Chapter Seven – “Leaf on the Wind”

A small fleck of jade twirled in the updraft as the twilight was slowly engulfed by the glorious amber firmament. The night’s electric simmer of insect life and frog songs faded, and then as if the grand composer was transitioning to the next piece, birds chirped and warbled in a languidly building harmony. Sekkai’s emerald, slitted eyes met the morning. Perched on a branch high above the grove that she and Jason set up camp in, she stretched lethargically. She yawned, baring her fangs and then smacked her lips before looking out at the horizon. There she saw the tiny leaf, swaying from side to side in the early morning air as it floated to the ground. Looking at the girl, who other than her few feline features appeared to be a normal looking teenager, one would not expect that she was only a few years old and thus still had a kittenish playful side to her. It was for that reason, however, that such a common occurrence as a leaf sailing to the forest floor became an excuse for an intricate game. Sekkai leapt from her roost, flailing in the air as she tried to catch the loose piece of foliage. While she shared the agility and dexterity of her animal brethren, her equilibrium was not quite the same. Her relatively short time in human guise sapped her of some of her grace, and thus what should have been the form of a ballerina pirouetting through the air, became a clumsy series of crashes and burns.

As restful as the cat’s sleep was, Jason’s was equally as nightmarish. The jungle was sweltering hot, and now that was back in his less than flattering form, exhaustion was quickly taking its toll. Jason was short, and while not overly stocky, he was not built for long treks through a tropical rainforest. For whatever reason, the thought that this was going to be such an expedition had not occurred to him. When he settled in to sleep the night before, his body felt every step he had taken that day. Yet, the jungle was still conspiring against him. With the cat girl high up in one of the trees, every noise in the brush startled him and the cacophony of insect noises was migraine inducing. There was almost no sleep to be had. He was used to living in a rural area, but the jungle was just as alien to him as another planet. There were a few occasions where his fatigue won out, but they were marred by nightmares of being stuffed into a vat and coming out as a subservient redheaded girl. Now that it was morning, his weariness was showing and he wanted a cup of coffee more than ever. He wondered if there were coffee plants around. After all, he was in a jungle.

Sekkai collided with the ground again, after a particularly strong leap. With her bountiful bosom smooshed into the compost, she slowly pushed herself up. Looking down at the offending orbs, she growled a little.

“How am I supposed to catch anything with these jiggly feed sacks on my chest? Why do they have to be so big?”

“Most aren’t that big, but chest size seems to be inversely correlated with intelligence, at least in your case.” Jason interjected.

Sekkai’s somewhat clawed fingers dug into her flesh, giving her breasts a healthy squeeze. She had a goofy grin on her face at the same time, as if she was rather enjoying the exploration of her more human form.

“They’re so squishy.”

“Can you please stop that?” Jason sighed, rubbing his temples as he looked wearily at the girl.

“Fine. I’m going to go get breakfast! I hope you like monkey.”

Jason shuddered as the girl darted off into the trees again. He hoped that she was kidding about the monkey, but considering the cat girl’s origin, he doubted it. The thought of dining on roasted monkey made his stomach turn, and left him with the belief that he would have to find his own breakfast. He berated himself for not demanding that they return to the hotel at least to get the proper supplies and food rations. In the midst of his self-degradation, he noticed that Sekkai left behind the sling bag that she usually kept tightly wrapped around her shoulder. He held out hope that maybe there would be something more appetizing inside and decided that there was nothing to lose by checking it out.

Picking up the bag, the scruffy-chinned man could instantly tell that there was nothing of use inside of it. There was no characteristic rattle that a woman’s purse gave when its contents bumped and jostled against one another. There was only the leather-bound tome that he saw her trying to read in the dusk. Its outline was clear through the light cloth. Without any worry of consequence, Jason plucked the book out and then sat down to thumb through the pages. Books possessed no inherent danger after all, unless they were the Necronomicon of course, but he highly doubted that the irksome cat girl would be toting around the Book of the Dead.

The first thing he noticed about the book was that it had the distinct appearance of being handmade. The pages had a papyrus-like quality rather than the clean manufactured look that modern paper had. The leather covering also seemed to have been tanned by somebody with only a rudimentary knowledge of the subject, and was certainly not the work of an artisan. Nonetheless, it seemed to be bound together quite well and there was little worry that it would fall apart in his hands. There was little surprise that the contents contained lists of ingredients, as if he were reading a cookbook. Sekkai told him that the Professor was a potion maker, so it was logical that this book was stolen from him. While wondering why anybody would make a potion that would create an eight-breasted ocelot, the realization that the book was written entirely in English suddenly donned on him.

Here they were on some unknown world, and not only were the books written in English, but every denizen of the world spoke it. For the first time, he wondered if he was not on some other planet after all.

“Put down the book, Jason Grey!” An ethereal voice echoed as if it was the air itself speaking.

“Oh no, I’ve caught the crazy from the fuzz ball. I’m hearing voices now.” Jason muttered. “Leave me alone voice! This is not the comic book fan you’re looking for.”

A slender, delicate and tanned set of fingers rose from the crease in the book, as if it were a cobra rising from its basket, and then struck Jason in the cheek with a hard slap.

“Do not be stupid, Grey One,” the voice demanded, “and do not insult my Sekkai.”

Jason dropped the volume hastily. The arm that protruded from the pages, turned side to side like a periscope, surveying the surrounding area.

“Pardon the pun, but are you going to give me a hand? I have been inside for so long that I could use a little tug.”

“You slapped me and not with a piece of corned beef either. Why should I help you?” Jason asked.

“I do not know, maybe because it is the courteous thing to do. Or if that does not entice you, how about because it is creepy talking to an arm sticking out of a book?”

“Well, when you put it that way…” Jason took hold of the dainty fingers and pulled with as much strength as he could muster. “You better not be some hideous beast holding a severed arm though!”

The pages bent in the direction that Jason pulled, as he felt the soft skin brushing against his own. Very little of the woman’s arm came loose from the book on the first pull. Instead of just a forearm, she now had an elbow visible as well. It bent and felt the surrounding soil, groping to get a feel for the environment she was about to enter.

“You call that a pull? Go get Sekkai. Even for a cub, she is stronger than you are.” The feminine voice ordered.

“I don’t know where she is. She said she was going to get breakfast, but she could be off playing with Tarzan for all I know.”

“Very well, find a root or a branch or something that I can get a good grip on then. I will hold on as best as I can and then you can pull on the book rather than my arm. That should give you the proper leverage to free me.”

I certainly don’t remember the Blue Beetle ever having an adventure where he had to pull an annoying woman out of a book. Jason thought, again bemoaning the fact that unlike him, super heroes never had to deal with such pestiferous tasks. He quickly located a hardy looking and low-hanging branch and then carried the book to it, guiding the hand to the barky projection.

“Wow, you have soft hands for a male. Perhaps I should call you Sonja. I bet you would make a fine woman.” The hand teased.

“You do, and I know where the kindling is going to come from for my campfire.”

“Okay, on three then. One… two… three!”

Jason put his weight into it, leaning back and yanking on the book with considerable might. The pages began to bulge with the shape of a woman’s face until they were stretched to their limit. With a thundering pop, the pages exploded in a cloud of confetti. Jason stumbled backwards, still holding onto the leather bindings as paper particles rained down all around him.

The womanly shape he saw amongst the debris was one that ordinarily he would find quite alluring, but the fact that its owner just put him through considerable work while he was tired, kept his libido in check. She was rather petite, and looked to be around the same height as the cat girl. Her hair was a long, thick mane of fiery scarlet that extended in a braid down to her tailbone. While not as shapely as the cat, who seemed to be designed to be pleasing to the eye, she was still curvaceous. Her chest and shoulders were draped in cloth that could easily have been made out of the same material as the paper from the book. This stopped right above her flat stomach and showcased her perfect little navel. A matching sarong covered her lower body, other than her feet, which were left bare. She twisted her neck to the side with a slight crack.

“Oh that feels just heavenly. Those books are just too cramped. Remind me to find a nice comfortable tree once we vanquish that felon.”

Getting a closer look, Jason saw that her face looked almost cherubic, as if her beauty was supernatural. It was difficult not to be entranced by her as long as she kept her mouth shut, he thought.

 

***

 

“So, I was thinking that Bea could be short for Beatrice. What do you think?” The raven-haired woman asked Kacie.

“I could care less. Now, promise you will stop following me around if I do this for you.”

Kacie had a pair of bolt cutters in her hands and was standing in front of the locked gate at the mall’s Hot Topic. The Triumph’s mall was something that set it apart from the regular hotels. While not the size of a regular shopping mall, it did offer about 25 different stores as well as a food court. Right now, the mall was supposed to be locked down and off limits, but with the meeting going on in the convention center, it was ripe for the picking. Beatrice held the flashlight steady so that the blue-eyed tomboy could see what she was doing.

“Er… I promise, but couldn’t I have just borrowed something from you? I’m sure you have a dress or a skirt or something cute I could wear.”

“I do not, and I’m still disturbed that you want to play dress up. You were just a man 24 hours ago.” Kacie shot back.

“So what? I am not going to waste this opportunity. Girls have a much wider array of fashion choices, and I plan to take advantage of that!”

“Fine.”

Kacie snapped the lock off the gate and lifted it just enough so that the two of them could sneak under. Much like the rest of the mall, and the rest of the hotel itself, the store was pitch black. She stayed close to the gate as Beatrice flashed the light on the racks of clothes, making oohs and ahs with everything she saw. Her eyes met a pink and black polka dotted tube dress that looked like it might have been made in the 1960s and she instantly fell in love.

“You’re not watching, are you?” Bea called out.

“No.”

“Aw, and here I was hoping you were.” She responded with a giggle, as she discarded the clothing of her former life and slipped into the new one.

“You are far too chipper for a Goth girl.” Kacie commented.

“And you’re too angsty for a tomboy. I guess that makes us even.”

Bea smoothed out the dress, and wished that the power would come back on just for a little while so that she could check herself out in the mirror. She loved the way the new fabric felt against her skin and rushed to find a pair of shoes that went with the new dress.

“So, are you really a lesbian? Cause I’ve been looking for a mistress and well…”

“No! I am not a lesbian! Just because I happened to maybe, perhaps, slightly enjoy being kissed by a demon who just happens to be the epitome of feminine sexuality, does not make me a lesbian. Clearly, she used some sort of demon trickery on me.” Kacie said, clearing her throat.

Bea sashayed about, having found a pair of black platform heels that went much better with her new look than a pair of sneakers and then started to pull several more outfits off the racks.

“Oh yes, clearly.” She muttered as she looked behind the counter for a plastic bag to put her prizes in. “Hm, I should be good on make up… though it’s going to be hard fixing it while the power is out. You should see what you can do about that Mistress. You seem to be rather handy with tools.”

“Are you done?”

“Huh?” The girl was in the midst of neatly folding her new clothing so that it would not wrinkle in the bag. “Oh, yeah, I’ve got enough. I guess we should go to this meeting they have planned now, huh Mistress?”

After not receiving an answer, she spun her flashlight to the store’s gate and saw that Kacie had left her there. She pouted and stomped her foot on the ground like a spoiled teenager.

“Aw, no fair! People always leave right when it gets to the good part!”

 

***

 

“I’d like to thank you all for coming once again. Those of you who already have rooms in the hotel will want to trade in their key cards for traditional keys, and for those who have not yet checked in or were not staying at the hotel, the desk manager, Mr. Bezdomny will make sure you all have rooms by the end of the night.” Robin finished his speech. “Anybody with questions is welcome to come and find me here in about an hour, but I ask that you all leave in an orderly fashion for now.”

For the most part, the crowd filtered out of the large, currently illuminated room, but many were hesitant to go back into the darkness so quickly. Enough left, however, to give Robin room to talk to the group that interrupted him during the address. He wiped the sweat from his brow, and then moved off stage once again. He looked at Anne for confirmation that what he was seeing was real, then at the two demons and Simone. Despite her long day, Haley consented to talk with Damon and was just out of earshot, her eyes pouring over Amellia like a kid in a candy store. Anibelle’s tail wagged back and forth like a dog’s as she sized up Robin.

“Mm, don’t you look positively scrumptious? How about ditching the witchy woman for a while and sacking up with me?” Anibelle propositioned the man with the knight’s helm on his breast.

“Ooh, she’s a witch Ani?” Jenette turned and asked, taking her attention away from Madison’s chest, which seemed to rival her own.

“Sh! That’s supposed to be a secret.” Robin jumped in, whispering to Ani, as Andrew, Elise and Simone seemed confused by the whole conversation.

“Well maybe she shouldn’t broadcast herself so loudly then. She’s covered in black magic residue. Honestly, what kind of stupid–” Ani was cut off again.

“Hey! You know, we should go help Mr. Bezdomny check people in. Robin and Anne probably have this covered. No need for us to hang around.” Madison interjected, trying to get her fellow staff members out of the room.

“Like hell! I’ve been knocked out and tossed to the side enough already!” Elise glared at the busty woman. “You can’t plop a pair of demons and some behemoth woman down in front of me and then tell me to take a hike! I am not the type of woman you want to push–”

The red and black haired girl’s eyes seemed to spiral in her head, and as if she were in a trance, she recanted her anger. “You know, you’re right Madison. We should go help Ivan.”

“I agree. I bet he’s having a Hell of a time.” Andrew chimed in, appearing to be in a similar trance. “Let’s get going before they take a pitchfork to our asses.”

Anne gave Madison a shrug, as if saying she had no other choice. Madison led her fellow staff members away from the stage, and no sooner was she far enough away that Robin and Anne could talk in peace then she was hit with a barrage of complaints and puns from each side.

“Really smooth, witch. What kind of lousy coven are you from?” Ani insulted the woman, who seemed to be a threat to her desire to bed Robin by the way he was looking at her.

“Coven? I’ve never even met another person who could use magic, and if it wasn’t so painfully obvious, I would never have thought that demons were real either.” Anne remarked. “I guess the rest of the world wasn’t as boring as I thought.”

“No, it’s certainly not. How about you scoot over there now and take care of Simone while I tend to business here?” Ani waved her hand, trying to dismiss her redheaded rival.

Anne just shrugged and took Simone by her muscled arm and led her a short distance away, though not far enough that she could not listen in on the demon’s discussion.

“If you’re done berating my friend, could you please tell me what you meant when you said that they’re all dead?” Robin asked, ignoring the succubus’s lusty gaze.

“Well, I wasn’t there when it happened, but–”

“Shut your puke hole, Jenette. If you weren’t there, you can’t tell it right. Now I, on the other hand, was there for all the action.” Ani jumped in with, standing proudly until she received a punch in the chest from her sororal sister. “Ow! You’re going to bruise my moneymakers doing that! Go bother somebody else.”

Jenette stuck her tongue out at the younger demon and stayed put.

“Fine, stay there and bring down the level of awesome in the room. It’s no skin off my back. Anyway, back to you, my tasty morsel.” She swung her head back to Robin, who seemed to have caught a whiff of the girl’s pheromones and was giving Ani’s chest a languid stare. “Well, you see, those Amazons took my property, so of course we had to go after them. I quickly, and single-handedly defeated every last one of them, but not before they turned your men into completely worthless woman statues. Unfortunately, as I was dispatching that big lizard, they broke into hundreds of tiny pieces. I really didn’t want to stick around to see if I could put Humpty Dumpty back together again either, so they’re dead.”

“All of them? They took nearly 50 people and they’re all dead?” Robin asked, sounding a bit panicked.

“Oh, maybe not all of them. Like, maybe ten of them are rubble. I didn’t see the rest, and we brought one back with us, but I have no use for females so I let her run off to do whatever.” Ani shrugged.

“Did you see one with a camera?”

“Yeah, he was running around the battlefield right after we started fighting. I don’t remember smelling any burnt man parts, so he probably got out all right.” Ani yawned, finding this whole concern for others’ well being to be rather boring. “Listen, can we wrap this up? I haven’t had a good meal since we got to this stinking dimension and I’m practically famished.”

“What she meant to say was that she wants to have sex with you.” Jenette clarified.

“Um… yeah, that’s strangely tempting, but I still have a lot of work to do before I get to bed. Now that there’s hope that most of them are still alive, I need to set up a search and rescue mission. Then there is still a lot more to go over with people. I never thought I’d be saying this, but I’m just too busy to do that right now. Then there’s also Anne to–”

“Keep it in your pants then. I can find a lesser specimen to feed on tonight.”

Ani paraded away, leaving the whole of her companions behind in search for a proper meal.

 

***

 

“She really is amazing Mr. Blake. Her skin is so lifelike; if I didn’t know she was an android I’d think it was the real thing.”

“Well, it’s not perfect yet. It still has the tendency to smell like a soccer ball, but yes, I am rather proud of the advances we’ve made in synthetics. You should see what we can do with the hair. The fibers we’ve used change color with the touch of a button.” Damon explained to Haley, opening a panel in Amellia’s back.

She looked on with wide-eyed wonderment as the android’s hair changed from red to blue and then to a white that looked as pure as a snow-capped mountain. She wanted to ask so many questions about how the hair and skin were created, as both were years beyond what she thought was being developed. She then glanced at her own cybernetic arm, as if it were an eyesore and inferior technology.

“Don’t get down on yourself Miss Ravenlock. From what I’ve seen, your arm there is rather miraculous.” The debonair man smiled.

“That’s another thing that amazes me. You actually know who I am. I mean, you’re essentially the real world version of Tony Stark, and you know who I am.”

“Of course I know. If you didn’t realize it, you’re a prodigy. You’ve developed some of the same tech that has spent years in our R&D labs by yourself in your garage for far less than what we’ve spent.” A hint of jealousy entered the man’s voice. “I mean, in a few years time, you could put me out of a job. That is assuming that we get back home, of course.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t do that. If it wasn’t for my parents’ money, I’d be doing nothing but repairing televisions for a living.” Haley smiled again. “And nothing I’ve built has even come close to Amellia.”

“That’s not what I hear. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I sort of bribed your suppliers into giving me a manifest of everything you’ve purchased. From what I can tell, you’ve been hard at work on something that could have profound military applications.”

Haley stared at the well-groomed man, unable to decide if she should be flattered that such a famous man was keeping tabs on her or outraged that he was spying on her. After an awkward few seconds, and taking into account where they were at, she decided on the former.

“Yeah, well, I was going to unveil Brute at the expo this year, but then everything went to shit. Now, he’s off smoldering in the middle of the damned jungle. I built him for dangerous work, but not for the military. I thought he’d work well handling hazardous materials, or mining, or clearing rubble from war zones. I guess I didn’t take into account that he might be stabbed in the eye with a sword.”

Damon paused, sensing that he should approach the topic delicately. She seemed to be in quite the rage over losing one of her inventions, or perhaps the fact that it did not work as well as she planned.

“That’s a shame. Here I was thinking we could use him to help restore power. I’ve got this crazy thought about setting up something on the roof. There’s a lot of wind above the treetops, as well as the chance for lightning. Between the two of us, and a little rigging, I figured we could come up with something that works.”

“Are you sure about that? This isn’t Gilligan’s Island here. We can’t put together a radio from a pair of coconuts. I mean, Brute does have a back up solar generator inside of him, but I don’t think that it would be enough to power the entire building. On top of that, how were you planning on moving a ten-foot tall robot to the top of a 34 story building when the elevators are out?”

“Well, I thought we could use my helicopter.” Damon gave her a mischievous grin.

 

***

 

Sekkai jumped from branch to branch, with a dead parrot held tightly between her teeth. Its green feathers matted and caked with blood. Sure, it wasn’t the monkey that she promised, but she doubted that humans ate quite as much as she did. Getting closer to the grove, she was surprised by the sudden explosion that made her ears pop. As it echoed throughout the jungle, birds and other small creatures scattered. Quickly, she made her descent, pausing once she had a clear view of the clearing she left Jason in.

A small shred of paper danced in front of her eyes. Looking down, she saw that the shreds were covering a small section of the grove in what looked like a blanket of snow. In the center of it all, she saw Jason, sitting with the remnants of her book in his hands. From her vantage point, she could only assume the worst. She discarded her breakfast and launched herself at the young man like a wild beast.

“How could you?!” She shouted as she brandished a stick like a sword, looking to strike the man down for his crimes.

“Huh? What did I do?” Jason looked at the feline charging towards him.

Sekkai slashed at the man, who barely managed to shield himself with the book’s cover. The stick held firm as it smacked against the leather, making a snap that caught another’s attention.

“Ack! Don’t swing that thing at me!” Jason cried out.

“Aw, lookit, my kitty is defending me.” The woman with the long red hair mused.

Sekkai’s head turned quickly and saw the woman standing before her. Her eyes widened in excitement, and her butt wiggled as she bounded across the small stretch of clearing towards the woman.

“Shooooooota! You’re out of your book!” She jumped into the woman’s arms and pelted her with small kitty kisses.

“Oh joy. Now I get to watch these two play kissy-face the whole time. Worst adventure ever.”

“Shun the grumpy man, Sekkai, shun!” Shota giggled, scritching behind the cat girl’s ears at the same time.

Jason rubbed his temples and gave the two girls an intense glare.

“What is he doing?” The woman asked the cat girl.

“I think he’s trying to crush us with his nonexistent psychic powers. He did the same thing to me after I met him.”

“Oh, that sounds like fun. We should get going though. We have a long journey ahead of us. Over the river and through the woods, and we’re off to defeat the Professor!” Shota proclaimed.

Arm in arm, Sekkai and Shota led the way, with Jason bringing up the rear, his face sullen from lack of caffeine. It was bad enough that he was stuck on bogus journey with a pair of aggravating girls, one of which was a furry, but now they were tra-la-laing as if they were the Smurfs too. The sound of rushing water as they reached the wooden suspension bridge, which led into Professor Ilamaral’s domain was a godsend as it drowned out their chatter; well, most of it anyway.

“It is just over this bridge, Jason.” Shota said, stopping right in the center of it.

It swayed back and forth precariously, as Jason looked ahead at the pair of girls. They were not moving an inch, Shota was whispering to Sekkai, and then they both snickered.

“Jaaaaaason!” Sekkai said in the most bothersome tone she could.

“What?”

“We are on a bridge, Jason!” Shota proclaimed, and both girls giggled.

This was going to be a long adventure.