Soul Merger

It took all of Alissa's control to halt her thrust, letting the point rest just below the angel's chin. "Why?" she snapped back to Fili.

"She has a soul! A real soul!" Fili replied desperately. "Like us!"

"I've killed humans too," Alissa pointed out.

The harpy hissed and Alissa readied herself to finish the job, but the angel shook her head. "Don't Kotori." The woman looked up at Alissa with golden eyes. "I'm sorry to intrude on you, and I know I'm asking a lot. But please, whatever you do to me, spare this child's life."

The harpy looked shocked. "But Raiel, I can-"

"You can't," the angel replied. Well at least she had a strong grasp on the situation.

Alissa stepped back and lowered her sword a little. She wasn't heartless enough to kill someone begging for their life. Still, she wasn't going to let her guard down either.

The harpy was still glaring at her as well, though the fact that it hadn't tried to kill her suggested it had been tamed. It was also wearing clothes. Well rags that had been repurposed into chest wrappings and a skirt, but close enough. They were a dirty blue that matched the harpy's wings..

The angel on the other hand looked like a human with golden hair and brilliant white wings. Now that Alissa was paying attention, the woman looked fairly young if still an adult. She was wearing a shimmering gold colored dress that was cut like a high class prostitute's.

"So," Clara stepped up to fill the deadly silence. "Mind telling us what an angel with a pet harpy is doing in our friend's house?"

"Eating," the harpy snapped. Alissa was forced to admit it was a bold comeback. Stupid, but bold.

The angel sat back down and carefully pulled her recalcitrant ward into a seat. "We were looking for sanctuary from the monsters we escaped from." She stared with pleading eyes. "If you saw the horrors in that ship we stole, you'll understand why."

Alissa felt fatigue wash over her as she put all the pieces together. "It wasn't just some rich fuck's pleasure boat was it? It was part of an underground monster slave brothel."

The angel flinched. "Yes," she replied.

"Fucking again!" Alissa slammed her sword into the floor then walked over to flop in a chair sitting at the side of the room. She buried her face in her hands and let out a thin scream. She should have known. She should have guessed.

A hint of violets and moss hit her. "Um." She looked up to see Fili looking concerned. "That's what happened back at your home wasn't it? I remember hearing about it in class. A succubus breaking out from an illegal monster collection."

"Yes." Alissa spit out the word. One hundred and twenty six people had died because of that. And the bodycount here had to be even worse. How could people be so stupid!

Fili reached out to her before hesitating but Alissa leaned into her friend's hand. She needed a shower anyway so whatever. The slime was a nice cushion on her cheek.

"Well I see we'll have a lot to talk about during the sleepover," Rosalina said with a humorless smile. "Maybe we can grab some couches from the boat~?"

Alissa's gut started churning in earnest. "Not a chance." She met Rosalina's surprised look with her own glare. "I don't care what you do with them. But I'm not going to have a monster created to slaughter humanity in my house!" The pleading glares of her friends hurt, but she wasn't going to bend on that. Not a chance in hell.

"Well screw you too!" the harpy yelled. "It's not like we asked to be dragged out of our homes. This is all your humans' fault! I didn't care about humans until they showed up to hurt me!"

"Now now." The angel smoothed the harpy's feathers. "That's not entirely true. I removed your need to attack humans, but it was there earlier. You were made to attack and die to humans" The angel's golden eyes turned to Alissa. "But please understand, that creature is gone. The girl here is my responsibility and I must protect her. I'll offer my life if needed, but she must survive."

Clara's head was hurting from all the stuff that had been dropped on them in the last hour, and it looked like everyone else was even more blindsided. But she was sure of one thing : Something was triggering Alissa hard, and letting the conversation bounce around would only lead to bad places. Especially with Rosalina having worked herself to the bone.

And so it was time to take charge. She clapped her hands and immediately got everyone's attention. One of the benefits of being huge. "Right. I'm sure we've got all sorts of incredible revelations lined up, but let's handle the important matters first. First off, we aren't all going to fit in Alissa's house, which solves that argument. This place isn't meant for seven people and the owner's still got a weird soul injury. So we're gonna have to use that creepy houseboat. Anyone got a problem with tossing the corpses to the sharks?"

There was a general shaking of heads. "Trash the bastards," Alissa said, finalizing the vote.

"So now we've got problem two." Clara grimaced because she wasn't sure how to handle this one. "Having monsters wandering around is kinda illegal for obvious reasons. And the populace isn't going to ask if you're a good monster before sending an arrow at you. We gotta do something about that."

Akari's ears twitched. "I can bind one monster, but only one. And I can't properly train them."

"I'm fine accepting my fate if needed," the angel replied. "I should have formed Kotori's soul enough that a tamer need merely maintain it."

"But Raiel...." The harpy stared at her friend. Or perhaps mother figure given the way Raiel was doting over her.

Fili took a deep breath. "I've got a degree so I'm allowed to bind a lesser angel, though I only know the basic rituals. That'd give me the power to kill you at any time, miss Raiel."

Raiel smiled. "Giving you power over life and death is better than just accepting death. Thank you."

"Right, so we got a plan." Clara clapped her hands again. "Let's get started on it. Alissa, you wanna join me in tossing out the garbage or you wanna rest?"

The tired looking rogue let out a long sigh before standing. "Yeah I'll happily feed that trash to the fish." She walked over and retrieved her sword. "Maybe see if there's some food there too, because I sure as hell don't have enough for dinner. Even if someone hadn't raided my pantry." Kotori stuck her tongue out at that but fortunately Alissa didn't even bother to look over.

Rosalina smoothed out her tabard. "Suppose I can join you to perform last rites. Hate to bother the fish with ghosts or somesuch."

Clara let Alissa get out of the house first. The woman had to look around a bit to recall where the boat was, but given the mess today had been that was probably normal.

As Rosalina caught up she whispered, "Thanks for taking over there. I didn't realize Alissa's monster hatred went that deep."

"Think it's being made worse by everything else," Clara replied quietly. "Life seems to be dragging her worst day in front of her repeatedly. Bet if she was feeling better she'd have thought up this plan herself."

Rosalina looked pensive. "I wonder. Well this can't be helping."

"I can hear enough to tell you're chatting about me," Alissa snapped from the houseboat's side. "So just out and tell me I'm being a heartless bitch so we can get it over with."

Well that was bad. Clara shook her head. "It's not that. We're just worried about you."

"Yeah. You disliking angels is just part and parcel. Almost tradition," Rosalina added. Clara gave the woman a look for the bad joke, but as always the dragon priestess had no shame.

Alissa looked annoyed but less angry. "Yeah yeah. Get over here and help me throw slavers into the river."

Clara followed her friend into the boat, ducking through the doorway. The two guards were still lying in the dried bloodpool. Alissa was heading over to the head, where the last man had been put. Clara considered the setup and went to open the window in the lounge area. Luckily the hinges hadn't rusted or anything.

"Gonna just defenestrate them?" Rosalina asked from where she was ransacking their pouches. "Seems good. Someone won big at the gambling table so I'm leaving them two crowns each for the ferryman."

"How long have you been looking for a chance to use the word defenestrate?" Clara asked.

Rosalina clasped her hands in front of her. "One does not search for the chance to use words like that. One waits and prays that they do not miss the opportunity."

"I'm curious how you're going to give this idiot the price to go to hell," Alissa said, tossing the naked man next to the other corpses. "No pockets."

"Please. As if such minor details would stop me." Rosalina stuffed two coins into the man's mouth. "Behold the wisdom of the ancients."

The priestess stepped back and clapped her hands twice. "May your bodies and souls return to the cycle of life. Kyrie elieson." With that rather short benediction Rosalina did them all a favor and tossed the naked corpse out the window first.

Clara took that as the signal and grabbed the closer (and larger) of the two thugs. With a quick lift she flung the body out the window. There was a pleasant splash as the corpse stopped being her problem. Her size had significant benefits now and then.

Alissa grabbed the final body's leg and used it as leverage to fling it with a little more strength than needed. Still it sailed outside and out of their lives. Hopefully for good. "Now lets see if this boat has any food," Alissa said.

"Suppose we start with the obvious." Clara moved to the cupboards and casually flipped them open.

To her surprise there actually was something there. Two jars of fancy pickles, red and white wines, hard crackers and cheeses. The sort of things that'd be standard for a pleasure cruise and wouldn't spoil if they were just left sitting in the pantry. And in large enough amounts to feed a large party. "Well it's not the best selection, but I think we've got food."

She stepped back to let her friends see the cache. Alissa gave the bounty a long look. "Well. It'll be a very odd meal, but it's better than staggering around the city looking for what's open or finding another soup kitchen." The woman looked like she'd relaxed a little. It was amazing how calming solving problems could be.

Hopefully that'd calm things down enough to get through the rest of the nonsense today, because she had a feeling they weren't done with world shattering revelations.