Suiteonem Prime, World Tree, Mathogopolis, Suiteonem III, 20138

  The last time Sixty-eight had been in the metropolitan city inside the tree was about a year ago.

  No Thundercrash this time, though he was still active carrying out his empyreal guard duties judging by the news orbs.

  This time she wasn’t alone.

  For this Quest with an empyreal guardsman was for her entire lochos.

  The empyreal guardsman hadn’t bothered to introduce himself or make the standard pleasantries. He had just glared down at them with that glowing yellow eye of his and gave them their orders before flying away with his rich violet cape fluttering in the air.

  “I’ll never get use to how there’s weather inside the tree.” Eighty stared pensively out the window.

  A rich man’s window judging by how clear the glass was and how the rain drops slicked off the moment they hit. Oh, and the gold filigree on the frames. Well, the gold on everything.

  It was a mansion after all.

  Some kind of fancy council member owned the place.

  The man in question sat in his rich ebony throne with, again, a ton of gold worked into the wood like veins.

  It was very enchanted and normally they wouldn’t have been able to tie the man up to the chair without the defenses activating and flying him out of there in a protective shield.

  Fortunately, his fourth wife, a young woman barely older than Seven and Fifteen, held more loyalty in her heart for doing the right thing.

  Sixty-eight supposed that being the rich man’s primary heir helped the wife’s decision making process.

  “Please. Let me go. I’m loyal to our God. I always have been.” The rich council guy blubbered. He had been doing that nonstop since they had slipped into the mansion. “I can help you rise in your struggle to stand at his side. My resources—”

  A glowing gold band wrapped around his mouth.

  “You couldn’t have done that at the beginning?” She narrowed her eyes at her half-sister.

  “Hmph!” Fifteen turned up her button nose and glared down. “I am saving my mana.”

  Just about two years in to her schooling and Sixty-eight was still the shortest by far out of everyone in the lochos.

  It wasn’t that she hadn’t grown.

  She had.

  Definitively.

  Drinking the lake water from the Grail had increased her growth rate beyond what the doctors and eidolons had initially predicted.

  It was just that her entire lochos had also tasted the same water.

  Eighty was almost broad enough at her shoulders that she’d soon have to start angling herself to get through the standard single doorway.

  And her height?

  Well, she had the annoying habit of resting her bear paw-sized hand on Sixty-eight’s head when they stood close together.

  Sixty-eight shot a well-deserved glare Eighty’s way. And to make it fair and proper, did the same to Seven and Thirty-two.

  The latter had taken to Eighty’s head patting before Sixty-eight had punched him in the dick.

  That had taught him properly.

  It was just a shame that when she had tried the same punch to Eighty all she got was a fond laugh and the words ‘that’s our vicious weasel!’

  Seven stared at the council guy like an unblinking eagle.

  “Where was that loyalty when you decided to protect an agent of chaos? A criminal? A murderer? You beg forgiveness? You’re only sorry your evil acts were dragged out into our father’s golden light.” He paced in front of the council man, dragging his dirty boots purposefully into the expensive rug. Each step tore into it more and more. “Did you think your wealth and power would protect you and your depraved cabal? Did you think you could play at your evil rites in your mansions forever? Well… that ends tonight. Your co-conspirators are being taken even as we speak. Killed one by one. Cutting his escapes routes one by one.”

  The council member’s eyes widened.

  “Ah!” Seven chuckled. “I see you understand what that means. He’s being cornered like a gold-furred fox. The tenth-ranked empyreal guardsman is leading the hunt with Mathogopolis’ brave warriors. They’re turning over burrows, shining lights and filling the air with the braying of hounds.”

  “My automatons don’t bray,” Thirty-two whispered. “They send a quiet message to the control unit so as to not alert the quarry.”

  “Nuh uh,” Eighty said. “They bark.”

  “Well, yes, they’re capable but not now.”

  Seven shot them an aggrieved look, but they cost him his moment, so he left the council guy to his soiled sleeping pants.

  “How was that?” he whispered.

  “Adequate.” Fifteen rolled her eyes.

  “Too many words,” Eighty pounded fist to palm. “Should just knock him out.”

  “You conveyed your message well. Though, I fail to see the point since he will be dead shortly and we aren’t allowed to record any of this,” Thirty-two pointed out.

  “It’s good practice for when we are allowed to do that.” Seven shrugged. “What did you think, Sixty-eight?”

  “Huh? About what?”

  She hadn’t been paying attention to anything else besides the council man’s quivering belly.

  He wasn’t in bad shape for an old rich guy. He looked like he had been physically powerful in his prime.

  “Don’t ever change!” Seven patted her on the shoulder.

  He, like Thirty-two, had been a quick learner.

  In truth they where fortunate.

  As part of her lochos and not being completely detestible, she had never gone for their noses even in their most boiling times.

  The same courtesy had not been extended to the rest of her half-siblings.

  “What’s the outside situation?”

  “You can see for yourself, Seven.” Thirty-two tapped on the gold underside of his bracer.

  He held up a live image from above the council guy’s mansion and grounds.

  Crowds were beginning to gather in greater numbers outside the gatehouse.

  Mathogopolis security forces were positioned on the other side and around the mansion perimeter.

  The Quest’s finish belonged to their lochos’. If they could do it.

  “He corrupted that many people?” Eighty said.

  “Not completely. Those people haven’t been marked,” Seven said.

  Sixty-eight shuddered at the memory from the beginning of the Quest.

  Their quarry carved his mark inside his closest followers.

  As in, he peeled back the outer layer of their skin and carved the ritual circle on the underside of said skin.

  Indeed, she could see the faint glow through the council man’s pale skin.

  “They’re still going to die.” Thirty-two sighed.

  “They should’ve obeyed our father’s law,” Fifteen said. “Henceforth, they are traitors deserving of their fates.”

  “Huh? I thought he can force people to obey him or whatever,” Eighty said.

  “All of that is irrelevant in this moment. We are about to face the toughest fight of our lives,” Seven said.

  A voice crackled its way through Thirty-two’s communication device.

  “It’s done. I’ve forced him to flee. Prepare yourselves,” the tenth-ranked empyreal guardsman said.

  Sixty-eight leveled her rifle, aiming for the council guy’s stomach and the center of the faint ritual circle.

  Eighty stomped over to axe-range. A short-handled version meant for close quarters.

  Fifteen and Seven positioned themselves at the large chamber’s only door. The former cast magic circles with her weird finger, hand and arm motions ready to fire spells in an instant. The latter held a round shield and a short, stabby blade. Seven’s role was to protect their caster rather than directly fight their quarry.

  As for Thirty-two?

  He had already used his artifact to create a translucent gold dome around Sixty-eight and himself.

  The only openings were a few holes that gave her a complete field of fire covering the entire chamber.

  The glow on the council man’s stomach intensified like a flare spell.

  His eyes bulged as he thrashed wildly against the chains tying him to his throne.

  Fifteen dismissed the gag.

  “Scream you evil man!” she snapped. “Scream like all your victims!”

  He obliged to the sound of her cackling.

  “Whenever I decide on who is the most disturbing someone always does something to throw off my rankings,” Thirty-two muttered.

  Yeah. That’s true, Sixty-eight agreed silently.

  The top weirdo spot in her lochos often rotated between Thirty-two, Fifteen and Eighty, in that order. Seven rarely made it past the number two spot.

  Her only conclusion was that everyone, except her, had the capacity to be weird and stupid.

  An imprint of a face pressed from behind the council guy’s stomach.

  “Get ready!” Seven said unnecessarily.

  Hands joined the face.

  Small, like a child’s.

  Then the council man exploded in a shower of gore.

  Sixty-eight squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet struck dead center on a forehead of the face that she couldn’t quite fix to a singular form.

  Laughing and crying and raging and other emotions.

  The face was pale-skinned, sharing features with the council guy that had just birthed it.

  No!

  It was dark-skinned, a twisted, lengthened caricature of the face she saw in the mirror every day.

  No!

  It was a mask that changed with every blink.

  Eighty cleaved across.

  The golden arc sliced through everything behind the figure, ruining a literal fortune in furniture, rare books and artifacts as her divine power overwhelmed the council guy’s protective enchantments.

  He could pay to protect against dust, insects, thieves and clumsy maids and visitors, but not against a demigod.

  As for their quarry?

  He— no, she, judging from the shape revealed by her tight, colorful, mismatched attire, bit down on Eighty’s axe blade with a smiling mask that moved like a real face. White teeth lenghtened into serpents that slithered up Eighty’s axe.

  She let go and jumped back to let spell and gun fire take their turns.

  “A fitting welcome for the Cosmic Fool!” The woman sketched a bow to each demigod in turn. Somehow dodging each shot and spell just so.

  “I thought he was a he!” Fifteen snapped.

  “The lieutenants must’ve been just him— them changing,” Seven said. “It doesn’t matter. The plan remains—”

  “Cat Got Your Tongue!” the Cosmic Fool laughed and meowed.

  Her masked face morphed in a blink into a furry cat face. Completely with orange stripes, whiskers and fur-tufted triangular ears on the top of her head.

  She mimed a scratch Seven’s way with one paw, while waving a dripping tongue in the other.

  Seven gagged, spitting out a torrent of crimson down his chin and the front of his chestplate.

  “Me-ouch! That must smart. Not so smart to chase my tail.”

  She turned and wiggled said tail, dodging a bullet from Sixty-eight and Thirty-two and a pair of spectral hands from Fifteen.

  Eighty barreled into the Cosmic Fool.

  Rather, she tried.

  Despite Eighty’s speed the Cosmic Fool deftly twirled up and around the mountain of muscle and armor lazily.

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  She slapped Eighty’s face with Seven’s tongue with one paw and flicked her other dismissively toward Sixty-eight with a wink.

  “Yoink—”

  There was a slight tug on her rifle.

  Thus, she shot the Cosmic Fool in the face again.

  And missed again.

  An anatomically impossible twist of the head was all it took to turn a shot right between her cat’s eyes to one that just grazed a furry ear.

  Contrary to some idiots’ belief.

  A grazing shot from a rifle didn’t mean a little bit of blood that was fine in a few days with even the most rudimentary of healing.

  Nope.

  A grazing shot to something delicate like an ear meant an ear ripped right off the head and turned into bloody meat.

  “You’ll have to do better than that, foul creature,” Thirty-two said with his smuggest tone. The kind he used whenever lecturing on things only he cared to study. “My artifacts are proof against your evil powers.”

  “Challenge accepted, scarecrow boy! Yoink!”

  The floor dropped out from under the two of them.

  The Cosmic Fool had yanked the expensive hard wood planks and the underlying structure right out from beneath their boots.

  The room below was dark.

  They had forced everyone in the mansion to evacuate.

  “Hurry, Thirty-two!” she barked.

  “Ruff, ruff!” a deeper voice than before echoed.

  Thirty-two dug into one of his many bags to throw another protective dome over them.

  This one was hastily done and much smaller, forcing her to switch her rifle for a short gun.

  “I’m releasing my automatons!” Thirty-two’s voice had gone up a few octaves. “They’ll find her— him—”

  Little insects of brass and bronze buzzed out of his slim pack.

  Their eyes glowed with golden pinpricks of light.

  “Oh! How pretty! Like the twinkling stars in my void.” The voice was definitely a man’s now. Deep and booming.

  Thirty-two’s automatons shined a light on the Cosmic Fool.

  He was no longer a humanoid cat.

  He was a humanoid dog. Like those animal shifters.

  “Ruff, ruff,” he barked happily before pointing at them at the same time that Sixty-eight squeezed her trigger. “Your Bark Is Worse Than Your Bite.”

  Her bullet plinked off his muzzle.

  “And you two are looking a little tired, are you not? Let the Intergalactic Jester help you with that. You’re both Dog-tired.”

  Sixty-eight’s limbs suddenly felt like they were encased in Eighty’s armor rather than her lighter one. The weight increased with every beat of her heart.

  The pot within tried to boil, but could barely keep at a simmer.

  Thirty-two slumped against her back, long arms draped other her shoulders and drool dripping down her helmet.

  “I… I thought… was… Fool…”

  She shrugged him off, letting him slump against his translucent golden dome.

  “What now, little girl? Would you like your Intergalactic Jester to sing you a merry lullaby?”

  “How about you die.”

  Her eyelids dropped and darkness encroached from the edges, pushing away the red-gold haze she needed.

  Much like she imagined it would do where she in the void.

  It was at that point that the ceiling exploded.

  Eighty crashed into the Intergalactic Jester along with chunks of ceiling.

  Sixty-eight watched a fever dream unfold before her.

  A red-gold giant chased a laughing, barking, dancing blob of many colors and a wagging tail.

  Crimson and gold splotches spread out from the giant across a galactic canvas whenever the colorful blob touched her.

  A field of shooting stars shot down out of the circular void above them all.

  Only to disappear into a second void opened up by the blob with a wave of its blobby hands and reappear except heading the back the way they had come.

  Music sang down with the voices of pain and surprise.

  Solar rings appeared around the colorful blob, dimming its vivid brightness as they constricted around it.

  Just long enough to hold it in place for the red-gold giant to splatter it against the blackness.

  The same blackness that finally defeated Sixty-eight.

  …

  Sixty-eight woke up because of the laughter.

  Hers and others.

  “Cosmic Laughter of the Mad Ones!” The Intergalactic Jester cackled from where he perched on the back of an Eighty wracked by full-bodied laughter. “Hahahahahaha! You’ll laugh so hard you’ll cry! You’ll laugh so hard you’ll break your ribs! You’ll laugh so hard you won’t be able to breathe!” He turned suddenly sinister eyes on her. “You’ll laugh so hard you’ll die.” He snapped suddenly, then cackled once again as he tap danced on Eighty’s quivering back.

  Sixty-eight couldn’t stop laughing.

  She couldn’t see through the tears.

  Couldn’t breathe like he had said.

  That was fine.

  She hadn’t been trained to shoot while laughing, but she had been trained to shoot in a variety of adverse conditions, including while being shocked.

  Thus, when the Intergalactic Jester twirled she shot him in the back of the head.

  His lanky limbs seized up and he toppled off Eighty’s back bonelessly.

  The mad laughter stopped instantly.

  Eighty sprang to her feet and made to stomp the Intergalactic Jester, but all she found was an empty set of colorful clothing.

  Fifteen cast a spell.

  “I can’t detect him!”

  Seven gurgled some kind of order, but Sixty-eight had no idea what it could have been.

  “I’m not detecting him either.” Thirty-two’s wide, tear-filled eyes clung to the controls for his destroyed artifact automatons under his arm like it was his only link to sanity.

  She sympathized.

  It was the short gun in her hand for her.

  Cackling filled the dark room.

  She caught the flash of movement in the opposite corner.

  A snapped shot.

  Vanished in the palm of a white-gloved hand. An oddly over-sized hand with sausage-like fingers.

  “What’s That Behind Your Ear?”

  Before she could react, searing pain cut through the left side of her head.

  Yup.

  Her ear was fucked.

  They were going to charge her so many points to regrow it.

  And she was wearing a helmet.

  “Yes! It is I, the Celestial Harlequin come to entertain you!”

  He or she—

  Sixty-eight wanted to bang her head against a wall.

  The Celestial Harlequin was neither man nor woman, yet they were both at the same time, but also shifting from one to the other… and not.

  He wore a colorful costume, patterned in diamond shapes of different colors.

  Presumably, in the colors of the celestials.

  Whatever that meant in this case.

  Sixty-eight just wanted him and her to die.

  And still her pot refused to boil.

  “Come, come, come! Dance with me, children! Dance the Dance of the Eldritch God of Madness!”

  The Celestial Harlequin leapt and twirled around the room, touching each of them in turn before they could strike.

  Eighty first, who leapt and twirled in the wake of shooting stars and flashing comets through a stage filled with spinning planets and sparkling galaxies.

  Seven twitched and strained, but he too succumbed and joined the dancing through the stars.

  Fifteen was next, the most graceful of them all.

  Followed by Thirty-two as he turned off his protective dome to throw himself into a pirouette.

  Sixty-eight cursed, but she dropped her short gun and joined the troupe.

  The Celestial Harlequin led them through the dead council guy’s mansion.

  Each room was a different solar system in their eyes, a different galaxy, a cloudy nebula, the twinkling ice of a comet’s tail and so on.

  All through it swirling eyes, thousands of them, watched, boring into them, looking, seeing, infecting.

  The music swelled, rising and falling with a perfectly harmonious discordant arrangement that sounded right because it was right.

  Their dance carried them back to the chamber with the remains of a man tied to a chair as the song reached a crescendo.

  It was then that a different pair of eyes looked back.

  Golden eyes within the demigod children glared back at the interloper.

  Mine, they seemed to say.

  The song crashed to a stop.

  The dance faltered.

  The demigods returned to reality.

  The Celestial Harlequin pouted.

  “Drat! Almost. But as they say, almost is only good with horseshoes and bombs.” Her wistful smile turned sinister as the features of her face elongated. “If I can’t have you, then no one will. Hahahahahahahaha!” His cackle shook the chamber.

  Seven drew a blade and lunged into a perfect form thrust.

  “Yoink!”

  Seven’s blade disappeared, reappearing in the Celestial Harlequin’s hand.

  She stabbed him in the gut through his armor like it wasn’t there, which it wasn’t because she held it in her other hand.

  Fifteen sent a barrage of magic missiles.

  The Celestial Harlequin doffed his top hat and caught them all with it as he bowed.

  “Behold a magic trick! As I turn your missiles into… demon bunnies!”

  Little, blood-stained abominations hopped out of his hat and set upon Fifteen’s magic shield, chewing with their massive fangs and kicking with their deformed claw-feet.

  “And for you, little lady.” He stuffed his arm up to his elbow into his hat and pulled out a bundle of fake flowers. “Tada! Acid Flowers!”

  They sprayed.

  She turned her head, letting her helmet take the brunt.

  A few drops got on her face and ate away at flesh, but missed her eyes, which was all that mattered.

  “Young man.” He danced closer to Thirty-two. “I may have a surprise some would call shocking for you. But, first… let’s shake on it.”

  “I see your device, putting off enough electricity to power this entire mansion. I’m no fool,” Thirty-two scoffed.

  “Fool enough to make the worst mistake of them all.” The Celestial Harlequian waggled her brows. “Talking to me!” She waved her hand and encased Thirty-two in a web of electricity.

  His entire body seized as every muscle contracted with maximum force at the same time.

  “The eyes are the mirror to the soul. In them I can see the universe. Through them I can go… elsewhere.”

  The Celestial Harlequin produced a thin blade from thinner air with a flick of her wrist.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll still have one eye left for me to visit you through next time. That’s right, children! Don’t fret. For the Cosmic Jester shall always be one laugh away from your side.”

  Sixty-eight ignored the acid eating her face and loaded a different kind of bullet.

  The Cosmic Jester had hauled Thirty-two up and positioned him to take away her chance at a clean shot.

  There was only one way for her to prevent an escape… oh, and Thirty-two losing an eye permanently.

  Aim. Breath. Squeeze.

  It was automatic.

  The thought that she was only a little better than fifty-fifty at hitting her target when using the technique never crossed her mind. The more bounces the worse her success rate.

  This time took three bounces. First on the floor. Second on the wall. Last on the ceiling.

  The hard, slightly springy bullet struck the Cosmic Jester on the back of his head and spurted around to encase the entirety in a thin, opaque, sticky film that should’ve clogged every hole.

  No hearing, no seeing and most importantly, no breathing.

  His body shuddered, wracked with the struggle to breathe.

  Or not?

  The closer Sixty-eighty paid attention the more it looked like the Cosmic Jester was still laughing.

  He pulled at the pink slimy film.

  And flicked it around the charging Eighty’s head.

  He winked at Sixty-eighty.

  “I’m Rubber, You’re Glue; Whatever You Send My Way Bounces of Me and Sticks to You.”

  Okay… this was getting ridiculous.

  Sixty-eight reloaded and shot at the Cosmic Jester’s knee.

  Somehow, he danced around the bullet.

  “Enough of this farce!” Fifteen screamed like a spoiled princess brat.

  Normally, Sixty-eight would sneer and scoff at her much stupider half-sister.

  This time, however, she conceded that Fifteen had the right of it.

  Demon bunny corpses where scattered around Fifteen.

  Some were burning, others were gooey red and white flatcakes on the floors and ceilings, more were frozen in cubed chunks.

  Fifteen’s light armor and clothing were covered in bites and gouges. She was more gold-flecked crimson than the original white and gold of her attire.

  Indeed, she took a moment to push one eyeball back into its socket.

  Sixty-eight scoffed at that.

  Her half-sister could complain when a small, furry creature actually pulled the eye out and ate it.

  Perhaps, then she’d give Fifteen a little respect.

  “One-hundred needles of agony!”

  Gold needles pierced through reality to surround the Cosmic Jester.

  The Cosmic Jester tilted his head quizzically.

  “You know you don’t actually need to say the magic words, right?”

  “Shut up!”

  His smile widened grotesquely. The corners of his mouth reaching his ears.

  “Nyeh!” He stuck out his tongue, stuck thumbs in said ears and wiggled his fingers.

  “Suffer a century of agony!” Fifteen waved her hands imperiously.

  The needles descended like falling stars.

  Fitting for the Cosmic Jester.

  Except—

  Sixty-eight sighed.

  The needles struck colorful clothes and bounced right for Fifteen.

  Her piercing shriek was cut off by the thud of her body hitting the floor.

  The Cosmic Jester gave Sixty-eight a significant look.

  “And I thought the big one was the dumb one,” he stage-whispered. “Now, where was I? Ah, yes! The eyeball!”

  It was at that point that the council guy’s mansion exploded.

  Not from within, to be clear, but from outside.

  Roof and walls.

  Everything went away in a flash of yellow light.

  Sixty-eight thought perhaps it must’ve been what termites felt like when the long-tongued digger decided to tear apart their hive for a snack as she looked up at the empyreal guardsman who had refused to introduce himself.

  “Uh oh.” The Cosmic Jester’s easy tone vanished instantly. “Let’s talk about this—”

  There was a rush of wind followed by a strangled choke.

  The empyreal guardsman’s violet cape billowed in the wind above the ruined mansion.

  The Cosmic Jester wriggled like a puppy dangling from a tiger’s mouth.

  The empyreal guardsman shook her violently until she stopped and hung limp.

  He gazed down at Sixty-eight and her lochos.

  “Fail.”

  With that he disappeared into the air with several loud booms.

  Sixty-eight rolled over and lay on her back, staring at the sky within the tree, waiting for the acid to fizzle out as it ate through the flesh and bone in her face.

  “Oh… right.”

  She almost forgot.

  Triage.

  Mathogopolis’ authorities had strict instructions not to provide them aid.

  Therefore, it was up to her to make sure no one died.

  Eighty was still struggling to pull the slimy film off her face, but she was still struggling. So that meant down the list she went.

  Fifteen was in agony, but agony meant she’d live… probably. So, next.

  Thirty-two was out, but breathing.

  Seven had been stabbed in the gut.

  Sixty-eight rose with a silent curse.

  “He probably pooped his pants,” she muttered as she dug into the pouch of holding that contained medic supplies.

  From past experiences, gut injuries tended to make one poop their pants. Her included.

  Seven could probably heal on his own using his divine energy given time, but she probably had to make sure the Cosmic Jester’s abilities hadn’t done anything to mess with that.

  They had failed.

  That meant punishment and no reward.

  The Quest notification taunted her with that fact so she dismissed it with a thought.

  Was it really a failure? the contrarian voice in her head said.

  Their enemy had to be really high level judging by the Skills they had used and it did take the tenth-ranked empyreal guardsman to finally capture him— her— whatever.

  The higher the level the more Skills and spells tended to bend and outright break the rules of the natural world.

  Yeah, she thought, definitely at least Level 70.

  No one else would see it that way, but she didn’t care.

  They were all stupid people, unlike her. She was intelligent and wise.