Chương 132: 45 - NEW PARTY MEMBERS

There was a middle-aged man who lived in a suburb just outside the city. He had always been a hard-working man. He went to work every day and always made sure to provide for his wife and their golden retriever. He was content with his life. But then one day, his wife told him that he was getting too plump in the cheeks. He said it was natural. He was getting older after all. But she wasn't having it. When was the last time you went on a run or even looked at a gym, she would say.

It had been a while, but she would get over it, he thought. He was content to ignore it until his doctor said the same thing in nicer words.

"You need to start exercising more." Gaining weight was common among people his age, but if he didn't get it under control, it was going to catch up with him sooner or later. So he supposed he should give it a try and start running like he did back in his glory days in his early twenties. It took him several weeks to work up the motivation, but today was finally the day. He put on his running shoes and started jogging up the street.

"I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna start being healthy again," he started thinking about all the changes to his diet he was going to make. He started thinking about which gyms he should get memberships for. He started thinking about his wife praising his brand-new six-pack abs. He only made it a block and a half before he stopped at a sign posted to a telephone pole. Well, it was more a piece of construction paper with the word "STOP" written in red marker.

It was in front of the house where the old couple who recently passed away used to live. He couldn't remember their names, though- Merrier… Terrier… something like that. He read the words written underneath.

"Danger ahead. Jogging past this point will result in serious injury and likely death." There wasn't anything he could see ahead that was dangerous, but was he willing to risk it… nah. He didn't like running anyway. It was almost noon. He told himself he'd try again tomorrow, did a 180, and walked back home.

"Hey, folks. My name is Tyene, and this is my friend, Vienna." Tyene felt like she was on display at a museum they way all the church people stared at her. She was never one to be the center of attention and was glad that T'balt did all the explaining for her.

"So she's just like you, T'balt?" Ellie asked with a skeptical eye on her. They were gathered in Abbot Kilgrove's office on the top floor of Acron's church. All of T'balt's circle was gathered there, including Cannon, Ellie, Acelin, Arthur, Martha, and a few extras.

"Yeah. She's been doing it even longer than I have." T'balt answered.

"But don't get me wrong," Tyene said.

"I've never been around these parts, so I have no clue what's going on. So think of Vienna and me as just tag-alongs."

"If you guys could, please treat them kindly while they're staying here with us." Everyone in the room, after processing the information, nodded in agreement.

"Yay! A new momma!" Little Genya came running into the room with her dark hair, pudgy face, and nightgown. Without prompting, she latched onto Tyene's leg with a warm hug. Tyene's face turned red, and she leaped back as if the little girl were afflicted with the plague.

"No! Bad! Don't do that!" Genya cocked her head to the side, confused at why the new lady didn't like her. But then she nearly peed when the lady's dark-haired friend stared bloody daggers into her nightmares. Genya ran to the safety of Martha Kilgrove.

"It's okay, sweet one. Not everyone is okay with you calling them momma," the old woman said. After a moment, Genya corrected her error, if only to avoid Vienna's cold stare.

"I'm sorry, miss." Awkwardly, Tyene hid her face under the collar of her jacket.

"It's no big deal. Don't worry about it." T'balt laughed, seeing how flustered she was.

"I didn't realize your weakness was seven-year-old girls."

"Shut up. She just… caught me off guard." Everyone in the room joined the laughter before welcoming Tyene to the church and trying to make her feel at home despite the circumstances outside. The earthquake had hit a few hours before, and they all had time to adjust somewhat before T'balt introduced everyone to another Redeemer. T'balt had gotten pretty efficient at managing the church at this point. The panic would hit at noon, and he had everyone stabilized by about 5.

He was worried they'd have trouble accepting Tyene and Vienna, but they seemed to fit in without putting anything out of place. Later that evening, he showed Tyene to the upstairs bedroom. When she saw the red bed, she instantly fell on it, dropping her olive jacket on the floor, showing off a revealing black romper underneath.

"Thank god. Introducing yourself to new people can be so awkward. Is this your room?" He shook his head.

"It's yours. Arthur usually gives it to me, but I never use it. So you can stay in here while I sort everything out." She let the silk sheets massage her body. He watched her with a strange look on his face.

"Tell the truth. Did you fuck someone in this bed?" She suddenly asked. His face didn't get bashful or smiley like she expected, but solemn.

"Not me."

"Oh... that's too bad then." There was a silence, and Tyene noticed him touching the choker on his neck.

"You know, chokers aren't really a thing for dudes, right? I never pegged you for the emo type."

"It's just a fashion choice," he said nervously.

"Anyway. Relax and make yourself comfortable. I'm gonna go deal with things downstairs. It should take me about a week or two, and then we can head back to Graceland." Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

"Whatever you say." There was disappointment in her tone. When he was gone, she laid back and relaxed on the bed.

"This room definitely has some weird vibes." She sat up.

"Vienna, you don't have to wait in the hall. Come in." Vienna quietly stepped into the room from around the corner, hands behind her back, body stiff as a board.

"I thought you preferred I not remain in your sight, ma'am."

"Forget all that. You're not my bodyguard anymore. You're my friend."

"Friend?" Tyene nodded, patting the bed next to her. Vienna fidgeted like she didn't know what to do with her body. It took almost a minute for her to actually sit down next to her.

"I swear you get cuter every time, every time you hear that for the first time," Tyene teased. Vienna was still stiff, but she was looking down at the floor, twiddling her fingers.

"Are you sure… you wanna be friends with me?"

"More sure than I've ever been about anything."

"So… what do friends do?" Tyene tilted her head, remembering her usual answer to that question, wanting to change it up.

"Well, they watch movies, talk about boys, and watch each other make bad decisions and say I told you so after."

"I did really like those John Wick movies. The Terminator, as well. But I don't really know much about the other two things."

"That's okay. I'll catch you up to speed."

"So… what about… boys do you talk about?" Tyene erupted in a very mischievous smile.

"I'll tell you." Getting back from one of his loot hunts, T'balt gifted Ellie another healing loot so she could add another to her stack. He had yet to test out stacking healing loots as he had with Cannon's strength, but his hope was that if she equipped enough, she might be able to regrow limbs. He only found three in the area, and that still wasn't enough to restore one of her patients' eyesight.

"That's fine. I'll look for more." he patted her on the back, giving her a smile. She smiled back.

"Thank you. I can't tell you how much you helping us means."

"It's no problem. I'm just glad you're back on my side this iteration."

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind." He walked around the downstairs area for a while, making sure nothing was significantly out of place, while Tyene was here. She and Vienna mostly stayed upstairs, but he always wanted to make sure no butterfly effect shenanigans were happening. Acelin, out of nowhere, jumped on his back like a wild monkey hanging on his neck.

"You're it." T'balt was lootless still, so the kid suddenly jumping on him almost choked him out.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to play so rough, Acelin? You're about to wring my neck." The young kid dropped himself back to the ground, frowning.

"Aren't you like a God or something? Nothing should be able to hurt you."

"I'm not a god," T'balt said, rubbing his neck.

"Don't say stuff like that in a church. Otherwise the real one might get mad." Acelin looked like he was about to malfunction, which was understandable. At this point in the iteration, T'balt's power was still new to him, and adding that on top of a sudden influx of church sermons tended to confuse him cosmically.

"You know what, don't think about that stuff right now? We'll chat about it later. I've got something for you." T'balt went to one of the closets, fetching a brand new metal baseball bat and handing it to the kid. Acelin's gears started working again.

"Is this for me?"

"Yeah. I actually hadn't had the chance to get it for you the last couple iterations. So take it." Acelin looked skeptical.

"You're like that weird guy from the videos giving kids candy in the back of a van. Are you planning to kidnap me?"

"I uhh… kinda already did."

"Oh. Right."

"Don't think about that either. Just take the bat." Acelin happily obliged, going to show it off to the other kids around the church.

"Look what the Redeemer gave me." Satisfied with that, T'balt continued his rounds. And he eventually found Cannon sitting on the ground in the parking lot, posing like he was in some meditative state with his hand on his chin.

"What's this? It isn't like you to be thinking so hard, Cannon." He sat next to him.

"Hmmm…" He turned his eye on the Redeemer.

"What?"

"You think that new girl, Vienna… has a thing for me?" When he said that, T'balt felt like he was going to shit a brick.

"What in God's name would ever make you think that?"

"It's the way she looks at me. Every time we're in the same room, she stares at me a while, squinting her eyes all seductively." T'balt couldn't picture it. Not the Vienna he knew.

"Seductively?"

"Well, it's the same face she always makes. It just looks at me longer than most."

"If I had to guess, she probably sees you as the biggest potential threat to Tyene's safety based on your size. If she's staring, I'm going to say she's coming up with a plan to kill you."

"Hmmm…" he didn't make the thinking face of someone who believed that.

"I think she's my type. I mean, you gotta love a woman that keeps in shape like that. Did you know she works out every morning and every night? I can hear her because she does it the same time I do. She's strong. Stern. Confident." T'balt was starting to feel like he didn't want to be a part of this conversation much longer.

"I think she might be a little young for you, Cannon." He shook his head.

"I checked. She's 36. Only a few years younger."

"What?" The woman definitely didn't look like she was in her mid-thirties. T'balt always assumed she was mid- twenties like him.

"I guess keeping in shape does pay… but Tyene mentioned they were around the same age. So that means…"

"That I should pursue it, right?" Cannon asked with a cheeky smile.

"No. It's a bad idea."

"Why? Have I tried before?"

"No."

"Then how can a man know until he's tried?"

"Would it convince you not to, if I told you she shot you in another life?"

"I probably deserved it." T'balt groaned. The man was clearly blinded by this new infatuation.

"You know what, give it your best shot." He left Cannon there to continue contemplating his love life. All he could do was hope Vienna wouldn't shoot him again when he tried to hit on her.

"I shouldn't be thinking this is funny," he thought to himself. He made his way upstairs to check on Tyene, only to find the bedroom empty.

"Everything alright?" asked Arthur from his office.

"Yeah. Have you seen Tyene and Vienna?"

"On the balcony." Tyene leaned on the railing, overlooking the parking lot surrounding the church as Vienna manned the door behind her. She was caught on a particular young girl, Genya. She was frolicking down there with that childish, unfiltered joy as Acelin let her play with his new bat. Tyene wanted to bring herself to smile at that, but realized she couldn't.

"What are you doing up here?" T'balt asked behind her.

"Oh, hey there, T'bag." T'balt stopped in his tracks.

"That's a name I had hoped I'd left behind in middle school. I always hated it."

"Well, that's kinda half the point of a nickname, T'bag. It's just a little friendly teasing. I bet you didn't have many female friends in school, did you?"

"Honestly, not really." He took a glance at Vienna, wondering if he should warn her about Cannon, before ultimately deciding it'd be breaking some sort of code.

"So what were you looking at?" He walked over to the edge of the balcony to lean on the railing next to her.

"Nothing. I was thinking, actually… about how we're going to defeat Corlander."

"You got a plan, then?"

"Well, all the loot he carries makes him basically invulnerable. So we probably can't do any significant damage as long as he can hold so much loot. So we have to take it out of him."

"Using the Loot Thief?"

"Exactly. That was my plan last time. I couldn't get close enough to use it on him. But it's the only shot we have at beating him."

"If we can catch him off guard and remove the Collector's loot, then he should go down easy. The problem is catching him off guard."

"We can worry about that part later. For now, Vienna and I were getting ready to head out to get the Loot Thief. It's a bit out of the way from Graceland, so we were going to make a day trip out of it."

"Oh. That makes sense." She paused, taking enjoyment in the sudden anxious look on T'balt's face.

"Yeah. Vienna and I are usually enough to take the monster down, so we'll be fine on our own, but… You're curious to see it, aren't you?" He nervously laughed.

"Yeah."

"You wanna come with?"

"Yeah."