Chapter 27: Unnecessary Distractions

A knock pulled Lieutenant General Hayworth out of his work. He'd been writing his report to his superiors, describing in detail the progress the Project had made and how unexpectedly benign the Professor had turned out to be.

He was mostly doing it to distract himself from the fact that the soldiers he was responsible for were currently out there, fighting off an entire army while under the direct command of someone capable of bossing Hayworth himself around. He could link in to the same video call the Professor was using to monitor the situation but he couldn't bring himself to. He'd always hated armchair generals, people who had never seen battle but still thought themselves qualified to criticize the soldiers on the ground, and he wasn't about to become one.

But whatever distraction his report provided, his visitor would likely do a much better job. And there was always the chance that something had gone horribly wrong and that he needed to hear about it, so he didn't dawdle and said:

“Enter.”

A moment later he regretted his decision when Nurse Rachel walked into the room, making him feel like a hormonal teenager the way she always did. Which was pretty fucking bad considering he was married with two daughters and hadn't been able to spend time with his wife in seven months. Which was to say that he was a little pent up. And so the last thing he needed was an unfathomably attractive, barely legal-looking woman who had explicitly offered her services to everyone at the compound.

But somehow, Rachel looked even hotter than usual today. He couldn't quite put his finger on it but in some way he couldn't place she seemed even more attractive. And judging by the tiny smirk on her lips she seemed well aware of the effect she was having.

“Lieutenant General,” the demon said, her voice even huskier than usual. “How are you feeling?”

I feel like I want to bury my cock inside you, he thought. But instead he rolled his eyes and said: “I'm busy, Nurse Rachel. Please refrain from bothering me if you have nothing important to say.”

Her lips, those obscenely soft-looking pink lips, pressed together. “I do have something important to say,” she said. “But I am also the only nurse at this compound and your health is important. You look overwrought and we can't really afford for you to exhaust yourself.”

“Our soldiers are fighting out there,” he countered. “How could I be calm in a situation like this?”

“I'm not sure how far you've been following the fighting but our soldiers are winning out there. Between them and the team from Base 11 they've already destroyed two waves of enemies. I agree that you should be concerned for them but it's not productive.”

“I know,” he said. “That's why I'm working on this report here. So, what was so important?”

She shook her head and he couldn't help but notice the way her long, wavy red hair caressed the tops of her breasts as it brushed back and forth over them. Weren't nurses supposed to wear their hair up for hygiene?

“The monitoring division sent a report that's a little concerning,” she finally said. “Apparently they've noticed someone sneaking around the base the last few days, as if trying to scout us out.”

That made him drop his pen and stare at her.

Her lips quirked up again, clearly glad to finally have caught his attention. Even if the expression was only faintly smug he still had the sudden, shameful urge to wipe it off her face. A dozen spanks on that obscenely sexy ass should do it.

But she continued before he could entertain the thought any further. “Whatever or whoever it is, they're smart enough to stay undetected.”

“Then how did we detect them?" he asked.

“Even the sneakiest scouts leave trails,” Rachel said. “The girls had to practically cross-examine the base's blind spots to notice it but they managed it. But there's two things off about the whole thing.”

“Namely?” he asked, leaning forward. He even managed to tell himself that it was out of curiosity and not because it allowed him to get a better look at her cleavage.

“One,” she said, apparently heedless of where his gaze was wandering, “in this situation you'd think that it would be Outsiders or their cultists that would try to scout us out but there hasn't been a trace of Outsider presence in a five mile radius in over a week. Two, they have not done anything to attack or sabotage the base and they actively avoided our teams up until they left for the refugee camp.”

“Could they be friendlies?” Hayworth asked.

“Why would they hide themselves if they were?” Rachel asked.

He bit his lip. “Could they be part of this Professor Caulder's forces?”

“I was wondering about that so I asked Stollos about it,” she said, making him perk up. “He says that Caulder is too impatient for proper scouting. If he sends out scouts they are ordered to sabotage and to pick off targets of opportunity. The mermaids have documented half a dozen cases where such targets of opportunity presented themselves and they isolated three weaknesses in the base's structure that a saboteur could have exploited. And yet, whoever these people are, they've struck at none of them. Of course, it's possible that they're Caulder's minions. Stollos broke ties with Caulder more than half a century ago and even immortals change.”

He nodded. All of this talk about immortals was too much for him. He preferred it when things made sense. War, even riddled with complicated politics, had been much simpler before the Invasion. He certainly had never had to deal with a five thousand year old succubus who looked to be just barely legal back then, never mind a mad scientist with a personal army of grotesque creatures he had built and grown and grafted himself.

“I'll take your word for it,” he said. “Now, was there anything else?”

“No, that was all,” Rachel said, then turned and headed for the door. He could have elected not to notice the way her hips were swaying but he did. His gaze was glued to them, to her shapely ass that would be so perfect to spank and to her creamy thighs clad in white stockings.

When she reached the door she threw a look over her shoulder at him, catching him checking her out, and smirked.

**

Rachel sauntered her way back to her office, grinning like a loon. For months now she'd tried to find a way to rattle Francis and finally she'd found it.

Oh, she'd known about his kink for a long time. It was her nature. Other people's desires were an open book to her. But it was still telling how well her little trick had worked.

She had shifted her body a little bit, trying to make herself more appealing to him. It hadn't been a huge change. She'd made herself slightly lankier, her curves just a little less pronounced than normal. Her preferred form looked barely legal but for Francis she'd shifted herself ever-so-slightly towards jailbait, acted just a little brattier than usual, and he'd eaten it up.

She knew he had no interest in children but his type was young. His wife was a decade younger than him and she was still in very good shape. Rachel also knew that he was ashamed of having this type. And she was going to try and get him to cut loose a little. The kind of cutting loose that ended with her ass cherry-red and her pussy full of cock while she thanked daddy for treating her like his cumdump. Oh, she couldn't wait.

**

“May I talk to you for a second?”

Ophelia turned around to see a sexy Slavic blonde standing behind her. The woman wore a uniform that was hauntingly similar, if not quite identical, to the uniform Ophelia herself wore.

“You are...?” she began.

“I'm Elena, with Project God-Machines,” the woman said.

Ophelia's eyes widened. “You were in one of those mechs?” she asked.

“Yes,” Elena said.

“Okay then,” Ophelia said. “What's up?”

“I was wondering how you can do what you did,” Elena said. “I saw what you were doing to those Outsiders. That was magic, wasn't it?”

“It was,” Ophelia agreed. “I got it from the Project. Instead of a giant robot I got the ability to bend fire, metal and shadows to my will.”

Elena's eyes were wide. “Could you... show me?”

Ophelia frowned. “I can do that but I don't think it'll help you. If you don't have the potential for magic you can't just use it.”

Elena nodded. “Yes, but...” She took a deep breath, then began again. “Our mechs have supernatural powers, like what you surely saw Jacob do.” Ophelia nodded. “I only just synced with my mech a couple days ago. I don't know what it is she can do yet. But... when I saw you throwing those spells it felt... right, as if that was something I should know how to do.”

Ophelia's eyes widened. “Oh, I see. Sure, I'll show you.”

Elena smiled and watched as Ophelia muttered nonsense syllables under her breath, using the name of one of her spells, summoning a lance of pure shadow that she could fire as a projectile. When she had it fully formed she looked back at Elena, who was frowning at it. “Does that do anything for you?”

“No,” Elena said hesitantly. “It looks incredible but that feeling I had before isn't there...”

“Maybe you imagined it...?” Ophelia asked, then almost kicked herself when she realized how insensitive that must have sounded.

“I don't think that's the issue,” Elena said. “Would you come with me for a moment?”

“Sure,” Ophelia said. “Where?”

“To Zvezda,” Elena said. “I think the problem is that this doesn't resonate with me. It resonates with my mech.”

Ophelia's lips quirked up. She was going to get to see one of those super robots up close. Alexis would be so jealous...

…

She really should be taking Alexis along for this. It would be awful of her not to.

**

“That was excellent work,” General Pennington said. “Both teams worked well to repel the attackers. The battle is far from won but your actions gave us enough time to catch our breath.”

“Indeed,” Jude said. “I was already well aware of how formidable Sergeant Fielder's team was but I was impressed with Project Divinity. I admit I was skeptical of Professor Stollos' work but I was clearly proven wrong.”

“Just because his methods used to be on the far side of ethical doesn't mean he isn't brilliant,” Leonardo chimed in. “I can only hazard a guess at how he accomplished what he did because my research also focuses around Soul Shards.”

“I don't understand much of this mystical mumbo-jumbo and I don't much care,” Pennington said, already well aware that Leonardo could talk for hours if things excited him. “What I do care about is that the soldiers all performed well above expectations.”

“Philistine,” Leonardo muttered.

Pennington considered for a moment whether or not to take umbrage with the comment. If any normal egghead had talked to him that way he would have had them put on latrine duty for the next three or four decades. But he was also aware that Leonardo was a living legend who was stronger than him by several orders of magnitude and who, if not for the magnanimity Heaven had showed the mortal authorities, would outrank him by those same orders of magnitude. So instead of being annoyed Pennington decided to simply roll with the punches and asked:

“How long until the next wave?”

“The army elected to avoid the chasm of melted asphalt Sergeant Fielder created rather than trying to fill it up”, Jude said. “It should give us about another hour to prepare.”

“Will the robots be ready by then?”

“I would really prefer you call them God-Machines”, Leonardo said.

Pennington heaved a sigh and didn't say anything.

“Yes, they will be ready by then”, Leonardo said, his voice theatrically exhausted.

**

Leonardo was eccentric, he freely admitted that. He loved talking about his work and he rarely enjoyed talking to people who weren't interested in hearing about it. Right now he had to work with General Pennington but quite frankly he'd much rather be down in the hangar, tending to his God-Machines. There was a reason he wasn't doing that, though. Right at this moment Elena, the recently synced pilot, was talking to two members of Professor Stollos' project. She apparently hoped to suss out her new abilities by talking to people who she believed had similar abilities to her own. He didn't want to interfere with that, didn't want to interfere with what might be a breakthrough, not just for her but for the entire project. If Elena could figure out her powers by observing mages with similar abilities it would further Leonardo's own research by leaps and bounds. It was therefore of the utmost importance that he gave the girl room to breathe. He was still monitoring everything that happened around his God-Machines, of course.

He chuckled quietly to himself as he remembered everything this monitoring had showed him so far. He'd seen the way Jacob had synced with Eos, had seen the way their link had gone far beyond psychic, had seen the stains Jacob had had to sheepishly clean out of the cockpit afterwards. He'd seen the way Jacob had helped Elena sync with Zvezda, a foursome with only two bodies present.

But he hadn't told them any of that. In part it was that he didn't want to embarrass them, in part it was that he simply didn't care how they synced so long as they did it, and part of it was that even after five hundred years of continuous existence he still felt awkward talking about relationships with anyone. He blamed his upbringing for that. In life he'd been called a deviant, which had led him to keep his private life mostly secret. This had in turn led him to value trust over everything else in relationships. And as such he couldn't comprehend why anyone would willingly discuss their relationships openly.

But at least he was certain Jacob and his women would be grateful for his discretion.

**

“I don't like it,” Cassie said.

“You don't have to,” Elaine told him. “I'm not wild about it either. It's just the best way to do it. We won't be long.”

It had been decided that the members of Project Divinity most capable of moving undetected would drop behind the enemy army and disable their siege weaponry. And Elaine, Alexis and Ophelia had been picked to be part of this team. Of course that left Cassie, Evelyn and Abigail to defend the refugee camp alongside the rest of the Project but, as Elaine had said, they wouldn't be gone for the entire fight.

“Should we get going then?” Alexis asked.

“Probably for the best,” Elaine said. “Good luck, everyone.”

“Yeah”, Evelyn said.

**

Jeanne rarely had to sneak around.

She was a Cherubim. She didn't sneak. Where she went her foes trembled. But intimidation didn't help with catching spies.

And so, for once, Jeanne was not kitted out in her normal white suit of armor. Instead she wore a camo green bodysuit, skin-tight and cinched tight to her body with belts. It would look like fetish gear if not for the military coloration but Jeanne valued its efficiency. In fact she hadn't even considered it to be particularly lewd-looking until Rachel had purred at her, lust in her eyes, when she'd donned it. The look Rachel had given her, as if she'd wanted to immediately peel her out of it again, was going to keep her warm all mission long.

It was part of the reason why she felt naked in this outfit. Her armor, a newer and stronger version of the body armor the project members wore while out on missions, was a marvel of modern technology, some of the finest pieces of gear Heaven had ever invented. Not only was it phenomenally tough and outfitted with dozens of useful utilities, it also got stronger depending on the wearer. The tougher the wearer, the tougher the armor. The way the cadets could strengthen their bodies and auras would also dramatically improve the innate toughness of the Yesod pattern armor.

The higher their Vigor soared, the faster their armor would repair itself. The higher their Toughness, the harder their armor was to crack. The higher their Fortitude, the better the armor was at fending off magic. Angels couldn't fine-tune their stats the way Shard Bearers could but they were so tough that the armor might as well have been as tough as that of a tank for them. The armor also had the unique ability of integrating with their Higher form, changing shape to fit them no matter how their bodies morphed. Very handy when many angels' Higher forms weren't humanoid in the slightest. She shuddered as the thought reminded her of her one and only encounter with Leviathan, Demon Lord of Envy, and the scaly, winged serpentine beast he could shift into.

But right now she wasn't out here to contemplate the nature of her body armor. She was out here to find the spies that had been sneaking around their base, scouting it out while leaving few if any traces.

Or at least that's what it had seemed like to the mermaids. Actually out on patrol the signs were obvious to Jeanne. She'd been one of the best at sussing out enemy ambushers during the Fae Wars, back during what the humans had called the Industrial Revolution, when Heaven and Hell had worked together to push the Fae out of the mortal world while the sudden saturation of iron particles in the air of most of Europe had weakened the fairies to an unprecedented degree.

She was good at finding traces of enemies in hiding and here they were unmistakable. Some carefully hidden but still traceable footprints here, some cracked branches there. Someone had been careful to hide these signs but that almost made them more obvious if one knew what to look for.

If Jeanne wasn't off her mark then there were five scouts, four of them bipedal and one a quadruped. Weirdly, no matter what scans she ran or how much she searched, she couldn't find any trace of Outsider activity, telling her that whoever was scouting out their base wasn't a disgusting beast from beyond the multiverse. Of course she'd read the reports, which had already stated this, but she was still glad to verify it. But other than the Outsiders she had no idea who it could be.

The most logical conclusion would of course be that the enemy they were currently facing, Professor Caulder, was behind this. However, there was no indication that he knew about Project Divinity's existence and even if he did there was no indication that he knew of its location. Not to mention that if Caulder was behind the Outsider presence in the area then it stood to reason that his troops were also corrupted but whoever these spies were, they were clean of that taint at least.

Another possibility would be that they weren't spies at all but merely survivors suspicious of the military installation. But if that was the case, why were they still sneaking around? Either they should have already approached or left.

Crack.

Jeanne's head snapped up as the sound pulled her out of her musings. A cracked twig wasn't suspicious on its own but in a wooded area suspected to house a group of spies it immediately put her on guard. She looked around, straining her ears to make out any suspicious sounds.

Only when she saw a rabbit hopping into her field of view from the direction the sound had come from did she relax.

She was way too tense. She was a Cherubim, for the Lord's sake. There was no Outsider taint in these woods so nothing here should be the slightest danger to a being such as her. She shook her head. She would need to keep monitoring the situation but clearly she'd been jumping at shadows today.

**

Subject 259's heart was racing in her chest, harder than it ever had, even worse than when she'd thought she'd been about to be made an example of by her creator.

This being terrified her. It had the shape of a beautiful woman but it was so much more powerful than that. Her senses were sharp enough to make out what this being would be like without the shackles that held it in a human shape and it was powerful enough to raze the entire countryside down to the ground. Neither her nor her cyborg minders were powerful enough to so much as scratch a being like that.

Under normal circumstances this news would have been elating, the knowledge that even if her creator came down on these people they would be able to fend him off at least for a time making her heart soar. But in this situation, after a single misstep had almost caused the being to notice her, it just terrified her. Thankfully the AI riding 202 had been fast and smart enough to drop a sound shroud and a glamour over her in time. Between that and the stroke of luck of a little bunny rabbit hopping by the entity had left them alone, assured that she hadn't been watched.

“That was close,” she breathed when she was certain that the entity was out of earshot.

“Indeed,” the slaver AI said. “If this compound is manned by beings of this level taking it will require significantly more resources than previously anticipated. Your decision to scout the compound out first turned out to be very wise indeed.”

Should have just let them go ahead and get slaughtered by that monster, 259 thought. If her creator had sent one of his normal strike teams at this base they would have been destroyed within moments. Now that the slaver AI had seen the kind of resistance the base could muster her creator wouldn't send a normal strike team. He would pull out all the stops.

But no matter how terrifying these defenders were, she still hoped they would destroy whatever he'd send their way.

ChrisLensman

A huge thanks to my newest Advanced Patron AnarchyBellic! Your support, as well as that of all my other patrons, means the world to me!

I would also like to take this opportunity to remind all of you that you have no idea what Subject 259 looks like.