Stupid Sexy Cryptids [Ch 10-12]

Previous chapters are on Royal Road at: Stupid Sexy Cryptids [or How I Became the Emperor of Mankind]

10: Blood Pact

It started as a low rumble, like thunder rolling in from a distance. The stained glass windows rattled in their frames. Then the pines outside began to sway in unison, bending sideways like they were bowing to some terrible god.

The house groaned. Every beam, every nail, every piece of century-old wood voiced its protest as the shockwave swept the Pacific Rim. Picture frames fell. The grandfather clock chimed discordantly. 

I mentally tabulated the distance between Cascade and the Arctic. The explosion of the Arctic  island shouldn’t have reached this far this quickly as the pressure/sound wave from such would have to travel roughly at the speed of sound and would have moved at 49 minutes per 1,000 km. This was something else. Something else had exploded catastrophically much closer to our valley.

"Jesus Christ!" Jake's voice carried from outside. I heard his van door slam, engine starting before the house even stopped swaying. Gravel sprayed as he tore down the driveway, probably breaking several traffic laws in his escape.

I couldn't blame him.

My tablet buzzed frantically on the counter where I'd left it. Notifications flooding in so fast the screen became a blur of text. I grabbed it, hands shaking.

[Daxagon(╯°Д°）╯]: HOLY FUCKING SHIT
[Daxagon(╯°Д°）╯]: ALIEN INVASION!
[Daxagon(╯°Д°）╯]: ACTUAL FUCKING ALIENS
[Daxagon(╯°Д°）╯]: POLSA RADAR TRACKING HUNDREDS OF SHIPS IN ORBIT!
[Daxagon(╯°Д°）╯]: THEY CARVED UP THE FUCKING MOON!!!
[Daxagon(╯°Д°）╯]: BRO ARE YOU ALIVE??? 

I sent back a single word “yes” reply, paralyzed into indecision by shock.

I sent back a single word “yes” reply, paralyzed into indecision by shock.

[Daxagon(╯°Д°）╯]: Glad you’re okay, dude. A fucking crystal worm thing just landed in downtown Warsaw, obliterating all the windows nearby. Bunch of them are coming down from the ships like falling stars! 

I swallowed. The blastwave that hit Cascade must have originated from a Frotenachii lander cleaving the atmosphere nearby.

More messages poured in from other friends, family and former classmates. The world was collectively losing its shit.

I turned the TV to the news, my hands twitching as I fumbled with the remote. Every channel showed similar, utterly mad footage of every major city on Earth being invaded.

CNN: Massive crystalline centipedes, each the size of a subway train, titanic bodies gleaming like frozen blood, plowing through downtowns of Seattle, Washington and Manhattan. 

Fox News: Shot of the moon from a telescope, now sporting a perfect cubic hole. The talking heads were having a collective meltdown, many simply repeating "This can't be real" over and over.

I went to the ‘live’ news channels on Youtube to see what else was happening across the Earth.

BBC: Armored Wendigo women, each as tall as Shady, striding into the Parliament building surrounded by what looked like anthropomorphic wolves, birds of prey, velociraptors and other predator species of Earth, all female, all armored and armed with long swords and massive, black, hexagon-textured, gun-like weapons. 

The UK Prime Minister being lifted by his collar like a misbehaving puppy as one of the massive antlered figures demanded, "Where is Princess Aquillianne Quantivia Frontenachii?"

NHK: Tokyo in panic as one of the red centipedes coiled around Tokyo Tower, not damaging it but... scanning it? Reading it? Its crystalline segments rotated independently, casting beams of red light that made people's shadows dance wrong.

Behind me, Shady made a small whimpering noise.

"CIRCLE!" she announced at the TV, then added in the news anchor's panicked voice, "This can't be real! This can't be real! Aliens! Actual aliens!”

I turned to stare at Shady.

"You absolute antlered idiot," I let out. “What have you done?”

"You absolute antlered idiot," she repeated back, blinking at me with those enormous silver eyes that held no recognition of what she'd done or why. Just innocent confusion and warm trust that made my chest ache.

The tablet buzzed again.

[Daxagon(╯°Д°）╯]: They're all looking for some princess
[Daxagon(╯°Д°）╯]: Aquillianne something
[Daxagon(╯°Д°）╯]: They think we killed her
[Daxagon(╯°Д°）╯]: we are considering heading to a shelter
[Daxagon(╯°Д°）╯]: Polish and EU military is mobilizing but what the fuck are tanks gonna do against THAT

I looked at Aquillianne as she made noises at the news footage of alien ships. "This is a square! BEEP!"

The weight of the situation crashed down on me. The fate of the entire Earth suddenly depended on me figuring out what to do with a brain-scrambled alien princess.

FOX news suddenly switched to footage from the White House. One of the Wendigo commanders stood in the Oval Office. The President sat at his desk looking like he'd aged ten years in ten minutes.

"We have no knowledge of… Aquillianne Quantivia Frontenachii," the President said. "Earth governments have had no contact with such and I personally wasn’t aware that your kind was even real!”

The Wendigo woman suddenly snapped a black centipede bracelet on his wrist and raised a black gun. “Useless chaff. You see yourself as the leader of this world yet you know nothing of us. Your head is filled with contradictions and desire to be re-elected. You are old, frail and are impudent. You think that your nukes can knock our ships from the sky or disrupt the Corpse Seekers? A lesson then, for you and those below your station.”

The president’s head detonated as she pressed the trigger. Screams of the people and press present in the White House cabinet.

“You are next in line, as… Vice President?” The Wendigo turned to the Vice President. The forty year old man nodded vigorously, his face covered in sweat and drops of blood. “Good. You are young and supple and your thoughts are those of cooperation, not atomic devastation. You will do nicely. Order all those below you to cooperate with our search for Princess Aquillianne.”

Something clicked in my memory then, triggered by the repetition of Aquillianne’s name. More details from that summer day thirteen years ago came flooding back.

The blood pact.

. . .

We were sitting under the ancient oak tree near the cliff, the one that leaned out over Darkfall Valley. Shady was unusually serious that day.

"We need to make it official," she said.

"Make what official?"

"Us. Friends. But more than friends." Shady grabbed my hand, her fuzzy fingers warm against mine. "Equals! Would you like that?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Sure. Sounds fun.”

She presented some kind of note written in her little notepad with a pink and black marker pen, the letters slightly wobbly. “Read the terms of our agreement.”

I quickly read over the notepad, not bothering to memorise or take anything seriously that was written there, thinking it was just another silly Princess & Knight game. Something about being her kobold knight, defending her from monsters, feeding her, administrating her hoard, etc.

Then she suddenly sliced a sideways number eight into her dark palm pad with her own claw. Her blood welled up, much darker than mine, violet with tiny points of light in it like captured stars.

"By the ancient Omnid laws," she said solemnly, "I, Aquillianne Quantivia Frontenachii, claim Ashcroft Julian Clifford as my equal, bound by the power of my fractal engine heart, blood and soul. Now you Ashy! Speak exactly as I wrote it, no messing up the Vow please.”

She flipped to another page of her notebook showing me what to read.

"By the ancient Omnid laws, I Ashcroft Julian Clifford accept Aquianne Quantivia Frontenachii as my equal, bound by the power of her fractal engine heart, by blood and soul,” I read the words, stumbling over the strange syllables, not understanding their significance. 

Just a game between friends, I'd thought. 

She suddenly seized my hand and sliced into my palm with a dark claw, making me cry out. Two triangles facing each other. The same symbol, number eight sideways.

Then, she connected our hands, squeezing tight.

“In every world.” she declared. “Across eternity.”

“In every world,” I agreed, my hand stinging and also feeling tingly. “Across eternity.”

. . .

I blinked, letting out a weary sigh. 

I continued watching the news coverage for the next several hours, as nations bowed to the unstoppable invaders one by one, world leaders in every time zone across the planet pulled from their beds or exhumed from their bunkers by crystal centipedes and forcibly brought to their offices to sign the declaration of surrender to the Frontenachii.

My brain was boiling, working overtime trying to figure out what the fuck to do about this alien invasion development.

On MSNBC, a Wendigo commander was interrogating the US Secretary of Defense, her silver eyes narrowed in frustration.

"Your thoughts speak of a 'Justice League,'" she snarled. "Where is this league? Why can’t we locate them like your leaders? They must know of our Princess!"

The Secretary, a sixty-year-old man who looked ready to have a heart attack, stammered, "That's... that's a comic book. It’s not real. Just a comic book!"

"Lies! Your mind shows them very clearly! A man who flies, impervious to damage!" The Wendigo's tail lashed. "This 'Superman' could have taken our Princess with the aid of ‘Doctor Stranger’ who is capable of opening dimensional gateways!"

I mentally hiccuped, looking down at my tablet.

There, on another live cam channel, a different Wendigo held up a smartphone. "This communication device connects to all others, yes? It has intelligence inside that you like conversing with for finding answers? A Large Language Model? Command it to find our Princess!"

"That's not... Phones and CrawdGPT don't work like that," a terrified female politician tried to explain.

"Your thoughts say 'global network,' 'connected to everything.' Make it find her!"

The woman’s hands shook as he tried to explain phones and current AIs, but the Wendigo just grew more confused and angry, demanding things that weren't possible.

I switched to another tab.

An indie Gwitch livecast on my tablet channel showed a massive crystalline centipede coiled around a Best Buy in Florida. Its segments rotated as it tried to interrogate the building itself, booming questions in English addressed to Best Buy. Did the centipede think that our buildings were sentient or something?

A lynx-woman held up DVD boxes in the air. "These discs contain histories of your world, but they're all different! Which is the true record? This 'Lord of the Rings' or this 'Die Hard'?"

The teenage employee she was questioning looked ready to pass out. "They're... they're just movies! Entertainment!"

"Your mind shows them as if they happened! You have fond memories of them! Which is real? Confess!"

Holy shit. 

The aliens couldn't properly distinguish between what humans had seen in fiction versus reality. Their mind-reading abilities were pulling everything equally: movies, books, games, actual memories. Unlike Shady who spent several summers here in Cascade, watching TV and chatting with me, the Wendigo soldiers couldn't parse the difference.

Behind me, Shady had discovered she could make the emergency broadcast sound and was doing it repeatedly while pointing at things. "BZZZZT! This is a circle! BZZZZT! BEEP!"

Another realization hit: they were looking for their Princess's "corpse" because her Astral signature had supposedly terminated. The brain spiders. Whatever Shady had done to herself had completely scrambled her mind to the point where their tech assumed she was dead.

And then the final pieces fell into place: 

The blood pact. Kobolds. Dragons who owned Kobolds. Hoards.

A solution. I had an insane, potentially suicidal solution. I grabbed my tablet and tapping on Telegram, I called Dax.

He answered immediately.

"Ash! Fuck, dude, are you seeing this whack shit? They just executed three world leaders on live TV! The Polish president barely escaped because he was in the bathroom when they arrived, but they found him and—"

"Dax, listen to me very carefully," I interrupted. "I need you to do something that's going to sound completely insane."

"More insane than big tittied alien deer women with guns who just dropped a chunk of the moon on us?"

“Yes. Where is the closest crystal centipede to you?”

“Uhhh… the nearest one is at Pałac Prezydencki… Why?”

"I need you to get a drone. The best one you can find. And I need you to fly it to Pałac Prezydencki.”

"What? Ash, have you lost your fucking mind? The crystal murder worm is wrapped around Poniatowski's monument! It literally just swallowed up the Police car that tried to…"

"I know. I’m going to talk to them.”

“Talk to them?!”

“I know what to tell them. Buy a basic unlocked tablet, shove a generic phone card with ten gigs of data, install telegram on it, add me and duct tape it to a large drone.”

“What?! Why?!”

“You're going to fly the drone while I stay connected on Telegram call to talk to one of the aliens."

"You want me to fly a drone... to the aliens... who are currently murdering world leaders so you can talk to them via Telegram?!"

"Yes."

"Ash, they're killing people! They turned your President's head into modern art!"

"They're confused, Dax. They don't understand how anything works. They're reading people's minds but can't tell the difference between reality and fiction." I glanced back at Shady, who was now trying to eat the TV remote. "I have a plan."

"What plan could possibly—"

"Just trust me. Please. Can you get a drone to your President’s palace? This is very important. Probably the most important thing in the world right now."

Dax was quiet for a moment. "Sis has a commercial drone for her real estate work. This is insane though."

"The whole world is insane right now. Look, just get the damn drone. I'll keep the Telegram call on my tablet. You fly it to the palace entrance, and I'll handle the rest. Just do it. Please."

He stared at me for a long moment. "If I die because of this shit, I'm haunting your ass."

"Deal."

"Give me thirty minutes. And Ash? This better fucking work."

"BEEP! Pałac Prezydencki! Drone!" Shady bobbled beside me, licking my neck.

"Who’s voice is that...?"

"I'll explain later. Just get that drone."

11: Sillicia Frontenachii 

Commander Sillicia Frontenachii stood in the ornate halls of the building its inhabitants mentally tagged as the [Warsaw Presidential Palace], watching with barely contained irritation as her Prad Scrutimancers tore through filing cabinets and computer terminals. The wolf packs detected nothing except the psychic residue of human bureaucracy, a particularly unpleasant smell, according to them. 

Sillicia knew that time was running out. The longer it would take to locate the dead Princess, the more memories she would lose once they brought her back to life via the Incarnator.

At least the Princess was lucky enough to be born on homeworld in lavish Omnithornia, unlike Sillicia who grew up on a warship, raised in a time bubble by brutal instructors disconnected from the rest of reality. She endured a multitude of victorious dominion expansion campaigns across many worlds building up her personal Scrut pack of kobolds and this was the first time that a world managed to surprise her. There were far too many humans on this world and the information their minds offered made no sense.

"Anything?" Sillicia asked Scrutimancer-Alpha Linari, a brown-furred wolf currently sniffing the Polish Minister of Defense.

"Nothing useful, Commander," Linari growled in frustration. "My Scrutiosmia isn’t working correctly. This one's thoughts are full of something called 'NATO protocols', anxiety about his children and memories of magic events which might or might not have occurred. He knows nothing of the Princess.”

“What’s wrong with your sniffing?” Sillicia demanded.

“The local Astral is incredibly dim and thick. It’s barely saving imprints, there is no worldwide System whatsoever here keeping track of stats, which makes it incredibly hard to distinguish truth from fiction. We’re making a lot of guesses here, operating half-blind.” Linari whined.

Sillicia growled and mentally pinged the Corpse Seeker 881 attached to her division.

Outside, the Corpse Seeker was coiled around the sculpture of a human male on a four legged beast the locals mentally tagged as the [Monument of Józef Poniatowski]. The tank continuously cast scanning beams across the building and surrounding area.

Sillicia's tail lashed in frustration. It had been several hours since they made planetfall, and they were no closer to finding the Princess. The Admiral would not be pleased.

A Prad Beta Scrut burst through the doorway. "Commander! The humans I sniffed in the halls have no knowledge of the Princess, but a few were thinking of something called 'Avengers.' These Avengers have a variety of powers, including flight, super strength and opening dimensional gates. Should we pursue this lead?"

"Avengers?" Sillicia's ears perked forward. "That sounds like a warrior clan. Yes, see if you can find information on these Avengers immediately. They may have—"

A strange humming sound interrupted her. Through the tall windows, she heard something approaching the palace square—a small flying device, no bigger than a dinner plate, with four spinning rotors keeping it aloft. Attached to its underside with what appeared to be primitive adhesive tape was a thin, glowing rectangular device.

The Corpse Seeker immediately oriented on the small flying machine, a thousand eyes focusing. Scanning beams converged, searching for weapons, poisons, explosives or biological agents. Finding nothing bad, it sent a pulse of data to Sillicia's neural symbiote.

[HARMLESS FLIGHT AND COMMUNICATION DEVICES DETECTED. BASIC ELECTROMAGNETIC AUDIO-VISUAL TRANSMISSION CAPABILITY ONLY. TAGGED - [TABLET XD-12] & [Flycatt 09 Quadcopter].]

The drone hovered just outside the palace entrance. The rectangular device's surface showed a masked figure of a human, the background blurred.

"I know where Princess Aquillianne Quantivia Frontenachii is," the masked figure suddenly declared, his voice warped and unnaturally deep, likely put through some kind of sound-altering device. The human wore reflective goggles over his eyes. Some kind of a black mask-like apparatus with round side attachments concealed his mouth.

Sillicia burst through the palace doors, rushing to the center of the plaza at full speed. The drone descended down to her and she snatched it from the air, her claws carefully gripping the tablet.

"Who are you?" she snarled. "If this is some pathetic attempt at deception—"

"I am the Emperor of Earth," the masked man declared. "Sovereign of all terrestrial domains, defender of the seven continents, protector of the innocent, Lord of the Moon and..." he paused, "Kobold-Administrator to Princess Aquillianne Quantivia Frontenachii."

Sillicia's mind raced. [Seeker, verify—is there an Emperor of Earth?]

The Corpse Seeker's crystalline minds contemplated the request as it accessed its compiled data from thousands of human memories it and its sisters processed from thoughts snippets gathered by Pradavarian Scrutimancers and Frontenachii Commanders positioned across the world.

[ANALYZING... EMPEROR OF EARTH CONFIRMED. MULTIPLE REFERENCES FOUND IN HUMAN COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS. TIED TO "WARBANNER" LEGEND AND BOARD GAME. IMMORTAL GOD-EMPEROR WHO PROTECTS HUMANITY. EXTENSIVE CULT FOLLOWING DETECTED. SUBJECTS REFER TO HIM AS "THE EMPEROR PROTECTS" AND "MASTER OF MANKIND." WARNING: CONFLICTING DATA SUGGESTS VAST GLOBAL FICTIONAL AND RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE.]

Sillicia's ears flattened. A cult leader? Or something more?

"I speak for all humanity," the 'Emperor' continued. “And also I speak for Princess Aquillianne, my noble dragon. State your name and designation.”

“I am Commander Sillicia Frontenachii of Division 881 of the Third Celestial Starfall Fleet,” Sillicia stated. “What proof do you have that you speak for the Princess?”

The masked man tapped something on his screen. The image switched cameras to show a gray leather couch and a wall with faded wallpaper, the background unblurring. There, inexplicably alive and well, sat Princess Aquillianne herself, eating a local frozen dairy product of some sort with a spoon directly from a white container.

"BEEP! This is a circle!" the Princess announced, pointing at her ice cream with obvious delight.

Sillicia's breath caught. The Princess's features were unmistakable despite her... unusual words. The silver eyes, the distinctive antler pattern, the stellar freckles across her muzzle. 

[Confirm visual of Princess Aquillianne?] She thought at her tank.

[VISUAL CONFIRMATION OF PRINCESS CONFIRMED!] The dragonheart living weapon boomed in her head. [100% visual match.]

The screen switched back to the masked Emperor, who quickly relocated to another room, the background blurry once again. "As you can see, Princess Aquillianne is alive and well.”

“Explain,” Sillicia growled. “Why have you kidnapped the Princess from Cradlefall?!”

“Kidnapped?” The Emperor of Earth laughed. “Whyever would I need to kidnap my liege?! She came to my planet a few days ago herself.”

“How?!”

“I wasn’t told.”

“Why?”

“Thirteen years ago, the Princess claimed me as her kobold and the Earth as her domain through the Omnid Vow of Blood and Soul. As her designated Kobold Administrator, I speak imbued with her authority."

[UNABLE TO VERIFY MAGICAL BINDING WITHOUT ASTRAL SIGNATURE.] The Corpse Seeker commented in Sillicia’s mind.

"Prove your claim!" Sillicia demanded.

"You need proof?" the Emperor continued. "Very well. The one making the threats on television to drop a moon cube on my subjects, Admiral Evelithria, is my Princess's aunt. Please inform her that her niece Starshade is safe and well and does not wish to speak to her."

How could this human male from another world know about the Admiral's relationship to the Princess or that nickname unless…

“Wait,” Sillicia choked. “Why doesn’t the Princess wish to speak to us? Why is she…”

"I wasn’t told. I believe that the Princess is upset with her aunt but I do not know why and it is not my place to inquire about such things. Here are the Princess's demands," the Emperor said with an authoritative tone. "First, cease all hostile actions against Earth's inhabitants immediately. Second, withdraw your forces from populated areas, as your me… uhg, women are frightening the civilians and disrupting essential services. Third, no more removing chunks of the moon and dropping them on Arctic islands. The penguins live there, and the Princess is very fond of penguins and finds them cute."

"The Admiral will never accept this," Sillicia said. "She wants the Princess—"

"The Princess has chosen to remain on Earth. She will return to your society when and if she chooses to do so. Until then, as her appointed local Administrator, I speak on her behalf." The Emperor leaned forward. "I'm sure your laws have provisions for property rights and Administrator authority. Unless you're telling me your civilization doesn't respect its own legal framework?"

The Corpse Seeker pulsed.

[CRITICAL LEGAL UNCERTAINTY DETECTED. UNABLE TO VERIFY CLAIM WITHOUT INTACT ASTRAL SIGNATURE. IF CLAIM IS VALID, HOSTILE ACTIONS MAY CONSTITUTE VIOLATION OF FRONTENACHII PROPERTY RIGHTS.]

Sillicia's tail went still as she frowned. The masked human was right about one thing, if the Princess had truly claimed the local Emperor and appointed him as her local Administrator, the legal implications weren’t looking in their favour.

"I need to consult with Admiral Evelithria," she said carefully.

"Of course. Do inform the Admiral that any further attacks on Earth will be considered attacks on Princess Aquillianne's sovereign territory. I'm certain she wouldn't want to be remembered as the Admiral who declared war on her own niece's holdings."

Sillicia opened and closed her mouth, not sure what to do or say.

"You have one hour to respond," the Emperor said. "After that, I'll be forced to invoke whatever protocols exist in your legal system for protection of claimed territories. I'm sure there must be some… curious precedents."

12: Emperor of Earth

I disconnected the call and pulled off the snowboarding goggles and asbestos 3M mask from my sweaty face, turning off the voice modulator app on the tablet. 

Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. 

I'd just claimed to be the Emperor of Earth to an alien invasion force and they seemed to believe my bullshit.

"BEEP! Emperor! This is a circle!" Shady announced from the couch, now wearing the TV remote on her head like a tiny hat. She'd balanced it between her antlers, swaying back and forth with a loopy grin.

"Not now, Shady," I muttered, rubbing my face.

"Not now, Shady," she repeated in my voice, then added in the news anchor's panicked tone, "Breaking news! This is a circle!" She smooshed my face and licked my noise. 

My tablet buzzed with an incoming call from Dax. I answered, my heart thrumming madly from the rush of adrenaline.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!" Dax screamed through the speaker. "DID YOU JUST... DID YOU JUST CLAIM TO BE THE EMPEROR OF EARTH?!"

"It worked, didn't it?" I said, leaning into the couch.

"Ash, you just told an alien invasion force that you're the God-Emperor of Mankind! With a fucking voice modulator! And a fucking 3M asbestos mask!"

"Yeah and they bought it," I protested. "I think. As I told you before, they can't tell fiction from reality. Their mind-reading pulls everything equally: movies, games, actual memories. It's all the same to them."

"But the EMPEROR OF EARTH?! Really?”

"Would you have preferred I claimed to be Superman or Batman? That’s just as culturally significant.”

There was a pause. "Okay, fair point. But holy fuck, dude. You realize what you've done? You've just made yourself the primary target for an alien armada. Maybe me too, if they figure out how to trace the signal back to me. Fuck my life."

I glanced at Shady, who had discovered she could stick bent spoons atop her antlers and was now bending more cutlery and decorating herself like a chandelier while making microwave beeping sounds.

"BEEP! BEEP! This is Emperor circle!" she announced proudly, a cascade of silverware jangling from her antlers.

"Ash?" Dax asked. “Why is the fucking Alien princess in your house?”

“She’s… visiting and she didn’t tell her family where she’s staying or why.” I let out, realising how ridiculous I sounded.

“You’ve an alien princess in your house… visiting you? Of all the people on Earth?”

“Dude, it’s not like I invited her over.” I said. “She just came over and was like ‘I’m saying’.”

“Explain what the fuck is going on.”

"It's a long story," I said, watching Shady attempt to balance a ladle on her nose. "Started when I was seven. Turns out my imaginary friend wasn't so imaginary."

"Wait, wait, wait," Dax's voice crackled through the speaker. "You're telling me you've had an alien princess as a childhood friend and you never mentioned this to me?"

"I was on antipsychotics for years because of it! My parents thought I was having delusions about a girl with antlers who lived in the woods and visited me occasionally over the course of three summers. It's one of the reasons most of my friends like you are online only.”

"Wait, wait, wait. The weird dog videos with the floating pots… is that related?"

"Yeah, that was her. She normally appears as a big black dog to most people, but the glamour is imperfect.”

“Sheeeet.”

“Can you still see and hear what’s going on through the drone?”

"Yep. I’m parked near the palace in my van. Okay, so," Dax's voice came through slightly breathless, "the tall, dark, deer lady…”

“Commander Sillicia,” I commented.

“Yeah, Sillicia, she's holding my sister’s drone very carefully with those yuge claws. She's... wait, she's staring at the giant crystal centipede thing. Hold on, let me adjust the camera angle..."

Dax swallowed.

"Fuck me, this is surreal. Okay, I think she's having what looks like a full conversation with the crystal worm. No audio. She’s just staring at it silently, making faces and the thing’s innards are flashing different colors. Some kind of telepathy maybe? Oh shit, now there are those big wolf ladies gathering around too."

“And?”

"The commander lady looks... confused? Frustrated? Kinda hard to tell with the skull face. Her tail is doing this aggressive swishing thing."

On my end, Shady had discovered that she could pull couch pillows off and started building a fort out of couch cushions, making doorbell sounds. "DING-DONG! Emperor circle! DING-DONG! This is a square!"

“Uhh, Ash? Why is your alien princess friend making those sounds?”

“She’s high,” I lied. “On some kind of alien drug. Going to be clear-headed in a week or two, I was told.”

Dax made a befuddled noise.

“What’s happening with Sillicia?” I asked.

“Doesn’t look so mad anymore. Less murder-y, more... Pondery? Told the wolf-girls to follow her back inside. It's weird that the aliens speak English, yeah?”

“Hrm. Yeah.” I considered how Shady spoke perfect English when we met. Perhaps English was also the official language of Omnithornia or something?

"Wait, she's moving," Dax said. "Walking back toward the palace entrance with the drone. The wolves are following. The crystal centipede is... uncoiling? Yeah, it's moving away from the monument. That's good, right? That has to be good."

"Maybe," I said.

"Hold up, she's going inside the palace. The video feed is getting shaky. Okay, she's in some fancy room now. Lots of terrified Polish officials. She's... she's setting the drone down on a table. Very deliberately. Now she's backing away and... She’s tapping a crystal ring thingy on her index finger."

"She wants to speak with you!" Dax said. “Told the drone that she wants to see the Emperor now.”

“Right, I’ma hang up.”

I quickly threw the mask and goggles back on, activated the voice modulator app, plugged headphones in and called the tablet Dax set up. Commander Sillicia's face filled the screen as she pressed to accept the call, her expression unreadable.

"Emperor of Earth," she began, her voice carrying a tone that suggested she was choosing her words very carefully. "Admiral Evelithria has... reviewed your claims."

"And?" I asked.

"The Admiral requires proof of the blood pact. The Princess's Astral signature is..." she paused, "Scrambled. Thus, we cannot verify your claim. The Admiral demands to speak with the Princess directly."

I glanced at Shady, who had somehow gotten tangled in her own tail while trying to add a lamp to her cushion fort.

"LAMP! This is a circle fort!" she announced.

"The Princess…" I said as I retreated into the kitchen, "made it very clear that she doesn't wish to speak with her aunt."

"Then we have a problem," Sillicia said. "Without verification, the Admiral is prepared to continue the search. More aggressively."

“Do you really have enough centipedes and women to comb the entire planet? I don’t know what my liege did to scramble her Astral imprint and I cannot disobey her orders and reveal our current clandestine location to you.”

“Our Scrutimancers will eventually pry your location from the brains of your ruling class, human!” Sillicia threatened.

“Go ahead, waste your time and energy. The people under my rule are trained to think of me as a timeless, ageless legend. I’m aware of your inability to tell fiction from reality on my planet.” I hammered the lies harder. “The politicians and soldiers who serve me were prepared for your arrival. Many of them read fictional books about me and play fictional games controlling fake armies pretending to fight fake alien armadas, so that if they’re mentally scanned by you, you won’t be able to discern fiction from truth, won’t be able to reveal my real plans versus made up game simulation campaigns.”

“You clever bastard,” Sillicia growled. “You’ve planned for this then?”

“Princess Aquillianne is wise, she would not pick a fool as her planetary Administrator. Every nation and person on Earth is the vast hoard that I manage for my noble liege.”

Sillicia's expression shifted, silver eyes narrowing. "Very well. The Admiral wishes to speak with you directly."

She placed her clawed hand on her ring, and the device began to emit an eerie, crystalline hum. The air above it shimmered, and suddenly a three-dimensional hologram materialized.

Admiral Evelithria Frontenachii stared down at me.

"So, human," the Admiral growled, "you claim to be the Emperor of Earth. The one my Scrutimancers have found referenced in thousands of human minds. The Immortal God-Emperor who sits upon a Golden Throne?"

"I am," I said, grateful the voice modulator hid my nervousness.

"And you claim my niece appointed you as her planetary Administrator?"

"She did. Thirteen years ago, we performed the blood pact. She chose to add my Earth to her vast domain."

The Admiral's feathers fluttered up. "Thirteen years ago, Aquillianne was barely past her second molting. A child playing games!"

"A child with the authority of her bloodline," I countered. "Unless you're suggesting Frontenachii blood pacts made by juveniles are invalid? I was told by the Princess herself that age is irrelevant when it comes to blood pacts.”

Shady suddenly manifested by my feet. "CRASH! This is a square! Emperor circle BEEP!"

The Admiral's ears twitched. "What was that?"

"Local wildlife," I said quickly, pushing Shady’s snout down so that she wouldn’t get into the camera's view. "Earth has many quirky creatures that copy sounds. They are called parrots, a type of a colorful bird.”

"Hmm." The Admiral leaned forward. "Let us say, hypothetically, that your claim is valid. That my niece did indeed claim you as her Administrator. Why then is her Astral signature dead? Why can our Seekers not find her?"

"I cannot speak to your technology's limitations," I shrugged. "The Princess is alive and well, enjoying ice cream and cracking jokes, as your commander witnessed herself. Perhaps your instruments are simply misfiring on my Earth or the Princess has a dampening artifact of some kind that she activated recently.”

The Admiral's eyes flashed dangerously. "Do not presume to lecture me on dimensional mechanics, primitive."

"Then don't presume to threaten my world, Admiral. The Princess chose Earth. She wishes to remain here for the time being. That is her right as a Frontenachii heir, is it not? Can she not vacation on a world of her choice without being pestered by her family?"

A long, tense silence. In the background, I could hear the Polish officials breathing shallowly, probably wondering what the hell was happening.

"You speak of rights," the Admiral said slowly. "But rights must be verified. I demand to speak with my niece directly."

"And I've told your field commander, she doesn't wish to speak with you."

"That is not your decision to make, human!"

"It is when she has appointed me as her voice," I shot back. "Or does the Frontenachii Dominion not respect the autonomy of its own heirs and the absolute devotion of their chosen Administrators?"

The Admiral's projection snarled, her rage almost palpable. "You dare—"

"I dare because I MUST obey my liege’s orders as her kobold," I interrupted. "I also speak for seven billion souls who had no part in whatever family drama drove the Princess to seek refuge on my world. You've already killed several leaders, destroyed an island, reduced the penguin population and damaged my moon. How much more senseless violence will you commit before accepting that your niece simply doesn't want to go home at this juncture?”

"She is the Prima Heir of age!" The Admiral barked. "She has responsibilities! Duties to her bloodline!”

"And she chose to set those aside for the time being. That's her choice, not yours."

"CHOICE?!" The Admiral laughed bitterly. "What does a child know of choice? What does she know of the weight of our Colonial Dominion, the burden of our species' survival?"

"Apparently enough to take a break from it," I said quietly.

The projection went absolutely still. Even through the video of the hologram, I could feel the Admiral's fury building like a storm.

"Perhaps," she said, voice deadly cold, "I should simply glass your entire damned planet and sift through the ashes for my niece's remains?"

"You could," I agreed. "But then you'd be the Admiral who destroyed her own niece's claimed territory. The Admiral who murdered her niece, plus her chosen blood and soul-bound Hoard Administrator and billions of her subjects. How would that look to your Colonial Dominion? To the other Omnids? 'Admiral Evelithria Frontenachii, slayer of planets and kinslayer.' Has a certain ring to it."

Sillicia made a small choking sound. The Admiral growled, black feathers bristling.

"You think yourself clever, little kobold?"

"I think myself bound by oath and duty to my Lady," I replied. "As you are bound by your laws. Unless the Frontenachii have abandoned all pretense of civilization? Are you yourself not bound by oath and duty to your noble rulers in Omnithornia, Admiral?”

I was sweating madly under my mask, praying that I was saying the right words, the weight of all human lives sitting on my shoulders.

The Admiral's hologram let out a deep sigh, her feathers settling slightly. When she spoke again, her voice carried a different weight, sounding slightly more calculated rather than simply furious.

"You invoke our laws with surprising accuracy for a... primitive," she said. "Tell me, Emperor, how does a human know so much about Omnid legal structure?"

"The Princess educated me," I said, which wasn't entirely a lie. "Thirteen years is a long time to learn."

Behind me, Shady had discovered the kitchen drawers and was now making cabinet-slamming percussion while singing, "BANG BANG CIRCLE! This is a BEEP symphony!"

The Admiral's ears twitched at the noise. "Your 'parrot' is quite vocal."

"Yes, they're... enthusiastic creatures," I said, mentally willing Shady to shut up, relocating into the hallway. "About your demand to speak with the Princess—"

"I have a counter-proposal," the Admiral interrupted. "A test of your claimed authority. If you truly are her devoted Administrator, you'll have knowledge only such a position would grant."

My blood ran cold under the mask. "What kind of test?"

"Simple questions. A truly devoted kobold would know the answers." The Admiral's smile was predatory. "First: What is the Princess's Kaleid name?"

Kaleid name? I had no idea what the fuck that even meant.