Policeman and the cat

61 - Training trip?

"Lorenz, I'm flattered," Wei said - "I'm not only not-weird but also attractive by your standards. This might be the start of a beautiful friendship."

Bro looked shocked. "Huh, aren't we already friends?"

There was a wave of laughter.

"...It wasn't beautiful so far," Wei tried to wiggle out of this.

"Damnit, Wei--" Bro squinted. "But ok, It's likely a cultural difference."

"No, well," Royalty spoke up - "Before your oddball Lil bro popped up you did consider him weird."

Ian was starting to get a feeling more and more people were switching to calling him 'Lil bro,' starting out it was only Sloane except for Bro. He knew some of his school friends had anguished about being called 'x's brother/sister,' but he didn't feel anything bad from being called like that.

"Yeah, but-- don't we all consider each other weird in some ways?" Bro asked.

Sloane and Royalty gasped a bit too obviously for it to be natural-- "You knew--" Royalty said.

Bro smiled with a squint.

Especially when it was obvious that these people had worked with each other a lot, enough to do his bro a favor of joining something as ridiculous sounding as 'brother's adventure' to serve as background.

They finished up the meal, Wei removed the barrier by making all anchors burn up and they resumed going on their way. But rather than a lax background group-- they all started to do something - Wei was leaving a trail of drawings made in aether - he was drawing flowers. The wolf girls were struggling to keep a few dozen pebbles floating above their own heads in a circular pattern, at times they failed a bit and one or two fell on their heads bringing forth a stifled whimper. Juniper had her axe out and was dragging it through the ground behind her, yet the blade was shimmering and it did not seem like it reached the ground at all, Paxton was letting out clicks with his tongue as the bullets he was crafting while walking let out wisps of black smoke, breaking apart. Bro also no longer made his sword of light appear only when needed, but kept it out, making it shrink smaller and grow longer and change shape. The witch girls, Mario, and Amina were joining Wei in drawing, but the color of their flowers was different, matching their alignments.

And aether draining magical beasts was--- bloody, brutal and both he and Nelly were covered in blood and left panting after having stolen away a life. The corpse of the even bigger Kondo snake did not disintegrate into dust, but appraisal said that the meat was no good, the aether core was also no longer there as well. It looked shriveled up, ages-old, limp and like it might have lied around like a corpse for years.

"Well, this is what we expected Lil bro to be like!" Sloane said looking at his panting bloody self.

"Yep, this is what I expected my Lil bro to be like on a dungeon raid," Bro agreed.

Ian shook his head with a smile-- well, not that he didn't see where that might be coming from, but-- this was hard. Bro handled the other beasts so they would be handling only one, but... he sure made it look easy.

Chilli cast purification spells on them as they caught their breaths and after infusing excess aether in honey they went around together with Valerie and her apprentices to first dissect the other beasts, then break some dungeon cores by sending 'I love yous' to Bermont that will remain undelivered and gather any alchemy ingredients.

And then some three hours later Sloane and Royalty came to cling on Ian--

"Lil bro-- can you make us something warm and sweet to drink?" Each adding a request matching aether of their alignment. They were out of it.