“This was exceedingly excessive,” Lydia said. Her voice, only intact thanks to Undine’s healing, was slightly raised, having to speak over the sound of water drumming on the floor. She was currently using a shower, powered by John, to wash the remaining cum out of her hair.
“I liked it,” Rave, standing right next to her, said, soap bubbling over her naked curves. “Was a nice group exercise. We can continue this later... although we need to calm Siena down first.”
The shadow elemental was currently on time-out in John’s shadow. She had had a… well, John would call it a possessive episode, Rave called it a yandere attack. Besides the point though as the two girls kept showering and John concentrated on having his dick inside Undine.
Basically, everyone who was human was trying to get somewhat presentable in case some journalists would swarm them. Lydia didn’t plan to do anything but answer some questions. However, it was one thing to say “I don’t have time,” and another saying that same phrase while looking like one just had a circle of dudes bukkake them. John’s familiars had the distinct advantage of just going incorporeal, if they even needed long to get cleaned at all.
Speaking of showers on a plane, that was a truly wonderful thing. Of course, it was only possible thanks to John fuelling the mana generator that provided the necessary liquid and whatever arcane machinations that made it vanish in the drain afterwards.
The fact that he had to fuel the mana generator meant that he himself did not get a chance to join the princess, his girlfriend, and the bundle of madness that was Thana in the shower. Which was just the worst. Rave soaped Lydia up, while the princess tried her best to get clean. Simultaneously, Thana got boobs pushed into her face. John had to watch all of that from the sidelines.
At least he had an alternative to the shower in the form of Undine. The water spirit was not psyched by the fact that she was used as a mobile bath, but the fact that she got to continue to ride John’s dick while everyone showered seemed to be enough to appease her. It was a win-win for both John and his elemental.
“I liked it too,” Sylph chirped, “It was fun, lots of fun, lots of tentacles, not enough dicking, but hey, what can you do? You could try getting more! But more men that aren’t John isn’t nice. I want more Johns! Can we get more Johns? Johnnie, can you make more Johns with more Johns?”
“Shut up, Sylph,” Salamander grumbled. The fire spirit was in a more foul mood than usual, since she was once more doomed to hair-dryer duty. A mechanical voice announced that they would land in about 15 minutes. Lydia and Rave took that as their queue to leave the shower.
“Ya are weird,” Rave said.
“What are you speaking in reference to?” Lydia asked.
“The shower was way too cold,” came the swift answer, “ya gotta shower really hot.”
“Jane,” John chimed in, “you just take showers that are almost burning hot.”
“No matter how often ya say that, it’s still wrong.” Rave folded her arms over her naked chest. Already her wet, pink hair had started to regain its usual wild display. The heat radiating from Salamander dried things quickly. “Ya just don’t know how to enjoy a nice, warm shower.”
“Okay, different question, one that I have needed an answer to for a long time.” John pointed at his girlfriend’s head. “How the hell do you have hair like that? Your dad’s hair is a dark brown, your mother’s hair is midnight blue and your sister’s hair is neon green. Not to mention the fact that all three of you have hairstyles that are borderline physically impossible.”
“Ah, ya know, ancient Japanese curse, nothing serious,” Rave waved off.
“Say what now?” John blinked, for a moment his confusion even overwrote the feeling of Undine’s pussy quivering around his dick.
“Ancient Japanese curse, some ancestor got it from a moody mage or something, I dunno, I just have cool hair,” the techno-lover continued, stepping into her panties as if there was nothing weird about what she had just said.
“What she is referring to,” Lydia weighed in, somehow more helpful on this, “is the ancient Japanese practice of binding a spell to a bloodline via rituals of varying complexity. These rituals are completely forgotten these days, but many curses still persist.”
“How did that happen? The forgetting, I mean?” John investigated further.
“Declining popularity, outlawing of the practice by the Final Sun, and finally the raids of the Dangun Clan upon the Japanese islands killed all known practitioners. Attempts to restore or replicate these rituals have, so far, been unsuccessful.” The princess put her arms through the sleeves of her hovering uniform. “I must say that I am surprised that your hair stems from that. I assumed you simply enchanted it to look that way or that another Abyssal mutation was involved.”
“Nah, the enchantment is my brown hair.” Rave giggled and fanned out her now dried, pink mane. “People often make that mistake.”
John took a forced pause to cum inside Undine before resuming the talk. There were many things he was used to by now, but talking while his balls unloaded was not one of them. Once his orgasm was over, however, he turned back to the conversation.
“So, in conclusion,” he said as Undine flowed off him and then vanished, “you have a curse that gives you anime hair?”
“Ja, awesome, isn’t it?” Rave smirked.
“Try fucking retarded,” Thana threw in. The pretty little psycho was at the receiving end of Momo’s attention. Over and over again, the sassy support pulled a comb through Thana’s hair.
“Your hair is so much like Aclysia’s,” she mused, “soft, silvery-white, hah, I love it.”
“Stop being creepy back there,” Thana hissed.
“Want to try combing your own hair?” Momo asked. “Oh wait, you would break the comb in your hulk-hands. Relax and let me take care of you, you ungrateful child.” Thana didn’t know how to answer that.
“Anyhow, so if you two had plagues…” A questioningly raised eyebrow gave Thana pause for a second. “…kids as they are more commonly called,” the blood mage turned to the easier conversation. “That would then be inherited by them?”
“Only to the girls,” Rave answered, “Don’t even ask me why, for the history of who got my family that curse and why I’d have to talk to my mother, and that won’t be happening soon.”
“And would you like to have kids in the first place?” Thana probed further.
John yawned, all of the fucking had left him a bit tired. “I mean, someday? Depends, question kind of comes out of left field here.”
“Well, if I were pregnant tomorrow, what would we do?” Rave wondered.
“Either abort mission or try to get this tournament over ASAP and then retire to the countryside,” John suggested.
“Yeah… ah well, spell’s still in place, so whatevs.”
They left the shower and went back into the seating area. Lydia glared angrily at the tear in her carpet and then at its source. “Hey, I kept it at one,” Thana mumbled quietly in her defense. “I kept my ‘hulk-hands’ to myself for the whole hour and whatever more that fucking fucking went on….”
The princess sighed, “Fair enough. At least it will be cheaper to fix in Rome than in Berlin.”
“Do they have that good an economy?” John asked.
Lydia kept a straight face, “You will soon see the infrastructure of the Eternal City for yourself.”
“Well then, I will wait,” John said and sat down as the announcement warned them of the landing starting.
‘The whole city is in a barrier? That’s pretty impressive,’ John thought as the plane came to a slow halt. The engines went out, the blades of the turbines slowly stopped rotating, and the buzzing of movement stopped. John didn’t hate flying but he would be happy to have solid ground under his feet again. The door opened and Lydia took the lead. John was second and, if the staircase hadn’t been automated, he would have blocked the exit for everyone else.
They were not back on solid ground, not really. They were on top of an island, hovering in the sky. Several more filled the surrounding airspace, dozens of them. The one they were on was among the largest, the entire airport located on top of it. Others held singular buildings or entire city blocks. A web of streets of flowing blue connected them, arcane roads that people moved on like they were conveyor belts. All islands were tethered to a truly titanic obelisk of marble white located at the centre of the city. Arcane veins and runes constantly pulsed on its surface.
John stumbled when he reached the end of the escalator. Prepared for this stunned awe, Lydia caught him. “Impressive, isn’t it?” she asked in her usual iron tone.
“Impressive?!” Thana laughed into her face, “Bitch, this isn’t impressive, this is stupendous, who builds a whole city in the fucking sky?”
“What makes you think that is the whole city?” Lydia asked.
“Ya can’t be serious,” Rave returned.
“I am, this is the heart of Romulus’ Empire, the oldest European, perhaps even global, Abyssal organization,” she pointed at the islands. “These are merely extensions and outskirts. When they ran out of space on the ground the city planners turned to the sky. First, they put public buildings such as the airport or the bigger hospitals up here, creating more living space. The magical highways used to transport citizens turned out to be massive time savers as well. Then people in power asked if they could have small islands themselves, to have access to these magical highways and more isolated living quarters.” She pointed to one particular island. “That is where we will be staying by the way: Mansion Hohenstaufen.”
“Okay, so the city then continued to grow anyhow and then they decided to put whole city blocks into the sky?” John asked, extremely bamboozled.
“Yes,” Lydia answered like it was the most normal thing in her world. They looked at each other and a small twitching of Lydia’s lips told him that she was rather enjoying his utter incomprehension of the amount of power in this place.
“And then they put magical SUNS on the bottom of the islands so the population below wouldn’t have that great of a difference?” he probed further.
“Indeed,” came another single word answer.
“Ya know that is ridicu-“ Rave started but was interrupted by Thana just bursting into absolutely maniacal laughter.
“F-ahahahahHAHAHAAAA-uck you WHAT?!” she cackled out. “This is stupid, fucking retarded, what is below us that they raise islands off the ground?”
“These weren’t raised, they were created,” Lydia corrected. “The amount of mana needed to create earth is incredible compared to air or water, but it's not impossible.”
“Which only makes it more fucking stupid,” Thana cackled. “Okay, whatever, let’s get away from here, I hear about 200 people’s footsteps about 400 metres off, chatting about interviewing us.”
“You can HEAR that?” It was Lydia’s turn to be flabbergasted.
“Übermensch, or whatever, get over it, princess,” Thana said and continued to urge the group to move. No amount of hurrying would have saved them from the swarm however.
The journalists were on the prowl, waiting for the candidate to show up. People of all nationalities and fantastical races, armed with cameras and microphones, stormed at them, tactically encircling them before they could escape. The group was boxed in by the swarm, assaulted on all fronts.
“This is the Roman Front, I have a question!” “Do you have a comment on the speech Maximillian gave yesterday?” “I am with the DKNVB, just a moment of your time please!” “Swarm news here, the Tyralings want to know what you will do for the insectoid minorities, should you come into power?” “Do you feel you have a chance?” “How did you take your sudden tie in the election?” “How…” “What…” “I am with…” “This…”
The questions started to become nothing more than a screaming contest as the group was besieged more and more closely. The reporters were either emboldened or desperate, to be this aggressive with a group of high level Abyssals.
John’s brain was hard at work for a way out of this mess. Should he just force his way out? Lydia seemed like she wanted to talk so that seemed wrong, but this was bad, this was seriously bad. Thana’s eyes were open, quivering in a mixture of panic and absolute anger, the two circles complete. “Lydia we have to le-“ he tried to warn her.
“Bloodburn!”
The crowd took a reactive step back as the butterfly wings of blood fire exploded from the robed girl’s back. “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME OR I’LL HANG YOU OFF THE ISLAND BY YOUR OWN ENTRAILS!”
Nobody dared to question the truth of that threat. All journalists took a collective step backwards. “I am sorry, Thana Newman is bad with crowds that don’t know their manners,” Lydia tried to diffuse the situation, but couldn’t withhold her own dissatisfaction about how they were approached. John was rather happy about that, even if he wished she wouldn’t have used Thana’s full name. It still felt pretty awkward. “You will form an orderly rectangle and I will take your questions in a proper manner while my companions wait over there.”
Thana kept staring at them. She was unmoving, except for the edges of her wings. Like fire around dark veins of crystallized blood, the butterfly-esque wings moved. The journalists didn’t dare to try anything rash. John took the opportunity to check on something.
“Jesus Christ, almighty,” John mumbled.
Thana grabbed him by the arm, which broke immediately, and slammed him into the ground, which also made his ribcage go through an unpleasant shattering. “There is no god and non-existent things have no sons,” Thana spat out, her claws digging into John’s already healed arm. It took a few hundred HP off him anyhow.
“Calm down, Thana!” Rave shouted from the background, obviously panicked.
“Calm, calm, calm,” Thana repeated, laughing. “There is no calm. Only fucking disgusting assholes everywhere. I should just eradicate this whole worthless branch of jobs.”
“You are killing me down here,” John informed her in a tone between joking and urgent.
Whether that was what did the trick or not, the wings suddenly disappeared and the look on her face shifted from angry to shocked. “I, oh SHIT, I am so sorry,” she said and let go of his wrist. John stood up, while Thana remained on the floor, pulling her knees to her chest.
“Just a friendly discussion,” he shouted over to the journalists and the worried looking Lydia. The crater in the ground made those words an obvious lie, but all that mattered was that they got her away from the prying eyes.
“Come, let’s sit over there.” John pointed at a faraway green strip. Then, he offered his hand to the pretty little psycho.
She looked at it as if it was some kind of previously unknown plant. “Aren’t you afraid that I will break it?”
“You can see my health bar, I can take a bit more. Also, you have done worse to me,” John said with an assuring smile. Slowly, Thana raised her hand and took John’s. Her grip was incredibly tight and uncomfortable, his bones were squeezed together but by the time Thana was on her feet, none of them were broken. “See,” John said, raising his hand, “all is fine, just try to control yourself.”
“…I will…” Thana meekly said and trotted after him.
“No dessert,” Aclysia suddenly blurted out, as they were on their way to that green strip.
“What?” John asked.
“No dessert for Thana today,” Aclysia repeated in more detail.
“WHAT?!” the meekness was gone completely and the blood mage was back to being an outraged, tiny bundle of madness. “The fuck, Aclysia? Why not?!”
“You hurt Master. I am furious,” Aclysia crossed her arms and gave Thana a death glare. “No desert.”
“Ja, this sounds agreeable, good thinking, Aclysia,” Rave gave her a thumbs-up.
“…I mean…urgh…FUCK, I can’t argue that,” they finally reached the grass and Thana fell on all fours. “Dammit… I need to become a bit more sane… and…”
“It was going to be pudding,” Aclysia shot the open wound with a salt cannon.
“I don’t even know what that tastes like but it sounds delicious!” Thana complained, her face hidden behind the curtain of her hair, “Oh, why, you fucking cruel world, why did you break me this way? Couldn’t I just become some breeding hole?” She looked at John. “Do you want a breeding hole?”
“Great to see that losing dinner makes you this repentant.” John drily commented, rubbing the place where Thana had broken his arm. He should raise his Agility more, he hadn’t seen that attack coming at all. Then again, with her Stats, how could he?
“We really need to get you under control though, one day you might kill John by accident,” Momo said and kneeled down next to Thana, “and we can’t have that, can we?”
Aclysia blinked, “You sound so serious.” The guardian tilted her head as she looked between John and Momo. “Did something happen between you two? Normally, you would be rather indifferent to Master’s suffering.”
“We had a little heart to heart… or rather mind to mind,” John explained, “Similar to what you and I had on the way to the mall, Aclysia.”
“I see,” Aclysia said, looking a bit saddened by the news that she was no longer the only one who had achieved that state with him. Mostly she was happy for her sister though. Anyway, John felt that it wouldn’t hurt to kiss Aclysia to cheer her up. Cheering up Aclysia was a job he would take any day of the week.
A kiss later and the sadness was indeed all gone. “Ey, John, girlfriend here, I want kisses too,” Rave said and hugged him the moment he was available. Together they fell onto the grass and laughingly his girlfriend put her lips on his.
“Care to include me?” Thana asked. “If I’m deserving of any love after that...”
“Sure,” John answered.
Rave had other plans, keeping Thana at bay with an outstretched foot. “Nope, ya have to wait a minute. I have cuddling privileges,” she stuck out her tongue. “That’s how I can punish you.”
“Fucking hurray, now I am hungry and envious” Thana ripped a hand of grass out of the winter hardened ground and looked at it with great interest.
“Don’t eat that,” John joked.
“Of course not,” Thana looked at him like his brain was filled with Sylph, “I just like the smell… reminds me of dying and then waking up in a better world.”
John didn’t have anything to say about that. Nobody had. Thana dropped the grass back down. “Although I should stop killing plants just because I like how they smell,” she quietly reprimanded herself, pulling her legs to her chest and wrapping herself in the robe. John doubted that she was cold, but everyone in their warm jackets started cuddling her anyway.
“You are such a bunch of fucking weirdos,” Thana told them with a laugh.
“This was exceedingly excessive,” Lydia said. Her voice, only intact thanks to Undine’s healing, was slightly raised, having to speak over the sound of water drumming on the floor. She was currently using a shower, powered by John, to wash the remaining cum out of her hair.
“I liked it,” Rave, standing right next to her, said, soap bubbling over her naked curves. “Was a nice group exercise. We can continue this later... although we need to calm Siena down first.”
The shadow elemental was currently on time-out in John’s shadow. She had had a… well, John would call it a possessive episode, Rave called it a yandere attack. Besides the point though as the two girls kept showering and John concentrated on having his dick inside Undine.
Basically, everyone who was human was trying to get somewhat presentable in case some journalists would swarm them. Lydia didn’t plan to do anything but answer some questions. However, it was one thing to say “I don’t have time,” and another saying that same phrase while looking like one just had a circle of dudes bukkake them. John’s familiars had the distinct advantage of just going incorporeal, if they even needed long to get cleaned at all.
Speaking of showers on a plane, that was a truly wonderful thing. Of course, it was only possible thanks to John fuelling the mana generator that provided the necessary liquid and whatever arcane machinations that made it vanish in the drain afterwards.
The fact that he had to fuel the mana generator meant that he himself did not get a chance to join the princess, his girlfriend, and the bundle of madness that was Thana in the shower. Which was just the worst. Rave soaped Lydia up, while the princess tried her best to get clean. Simultaneously, Thana got boobs pushed into her face. John had to watch all of that from the sidelines.
At least he had an alternative to the shower in the form of Undine. The water spirit was not psyched by the fact that she was used as a mobile bath, but the fact that she got to continue to ride John’s dick while everyone showered seemed to be enough to appease her. It was a win-win for both John and his elemental.
“I liked it too,” Sylph chirped, “It was fun, lots of fun, lots of tentacles, not enough dicking, but hey, what can you do? You could try getting more! But more men that aren’t John isn’t nice. I want more Johns! Can we get more Johns? Johnnie, can you make more Johns with more Johns?”
“Shut up, Sylph,” Salamander grumbled. The fire spirit was in a more foul mood than usual, since she was once more doomed to hair-dryer duty. A mechanical voice announced that they would land in about 15 minutes. Lydia and Rave took that as their queue to leave the shower.
“Ya are weird,” Rave said.
“What are you speaking in reference to?” Lydia asked.
“The shower was way too cold,” came the swift answer, “ya gotta shower really hot.”
“Jane,” John chimed in, “you just take showers that are almost burning hot.”
“No matter how often ya say that, it’s still wrong.” Rave folded her arms over her naked chest. Already her wet, pink hair had started to regain its usual wild display. The heat radiating from Salamander dried things quickly. “Ya just don’t know how to enjoy a nice, warm shower.”
“Okay, different question, one that I have needed an answer to for a long time.” John pointed at his girlfriend’s head. “How the hell do you have hair like that? Your dad’s hair is a dark brown, your mother’s hair is midnight blue and your sister’s hair is neon green. Not to mention the fact that all three of you have hairstyles that are borderline physically impossible.”
“Ah, ya know, ancient Japanese curse, nothing serious,” Rave waved off.
“Say what now?” John blinked, for a moment his confusion even overwrote the feeling of Undine’s pussy quivering around his dick.
“Ancient Japanese curse, some ancestor got it from a moody mage or something, I dunno, I just have cool hair,” the techno-lover continued, stepping into her panties as if there was nothing weird about what she had just said.
“What she is referring to,” Lydia weighed in, somehow more helpful on this, “is the ancient Japanese practice of binding a spell to a bloodline via rituals of varying complexity. These rituals are completely forgotten these days, but many curses still persist.”
“How did that happen? The forgetting, I mean?” John investigated further.
“Declining popularity, outlawing of the practice by the Final Sun, and finally the raids of the Dangun Clan upon the Japanese islands killed all known practitioners. Attempts to restore or replicate these rituals have, so far, been unsuccessful.” The princess put her arms through the sleeves of her hovering uniform. “I must say that I am surprised that your hair stems from that. I assumed you simply enchanted it to look that way or that another Abyssal mutation was involved.”
“Nah, the enchantment is my brown hair.” Rave giggled and fanned out her now dried, pink mane. “People often make that mistake.”
John took a forced pause to cum inside Undine before resuming the talk. There were many things he was used to by now, but talking while his balls unloaded was not one of them. Once his orgasm was over, however, he turned back to the conversation.
“So, in conclusion,” he said as Undine flowed off him and then vanished, “you have a curse that gives you anime hair?”
“Ja, awesome, isn’t it?” Rave smirked.
“Try fucking retarded,” Thana threw in. The pretty little psycho was at the receiving end of Momo’s attention. Over and over again, the sassy support pulled a comb through Thana’s hair.
“Your hair is so much like Aclysia’s,” she mused, “soft, silvery-white, hah, I love it.”
“Stop being creepy back there,” Thana hissed.
“Want to try combing your own hair?” Momo asked. “Oh wait, you would break the comb in your hulk-hands. Relax and let me take care of you, you ungrateful child.” Thana didn’t know how to answer that.
“Anyhow, so if you two had plagues…” A questioningly raised eyebrow gave Thana pause for a second. “…kids as they are more commonly called,” the blood mage turned to the easier conversation. “That would then be inherited by them?”
“Only to the girls,” Rave answered, “Don’t even ask me why, for the history of who got my family that curse and why I’d have to talk to my mother, and that won’t be happening soon.”
“And would you like to have kids in the first place?” Thana probed further.
John yawned, all of the fucking had left him a bit tired. “I mean, someday? Depends, question kind of comes out of left field here.”
“Well, if I were pregnant tomorrow, what would we do?” Rave wondered.
“Either abort mission or try to get this tournament over ASAP and then retire to the countryside,” John suggested.
“Yeah… ah well, spell’s still in place, so whatevs.”
They left the shower and went back into the seating area. Lydia glared angrily at the tear in her carpet and then at its source. “Hey, I kept it at one,” Thana mumbled quietly in her defense. “I kept my ‘hulk-hands’ to myself for the whole hour and whatever more that fucking fucking went on….”
The princess sighed, “Fair enough. At least it will be cheaper to fix in Rome than in Berlin.”
“Do they have that good an economy?” John asked.
Lydia kept a straight face, “You will soon see the infrastructure of the Eternal City for yourself.”
“Well then, I will wait,” John said and sat down as the announcement warned them of the landing starting.
‘The whole city is in a barrier? That’s pretty impressive,’ John thought as the plane came to a slow halt. The engines went out, the blades of the turbines slowly stopped rotating, and the buzzing of movement stopped. John didn’t hate flying but he would be happy to have solid ground under his feet again. The door opened and Lydia took the lead. John was second and, if the staircase hadn’t been automated, he would have blocked the exit for everyone else.
They were not back on solid ground, not really. They were on top of an island, hovering in the sky. Several more filled the surrounding airspace, dozens of them. The one they were on was among the largest, the entire airport located on top of it. Others held singular buildings or entire city blocks. A web of streets of flowing blue connected them, arcane roads that people moved on like they were conveyor belts. All islands were tethered to a truly titanic obelisk of marble white located at the centre of the city. Arcane veins and runes constantly pulsed on its surface.
John stumbled when he reached the end of the escalator. Prepared for this stunned awe, Lydia caught him. “Impressive, isn’t it?” she asked in her usual iron tone.
“Impressive?!” Thana laughed into her face, “Bitch, this isn’t impressive, this is stupendous, who builds a whole city in the fucking sky?”
“What makes you think that is the whole city?” Lydia asked.
“Ya can’t be serious,” Rave returned.
“I am, this is the heart of Romulus’ Empire, the oldest European, perhaps even global, Abyssal organization,” she pointed at the islands. “These are merely extensions and outskirts. When they ran out of space on the ground the city planners turned to the sky. First, they put public buildings such as the airport or the bigger hospitals up here, creating more living space. The magical highways used to transport citizens turned out to be massive time savers as well. Then people in power asked if they could have small islands themselves, to have access to these magical highways and more isolated living quarters.” She pointed to one particular island. “That is where we will be staying by the way: Mansion Hohenstaufen.”
“Okay, so the city then continued to grow anyhow and then they decided to put whole city blocks into the sky?” John asked, extremely bamboozled.
“Yes,” Lydia answered like it was the most normal thing in her world. They looked at each other and a small twitching of Lydia’s lips told him that she was rather enjoying his utter incomprehension of the amount of power in this place.
“And then they put magical SUNS on the bottom of the islands so the population below wouldn’t have that great of a difference?” he probed further.
“Indeed,” came another single word answer.
“Ya know that is ridicu-“ Rave started but was interrupted by Thana just bursting into absolutely maniacal laughter.
“F-ahahahahHAHAHAAAA-uck you WHAT?!” she cackled out. “This is stupid, fucking retarded, what is below us that they raise islands off the ground?”
“These weren’t raised, they were created,” Lydia corrected. “The amount of mana needed to create earth is incredible compared to air or water, but it's not impossible.”
“Which only makes it more fucking stupid,” Thana cackled. “Okay, whatever, let’s get away from here, I hear about 200 people’s footsteps about 400 metres off, chatting about interviewing us.”
“You can HEAR that?” It was Lydia’s turn to be flabbergasted.
“Übermensch, or whatever, get over it, princess,” Thana said and continued to urge the group to move. No amount of hurrying would have saved them from the swarm however.
The journalists were on the prowl, waiting for the candidate to show up. People of all nationalities and fantastical races, armed with cameras and microphones, stormed at them, tactically encircling them before they could escape. The group was boxed in by the swarm, assaulted on all fronts.
“This is the Roman Front, I have a question!” “Do you have a comment on the speech Maximillian gave yesterday?” “I am with the DKNVB, just a moment of your time please!” “Swarm news here, the Tyralings want to know what you will do for the insectoid minorities, should you come into power?” “Do you feel you have a chance?” “How did you take your sudden tie in the election?” “How…” “What…” “I am with…” “This…”
The questions started to become nothing more than a screaming contest as the group was besieged more and more closely. The reporters were either emboldened or desperate, to be this aggressive with a group of high level Abyssals.
John’s brain was hard at work for a way out of this mess. Should he just force his way out? Lydia seemed like she wanted to talk so that seemed wrong, but this was bad, this was seriously bad. Thana’s eyes were open, quivering in a mixture of panic and absolute anger, the two circles complete. “Lydia we have to le-“ he tried to warn her.
“Bloodburn!”
The crowd took a reactive step back as the butterfly wings of blood fire exploded from the robed girl’s back. “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME OR I’LL HANG YOU OFF THE ISLAND BY YOUR OWN ENTRAILS!”
Nobody dared to question the truth of that threat. All journalists took a collective step backwards. “I am sorry, Thana Newman is bad with crowds that don’t know their manners,” Lydia tried to diffuse the situation, but couldn’t withhold her own dissatisfaction about how they were approached. John was rather happy about that, even if he wished she wouldn’t have used Thana’s full name. It still felt pretty awkward. “You will form an orderly rectangle and I will take your questions in a proper manner while my companions wait over there.”
Thana kept staring at them. She was unmoving, except for the edges of her wings. Like fire around dark veins of crystallized blood, the butterfly-esque wings moved. The journalists didn’t dare to try anything rash. John took the opportunity to check on something.
“Jesus Christ, almighty,” John mumbled.
Thana grabbed him by the arm, which broke immediately, and slammed him into the ground, which also made his ribcage go through an unpleasant shattering. “There is no god and non-existent things have no sons,” Thana spat out, her claws digging into John’s already healed arm. It took a few hundred HP off him anyhow.
“Calm down, Thana!” Rave shouted from the background, obviously panicked.
“Calm, calm, calm,” Thana repeated, laughing. “There is no calm. Only fucking disgusting assholes everywhere. I should just eradicate this whole worthless branch of jobs.”
“You are killing me down here,” John informed her in a tone between joking and urgent.
Whether that was what did the trick or not, the wings suddenly disappeared and the look on her face shifted from angry to shocked. “I, oh SHIT, I am so sorry,” she said and let go of his wrist. John stood up, while Thana remained on the floor, pulling her knees to her chest.
“Just a friendly discussion,” he shouted over to the journalists and the worried looking Lydia. The crater in the ground made those words an obvious lie, but all that mattered was that they got her away from the prying eyes.
“Come, let’s sit over there.” John pointed at a faraway green strip. Then, he offered his hand to the pretty little psycho.
She looked at it as if it was some kind of previously unknown plant. “Aren’t you afraid that I will break it?”
“You can see my health bar, I can take a bit more. Also, you have done worse to me,” John said with an assuring smile. Slowly, Thana raised her hand and took John’s. Her grip was incredibly tight and uncomfortable, his bones were squeezed together but by the time Thana was on her feet, none of them were broken. “See,” John said, raising his hand, “all is fine, just try to control yourself.”
“…I will…” Thana meekly said and trotted after him.
“No dessert,” Aclysia suddenly blurted out, as they were on their way to that green strip.
“What?” John asked.
“No dessert for Thana today,” Aclysia repeated in more detail.
“WHAT?!” the meekness was gone completely and the blood mage was back to being an outraged, tiny bundle of madness. “The fuck, Aclysia? Why not?!”
“You hurt Master. I am furious,” Aclysia crossed her arms and gave Thana a death glare. “No desert.”
“Ja, this sounds agreeable, good thinking, Aclysia,” Rave gave her a thumbs-up.
“…I mean…urgh…FUCK, I can’t argue that,” they finally reached the grass and Thana fell on all fours. “Dammit… I need to become a bit more sane… and…”
“It was going to be pudding,” Aclysia shot the open wound with a salt cannon.
“I don’t even know what that tastes like but it sounds delicious!” Thana complained, her face hidden behind the curtain of her hair, “Oh, why, you fucking cruel world, why did you break me this way? Couldn’t I just become some breeding hole?” She looked at John. “Do you want a breeding hole?”
“Great to see that losing dinner makes you this repentant.” John drily commented, rubbing the place where Thana had broken his arm. He should raise his Agility more, he hadn’t seen that attack coming at all. Then again, with her Stats, how could he?
“We really need to get you under control though, one day you might kill John by accident,” Momo said and kneeled down next to Thana, “and we can’t have that, can we?”
Aclysia blinked, “You sound so serious.” The guardian tilted her head as she looked between John and Momo. “Did something happen between you two? Normally, you would be rather indifferent to Master’s suffering.”
“We had a little heart to heart… or rather mind to mind,” John explained, “Similar to what you and I had on the way to the mall, Aclysia.”
“I see,” Aclysia said, looking a bit saddened by the news that she was no longer the only one who had achieved that state with him. Mostly she was happy for her sister though. Anyway, John felt that it wouldn’t hurt to kiss Aclysia to cheer her up. Cheering up Aclysia was a job he would take any day of the week.
A kiss later and the sadness was indeed all gone. “Ey, John, girlfriend here, I want kisses too,” Rave said and hugged him the moment he was available. Together they fell onto the grass and laughingly his girlfriend put her lips on his.
“Care to include me?” Thana asked. “If I’m deserving of any love after that...”
“Sure,” John answered.
Rave had other plans, keeping Thana at bay with an outstretched foot. “Nope, ya have to wait a minute. I have cuddling privileges,” she stuck out her tongue. “That’s how I can punish you.”
“Fucking hurray, now I am hungry and envious” Thana ripped a hand of grass out of the winter hardened ground and looked at it with great interest.
“Don’t eat that,” John joked.
“Of course not,” Thana looked at him like his brain was filled with Sylph, “I just like the smell… reminds me of dying and then waking up in a better world.”
John didn’t have anything to say about that. Nobody had. Thana dropped the grass back down. “Although I should stop killing plants just because I like how they smell,” she quietly reprimanded herself, pulling her legs to her chest and wrapping herself in the robe. John doubted that she was cold, but everyone in their warm jackets started cuddling her anyway.
“You are such a bunch of fucking weirdos,” Thana told them with a laugh.
