"So?"
Sitting down across from the Baron, Xander sighed as he let the reinforced chair take his weight. "Agatha and Judy will be joining us on our return to the castle, Punch had some dark projects he needed to work on before he joined us." Xander said with a groan as he rubbed his eyes tiredly "Best guess Judy will be on hand if you try and force Agatha into anything and Punch is going to ground so he can bust them out if needed." he explained as Klaus groaned and leaned back in his chair.
"So she is…" Klaus trailed off as Xander nodded.
"Outside of the boys themselves showing up and declaring it to the world before the gates of Paris, I don't see how it can be any more clear," Xander said before leaning forward and resting his arms on his knees and holding his chin as he stared at his old friend. "Klaus," Xander waited for the Baron to look at him before he declared seriously, "She is a Heterodyne." He nodded to the small pokeball device that held the locket on the Barons desk "And I believe that was a Spark nullifier. Without it she will likely breakthrough soon, tonight, tomorrow or next year, but this is coming."
Klaus slumped slightly in his chair at this declaration. "And with another Heterodyne spark in play…" Klaus trailed off and groaned before forcing himself to straighten in his chair, "The Pax Transilvania is stable for the moment. This is something that I will deal with directly," he declared as he went into administration mode to try and get ahead of the chaos he could see coming.
"Klaus" Xander said as the Baron barreled on.
"For now she will be transported under the name of Clay to Castle Wulfenbach where she will be kept with the other children until I can-"
"Klaus," Xander said louder.
His friend ignored him and began writing orders for the empire even as he felt the heat of his spark begin heating up his head as plots and plans began to swirl within his mind. "-Stabilize her position within the Pax and step down the Jager-"
"KLAUS!" Xander bellowed, slamming his fist on the desk and scattering the gathered papers and knickknacks as he towered over on of the most powerful man in the world. "Bill named you godfather to his child," Xander snarled as the red and gold began to bleed into his irises. "I hold you to that post as you once held me," Xander growled as he brought up his own issues with standing as Hope's Godfather so many years earlier.
For a moment, Klaus glared up at his friend before taking a deep shuddering breath and letting the madness go and nodding. "Very well. We will travel to the castle together and I will introduce her as my goddaughter. VonPin will be directed on forming a crash course for her education up to acceptable standards and I will announce her at the Christmas ball," the Baron said sullenly.
Xander took a step back and carefully stood straight before his friend and leader, "And my orders, Baron?"
"Escort the Hive Engine back to the castle. It is to be maintained under the highest level of security at all times," Klaus said before standing himself. "As soon as Beetleburge is settled I shall return with the children." Turning to the silent assistant standing by the side, Klaus sighed, "Boris, please clean this up and I'll see you in the morning."
Without a look back, Klaus stormed out of the room, leaving Xander to stand awkwardly for several minutes before Boris motioned towards the door with an arm before beginning to put the room to rights.
Stepping out into the evening light, Xander stared up at the softly twinkling stars that began to peak out from between the airships that floated above and sighed.
"Everything alright sir?"
Glancing over at the two brothers that joined him, Xander was happy to see that Omar seemed to have recovered slightly from his introduction to his goddaughter. "Just a feeling, Mr Von Zinzer, that we are standing on the edge of a cliff and nothing can stop this next step," he said before noticing the looks of confusion on the two brothers faces and chuckled. "It feels like it's going to be a nice, quiet night."
Immediately the color drained from the two experienced soldiers faces as they glanced around in a panic, hands grasping for weapons they had long sold.
"S-sir?" Moloch asked as he forced his hands to stop shaking, clasping them behind his back and nudging his older brother to get him to fall in line as Xander headed towards the town limits where his personal airship was docked.
"We have a job. The Baron wants us to escort a ship to Castle Wulfenbach, along with the 'Serial Peacemaker' and the 'Partial Dominion.' Straight there with no stops," he said before glancing at the higher ranked brother and gave a lopsided smile, "Should be a milk run."
The man almost stifled the whimper those words caused as he walked into the field and glanced at the sleek airship that Xander was heading for before walking up the ramp. He idly noted that the 'Tantive IV' was crawling with Gleekin, small green glowing beings that seemed to skitter over the vessel, clinging to the ceiling and walls as they moved around.
One of the green beings ran up and snapped a salute as Xander nodded to him while he passed by. "prepare us to be underway. We are to escort the 'BeeKeeper' back to the Castle as soon as she is ready, lock us in with the 'Serial Peacemaker' and 'Partial Dominion' for escort duty."
"Watsa Bowba dem?" it hissed as Xander glanced back at the brothers
"They are with me, get them a room, show them around and let them have a run on the armory," he said before glancing down at his captain. "And let the crew know this job should be a milk-run, like the Cherkasy mission or that time in Zaragoza."
The green being hissed at the mention of the two 'easy' missions that had turned into debacles of epic proportions, one of them resulting in the collapse of a mountain and the other ending in the expansion of the Ebro river before it swallowed Tarragona "Brekn ot da beguns." He snarled before waving towards the two men and escorted them off, around them Gleekin began to reinforce areas and lock in defensive plates in case the situation escalated.
Xander knew that Jek would take care of them, their language was crude but the Gleekin were more than capable of getting ready for the job ahead. It was a matter of minutes before he was in his office/room, taking his great coat off he dropped it on the reinforced hook and dropped heavily into the seat with a sigh. He had almost drifted off when a soft tickle on his neck caused him to tense slightly before rolling his eyes.
"Guess who!"
Leaning back in his chair, Xander glanced up at the manic grin of the murderous pirate captain standing behind him. "Sky Bitch," he said with a half grin before letting his hand slide off the charged pepperbox pistol that was aimed through the chair at her center of mass.
"So, what's the news?" Bangladesh Dupree asked as she spun around to sit on his desk balancing the small dagger on her finger.
"Beetle had a hive engine, got diminished and stuck in a bell. Klaus threatened me with you, earlier. I collected the brothers that you almost blew up last week, we might have a new Heterodyne, Grace almost got the drop on Judy and I perfected a new popover recipe." he explained as Bangladesh nodded along before she froze for a moment and frowned. He watched as she counted the different parts on her hand before blinking and looking down at him.
"A new WHAT," she screeched as Xander shrugged.
"A popover recipe, this one has a Tuna mix in the batter and has a-"
"WHAT ABOUT THE HETERODYNE?" she shouted as Xander just grinned.
"Looks like Bill had another kid at the end, a girl that was smuggled out and raised out here with Punch and Judy" he explained with a smile as Bang squealed and kicked her feet happily.
"I Knew it!, HA! Suck it," she declared before holding out her hand as Xander rolled his eyes and with a put upon sigh opened up his desk and dropped a single Minmoth penny into her hand.
"Yeah, yeah, but that means Bill and Berry are still out there so the games are not done yet."
"You're just jealous 'cause I won," she declared before sticking her tongue out at him even as she secreted the small coin away and decided to change subjects. "So, Klaus still thinks we are Nemisi? Nemisisis… at each other's throats," she asked as Xander nodded.
Despite what the Baron thought, he and Bang had been friends for several decades before she had joined the Barons forces. He had first met her in a sky barge just off the coast of Spain, she had been working her way up to Pirate for several years and had ambitions of becoming a pirate queen one day. Of course she had been a gunner's mate fifth class at the time and would need another decade before she clawed her way to the top when Xander found her. And by found he meant, 'Blew her ship out of the sky into the Rhino Shark infested waters of Gibraltar' and she was the only one to make it to the shore.
He had captured her and on the way back to the mainland to see her to justice, when they had gotten hit by one of Captain Nemolds 'triton' cannons and crashed on the island of Peniche.
Which was an island now after it had been cut off the mainland when the Mad 'Ingeniera Rainha' several centuries back had tried to cut up Portugal and turn it into a Jigsaw Nation.
That was before Gaspar Heterodyne had captured her, the two mad sparks had fled to the Azores soon after.
Xander wondered how they were doing, last he heard the Azores Heterodynes were trapped in some sort of 'Amorphic soup'
Xander and Bangladesh had worked together to survive on the island until it had crawled close enough to the mainland for them to escape.
After that, Xander had set her up as an on-call mercenary as she played Pirate Queen. He would take on pirate teams that were threatening her and she was more than happy to do the jobs he was politically hampered from taking.
So long as everyone thought the two hated each other they could keep the ruse up. At least until some psychopath had slaughtered Bangs' crew and blew up her base. After that, she had gotten scooped up by the Baron and had become the dedicated 'bad cop' of the empire. Now they just kept the joke going more to see how far the Baron would go to try and force them to work together.
"Yeah, he wanted me to bring Grace with me to meet Agatha's parents," he explained as Dupree leaned forward excitedly.
"And she got the drop on Judy? REALLY," she cackled and pumped her arm in glee "That's my girl!"
"Almost," Xander countered before showing the little poke hole on his neck, "Judy got hold of me just as Grace got herself into combat, had it been a real fight Judy would have won, but Grace would have cut her pretty good with that cutlass of hers before it was over."
"Don't care, still awesome," Bangladesh said happily before letting out a deep breath. "All right, well I still have a couple of things I need to finish up on patrol before we head back to the castle. Figured I would swing by and tell you about something that happened while on patrol.
Xander listened as Bangladesh explained about the window in the world and leaned back in his chair. "Klaus is definitely going to want to hear about this, record everything and make sure you report it," he said and smiled as the Pirate Queen groaned at the paperwork before shoving his cup of pens over and scattering them across his desk.
With that final act of petulance, Bangladesh Dupree stormed out of the room and disappeared back to her own waiting flagship.
In a far flung corner of the city the once assistant Tyrant of Beetleburg slept fitfully in a small out of the way corner of Von Gringles Beetleburg extravaganza Goat Cheese stables, in the far corner Othar watched the man sleep for a bit before letting out a sigh and glancing out the barn window, far above among the glittering stars the 'Zrack Kralj' floated ominously, looming over the city like a predatory cat waiting to pounce.
in the ships stern a single window flickered it's lights as Grace continued a custom they had established years earlier, Othar smiled as his daughter flickered the lights before he rolled over and pulled a particularly fluffy goat toward him before resting his head and letting himself drift off to sleep.
(A/n) I hope you liked the ship names, a cookie if you know where they come from
and no, I am not shipping Xander and Dupree, they work together and are friends but that is where I am drawing the line.
