Back to Yonder for Publication, page 25
The pretty fairy shrugged. “More than that I can’t really say. Maybe if mothe… er… the Queen was here she would be able to tell you more. She might even know how to break it.”
“No, I appreciate you confirming it.” I frowned. “Stay close, but not too close. We don’t want Her to detect you. Once you see me act against the demon, I need you to try and get Josie to safety. I’ll understand if you have to use force to help her, but not if you cause any permanent injury.”
Both fairies nodded in understanding and I finished my circuit around the camp before heading back. When I returned to the now crackling fire, I told Josie I wasn’t hungry. Truthfully, since I didn’t actually need to eat, trail rations weren’t that tempting.
Besides, I was too anxious about what was going to happen to bother.
The girls both retired to their sleeping bags and Josie reminded me not to wait too long for my surprise. I continued to sit by the fire and sent my senses out over the camp. Something was off, but I couldn’t tell what it was.
Oh well, at least they were apart now. The two sleeping bags were on opposite sides of the fire, about ten feet distant. Hopefully this meant I’d have a chance to talk some sense into Josie. Walking over to her sleeping bag, I found that she had left it open for me. The shadows cast from the glowing coals of the fire left things strangely dark—so dark I couldn’t hardly make her out. Normally, I could see better in the dark than this.
I could feel the heat coming off of her, though. My little pyro always had the hottest body—and I wasn’t just talking about her appearance. I got down and climbed into the sleeping bag after taking off my boots. I didn’t want to undress any more than that. Sure, I would have liked to enjoy whatever surprise my wife had in mind, but I wasn’t about to get naked with a fight pending.
As I slid into the bag, she managed to slide further down. All my hand could touch was the thick hair atop her head and her ears. She shivered when I ran my fingers through her hair and stroked the tips of her ears.
Then, her hands were fumbling with my pants. Oh, so it was going to be that sort of surprise, was it? My will wavered for a moment. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to enjoy her attentions for just a minute or two.
Still, there was danger here. “JoJo,” I hissed, “I don’t think we should do this now. We need to talk about Rose.”
She simply purred in response.
As she freed my member from my pants, I tried to take a more serious tone with her. “Josie, this isn’t a game.”
Then I let out a low moan as her hand firmly gripped my shaft and I felt that impossibly hot mouth wrap itself around little Rob’s head. She was licking at me, and it felt divine. Suddenly, I realized something was different.
Her body was giving off the same heat that Josie always did, but her tongue was different. It was forked.
Chapter 31 - Throw those High
Without a moment of hesitation, I acted. Ki burst out from my body pushing Her back and I then brought my knee up into her face before pushing with ki enhanced muscles. The sleeping bag burst apart, and a half naked Her was sent flying out into the night.
I was on my feet pausing for only the briefest of seconds to stuff my junk back in my trousers before racing across the ground. I didn’t head for where Her was, but instead straight for the other sleeping bag which I now assumed had Josie in it. I called out, “Josie get up.”
She was up out of the bag in an instant. Obviously, whatever spell she was under didn’t weaken her combat instincts or reflexes. Her blades were in her hands and fire was dancing along them.
“What’s wrong? Are we being attacked? Where’s Rose?”
I stopped just out of reach of her blades. I hated to be like that, but I didn’t know what she was capable of under this influence. “Rose isn’t who she says she is. She was inside my sleeping bag.”
Josie smiled. “Oh, did you like your surprise? Like Rose said, friends share. She really wanted to be with you, so I figured what was the harm?”
“Rose is a monster; she isn’t even Rose. I don’t know what happened but somehow this Rose is that demon, Her, the one who attacked Yonderton before.”
Josie just stared at me with a dumbfounded look. “Rob, what’s gotten into you? Why would you talk about my friend like that. I mean if you don’t want to be alone with her, that’s fine. I’ll join in if you like.”
“Yeah, Rob, I bet you’d like that.”
I whirled around and saw Her standing there. The form she had taken was a strange amalgamation. She mostly looked like Josie, except with gray fur and black tufts at the tips of her ears. Wings like Daria’s had also sprouted from her back and her tail was the thicker plusher tail which Rose had sported.
“I guess the fun is up. I thought you’d figured it out but was curious to see how far you’d let it go. You know if you’d just relaxed, you could be having a lot more fun right now,” Her said.
“Forked tongues don’t do it for me, but then I’m guessing you knew that. If you’d wanted to truly deceive me, you never would have slipped up like that.”
She laughed and once again it was that laughter which was devoid of anything good. The limited moon light almost seemed to be sucked into her and I understood why it was darker than normal. “Guilty as charged. I do so like playing games.”
“Rose, what’s he talking about?” Josie asked.
“Oh look at her. So quaint how you like these fragile little mortals. I’m not sure what you see in them. You were more than them when I met you before, and it looks like you’ve grown a lot.”
She stared at me intently for a second. “Yes, you’ve formed a second core. Master will be so pleased. You could be pleased, too. This doesn’t have to be bad.”
“Josie, you need to get away from here. I need room to fight Her.”
“I’m not going anywhere, husband. If you love me at all, you won’t try to hurt my friend.”
I growled in disgust. “Let her go. Release whatever hold you have on her.”
Her tilted her head back and laughed again, with that same tone which seemed to be her answer for any of my demands. “No. Mortals need to pay better attention to the pacts they form. It’s not like I took her soul or anything; I just made her my friend. You can be my friend, too—even a friend with ample benefits.”
“Hard pass,” I snapped.
“You’ve never experienced what it could be like. Imagine laying with a being who didn’t require you to hold back. You could let loose with all your might and still not harm me, all the while enjoying yourself.”
I shook my head. “When are you going to get it through your head. I’m not going to suddenly join you. But if you free Josie, I’d consider us even. Rose didn’t deserve whatever you did to her, but she wasn’t part of my family.”
“Didn’t you ever learn? You can get something for something, or nothing for nothing, but you can’t get something for nothing?”
“Fine, I’ll bite, although this seems painfully obvious. But what do you want in order to free Josie?”
“See? You can be led to water. I’d say that I want you to bow before my Master and pledge your eternal fealty to him, but I’m guessing that even you aren’t stupid enough to do that to save one mortal. So… how about this? I’ll break the pact between us, if you make a pact with me.”
I needed more time. I could sense the fairies were flying around. They were clearly unsure what to do. My concern was, that getting Josie away from here might not be enough—not if there was still some connection between their souls. “What sort of pact would you want to make with me?”
“Like I told you when we first met, nothing you wouldn’t enjoy.”
“Again, I’ll Pass.” As soon as I said the words, things started to move so quickly that, were it not for my Parallel Mind, I would have been caught flat footed.
I spun my core faster without thinking. The armored aura of ki formed around me, while Bargon’s Slice appeared in my hand. My other hand slipped through the strap and grabbed the handle of A Wife’s Price.
Her came straight at me. The fairies dove down with mana swirling around them. I raised my shield to take the blow, but Her veered around me at the last second while shrieking, “Reject my kindness, will you? Then suffer.”
Her’s outstretched claw was aimed right at Josie’s head and her movement was so fast that—even enhanced with ki—I could barely keep up. I pivoted and pushed off the ground, trying to intercept Her’s strike, but knew that I’d be too late.
INDOMITABLE surged within me, but my limits were still my limits.
Josie was trying to raise her swords, but was moving in slow motion, compared to Her and me. Just as Her’s claws were about to rip into Josie’s face, a brilliant flash of rainbow light coalesced before Josie’s head. Her’s claws struck the barrier and shattered it, but the barrier slowed Her enough that I was able to reach them. Rather than attack Her, though, I grabbed Josie and pushed off again, trying to gain some distance.
Behind me, I heard Her screech. “Damn fairies. You little bitches are the same on every world, sticking your tiny noses where they don’t belong. I swear you’re nothing more than ‘wanna be’ demons.”
Setting Josie down, I pushed some of my ki into her as I examined her. The pact between my wife and Her must have been broken by the attack, but there had been some kind of backlash, which resulted in Josie only being half conscious. Worrying about the state of my wife’s mortal soul, I turned to join the battle.
As I did, I saw another prismatic barrier shatter and He grab one of the fairies. Things were moving too fast for me to know which one had been captured. When I surged toward them, I knew it was already too late for the tiny woman whose body was crushed as the clawed hand squeezed into a fist. I could hear the sound of a hundred tiny bones being pulverized, then witnessed a bright wisp being sucked out of the dead fairy and into Her’s mouth. She had just eaten the tiny woman’s soul.
The second fairy shrieked, “No! Natalie…” Then thick tree roots ripped out of the ground to wrap Her up tightly. The roots pulsed like veins as they were fed copious amounts of Nature Mana.
“You’ll pay for that,” Sema hissed.
Her managed to rip one arm free from the vines and a blast of fire reminiscent of Josie’s flames struck Sema squarely, exploding in a flash. The tiny fairy fell to the ground and didn’t move. I couldn’t worry about the fairy, though.
Instead, I gathered my power and slashed with my blade, activating my Ki Slice ability. Concentrated ki with a sharpened edge slammed into Her. I saw black ichor splatter as she was cut in half. The roots were likewise severed, and her top half fell backward while the lower half was still held in place.
I wanted to return to Josie or even check on Sema, but I didn’t believe killing Her would be that easy. Sure enough, as soon as I was standing over Her, the body was already breaking down into that black ichor and the two parts were starting to coalesce once more.
Spinning my core faster, I empowered the spatial edge of my blade. Then went to town chopping Her up. I must have sliced and diced the demon, devil, or whatever Her was, for five solid minutes. When I was done, the area around me was covered in black ichor for at least twenty feet in every direction.
Fortunately, none of it was able to touch me as my aura kept it from actually making contact with my flesh. I only stopped when none of it seemed to be moving. Then, before I could help myself, the words tumbled from my lips, “Come back from that bitch.” I spit on the black ground.
Josie had stumbled to her feet, so I began looking for the two fairies. I found the soulless husk, which had been Natalie, first. I hadn’t ever spoken with her, except for her briefly flirting with me in the kitchen of a roadside inn. She might have been my enemy, but even if her people and I didn’t see eye to eye, she hadn’t deserved this.
Natalie had risked her life to save my wife and had ended up on the losing end of that gamble. I glanced over and saw Josie picking up Princess Sema.
“I think she’s alive,” Josie said, “but only barely. I have to feed her a healing potion.”
I sighed. “Do what you need to. I still have to dispose of these remains. I can’t trust that she won’t come back, even from this.”
Summoning Rock, with his aid I gathered all of the earth in a radius beyond however far I thought any parts of Her might have landed up into a big ball. We combined our ki for this next part, with me pouring my power into Rock, and my core and his core working together. This time, my mind core was better able to guide the union.
Your connection with your soul bonded companion, Rock, has increased by 28%. Ease of and communication and understanding between you will increase.
Together, we compressed the ball of ichor, mud, and stone as tightly as we could. Soon, what must have been several thousand square feet of dirt had been compressed into a sphere no larger than a basketball. I felt the strain in my channels as we worked together to pack it in as tightly as possible.
Still, I kept pushing beyond what should have been possible. INDOMITABLE might not have been able to make me do what was beyond my capabilities, but it could certainly push me to my max, and keep me going long after my body wanted to stop.
The sphere which contained the remains from Her now weighed several tons, but was packed into a sphere the size of a softball.
“Josie,” I called out, looking over at my wife, “how is she?”
“I was able to get a bit of the potion down her. She coughed some of it back up before losing consciousness, again, but her wounds have all closed. Wait a second while I set her someplace safe and then I’ll help you burn those remains.”
“Thanks. That is just what I was going to ask your help with. Well… that and, ask you how you feel. Do you feel okay?”
I could feel her embarrassment through the bond, even if I couldn’t see the blush on her face in the dark. “I’m finally myself again. I knew what I was doing before was weird, but for some reason, I just kept making the dumbest excuses to myself.” She bowed her head, looking at the ground.
“I’m truly sorry, Rob. Do you think we have to destroy the sheaths?”
“What?” I snorted. “No. Let’s count them as loot from a hard-fought battle.”
After setting the still dazed fairy well off to the side, Josie walked back to me and we began the cycle of amplifying and compressing her fire mana. It was so much easier to do, now that she had a mana core and I had a mind core to guide all the tiny aspects of the process without conscious thought.
Once we were ready, we had a tiny, compressed sun between us which I held together behind a protective layer of ki in my hand. In the other hand, I held the sphere of condensed remains.
Josie stepped back and said, “Make sure you throw those as high in the air as you can. When that fireball goes off, it’s going to be massive.” She shook her head, eyes wide. “I didn’t know it was possible to condense mana that much.”
I smiled. The work had been difficult and we’d both gotten notifications during it, but I wasn’t about to complain. I took the chance to glance at the summary of gains I’d made while Josie went to pick up the unconscious fairy.
Mana Fusion: +3
Strength: +1
Agility: +2
B-Rank Body Fortification: +1%
Soul Resistance: +1
The horses had both died when parts of Her splattered onto them, so I asked Rock to carry Josie and Sema off a safe distance. Once they were more than a mile away, I merged the white hot sphere of compressed Fire Mana into the sphere of Her’s remains. Then, focusing my mind, I poured my ki into the melon size lump.
Ki Infusion +1
I pushed harder.
Ki Infusion +1
I pushed even harder.
Ki Infusion +1
Finally, I felt an aura of ki separate from my body to bind the commingled spheres together. They were already starting to react, and I felt like they were on the verge of exploding. I enhanced the ki barrier surrounding them as much as I could.
Ki Infusion +1
Then, when I couldn’t enhance the protective barrier any more, I squatted down and then hurled it up high into the air. Once it was more than a half a mile above me, my connection to the ki barrier became too tenuous, and the explosion ripped open the night, like the granddaddy of all fireworks.
The massive explosion lit up the night sky. I’m sure people could see it for dozens of miles in all directions. I could only wonder what they’d imagined it to be.
After that, I felt insanely drained but pushed myself to run toward Josie’s position. There were still a couple of hours of night left and I felt the need for actual sleep. We laid out some blankets from my spatial bag because the sleeping bags had both been destroyed. I lay down and Josie curled up in my arm with her head on my shoulder, placing the tiny sleeping form of Princess Sema on my chest. I guess, I couldn’t begrudge the fairy a comfortable place to rest—not after what she had done for us.
