Chapter 992: Battle of the Plants

A woman floated out of the fire-wreathed spaceship. She was also aflame, with fire burning atop her head in place of hair. Her eyes were burning orbs, and her graceful yellow dress had a shifting pattern of dancing flames. Jason smiled and the airlock behind him opened. He went inside and she followed, waiting until the door shut and air was vented in.

“I like the new look,” he told her. “The new dimensional vessel, too. You know it looks like the God Phoenix ship from Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, right?”

Her fire hair turned to normal, if vibrant red locks and fell about her head. Her eyes went from magma-like orbs to ordinary but beautiful eyes of fiery yellow. She used them to fix Jason with a judgemental stare.

“Three sentences,” Dawn complained. “That’s how long it took for you to bring up some cartoon nonsense.”

“I would say anime, rather than cartoon. I know the line was blurred when they retooled the series as Battle of the Planets for the western market, but—”

“You need to stop before I set you on fire.”

“Speaking of fire, your new avatar is lovely and all, as is your spaceship, but they don’t make any sense. Fire in space? There’s no oxygen.”

“It’s your universe. I’m not responsible for the physics.”

They grinned and shared a hug. When they let go, Jason kept his hands on her shoulders as he looked at her with concern. She wouldn’t quite meet his eyes.

“Raythe said you didn’t want to see me,” he said.

“It’s not that I didn’t want…”

She met his gaze.

“I didn’t intend to see you. I wanted you to know everything, first. To give you a chance to hate me.”

“This is about old loyalties, isn’t it? The World-Phoenix and I having agendas that are similar, but not the same, and she got you first. You’re conflicted.”

“Yes.”

“I understand. I know the stakes of the choices we have to make, and that sometimes, every option sucks. Maybe you did something that won’t go great for me. That’s okay.”

“I did do that. Before I knew you, but also after. And I kept things from you. Partly because I was told to. Partly so you wouldn’t go and do something characteristically ludicrous.”

“Like create a time loop so I can save-scum my way through a boss fight?”

“Something like that.”

“Did you ever think you were doing anything other than the right thing?”

“Knowing what the right thing is can be hard. Or impossible, until after the fact.”

“But you tried, right?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t blame you for that. I certainly won’t hate you for it.”

“You don’t know what’s coming yet.”

“Well, you can tell me over lunch.”

The inner airlock door opened with a hiss.

“We can take a shuttle down to the planet that isn’t a fire spaceship that makes no sense,” Jason said.

“Again, you’re the one in charge of physics.”

Jason led her into his space station and down the spacious hall.

“Does your ship have those cool missile pods like in the anime?” he asked.

“I didn’t base the design off a cartoon.”

“You’re just embarrassed because you watched the Battle of the Planets version and not the original anime, aren’t you?”

“I’m realising that my instinct to stay away was one I should have listened to.”

“Raythe knew that I’d be sceptical of what she had to tell me. She hasn’t been telling me porky pies, then.”

“No. She has not.”

“She told me that the two of you are friends.”

“She’s far older than I am. I think. It doesn’t really apply with her, and how she moves through time. Or doesn’t. She was something like a wise big sister, when I was trying to set aside my mortal sensibilities. She was being a friend when I was being an acquaintance. The friendship is more recent. Possibly. Sometimes it feels like we’ve been friends for a very long time, and I’ve somehow forgotten. Or it hasn’t happened yet. It can be like that with her.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“Speaking of complicated, I understand that you’re with Zara Rimaros now.”

“Uh, yeah. It’s new. Properly new; neither of us travel through time.”

“When we last saw each other, you were rather unhappy with her.”

“That was a while ago.”

“Do you think it will work out?”

“Depends on what you mean by work out. I’m in my forties. Who knows how I’ll see things in my hundred and forties. I’m more inclined to enjoy things for what they are and let them play out. Earth gives us a chance to be away from clashing agendas, but I don’t think it will work on Pallimustus. Being team members is one thing, but relationships are political for her.”

“Because she’s a princess and you attempted to extort the whole planet into ending slavery?”

“You heard about that?”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“I did. It wasn’t a great plan.”

“It was laying the groundwork. It put the idea of abolition in people’s heads.”

“It was never going to work.”

“It wasn’t meant to work. Now, the other people out there working against slavery will look more reasonable by comparison.”

“Unless they get tarred with your crazy brush.”

“No plan is perfect. And me being a lone fringe element is not a hard sell.”

They stopped at another airlock.

“Now we can go down to the planet in a more sensible vessel than your improbably on-fire cartoon spaceship,” he said.

“This space station is shaped like your head.”

“What’s your point?”

***

A large picnic table in a woodland grove had a red and white tablecloth placed over it. The table was set with many dishes and a few bottles of wine. Birdsong and the sound of a nearby stream filled the air, along with sunlight beaming from a bright blue sky.

“How are you finding transcendence?” Jason asked as he refilled Dawn’s wineglass.

“Not many transcendents have a true physical form, the way you and other astral kings do,” she explained. “In transcending mortality, I became a fully astral entity. It means that, by most measures, I don’t have a real body. I exist conceptually, as part of the deep astral. Immortal, with only the power of authority able to interact with my core self.”

“You can’t be killed, only sanctioned.”