THE VROL TRILOGY (96 page)

"Oh… wow! That actually looks like fun!" she
exclaimed.

"I always wanted to try it, but my adoptive
parents were paranoid. They wouldn't even let me play footie," said
Jennie.

"Erm… footie?" started Jessica, slightly
confused.

"We'll have a girls' night with popcorn and
vids and show you all sorts of stuff later on," Jennie said with a
grin.

Jessica nodded her head enthusiastically.

"So, moving on," continued Bagtelle, as
Draagh waved off the hologram, "even though Vera is so far out, 2
days on full fusion-ion burn, it's obvious we can come and go via
slipping with our friends here. No need to have a ship, though we
will eventually need a few, especially if we are to assemble a
small army there. I assume that slipping, although one of your
innate abilities, can be taxing and cause you to tire, am I not
correct?"

"Yes, my son, that is correct," Draagh stated
solemnly.

"Wipes me out quickly. Man I can only do
a-"

"Max," Draagh interrupted, "you will soon
find that your reserves shall not be so depleted as they were
previously. Your ghanlo affords you many new skills, and we shall
have to tutor you on them quite soon. So, Luigi, please
continue."

"The bedrock on Vera has an odd combination
of metals, lead being prevalent, making it difficult to send or
receive electromagnetic signals of any sort from underground.
Mining operations always have hard lines run down into the
catacombs where the workers reside. We could build a base on the
southern pole and remain undetected. Plus, the moon is really so
insignificant that the military pays it nearly no attention. We
could work with near impunity."

"I shall modify the comms to function via the
Hub," said Draagh. "utilizing it as a sort of a relay, but shall be
most instantaneous. It will be quite… magical," Draagh snickered,
causing everyone to burst out in laughter.

"That sounds great, but I do want to get my
mother and bring her here, if that's ok," said Max, while giving
Michael a guilty look. "I hope it won't be awkward for you or
anything."

"Well, we all have to deal with our demons,
Max. I do not foresee a happy reunion, but I will do my best to be
a good friend to the mother of my son."

"So pops, can we get her today? I haven't
seen her in the longest time and-"

"Not without me - you aren't going anywhere,"
demanded Jennie. "There is no way I'm losing you ever again,
Gunnarsson."

"Jennie, I thought you might appreciate this.
Your comm device is also a tracker. As we all wear one, as long as
you do not lose it, no matter where you are in the multiverse you
can be located from the Hub. No more lost angels - anywhere," said
Gabriel, wearing an unusual, but honest grin.

"I still want to go," said Jennie flatly.

Max took his wife's hands into his and looked
into her huge, cocoa eyes.

"Jen, I would never think of going without
you. And besides, I want my mom to meet the most beautiful woman in
all the nine realms."

"Nine realms?" asked Bagatelle.

"A myth we created centuries ago," said
Michael.

"Yeah… Thor, with the broken hammer," joked
Gabriel.

"Huh? It's a myth?" asked Max
disappointedly.

"Well? It looked formidable!" responded
Michael.

"It looked like a warped axe, not a hammer,"
coughed Draagh.

"And you, Father, walking about with that
silly eye patch, taking about frost giants and such. The closest
thing I ever saw to a frost giant was that species on the fifth
planet from Halidrim 65b, in the Andromeda Galaxy. The looked like
frozen trees, and did not move much faster," Michael joked.

"Well then, was there a Loki?" asked Jennie,
causing Max to quickly turn in surprise.

"His true name was Samyaza," claimed
Michael.

"And he was a trickster too?" asked Max.

"No, more like a murderer. He is one of The
Grigori," said Gabriel.

"The Grigori?" That sounds ominous,"
Bagatelle commented.

Draagh nodded solemnly, and took a deep
breath. He would eventually have to address that particular bit of
nonsense also. He had long suspected The Grigori to be operating
behind the scenes in one way or another.

"Yes, quite so, and they are incredibly
dangerous," claimed the old mage.

The team started into breakfast, and then
tracked off to take care of their morning duties.

###

At lunchtime, Liliana found her mother and
father seated at their usual table. Giving each a kiss on the
cheek, she sat down as a plate was set before her by a castle
servant.

"Smelting is so much fun! We should really
make a smelter, Papi, the little girl proclaimed.

"Sure, Lili, we can do that - on Vera," Max
said with a grin.

"Do you mean the moon in which you are to
make a base of operations?" she asked excitedly. "Where the miners
are… oh… yes, it is a moon, no?"

Liliana quickly tried to backtrack, and grew
a look of absolute guilt on her face.

"Lili, did you skip class today?" asked
Jennie.

"No, Mami. I am sorry, I modified a comm to
hear verbal conversations and transmit back to me. I am just so
excited about our next trip!" she said pleadingly.

Jennie couldn't get too upset, as the little
girl had shown creative ingenuity. It was exactly what made her a
Gunnarsson, blood or not.

"Well, Liliana, later today we are taking a
trip to Azul, my homeworld. Now I know you have been there, but
this time I will be with you, and you are going to meet your
grandmother," Max informed the young girl.

"Oh, so we are going to see Abuelito's wife?
How nice!"

Both Max and Jennie got uncomfortable looks
on their faces, and the little girl sensed that it was a difficult
subject. Then whispering, she said, "I bet she comes here, becomes
young and super pretty, and then Abuelito asks her out on a
date."

Max and Jennie prompted their daughter to
finish her meal while attempting to stifle their laughter. Children
always saw the pure truth in things. Then, finishing up their
meals, they made for Draagh's offices so they could plan their
journey to Córdoba.

Chapter 25 - Welcome to the Fourth Dimension

Draagh was preparing some scrolls (which were
completely unnecessary, but looked cool) in his study when Max,
Jennie, Liliana and Bagatelle entered. Michael and Gabriel were off
doing some recon over the Dominion borders as a favor to Krynos,
and Jessica was in lycan skills training, as she had just inherited
a whole new set of nearly-unnerving abilities and needed to be able
to take command of them as soon as possible.

"Good morning, my children. Yes, a very
good morning to you," Draagh greeted the group, as he accidentally
knocked a couple of his scrolls from a large, wooden table. "I
thought you might be interested in knowing that today we are going
to do some
on-the-job
training."

"What kind of training, Draagh?" asked
Bagatelle.

"Max is going to learn 4D slipping
techniques, and the first place we are going is back to his ship.
From there we will go directly to the home of Max's mother."

Jennie and Liliana both gained worried looks
on their pretty faces, but Max stood confident. He had his own
ghanlo, and even though it had yet to be tested, it was bound to
his immortal soul. It was for that reason that he trusted it. He
had to - he had no choice.

"So, am I porting everyone, or are you going
to take someone, "Max asked Draagh.

"No, my son, you will be taking us all to
Peru. However, from there we shall all split up."

Jennie got an alarmed look on her face, but
Max put his hand on his wife's shoulder and looked at her, nodding
his head reassuringly.

"Yeah, Jen. I need to be able to do this on
my own. Plus you know we'll never be separated again," Max said
reassuringly.

"Very well, then! Now that we agree on our
travel arrangements I would like for Bagatelle, Jennie and young
Liliana to go and pack some overnight gear. Jennie, Bagatelle,
please bring your technology - pistols and whatnot. You may have
need for them on Azul, as you may remember that your magical
devices will not function there."

"Oh, I have a question," said Max, "and I
think it's kinda critical. Will my ghanlo work on Azul? And how
does this all work? You earlier said that magic wouldn't work on
Azul due to frequency incompatibility."

"Yes, I did say that, but thanks to your
little foray off into the weird world of Hollywood we have
discovered something that will be of great assistance, and that is
precisely what I was attempting to ascertain with the help of young
Bagatelle here."

"Protein synthesis inhibitors?" asked Max

"Speaking specifically about Max, to
answer your question my boy - yes, with your Ghanlo you have
command of your abilities on any world. It also appears, or so it
will appear, that young Bagatelle shall be in full command of his
skills on Azul. In fact, he shall be able to do anything within the
range of
his
abilities
anywhere else in the universe thanks to our enhanced inoculation.
This is quite exciting, I must say. Quite exciting, and is
something I had not previously planned on."

"So, using my brother as a guinea pig was so
you could-"

"Make our allies multi-frequency compatible,
yes," Draagh said, finishing Jennie's sentence for her. "You see,
when we tinker we tend to wreck things. It is simply a danger of
making mass changes to nature. It is much more logical to simply
change the individual, and not the environment."

"Sounds logical," said Max in agreement.

"So what you are doing now is trying to see
if the nullification of that particular inhibitor will facilitate
full lycan skills on target individuals?" Jennie asked
rhetorically.

"Correct, my dear daughter."

"Then inject me too," she said.

"Hey, little sister, you should probably wait
to see if it works on me," Bagatelle said with a strong cautionary
tone.

"Do you trust Draagh? Well, I do," she shot
back, while pulling up her sleeve. "Let's do it, Pops."

"I'll keep an eye out, along with the old
man," said Max, not willing to endanger his wife, but knowing full
well that she was stubborn as an ox and wouldn't have it any other
way.

Draagh conjured what appeared to be a syringe
big enough to inject an elephant, causing Jennie's eyes to grow
large with panic. Then laughingly, he conjured a smaller syringe
that he used.

"I just wanted to see the look on your face,
my daughter. That is always such a funny joke."

"Oh yeah, funny-funny-ha-ha. Just wait till
your colonoscopy, old man," she shot back.

"What is a colonoscopy?" Draagh asked
curiously.

Bagatelle leaned over and whispered into the
old mage's ear. After ten seconds his eyes grew a bit and he said,
"I do believe I shall desist with the syringe jokes, my dear. Now,
let us see if my serum is having an effect on your brother."

With that Draagh put his hand on Bagatelle's
shoulder and said, "We shall return in but a moment's time," and
the two popped out of existence.

Bagatelle found himself standing in Draagh's
study in the Hub, the center of all time and space. He was there
previously, when the whole team had first set out to retrieve Max,
but this time he was confused. He had no idea why he was there.

"Um… Draagh, why don't we just go someplace
directly? We aren't going back to Hollywood, are we?"

"Oh no, my boy. No, no, no. We are going to
Max's ship. I simply did not wish to lay waste to my room in
Krynos' castle, as the ghanlo's sphere of influence is rather large
and powerful. We can avoid it by navigating directly from the Hub.
We do use the Hub as a pass-through if we desire to go directly to
our destination, but that requires a lot of energy."

"Oh, ok, that sounds good to me."

Draagh put his hand on Bagatelles shoulder
and the lycan watched as his view quickly shifted from an ancient
office to a jungle - and a space ship.

"Now, my good Bagatelle. Smell the air, run
around a bit. I assure you that it is perfectly safe."

"Luigi Bagatelle gave the old mage an odd
look, and then took off, tearing up the switchback road that led
from the banks of the Urubamba River to the ruins of Machu
Picchu.

"
My young
friend, can you smell the fragrant smoke from my
pipe
?" asked Draagh through their comm.

Sniffing the air Bagatelle found that he
indeed did easily smell the weed, although he found the scent to be
quite unpleasant.

"
Yeah, I can
smell it. It stinks. What's next?
"

Before Bagatelle even expected a
response, Draagh was standing next to him and had put a hand on his
shoulder. The old mage instantly slipped them to Hollywood, but it
was quite a different Hollywood than he had visited in Jessica's
timeline. It was devoid of all life, and most of the buildings were
still intact. He found himself standing in the middle of the
street, with what would have been Seven Sins right in front of him,
except for this place was called
The
Troubadour
.

"Ok, my son. Give me your hand," commanded
Draagh. Grabbing the lycan's hand, the old mage nicked his palm,
drawing a bit of blood.

"Hey! What's with… oh, you're checking for
salubots - healing."

And Bagatelle was indeed correct. He watched
as the small wound quickly closed itself, his skin even absorbing
the blood that had seeped from the cut. Nothing left to waste with
salubots.