[Edited] Chapter 28 - Imaginary Foes

So, today I am both heavily medicated and sleep deprived from catching some respiratory infection from all the kids I've been doing this play with. Also, opening night is this week, so we've been rehearsing like fiends. Which is to say, I may have missed one or two things this time.

Added a short little bit where Lynnria is recalling a bit of her past. Just a paragraph, but it gives you a little something more about where she comes from.

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“An Engraver?!” Lynnria shouted. “What do you mean an Engraver? Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?”

I spread my hands, mystified. “Don’t ask me! All I know is—”

Lynnria swiped a hand through the air, cutting me off. “I’m not talking to you.“ She closed her eyes for a moment and took a calming breath. “Mia… would you please stop swearing long enough to actually answer—Mia for the love of—Argh!”

Frustrated to the breaking point, Lynnria began randomly punching and kicking as though venting her anger on some imagined foe. Probably Mia.

I clicked my tongue. My Faen had been pretty excited about exploring the girl’s new Class with her but, as I could have predicted from their previous interaction, the conversation had gotten derailed rather quickly. I had hoped Lynnria would figure out the whole question-profanity paradigm on her own, but it was not to be.

Still, I had to cut the girl some slack. Even Mia had not known what a tic was before I had told her, and it was her disorder.

“Maybe I should explain.”

Lynnria turned and marched up to me with a wild and breathless expression. “Explain? Explain what? Can you explain what this Class is supposed to be? It had better not be a crafting Class, or so help me…” She winced and slapped her hands over her ears, “Stop! In the name of the Three and the Two besides, I beseech you! Please… stop!”

I sighed. “Mia, I think it’s best you come back for a minute.”

“Donum, I am at my wit’s end!” Mia shouted suddenly, her arrival once again unheralded. Then she made a fragile little sound, almost like a sob. “Now if you will excuse me, I am going to take a bath. I need to relax.”

A bath? How is she…I shook my head. Not important.

Instead, I began to speak, beginning with my rather enigmatic encounter with Bline. As I talked, Lynnria gradually began to calm down, then her expression turned to one of both confusion and then shock.

“You’ve met the Lady?” she breathed. “In person?”

I nodded. Ruefully.

“How?” she asked finally. “Where? I don’t—“

I held up a hand. “I’d honestly rather not get into it. The Goddesses tend to be… a bit much. But to the point, Bline absolutely hates questions. Particularly ones She thinks are frivolous or stupid. And since Mia is a Faen created from the Lady, that hatred has manifested as an involuntary compulsion to swear every time she hears one.”

Lynnria mouthed the words ‘involuntary compulsion’ with a thoughtful expression. “You mean like… some sort of Status Ailment?”

I snorted. I could have sworn I had already had this conversation. “Something like that. Anyway, avoid direct questions where you can, and if you have to ask her something, stick to one at a time. Let her get the swearing out of her system, and you’ll be fine.”

“Okay… I think I can manage that. Actually, one of my—” Her chin jerked slightly, and she took a breath. “I… used to know someone who had a similar kind of Ailment. Every time he heard the word, catastrophe, he would go blind for about an hour. He would never admit to what had caused it, which was probably why we teased him so much. Cat, we called him. He’d flinch every time. Took him forever to find a healer who could remove it, too.”

I resisted the urge to grimace. Obviously, I did not know the guy, so he might have had it coming. But that sounded an awful lot like bullying. “You used to know him, you said?” I prodded. “So… what? He die or something?”

She glanced away. “You could say that.”

Okay. Guess she doesn’t want to talk about it.

I decided to change the subject. “Right. As for your Class…”

But then, I hesitated. I did not actually know yet whether my intent had carried through, but from the name it was at least close. Still, there was the distinct possibility that because of the wildly open-ended nature of skills—and by extension, Classes—by speculating further, I could be doing more harm than good. So, I decided to change course.

“Well,” I began again, allowing a bit of a devilish grin to slip over my features. “I’m sure you’ll have fun figuring it out.”

“Have fun?! Wha… bu… Donum!”

My grin broadened. Teasing this girl was rather enjoyable, I decided. Besides, after her little story, I figured she could take it.

“Mia!” she shouted indignantly. “Get back here and explain this at once!”

“Oh…” I somehow composed my expression into one of complete seriousness. “You’ll have to wait until she gets out of the bath.”

There was a beat of silence. “What?!”

Her expression of outraged bewilderment sent me into a fit of giggles. “I know right?”

“Donum, this isn’t funny!”

“I know, I know, but…” I waved my hands defensively. “You look so cute when you get angry. I can’t help it.”

“Cute?” She put her fists on her hips. “Don’t call me cute! You’re supposed to be the cute one.”

“I’m not one of your laoi males,” I shot back, still very much amused. “And I say you’re cute.”

She started blushing again and lapsed into silence. Apparently, she did not know how to respond to that.

I smirked, enjoying the turnabout. But after a few seconds of watching her fume, I decided to have mercy. For now.

“Okay, okay. In fairness, I doubt Mia would have explained much anyway,” I informed her. “It all sort of goes hand-in-hand with the ‘no questions’ thing, but as I understand it, the Lady prefers people discover the ways of the world for themselves. Mia seems to operate… similarly.”

“You mean I have to figure everything out from scratch?” she whined. “Who does that?”

I tapped my thumb on my chest significantly.

Lynnria shot me a considering look. “I thought you said you were a Clan head. Didn’t your family keep skill records?”

“No,” I admitted slowly.

It was a technicality, but it was true. Most of my family had never even heard of skills. And as for my Clan? Well, we were still fresh off the boat, so to speak.

But the concept did sound pretty interesting. For a Clan, keeping records of what skills worked well and which did not might be quite useful. With time, you could come up with some pretty nasty combos that way. Although there was also the possibility that it could be quite confining if applied dogmatically. I could easily imagine more domineering Clans and families imposing skill setups onto their progeny. It would insure a certain degree of known power, yes. But it was also was a sure-fire way of stifling growth.

And considering Mia’s little hint about this girl… She craves power of a different sort.

“So far, we’ve been concentrating on assembling a broad tool-kit of open-ended skills that are useful for a wide variety of situations. There are a few exceptions…” The lilim anti-Status-Effect skill-chain was powerful, but it was a bit of a heavy investment that needed further streamlining. “We generally like to sit down and talk out our skill picks so that they complement one another, but the final decision is always left to the individual.”

“That sounds kind of nice,” she murmured softly. Then she folded her arms. “But if you like to talk it out, why aren’t you telling me about my Class?”

“Because I don’t know about your Class,” I replied reasonably. “I only know what I tried for. Your Class could be something completely new. By telling you how it’s supposed to work, I could set artificial limitations on you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Think about it. How frequently do people end up with really unusual or unique Classes? Do you know?”

“No one has that I’ve met,” she admitted reluctantly. “Most people tend to end up with something similar to what their parents had. But my grandfather had this theory that a person could escape their fate through personal effort. It was why I had been training so hard to be a warrior. And with a Class called Engraver…” She cast her eyes to the ground and sighed. “I guess I succeeded. Just not in the way I had hoped.”

“We’ll have to see,” I said, though I reserved judgment on whether that had to do with her own efforts or my interference. “But to my point, I only had the vaguest idea as to what my Class was supposed to do or how it was supposed to work when I got it. And it has led to some… interesting outcomes. For the time being, all I am asking you to do is to experiment. See what skills you qualify for. Warrior skills. Mage skills. Whatever. What can you get away with? What are your limitations? Let your imagination go crazy. Who knows? Maybe you can be both.”

That had certainly been my intent. However, from her Class’s name, it sounded a lot more like she was meant to be some sort of enchantment specialist. And while that would certainly be cool, it was not anything like what I had been trying for. I did not want to say that, though. There was no need to disappoint the girl until we knew more.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try,” she admitted. “I do have the two skill points, and my physicals are still pretty advanced for the first Layer. Plus, it’s not like I’ve forgotten how to wield a blade… if I could just get my hands on one.”

Hmm… two skill points? Now that I thought about it, I had started with two myself. But both of the lilim had started with only the one. Was that because they were technically my summons or was there some other factor at play? Curious.

“You could use this,” I offered, drawing my knife out of its sheath. “It’s brand new. Bought it back in town before we went to that game-ball match.”

“You saw the game?” Lynnria asked before accepting the blade hilt first. For a few moments, she made a show of inspecting it critically, though she kept casting furtive looks up at me. “What did you think? I scored the match-point, you know.”

“Uh… I was there on business, so I only managed to catch the one play. From what I saw…” It was incredibly violent, and the world would be a better place if it were banned permanently. “It seemed… fun? I think I might have even seen you score.” The girl had the same hair color, anyway.

A slight smile dimpled her cheeks before she returned her attention to the dagger. “This is Gnaffi’s work. Not the highest quality but decent enough for a town like Raialie.”

I shrugged. “Do you want it or not?”

“Better than nothing. I’m only High Intermediate with knives, though.”

“Good enough,” I said. And a lot higher than mine. I began untying the drawstring on my kilt so as to free the leather sheath.

Lynnria’s eyes widened, and she immediately spun around, her back ramrod straight.

I was more than a little shocked by the move. You’re kidding. There’s actually a person in this world with a shred of decency? You poor girl.

But I had no intention of popping that particular bubble. She would likely discover just how hard the Dungeon could be on a person’s wardrobe all on her own. So, I was careful to extract the sheath without disturbing the kilt too much. I could just imagine her reaction once she discovered I was flopping around au naturel.

“You can look now,” I said, then waited for her to take the proffered scrap of leather. She hesitated briefly before peeking over her shoulder.

“You’re very… unrestrained, sir,” she murmured before gently plucking the sheath from my hand.

“It comes with the territory,” I replied off-hand. “Now come on. We have a Dungeon to explore. Do you prefer swimming or flying?”

“Wha—well, flying of course, but… wait, what about my skills? I thought we were going to experiment?”

I shook my head. “I also told you that’s going to have to wait. Mia is taking a bath.”

She stared at me. “You were serious about that?”

*****

The next half-hour of my life was simultaneously—and in no particular order—disappointing, enjoyable, frustrating, amusing, and exhausting. It turned out that flying by means of a levitation spell, while technically possible, was far from ideal.

Go figure.

For one thing, maintaining the effect long enough to get anywhere was its own can of holy-shit-this-sucks. But for another, even with no set top speed, the spell’s acceleration factor was so limited that wind resistance put an effective ‘terminal velocity’ on the thing. I had no idea how to calculate that, but from what I could tell while zipping over the waves, it was somewhere close to a horse’s gallop.

At least, until I assumed ‘the pose.’ You know the one. And despite not having read many Superman comics, I was too much of a fan of the old Christopher Reeves films to resist. To my delight, flattening out my body was the key ingredient for more speed.

Which was terrific fun, but once I drew nearer to the door, I had to figure out how to slow down again before I blacked out. I did not want to experience a completely uncontrolled splash-down if I could help it.

I had also seen quite a few Mythbusters episodes, and I had no plans on acting out the part of Buster that particular day.

Fortunately, spreading my body out for the wind to catch combined with a quick about-face burned off speed sufficiently enough that I was soon able to work my way over to the door and tiredly perch on the frame.

Lynnria’s flight was a little less… successful.

Targeting the girl, even from way out on my perch, had been as easy as pointing my finger, but once the spell had taken hold… Well, the best I could describe her flight would be by reference to an old Russian video I had once seen on the internet called ‘cats in zero gravity.’

They did not take it well.

“Will you stop screaming and listen to me?” I yelled up at her once she finally got close enough to hear. “You keep flailing around like that’s going to help. Down is wherever you’re looking!”

“What in the—hurk! Oh, Mercy! Donum, get me… get me d—urragh!”

I winced as a substance best left undescribed was forcibly ejected from the girl and splashed into the water below. Coincidentally, that was the day I discovered that even stomach acid can make a rainbow.

“I guess some people just can’t handle weightlessness,” I muttered with a decided green-about-the-gills grunt.

Closing my eyes for a moment to settle myself, I swallowed back my gorge. The 400-pound gorilla on my back had decided to start sympathetically kicking at my gut, but I had quite a bit of experience in dealing with that. It was a waste of calories.

“Lynnria, just look at me!” I shouted again, and when she shifted about, I called out encouragingly. “That’s right. Keep focusing on me.”

Slowly, her flight-path began to stabilize. And eventually, she was again headed in the right direction.

“Good girl…” I said, coaxing her along. “You’re doing fine. Just a little bit more.”

“Donum… Donum, I think I’m getting it!” she shouted, breathless. Excited now, she stretched out her hand to join with mine.

That was when I dropped the spell.

“How dare you!” she squealed in absolute betrayal before splashing into the water below.

I sat there giggling like an idiot while she resurfaced, coughing and sputtering.

“I am wearing leather, you ass! Jackanapes!” she yelled up at me once she had caught her breath. “Do you have any idea how long this will take to dry?”

I shrugged innocently. “Is it worse than being covered in vomit?”

She turned to one side and tilted her nose into the air, though since she was soaking wet, it somewhat spoiled her intent. “I am quite certain I have no idea what you are referring to, sir.”

I smirked but decided it was best to leave it at that. She would find out soon enough that vomit was the least of my concerns. “Hold out there for a minute. I need to check something.”

As quickly as I could, I recast the levitation spell on myself, then like some sort of astronaut on a spacewalk, I began pulling myself down to open the door. Once I passed through, I was careful not to touch the tiles around it until I checked the clock. There was no need to repeat the previous day’s misadventure if I could help it.

Hmm… 3:45 in the afternoon? Already? Somehow, without my noticing, over twenty-four hours had passed since I had last been through here. Obviously, a lot had happened since then, but I had not thought it had taken that long.

But then I shook my head. I was still pretty spent from getting the two of us to the door, and here I was speculating on lost time… coincidentally wasting my own.

With some care, I positioned my feet over a pair of mid-gray tiles and let the spell drop. Then, when nothing else happened, I exhaled in relief. For a few moments, I simply leaned against the pillar of a timepiece, just trying to get my breathing back under control. I had not really wanted Lynnria to see me so vulnerable, but once I got her up, I was going to need a substantial breather.

“Donum?” I heard faintly from the door. “Don’t leave me—Ack! Something just touched me!”

“Aaaand we’re back to the bullshit,” I muttered weakly before toeing my way back to the open door. Once I rescued the girls and got out of this place, I was going to take a week off, rent a room, lock the door, and shove some wax in my ears. Then I might actually be able to get a decent night’s rest. “Please, don’t be another tentacle…”

When I looked out through the portal into the open daylight, I found Lynnria frantically thrashing about in the water with a panicked and wide-eyed expression, as if her gaze could somehow pierce through the murky depths if she stared hard enough. I could sympathize.

“Hurry, Donum!” she yelled. “Grandfather never got around to water combat.”

I quirked an eyebrow. That’s a thing? But then I supposed it would have to be. James Bond had done it in that one time. Which movie was that? Thunderball? For Your Eyes Only? I shook my head. I was getting distracted again.

“One second,” I called. “I’ll have you out of there in a jiffy.”

Of course, it’s one thing to say that. Spells are slippery at the best of times, and new ones doubly so. However, despite the confluence of incoherent screaming going on below me, I had the spell up and running again in fairly short order. It was possible I was getting a little better at this whole spell-casting thing.

Not that it helped much. Lynnria was practically out of her mind with panic by the time she finally lifted out of the water, and she was flailing about with the knife I had given her as if she were fending off an army of ghosts.

“I’ll kill you!” she screamed. “Every last one of you!”

“Lynnria,” I called, though it was more like a pained grunt. “Please… just look this way. Getting tired.”

She glanced up at me just long enough to finally start drifting in the right direction, but then she abruptly crossed her arms defensively in front of her chest. “Ah! Fiend! You dare!”

That exclamation was followed by another bout of air-fencing and a subsequent drift out and behind the door.

“Dammit, girl! Eyes on me! Eyes on me!” I shouted. What the hell? That’s no water monster. How is she still getting touched? Not that I could have done much of anything else to help. My legs were rapidly beginning to weaken. The lack of rest between spells was taxing me to the breaking point.

“Ack!” Another outraged squeal sounded somewhere behind me, which was disorienting to say the least. Behind me was the stairwell. But also… the ocean? “Donum, help! I can’t see it, and something keeps—ah! Hahaha! They keep poking me in the ribs.”

I frowned. “You mean something’s tickling you?”

“Don’t be absur—ah!” Another peal of outraged laugher rang out, this time somewhat overhead, and as I leaned forward, I just caught her form starting to drift into view. “I am a proud warrior trained! I am not tickl—ahahaha! Oh, you beast!”

Invisible… tickle-monsters? Either this was the single most unusual thing I had yet faced—which was saying something—or we were falling victim to more Faen antics. And at that particular moment, I… honestly had no clue which I preferred.

“Down here, Lynnria,” I called, straining upward with my hand. “Grab hold. I’ll pull you in.”

She did not seem to hear me. Instead, the young warrior attempted some sort of fancy-looking spin kick. Of course, since she was currently all but weightless, not only did the move fail spectacularly, she barely even began to rotate—for which I was grateful. How she planned on stopping again was anyone’s guess.

With a shout of exertion, I just managed to snag the heel of her boot and draw her toward me. The sudden shift in her momentum must have startled her, because she instantly lashed out. However, when she actually managed to make contact—with my face—she seemed surprised.

Though that might have been more a result of the impact shattering my concentration, precipitating a sudden reassertion of normal gravity and her own rapid acceleration downward. Or, in layman’s terms, she dropped like a rock.

While I was trying desperately to maintain my own balance, Lynnria let out a sharp squeak. Cat-like, she swiveled mid-air, just managing to slam onto the balcony, torso-first. Right in the middle of a cluster of mismatched tiles.

My eyes had just enough time to widen in alarm before the whole platform launched the pair of us through the air. We traced a graceful parabola up and over the railing, slammed into the handrail to the staircase, and rolled the rest of the way to the floor. Naturally, we set off every trap along the way.

While I laid there, wheezing in pain and bleeding, I felt certain I could hear a flurry of hushed conversation from overhead.

“Wasn’t that just delicious?”

“Oh, you were right! So right!”

“…just love this one to bits.”

“So tasty…”

“…find it?”

“…get in trouble…”

“No way! It was a proper rewa—“

“…can see why you…”

“Delicious man…”

Then a gossamer kiss caressed my cheek, and just before I passed out, I heard one last whispered word.

“Pocket…”

*****

“Sergeant!” I yelled, ducking behind a wall of sandbags just as an eruption of dirt from an enemy laser blast rained down on us. “Sergeant Mia, where in blazes are you?”

“Here, Lieutenant knob shiner!”

I turned. The Sergeant had a bewildered look on her face, but training had compelled her to stand at stiff attention and salute me smartly. I resisted the urge to glance down—and not just because the heat of the day had left the poor woman so sweaty she almost looked fresh from a swim, plastering her uniform to her body—but I knew from experience that her second button would be holding on for dear life. Some of the boys had started a betting pool as to when the thing would finally give it up, but of course, as an officer, I had refrained from participating.

Although, I certainly had not put a stop to it. The boys down in requisitions really did need to start finding some better fitting uniforms for the ladies. For some reason, my particular unit had recently begun attracting some rather well-endowed women.

“Sergeant, high-command has finally grown a pair,” I informed her grimly. “Send the word down. We charge at noon. Come hell or high-water, we must retake the White House. With any luck, the President will still be in there. And alive.”

“Yes… sir?” she replied hesitantly before casting a glance over our sand barrier.

I did not blame her. There were three of those giant pink pyramids hovering over Washington, blasting indiscriminately, and two of the smaller ones had landed atop the capital building. Knowing my luck—and high-command’s spineless hesitation—I had to assume the aliens had already set up fortifications in there, though as of yet, none of us had laid eyes on the bastards.

“Corporal!” the Sergeant shouted. Curiously, she seemed to have startled herself in having done so.

“Here, sir!” another woman shouted, saluting the two of us. I did not recognize her, but that was not all that surprising. Her platoon must have recently been folded into ours. This war had not been kind on our numbers.

She was fairly short, and like most of the rest of the newer additions, she had a dynamite body—though not quite to the Sergeant’s standards. Her face was angelic—delicate and set with soft angles—yet framed by a pair of thick horns that had curled around the side of her head and up along her jaw to end in a pair of sharp points just about even with her eye-line. Coupled with her pixie-cut blue hair, she was rather striking. Though, like the Sergeant, she seemed completely bewildered.

I frowned. Did the whole platoon just get summoned from their beds?

“Corporal Gyx!” Mia shouted, a bit of a strangled edge to her voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Uh… just… following orders. Sir?” Gyx replied hesitantly. Then a moment later, she leaned a bit closer to the Sergeant, “He got knocked out outside a safe zone, and some of us decided we would pop in for a bit of fun. But… what is going on? And who are you supposed to be? You look like—”

I cleared my throat deliberately. This was no time for idle gossip.

Both of the girls immediately stiffened. But I could already see the Sergeant’s jaw beginning to work. As befitted her rank, she was not inclined to suffer some grunt dropping out of attention without permission. Then the Sergeant’s button twanged and ricocheted off of the Corporal’s helmet, and her top blew. In both the literal and figurative senses.

“Fuck! F-fucking shit-pile raper! Experimental ass bucket of a—”

I clicked my tongue, ignoring the rest of the Sergeant’s tantrum. Barely even a week. I guess that means Private Jenson is looking at a nice little payday. If he was still alive by the end of it.

“Corporal, you have your orders!” Mia shouted finally and somewhat unwillingly. “Ready the men!”

The Corporal saluted and hurried away, though a few steps later she paused and cast a befuddled look at us. Mia shrugged but then her left arm lifted, pointing off to the southern line. A second later, she turned to stare at her finger.

I sighed as the unfamiliar NCO wandered uncertainly in the direction Mia had indicated. “Sergeant, once this is all over, remind me to begin a troop review. Discipline seems to be slipping lately.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied absently.

Another blast rocked us off of our feet, and while I clutched my helmet securely to my head, the Sergeant fell into my arms where she instinctively clutched at me. I tried to pull away at first as my rank required, but then our eyes locked.

She had such beautiful eyes, I realized. Icy blue and rimmed in a hypnotic red, they seemed to almost pulsate with desire—though it could have been simple fear. Somewhat rattled by our closeness, the Sergeant settled her ill-fitting helmet back over her head, but then a long lock of her red-black hair escaped its confines. With a gentle touch, I ran a finger over her cheek, tucking the lock behind her pointed ear.

She sucked in a breath at the contact, her lips parting ever so slightly, and I could not help but notice the soft swell of her bosom pressed against me, her delicate, almost fragile waist, the warmth of her breath tickling my beard.

And as my hands settled onto her hips, she stretched forward, drawing closer and closer to my lips.

“Lieutenant!” another of the soldiers called, and the two of us straightened instantly, each taking a half-step away from the other. It would not do for an officer to be caught out with a subordinate, especially on the battlefield.

Right about then, the soldier rounded the corner, and saluted the pair of us smartly. “Private First-Class Hwx reporting, sir!” She blinked a few times, and a moment later, her hand fell unprompted away from her forehead.

Then a knowing smirk curled her lips.

I scowled. Yet again, I recognized this one neither by sight nor name. And what had she said her name was? It had sounded like ‘Hewks.’ Like Gyx, she was stunningly beautiful though on the shorter side. Still, the pair of long and straight horns jutting out of her admittedly nicely-styled shoulder-length hair more than made up for it.

But that hardly mattered. She had not been called out of attention either, and her perfectly coiffed hair had left her battlefield-required helmet nowhere in sight.

“Hello, Hwx… I see you’re here too,” the Sergeant growled, doubtlessly upset at the interruption, and doubly upset at yet another reminder of the flagging discipline around here. I knew I was. On both counts. “What have you to report?”

“What? Oh, uh…” Casually, she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “The men are lined up… or something.”

The Sergeant’s eyes flashed in fury, finally having had enough of the soldier’s attitude.

“Private, you cock-sucking, man mattress!” she barked, stalking toward the girl. “Were you born a puking pile of slack-ass or did you have to work on it? Or maybe we need to haul your worthless carcass to the infirmary to get your ears checked! You might have picked up some motherfucking third world parasite that likes to whisper ‘at ease’ into the skulls of no-account cum stains just to spike my blood pressure!”

Private Hwk’s eyes started to widen in shock at the dressing down. Although, even I had to admit, the Sergeant was starting to get a little carried away. Now was not the time for such boot camp antics.

“Get the fuck out of my face, you fish-faced guppy! And find whatever shit house you lost your helmet in, or so help me, I’ll rip your moldy tits off and spare the rest of the world the displeasure of having to look at them!”

Hwk snapped into another salute and shouted, “Sir, yes sir!” Then she scurried off.

“Damned lazy-ass cunts,” Mia growled before turning back to me. An instant later, she blinked a few times as though disoriented, and a stunned sort of expression slowly overcame her features. “What in the…?”

“I know.” With a bit of a lopsided grin, I hefted one of the new plasma rifles the boys down in the lab had provided. “Modified Wrapper tech, they say. Shame we couldn’t get enough in time for the rest of the men, but I’ll take whatever we can get. I just hope they don’t end up blowing up in our faces.”

So saying, I tossed one of the rifles to the Sergeant and, while she fumbled to catch the weapon, I quickly snatched up another for myself. “Come on. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

The Sergeant stared at the advanced technology in her arms for a moment before giving it a curious sniff, but then she shrugged. “Shall I… signal the charge? Sir?”

“On my mark…” I murmured, scanning the skies.

On cue, a squadron of F-22s screamed over our heads, peeling off just after unleashing a payload of Storm Shadows straight into the landed pyramids. I waited until the shockwave had passed over us before giving a definitive nod to my Sergeant.

“Charge!” she bellowed loud enough to be heard even over the explosion.

As one, we broke cover, racing for the entrance. The rest of the troops soon followed suit and, like an amorphous blob, we began racing for the entrance stairs. The battle had stripped the once pristine garden of its once beautiful splendor, and the lawn was now little more than a smoldering pile of ashes and craters. Not that any of us had much of an eye for things like that, too intent were we on our goal.

Almost as soon as we sprang into action, hovering pyramids swooped in from out of nowhere and began dropping cargo pods in front of us, barring our path. They looked like little more than gigantic bundles of wadded up toilet paper—all dyed a deep fuchsia—but when they landed, mummies started pouring out of them. All of them were huge, ridiculously over-muscled freaks, yelling unintelligible battle-cries and moaning in undead fury. And hot pink.

The men immediately began firing at them, but they seemed to regard small arms fire as little more than a minor annoyance. My soldiers might as well have been attempting to shoot their names into living boulders designed by Mattel for all the good they were doing. Like raging bulls, the mummies began tearing into the front lines, sending men flying and ripping bodies in half.

I wasted no time before leveling my new blaster at one the lumbering behemoths. With a satisfying thwumb, the rifle unleashed a bar of blue light straight into its chest, throwing it off its feet and setting it ablaze. A moment after it landed, its chest cavity burst, sending flaming confetti into the air like a gigantic party-popper.

“Hoo! That packs a wallop!” Mia shouted excitedly before aiming her own at another of the beasts. However, for some reason, she had elected to hold the weapon like it was some sort of magical staff. And upside down.

I was about to correct her, but then she shouted… something. Against all odds, another of the bolts fired out of the butt of the gun, and a second mummy was hurled flaming into the air.

“Huh… must have an alternate fire mode.” Doubtlessly, I had missed that during the brief.

Our immediate path clear, we resumed our charge, only occasionally taking a moment to reintroduce the concept of death to our enemies. The lawn seemed to stretch forever. On and on we ran. More burned and blackened grass. More undead horrors.

Tentacled jackals burst forth from the bundles of pink linen, toilet paper tastefully tied about their throats like ribbons as they ravaged men in their slavering jaws. Severed hands grasped at our feet, still somehow living despite our best efforts. And all the while, the pyramids overhead carved into my troops with their own pink light. Earth and bodies flew everywhere.

Mia and I ducked and weaved amongst the twisted metal stacked up on all sides, jutting out of the ground like giant tacks for some unseen game of marbles set in the middle of the Barbie aisle between the uncaring children of giants. We fired into the opposition without care or even bothering to aim. There was only run and shoot.

Run and shoot. On. And on. And on.

Without warning, we crashed through the front entrance. Of my platoon, only twelve of us remained. The charge had decimated our numbers, but we had made it. And we had a president to save.

Mia took in the tiled, checkerboard hallway with its white columns and the various iconographies of presidents past, now severely damaged and burned. “Now what?” she murmured.

“We’ll need to get to the Oval Office,” I replied. “Which is in the uh… West Wing. I think.”

“Okay,” Mia said, glancing between the stairs and the multitude of hallways branching off in every direction. “And where is that?”

Her question was answered rather abruptly by a bellow of outrage followed immediately by the body of a hulking mummy smashing its way through the wall—upside down—and skidding to a halt at our feet.

“What is this shit?!” a woman’s voice thundered out of the opening, shaking a bit of plaster loose to the floor. “I am the President of the United—Balls! The fuck am I saying? Donum! Where are you?”

I swallowed nervously as the eyes of my remaining troops swiveled to look at me. I had been trying to keep our affair a secret, but it was not a great look for the Commander in Chief to be calling for a common Army Lieutenant in the middle of an undead alien invasion. By name.

“She must have been… told to expect us,” I muttered over the obvious sounds of combat coming from the mummy-shaped hole. “Now come on. She needs our help.”

“Our help?” Gyx’s voice whispered incredulously from my back, and I spared the Corporal a glance. “But Lieutenant… that sounded like the President—“ She shook her head. “No. No, I mean that sounded like… well, the Office should have been sealed! No, not the Office. Blast!”

“Enough, cunt! Discharge!” the Sergeant… attempted to say softly. “I think I understand you. Interesting. Very interesting. But it’s a question for another day. Let’s be about this.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Hwx whispered, stalling us further. Fearfully, she clutched at the Corporal’s sleeve. “We should leave. Now.”

“And how do you expect to do that?” the Corporal gritted out from her sharp teeth. “We only just made it through that gauntlet, and now you want to go back? We’d be lucky if we were only court-martialed!”

The Private looked at her like she had grown a third breast. “What’s a court-martial?”

“How would I know?!” Gyx shouted back, almost cackling with panic.

“Cut the chatter,” I commanded sharply just as a yowl like some crazed animal emanated from the President’s office and another outline of a mummified body indented into the plaster a few feet from the first. “We’ve got a president to save…”

With a confident gait and a gleam in my eye, I shouldered my plasma rifle and strode forward. To their credit, the rest of the men followed suit. These were the best of the best—with the possible exception of Hwk—the survivors. They had walked through hell and come out the other end. Now it was time for the finale.

We stepped through the hole into chaos. The President’s desk and the classic pair of cream-colored couches had been all but destroyed. Mummified bodies were strewn everywhere. The floors, the walls. One had even been embedded into the ceiling and trailed pink streamers like some grotesque chandelier.

And central to it all was the President. She looked crazed and feral. And utterly nude. By that point, she had already grown to a height of twelve feet and her skin had sprouted an assortment mismatched pelts, furs and quills. Underneath them, powerful muscles swelled and bulged as she carved a swath through undead hordes. Random spikes and claws sprouted from her almost without thought or direction, yet each time a new one sprang forth, it would take a mummy in the eye or stab another in the gut like guided missiles.

She was terrifying. But she was also my lover. I needed to find some way to help thin out her attackers, but she moved so fast, it was all but impossible to safely aim at anything.

At that moment, a trio of mummies smashed through the windows from the garden, each wielding their own plasma rifles. Mia and I quickly dispatched two of them, but the third just managed get off a shot to the President’s chest before the men gunned him down.

She threw her head back and roared in pain as the rose-colored bolt slammed into her, but though she staggered, she did not fall. Instead, she merely gritted her teeth and flexed. A moment later, the grisly wound had healed over, covering her perfect breasts with the same mismatched furs as the rest of her body.

“You think you can down me with such paltry weapons?” she roared to the room at large, but there were no more foes to fell. Save for my men, there was no one left standing. “I will bear such insults no longer! Donum!”

“Here, sir,” I replied immediately before turning to a pair of faceless soldiers. “You two, cover the windows. I don’t want any more surprises.”

“Sir!” they shouted in unison.

For a moment, the President and I merely stared at one another. She still looked furious, but she was starting to calm down now that room had been cleared. And with her calm, most of her animalistic features were starting to recede… save for the two majestic pairs of horns curling out of her hair—itself mismatched and patchwork just as her pelts had been.

I favored her with a bit of a lopsided grin. “President Ahnbe. It’s good to see you… safe. Having a bit of fun were we?”

“Fun?!” she shouted, her eyes flashing. Then the corners of her lips began to curl upward. “Yes… I suppose I was, now that you mention it. But it wasn’t exactly the kind of fun I’d been hoping for when I decided to—“

She paused, finally noticing that we were not exactly alone. “Lieutenant…”

I cleared my throat before roaring, “Men! About face!”

As one, the lot of them swiveled around and rigidly stared at the walls. All except for three.

Private First-Class Hwx and Corporal Gyx were clutching at one another in a terrified bundle on the far side of the room. Sergeant Mia, on the other hand, was standing to one side and staring at the President with a complicated expression—somewhere between contemplation and a cautious hostility.

Ahnbe stared at the two quivering in the corner for a moment. She clearly recognized them, though from her face, it was the kind of recognition you might have for a familiar gardener or a janitor coincidentally showing up at a favored restaurant. Their presence clearly bothered her, but she did not seem like she was ready to fly into a rage about it.

“Donum… where are you right now?” she asked casually.

“I’m… in your office, Madam President,” I replied, a little confused.

She glanced back at me and quirked an eyebrow. “Just like the last time…” Then her eyes slowly traced their way down the length of me. “I wonder if that’ll be the same, too.”

“Ma’am?” I asked, now even more confused.

Instead of answering, she cast another curious look at the cowardly duo, “Still, for them to be here… now… Why wasn’t I notified?”

“I rather doubt high command would have bothered to ask,” I assured her. “We didn’t have a great deal of time in putting together this little team, but they’ve served well enough so far.”

She chuffed through her nose before dismissing the pair entirely. “Well, no matter… I’ll get to the bottom of this one way or the other. In the meantime…”

Favoring me with a flirtatious little smile, she let the rest of her excess mass fall away, shrinking until the top of her head was just about even with my nose. Then she leapt into my arms. I was immediately reminded of the fact that she was completely and totally naked… and seemed not to care in the slightest.

I had half a thought to make certain none of the men were peeking, but before I could, she crushed her perfect body into mine. An instant later, her lips met my own in a glorious blaze of passion. It was as if she had been starved for weeks on end only to suddenly find the source from which all life sprang. And while we kissed, she took the opportunity to explore every inch of my body. She moaned as she ran her hands through my hair and down my back. Her feet dug into my backside as she ground her naked sex over my growing erection.

And all the while, she scented at me. My face, my neck, my ears… anywhere she could find to smell, she did. It was like she had found some heady perfume that drove her wild with want.

“Ahh~ I’ve missed this,” she crooned, panting. “I wish I had never let you go, but I had no choice! And then a silly little bug started telling me all sorts of strange things, so naturally I had to come check for myself whether—“ Abruptly, she froze. “Bline!”

Bline? The unfamiliar name echoed through my subconscious, momentarily disorienting me. But when I turned to follow the President’s stare, my eyes only found the Sergeant at the end of it. Then, unconsciously, my gaze flicked downward. In our passion, I had forgotten about her, but the Sergeant had been watching us the entire time. And had evidently decided to join us.

Her uniform laid discarded at her feet, leaving her gloriously naked save the helmet on her head. Her breasts were just as large and wondrous as I had ever imaged them, with faint crinkles at their tips just showing her nipples—themselves ghostly pale to the point of almost blending with the rest of her skin. Her hips were wide yet tapered to a narrow waist, forming a classic hourglass. And her bare sex practically dripped with her arousal.

Yet she did not move, save to uncontrollably twist and undulate her body in an evocative little dance. She merely waited.

“What is the meaning of this?” Ahnbe hissed, clutching me tightly. “I have Claimed him! Begone from here!”

Sergeant Mia only smiled. Then she casually removed her helmet. Her red-black hair spilled out like a stream of water down her back, over her shoulders, and pooled down between her breasts. And of course, her horns were revealed. They had grown a bit since the last time I had seen them, and curiously they had begun to fork just a bit at the tips.

Ahnbe gasped on seeing them and shook her head. “I… I don’t understand. You’re not… But then h-how can you… W-What does this mean?”

The sergeant’s smile broadened. Still she said nothing. She merely strode forward, the claws at her feet clicking against the tiled floor. Then, when she was beside us, she very deliberately leaned into my side and pressed her nose into my shoulder. Just as Ahnbe had done, she took a long and slow sniff at me. She held it for a moment, and her eyes fluttered in ecstasy. Then she turned her head and slowly blew it into Ahnbe’s face.

“It means I serve.” Mia’s voice was low and heavy with seduction, though her eye twitched from holding back her compulsion to swear.

“As do you, my kin.”