Amazon Apocalypse 8: Chapter 2 (Patreon)

I spent an entire month stalling. A planet was a big place and there were always problems to solve, which meant more things I could direct Jade and Seraphyne towards.

But every day I kept them working on my behalf was more debt I was stacking onto what I owed them. I could only keep them resurrecting cities or restoring wildlife for so long before they would grow sick of it and ask me to return with them.

Truthfully, I would have left with them already if I didn't know picking one over the other would be a grave insult to the other. My hope was that some sort of emergency would call one of them away, giving me a convenient reason for going with the other and rescheduling the other favor for the future.

But for once my luck amounted to nothing. Both women received messages from home, and both deemed them less worthy of their full attention than gathering a greater favor from me.

Before I could think of a backup plan, the two of them caught me by surprise. The two of them had come to an accord without my knowledge.

"We've decided to share you," Jade declared. Her hands were on her hips and she seemed all too unhappy with the current arrangement.

"Wait, what?" I asked, blinking in surprise. The two of them had caught me off guard. I'd only arranged for Jade to meet me at my palace today, but Seraphyne had arrived at the same time.

"Share you. It's what your female companions are accustomed to, aren't they?" Seraphyne had her arms crossed as she also gave me a hard look. She didn't look any happier than Jade.

I touched my hand to my face to double-check and make sure I wasn't wearing any of my charisma-enhancing gear like those stylish sunglasses I'd made. Such items could be dangerously powerful on me with my already-high Charisma stat.

But I was wearing none of that. I was still figuring out how Jade and Seraphyne had somehow come to this sort of arrangement when Jade pulled out a scroll and clarified the sharing the two women planned for.

"This scroll is your itinerary for the next one hundred years. The two of us will have access to you for five-month periods, between which you will have travel and personal time," Jade explained as she pointed at a long list of dates extending into the far future.

I took the scroll, which unfurled as she passed it to me and rolled across the ground. The little bundle seemed to contain more paper than should have been possible as the end kept going and going. Row after row of dates and locations was listed there, spelling out where I'd spend my days for longer than I'd been alive.

"This... is a lot. And one hundred years?" I frowned.

"It's only a century. And there will be no life-and-death battles required of you," Jade replied. She spoke of centuries as though they were merely months, which for old A-Grades they might as well have been.

I handed the scroll back to Jade.

"A century might not be much for either of you, but it's far longer than I've been alive. That being said, I won't diminish the help the two of you have given me. I'll spend five months with each of you and we can play the rest by ear. Given my current issues with the System, I'll need even more help for a while. Just leave me with a little time to manage my world and visit my companions. I'm an Emperor, after all."

The two women looked even less happy with that reminder, but after glancing at one another, Jade made the lengthy scroll explode in a burst of green light.

"We'll do it your way. You can write the schedule instead of either of us. That should be more fair," Jade suggested.

Seraphyne nodded, though her arms were crossed and her expression seemed deadly serious, as if this were about more than just my schedule.

"You two aren't going to try to pull my arms off this time, are you?" I looked between the two of them skeptically.

"We realize we both want you intact," Jade replied.

I breathed a sigh of relief. "You know, I'm really glad the two of you settled this like adults. Now, at the start of your schedule, I couldn't tell which of you I was supposed to visit first, since it had been crossed out and rewritten several times. What did you ladies decide on? Who needs my help more immediately?"

Mana exploded into the air around me. Apparently that part of the schedule wasn't quite as firmly decided as I'd been hoping.

"There's only one way to settle this." Jade spun and extended a sword in Seraphyne's direction.

"Agreed." Silver threads danced along Seraphyne's arms as a laser-like blade extended from a staff in her hands.

The amount of mana in the air doubled, then redoubled again to the point where it would be dangerous for the common people walking my streets.

Regular conversations could turn into natural disasters when dealing with A-Grades. With two of them, mass destruction seemed a certainty. I needed to defuse this somehow before it turned into an actual battle that wrecked half of my newly repaired planet.

"Wait!" I held up my hands to hold them off. "There's an ancient traditional competition for settling disputes like this. If you're on my world, I insist you use it to settle this dispute."

"What's this competition? I'm confident I can win any battle over this one," Seraphyne declared.

"It's called... rock paper scissors."

***

A few minutes later I had a crowd gathered as witnesses, mostly from the palace offices and the local guards. Most of them were scratching their heads as to why they were here to bear witness to rock paper scissors. Thankfully, it was far from the strangest thing I had them do, and Myrina got the idea immediately and began leading the excited cheers.

"In one corner, we have Seraphyne of House Nemaryth, an ancient A-Grade from the early days of the System! And in the other we have the Goddess in Jade, patron deity to many people of our world and revered cultivator of the Eternal Spring Sect! They are about to face off in the most terrifyingly important game of rock paper scissors ever! Get your team t-shirts to either side of the arena!"

Sakura waved from one side of the arena at a concession stand. I had little idea how she'd gotten an entire stand of custom merchandise printed and set up in mere minutes, but it probably had something to do with how high she'd gotten her managerial job. Past C-Grade, high-level jobs started allowing for the impossible, as evidenced by all the extradimensional power armor I'd built as of late.

Seraphyne and Jade had been skeptical when I described the rules of the game, at least at first. But as the crowd grew and my girls got the cheering started, they began to believe.

When the chanting and cheering started, I settled in to referee the most important game of rock paper scissors in my life. As long as the loser accepted the results with dignity, countless millions of lives would be saved.

"Best two of three. We begin on my mark!" I announced.

Myrina waved her hands to quiet the somewhat forced and confused roar of the crowd.

"3...2...1... Go!" I shouted.

The crowd went silent as the mana in the air froze with stillness. Now even the mortals could feel the gravity of the situation as their hair stood on end and supernatural anxiety gripped their souls. Outside, people in the city streets froze and looked around as they tried to figure out the strange feeling. People stopped what they were doing and called their loved ones without knowing why.

The effect was a combination of me and the two of them all standing poised for action. Three A-Grades all looking very serious was enough to do that. Another time, I might have stopped to study what was happening, but there was too much on the line to split my focus now.

Seraphyne brought forth an elegant hand, held flat and extended.

Jade brought her hand out in a fist.

"Paper covers rock! Seraphyne takes round one."

Jade grimaced and yanked her hand back like she'd been struck by a physical blow.

Seraphyne nodded gracefully and with a satisfied expression.

"As expected of a cultivator. All brutish brawn." Seraphyne smiled mildly.

"Don't look so smug. It's not over for me yet." Jade wore tightly drawn brows and a firm expression that looked as serious as it had been when fighting the Godhollow Faith Devourer.

"Go!" I shouted again, and again both women wore looks of intense concentration. The crowd was so silent I could hear the beating of their hearts.

Seraphyne brought down her hand again in a flat plane. Paper again.

But Jade had changed tactics. Now she brought her hand down with two fingers extended. Scissors.

"Scissors cuts paper! Jade takes round two!" I declared. I dabbed at my forehead to wipe away the beads of sweat.

The crowd drew in a hushed breath. Seraphyne winced as she looked at her outstretched hand like it had betrayed her.

"Impossible. My predictive model of you was certain you would keep using rock!" Seraphyne hissed.

Jade scoffed with the arrogance of a victor. "Scissors are really just two swords. That's twice the blades to cut through your defenses."

I intervened before the bickering could go much further than that.

"The final round will decide everything! Ready? 3...2...1... Go!" I waved my hand forward, and the two A-Grade women launched their hands forward again.

The tension this time was palpable. Lightning shot through the sky overhead despite the clear sunny day, but it didn't dare touch the ground and interfere with what was happening here. Several birds started dropping out of the sky, as though they were afraid to flap their wings. Breath caught in every lung.

Seraphyne brought her hand down again, flat and extended. A third paper.

Jade brought her hand down, eyes keen and fist balled. Rock again.

The two women stood poised, but Jade's face drained of all color as she realized she'd misjudged things. Seraphyne relaxed, regaining some of the composure she'd lost due to the intensity of the game. For a moment she'd had frighteningly wild eyes, but now her composure had been restored.

Jade fell to her knees, catching herself on her hands as her hair drooped loosely around her.

"I... lost? Impossible. Impossible!" Jade muttered as her breathing came tight and quick. Her hair was in disarray.

"It seems Carter will be coming with me first," Seraphyne said with a confident smile. She held out her hand in my direction.

Most of the crowd seemed confused by this, as I had never explained the stakes of this rock-paper-scissors game.

I approached the arena, but didn't go right to Seraphyne. I went to Jade and patted her slumped shoulders.

"Five months will go by in the blink of an eye. I'll see you soon." I stroked her downcast shoulder, desperately praying she wouldn't go on a rampage and would quietly accept these results.

Thankfully, reason won out.

"I will be waiting for you at home. Don't keep me waiting." Her eyes turned to meet mine, and there was more desperation than anger. "Please."

Jade turned before I could say more and took to the air. Her flight was nearly as fast as it would be in battle, which suggested she was more disturbed by this loss than I'd expected. Far above, I could see her board her pagoda and hastily depart.

It was an abrupt exit given how long she'd spent here on Terranova, but it was better than the alternative.

Behind me, Seraphyne still held her arm extended in my direction. After looking to the sky to make sure Jade was out of sight, I walked forward to congratulate her.

I took her extended hand in my own for a firm handshake. She accepted it with a firmer grip than I'd been expecting.

"Congratulations on your win. It looks like I'll be solving your problems first. I recall you had some issues with your family's estate? I'm ready to help. Just give me a day or two to—" I began, but cut off as Seraphyne pulled me into her arms and addressed the crowd directly.

"I thank all of you for attending my victory. I would love to stay for the celebrations, but I have things to take care of. I'll be borrowing your emperor for a few months. Farewell."

Seraphyne waved as golden strands of light materialized behind her and shifted until they formed a portal, which I'd seen her use for transportation before. Before I could so much as voice words of protest, she stepped through and pulled me along behind her.

Seraphyne's iron grip on my hand made slipping away nearly impossible, at least without resorting to extreme measures I reserved for the battlefield. I debating telling her I needed to make a proper exit, but one last glance at the incredulous faces on my people, especially Sakura, told me that the speeches and lengthy goodbyes would be more trouble than they were worth.

I could spend a few hours saying my goodbyes while Seraphyne waited impatiently, or I could leave in a hurry and blame my hasty departure all on her. I opted to the latter and gave everyone a little wave goodbye as we vanished.

<Note>

Originally I was going to do a few chapters anchoring the story back on Terranova, but I feel like people want to get right to the main plot. I might go back and change my mind, in which case this might get bumped to chapter 5 or so. But for now I think I'll just proceed with the first arc of the main plot.