The Gate - A New Green Man Appears

"Wait, miss, you may have gotten the wrong idea..." he quietly sputtered. He couldn't lie to this angel, for some reason he felt sick to his soul for misleading this beautiful perfect stranger. "I don't speak Japanese; I can barely speak English... I speak American." The beautiful girl sat up, her face a mask of joy and relief, whatever he agreed to must have been very important to her. She continued to whisper to him in Japanese, a language that she was clearly uncomfortable with, but her smile never faded. She whisked off her hat and shook out her hair and her ears. Her hair shimmered like a hand full of Christmas tree tinsel in an earthquake, and her long, pointed ears are as beautiful as the rest of her... for an elf.

Stefan's cry of surprise could be heard over the vast meadow.

High up in the tree, warrior bunny Hahn Tahn Amaya scanned the meadow. She had seen the temporary gate open and the rebel squadron of heavy calvary charge into it, then right away they came back out and galloped off. Clearly the rebel army can predict temporary gates and was ready for this one, and it appears that the opposite end of the gate opened in an unsuitable location. She was told once that The Gate, the main opening between worlds, is like a fire, so while The Gate at Alnus Hill remained open it threw off magical sparks like a fire force fed air by a bellows. The sparks it threw burn out without touching anything, but if a spark landed on the ground it opened up a secondary gate to the same world that The Main Gate was open to, and as a spark burns out quickly, the secondary gate soon closed and collapsed. All humanoids, demi-humans, and humans came to this land through a gate to different worlds, and the current gate was open to a technological dreamworld that the Green Men call Earth.

Warrior bunny Hahn watched as the temporary gate on the other side of the meadow winked out of existence like a spark from a fire and it left behind a collapsed old shed. Just before the temporary gate closed, a man stepped out walking for all the world like he was out for a leisurely morning stroll drawing untold forms of attention to himself. The idiot! Didn't he know that the Saderan Empire was embroiled in a bloody civil war?

She watched as the man dropped to his knees and vomited; clearly, he was drunk. Then she watched as he rolled over and lay in the grass; obviously he was passed out drunk. There's no possible way he can be a Green Man, they're not that stupid. The approaching battalion of the rebellious prince Zorzal El Caesar's men will take care of him and draw attention away from her and Lelu.

Like the idiot laying in the grass near the remains of the temporary gate, Hahn watched the sky, keeping an eye on the scout dragon as it lazily circled in the distance surveying the route for the onrushing battalion, looking for factions loyal to the emperor and the Crown Princess Pina Co Lada and by extension, the Green Men. The Green Men declared themselves nonparticipants in this struggle and will negotiate with whomever ends up as the leader of the Saderan Empire.

"Baka!" hissed the angry bunny. That pretend Green Man was moving now and he was making his way to the very tree in which she and her elf were taking refuge. "You know what to do," she said to the elf, who didn't say a word, she just nodded and quietly began to climb down the tree with elvish stealth.

Hahn Tahn Amaya has been a fighter since birth, first she fought against the Saderan Empire trying to liberate her province of bunnies from the steel grip of Emperor Molt Sol Augustus. But then came the Green Men and the internal struggle between Molt Sol Augustus and his son the crown prince Zorzal El Caesar. Emperor Molt was poisoned, some say by the Green Men, and Prince Zorzal rose to take his place and the empire became a living hell for all demi-humans. Zorzal's troops swept the empire capturing warrior bunnies to feed the army's twisted desires. After nearly getting the capitol city destroyed by the Green Men due to his arrogance and incompetence, Zorzal was removed by a recovered Molt Sol Augustus who then named his daughter Princess Pina Co Lada as his heir and under her command the Saderan Empire became safe for Hahn and her sisters. Embarrassed by his defeat and ouster, Zorzal took a large contingent of the military, plus advisors and senators hostile to the presence of the Green Men, and his slave/whore/chief advisor, the fallen Warrior Bunny Queen Tyuule with him as he plotted an overthrow of Princess Pina.

Originally Warrior Bunnies were known as the Lagomorphs because they could turn any collection of their kind into a working, loving, growing society. Lagomorphs look like a normal human woman but have long ears and fluffy little tails. One in every fifteen of them is a male, the rest are females looking to mate even before they sexually mature at the age of fifteen. Every birth to a Lagomorph is twins, sometimes triplets, and each set of twins or triplets is called a litter, the babies are called kits. That is if they're having daughters, if they have a male then he is born individually to great excitement among their clan. He's not going to be a leader, he's going to be too busy, he's going to have a large harem to satisfy.

Lagomorphs have human bodies, beautiful faces, large breasts, narrow waists, and a beautiful round ass. However, their long velvety ears, fluffy short tails, and fuzzy legs from the knee on down gives a Lagomorph the appearance of a rabbit, and like every other demi-human society on the continent, they were beset and enslaved by the earlier human empires. The humans discovered the Lagomorphs are primarily female and have an ingrained undying love of sex, so they turned the race into their personal sex slaves and named them Bunnies. The Bunnies who survived or avoided the attacks of the empire banded together and became the fiercest terrors on the battlefield other than the Green Men.

"Where the hell is that damn elf?" thought Hahn, "she should have slit that idiot's throat and buried the body; she should be making us lunch by now." She looked down through the branches and she could see both of them, but she couldn't tell what they were doing. She was loath to leave her outpost, but she needed that damn elf; elves were their form of communication. The elves' ability to telepathically relay messages between each other rivaled the Green Men's radio technology. An elf can send a message several leagues, and if a network of elves was set up, they could relay a message across the breadth of the entire empire in a matter of minutes. While elves are vastly physically superior to warrior bunnies in every way, they don't have the killer instinct and the desire for battle that the bunnies seem to be born with. Also, there's not many of them left. Suggested by Yoji Itami, one of the few Green Men that loves this world, teams of warrior bunnies and elves were set in place to monitor the movement of Prince Zorzal and his men, and Hahn's observation post was now ineffectual because of that damn elf! What the hells was she doing?

Slowly and silently Hahn made her way down through the branches until she was just above them, but neither noticed her arrival. The elf was sitting on the human's lap, and they were facing each other and clearly trying to communicate.

"Sefn," said the elf.

"No, bango... steh - fan, Stefan," the man dressed in camouflage said as he patted his chest.

The elf tried again. "Ste...fan?" The man nodded with a huge smile, and she tried putting it together again. "Stefan?"

"Yes, hai! I'm Stefan!" and they hugged like lovers that were separated for months, the man smiled broadly as she said "Stefan," and patted his chest, then she patted her chest and gave him a questioning look.

The man patted her chest and smiled. In a voice that dripped with affection he softly said "Lelu" and she nodded, grinning like her child just took its first step. "Lelu Nikto de Sebat!" She grinned and again they hugged and laughed like children.

"What the hell is going on down here?" snarled Hahn from a branch just above their heads. The man looked up at her and his eyes bugged out in terror, he leapt back knocking Lelu askew and he tried to crawl away on his back but Lelu dove to him and to Hahn's horror she started trying to shelter him rather than explain to her team lead what the hell she was doing.

For Stefan's part, his horror was justified. It wasn't the long brown velvet covered ears, it wasn't the large wobbling breasts that threatened to burst out of her bodice, it wasn't the fluffy brown tail poking out of the slot in her trousers, it was the long, chipped, knife covered with dried blood that she pointed at his throat.

"Stop it, he's ok. Stefan is a Green Man, he told me so. He's going to help us," Lelu insisted as she brushed away Hahn's blade.

"If he was a Green Man, he would have slapped this blade away, or pulled a gun, or knocked me off of this branch," said Hahn with a disgusted sneer. "Finish him!" Even though she was whispering, it sounded like a shouted threat to Stefan who felt a wave of anger and revulsion from Lelu.

"No! He's mine. I will be responsible for him," said Lelu defiantly, her arms crossed below her large firm breasts.

Hahn rolled her eyes and silently repeated the mantra of the resistance in her head, "What would Itami do?" She sighed like a parent whose child just brought home a kitten. "That's right, he's yours, and if he threatens this mission in any way, you will kill him, and if you don't, I'll kill him and hamstring you."

"He won't," said Lelu to her team leader that was slowly climbing the tree. She then turned to Stefan and said, "Stefan, tomaru!" Her hand gesture was similar to what a pet owner would do to tell a dog to stay. He nodded sadly and watched Lelu climb the tree taking her scent with her. He hadn't understood a word that passed between the elf and the rabbit, but he was sure that the rabbit didn't like him. He looked up as Lelu climbed and his frown turned to a smile as he got to admire her beautiful, round, tail free ass in her skintight leather pants as she ascended into the branches.

The elf maiden Lelu knew exactly what Itami would do, he would welcome this man, find his skills, and use him to the fullest extent of his capabilities then Itami would relax and read those books full of pictures that he loves. Itami freed her from Zorzal's prison two years ago when he punched the arrogant jackass, then had a small female Green Man beat the ever loving shit out of the stupid prince. Lelu would follow Itami to the ends of the earth if he asked... but she would take this new Green Man with her, she's never met a human or elf with that intoxicating smell before, and it's got to mean something.

Soon the dragon passed overhead, circling, looking for any possible threats to the main column of soldiers on the ground that followed. The dragon rider was looking for threats, the dragon was hungry and was looking for beeson or calfalo or any other bovine snack it could find. Suddenly the dragon sniffed... Gate! It smelled the magical remnants of the short-lived gate. No one quite knows why but dragons hate gates, it took years of powerful training to get a few dragons to make the journey from the gate at Alnus Hill here on Falmart to the Ginza in Japan two years ago.

The dragon opened his wings wide and dropped from the sky claws first and landed with all four feet on the remnants of the shack, its claws rending and shredding the remainder of the shack. Finally, the angry dragon rider was able to get the dragon under control and calmed down. He needed to get the dragon back in the air, the column would halt and won't move if they don't see a dragon above them, they were probably setting up in a defensive posture right now.

He urged the dragon out into the center of the meadow and pointed him into the wind. Dragon wings are huge and fairly fragile, they can take off like a bird with a few flaps of their wings. But the dragon slaps the ground with his wings in a takeoff attempt, he will break the bones in his wings and have to be put down. Launching a dragon without a cliff to dive from is a careful process. The dragon furled his wings against his flanks, lowered his head and raised his tail, then crouched, waiting for the command. When the dragon rider thought the wind was right, he slapped his sword on the flank of the dragon.

With a bellow the dragon charged, racing across the meadow like a champion thoroughbred, galloping and accelerating. Just when the dragon was moving as fast as his four powerful legs could run, the dragon rider brought the flat of his blade down on the dragon's flank again and with a loud crack! The dragon's wings unfurled, caught air, and with a leap the dragon gracefully took to the air. The dragon glided over the meadow, climbing from the momentum generated by its headlong rush into the wind.

Now the hard part, as the dragon climbed it lost speed, if it loses too much speed it will start to lose altitude and be tempted to flap its wings endangering those fragile limbs. With tugs on the reigns and pommel the dragon rider held the dragon in a very gentle descending glide to pick up speed and hopefully catch an updraft, once that speed was reached, he pulled back on the pommel and the dragon climbed a bit and the process started over again. Once the dragon rider saw that they were at a safe altitude he sheathed his sword, grabbed the reigns and dug his heels into the dragon's flanks. With a shout "Whoo!" from the rider the dragon began those long, heavy wing beats that shoved the dragon into the air gaining speed and altitude at an alarming rate.

Hahn's large rabbit ears picked up Stefan's murmured exclamation from far down in the branches and she turned to Lelu. "You speak their language, what does "Holy fucking shit" mean?" Lelu shrugged; it wasn't part of the small amount of Japanese that she knows.

The dragon resumed its patrol interrupted only by swooping down on a beeson herd and snapping up a succulent calf. Lelu watched the dragon and passed along a message or two that came through the relay, the messages simply noted the position of the battalion of Zorzal's army of rebels. Slowly she began to feel alone, she missed Stefan, she missed his closeness, his warmth. And she missed his smell. It wasn't a staggeringly different smell than any other human she's ever met, but it's his smell, it made her feel comforted, protected, and desired. Lelu remembered what being desired is like, but that was before she was held captive by the emperor's men. Zorzal father, Emperor Molt Sol Augustus himself raped her over and over until the thought of being touched by a human nauseates her. But Stefan's desire comes from the heart, not the testicles, a desire she's never felt before from an elf or human and she wants more of it. And he sees her like she wants to be seen, he sees her heart, she just knows it.

Down below Stefan was thinking the same thing, he spent a lifetime without a woman to care for, and he's never wanted to care for one, he rented their affection by the hour. He had bigger plans for his life, and what did it get him? A tiny studio apartment filled with DVDs of anime, plastic anime figures, and John Wayne movies. His grandiose career plans got him a job as the night manager at Game Stop. A disposable job for a disposable man. But here on some foreign planet? Dimension? Parallel universe? he met a girl. His mother, in a rare fit of sobriety, once told him that the perfect girl was out there waiting for him, and now he met her. No, she wasn't as good looking as he imagined, but her heart! Her warm, loving, beautiful, beautiful heart made her completely glorious to behold. Even her smell! He suddenly couldn't live without her perfume filling his senses. He lay back and looked up through the branches and wondered if she would like to go out with him tonight. They must have movie theaters here... right?

"Psst, Lelu!" whispered Hahn, "are you awake?"

"Yeah, yeah," said Lelu softly, "just thinking..."

"Start thinking about this army headed for us," growled Hahn and she moved back up the branches to where an opening in the spruce tree's branches gave her a perfect opportunity to observe the oncoming army. Her long brown ears were now fully standing upright, twitching, and swiveling, catching the sounds of the approaching men.

Not long later came the battalion. The sound of their clanking plate armor and the shouting of the officers and sergeants preceded the unit, then came the mounted calvary, armored horses carrying armored soldiers all of them, men, and horses, marked with a bright red sash. Stefan looked on in shock, he was staring back nearly 2000 years in time at the Roman army, this army's armor looked exactly like the examples he's seen in books and in museums. He's been to Rome, Trier, Ravenna and Constantinople (Istanbul), the four main capitals of the Roman Empire, he knows Rome, and this is Rome at its largest and most evil. And it answered his question about the movie theaters.

Following the mounted soldiers were the foot soldiers, they were trotting along behind the mounted calvary. The men were covered in leather armor, sweat, and dust, and like the mounted soldiers, they all wore filthy red sashes. They looked exhausted, near collapse, but they kept coming at a trot. They were moving fast, trying to escape annihilation at the hands of their brothers and former friends, the soldiers that remained loyal to Emperor Molt Sol Augustus and his named successor, Crown Princess Pina Co Lada.

Stefan watched in horror and pity as an older soldier fell to the side, too exhausted to keep up. He tried to get up, but his legs wouldn't bear his weight anymore and now both he and Stefan knew what was coming next. At long last the end of the formation came, and the old soldier tried one last time to get to his feet, but he was too far gone. He couldn't get ups no matter how hard he tried. As a sergeant approached him, the soldier rose to his knees, tucked his helmet under his arm and said a prayer to whatever god he believed in. The sergeant stepped up to the praying soldier, set the point of his sword at the junction of the soldier's neck and shoulder armor, then drove the sword straight down into his heart. The old soldier was dead in an instant. The sergeant pulled his blade out and stripped the dead soldier of his red sash then ran to catch up with the unit.

The rumbling of the baggage train came next, dozens of wagons pulled by horse and oxen, loaded down with the baggage needed to support the troops and whatever loot they had taken on this foray. They carried everything from weapons and uniforms to food, water, and a full blacksmith shop. One wagon was dedicated to picking up the weapons and armor from the dead left behind, but for some reason they didn't strip the old soldier laying not too far from the tree that the trio clung to.

The baggage train was long out of earshot when the final part of the formation came into view, the slave train. Scores of suffering "profits of war" came past, chained at the wrists, and connected to long chains that were pulled by wagons that carried other loot that was pillaged in the recent battle. There were humans, elves, bunnies, foxes, there was a demi-human that had feathers like a bird, there was one that looked like a cat, and there were children. Lelu was nearly in tears when she saw several elves, then she saw elf children. Elves were on the decline, birth rates had plummeted, and elf children were incredibly rare. A little girl elf was chained up with the adults and along with her little brother, both had the look of a child who knew they were going to die soon. Then the boy fell and was being dragged along by the wrists.