I opened my mouth.
"That won't work," Vee clicked, physically and conversationally inserting herself between me and Ci. "The Corpse Seeker is a single solid piece, her body is dimensionally bound into itself. It’s what allows her to cut through magisteel like butter. She will resist disassembly and will probably implode on herself and take out whoever tries to take her apart along with like 5 kilometers of surrounding landscape."
She pulled out her phone, squeezed both of us and started taking photos.
"#CorpseSeekerProblems, #HowToTransportAMurderTankAcrossDimensions #MyBoyfriendGotMeAnEngagementTank, #JustOmnidThings," she clicked, making her voice recognition algorithm tag each selfie.
Cinder sighed and looked at me.
"If I can't get Possy to Earth, I'll have to adjust my plans," I said. "That reminds me. I should reward myself with some check marks to complete this perfect day."
"Checkmarks?"
"Of my list," I said, pulling out my own phone. "Yulia, display master list."
- Get enrolled in Skyfall. ?
- Secure one of those infinite free food meal cards and an immortality bracelet. ?
- Find a better sleeping location than the rust-covered van now permanently parked in one of the school’s student parking lots. ?
- Build a network of useful cryptid patsies. ?
- Learn everything there is to know. Figure out if mundane humans can even level up like Omnids through dimensional gate dungeon delving. ?
- Acquire best friends. ? Delve to Arx. ? Steal a tank. ? Acquire a fortified citadel. ? Fortify it even harder. ? Start a clan. ? Steal a dungeon. ? Make a death ray. ?
- Locate a Hearth Keeper Shield and Prima Hunter Sword and marry them like a goodly Nazarite to secure Omnithornian citizenship. ?
7.1. Do NOT get derailed by Charmchain magic of Quetzalcoatl girls who probably smoke because they have a death wish. ?
"What the shit?" Cinder grabbed the phone out of my hands just as I was about to tap some green check marks on it. "You... you planned all of this?!"
"Yes?" I raised an eyebrow. "Planning is essential to success."
“When did you even write this?”
I pointed at the date of January 4th.
"You PLANNED to marry us before you met us?!" Cinder snarled, her feathers exploding through a hurricane of red-orange-black colors. "Like we're some kind of... bloody checklist items?!"
"More like guidelines," I shrugged. "The plan was to find a compatible Prima Sword and a Hearth Shield, not specifically you two. You just happened to be perfect. Better than perfect. Vee, what word is above perfect?"
"BETTER THAN PERFECT?!" Cinder choked. "YOU... YOU... MANIPULATIVE LITTLE..."
"Optimal?" Vespera suggested helpfully. "Supreme? Transcendent? Absolutely poggers?"
"Yeah, poggers," I said. "That's a word I haven't heard in ages. Where's that even from?"
“League of Lords game, Pog-o-Champ meme,” Vespera replied.
"VEE! NOT HELPING!" Cinder rounded on the Thunderbird. "Did you know about this list?!"
"Nope," Vee clicked cheerfully. "First time I see dis. But I'm not surprised. Our fox is nothing if not methodical. Though I notice he failed on the last item there."
"I got completely derailed," I admitted. "Worth it though."
Vee's electric talon tip tapped the green checkmarks into existence on the "Delve to Arx" ?, “Steal tank” ?, "Acquire and fortify a citadel" ??, "Start a clan" ? and "Locate… and get married to…" ? items.
"#MissionAccomplished," she clicked, sending electrical sparks dancing across the screen. "Checkity-check-check! Gonna work on that death ray when we get back."
“Oi, stop tapping my check marks,” I hissed. “Don’t deprive me of the satisfaction of a job well done!”
“Nyah,” Vee replied with a grin, sticking her tongue out at me. “The tappin’ has occurred, courtesy of the V. Too bad, so sad. Don’t acquire a birb and then expect her not to tap yo’ things.”
I pretended to pout dramatically.
"You..." Cinder spun her head from my pouting face to the furiously giggling Vespera. "We're not married! What the fuck? Vee! Uncheck that right now! What am I, a fucking grocery shopping list to you?!"
"#RainboFruitAquired," Vespera commented, taking another selfie of herself and the irate Quetzi with both phones. “Can’t untap. Can only tap. Sorry, them’s the list rules.”
"What's it gonna take for you to be fucking serious for once?!" Cinder snarled at Vespera.
"Just think of it as my bucket list," I said. "A very ambitious bucket list I wrote to lighten the mood of being chased by Frontenachii Scruts."
"That's not better!" Cinder flapped her wings in agitation. "What am I, your fucking citizenship..."
"Would you prefer it if I had no plan at all?" I asked. "Just wandered around aimlessly hoping to stumble into citizenship and true love?"
"I'd prefer if you didn't treat us like... like..."
"Like carefully considered life goals?" I suggested.
"YES!" She barked.
"But you are my life goals," I said simply. "This isn't some shitty B-tier romantic Cradlefall comedy. I'm not going to confess that I started to date you because of my citizenship needs but then also declare that I actually fell in love with you while you angrily board a plane back to Thunderland or something."
Cinder's feathers froze mid-flare, shifting through startled silver-violet-blues.
"You're my carefully considered, extensively researched, absolutely deliberate life goals," I continued. "I chose you after a thorough examination from all sides. Both of you. Not randomly, not by accident, but because you're exactly who I want to spend my life with."
"But... but..." Cinder sputtered, her feathers cycling through bothered colors. "That's not how love is supposed to work!"
"Says who?" I asked. "Some romance novel protagonist who stumbles into love by accident? I prefer to know exactly what I want and why, so that I can go after it and target it with everything I've got."
"He's got a point," Vespera snapped her talons, sending a shower of sparks dancing across me "Most relationships fail because people don't think things through. They just... fall into them without considering compatibility or long-term goals."
"But... but..." Cinder's feathers shifted through uncertain purples. "Love is supposed to be spontaneous and natural! Not... calculated!"
"Why not both?" I asked. "I can calculate AND feel natural spontaneous love. The two aren't mutually exclusive."
"That's not..." Cinder struggled to produce a criticism.
"Remember how we met?" I smiled. "I completely short-circuited when I saw you. That's when I added the 'don't get derailed by Quetzis' point to the list. Yet here I am, utterly and irrevocably derailed by you. Yes, I planned to find an Omnid duo to chase me. But actually falling in love with you? That wasn't planned at all. That just happened."
"Spontaneous love is the sorta shank author-foldknobs slap into their flab books written for knob Hearth Keepers," Vee said in her valley girl persona. "Every Prima marriage is meticulously planned and calculated, considering every variable and parameter–except for love. Probability Engines calculate the most optimal outcome and then the two clans meet and discuss everything else they can contribute with to achieve optimal financial landfall. Like mine with Zheng." She winced.
Cinder squinted at her.
"Unlike my ‘arranged frog-man’, Lexxy chose us deliberately, by himself, after careful consideration and running tests. That's... actually incredibly romantic if you think about it."
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
"Romantic?" Cinder made a skeptical face.
"Ye," Vee clicked. "He didn't just stumble into us by accident, didn’t win me in the Probability Engine lottery, didn’t get pushed into it by his parents. He got into Skyfall, saw us, evaluated us, and decided we were worth pursuing. Worth fighting for. Worth risking everything for. Worth dying for. Worth stealing a tank for. Etcetera."
"Ugh," Cinder let out. "I get it. It's just that... a checklist wife just seems like sociopath behavior."
"The Architect part of me," I said, "Alexander Glock is absolutely a sociopath. He's what allows me to talk to bigger, magically-potent Omnids without curling up into a ball, to joke in the face of pure terror. I need this broken fraction of me to succeed in life, to make choices that Martin cannot. That Mage Tower probably crushed a few people and even more people trampled each other when they fled from my fake invasion.”
Cinder frowned.
“The injured Shandrian Citizens will be healed by Healer's Hall, it's what I tell myself to feel better," I shrugged. “Kitlix can fix a broken spine.”
"Life isn't a romance novel, Ci. An Omnid clan leader must be a sociopath," Vespera nodded. "Enough so to ruthlessly crush his enemies. Also, he must be a caring father to his clan, to respect each Knight and Sixie. This is where Zheng failed catastrophically enough to make me hate him."
"He's that bad?" Cinder asked.
"Worse," Vespera said darkly. "He treats his Knights and Sixies like disposable tools. Uses Probability Engines to calculate exactly how much abuse the Sixies can take before breaking. Then pushes ‘em right to that limit."
"Yikes," I winced.
"Yeah," Vee nodded, resting her beak on my shoulder. "That's why I'd rather have a sociopath who actually cares about his people. Who plans everything meticulously but still leaves room for spontaneous joy. Who steals tanks and buys farms just to make us smile. Who is smol and cute and also intelligent and aggressively persistent like a honey badger."
"I'm not a honey badger," I protested playfully. "I'm a fox."
"A fox wearing the hide of a honey badger wearing the feathers of a crow, wearing a shark," Vee laughed, nuzzling against me. "My adorable little four-fold sociopath who calculated the perfect way to steal my heart."
I smiled.
"And my tank," she added with a wide grin, elbowing Cinder.
"And my farm," the Quetzi sighed.
"A legitimately purchased farm," I stated.
"Uh-huh, with totally legitimately stolen Celesteel cards, right?" Cinder shook her rainbow mane and leaned on Vee, wrapping armored claws around the Thunderbird's waist.
“Mmmm. Such nice,” Vespera closed her eyes, rubbing her head against me and then against Cinder. “Warmth. Care-ness.”
Cinder closed her eyes, relaxing and enjoying the sunshine.
[Love.] Vespera's voice whispered in my head via the electric resonance between us as her feathers brushed against my right temple. [Lexy. We're going to save Ci. It won't be easy. But you and I are going to do it. Because she's worth it. Right?]
[Right.] I agreed [How though?]
[By releasing my family's Archangel,] Vespera fired back. [By sacrificing the Earth.]
[Sacrificing the Earth?!] I thought back. [WHAT?]
[And ourselves,] Vespera added. [First me, then you. Then all of us. Just for a day or two at most.]
[Sacrifice ourselves how?]
[Our memories, or sense of self,] Vespera sent. [Don't worry... we'll get them back.]
[I see,] I thought.
[Just trust me, yeah? Trust me as much as I trust you. Don't let Ci know any of this. She's still bound to Valor... still infected by him. But we can trap him.]
[How?]
[By awakening the Leviathan,] Vespera said. [By bringing our world closer to its doom. By boiling the physical.]
[And you're certain this will work?]
[I'm... fairly certain. My family has been pushing me towards understanding the Genesis well. I've been studying the blood of the Wormwood Star Leviathan. I understand it enough for... this. There is a chance that we'll all get fucked of course... but I don't see any other way of saving Ci from a 40k Astral Phantom.]
She added another item to my phone's checklist with rapid talon taps and handed the phone to me.
[Destroy the world, save the Quetzi-girl ?] I read the added goal and stared at Vespera.
[Trust me,] Vespera's Electrofractal voice danced in my head. [We can pull it off. Me and you. Together.]
She winked at me.
[I'd like to know more,] I thought.
[Like I told you before, there's a way to set reality itself on fire,] Vespera explained. [To rearrange everything. It happened before. A worldwide Celestorm, created by a magical cascade effect.]
[Won't that rearrange us too?] I asked.
[It will,] Vespera answered. [You've got another slot in your Resonance. Just one more for one more Omnid. Find a Scrutimancer and steal their skill.]
[Can do,] I answered.
[Good. It'll help you remember things after a worldwide shift,] Vespera smiled. [Scrutimancers are immune to Celestorm-causality altering events.]
[And you're certain that a worldwide Celestorm will help us?]
[I am.] Vespera nodded, her eyes set. [It's how we draw out the beast into the open and cage him.]
[Then lets do it,] I agreed.
Her talons shook my hand.
Vespera's thoughts revealed to me more details of her mad plan. A plot against our greatest enemy. A plot that would unmake the Earth itself, all to help save one Omnid girl.
Then as she finished outlining everything, we sat together and stared at the Chasm Sea, watching slightly glowing waves smash into the glassy rocks.
. . .
"Are those wyverns?" I asked, spotting a flock of silver, white draconic beasts fluttering in the breeze grabbing fish from the azure water.
"Dragonettes," Vee said. "They ain't big enough to eat us, don't worry. Well, they might eat you. You're very snackable. Nom.” She nipped me.
"How waterproof is Miss Possible?" I asked.
"Very," Vee said. “She’s supposed to retrieve people from their watery graves. Why?”
"Just thinking out loud," I said. "What year was she born anyway?"
"1527 from the birth of Nazareth," Vespera replied. "She's an Omnid Renaissance war beast. A personal Corpse Seeker of Charles de Bourbon, Holy Roman Emperor, bred during the War of the League of Cognac. Participated in the Sack of Rome according to her activation records."
"How did she end up on Arx?" I asked.
"Zalimar worked for Emperor Charles," Vespera said. "Boasted to us in class how he bred a plague that took Rome's population down from fifty to ten thousand.
"Zalimar helped sack Rome?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah," Vespera clicked. "He was Emperor Charles's pet necromancer. Zalimar was rewarded with Miss Possible for his services and then brought her to Arx through one of the early gates. She's been sitting in that Omnid Chapel ever since, occasionally saving generations of students from Arx dungeons."
"That sounds... absurdly outdated," Cinder said. "You'd think that the school would send in a new model."
"Oh they have," Vespera grinned. "From what I discerned, they're inside Possible, fully integrated into her internal structure."
"What?" Cinder blinked.
"According to the paperwork I pawned from Skyfall admin and the stuff I found in his office, Zalimar has been doing some rather questionable things on Arx," I said.
"Every time the school sent a new Corpse Seeker to Arx, he'd integrate it into Miss Possible, feed them to her. She's basically absorbed like... Fifty two other Seekers over almost five hundred years. Another reason why she's such a chonky girl," Vee laughed.
I nodded.
"Zal likes things that are as old as himself, so instead of breeding or buying new models like a modern Omnid, he and Vassili have been keeping Possy alive with unnatural, batshit crazy Corpse Seeker cannibalism," Vee clicked.
"That's... disturbing," Cinder's feathers shifted through uneasy grays. "So Miss Possible is basically... a cannibal tank?"
"Yep," Vespera clicked with a smile. "And now she's our cannibal tank! Isn't that exciting?"
"Your definition of exciting is concerning," Ci commented.
"Anyways," I said. "I reckon that we should take her into the sea."
"Into the sea?!" Cinder's head snapped to me. "What is she, a submarine now? Won't we need air?"
"She's too heavy to float like a submarine. She can run on the glassified seabed tho’," Vespera explained. "Her crystalline structure is completely waterproof and pressure-resistant. Plus she has internal life support systems. She was made to grab injured students as well as bracelets.”
"Why do you want to take her into the Chasm Sea?" Cinder asked me.
"To find the army that Leviathan Nightingale obliterated," I said. "Obviously. Note how this water shimmers with jade refractions. Vee, what's the aetheric density of this water?"
Vespera sent a spark flying at the waves smashing into the pebble shore.
"968.45," she replied, dark eyebrows going up. "Oh. Oh shit. That's high as fuck. It's probably even worse deeper in."
"I suspect that somewhere at the bottom of this sea there's an absurdly magically radioactive piece of slag," I said. "Ten thousand mages worth of crystalline cores fused into each other. Sort of like a natural magical reactor irradiating the entire area."
"Why would you want such a fucking..." Cinder demanded.
"Our mage tower needs a core," I said.
"You want to power our crystal tower with a radioactive magical slag made from ten thousand dead mages?!" Cinder sputtered, wings igniting with orange-red.
"Yep," I nodded. "Better than stealing Abystall's core. Less dangerous too."
"Less dangerous?!" Cinder squawked. "How is diving into a magically irradiated sea LESS dangerous than stealing a dungeon core?!"
"Because," I explained patiently, "Abystall is actively defended by Sentinels and monsters coordinated by a single dungeon core. Whatever is down there it is likely very uncoordinated."
"Uncoordinated magical radiation that will KILL US," Cinder growled.
"That's what Miss Possible is for," I said. "She's built to handle extreme magical environments. Right, Vee?"
"Yep!" Vespera bobbed her head. "She's got crazy good magrad shielding. The best I've seen in fact. She's basically 99.9% immune to magrad."
"So we're just going to... what? Drive our stolen tank into the sea and hope we find some ancient magical reactor?" Cinder asked.
"Yes," I said. "That's exactly what we're going to do."
"And if we don't find shit?"
"Then we dig down till we reach Abystall or Gloomkerr," I said. "I'm pretty sure that this sea feeds that giant glowing waterfall and flows into the underground ocean.
"Correct," Vee clicked. "The Chasm Sea is right above Abystall and Gloomkerr dungeons. I do love it when a plan comes together!"
"You're both mental," Ci let out.
"That we are," I said, slipping out from Vespera's static-filled hug and standing up. "Let's not lose daylight. Now, who wants to fly me back?”
. . .
As Cinder carried me back towards the farmhouse, I spotted a group of heavily armored figures surrounding Miss Possible. Their armor gleamed in the evening sun - clearly high-grade magisteel, not the basic equipment of local guards.
"Land on the nearest tree," I ordered and the Omnid girls descended.
"Those Bank Enforcers?" I muttered, peering between branches.
"City Watch," Vee clicked. "That man staring at Possible? That's a Shandrian Scrut."
"Shit," Cinder hissed. "There must be thirty of them down there."
"Thirty-seven," Vespera corrected, her bird-vision picking out details. "High level mage-knights."
"Guess blowing up mage towers and disrupting an execution has consequences," I commented.