The Eternal City 1 - Arrival

“This was relentlessly overdone,” Lydia, her voice only intact thanks to Undine healing her (and Rave for that matter), said. Her voice was slightly raised, having to speak against the sound of water drumming on the floor. She was currently using a shower, powered by John, to wash the remaining cum out of her hair. “I liked it,” Rave, standing right next to her, said soap bubbling over her naked curves; “Was a nice group exercise. We can continue this later...although we need to calm Siena down first.”

The shadow elemental was currently on time-out in John’s shadow. She had a…well, John would call it a possessive episode, Rave called it a yandere attack. Besides the point though as the two girls kept showering and John concentrated on having his dick inside Undine.

Basically, everyone who was human was trying to get somewhat representable in case some journalists would swarm them. Lydia didn’t plan to do anything but answer some question. However, it was one thing to say “I don’t have time,” and another saying that same phrase while looking like you just had a circle of dudes bukkake you. John’s familiars had the distinct advantage of either having a base form, or just needing to be washed down quickly. Thana just stood cross armed under the stream of water, blinded by her own hair. She just wanted to get clean.

Speaking of showers on a plane, that was a truly wonderful thing. Of course, it was only possible thanks to John fuelling the mana generator that provided the necessary water and whatever arcane machinations that made it vanish in the drain afterwards.

The fact that he had to fuel the mana generator meant that he himself did not get a chance to join the princess, his girlfriend, and the bundle of madness in the shower. Which was just the worst, because seeing the three of them soap each other up, okay, seeing Rave soap Lydia up as the princess tried her best to just get clean while Thana got boobs pushed into her face, was getting him quite the hard on.

Also, he was still sweaty. Would be still sweaty, if the alternative shower in the form of Undine wrapping around him wasn’t a thing that was happening. The water spirit was not psyched by the fact that she was used as a mobile bath, but the fact that she got to continue to rid John’s dick while everyone showered seemed to be enough to appease her. It was a win-win for both John and his elemental.

“I liked it too,” Sylph chirped, “It was fun, lots of fun, lots tentacles, not enough dicking, but hey, what can you do? You could try getting more! But more men that aren’t John isn’t nice. I want more John’s! Can we get more John’s? Johnnie can you make more John’s with more John’s?”

“Shut up, Sylph,” Salamander, waiting annoyedly to be used as a glorified hairdryer again, grumbled. A mechanical voice announced that they would land in about 15 minutes. Lydia and Rave took that as their queue to leave the shower.

“Ya are weird,” Rave said. “What are you speaking in reference to?” Lydia asked. “The shower was way too cold,” came the swift answer, “ya gotta shower really hot.” “Jane,” John chimed in, “you just take showers that are almost burningly hot.” “No often how often ya say that, it’s still wrong,” Rave folded her arms over her naked chest as her wet, pink hair started to curve upwards under the heat radiating from Salamander, except for those swirly, slightly darker strands she had; “Ya just don’t know how to enjoy a nice, warm shower.”

“Okay, different question, and I have wondered this before,” John pointed at his girlfriend’s head, “how the hell do you have hair like that? Your dad’s hair is a dark brown, your mother’s hair is midnight blue and your sister’s hair is neon-green. Not to mention the fact that all three of you have hairstyles that are physically impossible.”

“Ah, ya know, ancient Japanese curse, nothing serious,” Rave waved off. “Say what now?” John blinked, for a moment his confusion even overwrote the feeling of Undine’s pussy quivering around his dick. “Ancient Japanese curse, some ancestor got it from a demon or something, I dunno, I just have cool hair,” the techno-lover continued, stepping into her panties as if there was nothing weird about what she just said.

“What she is referring to,” Lydia, ever helpful and knowledgeable, explained, “is the ancient Japanese practice of binding a spell to a bloodline via rituals of varying complexity. These rituals are completely forgotten these days, as declining popularity and the regular raids of the Japanese Abyss from the Korean seat in the Ten Gates, following the end of the second World War, eradicated most of its practisers. Attempts to restore or replicate these rituals have, so far, been unsuccessful.” The princess put her arms through the sleeves of her hovering uniform, “Even though that is the case, as these ‘curses’ are bound to a bloodline, there are still several around in the world. I must say that I am surprised that your hair stems from that, I assumed you simply enchanted it to look that way.”

“Nah, the enchantment is my brown hair,” Rave giggled, “people often make that mistake.” John took a moment to cum inside Undine before resuming to talk. There were many things he was used to by now, but talking while his balls unloaded was not one of them. Although he had been clean for a while, the mending elemental wouldn’t let go until he put some his seed into her pussy. Probably because she could taste it no matter where it landed. Once his orgasm was over, however, he turned back to the conversation.

“So, in conclusion,” he said as Undine flowed off him and then vanished, “you have a curse that gives you anime hair?” “Ja, awesome, isn’t it?” Rave smirked. “Try fucking retarded,” Thana said, letting Momo comb her hair as the support had nothing better to do. Although Momo looked very happy about doing that, “Your hair is so much like sister’s,” she mused, “soft, silvery-white, hah, I love it.” “Stop being creepy back there,” Thana hissed. “Want to try combing your own hair?” Momo asked, “Oh wait, you would break the comb in your hulk-hands, relax and let me take care of you, you ungrateful child.” Thana didn’t know how to answer that.

“Anyhow, so if you two had plagues, kids as they are more commonly called,” the blood mage turned to the easier conversation, “that would then go down to them?” “Only to the girls,” Rave answered, “Don’t even ask me why, for the history of who got my family that curse and why I’d have to talk to my mother, and that won’t be happening soon.”

“And would you like to have kids in the first place?” Thana probed further. John blinked rapidly, “I mean, someday? Depends, question kind of comes out of the left field here.” “Well, if I were pregnant tomorrow, what would we do?” Rave wondered. “Either abort mission or try to get this tournament over ASAP and then retire to the countryside,” John suggested. “Yeah…ah well, spells still in place, so whatevs.”

They left the shower and went back into the seat area. Lydia glared angrily at the tear in her carpet and at its source. “Hey, I kept it at one!” Thana defended herself, “I kept my ‘hulk-hands’ to myself for the whole hour and whatever more that fucking fucking went on.” The princess sighed, “Fair enough. At least it will be cheaper to fix in Rome than in Berlin.”

“Do they have that good an economy?” John asked. Lydia kept a straight-face, “You will soon see the infrastructure of the eternal city for yourself.” “Well then, I will wait,” John said and sat down as the announcement warned them of the landing starting.

‘The whole city is in a barrier? That’s pretty impressive,’ John thought as the plane came to a halt, the engines went out, to blade of the turbines slowly stopped rotating. John didn’t hate flying but he would be happy to have solid ground under his feet again. The door opened and Lydia took the lead. John was second and if the staircase wouldn’t have been automated, he would have blocked the exit for everyone else.

They hadn’t landed, not really, they were on an island in the sky, several more all over the place. The one they were on was an airport, and therefore amongst the largest ones. They were more than he could count, in all shapes and sizes, the largest one had artificial suns on their bottom side, singular houses or whole city blocks just flying in the sky, interconnected with streets of mana. The islands were all tethered to an enormous obelisk of marble white, ever shifting arcane veins pulsating through it.

John almost stumbled when he reached the end of the escalator. Prepared for that, Lydia was the one who caught him. “Impressive, isn’t it?” she asked in her usual iron tone. “Impressive?!” Thana laughed into her face, “Bitch, this isn’t impressive, this is stupendous, who builds a whole city in the fucking sky?” “What makes you think that is the whole city?” Lydia asked. “Ya can’t be serious,” Rave returned. “I am, this is the heart of the Romulusian Empire, the oldest European Abyssal organization,” she pointed at the islands, “these are merely extensions and outskirts. When they ran out of place on the ground the city planners turned to the sky. First they put public buildings such as the airport or the bigger hospitals up here, creating more living space. The magical highways used to transport citizens turned out to be a massive time save as well. Then people of power asked if they could have small islands themselves, to have access to these magical highways and more isolated living quarters. That is where we will be staying by the way.”

Her finger had travelled from island to island as she went over her explanation and now she had found a smaller sized island that was flying about a hundred metres above them in northern direction. “Mansion Hohenstaufen,” she said.

“Okay, so the city then continued to grow anyhow and then they decided to put whole city blocks into the sky?” John asked, extremely bamboozled. “Yes,” Lydia answered like it was the most normal thing in her world. They looked at each other and a small twitching of Lydia’s lips told him that she was rather enjoying his utter incomprehension of the amount of power in this place. “And then they put magical SUNS on the bottom of the islands so the population below wouldn’t have that great of a difference?” he probed further. “Indeed,” came another single word answer.

“Ya know that is redicu-“ Rave started but was interrupted by Thana just bursting into absolutely maniacal laughter. “F-ahahahahHAHAHAAAA-uck you WHAT?!” she cackled out, “this is stupid, fucking retarded, what is below us that they raise islands of the ground?” “These weren’t raised, they were created,” Lydia corrected, “the amount of mana needed to create earth is stupendous compared to air or water, but its not impossible.” “Which only makes it more fucking stupid,” Thana cackled, “okay, whatever, let’s get away from here, I hear about 200 people’s footsteps about 400 metres off, chatting about interviewing us.”

“You can HEAR that?” Lydia asked as it was her turn to be flabbergasted. “Übermensch, get over it, princess,” Thana said and continued to urge the group to move. No amount of hurrying would have saved them from the swarm however.

The journalists must have waited somewhere, just on the prowl for the candidate to show up. People of all nationalities and fantastical races, armed with cameras and microphones, stormed at them, tactically encircling them before they could escape. The group was boxed in by the swarm, assaulted on all fronts.

“This is the Roman Front, I have a question!” “Do you have a comment on the speech Maximillian gave yesterday?” “I am with the DKNVB, just a moment of your time please!” “Swarm news here, the Tyralings want to know what you will do for the insectoid minorities, should come into power?” “Do you feel you have a chance?” “How did you take your sudden tie in the election?” “How…” “What…” “I am with…” “This…”

The questions started to become nothing more than a screaming contest as the group was closer and closer besieged. John’s brain was hard at work for a way out of this mess, should he just his way out? Lydia seemed like she wanted to talk so that seemed wrong, but this was bad, this was seriously bad. Thana’s eyes were open, quivering in a mixture of panic and absolute anger, the two circles complete. “Lydia we have to le-“ he tried to warn her.

“Bloodburn!”

The crowd took a reactive step back as the butterfly wings of blood fire exploded from the robed girls back. “Stop screaming,” Thana growled at them, her tone insane wrath, “and get the fuck off me before I use your entrails as rope to hang your corpses from.”

Nobody dared to question the truth of that threat as the journalists took another step backwards. “I am sorry, Thana Newman is bad with crowds that don’t know their manners,” Lydia tried to diffuse the situation, but couldn’t withhold her own dissatisfaction about how they were approached. John was rather happy about that, but he wished she wouldn’t have used Thana’s full name. It still felt pretty awkward. “You will form an orderly rectangle and I will take your questions in a proper manner while my companions wait over there.”

With Thana still starring them down, the fire around the dark, almost black, veins of crystallised blood, pulsating to her heartbeat, the journalists didn’t dare to talk back and allowed the five of them to leave without any further precautions. John took the chance to check on something.

“Jesus Christ, almighty,” John, who was not at all a religious man but was raised to say that, said. Thana grabbed him by the arm, which broke immediately, and slammed him into the ground, which also made his ribcage go through an unpleasant shattering. “There is no god and non-existent things have no sons,” Thana spat out, her claws digging into John’s already healed arm. This took him down to a hundred health though.

“Calm down, Thana!” Rave shouted from the background, obviously panicked. “Calm, calm, calm,” Thana repeated, laughing, “there is no calm. Only fucking disgusting assholes everywhere. I should just eradicate this whole worthless branch of jobs.” “You are killing me down here,” John tried to make a joke instead.

Whether that was what did the trick or not, the wings suddenly disappeared and the look on her face shifted from angry to shocked. “I, oh SHIT, I am so sorry,” she said and let go off his wrist. John got up even as Thana sat on the ground. “Just a friendly discussion,” he shouted over to the journalists and the worried looking Lydia. The crater in the ground made those words pretty stupid, but all that mattered was that they got away from here.

“Come Thana, let’s sit over there,” John said, pointed at a faraway green strip, and reached Thana his hand to help her up. She looked at it, “Aren’t you afraid that I will break it?” she asked. “You can see my health bar, I can take a bit more. Also, you have done worse to me,” John said with an assuring smile. Slowly Thana raised her hand and took Johns. Her grip was incredibly tight and uncomfortable, his bones were squeezed together but by the time Thana was on her feet, none of them were broken.

“See,” John said, raising his hand, “all is fine, just try to control yourself.” “…I will…” Thana meekly said and trotted after him. “No dessert,” Aclysia suddenly blurted out, as they were on their way to that green strip. “What?” John asked. “No desert for Thana today,” Aclysia repeated in more detail. “WHAT?!” the meekness was gone completely and the blood mage was back to being an outraged, tiny bundle of madness, “the fuck, Aclysia? Why not?!”

“You hurt master. I am furious,” Aclysia crossed her arms and gave Thana a glare, “and this is my biggest power over you. No desert.” “Ja, this sounds agreeable, good thinking, Aclysia,” Rave gave her a thumbs-up. “…I mean…urgh…FUCK, I can’t argue that,” they finally reached the grass and Thana fell on all fours. “Dammit…I need to become a bit more sane…”

“It was going to be pudding,” Aclysia shot the open wound with a salt cannon. “I don’t even know what that tastes like but it sounds delicious!” Thana complained, her face hidden behind the curtain of her hair, “oh, why, you fucking cruel world, why did you break me this way? Couldn’t I just be some fuckdoll, regularly abused by unwashed dudes instead?!”

“Great to see that loosing dinner makes you this repentant,” John drily commented, rubbing the place where Thana had broken his arm. He should raise Agility more. “We really need to get you under control though, one day you might kill John by accident,” Momo said and kneeled down next to Thana, “and we can’t have that, can we?”

Aclysia blinked, “You sound earnest.” The guardian tilted her head as she looked between John and Momo, “did something happen between you two? Normally, you would be rather indifferent to master’s suffering.” “We had a little heart to heart…or rather mind to mind,” John explained, “Similar to what you and me had on the way to the mall, Aclysia.”

“I see,” Aclysia said, looking a bit saddened by the news that she was no longer the only one who achieved that state with him. Mostly she was happy for her sister though. Anyway, John felt that it wouldn’t hurt to kiss Aclysia to cheer her up. Cheering up Aclysia was a job he would do any day of the week.

A kiss later and the sadness was indeed all gone. “Ey, John, girlfriend here, I want kisses too,” Rave said and hugged him the moment he was available. Together they fell into the grass and laughingly his girlfriend put her lips on his. “Care to include me?” Thana asked, “I could use some loving after that debacle.” “Sure,” John answered. “Nope, you have to wait a minute, I have cuddling privileges,” Rave stuck out her tongue, “That’s how I can punish you.”

“Fucking hurray, now I am hungry and envious” Thana ripped a hand of grass out of the winter hardened ground and looked at it with great interest. “Don’t eat that,” John joked. “Of course not,” Thana looked at him like his brain was filled with Sylph, “I just like the smell…reminds of dying and then waking up in a better world.”

John didn’t have anything to say about that. Nobody had. Thana dropped the grass back down. “Although I should stop killing plants just because I like how they smell,” she quietly reprimanded herself, pulling her legs to her chest and wrapping herself in the robe. John doubted that she was cold, but everyone in their warm jackets started cuddling her anyway. “You are just a bunch of fucking weirdos,” Thana told them with a laugh.