“Damn…It’s been a while since I’ve seen ‘this’ face,” mumbled Governor Antonia “Tony” Hunter. The first Governor of Wildheart, and mercifully just only the governor, despite the many voices that had tried to push her to take the position of President.

The lean face with its square jaw, flat nose, ears that stick out, well-defined cheekbones, and narrow lips, was unmarked by wrinkles and frown lines. The large green eyes framed by sharp eyebrows were brighter than she’d seen them in a while. There was not a single streak of gray in her dark red hair.

Last, but not least, there was no sign of sag in her formidable bust, and no creak in her muscles and bones. If Tony didn’t know better she’d think she was back in her early twenties, but then again. Even back then, she’d never felt as good as she felt now. Maybe good enough to face the challenge that awaited her today.

Tony quickly dressed dawning a combat suit reminiscent of the old costumes worn by the heroes and villains of old. Form-fitting, relatively lightly-armored, and bedecked with various strips and bands of metal, that would be close enough to Tony’s skin to allow her to draw on their power. With a light, translucent layer of nano-polymer that would negate an unwanted conductivity, in case someone chose to aim at the obvious weakness of someone wearing a metal suit.

“You ready, boss lady,” said Deacon Fisher. Tony’s assistant.

“Nope…Let’s fucking do this anyway,” said Tony. Her eyes glowing in the gloom of the hallway, as she prepared to fight for her city in a final clash with the Empire and its dickhead Emperor.

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“Cheer up, pudding. It’s not that bad,” said Jo. Smiling gently. Rubbing my back softly. Her strong palm, moving in slow rotations.

I sighed, as I sat leaned over like a puppet on lax strings. I made an idiot of myself in front of our store’s one employee the other day. Or rather, looked at in another light, I’d inadvertently exposed the young woman to dangerous mind-altering substances. It didn’t matter that I’d had no clue that I was doing so.

Such excuses rang hollow even to my ear, despite my knowing that this was the case. It was just too damned hard to believe, and too damned unlucky, that this part of my nature was one of the few blind spots in my near-omniscience. I hope that she didn’t think I’d done it on purpose. What if she thought I was a creep….She probably thought I was a creep.

Before attaining their current status, the Dorothea clan, the clan of my birth, were founded by hostesses, courtesans, concubines, entertainers, merchants, con artists, and some of the lowest class of politicians. They were all charmers and grifters who got by on charisma and good looks, and they leaned hard into this tendency.

The group of extraordinarily good-looking humans and literal demons of seduction, went on to make beautiful, marketable baby’s with pretty much every good-looking individual and race they bumped into. Be they human, be they other half-demons, be they fae, be they beastfolk, spirits, or angels. If it was pretty my ancestors aimed to pull it into our gene pool.

Then later when the rampant genetic modification that nearly destroyed our world rose into prominence, the original Dorotheas made ample use of that as well. Now, generations later, when the family’s focuses and priorities were greatly changed, we were still a fairly good-looking set of people, with charisma generally being amongst our highest stats.

Cultivation was a refinement of one’s essential being. Attractiveness was a simple combination of health, genetics, and societal standards. Thus the stronger one was, the greater one’s cultivation, the better-looking one tended to be. This was generally the truth in most universes. The only exceptions being those universes where the main cultivation method was imbalanced somehow, or the energy used for the cultivation was corruptive, causing the user to be disfigured during the process.

Thus my predicament. My cultivation was far beyond the mortal realm, and it rapidly continued to grow, even without my conscious efforts. A mixed blessing from my time as a cosmic commodity. Thus my “charisma” continued to grow. Escaping my control, escaping my awareness. Warping reality around me, in such a drastic yet subtle way, that it made it hard for me to catch or measure the changes until someone started feeling the ill-effects. Like if someone told you to watch for a red light, but the definition of the word “red” kept changing. Meaning vastly different things each passing day.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I soon no longer had the leeway to just sit moping. There was trouble ahead. I could feel a fluctuation in the flow of the world that felt like a massive whale tried to swim through the shallows of a proverbial sea, unnoticed.

“Oh…I think it’s time. Looks like we actually ‘did’ end up getting some uninvited guests,” said Josephine. Standing up, her tail awag, beneath her ankle-length skirt.

“Hm…True enough,” I said. Sobering. Pushing away my petty embarrassment, and putting on the face of a professional.

Josephine smiled a smile that was closer to a snarl. Flashing a mouthful of sharp predatory teeth as her Sun-Eater escargot draped itself over her body. It’s myriad pieces and segments snapping themselves into place. The helmet appeared last and took a canid form, as Josephine’s size swelled and her form grew more bestial.

Jo would deal with the more terrestrial interlopers. The meddlers in high-tech-looking armor, who clearly didn’t belong in this dimension. I watched her use her clawed gauntlets to pierce one of the attacker’s chest and tear the figure in half, ripping his torso in half, from the neck to the perineum. I turned my attention to the invisible attacker. The boss of this little group. A stately entity that could roughly be described as a disembodied human head with glowing blue-skin, surrounded by a haze of countless bright stars.

I surmised the being to be some kind of lesser deity, or spirit. Divine mandate was a thing, and apparently, there were some gods in the Empire of Everlast’s corner. Which was why we were here. As a final bit of service to our good friend and customer, Ms. Hunter, we were playing the part of plot armor. If certain, vested parties in Rinnegata-Nome-Arma’s heavenly realm were going to move against our client, we were fine with pushing back, to keep things square.

You’d think that would be a step too far, considering my original intentions to avoid getting in trouble with the various immortal powers that be, but I was willing to go this far for a good enough customer, and a good enough friend. Besides, my run-in with the angels had taught me that simply stepping near the shore was enough to make people think your feet were wet. I wasn’t particularly afraid of such an outcome, I’d just been trying to avoid troublesome things. If I didn’t mind suffering a bit of annoyance, I didn’t mind offending a few immortal potentates.

Thus with that thought in mind, I levered a fist made of aetheric energy into the disembodied head in the cloud of stars. Punching the godling, just as I felt it about to cast some kind of divine working. It was a violent solution, but a fairly effective one. They say husbands and wives tend to look alike after a while. Then I threw another fist of overwhelming magical force. Throwing a punch that could shatter planets to keep the lesser-deity from doing anything that would meddle in the fight going on between Wildheart and Everlast.

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Meanwhile, a mighty man in a long cape faced off against a woman in a thin metal suit. They flew around each other. Exchanging blows and energy beams. First, they’d started off probing one another. Then they started fighting in earnest. Below them, two armies clashed. Armies made of superhuman soldiers and mundane soldiers armed with weapons both cold and hot. The fighting continued for several days. Then by the time that the week’s end came around, a victor was decided.