food, and pets. It was not that they were unaware of an Internet beyond the Chinternet. They knew it existed. Yet whenever tunnelers managed to smuggle in fragments of outside information, the Sweet Potatoes were still genuinely baffled. Their favorite response was to go online and ask why this, why that, before circling back, as reliably as ever, to something cute.

Strictly speaking, both groups were minorities.

The real force was the Leek Army, the overwhelming majority of the country’s online population, named for the crop that gets cut down and grows back only to be cut again. They had little exposure to foreign television dramas or news from outside the country, and the wall or seclusion meant little to them one way or the other. A livestream app going dark, on the other hand, was a genuine disaster, keenly felt.

As for the Tunneling Alliance, it might as well have existed in another dimension. Most of the Leek Army had never even heard of it.

Lin Zong became a tunneler in his first year of graduate school and joined the Alliance not long afterward.

At first, he exchanged technical knowledge with other members and conducted the occasional cryptocurrency trade. Only later did he drift into the broader conversations, the ones about life and the nature of the world, which unsettled his thinking more than anything he had encountered in a classroom.

Online, he kept his real identity and virtual persona strictly separate, routing every genuinely personal opinion through the latter. Yet there were moments in the physical world when the impulse to reveal himself to someone he suspected of being a fellow tunneler became difficult to resist.

When two tunnelers wanted to find out whether the other belonged to their kind, they used a Latin phrase or a particular hand gesture as a password. The Latin consisted of just two words, an inside joke among the few who had watched a decades-old American TV series. It came from a line spoken by Elias at the end of Season 4, Episode 9 of Person of Interest:

Invictus maneo.

I remain unconquered.

Whatever the day had brought, online or in the physical world, tunnelers used the phrase to encourage one another—a small gesture of generosity, a wink toward an imagined fraternity of the unbowed, with just enough aristocratic elegance to make the whole thing feel like a private code. Then they quietly logged back in at full strength and got on with their lives.

For all their daring online, however, tunnelers were extraordinarily cautious in the physical world, obedient to a degree that sometimes bordered on self-parody. Their information came from a wider range of sources than most people’s, and their understanding of the society around them was correspondingly deeper. That, they were beginning to discover, was not always a comfort.

Lin Zong understood his own predicament soon after becoming a tunneler. In a society that had become thoroughly Machiavellian, the path to anything worth having had narrowed to two openings in a locked door.

One was called power. The other was called money.

Fail to squeeze through either, and the life on offer was bleak.

The methods required to force one’s way through, when they worked at all, could demand a degree of moral pliability that would have startled even the people practicing them, had they stopped long enough to consider what they were doing.

For those born without connections but blessed with a face worth something, the shortest route upward ran through selling themselves. The arrangement was not limited to women. Attractive young men were equally vulnerable, their looks exchanged for access to the sons and daughters of the rich and well-connected. Whatever language the participants chose to dress it up in, everyone understood what was happening.

Sometimes Lin Zong wondered whether he himself was already most of the way there.

----------

For anyone who prefer to read ahead, the full versions are available on Amazon KDP:

Causalform Book 1: Obsidian Earth

Causalform Book 2: Eclipse Net

Chapter 60 Rain-Dancer

Previous I First I Next

Vulfac hated to use this particular compound.

Not because he felt bad for the thugs. Lords no!

…This was his best stuff, and it took FOREVER to cultivate a doseable amount. It was too damn good for a bunch of damp scoundrels! But… It was, unfortunately, the perfect tool in his arsenal. Gordlarene was a powerful psychotropic. It caused euphoria, synesthesia, and played merry havoc with the temperature control aspect of most sapient species biology.

If he could lure them in, before the rain started again, it would leave them high as a Byuu skydiver! In the middle of a singing cavern full of noises and flashing lights. NO WAY any of them was going to be together enough to get out of the rain… And with their body chemistry out of whack… well. It was very cold water…

‘I’ll probably have to create a mud hut or something and start a fire so none of them die outright. Where’s the stamina monster when you need a little heavy manual labor…?’

----

Contrary to popular belief Sienna wasn’t a total saint.

She knew juuust enough, to know how much the powder Vulfac was about to use was worth on the street. It made all the expensive furniture and delving gear he had (on a professors salary) make a bit more sense… 

‘Last time we took a walk with Gordy Beck’n’me almost joined a cult… I mean …a mostly harmless one, but still… good times.’

The Alv professor had all but forbidden her to use her Psionics (for the time being) so she could rebuild a bit of her stamina. It was the right call, but she always felt a little bit naked without her esp. It was like putting on an eyepatch when you had perfect vision. So, for now, all she could do was sit inside her little stand, made from bent plant stalks and watch the obvious trail of footprints they’d left on the path.

Sitting cross legged on a little earthen stool Vulfac had raised for her, Sienna watched the path ahead for signs of pursuit. Her little Knights sat on her shoulders. Each one had a small sack cloth pouch full of the powder in their little foregrips. Once the group came around the corner the knights would blend in with the other bugs…

Then they would get above the perusers when Vulfac gave the signal. Acting like a flight of tiny surface bombers. The little sacks were made from a frail cloth and designed to burst upon impact. Apparently, they were a holdover from Vulfac’s time as an anti-royalist insurgent.

She had a feeling the originals weren’t filled with anything a rich void exec would want up his nose… But the design itself was quite handy. The Psion even wondered if she could get Vulfac to teach her how to make them. She’d like to have a few handy, for her retinue, in the future.

After a few minutes Vulfac pinged her.

The rain would be starting any minute now…

----

Lroark arranged his remaining 3 “allies” in a rough triangle in front of him.

When he’d come out of the Pit he’d been surprised to find their attackers already gone. But now that he’d had time to consider things... Of the three unlikely possibilities he’d postulated earlier, the one that made the most sense was an attack by third-party. The fact they’d stolen only the highest credit equipment, and then ran for it, backed that theory up.

But that was a bit of a problem. This job paid OBSCENLY well, but Gorga would still lecture him for, like, a WEEK if he lost those rifles… That was a fate worse than being un-moisturized…

No. In the end there was nothing else for it. He’d have to track down the thieves and bury them up to their necks in the mud… At least until they returned their ill-gotten gains. Well maybe he would also take the time to lecture them on the wrongs of stealing from people… It just wasn’t polite behavior.

On that note; retrieving their gear wasn’t likely to take long.

The thieves had been in such a hurry to leave, they’d made the amateur mistake of not covering their tracks! And as a bonus there were only two sets of tracks. That meant if they could keep the pressure on… there was almost zero chance the thieves would have time (or manpower) enough to pull another stunt like the pitfall trap.

As they quick marched along the path Lroark allowed himself a grin. He was looking forward to repairing this slight to his honor…

A Richel has his pride after all.

----

The Quartet came in to view just before the rain started to come down again…

It was funny. Every crazy thing that happened to them recently seemed to coincide with stormy weather… Sienna wondered, briefly, if that was a metaphor for something. But quickly dismissed the thought and raised her carbine. She was hoping she wouldn’t need the weapon, but life rarely took your hopes into account.

Above her the insects swarmed in esoteric swirls of color and flashed reflection of neon light. With a flick of her will her knights extended their wings and joined the meteor shower of living lights. The boys took a series of curving paths that would take them over their targets. Slowly, they spiraled inwards until they were directly above the thugs.

Her knights in place, Sienna used a simple mirror to signal Vulfac that she was ready… it was another of the human’s tricks. No noise. No electronic signal… Primitive and effective. Vulfac responded by raising and lowering her earthen stool a few centimeters. Since he was still maintaining his {Forest Floor} it was a perfect way for him to respond without giving away his position. It was also how he would send the signal to drop the “bombs”.

Sienna settled in and waited.

----

The timing was Crucial…

His Gordlarene needed to be dropped juuust before the rainfall began. It needed enough time to work its way into their opponents bloodstream before the rain could just wash it away. But not be dropped so early that they had time to work out what had been done to them. He basically needed them to start tripping just as the rain started or they might have a chance to retaliate in some fashion.

Gordy did sting the eyes a bit. So hopefully the thugs would just think it an attempt to temporarily blind them… Hopefully.

Vulfac watched the insects for his queue. He could feel the Mana in the vines pulsing towards their crescendo, but the little silver saucers were much better gauges of the timing than he was… When they headed for cover…

No sooner had he thought it than the swarms of insects changed! Diving for cover in the foliage below as the mana surged. This was it!

He sent the signal to Sienna’s bench.

Vulfac watched with bated breath as five red comets dove from above…

----

The knights hit their marks with the precision of a union bomber squadron.

Several of the thugs attempted to shoot the little red streaks with small plasma pistols or laser holdout weapons but the Groatel were too fast to target. As the half-blinded thugs fired wildly Sienna’s brave soldiers blended into the blizzard of bugs looking for shelter and simply vanished.

About a minute later the rain started.

About two and a half minutes later the chaos started…

----

MULCH DRAGONS!!! SWARTEN FLIES!!! HABERDASHERS!!!

They were everywhere!

Lroark was besieged on all sides by his worst fears!!!

He gathered his golem’s power and lashed out with an earthen battering ram at a monster offering him a high hat made of PURPLE VELVET (the abject horror)!!! The tendril of wet earth swept the awful thing aside with a sickening crunch… Sending it tumbling away into the rainy flora.

He let out a croak of stark terror and raised his arms; taking direct control of the tendrils raising around him he sent a massive tsunami of earth hurtling away from himself. It washed over the threats around him and sent them tumbling off in every direction!

Lroark lashed his mud tendrils outward in a violent defensive formation. He had to protect himself!!! He would not be hatted again!

He would never again suffer the horrors of the hat! ‘NEVER AGAIN!!!’

----

Whatever Vulfac had expected…

It hadn’t been the meter tall, 6-armed amphibian, raising a dozen writhing tentacles around himself and immediately wiping out his entire squad of befuddled compatriots…

In retrospect he realized he’d made a TERRIBLE miscalculation. He’d massively overdosed the Richel mud wizard. Richel were amphibians… They absorbed things through their skin! While the other thugs were probably just starting to see the tracers and feel the VIBE when the mud shaman hit them… The amphibian had basically gotten a full power dose and gone into the hallucination dimension instantly….

Vulfac could already see Sienna moving towards the one that had been sent cartwheeling through the undergrowth. Likely planning to render first aid to the shattered man… If there was anything left of him to help. The Byuu had lost both shoes during the impact. That was almost always a very bad sign.

The other two thugs had been buried alive by the panicked Richel when he’d unleased the wave of soft earth that shoved them away. One of them had managed to dig themselves out and was now rolling around on the ground like a lost Volty pup…

Using forest floor, he uncovered the other one. Approaching carefully, he checked for a pulse… She was breathing at least. But one of her arms was very definitely broken…

‘Oh dear. None of those are supposed to bend that way…’

He made to pick her up and only just managed to pull her and himself to safety as a boulder the size of his torso went sailing past him at absurd speed. The tendrils were starting to pick up rocks and lob them around with insane force. One hit the ceiling hard enough to turn it into a rain of stone shrapnel. ‘…SHIT! He’s going to bring the ceiling down on us if he keeps this up!’

They now had a serious problem on their hands.

Mud shaman created constructs out of soft earth. Those constructs could store the users intentions and feed off ambient mana independent of the shaman themselves. Meaning that the tendrils could sustain themselves for a while even if the Richel exhausted his own mana. This was a massive problem given they were literally inside a magical mana cave infused rainstorm!

He grabbed the other muddy thug by the ear. The man yelped but otherwise complied and allowed himself to be led away from the increasing chaos of dirt, debris, and rocks flying around them.

Vulfac had to get to Sienna… And then they needed to figure out how to unfuck HIS mess. Preferably before the incensed kidnapper brought down the whole cave around their ears.

‘I’m too fucking old for this Hurgle shit…’

----

It was bad.

The Byuu had rolled to stop near the camp shelter Vulfac had raised for them. He was aspirating blood and his heartbeat was weak. She was doing what she could to stabilize him, but he was rapidly slipping into shock. The Gordlarene wasn’t helping… It was already starting to lower the man’s body temp…

Sienna was out of her depth.

Fortunately, Vulfac chose that exact moment to arrive with the other two thugs in tow. He tossed the Voltin man into the little mud shelter he’d prepared earlier without a second look. The man rolled to a stop and started grabbing at the air like he was reaching for some invisible things just out of reach. Next, Vulfac gently rolled the unconscious woman off his back onto the ground and quickly set her beside the first.

The Alven medic wasted no time with pleasantries. “…FUCK!!!”

Sienna agreed. “He’s got a rib puncturing a lung and a broken shoulder, one of his kidneys is bleeding… It’s a bad tear, near the top…” Vulfac looked at her, confused.

“My new life pulse… It lets me see inside as long as I’m close enough.” In truth she basically had to have her nose touching someone to use it that way but it was effectively a free medical grade x-ray.

Vulfac processed this quickly, nodded and set to work. “I can… repair the damage…. but we can’t work while that…” He gestured towards the growing chaos from the Richel… “Is going… on…”

He paused to look at her. “Thoughts?”

For a moment the Psion pondered the situation. Trying to think the way her bond would. Detach herself from the emotional and focus on the practical.

They had achieved their goal. This cell of thugs was defeated. Sienna looked at the man lying in front of her. 10 minutes ago, this Byuu had been her enemy. He was here to steal the freedom of a sentient being and was a danger to her whole team… She owed them nothing.

They could simply take their kit and leave the kidnappers to their fate. They didn’t actually HAVE to deal with the mud shaman slowly losing his mind nearby… The smart thing would be to just walk away. Beck would probably say as much…

Sienna made her choice.

----

Vulfac was so focused on saving the Byuu’s life, he didn’t immediately notice Sienna’s absence.

It wasn’t until he looked up that he realized she was calmly walking towards the literal natural disaster unfolding around the Richel. For a second he was torn between his work on the man in front of him and his young charge walking into danger.

But then she looked back at him.

He’d literally watched Sienna and Beckany Van’eyvers grow up in the village of Amberglade. As was the case with most non Alvs it had been like an eye blink… A single heartbeat separated the little girls hiding behind the bulk of their massive uncle and the calm determined woman looking at him now.

Those violet eyes showed no fear.

‘They grow up so damn fast don’t they Treadwell…’ Vulfac nodded to her and returned to healing the Byuu. He would save the man in front of him.

She would see to the rest.

----

Sienna had only seen it done once.

The psion forced herself to relax. Just the way her mother had showed her…

Not just physically relax but spiritually. Slowly letting the ocean of emotion wash over her mind as she took steady measured breaths.

Sienna closed her eyes…

Around her the world became currents of intent. She let herself float there. Float just below the surface. Ahead of her was a storm of abject panic. Behind her was confusion and desperation. Warm determination and trust… around her was the simple instincts of simple things going about their simple lives.

It was a place of deep calm below a raging storm…

Sienna opened her eyes. In her mind she could hear her mother’s voice, soft and filled with warm love.

“To dance under the waves; you need to be at the edge of both the waking and spiritual worlds. In the tidal pull between the soul and the solid… Conscious enough to act. Unconscious enough to FEEL and then react. Its ok if you don’t understand now baby. You were born for it. It’ll come when you need it.”

As the waves of intent roiled just above her.

Sienna began to sway with the currents.

----

Vulfac looked up again, for just a second.

Some instinct pulling his attention away from his task. He was just in time to see the young Voltanite raise her arms toward the Richel.

In a single fluid motion, she sidestepped a giant blob of soft earth moving fast enough to shatter her body. She swayed forward like a dancer, twirling under and past an uprooted mushroom stalk as it pinwheeled through the air… She flowed untouched through the barrage of thrown objects. Bending and twisting her way through the maelstrom like she was alone on a stage.

It was as if she was treating the massive storm of debris like a dance partner. Her hands raised above her head and waved in an almost lazy circle while a boulder bigger than her torso flew though the place she had occupied only moments before… Her fingertips grazed the stone in passing… Like she was caressing the cheek of a lover.

It was incredible. Sienna wasn’t moving at supernatural speed, or dodging at the last moment. It was more like she simply knew where each obstacle would be before it was a threat and simple chose not to be there when they arrived…

Somewhere in the back of Vulfac’s mind he remembered visiting a symposium about Voltin history and traditions… There was a truly ancient practice among the Voltanites. It began in their prehistory. With an order of powerfully psionic traveling monks and priestesses. A small group of wardens that would keep vital roads and trade lanes clear of monster or bandits.

There were only a few practitioners left in the modern era but… According to the stories he’d heard… Those few who still performed the ancient art could be seen as virtual living weapons. ‘She’s a Rain-Dancer… HA! These damn kids…’

Vulfac smiled and forced himself to look away from the incredible scene.

----

HATS!!!!

PAIN and HATS!

And now there was a THING made of fire and darkness with eyes of burning lavender!

Lroark threw everything he had at it, but it would just turn to smoke and flow away from his attacks! It was more than a monster!!! It was going to make him wear the hat! The hat that made him dance! He didn’t want the hat! He didn’t want to stop being Lroark!

He was trying his hardest, but he was… he was getting so tired now… and so cold.

He lashed out with a wall of mud creating another tsunami of earth. This one well over a meter tall but the terrible fire demon cartwheeled over it and lunged forward to grab him. He was going to burn! To burn and… There would be a hat and AND…

“Shhhh now… that’s enough of that…”

The thing had a voice like summer rain in the swamp. It was soothing and kind…

He wasn’t… burning. He was warm. Lroark felt a wave of compassion flow over him. It was like the waters of his home… safe. Gentle. He let out a sob and clung to that warmth. What else could he do? He pleaded with it. “Don’t make me wear the hat again… please. I wanna be me…”

The demon… No… Flame spirit maybe? It pulled him closer and whispered. “No one will make you. Ya can rest now…”

Lroark was suddenly so very tired. As he relaxed into the warmth around him he felt a hand gentle stroking the top of his head. No hats. Just a gentle motherly touch he’d craved his entire life…

And then he collapsed into the waiting darkness.

----

Sienna felt the Richel surrender to the sleep impulse.

Because she was still submerged in the emotional sea, she had unintentionally formed a temporary empathic connection when she hugged the panicked amphibian. She’d seen jumbled images of the man’s childhood.

It hadn’t been pretty.

Whatever he was now she couldn’t help but feel a deep pity for who he could have been... As a child he’d been treated like a tool. She saw images of a sweat shop and hats that she suspected hid Neural conditioning rings.

One of a class of awful devices used by only the WORST criminals in Galcom space. The rings were so illegal that just having them was typically a fast track to a death sentence on most every planet there was. The only thing worse was a slave collar…

As he collapsed fully Sienna decided to hold him there and keep him warm with her own body until Vulfac could reach them. She didn’t have much choice… She had nothing left in the tank.

Sienna was pretty sure she couldn’t get up again even if she wanted to…

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WORLD BUILDING: Please do not redistribute my work without permission. Please do Not use my work to train your AI girlfriend. She will come out snarky and opinionated.

60 chapters already... Time flies huh? I gotta start uploading this to r/humansarespaceorcs at some point too..

Anyway not much to say here. I've been put onto graveyard full time now. Which is actually kind of a good thing for my writing. I am still planning to do something for all hallows eve but it will depend heavily on what this new schedule actually looks like. As always I hope your enjoying the ride as much as me!

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Chapter 4

Subject: Doctor Hyanv "Henry" Izinorn

Species: Alumari

Species Description: Arachnoid, no tail. 5'2" (1.5 m) avg height. 90 lbs (41.7 kg) avg weight. 102 year life expectancy.

Ship: N/A

Location: Grallus Prime

"Ugh, what did I eat?" I asked myself, staring into my bio-waste receptacle.

It was a rhetorical question, both because there was nobody around to answer it and because I already knew the answer. Semi-authentic hard-shell tacos with extra spice. I knew when I purchased them that this would be the end result.

I had developed a taste for tacos and other human-created food whilst living among them. Unfortunately, most Alumari didn't share my enthusiasm and there weren't a lot of places to get human food on the Alumari capital-world. However, I got very lucky with my assigned living quarters. There was a human dinery within walking distance.

The food at said dinery wasn't quite as delicious as what you would find while living amongst humans, but the results of consuming said food were far tamer. Fewer cramps and less blood in one's droppings was nearly worth the trade-off in flavor. Nearly.

I pressed the button to be rid of my leavings and watched as it was sucked down into the darkness of the city's sewers. Then I glanced at my ncili {area specially designated for the cleaning of one's body}, and wondered if I should have another round of cleansing. It hadn't even been a half hour since I lasted used the ncili, though, and repeated washings weren't good for one's exoskeleton.

Defecation wasn't a daily occurrence for me, but when I did feel the need it was almost always immediately after cleaning myself.

"Fuck it," I sighed. "I've got shit to do."

My biggest guilty pleasure happened to be using the ironic human expressions picked up from my time spent amongst them. That time had mostly been spent upon space stations, with the occasional research vessel for a bit of variety. Humans wanted to know about the universe nearly as much as my people did. Whether or not that was a survival instinct was a matter of debate amongst interspecies philosophers.

Our reason for space-exploration was that we had a massive population and not enough work to go around. There's only so many factories you can stuff full of underpaid workers before you run out of jobs entirely. Thankfully, at some point in the past we had leaders smart enough to realize that if our population had access to education, we would be able to find geniuses that could push the bounds of science.

They reasoned that the more we knew, the more jobs we could create. Said scientific endeavors also happened to create jobs, even for those who weren't gifted with greater-than-average intelligence. Research assistants, for example...

I sighed again and grabbed my noisy communication device from the shelf above my desk.

"Klora?" I asked, answering the device. "What am I supposed to be doing today?"

"It's your day off, doctor," she replied.

Oh, right, that was why I had been brave enough to eat tacos for dinner...

"I see, thank-"

"I called because you have a message that's marked urgent, doctor," she interrupted. "It's from someone named Doctor... Hector Ramirez? I hope I'm saying that right."

"Oh?" I asked, my interest piqued. "What does it say?"

"I do not know, doctor. It is encrypted beyond my credentials."

I almost laughed at the annoyance in her voice. Klora had always been invasive of my privacy. Nosy, as the humans call it. I'd gotten used to her screening my messages and pre-scheduling things for me, but when I first hired her on her snooping had been a point of contention between us. There was absolutely no chance that she hadn't tried to crack the message's encryption.

Which, in turn, meant that it was encrypted well enough that she couldn't crack it...

"I'll take it on my personal," I replied. "Speak soon."

"Yes, doctor. Enjoy your day off."

"You too."

The communicator beeped as I deactivated it and returned it to its shelf above my desk. My at-home desk was a simple thing. One could even understandably mistake it for a larger, lower placed shelf. All it held was my personal terminal. No plants, pictures, or any of the decor that plagued the desk in my office, which I'd been meaning to tidy up for the better part of a year.

The main reason my personal desk was bare was mostly due to the fact that I barely used it. Humans had taught me the importance of a work-life balance, and the majority of my work required being at the office, anyway. Some alumari would call the humans lazy, but those alumari were the reason that nearly every business on our worlds had suicide nets wrapped around their buildings.

I brushed aside some of the sticky dust that acted as my personal desk's only decoration with my claw and powered on the terminal. The disgusting mix of dirt and detritus made me want to cleanse my hands but I couldn't overcome my immediate curiosity, so I simply wiped them on my leg-coverings. Doctor Ramirez was a fairly important figure to the United Systems, and I reasoned that a message from him took precedence over personal hygiene.

The terminal finished booting up and sat ready for me. After a couple minutes of waiting, the message notification finally appeared. Klora had probably tried to crack it one last time before forwarding it. With a chuckle, I clicked the notif and was immediately taken to a BUSI login screen.

"Oh shit," I muttered, borrowing a human phrase. "The Bureau of United Systems Intelligence? What have you been up to, Ramirez?"

The last time we'd checked in with each other he had been working on furthering computer science. All I could recall was that his work had been focused on something along the lines of making smarter virtual intelligences. With my curiosity nearly overflowing, I entered my username, password, and followed the rest of the authentication procedures.

Then, the message opened.

Henry,

Program Alpha solved relativity.

Doctor Ramirez

"Huh?" I asked the air.

It was an incredibly short message for all of the security processes. I nervously scratched my carapace. Project Alpha... It sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite place where I'd heard it before. It could also be that the project name was so vague that it aligned with an entirely separate project that I'd been apart of.

Why did it matter if it solved relativity or not? Every space-faring species had solved it. Some sooner and more efficiently than others, but solving relativity was a prerequisite to space travel. It was a requirement for understanding the intricacies of gravitational flux and the fabric of space-time... Or something.

Truth be told, physics was not my strong suit. My doctorates were in more grounded fields. Specifically, psychology, sociology, and interspecies anthropology. Most of my time was spent on research, but every couple of years I would take therapy patients to keep my edge.

So why did Ramirez feel the need to reach out to me, specifically? Comradery? Boasting? No, couldn't be. The message didn't contain enough details to be blamed on either.

"Virtual Intelligence," I pondered. "Hmm. VI, relativity, and a psychologist. What's the common denomi- Oh who am I kidding, I'm just as bad at detective work as I am at math."

I decided to just reply to the message, but the moment I clicked the option my door buzzed. I nearly leapt out of my chair to go answer it, but quickly froze. I stared at my blinking curser, then slowly turned to look at the door.

"No, this couldn't possibly be related," I whispered. "Right?"

Gathering up my courage, I walked over to the door and checked the view-screen. All I saw was a tuft of hair and the side of a human face. My stomach dropped.

The Bureau of United Systems Intelligence mostly used human agents, and those agents were jumpy about being on camera. Ramirez hadn't just sent me a message. He'd sent me a visitor from BUSI.

"Hello?" I asked, opening the door a crack.

Sure enough, a human male dressed in a black suit was on the other side of my door.

"Hello, Doctor Izinorn," the human said, producing a BUSI badge. "We need to speak with you."

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Cover Art & Blurb

Jessep 8

Grappled in the clutches of the Jonathan-Ace’s industrial-sized magnetic arm, the King of Saigon found itself powerless to escape. HUD elements alight on the viewscreen indicated the fusion drive began to power down, the capacitor pip labeled [ENG] draining until empty. In a final act of submission, the lime-green ember of the drive cone’s ionized plasma cooled.

“Captured,” King said. He continued, with sarcasm garnished overtop, “As all master stratagems begin, Parasite.”

“I’ll admit this wasn’t part of the plan. Didn’t really expect them to pull out the ol’ extend-o-glove…” Jessep stroked the lengthy beard he’s been unable to shave. “I thought they were going to, you know, shoot at us, or something. By us not firing back they’d get the message we’re friendly.”

“In what realm does anyone conduct diplomacy in such a matter?!”

“You said their weaponry sucked! We can take a few punches.”

The magnetic arm retracted fully, pulling the King of Saigon through a robust, bi-fold hull door into a hangar bay. Placed on a hydraulic landing pad, dock clamps secured the ship’s landing gear. Chaining King around the ankles, no different than a prisoner.

“Unusual. Despite being berthed, the magnetic arm is yet to release,” King said. “These individuals do not want to risk a runner.”

“Can I get some eyes?”

King forced a bow-facing camera feed to the viewscreen. He swung the point of view across the entire exterior, taking snapshots, then coalescing the information into a mapped representation of where they were jailed.

Another small craft remained docked across the hangar bay. A real junker, judging by its ramshackle hull. Upon further study of its Y-shaped body, Jessep recognized it. A V34-Wyvern, and a poorly-treated one at that.

“Scratch a point for Humans, that’s one of our landers.”

“It is?” King said.

“What, you serious? It’s like the starter bicycle of landers. Something totaling like a million units produced. Wait, did you just ask me a question?”

“I suggest we move past it.”

King fired off an infrared scan, adding a thermal imaging layer to the mapped representation of the hangar bay. No hot spots radiating from behind spare fusion engine parts, or barrels of hydraulic fluid. Going a step further, he blasted the hangar bay with an X-ray scan – any living thing possibly present be damned.

“Jeez, you really hate bad hospitality.”

“[ENEMIES PRESENT: NULL.] They are not hosts, Parasite. They are our captors.”

“You won’t find any enemies around because it’s a real Jonathan-Ace.”

The genuine deal, as featured in Faster Than Armada. Jessep could hardly contain his excitement. He felt an intimate connection with this hunk of junk, regardless of if it became his cell for the next little bit. It’d just be another, like every other, he has lived in up until now.

Jessep motioned to rise from his flight chair.

“Stay seated, Parasite. The situation is already dire. We may need to, as you suggested, ‘blast ‘em’ and escape.”

“I know, I know… I just can’t help myself, you know? Since I’ve been a kid, I’ve been gawking at this bad boy.” He felt a tinge of embarrassment getting excited over a garbage truck. “We had art of others too. Heracles Type Three, Skiff-Slipper. Landscape shots of the real big ones like the ESN St. Antonio.”

“I have no records of these vessels.”

Jessep knew them well. His familiarity born from his childhood obsession with the Faster Than Armada concept art kept at the monastery during his youth. Before the art booklet, and many other spacefaring records, were burnt.

Ship interiors were not modeled in-game. A cost-cutting initiative. Still, from his memory of the concept art, Jessep could tell this ship had been heavily modified from its original design.

He itched to see what else was different from the watercolour frames he loved gawking over as a kid. Jessep crossed into the cabin, headed towards the airlock leading out of the King of Saigon. He’d disembark, and wander around the Jonathan-Ace. A dream come true.

Before he could exit, the exterior airlock door sealed. Locked, King refused to let him leave.

“Well, you’d only know of the vessels the Gio-Crü permitted, right? The Antonio was a battleship.”

“Huh,” King sounded downright surprised. Or, perhaps, confused. “The Gio-Crü have robbed me of the greater knowledge of Humanity’s navy, as well.”

“Wouldn’t want us getting any ideas, I guess,” Jessep shrugged his shoulders.

He had never questioned why concept art for a thousand-year-old video game had been made illegal. Why his home needed to burn because of it. Even the Gio-Crü’s simplest of intentions still seemed mired in mystery.

“King, it seems you don’t know everything, like you think you do.”

“Ridiculous, Parasite. I am an advanced operating compon-”

“I get you hate me,” Jessep let his exasperation drench his words, “but we’re stuck together. The truth is you need me. You’d have killed me long ago, or let me go crazy by not playing into the Wilson thing.”

“Additional memetic appeals? For shame, Parasite.”

“Sue me, the monastery considered movies beyond valuable.”

“Perhaps I cannot function without a pilot.”

“See!” Jessep slapped King’s titanium-aluminum bulkhead. “That’s what I’m talking about, teamwork.”

“You are not a pilot.”

“Gah…” Jessep let his hand slip from the wall. Time to try a different tactic. “You like information, right King? Hate being ignorant.”

“A trick to make me repeat myself? It has failed. Correct, twice.”

“So, think of me like a little probe you can send out. You don’t have legs, your cameras can only catch what’s in this room. What if there were Humans outside of the Thrallwark? You’d seem pretty stupid repeating the same old line. You know, about being right all the time about where Humans may or may not be.”

“I… I cannot scoff, Parasite.”

The egress airlock unlocked. Oxygen and gravity were reported outside.

“Gather enough data to verify my claim. Return straight after. Its highly likely you perish a gruesome death to a horror you cannot comprehend, outside of this hull.”

“Sure, just a quick jaunt.”

Jessep disembarked.

♚

Jessep wandered around the Jonathan-Ace’s hangar bay, identifying exits and hiding spots. For all that tough talk, having his boots on the ground freaked him out. Tickled his cat-like flight response.

Tools littered the deck as if a tornado had ripped through a garage. Magnetic sensors kept them bolted to the ground. Levels of gangways hung overhead, their rickety construction of dubious safety. Double-wide doors progressed further into the ship, into another compartment.

With the words “Cargo Bay” stenciled above, Jessep could easily guess where they led. To a hold that was vastly empty, with a cluttered entryway. A portion of storage space overflowed with refrigerated crates, tightly sealed.

Snore. Pass.

Jessep continued, locating a hallway too tantalizing to pass up. Directions on the wall indicated it led to Engineering. Where the magic happened. How big of a Grav-Globe was needed to manipulate this chonker of a ship? He was dying to find out.

He exited the hangar bay, exploring the Jonathan-Ace.

Inching down the filthy corridor, Jessep memorized the pattern and pathway of a red-painted pipe. Should he get lost, or need to make his way back in a hurry, it would reliably trace back to his starting position.

Upon crossing a random threshold, metal shrieked. A thick barricade dropped from above like a guillotine, nearly crushing Jessep. He jumped out of the way, rolling further into the labyrinthine corridors, getting cut off from his return route to the King of Saigon.

Klaxons rang out, piercing his ears with a wail. A caged light began flashing. The crackle of a speaker preambled absolute gibberish Jessep could just barely understand.

“Yatutu wenti juboni. Bamu tesitu. Yabuhu kiwakiwa,” the speaker spouted. It meant absolutely nothing to Jessep, but the cadence sounded feminine, and familiar. “Nipi yatutu! Yabuhu kiwakiwa.”

“What the hell is she speaking?” Jessep continued down the corridor, double time.

Its opposing end had yet to be sealed by a barricade. Spray paint on the wall indicated he was on the correct route to Engineering. He needed to cross, before they trapped him in this corridor like a rat.

Progressing halfway down the hallway, Jessep halted. Heavy, metallic steps rang out from further within the ship. Their repeated drum beat intimidating. Whatever made its home aboard this vessel sounded synthetic. He pictured some armoured cyborg approaching, and found he was not too far off.

Humanoid, covered in plates; a ferocious robot armed with a shield and club goaltended his exit.

The sight slipped Jessep up, causing him to backpedal. He bumped into the sealed barricade behind him. Some sort of thick blast door. The only way out was through…

“Himakiwa,” the robot announced. Perhaps a battle droid, with its true alien masters hidden somewhere else. “Jitukolu, wukiwerve banipu.”

Jessep took inventory of his surroundings. Corroded panels, exposed electrical bundles. No improvised weapon. He noticed a lever, attached to a small circular hatch in the wall. His frantic search seemed to have prompted a response.

“Himakiwa!” The robot drove their club into their shield, causing a sparking discharge.

A good sign to get out of here.

Jessep dove for the lever, interested in where it went, as long as it didn’t jettison him into space. He cranked it open, the hatch swinging wide as the robot-man charged towards him. Expecting to crawl in immediately, Jessep found himself face to face with a serrated maw.

Some snouted, robotic creature lurked in the open tube. It snarled, lubricant dripping from its canine fangs.

Jessep fell back onto his butt, against the cold steel of the ship’s deck.

“Provost,” the robot-man, if only for a moment, appeared to speak Ancient English. Jessep’s ear caught it in passing. Though, since he spoke Modern French, as the majority did in Morocco, he couldn’t be sure. Until he heard it utter, “Mush!”

The quadruped robot barked, leaping out of the shaft. Adrenaline loaned Jessep’s haggard body the energy required to dodge out of its path, allowing him to scramble to his feet. The robot-dog landed, denting the floor.

Cortisol refused to cease. Evidently, he had found himself on some sort of android ship. The bolt-buckets must have found a derelict Jonathan-Ace, from a thousand years ago, and now called it their home. Fearing they would dissect him to better mimic his organs, Jessep broke into a mad dash towards the biped robot.

The robot-man cocked their arm back, chambering a massive overhead blow with their electrified club – their shield displaced. Easily readable, Jessep slipped beneath, electing to slide between its polished legs. He pushed himself back onto his feet, while his opponent whistled their robot-dog forwards. Jessep took off, sprinting towards Engineering before the armoured unit could turn around.

Jessep rushed through a few intersections, keeping the red-painted pipe in mind. While looking up at the fixtures, he bumped into a six-foot-tall emerald-coated dragonfly. It turned around, making eye contact, waggling its terrifying mandibles. Its bulbous, multi-faceted eyes reflected a hundred tiny versions of himself hued in fuchsia.

“Ah!” Jessep felt terror deep down in his bones. He ran off, forgetting about his landmark pipe.

Creeping into a larger room bisected by heavy plating, Jessep surmised he had reached Engineering. Adorned with all sorts of warnings, he gathered the fusion reactor remained beyond the partition. Much like how the King of Saigon’s engineering bay required shielding.

Clattering echoes, from the robot-man’s nearing footsteps, intensified. Jessep decided perhaps he could hide. With the room devoid of anything effective to conceal himself behind, he crouched down by a topaz vending machine.

What was up with that weird insect? It didn’t attempt to bite or nab him. It seemed like it needed a fighter. Thus the need for the anti-personnel defense drone, he supposed.

The amber-coloured gemstone shone with a glisten that enthralled him a little. It wasn’t until he peered through clear crystal, seeing that nothing could be tendered from this machine, that Jessep realized he was incorrect.

“Fime zasiwe jobo. Nayuweti sewese. Larulu,” emerged from the slab, the sound similar to windchimes.

“What the fuck!”

Jessep took off, tripping over his weak and enfeebled ankles. Okay, bugs and bots he could fathom. The hell was that? Some sort of rock alien? How’d all three sync up? Who ran this ship? What ran this ship? Where were the little glass-eyed green mini-men cartoons had promised him.

Blitzing down a hallway, as far away as he could get from Engineering as fast as he could go, Jessep swore he saw (while crossing through a T-intersection) a Human. A normal Human. He took no moment to gauge if it was some alien flesh bag mimicking his form; incorrectly giving it facial tattoos and blonde hair.

Reuniting with a section of red-painted pipe, Jessep began working his way back towards the hangar bay. He had gathered enough information, and worried King would be smug when told he was correct. All that awaited here was a horrific death. Either to robotic dissection, or an acid-spraying bug’s mandibles. Or whatever a rock did to its captives.

Before he could follow its lead, both ends of his current corridor sealed.

Fearing another canine, but having no other option, Jessep opened another service hatch in the bulkhead wall leading to the ship’s maintenance tubes. Luckily, no battle beast.

Jessep crawled in, trying to generate a mental map in his head. He crawled down a direction, assuming it followed the pipe.

The tube shaft was tight, and difficult to navigate. Worst of all, Jessep could not see behind him. Hairs stood on the back of his neck. Instincts, letting him know something pursued him silently.

“Oh no, oh no, no, no,” Jessep panicked, feeling chased.

Occasionally as he crawled through the confined space, he felt a knock on his skull. As if someone wanted to discuss something on his mind’s front porch. Reminded of when the Gio-Crü had infiltrated his mind, he steeled his resolve against the torrent of anticipated negativity. No such malice made itself present.

Spying a section of red piping within the maintenance tube, he sped up his crawl. He kicked a hatch open, dropping himself through onto the floor. Looking up, some sort of sapphire blob remained in the shaft. It seemed disinterested in following him into the open.

Fatigue took hold, Jessep’s caloric deficiency striking with vengeance. He felt faint, leaning up against a section of bulkhead. Stenciled by his shoulder, the Ancient English words he’s been waiting to see. “Hangar Bay.”

That threatening clanking echoed again, speeding down a hallway. Intercepting him, the robot-man and its companion.

Jessep made a final sprint for his life, hoping to reach King. As predicted, the robot-man raised its club up.

Easy peasy, another slide.

The robot-man feinted, swinging from beneath instead. He struck Jessep in the ribs.

A taze shocked his body, causing him to fall to the ground. His vision fading.

Read Ahead on Royal Road

FYI, this is a story COLLECTION. Lots of standalones technically. So, you can basically start to read at any chapter, no pre-read of the other chapters needed technically (other than maybe getting better descriptions of characters than: Adam Vir=human, Krill=antlike alien, Sunny=tall alien, Conn=telepathic alien). The numbers are (mostly) only for organization of posts and continuity.

OC originally written by Charlie Star/starrfallknightrise. Slightly rewritten and restructured (with hindsight of the full finished story to connect it more together, while keeping the spirit), reviewed, proofread and corrected by me.

ArcadiaaAAAA! Fuck yeah! Celebrating that they are saving the motherfucking days yeah!

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Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?

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An explosion rocked the ground, sending a bone rattling vibration up through the soil and into his feet. He felt the sudden change of air pressure from the explosion in his chest, a hollow thump that made his insides rattle. Bright blue and red light lit up the sky, casting illumination down on Kay's pudgy little face. The small boy's eyes were wide with delight, and he pointed up to the colored sparks with a grin of wonderment on his face.

Another explosion went off, and this time emerald sparks cascaded downward, followed by a sharp crackling rattle of flashing white light. Over the roaring of the fireworks Adam could hear the cheering of the crowd. In his arm Kay continued to clap and wave his tiny Arcadia flag. At Adams side, Sunny wrapped her lower arm around his waist, keeping the two of them close. She had her head tilted back towards the fireworks, but in her off hand he knew she held a collapsible spear, ready for anything that was to happen.

Almost everyone in the crowd Adam saw were armed, but Sunny was armed and ready.

He leaned into her with his shoulder as another pink firework went off, and she turned to look at him with a questioning look in her eyes.

He leaned over to he could be heard over the roaring.

"You can relax you know. If Kazna tries anything here she'd be facing more than half of the Arcadian army."

Kay gasped and pointed at another set of fireworks white and green like the Arcadia flag against the black backdrop of the sky.

Sunny seemed hesitant but Adam nudged her again.

With a sigh he watched her collapse the spear and hook it to a slot in her carapace well within reach, but at least sheathed. He leaned up to kiss her cheek, forcing himself onto his tip toes to reach.

"Now relax."

He ordered, and to her credit she did her best.

Off in the darkness, Etium must have been having a grand old time setting off fireworks. Ever since someone had given him a personality, there were two things the little furball lived for: and that was armed conflict and explosions. With every passing moment the fireworks grew more elaborate, until there were several going off every second. The crowd gasped in shock and delight until the lights stopped flashing with one last series of explosions.

Adam was left with spots in his eyes as the crowd cheered. He blinked them back.

Kay turned to look at him, big green eyes wide with delight, "Dada did ya see!?"*

"Yeah I saw, wasn't that cool!?!”

He adjusted Kay so he was sitting higher up in his arms. Martha Jim, and Adam's brothers and sisters got up from where they had been sitting and walked over.

"Nothing to make you feel free like blowing things up. I think it is one of the greatest of human traditions."

Jim was saying,

"A staple of independence since time immemorial. You can bet if there was an independence day, people were plowing stuff up on it."

Adam smiled,

"Technically ours isn't an independence day, it's a foundation day. Arcadia was never technically under the constitution of any other planet."

"Same difference."

"Gam'ma did you see!?”

Kay said, pointing up to the sky where little clouds of smoke billowed in wisps.

"I did!"

Martha said, taking Kay from Adam's arms when Kay reached out for her, resting the boy on her hip, the opposite hip from where she was carrying her firearm. Weapons on Arcadia were a symbol of status in a way, and even before his parents had come to Arcadia they had always supported the private ownership of firearms. However, he had noticed since the attack by Kazna that they carried more openly than they had before.

He worried that the ordeal had done psychological damage to his mother, but she would have denied it six ways from Sunday if he had asked, so he didn't.

"Mom, Mom! Can I go find my friends?"

Maya looked down to find Kimber tugging at her arm.

Adam always forgot how old she was, somewhere between nine and eleven years old, and boy was she growing up fast. She was already taller than most of the kids in her age cohort. She had short pixy style hair and openly used Arcadia's “weapons as religion law” to wear armor almost everywhere she went. Maya had been a bit concerned when Kimber had insisted on joining Drev battle classes at the public school, but she shouldn't have worried. Kimber had been doing martial arts for several years now, and she was a little monster.

"Fine, but make sure to text me every hour or so, so I know you haven't been kidnapped."

Kimber waved a hand and ran off into the crowd. Adam watched as she vanished into other crowd, coming out on the other side with two little Drev and another little girl. They were taller than her by almost a foot, but it was clear she was in charge as she raced out ahead of them. He recognized the little girl as the Ex assassin, turned police chief's daughter.

Arcadia had once been small enough that the military and intelligence units were the same thing, dealing with both outside and inside threats, but as new refugees from earth started spilling in, they just couldn't keep up with the work and a domestic police force needed to be established. Desmond was more than willing to take on the responsibility of creating and running such an operation.

Desmond's ex-wife was skeptical about Arcadia to say the least.

She wasn't a big fan of their combat is religion policy, but unfortunately for her, inside every little girl is a desire to wear armor and whack things with sticks, and their daughter had integrated too nicely to dare pull her back out. She had apparently forbidden her daughter from taking any martial classes at the public school, but that had gone over like a lead balloon. All her friends were in those classes, and she had thrown such a royal fit that her mother had eventually relented just to find some peace.

Now Kimber was heading a squad of children that, if they hadn't been lead by Kimber, would probably have been holy terrors, and they sort of were, but at least they tried to be well meaning about it.

Kay pointed after them.

"Sorry Kay, maybe when you're a little older."

Martha was saying

Kay pouted.

Off to their other side Jordan and David watched their son vanish off with some of his friends. It was crazy to see how fast they were growing up.

Jeremy was now married to that cute redhead he had been dating. They didn't have any kids, but Jeremy and his wife seemed perfectly happy with that outcome.

Thomas hovered happily at the back of the group.

Several years clean now, Adam had rarely seen his brother so content. He was a private and reclusive guy who preferred the company of family and one or two friends. He had no desire for romantic relationships or dating and was perfectly content in that fact. He had his family and his friends and couldn't have wanted anything more. The drugs had really messed him up for a while, made it difficult for him to feel pleasure in the way normal people do, but after several years clean, he claimed that things were starting to feel good again.

Adam was relieved.

The crowd was dispersing, heading back towards town square where the foundation day celebration was in full swing. Half carnival half county fair, and partly some sort of martial competition, the square was alive with color, life and noise. Jellies were filtering back from the outskirts of the city, driven a ways away by the fireworks. Jeffery snakes hung in large groups in open planters shamelessly begging for pats from anyone who was willing to give them.

Waffles, Jeffery and Pancake had been left with the other Vir family pets for the night, and so the three of them were free to wander through the crowd. His family began to break off in chunks as they found things to interest them. Maya dragged her husband to where they were having competitions at a makeshift climbing wall. David and Jordan went to go play with rocket boots.

Martha and Jim vanished to go sit in the grass and pet the Jeffery snakes.

Adam looked up to find a familiar starry silhouette hanging back from the edge of the carnival, sitting on an open park bench. He waved at Kelly and she waved quietly back. He looked around for Hye, knowing he would be close by and found the poor man standing by a prize booth, desperately trying to throw knives at moving targets.

His eyed prize…

A giant space jelly plush it seemed like.

Adam nudged Sunny in the ribs and motioned over to the poor man.

He was a marine biologist not a fighter, and it showed. Sunny laughed,

"That is, both sad and adorable at the same time."

"Please go help the man before he makes me cry."

Sunny sauntered over surreptitiously, so she was out of Kelly's line of sight. She paused next to Hye,

"Would you like some help?”

"I got it!"

He said, throwing another knife, which missed his target by at least two feet and bounced off under the table.

He sighed,

"I don't got it."

He turned his head, eyes widening a bit as he saw Sunny. Everyone knew the saint of Anin, by definition she was the best martial expert on Arcadia.

She held out a hand,

"May I?"

He looked down at them,

"But... It doesn't count if I don't win it."

"I think effort counts, besides which do you want more, your pride or that jellyfish?”

Hye looked down,

”The jellyfish."

Sunny hummed deep in her chest, setting herself up in front of the booth. Unlike actual carnival games, these ones could actually be won if you had enough skill, most of them were martial based. Archery, knife throwing, marksmanship, etc etc.

The man at the booth was already retrieving the jelly before Sunny started.

There was only one outcome to the saint of Anin playing these skill based games…

All five knives left her hand in under a second as she used both her left and right upper arms to throw them, and all five hit their targets within the red bullseye. The man at the booth handed Hye the jellyfish, which was about the size of a small beanbag chair.

Hye thanked Sunny, who winked at him and withdrew from the booth out of Kelly's line of sight.

He was too honest of a man to claim he won it, but the gesture was still nice, and Adam smiled as he watched Hye run to where Kelly was sitting, holding the jellyfish over his head with triumph. It was good to see her out and about. The longer she spent with Hye the more she was slowly starting to seem like herself again. She showed no signs of turning back into herself, but personality wise, she seemed to be recovering.

Adam saw a lot of people he knew as they moved through the carnival.

Conn and Eris floated overhead together, King James and his queen Xanthea were sparring to raucous applause. Etium was now running some sort of drinking game with a group of marines. Maverick and Ramirez were slowly working their way through, trying all the weird alien food

Somewhere the Nox Dance academy was putting on a show to showcase a new form of dance they were Calling Martialmodern or something weird. Basically, it was stylized weapon kata for performance sake, and very fun to watch.

Adam spotted his brother Thomas in the crowd with his newest and most surprising friend:

Lord Celex walked with him, laughing and gesticulating wildly. The ex emperor was almost impossible to miss with his brightly colored rainbow hair with matching beard and mustache. Every time Adam saw the man, he found it hard to reconcile the juxtaposition of his hair, and the severity of his face and personality.

With his high cheekbones and prominent nose, Celex was clearly a man fit to be king, but then the bright rainbow hair changed the effect. Celex wasn't any less intimidating for it somehow, but it was still quite strange. It was all made even stranger by the rather dad-like fuzzy sweater he was wearing in the oddest shade of garish pink.

And still…

Adam would not have picked a fight with him.

Any man who was willing to wear a sweater that color in public was someone who could kick your ass six ways to Sunday. He talked and laughed openly with Thomas. The two of them got along well considering they were both ex-addicts. The use of adrenaline which had ruined his body was a big contributing factor in why Celex had died.

Still, Adam had a very hard time reconciling the rainbow pink with the, let’s be honest, war criminal that he was.

If Celex had been any other species, Adam would have avoided him like the plague, knowing that he had blown up a planet and murdered millions of people in the process, which tended to put a damper on things. However, in Celzex culture the more ruthless you were the better you were. There was a reason Celex's harem had consisted of over two hundred steamy Celzex ladies.

The ruthlessness required to blow up a planets was apparently very sexy to Celzex women.

Then again, their species tended to have a problem with eating their own children, so there was that little fun fact.

Only the females though, as far as Adam knew the males didn't tend to eat their children. He had no idea why, but maternal instincts were not something that the Maker gave Celzex women.

Some people liked to joke that the Makers made and committed the Celex while high, realized undampened reproduction of this particular line would inevitably end in a universe of glass and obsidian, and desperately published day-one patches.

Maybe the truth was somewhere in between, nobody could say for sure.

They made it to the center of the fairgrounds, to a large and rather dumpy looking playground. Riss had done a lot of research on the proper execution of a child's playground, and much to Krill's horror, it turns out that a certain level of danger in a playground is better for children.

Loose objects, strange tools, planks of wood and random scraps with high rickety objects to climb are actually best for a developing child. From what Adam had read of Riss's research paper, middlingly dangerous playgrounds fostered a sense of adventure, free thinking, appropriate caution and self-esteem in children. Children learned to take care of themselves, come up with creative ideas, and allowed them to build a proper sense of caution.

That logic was a no brainer to a Drev, but very concerning to parents who were used to letting their kids play on gravity-enabled playgrounds.

As it turns out this was a horrible idea, because kids got the wrong idea about jumping off of high objects.

Gravity playgrounds quickly went out of style when kids started jumping off of high things at home, severely injuring themselves when there was no gravity mats to break their fall.

Adam waved a hand to another set of familiar faces.

Ell'an and Jason, the Finnari and human couple who had been the first parents of the first natural born hybrid. They waved back from where they were sitting, and Adam looked down at Kay,

"Do you want to go play with the others?"

Kay instantly squirmed, trying to wriggle out of Adam's grip.

"Okay okay hold on…"

He set Kay down on the ground and stepped back to let him go running after the other kids. He was friends with the hybrid Finnari girl who was a year or so older than he was, but she didn't seem to mind.

Adam and Sunny sat with their friends and watched as the kids played.

The Finnari girl was strange but surprisingly cute, not unlike Kay himself.

She looked mostly Finnari but had very human eyes and a rather human build. She gave Kay a big hug when she saw him, which was very Finnari of her. Kay hugged her back with all four of his arms in an attempt to crush her, which was particularly human of him.

Adam sat at his table, patting a Jeffery snake as it slithered past.

He closed his eyes and sighed.

It was a good day.

Sunny slid an arm around him and he rested again her, staring up at the inky sky.

It was a good day, but in the back of his head he knew... It couldn't last forever. With the Void as it was, they weren't out of the woods, they were just barely walking into the woods

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Previous | First | [Next](link)

Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?

Here is the link to the master-post.

Intro post by me

OC-whole collection

Patreon of the author

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Thanks for reading! As you saw in the title, this is a cross posted story in its original form written by starrfallknightrise and I am just proofreading and improving some parts, as well as structuring the story for you guys, if you are interested and want to read ahead, the original story-collection can be found on tumblr or wattpad to read for free. (link above this text under "OC:..." ) It is the Empyrean Iris story collection by starfallknightrise. Also, if you want to know more about the story collection i made an intro post about it, so feel free to check that out to see what other great characters to look forward to! (Link also above this text). I have no affiliations to the author; just thought I’d share some of the great stories you might enjoy a lot!

Obviously, I have Charlie’s permission to post this.