CHARM, CHERI, AND THREED WALK INTO A BAR

CHARM, CHERI, AND THREED WALK INTO A BAR

AUTHOR NOTE: You probably don’t want to read this until you’ve read Ex Heroes 1-4, Ex Gods 1-3, and maybe Psychobitches: Tear it Up. Hey, your call, but… spoilers abound. What is it that you have in front of you? A scene that takes place near the early part of Ex Heroes 5, when Breaker steps aside to converse with others. He sees Charm and these ladies go into the bar, but since we stick with his POV, we don’t follow them in. For those of you curious about their conversation, and who just want to see Charm with Cheri and Threed, here you go! 

***

Who would’ve thought that I’d one day be sitting in a bar on a Citadel forward base, drinking whisky among the Oram system’s greatest superheroes? I sure as shit couldn’t have imagined this. Me, who had spent years on that fucking prison ship. Me, who so many had looked at with scorn or confusion because of my fox ears and tail. 

Yet, there I was, staring across the table at Cheri and Threed. The former was about as out there as one can be, with bright blue hair in pigtails, skimpy red armor with a large yellow smiley face over her left tit, and a shifty look to her eyes as she tried to block out the voices in her head. Yes, you heard me right. And then there was Threed… Head shaved on the sides with a mop of pink on top, one blue eye and one red, and swirling tattoos showing on her very exposed legs and arms. She had a bit of a reputation as a badass who didn’t give a fuck, but I really didn’t know her that well. How she’d ended up with Breaker’s brother and here with the Citadel was beyond me. But I was certainly looking forward to getting to know both of them. 

The drink touched my lips and I shuddered, never having tried whiskey before, but once it was down my throat I was ready for another. 

“Slow down.” Cheri watched me with fascination. “You fox-types aren’t much for drinking, I’d guess, by that look on your face.” 

I frowned, never one to be okay with being called a fox in any way. But now… now that there was talk of me being a kitsune. Now that it meant something awesome other than simple super mutations, I kind of liked it. 

I grinned as I took the second glass from the lanky bartender. I held it up to Cheri and Threed. “To new best friends.” 

“Sure.” Threed raised her glass to meet mine and then Cheri’s. “And to be clear, that would be us?” 

I laughed. “Why the hell not, right? We’re on different teams, so we can’t be lovers. Next best thing, great friends!” 

That set odd expressions on their faces, so I downed my drink again. Fuck, that stuff was good!

“So it’s true?” Threed leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I mean, last time we met up, we didn’t get enough of a chance to talk about this stuff. But… you’re both getting with the men on your teams?”

Cheri bit her lip, eyes going off to who knows where, while I nodded enthusiastically. 

“Wait, you two already know each other?” Cheri asked. 

“Long story,” I answered, “but yes. We met in some Nihilist world.” 

“And the Nihilists are…?” 

“We fought some on the Orion Corp military complex,” Threed answered. “Those crazy death-looking things. Not the Dex, the other ones.”

Cheri frowned, as if forgetting all about that, then shrugged. “Sorry, mind is focused on the idea of you two and your teams all fucking.”

Threed grinned wide. “Nobody said it was the whole team, but… yeah. We pretty much all get nasty.”

“Hold up.” I lowered my drink, wanting to make sure I understood this. “But… you’re all sisters, no?”

Threed pursed her lips in thought, then shook her head. “Half-sisters, and we don’t really… I mean, most of us are in it for the cock, you know?” 

I shrugged. “Do I know…” I chuckled, my mind suddenly overflowing with images of Breaker lying back, his cock inches from my face as I ran my tongue up it. Mmm. “Sure, but there’s nothing wrong with bringing in a few ladies, hands groping, giving him a show. Maybe some side loving.”

“Nothing wrong at all,” Cheri agreed. 

“So you do that too?” Threed asked, eyes wide.

Cheri shrugged. “Hey, Erupa’s about as buff as a guy, and it’s fun with more in the mix. But one cock is enough for me. So getting to mess around with the females? Nothing wrong with that at all. And Ezra,” she lowered her voice, glancing over at him as he stood at the bar talking to the others, “his cock grows like three times as hard when he’s watching. And it’s already a damn fine one at that.”

“Yeah…?” I didn’t want to ask. It was none of my business, but when she held her hands up a good distance apart, I had to nod in respect. That said, I think Breaker had him beat, and leaned forward to tell them, but thought better of it. Instead, I said, “Breaker’s balls are so smooth, and oh man, his cock is the most beautiful—”

“Wait-wait-wait,” Threed protested. I put my hand to my mouth, thinking she was going to tell me I’d shared too much. “If we’re going to compare,” she continued, “I’d have to give my man the award for best. I mean, it’s not as long as that, but girth, and the way he uses it.” 

Cheri glanced around, then saw Ezra at the far end of the bar with some of the others. She perked up. “Oh, I can just have my man come over and show us.” She started to wave, but I grabbed her hand and pulled it down. 

“That won’t be necessary.” 

“You’re not curious?” She pursed her lips, looking back over at him. “Now that you got me thinking about it… I kind of just want to take a gander.”

“A gander?” Threed scoffed. “But no, I’m on board with Charm here. Only man’s cock I want to see is Drew’s.”

“Except for me it’s Breaker’s,” I said. “Just to be clear.”

“Right.”

Cheri frowned and shrugged. She looked at each of us, then frowned deeper. “Damn, you’re both telling the truth. I kinda figured that was some horseshit to be loyal or whatever.”

“Of course it’s the truth.” I looked around, seeing one guy with curly hair trying to pretend not to be listening in. I didn’t care, but wanted to make sure none of our own teammates were close by. “Shit, you girls know what we sound like, right? If the three of them were sitting around fantasizing about how we talk about them, this is it.”

“True!” Cheri cocked her head to one side. “Maybe proper ladies don’t share this shit, but fuck them. Butt fuck them with Ezra’s long cock.”

Threed then took a long swig of her drink and said, “Except, if it were Drew’s fantasy he would’ve had me saying it was the longest dick in the world, I’m sure. Sorry, just… isn’t. But I love it to death. Just want to,” she suddenly took her glass—the thin kind—and wrapped her lips around it ,giving me a wink. “I mean it, right here, right now. You two could watch, if you wanted.” 

I smiled but shook my head. “Honestly, it’d feel like cheating on my man, I think. Which is weird, considering how my team all share him, but… that’s different.”

Threed nodded. “I get you, for sure.”

“Where’s the craziest place you’ve ever done it?” Cheri asked, ignoring the odd glance a guy walking past gave us as he overheard the question. We didn’t care. 

“On top of an Entraphant,” Threed said, without even thinking. “But I don’t like to talk about that…”

Cheri and I both glanced over at each other, looking skeptical. The idea of anyone being able to fuck on top of one of those beasts that were three times the size of Earth elephants, creatures native to the world Entra, was ridiculous. But hey, with the right superpowers… maybe staying up there would’ve been possible?

“I don’t know about crazy,” I scrunched my nose in thought. “But… fun? Two come to mind.”

“Do tell.” Cheri leaned in, hands under her chin, eyes sparkling with excitement. 

“The first was early on with Breaker, the first time going down on him, and then later when we first made love—”

Threed grinned. “Made love?”

I waved her question off. Even if we hadn’t known it was love at first, of course it had been. Had been and always would be. “There I was, going down on him in the shower, and it was so hot—I mean, not the temperature, but the way the water was flowing over his skin, moving around his balls as I licked them. The bulge in his cock and curiosity in his eyes.” I paused to lick my lips at the memory. “And then I remember realizing Twitch was actually watching us, only pretending to be asleep, and she was touching herself!”

“Oh shit.” Threed drank to that. 

“The little perv,” Cheri added with a chuckle. “I knew she had it in her, trying to act all ladylike. I see it in her eyes.”

“And… read her thoughts, no?” Threed asked. 

“Not really.” Cheri shrugged, holding up the little bear tied to her sword. “My friend here tells me things, and sometimes other voices… but I don’t really read anyone’s thoughts. Not normally, anyway.”

“Right…” Threed turned back to me. “The other times?”

I grinned. “Ah, the first time we made love was so sweet. Twitch had now become involved, and the three of us were hiding out as villains were outside trying to kill us. It just, I don’t know, made it more fun.”

“Sure, sure.” Threed turned to Cheri. “And you?”

Cheri thought about it. “The thing is, what’s crazy? I don’t like that word.”

“You were the one who used it,” I pointed out. 

“Referring to others, sure.” She licked her teeth, then winked. “But okay, here’s one of my recent ones—at the siege of the Orion Complex, before we all joined you,” she nodded my way, “I found these safety harnesses on the ship, and pulled Ezra aside.”

“No shit?” Threed nodded enthusiastically. “Details.”

Cheri glanced over to Ezra where he was laughing, Erupa and the fairy lady at his side. She pointed at them. “Those two, they were with us, right? But not the mermaid yet.”

“Wait, mermaid?” Threed looked around, confused. 

“She… stayed on the ship,” Cheri admitted. “Didn’t want the extra attention. So, point is, we convince Ezra this won’t take long, and I get him in the harnesses, totally tied up and unable to move, then had Erupa use her claws and remove his pants. Don’t worry, we had uniforms on board, so he could switch out afterwards. I forgot to check first, but luckily we did anyway.”

“And if there hadn’t been?” I laughed, shaking my head at the thought of this. 

“We don’t need pants to be superheroes, do we?” Cheri winked. “So there he is, tied up, looking uncertain, hanging kind of sideways, so that the mermaid started eating out his ass while I went down on him—though that’s a confusing choice of words, because we actually got it situated where we pulled him up and she was on the ledge above, me below but able to stand as I did it.”

“This image is confusing.” Threed frowned. “Confusing, but I like it.”

“Right?” Cheri grinned. “When he was close, I switched him around with an easy maneuver of the harnesses, then took the first round of riding him. It was so amazing, the straps holding him there like he was floating, so riding him felt like some trapeze act, and the others were watching like I was the star of a circus act. He kept going on about the pain of the straps, but when I asked if he wanted to stop, he said hell, no. That was the funny part—he probably still has raw marks from those straps, but he was going all in on it, so that when I finished he even got Tink off—and she was making it interesting, flapping her wings to add to the action. Erupa or the mermaid were going next, but… that’s when duty called. Probably why she’s all over him now. Erupa I mean—horny psychobitch.”

“Fuck, I can’t top that,” Threed said. “Looks like I’ll have to up my game with Drew.”

Cheri beamed, as if she’d won, but then looked my way. “Any more?”

“Nothing like that. Just… a special memory. One that stood out for me. When we…” I froze, my mind going back to the moment, images of Supralines. The memory was too much, so instead of getting into the details, I blurted out, “Hot springs. Out in the open… Just a beautiful moment.”

And it really had been, but something about being on that world again had felt off, sending a chill through my spine at the memory of it.

I leaned back, looking these ladies over. They weren’t bad-looking at all, and I could see how these guys were into them. Another thought struck me—they were as crazy I was, on the outside, but we were all kind of on the same level. A bit out there, with sordid, or at least confusing, pasts, but all equally devoted to this new path of the hero. 

All the stories, everything shared, it was all on the canvas of this knowledge, creating the most stunning image I could have imagined. We three represented, in my mind, a change in our side of the universe. A move toward accepting others for who they were meant to be, not who they’d once been. 

Cheri had an amused look in her eyes, while Threed had started telling us a story. Something about a time when she’d been a child and waved goodbye to her family, not realizing at the time the difference between bad and good, and that they were flying off to do supervillain work. 

“How funny that I’d end up here,” Threed finished, waving a hand around in a grand gesture to show she meant much more with the word ‘here’ than this bar. 

“You know they think we’re crazy, right?” Cheri said, thumb caressing the head of the small teddy bear that hung from the hilt of her sword. In her case, and maybe Threed’s, I wasn’t surprised. 

“Nobody think’s I’m crazy,” I countered. “Eccentric, a bit out there, maybe.”

“They think you’re nuts,” Threed replied. “But there’s nothing wrong with that. Now my sister, she was batshit crazy.” She suddenly perked up. “Wait, both of you—yeah, you all just came from Abaddon, right? My sister was there. She wasn’t exactly on the good side of the fence, but still, I’ve kind of been planning a way to bring her over to our side, to get her to come over, to convert to being a superhero someday.”

“That’s sweet,” I said. “If I can come over, anyone can.”

“Right…” Threed frowned, then leaned forward in anticipation. “I don’t suppose anyone in your group came across a woman there that went by the name of Plague?”

I frowned, then shrugged. “Oh, fuck. Yeah, we killed her.” The words had blurted out of my mouth before I’d had a chance to even think them through. It was a simple statement. A truth. 

And yet, the look of horror and contempt that came over Threed. 

“Oh, fuck,” Cheri said, then turned to me. “Fuck.”

“Your sister…?” I gulped, feeling sick. 

Threed was staring at me, mismatched eyes shifting back and forth as if trying to decide if I’d just made a horrible joke. The blue one started to twitch, and then she leaned back. 

“Fuck!” she shouted. Then took her glass, downed it, and threw it at the wall so that it shattered. “FUCK!” 

“Threed, I’m…” I started, but she took my glass now and threw that, too. 

“You’re what?” Threed asked, exploding. 

“I’m sorry that happened. None of us knew…”

“I know,” she replied. “But that’s part of the problem. Everyone only knew her as the supervillain, not the woman I knew her to be. There was a loving, caring side to her. At least, once. A long time ago, there was.” 

“Control yourselves,” a man said, walking off to take a piss but stopping to stare at the broken glasses. “This isn’t your fucking living room.”

“And fuck you, too!” Threed said. 

Ezra started towards us, seeing that there was a problem, but he wasn’t fast enough. The super had made a lewd gesture Threed’s way, calling her crazy, and Cheri had reacted to that—lunging for him. A woman moved quickly, darting into her way to try and push her back, but Cheri’s voices must’ve warned her because she had already changed her trajectory, coming up and under the woman to punch her in the back and then leap, hitting the man with a good punch across the jaw. 

Two more supers were up then, one a large woman who thundered over and would’ve caught Cheri if not for Threed intervening by shoving a table into her path, causing the lady to topple over and fall on a short man. He was up now, not seeing her but another super who was about to attack us, but got punched by this guy instead. 

Fuck it, I thought as two more supers moved for Threed and Cheri. I whooped, sweeping the feet out from under one and shoving the next to hit the table beside me, where he caught a punch from Threed. 

Soon a few more supers were in the mix. We were all letting out our aggression and having a great time, none of us using our powers or really trying to hurt each other. 

“ENOUGH!” Ezra shouted, pushing himself up onto one of the tables. “Cheri, come on. Really?” 

She paused with the rest of us, fist pulled back to punch the large lady. She dropped her fist and grinned at him, only to be punched by the woman. Ezra shook his head, as Cheri went back in, biting her opponent’s thigh, but then a group of supers moved in, pulling everyone apart. 

“What’s wrong with you?” one of them shouted. “This isn’t the place for brawls. Are you crazy?” 

Cheri looked like she was about to lunge for him, but instead turned to me and winked, then laughed as they escorted Threed an dherher to the doors. I followed close behind, ducking into the crowd and hoping nobody noticed me. So much for us actually taking on the role of superhero right away. Barely on the job, and already starting bar fights. 

Hey, at least we were trying. And at the moment, I felt closer to these ladies than I could’ve imagined.