by E. M. Hardy
Warning! You are currently being affected by Infernal Hunger!
Yes, he was most definitely under a quarter of his total life points. The familiar cravings continued tugging at him, annoying him into seeking out a meal.
“Hey, Kris… would you mind helping me out with an experiment?”
Kristina visibly perked up, her eyes sparkling, before she coughed discreetly into her fists to hide the desire spilling out from her face. “What kind of experiment did you have in mind?”
“Oh, just a little perk I picked up recently. One of my skills metamorphosed again, and I think it should help you recover some life points.”
“Hm. Sounds innocent enough. Right, I’m game.” Kristina wasn’t fooling anyone with her attempt at nonchalance, but Glenn just let it slide as he requested Ynnistoria to cast Link Life on his friend with benefits.
Glenn winced as he felt pricks and tingles all over his body. The sensation must have been indicative of his life points being transferred through the link, pouring right into Kristina. He also felt a distinct sense of tension, of unease flow through him—tension that revolved around words and images in his mind’s eye.
Leap to close in, Meteor Crush to open with AoE damage, BackBlink to avoid Reprisal, Counter if they try to follow up with a heavy attack. If Counter connects, follow up with Cyclone to take advantage of Counter’s stun effect. If Counter fails or they activate a Reprisal, consume BackBlink’s second charge and try to connect with a WarCry. If enemy teammates come to help, use Fortify and hold their aggro until Pincushion or Nemesis can peel for me…
Faster, faster, faster. Not just speed, though. Gotta fight smart and tricky too. Bait them into overcommitting, or crowd them out of the point. Don’t get baited, and don’t let them box you out. Can’t disappoint coach again. Can’t disappoint fans. Gotta stay on top. Can’t let the Cavalry or Comets knock us out of the preliminaries. Already been seeded down from losing to the Whirlwinds. Gotta react faster—always FASTER!
Show mom that a woman can be more than a baby-popping vagina on two legs. Show dad that I can make it on my own two feet, that I can keep making it big as an e-athlete and that I’m not just talking out of my ass. Show the young punks that I can still hand them their asses even if I’m almost to my 30’s. Their nerves might have the APM, but they don’t have half the tricks up my sleeve. Show them all, show them all, SHOW THEM ALL!
Glenn gasped as the emotionally-charged memories flooded through his mind and into his soul. He had always read that e-athletes lived stressful lives with strict training regimens. He didn’t quite expect it to be that brutal, especially when he considered e-athletes washing out as soon as they hit their mid-20’s. Their reaction times slowed down by an average of one twentieth of a second when compared to younger competitors. Fifty milliseconds might not sound like a lot, but they added up over the course of a match—never mind a career.
Kristina, on the other hand, gave a lazy, lopsided grin as her shoulders slumped and her eyes glazed over. She rolled her eyes shut while she groaned, not out of pain or misery but out of complete and utter contentment.
Ynnistoria: I recommend exercising caution, Glenn. Link Life absorbs mental and spiritual damage, but I cannot identify any resource meter connected to this damage. It is entirely possible that you could absorb more mental damage than you can take.
Glenn nodded in confirmation, thinking his reply back to his digital assistant. Thanks for the advice, Ynnie. I’d still like to see how far I can push it, but I promise I’ll pull back if I feel I can’t take it anymore. Please be ready to disconnect Link Life the moment I give the word.
Ynnistoria: Confirmed, Glenn. Please be careful.
Glenn turned his attention back to Kristina, who now slumped on his couch wearing an oblivious grin on her face.
“Hey, Kris. How do you feel?”
“Faaan-tastic,” drawled his friend, still smiling stupidly to herself with closed eyes. “I d’nno wh’t yer doin,’ but ahm lervin’ it.”
Glenn frowned at her tone, suddenly worried that his new ability may have some narcotic effect, when Kristina cracked open one eye and started giggling to herself.
“I know that look, Glenn, and you can relax. I’m just messing around with you. I’m not kidding about how great this feels, though. It’s just… I feel great! Not I’m-high-as-a-kite great, or meh-it’s-so-so, great. It’s like that feeling when I have a really good day at practice, where everything goes right, and I kicked so much ass kind of great… that satisfied feeling of everything just coming together perfectly, you know?”
Glenn nodded at Kristina’s goofy reply, matching her contented smile with one of his own. Seeing her so happy, so satisfied, made him just as happy and satisfied as well. The pain that came through the connection, the fears and anxieties and expectations that Kristina bore—all those washed away as Glenn basked in her delight.
Glenn Olson
Life Points: 339/2,980*
Warning! You are currently being affected by Infernal Hunger!
Kristina Hooper
Life Points: 477/700* (approximate)
Cut the connection, please.
Glenn groaned in relief as Ynnistoria severed Link Life, ending the transfer of both life points and psychic damage. Kristina startled, blinking herself back to consciousness, before yawning and stretching the kinks out of her shoulders.
“Woah. That… felt terrific. Haven’t felt this refreshed since… hell, since forever! What was that?”
“Link Life,” Glenn replied, wincing as a wave of fatigue washed over him. “I basically sucked up all your negative emotions into myself while giving you a portion of my own life points.”
He suddenly found himself exhausted, utterly drained from the encounter, and he couldn’t help but plop himself heavily upon his couch. He shifted his tentacles to form small springy pillows, cushioning his weight as he leaned back and rubbed his suddenly sore eyes.
Kristina just stared blankly at Glenn, confusion all over her face. “Okay. Some sort of heal where you swap your health for mine. You also suck up the… uh… mental damage for me. Sounds cool. What I don’t get is why you thought it would be a good idea to do that. I mean, aren’t you low on life points right now?”
Glenn nodded wearily, mustering up the energy to smile. “Yeah… but there’s a second part to the test. You up for a session, Kris?”
The lady in question furrowed her brows and puckered her lips out in thought as she put a fist to her chin. Her thinking shifted then, away from the hungry sex bunny to the professional gamer searching for ways to min-max her build. She sat there, still thinking, when she perked her head up. “Wait… what did you call the skill that nabs life points when you get me off?”
“Indulge,” Glenn replied with a suppressed smile.
“Yeah… and what’s the conversion rate each time I squirt one out?”
He fought the temptation to nod, refusing to give Kristina any more hints because he knew full well where she was going with this. “I normally absorb ten percent of your life points, gaining double the points on my end. If I cast Soothe while we’re together, I absorb five percent while gaining quadruple the points.”
Kristina’s eyes widened, licking her lips in anticipation. “And what’s the conversion rate for Link Life? How many life points do you give me?”
“One percent of my current points per second,” he replied, no longer able to hold down his smile.
“That’s… you can just pump as many life points into me as you want, and keep getting more points back. Indefinitely, if nothing else limits the process. Holy shit… doesn’t that violate the law of conservation or something?”
Glenn tilted his neck, confused.
“Law of conservation of energy? Energy can neither be created nor destroyed? Come on, Glenn, I’m supposed to be the dumb one in our group, yeah?”
He scowled at that. �
��No, Kris, you never were the dumb one in the group. Bossy, pushy, somewhat crass—but never dumb.”
Kris snapped her mouth shut, jaw clenched. She narrowed her eyes at Glenn, yet she saw no hint of mockery or sarcasm there. She relaxed, letting her shoulders drop, and she chuckled nervously. That chuckle quickly died down as she began examining Glenn in a new light, her eyes roving up and down his mostly naked form.
“Yeah, I forgot I’m talking to a tentacle-wielding incubus that needs to fuck to stay alive. Guess the laws of nature aren’t as airtight as I thought they were.” She laughed at her own words even as she continued hungrily eyeing Glenn. “I’m also guessing that your new skill will change how our little sessions play out, huh?”
Glenn pursed his lips at that, gave himself a moment to think on it, and then nodded. “Yes, I can imagine using Link Life to top you up with life points when you get low. Then we can start from the top, with me Indulging you until your life points drop down once more before I top you up via Link Life once more. An endless loop of pleasure and ecstasy that will last as long as you want it to. Or at least that’s the plan since I’m not entirely sure how far I can push it. Never know how many orgasms the human mind can take before it starts unraveling. Only way to know is to try, I guess.
“So… are you up for a little more experimenting?”
Kristina’s smoldering gaze, naughty grin, and wagging eyebrows told Glenn all he needed to know about what she thought about his idea.
***
Kristina’s eyes rolled back in their sockets, her breaths coming in short, desperate gasps as Glenn brought her to climax for the twentieth time that morning.
Glenn gently set Kristina down on the bed, releasing her from the intimate embrace they found themselves in. “That’s it… you’re down to 170 life points.”
Kristina took a moment to cool down, recover from the effects of Soothe that muted the refractory period between orgasms. She continued panting even as her eyes fluttered, forcing them to focus on Glenn’s face.
“Sh…shit. That never gets old.”
Glenn chuckled as he leaned down, pecking her naked collarbone in affection. “I live to please, my mistress.”
Kristina started their session by throwing herself with eagerness at him, mounting him and riding away for the first few orgasms. She would normally begin to falter after the seventh, her body eventually giving in to the waves of pleasure that came with Soothe and Indulge working together. She would collapse into a boneless heap after the fourth time, and she would end up completely spent by the eighth time. Glenn would then be responsible for carrying on the session until he left her down to around a hundred life points—around twenty to forty times, depending on how many life points Kristina possessed when they began the session.
This time though, she found herself filled with renewed vigor, only starting to waver after the tenth orgasm. Still, she ended up bottoming out after the fifteenth orgasm, with Glenn carrying on until the final orgasm… at least for the moment.
Kristina covered her eyes with her arm and laughed out loud, breath hitching as the last waves of orgasm washed over her muscles. She lay there, recovering her breath and reorganizing her muddled post-coital thoughts. She peeked out from behind her arm as Glenn lay down, cuddling beside her as she basked in the afterglow.
“I’ll admit, the tentacles made me feel a bit iffy at first. I expected you to use those two big bastards like battering rams, like in those weird porn vids with the girls all screaming in pain and stuff.” She reached out, gave the tentacle rubbing her shoulder an affectionate pat. “Never thought you could use them so gently.”
“I did some research when I first got these a few days ago,” he said while Kristina snuggled in closer, nestling in between his shoulders and the tentacle looping around her body. “Most of the materials I found revolved around control and dominance, often with humiliation thrown into the mix. That approach doesn’t quite appeal to me. I did find an interesting sub-genre, though… con… consenta… something.”
“Consentacles?” Kristina interrupted, her brows shooting up in surprise.
“Yeah! Yeah, consentacles—I think that’s what it was. Mostly though, they function like extra legs or something. They help make moving around a lot easier, providing points to counterbalance my weight. They’re also pretty nifty for getting stuff.” He emphasized this point by shifting his body a little bit, one of his tentacles elongating and wrapping around a glass of water on a nearby table.
Kristina eyed that tentacle, accepting the glass and taking a quick sip of cool, refreshing water. “Thanks… and thanks for not poking those tentacles of yours where I don’t want them. Hemorrhoids are a bitch to deal with, you know?”
Glenn chuckled. “Well, I’ve been experimenting with ways to use tentacles other than for purely phallic purposes. For example…”
Kristina gently moaned in satisfaction as a tentacle massaged her exhausted muscles while Glenn slowly transferred life points with Link Life. “Oh, that feels absolutely delightful.”
His pliable member remained buried in Kristina’s slit, slick with their joined fluids, as she spooned closer into him. Kristina had been hesitant to cuddle after sex, tried to keep her distance after the deed was done, but she’d been surprisingly receptive to the intimacy after he used Link Life on her.
It was as if all her fears, all her insecurities, just melted away—allowing her to fully enjoy all the experiences that came with sex.
The spent woman tittered, smacking Glenn’s shoulder with a playful swat. “Looks like my big bad sex demon is actually a soft, mushy marshmallow inside. Who’da thunk it?”
Glenn chuckled along with the joke, squeezing her buttocks with a human hand. Her eyes glazed over, however, which he recognized as the classic sign of someone interacting with their HUD.
“Ah, sorry. Haze and Sam have been pinging me with messages for the past hour, telling me to check up on you and see if you’re all right. Seems like they saw the news as well.” Her eyes refocused back into reality and gave Glenn a quick once-over. “You don’t mind me telling them everything, right?”
“Sure, no problem,” he replied with a soft nod. Kristina’s eyes returned to their glazed state as she began interacting with her HUD once again.
Glenn continued lying down beside Kristina as his tentacles absent-mindedly massaged her exhausted body. That’s when Kristina snorted and started giggling uncontrollably, her body shaking in complete mirth.
“Hm? What’s so funny?”
“Open your HUD and check your inbox,” Kristina muttered as she tried her damnedest to tamp in her snickering.
Glenn cocked his head before doing as instructed.
Hazel: You have tentacles AND found a way to fuck indefinitely? You better wrap up with Kris in the next thirty minutes BECAUSE I’M ON MY WAY!!!
Glenn couldn’t help joining Kristina, both of them laughing openly now. Kristina’s giggling petered off though as she gave Glenn a long and considerate look.
“Glenn… I know today’s been a great lay and you just fucked my brains out a dozen times over. I’m sorry if I’m going to sound like a wet napkin, but… I… shit.” She huffed out in frustration, pressing her lips into a thin frown. “Right. No more putzing around. Where is this going, Glenn?”
Kristina’s quivering tone, her tightening grip around his arm, told Glenn that all traces of the earlier levity were gone. He turned to face her with equal sobriety, albeit returning a soft smile her way.
“What do you mean?”
Kristina hesitated for a bit, biting her lip in frustration, before nodding. “Look, I know that I came to this knowing that it’s all about sex. You need life points and I need a good lay every now and then. And it’s been enjoyable so far—especially now that you’ve got Link Life and those tentacles to keep me going for as long as I want.”
She inhaled deeply after that, crimping her lips together in dissatisfaction. “Bu
t what I saw this morning… you looked like a dead man gasping out his last breaths, Glenn. You scared me bad… and that’s when I knew you’re more than just another fuckbuddy to me.”
Kristina’s eyes remained locked on to Glenn’s, quivering with anxiety and anticipation. “So tell it to me straight, Glenn: where is all this going?”
Glenn nodded slowly, deliberately, as he processed Kristina’s words and studied her thoughts.
Kristina Hooper
Life Points: 580/700* (approximate)
Apprehensive. Hopeful. Worried.
Curious. Afraid. Eager.
Annoyed. Amused. Unimpressed.
“That’s not fair.”
Glenn jumped at Kristina’s soft hiss. She didn’t shout or scream, but she did push away from their intimate embrace—tentacles and all.
“You’re using that mind-reading skill of yours… Empathy, right?”
He grimaced before nodding sheepishly. “It’s less mind-reading, more mood-reading, to be honest.”
“That’s still not fair.” She huffed, crossing her arms over her exposed breasts as she sat up straight. She inhaled deeply, held her breath for an instant, and let it out in one explosive puff of breath.
“Fine. Fuck it. I’ll just come out and say it, then: I honestly, genuinely, care about what’s going to happen to you. The whole world knows demons exist now, Glenn. And if that’s not bad enough, we’ve got these aliens coming in from God-knows-where to hunt your kind down. I mean, I’m all for them cutting down those asshat demons out there, but you… you’ve got nothing to do with that!”
Glenn noted Kristina’s trembling lip, the white knuckles gripping her arm, and saw the fear behind it. She wasn’t afraid for herself—she was afraid for him.