A vacation? I was supposed to take a vacation? With the people I cared about? Why did it seem like those words were a completely foreign language? For a moment, I just stared at Avalon like she was some sort of alien, trying to decipher what she’d actually said. “I--that’s--we’re what?”
Her head shook, a soft snort escaping her. “Yes, Chambers, I know it’s a lot to take in.” Her voice made me shiver a bit, as did her wink. “Don’t worry, it’s not a complete vacation, so your head doesn’t have to implode. I mean, we do have to help you set up this school of yours. And I’ll be damned if I let you--any of you go an entire day without training, let alone however many weeks this takes. But as far as end of the world, constant life and death problems every hour go… we’re supposed to be taking a break from that. I guess the uh, Ankou thought we deserved something good for going through the whole rift business. So they sent one of the… yous here. Now each time some of us finish our thing with one of the other yous at a rift, we get sent here too, to help. There’s just--well, we’re not all going to show up at once. Some could show up any minute, or in a few days, or even in a few weeks.”
Before I could even find my voice to respond to that, Shiori piped up. “Wait, weeks? How long is--I mean how long are we going to be here?” Her hand reached out to touch my back, rubbing it as she looked around. “And where is here? Also, when is here? When is when? When is this?”
“Also, how do you know all this and we don’t?” That was Asenath, speaking up as she took in a long, deep breath of what had to be the cleanest air she had likely smelled in a very long time. At least, air here on Earth. I couldn’t even imagine how that felt to her vampire senses, being away from all that pollution and everything else. It had been enough of an adjustment for me as it was.
Roxa’s head bobbed quickly. “You know, that’s a good question.” Her hand waved to Sean and the cyberforms. “I mean, we were right there with you, back in the cave after all that. Then suddenly we were here, and you…. uh, came in a minute later. With the fire.” Her shoulder raised in an idle shrug. “Which I guess makes sense with the whole cool Phoenix thing, but--”
“Wait, the what? The cool what? What?” Yes, I was repeating myself, I knew, but the word ‘what’ just kept popping out over and over, even as my head snapped from Roxa to Avalon and back again so quickly I almost gave myself some real whiplash. Had Roxa just said ‘Phoenix?’ Yes, Valley had appeared in a burst of fire a moment ago, but, but--what? Oh great, now I was even doing it in my head.
I wasn’t the only one staring either. Shiori and Asenath were both gaping that way, while Avalon ducked her gaze and visibly blushed under the attention. Which was distracting enough all on its own. God, she was cute. Wait, I was supposed to be focusing on the whole Phoenix thing, right?
Then my attention was drawn for an entirely different reason. Namely, Laein, who gave a loud whistle while waving her hands back and forth. “Hey! Who in the hells are all you people!? How do you know Felicity Chambers? Are you her servants and sycophants? Good! I told her she needs more sycophants, but I didn't know she was actually listening to me.” She gave me a proud smile then, head bobbing. “I approve of your choice of slaves, they look strong and fit.”
“Uh, Flick?” That was Sean, raising an eyebrow at me. “Lemme guess, that would be the Laein girl you mentioned when you were telling us what happened to you. She sort of stands out.”
“Okay, okay,” I found myself blurting before any more distractions could come. Yes, I wanted to know what was up with that ‘Phoenix’ thing, but I also wanted to hear everything about what happened to all these guys. And standing right out here probably wasn’t the best place to do it. So, I gestured for them to follow. “Let’s go in and find a place to sit down so we can, uh, talk this whole thing through. You know, so everyone can be on the same page for a few minutes before everything changes all over again.” Yeah, I might’ve been slightly doubtful about how long this whole ‘vacation’ thing would actually last before something else popped up and put an end to it. Just call me crazy, paranoid, or simply capable of the most basic level of pattern recognition.
So, I led the others through the back gate. Well, as soon as they were done staring at the walls themselves, which looked like long piles of skulls and bones, but were actually made of metal strong enough to stand up against very intense damage. And after assuring Laein that these guys were definitely friends and could be trusted. Still, she kept a wary eye on them the entire way in, as though expecting them to rip off masks and start cackling evilly the moment we took them into the Roundabout. Which, honestly, she didn't need to worry about. Not just because I knew this was really Avalon, Shiori, and the others, but also because I was pretty sure no one could get close to being as good at evil cackling as Laein was. She really didn’t have anything to be jealous about. Wait, jealous. Was she afraid I wouldn’t pay as much attention to her now that these guys were here? I should probably take a minute to make sure she knew I wasn’t going to ignore her.
As soon as we stepped through the gate, Shiori gave a low whistle, gazing around to take it in. “You--uh, told us about this place. You described it, but seeing it right now is… wow. It really is like a little city.” Her eyes shifted back to me, brightening in a way that made my heart skip. “Flick! This place is amazing! You have a Reaper city--I mean a Reaper ship made into a city!”
“Part of a Reaper ship, anyway,” I confirmed, glancing around as well to see the same things they were taking in right then. What had once been a fifteen mile high tower was much smaller now, at least the visible part. There was a larger area buried belowground, but as far as what the others could see went, it was about thirty buildings scattered through a space roughly two thousand feet wide by a fifteen hundred feet long. So plenty of open space for those buildings to fit in. And room to create more as we needed them or came up with new ideas to play with.
The ‘town’ stretched out before us. A wide metal ‘street’ that we were standing on led straight ahead to an enormous park with real grass, dirt, and trees, as well as a stream that ran through the middle, with a footpath that included a bridge so you could stand over the stream. The park itself was almost eight hundred feet across, and roughly circular in shape. About a third of it was taken up by an orchard with a dozen or so fruit trees of various types, as well as a small but well-stocked vegetable garden.
The road led right up to the gate going into the park, then split to form a circle around it. The right-hand road led all the way around that side of the park, with the four large ghost-dorms we had set up on the opposite side of it. The dorms were each rectangular, standing three stories tall with mostly flat roofs. Inside, we had set up various energy-orbs so the inhabitants could borrow power to become tangible enough to do some basic button pressing or whatnot. They had television, games, books, computers, and anything else we had been able to think of. Not that there was any way to watch things on the television, but we did have some movies that had been on Fahsteth’s ship (the books and games had come from the same place). Right now, only one of those ghost-dorms was actually in use, but eventually I was hoping they would all be needed. If we were going to make this work and actually create an entire school--an army of Necromancers to beat the Fomorians, we would need to recruit a hell of a lot of ghosts for it. Hopefully enough that we would need more dorms for them.
Behind the ghost-dorms, far to the right side (left side if you were standing at the front gate instead of the rear one where we were) was the farm, where we had an actual barn, a tall silo, a much larger garden area than the smaller one in the park, and fenced-in fields where some cows, pigs, and horses were being tended to by a handful of volunteer farmer ghosts. It wasn’t actually fully in use yet, but we had decided it would be good to be ready to have more inhabitants.
Meanwhile, speaking of having more inhabitants, the road that went left around the park, from our perspective at this back gate, led past about a dozen large houses of various styles for future Necromancer students and their friends or families to stay in. Behind those, reached by walking down a couple more roads that ran between the buildings, were a couple rec centers full of the same sort of entertainment stuff the ghosts had in their own dorms. Plus a gym to work out in.
In front of the park, basically using it as a backyard, was the main Haunted Mansion. Well, my own recreation of the one that was back in the Fusion School, anyway. That was the centerpiece of the ‘town,’ where the actual bridge of what had been this Reaper ship was. The two roads that circled the park ran around the mansion as well, before meeting in front of it to form a single road once more that ran straight ahead to that main gate. On the left side of that front area was the enormous armory where we kept every weapon and special tool we’d been able to find, while our library and a couple buildings with reinforced walls meant for practicing magic in were on the right side.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Sure, the buildings, pavement, walls, and so on were all made out of the same metal from the Reaper ship, but it looked like a town. Plus, we had brought in a bunch of real dirt and grass to make the place actually seem less… well, sterile. I wanted it to be a place people could live in.
After leading the others all the way through the Roundabout so they could see everything we were working with, Laein and I took them into the park. We found a spot with a couple benches that were near the creek, and then let Vulcan and Gidget start running around while the rest of us took a seat and stared at one another. “Right,” I started, “guess we should actually get on the same page.” Even as I said that, my eyes shifted toward Avalon. As did everyone else’s, clearly expecting her to get into what was going on. And once more, she blushed. Which made my heart flip over again. Not just because she was so pretty, though she was, but also just the confusion over what they’d meant by ‘Phoenix thing.’ She’d appeared in a burst of fire, and just- what? But how was I supposed to find the words to ask about it when she blushed like that?
Fortunately, Avalon started to explain without me needing to collect myself enough to try asking about it. Because I wasn't entirely sure I could put the words together competently while looking at her with that adorable blush. It was just so damn distracting. But I did manage to pull myself together enough to listen properly when she launched into her explanation. She had a little help from Sean and Roxa, all of them explaining just what had happened at their own rift. Which had apparently been in the Rocky Mountains in the year 1799. Where they’d met some Boscher Heretic woman who had become a Natural Phoenix-Bonded (yeah that was a whole thing) named Jessica Trent, and fought off a bunch of Godfather’s monsters to secure the rift there. But only after Jessica had somehow passed her own Phoenix gift to Avalon. There was more to it, but that was the general story. Which--well the idea that Roxa, Sean, Avalon, and that other duplicate of me had been fighting monsters that were sent by Godfather was… it didn’t exactly fill me with joy. In fact, it made me feel very queasy deep in my stomach. If he knew about the Rifts, was he sending more monsters to other ones? What if some of them got through? What if--yeah, bad.
“So that’s how it went for us,” Roxa finished with a wide shrug. “Avalon got her upgrade and then we were supposed to be sent--well we thought we’d be sent back where we came from, to be honest. Instead we ended up here. Also we’re a lot cleaner and less banged up than we were back there, so I guess these Ankou people fixed us on the way? If so, kudos to them, because we really stank.” Those words came with a slight smirk as she nudged Sean before glancing to Avalon. “Then she came through with that Phoenix fire a minute later, but that wasn’t the same way we showed up, was it? I’m pretty sure we didn’t appear with a burst of flame like that.”
Sean was nodding. “Yeah, and you didn’t even--” He paused abruptly, head tilting with a soft gasp of realization. “Wait a minute, right before we disappeared, she showed up, didn't she?”
“Who showed up?” That was Senny, clearly as enthralled by this whole story as Shiori, Laein, and I were. Actually, Cowlick the troll ghost was still hanging around nearby and he seemed pretty interested in hearing more. He was watching the others intently, in between giving longing glances at the livestock in the distance. Which, for him, meant he was utterly enraptured by this story.
“Aylen,” Sean put in, making me give a confused double-take. “Yeah, it was definitely her. We only saw her for a quick second, then we were gone. Well, the two of us were. I guess Avalon stayed.”
“I refused to be transported at first,” Avalon confirmed. As though simply ‘refusing’ to let the Ankou transport her was something completely normal and not at all patently absurd. Then again, it was Avalon, so yeah maybe it was normal for her. She wasn’t exactly the type to let even an entire species of nearly all-powerful god-like beings tell her what to do. And that was before this Phoenix thing. Which I really wanted to talk to her about and get more details on because wow.
Avalon went on to explain that seeing Aylen had made her resist the transport. It wasn’t easy, but she kept her feet firmly planted there. That Jessica woman was already gone by then, which left her alone with Aylen. Except this Aylen was older. Visibly older by a few years, which, given everything we knew about her, implied that she had been around for a very long time indeed.
Yeah, that confused me enough all on its own, but I was even more confused a second later when Shiori suddenly blurted, “Oh God, she’s been living out in the world for that whole time!?”
“We saw her too,” Asenath calmly noted when the rest of us gave a double-take that way. “She was sent to the time of Arthur and Gaia’s youth to help with a rift there, but her own mission… went poorly.” Her face twisted a little before she continued. Between her and Shiori, they told us not only how their own rift went, but also what happened with Aylen’s. It was a story that made me fold my arms over my stomach to stop the twisting pain I felt there. One--a version of me, one of my duplicates was dead. I--she had been absorbed by Invidia. Well, by Charmeine’s ghost, who was possessed by Invidia. That was a whole thing. But--but the point was, she absorbed me. She had all my powers, and she was actively trying to do--uh, something with the rifts. Bad things, obviously. Which was just a whole other mess of complications. Aylen had been left alone and apparently became like a sister to Arthur and Gaia. Which, boy did that ever start to send up alarm bells about timeline problems. But then they explained that she had taken the name Ganieda, who was a real person within Arthur’s history. Except no other Ganieda had ever shown up, so apparently Aylen was the real Ganieda? It just--okay so she had always been sent back in time and had always become close to those two. Well, always from this timeline’s point of view. Right, yeah, a bit confusing but at least things seemed to still be on track as far as that went. Aylen had lived through a couple decades then, showing up to help another version of me, along with Shiori and Asenath with that rift. And then she just… stayed behind after that again. She was planning to do what she could to help with other rifts, and warn other versions of me about the Invidia problem whenever she could. That was… it was a lot to take in. All of it was. The entire story left me needing to put my head in my hands, staring at the ground for a moment. If Invidia had all my powers, if she’d actually absorbed a version of me, then… then who the hell knew what else she was capable of. This was a problem. But obviously not one I could focus on now. I couldn’t do anything about it right here. And it wasn’t like I could go around trying to find her. Not only would that mean probably changing the timeline myself, but focusing on that would mean abandoning this chance to really work on building up the Roundabout. That was why I was here--why we were all here. Plus for the chance to have a break from world-ending problems, apparently. Which we also wouldn’t be sticking to if we focused on going after Invidia. We had no way to find her, there was a big risk of causing untold damage to the timeline if we did try to intervene, and it would mean giving up this chance to actually do what I wanted to with this Necromancy school. No, hard as it might’ve been to accept, I had to just hope that the Invidia situation would be dealt with when the time came.
Letting out a long breath, I lifted my gaze and looked toward Shiori and Asenath. The only thing I could let myself be distracted by right then, the thing that helped me stop obsessing over Invidia, was the realization of another very important, critical bit of information.
“You guys met King Arthur!?” Okay, yeah, the words came out of me in a bit of a girlish squeal. I wasn’t super-proud of that, but whatever, it was Arthur! “Did you get his autograph?”
Shiori giggled, which was also nicely distracting from all the problems we had. “We must’ve forgotten that. But you met him too, so you’ll remember that as soon as, uh, you know, all of the different yous merge together.”
That was a good point, so I sat back and let Avalon continue with her part of the story of what happened after their rift was over and Aylen had shown up. Apparently the two of them had quickly left the cave to avoid being found by an angry Godfather, using a teleportation spell Aylen had. They went to what was apparently one of many safe houses the girl had. It sounded like she wasn’t actually living through every single moment since those early Arthur years, but was actually using some sort of stasis spell or something to freeze herself for decades at a time, only coming out when it was somewhat close to time for another rift. Apparently exactly how close that was varied. Sometimes she came out within a few months, other times it was as long as a couple years. She was still living through quite a bit of time doing all this, just not literally hundreds of years.
In any case, she and Avalon had spent about a week together getting caught up. And yes, Valley resisted the urge to be transported multiple times. She had resisted it enough that one of the Ankou had finally appeared to her to explain what was going on. From the context, I figured out that it had to be Ceili. Apparently she had told Avalon and Aylen both about where and when she was supposed to be sent, and that it was meant to give all of us a chance to create this Necromancy school properly. Aylen was told she could come too, but insisted on continuing to do the job she had chosen for herself. So, the two of them said goodbye for the time being, promising to see each other as soon as possible. Then Avalon let herself be sent here, using her own newly-gained Phoenix power to hasten the process.
And there we were. Shiori, Asenath, Roxa, Sean, and Avalon were all here with Laein and me. We all looked at each other for a long moment, before I took a breath and let it out. “Well, what are we waiting for?
“We’ve got a lot of work to do around here.”