The boob-cowboy glanced over and spotted Jim with a knife through his chest and half of his floating ribs torn away.

“Well, Shee-it, looks like I missed the party.” He said as he dismounted, spitting some dark brown chew off to the side. He turned back toward Alicia, his hands on his hips, wedding tackle flopping in the dusty wind. This all would have been fine with Garth had the man not been wearing the same idealized body as Garth’s. Obviously Dr. Daniels and he shared the same asthetic.

“Hey there, Missy,” he said with a deepened, southern accent. “They call me the boob cowboy, or B.C. for short. You’ve got a hell of a lotta talent to kill this varmint alone.” His eyes flickered down to her staggering hips and back up. “Real talent.”

“Umm…” Alicia said, giving the abomination a confused, scared look as she backed away.

“She’s…Taken…” Garth wheezed.

“Ho-lee Shit!” he said, flinching away from Garth. “You’re still alive. Hey, you look familiar, pardner.”

“Drop…the…bit.”

“I’ll quit having fun when I’m dead.” Dr. Daniels said, squatting down beside him. “Nice to see you again, brother from an identical mother.” He poked Garth in his collapsing chest. “You seem like you’re in a hell of a pickle.”

“Listen…I…Hate…to…ask…a…favor…but…could…you…buy…another…

SEVENTY-FIVE SECONDS.

“Seventy…five…seconds?”

“Sure,” he said, and the titty monster rushed off to wreak havoc on the dust filled battlefield. “I don’t need all of me to do that, though.”

He sat his bare ass down on the dirt, regarding Garth impassively. “So where have you been, winner of the cosmic coin toss?”

“Balls…deep…in…Beladia.”

“No kidding? Maybe I should consider converting, or at least adding to my portfolio.”

“I doubt…she’d…take…you.”

“Please, from what I’ve heard, she has lower standards than Munasei.”

“How’bout…you?”

“I went a little crazy for awhile from eating too many people, but you know how that is. Also had to lay low because of the quarantine.”

Garth saw a bimbo with ridiculously oversized pink lips and breasts searching through a headless orc’s clothes until she found something she was looking for. She pulled out a golden artifact of some kind and twisted it, disappearing in an instant to some other planet.

“Should…I…be…worried?”

“Nah, Crystal’s not the brightest bulb. She’ll probably wind up working at a strip joint or an alien seven eleven.” Dr. Daniels said, following Garth’s gaze. “The one you really gotta watch out for is the mastermind supervillain I made when I got bored…oh, there he goes…nevermind.”

He snapped his attention back to Garth. “That reminds me, have you ever had sex as a woman? It’s totally awesome, like, your entire body goes limp and you can’t do anything but make monkey sounds.”

“That’s…nice.”

“Who the hell is he?” Alicia asked.

Garth limply waved at Dr. D. to do the introductions.

“Right,” he said, standing up and holding his hand out for a shake, incidentally affording Garth an excellent view of his bare ass. Garth rolled his eyes.

“My name is Garth Daniels, but when he and I are in the same place, we usually call me Dr. Daniels, or Dr. D.”

When Alicia hesitantly grasped his hand, he clasped a second hand over it. “Not gonna lie, I’m digging the Hartman Hips, but if you ever want a little more up top, I’m the guy to know. I haven’t practiced in a few centuries, but altering the human body is like riding a bicycle.”

She pulled her hand out of his, staring at him warily.

“Alicia Denton. Garth’s apprentice.”

“Why apprentice yourself to the lame Garth when you can study under the cool one who can allow you to reshape your body on a whim? …that reminds me…”

He turned to Garth. “Have you seen my dragon anywhere? Ink-black skin, green eyes, straight black hair, short-stack. I lost contact with her around Chicago.”

“I…saw…a…statue.”

“A statue is good, if she got famous, I might be able to get in touch with her again. Where was the statue?”

“His…Church.” Garth pointed a thumb.

“Son of a bitch!” Dr. Daniels stalked up to the corpse and started kicking it. “How many things are you going to fucking steal from me before you’re fucking satisfied!?”

Alicia looked over and finally took a real good look at the corpse she’d been standing next to for a while now.

“Is…is that the Founder?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

She started shaking like a leaf, her face becoming white as snow as the blood drained from it.

“In a manner of speaking,” Garth said between gasps. “Pretty sure the Founder was a magical parasite in my brother’s head dictating his every move, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Stupid, piece, of, shit,” Dr. Daniels said as he kicked the corpse. “Steal, my, dragon?”

Dr. Daniels took a deep breath and relaxed his shoulders, turning back to Garth. “So where’s the other one?”

“What?”

“Kuragor promised humiliation for Jim and Dragus. Where’s the other one?”

“Working…on it.” Garth said.

Time?

TEN SECONDS.

Mareen shot out of the dust like a bullet, her palm held out in front of her. Her hand flashed with a brilliant light, and an identical shape was torn through Dr. Daniel’s head. Dr. Daniels staggered back, slumping to the ground and spilling brains everywhere while Mareen moved on.

She swung her arm around to Alicia, and Garth used the last of his strength to reach out and wrench her feet out from under her.

The blast of force cut a hand-shaped void through the air, that made a strange pinging sound as the air rushed back into the tunnel. Mareen was adjusting for another shot as Alecia fell, But Alicia was just a bit faster.

Alicai screamed as Mana poured into her falling body, converted to lightning inside her and spilled out, slamming into Mareen with physical force, piercing her Lantern with raw energy.

I guess that’s one way to do it, Garth thought, irritated at being solely a spectator. It was taking all of his mana control to keep his brain running with its backup systems working overtime.

Mareen hit the ground face first, but she didn’t stay down, flipping over onto her feet in a mind-bendingly fast move while Alicia was still struggling to put her legs under her.

Mareen snarled and raised her hand again, when Dr. Daniels caught the side of her face with a backhand. Mareen was catapulted away, limbs flailing as she spun through the air.

“Do you have any idea how much that stings?” he said, his head regrowing as bits of brain matter grew legs and inch-wormed their way up to his foot where they rejoined the rest of his body, T-1000 style.

“I’m not here for you, abomination.” Mareen said.

“How about now?” Dr. Daniels said, waving a hand. At his bidding, mana everywhere pressed gently, precisely down on the dirt in the air, settling it all to the ground and revealing the desert battlefield, where thousands of clan members from across the multiverse were either being consumed by inhuman monsters, or fighting back to back with their sworn enemies to survive the tide of flesh that was washing over them from the east.

The people being shoveled into the maw of terrifying horror-creatures or engulfed by normal-seeming civilians included the four hundred Dan Ui Clan members, who had been closer to the East, somehow brought down to earth and then overrun.

Mareen let out a wordless scream of rage and sailed into the air. Garth saw mana flood in around her, gathering like a storm in quantities he’d never seen a living being process before.

She pointed her finger downward, and with the storm of mana coursing through her body, a single green bolt of densely packed mana shot forward, aimed at one of the abominations with a gaping mouth, currently devouring an unconscious Dan Ui member.

The only way Garth could describe what happened next was a reverse nuclear blast. Like a shockwave travelling inward, mana congregated into a bright star at the tip of a single claw on the abomination’s hand, where it intercepted the green bolt of energy, and together they ceased to exist.

“A curse?” The creatures said as one, looking up at Mareen. “You think you can kill all of me through one of me? Allow me to respond in kind.”

Every extention of Dr. D. raised a limb and a scintillating sphere formed around Mareen, beginning to shrink. The corio’s form was partially concealed within the sphere, but Garth could see that she was attempting to break free.

“I’ll crush you into a marble.” Dr. Daniels said, slowly clenching his fist as the sphere shrunk. “The fun thing about this spell is it actually gets stronger the smaller the bubble gets. Surface area to power ratio. If you couldn’t break out at first, you never will.”

Mareen’s horn’s snapped off one after the other as the suffocating sphere closed down around her, jerking her head as the sudden pressure was released.

Dr. Daniels could be a problem, Garth thought to himself. In the eight hundred years the creature had been missing, he’d reached a level that Garth couldn’t touch. Not yet, anyway.

The sphere was about beach-ball sized when a light shone down from above, encasing Garth in a paralyzing field.

“By order of the Inner Spheres, Garth Daniels of Earth is under arrest for war crimes.” Came a booming voice in the sky.

0 seconds.

“Eh?” Dr. Daniels said, moments before a blinding light bore down on him, reducing him and all his offshoots to ash.

Garth knew that he had spares hidden away somewhere, though. The creature was impossible to get rid of.

Dr. Daniel’s spell unraveled, and Mareen and her horns fell towards the ground, unmoving. Another beam of light halted her mid-fall. More and more beams of light encased people, freezing them like they were trapped in amber, including Alicia beside him.

“You have all been subpoenaed.”

Garth relaxed and allowed himself to fall unconscious. The fuzz had finally arrived, and that meant he could finally catch a nap.

***

When he opened his eyes again, he was in a rather spacious prison cell, thirty feet by sixty feet, with a king-sized bed, walk-in closet, partially detached kitchen and master bathroom.

He looked down at his chest and stomach and saw that the rotting curse he’d been struck with had been cured by means unknown, leaving him once again with his unearned six pack.

Garth peeled the silk sheets off and slid his feet out onto the lukewarm floor, flexing and unflexing his toes while he yawned lazily.

This is the life.

The way he knew it was a prison cell was that one side of the entire room was made of reinforced glass that allowed spectators and guards to keep a close eye on him. That and he had already been informed where he would end up, and what it would look like.

“Chi’tet, nice to see you again.” Garth said, scratching himself as he hunted around the cell for some pants. The Tzetin lawyer was sitting outside the glass on a table with a briefcase and notepad. Very lawyerly.

“You as well. It took quite a while for your body to reverse the damage in a mana-voided environment, you missed a week of planning.”

Garth glanced up at the massive Aether crystals in the ceiling flushing all the mana out of the room.

“I’ll bet.”

“You have two weeks until your Trial. During the time you have been asleep, I have been in contact with the estate and it has agreed to name you as the owner. I also made overtures to Mr. Nielshin, and he has responded positively to your sentencing bargain. So far so good…”

“I’m sensing a but, here.” Garth said, eyeing the subtle twitching of

“He wishes that you avoid embarrassing him, and requires you to work elves rule, Humans drool into a sentence while in court.”

Garth chuckled. “That’s an easy one.”

“Very well, I wasn’t sure you’d agree to the terms. I’ll make a note.” Chi’tet said.

“How much was my bounty?” Garth asked.

“Forty million Credits,” she said, still scribbling.

“Does that cover my retainer?”

“Barely,” Chi’tet said with a bit of humor/sarcasm in the inflection of her antennae. “I’ve already used a fair amount of it to make sure you were assigned to a prison of our liking, where you’re unlikely to disappear under mysterious circumstances, along with securing the amenities you see, as well as your cellmate.”

“My what?”

Alicia stepped out of the kitchen, dunking a bit of bread in soup. She glanced up and spotted Garth talking to Chi’tet in the nude, turned bright red and spun on her heel, heading back.

She was wearing a t-shirt and underwear stretched tight by her spellbinding butt, showing a few tantalizing inches of tummy where her shirt rode up. She had mussed up hair, like she’d just gotten out of bed.

“You’re one of the good ones, Chi’tet. You and your mom.”

“I provide this level of support for all my clients. You are not special.”

“Sure, sure,” Garth said, eyeing the kitchen that Alicia had retreated to. “You said I’ve got two weeks locked in a penthouse?”

“Fifteen days to be more precise.”

“I’m gonna go…Have some breakfast.”

Chi’tet did the Tzetin equivilant of an eye-roll.