"Arf."
"'Chibi'? That's not a very good name," muttered one of the other pack members.
"Well, welcome anyway," said Kuromaru. "We'll get to training shortly."
Saber sat in the saddle and gradually calmed down. She was not exploding from decompression. She was not having trouble breathing. She knew enough from Shiro's time that she HAD been aware of the possibilities.
Instead she was on the back of a six-winged dragon that apparently had absolutely no problem flying without an atmosphere. It was also fast and one of the twelve such dragons they had. It was fairly small as dragons went though, merely three times her body length.
The dragons turned out to have a "stables" which was outside the dome itself, sort of an outbuilding. They could go in and out of the dragon-sized-hatch on the docking module (or whatever you wanted to call that area) without any problem.
The world turned beneath her as she brought her steed to dead slow, aware of Rider joining her from a few hundred yards away. They just sat and watched the world turn beneath them.
Rider said something, but the voice actually came from a section of the dragon's saddle.
"Who else made it?" asked Rider.
"Not sure yet," answered Saber. "Sakura, Rin, Shiro. Those I've seen since we've arrived here."
"I knew about Sakura," said Rider. "Caster made it as well. Interesting."
"There are others, some of power," said Saber. "They might require watching."
Flashback:
Earth 618
"No," said Balder.
"What?" asked Loki, his smirk vanishing. How dare this puppet rebel yet further against the puppetmaster?
"Kelda would not have wanted the slayer of her lover to go free," said Balder, his voice carrying easily to the Asgardians nearby. "She had said that 'death was her companion.' So be it. Let the funeral barge that contains William also contain Kelda, so that they can be together in death."
Balder turned his back on Loki, figuratively and literally. "Bill has proven himself to be a warrior and one of honor. For the service he has done us, for Kelda's desires, let this much at least be done."
Flashback:
A little later, subdimensional pocket formed within Earth 618 continuity
"Life again?" asked Bill.
"Yes indeed," said the cat. "In fact, I can take care of something while I'm at it."
Kelda moved forward with wind-assisted speed as the spear of light slammed down into her William. Unfortunately, her hands passed directly through the cat as if he were smoke. Except that smoke didn't normally make a face and reform after one had finished.
"You're an Asgardian," pointed out Toltiir. "That means your body tissues are three times as dense as a human's. Even with your mystical talents, just having a relationship with a human is difficult."
"What did you do?" asked Kelda, ready to try summoning the power of the storm into this void.
"I've increased his strength and durability to the point where you two can consummate a relationship," said Toltiir, cocking his head. "You smooshing him to jelly accidently isn't very funny, you know. An occasional broken rib, major bruising, or such - that could be another matter altogether. I've also given him some basic superpowers and the title of God Of Cooking, Third Class."
"A... god of cooking?" asked Kelda, blinking and slowly lowering her hand.
"Yeah, immune to fire, able to summon his Holy Frypan Of Doom," said Toltiir, shrugging. "Stuff like that. He's able to summon kitchen equipment out of stuffspace, identify ingredients, longevity, ability to fly using a Great Big Spatula as a broomstick, and so on."
"He's durable enough to..." asked Kelda, turning her attention to where Bill was checking himself out. He was wearing workboots, blue jeans, baseball hat, and t-shirt with the usual apron in place. Looking somewhat bewildered as he pulled out a metal spatula that could probably count as a polearm.
"I copied Ukyo Kuonji's combat-spatula and added a few enchants on it," said Toltiir, waving off the point. "Eh, I was curious. Couldn't recall off the top of my head having seen any magic combat-spatulas so it really needed to be done at some point."
"I... see," said Kelda. "Uhm. Could you do one thing?"
"Oh?" asked Toltiir, sensing the mischief in the goddess and approving of the attitude change.
"Naruto! I challenge you!"
"Eh?" asked Naruto, blinking a couple of times as he found himself suddenly confronted by Sasuke Uchiha. "Why?"
"To free my mother from being your slave!" declared Sasuke.
Naruto scratched his head. "Uhm. She's not a slave. She's the head maid of my clan."
"Don't banter words with me!" said Sasuke as he leapt forward, chambering a fist.
CLANG!
Sasuke blinked as a large combat spatula had come to rest atop his head. "That didn't hurt, you know."
Midori Uchiha pulled back her weapon. "Hey, knock off hitting my boss!"
"Oh, you were one of the models, weren't you?" asked Naruto, placing the green eyes.
"Yup, Midori Uchiha," said Midori. "Kitchen staff. I'm gonna be attending class with ya."
"Stop interfering with my attempts to free my mother," warned Sasuke.
"You do realize that the contract is such that if we leave Lord Naruto's service," said Midori, noting Sasuke's flinch at the term and therefore deciding to use it at every opportunity, "then we return to being dead?"
"Eh?" asked Sasuke, his anger suddenly dropping away to a cold horror.
The eleven year old girl shrugged as she slung her ninja weapon behind her. Hey, she was a ninja bakery store heir. Of course she used various breadmaking tools as weapons. "That's what everyone thinks is the case. Though I suppose as it's his clan we're actually serving, we'd have to be dismissed from the clan and not Lord Naruto's personal service."
"Oh," said Naruto. "I hadn't thought about that."
Sasuke looked from one to the other of the two eleven-year-olds then around at their class. Odd, there seemed to be a few new faces there too.
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(Posted Tue, 10 Aug 2010 17:02)
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