THE VROL TRILOGY (88 page)

"The very one. And I believe there is someone
else who wants to say hello."

Jessica entered the bar and approached Dons'
personal area with a sheepish grin on her face. Max thought it was
odd that he hadn't detected her arrival. It was like there was a
scent barrier that had been hiding something from him.

"Hi Max, sorry I wasn't here for the party,
but I met someone I think you'd like to see."

Stepping to the side, a little blur shot out
from behind her and flew through the air towards Max.

"Papiiiiiiiiii! We found you!" yelled
Liliana, as she jumped into Max's arms and started to kiss him all
over his face. The crowd was obviously showing a mixed reaction. On
one hand, Max was reunited with someone he knew, and on the other,
there was a man with wings in the bar. That was weird.

"Liliana! I can't believe it! You're here! So
that must mean that everyone else is too!"

Max look up to see his wife standing on the
dance floor, tears streaming down her face. He gently set his
daughter down, and looked at Gabriel, who was wearing a large grin
and nodding his head in Jennie's direction. Max walked over and
didn't say a word - he simply and smoothly put his arms around her
and kissed her as if he hadn't seen her in years - as if she were
lost to him forever and he had only one more chance to hold her.
But this time he was going to hold her and never let go. His eyes
also welled up a bit, but he used a cantus to dry them before any
locals saw him cry. Then he pulled away, and looking at his
gorgeous wife said, "You saved me - again."

Marko sat back onto a chair, staring. Then,
looking over at Dons, he said, "Wow, Max was right. His woman's
hot."

Dons stared with his one eye opened quite
wide.

"Ummmm, yeah, I reckon so, mate. Whoa."

Most everyone in the room had heard of Max's
story - how he was stranded and lost to his family. It seemed so
fitting that they be reunited, especially after Max had done so
many good deeds for the community. But before anyone could break
out into applause they heard a small voice yell, "Kitty!" followed
by the sounds of electrical shocks and feline growls.

"Lili! No! They aren't cats! Lili!
Stop!" yelled Jennie, watching with dismay as her daughter chased
nekos around the bar, shocking them as she characteristically did
in the castle, finding these
cats
to be much more formidable opponents. Cassandra and Minnie
were practically crawling over the walls, screaming while trying to
get away from the little lycan-mage terror.

Dons started to laugh hysterically as Max
shot over and scooped up his daughter, tickling her and nuzzling
her small face, overjoyed that the tiny package of chaos known as
Liliana Gunnarsson was once again part of his life. Scanning the
bar he saw Draagh and another man whom he didn't recognize. Looking
around further he saw a vaguely familiar face, but bearded and much
younger than he remembered.

"Admiral? Is that you? How did you? What are
you doing here? And may I say sir, you look great!" stammered
Max.

"Hello Commander. It is indeed a pleasure to
see you again. Oh, and I am no longer a rear admiral. I believe my
rank would be closer to ensign in Krynos' forces, making me your
subordinate."

"Papi! Papi! You need to meet your father!"
squealed Liliana, as Max turned to his grandfather and spied the
man next to him. Setting the girl down and taking her by the hand,
he walked over to the duo.

"Hullo, Draagh, and… you must be… Michael,"
said Max as he extended his hand to his father.

"My dear boy, you have no idea how we have
searched for you! I see you already met Gabriel, who is your uncle,
and yes, this is Michael, also known as Mija-El, Taxiarch of Jah's
celestial forces," said Draagh, with an unusual amount of glee in
his voice.

"Ok, this is kinda weird," muttered Max,
moving over to put his arm around his wife. Looking around he saw
the Seven Sins crew - all of the friends he had made - Dons,
Jessica, Pandy, Lennie. Even Adam, and now Marko - they had
practically become family to him (except for Marko, but Max was the
forgiving type), but now he was with his real family and they had
rescued him. He felt it only fitting spend a final evening with the
people who had been so kind to him, share stories and introduce his
wife and daughter to these people.

"So, Michael, I'm not going to get all emo on
you, ok, but… where were you all my life?"

"I can answer that, young man," interrupted
Gabriel.

"Gabriel, please do not," pleaded Michael,
putting up a hand.

"No, it is ok, Brother - Max, your father and
I had issues - very serious issues, many years ago, back when you
were an infant, and for centuries prior. We had an argument, which
I won, so I banished him powerless - stranded on a world where he
could go nowhere. It was only through our father's pleadings that I
released him from his obligation. It was necessary in order to find
you."

"But why did he need to be released in order
to find me?"

"Max, don't you remember how you got here?"
asked Jennie.

"Sure. I took Draagh's staff and tried to go
to my ship, but I ended up here. Oh my god, did I lose your staff?"
Max looked pleadingly at his grandfather, who grinned as he slid it
out from behind himself.

"No, my son. It is fine. It is mine and shall
always be. The ghanlo that resides in it is eternally bound to my
immortal soul. The only thing that could separate it from me would
by my banishment from the universe, like what happened to my
brother, Marnn. But to continue on, we searched for you for many
months, when I finally figured out that someone of similar genetics
would possibly be sent to this same location in space/time if they
attempted to do the same thing that you did. Fortunately, Gabriel
had the prescience to attach an inter-dimensional tracker on
Michael, enabling us to find his exact location before he had
experienced a negative time shift."

"Um, negative time shift? What does
that mean, and how have you been searching for me for
months
?"

"Something that we can explain in further
lessons, my son, but in a nutshell, between the moment you slipped
out of the castle and the second you ended up here, six months had
already passed in the Rhönen Dominion. We have been searching
desperately, and young Jennie has put quite a few million miles and
a few thousand years under her belt while traveling back and
forth," he finished jokingly.

Not wanting to delve further into divergent
timelines and negative time shifts, Max grinned at his relatives
and walked his wife and daughter over to Dons, and with a great
smile said, "Dons, please meet my lovely wife, Jennie, and our
daughter Liliana. Girls, this is Dons, proprietor of this
establishment, and the man who was kind enough to give me a place
to stay while I tried to figure out a way home."

"Mr. Dons, it is my most sincere pleasure to
meet you," said Liliana, as she curtseyed in her typical fashion.
"Might I thank you for keeping my father safe during his
absence?"

Dons looked at the little girl with an almost
shocked, one-eyed expression.

"Liliana is it? The pleasure is mine, really.
Actually, it was your father who saved us. He helped us to forge
alliances with former enemies, and even surgically removed alien
trackers that were placed in us by the demons - the Vrol."

"Oh my god! How adorable! I loooove
your bag! Where did you get it?" Pandy screeched upon eyeing
Liliana's backpack, or
mochila
, as the little girl called
it.

"Oh hello, I made this myself," she said with
a beaming grin, happy that someone finally recognized her somewhat
macabre artistic skills. "And who might you be? I can smell you are
a lycan."

"I'm Pandy, part of the clan here. So, your
Max's kid, huh? Wow, you're really lucky to have a dad like
him."

Liliana looked over at Max and smiled.

"Yes, I am the luckiest girl in the
galaxy."

Liliana took Jennie's hand and looked up at
her adoringly while saying, "Hey… Mami? Are you happy now?"

Jennie looked down at Liliana and dropped to
her knees, hugging the girl so tightly she almost cut off her
air.

It was the first time Liliana had
called her
mami
.

"Baby doll, I have never, ever been happier
in my entire life."

"Bring up some more chairs and that new couch
Max and I just put together - we need room. And beers! Oy, you
fellas like beer, dontcha? We also have whisky and ‘bout everything
else."

Dons was stoked that he had a new group of
special people in his establishment. To top it off, it was the
first time he had knowingly hosted real archangels in his bar.

Sitting around in a large group, Max started
telling everyone everything about that world, and even brought
Lennie and Jelly over to meet his family. Jennie, Bagatelle and
Liliana thought it was weird that Max had a vampire as a friend,
and dared not tell them about the little girl's shark feeding
experiments, even though the pale couple were aware that outside
their world they would all be mortal enemies.

Gabriel seemed to really like Max's story of
his adventure with the Lykanrol clan, and all were quite interested
in Max's new phase 2.5 transformation, finding it unbelievable.
Draagh stated that Max would need to shift for him before they
left. He wanted to analyze the change and make sure it wasn't an
anomaly that would only happen on that world, and possibly figure
out a way to avail all lycans with the new transformative phase.
Max wasn't looking forward to it, but agreed to do so later in the
evening or the following day.

Most impressive to Draagh was Max's detail,
recounting how had performed magical surgery and had extracted the
Vrol trackers out of the locals. Jennie was simply relieved that
Max hadn't taken another woman to his bed. The couple was seated
next to each other, with Liliana leaning up against her mother.
They noticed that Gabriel was sitting next to Jessica, the two of
them engaged in conversation and seeming to get along quite well.
Then Bagatelle leaned over and asked Max if they could speak in
private, so Max looked at Jennie, who nodded her head in agreement
as she pursed her lips and air-kissed him.

"Um, hey, we'll be right back. Azul military
business - we need to have a talk," he said to everyone.

Getting outside the bar, and away from the
noise, Max and Bagatelle both looked at the horizon that peeked out
over the ruins of ancient and once-formidable structures.

"I would call you commander, but I have found
the Dominion's structure to be quite informal and loose," said
Bagatelle.

"Excuse me, Ensign? Shall I bring you up on
charges?" growled Max as he did his best to stare Bagatelle down.
Bagatelle looked back unbelievably at Max until he realized the lad
was joking, and the two plopped down on the concrete steps in front
of Seven Sins and shared a laugh.

"How did you hook up with everyone,
Bagatelle? What happened?"

"Well, let's see, I was under house arrest.
Len Johnson had taken over the military in a virtual coup, and I
was sitting there eating one afternoon, in my underwear, when
suddenly Jennie, Draagh and your daughter were sitting in my living
room. So, they slipped me out of there and over the Krynos' castle.
I trained - hard, and can I tell you, man oh man! I feel like I'm
25 again! But we had to find you. Jennie never quit, and neither
did Draagh. Hell, Krynos damn near insisted he come along too, but
there was this whole thing where when you come here you lose six
months, so…"

"Oh wow, so you guys lost another six months
coming here? Draagh changed the topic of conversation, so I forgot
to ask."

"Hahahaha, no, not this time. He and Gabriel
pulled a smooth move and came through that Hub thing - you know,
Draagh's office, and we got here with no time loss. You know, now
that we're family and all. Oh crap, sorry. I don't think anyone
told you, did they?"

"That you're related to Jennie? Draagh
slipped me a hint back in Peru, but he wasn't specific. So, who's
her mom?"

"Oh, Carmen? Yeah, she was amazing. I miss
her a lot."

"So, why did you guys give Jennie up?"

"Huh? What are you talking about? Give her
up?"

"Yeah - for adoption. And then you find her
in the military - what was up with that?"

Bagatelle threw his head back with laughter,
having just put two and two together.

"Max, we were both orphans. Jennie is
my little sister. I'm not
that
old."

Bagatelle then detailed, in short form, the
story of how he was separated from Jennie, how he found her, and
how he kept their relationship a secret - even from her, in order
to be able to keep her under his command.

"Oh, ok. I totally understand. I always
thought the nepotism accords were a necessary part of society, even
though it's not like those with power are going to obey them. Like,
look at Ryder Johnson. He caused so much damage simply because he
was well connected. Anyway, where's Krynos?"

"Look, King Krynos does a great death form on
the full moon, but he is super loud, so Draagh and Michael thought
it best to simply tell him we were going to lose six months, which
he couldn't do as king. He'll probably tell Krynos he did something
amazing to avoid losing six months when we get back, and then offer
to bring him on the next trip."

Max snickered, fully understanding everyone's
desire to leave the kindly, yet loud Krynos behind. The king was
built for full frontal assault, not recon.

"So, what do I call you then? Ensign? Luigi?
Bagatelle?"