Neko-laus 2 : Toy Tiger

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Crash and Burn

Once the Mage Division makes a decision everything falls into place at lightening speed. I sort of expected Mags to dig his heels in but both he and Wendy geared up quickly knowing full well that they were not expected to come back. That kind of put that dream into perspective of them being Tigers in the woods shackled and restrained. Wendy was broken. While Mags fought to be free, once he was, he never left the clearing. He thought he was free but he was only free in a limited context. The Mage Division was not the world. The Empire was not the world. Then again that was just a dream because I sure as hell wasn’t qualified to lead someone into a new world.

“Neko, bring all your claws.”

I snorted and sent a snarl towards Mags as he bent over to pull on a high black boot. I stopped in mid snarl as I watched his pants pull tight around the globes of his ass. Damn.

“Neko!” I glanced over at Wendy and found him at a loss for words as he stared as well.

“Sorry Tiger, you missed out. You tossed him. He’s mine now.”

I thought Wendy was going to ignore me as usual but I still as his hand closed over my shoulder and squeezed lightly. “I knew Arthur was out of my league long before the rankings came out at the Academy. Nobody could touch him. Even when we were messing around, I knew I wasn’t reaching him. That’s why I left him. I wasn’t what he needed. Who the hell thought that it would be something like you that he craved?”

I could have taken offense with that something-like-you comment but there was a momentary flash of sadness on Wendy’s face. I shrugged it off and gestured with my chin as Mags bent over to put on the other boot. “You have to admit he does have a nice ass.”

Wendy let loose a sly smile. “It’s even better when he isn’t acting like one.”

“What are you guys doing?”

I caught Wendy’s eye and an unspoken agreement passed between us. Wordlessly we both turned away from each other to finish getting ready.

I took longer than the both of them mainly because I had more weapons to stow. I set my throwing knives in the bandoliers attached to my chest armor. Daggers were secured in the shaft of my both of my boots and I slid a wider blade into the sheath at the small of my back. I did a few experimental twists and stomps to make sure nothing was pulling or pinching. I didn’t need that kind of distraction in a critical moment when a loss of concentration would mean the death for all of us. Strapping the sheaths to my forearms I paused when Mags picked up the matching set of blades that went there. He said nothing as he handed one over to me watching as it slid it home. I turned my other arm out and offered it up to him. He slid the weapon home. I glanced up to see his face set in an emotionless mask but those blue eyes of his that I’ve spent so much time staring up into were alive with worry. Reaching passed him I picked up the last sheath that I usually wore – my hidden hair dagger.

“Nicky?” Mags hair was still far too short to use this so I tied it around his neck centering the sheath to the back of his neck. “What is this for?”

“You know how to use this?” I held up the slim short blade between us.

“You know I don’t.”

“Here’s a quick lesson. The pointy end goes into the other person.”

“Nicky, I don’t need this.”

“I kick your ass.”

“You’re the exception.”

“We are going to a place of exceptions where I was the least of the magic users.”

Mags nodded. “Pointy end goes into the other person.”

“No one will think that you’re carrying a concealed weapon because you are a King Tiger so this little beauty just might be our ace in the hole.” Mags reached up and swept his golden strands up and out of the way. The way I had to tuck the sheath beneath his shirt meant I had to reach up to try and…Mags shifted and I pulled the razor sharp blade back to keep from cutting him. I was about to give him crap about moving when he knelt down before me and rested his forehead against my stomach, his hands still holding his hair back. My stomach did a little jig and I swear my chest squeezed tight for a heartbeat as I felt the heat of him through my shirt. My body hadn’t recovered from our interrupted session. My hands skimmed through his hair and pulled it to the side. Mags dropped his hands and cupped them around the back of my calves slowly pulling them higher then sweeping towards my inner thighs then back out towards my hips. My hand shook slightly as I pulled his collar down exposing the sheath opening. Carefully I set the tip into the opening and then slowly thrust the blade down into the welcoming receptacle. Mags’s hands rested against the underside of my ass. I could feel his open mouth against my stomach just under the chest protector. The backs of my fingers stroked his head, trailing through his hair caressing the hind of his ears.

“I would rather walk to my death than be drugged and dragged there.” Wendy’s tone of voice broke the moment. “What about you, Arthur?”

“Be right there, Grant.” Mags turned his head and rested his cheek against my stomach. His hands finished their journey as he stood cupping my ass and pulling me toward him. I was hard. So was he. The amazing thing was that our tattoos weren’t burning into our flesh like branding irons. Mags tilted his hips as he pressed his erection against mine. “The pointy end goes into the other person? I think I can remember that.”

Whatever smart alecky thing I was going to say just disappeared. Even with a black swollen shiner he was the most gorgeous thing I could ever remember seeing. “You’re not dying today,” I blurted out.

“Of course not. None of us are dying today.” Mags squeezed my ass then swooped in and stole a kiss. “I had you speechless there, my little Neko. I need more than a few hours to savour that.”

Mags turned and pulled my final claws out of the cubby hole. These were the blades that Grim had given me. Normally no one touched my blades. I turned my back to Mags pulling my hair over my shoulder just in case his hand slipped and I ended up with an asymmetrical hair cut. Mags slid the long curved blades into the sheaths then pressed a quick kiss to the nape of my neck before flipping my hair back down my back. I’d braid it later in the transport.

“You have a plan on not dying today?”

“I have an inkling.”

I frowned. I was not used to betting my life on an inkling.

“They want us to go out in a blaze of glory, so that is just what we are going to do. Are we good to go?” I nodded. Wendy gave one shake as well. “We walk like Tigers, gentlemen. We have served the Empire faithfully for years, or months, and at the first sign of weakness they toss us aside.” Mags turned on his heel and looked at both of us.

“My name is Arthur Magnus. I have achieved the rank of King Tiger but that is not the end all and be all of my existence.” Mags pointed at me.

“I’m Nicholas…a Lieutenant to the Grim Reaper of the RIPpers and a Latent to a bunch of has been Tigers.”

Mags flashed teeth at me. “Fuck off, sweetheart.”

“Promises, promises.”

“And you?”

“I worked hard to be designated a Tiger. I fought to stay ranked.” Grant returned angrily eyeing both of us.

“Is that all you are, Grant? I thought you said you wanted to be a Mage teacher. I even remember once you wanted to paint.”

“You remember that?”

“It was important to you at the time.”

“Then why didn’t you show me stuff like that?”

“Because I didn’t know how. If you beat the crap out of me every time I went...what did you call me? King Ass? If you beat me up maybe I might have learned something, maybe not.”

I chipped in my two cents. “Most likely not.”

“I can’t paint anymore anyways.”

Huh?

Wendy pointed at his eye. “You forget I’m maimed?”

I reached out and grabbed this werid shaped sculpture from the low table beside the couch and threw it at Wendy’s head on the scarred side. He flinched and brought his hand up to deflect it.

“Nicky!” Mags admonished.

“What? It’s ugly. You even said that it’s ugly.”

“What the hell was that for? You could have seriously hurt me.” Wendy turned toward me anger filling his face.

“Pretty damned good reaction for a blind maimed Tiger.” I returned crossing my arm on my chest. “If you can see it, you can magic it. If you can see it, you can paint it. I personally don’t know why you’d want to paint walls but whatever turns your crank.”

Wendy looked over at Mags. “Is he serious?”

“What you see is what you get, Grant. Nicky is a very straight forward kind of guy. If he’s coming after you, you won’t need to worry about a knife in the back, he’ll come at you head on. Learned that through personal experience. Let’s move it.”

The door to the quarters slid back and Elway and his cronies stood there armed to the teeth in full riot gear. They seemed surprised and a little apprehensive as well to see Mage black combat gear moving en mass towards the door. “King Tiger, Tiger...Neko, we are your escort to the landing bay.” Elway looked a little uncomfortable but the hold on his rifle never wavered.

Mags looked back over his shoulder at Wendy. “You are you?”

“Grant Wendel.”

“I think that’s good enough.”

Wendy nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

The corridors were lined shoulder to shoulder with military men in their dress uniforms. In a normal deployment there was nothing even remotely like this for the descending mages so this final walk was not as well disguised as the Mage Division hoped it would be. With Mags as the highest rank among us he took point looking every inch the hero of the empire as he started walking. I moved to catch up with him but Wendy touched my arm. “You’re supposed to be my Latent.”

Like that would really ever happen but I just clenched my jaw together and took a half step back to let Wendy get ahead of me. I swear he could hear my teeth grinding together.

“Just until we get loaded into the bird.”

Shit. I winced. I hated those damned transports. Well at least the last time I didn’t end up throwing up all over the place because of the thing the white coats put in my ear.
“Move it, Neko.” I looked up at Elway and while he was doing his job of herding us down to the landing bay, he didn’t like it.

I turned on my heel and followed after the two blonde Mages. The straightening of shoulders and snapping to attention in the confined space echoed back to me. The Empire’s soldiers were giving their King Tiger the respect he deserved. All along the ‘parade’ route both Mags and Wendy were saluted. I was covered in that as a tag-a-long. I was a Latent. No, I was a Mage. No, I was a Latent. Yes, I was a Latent but not King Tiger’s. They didn’t know what the hell to do with me. It wasn’t the first time. I could only hope it wasn’t going to be the last.

We made it down the landing bay and were just ready to step through when Mackie came running up still struggling with his Latent Gray battle fatigues. “Wait! I’m coming.”

What the hell? “Mackenzie what do you think you’re doing?”

He was breathing hard and his face was flushed as he ran up to me. “I’m your Groom. I go where you go, Neko-laus.”

“Not this time, Mack.” Mags stepped around me and clasped a hand over the Grooms shoulder. “This is a one way ticket.”

Mackenzie’s face was a little green around the edges but his eyes held the look of firm resolve. “I know that. Everyone knows that. I thought hard about it before coming here. I’m your Groom, King Tiger. I will take care of Neko.”

“Now there’s the problem, Mack. Neko isn’t my Latent.”

“What? When did this happen? I’m to be informed...”

Wendy dropped his forearm over my shoulder and pulled me back against him. “Neko is MY Latent, so there is no need to inform anyone.”

Mackie took a step backwards involuntarily. “But you don’t have a Groom!”

“Not your concern.”

“Neko is important to the rest of the Latents. They want to make sure that he stays safe.”

“Again, not my concern.”

“But...”

Mags turned on his heel. “Sergeant Elway, escort Groom Mackenzie back to his quarters.”

“NO!” Mack tried to twist away from the arm that came down around his shoulders. “Noooo. Neko doesn’t have to die. They only want both of you gone.”

Dead silence filled the hall. Mackie had voiced what everyone else was thinking. He stilled when he realized what he had said. “I mean...”

Mags didn’t turn around. “I know the powers that be want Grant and I gone. I know they want Nicky gone as well. We have outlived our usefulness to the Empire. You should be grateful Mack that you didn’t get the summons this means that you are still considered worthy to the Division. Come on Grant. Bring your Latent with you.”

Mags turned the corner leaving Wendy and me facing Mack and Elway. Tears filled the Groom’s eyes as he looked at me. “Nicky...”

“I’m going home, Mack. Just tell Sarah that I went home.”

“I will.” Mackie tapped Elways hand then straightened and gave me a snappy salute. “It was an honor taking care of you, Neko-laus Magnus.”

“I was a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah, but you were coherent and thanks to you the others are starting to make some headway.”

I nodded. Since I’d been banned from the Latent levels I didn’t know if Sarah was strong enough to pass on the information that I had shown her. It was good to hear that the other Latents were starting to come back out of the ‘fade’. “Thanks for watching out for me, Mackenzie. Thanks for dragging my ass back to my quarters, Elway.”

My salute wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t that I didn’t respect Mackie it’s that I never really showed this type of gratitude before. I was more of a buy rounds of booze until my credit chit was dry kind of guy.

“Neko.” Wendy tugged on my shoulder.

I turned and followed after Wendy leaving the only other guy in the Empire who seemed to genuinely care about my welfare. My stomach tight with anxiousness. It only got worse as we stepped into the landing bay and I saw the transport waiting there for us. Mags stood close to the ship waiting for the all clear to board it. I don’t know if he was nervous but he didn’t show it on his face.

“Well that was unexpected.” Wendy muttered as we caught up to Mags.

“I think it just shows Command Central that we aren’t as naive as they suspected.” Mags snaked his arm out and caught me around the neck. He dragged me close until I was plastered to his side.

Wendy stood beside King Tiger. “So what’s the plan?”

“Crash and burn.”

“You mentioned that before, I didn’t quite like the sound of that. I still don’t like the sound of that.” Wendy touched the scar on his face. He had a habit of doing that when he was uneasy about something. I don’t think he even had a clue he was doing it. “By the way, that’s my Latent you’re snuggling.”

“Your Latent. My lover.”

My heart took a little happy kick in my chest. “Explain crash and burn.”

“The Empire would never allow a Tiger to roam free much less a King Tiger and an uncontrollable Latent. It doesn’t matter if we high jacked the ship and flew off somewhere, the Empire would search for us so the most obvious thing is to make it look like we’re dead.”

I commended Wendy for not wrenching his head around and staring at Mags. “So you have a plan on how to make it look like we’re dead?”

“Crash and burn.”

“We’re going to fake a transport crash?”

“No, Grant. We are going to crash and hope that we survive.”

“That’s the best plan you could come up with?”

“It’s the only plan that would work.”

“Well how are we going to do that? If we pull up some magic Command Central will know that we did something.”

“We’re not going to magic the transport out of the sky. We are going to suffer severe loss of power, right Nicky?”

I knew it. As soon as I heard him say crash and burn, I knew he wanted me to do. I ran my eye over the size of the transport. I could do it. It was smaller than some of the floors I’d burnt out and it was a self contained power unit. It would be easy to bring down.

“Good to go. Load up!” A man began gesturing to us from the transport.

“Neko?”

“Crash and burn.” This was a stupid plan. Who the hell wants to crash into a planet? Unfortunately, a crash had a better chance for survival than meeting up with the base camp on the surface. “Crash and burn.”

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