THE VROL TRILOGY (128 page)

"Now my girls, would you care to finish your
delicious gelatos before we go back home?"

Pandy and Jessica, now with a new and
profound knowledge that while in another timeline they could not
interfere under any circumstances, went back to their desserts,
scarcely noticing as Draagh walked over to the merchant for a small
conversation.

"
Che era
vicino, mio signore
[That was close, my
lord]."

"
Sì, questo è
vero
[Yes, that much is true].
Avete visto tutti i segni del Grigori
[Have you
seen any sign of the Grigori]?"

"Non ancora, mio signore,
ma io vi contatterà attraverso Socrate se dovrebbe sorgere
nulla
[Not yet, my lord, but I will contact you via
Socrates if anything should arise]."

Walking back over to the girls, Draagh
casually sat down and started to eat the rest of his gelato, which
he found quite delicious and refreshing. However, before he could
finish, both of the girls blurted out, nearly simultaneously, "What
did you say to him?"

"You know his language?"

"It sounded so awesome!"

"My dears, would you like to see something
even more… awesome?"

The two cute girls, more sisters than
friends, nodded their heads enthusiastically. Draagh took a girl's
hand into each of his own and looked at the merchant, enabling them
to see the man in his true form. What they saw almost made them cry
out in joy. A being, made almost completely of purity and bright
light was displaying a massive wingspan, and stood where everyone
else merely saw a middle-aged Italian fellow selling kick-knacks at
his
chiosco
.

"We are everywhere, my girls. You were
attracted to his essence, and then only because you two have
goodness in your hearts. I am proud to call you my friends. Now,
finish your gelatos and we shall be off. We have much to accomplish
before the day's end."

###

Max, Jennie, Bagatelle, Michael and Gabriel
were in the main meeting hall deep in the bowels of Vesuvius' cold
moon, going over vids of the Vrol invasion of Earth. Seated among
them were numerous Azul officers who had been selected, turned (or
enhanced) and trained, along with some of Krynos' squad leaders
from the Rhönen Dominion. The purpose of the meeting was to show
just how the Vrol operated when they got to a world.

"So, as we can see from all vids from Earth,
there is no indication that they have arrived until it is too late.
They are somehow masked from view, and we don't know if it's a
cloaking technology or mass hypnotism or what. We still haven't
figured that out yet, because we know where they are now just fine.
It could even be whatever it is that makes up the bodies of their
ships, which appear to be organic," said Max.

"I would like to add something most sinister.
What most do not know is that the Vrol were created to wipe out
entire planets, but not by blowing them up. No, that would create
too much chaos with neighboring star systems - the planetary bodies
are left intact. What the Vrol do is completely cover, or
encapsulate, the entire planet until not a sliver of light can get
through. They have millions of ships, and each one being a slightly
different shape; they all connect together much like a massive,
spherical jigsaw puzzle. It is like a perverse form of the mythical
Dyson sphere. No one gets in, no one gets out, so they need to be
stopped before they arrive, of course," said Michael, causing some
in the group to gasp.

Watching a new vid, they all looked on in
horror as they saw a split-screen image, the left side showing how
quickly the Vrol joined their ships together, like building blocks,
while the right side of the screen showed humanoid-looking beings
running and screaming in all directions, then only to see them
slowly disintegrate, their empty clothing falling to the
ground.

"Now, one advantage we will have is that we
know they are coming," said Max, "and thus, we can be prepared.
Another advantage is that these insects rely on a system - they
arrive, they are unchallenged, they encapsulate, they kill, they
extract resources and then they move on. If we disrupt their system
we get the upper hand."

"Captain Gunnarsson," asked one officer,
raising his hand, "how can we get the upper hand? What do you
mean?"

"First of all, we are attacking them before
they get near Azul system. Secondly, well, I'll let the Taxiarch
explain that part to you," continued Max, deferring to his
father.

"We have already explained the nature of
magic, so you are all aware of the particles that live in
everything and are everywhere. A specific subset of these particles
is dedicated towards healing. By healing I mean correcting any
abnormality in their vicinity. The virulent amoeba that the Vrol
rain down upon their conquered worlds would be viewed as an
abnormality and would be rejected by the planetary organism - just
like if you get a wooden sliver in your finger - your body
eventually pushes it out. It's a simple matter of rejection. So we
don't believe they will be able to melt anyone even if they get
close enough. Our father, the Primulus Draagh, is developing a way
to make nature's healing compatible with Mankind, as you were
genetically modified many centuries ago to not be able to take
advantage of these healing particles."

"And as far as them making it planetside, it
is possible - they have millions of ships. There will be fighting,
but we're certain we can destroy enough of their craft so they
won't be able to properly form their sphere around Azul, or even
any of the moons - and that's another advantage. We can spread our
forces out over four worlds in the system, where, as far as we
know, they have only ever attacked a single world at a time.
They're bugs, and they're not very creative. They have their way of
doing things, so throw a wrench in the works and we could very well
incapacitate them," added Max.

"What about ground fighting? How are we to
know their strength levels? Will we need mech-suits? Are they
strong?" asked a young lieutenant who had been quiet during the
meeting.

"Oh, they're strong all right, Lieutenant,"
answered Bagatelle, but not much more than your average human, and
as you are all activated lycans now you will have some definite
advantages. They have psionic armor that is fed by an unknown power
source, but if you hit them at the base of their neck you can
easily decapitate them. That is why you have been training on
swords so much lately. Shoulder-mounted rocket launchers seem to be
effective on the Vrol Flyers, and we are going to continue testing
soon."

"Umm, how are you going to test on them if
they are still four years out, sir?" asked another officer."

"There is an alternate Earth where Vrol are
stranded. It's where I was stuck before my family found me. We'll
be taking a trip there soon so we can get some real-time training
in the field," answered Max, sadly remembering the young neko
murdered by a mutant hybrid due to his inaction.

"Captain Gunnarsson, ‘tis true that the
vampires in that world are… of a jolly sort?" asked a lycan soldier
from Krynos' castle.

"Yes they are - nice. In fact, one of my best
friends is a vampire. Play your cards right and we'll go drink a
beer with him when we're done with training."

Max and Jennie left with the trainees to
supervise their practice, as Michael, Gabriel and Bagatelle slipped
over to Azul to attempt contact with more high-ranking military
officers, and to identify more of those with recessive vampire
genes.

"I really wish I could identify the potential
vamps like you guys can. It would come in handy and enable you two
to run off and do other, more important things," complained
Bagatelle, as he watched the archangels invisibly mark off certain
people in a crowd.

"Fear not, G, I have an idea that may assist
in that effort," said Michael.

"What are you talking about, Brother?" asked
Gabriel.

"Well, as you know, we have a display in our
peripheral vision. Max calls his a HUD, but we are able to see all
of these things that G desires to view. On young Liliana's
suggestion, I have come up with a cantus on an eyepiece that
enables much of the same viewing capabilities. I have left a
preliminary model with young Jennie."

"Great! You mean, I'll be able to see if
someone is a vampire or not?" asked Bagatelle.

"Not only that, dear brother, but also if
they are lycan, normal, mage, and even a heat signature which
should give an indication as to their momentary intent."

"You mean I.F.F.?" asked Bagatelle.

"What means that, G?" queried Gabriel.

"Identification Friend or Foe," responded the
admiral.

"Then that shall be the name of the magical
object - I.F.F.," exclaimed Michael, receiving nods of approval all
around.

Chapter
6 - Harajuku

Draagh sat at his expansive, mahogany desk in
his study on the west side of Krynos' castle, again carefully
analyzing Pandy's bracelet. Being identical to Jessica's, he only
needed to look at one, and it really didn't take him a long time to
figure out how to make them multi-frequency compatible, much like
had been done with flesh and blood, in the case of using Max's
blood as an inoculator.

The two girls sat in front of the old
mage, staring with wonderment, unable to really comprehend what he
was doing, but still totally getting a kick out of spending time
with him. He was definitely their favorite old person in the world.
Draagh had taken them away from everything they ever knew, taught
them some of the wonders of the Universe and even introduced them
to Italian gelato in the early 21
^st
century. He was, in the words of Liliana Gunnarsson,
super cool
, and he knew it. But he
was also dead serious about defeating the Vrol, and knew there was
an unseen force assisting them. So, in the meantime, all he could
do was prepare his young charges as best he could for the war that
was to come within months.

Finally finishing with Pandy's bracelet, he
set it down and performed a similar, yet much quicker modification
of Jessica's (already having known how to effect the process) and
then invited the girls to take possession of their powerful wrist
decorations.

"I believe everything you could do on your
home world shall be possible here now, my dears. In fact, if you
look at your bracelets and concentrate a bit, you will see a
personal holographic display of text, providing enhanced
instructions for advanced use.

The two girls were quite pleased with
Draagh's manipulations of their magic-enabled devices, but were
even more impressed when Max's wife, Jennie, showed up with the eye
patch that Michael had created.

"Jess, here comes Jennie. Gawd, she's so
pretty," whispered Pandy.

"I know, totally. Like, she could show up at
a party dressed like a hobo and still be the hottest one in the
room… shhhh..."

"Hey Pops! Did you see what Max's dad came up
with? This is freakin' amazing!"

The exquisite dega purposefully strolled into
Draagh's study, wearing on her left eye what appeared to be some
sort of near-transparent sheath or eye patch, but in her view it
was something entirely different. Looking directly at Jessica,
Jennie was able to drill down into the woman's vital signs - heart
rate, respiration, blood pressure, cholesterol levels - and even
look into her genealogy: she could trace the woman's lineage
going back to her first ancestor by identifying her mitochondrial
DNA and doing a comparative analysis via Socrates' database. In
fact, Jennie saw the genetic mutation denoting where Jessica's
timeline had splintered off from the primary, but chose not to say
anything to the young-looking, but older lycan female. Most
importantly, she could see that Jessica was lycan. Then, looking at
Pandy, she did a similar analysis, but before she finished she
noticed something quite intriguing.

"Hey girls, did you know you are both…
cousins?"

"Whaaaaaa??" they both cried out in unison
(which wasn't all that unusual).

"Yup. It looks like your families split off
about six generations back, sharing about 0.8% of your DNA, and if
you think about it, that really isn't long ago."

Pandy sat still for a moment, until Jessica
noticed the girl was softly sobbing.

"Sis, what's up? Why are you crying?"

"I really do have family," whimpered the
younger of the two, looking up with hopeful, wet eyes.

Jennie sat down with the girls and put her
arms around them, as Draagh leaned back and watched something that
rarely happened in the universe. Most species were isolationist and
brutal. Humans, on the other hand, were naturally filled with
warmth and compassion. He was witnessing the most powerful magic in
existence at work - love. It worked outside the realm of magic
particles, nanobots and the decided order of things. It was a force
of its own.

"Hey, you two. The minute you met Max you
became family with all of us, but I am glad that you found some
blood relation. So," continued Jennie, "how would you like to try
this new gadget Michael came up with? You gotta be careful though,
because it's the only one he's made so far."

The three beautiful lycan women and one
immortal Primulus then played around with the Taxiarch's latest
invention, pushing it to its limits, while laughing at much of the
data it presented.

Prime Commander Donus entered the room,
bringing some parchment to Draagh. After courteously greeting
everyone, he stood off to the side and quietly spoke with the
immortal mage. As they conversed, Jennie again donned Michael's new
I.F.F. invention and scanned Donus. However, while analyzing the
prime commander's DNA she could only trace his lineage back one
thousand years, and then found a massive gap in the chromosomal
order - in essence, a black hole of nothingness. Draagh looked over
and noticed what she was doing, and giving her a smile, winked at
her.