"Inn Security" by NobodyAtAll

Yo, it’s Cal!

So, after meeting with Adam the Omega Class and his scaly, Kushim, me and Marley went into my office, I called Deston, and I explained the situation.

He teleported into my office immediately. A blatant breach of blipper etiquette, which applies to magical teleportation as well.

It was right next to me, too.

Then he teleported the three of us to the gates.

He could have warned me.

Fucking Deston!


“Des, we’ve talked about this, you’ve gotta let people know before you teleport them–”

“I’m sorry, Cal, but sometimes, there just isn’t time.”

Deston looks Adam Omega in the eyes.

Adam is tall, but so are Pierre and Deston.

Adam’s taller than them, though.

I know what Deston is doing. He’s taught me how to block it.

Adam looks confused.

“What are you doing?”

Deston, of course, doesn’t answer.

Eventually, Deston seems to be satisfied.

He turns to me, looks me in the eyes, and I hear his voice echo in my head.

“I can’t detect a trace of malicious intent in him. But I did detect an overwhelmingly powerful desire to go home.”

Hold on, dear readers, I need to take this.

Could you find out where his home was, Deston?

“No. That piece of information seems to be too deeply buried, and unearthing it would require more time. But I’m guessing that’s due to the trauma of losing his homeland. It pains him to even think about it. So I’m not surprised, Cal.”

Does that mean we can let them in?

“Hmm… I’m not sure. I’m not sure we can trust them. They seem sympathetic enough, but… you feel it too, right?”

You mean like there’s something going on here that we don’t know about?

“Exactement. And I believe that the name of Adam’s homeland has something to do with it. If we just knew that…”

Well hey, there’s a quick fix. How about I just ask him?

“I fear he may be reluctant to tell us at the moment, Cal. Despite the fact that it’s a rather traumatic thing to ask about, there’s the fact that he’s only just met us. He may not trust us, either.”

But we’ve gotta do something for them, Des. We can’t just leave them outside. If we don’t help them, then they really can’t trust us.

“Well, if it’s getting them off the streets that concerns you…”


As Deston communicates telepathically with Calvin, Adam looks down at Kushim, communicating telepathically with him.

“Do they really not realize that I can do that too? Does the old idiot really not realize that I only showed him what I want him to see?”

“Dey nu eben wee-a-wizzzze dat we can heaw dem, ee-fuw. An dey nu can heaw ussss.”

Neither Adam nor Kushim notice Marley suspiciously glaring at the two of them, looking up at his daddeh and Deston, and softly gasping.

Marley knows what Deston is doing too.


Yeah, that can work, Des. There’s a good place nearby.

“We’ll set it up as soon as possible. But we’ll have to keep a close eye on Adam. I feel like there’s something important that he’s not telling us, I can tell that he’s hiding something, but I don’t know what. Like I said, it would take more time to find out. I’m sure that he came to the School for a reason. If he only wanted to meet an Omega, he could have met you at your apartment, or Faucheuse Tower, or any other place you visit frequently. He could have done the same for any of the other Omegas. But he came to the School. There’s something here that he wants, that I can be certain of.”

And until we know what it is, and why he wants it, we can’t let him in.

“Precisely. We don’t want a repeat of Bran Castle, Cal.”

With that, I feel Deston’s presence leave my mind.

Sorry about that, folks.

I turn to Adam.

“Here’s the deal, guys. We’re not letting you into the School, but there’s a hotel nearby, part of FauCorp’s chain, and you can stay there until we figure things out.”

Adam is confused.

“What is a ho-tell, Calvin Korkea?”

Oh boy, they really have been gone a long time.

So Deston and I explain what a hotel is.

“…and it’s a hotel for people with fluffies, so they can accommodate Kushim too, even though he’s not a fluffy, per se.”

“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like my niece to take a look at him. Purely out of curiosity, and I promise that he will not be harmed.”

“Vaw wiww be gen-tuw wif Kushim, twust Mawwey.”

Adam rubs his chin as he thinks about this.

“I suppose it is acceptable. We cannot exactly sleep on the street.”

“Dem fwat wockiessss am nuwhewe neaw comfy enuff fow dat.”

I turn to Deston.

“Can you take it from here? I need to check in on Jack.”

Deston nods.

“I’ll send Suzy a spell immediately.”


While Deston handles that, I make my way back to the training facility with Marley.

On the way, Marley looks up at me, worry on his little green face.

“Daddeh, dewe am sumfin yu gut tu knu abowt mistah Adam.”

I look down at my dear rasta fluffy.

“What’s up, Mar?”

“Mawwey fink dat Adam hab tewuh-puffy tuu. Adam wuz wookin at Kushim da same way Destun wook at sumwun wen he am yoosin tewuh-puffy.”

“Oh. Well, we couldn’t have noticed that, because we were looking at each other. Good catch, Mar, I’ll tell Des later, when Adam’s not around. I think you’ve earned a skettie treat for that, but I don’t have any on me right now, so remind me later.”

“Note tu sewf: wemine daddeh abowt da skettie tweat. Gut it, daddeh.”


We enter the training room where Lu-Tze is currently teaching Jack that one fast-forwarding trick.

Jack’s wearing his new battle suit. Saffron really is his color. And the flesh-tone legs were a nice idea. It almost looks like he’s wearing those booty shorts he likes so much.

Again, I wear Crocs, so I can’t judge his taste in clothes, but still, I don’t wear Crocs on the job. Practicality comes first.

There’s a card table with a flowerpot on it, filled with soil. The only thing it’s missing is an actual flower.

I don’t actually know what the trick is yet. Like I said, I’ve been missing a lot of Jack’s lessons.

I turn to Lu-Tze.

“Are we gonna need stabilisers for this one?”

The old monk, currently smoking one of his hand-rolled cigarettes, grins at me.

“Nah, Cal. Jack, let’s do it again.”

Jack smirks.

“Alright.”

I only now notice the seed in the flowerpot, just barely visible in the soil.

I realize what Jack is about to do.

I pick up Marley and stand back.

Jack points at the flowerpot.

The air around it seems to ripple, and a rose grows to full size in seconds.

I put Marley down and clap.

“Very impressive, Jack!”

He sheepishly rubs the back of his head, grinning.

“Thank you, Cal. Speeding up time for the entire universe is easy, but speeding up time for a small area is hard. Sweeper says I need to be careful that I don’t accidentally fast-forward half of something. Or someone.

Lu-Tze lets out a laugh, and a large cloud of smoke.

“Yeah, otherwise you put the poor bugger in a situation where they’re twenty, but their arse is eighty. We’ll be covering rewinding in a small area too, Jack. But there’s still a limit to rewinding Time. You’re not an Omega like Cal and Marley here, your power has limits.”

Marley contemplatively rubs his chin with a marshmallow hoof.

“Su, if daddeh an Mawwey watch Jack yoos his powahs, den daddeh an Mawwey cud cwick, an den Mawwey cud wewine time as faw backsie as Mawwey wan, wite?”

Lu-Tze, suddenly looking rather serious, turns to Marley, taking a drag of his rollup before answering.

“That could be very dangerous, Marley. Jack’s limit is a good thing. Having complete control over Time is a bloody recipe for disaster. Not everyone is a natural like Jack here, and my last apprentice. But of course, Lobsang had an unfair advantage.”

Jack, Marley and I are all confused.

I speak for the other two.

“Who’s Lobsang?”

A grin spreads over the old monk’s wizened face.

“You know that idiot I told you about, who made that glass clock? Well, Lobsang is his brother. Er. Sort of. Let me start from the beginning…”


A few hours later, at the nearby branch of Faucheuse Hotels, Adam and Kushim have figured out what all the strange, alien devices in their luxury suite do.

Adam’s armor has been removed and piled up on one of the beds.

Adam walks out of the bathroom, damp and naked. He toweled himself off, but he didn’t bother to wear a towel.

Kushim, sitting on the other bed, is watching TV.

Adam opens the minibar. Susan specified to the staff that the duo gets anything they want for free. And not just because they don’t have any money.

So Adam doesn’t need to worry about being bankrupted by a Mars bar.

Adam dumps the contents of the minibar onto the bed, next to Kushim. Along with food and drink for humans, there’s Bestest brand fluffy food in there too. It is a suite for guests with fluffies, after all.

Adam picks up a small can of Pringles, and quickly figures out how to open it.

He tries one of the chips.

crunch

“Hmm. Not bad.”

As he opens a bottle of beer with a flick of his thumb, he sits down next to Kushim.

That didn’t go the way we hoped.”

Kushim looks up at his daddeh.

“Ssssu wut nao, daddeh?”

Adam stares at the television, not really paying attention to the movie currently playing on it.

“We are both of us… out of time.”

Adam thinks to himself, and eventually reaches a conclusion.

“We can’t talk our way in. We can’t fight past the wards. One of them taps into a power beyond even my own. So we’re going about this the wrong way. We need to lure the time-meddler out into the open. We need to separate him from the others. We don’t need to hurt him. All we have to do is catch him, get what we need from him, and let him go. And he doesn’t need to know what we need from him for us to get it.”

Adam smiles.

“What we need right now… is a diversion.

He turns to Kushim, and the scaly smiles back.

“And they don’t know what you can do yet.”

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wheels turnin round and round

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im face palming so damn hard-

Again, the fluffy proves smarter then the smartest man on earth and his owner. god DAMN.

THANK YOU MARLEY!!

if you keep tempting me with pretty men ima go wild i sware-

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