THE VROL TRILOGY

by SK Benton

  After watching Liliana consume massive quantities of protein, as was the lycan way, he looked over at Jennie and asked her how her death form sapience training was coming along.

  "So, my daughter. Donus has informed me that you are managing quite well during the full moon. How do you feel you are doing?"

  "Oh, fairly well. At least I'm not trying to kill anyone anymore. I can read while in phase 3, but it's a pain trying to learn the spoken language. I'll get it one of these days. Lili is soaking it up, though. She tries to help me with pronunciation, but usually ends up in hysterical laughter."

  The bright-eyed lycan girl looked up from her plate and mumbled, "Yup."

  Draagh smiled at his great-granddaughter, and then continued, "Jennie, I have been considering something, and I believe that you may be able to help me.

  The stunning, dark-skinned lycan woman gave him her full attention with her overly large, doe-like eyes.

  "What would that be?" she asked, then taking another bite of meat and not bothering to be so dainty with her eating utensils, as was usually the case when she was distracted by something.

  "There is someone who needs our help, and I believe that the time has come to assist."

  "Who's that, and what are we gonna do?"

  "I want you to accompany me to Azul so we may rescue Luigi Bagatelle."

  "What? He's been kidnapped? What happened? When did this happen?" she interrupted quietly, so as not to alarm her daughter.

  "No, my dear girl, not kidnapped. He is under house arrest, and has been so for a number of months. Apparently, the father of the headless Ryder Johnson twisted the data I provided, which proved that the Vrol attacked Earth. He made it appear as if Luigi had falsified the information. Councilman Johnson is quite a piece of work, I must say. Just like his son, he carries the recessive vampire gene, and thus is capable of actions most vile. Yes, certainly most vile."

  "But why didn't you say anything before about this?" she responded, while remembering how she had liquefied Lt. Ryder Johnson's skull in the Battle of the Blood, just under a year before.

  "Well, my dear, I had been simply hoping that things would turn out for the best, but as I said before, Councilman Johnson is quite a piece of work. It was because of men like him that we decided to take away Man's ability to touch nature and manipulate magical energies."

  Jennie felt a rush course through her body, unlike anything she had felt since she first started searching for Max. It was the perfect distraction for a distracted wife and mother, who also happened to be a formidable warrior, as well as a werewolf.

  "So when do we go?" asked the lovely lycan female.

  "We leave tomorrow, early. I have already arranged for Liliana's care during our absence. We will not be gone long anyway - just a slip in and a slip out."

  She looked pensive for a minute, and then said, "No. I want Lili to come with us. She needs some new scenery too. Plus, it would be great for her to see my home world, even if only for a short while."

  Draagh smiled, agreeing with her, and said, "Very well. We shall leave in the morning."

  Chapter 2 - The Lost Angel

  Old-Earth's Viking Age provided mankind with a unique legend. Thor, the Norse god of thunder, had a hammer named Mjölnir. Whenever Thor threw the hammer it would return to his grip without fail. He could also command its presence when he saw fit. Some say the legend was simply that - fiction created by tribal leaders over the years.

  Now contrary to modern belief, Thor did indeed walk the earth, and he had a hammer that would return to his hand whenever he desired. However, he was not who everyone thought he was - he was one of the archangels - and Mjölnir was merely a vessel; a container for something much greater.

  The hammer's faithful return was facilitated by the non-sentient ghanlo residing inside - an immortal, soul-like life form that was permanently bound to its master. The two couldn't be separated, except by the owner being banished from the universe by another of his kind. This would then result in the ghanlo residing in an object of historical significance until a new Primulus (or archangel) found and claimed it.

  Aside from banishment, they were inseparable for all eternity, and Draagh's ghanlo was no exception to this rule.

  Max Gunnarsson tried to leave his particular location in space/time with a ghanlo that belonged to a different master - the one that resided in his grandfather's wooden staff. This backfired and blew him out to an alternate timeline. The ghanlo had its reasons for doing so; the mathematical complexities of the universe commanded it to. But no one gave Max a post-it note (or a personal console message) with instructions.

  When he had just lifted his face out of a cesspool of sludge and waste underneath the broken pavement of Sunset Boulevard, and was looking up at small fire that emitted smoke near the broken Hollywood sign on the hill to his north, six standard months had already passed in the Rhönen Dominion, with him being none the wiser. He had erred seriously and was unaware of his place in the universe.

  Max was cautious as he climbed out of the sewage pipe in which he found himself, at the same time sniffing the air and attempting to detect any nearby life forms. Noting that the nearest being was something with a very disagreeable scent at half a kilometer to the south, he crept out and stayed low. Quickly pulling off his backpack, he dropped it on the broken ground and opened it up, pulling out all of his belongings - his stinger, his comm, his personal console and half a kilo of dried venison strips. He reached backwards; making sure his katana was secured to the straps on his shoulders. Satisfied he had not lost anything (aside from Draagh's staff), he set out and away from anything he could smell.

  During his months in the Rhönen Dominion of the 43rd century Max had studied the art of war - specifically recon and espionage. He was very adept at sneaking around and gathering intel. He was also extremely proficient in the use of his sword, and of course, his stinger, which he had trained on before ever having left his home planet. But, of course, Max's biological father was the Taxiarch; the most powerful of archangels, giving the young man some very specific magical abilities - if he was in the right environment.

  As he bounded over the rubble that littered the street, something suddenly dawned on him - he was seeing and smelling like a lycan. The inactive parts of his mother's genome had given Max a completely different range of skills - enhanced strength, senses, and the ability to transform himself at-will into a hyper-strong battle-ready beast. But these abilities were not available on Earth of Max's century - only before the 6th and after the 33rd centuries.

  It was apparent he was on Earth of the past, and if what Draagh had told him about Old-Earth was true, he shouldn't have even been able to detect a pile of crap from a distance of more than two meters. But this wasn't the case - he smelled everything, including distant scat from hominids with which he was unfamiliar.

  Thinking quickly, he kneeled down out of sight underneath the torn awning of a burnt-out storefront. Pulling out one of his throwing knives that he kept in fasteners on the sides of his boots, he nicked himself on his inner right arm with the sharp blade, watching blood seep from the small wound; it then healed within seconds.

  Salubots are working in full order

  He looked around and sniffed the air, making sure that nothing was close by, and holding out his hand, executed a grav-push cantus on some large pieces of pavement that had long before been upended in the street. A boulder about the size of a small car flew into the air and landed with a loud, dense thud. This caused a Vrol flyer drifting in the sky to go in his direction, but it peeled off once it got near and didn't see anything on the wide boulevard. He also concentrated and saw his semi-transparent, organic HUD in the upper-left corner of his field of vision, with it also appearing on the inner part of his left arm on-demand.

  Got my skills

  The next thing he did was critical. He had refused to listen before slipping out of Draagh's office, but he attempted to call Socrates. To his dismay the sentient mage intelligence ac
cess portal didn't appear. When that didn't work he tried to 3D slip to the end of the street. He didn't even move a centimeter.

  Dammit. Guess not everything works like it should. Why didn't I listen to the face?

  So, not knowing where to go or what to do, he started walking westbound on Sunset Boulevard while taking care to stay in the shadows. Focusing on what he needed to do, he would find his way home, but first he had to find a mage, if one even existed on his strange, new world.

  Max walked westbound for a short while, scanning the sky ad the ground for anything dangerous, when he detected the scent of a lycan. Alarmed at first, as he was in a different world and he had no idea what he would encounter, he flanked the scent, and came around from its south.

  As he approached the scent and it became stronger, he was surprised to see a young woman sitting on the remnants of what was a retaining wall running along a drainage canal. She was whistling and swinging her legs side-to-side along with her little tune. He calmly approached her out in the open, not wanting to alarm her, and was about to make his presence known when he heard her say, "Heya. Smelled you waaaaaaay back there."

  "So, you have a great nose too," he stated plainly.

  "Sure, why wouldn't I?"

  "Ok, I guess you got me there. Is this location safe?"

  "Pretty much. I have a hidey-hole I jump into when a demon flies overhead."

  So they call the Vrol demons, he thought to himself. Wanting to get a feel for this world that was apparently not from his timeline, he decided to try to gather intel from the presumably innocent woman who continued to whistle.

  "Um, can I sit down with you? I'm harmless," he said with a bit of hesitation.

  "Sure. Why not? But harmless? I don't think so."

  "What do you mean I'm not harmless?"

  "Well, let's see. You have a weird-looking gun strapped to your leg, and you have a big-ass sword on your back. Looks like you're hunting something, and it's not rabbit."

  "Is there enough room in your hiding place if another… demon flies over?"

  "Yup, pretty sure. If not I'll just push you out."

  "Nice. So, what's your name?" he looked at her with a curious expression. She was average height, and cute - extremely cute. Not like his wife, who was smoking-hot, in vernacular terms, but very cute. She had brown hair that was cut short, and oddly - she was without shoes. He couldn't imagine being without shoes.

  The girl stared straight ahead as if he weren't at her side, answering , "Jessica. I'm called Jessica… Oops, a demon. Duck!"

  Jessica slipped off the retaining wall and silently dashed down to a large pipe that fed into the canal, quickly slipping in. Max followed her rapidly, and fortunately both fit inside.

  "So, what's your name, ninja puppy?"

  "Max. Max Gunnarsson."

  "You have two names? How weird. What do they mean?"

  "Well, Max is my given name - my first name, and Gunnarsson is the name of my family," he said.

  "You have a family? Like a mother and a father? That's nice."

  "Well, yes and no. I have a mother, but I never met my father."

  "Same here. But I have one name. Jessica. That's all."

  "Well it's nice to meet you Jessica. I'm… uh… kinda lost."

  "Duh!" The girl started laughing, and then peeked up out of the pipe, looking around and sniffing the air. "Demon's gone. Fresh air time!" she said as she bounded up out of the drainage pipe and popped back up onto her wall.

  Max climbed out, albeit a bit more slowly, and sat back up on the wall saying, "So, what are you doing here? Just sitting around?"

  "Mmhhmmm. Watching people. I like checking people out."

  Max looked around and saw no one, then turned back to her curiously, "There's no one around. Who are you watching?"

  "Oh, some bounce by every now and then. One's coming now."

  She was right - Max smelled the air and detected the disagreeable scent from earlier. But what arrived shocked even the lycan commander who had travelled to different worlds. A humanoid with short, yellowish fur covering its body and a cat-like facial structure approached them as if everything were totally normal, while not emitting any scent of fear.

  Max tried to keep from growling, as lycans had a certain dislike for anything feline. He watched as the cat person, who was obviously a female (as one could tell from her ample, fur-covered breasts), sauntered over and popped up on the wall on the other side of his new acquaintance.

  "Yous gots a new puppy friend, hmmm?" asked the odd arrival.

  "Hey Cassandra. Yeah, this is Max. He has two names!"

  The cat-like girl then made a perplexed face, and counting the fingers on her paw-like hands, attempted some rudimentary math.

  "That only onesies. Max-Max is twos!"

  Feeling a bit at ease with the odd kitty, he leaned over and waved.

  "Hi. I'm Max Gunnarsson," he said, and then smiled.

  As soon as the girl saw his teeth she hissed and jumped back three meters, landing in a low crouch and extending her claw-like fingernails.

  "Max," exclaimed Jessica, "don't bare your fangs at her! That's rude!"

  "Max Gunniesman is meanies!" screeched the cat-girl, as she licked the back of her hand and started to clean her face, much like a real feline.

  "Hey! I'm sorry. I'm new around here. That was called a smile, and where I'm from it's meant to be friendly! I won't hurt you, honest!"

  Jessica giggled and started swinging her legs again.

  "Cassandra, Max is nice. He's just visiting anyway. And Max, I heard stories of the old days. People would smile by showing their teeth, but ever since nekos started coming around that changed."

  "Ermm, nekos?

  "Yesh!" purred Cassandra, "me ish neko. We niceies toos."

  "And you also have your own take on the English language, I presume."

  Cassandra shot Max an odd, confused expression that he couldn't quite understand, so he turned and looked out to where Jessica was staring.

  "Hey Jessica, can you tell me about this place? I mean, I kinda got dropped off here and I'm lost."

  "We all got dropped off here, Max."

  "Huh? You were dropped off too? Like, from a 4D slip? Do you know a Primulus?"

  Jessica looked at him like she had no idea what he was talking about.

  "No, silly. The demons bring us here. They drop us off and hunt us. They are nasty, those demons."

  "Me hates demons. Hates hates hates!" squelched Cassandra, as she hissed viscously and pounded her little paw-hands on her thighs.

  Max started to assemble some data in his head. Vrol would drop off people and hunt them. It was obviously Los Angeles of the past, but not the Los Angeles he ever read about. He had his lycan abilities, and he had most of his magic. But there were people, so the chances were that the Vrol amoeba was never dropped on the world - or least where he was. He also probably reeked of waste materials. Looking down, he fudged with his leather battle jacket.

  "You need a bath, Max. What were you doing, rolling in poop? I know some guys who like to do that, but I gotta tell ya - it's a real turn-off with the ladies."

  Max snickered and blushed a bit.

  "Um, I'm not worried about ladies. I'm married, but my mate is somewhere far away and I need to get back to her. My daughter is with her too. But yeah, I could use a bath. However, I do have a question - what is this place called? This city…this is Los Angeles, right?"

  "Well," replied Jessica, "yeah, we're in L.A., of course - Hollywood district. And I know where you can get cleaned up. Hey! You wanna meet my clan? You seem nice enough."

  "Thanks, and sure. What is your clan called?"

  "Feral Kids. We're the Feral Kids. Cassandra is our newest recruit too!"

  "Meowwwwwwsh. Yupsh. Me ish a Feral Kid!"

  Cassandra started pawing out at the air as if she were trying to play with an invisible piece of string dangled in front of her face.

  Max certainly welcomed the bath, but was u
naware of how long he would be able to tolerate the neko who was brutally mangling his native tongue. Her scent was bad enough, but like with anything else, one always needed to adjust, and for all he knew that weird cat-girl could help him out.

  Scanning the area and getting his bearings, he looked at Jessica and said, "So, where is this bath you were mentioning?"

  "Oh, you wanna go? Cool! It's on Seven Sins Avenue."

  "Great! Let's go!" he said excitedly, and the dropped off the retaining wall, landing on his boots with a thud. The girls followed him down but made nary a sound when their feet touched the street.

  "Max Gunniesman ish noisies," giggled the neko as they all started walking down the partially destroyed street towards a place called Seven Sins.

  After navigating (sometimes while hidden in the shadows) westward for about an hour, they cut south and arrived at a main thoroughfare that had signs identifying it as Santa Monica Blvd, which the locals called Seven Sins. Then, again going west the street redirected to the left at a 45-degree angle. It wasn't much later that they arrived at a large building that was amazingly still intact, and had the word Feral Pride spray-painted on the front in big, red letters. Loud rock music pounded out the front door of the windowless structure (the windows having been covered with plywood), and various beings of different types - but mostly human males - hung out front.

  Entering the building, Max followed as Jessica and Cassandra skipped inside like they didn't have a care in their very weird world.

  Once past the door, he looked around while smelling everything he could. There were more of those nekos, humans, lycans and even a vampire. The smell of ghoul alarmed him, but he felt no fear, as the scent was very faint. After all, he had easily dispatched a vampire king in hand-to-hand combat some months before - along with the help of some very intelligent fresh-water great white sharks. Max could have killed Vladros with his bare hands, but instead chose a much more flamboyant method of dispatching his rotting enemy.