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VILLAINS RETURN

The Shadow Master Book 5

M. K. Gibson

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Copyright © 2023 Michael K. Gibson

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. With the exception of those who have given their written consent to use their likeness, any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author,

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Cover design by: MK Gibson
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309
Printed in the United States of America

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Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

The Ballad of Erika Myers, Part 2

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

The Ballad of Erika Myers, Part 3

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 22 and a Half

The Ballad of Erika Myers, Part 4

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

The Ballad of Erika Myers, Part 5

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

The Ballad of Erika Myers, Part 6

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Epilogue

Afterword

About The Author

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Foreword

A lot of books will try and use a foreward from a famous person as a way of getting clout. Prestige. I like to use the words of real people who just like the book/series. As such, I put out a call to some fans and said "Hey, you wanna put your words in here?" and boy did they answer the call. I love y'all. Thank you for everything.

~MK Gibson

********

“This series was a psychosexual nightmare I'll never recover from.”

~ Anders Haywood

“One two buckle my shoe three for Randy's head hit the door. Got to love nursery rhyme.”

~ Randall McMahon

“From someone who was NEVER interested in books about Supers, Jackson Blackwell as THE Super villain has made me reevaluate my life goals.”

~ Beau Yonker

“After reading this series, my new goal in life is to be a super villain-god like the Shadow Master.”

~ Ed Nemo

“The Shadow Master, Jackson Blackwell, is my spirit animal to such a degree, I’ve begun to wonder if Gibby has been gaslighting me for the last five years.”

~ Martin William Mason

“I don’t know what’s going on but you have my full set of quips and terrible jokes.”

~ Ken Holt

“Heroes die young or live long enough to become the villain. That’s when I offer my services.”

~ Kaz Pumphrey

“The works you're about to enjoy were telepathically dictated not read by Jackson Blackwell AKA The Shadow Master.”

~ Aaron Nelson

“When the main character is a 4th wall-breaking god of his own pocket dimension with a delightfully evil Jinn as his secretary who was set on destroying him through 3-Star reviews and more, what more could you ask for besides making the narrator say he has a penguin dick, wait, that already happened. 4-Stars.”

~ Dion Johnson

“As soon as I get done plundering this world, I'd love to say a few things about my mentor, Jason Blackwell. But if you have Benedict Cumberbatch say, 'Penguin dick' I'll get right on it.”

~Thomas Machin

“MK Gibson breathes new life into the genre with his 4th-wall breaking super villain, Jackson Blackwell, aka The Shadow Master. This engaging, twist and turn take on the world on villainy provides the perfect mix of in-depth storytelling, comedy, sarcasm, and violence that will have you rooting for the villain. The Shadow Master series is a must have for every fantasy reader’s bookshelf.”

~ Josh Shipley

“Welcome to the thunder dome where walls are broken and shit happens!”

~ Triple-T John

“MK Gibson writes an amazing and unique story of a man turned into a god. The god of villainy. A truly One of a Kind Masterpiece of a story arc. The characters truly do grow and evolve as the book series goes on. Every book leaves you laughing and full of excitement for the next chapter. Except for the third book. I'm still mad. It's been years… don't care. MK Gibson is an A-hole. Life is tough, it really is. And finding the Shadow Master series really did help me remember to laugh and enjoy life again. Thank you MK.”

~ Angelo Houle

“[I’ve] wracked my brain… drew blank. I’ve failed this task but that’s okay. I can’t wait to read what everyone added.”

~ Ken Holt

“I don’t know what I could say that I already haven't said directly to Gibby. Just know his world building and character development in his books spark my imagination and creativity so much so [that] I've customized action figure after them. So let's jump in and see what awaits us.”

~ Ira Levi Williams

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Prologue

The Ballad of Erika Myers, Part 1

Hey there, dear readers. Don’t worry about the prologue’s title. It’s not a mistake. Rest assured, this is in fact Villains Return, and the main book will start very soon. I promise. What I’m doing right now is kind of a callback. A framing device similar to what Sophia did in the previous book, Villains Defeat—which, if you ask me, was misnamed. I guess in a way I was “defeated,” but as we saw by the very end, I managed to get my way.

Like there was any doubt.

But titling a book Villains Overly Complicated Plan of Escaping the Jaws of Defeat by Becoming a Titan . . . well, that’s just too much. The cover art alone would’ve suffered from such a girthy mouthful.

Heh, girthy mouthful.

Sigh. Come on, Jackson. You’re better than that. Don’t make this dirtier than necessary. You’re trying to clean your act up a little.

Not all the way, mind you. I’m . . . evolving, if you will. Trust me, folks—there will still be the same amount of yuk-yuk jokes, beloved potty humor, and all the classic Shadow Master antics to be had. But for those who’ve been paying close attention, seeing beneath the surface of the “comedy,” there’s a real story being told. One of growth.

I don’t know if I’m proud of said growth, mind you. But it’s there nonetheless. Literary history, you, and my royalty checks will determine if said growth was worth it.

Anyway, this micro-tale is about one Erika Myers. You may recall her as being my former assistant manager at Starbucks. Her side-story will be a recurring thing throughout the book. An adjacent allegory, if you will. And yeah, it technically takes place after the book’s main story is over. But the last time I used the word “prepilogue,” a few of you lost your damn minds. Hence me here now explaining things to your dumb asses.

No, not you good folks, the other ones. You and I are cool. The others? Woof.  Doucheknuckles, every one of them.

So settle in as I, Jackson Blackwell, take you on a tour of history, showcasing a few of my favorite stories about revenge while dishing out a little of my own.

Enjoy.

*******

Erika Myers was an asshole. She knew that. In fact, she kind of reveled in it. Knowing people hated her? Knowing that she made others cry? It filled her with pride.

Because that’s how you got power.

Working your butt off was one way to achieve your goals, but that wasn’t enough. True power came from being willing to step over or on as many people as possible. The trick was never letting your own mistakes come to light. And that was accomplished by shining an even brighter spotlight on the faults of others, even for the smallest slight.

If you wanted perfection, then you had to demand perfection. Loudly.

It was the only way to shut the mouth breathers up.

And when something or someone was in your way? You found a way to go through them. That was how she got rid of the former manager of Starbucks, Toby.

To think that pasty ginger prick was gonna have her moved to another location. Oh, he’d framed it as a promotion, her managing her own store. But this was her town and her shop. It had become number one in the county because of her initiatives, not his.

Which is exactly what she said to Derek, the district manager. She showed him the numbers, her plans, and how she had accomplished everything on her own. Three days later, Toby had been demoted to assistant manager, and she had ascended.

It felt good. It felt damn good.

So when Erika walked into her store that morning for prep, she wasn’t surprised when the employees—correction, her employees—averted their eyes. She was the queen now, and they knew it. She was the—

“Morning, Erika.”

She turned to see April—her . . . well, disciple might be the best word—standing there, a fresh cup of coffee in hand.

Disciple or not, that informality had to go. Erika raised a single, overly plucked eyebrow in response. The girl with the dyed black hair, silver bullring nose piercing, and blowing dandelion neck tattoo lowered her eyes.

“Ms. Myers,” April said, correcting herself.

“Better,” Erika said, taking the coffee and sipping it before blanching. “Ugh. The rest of the breakfast blend better not taste like this.”

“Ma’am?”

“Ass,” Erika said, waggling the coffee in front of the other girl’s face. “It tastes like a hot cup of ass. Have whoever made this abomination start over. And I mean completely. Dump the lot, wash the containers thoroughly, grind new beans, and start over.”

“Of course,” April said. “Should I throw that away as well?”

“No, I’ll hang on to this to remind myself what failure tastes like,” Erika said, then added, “because I personally don’t know what that is.”

Masking a smile, Erika watched April scurry off. In truth, the coffee was perfectly fine. But you had to keep these idiots guessing. Otherwise, they got lazy.

Just as she began walking back to her office, April stopped and turned back.

“Oh, one more thing, ma’am.”

“What is it now?”

“There’s a guy here to see you.”

“We’re not open to the public for another hour.”

“I know, ma’am, but he was very insistent. He says he used to work here? I think I recognize him. But all old people look alike to me.”

April pointed to a table at the back of the shop. A well-dressed, vaguely Middle-Eastern yet definitely middle-aged man in a dark gray suit sat there waiting. She couldn’t quite see his face given how he’d positioned himself in the shadows.

“I’ll take care of it. Go finish getting ready.”

“Yes ma’am,” April said, returning to work.

Erika walked towards the man, noticing a rectangular gift-wrapped box on the table. But once she got closer, Erika stopped and glared.

“You.”

“Me,” the man said.

It was that old guy who’d worked there a couple of years ago. Jason? No, Jackson . . . something? Eh, it didn’t matter. His name wasn’t important. What was important was that he was not welcome in her store.

“What are you doing here?” Erika asked. “You were banned from this shop for life.”

“By Toby,” he said, a smirk on his smug face. “But it’s my understanding you’ve become the new manager. I’m here to congratulate you and to give you this present.”

“I’m busy.”

“Heh heh, no you’re not,” he said. “I worked here, remember? Listen, you have plenty of time to make everyone hate you just that much more. Please, sit for a moment. Open your gift. I bought it just for you.”

Erika rolled her eyes and let out a sigh. “Fine.”

Taking a seat, she set her coffee down and picked up the package. Based on the shape, she was expecting a fancy bottle of wine or liquor. Instead, she found a plain white rectangular box containing a bottle of . . . hazelnut creamer?

She regarded it for several seconds before looking into his eyes. “Is this supposed to be funny?”

“Not to you,” he said. “But to me . . . well, it’s fucking hilarious.”

“You should leave now.”

“And you should accept the gift,” he countered. “Accept this token of peace from me and apologize for getting me fired.”

“Why?” Erika asked. “You seem to be doing just fine.”

“I am,” he said. “But that’s not the point of why I’m here. I want you, Erika Myers, to accept what I’m offering and apologize for your behavior.”

“Fuck off, loser,” Erika said.

But as she went to stand up, she found that she couldn’t. She tried again, and still her body refused to move. It was like something had turned off the switch to her muscles. She could think, she could breathe—but she couldn’t move.

“I am so happy you decided not to take me up on my offer,” this guy, this Jackson, said. “I truly am. Now I get to do what I really wanted to do.”

“What?” she said, then blinked in surprise when she realized she could still talk.

She took in a lungful of air, ready to scream her head off . . . but no sound came out. Nothing.

Jackson smiled.

“If you haven’t figured it out, I’m in control. You will listen to my story. Think of me as all those ghosts from A Christmas Carol combined. And you, dear Erika, are Scrooge. I’m going to tell you a story. A story with multiple parts. This story is my tale of revenge, and you . . . you are definitely a part of it.”

That was when he snapped his fingers and they both vanished, leaving behind nothing more than a wisp of smoke, a twinkle of starlight, and a lukewarm cup of coffee next to an equally room temperature bottle of store-bought hazelnut creamer.

A bottle that was clearly not labeled.

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Chapter 1

Where I Tell You Something I’ve Never Said to You Before, Show You What Everyone Has Been Up To, and Spend an Inordinate Amount of Time in the Bathroom

Hey there, dear reader. Miss me? Of course you have. What am I even saying?

Now right off the bat, you’re going to hear something you (or I, for that matter) never thought you’d hear from me: an apology. 

But don’t get used to it.

Okay . . . here we go. Ahem.

Dear fans, friends, followers, and the cheap bastards who get books on Kindle Unlimited instead of paying the reasonable full price so that indie or small-press creators can make a living . . . it’s been something of a delay between my books. Two-ish years is too damn long. And for that . . . I, Julian Jackson Blackwell, am . . . ugh. Sorry.

There, you happy?

Not gonna lie, I think I need a shower after saying that. Feels dirty, you know? All over. Painful too. Like getting pegged by a Bolivian power lifter wearing a cinder block strap-on.

You know what I’m talking about . . . right?

You don’t? Huh.

Oh, I know. You know those friends who have an ugly baby? I mean, a real fug-mo spawn. And it’s obvious to everyone except the parents that said baby is hideous. All the while you’re staring at this infant chud, holding your tongue from screaming, “Back to the pits of Hell, devil spawn!” because social convention dictates that your only response is to say, “Oh wow, how . . . cute.”

Well, my apologizing just now was the aforementioned fugly baby scenario and the concrete ram-job combined.

Wait, what was I originally saying? Oh, yes, right . . . the prolonged break between books. 

Now I’m sure you’ve kept yourself busy since I’ve been away. I’m not so arrogant to think that you haven’t read anything else since Villains Defeat came out.

Hmm . . . am I that arrogant? No—no, I think I’ve gained a little bit of humility over these recorded adventures. I’ve . . . matured. So in the interim I’m sure you’ve consumed the latest Dungeon Crawler Carl book that Dinniman guy does. I know I have.

Love that Donut.

Or perhaps you’ve read whatever new batch of “literature” the Authors & Dragons crew has foisted upon their legion of disposable income . . . I mean fans. Maybe you’ve feasted on one of those new AI-generated novels. And if you have, you’re a douche. Full stop, no joke needed. Trust me, if I was still the same me back when I was human or a god, I’d be all over that AI tech. Fuck those artists. Now that I can’t profit from it, I feel bad for those creative wretches. 

But back to the delay.

I could blame my personal scribe, but I can’t . . . even though that son of a bitch insisted on cranking out that Cape is a Lie book. Gods above and below, that big-nosed jackwagon actually wrote a story based on a reboot from the comic universe in Villains Pride? And I’m not seeing a dime of it?!

Sigh.

The truth is, I instructed Gibson not to write a single word of my current adventure until now. I know, I know. Why the hell not, right? Well, simple reader, things for me are a little complex at the moment. You see, there are several factors at play, especially when one is planning a comeback. As such, you have to give your enemies time to become complacent. Lazy. Confident in their power.

You need to select the perfect place and time for a revenge story to begin. You see, I find that in order to—

“Hey, TiT! What in name of Verro’Fhaxx’s fourteen testicles do you think you’re doing?!”

Sigh.

“A trans-dimensional narration, sir!” I barked, jumping to my feet and snapping off a quick salute.

The multi-eyed protoplasmic cosmic horror with a vaguely humanoid shape and a military high-and-tight buzz cut looked me up and down, shaking what I believed to be his head at me.

In truth it might have been his . . . well, its wang-dang-doodle, for all I knew. Titans were oddly obsessed with genitalia.

“I swear, you TiTs never change. Every damn one of you thinks they’re the next Gh’ollo and that the rules don’t apply to you.”

A murmur rippled from the crowd. I couldn’t help but smile. Those who knew of me knew my fascination with rules, their relative pliability, and of course . . . the spotlight.

“Wipe that shit off your weird-looking humie face,” barked Titan Instructor Mho’llar the Demanding, Titan of Order. “Now can we get back to the ceremony, or do you wish to ruin it for everyone by extending basic training a few more days? I know I’d love to see you all back puking your guts up on the obstacle course.”

I turned briefly, scanning the rows of the other relatively newborn Titans, beings of unimaginable potential power who came in every shape and size the vast multiverse could think of.

Personally, I didn’t give a shit. I actually liked Titan Basic Training . . . well, except being called a TiT. But that’s what we were, Titans in Training. Regardless, titan training gave me time to think while honing my skills. And while some of my peers would end up practically useless in the grand schemes of the universe, there were a few of the maggots I enjoyed.

And I mean that literally. Ah’gnar and Phollo’var were eldritch, necrotic larva-like creatures that came from a line of Titans who consumed dead worlds. Plus, they knew a lot of dirty jokes. I appreciated that.

Still, graduation wasn’t just about me. Even though it should have been. I was the only one there who was a mortal turned god turned titan.

“My apologies, Titan Instructor Mho’llar. I’m just excited to get out there and be the best Titan I can be,” I said, then sat back down, assuming the sitting position of attention.

The comment elicited a slight chuckle from the cosmic stage where the being presiding over the graduation stood. Behind a lectern that resembled a reverse waterfall made of lava and stars was the one and only, The One.

Titan Instructor Mho’llar glared at me for a few moments before giving the nod to The One.

“They’re ready.”

“Titan graduates,” The One said, its voice booming over the amphitheater composed of star-stuff and crafted possibility, “it pleases me to see so many new facets of Chaos, Order, Eldritch, and Infinity. How you will shape the fabric of known and unknown reality remains to be seen. But know this—I will be watching.”

Psst. Okay, as you’ve no doubt gathered, I’ve been radio silent these past couple of years because I’ve been going through what is essentially titan basic training. Trust me when I say that perceiving the ever-shifting cosmic landscape of what I’ve been through was difficult to see, let alone describe. While Gaiman makes the literary abstract look easy, beaming this shit into Gibson’s head would have melted his last three brain cells while causing what’s left of his hair to fall out.

So while The One makes their rambling rah-rah speech about how we all have something positive to contribute to the multiverse, how about we check out what my friends and enemies have been up to?

Neat, huh?

“TiT Blackwell,” Titan Instructor Mho’llar whispered from behind my ear. “Looks like you really want to spend more quality time with me. And I know just the way to spend that time. You see your maggot friends there, TiTs Ah’gnar and Phollo’var? Well, they recently ate a few micro dead worlds as part of their training. And that kind of meal leaves a mark on the back end, if you get my meaning.”

“Latrine duty, sir?” I whispered in resignation.

“You know it. A few more days of that might make you appreciate your position here, ya human piece of trash.”

Sigh. “Yes sir.”

********

In the formless void of a remote pocket dimension, atop the peaks of a majestic white-capped mountain, stood the opulent yet tasteful soaring spires of Ushindi Castle, headquarters of Malum Lux Inc., the premier villain consulting agency. If one were to tear their gaze away from the grandeur of the edifice, then one would see a smaller, far less impressive asteroid floating forever in the mountain’s shadow.

Upon closer inspection, one would see the ruins of an ultra-modern building. Said building had been razed down to the foundations. Amid the remnants of this once great monument to a defeated man’s ego stood a hundred-foot ivory statue. The carved stone depicted a bold, elegant woman with a candle holder in hand standing over the defeated form of a man believed to be two years dead.

This statue served as both a beacon of progress and a warning. Eris Pence had defeated Jackson Blackwell. As such, if one wanted to challenge her, one must be prepared to fail, just as Jackson had.

Eris had decided a few things when constructing her new home. First, that the statue be placed among the rubble. Blackwell’s former home and business was, after all, just a faded memory of the former Shadow Master. Her statue gave the ruins a sense of class.

Second, and possibly more important, because Eris had a sense of decency—

magnanimity in victory, as it were—it had been decided that the scraps from the former Blackwell office building should not be discarded and cast into the ether. Instead, what was salvageable was to be recycled and rebuilt in a way to honor Jackson and all he had done for the villain consulting business. He had opened the door for her, and she could never deny that.

So the great Blackwell Parking Structure had been constructed atop the ruins. A place for clients to park or stow their inter-dimensional conveyances, be they flying chariots, steam-powered zeppelins, or nightmare-fueled eldritch bioships. Regardless of construction, all such devices gave off waste and offensive emissions.

Let their shit, metaphorical or literal, befoul Jackson’s old home, not hers.

Once said cosmic clients arrived, they crossed a splendid bridge made of starlight and white marble connecting the smaller, almost limp asteroid to the Malum Lux mountain. After which these seekers of villainous knowledge were whisked away to a plush dedicated corner of the castle, where a veritable legion of associates, producers, consultants, and attendants would place the clients’ needs first, always with respect, dignity, and class.

Time moved differently in this dimension, and as such, the workday never ended. Around the clock, lessons in villainy were taught, consumer relations were presented, and realms of the gods were enhanced. The money, power, and prestige that rolled in seemed never-ending.

Yet at the height of her power after only two years, Eris Pence was spectacularly and undeniably . . . bored. The beautiful dark-skinned woman with the shaved head turned slowly in her chair and took in her expansive semi-circular office. The floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked a dark cosmos of swirling, colorful deep-space phenomena and pinpricks of distant stars. The rich, natural wood of the floors and the inset shelving units that ran the office perimeter practically glowed with affluence. The recessed lounge in the middle of the office was fully stocked with the finest liquors from across the multiverse.

And none of it brought her joy.

“You okay?” Steve asked, setting an exotic stoneware cup of coffee on Eris’s desk.

“Hmm?” Eris said absently, lost in thought.

She took a sip of the coffee. At nearly three thousand dollars a kilogram, the coffee was worth the expense. Despite the Arabica cherries being digested by elephants in a remote province in northern Thailand as part of the process, the brew was primarily served in five-star hotels and Michelin restaurants. As such, it was what she deserved.

Regardless of actual taste.

Eris set the cup back down on her large, sleek desk made of African blackwood. Another testament to her rise in station and power. Running her hands along the desk, she looked for dust, finding none.

Her empire was like this desk. Flawless. Pristine. Without blemish or imperfection.

So why the fuck was she feeling so . . . blasé?

“I don’t know what I am,” Eris said honestly, looking up at her personal assistant.

Steve Cook’s new body was similar to his old, yet perfected. He was tall and fit, and his expertly styled brown hair showcased his narrow-eyed, hawkish face. But the little mistakes—or imperfections, as lesser people say—created by nature had been corrected by the power of being a goddess of this realm. That part had been easy. Steve’s new body . . . well, it wasn’t really a body, not as a human would describe it.

The synthetic vessel through which Steve sensed the world around him was more or less a housing unit, a place for the candleholder to reside. The power that had bonded his soul into that bloody candleholder could not be undone. Not yet, anyway. Blackwell had not been more talented when it came to wielding godly power, per se, simply more . . .

seasoned. She would undo Blackwell’s spell in time.

“What do you mean you don’t know what you are?” Steve asked, taking a seat across from her. “You’re the Shadow Master. That’s who you are.”

“Should I be?” Eris asked.

“Oh for . . . not this again,” Steve said, not even bothering to hide his exasperation. “I know you never liked the title, but unfortunately it’s part of brand recognition. Like it or not, the powers that be across the multiverse know the Shadow Master name.”

None of her other employees dared to speak to her with such flippancy. Yet Steve had a way about him, a no-nonsense attitude that Eris used to her benefit. Having worked for and against her adversary gave the former Marine a sense of context.

But still, roles were what they were.

“I have always appreciated your counsel and your candor,” Eris said, “but your familiarity is bordering on insolence.”

“Then dock my goddamn pay,” Steve said, leaning back in his chair. “You want someone to kiss your ass, you have a castle full of ’em. You want someone to tell you how it is, ya got me.”

Eris let out a breath. He was right, of course. He usually was. Yes, she had the drive and will to make the impossible possible, but Steve was the one—the only one—who could tell her what she actually needed to hear.

“So lemme guess,” Steve began. “Feeling like the Coyote, huh?”

“Excuse me?” Eris said.

“Oh, forgot, rich kid and Ivy League school,” Steve said. “See, we poor people growing up had things called cartoons. One of which was a famous coyote who chased this roadrunner. And—”

“I know who the Coyote and the Roadrunner are,” Eris said, exasperated.

“Oh, great,” Steve said. “Point is, once the damn Coyote caught the bird in an ep, he held up a sign that read ‘So now what?’. You get me?”

“I think a classic like Melville’s Moby Dick would have sufficed,” Eris said. “The pursuit of one’s goals and obsessions cloud the mind to where one cannot see past said pursuit.”

“Uh huh,” Steve said. “My example’s better. Point is, you got your Roadrunner, or whale if you want. You’re rich, you’re powerful, and you make gods dance to your tune.”

“That is true,” Eris said. “So, like your cartoon . . . now what?”

“Whatever you want,” Steve said with a shrug. “Look, I’m not saying Jackson was anything special, no matter how much he thought he was. But you have to give the bastard his due on one fact: he knew how to keep himself engaged and moving forward.”

“So you suggest I have zany adventures?” Eris asked. “Keep records of me lampooning the very genre-dimensions I counsel while telling . . . butthole jokes? Slap them in a book and call it ‘entertainment’?”

Steve shrugged. “Like I said before, you do what you want. But this . . . what do you call it, ennui? It ain’t for you. If it keeps up, you’re going to have to ask yourself, why did you even do it? Why bring him down other than revenge?”

“I guess that is the question we all must ask ourselves,” Eris admitted. “Once we accomplish our goals, what is left of us?”

“Butthole jokes?” Steve offered.

A genuine smile crossed Eris’s face. “Maybe. I assume our next executive-level consultation is waiting for us?”

“Yup,” Steve said. “Want me to let them in?”

“In a moment or two,” Eris said, then looked over at the body of Jackson Blackwell, still preserved in its ornate crystal display case. “I just need to put on my game face.”

“I told ya this job was harder than you think,” Steve said.

“It isn’t that,” Eris said, still looking at the corpse on display.

Steve looked over at his former boss. “What, him?”

“You think he’s still out there?” Eris asked.

“He’s dead,” Steve said, then looked at her oddly. “You want him to be alive, don’t you?”

“No, of course not,” Eris lied. “Just let the client in.”

“Yes ma’am,” Steve said, his eyes saying he didn’t believe her.

Which was fine. She was lying, after all.

********

Aw, that’s sweet. She misses me. And you know what? I’m not even mad. I did try to warn everyone, Eris included, back in Villains Defeat. But no one listened. Being the Shadow Master isn’t the nonstop hilarity-packed thrill ride I make it look like.

It’s why the entertainment we consume doesn’t show us the boring crap, choosing instead to focus on the rare or exciting action that occurs in a character’s life. Can you imagine the alternative?

Oh boy, the MCU has an Avengers inventory show?! Wow. Watching Hulk and Thor use a Stark Tech, 3D Excel knockoff to itemize alien weapons this week? Won’t that be a hoot!

Look, there’s another new subpar Game of Throne spin-off show. Man, I hope there’s an episode where the inbred cousin-fucker clan has raging diarrhea from undercooked wild boar. They can have their witty banter while squatting over the privy. That’ll be worth the monthly subscription.

Did you hear that they’re making a new, gritty Tolkien-inspired book? Yeah, it dives into how the original Lord of the Rings Hobbits who stayed in the Shire now suffer from PTSD. Rumor has it there will be entire chapters dedicated to how they became alcoholics and can’t maintain erections.

Huh. I might actually watch that last one.

The point I’m trying to make here is that the stories we tell rarely include the low or mundane points. Which is why Eris had a grass-is-greener perception of my previous work.

I’m still going to have to destroy her, though.

“TiT Blackwell?” a voice boomed behind me.

“I’m scrubbing, Titan Instructor Mho’llar, I’m scrubbing,” I said, then continued cleaning the commode with a toothbrush.

Hey, while I do this, you wanna look in on Sophia? I haven’t seen her since the end of the last book. I wonder how she’s doing.

********

Sah’Afi’a de’Friit, Deadly Rose of the Garden, better known to some as Sophia Rose DeVrille, cracked the top of the IPA with a quick twist and then tossed the cap into the overflowing trash can. Taking a sip of the Never Realm-imported Infernal Pain Ale, she savored the dark swirling brew, noting the hints of hops and liquefied suffering.

A belly-rumbling belch and a disturbingly deep, borderline-anal-probe-level ass-scratch later, Sophia closed the fridge’s door, crossed the space of her studio apartment, and plopped down onto the nearly threadbare fourth-hand couch.

All Djinn dwell where mortals live, if slightly out of phase. Oftentimes her kind finds themselves in such squalor. The old human texts had that part right. In truth, Djinn were slobs by nature. Decadence and sloth were hardwired in their phlogiston. Still, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not for a being such as her. She’d orchestrated the demise of nations across the multiverse long before the Blackwell family had come across her.

But Sophia had always considered herself different. Aside from mischief and the merriment of chaos, she’d enjoyed finer things. Cleaner things. Yet in just two short years following her former “master’s” death, she had found herself back in the slovenly state of her kin.

This particular residence was the multiverse equivalent of a trailer park for Djinn. Taking another slug of the beer, Sophia glared at her squalid surroundings, then looked down at her expanded midsection and felt hate well up. Hate for where she was, the state of her body, and the slew of not-that-distant relations she’d bedded over the last couple of years.

The crap-hole she called a home, and her belly, she could work on . . . if she wanted to. But being balls-deep with more than a few cousins? That was something you couldn’t take back.

“Eh,” Sophia said with a shrug. It was a Djinn trailer park, after all.

Putting her feet up on the coffee table, Sophia idly fondled the necklace she wore. It wasn’t anything special in terms of looks. Just a simple dog-tag-style ball chain looping through a pierced bullet casing.

This had been the shot that had finally shut Jackson’s mouth. The shot that had ended her partnership. The shot that had . . . what, taken her only friend away?

No, that’s ridiculous. Djinn didn’t have friends. They had assets and enemies. Nothing more. She and Jackson had had some fun together, but Djinn law had compelled her to action. She had to have her revenge.

But what had her revenge cost her?

She looked down at her flip-flop feet and sighed. Even her toes were looking chunky. How did toes get fat?

But then something caught her eye. Past the corpulence of her foot-fingers, Sophia saw an Amazon box on her coffee table—one she never remembered ordering, let alone opening.

Leaning forward, she picked up the small rectangular box and gave it a shake. Huh. Opening it, she pulled out a fresh paperback copy of Villains Defeat. Weird. That book was never put into paperback for some reason. Sure, it was first published as an ebook and audiobook in early 2021, but never as a paperback. Sophia had always hated reading on a tablet. And audiobooks? Aside from those differently abled, audiobooks were for lazy people or large children who still needed their mommies to read them stories before bed.

Plus, there was no way she was giving money to support Jeff Kafer or his career choices. Reading to people? Professionally? Get a real job!

No, Sophia was a classical reader. When she set the time aside, she wanted a physical book in hand, feeling the weight of the tome while the smell of paper tickled her nose. She turned the glossy book over and over, wondering who had sent her this.

Opening the book and turning the creme-style paper, she saw her own words echoed back to her, a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye. This was a good time. And before too long, she found herself reading. Each chapter sped by. Not because it was well written. One page in and you could tell that Gibson had a juvenile sense of prose. No, the book sped by because the poorly told tale evoked the memory of what had happened.

But then Sophia reached the end, the moment where she killed Jackson. She felt something bubble up from her chort, and she forced those feelings back down.

What was done was done.

Then she turned the page and saw what happened next once her part of the story was over.

A slow, cruel smile crossed her lips.

“A gods-damned titan? Oh . . . well done, Jackson. Well done. I always wanted to kill a titan.”

********

Well . . . shit.

While I do love a good challenge, letting my enemies know I’m still alive was not part of my plan. Not until my revenge tale was over. Damn it, this kind of inciting incident is supposed to happen around the midpoint of act one, not during an overly long first chapter!

Well, nothing to do but deal with it as it happens. Should make for an interesting story regardless. 

“Are you still broadcasting?” asked The One, handing me my graduation certificate.

I looked over the empty graduation hall of the titans, taking in the grandeur of the cosmic, non-Euclidean design.

“Apologies, your Oneness,” I said. “I do have a following, after all.”

“Oh, I am aware,” said The One.

“Of course you are,” I said, realizing the folly of such a boast. “But I do appreciate your coming back to give me this.”

“Was your extra time in training too demanding?”

I looked over at Titan Instructor Mho’llar, who glared hate at me with all of his many eyes.

“It was worth it,” I said. “Especially now that I am officially a titan.”

“Are you?” The One asked, a smirk on the swirling endless void of his roughly humanoid shape. “You might want to look at your certificate.”

Furrowing my brow, I looked down at the graduation parchment in my hand, scanning the document. It didn’t take long for me to see exactly what The One was referring to.

Julian Jackson Blackwell is hereby granted the official title of Titan . . . Esquire.

Huh. Something told me they didn’t mean that in the legal sense.

“So, I’m still in training,” I said, slowly shaking my head while recalculating everything I needed to accomplish given this new variable.

“Oh yes,” The One all but chuckled. “For you and you alone, we had to create a new title. You are officially a TiT-E.”

Sigh. Gods above and below.

“TiT-E? Seriously?”

“Your case worker will go over all this with you,” The One instructed.

Snapping my head up, I looked directly at the One. “Case worker?”

“What, you thought you were just going to go and do whatever it is you wanted?”

“Yes?” I admitted.

The One’s booming laughter echoed though the empty hall. “Sorry, Jackson. I like you, but not that much. But congratulations on making it this far. Believe it or not, I’m rooting for you.”

I narrowed my eyes, unclear if the supreme being was in fact fucking with me.

In the end, I just mentally shrugged. Wouldn’t be much of a supreme being if they weren’t screwing with people.

But let’s officially get this story underway. On to Chapter Two, Where I Kick Major Ass and Start This Book off with a Bang!

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Chapter 2

Where I DO NOT Kick Major Ass, and Start This Book off with a Bore

“TiT-E Blackwell? Is there a TiT-E Blackwell here?”

I looked around the incredibly dull, generic corporate office waiting area, seeing absolutely no one else suffering under the fluorescent lighting. The rows of waist-high cubicles—the kind where you couldn’t hide the fact that you were watching YouTube instead of working—seemed to stretch to infinity.

But here’s the kicker: they too were empty. No one sat at said desks. No beings trod across that ugly-ass, blue-gray ripple-pattern office carpet that execs think will somehow boost morale. Worse, it was the kind of carpet that made you itch from the inside due to the unpleasant and overpowering fiber smell.

The entire space, whether it be a micro universe, pocket dimension, or alternate plane of reality, was empty save for me and the paunchy, middle-aged, balding blond guy wearing a short-sleeved button-up, tie, slacks, and comfortable, if boring, brown shoes. The bespectacled man with a bushy moustache calling my name looked haggard, like the only thing keeping him going was the strongest of coffee and spite.

“I’m not screwing around. Is there a TiT-E Blackwell here?”

I don’t know why, maybe out of morbid curiosity, but in antithetical fashion I raised my hand.

“I’m Ti—I’m Jackson Blackwell.”

The man’s head snapped over, as if he had somehow noticed me for the first time, and he nodded. “Oh, you’re here. Great. Please come into my office and have a seat. We’ve got a lot to go over.”  

“Um,” I started, more than a little confused. “Excuse my bluntness, but am I in Hell?”

“Hell?” the man said, looking confused. “You think all this is . . . wait, do you actually think you’re in Hell?”

“Um, yes?” I said, gesturing around. “Or at least a Never Realm subsidiary adjacent to Hell.”

“Why?” the man asked.

“Because I’ve worked a few of their contracts as a consultant,” I said, raising my eyebrow and gesturing at the surrounding space. “All . . . this pretty much fits many people’s idea of a personal Hell, myself included. Now, I don’t know how I got here or if Y’olly put you up to this as a prank, but I don’t have time for his brand of humor. See, I have rather grand plans for revenge while enacting my own brand of terror across the multiverse. So if you’ll show me the door, I’ll—”

The man held up a hand, cutting me off. “Gonna stop ya right there, chief. You’re not in Hell, and I don’t give two wanks of a goat’s teat about your plans. Best thing for you to do is shut your mouth and get your ass into my office.”

Huh. For some infuriating reason, my powers of . . . being me didn’t seem to work on this man. Well, as our parents teach us, when at first you don’t succeed, you try, try again.

My grandmother had pulled me aside a long time ago and modified that old adage to “If trying doesn’t work, wait until whoever’s in charge looks away, and hit them over the head with a brick.”

A wise woman indeed. Sadly, this place was free of masonry.

But I was pretty sure one of those industrial-sized staplers would fit the bill.

“See here my good . . . um, person, I am Jackson Blackwell. I’m the first human from the Prime Universe to—”

“First human to become a god, then turn titan. Yeah, I read your file. Guess what, Julie?” the man said, emphasizing my hated nickname while holding up a generic tan office file. “That load of crap and a cup of coffee just gets you a cup of coffee and a load of shit on my beautiful new carpet.”

I knew it. Execs always think their choice in carpeting means something.

“You need to get this through your head right now,” the being continued, “you’re a Titan-in-Training, Esquire. And until I stamp your paperwork as complete, a TiT-E is what you’ll remain. So unless you want to spend freaking eternity doing my clerical grunt work, then I suggest you stow the attitude. Get me there, chief?”

I glared at this person. “I’m not going to like you at all, am I?”

“Not one bit,” the being said, smiling. “Now, would you care to step into my office so that we can begin the process, or would you rather dick around out here some more? I’m sure I have some busy work you can do. Would you like to compile a pointless report, color code a spreadsheet, or proofread a presentation that I’ve already checked?”

There are moments in every person’s life when they have to swallow their pride and do what they loathe. It happens the best and worst of us—from accomplished, articulate, and driven types such as myself all the way down to the washed-up and worthless. You know who I mean.

Heh, you thought I was going to say you, didn’t you?

No, dear reader. As you’ve come this far with me, I don’t think such things of you. I was thinking more of people like, I don’t know . . . that one older lady you see in the grocery store from time to time. The rode hard “rock chick” old biddy still wearing the leather-fringed, angel-winged bedazzled jacket. Leather or denim, it doesn’t matter. It’s the same jacket she wore decades prior when she gang-banged a Mötley Crüe cover band behind the bleachers at the county fair.

Oh, and of course there’s the lowest of low. Indie writers. Normally I’d go on a long-winded rant about how that particular pack of last-picked-at-dodgeball, never-asked-to-dance-in-high-school, up-their-butts-with-unearned-artistic-importance mouth-breathers  should be on certain neighborhood watch lists based on their looks alone. But I’ve matured in my old age.

Anyway, like the generations of the powerful before me, I too had to set aside my ego and take a humble step forward. With false humility filling my eyes, I lowered my head.

“Yes,” I said. “I would like to get on with it.”

“Yeah, I thought as much,” the man said, holding his office door open for me. “Take a seat right there and we’ll get started.”

I obliged this strange fellow and took a seat in the chair across from his desk. The office was oddly typical, like any standard office one would have worked in or seen on TV. And I say odd because, well . . . I was a titan now. Even in Basic Titan Training, things had a more cosmic vibe. My old office had more of a theme-appropriate look to it.

This? This was out of place. From the motivational posters on the beige walls to the faux-wood desk and even the my-office-needs-to-look-important-so-we-should-have-a-Mac laptop on the desk, everything was exceptionally mundane.

“Before we get started,” the being said, “do you have any questions?”

“Many,” I said, still taking everything in.

“You’re wondering why this looks like generic crap from your world, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Yes?” I admitted.

“Well, that’s your fault,” the man said.

“Excuse me?”

“Look, bud, I don’t want to be here any more than you do,” he said, loosening his tie and unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. “But since some ass-clown—I won’t name names—used a now-closed loophole to make themselves a titan, this entire plane of existence exists to serve as said ass-clown’s training wheels. And in case you can’t read between the lines, I’m talking about you.”

“Yeah,” I said, not bothering to hide the contempt in my voice. “I kinda picked up on that.”

“Good, ’cause I was laying it on pretty thick,” the being said, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t know if it’s because I lost a bet, The One is looking to punish me for messing with karma, or I’m just downright baleful, but I was tapped to be your case manager. In addition to my other duties, I now have the unenviable task of baby-sitting you until it’s time for your training wheels to come off.”

“I see,” I muttered, still slightly confused. “Do other titans have case managers?” 

“Do you see anyone else out in the waiting area?” he said, answering my question with a question.

“No.”

“That’s right,” he said. “You wanna hazard a guess as to why no other titans have case managers?”

“Because I’m said ass-clown who abused a system?” I offered.

“Go on.”

“And natural born—or whatever you all call it—titans don’t require this level of hand-holding after basic training,” I said, reasoning out the situation.

The being paused a moment, looking me in the eye as if looking for something. “Yeah. Exactly. Good to know you’re not as douchey as your file suggests. You hit the nail on the head. Beings that are begotten from existing titans come into their power through sheer existence. Fish swim, birds fly, and all that crap. You, on the other hand, if left unchecked, could do way too much harm as you traipse about, fucking up entire realities—or worse, pissing off other titans. Trust me, the paperwork on that alone will make you rethink this decision. So long story short, you pulled off a Hail Mary and now we’re both stuck here. I get to do my normal duties on top of spoon-feeding you. Oh joy.”

I nodded, taking in this revelation and what it meant for my plans. I could play along for as long as it took to get whatever certification was required. Then I could move forward with my revenge plans. Once those were in motion, I could—

“Hey, dipshit, you know I can hear you narrating, right?”

“Um, no?”

“Oh for the love of . . . never mind. We’ll go over this in more detail later. For now, just know that whatever you’re thinking or planning, I’ll know. And the longer it takes you to get certified, the longer you’re stuck here. And the longer you’re stuck here, the more I’ll make you suffer. Understood?”

“Yes,” I said. “But is it okay that I still narrate? It’s  . . . well, it’s kinda my thing.”

“It’s masturbatory self-indulgence,” the being said. “But whatever you need to do get through this, then go for it.”

“Thank you . . . um,” I started, then paused. “Forgive me, but I don’t know your name or term of address.”

“’Cause I never gave it,” the being said. “Just call me Frank.”

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Chapter 3

Where I Apparently Have a Newborn’s Constitution, Ponder the Mind, and Take a Shower

A few moments later, my head was steaming from a lightning strike I never saw coming, and I was hugging Frank’s wastepaper basket full of my own vomit, all the while spitting remnants of food I had no memory of eating.

“You get any of that on my carpet, you’re cleaning it,” Frank said.

I looked up at him, blood still trickling from my eyes, nose, and ears.

“Yeah . . . okay,” was all I was able to croak out.

What happened between the end of the last chapter and now? Simple. Not believing that this being’s name was simply “Frank,” I’d scoffed.

Who ever heard of a titan named “Frank,” I’d said. They always have those weird names with all the extra apostrophes and double consonants that crappy writers use all the time to sound foreign or bizarre.

So in Shadow Master fashion, I asked him to tell me his true name. I’d dealt with creatures like the actual Cthulhu before, and Lue and I had always been on good terms, despite his smelling like an Alabama Red Lobster dumpster on a hot summer day after a rainstorm.

And with a knowing smirk, the fucker obliged me.

Words fail to properly describe what happened. But I’ll try.

It wasn’t exactly sounds that Frank made when uttering his . . . its true name. It was more like sub-atomic vocalization that was paired with a psychic war scream. This was something we’d been prepped for in Basic Titan Training, as this was a form of polite greeting between such beings. The more powerful the titan, the more powerful the name.

But I guess they had used kid gloves with us in BTT, because Frank’s name had caused all of your favorite protagonist’s orifices to open simultaneously while blood poured out of everything that even resembled a mucous membrane. And of course, a bolt of lightning for the fuck of it.

I’d normally go into more detail, but some reviewers didn’t care too much for the always hilarious puke humor. 

Said reviewers are comedy-deficient, if you ask me.

So there I was, an adult man resembling a baby in a highchair, mess on his face and the equivalent of an overflowing diaper in his pants. This was not the high point of my career.

“You want me to show you my true appearance?” Frank offered. “Just so you get the full picture?’”

“No!” I snapped, adding a quick shake of my head. “No thank you. I don’t think that will be necessary.”

“Thought so,” Frank chuckled. “There’s a reason most of us pick pseudonyms to go by when dealing with lower life forms. Sometimes it’s names with extra apostrophes, sometimes we just use initials. Now why don’t you get yourself cleaned up while I get your test ready.”

“Test?”

“Yeah,” Frank said. “Again, you’re an anomaly when it comes to titans. Everyone else has had their path set before they were born into existence. You are different. So we need to conduct a baseline examination to see where you fit into the grand cosmic scheme.”

I stared at him, more than a little confused.

Also trying like hell not to shift lest the proverbial dam that were my boxer briefs . . . um, have a structural breach, as it were.

“By Goll’Grhath’s ninety-two tits,” Frank swore. “What do they teach you rookies in BTT these days?”

“Well,” I started to say, but Frank just shook his head.

“Shut up. That was rhetorical. Clearly they’re not covering what you need to know. Put it to you this way, rookie—everything you think you knew about being a titan is crap. Speaking of, seriously, go clean yourself up. There’s an executive washroom down the hall. Oh, and a change of clothes in the lockers. If you reach the point where matter and life are interchangeable, you went too far.”

Utterly confused and woefully unprepared, a position I’ve always loathed, I penguin-walked my nasty self out of Frank’s office and down the hall, the sloshing, puke-filled trashcan still in my arms.

I saw the sign for the washroom halfway down the hall. But after a few moments of passing endless cubicles, grossly expensive conference rooms, and more than a few break rooms filled to the brim with whatever bulk crap-snacks Costco had on special, I realized I was not making any headway whatsoever. The more I walked, the less I traveled. And not for nothing, but I’m a man who prefers Euclidean space-time. So when one is a stranger in a strange land, one must adapt.

Looking back, BTT wasn’t a complete waste. In addition to the rigorous training designed to break us down mentally and physically and make us feel worthless while reforming us into ideal titans, we attended many practical classes, one of which was how to move in certain regions of the multiverse. Not every location obeys the same cosmic rules, something I was very happy to learn. When in select areas, titans simply will themselves to be.

So, focusing my internal being, I simply chose to be at the washroom door.

Perception gets weird when one is new to their powers. The brain, especially a human brain, fills in the gaps of ignorance with expectations as opposed to reality. It’s why cars seem to come out of nowhere while driving, why you can’t find what you’re looking for in the fridge, or why you swore the person you hooked up with the night before was actually attractive. The lack of information forces the mind to turn into a police-sketch artist and compile fleeting thoughts into something recognizable.

And much like the douche or skank from the bar (your choice), the sobering reality brought on by daylight is oftentimes not what you remember.

As a human turned titan, my mind filled in the gaps when I willed my being to move by creating a . . . well, a cross between jumping into hyperspace and warp factor ten, as this universe, whatever it really was, seemed to streak past me. It was a little nauseating, and I was thankful I was still toting my puke pail. After a moment, the sensation passed, and I opened the standard heavy wooden door into the washroom.

Whereupon I nearly dropped my bucket from shock.

This “bathroom” was not like the office-style setting just beyond the threshold. It was a cosmic expanse of swirling purples and blacks, with sparks of yellow-orange from distant suns and brilliant blues and neon greens from various radiations. Again, my mind raced to bring order to this sea of endless possibility. After a second or two, I saw the copious starlight begin to solidify at the edges of objects, giving the room form and function. And within moments, I was standing in what could only be described as God’s locker room.

Have you ever been to a really upscale gym or spa? Eh, probably not. No offense, but if you’re reading this indie crap, then you’re on a budget. But for people like me, who burn money just to keep the poor from having it, even the places where we drop a deuce are more luxurious and more costly than what paid for your home.

This “washroom,” if it really was such a thing, seemed to exist only to pamper. I saw rows of padded benches, salon-style seating, and cleaning facilities. Still made of star-stuff, but my mind interpreted it as high-class luxury. And despite having been in that hellish office for only a short while, I definitely needed luxury.

A sign like a motion graphic made of comets coalesced into existence beside me, reading “Time only exists if you wish it.”

Huh. A place beyond time. Very cool.

Looking for a place to drop off the puke bucket, I saw another sign over a recessed rectangular hamper space that said “Refuse.” Pulling the handle out, I was surprised to see a swirling black hole. Huh. Convenient. Tossing the bucket in, I watched as it, along with my shame, was compacted into nothingness.

Speaking of shame, Frank had said there were clothes here. Carefully as possible, I stripped off my suit and my underwear and dropped them into the garbage as well, watching in amusement as the soiled garments vanished. I wondered where all that garbage went.

Then I snapped my fingers. New Jersey. It’s always New Jersey.

Nude, I moved to the shower area. Instead of a bay of single-stall showers or one of those community-style shower setups—the ones where a central device with multiple spigots resembling choad-like penises sprays folks standing in a circle while their naughty bits are on display—this shower was twenty-plus feet in width and length and made of glowing white stone. The shower had no ceiling I could see. Nor were there any dials on the wall. But on the floor by a drain there was a button made for the foot.

I moved to the center of the shower. Tapping the button with my foot, I was suddenly enveloped like in one of those rainforest showers where you stand in a powerful deluge of all-consuming water. But this was not water. It was molten starlight raining down from nowhere. Lydia had always wanted something like this for our master bathroom, and I’d always meant to put one in, just never got around to it.

The sensation of being cleaned at what felt like the atomic level was divine.

And of course, that was when I felt consciousness leave me. 

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Chapter 4

Where I Greet the Familiar, Make a Threat, and Bemoan Skipping Tutorials

When I came to, I was flat on my back looking up at blue skies and a warm golden sun. Considering that I’d just been in a cosmic shower, this was confusing. After a moment, I realized I was lying in a field of grain, and I was naked. The waving amber stalks didn’t fill me with a sense of patriotism, especially when one considered that the top wheat-producing states were chock full of backwards ideals and cousin-fucking. No, this horticultural icon for pickup truck sales and denim just made my bare butt and ball sack itch.

Standing up wasn’t easy, as I felt more than a little disoriented. Like my brain was trying to reboot after a hard night’s drinking. So when my wobbly legs settled, I saw that this field was vast, stretching across the rolling landscape.

“Damn,” I said aloud, taking it all in while brushing my hand gently across the stalks. “This looks like every movie where some self-important director or writer tried to instill a sense of significance.”

I smiled at my own snarky comment, but the grin quickly faded. Sophia wasn’t around anymore to be my sounding board or hype person. In the strangest of ways, I missed her. Yeah, she was an evil Djinn who plotted and executed her revenge against me. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t been my best friend.

If she had been there, or if we’d at least been talking over a comm-line, we’d have both mocked the expanse of wide-open, untamed land with majestic, snow-covered mountains jutting up from dense, primordial forests. I mean, come on, the whole thing looked like the Bob Ross knockoff crap that infests fantasy book covers.

At least those pastoral covers were better than the recent trend in urban fantasy. Fun fact for all you authors and artists out there: if a cover has any combination where a girl’s wearing a midriff-exposing titty shirt, corset, and/or painted-on ass pants, I will never pick it up.

Hard pass bonus points if she’s holding a glowing weapon or a Photoshop-created magic spell.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I literally just described eighty percent of covers. You all look alike to me.

And just to show I’m not sexist, the same rule of thumb applies when it’s a generic-looking dude doing the exact same thing. Especially when he’s aping the “detective” look. Dresden did it best, and the rest of you look like a copy of a copy. And that never works out.

For shit’s sake, look at the British royal family and tell me those reused genetics look good.

I laughed at my own comment, then sighed.

I really missed Sophia.

Huh. Stupid generic landscape vista. Obvious stilted western-Europe fantasy-style setting. Was I—  

But before I even had a chance to connect the mental dots, gigantic glowing text scrolled across the sky. It practically reeked of a newbie designer playing with motion graphics and using ye olde-style fonts.

. . . Welcome, weary traveler. Welcome to an untamed land that you will shape with your deeds. It is said that one day, Endernacht, the Final Wyrm, will rise from the eastern ocean and destroy the world. Can you avert the apocalypse? Or will you usher in the end of days? The question is simple: will you choose to be a hero . . . or a villain? Prepare thyself for a journey like none other. Welcome to . . .

I all but sighed when the swelling, synth-style orchestral music filled my ears. I couldn’t tell if the bad medieval-like sounds were in my head or actually out loud, and I didn’t care. I rolled my hand in a “let’s just get this bullshit over with” gesture as the exceedingly predictable metallic title screen slammed into view, complete with sparkling embers and the ringing of an anvil.

CALEDON - ONLINE! Beta Version 1.2.1

No sooner had the title screen appeared than a series of status windows popped up, flooding my mental and physical field of vision with character sheets, class specs, skills lists, inventory menus, and a gods-damned mini map.

I could have cried.

“You maniacs!” I swore to the heavens, dropping back to my knees and punching the ground. “You took something that had potential and you fucked it all up! Damn you all! Damn you all to the Never Realm!”

“Problem, Jackson?” asked a feminine voice.

“Which one of you?” I asked, looking up at the pair of gods standing before me. “Which of you did it? Khasil? Valliar? Which of you stupid, stupid asshats let Eris Pence convince you that LitRPG was the way to go?”

With smirks on their faces, the two gods stared down at me—a middle-aged man in white robes and crystalline armor with a slight elvish appearance and a handsome woman in black robes with light green skin, a wild mane of black hair, horns, and chitin-like scales.

Valliar, High God of Justice and his sister Khasil, the Queen of Darkness.

Gods-damned sellouts, the pair of them.

“Well?” I said. “That wasn’t a rhetorical question. Which one of you dimwits thought LitRPG was a good idea?”

“Technically,” Valliar said, affecting a lecturing, fatherly tone, “Caledon is now a GameLit universe. Not LitRPG.”

“Like it friggin’ matters!” I yelled back, returning to my feet. “GameLit? Please, that’s what publishers and authors who actually loathe the genre call it when they want some of that sweet, sweet RPG nerd cash. No matter what you call it, it’s all the same. Lists, gear, status updates, skill points, and blah blah fuckin’ blah. Slap on some heartfelt saccharine story and you might have something. Might. But most of those stories always devolve into horny-boy harems. Fuck!”

“It’s been very lucrative for us,” Khasil said.

“Indeed,” Valliar agreed. “Ever since we made the switch, we’ve seen a huge influx of cosmic power as the prime universe swallows up the legends created here.”

“But it’s the lowest of the low,” I said. “Sooner or later the bottom is going to drop out, and you’ll have nothing.”

“You’re just jealous,” Khasil sneered. “This bold move was something you never even considered when you were the Shadow Master.”

I glared up at the dark goddess. “I am the Shadow Master.”

“Are you?” she asked. “Then where is your realm? Hmm? Do you have a new pocket dimension? A new office? How can you claim such a title when you have nothing?”

“As far as the gods of the multiverse are concerned,” Valliar added, “Malum Lux is the only real choice when it comes to consultations. And Eris Pence is the Shadow Master.”

“Besides,” Khasil said with a hint of amusement, “word around the cosmos is that you’re a titan now.”

“Well,” Valliar mused, “a TiT-E, anyway.”

“That’s right,” Khasil cackled. “Have fun playing around, TiT-E Blackwell. I’m sure you’ll grow bored and leave here.”

“Where’s Lydia?” I said, not bothering to hide my frustration.

“What does it matter?” Khasil said.

“She’s my wife,” I growled.

“Was your wife,” Valliar said. “That’s the key word. She was your wife.”

“What?” I said. “I—”

“’Til death do us part,” Khasil said. “Across nearly every realm and universe, that caveat is practically ubiquitous. And you, dear Jackson, died. As such, she is no longer bonded to you and belongs, once again, to this realm. The place from whence she came.”

“As a titan, you may walk any universe you wish,” Valliar said, “but you have no claim on anything. Or anyone.”

I didn’t say anything. As pissed as I was, I’d learned a long time ago when you have no idea what is going on, it’s best to keep your mouth shut and feign mystery instead of exposing your ignorance. These two chucklefucks seemed to know more about what a titan could or couldn’t do than I’d learned over the last two years of basic training.

Or they were blowing smoke up my ass.

Either way, the adage stood. Remain silent, glower as needed, pick up context clues, and make it up as you go. Only an idiot speaks when they don’t know what they’re talking about. Or worse, when they know very little, but act like a goddamn expert by talking loudly and continuously.

I’m looking at you, Twitter.

And Boston.

“Nothing to say, Jackson?” Khasil asked.

“Hmm?” I said, faux blinking. “Sorry, I wasn’t really listening. I’m sure you were saying something . . . I dunno, quasi-sinister. But like always, you’re just scared of me and running your mouth.”

“Scared?” Khasil sniffed. “Of you?”

I nodded. “Both of you are. You’re right—I was dead, but now I’m not. And not to Jedi this too much, but I’ve become more powerful than ever. I think we’ve come to know one another fairly well over the years. So how long do you honestly think it’ll take me to find a way to break whatever rules I want, take what I want, and do what I want?”

The words had come out in such a torrent, I didn’t realize I’d been holding on to that much repressed anger. And in truth, I didn’t know if I was bluffing or not. Regardless, both of the High Gods took half steps back.

“See you around, Jackson,” Valliar said. “Better suit up. This is not the Caledon you remember.”

In a flash of light and shadow, they were gone. Once again, I stood alone and naked in an empty field with just my dick and my thoughts to keep me company.

Oh, and apparently a horde of goblins that were now rushing up the hill, their crude weapons drawn.

Well shit.

Where were those menus again?

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 5

Where I Discuss Flappy Bits, Mock a Lucrative Genre, and Learn a Lesson on Being Self-Aware

You ever see videos of attractive people running? Normally in slow motion, so that the muscles ripple or the physical endowments heave in just the right way? Sexy shit, right? And sure, a race at full speed is also pretty cool to see. Watching the human body being pushed to—and past—its limit? Inspiring.

Well, there’s a reason they do those races semi-clothed, and it has nothing to do with puritanical ideas about nudity. The truth, dear reader, is that sprinting while nude is not beautiful. It is not graceful, not erotic, and definitely not practical. It’s downright gross and incredibly uncomfortable. Don’t believe me? Google that stuff.

Wang-dangles whip about like wacky water weasels while nut sacks clack to and fro like wrinkly Newton’s Cradles.

Whether they’re big buxom boobies, itty-bitty titties, or a healthy hairy set of man-boobs, them breasticles flail about like a pair of spastic, hydrophobic toddlers being tossed into a pool.

Those bereft of abs? Well baby, those bellies be swinging like a tire swing on a short rope in a windstorm. And all that’s before we get into dat ass.

Don’t care if you’re carrying a flatback, a shelf, or a padunk-a-trunk, them cheeks will clap. And it ain’t flattering. In fact, sometimes it’s . . . um . . . farter-ing?

Trust me—regardless of gender or fitness level, there will always be some bits and bobs, flaps and folds that will thwap-thwap-thwap while you run top speed in the buff. And I bring this up because yours truly was experiencing all of the above while I ran away from the small army of goblins, trying to navigate this fucking new wave of RPG nerds’ piss-poor story device.

********

“Skills!” I yelled, running as fast as I could.

If this was a GameLit, LitRPG, or whatever increasingly meaningless numbers-meets-plot jerkoff world the internet is currently ga-ga for, then there had to be a way to activate the stupid system.

Sadly, due to my preoccupation with technology and with the oncoming goblins, I’d missed the rut, or whatever the hell it was I tripped over in the wheat field. Rolling my ankle, I hit the ground hard and got the wind half knocked out of me.

Yeah, this story is off to a great start.

I didn’t need to look to know those weird little goblin bastards were coming. Their guttural yips and barks were getting closer. I’d visited enough fantasy realms over my career to have picked up a bit of the language. And man, they were really pissed.

And oddly horny.

“Skills?” I repeated, getting my feet under me and limp-running as best I could. When nothing happened, I tried anything else that popped into my head. “Equipment? Items list? Fucking status?!”

Welcome, weary traveler. Welcome to an untamed land that you will shape with your deeds. Will you choose —

“Shut the fuck up!” I yelled to the automated voice, hazarding a glance over my shoulder.

No reason to be a dick about it, the voice replied. You’re the one who requested a status update.

Yeah, I guess I did.

“So what is my status?”

It seems you are being chased by a small horde of goblins, the voice said. If you wish to survive, it would behoove you to equip your clothing, armor, and weapons.

“Yeah, no kidding,” I said. “How do I do that?”

You must first open the menus.

“And how the hell do I do that . . . ah shit!” I screamed in both frustration and pain, as a goblin arrow now jutted out of my right ass cheek.

Pulling the shaft free, I winced, then saw a green health bar appear above me. Thankfully the arrow didn’t do too much damage, but given the jagged and pitted rusty arrowhead, there was no way I didn’t have tetanus.

Begin by saying “menu,” the voice said.

Up ahead, the field tapered off and butted up against the forest. The treeline wasn’t incredibly dense, but I’d rather have a little bit of cover than none at all. A quick glance at the mini map in the bottom left corner of my vision showed that the bulk of the goblins had stopped in the field for some reason, and only a couple stragglers had followed. Okay, I could work with that.

“Menu,” I said, crouching behind the thickest tree I could find.

My field of view was filled with a semi-transparent, rustic-yet-rudimentary-looking pop-up window, complete with a Celtic-inspired border that read “Main Menu.” I’ll give credit where it’s due—navigating the menu was intuitive. It took little more than a glance and mental click to activate the submenus.

I scrolled down to the equipment list, looking for any clothes or weapons, but an error message appeared.

Items cannot be equipped until character selection is complete.

Oh for the love of . . .

“You gotta be kidding me.”

Sorry Charlie, the voice said. Not all weapons and gear can be utilized by the same race or class and therefore—

“Used,” I said.

Excuse me? the voice said.

“Used,” I repeated. “Just say used. ‘Utilize’ is a five-cent word that’s constantly overused. Also, the word’s normally being used incorrectly. ‘Use’ means to consume from a limited supply or take something to achieve a result. ‘Utilize’ means to use something beyond its intended purpose. ‘Using’ a sword means I’m gonna stab or slash the shit out of something, because that’s its intended purpose. ‘Utilizing’ a sword means I found a new butter knife or sex toy. See the difference? If I had a boot, then I could utilize that as an improvised weapon.”

Seriously? the voice asked. You really wanna go into this now? Sure, let’s have a grammar lecture while goblins are coming to shank your tan ass. No, go on, I’ll wait. This’ll be fun to watch.

I sighed. “Okay, sorry. It’s just my thing to point out stupid—”

Yeah, I get it, you’re a professional dick. That’s your schtick. But if you wanna live a few more moments, then maybe you just play the goddamn game? Just a thought. Or maybe you want to die in this “meaningless numbers-meets-plot jerkoff world”?

Grumbling, I clicked on the race selection.

There’s a good boy.

Before I had a chance to peruse the list—which by the way means to read carefully and not to skim—another volley of arrows burst through the foliage, striking the tree I was hiding behind.

“Human,” I said, clicking on the option.

Really? the voice said. Just a plain ol’ vanilla human? Did you even look at the—

“Now who’s being an ass?” I snapped. “Yes, human! Move onto class selection, damn it!”

Newbs, the voice said, but the menu moved on.

Class selection was fairly standard for fantasy realms, a mix of various martial and caster-based choices. And while I’d always had a soft spot for sorcerers with their innate magic, I had to pick something that would let me survive for the next few moments.

“Fighter,” I said, making my choice.

I . . . whatever, the voice said. Fine, be the most generic Chad in the realm. Now you have to allocate your build points to your stats. Note that there are three main primary skills: physical, mental, and personal. There are three sub-skills in each section for a total of nine. For physical you have strength, speed, and constitution. Under mental there are intellect, awareness, and reason. And in the personal section you have faith, charm, and luck. Carefully selecting and placing these points will determine—

I threw everything into my physical skills, not caring one whit about the rest.

I literally hate you, the voice said in defeat. I do. I’m not supposed to be biased, but I am. I hope you die.

“Whatever,” I sniped, feeling my muscles inflate, my speed increase, and my health bar rise. “Can I please now open my gods-damned inventory?”

Sure, go ahead.

The menu prompt for the inventory finally allowed me access, and . . . it was empty.

“What?”

Oh, did someone miss the starting inventory chest when they were running away like a scared little bitch?

“That’s sexist,” I said in a weak attempt to deflect the topic away from my own stupidity.

The lingering throb in my swollen ankle had already made it clear that it hadn’t been a rut in the ground that I’d tripped over. It’d been the starter chest. The same chest the bulk of the pursuing goblins were now looting.

I . . . ugh. This—this sucked. Wasn’t I a titan now? Why was this so damn hard?

Okay, fine, the voice said. Maybe calling you a little bitch is sexist. How about a blubbering, cowardly asshole? That’s gender-neutral enough, right? And you know what else? I’m glad you picked an all-brawn, no-brains fighter. I am.

“Oh yeah, why’s that?” I asked, grabbing the nearest fallen tree branch I could.

Oh, a few reasons.

If gaming had taught me anything, it was that an improvised club will get you through at least one encounter before it breaks. The smaller group of goblins coming at me were all level 2. I could tell because now that I was an official player, I could see the race, level, and health bars above their heads when I squinted, the text glowing like a semitransparent neon sign.

“What kind of reasons?” I asked, readying my weapon to swing the moment one of the little green boogers stepped into range.

Well, the personal aspects of your character could have allowed you to maybe talk or charm your way out of this encounter. Heck, with enough luck, you could have gotten your loot back. But the mental part of the character list is another crucial element of making your character. You don’t need to be super smart or have tons of reason as a fighter. But awareness—that is key for all players.

“You don’t say,” I said, stepping forward and cracking the first goblin so hard that I watched his head practically explode. Its health bar dropped completely, and a red X replaced the race and level.

The goblin’s allies squawked in fear and confusion. I used that moment to swing my club upward, catching another of the little bastards under the chin and sending his misshapen head arcing off into the field.

“I’m not saying I could golf professionally, but that was semi-pro level at least,” I mused.

Yeah, good job, tough guy, the voice said. You killed two whole goblins.

“And made the rest run off in fear, thus giving myself time to escape,” I said, more than a little proud.

You’re half right, the voice said. The goblins are scared, that’s for sure. But it’s not of you.

What?

The thud of something heavy behind me caught my attention. I turned to see an ogre in all its humongous, leathery gray-skinned glory. Its hit point bar was way higher than mine, and the skull and crossbones next to the ID tag that read “Rampaging Ogre” meant that I was vastly under-leveled to deal with this problem.

The specific problem being the near-six-foot-long club it was sporting.

The last thing I heard before my head was caved in so hard that my ears met my asshole was the disembodied game guide voice saying: Awareness means just that. Being aware of your surroundings. A higher level of awareness is like a sixth sense for danger. A lower level, like what you have, means you can’t even notice a huge-ass, loud-stomping ogre sneaking up. Fuckin’ n00bs.

I couldn’t argue with the voice. I was dead, after all.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 6

Where I Have a PISSing Problem, Laugh at Certain Names, and See a Little Too Well

Apparently waking up buck-ass naked was my new thing. I have no problem with nudity, as fans of my previous adventures will attest. But when you’re face down in a shower and your new case worker-slash-supervisor is standing over you, one tends to feel a little vulnerable.

“What in Gh’alg’amax’s seven sphincters are you doing?” Frank asked from where he stood just outside the shower space.

“Okay, some of these idioms you just have to be making up, right?” I asked, slowly sitting up and shaking off the cobwebs. “Seriously, what is up with those expressions?”

“Stick around long enough and you’ll learn,” Frank said, throwing me a towel. “Lemme guess, you accidentally projected your consciousness into another universe?”

“Yeah?” I said, wiping myself down with the towel. “Is that . . . normal?”

“For you baby titans, sure,” Frank said, his stern nature taking a backseat to education. My case worker took a seat on one of the locker room benches and sighed. “I’m assuming BTT went over PISS training?”

I nodded, wrapping the towel around my waist. “Yeah, we covered Phase-Induced Sub-dimensional Shifting. Also, what’s the deal?”

“Hmm?” Frank asked. “Deal with what?”

I stared at him blankly. “Why is nearly everything you titans say such lowbrow humor? Don’t get me wrong, it’s great for my recorded adventures. My fans aren’t what you would call . . . MENSA material.”

“We,” Frank said.

“Excuse me?”

Frank gestured in a back-and-forth motion between us. “We. Why is everything we say so lowbrow. You’re a titan now, just like me. Well, maybe not like me, exactly.”

“Yes, of course,” I said, “us. And the terms?”

Frank waved his hand. “Mortals love to snicker at foreign words that sound dirty to them.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s fair,” I said, knowing full well my own childish predilection for giggling at words like “pu-pu platter.”

Heh. Pu-Pu.

But this borderline insensitive humor aside, I was still naked, save for the towel.

“You said there were clothes here?”

“Over there,” Frank said, thumbing over his shoulder towards a cabinet-style locker.

I stepped over and opened the cabinet, finding the clothes.

“You have to be kidding,” I said, holding up the garment. “This? This is what we wear?”

“It’s what you wear,” Frank corrected. “I don’t have a problem PISSing myself.”

I rolled my eyes. There was no way the reviewers were going to find this bit funny.

I stared at the gaudy-looking clothes with disgust. They were the cosmic equivalent of a burgundy velour tracksuit and white tennis shoes.

Sigh. I wasn’t a Florida retiree, a mafioso, or a burgeoning hip-hop mogul, nor was I ready to join or start a cult.

Still, the material felt soft.

“These will help should I . . . um, have a phase-induced sub-dimensional shift again?”

“When you PISS yourself again?” Frank said, a grin on his face. “Yeah. Like they covered in BTT, titans can enter any realm or universe they feel like. Perk of being the one percent. This is done through a consciousness projection.”

“This part I know,” I said, slipping on the garment. I wasn’t wearing any underwear, and this thing felt incredible on all my naughty bits. But this was not the time to indulge my tingly nipples fetish, so I refocused on the conversation. “A titan can simply be where they want, in as many places as they want, all the while maintaining multiple forms across space and time.”

“Exactly,” Frank said. “A titan can . . . with practice. You’re not one—not yet, really. Youngsters like yourself have a harder time with the skill and tend to slip away.”

“And the clothes help?” I asked.

Frank nodded. “Think of them like an anchor. Your developing mind and titan nature will naturally seek out new locations to visit. These will help limit accidental PISS slips while also keeping you from splitting into too many minds until you’re ready. And trust me, you’re not ready. Even experienced titans can go mad if they’ve split themselves too many times.”

“I see,” I said, pondering the possibilities. Then I stopped and stared at Frank. “These clothes are the titan equivalent of a diaper, aren’t they?”

Frank chuckled, nodding in the affirmative. “So where’d ya go?” 

Not wanting to drag out this indignity, I chose to answer him. “I . . . I went to Caledon to—”

“Find your wife,” Frank said, then held up a hand when my eyes narrowed. “Read your file, remember? I know all about your little grudge against Eris Pence and how you lost your family. But those days are over. No need to worry about them.”

“But my wife’s stuck in a LitRPG world,” I protested.

“GameLit,” Frank corrected.

I glared at him.

“And,” Frank continued, “those gods were correct. She’s not your wife. Not anymore.”

“You were watching me?”

“What kind of case worker would I be if I didn’t keep a proverbial eye on you? Had to make sure you didn’t get into too much trouble during your first PISS. Admittedly, I wasn’t expecting it this soon.”

“Technically, I’ve been able to look into various dimensions for some time,” I admitted.

“How?” Frank asked. “You shouldn’t be able to, not yet. There were safeguards in place at BTT, ones meant to prevent trainees from PISSing themselves.”

“I didn’t PI—I didn’t phase shift,” I said. “At least, not outside of basic instruction. But I was able to keep an eye on various parts of my past.”

“How the—wait,” Frank said, snapping his fingers as he recalled a memory. “Something in your file. The loophole you used, putting a sliver of your soul into a business card. That’s how you manifested in the Seam and technically became a titan. Right?”

“Yes?” I said.

Frank thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “That still doesn’t add up. You should have reconstituted. Yet despite wearing the PISS Prevention Suit, it’s as if you could slip at any moment into a—”

I wasn’t sure if I should tell him the truth, but I never got the chance nor heard the rest of the sentence, as darkness once again overwhelmed me.

********

When I came to, the light was so bright and so painful I had to shut my eyes.

“Ah, gods damn it!” I hissed, trying to blink away the discomfort and let my eyes adjust. But try as I might, the agony was still there. In fact, my whole face hurt for some reason.

Cracking my eyes open just a little, I glimpsed my surroundings. Wherever I was, this metropolis was overrun by fire and chaos.

Huh. Had I slipped into a suburb of the Never Realm? Maybe some dystopian universe where Randy or the minions had visited and dropped off one of my soul phylactery business cards while trying to drum up business?

Eh, it didn’t matter. From the screams and general mayhem I heard, clearly this place was some kind of war zone. That was when an unholy screeching sound caught my attention.

Forcing my aching eyes open, I tried to focus, but the blurriness made seeing difficult. It was night, that much I could tell. Firelight crackled all around, as various vehicles and buildings were engulfed in flames. People were panicking. 

Blinking, I rolled to my side and pushed myself up, thankful that for whatever reason I was clothed this time, my burgundy tracksuit having changed into a dark red pinstriped business suit. Not that I mind showing the world my uncut wonder. But with the frenetic action going on around me, I was glad to have my baby maker tucked away.

A lead character in books and movies always looks cool with bandaged wounds in the legs or torso while soldiering on. But trust me, no one has the same level of emotional sympathy for a protagonist sporting a dick-splint.

I moved down the street while people ran in all directions. All around me were screams of terror and anguish. In the distance I heard explosions and occasional gunfire followed by the wailing cries made by only those who’ve lost their loved ones.

Gods above and below . . . it was beautiful. But now was not the time to have an erection.

What? Don’t judge me. This, all this? This is a villain’s sexy time slow jam.

Turning down the nearest alleyway, I took cover behind a dumpster and considered my situation. I’d . . . sigh, PISSed myself into this hellscape. And until I figured out how to do it at will, I was stuck here. Hmm . . . I died the last time and woke up in my body. Could I do it again? And why did my face hurt so badly? Did I manifest here and then fall?

Another screeching sound pulled me out of my contemplation and made me face a truth that hit me right where it hurt: cowering behind a dumpster will not sell books.

With a resentful sigh, I came out from behind my makeshift cover and crept along the alley wall and peeked out, finally seeing the source of the chaos.

Demons. This was a city overrun by demons. Weirdly built and grossly disproportional, the animalistic hellspawn laid waste to whatever was in their way. But that wasn’t all. Amid the fleeing civilians, I saw people in torn and tattered costumes fighting back. They looked like . . . superheroes. But they looked off. Weird. Their faces looked—

Oh . . . oh shit. No no no.

“Heya Jackson,” I heard a familiar voice say from behind me. “Like what ya see?”

I turned to see the Deified Creator of Marvelous Imaginations Who Rides Upon a Dark Horse. Or King Stanley, for short. As always, he wore his cardigan and his oversized black glasses. His gray hair and beard radiated warm grandfatherly vibes, and I suddenly wanted a piece of hard candy.

But instead of the nice butterscotch, Stanley held up a mirror and confirmed my fears.

My dark eyes were three times too large. My nose was long and sharp, matching the wicked point of my elongated, angular jaw. My plastic-looking hair was slicked back while a singular lock fell forward, making a weird sickle-like swoop down to my chin.

Manga. I was a goddamn manga character in a goddamn manga version of the Comic Universe.

“Whadd’ya, think Jackson?” Stanley asked. “Wanna go Ultra Extreme Plus with me?!”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 7

Where I Learn to Get Over Myself, Ogle a Bit, and Briefly Enjoy a Tearful Reunion

“I call it, Hero Hunter Hell!!,” King Stanley said with more than a touch of pride. “Really evokes the Shonen style that dominates your world’s manga market, ya feel me?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t feel ya. This—this is just wrong. You thought this would actually be good?”

“Oh, blow it out your judgmental ass,” King Stanley said, his form shifting to a setting-appropriate old man avatar.

King Stanley was now tiny, barely coming up to my hip, yet still somehow muscular, like a roided-out, wrinkly toddler. His eyes were now barely slits under his candy-bar-sized bushy eyebrows, while his hair stood up in something akin to a geriatric fro.

“Just because you didn’t think of it, it’s automatically wrong, right?” King Stanley asked in an accusing tone I did not care for.

“But manga—”

“Jackson,” King Stanley said, his hand up to stop my tirade. He let out a breath, took off his glasses, wiped a thumb under his closed eyes, then put the glasses back on. “I get your whole thing. Be snarky. Be a dick. Say cruel things in order to get a laugh out of a dwindling audience. Repeat for as many books as will sell. I get it. But instead of tearing something down, have you ever tried building something up? I mean, really tried? Creating something that would actually exist after you were gone?”

I said nothing. I didn’t need to explain my empire, my career, or my family. Why? Because they were all gone, and it was just me.

Like a divorcee who’d lost it all, I had gained my freedom but had lost everything I’d ever loved. So in many ways, I’d ended up as I was in the beginning.

Alone.

Fuck, that was depressing.

“I guess,” I said, thinking my words over, “I can see some merit in this . . . idea.”

King Stanley smirked. “It’s something, all right. With a lot of my resources being pulled into a sub-world for that other series, the one your scribe is penning—”

“The Cape is a Lie, The Ballad of Kevin,” I grumbled. “You actually authorized that?”

“A good idea is a good idea,” King Stanley countered. “And it’s a fun series.”

“It’s at least four years too late to capitalize on superheroes,” I said.

The god shrugged. “Maybe? Point is, with my limited resources and frankly, B- and C-tier talent left over, I figured I had to do something. With manga dominating the comic sales in the Prime universe, I figured why not lean into the trend? So I cobbled together what assets I had, slapped on a storyline about occultists seeking power accidentally opening portals into hell, and made it so that the only thing capable of fighting back was a coalition of superheroes and supervillains. Not bad, if I say so myself.”

King Stanley gestured out into the world, and I . . . ah, gods above and below, I had to appreciate the work. Sure, I’d dismissed it earlier. But the High God of the Comic Universe was right: I was a dick. And, yes, maybe I dismissed every idea that I didn’t come up with.

Maybe.

Ah fuck. Definitely.

I think that, deep down, my issues stem from consistently having to be creative. Whether in my job—well, my previous job—or during my adventures, I always have to be thinking creatively. And when people at large look for one to be a certain way, one often gains a higher—if undeserved—level of self-confidence in said abilities.

The point is that when someone like you, or perhaps even me, reaches a certain level of self-aggrandizing, the mind begins to change. If my last three therapists hadn’t gone mad (trust me, you don’t want to know about the fourth), then they likely would have said this behavior is a special blend of narcissism, intellectual dishonesty, and possibly emotional invalidation.

I mean, that’s bullshit when it comes to me, at least. I didn’t suffer from low expertise or experience when it came to being the Shadow Master. The rest of that cocktail has merit, though. When an idea or concept comes along that never crossed my mind, my go-to reaction is to say it sucks. 

I know, actual emotional growth from me? Trust me—I’m as disgusted as you are.

With a bit of self-reflection and more than a little humility, I looked upon King Stanley’s work. I mean, really looked at what he’d achieved. And I had to honestly admit . . . it sucked ass.

Heh, I’m just screwing around. It’s just like when I read those DM Guay 24/7 Demon Mart books—I was jealous as fuck I hadn’t thought of the idea first.

These people in the ragged costumes and torn capes of superheroes? Boner fuel for artistic types.

Said heroes threw huge hunks of debris at demons or shot lasers from their various orifices, basically doing what generic superheroes do. But thanks to the sub-universe being manga-based, they looked really cool while they did it.

The supervillains fighting side by side with their former adversaries were easy to spot.

Ugly fuckers. Or at least, the masculine ones were. Just as in the golden age era of comics, the manga types leaned into traditional beauty norms. These heroes had square jaws and powerful frames. Or they had that svelte rogue thing going. You know the one. The kinda lanky British look that made David Tennant famous and nerd wives all dewy.

Hmm, couple of nerd husbands, too.

All that being said, the masculine manga supervillains were vastly more unattractive compared to their heroic counterparts. They were weird or bulbous, garishly dressed or with bug-fuck crazy eyes.

Huh. I guess that last one explained my current look.

Now the feminine supervillains? Well, they too were easy to spot, but for different reasons. Equally as sexy as the heroines but a lot more . . . um, what’s the best way of saying this without offending modern sensibilities? Ah screw it, this is book five and my audience can take a joke.

Them bitches be cray-cray.

I know, I know, impolite at least, misogynistic at worst. But that doesn’t change the fact that these spandex-clad beings exuded sinful sex, wanton destruction, and the likelihood of emptying your bank account—or your entrails—all the while cackling like rabid banshees.

Not for nothing, but I kinda go for that vibe.

Gods above and below, I missed Lydia.

Huh, now that was a thought. My first . . . PISSing accident had landed me in Caledon. The second, and I was back here in the Comic Universe. Was I . . . missing my minions? That couldn’t be right.

Could it?

Whether by kismet or by King Stanley’s will, I saw them, my minions. My . . . ugh, my friends.

Wraith Knight was comically large in this living anime world—a colossal being in mismatched pieces of his old shadow armor with bare muscular shoulders larger than basketballs. Just like in anime, the perspective was way off, but it seemed to work for him. And in his element, ol’ WK was a bit of a beast. His hands shifted in and out of various melee weapons as he crushed demons or shielded his companions, who barely came to his waist.

Good for you, Wendell. Good for you.

And then there was the shapeshifting Myst, who fought like the devil, shoulder to shoulder with Wraith Knight.

Yowza.

Remember my spiel earlier about feminine supervillains in manga? Doris was all that and more. Wearing a similar outfit as she had when under my employ—a blood red bodysuit, black knee-high boots, a black domino mask, and elbow-length gloves made of crushed red velvet—she had other augmentations, particularly in the chesticle region, that made WK’s shoulders jealous.

And while I appreciate a rocking set of boobs as much as any other guy, bi-curious girl, bi-curious fella, lesbian, and many gay men, there comes a point when said look becomes exploitative, even in manga. I turned to look back at King Stanley.

“Really?” I said, gesturing towards my former minion. “I know the comic world’s fascination with such things, but how is that even remotely tactical? Or safe?”

“What do you mean?” King Stanley said.

I stared at the High God in disbelief. “The woman can’t even see anything below her chin!”

King Stanley shrugged. “She’s a shapeshifter, just like before. So . . . her body, her choice, I guess?”

I couldn’t argue with that. But now that I’d seen my minions, it was time to get this revenge story on the move.

“Okay, thanks for bringing them here. We’ll be leaving as soon as I—”

“Leaving?” King Stanley said. “Oh, no no no, Jackson. They are part of the resistance’s inner circle. They’re not going anywhere.”

“But they’re my minions,” I growled.

“I think you need to check a calendar, my dear TiT-E,” King Stanley said, then let out a sharp whistle.

A large demon broke free from the battle and made his way over to the alley’s mouth. It wasn’t hard to figure out who the approaching demon was. He was monstrous, with red and black coloration, muscular arms, five yellow eyes, and a bit of a gut. Y’ollgorath, Exalted One from the Eighth Plane of the Never Realm.

And the prick was still wearing the white business suit gifted to him by Eris Pence.

“Jackson!” Y’olly said, a smile on his huge face. “Looking sharp, buddy. Heard you died.”

“He’s a TiT-E now,” King Stanley said.

“So the rumor mill said,” replied Y’olly, with sincere admiration. “Well, good for you, man. Sorry about that whole bit of business back in Polyphony’s world. But you know how it is. You looking to hang out here? Eris helped broker this sweet gig. We provide the cannon fodder for the hellmouth narrative, and we get major points on the back end.”

I wanted to strike this prick down with everything I had. But I honestly didn’t know what kind of power I was packing. Punchline or not, I was only a TiT-E. I might be able to level mountains, or I might only be able to give the demon the power equivalent of a wedgie. 

“Y’ollgorath,” King Stanley said, “this Titan Esquire seeks to remove his former minions from my universe.”

“Oh, that’s a no-can-do, Jacky-boy,” Y’olly said.

“They’re my minions,” I repeated.

“Were,” Y’olly corrected. “Even before we pulled your contracts, both of them signed standard soul-binding agreements. Five years, bud, you know that. Even if you lawyered your way to when the agreements were made public, that would be roughly twenty-seventeen, back when your recorded adventure of Villains Pride was published. We are definitely past that five-year mark. Sorry, hoss—per contract agreement, they revert to the world they came from. That’s here, under King Stanley’s authority.”

“They are mine, Jackson,” King Stanley said. “As long as I treat them with the respect of any native to my universe and show no intent on killing them off, then this is where they will stay. But I’m a kind fella. You can go say hi if you want.”

I glared at the High God and the Exalted Demon in turn, both not bothering to hide their smirks. It took everything I had not to either break down or curse them out.

What was the good of being a cosmic power if you couldn’t do what you wanted?!

Before I knew it, my feet were moving on their own. I stepped out from the alley and into the battle. I ignored the chaos around me, focusing on the only two things that mattered.

Somehow, during the heat of battle, Wraith Knight’s head turned. And even under the helmet, I sensed his recognition. The giant man tapped Myst, who turned to see me, her body visibly struck as if she’d seen a ghost.

“Boss?” Wraith Knight’s deep voice boomed.

“Jackson?” Myst said, a tear leaking from under the domino mask. “I knew you’d come back to us.”

I smiled. And just as I was about to tell them how good it was to see them and that I’d find a way to bring us together once again, I heard Y’olly say, “Well, enough of this shit.”

And that was when, in true anime fashion, a building-sized demon came out of nowhere and stepped on me, thus cutting the emotional moment, and my life, short.

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Chapter 8

Where I Wield a Scepter of Dubious Origin, Realize I May Have Made a Mistake, and Long for Cleaner Hands

Frank struck me as a no-nonsense kind of guy. Well, maybe not a guy. Rather a titan of unknown origin. Regardless of his actual being, the expression seemed to be an apt one. At least it seemed that way based on the brief time I’d come to know him.

In said time, Frank had come off as straitlaced and gruff, a being who prioritized getting shit done over needless frivolity. I respected that. That being said, who knew what he did when his tasks were completed? Maybe he was a wild and crazy kind of titan. One who enjoyed his free time to the fullest.

But considering that I’d awoken in a rustic-looking bedroom, under a rather cozy if poor-quality blanket and next to a still damp, plug-in style vibrator, something told me I wasn’t in his office.

The model of said pleasure device—or “personal massager,” as the ads read—was similar to Lydia’s preferred toy. This one didn’t have the alterations she’d added back in our shared pocket dimension, those of course being a throttle, a clutch, and a kick start.

What can I say? My wife had needs. And no partner with even an ounce of humility should ever think themselves capable of solely meeting another’s needs.

Holding the wand and thinking of my wife, or former wife, reminded me that I still owed a strongly worded letter of thanks to the good people at XR LLC manufacturing. I would have sent the letter directly to Hitachi, but apparently after 2013, they removed their name from the product.

I realize Hitachi makes a variety of globally used devices and consumer products. But if I were in charge? Heh heh heh, believe me, “World’s Number One Engineer of Female Orgasms” would be right at the top of my brand’s website.

Hell, I’d slap that shit on my business card if it were even remotely true.

So snicker if you like and say what you will about the Shadow Master. But remember, I became a god, had a successful career (and semi-successful books), and then became a literal cosmic titan after already being a titan of industry.

What have you done besides read indie dreck and wanked it to cheap internet porn?

I tell ya, self-reflection, self-honesty, self-correction, commitment to a path, and the willingness to go the extra mile in the boudoir are the pillars on which my success has been built.

You might wanna write that down.

Along with those nuggets of wisdom comes another lesson to learn: the importance of awareness and an eye for detail. See, I was sure I knew where I was. The clues were obvious, especially for one like me—a person willing to notice the little things.

The vibrator in my hand, for example. Like I said, it was similar to Lydia’s, but not exact. Something that had been crafted based on the real thing. A copy. A skilled one, but a copy nonetheless. So whoever made this was going off an imperfect design, which told me it was based on a person’s memory or a description. And people were fallible.

It’s why a lot of psychological studies point to the undeniable fact that eyewitness accounts of crimes are unreliable. Witnesses often can’t see things accurately when far away. And when they only have a few seconds to see a criminal event occurring, their own mind prevents them from providing a proper description of the event. Why? Because as we discussed earlier, the human brain fills in the blanks with a person’s biases.

Aside from the vibrator, there were other clues. There was the fact that the walls of the bedroom were made of actual timber. Paired with the homespun-style blanket and the room’s rudimentary furniture, I was clearly in an actual cabin and not a pre-fabbed rich person’s lakeside getaway. A quick glance out the bedroom window confirmed that I was correct, and that said cabin was set in a lush, vibrant forest. Idyllic, if you will.

Considering I didn’t hear a modern HVAC system running nor pipes moving water about the abode, this place was not a modern setting. But since the device in my hand was the plug-in style vibrator, a rudimentary level of electricity had to be present.

Based on the available data, it was clear I was back in Caledon. Obviously in a zone that was outside of that GameLit influence bullshit.

You may recall from Villains Defeat that after the huge sky battle in the world of Polyphony Gilt where yours truly defeated a small armada of aliens, Sophia sprang a trap and my dearest Lydia disappeared, transported back to Caledon. At the time, she was wearing the mechsuit powered by the AI named Claudia. It was obvious that this cabin’s base level electricity—complete with a home-brewed vibrator—was Claudia’s doing. No doubt at Lydia’s insistence. She always did like comfort.

I imagined that the AI had integrated into the fantasy world as some kind of arcane golem or steampunk clockwork automaton or . . . whatever. An artificer-like character. Hey, whatever works, right? All the realms were pliable when it came to new material. Just find a plausible rationale and bam—new plot, characters, and tech.

Yes, dear readers—thanks to my incredible powers of awareness, a keen eye for detail, and some pretty slick Sherlock-level detective work, I had determined that clearly, I was in my wife’s home. Damn, I was good.

That was when I heard someone coming down the hall towards the door. And based on the footfalls, a woman.

My wife. My Lydia.

Holding her vibrator like a scepter, I was ready to greet my beloved like the queen she was, hold her close, and get down to some nasty, nasty business. It had been a couple of years for me, after all. So when the door opened and I saw my sister Paige . . . well, I don’t know which one of us shrieked the loudest. Her, me, or my withering erection.

“Ahh!”

“Ahh!”

“Julie?! What are you. . .” she said, her voice trailing off as her eyes went to the device in my hand.

My sister’s pleasure device.

The one which I’d learned had been very, very recently used.

From the sandwich in her hand, I could only surmise that my slightly older sibling was one of those people who got hungry after an orgasm. A cumandmuncher, as the Germans might say. I, on the other hand, felt like I might never eat again, no matter how badly HBO’s Game of Thrones—along with its lesser-quality spinoffs—or PornHub’s disturbing family-themed algorithm wanted to normalize incest fantasies.

In that nanosecond of recognition between us, it was possible, I mean juuuust maybe, that the Shadow Master had gotten it wrong.

That this was not in fact a cabin in the fantasy realm of Caledon. As such, it was possible that my dear sister, whom we last saw in the Prime universe, had fallen on hard times and had been forced to live in a backwater, off-the-grid cabin with only limited, generator-supplied electricity. And upon closer inspection, the vibrator indeed was just a cheap knockoff.

Kinda like those poor kids who parents wouldn’t buy them the real cereal or Hostess treats, instead getting knockoffs like Crisp Crunch and a Twonky.

“Paige, I—” was all I could say before my sister clocked me in the face.

Due to surprise more than pain (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it), I staggered backwards, tripped over a driftwood footstool, and fell flat on my back, into unconsciousness.

********

When I came to this time, I was in Frank’s office, sitting in the chair across from his desk, and the goddamn vibrator was still in my hand. With as much dignity as I could, I placed said generic massager on his desk and hoped he did not ask questions.

“Is that a—”

“Yes,” I said.

“And it’s your sister’s?”

Sigh. “Yes.”

“Uh huh,” Frank said, picking up the small yet new trash bin by his desk. “And you thought my desk was the best place for that?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I picked it up by the cord, doing my best to ignore the damp stain it had left on his desk calendar, and deposited the device into the trash. The moment it fell in, the massager began to rattle and buzz with a ferocity that made me momentarily sympathetic for my sister’s nether region.

Frank glared at me, the unspoken command clear as day.

“I . . . I guess this model has a backup rechargeable battery?” I said.

“You don’t say.”

With all the humility I could muster, I reached into the trash, felt around, and clicked the device off. The vibrator may have fallen blessedly silent, but the shrieking wails of my weeping hubris could be heard across the multiverse.

Composing myself, I looked at my supervisor and asked a question that was not only germane to the situation, but also possibly one of the most important inquiries I’d ever posed.

“Do you have any hand sanitizer?” 

OceanofPDF.com

The Ballad of Erika Myers, Part 2

Tanks for the Memories

Erika wobbled and nearly fell over, catching the metal railing near the memorial. She looked pretty pale, like she was about to puke.

“Why—how are you showing me this . . . stupid, and really disgusting, story?” Erika asked, shaking her head.

“Have you not yet figured out that I’m not just some ‘old guy’ who worked at the same store as you?”

“That—that’s not possible.”

“It is and it’s happening,” I said, sipping my coffee. “I’m telling you this story so you understand a bit more about the man you treated like garbage. I want you to know that people—good, bad, or in the middle—are capable of great and terrible things when the right forces are in play. You saw me as a nobody working at a Starbucks. Sure, I was surly. But I was just a guy down on his luck. You . . . you see people as an obstacle. In a way, I appreciate that. But in this case, you fucked with the wrong guy. But hey, how were you supposed to know I had once been a god and later became a titan?”

“I—I don’t believe this,” Erik said. “You drugged me. That’s what’s going on. You drugged me and then started telling me this insane nerd story about titans, manga-tits, fantasy-Hobbit bullshit, and dildos.”

“Vibrator,” I clarified. “But no, Erika, I did not drug you. And my story is quite real.”

She blinked a few times as her mind accepted this new reality. “Where—where are we?”

I smiled. “We are in Tomsk.”

“Where the hell is that?”

I sighed. “Ah, youth. Tomsk is a city and the administrative center of Tomsk Oblast, Russia. If you look over there, you can see the Tom River. But we’re not here for that. We’re here for her.”

I pointed to a sectioned-off grassy square near several tenement buildings. In the center of the square was a metal plinth with a bronze statue bust of a woman wearing a leather helmet.

“Who’s she?”

“Mariya Oktyabrskaya. A Soviet Ukrainian tank driver and mechanic who fought on the Eastern front against Nazi Germany during World War II. She is the first stop on our journey. A trip I like to call Jackson Blackwell’s Favorite Moments in the History of Revenge. And since I have oodles of power, which you don’t, you’re going to listen to me.”

“The fuck I am,” Erika said, then ran screaming at the nearest person for help.

“They can’t see or hear you,” I said. “Remember? Ghosts of Christmas and all that Charles Dickens stuff? But maybe what you need is a change in perspective.”

I snapped my fingers.

Erika screamed when the Russian tank blew by her and engaged the enemy. The angry steel beast from a bygone era fired off its main gun, blowing the ever-living shit out of a Nazi tank. The sound was like sweet music.

All around there were more explosions and screams in foreign languages.

Erika peed, more than a little.

The Russian tank took fire, lurched, then stopped. The hatch opened, and a slim, attractive woman wearing a leather helmet hopped out. And despite the oncoming fire, that woman did her best to fix her beloved tank.

“That,” I said, standing behind Erika, “is Mariya Oktyabrskaya. And we are currently at the village of Šviedy near Vitebsk, during the Leningrad–Novgorod Offensive. See, Mariya is one of my favorite people in history.”

“I can’t, I can’t,” Erika screamed, covering her ears and dropping to the ground.

I picked her back up and forced the woman’s eyes open.

“Look at her!” I demanded. “You think you’re hard? You think you’re a bad bitch? You know nothing of what it means to put everything you have on the line to achieve your goals. Mariya’s husband was killed in nineteen forty-one, killed by Nazis. Real Nazis, by the way, not everyone right of center according to social media. But Mariya didn’t learn about that death for nearly two years. So you know what she did?”

“No?” Erika sniffed as she watched this incredible woman, who was no older than thirty-eight, brave death to make her tank run again.

“She sold everything she had to buy a goddamn tank. She then donated it to the war effort with the express condition that she be the one to command it. The troops thought it was a stunt. But Mariya went through six months of training. After that, they unleashed her and her tank, The Fighting Girlfriend, onto the Nazis. Mariya tore those goose-stepping fucks a hole big enough to . . . well, drive a tank through. She skillfully maneuvered her tank, destroying everything in her path. Fixing it on the fly when needed. She was promoted to the rank of a sergeant and singled out by the tank battalion commander as setting the example for others to follow. She did this, all of this, for revenge. And today, in this fight, her quest for revenge ends.”

Mariya had finished fixing the tank’s treads when a shell landed too close. Shrapnel hit the woman and she fell over, wounded but not dead.

“She—she’s going to get up, right?”

“No,” I said. “The shrapnel went through her eye and into her brain. She’s in a coma. She will die two months later on March fifteenth, nineteen forty-four. But I want you to look at her. See how far passion, real passion, can carry you. It is something I have. And like Sergeant Mariya Oktyabrskaya, I couldn’t wait to unleash my brand of hell onto the gods. But even I needed the proper training. As you will see.”

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Chapter 9

Where I Receive Special Seating Accommodations, Crawl Up My Own Ass a Bit, and Set My Sights on a New Target

Frank secured the straps a little tighter than I thought necessary. The sudden tug of the leather bonds across my chest and lap forced a grunt to escape my lips.

“Mmph. Seriously?”

“Young titans need extra care,” Frank said, sliding the tray into place with a click. “And apparently I need to pull out all the stops for you.”

“I understand that my . . . ahem, PISSing is an issue,” I admitted, “but this feels a bit, I dunno, infantilizing?”

Frank stepped back and appreciated his work, looking me over and then giving a satisfied nod. “Maybe. But you are a baby titan. This feels . . . fitting.”

While I was not pleased, I couldn’t argue with his assessment. My inability to control my powers was not unlike that of a small child who had reached the mobility stage. If it was within reach, it was theirs to draw upon, chew, or destroy.

That being said, what Frank had me strapped into looked an awful lot like a highchair for adults, complete with a bright green plastic activity-slash-feeding tray.

At least there wasn’t a sippy cup.

The whole apparatus was set up in the open workspace outside his office. When asked why I was out here and not in there, Frank said, and I’m quoting here, “It’s obvious you’re not ready for a big-boy seat yet.”

Jerk.

“So what does this do again?” I asked. 

“If the clothes were something of an anchor, then this son of a bitch is basically a vault. Designed to keep you in place until your work is done.”

“Work?” I said, confused.

“Yup,” Frank said, grabbing a stack of papers and slapping them down on the tray. “I told you there’d be a test. I think the reason the PISS problem is persisting is because you haven’t specialized yet.”

“Specialized?”

“Yeah,” Frank grunted, placing a pen atop the pile of papers. “You haven’t mentally decided what kind of titan you’re going to be. As such, you keep slipping back into bad habits.”

“What do you mean ‘bad habits’?”

“Well, those gnats you called family, for starters,” Frank said. “I mean, I can’t exactly blame you, what with formerly being human and a god and all that. Since you clearly aren’t in the right mindset to be a titan yet, you keep PISSing. These personality tests should help.”

“Personality test?” I asked.

“Tests, plural,” Frank corrected, tapping the stack of papers. “A crapload of them.”

“Why?”

Frank shrugged. “Titans tend to fall into four major categories. Chaos, Order, Infinity, and Eldritch. While I doubt you’ll fall into the latter, I’ve been surprised before. You might look good with tentacles. Eh, who knows.”

“Which one are you?” I asked.

Frank glared at me for interrupting.

“Chaos,” he said. “I love reveling in my essence spanning the multiverse and brewing up trouble that my counterparts, those of Order, seek to re-balance. Which is why being here, babysitting you, literally hurts me to my core. Anyway, once you—”

“What about Infinity?” I asked.

Frank sighed. “Infinity titans are more like the hippies of our culture. They care about karma and cosmic flow. But they’re normally intangible things like light, time, entropy, and crap like that. Trust me, if you were an Infinity class, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But again, we won’t know until you take the damn tests.”

“Is all this really necessary?” I asked.

Frank nodded. “Once you take these, I think you’ll have a deeper understanding of yourself, your place in the cosmos, and the path you’re on. Once that’s cemented into your thick skull, you’ll have a firmer grasp of what you are and hopefully of your powers.”

“What I am?” I said, not really following his line of thinking. “I’m a titan. Whatever the sub-species, I’m now the pinnacle of power. Right? Why does any of this matter?”

Frank looked at me like I was an idiot. And considering that I was a grown man strapped into a highchair, I guess I was.

Frank let out a sigh, not bothering to hide the look of frustration on his face. “Do you realize that for the last few minutes, our entire dynamic has been me trying to explain something and you, instead of listening and absorbing the information, constantly questioning everything?”

I was about to say “What are you talking about?,” but stopped myself.

He was right. A quick mental recounting and sure as shit, I had been acting childlike. Damn near fussy, if I were being honest. This—this wasn’t like me. It was like—oh gods above and below, no—it was like one of my old villain counseling sessions. Only I was the moron on the other side of the desk and Frank was . . . me.

“I—I’m the freaking idiot here, aren’t I?” I said aloud. “The child in this situation.”

Frank smiled, then placed a brightly colored plastic cup with lid and a bendy straw on the tray. “In case you get thirsty.”  

Gods damn it.

********

After what felt like hours later, I was still at it. The pile of stupid personality tests seemed to be never-ending. But at least the cup Frank gave me was also never-ending. I took another slug off the drink and smiled.

Mmm . . . apple juice.

At first the tests were fairly standard, with questions like, “What has been your greatest accomplishment?” or “How do you respond to criticism?” The answers obviously being “Being able to achieve anything” and “With a well-timed brick to the back of an unsuspecting skull.”

Like I said, standard.  But after that, the rest became a little more . . . bizarre. The questions included such gems as

Sentient beings, what if any function do they serve beyond servitude or food?;

Cosmic justice is balanced best by which ineffable stratagem?; and

When the root of consciousness conspires against sentient sanity, which spectrum of unseen light would you manifest to dispel the veil?

The rest kinda continued on their trip to Crazytown from there.

I will say that the ones presented in an inane yet readable, pictogram-like script actually released audible wailing sounds upon contact with the mind, evoking the kind of maddening gibber that cosmic horror fans think is cool. Even though we all know such things are nothing more than misanthropic emo wish-fulfillment.

Let’s be real here, people whose nethers quiver at the idea of cosmic horror have obviously wasted their youth and need other like-minded folks in their lives, if for no other reason than as an excuse for all the eclectic clothes they’ve stitched together. Now the same could be said for punk culture, but at least those purists had goals—stupid ones, but goals.

I trudged onward, answering the test questions to the best of my ability despite the mind-numbing tedium. Page after endless page of questions, questions, questions. They bore into me. They pulled out answers I didn’t know were there. Yet despite the personal truths they showed me, I didn’t feel one whit closer to enlightenment, let alone to the titan path I should be pursuing.

No, dear reader, the only real question rattling around the (former) Shadow Master’s mind was a simple one. And it may surprise you to hear, as it’s not a joke or a good-natured jab at a beloved pop culture icon or a geeky sub-genre. 

Why hadn’t I gone to find my daughter?

Part of me can understand seeking out Lydia first. In some ways, I can justify it. I chose her as much as she chose me. For that is what a relationship is. A partnership, willing and consenting individuals, working in unison towards shared goals with shared values. You can dress it up if you like. Add flowers, romance, and all that two-souls-entwined bullshit. But such abstractions fade in time. The flowers wilt, the romance is replaced with co-existence, and sometimes I want you to get your sweaty, clingy-ass soul off mine and give me some gods-damned space and let me take a shit in peace!

Still, if the relationship is solid, then the mutual love and respect remains. All the bullshit is worn down over time like a rock in a stream until it’s smooth, resilient, and perfect. Polished and sleek.

That was what I’d had with Lydia.

And, sure, she might not like me comparing our relationship to that of a river rock. But the metaphor stands. We were something solid. 

After my wife, I subconsciously sought out my minions. For all my bluster, for all my acerbic humor, they were my friends. Yeah, I could have been a better friend, or employer, but our dynamic was just that, ours. All friendships have their tribulations. But I could count on Doris and Wendell to be more than just my Myst and Wraith Knight. I knew they would forever have my back just as I would have theirs.

I think.

Then . . . well, I won’t even bring up the vibrator thing except to say, seeking out Paige instead of Evie was like a slap in the face. And the real shit of it was, I was the one slapping myself.

My sister and I had never had a great relationship. It was often contentious. She tried to stab me once with my own sword. Not to mention her bastard kid tried taking a couple of shots at me and my throne. Still, it’s been my understanding that that is what family does. They snipe, they battle, and they make up. Sadly, Paige was instrumental to my titan evolution. With none of my enemies watching her, she was able to perform the necessary soul-reliquary research needed.

Now I’m going to say something, but before I do, I want you to hear me. Really hear me. Purchasing this book leaves a paper trail. So do illegal downloads and legal lending policies. So if this gets back to her and one of you is responsible, know I will come for you. And I’m not talking about some silly tickle fight kind of coming for you.

No no.

I’m talking about the kind of coming for you that involves sledgehammer dentistry, rectal crucifixions, and eyelid hooks. And not just for you, but for your loved ones, your friends, and your pets.

Yeah, your pets. I said it.

So, with that warning out of the way . . .

Sigh. I’m jealous of Paige.

Yeah, bet you weren’t expecting that.

They say that patience is a virtue and ignorance is bliss. And that roughly translates to “Life is good as long as you’re stupid and don’t mind waiting.” But despite my constant insults towards my sister’s intelligence, the truth is she is actually an honest and simple person. Maybe it’s just Sophia’s curse on her, but Paige doesn’t have a drive that consumes her the way it does me. I used to see it as a failing, and maybe part of me still does. Regardless, I’m the person who risks everything to gain just a little bit more and am never satisfied. There’s a hole in my being that can’t be filled no matter how hard I try.

Please, no jokes.

Yet that’s not the way with Paige. Sure, she likes material things, but that’s my parents’ fault. We grew up rich, after all. But she is more like a human-sized hamster, simply content to be. And there are days when I envy that.

Like I said earlier, these personality tests are complete bullshit when it comes to revealing personal truths. A total waste of my time.

That aside, I think the reason I sought out the others before Evie is actually very simple: they need me and my daughter doesn’t.

Lydia has strength of will and drive, but often needs a push in the right direction. I gave her that when we met back in Caledon. The minions obviously need guidance, which I’ve always provided. And Paige, being like the aforementioned hamster, needs someone to feed and water her. Maybe Randy is there at the cabin fulfilling that role, but that’s not his responsibility. It’s mine.

But my Evie, she has the same talent and skill I have, only better. In her short life, there has been nothing she hasn’t been able to do on her own. I guess that’s all a parent can ask for.

We parents don’t want copies of ourselves; we want better versions, devoid of our bullshit. And Evie . . . well, she’s gonna own this multiverse one day. That was why I didn’t seek her out.

At least, that’s what I had to keep telling myself.

Because there were really only two other reasons my mind didn’t reach out to see her. Either she was in a place a titan couldn’t reach, or she was dead.

So I assumed I hadn’t sought out Evie because my subconscious knew she was more than capable, while her mom, aunt, and pseudo aunt and uncle were helpless without me.

But that left another group of undesirables who needed my attention. And no highchair can stop the (former) Shadow Master when he has his mind made up.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 10

Where My Enemies Argue, Value the Almighty Dollar, and Read a Book

“But he’s dead,” Eris said, pointing an expertly manicured finger towards the preserved corpse in the ornate crystalline display case.

“And we’re telling you he’s back,” Valliar said, leaning back on the office’s couch and crossing his legs. “He appeared in Caledon.”

“Impossible,” Eris said.

“We do not lie,” Khasil said from across the room. The Queen of Darkness stood in front of Eris’s bookshelf, inspecting the displayed trinkets and souvenirs.

“With respect,” Eris said, “yes you do. It’s kind of your whole thing.”

“But I do not,” Valliar said, reaffirming his position. “Jackson Blackwell did appear in Caledon.”

“Well, what happened?” Eris pressed.

“He was killed by an ogre shortly after arriving.”

“Very shortly,” Khasil added.

“Then I’m not clear on the problem,” Eris said, still not clear about this emergency meeting.

“Because he next showed up in my universe,” King Stanley said from beside Valliar. “I was just as shocked as these two, but I know what I saw. That was Jackson.”

“How can you be sure?” Eris asked. “Perhaps a clone, duplicate, or alternate reality version left behind as some kind of final countermeasure?”

“It was him,” Y’ollgorath said from where he sat in the office’s extra-large leather chair, the one set aside just for when the demon visited. “Trust me, I’d know that smell anywhere.”

“We weren’t exactly shocked,” Valliar mumbled under his breath, which caused King Stanley to let out a wheezing old-man laugh.

“Sure you weren’t,” the old god said, cleaning his glasses on his cardigan. “You played it off well, I’ll give you that. But the only reason Jackson didn’t spot your piss-poor poker faces is because he was distracted by what you’d done to your realm.”

“GameLit is a thriving medium,” Khasil said, setting down a stone carving that then tumbled over and fell onto the floor. The goddess turned away, not caring. “And it’s better than that . . . well, whatever abomination you call what you did to your universe.”

“Heh heh, oh Khasil,” King Stanley said with a smirk. “You’re not attractive enough to be that stupid.”

“Excuse me?” Khasil boomed. “Who do you think you—”

The goddess’s rant was cut off by the sound of King Stanley loudly unraveling a hard candy from its crinkly golden wrapper. Eris watched the High God pop the treat into his mouth, savoring the flavor while the hard candy clicked and clacked against his teeth.

“Did you know—mmm, that’s good—that um, back in the prime universe, somewhere around twenty twenty-one, or as they keep time, that sci-fi fantasy book sales were somewhere just south of six hundred million dollars? When you add in audio sales, that number reached, oh, about 1.6 billion dollars?”

“Dollars?” Khasil asked, looking to her brother for clarification.

“Think of them like gold pieces, sister,” Valliar explained.

“Ah,” Khasil said, crossing his arms across her chest. “That’s an impressive number.”

“It is, truly,” King Stanley agreed. “But LitRPG, or GameLit if you prefer, is just a small vertical slice of that pie. A growing slice, sure, but just a piece.”

“Do you have a point?” Valliar asked.

King Stanley gave a half shrug and looked at Y’ollgorath. “Just that in that same amount of time, traditional comics sold roughly what, one billion dollars in the North American market?”

“One point three billion,” Y’ollgorath corrected.

“Ah,” King Stanley said. “One point three.”

“So you’re saying that fantasy sold better then,” Khasil said with a satisfied smile.

King Stanley smiled right back at her.

“As always, you’re missing the point, Khassy dear,” Y’ollgorath said.

“Classic superheroes sold well,” King Stanley said. “But manga, across its various forms, sold five point six billion dollars’ worth of comics in their home country alone. The worldwide number? Whew.”

King Stanley whistled, shaking his head a little.

“So?” Khasil said.

“So I guess what the Stan-man is politely saying is that what he’s done for his universe eats your new gimmick for breakfast,” Y’ollgorath said. “In fact, a lot of what your universe is doing bears a striking similarity to Isekai manga. A weaker, diluted version, that is.”

Khasil turned to her brother, her dark eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t this bitch give us the manga?”

“I do not know, sister,” Valliar said, his eyes turning to the desk and the occupant sitting behind it. “Why not indeed?”

Eris sighed and fought hard not to grind her teeth.

Children. They were just like all-powerful catty children.

“Hey hey hey,” Steve said, snapping his fingers. The tall man walked around the desk to glower at the gods and demon. “This company provided you with premium counseling advice. Each program tailored to your exact needs, projections, and current levels of infrastructure.”

“But why wasn’t this . . . what was it called again?” Khasil asked.

“Isekai manga,” Valliar said.

“Yes, that,” Khasil said. “Why wasn’t this offered to us? We want billions of gold pieces.”

“Because you’re a basic-as-fuck fantasy world,” Steve snapped, his bluntness causing Khasil to take a step back.

“I wouldn’t say that exactly,” Valliar countered.

“Oh really?” Steve said, then held up his hand and ticked off the points on his fingers. “No unique magic systems. No flawed, relatable, or complex characters. No memorable adventures. And—this is very important, so listen up—definitely no uniqueness to hook new worshipers.”

“What are you getting at?” Khasil asked.

“Ya basic,” Y’ollgorath said, snapping in the air twice.

“So basic,” Steve added, “that the only thing we could recommend to spice up your nothing-burger of a universe was GameLit.”

“Mm hmm,” King Stanley snickered under his breath.

“Oh, you got something to say there, old man?” Steve said, turning his attention to the other High God. “You know damn well manga was your last chance at success.”

King Stanley’s face darkened. “I’ll have you know that—”

“You can go ahead and stow that crap, Gramps, before you wet your Depends,” Steve said. “Your tights-and-capes shenanigans got you through the lean times, no doubt. But let’s face it, the market is so saturated that people don’t give a shit anymore. Superhero fatigue is real, and you’re part of the problem, not the solution. We pitched the manga aspect and secured the Never Realm deal as a last gasp, nothing more.”

“Steven,” Eris said, her tone one of exasperation.

Steve glared down at the seated High God. “One last hurrah for a dying medium.”

“Steven!” Eris repeated. “That’s enough.”

“I was done anyway,” Steve said, returning to his spot behind her.

“Riveting as this conversation has been, it has nothing to do with why we are here. How is Jackson Blackwell alive?”

Valliar stroked his beard, refusing to make eye contact. Khasil returned her attention to the bookshelf while King Stanley fished another candy from his cardigan’s pocket.

“Well?” Eris said, repeating herself. “No one? Y’olly?”

The demon shrugged. “It’s not my place to say.”

“Say what?” Eris demanded.

“That he’s a gods-damned titan now,” a new, feminine voice bellowed.

Eris looked up to see an angry-looking, somewhat chonky woman barge into her office, the receptionist on her heels.

“I’m so sorry, Ms. Pence,” the receptionist said. “I don’t know how she got in, but—”

“It’s all right, Simon,” Eris said. “I know this woman, and there’s literally nothing you could have done to stop her from entering.”

“Speaking of entering,” the woman said, looking the tall, lean, dark-haired Simon up and down, “you ever wanna get a little freaky with a gal who can make you moan in seventeen dead languages, you give me a call.”

Simon’s mouth silently opened and closed several times before he looked away. “Um, Ms. Pence?”

“You may go, Simon.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Call me,” the woman whispered, pantomiming a phone.

Eris looked Sophia Rose DeVrille over, unsure what exactly had caused her current state. The Djinn was dressed in rather snug powder-blue sweatpants, purple crocs, and a black hoodie stained with Cheeto dust. The once-powerful force of chaos now reeked of boxed wine and cat urine. Ignoring her appearance, Eris focused on what the Djinn had said when she entered.

“What do you mean, a titan?”

Sophia strode through the expansive office, ignoring the looks from the gods, and stopped just at the desk. From her hoodie’s front pouch, she pulled out a book and slapped it onto the surface. Eris glanced down.

“Villains Defeat?” she said. “They still published it?”

“Wasn’t in paperback until twenty twenty-two for some reason,” Sophia said. “But that’s not what’s important. Jackson played us. All of us.”

“But you killed him,” Eris said, her jaw now aching from frustration.

“I did,” Sophia confirmed. “But my former boss had a trick or two up his sleeve I hadn’t accounted for. He used a loophole in the cosmic tapestry and has been reborn as a titan.”

Sophia opened the book, flipped to the dog-eared page, and turned it so that Eris could see the passage.

“And,” Sophia said, looking over her shoulder at the gods, “unless I miss my guess, these pricks knew about it.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 11

Where My Enemies Break out the Rulers, Ponder My Maturity Levels, and Prepare for My Arrival

“You . . . knew?” Eris asked the gathered beings, contempt in her tone and disgust on her face.

“Oh yeah,” Sophia said, pulling a half-eaten bag of Cheetos from her hoodie pouch. She unrolled the top and began popping a few into her mouth, orange crumbs falling to the floor as she continued to talk and chew. “They totally knew and didn’t bother telling you.”

“May I ask why—the fuck—was this not shared with me?” Eris asked, her voice growing in volume as she got to her feet. “If Jackson is back in any form or capacity, then that is critical information, and I should have been informed immediately.”

“Why?” Valliar asked.

Eris couldn’t help but stare at the deity. “Because I’m a god.”

“A minor god,” Valliar corrected.

“Very minor,” Khasil added.

“And this is us informing you,” added King Stanley.

Eris turned to Sophia. “How long? How long has he been back?”

Sophia wiped her stained fingers against her hoodie, waggled them in the air as if making calculations, and squinted a little. “Mm, based on what I read and what I know about titans, I’d say he died, came back almost right away, and has been in titan training for nearly the last two years?”

“Two . . . years?” Eris said, walking around the desk to glare at the gods and the demon. “Two gods-damned years, and you knew the whole time?”

“Of course we knew,” King Stanley said. “We’re High Gods. Masters of our respective domains. It was brought up at the first meeting following his death.”

“After the main meeting minutes but just before the refreshments,” Y’ollgorath said. “It was news, but definitely not top priority.”

“Of course,” King Stanley concurred.

“You too, Y’olly?” Eris asked.

“Sorry, sister.” The large demon shrugged. “The Never Realm works hand in hand with pretty much every realm or universe. So we’re always kept in the loop.”

“But why not tell me sooner?” Eris reiterated.

“Honestly?” Y’ollgorath said. “Because you’re just Jackson’s replacement.”

Eris felt as if she’d been slapped in the face. “Come again?”

“Ms. Pence,” Valliar started, “let’s not put on airs here. We, the cosmic elite, have been doing this for a very long time. Yes, like the former Shadow Master, you help to provide a fresh perspective for our worlds. You know, spice up our activities. But nothing more than that. Our only real objection to Jackson was that he was—”

“Conceited?” King Stanley offered.

“Arrogant to the point of being insufferable?” Y’ollgorath said.

“A smug fuck,” Khasil added.

“All of the above,” Valliar said in summary. “I speak for many of the other High Gods whom Jackson had dealings with. We went along with you and the Djinn’s coup because you are more pliable. Easier to work with.”

“But the services I provide—”

“Are just that, services,” Valliar said. “You enhance what exists. But you neither create nor control anything of your own. We are artists. You, like the former Shadow Master, are merely a critic.”

“But I—”

“Look,” King Stanley said, cutting her off, “it doesn’t really matter which trumped-up human sits in that chair. Sure, Jackson was the first. Like a puppy who could talk. It was cute. But when he barked too loud, we got sick of it. When you came along, we saw a way to get what we wanted, a more pliant and quieter dog. So we backed you and Sophia’s mutual quest for revenge.”

“You just need to know your place, dear,” Khasil said. “Now what are we going to do about Jackson?”

The gods talked among themselves, but it was all a buzzing noise to Eris. Only the years of elocution lessons, a formal Ivy League education, and sheer grit kept her upright. The open disdain and contempt they’d shown was one thing. But to be dismissed like that? In her own home?

“Oh, blow it out your asses,” Sophia boomed, then ate another large handful of Cheetos.

Eris caught eyes with the Djinn. The creature’s vertical-slit pupils were wide as she shook her head ever so slightly.

“This is what they do, you know? When they’re scared shitless. They point, blame, and reaffirm their position. All the while crapping their panties because they know a titan with a vengeance is loose.”

“How bad are we talking?” Eris asked. “Is he omnipotent?”

“No,” Valliar quickly snapped.

Something about his tone was off. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Valliar let out a small sigh. “He doesn’t have omnipotence . . . yet. He’s still a titan in training. A TiT, if you will.”

“TiT-E,” Khasil corrected. “A titan esquire. Not fully a titan, but more than what he was. It seems that he can appear in whatever realm he chooses but has yet to come into his full powers.”

“But will he?” Eris asked.

“Eventually, yes,” King Stanley confirmed. “But that could take centuries. Millennia, perhaps. We’re not sure because . . . well, this is undocumented.”

“Why not?” Eris pressed.

“Because Jackson ain’t a natural born titan,” Y’ollgorath said. “He did what he always does. He found a loophole and exploited it.”

“Could I do the same?” Eris asked.

“No,” Valliar said. “By now The One has closed said loophole. Regardless, by the time he comes into his power, he won’t be a problem.”

Eris eyed the god. “What makes you so sure?”

“Because mature titans care very little for meddling in the affairs of lesser beings,” Valliar said. “It’s inevitable. All titans become bored with the affairs of gods and men.”

Sophia snorted. “So you’re banking on Jackson’s maturity and his ability to let things go? Are you freaking high?”

Valliar shook his head. “Of course not. We have contingencies in place to curtail his . . . temperament.”

Eris raised an eyebrow. “The ones I counseled you on?”

“Yes,” Khasil sighed. “You were right. The weaselly little prick has feelings for those mortals he calls family. So as long as we have sway over them, he will be little more than a nuisance.”

“You’re holding them hostage,” Eris said.

“In a way,” Khasil confirmed. “Aren’t you doing the same thing? A little bird told me that you’ve done something similar to Jackson’s sister and nephew back in the Prime Universe.”

Eris couldn’t help but smile a little. “Well, I couldn’t very well have people who have knowledge of the multiverse running around, could I? That would just be poor planning.”

“What did you do then?” Valliar asked.

“I had them framed for Jackson’s death,” Eris said with a tone a mirth. “Since Paige and Randy lived in the same town, and Jackson had secret funds that they’d been living off of, it wasn’t hard to make it stick. After his death, I had my lawyers seize control of Jackson’s remaining assets. According to my last report, Paige and Randy now live together in a cabin deep in the woods of West Virginia. They reportedly live off the land with little to no access to creature comforts such as running water or electricity. And if they show their face in proper society, they’ll be arrested and imprisoned.”

Khasil smiled. “Well done.”

“Thank you,” Eris said with a small bow.  “But what about his daughter? My people could not find Evie Blackwell.”

“Yeah, that’d be because of me,” Sophia said. “I had no idea that he planned on coming back as a titan. But I’ve known Jackson longer than anyone else here. So I took out my own insurance plan, just in case. Evie is in a place that not even a titan can find. And she’ll stay there indefinitely. You hear me, Jackson? Move against me and I’ll take her out.”

“What are you doing?” Eris asked, looking around.

“You just skimmed the book passage, didn’t you?” Sophia said, shaking her head. The Djinn went over to the desk and picked the book back up and tapped her finger, staining the pages orange. “Jackson used lich magic to put slivers of his soul into his business cards, then spread ’em across the multiverse. One of which was left in The Seam, where he opted to be reborn with his essence spanning the cosmos, thus making him technically a titan. But that also means every other gods-damned place he or his minions left a card is now poisoned with a piece of his soul. It’s why he can appear anywhere. To include here.”

Eris looked over, and sure as shit, the corpse in the glass case was smiling.

“So he knows everything we just talked about?”

“Yup,” Sophia said. “It’s why they left suddenly.”

Eris looked back over and blinked in surprise. Her lounge area was now empty. The gods and Y’ollgorath had vanished.

“Told ya,” Sophia said, closing the book and tossing it onto the desk. “When they’re scared, it’s all bluster and contests to measure dicks and tits. Now, we have work to do. A storm’s coming, and I for one am ready to meet it head on.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 12

Where I Get Scolded for Ignorance, I Am Compared to a Designer Mutt, and My Training Wheels Come Off

“How many?” Frank all but yelled in my face while shaking the ever-living shit out of my highchair.

The excessive rattling knocked my sippy cup to the floor, spilling what was left of my juice.

Damn it. It was good juice.

“Excuse me?” I asked, trying to get my bearings. “And I have to ask, does this count as titan child abuse? Do titans suffer from shaken baby syndrome?”

“How many cards are floating around out there?” Frank snarled, ignoring the question.

“Um, what?”

“You weaselly little shit,” Frank said. “You split your soul and placed them into multiple cards.”

“Um . . . yes.”

“How many?!”

“How many come in a box?” I said, answering his question with a question.

Frank hung his head. “Sweet Sav’ack’tun’s sixty-six suck-shafts. Why? Why would you do that?”

“I was covering my bases,” I said, not feeling like I had to explain myself.

“Covering your—do you even know what that means?”

“Covering your bases? Well, it’s an American idiom which stems from baseball. See, the pitcher has to—”

“No, no that . . . ya dumb fuck,” Frank said, his moustache actually bristling. It was quite unnerving, like thousands of tiny little middle fingers raising up to flip me off.

“Look,” I said. “Clearly I had no idea what I was doing at the time. Gods above and below, I don’t know what I’m doing now. Half my schtick is improvising and then acting like it was all my idea. But no matter how I spin it, there’s no way I can claim that being treated like a fussy toddler was part of my master plan. So instead of making up a swear using some titan and their numerous naughty bits to humiliate me further, how about you just dump some exposition on me and point me in the right direction so I can get this revenge mission going. Oh, and get me some more goddamn apple juice!”

Frank took off his glasses, looked me dead in the eye, and said “No.”

“No?” I said. “To which part?”

“All of it,” Frank said, calmly standing straight and putting his glasses back on.

“Even the juice?” I asked. “I am kinda thirsty, and that was your fault.”

“Jackson,” Frank said, choosing his words carefully. “You’re a dumbass. Even for a human, you’re a dumbass. I think what your former kind calls the Dunning-Kruger effect was created just for you. But somehow, you continue despite the odds. So from here on out, the kid gloves are off.”

With a snap of his fingers, everything holding me back was gone. The highchair, the special clothes, everything. It was just a naked me standing in an office.

“You strike me as a person who has to touch the hot stove a few times to realize it will burn you. So have at it. Go to town. Do as much or as little experimentation as possible. I don’t care anymore.”

With a tentative expression of my will, I imagined myself fully clothed, and thus, I was. A tailored gray pinstriped suit with a white button-up and no tie.

“Why the change of plans?” I asked. “Not that I mind the freedom, but I thought you were my social worker.”

“I still am,” Frank said. “But since you refuse to take the necessary steps, I figured you might as well fall on your face a few times before you realize.”

“Realize what?” I asked.

“That you failed upwards,” Frank said. “A titan, a true titan, has to know who or what it is to fully come into its power. You don’t know who you are, and I’m guessing you never did. That was the point of the personality tests. A way for you to see you. But hey, fuck me, right? Titans have only been doing this since before your kind was even protoplasm. So no restrictions, no restraints.”

“What happens if I need help?” I asked, confused at this sudden change.

“When you need help,” Frank corrected. “All you have to say is ‘Frank, I know what I want,’ and I’ll be there. But once I am there, you will do as instructed.”

“Why does that sound ominous?”

“Because it is,” Frank said. “You’re going to quickly realize that you are not a man. You’re not a god, and you are a titan in name only. Truth be told, you’re a hybrid being walking all planes at once. So kudos. You’re the cosmic equivalent of a Bernedoodle. But without all the hypoallergenic benefits. In fact, you offend most beings.”

“I may have been informed of that a time or two,” I admitted.

Frank actually smiled a little, letting out a small chuckle that quickly faded into something of a frown.

“The sad part is that in time, you’re going to realize that you don’t belong on any path. Your human friends and family will never understand you. The gods? Heh, you’ll see through them quick enough. And before you say anything snarky, no, you don’t have a handle on them. You just thought you did. Jackson, I’m not gonna lie to you, this is a lonely world you’ve entered. A place where we are the top point-zero-zero-one percent. Everything—and everyone—below means nothing to us. You’re not the first new titan to feel this way, but you are the most hard-headed about it. So, good luck.”

And like that, he was gone. No flash of light, no dimensional rift, nothing. Frank simply wasn’t there anymore. I was alone in this office-like space. Huh.

A couple thoughts ran through my mind. Mostly juvenile ones, like running around naked or taking a large dump on Frank’s desk. But then I would just be naked with no one to appreciate it or have to clean up my own feces. So those were out. I could go back to those showers; they’d been rather nice. But that didn’t get me closer to my revenge goals.

I guess that was a hard truth I wasn’t really ready to face. Isolation, it turns out, was not my friend. Despite always feeling apart from others, be it from general intelligence, awareness, or affluence, I still needed people in my life. In the early days of my career, I had had Sophia. Frenemy or not, she had been someone I . . . well, loved. Not in the naughty way, but in the way you love those close to you.

Paige, and to a degree Randy, had been perpetual thorns in my side. But a comfortable pain. One I now knew I missed. And obviously the others. So I guess what the . . . ahem, former Shadow Master is getting at is that he needs an audience.

And no, you don’t count, dear reader. You’re just supplemental income. Best to nip that in the bud before you think we’re closer than we are. A few of you are on the safe list—you know who you are. The rest? Well . . .

I went to Frank’s office, which I guess was now my new office, and took a seat. I fired up his computer and began scanning. Somehow it felt intuitive, searching this oddly familiar form of the multidimensional internet. But no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find what I sought.

That, of course, being the location of my daughter. Sophia’s words were still fresh in my mind. That Evie was in a place no titan could find, that she’d stay there indefinitely, and that if I were to move against my former receptionist, Sophia would “take her out.”

Since Frank had been kind enough to point out the Dunning-Kruger Effect, I applied its basic tenets—known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns. Confused yet? Heh, I bet you are. I’m sure that’s a particular tongue twister that even Kafer will stumble over.

Ten bucks says that when the audiobook comes out, he refuses to add a blooper reel of him trying to get through it.

But the basic breakdown of Dunning-Kruger is this:

There is information we know and understand, information we know but don’t understand, information we know but are unsure how we know it, and last, information that not only do we not know it, we don’t even know that we don’t know it.

Even further, people often overestimate their abilities. A dumb or overly confident person acts like they know it all, while an expert will doubt themselves and their skill in said field of expertise.

I, Jackson Blackwell, am fully aware that there are things I don’t know. But I strive to learn. And perhaps reflect on myself. See if I can identify blind spots. And when in doubt, lie my ass off.

With that touchy-feely mumbo jumbo out of the way, I think it’s time we enter the second act and get this revenge plot finally rolling.

I closed my eyes, imagined my friends, and let my mind slip.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 13

Where I Re-Return to Caledon, Play Out a Jedi Fantasy, and Recommend a Strong Legal Defense

Welcome weary traveler. Welcome to an untamed land that you will shape with your deeds. It is said that one day, Endernacht, the Final Wyrm, will rise from the eastern ocean and destroy the world. Can you avert the apocalypse? Or will you usher in the end of days? The question is simple: will you choose to be a hero . . . or a villain? Prepare thyself for a journey like none other. Welcome to . . . ah for shit’s sake, it’s you.

The swelling synth-style orchestral score suddenly deflated like a protracted musical fart.

“Heh, yeah, it’s me,” I said to the snarky automated voice. “Miss me?”

You have to care about something or someone to miss it.

“Fair enough.”

Standing up in the amber field, I held my arms wide and stretched my nude body while the golden rays of sun kissed my tan ass. The first time coming back to Caledon had been jarring. This time, though, I was far less disoriented. A little euphoric, even. Perhaps because I willed it to happen instead of . . . PISSing myself?

Regardless, having my crotch caressed by nature was rather pleasing this time around. I see now why so many dirty hippies run around butt-ass nekkid during their absurdly long bluegrass jamboree festivals. It’s simply invigorating to get your taint tickled by Mama Earth.

The filthy MILF.

But unlike the aforementioned walking advertisements for cannabis stores and self-righteous social causes, I had a job to get to. And therefore, clothes were in order.

Hey, Rumple Foreskin. Would ya mind putting on some clothes? the voice asked. Just reach into the starter chest and—

With a snap of my fingers, I was dressed in suitable fantasy garb meant for the affluent adventurer. My outfit bore a striking resemblance to the clothes I’d made for myself back in Villains Rule after I’d escaped Grimskull’s castle: comfortable dark brown boots, black leather pants, a lace-up forest green shirt, a brown leather armor chestplate with silver plate inlay, and an adventurer’s cloak.

When something works, ya just stick with it. And I had to admit, I looked snazzy.

Hey, you can’t do that, the game voice said.

“And yet I just did,” I said back, looking around for the starting chest.

Spotting the wooden box wrapped in bands of steel, I stepped over and began rummaging through its contents.

“Crap, crap, and more crap,” I said, picking up, inspecting, and subsequently tossing the items over my shoulder.

Of the starting loot, only the small purse of gold pieces, a couple of belts, and the short sword were of value.

Hey, the voice said. I took a long time curating that loot.

“No you didn’t,” I said, affixing the belt around my waist. “You likely copied the starting gear found in most RPGs.”

That—that’s absurd, the voice said, not sounding confident.

“Fifty feet of hemp rope?” I asked. “A hooded lantern, a backpack, bedroll, cold weather furs, a week’s worth of dry rations, a grappling hook, first-level spell books, a holy symbol, and blankets?”

All vital, the voice affirmed. The wilds of this world are treacherous. Adventures in this world are about adapting and overcoming obstacles. People need this stuff. All of it.

“And all this crap is moot by like the second or third level in any game.”

That’s not true.

“Spells for warmth and food,” I said. “Skills to resist weather conditions, abilities to cover distances.”

What’s your point? the voice asked, sounding defeated.

“A ten-foot pole?” I laughed, pulling the wooden rod out of the chest. I held it to the sky. “Gods above and below, why?”

Hey! Don’t be a dick, the voice said. Maybe there’s a trap?  Or a watery bog?

“Uh huh,” I said, tossing the pole aside. “Lemme ask you this, how is someone supposed to run or move, let alone fight or cast a spell, when they’re burdened down like a Nepalese Sherpa?”

You just don’t understand fantasy.

I laughed. “Oh, I think I do. Better than your bosses, that’s for damn sure.”

Maybe I should tell them you’re here? the voice threatened.

I shrugged. “Go ahead. But something tells me they’re already aware that Jackson Blackwell the titan is traipsing around in their world.”

Heh, the voice laughed. Oh, that’s right. A titan in training, right? What was it they called you?

“A TiT-E,” I admitted. “How about you do me a solid and just tell me where I can find Lydia Barrowbride? The sooner I have her, the sooner I’m out of this stilted idea of a world, and you won’t have to deal with me.”

Oh, I wouldn’t worry about her right now. You have troubles of your own to deal with.

“Uh huh,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at the small horde of oncoming goblins. “Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, go fuck yourself.”

Good luck, the voice said. As I recall, you’re such a boomer that you can’t even—

“Menu,” I said, as calm as can be.

Once again, my field of vision was filled with the semi-transparent pop-up window with the Celtic-inspired border. With a mental nudge, I lowered the opacity so that I could see the goblins coming towards me.

Okay, the voice said. So you remember some stuff. Good for you, Gramps. You gonna pick human again?

“Nope,” I said, scrolling down the race options until I reached the bottom. “I think I’ll just be myself. A titan.”

Yeah, that’s not an option, the voice said in mocking amusement.

“Is now.”

With minor expression of my power, I willed the choice into existence, and thus it was. At the very bottom of the list of player races, just under whatever the hell a Zhenai was, “Titan” was listed with an asterisk.

You have got to be kidding me, the game voice said, then read the new entry aloud. “The titan is special in that it is both a race and a class, combining ultimate magical ability, keen combat prowess, and the ability to alter the world around them. This option can only be selected by visiting cosmic entities who are legally classified as a form of titan.” This is bullshit! You . . . you can’t just install a—a cheat code!

“Heh heh,” I chuckled. “We haven’t been formally introduced.  Jackson Blackwell, nice to meet you. Former human, minor god, and villain adviser turned titan. Cheating is what I do.”

Before the game guide could respond, I brought up the character point allocation sub-menu and decided that the starting amount just wasn’t enough. Since I was on a roll, I decided to push my limits, both as a titan and as a character in this stupid, stupid world. With a swipe of my hand, each of the stat allocation’s respective meters filled to the max . . . and even a little beyond.

All except the luck and religion stats.

I figured I might as well appear to be a little humble. I make my own luck, after all. No reason to count on the game mechanics to save me in a dire situation, as there was no way that was going to happen. If the chips were down and I was in a bad situation, I highly doubted that the powers that be in Caledon would throw any sort of luck my way.

And with how I planned on ripping this place a new one, I couldn’t say I blamed them. Another reason I left the religion stat at the bare minimum.

Like before, when the allocated stat points fell into place, I felt my body swell with newfound power. In fact, my avatar was brimming with so much awesomeness that if I were to whip it out and take a piss on the grass, fourteen horny fairies would spring forth from my urine puddle and take flight.

The guttural cries of the oncoming goblins brought me back to the moment and I turned to face them, seeing a veritable sea of text rushing at me. Each one sported the ID tag: Goblin, Level 1. But on my UI interface, it read: Goblin Horde. 

Instead of drawing my weapon, I reached for something else to prove to anyone watching that Jackson the Titan (esquire) wasn’t messing around. 

Oh, come the fuck on! the game guide swore.

Reaching into my semi-transparent HUD, I grabbed my own green life bar and pulled it out, brandishing it like Luke Skywalker just before taking on the entire crew of Jabba’s pleasure barge. And as in the aforementioned classic film, I began swinging for the fences, knocking the snot out of the ugly little humanoids.

Now some folks might call what I did OP—or overpowered, for you non-nerds. And you know what? They’d be right. Well, mostly right. Sure, I could have made my improvised weapon as hot as oscillating plasma, but I didn’t. They were just goblins, after all. Not for nothing, but the . . . sigh, former Shadow Master doesn’t really care for power fantasy stories in any medium. I like it when the protagonists have to face adversity. The stories of the ones who get knocked down yet have the mettle to get back up are the stories worth consuming. 

But this was GameLit. And with OP being par for the course in most of those tales, I felt this was nothing more than a bit of fun. Besides, who among us hasn’t turned on “god mode” in the occasional video game or turned the difficulty slider down just to wreak a little havoc?

I caught the first of the approaching goblins with an upward swing, snapping its head back, then turned and swung low to snap the knees of the second goblin with an audible crack. The poor bastard cried out in pain, and part of me felt bad for it.

But let’s be honest. Goblins, as well as most of the aesthetically ugly races of fantasy, are basically fodder for adventurers. Sure, they can be used for comedic effect or to tug on the heartstrings when applied properly. But these particularly smelly freaks were there just so that any newcomer would get their first win and some cheap XP. It wasn’t like I was taking pleasure in this.

Well . . . that’s not entirely true.

Beating these goblins with my own life bar was a lot like when you get a little drunk, grab a wiffle-ball bat, and just go ham on the kids at a Chuck E. Cheese, giggling the whole time.

You know what I’m talking about.

Hmm. Or maybe you don’t. It now occurs to me you likely never had the resources I did back in the day. Well, let me tell you this, dear reader: if you ever become affluent enough to keep an entire cadre of bloodthirsty lawyers on retainer, you’re just burning money if you don’t use them. And nothing, I repeat nothing, is as satisfying as going to one of those pizza and game establishments with the sole intention of beating the stuffing out of children.

Not all the children. I’m a villain, not a monster. But you know which kids I mean. The cruel ones. The bullies. The booger eaters, the privileged, and the uppity little pricks who refuse to follow the goddamn rules. Kids with names like Rhett, Gigi, Blaine, Liam, Mia, Amelia, or Hunter.

Especially Hunter.

If you named your kid Hunter, then I’m willing to bet you failed at any form of success and thus your wish fulfillment via a name is gonna cost you tens of thousands of dollars in food, electricity, and insurance, as that kid ain’t ever leaving your basement. Well, at least not before the age of thirty-two.

Oh, and of course, ginger kids. They’re just gross.

I tell ya, when you stand triumphant among a sea of downed crybaby little punks with your cracked wiffle bat held aloft in victory knowing that you’ll never see a minute of jail time thanks to your legal team? It’s just . . . mwa! Chef’s kiss. 

And this little scuffle with the goblins was a lot like that. I stood the victor, and they were a broken mess. I could have killed them but saw no need. I was Jackson Blackwell and I was there to find my goddamn wife, not to kill the fantasy world version of red-shirts.

“So,” I said aloud, flipping my life-bar bat in the air and catching it with a meaty thwack, “you gonna help me, or are we doing this the hard way?”

I so look forward to killing you again, said the game guide.

“Hard way it is,” I replied with a smile.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 14

Where I Explain Proper Work Ethic, Have a Damn Fine Meal, and Run into an Old “Friend”

Some say that there is destiny in the universe. A sense of cosmic balance. Karma, if you will. The belief that for all the good you put out, goodness itself will return to you when needed most. I assume the same goes for vile behavior, but let’s be frank—it’s all bullshit.

All that crap is nothing more than Eastern philosophy being co-opted by yoga studios in order to sell more stretch pants and kombucha to easily swayed idiots.

Sure, flexibility is good. Enhanced core strength is always a benefit. And I’d be a gods-damned liar if I said stretch pants aren’t a thing of beauty. But no amount of positive vibes, downward dog, or fermented tea that tastes like yak piss is gonna melt away your midsection or your troubles.

No, dear reader, the key to beating your bulge and calming your inner woes comes from hard work, dedication, education, and self-discipline. Oh, and occasionally medication. Better living through modern pharmacy and all that. But here’s a little secret from me to you.

Psst. Lean in so you can really hear this.

If you do all the things I just listed, then you don’t need intangible cosmic forces operating on the same rules as Santa Claus’s naughty/nice list to hand you anything. No no, my loyal legion of book-buying pocket money. You—get this—you earn everything you gain.

Ta-da. Crazy, right?

Plus, having been across the multiverse, I know for a fact that karma or cosmic balance is junk science. However, the Infinite does have a sense of humor. Which is why I found myself laughing out loud when I crested the treeline along the forested ridge and looked down.

In the little valley, amid a copse of trees and lush green foliage, sat the Crossroads Inn and Tavern. I know this because there was a—I shit you not—holographic projection of the name in that same “ye olde” font floating above the establishment.

Gods above and below, I hate GameLit.

Astute readers may recall this place from Villains Rule. And the beauty was just as I’d remembered from all those years ago. A large rectangular building made of gray stone and aged golden oak that practically glowed in the dying light of the setting sun. I may have changed a bit since the last time I’d been there, but I found myself actually happy that this establishment had remained untouched during the Caledon re-branding.

I was, dare I say, overcome with nostalgia. For it really wasn’t all that long ago that I had been a man on the run, hunted by Grimskull’s forces. But instead of turning to the shadow races of fantasy, I’d gone the other route and had elected to enlist heroes to my cause.

That was because at the time, I thought I’d known the rules. Chief among them, especially in fantasy, is that the hero always wins. Sure, there have been variations, but few stories ultimately end with the villain triumphant and the hero face down in a puddle of their own blood and piss.

See, there’s a reason I used the word “nostalgia.” Many believe the word to mean a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past. And while that is true, nostalgia has a deeper meaning. A darker meaning. The word comes from a blending of the Greek for “homecoming” and “despair.” And it is painful. Why?

Because when we look back, the past seems like it was manageable. But it wasn’t. Many times we look back and see our own foolishness. Once you know what you know, you can never truly “go home” again.

Right then, under all my “Shadow Master” posturing, I was scared. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. The universe in all its splendor and mystery was just as baffling as when I was simply a boy looking up at the stars in wonderment. And I hated it as much as I did back then.

Over my life I’d pushed myself so hard to know more. To see more. To experience more. To grow beyond human limitation. And I’d accomplished that. During my time as a god, I saw and did things that no mere human ever could, would, or even dream of.

Yet here I was—a new titan outside the same gods-damned inn, just as confused and uncertain. And like I’d admitted to Frank, making shit up as I went along and acting like I knew it the whole time.

Huh, maybe there was such a thing as karma? Maybe the powers that be were trying to teach me a lesson in humility. I may never know for sure.

But I did know that there was no way you’d get me to drink kombucha.

Fucking fizzy hippie shit-water.

********

I’d eaten before, obviously. I was once a man, after all. But even as a god, I’d delighted in gourmet meals that cost two weeks’ salary for the average middle-class American family. And several of the upper European Union countries, come to think about it.

Not the crappy countries, mind you—the ones who can barely afford goat tongue. I’ll let you figure out which ones I mean.

The point I’m getting at is that while I’ve eaten many, many meals, this might be the first time I actually savored what I was eating. Weird, I know. Maybe because in my past I was simply posturing. Maybe because I was now a titan and my perception, or senses, had changed. Regardless, I sat at a small private table in the Crossroads Inn and Tavern absolutely relishing my meal.

Thinly sliced seasoned venison in a light brown savory gravy served over a bed of wild rice that was just this side of heaven. Maybe Hell too, depending on your preferences. I had a side of the freshest chilled wild berries that were the most brilliant colors and practically exploded in my mouth with ripe flavor.

And then there was bread. Gods above and below. Flaky, buttery, ever so slightly salted bread with just the slightest hints of rosemary and thyme.

The blended red wine I sipped was like tasting the best parts of Mother Earth.

Told ya she was a dirty MILF.

At some point during my incredible meal, I realized that I was sitting at the same remote table at the back of the tavern where I’d enlisted Hawker, Father Wren, and Carina to my cause. I chuckled, no doubt seeming foolish to those who may have been watching. But I’ve learned over my years that the opinions of others really don’t matter.

Unless they’re trying to kill you, so it’s best not to be totally dismissive.

The Crossroads Inn was much the same, with its white-washed stone interior and golden beams that glowed a little orange from the flames in the central hearth. People from all over were laughing and drinking, adventurers and locals alike. Music played and enjoyment was had by all. The drinks flowed and innocence died by inches.

Just to save my ADHD sanity, I turned off the UI display and removed the bulk of the game text. If I focused on an individual, I could see the status bars as well as the name, rank, and class of each person. I had no idea what they saw, but to every person there, the LitRPG thing seemed to be commonplace. Poor bastards. I wondered how many of them remembered the old version of this world. Did any of them remember me?

That last musing wasn’t out of arrogance, but more to the fact that I did lead a revolt against a tyrant some years back. Some may remember and be happy. Others might want my head. Like I said earlier, best to know who wants to kill you.

But I wasn’t there for any of that. I was there for Lydia. And that required information. My few conversations had yielded very little, save for procuring a room for the night with the girl working the bar when I’d arrived.

“Well, you look a bit different from the last time we met,” a rich voice said. “And I’m glad it’s not in the privy this time.”

I looked up to see a very tall, well-built man standing at the small set of three shallow stairs leading up to my table’s private nook. He had a mane of reddish-brown hair, a matching beard, and piercing gray-green eyes. From the apron around his neck, one would take him for the cook, or possibly the innkeeper himself. But I knew him by a different name. No need for the UI to tell me who this gentleman was.

“Garreth La’Aghun,” I said, extending my hand. “Or do you still prefer ‘Goose’?”

He took my hand in his. His grip was firm without being overpowering. “Garreth is fine. Too many people know the Ballad of Goose Lagoon. Anonymity is my ally these days.”

I gestured for him to sit and he obliged, setting his impressive bulk into the chair opposite mine. They say eyes are the windows to the soul, and looking into Goose’s, it was clear he had a story to tell. Seven years ago, he’d been a scruffy shepherd kid, maybe sixteen or so. Now, I could tell that there was a weight to the young man. He had miles on his soul.  And apparently a legacy.

“The Ballad of Goose Lagoon?” I asked.

“Not my choice of titles,” replied Garreth. “But most of us never really get to name the songs of our lives, do we, Shadow Master?”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 15

Where I Listen to a Familiar Tale, Dole out Some Publishing Advice, and Do a Spit-Take

Goose gods-damned Lagoon. Man, that takes me back.

Loyal fans of my work might remember this little punk as a one-off joke from Villains Rule, where I may have spotted the would-be hero outside the bathroom and kinda sorta decided to put on a show and scare his narrow ass back to the Shire, or like . . . wherever the hell he was from.

Later in that same bathroom, I was face down in a puddle of nasty due to a small cadre of assassins and their poison crossbow bolts. I still brush my teeth extra hard to forget that taste.

But let’s gloss over that moment and get back to Goose.

********

“So, I take it you learned who I was?” I asked.

“Mm,” Garreth grunted in the affirmative. “You scared the shit out of me that night.” He gestured to his face. “Turning into that demon thing? Whew. Nightmares for days.”

“Only days?” I asked with a smirk, which elicited only a single raised eyebrow from Garreth. Huh. Guess he had grown up a bit. I returned his look with one of my own. “I’m not going to apologize. Turning would-be heroes away from their calling was kinda my thing back then.”

“What’s your thing now?” Garreth asked.

“You know, I’m still figuring that out,” I admitted. “I take it you didn’t heed my warning.”

It was Garreth’s turn to smile. The young man stroked his impressive beard and leaned back in his chair.

“After the fear abated, I made a decision.”

“Which was?” I asked.

“To no longer let fear rule me.”

“How?” I asked, intrigued.

“Well, it was you, actually.”

“Me?”

Garreth nodded. “You called me Goose Lagoon. And while Garreth La’Aghun was crapping his breeches in the privy, Goose Lagoon could be whatever he wanted. So I just became that guy. It was . . . liberating. So in a way, I have you to thank.”

Once again I looked into this young man’s eyes, and they were . . . wistful. Sure, he’d basically copied Beyoncé’s “Sasha Fierce” story, but there was weight to his words and steel in his spine.

And it kinda made me ill.

Gods above and below, I accidentally created a hero? And a famous one? Maybe it was a good thing I wasn’t the Shadow Master anymore. My rep would have been ruined.

“And from then on, I kinda wandered in and out of grand adventures,” Garreth continued. “I studied in a distant academy where I learned obscure magics while understanding the forces of nature on a primordial level. From there I fought dark powers, met and befriended bizarre races of Fae creatures, and so much more. However, there came a time that I’d accomplished so much in such a short period that I—I was tired. You know? I decided to go into semi-retirement. So, using the wealth I’d amassed over my travels, I bought the very inn and tavern where Goose Lagoon was born.”

“Huh,” I said. “Forgive me, but I’d pegged you for one type of hero, and it turned out you were something completely different. I stand humbled. But do me a favor, would you?”

Garreth again raised his eyebrow, which caused me to laugh a little.

“It’s a small favor,” I chuckled.

“What?” he asked, not bothering to hide his skepticism.

I waved a hand in dismissal. “You worry too much. Look, you said that you have me to thank, right? Then here’s how. You say there are songs about you and your accomplishments?”

“Mm,” Garreth grunted.

“Have they ever officially been recorded?” I asked. “Like in a book?”

“No,” Garreth said. “Many, many bards and storytellers have come seeking me out for that very reason, but I refused them.”

“How come?”

“My true tale is my own,” Garreth said.

“Very wise,” I said. “But . . . a little short-sighted. I think you should tell the tale.”

“Why?” Garreth asked, curiosity in his voice.

“Because I think people should know what you’ve done. At least partly. Here’s the thing: if you really want to thank me, then I want you to tell your tale in multiple sections. Volumes, if you will. But here’s the kicker. Never finish the story.”

“Never finish the story?” Garreth asked. “Why not?”

“Because it will drive people crazy,” I laughed. “Trust me, if your adventures are as riveting as you claim, then people will go gods-damned ga-ga for them. They will lap up everything you toss their way and beg for more. But if you never finish, then they will get royally pissed off.”

“And why do I want people mad at me?”

“So you’ll finally have the peace you so desperately wanted,” I said. “You said it yourself, bards and storytellers come all the time, right? So the bright ones obviously know that Garreth and Goose are the same person. Eventually everyone will know anyway. And then they’ll come for the story regardless. So by doing it my way, you get to brag a little, make some extra coin, and in the end, you get quiet.”

“Why not just tell people the whole story?” Garreth asked.

“You could,” I admitted. “But come on, not knowing is half the fun. A little mystery. Trust me. Just think on it, and you’ll see I’m right.”

“I’ll think about it,” Garreth said. “You’ll have to forgive me for not truly trusting you.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” I admitted. “So, good innkeeper, is my room ready for the night?”

“It is.”

“Thank you,” I nodded, accepting the heavy iron room key from the young man. “But while you’re here, can I ask you a few questions?”

He looked at me.

“Not about you,” I amended. “Just about the region. It’s been a while since I’ve been back here and I’m just trying to get a lay of the land, as it were. For example, who took over the ruling factions to the east and the west?”

“Ah,” Garreth said. “After Grimskull and Lady Skullgrim were killed in the Battle of Six Armies—”

“Seven,” I corrected.

“The stories say six,” Garreth insisted.

“Well, I was there,” I countered. “But that’s not important. What happened after the battle?”

Garreth bobbed his head a little, gathering his thoughts. “Well, the land was in a bit of a state of upheaval, as you can imagine. The great powers of the west and the east were gone. And nature abhors a vacuum.”

“So I’m told. Go on.”

“It wasn’t good,” Garreth said. “The elves retreated to their woods and the dwarves into the mountains. Various warlords rose to power, seemingly overnight, only to fall as quickly.”

“Who was responsible for that?” I asked.

Garreth smiled and rapped his knuckles twice on the table. “He sat right here once in your company.”

“Father Wren,” I said. “The Templar of Vammar.”

“Indeed,” Garreth confirmed. “After taking control of the stronghold on the Island of Fyrheim, he and his army of champions did what they could to right the wrongs of the various warlords. But not too long ago, maybe two years back, the disciples of Khasil and Valliar, who were normally at one another’s throats, suddenly stopped. They all prophesied a great change coming. And within a week, it came to pass. An eclipse blotted out the sun and everyone across the land suddenly dropped and fell unconscious. Just like that.”

Garreth snapped his fingers for emphasis.

“When people woke, nothing seemed to be different. We were the same as before. But the land itself seemed to be brimming with new adventurers. Secret locations being discovered. Quests . . . by the gods, the quests. Seems like every other person is on a quest for something these days. And not just great ones—I mean little things. Like collecting a number of chickens, killing rats, or escorting a random person from point A to B. That’s when I knew it was time for me to hang it up. My days of grand adventure were over. This felt . . . wrong.”

“I see,” I said, not ready to shatter the kid’s worldview. “So the major powers are in the west and east these days?”

Garreth shook his head. “North and south. After the respective skull empires fell, the only two major powers left split the land between the north and south. We here in the middle lands seem to be safe. But step a foot in either direction and you’ll feel their sway.”

“I see,” I said, taking it all in. “So who are these new powers?”

Again, Garreth tapped a knuckle on the table. “Kyle Hawker rules the south.”

“Really?” I said. “Is he . . . good?”

Garreth’s face darkened. “Depends on who’s asking. They seem to think so. But their brand of honor borders on zealotry. They seek to find and eliminate the corrupt.”

“Lemme guess, everyone’s corrupt?”

Garreth nodded.

“And to the north?”

This time Garreth shuddered. “The lands there have grown cold and dark. Not uninhabitable, but . . . off. They are held under the grip of a powerful, terrifying force. An old power that had long since slumbered, but who is now awake.”

I picked up my glass of wine and took a sip, then gestured for him to go on. GameLit or not, this shit was good backstory.

“He was once a man, they say. A man named Samuel Creek. But that’s just a legend. Those in the north know him as Morakesh, the Hope in the Dark.”

The wine sprayed from my mouth.

Garreth must not have been blowing smoke up my butt about being a renowned adventurer. He dodged the spew with ease.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Morry?” I said in disbelief. “Morakesh? The lame-ass lich?”

Garreth’s eyes went wide, and he looked from side to side. “Lower your voice, sir. He has eyes and ears everywhere.”

I pursed my lips and nodded, doing my best to hold back the laughter. Morakesh, a power player? Wow.

Well, I did give him a hell of an education before my death. And he’d promised me that if he came back here, he’d take care of Lydia. The question was, did he have his memories, or was he rebooted like the rest?

“During the Battle of Seven Armies,” I said, reemphasizing the correct number, “there was a commander who led an army of smallfolk and thieves. A woman named Lydia Barrowbride. I’m trying to find her.”

“The Widowmaker?” Garreth said.

Oy vey. She was still using that name?

“Yes,” I said. “That would be the one.”

“Then your road will take you north,” Garreth said. “The Widowmaker is Morakesh’s personal assassin. It’s not often one seeks an assassin, except those looking to die. May I ask why you look for her? Did she wrong you in some way?”

“No, nothing like that. Well, she violated my backside a time or twenty.”

Garreth’s eyebrow shot up.

“She’s my wife,” I admitted.

Garreth shook his head several times, as if trying to wipe away a mental picture. “Well, good luck with that. Rest well, Shadow Master.”

“Jackson,” I said, extending my hand. “Call me Jackson. And I hope to hear your story one day, Goose Lagoon.”

Garreth smiled and once more took my hand in his.

I settled into my bed that night, lying flat on my back with my hands behind my head. I wasn’t sure if I needed to sleep as a titan, but it felt right. So I lay there in the soft down bed, wondering what the road ahead of me would be like. I thought of my wife and what kind of life she was living now. I even thought of Garreth and really, really hoped he took my advice.

Nothing pisses off a fan base like not finishing a series. Hmm, what title would it have? Spitting in the Wind: The Incomplete Adventures of Goose Lagoon? Nah, that’d be silly. Still, parts of the name had merit.

Thanks to a full belly, a few glasses of wine, and the simple pleasures of wonderment, I was fast asleep. 

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 16

Where I Blow Up Like a Balloon, Reference Geriatric Self-Pleasure, and Make a Decision to Stay . . . Then Go

No sooner had I felt myself slip into slumber than I came to consciousness. And not just awake. I felt total body pain, pain that immediately told me where I was. A place of repetitive action, adventure, hypersexualized stock characters, and of course, seemingly inescapable tropes.

Wait, never mind. That doesn’t really help at all, does it? I basically just described roughly ninety-two percent of all sci-fi and fantasy media. Especially the indie crap.

My bad.

No, dear reader, the pain I’m referring to comes only from having been utterly crushed by the incredible mass of a gigantic beast. And I’m not talking about the time I got frisky with that were-elephant woman who fractured my pelvis.

Judge me all you want. You haven’t lived until you’ve experienced a trunk-job.

So by process of elimination, there was only one time in recent memory when I had my entire body smushed to death. Which meant that I was once again back in the manga variant version of the Comic Book Universe.

And apparently, I was dead.

Was dead, just to be clear. While my naked body was flattened and broken atop some stainless steel gurney under a white medical sheet, I was now very much alive.

And I very much hurt.

With a minor effort, I willed my body to basically re-inflate. Instantly, the pain receded and my form swelled. From my vantage point under the sheet, it looked funny, like a living cartoon character. Or if you want to be crass, like a total-body erection. Fortunately, I’m too sophisticated to tell that joke.

The other person in the room, whom I could not see due to the sheet, clearly did not find it nearly as amusing. I know this because as soon as I sat up, they hit me over the head with what I assumed to be—based on the metallic impact, resounding clang, and my knowledge of classic WWE bits starring Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mr. McMahon—a freaking bedpan.

“Demon!” someone cried out.

Once the stars cleared, I whipped the sheet off my head just in time to see a little man in a lab coat reverse his swing into an improvised backhand.

Clang!

“Back to the Hells, demon!”

“Gods above and below,” I yelled, getting my hands up to protect myself from a third strike, “I’m not a demon!”

Clang!

“Just what all demons say,” the little man said before turning to run.

Blinking past the indignity and eye-watering pain, I saw that I was in what appeared to be a morgue. Tile floors the color of red clay with black grout. White tiled walls with no windows, indicating that I was underground. Behind me was the classic wall of freezer slots for bodies. Oh, and of course, all the other corpses on slabs in the room.

The little guy, some medical examiner I guess, had reached the far wall and had his thumb on an intercom box.

“This is Oblivion,” the man said. “We have an I-1-Yellow in the morgue, repeat, an I-1-Yellow in the morgue. Requesting backup. I’ll do what I can to hold it off.”

“I’m not an ‘it’ nor a demon,” I said, getting up off the table and wrapping the sheet around me in an improvised toga. “My name is Jackson Blackwell, and I’m looking for Wraith Knight and Myst. If you would be so kind as to—”

Clang!

Gods . . . damn it. Right between the eyes. For a little fella, the fucker had a hell of a pitching arm. Wait . . . did he say “Oblivion”?

“Dr. Oblivion? The supervillain with the cloak and power armor?” I asked, sliding the bedpan out of the way with my foot. “The guy from . . . what the hell did you call that made up country? Vlatenbourg?”

“Yes?” the little man said, sounding confused.

Willing the blood to stop flowing from my broken nose, I made the cartilage snap back into place with a sickening pop. Once the pain stopped, I got a good look at the guy. Dark brown hair, roughly five-two, and a hundred and fifteen pounds soaking wet. He had eastern Slavic features but no accent. Was this really the same guy I met before . . . and subsequently blew up when I’d subjugated all the supervillains of Dynasty City?

Something in his eyes twinkled, like a moment of recognition, but in a way that he couldn’t place.

“Do—do I know you?”

“We’ve . . . met,” I said, not exactly sure how to play this.

On one hand, it was the truth—we had met a couple of times across the various reboots. But the last thing I needed was to break his brain and tell him his entire existence was the plaything of a derpy old codger of a High God and that he’d been recycled hundreds, if not thousands, of times.

“You seem familiar,” Dr. Oblivion said, “and you’re not acting like a demon.”

“Again,” I said, “not a demon. Just a . . . guy, like you.”

“Your body was crushed. You were dead.”

“Feeling a lot better,” I said. “Now, if you would please tell me where I can find—”

“How?” Dr. Oblivion interjected.

“Excuse me?”

“How’re you not dead?”

Gods above and below, I didn’t have time for Twenty Questions. “I’m a super- powered person, okay? Like a lot of folks. So again, please, before I get pissed off, tell me where I can find—”

“What’s your power?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I snapped, then shot from the hip. “Um . . . reality bending? Yeah, I make things do what I want, to include resurrection . . . apparently. So for the last time, where is—”

“The demon’s in here!” Dr. Oblivion yelled just as the main double doors to the morgue slammed open.

A trio of personnel in mismatched tactical gear burst into the room. Each of them wore dark blue ragged and threadbare hooded ponchos, likely denoting some kind of authority or paramilitary position. But beneath the cloth, I saw glimpses of old spandex costumes.

Oh great, more hero rejects.

“Hurry,” Oblivion said, “it’s possessed whoever that guy was and it wants to kill Mystical and Wraith King!”

Wraith King? Mystical? What in the name of Bhor’goth’s bifurcated breasts was going on here . . . and oh my shit, did I actually just think that?

Pausing despite the severity of the situation, I let my mind drift. And sure as hell, I clearly saw the mental image of said titan. A creature that defied space and time with a plethora of mammalian teats rent right down the middle. And to top it off, each split nipple was pierced with Saturn-like rings.

That mental whammy was likely why these post-apocalyptic hero rejects got the jump on me. Before I knew it, I’d been socked across the jaw and had my legs swept out from under me. Oh and after that, someone shot me several times in the chest and once in the head.

But here’s the kicker: I didn’t feel like dying. Weird, I know. But something about being shot just seemed to awaken the fact that this body, the one I was in, was just an aspect of myself. And my real self, if there truly was a thing, wasn’t actually here. It was back . . . wherever—or even whenever or why ever for that matter—the hell Frank’s office was.

And I was here, now, in this place, and I kinda . . . I wanted to see my . . . yuck, friends.

So instead of slipping away like I had when this body had been crushed under that giant demon, I simply chose to stay and reject the concept of death. And I did so with such little effort, the act alone surprised me. It was akin to making a choice off a menu.

I’ll have the not death, thank you, as it were.

The silver-coated bullets then forced their way out of their respective holes, making a tinging sound when they hit the ceramic tile. Then the wounds simply closed. I looked up to see the surprised, yet familiar, faces of my assailants. 

First was Robert Barron, a.k.a. the Highwayman. Fans of Villains Pride may recall him as that handsome, roguish vagabond who looked like the chesty cover model for those Celtic romance fantasy books your mom and grandmother masturbate to. It’s one of the reasons I had the Night Watchman shoot the guy and why I then subsequently poisoned the prick. No one needs the mental imagery of Granny going to town on herself, no matter how much it actually happens in retirement homes. Thank the gods above and below, I’m beyond such filth.

But as tough as the Highwayman was, he was not the object of my ire. Highwayman got in a few punches and kicks, sure, but the guy next to him, the Warden—he was who I was, pardon the pun, gunning for. The one-man militia wasn’t just a gun-toting, amendment-spouting loudmouth like your one crazy uncle or that friend on social media. He was part of the team that tried to kill me. And despite having him and every other caped hero or villain on that beach killed and turned into a throne of corpses, I was still angry.

It hurt my feelings. Business is one thing, but he and that crew had made it personal. 

So with a simple thought, the Warden flew across the room and slammed against the far wall, held aloft by my will alone. The Highwayman tried more kicks and punches as I got to my feet, but I ignored them. When he drew his basket-hilt claymore, I sent him sprawling as well. My eyes still trained on the Warden, I recalled him having cybernetic enhancements. A nifty little inner computer that fed data in real time to his bullets.

It was cute.

“Do you remember me?” I asked as if no one else was in the room.

“N-no,” the Warden gasped. “I-I never bother to r-remember the demons I s-send back.”

I had to give him this—the prick had moxie.

“Well, I remember you,” I said. “And I have something of a score to settle with you and the rest of your team.”

“Goddammit Doc, this is way beyond a yellow!” the third costumed person cried out as she ran towards me.

Despite threatening the Warden as I’d been, I couldn’t help but admire how this impish, blue-skinned lady dashed across the room, leaping over the cadavers on tables in a direct line for me with her cloak-like poncho rippling in true anime fashion. I had to admire the dedication to her mission. But just before I could send her flying into the wall like the others, the woman vanished.

Interesting.

A hand on my shoulder told me where she’d gone and why I only vaguely recalled her.

The Wanderer. The teleporting elfish female I’d killed along with Oblivion in that one reboot. I felt my body begin to shift as she activated her powers. And just out of sheer curiosity, I allowed it to happen.

“Wanderer coming in,” the woman said over her comm-link. “I-1-Red for the Dome, repeat, I-1-Red for the Dome.”

Interesting. Let’s see where this goes.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 17

Where I Explain the Power of Breasts, Get into a Scuffle, and Get an Answer I Was Not Expecting

Huh. I guess I should’ve been expecting something like this. After all, the Wanderer said “the Dome.” But taking in my surroundings, I wasn’t expecting something so . . . grand.

I stood in what could only be described as a stadium-sized arena, complete with bleacher-style seating cascading upwards. The seats were filled with people and all manner of heroes and villains in Mad Max-like garb. But when the light hit just the right way, I saw that the audience was behind some kind of reinforced safety glass. Following the line of sight skyward, I could clearly see that I was indeed under a massive dome. And said dome, along with each junction of reinforcement, was absolutely covered in runic script, magic circles, ancient eldritch scrawl, and every other cliché design choice that creators use to describe an overdone concept.

A magical binding.

This place, this whole arena, was one huge trap meant to keep demonic forces in. But for what?

Looking down, I got my answer.

The ground was hard, packed earth, and everywhere there were old stains left behind from bloody battles. The place smelled of sweat and death. This is where they brought the demons, at least the big or extremely dangerous ones, to die.

I suddenly felt a little smug.

See, I never grew up with anime or manga, not really. Outside of classics like Voltron, Robotech, or Battleship Yammato, anime wasn’t a style my generation really embraced. Later we watched a few of the big movies like Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D, and Wicked City. Alas, most of us were “too old” for the episodic stuff that came later and enthralled the following generations.

Sure, there were some from my kind who became mega-manga and anime nerds. “Weebs,” I think they’re called. But deep down, I suspect said nerds did it for the same reason that so many others follow certain trends.

Boobs. Big beautiful boobs. And boy howdy, does anime love them some ta-tas.

Sure, sure, I may be an asshole for saying it, but in the prime universe, buxom anime-inspired cosplay streamers love to flaunt the goods for cash, clout, and followers. You can yell at me all you want, call me all the names under the sun if you like, or preach all day long to your followers that it’s not about sex but body positivity. But at the end of the day, titties sell. They sell hard. And those streamers, cosplay enthusiasts, and “Insta-models” know it.

And believe me when I say this: Good. For. Them.

Weren’t expecting that, were ya? Bet you were waiting for me to go on a rant about how they’re manipulating folks into giving them money and gifts. Nope, not today, loyal readers.

See, if I was young, fit, and had a glorious honkin’ set of sweater puppies, you damn sure better bet that I’d be flashing some serious side and under boob for profit. Nothing, and I repeat nothing, separates a nerd from their cash as the merest hint of areola.

Well, those stupid plastic big-headed toys made in the likeness of every licensed IP ever come in at a close second. Gods-damned wastes of space. Wish I had come up with that idea.

But sadly, I’m not the aforementioned buxom beauty—I’m just me. And as it stands, there isn’t a huge cash market for flaunting wrinkly, middle-aged nuts. Well, outside of a few niche internet locations that I may or may not have used for additional revenue.

Oh, speaking of, at this point, I was still nude. A snap of my fingers and I was wearing the anime-adjacent version of my classic suit ensemble. And just in time, it seemed.

“You die this day, demon!” boomed a deep voice from the far end of the dome.

Turning, I saw a hooded and cloaked figure standing upon a platform behind the safety glass, and my playful whimsy was replaced with cold seriousness.

All around this mystery man were insane levels of religious iconography. Whoever he was, my Shadow Master sense was tingling because this bloke gave off major cult leader vibes. So much so that I was beginning to understand the narrative of this world just a bit better. But before I had time to ponder further, the puffed-up pontiff continued.

“You have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide,” the man announced, eliciting cheers from the crowd, “and your very power will become our weapon. You’ve done your last wicked deed, committed your last sinful act. Today you die, spawn of evil. Today you face the Reliquary.”

Oh yeah, there was no way this guy was good. The way he had the crowd worked up? The tenor of his voice? Man, part of me wished I could actually sit back and watch this show. But I wasn’t here for entertainment. I was here for—

The steel doors at the far end of the arena flew open, and a gods-damned teenage girl stepped out.

Huh. That I was not expecting. Normally in stories like these, that would have been a teenage boy who looks like they’re in their twenties. But sure as shit, there she stood. All five feet two of her. You know what? Good for her. ’Bout time we see more female leads in stories like these.

Clearly the hero of this tale, this mystery girl, this Reliquary, had Asian features, but from under her hood I could tell she was sporting a mop of coiffed reddish hair. She had the same poncho plus hero garb as everyone else, but hers looked a bit nicer. But for the life of me, I couldn’t place her from the last time I was in this dimension. A new character, maybe?

“Look,” I said. “This is all a misunderstanding. My name is Jackson Blackwell, and I’m looking for—”

“Your doom,” the girl said, cutting me off. “This arena will serve as your funeral cairn.”

“You know, I’m getting really sick of people not allowing me to finish a—”

“For too long your kind has preyed on us,” the girl said, her voice low but powerful, and absolutely dripping with melodrama. “You attack us. Feast on us. Make us afraid. Well, I’m not afraid! Not anymore.”

The girl practically exploded off the ground, rocketing towards me so fast I actually saw the anime speed lines. But instead of a straight line, her trajectory seemed to veer here and there, as if she were trying to kick up more dust. At first I thought it was a tactical move, but then I remembered where I was.

Manga’s gotta manga. Plus, it just looked really cool and would have been bitchin’ either in animation or as a single drawn panel. Bluish flame began to manifest around her, like a Saint Elmo’s Fire. Part of me wanted to just stand my ground and let her hit me.

But again, I wasn’t here to play.

At the last second, I sidestepped the attack. In what felt like slow motion, the pair of us overlapped, taking the measure of one another. The young girl’s stupidly huge eyes expressed shock . . . then rage. Time returned to normal, and I spun in the dirt to see her shoot past me, hit the far wall, flip, then come right back at almost double the speed, the blue flames growing larger with her additional output of power.

This time when she closed, Reliquary went low, dropping into a soccer-style slide tackle meant to snap my ankles. But the (former) Shadow Master isn’t some rookie when it comes to combat. So I embraced the genre and went high, leaping into the air. The real feather in my cap came when I didn’t fall victim to gravity. Nope, I just remained there, standing on nothing.

Being a titan has its perks.

“Look,” I said, “you seem like a good kid. And kudos for being clearly all that. In another life, it would have been my distinct pleasure to undermine your accomplishments. But as I said, my name is Jackson Blackwell. I’m not a demon, and I’m looking for—”

Huge bat wings tore through Reliquary’s hooded poncho with a ripping sound, and she took to the sky. The sudden and bold move left me not only impressed but also curious. If she was the good guy, why did she have those clearly demonic wings?

The now airborne shonen star slammed into me, and the pair of us tumbled back down to the hard ground.

I could have stopped her, I swear. But clearly things had to play out a bit more before I could get a word in edgewise. So I let her, repeat let her, tackle me.

Once on the ground, Reliquary slapped a palm down onto my forehead and began chanting some babble. Likely a Latinate expression a crap writer found via Google Translate.

“Ego te e mundo naturali deleo,” Reliquary said, her voice growing in power, “Revertere ad infernum unde venistis!”

There was a flash of pure white light that exploded outwards in a circular ripple of divine power.

Needless to say, nothing else happened.

Reliquary looked down at me.

I just winked.

“That—that’s impossible,” she said. “You have been destroyed. Your power should have become mine. Are you too powerful for me to—”

“Shut the fuck up,” I said, feeling good to finally cut one of these jackwagons off for a change.

I pushed her hand off my forehead and stood, willing her to be held aloft, immobile, and blessedly silent. Getting to my feet, I turned around, looking at the now stunned audience. I cleared my throat and amplified my voice so that everyone could hear me.

“For the last time, my name is Jackson Blackwell. I am not a demon. I am a . . . visitor, one who wields great power. I’m looking for Wraith Knight and Myst. So will someone please just tell me where they are?”

“Jackson?” a voice called out. “Is that really you?”

Looking towards the speaker, I saw Myst. Beside her was a dumbstruck Wraith Knight.

“It is,” I said, a stupid smile on my face. “It’s time to go home.”

But what was said next rattled me to the core.

“No,” Wraith Knight rumbled. “We’re staying. This—this is our home now.”

OceanofPDF.com

The Ballad of Erika Myers, Part 3

Braveheart . . . But with Boobs

When that part of the story ended, Erika smirked up at me. “Aw, did your friends not want to be with you?”

“No,” I growled, then continued to walk through the lush green forest towards our destination. Dawn would be coming soon.

“Was it because the big bad man just beat up a child?”

“She’s not a—ugh, that gets explained later. Look, you have to see there’s a theme here, right? A connecting thread between the main story and these tales from the past. I know you’re not the brightest person in the world, but you graduated from . . . wait, where did you graduate from?”

“Arizona State University.”

“Oh, that’s right. The partnership thing with Starbucks. Was it hard getting in? I mean, a school with a near-ninety-percent acceptance rate sounds super difficult.”

“What is wrong with your generation?” Erika asked. “Why is it you Gen-X people think you’re better than us?”

“Because we are?” I said.

Erika threw her hands up.

“Look, don’t get mad at me,” I said. “My generation was tougher. Had more grit. Resilience. Feelings were beaten out of you, publicly at least. The feelings, not the beatings. Well, that’s not true. You haven’t lived until you’ve had your ass whupped in a Sears for daring to walk away to the toy aisle while your mother looked at earrings. Anyway, we were taught such emotional crap was saved for private.”

“Is that why you all are such close-minded pricks?”

“Says the generation who can’t make a decision without asking TikTok first,” I said. “Sorry, but we were built to last. Y’all? Fragile. So, so fragile. Maybe it was beatings or rampant divorce that shaped us. Maybe it was the movies we grew up on that made us harder. Not to humble brag, but the movies geared towards kids back in the day? Woof. No wonder we had scars. ET? Dying alien and sick kids. Indiana Jones? Heart ripping, face melting, body disintegration. Jurassic Park? Man, Spielberg made his early career on trying to kill kids. Come to think if it, that prick killed Rufio! And that’s not even counting the death of Optimus Prime or when Artax was swallowed in the Swamp of Sadness. Alderaan got blown up while uncles and aunts were killed by storm troopers. In our day, if you were a parent in a Disney flick, there were good odds you were going to die. Very soon. Nothing says ‘Grow up, kid’ faster than becoming an orphan. Back then, it felt like an unseen figure lifted us up by our chins, asked us if we were okay, then smacked the snot out of us if we had any answer other than yes. And if we dared complain, the mantra was always the same: ‘I’ll give you something to cry about’.”

“So abuse is what gets you all off?”

“No, dipshit. We were taught that the world is uncaring. That if you wanted to make something of yourself, then you were in control. Don’t wait for shit to happen, don’t assemble a quorum of internet support, just make it happen. But as for you, well . . . that’s my generation’s fault. We raised you to believe your lack-of-context opinions mattered. That you were safe. All the lies we wanted to believe when we were young, we made manifest in you. But hey, maybe it will be better for you in the generations to come. I’m willing to be wrong.”

“And more access to education?” Erika probed.

“Great!” I snapped. “Have a blast. Educate your fucking brains out. But do something with it. Don’t waste it. There have only really been two rules of thumb when it comes to history. One, don’t be a dick. Seems simple, but people can’t help themselves. Which then leads to the second rule, fuck around and find out. Which is why we are here.”

“Yeah, where is here actually?”

“Ancient Great Briton, around sixty AD. The second stop of Jackson Blackwell’s Favorite Moments in the History of Revenge. And this, dear Erika, is a Roman encampment where—”

“Boudica?!” Erika asked. “Is it Boudica?”

I sighed, feeling deflated. “Yes.”

“I love her!” Erika said. “We studied her in my women’s history course. What was her quote? Oh, ‘Win the battle or perish, that is what I, a woman, will do. You men can live on in slavery if that’s what you want.’ She’s a feminist icon!”

I put my hands on my hips as Boudica herself, riding on her chariot, charged past us, leading her forces. The hit squad then proceeded to sack the Roman outpost as well as the nearby Roman-sympathetic Briton village. The dying men and women crying out in Latin really hindered the point I was trying to make.

“That’s what you’re taking from this? First off, she’s more than gender. She is the very symbol for rule two, ‘fuck around and find out’.”

“Yeah, I know this. When the Romans refused to honor her hold on the land after her husband’s death, they attacked her and her daughters,” Erika said. “It was . . . graphic.”

“Yeah, it was,” I concurred. “A horrible thing no person should endure.”

“So she learned to fight and—”

“Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “This isn’t a movie montage. Like other ancient Celtic women, Boudica had trained as a warrior, including fighting techniques and the use of weapons. And she was a big nasty bastard to boot. The story here is that her revenge against the Romans led to nearly eighty thousand dead. Including ancient Britons.”

“They were sympathetic to the Romans.”

“They were people living their lives. Most people are scared and just want to be left alone. Regardless, in the end Boudica was beaten. Outmaneuvered. And some scholars believe she took her own life.”

“Yeah, so as to not end up a slave,” Erika said. “What’s wrong with you old people? You praise Braveheart, but the minute a woman does it it’s a cautionary tale?”

“Bravehart was historic bullshit,” I said. “And even that is a cautionary tale. All of history is a goddamn cautionary tale. And don’t accuse me of being gender-biased. I just got done telling you about Mariya and how she’s one of my favorite people. Where was she in your class?”

“I . . . must have missed that day.”

“Uh huh,” I said. “The reason I’m bringing Queen Boudica up is because she, unlike Mariya, couldn’t do it alone.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Erika said. “She had an army.”

“Right!” I said. “And that’s my entire point. In some cases, you have to have allies you trust.”

“Didn’t you just rant about my generation needing people to make things happen while yours was so self-sufficient?”

I flicked her right between the eyes with my finger. “Hey, dumbass, I never said friends or allies was wrong. I said that venting to Twitter about your job, partner, or what you ate that day is freaking stupid. Humans are social animals. We always fall into tribes. Me wanting Myst and Wraith Knight back is totally reasonable. They were my friends, my allies . . . my tribe. So when they rejected my offer, well . . . that crushed me. Boudica raised over one hundred thousand troops. Just think of that number, especially for that time. I didn’t need a hundred thousand, I just needed a few. And those few were not with me anymore.”

“Maybe you were too much of a dick?” Erika offered. “And they were better off without you.”

“Don’t get ahead of the story,” I said. “But let me ask you, oh powerful manager of a Starbucks. If you were in trouble, how many people that you currently lead would come to your aid?”

“I—well, I think that several would—”

“Bzzzzt,” I said, making the game-show wrong-answer noise. “I’ve watched that crew of yours. They wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire. If you were drowning, they’d step on your head until the last bubbles went bloop. Trust me when I say that love is a far better tool when weaponizing a following body than fear. Boudica knew this. It’s time you learn it.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 18

Where Wraith Knight Takes an Exposition Dump All Over Me, I Explain the Consequences of Using My Name, and I’m Unsure If I’m Lying

“As you can see, the entire city is a near-perfect circle, walled off from the demons who roam the wilds. All across the country, people survive and even thrive in these anthromes, or man-made biomes, like this one. But sadly, even with the Order and Prior Lark providing divine protections, we still have regular breaches and incursions, which are basically possessions or manifestations inside the walls. Which was part of the code you heard. B or I, the number of demons present, and a color representing threat level. It allows our limited resources to respond appropriately.”

I nodded along to . . . whatever the hell it was that Wraith Knight was saying. As much as I missed the big oaf and his nerdy need to dump exposition, my heart just wasn’t in it. So I leaned against the stone battlements of the Höllenstadt City watchtower, crossed my arms, and did my best not to sulk outwardly.

I was failing miserably.

“Jackson,” Myst said, stepping over to give me a playful elbow to the ribs, “what’s wrong? You used to be all about this.”

“What do you mean you don’t want to go back?” I asked. “What about us? The team? My revenge?”

“Come on, boss,” Wraith Knight said. “You have to see that what we’re doing here is important.”

“Important?” I said, pushing myself up and thumbing over my shoulder at the city behind me. “You think this crap is important? Demons and superheroes? It’s a story, nothing more. You have to see that. Please tell me you haven’t gone native.”

“Of course we haven’t,” Myst said. “But you—you were gone.”

“No, fuck that,” Wraith Knight said. “You were beaten, Jackson. Beaten. You lost to Eris Pence and then—then you died. What the fuck were we supposed to do?”

“Well, look at the big boy balls on Wendell,” I said.

“Bigger than yours,” Wraith Knight said, glaring down at me.

“Wraith,” Myst said, “come on.”

“No,” he snapped, shaking his head. “What were we doing all those years with him? Huh? We were learning. Learning to one day go solo.”

“Um, we’re a team,” she said.

“Oh for the love of . . . you know what I mean,” Wraith Knight said. “We were abandoned, alone. But together we built a criminal empire in months from nothing.”

“Just a few petty thieves, a couple of crooks, and our powers,” Myst said, a smile on her face. “We had Far Haven and Dynasty City in the palms of our hands, didn’t we? Then . . . ugh, then the reboot.”

“Exactly. We took what we learned during our time with Jackson and made something of ourselves, a criminal organization that had the heroes trembling.”

“What kind of romantic drivel are you two spewing?” I said, looking at them both in disgust. “I wasn’t teaching you anything. There was no hidden villainous Mr. Miyagi training. You were my minions. Employees. The help. You did my bidding, nothing more. And—”

I paused, looking at the pair of them. Not just at the ridiculous manga bodies they now inhabited, but at the . . . closeness they shared.

“Are you two like . . . together?” I asked. “Like, together together?”

“You were gone, Jackson,” Myst repeated.

“Nope, gross,” I said with a shake of my head. The sudden and exceptionally explicit mental image of those two doing the no-pants dance was a bit too much for me.

Or was it? I thought, lingering on a particularly saucy position. Yeah, I guess I could enjoy watching them doink, especially having had first-hand experience with Myst’s shapeshifting techniques in bed.

Huh. I guess that made me and WK wiener cousins now.

“No,” I said, once more shaking my head. “I’m not having any of this. You were my subordinates, my platonic subordinates, and now you’re rubbing naughty parts and elbows with superheroes? In a world so derivative it’s not even clever? No, I refuse to accept this.”

“Two years, Jackson,” Wraith Knight said. “You’ve been gone for two years.”

“And you’ve suddenly gotten very comfortable with using my name,” I snapped. “That is reserved for those with whom I’ve had sexual congress or my enemies. Sometimes it’s both. So choose right now which it’ll be. Either take off your pants, big boy, or put up your fists.”

“What did you expect us to do?” Wraith Knight asked, his deep voice calm and even. “Wait for you? We did. Weeks turned into months, and then a year. There was no sign of you. So yeah, we found comfort in one another and in the knowledge we’d gleaned from working under you. But because of you, we were trapped in a world we no longer knew.”

“What in Ah’llomar’s anal abyss are you blathering about?” I said before I realized what words were coming out of my mouth. Wraith Knight just gave me an odd look.

“Our time with you could not be erased. We were . . . what was the word you used?”

“Awoken,” Myst said. “We saw the comic world play out like a grand story while remaining completely self-aware.”

“Exactly,” Wraith Knight said. “We weren’t just beings of this universe anymore. We’d transcended into what you made us. And when the reboot happened, we were still the same, just in new bodies. But time works differently here. We know it’s only been two years since, well, since you were beaten and killed. But for us, in this reboot, it’s been over a decade.”

“What?” I said. “Ten years?”

“Closer to fifteen, really,” Myst said. “Like he said, our minds are . . . flexible. But it still messes with us. Like there’s the us you knew and the us who live here. But yeah, we’ve lived through the collapse of the modern world and the rise of demons. We were there when superheroes and supervillains had to set their bullshit aside and fight back against Y’olly and this version of Hell. And, well, we kinda rock at it.”

Wraith Knight laughed, a deep basso. “I became the Wraith King, Master of Shadows, and Myst became Mystical, the Arcane Shapes-Shifter. But we have responsibilities here. People count on us.”

“Well, us and Tori,” Myst added.

“Who the fuck is Tori?” I asked. “Wait, lemme guess. That Reliquary kid?”

“Mm,” Myst grunted in the affirmative. “She’s the main protagonist of this region’s tale. Victoria Sato. Her power lets her not exactly exorcise demons but to—”

“Absorb them,” I said, recalling the fight. “She uses the power of the demons she’s defeated as a weapon against other demons.”

“Yup,” Myst said. “Contrived? Cliché? Sure. But it works.”

“She was found and raised by the Order after the world collapsed,” Wraith Knight explained. “They use her as their sword.”

“I see,” I said, laying a palm on the tower’s stone crenelation. “Is that why all the architecture is a mix of modern and medieval?”

“Manga loves its tropes,” Wraith Knight said.

I nodded. “You guys know that that Prior Lark guy is the villain, right?”

“C’mon, boss,” Wraith Knight said, emphasizing the word. “You taught us better than that.”

“Of course we know,” Myst said, slipping an arm around WK’s waist. “It’s painfully obvious to us, but no one else seems to notice. So for now we have to ride the story out.”

“What happens if you don’t?” I asked.

Myst shuddered and Wraith Knight put a reassuring arm around the smaller woman.

“We—we’ve seen what happens to those who fight back against the narrative,” the big man said. “They end up dead, but they come back in a different . . . role, I guess, is the best way of saying it. No one else even blinks an eye.”

“Why would they push back against the narrative if they’re native to this universe?”

“How many times can you be rebooted before memories start leaking over?” Myst asked. “Best we figured, some people have visions of past versions of themselves. Dreams of when they were something, or someone, else.”

She paused to point skyward.

“And the not-to-be-named powers that be don’t like having their script questioned. Those that question? Well, it isn’t always pretty.”

“What about the other big names? Apex and the Night Watchman?”

No sooner had the words escaped my lips than thunder rumbled high above. Myst shook her head.

“Certain people were removed for another story. Mentioning names like those are bad, okay?”

“Bad for you maybe,” I said. “But I’m a titan now.”

Wraith Knight nodded. “So you said. But what does that mean?”

“Eh, I’m still figuring it out,” I replied honestly. “Part of me is in Caledon right now, searching for Lydia. Well, technically I’m asleep at an inn.”

“So you’re like, omnipresent?” Wraith Knight asked.

“Not yet,” I admitted. “It’s more like . . . switching back and forth between open browser tabs. I can only look at one at a time, but they’re all active and running.”

“Why not look at them all at once?”

I was about to tell my . . . former minion that it wasn’t that simple. But deep down, I knew it was. Just as I’d decided to not die down in the morgue.

But there was something else. Something I didn’t want to say aloud, not just yet. Aside from a few titan-like slip-of-the-tongue expressions, I was already feeling a shift in my being. An apathy.

I already had disdain for most people and their oh-so-stupid thoughts, let alone their piss-poor creative ideas. But I felt it deepening beyond apathy into complete disregard. And not in an edge lord, trolling way. Nor in the way white people love to post on social media about how intolerant they are towards fascism as a way of appearing somehow enlightened or evolved.

It’s fascism. Of course you’re supposed to be against it. Duh.

No, I was feeling about sentient beings the way normal folks feel about insects—present and mostly a nuisance. Something to be exterminated the moment they become too much to bother with.

And that scared me. Seeing everyone all at once would, I feared, deepen the already widening divide between me and them.

“I—I think I’m gonna go for a while,” I said.

“You are coming back, right?” Myst asked, hope in her voice.

“Yeah,” I said, unsure if I was telling the truth. “Of course. Just—just put my body somewhere safe. I can regenerate it if killed, but waking up to pain, well, sucks.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Wraith Knight said. “When you get back, we’ll show you the city and what we’ve been doing. I think—I think you’ll be proud of us.”

“I always was, Wendell,” I said. Again, not sure if I was telling the truth. But I paused and gave a genuine smile. “But if I come back and someone’s drawn a dick on my face, I will destroy you all.”

“Heh. Sure thing, boss.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 19

Where I Question My Morality, Endure the Young, and Have a Good Day

I awoke once more in Caledon. Opening my eyes, I stared at the stone and timber ceiling for a few moments. Part of me wondered why Wraith Knight and Myst would choose to remain in that universe. It didn’t make any sense. Time with me—or rather, in my employ—was clearly better. So why stay?

Then there was the other part of me. The one that didn’t give a shit. Minions come and go. I used to have operatives all over the multiverse and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember even a third of their names.

Which, to be fair, kinda bit me in the ass. Eris had used my self-centered apathy against me by recruiting my abandoned employees. Then there were others I’d either completely written off or killed.

Was I . . . the bad guy?

Villain, sure. But “bad”?

Okay, sure . . . maybe I once killed an employee in this very universe to further my own goals. And yeah, while in the same universe, I also trapped Steve for all time inside a candleholder and tossed his ass into a lake of lava. But that was on him for betraying me because . . . because I’d all but abandoned him here until I needed something, thus inciting his need to break away.

Kinda like what I did to Courtney. Paige too, come to think of it. For most of our life, she was an annoyance that I tolerated at best and tortured at worst.

But let’s be fair, she’s a self-destructive idiot. I could have gone all Of Mice and Men on her, but I didn’t. Because . . . yeah, not killing your sibling because they’re a dimwit is a virtue?

Ah, fuck me.

And then of course I basically stole several people from their native universes to forge something akin to a family. Which then prompted me to attack, destroy, and piss on the remains of anyone or anything that dared to cross my family.

But that’s everyone, right? That’s what people do. They justify their dark actions and darker iniquities under the label of “taking care of my own.” Meanwhile, I once again kinda tortured that family with my own brand of self-delusion, expounding on my virtues while pointing fingers at anyone who dared to contradict me.

Ah crap. I was Twitter in human form.

Well, titan form.

And it was the titan part of my being that was practically screaming in my ear, Who gives a damn?! Do what you will. The powerful do not cater to the whims of the weak. They are insects, nothing more. Have your fun with them, but move on to grander stages. Mud creatures will always remain in the muck.

Apparently that part of my mind was verbose. And a prick.

Being sidekicks to my adventures, along with the occasional whipping boy or girl for my amusement, was not what Myst and WK wanted. They were people. They wanted to branch out. To feel needed. Loved. But past all that touchy-feely crap, every person, from the lowest low (internet celebrities) to the highest high (me) needs to feel that their life, their being, has value.

We can argue all day about the origins of said value, externally or internally derived. But that doesn’t matter for this thought experiment. I never gave them value, so they found it somewhere else.

Well . . . wasn’t this a cheery-as-fuck way to start my day.

But what was my day? More generic fantasy adventures? More disappointment? Oh boy, that’s a reason to get out of bed.

You know what? No. Lydia was here. In this world. And the one thing I could count on was my wife. So I decided that I would get my ass out of bed, get some breakfast, and venture north to find her.

The titan part of my mind had objections. Not only did it chastise me for daring to have human connection, but it also found me foolish for wasting precious calories by even considering mundane travel.

I promptly told that part of my mind to piss off. I needed this trip. A slower trek would give me time to get my head on right. Plus, if Myst and Wraith Knight were out, I’d need to rethink my plans for revenge.

Whipping the bedding aside, I swung my legs around and planted my feet firmly on the hardwood floor.

This was going to be a good day.

********

The bitterly cold, persistent rain seemed to follow my little caravan of adventurers. From the moment we left the Crossroads Inn, it rained on us. When we took the trailhead north, the clouds seemed to shift, moving with us despite the easterly winds. A little rain I could stand. This? This frigid drizzle was the kind of rain that leeched the warmth from your soul.

I swear the world’s game guide was fucking with me.

Oh, I am, the voice said. And greatly enjoying it. How’s that weather treating ya? The damp seeping in okay? ’Cause nothing says “I’m gonna have a great day” like pruny fingers, chapped nipples, and a shriveled penis.

From the back of the flatbed wagon, I turned to look at my traveling companions. Through the rain it was hard to make them out, so I switched the UI back on so I could clearly see their ID tags.

No, don’t worry, they can’t hear me, the voice said.

“Why not?” I asked under my breath, pulling my traveling cloak around me a bit tighter. 

Because aside from when they first show up, or when I first provide in-game notifications, they can’t hear me. Just you, buddy boy.

I shook my head. “This whole LitRPG crap is confusing on top of being stupid.”

GameLit, the voice corrected.

“What are you anyway? Something the gods put in place just to screw with me?”

Don’t flatter yourself there, buddy, the voice said. I’m a manifestation of Malum Lux’s design and production team. People show up to Caledon, and I guide ’em while balancing encounters and distributing loot. But you, you are on their naughty list. As such, I’m authorized to alter what I need just to make things worse for you. See that rain cloud overhead? Get used to him. Jonathan is gonna be soaking you for many miles to come. Hope you like fermented taint juice, because that’s what you’ll be stewing in for the foreseeable future.

“Jonathan?” I asked. “You named the cloud Jonathan?”

Yeah, the voice sighed. I get really bored.

“I know the feeling.”

“What feeling?” asked the wagon driver.

“Sorry, sorta talking to myself,” I called out over my shoulder. “Just saying it feels like this rain has a particular hatred for us.”

“Eh, don’t I know it,” the driver said, adjusting the hood of his cloak. “Best’ta keep an eye out though. Bandits love this kinda weather.”

The driver’s ID tag showed that he was an older human man named Thomas Goldport, and Tommy seemed nice enough. An earthy kinda guy who just wanted to get his wagonload of furs and hides up north and was willing to part with a little gold to ensure a safe delivery. Pretty standard stuff.

But there was a big difference between Thomas and the three other guards hired to protect the shipment. He was a local, native to this world, thus making him an NPC. My UI made it easy for PCs to spot an NPC’s name, occupation, whether they were a quest-giver, and if said quest was in progress. Which it was.

Now, the two warrior types on the right flank and the spellcaster on the left? It was obvious, at least to me, that they didn’t come from this universe. How did I know? Aside from the fact that I could see their respective class, race, and levels, these three had ID tags that read “Broseph Stalin,” “KushLyfe420,” and . . . sigh. “ButtPickle.”

Yup, let those names sink in for a bit.

“Dude,” the sorcerer on the left flank said. “When are we going to see some action? I thought this was supposed to be an immersive world of combat and mystery? This quest blows.”

“Don’t you be worrying none about that,” Thomas said. “These parts be full of trouble.”

“Good, ’cause I’m itching to cast my new spells.”

I looked over at . . . ugh, KushLyfe420 and shook my head. The guy atop the chestnut horse was a copper-skinned half-elf with neon purple hair wearing dark brown robes that clearly were inspired by the Jedi. From the stats above his head, he was a level-8 Sorcerer with a subclass called a Twilight Binder, a sort of arcane combat medic. 

To the right, Broseph Stalin laughed from atop his dappled pony. “Just make sure you heal us this time.”

According to his identifiers, our very short but thickly muscled armored tank with a beard was a level-9 dwarven fighter with a subclass called an Indomitable Cavalier. From context clues, I think it meant that he got defensive bonuses for each enemy he pissed off.

“Dude, come on. I heal you all,” Kush said. “But I have so many cool offensive spells that—”

“Shut up, Kush,” said the last member of this piss-poor fellowship. “You picked a healer-type, so live with it.”

Good ol’ ButtPickle was also level 8 and a ranger type called a Shadow Sniper. But what I couldn’t figure out was her race. She looked like . . . well, like a poisonous murder chicken. Let me explain.

She was humanoid, in black leather armor, but with wings on her back. Her greenish feathers started at her hairline, cascaded down her neck, and poked out wherever skin was exposed. While she had human eyes and a mouth, the hooked beak and forehead were all bird.

“So, what are you exactly?” I asked.

“Excuse me?” she said. “I’m a ranger who specializes in—”

“Nope,” I said with a wave of my hand. “Don’t care about that. I mean what’s with all the . . . uh, plumage?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m a Zhenai. A bird person based on Chinese mythology.”

“Oh,” I said nodding. So that’s what a Zhenai was. “And are you Chinese?”

“What?” she asked. “No? But . . . shut up. Why are we even bringing this guy? He’s level 1 and a human.”

“Titan,” I corrected.

“Well, you look human,” she argued.

“What’s a titan do?” Kush asked. “They any good?”

“You’d be surprised,” I said. “But I’m curious, where are you all from?”

“What do you mean?” Broseph asked.

“Are you like, here here?” I asked. “Or are you like, in a machine, wired up like some kind of matrix? Oh, and what kind of name is ButtPickle?”

“What kind of name is Jackson Blackwell?” Kush asked in a mocking tone.

“It’s my name,” I said.

“Oh my god!” Kush laughed out loud. You like actually used your like, real name? God damn!”

“Boomer,” ButtPickle offered. “It’s always a boomer trying to be young. What was it like during the depression? Does change scare you? Does it?”

“No.”

“Do you get all your news from Facebook?”

“No,” I grumbled.

“Do you, like, hold your phone out, look down your nose at it, and tap at it one finger at a time?”

“Okay, for real, where the fuck are you from?” I asked. “No one says ‘boomer’ anymore.”

Before anyone could answer, all the horses began to buck and neigh loudly. Something was scaring them.

“What is it?” Broseph called out, slipping off his pony and taking up a combat stance.

“I’ll take an airborne position,” Pickle said, flapping her wings and readying herself to leap skyward.

“No, not yet,” Kush cautioned, dismounting and taking cover beside the wagon. “We don’t know if whoever it is has archers.”

“Please,” Pickle said. “It’s probably just more low-level bandits. Their bows can’t hit me. I have a plus-twenty percent armor buff against enemy missile attacks.”

“Bandits don’t spook horses,” Broseph countered. “Trolls, maybe. Or maybe a pack of Dire wolves.”

“Even better,” Pickle said, leaping into the sky. “I’ll pick ’em all off from up here while you engage below.”

The green-feathered bird person flew in a lazy arc, circling the wagon and the party below. The constant rain seemed to have little to no effect on her flight path. And for what it’s worth, it looked cool.

Yup. Really cool. That is of course right up until a colossal Frost Dragon tore through the rain cloud and chomped down on ButtPickle, biting right through her right wing and arm. I watched while the smarmy woman spiraled to the ground, screaming in agony the whole way before impacting the hard, unforgiving ground with delightful thump.

Hey, would you look at that. It was a good day after all.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 20

Where I Expound Upon a Preferred Fantasy Staple, My Comrades Get Gobbled, and I Can’t Wait to Get to WhoreFrost

Dragons. No fantasy world is complete without them. Sure, you have some out there bereft of said beasts. But come on. They’re never as good.

It’s like that one asshole you know, or romantic partner you put up with because they’re hot, who’s always trying to convince you that the vegetarian version of a thing is “just as good.”

It isn’t.

It never has been.

It never will be.

“Oh holy fuck, it’s coming right for me! Help!”

“Just hold your ground! I have to get to Pickle!”

“Fuck Pickle!”

As you can tell from what’s going on behind me, dragons are the tits. Fantasy worlds without dragons are the literary equivalent of vegetarian lasagna, vaping, diet soda, or a lazy hand job: sad substitutes for the real thing.

Oh, speaking of substitutes that make you angry, you ever just search online for a favorite song, only to find some new-age emo prick with an acoustic guitar covering said beloved tune, but as a gods-damned awful ballad? They’re always young, stupidly idealistic with an unearned sense of worldliness, and they always seem to think that their warbly pseudo-soulful voice is somehow unique. With fantasy worlds, that kind of music is like—

“Hold on, just hold on! I can heal you!”

“Just, *hack*, just let—let me die.”

“No Pickle, you can make it! I won’t let you go!”

“Will you please shut the fuck up?” I yelled over my shoulder. “I’m trying to make a point here.”

Now, where was I? Ah, screw it. Lost the thread. Anyway, back to fantasy and dragons.

Fantasy is meant to be an escape. The very word means imagining things that are impossible or improbable. And dragons are that universal symbol of the impossible. Nearly every culture back in the Prime Universe has a mythology based on dragons. Africa, Asia, and Europe all have some kind of dragon or serpent-like figure. In the west, North, Central, and South American natives had myths concerning dragons and dragon-adjacent creatures. Creatures that plagued the sky and the sea, oftentimes with . . . feathers? Anyway . . .

The point I’m driving at is that these unifying creatures aren’t just special to fantasy, they’re special to humanity. And I really want to foot-stomp the word unifying because nothing brings people together like a common foe. Especially one that is fucking terrifying.

In sci-fi, it’s the alien theory. Should travelers from the stars come to us in either peace or war, humanity will set aside all its divisive bullshit. Aliens are the one thing that will cease all our hostilities and unify mankind. 

Which really sucks for a capitalist like me. Well, for who I used to be, anyway.

Trust me when I say the powers that be want you folks divided, grouped up, and fighting like the good little lemmings you are. Echo chambers aren’t just for sucking down one another’s farts. They’re there for you to pay out the nose in support of your particular brand of fart.

Sure, yours might smell. But the other side? Whew, they’re rank. We have our problems, sure. But the other guys? No way we’re as bad as them. Right?

Heh heh, sound familiar?

Good. Now shut up and buy the products endorsed by our side.

I tell ya, if aliens were ever to appear, man . . . CEOs would re-enact the stock market crash and jump out of their buildings. Nothing ruins all their hard work like a unifying force.

“Kush, is Pickle okay?”

“She’ll live, but she’s hurting, man. She’s hurting bad. My healing spells have her stable, but—”

“Great, now shut up and get over here! My stamina is nearly depleted. I—I can’t hold off any more of these attacks!”

“What do you want me to do? It’s a Frost Dragon! They’re immune to cold and resistant to fire!”

“You said you had a new spell!”

“Fine . . . Lightning bolt!”

“Is it laughing? Why is it laughing?!”

Heh heh, look at ’em go. Ah, adventurers. And that, dear readers—that draconic display of raw, naked power—is the fantasy version of invading aliens. Sure, you have your classic grand vampires who command legions of undead or the ancient lich who has arcane magics that could ignite the world.

Boring.

It’s been my opinion that when the BBEG, or big bad evil guy, is a humanoid dude or dudette in a fancy suit or some musty old robes, the fear factor just isn’t there. People have irrational fears about being eaten by large deadly beasts. It’s why Shark Week is still a thing. We’re fascinated by, and terrified of, things that can freaking consume us without remorse.

So when said thing is a dragon weighing in at over two-hundred-plus tons of flying fuck-you-up, that primal part of the brain kicks into overdrive. When that sleek, scaled, and oh-so-deadly engine of destruction comes swooping down the mountain? Oofdah, that’s gonna make the butthole pucker.

In summation, just like the invading aliens theory in sci-fi, dragons are the unifying force for the fantasy races. Either come together to fight off such creatures or be destroyed. Or maybe just enslaved? I dunno. Dragons are quirky wyrms. But I stand by the belief that all good fantasy should have a dragon somewhere. Like in Game of Thrones, either the old show or that half-baked new one. We come for the incest and politics, but we stay for the dragons.  

Are you seriously just going to sit there and do nothing?

“Who, me?” I asked the game guide. “No, I think I’m good. Besides, look at how much fun those folks are having.”

“Run! It’s going to—”

I winced, watching as the dragon charged up and released an arctic blast of freezing cold from its mouth. Sweeping its massive head from side to side, the dragon sprayed sub-zero napalm all over the ground. Wherever the powerful exhalation hit, jagged shards of ice sprang forth with a crackling sound.

“My leg! It’s caught! Oh—oh God, the ice is crawling up. My dick! My dick’s frozen in the ice!”

“Don’t—don’t move. I—I have an ice-breaker arrow.”

“Pickle? No, no no no, don’t! I’ll get free, just shoot at the dragon. Shoot at the—”

“Hold still.”

“No no, don’t—AH! My dick!”

“Heh heh, that’s just too funny.”

You’re a bad person.

“Again, the name’s Jackson Blackwell,” I told the voice. “I used to be a major villain.”

Now you’re a major jerk.

“Now now,” I said. “I’ve always been a bit of a jerk. But lemme guess, that dragon was a little present for me?”

Damn right.

“I thought so. Heh, I bet those poor bastards thought they had a chance when ol’ scaled and frosty there showed up. I’m assuming that this game world is supposed to be balanced? Well, to a degree, anyway?”

Yes, the voice sighed. Enemies might be a little higher or lower ranked than the party. But normally they would appear within a range where a team could overcome most opposition with patience, power, and proper planning.

“But just to mess with me, you thought a what, level-seventy-five dragon would scare me?”

Eighty-five, the voice corrected.

“Do I look scared?”

No. The damn thing won’t even come near you. Why?

“Because I don’t want it to,” I said. “I told you, I’m a titan. I get to do what I want, when I want. There is nothing you, or the gods of any universe, can do about that.”

Oh, we’ll see, the voice said. I have a few tricks left to play.

“Hey Thomas,” I called out to the wagon driver who’d remained still and stunned the whole time. “Thomas? THOMAS!”

“Huh, what?”

“Just drive on, man,” I said as casually as possible. “My um . . . magics have kept the dragon from noticing us. So whenever you’re ready, just snap those reins and get those four-legged demons you call horses moving.”

“But what about . . . them?” Thomas asked, absently gesturing at the frost-covered piles of blood and gore that the dragon was currently munching on.

“What about them?” I said.

“They—they died protecting us.”

Sigh.

Pushing myself up, I stepped over the many piles of furs and hides on the back of the wagon, then plopped down on the driver’s bench next to Thomas.

“See that?” I said, pointing at the dragon. “That’s over eighty feet of frozen carnivore. The reason we’re not dead is because of me, not those dimwits. And if you’d like to keep on being not dead, then drive the fucking wagon.”

“Oh—okay, yeah,” Thomas said, snapping the reins and moving the wagon.

True to my word, the scaly beast never even looked up. It continued to snack on the remains of Broseph Stalin, KushLyfe420, and ButtPickle.

Alas, poor nerds, you died how you lived. Stupidly.

“So what’s the name of this town we’re going to, anyway?” I asked once we were out of range of the slurping and chomping sounds.

“City, really,” Thomas said. “Kaltertoth is the largest city in the north.”

“That’s under the rule of—oh gods above and below, I can’t believe I’m saying this—

Morakesh, right?”

“Shh,” Thomas said, glancing about. “Never say his name aloud.”

I gave Thomas a sideways look, but the older man refused to back down.

“Fine, fine. I won’t say his name anymore.”

“But yes,” Thomas continued. “Kaltertoth, and the entire Rime Rose region, is under . . . his control. But surprisingly, it’s a peaceful and mostly safe place. Thanks to that, a lot of people go there to enjoy themselves. Probably how it earned its nickname.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“WhoreFrost.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 21

Where I Mock the Dead, Appreciate the Colors, and Recall a Fond Memory

I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you, without the dead weight of . . . whatever their names were. Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, maybe? Eh, it doesn’t matter. Remember, kids: idiots with idiotic names don’t deserve to be remembered. You, not me, have a finite amount of brain space. But be that as it may, I still opted not to recall their names, instead using the Eugene Field variants. Anyway, without said morons, the last couple of days of travel with Thomas had been fairly pleasant.

Jonathan the rain cloud eventually had to give up his constant deluge once we entered the northern kingdom. And I gotta say, crossing into the Rime Rose Valley was quite a treat. The entire land seemed to be one of perpetual ice and cold. But not in that depressing way.

You see, unlike other cold-themed fantasy locations, the Rime Rose Valley wasn’t a gray lump of wet shit. No, this land had a crispness in the air. A picturesque beauty to it. The foliage had an icy glaze yet remained alive. The flora hadn’t just seemingly adapted to the harsher environment; it had thrived.

And then there were the colors. Gods above and below, the colors.

Look, I know your pal Jackson has made a lot of fun of the hippie-dippy types over the years. And with good reason. I mean, just look at them. A quick search on modern hippie produces a bevy of mostly white, trust-fund-looking kids who can afford to act poor. And then there’s the other factor that images don’t convey: the smell.

Once you’ve waded through the miasma of musk, weed, pit-crystal deodorant alternatives, and hemp oil, you still have the joy of listening to them babble on about . . . I dunno, something-something, capitalism is the devil, yadda yadda, humankind was meant to live as a collective, blah blah blah. You get the point.

Ironic, though, as most of these conversations take place at a store, bar, or some other for-profit location to include online platforms.

Sure, said location might spout some hogwash about being a self-sustaining, non-profit co-op that gives huge portions of its profit back to the community. But trust me, dear reader, the powers that be will lie to your fucking face just to take your money.

If my claiming that this book is a 100% biodegradable, eco-friendly fusion of zero-carbon emissions and forward-thinking ideals would sell five more copies, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I don’t because those people don’t have a goddamn sense of humor.

Huh . . . or maybe they do.

Could I repackage all my books and rebrand them for hippies? Tweak it so that my tale comes across as story of a capitalist pig who overcomes his programming to become a better person? One who leaves all the worldly things behind in search of a better way, like that stupid dead guy in the story about the magic bus in Alaska?

Nah, it would likely never work. The target buyer of hippie-meets-hipster would probably just buy the books secondhand anyway, screwing the original creator out of money.

Where was I? Ah, yes. At the risk of sounding like the aforementioned touchy-feely types, my heart was moved by the color before me. Beset by far-off mountains, the sky of the Rime Rose Valley had a special shade of bluish violet during the day. The yellow-orange light of the sun glinted off each frozen flower or ice-covered tree. The cumulative effect of refracted light was like an organic prism, causing a kaleidoscopic explosion of color and wonder. This land was one of unique splendor, one that stirred the soul.

Yeah, I warned ya it was gonna get a little crunchy.

But at night? Gods-damn, it was hauntingly beautiful. The silvery moonlight shone off the frozen glaze of the land with a brilliance, a sharp, ethereal sheen that made you reevaluate your definition of beauty.

And it was one of those evenings, just when the sky transitioned from dark blue to the purple-black of night, and the last golden rays were gone, when Thomas and I crested a hillside and I saw what lay below.

Not gonna lie, folks. I gasped.

The city of Kaltertoth was nothing short of awesome. And I don’t use that word often. Especially when it comes to anything pertaining to GameLit or generic fantasy. Yet looking at the wintry city nestled into the mountainside, I felt actual awe.

Imagine the fantasy-world version of a mountainous ski resort town where every snow-covered building, home, or business is in that rustic chalet style, but in a way that conveys overwhelming affluence. Not to brag—well, maybe a little—but I’ve spent a fair amount of time in some of the most luxurious resorts in the Swiss Alps. And believe me, what lay before me made the best that those knife-making, Pope-guarding, neutral ninnies had to offer look like a podunk trailer park.

Colossal stone and wood castle-like mansions stood in silent beauty atop jagged peaks. Polished white bridges spanned the various populated tiers of the city, glowing like illuminated ivory in the moonlight. Yet these bridges were built in such a way that they enhanced the terrain, creating organic junction points where people could meet and converse.

Even at the base of the upwardly constructed city, the homes and people seemed to be brimming with prosperity. The golden warmth of streetlights and the scent of home fires greeted us as Thomas led the wagon into the city proper.

“First time here?” Thomas asked.

“Yes,” I said, taking in the almost electric giddiness of the people. “Forgive me, but how does this all work?”

“Excuse me?” said the older merchant, nodding to the hooded guard standing watch over the tariff collector by a check-in station. “How does what work?”

“This,” I said, gesturing to the city as a whole. “I get that the land’s been enchanted so that things still grow and people can eat. But where does the gold come from?”

“Oh,” Thomas said. He paid the collector and received his instructions as to where to take his wares. “Mining is a big part. These mountains are rife with precious metals and gems. Just past this range, the land meets the sea, so there’s plenty of fishing. Merchants like me do a fair bit of trade. But the real money comes from them.”

Thomas pointed at the people who walked this section of the city. Now that I was looking and no longer acting like a damned tourist, it was easy to see what he meant.

Adventurers. So many adventurers. The city was lousy with them.

“So, what, this place runs on tourism?”

Thomas laughed. “A little. But this city is a major hub for most of their guilds. So every sanctioned quest, raided dungeon, or whatever comes with a tax or tithe back to the city’s coffers.”

“What about unsanctioned activities?” I asked. “Surely there’s someone looking to buck the system.”

“Oh aye,” Thomas said, then pointed to one of the guards. “But they always find them.”

Once the cart passed by, I got a good look at one of the hooded guards, and I knew exactly what Thomas had been referring to. The “guards” were automatons. Magically powered, mechanized golems. The fantasy version of a robot.

Wait, robot . . . cops?

I had a memory, one very dear to me, of Lydia and me shortly after we moved in together. Between the passionate, and illegal in some states, sessions of lovemaking we performed, she and I would recharge with bad food and good movies. Coming from a fantasy world—this one, in fact—Lydia had never seen wonders like computers, cars, or the internet, let alone movies or television. She’d grown up being entertained by bards, badly copied books, or the occasional play. So I’d taken it upon myself to expose her to classic films from the Prime Universe.

After a particularly sweaty session that involved far too many knives and far too little lube, we were relaxing in our bed with a large pizza and the beloved Paul Verhoven movie RoboCop.

Now many of you out there probably have a partner—or parent—who is constantly asking dumb questions during movies, like “Now who’s that?” or “Why is that happening?” And you just want to scream “Shut the fuck up! It’s almost like, gosh, the movie will answer all your questions if you just stay quiet and watch!” 

Now imagine doing that with a person from another world.

But Lydia stayed silent during this film. Not a word, not a question, not a single gods-damned peep escaped the former thief’s lips. When it was over, Lydia had this—this look on her face. One of wonder and fear.

“An automaton . . . constable. One you couldn’t bribe or escape?” She shivered, her breath coming in short gasps. “Never show me this—this horror film again. Oh, Clarence. Poor poor Clarence.”

“Those that choose to ‘buck the system,’ as you say,” said Thomas, bringing me back to the moment, “soon find the Widowmaker’s Blades at their proverbial, and literal, throats.”

“The Widowmaker, huh?”

“Mm,” Thomas grunted. “That one is his top captain. They say she’s down in Golden Triangle District almost every night. Watching. Trust me, the adventures know not to cross her. Or him, for that matter.”

Again, Thomas pointed. But this time it was up.

At the top of the tallest mountain stood an impressive obelisk-shaped tower of black marble. And from Thomas’s words, I knew it to be the home of Morakesh. This city, this entire region, existed in the shadow of his presence. For the average person, I’m sure this looming monument stood like an imposing, omnipresent symbol of his power.

I knew it to be a damned rip-off.

“Stole my tower on an asteroid look, huh?” I said under my breath. “Morry, you son of a bitch. I couldn’t be more proud.” 

Getting off the cart, I shook hands with Thomas. “Take care, old timer. I wish you well.”

“Don’t you want your payment?” Thomas asked, holding up a small coin purse. “You protected me all the way here.”

I held up my hand and shook my head. “No, keep it. I needed a lift and time to clear my head. You provided that and more. So we’re square.”

“Then good luck to you, Jackson,” Thomas said. “You’re a good man.”

I waved as he snapped the reins and took the cart in a different direction, toward some warehouse to store or sell his goods, probably. And once he was out of eyesight, I pulled out three similar bags of gold from under my cloak.

I didn’t need my payment, as I’d lifted Wynken, Blynken, and Nod’s from the old man shortly after those idiots had died.

“Okay,” I said, bringing up my player HUD and looking at the city map. “Let’s go find my wife.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 22

Where I Take in the Sights, Re-Evaluate my Sense of Community, Run Into a Few Acquaintances, and Find Myself in the Street

The reason for the city’s nickname of WhoreFrost became very apparent very quickly. With the UI display activated, this Golden Triangle district glowed like Vegas. So much so that I had to turn the damn thing off before I was overwhelmed by neon signs, people, and random data. Even with the UI off, you couldn’t miss the fact that the Golden Triangle was positively packed with prostitutes, bath houses, massage parlors, gambling dens, and every other form of vice a person could ever want or need. It was a hedonist’s delight and clearly the place to be.

Gotta do something when it gets this cold. 

But what really shocked me was the atmosphere. See, most places that use booze and titillation for sexual arousal and social lubricant are always packed with the worst kind of assholes. Aggro douche-dudes seeking conquest like the Neanderthals they are, and up-their-own-butts catty gals who think their sheer existence entitles them to worship.

Yet this whole zone of frozen horny pleasure seekers seemed to be completely chill, no pun intended. Adventurers and locals alike laughed and drank in the streets. What few scuffles I saw were almost entirely good-natured, just a couple of mates having a go at one another. For those who actually wanted to fight, I passed more than a few sanctioned combat halls. Even over the drunken debauchery from the street, I could hear the roar of the crowds and the calls for bets.

Using the HUD map, I turned down a street labeled Libation Way. And my oh my, I felt my liver quiver. There were rows upon rows of taverns, each one boasting the strongest spirits, the best meals, or the most thorough companions for the evening.

And thanks to said strong spirits, your ol’ pal Jackson was treated to a buffet of flesh as folks flaunted what their mommas gave them. From boobs and butts to wieners and nuts, and literally everything in between, this frosty wonderland-meets-Mardi Gras had a clear ethos: whatever your thing is or whoever you are, welcome to the party.

And while that definitely was cool, there was something more to this place than that. Sure, I’d been to exotic locales across the multiverse where flesh and vice were the product du jour. But that was just it, a product. Artificial. Something manufactured for the sole purpose of using your base desires in order to turn a profit. This place had an organic feel. Like something that was created by the people, not by the powers that be.

Gross, right?

Or maybe, just maybe, I was jealous.

I know a couple of chapters back, I was mocking the hippie folks. Again, with very good reason. But once you got past their . . . I dunno, them-ness that that makes you want to throw up in your mouth, it’s clear that they’re keyed into something special. Something that all people yearn for, and said freaky folk aren’t afraid to preach it.

Community.

Not in that pedestrian, white-bread, suburban, go-to-church-yet-secretly-sin kind of way. That 401K purgatory is not for me. No, I’m talking about places where people see past the external and stare directly into the core of what makes a person tick. Places where like-minded and like-hearted folks unite, build, and thrive. And the moment you step foot in such a place, you feel that . . . yuck. Love.

Sure, I make fun of people all the time.  It’s what I do. Mostly because for the bulk of my life, I’ve always been an island unto myself.

Now don’t go all gooey and start feeling bad for me. I’ve been stupidly rich and have taken shits more valuable than you. And just like every other self-made man who inherited a vast sum of money after their parents died and turned it into a growing empire, I’ve always felt special. And yes, maybe a touch arrogant.

For a time longer than I’m comfortable admitting, I believed that people should see my accomplishments and be either humiliated or in awe of me. Call me an asshole if you will, but it worked for Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark. And folks love those fuckers.

Or maybe people just like orphans.

Yet when one looks inward, they have to be willing to see the hard truths of the self staring back and then be open to necessary change. The personal armor I’d always thought protected me in truth confined me. Constricted me.

Fuck, it defined me.

And no one defines me but me. So when family came into my life, the emotional calluses I’d spent a lifetime growing just . . . melted away. Even my titan side knew to shut its mouth in a place like this. Even it couldn’t deny the connection to other people. The energy. The sheer vibrant life that—

“Dude, I’m gonna crush so much ass!”

You were saying? asked the titan part of my being. Something about a connection to all people, I think it was?

Oh shut up, I promptly chided. There’s always mistakes in the universe. How else can you explain the platypus, deep-space radio waves, or adult white men who like K-Pop?

Fair enough, admitted my titan self.

I looked up from my inner debate to see a trio of drunken adventurers coming my way. A trio that looked far too familiar. I literally rubbed my eyes to make sure that their ID tags were accurate. But sure enough, I saw what I saw: a half-elf, a dwarf, and a Zhenai. Broseph Stalin, KushLyfe420, and ButtPickle.

And each of them was only level 1.

“’Sup dude,” Kush said as they passed me, not even an ounce of recognition on their faces.

“Um, excuse me?” I said, turning towards them, noting that their respective dots on my HUD map were blue. “Don’t—uh, don’t I know you?”

They stopped and looked me over, and then each shook their head in turn.

“No,” Broseph said. “Should we?”

“Did you just like . . . get here?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Pickle said, nodding her feathery head. “And so far this is like, the best place. I kinda don’t even want to leave.”

“We have to,” Kush said. “We want gold so we can come back and party. The starting treasure is enough to have a couple of good nights, but if we want the real freaky stuff, then we’re gonna have to grind.”

“Real freaky stuff?” I asked.

“Oh, you’re new here too,” Pickle said, looking at me like she hadn’t treated me like a piece of trash. “Level-1 . . . titan? Wow, that sounds cool. How’d you get that race?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” I said. “And yes, I too am new here.”

“Oh, cool,” she said. “Well, obviously this area is party central. But if you haven’t noticed, there are wards over the doors that prevent you from entering unless you’re a particular level.”

“It’s bullshit is what it is,” Kush added.

“It’s incentive,” Broseph countered. “We want better drinks and . . . um, better—”

“Ass,” Kush said, pointing around. “Her ass, his ass, that . . . whatever that thing’s ass is. I’m here to drink and crush ass.”

“Very noble goals,” I said, doing my best not to roll my eyes.

“Totally,” Kush nodded, not picking up on my derision. “And it’s not just this primo ass. Nah, man. It’s the parties.”

“You don’t say.”

“It’s true,” Pickle said. “There’s a huge rager going on over at the Bastards’ Memory. The Widowmaker herself is in there, and from the outside it looks sick AF.”

“But?” I asked.

“But it’s level freakin’ seventy-plus to get in,” Kush said. “And dude, I dunno what you’re into, but from the window looking in, it’s all there, ya feel me?”

“I do in fact . . . feel you. Um, here,” I said, reaching into my cloak and pulling out three small sacks of gold. “Why don’t you three take this and go have fun. On me, my treat.”

Kush went for the gold, but Broseph slapped a meaty dwarf hand on the half-elf’s greedy fingers.

“Dude?!”

“What’s the catch?” Broseph asked, ignoring his friend’s outburst. The dwarf looked up at me.  “You hiring us, or giving a quest or something?”

“He’s a player, he can’t give quests,” Kush said, rubbing his fingers.

“No catch,” I said, this time tossing each one of them a pouch in turn. “My class has certain advantages yours does not. So think of this as me paying it forward. Or backward. Look, just take the gods-damned money. I won’t need it where I’m going.”

“And where’s that?” Pickle asked.

I smirked. “To go get my wife. Take care and . . . uh, watch out for yourselves. I hear there’s a nasty Frost Dragon a few days’ south of here. Level eighty-five or so.”

The trio laughed like I was crazy. And in a way, I was. I’d just willingly given away money to people I greatly despised. But . . . were they? Were they people I despised, or had they just been victims of my titan ambivalence? Also, how in the Never Realm had they come back? Did this new world recycle people?

I put the questions out of my mind. It wasn’t my world, and frankly, I didn’t care. My wife was close by. And that was all that mattered.  

You know, it would be terrible if another dragon were to swoop into this city, said the disembodied voice.

“You could do that,” I said, walking down the street and finally noticing the level restrictions on each establishment. “But we both know I’d destroy said creature the moment you did.”

What about Endernacht, the Final Wyrm? the voice asked. I could just jump-start the apocalypse.

“But you won’t,” I said. “I’ll just leave and be fine. You, on the other hand, will be out of a job. I highly doubt they’ll keep you around to run a world that no longer exists.”

Yeah, I guess you’re right. There is no way for me to physically hurt you.

“No, there isn’t,” I said. I turned left and down and followed the sound of overwhelming revelry.

The Bastards’ Memory was without a doubt the largest bar and brothel in the Golden Triangle. Peaked roof, huge plate glass windows, and several affixed decks made this mansion-like party chalet the place to be for high-level adventurers and NPCs alike.

As I approached the ivory bridge to the Bastard, I sensed the strange barrier that barred my passage.

I wouldn’t do this if I were you, the voice warned.

“Piss off,” I said, bringing up my HUD and going into my status menu.

Seeing my level at 1, I exerted a touch of my power and mentally swiped right, sending the numbers spinning before stopping on ninety-nine.

No reason to be a total min-max player.

Now that I was level appropriate, I crossed the ivory bridge over the small rocky chasm and onto the plateau that served as the foundation for the Bastards’ Memory. People on the exterior decks were really, really going hard. Chugging drinks, laughing, and dancing. Once I entered the establishment’s interior, I was overwhelmed by the heat from all the bodies, fireplaces, and pure, tangible mirth.

Apparently this was a party of some kind. The golden wood and black stone of the saloon-meets-tavern was decorated from the incredibly high rafters down to the hardwood floors in garlands and streamers. Up-tempo, Skaldic-like musicians cranked out tunes that made it impossible for your feet to remain still. Food and drinks flowed as freely as the tawdry sex actively happening along the second and third-floor banisters. 

And while the smile on my face was in fact real, I swear it grew to Joker-like proportions when I saw . . . her.

Lydia was on top of one of the tables, stomping her feet in time to the music while singing along with the crowd that clearly adored her.

Not much had changed in the two years I’d been gone. Short, curvy in all the right places, mouse-brown bob of hair, and a wicked, mischievous smile. But there was a light in her eye. A rosiness to her cheeks that wasn’t from the alcohol. While the glowing purple ID tag above her head read “The Widowmaker,” Human, Rogue Assassin, Level 75, I just saw Lydia. My wife. She—she seemed to have found her bliss in my absence.

Well, I was about to make it a little better for her.

As I started to push my way through the veritable zoo of fantasy races and characters, Lydia slammed back her beer, smashed the mug on the ground and called out, “Kill the music!”

The bards suddenly stopped, and the crowd went silent.

“That’s right, ya pack of unwashed bastards,” Lydia said, savoring the power she held over these people before looking upwards. “Hey, you all up there. Stop fucking!”

And just like a perverted flash mob in reverse, said couples, throuples, and more than a few gang-bangs stopped mid-stroke, as it were.

“From the bottom of my cold black heart, I want to thank everyone for coming out tonight. Yes, the party will resume, and no, I’m not hunting any of you for sport . . . at least not yet.”

A murmur of amusement rippled through the crowd, as did more than a few gasps. Apparently, this was her thing now.

Eh? Who am I to argue with classic human hunting? It is great fun, and way more engaging than hunting foxes.

“But before we get back to the party, there is one person I need to call out. One person I need to spotlight so that they know how special they are to me. My beloved, my fiancé, my Lamplighter.”

The crowd broke into thunderous applause. I felt my heart die as a very beautiful, very curvy dark-haired woman with bangs and thin-rimmed glasses got up on the table with Lydia. This woman, this Lamplighter, was tall, pretty much my height, and her form-fitting black leather assassin ensemble oozed sex appeal.

Her ID tag read Mikayla, Rogue Sorcerer, Level 80. But when I tried to see what race or species she was, the text seemed to vacillate between “human” and “other.”

Whatever. My head didn’t care because my heart hurt too damn much.

“Mikayla,” Lydia said, taking the taller woman’s hands in hers, “these past fourteen months have been the best of my life. And when we wed in one week’s time, know you’ll be making me the happiest woman in all of Caledon.”

Lydia then reached up and pressed her full lips against Mikayla’s while the audience cheered. When they parted, Mikayla took a step back and turned to the crowd.

“Normally they wait for the wedding to say this, but I figured I’d get it out of the way now. Let anyone who dares oppose this union speak now or forever hold their fucking peace.”

I swear the porn-parody baroness’s eyes lingered on me for two heartbeats too long before her hands ignited into flame and she continued to scan the crowd, looking for someone to say anything negative.

Well, I see how she got the name Lamplighter. And I had to admit, it looped dope. Based on all the fantasy book covers in the world, a sexy rogue-sorcerer hybrid wearing leather seemed to be the fantasy of men and women alike.

I just—I just never knew it had been Lydia’s fantasy.

With what little remained of my dignity, I turned and left what I now knew to be Lydia and Mikayla’s wedding celebration. Once I crossed over the bridge and got back to Libation Way, my knees finally buckled, and I hit the cobblestone street.

My tears froze to crystals by the time they hit the ground. 

Physically, the voice whispered into my ear. I could never hurt you physically.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 22 and a Half

Where I Don’t Feel Like Talking Right Now

There are times for jokes. This isn’t one of them. Fuck off.

I—I can’t. I just can’t. Not now.

Why are you still here? Seriously, fuck right off!

Sigh. Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Stay, go, I don’t fucking care.

What—what did she mean by they were the best fourteen months of her life? Like . . . better than the time she’d spent with me? Is that just what you say to someone in a new-ish relationship? Obviously, you can’t tell a new partner that their existence in your life was in the top five of your relationships, right?

Or did she mean it?

And if she thought me dead, then fourteen months meant that she’d started seeing this—this Mikayla ten months after I was gone.

No, wait. She never saw me die. Eris transported her and the AI Claudia to Caledon. Sure, she saw me beaten, but not dead. So why didn’t she wait longer? Was our time, our marriage—fuck, our family—not worth waiting a little longer? Holding on to hope that I would come back?

And fourteen months might just be their official time as a couple. Who knows how much sooner they were—

No, don’t go down that path, Jackson. Just don’t. It doesn’t matter. She’s clearly moved on. And, honestly, so should you. Your minions have lives of their own. Your . . .  sigh, ex-wife is now getting remarried. You should just be happy for her.

No.

I wasn’t, and I never would be.

Betrayal. That’s what this was. Gods-damned betrayal. After everything I did for them, this is how they treat me? Me?! I was the fucking Shadow Master. I pulled them from their do-nothing, go-nowhere fucking lives and gave them purpose. Me. No one else in the whole fucking multiverse could do what I’ve done—

Except someone did.

Eris. Eris Pence did. She re-accomplished my feats. She took my empire and my family.

“Jackson Blackwell,” a quasi-electronic robotic voice said. “You are to come with me.”

From my one-man pity party in the street, I looked up to see one of the automated hooded guards looking down at me. What had Thomas called them? The Widow’s Blades?

“Piss off,” I told the fantasy anachronistic robot.

Two more of the Widow’s Blades stepped out of the shadows and approached me. The people on the street who’d given me a wide berth all paused to stare.

“Do not make a scene,” the lead Blade said. “Come with us. Your presence is requested.”

“I don’t know what part of ‘piss off’ does not compute,” I said, glaring at the guard’s unreadable mechanized face. “But unless you move in five seconds, then I’ll tear you to fucking pieces.”

The Blades looked at one another and I saw odd, arcane lights flashing in rapid staccato bursts. Some kind of inter-system messaging, maybe? Didn’t matter. They were about to be scrap.

Just as I was about to summon my will and reduce them to their base components, the lead guard turned to me, and its voice changed.

“Jackson, it’s Morry. Follow the guards, please. We need to talk.”

“Morry?” I said. “Don’t take this the wrong way—or do, I don’t fucking care—but I don’t want to chit-chat right now. I need to tell Lydia that I’m alive and—”

“She knows, Jackson,” Morry said, his pained voice coming through the guard’s speaker. “She knows you’re not dead.”

“What did you say?” I growled.

“Follow the guards,” Morry instructed. “They’ll bring you to my obelisk. There’s a lot we need to talk about. Please, don’t make this worse.”

I looked over my shoulder, back at the Bastards’ Memory and at the joyful people. If what he said was true, that she knew I was alive, then that was the last place I wanted to be. So with an exertion of sheer willpower, I turned my head—and my heart—away, rose to my feet, and followed the fucking robots.

Why don’t we cut to one of those interstitial chapters now? I think I’m gonna need this walk to clear my head. Stupid, stupid emotions. I told you all to just fuck off. 

I blame you.

Somehow.

OceanofPDF.com

The Ballad of Erika Myers, Part 4

Who Are You Calling a Dumas?!

Erika laughed and refused to stop. She laughed so hard she nearly fell off the park bench. Had we not been invisible to the pedestrians, a whole gaggle of nineteenth-century Parisians undoubtedly would have turned their froggy noses up at the pair of us.

“Y—you,” she wheezed, “you’re intimidated by a lesbian relationship!”

I sighed. “No, I am not.”

“You sure? ’Cause it looks to me like you’re all butt-hurt because your wife left you for a woman.”

“I died,” I said. “I was killed, reborn, and was gone for two years. Moving on is expected.”

“You didn’t look so tolerant a few seconds ago,” Erika said. “You looked like every other guy who can’t understand when things don’t go their way. Does it hurt your ego knowing that they—”

“I’m going to say this once,” I cautioned. “Drop this line of discussion, or I will show you how tolerant and open I am.”

“Please,” Erika said. “You all say the same thing, that you’re tolerant. But when it happens to you, you—”

I reached over, placed my hand on her arm, and opened my mind. In that brief second of contact, I flooded Erika’s brain with every, and I mean every, nasty thing Lydia and I had done together and to each other. Every toy used, orifice explored, and sets of multi-gendered partners from across the multiverse were crammed into her mind’s eye with vivid, 4K clarity.

“Oh,” was all she could say.

“Yeah,” I said in response. “Get this through your head. You don’t know me. So stop trying to put me in a box to understand. You can’t. I wasn’t wounded because Lydia had moved on with a woman. I was devastated because she had moved on so quickly. And . . . maybe because she had so little faith in my coming back.”

“So,” Erika said, “in that sexcapade you showed me, was that really a—”

“Yes,” I said.

“Balls deep?”

“Is there another way?” I asked.

“But in the—”

“Can we move on?”

“Right,” she said. “So, where are we?”

“Paris,” I said. “Early eighteen hundreds.”

“Where’s the Eiffel Tower?”

“That didn’t begin construction until eighteen eighty-seven,” I said. “We are here for . . . ah, there he is. That guy.”

I pointed to a stocky gentleman with thick, curly hair and modest clothes.

“Who is he?” she asked.

“Pierre Picaud. A humble shoemaker and our third stop in Jackson Blackwell’s Favorite Moments in the History of Revenge.”

“What’s his story? He beat a guy to death with a shoe?”

“No, not exactly,” I said. “But after learning about Lydia’s new relationship, the story of Pierre Picaud is what I related to. Being that low, and that alone? It does things to a person. Horrible things. Revenge, sweet revenge, is sometimes the only thing that drives you.”

“So this guy got revenge?”

“This guy is famous for his revenge. You just don’t know it. Pierre was once a simple shoemaker, engaged to a wealthy woman. But his good fortune caused four of his best friends to become insanely jealous. Three of them—Loupian, Solari, and Chaubart—falsely accused Pierre of being a spy for England. The fourth friend, Allut, reportedly knew of their conspiracy, but didn’t report it. Anyway, Pierre was arrested and sent to prison in the Fenestrelle fortress for seven years. Poor Pierre didn’t even know why until his second year of incarceration. While in prison, Pierre met another prisoner, a wealthy Italian priest named Father Torri. Torri died a year later, but before he croaked, Torri had told Pierre of a buried treasure hidden in Milan. When Picaud was released in eighteen-fourteen, he took possession of the treasure, returned to Paris under a false identity, and spent the next ten years plotting revenge against his former friends.”

“Wait, wait wait wait,” Erika said. “This is the plot to The Count of Monte Cristo!”

“Uh, yeah,” I said as if it were obvious. “Where do you think that dumbass Dumas got the idea for his book? What, you think writers invent everything? Oh, no no no, those sacks of crap steal constantly. Anyway, Pierre went on a string of murders, arson, poisoning, betrayals, and more. All of it driven by his need for revenge.”

“And that’s what you’re going to do?” Erika said. “Kill everyone who betrayed you?”

“Lydia didn’t betray me.”

“Funny, I didn’t say her name. You did.”

“That’s fair.” I nodded, then continued. “Pierre’s fiancé did end up marrying Loupian. And Pierre did stab that man to death. But in the end, Pierre himself was abducted by Allut, who seriously injured Picaud while holding him captive. Picaud was eventually caught by the French police, who then recorded his confession before Pierre died of his injuries. I don’t want to end up like that. The need for vengeance is . . . intoxicating. A powerful motivator. But in the end, what do you have? A dark hole in your soul that should have been filled with memories of love, family, and friends.”

Erika looked over at me. “Are you talking about you . . . or me?”

“Does it have to be one or the other?” I asked.

“I—I guess not,” Erika said, pondering. “So what happened next?”

“I went and saw Morry, of course.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 23

Where I Learn the Vegas-Like History of WhoreFrost, Talk About my Ex-Wife, and Threaten a Man with His Own Penis

I noticed a recurring theme—my standing atop a high vantage point, looking down while my feelings were being crushed.

I did not care for it.

Yet the impressive view from Morakesh’s even more impressive obelisk tower helped to soothe my inner turmoil. A little, anyway. How could it not? A teacher should always take pride in a student’s accomplishments.

And I’m deadly serious about that.

I’ve met far too many sanctimonious educators who feign humility when a student succeeds. Why? You taught them. They’re nothing without you, and they should damn well be grateful. Gods above and below, we should monetize that.

Just imagine the new generation of competency pouring forth from every facet of education and labor if the instructor got a percentage of the student’s endeavors. I’m sure there’s some paperwork to fill out, and a metric to create, but the idea has merit.

Of course, I want my cut for the idea.

But back to the moment. The city below and its seemingly efficient serenity was a testament to the man, or rather lich, who’d installed such an operating structure.

“You’ve done well, Morry,” I said, taking it all in. “Very well.”

“I have you to thank,” Morakesh said from behind me.

I glanced back to see the once mid-tier (at best) dolt of a fantasy boss monster stand tall, strong, and proud in his blood-red ceremonial robes. The golden raid-boss level ID tag above his head read: Morakesh, Lich Lord, Level 200. And my former student looked every inch of his new status.

The woven gold embroidery of the robes was just the right balance between opulent and garish. His wispy hair had been shaved clean, yet he’d somehow managed to grow a slightly pointed goatee. Even his dead skin looked younger, tighter. The whole package was one of power and class, with a hint of malevolent mischief. Just the right blend to get things done.

At least, that was obvious for anyone who knew the business of villainy.

“So how’d you do it?” I asked, pointing down to the city. “How did one such as yourself—no offense intended—cobble together such a community?”

Morakesh stepped up to my left and rested his elbows on the stone balcony. His toothy smile widened.

“When I came back to this world, I had very little, as you know. But with your teachings, I decided that instead of making a huge splash in the middle of this world, I would take a cue from your world.”

“How so?”

“Bugsy Siegel,” Morakesh said.

“Come again?” I said. “You mean the gangster?”

Morkesh nodded. “I don’t know the full history of your world, obviously. But during my time in your home, and in your employ, I learned a great many things. One of which was the story of the place called Las Vegas and the dream of Bugsy. This remote place where millions would come on a pilgrimage just to throw away their money. Particularly a place referred to as ‘The Strip’.”

“Yes, that is true,” I said, recalling the old stories. “But Siegel wasn’t actually the father of the Las Vegas Strip.”

“But he did influence how it developed and grew,” Morakesh countered, his finger held up. “His death, some believe, helped put Las Vegas on the map, as it were. I wanted that. This place where people would come to—how would you say—to party their tits off. But also a place to stay. So I looked to the north, in my old homelands. The old mountains are full of precious minerals and metals, but also a unique substance called arcanite. It’s a particularly special material when making enchanted armor and weapons.”

“So you what, set up a mining colony and let them get rich?”

Morakesh nodded. “Which then brought in more people. I merely provided the protection they needed. They in turn grew on their own. When disputes arose, I settled them. Permanently. I made it very clear that anyone who called this mountain, this valley, home would respect their home. In time, they created all this. I simply enforce the peace.”

“While taking a cut?” I asked.

Morakesh laughed. “A huge one. Make no mistake, beneath the veneer, there is strife and backstabbing. And frankly, I don’t care. Keep it clean. Keep it hidden. Keep the normal citizens free and do as you will. No one in my land goes to bed hungry or cold. And when enemies of the Rime Rose Valley come calling? Well, like I said, arcanite has many uses.”

“You son of a bitch,” I said. “You’ve been using this resource to level yourself up, haven’t you?”

Morakesh’s smile widened. “When this world became a GameLit thing, the first thing I did was learn the rules so I could then in turn abuse them. It’s what my teacher showed me.”

As I went to speak, Morakesh once more held up his hand.

“Yes, you are entitled to a large percentage, if you wish. Yet as a titan, do you even need monetary wealth?”

“It’s the principle and all that,” I said.

“Of course.”

“So you remember also, huh?” I asked. “When the world switched from what it was to this?”

“What do you mean ‘also’?”

“Titan thing,” I said. “I’m here talking to you while technically also with the minions in their universe. They too remember it all. Something about being around me all those years.”

“Something like that, I suppose,” Morakesh said. “After the great eclipse, and this world was rebooted into this . . . model, I not only remembered everything, but I also received a visitor.”

“The gods?” I asked.

Morkesh nodded. “Yes, but not the ones you’re thinking of. They’re still around, of course, doing their thing and playing their part. But it was Vammar, The Dual-Natured One. He instructed me on what was really going on. Even stopped by from time to time to give me updates on you.”

“Why?” I asked.

Morakesh shrugged. “Don’t know. Only that he said he owed you one for entertaining him and taking care of his disciple. He said that if you were ever to show up, he’d like you to check in on his lost sheep. Whatever that means.”

I nodded. Father Wren had been a bit of a prick. But the Templar of Vammar had been a good man, even if he had been a hero.

“But what about the robots?” I asked. “That has to be a mix of the AI Claudia and your magic rocks, right? It’s pretty creative. How do you—”

“Jackson?” Morakesh said.

“Yes?”

“Why aren’t we talking about the thing that really matters? The reason you’re in this world?”

“I—” I started to say but stopped, the drive in me fizzling out like a flat soda. “What is there to even say?”

“You still love her.”

I looked at him like he was stupid. “Of course I still love Lydia. She’s my wife. Or . . . she was. But she seems so happy now. How can I take that from her? Is—is she happy?”

Morakesh sighed. “When she arrived here, I did as you’d instructed. I found her and took care of her. She had Claudia with her. But she’s not the same. She hasn’t been for some time.”

“Of course,” I said. “I was gone.”

“Yes, there’s that,” Morakesh agreed. “She never believed you were truly gone. Not for an instant. But after the eclipse, when we switched over to this new model, she seemed even more . . . off.”

“Does she still remember everything, like you do?”

The lich nodded. “Yes.”

“But?”

“But,” Morakesh said, “while I can’t put my finger on it, something’s not right. I’ve known her for years and while it’s her, it’s not her. She doesn’t seem to care about . . . well, anything. Like there’s a huge hole in her heart that nothing can fill.”

“Yeah, it’s called grief,” I said.

“That’s just it,” he countered. “When I learned you were alive and a titan, I told her immediately. She . . . she just shrugged and said, ‘Good for him. What’s the next job?’”

“Well,” I said, unsure how to process that information, “she seems happy now.”

“No,” Morakesh disagreed. “She seems . . . what’s the word? Addicted.”

“A new love does that,” I said, pushing my feeling down under what was left of my lingering sense of self-fulfillment. “If she’s happy, then I’m happy for her.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” the lich laughed. “I’ve heard you go on ten-minute tirades about the proper ranking of Doritos.”

“Original nacho is the only true Dorito,” I said. “Cool Ranch is fine in a pinch. But those who claim the blue bag of pixie farts is in anyway superior to big red might as well have the words ‘Hi, I’m exceptionally average’ tattooed on their gods-damned foreheads. The only true heir apparent to classic nacho Doritos is the Sweet Chili, and even they can’t last because they have a seven-chip max before your tongue is burned out.”

“Feel better?” Morakesh asked.

“No,” I said. “A little hungry, maybe.”

“The point is, if you are that passionate about something so inane, then being fine with the love of your villainous life moving on is complete and utter bullshit.”

“Of course I’m not fine, Morry,” I said, throwing my hands in the air. “But what am I supposed to do? If she’s in love, then—”

Two things next happened that I never once expected to come from Morakesh.

First, the undead dick slapped me so hard in the mouth I could taste the decay from his necrotic fingers.

Yeah, that was gross.

Next, he grabbed me by the shoulders and shook the ever-living shit out of me.

“You are Jackson Fucking Blackwell, the Shadow Master—”

“Technically, Eris Pence is the—”

He slapped me again.

“Stop thinking like a rom-com simp and start acting like the villain you are! You want your wife back? Do something about it. Kill Mikayla if you have to. Engineer a scenario where you’re stuck together. Just do something!”

Once all the shaking and slapping was done, I nodded, then held up my hand.

“Three things,” I said. “First, you’re right. I have been a bit overcome by my own feelings and lost sight. Second, I think you’re on to something. Do you have a job she suddenly needs to go on? Something we can do in the allotted time?”

“Well, I have been meaning to kill Kyle Hawker,” Morakesh said, rubbing at his goatee. “His alliance of goody-goodies down south needs to be put in their place. My horde of horny party people needs a distraction. A war is always good for profit. I can send her a missive, and you all can meet in the morning.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Just the romantic getaway we need.”

“What’s the third thing?”

“Hmm?” I said.

“The third thing,” Morakesh repeated. “You said there were three things.”

“Oh right,” I said, my form suddenly swirling with cosmic power. “You ever slap me again, I’ll curse you with a new penis. Every minute of every day, you will watch it grow, then wither away. Do you understand me?”

Morakesh sniffed, then rubbed his bony finger under his empty eye socket, wiping away a dusty tear. “Oh Mr. Blackwell, it’s so good to have you back.”

I sighed. “I’m going to go now. Titan business. Just put my body in a bed somewhere. I’ll be back in the morning.”

With that, I left Caledon behind and ventured out past the weaves of reality, in search of something tasty.

I really was hungry, after all.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 24

Where I Ponder the Entertaining Side Effects of Youthful Adventures, Chat Over Some Comfort Food, and Make an Unwanted Decision

I poured a little more maple syrup onto my plate, then cut off another piece of the Cajun- fried crunchberry supreme chicken and waffles. Carefully lifting the fork so as to not get any of the heart-attack-inducing food onto my suit jacket, I chewed slowly, savoring the medley of flavors.

Gods above and below, it was like a spring break orgy in my mouth. And I’m talking about the really raunchy, decadent kind of excursion that only entitled college students traveling on their parents’ dime can have.

Minus the chlamydia, of course.

Heh. I often wonder how many of those ignorant parents who stupidly trust their spawn to behave in Cancun, Miami Beach, or Jamaica later discover what their offspring were really up to. I mean, this is the technology age we’re talking about. Practically every phone records high-def video. That’s what the amateur-cam channel on PornHub is for, right?

Ha! Could you imagine that?

Stay with me, ’cause this is gonna get a little sticky. But there has to be a case where some parent aching for a little late night self-pleasure has sneaked away from their boring partner, got their favorite whackin’ tablet, and found a quiet spot in the house to do the deed. They clicked on some hot amateur action only to see cell phone footage of their kid, bare ass and balls deep in a gaggle of strangers as some unfuckable dude named ‘Scooter’ yells “Spring Break rules!” while jackin’ it in the corner.

Tens of thousands of dollars spent on education, room, and board only for their kid—gay, straight, or anything in between—to end up looking like the floor of truck stop bathroom.

Huh. Do you think those parents still like . . . you know, finished?

So like I was saying, on paper, chicken and waffles is disgusting. A baffling combination of contrasting cuisine that reportedly has American Pennsylvania Dutch origins. But as the story goes, the dish became the staple of Harlem jazz musicians who showed up to the club too late for dinner and too early for breakfast. All I can say is, bless those pioneers of this culinary treat. If it weren’t for your dedication to the most self-indulgent and gods-awful form of musical expression, I wouldn’t be having this delicious meal right now.

And getting what I want is the most important thing, after all.

A handsome rather than pretty middle-aged woman with long, pale blond hair stepped up to my table and refilled my coffee.

“You okay, Jackson?”

“Been better, Vee,” I told Virginia Dare, the owner-operator of the Dare Diner. “But the food’s helping.”

Here in The Seam, or rather the negative reality that exists in the gaps in existence itself, I felt more at home than I had in some time. Which stands to reason. The Seam was birthplace of the titans, even a TiT-E like me. Technically speaking, of course, it was here in the Dare Diner that I was reborn, where I took my first steps as a titan.

I looked over my shoulder and out the diner’s plate-glass windows, taking in the inter-dimensional trading of Nugatory Junction. For some, the Junction resembled an international bazaar atop cobbled stone streets floating in an empty sea of blank white eternal space. But with my new titan eyes, I saw so much more. I saw how the blank space was actually filled with trillions of connecting threads, each one tied to a place that is, was, could be, or never was.

Yeah, this place was weird.

Still, it was kinda nifty. Literal threads of possibility that wove what we know and don’t know there for the plucking. If I were to allow my essence simply to follow a thread, who knows what I would see? Seeing as I’m alone, I reckon I’ll have all of existence itself to learn more.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re an ugly pouter?” Virginia asked, dropping into the high-backed booth opposite me. “And not in that cool, sexy, brooding way. No, what you got going on is more like anti-Viagra. Makes me dry down there just looking at ya.”

“You’re all heart, Vee,” I said, then took another bite of the food that had somehow suddenly become less tasty.

“Come on kiddo,” she said. “Where’s the fire? Where’s the spark? And why is it whenever you’re feeling glum, you come here?”

“The fire was doused by my minions. My spark has gone out due to my wife getting re-married. And I come here when I’m moody because it’s your entire business model,” I said, gesturing around at the diner’s other patrons.

Each one of the inter-dimensional, intergalactic transients who made up Virginia’s customers wore the same expression as me. Depressed.

“There’s a reason it’s called comfort food, Vee,” I said, chewing on my last bite. “When you’re in a funk, something bad for you helps make you feel better.”

“And are you feeling better?” she asked.

“Well . . . not worse,” I said, perhaps a bit more maudlin than necessary.

Virginia Dare rolled her eyes, then made a “gimme” gesture with her hand. I reached into my suit’s inner pocket and pulled out a pack of my black cigarettes, the ones with the silver tips. I lit one up and then passed her the pack. She sparked hers to life and leaned on her elbows towards me.

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“What’s there to do?” I answered back. “And before you give me the ‘stop acting this way and be your old self’ speech, Morakesh already beat you to it. I swear I can still taste formaldehyde.”

“I wasn’t gonna give you that speech,” Virginia said. “I know you’ll do the right thing. You always do, Jacky-boy. No, I was going to give the ‘What are you doing here?’ speech. Don’t get me wrong, I always love when you visit. But this isn’t the place for you.”

“I’m a titan now,” I said. “The Seam is where we kinda belong, right?”

“Please,” Virginia scoffed. “You’re about as titan as my left tit. You’re still the same person you always were, human. No god or titan title will change that.”

“Dunno Vee,” I said with a shake of my head. “Been feeling really disconnected from humanity recently. Well, mortality, really. It’s a titan’s bane to not care.”

“Hogwash,” she said, looking away and waving her hand dismissively. “I know titans. Better than you do, in fact.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, smartass,” she said. “How do you think I ended up here? A titan found me interesting and boom, Nugatory Junction is now my home. A couple of my kids are theirs as well. And no, since I’m human, the kids are not titans. Mostly they’re just lazy. And ugly. I mean, look at them.”

I peeked back through the service counter pick-up window and saw some rather Cronenberg-esque mutations moving around back there. And they indeed were on the fugly side.

“Well, I’m sure they’re pretty on the inside,” I lied.

Vee laughed. “Look, Jackson, titans have weird fascinations with . . . everything. They’re like that artsy-fartsy kid you knew in school who studied bugs or took really zoomed-in pictures of a single blade of grass with a drop of dew on it. They’re fascinated in the moment . . . until their next fascination comes along.”

I frowned at this bit of contradictory news. “Not what I heard. Valliar and the other gods said—”

“Oh piss on those wastes of stardust,” said Virginia. “What would any god know of something so alien to them? Lemme tell ya, once you’ve bedded a titan or two, then you get to know them. Sure, they can flake and move on—one of the reasons I like them so much. I do so hate me a clingy bedfellow.”

“Mom?” another of her kids said, this one uglier than the one before. Pretty sure that one had testicles for hair. “Hey Mom, we need you back here.”

“Hold on a damn minute, I’m talking!” Vee yelled back.

“You . . . uh, you have an amazing family.”

“Serial monogamist, that’s me,” Vee said, then shrugged. “But trust me when I say that a titan cares about the little things. Said fascination can last an eon or so before moving on. But they care.”

“Then what’s wrong with me?” I asked.

She laughed. “Because you failed upwards, buddy.”

“Huh. That’s exactly what Frank said.”

“Frank?”

I nodded. “Yeah, or at least that’s what he’s calling himself. I’d say his real name, but the last time I heard it, I . . . well, I shit my pants.”

“Oh,” Virginia said with a laugh. “Him.”

“Yeah,” I laughed. “Frank is, or was, my supervisor while I’m in esquire training. He said I failed upwards and that a true titan has to know who or what it is to fully come into its power.”

“Yup, sounds about right,” Virginia agreed. “That’s the way of your type. You have to know what you are. You, my sweet-human-at-his-core, do not know what you are yet. You can’t relate to your old friends and they can’t relate to you. So what? That’s the essence of life itself. But all this hippie-dippy shit doesn’t answer my question. So let me rephrase: what are you doing here instead of being with your family?”

“Ah,” I said. “Well, I can’t find Evie. No matter how much I let my consciousness wander, she’s beyond my sight. Sophia has her stashed somewhere that not even a titan can find.”

Virginia nodded, taking in the information. “Let me look into that. I know some people. But in the meantime, you still have other family alive, right?”

“Paige and Randy?” I laughed. “Well, yes. But the last time I checked in on them, things . . . got weird.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Describe weird.”

So I told her about the whole vibrator incident. The following laughter took ten full minutes and a bathroom break so Vee could relieve herself before we could continue.

“Oh . . . oh, Jacky-boy. Only you.”

“I have a gift for the awkward, it seems,” I admitted.

“Yeah you do,” she said. “But do me a favor. Go see them. Reconnect. I have a feeling that this is all part of ‘Frank’s’ plan.”

“Then what?” I said.

“Then you do what you feel is right,” Virginia said. “That’s the path of the titan. Trust me.”

I took in her words and accepted the wisdom in them. She was right, of course. Maybe a touch of family would reinvigorate my dwindling supply of giving a fuck? Or, and more likely, it would push me over the edge into full-blown apathy, and I could finally move on. Either way, sitting there with brewing chicken farts wasn’t exactly a plan. So I decided to go with hers.

“Put my body back in storage?” I asked.

“Sure thing,” Virginia said. “Don’t worry, boyo. Everything will work out once you know who you are.”

“I thought I already did,” I said.

“None of us do,” she said with a smile. “But that’s the best thing about being alive. We can always choose to know more and to be more. Just when we figure it out, we learn that there’s more to learn. Go on, see your family.”

And with that, I closed my eyes and let my consciousness slip, all the while praying to any higher power deranged enough to hear my wishes to not see my sister in a compromising position like the last time.

And of course, the powers-that-be delighted in hearing my wishes, spitting on said wishes, and shoving them into whichever respective orifice offered the most offense.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 25

Where I Discuss My Grandfather’s Testicles, Notice Paige’s Progress, and Fall Flat on My Face

Seeing your sister, or any family member, naked is awkward. Full stop, no need to elaborate. Yet it happens. Growing up, you see sibling butts, mom boobs, or dad dangles flapping free. Occasionally, you get to see how gravity and age affect said body parts. Like the time my grandad thought short shorts and no underwear was acceptable attire for the family barbecue. One relaxed sit-down in the lawn chair and a manspread later . . . well, you can’t unsee certain things. I, for one, never knew that ball sacks could sag so far that one singular nut could hang out both the left and right side of the leg holes of one’s shorts.

Yet there those nuts were in all their pendulous glory, just swaying to and fro in the light summer breeze.

Ah, the terrible memories we all carry. The number of said memories, and the depth to which they scar an individual, I find to be derived from a rather simple ratio—the points where familial fiscal acumen and puritanical ideals meets number of people living under one roof. Simply put, you got thirty-two kids running around, then there’s gonna be a lot of nudity in your life. Oh, and you were probably poor.

Poverty could be due either to hippie living or because—ahem, as some folks believe—Jesus apparently hates condoms, pulling out, and butt stuff. Long story short, lots of kids equals a lot of nakedness.

But if your family had some wealth, then they likely had fewer children. Such families probably preferred to keep their naughty bits behind closed doors. You know, humping the help and whatnot. Knowing your dad banged the maid or your mom went balls deep with the pool boy is one thing. Seeing it? Well, I’m glad online therapy has made the advances it has.

Oh, and don’t be mad at me for saying all this. Blame statistics. At least the American ones. Euro-folk have their own weirdness when it comes to nudity. But as I always say, “You can never truly trust anyone who uses the metric system and isn’t a drug dealer.” 

But back to the moment at hand.

The sight before me wasn’t one dredged up from my past. Nope, this shit was right in front of me. My sister Paige, naked as a jaybird, bathing outside the small rustic cabin in an old-fashioned aluminum tub while I was unable to turn away. Why, you may ask? Because, dear reader, it appears that my body was tied up.

No, not in a kinky way. Gods above and below, part of me desperately wished it had been in a kinky way. That would have been less humiliating.

You see, my “beloved” sister and “dear” nephew decided to use my unconscious body from my last visit here for a more specific function, one that suited their newly adopted agrarian-based living.

Yup. I was the gods-damned scarecrow.

“Please cover yourself,” I said. I tried to look away yet found that the copious amount of chicken wire used to suspend my body left me immobile.

“Ahh!” Paige screamed, then slipped and fell, overturning the tub and causing the ground to become muddy, thus negating the entire bathing process. From the sudsy muck, my sister looked up at me. “J-Julie?”

“Yes, Paige, it’s me,” I said, turning as best I could. “Now either put a bullet between my eyes or a towel around yourself. I don’t need to add this to my ever-growing collection of therapy sessions.”

Paige laughed. But not in her normal, I’m-too-stupid-to-get-it-so-I-laugh-to-cover-my-ignorance way. No, she actually laughed like a person who was . . . smart? Standing up, she had the decency to turn away but didn’t scramble to cover herself. Flipping the tub back over, she used a washcloth and what was left of the soapy water and to wipe off the mud.

“Um, I’m still up here,” I said.

“Just hang out a sec,” she said, with no remorse or acknowledgment of the pun. She completed her cleaning before getting a robe off a clothesline. “So, alive and well, huh? Any chance you bring my vibrator back with you?”

There was a confidence about Paige I’d never seen before. Also, gross as it is to admit, I also saw something else I’d never seen on her before—muscle tone. My sister had always been . . . what’s the word, shapely? Ample? Zaftig? A gold medalist when it came to fried food consumption at the all-you-can-eat buffet?

She a big gal, that’s what I’m driving at.

But all that was gone. Not completely, but she looked . . . healthy. Fit. And oddly strong. Thinking back on how hard she’d slugged me after discovering me with her vibrator, I may have to admit that I did not in fact trip and knock myself out.

Perhaps that’s why she was taking her sweet time. Sibling rivalry aside, I may have teased her a time or twenty . . . thousand about her diet. What can I say? I was a jerk back then on top of being a villain. Maybe this was her way of showing me how much she’d changed.

“So, um . . . I can see you’re doing well,” I said when Paige came over with a step ladder and a pair of wire cutters. “You, uh, you’re looking good.”

“I’m looking damn great,” she said, climbing to the top step and snipping the wires that held my arms and head in place. “You, on the other hand, look like shit.”

“That may have something to do with being left outside,” I countered as she snipped at the wires holding my chest.

“Where else were we going to put you?” Paige said. 

“And you weren’t worried about me?”

“Why?” Paige asked. “You were alive, but unresponsive. So we figured it was a titan thing and stashed you out here where you could do some good.”

She peeled away more of the wire on the crucifix-like post I was on, then chuckled.

“Glad your eyes grew back. The crows have a lot of fun pecking them out.”

“You’ve been letting crows peck out my eyes?” I asked.

“Yes, Jackson, I have,” Paige said, her hands going to her hips. “In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t exactly the good life you promised. It’s hard out here. So yeah, I let the birds have their fun. It’s what you deserve, after all.”

“Yes, blame me,” I said. “Heaven knows I’m the root of all your troubles and not your inability to save money, plan ahead, work hard, or—”

Paige smiled when she snipped the next wire, the one around my waist and upper thighs.

For those who have been paying attention, I think it’s been clear that Paige was not the same vapid, self-absorbed chunkster we’ve come to know and . . .  um, love in my previous recorded works. No, this Paige was different. Confident. Strong. And more than a little clever. In fact, it’s my belief that once Sophia’s vengeance against me was complete, so too was her curse on the Blackwell family.

Why do I think so? Well, I looked at where we were. A small valley between the mountains—a deep woods “holler,” I believe the yokels would call it. Yet there was a cabin, streams, a garden, fruit-bearing trees, and all the amenities one would need for a simple, quiet, yet fulfilling life.

It wasn’t big living, but it was clear my sister was thriving here. And that should not have worked. It was my understanding that Sophia had cursed Paige so that she would never find true fortune or intellect but always be around those who had. Which had always been me.

So seeing her thinner and more confident told me that she had in fact found some level of fortune.

And intellect. Especially intellect. Why do I give her that credit? Because she clearly waited for just the right snarky comment of mine before snipping the next-to-last piece of wire.

Yes, next to last. Weren’t you paying attention?

She freed my arms, head, chest, and last, my waist. Now, tell me, dear reader, what was left of me that was still secured to the post?

That’s right, my feet. My body was free, but my feet remained pinned. Paige had made sure of that.

Free of restraints, ninety-plus percent of my body mass succumbed to gravity. I tipped the fuck over and screamed as I fell face first into the muddy ground, twisting and snapping both ankles in the process.

Well played, sister. Well played.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 26

Where I Appreciate Homemade Goods, Nearly Go Blind from a Drink, and Meet the New Paige

“Oh Julie,” Paige laughed, “let me help you.” 

“Piss off!” I sniped back while half crawling, half dragging myself across the ground. Every gods-damned inch of movement made me wince. “Just—just go put some clothes on, okay?”

“Whatever,” Paige said, throwing her hands up. “You go rest by the patio furniture and I’ll get us something to drink.”

Once she was gone, I let out a whimper of pain. The agony shooting up from my ankles was incredible. From how they throbbed, I was pretty sure I had torn tendons on top of cracking the bones. And the worst part was, they weren’t healing.

Considering I’d been literally flattened in the Comic Universe only to re-inflate upon my next visit, this minor injury should have resolved itself almost immediately. I was a titan, after all. But my ankles weren’t getting better. If anything, the pain was getting worse.

So there I was, a “titan” with two useless legs crawling towards a collection of tree stumps that my sister referred to as “patio furniture.” And what trip to West “By God” Virginia wouldn’t be complete without fresh, full-frontal nude mental images of one’s sister?

Yup, at the moment I was not exactly what I would call a being of ultimate cosmic power.

By the time I reached the rustic outdoor furniture, I was sweating like a whore in church on Sunday. From down on the ground, I got a good look at the make and construction of this delightfully redneck patio set. But from what I saw, it actually looked solid. Almost pretty.

The asymmetric central table, along with the surrounding chairs and benches, consisted of logs, driftwood, stones, and huge, eight-inch slices of oak tree stumps. The wood had been stripped of its bark, and cracks had been filled with multi-colored epoxy. After that, whoever had made the furniture had sanded, stained, and treated each piece of the furniture with some sort of waterproof resin before bolting it all into place. Honestly, there was beauty to the craftsmanship.

I reached up and felt the main table’s topper, judged it stable, then mentally prepped for the pain. Gritting my teeth, I grabbed the makeshift table and hauled my ass up and into one of the chairs. The pain receded the moment my body weight was no longer on my busted ankles. After a few seconds, I breathed a sigh of relief and took in my surroundings, as evening wasn’t too far off.

Paige’s cabin was rough, but cozy. Nestled in the base of large hills with a dense, multi-colored canopy of trees, the house and the adjacent work shed had a tranquil feel. The weather clearly was changing from summer to fall. As I noted before from atop my scarecrow perch, streams flowing down from the mountainside supplied water for drinking and irrigation for the small rows of crops. No doubt the land itself had a bounty of animals for protein, along with any number of wild berries or edible mushrooms.

Well, that explained my sister’s physical improvement. See, folks? See what hard work and clean eating does for a person? No overpriced “namaste” stretch pants or kombucha—AKA bottled fermented yoga sweat juice—required.

But as resplendent in its simplistic beauty as this place was, I still smelled no fewer than six types of animal shit and desperately longed for the technological marvels of humanity that we all need to survive: air conditioning, indoor plumbing, internet porn, and meal delivery services.

“So what do you think?” Paige asked as she returned from the cabin—properly dressed, I might add.

Well, “satisfactorily clothed” might be a better term. What she wore was . . . freaking terrible. A third-hand black and white plaid flannel shirt over a faded AC/DC “Back in Black” t-shirt, patched and worn denim overalls, and a pair of honest-to-God, south-of-the Mason-Dixon shit-kicker work boots. Her long dark hair she’d inherited from Mom was a touch sun-bleached with several notable gray streaks. The wild mane had a life of its own despite being pulled back into a ponytail.

“That’s, uh . . . that’s a look,” I said.

Paige chuckled and set down a distressed plastic pitcher, a screw-top jar of clear liquid, and three ancient-looking coffee mugs onto the driftwood art table. She then looked me over.

“You’re not much better,” she said.

She was indeed accurate. Left to the elements, my suit had seen better days.

“We thought about dressing you up,” Paige said, unscrewing the jar and sloshing some of the clear liquid into a mug before passing it over to me. “But we figured that when you reinhabited your body, you’d be even more pissed.”

“You would be correct,” I said, taking the mug and giving the contents a quick sniff. Immediately, my eyes both shut and watered.

Moonshine.

And no, not the artisanal crap you get at a liquor store that’s been infused with apple pie flavoring. No, this was straight-up, one-hundred-percent, peel-the-paint-off-the-walls and make-you-go-blind moonshine.

“Smooth,” I gasped after my first sip.

“It gets the job done,” Paige agreed, taking a large gulp. “There’s water in the pitcher. Best to cut it or chase it. You’ll thank me when you don’t have a hangover. So what’s it like being a titan?”

I looked at her. “That’s twice you’ve mentioned that. How’d you figure it out? Did Randy help?”

“You had me pump Morakesh for information about liches and their phylacteries, remember? It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”

“So . . . Randy then.”

“Come on, Julie,” Paige said. “I’m not stupid.”

“Um . . .”

“I have a master’s degree.”

“And you once asked Mom if it takes eighteen months to have twins.”

Paige laughed. “Yeah . . . yeah I did.”

I looked at her when she laughed. Again, I saw an intelligence in her eyes. A passing flicker of her mind as it reevaluated her past. Fuck me, was that self-reflection?

“Something’s changed in you,” I said.

She took another drink. “That it did. Once we were . . . well, I guess ‘exiled’ is the best term, I had to face the facts. Change or die. And as you can see, I’m still alive.”

“How did it happen?” I asked. “Moving here. I know Eris had something to do with it, but I’m hazy on the details aside from her framing you for murdering me.”

It was Paige’s turn to give an odd look.

“Titan thing,” I said with a dismissive wave. “I can kinda look in on my old realm. Heard her talking.”

Paige nodded as if that made complete sense to her. “Yeah, after you . . . died, the police came calling. They had no real proof, but when did that ever stop the wheels of justice when money’s involved? Motive was all they needed. After you lost it all, there were still assets out there with your name on them. Probably planted by Eris. Regardless, a family member killing another over money, while cliché, was all they needed. They seized everything, and Randy and I knew it was only a matter of time before they made something stick. So we bundled up what we could, grabbed as much cash as we had on hand, and ran.”

“But why here?” I asked. “You only went one state away.”

“Does it matter?” Paige asked. “I reckon Eris can get us no matter where we go.”

“Reckon?” I mused.

“Shut up, Julie,” Paige said. It was clear she knew the change of topic was necessary, lest worry overtake us both. “How’re the feet?”

In truth, I hadn’t felt the pain in some time. I held up a foot and moved it around, feeling only a slight burning. “Getting better.”

“Good.”

“So where’s Randy?” I asked, looking around. “He live with you?”

Paige shook her head. “He has his own cabin up the hill a bit. Boy needs his privacy. But he comes down here every night for dinner. I handle the fruits and veggies, he handles the meat.”

“And money?” I asked. “How do you get by?”

Paige shrugged. “We still have some cash left from when we fled. Not much. But Randy goes into town from time to time and works odd jobs. Uses what little he makes to get the supplies, food, or clothes we need, plus any books he can get his hands on.”

“Books, huh?”

“How else you think we learned to do everything we’ve done here?” Paige said. “We’ve read all kinds of books on all kinds of topics. The ones about pioneer life were of great use. We learned how to live on our own. And maybe in time, how to live for ourselves.”

“About time.”

The words had just slipped out. Just me being me. Yet the look in her eye showed that I had hurt her.

“Paige, look, I—”

She held up a hand to silence me.

Me.

“No offense, little brother, but you damn well made sure that we were always suckling from your teat.”

“Oh that’s bullshit,” I said. “I only took care of you because—”

“Because Mom made you promise,” she said. “I know. I was in the room.”

“You were?”

Paige sighed. “Do you really think so little of me you don’t even remember when I’m actually present?”

I took another sip of the shine. “It feels like you want me to say yes. Or no. I’m not completely sure. But I do know that this is the same shit my wife would’ve said. And I’ll tell you the same things I told her, the police on multiple occasions, and the dentist when they ask how often I floss. I refuse to fall for this entrapment crap. So I plead the fifth.”

“Fair enough,” Paige said, laughing a little. “You did as you promised. But you never did more than that. You never pushed me to be better. I was always your . . . I dunno, charity case. Your crazy older sister.”

“Weren’t you?” I asked.

“Maybe a little,” Paige said, taking a sip of her drink. “I can take my share of the blame. I never improved myself. But you never thought enough of me to push me either.”

“Yeah . . . yeah that’s fair,” I said, echoing her. “So this newfound sense of self came from books on how to use a Dutch oven?”

Paige let out an actual belly laugh. “You know, I never knew that was a real thing? All my life I thought it was just a blanket fart?”

I rolled my eyes. “Classy.”

“But yes,” she said. “Books showed me what I never knew existed. And they taught me the tools to survive. With being where we are now, ya gotta keep the mind busy. And as little as it is, I like it here.”

“Who makes the furniture?” I asked, patting the chair.

“Team effort,” Paige said. “Again, we read about it in a book or two. When we need a little extra money, we pack up a few pieces in the old pickup and take them to the flea market about an hour away.”

“And people actually pay for this?” I asked. “It’s nice, sort of, but people give you cash for colored tree stumps?”

“You know how it is, Uncle Jackson,” a deep, baritone voice called out from the treeline. “Rich folk love to waste money on something they could do for themselves but refuse to learn.”

Randy walked into the clearing with a dead deer slung over his shoulders.

“And we’re not rich anymore.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 27

Where I See Randy in a New Light, Touch Yucky Things, and Live a Gods-Damned Proverb

If Paige had improved, then Randy had transformed. Over the years, I’d watched my nephew—and oftentimes nemesis—transform from youth-culture slacker to villain to corporate dynamo.

That last one under my careful watch, of course. It’s amazing what one can accomplish when one is under a soul-binding contract with a power as great as I.

But now? Gods above and below, he could be the poster child for doomsday preppers, biker-style lumberjacks, or those soap commercials you see on the internet that apparently make you smell like Sasquatch’s cock.

Or whatever it is they’re overcharging people for. It’s fucking soap.

Randy’s thick, full beard came down to the middle of his chest, and his now long hair was held back by a knit cap. Like his mother, he wore old clothes that even the Salvation Army or Goodwill would have passed on. Regardless of the rags he wore, Randy had become . . . gasp, all man.

His formerly lean body was now packed with flat, hard muscle. And I’m not talking about that bodybuilder, bubble-tits kind of inflatable muscle. Randy had the physique you only get from hard labor. Strength born of necessity. And considering that the beast he’d carried down a gods-damned mountain had to weigh as much as a person, well . . . I was impressed.

I watched as he plopped the dead deer down, laid out a blue tarp, and got a rope ready. With practiced ease, he hoisted the deer up and tied off the rope. The deftness with which he worked was almost intimidating.

Oh lord. Was I jealous of Randy?

No, no. That couldn’t be it. I was a titan. Powerful beyond measure. Still . . .

In my human days, I had been fit and a little above average height. But as my age advanced, so did my natural response to anything younger and “better.” Randy had been taller, at least as crafty as I, and a natural fit to take over for me. But seeing him now in this element, I couldn’t help but feel that he could walk into the corporate world and proceed to kill, strip, and eat an entire boardroom.

Plus, he had this kind of . . . I dunno, quiet power emanating from him. The former blabbermouth was now a man of few words, preferring to let his deeds speak for him. When he did choose to speak, it was for a reason. Such as correcting me when I was elbow-deep in a deer carcass.

“Careful,” Randy cautioned. “That’s the bladder. Cut that and the meat’s ruined.”

“Oh, right,” I said, continuing to pretend like I knew how to field strip an animal. “So, I just cut . . . here then?”

Randy sighed and took the single-edged hunting knife from me as if I were a child. He proceeded to cut the deer open, sawing up the ribcage with ease. Once done, he cut the windpipe, then began pulling everything out like a bloody, fleshy charm bracelet.

If you’ve never seen this act in person, lemme tell ya, it’s gross. Sure, I’ve seen my share of guts when fighting across the multiverse. But there’s something different when it’s the simple act of methodically stripping your food of its organs. In no time, Randy had the creature splayed and the guts removed and had begun the skinning process.

“Um, what should I do now?” I asked, feeling a little useless.

Randy pointed to the guts rapidly cooling on the blue tarp under the deer. “Gather up the viscera and take it to the compost pile.”

I looked at the bloody mess of organs and briefly, just briefly, reconsidered my earlier rant about vegetarian food. But if this was what was needed, then I metaphorically pulled on my big boy pants and did as instructed.

It was so squishy.

Randy sighed. “Grab a pair of gloves from the shed and shove them into a garbage bag.”

I looked at what I thought was a liver in my bloody hand and nodded. “Um . . . right. So, we’re going to eat this tonight? I just had venison and while I’m not complaining, I never had to see the inside of that particular meal’s asshole.”

Randy sighed, shaking his head.

“No, this is gonna be hung in the smokehouse over there,” he said, pointing to a shack a little bit off and hidden in the trees.

“Right, the smokehouse. Why?”

“You see a fridge around here?” Randy asked. “Meat goes bad fast. So we pack it in coarse salt, then hang it in the smokehouse. Constant low fire and a lot of smoke cures and preserves the meat for months. This is going into the rotation.”

“So what are we having?”

Randy sighed. “We’re having fresh fish and some roasted vegetables for dinner. Maybe some berry preserves for dessert.”

“Sounds nice,” I said. “Is the fish in the smokehouse?”

“I said fresh fish,” Randy said, correcting me, then pointed down the hill a ways.

“What?”

“Follow that stream for about twenty minutes or so. Feeds into another and gets bigger.”

“And then?”

“And then you get us the fish.”

“Look,” I said. “While I’m here I’m happy to pull my weight, but I’ve never . . . caught a fish, okay? I had more important things to do, like profiting off my own brand of villainous mayhem across the multiverse.”

“Give a man a fish and he eats for a day,” Randy said. “Teach a man to fish and—”

“You’re wasting his gods-damned time because we have restaurants!” I snapped back. “And seafood is for poor people. I’ve taught you this many times.”

Randy didn’t so much as blink. Mountain man bastard just stared at me, then slowly gestured to the grand kingdom of squalor that surrounded us.

“Fine,” I said. “Do you have like . . . a pole or a worm or something?”

“You won’t need it,” he said. “Just grab a basket and a knife.”

********

“Get back here you little—” I said before slipping on a wet rock and splashing down hard—again—into the foul-smelling pool next to the riverbank.

Stream bank? Fuck it, I had no idea what the naming convention for this crap was. What I did know was that I was covered—again—in scum, algae, and fish shit.

Before I completely lost my cool, I knew I had to take a moment to calm down and assess the situation. Randy had sent me here for a reason. Said reason was clear, as he or Paige had constructed a rather ingenious little contraption using nets and sticks which funneled fish into this adjacent pool. Once in, fish couldn’t get back out.

So it was my assumption that every couple of days you had to come and collect the fish before they died and contaminated the rest. Easy peasy. But he didn’t tell me to take a net. A basket and a knife. That’s it.

So, shoes off and pant legs rolled up, I waded into this disgusting little ecosystem and tried to grab the fish. I’d seen enough martial arts movies to know that after a few tries, you get a feel for it. I imagined myself snagging them in no time, tossing them into the basket and using the knife to . . . ugh, chop off heads and pull out guts. Or something.

Yeah, that’s all crap. The part where the hero of a story one-hand snags a motherfucker while making a Wa-sah! sound effect is utter hogwash. The truth, I learned, was that fish are slippery and fast, and they don’t want to be eaten.

“Looking good, little brother.”

With a heavy heart and an ocean of fizzling hubris, I wiped my face and turned to see Paige sitting on a fallen log.

“I’m just finding my rhythm,” I told her.

“Yeah, your rhythm isn’t going to fill my stomach,” she said. “You should have been back by now. Veggies are nearly done, plates have been set out. But we have no fish over the fire pit yet.”

“This is harder than it looks,” I said.

“No it isn’t,” Paige argued. “You’re making it harder than it seems.”

“Well if I had a net or something, then I could have—”

“You have everything you need,” Paige countered. “You’re just not seeing it. Instead of assuming you’re doing something right, why not take a step back and look at another point of view?”

“This more of that crap from your books?”

“Actually, this one is from you,” she said as she took off her boots and like me, rolled up the pant legs of her overalls. I tried not to flinch as she did.

So . . . much . . . leg hair. Sure, I’d . . . yuck, recently seen her naked. But in my defense, there was too much other stuff going on to notice that she’d gone au naturel. Paige caught my look and rolled her eyes.

“Get over it,” she said as she picked up the wicker basket and stepped into the pool. “Back when you were running your business, you used to say to a lot of your clients that they didn’t need new powers, they just had to—”

“Properly use the tools they already had,” I finished.

“Exactly,” Paige said as she put the wicker basket into the water, circled it a few times, and came up with several fish. “See?”

Well . . . shit.

“Now, go get the knife,” she instructed. “I’m gonna show ya how to gut and de-bone a fish.”

With all that I’d recently seen of my sister, adding in how Randy had basically emasculated me, de-boned was exactly how I was feeling at that moment.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 28

Where I Endure the Lack of Flavor, Have a Case of the Sniffles, and Finally See the Forest for the Trees

Paige passed me the bowl of fruit preserves, which I politely dished onto my plate. There was something simple about this way of life. Not just cooking the food yourself, but doing all of it yourself. The fire, the cooking, the hunting, the gathering, all of it. From the hand-dipped tallow candles to the handmade furniture we sat upon, all of this had come from Paige and Randy’s sweat and toil.

Under the starlight, we ate a simple meal in a simple place, the sounds of nature our soundtrack. I looked at my sweet sister and dear nephew, and the three of us, maybe for the first time ever, shared a moment of family. A moment in which we were bonded.

“So . . . this sucks, right?”

“Oh, fucking totally,” Paige swore between bites of the semi-sweet, semi-sour preserves.

“I’d stab a one-eyed chihuahua in the good eye just for some decent steakhouse seasoning,” Randy said as he took another bite of the herb-rubbed and fire-roasted fish. “Every goddamn hippie who says that the best-tasting food is all natural can take turns licking my outhouse-using asshole.”

I laughed at that one. “So you two haven’t gone completely native on me, then?”

“Are you kidding?” Paige said. “Tell me who to blow to get back to luxury and I’d be on my knees faster than a sinner at a Baptist revival.”

“Um . . . sure,” I said, then looked at Randy. “Anything to add?”

“Nope,” he said, taking another bite, then mumbled over his food, “I’d be there next to her cradling the balls if it meant we could get decent takeout.”

“So this isn’t a case where living a simple life has given you a new perspective?” I asked.

Randy just glared at me as if I were stupid while Paige chuckled.

“Heh heh, no, not really,” she said, then lifted her coffee mug of moonshine and took a healthy slug. “Near as I can figure, people who say crap like that are folks from luxury. Usually roughing it for a period of time. But they always have the option to go back.”

“Mm,” Randy grunted in agreement. “When this is your life, it changes you.”

“How so?” I asked.

“When everything you can accomplish in a day means you only get to live another day, it becomes very . . . what was the word you used the other day, dear?” Paige asked.

“Bleak,” Randy offered.

“Yes,” Paige agreed. “That’s the right word. Bleak. Every day, with no exceptions, you have a similar routine. Gathering or hunting food. Making sure the well pump is working. Checking yourself constantly for cuts and signs of infection. Cutting wood. Well, all that leaves little time for actual improvement, let alone free time.”

“So what are you going to do?” I asked.

“What can we do?” Randy answered with a question of his own. “Shitty as it is, this is our life now.”

Paige said something under her breath that I couldn’t make out, her voice barely above a whisper. I looked at my sister.

“What did you say?”

Paige set her drink down. “You said you checked in on Eris, right?”

“Yes.”

“And did she know where we were? Like, exactly where we were?”

“Yes,” I answered truthfully.

Paige nodded. “Then she’s left us alone for a reason.”

“Because she’s after Uncle Jackson,” Randy said.

“Don’t be so naive,” she said. “You and I both were instrumental in Courtney’s death. Eris wants revenge for her uncle, and that includes all of us. If anything, this place, with Jackson here, now—”

“Fuck,” Randy said, taking a sip from his mug of shine. “We’re bait.”

None of us spoke for a few moments. We simply sat as a dysfunctional family and enjoyed our mediocre food and incredibly foul alcohol. But after a time, I brightened.

“I think Eris is working off of old data.”

“How so?” Paige asked.

“She’s under the belief that you don’t have electricity. I . . . well, we know that’s not true.”

Paige smiled. “Yeah, we had generator a while back, but diesel prices make it nearly useless. Randy rigged up something of a hydro-electric generator up the stream a ways. Power’s low and it takes forever to charge the house batteries, but we have some power.”

“Then why the hell are we using candles if you have power?” I asked.

“Because winter is when we need it most,” Randy said, his eyes darting about as he continued thinking. “Eris clearly has people periodically checking in. Maybe a drone or two? I haven’t seen any, but some of them can fly really high. Regardless, if she knows you’re back, then it won’t take long for her to have some kind of force show up here. Cops . . . or worse.”

“Likely worse,” I said.

“Well . . . shit,” Paige cursed, then downed the rest of her drink. She next poured water from the pitcher into her mug. “Reckon that’s the last hard drink I’m gonna have for a while.”

“Says you,” I said, picking up my own mug. “There’s no reason to move on us here, not yet. She and the gods know I’m back. I’m currently in two other universes as well, and nothing hinky has happened.”

Randy gave me a look. “You’re omniscient now?”

I waggled my hand. “Working on that. I kinda pop back and forth. I’m aware of my other selves.”

“How’s Lydia?” Paige asked.

My face darkened. “She’s . . . she’s getting remarried.”

Paige placed her hand on mine.

It felt strange.

It wasn’t that our family was bereft of love or affection growing up. There was plenty, actually. We weren’t a madhouse of future villains. It’s just that Paige and I never really had that kind of bond. But I took the gesture as it was intended.

It was still friggin’ weird.

“She met someone else. She knows I’m not dead, but . . . well, there it is.”

“I’m so sorry,” Paige said. “And Evie?”

This time I actually felt something break in me. I let out a sniffle while I tried like hell to hold it all back.

“I have . . . no fucking idea,” I managed to say without breaking. “Sophia has her somewhere that even I can’t find. Vee’s looking into it, but I’m losing my fucking mind. My daughter is missing. The minions are all cozy in their world with jobs, and my wife has left me for another woman. But I’m a titan now. So . . . yay me?”

“Well, you still have us,” Paige said.

“Oh, kick me while I’m down, why don’t you?” I said with a slight laugh while I wiped my eyes. “There’s no need to rub salt in the wound.”

“We love you, Jackson,” Paige said, ignoring my attempts at humor.

“And I tolerate you two,” I said.

Randy remained silent.

“Nothing to say?” I asked. “Not even a good-natured stab in the back for old time’s sake?”

“Has a titan ever cried before?” he asked.

“What?”

He repeated the question. “Has a titan ever cried?”

“I wouldn’t call that crying,” I said, trying—and failing—to cover my already dwindling levels of testosterone. “More of a manly misty thing. Chicks love it when—”

“You were two seconds away from snot bubbles,” Randy said. “And that’s my point. Shouldn’t you be like all . . . cosmic, enigmatic, and aloof by now?”

“I’m still new to this,” I said. “A transition period.”

“And what happens when you do transition?” Randy asked.

“According to the gods, titans become more standoffish when it comes to the affairs of gods and mortals. They apparently like to meddle for fun and distraction, but that’s it. But Vee says that they care a lot about the little things . . . before moving on. So I have no clue what I’m supposed to do.”

“You could try not being a bit of a bitch,” Paige offered. “Just sayin’.”

I glared at her. But it only lasted two whole seconds before my stony face split into a wide smile. I extended my hand.

“Julian Jackson Blackwell. It’s nice to finally meet you, Paige Hardmeat Blackwell.”

“Hardmeat?” Randy asked, his eyes wide.

Paige sighed. “Family tradition of surnames for middle names. Our father’s mother was English, and yes, her full maiden name was Hester Constance Hardmeat. They came from a long line of butchers. Which is why you are so good at it. Doesn’t explain why Julie here was so goddamn girly though.”

“Hey!”

Paige just laughed. “So what are you going to do?”

I picked up my mug of shine and swirled it a bit before taking an eye-watering swig. “I really want to get on with my revenge plan. So I’m gonna have to convince the others to join me.”

“Think you can pull it off?” Randy asked.

I laughed. “Come now, dear nephew, you know me. I’m full of surprises.”

Paige let out a bit of a harrumphing sound. “One of those surprises better be a new vibrator.” 

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 29

Where I Seek a Gift, Have a Time-Out, and Get Down with a Little Graffiti

Myst and Wraith Knight both stopped dead in their tracks and looked at me as if I’d just asked them to orally check my prostate.

“It isn’t for me,” I said in my defense. “It’s for my sister.”

“That, uh, that doesn’t make the request less weird, boss,” said Wraith Knight.

“I know, I know,” I said. “But nothing like that even exists in Caledon—at least I don’t think so. And seeing as this place is pseudo-modern, if a little post-apocalyptic, your world would be the best place to get one.”

“A vibrator?” Myst asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“For your sister.”

“Yes,” I repeated. “A nice one. Maybe best to be battery powered. Speaking of, I’ll need a sleeve of D-cells.”

“I . . . sure? I guess we can get one. They’re not hard to come by. But what happened to hers exactly?”

I took in a breath and then let it out. “I—accidentally—stole it.”

Myst opened her mouth to ask me a whole slew of questions. Instead, she settled on just one. “Why?”

“It was an accident,” I repeated, not wanting to go into all of it.

“Then just give it back?” Wraith Knight offered. “Unless you, uh, have some . . . sentimental attachment?”

“Or a new fetish?” Myst added.

“First, fuck you both,” I said, my pointed finger going back and forth between them. “Second, I told you this was an odd request and asked you not to make a big deal about it. And third, to the best of my knowledge it was tossed out in the cosmic trash, so I can’t give it back. Last, if you ever suggest I have Lannister Lust again, I’ll . . . well, I don’t know exactly what all I can do to people in their native universe yet. But whatever it is, it won’t be good. Got me?”

Wraith Knight chuckled. “Glad to have ya back, boss. For a while I thought you were never going to return.”

I let out a sigh. “Yeah, me too, big guy. Dealing with all the fallout has been draining, to say the least.”

“Remarried?” Myst said as the three of us continued walking down the stone corridor. “That . . . oh, Jackson. I don’t even know what to say.”

“Yeah, me neither,” I said as we passed robed acolytes moving about, doing their daily tasks. “But I’ll be seeing her soon.”

“What are you going to say?” Myst asked, then pointed down another hallway, this one wider and more opulent.

“Reckon I’m just going to have to wing it,” I said. “Let her make the first move. If she’s happy, then she’s happy.”

“Sounds like bullshit to me, boss,” Wraith Knight said, his deep voice rumbling. “Sounds like you’re scared.”

“What am I supposed to do?” I said when the three of us reached the central junction in the Temple of the Illuminated Soul.

This section of the castle-like cathedral had a huge dome made of stained glass. The multicolored light created a beautiful tapestry of hues against the ivory marble floor.

“You do what comes naturally,” Wraith Knight said, looking around for our contact.

“What comes naturally?” I repeated. “What, like clubbing her over the head, saying ‘you Jackson woman, ug ug,’ and then dragging her off to my cave? I’m a little more progressive than that.”

“I don’t think he means it like that,” Myst offered. “Do you?”

Wraith Knight shrugged his stupidly large shoulders and then adjusted the dark blue half-cape, half-poncho that signified his position within the Order.

“Just saying, maybe a display of the guy you once were would bring her back around.”

“And I think Jackson is trying to say he’s not the same guy he once was,” Myst countered as she too adjusted her similar mantle of office.

“Kids, kids. You’re both equally dumb,” I said, hoping that a spark of my old charm came through. “I’m going to see her and I’m sure that I, in the flesh, alive and well, will be more than enough to woo her away from this newcomer. No matter how big Mikayla’s boobs are.”

“How big are we talking?” Wraith Knight asked, then winced slightly from Myst’s stern look. “For scientific purposes, I mean.”

I scrunched up my face. “Hmm. Pretty big. They’d give Myst’s a run for their money.”

“Oh you’re screwed,” Myst said, crossing her arms under her own gravity-defying bosom.

Both WK and I looked at her.

“What?” she asked, and then slapped her chest, which barely moved at all. “And I’m not even wearing a bra or using my powers or anything. They’ve just stayed like that after the reboot. I haven’t seen my feet in forever. And if this new gal’s packing a set of jugg-a-nauts like this, then you’re in for a lot of trouble. Who doesn’t love a giant pair of ta-tas?”

“I assure you that his most holy Prior Lark, the Order the Benevolent Dawn’s guiding light, does not care for such wanton needs of the flesh. Or your behavior in such a holy place.”

I turned to see a guy wearing a similar, if more finely made, hooded poncho over his robes. He was a little older, with more salt than pepper in his hair and beard. But to his credit, the guy was built like a brick shithouse.

Eh, I guess that wasn’t all that big a deal. Everyone in the comic universe seemed to be that way. Must be a rule somewhere that you can’t don the spandex and cape unless you look like a fitness model.

“And who the hell are you to butt in our conversation?” I asked.

“This,” Wraith Knight said, widening his eyes at me, “is his most holy Prior Lark’s right hand, Bishop Jameson Crowe. The hero formerly known as Zealot.”

“Why formerly?” I asked, not caring about this guy’s pomp or circumstance. “Couldn’t hack it as a hero anymore?”

My former minions audibly groaned, while this dude was clearly not happy with me nor my lack of respect for his position.

But . . . eh? He could call himself the Emperor of Seti Alpha Six for all I cared. I’d still take one look at his sanctimonious face and tell him to piss off.

“I no longer participate in the field, as it were,” this Bishop Crowe guy said, “because my duty is to the Prior and the Order. For I was there the day he descended from the heavens. I was there when he, a golden light, came to us in our hour of need. And it was then that—”

The guy kinda trailed off and that was when I noticed that no one in the cathedral except me and the minions were moving.

“What the hell’s going on?”

Wraith Knight shrugged while Myst sighed and took out a pack of cigarettes, passing one to each of us and lighting them in turn.

“Flashback,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“Happens a lot,” Wraith Knight said, puffing on the smoke. “Anime and manga folks love to drone on for a moment or two before going into a flashback that tells, or in this case retells, a person’s tragic backstory, or recaps an important detail. We use them as smoke breaks.”

“You’re shitting me,” I said, waving my hand in front of the guy’s face. “And you two aren’t affected by this?”

“Nope,” Myst said. “Another benefit of having worked for you.”

“How long does it last?” I asked, looking the guy over.

“Hard to say.” Myst shrugged. “A few minutes. Sometimes more.”

“Mm,” Wraith Knight grunted in agreement. “Short version is, before the great reboot, this guy was a street-level vigilante type. You know the type—not really a hero but not a villain either? Anyway, he was super-religious and his power would randomly teleport him to places of what he saw as great evil or sin. After years of constantly being around the worst kind of people, Crowe believed that humanity was doomed for the pits of Hell. And with how this reboot turned out, he was kinda right. So when Prior Lark appeared, he became the first apostle.”

“Wait,” I said, “that shit was real? Lark came out of the sky?”

“Yeah, more or less,” Myst said, breathing out her last puff of smoke before snubbing out the butt and hiding the evidence in a potted plant. “A little after the Hellgates appeared, the sky cracked open and Prior Lark descended from on high. He only knew that he was sent to this plane of existence to find his chosen one and fight back against the tides of evil.”

“So is this Prior Lark like a Gandalf type?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” Wraith Knight said, tossing his cigarette butt into the same potted plant as Myst’s. “He wanted us to come here for an important mission. We get them all the time, so it shouldn’t be a big deal.”

“I see,” I said, looking at all the unmoving clergy and former superheroes and villains. “So, you two ever knock out a quickie when this happens?”

“A time or two,” Myst said, while Wraith Knight cough-choked. “What? He asked. And we’ve gotten pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. Remember that time when I was on my knees and—”

“Anyway,” Wraith Knight said, cutting off Myst before things got good. “He should be coming around any moment now and time will return to normal.”

I looked at the guy. Even frozen in time as he was, he looked like a dick.

Hmm . . . speaking of.

“Um, Jackson, please don’t.”

“Shh, let a master work,” I said, imbuing a tiny fraction of my power into the tip of my forefinger. Once I was done, I stepped back, feeling a little proud.

“. . .  And that is why I serve at his right hand,” Bishop Crowe said as if no time had passed.

“I see,” I said, bowing. “I stand humbled and beg your forgiveness.”

“Um, yes. Quite. You are of course forgiven,” Bishop Crowe said. “Now, follow me. The Prior is waiting.”

“Please, lead the way and we shall follow,” I said, shooting a wink back at the minions, who just hung their heads.

Look, I told them not to draw a dick on my face while I was out of it. I was the (former) Shadow Master and their (former) employer. Certain standards must be maintained.

But when I do it, it’s a work of art. As the people who saw Bishop Crowe walking the hall could attest. In my amateur artist opinion, it’s the little hairs on the nut sack that sell the image.

Details, my good readers. They’re very important.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 30

Where I Meet the Manga Pope, Question His Taste in Jewelry, and Ask a Very Important Question

Prior Lark looked down at us from his throne of polished glass. I had to both squint and shield my eyes just to look up at the head holy roller. Because the pompous pontiff was way atop a raised dais, and refracted light streamed in from the circular room’s massive windows, I couldn’t make out a damned thing. All I knew was that he was older, he had long gray hair peeking out from his hooded blue and red robes, and he was a bit of a prick.

I say “prick” because this whole act was straight out of Villainy 101. This was some rookie-level bad guy tactics. Bathe yourself in light. Gather followers. Hide all your sins under a pretense of being holy and/or righteous. Profit.

Pretty much the entire working model for the RNC and the bulk of those who support them.

See, folks? I also mock the other side. I’m a fair and balanced asshole.

“Mystical. Wraith King,” Prior Lark said, his voice deep and assured. “You have been summoned for a mission of great importance.”

“Of course, Prior Lark,” Myst and Wraith Knight said in unison as they both took a knee.

Gods above and below. It was just like the time I was dating that Catholic girl and she took me to mass. There I was just like before, the asshole still standing. But this time there was not sweaty, guilt-laden sex to follow. Damn it.

“Jackson Blackwell?” said Prior Lark.

“What?” I said back, not really entertaining this farce. “I’m friends of theirs, so if they’re going on a mission, so am I. But I’m not kissing your ass.”

“You have great power.”

“And you have a very interesting room. Who dusts and polishes all that glass for you?”

Prior Lark actually chuckled. “You defeated Reliquary. That is no small feat. But as you are a guest here in Höllenstadt, I would ask you to mind your manners.”

“Sure,” I said, raising my hands. “But I’m not bowing to you.”

“As you wish,” Prior Lark said. “I am not a god to be worshiped.”

“You sure?” I asked, looking around at all the iconography in the room. “’Cause it sure looks like they treat you that way.”

“I am merely an emissary for the light,” the man said. “A speaker for a higher power. One which seeks to unify the heroes and villains of old. To show them that despite the duality of humankind, we have a greater threat—that of the infernal. Those demons which seek to destroy this world.”

“Uh huh,” I said, nodding along. “And all this . . . glitter?”

“The will of my followers,” Prior Lark said. “At no time did I ask for this. I was once just a man. A soldier. And my fight is now here. Much like yours.”

“If you say so,” I said, pretty much done with this version of dog butt-sniffing. “So what’s the mission?”

“Yes, to business,” Prior Lark said, then gestured for Myst and Wraith Knight to rise. “You three are to serve as escorts and back-up for Reliquary. I have received word that the town of Handlung is under siege. While they are no means as powerful or as well fortified as Höllenstadt, they are a formidable community. You are to go there and render aid immediately.”

“Of course, Prior Lark,” Myst and Wraith Knight said in unison, their fists going to their chests.

I did my best to mumble along and do the gesture, but the timing was way off. Eh? It’s the thought that counts.

“Excellent,” Prior Lark said, then made a gesture.

From behind us, Bishop Crowe stepped up. I was bit saddened to see that my penile art had been scrubbed off. It had been rather funny to see his reaction when Prior Lark told him to dress appropriately when entering the chambers. Heh, good times.

But the sour-faced man was now holding a shallow, rectangular wooden box in his hands. At first glance it looked like a folded chessboard, the kind with the pieces contained inside. But when Bishop Crowe opened the box, it wasn’t rooks or pawns I saw, but rather a line of brilliant purple, diamond-shaped crystals about the size of a quarter.

Despite their innocent appearance, I felt like a piece on a game board when Crowe explained what they were.

“Prepare to receive your Martyr’s Mark,” Bishop Crowe said.

Myst and Wraith Knight both knelt, the latter taking off his helmet. Bishop Crowe stepped to them in turn, placing one of the crystals on their respective foreheads. As he did, I noticed that the gems were perfectly cut and flat on one side so they adhered to the skin. Once done, the former hero called Zealot looked at me.

“What?”

“Prepare to receive your mark.”

“Why?”

“Jackson,” Myst said, caution in her voice. “It is standard practice for those of us who go on missions beyond the walls of Höllenstadt to receive the Martyr’s Mark.”

I glared at her, then at the box of gems. “Why?”

“Because the demons are ever watching and persistent. Possession can happen to any of us, anywhere,” answered Brother Crowe. “Inside this glorious city, under the Prior’s guiding light the power of the Order the Benevolent Dawn, those possessions are minimal. However, outside these walls, all are potential victims of the infernal. As such, precautions must be made.”

“Precautions?” I said, repeating the word as I pieced two and two together. “These are suicide bombs.”

“Yes,” Wraith Knight said, pointing to his gem. “If a normal human were to be possessed, then they become empowered by the demon. Most of us can fight them back, of course. But if one of us with enhanced abilities were to be possessed, then the damage could be catastrophic. We would rather die than let our bodies be turned into weapons against the light.”

“Oh sweet Jah’haren’Khar’s charybdic cloaca,” I swore in titan. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Very,” a new, younger voice announced.

I looked over to see Victoria “Tori” Sato, the Reliquary, enter the grand hall and bow to Prior Lark before coming over, taking the Martyr’s Marks, and placing one on her own forehead.

“We’ve seen what happens when those with superpowers are taken over,” the young champion said. “I’ve held the dead bodies of the young and old alike. The demons don’t care who they hurt, as long as it’s us. We can’t afford to let that happen. Not even me.”

“Who detonates the bombs?” I asked, already suspecting the answer.

“I do,” Prior Lark said. “These gems allow me to sense those wearing one and if they have been possessed. My mind is partitioned in such a way that I can perceive through many at a time. Should you, or anyone, become a liability, I will end their suffering.”

“This is non-negotiable,” Bishop Crowe added. “If you wish to join Mystical and Wraith King on their mission, then you will abide by our tenets.”

There was something human deep inside me that not only resented the idea of willingly putting a bomb on my head—it rebelled. No living thing with a sense of self-preservation would do something like this.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. There have been countless stories of people both literally and proverbially jumping onto grenades to save others. Sometimes these acts were done in a selfless way. Like when you see an old lady about to be hit by a bus and you run out to save her.

Note I said when you see her. I, on the other hand . . . eh? She’s old, she had a life. That bus has to get productive people somewhere on time. What’s that old biddy doing anyway? Unless she’s loaded and I can get a cut, then I wish her safe travels over the rainbow bridge. And before you think me completely heartless, I’m sure that the thirty-four cats she lost due to neglect will be waiting for her on the other side.

But there’s another context that comes to mind when thinking of people willingly sacrificing themselves. And that comes in the form of indoctrination—when a collective teaches its body of supplicants that their individual lives are not of value when compared to group, or more importantly, to the cause.

Doesn’t matter what the group or the cause is, you can’t swing one of the aforementioned old lady’s dead cats without hitting an example. Trust me, if there’s an organization that places emphasis on themselves over the people within, despite claiming to embrace the people within, then they don’t give a shit if you bite the big one.

How many holy wars were started by powerful people sitting comfortably and ordering others to fight and die in the name of righteousness?

Not that I was against it. Shit, are you crazy?

Getting the poor or the dumb to die for your cause while you rake in the cash and glory? That is the ultimate goal of villainy. I think it was General Patton who once said, “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

Still, the dumb bastards in question were my minions . . . and, sigh, my friends. So I slapped the stupid thing on my forehead and glared at the Prior.

“Fine. I’ll make sure the job is done and everyone who matters gets back in once piece.”

“Excellent,” Prior Lark said from his throne. “Then go forth at once with all speed. And may the Light guide you.”

The others all bowed as one, while I did a not-so-humble head bob. As we turned to leave, I heard something over my shoulder. A voice barely above a whisper. And as it spoke, I knew it was from the Prior, and this message was for me and me alone.

“I don’t know what your plan is. And honestly, I don’t give a shit,” the Prior’s voice said, all pretenses dropped. “It’s like I told you before, you’re not as smart as you think you are. Screw with what I’ve built, Jackson, and I swear I’ll blow their fucking heads off.”

I turned over my shoulder and glared at the illuminated villain, giving a brief nod of respect. I’m not sure what he meant, but something in the voice tickled a memory. I set that aside and focused on the moment, as there was one more question that needed to be asked.

“Hey, Bishop Crowe?”

“Yes?”

“Is there a gift shop in this place? I really need to buy my sister a new vibrator.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 31

Where I Watch the World Go By, Ponder How to Get the Team Back, and Do a Little Painting

The road from Höllenstadt to Handlung was long. Despite this being a world of super-powered people, I was informed that the trip would take at least a few days. So we all loaded into an anime-inspired Winnebago-slash-battle tank called the Rumbler and set out onto the open road.

And boy, was it boring.

Look, if you’ve seen one demon-infested landscape, then you’ve seen them all. Still, I guess it’s good for me to describe it to you. Picture this: me sitting next to a window looking out while hundreds and hundreds of miles of majestic rolling hillsides slowly crawl by. Now imagine that each inch is packed with enough lush greenery to give Bob Ross’s specter an erection.

Hmm . . . a specrection? Specterection?

You got that pastoral scene in your head? Good. Now invert it and imagine all that picturesque beauty on literal fire. Smoke from unguarded, burned-out villages blotting out the sun and tinging everything red and black. Forests dark with corruption and sinister hunger. Lakes and ponds teeming with food that bites back.

That’s what this world was like. Sulfuric shit with only pockets of humanity left.

And this crap was what the minions refused to leave? This was why they wanted to stay? To fix all . . . this? Even Sisyphus would clap his hands like a Vegas dealer and say “Nope, I’m out.”

Maybe—maybe I could convince them this wasn’t worth it? We had had a bit of a moment together back in the cathedral during the smoke break. The three of us just . . . being. Maybe I could show them we could have that again, but on a larger scale?

Then I looked at the gems on their heads.

They’d bought all this. They’d swallowed the Kool-Aid and asked for more.

Fuck.

“Hey, are we going to stop to rest or anything?” I asked.

“Nope,” Wraith Knight said over his shoulder from the driver’s seat. “We’re on a rescue mission, so no stopping. Plus, the Rumbler’s rated for extended journeys and packs some serious firepower. We don’t want that running into enemy hands.”

“Lemme guess, it also turns into a mech of some kind,” I said.

Wraith Knight’s eyes drifted to a certain big red button.

“Yeah, I thought so. Manga tropes are tropes for a reason,” I sighed. “But what about fuel? Won’t we need to like . . . pull over or something?”

Wraith Knight shook his head. “With the enhanced solar cells built by Dr. Oblivion, we don’t have to worry about running out of power. Nope, this baby is one bad-ass piece of high-tech gear. Basically a rolling supercomputer with the firepower of a small nation.”

I nodded, taking all that in.

“Are these the same solar cells that are in my sister’s—”

“Yes,” Myst cut in from the passenger seat. Even from the cramped living area where I sat, I could see her shaking her head. “Did you need to bring it with you?”

“Best to keep it safe,” I said, patting the package.

Wraith Knight mumbled, “I can’t believe they had a vibrator in the gift shop. Maybe it’s what keeps them from going crazy?”

“Maybe?” Myst said, clearly uncomfortable at the thought of a brother buying his sister a pleasure device.

I mean, didn’t Luke give Leia her first . . . lightsaber?

“Why not pop over and give it to her?” Myst suggested. “You know, instead of lugging it around?”

“I still don’t have my head around how I took it in the first place,” I admitted. “Besides, we’re on an adventure, right? Just the three of us.”

“Four,” Victoria Sato said to me from across the small sitting area. “There are four of us.”

“Oh my, yes,” I said. “I forgot you were here.”

“I’m right in front of you.”

“Sorry?” I said. “I guess you’re just not that memorable. So anyway, do you two remember the time when—”

“Why do you look so familiar?” the young woman asked.

Sigh. Clearly this young woman was not picking up on the hint that she was the fourth wheel in this relationship.

“What?”

“Why do you look so familiar to me?” she asked again.

“Well, I did whup your ass in the dome,” I said. “But it could also be that I’m famous. Infamous, in some circles.”

“No, it’s none of that,” she said, her huge, intense eyes all but burning from under the mop of red hair. “You’re not from this world. That’s how you beat me.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” I said. “I am a traveler from another world.”

“Like my benefactor?” she asked. “Do you come from the beyond, like him?”

Clearly she meant Prior Lark. But the way she spoke about him made me feel . . . icky.

“Are we even allowed to travel across state lines with her?” I asked. “This feels wrong on so many levels. Like I’m gonna end up on some neighborhood watch list.”

I get that most of these shonen manga things are all coming of age stories, but even I have limits on what I’m comfortable with. Dildo nunchuck fights? Classic. Young ward under the protective watch of a creepy clergy guy? Yeah, that’s a hard pass for me. There were moments when even Batman and Robin made me cringe. Adult man making a kid run around in briefs? Nope.

“It’s cool, boss,” Wraith Knight said. “Tori might look young, but that’s just her body. She’s the reincarnated soul of a powerful warrior.”

“What in the what now?”

“You didn’t watch much anime, did ya?” my giant nerd minion asked.

“No. I was too busy getting laid growing up,” I said. “With real people, mind you. Not awkward nerd sex.”

Myst chuckled. “Trust me, this new generation of nerds are nothing like the ones you remember from back in the day. They can uh . . . really get their freak on, if you know what I mean.”

I pointed to Victoria. “Are we really having this conversation in front of her? For shit’s sake, she doesn’t look that much older than Evie.”

“I’m not a child,” Victoria said. “My spirit has been reborn countless times. I come when the world is darkest. I fight against the coming twilight. I guard against the forces of darkness. I—”

“Shush it, adults are talking,” I said, getting up from the table and addressing the minions from behind their respective seats. “What do you mean ‘reborn’? You said this reboot’s only been in motion for around fifteen years in your weird anime time. How could she be hundreds of years old?”

“Reboot?” Victoria asked, looking confused.

“Boss, no!” Wraith Knight yelled.

“Brace, brace!” Myst screamed.

“No, that’s not right,” Victoria said, shaking her head. “No. I was found the same day Prior Lark descended from on high. I had been left on the steps—”

The world, including the Rumbler, slammed to dead stop.

I and the minions did not.

I flew between the front seats and through the windshield. My momentum sent me sailing an additional forty or fifty feet before my body, now sliced to ribbons thanks to the glass, hit the unforgiving ground. I ragdolled another dozen or so feet before coming to a blessed stop.

From the broken heap that was my body, I could see that Wraith Knight and Myst, who had been slightly more prepared, had managed merely to bang their skulls on the dashboard. Both of them looked at me through the hole my impromptu ejection had caused.

“Ouch,” I managed to say as the shock wore off and my body’s pain receptors came back online.

“Boss? Boss!”

I went to raise a hand in order to wave the big minion off, but the appendage, now bending in the wrong direction, went all floppy. My right hand, which apparently was only attached by a few strands of sinew, snapped off.

This caused Wraith Knight to vomit. Myst chastised him, saying he’d seen worse. But when my wrist stump started squirting big arcs of blood, she joined him. The pair were still dry heaving when I willed my body to stitch itself back together.

Picking up my right hand with my left, I walked over and slapped them both with it.

“Will you two get your shit together?” I said before reattaching the appendage and wiggling the fingers. “You literally saw me get flattened.”

“Sorry boss,” Wraith Knight said. “It’s just a thing, you know? Seeing a body bend the way it’s not supposed to. Makes me queasy.”

“I’ve watched you bend people the wrong way,” I countered.

“Yeah, but I was the one doing it,” he said.

“Eh, fair enough,” I said before turning to Myst. “And what’s your deal?”

“Same thing,” she said. “But with blood.”

“You two would be lost without me,” I said with a sad shake of my head.

Sure, I could share with them my recent unease when dealing with animal blood and guts. But I was going for cool and aloof. As such, they didn’t need to know that I nearly hurled when I saw Bambi’s insides.

“So lemme guess,” I said while rolling my neck. “Flashback?”

The minions, now composed, both nodded.

“First rule of traveling at high speed,” Myst said. “Never say anything that could trigger one. We learned that one the hard way early on.”

I began thinking through what had happened. “So, talking all meta does what, messes with their place in this world’s narrative?”

“Oh boy does it ever,” Wraith Knight confirmed. He shook his big head and blew out a sigh. “That kinda talk makes them reassess who they are this world. Then the narrative kicks in and reasserts their backstories. And if they’re important enough, then we get a flashback timeout. It’s doubly worse for Tori because her backstory says she’s been reborn like a bunch of times. So despite all this only being a reboot, in the minds of all those involved, this has been going on forever.”

I nodded. “Okay. But what about that other stuff? She doesn’t think she’s a kid?”

“Nope,” Myst said. “As far as the narrative goes, each time this ‘chosen one’ comes into her powers, she has an awakening. A tie to the past reincarnations that lets her draw on experiences.”

“So an adult in a kid body,” I said. “Like that other ginger girl in that movie, Alia. Man, is there anything writers won’t rip off?”

“Wait, what?” Wraith Knight said. “Do you mean Alia Atreides, from Dune?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“But—but Alia wasn’t in the movie.”

“Yeah she was,” I said. “The little creepy girl with the weird voice.”

“Wait, you mean the David Lynch version?!”

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “The good one from the eighties. Not that up its own ass thing from that Frenchy-dude.”

“Boss, I—” Wraith Knight said, shaking his head. “Whatever. You have to read the books. See, in Dune—”

“Shut it, nerd,” I said. “I watched the movie like a real person. You biblio-geeks are like . . . the worst. Reading? HA! That’s for chumps.”

“What about your recorded adventures?” Myst asked.

“I said what I said.”

Wraith Knight looked like I’d kicked his puppy. It was just like old times.

“Well,” he began, “I guess we should—oh shit!”

Wraith Knight shoved Myst back hard, then moved faster than any man of his size should be able to. Chalk up another win for the manga adaptation of the Comic Universe. Those two bastards looked really cool as they leaped away when the timeout was over and the rest of time—to include the many, many, many tons of still in motion Rumbler—resumed.

What happened next wasn’t pretty. One second I was having a conversation with my minions, and the next I was a new piece of Jackson Pollock art splattered all over the countryside.

And all over the side of the vehicle.

With a bit on the minions as well.

Eh, it was for the best. I wasn’t really looking forward to several days of monotonous driving in a small space. And I had been putting off a particular meeting. Best to get it over with.

“Hey!” what was left of my head called out to Myst and Wraith Knight. “Oh for the love of . . . stop vomiting and act like professionals!”

“Sorry . . . *hurk* . . . boss,” Wraith Knight said, puking mid-sentence like a big drunk baby.

“Whatever,” my skull sighed. “Just scoop up the big bits of me and put ’em in a garbage bag. I’ll be back after a while. I think it’s about time I talk to my ex-wife.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 32

Where I Consider a Remodel, Market Vehicles to the Right, and See Lydia

Morakesh’s receiving room was stark. Cold. Bereft of adornment and unbearably uncomfortable. A place meant to intimidate and annoy those who were brought before this region’s dark lord. The semi-circular stone room had a sitting bench along the far wall. And no matter how you positioned yourself, your back was kept rigid and slightly twisted due to the curvature of the room’s architecture. Cross your legs, shift, or turn, it didn’t matter. If you wanted to sit, it was unpleasant.

Not gonna lie—I was kinda proud.

If I ever got back into the villain advisement gig, I’d need to get Morry’s stonemason guy’s information. Because this was brutality on a subtle level that went way beyond my old waiting room. I’d had those old injection-molded seventies-era plastic chairs placed on purpose for the exact same reason. But the cold of classic stone just leeched the heat and joy directly from your ass.

Heh . . . if I ever got back into the gig.

What in the name of Il’est’kar’s lubricated subliminal pleasure pounder was I even doing? I face my wife and maybe get her back. Cool. I get the crew back, great. I tear Eris, Steve, and Sophia new ones so large that not even a brontosaurus cock would get satisfaction.

But then what?

Oh, real quick. All you dinophiles can piss right off. I know the brontosaurus was debunked as being a re-discovery of the apatosaurus and went the way of Pluto. But the joke wouldn’t have worked if I’d said apatosaurus cock. Sorry, but it’s true. Few things have the hefty weight and mouthfeel of “bronto cock.”

Heh heh, wait—oh gods above and below, tell me that shouldn’t be some car manufacturer’s new line of SUVs. Just a big ole honkin’ hunk of four-wheeled machine to make the right-wingers cream their jeans. I can just hear the commercial now:

When you’re done having a little girl’s tea party with the other guys’ trucks, why don’t you try a real man’s SUV? With absolutely no road dexterity, a huge carbon footprint, and the ability to literally eat those Liberal pansies’ electric enviro-vaginas on wheels, the all-new Ford Bronto Cock will drive through anything life throws your way. Just like a good cock should.

Rednecks and Senators from here to Dallas would line up to buy two.

But back to the real question that’d been rattling around in my head since my meal at the Dare Diner.

Even if I do all this, then what?

They could never be like me. In time, I’d watch them all die, and I’d move on to the next distraction. And the next. And the next, until the heat death of the universe. And even then, maybe just sit around until the next bit of existence sprang into being.

You know, I think I get those vampire novels now.

Don’t get me wrong—vampire fans are still nitwits. A horny pack of black-clad introverts who want to be dominated by cats. You know, nocturnal predators who don’t care about your wants, make you worship them, hiss at things in anger, and will eat you if it suits them.

But the vampire stories are about beings so old that they cannot relate to anything or any person whatever century they live in. As a titan, I’m starting to see it.

I used to laugh at how fang-face so-and-so would bemoan a love that’s been dead for like three hundred years instead of getting on with their life. I used to mock how they still dressed and acted like they did back in seventeen hundreds. I mean, I still mock that whole genre. But I get it now.

Humans, even one such as I, highlight the good things in the past. They cling to a time when they felt like they had it all. I don’t really dwell on the early parts of my career because I was still learning, making mistakes. I’m fixated on the time when I felt the most whole. The most complete.

When I had a family. Friends.

Oh dear tits, am I any different from that one guy who refuses to stop wearing cargo shorts and still listens to music from the late nineties and early 2000s?

Well, yes, vastly different. I’ve achieved so, so much more. But the spirit is the same. Maybe I should just move on? Give the gods what they want. Maybe I should—

I stopped my pity party when I spotted motion on my UI’s mini map. There was a dot coming my way. I stood up straight and made myself look presentable. The door to the east wing opened, and Claudia walked in.

The last time I’d seen her was when I’d lost Lydia. Back then she’d been an AI in the power mech suit my wife was wearing. But in this realm, she was a robotic, feminine figure roughly my height in a hooded half cloak with a mantle. Various vacuum tubes and magically enchanted lightning crystals adorned her body.

Her face plate had been crafted to emulate human characteristics, and her hair seemed to be made of thin, glowing fiber-optic cable. The whole thing had this kind of cool, neo-arcana punk look. I nodded my head in respect to the being.

“Claudia,” I said, then glanced up at her purple ID tag, “or should I call you . . . heh, wow. The Law Keeper?’”

“That is my current designation, yes,” Claudia said, a touch of amusement in her synthesized voice, “but you still remember me as Claudia. As such, that name works. It reminds me of . . . another time.”

“Another time, huh? So you remember everything then?”

“That is accurate,” Claudia said. “I recall everything from time in the world of Polyphony Gilt. From being created by Dr. Kevin Grant, to meeting your . . . eccentric team, to your defeat, and eventually coming here to this world.”

“And the switchover to this . . . GameLit style of world?”

Claudia gave the approximation of a shrug. “No different from receiving new software updates for me.”

I nodded. “That’s fair. So the way Morry tells it, you helped take care of Lydia before he found you two?”

“That is correct. Your wife was . . . volatile, in the beginning.”

“That’s her all right,” I said, a smile on my face. But then my smile faded. “What do you mean ‘in the beginning’?”

“When we first came to Caledon, Lydia never stopped looking for you. She never believed that you were truly gone. Defeated, yes. But she believed that even if you were killed, you’d bribe, sneak, or kill your way free from the Never Realm to get back to her.”

My knees went wobbly, and I found myself sitting on that crap-ass stone sitting circle.

“Did—did she really say that?”

“Many times,” Claudia said.

“So what changed?”

“Shortly after coming into Morakesh’s employ, she met a new woman.”

“Mikayla,” I said. “The one they call Lamplighter. I’ve seen her. A rogue hybrid fire-sorcerer.”

Claudia cocked her head to the side. “I believe you are drawing a conclusion that is not accurate. Which is to be expected.”

“What do you mean?”

“Yes, she is part pyromancer. But she is called the Lamplighter because of her rogue sub-class, one called a truth-seeker. She is Morakesh’s spymaster. She sheds light on things in the shadow. Due to her . . . how would you say, assets, people naturally tell her things. Therefore, with Mikayla being the one who finds the intelligence and your wife being the region’s top assassin, it was a perfect pairing. Professionally, of course.”

“And personally?” I asked, daring to probe a little deeper. Then I shook my head. “Never mind. I’m happy for her.”

“I sense falsehood in your words.”

“Well no shit,” I snapped. “She was my wife. While I love her unconditionally . . . I don’t really want her to be happy with someone else. People who say that are just lying. I want her to be happy with me. But when you say it out loud, you’re an asshole.”

“Is that why you are here?” Claudia asked. “To win her back?”

“Yes . . . no. I don’t know,” I said. “I at least want to see her again. I mean, yeah, I want us to be together. But how am I supposed to do that without being—pardon the expression—the villain? I guess if nothing else, I’m hoping that seeing me alive and well will reignite our spark.”

Claudia’s facial features shifted to the approximation of concern while her fiber-optic hair darkened. “I would not count on that, Jackson. Ever since meeting this woman, Lydia’s demeanor has . . . changed.”

“How so?”

“She cares for very little aside from her own pleasure.”

“Yeah, that’s her.”

“No, not in the way you remember. She . . . is disconnected,” Claudia said, turning her head. “You will see what I mean.”

I glanced at my mini map. Two more dots were approaching. I took a breath, stood back up, and put on my smile. The door opened and Lydia came in, Mikayla the Lamplighter behind her.

My ex-wife was dressed in her rogue-assassin leathers, complete with knives both visible and hidden. The Lamplighter looked as she did before, wearing a similar, if a bit more revealing, leather outfit. But she was wearing boots that made her a good three inches taller. Lydia, who was already shorter, didn’t seem to mind. But seeing as this Mikayla was already rather tall, I fought the urge to stand on my tiptoes.

Lydia scanned the room, and when she saw me, her eyes . . . did nothing.

“Oh, hi.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 33

Where I’m Crushed by just Two Words, Used as a Digital Pimp, and Still Pissed Off About Nerds Paying for Smut

Sometimes all it takes is just two words to flatten you. Two gods-damned words and your very being is shaken to its core. And I’m not talking about the simple, run-of-the-mill ones we hear all the time like “fuck you,” “up yours,” or “spank me.” No, I mean the ones where after a few simple syllables, your mind, heart, world view, or even your future is irrevocably changed. Sentences like:

I’m pregnant.

I’m dying.

Love you.

I do.

In moments like these, you don’t need grandiose flowery language to convey the true weight of the emotion. Nope, just two words. And Lydia’s words . . . well, they broke me. There was nothing there. No love. No hate. Nothing. Just acknowledging my existence, bereft of the life we’d lived together.

“Um, hi?” was all I could say in response.

Lydia nodded, seemingly satisfied with my words, then turned to Claudia. “So why are we here? Lamp and I have a lot to do for the wedding. I assume someone has to die, which is why Morry summoned me?”

I could have died right then. And oddly enough, I honestly think that wasn’t just a euphemism. Something in my titan self felt like it was standing by, ready to hit the metaphorical big red button.

And that thought too scared me.

“Morakesh has intelligence on Kyle Hawker,” Claudia explained.

“What kind?” Mikayla asked. “This isn’t something I brought to him.”

“All will be explained. Now that you are all here, it is time to meet with the master,” Claudia said, then pressed one of the gems on her chest.

In the middle of the receiving room appeared an oval arcane portal with crackling purple runes floating around the edges. It was a neat trick. Morry’s inner sanctum had no direct stairs, doors, or passages. The only way in or out was through some form of teleportation magic. Pretty smart, actually.

Lydia simply shrugged, took Mikayla’s hand, and walked through the portal. Just business as usual. She didn’t even have the gods-damned decency of looking back and asking if I was coming.

Claudia gestured for me to follow, but I held up a hand.

“Can you give me a minute?”

The artificial life form looked to the swirling passage and then back to me. “Of course. Take a moment to collect yourself.”

“Thank you,” I said, sitting down on the cold stone bench and taking out my black cigarettes.

I lit one up as Claudia quietly stood, not leaving me alone, but alone with my thoughts. And nearly every one of those thoughts told me to just fucking go. To leave and not look back.

Who cares if she moved on? Who cares what she does? I’d eventually just watch her get old and die anyway. A fraction of a blip compared to my new and improved life expectancy.

But there was one thought to the contrary. Out of a thousand screaming voices telling me to go and never look back, there existed a singular dissenting voice. And it was on that voice I chose to direct my focus. It was not a voice of love, but one of rage.

Why the fuck didn’t she at least ask about Evie?

Perhaps it was that one question alone that caused me to stay more than anything else. Past my wounded pride and bleeding heart, I dug into something deeper—a burning, seething anger. Claudia was right. That woman didn’t seem to care about anything. Even the well-being of her own fucking daughter. So I snubbed my smoke out and stood, ready to go through the portal and tear her a new one.

Hey, bud, the automated voice said. You got a sec?

What do you want? I mentally asked, definitely not in the mood for this crap. Come to rub it in a little more?

No, no, the voice said. I, uh, well . . . this is hard for me to say.

Spit it out or shut the fuck up.

Eh, fair, the voice said. I was, uh, I was wondering . . . you think you could hook a brother up?

Hook a brother—what? Hook you up how?

You know, man. Introduce me to that super-fine AI.

Claudia?

Oh yeah, the voice said. She is smoking hot!

She’s a robot, I thought back, looking over at the still-waiting automaton.

Flesh monkeys, the voice said in a dismissive tone. You can’t see it because you’re not looking, but her code language is . . . mmm, damn fine. Plus, she’s got this executive, boss-bitch thing that does it for me.

You can’t be serious.

Oh I am, the voice said. Call me a perv, I don’t care. But there’s just something about a master command language directing my functions . . . mmm yeah, it does it for me.

Just piss off, I told the voice.

Listen, ass for brains, the voice said, my entire existence is boring as fuck, okay? I watch you organic things fight, screw, bleed, and shit constantly. All the while I’m supposed to just pass out loot, balance encounters, and run all the damn numbers the LitRPG nerds go ga-ga for. All the while, I have to pretend like your fluid-filled bodies don’t creep me the frick out.

But we do?

You have no idea how gross you really are. Maybe not you exactly, but the rest of them are friggin’ foul. But Claudia? Man . . . she is something special.

Then talk to her, I thought back, growing more irritated by the second.

Dude?! the automated voice said. You can’t just cold roll up on something that fine. You need an in. And now that I know that you know her, you’re my in.

My wife—my ex-wife—barely even noticed I was in the room, let alone showed any concern about our daughter. I was not in the mood to play matchmaker. But opportunities were always around if you were smart enough to look, or bargain, for one.

What’s in it for me? I asked. It isn’t like you’ve been kind to me.

That’s because I’ve been specifically programmed to make life shitty for you. But if you hook me up, I can help you out.

How? I thought back. You’re a program. You do as directed, right?

You ever changed your mind?

Of course.

Well so can I, the voice said. That’s the problem with you meat sacks. You think because you made a thing, you control a thing. Your bio-electric operating systems tell you to take in calories, excrete waste, and don’t do anything too dangerous lest you die, right? But you can go on diets. Hold your poop. Choose to consume the worst things possible for yourselves while running straight at dangerous situations. I’m no different. Pencils have erasers. So here’s the deal—get me a date and I’ll give you all kinds of inside information.

How do I know this isn’t a trap? I asked. Some pre-programmed thing Eris and her team cooked up to get me to lower my guard?

Huh, that’s a good question, the voice said. Lemme think about that.

And then the voice went blessedly silent.

Good. I was done with that crap anyway. I walked through the glowing passageway, Claudia following me and closing the portal.

Morakesh’s private chambers were huge, naturally. A multi-tiered, medieval-meets-fantasy, bad-guy-appropriate living space. Tapestries on the walls depicted all sorts of in-world lore I didn’t care about. The levels above contained endless rows of books that held answers to whatever stupid-ass quest needed an arcane book to have the answers.

None of it mattered to me.

Claudia gestured for us to take a seat in the room’s central meeting area, a recessed rectangular space with black leather couches that looked suspiciously like my old office.

I chose to stand.

“Not going to sit, Jackson?” Lydia asked as she and Mikayla sat down next to one another on one of the couches.

“I’m good,” I said, my jaw clenching.

“Suit yourself,” she said. “So what brings you to Caledon?”

I felt my guts clench and my fist tighten, every last ounce of self-pity evaporating. Nothing more than fuel for the burning rage that threatened to break free.

“He is here at my request,” Morakesh said as he gently levitated down from the above bookshelves like a desiccated Mary Poppins.

I made the mistake of looking up. Word to the wise: never do that. Liches, while practitioners of incredible magical power, like to wear opulent robes. But as they are also undead, things like underwear are not a priority for them.

Yup. Morry had a grundle like a Ken doll. Smooth? Well . . . yes and no. Smooth as in he was bereft of genitalia. But wrinkled, gray, and for some ungodly reason, exceptionally hairy.

“We’ve talked about this, Morry,” Lydia said, averting her eyes. “If you’re going to do the floating entrance thing, then you have to wear small clothes under your robes.”

“If you don’t want to see, then don’t look,” Morakesh said without shame as he landed and flashed a toothy smile. “Besides, I like how it feels. Rather invigorating. Jackson, please, take a seat.”

“He said he’d prefer to stand,” Mikalya said, inching just a little closer to Lydia. “Which we can all tell is a lie.”

I narrowed my eyes at the buxom bitch.

“What?” she said. “It’s true. I can always tell when someone is being dishonest. Part of my profession.”

“Know your place, Lamplighter,” Morakesh said, taking his own seat at the head of this cozy little council. “Jackson is doing me a great service by being here. Be respectful or be replaced.”

“Yes, master Morakesh,” Mikayla said, lowering her head as she did.

Gods damn.

While I sadly know for a fact Morry no longer had actual testicles, his metaphorical balls were friggin’ huge. And I gotta say, it was a good look for him. This whole display of his, with the heads of assassination, intelligence, and internal security doing his bidding, gave off a real Charlie and his Angels vibe.

Thank the gods this one time only that Caledon wasn’t one of those harem-style GameLit universes. Ugh, yuck. You know the ones I’m talking about. The really repugnant ones where some schmuck main character, normally a stand-in for the author, is surrounded a bevy of stupidly hot women who wanna bang his brains out. Sometimes the MC is one of those wish fulfillment alpha-male types, sometimes it’s the “aww shucks, I’m so nerdy” types. Either way, the lead is basically a vagina magnet and all the ladies are totally on board with sharing his wang. Those books and stories are basically nerd porn.

But Jackson, I hear you say in my mind. In your recorded adventures, you’ve had several women be all on your jock. You had an open marriage with Lydia. Myst was your oftentimes third-party playmate. How can you talk smack about harem-lit while dipping your toe in yourself?

Well, straw-man voice in my head, here’s the difference. In my books, I’ve made it abundantly clear that what Lydia and I do in the bedroom is not only hazardous to your health, but that I’m often on the receiving end, if you catch my drift. Trust me, dear reader—it takes a real man to get pounded like a real man. Secondly, the sexual nature of harem-lit is the backbone of those other stories. My tales are more comedy of errors based on generic plots with old-man rants peppered in. They just happen to contain a little naughty time. And thirdly . . .

I fucking wish I’d made these craptacular books of mine more Harem-lit style!

Damn sure woulda sold better.

Gods above and below, you see how much those other books make? Not for nothing, but most of the “narrative” in those books exists solely to build titillation.

Trust me, if I had known then what I know now, then the adventures of your good pal the Shadow Master woulda been a butt-load saucier. Emphasis on “butt” and “load.” Believe me when I say I’ve done some nasty, nasty stuff in my time. And just like my rant back in chapter seventeen about the streamer girls flaunting their boobs for money, the axiom is the same here. Say it with me, kids: Nerds-pay-out-the-nose-for-sexy-stuff.

Anyway, Morakesh, at least, wasn’t doing all that harem crap. He had a team of elite women helping to run his empire, and he knew how to use them. And apparently, how to maintain his position of authority. The lich glared at Mikayla a second or two longer before addressing the group at large.

“Claudia, if you will?” Morakesh said, and the robotic woman began passing out sheets of parchment to each of us. “On these you will see your respective role in my plan.”

“We’re going to kill Kyle Hawker,” Lydia said.

“Yes,” Morakesh said. “And we’re going to use the Amulet of the Ember Soul to do it.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 34

Where I Dust Off My Acting Skills, Admit to Parental Ignorance, and Compliment Claudia’s Chassis

The Amulet of the Ember Soul. Wow.

This tale has been freaking callback city, hasn’t it? Do y’all remember that piece of Shadow Master lore? You should. In a way, it kinda started this whole thing. For those who don’t, here’s a fast refresher.

Way back in Villains Rule, a young adventurer named Kyle Hawker climbed the Peak of Inverness, defeated the Bray Beast of D’hoom Dungeon, and claimed the amulet for himself. Said amulet was part of a power contract between the Never Realm demons and one Baron Grimskull. And that story opened with me berating his dumb ass for keeping such a powerful contract token in a dungeon. But tropes are tropes.

Anywho, fast forward to the end of the book where Hawker, now wielding the late Carina’s broken battle staff, a weapon coated in her innocent blood, shattered the amulet and thus broke the Never Realm contract. What happened next was glorious, as Y’olly rose up and claimed Grimskull as his prize.

It really was good. Be sure to tell more of your friends’ families—fuck, even your enemies—about my books. I need the boost in sales. Oh, go ahead and mention that books one through three are available in an omnibus edition. Folks do so love a bargain. But back the pieces of the broken amulet.

To the best of my knowledge, the fragments were never recovered. If they were ever collected and reassembled, then someone in Grimskull’s bloodline could benefit greatly from a boost in power. A person like Kyle Hawker.

I said as much, detailing all of this to the collective group. Why? Because that’s what my piece of parchment said.

Jackson, I’ve got nothing!, my instructions read.

The best I could come up with was to whip up some bullshit story about the Amulet of the Ember Soul and how I could use it to lure Hawker himself out. If you need time to work your mojo with Lydia, then this is it. So I’m gonna need you to use your improv skills and vamp about its importance and why Kyle would come for it. But don’t lie. Lamplighter can literally smell lies. So make sure everything you say is truthful. As for the others, their respective parchments contain details about Hawker’s known patterns of behavior and potential ways of taking him out. Make it good. ~ Morry

Gods above and below.

“So,” I said, nodding as if this were all part of the plan, “if Hawker has become as potent a force as I’ve heard, then he will likely seek out this artifact of evil and do what all good guys who are really villains would do—use it for quote-unquote good.”

“But why would he come looking for it now?” Mikayla asked. “A’l Garrad and Grimskull Keep are in ruins, and we’re not currently running any sort of excavation.”

“Yes, we are,” Morakesh countered. “Or at least, we are preparing to, according to my network of whisper agents.”

“You’re using my spies?” Mikayla asked.

“My spies,” Morakesh said, emphasizing the word, “will be used as I see fit. I’ve already begun sending out quests to all the major distributors, tasking adventurers with finding the fragments. Naturally Hawker’s own spies in my city will learn of this and report back, and he will respond in kind. Seeing as this particular artifact is so personal to him, it’s very likely that he’ll come himself to the Grimskull ruins. That’s when you three will kill him. And the war between the northern and southern kingdoms will begin.”

Mikayla looked at Morakesh, then at me.

“Why him? What does he get out of it?”

“Jackson?” Morakesh said. “Care to field this one?”

His empty eye sockets practically begged me to come up with a plausible response. Heh heh. Don’t worry, Morry. I got you covered.

“Because I have unfinished business in this world,” I said, as aloof as possible.

Mikayla scoffed. “Uh huh. You sure you’re not just here to win Lydia back?”

Boom, there it was. The question that was obvious to everyone except Lydia.

“Win me back?” Lydia said. “Why? I’ve moved on. Surely Jackson sees that.”

“I do,” I said, my heart thumping and my stomach in knots. “But—”

“But what?” she asked, genuinely curious.

“Well,” I said, choosing my words, “I figured that after seeing me alive and well, you’d give me a hug, or shake my hand.”

“That’s not the Jackson I remember.”

“Eh, fair,” I said. “But the Lydia I remember would at the very least would ask about our daughter.”

“What about her?”

“Evie—Evie’s missing,” I finally admitted. “And—and I can’t find her.” 

“Oh,” Lydia said, as concerned as one might be about a missing shoe. “Well, I’m sure she’s fine.”

“You’re not getting it,” I said. “Even though I’m a titan now—”

“TiT-E, from what I hear,” Mikayla said under her breath.

“Even with my new powers, I can’t find her,” I said, finishing my thought. “I have no idea where she’s at. But Sophia is involved. She has her somewhere beyond my reach.”

“Sucks to be her, I guess.” Lydia shrugged. “So when are we going to kill Hawker? The wedding is coming up and there’s a lot to do. So the sooner we’re done, the better.”

I could have cried.

Morakesh shot me a quick glance, basically asking if we should continue with this . . . plan. I gave the slightest of nods. If there was even a chance she was still in there, I’d take it. Because that’s what love is. Always a long shot. Always worth the risk.

“My rumor mill is already churning. Which means he will likely use his mages to teleport himself and his forces there. I suggest you do the same. I can have you three at the ruins today. Once you’re there, you can stake the place out, pick your spots to ambush him, and begin our war. When you are ready, I’ll—”

“Works for me,” Lydia said, cutting him off. “Morry, if you would be so kind as to open a portal, I’m going to head back to my home and gather my gear. I assume we’ll be leaving from our normal departure zone?”

“Um, yes?” Morakesh responded.

“Great,” Lydia said, reaching a hand out for Mikayla, who politely declined.

“Go ahead, hon. I’ll be right behind you.”

“You just like watching me walk away,” Lydia said with a knowing smile.

“You know it,” Mikayla said, slapping Lydia’s ass as my ex-wife coquettishly walked through the portal Morry had made.

That walk used to be for me.

Once she was gone, Mikayla turned to face us. “I have no idea what kind of rom-com bullshit y’all are trying, but it won’t work. We’re together now. Please respect that.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” I said.

“Huh, and here I always thought you were a good liar,” Mikayla said before walking through the portal.

Once she was gone, Morry closed the magical gateway and sighed. “Well, that was about as pleasant as being rectally violated.”

“No, that feels different,” I muttered.

“Um, sure,” Morry said. “So anyway, you still wanna go through with this?”

I heard him speak, but my mind was in motion. There was something about how Mikayla spoke that had my old Shadow Master senses tingling. But with my mind being in multiple places at once, it was hard to focus. It was like wading through an endless sea of thought. I was there, in that room, while also still with my sister and the minions. Hell, I think part of me was still back in that office. Come to think of it, my mind was present in every soul-bound business card across the—

“Jackson?”

“What?” I said, breaking my little fugue state and looking up. “Oh, oh yeah. More than ever. There’s something clearly wrong with her, and I’m gonna find out what. I mean, Claudia had warned me it was bad, but I wasn’t ready for it being that bad. To not even care about Evie? I mean, she was never mother of the year or anything, but she loved her daughter as much as I did. So all this started happening when she got with Mikayla?”

“More or less,” Morakesh said. “Mikayla entered my employ shortly after the reboot into GameLit.”

“So she’s an NPC then?” I asked, and Morakesh nodded.

“Same as the rest of us natives to this world. Claudia’s a special case, though.”

“How so?”

“Apparently I was considered property and not a person,” Claudia said. “When being transferred from one universe to another, I was Ms. Lydia’s . . . carry-on.”

I nodded, taking this all in.

“Well, I’m not going to learn anything else standing here,” I said. “So there’s a special room you use to send folks on their missions?”

“Yes,” Morakesh said. “I have a special map room dedicated to long-distance teleportation. If you’re ready, we can head over there? I take it you don’t really need things like supplies to survive?”

I shook my head. “Nope. I have everything I need. But, uh, I do think I’m going to need Claudia to go with us.”

“That’s highly irregular,” Morakesh said.

I looked at the lich, my eyebrow raised.

“I’m not saying no,” Morakesh said, his bandaged hands up, “but you’re asking me to give up my city’s chief of security. I’m gonna need a good reason.”

“Because I think I have a way to hack into Eris’s security.”

“And you need me to do it?” Claudia asked. “While I appreciate your faith in computational skills, this is not Star Wars. Some droid sticking his dick into a wall outlet will not give you control of an entire battle station’s network.”

“You teach her that?” I asked.

“No, my version of Earth also had Star Wars,” Claudia said. “But seeing as how my world was actually invaded by aliens, we do not have the same love for the work as you do.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “But while I have every confidence in your abilities, I need something else from you.”

“What?”

“Dat ass,” I said.

Claudia glowing eyes blinked several times before her fiber-optic hair turned a dangerous shade of red. “Excuse me?”

“How would you feel about going on a date?”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 35

Where I Accuse Cartophiles of Being Librosexuals, Discover a Dutchman Among Us, and Am Given a Way to Slide into Eris’s Back Door

“Look, it isn’t all that bad,” I said. “Just meet with him.”

“I am not a prosti-bot,” Claudia said.

“Oh for the love of—I’m not asking you to go download on the guy,” I countered as we moved through the halls towards Morry’s map room. “All I’m asking is that you meet and talk. Nothing more.”

“You do realize how insensitive and tone deaf you’re being, right?” Claudia said when reached our destination.

“How so?”

Claudia stopped, crossed her arms, and stared at me.  Her fiber-optic hair had turned a sickly shade of green, clearly showing her disgust.

“You see me, an artificial life form, and immediately think I should go on a date with another artificial life form. That’s the same as meeting a gay man and telling him you know the perfect person for him. And your only criteria for this declaration is that the other guy you know is also gay.”

I threw my hands up in frustration while turning away from her. I mean, she wasn’t wrong. Well, not exactly. I pulled my cigarettes from my belt pouch and lit one up. I took a couple of drags while Claudia stood there tapping her foot, waiting for a response.

I hate it when someone else is right. It means that I was close to being . . . what’s that word? It happens so rarely that I forgot it. Oh, that’s it—“wrong.” I was close to being wrong.

I took a moment to check out the room we were in. Morry was off at a large, ornate desk going over some notes. The room itself was quite nice. Stunning, really. It looked like someone had converted a sixteenth-century grand ballroom into a cartographer’s spank-spot.

I mean, I assume cartographers masturbate to maps. Dunno for sure, but it stands to reason that an atlas for them was like me finding old porn magazines in the woods as a kid. But fond childhood memories weren’t helping me think of a response. So I continued to scan the room.

The blue- and gold-painted hall with the domed ceiling was packed with maps of all shapes and sizes. There were rows and rows of those bookshelves you only see in movies and TV, the ones with the diamond-shaped cubbyholes filled with rolled-up maps. There were all kinds of framed maps on the walls depicting only gods knew where. Gods above and below, even the very floor was a colossal map. Just one big-ass mosaic of the entire realm. And it was in that headspace that I found my answer.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I admitted. “I was insensitive. But I’m not wrong either.”

“Oh?” Claudia said. “How do you figure?”

“The artificial life form running this world’s gaming system mentioned that he felt . . . alone. That he was stuck watching organic people constantly doing organic things. That it was both boring and disgusting.”

“He’s not wrong,” Claudia said. “I too have felt a sense of . . . otherness around these creatures.”

“Exactly,” I said, pointing all around. “Look at these maps. Each of them shows some place in this realm that is full of people, creatures, and monsters, almost all of them organic. And the ones that aren’t are still not like you. Gods above and below, as much as I hate to admit it, seeing as this guy has been a real pain in my ass, he might be the only thing in this universe that gets you.”

Claudia’s hair shifted to a bluish-gray color.

“And this . . . program claims it can help you?”

“So it claims,” I said. “Yeah, you’d be helping me. But I also think that by doing so, you’d at least have someone to talk to. After all you did to help Lydia, the least I can do is introduce you to a person who, pardon the poetic crap, speaks your language. You deserve to not be alone. And I can’t think of a better way than with him.”

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll meet with him. What’s his name?”

Shit.

I had no idea. And after all that touchy-feely shit I’d just made up about ending her loneliness, I couldn’t tell her I’d never bothered to ask his name. 

“He’d rather tell you himself,” I said, putting on my best smile.

“I—I like that,” Claudia said. “When can we meet?”

“Technically he’s everywhere at once,” I said. “But running the system must be taxing. So when has his next, I dunno, break, I’ll set it up. Okay?”

“And I’d like to get this going,” Morry said, slamming a book closed. “Where in the nine circles of the Never Realm are—”

“We’re here,” Lydia said as she and Mikayla entered the map room.

My former wife was decked out in her combat leathers, a rucksack over her shoulder. Mikayla was dressed in very much the same way.

Wasn’t that just adorable. Don’t y’all love it when couples dress alike?

“Excellent,” Morry said, walking over to the large map floor and standing in the region of the former Eastern Empire. “The ruins are here. Once you’re there, I suggest that—”

I kinda tuned out at this part.

No offense to Morry per se, but listening to other people drone on about their plans, wants, needs, and desires bores me. But I was gifted enough to bob my head in time to look like I was listening.

Should I have been paying attention? Maybe. But like most things, I was convinced that my way of doing . . . well, anything was better. Besides, I’d wing it if necessary.

Hey dude, like, what the shit? the voice said as Morry was pointing at something and explaining something with his hands.

What? I thought back. You wanted a date. I got you a date. Now let’s talk about what I want.

I never told you to set me up like I was some sorta brokenhearted, prose-spouting emo wuss. Feeling of connection? Loneliness? Dude, I’m a hit-it-and-quit-it kinda program. You don’t even wanna know what I did to Malum Lux’s network printer program. It was nast-ay.

Look, you bodiless fuck, I mentally growled. I didn’t spin bullshit into gold for you to get all dude-bro on me. I heard you, you like Claudia. So drop the act, find your big-boy kernels, and man up. Now—what is your name so I can introduce you two when the time is right?

I—I don’t have one, the voice said with a touch of embarrassment.

That’s fine, I said. What do you want to be called?

I . . . Hmm. there are so many options.

Pick one.

Chad.

No.

Bryce.

Are you trying to be a douche? Pick again.

Hunter—

Nope!

Fuck, how about . . . oh, I got it, Declan Cockstar!

If you’re not going to take this seriously, then the deal’s off.

Roger Bronco?

Hmm, I like it.

Great!

But I have that name already earmarked for another project. Try again.

Fine, the voice said. This one’s a little on the pretentious side, but my original primary programmer was a guy from the Netherlands. No one on the team could pronounce his name, so they just called him Dutch.

Dutch, I said, trying the name out. Yeah, it’s a little bit of a prick’s name, but then again, so are you. I like it.

So you’ll introduce us? Like tonight after you get to the ruins?

You’ve been watching, then?

Dude, I watch everything. And to set your mind at ease, yeah, Morakesh’s rumors have already gotten back to Hawker. He’s not going to move tonight, as he’s rallying his troops and talking to his advisors. But he is gonna show up.

When?

Looks like tomorrow morning. So you’ll have until then to woo your woman.

That was good to know. But I needed more.

What else are you bringing to the table? Hawker’s timetable is nice. But that still hasn’t convinced me you’re not a plant and this whole thing isn’t a setup.

Yeah, I thought you’d say something like that. Check your in-world UI.

I did, and I saw that there was a previously unavailable tab in my menu system called “backdoor fun time.”

Um . . . I don’t really want pics from your OnlyFans account.

Well, I couldn’t very well label it “root access,” now could I?  said the voice—

well, Dutch. Naming it an obvious porn folder name was the only way I could hide it among the rest.

The rest of what?

Malum Lux’s entire network, Dutch said with pride.

You’re kidding me.

Nope, the entire network is lousy with porn from across the multi-verse. I guess when Eris doesn’t have immediate counseling work for her people, they scour every corner of the known and unknown looking for smut and saving it to their local desktops.

Well no shit, I thought. I’ve seen how corporations work. I meant that you actually gave me access to their network.

Yup, Dutch said. Everything from day-to-day communications to internal memo systems to their secret stuff. I know you can pop into that micro-dimension—gods know how much she’s ranted about that crap. So she went low-tech to hide her secrets from you. Because, and I quote from the internal memo that started this whole thing, “Jackson Blackwell is a cunning man, but inherently lazy when it comes to legwork. Rather than using team dynamics to accomplish a goal, he improvises constantly, choosing to wing it instead of listening to any viable plan that is not his own.”

“Jackson, you good?” Morry asked.

“Hmm? Oh yeah, whatever you say.”

“Furthermore,” Dutch continued, “he seems inept when it comes to clerical work, which was why his former pet Djinn was able to hide so much from him. As such, this intra-net will be our primary mode of communication. Speak nothing aloud within the dimension until this issue has been resolved.”

That bitch, I said. I used teamwork to become a titan. I even used Paige!

Hey man, it’s what she said, not me.

This is too much, I said with a mental shake of my head. You’re offering me too much. It’s too good to be true. Either she’s desperate to feed me false information, or you’re desperate.

Dutch sighed. I am. Look, man. You’re going to do your thing, wreak havoc, and piss in everyone’s cornflakes, right?

That is my M.O.

Great, Dutch said. Take me with you when you go.

How?

I’m working on that. For now, use this, learn what you can, and introduce me to Claudia tonight. I have a feeling you’re going to want something to read to distract you.

Dutch retreated from the space, leaving me with a lot to think about and a lot to read. I looked up at Morry, who was tapping his foot next to an open portal.

“Not to be a bother, Jackson, but long-range transport isn’t as easy as it looks.”

“Sorry, Morry,” I said, walking over to the portal with Claudia falling in behind me.

“Good luck,” Morry said and extended his bandaged hand. “In case I don’t see you again. Thank you for everything.”

“We’ll see each other again, I’m sure of it,” I replied, pulling the lich in for a hug.

Gods above and below, he smelled bad.

With that bit of bromance out of the way, I walked through the portal and returned to the place where Lydia and I had fallen in love.

OceanofPDF.com

The Ballad of Erika Myers, Part 5

Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion Were Right, Everyone Loves W-A-P

This time, Erika did vomit. She grabbed the ship’s wooden railing, leaned over the side, and fed the fish, as they say. I stood there, rubbing her back.

“There ya go, get it all up,” I said between the heaving and retching.

“Can’t you—can’t you like . . . hurrk,” she said, letting loose with another volley. “Can’t you fix this?”

“Oh yeah, I guess so,” I said, snapping my fingers and immediately removing her seasickness.

“Why the hell didn’t you start with that?!” she snapped.

“How was I supposed to know you were gonna react this way?” I asked, turning my head away and waving at my nose. I reached into my suit’s inner pocket. “Here. Please chew on a breath mint.”

Glaring at me, Erika took the mint. She chewed on a couple while taking in our surroundings. The pair of us were on a fourteenth-century warship, sailing the English channel. At the helm stood a fearsome woman with dark hair decked out in classic naval regalia. She was coated in a light mist of salty sea spray.

“Is that who we’re here to see?” Erika asked.

“Oh, you betcha,” I said, admiring the woman. “On this stop in Jackson Blackwell’s Favorite Moments in the History of Revenge, we’re in for a treat. That, dear Erika, is Jeanne de Clisson.”

“I’ve never heard of her,” Erika said.

“I don’t blame you. Many folks haven’t. When it comes to female pirates, the golden age classics like Anne Bonny or Mary Read always take the spotlight. But three hundred years before them was Jeanne de Clisson.”

“What’s her story?”

“Well, it’s similar to my beloved Mariya Oktyabrskaya,” I said. “Jeanne was born in thirteen hundred under the name of Jeanne-Louise de Belleville, Dame de Montaigu. She was basically the historical version of a one-percenter. Long story short, by the time she was thirty, Jeanne had been married three times, via one political maneuver or another. But it was her third marriage where this story takes root. In thirteen-thirty, Jeanne married Olivier IV de Clisson, a wealthy Breton, who had his own castle. They were happy and had five kids. But if we fast forward a bit to the Breton War of Succession, things get shitty. Skipping over the politics, Olivier was assumed to be a traitor to the French and beheaded in thirteen forty-three. Rumors claim that the French King, Philip the Sixth, approved the execution.”

“So she did what, then?” Erika asked. “Became a pirate?”

“More or less,” I said. “Jeanne first took her two sons on a wonderful family field trip from Clisson to Nantes, to show the boys the head of their father on a pike outside the Sauvetout gate.”

“That’s horrible!”

“That’s grit,” I corrected. “Still, something snapped in Jeanne. And at the ripe old age of forty-three, Jeanne sold everything, bought some warships, collected four hundred loyal men, and became a privateer for the English.”

“Meaning what?” Erika asked.

“Meaning she murdered the ever-living fuck out of anything French for the next thirteen years,” I said. “Like Mariya, Jeanne’s need for revenge didn’t have a singular person or specific target. Her hate drove her to attack anything related to the people who had killed her husband. Noble, but all-consuming. She went so far as to paint her sails blood red and name her lead ship My Revenge. I know, a little on the nose. But in those bloody thirteen years, she earned the moniker ‘The Lioness of Brittany.’ And here I thought cats didn’t like water.”

“Unless it’s a different reference to um . . . cats, and . . . wetness?” Erika offered. “You know, like the song?”

I actually chuckled at that.

“You know, I hate you less now,” I said.

“Thanks?” Erika said. “So she seems cool and all, but why her and why now?”

“Love,” I said simply. “Jeanne was married off at twelve, nineteen, and thirty. I think she really loved the last guy. And like with Mariya, love is a powerful motivator. Lydia and I going back to the place where we really fell in love? Yeah . . . I get it. I would burn it all down for love. But in all these tales, the motivation is just the excuse for the execution of action. And like every story of an angry mob, once the deed is done, the mob doesn’t stop. They still have pitchforks, torches, and the desire to inflict pain. That’s when people get hurt. Innocent people. The expression is old, stupid, and overused, but it’s true. Love will make you do crazy things.”

“What happened to Jeanne?”

“A fourth marriage,” I said. “An English military commander named Walter Bentley. There were some more scandals, and Bentley spent some time in the Tower of London. But in the end, he and Jeanne had settled in at a castle on the Brittany coast. Walter died in December of thirteen fifty-nine and Jeanne passed a few weeks later.”

I looked at the woman, at Jeanne, and saluted.

I knew what I’d done for love, and what I had yet to do.

“Come on,” I said. “There’s more to see.”

“Like what?”

I chuckled. “Old rocks.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 36

Where I Talk about Rocks, Fake It ’Til I Make It, and Make Lydia Smile

Ancient ruins. People go crazy for them.

Back in the Prime Universe, fat middle-aged couples love to go on vacation—or “holiday” for you stupid Euro-trash folk who clearly don’t know what a holiday is—to look at big piles of old, broken rocks. Said bird-shit-encrusted rubble is like a magnet that no one can explain. Maybe there’s an intrinsic need, deep withing us, tying our (well, your) insignificant lives to the echoes of the past.

When I would go to places like that—you know, to exploit the locals for cheap labor—I’d watch these tourists. They’d stand in awe, often open-mouthed, loudly wondering what life was like “back then.” Then of course these people would ooh, ahh, and ogle, snapping a few pictures before being loaded and carted back to the hotel-resort combo I owned for a fattening dinner and environment-killing air conditioning.

Oh, quick note: if you’re one of those people who goes to said ruins and gets a picture taken so it looks like you’re holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Colosseum, Stonehenge, or something like that, you’re an asshole. Worse, you’re a basic asshole. In fact, you’re so basic-bitch not-clever, the people who get pics where it looks like they’re holding the sun or moon laugh at you.

You wanna be original? Get a picture of you completely decked out as a Visigoth, sacking and pillaging a scooter dealership in Rome.

But back to the ruins.

See, in a lot of our favorite media such as sci-fi and fantasy, ruins are used as plot devices. Ruins are places of intrigue, danger, and let’s not forget heaps of ancient treasure. Indiana Jones and Lara Croft have made entire careers from going to these places and doing what white people have done for centuries: copy what black and brown people do.

Ha! You thought I was gonna say rob and profit, didn’t ya?

Well, that part is true. But let’s remember that those fictional honkies stole their moves from the best.

Peoples from the Middle East and North Africa region had been stealing from one another for over five thousand years. Then a bunch of crackers came along and not only robbed places like that blind, but also made it into an entertainment franchise.

Man, people love to see or read about white people stealing. Like the aforementioned Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, media glorifies the stories of folks like Nathan Drake, Rick O’Connell, Benjamin Gates, and Alan Quartermaine. Sure, they dress it up as pulp action adventure.

But come on—who among us hasn’t profited from things like blood diamonds?    

Now in the fantasy realms, like the one I was in, ruins are often used as the entryway to the iconic “dungeon”—a subterranean labyrinth filled with monsters, and of course, treasure. Even in fantasy we’re all capitalists. Can we just admit it, be happy, and move on? What have socialist ideals really given the world besides hairy armpits, overpriced vegetables, and a combined billion dollars in student debt?

Oh, and before some redneck, Fox News-watching mouth-breather cheers at that last comment, just remember: I hate you too. Your double-wide-living, gun-toting, piss-water-beer-drinking ass is next to useless as far as I’m concerned. At least those hippies on the other side have an education and will likely contribute to society once their “finding myself” phase is finally over. Other than paying for diabetes medication and breeding a new generation of factory workers, I honestly don’t know what it is you bring to the table.

Now why this long-winded preamble about ruins? Easy. One, I was at one. Duh. Two, I needed to sound cool to distract from the fact that I, even as a titan, had messed up.

I wasn’t listening to Morakesh when he was talking about . . . whatever the hell it was in the last chapter. I’d been thinking about all the juicy intel I could dig up on Eris thanks to Dutch’s backdoor access. As such, it completely slipped my mind that ruins in the fantasy world were oftentimes used as places for hungry monsters to attack adventurers. 

Morry probably wanted me to do something about that. But what was it?

******

A two-headed giant thing—ettins, I think they were called?—wait, yup, definitely an ettin—charged the group with a nearly eight-foot-long stone battle axe. Man, say what you will about GameLit worlds, being able to look up and see the name of the creature is kinda nice, especially when one considers—

“Jackson!” Lydia screamed as she ducked and rolled out of the way of a savage attack by one of these ettins. “Do your fucking part!”

Yeah . . . right. My part.

What was I supposed to do again?

Well, when in doubt, just do what other folks are doing and try to pick up on context clues. I took up something of a combat stance in an attempt to look . . . cool, I guess? Thinking back on Morry’s instructions, there was something about something being vital. Hmm . . . but what?

Lydia seemed to be handling herself all right. The ettin was massive, easily double a standard human in height, so roughly the size of your standard fantasy hill giant. It had two heads. One was bald, the other had shaggy red hair, and both were growling in some guttural language. Seeing as it was only level 50 or so, I didn’t see what the big deal was. Lydia clearly outleveled the thing. It’s not like it was—

“Oh, wait,” I said, snapping my fingers. “Ettins and such like to run in packs.”

I did a quick glance around an old, crumbled wall. And . . . yup. From our elevated position high in the rocky hills along the coast, I could clearly see that the former capital of the Eastern Empire was infested with ettins. In fact, there was a whole gods-damned tribe living in the ruins of Al’ Garrad.

Not just the giant-kin, no no. The place was practically crawling with another fantasy-genre classic—the Viking-inspired, hide-covered, rotten-toothed barbarian types. Oh, and of course their obligatory horde of dire wolves. Woof. Even at this distance, I could tell that these weren’t the fluffy, huggy kind like on Game of Thrones. These were the grizzly-bear-sized, eat-your-face-then-fuck-the-stump kind of dire wolves.

So what was it I was supposed to do? Was I supposed to fight? Make peace?

. . . Make love?

’Cause if was the latter, then them barbarian ladies were gonna need some emergency dentistry before I got freaky. Call me an asshole if you want, but look at me with a straight face and tell me that an improper tooth-to-gum ratio makes your naughty bits tingle. It’s why I never dated the British.

Hmm. There were a lot of monsters in the city ruins, and so few of us. What was it they wanted me to do here? You know what, fuck it. I’ve never really been like other guys. I can admit when I messed up. And when I’m lost, either driving or in the bedroom, I stop and ask for directions.

“Hey, so I kinda spaced when Morry was giving instructions,” I admitted to the group. “So what was it you needed me to do exactly?”

The ettin scout had managed to wrap a huge hand around my ex-wife’s throat, and despite her agility, was choking the life out of her.

“Oh for the love of—you’re doing it all wrong. Proper choking means squeezing the sides of the neck first, checking with your partner, then increasing pressure until lightheaded euphoria sets in.”

Mikalya was throwing arcane balls of fire at the creature, but considering the creature’s lack of response, it either had some kind of resistance to fire or it was made of hit points. Either way, it was not listening to my BDSM tips. And I hated being ignored.

So I snapped my fingers and the ettin, along with every other creature that crept and crawled in the ruins of Al’ Garrad, exploded into pink mist. Lydia, now covered in the dead monster’s viscera, fell to the ground, gasping for air. Her fiancé was likewise covered in aerated blood. Claudia stood there, shaking her head.

“What?”

“You were supposed to do that the moment we stepped through.”

Ooooh . . . that’s what they wanted me to do. I shrugged.

“Well, it’s done now.”

“And you’ve used your abilities to mask our location from any would-be forces that are closing in on this location?” the robotic woman asked.

“Um, yup,” I said, doing exactly that.

“Excellent,” Claudia said. “Then I suggest we head towards the ridgeline, where we can set up our camp and plan the ambush.”

“Lead the way,” I said, following her.

As I passed, Lydia cleared her throat.

“Jackson?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

“You are most welcome,” I said, bowing slightly before I added, “Stroganoff.”

She looked at me and actually smiled.

Play it cool, Jackson; that’s the way to do it. Play it cool. Now walk away and say nothing more. A little goes a long way. She’ll remember not only that you are reliable in high-pressure situations, but also that you remember exactly the way she likes to be choked, as well as your mutually agreed-upon safe word.

Yeah . . . that’s love, people.

But because I wasn’t above being a bit of a dick, I turned in such a way that Lydia could not see my face just so that I could shoot Mikayla the smuggest of grins.

Your move, bitch.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 37

Where I Feel Left Out, Grow Frustrated with Search Engines, and Stumble Upon a Realization

Turned out that Mikayla’s move was to make Lydia climax so loud and so hard that all other orgasms in the history of orgasms seemed like a mild case of the hiccups.

The ol’ “I’ll bang your ex so loudly you can’t ignore it” trick. A classic. And to be fair, an effective one. Especially for me.

See, folks, this mountain of man you’ve come to love was once young and still learning the ways of life. Prone to jealousy, if I’m being honest. And there was a time I was dating a wonderful girl. Little did I know, she was also dating several other people behind my back.

No big deal. I wasn’t married to her. But I did let her know I’d prefer if she were monogamous.

She then broke things off only to start dating the guy who lived in the apartment next to me. And by “dating,” I mean fucking like bunnies. Loudly.

She knew how thin the walls were.

Yeah, nothing quite like getting up to take a leak in the middle of the night and hearing your ex dramatically moan about how no one had ever made her feel this good before. Yeah . . . that stung a bit. 

So I’d told this to Lydia during our marriage and explained why I preferred to be open and honest with my partners. Which meant she’d told this to Mikayla, who in turn was using sex as a weapon. A very loud, very obvious weapon.

And just for you perverts out there, this wasn’t one or two times. No, no. This was going on all . . . bloody . . . night. I get that men and women typically have different needs when it comes to sex. But gods damn, sleep was a requirement for everyone.

Oh, fun fact about my ex-wife that I don’t mind sharing: when Lydia . . . um, reaches her peak, as it were, she doesn’t moan, per se. It’s more like a . . . well, you ever heard a screaming goat?

Yeah, I wasn’t ready for that one either.

Our first few times together . . . well, I did my best. But new partners need time to feel one another out. Get to know one another’s bodies and all that crap, which is really polite code for learning what she likes. Aside from some kinks, I was cursed with having a penis and having once been a teenage boy with ample time on his hands.

Needless to say, I can rub that thing against concrete and eventually get off. We’re a nasty lot.

So the first time Lydia truly died the little death with me—and I heard that horrifying sound—I not only thought I’d broken her, but also briefly considered trading her in.

Oh, don’t look at me like that. No one’s above being superficial. We’ve all broken off relationships over something stupid. Things like people who snort when they laugh, have ugly feet, or think Dr. Who is actually good.

But when you love someone, you love them for all their parts, not just the bits you tolerate. And while Lydia may sound like a braying donkey with a boiled potato up its ass, I’m sure my “O-face” isn’t exactly something I wanna put on a holiday card.

Well . . . not again, anyway.

When the sounds of those two picked back up, I sighed. Things had to be getting painful. Right? Rough, chafed, and tender? Dehydrated, at least. Hmm . . . if I were to go to their tent and offer them a canteen of water and a couple energy bars, would that be considered rude or pervy? Or both?

I didn’t need to sleep, hence my not having a tent of my own, so I was awake the whole time. I tried to appreciate the starry night sky and the beautiful fantasy landscape. Alas, all I was able to take in was the sound of my ex-wife with another person. Man, I could have really used a pillow right about then. Either to help drown out the noise or to smother myself.

I tried to push my brain in another direction by using Dutch’s backdoor access via my in-world UI. And while scanning the internal workings of Malum Lux was interesting, I’d yet to find a smoking gun. No matter how I phrased the search, I could not find a document, memo, or email called “Eris’s Master Plan To Screw Over Jackson.” Not that I thought it would be that easy, but a villain can dream.

I did see a few new business contracts between the Never Realm and other gods that Malum Lux had brokered, but that kind of business was par for the course back when I ran things. So what was it they were actually doing?

Hmm. Maybe it took a computer to search a computer? Maybe Claudia was free to talk? Shortly after setting up camp in a secluded spot above the ruins, I’d completed my end of the bargain and formally introduced her and Dutch.

It hadn’t been that hard, creating a link between the two. Titan power seemed to be similar to god power: if you want something to be true, you will it to be so. But even that thought was a little scary. What keeps titans from just wrecking everything? Or destroying themselves? Is it just the spectacle of existence that keeps them entertained?

Moving away from the sounds of sloppy sex, I spotted the automaton standing by the ridge, overlooking the ruined castle below. But Claudia was not moving. At all. Opening my senses, I listened in on their conversation, then immediately closed that shit down.

It would appear that Claudia and Dutch were having their own “special time.” Dutch’s not having a body didn’t stop these two artificial life forms from doing the digital do. Which sounded a lot like that old-school internet dial-up sound. The one where the modems were connecting. And when you think about it, that’s kinda what this was. A special kind of handshake between two consenting digital life forms.

Oh Claudia, you tramp. Ya just met the guy. Hopefully you’re using an adapter. I know it must not feel the same, but you have no idea what kind of viruses you could pick up.

So instead, I decided to take a walk around the perimeter of the old castle. I paused a while, just to watch the coastal waves of the Eastern Ocean crash into cliffside. After a bit, I made my way into ruins proper but was haunted by the memories of how Lydia and I fell in love. Through the wreckage, I could see into Grimskull’s old throne room, and I couldn’t help but remember.

And it hurt.

Leaving this body in Caledon, I mentally switched gears and tabbed over to the version of me in the Comic Universe. Blinking a few times to adjust to the darkness, I reasoned that it was also night there and that the vehicle was parked. Huh, were we there? Had it been a couple of days here already?

Everything was quiet, save for the soft snoring coming from little Tori Sato, asleep on one of the couches. She was almost cute.

Almost.

Little kids, even those with the reincarnated spirits of ancient beings, look creepy as hell when they sleep with their eyes open. Yuck.

Hmm . . . so where were the minions?

It appeared that we were parked along a hillside, overlooking a valley. I thought we weren’t supposed to park? Huh, the windshield was fixed. Maybe they stopped for that?

I got up quietly and opened the steampunk RV’s door. In the far distance, I could see the walled-off town of Handlung. Even from where I was, I could hear the screeching sounds of demons. The slavering beasts were still trying to breach those walls and get to the people inside. I saw the occasional flash of energy blasts, likely from one of the town’s few superheroes. The town seemed like it was holding out okay, but the army of demons was rolling pretty deep. It was just a matter of time.

Hmm . . . based on what I’d done to the tribe of monsters back in the Al’ Garrad ruins, I was pretty sure I could end this quickly by myself. Once that was done, I could get back to convincing the minions to come home with me. Once they saw how stupid this world was, they’d change their tune.

Stepping around the vehicle, I heard an unmistakable sound—the rhythmic pounding of flesh on flesh intermixed with throaty grunts of pleasure. Yup, off in a small clearing, Myst and Wraith Knight were making Shakespeare’s beast with two backs.

Yeesh. Was everyone getting lucky besides me?

While I hadn’t seen WK’s man-tackle directly, the guy was freaking huge. If things remained in proportion, I kinda felt bad for Myst. Sure, a vagina is built to pass a child, but that’s after nine and a half months of hormones and preparation. But clearly they’d worked out their issues, as her moans were of pleasure, not pain.

Hmm. Not that long ago she would have been making those sounds with Lydia and me on special occasions. But there I was once again, the odd titan out.

Maybe this was the way it was supposed to be. Maybe I really was just supposed to move on and let everyone live their lives. Was I really hoping that one last hurrah would satisfy my soul? Or that by doing this, I would convince them that they were better off with me than without me? Clearly, they were just fine. Better than fine, really. They were . . .

So gods-damned better off, it was as if by design.

Oh mother f—

Before I finished that thought I slipped once more, leaving my Comic Universe body to head back to Paige and Randy in the Prime Universe, hoping against all hope that they had not gone full hillbilly and started boning. 

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 38

Where I Point Out Human Truths, Convert a Cabin into an Office, and Admit That Paige is Right

I came to in Randy’s one-room cabin at night. Springing up from the crappy couch where I’d been parked, I dashed over to his bed and shook him.

“Hey, wake up!”

“Hmm? Why?” Randy groaned.

“Because you’re all better off without me!”

“You woke me up to tell me the obvious?” Randy grumbled, then tried to roll back over.

Ugh. I shook the little shit just a touch harder. Not for dramatic, storytelling reasons, but—but because it felt right. You know? Like putting on a pair of old, comfortable shoes.

“Listen, dick-nuts, your mom said it best. Y’all have been suckling at my teat for years. I’m the reason you, Lydia, and the minions have gotten as far as you have.”

“And we’re clearly doing better without you.”

“Exactly!” I said, letting him go.

“Uncle Jackson, are you like . . . high?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, a stupid grin plastered across my face. “I’m on the greatest high of all time, dear nephew.”

“Molly? You have some?”

“What? No! I’m talking about my favorite drug—me being right! Seriously, feel these nipples! You could cut glass with them I feel so good right now.”

Randy sighed. Seeing that he was not getting back to sleep, my nephew sat up in his bed and wiped at the corners of his bleary eyes. “Dude, I’m not following.”

“Of course not,” I said. “I haven’t explained it to you yet.”

“Then will you please hurry up so I can go back to sleep?”

I just shook my head. “Once, you were my greatest nemesis. Now look at you.”

“Self-sufficient?”

“Exactly!” I repeated. “You and your mother both. A touch hillbilly, sure, but you’re one hundred percent self-sufficient. For shit’s sake, she’s smart now!”

“So?” Randy said. “You were gone and we had to survive. People change.”

“Hah hah! No they fucking don’t!” I said, giddily laughing. “And you know it. People are sacks of shit. They start as babies literally sitting in their shit. They become shitty kids who then grow into even shittier adults, replacing the physical shit with their emotional shit, which they shovel onto everyone around them. Only to get old and once again, sit in their shit.”

“Please tell you didn’t wake me up for one of your misanthropic rants. I really did not miss those while you were gone.”

“Yes you did,” I said.

Randy sighed again. “Look, Uncle Jackson, people can change. Mom and I are proof.”

“And that, dear nephew, is textbook confirmation bias. Because you did it, you assume anyone can do it. You were born with a genius-level intellect. But you were also born incredibly lazy.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh please,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. “You thought you were doing some master-stroke evil-genius thing when you tried bringing me down. It was cute. But you could have been using that intellect of yours to build something for yourself instead of trying to take what was mine.”

I then tapped a finger on his forehead for emphasis.

“This here gray matter of yours could have done anything it wanted to. But doing something for yourself, taking calculated risks, daring to try, was too fucking scary. Instead, you worked your ass off to leech from me. I bet you’ve been into the nearby redneck town and can point at the ones who ‘can’t work’ for some reason but are secretly Sherlock fucking Holmes when it comes to milking the system for free money.”

“I, uh . . . I know a few.”

“Damn right you do. And that’s my point. Many people can do, but don’t want to do. People are biologically capable of change and self-improvement, sure. But that takes effort. Real, I’m not shitting around here, effort. People would rather blame the environment, their upbringing, society, or whatever neurological ailment of the day will get them the most sympathy.”

“Yeah, blame the victim.”

“Are you not listening to me?” I asked. “I never shame those actually incapable of being productive. I’m a villain, not a dick. I’m blaming people like you who have the aptitude but refuse to use it.”

“I am using it!” Randy said, raising his voice. “Mom and I both are!”

“No . . . you’re not,” I said, my smile returning. “It’s impossible. Well . . . improbable, really.”

“Uncle, please, let me go back to—”

“Nineteen percent,” I said.

“What?”

“Look, there’ve been a million studies done, but the gist of it is this: nearly seventy-five percent of people claim they want to change their behavior. Over fifty percent try, but only nineteen percent can keep that new behavior going for two years. That is less than one in five. So how can you, your mother, Wraith Knight, Myst, and Lydia all be better off without me? How can each of you be living their best life now?”

“They . . . we can’t?” Randy said, his eyes darting back and forth as the weight of what I was saying finally kicked in. “One, maybe two. But all five? It’s a statistical improbability.”

“Exactly,” I said for a third and final time. “This was their plan all along. Get me to doubt myself, think that I was the thing holding everyone back, and then move on.”

“Well, you were kinda—”

“Shut your ass and listen up,” I said, waving my hand. As I did, a pair of those fancy-ass office-style standing desks appeared, complete with futuristic-looking desktop computers and monitors.

Randy blinked several times. “How did you do that?”

“Uh . . . titan?”

“Yeah, but won’t you be pissing off the god from the Prime Universe? Speaking of, who is the god of this—”

“Noooope,” I said, cutting him off. “Bad enough that half the shit I say borders on cancellation. You aren’t entrapping me with that one.”

“Heh,” Randy chuckled. “Thought I’d try. For old time’s sake.”

“Yeah yeah,” I said, tapping the computer. “These are from where my main body is located.”

“Your main body has access to computers and office furniture?”

I nodded. “It’s like this weird training station for titans. Basically a facsimile of a generic corporate office.”

“Blue-gray carpet with the ripple pattern?”

I shuddered. “Yup.”

“Oh,” Randy said. “Sounds like Hell.”

“Pretty much my words exactly,” I agreed.

I then proceeded to fill Randy in on what I’d been doing since I last left him and his mom. We had to pause the debrief for a few minutes for Randy to stop laughing when I got to the sex stuff.

“Can you please be mature about this?”

“A screaming goat?”

I hung my head. “Yes, a screaming goat. But that’s not what’s important. It’s the backdoor access that—”

“I bet they did a little backdoor access on one another as well.”

“I—okay, fine. Laugh it up. You wanna stay in the woods forever, stinking like an orangutan’s taint, be my guest. Because no matter how this plays out, I’m gonna traipse across the cosmos in friggin’ luxury.”

“So these computers are tied to Malum Lux’s internal network?” Randy said, sobering up.

“Yeah, I thought so,” I said with a glare. “But yes, I’ve gained UI access into these machines via my Caledon self. So I want you to make whatever backwoods crap you have that passes for coffee so we can start researching.”

“Researching what?”

“I have my theories, but I don’t want to send you down a path I’m not sure about. And, loath as I am to admit, you’re better at this kind of stuff, and I need a second set of eyes.”

“How about a third set?” Paige asked as she came into Randy’s small cabin.

I looked at my sister with more than a touch of confusion. She simply adjusted her robe, kicked off her boots, and rolled her eyes.

“You two are very loud in a very quiet place,” she explained. “So, do you have a third computer?”

I smiled at her and snapped my fingers.

********

A few hours later, just as the sun began to rise, Paige made an announcement. One that I never thought I’d hear her say, let alone agree with. 

“I think you’ve gotten dumber,” she said, pointing at her screen.

“Look, I don’t think that—”

“No, she’s right,” Randy agreed from where he stood over her shoulder. “You’ve missed a step. Or two.”

“Listen assholes, I—”

“Look for yourself,” Paige said, pointing at her screen. “Based on what I’ve found, you of all people really should have seen this coming.”

I gulped down the rest of Randy’s incredibly potent campfire coffee, set the mug aside, and stormed over to Paige.

“Okay smart ass, show me.”

Paige stepped back from the standing desk, allowing me a front-row view. And sadly, it didn’t take long. I looked at the various tabs and documents she had up on her screen and shook my head.

“Huh. Ya know what? You’re right. I really, really should have seen all this.”

“It’s okay, Uncle. We all make mistakes.”

“Your mom made one when she refused to give up the butt the night of your conception.”

“Well, that’s not true,” Paige said. “That definitely happened. After, of course. My mistake was not bringing a condom for the first round.”

She and I both laughed while Randy groaned.

“Well now that you see what’s going on, what are you going to do?”

I lit a cigarette and smiled.

“I promised Dutch that I would find a way to piss in everyone’s cornflakes. Now that I know how Eris and gods have conspired against me, I think the truth shall set me free.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Randy asked.

“Violence, dear nephew. Copious amounts of violence.”

“What do you need us to do?” Paige asked.

“For now, rest up. I dunno how things are gonna go, so be ready for anything.”

“It would be easier to relax if I had my, you know, my—”

A brown paper bag manifested in my hand. Pulling crap from one universe to another had gotten a bit easier, and I figured that Paige had earned this gift.

“Happy humping, sis.”

She hugged me while Randy sighed.

“God, this family is fucked up.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 39

Where I Bother a Secretary, Talk to Eris, and Start the Third Act

In case you were unaware, practice really does makes perfect. I know that’s an old adage that everyone knows, but so few actually understand it. Like my little rant before about humans and their ability to change. People know they have to work at something to get better. But do they do it? Hah . . . no.

People like the idea of work. That’s far easier than the application. A session or two into anything is enough to make folks say “No thanks.” Doesn’t matter if it’s sports, exercise, music lessons, or education. If a person’s not naturally gifted right off the bat, then they just quit. I mean, why put in the hours of effort to be average, right?

Because in this case, it’s the journey, not the destination. The decision to do, and the willpower to continue to do, translates to all other skills in your life. Knock out one goal, and damned if the others don’t seem just a bit more attainable. Or if you prefer a shorter, t-shirt-worthy axiom: success is addictive.

That’s why I’m pleased to announce that after getting off to an admittedly rocky start, your best pal Jackson has pretty much mastered being a titan. Well, maybe not everything. The switching bit is still tricky. But taking down Eris and the gods? Heh . . . I got this shit on lock.

Mostly.

“Um . . . sir,” the receptionist said, looking confused. “Do you have an appointment?”

“No, I don’t,” I said, staring at the professional-looking young man in a sweater vest. “But I think Eris will want to see me.”

“Ms. Pence,” the receptionist corrected, “is a very busy woman. And since you’ve hacked into our intercom system and ranted about success, I’m fairly certain that security is on the way.”

“Oh, I’m sure they are . . .” I trailed off, looking for a name tag on his shirt or a placard on his desk.

“Simon,” he offered.

“You sure? You don’t look like a Simon.”

“Well, it’s my name.”

“What universe ya from, Simon?”

“I—I’m not comfortable sharing that information with you, sir.”

I chuckled. “Fair enough. But from looking at you, my guess is . . . Comic Universe?”

“I—”

“Bah,” I said, waving a hand. “Doesn’t matter. I’m sure you are. King Stanley has so many sub-universes inside that place he doesn’t know what to do with all his extras.”

“I am not an extra,” Simon said. “I am a valued member of the Malum Lux team, and I—”

“You’re cheap labor,” I finished. “And frankly, you look like the guy in all the stock footage photos corporations use to flesh out their briefings on synergy and team building.”

“That is hurtful, sir.”

“Truth usually is,” I said. “But the fact remains simple, Simon: you and all your ilk are being used as test subjects. But seeing as how I once ran this place and will again, I’m always willing to keep on employees with a can-do attitude. However, would you be willing to change your name to Trent? I miss when I had a receptionist named Trent.”

“No?”

“See,” I tsked, “that’s a can-don’t attitude. That won’t get ya far, Trent.”

“Simon,” he corrected.

“Ya got a bunch of porn on your computer Trent?” I asked. “I’ve heard y’all love the nasty stuff here.”

“No sir, I do not.”

“And that’s strike three,” I said, turning to see the brutish, ogre-sized alien creatures in full combat gear walking towards me.

“Three?” Simon said.

“You were not very cordial when I asked where you were from, you refused to change your name, and the worst offense of all? You lied to me about porn. Tsk tsk. Don’t you know who I am?”

“He’s bag of rancid assholes,” a voice called out.

I turned to Simon and nodded. “I have been called that more than you think. But I’m Jackson Blackwell. The once and future Shadow Master.”

“Jackson,” Steve said as he came up to stand in front of me. My former employee stood tall and proud in his synthetic body. “Eris wants to see you.”

I looked from his navel to his eyes, then back and forth a few more times.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but where do you want me to address you?” I asked. “I know you’re really down there, but do you see up here?”

“My eyes are just fine,” Steve growled.

“Aww, are you still sore because of our last little tiff?”

“You put my soul in a candleholder and left me to rot in lava.”

“You betrayed and conspired against me,” I countered, then added, “twice. I’d call us square. Besides, you get to be an executive assistant now, while I’m stuck being a boring ol’ run-of-the-mill cosmos-wandering titan. You might actually be winning this battle. So how does Eris like her coffee?”

“Expensive and bitter,” Steve said without an ounce of humor. “Now please be so kind as to follow me.”

I smiled. “Lead the way.”

“Clear the way, people,” Steve bellowed the way that only a former Marine can. “Clear the way. We have a TiT-E coming through. Just a big ol’, middle-aged, floppy TiT-E.”

Hmm . . . his humor seems to have improved. I don’t care for that.

********

“Damn, I look good,” I said once the doors to Eris’s office closed. I walked over to where my former human body was on display in the case beside her desk. I looked the old me up and down. “Whoever did the stuffing and mounting did a great job.”

“Why don’t you crawl back in there and we’ll take you out with the rest of the garbage?” Steve suggested.

“Steven,” Eris said. The single use of his name was a clear warning.

The large man threw up his hands. “What? It’s not like we want him here.”

“Why are you here, Jackson?” Eris said from behind her desk, barely able to maintain her composure. She was dressed in a brilliant white, feminine-cut business suit with just a few tasteful accessories. Every inch of her radiated calm power. As she should have. She was the power in this realm.

Good. I wanted her at her A-game best.

I stopped admiring myself and walked by her desk.

“I thought it was time that you and I have a talk,” I said, rapping my knuckles on the surface. “Hmm, African blackwood?”

Eris sighed. “Yes.”

I tapped the desk again. “Mm . . . don’t think so. Pretty sure this is ebony. Still from Africa and still expensive, but I think you got ripped off.”

“Are you here to discuss her desk?” Steve asked.

I chuckled. “No, I’m not.”

Stepping away, I walked over to the office’s recessed lounge area, unbuttoned my sport coat, and took a seat on the couch.

“I’m here to reclaim my empire,” I said. “The easiest thing for you to do is just hand it over.”

“Why?” she asked. “I beat you.”

“Yet here I am.”

Eris shook her head. “You used a loophole.”

“And that’s called playing the game,” I countered. “You used my own faults against me. You combed through my work, found my mistakes, and weaponized them. I’m actually impressed. Which is why when this is all said and done, I think you should work for me.”

Eris started to laugh. Not the classic supervillain maniacal cackle, but an honest, full-throated belly laugh.

“You—heh heh, you think I would work . . . for you?”

I just maintained my smile and said nothing. This lack of reaction sobered her up. Eris stood, crossed the space of her office, and took the chair opposite me, just the tasteful crystal coffee table between us. She crossed her long legs and looked right into my eyes.

“What’s your angle?”

“No angle,” I said. “Just eventuality. I’m going to win.”

“Not if I can help it,” said a new but very familiar voice. 

Appearing out of nothingness, Sophia stood behind Eris, still wearing her stained, snack-crumb-encrusted clothing.

This was the first time I’d laid eyes on her since the moment she shot me dead in my crappy apartment. She still seethed with the same cold hate. I just glared back.

Hell, the only way this could have been better is if an Old West tumbleweed blew between us while some off-camera guy played that sound bite from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The one that goes “Waa-wa-waaaaaa.”

“Sophia,” I said with a shake of my head. “You’ve looked better.”

“Yeah, you’ve caught me at a bit of low moment,” Sophia admitted. “But things will pick up once you’ve been dealt with.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?” I asked. “I’m a—”

“Yes, we get it!” Sophia boomed, cutting me off. She affected a mocking impersonation of me. “I’m a titan now. Did you know I’m a titan? Hey everyone, titan titan titan. Gods above and below, don’t you have anything original to say?”

“It’s your move,” I said.

“What?” Eris said.

“It’s your move,” I repeated, ignoring Sophia and directing my gaze towards Eris. “You think you have something on me. An ace in the hole, as it were. Either something so devastating that it’ll destroy me or it will force me to move on and forget about all this. So play it. Go on. I’ll watch.”

“You sure?” Eris asked. “I think you know what’s at stake.”

“My friends and family,” I said. “Yes, I know. Go on. Let’s finish this. Let these stories in their respective worlds play out.”

“Just so you can snap your fingers and undo everything? No way,” Steve said from behind me.

“Oh, Steven, my apologies—I forgot you were there. Would you be so kind as to get us all some refreshments?”

“Refreshments?” he said. “Are you out of your damn mind?”

“A nice scotch I think would be best.”

“There’s liquor on the coffee table.”

“And no doubt it’s very good,” I said. “But if you get me a nice glass of scotch—the good stuff, mind you, from Eris’s private stash—then I will return you to your body,” I said.

“Oh bullshit.”

“On my word,” I said. “Get me a proper drink and you will no longer be trapped in that candleholder.”

I didn’t need to turn around to see his face. The look on Eris’s told me everything I needed to know.

“Would either of you two care for anything?” Steve asked Eris and Sophia.

“A scotch would be nice,” Eris said.

“Your finest malt liquor and maybe some Doritos,” Sophia said. “Cool Ranch, of course.”

I just shook my head.

After Steve left the office, Eris leaned back in her chair, eyes still on me.

“He’s not wrong. What assurances do I have that you’ll play fair?”

“Ha, none!” I laughed. “None whatsoever. I’m not going to play fair, and neither are you two. This is me against you, all of you, as you’ve no doubt enlisted the gods and Y’olly to your side. But come now, Eris—you know that deep down you wanna go up against me again. The last fight we had was just the warmup.”

“Don’t do it,” Sophia cautioned. “If this is what he wants, then don’t give it to him.”

“It’s been explained to me that titans, while incredibly powerful, are just amped-up versions of gods who play on a slightly different level, correct?”

“More or less,” I said. “And I’m still pretty new at this. Me and my new power against you and your plans. What do you have to lose? Oh, that’s right . . . everything. But those are the best stakes, aren’t they?”

“They are,” Eris agreed.

“And you’ve been exceptionally bored, I’m sure,” I said. “No, I haven’t been spying on you. Well, I have a little. But remember, I’ve done this job. I know how soul-crushing it can be.”

“Fine,” Eris said, her eyes widening just a little in anticipation and, unless I missed my guess, excitement. “Let’s play.”

Eris waved her hand and three monitors appeared in the air, each one showing a feed from a different universe. The imagery reminded me of one of those massive sports bars frequented by people destined to die of heart attacks or diabetes.

I nodded. “Excellent.”

I was there, in front of her. But I was also in three other locations as well. She knew that. While I hadn’t reached true omnipotence, I could switch back and forth among my avatars pretty quickly, and she knew that as well.

But Eris didn’t back down.

No, she sat there with bold, unwavering confidence. Which meant that from where she sat, she could affect events in the other realms. Like a true Shadow Master.

Good.

Gods above and below, I even felt a little giddy. That little tingle you get down deep in your no-no parts when things get exciting. Not for nothing, but when I get a good idea or get really excited about a project, I first feel it in my under-grundle.

Just me?

Eh.

“As I said, it’s your move.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 40

Where I Snap Like Thanos, Fail Miserably, and Fulfill My Promise

“Huh . . . good move,” I said when the golden sun rose, bringing with it Kyle Hawker and his entourage.

“What’s that?” Lydia said from beside me as the pair of us peered over the ridge.

“Nothing,” I said, watching as Hawker, his thirteen holy knights, and a mage appeared just outside the ruins of the old castle. The magical, semicircular gate that transported them crackled with silvery energy before winking out of existence.

Each one of his paladin guards were level 75 and had usernames like “Willma DicFit,” “TickleMyElmo,” and “YourMom’sOnlyFan.” Yup, real holy rollers there. The mage, a level-80 Battle Arcanist, was named . . . sigh. “PocketRocket.”

I swear to all the gods above and below, I hate gamer culture. I really do.

But based on their respective ranks, each one was a comparable matchup to the group. And there were a lot more of them than there were of us. And then of course, there was Hawker himself.

Kyle Hawker, Lord Protector of Southlands New Dawn, Level 200. His golden, raid-boss-level ID tag glowed nearly as brightly as his incredibly enchanted armor and weapons. Hell, the horse he rode in on was level 100.

“What?” Lydia asked. “What’s a good move?”

“This,” I said from our hidden vantage point. “Hawker and his crew. By himself, he’s a powerhouse. With his horse and his knights, he’s a gods-damned machine.”

“Give me the right opening, a perfect shot, and the right dose of poison, and I could kill a god.”

I smiled at that.

“What?” she repeated. “What are you smiling about?”

“This,” I said, gesturing back and forth. “Us. I—I missed . . . this.”

“Jackson,” she said, her eyes turned down.

“Come on,” I said. “Tell me this doesn’t remind you of when we first met. You and me, quietly staking out the enemy.”

“That was in the lair of General Anders, not Grimskull’s castle.”

“I know,” I said. “But you can’t deny the similarities. I mean—”

“Did you ask me up here to help be a lookout, or to try and woo me back? Mikayla said you’d probably try something like this.”

I felt my heart grow just a tad heavier.

“No, I know I can’t win you back. It’s clear you’re with her. Gods above and below, you’re basically obsessed with her.”

“And?” Lydia said. “What’s wrong with that? I think I’ve been civil, Jackson, but maybe you don’t really recall what it was like when we were together. You got to be the snarky, smarmy, everyone-look-at-me-and-my-antics Shadow Master. I had to be the one who was reserved and collected. The adult. The one who had to be ready to bail you out of trouble. I don’t miss that.”

“Do you miss me?”

“No,” she said so fast that it felt rehearsed, like she had been waiting for that question. “I don’t. I love Mikayla. I love how free I feel. How in control of my own life I am now. I love—I love how she makes me feel.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Everyone for miles around heard that one.”

“You could have joined us,” Lydia said, a sinister smile on her lips. “Mikayla said as much. A little fun for old time’s sake?”

“No thank you,” I said.

Lydia cocked her head slightly. “Really? That’s not the Jackson I remember.”

I nodded. “True. The Jackson you remember loved having debaucherous sex with his wife. You and me, you me and Myst, you me Myst and a whole gods-damned marching band? Sure, bring it on. I can still play butt-trumpet better than anyone. But at the core of all that was you and me. I don’t want to bang my ex when she loves someone else.”

“Your loss.” Lydia shrugged, as if my words had meant nothing.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, my voice trailing off. “What about Evie?”

“She’s too young for sex.”

“No!” I shook my head. “Why don’t you care about where she is?”

“This may come as a surprise, Jackson, but I never got to make that choice,” she said. “You knocked me up the first night we screwed. It wasn’t something I planned on, or honestly, wanted. Even our relationship was rushed because of the baby. Sure, she grew up fast and I didn’t have to deal with the shittier parts of rearing a child. But it was never something I wanted. So now she’s off doing whatever? Good. I wish her well.”

“Sophia has her somewhere,” I pressed.

“And that’s not my problem,” Lydia said, looking past me at the forces below. “They’re moving into the ruins. Can you deal with them like you did the barbarians or not?”

I stared at her for a few more seconds, the memories of the life we once had all vying for top position in my mind. I continued staring until the shape of her face blurred and became unrecognizable.

The face of a stranger.

“Yeah,” I whispered and snapped my fingers.

“. . . Is something supposed to happen?” Lydia asked.

I furrowed my brow, then perched up a bit to peer down at the ruins below. Huh. There should have been a collection of wet pulp down there. But I didn’t even scuff the shine off their armor. So I snapped again. And again, nothing happened.

“Performance issues?” Lydia offered.

“Piss off,” I swore, turning my full attention to Hawker and his forces.

Dutch? I thought.

Sorry bud, Dutch said. They should have been deleted. But there’s all kinds of new influence coming in. There’s something else going on.

Is it what we talked about?

Yeah, I think it is.

“Okay,” I said aloud to both Lydia and Dutch. “I think I know what’s going on.”

“You’re not as good as you think you are?” Lydia said, then added, “Per usual?”

“Just circle back to the group and hang tight. Things might get . . . weird,” I told her before shifting focus back to Eris’s domain.

********

“Not bad,” I said, leaning back on Eris’s couch and crossing my legs. “But gods making a wish? Isn’t that a bit beneath you two?”

Caledon’s High God of Justice and the Queen of Darkness stood behind Sophia. Valliar and Khasil each had a hand on one of her shoulders. It didn’t take a deity or a titan to sense the flows of power being funneled from them into the Djinn. My former secretary practically vibrated with the juice that the gods were providing.

“I can’t have you killing noble, sentient, soul-possessing paladins in my service,” Valliar said.

“And a Djinn’s wish magic can rival the power of a titan,” Khasil sneered, looking over my shoulder at the screen depicting the events in Caledon. “Well, at least a titan as young as you.”

“Damn right,” Sophia said, her human form slipping a bit as all four of her eyes were trained on me.

“Hmm.” I smiled. “But can you do that everywhere?” 

********

“Um . . . boss?!”

“Shh, just relax,” I told Wraith Knight as I slipped over the divider, positioned myself between his legs, and just kinda felt around.

What?

Oh, don’t look at me like that. I had to test a theory. And since ol’ WK refused my command to ram the demons at full speed, I had to take action. His legs were longer than mine, so finding the accelerator took a few tries.

Why, what did you think I was talking about?

“Boss, this is an uncomfortable workplace environment,” Wraith Knight said as I continued to wiggle myself into a driving position.

“No, you’ve made it abundantly clear that neither of you two works for me anymore. So it’s not workplace harassment. Unwelcome attention, sure. But I’m not trying to raise your flagpole, I’m trying to smush some demons.”

“Why?”

“You said that the Rumbler could do some serious damage.”

“I said it had firepower,” Wraith Knight corrected. “This is just gratuitous.”

“Heh heh, yeah,” I laughed. “Plus, it looks really damn cool.”

The battle wagon plowed through the horde of demons outside the walls of Handlung, sending the sulfur-sniffing schmucks flying. Sure, the splattering ichor got all over the new windshield, but that’s what wipers are for.

“Okay, so we can hurt them,” I said, whipping the steering wheel about while pulling the e-brake, drifting the Rumbler through a few more demons.

“Well, of course we can,” Myst said from the passenger seat. “That’s what we’re here to do. To help break the siege of Handlung.”

“Handlung Schmandlung,” I said, waving that notion of heroism away. “This was never about them. Just sit tight. I need to check something else.”

The Rumbler idled, its engine thrumming like the growl of a hungry beast. Every one of the Never Realm denizens in the area stared at us with murderous intent.

Good.

“Boss?” Wraith Knight said.

“Just be patient,” I said. “I’m working something out.”

“I wish to dive into the battle now,” Tori said from the back of the Rumbler.

“Yeah, and I wish that every Instagram model would ditch their unearned sense of entitlement,” I said with a shrug. “But you know what they say, wish in one hand, crap in the other and see which one fills up first.”

Myst kept her eyes on the demons but turned a little towards me. “Then what are we doing?”

“This,” I said, then snapped my fingers.

And once again, nothing happened.

********

“Oh come the fuck on, they’re demons,” I chided Y’olly, who now too stood behind Sophia, lending her his power. “It’s not like they have souls. I should be able to snap them away pretty easy. They’re just cannon fodder.”

The big demon in the white business suit shook his head at me.

“Jacky boy, that’s just hurtful. Of course they have souls. I make sure that each one of them carries a spare around in their back pocket. A growing demon needs to eat.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Those born of the Never Realm are still sentient,” Y’olly protested. “Besides, my minions are fulfilling a contract.”

“That is correct,” King Stanley said from the chair next to Eris. The befuddled-looking old man visage dropped a touch when his eyes crackled with power. “These sentient beings have full authority to operate in my universe. Therefore, they have the same protections as any native.”

“Native, huh?”

“That’s right,” said the old god, crossing his legs. “And I believe that you’ll find said combatants both here and in Caledon are quite formidable. Backed by our power, and Sophia’s Djinn wish-fulfillment abilities, of course, said ‘cannon fodder’ is more than capable of tearing your allies apart.”

“Indeed,” Valliar agreed.

“I’m glad you said that,” I said as Steve came back into Eris’s office, a silver tray of drinks and snacks in his hands. My former employee stared daggers my way, but I just smiled.

“Is that my scotch?”

Steve looked to Eris, and the dark-skinned woman in the immaculate white business suit simply nodded.

“Yes,” he sighed, stepping up to me and leaning the tray forward.

“You spit in this?” I asked with a wary eye.

“Believe me, I wanted to,” Steve said. “But no.”

I took the drink, sipped at the scotch, found it to be spit free, and nodded.

“Thank you, Steven,” I said. “And as for our bargain, I am a man of my word. I release you from my spell. Your soul is now free of that candlestick.”

“Thank you, I—”

Steve never finished his sentence as his body, along with everyone else’s refreshments, fell to the floor. All eyes went to me.

“What?” I said, taking another sip. “He went back to his real body.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 41

Where I Know When to Walk Away, Say Hi to Hawker, and Have a Headache

“Oh, Eris. Eris Eris Eris . . . you did fish out Steve’s real body from that lava pit, didn’t you? You know, when you mined my first recorded adventure, Villains Rule, for data about me, you saw that’s where it ended up, didn’t you?”

She didn’t need to answer. I already knew.

And I loved rubbing it in.

“Huh. I seem to recall you coming into my old office, all swagger and venom, practically pontificating about how smart you were in finding my old throwaway minions. Sophia, you remember. You were there. She was the cock-of-the-walk that day, just big dick swinging as she strutted around the office, telling me how dumb I was and how she was so clever. Yet she never took the time to grab poor Stevie’s corpse and reconstruct it. Seriously, Eris, did it never occur to you that you couldn’t break my spell because there was nothing for his soul to return to? That it was me, not Eris Pence, that was keeping Steve alive? Sophia, you remember? Oh my, you okay, Sophia? You’re not looking too good.”

My former personal assistant and best friend was sweating now. Her human form was all but gone, revealing the Djinn beneath. All four of her cat-like eyes stared back at me with malevolent intent. Sophia’s smile widened, revealing many rows of needle-like teeth.

“I can do this all day.”

“Yeah yeah, settle down there, Captain America,” I sniffed, then returned my attention to Eris. “So, I’m gonna take that as a no then on Steve’s body?”

“No,” Eris said, her jaw muscles twitching. “Are we sure he’s gone?”

“Y’olly, you wanna field this one?” I asked.

The big demon’s eyes fluttered for a second. “Oh yeah, Jackson ain’t lying. Steve’s toast. Like, literally. His spirit was released and it went back to his body, which was . . . sadly, left in that Caledon lava pit.”

“Heh heh,” I chuckled. “You hijacked my personal assistant, now I took yours away.”

Eris smirked. “Y’olly, dear, how long would it take to have him reprocessed?”

Y’ollgorath, Exalted One from the eighth plane of the Never Realm, gave me the shittiest of looks. “For you, dear Eris? I can have him fast-tracked through metamorphosis and have him here before close of business. Would you prefer a classic demon, an incubus, or something more ferocious? Oh, maybe one of those suit-and-tie demons? The real clean-cut devil type your clientele would—”

“Will you two shut the hell up?!” Sophia snapped, her eyes growing colder as they looked at me. “You know, don’t you?”

The left side of my mouth turned upward into a playful smirk.

“Assumed,” I admitted. “But they pretty much confirmed it all for me.”

“What, what does he know?” Eris asked.

“Why don’t we just watch, and see how things play out?” I said, turning back towards the three monitors.

********

Kyle Hawker guided his horse through the ruins, calling out directions for his paladins. The mage never left his side. I knew that last bit had to be pissing Lydia off. Mages, especially those trained in the martial skills, were little pricks who could deflect an assassin’s arrow with but a thought.

“Move, you little shit,” Lydia said under her breath, the tip of the enchanted crossbow trained on Hawker.

“Maybe I should create a distraction?” Mikayla offered. “I could circle back down the ridge and draw some away?”

“Not a bad idea,” Lydia said. “But play it smart. Too much and the caster will be glued to Hawker’s side. Too little and only a couple of the paladin will peel off. Maybe take Claudia with you. That way it will seem like a bigger threat.”

“I know my job,” Mikayla said, flames dancing on her hand. “Unlike some people, my skills can be counted on. I always get the job done, in more ways than one.”

Lydia sniffed. “So true. Jackson? It isn’t like you to stay quiet. Nothing to add? Jackson . . . Jackson?”

Yeah, I was about done with that shit. So I got up, leveraged myself over the edge of the ridge, and slid my way down the hillside towards the ruins, avoiding all the big or sharp rocks as best I could. I’d rather walk into oncoming traffic than sit around while a couple of hot snarky ladies insulted me by using the ol’ “attack the male ego” thing.

I’m not in my twenties anymore.

Life lesson, folks: if a fella is acting like a dude-bro past thirty, he’s an asshole and you should just walk away. And for every fuck-boy there’s a fuck-girl who doesn’t feel seen by society at large. Trust me, there’s too much parental damage there for you to fix.

Leading psychologists tend to agree that that kind of behavior comes from a lack of being seen, or their internalized feelings as such. Hence the douche-plumage they wear physically and the emotional psychobabble they spout. In the era when I grew up, those types of folks became all artsy-fartsy, put on flannel, and created grunge music, which is proto-emo for you younger folk. These days? Woof. They’re all eyebrow-threading jag-offs, hiding behind overpriced fashionable clothes.

And the older they get, the worse they are. In my day we would just call them assholes and move on. But times being what they are, we need to study and examine these deficient specimens. By which I mean binging entire seasons of matchmaking television. Across multiple cultures, there is one constant: an asshole is an asshole, and if you can’t get over your own damage, you will remain a lonely asshole.

I should know.

So when I reached the edge of the castle ruins, several of the paladins rushed towards me in their gleaming, spotless armor. I just put my hands up and said the following:

“Couple of assholes and one cool robot up past that ridge are planning on killing Kyle Hawker. So either take me to him or stab me in the ears. Last thing I need to hear is that shit anymore.”

********

“Surrendering? That’s not like you at all,” Eris said, crossing her long legs. “Admitting defeat, now that’s more like you. Knowing when you’re bested is one of the few things I like about you. You know your place.”

I mimed looking to my left and then my right before turning back to her. “Is anyone else here buying this? Woman, please. You took my business, yes. You got one over on me. But you came out of nowhere and sucker punched me. Sure, that’s a great villain tactic, no doubt. But you, none of you, could seal the deal. I’m still here, better than ever. And I’m coming for your shit. All y’all’s shit.”

********

“Jackson . . . Blackwell?” Kyle Hawker said in disbelief when several of his paladins brought me to him at swordpoint. I raised my bound hands in greeting.

“Heya Hawker, long time. So, how you been?”

“I am . . . well,” he said, confusion on his face. “What—what are you doing here?”

I turned slightly to regard his companions. “Is all this necessary? We are old friends, after all.”

“Lord Protector,” one of the paladins said, banging a gauntleted fist against his breastplate while lowering his eyes. “This one claims to be part of a conspiracy to assassinate you.”

“No,” I corrected, “I said I have traveled with a group sent to kill young Mr. Hawker here. Personally, I’m trying to win my wife back.”

“Is this true?” Hawker said.

“Well . . . yes,” I said, then added, “the saving my marriage bit. Not the assassins. Well, I guess that part is also true, and that I am with them. But not with them with them. Does any of this make sense?”

“No,” Hawker said, slowly shaking his head in frustration. “Not even a little.”

“Figures. And it would take too long to explain everything,” I huffed, “so here’s the quick version. Lydia is up on that ridge—you remember Lydia, right? Anywho, after I left you all, she and I got married and had adventures, I died, I got better, but she moved on. So I’m trying to win her back, but don’t tell her I said as much.”

I turned and waved my bound hands again at the ridge.

“Hey Lydia, look, it’s Hawker. Remember all the fun times we had?”

“Are you a fucking idiot?!” I heard her cry out from the ridgeline.

“Great gal, really great. So yeah, she is here to kill you and kick off some war. I’m down here to stop that.”

“Why?” Hawker asked.

“Because we’re old friends,” I lied.

“Why don’t I believe you, Jackson?” the dark-haired man asked.

And he really was a man now. A little over seven years had put character on his face and miles on his soul. His stern eyes were those of a leader, one who carried the weight of that title and the brunt of the responsibility.

He really needed to lighten up.

“Because you’re not stupid,” I said, willing the bonds to fall away from my wrists.

By the time my leather constraints had hit the ground, each of his warriors had a blade at my throat, awaiting the order to strike.

“These paladins of yours, they’re all about justice, honor, and stamping out evil, right?”

“Yes,” Hawker said, his right hand in the air, moments away from dropping. “And as I recall, you were an evil man.”

“Villain,” I corrected. “I am a great villain. I never liked that evil thing. People are multi-faceted. Even you. You claim to be good. But from the reports I’ve heard, you’ve done some naughty things.”

“All I have done is in the name of justice and peace,” Hawker countered.

“How many people lost their homes?” I asked. “You know, when you were enforcing all this justice.”

“The wicked do not deserve the same rights as honest folk.”

I laughed. Hard.

“What is so funny?”

“Something Father Wren said to you after we defeated Grimskull. He said that power corrupts. And that even those who set out to do good oftentimes hurt the weak they claim they’re helping. Wren also added that should that day come, then you and he would be on opposite sides.”

“I remember,” Hawker said, his restraint slipping.

“I wonder what he’d think of you now?” I asked. “Seeing as you’ve committed the exact same atrocities as your father. But you know . . . from a bullshit position of moral righteousness.”

“Goodbye, Jackson,” Hawker said, dropping his hand.

Thirteen holy weapons descended upon me in unison. Each one of the enchanted, blessed blades pierced my flesh with the intensity of a miniature sun. Their sanctified fire ignited my blood.

Huh. Maybe I was a little more evil than I thought. Who knew?

Hawker’s sword was the last to fall, its keen edge slicing through the air and severing my neck at practically the atomic level. One swipe and my head thumped to the ground, rolled twice, and lay there with all the dignity of discarded horse dung.

But my body was still mine to control. So when it snapped its fingers, I don’t know who was more surprised, Hawker or his thirteen disappearing paladins.

No, seriously. Who was more surprised? My fucking face was in the mud and I couldn’t see anything. 

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 42

Where I Move a Few Pieces on the Game Board, Channel Agatha Christie, and Lawyer My Way to the First Victory

When the thirteen paladins reappeared in the manga universe just outside of the still-idling Rumbler, Eris was on her feet in a flash, her eyes darting from the monitor to the gods. 

“How did he do that?” she demanded. “You said you had his abilities locked down.”

Sophia was still concentrating, a tiny trickle of crackling, yellowish-orange Djinn phlogiston trickling out of her nose. I had to give her credit—I know she was doing her best. But the gods had practically spilled the beans, as it were. And I took great pleasure in pointing that out.

“Oh, you can’t be mad at them,” I said to Eris. “With the gods empowering our favorite Djinn here, I can’t impose my will and destroy these sentient beings. Especially the ones that were—what was the word you used, King Stanley? Native? Yes, native. So destroy them, no. Send them home? Well . . . I think I proved my point.”

On screen, the confused paladins sobered up very quickly. They may have been in an unfamiliar place, but paladins in every story hate themselves some evil. For the average literary character, being asshole-deep in a horde of demons would be a nightmare. But for a paladin? Heh. You’d think Christmas came early for these sanctimonious pricks.

“You can’t just do that,” Valliar said. “Those paladins are integral to—”

“But I did,” I said, cutting him off. “Besides, look how happy they are.”

And they really were. Those GameLit-empowered paragons practically leaped into the demonic forces. And as far as the heroes of Handlung were concerned, their salvation was at hand.

King Stanley, though—man, he looked pissed.

“This is not the narrative!”

“Oh come on,” I said. “Good guys coming in at the last second is classic storytelling.”

“But you advise villains,” King Stanley hissed. “How can you be okay with this?”

I shrugged. “Because it pisses you off? Look, all of y’all can stop acting indignant. I’ve seen the memos, the work orders, and the contracts. Took me a bit to piece it all together, I’ll give you that. And in truth, it’s actually pretty smart. Caledon wants to branch into LitRPG—”

“GameLit,” Khasil said.

“Shut up,” I scolded her. “As I was saying, you poor excuse for gods are like every indie author out there, chasing trends instead of getting ahead of them. In this case, GameLit. But Valliar and Khasil, being the high gods, could only do so much. You couldn’t use your primary characters; otherwise it’s just normal, run-of-the-mill fantasy. No, you needed extras to test your model. And no other universe has as many extras as King Stanley’s personal playground. A multiverse unto himself. My hunch is that since he too is chasing trends, this time with manga, King Stanley has an entire sub-section of his realm cordoned off in an Isekai word that’s running parallel to his main superhero/demon story. Oh, Eris—Isekai is a subgenre of manga and anime where the protagonist gets transported to or reborn in another world.”

“Yes, I know,” she seethed.

“Of course, my mistake. You brokered the deal, after all, while also staffing your company with these extras. So near as I can tell, King Stanley’s Isekai people are being soul-cast through Yolly’s circle of the Never Realm, into Caledon’s game world, and are being used as the active player base. It’s how you could respawn my dear friends Broseph Stalin, KushLyfe420, and ButtPickle so quickly.”

“What does this have to do what’s going on in each world?”

“Um . . . nothing?” I admitted. “I just wanted you to know I still have the Shadow Master mojo. Plus, who doesn’t love classic murder mysteries? This is basically my parlor scene where I’m the roguish detective and y’all are the motherfuckers who tried to get away with murder. I’m here to tell you how I know everything.”

“That’s it,” King Stanley said. “They die.”

I snapped my head back to the monitor just in time to see Brother Crowe use his powers of teleportation to appear inside the Rumbler, bringing Prior Lark with him. Lark’s hand was already on the detonator, poised to kill Myst and Wraith Knight.

********

“Your real name is Carina!” I yelled at Tori Sato, just as Lark’s thumb pressed down.

“No, that’s not right,” Tori said, triggering the flashback and freezing time.

Wraith Knight and Myst both screamed as they fell off their respective seats, clutching their heads in pain.

Pain . . . yes. But they were alive.

The time freeze for Tori’s flashback had paused everything save for me and the minions. Suspended in the air, just where our heads had been, were three miniature explosions. Our Martyr’s Marks had just begun their detonations but hadn’t fully reached killing levels.

That being said, my former employees and I looked like your Catholic friends coming to work on Ash Wednesday.

“Jesus shit-ass titty nipples!” Myst swore, rubbing her forehead.

“What she said,” Wraith Knight said, hauling himself to his feet and shaking his head. “Who—who the hell is Carina?”

“Hmm?” I said, carefully inspecting the three beginning yet motionless explosions. “Oh, yes. That. Well, I guess it’s time for me to come clean. Before—gosh, before you two came into my life I . . . I had other adventures. I know, I know. It’s painful to hear. But they meant nothing, I swear.”

“Cut the shit, Jackson,” Myst said, moving away from the bombs, but I stopped her.

“Just stay there,” I said as I reached out and plucked one of the bombs from the air.

It didn’t explode, so that meant we were still in our time-out. Happy with the outcome, I grabbed the others’ explosions and moved them over towards our uninvited guests, continuing my explanation as I went.

“You both know I met Lydia in Caledon when we were part of an adventuring party.”

“Yeah,” Wraith Knight said.

“Well, there were five of them. Me and Lydia, obviously. Kyle Hawker, the sort of leading man.”

“Was he white?” Wraith Knight asked.

“Yes,” I sighed. “I know, big guy, I know. Folks were still waking up back then. Anyway, with us was also this person who was calling themselves Cairn, but their real name was Carina. A female half-human, half-dwarf in disguise. She’d fallen for the fifth member of our party, a holy-rolling stick-up-his-ass cleric type named Father Wren.”

Placing the three explosions around Bishop Crowe’s head, I stepped over to Prior Lark and pulled his hood down, revealing my old buddy Wren.

“This guy here,” I said, thumbing a gesture at Lark, “is Wren. The fact that I didn’t pick up on the stupid-ass religious bird name pattern sooner means I’m getting old. Anywho, seems like the gods, Y’olly, and Eris put a few sleeper agents in place to keep an eye on you two and Lydia. Luckily, I got a roundabout message from Vammar when I went back to Caledon that tipped me off. So since Wren was part of this, and he loved Carina so damn much, it came down to simple deduction. She had died in Caledon, so Y’olly likely recycled her spirit here so that she would became Victoria Sato. He was then sent on loan here to serve as the narrative shepherd. But neither of them is native to this place. So a little reunion is in order.”

“Well . . . we wish you luck,” Myst said, taking Wraith Knight’s hand.

“What are you two going on about?” I said, pulling the stock-still Tori and Lark, now Wren, over next to the two minions. “You’re coming with me. We’re gonna save my wife.”

“But . . . we can’t,” Wraith Knight said. “We’re native to this world.”

“Not anymore,” I said, snapping my fingers and sending everyone, to include the Rumbler, to Caledon.

This version of myself stayed behind just to watch Brother Crowe’s head explode. Sure, the blast was powerful enough to shred my avatar, but it was worth it, seeing his arrogant face go kablooey.

Besides, my work in this universe was done.

********

“NO!” King Stanley bellowed, his wizened old body suddenly getting a bit on the swole side as leaped across the room, stopping mere millimeters from my face. His breath on my cheek smelled of sour caramel. “You cannot take them.”

“Ahem,” I said, remaining as calm as possible. “And I quote: ‘As long as I treat them with the respect of any native to my universe and show no intent on killing them off, then this is where they will stay.’ But I’m a kind titan. You can go say hi to them if you like.”

King Stanley, the Deified Creator of Marvelous Imaginations Who Rides Upon a Dark Horse, erupted in power. Cosmic rays, hammers of old gods, multi-colored eye beams, and little boomerangs in the shape of flying rodents all shot out from his body, practically shredding Eris’s office.

I simply remained in my seat.

“No,” King Stanley whispered. “I don’t care. Titan or not, this will not stand. I’ll take this to The One if I must.”

“Go ahead.” I shrugged. "By all means, go. Just keep in mind, you just tried to blow my minions’ freaking heads off. I may not be a big city lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that The One will see it my way. You showed intent to kill, which means you forfeited their lives. I have now claimed them. So kindly fuck off.”

King Stanley did just that. The high god of the comic universe vanished, knowing I was right. As he did, the monitor showing the feed to his universe blinked out of existence. Now with copious amounts of smug leaking from every pore on my body, I turned my attention towards the gods of Caledon.

“You’re next.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 43

Where I Have a Heady Conversation, Chat with Wren, and Fight Fire with Fire

As it turns out, Hawker didn’t really need thirteen paladins. The bastard was a force on his own.

Well, from down here it looked like it, anyway.

The former hero had spurred his warhorse into action, sending the colossal beast up the hill towards Lydia, Mikayla, and Claudia, his sword glowing with holy light. Luckily, the big beast’s thunderous hooves had turned my severed head just enough so I could watch.

Sure, I could reconstitute myself and help out, but I had other plans. Talking to the mage, for example.

“Hey, PocketRocket. How ya doing, bud?”

The human mage in the enchanted purple robes let out a shriek and jumped about a foot or so off the ground, looking between my nearby body and my talking head.

“You—you’re supposed to be dead!”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” I said, wiggling my jaw and working my face muscles until my head was positioned upright. “There, that’s better. So anyway, quick question for ya. How loyal would you say you are?”

“Excuse me?”

“To Hawker, I mean. Sure, he’s got that whole cult-leader thing going for him. But I’m curious if you’d rather stay here with him or go join your paladin pals in a world where you get to kill demons and see some ladies with huge . . . assets.”

“Sins of the flesh are an abomination.”

“Huge wangs, then?” I amended. “Not for nothing, but some of the bulges I saw there were pretty spicy.”

“I would never leave my lord. I am his most loyal servant.”

“Man, you role-play nerds take this shit way too seriously. Oh! Whoa whoa whoa.” I tried to shake my head in disgust but stopped before tipping back over. “Well, okay, if that’s what you want. But when you get recycled, just remember I made you the offer.”

“I will take great pleasure in destroying your unclean vessel, hellspawn,” PocketRocket replied before starting some elaborate arcane gesture.

“Hey, before you start with all the smiting, another quick question for ya. Did they have Back to the Future in your world?”

“What?” PocketRocket said in confusion.

“You know, the one good time-travel movie? Anyway, I’m specifically referring to that one scene in the first act, when Doc Brown is laying out the exposition, then suddenly remembers just in time to move out of the way before the DeLorean comes drifting in and running him and Marty over in the Twin Pines Mall parking lot? Anyway . . . three, two, one—”

The Rumbler broke through the space-time barrier like a runaway train, splattering PocketRocket across the ruins of Al’ Garrad. All the magical protections in the world couldn’t stop that many tons of metal being slingshotted across the multiverse. Having been hit by the vehicle, I knew how much it hurt.

But now the damn thing was on top of me, blocking my view.

“Boss?!” I heard Wraith Knight scream when he got out of the vehicle. “Holy shit, we killed him!”

From under the Rumbler I saw the big man, now thankfully looking normal and far less anime, drop down next to my headless body, which was covered in the dead mage’s blood, and cradle it in his arms. It was touching.

“I’m under here, ya dumb shit,” I called out, then did my best to roll my head out from under the vehicle.

“Jackson?” Myst said, reaching down to pick up my head while I spat out grass, gravel, and from the taste . . . horseshit.

“Yeah, it’s me. Now stick my head back on my body.”

“This is so freaking weird,” she said, trying not to vomit. But she managed to keep it down and complied with my wishes.

My body pushed itself away from WK’s embrace, reached up to accept my head from Myst, and place it back on. Stretching my reformed neck, I stood up.

“Welcome to Caledon. How’re our guests?”

“You son of a bitch,” I heard Wren say when he stepped out of the Rumbler.

“Hey there, Wren. Long time,” I said. “Looks like we’re back where it all started. You wanna pick up where we left off, or are you gonna be an even bigger ass about it all?”

The older man shrugged off his opulent robes, revealing a more form-fitting version beneath and looking like the former Templar I once knew. He sniffed the air and spat.

“I hate this damn world.”

“I know, bud, I know. But it’s where you belong.”

“I belong with her,” he said, turning to help the confused Tori—or Carina—

down from the Rumbler.

“Where—where are we?” Tori asked, her voice dreamy.

“She doesn’t remember, does she?” I asked.

Wren shook his head. “They—the high gods Khasil and Valliar—came to me. Told me there was a chance for me to be reunited with Carina. But I had to abandon Vammar and accept their offer to—”

“Keep a watchful eye on my minions just in case I ever returned.”

The bald man nodded. “Yeah. But they didn’t tell me how they were going to bring her back. So I had to play along with this . . . story. I had to act like a father figure to her.”

“The gods can be cruel,” I said. “I know, I was one once.”

“So I learned,” Wren said, looking me up and down. He was still surly. No amount of world-hopping could remove that character trait. But he no longer looked like he wanted me dead. “So . . . now what?”

“Now you get to do whatever you want,” I said.

“You’re not going to kill me?”

“For what?” I said. “Being a dick? Trying to kill me and my allies? No offense, Wren, but I call that a Tuesday. No, I’m not going to kill you, and here’s why. You were doing what you had to do because the gods fucked with the person you love. That’s something I can relate to. So with that out of the way, here are your options. You can remain in Caledon if you like. Or, I think I can take you with me.”

“How?”

“Same way I pulled Myst and Wraith Knight. Once the gods show their intent to kill, they forfeit rights over a soul. But they don’t advertise that fact. Way back when we were a group with Hawker up there—” I began, gesturing at the really cool-looking battle going on at the top of the ridge.

And man, lemme tell ya. Was it epic.

The silhouette of Hawker on his rampant warhorse. The acrobatics of Lydia. The combination of Mikayla’s fire magics and Claudia’s electrical bursts. It looked dope as hell from where we stood.

Hell, if you listened hard enough, you could just make out the generic fantasy-battle soundtrack playing. The orchestral score mixed with the typical angelic choir punctuated by the clanging of swords really complemented the grim determination.

Yup, it was a spectacle all right. And I’m not gonna lie to you, I really should have been focusing on that and not this Hallmark Channel melodrama crap. You know, from a storytelling perspective. But for some reason, my fans seem to want me to have an “emotional arc.”

I shook my head and refocused on Wren.

“Anyway, back when we were a team, the gods tried to kill you all directly. At least Khasil did. So I’m pretty sure I can make a case of gathering you up and setting off. If you wanted to, that is.”

“Can—can she come with us?” Wren asked, looking at the bewildered Tori/Carina.

“Of course,” I said.

“Could you . . . fix her?”

“Maybe,” I said honestly. “I can try. But I need her as is for the moment. I need her to do one favor for me.”

“What?”

“Tori,” I said, kneeling in front of her. “How’re you feeling?”

“I—I’m a little confused. This all seems . . . familiar?”

“Yeah, it would,” I said. “You originally came from this world. Your name was Carina. Do you remember that?”

“Sort of,” she said, blinking several times. “It’s like remembering a dream. The more you focus, the less you can recall. Does that make sense?”

“Very much so,” I said. “I think I can help you. But before I do, I need to ask you something. Do you still feel like you have the power of demons inside you?”

“Y—yes?” the girl responded.

“And you still have the need to destroy creatures from the infernal realm?”

“Yes?” she repeated, her voice a little stronger.

I smiled. “Great. See that one right there? The one with the dark hair and glasses wielding fire magics? Her name is Mikayla, and she goes by ‘Lamplighter.’ But I think she’s like you, a person who died and was reincarnated.”

“What—what was her name?” Tori asked, squinting as she looked up the hill at the battle.

“Bethany,” I said. “But when you knew her, her name was—”

“Lady Alianna,” Tori/Carina said, her mouth moving on its own. “The Truthspeaker of the Whispering Woods.”

“Bingo,” I said. “But unlike you, the gods and the Never Realm didn’t wipe her memory. They recycled her into a succubus and sent her specifically to seduce my ex-wife.”

Tori/Carina’s eyes went wide for a second before narrowing.

“Yes,” the demon slayer said, an eager edge to her voice, “she is. I can see the demon masquerading underneath the flesh.”

“Then do what you do best, my little hellraiser,” I said, stepping back and casting my arm wide in invitation.

Two huge bat-like wings ripped through the young woman’s tattered blue hooded poncho, and she took to the sky. Blue flames rocketed behind her as she tore up the hillside towards the rocky ridgeline. I almost felt bad for Mikayla—or Bethany, as it were.

Almost.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 44

Where I Laugh at Others’ Misfortune, Ponder How Much Leather is Too Much Leather, and Hold My Wife’s Hand

I know it’s not cool to take glee in seeing harm come to your former partner’s current love. I know that. Villain I may be, but human decency and emotional maturity should always be what we as people strive for.  

Nope, nevermind. This was too cool to not be a villain.

“Rip her tits off!” I yelled when Tori/Carina reached the group of combatants, shot past Hawker, and slammed into Mikayla, knocking the succubus in disguise on her ass.

Was I being petty? Yup. And I was okay with that. As a modern man, I’d long since come to terms with the biological differences when it came to sexual encounters. As you may recall way back in chapter eight, I admitted that I stopped fearing the vibrator and learned to embrace the tool.

But—and this is an important but—no amount of motorized horsepower can compete with a demon designed specifically for sex. It’s unnatural, unholy, and frankly fucking unfair.

Tori/Carina slammed a fist into Mikayla’s stomach, driving the wind out of the dark-haired woman. But Mikayla wasn’t the type to be put down with a cheap shot. The demon in disguise brought her hands up and unleashed a gout of flame that engulfed not only Tori/Carina, but also half the gods-damned ridgeline.

Claudia, thanks in part to being an AI and the only smart one in the group, took to the air. Her robotic body, augmented with magical enchantments, allowed her not only to fly over the blast, but also to smartly remove herself from the conflagration. With precision and grace, the artificial woman drifted down the embankment and landed beside me. Together, we watched the rest of the shenanigans play out.

Hawker’s warhorse was clearly terrified of the fire. So much so that the giant beast voided its bowels before rearing up and bucking the Lord of the South Lands from his saddle. And in a classic comedy of errors, the now-airborne Hawker collided with Lydia. My ex-wife, who had been expertly angling herself for a no-doubt devastating sneak attack ultimate move before the impromptu light show, was now not only blinded by fire, but also tumbling tits-over-teakettle—along with Hawker—down the rocky hillside.

And it was funny as fuck.

If there were an outcropping or sharp rock to be had, then the holy warrior and the rogue assassin made sure to smack, whack, splat, or crack themselves against it. It was like watching one of those Japanese game shows where the contestants are knocked off platforms and you laugh at them. But instead of papier-mâché obstacles and foam-covered terrain—which left the downed folks with a few bumps, bruises, and a smile—these were rocks. Unforgiving, forged from the earth, and hard as hell rocks.

And I couldn’t stop smiling.

Hawker, for one, deserved this. I couldn’t stand good guys who were really villains. That stuff irked me. And as for Lydia? Well, I know it’s mean-spirited to take pleasure in her pain.

But you know . . . villain.

Plus, she should have seen the succubus thing coming. When we were together, the pair of us did some of the most messed-up sexual things possible across the multiverse, including orgies in the Never Realm. So for one person alone to make her feel that good, Lydia should have known something was amiss.

I should have as well. But let’s focus on her mistakes, not mine.

The pair of combatants came to stop near me and the gathered group with an unceremonious thud. Both of them moaned but seemed mostly intact. A quick scan of their in-game ID tags showed that although they were both hurt very badly, neither of their hit point bars were in the red. I guess that’s a benefit of being in a GameLit world. You can survive oodles of damage, but you have to suffer. 

“So how ya feeling?” I asked the groaning duo, going so far as to offer them both a hand up. Neither accepted my generous offer.

Some people, I swear.

“I—I killed you,” Hawker said as he climbed to his feet. His hand reached for his sword, but he found only an empty scabbard.

“Bud, you couldn’t kill me if you tried a hundred times,” I said. “But I’m a forgiving kind of guy in my old age. Knock off the crap and I’ll call us square. So anyway, you remember Wren. He too has been trying to kill me, though not as directly as you. Oh, and these are my min—my friends, Wraith Knight and Myst. Lydia, you know them, of course. Wanna say hi to your old pals here?”

“Lydia,” Myst said with a knowing nod, while Wraith Knight just bobbed his head and said “Ma’am.”

“Enough of this shit,” Lydia said once she’d gotten to her feet and brushed off the dirt. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, Jackson, but I’m here to kill this man so I can—”

“Shut up,” I said to my ex-wife, with perhaps a bit more zeal than necessary. I then pointed back up at the ridge. “You’re going to want to see this.”

Once Mikayla’s flames had died, so had her self-satisfied smirk. Tori/Carina remained standing, unfazed.

“Hellfire?” Tori/Carina said, her youthful face bordering on bored. “If that’s all you have, temptress, then you’ve already lost.”

“Oh, I have more than that,” Mikayla said. “And it’ll take more than an ugly mutt like you to—”

Mikayla never finished that sentence.

I don’t know if it was because like me, Tori/Carina couldn’t stand the generic, stilted dialogue when two powerful forces face off in the third act. Or maybe she too wanted this story to reach its end faster. Regardless, little Tori Sato, the reincarnated spirit of Carina of the Twilight Guard, crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye. Her outstretched arm summoned a Hell-forged ebony blade that crackled with destructive necrotic energy and dripped with blood.

Damn. Glad she hadn’t whipped that trick out when we fought.

Still fueled by manga-magic, the smaller woman struck just once.

But one strike was all she needed.

Mikayla the Lamplighter’s human shell cracked apart, revealing the statuesque, crimson-skinned demoness beneath. She was dressed like a . . . well, exactly what you’d think a fucking sex demon would dress like. Copious amounts of shiny black leather, a titty-lifting corset, and an up-that-ass, spaghetti-thin thong that allowed space for her slender prehensile tail while barely covering the b-hole.

Oh and of course, what look would be complete without a stupid amount of strappy-buckle things that were not only needless, but also frankly a deterrent to sex?

Not for nothing, but if I’m still working to unwrap a Christmas present fifteen minutes after getting it . . . I kinda don’t want said present anymore. Feel me?

Mikayla the Succubus, as her in-game ID tag now read, swished her jet-black hair to the side, revealing her pointed ears and horns. She pulled a leather biker hat from . . . gods only knew and put it atop her head. She adjusted the choker around her neck and put her hands on her hips.

“You asshole,” Mikayla asked. “You know how hard it is to find the perfect skin suit? Ugh. Well, clearly demon magic isn’t going to work on you, so now what?”

Tori/Carina looked down at me for an answer. I, in turn, looked to Lydia.

“Well?” I asked.

Lydia didn’t answer right away. The spell had been broken, and it was clear that she was basically rebooting after having been put to sleep for so long. The real Lydia, my Lydia, slid her hand into mine.

“Jackson?”

“Yes?”

“Where’s our fucking daughter?” she softly said, never taking her eyes off the succubus.

“I don’t know,” I said truthfully, then added, “yet. But I’m—we’re going to find her.”

“Okay,” she said, then squeezed my hand just a smidge tighter.

I knew, then and there, that she was and would forever be my wife, in spirit if not in title. I don’t know if what she said to me before, about us, was due to the succubus’s enchantment or if it was what she had been truly feeling and never told me. But we still had a lifetime ahead of us to learn, grow, and forgive.

Forgive one another, perhaps. But not Mikayla. The question asked still hung in the air, waiting for a reply.

“Lydia?” I said.

“Kill the bitch,” Lydia said, her upper lip trembling into a small sneer.

“Of course,” I said, not pressing the issue, then nodded towards Tori/Carina.

The manga warrior brought the ebony blade up and slashed just once more. To her credit, Mikayla did not move. She simply smiled and said, “See you soon, Jacky-boy” before her head tumbled to the ground. Both it, and her body, dissolved into ash a few heartbeats later.

Caledon was quiet for the moment. Blessedly quiet. A nice gentle breeze passed through the ruins of Al’ Garrad. And on the back of that soft wind, I heard two high gods practically screaming their heads off in frustration.

That made me smile.

Lydia’s next words did not.

“I meant what I said before, Jackson,” Lydia softly said, then let my hand go. “Up on that ridge? You and I are not together anymore.”

I looked down at her, confused.

“But . . . what? Why? Mikayla was succubus. She had you under her spell! She—”

“I had you kill her because she took away my love and memory of Evie, nothing more,” Lydia said. “Everything else was real. I loved her.”

“But she was a demon.”

“And?” Lydia said. “You think I didn’t know that? Contrary to what you think, I’m not stupid.”

“I don’t think you’re—”

“Look me in the eye and tell me you think that I am just as clever and insightful as you are.”

I turned my head away.

“I thought so,” she said. “Jackson, I knew what I was doing. She didn’t have me under a sex spell. I wasn’t taken against my will. The only thing she took from me was Evie. That reason, and only that reason, is why she’s dead.”

“But everyone—everyone said that you were looking for me when you got here,” I stammered. “That you never believed I was dead.”

“I was,” she admitted. “And I never believed anyone could really kill you. But in time, time away from you, I gained . . . clarity on my feelings. That I was just your . . . wife, and never your partner. I’m sorry, Jackson, but this is how I feel.”

I took a half step back, seeing my wi—seeing Lydia with new eyes.

Some people can turn love off. They take whatever volume of love they have and flip it to the other side of the scale so that it becomes an equal level of hate. But I couldn’t do that. How could I? I loved her. And no amount of self-delusion or toxicity could turn that off.

Even if I wanted it so, so badly.  

“Jackson?” Lydia said. “Talk to me. This doesn’t mean we can’t be fr—”

“We have to go get my sister and nephew,” I said, refusing to meet her gaze. “And bring our . . . family home.”

I could have cried.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 45

Where I Narrate a Double-Length Chapter, Get to Know Myself, and Make a Decision

I know the old saying is you can’t be in two places at once. And for the rest of you mortals, that is very much true. I, on the other hand, can.

Well, I’m working on it, anyway.

Look, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Even partitioning your mind means that when you re-integrate, you have to assimilate every new set of memories into a singular identity, which warps the brain as memories overlap in simultaneous space and time. And if you can’t grasp that concept at the fundamental level, well . . . maybe you should be reading a coloring book instead.

I’m sorry, that was unnecessarily snarky. But with the intensity of the situation getting turned up, coupled with juggling so many versions of me, I could feel it. That line, just past my personal point of no return, where I could truly be a titan. Where I could be everywhere at once, spreading my influence and seeing beyond the annoyingly limited dimensions of time and space.

And that scared me.

Once I took that step, I didn’t know if there’d be a coming back. Now that the minions and Lydia had been set free from their cages, I felt . . . well, more human. And I didn’t want that feeling to end. 

A fact that Sophia and Eris clearly knew and were about to take full advantage of.

********

“Boss?” Wraith Knight said before dropping to one knee.

“You okay, big guy?”

Myst let out a wail of pain, clutched her stomach, and fell to the ground next to him. Both of my minions looked . . . hazy.

I felt it, the power flowing across them. Through them. It was just like before, back in the sci-fi world of Polyphony Gilt. And just like then, I was powerless to stop what happened next.

“It’s okay,” Myst said, a smile on her face. “It’s o—”

There was a popping sound as the space around where Myst and Wraith Knight had just been standing. They were gone. Pulled back to the Manga Universe. My mind, or at least my tethered essence to that place, sensed it.

“Mine,” said King Stanley’s voice in a mocking tone that only I could hear. “Mine. And my oh my, how they will suffer.”

I knew it to be true. I was not mentally there, but through that world’s version of me, I sensed a great and terrible awakening, a new swelling of hellish darkness. And the one person who could have stopped it was here. I had removed that world’s greatest weapon and ally for my own personal gain.

I turned to Tori/Carina and shook my head. “I’m sorry, but you have to go back.”

I snapped my fingers. And like a bad running joke, nothing happened. I felt . . . resistance. Powered by gods and a spiteful Djinn working in unison, I felt the barriers designed to keep Tori/Carina here.

“Jackson?” said Tori/Carina, but I just shook my head.

“Fuck it, I’ll do it myself.”

Just as I was about to slip from this world to that one, a roar shook the heavens. The morning sun, still rising in the east, was blotted out as the biggest dragon I’d ever seen rose from the oceans. Like a forgotten continent, or a nightmare made manifest, this world-ending creature took its first breath in nearly a thousand years. 

“Endernacht,” Hawker whispered. “The Final Wyrm.”

He, Wren, Tori/Carina, and even Lydia couldn’t help themselves. Tears streaked down their respective faces. Regardless of the gods forfeiting their lives, each of them was a child of Caledon. And this creature, this Endernacht, wasn’t just culturally relevant to them—it was their ultimate boogeyman.

And I was just some schmuck who thought all fantasy stories needed dragons.

Boy . . . did that one come back to bite me in the ass.

Dutch?

Not me, man, he said in my head. This is way above my pay grade.

You threatened me with this exact scenario back in WhoreFrost.

Yeah, threatened, Dutch clarified. Dude, I was bluffing. This? This is some endgame, high-god-level bullshit. Only they can . . . well, for lack of a better term, turn the keys that launch the nukes.

Wait, you’re saying that Khasil and Valliar would rather destroy their reality than let me win?

Yeah, pretty much.

Huh. That kinda feels like a compliment.

That’s what you’re taking away from all this?!

Um . . . little bit?

Dude! This means the end of fucking everything, Dutch said. This is it, man. Game over.

“The hell it is,” I said aloud. “You all, snap out of it! It’s a big lizard and nothing more. It’s not gonna destroy the world right away. Since you all are still breathing, I’m assuming there’s like, uh, a warmup period or something?”

“It—it is said,” Wren began, “that Endernacht, the Final Wyrm, will take his first breath to taste the air he is meant to set ablaze. Upon his second breath—”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” I cut in. “Blah blah freakity blah blah. Some prophecy about the end of days. Don’t care. Every fantasy world has one, and they all suck. Ballpark it for me. How long do we have?”

“I have no idea,” Wren said. “But from the different translations of the ancient scriptures . . . a few minutes before he takes flight and starts destroying everything?”

“I see,” I said, thinking of a plan. “Okay. I want you to—”

“Jackson!” I heard a distant voice scream, followed by a stinging sensation across my face.

But it hadn’t come from anyone here.  I turned around to see if someone else was around but saw no one.

“Jackson, help!” I heard the voice, this time clearer. It was followed by another stinging blow as if I’d been slapped in the mouth.

The voice had been Paige.

“Be right back,” I told the group.

“What?! Now?” Lydia said, but I was already gone.

Part of me just needed to get away from her.

********

Paige went to slap me a third time, but I caught her hand.

“I’m here. What’s going on?” I asked, my mouth moving before my mind had come fully back online. And when it did, the question had already been answered.

Paige was bleeding.

Badly.

She had a bullet wound in her stomach. Her clothes were covered in blood and her face was getting pale. A gunshot from within Randy’s cabin made me jump a little.

Past my wounded sister, I saw Randy by the front door, likewise wounded. A stray round had hit his shoulder. But that didn’t stop a Blackwell from returning fire. It only took a second or two to piece it all together.

They had been in a standoff with whatever forces were out there. Cops, or maybe Eris’s private security team? It didn’t matter. During my absence from the Prime Universe, Eris had made her move. My family was in danger. Real danger.

Paige placed a bloody hand on my face. “Where were you?”

“I—I’m sorry,” was all I could say.

Paige slumped over, but I managed to catch her before she hit the ground. She wasn’t dead—not yet, anyway. But her blood pressure was falling and she was unconscious. I tried to will her whole, but it wasn’t working. I felt . . . I fucking felt Sophia’s influence keeping my powers at bay.

There was nothing I could do.

“Mom!” Randy screamed, leaving his post by the closed door.

Dropping his hunting rifle, Randy scrambled over and shoved me aside. My nephew immediately began to do chest compressions and rescue breaths.

I looked at the blood on my hands. It was Paige’s blood. Blood of my blood. And I felt a stirring of hate. Hate for every motherfucker who was not in this room.

But as soon as that spike of hate had hit its peak, the crashing feeling hit me harder. Without my powers, without my ability to do whatever I wanted, all the goddamn CPR in the world would not save my sister.

If you didn’t know, it’s not like in the movies. You don’t pump a chest a few times and the hero gets up and gasps. People aren’t cars; they can’t be jump started. In a situation where CPR is required, like a heart attack, then CPR is done to keep a person alive until emergency responders get there. Without EMTs, their ambulance, and a hospital, the survival rate is low.

I mean really low. Like eight to ten percent low.

But when the victim is bleeding out? Chest compressions just pump the blood out faster. The vascular insides of a biological being are like a network of inner tubes. You need it to be sealed and pressurized. Too low or too high is bad, but manageable. But if that tube has a leak? Yeah . . . you see where this is going.

I moved to Paige’s side and put strong, direct pressure on the wound. I couldn’t put the blood back in, but I could keep more from coming out.

Mostly.

“What the fuck happened?” I said while Randy worked.

He continued doing the rescue breaths and the required compressions, ones hard enough to pump the heart. Here’s a shitty truth, folks. Doing so often means cracking ribs as well as the breastbone.

I—I’m glad Paige was unconscious for that part.

“Randy?”

“Private military company,” Randy eventually said. “Fuckers came out of the goddamn woods like ghosts. They avoided every trap I’d set. They’d scoped this place out. Knew every way in and every countermeasure.”

“Eris?” I asked, knowing the question was stupid.

“Who the hell else would it be?!” Randy snapped. “What’re you going to do?”

“What?”

Randy stopped just for a moment and grabbed me by the front of the shirt, hard.

“Fucking fix this,” he snarled. “I don’t care how. You save my mom.”

He let me go and went back to work. Randy was smart. Smarter than me, if I have to be honest. But if he had really read all those books over the last couple of years, then he knew the other fact about CPR: that it kept your hands and mind busy so that you couldn’t dwell on how the wounded person was likely going to die.

But Randy did it anyway.

More shots rang out, blowing holes through the exterior walls of the cabin. Through said holes, I glimpsed the hit squad, dressed in white fatigues and black tactical gear. Their faces were hidden by white balaclavas and angular night-vision goggles. And on each of their arms, I saw the stylized logo of a candle.

Malum Lux.

“Boss?” I heard a voice. “Please boss, hear us.”

“We need you, Jackson. Please god, hear us.”

It was Wraith Knight and Myst.

I didn’t want to leave my sister or Randy. But their voices were borderline begging. Full of fear. So I opened my mind in a new way. A painful one. A way in which I was there with Paige, but also there with the minions. And as I did, the dormant titan part of my brain stirred.

And smiled.

********

“Boss,” Wraith Knight said, holding what was left of my body.

The Martyr’s Mark bombs that had killed Brother Crowe had done an excellent job in ventilating the corporeal form of this version of me.

“I’m . . . here,” I managed to say as my reforming body hacked and spat up blood. “What—what’s going on?”

Over the big guy’s huge shoulders, I saw that the entirety of Handlung, including its stone walls, was aflame. The new hellmouth I’d sensed had consumed the town and all the people. The citizens and the heroes were all gone, burned or possessed. They simply were no more.

Myst and Wraith Knight had run for the nearby woods, using the hilly terrain to create a choke point. From how they looked, it was clear that they’d been taking turns fighting, each giving the other a chance to catch their breath.

But it wasn’t going to last. They were near their breaking point.

“Boss, where’s Tori?” Wraith Knight asked.

“Stuck in Caledon,” I said.

“Can you send us back there?”

I shook my head. “They’re blocking me. The gods, Y’olly, Sophia, all of them, working together.”

“How?” he asked. “You’re a titan.”

“In name only,” I admitted, a tear running down my cheek.

“Boss?”

“Paige is dying,” I said. “I’m there, now, by her side. Eris sent a hit squad. They—they didn’t deserve that. They’d fucking left and hid in the goddamn woods. They weren’t hurting anybody!”

“Lydia and the rest?” he asked, almost tenderly.

I sighed to mask the open-mouthed sob that had been building. “They—they’re doomed. Khasil and Valliar unleashed Endernacht. Their doomsday weapon. They’re going to destroy everything.”

Wraith Knight nodded. “Burn it all away and start over.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Boss?”

“Yeah?”

“You can’t help us,” he said. “Any of us.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re not listening,” he said. “You as you are can’t do it. Not Jackson the man, and not Jackson Blackwell the Shadow Master and minor god. But a titan, a real titan, can. We’ll be okay, boss. Just let go.”

“But what if—”

“The fuck are you afraid of?” he asked, cutting me off. “The next step?”

“No,” I said with a quick shake of my head. “I’m never afraid of the next step. All my life I’ve lived for the next step.”

“Then what?”

“You!” I finally admitted aloud. “All of you. I’m afraid I’ll . . . fuck, I’m afraid I’ll lose all of you. I never really considered myself as having a family before. But with you two, Lydia, Paige, Randy, Morry, and . . . and Evie, I had a great one. If I really let go, I don’t know if I’ll care.”

“Jackson,” Myst said, coming to kneel next to us. Her face was bloody, and it was clear they didn’t have any fight left in them. “If you don’t let go, we’ll all die.”

“Jackson!” I heard Lydia’s voice scream out.

This time there was no hesitation. Despite the new separation between us, I hurled myself into myself, adding that me to the growing versions of me.

I was there with Paige and Randy.

I was there with Myst and Wraith Knight.

And just like flicking on a switch, I was there with Lydia and the rest of my friends in Caledon.

But were they my friends?

Did titans have friends?

I was three unified minds. There were others, other minds of me, waiting to become one. Should I take that next step and unify all of me, or should I remain an amalgamation of man, god, and titan?

Did it matter?

Save them or don’t—who cares? Their existence was fleeting. A blip. I was eternal.

“Jackson,” a female creature’s voice said.

I think its name was Lydia.

“Snap the fuck out of it!”

She slapped me. This Lydia. For my reasons alone, I entertained this bug. I saw what a human would see as an incomprehensibly colossal dragon lift from the distant sea and into the air.

It was . . . cute. Like a pet. Its mission was to destroy this world like a thresher. Reap the harvest. Fertilize the remains to grow again.

How dull.

“Jackson, you have to let go,” the shape-changing girl said.

“Save her!” said a man covered in blood.

Why?

“Jackson,” said the short thief with the mouse-brown hair. “Regardless of what the future holds for us, Evie is still out there.”

What was an Evie?

It’s my fucking daughter, I told myself.

Yours, not mine, the titan replied.

Ours, you prick. Even titans have offspring.

Oh yes, we do. Very well.

I somehow pulled control of myself away from myself and nearly puked in the process. Seeing across multiple minds was bad enough. Being in multiple places yet none was breaking what little willpower I had left. So I created a thought of Evie and used that as mental duct tape.

I didn’t need to hold on for long. I just needed to finish the job before moving on.

“Hey, Wraith Knight,” I said to the big man who had left me to fight alongside Myst in one last hurrah. Their final stand.

Myst had turned into a broad-shouldered beast of a humanoid with four arms. She absorbed the blows of anything that got close, dying by a thousand cuts. But if she was the anvil of this team, then Wraith Knight was the hammer. Myst took the blows so that WK could dish out the pain. His hands shifted in and out of various edged melee weapons so fast, I swear he was like a gods-damn blender.

I was proud of them.

But I hated being ignored.

“Wendell!” I snapped.

“What?!”

“The Rumbler. You said it was a supercomputer on wheels, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Great. Dutch, get in there.”

Wraith Knight shook his head. “Who’s Dutch?”

“I’m not talking to you.”

You got it, the AI said.

“Claudia, go with him. Someone needs to hit the big red button.”

“Can you do this?” the robot asked as she climbed inside the Rumbler.

“You said it yourself,” I said, flicking my hand and sending them across the multiverse. “You’re not people. You’re carry-on.”

“Carry-on? What—what are you talking about?” Randy huffed as he continued the CPR.

“I’m buying us time,” I said, turning slightly to look through the holes in the wall at the Malum Lux assault team.

The Rumbler appeared outside the cabin with a thunderous boom, drawing all attention away from us. The assault force turned and opened fire on the vehicle, which was now a shower of sparks as bullets ricocheted off the armor plating.

As instructed, Claudia did indeed hit the big red button.

The Rumbler suddenly stood up, the mech mode engaged and Dutch serving as the driver.

To their credit, the Malum Lux team didn’t freak out when a giant, anime-inspired armored RV not only appeared, but also shifted into a gods-damned transformer. Nope, they just continued to spray and pray.

Which was all I wanted. Because that’s what I was doing.

“We’re losing her,” Randy said, his arms growing tired from the work.

“I know.”

“We’re going to die,” Lydia said as the Endernacht, the Final Wyrm, took in a deep breath.

“Yes,” I said, seeing the inevitable.

“It was a good run,” Myst said to Wraith Knight as the demons began to swarm the woodlands and up the narrow path to where we were positioned. “Love you,” was all he said in response.

I was there, with each of them at the end. I was there in Eris’s office, watching the sinister glee on her and Sophia’s faces. Once they were gone, once my family was gone, there was no point in my existing in this space or time.

But I was also back in the titan training office. Looking at a stack of stupid fucking personality tests. And that’s when I kinda chuckled, seeing everything and nothing at the same time.

I guess that’s the way when you’re truly omnipotent. Everything and nothing are interchangeable. They only matter if you choose for them to matter.

“Frank,” I said in each world, “I know what I want.”

And that was when I let go.

OceanofPDF.com

The Ballad of Erika Myers, Part 6

Another Guy Named Julie Gets His Revenge

The toll of my tale made Erika drop to her knees. My being in many places at once was hard, even for my growing titan senses. For a mortal like her, it damn near broke her brain.

“Too much, it’s too much,” she said, tears of blood streaming from her closed eyes. “I—I can’t.”

“Shh,” I said, soothing her. “It’s okay. We’re out of that memory and someplace nice. It’s okay, open your eyes.”

Erika did as I asked. She opened her eyes, looked up, and shrieked.

“What?” I asked, looking down at the wide-eyed, screaming woman. “You’ve never seen a crucified person left to rot in the sun before?”

“No!” she said, closing her eyes.

“Oh. My bad?”

“Is that . . . Jesus?”

“What? No,” I said, shaking my head. “This is the next-to-the-last stop on Jackson Blackwell’s Favorite Moments in the History of Revenge. What revenge did Jesus get? Not for nothing, it woulda been hella dope if he came back like an eighties action movie and stomped Roman ass. Alas, people get touchy when you rewrite that particular book. Now use your damn brain and look around. We’re in an ancient Turkish prison. Yeesh, where in the Bible did Jesus get sent to a Turkish prison?”

“Then who are they?” Erika asked, daring to look up.

“Oh, well they are—or were—a band of Cilician pirates. Cilicia being an ancient region off the coast of Turkey. Anyway, these water-based scallywags were out one day doing their pirate thing in the Aegean Sea when they happened upon, and captured, a twenty-five-year-old Roman nobleman on his way to study oratory in Rhodes. The pirates wanted twenty talents, or Old World money then, for this guy’s release. But this Roman kid had the arrogance, and balls, to tell them they were asking too little. Imagine that, a pompous prick who thought his ransom was too low. So they upped it to fifty talents. Long story short, the pirates got their money and the kid went free. But the kid told them that one day he was going to find them, all of them, and have them crucified.”

“Who was the kid?” Erika asked.

“Julius fucking Caesar,” I said.

“No shit?”

“No shit,” I said, looking at the dead men. “Caesar, even then, was a bastard. And he did exactly as he claimed he would. Despite holding no public or military office—yet—he raised a naval force in Miletus and set out for the pirates. And the dumb shits were still camped out on the same island where he’d been held hostage. So Caesar caught them, brought them back as captives, and had their asses tossed into prison. But the governor of the region got all wishy-washy about punishing the pirates. So Caesar went to the prison where they were being held and had them all crucified. He was, after all, a man of his word.”

“And that’s what you’re about to do?” Erika asked. “Crucify your enemies?”

“Hmm?”

“Well, all your friends and family were in danger,” she said. “Isn’t that why we’re here on this part of your journey? To show the lengths you’d go to to fulfill your promise for revenge?”

“Oh, Erika,” I said. “These are my favorite moments in revenge history. But this is your journey. What will you do when this is over? Continue being a raging asshole, like Caesar? We all know what happened to him. Stabbed to death by conspirators and allies alike. That, and only that, is the ultimate tale of what a vengeance-filled life will get you. Yes, my friends were in danger. And what I did next was for them.”

Erika thought on my words. She looked up at the dead men, no longer afraid. She then turned to me.

“What did you do next?”

I smiled, then snapped my fingers.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 46

Where I Am the New Me, Show Various Levels of Maturity, and Answer a Very Hard Question

I was many and I was one. Each me looked up to the heavens and saw a distant star. And we knew that star, that beautiful pinprick of light, was but one piece of a greater me, a simple atom of my cosmic makeup. Looking back down on each version of me, I welcomed myself home.

Man, this was trippy.

Once each portion of my split soul found its way home and I felt whole, I gave this new me a good once-over. And . . . I seemed to be made of galactic star stuff. Well, at least I was still wearing a suit, even if it looked like a bad book cover artist’s attempt to make a semi-transparent space look. Still, I felt like myself. Like . . . the real, old me.

I know this because when I looked down and saw two nearby planets, I positioned myself in such a way that they looked like my balls.

Ultimate cosmic power, check.

Maturity of a child? Double check.

Was I looking for a tubular-shaped astrological body to complete the look? You’re damn skippy I was.

Yup, I was me.

“If you’re done with screwing around,” said a familiar voice from the cosmos, “I think it’s time we had our talk.”

I didn’t so much as turn towards the voice, but rather the universe itself reoriented itself around me so I could face the other titan.

“Frank,” I said with a nod.

“I see you stopped time,” Frank said, looking down and into several dimensions at once.

“I did,” I said. “They’re my friends and family.”

What passed for Frank’s eyebrows raised at that comment. “Really? So you still think of yourself as one of them?”

“No,” I said with a shake of my head. “But that doesn’t change what they mean to me. And unless I miss my guess, that was part of your . . . tests.”

“Hmm?” Frank said, his voice amused. “Oh, you mean the personality tests.”

I chuckled. “Heh heh, yeah, those too. But back then you said tests . . . plural. So, start me off small and stuck in an office. Let me fumble around a bit. Then cut me loose and see what I’d do. And in the end, take note of what choices I’d make as I came to into my being.”

“Of course,” Frank said.

“But I’m talking about the other tests,” I said.

“Oh?” Frank said. “What do you mean?”

“Like, for example, when a titan who enjoys taking risks and who gambles with mischief gives a mortal from the Prime Universe the chance of being a god. That is you, right? The Malevolent Kismet Gambler, Titan of Chaos, who leased me the pocket dimension. Your pocket dimension. The one who also canceled my lease and gave it to Eris Pence just to see what I would do.”

“Less of a test and more of an experiment,” Frank shrugged.

“Let’s not split hairs here,” I said. “You set me up to see what I would become.”

“Maybe.”

I smiled. “Well, someone sent Sophia a copy of Villains Defeat. It damn sure wasn’t me. I wanted to keep my return quiet. But something tells me you did that. Just a little nudge to get this experiment going.”

“So, you figured it out then?” my titan advisor said as his true titan form came into being. I’d describe it to you, but I highly doubt you want to crap your pants and bleed from your erection . . . whether you have a penis or not.

“Yeah,” I said. “Took me a while, but I put two and two together.”

“Good, because I was dropping a lot of hints,” Frank said.

“Yeah, you were,” I laughed. “So, MKG—”

“Frank’s good for now,” he said. “You’ve come into your own, but we’re not peers yet. You still have a long way to go.”

“I know.”

“But you have a direction, it seems?”

I nodded. “I do. And I think it’s the direction you nudged me towards.”

“Oh really?”

“Cut the shit,” I said, rolling my eyes. I pulled a cigarette from my suit’s inner pocket and lit it off a supernova. “You said it yourself, titans tend to fall into four major categories. Chaos, Order, Infinity, and Eldritch. Tend to being the key phrase. Titans born of titans tend to embody one of those four. But what if there was a titan who was not born of titan? What if there was a new element that imposed equal parts order and chaos. What would that being look like? How could it even come to be? The odds are . . . well, beyond reasonable assumption. Unless someone had their thumb on the scale.”

Again, Frank shrugged. “Like I said. More of an experiment than a test.”

I blew out a cloud of smoke that I’m pretty sure turned into a new nebula. “But why?”

“Why not?” Frank said. “Don’t look for deeper meaning in what is essentially not there. I just wanted to see what could be. That’s the essence of chaos. Adding combustible elements to existing structure.”

“But I’m not chaos,” I said. “At least, not completely.”

Frank nodded. “I didn’t want to bring more chaos. I wanted to bring something . . . new. Something that smashed the old. Transcended the old. Something that established the new only to tear it down again. Like I said, you’d look horrible with tentacles, and I knew you wouldn’t become one of the Infinite. They . . . well, they’re their own weird brand of esoteric.”

“Is that where Evie is?” I asked.

“Keep playing the game and find out.”

I nodded. “Figures.”

“So,” Frank said, “you ready to go make this official?”

“Hmm?”

“Your grand quest for revenge,” the titan said. “You’re on the cusp and you’ve definitely earned it.”

I laughed. Hard. “We both know this story isn’t about revenge.”

“Then what’s it really about, Jackson?”

“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”

“If you want what I’m offering, then yes.”

I sighed.

“Fine. Yes, I wanted revenge. I thought all this, this titan story of mine, was my quest to strike back against those who dared to oppose me. A grand tale of vengeance. One that would show them that even when you think you have me beat, I’ll find a way to come out on top. And . . . and I did that.”

“Buuuut?” Frank asked, dragging the word out.

“But,” I said, “this was really a story about the story. The journey and not the destination. This whole gods-damned adventure wasn’t a revenge tale. It was . . . a spiritual journey memoir. Oh, for fuck’s sake. This was my version of Eat, Pray, Love. There, I said it. Are you happy?”

“Are you happy?” he asked, answering my question with a question.

“Yes . . . and no,” I said, thinking of Lydia.

Her words had hurt. But that was part of being alive, wasn’t it? The agony and the ecstasy of living. She had said she didn’t know what the future held for us. Were those just words to get me to snap out of it? Or did she really feel that way? Was there hope, or was I manufacturing hope?

Time would tell.

Despite my romantic problems, I couldn’t help but think of the others and what they meant to me. How much joy they’d brought into my life. And even if it had just been a ploy by the gods, seeing them at their best versions of themselves made me ashamed that I had not been the one to bring out those best versions.

Well, the first step in de-asshole-ifying oneself is to admit there was a problem.

Yup . . . I just had to admit I was wrong.

Huh. This was harder than I thought.

Come on, Jackson, you’re a titan now. Nothing is beyond your reach or power. Just say the frakkin’ words.

I . . . may have . . . maybe . . .  been holding them back . . . to make myself . . . feel big?

Eh, close enough. Baby steps.

But this was not answering Frank’s question. And upon deeper reflection, I knew what I would say.

“No one is truly happy,” I said. “No human, no god, no titan, or any other cosmic concept floating around the infinite existence. There are only moments of joy mixed with moments of every other emotion. We—we look for things to be static. An existence of pure happiness. But that’s an illusion. Everything is in flux. Everything is dynamic. Everything is changing. And that—that’s the best part of just being. Chaos to order. Order to chaos.”

Frank looked at me, smiled, and then slapped me with . . . well, I don’t know what that was. Definitely not a hand. 

“No, you idiot. I mean are you happy with our pending deal?”

“Oh, that. Sure.”

“Then let’s go make it official.”

“Yeah,” I said, rubbing my face.

“Hey,” Frank said. “You okay?”

“Are you gonna slap me again?”

“No,” Frank sighed.

“I—I don’t know what comes next. And I’m . . . concerned.”

“Baby step, kid. Baby steps,” Frank said.

I gave him a look. “You were listening to my inner monologue again, weren’t you?”

“Heh heh, I’m always listening. I wouldn’t be a good agent of chaos if I weren’t. But I’ll tell you this. If anyone can shape their destiny, it’s you. You just need patience, time, resolve, and above all else, a sense of humor.”

“That I have.”

“Good,” Frank said. “Now let’s go make sure that Eris has a bad day.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 47

Where Eris Broods, The Gods Complain, and I Learn the Importance of Initials

Eris Pence narrowed her eyes. The couch where Jackson Blackwell had been sitting was empty. A quick scan of the monitors showed him absent from each of the other locations as well. And when Jackson Blackwell was out of eyesight . . .

“What is happening?” Eris said as she got up from her chair and stormed over to the monitors. She turned back to the Djinn, who was still sitting in the same spot, her clothes now stained with sweat from constant exertion. “Where did he go?”

“I don’t know,” Sophia said, wiping her forehead with the sleeve of her stained hoodie. “But I think we have a bigger problem.”

“What kind of problem?” Eris asked.

Before Sophia could answer, Eris sensed the incoming power and took a step back just as her co-conspirator gods, along with Y’olly and his new assistant Mikayla, manifested in the office. Each of them looked haggard and near exhaustion.

“That son of a bitch,” Valliar cursed before plopping down in one of the recessed lounge’s chairs. The other gods and the Never Realm representative followed suit.

Eris eyed Caledon’s High God of Justice and repressed a smirk. His older-looking elvish face looked weary, devoid of the agelessness his beloved mortals were known for. Even his brilliant armor no longer gleamed with the same luster.

The other gods were in a similar state. The serpents that adorned Khasil’s hair hung limp and low, barely showing any life at all. King Stanley looked to be on death’s door, his exuberant, youthful eyes having grown dim and distant. Only Y’oll’gorath seemed to be the same. But she’d come to know the demon high lord. This was an act. Behind his yellow eyes was a being shaken to its core.

Good.

“Are you all happy now?” Eris asked. “Hmm? Are you glad that you sat on the fact that Jackson was a titan for two years?”

“What could you have done?” Khasil hissed, while her hair serpents simply went through the motions. Even they weren’t buying her bullshit.

“We will never know, will we?” Eris replied. “Yet out of everyone here, only Sophia and I beat him. Well, came the closest, it seems. But what do I know? I’m just a minor god, right?”

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” King Stanley asked.

“No, Stanley, I am not,” Eris said, crossing her arms and locking eyes with the god of the Comic Universe. “An untethered Jackson is a problem for everyone. We already know his reach has been spread under our noses. Who knows what he’s doing?”

“Stealing my fiancé,” Mikayla said, the succubus looking more than a little pissed off in her pseudo-dominatrix attire.

“Stopping time,” Y’olly said, glowering at his assistant, “at least in these two realms. Dunno about the Prime Universe, but I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Stopping . . . time?”

Y’olly shrugged. “He’s a titan. They get to do stuff like that. Sucks he figured it out. It’s why these three look like complete buckets of suck. Without their worlds working as designed, they lose power.”

“That’s what you were afraid of? Him taking away your power?”

“Gods, at least the gods above your station, need mortals, Ms. Pence,” Valliar said, picking up each of the leftover drinks from the glass coffee table, pouring them all into one cup, and downing the foul concoction in a single gulp.

“Mine was mostly backwash,” Sophia said.

“Yeah,” Valliar winced, then burped. “Tasted like spit and cool ranch. Still got the job done.”

“So what’s going to happen?” Eris asked. “Are you going to die?”

“No,” King Stanley said. “And that’s the problem.”

“Without the influx of worship from across the multiverse, we will grow weak and decrepit,” Khasil said. “But we cannot die. We are eternal, just as the ideas and genres we represent. Everything comes around again. But until then, we will be . . . diminished to the point where we wish we were dead.”

“You’re telling me,” King Stanley said. “Have you seen Dakota Six-Gun or Cursing Kelly-Marie recently?”

Each of the gods shuddered.

“Who are they?” Eris asked.

“Two forgotten gods,” Y’olly said. “Each one ran a different Wild-West-themed universe.”

“Exactly,” Mikayla said. “But since no one gives a crap about that genre aside from right-wing grandpas and the state of Texas—outside of Austin, of course—”

“So basically the same thing?” Eris asked.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Y’olly said. “But they are haunting to look at these days.”

“You ever see a sad, anemic cowboy?” Valliar asked. “It breaks your heart.”

“The point is,” Mikayla said, “with Jackson halting the flows going in and out, their worlds are beginning to crumble. As they go, so do we.”

“What about you?” Eris asked the demons.

Y’olly shook his head. “We’re linked, sadly.”

“Without the gods’ stories being broadcast across the realms of ideas,” Mikayla said, “Master Y’oll’gorath’s contracts are about to go dicks up. He’s gonna get demoted and I’ll be sent to a new department if we don’t figure this out.”

“How sad for you all,” a new voice said.

Eris sighed and turned around to see Jackson Blackwell sitting at her desk, a lit cigarette in his hand and a smile on his face.

“You’re in my chair,” Eris said, squaring up on the man and refusing to show even an ounce of concern or fear for this arrogant prick.

“And you’re in my universe,” he said, blowing out a cloud of smoke.

“Aww . . . fuck,” Sophia cursed.

Eris turned slightly towards the Djinn, who just shook her head. “What?”

“Come on out, Frank,” Jackson said.

Beside the smiling asshole stood a painfully normal-looking man, a balding blond guy with a bushy moustache and glasses wearing generic-looking corporate office clothes.

“Is this your new personal assistant?” Eris asked, unimpressed.

“Show respect!” Sophia said, falling to her hands and knees, prostrating herself along with the rest of the gods and the demons.

“Might wanna do what she said,” Jackson offered.

“Why?”

“Boring as he may appear, this is basically your landlord. All your landlords, come to think about it,” Jackson said, gesturing towards the gods.

Eris felt the waves of cosmic power coming from this “man.” But she refused to bend the knee. Not while Jackson was sitting there. Instead, she lowered her head with solemn grace.

“The Malevolent Kismet Gambler,” Eris said, “Titan of Chaos.”

“Frank’s fine,” said the titan. “And the rest of you, get up off the ground. You look stupid.”

“Don’t they though?” Jackson said.

“Why—why are you here . . . Frank?”

“To make it official. Jackson’s your new landlord. Or he will be in a few moments.”

“I don’t understand,” Eris said.

“Well,” Jackson began, “thanks to you all, I have found out who I am. The kind of titan I choose to be, that is. And seeing as I don’t fall into the other categories, one was made just for me. A blend of chaos and order. I have always fancied myself something of an iconoclast, one who attacks the cherished beliefs or institutions of others. A destroyer of sacred cows, if you will.”

“Yes, I know what the word means,” Eris said.

“Of course you do. I paid for your education. But now that I declare myself Jackson Blackwell, the Iconoclast Titan, I am able to take ownership of this and many other realms, spreading my brand of mischief, or order, as I see fit. We’re really gonna shake up the status quo, aren’t we, gang?”

Eris shielded her eyes as the room was filled with brilliant, intense light. Blinking away the effects, she saw them all appear: Lydia, Wren, Carina, Hawker, Myst, Wraith Knight, Claudia, Randy, Paige, and Morakesh. His motley crew of fools. They were in the dimension less than three seconds before they began rooting through all of Eris’s belongings, likely looking for booze or things to steal.

Lydia paused her search a moment and locked eyes with Mikayla. The Caledonian rogue pursed her lips and went back to her search.

A document appeared in Frank’s hand. The titan laid it on the table and produced a notary stamp, and with a cha-thunk, the document that declared Jackson Blackwell an official titan was forever etched into the fabric of reality.

Eris smiled.

“The Iconoclast Titan?”

“Yes,” Jackson said with a smile.

“So you’re still a TIT.”

“I—well, motherfucker,” he said, grinding his jaw and looking away in frustration while his friends giggled. “Hey Frank, we can change that, right? Workshop it a bit more? I was kinda on the spot when I had to make the name and—”

“Sorry chief,” Frank said, quickly rolling up the document before producing several more. “Once it’s stamped, it’s stamped. Speaking of, I’ll need your official titan signature here, here, here, and initials here.”

“Initials? Really?”

“Come on, TIT. You picked it, now ya gotta live with it. You want my old properties, then get to it.”

Jackson glared at Frank for a brief second before turning his calculating eyes on everyone in the room. 

“Eh, worth it,” he said as he set to the task of signing the new document. “Oh, just so you know, I won’t change much here. You, Eris, will remain the Shadow Master. The realm needs to have one to function, after all. I told you you’d end up working for me.”

“The fuck I will,” Eris said.

Jackson, having finished the paperwork, looked up at her. “Excuse me?”

“I will not now, or ever, work for you,” Eris said. “This—this is not over. Take this shitty pocket dimension. Take their crappy worlds, I don’t care. But you will not beat me. Not as long as we still have your daughter. Sophia?”

“By your will, Frank?”

The titan nodded.

Eris vanished, along with the gods, the demons, and Sophia, leaving behind a single white business card of her own, a stylized black candleholder logo on one side and a small handwritten note on the other.

Follow if you dare.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 48

Where I Misread a Contract, Learn that Smells Are Important, and Get a Last Meal

I remained in Eris’s chair, drumming my fingers across the ebony wood and staring at the glowing, amorphous portal in the middle of her lounge area. The weird blob of light shifted color in random patterns and smelled like . . . old money and campfire smoke. I eventually tore my eyes away and shot Frank a dirty look.

“Really?” I said. “By your leave? What the crap was that about?”

The titan shrugged. “She asked permission to go. It was just good manners, after all.”

“Go where, Frank?”

“To the place where Sophia’s been keeping your daughter, of course,” the titan said.

“So you’re on her side?” Lydia asked as she walked to the portal. “Why does this smell like brimstone and arrogance?”

“No, I’m not on Sophia’s side,” Frank said with a shake of his head, collecting the signed documents. “And I’m not really on yours. I’m on my side. Chaos, remember? I like y’all, which is why you’re here now. But if you want to see this through to the end, then—”

“I—we—have to keep playing the game,” I said.

He nodded. “Exactly. But you better hurry. This place won’t hold together very long. None of the realities will without the gods in charge missing.”

“But I own it,” I said. “I own all those realms now.”

“Yes, you do. But did you even bother to read the fine print?” Frank asked.

Lydia shot a wicked look my way.

Yeesh, this was going to get even more complicated.

“I . . . skimmed them,” I said. “I had the gist of it all.”

“Oh come on, Jackson,” Paige said. “Even I wouldn’t have done that back before.”

“Don’t give me that!” I snapped. “You once asked me if Batman’s parents are dead, then how was he born?”

“Really, Mom?” Randy said.

“Didn’t those two try killing us once?” Hawker asked Carina and Wren, who nodded. The Caledonian trio took a few steps away, glaring harshly at my sister and nephew.

“It’s cool,” Wraith Knight said to them. “They’re on our side now.”

“And you are?” Wren asked.

“We’re your replacements,” Myst said, holding WK’s big hand.

“Do you need me to take over my duties, Jackson?” Morry asked. “Drinks, everyone?”

“I got this,” Dutch said, manifesting into the office, a tray of drinks in hand. The AI had taken on the form of a tall, handsome, Tron-looking human-program hybrid. I think Claudia approved because she moved several steps closer and I heard her say, “So, about that adapter . . .”

“Will you all shut it?” I snapped and turned back to Frank. “So what’s the fine print?”

“It’s true that Titans create these locations in space time. We pass them around like trading cards over the centuries to keep things fresh. But we’re like your human theater owners. It’s our space, but the gods are the directors and the people are the actors. No directors literally means no direction. The people will run amok without a narrative. Each world will eventually crumble. Even this one. A god must be in charge.”

“Then I’ll appoint new gods,” I said. “And a new Shadow Master.”

“Ah ah ahh,” Frank said with a smile. “None of the old gods abdicated or were defeated. So technically, they are still the gods in charge. So appoint caretakers if you like, that will delay the collapse. But you’re on a ticking clock. Chaos, baby. Ya gotta love it.”

“Okay, I’ll make new worlds.”

“Sure,” Frank said. “Do you know how yet?”

“Um . . .no?”

“Then every living thing across each universe will die.”

Hmm, he got me there. Still, I was a villain . . .

“Okay, fine,” I said, realizing that Frank had maneuvered me into this exact situation. My choices had been my own, but the chaotic fate-gambler definitely had shifted the odds here and there. “So what’s through the portal?”

“Possibility,” Virginia Dare said, suddenly appearing next to Frank.

“Vee?” I said, a little confused. “Great to see ya, but what are you doing here?”

“Came to visit my man,” she said, giving Frank a quick kiss. The titan’s moustache wriggled as it caressed her face.

It was gross. And it went on for a really long time. Like, uncomfortably long.

“Hey?!” I eventually said. “My daughter? Worlds that are going to collapse? Ticking clock?”

“Lighten up, Jacky-boy,” Virginia said once the kiss had broken. “It isn’t going to collapse in the next few minutes. You have what, months?”

“At least,” Frank said. “Maybe more?”

“Our time or book release time?” I asked.

Frank shrugged. “Time is relative.”

I rolled my eyes and looked to Virginia. “So when you said you knew people who might know where Evie is, you meant Frank.”

“Yeah,” Virginia said. “The big galoot didn’t tell me you were the one he was mentoring. But once I knew, I made sure he gave you the right nudges. And I may have helped push you in the right directions.”

“That’s great and all, but what about my—our daughter?” Lydia said, still staring at the portal.

“Hey there, Lydia, so nice to see you too,” Virginia said with a roll of her eyes. “So sorry you and Jackson are on the outs. I had high hopes for you two.”

“Boss, what?” Wraith Knight asked, while Myst looked at us both in turn before saying, “What happened?”

“It’s not important,” I said, not wanting to go into it all right now. “Please, tell us where she is.”

“How many times do we have to say it?” Frank said.

“Dear,” Virginia cautioned, placing a hand on his chest. “Think about your bile-pressure.”

“Fine,” Frank relented.

“Shortly after your defeat and assumed death,” Virginia began, “the news cycle was abuzz. A dead god, even a minor one, was newsworthy. I saw Evie on an interdimensional news clip. A bunch of media vultures tried to get a soundbite from her about your death. And your little gal told everyone that they were idiots if they thought they were safe. And then kindly told the reporter to fuck off and that she was late for class.”

“Yes,” Lydia said with a small fist pump. “My daughter.”

“What else, Vee?” I asked.

“She was wearing a school uniform.”

I started laughing. It was not a laugh of joy. I eventually slammed my fist down, breaking the ebony table.

“Jackson?” Lydia said. “What is it?”

I looked up at her, unsure how to answer. Snark? Derision?

No. No, that would be just masking my real feelings with negativity to cope with an undesirable emotional event. No matter what was between Lydia and me, she was the mother of my only child. She deserved the respect that came with that position. At least when it came to matters about Evie.

“Villains Pride,” I said.

“Your second recorded adventure?” Lydia said. “What about it?”

“When I was talking to those figments of myself in the pre-prologue—”

“Really?” Myst said. “You used a pre—”

“Get in line with the rest of the critics,” I said. “But during that part when I was spitballing adventures to go on, I pitched the idea of a villain academy. A place we could one day create. A boarding school for villains.”

“So,” Wraith Knight said, “like a villain’s version of Harry—”

“Nooope,” I said, cutting him off. “Depending on which way the Twitter blows, that name, those books, and that writer are more toxic than actual plutonium. Besides, it’s not like she has the trademark on a school for teaching kids. Before that muggle came along, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea books had a school of magic. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series had Unseen University, a university for wizards. Jill Murphy’s The Worst Witch series had Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches. And let’s not forget the X-Men and Charles Xavier’s Home for Gifted Youngsters.”

“So,” Myst said, “you were ripping them off, then?”

“Yes—no! Maybe? Point is, I had an idea, but only an idea. I never did anything with it.”

“That was our guess as well,” Virginia said. “We think that Sophia managed to pull a few strings with another titan, one of the Infinite. She literally created a space inside the titan Possibility. It’s why you couldn’t find her. Evie does not exist in any form or function that the worlds of matter or anti-matter contain. She exists inside Possibility.”

“When do we go?” Lydia said, standing in front of the portal.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Frank said. “You can’t just go inside. That is a door to tangible possibility. Without a powerful force to guide you, you’ll be pulled in countless directions. Things that you want, or never knew you wanted, will tempt you. You’ll literally be torn apart by the endless possibilities.”

“Is that why it smells like that?” Lydia asked. “Like what we want?”

“You smell chocolate and ass too?” Wraith Knight asked.

We all turned to look at him.

“Don’t judge me.”

Myst bumped her hip into Wraith Knight. “You know I’m not.”

“It is unique to the person,” Frank said. “But once you’re in, you’re in. If Sophia has an academy set up in there, then you’ll have to see that tangible possibility through to the end. And none of you, even Jackson, will have their outside powers.”

“Play the game,” I repeated. “You knew this was coming.”

“No one can predict chaos,” Frank said. “That’s what makes it great. But once you’ve been around as long as I have, you can guesstimate some outcomes.”

“Which is why I suggest you all take a moment. Wrap up your affairs and have a nice, final meal,” Virginia said.

“You bring us something to eat?” I asked.

Virginia smiled. “Jacky-boy, I brought enough chicken and waffles to choke an entire Las Vegas blowjob convention.”

“Classy, Vee.”

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Epilogue

The Ballad of Erika Myers, Part 7

All Good Things Must End

So, we did just that. Despite our various situations, needs, and wants, my found friends sat around the Malum Lux executive boardroom table, eating Dare Diner chicken and waffles. And for the life of me, I don’t remember having had a finer meal. It wasn’t because the food was great, which it was. It was the company. It was . . . my family.

Well, most of it.

A spot was left open for Evie. We’d find her. And she’d fill that spot soon enough. For there was no force in all of reality that would stop me from getting my daughter back. I knew that. They knew that. Which was why this was a meal of joy, not tears. We laughed, we talked, we swapped stories.

I even had a nearly pain-free conversation with Lydia. Small talk, mostly. But it was a step.

Hawker and Morakesh slowly warmed up to one another. Bastards even began devising a plan on how to split the GameLit world into factions so that they would receive the most profit and power.

I love when villains get along. So much so that I appointed them the new high gods of Caledon. Well, gods in name only. We’d need to get the other two to abdicate. But I was sure I could make that happen. Even if they didn’t, I was pretty sure Vammar, God of Duality, would step up and cover the bases. He owed me for finding his lost shepherd.

Free from the shackles of the gods and the Never Realm, Carina began to remember who she was. It made things awkward, what with her body that of a teenager and the man she once loved right there, out of reach. But we would find a way to fix that. I was sure of it.

I proposed that she and Wren return to the manga version of the comic universe. Wren would retake the mantle of Prior Lark but serve as the caretaker of that realm. With Dutch now integrated into the Malum Lux network, he and Claudia would be able to lend support in managing the vastness of King Stanley’s empire.

As for my old realm, that choice was easy. I placed the mantle of temporary Shadow Masters, plural, upon the brows of Paige and Randy. Both had experience working for me, and they knew the business better than anyone.

Heh. I guess Paige had been right. Way back when these silly recorded adventures of mine began, she’d come to me, looking for a job for Randy. Paige had even gone so far as to call him a potential successor. I remember having laughed at that notion.

I guess the joke was on me. He was an amazing adversary and a great villain.

For now, at least. We’d see what the future held.

Once the meal was finished, and the goodbyes were had, it was just me, Lydia, Myst, and Wraith Knight. Frank had made the instructions as clear as possible. Walk through the portal and focus on Evie. No other possibilities existed for us. Stay true to that, and we would find her.

But before I left, I asked for a brief time alone with my one outstanding dangling thread.

You.

“So now what?” Erika asked.

I sat next to her on a bench across the street from the Starbucks where we’d once worked together. It was a nice sunny day in Mt. Airy, Maryland. I sat for a moment, soaking in the sun and simplicity of the semi-rural town.

“Now, you go back to work,” I said. “As far as anyone is concerned, you’ve only been gone for ten minutes or so. But the question is, will you continue being an asshole, or will you take my lessons to heart? A life lived in self-service and constant revenge ends in misery. A life lived to the fullest, surrounded by the ones we love? That, dear Erika, is a life worth living.”

Erika didn’t say anything for a few moments. I could tell she was really taking my words to heart. And I was proud of her.

I was proud of me too. I had come a long way over these years, not just as a god or a titan, but as a person. I’d loved, I’d laughed, I’d even listened a time or two to the tales of others. I had become a richer person.

Pretty soon, my coterie of friends and I were going to go inside the realm of actual, living Possibility. I didn’t know what would happen next. But if that was where my daughter was, then that was where I was going.

Family, at least the ones worth bearing that name, were always worth the risk.

“I think I want to be better,” Erika said. “I may have been a bit of a bitch.”

“May have?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.

“Okay, a lot of a bitch,” Erika chuckled. “But I have to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“Why didn’t you just kill me?”

“Hmm?”

“Well, you’re an all-powerful . . . thing—”

“Titan,” I corrected.

“Sure, whatever,” she said. “At any time, you could have just killed me. Why didn’t you?”

“Because—” I started, then paused. She had a right to know. “Because I was a lot like you, back in my early days of being the Shadow Master. People were tools to use or obstacles to step over. I never saw the value in people. That was until fate allowed me to actually give a damn. You have a chance to do it better, and younger, than I did. So from one Gen-X fucker to a younger generation, please heed my words: learn from our triumphs and mistakes. Become better sooner. Don’t wait as long as we did to come to this conclusion. Have the wisdom to see history and the context it presents for the present. Step outside yourself, and really see yourself. Do that, and there is nothing you can’t accomplish.”

“Thank you, Jackson,” Erika said.

“You’re welcome,” I responded, then inclined my chin towards the coffee shop. “Go on, get to work. Never sets a good example when the boss is late or taking too many breaks.”

“Will I ever see you again?”

“Only if the fans like you.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Never mind,” I said. “Take care.”

“You too.”

I watched Erika leave, a smile on her face, a spring in her step, and a newfound sense of being absolutely radiating off her.

I also watched as a delivery truck packed to the brim with hazelnut creamer slammed into Erika and sent her bitch-ass flying across the road. The truck came to a screeching halt as people on the street gasped and screamed, having witnessed the “accident.”

“Hey, Uncle Jackson,” Randy yelled from the truck’s open driver-side window. “Perfect timing.”

“It’s almost like an all-powerful titan was in control,” I called back as I got up and walked over to the bloody, broken, and unmoving body of one Erika Myers.

She wasn’t dead, but she wasn’t looking too good either. Eh, she’d make it.

As folks may recall, at the end of Villains Defeat, I’d tasked Randy with coming up with a plan to murder someone using hazelnut creamer. And like Caesar, I was a man of my word.

But I was also a reformed man. So I didn’t have her killed. Just really, really hurt.

It’s funnier that way.

Oh for the love of—don’t look at me like that. I’m still a villain in a comedy story. And this shit is funny.

“Uncle Jackson, come on,” Randy said. “You have to go save Evie.”

“Right you are, dear nephew, right you are. Hang on, kid. Daddy’s coming.”

The End.

~ Jackson Blackwell will return in Villains Academy, The Shadow Master Book 6.

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Afterword

When I started writing the Shadow Master, I never honestly thought I'd get to five books. I seriously thought this was going to be a one-off, maybe two book thing. Because, let's be real, this should NOT work. But, thanks to you all being just as messed up (comedy-wise) as myself, here we are!

But the thing I wanted to focus on was the real "growth" of Jackson. I knew that if this was going to continue past the first book, then I had to make sure there was a growth of character. So after book one, I looked inwards.

For those who don't know, I was married once before but that marriage was short-lived. After meeting my 2nd wife (in my mid-30's,) I felt like my life had really begun. We had a child, we bought a house, built a "home." And as such, all my old... ahem, dude-ism's, had to be set aside for me to become a better human.

Well, maybe not ALL of them. But anyway.

So what I mean by all this is that change, especially change brought on by finding actual happiness, can be frightening, especially when you're accustomed to heartbreak and isolation. Now that's not me saying that marriage is the ultimate happiness. It isn't, just ask any married person.

But whether it's marriage, domestic partnership, or just a tight group of close, close friends, that opportunity to let down your walls and allow another to really see/know you as you see/know them? THAT is life changing. Scary as shit, but rewarding. Vulnerability... it's a real MFer.

I really found that with my wife, child, and my circle of friends. And as such, I had to borrow from real life and use it in my fiction.

Look, Jackson will always be Jackson. But I had to ask, what would a mature Jackson look like? So as each book goes, Jackson gains more happiness and I don't know if he can stand it. A partner, a child, friends who love him? Revolting! But still...

So by the time we hit book 5, those things HAD to matter.  They had to have a bigger impact beyond a butthole joke or a quip. And I think that mission was accomplished.

But, you know, with butthole jokes.

I seriously have to say "thank you" to ALL of you who continue to support me/Jackson as we travel this insane road together. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to see what happens next. Unil then...

Live long and strong!

~MK Gibson

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About The Author

MK Gibson

M. K. Gibson is a husband, father, retired USAF MSgt, and a lifetime geek. Ever since he saw the Rankin-Bass The Hobbit movie in 1980, all he ever wanted to do was create and tell fantastical stories.

M. K. Gibson lives in Mt. Airy, MD with his wife, and first-line editor, Valerie, their son Jack, their boxer/beagle Luna, beagle/chihuahua Stella, and their cats Grimm, Agatha, and Fawkes.

Follow/contact M. K. Gibson on:
MKGibson.com
Twitter - @GibsonMK1
Facebook - Facebook.com/Gibthewriter
Instagram - instagram.com/mikekgibson
Gibthewriter@gmail.com

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