Hana watched as her Mother, Father and the Demon Queen vanished, teleporting away. It left her alone with her Grandfather,Veltin, the Kentao and Bloodfalls trickling in the background. She was back inside the tank, doing her best to absorb the complex energies and soul essence that was accumulating in the solution.
Ooran wondered what the Bloodpools felt like, he placed his hands in them gently stroking the top and became overjoyed. It was like a warm embrace. He paused and Hana laughed under the surface of the solution inside the breathing tube, bubbles formed on top. She nodded as if to say it was okay, knowing what he was thinking. He leaned back and let himself sink into the Bloodpool. As it covered his body, he felt his power rising. "This is amazing.."
The starlight in the distance almost seemed to flicker, the Patriarch never once entered the starlit islands dimension and now that it was a blood theater, he didn't ever want to leave. Though it was only a passing thought, his body very readily craved the energies in the air and surrounding bloodfalls.
Veltin laid down next to Hana's tank and the Kentao slithered into the slurry next to her.
֍ꟷꟷꟷꟷ֍
A dense condensation of black and shuddering of the stonework in the City marked the arrival of a powerful Teleporter, guards rushed to see what was happening and several winged figures entered the room.
"You have some balls." The voice boomed across the Great Halls.
"Thank you, I think they're rather suiting. Don't you?" Wu Hai turned to Kuzunoha and Vira, each of them nodded with looks on their faces that would make the Emperor regret his words slightly..
"Ha HA HAH-H HAH-H" A bellowing, then the lights came on in the Hall. A large Dragon Esper, the Dragon King Mike strolled forward. "You probably do have nice balls, its good to see you buddy! You don't call before you show up? Lucky I was nearby, you look fucking scary broh." Mike spoke candidly and then he saw the Empress and a Red Dressed, Red Scaled woman next to him.
"Oh? Another bride, Its about time. I have so many wives.." Mike moved closer. "It sucks, none of them have sex with me anymore."
Wu Hai had a hard time keeping his face straight, he bent over laughing at the words from his dear friend. "You never change."
"And you keep changing every time I see you. So what is it this time? Something must have happened." Mike wasn't slow, he knew something was up.
"I came to see if you're willing to go on a Hunt. The Prey is about six feet tall, has black wings, a bill and." Before Wu Hai could finish speaking Mike was drawing his weapon.
"Darkwing!" An Icy force thrust out.
Mike grit his teeth and tears began to fall from his eyes.
"When!" his grip sturdied and his hammer wobbled. Darkwing had killed the twin Princesses, the two little girls who did nothing but make everyone smile, their memory became tainted by they way they were killed. The deep haunting memory drew emotions that Mike tried to bury, he was unable to fulfill his fury and desire for revenge. "Fessya, Daaya" he called and two of his wives appeared. "I'm leaving, I'll be gone for... maybe forever. If I don't come back, treat this place like I would. The Emperor and I are going to kill the Betrayer."
Mike Beamed and turned to Wu Hai, "We should talk to Munju before we go, their latest inventions are always useful. Besides, Darkwing is very fast.. figured out how you're going to keep him in one place long enough to kill?"
"About that. I have a few ideas but most of them require setting up in advance, I don't know what measures Munju Company has developed either. Lets go, you're buying." Wu Hai laughed at the inside joke, it felt like only yesterday that he met Mike wearing a Ronin Warriors costume made of cardboard. 'Sometimes dreams do come to reality.'
Vira and Kuzunoha followed closely behind, "Mr. Munju turned Greensong into a thriving republic under local corporate sponsorship. He runs the mail, the weather and even helped create the closest proximity to Earth products that were necessary, his biggest seller is magical toilet paper."
Vira tried to repeat the words, her common was really awful and it made Kuzunoha laugh. Wu Hai felt relieved that they were getting along even if only for that instant.
When they arrived at Munju Company, there was an audience awaiting them. Mr. Munju came down personally. A strange hovercraft lit up under his feet and he floated down from the top of the skyscraper, making a spectacle of the greeting.
"Welcome, Welcome. Its good to see the Emperor.." His face twitched when he saw the Demon Queen. "What brings the Emperor here today?"
"I need weapons. We're going hunting." He didn't want to speak about everything and create a raiding party, he wanted to keep things as surgical as possible. The Qilins themselves were not his enemy as of yet, making problems unnecessarily would create a hostility he wasn't willing to provoke.
Munju waved them in, "This way."
As they entered the building, people were playing with new gadgets and tinkering away at their work spaces, it was a huge production line of magical tools. "On the right we have our assembly teams putting together some specialized devices for farming, plowing land still has to happen to cover our food needs but tying up the earth powered Espers to be farmers.. anyway, we can plow an Acre an hour and it doesn't require formations."
He kept giving his tour as they passed through a few doors and into an elevator. "Weapons research and development is underground." Pressing a button, the elevator moved at tremendous speed. It felt like the elevator was actually falling instead of lowering, they arrived very quickly to the bottom.
"Tis es nise" Vira tried speaking again, it sounded like she bit her tongue and she frowned. "{Common is much harder to pronounce than I remember}"
Kuzunoha tapped on Vira's shoulder, "We're here."
"Okay, so what type of weapon do you need? More specifically, if you don't mind, what is the Emperor looking to hunt?" Munju had to pry for information but didn't want to offend the Emperor.
"Qilin. To be specific. Darkwing." A dark mood settled on the group again when Wu Hai spoke his name.
"I understand. In that case, we have several options. Ever since then, we've been looking into supersonic deployment and protections. So far, we have a net and several traps that only need energy for deployment. We've given up on the Spell Rifles, their attack power is dismal." He picked one up and fired at a target, it hit the target but didn't penetrate the armor. "See, no penetration.. We've tried everything, it just doesn't work out against high rated armor plating."
"Now, these nets, all you have to do is point the staff at the target and wait for a green light. That means its locked onto the target, the spellwork on the net launcher will work twice, the energy net is comprised of 2500 runes under micro adjustment." Mr. Munju said it like it was suppose to impress the Emperor or his companions but nothing could be heard from them. "Since that's not all that impressive, lets take a look at the traps."
They arrived at a table with several types of discs on them.
The Discs varied in size and color but their names were clearly written on top in bold as to not get them confused on the testing floor. "These fire traps burn hot enough to melt Galaxium, the flames are drawn from an Esper with both Sun and Stars abilities in their bloodlines. Most of our elemental essence and elemental materials are donated by the Esper community in exchange for some of our goods. All in all, its a wonderful circle of creation and experimentation." He coughed, daunted that he couldn't even get a smile from them.
"Our frost traps are not as good as the Dragon King's frost aura but they do permafrost and arrest movement to all targets caught in them." he pointed at a pen with some small animals meant for live fire testing. "Watch." he was about to throw it like a grenade and Kuzunoha stopped him.
"Don't worry about it. We'll take all your frost traps, what else do you have and quit demonstrating every product. We are looking to catch, detain, then kill him." The Empress gave Munju a stern expression, it was clear that she was in the same mindset of the Emperor and unwilling to hear anymore of the tour.
A deep sigh came from Mr. Munju, "Very well." A book appeared and he passed it over. "This is a record of our current works, most of them are in production but anything specialized will take time if we have to build it."
"This is great. Thank you." Emperor Zao put the book away. "We'll take the traps and a bag of your best storage rings."
'A bag of rings?' There was a brief moment when Mr. Munju thought about expressing his question but it faded quickly as the next portion of the sentence was something like 'who do you think you are?' "Very well, is there anything else that the Emperor requires?"
"No, but I have an idea you may enjoy tinkering with in the future." Emperor Zao materialized a scroll and passed it over, inside were hand drawn blueprints that were missing lots of key components. "Its just an idea I was kicking around. How about it, a Teardrop shuttle with a pocket dimension inside, a push formation on all sides and flight capable. I need a private space that isn't.."
"Say no more. This one understands and appreciates the Emperor's design." A small silver boat in a bottle was passed over in return for the blueprints. "This is one of three in existence, I hadn't intended to ever reveal their creation but its sort of fun, in a way." He tapped on the glass and small rainclouds appeared over the top of the boat inside, a storm broke out and choppy water began to appear on the water's surface.
"I mean, that's great and all but I require something I can go inside of."
"That's the best part, the boat is a full size boat. Complete with everything..." He trailed off when the Emperor passed it back.
Wu Hai smiled a little bit and let go of the bottle, releasing it back into Munju's hands. "I really do appreciate it but I don't need a private quarters. I need space for lots of people, like the Tower City Pagoda but nothing quite so big. Maybe cargo ship sized on the inside? I also need it to be able to maneuver while shrunken."
"Did something happen to Qu and the Pagoda?" Mr. Munju had a worried expression. 'He never comes with small requests..'
"No, nothing like that. In any case, this was just an idea I'm kicking around. I can make due without it but amenities.." Wu Hai sighed "No matter what you come up with, build a shower and bathhouse somewhere in that thing."
Kuzunoha nodded furiously.
"Well then, once again, is there anything else I can help the Emperor with?" Munju bowed respectfully.
Wu Hai brought his wings in closer and ducked through another doorway to their warehouse, "No, just the items we've already discussed. You can throw in a pallet of those spell rifles, I'll tinker with them and see what happens later."
"As you wish." Mr. Munju stopped them at a location where lots of traps were stored. "How many do you require?"
"All of them." Emperor Zao waved his hand and took all six thousand of the ice traps. "Please get with the Elders to settle our billing, I don't want to inconvenience you too much."
'Too much? That was three years of work, dragon's share.. we just got robbed' Mr. Munju looked like he would breathe fire, he'd been trampled before but it had been a long time.
"Oh, I almost forgot. Master Xuan asked me to give this to you." Wu Hai passed a formations device over, it was slightly more advanced than the one Hana had in her possession.
The Pallet of Spellrifles made its way into his inventory and their group was assembled.
"So, Where to next?" Vira asked, she was seeing lots of new places but nothing truly amazing had visited her perception yet.
"I don't know if you'll be able to go where I want to go. At least, not at this exact time." They teleported back to the Blood Theater and the group scattered to keep themselves busy.
"I'll be back shortly, no more than half a day." Wu Hai didn't leave any room for response and vanished.
Mike and the Empresses got acquainted.