Chapter Eleven: Ding!

Merton sobbed. Great. Whacking. Heart sucking, lung destroying sobs. He curled inwards on himself, his arms wrapped around his shins. He sobbed – and then choked out a loud, blubbery: “What the absolute livery fuck?”

The space surrounding the transparent cocoon of life sustaining dragon-shifted cells that sheathed his naked, goo-slick body was filled with wreckage and with corpses. Humans, goblins, kobolds, even a few dragons and orcs. All of them tumbled together as they spilled out of wrecked and still burning starships and sea-going ships that had been shoved to the stars with nothing more than a prayer and a mage-helm. But the thing that he heard, the thing that made him jerk his head up and look around was…

Was…

“Arf arf!”

The sound was unmistakable. Anyone who had been alive for the past few decades had heard it at least once . It was used in joke videos and on Rick and Morty and a few movies trailers and who knows how many TV shows. It was the first sounds that came on the track for X Gonna Give it To Ya by DMX, famed star of acclaimed horror film Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpant  who also had a side career of rapping sometimes.

Then the sound cut off. In its place came the normally welcome sound of Julia’s voice. “M-Merton?” she sounded as if she was literally talking through a softball sized chunk of pain jammed down her throat. “Merton? Come in?”

Merton slapped his palms against the skin of his cocoon. “Julia?”

“Oh god, I got him!” Julia’s voice sounded like it had snapped. “Relix, he’s alive! Merton, we detected what...what Brash did...” She gasped. It was a shuddering sound, like her whole body was shaking. “Merton, are you okay?”

“I...” Merton paused. “I need a ship. I need it right now.”

“What?” Relix asked. There was a faint squeak and a clatter and Merton was treated to the slightly amusing mental image of his wife shoving his girlfriend out of the way to get at the magical microphone they were using to talk to him. “You need to get back here right now! Wait just five minutes, our engines are all screwy.”

“Why?” Merton asked.

“W-When Brash died, he reflected the planar energy from the hellcannon back into the Warsphere. Now, it’s been partially sucked into the Abyss, and everyone’s portal tech is offline.” She sighed.

“Admiral Xu is dead, and the surviving human commanders are working to recover people from the most hurt ships, but there are still a few Dominion ships out there shooting at anything that moves. And a few who are surrendering until our ships get nearby then opening fire with what guns that still work...” Julia said. “It’s a freaking mess .”

Merton rubbed his face against his palms. He tried to comprehend the amount of lives lost...and found he couldn’t. All he could think of was that one thing he had heard. Arf arf. Arf arf? Why the flying fuck had he heard, if only for a few seconds, the sounds of DMX’s rapping? As he worried at at that thought, Relix swore. “Scrying has an Asp fighter coming towards your position. Screw it, Speccy, get the emergency teleporter online!”

Merton’s brow furrowed. He looked out through space and could see the slender, triangular dart of the Asp fighter. It was moving forward slowly. Carefully. Like the pilot had no idea what it was what he was looking at and wanted to be sure. But past the Asp, he could see the Warsphere. Huge, even at this distance, he could see that it was actually slowly collapsing . Huge chunks of it were crushing downwards, as if the middle were being hollowed out by a vacuum cleaner. He could imagine the portals to the Abyss within that thing, ripping and tearing adamantine plate and corridor material apart. They had...maybe...two hours before the entire ‘sphere was gone.

Good thing too. He hated to imagine what all the standard debris was going to do to Earth if any of it drifted too close.

Drifted…

Drifted…

He had drifted after seeing Brash go on his suicide run.

And what had he heard?

“Okay, hold perfectly still...” Relix was saying.

“Don’t!” Merton shouted.

“What?” Relix and Julia yelped at the same time.

“Denouement!” Merton exclaimed as the Asp fighter got closer. Closer. Closer. The narrow nose of its fuselage looked as if it was about to poke the skin of the bubble. Merton didn’t care. He had a sudden fire of hope burning in his chest. It hurt nearly as bad as the pain, but it gave him nothing but energy. He grabbed onto the skin of the bubble and dragged himself to the very edge, so he could look out at the kobold pilot. The black scaled kobold was looking at him through a thick faceplate on his muzzle-equipped helmet.

“Gesundheit?” Relix asked.

“We’re not in a story, Merton!” Julia said. “The ending isn’t over till your butt is on Earth!”

Merton glared at the kobold. He made this as clear as he could. He pointed at the Kobold. Then he pointed at the Warsphere. Then he looked at the kobold and slowly drew his finger across his throat. The kobold sat in the seat of his fighter. He sat there. Sat there more. Merton didn’t break eye-contact. He tried to exude menace. As if he was some great and powerful wizard. A controller of dragons. An emperor among emperors. The kobold slowly looked back over his shoulder, then back at Merton.

Merton pointed towards the warsphere more forcefully.

And sitting in the cockpit of his Asp fighter, the black scaled kobold considered his options...and then seemed to say: Eh, fuck it .

The nose of his ship darted underneath the cocoon and then he accelerated forward. Merton sat back in the cocoon as Relix shouted. “What the absolute hell are you doing, husband!?”

“I’m saving our son, Relix!” Merton said, laughing. “I was listening to his fucking playlist! Brash loves DMX!”

“What?!” Julia squeaked.

“Anything you heard might have been the last flutters of biomotonic energies!” Relix said, her voice choked. “Merton, Merton! Don’t! You’re not even a level 1 wizard, that’s a Warsphere full of-” Her voice faded into static as the Warsphere came closer and closer and closer. It swelled before Merton and he clenched his shoulders. The retro thrusters on the Asp fired and the kobold made an abortive grabbing gesture with both hands as he was reminded of the simple physics of Sir Issac Newton.

The bubble of life supporting cells flew off the front of his fighter, like a hood ornament that had been unscrewed, or a basketball from the snout of Air Bud.

As the bubble continued forward, going roughly 50 KPS, Svenk Blackscale sat in his seat, blinked a few times, then said: “Not Svenk’s fault!”

***

Merton had a few seconds before impact to bring up his arm. When the weakened adamantine armor hull buckled under the impact of his psi-shield, a shock radiated through his whole body and he skidded along deck for what felt like half a football field before coming to a stop. He groaned, then coughed, hacked, coughed again, and forced himself to his feet. He was standing in a long, narrow corridor full of wreckage and bodies. The bodies weren’t dead...rather, they were all alive and twisted and wriggling. Like maggots. Their pulsating white skin made Merton want to heave. Knowing they had been goblins or orcs or something until a few minutes before made him feel even sicker.

Looking back over his shoulder, he saw that he had hit the armor plating of the Warsphere, smashed through, hit the corridor, then skidded to a stop. No air rushed out through the hole in the ceiling. But he kind of wished it would . The air that hung in the corridor smelled of the Abyss.

Merton had never imagined what hell would smell like.

Okay, that was a lie. He was a Dungeons and Dragons DM. At least a quarter of his life had been spent picturing what hell was like. But finding out he had been so catastrophically wrong was not exactly the happiest moment in his life.

The air stunk of evil. Not like sulfur or rotting bodies or gunpowder or any of the other scents that had been linked to evil in Merton’s brain by the complex interplay of emotions and evolution and memory. No. It was a smell that went past the logical and hit the emotional parts of his brain with a hammer, designed out of pure instinct, and that hammer rang out: Run! Run! Run! Run you idiot! every time he breathed in. But Merton found something out about himself right then and there.

Evil didn’t smell so bad when you were coming in after Brash.

He looked back at the place he had entered by. There, he could see smears of the cocoon that had carried him here, and a tiny glinting filament of wire dangled from the bit of cocoon that had caught on the jagged edges of the hole. He hurried over, grabbed the wire, then hefted it up. It lay down to the ground, where it was lost in the muck and twisted metal that covered the floor plating. The worst thing was that the corrupted floor didn’t even feel hard anymore. His bare feet squelched and sqolorped (it was a word, look it up) in the viscous wrongness that the Warsphere had been consumed by.

But Merton didn’t care. He hefted up the wire, and saw more of it coming off the ground, drawing taut.

A string, leading him into the darkness.

“Let me see, I hold up the yarn and a giant kitty comes out to show me the way out of the labyrinth, huh?” Merton whispered to himself. He followed the wire – his free hand clenching as he formed his psi-sword. He might not have time to learn many spells. But he had time to practice that . He grinned as he twirled his sword. A few days of sword training with Gunny was surely enough to stand up to devils from the depth of the Abyss. Right?

The corridor remained dark, illuminated only by the pale green glow that shone from his sword. He walked past burnt out consoles and doors that had become serrated with teeth along their inner edges. Merton decided to not go into any of those. Instead, he followed the strand, his ears straining to hear anything beyond the faint groan and grinding of the sphere as it shuddered under the stresses of the Abyss.

Rounding a corner brought him face to face with the first crew-member who had either been incredibly lucky or incredibly unlucky. Unlike the many who had been turned into Abyssal maggots, this one had been turned into a Krggn. Imagine a vulture with slitted eyes, arms, claws the length of a raptor from Jurassic Park and just enough intelligence to enjoy tearing you apart, and you got a good picture of a Krggn. This one was casually chewing down on an orc’s corpse, tearing and ripping bits of internal organ from them.

Merton stood stock still.

And it was at this moment that his brain decided to remind him that he was, in fact, buck naked.

Merton leaped forward, forcing himself to move with a roar of pure rage. The kind of rage that came when you took fear, then turned that fear into righteous anger. And here, he learned why in Hackmaster , every segment of combat during a surprise round counted as a full round for melee attacks. The Krggn had barely enough time to swing its beaky heady around and squawk the Abyssal version of OH JESUS FUCK before Merton brought his psi-sword down into the forearm it lifted up to defend itself.

If psi-swords proved to be less effective than +1 weapons, Merton would have had to enjoy the five or so seconds of stupefied shock as his sword bounced off that arm before the Krggn disemboweled him.

Instead, he had a few stupefied seconds of shock as he gaped at the huge, gory mess that was now the end of the Krggn’s right arm. Its claw and most of its forearm was on the ground, smoking, while thick purple blood fountained out of the arm, indicating the creature’s poor blood pressure. The blood coated Merton’s face and chest like he was Bruce Campbell on the set of any Sam Raimi movie, and the only reason he didn’t drop his psi-sword was because he was pretty sure he couldn’t actually let go of the thing. Rather than doing that, he just flailed, swinging wildly as the Krggn squalled and squalled and more and more blood went flying. When the squalling stopped and Merton realized he was swinging down into deck plating, he stopped, shook his head, wiped some blood away from his eyes and gagged as he saw that there was nothing left of the hideous thing save for a single wing, a bit of beak, and a huge undifferentiated mess of blenderized organ.

“Ugh!” Merton coughed.

A loud hissing and screeching noise came from further down the corridor. “Uh, uh...” Merton looked left, then right, then back. One of the toothed doors he had walked by seemed to be watching him. Merton gulped, then said. “Don’t eat me, and you can get at least  two Krggns! Promise!”

The door paused...then opened. Merton frowned, then walked forward. He placed his psi-sword so the blade would plunge between two of the biggest teeth on the door, then leaped forward. The door tensed, but did not actually slam shut. Instead, he now stood in a room that reeked of evil and whose walls had become studded with egg sacks and whose floor was amazingly sticky. Merton stood in the room as the two new Krggns came around the corner.

“Hey, birdbrains!” Merton shouted. “What killed zee dinosaurs? Dee ice age!”

The Krggn screeched in uncomprehending fury.

The quips weren’t really for them. They were more for him – to shut up the voice screaming at the back of his head: Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck you are going to DIE .

The Krggn charged forward. These ones actually held weapons. One of them had a laser pistol, though he held it more like a club than a firearm. The other one was carrying a short stabbing spear with a monomolecular edge and crackling, electro-static base. They charged up, into the door frame. Merton closed his eyes at the hideous CRASH- sqworlt noise that came next. When he opened his eyes, the door was opening with a satiated belching noise. Blue and purple blood dripped from the frame, and a single Krggn limb had made it into the room: The arm holding the laser pistol.

“I hate this place,” Merton whispered. He banished his psi-sword, then quickly tied the filament he was still clutching in his right hand around his wrist. Once it was tied fast, he summoned his sword, picked up the pistol, then rolled his shoulders. “Okay. Time to Rogue Trader this bitch.”

The next kilometer or so of corridor passed in an unending blur of continual tension. Every corridor, every turn, every doorway brought some kind of new hell for him to wince at. There were burbling corridors whose entire floors had been consumed by boiling blood, which required him to hand over hand along bone-like encrustations along the ceiling, thanking God and his wife for the biological augmentations he had been given. Yes, it had mostly been the dick, but she had also given him the body of an Olympic gymnast, presumably because Relix loved rubbing up against six pack abs. Then there had been the large chamber that had surely once been a mess hall that was now nothing but a single spinal column made up of every single soul who had been in the room, fused into a single snake that coiled around and around and around the table that still dominated the room – slipping between struts. Despite the fact that it was nothing but bone, it breathed and burbled in its sleep. Then there were the corridors with supernatural blackness that was so deep that even his psi-sword didn’t make any light. In those, he had to simply follow the strand and try not to breathe – painfully aware that he was walking past sleeping forms that seemed to be as large as houses, and whose exhalations filled the air with the sweet smell of grape and rotting flesh.

Finally, though, he came to a doorway that wasn’t completely corrupted. The symbols of the Chromatic Dominion were still carved on it, and there was no sign of teeth.

This immediately made Merton suspicious.

Then he heard the unmistakable sizzle pop pop pop of a fully automatic pulse laser rifle and the squealing screech of some demon or another. He looked around for a control, spotted it, saw it was locked, shrugged, and fired his pistol into it. The beam was invisible, but the impact it had on the panel was obvious and quite dramatic. Glass melted, then exploded, smoke flew out, and the door groaned open with a squeal of metal. Inside, he saw that corruption had only touched the very edge of the room, like a tacky Halloween decoration.

In the center of the room sat a statue of five headed dragon. Each dragon head glittered and glowed – each one a different breathtaking color. There was a ruby red head alongside an obsidian black one, a marble white one, an emerald green one and a sapphire blue one. Each one looked down, as if everyone in the chamber had come to be judged by them in particular. There were several orderly pews, but those had been mounted against the two doors that entered from the sides. This, plus the cross shape of the room, and the robed orcess in the room all made Merton think one thing.

Temple .

Two kobold guards in full power armor, with heavy weapons mounted on arm-braced gimbals, were firing into a hoard of spined demons that struggled to get past the barricades that had been thrown up. The Orcess, a curvaceous green beauty with an ankle length black braid that wound from her shoulders to the ground and was the only bit of hair on an otherwise bald head, held up a staff and bellowed out in galactic common: “You shall not pass!”

A black chain made of solidified fire appeared between the power armored kobolds and the devils. It started to whirl about like a fucking cat-o-nine tails, smacking demons, tripping others, drawing itself between gonads to slap demonic balls. The demons squalled and gave the kobolds just enough time to lift their forearms and fire what looked like two dozen micro-frag grenades into the masses from their armor mounted RPGs.

Merton, though, was in the right position to see the chain wrapped, blue skinned demon step in through the door behind the group. The demoness had a single chain twirling around her right arm that looked for all the world like a weapon Kratos would use. It rasped along the ground with a faint scree scree scree that was entirely lost in the roars of explosions. The chain continued along her athletic arm, around her breasts, her hips, even her face. Every bit of exposed flesh had more chain-links worked into the skin, making her look like a cenobite crossed with a hell’s angel. Merton sprinted forward, shouting.

“Look out!”

His pistol sizzled and he burned two blackened holes in the demoness, causing her to jerk backwards before she could bring her blade down into the orcess’ back. Merton lunged with his psi-sword, but the demoness swept her blade up in a curving arc. The blade slashed along his thigh – drawing a shallow line of burning pain as he twisted aside, desperate to turn the blow into a glancing one. He hissed as blood started to flow along his skin. The demoness twirled her blade and then threw it at him like Jackie Chan. Merton dove to the side, skidding behind a pew. That gave him only a few seconds of respite, because a blunt chain smashed into the pew’s center, wrapping around it, crushing it in half, and yanking it aside.

As splinters filled the air, Merton fired four more shots, point blank, into the demon’s chest. She had shifted her posture so that the blasts struck her chain, which turned cherry red but did not quite melt. She hissed with laughter, then swung her blade in curving arcs. It slashed along the ground, sending up sparks, each blade sweep getting closer and closer to Merton’s bare feet. He pushed himself frantically away, butt squeaking along the metal deck plating as the demoness walked up closer and closer, her eyes sparkling with sick amusement.

“Any last words, mortal?” the demoness purred as she swung her chain up – wrapping it around her shoulders and bringing the hilt of her blade slapping into her palm as she lifted a blue foot up and planted it on Merton’s chest, pinning him to the wall with shocking force.

“Yes.”

The demoness turned at the voice behind her.

The orcess swung her staff like a cross between a doped up Babe Ruth genetically fused with John Cena. The impact literally caused the demoness’ head to explode in a spray of black blood, which was followed up by a roar of black flames, which consumed her entire body save for the elongated chain, which dropped to the ground at Merton’s feet.

“Don’t play with your food, you chaotic fuckface,” the orcess snarled.

In the sudden silence that fell after that, Merton slowly picked himself up, wincing at the pain that rushed through his thigh. The ground shuddered and the lights in the ceiling flickered. He looked up, then down at the orcess. She was beautiful – and none of those qualifying ‘for an orc’ bullshit thrown in there. She was beautiful because she was an orcess. Her cute little tusks, her broad nose, her powerful jaw, all of it was sculpted from flesh as emerald perfect as the massive head of the statue looming above her. Her breasts were easily the largest that Merton had ever seen on someone other than Relix, and her body was sculpted with the kind of muscle that would make an Olympiad jealous. Her robes were simple and pure black, with two side slits that went down to her hips, meaning that he could see the delicious hint of side-boob, easily most underrated and overlooked boob.

No, check that.

Under-boob. But side-boob was a close second.

Her legs were long and athletic to match the rest of her. The kind of legs that crush mortal heads between them and leave their now headless owners begging for another chance to eat her out.

Her eyes were haughty ...but she inclined her head. “Thank you,” she said. “I am Priestess Fourth Class of the Xosh Warsphere Hatespite . My name is Ozge.”

Merton smiled. “Merton. Merton Miles.” He coughed. “So, uh, truce?”

“Truce,” Ozge said, nodding.

The two of them turned back. The demons who had been attacking were dead. Unfortunately, so were the kobolds. They had fallen to the last wave, and had taken the last demons out before their own bodies had given up the ghost. Considering that one was missing two legs and another half their head, Merton wasn’t sure if he was impressed or horrified. Looking at Ozge, he saw her shaking her head slightly.

“They died well,” she said.

“As well as can be expected...” Merton shook his head. “Listen, Ozge, this whole Warsphere is being sucked into the Abyss.”

“ Is it now?” she asked, then gestured about herself at the stinking corruption and mounds of demonic corpses. “I didn’t notice!”

Merton closed his eyes. “Trueche.” He sighed. “We have to find my friend and get the fuck outta here before then.”

“What friend of yours is on this ship?” Ozge asked, her brow furrowing. “According to the orders I received from the high priestess of Tiamat, you were on the kill on sight list.”

“Why am I not currently being beaten to death, then?” Merton asked.

Ozge rolled her eyes. “Orders are orders, but a contract is a contract.” She drew up her chin. “I am lawful evil, Merton Miles. I will absolutely turn you over to Emperor Xosh, given the chance. But until that moment, you saved my life. I owe you.” She smirked, slightly, then reached out. Her fingers touched the inside of Merton’s thigh and a glowing light flared up. His wound closed and Merton felt the pain immediately fade. He blinked and Ozge chuckled. “You have now been paid back exactly six out of fifty two points.”

“...you know how many hit points I have?” Merton asked as she drew her hand back – her fingers pausing fractionally as they hovered near the curve of his cock as it lay against his balls.

But Ozge was already walking away. Rolling her hips.

***

The two of them made quicktime, with Ozge to cast a spell that hastened their step and another spell that lighted their way and made most of the weaker demons recoil. And she was quite specific about that. Demons . Not devils.

“Devils have far more decorum,” she said, sniffing.

“If you’re lawful evil,” Merton said, ducking under a bone extrusion that had taken up a big chunk of the ceiling. “Why don’t you use your doomsday weapon to shunt enemies into Lawful Hell?”

“What, just clutter up our devil allies’ living rooms and castles and lands?” Ozge asked, glaring at him. “Without even filling out the proper paperwork?”

Merton blinked and considered himself told. He was about to ask her another question when the two of them rounded the corner and Merton found himself facing Relix. His wife stood in a room, surrounded by demon corpses, holding her own psi-sword, and looking incredibly irritated. Behind her stood Julia, who was holding her plastic wand and looking quite cute and fuckable. Relix saw Merton and beamed.

“Me-”

Merton shot her in the head.

Relix fell backwards, shedding scales and bits of tail until she slapped onto the ground – a devastatingly beautiful woman with ruby red skin and curling horns. Her breasts were the platonic ideal of breasts – firm and perky and yet still jiggling with mature ripeness. She slowly reached up to rub the half-inch deep smoking crater the laser blast had burned into her forehead, then sat up. “What. The. FUCK!?” She screeched as Julia looked at her, then at Merton, then smiled.

Merton shot her in the head too.

A second succubi landed beside the first, clutching at her forehead. “Owowowowowo!”

“How did you know!?” Ozge whispered, sounding shocked.

“I didn’t,” Merton admitted. “I just know that a laser gun to the head only mildly annoys a dragon. I figure my wife would forgive me. And Julia got shot - she’s not getting out of the medibay until she’s healed, and they had no time to manage that.”

He had just enough time to reflect on how grateful he was that he didn’t need to apologize for that when the succubi on the right leaped at him, claws gleaming in the ruddy red light of the hellfires that ringed the room. Ozge intercepted the beautiful, furious demoness with her patented ‘swing my staff like I’m competing for the best baseball trophy, whatever that was called’ method. The impact made Merton wince. The impact of the succubi on the far wall made him wince even more. They were evil creatures of chaotic lust, built around destroying relationships and people through manipulating the finest vice humanity had...but…

Still. Watching a pretty woman get put, head first, through two feet of adamant hull plating was not how he expected to spend his afternoon.

The other succubi screamed in fury and thrust out her palm. Merton reacted as the pulse of red light flew at him, bringing up his psi-sword. He swung it and hit the pulse. The psi-sword rang with the impact and the pulse hit the ceiling, bounced, hit the corner of the room, bounced, then slammed into Ozge as she readied her staff. The energy she had been building up went off into the floor and rebounded upwards to strike the succubi under the chin, sending her skidding out of the room with a clattering series of pangs, pinks, clunks and clanks.

“Ozge!” Merton knelt beside the cleric.

She panted. “Merton...” she whispered, her shoulders shaking. “In five seconds this lust spell is going to...ah...send me...wild and...” Her eyes unfocused and she crooned. “ Fuck me...”

Merton blinked.

Then Ozge grabbed his shoulders and dragged him tight. Her mouth pressed to his and her tusks bumped against his lips. Merton, being a red blooded male, fought for about five seconds. Then he lapsed into the kiss, moaning as he pressed himself against Ozge, the adrenaline of the moment burning through him. His palms cupped her ass, finding it as athletic and sculpted and perfect as he had imagined. His fingers squeezed her through her robes and she ground herself against him. Then Merton dragged his mouth back, gasping heavily.

“W-Wait...” he said. “I have to save-”

Here, he had been about to announce why he had to not plow the orc. She was not in her right mind. He had to save his son, Brash.

Merton had forgotten one thing, though.

Ozge was not just a little stronger than him.

She was a lot stronger than him.

His back smashed into the ground as Ozge put her palms on his chest, shoving him down as she panted heavily, her breasts heaving against her robes, her nipples hard enough to slice through half the doors they had needed to hack into to get to this point. Her eyes flared and she growled. “Mouth. Open.”

Merton opened his mouth to object. And Ozge dragged herself forward then planted her dark green pussy lips right onto his mouth. She was positively flowing with arousal, and she tasted as tangy and tart as a ripe fruit. Her pussy mashed against his mouth and Merton started to lick, desperately trying to pleasure her as her clit bumped against his nose, then her muff filled his nostrils. She was definitely not hairless. He closed his eyes, his cock achingly hard as he reached up to cup her green ass.

“Yessssssss!” Ozge groaned as she rocked herself on his face.

Merton’s hands slipped from her ass to her belly, feeling her rock hard abs, then found her breasts. He fondled both emerald orbs, his fingers finding her nipples. Tweaking them brought forth an animalistic growl of pure pleasure from the priestess as she continued to grind herself against Merton’s face. Merton was having a hard time breathing. All things considered, there were worse ways to go. Right?

Ozge clearly disagreed. She drew her sex off his mouth after a few more seconds. She panted heavily, then dragged herself forward again. Her palms slapped to the mutated deck of the warsphere and she arched her spine like a cat’s. Her belly mashed to the floor, even as her ass thrust up into the air and her thighs spread wide. She dripped from her eager slit – and her voice was a quiet growl . She didn’t even use words. She just communicated – with posture and with eyes that if Merton didn’t satisfy her right fucking now, she would do something...drastic.

Merton’s cock was achingly hard. He didn’t need much more encouragement to scramble forward. He lined his cock up with her sex, his hands going to her shoulders. Her muscles strained underneath his fingers as she snarled out a wordless plea. He slammed into her. Slammed . He used every bit of biomorphically augmented strength he had and every inch of his long, thick dick. He practically felt himself bump up against her womb , that was how hard he thrust. Hilting himself in her green pussy felt like getting onto the back of a bull. Or, more accurately, getting on the back of a bull felt like barebacking an orcess, because Ozge immediately redefined the concept of an active lover. Her back arched and she bucked herself up against him. Merton had to slide an arm around her athletic belly, then grabbed onto her ankle length ponytail with his other hand. The fact that this single clump of hair was both the longest bit of hair he had ever touched ever and the only bit of hair on her otherwise bald head made its use all the more obvious.

Merton hauled back. Her muscular neck and shoulders tensed and he, despite having leverage and position, had a hard time yanking her head back far enough to look into her eyes from above. Her jaw was hanging open.

But her eyes were far from submissive.

“That...” she growled. “All. You. Fucking. Got?”

Merton almost collapsed like a cut marionette right then and there. Fighting his way to the center of the Warsphere was one thing, but satisfying this woman? Forget about it. Then he shook his head. No. No. He was Merton Miles. He had lain studious magitech engineers, willful space princesses who also happened to be dragons, and a girl who had, until fairly recently, been a man. He could handle fucking an orcess. He grabbed onto her hips – and growled.

“Not even close .” He started to slam into her, grunting as his hips and her hips met with the fierce slap noises. His balls pounded against her belly and Ozge rolled her head back, her mostly bald pate shining with perspiration in the hellfire of the room. Her mouth opened and her tongue lolled out as she shuddered in pure pleasure. His balls started to ache and his hips started to bruise and still, Merton didn’t give up. He kept up the ferocious pressure and used every trick he had to try and think of anything but the pleasure of her velvety, vice tight cunt.

Ozge did not make it easier.

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh yes! Yes! Yes!” She cried out, her voice musical as she worked her hips in perfect time with his thrusting. Her fingers dug into the floor and her breasts cut perfect circles in the air. Her muscular limbs tensed as she shuddered in orgasmic pleasure – and Merton gave up on his pride. He wanted to get her off multiple times...but he simply couldn’t hold up against the sensation of her pussy. He closed his eyes and shuddered hard as he came. And he came hard . His seed spilled into her, then rushed past his cock, starting to spill along her thighs. His cum pattered onto the ground and he sagged above her.

Ozge panted. “Acceptable,” she said, sounding only slightly dazed.

“Dude!” Merton jerked his head up.

        ***

How long did a silence have to stretch between two people who had just fucked under the influence of a succubi granted lust curse before it became awkward? Merton figured that once they hit the three minute mark of silently walking through corridors, following the glinting strand of filament, they had definitely hit the ‘uber awk’ mark. He coughed, about to bring it up to Ozge – who was dressed once more in her robes...when she held up her hand.

“Shh...” She whispered. “Hear that?”

Merton’s brow furrowed. He craned his head and perked up his ears and tried to hear anything over the low groaning and creaking of the Warsphere. But then he heard it. And his heart leaped. He started forward, sprinting past bone encrusted wall. His feet squelched as Ozge reached out for him – but Merton didn’t care. He came to the corner, skidded around...and stopped dead. He was looking out into a room, easily the size of a good sized Starbucks. The floor was empty, save for bits of black obsidian that thrust out of flesh-like muscle. The walls were illuminated by glowing spotlights – bright white ones. They shone...on corpses.

There was Lisa. Her hands had been pinned to the walls by spikes and her guts had been cut out to drag on the floor.

There was Carlos – headless and crumpled up beside Trevor, who had been cut fully in half. Merton’s Mom and his Dad were an almost unrecognizable mass of red tissue, save for their faces. And the centerpiece of it all was Merton himself. He was seated against a wall, his own body recreated perfectly, with a yawning slice along his throat. Next to him was the headless body of Relix, her skull sat in his own lap.

In the center of this horrifying tableaux was a small, tightly coiled body of black scale and wings, which had been clamped tight around himself. The tiny dragon was curled up beside a few tiny copper coins, a single aluminum fork, and a red plastic drinking cup. And whispering from corpses was a cascade of voices – all of their voices.

“You let us die...”

“You’re a very bad dragon...”

“I hate you...”

“Why did you fail us, Brash?”

“No one likes you...”

“You-”

Merton screamed . It was a sound he had never made before in his life, and a sound he thought he’d never make again. He charged forward and, without thinking, he swung his psi-sword out at the corpse of Lisa. The blade made contact and the corpse poofed away into smoke. He swung again and his own body and Relix’s body vanished as well. He shouted again and again, bellow after bellow as he dissipated body after body, until the room was empty of the corpses and the whispers were gone – lost in the echoes of his shouting.

“Merton!” Ozge shouted.

Merton swung around and saw a form emerging from the darkness. It was a hideous demon – elongated limbs that looked as if they had been stretched out on a rack, with bluish skin that shone like rubber. It had the pot-belly of a starved baby, and the bald head of a grey alien, with a smattering of red eyes. It snarled and gurgled in Abyssal, charging at him with a spear of black metal in one hand. Merton stepped up and slashed at it with every bit of furious strength he had.

The demon’s head went flying.

As it thumped to the ground with a blub blub blub of slowly flowing blood, Merton stepped back, his psi-sword vanishing in a sizzle of sparks. He knelt down and pulled Brash into his arms. The small dragon was still shivering, as if he was freezing, and he didn’t respond as Brash petted his spine gently. His fingers caressed every ridge of Brash’s back, and he whispered soft words. “Shh, shh, it’s okay, it wasn’t real, it’s okay...” Brash shuddered convulsively, then suddenly grew to his full size. It took Merton a few seconds to realize he was now being coiled around by a snake-like body nearly the length of a school bus. His arms stuck above his head and his ribs creaked as Brash squeezed him, then started to nose at his hair.

“M-Merton?” Brash whispered.

“Too tight!” Merton squeaked.

“Who is that?” Ozge asked.

Brash shrank down to his smallest, most kittenish size and Merton clung to him, enfolding him in his arms and his palms. He petted him gently, then looked up at Ozge. He smiled, slowly. “T-This is Brash. He is the-”

“He is...a traitor .”

A cold...sneering...imperious voice spoke from the darkness. Merton turned around. The same fury he had felt before had cooled into the killing radiance of a neutron star. The figure stepping from the darkness was clearly a dragon. Armor plating from a B-suit wreathed his body, but his head had been revealed by the sloughing back of the armor’s skin and bone. Blue scales glittered, but nothing shone quite like the gleaming iron circlet that sat around the horns of the dragon who would be Emperor.

Emperor Xosh stood there, a shrike catapult extended from his left arm. Merton continued to pet Brash slowly.

“A disappointment,” Xosh continued. “A pathetic, sniveling piece of dung . I spit on his every ancestor. Not that he’ll have any. You came here, Lord Castrovel, to die. And the fact I can rob that little cunt of a princess of happiness for the rest of her life almost makes this moment worth it.” His nose flared and static sparkled around his teeth as his tongue flicked the air. Merton, though, was busy checking the body over. He saw dozens of still bleeding cuts on the B-suit, as well as several smoking exhaust ports that the enslaved, genetically engineered dragon had grown to vent waste heat.

“How much ammo do you have left, Xoshy?” Merton said, slowly reaching back. He held Brash out to Ozge, who took him with the expression of utter confusion that came when a baby was handed off to someone who had never touched one in their lives.

Xosh’s eyes flared. “Enough.”

Merton shook his head slowly. “And by the way. My name actually isn’t Lord Castrovel. I didn’t take her name. She didn’t take mine . I’m Merton Miles of California. Bester of House Thresh, master of hacks, rules lawyer and alignment arbiter. I am the delver in the Fortress of Regrets, planeswalker and planes strider. I count among my allies the Night City and the United Nations of Earth. I’ve seen Presidents deposed and godlike dragons rendered speechless. I have walked the streets of Atlantis and destroyed warspheres. I am dragon tamer and dragon slayer and, yes, dragon layer.” He lifted up his arm and his psi-sword flared to life as he grinned, fiercely.

“And I think you are absolutely fucking out of ammo.”

Xosh clenched his fist.

Then snapped his arm. Merton started to move – but the spinfusor disk sliced along his belly and burst out the side of his body with a spray of blood and a pain he couldn’t even begin to describe. He clutched at his side and made a sucking, gasping noise, then a choking noise as blood started to flow from between his lips.

“You were off by one ,” Xosh snarled.

Merton fell to one knee.

“Merton!” Brash screamed.

Then a black flame shot out and struck his side. It flared and the wound closed up, vanished, healed as if it had never been. Merton and Xosh both looked at Ozge, who lowered her palm. “Now we’re even,” she said. Her voice was even. But her eyes had a very faint glint  in them. Merton wondered, exactly, how far his saving her life had taken him, and how much slack he’d gotten from the fucking.

Brash blinked from where he sat in her arms.

“Kick his BUTT, Dad!” He shouted.

Merton turned. Xosh brought his shrike catapult around. The bladed edge of the barrel was still more than enough to disembowel Merton. Save that Merton met it with his shield – which flared to green life with a thought. Merton howled out a wordless warcry then shoved forward, driving Xosh backwards. The Emperor of the Chromatic Dominion gave ground, his feet skidding along the slick floor.

“I am a dragon you fucking monkey!” Xosh growled.

“Funny,” Merton said, smirking. “I thought you were a banker.”

He lifted his shield up as lightning surged from Xosh’s mouth. It slammed into the shield and reflected into the ceiling with a spray of sparks. Merton slashed and Xosh parried with his shrike catapult. Silvery chrome and glowing green met and sparks flew again.

“Not that being a banker is bad!” Merton laughed, then jerked backwards as Xosh grew a third arm. His claws slashed out and once more met his shield, sparks flying. Merton stepped back again, then flew his shield. Xosh caught it with his upper hands, then had to grow two lower hands to grab onto Merton’s wrist, to stop Merton’s lunge from becoming an impalement. “In fact, if you stayed a fucking banker, I think we’d all be much fucking happier !”

Xosh twisted himself into a complex loop, his body shifting into an ophidian shape that let him writhe past Merton. Only Merton’s quick twist and bringing up his psi-shield saved his spine. But claws still slashed along his calf and pain shot through him. He fell to one knee. Then Xosh was on him, grabbing the shield and hauling his arm upwards. Merton parried a claw strike at his chest, then slashed at Xosh. But Xosh simply took the blow, letting it split scale and muscle, not even seeming to notice. For it wasn’t his scales on the line.

Instead, he knocked Merton’s wrist aside, then slammed him down.

“Did you think you could defeat me!? A level one wizard with some fancy tricks ?” Xosh boomed, lightning crackling around his mouth.

Merton wheezed.

“Kinda hoped...” he admitted.

Xosh lifted up his clawed talon, then grinned. “You know what I’m going to do, Merton Miles? I’m going to rip out your throat. Then I’m going to disembowel that little fucking pet of yours. Then I will have Priestess Ozge raise your ghost and I’ll wring every secret you have out of your soul before binding you into my fucking ring...then...I’ll make your ghost watch as I take your form and then fuck your wife. I’ll make you watch as I fuck her...and then strangle her in the bed. Do you understand?” His other hand was wrapped around Merton’s throat, squeezing. He rocked Merton back, then forward. “Then I’ll start on your family  and your friends  and your concubine  and your whole fucking  planet. I’ll make what the hellcannon would have done seem like nothing! Nothing, you hear me!”

Sparks dropped from his mouth.

Merton wheezed out a faint whisper.

Xosh chuckled, then loosened his grip slightly.

“What?” he growled.

“You...” Merton whispered. “You got red on you.”

Xosh looked down.

A tiny red dot shone on his chest.

“Dee dee dee dee...” The dot swept up to his shoulder. Xosh slapped at it. “Doo doo doo doo.” The dot swung to his right shoulder. “Nah nah nah nah!” The dot finally settled on Xosh’s forehead – painted there by the glowing red nose of Brash as he perched on Ozge’s shoulder.

Xosh blinked.

“What’s he doing?” Ozge asked, looking at Brash’s nose.

Merton jerked his head aside.

And half a kilometer away, the Talon-9’s forward railgun coughed once. A tungsten dart the length of a longsword struck weakened adamantine plates, cutting a hole as perfectly straight as if it had been drawn by the ruler. Or painted by a laser. The tungsten dart didn’t so much as deviate by a nanometer, meaning that it struck Emperor Xosh the First (and last) of the Chromatic Dominion right square on the back of his skull.

His head did not so much explode as become so many fine particulates. The hole continued to cleave into the ship, leaving a gaping, cherry red circle on the deck plating about half an inch from Merton’s head.

The roar of the round’s impact filled the room and blew Xosh’s headless body off Merton’s body, leaving him coughing, gasping.

Brash thrust his arms up into the air. “I get solo XP!”

“You do not!” Merton coughed, rubbing at his throat.

The ground shuddered. A low, distant roar came echoing up from the narrow hole shot into the ship. Merton stood, shakily as Ozge’s head jerked up. That roar had contained words – words spoken in Abyssal. Merton looked at Ozge. She translated: “Uh, that shell just killed Pazuzu’s favorite pet hellhound.”

Brash hopped onto Merton’s shoulder. “Don’t suppose you can do any cool badass flying?” Merton asked.

“I...no...” Brash admitted. “That evil jerkbag lying evil dumb demon of nightmares drained me. I’m...still really tired...” He blushed. “I can try-”

“No, it’s fine!” Merton said, nodding. He took Ozge’s hand and then started to run down the corridor. The floor shook and the ceiling groaned and the whole warsphere seemed to buck and rock under their feet. It was more than the slow collapse into portals. It was something big. And it was something pissed . Merton hissed to Brash. “Brash! Cough up a nuke, please!”

“A what!?” Ozge yelped as Brash coughed, cutely, and a glowing pin roughly the size of a hand grenade. Merton spun around, looked up, and saw a crack rent in the ceiling by the shuddering of the ship. He underhanded the nuclear bomb upwards, then dragged Ozge into the biggest, thickest bit of cover he could. The white flash that bathed them was stark and fierce and burning – but with layers of adamantine between them and the relatively small tac nuke, Merton hoped that the acute radiation sickness wouldn’t kick in until they were back on the Talon-9 .

When he looked up, the ceiling had formed into a perfect ramp of molten metal, sloughing down into the corridor. Above him was a yawning mass of empty ship – then more corridors, their floors blown away and raining down in bits of molten metal. He winced. He hadn’t quite figured out how to get past that point.

A sudden torrential roar of sonic hammer-blows struck his ears. Before his eyes, the corridors and chambers that he had revealed started to vanish, as if huge bites were being taken out of them by the world’s most ferocious woodpecker. The holes came in at a shallow angle, and he could see the rippling in the air as railgun slugs tore and tore and tore. Then adamantine sheets tore upwards in a squeal and groan of apocalyptic noise .

“Ow!” Brash groaned, clutching his claws to his head.

“There!” Merton shouted, though he wasn’t sure if anyone could hear him.

There was the Talon-9 .

It flew down into the gaping hole it had blown into the Warsphere, but it was still too far. There was molten metal dribbling down, enough to make a ramp. But it was still too hot. And then, like an obscure bit of rules screaming from the back of his mind just in time to right a campaign that had gone derailed, Merton screamed at Brash: “WATER CANNON!”

Brash gasped. Then his back unfolded and a water cannon the size of his whole body snapped out. Ozge pointed at that and screamed: “What the everloving fuck!?”

“It’s for vampires!” Merton shouted.

“How does THAT make sense!?” Ozge screamed back as the roaring, groaning sounds of the warsphere collapsing became even louder. Water sprayed from the cannon, striking the metal. Steam filled the air and Merton didn’t waste time. He sprinted forward, his feet skidding and burning at the same time as he charged up the ramp with Ozge and Brash. The water continued to sluice along and he nearly lost his footing at least five times. Then they were bursting out of the cloud – and there was the Talon-9 , and hanging from her cargo hold were ropes, and hanging from the rope was Gunner. He reached out, grabbed onto Ozge’s arm and bodily flung her upwards.

His arms grabbed onto Merton.

And then a blue scaled hand reached from the fog and closed around his ankle.

Merton screamed as his leg was drawn taut and he felt two hundred pounds of weight drag against him as Brash yelped and clung to the back of his head. Looking back down, he saw Xosh. The dragon was dangling from his leg, his headless body smoking and smoldering with contact with the still hot metal. Behind him, the decks were collapsing downwards – revealing swirling portals straight into the depths of the Abyss.

Xosh’s neck stump rippled and a new head forced its way out. His eyes glowed with fury and he snarled. “I moved my brain you idiot monkey!”

Merton clenched his jaw and lifted up his free leg. “I...” he kicked Xosh in the face. “Have had...” He kicked again. “ENOUGH...” He kicked again. “OF YOU!” The last kick hit a slippery tongue. Merton had enough time to realize his mistake when Xosh chomped down and Merton’s foot ceased to be a foot and started to become shattered bone, torn muscle, and pain. Lots of pain. Xosh shook his head and Merton screamed – feeling the pain of his leg, his foot, his shoulder joint. Gunner couldn’t let him go to draw his pistol or rifle.

Xosh continued to speak – growing an extra mouth on the back of his head. “I may lose everything! But I will have you !”

A squeal of unspooling rope filled Merton’s ears. He saw, through a haze of pain, Julia. She held a laser pistol in one hand and her other was on the rope. She was attached by a harness, her witches hat cocked aside. She aimed.

Fired.

And hit Merton’s leg.

The laser cut through skin smoothly and left behind a smoldering ruin.

Merton howled – then gasped as the pressure on his leg vanished. “You missed!” He howled.

Xosh fell, his mouth filled with Merton’s foot. His eyes were wild with furry. His arms reached upwards and he started to try and grow his wings...

Fell.

But the B-suit that he wore remained too damaged to respond...

Fell.

And so he dropped, like a stone, trailing red blood like a stream of ruby crystals...

Fell.

And then plunged into the maw of Pazuzu as he flew up towards the portal. The massive demon lord’s mouth closed with a resounding srunch .

The Talon-9  lifted upwards.

Peeled away.

Dragged the ropes up. The cargo hold slammed shut and Merton sprawled backwards against Gunner and Julia. Julia, her voice thick, her eyes brimming, gasped: “Y-You take way more damage from lasers, sorry!”

Merton...simply laughed. Hysterically. He sprawled back and wheezed out: “Should have named him Toothless!”

Underneath the Talon-9 , the warsphere collapsed down to a single point of shimmering red light, the portal that had been sustained by the recursive feedback of the hellcannon rippling. Pazuzu massive arm reached out, groping around wildly for the ship that had killed his favorite hellhound. Then the portal started to close and he withdrew his arm in a hurry – yanking it back before the portal slammed shut with a reverberating boom that could be heard on Earth.

And across the Earth, crowds that had gathered to pray, to hold one another for the last time, to run for shelter...begin to cheer.

The day was saved.