AnimeCon Harem 15: Big Fucking Bluff pt 1 (Patreon)

“By thhggh, by the Rules, the Masters have claim here,” Judas finally hissed out, eyes darting over towards the young man resting on hospital bed. “He’s one of ours. One of us.”

“I don’t think you know ‘the Rules’ as we do,” the young vampire sounded unamused.

His mind was racing. Even if she was bluffing about having a precognitive—it honestly seemed too absurd to believe, considering their legendary rarity—the appearance of vampires at all was just about as bad. Her existence as an anti-mage vampire was already a nightmare scenario with no tenable solution, because that already served as a hard counter to most anything the Masters could field here.

The methodology for dealing with inquisitors or anti-magics of any kind was traditionally throwing massive numbers of mundanes at them with modern firepower. Against an apex predator who treated humans as food, however, that was going to be laughably ineffective. Up against a team of them? The Masters might as well be sending off the mortal mercenaries as a welcome banquet; a lavish feast, garnished with expensive—but ultimately useless—weaponry and equipment.

Specialists would have to be called up instead, and it was difficult to say the value of this unknown rookie Master was worth that kind of expense. Specialists with that kind of power traded only in concessions or favors. Certainly none of the Masters Judas know of his level were capable of dealing with this kind of problem.

Anti-magic, infiltrators, a precognitive—a team of this caliber appearing here would mean they were either a force sent from one of the other comparable powers, or worse—already in league with one of the inner circle Masters. It had happened before. Clandestine forces could be removed enough from the hierarchy of the Masters themselves to allow for circle infighting without breaching the Rules, and that kind of politics was something Judas wanted no part of. Conflicts happening at that level went way beyond the local petty middle circle faction bullshit he was prepared to deal with, and became actual diplomatic problems.

Precognitive aside, vampire INFILTRATORS? A vamp close quarter combat specialist?! Fuck me, any of those sound like all kinds of bad news I don’t really want to deal with today. Or any day. Ever. That’s way above my pay grade and starting to sound like a whole bunch of not my problem.

“Keep him, then,” Judas offered, struggling not to wheeze despite the fact that she was crushing his chest. “Give us your precognitive, and hhkk—and consider the matter forgotten.”

“That’s cute,” Misandry remarked, slowly clenching the fingertips that were pinning Judas to the wall and eliciting a squeal of pain from the man. “But, you don’t qualify to negotiate, let alone pass along a message to your friends. Whatever damage I do to you two will be the message.”

“Hhhk—you—you can’t do—”

“Do you understand that to me, you’re not special?” The silver-haired vampire explained with that maddening red stare. “Here, in my claws? You’re not a Master. You’re not special. Here without your power, you’re nothing much at all. Cattle, like all the rest. Blustering on and on about what I can and can’t do, as if the Rules give all sorts of solidarity—some sort of brotherhood of camaraderie to the Masters. Do you think they’ll rush out to face me? Do you think them eager to wriggle here like a worm, helpless and impotent?”

“Thhey won’t—they won’t suffer you to live—!”

“Oh, I’m sure they won’t,” Misandry indulged him with a mocking smile as she gently lowered him back down until his shoes met the floor. “They’ll be so decisive, so certain that action must be taken! Then, they’ll volunteer their rivals, their enemies to be the heroes and martyrs—no, never themselves. After countless bickering back and forth, either no one is sent at all, or someone like you is presented to us. Like a gift. A treat. Something to play with, some poor, hapless patsy offered up. After all—isn’t that the Rules?”

With that bewitching smile of superiority, the young woman stepped back out of his personal space. She moved back until the sensation of magic rushed back into the fabric of his being in a deluge of color and sound, she retreated all the way over to stand near the doorway again. Taunting him. Daring him to do something about it.

On reflex Judas attempted to affix a mind tap on her—fishing for surface-level thoughts was inobtrusive and often paid out huge dividends—but, his efforts slid past her as if she wasn’t even there. His magic didn’t even register her as a target. No, that wasn’t right—for a split-second, it was as if the connection had been subverted back around and attached to his own mind, and there was a brief flash of confused feedback before the link aborted itself. He raised his remaining hand again for that disintegration he’d trained up for emergencies, but couldn’t bring himself to let it fly.

Odds seem pretty fuckin’ high I’ll wind up eating whatever magic I try to throw out. Again. Fuck. Fuck, Judas grimaced, but didn’t lower his hand.

Want to think it’s all a bluff, that she has—I don’t know, some artifact. That sure, yeah she’s definitely a vampire, but that maybe she’s only… I don’t even fucking know. Negating magic with some expendable, some bullshit artifact that’s maybe already strained to it’s final use.

The justifications seemed flimsy, because Judas already knew there was no way he was going to shoulder the consequences of shooting off more lethal shit towards this psycho ‘Misandry’ chick.

It was already going to take thousands of calories to flesh shape even a rudimentary arm back into shape again, and days if not weeks of concentration to get it responsive and performing with capability to his satisfaction. His partner was completely fucked, there was no salvaging Chad. Putting a mind back together required branches of magic he’d never even dabbled in, years of work and training, and would result in at best having a big simpleton following him around like a thrall. Pass on that.

“I’ve—” Judas paused to massage the deep dents those fingers had pressed into his chest, because his voice hadn’t come out quite right. “I’ve got to take his Focus—Chad’s Focus. To take back for proof.”

“What are you waiting for, then?” Misandry stared.

He couldn’t tell if that was subtext or not.

She perhaps suspected that Judas was hoping to pull some sort of hail Mary out of Chad’s pockets. When he stepped over and dropped into a crouch beside Chad, however, he actually didn’t harbor much in the way of expectation. Sure, in the past he’d seen the big oaf pocket anything and everything that interested him—explosives, the odd shotgun an ignorant cop or two had pointed in the guy’s face—but what was any of that going to do to her? Irritate her?

Awkward because he was forced to use his off hand, Judas managed to thrust his reach into the nearest pocket of Chad’s pants that he could access. Dozens of banded wads of cash, gold bullion, bricks of cocaine—glittering garbage that was useless to any self-respecting Master of any power. No explosives, no weapons, not even a grimoire were to be found. Chad was an imbecile. So, Judas reached all the way in, past a pair of stained mattresses and a likewise soggy sofa, pinched his fingers around the scuffed coin that had served as a Focus for the idiot, and left everything else behind in the pocket.

He rose with a wobble but didn’t lose his balance, and met the red eyes staring him down from across the room for a long, tense moment. There wasn’t anything else he wanted to say, and he didn’t particularly want to posture or try to get in any last word. She had the upper hand, and could make him eat any careless remarks. They'd gotten rolled. It happened. Judas had been sent out to roll over various different entities on behalf of the Masters before, so it wasn’t altogether too surprising that one day his turn would come around.

Could’ve been worse. Could be leaking gray matter out onto the tile like Chad, there. Just, fuck me it’s exhausting. Think the arm of my jacket’s still smoldering a bit. What a fucking day.

With wary, careful, almost mincing steps, Judas approached the door, entering back into the nullifying field of effect that had doused all of his abilities before. The shroud of nothing was pretty damn humbling, and he dropped his eyes to the floor when he passed the girl and stepped back out into the hall.

“Hope to see you again,” Misandry called.

He shuffled forward with his head down and out of the radius of her terrible effect, not daring to look back.

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/// Small post, wanted to keep content coming up steady rather than sitting on it for days and days. And, kind of just want to get this segment out of the way so that I can delve into the next bit.