Reroll

I give fake names, “This is Beatrice,” Betty, “And Carla,” Ed, “We also brought an ex-slave… that hornet's nest kicking? We did that.”

That brings the three up short; Merlin reacts first, “You mentioned your friends had some ‘cool tricks’ - you didn't mention the flying fortress!”

Lady Elaine Fairchild walks out the door; I suppose to give us some privacy.

Ed chuckles, “So you have an informant in the Inquisition's ranks, huh?”

“No…” Vlad bluffs, unsuccessfully for me, “We have a way to intercept some of their camera feeds. We caught the ship on tape as it blew up the vans.  You are saying it’s yours?”

Betty nods, “We have some cool toys, yes.”

I chuckle, “Speaking of toys… I have a gift of sorts for you, Vlad,” I hold out the bloodstone amulet.

He looks at it a moment, and glances at Merlin, who focuses a moment, then nods, “It's enchanted, but…” he pauses, “...just don't let anyone else get it if you decide to use it.”

That was a quick ID, “Indeed.  It's a toy from my Myth. Hold it, focus, and speak the command word…” I hand him a small index card with the pronunciation, “and it produces a red liquid which should shake your thirst for a day.  Or at least, it will for the creatures of the night from my Myth.  I'm unclear if it will work for you.  Fair warning: For a day after you've partaken of it, someone who knows how to use it gains a measure of influence over you… but they would have to meet certain rare criteria, they would need to have the amulet in their possession, and they would need to know how to use it. Keep control of the amulet, and you're fine.”

Ralph looks on in puzzlement, Vlad looks to Merlin again for reassurance, and Merlin nods, “She speaks the truth.”

Vlad considers, reads off the nonsense word on the card, and drinks the blood red liquid as it comes from the stone: He frowns while he does, and shudders slightly when he's done, “There's no flavor to it at all,” he considers for a minute, “but… it DID have some life force to it, if only a little. Yes, I think I could… survive on this, if it was the only option.”

…not a great response, but, “Well… if you ever want peace with baseline humanity,” a much better term than muggles… “demonstrating that you have an alternative to killing them regularly is going to be a necessary step.  Humans aren't for hunting.”

“Yes they…” Ralph trails off when Merlin and Vlad both look at him, “...are fully deserving of respect as people too,” he finishes lamely. Yeah, I know exactly what you were going to say, Ralph.  This approach isn't going to work, is it?

Betty keeps going, though, “So, about the resistance…”

“Are you ready to join?” Merlin seems eager, “We’d be happy to have you.” That, at least, is the truth.

“We were actually thinking it would work better the other way around,” Ed begins, “We have the Starship, crew…”

Vlad doesn't let him finish, “What? Swear fealty to some lowly first generation no-name?  Never!”

“Not until you beat me!” Ralph ‘reasons’, “I AM THE ALPHA!”

I'm immortal and am wearing a virtually invulnerable body, “I'm game for that, Ralph. What terms would you like for the spar?”

“TOOTH AND CLAW!” He screams as Vlad shakes his head and walks out of the room, Merlin retreating a bit faster.

“So be it…” I change my Create Reality Glamour out for two claws and a bite attack and summon my armor as the man shifts into a hybrid beast, tall enough that he has to crouch to stay under the eight foot ceiling… but it clearly doesn't bother him, as he has a combat crouch that suits the height nicely, even giving him a few inches to spare. I get why he was wearing loose sweats: They're stretchy.  Now that he's full size, the cloth is stretched to the limit, but holding together, and showing off some remarkably well-defined muscles… if it weren't for the fur, teeth, snout, ears, tail, and claws, he'd be a shoe-in for a Mr. Universe pageant.

“This is per his rules,” I tell Ed and Betty in in plain English as Marigold runs to follow the vampire to relative safety, then switch to Shae, “and you know how little death means for us if I lose,” back to English, “This needs to be one on one.”

Ed and Betty both nod, calmly giving us some space… as the beast charges me.

Starfinder armor is good, and while I'm not currently getting my Deflection bonus to armor class, I picked up a Mythic feat on this reroll that let's me add half of my armor's bonus to my defense against combat maneuvers… like grappling and bull rush. So while it's completely ridiculous that sub-hundred pound woman could stop a half-ton chunk of a charging muscle mountain… that IS what happens.  And I get a swipe in, giving him a light scratch on his hide, which heals almost instantly.

“He's going to kill her!” Merlin yells out from his hiding place.

“Eh,” Ed shrugs, “Probably not.”

Ralph then starts swinging and biting in earnest, and I do the same.  He *mostly* gets armor, which does very little (Starfinder armor is tough stuff), and the actual hits get absorbed by the force field on this body, which recovers quickly enough. I mostly miss that fast moving meat mountain, but get occasional scratches and bites in… which heal up quickly when I get through his hide at all.

After ten minutes, the two of us just going at it, I see Betty pull up a chair, sit down, and start looking at her phone.

At the twenty minute mark, Merlin is just staring in fascination: “How…” and Ed just chuckles in response.

At the thirty minute mark, I idly wonder where Marigold got the popcorn.

But in the end, we're playing by different rules.

Ralph comes from a Myth of extraordinary bloodthirsty beasts… that are still fundamentally living creatures, and mostly follow those rules.

Me? I have a detailed combat system that includes many, many things… but “getting tired by fighting,” isn't one of them.  And the body I currently inhabit is that of an Outsider, which does not have a need to rest or eat… or even breathe, with the magic I have layered upon it.

And eventually, on Marigold's third tub of popcorn (Betty, Ed, and Merlin help her out with eating them… Vlad just glares), Ralph finally collapses on the ground, exhausted beyond all reason.  As he lays there panting, I flip him over onto his back, put my claws at his throat, and whisper quietly, “Do I win?”

He gives a weak laugh as he shifts back down to mortal form, his clothes shredded by my claws, “Yeah… yeah you do.  

The wolf in human skin gets up, naked, and collapses into the couch, which seems to have taken a few hits along the way, “She's got my vote.”

Vlad crinkles his forehead, “You mean they have your vote.”

“Nope.  SHE does.”  He points at me, then his arm crashes back to his side, “After THAT, *I* answer to *HER*. She fought tooth and claw, just like I asked. Yeah, she used magic to get teeth and claws… but she could hardly fight tooth and claw without those.  And she got her shell out, but I got my wolf out.  For the actual fight? She didn't cast a single spell. She won, fair enough.  She's the Alpha of Alphas now.  That's how it works.  Oh, and… Double A: They're planning on tricking you.  I was too, but that's done now; never sat well with me anyway. I like being direct.”

I shrug, “I know.  You all were planning on telling me you were going to protect the… I'm going to go with ‘baseline humans’... and then protect them the same way a shepherd protects the goats he raises for their meat.  I've always known that was your plan.”

Merlin raises an eyebrow, “And you came back anyway?”

I nod, “Indeed. I had hoped to impress you all enough over the course of time that you'd realize I have a point… Ralph still doesn't believe I'm right, but he believes in me now, and will go along with it properly… and I'm okay with people doing the right thing for the wrong reasons in this matter.”

“So I drank that vile concoction for nothing?” Oh, now Vlad's angry.

I sigh, “Not nothing, no. You confirmed something important: That the magic works. Now that you have the option to survive without killing people for food, gifted to you freely, I can in clear conscience label you a murderer if you kill to feed again, and act accordingly.”

“You expect me to live forever on this garbage?”  Volume, Vlad.  You reslly don't need to be so loud.

That said: You? No, not really, “That's the hope. Now that you've proven it works, we can make more, and we can eventually use them to feed all the hungry undead. NOT eating people is going to be a requirement of peace.”

“I will NOT stoop to such a vile life!” Vlad is screaming now.

And I'm goading him into a challenge, “That's going to be the rule.”

“IT WILL NOT!!!” he leaps at me, showing his teeth… and not in a smile.