RoR 2 -CH2- (Patreon)

Leveling the pistol Warner pulled the trigger.

With a bang the man’s head became misshapen and he collapsed to the ground. Blood began to pool around his head and shoulders rapidly.

The sense of satisfaction at clearing injustice from the world once again filled it. Soothed his soul and filled his mind with thoughts of pushing the world back into balance.

“That it?” asked a voice from behind him.

“Yes. Their scales have been righted. They will now be judged in the after, their souls weighed, and punishment meted out,” Warner declared feeling the golden hum of his triumph circling around inside of him.

Turning his head he looked to Madison the troll. She was holding two corpses against her shoulder as if they were as light as bags of apples.

He could see her dark brown eyes through the ski mask she was wearing. Her short black hair was completely covered and left anyone looking at her with no idea what her hair color was.

Not to mention the mask covered her rather attractive looks. Daria and Madison had taken the time to cut, break, and shave at her flesh until it had healed into a new face. A troll’s regeneration was no joke at all.

Daria had taken to it as if she were shaping clay and kept checking the results against her future sight.

The big troll had gone from handsome to quite pretty in two nights, though a great deal of her features and her general looks remained the same.

“Oh. Okay. Uhm, cool,” she said with a smile in her voice. He couldn’t see her mouth but it was obvious in her tone.

There was no injustice on her at all anymore. She smelled quite nice, in fact.

“We will need to speak after this,” Warner declared, holding her eyes with her own.

“Uh, oh… ah… okay… Yellow Eyes,” Madison murmured, turning her gaze to the corpse of the man near his feet. Walking over to it she picked it up with one hand and casually tossed it over her shoulder. “Should we go?”

Letting out a slow breath Warner looked around the crack-house.

Gunshots were a normal occurrence in places like this but that didn’t mean they should linger. Daria had been quite specific that they didn’t have time to “dilly-dally”.

“Yes, we shall go,” Warner stated and then turned toward the front of the house.

Stepping over several people who were unconscious in the hallway Warner spared them a hope. He wished that when the police arrived, these individuals would get the care they needed. They if they had pending warrants, they’d receive the punishment they deserved, but then get treatment for their obvious addictions.

Grimacing at the likelihood of that happening, Warner opened the front door and stepped out into the darkness of the night. The last he’d looked at a clock, or knew what time it was, would put them in the pre-dawn hours. Somewhere at three-am.

“I forgot how nice and close the van is,” said Madison happily behind him who passed by him at a light trot. “Getting blood all down my back. It’s in my ass-crack and I think it’s getting up in my junk now.”

That single statement broke Warner straight out of his deep enjoyment of his actions.

I… uh… ew. That’s kinda awful.

“Its in your… junk,” Warner repeated.

“I mean, I think so? I do get kinda warm down there when you get all golden and stuff. But this doesn’t feel like that,” Madison complained as she reached the back of the van. “Okay, yeah, that’s definitely blood in my junk. Ugh. Disgusting.”

The back doors of the van opened up from the inside and a pair of arms came out to grab one of the corpses.

“Toss those two on the sheet,” said Aelia from inside the van. “You can change after we get them loaded. Daria sent an extra set of clothes.”

“She did? I love Daria,” Madison said simply, tossing the two corpses into the van.

“Trust me, I get that,” Aelia replied as Warner walked up to the back of the van.

“That makes sense. You’re her girlfriend after all,” answered Madison who stepped up into the van and moved past Aelia.

The comment wasn’t wrong either.

Daria had stepped up her pursuit of Aelia and had finally cornered the other woman a week ago. Formally and unequivocally getting the other woman to say she was willing to be her girlfriend and promptly slept with her.

They were now in an odd, messy, and happy, three way relationship. Where the three of them were dating one another.

Aelia looked to Warner and gave him a crooked smile. Her pale skin practically glowed in the faint moonlight, her dark brown eyes reflecting the light.

He was once again struck with the thought that they were almost too large to be real and fit in her face in an odd way. So dark and large were they that he felt like he could fall into them. That he’d have to grab at her long blonde hair like it was a lifeline to get back out.

Her athletic and thin frame belied the hidden strength she could posses when she wished. Strength Warner couldn’t place but felt like it was born of the fact that she was a Poltergeist. A spirit inhabiting the body she was in that wasn’t originally hers.

“She’s not wrong, I guess. I’m yours and Daria’s girlfriend at the same time, aren’t I?” muttered Aelia.

“Very much so,” answered Warner with a grin. The stink of injustice had fallen away from Aelia in the last day. She smelled faintly, sweetly, of serving justice directly.

Just as Madison did.

“You driving?” Aelia asked, putting her hand to the interior of the van doors. Behind her Madison was already butt naked, wiping at her crotch with the shirt she’d been wearing.

“Ugh, it’s all the way up to my damn clit,” grumbled the troll.

“Yes. Yes, please,” Warner said, not wanting to get into the back of the van with a naked troll and three corpses.

Nodding her head as if she’d expected that Aelia gave him a wide smile and pulled the doors shut.

Moving around to the drivers side door, Warner opened it and clambered in.

Since he’d met with Jenny nearly a month or two ago, and laid the realities of the world upon her, he’d been working diligently in his “job” as his family called it.

Taking care of a number of individuals who had all deserved death sentences.

Luckily they’d all been human and had required none of his power at all.

Because right now, the last thing he wanted to do was use his powers. The sickness that’d rolled through him after his last usage had put him to the floor.

For days he’d laid around and did nothing at all.

Thankfully his daughter knew about what he was now. Explaining why he was so sick was incredibly easier after that.

Pulling the seatbelt into place, Warner turned the key in the ignition and pulled away.

This had been a calculated and precise attack.

Aelia had used some of her old contacts to get Warner some new ones.

Now they had several people sympathetic to their cause in the PID as well as the local police agencies in the state.

They were operating with more information now than they ever had before.

***

Warner stirred as someone repeatedly shook his shoulder. To the point that it was obvious he was being woken up and it wasn’t accidental.

“Uuuungh… what?” groaned Warner, forcing his eyes to part and look at his antagonizer.

Maya was sat in a wheel-chair next to his recliner.

“Dad, time for physical therapy,” she said, giving him a smile as his eyes focused in on her.

His daughter shared many features with her mother.

Black hair, dark eyes, petite, and decidedly of Asian heritage.

Thankfully her hair had finally grown out and the scars across her head were nice and covered up.

“Oh, yeah, okay,” Warner said, his brain stumbling to an active position.

“I offered to take her,” said Bodil from the couch nearby. She was idly carving at a piece of wood and lifted her storm-gray eyes from her work to meet his own.

Pale yellow hair fell behind her shoulders in an unbound fashion. She was also wearing street clothes that casually emphasized her extremely attractive and well generously proportioned curve to her.

“You drive almost as bad as Daria does, Bo,” complained Maya.

Snickering at that, Bodil shrugged her shoulders and looked back to the wooden piece in her lap.

“Its not like I have a driver’s license,” offered Bodil as if it were an explanation.

“What? You failed yesterday?” Warner asked, pulling his feet in. The recliner pinged as it went into an upright position.

“It wasn’t my fault this time. The instructor kept hitting on me so I drove back to the DMV and registered a complaint,” hissed Bodil. “I can test again in two weeks. That’s fine. Till then I’ll just make sure Madison comes with me so my learner’s permit is valid.”

To Warner it was almost incomprehensible that Madison had a driver’s license where Bodil didn’t. If he was being generous Warner could say Madison was one of the most forgetful people he’d ever met.

Though if he was being honest, she was also incredibly knowledgeable about the things she could remember.

She and Daria had been working on memory techniques and he’d seen a noticeable change already in the troll.

“I’ll drive you, Maya,” Aelia said, walking into the room. “If you don’t mind that is. I need to stop off at the store real quick and buy a few things anyway while you’re working.”

Maya turned and looked at Aelia without responding.

Several seconds passed before she nodded her head once.

“Thanks, Aelia. That’d be nice,” Maya said, turning her wheel chair and scooting over toward the woman.

“It’s my pleasure,” Aelia said with a genuine smile. She’d been working hard to understand Maya, as well as build a friendship with her. She and her hadn’t clicked as easily as Bodil and Maya had.

Maya and Aelia exited the living room and went into the garage. The sound of car doors unlocking was preceded by Maya going down the ramp they’d put in so she could get into the garage easier.

Aelia gave him a smile and a wave of her fingers. Warner returned the wave, thankful for her stepping in, before she closed the door to the garage.

“That was rather nice of her. She’s really working toward the step-mother thing,” Bodil murmured, the tip of her blade digging into the wood and flicking out a small chunk.

It landed in the box between her knees which was full of bits of wood and sawdust from her work.

Thinking on that, Warner wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

The conversations he had with Daria about Bodil had become quite frank. In general, the young woman had failed in her attempts to distance herself from him. That under her slightly disagreeable nature was someone who was quite concerned with him, and how he felt about her.

Her inexperience was fouling up her own emotions and wants was the way Daria phrased it.

All he had to do was give her time and space. Bodil would “find herself” and go about it in typical Bodil fashion.

Warner wasn't eager to “add to his harem”, however.

Truthfully he was having issues keeping up with Aelia and Daria alone. Madison was moving on him in her blunt and careless way as well despite him shooting her down at every turn.

If being pushy and forward with Bodil would knock her off the course she was traveling, Warner was more than willing to make that his goal.

Considering he’d pushed at her here and there to get distance from her and it hadn’t worked, he was more than willing to change up his tactics.

Okay. Here we go then.

“Don’t be like that. We all know Maya would rather you be her step-mother. Even over Daria,” Warner commented. Reaching up he rubbed at his eyes with the palms of his hands. “Bodil James doesn’t sound awful as a name, either.”

Letting his hands fall back to his lap he looked to the rune-reader. She was staring at him flatly now.

“There a problem, Bodil James?” Warner asked, hitting the name with some emphasis. Bodil’s eyes narrowed at that a look of mild distaste on her face.

Ah, that’s working.

“Don’t give me that look, Bodil James. It’s not as if I don’t know how you feel,” said Warner feeling victory within his grasp. “Know exactly how you feel and how you’re fighting it. Know what you want and deny.”

Bodil’s eyes widened abruptly, her fingers clutching the knife and the wooden carving. Her skin was paler than even Aelia’s right now. Looking more akin to a ghost or a piece of fine china.

“I… don’t… I do not-I’m going to my room. Madison and I are going to go practice driving in a short while,” letting out a breath that sounded strained, Bodil set her woodworking down on the table. Brushing her hands together several times over the box she got up and left the room.

Nice. That worked perfectly.

Pulling out his phone, Warner flicked open Daria’s contact listing and waited. He didn’t need to do much more than plan to write out his message to her in his head.

Once he planned out what he was going to do, and that he would do it, Daria would see it.

In the mundane events of his life, Daria knew all that he did, in every way.

A message popped up.

“Really, Warner? Really? You said what her married name would be in triplicate. Then told her you knew how she felt. In triplicate.”

Frowning, Warner realized that he wasn’t going to like what Daria was going to say. That maybe this wasn’t the victory he wanted and perhaps he’d actually screwed up.

A second message came in quickly. Daria was clearly typing this out as she went. Last he knew she was out shopping at the grocery store.

“Are you trying to slam-dunk her into the harem faster than she’s ready for? She’s already writing up a message to me to talk about the fact that you know how she feels. That she’s not sure she can keep it together anymore and will pursue you.

“That she’s terrified it’ll ruin her friendship with Aelia and I as well as Maya. Why do you do this to me?”

With a grimace and a sigh Warner hung his head over his phone. This was exactly what he didn’t want. It was the opposite. The last thing he wanted was more women in his harem, as Daria reminded him often.

Daria didn’t send anything more. Clearly waiting to give him a chance to respond for once.

Which meant she really wanted an answer.

Tapping in his message, he sent it as a very simple statement.

He didn’t want more relationships. Aelia was already one too many.

Another message came through a second after his finger touched the send button.

“Too bad. Bodil is destined to be with us. Even she knows this and was resisting it for the sake of what she believed.

“All you did was speed it up and brought her closer, faster.

“And before you get any other bright ideas, my darling Warner, my shining sword, Madison will join us. Don’t fight it. She already made her choice when you didn’t kill her.

“Do you understand? My love? Please tell me you understand and you’ll stop this nonsense. You’re just hurting people you care about. People you’ll deeply care about soon enough.”

“I understand,” muttered Warner as he began typing in the same words he spoke. “I’m sorry, my Fruitloop. I just don’t think I can handle so many relationships. It’s a lot of work and attention that I don’t think I can invest in them.”

Another response came through instantly after he tapped the button.

“They’re aware! As I’m aware. There will be fights. Disagreements. Resentment about being neglected. Bodil most especially as this’ll be the first relationship she’ll have ever been in.

“You’re not helping it. You’re hindering it. Knock it off.”

Fingers limply holding to his phone, he could feel Daria’s anger at his actions seeping through her written words.

He hadn’t just acted in a way that’d pushed Bodil closer, he’d angered Daria.

Upset her.

And that was the last thing he wanted to do.

Another message ticked in before he could begin to write out that response to her.

“I know, my love. I know. But there’s only one way out of this situation. You tell Bodil you aren’t interested, that you want nothing to do with her romantically.

“You’ll have to do the same to Madison. That is the only way you can get out of this situation from happening. And we both know you don’t want to do that. We’ve talked about what each one would do if you told them such a thing.”

Warner didn’t.

Telling both of those women such a thing would end his friendship with them. Neither woman would be able to stay around as a friend, acquaintance, or an assistant in his goals.

Their pain at being rejected would outweigh their ability to stay around him in any capacity.

Despite not wanting to be in relationships with either women, Warner couldn’t deny he wanted them around. That he was indeed attracted to them at the same time.

“Got it. I understand. Sorry. Should… I go apologize to Bodil or something? Tell her exactly why I said what I did?” Warner asked aloud, not bothering to type the message in this time.

“Actually. Yes. That’d help. She’d feel like she was in control again, would be amused, and even know what you’re thinking. Go do that.

“Thank you, dear. I appreciate you trying to help more than you’d ever know. Oh, and when Bodil starts acting on this later on, don’t complain. You did this to yourself.”

Levering himself up from his chair Warner tucked his phone away in his pocket. He had a rune-reader to apologize and explain himself to.

Siv flapped out of the corner it was perched in and landed on Warner’s shoulder.

“Warner. Warner, good. Love, Warner,” said the raven, promptly rubbing it’s beat against his jaw. “Mean. Warner, good. Mean, no. Love, Warner.”

“Yeah. Got it. Don’t be mean to the rune-reader. She loves me,” Warner grumbled, reaching up to pet the raven.

“Yes. Warner, yes. Yes. Yes.”