Cherry Blossom Girls International

by Harmon Cooper

  “Let’s just keep moving,” I told Angel, noticing that Ingrid wasn’t backing down.

  “There’s no point anyway, not now.”

  “No point in what?” Ingrid asked, begging Angel on.

  “Considering we don’t know where we are, and we have a shared enemy, there’s no point in escalating this at the moment. But this is not over,” he said with finality, turning away.

  “How many times do you have to tell us that?” Ingrid asked.

  “Enough times for it to sink in,” Angel hissed. “You all can’t seem to figure out where you stand in all this, that they, the normals, are our shared enemy.”

  “There you go again calling people ‘normals,’” I told him with a groan. “I feel like I’m having déjà vu or something, that we had the same conversation in the air above New Haven.”

  “I should have killed you then.”

  “You can’t keep the shield up forever,” Arianna said, interrupting our bickering. She had been quiet for quite the spell, and it took me off guard a bit to hear her talk unexpectedly.

  “Don’t you worry about that,” Angel told her. “Gideon here already has cuffs for you.”

  “About those cuffs…” I told him, looking at the mess of metal in my hands. Nope, using Veronique’s power was not like molding Play-Doh, and while I had sort of formed a figure-eight type of object, I didn’t know how these would eventually work as handcuffs.

  Angel stripped them from me, looking down at them with disdain. “This is the best you can do?”

  “I’m not like Veronique, okay? I can’t do the same stuff that you guys can. Only some of it.”

  “Clearly,” he said as he tossed them over his shoulder. “Well, is there anything you can do to help us find civilization, so we can get this show on the road before we end up having to sleep out here in the middle of nowhere?” he asked, throwing up his hand at the nearly set sun.

  An idea came to me.

  “Now that you ask…” I went for Father’s vial of blood, which was tucked away in my side pocket.

  Once I had it, I popped open the top and dabbed just a little bit on my thumb.

  And there were those familiar channels, two of them, and since I already had Father’s healing power on deck, and I knew that I may need to use Veronique’s draining power later, I simply replaced his healing power with his ability to manipulate reality.

  “Let’s pause for a moment,” I told them. “I usually have to sit down to use this power.”

  “And what power is that?”

  I hesitated to explain Father’s power to Angel. I knew by now that he understood my ability, that I could take other people’s powers, but I didn’t want to give away all my skills, especially considering the fact that he was technically our enemy.

  So I just ignored him as I sat down, my hands on the already cold ground, my focus on my breathing.

  “Just let him do his thing,” Ingrid said.

  “Right, let me do my thing,” I echoed.

  As soon as I shut my eyes, I saw myriad images, some moving, others stationary, too many to focus on any particular representation of reality. But once my focus was settled, I was able to swim forward, in a way.

  And swim forward I did, my mind sluicing through the overwhelming montage, until eventually I came to a horse.

  “A horse?” I asked.

  A horse in a field.

  “What are you going on about?” Angel asked, annoyance in his voice.

  “A horse. Our answer is a horse.”

  “We’re supposed to ride a horse?” Ingrid asked. “I don’t know how to ride a horse.”

  “What the hell is he doing?” Arianna asked.

  “Quiet,” Stella told her.

  “Dammit, Gideon. Fine, let me see if I find anything,” said Angel. “I think I have enough power now.”

  He rose into the darkened sky, and then started moving higher and higher, to the point that I could no longer see him.

  After a long pause in which I thought that he had bailed on us, the scrappy aunt-fucker eventually lowered.

  “I really don’t see anything; getting too dark already and there’s fog rolling in to the north.”

  “Let me out of here!” Arianna said, punching the side of Stella’s vector shield.

  Angel approached the shield and thrust his hand in, grabbing the woman by the neck and lifting her. If she was furious before, now she was terrified, both her hands coming to Angel’s hand as he held her in the air.

  “You are our hostage,” he told her. “And you are lucky that I haven’t already killed you. You will tell us everything we need to know once we settle down for the night. But until that time, I want you to keep your fucking mouth shut.”

  Ingrid looked to me to say something, and I was just about to when I noticed a sound to my right, the sound of…

  Galloping horses?

  “Someone’s coming,” I said, turning in the direction of the sound.

  It wasn’t long before three men appeared on horseback, and once they got closer, I could see that they were all Asian.

  (The men, not the horses. I had no idea what breed the horses were, but they were smaller than any American horse I’d ever seen.)

  “Sain baina uu?” the first man grunted.

  Asians on horses, Asians on horses… I tried to figure out where we could be that there would be Asians riding horses, and I couldn’t quite put the pieces together. There was too much going on, and Father’s power was still coming to me every time I blinked my eyes shut.

  So before saying hello to the three riders, I replaced my reality manipulation ability with his healing power, dabbing my finger once against the top of the vial. All good in the hood, I approached the first man, his horse whinnying as I grew closer.

  “We are lost out here,” I told him.

  “Yu gene?”

  “American, we are American.”

  The three men spoke to each other in a garbled language for a moment, a language I had never heard before that sounded like it was more related to grunts than it was enunciated words.

  “Za, za,” the first man said as he got down from his horse.

  He approached me and I could see that he was wearing a robe of sorts, which for a moment made me wonder if we had transported back in time.

  Was it possible? Had Bae taken us via a portal back to…

  “Mongolia? Are you Mongolian?” I asked him.

  “Tiim, Mongol,” he said, pointing at himself and his two companions.

  The younger rider seemed to have trouble managing his horse for a moment, the small beast going up on its two back legs, before settling. The man made a clicking sound with his mouth as he roughly patted the horse’s neck.

  “We are in Mongolia,” I told the group, “and if anyone was thinking it besides me, we have not traveled back in time.”

  “No one was thinking that,” Angel said with a sigh.

  “How do you know we haven’t traveled back in time?” Ingrid asked.

  “The younger one is wearing DisNikes,” I said, pointing to the shoes in question.

  “Okay, so we are in Mongolia,” Angel said. “Good, that’s not very far from civilization…”

  “Wait, are you being sarcastic?” I asked him.

  “Of course I am. Have you ever looked at a fucking map of Asia? We are literally in the middle of nowhere.”

  “No, we are in Mongolia. I wonder which Mongolia. China Mongolia?” I asked the man standing before me.

  The guy had dark eyes, his hair cut short, wrinkles across his forehead and a wise look on his face.

  He immediately shook his head.

  “No China,” he grunted.

  “Okay, so I don’t think we are in China Mongolia,” I told the group.

  “No China,” he grunted again.

  “There are two Mongolias?” Stella asked.

  “Inner and Outer Mongolia,” I told them, feeling proud that I had actually paid attention in my world history cour
se at Southern Connecticut.

  At the time, I had been quite interested in learning about Genghis Khan and all the crazy shit that that he did, from basically inventing the first postal system to fathering more babies than any man ever had.

  Ingrid turned to me. “Why are there two?”

  “I am glad you asked…”

  “Save the history lesson for later,” Angel said, cutting me short. “Have them bring us to civilization.”

  “I don’t really know how to tell them I want food…”

  “Is that all you are really thinking about right now?”

  “I don’t know, you said civilization, so I thought about food,” I told Angel. “Just give me a second.”

  I turned back to the man, smiled, and kick-started Grace’s telepathic power.

  It was something I should tune into more, which I definitely noticed once I heard everyone’s thoughts around me, from Angel cursing that he had joined up with us, to Arianna wondering how she would get out of this, and if Damon Lord would come for her.

  I felt bad for her in that moment.

  I didn’t know exactly why, but I could tell by the tone of her thoughts that something wasn’t right, that she was second-guessing everything at the moment.

  Which was good.

  Would we convert her? Probably not.

  And if we did, it probably wouldn’t matter anyway if Angel took the woman. But it was good to see that she was starting to wonder about some of these things, that she was questioning the loyalty of her own group.

  After pressing all their thoughts away, I focused on the man standing before me, what I assumed was the Mongolian language appearing in my head.

  Nope, there was no way I was going to interpret any of it, but it did sound cool, and I felt smart just being able to identify it.

  I did exactly as Grace had done in Tokyo, focusing on a picture of food. I didn’t know what they ate in Mongolia, but I assumed it was Asian-ish, so I focused on ramen. And after that, I focused on a picture of a home, a bed.

  The older man eventually got the hint.

  He said something to the other two riders as he got back on his horse, and nodded for us to follow him.

  We weren’t in the clear yet, but we were getting closer.

  Soon, we would know exactly where we were, and we would then be able to use our resources to get back in touch with the others. I still didn’t know where Arianna stood in all this, and what Angel would do with her, but I did know this: We were in Mongolia, and an adventure that had started at the US Capitol and had somehow made its way to Tokyo was now thoroughly set in Central Asia.

  I only hoped that the other CBGs had made it to safety, that they were waiting for us in Japan, and that we would be reunited soon.

  The younger guy on the horse took off, and I interpreted this as him riding ahead to tell them to prepare food. The man who had spoken to me trotted slowly beside his companion, our small group able to keep up with the two herders.

  It was going to be a strange night, and an even longer day tomorrow, but at least we were alive.

  At least we were now heading in the right direction.

  The end.

  (Book Eight will be released in July!)

  Back of the Book Content

  Reader,

  Your reviews are what keep this series alive. If you made it this far, or you took the dive and decided to start the series on book seven, either way, your review really helps.

  So here’s your chance to continue Gideon’s twisted tale by showing support with a review.

  Thanks, and really, thank you for your reviews. It means the world to independent authors.

  Merch and Book Eight.

  I now have Cherry Blossom Girls posters and other swag available on my online store. I’ll continue updating merch going forward!

  You can get a Cherry Blossom Girls button (yes!) by joining my Patreon, where you’ll also get to preview book eight a month before other people are able to read it. There are also great tiers, each with exclusive benefits. For the cost of a cup of coffee, you can get all sorts of exclusive content on my Patreon.

  Other cool places.

  You can find out about more Harem Lit books (like this book) on the Facebook page.

  What’s that? You have a page too? YES. You can also join the Proxima Galaxy here to see how all my books are connected, see previews of upcoming releases, and get early copies of my new works as well as audiobooks.

  Need some more LitRPG? Then check out the LitRPG Books page, or the GameLit Society page, run by some great dudes.

  So join the group, and thanks again for reading, for the support, for making this weird series a possibility!

  Yours in sanity,

  Harmon Cooper

  New RELEASE - Out on March 13th!

  (My new series is in the same vein as CBG–fun, wild, crazy superpowers, just… read the blurb.)

  Not everyone can say they met their new girlfriend while being detained for impersonating a superhero.

  Hell, not everyone can say they have a superpower.

  But Sam Meeko can, and this is the story about how he discovered his strange power (hint: through police brutality), the people he met immediately after (hint: three beautiful women), and the kick ass team they formed once they realized there was a vampire outbreak descending upon their city. When the cops don’t know what the hell is going on, and the real Centralian superhero teams can’t be bothered, saving the day falls to this ragtag bunch of half-powered superhero hopefuls.

  Assuming, of course, that they can get their acts together.

  Other Books by Harmon Cooper

  Hate your job. Win the lottery. Get a superpower. House of Dolls.

  https://geni.us/HouseofDolls

  A fantasy harem adventure inspired by Pokemon Go!, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and the Persona family of video games. Check out this Amazon best seller!

  https://geni.us/MonsterHuntNYC

  Tokyo, Japan meets online fantasy gaming and South Park-styled humor. Yakuza, goblins, action, intrigue - add this book to your inventory list!

  https://geni.us/FICK

  What if Ready Player One was a multi-part epic? Gritty LitRPG action, gamer humor, fantastic fantasy worlds, and a killer MC. Read now!

  https://geni.us/TheLoop

  And now… A book by LUKE!

  If you didn’t know, “Luke” in this book is based on a real Canadian writer, Luke Chmilenko, who is a friend of mine, and whose book above is a beloved LitRPG series.

  Please check it out if you haven’t already!

  Get connected with other LitRPG readers

  Yes, reader, there is a place to catch up on Harmon Cooper books, meet other readers and see exclusive previews (as well as being the FIRST to know about a new release). Join the Proxima Galaxy today, and the LitRPG Society below.