The Story Thus Far

Erin flopped back into the easy chair in his lounge with a heavy sigh. The last few years had been a rough patch, and he was getting haggard. His usually cheerful demeanor now put aside, he leaned forward to put his head in his hands and breathed deeply, suddenly looking his fifty plus years.

He thought aloud to no one in particular, “I don’t know how long I can do this.”

But a voice in his head answered anyway <Don’t worry, Erin. Relax, I’ll take good care of your family. Why don’t you get some sleep?>

“Why don’t you,” he said with serious snark in his voice, “make like a dildo at a homosexual orgy, and CRAM IT UP YOUR ASS!”

<Seriously, that’s your height of wit? No wonder you let me in so easily…>

“You’re like a persistent rash, irritating and constantly itchy, but ultimately harmless.”

For the briefest moment, Erin felt his consciousness fade, and heard a chuckle, but then the memories of Sable standing over him with his children in the moment when he faltered during the last Word War, came rushing into his mind. The Nite Qing recoiled in his head, like he’d been tased, and just as suddenly, Erin was back in control. The Nite Qing roared in Erin’s head, obviously frustrated.

“Not so easy anymore is it, you pathetic worm,” he growled. Erin didn’t have to say these things out loud for the demon in his head to get the message, but he felt that his raw thoughts lacked a certain panache, a particular level of vitriol, that he discovered really infuriated the symbiote.

He discovered that certain words really got under his cage, words like powerless, harmless, feckless, pathetic, feeble, pitiful. These words were sure to make him lose his shit, and when he was acting rashly, he had less control of Erin’s thoughts and was easier to control himself. He continued this barrage of insults at the Nite Qing until he finally had enough and retreated into the recesses of Erin’s mind, not to return, usually, for at least twelve hours. Once he hit such a particular nerve that the “whiny pissant” went and hid for four days.

Once he was gone, Erin went to his bed and called for his bodyguard. He undressed, put on pyjamas and lay down on his back. His room guard came in looking grim. It was Janet, she was a stout, strong woman, and a hellova combat literomancer. She had been through both Word Wars, and was assigned to Erin’s security detail by Realm, because she had never been undead. Realm had known her around the court since they were both children and she had always been an ally to him and Nik. She described herself as “on the rainbow spectrum” but when pressed it became apparent that she was Ase/Aro, not LGBT or Q.

But none of that mattered to Erin, what he was concerned about, was her willingness to do as told and secure him for the evening.

As she secured the bindings to his wrists and ancles, she turned to him with that mother badger look and said, “I really wish we didn’t have to do this to you, Your Highness.”

“We’ve been over this, Janet. It’s not getting better until I get him out of my head, but I can’t control him when I sleep.” Erin returned, perhaps sounding a little sharper than he should.

“I know, Sir, I just…” Erin grabbed her right hand in his and she jumped a little, as her other hand flashed towards her taser, but in an instant she knew it was still her boss. Grabbing her right hand in his right hand, it almost looked as though he was trying to shake it, which became even more pronounced when he switched grip to have her hand held like two muscle men shaking hands. Then he pulled her hand down to his chest.

“Until I find a way to rid myself of him, you KNOW this is the only way,” he said, looking into her eyes.

“Yes, sir.” She nodded at him. “It’s just hard to sit outside night after night listening to your struggles, and not knowing how to help. You are much loved, your Highness.”

Erin sighed and slowly let go of her hand, and dropped his wrist into the leather manacle. Janet began once again buckling him in. “I don’t understand why, they…the populous, have good reason to hate me and yet…”

“Not you, my lord, him.” That last word spat with vitriol reserved for Satan. “People know, Sable-rah was very clear after the First War, that you were possessed. People saw the possession return the next year. But when Sable and Prince Gala used, I don’t know what you’d call it, the “Care bear stare” I guess, to raise you from the dead, people saw, and that love spread out, and ultimately weakened the new Nite Monarq. So, people see you as a redemption arc, a Darth Vader or Spawn. They see your struggles against the Nite Qing as heroic battles for the fate of the Realm, where the everyman hero, Erin Righ, God knows where they got the idea that you are an everyman, but that aside, the everyman hero fights the Tyrant of Darkness.”

She tested the manacles and nodded. “That’ll hold ya."

He nodded in return, and said, “He might be gone for the night, I don’t know, he sulked off earlier, but don’t put your guard down. Who’s on duty with you?”

She nodded towards the door, “I’ve got Lonnie and Dwight, they’ll be ok, and of course Commander Kit said he’d check in at the start of his shift.”

He laid his head back onto the pillow, and asked, “Do me a favour before you go?”

“What’s that?”

“Scratch my nose? It all of a sudden has an itch.”

She laughed and gently scratched his nose.

“An itchy nose means you are going to kiss a fool,” he quipped.

“I’ll be sure to let your wife know your feelings,” she laughed, and kissed him gently on the forehead. “Try to rest, my lord.”

He awoke in the morning in the usual fashion, excruciating pain. He breathed deep and focused, what hurt? What was abnormal? The common neuropathic pain was there, but there were other things as well. His left (prosthetic) arm was numb, was that unusual? He thought about it. Yes, as a matter of fact, ever since SAPH-A had installed his cybernetics, he has had a semblance of feeling in that arm. His right wrist and left ancle were hot, burning, and raw. He was just wrapping his head around the numb cybernetic right foot and shin, when he heard a slight click and feeling, or at least what passed for it, in his cybernetics returned, and he realized they were not just numb but non-functional for at least a few minutes. His back hurt, and he felt like he had gone ten with Mike Tyson and didn’t manage to escape with both ears, but that really wasn’t that unusual. His right arm and his legs felt like he had been pumping iron all night, and that was slightly unusual, and it meant that he had struggled against his bonds. Which could only mean, that He returned last night.

“Wakey, wakey little demon whore,” he said quietly and with as much contempt as he could muster, “no way you get to rest after abusing my body all night.”

His mind kept drawing back to that minute click, and finally, his thoughts focused, and he laughed long and loud. In his mind he heard SAPH-A’s slightly flat, metallic voice when he woke from the cybernetic surgery, “you should experience feeling in your arm and leg now, Erin, the cybernetics are wired directly into your nervous system and respond to YOUR neuropathways.” He had always felt that she had slightly emphasised the final “your” in that statement, though he honestly wasn’t certain if she was capable of emotional inflection in her voice. Now he was certain she had. Why was his arm and leg numb and non-functional when he woke? Because it responded to HIS neuropathways, NOT the Nite Qing’s. When the bastard snuck back in, the body’s neuro signals changed and the cybernetics went dormant, meaning that even if he lost control to the Nite Qing that the weasel would fall, the fuck, over and not be able to walk or function on the left upper body. For some reason, probably schadenfreude, Erin found this extremely funny, and couldn’t contain his laughter.

The door burst in, and Janet and Lonnie burst into the room to flank either side with their tasers as Dwight braced against the doorframe with an elephant taser. It took Erin a couple minutes to regain his composure, and the three looked askance at him as he did so.

“Sorry,” he finally gasped out, breathlessly. After a couple deeper breaths he finally was capable of saying, “It’s me, Erin, your boss.”

“Yeah,” said Lonnie, her south Florida (read: Cuban, but don’t EVER say that) accent apparent, “FUCK you, prove it.”

“Lonnie?” he asked a “little” more seriously, “Is that any way to talk to your boss?”

She shrugged, “Again, fuck you! Until you prove to me that you are my Erin, you are nothing more than some undead beefsteak that if he tries the same shit on me ever again, I will light his ass up, and I might even reach for the wrong taser, Puta.”

It dawned on Erin that the dirty cunnntry boy, must have tried something with Lonnie, his face grew serious, and he said, “Aw I’m sorry Lonnie, he’s such a bastard, what’d he do?”

“I am not talking to you, until you prove you’re not him.”

“Fair,” he said relaxing back into his pillow and wracking his brain for proof. “Look, maybe if I tell you why I was laughing like an idiot, you’ll believe I’m not him.”

“You can try.” All three said in unison.

“Well, you all didn’t know me before the “accident”, but I was, am, a highly trained assassin. Basically, the company ended my career, left me as a high functioning quadriplegic with little more than my literomantic background and no ability to write. But I was a combat literomancer, so I wasn’t defenseless even then. My point being, the Company knew of my literomantic abilities, but needed proof before they could risk an abduction and sent some goons. I captured one, but in trying to be merciful and hoping the spook would turn over a new leaf, I let one run off. In my defense, I didn’t know about the Company and thought the spooks were from CSIS…”

Janet waved her taser in a circle, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, you babble as much as Nik, get on with it, so far this isn’t proving anything but a knowledge of Erin’s history which we all expect you to have.”

“Ok, ok, my point being, when the Nite Qing took control, he was left with the body of a cripple, and he decided to do some body modifications. He cut off my left arm and replaced the arm and leg with undead variations, that served his purpose, but when I was raised by Coffee at the end of the First Word War, they rotted off in minutes of me being raised and left me with a double amputation, instead of one.”

“Aaand…” they chorused.

“Well, he was quiet and defeated between Word War One and Word War Two, and I thought he had gone away, which is how he blindsided me and took the Iron Tome to AuthorGoddess, who used her literomancy to grant him a robotic/cybernetic limb replacement for arm and foot. Again, when I was raised by the Love of All Bunnies at the fall of the Horde in the Battle for the Warren, the bionics withered and fell off, so I went and got the best Bionic prosthetics money could buy.”

“Yes,” said Janet, “partially paid for by your brother and the Royal Estate and partially paid for by your wife and her Royal Estate, which you used until SAPH-A replaced them with dinotech, last May.”

“Yes,” he said, grinning like the village idiot,” that’s my proof! SAPH-A programmed them to only respond to MY neuro signals, the Nite Qing can’t use them! Which means that we have a sure-fire way to determine who’s in control.” He flexed his left arm up and down and said, “Just tell him to move his prosthetics, if he can’t, it’s not me.”

“Bullshit!” growled Dwight from the door, “I say we zap his ass again.”

“No, wait!” cautioned Lonnie, “he might be telling the truth, here…”

“Huh?” questioned Janet, and Erin chuckled at the Americanism.

“I don’t think he could move his arm, when he attacked me,” continued Lonnie, “and when I got free of his grasp, he only grabbed for me with the right, his left was dead in the manacle.”

“Iii doon’t knoow?” joked Janet, half heartedly. Then she shrugged, holstered her taser and began to walk towards Erin’s bed.

“You sure ‘bout this, L T?” quizzed Dwight.

“I’m sure if Lonnie is sure?” returned Lieutenant Harley.

“I don’t know, LT,” she answered nervously, “I’m a dino, we can be dense, sometimes.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Lonnie,” Erin grumped, “how many times have I told you, I DON’T like that sort of self-degrading talk, you are NOT stupid, OR dense, and I think my good friends Bob and SAPH-A would take offense at being stereotyped as ‘dense’ and furth…”

The three chorused in interruption, “It’s him!”, and lowered their remaining weapons and all three started unbuckling him.

“Good morning, your Highness,” Lonnie said, with a smile.

“Good morning, Lonnie, he returned, “are you gonna tell me what he did?”

She shook her head and stuck out her lower lip as she did so, “No, it’s not important. It wasn’t you who did it. You don’t have to make apologies for him…”

“He grabbed her hard by her womanly parts,” snarled Janet.

“Oh, God!” said Erin, horrified, “Lonnie, I’m so sorry, if I could only…”

“No,” chided Lonnie, biting back tears, “I refuse to let you take responsibility for the evil things that piece of shit does. It wasn’t you and the doctor says I’ll be fine, just some bruising…”

“Doctor! Bruising!” coughed Erin, “By all that’s holy, Lonnie, I AM sorry.”

Lonnie smiled weakly, “It’s ok, your Highness, you give us more and more tools to combat him, everyday, I won’t fall for that move again.

Erin found Sable in the rose garden enjoying her breakfast. The air was warm this morning, but it was still quite cool in the shade. A servant, Alicia was her name, bunny-kin, was just finishing setting another place at the small garden table opposite the Queen.

Erin liked the bunny-kin, they were generally good natured, and he thought they were adorable. Bunny-kin were basically were-bunnies without the ability to change; anthropomorphic rabbits, as it were.

He noticed a large glass of cold brewed coffee and assumed the place setting was for him. “Good morning, my Royal wife,” he chirped, “and good morning, Alicia.” The first part he said as he circled the table, stopping briefly to kiss Sable then stopped again to put his arm around Alicia to say good morning to her.

Alicia jumped just a little, never quite expecting this sort of greeting from him, but she loved it anyway. “Good morning, your Highness,” she lilted, and tossed her arms around him. Erin loved how openly affectionate people were at the Warren. Bunnies tended to be affectionate in general.

“Oh, get a room,” teased Sable, obviously not bothered, and Alicia blushed right through her light brown fur.

Erin sat down and grinned at Sable. “Oh, I know that look,” she said mock cautiously, “what’re you up to?”

“He’s got another weakness, Babe,” he chuckled.

Suddenly her face became very serious, “I’m listening” she said.

“Should I be here for this?” asked Alicia.

“Can’t see why not,” shrugged Erin and he pulled her down onto his lap, “but I am so giddy at the moment that I need a snuggle bunny, so you sit right there.”

Alicia giggled and put her arms around him, tossing her legs over his lap, “Ok.”

With his right arm occupied around Alicia’s waist, he waved at Sable with his prosthetic, cybernetic left. Then he snapped his fingers, again on the left, and took Sable’s hand in his.

“He can’t control the cybernetics, Babe!”

She looked quizzical but motioned for him to continue.

“He tried tricking my room guards into letting him out, but he piqued Lonnie’s suspicions, so he attacked her.”

“Oh, shit!” gasped Sable, “She’s ok, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, a little bruised and her ego battered a little but she’s tough as hell, so I think she’ll recover. But that reminds me, I think I have him under control, though I am warily approaching November. By August 2020 and August 2021, I was already feeling the pull of the Iron Tome, though in actuality, I think what I felt the second time wasn’t the Tome, but the Nite Qing attempting to break free again. I’m not feeling ANY pull from the Tome right now. As a matter of fact, I feel almost an aversion, or an antipathy, towards the Tome, like it’s warning me away.” Erin waved his hand like a paddle in front of his face, while he shook his head, as though to process thoughts and clear his mind. “Anyway, I was about to go on a tangent there, but back to point…no, I think I need to get this off my chest. Look, I have some trepidations about heading into November, I am afraid he will be too strong to control, and if he is…”

“He won’t be,” she chided.

“And IF HE IS, and I lose control, I don’t want you to hesitate, because I have no fear anymore. I KNOW you have the, what’d you call it, the Kind Bear Stare, or something. Anyway, you can raise ME from the dead, so if you kill HIM, maybe it rids me of him once and for all, but I have a caveat!”

“Listening,”

“First, before you kill him, the first time you encounter him, I want you to castrate him with Fluffy, hit him as hard as you can, in the balls, with your mace, until you pulverize everything in his undershorts. Then before he loses consciousness, I want you to tell him ‘Keep your slimy, pestilent, hands off the staff, that was for Lonnie’, can you do that?”

“I take it, he put his hands on Lonnie?”

“He sexually assaulted her, grabbed her womanhood hard enough to bruise and tear.”

“Yes,” she hissed, “I can do that to the bastard.”

“I really should get back to work,” Alicia scolded, “as much as I enjoy snuggling with you, your Highness.”

“Oh…kay,” Erin said with mock reluctance, “If you HAVE to…”

“Things don’t get done, some bunny loses her job,” she said kissing him on the cheek.

“Ok, thanks for the bunny snuggle” he said hugging her tightly for a moment.

She returned the hug and said, with a giggle, “Anytime, your Highness.”

“Ok, tangent dealt with. He can’t control the cybernetics,” he repeated.

“What exactly does that mean,” Sable queried.

“When SAPH-A installed them, she told me they would respond to my neural signals, and I thought she meant the neural signals from my brain, but what it turns out she meant is MY neural signals. Apparently, your neural patterns are, at least, as individual as fingerprints, and his neural patterns aren’t even close to mine, so the prosthetics sense “brain coma” and go dormant. As SAPH-A told me when I contacted her about it, that’s mostly to shield the cybernetics from things like electric pulses from a defibrillator, but the side effect is, the slimy dead goat’s dick can’t use them either. And they’re nigh indestructible, according to SAPH-A, capable of withstanding the cold of space, and the heat of a volcano. The alloy used, which she assures me, modern science has no equivalent, is over a million years old and has a melting point of 35352° Celsius or 63665° Fahrenheit. Lava has a high side temperature of about 1200°C or approximately 2200°F, the surface of the sun is only a little less than 6000°C and a plasma cutting torch runs about 25000°C. It has a hardness of 327 gigapascals, for perspective, nanodiamond has a tensile strength of 310 GPas…”

“Do I NEED all these technical specs,” Sable asked, somewhat bored by the info dump and math, “this is making my head hurt. Why didn't you just say it requires heat not of this Earth, like the heart of a blue star?"

“No, I guess you don’t, sorry” he conceded, “My point was, he can’t use them, and he’ll never get them off, either.”

"Are you sure, what if he just cuts the flesh, he's done that before?"

"No way, these suckers are wired directly into my spine and brain. To do that, and restore the mobility of my arm, she had to replace the whole shoulder bone structure, right back to the ribcage and spine, she replaced the clavicle, the shoulder blade, everything. And on the leg, in order to support the cybernetics, she told me that she replaced the femur and hip, knee joint and lower leg bones. They really are quite the miraculous things we got here."

Sable wiped her mouth with the reusable cotton napkin and dropped it onto her plate. She then took a sip of her omnipresent coffee and reached for a cigar from the cigar box on the table. Erin smiled at the panatela. Almost as ubiquitous as her coffee was her cheap Kentucky cheroot. Sable had smoked them for years; long before Mother of Bunnies meant anything. Well before the Word Wars, when life was somewhat normal and he was not even a thought. Back then, Meles Lord and a two dollar bill would buy you a coffee in Montana.

"Ok," she said after a couple puffs, "that is good news."

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The Story Thus Far

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