Josie led the way through the gate. She walked over to the lever and opened the lid.
They climbed up the stairs to get out on the grounds.
“What used to be here, Jo-jo?,” asked Juni as she looked around. She had geared up
in jacket, Gold’s Gym t-shirt and loose pants. The local culture wasn’t ready for her
in yoga pants in her opinion.
“A mansion,” said Josie. “Jack tore it down to build the quinjet. There are some
things you need to know that aren’t in the casebooks, and there are some things that
you should think about right now at the outset. You ready?”
“I’m ready,” said June.
“The one thing you might not need to know unless you pass is the quest system
sets goals for you,” said Josie. “They are a constant reminder that you have agreed
to do something, and that you should get it done. Be careful about what you think
you can do from now on until you stop wanting to quest.”
“I don’t understand,” said June.
“The first day I was here, some people locked me up in a cell and threatened to rape
and sell me,” said Josie. “I declared war on those people. I have a reminder that there
are still a hundred thousand plus people I need to find and deal with in the middle of
everything. The quest system formed the quest and is keeping tabs on how many more
targets I have to get rid of before it’s done. If you win the job, that’s something you
will have to be mindful about while working here.”
“That’s where she met us,” said Matilda. She patted Aviras on her head. He hugged
her skull as well as he was able with his short legs.
“That’s not in any of the casebooks,” said June.
“It’s personal business,” said Josie. “The quest system doesn’t care if it’s personal,
or for the Society. It just marks down the goal.”
Josie saw one of those numbers fall again. The hunter was still out there helping
them.
“The second thing you have to know is the Society does not tell you how dangerous
a quest is,” said Josie. “Even though they want you to find this guy, there is a better
than even chance that he is involved in something that is a threat to wherever he is.”
“So if I run up on him, I have to be ready to put him down,” said June.
“You’ll have to be ready to kill him if you have to do that,” said Josie.
“Kill him?,” said June. She looked at Matilda and Aviras. They looked back at her.
They didn’t look as shocked as she felt.
“These people are not going to play with you, Juni,” said Josie. “That’s part of the
reason why I gave you the casebooks. You want in on something where you will have
to be ready to fight to the finish. There’s not a lot of people who are ready to do that
unless they are pushed in a corner.”
“You didn’t kill the dragon,” pointed out June.
“Jack made the call,” said Josie. “And Aviras is stopped from killing all the elves.
Mission done.”
“So I don’t have to kill anybody,” said June.
“You have to solve the problem with whatever is at hand,” said Matilda. “You might
have to kill somebody to solve the problem. The main problem with a quest is they
don’t tell you enough about what we should be doing. They are letting us make the
decision as long as we are in the guidelines.”
“We’re Team Machine,” said Josie. “And all these quests are irrelevant numbers. It’s
up to us to figure out how to handle the problem and apply the solution. Killing
someone is not always the way to go, but there is no criminal justice system above
barebones patrol cops. Anyone we stop is not going to face justice outside of what
we have to apply to clear the quest.”
“Beatrice’s courter poisoned her,” said Matilda. “Aviras had to save her life.”
“And he didn’t make it back to the city to stand in front of a judge,” said Josie.
“Eventually, his cult is going to be put back on the quest list, and Jack and I will have
to deal with whatever they think they are doing trying to call up Elder Gods to grant
them power.”
“Since all I have to do is find the guy, I probably won’t have to fight anyone,” said
June.
“If you do have to, be ready,” said Josie. “Show us what you got on the watch.
Matilda and Aviras need to know what you have to give you better advice. I might
be able to give you advice about use of them.”
“Won’t that get her sent home?,” said Matilda.
“She’s not my sister who lied like a rug,” said Josie. “And if she gets killed, her
mentally disturbed brother will have to tell her poor elderly parents how she died on
a job interview. So let’s see what you got.”
June frowned at her watch face. She twisted it to light up the proper name in her mind
and pressed the execute button. A vision of pink floofiness took her place on the
grass.
“Card Captor Sakura gives me one random spell,” said Juni. She looked down at the
suit of pinkness. “I guess FLY is okay.”
“You don’t have anything else?,” asked Josie.
“No,” said Juni. “Am I supposed to?”
“There might be something hidden about the persona,” said Josie. “Let’s look at the
other two.”
“Bond,” said June. She turned into a large sheep dog. She sat down and looked
around. “This is lovely.”
“You look like the dog from the Loony Tunes,” said Josie. “Is that all there is to it?”
“But I have a gun,” said June. She reached into her fur and pulled out a pistol. “I
think I have a lot of concealed weapons in my fur.”
“That’s strange and on point at the same time,” said Josie. “Do you have a weapons
skill with it?”
“I think so,” said June. She put the pistol away. “I think I am carrying an arsenal.”
“Let’s see the third form,” said Josie. “Then I am going to talk to your coaches.”
June let the dog go, and dressed herself in green with green hair. Pale gloves and big
construction boots finished her ensemble.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Deku?,” said June. “I don’t feel anything. It just says I can.”
“That might be the fall back if the others can’t get things done,” said Josie. “Go ahead
and practice. You need to be able to pick the body you need the most. We’re going
to talk and then I am going to send the letter to Mister Warner.”
Josie gestured for Matilda and Aviras to follow her to the stairs. She considered what
she could say to make their job easier.
“Bond might be a good front guy if he really does have an arsenal in that fur,” said
Josie. “The other two seem to be on the tricky side.”
“Fly might be something to duplicate what Jack’s flight pack can do for me and
Laura,” said Aviras.
“It would help if we had more information,” said Matilda. “I don’t like that Deku
doesn’t seem to have a skill associated with him.”
“There might be something hidden there,” said Josie. “Make sure she works each of
the forms before you try to use the model. I forgot about the time limit. I should
explain that before I have to get started on my day. Make sure she gets a com band
like the rest of us so we can call her.”
“Should I ask for one too?,” asked Aviras.
“Yes,” said Josie. “You’ve proven your worth. It’s time for you to be able to call
us if you need us.”
“June!,” called Josie. “Come here for a minute.”
June ran over in her Deku form. She smiled slightly.
“This one enhances me somehow,” said June. “I don’t know how much.”
“There are two things I have to tell you before I have to go,” said Josie. “The first
is there is a time limit on how much you can use the watch. Jack and I basically dip
into the use, and then cut it off when we don’t need it so the watch can recharge.
Everything I did this morning was like five minutes of real use.”
“Like Ben Ten,” said June. She nodded at the implications of running out of power
when you needed it the most. She let Deku fade away.
“Exactly,” said Josie. “The com bands are push button no frills.”
She showed June hers.
“You push the book, you talk to Matilda,” said Josie. “The lightning and Deadpool
symbol are me and Jack. The band doesn’t work when you activate the watch. Any
time you need to call for advice, you will have to be normal.”
“The range is only three days ride,” said Matilda. “If the quest is outside of Hawk
Ridge, we will have to go together to wherever it is.”
“And the fastest thing around is Aviras,” said Josie. “Everything else is horses.”
“I kind of figured that,” said June. “They wouldn’t put the quest on the other side of
the continent, would they?”
“Did you not see who you were messing with?,” said Josie. “They don’t care about
distance. They don’t care about how you do the quest. They only care that the quest
gets done. Now, I think that is all. I’m going to write this letter to Mister Warner to
tell him we’re coming. Practice for a bit to give Jack time to build your band and to
make sure you know what each persona does, then figure out how to get started.”
“What happens if the quest is done?,” asked June.
“You go home,” said Josie. “The Society will give you another quest they will expect
you to get done in a timely manner because they think the threats are dangerous to
towns like Hawk Ridge. They don’t seem to care if you amass any wealth to take
home with you.”
“You and Jack are staying here,” said June. “How are you doing that?”
“We have personal quests that we devote our time to so that we are actually helping
people as we go,” said Josie. “The people I have to murder are human traffickers and
enabled the Lich Queen to start. I have to go. You guys think about what you need
to do and how you need to do it. If you have any questions, Matilda should be the one
to make the call to keep you from asking for too much assistance.”
“I already have some ideas on how to proceed,” said Aviras. “I will talk to Matilda
to see if she agrees. Then we will get started.”
“All right,” said Josie. She pulled out a piece of paper from her messenger bag. She
headed down the stairs. She hoped she wasn’t making a mistake trusting June to look
after her littlest sister.
Josie decided she had to let June fly or crash on her own as much as possible. Her
wanting to start over in the fantasy land that had drawn in her brother seemed
questionable, but the champion of order wasn’t a gatekeeper.
And the visit itself was her idea and that made June her responsibility up to a point.
Josie went through the gate and settled at the dining room table. She wrote out a note
for Mister Warner and sent it with the help of Zatanna. He appeared a few seconds
later, letting some tuxedo wearing persona return to the void as he looked around.
“This is your place?,” asked Warner. He pulled on the front of his jacket.
“It used to be a dungeon,” said Josie. “Please sit. I can get you some breakfast and
coffee.”
“Have you talked to June yet?,” said Warner. He settled at the table. He looked
around, taking in everything.
“She got three characters from anime from the looks of it,” said Josie. “She’s
practicing. I have our casebooks for you up in the office.”
“I can whip up copies of my quests with Marvello,” said Warner. “It should be a snap.
Is there anything not in the casebooks I should know?”
“We are at war with human traffickers that have no problem enslaving women and
girls to be experimented on,” said Josie. “So far we have only put a small dent in their
operations.”
“I don’t want to stay here full time,” said Warner. “But I can give you a hand until I
finish this third quest.”
“Can you walk Juni through her quest?,” said Josie. “She supposed to find this guy.”
“I think that would be a bad idea for her,” said Warner. “That might lead to her
disqualification.”
“Have you ever seen anything like this?,” said Josie.
“My first quest taking over for Summerland was like this,” said Warner. “I had a ring
then.”
“Jack found it,” said Josie. “He’s working on it to give to Bea.”
“How did he do that?,” asked Warner. “I thought I had got rid of it for good.”
“Some guy trying to wake up the Dark Rider had it,” said Josie. “Jack took it from
him while doing the quest.”
“I’m glad he stopped the Rider,” said Warner. “That guy was always spouting off by
his forgotten kingdom. I never figured out how to stop him for good.”
“Apparently he had a secret power source that kept bringing him back,” said Josie.
“Jack found it and ripped it up.”
“Good for him,” said the old man.
“Why did you stop?,” said Josie. She leaned back in her chair.
“This kind of work wears on you, Jo,” said Warner. He stared at something in the
distance, before snapping back. “You are in charge with protecting most of a planet,
and you see a lot of suffering and unfixable problems while doing what you can. And
after a while, you have to put it down and let other people do the work.”
“I know about Harp and his arm,” said Josie.
“I blew that,” said Warner. “I should have been more thoughtful but he was going to
die.”
“Jack gave him a new arm,” said Josie.
“You’re joking,” said Warner.
“Just like Cyborg,” said Josie. “He’s the girls’ sword teacher.”
“I would have thought the Guild wouldn’t let him do anything with one arm,” said
Warner.
“They gave him up because I was threatening the livelihood of the adventurers in
Hawk Ridge,” said Josie.
“What are you doing here, Josie?,” asked Warner.
“She’s practicing her Wolverine imitation,” said Jack as he appeared on the stairs.
“You could have told us you were the Green Lantern of this place even if you knew
I hate the Green Lantern.”
“The story sounds too crazy to tell people who don’t know,” said Warner. “June must
have been desperate to come here.”
“I think the fight game has decided to try to get its pound of flesh from her,” said
Josie.
“Do we go back to fix her problem in that world when we still have work to do in this
world?,” asked Jack.
“Can we go back while we still have quests to do?,” said Josie. She glanced at
Warner. He shrugged.
“I’ll ask the Society the next time we have a town hall,” said Jack. “They never did
that before.”
“They like to keep things low key,” said Warner.
“I’m a low key type of guy,” said Jack. He grinned at their visitor.
“You are so full of it,” said Warner. He shook his head. “You haven’t been low key
since that thing with the clowns.”
“I was six at the time,” said Jack. “I have a right to hate clowns now.”
“Did you get Juni’s band ready?,” said Josie.
“Yes, I did,” said Jack. He handed over a band with four buttons on it. “I also
modified my band, and Elaine’s. And I have a tiny band for Aviras.”
“Really?,” said Josie. She leaned over and looked at his com band. There was three
more buttons on it. One was the Trek badge. One was a flame. The last was a flower.
“I didn’t consider a band for you, Mister Warner,” said Jack. “But it won’t take me
a minute to whip up another so you can have one.”
“It’s all right,” said Warner, holding up his hand. “I won’t be here long.”
“If you decide to stay after you get done with your last quest, I can make you one,”
said Jack. “Do you need help with it?”
“Zu has me down to look at some goblin thing in the south,” said Warner. “Coming
through Hawk Ridge was the fastest way to get down there and look around to see
what’s going on.”
“We can use the Enterprise to get down there,” said Jack. “We can’t do much here
until we have the hospitals ready to go.”
“Let me check on Elaine,” said Josie. “Then we can take a look at the model.”