Title: Fun for Everyone (Hallow's End 2017 Edition)
Description: "Sylvanas has some surprises for her, er, friends. It spirals out of control from there."
Notes1: Ye gods, this wasn't supposed to be this long. It was supposed to be short - short enough to be out by Halloween. How did I manage to blow it up to 6k, WTF.
Notes2: But hey, on a lighter note, you get to see Kate Dennings, aka Roller Derby!Nova, whom I had forgotten existed until just recently. The same goes to Widowmaker!Nova, but it's not too hard to keep track of when the prompt dump doc is over 118 prompts (and counting, as of Alexstrasza and Hanzo coming out).
Notes3: There's more than just subtext going on here. Like, pretty much direct confirmation is at work. So much so that I alluded on my Twitter that some readers will be over the moon about it. I think that's the most blatantly yuri I've been since my Nanoha fanfics (what few PWPs I have don't count), and not only was that a while back (because I pretty much fell out of it long after Force got "cancelled" and Vivid was still being serialized well before Vivid Strike was made), I'm notoriously fickle about ships and pairings in general. IMO, some ships are more likely to happen than others (from a canonical point of view), but in the hands of people anything can happen within the realm of possibility (which may or may not be influenced by preference, but that doesn't matter if you enjoy crack/rare pairs).
Notes4: Whereas Chromie is that one smartass friend who knows she's just as absurd as everyone else is and revels in it, Li Li is that one friend who dabbles in smartassery now and then but tries not to get too involved in the stupid situations they find themselves. However, it doesn't matter how transitioned you are: life in the Nexus will find a way to drag you into them.
Notes5: Somehow the Greater Dog didn't end up in this chapter like I intended to, but maybe that's for the best given the, uh, circumstances that happen in this chapter. Mimic wood is rare, you know.
Notes6: To end it off: Someone asked what the difference is between the terms "houseborn" and "baseborn", so I'll copypaste the answers here:
"Houseborn" and "baseborn", like "default sector", is another term I use in my offline, original writings. For this story, I use "houseborn" to indicate the Houses that run the Board; there are lesser, noble families underneath this particular chain, but those same people are signified with the term "noblesse" so as to distinguish them from the houseborn. However, even though the Houses have full run of the Board, you'll see important people of lesser rank like Executive Charleston (mentioned in Chapter 41 but appears in How Does That Even Work?) take part in making decisions where it concerns the Nexus Hero League and how feuds, brawls, seasonal events, etc.
"Baseborn", on the other hand, is more or less a term for people that aren't noblesse or houseborn. They're just your average citizen trying to make ends meet, regardless of economic status. On the other hand, this is also used in a more pejorative context by the houseborn and noblesse that could not care less about those people because they're rich and those peons down there in the hills and stone houses are not, i.e. "we have money, we make the rules and enforce them, Powers be damned it's not like they do anything, anyway". This is mostly in regards to King's Crest politics, though, so it'd be interesting for both I and the reader to take a look at how Luxoria and Mistharbor operate. The same goes to Jeetilopolis, but it's a massive city (and not a realm, but it could be classified as a city-state) and it's the HotS equivalent of Grand Theft Auto; it's already described as a suburban gangland that's more technologically advanced than, say, King's Crest, that somehow, just like it, blows up on itself and still manages to stay in "civilized", operating order.
"So what's this surprise you wanted to show us?" Nova asked Sylvanas. She pulled the thick sweater jacket tighter to ward off the chill of the late afternoon air.
"This another one of your harebrained schemes to express your love by killing us unexpectedly?" Kate Dennings interjected, and Sylvanas had half a mind to strangle her while she was blowing that goddamn bubblegum in mid-pop. "'Cause it sure sounds like one o' your confessions."
"I don't do confessions!" she refuted heatedly, and that one time Auriel decided it would be a good idea to drape Al'maiesh over her shoulders—in front of the default Nova, in a field full of white lilies and pink roses, no doubt—to clear her mind didn't count. It never happened. Never. Li-Ming seemed to agree, in her own angry, wordless way. If she looked out of the corner of her eye, she could even see the wizard nodding quite vigorously.
"Sylvanas, when you say you don't do things you actually end up doing them," said Li Li. "That's just how it goes."
"The transition makes me do it!"
Li Li barked laughter, turned around and walked backwards. She shrugged. "'Kay. If that's how you want to put it…."
"Li Li."
"Hey, I'm just saying!"
"There's the stables," said Li-Ming, and she indicated the building's looming presence with a nod of her head. "Is it new mounts?" Her cheeks reddened. "Sylvanas, you didn't need to do that. The Board does that every month. They have the gold."
"So do I," said Sylvanas.
"It's a wonder we even have gold to begin with," said Kate. "All those bigwigs in their high, marble chairs and their longhorses keep embezzling it to fuel their luxury palaces, private assembly lines, and diamond-encrusted pool ponies."
"I always wanted one of those," said Nova.
"What, a pool pony?" Kate snorted softly. "Why would you want that when you could have your own teleportation network that's free of charge and bypasses checkpoint security protocol?"
"Now those are unsubstantiated rumors!" said Li Li.
Kate narrowed an eye at her. "Li Li…no one can be that hopeful. Especially you. Come on, kid, I know you're smarter than that. Not even you can swallow the lies and keep 'em down for long."
She grimaced. "W-Well…it is kind of hard, trying to tell the truth from the, er, alternative facts."
"And that's why you always double-check your sources. That's why tabloid mags and conspiracy theories are still running the gamut…thirty-thousand years later."
"Okay. Fair enough. But how do you know for sure the houseborn and noblesse have diamond-encrusted pool ponies, huh? Last I checked, diamonds sink when put in water."
Kate balked, as though she had been cornered. "D-Do they?"
"They could have used nanorite," said Nova.
"Or bottled aether," said Li-Ming.
"I know that! B-But! Maybe, er," she paused, stretching the word out with a twirl of her hand. "Maybe it's a special kind of diamond! Y'know, the kind that's unbreakable, unsinkable, eternal!"
"That's what they said about the Titanic," the Banshee Queen grumbled.
"Maybe it's a diamond that can only be found in the Nexus, Sylvanas! Maybe it's a diamond MADE OF AETHER! Have you ever thought about that? GODS,Sylvanas! Why do you have to be such a Debbie Downer?!" She clicked her tongue and that blasted bubblegum between her teeth. Sylvanas could almost hear the valley girl rear her ugly head (with the fake, synthetic hair extensions and breath smelling like pumpkin spice) in those words.
"Why do you have to be such an annoying cunt sometimes? Gods!" Sylvanas said under her breath, low enough so no one could hear her, and pinched the bridge of her nose. Why can't she be more like you? she asked Nova, and the thought made the Ghost chuckle.
"She's got a point there," said Li Li. "There might be a diamond out there—"
"THANK YOU!" Kate blared.
"—but if there's such a thing, I wouldn't know where to begin to find it."
"The Underdark!" cried Nova, as if she had just come upon a most fascinating discovery; but Nova always did that.
"Why go to an illegal market when you can just make a diamond?" said Li-Ming. "All you need are gold, the reagents, the machinery, and the equations down to the exact number and decimal."
"HA! Good luck filling that bank account and keeping it that way. You're gonna need it," said Kate. "Oh, and there's no point in making counterfeit gold; the men in black will have their lapdogs sniff 'em out and throw you in the Depths for it."
"Oh, please. We've been sent to local county jails for worse than counterfeit."
"Yeah, like that time you and the Greater Dog had that beam spam contest and blew up most of King's Crest," said Li Li. "Only the super serious criminals get to go to the Depths."
"Yes," Sylvanas drawled, sardonically. "Nothing beats money-guzzling hedonists and power-hungry wizards going Super Saiyan on a dog in armor like having a sentient, warmongering axe from some forgotten age locked up in chains."
"You keep bringing that up," said Kate. "You gotta tell us about that one of these days."
"Knowing Sylvanas, something set her off and she got arrested for it," said Li Li.
"Pretty much," Sylvanas confirmed, without shame, and left it at that.
Li-Ming nodded. "Oh, of course. A day where Sylvanas doesn't cause some sort of ruckus, no matter how big or small, isn't a day worth living at all."
Li Li whistled, sounding more like imitating a Hail Mary than a wolf whistle. "Dayum, girl! Listen to you!"
Her face burned red. "Sh-Shut up! It was just a comment!"
"Girl, did you hear yourself? 'A day where Sylvanas doesn't cause some sort of ruckus—'"
"I said, shut up!"
"—no matter HOW BIG or SMALL, isn't a day worth living at all'!"
"You read too much into things!"
"Can't help it when they're that blatant!"
"UGH! LI LI!"
"Oh, I remember that story!" Nova piped in. "Ataraxas, wasn't it? Isn't it still locked up there?"
Sylvanas made a face and shrugged. "Hell if I know."
"Well I hope that axe thinks long and hard about what it was going to do! Hey, you remember that day we woke up in that chicken coup in the back of the Home'ard Road Bar and Grill? I knew you were a game changer the moment you socked Falstad, pilfered his wallet, and took the reins over Swiftwing. I'm still surprised you even made it that far before the whole shebang showed up!"
"I'd do it again if I could."
"And I'd bet you'd get farther yet! Because you're Sylvanas!"
"Damn right I am." At least her name wasn't Erza Scarlet.
"What's this about a chicken coop?" asked Li-Ming, suddenly losing interest in putting Li Li in a headlock.
Kate grinned wickedly and waggled her eyebrows. "Nova got to triple tap Sylvanas."
Li-Ming froze, so suddenly she looked ready to hit the ground. "WH-WH-WH-WHAT?!"
"I was there. I heard it was very messy. Full of feathers and chickens and eggs—"
"You liar! You weren't there!" Nova cried, and jostled Kate. "I didn't have my rifle on me, either!"
"OH. MY GOD," said Li Li, and covered her blushing face with both hands. She doubled over, shaking with silent laughter. Or tears, Sylvanas didn't know nor care. Kate threw her head, braying like a donkey in heat.
The Banshee Queen groaned quietly, running her own hands down her face and (reminding herself as she did so) taking great care not to pull the skin and leave furrows on her cheeks. "What did I do in life to deserve this?" She looked up and felt a surge of relief wash over her. "Hey, numbskulls, we're here. Pay attention."
"Oh? Already?" Nova asked, letting go of Kate's outrageously long twintail. "Talk about fast."
"You got us mounts, didn't you?" Li-Ming asked. "You did."
"Just wait," said Sylvanas.
"Oh, I can't wait to hear what you did to do this," Li Li said, grinning, and dashed to catch up.
"Did you bring the chickens?" Kate asked through half-baked, mischievous guffaws, and stepped out of the way of Li-Ming's flailing, grasping lunge. Grass kicked up where the wizard tripped over her feet.
Sylvanas ignored them and walked toward the opened barn doors, where a few of the on-site doctors, vet technicians, and stablehands were tending to the beasts. "Knock knock, peanut brigade's here," she called, and clapped her hands—hard—right next to a man's ears as she passed by. He jumped, screaming, and spilled the bucket of water he was holding all over his coveralls and the stable door. The pinto pony in front of him neighed and tossed its head in exasperation, turning dark eyes on its purpling, swearing handler.
"Lady Sylvanas! You shouldn't do that!" said Franklin Beaumont, squeezing past a pair of conversing lab coats upon seeing her. In his hands was a data pad. "You'll upset the animals."
"Oh. Alright," she said, and clapped her hands just shy of striking his face. Beaumont gasped, backpedaled, and fumbled with the clipboard. "How's that?" The technician responded with a frustrated scowl.
"Lay off, Sylvanas," admonished Li Li. "Don't give the guy a heart attack."
"He just said we'll upset the animals. Where I come from, my people see them as such. I thought I'd help him see his point," the Banshee Queen said, drolly.
"They're vets, not surgeons. We're twenty minutes from the nearest citizen hospital."
"And he'll just pop right back, as fine and dandy as you can say please. Anyway, where's Jamieson?" she asked Beaumont.
The man gripped the clipboard around white knuckles, looking as if he wanted to smack her with it. He didn't, and with a huge sigh the tension eased from his shoulders and he settled back on his heels. "He's over there—"
"Here I am!" said Jamieson Pierce, and all but glomped on the older man's shoulders from behind. He grinned at the way his weight nearly brought Franklin down and the bird-like squawk tearing out of his throat like static feedback on a stereo. "Miz Sylvanas, how're you doin' today?"
"As fine as I can be in paradise. You bounced back quickly after the fishnet incident."
"Honey, I always do! That's how the Pierce men roll!"
"GET. OFF," Beaumont grunted. He straightened up and, just as Jamieson mentioned, rolled the kid off his back; or maybe it was Jamieson being nice and pretending it was Beaumont who had all the strength to hoist him off.
Jamieson dusted off his coat. "You here for the mounts, right?"
Li-Ming snapped her fingers. "I knew it! I knew it!"
"What did I get?" asked Kate.
"Who cares about that? I want to know how she got them," said Li Li.
Nova gasped. "You finally got a longhorse?"
Sylvanas mimicked blowing a streamer of air from her lips. "I told you to keep it quiet, man."
Jamieson shrugged. "Kind of obvious, don'tcha think? And it's not like they know what they're getting."
"Yet."
"Of course. But yeah, you lovely ladies got yourselves some extra special mounts for this year's Hallow's End. Sylvanas went out of her way to smug—oof, I mean! get in touch with some fine folk at the Nightshade Guild at Jeetilopolis, and they were nice enough to give us these fine creatures. Well, half of them, I should say. We debugged a few kinks and ran several antivirus scans before we started on the preliminary runs. As for the others, we put them through the hoops and kept 'em nice and warm as they can be!" He gave the girls a winning, toothy smile, even as Beaumont glared and looked to dig his elbow into his ribs again.
"You totally smuggled them, didn't you?" Li Li asked Sylvanas, head tilted up at her.
She frowned. "Now I didn't say that—"
Li Li put her arms akimbo and tut-tutted. "Sylvanas Anne Windrunner! You never learn, do you?"
Her frown deepened. "Listen, we went over this. I don't have a middle name—"
The girl sighed. "Well, I hope what you got was worth the trouble."
"Oh, I think you'll like what I procured. Jamieson, Beaumont, bring 'em out."
Now Beaumont turned his glare on her. "You're not the boss of me—"
"I'm a Queen and you're a hippie. Just do it."
"What do you have against hippies?" he grumbled under his breath, but he heaved a defeated sigh and went with Jamieson toward the back of the barn. After a few minutes, Jamieson came back, sidling past busy technicians and roaming androids, twisting around to make sure Beaumont was following. "Now this one's for Miz Nova here. The Nightshade Guild heard Winter Crest had some problems with feral undead horses for a while an' were tasked to domesticate 'em. His name's Dolemite. He's one of the first to be successfully trained." He waved Franklin through.
Everyone had gotten a good look at Nova's face: it was neutral, but alight with the cool embers of curiosity and anticipation. Now it erupted to a sheer radiance…and a loudness punctuated by the high, girlish squeal of joy that had them flinching back. "OH MY GOD! YES!" She squealed again and dashed up to the sheet-covered pony. "THIS IS MY SPIRIT ANIMAL! AHHHHH!" Dolemite neighed, and didn't mind when Nova threw her arms around his thick neck. "He's perfect! We match now! Thank you, Sylvanas!"
"Eh," was all the Banshee Queen said. He might be successful, but he still needs to get used to people and the lay of the land. Figured you'd be the best person to help him adjust until the Guild and Winter Crest decide what to do with the domesticated equines."
"He's even got a cute widdle candy bucket for a necklace! Ahhhh!" Nova screeched, and dissolved into a mess of feminine giggling. She pressed her forehead against Dolemite's nose. "I don't think I could have loved you any more than I do now."
Sylvanas grunted but didn't look away, shifting from one foot to the other. Li Li made a dramatic show of wiping the back of one paw across her forehead. "Whew!"
Kate smirked and poked Li-Ming in the side with her own elbow. "Triple tap~" she said in a sing-song lilt.
Fury curdled the wizard's features like milk. "Where's my mount?" she grounded at Jamieson.
He chuckled, holding up his hands in placating defense. "We're getting 'em. Just wanna get the animals out first while we boot the systems."
"Systems, you say? What kind?" Li-Ming snagged him the lapels of his coat. "Is it motion sensored? Infrared? Speak, man!"
"This one's yours, Li Li," Franklin said. "Her name's Mahti. Took us all over Luxoria just to get her to come with us. Lots of poachers down there, can you believe that? But she's okay now; her home will be here until the Guild clears out the deltas and she can go back in peace." He looked over his shoulder and tugged lightly on the leash. "C'mon, girl. There you go."
Li Li peered around Sylvanas. Her breath hitched. "Oh, wow! A Piresian sunhawk!" She approached the bird tentatively, awe laced with a sliver of trepidation. The bird was massive, three times Beaumont's stick-thin girth with large red wings, tinged a dark violet and midnight blue at the tips. Her plumage was crimson, bright upon its head (contrast with a soft robin's egg blue at the base of its high, sweeping sunflower yellow crown) and dark at the bottom by the talons. Her chest was thick and the color of lavender, the feathers upon its breast flecked with green, yellow, and pink spots. Her beak and brows were pure, snow white, her eyes like two, burgundy marbles. She cocked her head at the girl's approach and ruffled her wings, startling her, but Mahti settled back on her talons. "She's aether-touched…these guys are, like, really rare! How'd you convince her you weren't poachers?"
"Low sodium, gluten free saltine crackers. The sunhawks love that kind of stuff!" said Jamieson, who managed to gently pry Li-Ming's death grip loose. "Got a box of 'em around here if you want to feed her before you take her out."
"Can I? Cool!" Li Li withdrew her hand from Mahti's curious, pecking beak so as not to surprise her and went to the back of the barn, toward the feeding stations. She came back with a green box, opened it up, and held forth a piece of cracker in the cusp of her paw up to Mahti. The sunhawk leaned her corded neck forward, opened her beak, and snatched the bit like a pair of tongs dealing with hot food on a griddle. "Neato! Thanks, Sylvanas!"
"WHERE'S MY MOUNT," said Li-Ming.
"Yeah, I'm gonna have to second that," said Kate. "What do we get outta this? You implied we got constructs."
"That's right!" said Jamieson. "Give me a moment and grab some of the fellows to help me take 'em out. They're pretty heavy. Come on, Frank!" He snatched the man by the arm and pulled him along.
"That's Mister Beaumont to you, you sly fox!" But Beaumont allowed himself to be dragged along, if only to be of assistance, and together they disappeared into the back, past the stations where the offices resided.
When they were gone (and Nova had yanked the bed sheet from a tube of Hammer-Space over her), Sylvanas regarded Kate and Li-Ming. "You are getting constructs…but these are…let's call them prototypes. The Gearfax family was producing them around this time a little over a year ago to compete with the machines the Cogsmere cosca was churning out. The only reason you see them here and not in the back of some random vault gathering dust is because the Gearfax considered these products failures for not putting out enough power…and I'm sure you're both well aware how much Jeetilopolis loves their power, regardless of context."
"What could they have possibly discontinued production on that wasn't worth the investment?" Li-Ming asked. "I thought everything mattered whether or not they didn't meet up to standards?"
"The lesser goblin families that have the 'gonna-be' attitude throw everything they can make and plagiarize under the sun across every market they can make a profit in do that. Cosche like the Gearfax and the Cogsmere gnomes? Those are big boy leagues right there. They have territories to hold, resources to claim and fight over, trades to ply and businesses to keep afloat. They'll buy low and rig the selling price to as high as they can go without the authorities catching a whiff of what's going on. They'll remind you to pay your dues as soon as humanly possible, and that's when you keep telling them that you will, you will get around to paying them, you just need a little more time to clear the crap off your table or out of you drawers and send the envelope through the designated drop box, over the phone with the cordless in one hand and your debit or credit card in the other, or transfer the money over via some unknown bank account on the deep web; and when enough time passes and you still haven't given them money, they'll be nice enough to send not just one person but the whole cavalry, like it's one big parade full of mecha and exosuits and motorbikes decked with miniguns instead of circus animals."
"That was that one car chase you and Gazlowe lead them on back in the summer, right?" said Li-Ming. "That was all over the news."
"Gazlowe had it coming," said Sylvanas, unrepentant.
"And all it took to take the goons down was a freeloader, a cyborg ninja, a floating toaster from space, and an undead elf who got the idea of wielding a pair of black and gold swords from Fate Stay/Night," Kate cackled. "You're such a weeb!"
"I did not get the idea from a TV show! Or alternate reality! Whatever!"
"You're not the Banshee Queen anymore. Now you're the Weeb Queen! Hail the Weeb Queen!"
"Maybe I wanted to make black and gold swords! A leader should always have more than one weapon at their disposal for the sake of convenience, not out of a sense of being the flashiest!"
"Why make weapons when you can have magic?" said Li-Ming. "In that regard, I outshine you all."
Kate clapped her hands together. "Ooh, a challenger! Talk about a match made in heaven, Weeb Queen!"
Sylvanas glowered. "You believe what you want to believe. And for the last time, I am not—!"
"Here they are!" cried Jamieson Pierce, and the girls turned as one to look. His arrival punctuated the quiet, insectile hum of nanorite engines on low power, revealed to be a flat, hovering platform when he and Beaumont came into view.
On it were two steel jetpacks painted silver on black. The three, interlinked sawtooth gears that was the crest of the Gearfax cosca were absent, as though they had never been stenciled in on the assembly lines.
"And these, my friends, are yours!" cried Jamieson, whipping his arms out to showcase them. "The Icarus-type Apex Predator! Discontinued one week after preliminary test runs failed to produce the minimum explosive energy output renown throughout the eight city-states of Jeetilopolis!"
"You mean it wasn't explosive enough to cause chaos and bedlam," said Sylvanas.
"BINGO! You are correct!"
"What's the highest they can go before they start stuttering?" asked Li-Ming.
"Four hundred feet at best. As far as I know, the Exetar Cartel they have under contract managed to secure some mimicwood and aether from the Shadesborough, which is one of the Shadowskirts and as far west you can go in Outer Jeetilopolis before you're considered away from civilization and into the wilderness. I guess they didn't procure enough of the stuff or stabilize the input/output connection to the engines properly because these didn't get off the ground high enough or, if they malfunctioned, didn't explode with enough force to, uh, inflict the necessary quota on casualties and property damage. For those reasons, the Apex Predator was most likely written off as a failed experiment that would have had them lose more rather than make money. But knowing you girls," Jamieson added, grinning mischievously, "I'm sure you can prove those suckers wrong and show 'em a little TLC can get 'em even higher off the ground!"
"Please. No. Don't give them ideas," Sylvanas said. Uselessly, one might say, not bothering with applying a coat of desperation to her words that most people—lesser people—would apply.
She saw the glint in their eyes as Li-Ming and Kate approached the jetpacks and eased them off the platform into their waiting hands. Whatever material the Exetar Cartel molded the mimic wood into, it must have been something extremely rare and valuable, for the Apex Predators were very light and did not immediately cause them to collapse under the weight of them.
The girls exchanged: Kate, challenging; Li-Ming, proud and tempted. "I can think of a few ways to make use of these," said the former.
"Oh?" said the latter.
"Oh, indeed. Hey, Pierce! You have weapons, too, right?"
He blinked. "W-Weapons? Uh." He scratched his cheeks. "I think there are some in the stalls out back. Depending on what you get, you'll have to put some fresh cells in before you use them."
"This is going to cost us, isn't it?" Beaumont asked, dryly. "What are you up to." This was not a question.
Kate leaned in. "First one to hit the most houses gets a date with Sylvanas," she whispered conspiratorially. "Loser gets saddled with the repair bills and the Ranger-General variant."
"Girl, they are all fine. Winner gets a date with all the Sylvanases," said Li-Ming, just as quietly. "Loser goes into debt."
"Ooh, kinky! Didn't take you to be so repressed!"
"You in it or not, Dennings?"
Kate gave her a most evil, shit-eating grin. "By the end of the night, I'm gonna make you dance on mailboxes for money."
"Bring it, bitch," Li-Ming growled, and then as one they tore out of the stables, wrestling the jetpacks on.
Beaumont watched them go. When they were gone, he glared at Sylvanas. "This is on you, you know."
She shrugged. "You've been in the Nexus how long? It's Hallow's End. Maybe if they get lucky, they'll hit the houseborn."
"I don't care about that! What bothers me is the fact that, no matter what you do, big or small, regardless of whether or not you did anything at all, you're responsible! You're called the Troublemaker for good reason, and if anyone had a lick of sense buried somewhere in them they'd steer well away from you!"
"And not the ones causing actual problems on the home front? Your priorities are so off the mark it could miss an ocean. It's a wonder King's Crest didn't go the way of the dodo a long time ago. But, yeah, sure, call me what you want. I don't care. Most titles mean nothing to me."
"Come on, Sylvanas!" said Li Li, and her and Beaumont moved aside to allow the girl to walk by them. She was already seated on Mahti's saddle, reins held in a loose grip. "We gotta get out there and make some mad candy before rush hour! I want that free turkey from the contest! Get on a mount and let's go!" With a gentle squeeze of her heels, she goaded Mahti into a trot out the barn. With a beat of her wings and a triumphant squawk, the sunhawk bounced off her talons and took to the skies.
"Contest?" Beaumont asked.
"There's a contest going on at the rec center some of the Heroes go to in Dragon Shire. Whoever has the most candy by the end of the time trick-or-treating ends gets a free turkey for Pilgrim's Bounty as part of some 'ultimate turkey dinner' dinner meal made by the local delis in the county."
"So you went out of your way to contact the Nightshade Guild and smuggle random animals and discontinued vehicles across the realms…for a trick or treat contest? That's…surprisingly kind of you."
"I blew up another highway on the way here a couple days back when the Exetar Cartel found out their warehouse was broken into. It was kind of me to put those lazy, third-rate bastards back to work on something more worthwhile."
"Wait, that was you?!"
"No, it was I! NO-BODY! And her faithful steed, THE GREAT DOLEMITE!" Nova barged in between, roughly and with no fanfare, with the bed sheet covering her completely. Blue eyes peered from the holes. "Under cover of night and shrouded in moonlight, the elusive No-Body comes forth to fetch sugar-coated cancer and incite accidental magic parlor tricks in a bid of conquest, and they shall be punctuated in beer, explosions, body counts, and everyone's favorite chemical: TRYPTOPHAN!" Dolemite the undead horse rose on his hind legs and kicked at the air with a proud whinny. "Take my hand, Sylvanas, and ride! RIDE WITH ME AND AND TAKE WHAT'S OURS!" Dolemite whinnied again, the jack o' lantern rattling against his neck.
"I don't really want to—"
"UTTER NONSENSE! YOU DESERVE TO HAVE SOME FUN!" Nova reached down, grabbed Sylvanas by the arm, and tugged. "Remember the fan incident?"
Something in her forehead twitched. "No, I don't," she rumbled, but Sylvanas allowed herself to be hoisted up onto Dolemite and put her hands on Nova's hips. "I guess I'm doing trick or treating then," she told Beaumont, as though she was commenting on the weather. "See ya 'round, space nerd."
Franklin took that moment to close his gaping mouth. "How did she…? But she's so…Who are you calling 'space nerd'?! And what's the fan incident?"
"You are not worthy of that knowledge," Sylvanas said, low and imperious.
"HI HO, SILVAAAAAH! GEE-YAP!" Nova pressed against Dolemite's flanks. He neighed, reared once more, and galloped out the doors.
"You did it, Sylvanas," said Li Li, a few hours later. They were standing underneath a streetlamp in a pool of sodium-vapor light, necks craned back toward the sky. Mahti was perched on a slanted wooden rooftop across the street from them, ruffling her wings and pecking at a bag of grain she had received from a farmer who, from how Li Li described it earlier, looked ready to soil himself…but it was not toward the sunhawk.
"Come again?" Sylvanas asked, feigning ignorance. An explosion went off nearby, and, if they listened closely, they could hear the screams of terrified noblemen and women.
"You're an absolute madwoman. You've got a competitive roller blader and a rebellious wizard fighting for your, uh, affection on jetpacks."
"Okay."
"With miniguns and rocket launchers."
"Okay."
"Don't you think that's pretty crazy?" Another, louder explosion, and the sound of raining wood and shattering glass.
"I've been asking myself that since the day I learned I had accumulated fan clubs across the realms, expecting my arrival since the Hero League was revived and revealed to the public." She turned to Li Li. "Look at me. I'm a dark, brooding antihero. I dress like this because I just don't give a shit. I plunder graveyards and raise the dead so that I may keep the Forsaken numbers at an acceptable level. I use strains of the Plague of Undeath as ballistic missiles that can turn lands into radioactive wasteland for years because more power is better if it's in my hands. I openly resent a hedonistic government infected with insanity that sees no point in changing. I don't know how in the hell any of that makes me relatable let alone even endearing, but somehow, some way, people managed to do just that."
"The most common answer you'll hear the most is that you're pretty freaking hot, undeath be damned."
Sylvanas nodded knowingly. "Yes, there is that."
"The other reason would be is that somewhere in that still, dead heart, there's a little, ooey-gooey center that's soft enough to poke through and spread around before it seeps back inside."
"That's just rot. I had to go to Morales for a medical exam last week. Nasty stuff."
"I did not need to know that," Li Li said, as complacent as can be. "But, anyway, undead or not, morally black or grey, you've got at least three girls, a dozen variants, and about a good portion of the female population in the Nexus falling over themselves vying for your attention. They'd do anything to get you to look at them the way I see Li-Ming look at you when you have your back turned."
"Such as blowing up the Nobles' District with military-grade weapons?"
"Anything." A clap like thunder, and, over the horizon, a pink and orange mushroom cloud bloomed. The ground at their feet shook.
"And that's another six houses down for Katherine Dennings! The crowd goes wild!" A sound, like a powerful vacuum doing the runs, heightened in volume. Li Li and Sylvanas turned their heads as one to see the variant sailing across the stars, the jetpack's engines radiant orange-yellow comets against the darkness. In her hands was a rocket launcher, and crisscrossed over her chest and waist were bandoliers of Hammer Space capsules. She unlatched one from a belt, jammed it into an unseen slot, and fit the launcher in the position she had against her before. The lights along its barrel lit up, from red to orange to eye-searing green. "What's the matter, slowpoke?" she hollered over her shoulder. "I thought you loooooooved her!"
She ducked instantly as a spray of…gunfire? Magic missiles? Hell if Sylvanas knew, but they flew over Kate's head in an arc that spread across the district in a slow, wide fan. Li Li winced seconds before the sky lit up spectacularly and several columns of smoke gushed into the open like underground geysers hitting the breaking point.
When Kate uncurled herself, it was to see Li-Ming come to a stop a few feet away. She let the clips from both assault rifles tumble away into the dark and reloaded fresh magazines into the chambers. Her hands emitted a soft, wavering magenta glow, and she raised the guns to aim them at Kate's head. "It's nighttime, hon," she said, "and I'm still not dancing. I wonder why. Could it be that it is you who has two left feet?"
Kate Dennings grinned. "Only one way to find out, and you ain't goin' to." Without looking, she suppressed the trigger on the launcher. It spat out a missile that all but dropped like an anvil through the air in a low, bestial roar. Then it picked up momentum, and in a burst of sulfur and cordite soared, shrieking high, mechanical tenor. The street quaked again and the air suddenly grew hot and uncomfortable. Sylvanas heard Li Li go through her bag and snap something—a fan, from the sound of it—open. She held up a hand and shook her head when the girl offered her one. "You been keeping count?"
"Two hundred houses," Li-Ming ticked off. "You?"
"What a coincidence. I'm at two hundred houses, too." Her grin settled into a smirk. "Trick or treatin's almost over. How about a tiebreaker?"
"Shoot."
"First one to reduce House Ultas' estate to rubble wins. What do you say?"
"Just House Ultas?"
With a flick of her tongue across her upper lip, Kate Dennings' grin was all teeth and no mercy, the battle-light blazing her eyes. "You really wanna get on that mailbox, don't you?"
"Keep talking about it and I can guarantee you'll be the one that ends up on it," Li-Ming retorted, and with a blast of magic and a twist of the Predator's joysticks, she darted past Kate in a blur of robes and cylindrical steel, guns locked and loaded.
From this angle, Sylvanas and Li Li could see rather than hear the mad laughter almost overwhelming the variant; and then she, too, was gone, launcher primed and jetpack thrusters engaged. On the roof, Mahti raised her head to chirrup indignation at the noise before lowering her beak back to the grain.
Li Li snapped her fingers and made a gun-shaped gesture with her paw. "Like I said: absolute madwoman. You don't even have to do anything. You can just give 'em the patented Sylvanas Windrunner look and they'll do it for you."
"If only the rest of the world were that simple," Sylvanas said, with a sigh of longing.
"Sylvanas! Li Li! Lookit what I got!" Nova galloped around the corner and eased Dolemite to a stop beside them. She raised her arms, bedecked in plastic buckets overflowing with candies of all shapes and flavors. "I hit the jackpot!"
"Holy guacamole! That's a lot!" Li Li said, and went to take the buckets and place them on the ground. Upon rising from the last one, she froze and peered into Dolemite's necklace. "Hey, wait a sec. What's all this?" She reached into one jack o' lantern and turned her paws over. "Jewelry? Nova, I thought you said you weren't going far."
"What, and miss out on the free cash? No one has to know it's from the noblesse. We can just say we found it, um, lying around!"
"Yeah, that they," Li Li jabbed a finger at the sky, "blew up!"
"No one ever said the treat in trick or treating had to be just candy."
Li Li started. "W-Well! That's true, but—"
"The houseborn are gonna be runnin' around for the next few days searching for us, anyway. We may as well pawn these off and break bank so we can cover the expenses." Nova lifted a handful of thin, gold chains, precious gems, and what looked like a fancy compact mirror slipping halfway from her grasp and hit the pavement with a glassy clink. "How's that sound?"
"That is the smartest thing I've heard you say all day," Sylvanas said. Nova beamed, but the Banshee Queen cut any chance of running her mouth off short. "Li Li, do you want a lot of money?"
"Is this a trick question?"
"Just answer me. Do you like money?"
"Well, yeah."
"Do you want that free turkey?"
"Yeah, but why do I need money for a free tur—"
"Do you want stuffing? Cranberry sauce? Pumpkin pie? Hush puppies?" Sylvanas leaned in closer. "Chocolate. Truffle. Mousse?"
Li Li smacked her lips. "Well, when you put it that way—"
"Do you?" She leaned in more, until she was just about doubled over.
The girl didn't think twice. "Hell yeah!"
"Then take these, shut up, and be a good girl." Sylvanas snagged a handful of jewelry from Dolemite's necklace, stuffed them into Li Li's paw, and closed her fingers over them. "Go on, get on Mahti. We're going to Jeetilopolis and become kings."
"Until the money runs out."
"Hush your mouth."