THE VROL TRILOGY

by SK Benton

  "Max, you just asked three questions."

  "Yes, but I…"

  "Just messing with ya! Of course we have a calendar. It's 2819, of course. Why? Are you from a different year?"

  Not wanting to create any confusion, he decided to simply tell the girl that everything was the same for him, and that he had merely traveled too far.

  "Oh no, I was just wondering - and yes, it's 2819 in my calendar also."

  Jessica glanced at him with a cautious stare and said, "Well, that's good. I mean, I would've thought you were crazy if you said anything different."

  "Yeah, that would be crazy, wouldn't it Jessica? Way crazy."

  I'm in a world where there are cat people, vampires are friendly, and there's an erratic mix of magic and technology. Oh yeah, so crazy.

  Max decided to choose his questions more carefully from then on, and to avoid anything that could be considered controversial. He went back to his coffee and started thinking about food. He had some dried meat strips in his backpack, but as he had earned some of the local currency the night before he thought he would save his rations if at all possible.

  "So Jessica, is there anything to eat around here?"

  "Oh Max, are you hungry? I'm sorry - I usually nibble in my room before I come down. How about some eggs and jerky?"

  He could only imagine what kind of jerky they had, but he graciously accepted. Jessica bounced out of the bar area and went back to the kitchen, and wasn't gone for more than a minute when Dons walked down the stairs, holding his head with his hands. Before he could say a word, Dons greeted him, sounding like he was in a bit of pain.

  "Morning, mate. Hope you slept well."

  "Good morning, Dons. Yeah, I slept great. Are you ok? Looks like you have a headache or something."

  "Right - I get them every now and then. I forgot what they were called - Maggies or something"

  "Migraines - they're called migraines," he corrected Dons, but graciously.

  Max then got an idea - he would get on Dons' good side and acquire access to more information, if possible. He could do that by secretly performing a salucantus on the fellow's coffee. Getting up from his chair and going behind the bar, as Jessica was in the kitchen, he grabbed a mug and filled it up half way.

  "Hey Dons, do you drink coffee? It might help."

  "Oh yeah mate, a cup would be great. I just wish this damned migraine thing would go away."

  "Max kept his back to the diminutive clan leader, and slowly waved his hand over the cup. Finishing quickly, he turned and handed the steaming mug to Dons.

  "Here you go, sir. I have a feeling this will help out."

  He watched with a slight grin as Dons put the cup to his lips and took a few sips. It was only moments later that the man's expression completely changed from one of pain to one of complete relief.

  "Max, that was… did you put something in my coffee?"

  Max feigned ignorance and responded as if surprised that the coffee had actually worked, "Huh? Oh, no. I don't have anything to put in it. Nothing. It's just that coffee constricts your blood vessels, and dilated blood vessels are what make migraines. So it's simple science, really."

  Max's explanation of what caused a headache was spot-on, but he was lying about the coffee to a certain extent. While caffeine did have a moderate effect of constricting blood vessels, a migraine headache was caused by numerous factors - too many to be properly analyzed without medical equipment, which he was sure didn't exist where he was. So he simply commanded some salubots to go in and take care of the pain via the coffee, helping the clan leader in the process. He needed Dons to be in a good mood so he would answer any potential question later on in the day.

  They both sat there with their coffees, and it wasn't much later when Jessica came drifting in, holding two plates of eggs with some sort of dried meat on each one. Setting the platters down in front of the two men, she sat with a look of satisfaction on her face, waiting for them to eat and tell her how they liked it.

  "Not bad, Jess, not bad. You're getting better at cooking," said the small, one-eyed man.

  Max took a bite of his eggs, which were tolerable, but when he put some of the dried meat in his mouth he about gagged - it had light patches of green mold all over. He hid his displeasure with the food and nodded his head enthusiastically, making Jessica smile and lightly bounce on her toes. Whenever they were both not looking at him he nonchalantly moved his fingers over his plate and made bits of the rotten meat disappear, until it looked like he had finished everything.

  One thing was for sure - he would be going through his dried meat rations more quickly than he had planned, unless he could find where to purchase some protein - or hunt some down at the very least.

  As the three engaged in some light conversation about varying types of jerky, they were interrupted by some annoying noise out in the street, sounding like to two cats fighting. The racket made the hair on Max's nape stand up, such was his displeasure for felines. Sniffing the air he found it was Cassandra fighting with another female (and he still hadn't seen any male nekos up to that point).

  The three bolted out of their seats and burst out the front door in order to see the commotion outside. Cassandra was in the street, fighting with another neko, as Max had predetermined. They were clawing and scratching each other furiously, then separating and raising their backs and screaming.

  "What's the deal with them?" asked Max, only knowing that the neko was a new recruit in the Feral clan. Jessica looked at Max, rather enjoying his touch of concern.

  "She's defending territory - that other neko has been squirting around the club and it drives Cassandra crazy."

  Max knew about the scent deposits. They were fresh and they stunk to high-heaven - at least to his senses. Back in his castle home the cats had been modified to not have scent glands, but there he was, smelling it from someone who was roughly fifteen times the size of an ordinary domesticated cat. That equaled fifteen times the stink.

  Everyone watched as Casandra and her blonde-furred enemy viciously battled, which consisted mostly of screeching and clawing. Max got a kick out of watching the two cat-girls beat the crap out of each other, as it seemed innocent enough at the time. Jessica watched with rapt interest and a slight grin on her face, while Dons stood off to the side, his arms folded, analyzing his new recruit so he could determine if she was good for the clan or not.

  Cassandra did a double back flip and then pounced forward, claws extended. This time she managed to wrap her legs around her opponent's torso, and immediately dug her nails into the girl's eyeballs, ripping them out with a tremendous backward arc of her arms. Blood spurted out of the girl's eye sockets as she screamed and fell to the ground in agony.

  Max ran forward, absolutely mortified that someone would blind another on purpose, and only because of scent marking on foreign territory.

  "Oh my GOD! What the hell are you doing?"

  He ran to the poor girl on the ground, and backhanding Cassandra, knocked her back roughly 15 meters, where she landed in a heap. Jessica moved to go to Max's spot on the ground, but Dons quickly stopped her.

  "Leave him, Jess - he doesn't know our ways, and I want to see what he does. Plus, anyone who can casually slap a normal-sized neko that far has some serious strength."

  Max picked up the poor cat-girl on the ground as blood dripped out of the sockets in her face where her eyes used to be.

  "Will she heal? Do people heal here? This is insanity!"

  No one said anything as he held the unfortunate neko while she cried, emitting little mewling sounds in between her sobs. He never liked cats - ever. But he would never kill or maim someone for little or no reason. Turning to Dons he demanded an answer.

  "Do people heal here? Or is this permanent?"

  Dons shook his head, denoting the obvious.

  "Sorry mate. It's permanent, but it's our way.

  "You guys are disturbed. I'm bringing her to her clan, if she even has one. I'll be back."
/>   He glared at a recovered Cassandra, who had a look of victory on her face that was also mixed with a bit of confusion.

  Max picked up the small, blinded neko and carried her away, trying to comfort her as much as possible. She softly pawed at his cheek while she remained curled up in his arms and crying.

  "Hey, hey. I'm here, little one. What's your name?" He spoke with a soft voice, fully meaning to calm her down and let her know she was safe.

  "Me ish Mini. Me ish blinds now. No more lifies. Shorry. Me loosh."

  She continued to cry and whimper, as Max leaped over the post-apocalyptic rubble and tracked her scent trail, attempting to get her back to where she had come from.

  "Mini, do you have a clan?" he asked, with some bit of urgency.

  "Yesh, we shmall, but good family. I shmell home. I can shmell it."

  Max stopped and set the girl down, not knowing if what he wanted to do would work, but he felt it was only right to try.

  "Mini, do you heal? Will your eyesight come back? Tell me."

  "Nooo. Me ish no shee nows. Me ish gonna die."

  "Not on my watch, little one. Not this time."

  Max held her face in his hands, and concentrated very hard on her eyes. Compound cantuses flowed through his mind, down the back of his neck and through his arms. Energy flowed from his hands into the girl's face as he directed salubots towards her, causing flesh to reconstruct from the inside out, a beautiful blue glow surrounding her head. Optic nerves regenerated and pushed out as her eyeballs slowly reformed. What had initially occurred over a probable nine-month gestation period now happened in a fraction of the time.

  After roughly five minutes, Mini sat up, looking around while holding her face. She started to cry again, but this time with tears of happiness.

  "Shir! You make me shee! How you do thish?" the little neko asked Max.

  "It's just… what I do. But don't tell anyone, ok? And do me a favor - don't ever go back to that club and pee all over the place, got it? In fact, stay away from that street."

  Mini bounded up, and looking at Max while on all fours, tilted her head to the side. Then she suddenly pounced up and put her paw-like hands on his chest while she purred. Rubbing her face onto his chest she said, "Shank yoush. I be goodiesh now."

  The odd, miraculously cured neko then jumped over some ruble and disappeared into the apocalyptic wonderland of a near-completely destroyed city.

  Looking at his meter in his peripheral vision, it was apparent that his strength and health levels were fine, but his magic and stamina levels were tanked. That meant it would be a while before he could access any more cantuses, and that he was even at an extreme disadvantage if it came to fighting. Looking out over the wreck of the city, he went to make his way back to Seven Sins Avenue, where he could hopefully make amends with a clan that had perversely reveled in the wanton blinding of a girl during a simple catfight.

  He considered waiting for a while until his levels all peaked again, but he needed to find a way to get back home to his family, so seeing no Vrol fliers, he leaped up over the semi-destroyed buildings to get back to the only potential allies he had in that world.

  Arriving back at the club he saw a group of people hanging out front - mostly humans, but a couple of nekos and a lycan. He looked the lycan over and noticed that the man was fairly large, but wasn't huge - not like in the Rhönen Dominion. In fact, he determined that all of the lycans he had seen the night previous were not large in stature, and most seemed only slightly larger than Max, who was not a big guy.

  Putting that in the back of his head, he burst past the crowd and entered into the club front door to find Dons, Jessica and Cassandra sitting on skanky couches in front of the bandstand.

  "Hey guys, did Cassandra pass her initiation with flying colors?" he asked, displaying a bit of disgust in his voice.

  Dons looked at him and nonchalantly replied, "Hey mate. Yep - she passed. She's in."

  "Yesh. Me ish Feral Kid now!"

  Max looked at them, not knowing what was going on in their minds. His new world was obviously different, and he had to walk on broken glass with these people - especially until his levels peaked again.

  Dons looked at Max with a semi-concerned, yet unaffected face, and although he was a normal he was able to detect certain things about people. He could feel that Max was not to be trifled with, and as he was smart for a normal he decided to put the fact that Max had rescued Cassandra's kill off to the side - for the time being.

  "So mate, you got the kitty back to her clan?"

  "No idea. I got her close by and someone was going to our location. I just left her there."

  "Ah, I see. Well, that's not how we do things around here, but ‘cause you're new and cook an awesome stew I'll let it pass this time."

  Max saw his cooking abilities as a chance to segue out of the conversation of neko battles and sociopathic clan competitions into something of a friendlier sort.

  "Oh, you tried some of my cooking? I thought I made enough for a couple of days. Is there any left?"

  Dons shook his head and laughed.

  "Nope - Jess finished it off last night. But I wouldn't mind if you made some more, eh?"

  Max glared at Cassandra, who was using a nail file to sharpen her claws. He could understand killing enemies, but killing your own kind just to be in a club? He found it worse than barbaric - on the level of vampire depravity - but then again, he thought that cats were weird in the first place.

  "Hey, I can cook some more. Give me just a bit to whip something up, ok?"

  "Oh Max, that sounds great! Your cooking is almost as good as mine!" chimed Jessica, which made Max cringe, the rancid taste of her poorly-prepared breakfast still lingering on the tip of his tongue.

  He went to the kitchen, which was already trashed thanks to Jessica's cleaning skills - or lack thereof - just an hour before. As his levels were still tanked in the yellow line and the blue was creeping up a bit faster, he opened the refrigerator and started pulling out ingredients for the stew, intent on waiting out his regeneration and getting some decent food in his stomach at the same time. The meter was slowly creeping up, having hit about 15%, so if he took his time he could wait a bit.

  He figured out long before that compound cantuses would deplete his resources quickly, and the one he used on Mini was high-level. For the most part, using magic didn't affect his stamina levels at all, but complex healing such as tissue regeneration could be taxing in that aspect. He would have to be careful in the future when using salubots, lest he expose himself to danger by leaving himself powerless.

  After about 30 minutes his stew was simmering and a delicious smell wafted through the club. His yellow line was almost full and his stamina had peaked minutes before, so he figured it would be ok to go back out into the bar area and see how things were going. Walking in he found everyone where they had been before - sitting on skanky couches where nekos and normals make out every night.

  "Stew will be ready in about fifteen. Till then we can just wait… or whatever," Max stated plainly as he looked around, noticing that a few locals had entered the bar and were already consuming beer.

  "Me likesh shtewsh," said Cassandra in her odd, barely understandable way of speaking.

  While this didn't make Max happy, as her vicious mauling of Mini had turned his stomach, he acted like everything was peachy-keen.

  "Hey Dons, tell me - last night Jessica told me that you guys have a magic man. Where is he? I'd really like to meet him, if that's ok.

  "Oh sure, mate - he's around and may show up any minute now. His name is Adam."

  "Nice - thanks. Well, until then, and until the stew is ready, I think I'll spend a tooth on some beers."

  Max grabbed a dark beer that had a creamy foam to it. He always liked dark beers for their rich flavor and lack of carbonation. As he sipped his beverage, he took notice of the people filing in and out of the club - mostly humans and a couple of lycans. There were no nekos around, Max figuring the
y were probably scared to death of Cassandra, as she had ripped the out little Mini's eyeballs, effectively marking her territory.

  A lycan approached Max and stood next to him at the bar, not saying anything for a moment. Max smelled a bit a fear on the man, but gave it no notice until the male spoke to him.

  "So, what are you doing here? Is this your clan now?"

  Max looked over at the lycan - an ass-hat who had puffed up his chest in an attempt to look more formidable than he actually was. In comparison to the lycans of the Rhönen Dominion, the guy was a weasel.

  "Um, don't we usually start out with an introduction, like, Hi my name is…?" asked Max, a bit perturbed that the guy was trying to intimidate him so early in the morning.

  "I don't need to explain anything to you, little scat pile. We're a lycan clan and we determine which wolves can run around these parts. So if you're not in Feral, you have no business here as far as I'm concerned."

  Max really wanted the guy to go away. He had already depleted his levels once that day, and needed to find out some more information about where he was so he could find a way home.

  "Look, pal. I have no beef with you or your clan, whatever they may be called. I'm just passing through and while I'm here I'm performing some tasks for Feral."

  Max was trying to stay as calm as he could, given the present situation.

  The lycan sneered, believing he had detected a submissive attitude from the stranger sitting on the barstool. It was his cue to push a bit more, and push he did.

  "So what kinds of tasks are you performing for this clan? Are you looking for teeth in the badlands? Or are you a butt-boy for the human weaklings who populate this club like an infestation of cockroaches? Or maybe you clean the couches like the nekos - with your tongue?"

  Quite satisfied that he had made a sufficient string of insults, the lycan male grunted and slammed his open palm down on the bar top. Not paying attention to anyone behind him, he didn't notice that Dons was watching with great interest hoping for a fight so he could see what Max was capable of.