“Are you strong though?” Metra asked as she circled around the newly recruited members of the Knights of Teuton. The order had been reduced to just four members by the end of the Roman-Blood war and was thus heavily recruiting right now.

“We will give it our all!” the man in the anonymising armour said. There were about 6 of the templar looking people around. The plates they were in looked immensely shinier than the ones John was used to; they were also very much not invisible.

Apparently, their equipment was made from some light-wind metal alloy that took years to master and use before they succeeded in becoming largely unnoticeable. Because so many of the armours had been lost during the fight for Warsaw, they were currently replacing their stock. That was just costly, and Lydia’s funds had largely increased recently, so that wasn’t the problem.

However, to use the equipment effectively they didn’t just need the armour but also people with the correct soul type, a mixture of light and wind (just like the alloy) typically called Masks. Now John would just call those people illusionists, but the borders in the soul types who was what were blurry anyway. Point being: they had enough money for armour but not enough people to put into the things. They would recover, but it would take a few years at best.

A man in a worn and recently repaired suit of armour appeared seemingly out of thin air and stared down his shiny comrade. “What was that, recruit?!” Konrad Kamradsrat, who John recognized by his voice alone at this point, berated his new underling; “You think you can reclaim Jerusalem with that attitude?!”

“Of course not, sir! I wanted to say I will give it whatever Deus has Vulted me with!” a panicked answer came.

‘I can almost see the sweat running down the helmet,’ John caught himself thinking in fascination.

“SLOPPY ANSWER! Try ‘As Deus Vults, we will succeed!’ next time! And I am not your sir, I am your Großmeister!” Konrad continued to berate them as Metra cackled and walked off with needlessly large steps in her way too skimpy outfit. Seriously, there was Rave wanting to show off her body and then there was Metra’s attempt to wear as close to no clothes as she could get away with. Her hot pants revealed more of her ass than they hid.

Lydia sighed at the scene; they were in the wing of private machines in the airport. As promised, Undine had bathed both of them so they were clean enough that nothing was out of the ordinary. The stains in the fabric of the chair and floor John had cleaned up with Craft.

“I didn’t think our eventual departure would be this chaotic,” John admitted as he looked around. Salamander was chasing after Sylph under the ceiling while Undine was busy digesting what she had taken in during the cleaning process. Gnome was nervously jumping from one foot to the other next to Aclysia while Siena hid in her summoner’s shadow, not wanting to deal with annoying emotional stuff. Momo was hovering in the air and reading on her e-reader like a goddess of knowledge sitting on an invisible chair.

Rave was standing right next to John, their arms slung lovingly around each other’s waist. Holding her salver with both of her hands in front of her stomach, edge pointing at the floor, the weaponized maid was going for aesthetics over cuddling her master for once. Eliza was going ham on a packet of biscuits.

“I, on the other hand, expected it to be exactly this chaotic,” the queen crossed her arms after checking a watch on her wrist. “I am, however, obligated to start in my position 26 hours from now and have other paperwork to get through in the meantime.

“These cookies are cum-guzzling good,” Eliza declared as she threw another two in her mouth and swallowed them in a quick movement. She reached in, grabbed a last one and looked at it with an enigmatic expression.

“It was an honour serving you, Your Majesty,” Aclysia bowed before the queen.

“I am going to miss your tea, a lot,” Lydia nodded respectfully towards the weaponized maid; “Thank you for being a functioning subject in this turbulent time in my life. Similar goes for you, Momo, thank you for being an orderly person amongst this pile of chaotic individuals.”

“No problem,” Momo said and smacked her e-reader closed before tossing it into her own inventory. “Also, I am leaving right now as well. Seems like a good time.”

“What?” Rave furrowed her eyebrows; “Ya can’t just make this a threeway departure!”

“I totally can and I totally will,” the selfish support dismissed Rave’s objection. “And I don’t really feel like dealing with this whole long speeches thing, so do it in a quickfire so we can get going.”

“Waaaaah!” Gnome took that sudden turn of events rather badly and jumped at Momo immediately. “T-thank you for all the times you got me back on my feet,” the stone elemental sniffed while cuddling the monochrome artificial spirit.

“You should work on your stuttering already,” Momo berated her in a soft tone and answered the embrace in kind.

“Uwuwuwuwuwu,” Gnome uttered her embarrassment and happiness as the support patted the back of her twin-tail parted hair for the last time in a while.

Aclysia took the two steps over in stride and then kissed her sister-in-creator on the cheek. Having basically no moment to react, Momo just blushed, and her white eyes found Aclysia’s green ones as the maid smiled widely. “I will be looking forward to your return.”

“Yeah, we will keep a room open for you,” John promised, “no matter where we end up, always.” He would have shook hands on it, but Gnome was still holding onto all of Momo, so he just tapped her on the shoulder with a grin instead.

“We will stuff it full of Aclysia dolls or something,” Rave joked; “Now spread your wings and take flight, accompanied by the light of fireflies.”

“When did you become all poetic?” Momo shook her head with a light smile on her lips. “Not that it makes sense, it’s noon. Fireflies don’t really glow at this hour, not even mine.” Gently forcing Gnome to let go of her, Momo took a step backwards. “Well, then, I will be o-“

“You are not leaving without cuddling me as well!” Sylph intervened and crashed right into Momo. Salamander and Undine soon piled on there as well, and Eliza laughed wildly at the whole scene.

“You cringy cocksleeves are so fucking retarded,” she announced as she pulled Momo out from under the elemental pile. Raising her fist, whilst still holding the cookie in her other, she grinned ear to ear at the selfish support. “Have fun on your bullshit journey or whatever. Don’t forget to buy some sweets as souvenirs from every last fucking corner you visit. I want to drown in food while you tell me stories so boring you might as well throw acid at my skull and fuck the holes.”

“Sure, I can do that, will buy the acid right along with that,” Momo bumped the raised fist with her own and then hovered off the ground again. “I am gone for real now!” she turned, her energy wings spread wide and ready to accelerate at any moment.

“Hey, Momo!” John shouted, causing her to turn her head one last time. “Have fun.”

“In Gaia’s name, you are bad at goodbyes,” she gave him one last blast of sass and then took to the skies. With spread out arms, she headed for the blue above, turning around her own axis. John had no idea where she was heading, but he imagined that he could hear her laugh.

“I disavow any hug-piles containing me,” Lydia immediately warned Sylph who turned towards her.

“Aw, but hug-piles are fun, they combine the two best things on earth: hugs and piles. Of course, they don’t contain the two best things on super-earth: John and sex. Audible gasp! We should have a hug-pile-orgy. Yes, yes, yes! I am genius!” Sylph blabbered and was slowly shoved out of the picture by Salamander.

“Be quiet for a second, you endless palaver-breeze,” the blaze elemental demanded; “Do you have no tact?”

“Beep-boop,” came Sylph’s very much thoughtful addition to the conversation.

“The fact that I will miss this endless interrupting worries me,” Lydia admitted, “but I think we have said all there is, haven’t we, John?” She stretched out her hand.

Between the question if he would stay with her or she would come with him, they never found common ground. They both wanted to do things in life that left no room for the other’s goals. “Yes,” he therefore said as he took her hand. “Until we see each other again.”

“Let’s just hope that won’t be too long,” Rave winked at the queen; “Gonna miss making fun of you, Lylytina.”

“Yeah, anal queen, going to be very fucking boring without your stuck-up ass around,” Eliza added to that.

Eyes twitching, Lydia raised a hand to begin one of her lectures but had her eyes land on the watch in the process and forced herself to just take it. “I will deal with your insufferableness next time,” she declared and looked at her plane in the distance. “Goodbye, you bunch of plebeians.”

“One last thing, Lydia,” Eliza said and tossed the cookie at the Queen of Steel. Catching it, she looked at the consumer good with a raised eyebrow, then at Eliza who actually bowed her head. “Thank you for everything! I know I haven’t been the best fucking friend around and that we smacked vaginas a lot, still you are a rusty piece of magnificent garbage.”

“Yeah, thank you for everything,” John added; “Without your money my life would have definitely took a turn for the worse. I know you didn’t do it for me at the time, but still, without you,” he looked at everyone else around him, “and that trade we made that day, none of us would be here today.”

“Ja, John would have gotten murderated by Eliza, and we all would be flopping around in the afterlife right now,” Rave grinned; “Also thank you for teaching me the new combat stuff. Thank ya for everything, really!”

Lydia looked over each of them with a baffled look on her face that finally became pleased. “You are all idiots,” she declared and turned around, her practical boots clacking on the stone floor of the airport, braid and ends of her dark green military coats whirling under the sudden movement. “Goodbye, you are all weird.”

They all waved after Lydia as she became smaller and smaller with each step.

“There she fucking goes, and now we are down to five and your posse of the ele-whores,” Eliza said and opened a bag of marshmallows she had gotten from somewhere. “Man, the ‘fuckable ass per square metre’ ratio is sinking, how does that make you feel?”

“Ah, you know, sad but also kind of proud?” John shrugged and didn’t really know what to say. It was a weird feeling. As a matter of fact, he felt incredibly weird all over, like something wasn’t quite right with the world right now. He looked around with slight paranoia, something was definitely off, but this also felt familiar.

“Well, I am not tired of your dick yet,” Metra said, juggling her halberd Qiada like it was a simple stick. “But I am pretty bored. Seriously, we haven’t been fighting anything for days. Where is the bloodshed?”

“We are getting ourselves a flight over to the USA tomorrow,” John promised; “Once we are there I am sure you will get to fight some more.”

“Alternatively, I could just fight any of you,” Metra said and looked over the assembly; “You know, to keep the metallic muscles oiled.”

“Now I want to oil ya up and have ya pose on a pedestal,” Rave spoke exactly her boyfriend’s thoughts and looked over the Eliza. “Can I have some?” she asked and, following a hesitating confirmation, stuck her hand into the pack of marshmallows, grabbing out a few.

“I can do that as well, but mostly I want to use this body for my original purpose some more,” the berserker babe said; “Also winning is fun.”

“Yeah, but you almost always win,” John informed her, “and nobody likes playing a game they know they will lose. You take each of the elementals out in even two-versus-ones, you beat Aclysia 8 out of 10 times, me 9 out of 10 times. There is only Jane who you are at about 50/50 with.” Those numbers came from just duels, which John’s toolkit simply wasn’t designed for. Especially not because Metra could deal damage and close gaps from pretty much anywhere. He only got a chance to win if they didn’t make it a true 1vs1 and he at least got to equip Undine or Stirwin.

“I could kick the shit out of you, arrogant tin can,” Eliza announced and looked down; “Yo, who the FUCK is eating all my marshmallows; I am actively counting these delicious pieces of foamed John-spunk, and there are 6 less than there should be. Confess your sins, you fucking sweets heretics, or I WILL throw Thana at you all!”

At the same moment another hand reached into the package, one just as pale as the white sweets. Eliza looked at the weirdly calm hand that just retracted without making a single sound against the plastic. Everyone else chimed in and, like a bunch of hooligans looking after a flying ball at a football game, slowly followed the marshmallow meet its destination at the lips of a blonde with an alien aura.

“Nia?!” John exclaimed as he realized he was looking at the pariah, who was still waving after Lydia despite the queen not even being in visible range anymore.

Marshmallow between her lips the blank tilted her head in confusion.