Chapter 9

Ben was, as was often the case, completely oblivious to the threat that a beautiful woman posed to him. Luckily, Short Bus could read minds, so-

“Ben!” Short Bus shouted in what he intended to be a normal speaking voice, “that hot lady totally wants you! Her brain is shielded, but she totally wanted you!”

“Damn,” Ben said, looking after her as she blew a kiss and playfully cracked her whip at him, “Infinite Whip huh? That’s a solid choice, did you know that one comes with what amounts to a demigod protector?”

“Doesn’t that demigod enslave you?” Short Bus asked.

“Yeah, but I’ve had jobs before. Between depending on a middle-aged middle manager of middling talent and mediocre motivation or a demigod personal trainer who crosses personal boundaries? I’m going demigod.”

“You make a compelling argument,” Short Bus said, nodding his massive head. “I, however, am a shark, and depend on nobody for my survival or my sense of self-worth.”

“That’s really mature Short Bus,” Ben said, giving the massive super-predator a playful punch in the arm. “Oh look, it’s our good friend Dryst!” Ben spotted Dryst as the gigantic humming, glowing, and psychedelically flashing elemental attempted to sneak away without being noticed. “Dryst! What a completely improbable coincidence!”

“How did you get up here?” Dryst asked in the guilty and angry tone of every Judas who ever lived.

“That was easy,” Ben said, waving it away with a hand, “I just put Short Bus into a Utility Pocket and used [Kenetic Leap] to bounce off the walls and a bunch of other platforms.”

“They were Earth Elementals!” Short Bus enthused, “They loved it when Ben bounced off the tops of their heads!”

“Being a Leap-rechaun isn’t the worst thing ever,” Ben said, “bouncing around like this is pretty stellar. But anyways,” he said, “Dryst, who was that? She looked like a [Lawyer] or something.” Dryst flinched, or did the psychedelic sno-cone equivalent of flinching, which was his top half flashing solid yellow, and his bottom half flashing solid red.

“I bet she was his legal defense,” Short Bus said, waving a hand lazily, “I mean we’re all swimming in hot water here.”

“Did you ever swim in hot water as a shark?” Ben asked, the two of them completely ignorant of the mounting emotional pressure Dryst was under.

“There were spots,” Short Bus said, rubbing his chin a bit as he thought, “geothermal vents that sort of thing. Not particularly pleasant, but if I ever got tired of eating the same thing over and over again, the vents were a good spot to eat something weird.”

“Wait that was your lawyer?” Ben asked, giving Dryst a case of conversational whiplash, “nice! I wonder if we could hire her.”

“Ben tell your brain to stop being so horny.”

“She was good looking!” Ben said, “and she winked at me! In human parlance, that means she wanted some. From me.”

“She seemed kind of evil to me,” Short Bus commented, realizing he hadn’t casually penetrated the sanctity of her mind like he normally did to everyone he met.

“Well yeah, she’s a lawyer, right Dryst?”

“Uh,” Dryst couldn’t sweat, but if he could, he would be comically drenched. From his perspective, Ben and Short Bus were dangerous, powerful alien lunatics who he had just betrayed. Short Bus was starting to notice.

“Hey Dryst,” Short Bus said, sniffing the air a little as his body language shifted, “you’re acting a little funny. Here, let me just read your mind real quick-” It was a bluff, Short Bus couldn’t read Dryst’s mind because his thoughts were far too alien for the sharkman to comprehend. At a higher level, [The Bright Spark] would auto translate, but for now, it was all gobblygook to him.

“She’s my lawyer!” Dryst said, “I’m in, uh, hot water like you said and I need legal protection.”

“How does that work, exactly?” Ben asked, getting closer, “Because I’ll be honest, the legal system here makes no fucking sense at all.”

“It’s like getting mugged, but the muggers have a dress code,” Short Bus added helpfully.

“There’s nothing unusual about it,” Dryst said, happy to steer the conversation away, “[Lawyers] gather up Testimony, energy used to fuel their skills, and then expend the Testimony in a legal battle. Usually the side with the most testimony will win. Their skills are highly focused on overthrowing the will of their opponents and binding them to actions they wouldn’t normally undertake willingly.”

“So,” Ben said, frowning, “We’re supposed to be gathering Testimony before our legal battle?”

“Your [Lawyer] is, yes. If you don’t have a [Lawyer], well, you are guaranteed to lose.”

“Shit,” Ben said, slapping his forehead, “we’ve been going about this all wrong. Dryst, buddy, you’re the best man. I knew coming here was a good idea! Hey, you were there!” Ben said, pointing at the Music Elemental, “if we bring by a [Lawyer], you could get us some Testimony, right?” Dryst burst into nervous laughter.

“Oh no, no no, I couldn’t. I’ve already given Testimony to my [Lawyer], I’m all tapped out. Anything I said would be useless, energetically speaking.”

“Damn, that makes sense. Fuck, we should have had Viv summon a bunch of those Noble Fiend Lawyers and just started talking. Oh well, next time I guess. Shouldn’t have sent Red and Vivi off on. . .” Ben grimaced, “Well, whatever they’re going to do, I’m sure it will be productive.” Ben sighed and scratched his head. “I’m a little at a loss here,” Ben admitted, and Dryst pounced on the opportunity.

“You know, I think you should go talk with Anna,” Dryst said enthusiastically. “Her family is rich, and she is well connected with the best [Lawyers] in Solas. You should hurry though, you’ve only got what, three days till your court date?”

“Yeah,” Short Bus said, then frowned, “how come you know that?”

“I’m keeping very close tabs on all my friends and all the cases that involve us,” Dryst said honestly, “but it might be difficult for you to actually get to Anna, since she doesn’t know you’re coming.”

“Why don’t we just call her?” Ben asked, stunning Dryst, “she’s got a Smartest Phone, so we should just call her.”

“Oh, well, actually I don’t have a phone so that won’t work-” Dryst was trying to backpedal, because Ben was starting to walk away from him and pressing deeper into the elemental circle of music, which Dryst desperately wanted to keep from happening.

“Naw don’t worry about it, someone’s bound to have one, right? Short Bus, check it out, I learned how to do this from bums back home.” Ben winked at Dryst and started brazenly walking forward, passing through the unguarded gates. “Hey, excuse me,” Ben yelled, cupping his hands over his mouth to amplify the sound, “does anyone have a phone I could borrow?”

“This is going to be great,” Short Bus said, a sharp toothed smile on his face. He stood up and started following behind Ben, bellowing as loudly as he could, “Hey! My friend here needs to borrow a phone!”

“No!” Dryst flew across the ground, but it was far too late. The music of the heavenly environment changed from a serene, flowing tune to one of energy and intense curiosity. It all started when a swarm of little music notes emerged from the golden fog, each one clearing the air a bit as they came through. They began flying around Ben, tickling him and making him laugh as they passed. His laughter attracted even more attention, and soon both Ben and Short Bus were lifted into the air by the tiny music elementals, who were harmonizing a strange and upbeat tune. Ben started humming along, and as soon as he began producing music, the haze past the gate cleared, revealing an alien city.

“These little guys are friendly!” Ben said, still laughing as the notes carried him and Short Bus around, “excuse me little fellas, do you happen to know anyone with a Smartest Phone I could talk with?” The response was a series of peppy and chirpy trumpet blasts, along with the action of sweeping him away, deeper into the city. Ben was doing his best to see everything, but all he could make out were brain melting displays of color and vaguely humanoid shapes, along with beings like Dryst. The elemental circle was built less like a city, and more like a hive with great columns of civilization rising up into the air, every surface covered in buildings and structures. Everything was ringing and flashing constantly, and despite the chaos, there was harmony. Music given life, structure, and will.

“I’m going to be sick,” Ben said, then glanced back at Short Bus, who was turning green, “So’s he, take us back, take us back!” To their credit, the living notes carrying them listened, sweeping Ben away from the frankly toxic environment. Music was all well and good, but the sheer intensity of that place threatened to vibrate his body into pieces. They were deposited outside the gates, and both were in a great mood, despite being doubled over and attempting not to throw-up.

“I-” Short Bus heaved, visibly holding back vomit, “want to get back in there! It’s exciting!”

“No!” Dryst was incensed, “both of you, stay out! How dare you enter the, how dare you desecrate!” He couldn’t form a complete sentence, his psychedelic snocone form vibrating with anger. Before he could say more, however, Dryst found himself suppressed by the familiar feeling of being completely outranked, elementally speaking. Emerging from the haze were two figures, both gently chiming to one another. They were feminine, and the following description shouldn’t take away from that fact. Both were gigantic swirling, hollow sunbursts of what appeared to be yellow and silvery glass, like sideways ovals with a large circle punched out of the center.

“Hey,” one of them said, drifting over to Ben, “are you the guy looking to borrow a phone?” As she got closer to Ben, her form shifted, becoming an extremely feminine humanoid made from energy and reflective glass. When Ben looked up, he was confronted by the sight of the most perfect pair of breasts he’d seen in. . .

“Hi,” Ben said, his biology working in sudden concert to suppress his nausea. While Ben stared, and the Music Elemental allowed him to stare, her friend took a similar humanoid form. They lacked detail in all the ways that didn’t matter, for all intents and purposes they were ideal representations of hot, rich girls, clearly old enough for Ben to hit on.

“Mabey it’s his friend?” the other elemental hot girl asked, pointing at Short Bus, who immediately vomited and held up a finger.

“Nope, Prince Ben needed it, not me.” Short Bus had never played wingman for anyone before, and clearly needed no training. “Did you know he cleared a Citadel practically by himself?”

“Really?” the first Hot Girl Elemental asked, now sounding extremely interested, “that was you? Little Dryst won’t tell anyone what happened! Oh, you needed my phone?” She reached into herself and pulled out a smartest phone, which was predictably completely bedazzled. Part of the universal pattern it seemed was that women were going to bedazzle their phones.

“Yeah,” Ben said, taking the phone but unable to tear his eyes away from the woman in front of him, who offered him a hand to help get back into a proper standing position. Her hand was warm, and soft. “Wait,” he said, looking at Dryst, then at the woman, “Little Dryst? Who are you?”

“Dubdella,” she said, her voice coy as she led Ben away from Dryst and towards a comfortable arrangement of sofas and chairs.

“Get away from my sister!” Dryst shouted, then added, “weren’t you going to go see Anna?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ben said, still staring at the pretty face in front of him, “sure thing. Uh, I think I’ll have her meet me here.” Dubdella clapped her hands, producing the most perfect, musical clap in the process.

“What a wonderful idea! Let’s get Anna here, she’ll tell us what happened out there. Humna?” she said, talking sweetly to her friend, “could you call Anna please and get her down here ASAP?” Humna pulled out her own phone, grinning at Dryst in the process. It was that horrible grin of a sister’s best friend as she watched a little brother once again get fucking destroyed, socially speaking.

“You really think Anna is going to just jump when you come calling, like some kind of common servant?” Dryst said, his voice thick with scorn, “she’s the daughter of one of the most important families in Solas-”

“She’s on her way!” Humna said excitedly, bouncing over to where Ben was seated on a couch made of clouds and getting on his other side. She was on the left, and Dubdella was on the right, and both were making their naked interest in Ben abundantly clear.

“Never thought girls liked short guys,” Ben said quietly, just to himself. Short Bus, having cleaned himself up a bit, heavily walked over and took a seat on some furniture nearby.

“Dryst,” Dubdella said, turning to look at him, “Could you please scurry off and get us all some refreshments?” she looked at Ben in elation, “what would you like, Prince Ben?”

“Water’s good,” Ben said, grinning stupidly, suddenly finding that all the worries and tensions of the time loop thus far were melting away.

“I’ll have some mana crystals, greens with the little orange streaks through them, and make sure they aren’t too hard,” Humna said, only briefly looking in Dryst’s direction.

“I’ll have the same,” Dubdella said, then dismissed Dryst entirely. “So tell me about the Citadel.”

“It was called the Citadel of Horrors,” Ben said, “and it was gigantic.

___________

2 Hours Later

___________

When Anna arrived, she came upon the scene of Ben, Dubdella, and her friend Humna dancing furiously, bodies close to one another, as fast paced music blasted out from Humna’s phone. The music, Bliss on Mushrooms, by Infected Mushrooms & Bliss, was the latest song to be playing after Ben had finished recounting his triumph over the Citadel of Horrors. Short Bus had helpfully embellished a few times through the retelling to help Ben look cool. Dubdella had been so impressed that she’d been looking for a reason, any reason, to keep Ben around as Dryst seethed in the background. Then she remembered that she actually did need a human for something. Her phone! She’d bought it on the advice of Anna, based on the fact that they were a girl gang, rich, and always hopping onto the newest hot trends as a group, but Dubdella had to admit that beyond making calls, the why of a smart phone was completely lost on her.

Ben effortlessly initiated her into the dark mysteries of social media, after which he taught her about apps and games and all the wonderful things modern humans used smart phones for. Then, he mentioned that you could listen to music and watch music videos, which both Dubdella and Humna took an intense interest in.

So, they danced. Ben had pressed the replay button several times on this song, and when Anna came in, she got to watch in scarlet shock as Dubdella seduced Ben into singing along with her, of entering carnal harmony as two voices became one. She was clearly the more experienced of the two, gently guiding and correcting his pitch and tone, until the two were in perfect union. They sang the words and hummed the sounds and their bodies moved in sync, bound in rhythmic ecstasy. Humna joined in too, and Anna watched open mouthed as Ben utilized his primal human charm to engage in a three way harmony with two of the most important and highest ranking elementals of one of the most important and highest ranking elemental circles.

So, they sang. As their magics mixed with music, Elemental Notes formed and then Lesser Music Elementals were born. They rose like the first bubbles of cold water set to boil; a few, then more, then many. The notes issued forth like a conflagration, a bonfire of epic proportions, resulting in the birth of tens of thousands of new elemental beings. The song ended and there was silence.

“I’m so glad I recorded that,” Short Bus said, holding up Humna’s phone. He might have been a shark without access to technology his entire life, but Short Bus had been the only one smart enough to put ‘Time Loop’ into the search bar of The System app store. The shockingly invasive search algorithm scanned both Short Bus and his immediate surroundings, then gave him a single app as a result. The app was called the ‘Loop Scrapbook’, and let Short Bus both store recordings to be viewed across time loops, as well as the complete mental state of those in the video.

The app had been expensive, but Short Bus hadn’t minded spending Humna’s money. Not one bit, and he imagined she would want to remember this. Then, Dryst broke out of his stupor and charged at Ben, screaming in perfect, incoherent rage.

“You fucking bastard!” he tackled Ben and rose into the air, slamming down on the compact Leap-rechaun. “You fucking piece of shit!” Ben was baffled, even more so when Dubdella shrieked and pushed Dryst away.

“Get away from him, get away!” she was hovering protectively over Ben, who was still very fucking confused.

“How could you!” Dryst yelled, “How could you! You fucked my sister!”

“What.” Ben said, blinking several times.

“And you!” Dryst was in the Music Elemental equivalent of tears, he was now talking to his sister, “how could YOU! With him?”

“Yes! With HIM!” Dubdella pulled Ben closer. Ben didn’t really resist, but he was slowly putting all the pieces together.

“Well he isn’t going to be around much longer, is he!” Dryst was beyond the point of keeping secrets, beyond the point of sneaking around and backstabbing, “In a few days, he’s dead! Executed! And good riddance!”

“A shocking twist,” Short Bus whispered as he whipped the phone’s camera around to capture Dryst’s reaction.

“Wait a fucking minute,” Ben said, untangling himself from Dubdella’s post-coital embrace, approaching Dryst, “That wasn’t your fucking lawyer, was it?”

“She works for Solas,” Dryst said, and it felt so good to get all the venom out of his system, “and after what I told her, the Testimony I gave, you’ve got no chance. There is no more potent Testimony than that of the betrayer.”

“Fuck you!” Ben looked at Dryst in disbelief, and then Anna shook her head and looked at her friend.

“Excuse me bitch, but what the fuck did you just say?” Anna ran forward and punched Dryst with a crystal fist, empowered by her [Brawler] class. The blow was so powerful, it cracked Dryst’s form, causing him to leak whatever magical liquid LSD fluid he called blood. “Bitch,” the word was spat and enunciated, impacting like a punch, “I’m here to save him, and I’m going to save him, and his whole party. I’ll make good with daddy and hire every fucking lawyer in Solas if I have to-”

“Oh please,” Dryst said, getting up, “he’s not one of you. He’s not one of the great and vaunted Signatory Races Anna. You’re thinking like he’s one of your friends up in the Canopy, but he’s not! He’s a nothing, a nobody with no friends and no connections! He’s not a part of any important families Anna!”

“That doesn’t matter!” She sputtered, “I’ll make it work, I’ll figure something-”

“Come on Anna! What are you going to do? What are you going to do! Marry him?”

“Fuck yeah I’ll marry him!” Anna screamed back.

“What?” Ben said for the second time this conversation.

“Bullshit, shut up Anna! Be serious!” Dryst bit back, having lost some of his confidence.

“Oh, I’m fucking serious bitch! Ben and I are going to get married fucking properly and legally, tomorrow. Then, when he gets to his trial, he’ll be a member of the Signatory Races by law and he’ll get the sweetheart softglove treatment!”

“Uh do I get a say in this?” Ben asked, only now realizing that the direction of his life was no longer under his control.

“No!” Anna yelled, “Shut up Ben, we’re getting married, it’s the only way!” There was dead silence, then Dubdella walked up to Anna. Anything could have happened, was she about to slap her for marrying the father of her thousands and thousands of children-

“I’m so happy for you bitch,” Dubdella said, hugging Anna with genuine emotion.

“Oh my harmony!” Humna said, joining in on the hug, “you’re getting married! You’re so lucky!”

They all started crying, and snickering, and crying. Ben watched in muted, dead souled horror as the girl gang began planning his shotgun wedding. The last thing he heard from Anna?

“Daddy’s going to be so mad.”

He’d never seen her happier.

Side Chapter (Frankie)

Frankie was cleverer than most would give him credit, but his motivations were simple. Assist Ben, with whom he shared a soul, and expand his elemental domain. He was not a space elemental, or a dimensional elemental or a portal elemental. No, Frankie was a Utility Pocket Elemental, and the difference between him and his natural cousins was that he was engineered space, dimensional distortion with a clear purpose. Utility. That meant being useful, gaining new functions, and anticipating the needs of the future.

And when Ben’s party had entered Solas, Frankie’s highly adapted senses noticed something deep in the city; it was like a bright light buried within the ground, and he wanted it like he’d never wanted anything before in his short life thus far. Though it was his heart’s greatest desire, Frankie would never abandon Ben to pursue his selfish quest. He steeled himself to turning away from the beautiful siren’s song, to simply not looking at it, whatever it was, that so called to him and his nature.

Then Ben had stretched both space and time into a gigantic loop around him. All bets were off and all obligations were on hold, because Frankie was one of the few beings who could intrinsically see what a time loop was and how it worked at an intuitive level. Ben was effectively immortal as long as he was in the loop and didn’t really need help right now. The little guy was free to go on holiday. So the very first thing he did was gather his legions, the now hundreds of Utility Pocket Elementals he had created with the many Wands of Create Lesser Elemental that he had stolen. Frankie paced in front of them, a miniature Alexander the Great, extolling them to join him in his crusade to acquire the shiny object that had so captured his attention.

Like Ben, Frankie too was a royal, but he was unburdened by the socialization process that kept people from acting like one. Frankie’s pink ribbon scarf, his raiment of power freely looted from a heavenly pure beast, always fluttered about him dramatically, and it fluttered now as the assembled legion of Utility Pocket Elementals cheered their silent, weird cheer.

Now, Frankie didn’t know what The Bank was, nor did he care to find out. The fact that his shiny object was locked away in the high security vault of Solas was completely lost on him. Frankie didn’t care how many guards there were, or how many wards had been put up; he was a student of Ben, and stealing everything was what he had learned, right at the feet of the master himself. Plus, the security was a joke.

To be very clear, the security was not a joke, it was fucking amazing. In a world where people got magical powers to assist them in stealing, it could be extremely difficult to keep anything secure, but the Bank of The Sun had gotten it right. It’s not worth mentioning what their security was, except to say that it was very good, but Frankie was a threat that they had never encountered before.

The problem was, they approached things from a very three-dimensional perspective. Physical and magical security. Wards on top of wards monitoring everything for tampering, all wrapped around the building like a barnacles and mussels coating a dock or a rock in the ocean. There was simply no way to get to everything from the inside, which was a problem for the bank, because Frankie could freely engineer space to come at the bank from the outside, dimensionally speaking. For him and his army, they could freely crawl across the surface of the magic of the bank, exploring and searching for something they could exploit, for a single crack.

They found it, and poured into the Bank of The Sun, an invisible army of extradimensional thieves with the knowledge that they had nothing to lose. Frankie had been elated, at first. He’d crowed to the heavens the way Short Bus did, until he realized there was no way to get into The Vault. That was where the most powerful people in Solas stored all their most valuable things, and it contained the shiny object he so desperately needed. Without going into the technical details of the magic, it would be prudent to simply say that it was secure as fuck and there was no fucking way anyone was getting in there unless the branch manager himself opened it up. It was The Vault! Nobody opened The Vault! Nobody! The doors were actually just a portal mechanism that led to another dimension, a place where so much wealth had accumulated in one spot that The Bank had set up the only Treasure Elemental farm in existence. Frankie had obviously tried to find this pocket dimension, but it was competently locked up, even from an existence like him.

So, Frankie had stared at it, invisibly seething with his army, for loop after loop after loop, unable to obtain his prize. Waiting, hoping against hope and very long odds, that something Ben did would ripple out and cause those doors to open, even a crack, even for a single second.

Because as soon as they did, he was going in, and he was going to take everything.