Hey, Teeth spoke up in my head, I know I said I’d be chill, but we really need to hurry and put a ring on it. Like, today, if we can swing it, because this woman’s amazing.
Yup, I agreed with a casual nod, as I gazed into the Satellite’s beautiful dark eyes.
“That’s no problem, Via,” I answered. “Why don’t you tell me which book you think I should pick out for you?”
“And now you are smart again.” The Satellite woman beamed. “I knew that would not take long.”
CHAPTER 4: SEARCHING FOR SIGNS
Chris’ Perspective
I kept quiet and still, just like the bloodthirsty milf wanted. For now, it seemed to work. She hadn’t whirled around and smacked me for no reason again, but I had no idea how long that would last. And even if that slap hadn’t hurt like hell, after seeing her face down my father’s nightmare monster, I had no illusions about how powerful she was.
Even after my Descents, she should be able to kill me pretty easily.
As to why she wanted to kill me, that was much harder to figure out.
I had brought Wes’ entire fucking family out of danger, along with all of his remaining friends. Well, technically, I had only brought his mother and Davelon’s parents, but I had helped warn his sister and everyone else. If it weren’t for me, Davelon’s parents and Wes’ mother would definitely be dead.
But instead of thanking me, or even recognizing what I had done, the raven-haired witch had threatened me with murder right off the bat. Despite the fact that neither of us had even talked before.
It was a shit experience, being hated this much by reputation alone. While my good actions went ignored, some other guy was being praised instead. I kind of resented Wes for doing this to me.
Stay calm, I told myself. Just bear it. This is a new world, but I’ll find a way to get back everything I gave up. Just give people time to get over the past, so that they can finally see what I can do.
Eventually, the hot psycho woman stopped praising Malcolm’s family and friends long enough to actually lead them where she wanted them to go. Well, not quite. First, she sculpted a fancy floating chair out of the literal air for Davelon’s mom to sit in, and then began leading everyone somewhere.
I actually hadn’t known that part.
Wes had made those arrangements, and he hadn’t clued me in on anything but ‘get my friends and family away from your dad’s psycho army, Chris, because you owe me and because if you don’t, I’ll find a way to blow your cover.’
The threat was a dick move, but I figured with the pressure he was under, it was pretty understandable.
So I remained on my knees, looking down respectfully as Cockblocker’s loved ones were all marched forward like the VIP guests of the yearly parade. Most of them didn’t even look at me, except for Davelon and Christina. Davelon shot me a suspicious, appraising glance, while Christina glared at me like some vermin with a nasty bite, but which was too disgusting to squash. Then she moved into the group somewhere near the middle, where I wouldn’t be right behind her if I followed.
Fair enough. I wasn’t going to deny that I had earned that kind of reaction from her.
And I wasn’t expecting anyone to believe that drugging her drink was the kind of behavior that Dad had demanded from me, or that I would have been too nauseous over the whole thing to even try anything with her while she was out.
But again, Cockblocker had warned her in time, so it had never come to that.
Focus on the present, I told myself, slowly following at the very back, at hopefully just the right amount of distance. You’re in a new world. You don’t have to listen to Dad anymore. As soon as everyone gets over the past, you’ll be able to explore a consenting relationship with the next girl you like, and no one will make you drug her or anything.
That was true. Provided Wes’ people won.
If they didn’t, I was dead anyway. Now that Dad had found a way to live in what he claimed was an ageless body, there was no reason to keep an heir around, and risk me rising up and betraying him one day.
So I tagged along like the unwanted stepson that no one in the family wanted to talk about, and we all walked into the mist-wrapped woods.
I had to admit, the place was beautiful. Especially now.
I had seen the place about a dozen times before. Dad had used me to sort of test the planet, since it bothered me less than it did his expensive, highly trained security detail. They’d actually sent me to monitor how easy it would be to move around in this world, and learn the various powers and tools that the giant walking boogeyman had given us.
The direct power of Malus, which the top executives of Dad’s people had been able to use before they even left Earth, was still beyond me. I could use a little bit of it, but it felt creepy as hell, and everything I did produced a weird kind of watered-down version of the same techniques an actual expert could use.
But when I was hooked up to our networks and able to get my own stupid video game status screen, I was able to learn the planet’s natural powers pretty well. The captured natives wouldn’t admit it, but I could tell they were impressed with my ability to learn this world’s magic. Apparently getting both Fire and Water to work together was a big deal.
That was almost fun, to be honest. It had made everyone else paranoid, but Dad was pleased that I had represented the family well, and had given people something other than himself to fear.
But since he didn’t want me to get powerful enough to start offering my own input on how things should be run, and because he wanted to keep me clean enough to pass for another ‘good’ Earthborn if needed (we actually wound up going through a lot of those operatives, for some reason), I wasn’t asked to perform much of the torture or genocide. In fact, beyond giving a few shoves here and there, I didn’t have to assault or murder a single native.
Which was a good thing, because, as much as I tried to hide it, I had no idea if I could actually bring myself to kill another human being. Chances were, I’d freeze up like Wes had the first time he’d tried to stop us all.
However, our Horde allies had proven surprisingly difficult to work with, and often there were situations where we had to use violence to assert our authority.
I had no problem killing those disgusting fucks.
At any rate, I had been on this world before. Back when Avalon was under our control, monsters and men in dark robes were running about doing rituals, Horde pits were sprouting up all over the place, and sobbing people from other worlds were being led around in chains.
Not my fault, I reminded myself when those memories surfaced again, nothing I could have done.
By freeing Wes, I had actually done everything possible. Though it was a little surprising to see that he had actually retaken this place. I never had found out how he had done it.
Probably managed to free the psycho goddess, and she did all the work, I decided, since none of the guards who had come back were coherent yet. It had still only been a handful of days on Earth since we’d had our conversation.
But however much time had passed, Wes and his people had somehow managed to make this place actually feel clean again. Even more surprising was the small settlement that the dark-haired woman had led us to. It was set in an extremely out of the way place that Dad’s men hadn’t even bothered to check out, for some reason. I had no idea how our entire organization had missed an entire encampment just beyond some ruins of whatever civilization had existed here long ago. Unlike the ruins, however, it was a fortified position, set on a hill surrounded by a wide wall of impressive-looking wood. The outer surface had been etched with glowing green symbols, and the base of the hill was protected by a large moat of swift-running water. I had no idea how they had managed the illuminated symbols in the wood, or how they managed to keep the moat full of swiftly running water, since it wasn’t connected to a stream or anything, but it didn’t matter. This conveniently fortified position was here, and Dad’s people had either completely missed its existence the entire time we had been here, or it had been built almost overnight by a small group of escaped prisoners.