It was, in fact, a tongue.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  “What’s taking them so long!”

  The answer to the question was very clearly something. Now, what that something was? I had no clue. But with the monsters starting to tapper out, whatever was the hold-up was possibly coming to an end. Either because that was a sign they were wrapping up and the ASIC wasn’t going to throw any more resources into the grinder.

  Or they were running out of material to throw into the grinder in the first place. Either was possible. But it was clear by this point that this was meant to be a distraction of some kind.

  And if that wasn’t foreboding, then well, I have bad news for you. It was a sign of desperation if they were willing to commit just many monsters to the meat grinder to keep our eyes off the ball. That, and just how important someone thought that keeping us distracted was. Yes, someone panicked and scared was going to do something stupid. But if that stupid thing was something they were convinced would keep them alive?

  A cornered animal was the most dangerous animal. If a mouse felt like it had to fight a lion to survive, it would, and at the minute, the ASIC and us weren’t at that large of a power disparity.

  Though between the death of Brave tonight as well as this? The latter was enough to cause issues on its own. They threw a hell of a lot of assets at us tonight. Assets that couldn’t be easily replaced.

  There weren’t many thing that would be considered worth throwing away all this to distract us from. And there was no way in hell this was simply their retaliation for getting Brave. The attack had started not horribly long after we left.

  Meaning this had to be for something else. And I had no clue what exactly what it was. It had to be a distraction, but at the end of the day, what were they trying to distract us from?

  Something told me I wasn’t going to like the answer when it finally arrived.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  Gross, gross, gross!

  “Fireball!”

  Thump!

  Histoire quickly found herself freed from the gross method of abduction, not really worse for wear, if a bit singed from the flames. Several spikes of ice followed it up, biting into the ceiling near the entrance to the vent the tongue had come from. It didn’t seem like would do much, given that there was no way anything important should be able to fit into the vents. Contrary to what many books, games, and movies had shown on the matter, vents were in truth small, tiny things. Not enough space for a child to crawl around in, much less an adult human.

  But despite that out popped a large angry yelp of pain, part of the structure collapsing into the room. The damage had already made things a write-off until they could get fixed, so that wasn’t as big of a problem, though Histoire would only reluctantly admit as such. No, the problem was who crashed into the room. It was one who never, ever would be able to fit into a vent of any type in the first place.

  That person was Trick.

  How he had gotten into the vents was a question that Histoire didn’t know the answer to. She probably didn’t want to either, but she was going to have to anyway to see if such a security issue could be fixed.

  “Ow, that hurt!” Trick shouted, before being hit with several massive ice spikes, sending him back into a wall. Histoire winced at the crashing sound. Thankfully, the wall wasn’t a load-barring one. “Why would you do that too, oh.”

  It seemed like he finally noticed the four Goddesses in the room.

  “Okay, the crazy one hasn’t made it back yet, this should be.”

  “Fireball!”

  “Ice spikes!”

  Trick immediately started screaming again, pain flashing through his body from the twin blows of Rom and Ram’s magic.

  The four of them should have things well in hand. Especially as Nepgear flew in, striking Trick with her sword as Uni fired another round into him.

  “We haven’t forgiven you for brainwashing us, jerkface!” Ram shouted.

  “Right,” Rom nodded, her face determined despite her usual shyness. Both twins glared at Trick in complete and utter contempt. That alone seemed to cause Trick damage, even as he rolled around on the floor, before lashing out with his tongue. Rom encased the strike in a block of ice before Ram sent a gout of fire along his tongue and down his throat. Despite Trick’s appearance, he was not as much of a dragon as he wished he was, so the burning wave of flame was more than enough to cause him pain.

  “Why? I,” Trick didn’t manage to finish, as Nepgear kicked him in the chest, hard enough to send him sprawling again.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  *Sometime previously*

  “What is this F-be-I thing?” IF asked, crossing her arms as I bit back the urge to sigh. I, expected someone to get around to asking that particular question after that, little display. Of course, with IF being IF, that got the attention of just about everyone else. And I was already about ready to try and fend off Red with a bat. The girl was fine.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  At a distance.

  An extreme distance.

  In small amounts.

  Anyway, I was getting off track.

  “Back home, there is an organization called the FBI. It stands for Federal Bureau of Investigation. Their job is to investigate crimes that cross state lines. I’ll spare you the full details of what that entails, as it’s a complicated system overall, but one of the crimes that tends to cross state lines is human trafficking,” I said, keeping my voice flat and even. I was still steamed on the inside, and right now my rage didn’t need to boil over at the minute. Trick was a piece of shit.

  No, that was an insult to shit. Shit severed an actual purpose in the world at the end of the day. Trick didn’t have a purpose outside of causing harm. Trick was more akin to a parasite or a leech than anything else. Even then, those probably had some greater use that I just didn’t see. Which was still more upside than Trick and his general existence.

  But seeing as parasite was the closest thing to a descriptor I had for the ASIC commander, it would have to do the trick.

  “Including those who are very young,” I almost growled out the words. I didn’t really want to have this conversation. But there was no simple way to put it. Trick was a pedo. About some of the worst humanity had to offer without getting into genocidal nutcases, and even then, it was a tight race.

  “And I’m guessing you had, experience with these types of people before?” Uni’s voice was testy, unsure if she was stepping on something she really didn’t want to be stepping on.

  “No. Not personally, at any rate,” I admitted. Thankfully, nothing like that ever plagued my life. “People like that though just piss me off to no end. Actual full-on scumbags.”

  Of course, working for a criminal enterprise and a cult kinda meant scum meant hand in hand with their current behavior. I knew I shouldn’t expect things like standards would stop a cult dedicated to ending the world from finding the foulest shits imaginable, but I still kinda had a hind of a hope that the ASIC wouldn’t get that low.

  But no, they had, they did, and I had even more reason to hate them than I already did. Brave may have been on my shit list, but Trick was just on THE list. The very short list of people that I would prefer to be buried in an unmarked grave. Ideally, a deep one.

  “And since we look like children,” Rom nodded her head the look on her face extremely appereancive, while Ram looked like she was ready to hit something. Good, choosing violence when it came to people like Trick was the correct response.

  “That makes you targets for him, yes,” I admitted, ignoring the implications. I didn’t really care much for any of that. It didn’t help that I was a twenty-something-year-old now stuck in the body of an eternally youthful teenager. Chronology was already a pain in the butt under normal circumstances, and made me extremely uncomfortable about pushing for anything beyond friendship with someone in my age range.

  I think that was part of the reason I had a crush on Cave. She was at the age my mind should be at, rather than where my body currently was. But at the end of the day, I digress.

  “In short, Trick is a pedo, a creep, and really, really shouldn’t be allowed within a five-mile radius of children of any shape or form,” I scowl. “Hopefully, we can get the rat bastard next time.”

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  BOOM!

  “Why is this happening to me!”

  At least they had taken the fight out of the building.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  Trick had come to a realization, as he was sent flying through a wall into the open air.

  He was going to die. It was no one of the greatest realizations of his life. He truly believed that without the presence of the crazy hag, he would have had a chance. And he almost had!

  At least, that is what Trick told himself. He could have gained a temporary upper hand by taking a hostage. But his men didn’t last long enough for him to move into position to do that easily and thus, here he was.

  It hadn’t entered his mind that Black Sister had gotten a similar boost fighting Brave that Purple Sister had fighting Judge. Putting the ‘hag’ he was so fearful of in the middle of the sister’s in terms of combat capacity, even if Hinum could still bring considerable destructive force to bear. Not that a fight would have gone his way even if he had managed to get the hostage he wanted.

  Now? He was in a straight fight. And that was something he couldn’t win.

  Mind control. Hostages. Trick played with a rigged deck, and that was because out of the four, he was the weakest. Still a potent threat to most. Yet his strengths were cunning and cruelty. Rarely did Trick engage in this sort of combat unless he had something up his sleeve. A reserve to play. Something on the side that could turn a fight in his favor.

  “Why are you? AHHAR!” Trick bellowed in pain, trying to fend off the attacks impacting his body, even as they hung in the air. He lashed out with his tongue, only for part of it to be cut off by the swing of Nepgear’s sword. Any attempt he made to flee on his tiny wings was cut off as Uni’s gun hit round after round, driving him backward.

  It was almost impossible for him to grasp. But it was almost if he was being abandoned to die. It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be. Hadn’t Arfoire promised him his every wish? Hadn’t Arfoire promised him his every desire? She wouldn’t let him die, right? One of her most loyal servants? He couldn’t be allowed to die! He was loyal! He would do whatever was asked of him, no matter how foul!

  Surely that would see him rewarded, right?

  Right?

  If Hinum were there, and able to read Trick’s panicked thoughts, she would call him an idiot. A fool. That Arfoire was not something that could be trusted to do anything beyond its stated goal of ending the world. Anyone who believed otherwise was a fool, plain as day.

  But Hinum was not there, nor could she read minds. Frankly, even if she was there, she’d read the panicked look on Trick’s ugly mug as nothing more than the fearful response of one who knew they were about to die. Rather than the face of someone who was just beginning to realize that making a deal with the devil had consequences. And that they always collected their due, whether or not the one making the deal read the fine print.

  “You aren’t going to be able to hurt anyone ever again!” Ram shouted, bringing the staff in her hand back, flames licking around the tip.

  “Please, go away,” Rom spoke softly, even though her face was just as determined as her sister’s, ice crackling in the air as she mirrored Ram’s movements.

  “No, wait, please, we can work something out!” Trick shouted, falling on deaf ears as the sisters lined up their attack, their forms glowing and swelling with power.

  “Freeze Flare!”

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  “I see,” I said through the phone. Don’t fall into a rage right now, don’t fall into a rage right now. I was, honestly, kinda tapped out, but I could still feel the bubble. “Please tell me you at least checked for a pulse on the bastard.”

  I’d drink if I could. Holy shit, did we really just get two of the felons in a single night? That was, good luck didn’t even begin to describe it. And Trick, the most disgusting of the lot, was killed in the air above Planeptune. The PR, the PR, I was almost salivating. Sure, that just left Magik, and she was terrifying, but the ASIC being down to just one main leader? Yeah, no, that was going to pretty much cripple if not kill most of their command structure. Especially as I was certain Magik spent most of her time doing who knows what in the Graveyard.

  “Kinda hard when Rom and Ram just blasted him into dust,” Uni’s voice came from the other end, even though I was pretty sure the call had come from Nepgear. “I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about that creep ever again.”

  Uni continued, less mute about her excitement than I was. Then again.

  She wasn’t flying anywhere near Blanc. Though, by this point, I was barely able to do that. Exhaustion was catching up to me, and it was a bastard. We were back on our way to the Planeptune Basilicom, and I had just about one good briefing in me. Then I was going to crash and crash hard. I don’t care where, I would take a couch if that was all they had left, but I needed sleep.

  Speaking of Blanc, I could feel her piercing red eyes on me. I turned to face her, giving a ginger wave before returning to my phone. I didn’t know if Rom or Ram had told their older sister anything about Trick, and frankly, I didn’t want to be the one to tell her. I didn’t have enough bones in my body to tell her that piece of news.

  That and as amusing as it would be to watch Blanc fight her way into hell just to simply kick Trick’s ass, we kinda needed all hands on deck. So if she didn’t already know, I wasn’t being the messenger. We could see if being in hell kept Trick safe from her until after this whole conflict was over. And I had a method to retain it for posterity, of course. It wasn’t every day that someone broke into hell to kill a dead person after all.

  “Do we have any idea what the goal was here?” I asked, frowning slightly. Between the two pronged attack, there had to be somewhere this was going. Did we nip it in the bud, or were we going to have to keep our eyes out for something else?

  “I think Trick was trying to take Histoire as a hostage,” Nepgear said. “Something to force our hand or get us to back down. But he’s dead now, and I don’t know if the men that he sent ahead of him are going to be in any shape to talk anytime soon.”

  “I’m guessing by your use of the word trying that Trick failed?” That, and I think everyone would not be cheery if Histoire had been snatched. The poor book fairy. Out of all the four felons, the one that tried to kidnap her was Trick. Still, I did try to say something like that would come down the pipe, sooner or later. Though this wasn’t the time for those sorts of statements.

  “She’s shaken up, but she’s fine otherwise,” Nepgear confirmed my suspicions, as I let out a sigh of relief. That was good news.

  “That’s good to hear. Please offer my condolences if you see her before I do,” which was likely, and I would give them myself in person anyway. Again. “We’re about an hour out. Let me know if something else happens, please.”

  Tonight was a mess. But with two felons dead, it was certainly worth it.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  Oh boy. When I decided that I was going to try and rush this to completion, I kinda expected it to be finished by now. But it’s taking far longer than I originally expected. That and this year has, not been kind thus far, to put it mildly. And you know what? I still think I have a good five to nine chapters left to go in this fic. Which is proving to be a swift reminder of why I run multiple projects at once writing wise. Because I just cannot focus on doing one thing for too long.

  That being said? I’m still fully committing to this. I’m going to try and get this story finished. No Longer Human and Stranger Tides will likely get more chapters as compensation when I finally finish though. Likely three, rather than the two I originally planned.

  But yeah, Trick’s death finally puts us into the endgame now.