Chapter 8
Mia sighed, she was more than a little frustrated with trying to teach the girls how to change to a younger form, apparently it wasn’t quite as easy as they had first thought it would be, it took more than a bit of magical talent and was more like a spell than a technique. Still several of the magically inclined girls had managed to learn though several of the girls had given up after a couple of weeks of no success even with dreamtime. Still despite that setback she was relieved that she was having a great deal of success helping the girls flesh out their skill sets. She couldn’t help but smile as she glanced around the training room. Nearly all of the girls could now use the sword with at least some level of competence. Wendy was doing extraordinarily well in her sword practice against Morrigan. The young girl seemed to have found within herself a burning desire to never be a victim ever again, which forced her to practice even harder than the rest of the crazily driven girls. Even Ivy was working hard at practicing her rapier work, well at least when she wasn’t planning some trick. It had been decided that a small fast sword was better for the quick girl than one of the larger slower swords that her friend Trix preferred in her combat form. She couldn’t help but to admire the two as they battled.
Ivy smiled as she with a flick of her wrist conjured a banana peel under Trix’s left foot an instant before leaping in with a vicious stab or at least what would have been a vicious stab if not for the leaf blade tech they were using to turn their weapons from lethal damage to something that only left bruises. It was enough for Trix to let out a painful grunt before falling on her backside as her foot slipped on the banana peel. “You know that wasn’t funny.”
Ivy smiled, “Oh please banana peels are classic, you just need to lighten up, besides how else am I supposed to win?”
Trix growled, “Not fair.”
Mia chuckled, “Alright you two hit the showers.”
Ivy grinned, “So do we get lunch after?”
Mia chuckled, “Yeah, yeah, just don’t hog the water, the recycling magic only works so fast.”
Ivy smiled as she left the training room with Trix in toe, “No worries.”
She watched them leave with a bit of a smile on her face. She was just happy they were enjoying their workouts as much as they were. She just sort of wished that Ember was doing half as well. Hell even Rain was doing better at learning to use the sword than she was. Rain despite her dislike of violence was viewing the sword practice as a form of art, which forced her to practice a lot as she took it as a point of pride to be as good as she could at all forms of art she tried.
She smiled and hugged Ember as the girl finished up her forms for the day, “Alright, you can go play in the kitchen if you want.”
“Ember cook.” She smiled gleefully before heading off for the kitchen.
Mia sighed as she went back to supervising the rest of the munchkins working on their sword work.
Wendy took the chance when Morrigan tossed her a water bottle to take a long drink before looking at her friend. “Any luck talking the boss lady into getting some more elves?”
Morrigan smiled, “Well we did enough hinting. So we can only hope. Leo’s down in Amethyst League with Xander doing some scouting at several of the ranches.”
“So hopefully we’ll get another elf, one that can work with you without flipping out.”
“Yeah, that would be nice. Shall we get back to it?”
Wendy smiled as she used levitate to float off the ground several inches before raising her long sword in a ready position, “Sure thing.”
~
Leo sighed at the price the cheapskate ranch wanted to give him for the various feral flying pokegirls they had managed to capture over the last several weeks of airship travel. He grumbled for a bit but decided to take the ranch’s offer of trade rather than cash as it was slightly more profitable all around. He turned toward Xander as the ranch assistant walked a few steps away to give them the illusion of privacy. “So see any girl you want to save?”
Rain nodded, “I’m looking.”
Leo nodded, “Xander?”
Xander had to work hard not to pull out his gun and shoot the assistant and rescue the girls, the only thing that stopped him was that he knew from his many conversations with Helen over the years that at least several of the girls would fight to defend the ranch. Still he couldn’t help but look over the sea of hopeful girls with some regret. He knew that they would only be able to save a few of the girls here but some were better than nothing. He dismissed the nonhuman looking ones with a sigh, it wasn’t that some of them weren’t cute but it would be hard to hide them back home. His eyes swept the crowd of naked girls only to land on one of the few girls with any type of clothes on, the girl was a particularly cute purple and blue haired girl that was happily playing on a merry-go-round rather than lined up with the rest. The girl’s short worn brownish dress did little to conceal her lengthy frame. His first thought was that she looked a lot like one of the girls from his dreams, his second was that she was definitely jailbait. His next thought as he caught her eyes for a brief moment was that this girl had a fire in her soul that couldn’t be extinguished. She reminded him a bit too much of a Scooby to leave behind in this place.
Leah smiled as she caught sight of the man from her dreams, well not figuratively but literally, the last several days she had been dreaming of the man rescuing her from this place. Her thoughts were racing as she walked toward the man from her dreams. She smiled as he asked her name, “It’s Leah, sir.” She held her breath as the guy smiled and asked “I don’t suppose you want to get out of here?” She couldn’t believe her luck, most of the guys that came here went for one of the more impressive girls, either a more impressive sex battler or a more impressive fighter, as she was neither she was a bit shocked that he had offered to buy her. “I would love to.”
The assistant frowned, “When was your birthday?”
Leah smiled, “Two days ago, so I’m legal.”
The assistant nodded, “Alright then, I’ll add her to your tab.”
Leo had to hold bite his lip to keep from saying something as Xander breathed a sigh of relief on hearing that she was legal. While the girl was fairly tall he was fairly sure she still had a few years until she turned eighteen like he thought, ah well there was plenty of time to tell him after he had sex with her.
Leo glancing over the sea of cute young naked girls as he paced around scanning girls as he went. He stopped before a particularly cute high elf girl with short brown hair and green eyes. “Guessing they cut your hair?” The girl’s snarl before she composed herself behind an iron mask confirmed his initial feelings about the girl. “Have a name?”
“1056 sir.” She glanced down at the ground so he wouldn’t see her anger at not having a proper name.
Leo frowned, “Ah, well we can fix that later. I’ll take her.” He turned toward Rain, “So any thoughts?”
Rain nodded, she had been looking over the girls and most of them weren’t all that interesting, but several of them stood out as being powerful champions if given the right opportunities. She pointed out several girls and whispered her reasoning in his ear. Leo smiled, “Her, her and her.” He pointed to several girls.
The assistant looked over the choices with no small amount of glee. “So a Lupina, an Ice Maiden and an Enchantress. Pricey, pricey, that last one alone is going to wipe out most of your balance.”
Leo nodded, “That’s fine, I have enough credits to pay for the rest.”
Xander wanted to strangle the guy for the gleeful way he wrung up the girls, as if they were no better than property. The fact that some of them didn’t even have human names horrified him in a way that he hadn’t felt since he first found out about demons.
Leo really hoped that Xander wasn’t going to do something horrible as he let the girls back toward the road and the pick up site.
Leah was just happy that the road leading away from the ranch was as free of brambles as it was. After a mile or so she had almost worked up the courage to ask where they were going when the younger of the males stopped and held up a hand indicating a stop. “Alright, now that we are away from the ranch I think some introductions are in order, I’m Leo Potter, this is Xander Harris. Please feel free to call us by our first names. Before we get into the rules and such things, there are several things we need to fix.”
Xander snorted, “Like your names.”
Leah sighed, she sort of liked her name.
He chuckled, “If you like your name you can keep it, but if you want a new one raise your hand and suggest one.”
Leo chuckled at a smiling Leah with her hands plastered to her sides. His smile slipped a bit as the rest of the girl’s all had their hands up. “Numbers?” He scowled slightly as the girls nodded their head. “Alright Miss. High Elf what do you want to be called?”
The girl formerly known as 1056 stepped forward, “Do you like Becky?”
He smiled, “Sounds perfect. Who‘s next?”
The teenage Lupina looked over at Xander hesitantly, “Do you know any better name than Spot?”
Xander wasn’t sure if the name Spot was better or worse than a number, but he figured they could come up with a better name. “How about Fenris?”
The young girl shook her head, “That’s a boy’s name.”
“I suppose Lupie is out of the question?”
She frowned, “I thought we were looking for better names than Spot. How about Maggie?”
Leo nodded, “If you wish.” He turned to look at the Ice Maiden, “So how about Frosty? No that‘s a bit too common how about Alsius?”
The ice maiden frowned, “So what’s that mean?”
Leo blushed slightly, “Frosty in Latin.”
The ice maiden smiled, “Alsius, Alsius, Alsius… It works.”
The faintly bluish skinned elf eared girl smiled, “So what do you have for me?”
Leo frowned before chuckling, “Well how about Sabrina?”
Xander almost choked as he tried to keep from laughing.
She frowned, she thought that was a perfectly good name, “What’s so funny?”
Xander chuckled, “Well it’s just that he got the name from an old show.”
“Was she powerful?”
He nodded, “Decently.”
“Well then I’ll take it.”
Leah frowned, “If I can ask, where exactly are we going?”
Leo chuckled, “Back to the ship, should give you a chance to meet the rest of the crew.”
Sabrina sighed, “So more walking, great.”
Leo chuckled, “Actually no, just a bit of flying.”
“Flying?”
Leo snickered as he pulled several broomsticks out of his pockets. “Yep flying.”
Sabrina blinked as the brooms were removed from pockets way too small to contain them. “How?”
“Just a little enchantment so that we can carry more things.”
“Oh, neat.”
Maggie frowned at the brooms, “Are those safe?”
Xander laughed, “If they were safe they wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. But don’t worry we’ll have everyone hold hands this first time.”
~
Gabrielle couldn’t help but chuckle as several shaky young teenaged girls stumbled off of their broomsticks after landing on the ship‘s deck. “Any trouble?”
Xander shook his head, “Nah they didn’t do to badly considering. We should probably get the poor girls inside and warmed up. Everyone other than Alsi there wasn‘t exactly dressed for the ride.”
Alsius shrugged, “Not my fault you can’t stand a little cold.”
Leah nodded, “Can we leave off the question of who’s we are until a warm bath at least?”
Gabrielle grinned as she took in the eye candy, “Sure follow me.”
Xander smiled as the group’s cute behinds disappeared from sight. “Alright so going to need a cold shower after that. Aren’t they a bit young?”
Leo shrugged, “How else are we supposed to combat the mind numbing “education” program of the league‘s?” He smiled, “And besides I’m pretty sure Leah likes you. She‘s probably going to need sex pretty soon as well.”
Xander nodded, “I was sort of afraid of that.”
“Oh please, get to know her a bit, I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself.”
“I’m just worried about Anya, she’s not exactly known for forgiveness.”
“Oh please, it was Anya’s idea, have fun, bring her back with you and have kinky, kinky sex with her, problem solved.”
“I don’t think it will be that easy.”
“What’s the worst she can do to you? Kill you? Auntie Willow would just bring you back.”
“That’s sort of what I’m afraid of.”
Leo chuckled as he wandered toward the main lounge, “Chicken.”
~
Morrigan smiled as she and Wendy worked on giving their new elf sisters massages. They had commandeered a part of the lounge to work. They had wanted to give their new sisters a nice welcome into the fold not to mention claim the girls for themselves and Gabrielle. She smiled as she remembered Ivy and Trix grabbing the new Lupina the second she made it into the lounge. She figured the new girl would help Trix with her pack abandonment issues. She spared a glance to where Leah was curled up in Xander’s lap while watching the movie. The only one of the new kids not here was the new Ice Maiden, though she suspected that one of the humans was taking the opportunity the hot bath gave them to tame her silly. She couldn’t help but grin as she trailed her fingers along Sabrina’s spine. She had a lot of plans for the elven Enchantress, lots of delicious plans.
~
Talsanra snuggled close to Dawn for warmth, they were keeping watch on the airship’s deck and her pajamas just weren’t cutting it. Though to be fair she would have been fine if she had been moving around but then she wouldn’t have been able to get in her snuggles with Dawn, “So how’s your vacation so far?”
“Surprisingly nice really, it’s not often I get a few days to myself anymore.”
“I’ve been enjoying the last couple of weeks, though sometimes when I wake up I have to pinch myself to prove it’s not a dream.”
Dawn chuckled, “I had to do that for several months after I married my wives.”
Talsanra nodded, “I don’t suppose I’ll ever get married.”
Dawn frowned, “Well nothing says you can’t get married. Well other than a bunch of idiot league officials. But hey since when do we pay any attention to that?”
“I guess not.”
Dawn smiled as she hugged the younger girl, “I’m sure things will work out.”
Talsanra smiled as she leaned into Dawn, now if she could just get up the nerve to ask for a taming before it became an issue she would be happy.
~
A barely awake Xander snapped awake as he realized that the body he was snuggled up against wasn’t Anya‘s. It took his mind a few seconds to catch up and remember that he and Leah had been sprawled on the lounge’s couch reading comic books when they had apparently fallen asleep.
Leah smiled up at Xander as he stirred, “You make a good pillow but I think next time I want a bed. Speaking of beds, you are going to need to help me not go feral, I’ve heard it’s horrible.”
Xander nodded, he wasn’t sure how to feel as Leah extracted herself from his lap before dancing out of the room with a bounce to her step and a whispered, “I’ll be waiting.” He was fairly sure that if he didn’t help her out she would be forced to get help from someone else fairly soon, and for some reason that didn’t sit well with him. It wasn’t a rational thought, hell he knew it wasn’t a rational thought. She was younger than some of the slayers they had and none of them interested him. Not really, not in any way other than an appreciation of their natural beauty. But damn it, here was a girl that he had just met that had crawled into his head and taken up residence, it was insane and infuriating but he couldn’t deny that she was damn hot. Still Anya had said to enjoy himself. He smiled as he wandered toward his room.