Return to St. Jonsabooru:
An Egg P.A.C. Halloween Special

At least a year must have passed since I left Earth. Well, an Earth year. When you live light-years away, on the moon of a gas giant, this sort of thing gets tricky. After all, time isn’t the static thing that a lot of planet-bound people seem to think it is.

Regardless of a lot of the specifics of how time works on different celestial bodies (and believe me, you need a degree in xenotemporal mechanics just to get anything more than a basic grip on this shit), the basic fact remains that it’d been a good, long while.

I guess I’ll need to give a quick recap for those who are new.

My full name is Nasue-Kalei Yonder-Sky-Blue. I am a Seven-Moon Lynx, a cat-like humanoid alien from the Seven Moons of Sky-of-Heaven, orbiting the distant star of REDACTED. And I am a cyborg with a holographic head, machinery instead of lungs, and the power of psychokinesis.

The story of how I became all of that is a bit long and convoluted, but the important part is that I travelled to Earth to find work, and eventually found it… just not the work I had been hoping for. It took years, but eventually I found my way to a city called St. Jonsabooru, located in the north hemisphere country of Canada.

Jonsabooru is an anomaly in this universe of ours, because it’s got honest-to-the-First-Parent actual fucking magic. Actually, more than that: somehow, what started as a regular city of Earth became a hub through which people from multiple different universes can meet, live together, and interact with each other in all sorts of ways. I thought I’d seen everything before arriving in the city, but I was so, so wrong.

I was recruited to an organisation dedicated to monitoring the city and its multiversal inhabitants, and protecting it from multiversal threats. However, even after all I’d been through, I wasn’t a combatant, so I settled for the relatively peaceful role of managing the organisation’s coffee shop. (“Relatively” because have you seen how aggressive angry customers can get?!) Hey, they needed some form of income and good publicity.

For a while, things were good.

Then the city was attacked by a self-proclaimed goddess who had the power to back up her claims. The coffee shop was put under lockdown with a bunch of staff members and customers still inside it… and then it got teleported into space.

We were trapped there for multiple days, gradually being worn down by a combination of being trapped in space with limited supplies and no way to contact home, the inevitable stresses that come with that, and being tormented by nightmares sent by some sort of psychic being. It turned out that the ‘psychic being’ in question was none other than the coffee shop itself – somehow it had become sentient and had grown to hate being trapped in the city.

It took nothing short of me threatening to blow up the coffee shop (with improvised explosives made from bootleg soft drinks) before the sentient building let us go. We returned safely.

Some other stuff happened, and I found myself growing more distant from the rest of the organisation – and more homesick. It got to the point that I decided to put in my two weeks and go home to do some soul-searching.

That went alright, except for the part where “Seventh Moon” spoilers redacted.

However, some good things did come out of it. I reconnected with members of my family, I found a cyborg support group, and I discovered, to my surprise, that someone from Earth had independently made their way to my homeworld and set up business there.

It wasn’t the same as before – it never could be. But after everything had been torn down, I was building it back up.

And then one day, I got an ominous phone call.

It was a spring evening on Patterns-of-Woodland, the seventh moon of Sky-of-Heaven and my homeworld. The weather had cooled to a pleasant temperature with an occasional gentle breeze, and the gas giant gave the sky an ethereal glow, illuminating the other moons that were visible that day. I was on the balcony of a building, enjoying a cup of Beta Hydrae-brand earl grey tea with cattle-milk, along with crossbow-root biscuits (not cookies).

It was a quiet, pleasant evening – certainly a welcome change from the neighbours throwing an excessively loud party just a few days ago.

Then my phone began to ring.

I looked at the phone. There was a caller ID, showing a familiar multi-coloured face, and the name, Loria Alori Yonder-Sky-Blue.

Wait, Loria? Why was she contacting me?

Even after everything, I still needed to take a moment to gather my nerve, push my anxiety to the side, and press the answer button.

“Hm?” That was a noise of acknowledgement.

“Hello, cousin?” Sure enough, it was the familiar voice of my cousin Loria. “How are you?”

“Doing alright,” I replied, honouring the attempt at small talk. “Just drinking tea.”

“Grow up and drink coffee,” she quickly sniped back. Yep, that was Loria, alright.

“Maybe if you outgrow your dumbass thug phase,” I deadpanned in response.

“Sure. Anyway, there’s something I need to talk to you about, urgently.”

“What is it?”

There was a long pause.

“I can’t tell you over the phone,” she eventually said, with noticeable hesitation.

What?

“I need to tell you in person. Are you free right now?”

“I guess so,” I said. “I won’t be able to get the next public bus in time, though.”

“That’s fine. Get the next public bus you can and we’ll meet at your usual spot. I have to go now. Talk later.”

And she hung up.

Well, that wasn’t disconcerting at all – and by that, I mean it definitely was. (The problem with text is that it’s not always obvious when I’m being sarcastic. Then again, sometimes it’s not obvious when I’m speaking.)

‘The usual spot’ was a coffee shop – not particularly surprising, considering coffee shops were everywhere on the Seven Moons. Our species has a reputation for being obsessed with coffee and tea, to the point of being willing to go to war over it. That reputation is mostly true, particularly the part about wars; we do have a cautionary tale in which a war was fought over precious farmland… which got destroyed and made useless by the fighting.

But anyway, back on topic.

This particular coffee shop was unusual, however, and the first sign of that was, well, the sign at the top. It depicted a hand of playing cards, and the name ‘Caffeinated-Chalice-of-Fortune’.

Entering it, you would see the second sign that this place was unusual – Patterns-of-Woodland had a largely homogeneous population species-wise, over 90% Seven-Moon Lynxes. This shop seemed to have the other 10%. There were humans, other kinds of aliens, even a blob monster or two. The only lynxes I could see were among the staff – and, after some searching, the one I’d agreed to meet.

Loria was at a table near a corner conspicuously labelled “Quiet Corner”, with a large cup of coffee in front of her. She was shorter than my modest height of 1.7 metres, but made up for that with a heavyset, muscular body. What made her stand out, though, were the colours of her fur. She was a chimera in the genetic sense, which meant that her arms, legs and face were mottled with a mix of brown and orange colours, a contrast to how the rest of her fur was beige.

If she was human, her face would have been pale. Her body language was tense, her clawed fingers digging into her arms. That coffee cup was nearly empty.

Seated on an adjacent chair was a quadrupedal gryphon-like creature roughly the size of a large dog; a creature that one could be forgiven for mistaking for a robot. However, the creature was not made of deliberate, refined shapes; instead his body was covered in a hide made of a grey rock-like substance, which made his bright green eyes and occasional puffs of green fur stand out more.

Nor did robots daintily lap up fruit tea from a bowl on the table.

He lifted his head when I approached the two, and made a noise similar to a parrot chirping or a cat meowing.

“Hey,” I said. Loria snapped out of her reverie and looked up, her heterochromatic eyes (one blue, one yellow) dull yet clear.

“Thank the First-Parent, you’re here.” Loria looked like she’d barely got any sleep.

“Good to see you, Fang,” I said, taking a moment to scratch the fur on the rock gryphon’s head, which he clearly appreciated. That done, I got up and sat at the table.

“Did anyone follow you here?” Loria asked, her voice just as tense as the rest of her.

I had to stop and think for a moment. I hadn’t been paying that much attention during the trip there, but it didn’t seem like anyone had followed me.

“I don’t think so,” I finally responded. My cousin frowned.

“This place isn’t as secure as I’d like, but it’ll have to do.” She took her cup and finished the coffee as she spoke. “If nothing else, if something happens we’ll have witnesses.”

Okay, something was definitely bothering her if she was acting like this.

“What’s going on?” I asked hesitantly.

“It’s the Guild.” Loria looked me directly in the eye. “They’re planning to attack Earth.”

What the hell? The Joniverse Explorers Guild? That Guild?

Okay, I’m going to need to exposit some more; my apologies.

Back on Earth, the organisation of multiversal protectors I worked for was known as the BVA. They were competent whenever a crisis reared its head, but they were also often a chaotic and somewhat ragtag bunch. I had coped by managing a relatively peaceful part of the organisation, but it seemed not everyone was okay with this; some time before I had joined, a number of members had openly voiced dissatisfaction with the BVA and left to start their own group.

That group was the Joniverse Explorers Guild, based on the dwarf planet of Eris – a rather ironic choice, considering their aim was to be the order to the BVA’s chaos.

Loria and her rock-gryphon ‘brother-in-spirit’ Fang worked for the Guild, and we had crossed paths when the Guild sent her and some others to investigate a series of disappearances on the Fifth Moon. Long story short (and skipping spoilers for the story Seventh Moon), it turned out the Guild had become a bureaucratic nightmare, and prejudice and corruption were rampant among the upper echelons. From what I had seen and heard, it seems they were on their way to becoming worse than the BVA had ever been.

And if what Loria had just said was true…

“Are you serious?!” I blurted out.

“Do you think I’d joke about this?!” Loria snapped.

“That’s not what I—fuck, nevermind, sorry.” Better to backpedal before I jammed my foot past my mouth and down my throat. “What the hell are they thinking?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “The higher-ups won’t tell me anything. I tried to ask, and all I got was thinly-veiled threats. If I ‘act disorderly’, the least I can expect to get is demoted and assigned to recruit-level duties.”

“Ah, fun,” I grumbled sarcastically.

“That’s one way to say it,” she grumbled in return.

Fang also grumbled.

“Well said, buddy.” Loria offered her fist, and Fang gave a little fist-paw-bump.

“We risked a lot, coming here,” my cousin continued. “If we get caught, we’re going to be in trouble.”

“Does the Guild even have people on Patterns-of-Woodland?” I asked. “Uh, aside from you and Fang.”

“After what happened on Desert-of-Ice, the Guild decided it needed to have some people keeping an eye on each of the Seven Moons, just in case.” Loria kept scratching behind Fang’s ear as she spoke. “Fang and I were assigned to Patterns-of-Woodland, but we weren’t the only ones. And I don’t trust the Guild not to have someone spying on me.”

Well, shit.

“You, though—” she pointed at me. “You’re ex-BVA. You’ve got ways to get in contact with the BVA and warn them. That’s why I called you here.”

That was true, although there was one problem. Actually, several.

“If the Guild’s got a spy on you, what’s stopping them from sending a spy after me? Or an assassin, for that matter? Furthermore, if they’ve bugged your phone, then they know about this meeting – and even if they don’t know what ‘the usual place’ is, I stand out.” Not many inhabitants of this moon had holographs instead of heads, after all.

“And further furthermore,” I continued, “if they send assassins, you’ve got Fang. All I have are two elderly parents with health problems.”

Loria’s eyes went wide as the realisation hit her. She swore in our native language of Septolunar.

“So I can warn the BVA, but I’ll have a target on my back. Thanks, cousin.”

“I—we’ll stay with you,” Loria said, frantically. “We’ll try to keep you safe, Fang and I. It’s—it’s the least we can do.”

Fang looked alarmed, then whimpered, as he looked back and forth between the two of us. He let out a quiet, apologetic noise.

Then, one of his ears swivelled in a particular direction.

He whirled around, suddenly jumped out of his seat, and charged in a particular direction—

—right at a stranger who had just pulled out a handgun.

What happened next was a blur. One moment, a stranger – a centaur-like being dressed like an Old West outlaw – was pointing an honest-to-the-First-Parent firearm at us.

The next, the sound of a gunshot.

And the next after that, Fang had tackled the centaur to the floor. There were yells from the two as they struggled, and screams from the staff and the other patrons, who were clearly frightened.

Gun violence was extremely rare on Patterns-of-Woodland; the moon had extremely strict weapon control laws. And a coffee shop was supposed to be a safe, peaceful place. The centaur had violated something that was almost sacred.

Loria had instinctively ducked for cover. As for me, I hadn’t been able to move in time.

Thank goodness my head was holographic and thus immune to bullets. The result of the shot was a bullet hole in the wall behind me.

For a moment, we were both frozen in shock and fear.

Then a different side of ourselves kicked in.

“Everyone!” Loria yelled in the galactic lingua franca, creatively named Galactic Common. “Get somewhere safe! We’ll take care of this asshole!”

Then, with a loud battle cry, she rushed at the centaur, ready to aid Fang.

I turned to the staff. It was clear that they were terrified and not sure what to do.

Thank goodness I had my experience in Jonsabooru to fall back on.

“Coffee-friends!” I yelled in Septolunar, using a local colloquialism for baristas. “Call police! Get Juno!”

“How’s the owner going to help?!” one of the baristas yelled in response.

“She’s got her ways,” I replied. “So just do as I ask, please!”

“Right!” Another barista quickly ran off.

“Rest of you, try to help the customers evacuate. As for me… I’m going to buy you all some time.”

I turned to the struggle going on in the centre of the room.

The centaur was big; Fang and Loria needed to work together just to pin their opponent to the floor. Even then, Fang was only able to restrain two of the assassin’s legs. Loria, meanwhile, focused on the upper body; she had one foot planted firmly on the arm closer to the floor, and had grabbed the free arm, trying to wrestle the gun from the centaur’s hand.

I walked over, focusing on the gun. My psychokinesis couldn’t lift heavy objects, but maybe…

There was a quiet clicking noise--

And then the magazine fell out of the gun.

The centaur swore loudly.

Loria quickly seized the opportunity and managed to knock the now-empty gun out of his hand.

I made a gesture. Pure kinetic energy pulled the magazine away from the scene, and carried it towards me.

I opted not to take it into my head – that was evidence, thank you – but instead let it remain floating in the air, on the ‘cloud’ of pure kinetic energy.

Instead, I walked over to the centaur, now pinned to the floor by my cousin and her rock gryphon buddy.

“Damn it,” the centaur said in English, specifically a distinctive Deep South drawl. What a goddamn stereotype. “What the hell is your head made of, freak?!”

“You’re very rude, you know that?” I replied in English. “First you bring a gun to a coffee shop and put everyone in danger, and then you call me a freak.”

Loria and Fang looked at me. I was fluent in English, but they weren’t.

“I had it – the perfect opportunity. My two targets, in the same place, in some backwater nobody gave a shit about. And then your damn rock cat-bird-thing ruined it!”

So the centaur was an assassin. And given what Loria had just told me…

“Who hired you?” I asked.

“I ain’t talkin’, freak.”

“Odds are good it’s the Joniverse Explorers Guild,” I continued. “They have good reason to want my cousin dead, and odds are, they want me dead for the same reason as well – because we both know too much.”

“Why would I want anything to do with those Guild freaks?” The assassin spat. “Everyone knows they’re just a bunch of kooks who think the multiverse is real and that everything was made by a space goddess or some shit like that. It’s some Galactic Core Paradiser shit.”

(The Galactic Core Paradisers are an infamous cult. I’ll elaborate later.)

“Maybe, but they’re a bunch of kooks with money.”

“I still ain’t talking, cyborg.” The centaur smirked smugly.

I sighed.

“Guess we’re at a stalemate, then.” I sat down on a now-empty chair.

That was when I heard an unfamiliar sound – a synthesizer playing a seductive atonal chiptune.

I quickly noticed it was coming from a pocket in the centaur’s jacket.

The centaur immediately began to struggle to get Loria off of his arms.

I made a gesture. The ‘cloud’ of kinetic energy quickly moved, dropping the magazine to the floor. At my mental command, it moved towards his pocket and grabbed something inside it.

Out of the pocket emerged a phone – an old ‘dumb phone’, surprisingly (or perhaps not, given the assassin’s profession). Another gesture, and it brought the phone to me.

The screen said, in English, ‘J.E.G. babe (CLIENT)’.

I knew it.

I decided not to command the cloud to answer or deny the call.

“That was from the Guild,” I simply said, in English.

The centaur’s eyes went wide. Then he swore loudly.

“You know, you’re kinda bad at being an assassin,” I continued. “Any assassin worth their salt would do at least a little research on the targets beforehand. Like, say, what exactly my cyborg parts even are.”

The centaur growled.

Then smirked.

“Maybe,” he replied, “but there’s one rookie mistake I didn’t make.”

“Which is?”

“I didn’t go without a backup plan!”

At that moment, the centaur’s eyes began to glow red.

Before I realised what was happening, multiple pairs of arms exploded out of the assassin’s body. They quickly grabbed Loria and Fang and grappled them, pulling the latter off the centaur’s front legs. He rapidly got to his feet.

I dove towards the magazine on the floor—and was grabbed by two of the centaur’s arms. Before I knew it, the assassin had snatched back his phone, pulled the gun out of Loria’s hands, and was putting the magazine back in.

Shit, shit, shit! We were dead!

“Well, it’s been fun,” the assassin growled, “but I got a job to do and you have all been wasting my precious time. Any last words before I send y’all to hell?”

The assassin pointed the gun directly at my torso. Fuck.

If I could distract him for just one second…

Suddenly the centaur screamed.

Loria had bitten down hard on one of the hands holding her. Being a cat-like humanoid, she still had some of the sharp teeth her ancestors had, so multiple boney stilettos dug into the flesh of the hand.

Fang quickly followed his partner’s example and bit into one of the hands holding him. Now it was pair of sharp stone knives.

“You fuckers!” The assassin yelled. “That’s it! You die first!”

The centaur pointed the gun directly at Loria’s head—

And before any of us could react, pulled the trigger.

There was the sound of gunpowder being ignited.

A scream.

…but nothing happened.

Nothing except for a flash of light—

And the gun disintegrating.

In mere instants, the machinery had fallen apart.

Bits of metal fell and clattered uselessly on the floor.

No-one moved or said anything.

Yet, in that moment, we all shared the same thought: ‘What the hell?’

Then the centaur saw something and yelped.

We all looked where he was looking.

Ordinary, I would have described this as a human woman – one with long blonde hair, one arm, a white gold-rimmed dress, and jewellery of multiple different colours.

Yet in that moment, this woman – her eyes glowing a primal red, all of the jewellery turned crimson to match, a card in her one hand and a halo of glowing swords around her – seemed so much more. Her mere presence was overpowering. We all felt as if we were mere mortals, graced with the presence of a majestic, divine being.

A relieved smile crossed my face.

Loria and Fang were in awe.

The centaur’s eyes were wide with pure, primal terror.

Thus the woman spoke:

“Let. Them. Go.”

For one long moment, there was silence.

Then, I felt the centaur’s grip loosen.

One by one, we were roughly dropped onto the floor.

I looked up at the assassin. The arms were retreating back into his torso.

He slowly backed away from our saviour, eyes wide and darting side to side.

“This—” he stammered, “—this isn’t over!”

He turned and fled from the coffee shop.

Loria groaned and placed a hand on her heart, panting heavily. Without missing a beat, Fang was there; he curled up next to his partner and gently nuzzled her face, quietly warbling. In return, she grabbed and hugged him.

As for me, I slowly sat up. First I checked to see if I was okay; I was. Then I checked on Loria and Fang; one was being comforted by the other.

Those done, I turned around to look at our saviour.

She closed her eyes, the swords vanished, and the jewellery faded to its natural variety of colours. Her eyes opened, and they were back to their normal colours – all four of them.

“Goodness, Nasue, you can’t stay out of trouble, can you?” she asked, both bemused and concerned. She offered her hand to help me up.

“’fraid not.” I took her hand and got to my feet. “Thank the First-Parent you’re here…

“Or rather, thank you, Juno.”

Loria and Fang looked at each other with wide eyes and confused expressions.

Patterns-of-Woodland got its name for its wilderness. The moon was a mix of a farming community, a collection of suburbs with a handful of downtown areas, and vast areas of land dedicated to wildlife preservation. What that meant was that there were plenty of forests that one could get lost in, whether by accident or ‘accident’.

It was quite convenient for the centaur.

He’d lost track of how long he’d been galloping in a near-blind panic. It was only after he reached a grotto inside a clearing that he finally felt safe enough to stop – and when he did, he nearly collapsed from exhaustion. Every muscle in his body felt like it was on fire.

For what seemed like an eternity, he lay there, his mind racing, trying to comprehend what the hell had happened in that coffee shop.

What was that woman? She looked human, yeah, but humans weren’t capable of… whatever it was that she had done. Making guns collapse, summoning swords out of nowhere, suddenly becoming much more intimidating, and glowing eyes? If the centaur didn’t know better, he would’ve thought that was magic.

But that was ridiculous. Magic wasn’t real… right?

Either way, there was no way he was going to be able to kill his targets with that strange woman around – and something told him that trying to take her on directly would end very badly for him.

So for now, he would lay low while he tried to think of a Plan B.

He pulled out his phone and began typing a text message.

After things had calmed down, Juno had invited us to a quiet room and treated us to free food and drink. Loria had insisted on paying, but our host in turn insisted we just accept the food. So Loria left a tip – not a common tradition on Patterns-of-Woodland, where baristas actually got paid, but she’d spent plenty of time in parts of the universe where that was not the case.

“The baristas told me about the attack,” our host said as she worked on some sandwiches. “All of the other customers managed to get to safety, and they’re shaken, but no serious physical injuries.”

“Good to hear,” I replied, sitting in a chair nearby. “What about the assassin?”

“You did ask one of the baristas to call the police, right?”

I nodded in response.

“Well, there were plenty of surviving eyewitnesses who could describe him, and he does stand out. So he may not get far. On the other hand, this café is out of the way, and there is plenty of wilderness on this moon, so…”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “At the very least, they’ll be looking for him.”

But who knew how long it would take to find him? As long as he was out there, he was still a risk, even without his gun.

Furthermore, Loria was right – we were still in danger. What would stop the Guild from sending more assassins, or targeting other people? And there was still the matter of warning Earth…

But there was also another thing to worry about in that moment, arguably far more important.

“Where the hell’s the tea? I need a strong cup right now.”

“If you want to make it yourself, by all means,” Juno responded without even looking up. “It’s in its usual spot.”

“Thanks. You know, for an ancient and wise being and connoisseur of fine beverages, you can’t brew a proper cuppa for shit.”

“Perhaps because I exclusively drink the strongest coffee possible, tea-addict?”

“Oh, don’t bloody get me started,” I grumbled as I set off to grab a mug.

Loria and Fang were seated at a booth with a round table and one large semi-circle of a chair.

It gave her room to sprawl out, and Fang room to flop down on the seat like the cat-bird-creature that he was.

For a long time, neither of them moved. They just sat there, zoned the fuck out.

Fang looked at his partner. They’d known each other for over a decade; when they first met, she was a teenager with a severe injury and a deep depression, and he was a frightened youngster who’d been rescued from a cruel experiment but was now in a strange and unfamiliar world. Now, they were siblings in spirit, and they were nigh-inseparable.

He didn’t need to be a mind-reader to know that Loria was under a lot of stress. She’d been anguishing over all of this for the past few days. And that was without strangers with guns trying to kill them.

All because she chose her conscience over her loyalty to the Guild.

Though highly intelligent, Fang’s kind were physically unable to speak the kinds of complex vocal languages that humans or seven-moon lynxes could. It was something in their brains, as far as he knew. For the most part, he was able to get by with other means of communication, but in that moment, he wished he had something that would allow him to outright tell his sister-in-spirit what she needed to hear.

Or at least, what he hoped it was that she needed to hear.

“Alright everyone, dinner’s ready!” Juno called out. She and I walked towards the table, both of us carrying trays with food on them; I used my psychokinesis to carry my precious mug of tea.

The other two perked up; Fang in particular went from lying on his side to eagerly sitting up, eyes wide open, in less than a second. Little guy loved some good food.

“Here you go, Fang,” Juno said as she placed a bowl of soup in front of him. The rock gryphon eagerly trilled in thanks before proceeding to lap up the liquid food in just as dainty a manner as before.

Meanwhile, I had fish and chips (the fish coming from Achernar, of course) and a salad, along with my precious tea. Juno had crepes, along with a mug of her preferred brew of coffee.

As for Loria, she got a monstrously large toasted sandwich, filled with multiple different kinds of meat, cheese and eggs – and a single lettuce leaf. Bloody carnivore.

“Thanks,” my cousin said, her voice still shaking slightly.

It was all she had time to say before going to town on the sandwich, tearing it to pieces and devouring it in a frenzy.

I was across the table from her and I still recoiled. There was stress-eating, and then there was whatever the hell this was.

Regardless, we all dug into our respective meals.

Loria was the first to finish, and she was quick to notice something she didn’t like.

“You didn’t make me coffee?!”

Sure enough, instead of coffee, we had just given her a glass of water, ice cubes and all.

“You’re under a lot of stress as is,” I replied. “The last thing you need right now is to put caffeine in your system.”

“Then why do you get tea?”

“It’s decaf.”

“Bollocks,” Loria growled. Regardless, she took the glass of water and began to drink it.

Fang gave me a look that showed he was not impressed by this.

“Anyway,” I began, my tone shifting to a more serious one. “I wanted to wait until we were all here and could talk about this together. See, Loria knows why the assassin was after us…”

Light-years away from the Seven Moons, a being that resembled a mix of a goat and a fish sat at their desk and stared at a pair of computer monitors.

Spreadsheets, spreadsheets and yet more spreadsheets. All of it was work that had to be done yesterday, according to their employer. It took conscious effort to stop it all from blurring together into one monstrous mega-spreadsheet – that, and also what they called ‘liquid smoke’, a tea blend that smelled and tasted like something that had been burned.

On and on the work continued, a strange mix of boring and stressful.

It was almost a relief when their phone rang. They did a well-practiced routine of pressing the button and speaking in a specific voice.

“Hello, thank you for calling the Joniverse Explorers Guild; this is the personal assistant to—”

“Evenin’, pal.” The response was an all-too-familiar drawl. Oh no. Him again?

“Ah, you’re… the fixer that the Guildmaster hired, correct?” One couldn’t use the actual name of his profession – that would be too blatant.

“I am,” the centaur’s voice continued. “‘fraid I got some bad news.”

The goat-fish’s ears drooped.

“…go on.”

By the time we had finished explaining what was going on, Juno’s face bore a grim expression.

“This is dire indeed,” she began. “If the Guild knew to send assassins here, down to the exact building, then you aren’t safe here on this planet.”

“This moon,” I corrected.

“This moon, my apologies. So all of you would be at risk if you returned home. If I may, I’d suggest you go directly to Earth as soon as you can.”

“Makes sense,” I responded. “Not only could we go right to the BVA and tell them directly, but we’d at least have some degree of protection once we get there.” (Even with everything the BVA had to deal with on a daily basis.)

Fang made a concerned noise. To Loria’s surprise, and my initial surprise, Juno looked at him as if she understood something he’d just said.

“Is that so?” she asked. It was then I noticed that her eyes and jewellery had just turned green.

Fang’s eyes went wide with surprise, and he let out a squawk.

“Yes, I can understand you,” Juno replied. “So I can translate for you.”

Fang let out a loud, happy noise – loud enough that we winced and covered our ears. He quickly shrunk back sheepishly.

“Anyway, Fang’s worried about whether the Guild would go after your families.”

“I don’t know,” Loria replied, beginning slowly. “My cousin’s, maybe, but Fang and I live alone… which isn’t much better now that I think about it.”

Shit. I definitely couldn’t go back home, then.

“Once the police-folk get here, maybe we’ll ask them to get someone to guard my family,” I said. “Just in case.”

“And another thing,” Loria began. “Even with the fastest space-time vehicles, it’s still gonna take a few local days to get to Earth. That’s a few days where we’re vulnerable and open to attack.”

At that point, Juno raised her hand.

“Actually, if I may… I know a faster way.”

“Is this some kind of sick joke?!”

The secretary was tall for their kind, but in that moment, they may as well have been tiny compared to their superior. A tall humanoid woman with transparent skin and a muscular physique glared down at them from her solid marble desk.

“It’s—it’s exactly as I said, Guildmaster Five,” the secretary stammered. “The Yonder-Sky-Blue cousins were able to escape the assassin with the help of Lady Luck.”

The Guildmaster let out a loud scream and slammed her fist into the desk. It landed with such force that it not only made an audible thud noise, but left cracks in the solid marble.

The secretary jumped back with a terrified yelp, nearly losing their balance.

“…Secretary. I suggest you leave my office. Now.”

The snarl in the Guildmaster’s voice wasn’t overt, but it was definitely there. The secretary nodded with a whimper before scrambling out of the room.

Now on her own, she stood up to her full height. Near the back of her office, there was a punching bag. She was going to need it right now.

From outside the office, the secretary could hear more enraged screaming, and shivered. Years ago, they celebrated being promoted to personal assistant to one of the Masters of the Joniverse Explorers Guild. It was one of the highest honours possible in the entire organisation – a sign that one could be trusted by the most powerful people in the entire Guild.

Now, they had seen how awful things truly were. Their position was a gilded cage, and they constantly felt that they were seconds away from being assaulted – verbally or physically. And they couldn’t leave, not without ‘mandatory forgetting of crucial information’.

The secretary grabbed a plain-coloured mug. They used to have mugs with snarky slogans, but since being promoted they were forced to get rid of them in favour of ‘pure drinking vessels’. At least they could still drink their precious tea.

Once the police-folk arrived, we explained the situation once again. Nothing much of note happened there, to our surprise; turns out some of the local ones knew Juno, and seemed to know enough about what she actually was. There were already ones out there looking for the centaur; the ones in the know agreed to drive us to our homes so we could begin packing for the trip to Earth.

If only all of them were like that.

When I got home, my parents were waiting, and had clearly been worried out of their minds.

“I wish you could stay out of trouble for once in your life,” my mother said as we hugged.

“Not the first time someone said that to me today,” I responded.

There wasn’t time to relax, though. I went up to my room and began to get what I needed, while Juno and an officer stayed downstairs to explain what was going on (redacting what they needed to). Once I had everything, I returned.

I took the time to give each of my parents a long hug.

“Don’t worry,” I assured them, “once this is over I will come back.”

When Loria and Fang got home, no-one was there to greet them. Normally that would have been fine, but today it made them more uneasy.

The two didn’t take long to pack their own supplies; they’d done this many times before. They did take the time to try to find any bugs or other such devices, just in case.

Nothing came of that, though. They left home as quickly as they had arrived.

It was close to midnight local time when we returned to Juno’s coffee shop. I took a moment to smell the air of Patterns-of-Woodland one last time before venturing inside.

From there, Juno led us to a room that we’d never seen before, near the back of the building.

It contained a door which was bizarrely ornate in a way that clashed with the rest of the décor.

“This will allow you to go to St. Jonsabooru on foot,” she explained.

“Are you shitting me?!” That was from Loria – and from the squawk, Fang, too.

“I am not, in fact… ‘kidding you’,” Juno responded. “I have some powers over space and time, and as a result, all of the cafés that I own are one place in multiple locations. They’re all connected by this corridor here.”

I nodded and made a noise of acknowledgement. After my time in St. Jonsabooru, this wasn’t the most surprising thing to me.

Loria, however…

“What are you?” She gawked at Juno.

“I am a goddess of fortune. And just so we’re clear,” she added, with a slight roll of the eyes, “I’m not speaking figuratively in any way; I am a deity, full stop.”

“I see,” Loria muttered.

Huh. She took that rather well, all things considered. Then again, after what had happened on Desert-of-Ice, maybe she was more open to the idea of gods being real.

“Before you go,” Juno continued, “I have something to give to each of you.”

She pulled out some cards and handed one to each of us. Each card had a different colour and symbol on it. I knew that each colour meant a different kind of whatever Juno’s powers were, but not much more than that.

“Fang, this card – the Green Coin – will allow you to be understood by other people. I know how much it pains you to be unable to communicate what goes on in your mind.

“Loria, this card – the Red Sword – will allow you to fight on equal footing with supernatural foes. You’ll need it when the Guild comes to St. Jonsabooru.

“And Nasue… here’s a map of the corridors between the cafés.”

The three of us just stared at her for a moment.

“In addition, this card, the Blue Chalice—” ah, there we go, “will allow you to turn your love of tea into a weapon in its own right.”

We looked at our cards. I quickly pocketed mine, as did Loria. Fang awkwardly tucked his card behind one of his ears.

“Thanks, Juno,” I responded. “You’re not coming with us?”

“There’s other duties I need to attend to,” she replied. “Besides, St. Jonsabooru has plenty of people who would be willing to help you.”

I nodded.

“Well, thanks for everything, Juno.

“Alright…” I looked at the other two. “We ready?”

Loria nodded. Fang nodded.

“Then… let’s go to Earth.”

We opened the door, entered the dark and dusty tunnels, and began our journey back to Earth—

—back to St. Jonsabooru.

The goat-fish was halfway through the mug when there was a pattern of knocks on the door. It was a specific pattern used only by the Guildmasters.

Through the door strode a massive being clad in mechanical armour. One could be forgiven for mistaking this being for a robot, as the armour hid any and all signs of his true organic nature. The secretary knew the truth, though.

The armoured one paused, hearing the screams coming from his fellow Guildmaster’s office.

“Bad news?” A deep, rumbling voice came from the armoured being.

“Lady Luck saved the targets from the assassin,” the secretary replied.

“Ah.”

Neither spoke for a moment. The screams continued, though.

“Do you want to talk to her?” The secretary’s tone was almost pleading.

The armoured one was silent for another moment, as if thinking.

“Allow me.”

Oh thank god.

The armoured one opened the door to the sight of an office that was mostly clean and tidy, save for what lay in the back. His fellow Guildmaster had torn her punching bag to shreds and was now taking out her anger on its remains.

How typical.

“Do you need help, my love?”

The distinctive sound of his deep voice caught her attention. She looked up to see her fellow Guildmaster, clad in his armour like always.

“I… would appreciate it, yes,” she spoke after a few seconds.

The armoured one removed his helmet, revealing a handsome, literally chiselled face with luscious long hair and short beard, and tucked the helmet under one arm. He strode over to his beloved, offering a hand to help her up. She took it and got to her feet.

“The lynx traitor and her cousin live,” the transparent-skinned woman began. “Lady Luck defeated the assassin I had sent after them.”

“And Yonder-Sky-Blue’s apprentice? What of him?”

“He also lives, regrettably.”

“Pity. He’s a good lad, that Fang, but his loyalty to Yonder-Sky-Blue holds him back greatly.”

“I don’t know what you see in that animal.”

“O, my love, must we forget that we are animals, too? Animals that achieved greatness, yes, but animals all the same.”

“If you say so,” the translucent-skinned one muttered.

The chiselled man looked perturbed for a moment, then shook his head and gave a smile.

“In either case, take heart: yes, Yonder-Sky-Blue has escaped and could warn the BVA about our intentions – and yes, Lady Luck is helping them. But this does not automatically mean we have lost! For one, we also have a deity on our side. And for another…”

His smile turned into a smirk, and he gave a chuckle.

“…our allies and agents on Earth are already in action…”