Zac felt a pang of genuine guilt for the himbo stag. Skarg had been the MVP of the "Protect the Human" squad since day one. He was the first to throw hands when Gremory got hostile, the first to body-slam the breakfast imps, and the first to loudly and proudly proclaim he was down to fuck. Hell, he was even the first to successfully massage Zac's prostate via remote dream connection… a feat of magical engineering that deserved an award. Even the jailbreak from the library lessons for a lunch date, while chaotic, had been sweet in a caveman-abduction sort of way.
However, Zac also really, really enjoyed watching Marchosias go full Alpha. The vein popping in the wolf's neck? The commanding shout? It did things to Zac's insides that coffee never could. So, he didn't speak up.
Ugh, if only those two could get along, Zac thought as Halphas carried him down the hall. Silver fire and hellish ice. It's such a badass combination. Isn't that the usual enemies-to-friends pairing in these types of scenarios? Opposites attract, or at least put aside their differences for the vulnerable main character?
As the stone corridor blurred past, Zac's eyes glazed over. The torchlight stretched into neon beams, and the gothic architecture dissolved into a stylized, cel-shaded cityscape.
Cue the synth-pop intro music.
Suddenly, Skarg wasn't a furry demon being yelled at by his boss. He was sliding into the scene on a massive, conjured ice-bridge, his body transformed into a living sculpture of organic, translucent frozen diamond. He was sleek, he was angular, and his pecs looked sharp enough to cut glass. He struck a pose, snowflakes sparkling off his chiseled abs.
"Chill out, evil-doers!" Fantasy-Skarg announced with a cheesy grin.
And there was Marchosias. But he wasn't in a uniform. He was soaring through the air, engulfed in a radiant aura of microwave energy and silver fire, wearing a tight yellow bodysuit with a fiery mask that did absolutely nothing to hide his identity but did wonders for his glutes. He landed next to Skarg, striking a back-to-back pose.
"Things are heating up!" March declared, his paws igniting.
And then there was Zac. He looked down at himself. He was squeezed into a skin-tight red and blue spandex suit, complete with a stylized Arachne-Weaver symbol on his chest and a full face mask with big white eyes.
Zac-Man and his Amazing Friends! the announcer's voice boomed in his head.
"Look out, Zac-Man!" Skarg shouted as a group of generic, poorly animated angel criminals tried to steal an expensive set of demonic pentagram jewlery.
"I got this, boys!" Zac quipped, shooting a web that was actually just a sticky rope of pure charisma. "Don't get your halos in a twist!"
Skarg blasted them with an ice beam. Marchosias blasted them with a fire beam. The villains exploded into smoke. The day was saved in totally radical 80s fashion.
The three heroes stood atop a skyscraper as the sun set.
"Great work, team," Marchosias said, hands on his hips.
"Yeah," Skarg agreed, melting his ice form just enough to look glistening and wet. "We really pounded them."
"Speaking of pounding," Zac said, leaning against the chimney and peeling off his mask to reveal perfectly coiffed hair. "fighting crime is stressful. I bet you guys are tense. Why don't we go back to the secret base so I can give you both a massage... with happy endings?"
The synth music swelled to a crescendo-
"New guy? You drooling again?"
Zac blinked, the neon city vanishing as Halphas jostled him. They were standing in front of a massive pair of steam-shrouded doors. The fantasy popped like a soap bubble, leaving Zac with only the lingering image of Marchosias in yellow spandex.
"A massage would be nice," Zac murmured, wiping his chin.
Halphas laughed, a sharp sound that echoed in the humid corridor. "Sorry, Avatar, but I've heard you have a hair trigger. Don't want to get accused of defiling you just because you blow your load if I rub your shoulders."
The eagle booted the massive door open with a solid thud.
Zac blinked as a wall of hot, white steam billowed out, momentarily blinding him. "Wow, Nock must have turned all the taps on alre-"
Zac's mind slowed to a halt. He expected the normal bathroom, the one with the high-pressure showers and the marble sinks where he had brushed his teeth and taken his panic poop. What he saw was not that.
The room was vast, an echoing cavern of black marble and heated stone. Rows of fluted columns marched into the misty distance, supporting a vaulted ceiling painted with scenes of glorious, bloody conquest. In the center lay a pool the size of an Olympic swimming pool, the water bubbling and steaming, fed by the open mouths of stone wolves along the walls. Stone benches lined the perimeter, heated from within, and the air smelled of eucalyptus and sulfur. It was a masterpiece of Roman engineering, corrupted and perfected by infernal hands.
"Oh wow," Zac said as Halphas set him down on the warm tiles. "Are we sure March wasn't a frat wolf? This place would be killer for jacuzzi parties."
Zac's mind quickly slid off the deep end. He imagined the cavernous room filled with oiled-up demons wearing swim trunks (or nothing at all), batting beach balls around while some funky summer tunes echoed off the marble. March in sunglasses holding a red solo cup...
"Oh, this is the caldarium," Halphas said, casually taking off his camo-patterned military cap and hanging it on a bronze hook by the door. He began to unbutton his shirt. "If you wanted a massage, the tepidarium is over that way."
"Tepid-what-now?" Zac murmured, distracted by the sight of feathers and muscle. He reached down to test the water, his finger inching toward the bubbling surface.
Before he could touch it, he was swept up into the air once more.
"Hold your horses," Halphas cawed, effortlessly hoisting Zac away from the pool. "You haven't even scrubbed yourself down yet. You can't just get in the bath all dirty."
Zac looked dismissive, dangling in the eagle's grip. "Baths are for getting clean. But if you want to scrub my back... and my fro-"
"The caldarium is for relaxing your muscles and contemplation," the eagle sighed, shaking his head. "I guess you really have never taken a proper bath before, have you?"
Zac looked confused. "Sorry, I just didn't think this was going to be like one of those sports anime bath scenes where the characters all sit naked with buckets and brushes in a tiled room before they get to kick back in the hot tub. I'm an American. We just dive right in."
"Gross," was all Halphas said as he carried Zac toward one of the smaller arched openings that led away from the main massive hot pool.
Zac peered into the different arched doorways as they passed. To his left, he saw a massive, open-air swimming pool where the water was so still it looked like glass, reflecting the red sky above. Further down, he caught a glimpse of a dry, intensely hot room where a blast of hot air rushed out like the opening of a blast furnace. Past that, a room filled with small pools covered in thin layers of ice radiated a chill that made his nose twitch.
They finally stopped in a long, rectangular room lined with stone benches and small, recessed cubbies carved into the walls. The air here was warm and smelled of cedar.
"Get that sweaty uniform off, Avatar," Halphas said, gesturing to the cubbies. "You can just toss it in any of the niches. One of Buney-boy's servants will come by eventually to take care of it."
Zac looked up with a wide, blinding smile. "I'm totally naked underneath. I never got any demonic undies."
"Well, that's good," Halphas said, unbuttoning his shirt. "I'd imagine they would be quite crusty at this point if you haven't changed in days."
Zac was too distracted to respond. He watched, mesmerizingly, as Halphas began to strip out of his sharp military uniform. The eagle demon's arms were dense, corded with muscle and dusted with fine feathers that shifted as he moved.
In Zac's mind, the changing room was suddenly bathed in a soft, pink glow. Time slowed to a crawl. He watched the fabric of the shirt stretch across Halphas's broad back as he pulled it over his head.
Tank top daddy, Zac thought, practically vibrating. Do eagles sweat? I bet that shirt smells so fucking manly it would knock me out.
"Did you say something?" Halphas asked, glancing over as he tossed his shirt into a niche.
Oh shit, did I say that out loud? Zac still couldn't stop himself from staring as Halphas's talons worked the buckle of his heavy leather belt.
"Yeah, you did," Halphas laughed, the sound echoing off the stone. "Hurry up. I'm hoping we can get a bit of time in the palaestra before we get cleaned up."
"I might need some help," Zac murmured, turning around and feigning a desperate reach toward the small of his back. "I can't reach my zipper."
"Your zipper is in front," Halphas said flatly.
"I want to be unzipped," Zac said flatly.
Halphas snorted, shaking his head. "Fine, fine. But only if you join me in the palaestra and play with some balls before we bathe together."
"I would play with your balls anywhere, anytime!" Zac loudly declared, spinning back around.
Halphas nodded, a smirk playing on his beak. "Good to know. I'll be sure to remember that." He snapped his fingers.
Zac waited for the poof of smoke, the magical effect, something. He turned toward the doorway, expecting a spectral valet. Nothing.
But when he turned back, a lesser demon was standing right next to Halphas, snapping a crisp salute. It was a much smaller bird-man, short and scrappy with grey feathers and its neck feathers were oddly reflecting purple and green light, wearing a slightly oversized recruit's uniform.
"Remember, Private," Halphas said, his voice dropping into a drill instructor growl that made Zac shiver. "If you touch the Avatar's privates, it's a quick and fiery death for you."
"YES SIR!" the smaller bird demon squawked, his chest puffed out.
Zac frowned. He wasn't much of an ornithologist, but whatever this bird demon was, he was much less sexy than a harpy eagle man. He looked a bit too much like an actual bird, twitchy and bobbing his head. And, Zac shuddered, he looked thin, like a... twink.
The little pigeon demon rushed up to Zac, practically vibrating with nervous energy. "Hello sir! Private Cher Ami reporting for duty! I'm here to assist you! What are your orders?!"
Zac sighed, looking down at the bird. "Can you take some bird growth hormones real quick and maybe be a bit taller than me?"
Private Ami looked quite confused, his head bobbing nervously. He glanced back at Halphas for guidance, but the eagle just shrugged, already busy removing his socks.
"Uhm, I'm sorry sir, but I don't think that's something I can do," the lesser demon's voice quavered nervously. "But I can try very hard if that's what pleases you!"
Zac just shook his head. "Nevermind, buddy. I know the feeling. I thought about getting leg-shortening surgery when I was alive so I could be more pocket-sized."
Both birds looked at each other with great concern.