I'd always had a weird thought about heroic fantasy. Bear with me. Basically, I had the strange idea that if there really was a Dark Lord or some terrible evil that threatened all the land, you'd hedge your bets and not just send one Chosen One to deal with the problem. Now, this doesn't make a very good story but I couldn't help but imagine the fantasy worlds were littered with farm boys, rebellious princesses, good hearted thieves, and divine blooded wizards that just didn't make the songs.

This, of course, was exactly how it turned out to be under Larry C.C. Weis. I was lucky no. fifteen out of fifteen and if I pulled it off, it would be a miracle. However, I'd always wondered what the others had been up to and how far they'd managed to go. I had a pretty good idea about how Valentin's crusade went (rage-quitting at the perceived lack of respect from the women he assumed would fawn over him for his heroics), how Jon's story went (martial arts card game action), and was slowly putting together what happened to Alek. However, it was Francine who every indicated was the only other champion who'd amounted to much.

It had always been on my bucket list, if such a thing could be said to exist since my exile to this world, to track her down. After all, two heads were better than one and I'd always felt she was a competant as well as good-hearted person. Seeing her here alongside Jorg the Bastard Knight and, if I didn't miss my guess, Barghest the Wolf Lord among two other secondary characters from the novel I didn't recall the names of (but recognized the look of from fanart) was sign she'd been up to her own adventures. They also had a pretty redheaded wizardess in the back.

This was a good sign.

"Die again, you evil bitch!" Jorg the Bastard Knight shouted, pulling out his sword and shield before charging at Thistle.

No one moved to protect her.

"PUSH!" I shouted, raising my hand. I'd had a chance to rest a couple of times and regain my spells. I dialed back the power on it immensely as I didn't want to kill the guy. Unfortunately, it still sent him flying back like a bowling ball into the other knights, who were thrown apart like pins. Only Francine and the redhead managed to avoid being knocked over.

"Are we killing the Bastard Knight?" Ania asked, drawing her blades. She'd taken Zorya Dawnbringers and looked positively ectastic about having them. "Because I'm fine with that. Try not to kill Francine, though."

"Spare the Wolf Lord, please," Agata said, lifting her staff. "I also am happy to kill Jorg."

"Can we not kill my brother?" Ivan asked, pulling out a small automatic crossbow built in the steampunk (Clockpunk? Dungeonpunk?) Grand Duchy. He seemed to have his own bag of holding that he hadnt lost when he'd given up his mark.

"It's like the movie said," Bloodstorm said, lifting his hammer. "There can be only one!"

"BARRIER!" Joan shouted, raising her staff and creating a magical wall between the two of our parties. "No one is hurting anyone!"

Francine proceeded to pull out an utterly ridiculous looking greatsword. We're talking halfway between Guts from Berserk's sword and Cloud's Buster Sword. It was covered in runes and I could tell it had power every bit as equal to the one in the divine blades we'd seized. She didn't aim it at me, though but held it front of her fellows. "Hold! I think, I think I recognize some of this group."

Francine looked different from the woman I knew her and she'd obviously invested a few of her points in Comeliness. Either that or the transformation I'd undergone had affected her as well. Her glow up had improved her complexion, made her bob a shiny gold, and brought out the brilliance of her eyes even if her body was as muscular as a woman's might be imagined. Sort of like if Saber from Fate/Stay Night was combined with an American Gladiator. She was also in sensible plate mail, which I was surprised existed for women in Ledziania.

"Some of this group?" Ania asked, offended. "We traveled together for a year, you bitch."

"Sorry, I thought you were an imposter or a hallucination!" Francine said.

"Why?" Ania asked.

"You were smiling when I first came on you," Francine said. "Are you okay?"

Ania glared. "Jon, how do you do that gesture?"

"Just raise your middle finger," Jon said.

Ania did so. "Thank you."

Ivan sighed. "Lady Dubois, this is Lord Aaron Bartkowski, Overmaster of the Dark Undermasters (such as they are). You know Lady Ania and Lady Agata Rose. We met a couple of times before you let me know you weren't into short men."

"I'm not into men," Francine corrected.

"Your relationship with my brother says otherwise," Ivan said.

"Your brother is my best friend," Francine said, relaxing her posture but only a little bit. "A relationship between a man and a woman doesn't have to be sexual."

Jon gave a raspberry, which was impressive given he had an owl's beak. "I note you don't recognize me."

"Should I?" Francine asked.

"This is John Snowan from creative," I replied. "Hi Francine, nice to see you alive."

"Do we know each other?" Francine asked.

I stared. "Really, Francine?"

"I'm sorry, it's been awhile," Francine said. "Wait, I do remember you! Aragorn. The divergent guy who was constantly posting on Reddit instead of doing his job."

"Goddammit," I muttered. Clearly the admiration I'd had for her turned out to have been one sided. "I only did that to keep my mind occupied in-between the drudgery. It was actually faster."

"They all say that," Francine said.

"Yeah, but it was true in my case," I said.

"You know Thistle AKA The Therapist, don't know Ser Bloodstorm, and this spellcasting child is no one of import," Ivan said. "Certainly not someone you would want to take hostage to threaten the Empire."

"You may have been a little too direct with that part," I replied.

"Sorry. Clearly, I am overwhelmed with emotion from being reunited with my brother after a decade," Ivan said, showing no change in demeanor.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

"We have way too many sarcastic buttholes on this team," Jon said, still struggling to swear. "It dilutes the overall effect. We need a Steve Guttenberg to balance the others out. Aaron is getting way too interesting to be the straightman."

I didn't mention to Jon that Steve Guttenberg was by far the most interesting character in the Police Academy movies. "Listen--"

Francine ignored me. "The Wise Man continues to send champions to their doom. I'm sorry, Mr. Bartkowski, I know this must be terrifying for you. However, I promise I can protect you from the horrors here."

I stared at her. "Uh huh."

"I think I'll be fine," I said, trying not to sound offended.

Jorg the Bastard Knight ignored his brother and kept his sword and shield out even as he stared death at Thistle.

"You have no idea the horrors to be found here," Francine said, not letting Jorg pass. "You obviously haven't been here long."

"That was two gods ago," Ania said, stepping to my defense. "Chernabog and the Fire Demon have both been slain, something you should have noticed on your mark. That was Aaron's doing."

"He soloed the Dawnbringer," Bloodstorm said. "But I'm taking partial credit for Chernabog."

Francine looked back at the red mage in their group before looking back at me. "You've been going after the Old Gods? Directly? Are you insane?"

"I mean, the jury is still out on the last one but yes," I replied, "to all three. What's your strategy?"

Francine puffed up her chest as if particularly proud. "To assemble armies large enough to take each of the Old Ones out individually and then move on Veles."

I stared at her. "That would get hundreds, if not thousands of people killed."

"And your solution is to, what, send a small team to kill gods?" Francine asked.

"I mean, it was our plan here," Barghest the Wolf Lord said. He was a very ugly man with a face like Marv from Sin City. His smashed-in-face was distracted from by the fact he wore a wolf's head pelt over his helmet. Supposedly, the wolf had been his only friend growing up and he communed with its spirit.

Barghest was the kennel master for the Mad Queen and former bodyguard of Prince Cezary before he participated in Lord Embery's attempt to spirit away the Rose sisters. He and Garland had been friends but this didn't mean Barghest wasn't a cold-blooded murderer.The Mad Queen had sent him to do much of her dirty work and he'd covered up several of Cezary's murders. In the end, it had been Agata's kindness to him that had helped him turn against his masters. I was surprised to see him alongside the Bastard Knight and Francine.

"Only because we had no choice!" Francine said, growling at him.

That was when another horrific roar spread throughout the caverns. "That isn't just a dragon or other monster, is it?"

"No," Francine said. "It is Prince Cezary, mutated and twisted into a demon dragon that is far more powerful than any member of the Thirteen or even the Old One. It is the new Wind Demon."

"Wait, what?" I asked.

"Impossible," Ivan said, a look of shock and horror on his face. Weirdly, there was something else.

Guilt?

"The Old Ones are not content to sit in their grand temples and rest their laurels," Jorg said, finally getting up and not taking his eyes off Thistle. "Especially not after fifteen champions had tried to take them down. Zorya Nightbringer severed herself from the corrupted parts of her avatar and bound herself to Veles' child."

"That seems like an objectively terrible idea," Ania said, making an observation that I didn't think actually needed to be stated.

"Prince Cezary is not enjoying his promotion to godhood," Barghest said, sounding surprisingly sad. "Whatever sanity the boy had, that little part of humanity I tried to nurture, was obliterated by the merger. It's now a mindless creature that will rampage through all of Ledziania unless it's destroyed."

"Couldn't have happened to a nicer person," Agata said, having picked up that Earthly idiom from somewhere.

Ivan grunted as if pondering something.

"How did it get down here?" I asked, confused.

"Apollonia, Rhoeas, The Great Mother, the Wise Man, the Red Witch, the Wise Man, and an army of other wizards joined their power together together to bind it down below La Tene," Francine explained. "It is a binding that won't hold forever, though, and they are working on forming a peace treaty united around destroying it."

I blinked. "Well, that's an unexpected twist."

"Yeah, it turns out Cersei will join the fight against the White Walkers," Jon said, referring to the series that Weis was most often accused of ripping off.

"Convenient," Ivan said, disgusted. "Weis finally gains some momentum in his war against Veles and suddenly an enemy to unite all of Ledziania appears."

"There already was an enemy to unite all of Ledziania," I pointed out. "Veles."

Jorg poked the barrier summoned by Joan with his sword and it crackled. "My sister did not view Veles as an enemy. His spirit nurtured her and taught her magic when her mother wanted to lock her away as a mad woman who saw things that weren't there. It took the madness of her son, well more madness than usual, to finally turn her against him. Now why is that elf alive?"

Ivan sighed, clearly not approving of Jorg's monomania. "She was brought back by Veles to kill Aaron, who despite being...Aaron...seems to be the only one actually accomplishing anything."

"I find that remark...accurate," I said.

"Then Aaron forked her and redeemed her soul because Mokosh is a strange, strange world," Ivan said.

"Thistle and I didn't sleep together," I said, coughing into my fist. This was going to be an awkward conversation to have. "There was no magic spooge. She just drank my blood and that took her out."

"What?" Jon asked, doing a double take. "You had a Pwiffle card and everything!"

"She was trying to kill him," Ania grunted, clearly thinking that was the important part.

"I was indeed!" Thistle said.

"Yes, what?" Agata asked.

"She only bit my thigh," I said, uncomfortable. "I passed out before anything, else, could happen. We'd just gotten undressed."

"It was his holy blood that purified my soul!" Thistle said.

Jon shook his head. "Oh man, I was completely wrong about that. I thought she had done way worse."

"She still mind controlled him and drank his blood while attempting to kill him," Ania said. "That qualifies her for death in my opinion."

"Yeah, but just biting?" Jon asked. "That's like...second, third, err, okay I'm not sure what baseball metaphor that qualifies for. If drinking his blood qualifies, then Agata giving naked snuggles qualifies."

"They don't?" Ania asked.

"You think they do?" Agata asked, appalled.

Francine and the rest of the second champion group looked at me strangely. "What the hell kind of operation are you running here?"

"I ask myself that question every day," I said. "At least it's working out for me better than the guy who just played Pwiffle and learned martial arts while screwing everything that moved."

"Hey!" Jon said.

"Yeah, I've heard of that guy," Francine said. "We called him the Idiot Champion."

"Hey!" Jon said.

"In any case, she's under my protection," I replied. "You already killed her once, Jorg. You also killed all her friends. Consider the matter settled."

"Like hell," Jorg said.

"We need to work together," I replied, knowing that it was probably impossible.

"I agree," I heard a voice from the back of their team say.

The red dressed member of their party came into view and she immediately took my breath away. She wasn't overwhelmingly beautiful like Mokosh or Zorya Dawnbringer but had a kind of Girl Next Door quality that was pushed to the eleven. She was a redhead, because of course she was, but was a curvier Felicia Day or Deborah Ann Woll type rather than a Scarlett Johansson.

She was dressed in a red evening gown, fancy dresses being the official uniform for sorceresses in this world despite the impracticality, with a slit. She was wearing practical boots underneath it, though, as well as a broad witches' hat of the kind that you'd find on Halloween. She had a staff of silver similar to the Dragon King's one in my bag of holding.

I admitted, I hadn't been thinking about sex since my questionable encounter with Thistle but immediately felt stirrings as powerful as the ones I'd felt when I'd first seen Ania. I pushed those down, no longer interested in anyone else, but still appreciated the view.

Franchine gestured with her head. "Our attempts to defeat the Wind Demon as a twelve man team failed. We wouldn't have survived without Rachel's help."

Rachel?

Oh no.

No, no, no.

The woman stepped forward, offering her hand and displaying her cleavage with a bounce. "If you really are the one who slayed Zorya Dawnbringer, the world owes you an immense debt. It's what she would have wanted."

I backed away from her like she was radioactive. "Hi."

"I'm Rachel Morning!" The woman said, cheerfully. "Daughter of Zorya Dawnbringer and the Unknown Champion! I make the things go boom!"

I closed my eyes, mortified with embarrassment. "Hi, Rachel, I'm your dad."

Everyone stared at us both.

Goddammit.