-Taylor Hanson

"Y'know, vampire's 'ave awwwwfully keen senses," Seras taunted him for what felt like the twelfth time as John was gathering up his gear and preparing to leave. "We can 'ear everything someone says, even if they're 'undreds of yards away, in the middle of a particularly passionate-"

"I am so aware of what you heard," John grumbled, "and for the last time, I do not have a Daddy kink."

"Sho, sho," Seras agreed sarcastically, nodding along. "Well, 'ow about you make it up to me… later?"

"You act like you have to bargain to get me to agree to that," John growled, reaching out and grabbing himself a handful of vampiress ass. Maybe it was being in their own realm without a looming threat again, or maybe it was simply his growing confidence with each woman and new creation that gave herself unto him, but John was feeling particularly feisty.

"I probably don'… but it's so much more fun to make you really want it," Seras noted, smiling as she ground herself into John's hand. With Sophia and Maera nearby, he didn't want to indulge himself too long - with a final squeeze to Seras' luxurious cheek, John activated his World Shift and sent all of them back to his house.

John, Seras, and Sophia had all grown used to the change between worlds, but Maera was most certainly not. She bounded around the Order's makeshift bedroom the instant that they materialized in the enclosed room, slightly dirty paw marks following her bounces around the perimeter of the dwelling.

"Master, what is all this? You never told me about places like this! You never told me about this soft, this hard, this give, this take, this- Master, this is amaaaaaziiiiinnng!"

Maera was rapidly rubbing her face into every surface, irreverent of its purpose or composition. Even when she yipped slightly at knocking something over or having one of the beds spring under her weight, she showed few signs of being chastised and exuded more of a willingness to learn, embracing pain, pleasure, and experience all at once. It was actually rather entertaining watching her experiment with her new environment; for a moment the cat half was in charge, rather than the woman.

After almost fifteen minutes of John, Sophia, and Seras following in amusement as the Neko explored her new surroundings, creeping through every room in the house, eventually Maera was satisfied. At least enough to allow herself to relax as she cuddled up against John, leaning against his legs and wrapping her arms around his waist.

"So, wots the plan then? You wanna 'ead out to that market?"

"Yeah, before it gets too late," John agreed. "I don't know whether Abyssal markets follow the same kind of late-night shutdown as normal stores or not, but I don't wanna take any chances - besides, hopefully it's busier during the day, and I might go unnoticed. I'm still not sure about how many people know of my abilities or my appearance besides the Cabal and the Albidian Society. Speaking of which…"

John eyed his companions warily. Sophia had a built-in mechanism for concealing herself, and John had a surprise for Seras that he hoped might assist with her own issues, but Maera was out of the question as far as concealment went… at least until John learned some decent illusion spells. Not only that, but even if he could hide her ears and tail, there was absolutely no way he was trusting her in an open space with as much stimulation as a marketplace.

"…Sophia, would you be willing to stay here and take care of Maera?"

"Wha- MYASTERRRR! You said I could come with you!"

"I did… and you're here, aren't you?" John said, already prepared for Maera's outburst. "But I didn't say you could go anywhere with me… at least, not yet."

"But Myasste-"

"No buts," John said, leaning heavily on the Neko's feral side. "Master says it's not safe, so you stay here, okay? I'll take you out for a walk soon, and I promise we'll get you some real excitement - if you're a good girl and stay here with Sophia, I'll bring you back a bunch of treats, okay?"

"…Okayyyy," Maera said reluctantly, nuzzling into John one last time before letting go. The Neko momentarily sated, John looked back at Sophia questioningly.

"So, does that sound okay to you? I would really appreciate you keeping an eye on Maera here."

"Of course, Father. I will do as you ask, without question," Sophia promised, bowing. All the same, John could sense a hesitance in her. Slowly but surely he had learned to read the ever-stoic harpy.

"Don't worry too much while we're gone. Moira told me that the marketplace - along with a handful of other zones - are more or less neutral. Apparently the merchants all dedicate a portion of their profits to hiring the Springfield Charter to guard their proceeds to make sure that nobody gets it in their head to start fights and destroy merchandise… or worse, think they can rob the merchants in times of desperation. Anyone who actually succeeds is hunted down by a combination of the Charter themselves and Lady Arista's mercenaries, for a proper bounty fee that even the Order would have trouble coming up with… apparently these merchants draw quite a few customers from the surrounding states, so they've got a massively vested interest in keeping things open to all sides."

"I'm not sure I fully understand the nature of your world, but I will trust you to return to me safely," Sophia nodded, her body language still displaying that slight doubt. Maera's was considerably more noticeable.

"Myaster, what if we get attacked? What if someone takes me?"

"Maera, you're safe here. The Order will protect you even if I can't get back quickly enough. But if they don’t, if you get taken, I would move heaven and earth to rescue you. And I'd kill every person who dared lay even a finger on you, I'd hunt them to the ends of the earth and make an example of them, so that no one would ever hurt you again."

"Yaaaay, Myaster so good," Maera cried, hugging John as she expressed her apparently enthusiastic love of vengeance and bloodshed. John just fought the urge to shrug as he pulled himself away, grinning at both of them.

"As for you, Seras… Moira gave me something that hopefully will help us out, regarding your issues."

"Issues? Wha'? Did she get me a smaller gun?"

"No, actually, I'm just gonna have to keep that in my inventory I guess," John chuckled. "No, it was actually this."

From his inventory John produced a tiny, emerald ring. Though it appeared to be nothing more than a green-hued piece of jewelry, Moira's words and John's Observe had produced a much more useful definition of the item in question.

"Wh-wha'?! Is that some kinda Irish weddin' ring? I mean, if that's what you wan', I-I'm not gonna say no…"

John flushed, his prepared speech failing in an instant under the scrutiny and willing proposal of a vampiress with her eyes full of a mixture of tempting lust and open adoration. John met the crimson irises of his closest creation and tried to match her dedication, as impossible a feat as that was.

"Not yet," John said, unwilling to even teasingly deny the premise to his obviously hopeful lover. Seras still couldn't help a frown crossing over her features, even for an instant, and that was enough for him. "We've only just come out of a war. Popping that question would only feel like a desperation to live after almost dying. You mean way more to me than that - I want the moment to be special and to celebrate our relationship… not just to celebrate neither of us dying."

Seras seemed satisfied with that, her sadness fading into an inscrutable sly grin. John smiled and continued once he saw she was happy, and not offended.

"This is a ring Moira gave me, it's supposed to conceal whatever energy you put off so that you seem human. She said it wasn't a hundred percent effective, but she had it specifically made so that people like the Necromancers from the mall wouldn't identify you. I think her exact words were something like 'John Newman, if you go traipsing around Springfield with a creature exuding the essence of undeath one more time, I will personally end you'."

"Charmin', but I think there's still a sligh' problem with that plan," Seras replied with a wink. As she slid back from John, she wrapped one hand around the trigger to her rifle, jiggling it slightly. "Even with the ring… 'ow were you plannin' on 'idin' this baby from the world? If they see this, they're gonna know exactly what I'm packin', aren't they?"

John chuckled, glad to have something less serious to break the ice.

"Frankly, Seras, I have no desire to hide your weapon once we’re there; I honestly want them to know what you're packing. I’ll carry it in my inventory only as long as we’re in mundane scoeity, then you can carry it around for everyone to see. Maybe that will make them think twice before daring to cross the Springfield Charter to take a swing. Besides, apparently carrying a weapon in magical society isn't out of place, as long as it isn't pointed at anyone. I want to take full advantage of that. Even before we find a way to enchant that gun of yours… if they want to fuck with either of us, I want them to understand that bitches love cannons."

"I oughta smack you for that."

"Totally worth it."

For all the effort that it took to actually set things up and to get Maera and Sophia settled in at home, the actual trip felt almost like a relief. John had refused to ask Moira for a vehicle, which left them with plenty of time to talk as they walked across Springfield. John had thought it might be awkward, but surprisingly, the peaceful side of Abyssal Springfield provided them a great deal to talk about.

"Is tha'… no way, 'ow is she just walkin' around in broad daylight?"

John had partially tuned himself out of the world around them, but he was unable to rationalize what Seras had pointed out to him when he finally saw it. Julianna Balventia was striding across the sidewalk, escorted by no less than a half-dozen of her own guardsmen. Fully clad in armor and without any particular markings to signal they were less than what they seemed, John was taken aback at the sight of broadswords and knives in full view, some displayed in quite ornate sheaths, but none of the mundanes around them seemed to take particular note.

"I guess that's why nobody questions your rifle, even when I’m not keeping it in my inventory" John noted, only giving a brief nod and a wave as Julia herself turned to nod in acknowledgement of John. "You know, they told me that people in full armor and bearing weaponry would be taken as cosplayers, but they never mentioned the limit of this weird Gaia-based illusion… all they said was that if you crossed it or took things too far, you'd be punished. What do you think that punishment is?"

"I don't know, but 'ow about we never find out?"

"Sounds fantastic to me," John grumbled, turning away as the Forgotten Legion's leader and her escort disappeared around another corner. With only a few blocks left to go before the Abyssal Market was supposed to begin, John made certain to ready himself for whatever wonders he was about to experience.

"Come on, John… act like you've been there before."

"This is so much less impressive than I imagined."

It turned out that taking in all the wonder and glory of a full marketplace was… somewhat short-lived. Not because of the content, certainly - there were items of a wondrous quality everywhere John looked. Honestly, most of them were nearly the same quality as those he saw on the Abyssal Auction, the few times he'd browsed it. Unfortunately, that immediately made his mind go to the exact same problem that the AA had - everything was priced so ridiculously that he quickly lost interest. No point in inspecting an axe enchanted to cut through steel when you couldn't even afford a pocket knife enchanted to never rust…

"I dunno, seems pretty awesome to me. Kinda like steppin' into a time warp," Seras noted, glancing around. She wasn't wrong, not in the least - the actual area they were in was insane. The nice thing about Barriers appeared to be that no matter who properly owned a property, you could make a Barrier over it and take over a perfect mimicry with no consequences and no responsibilities. So where there would have been jewelry stores, pizzerias, comic book stores, and gift shops, John instead saw blacksmiths, enchanters, tinkerers (which he learned were entirely their own thing, much to his surprise), mercenaries, magical artists, and even a few restaurants. The appearances of the stores were, as Seras suggested, as if they'd been individually plucked from different timelines.

The blacksmiths and enchanters were a bit like stepping back in time. They had forges, anvils, ritualistic set-ups, magical items resting in barely-modernized shelves on their own back walls, and were often in the middle of working when John walked in. The restaurants, on the other hand, were so modernized that John suspected if he willingly exited the Barrier he would find the actual buildings themselves to be quite disappointing. They were filled with metallic surfaces, tiny and efficient kitchen spaces oftentimes thanks to magical assistance, and windows for not only drive-by but typically walk-by purchase of meals. Mix that in with the gift shops of varying quality, the multiple facilities for faction recruitment, and the occasional semi-mundane facility like gyms with enchanted workout equipment, and John found himself changing mentality by the block, if not more often.

"Yeah, I suppose so," John agreed reluctantly. "But that doesn't keep me from getting discouraged. I was relying too much on mundane economics and expecting local to be cheaper. When teleportation is an option, I guess your biggest cost is production… and then security."

John eyed another of the guards passing by him as Seras merely shrugged, rolling her eyes at John's well-deserved paranoia.

"Doesn't seem worse than the rest of the place. I'd probably buy some thin's myself if I 'ad any dosh to my name."

"What kind of things?" Seras blushed a bit at John's question, as if she really hadn't expected such an inquiry. Sheepishly she glanced up, pressing two fingers together nervously.

"Um… y'know… maybe we could stop by a tea shop or two?"

"This is… amaaaazinnnn’. You 'ave no idea 'ow long I've been wantin' this," Seras half-warned, half-bragged as she sipped an ivory cup of delicious leaf-water, eyes practically glazing over with pleasure. At nearly $1,000 per cup as the absolute lowest price in the shop they went to, John had hoped she would appreciate the purchases, but hadn't actually expected such a visceral response. Apparently magically-brewed tea was the absolute shit, but as someone who'd never even tasted mundane tea, John refused to spend so much on himself without a proper appreciation. Still, he was more than happy to keep pulling bills out of his inventory, even as Seras sipped on her fifth cup.

"I guess not. Why didn't you say how much you missed tea? I could have bought you a lot of mundane tea, even in the middle of a war."

"I mean, I didn' really miss it tha' much…" Seras blatantly lied, her lips never leaving the cup as she continued sipping, "but if I knew there were so many flavors out ‘ere… always thought you Yanks were a lot of rubbish when it came to the good stuff."

So far, Seras had never even left the first tea shop they'd found, sampling a variety of flavors at prices that a more mundane John would have been flabbergasted at. It still wasn't easy, handing over dozens of hundred dollar bills over the course of half an hour, but Seras' look of pure joy and satisfaction with each new flavor she sipped was not easy to turn down.

As the vampiress melted into him, her blonde locks swaying and rubbing into his face, John embraced the woman and gently patted her head in mutual bliss. She was greedily sucking the last bits from a Sencha tea freshly brewed just for her when John turned his head to check on something. Or, rather, someone.

He'd seen her the second they walked into the shop - though he didn't have the mana to throw around Observe spells at will yet without leaving himself dangerously ****, he had grown far more observant in mundane ways. So it was without issue that he had noticed the woman across the counter, nearly a dozen feet away but that had immediately focused on him the second he walked in. She tried to conceal her glances after the initial stares, but John was already aware of how alert she was to their presence, far more than anyone else in that place or any other part of the markets.

Raven-haired beauty, a young woman likely just a few years older than John, around the age Etriyya wa-... around the age Etriyya appeared to be. She had a certain air of maturity around herself to be sure, but John felt all the same that the way she was looking at him more resembled a child staring at a newfound toy than anything. Her gaze was full of wonder, and her stance was so fidgety that John felt more as if he were intimidating her than the other way around.

At first her gaze was worrying, then annoying, then merely distracting as he did his best to ignore it. He never let her slip out of his sight, of course, but given that she made no move toward them and that the Springfield Charter were supposedly around to keep the peace, John chose to believe that they would remain unmolested.

Still, the more Seras lost herself in her tea tasting time, the more John couldn't help but catch the wayward glances she threw at them, and the less he found himself able to ignore them. John had been nearly ready to pull Seras away and find them another place to sample expensive Abyssal teas when the woman finally made a move - heading first toward the door, then back toward her original spot, then toward John at a pace so slow he thought she must surely be intentionally warning him of her approach.

"But why? It's like she's trying to give me a chance to run away. Like she wants me to leave, and to forget she ever saw me…"

It was an odd observation, one that was probably dead wrong, but John couldn't escape the strangeness of that feeling. That bit of oddity was nothing compared to the weird feeling he was confronted by as the woman strolled within a few feet of him, her eyes now locked on his own with an intensity that almost frightened him.

"…Hello," John half-whispered as she came to within striking distance of him, trying to break the ice between them without setting off some kind of reaction, "can I help you?"

"By Gaia…" Her voice was unsteady, half-trembling and without any degree of certainty. The woman's amber eyes met his own with an unspoken hope and a curiosity that rivalled his own, particularly worrisome since she had been the one to make the approach. "If you can't, I have no idea what will."

"I'm sorry?"

"N-no, I'm sorry," she immediately corrected, a haze seeming to fade from her gaze. "What I meant to say was… I wanted to sate my curiosity. You feel different than the others. I can sense auras, and yours, your aura - I've never felt anything quite like it before, and I was wondering if you could tell me what it was?"

"Aura? No, sorry, I don't know much about those. I know a couple of aura readers, but they never mentioned anything about me feeling off." John refused to name Kim or expose her as the only aura reader he knew. If he'd learned one thing since joining the Abyss, it was how powerful knowledge could be. He offered nothing more as he waited for the woman to respond, fighting his urge to cast a glance at Seras to make sure she was still wearing the ring.

"Not off, no." The woman breathed heavily, leaning toward John again. Seras, despite the ecstasy brought on by her latest taste-test, was leaning away from the wall enough to wrap a hand firmly around the grip of her gun. Her eyes flickered rapidly between John, this new arrival, and the hands of the strange woman, checking for any signs of a threat or attempt on John's life from the odd approach.

"Look, I'm not quite sure what this is about, but I can leave if you want," John offered, looking for any excuse to back out of the store.

"N-no!"

John, Seras, and the woman all jumped in unison, but surprisingly she was the only one not to reach for a weapon. Instead she almost grabbed John's arm, pulling back only at the last second as she seemed to suddenly become aware of her own movement.

"I mean… you can go where you wish, but I don't want to chase you away. I was only curious what could cause such a strange resonance in your aura."

"Sorry, I have no idea what that could be," John noted, glancing toward the door. They had seated themselves far enough away from the entrance that a quick escape was out of the question, and John had no intentions of making enemies in the Abyss by blowing his way out through a wall.

Trying to reassure himself by remembering that the Springfield Charter were supposedly there for the protection of all, John steeled himself and extended a hand. While awaiting a responding shake, John met the woman's piercing gaze and did his best to smile at her.

"Sorry for causing you any disturbance or inconvenience with my aura, but thank you for letting me know. I appreciate you telling me before someone else noticed it."

"Of course. I'm sorry if I've made you uncomfortable, it is simply something I have not ta- felt before from someone's aura, and I was curious as to its origin. I’ll leave you now since you do not have the answers I was seeking…”

John grit his teeth but made a motion to stop the woman before she left, a basic courtesy taking over at the sheer sadness that seemed to radiate from the woman as she turned. She didn’t even make it a full step; the instant his hand raised, she turned and locked eyes with him, giant brown eyes like a newborn pup drilling into his own.

“Er… sorry I can’t really help, but I’ll look into it for both our sakes. By the way, my name is John.”

John made no mention of his last name, nor did he associate himself with anyone. Better to let this woman forget him in time, while John tried to figure out what had drawn her in in the first place.

The soft beginnings of an almost-confused smile crossed her face. She offered him the same courtesy in return.

“Thank you, John. My name’s Layla… and I can’t wait to see you again.”