(Chapter 25)

Dragon's Home-world, former site of the Saint of the Sea's Temple

Fiora pulled some dried meat from her bag, broke it in half, and handed one of the pieces to Astrid.

"The bazaar seems normal enough," Astrid commented. "Although it is strange that nobody stopped us from coming into these ruins."

"You're too inexperienced, city girl," replied Fiora. "None of the vendors and customers were haggling. Also, this," she pointed to the device on her arm, hidden under her cloak, "indicated that none of their scales have been rigged for short-measure."

"Maybe their supplies are in surplus at the moment," said Astrid. "Some of the merchants at the shopping district lower their prices, when they need to shift excess stock."

"There is another indicator something isn't right," she countered, tossing some more dried meat towards a shadow in the ruins, where a small hand reached out, and snatched it. "No scrumping or pickpockets. There are also no beggars, hustlers or grafters."

A quiet voice whispered from near where the hand came from. "The guards turn a blind eye to us hiding in here. The old temple still has the blessings of the Saint. It's the only safe place from the new god's snatchers."

"New god?' Astrid enquired.

"Travellers!" a voice from another part of the ruins gasped. "If you don't have anyone waiting outside of the town gates, you're in great danger. The new god demands regular human sacrifices, and the townspeople would rather a stranger be taken, than one of their own."

"Interesting," said Fiora, giving Astrid a meaningful look. "What does this 'new god' look like?"

"He is obviously another sea god, as his face is that of an octopus," they replied. "Unfortunately, the only 'blessing' they have given to us is only granting his priests and their escorts permission to leave the city."

"How do you get your fish, then?" Fiora asked.

"That's obvious," replied Astrid. "Boats are only allowed out of the harbour, if a 'priest' is onboard." She uncovered her forearm device, and pressed a sequence of buttons. The holographic display lit up. "Ice Queen to Enterprise."

The image of a water nymph wearing tactical gear projected itself in front of the two girls.

"A ghost!" shrieked another voice from the ruins.

"Hey Astrid!" exclaimed the water nymph."Fiora! This is the first time I haven't seen you or my niece all over each other! This must be serious!"

"You can tell Paladin General Clemene, we know why Queen Ursula's tax collectors have been disappearing in this area," replied Astrid. "Hikari was right to get my sister to arrange for you to be stationed here."

"Really?" commented the water nymph. "Really?! Damn! A foothold? And this soon?"

"Unfortunately," replied Astrid. "We don't know if they've managed a bridgehead, yet."

"The M.O. Is still the same," commented Fiora. "Find an isolated community, near the sea, in a country full of religion-induced ignorance. Once a foothold had been established, create a dimensional bridgehead, by taking multiple unwilling sacrifices and feeding them into a soul-pit, created from multiple willing sacrifices."

"How do you know about that sort of thing?" the water nymph asked suspiciously. "That's Dark Magic at its most extreme."

"Hikari and her boyfriend explained it to both Freya, and Uncle Rob. We just happened to be eavesdropping."

===/===

A field, somewhere in Central America

Riko was watching Kanna and Mizuchi 'rough housing' in the middle of the field. The way they interacted was completely different to the times she watched Kanna and Tohru during their sparring.

While Kanna's and Tohru's moves could be best described as wrestling, with a liberal amount of magic and fire-breathing thrown in, Mizuchi moved more like a martial artist. In fact, she moved a lot like a martial artist. She still used magic, though it was mostly defensive. She also noticed, that while Kanna interspersed electrical attacks, which Tohru didn't have, amongst her repertoire, Mizuchi never used fire attacks against any of the dragons she sparred with. She looked towards Kanna's mother and Tohru. "Why doesn't Mizuchi use fire? Is she holding back, because Kanna is her cousin?"

Miss Kobayashi looked towards Tohru. "I think you should field this question. You're the expert."

Tohru handed her lover a small bundle. "Here, hold Sakura for a while. She wants some mummy-hugs." She turned towards Riko. "Mizuchi can't actually breathe fire. We don't know if it's because she's a frost dragon, or because she's not fully a dragon."

"I don't understand. Elma is a water dragon, but I've still seen her breathe fire."

"What the fu-" CRACK! ...fsst... "-as that?" Kobayashi said, looking towards her older daughter's, and her cousin's fight.

"What was what?" asked Tohru. "I missed it."

They noticed Kanna calling a 'time out' to Mizuchi.

"Looks like we'll be finding out in a moment," said Kobayashi.

Kanna walked back to the group, a layer of frost slowly melting from her left side. Some of her feathers were black.

"I'm sorry, Kanna," apologised her cousin. "I didn't even know I could do that."

Kanna angrily turned around. "That attack could have fucking killed me, bitch!"

"Oi! Oi! Oi! Kanna!" said Kobayashi. "What have I told you about using that sort of language?"

"Sorry, Mum," Kanna apologised. "Mizuchi lied to us, and she cheated. She said she couldn't breathe fire!"

"She didn't lie," said Kobayashi. "It took me a few moments to see what she did. Those are cryogenic burns."

"They're what?" Kanna, Tohru, and Riko simultaneously asked.

"You accidentally managed to do something your aunt Astrid naturally does, didn't you?" Kobayashi asked Mizuchi. "Wasn't your grandmother also a Yuki-onna?"

"That was Frost magic?!" Tohru exclaimed. "I thought it was just snow, frost, and ice."

"Erika asked me to watch out for this, after Mizuchi froze the fuel in the kidnapper's van a few weeks ago," said Kobayashi. "As she reaches adulthood, Mizuchi is going to manifest a fusion of both Frost Dragon, and Yuki-onna abilities. Just like the rest of you, she's going to have trouble managing her attacks' level of power."

===/===

Tokyo

"Director Nakahara, Coordinator Smith, ...ahem... Captain O'Reilly," said one of the people on the other side of the table. "Director Nakahara, remind me. Why are your niece, and that foreigner here? We are supposed to be discussing your department's budget inconsistencies."

Save me from bureaucratic nonsense, Nakahara thought. I suppose this meeting was, unfortunately, inevitable. "Mr Secretary, Miss Smith is here because she is the coordinator in charge of the majority of the Greater Tokyo area. There are more extra-species in her workload than any other coordinator in the department, but you insist on only authorising staff based on distance, instead of population. Oborozuka alone, has two different fairy colonies, and several extra-species. This includes no less than seven dragons"

"Seven dragons? In one city? And they aren't killing each other, or causing problems for the general population?" The bean-counter was in awe. "Nevertheless, I have explained it to you before. The budget just doesn't cover extra staff. Be grateful we allowed you to hire that part-time language tutor."

"To be frank, sir, you only allowed us to hire young Miss O'Reilly because of the publicity-value of hiring an extra-species girl, who looks good on camera. When you looked at her file, you didn't look beyond her photo. The fact she knows twenty languages-"

"Twenty five," Freya interjected.

"Sorry, twenty five languages," said Nakahara." The fact she knows twenty five languages didn't even figure into your decision."

"Speaking of decisions," one of the others opposite them snidely commented. "Why is that foreigner listed as the head of UNIT?"

"Because she is," Nakahara answered. "She was never formally dismissed from her original position, back in the 1980s, and she has been using her own finances to maintain the department's assets, and the various extra-species trading agreements. If she hadn't been doing what she didn't have to, your operating costs to re-establish trade agreements alone would have tripled ICEP's budget."

"Not to mention that issue with the satellites," mentioned Smith.

"What issue?" another voice asked suspiciously.

"All of the communication satellites, the two space stations, and the moon-base," Smith answered. "Without regular repairs and maintenance, they would have caused more than a minor inconvenience."

"The what?" the bean-counters asked.

"You didn't read the declassified files, did you?" Nakahara commented. "As well as working with extra-species communities, they had evidence of extraterrestrial communities, so built infrastructure to cater towards that."

"Aliens?" scoffed the first bean-counter. "Do we need to order some drug tests?"

"The Chief Scientific Advisor for the British branch of UNIT, Dr John Smith, was from another planet," Freya commented. "They had a prisoner, Victor Magister, locked up in Dartmoor. He came from the same world. My mother was born on a colony-world belonging to the Doctor's and the Master's people. We still don't think the general population are ready for the knowledge of off-world civilisations. They're still having issues with 'mythical creatures' being real."

"Don't forget, they're also not ready for Isekai civilisations," Smith added.

"That's true," confirmed Nakahara. "Most of the wizards and dragons come from parallel worlds, as do a small percentage of the general population of both humans, and extra-species. Long story short, gentlemen, Miss Smith and Miss O'Reilly are in charge of both the majority of our departments' operations and logistics, and also represent the majority of our extra-species, Isekai, and off-world populations."

"Fine," grumbled one of the bean-counters, pulling a number of files from a nearby cabinet.

"Before you go any further," commented Freya. "Remove anything related to ATRAX Engineering, UNIT, and MDD Irish Rose. They're all under my personal finances. ATRAX R&D, and Harmony Tempus, are managed by my eldest daughter, and Cassiopeia Tempus is managed by my son."

The people holding the files suddenly looked lost. "That's all of these files."