“Lot One Hundred and Twenty! This auction’s crowning items…. Godking Kinzo’s Millennium’s Elixirs!”

There was a chorus of creaks and shuffling fabric as the auditorium sat upright at once. All eyes were on the Auctioneer now and he was soaking it all in with an oily smile, a sponge for attention. Each glance bloated him a little more.

“Starting bid… five thousand high-grade spirit stones.”

More money than most Gods would earn in a lifetime. Who would be in the market for elixirs such as these? Only those old monsters—creatures such as, if Gerard was permitted some hubris, himself—could afford them—at considerable expense. And those old monsters hardly needed a few extra millennia of Bloodline. Gerard was in Stage IV of his Bloodline, and Stage V was eons away, an impossibility so distant it did not merit the slightest consideration.

So there were only true buyers. Collectors, and investors. The former was no true threat; past the mid-thousands he suspected they would quickly drop off.

But what of those who were like him? Those with deep backgrounds, who bought them not for personal use but for the use of the next generation? A prodigy, perhaps? Each great family of in the Multiverse overflowed with them.

“My dear guests… let the bidding begin!” chortled the Auctioneer, throwing up his fat meatball hands, each as big as his head.

“Five thousand and one hundred high stones!” came a gruff call far below.

“Booth twenty seven—five point one thousand! Five point one!”

“Five thousand three hundred!”

“Booth thirty-two! Five point three!”

Gerard detested this auction format. He blinked, and checked himself. Ordinarily it would merely miff him. But he was in that sort of mood. Driven by pure passions, the thrill of artificial competition, especially as bidding wars sprung up. The only competition then was which party was foolish enough to line the auctioneer’s pockets. The bid, inevitably, ended far higher than the true value of the good. It became a matter of pride. Inevitably the winner had that perfect intersection of wealth and poor judgment.

“Five point five!”

…

“Five point six!”

He sighed. He supposed it miffed him more because of what he was about to do.

“Ten thousand high stones,” he articulated clearly, loudly, making sure his voice rang across the whole of the theater. His words left silence in their wake. He permitted himself a small, grim, satisfied smile.

It was he who would play the fool. He had no pride. These elixirs were immensely valuable, but ten thousand high stones could purchase a Lower Realm!

But there was no point in holding back. Nor dragging out this charade. They were here for but one thing, after all. When you meant to do a job, you did it well, and absolutely. You left no quarter for doubt.

“My, my, my. Ten thousand high!” crooned the Auctioneer. He slapped his meaty thigh, mightily tickled. “Would anyone care to match the gentleman in booth One Hundred and Twelve?”

A figure shot up. Humanoid, but judging by the aura, the shape of the tail, and the horns, either a dragonoid or a dragon in human form. Gerard saw only the mask, but he could imagine the expression beneath. There was a fighting set to those shoulders, a certain telling tenseness.

“Ten thousand, five hundred.”

A young voice, clear and strong. Possibly a disguise, but odds were this was some young master, heir to one of the great Dragon Clans of Hell. Perhaps even the Multiverse. There were several powerhouses scattered about the Upper Realms. The Dragons and the Phoenixes and the Qilins and the Tortoises all belonged to the same family—but most were like the outer sect of a clan. But the highest caliber Bloodlines, those of the legendary Beasts, were as the inner sect, or the core disciples. They could afford not only to travel here from the other side of Hell, but also to rig up stupendously expensive inter-plane portals to attend exclusive functions such as this. The Wukongs, once upon a time, had been one such Bloodline...though by the position its final remaining heir found herself in—a truly spine-defying posture in which she somehow managed to nap—you’d hardly know it.

His quarrel now seemed to be with a promising heir to the dragon clan.

“Eleven thousand high,” said Gerard. Like it was not nearly the sum total of his budget. Like he had endless stones to spare.

“Twelve thousand,” snapped back the heir, just as fast, as though for each sliver of confidence Gerard projected he would return it double. An outrageous sum, and by the gasp that rankled the crowd everyone present knew it.Gerard’s eyes narrowed. The question was—which of them was bluffing more?

“Fourteen thousand, five hundred,” intoned Gerard.

It was a figure he was not totally sure he had.

And it was like he’d detonated an explosion at the center of the theater. No-one spoke. Not even the heir.

But he did spring to his feet moments later, after the aftershock had settled some.

“Very good!” spat the heir. “Very good!” And he tore off his mask, exposing a draconic face.

“This one is Xinming, of the noble strain of coiling dragons, Young Master of the Multiversal Clan of Dragons.” He dragged a forked tongue across two bared, shiny fangs. “The elixir is most critical to my development. It would speed my growth across the third Stage quite handsomely, which would be most beneficial to my advancement up the Empyrean Rankings. I mean to match Baldur by the end of this century, you see. Might I request the fellow in booth One Hundred and Twelve show this one some face, and retract your bid? The clan will remember this favor.”

Always the same with these Young Masters. They made such brazen requests, and with such curious methods. To truly succeed in a request you had to consider the other party’s wants before your own. A request was in truth an act of caring, an act of consideration. But these younglings led with their desires, making a great show of boring their interlocutor to tears with their great (and long-winded) hopes—and only then tacking on the other party’s wishes as an afterthought. It was a way of speaking groomed by having the world fall at your feet at your every whim, all your life.

Gerard had no patience for him. He stayed silent. Though he dearly wished he could give the little cretin the tongue-lashing of his lifetime.

A hotness was brought to boil in his gut.

“I see.” Xinming’s lips curled. “At least have the courage to face me, then! And deliver your rejection man-to-man! What? Are you a coward, who hides behind a mask? Have you not the guts to face me?”

The courage?

Gerard snorted, and the Midnight Roc within him snorted with him, and he paled suddenly.

No—no…

The Auctioneer seemed perfectly content to let it all play out. To Gerard’s great horror. Stay… PUT!

His fingers dug into his palm hard. But they were no longer fingers. They were talons, and they drew blood. Red, leaky blood, the same blood that was within all those succulent, bulbous bodies below, the same blood begging to be let out—

He was desperately itchy.

And then the cretin had to go and say it.

“I challenge you!” He barked. “Show yourself, coward! Have you no face?!”

Oh… Heavens, no…

***

Sun sensed she woke up at a really bad time.

Gerard’s arm was half-skin, half-feathered. His eyes were shivering so fast she was worried they might burst like crushed tomatoes. Blood dripped from his taloned fingers as a voice issued from below—

“I challenge you! Show yourself, coward! Have you no face?!”

Now there were times when Sun was useful, and there were times when she was not. Most of the time she was not useful, she’d learned (painfully). Those times she tried to stay out of the way as much as possible. That led to the most treats for the least work anyways.

Now, every single fiber of her being screamed at her, was one of those times.

Yet it was plain this was very very very bad.

Gerard was about to unload, and if he unloaded now—well, that was a Godking in the audience, and their bombs hadn’t even been planted yet, and—

This just couldn’t happen. She knew it instantly. But what could she do?!

They were going to die.

Oh, fuck they were going to die.

The plan had been going so smooth somehow she’d let herself relax a smidge! And with Gerard here saying things in that smooth controlled Gerard way she figured he had things all figured out. Things would go. But things were not going, they were going very badly in fact. Fuck….!

The gravity of her situation hit her like a bucket of ice water to the face. She didn’t know what to do. She was looking at Gerard and watching him, mouth half-open, like you watch a man hanging by his fingernails on the edge of a cliff.

And for the life of her she couldn’t see a way to pull him back up.

And if she couldn’t pull him back up they were fucked. They were really really fucked!

And she couldn’t see a way to pull him back up.

(she couldn’t see a way to—)

(she couldn’t see—)

She was choking.

She desperately wished Dorian were here. He’d know what to do. But instead they had her. Little Ninth, scum of the Wukong line, a waste of good fur! Why were there tears in her eyes? This was so stupid. They were going to die. Gerard, nice caring mister Gerard, and Dorian... who had some redeeming qualities, she was sure—who was her friend, at least—all because she was—

She rammed her head into the floor. As hard as she could.

“…Ow….”

Ah. There.

She grinned, a little woozy. Even she was getting sick of listening to her shit on herself.

She could figure this out. Of course she could! She was Sun godsdamned Wukong! Which… didn’t mean very much, but it was the sort of attitude Dorian would’ve taken into it, and his mad confidence somehow made mad things work. That was what they all needed right now. Now that she checked out of ‘prey-with-foot-caught-in-trap’ mode it all seemed so… obvious. In fact she’d already figured this out. She’d just done it to herself. Suddenly she was rather relaxed about the whole thing.

“Mister Gerard? Please hold still for exactly three seconds. Trust me!”

She dearly hoped he was listening, since if he dodged this was all over. He tensed, which might’ve been a good sign?

Then she thwacked him over the head as hard as she could with the Jingu Bang.