Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 182: Interlude Tomfoolery

Few people had ever accused Elena Hightower of having a sense of humor. That wasn’t quite correct, she did play the occasional prank or tell a joke, but she was fairly reserved in general.

Unfortunately, the few times she did feel like doing something funny, she often had to play the straight man to Arthur’s stooge. She loved that man like a brother and he wasn’t nearly as chaotic as he seemed at first glance, but he still often needed some professional to deal with situations.

He was a good leader and had above-overage organizational skills and charisma for days. He was also loud, bombastic, and had a tendency to get swept up in the moment, leaving her to be the voice of reason.

However, Elena was an Asrai, a fairy. And fairies could be nasty.

A strangely beautiful man walks into a town, insults the local lord, and is executed. The executioner’s blade falls once, twice, thrice, yet each time, it’s a member of the lord’s family that loses their head while the man remains hale and hearty, eventually revealing himself to be a fairy prince.

People wandering into fairy parties, only to find out that decades or centuries had passed when they left.

Woodcutters being visited by strangely ethereal women when staying in the woods, with anyone who was seduced leaving behind a part of their soul in the forest.

Now, Elena herself wasn’t quite that bad, but she did have quite a few nasty tricks up her sleeve.

Which now left her standing in the crowd while the Prime Minister was giving a speech about how the latest advances in traffic-related [Skills] had made the country’s roads safer than ever. What he was leaving out was how that required all the various cops to have the exact right [Skill] and be within two-hundred meters of a potential accident, as well as the fact that almost everyone had some manner of increased sensory perception and reflexes, which massively reduced the number of accidents on its own.

In other words, this was much ado about nothing, but given the chaos of the last year, he needed to make it look like things were looking up.

[Fairy’s Playful Curse]

It was one of the few racial abilities she had, and she’d used it almost a dozen times before today but it had never worked. The “hilarious chaos” was sadly not guaranteed, so she’d had to try a few times, but eventually, it should work, and then, they’d finally figure out the truth behind just what the hell had happened to the Earth’s magic.

The curse hit home, the subtle manipulation completely flying over the heads of the PM’s bodyguards. Something nastier would have been noticed, but the subtle fairy magic was on a whole other Level.

… they’d point that out later, once this whole pantsing affair had blown over. If it ever actually happened.

Then, she spotted one of her least-favorite politicians, walking up to the PM for one of those fake “we’re all buddies” politicians’’ handshakes in full view of the public and the cameras.

He was one of the backers of the politician whose status sheet Arthur had publicly read out loud, and just barely agreed to leave bygones be bygones.

That gave her an evil idea. [Fairy’s Playful Curse] hit home a second time and the man stumbled over the last step on his way to the podium and fell forwards almost comically, arms outstretched to catch him. He didn’t manage it.

What he did catch was the PM’s pants, and his hands reflexively clenched around the only thing that seemed to provide stability. The belt that might have saved them both the public embarrassment burst in spectacular fashion a moment later, the buckle somehow both breaking and snapping off in the same motion, and then, there the PM was, down a pair of pants.

Now, the TV probably had enough of a delay built in to not show the PM’s pale white bottom to the whole world, but everyone here had had that image burned into her mind.

Elena stifled a chuckle as she pointedly looked anywhere but the stage and waited for the chaos to die down.

The person responsible for the pantsing had even been tackled by the PM’s bodyguards before they’d figured out that it had just been an “accident”.

Eventually, the PM just sent everyone away with an awkward “thank you for coming” while trying to avoid being obvious about the fact that he had to keep pulling his pants up due to lacking an intact belt.

Ok, maybe that “little prank” had gone a bit far. Still, as far as anyone knew, it had been an accident and most of the blame fell on the arch-conservative blowhard she’d already been gunning for.

As soon as she could leave without drawing attention to herself, she did, heading over to the Themes and leaping in. The water might have been dirty, but it wasn’t after she dropped in. [Mystic Aquatic Affinity] was mostly just used to increase the power of her water magic, but it did have quite a few other abilities.

She sped through the water faster than the speed of sound, bursting free of the river’s confines a few kilometers from Camelot mere seconds later. She hurried there, removing all the water from her clothes with a mere thought.

Soon, she reached the inner sanctum and the world turned purple.

“Well, well, well, I didn’t expect that. You actually followed through.” Loki chuckled “There are a few despots I’d love to have seen knocked down a peg or two, but I suppose it would have been more obvious if you’d kept visiting a foreign time only for something to go spectacularly wrong during one of those visits.”

“And?” Elena demanded.

“See, there’s a slight problem: you said ‘tell us everything’, but not everyone is here. Quite a few of the dust mites present while we made our deal have died since then.” The god said in a mock-said voice.

She just raised a single eyebrow.

“’ Both parties will obey the agreement in spirit, not intentionally twist it away from what they know the other one meant.’ That was an excellent addition, though I’m not a big fan of such agreements.” Loki said, rolling his eyes “You could have at least pretended to buy that I’d figured out a loophole. Here’s the thing, though. You were talking about you, Arthur, and Isaac when you said ‘tell us’. I don’t see them, but I’ll happily wait with you until you can get them.”

Elena sighed. Getting Arthur would have been a matter of seconds, but Isaac was very, very busy at the moment, fighting [Raid Bosses] and afterward, he’d be evolving. He was slated to drop by Camelot afterward anyway, to talk to Arthur about joining the Round Table, but that was a long wait.

The world returned to its regular color when the god vanished. Elena sighed and turned to leave when a heavy weight dropped onto her shoulder. She turned and spotted the tabby cat sitting there, looking at her with eyes that sparkled with laughter.

“Onwards, com-paw-dre. Seize the meow-ment and do something awesome!”

Elena glared at the shapeshifted god.

“What’s up with the cattitude? Your expression is simply claw-full. I promised meow would stay with you until I told you everything, didn’t I?”

“I will drown you in the lake.” Elena hissed at the cat.

“That is one paw-sibility,” Loki said, giving a feline shrug.

A blast of water drenched him to the bone a moment later.

“Tell Isaac, Arthur, and me everything, when we call you. But for now, leave me alone and cut the crap.”

The cat pouted and Elena sighed. After half an hour of negotiation, the damnable deity was gone and had agreed to only return when she called him.

She could see why Isaac really hated dealing with gods or involving them in anything. The next meeting could not come soon enough.