[b][u][center]No-Alt Insurance Part 7 For Taiko By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b] Popcorn wasn’t exactly Nor’s favorite snack, but when it came to watching someone else suffer, it was definitely the approved snack for anyone, hero or villain alike. And in this case, watching the Nor that had screwed up his world so much, the Nor who he had chased here in order to find the time machines, the Nor that had ruined his Lil’s plans as badly as he had, watching [i]him[/i] go through some of the bullshit that he had been forced to deal with was satisfying as could be. [i]Yeeeees, let’s see how you like a fanboy ghost…[/i] He smirked as he munched on another couple of pieces of popcorn, watching as Nor was coiled up by the great tail of the cobra ghost that he had only just barely escaped. He watched as that tail slithered up Nor’s ass, as the blue and red mule had to take that thing right up the rump, getting possessed by the ghostly admirer. His cock throbbed slightly as he watched, but Holt was right there to take care of it. Ever since the human had been filled the first time, he had been an eager admirer of the purple mule, eager to fall down to his hands and knees and suck it again, and more than slightly eager to turn around and offer his ass. The addiction to the mule’s cock was real, and the way that it affected the mind was as reliable as ever. A very welcome thing to find out, he had to admit. The last thing that he needed was to find out that it was completely useless here. As the Nor on the screen started to go green-eyed, the purple Nor leaned back a bit further, allowing the human to go for his balls, to worship them, to lick them, to suck on them and savor them. The soft pops of Holt’s lips over his sac was enough to make him groan, to keep his cock up and twitching. [i]Mmm…[/i] He had to admit, this was a handy bit of revenge. It wasn’t needed, really, and he knew that it was a little much, but after all the crap that he had gone through to get this far, he felt that he deserved something like this. Seeing the other Nor – the less-good Nor – dealing with the same sort of frustrations that he’d been forced to go through made up for a lot. Not everything, but a lot. Another piece of popcorn as the other mule was made to go to all fours, dumbly humping the air as the ghost forced its control on him, making him thrust away like a dumb feral. Bit by bit, the other mule’s cock started growing, getting bigger, filling out, thrusting up along pecs that were getting stronger and thicker by the second as well. The purple mule smirked, gripping his cock just under the head for a little additional stimulation as Holt dug into his balls that much more enthusiastically. [i]That’s it…just a little…a little more…[/i] He watched as the Nor on screen was molested further, forced to get up to his feet after his cock had grown almost long enough to bump his chin. The hooved mule was panting, gasping, his eyes wild, his balls churning like crazy. As the mule on-screen gripped his cock, forcing it into his mouth to suck on, he was also made to finger himself, fingering himself with two, three, four fingers at once, spreading that wide ass further and further so that he could get them all in. The purple Nor could still remember how enthusiastic that ghost had been, how eager it had been for a Nor to admire, to possess, to play with. He imagined that it was going to make sure to get its money’s worth today. He groaned softly as Holt pushed back a bit further, and he scooted along the chair to make room. Feeling the human’s tongue tracing along his taint, he knew where it was going. And he was right. “Mmm…yeah…get in there…” He barely knew what he was saying, his hand flying along his cock as he watched the show, the popcorn forgotten as he indulged in watching Nor getting finger-fucked by his own hand, as he watched the other mule forcing his cock down his throat. One thrust, two, three, the thing seeming to grow even further to fill his muzzle. The ghost was using that body good and hard, just like everyone else had used that Nor good and hard since Holt had fallen under his control. [i]The gangbang from the robots, Toroid…and a few others for good measure…[/i] The entire morning had been spent putting his alternate through one sort of fuckery after another. Each little pocket of time that Holt had been able to manufacture had put Nor through at least a day or two of being used – the purple mule had watched the highlights of those rather than a direct feed – and after all that he’d been through, the purple mule was more than willing to be a bit…inventive. Various villains had been drawn into the picture, from Nemean getting a good fuck in, all the way down to some guy named Grasper that managed to collect Nor and several copies of him for an incredibly indulgent evening. This was just the latest thing, and he was more than pent-up now, waiting for the climax. Groaning, he gripped his cock that much tighter, humping his hand and thrusting back against Holt’s tongue along his rump. Every time that the human stuck his tongue out, thrusting between the mule’s ass cheeks, he felt a spark of pleasure from it, throbbing right up through his cock and through his balls. He groaned, thrusting into his hand to the timing of Nor’s finger-thrusts on the screen, imagining putting that other version of himself in its proper place. God, that would feel good. Show them who was the real, superior version. That would be…that would be… Nor grunted, feeling his pleasure reach its peak. He thrust back, half-burying Holt between his ass cheeks, and he squeezed just under the head of his cock as he came. “MMMPH!” He came and came and came, blowing his load hard all over the floor, all over himself, and all over the human beneath him. The sudden pleasure, the great release after literally hours of edging himself to the revenge porn on the screen, was more than enough to leave him flopped out afterward. Slumping into the seat, he groaned as Holt slid out from under him. The human panted softly, his eyes wild with lust, but his face carefully controlled. Nor had to admit, he admired that about the human; despite his addiction, he was still able to do what he was told, to wait and be patient. Not many people that he had fucked had managed to retain that much agency of themselves. [i]Heh. I wonder if he’s going to be a Nor addict after I leave, if he’ll keep this up with the other Nor…[/i] It wouldn’t be the same, getting fucked by that cock. He knew that the other Nor didn’t have his addicting tendencies and biology. That said, it might scratch the itch a bit until the human was able to build up a tolerance to his need. One more bit of revenge that he could say that he had gotten. Grunting, the purple mule forced himself to sit up again. His cock was finally going down, and his interest in the porn on the screen was finally fading. Flailing around for a moment for the remote, he turned off the transmitter and the screen, and then got to his feet. He wobbled for a moment, that orgasm having taken more out of him than he expected, and then helped Holt up, as well. “Alright…I think we’re ready to go down to the vault.” “Hmmph. You…you are going to bring something back for me?” “I’ll see what I can do.” “That wasn’t the deal…” “You were the one that broke the deal, remember?” “You negotiated…bad faith…” “You were the one that listened.” He felt a slight pang at that, but he excused it away as the costs of dealing with a villain. Despite that, he knew that there was a lot wrong with how he had behaved, how he had taken this. The last few hours had been spent in a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, and he was going to be taking his prize and running. Even now, he was lying to Holt. Lying in the pursuit of the greater good was always excusable, or at least, that was what he believed. It wasn’t like he could tell Holt that he was going to blow up everything but the things he could steal down there, was it? That would keep the human from helping him at all, and as much as it galled him to admit it, he [i]needed[/i] help to get to the vault. Both Lil and the information that Holt had about the vortexes and the funnel-mine that he’d been using to get to the vault confirmed that; there were too many ways for things to go off-track, off the rails, if he tried to do it on his own. Still, he knew that he had to do this. If he didn’t, then the whole point of coming here in the first place, of putting himself through all the insanity that he had, would have been wasted. He grabbed Holt, holding him close. “I’m going to do this, and you’re going to help me. I need it, and you know I do. Just like you know that there’s no way that you’re going to get down there without me. You’re going to have to trust me, as much as you hate trusting anybody. You understand?” “…Yes.” “Then let’s make this happen.” Holt nodded, and the room changed. Just as ever, it wasn’t a dissolve, nor was it a transformation. It was one thing, and then it wasn’t, as if the moment of the shift happened too fast for any mind, mechanical or biological or otherwise, to perceive. It made it feel as if it had always been this new thing, and that the previous one had been nothing but a dream. Nor stood in the middle of the industrialized office, between a very uncomfortable-looking couch and a desk that looked like it could cut someone in two if they leaned on it too hard. The mule took a step back, making sure that he was giving it some distance, and turned around. This time, there was a new door on the far wall. Right where the projector had been, where the films of the other Nor’s indignities had been streamed from, was the door that swirled and spun and twisted at the eye, the thing that made it hard to stare at it, hard to remember that it was there. Nor groaned, feeling a headache coming on just by looking at it for a second, and continued effort made his head feel like it was spinning, like it was at the middle of a clock and the rest of his body was slowly rolling around the outer edge, his feet pointing at number after number as he spun through the endless waves of oblivion. He closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths. “That…that’s really disorienting.” “That’s the funnel into the time vortex. If you can’t take it, then we’ll have to stop this. Now.” “No. I can. I just…will need your help.” “Hmmph. Now you need help.” “Are you going to be petty, or are you going to help me do this?” “I don’t have a choice either way. I cannot stop my nature, and I cannot ignore your orders.” “And if I ordered you to stop being petty?” “Then I might find the one order that I can’t obey.” “…Ugh.” “Let’s get started.” The mule held as still as possible as Holt started fiddling with time, muttering phrases that opened up the firewalls that he had around his body-control functions. He could feel the little programs that were being inserted into the processors in the core of his body, into the main operating systems, and the only reason that he allowed it was that he knew that he could purge them if he really had to. The feeling of the foreign data, however, never did feel quite right to him, and he grimaced every time that he felt another one pop into being, inserted through some random point in time. When it was all ready, he walked up to the door, keeping his eyes on the floor in the process. He felt around, not really wanting to look again, not wanting to fall into that weird, spinning, unreal sensation once more, even though he knew that he would have little choice in the matter soon enough. [i]Just a little ways in. The vault’s not far past this point, according to both of them. If I can just make it in, then I’m fine. If I can make it in, I’m good.[/i] And then the mission would be over, and he could get home, and this would be over, done, and he could just…ignore everything else. This would never have to happen again. Lil would have what he needed, the mission would be accomplished, and they could go back to dealing with their world, and their world alone. Nor was surprised just how much he wanted to go home. He wasn’t shaking, but he could feel that hint of panic way down deep, wanting to come up again and make itself known. He shivered as he realized just how far he had come, how far he wanted to go back, and the mule clenched his hand hard around the door handle. [i]I’m not afraid. I’m not…I’m fine. I’m fine.[/i] He took that and nodded to himself, pulling the door open. The blast of forward-backward-forward feeling was just as disorienting as the spinning feeling, and as soon as he stepped through the door, he was flying and falling and spinning around as if he was falling through space and time itself right at that moment. Everything that gave him orientation, everything that let him tell what was up or down, forward and back, was gone. All that he had was this feeling of motion, of being completely out of control, as if he was running backwards down a hill while being on a waterslide and twisting through the worst loop-the-loops on the craziest rollercoaster ever devised. It was all happening at once, combined with the feeling of rising and falling at the same time. There was no way to tell what was happening, no way to understand what was going on with him at any given second. He had lost all orientation, and he was screaming. Screaming quite a bit, actually. “Move left.” Nor took that step, and suddenly, he had a direction. He knew what direction was left, knew that it was on that side. Knew that was a thing. “Move left and then forward.” His body obeyed again, and he felt some of the panic that had been rising start to fall again. Or rise. Or fall. It was hard to tell how that was working, just as hard to tell as the world outside, as the world around him, as the world in general was. Everything was a mess, and everything was just starting to fall apart again when – “Forward, forward, back, forward, left, right, right, left.” Each movement was a step, and as he kept taking them, he realized that he was finding his way forward, dragging himself through a world that did have meaning if it was viewed from the outside. From within the chaos, nothing made sense, but when one was attached to a fixed point, one could translate it. This was why he needed Holt. This was why nobody could get there on their own. They needed that connection to the outside to translate what the insanity actually meant. Even so, Nor felt…strange. Like he was being here and not here at the same time, as if he was present everywhere, or everywhen. A vision popped up in front of him, bright and vivid and altogether stark and crisp. His eyes went wide as he watched him and the other Nor fighting Nemean and losing, watched as they tried and failed to work together back in his own world. He saw himself, and himself saw him. They stared, and then his other self was punched through the wall, where he would be held for the remainder of the fight. Nor grunted as he felt that blow all over again, feeling it hitting his gut, and remembering how easily he had been taken out of the fight back then. He remembered a distraction, but not…not what it was… [i]Did I…how did I…[/i] Another flicker, another vision. He was there again, standing in front of himself, and he could see himself staring out across the sea in his Novus Ager. Saw himself sitting on the dock, saw the vessel that Lil had used to come to his world arrive in the water. He saw Lil, saw Lil see him, and then he disappeared. [i]Did Lil know? Did he anticipate…[/i] More and more of these visions popped out, and he found himself falling through his timeline, falling through it and out of it, walking through the endless permutations of his life and the lives of others. The funnel reached out through this Novus Ager and into others, and he saw versions of himself, other purple Nors, that were kinder, and others that were more cruel. He saw those that were villainous, and those that were saints. He saw himself in every which way that he could possibly be, and some of which that should have been impossible. And he had to keep walking. Holt kept him walking, even as the temptation grew to stay. When he tried to resist, he felt the world thicken around him, almost like he was being thrown out of the time vortex into that particular timeline, and every time that happened, he felt the terror that was behind the possibility. He could so easily be trapped somewhere that he would never be able to get away from, be stuck somewhere that would hold him, keeping him from his world. From Lil. From everyone that he knew. He listened to the commands, allowing them to take him through the time vortexes. He started to learn how they worked, started to understand the tricks and traps. The only thing that he didn’t have was the understanding of how it all worked, how he was supposed to find his way forward. He just knew that he had to keep moving, and he had to avoid temptation such as the places offered to him. Forward, left, forward, forward, right, back, left, right, right, forward. He was stepping through time, through existence, and the further he went, the more that he felt the eyes of something else upon him. He looked over his shoulder, and he saw something, something that shimmered, something that glimmered like a cat’s eye in moonlight. It stared at him, hard and firm, and he swore that he felt a shove, something that almost took him off the path. Then it was gone…and so were the swirls of other existences. He stood at the edge of time, between the point where it passed and where it did not. This was different from a fixed point, as different as a free-flowing river was from an ice cap. Both existed, but one could move, could shift, could change or be diverted. This…this felt like it never could. It wasn’t that time had been frozen, because time that was frozen could be unfrozen, allowed to move once more. Time here had been killed. It had been slaughtered, and the dead seconds felt heavy in the air, almost like he was trying to move through molasses. He had to struggle to move forward, and he felt like he was losing something with every step that he took. “Holt?” He didn’t know if the human could hear him from down here. He didn’t know if anything could know that he existed down here, let alone actually communicate with him. Taking another step forward felt like he was moving through the death of existence, like everything would wind down to nothing like this. The vault door loomed before him like the essence of darkness, where light had gone to die. It felt impossible to reach for, his hand slowing down as he reached for it, slowing further and further until it came to a complete stop just before it could touch it. No matter how he pressed, he couldn’t actually open it up. It was as if everything had just…ended, as if the time that needed to pass for him to reach it just couldn’t continue, as if there was no time left to spend. His time had, effectively, run out. Nor struggled to pull his hand back, but he couldn’t even do that. Belatedly, he realized that he was literally spending time to do anything, even think, and that the seconds and minutes that he had brought with him through the time funnel were being killed off, expended with everything that he did. What did he have left? Time? No, he didn’t have any time left for himself. He hadn’t brought time for himself, hadn’t thought to bring time. He was spending time thinking, spending it and wasting it. What could he – No, wait. There was… There was one thing. He twitched his hip ever so slightly, and he felt the journal that he had taken from the ghost fall to the floor. That man had had his life stolen, and what was a life but the time that one had to do the things that one wished? A lifetime that could have been used, a lifetime that had been taken away. A lifetime…that was a key to a place without time. He pushed it forward with his foot, and as soon as it touched the darkness, it broke, opening to reveal the interior of the vault. The stasis had been placed in the walls and door of the vault, and inside, the air was still and thick. However, with the addition of time, there was something that seemed to be waking up, the world within gaining its own life. The longer that the door was open, the more that it started to warm up, and the easier moving became. Nor managed to step inside, looking around, casting his eyes on the different things that were stored within. Many of them were tall, upright things that varied in shape from a simple tube to a standing box, while some were more complex, ranging from something like a pitted potato to something that looked almost like a star-ship, something that could fly through space as well as through time. Because that’s what they were. That’s what Lil had wanted. A time machine. [i]Just have to take the right one…[/i] “Holt? Holt, can you hear me?” There was no response. Instead, there was only a crackle on the other end, one that was distorted, and through which only a hint of life could be heard. Nor winced, hoping that was just technical difficulties rather than the entirely-possible possibility that something had come back out of the vortex and found Holt. But there was no time to dwell on that just then. He had to find the right machine and deal with all the others, or he might face the same fate. The account of the ghost’s life was giving him space to work, and he had to finish before that account ran dry. The mule quickly picked out the right machine, one that looked like a long silver cylinder pressed up against the wall. The chassis was a little delicate, but he remembered it from the pictures that Lil had shown him. It was one of those without an AI to run things, so that his boyfriend wouldn’t have to fight something to get it to work, and more than that, it had the maps of different universes on it already. It was one that had sailed the time-streams long before it was locked up here, and so long as everything was intact, it could do it again. All the others, however… After seeing what Holt could do with just his fixed point and knowledge of time, Nor had decided long ago that he wasn’t going to allow the other man to have a time machine of his own. It was just tempting fate far too much, and there was no way that Holt could be trusted to leave reality intact if he had that ability. No. He had to get rid of all the others, and Lil had told him how to do that. There was one other machine, a more unstable one, that could accomplish that in one swift stroke. The potato time machine was sitting on top of a massive store of fuel, according to the designs that Lil had been able to lift from the multiverse. Provided that all the parts were still there, and that time didn’t run out, it could blow the whole place to kingdom come, and then back again. Nobody would be able to touch the time machines after that. Thankfully, whoever had put it here had neglected to take it apart. The frozen time, the dead time, had kept the fuel viable. There was nothing wrong with any of it, and everything right with it. As Nor rearranged some of the wiring and other circuitry inside to be able to fire properly, he felt the world starting to slow again. One life might have gotten him into the vault, and the vault itself might have been able to warm up again, but that was still but one life in the grand stream of time. The mule grunted, shaking his head as he tried to speed up, knowing that time wasted here was worse than time wasted elsewhere. He had just managed to get everything settled up when he heard a throat being cleared behind him. Nor paused, then slowly looked over his shoulder. Standing over him was a tiger, though one that seemed to be in constant flux. He shifted from orange and black and white to just black and white, and then back again. He had orange eyes, then pink, then black. His shoulders flexed out, then in, his muscles growing, fading, then disappearing entirely, before he was thicker than he had been at the start. It was like a thousand different tigers were occupying the same space, and he was seeing them just the tiniest bit less than simultaneously. The dizzying vision of the feline only got worse when he moved, as if there was a tiny delay in the way all the different tigers were forming together, giving this illusion of many arms, unless it might not have been an illusion, but truth. He groaned, trying to make it work, trying to make it make sense, but it didn’t. “You don’t belong here.” Just like the body, the voice, no, voices, were just out of sync. He could feel them all rippling together, creating a horrible distortion that seemed to go on for too long and too little at the same time. “You will leave and forget…or you will be made to.” “I’m leaving. Just…in that,” Nor said, nodding his head towards the cylinder. “On your feet, or not at all.” “No. I made it here, and I’m taking my prize.” “You don’t know what you’re saying.” “I don’t care. Do you know what I’ve been through?” “Yes.” The tiger nodded, gesturing ever so slightly – Nor fell to his knees, gasping as he felt days upon days of molestation hitting him in the space of a second. His cock was forced up, his asshole feeling worn to bits. He felt hot, gaping in the rear, and his cock felt like he’d been forced to cum a dozen times, a dozen cubed. His balls ached, and he struggled to keep from slumping flat onto the floor. “I saw you. I was there.” “No…no you weren’t…nobody…” “I…am…everywhere. I am [i]everywhen.[/i]” If Holt’s powers over time were scary, then this tiger’s powers were terrifying. Nor realized that the person that had this much control over time might have been able to use it to hide themselves, to keep themselves alive forever if they had to. And if that was the case, then he was facing the person that figured out how to kill time, and how to use it to their advantage as they wished. There was no way in hell that someone could fight something like this. No way in hell that someone could win, at least. Nor jumped to his feet, trying to run, but the tiger was in front of him. He turned, and the tiger was there, too. He spun, and there were endless tigers, all around him. “Where do you think you’re going?” the tigers asked, all at once. Nor swung, except he didn’t. He remembered his fist rising, about to hit one of the tigers, except that then he had his arm behind his back, one of them grabbing him before he could make the swing. Time shifted, time changed, time warped. He stumbled back, the tigers collapsing into one again, and Nor fought the urge to hyper-ventilate, knowing that there was no way that he could fight this, no way that he could escape it without more luck than he actually had. The mule stumbled backward, almost falling over as he did. “What are you?” he whispered. “Erwin.” “What…what does that mean?” “It means. I. Am. In. Charge.” The tiger leaned down, nose to nose with him as that flickering face prevented any sort of identity from forming, the feline shaking his head in that way that left a thousand after-images behind. “These do not belong in the world. They stay [i]here.[/i]” Nor knew that there was no way to win…but there was a way to at least make his point. He glanced back at the potato ship, and then at the tiger. “You know what I did.” “Yes.” “You think you can stop that?” “There’s not enough time to ignite.” “Really? Not enough time in one person’s stolen life? Not enough value in one person that died in his prime?” For the first time in a long time, Nor felt a smile of pure self-righteousness flicker across his face. The spark would start shortly, and then… “Let’s find out.” Flick. … … … BOOM! The entire vault shook, the explosion of fuel, time, and metal and stone echoing throughout the room. Miniature vortexes exploded into being, and pieces of the other machines started breaking apart, flattening and then being consumed as the materials were broken off and sent into other timelines as if they were eaten by black holes. Erwin turned to face them, his attention split, and Nor took full advantage to duck into the silver cylinder. It opened for him, and as soon as he touched the console, it came to life. It hummed softly, and he breathed a sigh of relief. “Now to get the hell out of here.” He grabbed the controls, floating the craft off the ground and aiming right for the door. It was sluggish, pushing against the flow of time, but he managed it, and as soon as they were out the doors, it started moving faster. He grinned, the mule pushing the craft to rise, to fly higher and further, wiggling through the vortex to find his way out. And then, there was a roar. A deep, resounding roar that echoed through the vortex behind him. He blinked, tapping the console. There, rising out of the vault, was a giant tiger head, and it was angry. Hands more than a dozen times bigger than his ship reached for him, and he realized that he’d managed to kick one hell of a hornet’s nest. [b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]