It's Always Time

by Oblimo

  The sword point bobbled close. Black Cherry stared cross-eyed and gasping. "What…" Yves slashed. "Wait…" Yves slashed. "Why?" she sobbed, and the sword finally fell still at Yves' side. Black Cherry crawled away from him, her wings lifeless and trailing rills of blood red gel. "Why are you doing this?"

  "A few hours ago," Yves told her, his voice flat, "you were given a choice: sister or sword." He drew the pale sword up to the Water Kamae ready position. "There was no third option."

  "You?" Black Cherry rolled onto her back, chest heaving. "It's going to be you?"

  "What do you want, Yves?" SB had asked him.

  His rage had boiled over, and he had thrown the sword into the woods. "I don't want to be a killer!"

  "It was always me," Yves said. Hollow. I need to stay hollow. He glanced down and saw her exposed labia, engorged and overflowing with nectar. But I hate this, I hate this.

  "So little nanomek left," Black Cherry gulped, fingers creeping cross her thigh. "Dee made me cum—you made me cum—so much. Just a little more and…" Her fingers shivered over her mons. "No, I can't." She jerked her hand away. "Not without Master."

  Yves lowered his sword, training it on her belly. I hate this.

  SB had said, "But you're so good at it, Yves." And Yves had cried, and SB had run to him.

  "My master should have been my first," Black Cherry pled. "My master should be my last."

  "I was." Yves moved to Black Cherry's side. After a moment's hesitation, he sheathed his sword. It slid into its scabbard with a silken sigh and click. "I will be."

  Black Cherry frowned up at him, blinking. Her eyes grew wide. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she called to him, "Master?"

  "I tried to give her a choice. Eurydice tried, too," SB had said, hugging Yves tight. "Eurydice risked her life to save her sister. But Cherry didn't want it. It's not Dee who won't change, it's Cherry. She wants to kill her master, or her master to kill her." She had gripped him by the shoulders.

  "And that's you, Yves. Isn't it?"

  "Yes," Yves said to Black Cherry. He pulled the scabbard from his belt and tossed it aside. "It's me."

  "Oh, Master." Black Cherry wondered up at Yves. "Master, I'm sorry. I should have known. You were always ready for me. Ready from the very start. Even though you hated it." Her fingers scuttled into her sex again. "And you do hate it, don't you, Master?"

  "Yes," Yves said. He reached into his sparkling white over-shirt, and drew out a stout, gray blade.

  "Your tanto," Black Cherry sighed, one hand plunging into her sex, the other tracing little circles between her breasts.

  Yves straddled Black Cherry's stomach, pinning her arms in place with his knees. "It's time."

  "You hate me," Black Cherry purred. Yves could feel her arms move frantically beneath him. "You hate me enough to kill me."

  "I hate you," Yves said, palming the tanto in both hands, trying to think of the words that would drive Black Cherry over the edge, trying to stay hollow. "Because I have to kill you. Not for what you did to me before, but what I'm doing now." He raised the short blade above his head, "I hate you more than anything in the world."

  She shook beneath him, legs kicking, wings trembling. Nectar leaked everywhere from her. "Hate me, Master! Name me! Become me, Master!"

  Yves thrust the tanto downward with all his strength, burying the blade between her breasts. "Die for me, Nemesis," he told her.

  Nemesis cried out his name and died.

  And I won't take from you

  What you can't take from me.

  —XTC, We're All Light

  Epilogue: The Moral of This Motherfucker

  Dee and the green girl were sitting together on the basement stairs when Yves emerged. "It's over," he said, tucking the pale sword and scabbard into his belt. "Nothing left but Jell-O, and that's getting washed into a sump pump by a leaky washing machine. Still," he added to the green girl, "do you mind double checking? I don’t have super-senses."

  The green girl rose. Yves marveled at her beauty, then startled at her height and megaton bombshell figure. "We think you're super, Yves," she said, patting him on the chest and kissing his cheek. "Thank you." She swayed into the washroom.

  "That's Galatea?" Yves asked Dee.

  "Kinda sorta almost," Dee smiled. "She's Eurydice and Galatea. She—well, we, I guess, she still wants me to officially do it—we haven’t decided on a new name yet."

  "Eurydice was worried if they could re-assimilate, or what would happen if they did," Yves said.

  "Eurydice's still there," Dee said, "more than ever. But so's Galatea." His brow furrowed in thought. "She says it's different than anything that's happened before. Their nanomek didn't just sum together, it multiplied. She's not Galatea plus Eurydice, she's Galatea times Eurydice. That's what she said, anyway."

  "What the heck does that mean?" Yves asked.

  "It means I'm fucked." Dee grinned, eyebrows arching. "And this weekend's going to be God-damned amazing."

  Yves gave Dee a wan smile, then sat beside him. "You're naked again," Yves said.

  "I'm used to it," Dee said. "Here're the pants I borrowed." Dee handed Yves a dripping, red and gray mass. "Sorry."

  Yves pushed him off. "Keep them. My treat for helping me save the world." Dee sat with the sloppy sweats in his lap, saying nothing. Yves sighed. "Thanks for not asking if I was okay, Dee."

  Dee nodded. "I know you're not okay, Yves. But I think you will be."

  "Me too," Yves said. They sat together a while.

  "Galatea, Eurydice, and Raspberry all fantasize about you and me fucking," Dee said out of nowhere.

  Yves thought about this. "Who's on top?"

  Before Dee could answer, the green girl, her face stricken, emerged from the washroom. "She's gone," she said. Dee moved to embrace her. "She's really gone."

  "You tried everything," Yves told her.

  "So did you," she said. "You know I don't blame you for anything, right?" Yves nodded and the green girl relaxed. "These are for you," she told Dee, handing over a clean tee shirt and pair of blue stretch pants.

  "These are like three sizes too small," Dee protested.

  "I know." The green girl's eyes glittered with gem-fire. "Put 'em on."

  CeeCee's voice drifted down from the first floor. "Did anyone lose a guy who tastes like pizza?"

  "I do not like the way she said that," Dee said, glancing up the stairs.

  "You were the one who said she should eat anyone trying to escape," Yves said. He stood up, mimed dusting off his knees. "Come on, Green Girl, Nude Man."

  "First thing we do when we get home," Dee grumbled, following Yves up the stairs, "is come up with some good superhero names."

  "Second thing," the green girl said from behind Dee, leering at his ass as it bounced up the stairs. "Maybe third, or three hundredth."

  A taxicab ambled down Campion Street. A green Volkswagen darted down the opposite lane, its windows burnished by the sunset. The cab's passenger, a redheaded coed, squinted from the glare. She sat in borrowed clothes rustled up from her stay at the state police station. The baggy sweatshirt and jeans reeked of cigarettes. At least she had underwear on again, even if they were voluminous granny-panties.

  The cab rounded the bend of the cul de sac. "Hey," the redhead said, "that's my car! Aw, man, what happened to it?" The yellow SUV, windows smashed, roof rumpled, sat in front of the sorority house. She glanced around. Other than the SUV, the cul de sac looked abandoned. "Huh. No FedEx truck. Good sign."

  "You talk to yourself a lot," the cabbie observed. "What they pick you up for? PI?"

  "PN," she said, "public nudity." She tossed him a twenty and hopped out before the cabbie could comment further.

  Dozens of Friday newspapers piled around the porch steps. "Weird." The redhead unlocked the front door, poked her head into the dark foyer and halloed. "Is it safe? I heard the message on my cell." She stepped inside, hunting for the hall light switch. She looked down. "Oh, hello. Who're you?"

/>   "Ursula's a good name," said a girl with a massive pair of pigtails, thick handlebars tufted with big black pompoms. She looked barely old enough to drive, tarted up in white cake makeup and black lip and eyeliner.

  "Art, or theater major?" the redhead asked, squinting at Ursula's outfit of black patent leather club gear.

  "Post-grad," grinned Ursula, turning. "Women's Studies. C'mon!" She skipped out into the main hall.

  Don't look at her ass. The redhead followed, frowning. "We're we going?" Don't look at her ass. Ursula flounced up the main stairwell. Oh my God, just look at that ass. And what did she do, paint those pants on? "Um, little girl?"

  Ursula froze. Her outfit seemed to ripple in the shadowy half-light. "Yeah?"

  "What happened?"

  Ursula shrugged, an uncanny, almost liquid rise and fall of her shoulders; another trick of the light, perhaps. "Good guys won," she said, and started back up the stairs. "Duh. Don't they always?"

  The redhead ascended after her. "So where is everyone?"

  "Done a bunk. Bugged out. Vamoosed." Ursula whistled through her teeth and zipped her hand through the air.

  "Why?"

  Ursula reached the top of the stair and spun about, lips pursed. "Because I asked them to." The redhead's stomach flip-flopped. Ursula shook her head, raised a finger as pale as her face. "Ah, ah! Asked them to. 'Asked.' Not sang." She strutted down the hallway, boots clicking on the hardwood.

  "How?" The redhead swallowed, then hurried to catch up. "How did you know about that?"

  "We know all sorts of stuff," Ursula said, stopping at a closed door. "And here we are."

  "But this is my bedroom," the redhead said.

  "Really?" Ursula tipped her head. "Gosh." The door opened by itself. "After you, Madam Secretary."

  A strawberry blonde squatted on the vanity bench, FedEx cap twirled backward on her head, like a relief pitcher waiting in a dugout. "Hi!"

  Relieved to see a familiar face, the redhead rushed into the room. "What're you doing here?"

  "I can't get enough of it," the strawberry blonde answered, plopping her chin into her palm, "but you're the last one, and that makes me sad. But Unyx said she was going to make it really special." She perked up, reaching to the vanity and clicking off the table lamp. The room gloomed. "And that makes me happy."

  "Who?"

  "Unyx." The strawberry blonde pointed to Ursula, who had slipped into the room as soon as the light when off, closing the door behind her. "You, know: snippy-snippy."

  Unyx burst into giggles. "Not eunuchs. Unyx. U and Nyx."

  Finally, something she understood. "Like the computer operating system thing," said the redhead.

  Unyx gulped down a giggle. "The what?"

  "UNIX, right?"

  Unyx stared in the dark, then shook her fists around her head. "Ooh, dammit. They never told us! No wonder Yves and Dee kept smirking whenever we said it!"

  "I'm lost again," the redhead groaned, flumping onto her bed.

  "Nope." The strawberry blonde whipped off her cap and ruffled her hair. "You landed on target."

  Unyx glided into the room. "We want to talk to you about Chapter Regulation 700: Citizenship, Morality, and Values."

  Does she have rollerskates in those boots or something? "That's Reg 600."

  The strawberry blonde shook her head. "She knows about the real one."

  "Regulation 700," Unyx said, coming to a stop at the foot of the bed. "No licky-licky."

  "So that's what this is all about?" The redhead clucked and lay back with her hands behind her head. Another dyke bitchfest.

  "That, and stopping the blood music," Unyx said, folding her arms. Twice.

  The redhead sat up. "Holy shit, you can do that?" Unyx nodded. "Oh, thank God. It's been so strange lately. I feel so, I dunno, disconnected, like I'm…"

  "On automatic pilot," Unyx suggested.

  "Yeah! Please, make it go away? I'll do any—Oh." A chill stole over her. "No. No fucking way."

  The strawberry blonde sighed, standing up. "Well, here's the thing. While you were gone, the rest of us took a vote. And it was unanimous." She crossed the room to stand beside Unyx, putting her left arm around her. "No more Reg 700." Unyx put her right arm around the strawberry blonde. Twice. "No more code red hazing. Girls can ask and tell as much as they want, with no consequences."

  "Doesn't matter," the redhead smirked. "You couldn't have had a unanimous vote. I know two sisters who'd never—"

  "Jo Echo says you eat pussy like a pro," Unyx interrupted, eyebrow arched. "And she really knows her stuff. As for your cute blonde friend? Well, she and her amazing tits got here an hour ago. I didn't even have to ask. So it's unanimous, except for you, Madam Secretary."

  The strawberry blonde peeled out of her top. "But, you know, Unyx, the Chapter Secretary has to approve or veto every vote."

  "That's right," the redhead said, huddling at the head of the bed. "And I'll never change my mind. Never."

  "Oh, I don't know." Unyx raised an arm and reached out. It reached and reached, stretching nine, ten feet to the wall switch. "Something tells me that it's time," Unyx said. and light flooded the room.

  At first, the redhead wanted to scream. And then, she didn't. And a few minutes later, she was screaming her silly head off.

  "I feel like I'm forgetting something," Dee said. He waggled the Volkswagen's steering wheel, felt it tug to the left as the car picked up speed. "Why is the alignment shot?"

  "Unyx had to drive like a bat out of Hell to make it back in time for me to tell her to go get the car in the first place," Yves explained from the front passenger seat. "Compared to a time paradox annihilating our existence, I'd say wheel alignment was worth the price."

  "Glad I won't see the future," Raspberry said from behind them, "I didn't understand any of that shit."

  Dee frowned at her reflection in the rearview mirror. "Did you say 'won't'? But doesn't that mean…"

  "It's a Raspberry thing, honey," said CeeCee from the opposite side of the backseat. She twirled her index finger about her ear and winked. "You wouldn't understand."

  "Eat me, fatso," Raspberry said.

  "I would, honey, I would." CeeCee glanced up at the face of the green girl sitting between them "If tall, green, and horny weren't in the way. Look." She placed a buttery yellow hand on the green girl's shoulder and slid right off. "I don't know what you've got going on over up in that lovely head of yours, Ms. Eurydice-that-was, but you've got more nanomek inside you than the rest of us combined. A lot more."

  "And she's just sittin' here staring at the back of Dee's neck," Raspberry added.

  "There's only one thing I want inside me," the green girl said in a voice so sultry it could melt lead.

  They drove in anxious silence for a while. "So," Yves squeaked, coughed, and started again. "So, you feel like we've forgotten something."

  "Yeah." Dee turned off Campion Street and onto the main throughway. "Something back at the apartment, maybe?"

  Yves pointed at a black shape circling high in the twilight sky above them. "Unyx has already checked it out. All clear, no cops, no nothing. Nemesis didn't hurt anyone else. Just pulled a mild Jedi mindfuck on the guards, although we don't know how long it'll last."

  "What about Viggo?" Dee asked. "Cherry Nemesis…"

  "Just Nemesis," Yves interrupted.

  "Nemesis really put the whammy on him," Dee said. "He probably has some nanomek left in him. And I wouldn't ask Unyx to go all hentai on a guy."

  CeeCee peered around the green girl. "Sounds like you and I have an action item, Raz honey," she said.

  "Sweeeet," Raspberry drawled.

  "Hentai!" Dee thumped the steering wheel. "That's it!"

  "What?" Yves sat bolt upright. "What?"

  "My story," Dee said, "I was supposed to upload a goo girl story to the 'Net, and I'm almost a week late. Man, those guys are going to kill me." Yves glared at him. "What? Oh, come on," Dee mugged, "that was funny. I did forget all about t
hat, though. So, I'm thinking: what else have we missed?"

  "You were supposed to learn the true meaning of love," Yves said, folding his arms.

  "Oh, that," Dee waved, driving onto the highway onramp. "I figured that out awhile ago, back at SRU."

  "Is it something really trite," Yves hazarded, "like trust?"

  "Friction?" suggested CeeCee.

  "A butt that won't quit," insisted Raspberry.

  The green girl just smiled. Dee met her eyes in the review mirror and said, "Teaming up to fight crime." The green girl glanced away, heavy-lidded.

  "Um, wow. Okay. Then that covers everything. Listen," Yves said, emphasizing each point by rapping a knuckle against the dashboard. "I killed Nemesis. Unyx saved the world. You got the girl. Raspberry got the hair and the nanomek, and that's that." Dee nodded, smiling.

  Raspberry said, "Wait. What?"

  "Unyx's braids and the tin of nanomek from SRU," Yves said.

  "Oh," said Raspberry, plucking at her shoulder.

  CeeCee, the green girl, Dee, and Yves turned to stare at her.

  "I got the braids," Raspberry said.

  Dusk fell over the ivy-choked window of the Epsilon Sorority House kitchen. Shadows dappled the cluttered countertops, the empty boxes of Jell-O strewn across the floor, and the horizontal slats of the locked pantry door. The door jumped on its hinges.

  "Hello?" Eddie's voice was muffled through the slats. "Is it over? There's a can of soup cutting the circulation off to my ass. Anybody? Dammit." A pair of slats trembled. "Ow, ow. Fuck." A finger wormed its way between them. "C'mon. Yes!"

  A slat splintered then fell backward into the pantry, opening a narrow, lengthwise gap in the door. Two more slats soon clattered away. A hand fumbled out from the widened gap and wrestled with the knob. There was a click and the pantry door burst open.