The northern reaches of the mundus magicus was in many ways similar to Siberia, if Siberia had more people, lots of edible plant life, more interesting geography, and a bunch of monsters living in it. They had landed in a small village a few hours from where the next dungeon was. In this village was a bar Sneck had seen many times in the past. His biggest jobs, every time he did one he'd come here to get totally plastered. It didn't look like much, and it definitely had the "bad guy bar" feel to it. Smoke, poker games, death threats, drinking contests between rough looking fairies chugging from shot glasses filled with hard liquor, you get the picture.

Alex's entire party was wearing heavy cloaks except Inari, who was wearing an alteration of her normal outfit (thank God for kanka). She had ditched the leather straps for fingerless gloves, and exchanged the sarashi for a black silk tube top with intricate gold embroidery. It added a sense of refinement to her otherwise tough-girl outfit.

"Darn it, I should have remembered that Aleph shuts down telepathy before I let you drag me along Variens."

"Hey, dumb people have it coming." He said while shrugging his shoulders.

"But why can't we tell Nianaseeet." he complained.

"Because I want to surprise him (And show him he's nowhere near as smart as I am)." Said Tsuruda.

"But we might need him! He's really strong!"

"And old. He's a wizard class through and through and would need too much babysitting to be of any help. Fully dedicated casters aren't suited for this type of mission, we need someone who can take a punch and keep going."

"But I'm a wizard too!" Emiya pouted.

"Yes, but you're still young, work out occasionally, and have a talent for mystic reinforcement and transmutation. Translated, you can take a hit." Said Koine.

"What's supposed to be there anyway?" Asked Alex.

"Information pertaining to the Throne, perhaps even its location." She responded

A burly tiger-man walked up to the table.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't help but overhear. Are you people thinking of going into that dungeon a ways from here?

"And if we are?" Asked Alex.

"Well, I wouldn't waste your time. I tried to clear it a few times. No matter which path I chose, I always ended up back at the entrance. I tried every conceivable path, unleased a few dispulsos, even attempted a dungeon bypass. No matter what I did, I always ended up back in the wastes. I never could reach the end. (pity too, bet there's one hell of a treasure in there)"

"Oh I think we'll be just fine." said Inari.

"You're wasting your tiiime." He insisted as he shrugged his shoulders.

"You'll be eating those words when we come back here with a load of artifacts. Now leave."

"Whatever you say." He took a second look the scantly clad maiden next to him and concluded that she was attractive. "(I don't like em' flat, but I love it when they're sassy) Say, mind if I buy you a drink miss? The more time I spend around you, the more charming you're becoming." He draped his arms around her shoulders, his hands wandering dangerously close to a personal area.

There are lots of things Inari doesn't like, and being hit on by random men was definitely one of them. And the fact that he had the nerve to touch her like that…

"Sorry, I'm not into furries." She said bluntly.

*snap* "What…was that?"

"You heard me you overmuscled pussy. I. Am. Not. In. To. Fur. ries. I doubt your cat-sized brain can comprehend that. Can it comprehend the concept of 'Get the hell away from me?' or 'Fuck you?' No? Ok then, maybe it can barely discern the meaning off the phrase 'There is no way in hell I'll sleep with you!' Got it furry?" She smiled, but the look in her eyes could kill children. Quite scary.

"Heh…heh…heeeeeeeeee…" He threw off his cloak, put his hands together and started to glow, Inari responded by doing the same. This guy was shirtless and absolutely ripped. "You're gonna die for that you flat chested whore!" He snarled.

"Adeat!" She said as she drew her katana. A glowing longsword appeared in her other hand as armor materialized around her body. In an instant everyone was either behind cover with either a camcorder or its magical equivalent, running for the exit, or had thrown off their cloaks and equipped their weapons. What each group wanted needs no elucidation. Koine was about to throw her cloak off…but her laptop began to vibrate. She grabbed it, ran into the ladies room so fast it left a trail of dust, and placed sealing wards on the door once she got inside.

"Goddamnit! I just got this place fixed! Take it outside!" Said the middle aged, dog eared bartender. Everyone paused for a second, then started fighting anyway.

A bald Asian dude with white silk pants, black shoes, and a white oriental shirt trimmed thickly in blue was going kung fu master on Vajra, who was smiling psychotically as he dodged every blow perfectly. That is, up until he screwed up and caught the wrong end of a palm strike and was stunned into eating an ascending windmill kick. The last hit of that combo caused his body to dissipate into a flock of doves. A fan of shuriken came at the assailant from behind, but he roundhouse kicked them out of the air.

"You're good, damn good. That's good. It's been a while since I've had a good fight! Still, why attack me?" Asked a slightly inebriated Vajra.

"It seemed like the thing to do at the time." His opponent gave a sly smile.

"Fair enough! Adeat!" Vajra said. His enemy leaped up, stuck his feet to the ceiling, and started firing ki beams from his hands. Vajra met each one with a throwing…something. Daggers, kitchen knives, steel needles, swords, even a chainsaw or two. Each time he reached behind his back another random sharp thingy (sometimes multiple sharp thingies) would appear in his hand. These didn't stop the beams, they merely deflected them in a random direction. The last one…

Nailed Alex square in the side of the head. He hadn't moved since it all started, just sipping his drink like nothing was going on. As he was falling with a blank expression another person broke a chair on his skull, sending him into a wall. He instinctively conjured a strong gravity well right above his attacker, resulting in her head imbedding itself in the ceiling. She writhed for a moment, then pushed her hands and feet against the roof and popped herself out. She fell flat on her back. After a few seconds she stumbled onto her feet.

"Hahahaha! I see this ishn't your first fight." She had a pointy witch hat, long furry ears that fell just above her lower lip, a kimono that was barely long enough to keep her decent, and thigh high socks. She also looked to be 4.9 on the five point scales of both drunkenness and sexiness.

"Heeeey, you're actually pretty attractive you know that? How about we go to my house and have a few drinks together?"

She bent over and pushed her ample bosoms upward with her forearms.

"I think you've had enough." Responded Alex.

He wrapped his hands in flames, dashed in, delivered an uppercut with his left, and then punched her in the chest with his right shortly after. Sending her flying out the door on a wave of, well, fire. A stray pressure wave from Mikoto extinguished the blaze before it could spread.

"I am above such distractions. Understand?" He looked like he was, but he really wasn't.

She was completely unharmed, her stockings were singed, but she was otherwise fine. Her complexion was beet red.

"Attractive wasn't enough to describe you. No, you're burning hot! I want you so badly I can't even describe it! Please. Come home with me. I'll let you do whatever you want to me." She started assuming sexy poses in the snow
"A-ny-thing-you-want !"

He hesitated. It had been a very long time after all, but he gathered his resolve and barely managed to say, "Tempting as hell, but no."

"Well, it's always better when they consent…" Two yo-yo's at his feet jumped up and bound him in string before he could react, binding him.

"Fuck, how did I miss that?" He thought.

She flash-stepped next to him and whispered into his ear, "But you, you're too much." She wrapped her hands around his face and kissed him, hard. The strings bound him more tightly the more he tried to break them. Paula was trying as hard as she could to chew through them. She bit down as hard as she could and pulled until her eyes watered, but her efforts were for naught.

"Now, let's go. I assure you, you've never been with a girl like me. You're going to love every moment I spend on top of you ." No doubt about it, she was sporting a full on rape face. His body was moving against his will. He draped his arm over her and groped her right breast as they walked away.

"Harder!" He squeezed as hard as he could, hard enough that he was surely hurting her, but she was obviously enjoying every second of it.

"Dispulso! (Dispell)" Screamed a cowering Emiya.

The strings fell away from him. He released her boob and thew her forward with another gravity well. He closed his eyes and readied what was perhaps his most "evil" attack. It wasn't a spell or technique so much as it was an amplification and focusing of his inborn ability. As has been stated at length earlier, people just don't like being around Alexander. The alien sensations his presence causes generate fear and loathing in the general population. Amplify this cause, focus it onto your enemy and…He opened his eyes and cried out in his mind the name of what he considered his ultimate technique.

Cyaegha!

His anti-brain waves washed over her like a tsunami. For one long moment, she was severed from any psychic connection she had to anyone. All psionic emissions were similarly knocked out. If there was a collective unconscious, she wasn't part of that collective anymore. She was absolutely and completely alone in a sense that cannot be adequately articulated by words.

Suffice it to say, ladies and gentlemen, this feeling is impossible to describe. It is like trying to explain the concept of light to one who has always lived in total darkness. You simply can't do it, only experience could teach you that truth. In any case, this "technique" always rendered the victim a catatonic, gibbering mess.

Unfortunately for him, it turned her on like nothing else she had ever experienced before.

She became as red as the blood that flowed through her veins. "HAAAAAAAAH!" She lunged at him with a look of inestimable lust on her face.

"How? How the hell…" He thought as something Scott said popped into his head, "Oh wonderful, I've just definitively verified Rule 36. I hate this world."

"Adeat!" He screamed as his artifact formed around him. He and Koine had made quite a few alterations. The jewels were now surrounded by four concentric rings inscribed in four of the major magical languages, Greek, Latin, Japanese and Sanskrit. They all spun counter to each other, the first and third spun counter-clockwise, and the others did the opposite. Two oricalcum triangles hovered just above each jewel, enabling him to use them in a more conventional manner (fist towards enemy instead of back-of-hand towards enemy). When he thrusts his hand/fist forward, the triangles move closer to each other and cause archs of magical energy to form a ghost ring sight, enabling him to aim the beams they way he would a gun. In addition to this, he had a wakashi on his left side, a large (I.e. as long as he was tall) Koine custom katana glued to his back through a special enchantment, and two guns hidden by the cutaway cossak behind him. Said guns were twin Glock 19 pistols set to full-auto. She lunged at him and went for a melee attack. His wakizashi clashed with her yo-yo's. They flung each other away.

"Please Miss, surrender. If I get serious you will die. I've seen far too many corpses in my life, don't make me view another."

"Damn right *hic* have." She responded.

"And you would know how?" he asked.

"I…," she drew a flask and drank deeply from it, "I love every *hic* about you!"

"Sure." He drew his Glock and administered "group therapy". He had mastered extra-dimensional ammo storage, but normally it just stores extra clips (i.e. you still have to reload). Koine had discovered a way to simply teleport the bullets into the gun as it cycled through them (whilst putting the shells into storage). This meant he could rock-and-roll until his guns overheated without the annoying reload problem. She blocked every bullet by spinning her left yo-yo. He sheathed his sword, drew the other pistol and started firing round after round at her from both barrels. She now had to use both yo-yo's to block it all, but she did. Sure enough, a few moments later, his guns overheated to the point of ammunition cook-off (that fun state where the gun starts going off without you pulling the trigger cuz it's so damn hot it ignites the gunpowder all by itself!)

"This just isn't right." He said bluntly.

"You're not right! And that's why I love you! Oh dear God I love you so much! Marry me!" She screamed as she rushed towards him, "I know you want me! Just give in already!"

He ditched the guns and grabbed the sword on his back to defend the incoming flurry of attacks. He infused it with shadow magic, creating solid trails of darkness as he moved the sword about.

"Try this!" She said as the yo-yo's split and the strings unwove themselves. Now he had to predict and intercept the movement of four different objects coming at him from multiple directions. Even with shadow trails, he couldn't keep it up for long. He was going to get pummeled, t'was only a matter of time.

Thankfully Paula was with him at that moment, she scurried up onto his head.

"Watch the sexy beast!" She yelled as she cast a spell, Ermine Flash!

Bright light emanated from her body, causing the assailant to halt her attack and shield her eyes. Alex took the opportunity to leap back. While still airborne he thrust his fist forward. The triangles immediately formed up and made the sight. He was so full of adrenaline that time slowed down as he lined up a head shot. A lifeless look appeared in his eyes as he fired.

*BOOOOOM* A massive, prismatically outlined beam of magical energy surged forward. Sadly, the magnified power of the artifact meant magnified recoil. He was sent tumbling down the street and slammed hard into a brick wall in a comical manner. He made a good impression on it, if you catch my drift.

She did an enlarged version of the confederate flag trick to shield herself. The beam's impact caused it to bulge towards her for a second before the strings broke and surrendered her to the forces of his artifact. Thankfully for her, that defense managed to significantly dampen the strength of the attack. What should have vaporized her merely knocked her unconscious.

"Now I know not to try that again," He got up and dusted himself off, "Thank you Paula. You literally saved my life." Said Alex.

"Oh no. I saved your precious virginity, big difference." She responded.

"I'm no virgin."

"OK let me rephrase that. You've never gotten any for free have you?"

"Yes I have." he was lying, but his apparent lack of emotion hid that fact perfectly.

"When?" She asked.

"Not telling."

"I did save you, so I'm calling in my favor. Out with it already!" She persisted.

"Ok fine. I've only slept with prostitutes. I've slept with lots of them on multiple occasions, but I stopped when I turned towards the light about 14 years ago. I've never been on a date in my entire life. Happy now?"

"Holy mother…you haven't had sex in 14 years!" She was truly shocked.

"Like I said, happy now."

"Dear god. I needed to find you a woman yesterday!"

He pointed to the lady he just knocked out. "Not her, way too crazy."

"Oh I'd never hook you up with a girl like her. You're a friend, aren't you?"

"I suppose so. Who would you set me up with then?" He asked in a vain act of curiosity.

"Mikoto." She said bluntly.

"Why?"

"Listen. When it comes to romance, nobody beats us ermines. We know what we're talking about." She unraveled a scroll listing the names of several women he knew and numbers pertaining to several types of affection. How she even knew about a few of them was a thought that creeped him out a little.

"Mikoto has the highest overall score on this list. Thus, she is your best bet when it comes to a fulfilling and healthy relationship." Said Paula.

"Wait. If getting me laid is your primary goal, Ffion beats the competition at least 2 to 1 in that department. Furthermore, while the other scores are high, she has the lowest H rating and only a middling affection rating. To put it simply, I'm like a brother to her. Yet you think a romantic relationship between us is a forgone conclusion. Why?"

"I never said it was forgone, just recommended. I just want you to be happy."

"How so?"

"Why, in the way you and Niven would understand it of course." She put her paw to her chin, "Contrary to most Ermine intellectuals, the hentai stat is nothing more than another number. What matters is total feelings. It indicates the maximum amount of happiness two people can reap if they fall in love each other. The happier both of you are overall with your partner, the more sex you'll want. The more sex you want, the more sex you'll have. The more sex you have, the happier I'll become. It's the ultimate virtuous cycle! Understand?"

"You truly are perverted to the core aren't you."

"Yes I am!" She said proudly.

"It's still too weird, I won't go along with it. I am her student and friend, nothing more."

"True, you're stats are almost exactly the same as hers, except all of your stats have a slow upward trend. (about a quarter point a month on average) If this continues, and I think it will, one of you will end up confessing. By the time that happens the other will definitely accept and you'll promptly start doing thing I intend to film!"

"If you do hand me a copy and tell me how you managed to access alternate timelines."

"Heh, you really need to work on your act. That wasn't funny at all."

"Wasn't trying to be." Blatant lies.

"Suuuure."

"I was being serious." More blatanlt lies.

"No you weren't. You're too prudish to relish pornography staring yourself." She nailed him. The fact that she could read him despite his emotionless voice and perfect poker face is a testament to what the Ermine race is capable of.

"You know nothing." Yet more blatant lies.

"Suuuure I don't. Quit denying it would ya, you two are getting closer by the day. Since Westermark isn't here, you two will end up in bed."

"I'm surprised you know about him. Even so, I'm betting against you. Can we move on? Our friends are in danger."

"Ok, ok I'll drop it. Still, think about it."

"I won't" As I said before. Blatant. Lies.