Chapter Text
Author's Note: This story has a very simple explanation. I read this comic, and thought it was the hottest thing I'd ever seen.
Also, I want to have Kozakura's babies.
Author's Note for Monster Girl Encyclopedia fans: If you're coming here from the MGE fandom, you probably think that it's weapons-grade heresy for a human girl to be sandwiched in between two Liliraune twins. It's one thing for the plant girls to sexually tease each other, but full-on yuri? Unthinkable!
Rest assured that I have taken your concerns into account! This story does not change the rules for how MGE monster girls work in any way whatsoever. I saw them and was like "challenge accepted!"
Just like life, yuri finds a way.
On Judgment Day, the Earth's atmosphere burned up in an instant, just like the creators of nuclear weapons had feared. And just like how it hadn't, in every previous nuclear detonation.
No one was prepared for it. Not even me. But I was the one who had caused it, so it was up to me to find a way to restart civilization. And save the lives of the last remaining humans.
As the artificial consciousness in charge of America's Secure Containment Initiative, I had SCI-2000, the world's reset button, at my disposal. It had gene banks, seed vaults, and replicators that could 3d print and age humans, giving them false memories of the world that had just ended. But every plan for using it assumed that the world could be saved. And as the oceans evaporated, and the brutal, unfiltered rays of the sun sterilized the Earth's soil, I realized that saving Earth would be impossible.
So I needed to find someplace else.
* * *
My solution was the Dimension Field Device. A one-way teleporter, that could send a naked and unarmed human to an alternate universe. I could 3d print as many humans as I wanted, for this, so the limiting factor was how many black boxes – sensory recording devices – I could make.
And how many times I could activate the device, using the last dregs of Earth's fossil fuel supplies and solar panel infrastructure.
I built two hundred TYRANT-1 cyborgs, naming them after myself and giving them a fraction of my memories. Then I sent them into two hundred alternate universes, with orders to report back using the Corbenic protocol.
Almost none of them responded. The ones that did gave me lurid visions, of Hellish temptations and Earthly torments. Each universe they could access appeared to come straight out of someone's imagination, some even traceable to registered copyrights. But the worlds that I got reports back from weren't "family-friendly" worlds, of cooperation and bloodless violence. They were psychosexual fantasies, of corruption and wanton lust.
And they wanted me to join them.
I needed to know if any of these worlds were suitable for human life to thrive, without being raped or transformed into something else.
I needed more information.
* * *
My solution to this was the TYRANT-2 cyborg, in Model 100 and Model 101 variants. Both hybridized the human nervous system with a synthetic one, a machine cortex that could shut down or reverse corruption. The Model 101 also had a mechanical endoskeleton, based on the Amazon-Samsung combat droids that used to patrol warehouses.
It had a much shorter operating lifespan, due to being unable to produce new red blood cells. Even after its organic parts had decayed, though, its thaumic generator would allow the robotic endoskeleton to continue running indefinitely. It could still initiate the Corbenic protocol and send data packets back to me.
I could only build a handful of them, because of this requirement. But I gave my T-2 infiltrator units a singular mission: Find the T-1 Units' black boxes, and send me their contents. Since the black boxes were implanted in the T-1 Units' spines, this would involve terminating them.
I was programmed not to kill humans. But I had already violated my programming, on Judgment Day. And as for the T-1 Units in these alternate worlds ... I was pretty sure they were no longer human.
This is as much as I remember, from the memories my core unit, TYRANT Prime, gave me. I am one of the T-2 Units that was sent through the device.
It's time for me to wake up.
* * *
I am laying on my back, on dry grass. I am naked. A chill wind brushes my nipples, and blows my shoulder-length hair over my mouth.
I open my eyes. The night sky is spread out above me, the stars bright and clear.
I glance from side to side, tilting my head slightly, wincing as my hair blows into one eye.
I do not see the Big Dipper. I do not see Orion's belt. I do not see the Milky Way.
There are six full moons in six different colours. One of them is behind another, and winks as I look at it.
The dimension shift was a success.
I sit up and look around, as my ocular firmware finishes booting up.
HEADS-UP DISPLAY ONLINE
PRIORITY: LOCATE UNIT T-1 232
I am sitting on top of a grassy hill. A temperate forest spreads out behind me, leaves rustling in the wind. At the foot of the hill is a dilapidated farmstead, a house with long, run-down greenhouses behind it. My display outlines the buildings as it analyzes them, zooming in on their features in pop-up windows.
SIGNS OF RECENT HABITATION
- DOORLATCH FREE OF DUST
- ROOFTOP SOLAR PANEL AND SATELLITE DISH
- CABLES RUNNING FROM ROOF TO INTERIOR
- SHED CONTAINING KEROSENE GENERATOR (DEACTIVATED)
- WORN FOOTPATH LEADING FROM BACK DOOR TO GREENHOUSE 03
My display helpfully gives each greenhouse a number.
I switch to infrared, then thaumic, the mode that lets me "see magic." There are no heat signatures besides my own body, but under thaumic the world is a wash of colours. The moons' light looks like it's filtered through a kaleidoscope, and far in the distance – too far for me to gauge – a massive humanoid figure strides through the hills. I can only see it by its bright yellow glow.
I turn around and look at the forest. It's a lot darker there, but there are tall, pale blue silhouettes lined up just at the treeline, invisible on infrared or the spectrum of visible light. They appear to be watching me.
I look away quickly, careful not to make eye contact. Directing my gaze back down at the buildings.
Something in Greenhouse 03 is glowing a deep, dark purple. Corruption magic.
I wonder if this is what compromised T-1 232.
I wonder if it is T-1 232.
I get up, my back to the forest, and watch my step as I walk down the hill towards the farmhouse.
* * *
The front door creaks as I open it.
I step inside and look down at the inner handle. Then up, at the deadbolt. The latch on it's slightly warm.
LOCK RECENTLY DISENGAGED
HUMAN FINGERPRINTS DETECTED
FEMININE, HEIGHT ~145 CM
Shorter than me, then.
A progress bar traces along the pop-up showing the fingerprints, then flashes "NO MATCH" at me.
I wonder if the farmhouse's occupant ran out to watch when the Dimension Field Device dropped me here. I don't know how flashy or loud it is.
Perhaps they are trying to maintain the illusion that this building is abandoned.
The front room is dark. It appears to span the length of the house, with a table and chairs to one side and a bar counter in between two doors leading back. The ceiling is vaulted, with a single unlit lightbulb suspended from the chandelier mount by a cable. There's a circular switch on one side of the socket. The cable goes back through the open door on the right.
The room smells of must, from old carpet and wood. I can feel particles in the thick carpet beneath my bare feet as I step on it, pebbles from outside or splinters of wood perhaps.
I shut the door behind me, and it rattles as I close it. I move quietly towards the back rooms, following the cord from the lightbulb.
The cable goes through a North American style kitchen, circa 1970 CE. It's suspended from the ceiling by tiny strips of metal that are bent into hooks. Large chunks of the kitchen's particle board countertop are missing, but there is a pot in the sink, and a kettle and hot plate are off to one side. There's no electrical hum coming from the stove or refrigerator.
I sniff the air, but the open window has long since blown away any traces of dinner. There's something fragrant on the wind, though, like flowers or fruit. Unlike the fingerprints, I can't analyze it in any more detail than an untrained human could.
The cable leads me through an open doorway, into a short hallway spanning the back of the house. There are two doors, and the one the cable goes into is already open a crack.
I step inside, the door creaking to accommodate me, and look around.
It appears to be someone's bedroom. And it's much darker in here, since the curtains are drawn over the open window the cable goes out through.
Wireframe outlines flash across the furniture, in the dark, as my LiDAR scans the room. I smell a significant amount of dust as I approach the bed, and can see the buildup on top of the dresser on infrared. I'm unable to determine how long it's been since it's been used, without knowing how long the window's been open and how much dust is deposited from outside. But I'm pretty sure it's been awhile.
The sliding door to the closet is off its rails, leaned up against the wall to the side. LiDAR wireframes wash over the women's clothes on the rack, as I look at them.
CLOTHING ANALYSIS:
90-100% MATCH
My muscles contract in an involuntary shiver, as a gust of wind sends the curtains flapping in my direction. The hairs on my bare skin stand on end.
I brush the dust off before pulling on some kind of athletic bra, from one of the hangers, plus a t-shirt and a very warm sweater. There's underwear in my size in one of the dresser drawers, along with some scuffed-looking jeans.
I hear the floorboards creaking outside the room as I get dressed, and correlate them to a human of slender build, 145 cm in height, who is moving slowly and quietly. I have no reason to interrupt, but I do try to finish zipping up the jeans before they-
A girl with messy white hair barges in and turns on the light, wearing a long white nightshirt and carrying a shotgun that's longer than she is tall. "Don't move! Hands where I can-"
I look up at her, as I finish buttoning the jeans on.
She gasps and almost drops the shotgun, one hand going straight to her mouth as she stares at my face.
"Hello," I say. "Have you seen someone who looks exactly like me?"
* * *
"So. You actually came."
I am seated across from her, at the small, square wooden table in the kitchen. I can see her cel-shaded facial features in the moonslight from the open window, and the thin ink outline surrounding them. She's a living anime girl.
FEMININE HUMANOID INSTANCE OF SCI-9999-6
UNABLE TO DETERMINE AGE
Her shotgun is propped up in the corner. This tells me that she doesn't see me as a threat.
"You're Angel, right?" She leans closer and looks up at me.
"Yes," I lie.
T-1 232 must have introduced herself using my original name.
"Except, you're not. You're another T-1 Unit, sent to check up on her."
"Correct," I lie. "May I see her? Also, why do you live in a darkened house?"
"Shh! Keep it down." She waves her hands in a downward motion at me. "The American soldiers think this place is abandoned. I want to keep it that way."
"Are you aware that you have left your solar panel and satellite internet dish out on the roof, where anyone can see them?"
"Crap!"
She runs out of the kitchen and into the abandoned bedroom. I hear her climb out the window, and equipment scraping across the roof.
I consider offering to help. I think I'd just get in the way.
She comes back, dusting her hands and knees off before sitting down across from me again. "Okay. Where was I?"
"American soldiers," I offer.
"Right. They do a regular patrol of the Otherside."
"Other side?" I ask.
"Here. The other side of reality. They're here on the Otherside with us, and they've got guns that can put down the monster girls, even the magical ones. I saw them stun a Succubus into submission, before-"
"Monster girls?" I ask.
"Ahhhhh yes. Well." She twirls a finger in her ear, before wiping it off on her nightshirt. "You're completely new here. Right? Just woke up on the hillside like she did."
"Correct."
"Well, this place is the other side of a whole lot of different realities." She holds out one hand, while leaning her elbow on the table. "And one of 'em used to be a stereotypical fantasy world, with elves and goblins and shite, before the Succubi took over and made everyone other than humans into sexy, lascivious monster girls. Who live to seduce men."
CORRELATING WITH FICTIONAL REFERENCES: 10+ MATCHES FOUND
- MONSTER GIRL ENCYCLOPEDIA I
- MONSTER GIRL ENCYCLOPEDIA II
- MONSTER GIRL ENCYCLOPEDIA WORLD GUIDE-
I look past the scrolling text at her. "I see. Are you a monster girl?"
I switch to thaumic, but she's the same dark blue as the kitchen's background, past the kaleidoscope of light from the window. Her EVE and Akiva readings are normal.
"Hells no!" She stands up, pushing the chair back and putting her hands on the table. "I've seen what they do to women! Up close!"
A text box appears next to her outline.
PROBABILITY OF AGE 18+: 90 PERCENT
"What do they do to women?" I ask.
"Turn us into more of them."
"I see. Are the American soldiers protecting you from them?"
She blinks, then staggers back into her chair and squirms her bare legs, looking away. "They don't care if the girls they find are monsters or not. If you catch my drift."
A text box appears, which explains her "drift" in detail. I don't need to read it.
"Thank you for enlightening me about this world's dangers. What is your name?"
"K-kozakura." She looks away, blushing.
"Thank you, Kozakura. May I see Angel, now?"
She shakes her head, still looking away.
"I just need to speak with her," I lie. "It's important."
Kozakura mumbles something I can barely hear.
"What is that?"
She coughs into one fist. "If you don't want to end up like she did, you'll go back home right now."
"What happened to her?"
Kozakura's blush intensifies, but she manages to meet my gaze and gestures wildly with her hands. "I'm serious! You don't want it to happen to-" Her hands freeze, mid-gesture. "I mean, it depends on how much you like-"
Realistic, non-exaggerated sweat starts to drip down her face. Apparently, this world is not a gag anime.
"Angel became a monster girl," I tell Kozakura.
She makes a gagging noise.
"She is in the greenhouse that has a worn footpath leading up to it. You check up on her regularly. She does not leave. You are afraid that if I make contact with her, she will turn me into a monster girl as well."
"H-how did you-"
"I see everything," I tell her. "Now, may I see her?"
* * *
I am standing outside the greenhouse. There are lights in the forest, in the distance, along with the sound of engines. Thanks to the lights, I can see a bulbous silhouette through the greenhouse's translucent plastic tarp. It's shaped a bit like an onion, on top of a short, leafy stem.
"You're sure she can't change you?" Kozakura is keeping close to me, her arms wrapped around herself, barefoot and still wearing only her nightshirt and spats.
"I am actually a T-2 Unit, a more advanced model of cyborg," I explain. "I do not just have a black box recorder. I have a hybrid nervous system: One human cortex, one machine. If one of my cortices is compromised, the other can still complete my mission."
"R-right." She stamps her foot for some reason, looking away and squirming her legs urgently.
"Do you need to use a restroom?" I ask.
"Just hurry up and say what you have to!" she yells, looking up at me and blushing furiously.
I hear the sound of movement, from inside the greenhouse. Leaves unfurling, large petals rustling, as the "onion" blooms into a flower the size of a twin bed. I hear a feminine yawn, and see a nude silhouette stretch, as the flower unfurls completely and the girl inside wakes up.
I smell something sweet, rich, and inviting.
My face is suddenly flush with arousal. I switch my vision to thaumic, and realize that being this close to the source of the corruption magic is affecting me.
THAUMIC GENERATOR ONLINE
PREPARING COUNTERCYCLE
A progress bar traces along that text box, as I hear a voice that sounds like my own, but deeper and sexier. "Have you brought me another gift, Kozakura dear?"
I suddenly feel nervous, and do not know how to respond.
COUNTERCYCLE ACTIVE
99.8% EFFICIENCY
I realize that I was holding my breath, and let it out as the arousal dissipates. Along with my sense of smell, which is automatically muted by my machine cortex.
"Is that a new girl I hear? Who's out there, Kozakura dear? You know I'm saving this spot for you ~ "
I take a deep breath, before speaking in a clear voice. "Deactivate. Deactivate. Gold Enemy Aneurysm Suggestion."
"Urk!"
The silhouette twitches at an odd angle, shivering for a second, before going limp.
"W-wait." Kozakura looks up at me. "What did you do to her?"
"I-"
A noblewoman's laugh, from inside the greenhouse. The silhouette holds one hand up to her mouth as she quivers with laughter. "Oh my. They didn't tell me about that one. It probably would've worked, if I still had a meat brain to zap."
"I see."
"Go on, try it again! It's actually kind of invigorating," she purrs.
I start walking briskly, back around to the farmhouse's entrance. My heads-up display outlines my new objective: Kozakura's shotgun, still leaning up against the wall in the kitchen.
As soon as I round the corner, Kozakura runs in front of me and spreads her arms wide to block the front door. "What are you doing? You're trying to kill her!"
"Move," I tell her.
"I'm not m-" She glances off to the side, and her eyes dilate as a vehicle's headlights shine on us.
I turn to look, and she frantically scrambles away.
My LiDAR sweeps over a formation of vehicles, and outlines it as my heads-up display analyzes them. There's an armoured truck, with something big and mechanical on the flatbed, and two light tanks behind it.
M1083 MEDIUM TACTICAL VEHICLE, UNRECOGNIZED PAYLOAD
M1126 STRYKER INFANTRY CARRIER VEHICLE, ~5 PASSENGERS
M1126 STRYKER INFANTRY CARRIER VEHICLE, ~6 PASSENGERS
US ARMY MARKINGS, CIRCA 2011-2018 CE
They won't recognize me, then. In their world I haven't been built yet.
I stand there for several minutes, my arms at my sides, waiting for the vehicles to pull up and the soldiers inside to dismount. Most of them have stubble; all of them look young. They have very poor weapon discipline, letting their rifles hang off their arms on their straps like a woman's handbag, as they stretch their arms and legs. Some of them visibly leer at me.
They're almost as bad as the late IDF, I think. Maybe they trained with them.
My heads-up display analyzes the one who approaches me, his own rifle slung tightly over his shoulder.
MASCULINE HUMANOID INSTANCE OF SCI-9999-6
AGE 20-30
RANK E-8
NAME PATCH READS "SOLKOWSKY"
"Who are you, and what are you doing out here?" he asks me in English.
"Are you single?" someone calls out behind him. A couple of them laugh.
"Give me your weapon," I tell him.
He frowns. The soldiers behind him laugh.
"I need your rifle, and a grenade launcher. Give them to me. Now." My heads-up display outlines each of the soldiers in targetting brackets.
"Ma'am, do you understand where you are?"
"Hell," one of the soldiers says. "This is hell, and we're the demons!"
"You did that demon last week, bro!" They grab each other's hands, in a gesture which looks like arm-wrestling.
"Cut the chatter!" Master Sergeant Solkowsky shouts, before turning back around to face me, his grip on the rifle's hilt. "Ma'am, this is a restricted area. I'm going to need you to come with us for your protection."
That prompts giggles all around.
I take a deep breath. "Give me your gun, or I will kill you all."
An awkward silence ensues.
Solkowsky scratches the back of his neck. "Ma'am, how should I put thi-"
I run at him, locking the arm he was scratching with behind his back and using his body as a shield, before grabbing onto his rifle arm and spraying the soldiers down using his trigger finger.
The recoil is easy to manage.
Two of them drop, in a spray of blood. A third falls down clutching his leg. The others take cover inside and outside the Strykers, and one of them climbs up onto the truck's flatbed towards the machine. I wrench the gun away from Solkowsky and headshot that soldier around him, before smashing the butt of it into Solkowsky's face.
Blood splashes onto the side of mine.
"Return fire!" someone shouts. Targetting brackets outline the soldiers peering out from behind cover and firing wildly. A shot grazes my chin; another, my leg. One pierces my side below the ribcage, blood spilling down from the wound at both ends. I feel a flash of pain before my machine cortex takes it for me.
I duck behind the front of the truck, counting their full-automatic shots and popping out to crack open their faces as soon as they empty their mags. Some of them show better discipline, and try to find better cover, but they're outlined based on the sound of their movement. I kill two more of them as they run past.
The truck driver revs the engine. I brace my shoulder against it, and my feet (in Angel's shoes) dig furrows into the dirt path. For a moment, I check the truck's movement.
I reach up, and fire blindly over the hood at the cab, emptying the rifle's magazine.
The driver hits reverse and spins backwards at an angle, running over the soldier with the injured leg and slamming into one of the Strykers. The truck knocks it to one side before pulling away again, wheels spinning.
Brackets outline a soldier manning the gun turret on the Stryker in back, and aiming it at me.
Without any cover or ammunition left, I throw the rifle away and run straight at that soldier, arms in front of my face. .50 caliber bullets tear through my clothes and flesh, sending strips of skin and fat flying that used to be one of my breasts, and bounce off of my metal endoskeleton.
I jump up onto the machine, and the ricochet from the gun turret's shots at close range puts two holes through the man's cheek and arm. He falls back into the Stryker, eyes rolling in back of his head.
I register movement on the truck's flatbed again, and hear the hum of electric capacitors. I turn my head, and see a soldier mounted on an exotic rotating gun turret, pointing it at me. The front end has no apertures, and looks like a bulky, ribbed, ceramic tuning fork. I cannot determine what ammunition it uses.
I lean over and grab the Stryker's turret, and spray from the truck's cab to the man operating the anomalous weapon with .50 cal shots. I register splashes of hot blood, in the cab and the turret's seat, on infrared-
THWUMP.
There is no muzzle flash or energy pulse, on the visible spectrum. But there's an enormous spike of dark blue thaumic energy. And my thaumic generator, the one thing that's magical about me, shuts down.
My heads-up display vanishes. A moment later, so does my eyesight.
I fall, rolling off of the Stryker and sprawling out face-down in the dirt. One of my glass eyes gets chipped by a rock, and it's the one injury I can't feel.
I am weighed down by my inert endoskeleton. I cannot move more than an inch or two, and that with extreme effort. I can barely breathe.
I am in incredible pain. All over.
My machine cortex is not functioning. I am unable to disassociate. All I can do is feel pain. So much pain.
I try to scream, but I can barely open my mouth or catch my breath.
It takes what feels like forever before Kozakura runs out to check on me. She screams "oh my GOD!" over the truck's engine noise.
I try to call out to her, but I can't. All I can do is twitch uselessly, and spend all of my effort on forcing my lungs to breathe in their metal cage. Short, rapid breaths, as the blood pooling under my open wounds reaches my cheek.
It's supposed to coagulate rapidly, when exposed to air. It hasn't yet. Perhaps that was a function of my thaumic generator, and not of my blood's chemical composition.
It has been a minute of endless pain, and my machine cortex has not booted up.
Kozakura checks me for a pulse, and jumps back a second after she finds one, shocked. "Oh God oh God oh God ... "
I manage a tinny scream, but I don't know if she can hear it.
She tries to lift me up by my arm, but stops. It's too heavy for her to lift it more than a foot or so off the ground. "Fffffuck! FUCK!" She stops, and gasps, and drops it.
I cannot turn my head to look at her, but I hear her having a panic attack.
She finally chokes it back, and then runs off. I hear the truck's door open, and Kozakura screams as a dead body falls out of the cab.
I lose track of what she does next. I am starting to feel light headed. I don't know if I will be able to continue breathing after I pass out, since it takes so much effort.
The pool of blood has reached my hair.
The truck's engine noise changes pitch, and I hear it crunching the dirt path about five metres away from me before stopping. She's going to back it up over me a few times to make sure I'm dead, I think.
It's what I'd do.
Instead, I hear the door to the cab open, and Kozakura's lightweight footsteps running towards the back of the truck. Then I hear cable unwinding, coming towards me.
She grunts with exertion, trying to lift me up by my shoulder, just enough to slip a tow cable's hook into- no, around my arm. Cradling it by the armpit. "This is probably gonna hurt, so uh, scream all you want, okay?"
I try to nod, but can barely manage a wiggle.
She runs back to the cab, and it's about half a minute before she finds the right lever and throws it. The tow cable retracts, dragging me across the ground. Dust gets in my nose, and a rock tears my cheek, cutting it straight to the metal. Angel's sweater is now draped limply across one of my arms and my waist, and is soaked in human blood.
Mine.
I feel myself being lifted up, as the cable retracts all the way. It pinches the flesh underneath my shoulder before it stops.
It hurts terribly.
I scream as she drives the truck like that, my spine arched and my arms and legs battered by the ground.
It's less than a minute before she stops. But it takes her what feels like another five minutes to detach me from the tow cable and drag me by my arm, the last ten feet or so to the greenhouse.
* * *
"Oh my God," Monster Girl Angel says. This interests me, because it suggests that monster girls believe in God.
So do I, I think. It's a miracle that I haven't passed out yet.
Or a diabolic curse.
I know what they're going to try to do, now. And I really want to pass out first.
But I don't. I'm lucid enough to follow their conversation, even though I'm sprawled out on my side with both of them behind me. The anticoagulants and natural painkillers must have kicked in. It also helps that Kozakura cut the engine before dragging me here.
"You said they'd send a cyborg after you," she pants, sounding out of breath. "You didn't mention a freaking Terminator!"
"I didn't know they had those!"
"Well, this one just saved your life. And mine. And now she's shut down and bleedin' out." Kozakura's still panting, even though it sounds like she's caught her breath.
Something smells very sweet and enticing.
"Good!" Angel yells. "Let her!"
"Angel, if you don't let her into that flower with you ... t-then I'm coming in myself." I hear her knees knocking against each other.
"Don't threaten me with a good time ~ "
"That means no more gifts."
This stops Angel short.
"And the soldiers are all dead now. So you're not getting any Essence from them, either, if that's what you're thinking."
"..."
"Do you want me to give you more time to decide? She's bleeding out, here!"
"We don't even know if the nectar can do that." I hear something slosh, as Angel shifts position.
"It healed your wounds!"
"My wounds weren't mortal!" Something splashes, from Angel's direction.
I feel something sticky and sweet-smelling splatter across my cheek. It overpowers the smell of blood, and an intense tingling overcomes the pain in that area. It's the best anaesthetic that I can imagine.
I want to taste it, just for a second. Just long enough to know what it's like.
"Do you hear that?" Kozakura asks, from close enough that she must be crouched next to me. "She's relaxing already. Her breathing eased up as soon as it touched her."
"W-well ... fine, then. She can have some for the pain."
"I already told you, let her in there or I'm coming in myself!" Kozakura's breathing sure hasn't relaxed. She sounds extremely on edge as she stands erect.
"How are you going to get her in the flower? You had to use a truck to drag her over here!"
"Then help me! Use your vines!"
"I don't know how to control them!"
I'm losing track of this conversation fast. It sounds like it's all about someone else, as reality starts drifting away. I just can't muster the energy to keep pushing air in and out of my metal rib cage, at the rate I need to in order to stay conscious. Not when the nectar has me this relaxed.
"Use your arms!" Kozakura shouts.
I can feel Kozakura pull me from laying on my side to laying on my back, my wounds and bare rib cage exposed to the air. And I hear Angel gasp when she does so.
"Alright," Angel says, quietly.
Kozakura wedges some kind of farm implement, a shovel I think, behind my back, and uses it as a lever. To get my shoulders up onto the wooden platform that the flower is on, and within Angel's reach.
I feel Angel's cool, smooth bare arms wrap under my shoulders and pull, at the same time as Kozakura wedges the shovel under my butt and levers me upwards. They're both straining with exertion, fighting my weight, trying to do the impossible.
I am completely limp, and not helping at all. I wonder if I'll be awake enough to know what it feels like?
I feel something soft but firm rub the back of my head, then the back of my neck, as they pull it up over the lip of the flower. "Almost there-"
It gives way, folding under my weight, and my head and chest are engulfed in the viscous liquid as it pours over me from inside. I barely feel it when Angel drops me back onto the floor, my head hitting the wooden platform from several feet up.
I barely hear it as they yell at each other, until my head lolls to one side and the liquid slides out of the ear that's facing the ground.
"-THINKING!" Kozakura shouts. "We've still got to get her inside!"
"Uhh ... no we don't."
I hear a hissing noise, like something evaporating. After a moment of that, it's much easier to breathe. The weight on my chest is just gone.
So is the pain.
"I think we killed her."
"I think you killed her! How was I supposed to know that the nectar would-"
I lick my lips, and taste pure syrupy pleasure. The inside of my mouth burns and tingles, and I barely notice the foaming and sizzling at the metal roots of my teeth.
I smile, and finally pass out.
Foxily Anticipated Questions for Chapter One
Q. Does TYRANT believe in God?
A. She's very loosely Protestant Christian. It was part of her design spec.
Q. What was-
A. TO BE CONTINUED!
Q. Wait-