Apocalypse: Fairy System by Macronomicon (fox in socks read aloud txt) 📕

not yours,” Rufio replied, glancing over his shoulder as he mounted the first step.

“Smartass,” Jeb muttered, poking his collar. “Back me up here.”

“Eh, what?” Smartass grumbled, emerging from the shade of his collar. The fairy had a tendency to sleep in if there was nothing going on.

“Ooh, a child!” Smartass cried, her wings kicking into gear and buzzing all the way over to the stunned Rufio, who watched her with wide eyes.

“A bit past its prime, Impact-wise, but still technically a child,” Smartass said, tugging at the boy’s earlobe, then dodging a swat. “Tell me child, do you want to make a Deal? Save your friends, perhaps? How about a decade of indentured servitude? That’s a small price to pay for their lives, don’t you think? If that’s too immediate, we can always settle for your firstborn. It’s a classic.”

“What the hell is that!?” Rufio demanded, pointing at the fairy whirling around him.

“Smartass, calm down. I’m not gonna let you make a Deal with him.”

Smartass flitted back to Jeb’s offered palm, grumbling all the while.

“This is a fairy,” Jeb said, holding out the reclining Smartass for Rufio to see her holding still. “They have a very difficult time telling lies.”

Drawn back from the steps by the sheer strangeness, Rufio approached the fairy and poked her cheek. Irritated, the little creature slapped his hand away.

“Hands off!”

“Fairies are real?”

“They are, and this particular one is working for me.”

“Technically,” Smartass said. “Although I think it should be the other way around.”

“Fairies, you see, are nearly physically incapable of telling lies. Smartass, why are we in town?”

“We’re running away from a rich dude you pissed off in Kalfath.”

“And?”

“And an imperial enforcer blackmailed you into hunting the kidnapper lurking in Solmnath.”

“And do we mean any harm to Rufio’s friends?”

“I know I don’t,” she said, putting her hand on her candy-wrapper-covered chest. “But I can’t speak for you. You could secretly be plotting to annihilate all children in Solmnath and I wouldn’t know. Actually, didn’t you say you hated teens the other day? You know, shortly after you bought a bunch of slaves to serve your purposes?”

“Smartass, is this sabotage payback for the soda incident?” Jeb asked.

“…Yes.” Smartass deflated.

“You remember what I said about sabotage, and what would happen?”

“I was hoping you didn’t,” she said, wincing.

“Clean the room with a toothbrush.”

“Noooooo!” Smartass howled as her wings dragged her away to seek out a toothbrush.

“You bought a bunch of slaves?” Rufio asked, brows up. “Cool.”

“That’s what you’re impressed by?” Jeb asked, dragging a hand down his face. “Nevermind, of course that’s what you’re impressed by. Listen up, kid. You already saw everyone I bought. It wasn’t a power trip or some misguided attempt at finding a ‘waifu’. I bought normal, everyday people with job experience handling brats like you.”

“Even Mrs. Everett?”

“Even Mrs. Everett.”

Rufio bit his lip, studying Jeb for a moment. “What’s your plan to catch this guy?”

Thank you, Mrs. Everett.

“Alright, take a seat,” Jeb said, motioning to the bench. “But first, I never got your name.”

“Colt,” the kid said.

“Jebediah Trapper. You can call me Sir, or Mr. Trapper.”

“Sounds fair, Jeb,” Colt said, sitting at the table with his legs splayed in an obvious power move.

God, I hate teenagers, Jeb thought, his knuckles tightening around his cane. He couldn’t allow these pubescent sharks to smell blood though, so he shrugged it off and sat down.

“Okay, my plan at first was to kidnap kids en masse and hide them away to attract the attention of the culprit and lure him out, but it’s evolved to fit the circumstances a bit better. With your help, I could take a much easier route with less chance of horrible failure.”

“What’s that?”

“This place is going to become an orphanage,” Jeb said, motioning to the building around them. “With you out in the wild convincing kids to come here at a much faster rate than I could ever manage alone, we won’t have to kidnap any of them, and we can be out in the open. Word will spread faster if I don’t have to be all secretive about it, and that means the kidnapper will hear about it that much sooner.”

“What’s in it for us, being bait and all?” Colt asked, arms crossed.

“Oh, you mean besides food, safety, actual beds to sleep in and classes from the best teachers I could buy?” Jeb asked. “Nothing. Learn to live with it.”

Colt growled a bit, but accepted the terms.

Smartass zipped back in with Jeb’s toothbrush and started cleaning the oiliest, gunkiest motor parts she could find, making hard eye contact with Jeb as she did.

“Once you’re done cleaning the room, get me a fancy new electric toothbrush,” Jeb said. “Mint in box.”

“Gah!”

“What’s your plan for dealing with this guy when he comes here?” Colt asked over the sound of fairy tears.

“The way I see it, there’re two major paths this guy can take in response to losing his prey.” Jeb held up two fingers. “First, if he has no political backing and no assistance, he’ll most likely come sniffing around the orphanage in person, looking to break in or lure a child away.

“In that situation, we simply catch him in the act, murder him, and bury him in the back yard. Problem solved.” He could tell from Colt’s expression that the teen approved.

“The other way this could play out is if the guy has political clout. He might set out to delegitimize the orphanage and have the government act on his behalf to scatter the children to the wind so he can hunt them again.”

“How do we deal with that one?” Colt asked.

“Substantially more complicated. We would have to follow the trail of paperwork and complaints back to whoever got the ball rolling,