Chapter 22: The Crossroads Justice League

Five adults, one carrying a baby, stepped into the spread and welcoming arms of the tall, slim, and clearly pregnant red head. The absence of stink was intoxicating! More so was the relief that Annie was with them.

Moira could not resist applying passionate kisses to her returning spouses before turning to Katja and Annie and exclaiming, “I greet you Damsels of Cassandra. I suppose I’m not surprised that there are two of you.” She rubbed her belly suggestively. “Pēteris tends to do almost everything in twos.”

Her message was not lost on her lovers, and they gathered her in to express their happiness. Moira then escorted Annie to the healing room so that Martina could be first into the healing chamber.

The parade into and out of the healing chamber was sure to consume some time, and Moira directed Galahad to place a huge buffet brunch on the sideboard. She escorted Annie and Katja to the showers so that Annie would be clean and able to receive Tina when the healing chamber released her.

When the chamber indicated that Tina was ready, it was Pēteris that Tina raised her arms to and not one of the waiting women. It became an easy decision for Annie to enter the chamber while Pēteris cuddled the baby, and the two Companions moved on to the shower.

Moira was pleased to see that there was not the usual jockeying and positioning to rush Pēteris to bed and sexing. The extended time together had fostered affection, respect, and patience among the newly arrived women - notwithstanding the fact that two had been deprived of sex and two had not. Without inquiring why or how, Moira could tell that subsequent events were to be interesting and very pleasurable.

After he emerged from the healing chamber and his following shower, the five exceptionally beautiful women and a baby were sitting at a table waiting for Pēteris to arrive. As he crossed to join them at their meal, three women emerged from a door at the other end of the room and also headed for the table. They were screaming and babbling in a language Pēteris couldn’t understand.

He immediately changed course to protect his ladies but halted when Moira stood, held up her hand, and positioned herself between the new arrivals and the table. “My territory! My Job!” she said over her shoulder to Pēteris. When she saw him stop, she turned to the women and spoke angrily and pointed to chairs positioned near the ... door? portal? ... from whence they had entered. She listened while the women yelled over one another in strident and clearly accusatory voices.

Moira listened for several minutes, then held up her hand and responded. The gabbling cut off immediately, though the face making and posturing continued.

She turned to Pēteris and her sister-wives and explained. “They are speaking one of the Cassandran languages. It wasn’t deemed necessary for you to know any of them, and they have no implants because they were ruled unfit to be Damsels, Caretakers, or mothers. They want Annie’s baby.”

She turned to glare at the intruders, then continued to explain, “I told them to sit or I would bitch slap them until their necks looked like egrets. They didn’t get the egret reference, but ‘bitch slap’ translated nicely.”

She looked up and told Galahad to activate her spouses’ implants for Cassandran languages. Pēteris immediately understood the words that resumed flying, but the combinations were so intermixed and incoherent that they conveyed no real meaning. Clearly, these women were some variety of Cassandran dingbat.

He walked over, pointed at one of the dingbats, and demanded, “You. Explain yourself.”

The woman glared at him and said with venom, “We are members of the Crossroads Justice League. That woman broke the rules and had sex with her Hero while on Chaos. She doesn’t deserve a baby!”

Pēteris turned to Moira, and asked, “Is this something we’re going to need to deal with when it comes to sane people?”

“I think not,” replied Moira. “The portal let them both through. It could have allowed Tina passage and not Annie.”

Galahad interjected, “These three are the only members of the Crossroads Justice League.”

“Thank you, Galahad. Reasoning overruled,” declared Pēteris, “and I personally disagree with you so strongly, that before I leave Crossroads, I’m going to make another baby in the Damsel Annie.”

Annie slumped, and it took Robyn and Miriam to support the instantly weeping woman and her child to keep them from falling.

A second intruder screeched, “You, you’re not qualified to judge. You are warped, warped I say. Two Companions, two Damsels, two babies, three wives, one of them a Caretaker - and you impregnated that Caretaker against the rules. On top of that, you had sex with a woman of Chaos.”

Pēteris turned to Moira and told her, “You know, bitch slapping seems like a pretty good idea.”

Turning back to the three intruders, he responded, “She wasn’t my Caretaker when she became pregnant, and Cassandrans can marry whomever they wish. There is no rule limiting the number of Companions or the number of Damsels that I rescue. Licking and sucking won’t make a baby, and there is certainly nothing in the rules about cuddling a cute little butt. And what the heck do you propose when my caretaker delivers her twins?!”

Beautiful faces had transformed to vicious ugliness, and the shrieks of outrage rose to a new level, causing Pēteris to ask, “Galahad, is Hero Greeter Soo-Min available?”

Shortly, Soo-Min appeared with an attractive - no stunningly beautiful - older woman. It became immediately clear that they had been briefed before arrival.

“Greetings Hero Pēteris, I’ve brought Mistress Eva. How may we assist you?” queried Soo-Min.

Pēteris pointed to the three women sitting still as statues in their chairs. “These three nitwits are disturbing us,” he started. “Further, they threatened to kidnap Damsel Annie’s baby.”

He glared at the sitting women and said, “Now, I understand that they are also a problem for you and are no longer possible contributors to the Cassandran gene pool. That’s well and good, but you might want to find out how they knew facts about my adventure that we haven’t yet discussed with my Caretaker. I’m serving notice that if I ever see any of them again - in fact if I encounter any of similar ilk - they will be dead without thought or warning.”