“What’s funny?”
“Veronique’s funny,” she said.
“Yeah, maybe to you. She was trying to castrate me in there.”
“What’s castrate mean?” Michelle asked, appearing at my side.
“Holy shit!” I nearly jumped out of my skin, not expecting the young speedster to suddenly be standing there.
Michelle started laughing. “You knew it was me.”
“No, you’re too fast; no one knows that it’s you until you’re just standing there. It’s like… You’re like a ghost or something,” I told her.
“I’m not like a ghost,” she said, an apprehensive look coming across her face.
“Just, never mind,” I finally told her. “I need to check my email.”
I joined Ingrid at the table and opened my laptop, heading straight to my inbox, where I found a message from the Emperor.
“Jackpot,” I said, rubbing my hands together.
“You look evil when you do that,” said Michelle, who had gone for a slice of cold pizza. “Have you ever eaten pizza cold?” she asked as she chewed her first bite. “I think it’s so much better than when it’s hot.”
“No, that’s impossible,” said Ingrid, not looking up from a manga that I assumed Grace had ‘purchased’ for her.
“You have to try it,” Michelle told her.
“I will do no such thing.”
I tuned the two out as I read the email from the Emperor.
Gideon,
I have found out several things about Damon Lord since my last email. For one, he’s being funded by a British man named Kenneth Thompson. Thompson has a string of hotels that he owns in India and Nepal, and according to our sources, he will be at his hotel in Kathmandu for the next few days for the grand opening of a new wing in the hotel.
So that’s one place you may want to start.
Damon Lord entered Japan legally in 2025, but we have no records of his exit, and while Japanese authorities have tried to find him, they have always come up short. This leads me to believe he hasn’t left the country since then, or he is leaving and returning in a way which we can’t track.
I tried to have my people look into things like his cellphone records, but there is nothing listed under his name. I will keep encouraging my people to dig, but the best place to pursue Damon Lord may be in Kathmandu, at a hotel in Thamel known as Hotel Himalaya.
“That settles it,” I told the three of them. Grace looked at me, her eyes starting to fizzle white. She nodded, and returned her attention to the TV.
“Are we going somewhere?” Michelle asked, excitement in her eyes.
“We sure are. We are going to Kathmandu.”
Alas, I wasn’t the most kickass MC a story could ever have (and I also was an ass for using the word ‘alas’). But for the most part, I found a lot of those guys laughable, if not a bit insufferable.
The reason dudes and a few dudettes read male power fantasies was so they could be taken to a place where they would never be able to go, or possibly become someone they were not. I got that part.
But I personally never got the appeal of these alpha male MCs, especially since most of the readers, aside from guys who had been in the military or that one guy in Florida who was a crab fisherman, would ever be tough like the typical MC of your run-of-the-mill pulp fiction e-book OP in the testosterone department.
So I wasn’t alpha, and if anything, I was about the furthest thing from it.
That said, I had a feeling that most alpha types would be jealous of me, not just my super sweet-ass mimic ability, but the laissez-faire situation I found myself in when it came to the opposite sex. Laissez-faire? I didn’t know how my history teacher at Southern Connecticut would like me using that term to describe my harem-tacular ways, but fuck him.
I also wasn’t that good at strategy.
My concept of strategy generally worked in a video game, but that was because I could die and respawn if my plan didn’t work. Plus, there really was nothing on the line if I did something stupid, or tried to switch up my armor before I went in, or did a ‘quick save’ before attempting something devious like looting a house while the owner was in there with his wife.
Alas (again!), there were no quick saves in real life, and if there ever was a truly unique superpower to have, it would be the ability to do a quick save before you made an important decision.
About to marry someone that you aren’t so sure of? Quick save. Contemplating signing those student loan documents so you can get that degree in hospitality management? Quick save, holy fucking shit quick save! Thinking about driving home, because you’re not that far away from the bar, and it’s not like you are that drunk? Quick save or bust.
Damn, wouldn’t that be awesome.
So I wasn’t very alpha; I wasn’t great at strategy; I wasn’t really all that strong unless I took Angel’s power, and even then, I probably couldn’t bench much more than half my weight; my books weren’t that great, at least according to some nasty reviewers; I wasn’t the best son, but I also wasn’t a bad son, aside from the fact that I had taken advantage of civilians and gone against my own government; and to be honest, for real for real, I hadn’t been all that successful at life until Grace showed up on my doorstep, naked and ready to change my life.
But if there was one thing I was good at, one thing that set me apart from many of the Gen Zers that relied on their Millennial and Gen X parents to do the heavy lifting when it came to computer savviness, it was GoogleFace searches.
And in the time it would take a frat bro to shotgun a beer and say something rapey, I used my God-given Internet skills to put together a quick flight out of Nagasaki that would get us to Kathmandu, Nepal.
I wasn’t keen on getting on a plane, but after researching the city of Kathmandu I figured it would be easier for us to go there the old-fashioned way, rather than risk Dorian teleporting on top of a market, or the temple where they kept the child goddess, which I’d stumbled upon on a different Internet deep dive.
TLDR; we were on our way to the airport now, one of Grace’s gophers driving us in the hotel van, the CBGs in the back, all of us in some sort of disguise.
I was done up as old man Gideon with a surgical mask, Michelle and Ingrid also donning the masks to literally save face; Dorian wore her hijab and a pair of glasses; Veronique was in her beret; Grace was in her hot soccer mom look, her skin a presidential orange from over tanning; and Stella and Chloe both wore beanies, Stella with sunglasses on, all of us wearing our superhero duds beneath our clothing.
We were going to make this quick.
At least, that was the plan, and as they had before, our airport disguises worked, albeit for a different reason in Japan than they did in America.
In the States, we were doing our best to blend in, which was why we chose a church group. Here in Japan, everyone kept to themselves anyway, and hardly anyone looked at us aside from a foreigner or two, and even then, they looked away.
So we were in the clear, not too damn shabby.
I came up to the counter, and once Grace did her mind thing, we were given tickets and pointed in the direction of the security checkpoint. That went smoothly as well, the Japanese TSA, or whatever they called themselves, friendly and polite, barely saying anything as we went through.
Of course, Grace was in full mental control, orchestrating everything and making sure no one looked at us or called for any type of backup.
And as soon as she found an airport official who spoke English, she recruited the man as our newest gopher, letting him take care of everything else going forward, including getting us into the exclusive lounge at the airport where we were served cocktails.
“We did it,” I told the CBGs, raising my drink.
Of course Michelle and Ingrid had apple juice, but they toasted us as well, all of us sipping our beverages like a bunch of primadonnas at an exclusive Sunday brunch in the Hamptons.
Veronique’s face turned red almost immediately. “This
is strong…”
“Crap, I almost forgot,” I told her, turning my arm over. “Go ahead and feed, but keep it copacetic.”
She nodded, placing her hand on my arm.
I felt the drain, and I also noticed the channels open up, beckoning me to take her power. I didn’t do it, keeping Grace’s powers, Father’s healing ability, and Jules’ power negation on deck, which I figured would come in handy if there were any type of disaster.
Even if we had been careful of any cameras in the airport, our group purposefully fanning out and not moving in a large cluster, I couldn’t help but feel that Hummingbird was tracking us.
As if she had switched powers with Grace, Veronique interpreted something about the look on my face. “Are you worried?”
“No,” I lied to her.
“We could find another way,” she suggested.
“I know, I was thinking of that, but I just don’t see how.”
Veronique looked to Dorian, and the punk rock teleporter pointed at herself. “I’m your other way,” she said in a playful tone.
“Wow,” Michelle said, flashing in and out of existence in the time it took me to blink twice. “I just ran around the entire airport. It’s really big! Not as busy as the Tokyo airport, but it’s definitely not small. I think it’s bigger than the airport in Denver. Dunno. I didn’t have a chance to explore that airport much, but I can tell you this, this airport actually has hot showers and a hotel inside. How cool is that?”
“Michelle, come here a moment,” Ingrid said, taking over. “I want you to look at this book with me.”
“Why would I want to look at that book with you?”
Suddenly Michelle’s eyes grew sleepy. She moved over next to Chloe and sat down obediently, the sound manipulator placing a hand on Michelle’s shoulder.
“Thanks,” I told Chloe quietly.
Ingrid returned her focus back to her book.
“Why is it so hard to go to Nepal?” Veronique asked.
“Because it’s in the mountains, for one,” I said. “Well, so is Denver, but we’ve never been there before, and the pictures that Dorian and I can find on GoogleFace aren’t as good as I would like them to be. There are just too many risk factors. It seems to be rather…”
“Crowded. Very dense,” Dorian said, finishing my sentence.
“What she said. So we’ll go to New Delhi, and then we will transfer to Kathmandu. It won’t be as long a flight as it was from Denver to Tokyo, don’t worry.”
“Okay,” Veronique said as she finished feeding. She licked her lips, smiling at me. “As usual, I’m ready for anything. Now, back to Kathmandu. Let me ask you, Writer Gideon, what do you know about Nepal? Enlighten us.”
Writer Gideon? I gave Veronique a funny look, not used to her calling me that. “Aside from what I’ve read on Wikipedia an hour ago, not much.”
“Great. So we’re going into this without knowing anything about the place we’re going.”
“But at least we’re together,” I said, giving her a thumbs-up.
“Yeah, at least.”
“And they have a child goddess there, so there’s that.”
“What does that even mean?” she asked, taking a sip from her cocktail.
“I don’t know, but if ever there was a good title for a dark fantasy novel…” I could picture it now. “Child Goddess Book One: Immaculate Conception.”
A few of the CBGs groaned. Ingrid seemed interested in my premise, her eyes jumping from her book to my face.
“Before you get excited there, Ingrid…”
“I’m not excited, more curious.”
“...Let me work on what I have already plotted before I take on another book,” I told the group, Grace making a playful, exaggerated sigh. “Big things ahead.”
Chapter Fourteen: Think No Think
Nope, I still didn’t like the way it felt when a plane took off, but I don’t think anyone did, and I wasn’t in a window seat, so I survived.
We were seated in business class, all of us together, Veronique next to me, looking out the window as the plane left the runway.
Like I said, everything was cool, we were just a group of missionaries hoping to bring the gospel to Nepal, to cure the heathens.
Cure the heathens? What are you going on about, Writer Gideon? Grace thought to me.
The psychic shifter sat next to Dorian, both of them flipping through the flight magazines.
We were on a Japanese airline, the flight attendants all dressed in cute outfits, each in a little hat and pressed skirt and all of them certainly under a hundred and ten pounds. It kind of weirded me out. I was used to American flight attendants, who had a wide range of body types, ages and ethnicities.
Apparently, the Japanese airline company only wanted a certain breed of woman, which was pleasant on the eye, but a little fucked up if you thought too much about it.
So I didn’t think too much about it.
Rather than respond to Grace, I simply laid my head back, my eyes closed, my limbs tingling as we reached our altitude.
Eventually, food came, a very different type of food than we would normally receive on an American airline. We were served trays with dumplings and seaweed on them, small cucumber rolls, pancakes with syrup inside, and some sort of pudding. I was offered alcohol, but I chose water.
I wanted to be level-headed for where we were going, and was feeling good about this decision as we began our descent into New Delhi.
Veronique was the first to spot it.
“Do you see that?” she asked, looking out the window.
“I try not to look out the window when I’m on a plane,” I told her. “The less I see, the better.”
“Seriously, Gideon.”
I couldn’t quite tell what she was looking at, but I did notice something sparkling on the horizon.
“What do you think it is?” I asked.
Something landed on the wing. Veronique glanced over her shoulder, her eyes going wide with fear.
An explosion caused the airplane to blow off course, people screaming, the oxygen mask dropping, the pressure suddenly changing as the cabin began to spin, cold air bursting in.
A panicked voice shouted over the intercom, but by this point, I was too focused on getting my seatbelt unbuckled, the oxygen suddenly thin, everything a frenzy.
The sound, the terror, the instability.
It was a wonder that I was able to collect my thoughts, my eyes closed as I finally was able to unbuckle my seatbelt, as I tried to press myself out of my chair only to find Veronique scrambling over me, her hands on the seat as she moved down the aisle toward the wing.
Stella was standing as well, her eyes closed, arms spread wide while Ingrid held on to her waist, anchoring her.
The spinning aircraft started to slow as the vector manipulator took over, but there was full-on panic now, people scrambling over their seats, trying to help their loved ones, a few spilling into the aisle, crawling toward us.
A hole blasted open at the back of the plane and a human-sized robot, like the one we had fought on Hashima Island, burst into the cabin. A passenger flew out the hole that had opened up, the temperature fluctuating, oxygen waning as Veronique ripped the killer robot apart with her power.
She slammed the robot’s own metal into the opening it had caused, trying to seal it up. Another hole burst open at the back. The cabin creaking, electricity faltering, the plane started to turn downward.
Realizing that there was nothing I could do to be useful, and figuring it would be better than doing nothing, I ducked down, each breath in stinging my lungs as I went for Father’s vial of blood and dabbed my thumb, taking his reality manipulation power, replacing his healing ability.
Even with all the turmoil, the utter chaos, I closed my eyes and bit my lip, embracing the carnage before me.
This wouldn’t end well.
I could see that now, especially the fire at the back of the cabin, the people passed out, an Indian man having a h
eart attack, everything going wrong all at once as Veronique tried to keep the plane together, as Stella tried to balance it.
I felt a low hum, and suddenly felt relaxed, Chloe doing her best to calm the crowd.
I focused on these positive vibes.
I ignored the options that ended in death and destruction, the ones that saw our plane barreling toward the earth, our story ending in the skies over India.
No...
The future I saw had Chloe joining forces with Stella to stabilize the plane, Grace going forward to the cockpit, taking over the pilot’s mind, bringing the plane down safely on the runway.
I focused on this future, ignoring the shaking, the lightheadedness, Michelle now at my side as I started to lie down in the aisle, the young speedster tapping my chest, trying to wake me.
“Just let me do this, Michelle,” I told her, not breaking my focus.
I heard her voice and I ignored it, willing everything I could conjure forward, disregarding the fear at the back of my mind, the whisper of death.
I felt a shift in my stomach as the plane righted itself, more cries and yelps, a woman screaming at the back, Veronique yelling as well as she tried to keep the plane intact.
I blinked my eyes open to see Michelle on her knees, looking down at me, her hands on my shoulders, tears in her eyes.
“It’s okay,” I told her, “we’re going to make it through this. Trust me.”
It wasn’t supposed to work. There was no way that we could have parts of a wing blow off and a damn hole in the side of the plane and still land smoothly.
Okay, that last adverb didn’t exactly apply to the way we landed on the runway in New Delhi, but it was smooth enough, and as soon as the pilot hit the brakes (or whatever the hell pilots do), and we came to a slow stop, people started to cheer.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t stick around and enjoy a hero’s welcome, especially with the fact that there could be more attacks on the way, and there really was no telling how the Indian government would perceive the CBGs showing up on the side of the Ganges.
Cherry Blossom Girls 8 Page 10
