Two and a half years later, the village that Charles had originally washed up nearby was operating sluggishly. Everyone went about their work, tending to their own produce and leaving one another alone. No one was sure what to do. Things had quieted down since the chaos from when the man called Robert had barreled through their town and shook things up. Granted, there was no way to link him directly to anything, but he did take a pokégirl that they had helped him catch and ran with it. That was enough to make even the most levelheaded of them get his name stuck in their craw.
It was much to Alex’s surprise when Charles along with forty or so men and three times as many pokégirls showed up with ad hoc carts full of things hidden under tarps.
“ Greetings,” Charles hailed Alex, the doctor, “How are you this fine day?”
Alex looked up at Charles’s towering form worriedly. “Oh, I’m not too sure if it’s such a good day,” he replied, his age showing.
“Oh, but I think it’s a great day!” Charles laughed, “You see, I happen to have a bit of a problem with some of my men who have various injuries beyond the help of first aid. We have food to trade for your services.”
Alex gazed warily at the large mass of men, pokégirls… and children not too far away. Still, it’s not as if refusing them is any less likely to dissuade them if they truly mean ill. “Very well,” he accepted, “Please come with me.”
This was a decent means of getting their toe in the door. Liz can scan the minds of any eligible men to join them and they can get in good with the people by coming through when they obviously need it. Winning the hearts of all the downtrodden in Tropic would allow a smoother transition. More prison breaks had brought more eager souls to the cause, cutting a piece of the world for those that the Confederation had hidden away from the glorious sun. It wouldn’t stop there. The assistance they gave villages with ferals and fair trade for emergency provisions earned a place in the hearts of many. It was hard to keep everyone in one long house. So, they didn’t. New bases were created all across the island as their ranks swelled. With teleportation, there was hardly any distance between them even if they were on opposite ends of the island.
This was not the first town that they had visited. Since Mikhail’s Elf had evolved into an Elf Queen, she used some sort of ability and summoned many, many Elves and other Elf Types hiding out in the woods to her service, so many Elves, in fact, that many opted to go into the harems of some of men and there were enough left over to serve as a court for Mikhail’s Elf Queen. There was only one itty-bitty little problem. Two other elves evolved into Elf Queens. None of the queens got along. The only way to keep them away from each other’s throats was to send them to different bases, give each their own ‘territory.’
Surprisingly, Yvette- Charles hadn’t thought to call her anything else despite the fact that she speaks with ordinary human syntax now- seemed to be able to keep the Elf Queens in line. No one was quite sure how she did it. Perhaps it had something to do with the guts it took for a Maid Yvette of all things to tackle a Sorceress over the edge of a ship in a storm. It seemed to be the very same thing that triggered that interesting evolution of hers. Then again, it might have something to do with the dogged perseverance to find Charles and the thousands of obliterated scrotums of inept tamers in the League’s employ that stood in her way before she was finally subdued and captured by one lucky idiot whose pokégirls managed to wear her down when they caught her recovering from a tough fight.
The Elf Queens were needed though, even if sparks flew between them whenever any two of them met in the same branch of their operation. Their ranks had swelled dramatically since their conception. Whereas in the beginning, they had been some 40 men with about 60 pokégirls, they now numbered in the thousands. The crops needed to sustain such a large number of people was very substantial. But, with the large numbers of Elves and their combined expertise and coordination of the three Elf Queens, their owners, and Charles it came to be that they had enough of a surplus to continue selling their goods and services to the various towns and villages in need. Cheap food, what would be considered to be sold at a loss by most people, occasional but rare emergency relief for the starving, and ridding unprotected areas of dangerous ferals allowed them to win the appreciation of the people. It was a tactic that had worked many times before, and it would work for Charles. This exploit in the psychology of the unwashed masses would bring his goal to him.
The organization that Charles had created had named itself [The Center]. It was a name that was starting to become one praised by villagers hiding from the eyes in Terminus, Isla Sol Naranja’s capital as well as those being crushed by regressive taxes stupidly imposed by politicians and persons of power who didn’t know a damn thing about basic macroeconomics, something that disgusted Charles not as any sort of humanitarian but as an educated person and, yes, a man who had been raised as a Molyneux. Overall [The Center] remained self-sufficient and able to overproduce with the help of three Elf Queens constantly attempting to outdo one another. What could not be stored could be spent at various locations across the island. Not many had much to offer, but it was easy to get recruits and community centers more in line with them than with Terminus or the Tropical Confederacy that way- not that that actually took much effort. Those who wished the organization ill were always found out by Liz or one of the other few psychics before they so much as got to begin to act on their ill intent.
Mikhail waited until after dark. It was cold, starting to snow, and the town was dead silent. He had an out. He finally had an out! However, it would be tricky. And he’d have to deal with fucking Charles after this. Nobody fucked with Charles. Not anymore
He was only a couple years older than he, but he had something in him that allowed him to do things that most people only fantasize about in private. It wasn’t long before he had made his move. It started with the blood traited prisoners of the Tropical Confederation. He gave them the freedom that many thought that they’d never see again, and they loved him for it. They’re little base had grown tremendously, swelling their ranks of able-bodied men and feral pokégirls that they were about to bond to themselves. It then spread to the villages. They often sent relief supplies to hidden villages like the one Francisco was a former member as well as those that were struggling to survive under the cruel rule of the Tropic Confederation. It won their hearts quickly. Charles whispered to them that they deserved better than what little the confederacy allotted them especially considering what the fat upper classes hid from the bourgeois and plebs that they looked down upon. He knew. He claimed to have seen it.
He taught his recruits little things at first. Proper posture, how to speak clearly and get to the point, how to unite and help one another, and other itty bitty things he called ‘Kindergarten logic’ or whatever the hell that was. The men, he went into more interesting things. He taught them first how to exercise.
And then he taught them how to fight.
It wasn’t like Zen, kung fu fighting or about transcending violence or any of that pussy shit either. No, he taught you how to rip peoples’ skin off with your bare hands. He also taught how break people into tiny pieces and then to run the fuck away because apparently discretion is the better part of valor in the guerilla handbook or wherever he got this crazy shit from. It also turns out that pokégirls, even ferals, pick up violence really easily.
No one was some sort of mythical one man army, even the pokégirls, but collectively with the help of the allies they had created out of the towns and villages, they were beginning to. Terminus, the capital of Isla Sol Naranja had been getting suspicious about the sudden increase in ‘productivity’ of the area and had been sending probes out to see what was up and why the tax revenue hadn’t seem to have gone up with the increase of productivity.
Then it got a little weirder. Suddenly his friends, [The Center] and the small towns and people who supported them were better than anyone else. Why would he associate with bad people or sloths unworthy of his attention or company? Eventually, they dressed the same, talked the same, signed to each other in some hand language that only they knew. It started weirding out a few people, those who had yet to come around to their way of thinking, but the boat hadn’t been rocked… yet. With their men and their pokégirls self-sufficient agriculturally and chomping at the bit to make a move against the League, restless energy was starting to build.
In other news, the Tropic League Tamers- at least the ones left to the provinces rather than those taken into what was now the Confederate military- were a joke. They had no cohesion, no discipline, and no combat ability which was probably why they had been left to the provinces by the Confederate government which seemed to be taking more and more power from the provinces over time. Most of the tamers probably paid their way into becoming one just so that they could have fucking in their job description. They were easy pickings really. Terminus was starting to get worried but hadn’t sent any messages out to the other provinces yet. They would have known. The towns and villages of Isla Sol Naranja hadn’t sworn allegiance to the Terminus capital or the Confederation in a long time. Terminus was a head rolling in the guillotine’s basket, already decapitated but too shocked to tell.
One interesting occurrence over the years was the thresholds. Young girls didn’t get blood traits like boys did. They completely turned pokégirl. It was terrifying at first. The only one who seemed intrigued was Charles. His intrigue led to many of the thresholds had been ‘liberated’ from Terminus in what the capital thought was part of an increasingly worrisome bout of pirate raids on Terminus. Charles wanted to know how human these thresholds were. Were they like traited men, human with pokégirl-like abilities? At first, he seemed optimistic as the thresholds behaved in what he thought was a sufficiently ‘human’ fashion. However, he was disappointed. Turns out, after they bonded to members of [The Center], they began to act more and more like the pokégirl slaves that Charles had known in his past. Still, he asked that everyone keep an eye out for any exceptional thresholds.
Charles’s perspective on things was odd to many of them, but it was something that made since. His childhood was an alien thing to most of them. Only those in [The Center] knew that he was the son of a fat politician who he ran from for whatever reason. He claimed to have firsthand knowledge of the avarice and sloth of the upper class. Charles said the reason he ran was because he despised what they were doing and would not be a part of ‘It.’ Mikhail thought that was a load of horseshit, but maybe that’s because he knew Charles better than anyone.
And yet, despite that he still didn’t know if Charles would pat him on the back or rip his guts out for this.
Mikhail moved like a shadow around the empty town center and up alongside the small trail that lead to the house he was heading to with his Umbrea following him almost invisibly as well. When he reached the small, two story cabin, he slowly peaked through all the available windows until he saw what he was after through the rather inconvenient second story window courtesy of a convenient weather vane.
He gently pried the window open and slipped inside. He’d have to be quiet, but if this worked… Then again, if this didn’t who knew what kind of trouble he’d be in.
Mikhail approached the bed in the upper story. Damn it to hell! She had a younger sibling sleeping in the same bed of ambiguous gender. Fuck, he should have done his homework before attempting this. Too late now. He just hoped the pokégirl of his he had brought with him didn’t do anything rash. She had gotten a bit more impulsive since she evolved from her Eva form. Still, she was pretty good about staying hidden until she was needed.
He gently shook his mark, a young girl with odd features, a recent threshold. She slowly roused- a heavy sleeper apparently- and looked up at the unfamiliar shape above her. Mikhail took a deep breath and took her grogginess as an opportunity to explain himself before she started screaming.
“Just hear me out okay?” he whispered, “You’re in big trouble, Vera. You need to get out of here fast.”
Vera blinked up at him. “Mikhail?” she mumbled through her sleep clouded mind.
In this sleepy little town in the high mountains of Appalachia, a place where many wealthy families retire to when there is not business to be done and civilization is the last thing on someone’s mind, Mikhail had grown up. His parents hadn’t been super wealthy, but they managed to keep themselves firmly lodged in the bottom rungs of society without being forced to live as serfs in the countryside. He was here taking the initiative to personally check out some information that they had received. As [The Center] gathered more and more teleport capable pokégirls as well as one other teleport capable human, long distance recon had become a staple of their operation. It never failed to amuse them that no one seemed to realize where all the blood traited individuals and thresholds were going. Then again, the governments probably covered it up so no one would think anything was amiss. Panics caused economies to crumble, especially when the upper class panicked.
“Look, just come with me,” he pleaded through grit teeth, “There’s not much time.”
“What do y-“ she began before Mikhail shushed her.
“Don’t be too loud, there’s trouble. I’ll explain in a bit, but we need to get you out of the house.”
Vera’s eyes narrowed at him. “What are you so concerned with? You never once so much as glanced at me when we were little. Why are you-“ she cut off. He was here because she was a pokégirl wasn’t he? Tears starting to well up at the reminder of her latest trauma.
“You’re fathers found a buyer!” he hissed his lie to her. At least he had the brain to do some surveillance before he made his move.
A look of shock crossed her face. “What? But, he-“
“Wake up!” Mikhail barely stopped himself from shouting. Seed of doubt or not, such a thing was inevitable anyways. She would be sold eventually. Rather than waiting for a real buyer, he was just acting now. “I saw him meet myself! If he got caught keeping you past the ‘age’ assigned by the fatsos in the capital, he’d be dead before he got released from prison.”
“My father-“
“Is going to sell you like any other person in this town would to save their stinking hide!” Mikhail brought his palm to his forehead in exasperation. “Look, just come and hear me out. You can decide if you want to come back here and meet your ‘master,’” he drew out the word master mockingly, “or not.”
And with that, Mikhail crept to the window and opened it, letting the chilling night air in once more. He turned to face Vera once more. “You coming?” he asked rhetorically before lowering himself out the window until only his fingers were clutching the windowsill. He then simply let go landing on his feet and rolling in the snow.
Vera peeked out the window and looked at him worriedly. “How am I supposed to get down?” she asked like a bewildered child causing Mikhail to roll his eyes.
This was one reason why he, like many others, hated dealing with anyone outside of [The Center] these days. In the years since its formation, they had all been practicing things that were useful in this world of the frontier and wilderness. Cities were pretty rare in Tropic, a whole lot of nothing in between the somethings. Survival skills were a must.
“Just jump, I’m right here, you’ll be fine,” he said vaguely. He never said he’d catch her… but not doing so would be counterproductive.
Surprisingly, she did jump however gracelessly. Mikhail caught her and had to clench his teeth to keep from yelping. He felt like he was handling a block of ice with his bare hands. This was a very glaring hint at what kind of pokégirl she had become. He hadn’t been able to tell at first. She just looked albino pale with a blue tint like she was suffocating or freezing to death. Her hair had changed color now, becoming very similar to her skin hue but a tad darker and bluer.
“By the radius!” he swore under his breath. It was a stupid phrase he picked up from his time in [The Center]. He let go of her. What skin he had that was uncovered was nearly blistered from the cold.
“Are you okay?” Vera asked in a surprisingly hollow tone.
Mikhail ignored the question in favor of one of his own. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“It’s just the cold,” she explained, “I get like this when I’m colder. I can think a lot more clearly, but I can hardly feel anything at all.”
By the way she was acting, Mikhail figured she meant feeling feelings. “Why do you keep yourself so warm then? I saw how many blankets you had on you.”
She just stared at him flatly. “It makes me feel more human. A little discomfort is worth that.”
He nodded to her, a little disturbed. Feeling the need to not stand there like a bunch of gibbering morons, Mikhail pulled out an odd little device some of the folks from [The Center] came up with. It was like a short handled hoe but with a lot wider end. With it, he swept his landing site under the window flat-ish.
“Come on,” he said to Vera as he retraced his steps, wiping his steps as he went. Vera somehow walked on the snow without disturbing it causing Mikhail to wonder if such a thing could be learned by a human or if it was just an ice pokégirl thing.
After a minute of watching Mikhail sweep the snow as they retreated, suddenly the snow was moving back on its own without Mikhail’s efforts. He paused and looked up to Vera.
“I’ve been practicing when Father isn’t looking,” she explained tonelessly, “This will be faster.”
Mikhail nodded, smiling in appreciated as all their tracks were removed effortlessly. It almost took the fun out of it, but Mikhail was appreciating the lack of work on his part. How much strain did it put on Vera anyways?
It wasn’t long before they were past the town center and out of sight of anyone that should have any business anywhere in this little ice ball’s vicinity.
“Okay, here’s what’s going on,” Mikhail started, “You’re going to be sold and the only way to not be given to someone as property is to run. If you run to the wrong place, you’ll either end up sold anyways or feral. So I want you to come with me, with us.” She had no idea who he was talking about.
“How will you keep me safe?” she asked cynically, “What’s to stop the League or even other people from smashing down your door and taking me?” It seems that the cold was helping her thinking in a lot of ways. She was rather soft spoken and a bit of a twit when Mikhail last met her so long ago before she thresholded.
Mikhail sighed. “Look, I’m not supposed to say this, but I’m with a group, a group to the south on Isla Sol Naranja.”
“The mysterious pirates and highwaymen that everyone has been gossiping about? And how will you be any different than what awaits me when I’m sold?” she asked. It seems that without her emotions interfering, she knew very well what would happen to her. Her accusation wasn’t even vehement, angry, or enthusiastic in any way.
“I’m not offering to take you myself, Vera; I’m offering you a place with us, a family and community that will want you and take care of you as you will them!” Mikhail recited the rhetoric perfectly. He had helped come up with it. Well, they all had somewhat.
“Please, I’m a pokégirl now. You’re lying to me.”
Mikhail was losing her, so he took a dangerous leap of faith. If this didn’t buy her trust, she was dead. It was unfortunate, but he’d probably have to order his Umbrea, who was lying in wait, to kill her. That or Vera would do something stupid and get herself killed by a protective pokégirl. [The Center] would be very upset with him for endangering them all, but in the end it was the League and angry pitchforks they would have to fear should she spread the word. He grabbed her by the shoulders- something rather stupid in hindsight considering that she was a pokégirl- and pulled her to face him. “Some of us have blood traits!” he hissed to her face, some of his spittle getting on her face.
Despite her emotionally subdued state, she was quite flabbergasted by the news.
“It’s not as rare as people think. It seems there are more and more showing up every few years.” Hell, that was an understatement. Droves were appearing. “Some guys with traits have crossed from all different Islands to get to us. Hell, we even have a couple sorry bastards who escaped from Indigo!” Well, technically the Indigo folk didn’t have any traits but were known to have had a pokégirl for a mother. “Everyone is just scared to admit that they have the changes because it will ostracize them and make them less than human in the eyes of the League AND the locals. You girls just got a bad lot because you can’t hide it as well as we can. ‘Course, you occasionally get some guy who suddenly sprouted blue scales instead of skin or something which is considerably harder to hide.”
Vera was reeling from the news, but hope blossomed where there had been none and there should be none. “There are people… like with you already? Traited boys too?” she asked uncomprehendingly.
Being a traited male was nearly as bad as being a pokégirl what with the death camps, and both knew it; camaraderie was a rare thing for the one girl to threshold in the village. It was hard to keep pokégirls even if you were a shit poor farmer in the middle of bumfuck nowhere ever since the Confederacy passed the laws that all thresholds be handed over to the government for a meager compensation in SLC. Right now Vera was probably the only tame pokégirl in the area. Help was a long ways away in case of a feral attack.
So, for Vera even this level of kinship made her heart sing, and Mikhail could see that. He had her in his grasp. Now he would bring her into [The Center]. He took hold of her hand, and then the world inexplicably vanished around them.
They then reappeared inside [The Center]’s headquarters hidden deep away in the forests of Isla Sol Naranja. Mikhail looked over to Vera’s again shocked face. “I’m a teleporter,” he explained, “No one knows how I got this gift since my family would never admit to pokégirls being in the family. It’s a pretty big deal to everyone since I can ferry people across long distances in a blink.” He didn’t know why he was suddenly gloating. Perhaps he was subconsciously trying to puff himself up to Vera? Jeez, he already had his own ‘girls to take care of.
Mikhail took a step away and Vera caught his sleeve before he could move too far away. “Wait!” she pleaded, her emotions slamming back into her body full force now that she was inside a shelter with five roaring, freestanding fireplaces placed strategically around the area.
When he turned to face her, he saw tears in her eyes. He froze, having no idea what to do. Suddenly, her cold lips were on his. Mikhail was rather uncomfortable with a crying girl kissing him, but by the time he finally thought to kiss back, she had already pulled away. “Sorry,” she murmured, “I get like this sometimes when I’m too warm.”
Mikhail noticed her legs rub together subconsciously. Oh, he thought. That was good to know. Charles had been watching him for a while now. He waited for Mikhail to see him before waving him over.
Mikhail swallowed and approached him, Vera closely following. Charles was an intimidating person physically and in terms of personality. He was an alpha in all ways, yet he knew when to let someone else win. The quote ‘If you can’t win, then lose carefully to win another day preferably when their back is turned,’ rang back into his head like every piece of treasured rhetoric and lore Charles passed on to them, seemingly insignificant crumbs the elite gathered and snowballed into their power.
His staggering height towered above Mikhail and Vera. While most male villagers were about 150 cm tall max due to food shortage and genetics, Charles was mammoth in comparison. He was 225 cm tall- having inexplicably grown even more massive in the years Mikhail had known him- and barrel-chested with an Ox’s neck and shoulders. Around his thick neck was a piece of leather string with various sharp teeth and claws arranged in a symmetrical pattern. Stories are rather inconsistent on where they came from. Mikhail knew it to be composed of trophies from many critters and occasional ferals that needed to be put down, but what had something such as mundane origins stopped a good story from spawning.
“Hello there miss, you’re looking very lovely. I do like a fair complexion,” he said genially ignoring the fact that she should not be there. That was one really thing about Charles, he actually waited to get as many facts as he needed before anyone got into trouble. No one had been killed or otherwise hurt or anything like that, but trouble was still something you wanted to avoid.
Mikhail tried to remain cheerful despite his wracked nerves. “She was going to be sold, and I figured she’d be better suited among friends than with some ass who coughed up the money to feed her father,” he explained. Feeding someone through someone else’s woe insinuated gluttony in [The Center]. It was a staple in the rhetoric of [The Center], talking about the unevenness between the people with means and those without.
“Well played, Mikhail,” he congratulated. He however immediately reoriented his feet and faced Vera. “I’m going to have to be blunt about this. Have you heard what keeps pokégirls from going feral?” She shook her head. The only people in the League who knew that were those who could afford to… and [The Center] of course. “It’s sex,” he stated bluntly.
“What?!” Vera squeaked.
“Do I look like I’m joking?” Charles said humorlessly, “Why do you think they call a Tamer’s squad a Harem? But, that’s not all. If you screw the wrong guy, you’ll end up bonding to him. It means you’ll have an impulse to protect and serve him. So, be careful who you fuck.”
Vera’s face went beet red from the insinuation. Girls were supposed to be pure little virgins until marriage these days. Didn’t happen. Although, there were always a few good ones like Vera.
Charles dropped another bomb, “I have a passing familiarity with your breed if you are what I think you are. Your libido- or how often you’ll need to have sex- will fluctuate depending on how warm you are. If you stay in the cold, you can go without for a long time, but your need and sex drive will increase exponentially the hotter you are. So, watch it. I don’t need you going feral on us.”
Charles nodded to Mikhail with a smile. It seems he was happy. Still, the reservoir of trivia floating through his skull never ceased to amaze everyone. Considering his roots, he was probably taught that stuff the moment his father thought he was ready. Fucking clandestine assholes keeping this shit to themselves.
It was hot, so he took off his jacket, now starting to sweat under it because of the warmth of the building, and slung it over his shoulder. He led Vera off to an unclaimed corner to explain some things about [The Center] and its rules, but before he could get too far she was clutching her cold form to his and mumbling her nervous ramblings to him.
“Please, I don’t know what to do. I’ve never had… sex. I can’t. It’s just not that easy…” she babbled on.
Mikhail, confused and distraught in his own way, grabbed her wrists and held her at arm’s length. “Vera, Vera, calm down,” he shouted somewhat frantically, “it’s not like you have to face that decision right now! Take your time and think about it.”
Vera looked at him and started to tear up. Fuck, what had he done? She sniffled a bit and got herself under control. “I’m sorry, Mikhail, but it’s hard to accept.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Vera, you have a family now. You’ll get through it with our help.” Just hearing that brought her tears back. She clutched him closely again, not crying but she did hiccup occasionally. It seemed the warmth really did make her emotional. How did that work anyways? Jeez, he never had to deal with this with his pokégirls. The only one who ever even got shirty with him on occasion was his Elf Queen, but that was just from the stress of coordinating a large amount of pokégirls. Maybe bringing a pokégirl of Vera’s breed to a sub-tropical island was not such a good idea.
“Vera, I’m going to go to bed right now. Right now, you’re amongst friends, but as a newbie you’ll get quite a bit of attention. Mingle if you’d like, if you’re ready for that. I’ve teleported too many times today. I’m only still standing because I was o charged with adrenaline, I couldn’t do anything else. In about two minutes, I’m going to collapse one way or the other, and I’d prefer it to be in my cot.”
Mikhail went behind a curtain and dropped dead onto a cot that had some of his things next to it. He felt bad abandoning Vera like that, but he wasn’t lying when he said he’d be on the ground one way or another. Teleporting seven times in one day was suicide unless he knew that where he was going was safe.
An indeterminable amount of time passed where he was dead to the world. And then, suddenly he felt a pressure on top of him. A bleary eye opened and he looked up and saw a silhouetted form. From the coldness of the touch, he knew it to be Vera.
“What’s up Vera?” he asked sleepily.
“I wanna lay down,” she said.
Mikhail was tired, so he didn’t really compute anything beyond the fact that there was a woman- well, more of a girl- in his small cot with him and he was too tired to perform. His Umbrea peaked up from the got next to his and hissed at Vera. She squeaked in fear and clutched Mikhail. Looking up at his Umbrea, he scowled tiredly at her. “Leave her alone, she’s a newbie and hasn’t figured out her place here yet. “Good night then,” he mumbled into the folded blanket he was using as a pillow.
He didn’t remain asleep for long. A cold cheek nuzzled against him, which was enough to awake him. “Vera,” he said, “I can get you a cot or mat. This really isn’t that big and one of us will fall off.” There was no need to see her to know that she felt hurt. Before she could get up and run off, he sat up and grabbed her sleeve to hold her in place.
Elsewhere, the older men and Charles watched the drama unfold to their great amusement. It was clear what was going to happen, but a moment of levity was not something to disregard especially in such a world where you don’t know if you’ll get to be light and carefree later on. Much Schadenfreude was had at Mikhail’s expense as they say his temperamental Umbrea become more and more irate and finding it hard to sit still and watch her master with the new Ice Maiden.
Someone nudged Charles. “Hey Charles, what’re we going to do with an ice-type? I don’t know what use she’ll be down here, as hot as it is,” one of the older members asked. He had been a mere 13 years old when he was rescued from one of the internment camps that the Tropical Confederacy. Now 16, he was much healthier and now had pokégirls of his own; he was a working man as much as anyone else.
Charles frowned in thought before an idea clicked and he glanced over to the staircase leading to their cellar. “Climate control,” he said.
“Huh?”
“We can use her to keep the cellar freezing so we can preserve food,” Charles clarified.
“Oh yeah, that’s a good idea.”
It was about that time that Mikhail’s Elf Queen stumbled upon the scene. She only frowned, but Charles could tell she was very upset. Pokégirls were territorial with their men unless they had gotten accustomed to the idea of sharing with another person. It was understandable that she’d be upset. “An Ice Maiden, huh?” she asked rhetorically.
Charles didn’t acknowledge the pokégirl for a few moments before he turned to her. “She’s another threshold,” he said, clear in his tone that she was not to be harassed or emotionally toyed with.
“Another?”
The pokégirls that were born as they were didn’t think the rising rate of thresholds was anything special. They just viewed it as humans ‘evolving’ into a higher tier. Of course, what human women had started becoming was the norm for them, so it is not as if they could understand the transition or what it meant to the young girls.
“We should welcome them and help them adjust,” Charles said; it was something he said often, “Their experience as humans allows them to be more akin to what you and your former comrades were during the war rather than the mindless ferals in the woods. The domestic pokégirls we find are far and few between all the ferals we have grouped together. It is something that should be cultured: a human mind with a pokégirl’s body.” At least, that is what he hoped. Traited men came closer to that than the thresholds did. Thresholds seemed to degenerate into subservient pokégirls the moment they bonded to someone. It was strange. Was there something in the bond phenomenon itself that caused their behavior to change? It was a thought for another time. Regardless of what his ideas had been, the thresholds were still a boon to their forces not just because of their abilities as pokégirls but because of the socialization they received before their threshold that allowed them to function within [The Center] with greater cohesiveness.
The Elf Queen’s eyes merely darkened and she left without a word. Maybe Charles should talk to Mikhail about his relationship with her. She seemed like she needed more attention from him. Charles would talk to him about that first thing in the morning.