“Vivian returned to her ho world, so we had to split up.” The lie of the breakup ca easier to him than the lie of the relationship ever had. It wasn’t nearly so cheesy.
“Oh, I’m sure you were heartbroken.” Maggie pursed her lips as she studied Riley. “Who is your new lady friend? She’s quite pretty.”
“This is Riley.” Hector noticed other people around the neighborhood watching them with rapt attention. His desire to offer so charity was rapidly turning into sothing other than what he’d intended. “Greg, I was able to bring an army back to save my world because I reached Bay Beach. I’m going to pay for firewood with this gold bar. If you don’t take it from my hand, I’ll hide it around your house when I leave.”
Greg capitulated without words, simply changing his posture from ‘obstinate’ to ‘neutral’.
anwhile, Maggie ushered them into her house. “Co in for refreshnts. I hope you can stay until evening. Mandy is at practice for the school play. You’d break her heart if you stopped by and didn’t see her, Hector.”
“Sure, I can stop back after getting so firewood. Maybe we could say hello to Randy, too.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Your number one fan, that one. Don’t think I’ve seen him once that he hasn’t brought you up.”
“Would be wrong to leave Randy out of this, Mags.” Greg passed out bottles of lager with a logo Hector recognized from his ti living in the beach house. “Cheers, mates.”
Throughout everything, Riley had gone with the flow as people spoke over each other. Now, with everyone else taking a sip of their beverage, she had her mont. “Hector fought monsters here? And who is Vivian?”
Hector rushed to answer before the married couple could provide any inaccurate information. “I ca to this world seeking help for my own. Greg helped get to where so Arahants under the command of the Sage of Conflagration were helping out. Back then I didn’t have any body enhancent, so my contributions to the monster slaying weren’t much.”
“You fought monsters without body enhancent?” Riley blinked. “That ans I’m stronger now than you were then. That’s crazy, Hector!”
“It was fine. I was good at blocking with my aura.”
Maggie snapped her fingers. “Oh! What about your sworn brother Rodrick?”
His smile slipped. “I haven’t seen any of the Arahants in a long ti.”
“You poor thing. At least you have a beautiful woman at your side. She’s doing you a world of good, too. I swear you look twenty years younger than the first ti I saw you.”
Riley didn’t seem to know what to think about the assumptions being made. “My body statistic is at one point three now.”
Hector glanced to her. “Just wait until we get you better resources. Esther had the idea of filling water bottles. I’m not going to sell water, but I could get so for you and Darius.”
Uninterested in the cross chatter, Maggie pushed on with her agenda. “How long have you two been together?”
“I could be fighting monsters now,” Riley said. “I’m stronger than when you started.”
“You very recently told you don’t want to be a warrior.”
Greg clinked bottles all around, bringing silence. “Drink up, mates.”
When they’d obediently finished their beers, Greg turned to business. “How much firewood?”
“One truckload should do it.”
“How big of a truck are we talking?”
Years of experience in a warehouse let him do a quick and rough volu estimate. “A ten foot box truck should do it.”
“Ten foot? Your magic bubble can hold that much?”
“I can make it larger than what you saw,” Hector assured the other man.
Knocking on the door startled Maggie, who rushed to look out the window. “Reporters!” Before Hector could express any hesitation, the woman of the house yanked open her front door and erged to begin explaining how their Xian friends stopped by a for a visit.
Riley was chewing her lip in a way that looked painful. “I don’t want to be on caras, Hector.”
“My Arahant friends fascinated the locals. Greg, any chance you could hide Riley while I talk to the press?” Greg proved imdiately sympathetic. He invited Riley to sit in their television room and watch so clips of Hector’s last visit.
Hector went to et the reporters, forcing a fake smile. A photogenic middle-aged woman began peppering him with questions. Was he there because another monster invasion was due? What had he been up to since they last saw him? Where were the Arahants? Could they et the young lady who arrived with him?
The attention drove ho just how little he wanted fa. Hector imagined these people would listen with utter fascination if he decided to describe his last bowel movent in excruciating detail. It was an insane degree of hero worship. He didn’t deserve their adoration. Nor did their attitude serve their own interests. It was borderline pathological.
More reporters arrived, asking similar questions. Hector decided to take control of the narrative by giving a statent on his activities. He explained how he had friends on another world who needed firewood for the winter and decided to use that chore to check in on people here. The knowledge that he casually moved between worlds for chores had the opposite effect of what he intended. They were in awe of his ability and wanted to know the details of his life elsewhere.
Two things happened in quick succession to cut the dia frenzy short. First, governnt agents arrived. Second, Mandy arrived ho from school. Whereas the reporters were initially arguntative about their right to conduct interviews, they backed down when faced with an anxious young girl who had to cross their ranks to her own front door. So confused was Mandy by the whole situation that she didn’t even recognize Hector until the door closed behind them.
Then Mandy truly panicked. The first ti they’d t, Hector had simply been a random man who was friends with her biological father. Since then, she’d decided that Hector was so sort of mythological figure after he joined up with the Arahants at Bay Beach. Any question he asked to draw her out caused her to respond in such a quiet voice that no one had any clue what her answer had been. She appeared distinctly uncomfortable with his attention.
The governnt agents eventually convinced Greg that they would be allowed inside the house, so Hector had other business to occupy his attention. He went through another question and answer session. This ti the questions weren’t fluff. Hector received the impression that the governnt was quite concerned that foreign visitors might beco a regular event. They’d passed an act that exempted extraterrestrials from civilian laws and now, without mind-influencing Arahants around to manipulate them, were strongly reconsidering that move.
Those agents wound up taking the gold bar from Greg with the promise that they would provide its cash value in return. They asked Hector to check in with the governnt if he ever returned to their world, which put him in an awkward position.
“Respectfully, sir, I won’t guarantee anything.”
“You think you can do whatever you like on our world?”
Hector frowned. These people needed to understand a hard truth. “Sir, I don’t think you quite appreciate the gulf in power between us. You have no ans of coercing my compliance.”
The agent frowned. “You seem fond of this family. Rember that if you –”
Force cables snaked around the necks of four separate governnt n and lifted them just enough that they had to go onto their toes. As they desperately pawed at the invisible garrotes, eyes wide, Hector stepped closer. “I aim to be a moral person, gentlen. This family did well by in the past, so I’ve repaid them generously. Threats to them won’t change my behavior. But if you act on those threats and I find out… that would be very bad for you. As in your nation loses all of its leaders on the sa day and I hand pick their replacents.”
He released the agents and they gasped for air, beet red faces slowly returning to normal. None of them looked towards Hector before they left, wiping snot and tears from their faces. Respect, he decided, sotis ant taking people seriously when they promised evil. Also, he would respect the truth.
And that truth was very simple. On an unempowered world like this, without even the benefit of the Dream Engine, Hector’s only restraints were the bounds imposed by his own sense of morality. If he wanted to, Hector could wipe out the entire ard forces of this world by himself. These governnt people had to understand that outsiders weren’t to be trifled with. They certainly didn’t have to capitulate the mont soone strong arrived, but they couldn’t expect to go around making threats against what might as well be gods in comparison to themselves.
The rest of the family were all in the television room watching the damn seat switching interview. Hector almost wished he could go back to threatening nefarious governnt agents. Almost anything was better than witnessing their group interview. Yet what was he to do?
Hector survived the replay of his humiliation. Then he put on a happy face when young Mandy finally worked up the nerve to ask him a question. Did he love Vivian?
There wasn’t a good answer to that one. He couldn’t remain honest and avoid shattering Mandy’s illusions. And, while he’d love to disavow the stupid public relations stunt, the narrative ant sothing more aningful to a young girl. The Arahant visit was a real life fairy tale to her. It promised that heroes were real, that monsters could be defeated, and that love conquered all.
Hector thought those lessons were valuable, even if they were more aspirational than actual. Certainly believing in good as a concept was a promising first step to producing its fruits. “Vivian was very special to ,” he lied. “But Arahants always have to go back to the world of Maya.”
“Aren’t Xian allowed there?”
“Well, a lot of people worry about Xian. We’re very powerful warriors.”
Blatant skepticism t his words. “Conflagration and Rodrick were more powerful.”
Greg cleared his throat. “Yeah, no offense, mate. You weren’t the most impressive.”
Hector recalled those days fighting the squid monsters. And then the monster surge where Rodrick lost his life while Hector received recognition. “Greg, there is no comparing what I was back then to what I am today. I didn’t exaggerate when I told you that Xian are the greatest warriors in the multiverse.”
Riley added her support. “Hector was level four with no body enhancent. He shouldn’t have been fighting monsters at all back then. He is very powerful now.”
And no one believed them. Hector saw the doubt clearly written on the faces of the polite family hosting them. A childish impulse urged him to prove his strength. Hector squashed it ruthlessly. He wasn’t staying here. He didn’t need their recognition.
So instead, Hector turned back to the subject of firewood. After expressing his desire to avoid more dia attention, Greg drove Hector and Riley in his car to a nearby campground where they were able to purchase seasoned wood.
Hector summoned his sphere and they tossed logs inside. At first Greg and Riley and the man working the campground store helped. Soon the others realized they only got in Hector’s way. Not only did his peak level five enhancent make Hector nearly inexhaustible at such a simple task, he had a bit of frustration to work out of his system.
When the sphere was mostly full, Hector used his cables to shove so of the logs up towards the top, creating a small space for him and Riley to squeeze into. He bid Greg farewell and closed his sphere. “Well… that was not the fun trip I expected,” he said.
Riley was in agreent with him. “I think I would rather work than do that again.”
The pleasant outing had failed. Yet Hector decided not to let their trip go to waste. The world of reality television stars might have been a dud, but surely a Tian farm would do better. After all, they already had the firewood for the trade.
The ti between worlds was much less this trip. Not only was he more familiar with his destination, true worlds were also louder within the primordial. Riley flinched as soon as his sphere opened, the rush of ambient cosmic energy taking her by surprise.
They hopped out and he dismissed his sphere.
“Surprise! Tian itself. What do you think?”
As Riley was staring about in wonder, the door to the farmhouse opened. A familiar figure erged, causing sweat to instantly drench Hector. Before he could say a word, cables of force sprang into existence to restrain the two of them.
“I will bet you didn’t expect to ever see again,” Master Dorian said.
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