Draft of a side project - Bodyguard Chapter 1 (Patreon)

I've been putting off posting this because there's alway something I want to mess with, which is how I've usually ended up abandoning projects. So screw it. Here it is. I wrote the majority of this in one sitting a while back and have been poking at it every now and then.

This is basically OP Class litRPG Isekai, with the minor twist that there are two main characters and the one with the OP class is bound to the other, less impressive one.

There are a lot of things I'm not happy with, but I figured I'd let you guys have a look at it if you're interested. I apologize for the formatting of the attributes; I haven't figured out how to use tabs in posts here.

All comments, including and especially critical ones, are warmly welcome.

Working title: Bodyguard

Chapter 1.

Nicola Stamper was having a good time. No, a great time! He was in an exclusive nightclub, he was with his friends, he had his dad’s credit card in his pocket and a beautiful girl sitting next to him. But with great credit limits came great bottle orders. Nicola had had too much to drink. Nicola was not feeling so great.

He looked at Stacy, his ‘girlfriend,’ and saw her looking at him funny for a moment before she went back to the ditzy girl that all his friends knew. “Sorry, boys,” she cooed, her voice cutting over the music. “I’ve gotta take this one home before he becomes completely useless.” She smiled suggestively as she took his arm and hoisted him to his feet, to the cheers and jeers of his friends. “Go easy on him, Stacy!” someone called, and she stuck her tongue out at the speaker, her eyes smouldering in a way that almost made Nic jealous.

God, she’d been perfect tonight, hadn’t she? Touchy, just clingy enough, talking him up to his friends, making nice with their girls… should he go for it? The booze said yes, definitely! But there were good reasons not to, weren’t there? He knew her too well, didn’t he? Or rather, he knew about her. He wasn’t sure that anyone actually knew Stacy. Maybe his dad did? Anyway, no. Terrible idea.

As Stacy straightened Nic’s shirt he was vaguely aware of her glancing at someone and jerking her head towards the door. Oh, right. Charlie. Charlie was here. Of course.

“Come on, big boy,” Stacy said just slightly too loudly, nestling in next to him so his arm was over her shoulders and her own around his waist. “Let’s get you out of here.”

The man at the door let them out with a respectful, “Good night, sir. Madam,” and they were outside in the cool air of a London summer night. Nicola stood unsteadily, leaning on Stacy and unsure what had just happened. They’d been drinking, talking about getting a couple of chalets in Switzerland for winter…

“Charlie will be here with the car in five minutes,” Stacy said into his ear, her voice all business now. “Think you can stay on your feet that long?”

“Yes,” he stated confidently as his left knee almost buckled, and Stacy had to steady him. He looked at her as he tried to figure out if he should go in the alley to vom, go in the alley to take a piss, or try to do neither so he didn’t disgust Stacy. Fucking hell, she was well fit, wasn’t she, with her side cut and her tight purple dress and her yank accent and her ink? Yeah, she was a little older, but, like, hot older. It almost made him wish she really was his girlfriend. She wasn’t. It was important to remember that, but it was also important that other people think so. Oh yes. Very important.

“Aaaaay, Nicky-booooy!”

There came a holler from the club entrance. Aston and his girl Tricia had come out, and they were coming over. Shite! Had to sell it, right? He was supposed to tell her first, but…

“Sorry about this, love,” Nic mumbled, and pressed his lips to Stacy’s.

~~~~~~~~

Anastasia Cole was not having a good time, but it was about to get better. In a few minutes Charles would bring the car around. He would drop Ana off at her apartment and she could finally get out of this ridiculous dress and these idiotic shoes, get her makeup off, and sleep for the next ten hours.

Well, that wasn’t quite fair. She liked the dress, and the shoes were surprisingly comfortable for a nearly 3 inch heel. She just disliked the context in which she wore them. Who she needed to be to sell the illusion. ‘Stacy.’

In any case, soon Nicola would be Charles’ problem. Until the next time he wanted to go out, that is, which mercifully wasn’t that often. And in only a few weeks the boy would be off to college. No, ‘university’. He’d already been to ‘college.’ She still wasn’t used to the lingo. Then she’d only have to deal with him a few times per year, and what a relief that would be.

To be fair, tonight hadn’t been as bad as it might have been. Nicola had neither hit on any other women in front of her or thrown up down the front of her dress, so that was something.

“Aaaaay, Nicky-booooy!”

Ana threw a glance at whoever that was, but it was only Nicola’s friend Aston and his girl-of-the-moment Patricia. Ana didn’t like surprises, but they were both drunk and unlikely to cause any trouble.

“Sorry about this, love.”

Ana didn’t like surprises. When she turned to look at Nicola and he wrapped his arms tightly around her, mashing his lips against hers, she very nearly took him down.

It wasn’t the fact that he kissed her. She had kissed him many, many times before. They were posing as a steady couple, after all, and physical affection was an important part of selling that. Neither was he a terrible kisser, so it wasn’t exactly a burden. But they had a procedure. He was supposed to telegraph or explicitly ask her – in an appropriately romantic way – ahead of time. That way she could act appropriately. As it was she froze for a moment before relaxing against him and responding, and she had to hope that Aston and Patricia were too drunk to notice the lapse.

But that surprise, annoying as it was, she could handle. What she could not accept was the way she, a couple of seconds in, suddenly felt faint. The way her knees went weak. It was like the world had dropped out beneath her, and Nicola was the only point of stability that existed. Was she…? No. Surely not? She had kissed a lot of people, and she would be damned if this brat was the one –

Ana hit the floor hard, the air leaving her lungs with a painful “Oof”. She hadn’t even known that she was falling, and having Nicola land on top of her did not help. She felt something cold and smooth under her bare back, nothing like the pavement she would have expected, and when she checked her surroundings everything was wrong. It was dark. There were no streetlights, though she could see the flickering lights of small fires – torches? – nearby, visible which lit up a faint haze in the air. They were surrounded by tall standing stones, and beyond those, trees, and the air smelled like pine and leaves, ozone and sulphur.

This was all wrong.

Alright, she told herself. Calm. Assess. First, the client.

Nicola was out cold, but otherwise looked unharmed. With any luck he would not throw up and drown himself before she could figure this out.

Second, the situation. Outside the city. No idea what happened, and no immediate way to figure that out. Drugs? Gas? Leave it for later.

Third, threat assessment.

“It worked! Ahaha, it worked!” A mad, high-pitched cackle came from somewhere to her left, where she hadn’t been able to see because Nicola was in the way. She pushed herself up on one hand, easily rolling him off her. That, at least, felt right. She felt strong and whole, like she could take her heels off right now and run a marathon.

“Go!” the voice chortled. “Take the boy and prepare him! Soon –”

“My lord,” came a different, lower voice. “There’s two of them!”

“What?” said the first voice. Anastasia was sitting up now, though Nicola was still pinning her legs. She saw three figures, but the light was behind them and while their silhouettes were clear, she couldn’t see any detail. “Oh, so there is,” the voice continued, sounding bored now. “Prepare the boy. Do as you wish with the girl.”

“Right you are, my lord,” said a third voice. Ana did not like the leer implicit in his tone at all.

As two of the figures began to approach, Ana pulled out her very illegal semi-automatic pistol from her purse and trained it on them. “Stop right there, or I will shoot,” she said, making sure to be loud and clear. No room for misinterpretation. One of the men hesitated, but they came on. She gave them two more steps to change their minds.

The pistol barked and bucked in her hand, the comfortable, acrid smell of gunpowder quickly crowding out the scents of the forest. One-two, three-four. Five rounds left. The man on the left stopped on the spot, looking down with a confused moan before he dropped. The other continued forward. The pistol barked again, and he fell two metres from her and Nicola. Four rounds left.

“Stay where you are,” Ana ordered the third figure. With her pistol trained on him she pushed Nicola while pulling her legs in and slowly got to her feet.

“What…” the figure said, then seemed to recover. “Useless thugs,” he mumbled, seemingly to himself, as Ana circled to get a better look at her opponent. “Have to do everything myself these days…”

With the light no longer directly behind the man, Ana could see that he was old. He had a long, grey beard, and was wearing a fancy robe of some sort, like he’d just come from a costume party. That mattered little, however, as he reached to his belt and drew what was, unmistakably, a long, narrow sword.

“Drop it,” Ana instructed him. “I will not warn you again.”

“Foolish girl,” the man sneered and took a step forward. “What those two would have done to you would pale –”

Six-Seven-Eight. Two in the chest, one in the head. One round left. Nine more in the mag in her purse.

There was a blue shimmer around the man as the first bullet hit him. Then he dropped like someone had flipped his switch to ‘off’, his sword clattering to the ground.

Ana’s vision blurred slightly around the edges. She blinked as she approached each of the fallen men, checking for a pulse before proceeding to the next. The blurriness didn’t seem to want to go away, so she rolled her eyes, which sometimes worked. When her eyes reached either lower diagonal direction, text scrolled into her vision.

[Congratulations! Your party has defeated: Human Summoner, level 22; Human Cultist, level 10; Human Cultist, level 12. You have been awarded: Growth Crystal, Major; Growth Crystal, Minor; Growth Crystal, Lesser]

[Attention: Growth Crystals are set to auto-consume. Your share of the experience awarded, based on your contribution, is 733 experience points.]

[No Class detected. Class set to Guardian Angel, based on memories, aptitudes, and life experience.]

There were times when Ana wished that she could allow herself to feel things the way other people did. This was not one of them. This was surprising and distracting enough without having to deal with messy emotions like fear or confusion.

[Congratulations! You have reached Guardian Angel, level 3. 6 cumulative advancement points awarded.]

When she read that line, the world stopped. Her vision was completely filled by a translucent field of information. She couldn’t hear, smell, or feel anything. She couldn’t move, frozen in a crouch with her hand on the neck of the old guy with the sword. She couldn’t even breathe, but after a few moments she realised that she didn’t feel a need to. It was literally as though time had stopped, except for her mind.

[Advancement initialised. System insertion detected. Partial calibration performed. Potential for world-incompatible skills detected. World-incompatible skills not included in summary.]

INDIVIDUAL SUMMARY

Name: Anastasia Cole

Race: Outsider, Summoned (Human aspect)

Age: 26

Classes: Guardian Angel (3) (Hidden, shown as Companion (3))

Experience: 133/800

Attributes: Base Multiplier Effective

Strength: 14 1  14

Endurance: 18 1  18

Vitality:  15 1  15

Agility:  18 1  18

Dexterity: 15 1  15

Perception: 13 1  13

Acuity:  13 1  13

Willpower: 15 1  15

Charisma: 18 1  18

Connection: 13 1  13

Advancement Points: 6

Abilities:

Hidden Class (Guardian Angel)

Guardian Angel

Devotion

Danger Sense (Special)

Skills:  Level

Command 2

Inspect  1

[Note: Skills only partially calibrated. Please use known skills to continue calibration.]

[You have 6 Advancement Points available. Please spend Advancement Points now!]

“What kind of nerd shit is this?” Ana grumbled silently to herself. For probably the first time in her life she wished that Nicola was awake, and that she could ask him if he knew what was going on. He understood this stuff. He’d even dragged her along once when he played his pretend games with his nerd friends. She had been the picture of polite disinterest the whole night, looking pretty while playing with her phone. To be fair, they had all had fun, nobody got drunk, and nobody tried to feel her up. All in all it had been one of the better social events Nicola had taken her to, much better than when he went out with his friends from ‘college.’

[You have 6 Advancement Points available. Please spend Advancement Points now!]

She still couldn’t move. The text wanted her to do something and she had a feeling that she wouldn’t be free until she did it, but she had no idea how.

“How do I do that?” she tried to say, but thinking it seemed to be enough. “What are these points?”

[Advancement Points are earned by gaining class levels, or by completing certain achievements. Advancement Points must be spent if possible on gaining a class level. Advancement Points are used to increase Attribute Multipliers.]

“Alright,” she sighed mentally. “Boost my fucking… perception, I guess, as much as possible, and let me try to fix this.”

[Perception Multiplier increased to 1.3 for a total of 6 Advancement Points. New effective Perception: 16.9]

[You have no Advancement Points to spend. Advancement finalised.]

~~~~~~~~

Nic woke up and immediately wanted a do-over. He was stiff, his head hurt, and his mouth tasted like dirt. Which was, when he thought of it, better than expected. He swung his legs off the bed –

With his legs still straight out, his feet hit the floor. He was not in his bed. He was on the ground.

“Wuuuh…” he said, forcing himself to sit up. This only made his head feel worse, and he fought a sudden urge to vomit.

“Mmm?” he went on, forcing his eyes open, then squeezing them shut again as the bright sunlight blinded him.

Whatever he was sitting on, and had been sleeping on, it was hard. At least he wasn’t directly on the floor. He could feel something soft and fuzzy under his hand, if thin, and he had something similar partially draped over him as a blanket.

As the rest of his faculties slowly came online, he heard an angry but distinctly feminine groan. He turned towards the sound and carefully opened his eyes again, blinking until he got used to the light.

Stacy was wiping at her eyes angrily. Her eyes were bloodshot, her makeup was a mess, and there were tears streaming down her face. Nic was confused. Why was Stacy here? Why was Stacy crying and wearing her dress from last night?

Partial memories drifted in. Stacy taking him out of the club. Stacy’s arm around him. Kissing Stacy… had he kissed Stacy?

Yeah, yeah, he’d kissed Stacy. Maybe he hadn’t done it right, but he could smooth that over. But why was Stacy here with him in the morning? In her dress. Crying.

Oh, no.

“Stace…” he asked very, very carefully. “Did we…?”

“You fucking wish,” she muttered and turned to him. “I’ve got mascara in my eyes. Not like there’s cotton pads and remover in the middle of the forest, and these bastards certainly didn’t have any.”

“Cotton pads…?”

“Don’t worry about it. Now that you’re awake, do you have any signal?”

He checked his pockets and found his iPhone. 38% battery, no bars.

“No, none,” he said.

“Me neither,” Stacy said. “Alright. Look down and to the left and tell me what you see.”

“Why?” Nic asked, confused.

“Do it.”

Nic obediently turned his head to look.

“Not like that,” Stacy said flatly. “Just your eyes.”

Nic did as she said. There was a line of text there. Odd.

[Congratulations! Your party has defeated: Human Summoner, level 22; Human Cultist, level 10; Human Cultist, level 12. You have been awarded: Growth Crystal, Major; Growth Crystal, Minor; Growth Crystal, Lesser]

[Attention: Growth Crystals are set to auto-consume. Your share of the experience awarded, based on your contribution, is 367 experience points.]

[No Class detected. Class set to Libertine, based on memories, aptitudes, and life experience.]

[Congratulations! You have reached Libertine, level 2. 3 cumulative advancement points awarded.]

The world stopped. Like, literally everything stopped completely, except that Nic could still think, and he got a chance to actually try and catch up with what was happening.

[Advancement initialised. System insertion detected. Partial calibration performed. Potential for world-incompatible skills detected. World-incompatible skills not included in summary.]

INDIVIDUAL SUMMARY

Name: Nicola Stamper

Race: Outsider, Summoned (Human aspect)

Age: 19

Classes: Libertine (2)

Experience: 117/450

Attributes: Base Multiplier Effective

Strength: 11 1  11

Endurance: 10 1  10

Vitality:  12 1  12

Agility:  10 1  10

Dexterity: 14 1  14

Perception: 10 1  10

Acuity:  12 1  12

Willpower: 10 1  10

Charisma: 12 1  12

Connection: 10 1  10

Advancement Points: 3

Abilities:

Fast Friends

Stimulating Conversation

Skills:  Level

Inspect  1

[Note: Skills only partially calibrated. Please use known skills to continue calibration.]

[You have 3 Advancement Points available. Please spend Advancement Points now!]

“What?” Nic tried to say, but his throat was paralyzed. The text responded anyway.

[Advancement Points are earned by gaining class levels, or by completing certain achievements. Advancement Points must be spent if possible on gaining a class level. Advancement Points are used to increase Attribute Multipliers.]

[You have 3 Advancement Points available. Please spend Advancement Points now!]

“Oh. Oh, that is absolutely blinding, isn’t it?” Attributes? Classes? This was just like the role-playing games he loved to play with his secret friends. Even better, it was like some of the mangas he hid in the spare suitcase in his closet! He’d only gone and been isekai’d, hadn’t he? He knew how this worked! He’d get to be an awesome hero! He wouldn’t have to go to university, or get a job at his father’s firm, or anything!

Nic’s whole body ached, especially his pounding head. He was feeling stiff and cold and sick, and yet this was the best day of his life. He even had Stacy here, which… was a mixed blessing, come to think of it.

Alright, now, how did this usually go?

“Um,” he said. “What do the attributes do, please?”

[Strength: Affects the maximum amount of force your muscles can generate.]

[Endurance: Affects your ability to maintain physical exertion, as well as your ability to stave off the effects of hunger, thirst, and exposure to the elements.]

[Vitality: Affects your ability to withstand physical harm, disease, and poison, as well as your ability to recover from such effects.]

[Agility:  Affects your general ability to control their body, as well as your ability to track your body’s relative position in space.]

[Dexterity: Affects your hand-eye coordination, as well as your ability to perform single or multiple simple or complex actions with one or both hands.]

[Perception: Affects your ability to sense and interpret stimuli of any kind.]

[Acuity: Affects your clarity of thought, and your ability to keep track of and order information.]

[Willpower: Affects your ability to resist your own impulses and external manipulation, as well as your ability to resist mentally harmful effects.]

[Charisma: Affects your force of personality, as well as your ability to recover from mentally harmful effects.]

[Connection: Affects the strength of your connection to the World Soul, as well as your ability to draw on and manipulate that connection.]

[Note: Base abilities can be improved through use.]

“Right, right. Right. And what do my abilities do?”

[Ability, Fast Friends: When attempting to befriend another individual your Charisma multiplier counts as two steps higher, increasing with class level.]

[Ability, Stimulating conversation: When engaging in conversation with one or multiple individuals, your Charisma multiplier counts as two steps higher, increasing with class level. Conversation partners are more likely to come away with a positive impression of you.]

“Wait, with those abilities… what does the Libertine class do?”

[Class, Libertine (Basic): What is the point of life if not to be enjoyed? Around every corner is another party and a new pleasure, and you are determined to sample them all. This Class is focused on maintaining a lifestyle that allows the individual to live life to the fullest.]

Right, right. A libertine was like a Victorian playboy, wasn’t it? But still!

“And that’s based on my past life? That’s hardly fair, is it? I like a party as much as the next fellow, sure, but…” Nic said. There was no reaction from the text. “Does sound fun, though.”

Nic’s eyes caught on one line of text.

“Why does my race say ‘Outsider?’”

[Outsider, Summoned (Human aspect): You are a creature from outside of this plane of existence, summoned for a specific purpose. You may or may not be bound to do your Summoner’s bidding, or to perform a specific task. You are physiologically indistinguishable from a Human, and any inspection save for particularly powerful inspection abilities or spells will return you as Human.]

“Alright,” he shrugged. That was weird, but didn’t seem to make any difference at the moment. It might have some kind of bonus or consequence in the future, but that was tomorrow’s headache.

[You have 3 Advancement Points available. Please spend Advancement Points now!]

“Right. What’s it cost?”

[Increasing a multiplier from 1 to 1.1 costs 1 Advancement Point. From 1.1 to 1.2 costs 2 Advancement Points and so on. All steps must be bought sequentially.]

“In that case, increase my Charisma multiplier to 1.2, please.” Seemed like the obvious choice, with his abilities.

[Charisma Multiplier increased to 1.2 for a total of 3 Advancement Points. New effective Charisma: 14.4]

[You have no Advancement Points to spend. Advancement finalised.]

The world began to move again, and Nic gasped even though his lungs were already nearly full. It was quite uncomfortable.

“Alright, Nicolas,” Stacy said. “Any ideas what’s going on? You saw the text, too, right?”

“What?” Nic said. Stacy was about a metre away from him, sitting back on her bare heels. She was still wearing her purple dress from last night, but she’d also found a robe somewhere, which hung off her loosely and rather spoiled the effect of her tight dress. Though she already had red eyes and a bit of panda-face from rubbing at her make-up, so the battle was already lost, he supposed.

“The text,” she said flatly, and frowned minutely in a way that he had learned meant that he’d better do what she wanted immediately.

“Right, the text. I saw it, yeah.”

“And?”

“I mean, I have an idea. But you’ll not like it.”

“Tell me.”

Nic steeled himself, and sighed. Stacy was really not going to like this.

~~~~~~~~

“So you’re telling me this is like one of your Japanese comic books. That’s seriously what you’re telling me,” Ana said, and Nicola cringed. He’d spent the last five minutes talking about icey-kays and role-playing fiction and fuck knows what else, the gist being that he thought they were in some kind of game. Or a world with some kind of magic in it that made it like a game. It wasn’t entirely clear, because he’d been stuttering and going back to rephrase things and generally doing a bad job of explaining.

But as insane and inane all of that was, Ana had two pieces of internal evidence that she couldn’t ignore. First, while she’d been reading all of the text the world had literally stopped. Second, when she was done, and had been told that her perception was better, her perception actually had been better. The dark had had more shades of darkness, letting her see more detail even though the light was no brighter, and everything had been just a bit sharper.

Besides that, there was external evidence. They were suddenly in a new, unfamiliar place. There were none of the after effects that she’d expect if they’d been drugged, and the men that had attacked them had acted as though Nicola and she had just appeared. Even if this had been some bizarre prank, she had shot three men dead, and no one had come running in a panic calling for an ambulance and trying to talk her down. The three men were very dead. She’d checked, and after relieving them of valuables and useful items she had stashed their bodies in the bushes. She would prefer if Nicola didn’t see them.

Speaking of Nicola, ever since he’d done as she told him and had read the text, there was a little label on him saying Human Libertine (2) whenever she looked at him, which was just weird.

“Um,” Nicola said, clearly embarrassed. “What do your abilities do?”

“I have no idea,” Ana told him. “I skipped all that as fast as possible so that I could go back to keeping us alive.” And she had. She’d collected the spent casings, taken care of the bodies, found their camp, made sure that there was a fire, and then dragged Nicola’s unconscious ass over, put something warm under and over him, and even made sure to get some water in him. She could tell that he was going to have a hell of a hangover, and not even he deserved that. She’d gone above and beyond the call of duty, and he’d better appreciate it.

“Well, um, if you want to make sure you know all the tools at your disposal, as it were, you should read your abilities.”

Ana considered this. He was, unfortunately, right. “Fine,” she said. “Any idea how to get the text up again? Looking where it was does nothing.”

“Right,” Nicola said, and then stared off into the distance for a moment. Ana saw his lips moving slightly, his Adam’s apple bobbing as though he were subvocalizing. “Yeah!” he said with a smile after a few seconds. “Try ‘Summary’ while thinking of the text window, and then ‘Close’ while thinking of it being gone to, well, close it.”

Ana gave him a flat look, but she tried. She did as he said. “Summary,” she commanded, and the whole thing popped up, filling her vision, attributes and abilities and all. This time, though, time kept going normally.

“Alright,” she said. “What do my class and abilities do?” The text responded.

[Class, Guardian Angel (Paragon): Due to your exceptionally high moral standards and willingness to sacrifice for the sake of the well-being of others, you have become a paragon of selflessness and devotion. You are devoted to one or a small group of individuals, and none shall harm them so long as you draw breath. Special: As a reward for your self-sacrifice, each attribute’s base value increases by 1 for every level you gain in this class.]

[Ability, Hidden Class (Guardian Angel): This class may be hidden from inspection. While hidden, the related class levels will be shown as belonging to another class appropriate to you. This ability can be disabled for any and all other individuals as desired. Note: This ability is ineffective against particularly powerful inspection abilities or spells.]

[Ability, Devotion: You are devoted to one or a small group of individuals. Maximum group size increases with class level. You are always in a party with the objects of your devotion, and can sense their direction relative to you and their general condition. You gain extra Growth Crystals when defending and object of devotion. These Growth Crystals are bound to you, and cannot be traded. You cannot willingly allow your objects of devotion to come to harm. If you have no object of devotion, you can bond with an individual by swearing your life to them. This bond can only be broken by your death or theirs, or if they formally dismiss you. Current object of devotion: Nicola Stamper.]

[Ability, Guardian Angel: While within 3 feet of an object of devotion you can absorb any harm meant for them, including magical or physical attacks or poison. While fighting to defend an object of devotion the base value of each attribute counts as 3 points higher. All values increase with class level.]

[Ability: Danger Sense (Special): You have a subconscious and supernatural ability to sense when an object of your devotion is in danger, so long as they are within 30 yards of you. Range increases with class level.]

"Close," Ana said, and the text vanished. If this was real, she thought, it was a new and very specialised brand of bullshit, deliberately developed to fuck with her.

Nicola was looking at her expectantly. He had his mother's freckles and red hair, and his father's long face and sharp nose. There the similarities to the man she admired ended. Shirt, narrow build, thin wrists, a nervous disposition; everything about Nicola screamed 'mark' and 'victim.' It was no wonder Mr. Stamper thought his son needed someone to look out for him. And now this whole weird world had apparently decided that she was going to do just that. Forever.

Ridiculous. He could never know.

"Well, what about it?" Nicolas said. "What do you have?"

Instead of answering she asked him, "What do you see when you look at me?"

"Uh, Human Companion Three."

"Yeah,” she said, keeping her expression carefully neutral. “Sounds about right."

Nicola looked around the small camp, seeming to really notice where they were for the first time. “Stacy, where did all this come from?”

Anastasia considered for a moment. There was little point in holding anything back, she decided. He’d need to know sooner or later.

“When we… appeared here,” she said, “there were some men who threatened us. The camp belonged to them.”

“Where are they now?” he asked. He looked around, looking confused. He never was the sharpest, she thought.

“I took care of it,” she said and stood to start packing. “Come on, we need to pack up everything useful and get moving. There’s some food and water over there.” She waved at a flap piece of wood that served as a plate, where she’d left some cheese and fruit for him.

Instead of doing something useful, Nicola got a faraway look in his eyes and started mumbling. “...defeated… summoner… cultist…” He stopped, then focused on Ana. “Stacy,” he said thickly, “what did you do?”

Ana sighed and turned back to him. She’d hoped to avoid this. That he was old and clever enough to accept certain things. But no.

“Nicola,” she said slowly. “What exactly do you think your father pays me for?”

“You’re… you keep an eye on me, right?” he said. “Like Charlie.”

“No,” she said, a flash of irritation creeping into her voice. She squashed it. “Not like Charles. Charles takes care of you. I make sure that you don’t get hurt.”

“But what about Charlie?” Nicola objected. “He’s my bodyguard, isn’t he?”

“Charles, for all his fine qualities, is a glorified PA and driver,” she told him. “He tries to make sure that undesirables don’t get close to you. If he should ever fail, that’s where I come in. Do you remember what your dad told you the first time we met, when we went to St. Tropez last summer?”

“Um… he said that you’d make sure we didn’t have to worry.”

“Exactly. My job is to make sure that your dad doesn’t need to worry about you. So. Charles is not here. Those three undesirables were about to get close to you. I warned them, they chose not to listen, and I dealt with them. Don’t worry about it.”

She looked Nicola in the eyes, unblinking, until he swallowed and looked away. “Alright, Stacy,” he said meekly.

“Eat your food, then help me pack,” she told him.

“Yeah, Stacy.”

“And don’t call me Stacy,” she said.

“What?” Nicola said, confused.

“My name is not Stacy. I hate being called Stacy. I have tolerated it this far because ‘Stacy’ is the person your friends know, and I got stuck with it. ‘Stacy’ is weak and useless. My name,” she said slowly, “is Anastasia. Unless we meet one of your friends, you will use my name.”

She thought for a moment. Perhaps she should be slightly friendlier, where possible. They seemed to be stuck together, after all. “If you must,” she said, “I will accept ‘Ana.’” That was what Mr. Stamper called her.

“Yeah, alright, St… uh, Ana,” Nicola said. He looked somewhat stunned.

Weak. He always had been, but she knew that. At least keeping him in line should be easy enough. She’d promised his father that she’d keep him safe. Whatever this whole ‘icey-kay’ thing meant for them, she’d die before she broke that promise.

“Come on,” she said as she went back to packing, inflecting her voice just so to put a little bit of kindness in it. “Eat your food.”

He did as he was told.

So, let me have it. Is Anastasia a cliché? Do you hate Nicola? Is the whole premise absurd? Do you want to read a second chapter? Let me know! I'll probably write one either way!

Cheers,

AB