The door was swinging closed and she was blurring to her full size, my mana dropping appreciably as she did so. This time, she’d shifted to long black hair again, rather than her usual blonde tresses, and she wore a simple white blouse, denim shorts, and sandals.
The scent of coconut sun lotion filled the air, and her skin practically glowed with health, and maybe just a touch of sunburn.
She pulled these images from my past each time, adjusting them to herself, and every single time, I was captivated all over again. She stepped forward, her beautiful green eyes staring up at me as she wrapped her arms around my neck, and she stood on tiptoes to kiss me.
It was a long kiss, gentle, but deep, and I wrapped my arms around her too, feeling her wings flutter as my hands brushed them.
She broke the kiss after a moment, leaning back to look at me as we held each other.
“I don’t like you fighting when I’m not by your side,” she whispered, and I smiled appreciatively, leaning forward to kiss her back.
“I’m all right, Oracle…” I whispered. “I’m a big boy, you know.”
“So you keep saying…” She grinned up at me naughtily. “But you never seem to want to prove it?”
“Oh, you little minx!” I laughed and she released me, stepping back, and making a point of looking down at my pants.
“I mean, if that was true, surely it’d be easily proven…?” she said as she winked at me.
“Hey, my nickname used to be ‘Tripod’, and we both know it’s not because I’m really fucking stable, put it that way.”
I boasted to her, winking before shaking my head. “Honestly, Oracle, I really want to, damn, do I want to, but…”
“But now’s not the time, and you need to figure things out. I know, Jax, I just like teasing you, and after feeling you get hurt when I didn’t know what was happening…”
“You were scared, and you wanted me to pay you some attention?” I gently finished her sentence for her.
“When you put it like that, it sounds so childish,” she complained, releasing my neck, and stepping back to fold her arms across her impressive chest.
“It’s not; it’s perfectly normal,” I reassured her, resting my palms on her shoulders, and looking into her eyes. “Look, we’ll talk about this later, okay? When we’re back at the Tower, and nobody needs rescuing.”
“Okay, Jax. I know… it’s just… well…”
“I know,” I said, smiling at her. She smiled back, and I released her. I took a deep breath as she shrank down to her usual size, flying over to hover before my eyes.
“Let’s get things sorted out, and then we can have that chat, okay?” she said, and I nodded, and she shifted again. He clothes vanished and reformed, becoming her ‘fighting’ outfit of yoga pants and sports bra, with two lines of camouflage paint on either cheek.
“Just so you know what you might have to play with later; I’m yours, and you’re mine, Jax… but only if you’re good…” she whispered, throwing me a saucy wink and disappearing out of the porthole. I shook my head and… adjusted… myself before walking out onto the ship’s deck.
I knew damn well she didn’t have to be naked to change her outfit, she just liked to friggin tease me. And worst of all, it damn well worked!
My entire brain just shut the fuck down whenever she did it, like my cock was wired to the ‘reset’ button. Whenever it sprang to life, my brain froze.
I took a deep breath and looked around, letting the door swing shut behind me. I noted the uncertainty in the crew’s faces as they watched the tree line and Flux. He stood halfway down the deck, talking to Oren, and as I walked over, I caught the tail end of their conversation.
“…they be criminals, an’ deserve no mercy.” I waited patiently for him to finish, and when he saw me, he jerked his chin toward the three men that Lydia was talking to. She was on the ground already, her squad gathering as she threw one of the men a backpack. It wasn’t particularly large, but it had a few days’ worth of rations for each of them, and they were in a forest, after all. There had to be a fuck ton of food around if they looked.
Next, she passed out three swords, one to each of them, and gestured over their shoulders toward the far side of the valley. The men began speaking, low at first, but then becoming more agitated, until a sound made them look to their right, where Bob slowly walked out from behind Decin’s ship.
There was a long moment of stillness, and Lydia pointed again at the forest behind them, then at Bob, clearly giving them the chance to choose one or the other. Unsurprisingly, after seeing their most vocal member have his head half crushed by Bob earlier, they shouldered the pack, snatched their weapons, and started off into the forest, stopping when they were almost out of sight to shout some abuse back.
I was a bit surprised in truth when they did that; not that they would want to get the last word in—bullies always did—but that this would be true in a world with magic, as well. Oracle got the last word in, though, in reality, and that word was ‘Fulgur’.
The bolt of lightning was a weak one, she’d obviously not channeled any more than the standard into it. The sight of it hurtling across the distance between the two groups and causing a small sapling to explode which sent all three scrambling frantically into the distance and out of sight, was worth it.
It took a few minutes more to get things under control on our side, mostly because the three had been despised,
