Chapter 207 – Private

“Aclysia, you are definitely the best thing about this chaotic bunch of fools,” Lydia said, while they were on their ride to the airport. The reason for this compliment was Aclysia helping Lydia clean up the rest of the mess they had left behind (she even put the crumbling parts of the wall into a neat pile). Then she had helped their driver to load in their luggage and lastly she had brought snacks. Lots and lots of healthy snacks, spread over the table in the middle of the stretch limo.

The artificial guardian lowered her head at the compliment, as actually bowing in the car was pretty hard. That wasn’t just because of the fact that the ceiling wasn’t high enough.

The car was packed to the brim. The whole crew was there, and ‘the whole crew’, for once, meant THE WHOLE crew. Even the five elementals had materialized. Sylph and Salamander had even assumed their bigger forms. For security reasons the fire spirit sat between Undine and Gnome.

“Can’t believe you still think I would put stuff on fire,” the blaze elemental complained.

“Well…” Gnome carefully started, “…you are still a bit prone to doing it accidentally.”

“Huh?!” The taller woman turned her aggressive gaze on the brunette. Normally, Salamander was just a hand-sized flame whirling around the place, but in her big form she was almost as tall as Nathalia. That made her taller than John and certainly taller than Gnome. The earth spirit shrunk a bit further under her younger sister’s gaze.

“Yeah, Sally,” Sylph, tiny even in her big form, stuck her head out from behind Gnome. “Just learn to control your fire, what are you, a five-year-old without proper bladder control? Get-a, Get-a grip, grip, Sally, you silly Sally silly you,” the air elemental laughed and promptly managed to miss the glass, filled with orange juice, she was grabbing for, instead threatening to topple it over. “Wah!” A whirl of magic prevented the spill. “Whu, that was close, wasn't it? Yeah, it was, hey, hey, why are you all looking at me like that?”

Everyone around was securing every other item of food on the table, threatened by the gusts Sylph had conjured. The actions were largely unneeded, thanks to Thana creating an impromptu windshield around the table with her blood. The crimson liquid streamed back into the blood mage’s fingernails and through them back into her body. There was the exception of two tendrils of blood that she used to shovel food into her, controlling those was apparently easier than controlling her body, and a car wasn’t a place to experiment with her physical mastery.

“Yeah, good…,” Thana’s words were interrupted by devouring basically a whole packet of salad in one go, “…good job, Aclysia. Food is great, you are fucking great.”

“I do wonder about something,” John said, just eating a few pieces of cheese himself, “how can you eat that much, Thana? And I mean that from a sheer logic standpoint.”

The blood mage had basically spent every waking moment since they had entered this car stuffing her face with rations that Aclysia had planned to last eleven people for the whole trip, and was now halfway through all of it on her own. There had to be a bottom to her stomach. “I just make it into mana,” Thana said nonchalantly, “or, well, actually I digest it way super fucking fast, then turn all of that into mana. Better than crapping it all out, if you ask me.”

“So that is how you regenerate mana?” John probed deeper.

“Nah, I can also regenerate mana by lying in the sun, or breathing, or by simply fucking existing. I get my mana out of metabolism, so,” Thana leaned back as one of her tendrils held a bottle of water against her lips. “Aaaaah,” she let out the held breath after emptying it in one gulp. “Fun-fucking-tastic Fact: I could probably absorb semen,” she stated, “so fucking regenerates mana as well.”

“Your abilities are far beyond the scope of a regular blood mage,” Lydia commented, “then again, people who push the limits of what we know appear many times over each century. Our understanding of the laws of magic is, at best, rudimentary.” The princess glanced at John, who let that pass and just listened. At his right side, Rave yawned, being disinterested in magic theory. “Personally, I would say that whatever the Nazi’s did to you increased your latent abilities far beyond basic capabilities and now you are less of a blood mage than you are flesh mage,” the princess continued.

“That sounds fucking disgusting.” Thana stuffed a boiled egg in her face, swallowing it whole. “But explain that to me.”

“Blood mages can’t do all of these things that you do, they only have control over blood, as their name indicates,” Lydia obliged. “What you do is more akin to taking the functions of your body and completely replacing them with magic. Normal blood mages are not able to reattach limbs, their heads least of all. It is, however, not unheard of for mages within one path of magic to break into a realm above that is basically an improved version of their initial powers.” Lydia shrugged, “Of course all of this is just a guess. There are other explanations, such as you being an Existence Eater and the Purest Front tortured the memories out of you after you absorbed some other powerful entities.”

“Existence Eater?” John asked.

“A kind of dark soul,” Lydia explained and pointed at him, “after thinking about it for a while, you are either that or an Etheric Soul, a light soul. Both of those are excruciatingly rare, come in varying degrees of power and are all around heavily clad in mystery. Romulus for example is the God Eater sub-type of the Existence Eater, allowing his body to steal and store powers of Faith from gods. That doesn’t give him access to that power permanently, whatever power he spends will not be regenerated.” Lydia sighed, “Or at least that’s the theory, he has so much power, nobody has ever seen him use enough of it to lose an ability. Not that most people could hope to even stand up to him if he only uses his self-acquired skills, stemming from millennia of training and his contracts with Sol and Luna. Romulus is untouchable. Unless…” her finger wiggled up and down, “…what Nathalia told you is true and you have a similar ability. Seeing how you, reportedly, absorbed part of her divine energy without drawbacks, that appears likely. But Romulus steals, you have to ask. Therefore, I think you have a stronger etheric soul, the strongest in history, to be exact. Given time you actually will be able to challenge Romulus.”

“Yeah, in hundreds of years, most likely,” John commented drily.

Lydia gave him a stern look. “It’s a better shot than the rest of us get, John,” she reminded him. “You have trained for a few short months and are already stronger than I am after years. Count your blessings.”

John, feeling justifiably reprimanded, concentrated on eating. It was true, he was complaining on a very high level here. All he did was wake up one day and suddenly have the potential to break the magical landscape with his powers.

“Yes, you are so gifted,” Siena purred, “Somebody should just penetrate your chest.”

“I can do that,” Thana offered with a wide smirk and raised her left hand, the tip of her fingers ending in claws of crimson.

“Do you really need to entertain her?” John asked.

“Yeah, she is fucking funny,” Thana answered, “What? It’s not like she really wants to kill you.”

“Mhm, but I do, I do so very much want it,” Siena moaned and stretched her claws towards John’s face, her hair rising as her glowing eyes betrayed her lust for blood.

“But I can’t,” she sighed and leaned back at her place between Thana and Undine, her hair rapidly falling down again.

“Seriously?” Thana was confused, “The fuck?”

“She has a massive murderboner for John,” Rave explained, “but their contract entails that there are five rules that she has to follow. One of them being ‘Don’t kill anyone unless I allow ya to’.”

Thana’s white eyebrows shot up. “Fucking okay, you weird-ass motherfuckers. Anyhow, a little bit of stabbing won’t kill you, you have regenerative powers that are as bullshit as mine are. You heal instantly, so a bit of ripping your chest open should only fucking hurt, not kill you.”

“It will kill me eventually though… oh right, you have next to no idea how I work!” John was reminded and sent a group invite to her. In hindsight he should have warned her.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Thana screeched when the window suddenly appeared in front of her. She tried to swat it away, which was impossible of course. Her hand passed through and, with the remaining momentum, flew right into Undine’s chest, slime splattering about the place. “Fuck, sorry,” Thana quickly apologized and pulled her hand away.

Undine was turning from splatter back into an attractive woman. “I will survive.”

“Looks like a videogame window… whatever the fuck that exactly is.” Thana inspected the invite more calmly, and then blinked in confusion as memories that weren’t hers, dawned on her. “Huh, so you have some bullshit like that these days,” she said, keeping a concentrated expression as pieces of apple were thrown into her mouth and ground to a fruit pulp by her perfect teeth.

“Close your mouth while eating,” Lydia reminded her.

“Shure,” Thana slurred in response, tapping the button.

“This is super weird,” she continued after gulping down, trying to grasp the group windows now in her field of view.

“For all of you, the HP and MP bars are more like rough estimates,” John explained, “for me they are exact data. Once my HP hits 0, I am done.”

“Huh, and how close did I get you?”

“3.”

“…Fuck, glad that stopped where it did.” A testing smirk followed the quietly delivered words. “Would have been a waste to… you know… end you. S-sorry about… fucking everything again…” Silence. “…Aaaand I made things fucking awkward again. Fuck me.”

John was wondering if that half-whispered set of words was just an exclamation or an actual offer.

Lydia peeked out of the window. “We will arrive shortly. Please store the food again.”

John followed her eyes outside. They were just inside the city, from what he could see. Buildings moved by, with no indication where this place they were supposed to arrive at was.

“Actually, there is no more food to store, your majesty,” Aclysia apologized and everyone looked at Thana who was wolfing down the last bit of food: a brownie.

“What?!” she cried out after hastily devouring the rest of it. “I am still growing!”

“Yeah!” Sylph agreed. “We are still growing!”

“I doubt that for both of you,” John teased, “I think you are forever doomed to stay tiny.”

Thana’s face expressed a calm desire to kick him for that.

“No fair, you are mean John. I want to be big, make me big! Maybe if you give me tons of mana I will become big. Siena, you can become bigger, tell me how!”

The nightmare elemental giggled coyly, “Me? Whatever are you talking about?”

“That thing you do when you do the stabby thing, you become all dark and shadowy and whirly and then you can change shapes and be bigger, tell me how!” Sylph demanded.

“I just let myself go and Unleash,” Siena purred, “but that has different effects for all elementals and as you have seen I am everything but solid in that state. The fact that you are unable to Unleash amuses me.”

Undine tapped Siena on the shoulder and whispered something over their mental connection. “Ooooh? Now that is worth a lot of mischief,” Siena mused.

Alarmed, John had to ask, “What is?”

None of his elementals answered. “Ehm, it-its better if you are left in the dark on this one,” Gnome apologized, “We really don’t want it to happen again. Sorry.”

John’s forehead wrinkled but he was promptly distracted by the houses around them vanishing as they swapped into another Illusion Barrier. “Ah here we are,” Lydia said with a bit of pride, “the Hohenzollern Airport.”

It was a gigantic area in the middle of Cologne. Not based on a real-life building, like the usual Abyssal practice for buildings seemed to be, it was instead built and based entirely inside the Illusion Barrier and used no modern buildings as its template.

A more apt description for the thing that stretched before John would have been a fortress of fantastical metals and crystal. Sure, it had a modernistic, efficiency-first design and properly adhered to evacuation and safety standards, but that didn’t make the giant walls of bronze metal any less imposing. They formed an airport complex that could only be described as massive. About two square kilometres in width and five stories high, with ten watch towers growing from it like crowned spikes at the centre and another seven, one for each tip of the star-shape, at the outer end.

A kick to his leg pulled John back into reality. A kick that cost him 75 HP. A kick that almost made him scream like a little girl. “That’s for calling me tiny, you tall fuck,” Thana spat out and crossed her arms over her breasts.

“I would never call that part of you tiny,” John mumbled looking at the mounds of softness, hidden only by a bit of leather despite the cold weather.

“What was that?!” Thana asked, blushing slightly, she had heard very well.

“I said good job on not breaking my leg there, you are learning quickly,” John smirked, he wouldn’t repeat a compliment, however underhanded it was, that easily. Not when she was so fun to tease. Thana growled but didn’t kick him again, instead simply glaring up at him with boiling anger and… other emotions. ‘Back to the airport,’ John thought and turned to the building. “Are you sure that is not a fortress?” he asked.

“In case of emergency, it doubles as one,” Lydia freely admitted, “As a matter of fact, it used to be one until a few years ago. The maintenance costs urged me to make it useful. I now rent it out to give private planes shelter. It has made me a profit ever since.”

“So, we are taking one of your planes then?” John asked, “So how fast does it go? I guess we will need about two minutes to reach Rome, the Abyss ought to have something like ultra fuel.”

“It will take the same time as a commercial flight, about two hours,” the princess took the wind out of his sails rather quickly.

“Wow that’s… super boring,” Rave spoke his thoughts.

“What did you expect?” Lydia asked. “Mundane air travel is stupendously fast. Unless you can fly at a higher speed yourself, and remain unnoticed while doing so, a plane remains the quickest way to travel the Earth.”

“And why aren’t we teleporting?” John wondered.

“Because at a certain point no amount of time you save is worth that level of cost,” Lydia firmly stated, “and that is especially true for long-distance teleportation. The amount of mana and the complexity of the spell… you’ll need a group of very powerful mages and Fateweavers or at least one god of knowledge to pull that stunt. The monetary compensation that would be required is nothing I ever want to spe-.”

They were barely out of the car when a tear in reality opened and a guy on an alpaca rode out of it. “Hey John, you dropped this!” he shouted and tossed a bundle at him. A hole in the ground opened and the alpaca, including the rider, fell through it. “MY COOL EXIIIIIIIIIIIIT!” he screamed in agony as he vanished as quickly as he came.

“What?” John asked, everyone around looked similarly confused. Except for Thana who was just laughing.

“How did…” Lydia scrambled out her phone. “Yes, hello, Sir Joffrey? Somebody just penetrated our security network… what do you mean you noticed? What do you mean you couldn’t stop it? What do you mean that was the fifth time this month? No threat? I don’t care if he is a threat or not, the fact that he can breach in and out of my fortress like that is concerning! No, I do NOT care that he makes delicious tacos. I demand that you create a picture and find out whatever you can about… yes, I have seen him, he is absolutely non-descript,” Lydia sighed, “Fine, I am guessing detaining is impossible?... In that case see whatever gaps there are in our security network. How is the plane? Good. Good. Have a nice day, Sir Joffrey.”

Lydia ended the call and turned to John. Rave had long since taken the bundle from him. “Whaddya think that is?” she asked and unfolded the wrap of cloth. There was nothing inside. Observe revealed it to be a regular red picnic blanket. “The hell?” Rave then asked.

“He knew you,” Lydia stated.

“I don’t know him though,” John scratched his head, a memory bubbling up. “I mean, maybe that was the same guy that appeared at Hermes’ shop when I was training for…,” he gestured at Thana,

“I like him,” Sylph announced, “He smells like that pickle we met. Also, like something dark, passionate, strong, powerful, certain of victory and THE FORCE that wants to set free the darkness!”

John didn’t even bother to make sense of that mumbo-jumbo.

“Sylph, the fuck are you on about?” Salamander asked and the two fell into their usual bickering.

“Anyhow,” Lydia pulled attention back to her. “Our transport is here,” she pointed at a piece of the ground in the distance.

John squinted his eyes until he saw that the piece was moving. Then, when it was close enough, he realized that it wasn’t the ground at all, just a sheet of metal. It had the same greyish colour as the asphalt that covered the ground floor everywhere, exception being decoratively planted miniature gardens. It hovered close over the ground and travelled above a lane of reddish black, both the land and the platform came to a halt where the limo had parked.

 “Destination: Princess Lydia’s Private Plane,” a mechanical voice spoke. “Please get aboard.”

 John felt a weird shift in pressure as he stepped onto the platform. John inspected the thing with typical curiosity, while Rave yawned and Thana giggled at some private joke. The platform began to move.

“I am siiiiiick,” Sylph suddenly cried. “What is this? This is weird, make it stop.” The platform got moving at an impressive speed, but John felt neither wind nor momentum throw him off-balance.

“The enchantments keep us from experiencing the momentum.”

“Turn it off, bluargh,” Sylph almost fell over and stuck her head out of the invisible, protective layer, looking like she was sea-sick. Despite the impossibility of it, John was afraid Sylph would throw up at any moment.

“There, there,” Gnome gently patted her back, “Why don’t you go rest in John’s head for a bit if you can’t handle it?” Sylph meekly nodded and was gone with a poof.

The platform carried them and their luggage all the way to the plane. They then stepped off and the luggage was loaded into the back area. The platform carefully put itself in there, and boarded the plane.

From the outside, it was a simple machine. From the inside however, it was a luxurious wonderland. Seats, designed in a way that could turn into a bed or a massage table at a moment's notice, covered in beige leather, a backroom with beds and a blue carpet so wonderful that John felt bad even stepping on it. There were little angel figurines on the walls and the glasses were framed with careful carvings of flowers.

“This… is absolutely not your style,” John commented.

“It was my grandfather's vehicle,” Lydia sighed, “I admire him, but he does like his frivolous decorations. However, refitting it would be even more costly, therefore this stays.”

“I am not complaining!” Rave said and threw herself onto one of the seats. “I wonder what these buttons do,” she mused and pressed one of them.

The seat swivelled about this and that direction, much to Rave’s amusement. Lydia sighed, pulled out her smartphone and ran what John assumed to be the master control. Rave shouted in surprise when her seat stopped following her inputs and instead all of the twenty seats rearranged in two rows that looked at each other, leaving a walkway in the middle.

“So, who is our pilot?” John asked as he took a seat, he wanted to know exactly who was about to carry him far up into the sky.

“A Fateweaver and an Artificial Spirit,” Lydia said, causing both Momo and Aclysia to become interested. “Not nearly as developed as you two,” the princess guessed their thoughts and informed them, “He is basically just a more advanced auto-pilot. He knows that one purpose and finds fulfillment in it. You will find that he is a terribly dull conversation partner.”

“Seems pretty cruel to create life just to have it fly you around,” Momo commented.

“Why?” Lydia asked, “As I said: He is happy, he is a simple being with a simple purpose: to fly me where I want. That is what makes him happy. We all have our purposes in life, some humble and some grand. There is no shame in either.”

“Mhm,” Momo just hummed. She was clearly thinking about it. What she thought, she kept to herself.

“And the Fateweaver, can he be trusted?” John asked.

Lydia rolled her shoulders. “They are isolated in a cabin with only one job. Should any shenanigans be enacted, the Artificial Spirit will intervene.”

John nodded. ‘That should be secure enough.’ The engines started running and minutes later they were in the air. Rave looked at the land below, having climbed on her chair. John was enjoying the view she presented. ‘God, I love her yoga pants.’

His own pants were straining into a visible tent. Wearing a black shirt and these black jogging pants had become his go-to for days he wasn’t fighting or in the public’s eye. The suit was nice, but this was way more comfortable. Also, quicker to get out of, for the suit he had to drag the layers of clothes off him and into the inventory one by one, with this outfit there wasn’t much to drag around.

Rave turned from the window, saw John’s erection, saw everyone else seeing John’s erection, smirked and then asked a fateful question.

“Wanna join the Mile-High Club?”