The sound of screaming metal split her ears for a millisecond before the built in dampers cut the noise to a muted squeal.  The whining roar of the Gatling gun she raked across the side of the alien war barge and the grinding of the overworked pseudo-musculature of her power armor were impossible to dull.  

The screaming metal was another suit of power armor being peeled from its wearer like a candy wrapper by the slug-like horror that protruded from the middle of the barge like some mockery of a terrestrial salamander grown huge and gifted with cybernetics.  A trio of pale leotard-clad warrior women perched along the massive glass domes and walls that contained huge, alien eyes attached by wires and sinew and strange pulsing tubes, launching bolts of purple lightning and viscous globules of black liquid at the combatants.  The spray of blazing metal she unleashed impacted on a shimmering wall of pale blue light that flickered away when the ammo belt ran dry and her weapon ceased to roar, leaving only a high pitched whine.

A massive claw grasped her shoulder, spinning her around.  Lifting the massive gun up in both hands, she slammed it across the skull-like, three-eyed face of the ten footd tall chitinous monstrosity that oozed violet, worm infested ichor across her faceplate.  She hefted the weapon again when two of the pale, hairless women grabbed her arms and yanked her to the ground with impossible strength.  Their mouths were expressionless and silent, the metal plates bolted to their faces preventing any other expression.  The beast she'd clobbered stepped on her torso, holding her in place.

With a resounding crack the monstrous creature pierced her shoulder plating with the butt of its mechanical staff, and pried the power armor open, allowing the fetid odors of the alien monsters seep into her suit.  With a desperate scream she tried to escape the grasp of the blind warriors and the beast that held her down, but it was too late:  flipping the staff, the alien forced her to come face to eye with the wire-infused worm-like creature in the crystal shell that topped the staff, the unseeing eye of the alien thing glowing as the staff fed energy into it.  There was a blaze of red light and thick grey mist billowed into her no-longer-powered armor.  

She screamed again as she woke.  

Another blaze of red light lit up the containment fluid as she gulped the thick green gel that supported her body within the implantation tube that served as her home.  On some level she was aware that she shouldn't be able to see the red light through the green gelatin, but for the most part her collective thoughts were fixating on killing the enemy.  It was not a holdover from the dream; she was being influenced by one of the Masters.  

Upon realizing that she immediately started clawing at the thick crystal that held her and the gelatin prisoner.  The Master commanded, she obeyed, even outside the arenas.  Her talons scored the crystal easily, and her second mouth snapped out and hammered the glass, moving easily through the gelatin.  She did not try to batter the glass, only clawing and scratching.  The gel would absorb large movements, but her second mouth was using her body as a brace point for its own attacks.  When the first cracks appeared in the casing, she gurgled in triumph, even though the red flashes were getting brighter.  

With the shattering of the crystal came freedom, and with freedom came vomit as she expelled the gunk she had been breathing from her lungs.  Already her many eyes were darting about the room, locating the prey she had been commanded to kill.  Her mind suffered a momentary short circuit as she spotted the enemy:  a seemingly ordinary human in simple environmental armor, yet without a helmet.  His only weapon, it seemed, was a simple sword.  A ~sword~!  Not even a rune weapon!  Turning to face her, he gestured at a massive centaur-reptile and it was hurled backwards, a blaze of red light lashing out from his open hand to tumbled the alien scientist away from the control panels.  

“Tal-ee-onIS!  You're UP!”  The human called out to another enemy, as yet unseen but she could taste him with her second mouth.  With a screech she launched herself at the human psychic, but to her surprise he spoke a single word and she was brought up short by a silvery barrier, the light of this one wholly seen by her eyes instead of sensed by her mind.  “She's a hell of a lot stronger than-” 

She shattered the barrier with a single blow and her massive talons reached for the humans youthful face.  He retreated but her second mouth lashed out at him.  His sword was already in the way as the fangs closed over the blade and he yanked the weapon free as her mouth retreated back into its cavity.  With a curse he leaped up, while her leg and tail swept underneath him and she snarled in triumph.  He had no where to go now!

The massive claws reached for him as he started to land but an arm slipped under hers and then around her neck in a headlock from behind.  This arm was muscular, and also completely human.  She snarled and grabbed the wrist of the human interfering in her kill as the smaller human retreated, a burst of red light that was more in her head than in her eyes bursting the doors open.

“Sorry, that belongs to me, you can't break him.”  She slowly pried the man's arm from around her neck and hurled him over her back, slamming him to the ground.  He rolled to his feet instantly, instead of becoming a smear on the ground like any normal human-creature was supposed to.  Standing up, he was almost as tall as she was – nearly seven feet of rippling muscle and noble features.  His long blond hair was tied back, and he was bare from the wast up....except for the tattoos.  The incredible tattoos that covered him from neck to wrists to waist, and rippled as if alive.

“You may not be undead, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to break you over my knee, you know.  Why don't you just come along quietly and we-HHGGKKH!”  Her talons around his throat interrupted his annoying babble, and she squeezed, trying to pop his head off of his shoulders.  The Masters always liked that.  To her surprise he merely slapped both of her arms up and away from him and then he hit her in the stomach with enough force to send her crashing into the crystal vats that contained other warriors like herself.  “Hey, I was talking, that's rude!”

Another human joined the first, and handed a rifle off to the weird psychic-wizard.  Sheathing his sword, the psychic studied the weapon as the white-coated human wandered into the control room, studying everything with great interest.  “Taleonis, stop trying to talk to her, she's been brain raped into oblivion and mind-controlled to boot.  She's about as sentient as a turnip,” he chided in a soft voice that carried surprisingly well.

She crashed into the tattooed man and her second mouth tried to tear a chunk of him away, but found his flesh to be even more impervious than her own was.  With a screech she clawed at his inhuman flesh, and she tried to sink her fangs into his shoulder, but it would have been easier for her to eat concrete.  

“That's still no cause to be rude,” asserted the impossible human, as he brought his arm down on her neck with a sickening crunch of chitin and broken bones.  

The lab-coat man spoke softly once more, this time sounding a little weary.  “You know I'll have to repair that before we can fix her, so please don't injure her any more than absolutely necessary.”  

With a howl she drove her tail into the tattooed man's belly and he grunted heavily.  “....Right doc,” he wheezed before he went into a crouch and locked his arms about her waist.  She squealed loudly as she was lifted up, turned over and then slammed head and shoulders into the unyielding metal plates of the floor.  The tattooed man let go and rolled away, turning to face her, but she had other ideas.  

She rolled to her hands and feet, snarling animalistically.  The snarl became a scream as she went blind in one eye, the youthful person with the rifle on one knee, aiming at her eye as if he'd had all the time in the world to do so.

“That should take effect in, oh, thirty seconds,” claimed the lab coat man, checking his chronometer.  She crashed through where he had been as the other enemy yanked him out of her way.  Her tail was already looping around, yet all she snatched was the rifle the psychic had been holding.  “Do you mind if I take a few scans of your brain later?” the white-coat man asked as the weird human casually sidestepped her slashing claws while deftly pushing the scientist behind him.  

“Excuse me doctor, but this is really not the time or place....”  A battering ram stuck her from the side as the tattooed man tackled her, and she howled in anguish as her prey escaped her grasp yet again.  “....Oh good, I was wondering when you'd get here.”   Even she could detect the sarcasm from the psychic-wizard's voice.  

“Sorry, something else grabbed me and I had to beat it to death.”  She screeched as the real monster in the room wrestled with her, putting her in a nearly unbreakable choke-hold.  He couldn't literally choke her, as her secondary mouth kept an extra store of air, but her mind was getting cloudy and dull, and the world was fuzzier and softer than she remembered it being before.  “That's a good girl, just go to sleep, and well take care of you....”  Slowly the world faded to black, and the last words she heard were those of the scientist.  

“Well, this should be an interesting operation....”

* * *

“....oming around now.”  Ultraviolet limned silver reflections scattering her vision, pleasant voices, cool air, the feel of a soft surface against parts of her body that still had feeling.  A pair of bright blue eyes in a soft pink face, alien and human all at once, her mind recoiling from the alien, her heart rejoicing to see the human.  Thoughts, real thoughts, her own thoughts, confusion and fear and hope, twisting in her heart, despair throttling the good feelings.  

“Can you remember your name?”  The pleasant, soft voice from the man with greying hair and wrinkles about his eyes.  He's dressed in clear plastic over a white outfit, and he glanced over at a computer screen.  

Her voice is surprisingly strong when she answered.  “Amanda.”  She licked her lips, and blinked all three of her eyes, recoiling at the sensation.  “Who are you?”

The scientist smiled.  “Doctor Architeuthis.  Just lie here and relax, and try to stay calm.  I'm not going far, and I'm not going to harm you.”  He stepped back and she heard the click of relays and felt the electrical connections being made as he spoke over the intercom.  “Mr. Sinister, the patient is awake.”  He returned and patted her hand gently, though she only knew this from the movement of her arm, not the sensation.  “He's much better with people than I am.  Ah, here he is.  I'll be back shortly.”  There was a sense of relief that crept through her when the human walked away, and she felt the despair worsen as she realized how badly fucked up she had to be for her to even think that. 

The bed tilted up at her waist with a low hum, and she got to see the operating room.  It was bright and clean, white surfaces and silver equipment, with holographic computer screen projecting, and hundreds of readouts.  Notably there was nothing she could get a good look at herself with, but she didn’t really need that.  Sitting on a simple stool nearby was the young man with the long dark hair and wine colored eyes whom had shot her in the now perfectly healed left eye.  He was leaning over, his elbows on his knees and gloved hands lightly clasped.  He was still wearing the light environmental armor, but there was a faint shimmer of blue at the edges – magic.  

He was also wearing the sword, sheathed at his right hip.

“Hello Amanda DuCatte.”  She blinked in confusion.  “No, you don't know me, and yes, I do know your name, and no, it won't make much sense at all.”  He grinned wryly.  “You can call me Dexter Sinister.  It isn't my real name, obviously, but people like me never give out their real names.”  Amanda's stomach knotted, and she felt her second mouth twist in her chest.  “I'm here to help you through this, and then you'll get to decide what you want to do from there.”

“You're a shifter, aren't you,” she said, unable to keep the dread from her voice.  

To her surprise he laughed.  Not just a chuckle, but an actual belly laugh.  “Oh, Hades, no!  You couldn't catch me dead playing around with the Rifts, much less bargaining with alien intelligences!”  He chuckled and shook his head.  “No, no.  I'm what you would call a mystic.  I have some talents, a small mixture of psychic ability, magic ability, and a talent for getting into trouble.  I don't even have a quarter of the power of a shifter or ley line walker.”  

With a grin he sat up.  “What I ~do~ have is a peculiar ability to find people who will cause trouble for the real problems, like Doctor Architeuthis and Taleonis.  Also, people like yourself who are in trouble who can potentially cause trouble like they can.”  Her second mouth settled and she shifted herself up in the bed a little.  “So, what we're going to do is remove the things that have been done to you by the monsters that rule Atlantis, and then make you an offer which you can take or leave.”  

The mercenary frowned.  “How do you get your funding, how can you afford to do this?  WHY would you risk your life for a nobody like me?”  What he was saying made no sense at all.  It was....altruistic.  An impossible motive for anyone on earth to survive with in this day an age.  “None of that makes any sense!”

He smiled wryly.  “And I said that it wouldn't.  Now....do you want to know how bad it is, or would you rather go under the knife in blissful ignorance?”  The mystic reached behind him and picked something up.  

Taking a deep breath, she muttered, “Show me.”  Dexter was already bringing the mirror up as she answered, just as the Doctor returned.  He hung back, watching curiously, his hands clasped behind his back as Dexter let her see what she had become.

She was a monster.  But it was worse than that.  She wasn't one monster, she was a bunch of monsters.  

Amanda's arms and legs were subsumed under massive, rocky armor that sported thick obsidian claws; the same armor was build up around her shoulders, elbows, and along her lower ribcage and her back.  Her muscles bulged, and she could see the long, ropy tendrils of something, or things, sliding between and around them, giving them inhuman power.  Her hair had gone white, and she sported a long, segmented tail that extended from the base of her spine.  It was currently wired to the side of the bed, and she could see tiny leg-like claws at the spaded tip, which split open to reveal a mouth full of needles which extended into long fangs.  Her third eye was reminiscent of the worm-like creature that had been in her captor's staff, and she could see through it....but it moved on its own as well, when something glittered or moved or shifted around her.  Helpfully keeping watch for her. 

The worst was the large, thick growth between her breasts, all along her chest.  It supported them, and partly covered them, but tubes of it extended into her ribs, into her body  She could feel it inside her as well as on her.  The jaws parted, a mouth opening, and a thick, powerful tentacle extended as she willed it to.  There was a second mouth, at the end of that tentacle, one which could feed for either her or the creature that lived in and on her chest.  Three mouths, not two – it was this thing that possessed a second mouth, and a more independent mind.  A half dozen ruby eyes watched warily from around the gaping maw as the mouth tipped tentacle retracted.  

Dexter put the mirror down.  “That one is going to be the second biggest problem.”  She stared at him and he smirked, though it was more in self depreciation than at her situation.  “The first one is keeping you from killing all of us when we start.”

* * *

Amanda DuCatte was born to mercenary work.  Not specifically as a mercenary, but to parents who assisted in the most important part of a mercenary's life:  maintenance.  In the aftermath of the opening of the Rifts and the reactivation of the ley lines of the planet's magic, technology was the edge that kept humans and d-bees alive in the face of the horrors and monsters that spilled through the dimensional tears in the fabric of the world.   By the time she was eight she was handling the tools like an expert, and by twelve she could read a half-dozen diagnostic readouts at a glance and know exactly what was needed.  

Survival of the fittest meant survival of the smartest.  The gene pool had been thoroughly cleansed by the insanity and madness of a world unprepared for magic, psychic powers, supernatural monsters awakening, or for alien invasion en masse.  

The outskirts of Northern Gun were infamous for the lack of discretion the maintenance shops had.  Their overriding philosophy was keeping humans and friendly dimensional beings alive in the face of a world gone mad.  Amanda's extended family ran a medium scale operation, able to maintain power armor and combat robots alike, and while they couldn't service the Coalition machinery or Glitter Boy armors outside of cosmetic repair to the armor (one being dangerous, the other insanely complex) they could and did service a wide variety of equipment.  They were not particularly picky about what their clients looked like, only that they plied their trade away from Northern Gun.

It was only natural for Amanda to learn how to use the equipment she spent much of her time fixing, and eventually she had become one of the people tasked with guarding shipments for her family to and from other local cities.  It was one of those ill fated shipments that had stumbled across a Splugorth raiding party recently shifted from one of the rifts.  That day she had become a victim of the alien powers that now ruled over much of the earth.  

Her rescuers came from a variety of backgrounds that made hers seem positively prosaic in comparison.  The incredibly handsome Taleonis was one of the surviving members of the original human-like inhabitants of the risen Atlantis, and his tattoos carried ancient magic.  He was a slayer of vampires.  Not merely the mindless bloodsuckers most people saw, but the horrible, intelligent greater vampires and their true masters:  alien spiritual essences that could be forced into physical form now that magic once more thrived upon the earth.  Taleonis had become a monster to be reckoned with through the ancient magics, and though she had been little more than a mind controlled puppet Amanda's inhumanly augmented body had been no match for his might.

The mystic Dexter Sinister had been one of the arena slaves many years in his past.  He had escaped and released a large number of slaves of various races, kinds and species in doing so.  Among them was Taleonis, who had been pretending to be a warrior slave in order to gather some information.  The revolt had disrupted one plan, and then birthed another at Dexter's insistence:  not merely escape, but escape and disruption in the plans of the monstrous rulers of Atlantis and the end of the slave trade in the Americas.  After five years they had made startling headway and were wanted on several continents (and, Dexter mentioned with a grin, three oceans, two dimensions, and an alternate reality).  

The strange, quiet, polite Doctor Franklin Architeuthis was the single smartest sane human on the entire planet according to Dexter.  He had unraveled the technology of alien races, scientifically and more importantly mathematically proven that magic was real, and done more research into the limits of psychic abilities than most psychics.  While it had made little sense to the mystic, Taleonis had assured him that it did mean something important.  The scientist's other work had caught the attentions of both the Coalition and certain scientific communities in Europe unfortunately, and by the time he had started unraveling the secrets of alien biotechnology he had been forced to run from the increasing number of terribly interested parties.  Taleonis and Dexter Sinister had encountered the Doctor while he had been captured by a group of d-bee mercenaries and scheduled for transport to Atlantis; after freeing the scientist they had convinced him to assist them in their cause with the promise of unparalleled opportunities to study sciences and realities far beyond earth's.  He had politely accepted and they had benefited immensely from his help. 

There were others among the group:  the alien cat-person married to the human scientist; a young and faintly autistic werewolf orphaned and who earnestly believed the unusual group was her pack; a Glitterboy power armor pilot who had undergone the Crazy treatment and was both a hyperactive psychopath and a psychic pacifist by turns; a human inquisitor from another dimension; and their mysterious backer, an enigmatic being only referred to as 'that damn dragon.'  Amanda did not get to meet them; she was both too dangerous and the freedom-fighters' compatriots were all rather paranoid and slightly trigger happy.  

Except the werewolf; she had peeked in, said the words 'Evil Blue Toto' and then was chased off by (or running away from) a strange, cowled man in armor that looked like solidified honey, later identified to her as the Wormwood Inquisitor by the doctor.  The strange fellow had both apologized and excused himself after letting her know the hyperactive, t-shirt sporting, half-naked teen-aged werewolf girl was mostly harmless.

The entire situation was so weird that Amanda half certain that the experience was a dream to cope with the horrors that had been inflicted on her body and mind.

“It's not a dream, sorry.”  

Amanda looked up from the computer screen that she'd been failing to read for the past half of an hour at the sound of the mystic's voice.  

“No, I'm not a mind reader, but our little group is a bit strange.  It has that effect on everyone we meet.  It makes getting supplies an adventure all its own.”  He walked into the room and leaned against one of the counters of the room.  It was both an operating theater and containment room, and she had not left it since waking.  It was always one of the trio who had rescued her brought food, drink, and reading materials.  Taleonis helped her work out her increasing aggressions in close combat, which is how she learned that the walls were unbreakable, much like Taleonis himself.  The doctor explained the procedures he would be attempting, while Dexter simply conversed with her.  “Speaking of which, the last of what the doctor needed has arrived.”

The rush of adrenaline and the feeling of trepidation wasn't entirely her own, Amanda was certain.  She could feel the ropy lengths in her limbs tightening, strengthening her; the massive organism that covered her chest twitched in agitation and bit at nothing; and the semi-catatonic creature that lived in her head with only its dull, grey eye revealed felt the vague stirrings of a threat in the future.  “The doctor said that there was no way he could possible sedate me....how are you going to keep me from killing all of you?”  Even asking the question brought images of blood soaked murder into her mind, and she felt her urge to fight increasing.

“Well, that's what I'm here to discuss with you.”  He stood up and gestured to the tilted platform she woke up on.  Despite her feelings she found herself responding like any ordinary person in a doctors office would when directed to the bed by a nurse.  “Taleonis is going to deal with the physical issues while Doctor Architeuthis performs the actual surgery.  I'm going to provide something like anesthetic.”  

She shuddered.  “Mind control, you mean.”

“Not in my repertoire, really.  Also, the zombie zembach in your head prevents direct mind control from working in any case.”  She felt slightly nauseous at his casual dismissal of a dead creature living in her brain, but her heavily modified physiology prevented her from actually being sick.  “No, I'm going to bypass that entire problem and short circuit your pain and pleasure centers while the surgery is being performed.”  

“You mean, you're going to be in my head while the big guy is fighting me and the doctor is cutting me up?”  He smiled wryly, and nodded.  “Why?  Why are you going to these lengths for me?  And don't give me any more of that mystic mumbo-jumbo, please.”  Her demand came out plaintively, rather than demanding, which was completely incongruous for her appearance.  

Taleonis walked in, and leaned against the doorway.  “Hey, can I tell her?”  

Dexter's mouth quirked and he exhaled through one side in a hiss.  “Sure, but you're only going to confuse her.”  

“No, I got it this time.”  The powerfully built Atlantean stepped into the room and crossed his arms.  “Dexter thinks that in the future you're going to do some real good for the world, so he asked the damn dragon for funding to rescue you.  The doc wants to see if he can actually cure you, so he jumped on the chance, and I'm always up for anything that pokes holes in Splynncryth's plans.  So the dragon gave him the go-ahead, Dexter found you, the doc sedated you, and I kept them alive.”  

Amanda gestured with her massive, rocky limbs, which Dexter casually ducked under without effort.  “But that doesn't explain anything, it just tells me what happened!” she exclaimed, frustrated.  

“I told you.”  Taleonis sighed and handed Dexter a piece of what looked like actual gold, which the youthful mystic pocketed.  He sat down on the stool and looked at Amanda, his voice low and serious.  “Basically, our little troupe has four rules.  One, never make a deal with an alien intelligence.  Two, never give humans to the monsters.  Three, never be the monsters.  And four, no vampire left alive.”  Taleonis tapped his chest and nodded conspiratorially to Amanda, who blinked at him in surprise.  “The reason you were rescued is because you're someone who is going to live by those rules, and in about eight years, you're going to make a difference that matters to most of the North American continent.”

“But how do you KNOW that?!” Amanda cried in desperation.  

Dexter's look became pained.  “I can't explain how I know that, because it would not only sound crazy, but it won't make any sense to you whatsoever.  Call it crazy mumbo-jumbo from a mystic, psychic, line-walker, whatever you like.”  He smiled wryly.  “Just, don't ask me to explain.  If it makes you feel better, just think of it as luck of the draw.  You got rescued.”  

He rose and laid a hand on the big man's arm.  “I'm going to go talk with my wife for a bit, Tal.  Let the doctor know I'll be ready in about an hour if he asks.”  He turned to the monster on the platform, and she looked at him with three eyes, and the creature that was attached to her chest gazed at him with a multitude of crimson eyes.  “I'll see you in a little while, Amanda.”

Taleonis nodded and watched the young man walk out the door and around the circular hallway to the exit on the opposite side.  When the outer door slid shut, he shook his head and leaned against the counter.

“He looks awfully young to be married nowadays,” Amanda commented after a moment of silence on both their parts.  “What is he, seventeen, eighteen?”  

“He's twenty-two.  And his wife is the soul inside that white sword he carries,” Taleonis explained.  “It's not a Splugorth rune weapon, it's an Atlantean one, but he's not an Atlantean.  It was made on another world, when she sacrificed herself to save him from the rulers of that world.”  He glanced at the intercom, making sure it was off.  “He also wasn't joking about the whole eight years thing.”

Amanda gave Taleonis the same multiple-eyed stare.  He looked back without flinching, and explained slowly.  “When we rescued Doctor Architeuthis from the Coalition of Humanity, we did it by jumping a Rift to a place called Phase World.  Dexter offended one of the higher beings that live there.  They're fifth dimensional beings; they exist in a reality a whole lot different than ours.  All we can see is their fourth dimensional shadows, which most people's brains see as alien intelligences – tentacles, eyes, and amorphous shapes.”  

Amanda boggled at the eloquent and simple explanation she'd asked for coming from the seemingly dumb brawler – who had gone so far as to make a bet on being too dumb to explain something even more simple properly just to lose it.

He grinned at her, but continued without making any snarky or smart-assed comments.  “The curse is pretty simple, and utterly horrible.  They made Dexter Sinister into a fourth-dimensional being, who we perceive as a three dimensional shadow of himself, just like the rest of us are.  We travel through our lives one second at a time, always forward.  Dexter's entire existence is continuous.  From his birth to his death, he's made all his choices, lived his life, and died, all at the same time.”  Amanda could almost grasp what Taleonis was saying.  “So when he says, 'In eight years you'll make a difference', what he really means is 'in eight years I'll be reading, about the difference you made' or 'we'll be fighting the monsters and winning a decisive battle together'.”

“So....when he shot me in the eye....he didn't have to guess at where I was going to be or aim.  He shot me in the eye because he'd already shot me in the eye.  He doesn't dodge or duck out of the way of blows aimed at him.  He doesn't get hit by them because he never got hit by them.”  

Taleonis grinned winningly and spread his arms.  “Got it in one.  And the kicker is, because of the curse, he's existed like that since the instant he was born, even though he wasn't cursed until a few years ago.”  Amanda tried imagining the curse, and shuddered.  “~aaand that is exactly why he doesn't talk about it.  He's always talking about it, somewhere in his his life, at the same time as he's doing everything else.”  

The mercenary turned monster looked at Taleonis with pity for the mystic's plight in her eyes.  “Why do you pretend to be so stupid around him?  Doesn't he know how smart you are?”

“Sure, but most people think I'm a big dumb brute, and it suits me to let them make that mistake.  But in your case, I'm making an exception, because you need to understand why we're doing this.”  He walked over and placed both powerful hands on either side of the table she was laying on and she tensed, his physical presence overwhelming, even to her symbiotic and parasitic co-habitants.  “When Dexter Sinister says you're going to make a difference, it's not a wild guess, or a prophecy, or a mystic insight.  He says it because ~he already has experienced the proof of it~.  So, I'm telling you all this because while he may believe it's already happened, I believe that it's ~your choice~.”  His blue eyes bored into her brown ones – well, mostly brown, with grey and red ones thrown in for color.  “Take the opportunity we're giving you and Do Something Important, miss Amanda DuCatte.”  

He gazed down at her for a long moment before he pushed himself away from the table.  “My best friend sacrificed the life of his wife and anything resembling a normal human life to give you this chance.  Make it worth his while.”  The Undead Slayer looked her in the face until she nodded, once.  Then he turned and followed the mystic out of the room.  

* * * 

Doctor Architeuthis was prepping the operating room for the work.  Amanda was nervously watching the reedy, middle-aged man set small vats of multicolored liquids, jars of shimmering gel, and equipment that looked more like the tools she would use to fix robotic armor with rather than he would perform surgery with.  It didn't take long for the stress to get to her.  “So, Doctor....”

“You can call me Doc, everyone does.”  He was pleasant and polite, not at all like she imagined a super-genius mad scientist to be.  Even if he wasn't insane, he still had to be a mad scientist, because what other kind of man would be in the room with her alone?  

“Doc, then,” she said with a smile that felt forced, but was simply unnatural to her changed physiology.  “So, Doc....what are my chances?”  

“Oh, vanishingly near to one-hundred percent.”  

Amanda was stunned.  “Wait, you're that sure I'm going to make it through this?”  

He looked at her through large, friendly grey eyes.  “Well, of course.  Now, if you asked me what our chances were, that would be different.  Taleonis the exception of course – at this point I'm fairly certain it would take a platoon of heavy armor along with a squad of battle-magi to take him down.”  He pressed buttons on some of the consoles, and two large white pylons rose at about head height to her, panels opening on each to reveal a number of robotic arms folded away and patiently waiting for their activation.  “I'd say my chances of survival are about seventy-two percent, and Dexter's about, oh, fifty percent if he has his sword, and about twelve if he doesn't.  She's awfully protective, you see.”  

Amanda was gaping at the doctor with several sets of mouths.  “Are you insane?  That's....that's absurd!”  

“Well, I really can't get samples any other way, and Dexter's either a perfect precognitive or utterly deluded, so it's worth the risk.  You're going to be the first test subject for full bio-borg decommissioning, Miss DuCatte, and the only way to prove it works, is, well, to prove it works.”  He leaned back in the stool, and looked at her with a warm smile.  “I'm not insane, merely more adaptable in my psychology than most men and women tend to be.  The world requires it nowadays, as I'm sure you're aware.”  

He taped on a holographic screen.  “Look at your own brain.  You should be stark raving bonkers – yes, that's a technical term in my line of work – but you're having rational discourse, despite being so heavily augmented with integrated parasites, symbiotic organisms, and parasitic growths you barely qualify as genetically human.”  Turning back to her he rested his hands on his knees.  “Humans are becoming smarter, faster, stronger, and most importantly, more resilient to everything – magic, physical and mental trauma, even genetic damage from radiation and disease.  You're living proof that someone can come back from Atlantis and not be driven insane by the experience.

She heard the door open and the voices of her other two rescuers floating down the hallway as they made their way to the operating chamber.  Doctor Architeuthis moved the stool closer, though she noticed still out of reach of the deadly secondary mouth that could extend from her chest-symbiont.  “Well, Miss DuCatte?  Are you ready enough?”  

The nervous laugh slipped out; she couldn't help it.  “Ready enough, sure, that sounds good.  I'll try not to hurt you....”

“Oh, I wouldn't worry about that.  That's why Taleonis is going to be here.”  The scientist turned a dial on his plastic suit, and it crackled with yellow-green power as it shrank to skin tightness.  “Quantiflux was kind enough to provide me with this.  Magic armor, attached to my lab coat; all the benefits of sealed systems, while allowing me perfect sensory stimulus.  Wonderful stuff.”  Picking up a massive power drill in both hands, he fixed a three inch bolt to the end, and looked at the nervous biological monstrosity on his table.  “I'd say you won't feel a thing, but that's only true of your arms and legs.  Mr. Sinister will help with the rest, so, don't worry.”

Taleonis grinned and looked around.  “And here we see the mad scientist in his natural habitat....”  

Dexter snorted, his dark mood dissipated.  He was wearing the simple sword at his side again, and he took his place just past the head of the table.  “You'll never get that into Erin's journals.”  Amanda tensed as the table slowly laid itself flat, and Taleonis stepped over to the side opposite the doctor.  Dexter's gentle fingertips – still gloved, she noticed – came to rest at her temples.  “This will feel....well, it will feel very weird.  Trust me when I say it's perfectly normal to feel what you'll be feeling while I'm assisting the doctor.”  

The serpentine tentacle rose from the mouth in her chest, and Taleonis grabbed it with catlike reflexes.  “Right, looks like we're starting whether you're ready or not, Doctor.”  Large metal bands extended around Amanda's wrists and ankles from the table, an inch from the rocky exteriors.  “Get to it.”

The doctor raised the drill.  “This part you won't feel,” he said, setting the bolt to a hole in the metal band and beginning to drill into the exterior of her rock-covered lower arm.  The holes were not designed to guide or to keep the bolt in place; they were wider than the bolt was.  

The scientist was wrong about her not feeling anything though.  A deep thrum traveled through her arm and into her bones, and her muscles shifted, the vibrations irritating the creatures that lived alongside her flesh, in her flesh.  Taleonis took a few steps closer to the table and kept his grip on the tentacle mouth of the chest-creature, while watching Amanda's near-blind third eye warily.

She gasped softly when Dexter's fingertips found her temples through her thick, short hair.  “I can see that this is going to be a problem very soon, so I may as well sedate you now, so to speak.”  The doctor had explained earlier that the parasites and symbiotic organisms that shared her body would make her functionally immune to the drugs normally used to anesthetize someone undergoing such dramatic surgery; even if a dose that could be used was found, when the parasites and symbiotes were removed the drugs would kill her.   The mystic had found another way.

The ex-mercenary, ex-gladiatrix, hopefully-soon-to-be-ex-bioborg could feel his mind inside hers, a careful, cautious invasion of her privacy.  While Amanda accepted the intrusion, the creature that shared her skull was not so forgiving; it immediately went on the offensive, the eye twitching and twisting in her forehead as it sought to locate the source of the psychic assault.  The sensation of it straining and twisting inside her head was starting to become painful and Amanda twitched involuntarily, making the entire table shudder when her massive wrists and ankles impacted the bands.  

The doctor simply looked up at Dexter with long suffering patience, and the mystic grunted.  “On it already.  She takes longer to work up to it than I do.”  The scientist nodded and drilled a third bolt into the rock-like armor of Amanda's arm, before moving down to her leg.  The vibrations sent agonizing tingles through her human flesh, and really irritated the larger, more numerous parasites among her leg muscles, causing them to squirm unhappily. 

Amanda felt Dexter lift his hands from her temple, and reach past her head, as though extending his sleeves like some maestro.  The alien third eye saw this as well, but saw more:  a second pair of hands, mimicking the movement.  Delicate, feminine hands made out of pure darkness, nails painted in metallic brilliance as they moved with Dexter's to rest at her temple.  Those hands were cool and soft, and the undead worm in her head felt the soothing, gentle touch, and relaxed.  She could almost hear the soft, sibilant susurration of a woman's voice singing in an alien tongue to the thing that shared her skull with her.  

Dexter's touch was more solid, more real to her, and with his touch the agonizing buzz of the drill became a soothing vibration, one that her human body recalled with a faint memory of pleasure.  While she lacked the ability to blush, the embarrassment was still there, and apparently one person noticed.  

“Brings a new meaning to the words 'magic fingers', doesn't it?”  Taleonis gave her a friendly leer, which made her feel more human than she had felt....she had no idea how long it had been.  “There used to be a device that did that, mechanical one, attached to beds, before the Rifts.”  Taleonis grumbled and squeezed the tentacle he was holding in both hands until it relaxed for a few seconds.  She felt the outrage and pain of the chest-creature as a dull afterthought, instead of a call to battle.

The Doctor finished the third bolt and switched to her other leg, while Taleonis traded sides with him.  “As interesting as your pre-Rifts historical knowledge is, it is the slightest bit distracting.  Please refrain.”  He paused and studied the ceramic cased drill for a moment, and then began the process anew.  

The powerful Atlantean grinned at Amanda, tipping her a wink.  A surprisingly giddy chuckle spilled out of her mouth and she could feel Dexter's amusement in her mind.  When he spoke she could hear the thoughts echoing in her head even as she heard them aloud.  “That's an Atlantean for you.  If it's breathing, flirt with it.”  The soothing melody and the strange, pleasing vibrations become more intense as the bolts were placed in her leg armor.

“Well, ~some~ of us aren't bound by human conventions of beauty....” the powerfully built man started, before he was interrupted by a gruff noise from the scientist.  “....liiiike the good doctor here, whose wife is a lovely example of feline grace and beauty!”  Another giggle escaped Amanda.  “Where the hell does she hide those, Dex?”  

The mystic's voice reverberated in her mind as he spoke.  “Same place she keeps all her human nature, carefully hidden.”  The strange vibrations intensified and faded, intensified and faded, leaving her surprisingly excited.  She found herself strangely exuberant and giddy.  Though she'd been concerned the organisms that made her into the monster she was would override her desire to be cured and human again, most of her desires were now turning in some unusual directions, many of them focused on the massive Atlantean warrior.  

The scientist set down the heavy drill and stretched his back.  “Well, that's done.  Now we really start.”  Taleonis became very serious, and the warm sense of excitement that Amanda was feel changed into a deep, rich lassitude that reminded her of the few times she'd stayed with her lover in the red light district hotels of Northern Gun.  Dexter's power sank her into a sea of sensual bliss, and she felt warm and cozy within it.  The creature who shared her brain with her was no less sedate, recalling days in sunlight and among others of its kind, dreaming of worlds and dimensions of warmth and kindness under the illusions of the soul-bearing weapon at Dexter's side. 

Doctor Architeuthis took a large tube from one of the counters and walked back to Amanda.  He pressed several studs on the table's side, where she could neither see nor reach, and the bands pulled away from the table....but her arms remained stationary.  Amanda's confusion showed, and the scientist smiled faintly.  “The other bolts are in the table itself and fastened to the underside of your armor.”  She nodded lazily, but the creatures she shared her body with writhed and pulsed in alarm as her armor was pulled taut against the fleshy center, where her skin was caught between the rock-like substance and her muscles.  Then the bands ceased to retreat, holding her in place.

Amanda felt a delicious, intense entrapment, her legs and arms caught in bindings, and she caught a momentary glimpse of a memory.  Silk, silk and skin so black that the surface could not be seen.  “Stop that,” murmured Dexter, and she was certain he was not addressing her. 

Slick grey ooze spurted from the tip of the tube the scientist carried and she felt it sliding along her skin, working its way between armor and flesh.  It was hot, the soothing heat of a nearly too-hot bath, and she felt it soothing the ache that had developed along her arm.  The scientist followed suit with the other limbs, until she felt both trapped and warm, her skin shined with sweat.  He applied the same substance to the other armored plates along her shoulders, upper arms, and hips – the latter requiring an intervention from Taleonis as the tail tried to lash out and shred the man with bladed sides. 

Though it had already been locked along the edge of the table, the weird bladed, muscular creature twisted and stretched, nearly managing to extend a full two feet from the edge of the table.  Only Taleonis' inhuman reflexes saved Doctor Architeuthis from loosing a hand by clamping on the loop and crushing it to the table, much to the tail-creature's distress and the scientist’s relief.  He held it there and struggled with the chest-tentacle one handed, as the doctor finished his current work.  

The agitation of the creature which was attached to the base of Amanda's spine – and covered and infiltrated her crux – came through only as deep, intimate pulses of pleasure and movement.  Amanda bit back a moan, as it shifted inside and along her flesh.  The idea that Dexter was fully aware of her feelings, even influencing them, was not exactly deterring her from shifting in place as well.  Still, she persevered for the moment.  

When the heat had dulled to a pervasive warmth, the doctor manipulated the controls, and the bands pulled away from the bed.  The servos from the twin pylons next to the bed also activated, and she felt the stresses of the armor being pulled away from her skin.  Instinctively she understood it was meant to be painful, but it was instead like feeling a skin tight latex suit being slowly stripped from her arms and legs, her hips and shoulders.  It was freeing and sensual, leaving her arms and legs cool and soothed.  It was almost erotic, feeling that sensationless armor pulled away from skin that could feel the cool air, the wet paste that coated them.  She shuddered and started to lift her hands.  

“Don't do that yet,” asked the doctor politely.

Nearly too late.  The creatures that lay just under her baby-pink and newly exposed skin, thick, powerful worm-like things that slid around bone and muscle reacted to the lack of restraint by trying to strike out against Taleonis.  Amanda watched calmly as her arms and legs thrashed, while Taleonis hammered the thing that occupied her chest with a single blow that knocked it senseless.  He pounced on her, grabbing her arms and legs and pressing them to the table with his body.  That brought another flush to her cheeks, even as the alien undead thing in her head saw the magical force that let him ignore physics in favor of pinning her to the table with his presence more than his brute force. 

That it left the half naked, muscular Atlantean hovering over her was a lovely coincidence for her to enjoy.

The chest symbiont roused enough to weakly slap at the man's chest with the tentacle, but he simply ignored it.  Her tail was thrashing madly, trying to escape or attack, which just made the bioborg feel incredibly aroused, rather than frightened or concerned.  The blush that lit up her cheeks was something she hadn't felt in a very long time.  Taleonis smiled, but said nothing.  Even the once-uncomfortable shifting of the chest-creature's tendrils and limbs in her chest felt good, like caresses rather than the shifting of claws or spines in her body and along her bones.  

“Change in plans, gentlemen:  those come out next.  Taleonis, hold her steady please.”  The scientist grabbed a wicked looking set of gauntlets and put them on; they reached his upper arm, all white enamel with silver tips.  One was wickedly clawed and heavy with silver myomer musculature; the other svelte, with blades and nozzles at the fingertips, and blisters that undoubtedly contained drugs or energy cells.  He moved to her right arm – the left being too close to the evil tail of razorblades and spines – and glanced at her.  

No, past her, to the mystic shed nearly forgotten about.  She felt the man's assent, and the strange pleasure she'd been drifting in became even more intense, more blissful.  The doctor slid the slender fingers of his armored right hand along her upper arm, and her skin split in two places, long, deep red chasms.  There was surprisingly little blood, only a clear, viscous fluid that spilled from her arm in a gush that made her feel weak-kneed and shivery.  

She writhed under the powerful man who straddled her legs and held her arms at her sides.  He smiled, not a cheeky grin, or a flirtatious poseur’s look, but a knowing, secretive grin that made her feel even more weak and shivery.  The look of a man who knew something wicked, a wicked secret of hers, and enjoyed it.  White and silver dug into her arm and she felt the invasion intimately, his cool, ceramic fingers sliding into her flesh, searching, seeking, caressing places not meant for the touch of a man.  

As weird as it was, as disgusting as it should have been, the feel of the man probing in her arm was more like a different sensation entirely, and she found herself practically undulating against the Atlantean's grasp.  When the clawed glove seized upon something in her arm, the resulting spasm shook even the Undead Slayer's grasp and he bore down, murmuring in a hot, heavy voice.  “Just let it happen, Amanda, just the way it feels.”  

The bioborg gasped as she felt the intruding fingers slip out of her flesh, drawing with it the writhing, intensely intimate sensation of her flesh being pulled at, grasped, ~extracted~.  Amanda cried out in shock as a gush of liquid spilled from her, and her arm twitched limply as she tried to press closer to Taleonis.  She shook her head, and seconds later moaned as she felt those invading digits, those cool, clean hands sliding into the hot slit and probing, feeling, caressing.  She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut, feeling his fingers moving inside her body, exploring her....capturing a piece of her and slowly withdrawing, taking the flesh and sliding it out of her hot opening.  

That didn't just bring a scream from her, it brought an orgasm from her, her entire body spasming and clenching, the creatures that existed within and against her body shuddering, reacting to her pleasure with their own quivering, jerking pleasures.  Doctor Architeuthis stared at her, the foot long, blood red, tentacled worm thrashing in his grip; Taleonis chuckled, a hot, liquid thing that was all suggestion and intimacy.  The scientist plunged the creature into a jar of violet liquid, where it shuddered and lay still as a robotic arm sealed it.  

Taking a deep breath, the doctor slowly ran two fingertips along her upper arm, a slow, warm caress that left the twin wounds sealed and healing.  Then he used one finger to slice open her lower right arm, a slow, intimate caress that made Amanda shudder and arch.  He glanced at her, but slipped his other fingers into the opening, exploring, seeking inside her.  She squirmed, whimpering, her body too sensitive to cope with the sensations Dexter and his sword-wife were feeding her.  When he caught the cylinder of pulsing, blood colored flesh he slowly pulled, the worm's own grasp weakened by the lack of armor and the intense feelings of pleasure and lust that Dexter was overwhelming the woman's body and mind with.  She whined as he pulled the creature free of its moorings, the tentacles along it's body relinquishing their grasp about bone, blood vessels, and muscles alike reluctantly.  

The doctor sealed that wound and Amanda fell back along the table, breathing hard.  Taleonis gave her another wicked laugh.  “But we're just getting started, dear Miss DuCatte....” he rumbled, and she whimpered, her eyes wide and bright as the scientist moved down to her right leg.  She writhed under the Atlantean as the blades opened up two more vents in her leg, revealing red, hot flesh and the strange liquid that spilled from inside the long gashes.  He marveled at how wet she felt, her skin's sensations returning rapidly, and becoming sensual additions to the potent psychic powers Dexter was pouring through her brain and mind.  

“Oh, oh fuck....”  A lifetime of discipline against using foul language fell apart as the doctor's entire hand slid slowly into the gaping line of hot flesh.  He pushed slow and deep, exploring her in ways utterly impossible.  Her brain felt it as an intimate invasion, but one that was raw sex, pure and intense need of her flesh. She stared as he shifted his hand inside her flesh and felt herself bear down, press with inner muscles.  When his clawed hand latched onto something thick and soft and wet, she groaned and her leg twitched as he pulled the blood-colored flesh slowly from inside her, spilling hot liquor from her body as he took what he wanted from her.  

She jerked her head back when the slippery wetness was pulled from her, her hips thrusting obscenely on their own.  The emptiness in her didn't last long; only a moment passed before the doctor was fondling her deeply from the inside, playing with her exposed, available flesh.  Amanda squealed as the doctor seized more hot, squirming flesh and shifted it, pulled at it, drew it from her with a wet sucking sound and a spill of pink tinged viscous froth.  Gasping for breath, the mercenary writhed under the Atlantean, who reached up and stroked her sweat damp hair softly, no longer needing his arm to hold hers down.  

Turning her head, Amanda took two of his fingers into her mouth, sucking on them, tongue sliding along them.  Taleonis looked disturbed at first, but a glance at the mystic seemed to reassure him.  He let her play with his fingers as the doctor sealed the two openings, and moved lower down her leg.

The sensation of the doctor opening her leg made her bite softly, sensually on the Atlantean's fingers and he chuckled as the doctor explored, searched the soft, open cavity for the flesh he wanted.  Amanda sucked harder, worked his fingers, and then gasped, pulling back when the doctor slowly pulled the worm-like thing from inside her hot, pulsing flesh.  The sealing of the open wound made her whine again, and the doctor took the long way around, approaching her left arm.  

“I sincerely hope she doesn't acquire any unsavory habits from this, Mr. Sinister,” the scientist warned heatedly.  The mystic snorted, but didn't answer, too busy keeping her and her co-habitants from escaping, fighting....or suffering.  

When he sliced her arm open, Amanda cried out and rubbed her head against Taleonis' hand, so he petted her, stroked her hair, caressed her soft skin.  The sensation of the fingers sliding inside, exploring, manipulating her made the young woman gasp for breath, and when the scientist grasped the hot, alien flesh and slipped it free, she came again, her hips pushing up, though only one leg and her tail worked at doing so.  The chest-creature was entirely stunned, her pleasure overwhelming; the tail creature's mouth was open and drooling, lost in her semi-coital bliss. The second creature being pulled out of her open arm brought another shocked exclamation and she shuddered, collapsing back into the table and quivering.  

Reduced to merely whimpering and helplessly trembling by the removal of the symbiotic creatures that had given her inhuman strength, the slow, sensual invasion of her flesh was intimate and pleasurable.  When the mad scientist had finished with her left leg, Amanda was drenched in sweat, blood-tainted viscous liquids, and she felt as though she'd been gang-banged in the most pleasant way possible.  Weak as a kitten – literally, as she had no muscle strength of her own at all after the removal of the strength enhancing creatures – Amanda could do little more than whimper as she felt the doctor's gauntlets sliding along her groin, touching her and the monster that was living there.  

Taleonis stroked her hair and smiled at her, the chest-monster quiescent.  The tail-creature was starting to stir, however.  Doctor Architeuthis frowned.  “Hooks around her pelvic girdle, invasively attached to all three orifices....this is a parasite, not a symbiont and I'm going to have to work quick.”  He glanced at the young woman, who was still fairly blissed out by her multiple orgasms.  “Dexter, I'm going to need....”  He stopped at the mystic's absent nod and clenched the gauntlets, flexing his fingers.  “Very good.”

Taleonis placed both hands on his chest, and the bright glow of his power turned into an inferno of magical energies that the dream-bound worm in Amanda's forehead was entranced by.  She could see a fainter, less intense version herself, which was still awe inspiring....then she blushed, as he parted her legs and the doctor moved to caress her groin.  The sensation was intimate, though strangely not so much as the previous ones.  

At least, not until his fingers slid into her belly, opening her groin to let his hand slip inside her body.  Her scream was not one of pain; quite the opposite, she nearly climaxed right then and there as he plunged his svelte, white-armored surgical hand into her body, explored and felt for the thick spines that held the creature that inhabited her lower body.  He caressed her pelvis, stroked the hard bones, maneuvered deftly among her soft, wet places.  There was only a small amount of blood (her mind returned to the image of her taken virginity and the first penetration by a protectively covered member:  so similar, so many universes of different).  When he gently squeezed her womb, then her intestines she bore down to feel him more intensely, her abdomen tightening as he played inside her body.

The tail was having none of that.  It burst free from the confinement rings in a shocking display of self-preservation and the spaded end bloomed into a open mouth of needles and fangs.  Taleonis was there, and he wrapped the creature around his arms, and allowed it to attack him, defending the doctor.  As it moved, the intrusions of its body into Amanda's pulsed, moved and twisted in her.  Where the others had merely been in her flesh, this creature was literally penetrating her: vagina, urethra, anus.  She felt it move, felt things moving inside her, and she gasped, the movement and sensations overwhelming.  

Dexter murmured softly, “Oviposition.”

“Ah, well, that's unfortunate,” murmured the doctor as he stepped to the side.  “Pity you're occupied with the other end, I'd much rather you were able to deal with its head, Slayer Taleonis.”  The scientist widened the gap in her belly, and plunged the other gauntlet in, carefully but as quickly as he could manage.  Amanda convulsed, heat flooding her womb and her insides as the surgeon commenced a battle far more complex than that of the Atlantean at his side.  

“You mean I'm fighting this thing's ass?  Gross.”  Taleonis had no illusions about the duel he was in being any less dangerous than that the doctor was involved in, despite his quip.  The creature's bladed length was a serious threat to the undefended woman and the doctor alike, and it was tearing through his mystic defenses with frightening quickness.  He pulled it as taut as he could without threatening the doctor or Amanda, and began to flex.  

Amanda, on the other hand, was shuddering.  The sensation of being penetrated twice over, combined with being filled in every orifice save those above the waist, had left her a babbling, quivering mess of sensual overload.  Dexter kept her mind deeply submerged in the sensual, sexual morass of pleasant sensations and slick, hot penetration and internal caresses.  He blocked out the high pitched whine of the creature's agonizing bondage by Taleonis, his muscles flexed and taut to keep it from untwisting and slithering free of his arms and chest.  He blocked out the soft vocal commands the scientist gave to the robotic assistants as they reached over and grasped the chitinous cover that encased Amanda's bikini area entirely.  He focused only on the sensual beauty of lovemaking and the pleasure he and his wife had shared, translating memory into sensation to keep Amanda from dying of shock.  

The end result was a near continuous orgasm as the monster's penetrating tentacles burrowed into Amanda's sex and anus, attempting to leave her the host of a clutch of its young while the mad scientist worked form the inside to prevent the horror from ever occurring.  Amanda gasped and her near useless limbs twitched as she felt the doctor and the monster alike sliding inside her soft, wet heat, pushing, thrusting, sliding in glorious abandon.  She closed her eyes, her mind imagining vistas of sexual exploration and experience she herself had never indulged in even within the safety of fantasy.  

The doctor's hands closed and pressed, and Amanda shrieked in ecstasy, while Taleonis pulled hard, separating the creature from Amanda's body by a few inches.  Glistening mucous and twisting tendrils were exposed as he exposed her wet, bare sex and gaping anus – along with the claws that had once been hooked inside the woman's soft belly and on her hard bones.  His shout was unnecessary; the assault was already happening.  

With her eyes closed, the dulled eye of the undead worm in her skull was all that was open to see what happened.  The black woman who lay over Amanda reached down, removing her fingers from the woman's temple, and grasped the sword at Dexter's side, yanking it from it's sheath.  Amanda's eyes shot open, and she saw the sword leap up of its own accord, held by nothing, and sweep over her, to bury itself in the monster between her spread legs.  

The zembach saw the woman that Amanda did not see standing up, sword driven through the creature's carapace.  Her skin was not black in a Nubian manner, nor in the manner of the dark elves, but a light-swallowing emptiness of black, though white teeth and laughing eyes of crimson flashed, showing she was no two dimensional phantom.  She was merely a creature made of darkness.  The spectre bowed deeply to Amanda – or the undead creature in her head – while the young woman's brain and body misunderstood the dying spams of the monster's claws and spines as another sensation, and she passed out in a gush of orgasmic pleasure.  

* * *

When she woke, she was alone in her body and being stared at.  She ignored the stare, and examined her body, looking under the white sheets with a little trepidation.  There were scars, yes, but they were long, slender ones only, or short and nearly invisible ones, save for two: the star-like burn mark upon her forehead and a swirl of strange, almost floral ones along her ribs, which thankfully did not extend to her breasts.  An IV drip fed clear liquids – equally uninhabited – into her arm.  Amanda sat up slowly, her arms shaky and weak, her legs not much better.  Despite that, she still looked healthy and fit, to her surprise.  She traced the long scar along her abdomen and shivered.  

To her surprise she was not in the operating theater, but what looked like a small but serviceable medical facility.  A teen girl was sitting cross legged on the edge of her bed, staring at her expectantly, her wild red hair and a long white tee-shirt all she was wearing.  

Amanda stared at the girl, who gazed back with bright green eyes.  The girl watched her look over at the next bed, which contained an unconscious Dexter, and then around the room in general with the same bright stare as she had woken up to. 

When she opened her mouth the girl stood up, pointing, and immediately slammed her head against the ceiling.  This had the effect of cutting off whatever she had been about to shout and causing her to fall back off the bed and crash to the floor.  Amanda couldn't help but both laugh and start to get out of bed to help, the disaster utterly hilarious in a sad way.  She could manage to sit up, but that was as far as she got.  The girl clambered half onto the bed, and commented, “Blue.  Blue Toto,” in the most miserable tone of embarrassment Amanda had ever head; it was the werewolf she had caught a glimpse of before, except fully human.

“Are you-”  The girl rubbed her head and then bolted out of the room before Amanda could finish her question.  “....okay?”  She shook her head and sat back in bed, even the effort of trying to get out of bed exhausting.  Doctor Architeuthis stepped in, followed by a tall, muscular female felinoid carrying with a tray of food – real food.  Amanda flushed, recalling the state in which the doctor had last seen her.  Despite that Amanda started to get up.  “I really-”

“Should get back in bed; you can't support your own weight yet.  You only look healthy, Miss DuCatte.  This is my wife, Kimi.  She's here to help you, both with eating and physical therapy.”  Kimi Architeuthis inclined her head, her golden eyes shining with amusement.  “Before you ask, yes, he's fine, yes you did see a ghost, and yes, you will make a total recovery.”  The doctor's hands were in his lab coat, and he smiled, his eyes crinkling with humor.  

Kimi pulled a stool up to the bed and raised the head of the bed to assist Amanda in sitting up.  Her voice was rich and mellifluous.  “Please relax, Miss DuCatte, and let me take care of everything.”  

Amanda sighed and sat back, as the Doctor checked on his other patient and his wife fed her breakfast.

* * *

The recovery took three weeks, and they were filled with laughter, hard work, and not entirely surprisingly, a bit of romance.  Taleonis, as Dexter had warned her, was quite the ladies man.  Despite what he had seen and what she looked like, he was very much a gentleman and she found his half flirtatious, half romantic gestures and offerings more than a little enticing.  

She didn't take him up on anything, though.

Dexter had suffered a major shock to his mind, backlash from the efforts he'd made on her behalf. Doctor Architeuthis had pronounced him safely out of danger after a mere week though, with an admonishment not to use any psychic abilities for a month.  The Doctor had suffered his own share of injuries; the tail parasite had been quite adamant about not being removed and had fought him inside her body, doing them both quite a bit of harm.  He had finished the operation, despite his injuries, excising the chest-symbiont with help from Taleonis and with Dexter maintaining Amanda’s body and keeping her 'sedated' far more effectively than the automated systems ever could.  

While Amanda had been concerned that the doctor's wife would have been upset with her, her worries were unfounded; Kimi was more than the perfect nurse, she was the camp mother, making sure everyone got fed and was taken care of, though she had the most trouble with the young werewolf, who had the body of an older teen and the mind of a four year-old.

She met the rest of the freedom fighters over the course of her rehabilitation and had been amused by their motto:  Attack Us So We an Kill You and Take Your Stuff.  The image of a dragon on the flag was no more of a deterrent than the motto; Dexter pointed out that most of the monsters that would actually attack someone flying a dragon on a flag couldn't read English in the first place.  

With her rehabilitation complete, Amanda was starting to wonder what she would do with herself next.  She had no money, no equipment.  Her health was about all she had.  It was while musing on this fact that the extra-dimensional Inquisitor from Wormwood, Greenwind.  “Amanda, the damn dragon would like to speak to you, if you're up to it.  He's a hatchling, but he's still a dragon.  If not, I can take care of everything for you.”  

“No, I’ll talk to him.”  She stood up and dusted off her pants, walking down the steps from the top of the massive hovercraft they used as a base of operations.  Greenwind lit up one of the strange insect legs he seemed to habitually smoke, and she shuddered involuntarily.  

Finding the dragon's lair was easily managed – it was, naturally, one of the most secure places in the hovercraft, just forward of the engines.  She straightened her blouse and took a deep breath, steeling herself for the experience.  Certainly her family had dealings with hatchling dragons, youthful creatures that had small hoards and the desire to make names for themselves, but she had never met one herself.  There was also the fact that this particular one seemed to have an interest in her, and that made her nervous. 

The door slid open before she knocked, and she stepped into the strangely lit room.  It was mostly dark, but there were enough strange lamps made out of crystals, old style electronic or LCD computer screens, and glowing globes of strange liquids that the darkness had a kind of ambient light to it.  She tried not to think of it too much, but it all became clear when a pair of glowing lavender eyes opened from a larger patch of darkness in the back.  A tiny targeting display shimmered with blue-green light and sparks, which hovered in and around the crystal in an impossible manner.  The semi-humanoid dragon reclined in a massive easy chair as it studied her.  

A shadow dragon.  

“You seem to have done very well, Amanda DuCatte.  My minions seems to be pleased by your recovery, and the mystic is quite convinced you are ready to move on.”  His voice was a slow, deep thrum, more tones played on an instrument than a language, but she understood him perfectly.  

“Yes sir, I am, only....”

He bared a set of long fangs and a faintly luminous mouth of ultraviolet coloration.  “Yes?”

Oh god, he was smiling at her.  “Well, I haven't any money, no equipment, and no way to repay you for anything you and your minions have done for me....um, sir.”  Amanda really didn't think of the people she'd met as minions; if anything they seemed like a family.  She suspected they didn't think of themselves as minions either, but she wasn't going to argue with a dragon.  “So, if you'll pardon me, sir, I'm at a loss here.”

“Well, the symbiotes and parasites Doctor Architeuthis liberated you from are quite valuable both as research material and as what they are.  There is also the fact that we have recorded proof of a bioborg being....restored to their natural state.”  Amanda blushed, recalling her state during that operation.  The dragon's grin....well, intensified, since there was no way for the mouth to widen per se.  “The vid itself is worth a great deal of money in the right locations, and I think you will see a tidy profit from it, eventually.”

Amanda gawked.  She couldn't help herself.  

“Much of the equipment supplied to the doctor was experimental as well, and we raked in some profit from the performance tests and other pieces – such as those lovely gloves of his – will be ready for mass production soon.  So, your shares of the endeavor, as well as danger pay for putting up with that rather handsome Atlantean should come to....I think seventy-five million credits, after my twenty-five percent.”

Realizing she was still gawking, Amanda shut her mouth.  The dragon leaned over the desk.  “Now, if you would like to sign over some distribution rights and discuss some other matters, I am certain we can come to a mutually beneficial deal or two, you and I....”

THIS Amanda felt comfortable with.  “Let me see the paperwork....” she said, sitting across the desk from the shadowy reptilian investor.  By the time she was done, she was independently wealthy, and they had come to several arrangements that might be worth while to them both.

“I like you.  Perhaps we shall meet again....in the mean time, you have a suit of power armor with a flight pack, and an escort awaiting you.”  The dragon grinned and she shuddered.  “It has been a pleasure to do business with you, miss DuCatte.”

“Like....Likewise Mr. Quantiflux.”  She curtseyed and walked out the door, where Dexter was waiting for her.  “I can see why you all call him that....” she remarked breathlessly.  

“Yes, he is quite the stereotypical dragon, isn't he?  Escapee from another reality, I suspect.”  Dexter walked with her, his gloved hands behind his back.  “I'd ask if you would like to stay and work with us, but I can tell by your expression you have things you want to do.”  

She glanced at him.  “What if I did say yes?”  

He gave her that half smirk, half grimace.  “You mean, what if you try and create a paradox?  Trust me, it wouldn't happen that way.  Taleonis tries it all the time.  Something would come up.  It always does.”  Turning to her, he offered his hand. “Thank you, Miss DuCatte, for everything.  I will look forward to seeing you again, and I trust that you'll do what's best for your family.”  

She started to ask what he meant when Taleonis jumped down from the deck above with a solid thud.  Rising, he spoke calmly, but there was a tightness in his expression that worried her, because he was worried.  “Dexter, the Coalition is taking an army to Tolkeen – they're planning to wipe it off the map.”  

Amanda couldn't help herself.  “What about Northern Gun?” she blurted, as Dexter turned to face his towering friend.  

“They're claiming neutrality, but there's a whole lot of mercenary companies moving from N.G towards Tolkeen, using some routes that are awfully inconvenient for any Coalition troops that might have planned to come in from the sides....”  She swore softly.  

“Sorry, and thank you, but I have to....”  Amanda stared at Dexter's quirky smile.  “Right, paradoxes don't happen.”  He offered his hand, and she looked at it, and then hugged him.  “Thank you.  Thank you for this chance,” she whispered hurriedly before walking quickly over to the handsome Undead Slayer.

Taleonis grinned, and then offered, “You know, Greenwind, the Crazy and I were planning on flying out to Northern Gun for some supplies....if you like, want to come along or something.”  

Amanda grinned back.  “Yeah.  Yeah, or something.”  She folded up the papers and tucked them into her belt, along with the recording chit that held all the data and contracts in digital format.  “I think that's a plan I can run with....”

“Cool.  Doctor Architeuthis designed your power armor himself, with the Glitterboy's help....”

Dexter watched the odd couple climb up the ladder, inclining his head to the powerful Atlantean when he looked back and nodded a goodbye.  They would make a formidable couple.  Their kids, on the other hand, were going to shake the worlds.  He enjoyed being their godfather.  But forever, he was on his way to see an oni martial artist and a techno-wizard cyborg about a witch of the union....

~XS