*Michael’s Perspective*

There were a few staircases and several elevators. Some were huge enough to fit Sylvia and the rest of us with room to spare, while others were small enough that only a single Rat Tribe would be able to use them at a time.

As we were traveling upwards in the cylindrical mithril container, I started to feel jittery. That sort of anxiousness when you’re reuniting with people after a ‘long time’. Though we hadn’t really been separated that long, it still felt like a while to my young body.

“I know what you’re thinking, Michael.” Luna-76 suddenly started speaking, “There’s no way to avoid their surveillance. Luna Alpha and Luna Prime don’t even need to ‘see’ or ‘hear’ anything, they know your thoughts. They might not be omniscient, but they’re really close. In fact, they’re probably playing a game right now, simply predicting what we’re going to say while listening to our chatter and giggling… Probably fucking each other with their tails too.”

“No, well, yeah, I was thinking about that to a certain extent, but no. I was thinking about how I haven’t seen Ethir and Raelin in a while, also Conor and-seven-nine-six-Alpha, so I was wondering if maybe caliente bonjour I should have brought some kind of presents for them. Blazing River Lotus or Calcium Pills, something that would remind them of home.” I made sure to blink rhythmically and tap my right foot at random intervals, while also thinking about sixteen different songs in different languages at the same time. Because what she said was true, Luna was listening. She was watching and paying attention to everything we did. We were going to be plotting against her, or so she thought.

“There’s no way they’ll be dumb enough to fall for that Michael.” Seventy-Six giggled, and so did Mike, Lorelei, Ailyn and Demil. They all thought they figured out my trick.

Silvia started neighing and stomping her hooves in a pattern, while Mike began uncontrollably ‘singing’: “So I met her at a crazy orgy. With blood and sweat and tears and jizz, flying around the room before me. I couldn’t even fathom the odd sensation, the strange temptation, the way she looked at me and I said I had to stop! Listen kid, I’m an old man with no hand and I’m really not into this kinda shit, but she said ‘Stop!’ I didn’t understand, until I fell into the sand and realized I wasn’t alive, just a goddamn ghost of a forgotten man… But I didn’t stop! Kept fallin and falling down the drain, never stopping to refrain from a bullet to the brain. To my brain… I must’ve been insane because I can’t even stand the sound of it, the confounded expression in her eyes…”

“What the hell is going on?!” Coffee roared, as he started floating off the ground against his will and Rachel, the centaur-doe, began vomiting purple bumble bees out of her mouth.

You think it was an illusion? Some kind of weird dream? Well that’s the trick, ain’t it? Chaos is hard to predict. And when you can’t tell whether something is real, even though it definitely seems extremely unlikely or implausible, so long as there’s a shred of doubt… You’re trapped and lost in the confusion of your own mind.

Of course, while it’s fun to mess with Luna, there wasn’t really much ‘plotting’ or ‘conspiring’ that we could do in that kind of situation. The point was that she would always have to worry that what we were saying or doing was some sort of ploy. That everything was a lie and the truth was impossible to determine.

Also, I wasn’t even planning on dealing with Luna at the dinner party. There were lots of other, more immediate problems that needed to be solved and potential issues that I wanted to prevent. We succeeded in creating a country. It took a few years, but we were only at the starting line. The race had yet to begin.

***

Eventually we stopped about ten floors up. I also made everyone cease the nonsense, because Luna was probably freaking out already. Hell, Seventy-Six was about to go berserk just from sheer annoyance, while Mike stopped singing and was just talking about random shit.

“Fuck em up!” 

“Kill the bitch!”

“Kick her ass!”

“Beat that little punk down!”

“Fighters to your corners! Get ready~, and fight!”

When the doors opened, there was a deafening clamor. We were in a huge open room, with a bar on one end, a stage for concerts on the other and in the center, there was a giant metal cage… With two people fighting inside.

Not a deathmatch, at least I hoped it wasn’t supposed to be one. Because I knew both sides, especially the one with purple flames practically melting the black mithril bars and floor. Amber was practically naked, wearing only the skirt I made her and what looked like a bikini-top. There was no weapon on her, since that would’ve been overkill… For the whole damn building. But even just using her bare hands or any magic was pretty dangerous, so she was definitely holding back a lot.

On the other side, there was a heavily armored man. He was about three meters tall, had a tower shield on his left arm and a big war hammer in his right hand. Although I never gave him a seal, I did give that kid a pretty powerful mark. Didn’t really expect him to grow so large.

“Conor~, Conor~, Conor~!”

“Gen-er-al~! Gen-er-al~!”

“Puri-el~! Puri-el~!”

“Amber!”

As the fight began, hundreds of people were cheering on all sides of the ring. Most were rooting for Conor, but Amber seemed pretty damn popular with the Tiger, Bear and Wolf Tribe folks. Normally I wouldn’t really care if they were fighting, but there was something that struck a nerve…