“Grr, Billy you really don’t do things halfway do you?” said Edna. Looking over a quarterly report made up of diffuse figures, measures and speculations for the Bone Tree Company’s past, present and future. Bemoaning her new new workload for about the thousandth time this year.
There was such a thing as too much good fortune. Someone with no means to manage certain assets whether its the use or the storage, would end up being troubled. Especially when it was human resources instead of food or money. It had been a year ago since she and Elena had to step away from the business as they undertook some serious closed door training.
Leaving Billy in charge as the sole principal. Six months after returning and Edna was still having trouble making heads or tails out of what Billy had done. Their little company had grown up and become a monster while she wasn’t looking. And as the executive officer who was usually responsible for actually running things, she felt more than a little in over her head.
The only consolation was that Elena, was handling the numbers and doing the accounting. Otherwise Edna could see herself wanting to run away. She probably wouldn’t do it, but she could see herself thinking about it.
“Oi...Ed. Edna-Rae. Come on out. The show’s starting.” said Elena.
*****
The phrase ‘the world is always ending’ is one that fit Monde to a tee. What else could one expect from a world that was more or less a powder keg of dangerous magic and the volatile pathos of billions sentients both living and dead.
There were two qualifications that Great Kingdoms and Empires used when handing down work that absolutely had to be seen to, to the various powers of the land. The first was the SSS-Rank. The second was the Calamity-Class. They both amounted to the same thing, and they appeared in paperwork far more often then the average Mondian would be comfortable with, if they were aware of it.
*****
Edna and Elena stood on a bit of jagged stone that had managed to be just tall enough to not be buried beneath the Meallan sand. Behind them was a doorway into the world of nothingness and shadow. Also known as N-Doors. With such doors having become the girl’s most favored method of conveyance, by virtue of being faster than their carriage, or flight, and being less jarring than teleportation.
The only apparent downside being that the N-Doors required that one know exactly where one was going if one didn’t want to get lost. Similar to proper teleportations requirement that one be familiar with a place that one was teleporting to, usually through having been there before.
A problem that Elena fixed by using what Edna termed a frankly stupid amount of aether and brute force to leap up high enough to get feel for the continent. Just barely managing to avoid getting eaten by a thing with a rust covered, chitinous carapace, massive red headlights for eyes, propellers instead of wings and whirring teeth. A feat that had both astounded Edna and scared her silly.
Earning a rare double scolding with Billy joining in the mix by sending her a text frowny face and warning to be more careful.
Speaking of Billy it’d been weeks since Edna and Elena had gotten to see him in person. With the business of running the company taking up most of their time, while Billy ran whatever scheme he was running out in the hinterland.
Sure there were phone calls, and texts and in truth ‘they’ at least should have been able to teleport over or use the N-Doors to get to his place. But somehow it always felt like there wasn’t enough time and what little they managed to spend together was never enough. Just a few hours here and there, maybe a day, if they were willing to risk things getting out of hand for the following week.
Edna wasn’t sure why Billy didn’t just come back and live in Gene with them. If he really wanted to pretend to not be available and keep low key all he’d have had to do was just stay in the house, besides she imagined that he’d have some other means if he really decided he wanted to stay with them.
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Still he stayed in the Hinterland. She asked why and he’d just answered with a vague ‘various reasons’. Whatever ‘that’ was supposed to mean. She accepted it, because he seemed set on it and seemed to have something in mind. Ignoring the quiet loneliness, that came with missing one of their number.
Surprised by how much she missed having his lanky, overly quiet frame, skulking about and laying about. Taking up the space that he tended to take. Making noises that were comforting in their familiarity.
*****
“Say cheese.”
Elena turned Edna around and then turned in place using the bespelled camera app on the phone band to take a picture.
“Hey, what are you doing? We’re here to work not take a vacation.” said Edna.
Being all responsible and business like and proper like usual. Elena rolled her eyes. Used to her friend and her little contradictions. Such as the fact that she’d smiled quite prettily in the picture they just took a second ago. It wasn’t even that stiff, business smile she wore for strangers, either.
“Life is for the living Ed. If you can find some fun, while you’re making money, why not?”
“Mhm…” said Edna. Sounding unconvinced.
Elena just shrugged. One hand outstretched as she called her halberd out from a pool of shimmering shadow. The thing feeling like it was just another part of her as it fell into her grip.
From behind them there was a deep almost mournful groan. Sonorous like whale song. The centerpiece of their little selfie was getting antsy.
The name was Tectoniaderm, also known as the Gigas Star. They were a rare kind of demonbeast that generally stayed on the far off and inhospitable continent of demonbeasts.
Looking like an enormous bejeweled seastar, but one that was several hundred miles in length and width and a least a few hundred feet in height.
Watching it approach was unsettling thing, like watching a never ending landslide. This beast was a calamity-class existence. A living disaster that could destroy countless cities and lesser kingdoms if left undealt with. Literally running them over, reducing them to rubble with the crystallized bumps on its surface shot down anything that got too close.
A monster with the potential to dramatically weaken if not kill an entire continent of Monde. At the minimum causing a fall in fortunes similar to the one that was witnessed in Lloyd, to all the Great Kingdoms.
“Are you done fooling around, Ell?” said Edna.
“Pft...I’m always fooling around, Ed. Regardless of what else I happen to be doing. You know that. So why even ask.”
“.....Right. Whatever, let’s go.”
*****
The two women leapt up, jumping hundreds of feet into the air. One used her ability to manipulate force and momentum, stay tethered to the sky. The other rose above the clouds, briefly entering the range of the beasts that ruled the heavens before falling like an asteroid.
Edna’s new improved auxiliary AWs were smaller than the older models but packed a bigger punch. Loosing a shower of a million white motes that detonated like bombs as they reached their target. With the AWs switching to beam mode immediately afterwards. Releasing a solid ray of nothingness, chaotic energy and force.
The beast screeched at her assault but its screaming really only started when Elena finished her downward arc, falling from the sky and slamming into its body before the turret orbs on its flesh could react.
Sinking deep into its tissues while Edna continued firing from above. It slow march was halted as thrashed and trembled while standing into place. Making the most painful sounds. Sounding like a stuck pig as it evacuated blood and mucus and bile. Kicking up dust and nearly putting a crack in the continental shelf with its violent spasms and pained undulations.
Elena found herself immersed in a sea of sticky pink. Her aura being all that separated her from Gigas Star’s corrosive insides. She wielded the halberd, twining her own tail around it and raising her aura. The pole-arm spinning like drill. Boring through the great beast’s flesh. Then she charged forwards heading for the center of the beast, aiming for the Gigas Star’s heart and brain.
Up above, Edna continued firing. Filling the air with light and smoke and fire. Charring living flesh into dead charcoal and violently reducing most of that charcoal into a nothingness that there were no words for. Delaying her rate of fire just enough to assure that she didn’t hit her partner and to make that her core fire kept the beast from rapidly recovering from the way Elena was tearing it up inside.
*****
“Quite brutal, don’t you think.” said one man to another.
“Eh...I think they’re still a bit green.” said a third man.
‘They’, the group of five that stood at the edge of the battlefield, were also of the second realm. Super Elites of the KOG Adventurer’s guild. Backup personnel who’d been sent just in case the girls dropped the ball. After all, this time the fate of multiple Great Kingdoms was in the balance.
They held back because that was what decorum required and because the Bone Tree Company had bought up the primary rights to the job. An expensive, risky but possibly highly lucrative venture.
They’d thought it foolish but as they watched the great landstar thrash and die, they found themselves thinking other things. With those of them who held close ties with certain ambitious kingdoms and sects finding themselves in quite a thoughtful and speculative mood.