by Jamie Hawke
7
The next morning, if that’s what it was, I woke to Twitch nudging me with her foot. Charm was already up, packing supplies from a footlocker that Twitch explained she’d been stockpiling from the mess hall in quick trips.
“We’re doing recon missions today,” Twitch explained. “Time to find out who is for sure with Ranger, who the neutrals are, and see if there’re maybe any others we can count on. You see the blue woman, run… and pray.”
“So last night,” I asked, stretching as I glanced between the two. “We’re just pretending like that never happened?”
“Nothing happened,” Twitch said. “Focus.”
Charm glanced back and grinned, but quickly looked away and kept filling a small backpack with supplies.
I noticed that Twitch’s hair was wet, and only then remembered bits from the night, quick moments of my eyes barely opening at the sound of water, seeing her outline in the fogged glass. Damn, I would’ve killed to have been awake and seen her walk out of that shower, completely nude.
Her eyes flitted down to my slowly growing erection and she sighed, shook her head, and went over to join Charm.
“Think he can keep his dick in his pants long enough to save the galaxy?” Twitch asked as if I weren’t there.
“I don’t see why the two should be mutually exclusive,” Charm replied.
“Yeah, well, just make sure he’s focused when the shit hits the fan.”
“Trust me,” I said, standing and adjusting myself so that it wasn’t so obvious down there, “if shit hits any sort of fan, the last thing I’ll be thinking about is sex.”
Both turned and stared at me.
“What?” Twitch finally asked.
“It was a joke,” I explained. “You know, because shit is a big turnoff, so… a joke.”
“A pretty shitty one,” Charm said with a wink.
Twitch took a deep breath, glared at me, and said, “I’m relieved to hear that isn’t one of your many turn-ons. I’ll certainly keep that in mind for when the moment doesn’t come up.”
I opened my mouth to argue, to remind her that she had been touching herself while watching me get a blowjob, but she had made a good point about this being time to focus.
“What should I do to get ready?” I asked.
“For one,” she replied, “stretch.”
“Stretch?”
“We’ll be going through tight corridors, maybe crawling, maybe running. You’re going to want to be limber, ready.”
My first instinct was to reply with some comeback about always being limber, but instead, I lowered into a hip stretch as I’d been taught in kung fu. She was right that I’d needed it, though I hadn’t realized that until now. Yesterday had been the most insane day of my life. It had been very stressful nearly dying, before being pulled into this galaxy by some superhero galaxy stargate powers, and then nearly being killed multiple times since.
The ladies were done, and Charm started twisting her body to loosen up. I knew I was supposed to be focused on the moment, ready to fight superheroes and all that, but damn, her body looked good. The tail still creeped me out a bit, but not nearly as much as it had at first. Seeing as she’d had my cock in her mouth, I was easily able to overlook that little quirk. And the ears.
“What do you know about your worlds?” Twitch asked, sitting on her bed and facing me.
“Part of me still wonders if this is a dream,” I admitted. “Or maybe the afterlife? A hallucination and they’ve thrown me into an insane asylum?”
“Assume this is reality,” she replied. “Humor us.”
“Right, assuming that. So far I’m getting that there was a group of Elders, superheroes who were in charge of protecting your world—”
“Galaxy,” she interrupted. “It’s a whole separate galaxy that humans colonized a while back.”
“Yeah?”
“That’s how the story goes,” she persisted. “The sun—”
“I got that part,” I said with a smirk. “The sun, the radiation or some other effect from it, gave you all superpowers.”
She smiled. “Exactly, well… pretty close. Not everyone has superpowers, unfortunately for those who don’t. And it seems that those who get it can pass it down through their genes because we’ve seen babies with powers before they’re ever exposed to the sun. And, well, I’ve been able to verify it with my screens. Similar to you.”
“I’m not following.”
“When I looked at you, I noticed an anomaly.” She pulled up a screen again, glancing between me and it, frowning. “And not only is it still there, it’s changing.”
“Get out of here,” Charm said, scooting in close on the bed next to her, staring at the screen as if she understood the numbers and codes too.
“We could assume the sun affected you, but… you’ve been in this prison since you’ve arrived, right?” Twitch asked.
“Right.” I replied.
“So I’m left to assume it’s hereditary.”
“You’re saying my parents… were superheroes?”
“Supers,” she corrected. “We don’t know if we’re talking heroes or villains here. It’s also hard to say if it was one or both parents. Could be that your mom was a supervillain, or your dad a superhero, vice-versa, or both. Maybe a villain and hero fell in love and ran off together—it’s happened before.”
My face must’ve conveyed my confusion as I tried to process this, then shook my head. “No way, no way. My dad vanished, my mom hated him. It’s… holy shit, it’s totally possible. I guess? Especially if one was a hero and the other a villain.”
Charm shrugged. “Couples break up all the time, right?”
“Of course,” Twitch admitted. “They could’ve split for any number of reasons. This is all speculation.”
“Except… No, we were adopted. What am I talking about.”
Twitch raised an eyebrow. “You do realize how that makes all of this even more feasible, right?”
“Your super parents had to get rid of you, maybe for your protection,” Charm said, eyes wild with excitement as she speculated. “Now you’ve returned—the ultimate hero in training!”
It made sense but was starting to hurt my head. “And you bring this up… why?”
“Because, I was scanning you last night and it seems powerful, whatever it is. I can’t see what your power is, and like I said, it doesn’t read like a power, even. It’s different. At least, different from any super I’ve scanned in the past. There’s nothing to say other supers couldn’t have evolved with such powers, or had other alterations to their powers after living on Earth. If it was one of your parents, you have that plus the fact that you are second generation.”
“So… I need to be looking out for some sort of manifestation of powers?”
She shrugged, but he eyes betrayed her intensity.
“This is exciting!” Charm exclaimed, then turned to Twitch with worry etched on her face. “We have enemies out there, I thought you should know.”
“Who doesn’t?” Twitch replied.
“Metallica was actively hunting me,” Charm said. “And… Chains is after this guy.”
“I kinda was going up against Drakonis, and… well—”
“How the fuck did you survive against Drakonis?” Twitch asked me. “Are you sure you didn’t use powers?”
“About that…” While I didn’t want to tell them that it had been dumb luck, I felt we were about as close as any three people could be after only knowing each other for such a short amount of time. “It was a bit of an accident.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Wait, what?” Charm looked let down. I hated letting her down.
“I mean, it was totally me,” I said, “but it’s not like I was going toe-to-toe with him. He charged, I dodged, he went over, falling to his death.”
“How do you know he died?” Twitch asked. “A lot of supers don’t die so easily.”
“There was a… crunch.”
> “A crunch?”
Charm’s face lit up. “Like a normal falling thud that resulted in broken bones, or like metal snapping him in two or collapsing him into a pancake?”
“What?” My face scrunched up at the thought. “Er, the latter, I guess.”
The ladies shared a look—excitement from Charm, worry from Twitch.
“What’d I miss?” I asked.
“Well, here’s the thing about this prison,” Twitch explained, “why it’s the kind of place you don’t want to be sent. Why there was no need for guards.”
“I told him about it being alive,” Charm cut in, beaming. “It’s really cool, actually.”
“Wait, you were serious?” I asked.
She nodded enthusiastically. “Had an A.I. element to it, but more than that. It could move, became a sort of horror story for those who somehow managed to escape. Before Ranger got involved, our powers were blocked in here, but people managed to find ways to work together, combine the small bits of power that remained to try and break out.”
“Nobody ever succeeded,” Twitch chimed in. “The prison ate them.”
“Ate them.” I frowned, not buying this for a second.
“Maybe not ate them exactly,” she admitted, “but it moves and they disappear. Often, it’s said, with a crunch.”
“No shit?” I lean back, starting to wonder about this whole thing. Hell, I’d seen a guy’s head on fire and he wasn’t dying. Was it so hard to believe that this prison had a fancy A.I. and was able to move, almost act alive? Not in the least. “This is crazy… crazier than that bullshit PK.”
“P what?” Charm asked.
“PK. Planet Kill? Oh, damn, I guess you wouldn’t have it all the way in another galaxy.”
“We don’t actually get STDs if that’s what you’re talking about,” Charm said. “They’re in the history books, but something about the whole sun and super thing—it just doesn’t happen.”
“I heard it was a super who made it that way,” Twitch said, but both shrugged. “Either way, yeah, we don’t get PK.”
Laughter burst out of me, uncontrollable. When I finally reeled it in, I said, “Oh, that’s classic. No, PK, as in Planet Kill, is a television show. Live streamed, ultra-reality. People volunteer to go to this planet, where they get down, fight, kill. Fuck. It’s crazy, but this—”
“Hold on,” Twitch said, her face all scrunched up. “You’re saying people watch this show?”
“Most popular show ever.”
“Damn, humans have devolved,” she said.
“No, I mean, yes, it’s messed up,” I argued, “but it’s done a great deal for society. At least on Earth, it helped us lessen overpopulation problems, and people perspective and a way to rise out of the lows of society. If you survive on PK long enough, get enough bids and whatnot through awesome fights, and accepting bids for crazy shit, earning fans by putting on a good show, you can ascend to the paradise planets, live like the Elites.”
“Fuck. That.” Twitch shifted in her seat, uncomfortably. “People watching me get down with guys? No thanks.”
“And the whole killing people part,” I said, surprised she’d focused on that part of what I said. “You had no problem watching us last night.”
Her cheeks turned red. “That’s… different. You weren’t watching me.”
I gave her a raised eyebrow, remembering the way she had been touching herself. The result was that she blushed even more, if that was possible.
“Point is,” she said, trying to quickly change the subject, “that your society is just as fucked up as ours, apparently. Maybe more so.”
“Let’s say equally,” I said. “But where I come from, I don’t have to deal with all that. Here, I’m in a prison that…” As I spoke, I remembered where I’d been headed back on Earth, and decided that wasn’t something I wanted them to know quite yet.
“Eats us,” Charm said. “Oddly, I feel a bit better about you knowing that you’re fucked up too.”
“Me too,” Twitch admitted, and stood. “We have to know who stands at our sides and behind us, or we can never fully give the enemy before us our all.”
“Indeed,” I said. “So we’re done with the third degree?”
“I don’t have the slightest idea what that means,” she admitted. “But we’ve delayed long enough. Let’s get out there and get this situation under control.
I had to admit that going out to face a bunch of supervillains, and possibly get my head blown off, had never felt so thrilling. Maybe it was because I had two beautiful, kickass women at my side.
8
We crept along the prison hallways, moving in the opposite direction from where we’d last seen the blue woman and Metallica. Neither were on our list of supervillains that we cared to run into quite yet.
Our goal was a simple one this time—intel. Find out which other groups were in with each other or butting heads and, if possible, learn more about Ranger’s plan. To get this done, Twitch said she knew someone likely to be a neutral party in all this, someone who had known the who’s who of the prison.
“He might not be able to tell us who’s who now,” she said as we went, “but he can at least tell us who we want to find.”
“And you’ve met with him since the fighting started?” I asked.
“No.”
“How do you know where he is?”
She gave me a frustrated glance. “I don’t. My screens show me where he was before it started, and that he was near the central air processing unit. That’s all we have to go on.”
As we walked, I noticed her glancing my way, curiosity plain in her expression. Finally, I said, “What is it?”
“Xin… can he hear me?”
I shook my head, then thought about it. “Honestly, I’m not even sure he can hear me right now. Let me try… Xin?” Nothing. After waiting a few more paces, I said, “He’s got other heroes he’s working with too, training them up, getting them ready.”
“Or maybe he’s decided you’re a lost cause,” Charm said. Her expression said she was trying to be helpful, but her words did the opposite. “Don’t worry, we believe in you!”
“We do?” Twitch asked, then laughed. “I mean, of course we do.”
“Why do you ask about him?” I said.
“He was… sort of the reason I’m in here,” she said. Her eyes went wide and she covered her mouth. “Maybe I shouldn’t say that. I don’t know. Not him exactly, but indirectly. If I could prove to him that I’m fighting on the right side here, that I’m helping you against Ranger, maybe I’d have a shot at being exonerated. My past forgiven.”
“Why do you care what he thinks?” Charm asked.
“Exactly what I just said, that’s why,” Twitch replied, glancing at her like she was an idiot.
“But it’s all wrong. If Xin is on his way out, dying or passing on his energy or whatever, and our man Breaker here is going to be an Elder…”
Twitch’s eyes lit up, looking at Charm in a whole new light. “You’re kind of a genius, aren’t you? A ditzy, kinda sex-crazed without having sex… genius.”
“I’m not sure if I should be offended or take it,” Charm replied, then shrugged. “I’ll take it.”
“Someone care to explain to me?” I asked, too focused on the moment and finding Twitch’s contact, to really follow.
“She doesn’t have to impress Xin,” Charm said, “because you’re the new Xin. If Xin is gone, she doesn’t need his blessing or forgiveness or whatever, just yours.”
“You might have to convince others,” Twitch said, considering the situation. “I’m not totally sure how it works. But… you’d get my back, right?”
“I guess that depends,” I said. “As far as I know, you destroyed a planet full of children. You raped some guy or, I don’t know, burned a village to the ground.”
“And you think I’d be capable of any of that?”
“No…?” I shrugged. Of course she didn’t seem the type, and honestly, m
y feelings were growing for her and the last thing I wanted to do was piss her off. But the facts remained. “We’re in a supervillain prison, with the worst of the worst. You want me to assume you’re not a bad guy because, what, you watched me get a blowjob?”
“What the fuck…?” She looked from Charm to me for a moment, then shook her head, seething. “Tell you what, Chad. Break off your foot in your own ass and sit on it for a while, because I’m done with you. Prick.”
As she pulled up a series of pink screens, my panic mode set in. I didn’t want to be on her bad side, but what could I do? Lie here?
“All you have to do is tell me what happened, why you’re here,” I said. “Open up, so I know you’re being honest. We can go from there.”
“Go fuck yourself,” she replied, swiping her hand across a screen so that a wall appeared between us.
“Oh, come on,” I protested.
“Twitch, don’t be like that!” Charm added.
But the wall remained, and more metallic scraping sounds came from the other side. When it vanished, there was no sign of her.
“Way to go,” Charm said, frowning. “She was kind of our only shot out of here.”
I wanted to say something like that we didn’t really need her, but it wasn’t true. Of course we did, and I’d just messed it all up.
“Can we try to find this contact without her?” I asked.
Charm took a moment, glancing around. “Or wait for her to come back?”
“I don’t think she’s going to. She was pretty pissed.”
“Wish I knew what got her in here,” Charm said. “I’d just spill the beans and get this over with.”
“You didn’t tell me your story,” I pointed out.
“Really, you’re trying to piss me off, too?” She frowned, looking me up and down. “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine. Skeletons in the closet that is.”
“I was gonna say…” With a deep breath, I glanced up and down the empty hallway, hoping to see Twitch at any moment. “My story’s not so complicated. I was framed.”
“Uh huh, you and me both.” She rolled her eyes.
“I’m serious,” I protested, then told her the story about seeing my brother, and how he’d defeated the guy and then vanished. Then the trial and my sentence, and how I’d almost died but been whisked away here instead.