This was Onslaught’s day according to the timetable and the present day of the week that they all agreed upon (if only because Lois Knight needed to know when Sunday is for masses). With Onslaught being clearly in a mood (then again, she rarely wasn’t in a mood and Revenant was perfectly alright with it), it took the two of them a while to go through a mandatory shower and go back to bed.
The best part of the commplants thing? It made communication extremely easy, as implied in the name to begin with. You could send a ‘we’re almost done’ message from your shower with a thought.
As a result, by the time they returned to the captain’s quarters, Hypothermia and Kitsune were already there, waiting for them for their nightly ‘sleep cuddle pile’ ritual. Hypothermia was wearing her otter onesie.
Kitsune was wearing a big fat nothing, sitting on the verge of the bed, her tail sprawled out behind her.
“Really?” Revenant comments, just as his eyes devour the sight she was so generously giving him. It’s completely not the same thing as seeing her in a tube, especially as she bent slightly to give him a better look (while still covering the most important parts… and winking at him with a toothy grin). “No clothes whatsoever?”
He’s helping Onslaught walk towards the bed. The way in which she walks has significantly improved after the microsurgeries, being almost able to walk straight but she still needed to lean on someone as she wasn’t doing so well with balancing her body.
“Hey, I wanna be comfortable!” Kitsune shouts back. “I always sleep naked, duh. Fur is a bit of a pain occasionally. And I tend to not wear underwear too!” Yes, that explains why he saw none of it while handing her the clothes spawned from the Magical Wardrobe. “But I can wear it for you, if I find a nice one.”
He has a feeling that ‘nice’ in this case means ‘the sort that makes you feel more naked than if you were just naked’. Ehh, Kitsune was being a handful, he expected that much. Everyone in the room was really tired of waiting.
They were skipping all the steps while getting there, and making up for years of avoiding the subject, years of one-sided love that never got realized. He was fairly sure that in a few weeks or months they’d calm down and get more… adult about it.
For now, they were all thirsty teenagers, just chronologically older than usual. Then again, with how everyone was living longer today, they might have as well been in the teenage age range. There was a reason why Humility told them to add thirty years to their biological age when mentioning how old they were to the locals.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Revenant says, while doing his best to ignore the wry smile on Onslaught’s face. She probably had some weird things in mind, and it probably involves using Hypothermia’s and Kitsune’s eyes to find some nice underwear for herself. “For now, bed.”
Hypothermia to one edge of the bed (thankfully, it was a rather big one). Then Revenant, and behind him, Onslaught and Kitsune. That’s the arrangement for the day. Revenant is somewhat surprised that Kitsune is okay with that. But… before they doze off, Kitsune suddenly speaks.
“Uhm, Blackie?” She says, Onslaught and Hypothermia clearly unsurprised by it (Revenant notes down that the girls probably got a convo going and that it was a communal decision). “Want me to give you a quick back massage? I’m sure you’re stressed and tense and…”
“Fine.” Revenant sighs before turning over to lie face down. Should he change his pajamas to the ones looking like silky, flexible business suits? That way, if someone attacked him in the middle of the night, he would at least die while looking stylish. “You really waited for a long time to do it, right?”
“Aye, aye!” Kitsune salutes to him (he sees that in the corner of his eye, his head now lying on its side at his pillow, his eyes tracking Kitsune’s movements). She has moved over Onslaught and was now sitting on Revenant’s back (or, more, like, over it), saluting and then cracking her fingers with a look that could only be summed up as ‘Vindication!’. “I was offering it to you for a long time, but you were always all like ‘no, I have no time for this’.”
“I mean, fine.” Revenant sighs. “It was way too much physical contact with the opposite sex for my grieving ass. Sorry. Telling you that after you spent so much time learning how to do a professional massage just for me was a dick move, one more on the list.” He can as well fix it now.
Kitsune gives his body a proper feel (is that a part of the procedure or is she just taking advantage of the situation?), before starting the massage. Onslaught and Hypothermia are observing the events, although the former is only listening to it naturally.
“Wow, looks like foxes truly are the middle-ground between cats and dogs.” Revenant comments. “It feels as if a big cat was kneading my back, Kitsune.”
“That’s the point!” Kitsune says happily. “You should give me a cutesy nickname too, Blackie! But that’s for the future. Because for now, I have something else to do. Namely, I’m going to make you sleep like a baby… and almost immediately too!”
“Yeah, right.” Revenant replies. “I don’t think that a massage can work this well. Especially as I don’t even have any sleeping problems whatsoever. And I…”
“And that’s the fun party, Blackie!” Kitsune says. “Because my massage is one filled with love, and that makes it romantic! And this is the strongest and most powerful, errr, power in the universe!”
“I think I’d take Captain Patriotic’s individuality over it, when power scaling is involved.” Revenant says dryly. “Don’t get me wrong, I know that love can lead to many things happening, especially when you overdose on it like I did, but…”
He blinks. Kitsune is no longer there, instead he can see her lying on her back at the verge of the bed, on the quilt, and with her hands thrown above her head, to the both sides of the pillow, the woman snoring quietly with her eyes closed.
There is a thick bump under the quilt between them, betraying Onslaught’s location. Hypothermia is on the other side of him. The quick check of the commplant’s later, he realizes that he fast-forwarded to the morning.
Holy crap. He stands corrected. Love is a terrifying power indeed, and Kitsune was a master at using it. Can she weaponize it? Is it possible to use it for increased weapon damage or something? Maybe if she saw her beloved in danger and went berserk?
It’s still a tiny bit before the agreed ‘start of the day’ hour. He was going to have to deal with Demiurge while relaying orders to her. He isn’t exactly in a mood to leave the bed yet, besides, he doesn’t procrastinate while at his work. He does everything at the earliest possible time.
This lets him take it easy in moments like this. No urgent things to do.
Hypothermia announces to him that she’s awake by tugging his arm and smiling at him from under the onesie’s hood. Revenant smiles back at her and hugs her. She seems to be surprised by it a little, that dummy.
“I really just fell asleep?” He whispers to Mia. She nods. “Oh. Love is scary.”
“Mm-hmm.” Hypothermia replies. Revenant slips his right arm under her neck, pulling her closer to him. She lets him do that. “Hmm?”
“It’s your day today.” He whispers. “Any plans for the evening? You’re the MVP for the day.”
It’s clear that she has no idea what to do. She isn’t used to asking for things. She isn’t used to getting things. It’s… horrific, once you realize the reasons for it.
“If I wasn’t there, what would you be doing on your own?” He asks. That takes her much less time to figure out.
“Hang out with Onslaught.” She replies. “Maybe do my ice sculptures if she was busy? I tend to do it when I’m alone.”
“That’s the plan then.” Revenant replies, Hypothermia looking at him questioningly. “We’ll let Oni bond with Kitsune. Then we’ll go work on your ice sculptures. Because I really like seeing you so focused on your work and I think that you need someone to appraise what you make. How does that sound like?”
She thinks it over for a few seconds, before nodding and looking to the side nervously. He uses his free hand to caress her cheek, making her blush faintly. Oh, her reactions are just straight up adorable. Out of context, that is.
Should he have that talk now?
“I want to talk with you about something, can I?” Revenant asks quietly, Hypothermia nodding. “I checked it out through your new dad. And, apparently, there is a qualified therapist among the civilians.”
And… there it is. The shadow on her face, the look that he - no, they - knew all too well. The ‘it’s just a waste of time, try to help someone else instead’. The purest manifestation of her crushingly low self-esteem.
“You don’t have to…” She tries to say back, but he doesn’t let her.
“But I want to, Mia.” He says, her eyes still avoiding his gaze. “I want you to see yourself just like I do. At least give it a try, okay? I’ll be there with you if you want.” She doesn’t say anything. “C’mon. It’s a completely new life for you, you can as well try, right?”
She thinks it over. The fact that she’s actually thinking it over instead of automatically rejecting it again is actually an almost unfathomable progress. And then, she makes an even greater leap.
“O-okay.” She admits quietly. “ I don’t think I deserve it, and I certainly don’t deserve you. But if you want it, I’ll go and t-try my best.”
Mia, you dummy. It’s Revenant who doesn’t deserve you for failing you so much in the past. He doesn’t say it, but… he decides to just hug her closely instead. He could only hope that it would work in the end, and he is certain that he’s going to do his best to make it work and…
“Ohmigosh!” Onslaught exclaims loudly, pulling the quilt up as she sits on the bed. Yes, Revenant suspected that she was awake already, but… it’s nice to have confirmation. “Thermy, I’m so happy for you! Great job, Revy!”
Revenant sighs. Hypothermia does a very convincing emulation of a deer caught in the headlights, actually pulling up to sit too, looking at Onslaught and trying to find a way to react to that. Onslaught crawls towards her (over him, of course) and gives her a hug.
“Kit! Kit!” She then yells, this finally managing to shake Kitsune awake, the woman raising the upper half of her body, raising her fists as if preparing to fight someone, before realizing that no one’s attacking. “Revy just persuaded Thermy to go to therapy! Group hug time!”
“I’m not sure if…” Revenant tries to intervene, but he isn’t given the time to do it before Kitsune once again leaps at someone. This time at Onslaught and Hypothermia (the two of them still entangled), once again over him. The result of this is the three of them falling off the bed completely and landing on the floor. “... it’s a good idea.”
Right, Kitsune was another person in the long list of those who tried to get Hypothermia to seek professional help for her issues. As a result, she is incredibly happy, just as much as Onslaught is.
Revenant sighs, ignoring the cacophony of sounds coming from the floor as Kitsune and Onslaught are clearly trying to hug Hypothermia who is still freaking out quite a little. He checks the hour, calculates how much time he has left, then warns them that he’s coming before rolling off the bed to join them.
Wow. Revenant can’t even imagine the reaction of himself from the time before his resurrection if they saw him right now. But it seems to imply that he is changing, and probably for the better.
***
Revybowl Chatroom
CuteHulk: WE HAVE A SITUATION
CuteHulk: SISTERS GANG RAAAAAISE UP
Vixen: wow it has to be super weird to be in a chatroom with your hearing alone
Vixen: is it weird?
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Vixen: i need to know if it’s weird
CuteHulk: I don’t how it looks normally so I can’t tell you if it’s weird
Vixen: oh I see, so it’s like reading an audiobook
Vixen: okay
Vixen: SISTER #2 REPORTING FOR DUTY
Yuki-onna: .
Vixen: Ice’y’s here! YAY
Vixen: What is it, Onslaught?
CuteHulk: before that, give me a nickname
CuteHulk: we have to fix that part, most of us have those for each other
CuteHulk: completionism is important
CuteHulk: Revy calls me Oni, and Hypothermia’s Mia for him. But no nickname for Kitsune
CuteHulk: for me, Revy’s Revy, Thermy’s Thermy and Kit’s Kit
Vixen: I’m no rabbit child tho
CuteHulk: rabbit child?
Vixen: nvm go on, nickname’s accepted
CuteHulk: Yuki-Onna, you don’t have a lot of nicknames, right?
Yuki-Onna: it’s scary
Yuki-Onna: I’m afraid that they won’t like it
CuteHulk: that just won’t do!
CuteHulk: You need to change that and figure out nicknames for us all.
CuteHulk: In the meantime, Vixen. Blackie for Revy, Ice’y for Hypothermia
CuteHulk: what for me
Vixen: hmm
Vixen: hmmmmm
Vixen: I don’t know!
Vixen: White’y? You’re pretty pale, so it sounds pretty bad. Hulky? Does that count as cute?
CuteHulk: not sure, just one word away is Husky and I’m kind of not a dog, even a cute one
Vixen: !
Vixen: I’m calling you Cutie. Because you are cute. Mostly due to how small and huggable you are!
CuteHulk: deal!
Vixen: yay :D
CuteHulk: We just need Thermy to figure out her nicknames for us and for Revy to give one to Kit
Vixen: wait
Vixen: WAIT WAIT
Vixen: Can I change my nickname for Ice’y? It just occurred to me that Yuki-onna can be shortened to Yuki and Yuki sounds cuter
Yuki-Onna: … okay
Vixen: YAY
Vixen: yuki it is
CuteHulk: ANYWAYS
CuteHulk: BACK TO THE SUBJECT
CuteHulk: Kit
CuteHulk: one moment, can I call you Foxy instead?
CuteHulk: Revy, Foxy, Thermy, there is clear theme if I do it
Vixen: It sounds cute
Vixen: absolutely accepted
CuteHulk: :D :D :D
CuteHulk: BACK TO THE SUBJECT
CuteHulk: Foxy, I’m worried for you.
Vixen: ?
CuteHulk: We all have our own plotlines that stop us from objectively becoming demoted to ‘Revy’s girlfriends’ from the point of a plot progression
Yuki-Onna: please don’t speak like that
Yuki-Onna: I don’t want to think that we’re still characters in a story
Yuki-Onna: scary
CuteHulk: oopsie
CuteHulk: anyway
CuteHulk: Think about it
CuteHulk: I have my ‘overcome the disability and kick ass like the champ you are’ plotline
CuteHulk: Thermy has the ‘overcome your traumatic backstory and grow to love yourself while kicking ass like the champ you are’ plotline
CuteHulk: what do you have
Vixen: Ice creams!
Vixen: just got them out of the mess hall’s fridge
Vixen: anyone wants some
CuteHulk: pfft
Yuki-Onna: ice creams?
Yuki-Onna: strawberry cones?
Vixen: yes
Yuki-Onna: may I please have one
Vixen: ‘kay!
CuteHulk: no, seriously, focus here
CuteHulk: do you have anything you want to achieve in your life
Vixen: Get out of this planet, find a nice place to settle down with y’all, give birth to at least five children that I can be the best mom for because I think that there is nothing more romantic than happy family life as a part of a ‘happily ever after’ ending.
Vixen: I don’t have any more life goals, tbh
Vixen: not a lot of attachments, aside from a few people, most of which are in this chatroom rn
Vixen: I’m happy with being a supportive character for y’all
Vixen: I got over my issues long ago
Vixen: Revy being there helped me a lot, even if he doesn’t realize this
Vixen: and even if he thinks I’m a bit of a loony with the whole ‘death for love’ thing
Vixen: so no worries, focus on yourself and it’ll be fine, I’ll help you all the way through :D
CuteHulk: Okay but if you change your mind, we’re here for you, okay?
Vixen: Sure!
Vixen: so, ice cream?
CuteHulk: are there any mint flavored ones
***
“So you want me to take command of the operation.” Demiurge replies, leaning back in her seat, looks at him over the desk. Is she suspecting some odd intrigue in play? C’mon, he can do things without this sort of intrigue. “Away from the base. For who knows how long.”
“Are you seriously expecting me to waste perfectly useful assets?” Revenant shoots back. Demiurge squints at him, clearly not trusting him at all. “You’re one of the two potential field commanders that I trust to do the job correctly without me having to look over their shoulder. And I need one of them here in case of the transhumans, the Nazis or the Truthseekers finding us.”
“Two?” Demiurge raises a brow at that. “Who is the other one? Decay or Destro?”
Wait, what is it with all of them having villain names starting with De? If he has someone rename themselves into ‘De-something’, will they suddenly develop mastermind capabilities? Huh.
“Decay.” Revenant replies. “I meant tacticians here. The situation is way less complicated than in the past. There is no society to serve as the background with all its intricacies. This is a serious ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ situation. I can get advice from people, but there’s no point in employing several strategists full-time.”
Decay was a tactician, capable of leading a squad of combatants in the field, issuing orders in the thick of the battle. Destro was a strategist, who was great at planning a war and moving armies as a part of his grand plan. Both of them were pretty bad at the opposite thing.
Demiurge is good at both tactics and strategy. But he needs only one thing. For now, she’s staring at him, clearly considering something.
“You’ll be allowed to take your two sidekicks.” Revenant continues. “You’ll be accompanied by Ferris Palmer and a squad of the local civvies, and Humility together with three of my praetorians.” He needs someone trustworthy to keep Humility alive.
“Oh, my.” Demiurge says slowly. “Me, Palmer and Humility. The three people whose loyalty to you is uncertain.” Fair point. That might feel questionable.
“Coincidence.” Revenant shoots it down. “Humility and Palmer volunteered for it. Palmer asked me for a metahuman detachment, and you fit the profile perfectly. You really think that if I wanted you out of the picture, I’d play this sort of game with you after what you did the last time? I’d rather murder you in your sleep, thank you very much.”
Demiurge clearly doesn’t believe him at all. Or, to be honest, she knows that he’s speaking the truth, as she is intelligent enough to foresee this sort of development in his approach to her. But… the hatred makes her doubt him.
Amplitude says nothing, sitting in a chair by the door, playing with a knife, while glaring at Revenant. Humility is sitting by the wall to the side, clearly ignoring its loyalty being suspect. Black Knight is standing by Revenant’s back in his full combat uniform, ready to draw his sword at a moment’s notice and probably glaring at Amplitude from behind his mask.
The atmosphere is fairly tense.
“What's NIGHTMARE/COLORLESS?” Demiurge then asks. Revenant glances at Humility. The one person who can provide the necessary input.
“A form of an extradimensional entity that is fundamentally incapable of being perceived due to its proximity causing termination of cognition, both synthetic and organic.” Humility replies. “A Touchdown Event is when it gets close to a location in Reality where humans or aliens are present, promptly unmaking their cognition.”
“Renders people braindead, then?” Revenant asks.
“No.” Humility replies. “It unmakes their cognition. It’s… a bit hard to describe. Like commonly with NIGHTMARES, it throws all sorts of the world’s logic out of the window, running on its own logic. Aesculapius is most likely littered with conduits, humans simply standing there, staring blankly into space, their body failing to perceive the passage of time, not dying despite the lack of food and water.”
Yes. That sounds spooky as fuck. Judging from the look on Demiurge’s face, the two of them agree for once.
“The problem is, conduits draw the NIGHTMARE/COLORLESS attention.” Humility continues. “Or, perhaps, other instances of the same entity. A scientist I once knew compared it to one person planting a few roses in a part of the garden, and then returning to check how they look. Nightmare/Colorless rearranges reality with a first, completely random Touchdown Event into one looking better to it and keeping it that way for future revisits. However, if all conduits are extinguished, the Touchdown Event will not repeat.”
“And how do you destroy a conduit?” Demiurge asks.
“You kill it.” Humility replies. “Intentional activity still causes a desirable outcome, it’s just that Touchdown Events wipes out the very possibility of intent from its direct neighborhood. You just go there and shoot everyone in the face. Incinerate them. Pulverize them with sound waves. And so on. The point of the mission would be to reach the ship’s bridge, access the ship’s main computer core and then locate all of the crew members aboard the ship before euthanizing them.”
“Potential complications?” Demiurge asks.
“There is a chance of someone sneaking in after the last Touchdown Event or after the ship was lodged there.” Humility replies. “That is all.”
Demiurge decides to agree. The whole group packs their stuff and departs from Ball Python, before the time for his date(?) with Hypothermia comes. This also means that Humility won’t be there to complain about resurrecting someone who isn’t that much of a combatant. Because yes, Steelfang is slowly growing up in the tube.
Ugh, the things he does to stop Decay from complaining.
***
The woman growing up in the tube resembles Kitsune. The degree of furriness is identical, it’s just that the fur is gray, and the ears and now closed eyes are wolf-like rather than fox-like. Different brand of mutant individualities, after all.
He doesn’t get to see that much before Decay freaks out and starts barking at him to close his eyes. Yeah, fine, understandable, she IS his wife after all. So he does so. Kitsune, Onslaught and Hypothermia are around too, recognizing Decay as pretty much the brother of their boyfriend. So it was a family thing. Also, Kitsune was her maid of honor during the wedding, so…
He hears the sound of the tube opening, Steelfang’s surprised gasp and then Decay quickly telling her that she needs to pick the clothes and then he’ll explain everything to her. By the time he is allowed to open his eyes, Steelfang is wearing her clothes.
Identical to the ones of Decay. Including the T-Shirt with an inscription about still playing League of Legends. Ah yes, the perfect gamer couple. Revenant, despite being a bit of a gamer himself, bends his knees before the superior specimen of his kind.
“W-what happened?” Steelfang asks Decay nervously. “Where are we?”
“Yeah, that’s a bit complicated.” Decay scratches his head a little. “Apparently, we were characters in a story, but then something like Wishgranter showed up and made us real. We can get our kids back too. Also, it’s far in the future and the games got soooo much better!”
Steelfang blinks at him in surprise, while clearly processing the shocking revelation. Then she gets to the point.
“Oh, that’s… great?” Steelfang blinks. “I mean, the videogames bit. The rest is a bit, errr. it’s weird?”
“It is.” Decay nods with a serious look.. “Also I’ve been living without you for many, many days. I missed you so much.”
She says nothing, instead she just hugs him, Decay responding in kind. Then they pull back a little and boop their noses (it’s a nose-to-nose boop), before looking into each other's eyes, and starting to speak about how incredibly they missed each other out and how much the time without each other hurt, and how much they were going to enjoy playing the videogames of the far future with each other.
Revenant groans painfully, the duo completely ignoring the world around. Kitsune, in the meantime, is busy staring at them, clearly very close to bursting into tears over how incredibly romantic the scene was.
This is going to be emotionally exhausting, that much he’s certain of.
***
I present to you... Steelfang.
[https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1106241074403483798/1120835270149931128/0192pe.png]