Far across the multiverse in a tavern that, depending on one’s point of view, may or may not have actually existed, Zeb, Petunia, Bethany, Bergamot, Cleve, and Zilandrial sat at a large wooden table.
“Thank you, Shauna,” Bergamot said as a buxom woman in a low-cut peasant dress filled their mugs with a “magic” pitcher of beer that never ran dry. “You don’t have to serve us, you know.”
“Oh, I know,” Shauna replied brightly, “but I am a barmaid. Besides, I am not giving up my magic pitcher!” she added with a laugh. “The next batch of stew should be out in a second.”
“If it is as good as this bread…” Cleve said, holding up a thick, floppy piece of flatbread.
“Better!” Shauna exclaimed. “The pantry keeps filling back up with the best stuff! It’s almost a shame to make stew out of it, but the “fancy” chef went to the “fancy” place. We just figured out the roaster thingy, so we’ll be serving roast fowl as soon as the first batch cooks!”
Shauna paused and took a big drink from her pitcher.
“It turns out that you just had to talk to it. Weird… But no weirder than anything else, I suppose. You guys want to wait for the roast fowl?”
“We shouldn’t tarry,” Zeb replied, “We don’t know how long this blessed peace will last.”
“Maybe it’s over?” Bethany the Tinker, now reunited with her beloved hat, asked.
“One can hope,” Zeb shrugged as he drank deeply from his tankard, “but I’m not delaying my repast, and neither should you. When you have fiends like Pantsu and F10w3rchy1d in play, things can get much worse than they already are.”
“Worse?!?” Bergamot exclaimed in horror.
***
Melinda the Stalwart was starting to believe that she should have stayed in bed today.
It was supposed to be her day off! Yeah, things were starting to get “weird,” but with all of those high-rated champions running around up north, it was probably going to get handled pretty quickly… and she was tired of chasing around after their scraps.
Her copper-rated ass was sitting this one out. The fact that everyone had gone gank-crazy just further confirmed that she had the right idea.
So, she decided to head back to the royal city of Raven’s Peak to take advantage of the richer and more powerful adventurers running off to the north, leaving all the armorers, enchanters, alchemists, and publicans in town behind.
It was nice not constantly getting shoved out of the way by stronger champions and ignored by shopkeepers far more interested in their gold than her silver for once.
It started out as such a lovely day, too!
She awoke in a lovely bed at the Blade and Wand, her absolute favorite inn, and a place where it was nearly impossible to get a room without a reservation or a lot more status than she had. There, she enjoyed a wonderful breakfast, at a discounted rate no less, and then went out for a day of crowd-free shopping!
It. Was. Bliss! There were no lines, and all of the storekeepers and craftsmen were all too happy to not only serve her and her meager purse but actually take time to chat!
Then, for lunch, she decided to visit the main branch of the adventurer’s guild, where she had an honest-to-gosh hamburger and fries along with some cider. After that, the plan was to get some training or maybe buy a buff or two…
Well, that was the plan, anyway.
What actually happened was that her wonderful burger, which she could never get under normal circumstances (they were always sold out before a copper-rated nobody could get their coppers taken), was interrupted by the most unholy screams she had ever heard inside or outside a dungeon.
She barely had time to stand before the doors to the guild offices exploded outward, and a demon covered in spikes and flames charged into the main hall.
That looks just like the guildmaster, was about all she had time to think before the fiend was on her.
***
“What’s happening?!?” Melinda cried in terror as she hurtled through absolutely nothing.
(Shh bby is ok)
“H-hello?” she called.
(😊)
“W-who are you? What happened to me?”
(Shh bby is ok)
“Am I… Am I dead?!?”
(is ok)
“Oh, it is definitely NOT okay! Who are you, and what the hell happened?”
The bedbug sighed with exasperation as it bounced off an invisible barrier again.
It had taken too long. The soul was starting to wake up.
Before much longer, it would start to get wiggly. It hated it when they began to wiggle.
Not knowing exactly what else to do, it let out a little ping.
It was answered by thousands of its kind! They couldn’t get through either, so they were having a rave! Awesome!
With a happy little (woo!), it zipped off towards the largest concentration of pings dragging an increasingly indignant Melinda the Stalwart along whether she wanted to or not.
***
“Hahaha!” Tawdry laughed into a prepaid “burner phone” her parents didn’t know about. “I can’t be-lieve you got me fucking grounded, you skank!”
“You’re still grounded?” Claudia snickered, “You diminished that badly?”
“It’s my parents. I managed to talk them down to a week without brain fucking them too hard. Besides, this cell is a lot nicer than the holes you used to stick me in. I’ll just do my time and be done with it. Besides, it will give our friends time to leave town since someone can’t manage to find a freaking truck.”
“First of all, fuck you,” Claudia laughed, “Second of all, thanks for getting that bastard to show up in a park and chase you across all of that nice soft turf. We got a lot of data we didn’t have before.”
“Like what?”
“Like its estimated mass, tire treads, a few lovely material samples where it nailed a park bench while trying to kill you… oh, and confirmation that it actually materializes and dematerializes. We can only assume the little bitch does the same thing. Too bad you couldn’t actually lay hands on her.”
“She was slippery, okay?” Tawdry chuckled.
“Hey,” Claudia said, “before Evika and her party ganked you, did they say anything about whom they were working for, or did they mention a little blonde girl named Petunia… or Pantsu?”
“No, they just said hi and blew my head off. Oh! Stephen did say that David finally confessed to Evika!”
“Took him long enough,” Claudia laughed, “Think he has a chance?”
“I know he has one,” Tawdry replied, “Evika’s gonna drop those drawers any second.”
“Good for her.”
“You said that Robert the Golden Peckerhead got sent back?”
“Yeah, and he is not adjusting well,” Claudia replied, “We have him in a ‘special’ inpatient facility where we are keeping the people with ‘issues’.”
“You got a lot of ‘patients’?”
“Not as many as you would think,” Claudia said, “Not everyone is happy about things, but there is something to be said about not having to sleep with a dagger under your pillow.”
“True that,” Tawdry replied. “High school is a pain, but being able to go out for pizza without an enraged wife (or husband) trying to shank you is nice.”
“Careful,” Claudia laughed, “Enraged spouses here might have a gun. You might want to go easy on the adultery this time around. There is also no magic contraception, and cure disease potions aren’t for sale in every town.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Tawdry groaned. “Doesn’t really matter, though. I might as well be a nun these days.”
“You can’t be diminished that much!”
“I am not into kids, and any man worth screwing isn’t into jailbait. I’m the exact opposite of screwed… Speaking of, you did mention a possible trip to Denmark?”
Stolen novel; please report.
“Aren’t you grounded?”
“I won’t be next week!”
“And how will you explain your sex tourism to your folks?”
“Let me worry about my folks,” Tawdry replied, “You worry about that plane ticket!”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Claudia replied with a chuckle.
Natasha! Come down for dinner!
“I’ll be right there!” Tawdry yelled.
“I gotta go. It’s taco night…”
Tawdry grinned.
“Speaking of tacos, did you get that camel toe fixed yet?”
“And just when we were even, too!” Claudia laughed. “Your little suggestion has everyone looking at my snatch… including me, and I know it’s bullshit!”
“Ha! Is your new fuck toy looking?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Detective Martin! I know you have a thing for that whole world-weary crusader vibe. And don’t think I didn’t see you checking out his ass, either.”
“I have the same problem you do,” Claudia sighed, “worse even. The sort of man I like certainly won’t be messing around with a ‘kid’, even if I am ‘legal’.”
“Yeah, you do like them a bit crusty, don’t you? How about finding some rich asshole who is having a mid-life crisis?”
“I will repeat myself. The sort of man I would like isn’t interested… and won’t be for years.”
“Meh. You’re not giving yourself enough credit… and giving them far too much of it.”
“Well, Slaker turned me down cold… goddamn chain of command…”
“No! You tried to give it up to Slaker?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time…”
“No way! I need details, all of them!”
“Well…”
Natasha! Dinner!
“I have to go,” Tawdry said, “but this is not over!”
***
Vroom? an old Peterbilt truck revved as it sat in a remote corner of a truck stop in the middle of nowhere.
“Still nothing,” the little girl huffed. “How can an entire universe disappear?”
Vroom… Vroom?
“Let’s hope not,” the girl replied, “Even so, he wouldn’t abandon us!”
“What?” the spirit asked with alarm.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” the little girl replied.
“Doesn’t sound like nothing.”
“Okay,” the little girl replied, “There is a remote chance that our boss has had to… um… cease operations and relocate. It hasn’t happened in a really long time, but it has happened.”
“Does that mean that I’m stuck?!?”
“No, of course not. It just means we might have to wait until we’re collected.”
Vroom.
“He won’t forget us!”
VroOoom…
“Hey! Don’t even start talking like that! We’ve done good work for the boss on several worlds. He won’t just discard us!”
“What do you mean, discard?”
“Just watch your anime, weeb,” the little girl snapped. “He hasn’t abandoned us, and he won’t forget us. He’s just… um…”
Vroom.
“I don’t know, alright!” the little girl replied angrily, “I have no idea where those others came from. All I know is that we didn’t squish them.”
VvvrOom.
“If he had another team, I would know about it!”
Vroom?
“I just would, okay! WE AREN’T GETTING REPLACED!... I’m… I’m going to get some air, maybe a Coke or something.”
The little girl threw open the door to the cab angrily and hopped out.
“Hey!” the spirit yelled, “See if they have any audiobooks!”
***
We’ve been abandoned… the little girl thought to herself as she prowled the truck stop trying not to panic.
She had to keep it together for Truck-Kun… and their new companion. If she fell apart, Truck-Kun would, too, and who knows what the spirit would do. He was two seconds from making another run for it as it was.
She paused by a rack of dusty old audiobooks on CD. Now that wasn’t something she had seen in a bit.
Thankful for the distraction, she started perusing the titles. Some of them were things she hadn’t already read (or listened to).
She grabbed a few for herself and then started looking for something appropriately nerdy for her new guest.
She might have murdered them in cold blood, but that was no reason not to be a good host.
She was so distracted by her own troubles and the audiobooks that she didn’t notice that she was being followed until the guy’s shadow fell around her.
She then became aware of his oily aura and smiled.
All work and no play…
“Hello, little girl…”
She looked up at him with an innocent expression and doe-like eyes.
“Hi.”
***
Truck-Kun quietly ground his gears as he watched a beat-up RV pull onto the highway.
Vroom, he grumbled as he put himself in gear and started to follow.
“What?” the spirit asked.
About half an hour later, Truck-Kun pulled over next to an RV that was parked on the side of the highway.
The door opened, and the little girl hopped out, holding a paper bag.
Vroom, the truck revved disapprovingly.
“Such a nice man,” the little girl said impishly as she plopped into the driver’s seat, and the truck drove away.
“Are those bloodstains?” the spirit asked as he pointed at the bag.
“What answer would you prefer?” the girl asked as she pulled out a half-filled fifth of vodka and most of a pack of smokes graciously donated by the nice man in the RV (it wasn’t like he was going to be needing them).
Vroom.
“I know I quit,” the girl replied as she put one in her mouth. “Give me a break. My nerves are shot.”
Vroom.
“Yes, shot enough to smoke menthols!”
The little girl lit up and drew heavily on the cigarette, exhaling a lovely smoke ring.
Vroom!
“So, crack a window!”
Vroom! Vroom! Vrooooom!
“You can’t smell, and you know it! So please, cut me some slack. I’ve had a bad day,” she said as she turned up the bottle of vodka like it was Juicy Juice.
Vroom!
“I know you’ve had a bad day, too,” the girl said as she wiped her mouth, “Want me to get you some fuel treatment at the next stop, maybe some starting fluid?”
Vroom.
“Okay, and a new air freshener, maybe some of those fuzzy dice you like? Deal?”
Vroom!… Vroom?
“As a matter of fact,” the little girl said as she pulled out a wad of bills. “the nice man did keep his cash on him.”
Vroom! the truck revved happily.
***
“Jesus!” Gary Martin, formerly Detective Martin, winced as he looked inside an abandoned old RV the following day.
“Say what you want about her,” Claudia Smythe said as she ate a corn dog. “but she is thorough.”
“We think the girl did this?”
“Matches her MO,” Claudia shrugged as she flicked the corn dog stick aside. “And we have surveillance footage at the truck stop. The asshole was talking to someone small, the cameras didn’t get a good shot of the kid, and eyewitnesses state that he was in the company of his ‘daughter’ when he left.”
“You said this was her MO. She’s done this before?” Gary asked.
“She rolls guys like this for their pocket change. We’re not sure if it’s how they finance their operations or if she just does it for fun, but this is the third one this year.”
A well-dressed and very young man in sunglasses approached the pair.
“Sir Lark,” Claudia said without turning around. “We have an ID on this guy yet?”
“Boris Veetch,” the young man said. “a registered sex offender with an active warrant for skipping out on his parole.”
“Yeah, she likes those,” Claudia shrugged. “Nobody will mourn his passing. He was easily ensnared, and he probably was carrying cash.”
“And she is professional bait,” Gary shrugged. “He was slime, but I’m not sure even he deserved what happened to him, though. What sort of monster would do something like this?”
“You just answered your own question,” Claudia replied, “a monster.”
“If you think this is bad," Lark said as he started photographing the scene, "You should see what a pack of goblins will do if they get the chance."
“Considering what we now know,” Claudia said with a shrug, “this trail is beyond cold. Even if they couldn’t do the whole disappearing act, they could be in any of several states by now. We’ve lost them… again.”
She looked over at Gary.
“Just as well,” she added, “We need to get you processed and briefed… agent.”
She smiled.
“Welcome to the Temporal Protection Agency.”
***
Deep within the deepest dungeon on Asteria Prime, a monstrous giant of a spider fidgeted uncomfortably.
“H-hello… boss,” it said nervously, “T-to w-what do we owe the honor of your visit?”
Frostie smiled an icy smile that filled the giant spider with horror.
“Oh, I was just in the area and thought I would give my friends here,” she said, indicating The Great Erectus, The Herald, and Cuddles, “a tour.”
“O-of c-course!” Log’Sharingoth LXXXIII stammered as their legs twitched miserably. “W-would you like a guide?”
“That would be lovely,” Frostie smiled. “Where’s Pantsu? I think she and The Big Guy over here would get along famously.”
“S-she isn’t available, boss.”
“Not even for me?”
“I-I apologize,” Log’Sharingoth said nervously, “but she isn’t here right now?”
“Well, where did she go?”
“I-I’m not sure, boss…”
“Okay, how about Nova?”
“S-she’s not here, either.”
“Shai-Vai-Loshara?”
“Um…”
“Steve?”
Log’Sharingoth made a whining bubbling noise as they shrank away.
“Why don’t you just tell me who is missing and exactly what the fuck is going on?” Frostie said with an angry gleam in her eye.
***
“…and I don’t know where anyone is!” Log’Sharingoth wailed miserably. “And everything is going wrong, the players almost rioted, and the physics engine threatened to quit! I didn’t know what to doooo!!!”
“And at no point did it occur to you to call me?” Frostie asked with a frightening edge to her voice.
“Pantsu told me not to!!!”
Frostie let out a long-suffering sigh. Of course, the current Log’Sharingoth wouldn’t go against Pantsu. It was horribly unfair to expect otherwise.
“I’m not going to come down on you because of what she did,” Frostie said a bit more gently. “However, since I now clearly know something is amiss, anything you can tell me will be of great value.”
“I-I’m not in trouble?”
“Not from me,” Frostie replied, “and Pantsu won’t be giving you any problems after I’m done with her.”
Frostie paused.
“So, this glitched Pantsu, where is it now?”
“Pantsu had me send it to Tartarus! I’m sorry! But she said to!”
“Sounds like the only sensible thing she’s done thus far,” Frostie replied.
“I didn’t want to, but she told me to do it!”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Frostie shrugged, “sounds like the perfect place for it. Wait. She told you?”
“Yes, Boss!”
“That means you have a line of communications?”
Log’Sharingoth’s multiple eyes all widened with fear.
“Y-yes?”
“Call her and tell her to give me her location… now.”
“Y-yes boss…”
Log’Sharingoth fell silent for a few moments.
“Um… Boss?”
“Let me guess,” Frostie said, “You can’t reach her, can you?”
“No, Boss.”
“Fine,” Frostie grumbled. “We do this the hard way. You’ve done a great job, considering everything.”
“I have?” Log’Sharingoth asked hopefully.
“You have,” Frostie said reassuringly. “Keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll send a crisis response team to help out in the meantime.”
“A… A crisis response team?” Log’Sharingoth asked fearfully.
“You didn’t think you were getting off scot-free, did you?” Frostie laughed as she and her companions disappeared.
“…Ssssshit,” Log’Sharingoth hissed as she stalked off into the shadows.
***
The hominid looked around at their new surroundings.
Everything was white. The floor was white. The walls were white. The furniture was white…
Even the plants were white…
And everything was spotless.
“Interesting décor,” he said after a few seconds.
“They like to keep things tidy,” Frostie replied as she took a seat on one of the white couches.
“They?” the ape-man asked dubiously as Cuddles slipped one of her tentacles into The Herald’s hand.
He gently gripped it, causing Cuddles to suppress a delighted squeal.
“Playtime is over,” Frostie said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I’m calling in my real operatives.”
“Jesus!” The Great Erectus exclaimed as a spotless white door opened, and a short, slender blue male amphibian-like biped in a white tunic bearing a three-headed dog embroidered with platinum thread walked in.
“You never told me you had… them!”
“Oh, you are familiar with their kind?”
“Those little monsters are responsible for the death of entire universes! Every time there is a parallel manifestation of those… monsters… entire galaxies die.”
“They can be a handful,” Frostie said pleasantly, “But I’ve found them incredibly valuable over the years… for that very same reason. These do come from much more reasonable stock from a much more reasonable ancestor... Maybe 'reasonable' is pushing it a little,” Frostie added with a laugh. "Reasonable for one of them, at least."
The blue amphibian smiled pleasantly and blinked his huge amber eyes, their pleasant hue replaced with a whirling madness of color.
“Hello, Hades,” Frostie said with a smile. “It has been quite a while. How have you been?”
“Bored,” Hades replied. “I trust you have come to alleviate that?”
“Most definitely,” Frostie replied. “Awaken the others…”
“…It’s time to hunt.”