Iris snorted as her form pixelated out of existence.
“Please do,” I said after she was gone.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I told the two Huntresses what I wanted, more teamwork, and told them to have at it. It wouldn’t hurt any, even though it seemed like it would be painful.
Aya immediately went for her Lonely Guy move, putting three knives in the front and appearing behind me to gut me from the back.
Instakill!
“That’s not teamwork,” I reminded her as she withdrew her blade.
“Fine, fine.”
The two stalked me for a moment, growing more serious with each passing second. Aya and Lady C. communicated with each other through a series of glances and Lady C. moved in.
The Metican warrior came in with her blades parallel, and stopped just before striking me, disappearing in a flash.
Instakill!
The world tumbled as my head flew off my body.
By the time I figured out what had happened – Lady C. distracted me, Aya came up from behind – my head was already reattaching to my body.
“That was sick!” I clapped my hands together. “That’s exactly what I want: teamwork, distractions, that kind of thing. Use your skills and unique abilities.”
“Says the Alpha who has no abilities,” Aya commented.
“I can play bass!” I reminded her.
“He’s a pretty good singer too, and he has a cute voice for sure,” said Lady C.
“I prefer Iris’ voice,” Aya said, lifting her nose up at me.
Rose and her cub, Gobi, came up from the meadow and relaxed on the grass, watching as they practiced on me. For their next attack, Aya threw her sword in the air, caught it with her ghost limbs, stuck it in the ground, and flipped over, just as Lady C. came in from the side, her swords held like a pair of shears.
“That’s a great one for catching mythcrea,” I said as she moved the blades just a bit closer.
“You want me to do it?” she asked in an almost flirty way.
“Not really?”
She laughed. “Then buy us cabins. You gave Iris money.”
“That’s right,” Aya said, approaching me with an eyebrow raised. “Where are our cabins?”
“Coming soon,” I promised them as I dipped out of Aya’s blades. “We just need to do well in the tournament?”
“Do well?” The Thulean scoffed. “We won’t do well; we will win.”
“That’s right,” Lady C. said, although there was a bit less confidence in her voice.
“We’ll see,” I told them. “Now, come at me!”
As if she were warming up for double-dutch, Lady C. began rotating her two swords in front of her body. She increased her speed until she was going rather quickly. Not quite within striking distance, she’d move just close enough for me to get the sense to block and then step away.
She smiled as she twirled her blades, and I hardly noticed the three throwing knives sailing over her shoulders and directly into my body. Two connected with my chest, one in the center of my forehead.
Instakill!
I fell backwards and was narrowly caught by Aya’s ghost limb. “Like that one?” she asked.
“This is all good stuff,” I said as soon as the blood healed up on my forehead. “This is exactly what I need from you two out there. I want you to try something crazy now… I want you to switch weapons or something.”
Lady C. started to say something and stopped. She looked at Aya and nodded.
They got into position and Lady C. came in swirling her swords. Suddenly, she threw her swords up in the air and backflipped away. She landed, blasted me with lightning just as Aya caught her swords with her ghost limbs and held them at my throat.
-398 HP! Critical hit!
“Yes!” I smiled as Aya returned Lady C.’s swords to her. “That’s exactly the kind of stuff I want to see going forward.” I rubbed my hands together. “Who’s ready to go back to New York?”
“One more thing,” Lady C. said, slightly out of breath. “I have a new spell. Remember my Ignis Ignis book?”
I recalled the book that was basically about all things fire.
Lady C. drew both her blades. Soon they were full-on burning, the fire licking off the steel. She brought both weapons back and made an aggressive slicing gesture, which sent an arc of fire towards the meadow scaring more of the wildlife.
“Fire swords that can shoot fireballs?” I asked.
She grinned. “That’s right. Now, we can head back to New York.”
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Home sweet home, even if the space in my home was demarcated by a pipe.
I let the NV Visor do its thing, and as I lay on my bed, I thought about Rickenbacker. The body made of maple, the fingerboard of rosewood, the two single coil pickups, the overall shape of the instrument, which reminded me less of Lady C.’s curves and more of Aya’s thin physique.
It was a gorgeous instrument.
Not at all the way I should think about an instrument, but instruments were designed with playability and style in mind, and like a Corvette or some of the sleeker muscle cars, the femininity of the object was juxtaposed with its fierceness.
A new Rickenbacker would cost me around four grand; getting a new one was a goal worth having. Used could work too, though, and it’d be half that price.
After the next tournament, I told myself. A message from my bank flashed in the lower left-hand corner of my pane of vision. It was the most money I’d had in there in a while, and rather than pat myself on the back, I immediately paid my thousand-dollar citation.
Damn, that hurt.
Seeing money brought a grimace to my face, a frown instantly righted by Aya and Lady C., who stood before me in their sleep clothes.
Aya had on her ultra-tight boy shorts and her short, loose top. Lady C. was in a lace nightgown that showed plenty of thigh and accented her well-rounded breasts.
“Are you ready for us?” Aya asked as she crawled onto the bed.
My heart skipped a beat and then returned to its normal pace when I realized she was just messing with me. A blue teddy bear appeared in Lady C.’s arms. “Go brush your teeth,” she said as she crawled onto the other side of the bed.
Do other Hunters and Huntresses sleep in the same bed as their Alpha?
I considered this as I brushed my teeth. Some of the Alphas I’d brawled against had some pretty ugly Hunters, another was underage. Surely she wasn’t snuggled up with her main fighting crew.
Play it by ear.
My typical response to things made it easy to process my current dilemma.
I was attracted to both of them, less so with Aya, but there was a fiery energy about her that I secretly liked. Being attracted to Lady C. was a no-brainer: she was incredibly beautiful, smart, flirty, but also innocent in her own way.
Then there was Iris, an actual human, I reminded myself.
Weird that I had to remind myself of that, but it was the end of the 21st century and people were legally allowed to marry humandroids. Having a relationship with a digital entity had been taboo forty years ago, but not in 2090.
Of course, I was in New York; if we had been in the middle of nowhere Montana or the South, the way people viewed relationships might be different. But at least in big cities, people dated whomever they liked, digital, android, and human alike.
“Play it by ear,” I reminded myself as I returned to my bed, my breath minty fresh.
Aya, already asleep, laid on her stomach, her head tilted to the side.
I could see the Thulean tattoo on her neck and another on her back. She hadn’t left a lot of room for me, but that didn’t matter, as Lady C. was on the right side of the bed already in a spooning position.
“You coming?” she asked as she looked up at me. She had an old romance novel in her hands, the picture of a muscled man and a partially nude woman on the cover.
“Your library must be huge,” I told her as I moved in next to
her. Aya stirred, I felt her ghost limb brush against my side, and then she fell back asleep.
“It is, but we’ll get more books in EverLife, better books too.”
“I want to get the code for Iris,” I told her as I placed my arm around her waist. She pressed her body closer into mine, looked over her shoulder at me, and gently stuck her neck out to kiss me.
“No,” she said as she pulled away. “We will go to EverLife. It is better for Aya and me, better for you. There is much more opportunity there and better everything.”
“Better everything?’
“Besides, Iris said not to get her a code.”
“She’s just being nice; that’s who she is. And what do you mean by better everything?”
Lady C. pressed her body closer to mine, as if that were even possible.
“You’ll like it, believe me. It is a completely new world, and you can learn more about mythcrea there.”
“We’ll see,” I said as she kissed me again.
The tension between us was tangible enough that it could be packaged and sold. Her smooth skin, soft features, dark eyes – I couldn’t help but let my hands roam. Her hands roamed too, and it took every ounce of reasoning I had to remind myself that none of this was real, that she was a figment of my imagination, augmented reality at its finest.
But I no longer cared. Tomorrow was the big day, and I was ready to give into my desires.
“Wait,” she said, looking back at me again with a pouty face. “Not here.”
“Yeah,” I said, my blood racing, “you’re right.”
“When you buy me a cabin,” she said, “and don’t think I’m some type of girl that wants you to buy me things. I just want it to be private, and in a place where we can really do this right.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, even though my urges were screaming inside me. “And I didn’t think of you like that.”
She turned to me. “This doesn’t have to be serious either. It just needs to be natural, and it’s not natural here.”
She had a point. While I was as fake in the Dojo as she was here, I had the ability to feel, to function, to modify the environment, and to live. She didn’t have those things here, at least not to the degree she’d like.
I couldn’t blame her for that; I would have felt the same.
“Let’s do well tomorrow,” she said with a yawn.
“Definitely.”
She turned away from me, and pressed her rear into my body.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I awoke to messages from Iris.
She was up, gearing to go, and she had some crazy news for me. I asked her to tell me now, but she decided to hold off until I got to her apartment. She was having banana walnut pancakes delivered in thirty minutes, something I definitely didn’t want to miss.
As soon as I stirred, Aya sat up and turned to me. She tilted her head to the right, her orange hair a little messy and jutting out in random directions.
Shifting her weight over, she moved a few inches closer to me, her orange eyes locked on mine.
Her nostrils flared as if she were sniffing me.
“What is it?” I asked her.
Lady C. was still asleep next to me, her body pressed into mine.
Aya moved a few inches closer to me, her eyes narrowing.
“What the fuck do you want?” I asked with a nervous laugh.
She opened her mouth, bared her teeth, and snapped her jaw shut. With that, she was out of the bed already in her black battle gear.
Weird woman, I thought as I woke Lady C. up. She yawned, turned to me, tried to pull me in so that she could cuddle, and pouted once I left the bed.
“We have to go to Iris’ place,” I told them both.
“Why?”
“Because pancakes.”
I took an UberLyft over to Iris’ efficiency apartment, barely paying attention to the city, the sun on the horizon, a few clouds in the sky. I wondered what “crazy news” Iris had for me. I wish she’d just told me rather than dangle the carrot.
Lady C. laid her head on my shoulder. “We like riding in aeros now,” she said.
I chuckled. What she’d just said was abundantly true, evident in the fact that Aya had the passenger window down and had one arm outside the window, her fingers drumming on the roof. My instinct was to tell her to be careful, but then I remembered only I could see her, and that she had no chance of losing a limb to a low passing aeros.
We landed, the door popped open, and Lady C. ran up the stoop to Iris’ apartment.
The Metican warrior was also in her tournament gear, the fringe of her battle-ready skirt fluttering in the wind.
I felt something land on my shoulders and I looked left to see Aya.
“What?” I asked her.
She raised an eyebrow at me.
“Let’s just focus on the tournament,” I said, ignoring the look on her face.
The door popped open and I went inside, stopping in front of Iris’ apartment.
“Come in!” she called from inside. As soon as I opened the door, the smell of pancakes came on strong. I was excited as hell to eat.
Iris wore an oversized sweater with a stitching of a pumpkin on the front. She had on her trademark glasses and a pair of tights.
“What’s the news?” I asked her.
Her face went red. “You won’t believe.”
Aya scoffed. “Is she having her menstrual cycle? Why is she so excited?”
Lady C. approached Iris and stared at her curiously. “I can’t tell.”
“Do you smell anything?” Aya asked her counterpart.
“No. But the pancakes looking interesting, like the hotcakes from Scudo,” Lady C. said as Iris stared right through her.
“Well, what is it?” I asked Iris as I sat at the table. She brought me a pancake and smiled at me. “Also, thanks for breakfast. Next time, I’m cooking.”
“He can cook too!” Lady C. told Aya.
“I’ll believe that when I see it.”
Iris sat in front of me, the grin on her face near its breaking point.
“Aren’t you going to have a pancake?” I asked her with my mouth full. It was as delicious as it looked, the banana flavor accented by the crunch of the walnuts.
“I ate before you came. I couldn’t resist.”
“Well, what is it?” I asked her as I swallowed.
“I have the Monster Hunt app now.”
I dropped my fork. “You’re… serious?”
“And no, Aya, I’m not on my period,” she said as she winked at the Thulean.
Lady C.’s hand came to her mouth as her eyes widened. She glanced at Aya and back to me.
“So it looks like we can’t all sleep together anymore,” Aya said with a shrug.
“What’s that again?” Iris asked her, looking back at me.
I started to clear my throat.
“Because now it would be awkward,” Lady C. said hurriedly. “For us ladies. Not for Chase. He’s a perv anyway, probably likes sleeping with loads of women.” She winked at me as if to say, ‘our secret is safe.’
Could you be any more conspicuous? I thought as I swallowed another awkward bite of pancake.
“How did you get the code?” I asked. “Don’t tell me you bought it.”
She laughed. “With the three hundred you gave me? Hardly.”
“Do you have Hunters yet?” Aya asked, glancing around the small space. “If so, they are hiding. Probably scared of me.”
Iris shook her head. “You’d see them if I did. To answer your question, Thad returned the code to me and I activated it.”
“Thad did? I thought the codes couldn’t be returned.”
“Only if it is activated. He never activated the app, and late last night, he forwarded it back to me.” She sighed. “He said he was sorry for doing what he did to our gear, and that was that. Also, that he wouldn’t press charges.”
“What the hell got into him?” I asked.
“Who knows, but
he did mention he’s going to get some help.”
“That’s… not at all the news I expected,” I said as I took a deep breath. “So are you going to get your Hunters now?”
“Or Huntresses,” Aya said.
Iris chuckled.
“I hope it’s not two Huntresses,” I said with a smile on my face. “Believe me, it’s more trouble than it looks.”
“What?” Iris asked. “You can’t handle two more women? You seem to handle three just fine.”
I couldn’t tell if this was a dig or a compliment, so I just shrugged. “As you said, they choose you, not the other way around.”
“That’s right,” she said, standing. “But that’s after the tournament.”
“And EverLife,” Lady C. added.
“It would be so nice to go there,” said Aya. “We must win this, Chase.” She approached me with narrowed eyes. “Do not let us disappoint you.”
“I’ll try?”
“Another question, before we log in,” I said to Iris as she approached her futon with her visor.
“What’s up?”
“How does all this come together if we’re both Alphas?”
Chapter Nineteen: The Manor
We briefly spawned in the Dojo, but only for a jumping off point. Now that Iris was an Alpha, I had no idea how things would play out in the future, nor the logistics of our partnership. I figured we’d hunt together, but where did that leave things like Brawls and tournaments?
All that could be unpacked later.
I had to blink twice when Iris spawned in a low-cut black dress, tights, and black Converse.
“What?” she asked as Lady C. and Aya looked her over. “Everyone has to dress up, right?”
“We all look so beautiful and fierce,” Aya said. “Even Chase looks a little tough.”
“The tie’s a bit too tight though,” I said as I loosened it up some. “We ready to go?”
The three of them nodded; I found the tournament option on my dashboard and touched the name Sagelock, which was underlined and bolded.
We appeared at the entrance to a dark, foreboding manor that looked like something straight out of Bram Stoker’s nightmares. There were gargoyles glaring down at us, torches lighting the space, a carriage over to my left with skeletal horses before it, a grand entryway complete with a red carpet and a mahogany door that was two stories tall.
Monster Hunt NYC: A Fantasy Harem Adventure Page 22