Mark 2.0: Book 2: Hate

by Prax Venter

  “Maybe if you had come to me beforehand… and you weren’t about to murder everyone. But, as you noticed, I am pretty damn useful to have around. After we’re done here, I would absolutely love to help your people.”

  The mysterious metal woman kept her glowing eyes forward for a few steps, and Mark kept his guard up, ready for anything. Or so he thought.

  “No!” Iona shouted, her painfully loud voice now amplified through some internal speaker. “Mark’s attacking me!”

  He had a fraction of an instant to think of a way to react before he felt the goddess-given power to summon weapons swell past his hands as if it had taken a life of its own. His vision narrowed to a tunnel, and he found he could only look at Iona. He saw her fake metal brows come down as her mock-surprise shifted to worried-shock at the sight of his ghostly sledgehammer. His body moved of its own volition, and despite the maddening cry of pain from Abby behind him tearing at his sanity, Mark’s muscles had one irresistible goal. Destroy Iona.

  She raised her metal arm to block his savage sideways swing, but her reflective appendage bent awkwardly as the weighty end of the hammer smashed her wrist into her shoulder. The Endocite Construct was heavier than he thought, and she only swayed a little under the impact. However, she was still trying to recover from the fact that a Lover not only had a powerful melee weapon but that he’d somehow already crippled her with it, and her hesitation allowed Mark’s possessed body to take another swing.

  “Impossible!” she screeched as her other hand sprouted a short blade and sliced his forearm to the bone. The pain was only a whisper as his mind was currently far in the back seat. Her desperate attack did nothing to slow him down as he was already following up with the brutal downward attack. A True Strike spot had bloomed in the middle of her forehead, and his sledgehammer came down squarely on target.

  Iona’s neck was instantly crushed as her metal skull rammed through it like a bowling ball shattering all ten pins. Her chin ended up behind her chest plate, and he was forced to watch her eyes blink erratically until their light faded away.

  Mark sucked in a terrible breath as his mind flooded back to possess his own body. The pain and blood gushing from his arm were still completely ignored as he spun to check on his three loves.

  Abby was on the ground, alive but bleeding while Sasha stood over her shooting an Arc Bolt at a 10-foot-tall version of the Pixie. He saw Jezebel block an attack from the elephant-woman on her shield while Iona’s enthralled tigers were cowering away from the battle on all fours.

  His mind found only primal confusion in them, and it became apparent that when their Collector died, both reverted to their original wild state.

  Mark ignored them and sprinted for Abby, but a blast of burning light struck him low in the leg and flash-fried the skin off his right shin. Mark clenched his jaw and attempted to ignore the agony from his wounds. Ari took aim with her second laser pistol, and he ducked at the last moment. Instead of blowing a hole through his head, the searing blast of energy only singed a few strands of hair.

  He limped forward a few more steps and then dove as far as he could before popping up his magic barrier. It scarcely extended enough to cover Sasha and Abby as the expanding pixie slammed her fist down on it. The thin membrane held, but he felt the impact in his bones.

  “Stop!” Mark yelled out. “Iona cast a spell on me!”

  Bann held up his hand for his Enthralled to pull back, but his command had no effect on the centaur sharpshooter with the pink ponytail and her Enthralled.

  A hail of laser bolts struck Mark’s barrier, and a thick orange wad of plasma from Jocia’s rifle hit Jezebel in the chest. She cried out in pain, and Mark felt the shadow of melting leather boil into her breasts.

  Rage and anger radiated out of him, but he held his Heal until it was absolutely needed. Overseer Derurto and his soldiers were now running along the stopped transport to join the battle, and Mark’s mind pushed against the pain scattering his thoughts as he tried to think of a way to explain everything.

  The problem was resolved when Sasha retaliated. Driven by her own overflowing hatred at these two bitches hurting her friends and lovers, she hurled one of her Shock Bombs at the centaur couple protecting the transport.

  Mark heard Jezebel scream “No!” as she dashed toward his magic barrier. One second later, the massive power cells within the transport detonated in a blinding explosion.

  The magic barrier took the first wave of shrapnel, but everyone else in the area was either horribly wounded or simply evaporated as a profound amount of stored energy was unleashed into the world. It was as if a thousand lightning bolts all struck everywhere at once, and Mark saw Sasha’s metal legs draw most of the violent energy coming their way before he had to shield his one good eye from the blinding explosion.

  At first, Mark was too stunned to understand the sudden maddening rush of pleasure forcing its way into his body, but he quickly recognized it as an inconceivable load of essence. He was being rewarded for Sasha accidentally wiping out a dozen centaur soldiers and a few Collectors.

  Then, after the king of all thunderclaps faded, only silence filled the air.

  Torf, the resilient elephant-woman had survived the blast and was the first to push herself to her feet. She saw the remains of Bann’s charred body and lost her mind. Mark cringed at the terrible sadness and rage erupting from her as she shot her gray trunk into the air and let out a mournful trumpeting sound that echoed across the hills. She then turned her small eyes toward him and his severely wounded team.

  The ex-Enthralled took one step forward before Jezebel reacted by casting Vines, wincing in agony as she held the position for three seconds.

  As her ability ensnared the enraged elephant-woman, Mark heard Overseer Derurto yelling into the device on his wrist.

  “Terrorists! Capture or kill the Lover team assigned to Mission C-Trans #7869! Ugh. O-overseer down! Platoon d-down! Cargo destroyed! I repeat, issue death warrant for Mark, Sasha, Jez-”

  “We need to go,” Mark said, ignoring the rest of the mangled Overseer’s damning transmission and crawling to check on Abby. The first thing he noticed was the tears pouring down her green cheeks and the vacant look in her wide eyes. Then he saw the bloody gouge taken out of her left tentacle.

  “She got hit by the Hexer too,” Sasha said, trying to help Abby to her feet. “They traded instant mind-melting spells right at the start.”

  “And you’re okay?” Mark said, struggling to stand. “I saw you-”

  “Fine,” the succubus said quickly. “It hurt, but I’m made to channel electricity.”

  Mark’s own wounds almost drove him to unconsciousness and he stumbled multiple times as he tried to follow Jezebel’s swift trot away from the scene.

  “Ride me,” his doe-centaur said. “Sasha, get Abby on too. Make sure she doesn’t fall off.”

  There was no way he was flipping his leg over her back with his seared flesh, so he and Abby draped themselves over her back and held on to her armor while Sasha sprinted alongside.

  “I’ll find you!” Torf yelled as she fought Jezebel’s Vines. He didn’t see the Pixie anywhere, and hoped she wasn’t dead as well- or maybe he did.

  The glint of another dimensional crossover-point caught his blind eye, and Mark pointed it out as best he could.

  “There!” he said, pain ripping through his mind as his roasted leg caught a slope in the land. “Get to that doorway.”

  “Where!” Jezebel yelled, frustration and panic beginning to overpower her.

  Sasha sprinted directly for it. “Follow me.”

  He tried to keep his eye on the glint as Jezebel galloped forward, and he simply couldn’t hold out any longer. They all were in terrible agony from every step his muscular doe-centaur took, so before they reached the portal, Mark blanketed the area with his Heal, and both Jezebel and Abby inhaled swiftly as surprise pleasure saturated their minds and soothed their wounds.

  It was barely enough to allow him t
o slide off his armored doe-centaur and pull open the portal.

  He saw the waving blue grass of Lagos and yanked his arm downward, thankful Iona had sliced his right arm instead of his doorway-ripping left. Sasha went first, quickly surveyed the location, then shouted, “all clear!”

  Jezebel carried Abby through next, and then Mark quickly limped after her. He turned to look back through and saw a one-foot-tall Gwenthwip flying toward them, her tiny screeching cry rising in volume as she approached. The joy he’d seen in her cheerful mind was replaced with utter hatred.

  With a sigh, Mark dismissed the interdimensional energy, and closed the portal before she could reach them.

  “What the fuck just happened?” Jezebel yelled, turning to face him.

  Mark fell to the soft blades of Garda Grass and took a moment to slow his heart before answering. It was nighttime in Learis’s home dimension, and they were alone in the middle of an enormous grassy field with softly glowing yellow flowers clustered into small patches. Mark gazed up to this world’s impossibly big moon taking up about an eighth of the sky and tried to recount how everything went so horribly wrong.

  “Iona sabotaged the transport and didn’t expect it to be fixed so quickly. When that arrogant Fighter started arguing with her Enthralled, the tiger twins were either told ahead of time… no, I think the three of them were incredibly bonded, and she was issuing them new orders- whatever, it doesn’t matter. Either way, they were about to attack me and Bann, when I stopped to talk to her.”

  “Why didn’t you just call her out in front of everyone?” Sasha asked, kneeling next to him, her blue eyes focused on the blood still pouring out of his arm.

  “I’m stupid and idealistic,” he said. “I felt the love they shared and the strength of their bond with my abilities, but I couldn’t read Iona at all, so I wasn’t sure at first. I thought perhaps if the two cats loved her so deeply, the robot Collector couldn’t be totally evil. I told her I knew she was the saboteur and tried to talk her out of it. She gave me fake-sounding bullshit about her people needing the batteries to live or something. I told her we would love to help her people after the mission, and then she used some mind control ability on me.”

  “Okay,” Jezebel said, “everything is starting to make more sense. She was a Hexer and used a taunting ability to force you to attack.” Jezebel looked up from the thick grass trampled down by her hooves. “Mark, when I saw you smashing her head in, taken by single-minded rage…”

  Sasha shook her head as Jezebel trailed off.

  “I bet she was surprised you could fight back.”

  “She was,” Mark said. “I guess not everyone wants to be our friend. I’m not going to be so nice the next time.”

  “Don’t change,” Abby said in a monotone voice, also staring up at the enormous moon. “I’ve grown fond of your bigger heart, Mark. If it weren’t for you wanting to be kind and help others, I wouldn’t be as I am now… although, right now is only pain.”

  “Heal her first,” Jezebel said, looking down at the ruined leather armor grafted to her chest. He checked his charred leg and noticed that his silk pants were either similarly melted to him or burned away where he’d been struck by Ari’s laser pistol.

  “Wait,” he said, sitting up. “The last time my leg was half-seared away- when we escaped the gem-men with Abby, my starting clothes were untouched. Now, both our shit is burnt to a crisp.”

  Jezebel answered, her voice sounding distant. “You’re right. I didn’t realize it until you just said something. I think the resourceful system admin is undoing more of my custom settings.”

  Mark’s Heal cooled down at that moment, and he looked over at the green-skinned abyssal horror bathed in moonlight. He put the ramifications of what his doe-centaur had said to the side for now and focused on all things Abby.

  Her glassy yellow eyes locked on his as she braced for what was coming, but she was not prepared for the vengeful Heal inflicted on her beautiful mind and irresistible body. Mark’s True Sight locked on to every part of her that needed restoring, and then he closed his eyes.

  A single pure-white star appeared over the prone abyssal horror and began pulsing softly. He heard Abby whisper, “It’s beautiful,” before Mark harnessed his frustration with everything that had gone wrong recently and forced his Healing on her.

  Her wounds snapped shut, and he heard her small throat close off a scream of unendurable pleasure. The star floating above her poured out a cascade of restoring bliss, and after a few heartbeats, Abby found her voice. She pulled in a ragged, shuddering breath before screeching up to the moon and arching her back. Mark’s healing star faded with his power, and the soft constant breeze of Lagos caressing its long grasses became the only sound once more.

  His bond with her had grown almost stronger than Sasha’s, and their wide channel allowed him to pull off some seriously epic heling.

  “How did that feel?” Sasha said, stroking Abby’s completely healed appendage.

  His adorable abyssal horror sat up, panting and just stared at Mark for a few breaths before she looked down to her crotch.

  “I’ve soaked through my bottoms, and although I must have felt hundreds of orgasms simultaneously, I require Mark’s cock in me as soon as possible.”

  Abby moved the tentacle Sasha was petting up to the succubus’s breasts and began rubbing its tip around over her stretchy tube top where her pink nipple should be. Despite the essence filling his reservoirs, the deep slice in his forearm and the endless burning agony of his ruined right leg ruined any appreciation for the ramping libido now radiating from both of them. Mark knew his Heal made them horny, but he couldn’t believe they were starting to fool around after the bloodbath only moments ago.

  And neither could Jezebel. He felt a complex twinge of emotion from his wounded doe-centaur, and it pulled all his focus on her.

  Her face was slack as she gazed down at Abby and Sasha, but inside she was jealous, angry, frustrated, suffering from severe burns on her ruined chest… and under it all, the realization that she might be permanently stuck as a centaur for nothing was rapidly clouding her mind with darkness. Mark could feel the dutifully constructed emotional bulwarks start to breach under the sight of these two… intruders, carefree and frolicking after they all had only moments ago ruined everything and murdered-

  “Jez,” Mark said when he’d seen enough. She snapped her luminous emerald eyes on his, and he could tell his attention paused her thoughts momentarily. One of his three loves in their four-way relationship had grown severely unbalanced, and he needed to do something about it.

  Now.

  Mark winced as he tried to stand up, and Jezebel was there in an instant to help him to his feet. Moving either of her arms was pure agony for her, but he let her help without protest. The pain was keeping her focused only on him.

  “You two rest here for a while,” he said. “I need some one-on-one healing time with my sweet Jezebel. We won’t go far.”

  Abby and Sasha paused to glance up at him and, his loyal succubus almost protested them going anywhere in their current state, but she saw his eyes and only nodded. The abyssal horror lying in the moonlit grass next to her waved one of her tentacles.

  “I’ll miss you both,” she said with a beartrap smile.

  “He said we wouldn’t go far.”

  “Jez,” Mark repeated softly as he put his hand on her back haunch under her leather skirt.

  His strawberry-blonde doe-centaur spun and stepped forward, breaking the contact of his hand then said, “I’ll miss you too,” over her shoulder before she began trotting away from the group.

  Mark shot one more glance to his two entwined Enthralled lying in the grass then followed Jezebel into the dusky, moonlit night. He looked around again as he hobbled along the small path she’d already trampled and felt the tranquility of this relatively new world start to take hold of him. There was no way they were going to get anywhere close to that Orb Fort again, and the Kalorplast were probably
going to be substantially pissed too. Their first day there, they killed a bunch of people, blew up a transport containing apparently ‘to-die-for’ cargo, and were labeled as wanted criminals by the whole Centaur Technocracy. They could kiss those seven Crystal Heart shards goodbye.

  Maybe they should just stay here for a while and do some simple quests in this quiet, windy dimension.

  He looked up and saw Jezebel had gotten too far ahead of him and sought the mental bond that linked their hearts. The moment she felt his mind brush against hers, that deep panic she didn’t want to face took hold of her mind, and Jezebel started galloping at full speed away from him.

  She was leaving them.

  By his undeniable will alone, Mark forced his Heal ability into the ready state despite the several seconds that remained. He took hold of this surge of power and blasted Jezebel’s mind with blind ecstasy. He imagined their bond as a lasso and used his healing power to wrap her burned chest in binding ropes of searing pleasure. She cried out as she instantly fell into the soft grass and slid a few inches on her side before coming to a stop.

  Mark kept his Healing ray of ecstasy constricting around her toned and solid body as he took one lurching step at a time, winding up his imaginary rope as he did. Jezebel’s four doe legs spasmed as one constant, high-pitched orgasm erased all conscious thought, and Mark learned something new about his Lover Class starting ability. It didn’t feel as if this was some new power opening within his mind. Mark was sure he could have been using this visualization technique the whole time.

  Jezebel was frothing at the mouth, her leather helmet lying a few feet from her spasming body, yet she had the wherewithal to look up at him as he stood over her.

  “Don’t you ever run away from me,” he said, then dropped his imaginary lasso.

  She locked up, her body still cumming from the memory of what she’d just felt. After a few more aftershocks, she started breathing normally.

  Mark groaned as he lowered himself into the grass, and despite his recent trick to force his Heal, the throbbing hot pain in the middle of his brain told him that trick was not something he could repeat anytime soon.