Ladies, Gentleman, Ladies, Gentleman, Ladies, Gentleman,
May I present you

Chapter 6 ) I’m Helping!

Rina sat on a log.

It was not her plush chair in her lovely office. But it was better then squatting on the ground like some savage.

The thought spurred her to glance at Akhmin, who was, in fact, squatting on the ground like some savage. The Anubis even went as far as scratching the back of his ear with his unprotected foot. Rina rolled her eyes and sighed.

Why did she volunteer herself for this?

Because she was not done.  Their stories had played out.  There was no more true,  World Unifying Evil on their plane of existence anymore.  That Avatar of Speed and Heroism, Sonic the Hedgehog, saw to that.

Despite the distractions, and the day to day troubles of running a financial Empire, Rina’s Mobius had grown tedious.

She was bored.

When was the last time she went on an Adventure? Barring her DnD group, and her several Raid Groups, she was just a teenager that last time.  And where was that?

Her parents dungeon.

Oh Rina has seen battles and bloodshed. She even died! Heroically as well, back before time was time on Mobius.   That was nothing new to her. Phoenix’s died and resurrected in a never ending cycle. To kill them permanently is to store their remains in the deep cold and keep away an open flame.

Now where was she on her first grand adventure in (CENSORED BECAUSE I WAS THREATNENED) years?  Sitting on a Log. Surrounded by greenery, trees, bushes and maybe a feral critter or two.

Watching some sort of thing resembling an Anubis scratch his own foot with…well…the same foot in some sort of distorted foot scratching…thing.

“Its getting late.” Rina noted, looking up into the darkening sky through the trees.

“They be back soon.” Akhmin nodded.

Rina’s eyes narrowed as she noted black smoke slowly dissipating in the air.  Shifting to get a view of the City, she could see something was on fire.

“That is clearly not a good sign.” Rina scolded.

“What about that?” Akhmin pointed, and Rina looked to where the creamy finger indicated.

Mobiuns on what looked like Ponies. Feral Ponies. Not the brightly colored ones with the ‘cutie’ marks or whatever you call those tattoos on those floozies.

They were on the road where the group had split up.

One had an odd stone and was shifting it from right to left, obviously hunting for something.

Rina could see it flicker as it passed over her direction.

Oh no. Thats not good.

“Akhmin.” Rina quickly backed away and into the brush. “I think they know we’re here.”

“They know your here.” Akhmin noted with such assurance that Rina gave him a rather perplexed look. “You has the magics in you.”

“They have a way to track spell casters.” Rina deduced, and scowled. “We’re near or in that Anti-Magic Empire. Avians use magic on this world, thats why they were so suspicious of me.”

“Yup.”

“And they know I’m here.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Suggestions?” Rina asked, then instantly regretted it.

“You can hide in the threes or may be beneath this rock right here or may be I can turn into this rocket see and we can fly away to never never land which is the second star on the right and straight on till morning or I can kill them all Rambo style with this cool bandanna and really raspy Batman voice like Keifer Sutherland or the dog in duck hunt springing out of the bushes-”

Rina could not help but balk at the sheer speed in which Akhmin was speaking.  She went as far as putting a hand on the Anubis’ mouth, yet they still manage to continue audibly at a rapid pace beyond any form of legitimate communication.

“-And may be we can call ShadowRemix and have him do an angry rant about how stupid it is to have the main characters in a cliche situation where one of them are about to be captured and in need of rescue like some princess type thing clearly ripping off mario though we are supposed to be a Sonic Fandom comic typed with words-”

“AKHY!” Rina shouted, and Akhmin shut his trap, snapped his head up towards her with perked ears and looking rather attentively.

Rina, frustrated, simply glared at the Anubis for a moment, then realized there was no point in being angry with the Akhmin.

They were, after all, trying to be helpful in their own, simplistic way.

“Look. They want to capture me right?” Rina ask. “We can fight them, but I don’t know if they are innocent or not.”

“Their not” Akhmin noted, again with more assurance then Rina could give him credit for.

“But if we kill them, then all we do is attract unwanted attention on the others right?”  Rina asked, then frowned. “I mean, we fight these guys and what do we do when we win?” came the question.

“And if we are fighting them then how do we approach this?” she continued to analyze her situation.

Akhmin however, tilted his head and looked out towards the in coming group of Mobiuns on the Ponies.  Some of them looked mean. Some of them even had their own owie-sticks drawn and readied for action (owie sticks are swords for you too inept to understand what he is referring too in his own inner monologue. In fact its quite cozy in here in this space between Akhmin’s ears. There is a brain, and it actually works! But more space then I thought I would have with an organ people claim does not exist. What do you mean I’m not helping move the plot forward? Why I never) .

There were a lot. More then three and less then maybe the number of fur on his knuckle. Wassit? Oh yeah more then three. No wait. Ohh there getting closer. Concentrate Akhmin. Be a good minion. What would Vger want you to do?

Bring him Port! No wait. He has Jerry doing that now.

Destroy the Anti-Port Machine! No.  No. That’s already been destroyed.

Protect Rina! Yeah. Thats it. Protect her! That’s what a good minion would do.  Turning around on the spot, Akhmin regarded the Phoenix with wide eyes. She was still yammering on about something called spaghetti.

Or Stragenoff.

Strategy!

Rina was going over a very detailed and elaborate battle plan that revolved around a series of attacks and withdrawals, which would form a overly large circle that would lead them back here.

Akhmin listened for a moment more before he came up with a plan of his own.

Taking up his hammer, he flipped it about to hold the heft right at the head of the weapon, and declared “NOT THE MOMMA!” before whacking Rina on the back of the skull.

Ahkmin WAS trying to knock her out.  But Rina was only staggered.

The next punctuating shot of “NOT THE MOMMA!” lay the Phoenix out before she could whirl around with sword in her long, feathery fingers.

Producing a bag, quite literally out of thin air, Akhmin took away her sword and book, then carefully sacked her.  Tying the bag on the end of the hammer, Akhmin belted the sword, stuffed the book in his breastplate, then slung the bag over his shoulder and quickly exited stage left.

They came quickly, rushing the clearing Rina and Akhmin had occupied a moment before. There were some really nasty words being shouted.

More nasty words when they started scanning around, trying to find the magical source again.

Akhmin wondered if he should go back there and explain to the kind gentleman who was using all that harsh grown up words right about now how inappropriate it is using that sort of language. Fairies could be listening in on them!

Faeries were so impressionable!

Nope. Rina came first. So Akhmin shouldered his burden and made for the city walls.

After trudging through the woods and bushes, Akhmin came face to face with the high wall itself, a good distance from the gate.

Or was there a gate on this side?!

“Oh no.” The Anubis noted as he put the sack and hammer down. “They forgot to put in a door here.” Akhmin frowned. “Well. I’ll fix this I will!”

Producing a pouch from somewhere off the screen to the right, Akhmin pulled a piece of chalk from it.  Drawing a very crude looking door, complete with handle and little windows and flowers and cookies and butterflies, Akhmin tossed the chalk and admired his work.

“There!” he declared before hefting the hammer with the Rina-Bag still tied at the end.

“Knock knock!” Akhmin shouted gleefully, and kicked the door open.

Again; deifying any sort of law of physics, and sensibilities, the door that Akhmin drew swung inward on the crooked hinges in which it was wrought on. Wasting no time, Akhmin ducked his head and stepped right into a alley, occupied by himself.

And Rina. And Himself. And Rina.

Concentrate Akhmin. Concentrate.

All of them Akhmin, himself, Rina and Rina needed to get to Border. Where was a Taco Bell here?

No wait. Vger. Needed to get to Vger.

Without further thinking, because thinking was starting to stress him out, Akhmin marched himself out of the alley, and into the crowd.

The unsuspecting, unknowing crowd.

>-o3o-<

Mortimor could not believe his luck.

Not a single, solitary soul in this Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy, which was the actual name of the Tavern, was a ships captain.

Not only that; no one was chartering their ships to go to a continent that they were, technically, at war with as well. Apparently this little slice of Heaven, called THE Empire, with heavy emphasis on the THE; was fighting some sort of holy crusade against Magic.

Not Magically charged items, but magic wielding people who can turn someone to ash with a snap of their fingers.

Or feathers.

John sat down at the private booth they had in the back in a way to keep Vger pinned against the wall. They had managed to buy him two pitchers of wine.  Which he instantly drained. Vger was currently attempting, with no success, to garner the attention of the waitress. Every time she would come their way, John would shoo her away. Literally shoo her.

Because Mortimor did not want him speaking tangible words.

To anyone.

John quietly agreed; considering he had very little knowledge in what would come out of his mouth next.

“So.” Mortimor managed to garner Vger’s attention by holding out a glass of wine he had been saving. Vger fixated on it like it was a magically, dangling ball of…well…wine. Mortimor gritted his teeth. “We need a plan, do we fall back to Rina?”

“Oh someone will be more then willing to take us to wherever we need to go so long as we have the coin to spend on it.” Vger summarized, making a quick, and fruitless attempt to snatch the wine glass. “Um. Are you going to be drinking that by chance?”

“How are you still sober?”

“I will have you know that I only had to replace my cybernetic liver twice.” Vger replied defensively.

“You have a cybernetic liver?” Mortimor grimaced. “Ouch.”

“I did the surgery myself. It was really simple. Can I have that.” Vger stated with more demand in his voice.

“Plan.” Mortimor demanded back.

“Yes. Well. We wait for Jerry. Find a place to buy supplies, and make our way south along the coast.” Vger continued. “Apparently that is where the fighting is taking place, we might as well see if someone on the other side will take us to the western continent.”

Mortimor nodded, and passed the wine glass to Vger. It was gone quicker then one could blink.

“We are ordering more yes?” Vger questioned hopefully.

“Then how do we buy supplies for the mission if you spend it all here?” The Artic Fox pressed.

“Oh Jerry will be along soon, he’ll have something for us.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Vger shrugged. “I know my employees like the back of my…” Vger paused as he inspected the glove he wore. Blinking a few times, he removed the glove, and was about to continue.  Yet he hesitated again as he narrowed his eyes on the rusty red fur of his hand. “…well, uh.”

“Oh dear gods.” Mortimor sighed as cradled his head in his hands. “How can this get any worse?”

“Our hairs can be on fire?”

Mortimor knew exactly who said that without even having to look. “Thanks for that God. Really. Appreciate that.” the Acrtic Blue fox glanced up at the ceiling. Then his ruby gaze settled on Akhmin, who leaned over the chair from the adjacent booth.

They deposited a large bag on the bench next to Mortimor. It opened up to reveal Rina, quite unconscious, who settled as if she was asleep on the table the entire time.

Mortimor quickly pulled the blanket that was still wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl, over her head to obscure her face.

Vger looked up at Akhmin with a disapproving frown. “I thought I told you to stay with Rina.”

“But Rina’s here.” the Anubis pointed down at the unconscious Phoenix. “Bad Mobiuns were after her in the woods.”

Mortimor looked around to see if anyone noticed the shape shifting Anubis, before returning his attention to the problem at hand. “Well, she is here now, now what?”

“We need to find an isolated place, like a warehouse or something.” Vger said, back pedalling on the original plan. “When the crowd starts to thin we’ll leave, I’ll wait for Jerry.”

“I will wait for Jerry.” Mortimor pointed threateningly at Vger. “By the time Jerry gets here you’d already empty the place of anything drinkable.”

“Yes. Yes your right and I shouldn’t be drinking at all.” Vger agreed. “But can you order another pitcher? I mean we are here.”