trans_9 | The Wrath of Neutro

She lets her weigh arch back, pressing her round chest to his broad one, kissing the great fool, waiting to feel his grip falter, his mouth quiver and sag, and him to slump and slide and finally topple down, down, down to his death!

She waits, kissing him.

She waits a little bit longer, and still he is showing no signs of slumping or quivering or falling over.

Finally, delicately, she disengages her mouth from his. Leaning even farther back, until the wings of her headdress brush her shoulders and the torthlight gleams red off the gems in her brassiere, she whispers huskily, "Do you feel the fires of Egypt in your blood?" Her eyes search his face for flushing, mottling, unexpected hemorrhaging, but there is nothing of the sort. He's just - holding her.

"Ain't all I'm feeling." comes the simple response, still showing no signs of having any intention of collapsing. He continues to hold her as if she weighed nothing, one hand at her lower back, supporting her weight, the other moving upward. He's done the one-handed bra removal trick more than once... occasionally more than once a night, and if there's one thing he's learned from being married to Julie, costume bras tend to be even easier... ~~saying nothing about the girls who tend to wear them.~~ He just needs to make sure the timing is right, play out the scene, and not let on what he's up to, looking into her eyes the entire time.

She stares back, caught in the brace of his arm. No glaze to his eyes, no tremor to his voice, no sudden bleeding from any of the visible orifices.

The pressure of his arm was - something to be ignored. The Lady commanded that she destroy these intruders, and she would. Without question.

"Then feel my truest kiss!" She opens her lips, breathes in deep, and clenches her upper arms against her sides, making her cleavage deepen and throb. A slender golden asp slithers from its nest inside her well-padded bra cup, rears like a gleaming whip and spits into the Earthling's face. Spits not poison but pheromones: pheromones that would enslave him utterly, turning him into a will-less (and admirably well-built) puppet under her total control.

The smell rises in the air, musk and opium touched with an aura of crushed hope and broken dreams, and she smiles in total triumph.

Poison doesn't work well. Female pheromones, even of the normal sort, however, have always been his truest weakness. Any acting going on before fades at the hit, the passion for the Blood Queen intensified.

One thing, and one thing alone saves the situation. Specifically: whether acting on his own, or under control of snake-delivered pheromones, he wants to get her bra off.

His hand twists, unhooking the costume top with a deft motion, pulling the titanic twin cups away from her chest.

No matter what teen boys try and convince their girlfriends of, you cannot usually make the world better with making out and getting to second base. These situations are to be appreciated when they do come up.

The bra comes loose and releases a shower of crumpled papyrus. Through some miracle of personal magnetism, two scraps cling to Anwei's bared breasts in just the right places to preserve her modesty.

Her mind does not fare so well. She feels the world blow away, diminishing into a tiny spark, and she slumps boneless over Chase's arm, unconscious. She may or may not still be breathing.

Thankfully, when the Blood Queen goes out, so does her pheromonal control. He cradles her up in one arm and carries her to the nearest altar - for some reason, this place has a ton of them. Wouldn't you just need one?
He sets her down, checking her pulse first, then her breathing, careful about giving her mouth to mouth.

Her breath is barely there, and then it hitches in her throat, once, and she gasps.

She opens her eyes and looks up at Chase standing over her, broad shoulders and blond hair highlighted by the torchlight, and her face splits in the happiest, most innocent smile imaginable: the smile of a delighted child who has never been hurt.

"Eri!" she nearly sings – and then stops.

Her smile freezes and then opens wide, wider, wide as her mouth can open and she is screaming, screaming at the rune-painted ceiling far above them, screaming to raise dust from the stones and send the night-insects winging away in protest. She thrashes against the altar, twisting like a hurt animal, and she screams.

"WHAT HAVE I DONE?"

He stands over her, and... he's seen that expression. He hasn't been innocent a day in his life. As a puppy, he was kicked, beaten with a stick and starved to make him a mean S.O.B. His first day of full sentience was a bloodbath, and ever since then, sex and violence have been the staples of life.

But he's seen that expression in others. Knows what it means - and its heartbreaking every time he sees it shattered... as, in his world, it inevitably is. His world is not a nice place.

He pulls himself up on the altar, petting her hair as soothingly as he can manage and offering her a shoulder to cry on.

"Anwei... shhh, its ok."

Anwei is locked in utter panic; only her oldest reflexes, ones forced into her as a child, keep her from biting and tearing at Chase, at herself, at the stones under her.

They found me. They found me. They found me. They found me. They found me and they caught me, they put the crown on my head and they're going to- Her face convulses madly: her right eye is rolling wild, desperately looking for a visual display that isn't there, and her throat trembles as she sub vocalizes, over and over again, no and no and stop and rescue and away and no, no, no.

She sits up, too fast, nearly smashing her forehead into Chase's shoulder. She sobs, open-mouthed, once. The shuddering that looks hard enough to shake flesh from bone slows, but does not entirely stop as she croaks, "I – I'm, where am I?" She looks up at him, eyes wide and wet. "How did you get here?"

The violence after everything doesn't surprise him too much. He keeps a hand on her until her head hits his shoulder, then his arm goes around her shoulders.

The whole plot so far has hi tempted to keep up the snark, but he figures 'You're topless on an altar with a bodybuilder who just ripped your top off, but don't worry, this isn't that kind of movie' - wouldn't go over well at all. This is about the extent of his restraint and tact, ever, so appreciate it.

"You were on an away mission, someone on the planet mind controlled a few of you and turned you into villains. We're here to rescue you and figure out what's behind all this. Howard followed a signal down."

"Away mission." She swallows, audibly. "I remember that." They'd been walking through the rags of brush and everything had blurred, and she'd started to think - wrong.

Think wrong, she clings to that. It was mind control, it was something outside of her, it wasn't - she wasn't -

She is still shaking, all over, and the warmth of his arm over her shoulders is the only thing that seems real. Her eyes are out of sync, darting around the temple and reassuring herself that all of it - withered skeletons, hieroglyphic-slashed walls, bloodied floor, torches that realistically must have taken hours to light and put into position - all of it was different. Alien. Not of the Empire. She wasn't caught.

"Howard is here?" That didn't seem much like him, but then there was - "Sakura. Lash. They - they're changed too, aren't they. And oh my God," she raised one hand and clapped it to her face, "I've said the most horrible things about Nu-, about Zouichi! And thought them too!"

Both her eyes lock on Chase's face. "Where are they?!"

He keeps his arm around her long as she's so unsteady. Much as this usually isn't him, very quietly, he can be a good shoulder to cry on.

"Howard is here, I think they went after Z. Jaime is here too... the two of us were who was around when Howard found out something was wrong." He doesn't respond to the bit about bad thoughts... he's fine working with Z, and can appreciate ability... he just doesn't like him personally.

"As for Lash, she's somewhere in this complex. Soon as we collect you, if Beetle hasn't found her first, we're gonna go track her down and give her a spanking next, and rescue Sakura... and if we're really lucky, Percival will get shot and die dramatically somewhere in the process."

"And they're all all right, right? They all escaped me. I - she was so certain you would never escape." The Blood Queen, and what twisted perversity of alien technology had rummaged through her mind and found that? Whatever it was, she wanted it melted to slag. Or gas, even.

"Percival Phoenix. The preening - no. I," she blinks again, "I don't know who he is. But he might be a real person too, trapped in this. I can see," she lets her head loll back, staring up at the ceiling, "I can see why Stacy sent us to destroy this - whatever this is. Can you imagine what would happen if it was used on the ship? If that crew all started finding their evil sides?"

On the other hand, maybe people like Lord Zetta would find their good sides. But the potential trade-off probably isn't worth it.

She is still feeling distinctly trembly about the stomach, but she thinks she can move. She looks at the golden bra lying on the steps of the altar like two bronzed scoops of ice cream, then at her own considerably smaller chest (where the shards of papyrus were still defending her dignity). Then she looks at Chase.

And she laughs. "And - and - thank you for removing the mind control bra," she wheezes, cracking up. Her laugh has more than a hint of hysteria to it, but it is mostly just a laugh.

"I'll be happy to remove your clothing any time." he teases, helping her to her feet as soon as she looks ready for it. "Seriously though - yeah, Percy might be real. Or he might be getting ready to do a big heel turn on us and be the real bad guy. Either way, I trust him less than I trusted you as the Blood Queen... at least I had some idea of what you were up to." he replies.

"As for escaping... to this point, just following the plot, cause I was pretty sure without that, we wouldn't be allowed to get to the bottom of all this $#!&. Now... I'm done with mazes."

He hefts Truck Stop again and moves to the wall, taking a swing, sashing prop stone wall out of the way to make for a much more direct route.

"C'mon, we got some @$$ to kick still so we can get everyone home. You want a gun?"

She picks up the bra and hefts it - very heavy, and she probably still has bruises across her shoulders from its straps. There was a square outlined on the inside of one cup, and she pries it open with her fingernail. The circuitry inside yields quite readily to the pressure of that nail, circuits cracking, and she slings the bra over her shoulder a little more confident that it wasn't going to do anything except lift and squish on command. The rest of her costume can be adjusted to cover its absence.

"Wait, I need to do one thing." She gets down on one knee and looks around the base of the altar, where a narrow crack oozes vile fumes. "Hoooooo, Hoo-Hoo. Come out, little Hoo-Hoo," she croons.

After a few seconds, the tiny golden asp pokes its nose into sight. The nose trembles; the snake had been terrified by the entire business of shouting and spitting and being tossed about. Carefully, Anwei took the snake up behind the head - it was not much longer than her hand - and carried it to a narrow crack in the wall, where beetles and spiders gave promise of much feastings to come. She puts the snake down and it slithers out of sight.

"Goodbye, Hor-Ankh," she whispers, and knuckles at her eyes. Then she turns back to Chase, and those eyes light with righteous fury.

"If you've got a gun I can handle, I'll take it. If not, I'll just use my hands. I'm going to &*!@ those &$*-/ until their &$%#( %$`@! bleed out of their (*&##." She smiles. "And their mothers, too, if they have any."

"Amen to that." he agrees, offering over Bubblegun - which, despite its name, is a hand cannon of a pistol, but he figures she can probably manage it. Especially since it does have a little bit of magic to it - hopefully enough.

"We don't even know who those $%*@#$%&(@ are, but we'll figure it out. I like the way you're thinking." he replies, pausing long enough to tear down one of the fake Egyptian tapestries. "By the bye, put this on, will probably work better than what you're wearing now." he replies, offering her an easy option to make up for the lack of the boulder holder.

"Death's blessing to all those who deserve it," she agrees, taking the gun. Heavy, and probably has quite the kick, but she's practiced with Earth firearms.

"It may not even be a #$%&(@. Could be automated equipment. Hopefully not bulletproof." She takes the tapestry - it shreds under her fingers into strips which just happen to be perfect for covering herself - and ends up slinging it around her neck, tucking the trailing ends into her girdle. As soon as her chest is covered the papyrus scraps all fall off and blow away.

"Are we chasing Lash, or meeting somewhere else? Because," she frowns, "no, I remember how to get to the Death Fortress. And - I think we should get there soon. Doctor Lady Deathtru-, I mean Lash, is building something that's almost done. She believes it will reach orbit. Where Stacy is."

"That gun is magical, all my weapons are. Normal one of those will punch through an engine block, that one will break cinderblocks. You ought to be good there.... and yeah, let's hit the fortress. Everyone else can catch up. Nice as it'd be to wander around til we're one big happy family, we got to take this thing down... besides, maybe, if we hurry, it'll take Percy a while to find us."

The Wrath of Neutro

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)

Re: THE BLOOD QUEEN COMES CLEAN (Anwei, part of the rescue team)