Amazon Apocalypse 2: Chapter 1 (Patreon)

“Our man...” Bridget purred, arm thrown over my chest.

“That’s right!” Sakura said, toying with Myrina’s token around my neck. It had just started glowing a moment ago and caught everyone’s attention. “Carter’s our man! Just the two of us! And we’re not sharing. I’ll lay the smackdown on any hussy trying to worm her way in.”

“And I’ll help you.” Bridget let out a small laugh as she drew little circles with her finger over my bare skin. Her nails were a little sharper than any human’s ought to be. Now that I thought about it, her teeth were sharper too. And the corners of her hair stuck up into little wolf-like ears. There wasn’t anything under them, but it gave her a distinctly wolf-like appearance.

The curse she’d inherited from the Chaosborn Lycans we defeated was still growing stronger. I wondered if it would affect her personality at all. Sakura’s impulsive and hot-tempered personality had certainly come to the fore after the System awakened her dormant oni lineage.

“We were here first!” Sakura rubbed her cheek against me. The horn jutting out of the top of her head was warm to the touch.

It was flattering to be fought over, and I’d like to think I would have come up with something clever to say in reply. But my head was busy. The moment Myrina’s Token started glowing, I received a prompt from The System.

Quest Completed!

Congratulations! You have satisfied all requirements for patronage as laid out by your agreement with the faction: the Amazonian Empire.

Your patron has been granted another opportunity to speak with you.

The moment the message cleared, golden light flew from the medallion, assembling itself into a familiar form. The toned body of a warrior woman coalesced across the bed as the three of us sat up. Red hair fell from her shoulders, and fine armor traced with enchantments like the ones I made to create Mana Bombs lined their entire length.

Though she looked fully human, now that I’d seen more of the universe following the integration, I couldn’t help but notice a certain sense of otherworldly beauty. And now that I’d ascended to D-Grade, I realized I’d never seen Myrina with a pimple or blemish of any kind.

My childhood best friend really wasn’t human, just as she said.

“Carter, you did it! I knew you would.” Myrina’s projection jumped onto the bed. She fazed right through it since she was merely made of light. But a moment later, her head popped out from under it, and she wrapped her arms around my chest in a big, warm hug. “I missed you.”

I returned Myrina’s tight embrace. “It’s good to see you again, Myrina.”

Off to either side, Bridget and Sakura crossed their arms and stared at the projection of the red-haired woman, locking me in a hug.

“Carter? Did you forget to tell us something?” Sakura gave me a hard stare.

Myrina stuck out her tongue in reply. “Ah, you two must be Carter’s concubines. A pleasure to meet you.”

“Concubines!” Bridget huffed.

“Hey! You’re the concubine. I was his first lover! And Bridget was second. We’re his two and only!” Sakura tried to pry Myrina’s projection off me, only for her hands to go right through the projection.

“Nope!” Myrina smiled widely as she pointed from Sakura to Bridget. “I found him first. You’re second at best. And you must be third.”

“What! No way! I was second.” Bridget jumped to her feet, and soon Sakura did the same.

“She’s trying to steal our man! Bridget! Pin her arms while I teach her a lesson.” Sakura pounded her fist into her palm.

Myrina had slipped right through Sakura’s gasp before, but she hadn’t realized Myrina was just a projection. She wasn’t really here, so any attempts to ‘lay the smackdown’ on her would be completely futile.

But I knew Sakura wasn’t the type to give up in the face of the impossible. This was going to take a while.

I flopped back down on the bed. Maybe I’d just let the three of them sort this out among themselves.

***

Sakura and Bridget soon discovered that Myrina was just a projection, and grabbing or punching her wouldn’t do much of anything. But, as expected, that didn’t mean they would stop trying.

If Myrina had offered to talk things out, they might have gotten tired and give up early. But Myrina was having fun of her own.

“That’s right! Thank you two for keeping my best friend Carter here company. I would have hated for him to have to survive the apocalypse on his own.” Myrina let out a smug laugh. “But I’m here to take him for his tutorial. So you two can wait patiently while I haul him off to my home and do who knows what with him!”

“I’m going to... argh!” Sakura swept her hand through Myrina’s head, grabbing nothing but air each time. “Bridget! Grab her and pin her!”

Bridget wrapped her hands around Myrina’s waist, trying to pin her down. She fell right through Myrina’s projection.

“That’s it!” Sakura lowered her shoulder and body-slammed Myrina’s projection, only to fly right through it. She landed on the corner of the bed I was lying on, snapping the frame in half.

I groaned as I suddenly found myself wedged between a mattress bent into a v-shape, then let out a long sigh. It seemed Myrina hadn’t lost her... combative sense of humor. It was one reason I found myself so often on the losing side of a wrestling match with her. I doubted my house would survive the fighting if she were present in person.

Crawling out of the mattress, I realized I’d have to be the peacekeeper. I kept a coffee maker near my beside table and set a pot to boiling, letting out a yawn as I did my best to ignore the nearby catfight.

When the machine spat out my cup, I took the first sip and sighed before returning to the commotion.

“Alright, ladies. I suppose some introductions are in order. Sakura, please put the chair down.” It took a bit of convincing, but I had my professional face on and the no-nonsense tone must have won everyone over. One by one, Bridget and Sakura turned from attacking Myrina’s projection to merely glaring at her.

For her part, Myrina stuck her tongue out, clearly enjoying herself. The fighting would have ended sooner if not for her taunting and teasing.

“Okay, Sakura, Bridget. This is Myrina.” I waved to the smug, red-haired Amazonian warrior with her tongue out. “She was my old friend when I was a kid and lived down the street. She’s the one who gave me this token, and she’s the one who warned me about the coming of the System. If not for her advice, I probably wouldn’t have survived until now. And that means you two would be living under Craig’s cruel and absolute rule. In a way, you have her to thank for your freedom.”

“That’s right! You may now bow down and thank me,” Myrina tilted her chin up. “And don’t worry, I promise to take very good care of Carter during his tutorial. When the two of us spend long hours alone. Just the two of us. Me and him, working up a sweat as I take him through all sorts of exercises.” She threw an over exaggerated wink my way.

“Oh yeah?!” Sakura picked up the chair again with a glare in her eyes.

“And Myrina, these two are Sakura and Bridget.” I pointed from one to the other. “Sakura was my boss at my office job, and Bridget was an intern there. I couldn’t have survived the Apocalypse without them.”

“The two of them seem like adequate concubines for you, Carter. They're fortunate to serve you. You and I can order them about like little minions. They can pick up the loot we leave behind when we hack our way through battlefields and deadly dungeons!”

Sakura’s grip around the chair turned white-knuckled. “Call us concubines one more time. I dare you!”

I sighed. “Myrina, don’t you have something important to tell me?”

Myrina laughed. “Oh, fine, Carter. I just wanted to see if your companions had the right attitude. I like them both. They have a proper Amazonian mentality and would fit in well back home. You really did complete my patronage quest quite well.”

Sakura curled her other hand into a fist. “I’ll show you an Amazonian mentality...”

Bridget crossed her arms and shook her head. “How did someone like you make friends with our Carter?”

“By kicking ass!” Myrina grinned. “And that’s just what I will teach him to do. And maybe you two as well, if you’re lucky. Since you’re part of his faction, you two are also eligible for his tutorial. Assuming... well...”

Myrina grimaced, looking embarrassed for the first time since her appearance.

“Assuming what?” I frowned.

Myrina coughed and ran her fingers through her long red locks. “The System doesn’t exactly make this kind of thing cheap. It’ll cost me a small fortune to get you here. I have one small fortune I’m willing to part with. But finding two more is going to be harder.”

“I see...” I ran my fingers through my hair. In other words, Myrina could bring me to her tutorial, but not Bridget and Sakura. They weren’t going to like that.

“No way!” Sakura jabbed a finger at Myrina. “You’re trying to steal our man! I knew it!”

“Nah, I’ll just borrow him for a bit.” Myrina waved her off dismissively. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring him back... eventually.”

Bridget glared. “Earlier you said you were going to steal him.”

Myrina stuck her tongue out again. “And if I was, you two are too weak to stop me! Maybe I should hang onto him until you get more levels and skills under your belts.”

I could practically hear Sakura’s teeth grinding together.

I had done an awful lot of studying and preparing to get ready for surviving an apocalypse. But none of my training had ever involved learning how to manage three angry women ready to fight over me at a moment’s notice. It hadn’t even come up as something I’d have to worry about.

And yet here I was.

“Alright, I’ve had just about enough of you...” Bridget shook her head.

Sakura frothed at the mouth, her face deep crimson with barely restrained fury.

Myrina smiled. “Good. I suppose that means the two of you won’t refuse the offer to spar with me if I can get my family to spare the funds to bring the two of you to our place to train?”

Bridget tilted her chin away. “I’ll fight you anytime. But even assuming Carter wants to go with you, what can you offer him? We’re doing pretty well for him ourselves. He’s leveling fast, thanks to us, and he’s already the highest-leveled human on this shard. What can you really do for him that we can’t?”

Sakura’s reply was a mutter of barely restrained anger that carried no discernible rage. Her white-knuckle grip on the chair in her hands was so great the wood splintered and shattered.

Myrina strode forward confidently, one hand on her hip near the shiny blade in a scabbard nearby.

“I’m pleased you think Carter’s doing so well. If he’s really the best on this shard, he has even more potential than I thought.” Myrina flashed a row of perfect white teeth at me. I wondered if she’d also unlocked the Charisma stat, and if she had, what level she’d gotten the stat to.

“But this is just one small shard on a newly integrated world,” Myrina continued. “You have a couple of species that have no idea what they’re doing fighting against one another. I doubt anyone on this shard has anything close to an optimized build. And I bet nobody knows how most System features work.”

“You’re saying you can explain things to him? Why can’t you just do that here with whatever you’re doing now?” Bridget placed her hands on her hips and glared.

Myrina shrugged. “While useful, my senses are pretty limited within a Farwalking Tablet. I can do so much more when up close and personal. Not to mention, only I can appear this way. I can't do the reverse to let him talk to people where I am. Also, I’d like to take Carter to some of our professional Theory Crafters back home, since they can do far more for his build than I can."

"You can relay the information for him," Bridget replied.

Myrina shook her head. "It would be nice to run some dungeons with him too. My clan has full access to a few. I want to see him fight for myself! Who knows, maybe we’ll even earn enough doing dungeon runs that we’ll be able to bring you two along next time.”

“There’s plenty to fight and kill here,” Bridget protested.

“You’ll steal him!” Sakura said, finally calming herself down enough to use words again.

I sighed, thinking of how best to make my plans known. I was going with Myrina, that much was certain. Attending her tutorial was an easy decision. There was so much I didn’t know about the System that she could teach me. Not to mention that it had been so long since I’d seen my old friend. I’d been ready to leave with her the moment she appeared, though I planned to keep that thought to myself, since I suspected Bridget and Sakura wouldn’t be too pleased to hear me say it.

So instead, I appealed to reason. We needed knowledge. Myrina had it. All I had to do was take a little trip to get it. They might still be unhappy if it were just our lives on the line, but we had more at stake than just our fates.

“I have to go with Myrina. Sakura, Bridget, she knows all about the System, and we know basically nothing. My class is difficult to master, and I want to make the most of it. This is a golden opportunity to prepare for the threats we’re going to face, and Myrina might very well save our lives. Maybe the lives of everyone in Crownhill.”

Myrina smirked, making eye contact with Sakura as she did so. It looked like she enjoyed stoking Sakura’s barely restrained fury. I remembered Myrina loved to wrestle and suspected her people weren’t called Amazonians without reason. From the look in her eyes, I could tell Myrina really did want to fight Sakura and take her measure.

And Sakura wouldn’t say no. She’d always had a short fuse, and I’d had to calm her down at work plenty of times. But ever since the System awakened her Oni bloodline, her rage had come out of whatever closet it had been buried in and was now amplified tenfold. She hadn’t changed so much as everything that had been Oni about her had been amplified.

“Don’t worry,” Myrina began. “The System won’t let him stay on my world forever. He’s from a newly integrated world, and the System doesn’t like people interfering with these sorts of things this early in the game. If it did, I’d come to your world myself instead of needing Carter to come to me for his tutorial. As would every patron hoping for influence over a new world. No, it’ll give him the boot in a week at most. Then he’ll be back in your loving arms.”

“A week? Do we have your word on that?” Bridget asked.

Myrina lost her smirk and her expression turned serious since she first appeared. “My word and my sacred bond. Besides, I really need him. I want to introduce him to my family. I hope that if I show off his handsome face a bit, people will change their minds about subsidising his training. That’ll make it much easier to pay the cost to have the two of you brought over for some training as well. And so the three of us can have our fight.”

Sakura, cheeks red, jabbed a finger at Myrina. “You’re introducing him to your family?! I haven’t even introduced him to my family yet!”

Bridget put a hand on Sakura’s shoulder. They whispered furiously for a moment, then turned back to Myrina and me.

“Alright, here’s the deal,” Bridget began, all business. “Carter comes back stronger, or we’ll take it out on your ass when we finally met you in person! This isn’t some romantic getaway! It’s a training mission!”

“And you!” Sakura grabbed me by the shirt collar. “No candlelight dinners! No picnics! And no drinking from the same cup of coffee! Just because you have two girlfriends doesn’t mean you get to have three!”

I chuckled and held my hands up innocently. “Sakura, Bridget, don’t worry. I love both of you. I’ll learn a lot and share everything I know with you. Hopefully Myrina and I can get some more money so the two of you can join us in person soon. But if not, I’ll share everything I learn with the two of you.”

Sakura wrapped her arms around me in a hug. She pulled me so tight I had to tap her back a few times so she’d loosen up enough for me to breathe.

“We’ll be gaining more levels while you’re gone,” Bridget promised, wrapping me up in a similarly tight embrace. “Don’t linger with your childhood friend too long. Otherwise you’ll fall behind!”

“Don’t worry. It's just a week. I’ll be back before the two of you know it.”

<Note>

There may be a prologue before this with an alternate POV in the final version. Haven't decided yet.

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