A few were caught by desperate shots from desperate men, some of them collapsing to the ground, but most kept moving as adrenaline and battle-lust made them ignore their injuries.
The bloody work of the Troglodyte blades and the Amazon spears that he witnessed that day would haunt Adrian Shaw for the rest of his life.
Watching from the edge of the trees, Olena’s eyes were glowing green again.
“My curse unfolds.” The Witch said flatly, all enmity between her and Adrian forgotten in the face of the carnage; “Now we save as many as we can.”
Chapter 10:
Dismembered
It was chaos on the field.
Monster girls were everywhere, killing the humans with wild abandon.
Tristan narrowly ducked under a Trog’s massive blade, falling flat on his back and firing his caster at her desperately.
His first shot took her in the thigh, but he heard the most unpleasant of sounds from his weapon when he made to fire again.
Click.
The lizard girl hissed at him, sending chills down his spine as she stumbled towards him, hampered by her injury but still hell-bent on ending him.
“Shit, shit shit!” Tristan scrambled backwards across the harsh ground.
The wounded monster’s blade thunked into the earth between his legs, drawing an unmanly yelp from his lips as she continued to curse and hiss at him.
Nearby Carl, one of the last prisoners standing, took up a dead man’s flamer and let loose with it, but the deadly weapon was quickly contained in a glowing green cage of force, the fire rebounding back on the hapless man.
Tristan stumbled to his feet, but everywhere he looked men were dying.
“Hey buddy!” An unfamiliar male voice called, causing him to turn; “Here catch!”
The smuggler had good reflexes and snatched the little object before it could hit him, thinking it to be a power cell for his pistol, but the shape was all wrong and as he opened his hand and looked to see what it was he balked.
“Oh shi-”
Before he could do anything the strobe Adrian had just tossed him went off, blinding him and searing his hand.
The widower had finally found a use for it.
Unfortunately before the Aegis mechanist could be too smug about it, one of the Trogs tackled him to the ground, briefly mistaking him for one of the bad guys.
After that the blinded Tristan was able to stumble away, though he quickly tripped over the canvas of a lean-to and ended up on his hands and knees in the muck, listening as the sounds of battle tapered off all around him.
His vision still greatly hampered, he crawled amongst the dead as he strove to escape the fate that was befalling his men.
Once he thought he was clear of the fighting he stood; blurry trees nearby promised safety, if he could just reach them…
But then a dreaded voice sounded to one side of him.
“We meet again, Tristan Grove.”
He turned at Alcaia’s words, recognizing her voice immediately, even if all he saw of her was shape and colour.
After all, one of the last times she’d spoken to him was when she and her sisters bathed him and his crew in their village, thinking them to be Aegis personnel and treating them as such.
Alcaia and her bond-mate had bathed him personally; it remained one of his favorite memories from his time as their honoured guests.
He suspected that might be one of the reasons she was upset with him.
“Uh… hey?”
As last words go, he could have done better.
Before his mind could properly register the danger and react to it, his grip slackened and his useless pistol fell to the ground when Alcaia drove her spear through his chest.
But some time ago Olena of the Seven Crooked Sticks and Three Lost Stones had cursed his death, and those of his cohorts, to be as unpleasant as possible. So the Amazon leader, who had never missed a heart-thrust in her life, stumbled on a hidden stick at the last second, her spear going slightly off target and puncturing his lung instead.
Gripping the bloody haft of her weapon with his uninjured hand, his eyes went wide and he gasped for air that would not come.
Frowning at her seeming carelessness, Alcaia jerked her spear back and free of his chest, the broad-bladed tip slicing deep into his grasping hand to add insult to mortal injury.
She stepped forwards to finish him, but a cry of pain from one of her sisters drew her attention and once she returned to the field she forgot about him entirely.
It would take ten minutes for Tristan to drown in his own blood, gurgling and wheezing in white hot agony the entire time.
Shortly afterwards the last of the shooting finished and Adrian stood up off of the ground with a groan, the lizard girl had moved on when she realized her mistake, but he blanched almost immediately when he took in the sight of her and her victorious sisters.
Blood was dripping from their chins as they ate the genitals of their defeated foes.
With ruthless efficiency the Trogs moved from one to the next, even those who were still alive, especially those who were still alive, and with one jerk of their sharp claws they would ruin them.
Their screams were agonizing to listen to.
“It is their way, Aegis.” An older Amazon helping one of her wounded sisters to the ground said from nearby; “These men killed their kin. Worse, they did so with cursed lost-tech rather than their own strength. So they will be unmanned and left to bleed out. It is barbaric, but after all of those they took from us, I have no sympathy.”
The memory of Cheri’s smiling face was enough for Adrian to agree with her, however reluctantly. Shaking aside the grisly nature of the Trogs’ revenge he moved to help the Amazon tend to her sister.
Dreary and exhausting work followed the battle; the wounded had to be cared for, the dead seen to, the remaining weaponry had to be collected and the fires Adrian’s sabotage had caused needed to be put out.
It was some hours later before the exhausted man sat on a log with a bowl of food untouched in his lap.
Around him, Amazon and Troglodyte alike were celebrating their victory; some with boisterous laughter, others with unchecked emotion.
“Wishing that you were one of the lucky ones in the dirt?” Olena remarked as she took a seat beside him.
Reminded of their earlier argument, if it could even be called that, he let out a huff.
“I don’t want to die Olena. But… maybe I don’t really know how to live anymore either. It’s easier to just keep moving forwards, to focus on something more important than me. For months now that was stopping the people that killed everyone I care about. Earlier, it was destroying that cache of weapons.”
She heard him out, and then was silent for a while, twisting a needle between her fingers as if she were contemplating using it.
Eventually she spoke into the night.
“And so what will you do now I wonder.”
The way she phrased it didn’t seem like a question, more like she wasn’t talking to him at all.
Like he really was already one of the dead.
He sighed as he took up his bowl, giving up on appeasing the Witch and forcing himself to eat.
“I need to get back to Garland with these weapons. I’ve been gone for way too long and the Aegis needs to know… they need to know everything.”
He shuddered suddenly at the memory of the Trogs’ gory feast.
“You will not go alone.” Alcaia spoke from behind him, making him jump; “I will not allow the remainder of this lost-tech to fall into more hands such as these. And it is past time I found Myrina and my daughter. With so many of our people gone, I… they need to come home.”
He didn’t miss the way her voice caught, nor the stain of fresh tears on her face.
Thirteen of her warriors and four of the Troglodytes had perished, with another dozen wounded between them.
And that was on top of all that they had lost before the battle, when Tristan and h
is crew were posing as the Aegis.
“Thank you, Elda for your part today.” Alcaia continued; “I witnessed some of the things you did with Adrian’s blood.”
Olena laughed, low and dark.
“You should see what I can do with his cum.”
Nearly finished his food, Adrian choked and turned scarlet.
“We don’t need to talk about that. Ever.”
The Witch tilted her head to one side.
“I will accompany you as well.” She declared.
Seeing their surprise she shrugged nonchalantly.
“What? Despite this idiot’s death-wish, this has been the most fun I’ve had in years.”
Though Alcaia laughed bitterly at Olena’s macabre attitude, Adrian shook his head slowly; the death and destruction they had faced together could hardly be described as ‘fun’!
“Alright then, I guess we head back to civilization.”
But even as he spoke the two monster girls saw the conflicted expression on his face.
Tristan and his men had been about as much ‘civilization’ as the widower could handle.
__________
While Adrian dreamt of peace, far away a nightmare was playing out.
In a series of secret caves beneath the mountains south of Algrade, a lone human walked amongst a horde of Tenebrae.
Jonathan Pym was all skin and bones, unable to stomach food after the things he’d seen from his bond-mate of late.
Evadne had changed, and not for the better.
She had always been cold and driven, in her quest for revenge thousands had perished on her claws over the centuries.
But this was different.
She was more willing now than ever before to kill, in fact it was not an exaggeration to call it her default approach.
She didn’t leave survivors behind anymore; even at great effort she would root them out and extinguish their lives with deliberate intent, no matter how insignificant or even nonexistent the threat they posed.
Lipton Falls was the first time that Jonathan had truly doubted their purpose in decades.
He’d seen her kill children before, even helped her when it came to snuffing out the other Empaths, but when she massacred the small mining town she sought them out.
As if murdering them made the pain of her own loss easier to bear.
Jonathan wrongly blamed himself.
The technique they now used exclusively to create Tenebrae was to twin the minds of captured monster girls with Evadne’s, then force them to relive the death of her family as if were their own.
Which meant she had to relive it too, over and over.
But what Jonathan didn’t realize is that although it was true that she wanted to snuff out as many human lives as possible to placate her grief, Evadne wasn’t the one who had sought out the children in Lipton Falls.
He didn’t fully understand what it was that he had witnessed when he’d seen her black-skinned doppelganger.
The… thing, looked just like her, but had a massive cock which it used to ravage her body and soul until her flesh turned just as black.
Afterwards the blackness faded from her skin, but he swore that he still saw it sometimes, out of the corner of his eye.
Naturally she’d told him to forget about it, to focus solely on their task.
She’d never explained it to him, and he’d never dared to ask, so he remained largely ignorant of the source of Evadne’s dark power.
And his ego had convinced him long ago that it was him and him alone who allowed her to remain sane as a Tenebrae.
In recent days, he wasn’t so sure anymore; because while he did not understand what entropy was, he’d seen the effect that using it had on her and was therefore afraid of it.
He swallowed his doubts and his fears as he approached her.
“Eve, we… we need to talk about the queen.” He began carefully.
Sitting on a stool in the dark, Evadne didn’t respond, her eyes tracing over the horde that they had created together, mentally tallying their forces.
“She can’t keep this up much longer.” Jonathan licked his lips.
Finally she looked at him.
“What’s the problem?”
She had always been cold to him, but this was a new level of indifference even for her.
He used to feel things from her; annoyance or hatred, even the love that bound them together, deep, deep down in her heart.
Now he might as well have been telling her about his favorite colour for how much she cared.
“As it is, she won’t be able to come with us.” He explained.
“Then we leave her.” Evadne directed her gaze at the other monster girls in the room; “By then we won’t need her.”
With that Jonathan was dismissed, not in words, but he felt her attention leave him and knew that it was dangerous for him to try to regain it without a good reason.
He shuddered as he went back among the Tenebrae to finish his task for the day, leaving Evadne alone with her dark thoughts.
Well, sort of alone.
Taking so many alive was quite the coup for us, my dear girl, but if you’re not careful you might have to deal with your little pet.
“He’s fine.” She muttered; “And it doesn’t matter if he isn’t, he’ll do what I tell him either way.”
Ah! Is it vanity I wonder?
“Don’t be absurd. I have one purpose and one alone. Your purpose.”
She felt a wave of smug satisfaction in her heart, and silence fell in her thoughts, for a short while at least.
What is it with you and those things anyways?
The Chimera blinked and looked to her hand, habitually crushing walnuts one after another.
She didn’t respond, and it didn’t matter; the herald of entropy got the answer from her mind almost as soon as she noticed what she had been doing.
Ah of course, the sound of his neck, snapping. So long ago. Poor Evadne, if only I had the power to bring him back that you might snap it again.
She sniffed, watching on as a nervous Jonathan had the Tenebrae herd more of their fearful ‘recruits’ into the chamber, the poor girls unknowingly waiting to experience the worst day of the Chimera’s life.
Her black claws crushed another walnut, listening to the sound carefully to see how close it came to the sound of Malcolm Contrail’s neck when she killed him.
Immediately afterwards she had regretted how quickly his end was, and so for centuries she’d tried to recreate the exact moment, like a child attempting to soothe themselves by sucking their thumb.
Walnuts had always been the closest.
You’d think other necks would be, but for whatever reason that wasn’t the case.
Another snap as she crushed another nut.
“Wouldn’t that defeat the point? Bringing more life into this world?” She finally muttered without caring in the least.
The demon chuckled inside of her head, the silent sound grating and vile.
I’d make an exception for you, my pet. But come, we have more work ahead. Dwell upon the moment you killed him the first time, perhaps it will help get you through the pain your new human has to inflict upon you.
It would almost seem as though the demon was looking out for her, but that was not the case, that was never the case.
The ground shook as the monster girls still in possession of their willpower moved, and Evadne made sure to keep a wary eye on them; if any of the massive girls decided to resist she would need to make another example.
But they didn’t: compassion for the Tenebrae around them had robbed them of their strength.
Strength that she had a use for.
Once the girls were in position and Jonathan had all of their heartstones in hand, the danger passed.
Her pet Empath turned to her, swallowing involuntarily as he met her dark eyes with his.
His hands were trembling as he held them out to her, the shining blue heartstones pooled in his palms like little sp
heres of water.
Evadne drew in a deep breath before casting aside the remains of one last nut.
“Let’s get this done.”
She set her blackened stone on top of the pile, the darkness within it spreading to the others, an inky cancer.
Chapter 11:
Heated Emotions
It was hot.
An uncomfortable heat wave had descended on Garland in the days following Nameless’s dreary assignment to play book-keeper to the lawkeepers.
By some miracle he was spared from yet more dreaded paperwork and had been dismissed for the day shortly after lunch.
He wasn’t wasting the freedom.
His chest rose and fell as he let out an unsteady sigh, his face and ears flushed and sweat beading on his brow to trickle down his temples onto the pillow. He was lying on his back with Ophelia draped over him, one heavy breast resting on his belly.
His Flutterby was curled around him, her left arm resting next to his hip, propping her up. All he could see of her was her violet wings and the naked expanse of her back, from the curve of her ass up to the nape of her neck.
The back of her head kept appearing in his view as she rhythmically bobbed up and down, his rigid cock in her mouth.
With one hand he traced over her shoulders and spine, his hand frequently drifting low to squeeze her ass cheeks, occasionally slipping between them to slide a finger inside her. Because of the angle he couldn’t get his digit deep enough inside her to really do anything, but he felt the surges of appreciation from her at the attention all the same.
They were both completely silent, the soft suckling of her lips and wet noises whenever her mouth broke its seal with his cockhead all that could be heard in the muggy room.
They had been having sex a few minutes prior, but Nameless kept overheating on top of his beloved Flutterby.
Even with the windows of the apartment open the air was warm and unmoving, its occupants begging for the mercy of a cool breeze.
His flagging cock had gone soft inside her for the third time before she rolled off of him and set herself to finish what he couldn’t.
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