Up and Coming 5 – A Convenient Timing

The quartet moved to the front door. “Did you order something?” Eldred asked.

“No, everything I did order arrived in recent days,” Avari answered. “Did you leave the chain-link fence unlocked, Sir?”

The owner of the building thought back. He had moved on complete autopilot. “I probably did?” he wondered.

“Negative,” Nyx provided the answer. “I witnessed him lock it.”

“So, someone is brazen enough to climb the fence and ring our doorbell?” Avari glared ahead. “Not to mention delay me getting pounded further?”

“I sense a hint of lust in my greed demon,” Eldred remarked.

“Wow, so acute, very observant, such impressive.” Hands clasped in a mockery of veneration, Avari threw honeyed insults at him. “You’re truly such a master of pattern recognition. Really working those Y-chromosomes there. Never has there been a male specimen more impressive than you. Really. I mean it!”

“S-she’s just cranky…” Ellie muttered.

“That does make me think… did you two have fun with each other while I was away?” Eldred asked. There had been initial uncertainty on the topic until Avari had breached it somewhat recently. Obviously, he had not thought anything of it. His women satisfying each other in his absence was part of the reason why a harem should exist. Why would he deny them their sapphic impulses?

“Obviously.”

“Y-yeah… a bit…. B-but….” Squirming in his arms, the pregnant greenskin failed to finish her sentence.

“But we’re both bottoms. Tiny, curvy, shortstacked bottoms.”

Eldred chuckled. Nyx hovered a bit ahead of them, pushing down the doorhandle for him. When she pulled the entrance open, all banter left the group in an instant.

On the other side stood a curvaceous woman. Though the black kimono she wore was relatively loose, it only took the sash around her narrow waist to sit tight to emphasise her curves. Wide hips matched huge breasts, making the tall, dark-haired woman a natural draw for the eyes of everyone around. Her red lips sucked on the straw of a fast food soda cup, held by her gold-jointed doll hands. It was almost as absurd as the pair of sunglasses she wore, as if that was going to hide her identity.

“Thank you for responding to mine summons,” Neora said. “Might I enter to discuss a matter of import?”

“…Sure,” Eldred agreed and stepped backwards.

The Black-Eyed Doll stepped over the threshold, stretching the fabric of her long skirt over her thigh. This repeated as she continued to advance. In obvious annoyance, she tilted her head and glared at her skirt. Eldred did not need to see her eyes to know that’s what she was doing.

“This get-up does nothing to disguise you, by the by,” he let her know.

“Does it no–“ Halfway through the question, she stepped on the inside of her skirt and stumbled forwards. Ellie, the lucky woman that she was, ended up being smooshed by Neora’s huge mammaries, while Eldred merely provided her his shoulders for her to catch herself. “Mine apologies,” the one known as the Hurricane said. “T’is why I prefer mine clothes minimal… cloth appears to loathe me.”

“Just take shorter steps,” Avari drawled.

“Verily, I am making such attempts.”

Neora straightened herself back up before Ellie could drown in the greatest sea there was. With just a bit of jealousy for the mother of his first child, Eldred moved his head in a pointing gesture. A simple grunt was the order given. “Let’s talk in the meeting room. It’s the only place that has enough chairs.”

They moved over, Neora continuing to nurse her drink until it came to a slurping end. “Do you have a preferred place for me to leave mine trash?”

“My!” Avari groaned. “Are you allergic to that word?”

“It seems mine manner of speech has caused you annoyance, mysterious gremlin.”

“Yeah, sure, just call ME mysterious, miss Hurricane,” the demonic shortstack snapped back.

They were back in the meeting room, where Eldred occupied the same chair as before. Ellie remained in his lap, a spot she came to share with Avari. Truly, shortstacks were a blessing – as were hovering ghost ladies that liked to play with his hair. Surrounded by three gorgeous women, Eldred locked his eyes on Neora.

The Black-Eyed Doll revealed her eponymous oculars, putting the sunglasses on the table. “Do you truly think this much cloth fails to mask mine identity?” Arms raised, she inspected herself. She was standing on the other side of the table. “Vexora’s disguise is similarly blatant, is it not?”

“Wouldn’t know,” Eldred said. He had not encountered the twin-tailed woman since and, even if he did, he doubted she’d just show him her true form, whatever that looked like. “Anyway, what manner of ill portents brings you to mine humble abode?”

Avari snorted at his lightly mocking mimicry of her vernacular.

“Ah… mhm…” Having never given an answer on that question, Neora placed her empty cup on the table. After a second of hesitation, she clapped her hands together and bowed her head. “Would you allow mine presence in these walls for a few days?”

“”””Huh?”””” Every last member of the Neverrrain Dominion voiced their confusion.

“You’re an 8-Core Cultivator!” Avari declared. “Why would you want to stay with some upstarts?”

“I have been temporarily barred from mine previous choice of dwelling and am now between houses. T’is a sordid state of affairs entirely of mine own making. It is a situation I will sort swiftly, I assure.”

“Why us?” Eldred asked.

“I observed that your renovations were complete and thus surmised that you would have too much space, giving me room to luxuriate?” Neora still had her head lowered. “I shall take up only as much as I need.”

Eldred was still confused. “As Avari said, you have 8 Cores. Can’t you just squat in your own place? Why do you even rent?”

“Though it is true that I am powerful, mine might is not as absolute as you may consider.” She lifted her head, a sour expression taking hold of her gorgeous features, putting wrinkles around those almond eyes. “Loathe as I am to calculate, by mine estimations, those Cultivators that are around 8 Cores are 0,001% of the Iridescian population.”

“Right, so you have basically no competition,” Eldred stated.

“Forgive my moron, he is bad with numbers – or he just doesn’t think about them a lot.”

“How many souls do you believe call Iridescia their home?” Neora asked.

Eldred shrugged. “Couple hundred millions, maybe a billion? I just remember my teacher saying there was no good way to calculate it, since we don’t have a centralised system.”

“And we have already established that both you and your teachers were morons.” Avari looked to Ellie. “Girlfailure, since you are so smart, how would you go about getting a general estimate of Iridescia’s population?”

“W-well… uhm… mhm…” She considered for a moment. “F-first thing I would try would be to look at… the user base of some popular operating system and then… cross-reference that with a bunch of surveys done. T-that way, I get an absolute number a-and… a generalised estimate of the percentage of people that is to the total…?” She waited for a moment. “If… if I had the data, I could also ch-check for… strain on infrastructure? Consumption of food? T-those sorts of things.”

“And if you put together enough of these and cross-reference them, you get an accurate enough number,” Avari said. “Iridescia’s population is around 3 billion.”

Eldred felt nothing from that revelation. It was objectively an insane number, he knew that much, but it was just so large that it didn’t really hit him. What Neora added, however, had him blink in befuddlement. “0,001% of 3 billion is 30000.”

“You are telling me…” Eldred spoke very slowly. “That there are thirty-THOUSAND more of your power level?”

“In a general estimation. Perfect data is unavailable, but such is mine understanding of the situation.”

“Do I assume correctly that this absolute number, though impressive, is held back by same seeking same and the sheer size of Iridescia?” Nyx asked.

“Yup,” Avari kept her answer short. “Before we get lost in any more of the weeds of talking about how impressive the big-titty doll is…”

“Big-titty doll…?” Neora muttered to herself, glancing down at her chest and then over to Avari’s. Eldred had already made the comparison in his head. His gremlin was the greater endowed, which was twice as ludicrous considering she was half the size. “You have quite the mouth on you.”

“Yeah, I do.” Avari’s drawl was an artful mixture of sarcasm and suggestive attitude. “Anyhow, so you want to stay here because you got temporarily evicted, right?”

Neora bowed her head again. “That is mine plea.”

“I still don’t get how you come to us for that.” Eldred squished both Avari’s tits and Ellie’s butt as he talked. He had two shortstacks sitting on his lap, it was only natural his hands would rest on their best bits. After he had his fill of Ellie’s butt, his hand travelled up her side to her petite breasts. Much as he loved the abundant and the squishy, tits in all their forms were still the best. “Is there no corporation you have connections with?”

“Nay,” Neora denied immediately.

Eldred was basking in the duality of barely present and massive tits while tilting his head. “Really? If we are being approached by people trying to recruit us, I would assume you are too.”

“And I denied them. Mine focus is solely on Cultivation and the honing of mine blade.”

“And violating grammar,” the gremlin added.

Eldred found the entire situation odd to the extreme, but simultaneously he had no questions left to ask and… he somewhat recognised that spark of ambition in Neora. “Perhaps we have a few things in common,” he thought aloud. “What do you think of harems?”

The sudden question had Avari groan, Ellie freeze and Nyx laugh quietly into his ear. On the other side of the table, Neora raised her head again. A mysterious smile spread on her red lips as gold-jointed fingers brushed her swept raven bangs back behind her pale ear. “Respect, I feel, for those that attempt and awe for those that succeed in living in a sect of such closeness.” Black-painted lids half-shaded her dark eyes. “Though I equally express mine belief that for you to ask such a question of I comes from a place of profound arrogance.”

“I like to aim high,” Eldred responded simply. “Just earlier, we decided to stab the stupid face of a megacorp’s CEO eventually.”

“Eldred…” Avari muttered, displeased.

“Worry not, I shan’t disclose what is not mine to say,” Neora was swift to assure.

“And I will allow you to stay here,” Eldred stated. “On one condition.”

“Speak it plain.”

Eldred pointed at Ellie. “You will protect her. The rest of us are going to leave the house on the first of Herald and we’ll be back on the 7th.”

“Then mine arrival is fortuitous for the both of us,” Neora said with a swift nod. “I shall ensure that this place remains unmolested. You have mine word.”

That was good enough for Eldred.