Xander Quest

by Throwaway1971

All credit goes to the OG author Judge Mental on SB

328. The Thousand Post Blood War Omake

THREE THOUSAND POSTS OMAKE SPECIAL PART #1
YAMAMOTO GENRYUSAI SHIGEKUNI

The world was not as it should be.

He'd known this for quite some time, even by his own standards. Years meant little to one whose existence spanned three millennia, and any lesser span of time was often as dust under his heel. Decades were more significant—the measure of a human lifetime, in particular, could mean so very much—but they, too, had been known to slip away without making a mark. When a situation persisted for centuries, however, even a man who had lived for some twenty-one hundred years tended to find it noteworthy.

Exactly when he had first felt something wrong, the man called Genryusai could not say. He was Shinigami, one who regulated the flow of souls between the realms of the living and the dead, and that meant he was aware of the cycle of transmigration—and not, as so many of the young ones might think, merely on the level of recognizing the substance of individual souls or the pressure they exuded in defense of their own existence and principles. No, while one's sense of reishi and reiatsu was a useful and necessary skill to cultivate, it was also a talent that could be found in and trained by virtually any mortal soul.

Shinigami were meant to be more than that. Life was present throughout the world, and wherever it spread, there too was Death, the constant shadow of Life, waiting for its moment—and so there too must the Shinigami be, when that moment arrived and one Life came to its inevitable end, setting a Plus on the next step of its journey. Merely mortal awareness was insufficient for such a task; it required a measure of the divine, and this measure, the Shinigami had, though few of them fully grasped that fact, let alone its full significance.

Yamamoto did not scorn the young ones for this lack. For one thing, they were yet as children in the grand scheme of things, still growing into their strength and learning the limits of their skills and the duties that went hand-in-hand with them, and they had tasks enough to divide their time and effort. Nor was this a talent often found in the much-lauded prodigies of combat, for souls that took so readily to the generation and manipulation of spiritual power were seldom as well-suited to simply sitting and listening to forces that did not arise from within themselves.

For another, training in this mode of spiritual sensitivity was not given or even mentioned at the Academy—and for good reason. Opening up one's awareness to greater flow was a risky affair, for without a firm grasp on who you were and what you wanted, you could all too easily be swallowed up and washed away by the incalculable energy of the innumerable souls moving between worlds.

And for a third reason… well, despite what a certain pair of students might have thought, he'd been no wiser than any other Shinigami in his younger years. Less so than some, even; it was merely his strength and resolve that had allowed him to survive long enough to gain what insight he had, when others, wiser than he—perhaps wiser than he was even now—had been dragged down by their foes, by mischance, or by the long, slow passage of Time.

In Yamamoto's experience, a Shinigami needed three, perhaps four centuries of service before their self-identity was strong enough to risk meditating upon the cycle. Not many lived that long, and of those that did, many became too set in their ways and their image of themselves to begin training a new ability that ran almost directly against a core element of their existing skills.

It was perhaps fitting, then, that it had been three, perhaps four centuries ago that the Captain-Commander sensed a change in the flow of the world's souls, and sought confirmation from those few among the ranks—and the handful outside them—who could render assistance in the matter.

And so they had.

And every fifty years since—give or take a decade—they had verified another shift in the flow, which was accompanied by a spike in spiritual activity within the mortal world.

And every time it happened, he and his few peers in the technique would look back, and realize that echoes clung to them in the flow, memories which had not existed prior to the latest shift, yet which reached back for decades, centuries, or even millennia, recalling individuals, locations, and events that their earliest recollections made no mention of, yet whose existence could now be verified as factual—or at least reasonably likely.

Most mortal minds would have gone on their way, blissfully unaware of the change, as their original memories were either overwritten by or shunted aside in favor of the new. Of the relative few that some quirk of fate, lineage, or personal ability allowed to retain their "true" knowledge, many collapsed into madness trying to reconcile the parallel sets of recall.

Divine minds were hardier, and could process simultaneous streams of consciousness as casually as a mortal might breathe, but many among the kami would panic—many had—at the realization that something out there was capable of re-writing reality on a global scale without them even noticing until after the fact.

As Shinigami were somewhere in between mortality and divinity, so too were their reactions.

Those not yet schooled in the basics of higher awareness tended to react much as the greater number of mortals did, their memories of one world blending with those of another.

Among the remainder, whether those properly trained in reading the Cycle, newly-awoken to their awareness of it, or just randomly gifted, some bore the discovery of conflicting memories with grace. Others broke under the weight of it. And others… did not quite do either.

Yamamoto had suspicions about the eccentricities of certain of his subordinates over the last third of a millennium, particularly regarding the leading members of the Twelfth Division, past and present, and their general… Twelfth Division-ness. Only suspicions, mind; nothing that could be confirmed, much less acted upon.

But if those suspicions were correct, it would explain so much.

The border between genius and madness was such a thin one…

Questionably sane Shinigami aside, the reoccurring disturbance was clearly a threat to the Balance of the worlds. At least one incident, perhaps two, had slipped past the Captain-Commander before the changes became too pronounced to miss, the next was lost verifying the existence of the danger, and the one after that was spent tracking the source—unsuccessfully, to his then-irritation.

But the event after that had been confirmed, and the extent of the danger realized.

And there was frustratingly little that could be done about it.

By the laws of powers peer or perhaps even superior to the Soul King—and that was a thought Yamamoto was careful not to share—Mortal Kombat was to be fought by mortals alone. Divine beings were permitted to observe, to select representatives for their own interests, even to actively cultivate such champions, but they could not participate in person without great sacrifice, giving up the bulk of their immortality and power to face the other competitors on something approaching equal footing.

That was risk enough to dissuade most divine entities, but the Shinigami would have taken the risk for the sake of their duty, for the security of the worlds riding on it, or in certain cases—almost inevitably Eleventh Division or those that had served there; thank you, Yachiru, for two millennia's worth of headaches—simply for the thrill of the fight. Yet that same duty forbade them to interfere in the affairs of the living, and though the battles all too often ended in death, the essence of Mortal Kombat was life, was struggle, and will, and freedom of mortals to choose their own destiny. And that? That was danger in a form the leader of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads was not used to thinking of it.

In the world of Yamamoto's earliest memories, an oath-breaker invited the justice of Soul Society down upon himself, but no more and no less than that, not unless measures had been enacted ahead of time to artificially enforce a penalty. With the stakes as high as they were, a violation of the written laws for the sake of saving the worlds might be considered an… acceptable price, however grudging the Captain-Commander's acknowledgment of that fact.

But in this world, where other laws and other wills had their say, a divine being that violated their given word faced penalties of a much more immediate nature. And by those laws, for an Agent of Death to enter a ritual of Life, hallowed by the will of the Elder Gods and the sacrifices of uncounted generations of mortal souls, held at a junction of worlds where the normal laws blended together and broke down, would be a most serious transgression.

To do so while a master sorcerer and thief of souls stood ready to exploit any weakness to his advantage?

Yamamoto did not fear death, whether for himself or his subordinates, but neither was he a fool. To send Shinigami into a battle so obviously rigged against them would not be spending their lives to achieve victory, but wasting them to no one's benefit but the enemy—and the criminal sorcerer Shang Tsung was dangerous enough without adding the souls of defeated psychopomps to his army of slaves.

Better, he had thought, to let that incarnation of the Great Tournament pass, wait for Shang Tsung to leave his island, and then strike while he was away from his places of power and the underlings he might call upon there.

It had been a good, sensible strategy.

It had also been a miscalculation.

The title of Grandmaster of Mortal Kombat was not one handed to a mere administrator or bureaucrat. It was a role meant for a warrior, one that required the holder to walk the realms, face their perils, and deal with the Great Powers that called them home. To the Grandmaster fell the unenviable task of winnowing the ranks of the warriors put forth by the lords and gods of their respective lands to find those truly worthy of being Kombatants, and the method of trial by combat had been approved of and encouraged for this purpose long before the Outworld sorcerer seized control of the Tournament and corrupted the proceedings to his and his master's benefit.

While Mortal Kombat was being waged, the Grandmaster could be challenged by any other lawful Kombatant, but in the generation-long spans between each Tournament, he was an emissary of the Elder Gods, and so protected by them for as long as he upheld the responsibilities of his position.

The Shinigami had learned this the hard way when their one and only assassination attempt on Shang Tsung went badly awry, costing them an entire squad from the Second Division, and resulting in a… visit… from an agent of the Elder Gods.

It had not been the first time that an envoy from another power found their way into the Court of Pure Souls since the worlds began to merge, nor would it be the last, but it had been the first case of an outside polity laying down the law for the Shinigami and the Soul Society as a whole—and moreover, managing to make it stick.

Sometimes, those incidents were almost worth it, just for the looks on the faces of the Central Forty-Six and the Council of the Noble Houses. That time… had not been one of them.

Yamamoto held to his duty, and did not care for obstacles in his chosen path, particularly those that posed a danger to his people. And there had been far, far too many such obstacles as the collapse and convergence of the realms continued on, shifting the balance of power into an ever-more-unmanagable mess as more and more worlds blended together, bringing their gods, their demons, their magic-users, and their metaphysical laws with them.

But sometimes—just sometimes—that very merging of realities had results that were unquestionably in the Soul Society's favor.

Times like today, for instance.

Nine years and ten days shy of a millennium ago, Yamamoto had struck down the upstart Emperor of the Quincy, ending—so he believed—another threat to the Balance. Even in the rush of victory, when Yhwach's body and a number of his elites had turned up missing at the conclusion of the battle, the Captain-Commander had been canny enough to recognize the potential implications of being unable to confirm the kill. He'd taken measures to prepare for Yhwach's return, but when the war ended without that happening, and as the subsequent years rolled past into decades and then centuries, the potential danger had grown smaller in memory—and the mass extermination of the Quincy Remnant two hundred years ago had largely put those fears to rest.

Until now.

Now, Yamamoto knew that his old enemy still lived, and was in the process of rebuilding his power—that he was, in fact, on the verge of regaining his full strength, and more besides. He had been warned of the threat of the Wandenreich, the location of their final retreat, and the advancements in their weaponry and tactics since the old days. He had been told in time, if only just barely, to do something about it, and stop a danger to the Soul Society and the greater Balance in its tracks.

And he owed it all to a mortal sorcerer, and gods and metaphysical laws a part of him was still not used to having to work with or take into account.

The irony of this did not escape him.

"The world is not as it should be," Yamamoto Genryuusai Shigekuni mused to himself, as he sat at ease in his favorite hot spring, looking up at the moon on the night before battle. "But tomorrow… tomorrow we will correct one of those flaws." And then, because he remembered Yhwach's power, and how annoying it had been to deal with all those centuries ago, he added, "Wash your neck and wait for me, O King of the Quincy. We have some unfinished business between us."

Never far away from his partner, Ryuujin Jakka hummed in eager anticipation of the rematch.

---

Potential Trigger Warnings: The following post contains instances of drow, spiders, bitchery, drow spider-bitchery, textually implied gore, a bit of body-horror, general creepy-crawliness, and Lolth being Lolth. Continue at your own discretion.

THREE THOUSAND POSTS OMAKE SPECIAL PART #2
LOLTH

Where was it?

She looked to a cavernous hall, where the only sources of light were faintly glowing patches of moss cultivated within braziers full of earth, the heat of the living bodies packed within, and the auras of magic emanating from some of the attendees, their possessions, and the walls and floor. The dull illumination provided by the braziers was concentrated on an altar at the back of the chamber, where a dying body gurgled out its last breath under the watch of a bloody-handed, ethereally slender figure with skin of living darkness, long hair of purest, palest white, and eyes like liquid rubies, clad in scant robes of a vaguely religious nature.

In the shadows behind the priestess was a row of worshippers, perhaps a dozen in all, kowtowing upon the cold stone floor as they chanted words of a liquid, hissing language in ritualistic union. Behind that first row, swallowed in darkness impenetrable to the eyes of most mortals, were further rows, all in the same pose, all chanting together. A hundred voices echoed within the confines of the ritual chamber until they became one, an immense, alien thing that whispered and thundered and resonated in the blood and the bone.

Eyes far beyond any mortal's pierced the darkness as if it were nothing, pierced the blood and the bone and even the protective spells woven around and upon them to prevent this very sort of intrusion, and looked upon the souls of the assembly.

Darkness.

Poison.

Spite.

Ambition.

Bloodlust.

She looked away, unsatisfied.

Where was it?

Her gaze fell next upon another cavern, where stalactites hung from an unworked roof, dirt lay upon the floor, and blood was spattered upon the walls. Scrabbling amid the gore-soaked soil was another crush of bodies, several of them slender and ebon-skinned like those from the temple, but more with heavier builds, and much of their flesh pallid and scarred by whip, blade, and fire. The dark few were clad in fine fabrics and steel, the rest with simple cloth and leather, heavy collars, and heavier chains; all were armed, shockingly well so in the case of the chained ones, but the weapons were doing them little good.

Arrayed against the masters and their slaves was a mob of green-skinned bodies, ranging from runts barely knee-high to the shortest of the slaves—some of them clinging to the walls and ceiling—to towering brutes three times as massive as anything else in the room. Where the slender shadow-folk numbered perhaps half a dozen and their warrior-slaves a full score, the greenskins numbered a hundred at least, and though their armaments were no better than primitive hide and clubs or daggers of stone, they were slowly whittling away at their opponents.

Here, a single strike brought down one of the runts, only for the "victorious" slave-solider to be hit from above by a falling body, and immediately swarmed by the nearest rank of goblins, vanishing under a wave of shrieking bodies that clawed and bit even as they stabbed and smashed.

There, another of the enslaved warriors was crushed outright beneath a broken-off length of stalagmite nearly as big as his body, wielded with almost casual ease by one of the savage hulks.

And in the middle of the defenders, a female figure again clad in vestments—albeit with sensible armor beneath the cloth instead of little more than skin—raised a small pendant and shrieked words that were half desperate plea to a higher power, half furious oath against the inferior beings that dared to stand against her.

Idly approving, the owner of the unseen eyes caused a great swarm of spiders to appear from nowhere, swiftly covering the greater mass of goblinoids in ten, twenty, a hundred times their number of skittering, biting bodies. And as the mob degenerated into howls of pain and frothing, thrashing death, she looked into the souls of those before her, did not find what she sought, and moved on.

Where was it?

Beneath the eaves of a forest under a sky lit only by stars, another priestess pled for deliverance, the words bubbling up with blood from the wound to her lung—a wound dealt by a slender sword in a slender hand that could have belonged to one of her kin, save for the sun-bronzed hue of otherwise pale skin, the green and brown material of the clothing and armor beyond that, and the green eyes and chestnut hair set within and above the inhumanly handsome face, twisted in a look of disgust and fury.

The eyes narrowed, looked once more, and—once again failing to find the desired target—caused the priestess's body to swell in shrieking agony, before hundreds of spiders crawled forth from every opening in her flesh, whether natural or inflicted.

A voice better suited to singing cursed in alarm and called up a swirling shield of wind, keeping the newborn swarm at a distance and sending several of its members flying into nearby tree-trunks, where they spattered and died as quickly as they'd been born.

For that insult, the watcher took a moment to dispatch a vision to a more worthy and still-living priestess, showing the nearby village of surface-dwelling weaklings that the offender called home, and demanding its destruction. Then she looked elsewhere again.

Where. Was. It?

On and on the search went, ten thousand vistas across a hundred worlds examined, blessed or cursed as they deserved, and then discarded in dissatisfaction, all in a matter of moments.

In the blackest depth of the Demonweb Pits, the Demon Queen of Spiders let out a shriek of frustrated fury.

It had been intended as her moment of triumph, of apotheosis. She'd spent centuries, millennia scheming and scrambling for advantage against the filth that surrounded her domain and the weaklings that had dared to spurn her, so long ago; ages hoarding scraps of faith and soulstuff and god-touched relics, whether what the sniveling rule-mongers and self-righteous hypocrites would say was "rightly" hers or "stolen"; years beyond counting simply waiting for events and forces across the planes to align in her favor.

The collapsing of timelines on that pathetic Dirt-world had seemed the perfect opportunity. Though otherwise useless to her due to the innumerable demons that laid claim to it and the ever-increasing number of human vermin that infested the place, it had ties to enough significant planes to make the Powers of those worlds take notice of the phenomenon, and begin devoting attention and energy into investigating it and preparing against the outcome.

Every mote of power spent in those efforts, every eye turned elsewhere, provided more opportunity for Lolth to act, and so she had, taking her spoils and isolating herself from the cosmos for the better part of a year. Wrapped in a cocoon of sorcery and divinity, treachery and horror, she'd planned to break herself down, dividing all of her aspects from one another and from the core of her being to swim freely within the raw godly essence contained in her chrysalis. The faith, the souls, the relics, the weakest and most worthless elements of her being—all would be rendered down and devoured by the greater parts, which would then be assumed intact by her core persona, creating the mightiest and truest reflection of her perfection that had yet existed.

And as she went through division, winnowing, reunion, and transcendence within her cocoon of sweet poison and black nightmare, so too would the Demonweb Pits change around her. The portals and passages connecting her domain to the infinite chaos of the greater Abyss and the scattered Material Planes would be left open just long enough to give her truly watchful foes a chance to think her defenses weakened, and dispatch forces to take advantage. Then, as one, the gates would not be closed or sealed but obliterated, allowing planar annihilation to consume entire swathes of the greater Demonweb and everything they contained within them, simultaneously severing her realm from the Abyss and erasing countless thousands of souls as further fuel for her grand ritual.

It had been her intention to awaken a goddess reborn, sole mistress of a plane unto itself, its location, layout, and means of access unknown to her foes. With her flanks thus secured against demonic invaders and "heroic" busybodies—if only for a time, demons and mortals were both ineradicable nuisances that way—she would have been able to focus her new strength on casting down and consuming her rebellious spawn and would-be rivals, adding their feeble potency to her own and, more importantly, at long last claiming uncontested dominance over her drow.

There would be no more doubt, no more dissent, no more alternatives; she alone would rule them all, utterly and eternally, and the names of her once-cohorts would be ground into the dust of ages and forgotten.

Her plan had been perfect, accounting for potential developments at every moment of every phase. The preparations had devoured the resources of worlds across an eternity of time. The outcome had been inevitable, and the sweet taste of power, of victory, was everything she'd envisioned…

…except for one. Niggling. DETAIL.

Somewhere in the swirling black, bloody chaos of her chrysalis, as aspects had warred with and devoured one another, one tiny spark of divinity had vanished.

At the time, Lolth had thought nothing of the disappearance. It was a mere sliver of essence, one of thousands broken away from the cast-off embodiments of her godly domains and aspects—a shard of potential too weak to manifest a proper avatar, though still powerful enough to quicken a drowling's soul with the potential of a great priestess, perhaps even a demigodling, had she been so foolish as to allow such a thing. Most like it had failed to escape the cocoon, feeding their betters even as they formed; of those that slipped out in the confusion, the majority had been captured by her servants within the Demonweb and returned to her, or else consumed by the ruination she'd wrought to escape the Abyss.

A few paltry dozens survived and escaped into the wider planes, but over the following decade she'd hunted them all down, one-by-one, reclaiming what was hers.

All but the one, which she could. Not. Find.

It shouldn't have mattered. What was a fractured shard of divinity to a Queen among demons, much less a greater goddess? It was barely more than the worth of a single mortal soul, of which she'd subsumed millions.

But that one sliver of essence, that one soul, was not just any soul. It owned and answered to a name she'd set aside long ago, a name long unknown to her drow and no longer spoken by—though not entirely forgotten among—the favored pets of her former peers. It was a name she associated with sentiment and softness, with failure and defeat, and she would have been pleased to see it reduced to nothing and less than nothing in her ascension.

Instead, the soul—the Name—had escaped her, fleeing to some unknown location in the far-flung planes beyond the sight of her many eyes, beyond even a fleeting sense of a whisper of a rumor.

But she knew. Somewhere out there, a reflection of her most shameful and secret self lived anew, a pale, paltry, puling mortal shadow of an echo of a lesser goddess, a consort to a mere male, and a mother to a self-serving back-stabbing wretch of a son, one smug, self-righteous, thieving bitch of a daughter, and another too ineffectual to matter even as little as her failed, worthless siblings.

She knew it, because the pathetic weakness of that long-fallen goddess still echoed within the core of her being. It was that last shred of feeling that stayed her hand from ripping out the hearts of those treacherous brats, the twisted, broken, and rotted corpse of a twice-dead thing that might once have been love stopping her from clearing away the most significant and irritating of her inferiors.

The insult could not be borne. The embodiment of the Name must be found, must be rent limb from limb, flesh from soul, every last drop of blood and shred of bone and shrieking scrap of spirit separated from the next and all of it mulched and fed to the lowest of filth-eating beasts and shat out and burned.

Araushnee was dead and dust and forgotten, never to rise again.

There was only Lolth, now and forever and always.

---

THREE THOUSAND POSTS OMAKE SPECIAL PART #3
GREY VOICE

The star system was an intersection of no less than six hyperlanes, which made it rather busy despite its location towards the Galactic Rim.

True, four of those routes were strictly local, connecting to other systems within the sector, while a fifth only led further out along the spiral arm, to a region where the stars grew few in number. But within those systems—and several of the ones that lay beyond them—there could be found a number of worlds in the delicate stages between colonization and being officially recognized by the Federation as self-sufficient entities. Consequently, there was a steady flow of ships from the Coreward end of the other inter-sector lane, carrying all the goods the outlying planets needed yet couldn't produce for themselves, as well as those luxuries the better-developed systems could afford.

Given the ever-present threat of the Space Pirates and other dangers lurking in the black, those convoys came with escorts—mercenary and private security alike—and patrols by the Federation Police weren't unknown, even if many were little more than lone frigates, only there to show the flag, convey reports, and move on.

Then there were what the locals called "runners"—people who came out to the edge of the galaxy because they were desperately looking for something, desperately trying to get away from it, or both. Dreamers who hadn't yet given up the possibilities of the new frontier, refugees fleeing the conflicts of older worlds, criminals evading justice and looking for the next big score, bounty hunters pursuing those—they all came through, and the realities of shipboard life being what they were, they all needed a place where they could get out, stretch their legs, breathe non-recycled air, and indulge in the various hobbies and vices that most vessels found outside the Core and Inner Rim regions just didn't have the free space, consumable resources, or legal permits to allow.

Consequently, the city that hosted the main starport on the planet was also home to many a business where spacers could spend their shore-leave—and their credits—and while there were plenty of restaurants, news outlets, gaming and gambling centers, and individuals of negotiable affection, gender, and species to be found throughout the city, the most common sort of enterprise was, perhaps inevitably, that most ancient and honored home-away-from-home of wayfarers and venturers across a million worlds:

The tavern.

Watering holes, alehouses, and drinking halls; bars, pubs, and nightclubs; legal stores, moonshine stills, and even rumors of a high-class wine-tasters' association (for officers only, if only because the entry fee would beggar an enlisted man)—local legend had it that an establishment selling alcohol could be found on every street on the planet, and that any combination of poison, atmosphere, and clientele you cared to do your drinking with could be found if you looked long enough, paid well enough, and knew the right people.

It might even have been true.

In one particular back alley, poorly lit by decrepit neon lights that—had this world enjoyed a longer history of sapient habitation—would have been removed as fire and environmental hazards centuries ago, the standing contribution to local legend took the form of a run-down, grubby shack whose front wall was half-covered by cheap plastered-on ads (mostly torn or weathered to the point of illegibility) and slightly more expensive display panels (mostly on the fritz or just plain broken). There was no sign hanging out to advertise the bar's existence, no clever name or colorful graphic to let potential customers know where to go to do their drinking, and from the dirt, trash, and webs clinging to various places, an uninformed observer might well think the place abandoned, or even condemned.

This was entirely intentional on the part of the bar's owner and sole employee.

Oh, make no mistake; he was no layabout, much less one of those poor souls who were their own best customers. The bartender had clients—regulars, even—and served up their orders with deftly clawed hands and a keen sense of what brands mixed well for which species. When his patrons were in the mood to talk, he was an attentive listener and an insightful, engaging conversationalist; when they wished for silence, his squat, perpetually hooded and cloaked figure was the next best thing to a ghost.

But between its somewhat secluded location, its exterior appearance, and the close, dim, slightly dusty atmosphere, this just wasn't the sort of bar that saw more than two or three clients at a time, and those infrequently.

This suited the proprietor just fine. He was old and tired and almost alone in the galaxy, he'd been so for a long time, and if he didn't precisely enjoy it, he'd at least grown used to it. A quiet, private little existence with spaced out periods of light socialization thrown in was just his speed these days.

Besides, it never failed to spook the children when one of them came in and saw him talking to seemingly empty air, while bottles and drinking vessels floated around and liquids vanished into the ether. And though their reactions to such a sight could occasionally be amusing, on the whole, he felt it was unkind to shake up their worldviews so much without good cause.

"Welcome, my friend," the bartender crooned, nodding in the direction of the apparently empty doorway as he polished a glass. "I was beginning to wonder if you were going to wait until these tired old bones finally gave out before speaking to me again."

"The thought had crossed my mind," Grey Voice admitted as he stood there, slightly crouched to prevent his crest from brushing against the top of the doorframe—and more importantly, the ward matrix so carefully concealed within the seemingly decrepit metal and synthetics, barring the way to angry spirits and the wandering minds of clairvoyants alike. Glancing about at the interior of the bar, the Chozo spirit shook his head and sighed. "A place such as this is not the sort of setting I had envisioned for our reunion, Old Bird."

"I would not have said no to an encounter in the meditation garden at the old temple, myself," the elderly alien admitted as he pulled back his hood, revealing the avian visage of a Chozo. Where Grey Voice had something of the fierce nobility of a Terran hawk in his features, Old Bird's face was built more like a songbird, or even a chicken, and one whose crest had dulled and thinned with age, just as his form had shrunk. Despite that, his eyes remained clear and alert, the mind and spirit behind them undiminished by a long and often difficult life.

"Under a clear sky near sunset, with fresh tanglefruit juice to drink, and our little Hatchling present… well," the old one chuckled, "not so little anymore. I daresay she could look you in the eye these days, if the two of you were to meet again, hm?"

There was a broad hint in those words—a challenge, even—but Grey Voice did not take it.

Half-clucking to himself, Old Bird waved his spectral compatriot in. "But come, have a seat. I cannot offer tanglefruit, but there is yet a little something in my stock worth wetting your beak."

As Grey Voice crossed the room, eyeing the stools before the bar with some caution, Old Bird turned to the wall behind the bar. There were several shelves' worth of drinks here, and a simple stepladder to help the rather squat bartender reach higher up, but he ignored the lot, turning instead to a bare patch of the wall. Taking up a gnarled old walking stick that had rested out of sight behind the bar, Old Bird rapped the head of the cane against the stone-like facade, just above the floor.

That part of the wall immediately crumbled away, revealing a hidden compartment large enough for the old bird-man to crawl into, if he'd been of a mind. And he did precisely that, setting the cane aside again before squatting down and curling into a ball, which rolled into the opened space and quickly vanished into the shadows beyond.

Grey Voice waited patiently as sounds echoed from the hole in the wall: movement; the sound of a container of some sort being opened; and Old Bird humming a slightly off-key tune to himself.

Then the old Chozo reappeared, curled-up body emerging from the hidden crawlspace and returning to a conventional upright posture with the same long-practiced ease he might have shown stepping down a staircase or moving out of the way of an opening door. In one taloned hand, he now held a crystal decanter about two-thirds filled by a golden liquid that quite literally glowed in the dim light of the dive; setting the bottle down on the bar, Old Bird produced a couple of drinking bowls and filled them with an air of simple ceremony.

Behind him, the wall quietly reconstituted itself.

"There we are," the aged avian alien said, lifting one of the bowls and gesturing for his guest to take the other. When Grey Voice had done so, Old Bird cheerfully declared, "To long-awaited reunions!"

"To your health," Grey Voice returned, tapping his bowl lightly against the one in Old Bird's claw. Then the ghost lifted the vessel to his beak, paused for a short inhalation that he no longer needed—but which he went through the motions of anyway, savoring the ritual as much as the scent of the liquid—and sipped at the drink.

And blinked, eyes widening in surprised recognition.

"Luminoth honey-wine?"

"Mm!" Old Bird replied, swallowing his own savored mouthful before explaining further. "A bottle of the first vintage our old friends produced after young Samus cleared the Great Poison from their world. They were, as you might imagine, quite grateful to her."

"So why do you have it?"

"Well, what with her ship constantly getting into firefights or crash-landings, and the various apartments that she hardly ever uses anyway periodically being raided, bombed, or just rented out to strangers, it seemed like she could use a safe place to hide such fine wares away," Old Bird replied innocently. "It would have been a terrible shame for such a brew to be boiled away by plasma, or worse, swilled down by some thieving Pirate with no proper appreciation for a good drink."

"I am fairly certain this is toxic to their species," Grey Voice noted dryly.

"Even worse!" Old Bird scoffed, waving his empty hand. "The thief would take a sip and fall over gagging, and there goes the rest of the bottle, all over the floor! Wasted!" He paused for a second drink. "It would have been absolutely disgraceful!"

"So you're drinking it instead."

"I would be a poor bartender if I could not show a good drink the respect it deserves," Old Bird replied loftily. "Besides, I normally only take it out when Samus stops by to check up on her dear old Grandpa Bird. It has a good body for family reunions, and I don't believe for a moment she would object to sharing it with you."

Grey Voice sighed at the second obvious hint, and opted to get ahead of the inevitable third. "Are you going to keep beating me over the head with these 'suggestions' until I give in and take one?"

"If need be!" Old Bird set down his bowl with a very deliberate manner, and started counting off on his talons. "Emotional avoidance, conversational awkwardness, and physical absence! Stoic facade and stubborn resistance and dramatic gestures and blowing things up!" At that, both gnarled old hands were raised in absolute exasperation. "Ancestors help me, the fact that you two had such a high rate of genetic compatibility wasn't chance, it was a sign! You're exactly alike!"

Once again, the flesh-and-blood Chozo paused for a drink. Grey Voice mirrored the action, partly because it really was a very good wine, but mostly because he honestly didn't want to reply to the implicit accusation.

Knowing Old Bird as he did, however, the spirit gathered himself to make the attempt. "If we are so alike, has it not occurred to you that the Hatchling might be as content with the current state of affairs as I am? She may still be young by our standards, but by those of her own species, she is a grown adult. More to the point, she has the experience and the judgment of an adult—a seasoned warrior, at that. She no longer needs a parent to direct or validate her actions."

"Geemer shit," Old Bird replied bluntly. "Just because a warrior doesn't need a parent's approval doesn't mean they don't want it. That is as true for humans as it was for us." The living Chozo's feathers, which had been bristling with irritation, settled back as he sighed. "And I worry about her, Grey Voice. She has very few friends, no true peers, and no-one still living apart from myself that she considers family—and while I'm in no hurry to join you and the others, I'm still not getting any younger. Your blood, our teachings, our technology, our legacy—our young warrior is unique in the galaxy, perhaps in all the cosmos, and one day, if nothing manages to kill her, she will be alone. And she knows that. I fear she's suspected it since we first sent her to the Federation to meet other humans again, and she found their abilities to be… different… than her own."

"Different", Grey Voice mused to himself. A kinder word than "lesser"… and perhaps the more accurate, as well.

There was no question that the native abilities of humans were eclipsed by those of the Chozo. Even crippled by age, by their self-imposed psychic block against violence, and by the sheer weariness of being the last, dying generation of a once-proud and powerful people, the birdlike species yet retained an incredible vitality, which was only enhanced by their mental powers and spirituality. Even without their famous armor, a Chozo could survive in environments that would be fatal to humans within a matter of minutes, shrug off diseases, toxins, and physical trauma that would leave the primate species crippled or dead, and when it came to pure combat ability, even a thin-feathered elder like Old Bird could handily defeat most human challengers.

So lesser in body, yes. Lesser in mind? Perhaps, but again, calling humans less educated might be another more precise description. Samus had demonstrated a truly frustrating degree of cleverness at times, and for all that she had favored physical training over "boring" lessons, she'd still completed the latter to acceptable standards. Nor was such achievement limited to her; the greater whole of humanity had many minds that the Chozo found admirable, philosophers, scientists, engineers, and artists alike, whose achievements had been limited only by the scope of their knowledge and understanding, or the circumstances surrounding them.

Lesser in spirit?

Grey Voice had to laugh at the very notion.

He'd known Rodney Aran for all of a few hours, and his wife Virginia a mere fraction of that. Yet that had been time enough that when he and Old Bird returned to the burnt-out ruins of the colony on K-2L and walked among the ashen ruins, they were able to read the death-echoes and learn the couple's fates.

The mother, sacrificing herself to ensure her child escaped the Pirates, and succeeding, despite the odds against her. The wretched, ruinous dragon himself, bane of soldiers and warriors and even small starships—thwarted by an unarmed civilian.

The father, obliterating the Pirates' ship in a desperate gambit to save his family and avenge the people under his charge—and so thoroughly wiping out the raiding party in the process, even Ridley barely survived.

Their lights had shone so briefly, but they'd burned like stars before they went out.

And how much Ridley must still burn at the thought of them, Grey Voice thought with a certain fierce satisfaction. Especially with the number of times their child has left him laying broken in her wake since then…

So, no. "Lesser" was definitely not the correct term.

But "different" would work, and in its way, could be just as painful.

Children were supposed to be like their parents, but Samus, who effectively had three parents from two species, had so very many differences from all of her genetic donors. Strength, speed, agility, resistance to pain, injury, and hostile environments—in almost every respect, Samus's physical abilities had exceeded those of ordinary humans before she was halfway through her second decade of life, and yet even today, they still fell short of the prowess of a full-blooded Chozo. She was taller now than her father had been, something Grey Voice understood to be unusual for human females, if hardly impossible—but would she have been so without his genetic influence? She resembled her mother, who had seemed to fit the human standards of beauty, but was it a mercy that the bio-engineering had left that similarity in place, or did Samus only see Virginia's ghost whenever she looked in the mirror? For that matter, did the lack of some obvious Chozo-like trait hurt more, or less?

Grey Voice briefly pictured Samus with a crest of feathers in place of, or perhaps in addition to, her blonde hair. It was an odd image, but he couldn't say it was displeasing.

He wondered, idly, what Samus would think of it, and slowly realized that he did not know.

That realization was more bothersome than Grey Voice might have expected.

"…you may have a point," he grudgingly admitted.

He made no promises, no further statements on the matter, but Old Bird's aura fairly radiated smug triumph.

Even so, the elder let the matter go, polishing off the last of his drink. "So, just what was it that led you to haunt my doorstep on this fine day?"

"That is a story unto itself," Grey Voice said, emptying his bowl in turn. "But before I tell it, refill those. We're both going to need it."

Orange eyes widening with interest, Old Bird did as instructed.

Grey Voice waited for his companion to finish before reclaiming his bowl. He did not drink right away, instead saying, "It begins with Mother…"

As was foretold, Old Bird needed the drink.

---

Negotiations with Grack

So excited, I love Grack. I imagine the conversation will go something like this.

"Was calling for business of my own, though another fight sometime would be nice. Somewhere I can truly go all out without being watched by the master of the beany meanies.."

"Oh, you claim you holding back last time? Grack also want to fight Fairy boy again. Is business urgent?"

"Unless you'd have a use for a powerful magical bow that comes with the eternal enmity of a highly capable Grimstalker. Technically no."

"Hmm, fights with Grimstalkers no fun. All run away and hide like cowards. Team up and fight unfair. Bow free?"

"No, it would be part of a trade. Would have to be quick too since I have a method to trade it off. Since I won't be getting the full value I figured I'd ask if you wanted it."

"Grandmammy might has interest couple year ago. Always want to kill dragon, but they hard to hit when fly. Already hit dragon with thrown rock year ago. No more need for bow. Grack cause trouble at job if Grimstalkers attack on clock. Also, New York has no carry weapon law."

"That's unfortunate. Wasn't actually counting on trading it to you anyway though. I have some fresh food under the effects of shrink item though."

"Wait second." Said Grack, as he walked out onto the sidewalk of a busy New York street and pulled out a surprisingly large phone. "Now we can talk without Grack look like crazy person talking to self. What you want for food? Have fight for Grack? Grack busy and need day off."

"Well there something I'm a part of happening soon, but it's dangerous enough for me not to go in person even with my magic. Also, the enemies would be like Grimstalkers, rather than more fun opponents, and my allies are basically as trustworthy as Grimstalkers themselves soo.."

"Sound like opposing winter fey battle. Grack too old for dat kind of fun. Seem good in youth, make rival, make enemies. Grack getting old, want to settle down. You should go in person Fairy boy Alex, you still young. Make rival, make fun."

"Oh trust me, I want to. My mom would be really angry though, and what's worse is that Briar's mom would kill me if anything happened to her."

"Grack only fight Great Fairy once. Not great idea. Great fairy poison not fun."

Alex and Dave stared at Briar at that remark as she quickly looked to the left and started whistling.

"So um, what I want is a bit too much to ask over a call so is there a better time to talk?"

"Grack eat supper in half hour, meet Grack then?"

"We'll do that then."

OOC: Asking for blood is too personal to do over a phone call.

---

"The danger is far-reaching, but specific. To understand the situation, imagine being so allergic to peanuts that you could die just from being in the same state as one. The people I'm helping have the spiritual equivalent of a hereditary vulnerability to peanuts, and a peanut situation is about to kick off. I am not allergic to spiritual peanuts, and will be far away from the peanut epicenter in any case, but I can still help these people manage their peanut condition by hiding them in another metaphorical state, where the peanut-rays cannot reach them."

---

EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY OMAKE SPECIAL #1
SHUZEN KAHLUA

"Hello, boys~!"

Monsters were feared for a great many reasons.

"Who the he–"

The foremost of these was that, in the eyes of humans, they were mysterious existences. Strange. Different. Other. That simple fact and the threat-recognition instincts it set off would have been reason enough for monsters to be figures of dread down through the many ages of history, but even when you found a human who could check the unconscious urge to attack or flee and look beyond the otherness, there were still plenty of reasons for them to be wary of monsters, whether individually or as a whole.

POW!

"Goodbye, boys~!"

As a rule, the average monster was tougher, stronger, faster, and just plain better in many physical senses than the average human, with a dash of mystical potency pushing them that little bit further. As predators and the descendants of predators, most monsters also had at least one deadly tool built into their bodies, even if it was nothing more than sheer brute strength—and those that possessed natural weapons in addition to physical power were all the deadlier for it.

"What the fu–"

"Shut up and get her!"

In comparison, humans had fingernails that could hardly scratch their own skin, teeth barely worth the name, and strength that was on the lower end for animals of comparable size. Some learned martial arts, but in most cases, that only narrowed the gap; it wasn't until a human martial artist tapped into their ki and started pushing past the limits of mundanity that they truly approached parity with typical monsters, and that sort of training took a degree of time, determination, and simple luck—be it in innate potential or one's choice of master—that hadn't ever been truly common, if the books and the elders were to be believed.

She certainly wasn't seeing much evidence of it with this bunch.

Not to mention how there was nothing stopping monsters from taking up martial arts in turn. Most just didn't: some honestly had no need for such training; others were content with whatever place they'd made for themselves using their natural abilities alone; and many were simply too lazy to put in the effort to better themselves.

Monsters and humans could be a lot alike in that regard.

And in the way they hit the floor when punched out by a vampire.

Though there were exceptions to that trend.

Pure physical ability had never been the be-all, end-all of human strength, of course. Their capacity to create and wield tools was one of their greater advantages, and human weapons technology in particular had made great strides over the last century, reaching the point where even vampires had to exercise caution when faced with certain pieces. But such deadly tools were not common, and almost never found in the hands of the average citizen: even gun-crazy America didn't let civilians run around with machine guns, high explosives, or incendiary devices; and the soldiers who did have permission to use such things—or the criminals who'd claimed them regardless—didn't carry them at all times, which presented opportunities no monster worth the name would ignore.

"Where is she? Where IS she!?"

"I don't know, I think she–"

SLASH!

"HOLY–!"

After all, ambush tactics had been a favorite among their community since before most of them had proper language, and modern monsters were in some ways better at surprise attacks than their ancestors, thanks to the widespread adoption of human forms and culture.

"–outta the wall, man! She came outta–"

SLASH!

"You're ruining the surprise, you know."

Then too, much like martial arts, many modern weapons would work just as well in the hands of monsters as they did in the hands of their makers. Oh, there were species that couldn't easily handle grips designed for literal human hands, at least in their natural forms, and others were too sensitive to the noise or smell of gunpowder, but it wasn't that hard to get a gunsmith to remodel the weapon and pick up some custom earbuds and nose plugs. Once such details were attended to, monstrous strength tended to make weight and recoil management trivial issues, opening up some impressive possibilities.

The ten-foot-tall ogre roared almost as loudly as the modified M2 Brownings he wielded akimbo, sweeping and shredding the hallway before him with an almost continuous storm of lead.

…nope.

Magic, like martial arts, was time-consuming to learn, and often reliant on factors beyond the practitioner's control—and once again, its use was far from exclusive to humans. Really, by certain definitions, "humans" weren't able to use magic at all; that was the domain of the so-called "boundary beings," the witches and wizards and sorcerers of the world.

Fortunately, all the reports she'd had access to said there weren't any magic-users with this lot, and she'd seen nothing since entering the compound to suggest otherwise.

So yes, humans had many good reasons to be afraid of monsters. Some could overcome that fear on a personal basis, and others in a more general sense, but even among the most cosmopolitan and courageous sorts, it was rare to find a human that was comfortable with the idea of making monsters stronger.

And that,

Kahlua thought to herself with a smile, is just one more reason to like Alex's gifts!

Not that she couldn't have dealt with this assignment without the help of her presents, but it would have been more difficult and dangerous, as a surprising number of the men she'd gone up against were carrying guns.

The Shuzens had done some testing since Alex's latest round of gift-giving and upgrades, and the forcefield provided by the Warrior-Princess Bracers was effectively bulletproof—up to a point. A sufficiently high caliber round or pure volume of fire could breach the barrier—the Brownings would have done for either, alone or in combination, if she'd been stupid enough to test her luck against them—and while the sheer material toughness and defensive enchantment of the Warrior-Princess Gauntlets made them theoretically capable of deflecting gunfire, in practice, Kahlua didn't have the reflexes or experience to pull it off.

Not yet.

She was planning to work on that, once she'd grown up enough that she didn't have to worry quite so much about being blown off her feet by the recoil. Superhuman strength and youki-based momentum-manipulation could make up for a lot, but ultimately, size did matter, and even with the Gauntlets, Kahlua wasn't significantly larger or heavier than most other girls her age.

She'd punch anybody who said otherwise. With the Gauntlets on.

Stepping past a heap of unconscious thugs and the fragments of their pulverized weapons–

Thank you again, Alex, for sparing my hands and my manicure.

–Kahlua took a quick glance into one of the last unsecured rooms–

"Stay back!"

BLAM!

–and withdrew just ahead of a bullet that went flying past her face, the shockwave of its passage sending near-invisible ripples coursing along the outer edge of her personal forcefield.

"You hear me?" screamed the man she'd briefly glimpsed. Kahlua reviewed: above-average height, and a muscular build; a loud suit worn with the jacket open and dragon-patterned shirt only half-buttoned; tattoos visible on the neck, chest, and wrists; and messy hair that had probably been neater before the recent excitement. Similar to about half the thugs she'd flattened, but better dressed. "Stay the hell away from me, you little demon!"

Target located, Kahlua mused. Also, rude. Now, how to get him…

Charging straight in was an option, if not one she really favored. The way the crates of smuggled weapons were stacked up along the walls in there, the only line of approach to her target was straight ahead. Vampire speed or no, he'd have time to get at least one shot off before she closed the distance, and while her Bracers should be able to withstand that much punishment, they might not take more—not if the size of the hole his gun had put in the wall opposite the door was any indication.

Besides, it was bad form to give the enemy a free shot at you if you didn't have to, and she was being graded on her performance.

She had to rule out sneaking around behind the target as well. Yes, there was another doorway on the far side of the room, but if her memory of the compound map was correct, reaching it from her current position would require her to pass in front of this door. The target would notice and probably guess her purpose, either making a break for it or readying an ambush of his own.

Again, not ideal.

She couldn't get at the target through the walls, the way she had some of his goons. He was too far away from the walls for her to reach with arm or blade, and there was too much heavy stuff stacked up in front of them besides.

Size working against me again, Kahlua sighed in her head.

The whole "monster coming out of the walls" trick was proving to be less fun than it looked on TV. Maybe when she was all grown up and had a full suit of armor from Alex besides, she could walk through a wall and make it look effortlessly awesome and terrifying, but right now she had to guess where an opponent was from the opposite side—admittedly, a task made easier when their hearts were hammering so loudly from adrenalin—and then either carve out part of the wall with her blades, or punch through with one arm to pummel or seize them. And given the limits of her reach…

As she leaned back against the wall to think, Kahlua's head lifted, leaving her staring up at nothing in particular for a moment.

And then she blinked, eyes coming back into focus to measure the height of the hallway against the building outside and the memory of the blueprints.

She smiled.

Idea~!

Falling back from the door and around the nearest corner, she extended her wings and bent them so that the bladed tips were lined up parallel with her forearms rather than perpendicular to them. Several of the longer wings were folded over the Gauntlets in the process, tips extending past the fingers and bent very much like claws–

Crunch-crunch-crunch.

–which was precisely how she used them as she climbed the wall until she reached the ceiling. Hanging there with the youki-reinforced, blade-assisted grip of one arm, Kahlua pushed aside one of the panels that made up the dropped ceiling and peered into the opened space, the lack of light no obstacle to vampire eyes.

Not enough room for an adult, she judged, grinning at the dim murk of piping, wires, and dust, and the panels might not take the weight. But for a delicate young girl? Doable.

And then she hauled herself up into the space, scurrying along with motions an observer might have compared to a spider, and with about as much noise, despite the metal of her Gauntlets and Bracers.

The look on the yakuza underboss's face when she dropped out of the ceiling above him was priceless–

Shing!

–right up until the ninja showed up to ruin it.

Rude!

---

EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY OMAKE SPECIAL #2
SHUZEN GYOKURO

It was like watching a horror movie.

The compound was guarded by almost thirty grown men, every last one of them visibly fit and strong, and a good third with monstrous heritage on display besides. Mostly low-level types and half-human besides, but that ogre was an impressive specimen, and even the humans were clearly hardened, competent individuals, a mix of flashy-suited yakuza and more nondescriptly attired foreigners. They had wireless radios, security cameras in almost every room and hallway, and were armed with everything from monstrous strength and martial arts to automatic weapons and an enchanted blade.

One little girl just shy of her tenth birthday was going through them like a walking wood-chipper, and the only thing that seemed to be slowing her down was her own sense of drama.

As a pair of mooks were set upon by a small, tanned figure in a spotless white dress and shining gauntlets that came out of a hole she'd cut through the wall, the grey-haired oyabun lifted his gaze from the monitor and turned to the woman sitting at the far end of the table.

"Your eldest is terrifying," he said dryly.

Sitting at ease while a pair of nondescript attendants stood behind her, Gyokuro smiled proudly. "Thank you. She's worked hard to become so."

"It shows." Shifting his attention to the man seated two seats to his left, whose attention remained on the screen, the boss asked, "What are your thoughts, Kousuke?"

"I think I am very happy that I didn't agree to Hachi's business proposal, sir," Kousuke replied after a moment.

The boss chuckled. "No doubt. But I was speaking more of the young lady's performance against Hachi's men, and theirs against her."

"Honestly, sir, from what I'm seeing here? Most of Hachi's boys should have just put their weapons down and laid themselves out on the floor." The younger yakuza—the youngest in the room, as it happened, mid-twenties by Gyokuro's estimate—shook his head, ashamed on behalf of his brethren. "They might have slowed her down almost as much, and they would have spared themselves a lot of pain. As for the young miss… she's surprisingly gentle."

Gyokuro's smile turned a shade wry.

The man sitting at the far end of the other side of the table from Kousuke stared at him in disbelief, obviously wanting to respond to that last remark.

"Something to add, Li?" the boss inquired lightly. "Or anyone?" he added, looking at the other two men sitting to his right and the one next to Kousuke, opening up a general discussion.

"Uh, yes, boss," Li began awkwardly. "It's just… how is that supposed to be gentle?" A thick finger jabbed at the screen, where footage patched together from a series of security cameras showed Kahlua's ongoing decimation of thugs.

Gyokuro held back a frown at that, not particularly caring for the man's tone.

"I might have said it differently," the second man down from the boss's right added diplomatically, with a cautious glance in Gyokuro's direction that told her he'd noticed or suspected her displeasure, "but I tend to share Li's confusion. We can pretty much count the girl's progress in broken limbs per minute, she's handing concussions out like party favors–"

There was a scream punctuated by a heavy crash from the monitor.

"–and she just put that poor bastard through a wall," came the wincing conclusion.

"It was only plaster?" the man sitting next to Kousuke offered weakly. He was the other youngster in the lot, with the edges of what seemed to be particularly vivid and elaborate tattoos peeking out of the sleeves and neck of his shirt and jacket. The latter somehow seemed too big for the one wearing them, though he was by no means a small man.

"It's still a wall. I can't see how any of that qualifies as 'gentle'."

"It does if no one's dead."

The office went quiet at Kousuke's words.

As the other men stared at their slightly younger counterpart, Gyokuro caught the oyabun's eye and spared him a faint nod of approval.

The boss covered a grin.

"Look at her, Jou," Kousuke pressed on, having missed the unspoken contact between the two heads of the meeting. "She can shatter concrete with a punch or crush steel with her hands, she's got blades that slash through walls like they aren't even there—and even if they are just plaster facades, that's harder than it looks—and yeah, she can break a man's arm pretty much by accident. Even the youkai brothers should be in pieces after going up against this girl, but they're not. She's going easy on them–"

There were several gunshots, followed by another scream, deeper and more anguished than previous cries.

"–or at least on most of them," Kousuke corrected himself, wincing at the accompanying imagery. "I guess the mercs made her get serious."

"Oh, Kahlua was being serious the entire time," Gyokuro said mildly. "She'd be in for a scolding otherwise. But as you said, my daughter is gentle, when she knows she can afford to be. Most of your brothers limited themselves to fists, bludgeons, or blades; as long as that was the case, she could respond in kind. Once the guns came out…" She trailed off, letting the scene on the monitor speak for itself.

Though even then, the vampire matriarch mused, she pulled her punches where she could. Going for the weapons instead of the wielders, spending three or four hits to subdue a man instead of one to kill him—well, except for those three demons, but good riddance to bad rubbish.

Part of Gyokuro couldn't disapprove. Kahlua was old enough that the control issues most vampires had to deal with in their late childhood and early adolescence were a realistic concern, or would be in short order. The more often she fought using less force, the less likely she'd be to break something or someone that was actually important, when her strength inevitably slipped its restraints.

And it would happen. There wasn't a vampire living or dead who didn't have a few embarrassing stories of breaking an opponent they'd only meant to beat, accidentally putting holes in perfectly innocent buildings, or other such incidents.

But another part of Gyokuro was rather troubled by her daughter's behavior. That little misadventure before her last birthday had hinted that Kahlua could handle killing demons and lesser undead just fine, and some follow-up tests had confirmed that even before this incident. Animals and mystical beasts were no problem, so long as they weren't cute—and if Gyokuro was completely honest with herself, that was something even the dark and nasty parts of her soul could understand and empathize with—but put Kahlua up against something with a face and a voice, that was recognizable as a person, and she started to hesitate, to hold back more than self-restraint could justify.

For the life of her, Gyokuro couldn't explain why. No one in her family or Issa's lineage had ever displayed such a reluctance to resort to lethal force; if anything, vampires usually had the opposite problem, especially as children, when they were not only just as energetic as human brats but equally ignorant of mortality, particularly as it applied to beings that didn't enjoy their resilience.

But, somehow, somewhere, Kahlua had picked up this distinctly un-vampire-like refusal to kill.

For the longest time, Gyokuro had blamed Akasha for it. However lethal the adults knew the Other Woman could be, she was powerful enough that most potential threats didn't dare provoke her to violence, and those that had found the guts to try in the years since she'd taken up residence at Castle Shuzen had never been able to push her to use deadly force, allowing her to keep up that irritatingly sweet and gentle persona. Nothing dangerous enough to make Akasha break character had ever gotten near the children, not even when Kahlua started taking carefully vetted jobs, and that made the Other Woman's tendency to talk to her few opponents and leave them in one piece afterwards a bad influence.

And then came the general outbreak of mayhem at the latest World Tournament, and the following fiasco during Kahlua's last birthday party.

Really, finding out that Akasha's saintly patience didn't extend to prideful idiots whose bad decisions put children in danger had made her seem a bit more… normal, for lack of a better word. Relatable, even, although Gyokuro would never admit that even under torture.

The real turning point, though, had been the discovery that Issa's oldest girl was being haunted by the not-quite-a-ghost of her adopted little sister. Young Akua hadn't said much about the situation, and none of it in Gyokuro's presence, but from what Akasha and Issa had heard at different times, pulled together from their own investigations, and then passed on to her, it sounded like this "Jasmine" girl had been cut from very similar cloth as Akasha and Kahlua.

Once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern. And if this was a pattern, if such behavior was natural among the vampiric population, however atypical and minor in its representation, then…

…then there wasn't anything wrong with Kahlua. She wasn't weak or tainted, as some spiteful, jealous bitches liked to murmur behind Gyokuro's back, as long as they had an excuse that they thought would keep her from breaking their faces or destroying their holdings. Kahlua being kind wasn't a flaw or a failure that would make Issa put them both aside, like that nasty, frightened voice in her own heart had whispered on and off for years. It was just how she was, and by all accounts, it was how the new little sister she and the other girls were soon to gain was as well. So they'd both be in good company, there.

On the other hand, given that Jasmine's attested kindness had undoubtedly played a role in getting her killed in the first place, and that Akasha herself had only made it out of her teen years because of the direct intervention of the Dark Lord Dracula… well.

Vampire or not, a mother worried.

While Gyokuro was occupied with her own thoughts, the playback of Kahlua's one-vampire raid on the warehouse compound had drawn to its end–

Shing!

"Oh, kami," Li groaned. "A ninja, too?"

–which she had reason to know was suitably climactic.

"Not one of the better ones," the man seated to the oyabun's immediate right observed, breaking his silence for the first time since sitting down. Hitoshi, his name was, and though he didn't look it, Gyokuro knew him to be a few years older than his boss. "He's not wearing the colors or emblem of any of the major clans or schools, he's not using ninjutsu against a vampire–"

Clang-CRACK!

"–and that was a sorry excuse for a sword," Hitoshi continued without missing a beat, as the weapon in question shattered on Kahlua's gauntlet-clad guard. "Must have picked up one of those cheap knock-offs and convinced a minor mage to make it glow because it was cool…"

"He's fast, though," Kousuke noted. "Part-human, ki training, more magic? One of those, anyway. And he's lasted longer against the little lady than anybody else except the ogre, which… wait, what did happen to the ogre?"

CRASH!

"WAAAAGH!"

Dakkadakkadakka!

"…never mind, then."

One vampire princess, one ninja wannabe, one gun-crazy ogre, and one helplessly cowering yakuza who looked like he was regretting all of his life choices for the brief moments his face was visible, all crammed together into a single room full of crates of guns and ammo.

The next ten seconds of footage were extremely busy, and then the camera in that room gave out, hit by stray fire from one of the ogre's twin Brownings when the ninja went high, Kahlua went low, and the gun ended up being half-aimed and half-shoved towards the ceiling.

"The remainder of the fight was fairly short," Gyokuro spoke into the subsequent pause, as those who had needed to turn to face the screen now shifted all the way back to facing the rest of the table. "To sum up: aside from the three demons Kahlua killed, no one died on the scene; your wayward fellows and the remaining mercenaries have been rounded up and taken to separate and very private clinics; as long as they all listen to their doctors and aren't idiots, there shouldn't be any unfortunate accidents or serious long-term complications; and they are all very, very sorry for their actions."

"Which leaves us with the clean-up," the oyabun said briskly. "Fairy Tale will be handling the questioning of the mercenaries, but Jou, I want you taking charge of our end of the investigation. Find out who was paying them, who they were paying to get those guns into the country so easily, and where all those weapons were meant to go." The older man grimaced. "Some very important people are going to be asking those questions, and I would very much like to be able to give them answers that would turn their attention away from us and ours."

"Sir."

"I'll need to borrow Li, though," the boss added. "I'd like his particular talents on hand when I have words with Hachi."

The lieutenant glanced at his second, who idly cracked his knuckles, and then turned back to his leader. "Consider him at your disposal, sir."

The older man nodded and continued. "Kousuke, you'll be visiting our brothers in their convalescence. See what Hachi told them, make it clear he did not have my approval for his little side-project, and remind them that mistakes, especially those made out of loyalty to an older brother, can be… forgiven."

"Yes, Boss."

Marching orders given, the lieutenants and their seconds were dismissed. Gyokuro's aides accompanied them out of the room, one going with Jou to act as his point of contact for Fairy Tale, while the other headed off with Hitoshi—ostensibly to discuss the finer financial points of the deal, but mainly just to give the two leaders a respectful privacy.

Alone, the oyabun and the vampire regarded each other.

"Can I offer you a drink?" the former offered, getting up from his chair and moving over to the nearby bar. "Got a bottle of Irish whiskey as a gift from an overseas gentleman a while back; it's pretty good."

"Maybe just a glass," Gyokuro accepted, as she stood in turn.

There was a brief pause as the boss played the role of host, pouring a small tumbler for his guest and then another for himself. They raised their glasses in silent cheers, and sipped at the contents almost in unison.

It was, as he'd said, not bad. Not what she was used to, and not something she'd personally favor, but still; not bad.

"The new boy's sharp, Tai," Gyokuro complimented her associate, as she sank into the nearest seat. "Fair eye for combat, too. Is he a fighter?"

"He can handle himself, but no, he's got no formal training," came the reply. "It might be a hereditary thing; his mother claims her family were samurai, back before the Restoration."

Gyokuro shook her head. There were a lot of people who liked to claim descent from the old warrior clans, and in her experience, the louder and more often they did so, the less likely they were to be telling the truth.

Tai knew all of that, though, and waved off her reaction as he sat back down. "Ah, she's harmless enough. She might even be right, although I'd put money on the 'samurai' in question being the less-than-lordly sort."

"More the kind that hung out with your forebears, hm?"

"Sounds about right." The oyabun grinned. "Not a bad thing if that turns out to be the case. Kousuke's done well for the organization, but he is a little young for his rank; give him a lineage, though, and it'll strengthen his position, settle some of the doubters."

Gyokuro considered that. An up-and-comer with a good head on his shoulders, keen eyes, a family history—in both senses of the term—and enough proven successes under his belt to beat out any older, better-established candidates when a seat at the boss's table opened up.

She wondered just what level of involvement the new young lieutenant had in his ex-peer's recent bad decision-making, and what sort it had been.

Rather than voice that curiosity, however, Gyokuro took another sip of the whiskey. Digging too much into family matters would be a little rude, even for her, and besides, Tai likely didn't have the full story himself yet.

She'd wait until after he'd talked to this Hachi character in person to get the details out of him. More answers that way, and her old friend might need a sympathetic, mostly neutral ear he could vent to. Trusted subordinates making stupid decisions could be stressful, and Tai wasn't as young as he used to be.

"So what's the story with your girl's shiny new toys?" Tai asked then. "Have to say, she never struck me as the type to go for armor."

"Kahlua made a friend at the last World Tournament," Gyokuro replied. "Said friend has… interesting ideas about birthday presents."

"Magic weapons and armor," the oyabun said slowly. "As birthday presents. For a ten-year-old girl."

"Magic weapons and armor at least partly made out of the gear taken from enemies that friend hunted down and took apart beforehand," Gyokuro clarified, allowing herself a smile. Because whatever Issa's thoughts on the subject, she actually agreed with Akasha for once: it was adorable. All the more so because Alexander didn't seem consciously aware of all the implications in his choice of gift-acquisition.

…though if that stayed true, and the boy kept on as he'd begun, they were going to have to have a serious talk with him in another five years or so. There was cute, and then there was leading her little girl on, and Gyokuro wasn't having any of the latter.

Tai, meanwhile, was shaking his head. "Vampires," he sighed.

"Oh, don't be like that, Tai," Gyokuro scolded. "Forty years, we've known each other. Stuff like this should have stopped surprising you ages ago."

"And yet somehow it manages to keep sneaking up on me." He raised his glass to her again, almost in a gesture of surrender. "You are a difficult woman to keep up with, Big Sister."

Gyokuro smirked. "Don't you forget it, Little Brother."

OOC: So, when I sat down to start writing the Kahlua and Gyokuro omakes, I figured pretty much right away that they were going to be connected. Either one extra-length omake featuring both mother and daughter, or separate ones offering different perspectives of a single event. Preferring the latter, so as not to delay the first omake being posted for TOO long, I asked myself how to link them, and by then I'd written Kahlua storming a smuggling operation and having thoughts about being "graded" on her performance, which led to the idea of Gyokuro sitting in a dark room somewhere watching a monitor and going down a checklist of Acceptable Actions for a Vampire Princess While On a Mission. But since I didn't want to spend the whole omake in Gyokuro's head, she needed somebody to talk to.

And then, because there were already yakuza involved, more of them walked in and tried to take over the post. Which I suppose IS in-character for them, but the last time I had characters take over an omake on me like this was when Gilgamesh insisted on being written about, and comparing the King of Heroes to members of a modern-day chivalrous organization is a WEIRD feeling, even if there are certain parallels.

---

EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY OMAKE SPECIAL #3
ARAUSHNEE

It was a typical night in an unremarkable town that could have been located, if not in any country on Earth, then at least on any continent outside of Antarctica. The urbanization, the abundance of electrical lights, and the number of people and internal combustion engine-driven vehicles moving around after dark made it clear this was a community with both feet firmly in the Twentieth Century and both eyes fixed on the future. Little signs of modernity were everywhere, from the clothes worn by the pedestrians and passengers to the contents of store windows to the multi-culturalism declared by the mix of languages visible on signs and billboards.

Even the two living shadows leaping across the downtown rooftops like escapees from a martial arts franchise weren't entirely unmarked by the movement of the times. Only the taller of the pair—head and shoulders taller, in fact—was visibly armed, with a straight-bladed sword sheathed at their left hip and a small crossbow made of sturdy, nonreflective plastics holstered at the other. These were no mere decorations; to those with the eyes to see it, both weapons showed signs of regular and serious use. Were a closer examination permitted, the sword would have proven to be the work of a proper smith, of the kind whose numbers had never been large and were growing fewer with every passing generation. Not so the crossbow, the quiver full of quarrels tucked behind its owner's back, or the dozen or so knives the two roof-runners had tucked away on their persons; those were mass-produced pieces, good enough for simple jobs, cheap enough to be entirely expendable, and so common as to be nigh-impossible to trace. And while the garments that alternately clung close to and billowed about lithe figures probably were made of silk—and assuredly bore no resemblance whatsoever to black pajamas, thank you very much!—that theoretical inspector might well have found evidence that a few commercial tags had been carefully removed.

That said, the hooded cloaks that almost seemed to merge themselves and their wearers into the background even as they leapt through the air were still hand-woven—masterfully so, in fact—while the low-heeled, soft leather boots that crossed the rooftops with eerily silent footsteps were of similarly skilled make, due to the methods of modern manufacture and those of magical craftsmanship not yet having found a proper balance with one another.

Then again, if some enterprising mage ever managed to crack that particular conundrum, it was anyone's guess as to who'd try to kill him first: the traditionalist magic-users, enraged at someone profaning and profiteering off of their hard-earned skills; the less traditional types, jealous that someone beat them to it; various militaries and covert agencies, trying to secure an advantage and/or keep it out of the hands of their enemies; or the textile manufacturers, fearing a new competitor whose wares just couldn't be competed with.

While not running all-out, the roof-runners had nonetheless maintained a steady clip for the length of a couple of blocks, gaining as much distance from uncannily long jumps, acrobatic tumbles, and rebounding off of vertical surfaces as they did from the movement of their legs. There'd been no indication that either of them planned to stop, but all of a sudden, the smaller of the pair skidded to a spookily soundless halt and looked around.

Almost instantly noticing the abrupt absence of their partner, the taller shadow slowed, turned about near the far edge of the current rooftop, and doubled back. One hand clad in thin silk gloves rose, fingers dancing. The silent gesture technically meant "Danger," with a particular twist that made it an interrogative rather than a warning, while a certain relaxed, almost sloppy positioning added a degree of casual familiarity.

It might have been taken to mean, / Are you alright? /

/ Are you sure we're not being followed? / came the silent response.

/ Well, I was until you asked that. /

The taller figure looked around—a task perhaps made easier by the way their eyes glinted in the gloom—but there was no indication that anything else larger than an insect was moving around at this elevation.

/ No pursuit sighted, / they signed, the gestures momentarily more precise and formal, before relaxing again. / What did you notice that I don't? /

/ A Feeling. / The sharp emphasis on the latter word made the taller figure's eyes narrow.

/ Urgent? /

The smaller figure considered, then shook their head and made three quick variations on the "Danger" sign, indicating a threat that had been present but unseen, then one that was passing, and lastly, one that could no longer be discerned at all.

The taller shadow's answer meant, "Return to base and report," but it could have been read as, / We'll talk more at home. /

With a nod of affirmation, the smaller figure fell back into formation, and the pair resumed their silent rooftop travel. And if the pace set by the leader was slower than before, or the follower's movements carried an air of furtive wariness that hadn't been present before, neither of them commented on it.

Several blocks later and a few stories lower, the two shadows entered a room so lightless that any normal human would have been blind once the door closed, but which impeded these two not at all as they moved about. Hoods were lowered to reveal snow-white hair above faces as dark as the chamber around them, with inhumanly fine features, eyes like jewels—the taller figure's emerald green, the shorter's ruby red—and long, pointed ears. Phantom cloaks, nearly vanished into the darkness, were pulled away and hung in waiting cabinets, and then began the long process of disarmament. Sleeves and leggings were rolled up as needed to access to straps of each concealed sheath as they were unlatched and removed, the blades within drawn for a brief inspection that carried the air of long-practiced habit, before they were returned to their scabbards and set into precise slots on nearby racks. The crossbow went to a hanger, the batch of quarrels next to it, and small pouches were removed from pockets obvious and hidden to fill additional shelves.

Some of those bags gave off the muffled clink of glass or clack of ceramics as they were set down. Most simply gave off the faintest of sighs as their contents settled, powders of different levels of fineness shifting about.

Last to come off were the boots, stowed in lockers below the cloaks. Stockinged feet padded across the hard stone floor even more silently than the hard leather heels so unsettlingly had, and the two females entered a room that could have been any other apartment in town. The space to the right of the door was a small but modern kitchen, with a short fridge, a stovetop built into the counter, and a sink all lined up neatly against the wall, and a long counter standing across from them, with drawers and shelves in abundance. To the left of the door was an open area with a few pieces of exercise equipment taking up space, most folded up against the walls or hanging from the ceiling. The middle of the room was given over to a sitting area, where half a dozen large cushions were spread around a table that clearly pulled extra duty for work, meals, and relaxation. Bookshelves dominated the right wall behind the table, while the far left was taken up by a flat-screen television. Beyond that were three doorways in the far wall, the one on the right left open to reveal a bedroom, while the middle showed bathroom tiles and a tub. The last door remained firmly shut.

There were no windows—not even covered ones—nor lightbulbs to be seen. In fact, when the elder female moved into the kitchen area and opened up the fridge, the customary interior light did not appear. Retrieving a filtered jug of chilled water, she took down an electric kettle, filled it, and plugged it in.

While her elder worked, the younger of the pair strode into the living room area and flopped, gracelessly and yet gracefully, onto one of the waiting cushions. Hunching into a ball, she sat there in silence, eyes staring over her knees at the far wall as if contemplating the fine woodwork facade, or the ventilation, wiring, plumbing, and insulation behind it that kept the apartment comfortable and livable—or the solid stone that lay behind all of that, and helped to keep the place unknown to those who weren't already aware of its existence.

Compelled by that thought, her red eyes glanced towards the ceiling, which shared many of the same features. She'd heard it said that most humans never thought to look up. In her experience, that extended in the other direction as well, for while any human might look down, most stopped at ground level, giving little thought to what might lie underneath that.

The girl's thoughts were interrupted by the whistle of steam, and she righted herself. A minute later, her companion arrived, bearing a tray with the kettle and two cups of steaming tea already poured, which she set down on the table. Then the elfin woman flopped onto the massive pillow next to her companion, the same effortless grace conspiring to make what should have been a sloppy movement casually elegant.

"Get your own cushion, thief," the girl grumbled. Despite the words, her tone—and the way she tried to shift a few inches away—betrayed a complete lack of expectation that she would be obeyed.

"But I like this one," came the warm, musical reply, as a pair of slender but strong arms came forth in a sudden hug. "The others are all so cold and lonely."

From within what could have been the embrace of a friendly python, there came a sigh of resignation.

"So, little Amae," the elder said then, her teasing tone turning gentle. "Another one of your 'bad feelings'?"

"…yeah." And in spite of herself, the drowling curled into the hug, seeking warmth and reassurance.

The elder smiled and resisted an impulse to stroke the pure white mane brought so temptingly close, knowing that even if her stubbornly prideful charge had unbent enough to accept one show of affection, a second one so soon after the first would undoubtedly put her hackles up.

Granted, tweaking the child's overblown sense of dignity was part of the fun, but this wasn't the time to be teasing her.

Instead, the green-eyed drow murmured, "I need details, little one."

There was a long silence.

"It was like my dreams," Amae finally said, sitting up straighter—but not so much that she slipped out of the hug. "That feeling of something huge and horrible moving around just out of sight, trying to be sneaky, but just so full of frustration and hate that she can't stop from hissing and spitting."

The use of a gendered pronoun prompted an external frown, an internal spike of concern, and another question. "Did you actually see something, or was it just the feeling?"

"If I thought I'd seen something, I would have thrown a knife at it, Melima," came the testy reply. "No, this was just another feeling. Like all the rest," Amae finished with sour exasperation.

There wasn't much the older drow could say to that.

Amae had been having these "feelings" for as far back as she could remember—as had her mother before her, if only while she was carrying the child. Combined with the odd phenomenon that had trailed after the mother-to-be—aberrant manifestations of shadow and faerie lights, short-lived curses, the occasional summoning of friendly spiders; all these and more sparks of divine magic, from one who'd never spent a day in prayer or meditation in her life—it had been enough to put their entire small community on edge.

They were, after all, refugees from the madness of the Spider-Bitch. Even centuries after fleeing the strongholds of her fanatical slaves, crossing dozens of worlds in search of a safe haven where they wouldn't be killed out of hand just for the crime of being drow, and finally going to ground in this odd realm where the deities and demon lords had voluntarily withdrawn much of their influence from a mortal plane that the Weaver's agents had never been known to walk, even the least sign that one of the psychotic demon-goddess's many eyes had finally turned their way again could not be taken lightly.

Nor had they been. Amae had come terribly close to not being born at all, and even for a drowling, the girl was too clever by half not to have realized that by now—even if the precise details of why she was considered persona non grata by so many of their kith and kin were likely still a mystery to her. But then, even their elders weren't certain of the truth.

The number of those who'd lived under the insane rule of the priestesses of Queen of the Demonweb Pits, escaped with their wits intact, and then survived all the long years of wandering to the present day was vanishingly small, no more than a dozen out of a population of perhaps a thousand. A handful of elder warriors, still terrifyingly capable in spite of their accumulated scars and amputations; an ancient wizard driven half-mad by secrets better left unknown; a druidess who'd been outcast and bordering on savagery even before joining the rest in their exodus; and a few others who preferred not to be generally known.

All the hard-won knowledge and perilous insights into the twisted logic of the never-named goddess that these and others had been able to bring together could not explain why the Spider-Bitch would chose to mark a child born into a community of outcast heretics as one of her most favored priestesses-to-be, much less why she would thereafter ignore the girl's very existence. They'd feared the consequences of leaving Amae alive, to grow into her dark blessings and inevitably draw the Weaver's attention upon them in full, but they'd known also the consequences if the death of one so chosen came by the hand of any within their ranks, without another priestess of the dark goddess to sanction it.

It wasn't even the prospect of the Spider-Bitch's revenge that most concerned them, but rather the fact that after countless ages under her rule, the bonds of comradery, kinship, and community did not come easily to even those drow who strove to put the murderous treachery of their forebears behind them. It had taken time, exposure to other ways of thinking, hardship, and loss for the original exiles to fully appreciate the worth of such connections, much less to successfully nurture them among their own ranks, and such trust was still a fragile thing in their descendants, easily broken and difficult to repair.

Giving the order to have one of their children murdered by one of their own, or even standing aside and allowing it to happen "for the good of the community," would have broken those bonds as surely as anything the demon-goddess could have managed, and plunged them back into the bloody madness they'd given up so much to escape.

And so Amae was allowed to live. Half-exiled from her own kind, always under the eye of carefully selected minders to whom she was ever expected to report her "feelings" or any other strange phenomenon she encountered in every last exhausting detail, and never told why—though again, by now she must surely suspect something—but it was a life.

And if Amae's guardians were carefully selected and then bound by oath and geas alike to be impartial and objective in the performance of their duties, to neither reveal certain secrets to the child nor discuss things learned from her outside of their own reports to the council, and to discourage and even punish certain thoughts, questions, or behaviors from their ward, then at least there were no real constraints against them showing her basic kindness and affection. Nothing to encourage such behavior, admittedly, but nothing forbidding it, so long as the requirements of their duty were upheld.

Melima wondered at that, sometimes. It seemed an obvious oversight to her, one blatant enough that she'd spent months' worth of time over the years poking at the terms of her vow and the magic behind it, looking for the trap that would snap shut on her.

To date, she'd not found it, and it could be that there was nothing there to find, that the elders had allowed Amae at least a chance to have a little uncommon compassion in her life. Perhaps, in their fear of the Spider-Bitch and efforts to outthink her, they'd slipped back into the lessons of their distant youth, assuming that no drow would be so foolish as to reveal such a weakness as compassion to a marked pawn of the Weaver. Maybe it just hadn't occurred to them that one of their hand-picked agents would look at this dangerous, over-proud, and mistrustful little drowling, and instead of seeing a hardship that would consume decades of their lives, would instead see the sad, lonely child underneath the prickly demeanor—or maybe they'd assumed that one so obviously favored by their ancestral goddess would behave more like the sorroricidal spiderlings those under the Weaver's will raised their spawn to emulate, as opposed to the fiercely competitive, half-wild kittens their own young descendants were more prone to acting like.

If it was any combination of the latter three, Amae's caretaker was just as glad to have been born on Earth, and to have some human blood in her besides. Being trapped under the hated goddess's mad tyranny sounded unbearably stressful, not to mention mind-numbingly, self-defeatingly stupid. She had a low tolerance for stupid.

Sighing, Melima brought her thoughts back to the present. "And there's been nothing since the rooftop?"

"No."

"Alright, then." Past experience showed that if additional visions or manifestations didn't follow the first within a relatively short window, there would be no further incidents that same evening—at least not until Amae slept, at which point it was even odds that she'd either have nightmares, or sleep like the dead until the following afternoon. Despite that, the guardian's oath, sworn and bound without the benefit of such hindsight, required Melima to call in a replacement, travel to the elders, and make a full report on the event at the earliest opportunity. "So, who would be your preference to work with tomorrow? Kalaina? Lisse?"

Technically, the geas prevented those bound to it from revealing the terms to their charge, but it enforced no penalty if Amae figured out the broad strokes on her own—which she had. And those terms said nothing for or against giving the girl a choice in which of her caretakers was called up to replace one who had to disappear on "urgent business."

"Not Kalaina," Amae replied promptly. "She never stops twitching whenever she has to swap in off-schedule. Lisse would be… tolerable."

"But not ideal."

Red eyes glance away. "She's not you."

"Aw." And just for that, Melima gave her charge another hug. "I love you too, little one."

"Unhand me, you menace!"

OOC: Okay, this one took longer than I would have liked. Part of the delay came from wanting/needing to finish the Kahlua and Gyokuro omakes, due to their interconnectedness and the fact that they were what my muse was actually giving me material for. By the time that was done, I was kind of low on energy and ideas; didn't help that Amae's showed up all of once IC, and that years ago IRL. Just figuring out what I wanted to write about with her took weeks, actually getting to work on it took longer, THEN I had to rewrite part of it because I'd used too much out-of-character knowledge, and then the REWRITE needed rewriting because it was going too in-depth about Earth's drow community and their history, and finally there was a stretch or two where I just couldn't be bothered.

But better late than never, right?

---

Civis Memorianus

"Young Sorcerer." Cato asked as you walked down the corridors "What did the First Magical Auxiliary manage since we last spoke?"

"No doubt you heard about the man who won a heart and gave it to his wife."

"A true Pater Familias, indeed." Cato nodded.

"When we applied it to heal her soul, some sleeping god tried to interfere, and Din had to force it through."

"I like this 'Din', and so does Father Mars."
...as long as she stays away from the farms.
...that's a new one.
I guard the fields, woman. Divinity or Fae, the line will hold.
Fair.

"Yes. So we researched, and we found he was prophesied to wake up, killing at least 999 of his descendants that hadn't kept his blood and their souls 'pure' in the process. Including Ichigo's mom. So, yeah. I called on my allies, soon finding not only exiles willing to work with us as they are friends of his family, but also an old man who had served there in his youth, and now was about to lose his family in the event. Back then, he had stolen a key and hid it away for decades, so we now used it to scry the place. It had utterly no magic defenses, at least not as deep in as the key got us. So we could scry the body and map an invasion path easily while spying on their servants."

Gained Martian Favor F

"Impressive action plan and resource gathering, circumventing the entire defense plan." Cato smiled.

"In war, there's no point in fighting fair." You shrugged. "Actually, we turned around their entire defense. They had little concept of magic, having no supernatural expertise beyond the spiritual. So we piled on the spells, hiding from their Foresight while using our own."

"You hid from a God's foresight?"
He was sleeping for a thousand years, and this mess is not even a century old.
More time to adapt than you could ever hope for in a war.
...and my Chosen was always way too good at surprising us, no matter the foreboding and experience. It's what made him a Nexus.
A what?
Now that is sort of an excuse. Sort of; nothing excuses a thousand-year sleep and a warning you can use to force your followers to chose between their blood and you.
"Anyway. Acting on that, Navi created a couple of demiplanes to hide them, we gathered everyone we could find on the planet there via their Elders, defusing a couple of possible risks by pointing out heir true responsibilities, then told the nation of Japanese death gods that had laid him low about his impeding awakening. And brought the Japanese pantheon up to speed via the proper ways, after the Golden Trio told its Queen about it."
Good work.
Child's play.
"Truly, nothing gets politicians and generals to move like divine messengers." Cato grinned like a shark.

"That was the main army going to kill the guy. Coming with my Shadow, Merlin - you met him as Ambrose - brought simulacra of the Round table. My Shadow entered the fortress with the key we had used for scrying, called some summons and had them loot the place from the first battle. He disabled key players, then finally teleported into the sleeping chamber, where he faced the last royal guard. He tried magic, but most of it failed to act quick enough, so he called on Din's power, ramming his sword into an opening as soon as it presented itself. And then…" You shrugged. "They stood in a power vision. The guardian was chained to a massive golden, beating heart. In a split second decision, he cut the chains. Freeing the Heart. It thanked him, using the guardian as a voice. It blessed him for the freedom, whisking away the defenders to place unknown, as it could not stand the event. Then deposited him back in the room, where he called on an Elder of Earth who crushed the sleeper before calling on Din to set the remains on fire and having the allied commander burn it as well for good measure."

Cato listened intently, but said nothing.

"Meanwhile, I and a couple of allies stood in the demiplane with the Quincy, using that standard to shield them a tiny bit more. All in all, just one major military action, sorry."
Civis Memorianus est.
What was that?
What became of the strongest protection formula for the known world for centuries. The Legion adopted him, he put them under his protection and used their colors. But it was Memoria, not Roma.
...would have been interesting to see him notice your aura.
This Sleeper never heard of you, but the might of the Empire stands remembered, reaching through all time and anchoring many of the timelines.
"Child sorcerer." Cato frowned deeply. "It has not even been three months. Any major action in that short a time is unusual. Let alone going from initial scouting to campaign. You actually achieved victory"

"...not for me, dead priest."

Cato only reacted with a fatherly frown.

"And we didn't have more time."

"That is something we all are far too familiar with." Marcus' voice surprised you, coming out of the main hall.

In there, more soldiers than had been at the birthday stood in perfect lines, wearing their full getup and saluting as one.

Answering the salute, you walked past onto the stage to meet Hermanus and Marcus standing there.

"Young Alexander." Cato began, quieting the army. "I relayed your words to the men. Father Mars had already informed me about this, but it took your words to fully understand it."

Then he turned from you to the legionaries. "Last campaign season, Young Alexander saved your souls, catching Father Mars' attention so I was sent back. Before that time, he helped an ancient, very powerful Fox spirit to kill her madness. In what he considers a quiet campaign season, he honored us by using our standard to stand between evil and its victims. It did not come to it due to his preemptive strike, but he was ready to use us to hold the second line of defense for several maniples of souls directly under our colors."

As he spoke, swords and spears were beaten against shields in a slow, but steady rhythm.

Cato grinned. "Often enough have I wished I could be in two places at once." At that, laughter washed through the ranks, only to cut off sharply as he raised his voice. "Alexander Harris. Your parents did well, naming you that.

"Alexandros. He who pushes away the phalanx. He who holds the line together. Defender of Men. Even if they probably did not know."
"As you all just heard from his own humble mouth, young Alexander prevented a mad awakening demigod from killing most of his subjects on Earth, uniting armies from a Moonlit nation beyond China, pushed to help him by their sun goddess, with those of Camelot to have him killed before he could wake up. While he 'only' sent his shadow twin, he remained behind, pulling on his Fae-in-law to shield as many souls as he could without risking the main plan."

"The First Auxiliary did well," Marcus stepped forward, taking over. "saving as many as humanly possible. As a result of this, it a decision was made. Alexander, step forwards."

A little confused, you did as asked as the low-key rhythmic banging of shields increased.

"Civis Romanus Sum. Civis Memorianus Sum. For centuries, these words were protection. They were power. They were pride. They were duty. We upheld them after Roma Mater fell. We uphold them in death. You protected us. You protected them. You used the Empire to shield them in case you yourself failed. To this day, Mars is called upon in your culture, if unbeknownst. The Empire still stands for strength, for power. You invoked it. And Mars answered."
No wannabe messes with my last legion.
"Centurio I Magus Auxiliare, Legio V Memoria." Your eyes opened wide at the form of address. "We were told a small legion followed your call, reinforced as it was. You called them to defend souls that could not do so themselves while you sent your shadow with them. And in case it failed, you took them from the Earth, moved them into a freshly created plane provided by your family. You moved them there and you stood there, forming the final phalanx in case plan A failed. All starting from helping a friend's family.

"In recognition for these services, with our standard flying over that line, it was decided to give you a Memorian name on top of your mundane one. From now on, you shall be known in our ranks as Hylianus Alexander Terranus."
Cheers erupted from the rows, dying down when Marcus went on. "Hylianus for your soul's origin, Alexander for who and what you are, and Terranus for where you live know, where you fight and what you fight for."

Marcus turned to a ghost behind him, carrying a red-and-gold bundle in his hands, taking it and uncovering a helmet not unlike his own, sporting both triforce decorations and a wine red crest.

As you did, Marcus took the helmet, placing it firmly on your head.
Then he took the textile, showing it a wine red cape covered in arcane and martian symbols as well as triforces, clasping it onto your shoulders with an enchanted boar fibula.

Turning to the crowd, he raised both hands, sword in one. "I present you, Civis Memorianus, Centurio Hylianus Alexander Terranus, Aegis of Souls*!"

A/N: Thanks for the feedback, Krain.
[* Aegis Animae? My Latin is rusty as hell, and translation in that direction was never part of class anyway…]

---

~Surprisingly Useful Advice for Renting and Buying Property in Japan~, or how Shuzen Kokoa made her name known. As a Youkai Landlord.

It was a nice, bright, sunny day, and Kokoa hated it. Oh sure, she suffered through it, especially with her nice hat and clothes that covered her arms and legs from the sun's hateful gaze, but that didn't mean she liked it. Still, Thistle helped. Thistle always did, and Kokoa loved her for that. Forever and ever without any of that mushy adult silliness stuff. And best of all, Thistle was helping check on their awesome project of awesomeness. Of course, she kind of wished she didn't have to wander around in the... ugh, sun, in order to check on everything.

'But oh no, the castle is too scary for most fairies or humans to want to hang around'. Bah, wimps. Thistle was no scaredy-cat terrified of her, her family, or the staff. And anyone afraid of the castle spirit as he played with toys and paint and her and Thistle was beyond worthless, especially given how cute it was. Especially when Thistle used her awesome fairy magic to let her and her sisters see the adorable little thing in detail, along with some of the other spirits nearby. She could sense it without active effort now that she and Thistle could share senses, but she didn't deal with ghosts and spirits like that before, and without training, she didn't know what to look for passively. She still got a smile over the fact that she could passively see the castle spirit without having to channel youki through her eyes, while her sisters had to use a small bit of youki or youjutsu to see the dear.

How Alex made it all look so easy was beyond annoying. She'd figure it out and be better than him at it though. One day. Maybe pick up some magic too while she was at it, because gah, stupid sun. 'Cause she knows that there's magic to stop the sun (and water, and fire, and hopefully boring people being boring) from being such a pain, given Alex used it on all of them at the party. The party with all the awesome fairies, including Thistle.

Well, if the fairies wouldn't come to them at the castle with its nice pleasant shade, she'd make it so they'd want to hang around her and Thistle instead. Granted, she wasn't entirely happy that it would be someplace away from the Castle, but she'd make sure to bring them along to visit the Castle every now and then to help make them more awesome like Thistle and Briar and even Moonshadow who used his magic now and then to let her and Thistle talk with Navi and Moonshadow (not to be confused with Moonbeam!) and even sometimes Summer. Maybe they'd all even get the new fairies and Thistle's awesome family and go play together with the castle spirit, and that was a thought that cheered her up enough to pay attention to what Thistle was doing.

"How does it look?" Kokoa asked as they walked around the mostly empty burned down lot, her father and the chauffeur, and she had to say 'chauffeur' otherwise they would get annoyed at her and make her sit and be all 'prim and proper' and boring, parked not too far away as the girls walked and flew around the burnt ruins to check the last location of stops in this way-too-long day.

"Hmm, lemme check something," Thistle stated as she flew off to inspect one of the semi-intact corners still standing from the burnt ruins that had yet to be fully cleared out, muttering and casting and apparently looking at or for something Kokoa could not see, but as she felt no sense of danger or fear from Thistle, she wasn't going to be worried about whatever was going on. Even if Alex was better at the mystical senses thing, she was catching up, and like hell she'd be lazy with Thistle's safety!

"So?" Kokoa asked in curiosity as she met up with her bestest friend and partner.

Looking up from the spot she was focused on and waving her wand about, Thistle nodded before putting the wand away. "Hmm, it's workable, but we'll need to drag a priest in to spiritually clean and purify a few spots," she said, before looking back at something in a dark corner of the ruins. Hmm, Kokoa didn't feel any fear or danger, so no immediate threat, but she'd keep her guard up just in case. Of course, she couldn't stop her smile as she noticed that Thistle noticed and felt approving. It was always nice to be appreciated for being awesome. Humble too, and no one could say otherwise. At least that's what Tatsuki said.

"Well, that or ask Alex or Kagome to help. Still, much better than the last few places."

Kokoa took a moment to shudder, as being around purifications was not fun, before then taking a moment to go over the two names suggested.

"Bleh, I like Briar, but let's hold off asking Alex for help unless we absolutely have to. Still, while she's more Lua's friend than mine, I know-" Kokoa started before stopping as the other part of what Thistle said hit her. "Wait, what do you mean this place is better than the others? It's still a dump, and I know-!"

"Yeah," Thistle cut in, but Kokoa held her tongue, because when Thistle talked, she listened. "But let's see, last place had a sinkhole."

"Ok, I agree that one wasn't good, but-"

"The place before that had giant carnivorous wasps!"

"Giant Hornets exist everywhere Thistle," Kokoa muttered in exasperation as she rolled her eyes. Like a bunch of overgrown insects could actually injure her or Thistle.

"They wanted to eat me alive Koa," Thistle said with a dark tone that made Kokoa stop what she was about to say. "Slowly."

"...ok, I'll make sure they all die for that, as well as any that are stupid enough to show up later, but that's something we're going to end up having to deal with no matter where we go."

"Don't remind me," Thistle said with a shudder, her wings making that sound that only showed up whenever she was surprised, annoyed, scared, disgusted, or angry.

"Still, the second place we stopped at was nice."

"Yes, it was, up until the loud Yodeling started and didn't stop."

"That was funny," Kokoa said with a few giggles.

"Funny for you maybe, but it was right next to my ears, and Goddesses know that none of the places there had thick enough insulation or forest to dampen the sounds. And we WOULD have to either get Alex involved or pay a king's ransom to get the job done right to block out the sound, as the other eventual fairies would either be joining in with the revelry or leaving and never coming back because they can't sleep right."
The Shuzens do have a certain, reputation, shall we say, that would put a stop to most basic forms of hostile corruption involving their projects. That said, it is out of your current budget. And yes, yodeling fairies are something we don't want to encourage... Too much.
Farore no!
Farore yes!
"Ok, fair enough, but what about the place after that? I didn't notice anything, and you didn't say a thing about why we had to leave before you dragged me away. What's up with that?"
Best not tell her. She'd want to get involved to stop it, and it would put her in conflict with her family given their allies and business ventures.
"...I'll explain when you're a bit older, ok? Let's just say that place wasn't good for a young girl to hang around, even if that girl is a young vampire, and leave it at that."

"That-" Kokoa started to say in a demand for answers, before realizing Thistle wouldn't budge on this, and so relented. Because she was awesome and magnanimous and humble, and not just because she didn't like making Thistle angry or sad. "Fine, since you won't talk about that, what about this place then? You said it needs cleansed and purified? Are we going to have to deal with angry youkai? Magic curses? Demon spiders? Alien abductions?" and taking a look around the charred remains, added "or Drunk Fire Elementals?"

"Um... no, thankfully nothing like that. It's just haunted by the spirit of a young girl who died tragically."

"You know... in context, that doesn't sound so bad. Just the one ghost?" Kokoa asked warily as she looked around and stretched her senses, old and new, to see if she could spot it.

"Yeeeeeaaah, there's only one ghost here."

"...what aren't you telling me?"

Thistle sighed deeply, rubbing her face and nose a minute, before responding. "The ghost is also running a couple meth labs."

Kokoa knew what some drugs were, and had heard about meth given how bad it was supposed to be if used for too long. Especially since the first version of it came from Japan to begin with, and it never really went away despite what some might want to say. She knew her father, mom, and Akasha sometimes talked about the 'blue rooms' used by the Japanese government, along with how they usually had stuff like that in it when they wanted 'fun'. Sometimes her family had to supply them. Sometimes they went out of their way to disrupt the supplies from their rivals. And even though she and her sisters were supposed to stay away from anything tied to that, they still heard things.

Still, politics. Boring politics at that. And then there was the stuff she wasn't supposed to hear about at all. Stuff that her parents would spank her so she'd never be able to sit again ever. Stupid crazy sun and blood cults that didn't involve any vampires of any type. Just really crazy stuff. Evil stuff at that.

"Wait, you mean she died trying to make drugs?"

"No, I mean the ghost decided to become a drug maker and dealer after becoming a ghost, and accidentally set the place on fire later on trying to make something to sell."

"What." Kokoa muttered in disbelief. "No, seriously, what the hell?"

"Yeah, that was my reaction," Thistle stated flatly.

"Lovely. So where did she get the supplies?" Kokoa asked as she started rubbing her nose, feeling a massive headache building.

"Given the lack of money, I'm gonna go with 'she stole them' and leave it at that."

"Wonderful. Well, I suppose that since this is the last property we planned to look at, this is what we're using?"

"Looks like," Thistle said as she looked around. "It's workable."

"Crap. Ok, then I guess we-"

"You know Koa, you never told me how you planned on making a living with all of this. I mean sure, it's a place to stay and you'd be around more fairies, but that doesn't put food on the table or pay the bills, as I believe the saying goes."

"Oh, that? That's easy. Magic healing. Fairies are awesome after all."
Looks like you really wanted more friends to stand by you, didn't you?
"Damn right we are, but we don't have the ability to throw out bucketloads of magic each day Koa. How do you plan on getting around that?"

"Simple. I make the 'rent' for the Fairies staying here two healings per month. And then I 'sell' the healings. The fairies get an awesome place to live and brag about, some people get healed, I get money, but most importantly, I get more friends and family and get to show off."
And if you can't show off, you don't have enough Power.

AN: A special thank you to Pooka for giving me permission to use one of their post contents for making this omake. Also, a thank you to Master Basher for beta reading this and giving some suggestions.

For those wanting more context, check out the spoilerbox below.

---

Koume's wrinkled face was split by the most unsettling smile her sister had seen in a long time. The batty old witch looked a combination of bemused, proud, smug, and maybe even insecure and self doubting.

When you'd been together as long as the ancient witches had been, you learn to read each others expressions.

"With a face like that, you must have picked up the best gossip of the century. Well, come on then, spit it out." Kotake prompted her sister.

The smile only got wider. "Oh sister dear, you won't believe the news I've heard. I was speaking to Tasha, who heard from Mordenham, who learned it from the Lillend guards at the Infinite Staircase..."

"Well, come on then."

"The Young King!" The old crone was bouncing on the balls of her feet like a little girl (she'd be feeling that in the morning). "Word has it, the Young King just destroyed his first civilization!"

Kotake's eyes widened. "At nine?! How? WHO?"

"Some feudal nation of Holy Warriors. Not just fops in shiny armour preaching about how noble they are either. Actual EMPOWERED holy warriors, with a God King and Champions, a fortress-city for their capital and everything. The Young King led an army of local Death Spirits into their capital, personally slew their God King, then spent days harassing them with waves upon waves of summoned monsters until their morale broke and they fled the city, scattered to the four winds as refugees!"

Kotake's eyes were no less wide and shocked after the explanation. If anything, the look of shock had increased. ".. b- but NINE?! He slew a GOD KING?!"

The King had always been a force of nature across his every incarnation. But his latest reincarnation seemed determined to make his past selves look like unmotivated layabouts. He slew an actual EMPOWERED GOD KING and crushed AN ENTIRE CIVILIZATION at the tender age of nine...

"Koume dear, I don't like it, but I have to ask a serious question. Have we been holding him back? We always pushed him to be the best he could be, as warrior, sorcerer, leader. But no previous incarnation of Gannondorf ever slew a rival king before he was ten years old. Let alone an EMPOWERED GOD KING!"

"I had the same thought Kotake, and I don't know the answer. But right now, I don't care. I'm .. I'm just so proud! DESTROYER OF NATIONS before his first scraggly chin hair!"

Kotake threw back her head and let out the Platonic Ideal of a witches cackle. "Oh yes! I agree sister, I agree! And if we have been holding him back? Well, we have a fine example to learn from for the future, now don't we?"

"Oh yes. When we get out of here ... Why, when I meet the boys mother, I'll grovel at her feet and beg her to share her secrets if I need to!"

"Agreed!"