He Who Fights with Monsters 4 (He Who Fights with Monsters, #4)

by Shirtaloon

You finally grew into that chin a little.” “Why is everyone so focused on my chin?” “Are you kidding? You could have drilled for oil with that thing. Did you have some work done?” “What work?” “Like chin-reduction surgery.” “I did not have chin-reduction surgery!”

“Damn. You missed the last season of Game of Thrones.” “Was it any good?” “It was real good. Extending it to thirteen episodes so they could properly develop the climax was a smart move, after how much they’d been rushing things.” “Last I heard, they were cutting it down to six episodes.” “Someone leaked the scripts and the internet went crazy. Something about everyone turning dumb, evil or both. They rewrote the whole thing and everyone really liked how it turned out.” “Nice.”

“It’s a good time to be a vampire,” Vermillion said. “Bram Stoker was a debacle and the less said about Bela Lugosi the better, but Anne Rice and Twilight really turned things around.” “Really? Twilight?” “Twilight was fantastic for us.”

“Knowing you is an exciting lifestyle, Jason Asano.”

“This is crazy. It’s not possible.” “That’s why I used magic,” Jason said. “Being impossible is kind of the point.”

“Bro, everything you say is weirder than the last. And the last thing was that magic is real. This is trippy.”

She looked down at his t-shirt, emblazoned with the text I WENT TO A MAGICAL ALTERNATE UNIVERSE AND ALL I GOT WAS VAST COSMIC POWER.

“I used to think I was so clever. A natural politician. The reality is, even in a simpler society, I was out of my depth. Here I’m just flailing, like an angry child with a gun.”

“Nobody cares if the guy who stabbed them in the back is sorry, Kaito. They care that they got stabbed in the back.”

“The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.”

“Tell the truth as much as you can, and if you have to lie, make it obvious. That makes it easier to slip the important lies past people.”

“That it’s an arbitrary assignment of negative value to words with no inherent negative value based on outmoded moral strictures,”

“I’m a man’s man,” Jason said. “The only thing I fear is a frank discussion about my feelings.”

“We should,” Eustace said. “Someone told me that Asya made a joke about giving him Bora Bora. If that’s in any way possible, I say we do it.

“I’ve had analysts poring over his whole life for a week,” Anna said. “Our profile suggests that loyalty is a core value for him. Their analysis is that if we play it straight with him, he will hold up his end.”

“Are you kidding?” Hiro asked. “I got more out of my law degree as a morally questionable business developer than I ever did at my old firm.

Jason was a transformed being. His aura had always been powerful, but now it felt like a solid object, as real as the ground beneath their feet.

“Might I suggest some of Mr Tillman’s pilatory unguent,” Shade suggested. “Then, perhaps, some pants.”

“I’m not even sure what Gordon’s deal is,” Jason said, “except he loves Judy Garland and he’s a reality assassin. I don’t know what that means, exactly, but it sounds really scary once you start to learn about reality, which I have because I’m an interdimensional warlock ninja.”

“I always wondered how Jason ended up the way he is,” Asya said absently. “After meeting your daughter, I’m starting to suspect that it’s you.”

“Rufus is the sexy one, right?” Ian said, having seen Rufus in the recordings. “Really, Ian?” Jason asked. “What?” Ian said. “I’m secure enough in my sexuality to acknowledge a beautiful man.” “Every damn universe,” Jason muttered.

“The International Committee had to put a stop to giving celebrities essences in the eighties.” “It did happen, then?” Jason asked. “Oh, yes,” Anna said. “Willie Nelson, Christie Brinkley. They should have been more careful with the essences they gave Ozzy Osbourne.”

Did you and Jason really never…?” “Why do people keep asking that? Do you not have friends in this world?

“then you’ll have to learn the same lessons that he did. Starting with yes, he can just go around killing people.”

“Really, what is that smell? It’s like an animal died inside a slightly larger animal.” “It was a magic phone lady I broke,” Jason said.

“Literally save the world.” “From what?” Ian asked. “Climate change?” “Something like that,” Jason said. “It’s like an extra, additional climate change that will eventually wipe out the planet.

“I think it’s awesome,” Emi said. “Of course you do,” Jason said. “You’re twelve.” “Let’s face it, Jason,” Erika said. “So are you.” “I did think it was awesome,” Jason admitted.

That’s the kind of thing they put your face on the money for and I am not the guy whose face you put on money.” Farrah took a spirit coin from her pocket and slid it across the table, with the image of Jason on it, face up.

Emi picked up the coin and peered at it. “Uncle Jason, this has your old chin.”

“I’d rather listen to the whine of the drill about to lobotomise me than that woman. The results would be essentially the same.”