“Euna, get down!” I shouted.
My pink slime girlfriend immediately dove to the ground between the cubicles, giving me free rein to open up with my dual gunblades. Dialing my thumbs in opposite directions, I clicked both weapons over to SMG configuration and brought them up level with my shoulders. A couple taps from my pinky and ring fingers adjusted the ammunition in all four separate cylinders, and I pulled all four triggers at once.
Twin bursts of incendiary rounds erupted from both of my Roulette Rouge dual-barreled and twin-bladed combo weapons. All four cylinders spun to life as orange tracers sped past the crackling red blades and flew over Euna’s head.
Their target, an enraged chimera who had lost his shit at the office job he had been working at under the guise of a normal human, was absolutely pelted with rounds as I laid into him with both of my Roulette Rouges. With each cylinder having 36 shots in the SMG configuration, I had a combined total of 144 chances to ruin this guy’s day.
Don’t worry. He totally deserved it.
While normally I was pretty empathetic to the plight of enraged monsters, as I’d just spent the better part of a year tracking down those nasty little Signal emitters that had been turning them into mindless predators, this guy crossed the line after we silenced the emitter. I had smashed the emitter to pieces and he still tried to claw Euna apart.
Unacceptable. Nobody touches my girls except me. This guy had to die.
The (dickhead) chimera went up in flames while I still had shots to spare. I swapped the weapon’s configuration over to hand-cannon mode and changed out the ammunition for armor-piercing, took aim for the monster’s eyes, and fired four rounds. Not one of them missed.
His charred body hit the deck and made the office building shake a little.
Just like that, another monster hunt was done and dusted. Not gonna lie I really feel like I’ve gotten the hang of this shit. Admittedly, I didn’t get the full training module most of my fellow Keepers got. Instead, I got the accelerated balls-to-the-wall version of training courtesy of my other girlfriend, Tabitha (she’s a superhot werewolf who heals hella fast, it’s cool). But after fighting vampires, a manticore, a bunch of rogue human agents, and a powerful demon I was feeling pretty comfortable with my combat abilities.
I felt like maybe it was time for something new.
Euna popped up between the cubicles, looking over at the dead chimera and giving me a thumbs up. I couldn’t have helped the grin that cracked across my face even if I had wanted to. She was just too cute.
Out in public she used her goo-girl powers to make herself look like a little punk rocker with bright pink hair, but in private her whole body was made from this translucent pink biomass that allowed her to alter her shape endlessly. Whenever she felt like it, she could rearrange herself to look like anyone she wanted to or even split herself into multiple copies at once. Abilities that came in handy both in combat and in the bedroom, and came with the incredible perk that–so long as her core was safe–she could send these copies out to fight alongside me without any concerns of her getting permanently damaged.
Ever since Tabitha got pregnant and I forced her to stay back in the Bureau’s headquarters, Euna has been my go-to partner on all these hunts. Well, her and Blitz, I guess, but he’s a bro, not a hoe, y’know?
Besides, I swore to Euna that we would track down and destroy every last Signal emitter in Eastport. A much taller task than I initially realized because as it turned out there were freaking hundreds of the annoying little things. It had taken about eight and a half months to track them all down.
“Is that the last one?” Euna asked loudly.
“I hope so,” I replied, checking my guns and wincing.
The dumb things had been overheating more and more lately.
I holstered them so they could begin their cooldown and automatic reload sequence. Mentally I made myself swear to bring them back to Olson, our cyclops quartermaster, for a long overdue check-in. I’d been meaning to drop them off with him for a while now but I’d been so busy tracking down these last few emitters and helping Aleksei around the Bureau that the time had just evaporated.
A light tinkling sound came from overhead as a little four-inch-tall fairy girl fluttered down to land on the four-way intersection of cubicle walls between Euna and me. The newest addition to the team, she had landed here from the World of Magic a few weeks after we defeated Boris. She was dressed in an itty bitty set of bikini armor that barely covered anything. A vibrant set of teal and violet wings that sprouted from her shoulder blades, wrists, and ankles all folded against her skin and disappeared as she pulled out a tiny little wand and gave it a swish and flick.
A magical holographic display burst to life, revealing Eastport in all its metropolitan glory. She cleared her tiny little throat and addressed Euna’s question.
“Not quite. There are still three more emitters in the greater Eastport area. One right there in central park, one over at the Hodgekins skyport, and one’s waaay out there in the wilderness, beyond the Hilltop gas station. We’ve had some difficulties tracking down precise locations for these. But this was the last one in the city itself, and so far the other three have all been dormant. I’m sure we can track the others down later. Maybe we could take a little time off to celebrate this victory?” She suggested hopefully.
“We can rest when the work is finished,” I replied, shaking my head at the little fairy’s continued insistence that we relax. I had way too much going on right now.
Lana pouted. “The work’s never finished, though.”
I shrugged. “Then we work harder so the work goes away faster.”
“Maybe she’s right, Ryan,” Euna suggested. “We haven’t stopped or slowed down since we stopped Boris. Tabby wouldn’t want you to run yourself ragged.”
I scoffed. “If you ladies are too tired, I can handle the last three on my own.”
Euna immediately straightened and shook her head. “Not while we’re this close.”
Lana ignited her wings and rose a foot into the air. “Let’s go!”
Out of reflex, I started to reach up to activate my comms, before a little voice in the back of my head cut in and reminded me, You know, you don’t need the tech to get ahold of me anymore, handsome.
A smile crossed my face as we headed down to street level and out into Eastport proper. The sultry tones of Io (my other other girlfriend) were just as comforting ringing through our psychic link as they had once been over the old electronic comms. Hello beautiful. I just wanted to let you know we knocked out the last active Signal emitter in the city. We’re en route to track down the final three dormant ones, and then we’re coming in for the night. Any news from HQ?
Nothing out of the ordinary. Aleksei is still hosting interviews so there’s a lot of ex-military types, college graduates, and fantastical creatures roaming around hoping they’re good enough to earn a spot in the Bureau. Tabitha’s ready to pop any day now and she seems to think you’ve been avoiding her. Care to comment?
Uh, I gotta go.
Figured you might say that, Io teased.
No it’s not like that. There’s a situation brewing out here. I’ll fill you in later. I cut our connection before she could ask me to elaborate. I didn’t have time.
Outside the office building there was a dark-haired beauty leaning up against a cop car. Officer Selene. I’d met her once before, but even before that she was the best friend to my (sadly deceased) ex girlfriend, Hannah.
Clad in her police uniform with her arms crossed in a manner that tickled some piece in the back of my mind with an out-of-place familiarity, she was staring right at me through tinted glass. The minute I exited the staircase and hit the lobby, a smile crossed her face and she pushed off the car, moving towards the entrance.
Which was when I told Io I had to go.
Now, she was already through the revolving doors and striding towards me purposefully.
“Hiya, hero,” she flirted, sauntering right up to me and leaning in for a kiss.
I backed up a step and interposed a hand between us, holding her back as she kept leaning towards me. “Uh, hey, Selene. What… what’s going on with you? You seem different.”
Selene dropped back onto her feet and gave up trying to kiss me. “I’m not Selene, genius. It’s me. Hannah!”