“Hit it with everything you’ve got!” I shouted to them, Grace mentally pushing my message out.
Dorian started conjuring energy ball after energy ball, Chloe blasting the robot with waves of sound, Grace hitting it with telekinetic force, Stella lobbed some vector blasts at it. None of their attacks worked, but I did have an idea, especially as the robot started to charge up for another blast, more compartments opening, more missiles coming out.
“Stella,” I said quickly, “cast one of your reverse shields on it, now!”
Stella focused on the robot, floating into the air as her hands came in front of her, as if she were Goku about to seriously level some shit.
The robot fired off another round of missiles, blasting its hands forward at the same time, only to hit Stella’s reverse shield instead, its own attacks ricocheting, bringing the robot to the ground.
“It worked!” Stella said, her hands still in front of her as she touched down.
“Keep your guard up,” I told her, as the others started to gather around. “Michelle, find Veronique!”
“Okie dokie!”
The robot trembled, smoke billowing off its form, electricity sparking all around it as the dust settled.
A box lifted from its back, casting a hologram before us, the hologram depicting a man with a hummingbird’s face.
“This is the last thing that you will see,” the hummingbird man said in a high-pitched, robotic tone. “Thank you for allowing me to gather data from this fight. Goodbye.”
Compartments covering the robot’s body lifted, tiny needles pressing out.
But whatever final attack the creator of this robot had planned, it was thwarted when Veronique stumbled forward, completely eviscerating the metal monstrosity with a flick of her wrist. All the metal ripped apart and twisted together, forming a ball in the air before it was tossed into the ocean, where it exploded, a giant wave heading toward the shoreline.
“I found Veronique!” Michelle said, excitement in her eyes.
“Hummingbird did this, right?” Chloe asked, landing to my left. “He’s the same guy who we saw in Mexico.”
“It has to be him.” I took a few breaths to steady my heart. Everything had happened so quickly, and I was still worried about the well-being of the others, especially Veronique, who had bloody slashes on her face.
“Fuck, are you telling me we have to fight robots now too?” Dorian said.
Grace smirked.
“Apparently,” I told her.
We were all silent for a moment, all of us processing what had just happened in our own way. Tulip morphed back into Ingrid, the thin girl immediately bringing her hand to her chin, deep in contemplation.
“Did it say something?” she finally asked, looking up at me.
“The hologram?”
She nodded.
“It thanked us for the data.”
“Great.”
“This is bad,” said Stella. “That thing just fought all of us aside from Veronique. Hummingbird could totally use this data to make the next one even stronger, more lethal.”
“Which is why we need to pay the fucker a visit once we get back to America,” I told the group.
“We don’t know if he’s in America,” Grace said.
“Good point, but this guy still has to go. I also think he has been stalking us using cameras, that sort of thing. I mean, how else would anyone know that we were in Setagaya? How would they know to send Arianna after us?”
“Natalie is working with Damon,” Grace said, “so it totally makes sense that they are sharing this type of data.”
“I have a sneaking suspicion that they have been working together all along, that Natalie has rented her mercs from Damon,” I said. “Makes sense, right? I mean, where else would Smiley come from? Or Tokyo? Or Bae’s hairy ass?”
Michelle snickered. “Screw that guy!”
“What she said. And there’s nothing about some of these supers in the app that Dr. Kim made, the registry.”
“Does that mean there could be more?” Michelle asked me.
“That’s what I’m afraid of. At least right now we have known variables, including giant killer robots,” I said, nodding off toward the ocean. “In the future, it’ll be these unknown variables that make this even harder.”
“Let’s look around,” Grace said, “maybe we’ll be able to figure something out.”
“It’s like you’re reading my mind.”
Grace smirked at me.
“Everyone stay close. In fact, let’s go with the buddy system again. Grace and Michelle, Stella and Dorian, Chloe and Ingrid, Veronique and me. Besides, I need to heal you,” I told the metal vampire.
“I was wondering when you were going to take care of these cuts on my face,” she said. “Any chance I could get a bite to eat too? Take-out will do.”
I realized that she was trying to make a joke, so I offered her a light chuckle. “Later, let’s look around first.”
Chapter Twelve: Gideon’s Island
Nothing.
If anything, visiting the island had only obscured things more, presenting a new threat that we would have to address in the future.
Hummingbird.
It made my blood boil to think that Veronique could have been killed by a stupid-ass robot. It also made me worry about what Damon and Natalie had in store for us in the future; I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was just the start...
We had searched through the rubble for the last several hours, and had only found portions of the metal that had been in the room where they kept Angel, Grace and Stella captive.
So basically nothing.
Naturally, I wondered about Angel during this time, and what he had done with Arianna. I still had no idea how she would have fit into our equation, or where we would have kept her, especially once we reached the capital of Mongolia. But I did have a gut feeling that what we had done was wrong, and even without the shaman suggesting it, I knew it would come back to haunt us.
We just had to be ready when it did.
“It would be nice to watch the sunset from here,” Michelle said, a happy look on her face.
“It’s also nice from our hotel.” Grace told her.
“I have to agree with Grace here,” I told the young speedster. “It would be best if we got back to the hotel and hunkered down for the night. This would give me some time to do a little research, possibly a little writing. You all can watch television, or do whatever it is you would like to do.”
“I want to go swimming,” Michelle said.
“Where?”
“In the hotel pool, duh! It’s a nice hotel. They have all sorts of amenities there. They have a massage area too. Maybe we can all get massages? I think there are only two tables in there. But we can share it. Well, I guess we can share them in shifts. Never mind.”
“I will take Michelle swimming,” Stella volunteered.
“Did someone get bathing suits while we were in Mongolia?” I asked.
“We don’t have to have you around to figure things out,” Grace said, a smirk on her face.
“Ouch.”
“What? You don’t think the CBGs can handle themselves?” Veronique dropped her hand and a metal support beam fell, kicking up sand.
“You have become quite the jokester since our brief trip to Mongolia,” I told her.
“You think I’m getting funnier?” she asked in a flat tone.
“Sort of,” I said.
Michelle laughed. “Now that is funny. Veronique isn’t a jokester, but you can be. Sometimes I don’t get your jokes, though.”
“Are we done here?” Chloe lowered herself to the ground, energy spiraling around her feet, kicking up sand.
“I suppose so,” I said, turning to Dorian. “Care to whisk us back to our hotel?”
“With pleasure.” The punk rock teleporter motioned for us to gather around her. Everyone touched Dorian, Ingrid the last to place her hand on Dorian’s arm.
&
nbsp; “It’s pretty out here,” Ingrid said, a forlorn look in her eyes. “It’s too bad we can’t just hang out on an island for a while.”
“I definitely think that this is something that can be arranged, but first, we need to figure out a few things. For one, we need to understand more of what Damon Lord was doing here in Asia. Clearly, he was creating other superpowered people, just like yourselves. We need to find out where, because from what I can tell, and what we haven’t uncovered today, he wasn’t doing it here. Another thing we need to get a grip on is Hummingbird; he’s tracking us, and he’s becoming more and more deadly as he gets to know our powers. That still leaves Mother and Angel to be dealt with, but I guess for now, we can put them on the back burner.”
“I still can’t believe Angel hung out with you all for so long and didn’t try to kill you,” Veronique said.
“Well, he definitely wasn’t a nice guy during our little trip,” I said, after we reappeared in the hotel room. I felt my heart in my throat for a second, but everything was back to normal in a matter of moments. “Anyway, there were a few times where I thought we would have to throw down, but we never did.”
“And we would have backed you up if you did,” Stella said, offering me a rare smile.
“Good to hear. Speaking of throwing down, have you guys already found a Japanese Home and Garden show?” I asked them all.
“Definitely,” Michelle said, “and we’re not guys.”
“It’s an expression,” I told her as I headed to the bedroom. The plan was to change, and then get on the Interweb, to see what I could conjure up.
“I will handle food for tonight,” Grace said. “Pizza?”
“We’d better go swimming now then,” Michelle told Stella. “It will be amazing to have hot fresh pizza after!”
“Who all is going swimming again?” I asked as I stopped in front of the bedroom door.
“Me,” said Stella.
“I will go down there and read,” Ingrid informed us.
“I’m definitely going, why are you asking us this?” Michelle asked.
“I think I’ll take a shower,” said Grace. “Anyone care to join me?”
Michelle snorted. “Who would join you in the shower?”
Grace made eye contact with me and winked. “It was just a dumb joke.”
“I’ll go swimming too,” Dorian said.
“If Dorian’s going, I’m going,” Veronique chimed in.
“Same here,” said Chloe, “I want to swim.”
“Well, damn. It looks like almost everyone is going down for a swim. Works for me. I can chill there on a poolside chair and do laptop stuff. Wait, I have an idea. Let me get one of those surgical masks from you,” I told Michelle.
“Okay,” she said, back in a flash with a case of the white masks.
I had seen Japanese people wearing these on the streets, dozens of them actually. It seemed to be the norm to wear a mask on your face if you didn’t want people bother you, or you were possibly afraid of getting sick.
In any event, it had worked earlier, and it was a pretty good disguise. While I could morph my face, the whole body was a little bit difficult; I didn’t want to have the face of an old man, but the body of a strapping young lad such as myself.
It took everyone a few minutes, but eventually, we all met at the entrance and took the elevator down to the pool, which happened to be on the fourth floor.
It turned out that I didn’t need my surgical mask disguise.
There were a few Japanese people around, the women wearing bathing suits that had long sleeves for some reason. Chloe cleared all of them out, even as a few noticed Dorian’s tattoos, frowning.
“People around here really don’t like tattoos,” she informed me.
Michelle jumped in, kicking up water. Chloe hopped in as well, using sound to propel herself forward, which looked fucking sick.
“Why don’t they like your tats? Or should I say, our tats.”
“Grace figured it out.” Dorian said as we brought a couple of chairs next to the pool. “It has something to do with the Yakuza. Basically, only the Yakuza have tattoos, well, them and the more rebellious members of Japanese society. It’s frowned upon.”
“You know, now that you say that, I think I’ve heard something about this from an old roommate of mine. Weird. You would think that by now, especially with all the US soldiers in Japan, they would be used to seeing foreigners with tattoos.”
She shrugged. “It is what it is.”
Dorian rested her head on the chair, and kicked her legs out, yawning.
I tried to get in the same position as her, but I was unable to use my laptop in that position. Once I was in a laptop-worthy position, I started checking my book sales and deleting emails that I didn’t feel like reading.
Veronique brought a chair up on my right and sat down, both of us watching Stella jump into the air and bring her knees to her chest, doing an epic cannonball using a vector shield for added strength.
Michelle laughed so hard that she accidentally swallowed some water, the young speedster starting to choke for a moment before spitting the water out.
Ingrid, who sat on the other side of the pool with her Lonely Planet guide, looked up for a moment, making sure that Michelle was okay.
I was just about to fire off a message to Luke when I decided to check my draft box instead. I found a message from Father, asking how things were going, for any updates.
I typed up what had happened over the last several days, and saved the draft so he could respond later. I went back to the message and also asked about Clarence, to make sure he was okay.
A message came in from Vince Porter, the cool cosplayer who worked for DisNike and designed our uniforms.
Vince Porter: Gid.
Me: Vin.
Vince Porter: Yo, yo. You up?
Me: Of course. You?
Vince Porter: Alive and well. When ya’ll coming back to the States?
Me: Why? You miss us?
Vince Porter: LOL. No, just wanted to check on the uniforms.
Me: The uniforms are holding up; I haven’t had any issues with any of them yet.
Vince Porter: Cool cool cool. When you come back, hit me up. Wifey and I would love to have some BBQ with the CBGs.
Me: BBQ FTW.
My inbox flashed and I clicked back over to it, noticing that the sender’s name was written in Japanese.
“Oh shit,” I said under my breath. Veronique looked back over to me.
“What is it?” she asked.
“It… it’s a message from the Emperor,” I told her.
“Read it.”
“It just says that he has some information that may prove useful to us. That he’s getting it verified, and that he will be sending more in the morning. But it involves Nepal.”
“Where?” Dorian asked.
“Nepal.”
“Never heard of it,” Veronique admitted.
“Nepal is a country between India and China, but that’s about all I know about it. I think that they speak some form of Hindi, and that there are Tibetans there.”
“And we’re going to have to go there?” Dorian asked.
“We need a lead, and we have to go somewhere, so yes. Unfortunately, we can’t stay in Japan.”
“I’m not ready to leave Japan,” Dorian said. “Part of it reminds me of Chicago, but just… Different.”
“We can visit again in the future, when we have time.”
She gave me a pouty face.
“We’re not on vacation, you know,” I started to say.
Dorian rolled her eyes. “You’re no fun, Gideon.”
“Hopefully the Emperor’s information will lead us to Damon Lord. The sooner we kill Damon, the faster we can get on with our vacation,” Veronique said, a satisfied grin on her face.
“Why do I have a feeling that isn’t going to be that easy?”
“It never is,” Dorian said.
I nodded in agreement as I clic
ked on my file of notes for How Heavy This Axe? Book Two. Sometimes it was nice to escape, even if the way I escaped was by plotting out the harrowing tale of a transgender dwarf and his dragon lover.
Someone had to do it, and apparently, that someone was me.
Chapter Thirteen: Pen Pals with the Emperor
I awoke the next morning with Dorian on my left, nude from the waist up, and Veronique on my right in her Manchester Missions shirt, nude from the waist down.
Hell yeah...
I rolled onto my back and placed both my hands on their thighs. No funny business last night, and for just a moment I wondered if someone had spiked the pizza.
“Or it was just a long day yesterday,” I told myself as I patted both of them.
“We’re not your pets,” Veronique said, finishing her sentence with a deep yawn. Dorian simply pressed closer to me.
“Just my way of saying good morning,” I told her as I roll over to Veronique’s side, my hand coming to her waist. Her hand found its way to my cock, and for a moment, I thought she was going to start jerking me off, but she drained me instead, chuckling as I gasped.
“Geez,” I told her, moving away from her body, even as she held on to my member.
“Do you want me to squeeze it harder?”
“No. Nobody wants that. Well, I guess some people like that kind of stuff. Not my style, though.”
And for some reason, my mind jumped to a video I’d found on Pornhub of a guy paying Thai hookers to take turns kicking him in the nuts.
It had been my policy for some time now not to yuck anyone’s yum, but having been accidentally kneed in the gonads by my ex, as well as a few fiascoes in a game of dodgeball back in middle school, the mere thought had me cringing.
“Let go,” I told her, lightly pushing her away.
Veronique rolled over, moving onto my waist, straddling me, bringing both her hands to my neck.
“Just playing,” she said as she got off, allowing me to move away from the bed.
Rather than deal with her crazy ass any longer, I stumbled into the living room, still in my boxers and Missions t-shirt. I found Grace sitting on the couch watching some Japanese morning show, her head tilted to the side as she turned to look at me. She started laughing almost immediately.
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