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- Joined
- Sep 7, 2019
- Location
- Jurassic Park
"Young man," Nylian gasped at her, as Akari prudently warned him about a creature that was probably going to hunt them at some point in this fiasco. "You're like two years older than me."
Even as Akari willed herself to get to the cave, heal already, and become who Nylian needed her to be to survive this situation, it took every nerve she had not to utterly dress him down for that flippant remark. To not demand to know who he was to challenge her experience. To still be the impassive teacher here after a single pithy clapback. The terrifying truth she didn't want to confront here, though, was that even just a few years of living on her own in these damnable woods had aged and shriveled her heart, while he had been sheltered for so long that he seemed younger than he actually was. He'd hit a nerve, but one that would have to be dealt with later.
And then, telltale bright green drool- a low-level radioactivity contained within that allowed it to better digest prey by turning all their fucking cells into cancer as they agonizingly screamed- hit and bubbled up the ground in front of them.
No.
Not here.
NOT. FUCKING. NOW. With Nylian having to defend the front entrance with a sea of teeth lunging at their toes, they should just be concentrating on that, and the last thing they needed was a larger predator right behind them. But this forest clearly didn't give a fuck about what they should or shouldn't be doing, or what they needed. Only whether they had the reddened tooth and claw to survive.
"Treeleaper," she hissed as she looped her arms through his back-to-back, pressing their backs closely together, then used her free hand to shoot an autocross bolt behind her pinkling into a engulflower's mouth, causing a feeding frenzy that distracted the horde for a time, but not forever.
The long, knuckle-walking, sloth-like creature with razor-sharp teeth that was slowly assessing the intruders usually, as the name implied, preferred to make its home in trees. But she wouldn't be surprised if the Tower's reckless clearing of any copses they hadn't bombed during their takeover to fuel their ever-hungry furnaces had forced the predator to adapt. To make it to morning. And it looked thin and gaunt, so she almost sorry for the thing getting close to its last breath...fucking rules of nature.
"At least it's not a radionix. But don't move your feet...its knuckles sense ground vibrations, so as long as you only move your torso, it'll have a harder time discerning you," Akari whispered. "Otherwise, keep up the good work. And when you get a breather, remember, find some pitchy black mud and set it on fire if you can....and by the way, please don't freak out." It didn't matter that she didn't have her full strength. She was backed into a corner, and all cornered animals knew what to do.
Moments later, she disentangled their arms, her hands inadvertently brushing up his spine as she focused on putting all her magic into summoning her twenty-foot-tall Apex Spirit. While she circled the treeleaper and it circled right back, she knew this battle might kill her, either from wounds sustained from twin pairs of multiple banana-sized opposable claws, or sheer exhaustion depending on how long this went on. But better her than Nylian. They hadn't made it far so he could get back to the village if he had to regroup, and they could all try to get the Master Key with a new teacher who didn't fuck everything up on the first gods-damned day.
And there was some good news. Once the telltatle Nuckelavee Apex roar, a combination of a pitchy whistle and a low rumbling in her shadowy diaphragm, reverberated from the cave, most of the horde fled when it saw that the two titans were about to engage in single combat, but several bold little creatures thought they had an opportunity to steal the monsters' lunch from under them and continued attacking Nylian.
Then the treeleaper roared back to reestablish its turf, nearly breaking her eardrums. Still, Akari charged, long spindly legs and batlike wings used to propel her forward and head-first into the treeleaper's chest, knocking it back on its haunches while it clawed at her back with its arms and at her front with its legs. Akari's screams of pain were very humanoid indeed. Still, she kept fighting.
It was all she was ever going to be good at.
*****
"You've got an aug for everything, don'tcha rich kid?" Erika ribbed Dekter while the two of them went into the belly of the beast. Erika then tried to act natural as their ex-lover was surprisingly front and center in Meet Market, the wide venue where alcohol, drugs, and sex were being traded right there on nearly every surface. It was difficult to step over the people who had given up on everything except their primal needs.
"You have some nerve, showing your face here after what happened," Brona said. The topless, platinum-haired crime lord made glowing by the purple hue of the lamps overhead danced on the pole in time to Work Bitch before a knife between her teeth, a mixture of annoyance and lasciviousness on her face as she both liked what Erika had done with themself, and was irritated they had ever tried to hide from her.
"How the hell did you guess it was me? The last time we had contact, I had a dick." Even as Erika snapped at her, some part of them looked at the way Brona's hands slid up and down the pole and, while remembering how she'd used to work their pole, gained a phantom boner surrounding their real clit stiffening a bit.
"You can cut off as many dicks as you like, but I'll always know who, where and what you are," Brona purred. "Besides, Eric Chambers to Erika Chambers is not exactly the cleverest name change ever. Speaking of who...who's the arm candy?" She now purred at Dekter before wrapping her legs around the pole to show her large, round ass, licking her knife suggestively and then chuckling under her breath.
"His name's Dekter. Got 'im out of a jam back at the Tower," Erika said, then hocked a loogie at a thankfully empty spittoon. Some habits died hard, even long after "Eric" had quit smoking. Or perhaps Brona brought out an even rougher side of Erika, the kind that had fucked two dons at the same time. Perhaps "Eric" wasn't entirely dead, n o matter how much Erika wanted to bury "him" for good.
"And if you have Beetle arrange a meeting with us right here and now, he will help make the four of us very wealthy indeed," Erika beamed.
Normally, a business proposition like this would then have to be passed up the chain, but Erika guessed right when they figured that Brona wouldn't exactly want Amaranta sniffing around in something that a Tower man wanted smuggled. The feud between the two women threatened to bring down the whole Prime Eight organization and unleash a can of worms in the inevitable scramble for power in the underworld that would follow. Which would be a fine delicacy in this shithole.
"Beetle ain't comin'?"
"Got the magnopox. Reaaaal itchy-like." Erika winced; they'd had it before, back when they had augments as a soldier, and it was not fun. "But." Brona continued, "I'll tell him you sent him your best wishes. You're in luck though. These zoners are too stretched out to be much good at tipping tonight, so I've got some time." She shrugged, "Must be something in the water." Entirely possible since most of the time it was barely potable. No one in the Depths knew what crap the Tower put in it any given day, so water filters were in high demand and short supply for all but the wealthiest down here.
Brona soon got down off the stage with a theatrical front flip that highlighted her talents, then traced a finger under Erika's chin, causing the smuggler to shudder, and took them by the hand, leading them both forward with a slow walk to make sure they both saw her hips gyrate exactly right as she led them upstairs. They had a private VIP room in under two minutes, though it wasn't exactly the most private as people with all sorts of exotic augs who clearly had money to burn burned calories and were very...vigorous in their workouts with their personal trainers.
"So, what'cha got for me here?"
Erika then proceeded to explain the whole situation they'd gotten themselves caught up in to her.
"Well, y'know what? Because your new body is a total babe, that rescue you described is actually bad ass, and your leads have never let me down before, I'll bite. I'll have Beetle call Oskar and wire the ten mil tonight. You know how he was always the numbers guy; he could do this kind of deal from his deathbed if he had to. But consider that a loan, because in exchange I will own your sexy bodies until the rest of my terms are satisfied and can use them whenever I want. Meanwhile, Beetle and I will each get 25% cuts from whatever this thing is, because I'm gonna be putting up all the men and tech you could ever need to track down even the smallest hair on a single rat's ass." It was true that Brona and Beetle did have the resources necessary to canvas a larger area of the Tower more thoroughly than Dekter and Erika could alone; if her forces, commanded by one of the most ruthless mercs in Tower history, didn't find it, it wasn't within city limits. Giving half to the other duo was more than fair.
Next came the stick in their arrangement, "If, however, whatever Dekter is looking for is worth less than ten mil to a fence, then you both will be part of the nightly entertainment here till you pay me back. With interest."
"Agreed on my end, because I suppose I don't have much of a choice," Erika sighed with their arms on their knees and their head bent towards their legs, to which Brona giggled a little. "But Dekter is my partner in this venture, and since we're all gonna quarter-partners, if he says he can't do this, let me know and I'll find some other way to make Oskar whole."
"Suit yourself, Eric-hah," Brona puffed. "Why don't you give me and Tower boy a moment alone? Maybe he needs some...incentive," she grinned and then bit her lip while rubbing his right thigh. The only reply from the painfully misgendered femme was to kick the door closed behind them.
"So, what do you want as your finder's fee, Dekter?" Brona whispered in sultry tones, making sure her bare breasts were irresistibly in front of him. "Hmm? Because something tells me I can't have as long a negotiation with that aug you have in your trousers as I'd like, or Little Miss Grumpy out there will barge in. But I could give you a hand, or kiss wherever it aches."
Even as Akari willed herself to get to the cave, heal already, and become who Nylian needed her to be to survive this situation, it took every nerve she had not to utterly dress him down for that flippant remark. To not demand to know who he was to challenge her experience. To still be the impassive teacher here after a single pithy clapback. The terrifying truth she didn't want to confront here, though, was that even just a few years of living on her own in these damnable woods had aged and shriveled her heart, while he had been sheltered for so long that he seemed younger than he actually was. He'd hit a nerve, but one that would have to be dealt with later.
And then, telltale bright green drool- a low-level radioactivity contained within that allowed it to better digest prey by turning all their fucking cells into cancer as they agonizingly screamed- hit and bubbled up the ground in front of them.
No.
Not here.
NOT. FUCKING. NOW. With Nylian having to defend the front entrance with a sea of teeth lunging at their toes, they should just be concentrating on that, and the last thing they needed was a larger predator right behind them. But this forest clearly didn't give a fuck about what they should or shouldn't be doing, or what they needed. Only whether they had the reddened tooth and claw to survive.
"Treeleaper," she hissed as she looped her arms through his back-to-back, pressing their backs closely together, then used her free hand to shoot an autocross bolt behind her pinkling into a engulflower's mouth, causing a feeding frenzy that distracted the horde for a time, but not forever.
The long, knuckle-walking, sloth-like creature with razor-sharp teeth that was slowly assessing the intruders usually, as the name implied, preferred to make its home in trees. But she wouldn't be surprised if the Tower's reckless clearing of any copses they hadn't bombed during their takeover to fuel their ever-hungry furnaces had forced the predator to adapt. To make it to morning. And it looked thin and gaunt, so she almost sorry for the thing getting close to its last breath...fucking rules of nature.
"At least it's not a radionix. But don't move your feet...its knuckles sense ground vibrations, so as long as you only move your torso, it'll have a harder time discerning you," Akari whispered. "Otherwise, keep up the good work. And when you get a breather, remember, find some pitchy black mud and set it on fire if you can....and by the way, please don't freak out." It didn't matter that she didn't have her full strength. She was backed into a corner, and all cornered animals knew what to do.
Moments later, she disentangled their arms, her hands inadvertently brushing up his spine as she focused on putting all her magic into summoning her twenty-foot-tall Apex Spirit. While she circled the treeleaper and it circled right back, she knew this battle might kill her, either from wounds sustained from twin pairs of multiple banana-sized opposable claws, or sheer exhaustion depending on how long this went on. But better her than Nylian. They hadn't made it far so he could get back to the village if he had to regroup, and they could all try to get the Master Key with a new teacher who didn't fuck everything up on the first gods-damned day.
And there was some good news. Once the telltatle Nuckelavee Apex roar, a combination of a pitchy whistle and a low rumbling in her shadowy diaphragm, reverberated from the cave, most of the horde fled when it saw that the two titans were about to engage in single combat, but several bold little creatures thought they had an opportunity to steal the monsters' lunch from under them and continued attacking Nylian.
Then the treeleaper roared back to reestablish its turf, nearly breaking her eardrums. Still, Akari charged, long spindly legs and batlike wings used to propel her forward and head-first into the treeleaper's chest, knocking it back on its haunches while it clawed at her back with its arms and at her front with its legs. Akari's screams of pain were very humanoid indeed. Still, she kept fighting.
It was all she was ever going to be good at.
*****
"You've got an aug for everything, don'tcha rich kid?" Erika ribbed Dekter while the two of them went into the belly of the beast. Erika then tried to act natural as their ex-lover was surprisingly front and center in Meet Market, the wide venue where alcohol, drugs, and sex were being traded right there on nearly every surface. It was difficult to step over the people who had given up on everything except their primal needs.
"You have some nerve, showing your face here after what happened," Brona said. The topless, platinum-haired crime lord made glowing by the purple hue of the lamps overhead danced on the pole in time to Work Bitch before a knife between her teeth, a mixture of annoyance and lasciviousness on her face as she both liked what Erika had done with themself, and was irritated they had ever tried to hide from her.
"How the hell did you guess it was me? The last time we had contact, I had a dick." Even as Erika snapped at her, some part of them looked at the way Brona's hands slid up and down the pole and, while remembering how she'd used to work their pole, gained a phantom boner surrounding their real clit stiffening a bit.
"You can cut off as many dicks as you like, but I'll always know who, where and what you are," Brona purred. "Besides, Eric Chambers to Erika Chambers is not exactly the cleverest name change ever. Speaking of who...who's the arm candy?" She now purred at Dekter before wrapping her legs around the pole to show her large, round ass, licking her knife suggestively and then chuckling under her breath.
"His name's Dekter. Got 'im out of a jam back at the Tower," Erika said, then hocked a loogie at a thankfully empty spittoon. Some habits died hard, even long after "Eric" had quit smoking. Or perhaps Brona brought out an even rougher side of Erika, the kind that had fucked two dons at the same time. Perhaps "Eric" wasn't entirely dead, n o matter how much Erika wanted to bury "him" for good.
"And if you have Beetle arrange a meeting with us right here and now, he will help make the four of us very wealthy indeed," Erika beamed.
Normally, a business proposition like this would then have to be passed up the chain, but Erika guessed right when they figured that Brona wouldn't exactly want Amaranta sniffing around in something that a Tower man wanted smuggled. The feud between the two women threatened to bring down the whole Prime Eight organization and unleash a can of worms in the inevitable scramble for power in the underworld that would follow. Which would be a fine delicacy in this shithole.
"Beetle ain't comin'?"
"Got the magnopox. Reaaaal itchy-like." Erika winced; they'd had it before, back when they had augments as a soldier, and it was not fun. "But." Brona continued, "I'll tell him you sent him your best wishes. You're in luck though. These zoners are too stretched out to be much good at tipping tonight, so I've got some time." She shrugged, "Must be something in the water." Entirely possible since most of the time it was barely potable. No one in the Depths knew what crap the Tower put in it any given day, so water filters were in high demand and short supply for all but the wealthiest down here.
Brona soon got down off the stage with a theatrical front flip that highlighted her talents, then traced a finger under Erika's chin, causing the smuggler to shudder, and took them by the hand, leading them both forward with a slow walk to make sure they both saw her hips gyrate exactly right as she led them upstairs. They had a private VIP room in under two minutes, though it wasn't exactly the most private as people with all sorts of exotic augs who clearly had money to burn burned calories and were very...vigorous in their workouts with their personal trainers.
"So, what'cha got for me here?"
Erika then proceeded to explain the whole situation they'd gotten themselves caught up in to her.
"Well, y'know what? Because your new body is a total babe, that rescue you described is actually bad ass, and your leads have never let me down before, I'll bite. I'll have Beetle call Oskar and wire the ten mil tonight. You know how he was always the numbers guy; he could do this kind of deal from his deathbed if he had to. But consider that a loan, because in exchange I will own your sexy bodies until the rest of my terms are satisfied and can use them whenever I want. Meanwhile, Beetle and I will each get 25% cuts from whatever this thing is, because I'm gonna be putting up all the men and tech you could ever need to track down even the smallest hair on a single rat's ass." It was true that Brona and Beetle did have the resources necessary to canvas a larger area of the Tower more thoroughly than Dekter and Erika could alone; if her forces, commanded by one of the most ruthless mercs in Tower history, didn't find it, it wasn't within city limits. Giving half to the other duo was more than fair.
Next came the stick in their arrangement, "If, however, whatever Dekter is looking for is worth less than ten mil to a fence, then you both will be part of the nightly entertainment here till you pay me back. With interest."
"Agreed on my end, because I suppose I don't have much of a choice," Erika sighed with their arms on their knees and their head bent towards their legs, to which Brona giggled a little. "But Dekter is my partner in this venture, and since we're all gonna quarter-partners, if he says he can't do this, let me know and I'll find some other way to make Oskar whole."
"Suit yourself, Eric-hah," Brona puffed. "Why don't you give me and Tower boy a moment alone? Maybe he needs some...incentive," she grinned and then bit her lip while rubbing his right thigh. The only reply from the painfully misgendered femme was to kick the door closed behind them.
"So, what do you want as your finder's fee, Dekter?" Brona whispered in sultry tones, making sure her bare breasts were irresistibly in front of him. "Hmm? Because something tells me I can't have as long a negotiation with that aug you have in your trousers as I'd like, or Little Miss Grumpy out there will barge in. But I could give you a hand, or kiss wherever it aches."
