Nathan leaned his forehead against the glass window of the manatech rail car and made an aggravated face. But even so, he would be damned if he let anyone ruin his good mood right now. “Look, we are just friends. But she’s playing the halftime show! Thousands of people are going to watch. As a friend, I have to support her.”

“Uh huh,” His twin sister Kiersty’s voice clearly indicated that she didn’t believe Nathan’s assertions at all. “And when did you and Mariah Jane become so close? Isn’t she sixteen already? That’s two years older than us. How many sixteen-year-old girls have friends who are fourteen-year-old boys? Especially ones who are so...”

Nathan fiddled with the buttons of his shirt as Kiersty trailed off. He rather pointedly ignored everything but her first question “...we became after she took second place in Donnyton’s performance challenge. I went… to encourage her for next time. I-.... I met her backstage. She should have won.”

Next to Kiersty on the seat opposite Nathan, Tykes chuckled and briefly ceased making the gold coin dance across his fingers. “You really think that girl-child should have beaten Raina? They aren’t even in the same vocal league, little man,”

“She’s just developing her sound,” Nathan said defensively. “She… really, I think the next challenge she will be even better.”

Dinesh yawned loudly in the seat next to him, finally pulling Nathan’s gaze from the forests they were speeding past to favor Dinesh with a sour look. Shrugging rather noncommittally, Dinesh continued to work on the sudoku puzzle book he had bought at the train station before they had departed. Feeling wronged, Nathan folded his arms and glowered indiscriminately at the others in the train car.

“So you walked backstage and talked to an older girl that you didn’t know and you two just became friends.” Kiersty prompted after the silence had stretched for a few minutes. “Even though everybody says that she has a thing with the Cortez boy.”

Nathan unfolded his arms. “People can have friends… and I just...Well, you know her actual Class is Heavy Archer, not related to singing at all. So I mentioned… well, just said that if she wanted, it would be possible to change her Class to something more… well, more related to singing. Like Songstress, or something, and she seemed really interested!”

“Of course she’s interested,” Kiersty sighed as she slumped back in her seat and crossed her arms again. “This is why I’m saying you need to be more responsible with who you tell about your powers.”

“Oh shut up, Kiersty, you run a cult,” Nathan muttered glumly.

That earned a sharp glare from Kiersty, but it was Dinesh that responded. He carefully raised his measure gaze from the puzzle book in his hands and said. “Spreading word of your abilities can be dangerous. Make sure she understands that this matter shouldn’t be be talked about lightly. Although both of you are mature for teenagers, that does not mean all others are… and it is best to avoid misunderstandings.”

“Misunderstandings that Dinesh and I end up solving,” Tykes said with an easy smile. He popped the golden coin into his hand and flapped it into the air. When it landed on his palm, he immediately covered it with the other hand with an audible slap.

“Mariah’s different,” Nathan said firmly. “Even Mrs. Hamilton said she was trustworthy.”

Again, Tykes chuckled, but Nathan ignored the older man. After all, what did he know? When they were back at their temporary base by the Ogre Gorge, Tykes was constantly fawning over that woman would couldn’t even speak. In terms of developing a relationship, Tykes was successful, but that was definitely not the sort of relationship that Nathan wanted.

No… Nathan’s face flushed a bit as he turned back to the window. I want to date someone… someone who just gets me… Sometimes when I’m listening to Mariah’s songs…

“Well she’s certainly not very nice,” Kiersty announced, interrupting Nathan’s reverie. “Why the hell do we need to buy our own tickets? She could at least give us a couple. And good ones. Who asked this football game to be so popular?.”

“Kiersty, honey, we all know how much money you have,” Tykes rolled his eyes. “What are you doing with it if not spending it on tickets?”

“Investing in the coffee farms,” Kiersty said defensively. “If we can expand now, since there are so many new places on Earth- anyway, that’s not the point. I’m just saying that I’m sure Raina would have given us tickets if she had been singing at the halftime show.”

Nathan’s throat was dry as he cleared it lightly. “Ahem. Well, I… I didn’t tell Mariah that we were coming. I… wanted it to be a surprise. Like she… she would look out into the crowd and see me...”

Everyone spared Nathan a look and considered the fact that the group had was heading to watch the inaugural football game without telling Mariah that they were coming. Tykes smirked and DInesh sighed. Both of them honestly didn’t care that much; they were there to protect Nathan and would have followed him anyway.

But Kiersty…

“Oh my gawddddd!” Kiersty held her face in her hands and shook her head. “You are such an idiot sometimes. How are we related at all?!?”

*****

Once more, Randidly stood on top of Kharon’s city hall and considered the billowing pillars of smoke that wafted upward from the almost constantly active furnaces in the industrial district. The smoke had become a reassuring constant of Kharon. It was proof of the constant efforts of this city’s people to improve. Even as time passed, the people of Kharon were developing to face the Earth’s problems.

It’s a matter of speed, however… The stronger Kharon is, the less I need to worry about the smaller threats.

Almost moodily, Randidly rubbed his chin and felt the persisting mark his image yesterday had made on the roof. Even now, the energy of Randidly’s images continued to swirl on the roof. With a shake of his head, he turned away and returned to his office the old fashioned way, through the interior stairwell.

It had been four and a half days now since he had returned to Kharon, four and a half days of feeling like there were far too many things for him to do. Aside from his own growth, which took up a large portion of his day, Randidly was constantly moving throughout Kharon and inspecting the various facilities. He continued to pour over recent reports on the movements of different entities on Earth. The forgers of Kharon wanted to meet and talk with Randidly regarding how to improve their craft. Naffur wanted Randidly to create a set of codes for the members of the Order Ducis to abide by.

Every day, they moved another day closer to arriving at the Zones.

The tests regarding the power of the moss spirits were moving into the next stage, after successful results on both the floating platforms and incorporating the spirits directly into a street. Tatiana had an unending series of meetings and reports that she needed Randidly for, because they would materially affect the growth of Kharon. And perhaps the task that had taken up the most of Randidly’s thoughts, if not his time, was the perverse desire to trick some vendor from Kharon into selling him a product for full price.

As Randidly opened up the door to his office, he noticed a neat note on familiar letterhead laying on the ground. Picking it up, he recognized Tatiana’s handwriting from the many reports he had read in the past few days and skimmed the contents. In the note, Tatiana reminded Randidly firstly that although most of Kharon’s business was related the metalworking and industrial strength materials, the fastest growing export of Kharon was actually soaps and shampoos due to the teas, herbs, and flowers grown in the Western portion of Kharon, dedicated to agriculture.

And the second piece of information contained in the note was that someone had named one of their newer soap scents ‘Ghosthound’. For almost a minute after he read that line, Randidly did nothing. He simply stared at the note. Then he crumpled up the note and lobbed it perfectly across the room to land into the trashcan.

“They made a soap based on me…?” Randidly mumbled. In his meeting with Antonio yesterday, the man had expressed some reservations that a lot of people felt about staying in Kharon for the long term. The two main reasons Antonio gave were that a lot of people were unsure about just coming under the thumb of another group like the Chosen and that the people felt nervous putting their lives in the hands of someone they don’t know. In this case, Randidly Ghosthound.

Even remembering the meeting gave Randidly a headache. Especially with how much difficulty Heiffal and his group have had adjusting to the culture on Earth… does that mean something like a soap scent is exactly what I need to spread a positive image…?

But just as that thought popped into his head, Randidly ruthlessly smashed it He bared his teeth at the air as his emerald eyes flashed. “No. Even if I need to earn the trust of the people… a soap is not how I want to do it.”

Unbidden, suddenly Randidly’s mind was filled with a monochrome commercial starring himself for the soap. It began with just his silhouette, walking away from the camera with enough jaunt to make the sharp lines of his body appear androgynous. At the last moment, Randidly spun around and unleashed his most squinty-eyed and duck-faced look as he peered over his shoulder.

As Randidly delivered his gaze at an angle that highlighted his jaws and cheekbones, a voiceover flowed outward. “Ghosthound. Scent by Kharon.”

Shivering, Randidly cracked his knuckles. No matter if Randidly was doomed to be afflicted with busyness to the end of his life based upon the decisions he had made creating a city, that did not mean he needed to allow something like this to go by without a proper response. Besides, despite the fact that Randidly had spent so much time yesterday training his Spear Mastery, that efforted had only cleared the cloud hanging over Randidly’s head for a short amount of time. As he continued to sit through another slew of meetings yesterday evening, the weird sense of dissatisfaction crept back into Randidly’s mind.

Yet what could Randidly do? These were things that needed to be done. It was just… very different from what Randidly was good at. But to be a good king… Randidly needed to find the time to be good at these things too.

Rubbing his eyes, Randidly pushed those thoughts from his mind. Even if this issue was rather small compared to the issue of preparing Kharon, Randidly knew himself well enough that he would be endlessly distracted if he didn’t address this issue now. With a determined air, he casually dressed and proceeded into the area of Kharon that housed its shops with every bit as much bloodlust and dedication as if he was walking to a battlefield.

Chuckling, Randidly approached a clothing shop. Today, he would accomplish two of his goals. One, he would finally trick someone into not giving him something for free with a disguise. And two, he could then rip off his disguise and get to the bottom of this whole Ghosthound scent debacle, once and for all.