tenmachi
We don't talk about the other nine
Yep. Sorry, feathers. No spaghetti, only regretti. Yon Master likes Mouse. Causing him annoyance with his own gifts is probably going to end in him getting dramatic.
Just according to keikaku... Master's keikaku!
He was in sore need for an inhumanely beautiful evil winged golem dressed in a french maid uniform to take care of his humongous magic tower.
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That's what the kids are calling 'em these days?humongous magic tower.
Ye gods and little fishes, I feel old.
shandromand
[Confirmed Dragon]
- Location
- Earth Aleph
Methinks someone who shall remain nameless (and soon be featherless) is about to find out that Snek is just at home in space as he is on the ground...
- Location
- new york
the biggest Squab(pigeon meat) dish will be served soon.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
There's one question I'm pondering: Is the Simurgh going to hurt Snek and then encounters its master, or does Snek eat her? Questions, questions, questions ...
Part Twenty: Saving Private Mousey
- Location
- Australia
Snek is a Good Boy
Part Twenty: Saving Private Mousey
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Glory Girl
They emerged from the teleport portal—what Snek had called a 'wriggle-hole', if Vicky recalled correctly—into open air, over a large city. Her guess was Manhattan, unless those were two totally different Twin Towers in the distance. As a flier, she'd studied aerial photos of most of the major US population centres, just in case. But she didn't dwell on that for very long, because what was in front of both of them was a hell of a lot more important than 'where the hell am I?'.
None other than the goddamn fucking Simurgh was hovering over an apartment building, way down below them. Vicky wasn't sure what was worse; the fact that the Simurgh had chosen to visit New York, that she herself was currently in New York while the Simurgh was there, or that nobody else seemed to have the faintest idea of what was going on. Even the Endbringer sirens were silent.
Given that last data point, it would've been tempting to dismiss the supposed presence of the Simurgh as a cape trick of some sort, but Vicky never doubted its veracity for an instant. She could feel waves of influence beating on her mind, attempting to sway her into believing that nothing untoward was going on … and getting absolutely nowhere.
While she held a high opinion of her ability to take a hit—any hit—and keep on going, that didn't apply to mental attacks. Mind control was one thing she was legitimately terrified of, and to which she was just as vulnerable as any other teenage girl. Whatever was stopping the Simurgh's attacks from getting through, it was not her force field.
"Snek!" she called out as she flew downward alongside the now-falling snake. "Is that you?" Shielding my mind, she meant.
"Masster protectss Ssnek friendss," he replied blithely. "Gold princcesss girl sstop Mouss. Mouss not Mouss. Ssnek sstop turkey bird lady."
Part of Vicky's mind whited out for a second, trying to pretend that the giant talking snake had not just called the Hope-Killer 'turkey bird lady', and failing. Whatever the Simurgh had been called in the past—and she had surely been called many things, few of them complimentary—that absolutely had to take the cake. The cognitive dissonance was so strong that Vicky nearly missed the reference to Snek's Master—not something we've got time to talk about right now, dammit!—but the information that Mouse Protector wasn't herself definitely grabbed her attention.
Fuck. She's been turned into a Simurgh bomb. Is that bitch going to be hitting all of Snek's friends like this? This was something else she didn't have time to dwell on. "Got it." Accelerating downward, she started scanning the area for Mouse Protector's distinctive armour.
As Vicky veered out and around the Simurgh, the Endbringer turned and reached for her, only for Snek to arrive a moment later, wrapping his coils around the Simurgh's winged body. Vicky had an instant to register the shocked and surprised expression on the Simurgh's normally impassive features before she blinked out of existence. Wait, the Simurgh can teleport?
Again, this was something Vicky had to shove on the shelf of 'things we're going to have to talk about later, because now is Not The Time'—it was getting rather crowded—because she'd just spotted Mouse Protector.
She'd met the irreverent hero before, but only in passing. Never had she seen Mouse Protector unmasked, or even learned her name. But now, the veteran cape stood at the edge of the roof of the apartment complex, wearing all her armour save for the helmet, her face uncovered and her sword in her hand.
Okay, I can do this. She's been Mastered. I just have to stop her from doing anything bad until Snek can chase the Simurgh away. Then he can deal with it. She'd heard whispers about Snek's Master, and hoped they were all true.
As Vicky flashed down toward her, Mouse Protector looked up. The devil-may-care grin that normally adorned her face when she was thoroughly humiliating her foes had changed subtly; now it was cold and calculating. Vicky had been intending to tap her on the way past to put her on her ass, but as the sword that had sliced chunks off Leviathan came up and around, she acted on instinct and dodged aside at the last instant.
At the same time, Mouse Protector swung the sword. It sliced through the air with a sound like a razor cutting cloth, though Vicky suspected that bit was due to her imagination.
As she slowed her upward swoop and looked around, she wondered briefly if she shouldn't have pressed harder with the attack. If she hit the force field, she'd be on her ass anyway, right? Or the impact would've knocked the sword out of her hand. It had happened before. Being impervious to the first strike was sometimes very useful.
Then, as she registered the movement of air against her face, she realised that her force field was down. This was not the usual state of affairs. A punch barely carried enough force to knock it down, and while a sword blow would probably manage it, it shouldn't have stayed down for this long.
Looking down at where Mouse Protector was—still standing, still holding the sword—she saw a triangle of white cloth lying at the Mastered hero's feet. Wait, where'd that come from? She grabbed her cape and held it out to the side; to her astonishment, one corner had been neatly sliced off, as though cut with scissors.
Jesus Christ, she went straight through my force field and cut my cape! How the hell did she do that?
"Come on, let's try that again," Mouse Protector offered, holding out her free hand and doing her widely recognised 'come at me' gesture. Vicky had seen her do it with many villains on the news, and they'd always come off second best. "You're always so smug and irritating. People will positively cheer once I've removed a limb or two."
Simurgh bombs couldn't be talked down. Everyone was fully aware of that. But Vicky, even looking at the chilling expression on Mouse Protector's face, knew she had to try anyway.
"You're better than this," she urged. "You have to fight it. Fight her. You're a hero. I know you're in there somewhere."
Mouse Protector's features became strained. "Yes," she gritted. "I am a hero. I can fight this." She reached out, her expression pleading. "Take my hand. Give me strength."
"Drop the sword first," Vicky said at once. The acting was top-notch, but there was no way someone could break through the Simurgh's conditioning that quickly.
"Hah, not a chance in hell." Mouse Protector let the strained expression go, returning to the more sinister smirk. "No? Not falling for it? Why'd you even try if you weren't going to believe me?"
"Because I'm idealistic, not stupid." Vicky cast about, trying to figure out how to subdue Mouse Protector without seriously injuring or killing her. "You're basically a clone of the Simurgh in there, yeah? You do know that Snek ripped Leviathan apart and ate him, right? Said he tasted like chicken. He's gonna do the same with her too. You wait and see."
Mouse Protector laughed out loud; a high, carefree sound. It was eerie. She sounded exactly like she did in every video clip where she was kicking some lowlife's ass.
"It's not her in here with me, you idiot," she said scornfully. "I'm still me, just better. I can tell you every detail of my life. Did you know, I used to date Chevalier? He's a good guy, but I broke up with him because he's too much of a boy scout. I like a bit of bad in my bed."
Vicky's stomach clenched. She didn't know what would be worse; if Mouse Protector was telling the truth and exposing the underbelly of her life, or if she was making up details from whole cloth in a totally believable way. Either way, she couldn't afford to let the older hero keep talking like this. Even if Mouse Protector survived—and with the threat that sword posed, it was getting harder and harder to figure out how to take her down nonlethally—her career and reputation might never recover from the hit.
"Shut up." Vicky took a deep breath, and said it louder. "Shut up! You're not Mouse Protector! You're just pretending to be her!"
The sword spun in Mouse Protector's grasp; her expression was as mocking as her tone. "Go ahead. Make me."
Snek
Snek is enjoying fight with turkey bird lady. Knows her name is really monster-Simurgh but thinks turkey bird lady is funnier. She has done something with Mouse to make her not-Mouse, but gold princess girl is there to stop Mouse from hurting other people.
Turkey bird lady can go from here to there like Snek does with wriggle-holes. She is trying to get away from Snek. Master has shown Snek how to smell monster-power, so she is always surprised when he comes out of wriggle-hole, but she does not like surprise. Snek does not understand. Surprises are fun.
Snek could swallow Mouse and put her in not-eat place, but would not fix. Turkey bird lady has done something to Mouse that only Master can help with, and if Snek tried to eat Mouse, turkey bird lady would attack another Snek friend. So Snek needs to end threat of turkey bird lady.
Wriggle-hole opens behind turkey bird lady and Snek tries to chomp on wing with big shiny ball in joint. Master has big collection of balls like that. They are very tasty, and if Master finds two the same, he lets Snek eat the other one. Snek hopes Master already has this one. Looks nice and crunchy.
Just as Snek's teeth close on wing, turkey bird lady goes away again. This time, she does not go near. She goes very far. Really high up, where no air. Snek has only been that high a few times. Very boring, nothing to do.
Snek pops out of wriggle-hole far behind turkey bird lady. She is staring down at world and smoothing wings and feathers. Snek has bitten one arm and some smaller wings off. They were tasty, but not as nice as crunchy ball in big wing will be.
Turkey bird lady is still staring at world. Snek cannot see face, but thinks she is worried. Master has shown Snek how to move in no-air-place. Wriggling carefully, Snek sneaks up behind turkey bird lady.
This time she loses two more wings and lots of feathers when Snek chomps down.
She goes away again.
Snek follows.
This is lots of fun.
Snek enjoys playing hide and seek.
Glory Girl
The standoff came to a head when Mouse Protector pulled out a small rubber puck, held it for a moment, then hurled it far out away from the building. Vicky knew exactly what it was: a teleport marker. Without hesitation, she swooped after it and caught it, then crushed it in her hand.
She wasn't sure if Mouse Protector's markers could be placed on literally anything or if they required something over a certain size, but she was going with 'over a certain size'. The rubber resisted her strength for a moment, but she could bend steel in her hands so it didn't resist long. Bits and pieces of the puck fell toward the street below as Vicky turned back … just in time to see Mouse Protector throw two other pucks in two different directions at once.
Fuck it. Vicky knew that Mouse Protector was not in her right mind, but there was a limit to the amount of restraint she should be using. She was sure that Mouse Protector herself, were she in her right mind, would agree to this. Flying directly at the mouse-themed hero, she dipped down at the last second and punched the parapet, sending a spray of pieces at Mouse Protector.
The sword came out faster than Vicky would've believed possible, and the largest chunks were cut in half before they could reach Mouse Protector. More than a few got through the defence, but bounced off her armour without even leaving a mark.
"Mice try, Gory Girl. I rate that C for Cheddar." Mouse Protector saluted her with the sword, then vanished.
Great. Now she pulls out the mouse and cheese puns?
Vicky didn't even spend time thinking about the mangling of her own cape name as she flew out over the building, searching for where Mouse Protector might have gotten to. She'd seen the directions they were thrown in, but not how far, or where they might have bounced to.
There was nobody near where the first one seemed to have gone to, so she flew on. As capable as she was, she knew damn well she was in over her head. But if she took the time to send out an alert on her phone, Mouse Protector could kill ten people by the time she got as many words out. And she would kill people so long as she was under the Simurgh's influence; Vicky didn't doubt that for an instant.
The screech of tyres on asphalt got her attention and she accelerated around the corner, flying ten feet off the street. Up ahead, a car had swerved and struck a light-pole; one of its headlights was out, though Vicky couldn't be sure if that was because of the accident or due to Mouse Protector's attack.
For she had surely struck the car, carving off a large section of its front corner and possibly damaging the front wheel, which was probably the cause of the crash. Right at that moment, Mouse Protector was leaping from the hood of the car to land next to the driver's side door. Another slash with that impossibly sharp sword, and most of the door was sliced away, to crash onto the roadway.
As Mouse Protector drew the sword back to skewer the unfortunate driver, Vicky came hurtling in. She briefly considered tackling Mouse Protector, but the corrupted hero's reflexes were just short of insane, and she could probably both kill Vicky and evade the attack at the same time, thus making a mockery of the whole attempt. So instead, Vicky tried to play it smart.
Flying up to the front of the car, she slowed down just enough that running into the front of it wouldn't drop her force field; then she exerted her power in a burst of power and speed, shoving the whole car (disabled wheel and all) backward down the street as far and fast as she could. Mouse Protector's sword flashed in the corner of her eye, and she felt agony bite into her calf muscle, but then she was past the point of direct danger.
"Run!" she shouted to the people in the car. "Get away from here!"
Hovering upward as they obeyed, she looked for Mouse Protector, knowing the cut on her leg had to be pretty serious from the warm feeling of blood running into her boot. But right now, her priority had to be stopping the hero-turned-villain. She didn't have the option of stepping back and letting someone else deal with it while she tended to her wound.
Lazily, Mouse Protector flicked her sword so that the blood flew off it. She started toward Vicky, one measured step at a time. "Fly away, and I'll go after those people," she promised. "Fight me, and I won't."
Vicky opened her mouth to reply, but was distracted by the Simurgh appearing overhead, apparently hiding behind a building. She was a mess; her wings were even more chaotically disarranged than normal, she only had half a left arm, and several of her wings had no feathers at all on them. This was the worst shape Vicky had ever seen her in, in all the footage she'd viewed of Endbringer fights. Even more unexpected was the expression on her face: normally impassive in the midst of the destruction she caused, now she was showing actual fear.
And then, from above, Snek appeared out of one of his 'wriggle-holes'. Impressively fanged mouth wide open—seriously, Hookwolf at his most metallic looked less dangerous than Snek's dentition—he dropped straight down toward her, body held vertical as he fell. Vicky had heard of 'death from above', and had even applied the principle herself a few times, against Brutes and the engine blocks of cars, but this was a whole new level of the concept.
Mouse Protector raised her sword and pointed, and the Simurgh looked up; the last expression that Vicky saw on her face could've been most readily described as 'oh, fuck me'. Then Snek arrived with an impact that drove the Simurgh downward to smash into the asphalt between Vicky and Mouse Protector, his jaws clashing shut around the Endbringer's head, body and largest wing. The word 'chomp' probably sufficed, but Vicky still felt it was less than adequate.
With the Simurgh's legs and a couple of her minor wings still sticking out of his mouth, Snek grinned at Vicky, then flicked his tail around, knocking Mouse Protector clear off her feet. The sword flew out of her hand, tumbling end over end to land point-first in the street in front of Vicky. Mouse Protector struggled to her feet, only to be wrapped up in an unbreakable bear hug by the end of Snek's tail. Snek turned his attention to Vicky and nodded at the sword, then ducked his head in the same way he'd done when offering her a ride before. He was evidently polite enough to not speak with his mouth full, but the invitation was clear.
Pulling her cape off, Vicky wrapped it around her leg wound and tied it tight. It stained red almost immediately, and she was starting to feel woozy, which meant she needed medical attention really damn soon, but pre-Simurgh Mouse Protector had waxed lyrical about Snek's Master, so she decided to make a leap of faith. With her waning strength, she grabbed the sword and yanked it out of the asphalt. When she settled down over Snek's neck, she found herself slumping forward over his broad head. "Snek … don't feel so great …"
"Glld prnnccsss grrl hlld nnn."
Not my call.
A Short Period of Awe and Wonder Later
"Almost done," Riley said. Lying face-down on the padded table with her head pillowed on her arms, Vicky knew she should be feeling the needle stitching her leg wound closed, but all that was coming through were faint tugs. "How are you doing? Any problems?"
Vicky shook her head. "Nope. I'm feeling pretty great, actually." She'd been woken up to the smell of delicious pastries shortly after her arrival. Somehow, they'd boosted her energy levels and made up for the prior blood loss. Since then, she'd been trying to get her head around the impossibilities she was seeing.
"Excellent." Riley made a couple more stitches, then seemed to tie it off. "This is enchanted thread—I have no idea how it works, but I know it does—which will speed the healing process, keep the wound clean, and vanish once you're healed. It won't even leave a scar."
"Not sure how Amy will deal with that," Vicky mused with a grin. "She's used to being the healer. Though I get the impression she isn't thrilled with that sometimes."
"Maybe she could come through to this world for a vacation," Riley suggested. "You can get up now, by the way. There'd be people down in the towns who could do with a bit of healing, but not as egregiously as they were back in Bet. She could have the leisure to stop and smell the roses in between times."
"I might mention it," Vicky agreed, rolling over and sitting up to swing her legs down over the edge of the table. One of her boots sat nearby; the other had been borne off, along with her cape, to deal with the sword damage and the extreme bloodstains.
Sliding off the table to land on her bare feet, she took a few tentative steps. Her calf muscle twinged very slightly, but showed no other sign of having been nearly severed by an insanely sharp blade less than fifteen minutes before. "Damn, you are good. Or is that magic too?"
Riley shook her head with a chuckle. "I don't do magic. I am actually that good. So thanks; it's nice to hear that I haven't lost my touch."
"Yeah, about that." Vicky tilted her head. "You're clearly from Bet, and you're a medical expert, but I don't think I've ever heard of you. If you don't mind me asking, how did you get here, and who were you back home?"
"You're thinking 'hero'," Riley said, a shadow seeming to pass over her features. "Think 'villain'. I was one of the worst of the worst. Then Snek brought me here, the boss dug all the crap out of my head, and I was given a second chance."
Vicky frowned. There couldn't be that many blonde-haired tweenage villains who specialised in medicine … "Oh." It was horrifically obvious once she looked past the overalls, the bright pink T-shirt and the brass-bound goggles pushed up onto Riley's forehead. "Oh, shit. Bonesaw?"
"I was," Riley said firmly. "Very much past tense. Turns out Jack Slash was a low-level Master. Ninety-nine percent of Bonesaw was his creation. The one percent was my powers. Take away the Mastery, and you get me." She shrugged, and offered a half-smile. "There's nothing and nobody waiting for me back on Bet, so I opted to stay and help out around the place. It's been fun."
As Vicky opened her mouth to argue that nobody could become a villain just on somebody else's say-so, she recalled Mouse Protector. The personality and mannerisms had still been there, but she'd been deeply, irredeemably evil. And Riley had absolutely given Vicky the best medical attention she could've asked for. "… right. So, uh, Mouse Protector? Is she going to be okay?"
"Sure." Riley tilted her head toward the doorway into the main workroom. "Why don't we go see?"
"Okay." Vicky followed her out into the high arched room, with what Vicky still had trouble believing was a real dragon stuffed and hanging overhead, where Mouse Protector was sitting in a comfortable-looking chair and chatting with Snek and his Master.
Up until now, Vicky had thought Myrddin had the 'wise old wizard' look nailed, but this guy just took it away from him. There was a level of gravitas to the Master of the Castle (the capital letters just slipped in there) that not even the members of the Triumvirate could muster, as well as a sense of deep and abiding power. As Vicky watched, Snek opened his mouth (now free of bits of Simurgh, she saw) and a multi-forked tongue passed out a softly silvery glowing orb to the hands of the Master.
"Thank you, Snek," the Master said politely. "This will also go well with my collection."
Mouse Protector seemed to be unconcerned with the comment, but Vicky looked up at the shelf where the orb was going, and at the long row of other orbs, glowing in different colours, that were already there. "Uh, excuse me. What … are those things?"
"They are the power cores to the same kind of creatures that plague your world," the Master explained, placing the orb carefully in its spot. "Each is unique, and offers new insight into how these creatures can be brought into being. Of course, if I end up with a duplicate, Snek finds them delicious."
"Yess," agreed Snek, his tongue sliding along the length of his mouth and back again, like that of a certain cartoon coyote. "Ssnek likess crunchy ssnackss."
Vicky looked again at the row of orbs. There seemed to be a lot of them. "These aren't all Endbringers … are they?" As far as she knew, only two had been killed (and eaten; that part was very important) by Snek.
"They go by different names in different worlds." The Master dusted his hands off, causing tiny sparks to fly. "Kaiju, Endbringers, Angels, the Horsemen, Great Old Ones … destroyers. City-killers. Designed to bring death and pain, and to distract me from my chosen duties. This is why I find it preferable for Snek to hunt and kill them, and return the cores to me."
"Right," Vicky said faintly. "I see." He doesn't have time for the Endbringers, so he sends Snek after them. Gotcha. I thought I was kind of important in the grand scheme of things. Haha, wow, nope.
"You get used to it," Mouse Protector said kindly, rising from her chair. Her sword, Vicky saw, was back in its scabbard. "And thanks, by the way, for keeping my attention until Snek could get to me. That was a thoroughly unpleasant experience, until the Master could get my head straightened out again." She put her hand on Vicky's shoulder. "If you ever get tired of New Wave, look me up; I could do with a competent sidekick."
"Uh … thanks?" This was not how Vicky had imagined her night would go. A random thought flitted across her mind. "Would I have to do cheese puns?"
Mouse Protector grinned. "Only if you have an Abondance of Emmental Feta-tude. We wouldn't want to create a Munster now, Spenwood we?"
As Riley laughed out loud, Vicky facepalmed.
Yeah, I walked right into that one.
End of Part Twenty
Part Twenty: Saving Private Mousey
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Glory Girl
They emerged from the teleport portal—what Snek had called a 'wriggle-hole', if Vicky recalled correctly—into open air, over a large city. Her guess was Manhattan, unless those were two totally different Twin Towers in the distance. As a flier, she'd studied aerial photos of most of the major US population centres, just in case. But she didn't dwell on that for very long, because what was in front of both of them was a hell of a lot more important than 'where the hell am I?'.
None other than the goddamn fucking Simurgh was hovering over an apartment building, way down below them. Vicky wasn't sure what was worse; the fact that the Simurgh had chosen to visit New York, that she herself was currently in New York while the Simurgh was there, or that nobody else seemed to have the faintest idea of what was going on. Even the Endbringer sirens were silent.
Given that last data point, it would've been tempting to dismiss the supposed presence of the Simurgh as a cape trick of some sort, but Vicky never doubted its veracity for an instant. She could feel waves of influence beating on her mind, attempting to sway her into believing that nothing untoward was going on … and getting absolutely nowhere.
While she held a high opinion of her ability to take a hit—any hit—and keep on going, that didn't apply to mental attacks. Mind control was one thing she was legitimately terrified of, and to which she was just as vulnerable as any other teenage girl. Whatever was stopping the Simurgh's attacks from getting through, it was not her force field.
"Snek!" she called out as she flew downward alongside the now-falling snake. "Is that you?" Shielding my mind, she meant.
"Masster protectss Ssnek friendss," he replied blithely. "Gold princcesss girl sstop Mouss. Mouss not Mouss. Ssnek sstop turkey bird lady."
Part of Vicky's mind whited out for a second, trying to pretend that the giant talking snake had not just called the Hope-Killer 'turkey bird lady', and failing. Whatever the Simurgh had been called in the past—and she had surely been called many things, few of them complimentary—that absolutely had to take the cake. The cognitive dissonance was so strong that Vicky nearly missed the reference to Snek's Master—not something we've got time to talk about right now, dammit!—but the information that Mouse Protector wasn't herself definitely grabbed her attention.
Fuck. She's been turned into a Simurgh bomb. Is that bitch going to be hitting all of Snek's friends like this? This was something else she didn't have time to dwell on. "Got it." Accelerating downward, she started scanning the area for Mouse Protector's distinctive armour.
As Vicky veered out and around the Simurgh, the Endbringer turned and reached for her, only for Snek to arrive a moment later, wrapping his coils around the Simurgh's winged body. Vicky had an instant to register the shocked and surprised expression on the Simurgh's normally impassive features before she blinked out of existence. Wait, the Simurgh can teleport?
Again, this was something Vicky had to shove on the shelf of 'things we're going to have to talk about later, because now is Not The Time'—it was getting rather crowded—because she'd just spotted Mouse Protector.
She'd met the irreverent hero before, but only in passing. Never had she seen Mouse Protector unmasked, or even learned her name. But now, the veteran cape stood at the edge of the roof of the apartment complex, wearing all her armour save for the helmet, her face uncovered and her sword in her hand.
Okay, I can do this. She's been Mastered. I just have to stop her from doing anything bad until Snek can chase the Simurgh away. Then he can deal with it. She'd heard whispers about Snek's Master, and hoped they were all true.
As Vicky flashed down toward her, Mouse Protector looked up. The devil-may-care grin that normally adorned her face when she was thoroughly humiliating her foes had changed subtly; now it was cold and calculating. Vicky had been intending to tap her on the way past to put her on her ass, but as the sword that had sliced chunks off Leviathan came up and around, she acted on instinct and dodged aside at the last instant.
At the same time, Mouse Protector swung the sword. It sliced through the air with a sound like a razor cutting cloth, though Vicky suspected that bit was due to her imagination.
As she slowed her upward swoop and looked around, she wondered briefly if she shouldn't have pressed harder with the attack. If she hit the force field, she'd be on her ass anyway, right? Or the impact would've knocked the sword out of her hand. It had happened before. Being impervious to the first strike was sometimes very useful.
Then, as she registered the movement of air against her face, she realised that her force field was down. This was not the usual state of affairs. A punch barely carried enough force to knock it down, and while a sword blow would probably manage it, it shouldn't have stayed down for this long.
Looking down at where Mouse Protector was—still standing, still holding the sword—she saw a triangle of white cloth lying at the Mastered hero's feet. Wait, where'd that come from? She grabbed her cape and held it out to the side; to her astonishment, one corner had been neatly sliced off, as though cut with scissors.
Jesus Christ, she went straight through my force field and cut my cape! How the hell did she do that?
"Come on, let's try that again," Mouse Protector offered, holding out her free hand and doing her widely recognised 'come at me' gesture. Vicky had seen her do it with many villains on the news, and they'd always come off second best. "You're always so smug and irritating. People will positively cheer once I've removed a limb or two."
Simurgh bombs couldn't be talked down. Everyone was fully aware of that. But Vicky, even looking at the chilling expression on Mouse Protector's face, knew she had to try anyway.
"You're better than this," she urged. "You have to fight it. Fight her. You're a hero. I know you're in there somewhere."
Mouse Protector's features became strained. "Yes," she gritted. "I am a hero. I can fight this." She reached out, her expression pleading. "Take my hand. Give me strength."
"Drop the sword first," Vicky said at once. The acting was top-notch, but there was no way someone could break through the Simurgh's conditioning that quickly.
"Hah, not a chance in hell." Mouse Protector let the strained expression go, returning to the more sinister smirk. "No? Not falling for it? Why'd you even try if you weren't going to believe me?"
"Because I'm idealistic, not stupid." Vicky cast about, trying to figure out how to subdue Mouse Protector without seriously injuring or killing her. "You're basically a clone of the Simurgh in there, yeah? You do know that Snek ripped Leviathan apart and ate him, right? Said he tasted like chicken. He's gonna do the same with her too. You wait and see."
Mouse Protector laughed out loud; a high, carefree sound. It was eerie. She sounded exactly like she did in every video clip where she was kicking some lowlife's ass.
"It's not her in here with me, you idiot," she said scornfully. "I'm still me, just better. I can tell you every detail of my life. Did you know, I used to date Chevalier? He's a good guy, but I broke up with him because he's too much of a boy scout. I like a bit of bad in my bed."
Vicky's stomach clenched. She didn't know what would be worse; if Mouse Protector was telling the truth and exposing the underbelly of her life, or if she was making up details from whole cloth in a totally believable way. Either way, she couldn't afford to let the older hero keep talking like this. Even if Mouse Protector survived—and with the threat that sword posed, it was getting harder and harder to figure out how to take her down nonlethally—her career and reputation might never recover from the hit.
"Shut up." Vicky took a deep breath, and said it louder. "Shut up! You're not Mouse Protector! You're just pretending to be her!"
The sword spun in Mouse Protector's grasp; her expression was as mocking as her tone. "Go ahead. Make me."
<><>
Snek
Snek is enjoying fight with turkey bird lady. Knows her name is really monster-Simurgh but thinks turkey bird lady is funnier. She has done something with Mouse to make her not-Mouse, but gold princess girl is there to stop Mouse from hurting other people.
Turkey bird lady can go from here to there like Snek does with wriggle-holes. She is trying to get away from Snek. Master has shown Snek how to smell monster-power, so she is always surprised when he comes out of wriggle-hole, but she does not like surprise. Snek does not understand. Surprises are fun.
Snek could swallow Mouse and put her in not-eat place, but would not fix. Turkey bird lady has done something to Mouse that only Master can help with, and if Snek tried to eat Mouse, turkey bird lady would attack another Snek friend. So Snek needs to end threat of turkey bird lady.
Wriggle-hole opens behind turkey bird lady and Snek tries to chomp on wing with big shiny ball in joint. Master has big collection of balls like that. They are very tasty, and if Master finds two the same, he lets Snek eat the other one. Snek hopes Master already has this one. Looks nice and crunchy.
Just as Snek's teeth close on wing, turkey bird lady goes away again. This time, she does not go near. She goes very far. Really high up, where no air. Snek has only been that high a few times. Very boring, nothing to do.
Snek pops out of wriggle-hole far behind turkey bird lady. She is staring down at world and smoothing wings and feathers. Snek has bitten one arm and some smaller wings off. They were tasty, but not as nice as crunchy ball in big wing will be.
Turkey bird lady is still staring at world. Snek cannot see face, but thinks she is worried. Master has shown Snek how to move in no-air-place. Wriggling carefully, Snek sneaks up behind turkey bird lady.
This time she loses two more wings and lots of feathers when Snek chomps down.
She goes away again.
Snek follows.
This is lots of fun.
Snek enjoys playing hide and seek.
<><>
Glory Girl
The standoff came to a head when Mouse Protector pulled out a small rubber puck, held it for a moment, then hurled it far out away from the building. Vicky knew exactly what it was: a teleport marker. Without hesitation, she swooped after it and caught it, then crushed it in her hand.
She wasn't sure if Mouse Protector's markers could be placed on literally anything or if they required something over a certain size, but she was going with 'over a certain size'. The rubber resisted her strength for a moment, but she could bend steel in her hands so it didn't resist long. Bits and pieces of the puck fell toward the street below as Vicky turned back … just in time to see Mouse Protector throw two other pucks in two different directions at once.
Fuck it. Vicky knew that Mouse Protector was not in her right mind, but there was a limit to the amount of restraint she should be using. She was sure that Mouse Protector herself, were she in her right mind, would agree to this. Flying directly at the mouse-themed hero, she dipped down at the last second and punched the parapet, sending a spray of pieces at Mouse Protector.
The sword came out faster than Vicky would've believed possible, and the largest chunks were cut in half before they could reach Mouse Protector. More than a few got through the defence, but bounced off her armour without even leaving a mark.
"Mice try, Gory Girl. I rate that C for Cheddar." Mouse Protector saluted her with the sword, then vanished.
Great. Now she pulls out the mouse and cheese puns?
Vicky didn't even spend time thinking about the mangling of her own cape name as she flew out over the building, searching for where Mouse Protector might have gotten to. She'd seen the directions they were thrown in, but not how far, or where they might have bounced to.
There was nobody near where the first one seemed to have gone to, so she flew on. As capable as she was, she knew damn well she was in over her head. But if she took the time to send out an alert on her phone, Mouse Protector could kill ten people by the time she got as many words out. And she would kill people so long as she was under the Simurgh's influence; Vicky didn't doubt that for an instant.
The screech of tyres on asphalt got her attention and she accelerated around the corner, flying ten feet off the street. Up ahead, a car had swerved and struck a light-pole; one of its headlights was out, though Vicky couldn't be sure if that was because of the accident or due to Mouse Protector's attack.
For she had surely struck the car, carving off a large section of its front corner and possibly damaging the front wheel, which was probably the cause of the crash. Right at that moment, Mouse Protector was leaping from the hood of the car to land next to the driver's side door. Another slash with that impossibly sharp sword, and most of the door was sliced away, to crash onto the roadway.
As Mouse Protector drew the sword back to skewer the unfortunate driver, Vicky came hurtling in. She briefly considered tackling Mouse Protector, but the corrupted hero's reflexes were just short of insane, and she could probably both kill Vicky and evade the attack at the same time, thus making a mockery of the whole attempt. So instead, Vicky tried to play it smart.
Flying up to the front of the car, she slowed down just enough that running into the front of it wouldn't drop her force field; then she exerted her power in a burst of power and speed, shoving the whole car (disabled wheel and all) backward down the street as far and fast as she could. Mouse Protector's sword flashed in the corner of her eye, and she felt agony bite into her calf muscle, but then she was past the point of direct danger.
"Run!" she shouted to the people in the car. "Get away from here!"
Hovering upward as they obeyed, she looked for Mouse Protector, knowing the cut on her leg had to be pretty serious from the warm feeling of blood running into her boot. But right now, her priority had to be stopping the hero-turned-villain. She didn't have the option of stepping back and letting someone else deal with it while she tended to her wound.
Lazily, Mouse Protector flicked her sword so that the blood flew off it. She started toward Vicky, one measured step at a time. "Fly away, and I'll go after those people," she promised. "Fight me, and I won't."
Vicky opened her mouth to reply, but was distracted by the Simurgh appearing overhead, apparently hiding behind a building. She was a mess; her wings were even more chaotically disarranged than normal, she only had half a left arm, and several of her wings had no feathers at all on them. This was the worst shape Vicky had ever seen her in, in all the footage she'd viewed of Endbringer fights. Even more unexpected was the expression on her face: normally impassive in the midst of the destruction she caused, now she was showing actual fear.
And then, from above, Snek appeared out of one of his 'wriggle-holes'. Impressively fanged mouth wide open—seriously, Hookwolf at his most metallic looked less dangerous than Snek's dentition—he dropped straight down toward her, body held vertical as he fell. Vicky had heard of 'death from above', and had even applied the principle herself a few times, against Brutes and the engine blocks of cars, but this was a whole new level of the concept.
Mouse Protector raised her sword and pointed, and the Simurgh looked up; the last expression that Vicky saw on her face could've been most readily described as 'oh, fuck me'. Then Snek arrived with an impact that drove the Simurgh downward to smash into the asphalt between Vicky and Mouse Protector, his jaws clashing shut around the Endbringer's head, body and largest wing. The word 'chomp' probably sufficed, but Vicky still felt it was less than adequate.
With the Simurgh's legs and a couple of her minor wings still sticking out of his mouth, Snek grinned at Vicky, then flicked his tail around, knocking Mouse Protector clear off her feet. The sword flew out of her hand, tumbling end over end to land point-first in the street in front of Vicky. Mouse Protector struggled to her feet, only to be wrapped up in an unbreakable bear hug by the end of Snek's tail. Snek turned his attention to Vicky and nodded at the sword, then ducked his head in the same way he'd done when offering her a ride before. He was evidently polite enough to not speak with his mouth full, but the invitation was clear.
Pulling her cape off, Vicky wrapped it around her leg wound and tied it tight. It stained red almost immediately, and she was starting to feel woozy, which meant she needed medical attention really damn soon, but pre-Simurgh Mouse Protector had waxed lyrical about Snek's Master, so she decided to make a leap of faith. With her waning strength, she grabbed the sword and yanked it out of the asphalt. When she settled down over Snek's neck, she found herself slumping forward over his broad head. "Snek … don't feel so great …"
"Glld prnnccsss grrl hlld nnn."
Not my call.
<><>
A Short Period of Awe and Wonder Later
"Almost done," Riley said. Lying face-down on the padded table with her head pillowed on her arms, Vicky knew she should be feeling the needle stitching her leg wound closed, but all that was coming through were faint tugs. "How are you doing? Any problems?"
Vicky shook her head. "Nope. I'm feeling pretty great, actually." She'd been woken up to the smell of delicious pastries shortly after her arrival. Somehow, they'd boosted her energy levels and made up for the prior blood loss. Since then, she'd been trying to get her head around the impossibilities she was seeing.
"Excellent." Riley made a couple more stitches, then seemed to tie it off. "This is enchanted thread—I have no idea how it works, but I know it does—which will speed the healing process, keep the wound clean, and vanish once you're healed. It won't even leave a scar."
"Not sure how Amy will deal with that," Vicky mused with a grin. "She's used to being the healer. Though I get the impression she isn't thrilled with that sometimes."
"Maybe she could come through to this world for a vacation," Riley suggested. "You can get up now, by the way. There'd be people down in the towns who could do with a bit of healing, but not as egregiously as they were back in Bet. She could have the leisure to stop and smell the roses in between times."
"I might mention it," Vicky agreed, rolling over and sitting up to swing her legs down over the edge of the table. One of her boots sat nearby; the other had been borne off, along with her cape, to deal with the sword damage and the extreme bloodstains.
Sliding off the table to land on her bare feet, she took a few tentative steps. Her calf muscle twinged very slightly, but showed no other sign of having been nearly severed by an insanely sharp blade less than fifteen minutes before. "Damn, you are good. Or is that magic too?"
Riley shook her head with a chuckle. "I don't do magic. I am actually that good. So thanks; it's nice to hear that I haven't lost my touch."
"Yeah, about that." Vicky tilted her head. "You're clearly from Bet, and you're a medical expert, but I don't think I've ever heard of you. If you don't mind me asking, how did you get here, and who were you back home?"
"You're thinking 'hero'," Riley said, a shadow seeming to pass over her features. "Think 'villain'. I was one of the worst of the worst. Then Snek brought me here, the boss dug all the crap out of my head, and I was given a second chance."
Vicky frowned. There couldn't be that many blonde-haired tweenage villains who specialised in medicine … "Oh." It was horrifically obvious once she looked past the overalls, the bright pink T-shirt and the brass-bound goggles pushed up onto Riley's forehead. "Oh, shit. Bonesaw?"
"I was," Riley said firmly. "Very much past tense. Turns out Jack Slash was a low-level Master. Ninety-nine percent of Bonesaw was his creation. The one percent was my powers. Take away the Mastery, and you get me." She shrugged, and offered a half-smile. "There's nothing and nobody waiting for me back on Bet, so I opted to stay and help out around the place. It's been fun."
As Vicky opened her mouth to argue that nobody could become a villain just on somebody else's say-so, she recalled Mouse Protector. The personality and mannerisms had still been there, but she'd been deeply, irredeemably evil. And Riley had absolutely given Vicky the best medical attention she could've asked for. "… right. So, uh, Mouse Protector? Is she going to be okay?"
"Sure." Riley tilted her head toward the doorway into the main workroom. "Why don't we go see?"
"Okay." Vicky followed her out into the high arched room, with what Vicky still had trouble believing was a real dragon stuffed and hanging overhead, where Mouse Protector was sitting in a comfortable-looking chair and chatting with Snek and his Master.
Up until now, Vicky had thought Myrddin had the 'wise old wizard' look nailed, but this guy just took it away from him. There was a level of gravitas to the Master of the Castle (the capital letters just slipped in there) that not even the members of the Triumvirate could muster, as well as a sense of deep and abiding power. As Vicky watched, Snek opened his mouth (now free of bits of Simurgh, she saw) and a multi-forked tongue passed out a softly silvery glowing orb to the hands of the Master.
"Thank you, Snek," the Master said politely. "This will also go well with my collection."
Mouse Protector seemed to be unconcerned with the comment, but Vicky looked up at the shelf where the orb was going, and at the long row of other orbs, glowing in different colours, that were already there. "Uh, excuse me. What … are those things?"
"They are the power cores to the same kind of creatures that plague your world," the Master explained, placing the orb carefully in its spot. "Each is unique, and offers new insight into how these creatures can be brought into being. Of course, if I end up with a duplicate, Snek finds them delicious."
"Yess," agreed Snek, his tongue sliding along the length of his mouth and back again, like that of a certain cartoon coyote. "Ssnek likess crunchy ssnackss."
Vicky looked again at the row of orbs. There seemed to be a lot of them. "These aren't all Endbringers … are they?" As far as she knew, only two had been killed (and eaten; that part was very important) by Snek.
"They go by different names in different worlds." The Master dusted his hands off, causing tiny sparks to fly. "Kaiju, Endbringers, Angels, the Horsemen, Great Old Ones … destroyers. City-killers. Designed to bring death and pain, and to distract me from my chosen duties. This is why I find it preferable for Snek to hunt and kill them, and return the cores to me."
"Right," Vicky said faintly. "I see." He doesn't have time for the Endbringers, so he sends Snek after them. Gotcha. I thought I was kind of important in the grand scheme of things. Haha, wow, nope.
"You get used to it," Mouse Protector said kindly, rising from her chair. Her sword, Vicky saw, was back in its scabbard. "And thanks, by the way, for keeping my attention until Snek could get to me. That was a thoroughly unpleasant experience, until the Master could get my head straightened out again." She put her hand on Vicky's shoulder. "If you ever get tired of New Wave, look me up; I could do with a competent sidekick."
"Uh … thanks?" This was not how Vicky had imagined her night would go. A random thought flitted across her mind. "Would I have to do cheese puns?"
Mouse Protector grinned. "Only if you have an Abondance of Emmental Feta-tude. We wouldn't want to create a Munster now, Spenwood we?"
As Riley laughed out loud, Vicky facepalmed.
Yeah, I walked right into that one.
End of Part Twenty
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KillerFish
Grumpy Owl, Bird Lawyer
Well, two down, eighteen more to go, plus the gilded desert.
- Location
- Australia
Do you perhaps mean "he is the best boi"?
Hexcalibur
Not So Ordinary Sword
- Location
- Somewhere
- Pronouns
- It
Turkey Bird Lady... 😂😂😂
Snek's names for others are hilarious.
Snek's names for others are hilarious.
Lordamnesia
What are we doing again?
You'll have to forgive me, but my first thought was 'why the Sahara?' And then realized you had spelled it correctly
- Location
- Australia
Pretty much, after extracting the core.
Splattered Cloak
Recovering Line Editor
This, and the chomping, make Snek seem far different from a normal snake. Even more so than the size and wriggle-holes. Snake jaws aren't designed for crunching, chomping, or tearing their food; they tend to either let go immediately or hold on until the prey stops moving, then swallow it whole. That Snek has more options is scary.
- Location
- Australia
Among other things, he can selectively fold his teeth back so he can appear to chomp someone lethally, and they're just trapped rather than impaled.
- Location
- england
Knowing that, why do I get the feeling that Mouse Protector is going to show Snek a certain Monty Python sketch...
ThrawnCA
Carbon-based biped
- Location
- Australia
Eh, I don't know about that. Familiar evolutionary processes could theoretically produce a snake with jaws capable of crunching things. But a snake big enough to swallow a Tyrannosaur? Much less likely. And a snake that can open portals to alternate Earths, hahahanope.
Splattered Cloak
Recovering Line Editor
Exactly. Those are impossible enough That my brain jumps to the obvious magical conclusion: a wizard enhanced a mundane snake. But a snake that can bite pieces off of the Bin Chicken of Doom feels odd in a way that enhanced size and intelligence don't explain.
Snek is clearly more closely related to dragons than to the corn snake in my house. Given his origin, I shouldn't be surprised, but somehow still am.
- Location
- Australia
The Master knew Snek would be facing demons and other things that were too big to engulf in one go, so he gave Snek the option to bite chunks off and swallow them piecemeal.
He's thoughtful like that.
KamenRaidaOOO3
(Verified Toku Nut)
- Location
- Wouldn't you like to know?
I like The Master, he lets Snek have so much fun and make so many friends. Even better, he encourages Snek's antics and like any good Master he does not take kindly to those that harm his Familiar.
Part Twenty-One: Encounters
- Location
- Australia
Snek is a Good Boy
Part Twenty-One: Encounters
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Panacea
Amy glared at her sister. Life just wasn't fair sometimes. "You got to meet Snek? You met his Master? How come all the cool stuff happens to you and not to me?"
"Well, it wasn't all cool," Vicky protested. "The fight against Mouse Protector was scary as fuck. I wasn't even coming close to winning. The most I was doing was keeping her attention until Snek dealt with the Simurgh."
"That's something we're going to have to address," Carol interjected. "There's no way we would've cleared you to go into a Simurgh battle with the rest of New Wave, much less on your own. You were irresponsible and reckless—"
"I had no choice!" shouted Vicky. "Mouse Protector was a Simurgh bomb! Snek said so! And I wasn't fighting the Simurgh, I was fighting Mouse Protector! And Snek's Master wasn't letting the Simurgh affect me anyway!"
"Wait, what?" Aunt Sarah's eyebrows rose. "Snek's Master is so powerful he could stop the Simurgh from messing with your mind?"
"That's what Snek said." Vicky shrugged. "I could feel something trying to get in, but it couldn't. So, unless my force field works against that sort of thing … yeah, he's that powerful."
Carol traded a glance with Aunt Sarah. "Then why hasn't he come here and fixed … well, everything?" She gestured at the wall of the house and, by inference, everything outside it. "God knows we need the help."
"I'm not totally sure, but I got the impression that he's real busy, and our problems aren't all that bad in the grand scheme of things." Vicky grimaced, like she was trying to put something into words that she wasn't too sure about. "He said something about how there are always monsters, and how he lets Snek deal with them to free up his time to do other things."
"Monsters?" asked Mark. "He's got Endbringers wherever he is?"
Vicky snorted. "If he did, he doesn't anymore. Snek loves chowing down on them. As I said before, the impression I got was that there are a lot of worlds and … well, he called the monsters Horsemen and Great Old Ones and kaiju and stuff like that. And he deals with bigger problems than that."
This time, the glance that Carol and Aunt Sarah shared was a good deal more concerned. "Great … Old … Ones?" That was Sarah. "Are we talking Lovecraft here?"
"Mayybe?" Vicky didn't look like she quite knew what their aunt was referring to, which was fair; neither did Amy. "But he seemed to think Snek was totally capable of dealing with them on his own."
"Right." Carol's voice had slipped into the tone that Amy knew from long experience concealed deep concern. "Just … let us know if you encounter him again. And … it's probably not the best idea to go off to some other world without letting us know first. Sarah?"
"I have to agree with Carol about that," Aunt Sarah noted. "If Snek decided to leave you there and go off on his own, you might never get back."
"What?" Vicky shook her head. "Seriously? His Master was there. You know what the guy keeps as bookcase ornaments? Endbringer cores! He collects them as a hobby, and lets Snek eat any duplicates he gets! If he couldn't get me back to Earth Bet in time for school, I would be totally surprised."
"Endbringer … cores." Uncle Neil weighed in on the conversation. "By this you mean, something that's in the centre of Endbringers." He sounded as though he wasn't sure if he wanted to believe what he was saying.
"Well, they didn't sit me down and give me a full tutorial on it, but that's the gist of what he was saying, yeah." Vicky waved her hands as though trying to convey with gestures what she couldn't express with words. "He had a stuffed dragon hanging from the ceiling, and Riley told me it was real. Also, little tiny ones that are about the size of cats, and just as playful and cute. She said they're empathetic, and if they encounter people who think like they do, they sometimes just go off with them."
"Wait. Dragons." Carol's tone had not lost the concerned edge. "Are we talking about the fantasy creatures with fire breath and an appetite for virgins, here? Not just a knockoff, like Lung?"
Vicky rolled her eyes. "Well, we didn't go into the 'virgins' bit, but Riley said, sure, some of them breathe fire. But she also said they're friendly, Mom! Well, not all of them. The mid-sized ones are feral, but the big ones are real nice, and she says they regularly take her flying."
"So does everyone in this other world have a regular name, like Riley?" asked Aunt Sarah. "Not something like … I don't know, like out of Lord of the Rings?"
"I dunno, because I didn't meet anyone other than Snek's Master and Riley, and Snek himself." Vicky was visibly getting impatient with the interrogation. "Sorry I didn't take more notes when I got in a fight and went to a fantasy world!"
"Well, I don't like the idea of these dragons." Carol's tone was definitive. "They sound dangerous. Did you at least get this Master's name? Or did he just like being called 'master'?"
Vicky huffed a sigh. "His full title, Riley told me, is 'The Master of the Castle'. That's capitalised, by the way. If he has a name other than that, nobody mentioned it. Snek calls him 'Master', or rather, 'Masster'. Riley calls him 'boss'. I called him 'sir'. And just by the way, he knew a ton about me and Earth Bet."
"Wait," Uncle Neil interrupted before Carol could say any more. "These monster cores. Just how many did he actually have?"
"Um … let me think." Vicky frowned and looked up at the ceiling. "I didn't do an actual count, but … from what I can recall, maybe a couple of dozen? And that's not counting the ones he's given to Snek to eat in the meantime. I remember thinking they were pretty."
Mark shook his head with a fond smile. "Vicky girl, only you would call something as insanely dangerous as the core of an Endbringer 'pretty'."
"Well, they were," Vicky protested. "Some of them even glowed just a little bit."
Everyone else cringed slightly, apparently due to the idea of being near something like that while it was glowing. Amy was pretty sure she wouldn't be getting close enough to an Endbringer core to even register the glow. A whole different continent sounded perfect to her.
"We're getting off-track here." Carol folded her arms. "Everything seems to have turned out well this time, but we have no guarantee that it will again. Any fantasy world you care to name will have dangers that the locals know about and automatically avoid, or have simply accepted as their due. Dangers that we just don't know about. So, I'm putting my foot down. Victoria, if you encounter Snek again, be friendly of course, but don't go anywhere with him."
"Okay, fine." Vicky pulled off one of the best eye-rolls Amy had ever seen, and she considered herself well-versed in the art. "I'll totally not trust the big friendly talking python who's eaten two Endbringers as well as several murderous supervillains, and saved countless lives, and who took me to where Mouse Protector was going to kill people. He's clearly hiding something up the sleeves he can't even wear."
Carol's brows drew down and her expression became stormy. "Victoria. Regina. Dallon."
Uh oh, thought Amy. Carol just pulled out the big guns. She never uses Vicky's full name like that.
Evidently Vicky had registered that as well, because a lot of her attitude basically just fell away. "Uh … yes, Mom?"
From the twitching of Carol's eyebrow, she looked like she wanted to scream at Vicky, but managed to control herself. "You're good at what you do, but you're still a teenager, and there are a lot of things you have yet to learn from life. If you trust someone you've only just met, it makes it all the easier for them to turn around and stab you straight in the back."
Amy knew Vicky well enough to know that she wanted to argue, but she personally had no desire to see Vicky end up embroiled in a screaming match which she would absolutely lose anyway, and which would leave Carol in a foul mood for the next day or so. With that in mind, she caught Vicky's eye and shook her head fractionally. For a long moment, it seemed her sister was going to ignore the silent advice, but then Vicky let out a long breath and subsided.
"Okay, fine," she said in a vague approximation of surrender. "I'll make sure not to go off to Snek's world or any other one without making certain I've got a way to get back. Okay?'
It seemed Carol wasn't totally satisfied, but Aunt Sarah put a hand on her arm. "That's for the best, dear. We're only thinking of your safety."
We're superheroes, Amy carefully didn't say out loud. Safety isn't in the job description.
Vicky
"You should've been there, Ames." Vicky leaned back in her computer chair and kicked her legs back and forth idly. "Not for the fight, I mean. For the other bit. It was amazeballs."
"Pun intended?" Amy asked dryly, sitting cross-legged on Vicky's bed with her back against the wall.
"What? Oh—haha, no, well, maybe." Vicky snorted at her own accidental wit, and crossed her eyes. "It wasn't just the Endbringer cores. It was everything. I mean, it was definitely a castle—I got to look out a window, and it was built into the side of a mountain and everything—but there was more than just that. I mentioned the stuffed dragon, didn't I?"
"Yeah, you did." Amy quirked a grin with one corner of her mouth. "I'm thinking maybe you could've left that bit out. Just saying."
"Mom's totally overreacting." Vicky flicked her hand dismissively. "I never got to meet them, but from the way Riley described them, they love meeting new people. And if the little ones, the hearth-dragons, are any indication, she wasn't exaggerating."
"Little tiny dragons …" Amy leaned back against the wall. "Not gonna lie, that sounds kind of cool. But if you'd actually brought one home, she would've had a massive fit. You do know this, right?"
"I know," Vicky sighed. "And she probably would've got the PRT to poke and prod and test it to within an inch of its life, to make sure it wasn't carrying magical dragon cooties or something equally fucking stupid. And when it bit someone—because it would totally have bitten someone—she'd be all 'see, I told you it was dangerous'."
"Oh, so you've met her," Amy deadpanned. She sat forward again, dropping her legs off the bed. "So, Mouse Protector got you in the leg when you were fighting her, didn't she?"
Jesus—how did she—Vicky did her best to bring her reactions under control. "I'm not sure what you mean." Even before the words were all the way out of her mouth, she could tell from Amy's cynical expression that the prevarication was going exactly nowhere fast.
"Really? You're gonna go there?" Amy rolled her eyes. "I know you, probably better than anyone. And I know exactly what someone trying to hide a limp looks like. Your left leg hurts just a little bit, and I caught you once or twice skimming your foot just above the ground and using your flight so you don't have to rest your weight on it."
"Well, shit." Vicky was busted and she knew it. One question remained, however. "Why didn't you tell Mom and Dad?"
Amy snorted. "Same reason you didn't. Because if I had, you'd still be going through the wringer, and you'd probably be grounded for a month after they finished yelling at you. Now you owe me." She gave Vicky a beaming, angelic smile.
"Yeah. I do." Vicky was no stranger to sisterly debts. "Desserts?" Amy had a liking for choc mint ice cream.
"Maybe. I'll think about it." Amy gestured at Vicky's leg. "Let me see."
"Okay." Vicky bent over and rolled up her jeans leg—she hadn't anticipated this, so it was fortunate she wasn't wearing skinny jeans—so the location of the cut was exposed. Then she bent her leg and rested her foot on the bed next to Amy. Flight, she decided, was damn useful for keeping her balance in situations like this. "There you go."
"Huh." Amy leaned over her calf muscle, a finger tracing the line of the cut. "Are you sure this is the right one?"
"What do you mean?" Vicky twisted around until she could glimpse the area. "Uh, yeah. Mouse Protector slashed me right across the leg. I was bleeding pretty badly until Snek got me back to his world. Then Riley fixed me right up."
"She certainly did." Amy prodded at the cut, causing a minor twinge but nothing more. "I would've sworn this was a month old, not a day. For all intents and purposes, it's basically healed, and I'm willing to bet that it won't even scar. What did she do, cast a magic spell over it?"
"Actually, no. And stop that, it tickles." Vicky put her foot back on the floor and unrolled her jeans leg again. "She said she doesn't do magic. She's just really, really good at medical stuff. But the thread she stitched me up with was magical. Anti-infection, stuff like that."
"Also, invisible." Amy leaned back against the wall again. "There were no stitches, or even the marks where stitches went in. But like I said, it looked like an old wound, well-healed."
"Okay, then." Vicky raised her eyebrows. "She did say something about them being magically dissolving. But that's still impressive."
Amy snorted. "So, are you going to be catching a ride with Snek back to see this Riley every time you get a boo-boo from now on?"
Vicky wasn't sure where that had come from, but she had a ready answer anyway. "Actually, I talked to her about you. She knew who you are. In fact, she's from Earth Bet as well."
"… which explains why she doesn't have a weird fantasy name, right?" Amy mimed a facepalm. "So why didn't you just say so when everyone was asking questions?"
"Because that bit's her business and nobody else's." Vicky had made the decision on the fly, though she figured she could trust Amy with it. "They would've pushed for more information about her, and Mom might've even decided that it was our sworn duty to 'rescue' her from the Master's world, and that's where everything would've gone tits-up in a major way."
As Vicky sat back down in the computer chair, Amy twisted around and rolled onto her stomach, supporting her chin on her hands as her feet kicked Vicky's pillow: left, right, left, right. "I'm guessing she chose to be there? And was in a bad situation here on Bet?"
"Yes to the second, no to the first. But once she got there, and got her head straightened out, she absolutely chose to stay. As far as I could tell, she's totally enjoying life as a magician's apprentice, only without the stupid walking broomsticks."
"Damn it, I was going to make that joke too," groused Amy, but without any heat. "Is she a cape? Someone we might know?"
Vicky held a finger up. "That's … something I'm going to keep on the down-low until you meet her and she gets the choice to fill you in. But I can definitely tell you that she's not a bad person. Nobody who works for the Master of the Castle, and who gets along so well with Snek, could get away with being one for more than, say, five minutes."
"Okay, that's definitely got me curious." Amy rolled her head sideways on her hands. "Why do I get the impression that you're leading up to something?"
"Because I am." Vicky took a deep breath. "She said that you'd probably enjoy visiting. There's a town at the foot of the mountain, probably several, and you could set up as a magical healer. Nobody would be the slightest bit surprised at someone who can touch a person and fix all their health problems. But at the same time, the workload would be far less than here."
Amy blinked. "Okay, that's absolutely not where I thought you were going. Not that I had much of an idea where you were going, but that wasn't it." She paused. "Really? I could visit?"
"Only if you wanted to go. And only if you never, ever told Mom or any of the others about going." Vicky tried to put all the gravity she could into the statement. "If you think the grilling I got just before for going there accidentally was bad, imagine how she'd go to town on you for wanting to go."
"Um. Yeah." Amy sat up again and shook her head. "I think I'd rather sand my nails with an angle-grinder."
"You and me both." Vicky leaned back in the chair and used her flight to prop her feet up on nothing, one leg crossed over the other. "So, you interested?"
Amy didn't say anything for a long moment, but then she nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think I might be."
Canary
"You know, I thought I'd been getting fit walking around town," Paige observed, trying not to use up too much of her breath at once. "Turns out I was wrong."
Elmora nodded. "It does kind of feel that way, doesn't it?" She raised a hand and gestured at the landscape around them. "This has got to be the furthest I've walked in my life in one direction, but I'm pretty sure we'll pick it up."
"How far have we come, anyway?" Paige looked around as well. There was the road in front and behind, and forest to either side. For the first few hours after they left town, they'd been passing farmlands, but that had given way to uncultivated lands. Trees grew around and about, the ones by the road offering useful shade, but clumping here and there for no apparent reason. The road actually deviated slightly up ahead, to go around one such clump.
"Sorry, I left my odometer in my other boots." Elmora grinned to show it was a joke. "But I figure we're making three, four miles an hour, and we've been on the road for about five hours."
Paige did the math in her head; it was harder than if she'd been rested and comfortable, but she puzzled it out eventually. "So, about fifteen to twenty miles."
"Yup." Elmora didn't add anything to that.
Twenty miles, to Paige, could be covered in twenty minutes on the highway. It struck her as ridiculous that the arduous pace they'd been travelling at had taken them half the day to get that far. "We're not going to reach the next town by sunset, are we?"
"That's why we've got camping gear," Elmora reminded her. "In time, once we've built up a stake, we can buy a horse and cart or something, and do this the easy way. Until then, we learn the hard way why they call it 'shanks' pony'."
Paige wrinkled her nose. "And I'm pretty sure none of my spells cover getting a hot bath. Or any kind of bath, really."
"Nope." Elmora seemed to be more amused than upset by the situation. "We're going to kind of reek by the time we hit the next town, that's for sure. But then you'll have the chance to wow them all over again with your singing."
"Well, some things apparently never change." Paige had memories of overly long trips in a cramped minibus, and more or less falling out the far end smelling of everyone's sweat. "I could've hoped that one would, anyway."
When Elmora didn't answer, she looked around at her travelling companion, to see that she'd stopped and unslung her bow. "Get behind me," Elmora said quietly, in a tone utterly different to the light banter from before. "Be ready to run."
The sight of Elmora nocking an arrow got Paige's attention just as much as her words did; without even thinking, she did as she was told. At the same time, she pulled the small dagger she'd purchased as an everyday tool and eating utensil. How much good it would do, she had no idea, but she was long past the point of letting shit happen to her, without giving back as good as she got.
"Too little, too late." To Paige's shock, a man dressed in rough leathers stepped out of the clump of trees, drawing a sword as he did so. The leathers and cloak he wore over them were mottled in greens and browns, making for extremely effective camouflage. "We'll be having your coin, ladies, and any other valuables upon your persons."
"'We'?" asked Elmora, her tone one of disdain. "I see only one of you, and at this range I can pick which eye I'll be putting the arrow through." She drew back the bowstring by way of illustration. "Walk away, and nobody gets hurt."
"Nice bow." The bandit didn't seem fazed. "We've got bows, too." As he spoke, three more men showed themselves. Two had bows like Elmora's, only shorter. Arrows were nocked, and strings were taut. The third had a crossbow, and it was similarly prepared. "Now, you can no doubt get me. But you won't get them, and they will get you and your girlfriend too, if she doesn't drop that cute little blade right now."
"Shit," muttered Elmora. "This is bad. This is fucking bad. They swore to me that there were no bandits in the area."
"So, not running?" Paige didn't think it was going to happen. Elmora's headshake just confirmed it. Drawing a deep breath, she raised her voice. "Uh, I'm a bard. Just starting out. I really don't have much in the way of coin, and without my lute I won't be able to get any more."
"Hm." The bandit leader seemed to be thinking about that. "Well, you're not in town now, and the Bardic College isn't here to bail your ass out of trouble—"
"And that's as good an opening as I'll ever get." A tall woman with a commanding presence strolled into sight from around the clump of trees. She was wearing well-made leather armour and had a pair of goggles pushed up on her head. An iridescent green hearth-dragon—Paige had seen them around, both in the Master's castle and in the town—rode on her shoulder, looking around alertly. The heavy crossbow in her hands tracked the bandit leader closely. "You'd be Harraster Baker. Your men are surrounded, and you've each got a price on your heads that we intend to collect. Don't do anything stupid, and you'll live to face the magistrate."
"Who the hell do you think—" began the bandit leader, then he looked around as one of his archers fell face-forward, the arrow releasing to stick into the road surface in front of him. The other two, carefully lowering their weapons, stepped out onto the road; the reason for this was that they were being prodded that way with swords.
"One more time." The woman brought her crossbow up to sight on the bandit leader. "Dead or alive; it's all the same to me. Alive is only a little more convenient. Don't make it inconvenient."
"Well, dragonshit." The bandit dropped his sword and raised his hands. "Where in the four hells did you come from? Were the ladies bait in a trap?"
She grinned as her comrades—they had to be, because they were holding weapons and the bandits were not—chivvied the rest of the brigands from their hiding place in the clump of trees. "Not as such. We've been trailing you for a few days now. The descriptions seemed to fit, but we wanted to catch you in the act. And now we have. You'll pay for our next few months' worth of expenses."
"Well, damn," Elmora observed, releasing the tension on her bowstring and returning the arrow to her quiver. "That was very damn slick indeed."
"Why, thank you." As a skinny guy—wearing a top hat, of all things—began securing the bandit leader, the woman strolled over to them. "Hi, I'm Noelle Meinhardt, of the Travellers. You're okay? Nobody hurt?"
"Not other than a bad fright, and a realisation that maybe the life of a wandering bard isn't the best idea if you're on your own, or even with a friend." Paige took a deep breath. "But thank you for the rescue."
"Heh, you're welcome." Noelle grinned broadly; the green hearth-dragon chirped, and she reached up to scratch under its chin. "So, a bard, huh? And you'd be a bowyer and fletcher, from your pouches?"
"That's right." Elmora slung her bow. "So, they're new to the area, huh? I was thinking I'd have to smack someone around for giving me bad intel."
"That's right." Noelle peered at Paige and frowned. "Wait a minute. Do I know you?"
"That depends," answered Paige cautiously. "I used to be known as Bad Canary."
"Holy shit, it is you!" Noelle slapped her thigh. "I used to listen to all your tracks. You helped me through some very dark times."
"The fuck? You're from Earth Bet too?" asked Elmora. "How many more of us are there around here?"
"No idea, but we were in a bad way before the Master helped us out. Simurgh bomb and proto-case fifty-three, right here."
Poking her thumb into her own chest, Elmora grinned. "Bet you a gold piece I can top that."
"Really." Noelle raised her eyebrows. "This I gotta hear."
Elmora gave a rough approximation of a courtly bow. "Butcher Fourteen, at your service. Retired, of course."
"Well, fuck." Noelle snorted, reaching into a pouch and flicking Elmora a gold coin. "I don't suppose you happened to retain any of those moves you had, back in the day?"
"Some." Elmora snatched the coin out of the air and smirked. "Pleasure doing business."
"Riiight. So, you were saying something about maybe needing more protection on the road. We could always do with two more, especially a bard and a Butcher."
Elmora sighed. "I've been trying to get out from under that shadow. Just call me Elmora."
"Sure. Also, we'd all love to hear the latest from home, in a 'never going back if you paid us' kind of way."
"So, wait." Paige was still getting her head around the idea. "You're all from Earth Bet?"
"Every single one of us." The bandits were now all secure, so Noelle removed the arrow from her crossbow, decocked it, then slung it across her back. "So, what do you say?"
Paige shared a glance with Elmora, who shrugged. "Why not?"
"That's what I was thinking." Paige offered her hand to Noelle. "If you'll have us, we're in."
"Excellent." Noelle's handshake was firm but not overly so. "Welcome to the Travellers."
End of Part Twenty-One
Part Twenty-One: Encounters
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Panacea
Amy glared at her sister. Life just wasn't fair sometimes. "You got to meet Snek? You met his Master? How come all the cool stuff happens to you and not to me?"
"Well, it wasn't all cool," Vicky protested. "The fight against Mouse Protector was scary as fuck. I wasn't even coming close to winning. The most I was doing was keeping her attention until Snek dealt with the Simurgh."
"That's something we're going to have to address," Carol interjected. "There's no way we would've cleared you to go into a Simurgh battle with the rest of New Wave, much less on your own. You were irresponsible and reckless—"
"I had no choice!" shouted Vicky. "Mouse Protector was a Simurgh bomb! Snek said so! And I wasn't fighting the Simurgh, I was fighting Mouse Protector! And Snek's Master wasn't letting the Simurgh affect me anyway!"
"Wait, what?" Aunt Sarah's eyebrows rose. "Snek's Master is so powerful he could stop the Simurgh from messing with your mind?"
"That's what Snek said." Vicky shrugged. "I could feel something trying to get in, but it couldn't. So, unless my force field works against that sort of thing … yeah, he's that powerful."
Carol traded a glance with Aunt Sarah. "Then why hasn't he come here and fixed … well, everything?" She gestured at the wall of the house and, by inference, everything outside it. "God knows we need the help."
"I'm not totally sure, but I got the impression that he's real busy, and our problems aren't all that bad in the grand scheme of things." Vicky grimaced, like she was trying to put something into words that she wasn't too sure about. "He said something about how there are always monsters, and how he lets Snek deal with them to free up his time to do other things."
"Monsters?" asked Mark. "He's got Endbringers wherever he is?"
Vicky snorted. "If he did, he doesn't anymore. Snek loves chowing down on them. As I said before, the impression I got was that there are a lot of worlds and … well, he called the monsters Horsemen and Great Old Ones and kaiju and stuff like that. And he deals with bigger problems than that."
This time, the glance that Carol and Aunt Sarah shared was a good deal more concerned. "Great … Old … Ones?" That was Sarah. "Are we talking Lovecraft here?"
"Mayybe?" Vicky didn't look like she quite knew what their aunt was referring to, which was fair; neither did Amy. "But he seemed to think Snek was totally capable of dealing with them on his own."
"Right." Carol's voice had slipped into the tone that Amy knew from long experience concealed deep concern. "Just … let us know if you encounter him again. And … it's probably not the best idea to go off to some other world without letting us know first. Sarah?"
"I have to agree with Carol about that," Aunt Sarah noted. "If Snek decided to leave you there and go off on his own, you might never get back."
"What?" Vicky shook her head. "Seriously? His Master was there. You know what the guy keeps as bookcase ornaments? Endbringer cores! He collects them as a hobby, and lets Snek eat any duplicates he gets! If he couldn't get me back to Earth Bet in time for school, I would be totally surprised."
"Endbringer … cores." Uncle Neil weighed in on the conversation. "By this you mean, something that's in the centre of Endbringers." He sounded as though he wasn't sure if he wanted to believe what he was saying.
"Well, they didn't sit me down and give me a full tutorial on it, but that's the gist of what he was saying, yeah." Vicky waved her hands as though trying to convey with gestures what she couldn't express with words. "He had a stuffed dragon hanging from the ceiling, and Riley told me it was real. Also, little tiny ones that are about the size of cats, and just as playful and cute. She said they're empathetic, and if they encounter people who think like they do, they sometimes just go off with them."
"Wait. Dragons." Carol's tone had not lost the concerned edge. "Are we talking about the fantasy creatures with fire breath and an appetite for virgins, here? Not just a knockoff, like Lung?"
Vicky rolled her eyes. "Well, we didn't go into the 'virgins' bit, but Riley said, sure, some of them breathe fire. But she also said they're friendly, Mom! Well, not all of them. The mid-sized ones are feral, but the big ones are real nice, and she says they regularly take her flying."
"So does everyone in this other world have a regular name, like Riley?" asked Aunt Sarah. "Not something like … I don't know, like out of Lord of the Rings?"
"I dunno, because I didn't meet anyone other than Snek's Master and Riley, and Snek himself." Vicky was visibly getting impatient with the interrogation. "Sorry I didn't take more notes when I got in a fight and went to a fantasy world!"
"Well, I don't like the idea of these dragons." Carol's tone was definitive. "They sound dangerous. Did you at least get this Master's name? Or did he just like being called 'master'?"
Vicky huffed a sigh. "His full title, Riley told me, is 'The Master of the Castle'. That's capitalised, by the way. If he has a name other than that, nobody mentioned it. Snek calls him 'Master', or rather, 'Masster'. Riley calls him 'boss'. I called him 'sir'. And just by the way, he knew a ton about me and Earth Bet."
"Wait," Uncle Neil interrupted before Carol could say any more. "These monster cores. Just how many did he actually have?"
"Um … let me think." Vicky frowned and looked up at the ceiling. "I didn't do an actual count, but … from what I can recall, maybe a couple of dozen? And that's not counting the ones he's given to Snek to eat in the meantime. I remember thinking they were pretty."
Mark shook his head with a fond smile. "Vicky girl, only you would call something as insanely dangerous as the core of an Endbringer 'pretty'."
"Well, they were," Vicky protested. "Some of them even glowed just a little bit."
Everyone else cringed slightly, apparently due to the idea of being near something like that while it was glowing. Amy was pretty sure she wouldn't be getting close enough to an Endbringer core to even register the glow. A whole different continent sounded perfect to her.
"We're getting off-track here." Carol folded her arms. "Everything seems to have turned out well this time, but we have no guarantee that it will again. Any fantasy world you care to name will have dangers that the locals know about and automatically avoid, or have simply accepted as their due. Dangers that we just don't know about. So, I'm putting my foot down. Victoria, if you encounter Snek again, be friendly of course, but don't go anywhere with him."
"Okay, fine." Vicky pulled off one of the best eye-rolls Amy had ever seen, and she considered herself well-versed in the art. "I'll totally not trust the big friendly talking python who's eaten two Endbringers as well as several murderous supervillains, and saved countless lives, and who took me to where Mouse Protector was going to kill people. He's clearly hiding something up the sleeves he can't even wear."
Carol's brows drew down and her expression became stormy. "Victoria. Regina. Dallon."
Uh oh, thought Amy. Carol just pulled out the big guns. She never uses Vicky's full name like that.
Evidently Vicky had registered that as well, because a lot of her attitude basically just fell away. "Uh … yes, Mom?"
From the twitching of Carol's eyebrow, she looked like she wanted to scream at Vicky, but managed to control herself. "You're good at what you do, but you're still a teenager, and there are a lot of things you have yet to learn from life. If you trust someone you've only just met, it makes it all the easier for them to turn around and stab you straight in the back."
Amy knew Vicky well enough to know that she wanted to argue, but she personally had no desire to see Vicky end up embroiled in a screaming match which she would absolutely lose anyway, and which would leave Carol in a foul mood for the next day or so. With that in mind, she caught Vicky's eye and shook her head fractionally. For a long moment, it seemed her sister was going to ignore the silent advice, but then Vicky let out a long breath and subsided.
"Okay, fine," she said in a vague approximation of surrender. "I'll make sure not to go off to Snek's world or any other one without making certain I've got a way to get back. Okay?'
It seemed Carol wasn't totally satisfied, but Aunt Sarah put a hand on her arm. "That's for the best, dear. We're only thinking of your safety."
We're superheroes, Amy carefully didn't say out loud. Safety isn't in the job description.
<><>
Vicky
"You should've been there, Ames." Vicky leaned back in her computer chair and kicked her legs back and forth idly. "Not for the fight, I mean. For the other bit. It was amazeballs."
"Pun intended?" Amy asked dryly, sitting cross-legged on Vicky's bed with her back against the wall.
"What? Oh—haha, no, well, maybe." Vicky snorted at her own accidental wit, and crossed her eyes. "It wasn't just the Endbringer cores. It was everything. I mean, it was definitely a castle—I got to look out a window, and it was built into the side of a mountain and everything—but there was more than just that. I mentioned the stuffed dragon, didn't I?"
"Yeah, you did." Amy quirked a grin with one corner of her mouth. "I'm thinking maybe you could've left that bit out. Just saying."
"Mom's totally overreacting." Vicky flicked her hand dismissively. "I never got to meet them, but from the way Riley described them, they love meeting new people. And if the little ones, the hearth-dragons, are any indication, she wasn't exaggerating."
"Little tiny dragons …" Amy leaned back against the wall. "Not gonna lie, that sounds kind of cool. But if you'd actually brought one home, she would've had a massive fit. You do know this, right?"
"I know," Vicky sighed. "And she probably would've got the PRT to poke and prod and test it to within an inch of its life, to make sure it wasn't carrying magical dragon cooties or something equally fucking stupid. And when it bit someone—because it would totally have bitten someone—she'd be all 'see, I told you it was dangerous'."
"Oh, so you've met her," Amy deadpanned. She sat forward again, dropping her legs off the bed. "So, Mouse Protector got you in the leg when you were fighting her, didn't she?"
Jesus—how did she—Vicky did her best to bring her reactions under control. "I'm not sure what you mean." Even before the words were all the way out of her mouth, she could tell from Amy's cynical expression that the prevarication was going exactly nowhere fast.
"Really? You're gonna go there?" Amy rolled her eyes. "I know you, probably better than anyone. And I know exactly what someone trying to hide a limp looks like. Your left leg hurts just a little bit, and I caught you once or twice skimming your foot just above the ground and using your flight so you don't have to rest your weight on it."
"Well, shit." Vicky was busted and she knew it. One question remained, however. "Why didn't you tell Mom and Dad?"
Amy snorted. "Same reason you didn't. Because if I had, you'd still be going through the wringer, and you'd probably be grounded for a month after they finished yelling at you. Now you owe me." She gave Vicky a beaming, angelic smile.
"Yeah. I do." Vicky was no stranger to sisterly debts. "Desserts?" Amy had a liking for choc mint ice cream.
"Maybe. I'll think about it." Amy gestured at Vicky's leg. "Let me see."
"Okay." Vicky bent over and rolled up her jeans leg—she hadn't anticipated this, so it was fortunate she wasn't wearing skinny jeans—so the location of the cut was exposed. Then she bent her leg and rested her foot on the bed next to Amy. Flight, she decided, was damn useful for keeping her balance in situations like this. "There you go."
"Huh." Amy leaned over her calf muscle, a finger tracing the line of the cut. "Are you sure this is the right one?"
"What do you mean?" Vicky twisted around until she could glimpse the area. "Uh, yeah. Mouse Protector slashed me right across the leg. I was bleeding pretty badly until Snek got me back to his world. Then Riley fixed me right up."
"She certainly did." Amy prodded at the cut, causing a minor twinge but nothing more. "I would've sworn this was a month old, not a day. For all intents and purposes, it's basically healed, and I'm willing to bet that it won't even scar. What did she do, cast a magic spell over it?"
"Actually, no. And stop that, it tickles." Vicky put her foot back on the floor and unrolled her jeans leg again. "She said she doesn't do magic. She's just really, really good at medical stuff. But the thread she stitched me up with was magical. Anti-infection, stuff like that."
"Also, invisible." Amy leaned back against the wall again. "There were no stitches, or even the marks where stitches went in. But like I said, it looked like an old wound, well-healed."
"Okay, then." Vicky raised her eyebrows. "She did say something about them being magically dissolving. But that's still impressive."
Amy snorted. "So, are you going to be catching a ride with Snek back to see this Riley every time you get a boo-boo from now on?"
Vicky wasn't sure where that had come from, but she had a ready answer anyway. "Actually, I talked to her about you. She knew who you are. In fact, she's from Earth Bet as well."
"… which explains why she doesn't have a weird fantasy name, right?" Amy mimed a facepalm. "So why didn't you just say so when everyone was asking questions?"
"Because that bit's her business and nobody else's." Vicky had made the decision on the fly, though she figured she could trust Amy with it. "They would've pushed for more information about her, and Mom might've even decided that it was our sworn duty to 'rescue' her from the Master's world, and that's where everything would've gone tits-up in a major way."
As Vicky sat back down in the computer chair, Amy twisted around and rolled onto her stomach, supporting her chin on her hands as her feet kicked Vicky's pillow: left, right, left, right. "I'm guessing she chose to be there? And was in a bad situation here on Bet?"
"Yes to the second, no to the first. But once she got there, and got her head straightened out, she absolutely chose to stay. As far as I could tell, she's totally enjoying life as a magician's apprentice, only without the stupid walking broomsticks."
"Damn it, I was going to make that joke too," groused Amy, but without any heat. "Is she a cape? Someone we might know?"
Vicky held a finger up. "That's … something I'm going to keep on the down-low until you meet her and she gets the choice to fill you in. But I can definitely tell you that she's not a bad person. Nobody who works for the Master of the Castle, and who gets along so well with Snek, could get away with being one for more than, say, five minutes."
"Okay, that's definitely got me curious." Amy rolled her head sideways on her hands. "Why do I get the impression that you're leading up to something?"
"Because I am." Vicky took a deep breath. "She said that you'd probably enjoy visiting. There's a town at the foot of the mountain, probably several, and you could set up as a magical healer. Nobody would be the slightest bit surprised at someone who can touch a person and fix all their health problems. But at the same time, the workload would be far less than here."
Amy blinked. "Okay, that's absolutely not where I thought you were going. Not that I had much of an idea where you were going, but that wasn't it." She paused. "Really? I could visit?"
"Only if you wanted to go. And only if you never, ever told Mom or any of the others about going." Vicky tried to put all the gravity she could into the statement. "If you think the grilling I got just before for going there accidentally was bad, imagine how she'd go to town on you for wanting to go."
"Um. Yeah." Amy sat up again and shook her head. "I think I'd rather sand my nails with an angle-grinder."
"You and me both." Vicky leaned back in the chair and used her flight to prop her feet up on nothing, one leg crossed over the other. "So, you interested?"
Amy didn't say anything for a long moment, but then she nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think I might be."
<><>
Canary
"You know, I thought I'd been getting fit walking around town," Paige observed, trying not to use up too much of her breath at once. "Turns out I was wrong."
Elmora nodded. "It does kind of feel that way, doesn't it?" She raised a hand and gestured at the landscape around them. "This has got to be the furthest I've walked in my life in one direction, but I'm pretty sure we'll pick it up."
"How far have we come, anyway?" Paige looked around as well. There was the road in front and behind, and forest to either side. For the first few hours after they left town, they'd been passing farmlands, but that had given way to uncultivated lands. Trees grew around and about, the ones by the road offering useful shade, but clumping here and there for no apparent reason. The road actually deviated slightly up ahead, to go around one such clump.
"Sorry, I left my odometer in my other boots." Elmora grinned to show it was a joke. "But I figure we're making three, four miles an hour, and we've been on the road for about five hours."
Paige did the math in her head; it was harder than if she'd been rested and comfortable, but she puzzled it out eventually. "So, about fifteen to twenty miles."
"Yup." Elmora didn't add anything to that.
Twenty miles, to Paige, could be covered in twenty minutes on the highway. It struck her as ridiculous that the arduous pace they'd been travelling at had taken them half the day to get that far. "We're not going to reach the next town by sunset, are we?"
"That's why we've got camping gear," Elmora reminded her. "In time, once we've built up a stake, we can buy a horse and cart or something, and do this the easy way. Until then, we learn the hard way why they call it 'shanks' pony'."
Paige wrinkled her nose. "And I'm pretty sure none of my spells cover getting a hot bath. Or any kind of bath, really."
"Nope." Elmora seemed to be more amused than upset by the situation. "We're going to kind of reek by the time we hit the next town, that's for sure. But then you'll have the chance to wow them all over again with your singing."
"Well, some things apparently never change." Paige had memories of overly long trips in a cramped minibus, and more or less falling out the far end smelling of everyone's sweat. "I could've hoped that one would, anyway."
When Elmora didn't answer, she looked around at her travelling companion, to see that she'd stopped and unslung her bow. "Get behind me," Elmora said quietly, in a tone utterly different to the light banter from before. "Be ready to run."
The sight of Elmora nocking an arrow got Paige's attention just as much as her words did; without even thinking, she did as she was told. At the same time, she pulled the small dagger she'd purchased as an everyday tool and eating utensil. How much good it would do, she had no idea, but she was long past the point of letting shit happen to her, without giving back as good as she got.
"Too little, too late." To Paige's shock, a man dressed in rough leathers stepped out of the clump of trees, drawing a sword as he did so. The leathers and cloak he wore over them were mottled in greens and browns, making for extremely effective camouflage. "We'll be having your coin, ladies, and any other valuables upon your persons."
"'We'?" asked Elmora, her tone one of disdain. "I see only one of you, and at this range I can pick which eye I'll be putting the arrow through." She drew back the bowstring by way of illustration. "Walk away, and nobody gets hurt."
"Nice bow." The bandit didn't seem fazed. "We've got bows, too." As he spoke, three more men showed themselves. Two had bows like Elmora's, only shorter. Arrows were nocked, and strings were taut. The third had a crossbow, and it was similarly prepared. "Now, you can no doubt get me. But you won't get them, and they will get you and your girlfriend too, if she doesn't drop that cute little blade right now."
"Shit," muttered Elmora. "This is bad. This is fucking bad. They swore to me that there were no bandits in the area."
"So, not running?" Paige didn't think it was going to happen. Elmora's headshake just confirmed it. Drawing a deep breath, she raised her voice. "Uh, I'm a bard. Just starting out. I really don't have much in the way of coin, and without my lute I won't be able to get any more."
"Hm." The bandit leader seemed to be thinking about that. "Well, you're not in town now, and the Bardic College isn't here to bail your ass out of trouble—"
"And that's as good an opening as I'll ever get." A tall woman with a commanding presence strolled into sight from around the clump of trees. She was wearing well-made leather armour and had a pair of goggles pushed up on her head. An iridescent green hearth-dragon—Paige had seen them around, both in the Master's castle and in the town—rode on her shoulder, looking around alertly. The heavy crossbow in her hands tracked the bandit leader closely. "You'd be Harraster Baker. Your men are surrounded, and you've each got a price on your heads that we intend to collect. Don't do anything stupid, and you'll live to face the magistrate."
"Who the hell do you think—" began the bandit leader, then he looked around as one of his archers fell face-forward, the arrow releasing to stick into the road surface in front of him. The other two, carefully lowering their weapons, stepped out onto the road; the reason for this was that they were being prodded that way with swords.
"One more time." The woman brought her crossbow up to sight on the bandit leader. "Dead or alive; it's all the same to me. Alive is only a little more convenient. Don't make it inconvenient."
"Well, dragonshit." The bandit dropped his sword and raised his hands. "Where in the four hells did you come from? Were the ladies bait in a trap?"
She grinned as her comrades—they had to be, because they were holding weapons and the bandits were not—chivvied the rest of the brigands from their hiding place in the clump of trees. "Not as such. We've been trailing you for a few days now. The descriptions seemed to fit, but we wanted to catch you in the act. And now we have. You'll pay for our next few months' worth of expenses."
"Well, damn," Elmora observed, releasing the tension on her bowstring and returning the arrow to her quiver. "That was very damn slick indeed."
"Why, thank you." As a skinny guy—wearing a top hat, of all things—began securing the bandit leader, the woman strolled over to them. "Hi, I'm Noelle Meinhardt, of the Travellers. You're okay? Nobody hurt?"
"Not other than a bad fright, and a realisation that maybe the life of a wandering bard isn't the best idea if you're on your own, or even with a friend." Paige took a deep breath. "But thank you for the rescue."
"Heh, you're welcome." Noelle grinned broadly; the green hearth-dragon chirped, and she reached up to scratch under its chin. "So, a bard, huh? And you'd be a bowyer and fletcher, from your pouches?"
"That's right." Elmora slung her bow. "So, they're new to the area, huh? I was thinking I'd have to smack someone around for giving me bad intel."
"That's right." Noelle peered at Paige and frowned. "Wait a minute. Do I know you?"
"That depends," answered Paige cautiously. "I used to be known as Bad Canary."
"Holy shit, it is you!" Noelle slapped her thigh. "I used to listen to all your tracks. You helped me through some very dark times."
"The fuck? You're from Earth Bet too?" asked Elmora. "How many more of us are there around here?"
"No idea, but we were in a bad way before the Master helped us out. Simurgh bomb and proto-case fifty-three, right here."
Poking her thumb into her own chest, Elmora grinned. "Bet you a gold piece I can top that."
"Really." Noelle raised her eyebrows. "This I gotta hear."
Elmora gave a rough approximation of a courtly bow. "Butcher Fourteen, at your service. Retired, of course."
"Well, fuck." Noelle snorted, reaching into a pouch and flicking Elmora a gold coin. "I don't suppose you happened to retain any of those moves you had, back in the day?"
"Some." Elmora snatched the coin out of the air and smirked. "Pleasure doing business."
"Riiight. So, you were saying something about maybe needing more protection on the road. We could always do with two more, especially a bard and a Butcher."
Elmora sighed. "I've been trying to get out from under that shadow. Just call me Elmora."
"Sure. Also, we'd all love to hear the latest from home, in a 'never going back if you paid us' kind of way."
"So, wait." Paige was still getting her head around the idea. "You're all from Earth Bet?"
"Every single one of us." The bandits were now all secure, so Noelle removed the arrow from her crossbow, decocked it, then slung it across her back. "So, what do you say?"
Paige shared a glance with Elmora, who shrugged. "Why not?"
"That's what I was thinking." Paige offered her hand to Noelle. "If you'll have us, we're in."
"Excellent." Noelle's handshake was firm but not overly so. "Welcome to the Travellers."
End of Part Twenty-One
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