Chapter 9 - How to Lord Over a Lord

"Father." Sia repeated, regarding the word itself with a fair amount of abhorrence.

"Yes, darling...?" Xander Warsaw, the potential future Alliance Leader, was stepping on tiptoes here.

"Did you raise me to make my own decisions?"

"Yes, darling, why?"

"Have you previously stated that you trust my decision-making capability, and that you have raised me well in that regard?"

"Yes, sweetie, I have. What is this about?"

"And you promised you would not arrange my marriage, DID YOU NOT?!?!" Sia was on the verge of madness.

Xander was on the verge of crying. He knew what he had done, but he had tried to keep it low-key.

"You will call them off this. Instant." Sia continued. "You will not go after him. He IS worthy of me, and of your legacy. Back off. Now. You trust me, so trust me. and BACK FREAKING OFF."

Miya had never seen her cousin this upset. She wanted to hug her, but she knew that it was inappropriate and ill-advised right now.

"What would Mother say?" Sia challenged. She knew that this was her one way to get him down on his knees. She waited for his response.

After some intense thinking, Xander made his reply. "...Sia, my Sia. There are some things that you should know. Firstly, I will back off from the one to whom your heart is inclined. Secondly, I have just received "the call" from the Unity Party. It is my charge for this upcoming year."

Xander paused a moment before ocntinuing. "Thirdly, although I trust your judgement of character, this world has many variables. A man's character alone cannot control his path of life. To this end, I can only say that I do not trust this boy's capacity in regards to your heart. As such, I'd like to make an agreement with you. A bet, if you will, regarding your our individual comprehension of his capacity to marry you, my daughter, and the picture of my wife."

He felt the sharply held breath on the other end of the phone line. "Continue." Sia spat out, and Xander winced.

"If the young Veil can match one tenth of my current total assets in the next 10 years, I will name him as heir to my businesses- regardless of whether or not you marry him. If he cannot, the entirety of my blessing fades. ALL of my blessing. If he is worth this much to you... Will you take this bet with me?"

Sia didn't even hesitate. "What if he makes more than your current total assets?" She felt it was only right to provoke him at this point. He deserved.... too much in response for this.

"If he makes more than I have over my entire time in business, having started with your grandfather's business, I'll transfer everything directly over to him!"

"Good!" Sia shouted into the phone. "Send it to me, signed, in writing, and call your people off IMMEDIATELY."

"They've already been called off, dear."

"IT SHOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE!" Sia yelled into his ear. "If I find out his parents are gone... I'll..."

"They're okay. They disappeared." Xander quickly butted in.

"They shouldn't have had to!" Sia quickly responded.

"Just send me the contract, and next time we see each other, make sure we're alone. Got it?"

"Yes..." Xander replied meekly. His biggest weakness... was hitting him in his weak spot.

Sia hung up the phone angrily. She and Miya were in their shared apartment.

"Sooo... Ohmigosh, who's the guy?" Miya asked, trembling with anticipation.

"Backoff." Sia said angrily.

"Why do you like him sooo gosh darn much?" Miya responded, oblivious.

Sia didn't respond.

"Soooo, what's his name?" Miya asked again. "Tellmetellmetellme tellme pleaaaaaase."

"Ugh!" Sia caved. "The name of the one I love is Veil. Veil Tremmons."

'Damnit. This explains why his name is hidden behind the Veil.' Miya thought angrily to herself.

Turning back to Sia, she replied. "Tell me more, tell me more."

The conversation went through the night. Towards the middle, Miya asked the crucial question. "Do you... still want to be sisters?"

Sia knew what she was thinking. As a result, she thought hard before responding. "I don't want anything or anyone to come between us. Nor do I want anything to come between myself and him. I can't lose either of you. If you get along with him, and the three of us get along equally? Maybe then, but..." Sia's words dropped off. Little did she know of Miya's long-term plans and desires.

"Deal!" Miya shouted before running out of the room to dodge any more questions.

Little did she know that at the word, 'love,' the bug hidden in their apartment had activated- and caught every word.

----~~~~----

Dale Tremmons was fighting a horde of griffons shirtless with his giant berserker blade made of a golden-colored alloy. It spun in the shape of a saber, but it seemed to grow and shrink in size as it swept through the beasts. Alongside him was a small, golden dragon.

"Let's get 'em, boy!" The dragon let off a howl of pleasure. Smacking one of the larger griffons in the face, it quickly took the chance, while the larger griffon was recoiling, to smack the smaller ones right in the gonads. The other griffons looked at the tiny dragon fighting them in terror as the large human next to it systematically sliced the heads off all four of the griffons the little dragon just smacked.

The little dragon, "Pablos," decided to go off on it's own. It strutted around firing a gold-tinged 'Dragon Breath' at the griffins.

"Dammit! Get back here, you!" Dale yelled at the little Pablos. "You'll ruin the meat!" 

Pablos scurried back to Dale with his tail in between his legs. He sat on his tail and began to whimper. His eyes seemed to say. "Do you still love me? Will you still love me? Will you agree to love me? Will you, Master? Will you, will you?

Dale kicked his side, and shouted, "Get back to work! Playtime later!"

They continued their process, smacking and slicing, until they were down to 5 of the smaller griffons. "Leave these ones alive!" Dale shouted to his old companion of many years. 

"Hoooooowwwl!" The little dragon replied. It smacked the heads and stunned each of the five griffons in succession.

The giant saber in Dale's hand began to morph. From a golden alloy, it became a golden thread. As Pablos stunned the griffons, the thread began to tie each of them up. Within five seconds, it had bundled all of the little griffons together. "Alright, it's done!" Dale shouted, and began to run his hands together in anticipation. The mission, while super easy to a man of his talents, had done him multiple favors.

It had allowed his pet dragon out to fight, gotten him a monetary reward, saved the populace of a small town, looked cool, and MEAT.

"Peak Tier-7 Divine 9-Flavor Griffon Meat." The dragon spoke, its eyes going wild and mouth dripping with saliva.

Winking at the dragon, Dale pulled out two more of his spirit allies: a Tier-6 Divine Chef Fairy and a Tier-5 Spatial Magician Doll. He smacked his hands together. "Alright, let's get to work."

The Spatial Magician Doll, Getso, began transporting the spoils of battle into two of the three partitions in Dale's small world space. The captive griffons were sent to the small world's jail cells, and the dead ones were sent to the "freeze space" section- in there, space was frozen, and none of the molecules would shift. It was this precious ability that caused Dale to choose this Tier-5 Spirit Ally instead of one at his current rank. It was a result of the mixture between the 'puppet golem' and 'space' types- both rare in their own regard.

The Divine Chef Fairy, named 'Foodme' began to get to work as Dale summoned some dinner implements from his world space. Dale was just as bad at naming as he was good at fighting.

The thread that was now left unoccupied transformed again and perfectly cut up the remaining fresh griffon corpse on the battle field before giving it directly to Foodme.

"Good job, Alldie!" Dale said the thread, pleased at its cooperation. Alldie handed Dale the Griffon's Tier-7 crystal.

Turning to Getso, Dale smiled. "Could you swap this for a tier-4?" 

Getso left and went back into the small world space. He put the crystal back into the carefully organized cabinetry in the small space's castle, grabbed the new one and returned outside. Using two hands, he bowed and handed the new crystal back to Dale.

Dale accepted it with two hands as well, and the little magician doll disappeared into nothingness. In reality, he was in the small world space, but it still looked cool.

Dale took the crystal and threw it. "Fetch, boy!" While they were waiting for the meal, he might as well make the little dragon work out, right?

Pablos took off along the ground like a rocket, but Dale threw it really really far. It hit the ground. The rocket sped towards it, still gaining in speed. Dust flew, and a random passerby saw the cloud coming towards him. Looking on in horror, the passerby paused, making the choice between running and hiding. As the cloud got bigger and bigger, the passerby decided to run for it at least a little bit!

Running as far out of the way as possible, the passerby strived for every ounce of his energy to be put into moving his legs to not die. Fortunately for the passerby, he got out of the way safely. Unfortunately, he was caked in dirt from his toes up to his neck. 'This is weird.' The passerby thought. 'Where'd the dust cloud go? ...Oh sheet.' 

The passerby saw a small dragon walk up to him and bare its teeth. 'I hope the dragon doesn't notice I peed my pants' the man thought in his attempt to look brave. Luckily, he was up to his face in well-caked dirt. As such, the dragon didn't notice.

"Master says to be nice. There, there." The dragon said, as it patted him on the head twice with its razor-sharp claws. It walked off about thirty meters and took off again.

Needless to say, the passerby was flabbergasted. After about 5 minutes of going dumb, mute, and all of the above, the simpleton called his pet rat out to free him. "Mousey, dig!"

The rat looked at him like he was an idiot. "You know, dig? Like, take your paws and pull out the dirt so I can get out?" After a while, the rat finally seemed to understand. However much the passerby regretted picking his spirit ally, it was all he had money for at the time. As such, it was all he could do.

The random passerby waited until the rat finally got him free. Throughout this period, he saw a dust cloud repeatedly tearing through the area. Several times the rat got stuck, but he stored it back into his spiritual space before letting it back onto solid ground. The total elapsed time stuck was 2 days, 3 hours, 39 minutes, and 24 seconds.

Meanwhile, a scroungy little dragon was rolling on its overfilled belly, with a rather mischievous forked tongue dangling from its mouth. "Time to go!" Its owner yelled. Dale kicked Pablos like a ball, and he flew 8 meters out before tiptoeing back. His belly almost touched the ground, and he couldn't walk around very easily.

Dale stared at him. Silently, Pablos waddled back to him.... Before Dale kicked his butt back into the small world space.