Origin ARS 6 (19 page)

The silly duo saluted Rhea in unison. Scott spoke up. "Welcome home lady ma'am sir."

Rhea laughed warmly then stood up straight and returned the salute. "Carry on!"

"Oh, I shall," said Scott before rushing forward to scoop her up in his arms.

Herbert crossed his front legs over his chest and chittered a little in amusement. These two were always fun to watch.

Scott spun around in a circle with Rhea in his arms then kissed her softly. They stayed that way for a while before she mentioned the fact that he could put her down.

"Request denied," said Scott. He hefted her into his arms in a princess carry then turned toward the sidewalk. Herbert ran over to him and climbed up his back till he reached his shoulder. "Battery! Forward, march!"

Rhea laughed again as her ridiculous fiancé marched off toward the exit to the train station. A thought occurred to her before they reached the sidewalk at the exit. "I thought it was company forward and all that?"

"I'm an artillery man. We have batteries instead of companies," said Scott lightly.

He pivoted smartly and turned off down the sidewalk, Rhea still held in his arms like a princess. She spoke up again a short distance later, a sweet smile on her lips. "You can't seriously intend to carry me like this the entire way."

Scott nodded his head. "You're right. This will never work."

Rhea quirked her eyebrow slightly. Before she could say anything, Scott cried out, "Double Time! March!" and took off at a steady running pace. Rhea cried out in surprise then clung to him a little. Herbert was forced to grip Scott's shoulder tight to avoid falling off.

He raced down the sidewalk as quickly as he could while avoiding the other pedestrians. Rhea could not help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

The blue haired artillery sorcerer weaved through the sidewalk crowd with practiced ease. However, after turning a corner he only narrowly avoided running into an enforcer patrol.

"Battery! Halt!" cried Scott without any concern for how he looked. He came to a stop and stood at attention.

"Hey, what's the rush, citizen?" asked one of the black armored men.

"I am on my way to begin an important campaign," said Scott.

"Military campaign?" The men glanced to each other then back to the blue haired man holding an elf maiden in his arms. "What campaign?"

Scott lifted Rhea up a bit and she giggled in response. "Operation: Fiancé Shock and Awe."

The men stood there stone-faced for a moment then grins broke out on their faces. "Carry on citizen," the one on the left said before they both stepped to the side.

"Battery! Forward, March!" cried Scott before he took off at a steady march once more. Once he was past the enforcers he called out double-time and ran off toward his mission objective once more.

"Wonder what unit he's with?" asked the enforcer on the left.

"With that hair? He's probably from one of the Lunarian regiments," said the enforcer on the right.

"Ah, a sorcerer... Makes sense."

Despite the distance, Rhea's laughter echoed through the air to such an extent that the men could still hear her. The enforcer on the right called out, "Give her hell soldier!"

The enforcers looked to each other then laughed again. While Scott retreated into the distance the enforcer on the left said. "Hey, I'm hungry. Want to hit up the sandwich shop?"

"Yeah, sounds good. Greelak is supposed to be getting in a new shipment of explosive ordinance soon, too," said the enforcer on the right.

"Think it's come in, yet?" asked the enforcer on the left, his eyes wide with the possibilities.

They stared at each other for a moment then their grins returned. "Let's go!" they cried simultaneously, before running off to find a proper sandwich perhaps a few quality hand grenades.

Three hours later, up in the hotel room that the group shared, Herbert did his best to concentrate on the task at hand. He carefully slipped a bead along a bit of braided leather. He was close to finished with his handicraft, would even be done with it already if not for a last minute bit of inspiration.

As he carefully threaded the bead, he was forced to put his whole concentration into the creation. Unfortunately a loud cry echoed through the room that caused the bead to fly out of his paw. "Boom!
Ar
-tillery
!" shouted Scott. Rhea's ridiculous laughter echoed through the room as operation fiancé shock and awe continued into its second hour.

Herbert stared at the door to their room with a flat expression for a moment then sighed. Briefly he toyed with the idea of trying to work on the helmet again, but another loud cry convinced him that it would be useless for the day. "Who's your king of battle?"

"That's some big ordinance you have there, lieutenant!" exclaimed Rhea, getting in on the act.

"That's one hundred fifty-five millimeters of freedom and democracy, ma'am," said Scott in an overly serious tone.

Rhea said something that the wall muffled slightly. Scott's much louder response was a bit cheeky, "I'm an officer
and
a pervert."

Herbert's mouth dropped open a little then he made a slight gagging noise. He tossed the braided leather down then headed toward the balcony. It took a little time and effort, but he managed to open the sliding door enough to squeeze through. The voices were muffled enough now that he could at least concentrate on his dance practice. The little rodent was glad that they were spending quality time together, but must they me so noisy about it?

Time passed. Eventually,
Operation: Fiancé Shock and Awe
became
Operation: Hold on, I Have to Pee.
This new campaign's mission statement led to Scott and Rhea coming up for air long enough to shower and get dinner.

Rhea walked out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel, and a smile that bespoke absolute bliss. Scott walked out not long after, wearing the same outfit. He looked her over once, then made a joke about how their outfits matched.

She reached up and patted him on the cheek. "Goof."

In response Scott reached down, gripped her by her impertinent rear and pulled her close. They shared a sweet lingering kiss for a moment, before breaking apart to get dressed.

Once they left the bedroom, Scott and Rhea were greeted to the sight of Herbert standing on a platter of food. "What? Where did this come from?"

Herbert pointed to a slip of paper nearby. After reading it, Scott blinked then looked down at the happily eating rodent. "How could you have possibly ordered room service? Do they speak Grassrat?"

The little professional dancer shrugged his shoulders then offered Scott a slice of cantaloupe. Scott declined. "We were planning to head out to eat. Do you want to come?"

Herbert shook his head then made a shooing motion toward them. It was as though he was telling them to go have fun.

Rhea and Scott said goodbye to their companion and set out to find a reasonable amount of dinner and romance. Herbert sighed a happy little rodent sigh. He finished his slice of fruit while silence reigned in the room.

Once he finished his brief meal, he wandered back over to his helmet. Maybe he would be able to get a little work done now that the screaming was done for a while.

***

The city of Valkovia, one of the largest on the continent, was a city alive with people and excitement. Scott and Rhea chose to walk to their desired dinner destination. One of the best parts of being together again, was the simple joy of actually being close to each other once more.

As they walked along they would occasionally stop and take in one of the sights of local color. They witnessed all manner of people doing interesting things. People watching in a fantasy world was quite the event in and of itself. The schizo-tech in this world made perfect sense given the nature of the world's existence, but there was still something to be said for the sheer variety.

They took a moment to enjoy the sight of a war elephant walking down a smooth asphalt road. The massive animal was loaded and ready to go to war. Twin mini-guns folded down from the riding area on top, and what appeared to be a missile launcher was mounted to the top of the seat itself.

Rhea thought it was interesting, but she had seen it before. Scott wondered how they fired the guns without shooting the elephant.

"They have cars and flying vehicles, but they load down an elephant with equipment like that?" asked Scott. His obvious curiosity about the insanity that he saw before him caused Rhea to smile.

Rhea chuckled softly then shook her finger. "All this time and you still think like an Earth-human."

"Well. I've spent a lot more time there, you know."

She gripped his hand tightly for a moment then nodded. "True. Well, war animals are popular because they can be trained and will gain levels. Only the most expensive technological items can do the same, and the cost effectiveness is much lower."

"Ah, I see," said Scott. "How do they operate those things without killing the elephant, though?"

Rhea waved him off. "They would be stupid enough to fire straight forward. There would normally be two or three people in the saddle if they took that big girl out to fight. She makes a great living weapons platform."

"They call it a saddle?" he asked, curious.

"Well, on Earth they have other names like the
Howdah
, but here it's just an elephant saddle," said Rhea.

Scott watched the big critter wander down the street. Her handler kept her well under control so that she continued to move properly along with the light vehicle traffic.

"A vehicle would be nice," he said.

"Well, you mentioned that you are out fighting machine monsters. Why don't we go and hunt down a few vehicle types?" asked Rhea.

"They would fall apart if we tried to use them, right?" asked Scott, curiosity in his tone. The idea had occurred to him before, but none of the monsters stayed in one piece after a fight ended. The random collection of junk left behind was so poorly held together that hand tools were rarely necessary to take them apart.

The blue haired elf maiden laughed at him a little. "Well, maybe the one's on the outskirts. If we go further inside we can probably find a few that could be fixed up. Definitely used vehicles, but still less expensive than buying something flat out."

"Now that sounds like a plan," said Scott with a warm grin. After a brief moment that grin slipped downward slightly to become a thoughtful expression. "How likely is it that there would be giant robots or power armor there?"

Rhea's eyes widened slightly then she offered him a warm smile. "If there are any, you'd need to go deep into the area. Even with our stats, we wouldn't be able to do much to them, yet."

"Yeah right, the levels go up to sixty there. Our stats are about the twenty to thirty range," remarked Scott thoughtfully.

Rhea leaned toward him and cupped her hand against her mouth. She whispered in a conspiratorial manner. "Actually, no. The highest real levels in that area would be between one hundred twenty and one hundred sixty."

Scott blinked then looked. "What do you mean? There's a hundred level jump?"

Rhea shook her head then clarified. "The innermost areas have tier two monsters. They might be technically level sixty, but they already reached level one hundred and started their lives anew as a second tier monster. Of course, that really just means that they spawn as tier two monsters in the system."

"Damn," said Scott. "Glad you told me. I would have pushed further inward thinking they were only level sixty."

Rhea reached over and patted him on the cheek. She smiled sweetly at him and said, "Always happy to help."

"Do you know when the power jump starts? How far we can go inward?" asked Scott while leading his lady love down the street.

"The downtown area of the city. It's marked off, if you pay attention to the subtle hints. Outside of there, the highest level monsters are in their forties, but tier one."

"Look at my beautiful tour guide," said Scott lightly. Rhea looked askance at him for a moment, but then cried out in surprise when he pulled her against his chest and held her close. "Doesn't she know that there are no better sights to see than the one I'm seeing now?"

Rhea's eyes widened slightly then began to shimmer a little in the light. Her cheeks became flush and she leaned her head against his shoulder. "Sometimes you say the sweetest things."

He nuzzled the side of her head with his cheek. "It's easy when it's you."

Rhea giggled softly in response and snuggled closer. Random people stepped around them as they continued on their way. Despite the absurdly sweet public display of affection, no one bothered them. They held each other close while the rest of the world walked by.

***

Deep in the bowels of a divine office building three deities were hard at work on the task of finishing up their latest assignment. The task at hand seemed bizarre at first, but the preliminary numbers showed that it might be exactly what was needed to turn things around.