“You what?” Avon asked in a flat tone, her tail whipping behind her in irritation.

“I mean to make you my woman.” I repeated. “You hear that King Lardo? You can keep your jewelry and daughter and junk. My reward will be her.”

“I will not be some human’s reward!” She was positively fuming. She must have really hated humans in general. Typical racist, at least get to know me before you judge me.

“Who said anything about pets? Well, you did earlier, but that’s besides the point. These guys here,” I pointed towards the King and family, “Brought me here to kill you. And rather than kill you’d I’d much prefer to find an alternative measure. Such as making you my woman.”

Unsteady murmurs arose among the crowd that had gathered to watch my summoning. My ears picked out key words such as ‘Betrayer’ and ‘Scandalous’. Apparently they didn’t think to kindly of a human and a demon getting together. Must have been some sort of taboo, but nuts to them. I knew they were just jealous because I was the only one with the balls to admit she was hot and I wanted to get after that.

Avon’s face contorted in a rage as she ground her teeth together and growled. “I’d rather throw myself into a black hole than be chained to some monkey’s hand. My underlings will be under express orders to take you alive, Hero. I will have you brought before me in chains and I will break you myself until you are nothing but a shell of the man you once were.”

“You certainly know how to tell a guy you love him.” I winked.

With an ungodly roar, Avon disappeared in a brief flash of light. This is why I always take away a few points on the woman judging scale, every woman has repulsive qualities that they hide until later. That roar was horrendous. Regardless, I was going to make her my woman and there was nothing anyone could do to stop me.

A sudden buzzing sound rumbled from behind me. More followed until the buzzing filled the room like a swarm of angry bees. A quick glance around revealed that all the guards had, once again, pointed their weapons towards me. Weapons that were now edged in a blue-ish light. That was different.

“You would willingly consort with a demon? The Demon Lord at that?!” King Lardo had recovered and sputtered from his squeaking throne. It’d make my day if that thing were to break from his current tantrum. “My son was right, hero. You are naught but a cur! Guards! Kill him so we may summon the true hero!” In a mass of bodies, the armored guards with their glow swords charged towards me.

“Back off or Tiny Tim gets it!” I yelled out and placed the sword I held over the Prince’s neck. Guards that had moved towards me quickly backed off. They looked towards one another and then back to the King who was sweating bullets. The Queen dabbed Lardo with a handkerchief as he fumed.

“Leave my son alone, villain.” Porky squealed, “And we shall allow you to leave in peace.”

“Do you think I was born yesterday? Sorry but no deal. You’ll only have me followed and killed. If we do this, we do it my way.”

“And what do you propose, exactly?”

“We proceed like we were before. You send me off to beat the Demon Lord and I’ll get out of your hair until the jobs done.”

“Why would we-”

“We accept.” The Queen interrupted and stared at the King in a challenging manner. Marriage problems always tend to come out at the most opportune times. “There is no reason we cannot be civil, husband.”

Oh yeah, major marriage problems. Shit is always mad real when the woman calls her man ‘Husband’ instead of by name. Or was it shit gets real when she says your name? Honestly, I forget, but it was all good so long as I could get on with my life. With great reluctance, the King signaled his men to stand down. Light-blades dissipated and returned to their sheaths.

“Great, lets get to business.”

—————————————————

Aevalonis Malwyrd Kalrastros growled angrily as she strode out of the holo-room, the doors closing with an air-tight seal behind her. Metal clanked underfoot as she marched through crowded halls. Blue-skinned demons just like her rushed to and fro with handheld holo-displays. Groups with heat-resistant masks wielding welding torches affixed bits of scrap metal to the sides of walls that currently had holes in them. Their ship had been damaged in the previous attack on human controlled territory. A self-defense satellite had resisted their hacking attempts and landed a few lucky hits upon their ship before they could have gotten the shields up.

Approaching a planet such as Araxium Vos I with shields up would have alerted any nearby forces long before they had approached orbit. As it were, stealth was the Demon’s greatest ally. But acquiring this world and it’s shipyards would put an end to that. Aevalonis stopped at a side window to stare at the orbital shipyards that were no building ships for her forces. In a few months time, they’d have fresh battleships to counter the Human’s military might.

Silently, she prayed that the humans would never find out that they struck from only a handful of worlds. Their entire effort to reclaim worlds that once belong to them balanced precariously on repeated victories. Failure was not an option. Men and women of various races saluted as she passed, to which she nodded in response, setting them at ease. This rebellion had been a long time coming, and the Humans would pay blood for blood.

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“Status report.” Aevalonis demanded as she reached the bridge and sat in the Captain’s chair.

“Repairs are proceeding ahead of schedule.” An engineering officer spoke from his station. His displays earlier had shown dangerous red due to multiple air breaches that were now a warning yellow. “The Maiden’s Vengeance will be ready to sail by this time tomorrow if we proceed as is.”

“Give the men my commendations and order them to slow work on repairs. We won’t be dead in the water now so we can afford a little time to relax.” She spoke while scanning through the latest reports of the planet-side invasion. They had since secured the mines and several major cities on the rocky surface of Araxium Vos I. Only a few holdouts remained that would fall quickly with the combined efforts of her forces and the newly liberated slaves.

“Captain,” A young girl with a dog-like face began. Saphyxes, a genetically modified race of once-humans that were created for the sole purpose of “relaxation” for the “superior” humans. Scars ran along the girl’s face, a tribute to the mercy of her previous master. Just the thought of such a thing made her body quiver in a rage. Her entire body was covered in fur beneath her uniform. She wore no gloves, nor boots, as none of the standard issue ones would fit her kinds paws. Regrettably, there were no plans to develop shoes or gloves for them either. The rebellion’s sole focus was winning a nigh-impossible war.

“Yes Lyrin?” Aevalonis responded, using the girl’s name. The two had become close friends in the early days of the rebellion.

“Did you make it to the summoning? Any useful information about their new acquisition?” Ears perked up all around the bridge.

“The new Hero.” She growled. “Declared that he would make me his woman.” Not but the sound of consoles beeping was heard upon the bridge as Aevalonis slammed her fist upon the arm of her chair. “Let all our ships know, I will pay a bounty to any who bring me the Hero, Chet, alive if possible. But I’ll lose no sleep if they bring me his corpse.”

——————————————————

Where the hell had I gone wrong? One moment I was sure this was nothing more than a fantasy world of swords and sorcery, yet here I am in an orbital car and flying upwards into the planet’s atmosphere. Sure, it would be a nice ride were it not for me sharing the car with King Lard, Princess Perfect, and the Queen who sat next to me and rubbed my leg whenever the King wasn’t paying attention.

“Look Hero, isn’t the view from here absolutely stunning?” the Princess asked as she stared out the window towards the massive skyscrapers far below. Turns out, the Capital was actually the Capital Planet and it was covered in one giant sprawling city. “Every time I see this view it leaves me breathless. And to think this is only one of the many planets under our banner!” The girl had turned from shy to chatty as hell the moment we stepped into the shuttle.

Well, we stepped, King Lard levitated upon his golden throne. No wonder he was so fat, dude wouldn’t have to use his legs with a chair like that. Wouldn’t be surprise if he had them removed for being unnecessary.

“Yeah, its certainly something.” I spoke, barely glancing out the window, doing my best to try to ignore the increasingly bold hand upon my leg. “So, King dude, where are we headed for again?” The Queen clicked her tongue just loud enough for me to hear as the King turned his attention to me.

“Don’t you pay attention? The royal shipyard of course!” The man spat in irritation.

“Oh right. Why are we going there again?”

“To give you your ship to hunt down the Demon Lord in! Gods, its like I’m talking to my son here.”

“You obviously didn’t hit him enough when he was younger. Force fosters respect after all.”

“I’ll have to remember that for the next time we have a boy.” He grumbled. Yeah, fat chance of that happening.

Metal beams formed two skeletal cylindrical foundations housing an astronomical amount of mechanical arms. Mechanical arms that worked constantly placing prefabricated metal plates and welding them together forming the shell of a ship. Within the shell, hundreds of workers laid down wiring, setting the foundations of what would become a massive cruiser class ship. Sadly, that was not to be my ship, but one used by the royal navy.

“And here we are.” The King announced as he proudly presented a small ship able to be commanded by a single pilot. “This right here is our top-of-the-line Corvette class ships. The Xaylix, proudly named after one of our greatest admirals from long ago.”

“Why am I here again if you have an entire armada to hunt the Demon Lord?” The past thirty minutes had been nothing but the King talking about the nation’s proud history and unbeatable navy. History that I needed to know like I needed a stroke.

“The sync-rate boy! Don’t you ever pay attention?” The King sighed, “Single pilot ships have advanced integration software that allows the ship and the pilot to act as if they were one! A marvel of technological progress!”

“Still not hearing why I’m needed.” I tapped my feet as I ran my eyes along the body of my new ship. It looked like a crescent moon shape-wise, with a single massive engine connected beneath the central body. A pair of cannons that shot a choice of either metal slugs or condensed plasma at high speeds were placed at the ends of both wings. To the left and right of the engine sat heavy ordinance bays for mines, missiles, or other goodies. Not the brightest place to put the highly explosive bits on a ship, but thats just my opinion.

“Our pilots at best can manage only a fifty percent sync-rate. This leads to delays in actions between the pilot’s mind and the ship’s movement anywhere from one to three seconds. An entire lifetime in the cockpit of a high speed attack craft such as this. Yet, those we summon are able to achieve near one hundred percent sync-rates.”

“So I won’t have any delays. Gotchya.” I took a deep breath to steady myself. I wasn’t nervous, but I was super fucking excited to get my own space ship! I feel bad for insulting King Lard and his son now, I didn’t know I’d get to cruise through space in style! “I’m going in.” I announced and strode down the loading bay towards my ship.

“If you need any help, call central control. They’ll sort everything out!” The Princess spoke from behind me. I raised up a hand and waved as the bay closed behind me.