Sebas

I had found the twins while I was in the dwarven mines. The Dwarven kingdoms had many deep tunnels that lead to many rich mineral veins. However, most of them had to be sealed off due to advent of the demon beasts. Adventurers are paid to go beyond the seals to get materials and it is how many humans in the Dwarven kingdoms make money. That said, the dwarves are a greedy race full of 'trade secrets' and ambition which means there are many nooks and crannies down there.

I stumbled on one during a quest to investigate missing children from the local orphanage. A lunatic and his buddies were researching body-modification magic. A highly risky and controversial magic but these guys were branching well beyond orthodox crests used to summon familiars or contracted beings. They were up to things like grafting people with other people, or people with monsters, people with minerals, magic, substances, and mixing said experiments with time, age, and a severe lack of pain-killers. Highly unethical stuff.

So I cleansed it.

I saved who I could, but there were many I couldn't do more than grant their pleading cries for death.

What surprised me most was not only how long it had been going on but deep Inside the dungeon-like mad scientist facility, I had found a smaller workshop hidden within the laboratory. Inside, two kids my age had long since escaped their bonds after being born there and experimented on. Not knowing much else outside the heinous laboratory they conducted their own research. More ethical, if not as disturbing, and controversial. Fueled by the desire to outdo their former masters out of spite they vowed they'd accomplish more without resorting to the barbaric measures of experimentation they'd witnessed and been subjected to.

It was odd to see such a jovial pair in the dank environment. When I told them what I was doing they eagerly helped and asked if I would take them with me. It was a strange set of circumstances and I ended up turning them over to the Adventurer's guild when all was said and done.

Two years later they still follow me like a bad penny, but they've proved their reliability and trustworthiness many times over since then. They have more than their fair share of eccentricities, but they've never once crossed any line I set and more than willingly took to any lessons I insisted they learned.

I think it's mostly thanks to Victor though. When we were escaping their "home" a tragedy struck. The whole facility had been rigged to explode like a bad action movie once the head loony died, his sister was a victim of the self-destructing lab.

It was the only time I saw legitimate fear on Victor's face. He fell to his knees when the cave-in stopped, and his sister had taken his place under the rubble. It had all happened so fast. I figured we could at least give her a proper burial. So I sent the survivors ahead, and then began digging. I told Victor to get his head out of his ass and help. That we were going back for her. Little did I know that when I found her, she'd still be alive and only half buried.

Don't get me wrong, she should have died. But whatever experimentation they'd been through had kept her alive. And jotting notes in the dust while she waited to die... morbidly effective notes where she had solved some of the hang ups she and her brother had hit in their research.

I only just managed to save her after another hour of digging, and then another hour of surgery in which Lilith, Liz, and I barely managed to stitch her back together. Her screams and crying echoed for miles until she passed out from the pain when she was stable.

Those cries led the rescue party to us.

They claimed the Banshee had led them to us. An old myth about family spirits who watched over their kin, mourned their deaths, and sang for their lives. It caught on. Originally, they called us the Banshee's Fellhounds considering we had gone done into the 'pit' and rescued those poor souls. Then...

Then I COULDN'T GET RID OF THEM!

No matter what I did or where I went, they found me like a pair of blood hounds. They never mention any kind of life debt, but I could see it in their eyes. So I registered a new party with the five of us "The Banshee's Hounds".

But the fame was making my skin crawl, so we left as soon as we able to drum up the last bit of information I needed from somewhere deeper passed the seals than anyone had been since the demon beasts started spawning.

The location of the Library of Alexandria.

*

I lowered the barrier when I was finished with the rest of the demon beasts. The twins walked through the carnage like it was a walk in the park. But I was still pissed. Every second here is a second that Julie is in danger. And I may have taken it out on Victoria a little when she showed up.

I turned to Shannon who sat inside the circle still.

"Contract complete." I walked over to her and turned off my demon eyes.

She swallowed and nodded. "P-payment?" she asked clutching her chest.

"Can you keep a secret?" I said offering my hand to her.

She chuckled. "That's what you said last time too." She said as she took my hand.

"Last... time?" I asked.

"You know, the last time you saved me..." she said as if I was supposed to remember something.

I shook my head. I'm pretty sure I would have remembered saving her.

"...you don't remember me..." she said sadly.

"I think I would have remembered an elven princess." I shrugged drawing a blank.

"What about this..." she reached into the folds of her dress and pulled out something wrapped in a handkerchief. She unwrapped it and showed me a twisted piece of glass. "...after you saved me you shot one of those spears into a huge lava monster and killed it in one shot, this was the only thing left over."

"That's not possible," I picked up the glass and examined it. "This isn't one of my battle staffs the composition is wrong. It would never survive-" it all came back to me, the night I had the revelation about including cross quartz into my staffs before I collected more Adamantite. I slapped my face cursing my own stupidity. "You were soggy girl."

"Soggy girl?" she asked.

"ya you know..." I waved my hand in the air and used the ambient magic to create a dragon. Then it spit in her face, drenching her.

"Oh... ya, you do remember." She wiped away the water with magic.

A story for another time. Safe to say that I only met her once. At the time I was more worried about the Nightclaw monster sieging the elven city and how to counter them. A forgettable experience for me but Liz's words echoed in my ears, about how I drew people too me.

Great, I probably have to take accountability for this instance too.

Right now, I'm on the clock.

"We can catch up later." I summoned the magic inside of me to split off two of my tails. Each one transformed into me. My duplicates were one thing, they could follow simple commands but couldn't do much beyond that, and the further away they got the harder it was for them to maintain their shape. This was an ancient magic I learned in the library of Alexandria. Each one was a completely autonomous copy with my memories and responded to my will. But I had to portion out a fraction of my power to each one. Currently they both had one tail and I had three.

Then I pulled three Etherite rods the size of pencils and handed them out as I ordered them. "You," I handed a rod to the first one. "Red herring, I want four Phantom Prince sightings at the edge of town, Sudaven, Grandine and Teagon." He nodded and then I handed one to the second Sebas. "You're Hyde, take the princess to the magic knight headquarters. Alert the Archangels about the situation as soon as you can." He nodded.

Then we each bit down on the Etherite and snapped it in half releasing the magic inside. They glowed brilliant blue and then we breathed the expelled magic in to refill and boost our own temporarily. The proof that it had work showed in our matching tails. Now we each had five because that was as many as I originally had. But it was similar to an adrenaline boost, it didn't last and it would take its toll.

The first Sebas I had ordered donned a cloak that I handed him from my inventory, which had teleport scrolls in it. He raced away as soon as gave him the okay. In the meantime, the second one had already transformed into Hyde and rolled his shoulders. I passed him a disposable wand from my inventory.

"So that's how you did it." Shannon exclaimed.

""We had a deal, Soggy."" Both Hyde and I said at the same time.

"THAT'S creepy." Shannon said.

""We taught him that."" The twins said taking up position behind Shannon on either side.

"No, stop!" Shannon cried, easily confused and disturbed by all the copies around her.

"Victoria." I said and Victoria snapped to attention. "That boar over there is yours. He's alive, and I want to know what he knows. He's smart and can turn into a human so watch yourself."

"I won't let you down, Alpha." She saluted.

"Victor, you are with me, we're going back to the Kallit estate. And we need to get there the fast way." I tossed him a battle staff.

"I am on it." Victor cracked his neck and rolled up his sleeve. "I've got just thing." Green fire exploded from his arm and carved a magic circle in the air. "Das Bunkerbreaker, time to show off." The green fire opened up a portal and a giant arm reached from it. The arm was as thick as a tree and disproportional to the rest of the humanoid body that crawled from Victor's magic. He was almost two meters tall and his left arm was about five times too big and pulsating with magically infused muscles.

Victor tossed the battle staff to Bunkerbreaker.

"Give us a target. Alpha." Victor gave me a thumbs up.

Blue fire changed my battle-damaged clothes into my old Banshee's Hound uniform that I kept in my storage. I adjusted the mask that covered the bottom half of my face. "Up." I said walking over to the beast as it aimed the spear-like battle staff in the air.

I grabbed the staff and victor hopped on my back comedically wrapping his arms and legs around me. I rolled my eyes, but it had been a long time since I'd grown used to the twin's peculiar sense of humor.

"Have you gotten any better at landing?" Victor asked.

"Nope." I answered.

"Fabulous." He snickered eagerly.

I turned us both into lightning and infused us into the staff like an electrical current. Then the bunkerbreaker threw it and us into the sky. 

** ** **

A/N

Ahoy, so you may have noticed the blatantly redacted chapters and shift in storytelling as well as recognized the first part of this from a previous chapter.

Foxtails in need of some maintenance and upkeep. I've also been slacking on Pearly Tales and it is because I'm near the end of what i have written for it after going through some writers block i'm just about over on it's behalf. so I'm going to post this last chapter of the arc and take a week off to do the necessary edits and hopefully come back with Pearly Kingdom chapters as well as fixed some of the holes in Foxtails that i made in the attempt to rush the story.

I'm feeling good about the renewed direction and return to the roots, i just need some time to get it squared away.

I'm also excited to devote sometime to The Pearly Series again since it's going to be an anchor for a large part of my storyscape as a whole going deep into the future.

Thank you for your support you guys are amazing

And as always, may the winds of fortune ever fill your sails.

-the Captain.