Chapter 38 - Molly (1)

Despite her generally relaxed attitude, Alita actually held a relatively high rank within Sanctuary simply because she had been there from the start, and since the chain of command was very important to them, they were hesitant to simply move her out of the way.

Molly was especially confused, as she was the only person in Sanctuary who knew Alita and Nova were sisters and how much they cared about each other.

Alita was wearing her usual carefree, cheery smile as she said, "Calm down, you guys! Boss Nova is just testing a mercenary to see if they are worth the price! Give them a few minutes to finish their fight, and the boss will explain everything!"

Alita's words seemed to surprise them all quite a bit; although they had occasionally hired mercenaries in the past, it had been a long time since such measures were necessary.

Ista was first to voice her confusion, "Why do we suddenly need a mercenary? And why did the boss never tell us anything about this?!"

Luckily, Ivar and Alita had already come up with a story to tell the rest of Sanctuary when they revealed Ivar's existence.

Still wearing the same cheery and reassuring smile, Alita answered while innocently scratching her head, "Well, it all happened kind of suddenly. 

I'm sure you all know I was missing for a little while there, right? Well, I would rather not talk about the details for now, but suffice it to say this mercenary saved me. 

When I asked if they wanted anything in return, they said they wanted an introduction to Sanctuary's boss, so I told Nova the story, and she agreed to meet with them, so long as they could sneak in here without anyone noticing.

Maybe she didn't expect them to succeed, but, well, they did.

And when they met, the mercenary asked for permanent employment here while living in the penthouse. Well, you know the boss's rule about who gets to live up there, so one thing led to another, and they're fighting!

But it's just a spar, guys! Nothing to worry about! Boss Nova just forgot to warn the rest of Sanctuary; you know how she can get when there is a fight involved!"

Whether inborn or something formed out of necessity over years of living on the street, Nova quite liked to fight and could get extremely focused on the prospect of such a thing, something the rest of Sanctuary was all too aware of.

For that reason, these words seemed to calm them down a bit, but Ista was still not satisfied, "Why do I get the feeling you're trying very hard to avoid using pronouns when talking about this mercenary?"

Alita chuckled sheepishly, "Ehehe, picked up on that, did you? Well, yeah, okay, so he's a he."

Most of these women had experiences with men ranging from bad to very bad, so this information set them all off as they once again clamoured to be let upstairs, but Alita stood her ground, 

"Come on, everyone, have some faith in me! Or have some faith in Nova, at least!"

This statement seemed to calm them down again; Nova was like a perfect, if stoic, goddess to many of the women in Sanctuary, and even the suggestion that Nova might not be able to handle this mercenary was near blasphemy.

Seeing them calm down a little, Alita decided to double down, "Besides, you know how she is with a fight; if you all storm in there, disturbing her while she's having a good time, who knows how she'll react!"

Finally, even Ista seemed to settle down as she begrudgingly decided to wait, although still somewhat anxiously.

But when a relieved Alita looked over the faces in front of her, she realised she was missing a certain blue-haired short-stack, causing her to sigh as she quickly told the people there to wait before rushing upstairs, hoping to catch Molly before she walked in on a Nova with wings.

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Ivar stared at the small woman with some surprise. Most people would be a little more intimidated when they first met him, especially when they were at least half a meter shorter, but this woman seemed intent on threatening him instead.

He decided to give her a good look; she had blue hair styled in a way he had not seen before; where the right side of her skull had only a thin layer of hair, her left side looked much wilder and was thickly layered. 

She also had bangs in front, but nowhere did her hair reach the shoulders.

He thought it looked rather fierce, seemingly fitting what he had seen of her so far. Yet, it seemed nature had decided to undermine her fierceness by giving her a height of a mere 1.52m (5 feet).

Her eyes were blue and monolid, showing an Asian heritage, while her face as a whole was cute, once again undermining her apparent fierceness.

She wore a white lab coat over long pants and a crop top. Although her ass was well hidden behind the lab coat, her breasts were on clear display as they rested in her crop top. 

Unfortunately, they were a somewhat disappointing A cup, as Ivar had a thing for a short woman with large breasts. Then again, he had a thing for most types of women, and this Molly wasn't excluded.

Her left hand was assertively resting on her hip, and her right hand pointed at Ivar accusingly.

While inspecting Molly, he received a message from Selene that caused him to pause and become a little more cautious as he looked the short woman up and down one more time.

However, he didn't show any of this in his expression as he seemingly couldn't help but grin at this short, fierce woman, "Oh, I would very much like to find out how you'll deal with me. How about we find a private place, and you can show me?"

In Ivar's experience, most people would get flustered when sex entered the conversation, but Molly did not seem impressed as she scoffed, "Ha! As if your steroid shrivelled dick could make me feel anything! Now, set Nova down so I can take a look at her!"

Meanwhile, Nova herself had already fallen asleep in Ivar's arms, somehow feeling comfortable despite what happened between them. 

Something that could partly be attributed to Ivar's pheromones, as her nose was now close to his body, and his scent had relaxed her mind.

Ivar only chuckled at Molly's insult, much too assured in his own sexual prowess to be offended by the words of this woman, confident he would eventually show her exactly how much he could make her feel.

Alita seemed more interested in defending her master, however, as she suddenly moved next to Molly and started using her hands to measure a certain distance from Molly's pelvis to just under her breasts.

Molly looked confused at what Alita was doing as she was pulled away from attempting to get Ivar to put Nova down, "Alita? What are you doing?"

Alita shrugged, "Oh nothing, just measuring how far Ivar would reach if he actually managed to bottom out in you."

Molly gawked between Alita and the length she was indicating on her stomach while all her earlier bravado was lost, "Bullshit! And how would you know a thing like that, anyway?!"

Alita giggled, "Wouldn't you like to know," before she almost skipped to Ivar to plant a kiss on his cheek and whispered in his ear, "Please punish me later for letting her slip past me, Master."

Strangely, Molly seemed to have heard her whispers as she suddenly burst out in anger, "What?! Master?! And why would you want him to punish you?!" She turned to Ivar, "What the fuck did you do to her?!"

She seemed genuinely enraged as the temperature in the room suddenly started fluctuating, and small blue flames burned in Molly's eyes.

Alita looked surprised at the outburst, not having expected Molly to hear them, nor did she know what was going on with the temperature, as she quickly spoke up, "Woah, woah, Molly, relax! I don't know how you heard what I said to him, but I'm fine!"

However, Ivar seemed to have some more ideas as he grinned at the woman, "Are you sure you wanna do this, Molly? Alita has chosen to serve me of her own free will, and Nova is a little beat up from our fight, but otherwise fine.

More or less anyway, but he didn't speak that part aloud, as the situation was actually more dangerous than his attitude seemed to suggest.

He continued, "Is this worth exposing yourself for?"

Thinking about what Selene had warned him about when Molly came into the room, he looked at Molly's status window again.

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<Name: Molly>

<Species: ????>

<Abilities: ????>

<Age: 30>

<Strength Level: Warrior>

<Physical 12 stats: Vitality - 11, Strength Agility>*

<Other 70 stats: Charm - 20, Resistance>

*relative to strength level, ten being average for current strength level.

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