by Prax Venter
He snapped his eyes up and saw Roo quietly sobbing as she gazed at the cake she baked- just for them.
“I’ll be back, Roo. I promise. And I’ll bring Ahnix and Vale with me. I swear on all the stars in the sky, we’ll come back for you.”
She blinked her black eyes at him once and a stream of tears came down in a constant runnel over her mask.
“I’m meant to be alone.”
Her words twisted in Mark’s heart, but he slapped the Back Button and left his love behind.
- 16 -
A violent flutter of air buffeted him from above as if he was launching upward into the very stars he just swore on. However, as before, Mark quickly found himself standing among the collection of infinite random items.
“Jezebel, you bitch,” he whispered, still not knowing how much of Roo’s suffering was intentional. The host AI did not give him the impression that this was some game for her. Mark shook his head to clear his thoughts.
Checking his Inventory, he saw the fusion reactor package and Roo’s doll still snugly in his possession. He closed his ethereal interface and scanned the tables arrayed in a room the size of a sprawling mega mart for items that felt like Ahnix and Vale. A bowl of wooden fruit, a mason jar filled with small eyeballs, a gem-encrusted spyglass… Mark’s eyes lingered on a full suit of black leather armor. It was neatly displayed on an iron armor stand and clearly molded for a female form. He wondered what would happen if he started taking everything.
A jolt of dull pain along his bond from Ahnix brought his focus back to what was important. Looking through all this shit was going to take way too long, so Mark closed out everything else and focused on their eternal connection. He let his bond guide his feet and after bumping into a few tables he felt a strong vibe from Vale- and she seemed nearly as sad as Roo.
Mark opened his eyes and found himself staring at a yellowed wedding dress. The lacy veil was torn in places, and this bride must have got down and rolled around in mud. Mark held his hand out to the garment emitting a strong connection to his giant naga, and it vanished off the splintered wooden post.
Was Vale dreaming about getting married?
“Only one way to find out,” Mark said out loud as he turned inward and accessed his inventory. There was a new line of text waiting for him there under Roo’s.
TCH-U Core Matrix [giant_naga_royal.793]
He took a deep breath and tapped Vale’s core file. Again, the world rushed past as he surged downward, smaller.
“Mark!” Vale shouted, and he turned to see his beautiful giant naga standing by an open window. She was packed tightly into a pure white wedding gown that forced him to update his definition of cleavage. White, fingerless gloves covered her arms to her elbows, and her dusky, charcoal skin contrasted spectacularly with the pure white dress. The glittering ruffled lace hung in elegantly layered strips, stopping just after her snake half took over. Her lustrous platinum hair was intricately styled with complex braids and flowing strands and pulled back to expose more of her chiseled elfish face.
She was magnificent.
“How did you get in here? You have to hide before they find you.” The terror in her vivid violet eyes was unmistakable.
“Who’s they?”
“Lothar’s mistress will be in any moment to escort me… I’m getting married tonight.”
“What? Who the fuck is- whatever. We need to leave this place, now. Wake up!”
The massive iron door opened and two blue giant naga soldiers in heavy black armor came weaving into the small room with a purpose.
“Intruder!” one shouted once they saw Mark. The other guard zipped forward, his massive shape closing the distance in an instant.
Mark noticed the jarring force to his body more than he felt the barbed spear impaling his ribcage.
“No…” vale whispered as the pain caught up to him with exponential intensity. Thankfully, he lost consciousness quickly.
And with a shuddering breath, he was standing in the thrift store of random items again.
“Mother- fuck,” Mark mumbled, shaking. After a handful of rapid heartbeats, he felt a slow, determined rage build within him. He pulled up his menu and tapped on Vale again.
“Mark!” she said, and he quickly put a finger to his mouth in response. She nodded slowly, understanding the need for silence, but her wide eyes conveyed her confusion over his presence. He stepped in close and took her hands.
“Vale,” he whispered. “We’re going to get out of here, now.”
“I’d love to…” she whispered, her eyebrows arching. “More than anything, I’d love to leave all this and go on adventures with you- forever. But I’m a princess. This is my fate.”
“Bullshit. Let’s go.” He looked past her and saw the open window. It would be tight, but she could probably fit.
“Follow me,” Mark said, dropping her hands and climbing out onto the clay tile roof. The slant wasn’t too bad, but incessant wind assaulting him might be an issue. It was still better than getting impaled. He searched for the best path out and saw they were in a tower with only one long wall extending out from a colossal stone castle. Gray banners with red serpent patterns flapped frantically from poles under a luminous disk of an enormous silver moon.
The wind tore at Mark’s tight clothes and buffeted his hair as he reached back in through the window.
“Come with me, my love.”
The giant naga in the wedding gown hesitated for only a moment before a smile broke across her smooth cheeks. As she was reaching, the iron door to her small bedchamber was pushed open.
Vale quickly faced away from Mark as he pressed his back against the tower wall outside. A deep woman’s voice rumbled to his ears from whoever had entered, but the wind ripped the words away before they were fully formed. Carefully, Mark turned around and peeked his head out to see what was happening.
“…horrid wench,” the woman said, and Mark had already formed a solid opinion about the speaker. She was another black and silver giant naga, but a reverse of Vale. Her wild, jet-black hair cascaded down over pure white shoulders and the requisite immense bosom. A spiked leather corset barely restrained plump breasts, and below that, her tail was a glossy onyx black.
“As long as you know your place, Siv'Shyra filth- you and I will have no cause to speak.” The raven-haired giant naga slithered forward and put one of her black fingernails under Vale’s chin. She squinted her red eyes before speaking again. “I’d punish you for even thinking that you’d be able to have His Master’s cock on your wedding night, but I think you’d enjoy it too much.”
She flicked her bony finger off Vale’s chiseled chin and took Vale’s hand. “Instead, you’ll watch me take His seed inside me. Come now, filth. I’m to walk you down the aisle in your dead father’s place.”
Mark wanted to jump in there and remove this bitch’s hand for touching his girl, but the knowledge that this was a loop and not really happening stayed his hand. The woman pulled Vale forward by the arm, and they both wove their serpent bodies out of the room. Before Vale passed his line of sight, she cast a glance dripping with hopelessness back in his direction. The iron door closed, and she was gone.
He was about to create a Ghost and get a better feel for his next pass at escaping the castle when he felt a sharp stab of pain along his channel to Ahnix. She was getting worse wherever she was, and finding her became the priority. Vale was marrying a monster and being called names, then ignored. She could handle that while he rescued his precious cat-girl.
Gale-force winds threatened to rip him off the narrow, slanted roof as Mark opened his interface and exited Vale’s nightmare. The constant whoosh of air over his ears ceased, and the instant silence actually hurt.
“Okay,” Mark said to himself, looking around at the items on display and clearing his mind. He and Ahnix always had a strong bond, and the shadows of fear and pain coming from her focused his mind down to a fine pinpoint. Another pulse of misery from his cat-girl reached h
is heart, and his eyes snapped over to a distant rusty birdcage.
Making a bee-line for the object, Mark reached out and absorbed it with no hesitation. He opened his menu and saw his three girls listed out in his inventory.
TCH-U Core Matrix [fabric_construct.001]
TCH-U Core Matrix [giant_naga_royal.793]
TCH-U Core Matrix [shadowcat_anthro.001]
Mark pressed his finger into Ahnix’s text and descended into her core file structure.
At first, he could only see darkness. Then his eyes began to adjust, and he saw a cluster of bell-shaped iron cages filled with straw. He was in one, a black humanoid shape was in another, and the others were empty. Deep within the clinging shadows, the creature next to him opened its eyes and two golden orbs with vertical slits focused on him.
“Go back to sleep,” she whispered with Ahnix’s voice. A flick of her shadowy tail and Mark recognized her, but the black-furred creature curled into a ball in the other cage looked to be mostly cat- especially in her face.
Mark’s eyes couldn’t decide where to focus, but when he noticed her thick, impressive whiskers, he gave her a weak smile. She told him long ago about a man from the Moondusk people who had broken and tortured her until she was shaped into the exotic beauty he had come to love. He had never forgotten his name.
“This is where Gervallous changed you.”
“Shh,” she hissed. “He’ll be back soon.”
“I’ve come to get you out of here, Ahnix.”
Her half-lidded golden cat eyes looked him up and down before she put her chin back on her paws.
“Mark, I’m not in the mood for games right now. I just want to sleep. Now be quiet.”
He walked over to the edge of his cage closest to hers and tested the bars. They were as thick as his arm and the gaps were too narrow for him to slip through. The door at the front was locked solid, not even a rusty wiggle.
Shadow Ahnix’s head lifted, and her eyes opened wide.
“He comes.” She stood, and Mark watched as the darkness practically clung to her fur. Bright pink nipples stuck upward from perky fur-covered breasts, and her legs looked more like a bipedal panther than the black and gold athletic ass-kicker he had come to know.
Mark’s head snapped forward when his human ears began to finally pick up the sound of footsteps approaching.
“Teleport out!” he whispered.
“Stop talking!”
He could feel her fear and hatred well up, and her black-furred muzzle scrunched up as she let out a quiet hiss. Moments later the door opened, and she continued to hiss louder with her eyes wide and her fangs exposed.
“Now, now, my pet. We’ve been through this a hundred times.” The man who spoke sounded older, but he was still shrouded in the shadows beyond the cages.
Mark noticed the shadowy cat-girl frantically tearing at a collar around her neck containing a glowing purple gem.
“I believe we should focus on shaping those legs today, what do you think? There is much work ahead of us.” Gervallous stepped from the darkness ahead, and Mark saw the face of the man he swore to kill. He was older, but not elderly. Wisps of long white hair hung in patchy strands grouped around open, red sores on his pale scalp. He was thin but projected a visible crackling power through his pale blue eyes. Mark felt a horrible energy radiating from this dangerous dark mage.
“Get the fuck away from her, you piece of shit,” Mark spat.
“I see your mate is extra feisty today. He will not like this at all.”
Ahnix let out a terrified screaming hiss before Gervallous pointed his stone rod at her and channeled a sickly green bolt of lightning directly into her leg. Mark heard a snap, felt Ahnix’s agony, and heard her screaming pitch raise a few octaves higher.
Mark howled along with her, pulling at the bars- that was until he felt his Retaliate skill light up in his mind. Without hesitation, he targeted Ahnix’s torturer and screamed, “NO!”
Thick, spidery lightning arced back to the filthy bastard, but he caught the magic ricochet with his free hand. The older man’s face only winced a little as he absorbed his own terrible energy.
Mark ended Ahnix’s pain with a Heal transfer and then faced the Moondusk torturer.
“I won’t let you hurt her anymore.”
“A new trick. Fascinating, but easily negated.” He wove his free hand in the air, his fingers pale and knobbed. Purple lines began to remain where he trailed his intricate movements and consolidated to form a forcefield of power around him.
“Now, you are going to watch while I slowly splinter every single bone in this creature’s body.”
Without another word, he attacked Ahnix again with an intense bolt of channeled energy, and she screamed as bones in her paw were shattered. Furious, Mark activated his Retaliate ability again. This time, however, the arc that rebounded fizzled out at the protective magic shield.
He tried to heal the black-furred cat-girl whimpering in terrible pain, but he couldn’t keep up with Gervallous and the damage he was causing.
Out of his mind from being here, witnessing this part of Ahnix’s past firsthand, Mark banged his head against the bars of his cage. It hurt, but his Retaliate lit up with a second target. Mark was burning with such white-hot rage that he automatically thrashed outward with his skill and bent the iron bars in front of him.
The man whom Mark had sworn to kill was too focused on hurting Ahnix that he didn’t notice.
He slammed his head into the bars again, almost cracking his skull open, but the force from his Contact Overload ability bent the bar far enough for him to force his way out.
Mark saw nothing but the black-robed man hurting his first real love. With blood dripping down his forehead, he rushed Gervallous and the look of pure surprise on the dark mage’s face was something Mark would remember for a long time. His physical body passed right through the old torturer’s magic shield, and Mark’s fist came down on the arm holding the rod. With a satisfying crack of snapping bone, the rod fell, and he tackled Ahnix’s worst nightmare to the ground.
Mark slammed his balled-up fists into the man’s face using a teaspoon of grace and truckloads of unstoppable force. There was a point where Mark realized Gervallous was probably dead, his disgusting face smashed in, but Mark crushed his ribcage with a few more heavy pounds with both fists- just to be sure.
After it was clear that this Moondusk wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again, Mark snatched the rod and turned to Ahnix, who was watching him through the bars. Walking forward, he held out his hand and funneled back her missing health, ending her pain and pulling a small groan of pleasure from her lips.
Tears streamed down her black cat-like face as he used the magic rod to destroy the lock on her cage. His plan was just brute force, but the stone wand must have been the key, and a jolt of green energy popped the cage door open slightly.
The cat-creature who almost looked like Ahnix shoved the door out of her way and threw her furry arms around Mark, pulling him in tight. She just sobbed as he stroked the sleek fur on her back.
“I made a vow to protect you,” he whispered in her ear. “Be it this life, the next one or the previous one. You know I will tear down the universe for you, Ahnix.”
They stood there for a while, holding each other close, and Mark wondered if they could leave this “daydream” now.
Mark pulled away and attempted to open his interface when he was hit by a jolt of pure erotic energy. He looked up and caught her big yellow eyes scanning down his chest to his package. Sex was the last thing on his mind right now, but it seemed to be the first thing on hers.
“I want you. Now,” she said, her black tail swishing once behind her. He noticed that it left a trail of wispy shadow behind its movements. His eyes were pulled to her pink nipples standing erect and in stark contrast to her black furred chest. Her hips had been already reshaped apparently because she had thick muscular haunches, but her legs continued downward and then bent back in an elongated quadru
ped hindleg fashion.
Mark stepped forward and wrapped his strong arms around her shadowy furred back and pulled her in for a kiss. It was odd, pressing his mouth into her thin lips at the end of her stubby muzzle, at first- but her familiar movements and scent pulled him into her, deeply.
She eagerly ran her padded paws all over his body and settled one on his dick. Her body heat merged with his and he began to grow stiff.
Shadow Ahnix pulled her muzzle off his mouth and looked back at her cage.
“I want to remember this place differently,” she said as she pulled Mark back into the place she spent years trapped and tortured.
Wordlessly, Mark pulled off his shirt. While he did that, she pulled off his boots and pants with a single-minded purpose. Almost the instant his penis hit the air, her hot mouth gobbled it up. On her knees in her cell, the midnight cat-girl slurped on Mark’s cock.
Mark let out a trapped sigh as she licked her tongue out past her lips to caress his shaft while she engulfed his tip. He reached down and rubbed her tall ears with his thumb and fingers.
The cat-girl’s fanatic cock sucking slowed down, and she began to purr. Mark’s eyes rolled into his head as she pleasured his knob as best as she could. A few minutes passed, and she pulled her muzzle off, leaving him coated in her saliva.
She spun around on her knees, got on her hands and thrust her black-furred tail high into the air. In the middle of the round void that was her shadowy thighs, Mark saw her tight, pink pucker of an asshole and a dripping, pink slit. Shadow Ahnix looked over her shoulder as she was getting on her knees, and he caught her gazing at him with half-lidded contentment.
Mark was tempted to slip it into her tiny asshole, but her sexual mood suggested she wanted to get her wet pussy rammed- hard. Holding on to her sleek-furred hips, Mark slowly pressed his dick into her hot body. Her vagina gripped onto his shaft as if she was never going to let him go, and the slippery, tight friction inside felt terribly pleasurable for both of them.