Because most of their adoring public were reading questions they’d written down, the seat switch performed by Vivian wasn’t addressed right away. There were questions addressed to Machi from females of all ages about what he looked for when considering a partner. Machi answered every variation of the question – and there were a lot – with an earnest profession that it was always the heart of a person that was most important.
Hector followed the script they’d established and kept casting concerned gnces towards Vivian, who in turn did her best to stay out of line of sight of him. Rodrick, whose head was an obstruction one of them sought to bypass and the other used for concealment, radiated discomfort. He periodically shook his head and a couple of times rubbed his forehead as if it ached.
Finally, a question was posed to him. “Hector, how is it you never get hurt even though the monsters are always grabbing onto you?”
Robert handed the microphone over and Hector smiled towards the audience he was about to lie to. “It’s because I’m a Xian. We’re extremely durable. When I first joined the team, I was trying to match my Arahant friends offensively. It’s hard sometimes to admit when you’re not very good at something. My buddy Rod had a good talk with me and I started pying to my strengths. I run right at the monsters and distract them so that Rod can slice them up. You might think I’m being brave when I let one tch onto me, but you would not believe how durable my kind is.”
A while ter, another question came, this time for Rodrick and Hector. It was about their friendship. Rod took the microphone and spun some bullshit about how he’d found another sworn brother. In front of the live audience, the two of them csped hands and swore to always have each other’s backs in battle. The crowd’s excitement for that surely resulted in some hearing loss.
Then someone asked Zelda if she was in a retionship with anyone. Laughing, Zelda held her hands behind her back to avoid taking the microphone offered by Robert. He held it before her face as if discovering a brilliant counter. Zelda would only ugh out a protest that she had nothing to share on that topic.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
Robert turned to face Vivian. He didn’t hesitate and passed the microphone off.
“Everyone loves Zelda. She’s so perfect, why wouldn’t they? That’s what everyone wanted to know. It’s Zelda.”
Rodrick removed the microphone from Vivian’s hands and passed it back to Robert. “I think that’s enough retionship drama for now.”
Hector leaned forward to make eye contact. “No, it’s not –”
Rodrick put a hand to Hector’s chest and whispered just loud enough for the sound system to make out his words. “This isn’t the time or pce, Hector. Maintain your professionalism.”
And Hector let himself be silenced. He hunched in his seat as if defeated.
Their host turned to look at the audience. “I think everyone is dying to know what is going on today. Rod, can you share anything with us? Anything at all?”
“I can tell you that when Confgration isn’t around, I feel like I’m the only adult in the room.” Rodrick grudgingly took the microphone. “Being in battle as often as we are, living in such close proximity, all of that makes your emotions more intense. I was raised in a strict military family. All of this is familiar to me. My colleagues… well, they’ve caught feelings. It happens.”
“Is that all you can say on the matter? It sounds like there is some contention within the group. That’s a bit concerning, isn’t it?”
Zelda’s boot pressed against his own. Oh, right. She probably wanted him to jump in now. It wasn’t the way they had scripted things, but they couldn’t actually control what Robert or the audience would say.
Hector took the microphone off of Robert. “I am close to Zelda. Almost as close as I am to Rod. But she’s not the one I stay awake thinking about every night.” Hector forced himself to continue even as the cringe factor approached mortifying levels.
He passed the microphone to Rodrick as he moved towards Vivian. She stiff-armed him to prevent his advance and they stared at each other. The interval was entirely out of his hands. He had to wait on her now.? Her and her sense of dramatic timing.
Vivian pulled him into a fierce hug, her face buried in the side of his neck.
“Hug me back, you damn idiot.”
He followed the instructions. At least his part in all of this was almost over.
Rodrick’s voice interrupted their moment. “Can we get back to business? A lot of people came to ask us questions and I think we should be respectful of their time. This world doesn’t revolve around us.”
Vivian pulled away so that they were at arm’s reach. Then she spped him in the face. That hadn’t been in the script, but in retrospect Hector thought he should have expected it. She’d said ‘sp sp kiss’ so many times that it was obvious. Then she locked lips with him.
They fled the stage for the dressing room hand in hand.
Door closed and locked. Vivian tossed his hand aside and spun like a ballerina on one foot. “It worked. Garudas above, it worked.”
Hector scrubbed his lips dry with his shirt sleeve. “Yeah, they seemed to like the show.”
“I’m halfway to full right now, Hector. If the buzz doesn’t fade for a few days, I might leave this world with all the energy I need.”
He settled into a seat. “Does this mean I can be done with the performances?”
“The monster attacks are dwindling, so we don’t have much longer here. You might have one more interview. We’ll probably need to smooch after a battle once or twice where the cameras can see. Otherwise, that was it. We don’t need to have a sendoff when we leave. Despite what you cim, none of us do this for the fame itself.”
“If you’re satisfied with my performance as your boyfriend, can you offer me some assistance?”
Vivian’s cheer dampened a bit. “This is all just acting, Hector. I’m not interested in you. Quite bluntly, I’m not interested in the entire category of men.”
“There’s no reason for you to worry, Vivian. I came here because my world is in serious danger. Can you give me any help when we reach the main army?”
“Ah. I honestly haven’t given much thought to your situation. I will vouch for your character to Confgration, Hector. That’s the best I can do. Central command is run by Sages and War Barges and even a few Lords.”
Hector sighed. “What about the Sage of Foresight?”
“Confgration doesn’t think your friend qualifies as a sage, Hector.”
“But if she was?”
“The Coalition has a few seers. None of them are worth their weight. My guess is they’d probably make a detour for a real sage.”
“Good.” Hector closed his eyes. Good for Earth. Less so for Evelyn. The woman who had sent him on this mission would have to be willing to live with the consequences if the army drafted her. Being the seer for an inter-species army had to be an improvement over being dead.
As he often did during quiet times, Hector cultivated chaos. His reserves weren’t filling as fast as he would like, given the frequent use he made of his aura. They were only a quarter of the way there currently. At least he wouldn’t need to form a transit sphere to leave this world and zero out his energy like every other time.
The other Arahant appeared half an hour ter to collect them. Everyone seemed extremely pleased with the outcome of their performance. Hector had to walk to the van with his arm around Vivian’s shoulder, but he was hardly a prude about such things.
Back in their beach house, Zelda outlined their future pns. “Machi and I were cagey about our retionship status, so we have the opportunity for a big announcement ter. Otherwise, we can invent minor plots as necessary if anyone finds restoration rates dropping too much.”
“I want to do a confessional,” Vivian said.
“She’s going to embarrass Hector,” Rodrick predicted. “I’m betting ‘everything is great except things in the bedroom’ type energy.”
“Why would I take it in that direction? That’s ridiculous.”
“Because all the guys who wish they were with you will eat it up,” Rodrick said.
Vivian gnced to Zelda for confirmation of the theory.
“That’s only a single demographic.” Zelda squinted at the group. “I’ve got a better idea. Sex tape.”
“No,” Hector and Vivian said as one.
Zelda smirked at them. “Not a real one, you guys. We go on the record that someone took illicit video through a window and beg whoever it was to not release it. We won’t say which couple was caught in the act. It’s an easy boost to our public profiles.”
Machi shrugged. “I honestly don’t need it. I’m on track to have full energy reserves by morning.”
“Unfortunately, I do need it,” Zelda countered. “Without an insight, my fmes are expensive to create and maintain.”
“Should we have you back off the fighting instead? The monster waves are growing less frequent. I think we’re close to done.” Rodrick nodded to Hector. “You might want to be less active, too. We’re not sure what is waiting for you with the main army. You could be immediately drafted to work under one of the Xian lords.”
Hector’s mouth went dry. “I will not be serving under a lord.”
Zelda chuckled. “Such hostility! We’ve reformed our Xian friend into a proper human.”
Rodrick shrugged. “Whatever your attitude, you can’t refuse a command. You might be able to slip away ter since you know how to travel, but that doesn’t help much with your request for aid.”
He’d just decided to sacrifice Evelyn’s freedom for the sake of his world. Refusing to do the same for himself would be the height of hypocrisy. “If the army wants me, I’d rather serve with the Jinn or the Arahant.”
Machi delivered the bad news. “Hector, the forces don’t mingle like that. Coordination happens only at the top. The individual units aren’t receptive to mixing. There is a lot of distrust. Only the Xian would accept you.”
“They might not want you,” Rodrick threw in cheerfully. “You’re only level four.”
That night Hector wrestled with fears of following the path Volithur had been forced down. He had greater life experience and a calmer disposition, so he’d not make the same mistakes if forced into service. His mistakes would be entirely different.
He could already see them pying out. Knowing that he would one day rise in power, Hector would hesitate to do anything that might create enemies among his future peers. He would settle into whatever role was given him and faithfully execute like the duteous employee he always was. Maybe he’d die in battle like a good soldier. Maybe he’d get lucky and just waste a century of his life being the pdog of an arrogant lord.
It sickened him. But if this gave Earth its safety, he would comply.
Hector restrained himself in the next days, conserving the cosmic energy he cultivated rather than spending it on his aura defenses. The Arahant went to their interviews and pyed their public retions games to great success while he faded into the background. Apparently the public didn’t have any great interest in the remainder of his story. His plot arc had come to an end. To this world, Hector was a te addition to the main cast, brought in to liven things up and then relegated to the background once more.
That was fine by him. He didn’t want to put in any further appearances.
Eventually, the day came when there were no monsters to sy. They gave it an additional forty-eight hours to be sure, but then it was time to go. Zelda called their army contact to expin that there was an urgent issue on another world that required them to leave suddenly but not to worry because the monsters had stopped coming.
“There’s probably a few stragglers under the water,” Rodrick admitted to Hector. “The locals will find a way to handle them.”
No doubt there would be some cost in human lives, but the alternative was everyone stayed in pce for weeks longer. Hector wouldn’t argue for that against the interests of his own pnet.
So one morning, without anyone watching, they departed a world in the Arahant way. Their ritual of return required soil from the other world to be sprinkled in a line, which they did by dumping a bottle of dry dirt onto the wooden floor of the living room. Then they used markers to draw a sigil of two doors connected by a tunnel. There was a bit of chanting involved.
The air over the line of dirt shimmered and deepened somehow. It was a confusing sight that made Hector doubt his own vision. When he blinked, it resolved into a hole leading to a field in a different world. Confgration led the way, marching forward with a spring in his step that hadn’t been there for so long as Hector had known the man. Zelda pushed Hector forward and he stumbled through the strange portal. It tugged on him in a strange and uncomfortable manner as he entered the other world.
