A Witch From Another World

Victor laughed. "She is a screamer, true enough. I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't into it. How did you open the door? I know for a fact I locked it."

"Please. Locks here aren't so different from the ones on All Stone, and learning how to pick locks with a bit of quick precision telekinesis is second-year class work at nearly every resonance academy. Don't change the subject." She took a deep breath. "But instead of pausing once you'd been interrupted, you just... kept on going like some hormone-fueled steam piston!"

"If you're trying to shame me for enjoying sex, it's not going to work. Is everyone from All Stone so prudish?"

She snorted. "Please. America's the one that's obsessed with sex and gender taboos, much to all your detriment."

Victor waved his hands. "Okay, let's hit the brakes here, we're getting way off-course. You said you need help and wanted me to distract you. Why?"

Natashka's pacing didn't slow for even a second. "Because this is happening too quickly and I don't like it and something is wrong with me. I damn near leapt across the table to try and mash my face into his and only decades of self-control kept me from embarrassing myself."

Victor stood up, stretching his arms up to the ceiling and rolling his neck to ease a cramp. "How long has it been since the last time you made love? Or had any romantic contact at all?"

"About twenty years. What's your point?"

He facepalmed. "For a genius 'Dread-Witch' you can be amusingly dense sometimes, Madame Veltris." He grinned. "You're horny. You're lonely. Twenty years is a long time by any measurement, even for world-saving witches. You're thirsty for some sex. Plundering. Deep dicking. Fornication. The Beast With Two Backs. Gettin' some. Railing. Fucking."

"Are you done?"

"You're allowed to want Shadrach's cock, Natashka Veltris of the Emerald Forest. Or some girl's pussy. No rule against any of it. And in fact..." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small package of condoms, placing them in her hand. "You were so eager to come to college and have the college experience. This is a huge part of it. So little responsibility, so much free time, and everyone's hormones boiling like a soup-pot. College is where people can cut loose and just enjoy life a little, and that includes the enjoyment of cocks and pussies and the interactions thereof. So let it happen. There is literally nothing holding you back but yourself, and that's just you being weird and silly."

"Weird and silly?" She pocketed the condoms. "Kai, what are these things?"

"A form of contraception and disease control, mistress. If you wish to use them, I will locate a tutorial video for you."

"Yes. Weird and silly. Natashka, If you want to fuck my roommate, then feel free to put the question to him -- and there's no way in hell he'll turn you down, because you would not believe how many questions he's been asking me about you. If you don't want to fuck him, then don't. It's that simple. Why are you making this difficult for yourself?"

"Shadrach's been asking about me?"

"Non-stop. He's trying to be mellow about it, but he's seriously into you."

"He didn't know about my being put in a coma. That just came up this morning."

Victor shrugged. "Well, he was mostly asking what you were like growing up, what kind of things you liked and didn't, that sort of thing. I did tell him that you've changed a lot lately from who you were before, but of course didn't say why." He suddenly choked up and sat down hard on the edge of the bed. "...Oh fuck."

"Victor? What's wrong?"

"Goddamnit, I thought I was past this!" He grabbed for some tissue and dabbed at his eyes. "Sometimes I let myself forget that my sister -- my real actual sister -- was murdered. That she's gone." He looked up. "You're not Victoria. You don't put a mountain of sugar on your cheerios and then go jogging after to burn it off. You don't get into arguments with me over stupid shit like the Encyclopedia Brown books we had growing up, and who stole them from who. You don't tease me about all the stupid shit I did in the third grade that she never let me live down." He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're here -- but damnit, sometimes I wish I had my self-righteous brat of a twin sister back."

"Hey. Hey. It's alright." She pulled him to his feet and gathered her brother into her arms. "It's okay. It's okay. You're still grieving. It's alright."

After a few moments of quiet hugs, she spoke up again. "It hits me too sometimes. I'll never see All Stone again. All my friends, my distant cousins and their adorable children, all the people I'd helped over the years -- all gone. Even the little things hurt sometimes. I'll never have wyvern tail stew again, or see the wind crystal sculptures at the Karashem Royal Gardens again. I'm glad to be alive, but it's not the same, and never will be. I grieve for it." She felt her own tears arrive, and Victor's hug clenched a little tighter.

Kai whispered quietly to her. "Would it be helpful for me to summon memory-images of those gardens for you, mistress?"

"Not at the moment, Kai. But keep them ready for later, if you please. And thank you."

"It is my honor to serve, Natashka."

A minute later, Victor pulled back and sat back down. "Thanks. You know, something funny about this."

"Do tell?"

"So Michelle is without a doubt the freakiest, kinkiest lady I've ever been with."

"She seemed quite disappointed when I closed the door, yes. She apparently enjoyed having an audience."

He laughed, wiping away the last of his tears. "Tip of the iceberg. She told me later that she likes to watch videos where pornstars are pretending they're siblings and having incest."

"Oh gods. Not her too. Kai jested about that as well."

Victor held up a hand. "Let's be clear -- you might not actually be my sister, but you are in her body, so that is never going to happen. I draw the line at hugs."

Natashka rubbed her temples. "All the more reason for distraction. Victor, let's talk about something else, anything else, so long as it has nothing to do with sex. Something as not-sex-related as possible, or else I'm going to go insane waiting for my date with Shadrach tonight."

"So you are going to give him some tonight?"

"Almost certainly. You've done a good job reminding me that I was put on this earth to relax, and shagging your friendly roommate seems as good a way to unwind as anything else I can think of. But yes, ask me about something else. Anything else. Distract me."

He leaned back against the wall for a minute, lost in thought. He then lifted one hand and idly cast a minor fire sigil, the tip of his finger sprouting a small candle-like flame for a few moments before he willed it to extinguish. "Tell me about the Abomination of Flame. You've mentioned him a couple times, but that's really it. But he seems like a good not-sexy topic."

"Oh, very good choice. Nothing attractive about that at all, yes indeed." She cleared her throat, and gathered her thoughts. "The Abomination wasn't a person. He, It, whatever, was almost like... a force of nature, really. The very essence of flame, capable only of destruction. Some say that it destroyed the world before All Stone, leaving only an empty void that came to be filled by a new world and the new gods that arose with it, while the Abomination lingered on the edge of reality, waiting for an opening to let it destroy anew."

"Okay."

"Some years ago, it incarnated upon the physical world, taking on a body that was many species and none, summoned somehow to All Stone by a wizard named Kalandraxus Seneschal. This wizard had grand ambitions of power and wealth, and the Abomination was his puppet and tool. Before long, Kalandraxus discovered that if a mortal being swore fealty to the Abomination, that they would be rewarded with great power. The more followers gained, the greater the granted power became. Kalandraxus anointed himself the High Priest of Pure Flame, and the Abomination's following grew and grew. "

She shook her head. "Seneschal was insane. He was obsessed with power and control, and anything he couldn't control or lead around by the nose with his many lies, he destroyed. Before the war broke out, he once bragged that he had such immense power that he could murder a child in cold blood in the main square of any city in the world, and that no one could or would lift a finger to stop or punish him. He didn't care about his followers at all, because he didn't think of other people as people. They were just lumps of flesh that he could do with as he wished, who amused him with their antics. He continued to recruit, and his followers' ranks swelled with those who saw through him a path for their own greed and lust for power. A man or woman who'd sworn themselves to the Abomination was faster, stronger, and shared in its power over flame. Then one winter morning, Kalandraxus seemed to just declare war on everything, and his massive army of flame-sworn scourged their way across the world, destroying all in their path."

Victor scratched at his head. "What did he want?"

"He told his people, the 'flame-sworn' they called themselves, what they wanted to hear -- that they were special, that they had been victims of the world and that they deserved to strike back and take everything for themselves. But in truth, he just wanted to burn the world to ash, just to see what it would be like. Every living being extinguished, even those who served him. He didn't care about anyone or anything, except having more and more power, it seemed."

"So it became your job to stop them. And you did it!"

Natashka laughed. "Only barely. We knew that we had to cut out the disease, so to speak, at its root. The Abomination itself. Once it was stopped, those that had depended on him for their strength would just become normal people again. Kalandraxus still had considerable magics on his own, but nothing that couldn't be handled in the normal way. So my comrades and I hatched a desperate plan."

She reached for a bottle of water and drank deeply. "It was an ugly affair. Malice infiltrated the camp, using her considerable beauty and cunning to seduce her way to the attentions of Kalandraxus himself. I saw through her eyes as she tried to get him alone, but his guards would not leave his side. So she did the only thing she could to make sure her mission succeeded. She castrated him, slashed open his inner thighs, slit his throat, and stabbed both her daggers through his eyes and into his brain in the brief opening she had. Two heartbeats later, the horrified guards cut her down, as she knew they would -- but at least Kalandraxus was dead." She sighed. "That's when things took an unexpected turn."

"How so?"

"We had hoped that when the mad wizard died, that the Abomination would simply fade away back into the fabric of the cosmos that it had been summoned from. But instead, the strange mass of flesh turned its eyes to Malice as she lay there dying, and spoke. 'You killed him. Father. What do I do now?' We had thought it mindless, no more capable of thought than a thunderstorm or an earthquake, and the gods we'd consulted had assured us that this had been the case before it was summoned. But that wasn't true anymore. Somewhere over the course of those chaotic years, the Abomination of Flame obtained a mind. A mind sadly devoted to an insane would-be conqueror."

"What happened next?"

"It lashed out and destroyed everything in its path, including thousands of Flame-sworn, and started walking towards a city full of innocents, radiating with murderous intent. So the rest of us did the only thing we could think of -- we attacked, trying to find some way to stop it before it would destroy anyone else. Everyone who stood at my side against the Abomination died horribly, many of them sacrificing their lives to shield me from mortal danger." She shook her head. "I wish I could claim some brilliant strategem or insight was what led to victory, but in truth it was nothing so noble. Confused and angry, the Abomination had leveled me and Borkin, the last of my companions. Not realizing that I wasn't yet dead -- but definitely well on my way -- it turned its back on me. I gathered everything I had left, and sent a charged eldritch bolt through the ground at it. When that bolt reached their feet, my spell's energy surged up their leg, ripped their chimeric heart in twain -- and for good measure called down lightning upon them as well, just to be sure." She winced. "I practically ripped out my own soul to cast that, and certainly hastened my already-lethal wounds. But before I died, Kai showed me through the last dregs of my magic that it had worked. What little remained of the Flame-Sworn armies scattered, as weak as addicts in the throes of withdrawal. But I expired before anyone could reach me. The Lord of All Stone took pity upon me and sent me here as a sort of reward -- or perhaps thought I could still be useful here, perhaps. I don't rightly know."

Victor lifted a can of cola as if to make a toast. "Sorry to hear about your friends."

She shrugged. "We all knew that it was certain to be a suicide mission. It was what it was. But we got the job done, we saved the world. That was worth every moment of agony, and I'd do it again if I had to."

Victor walked over to his desk and checked his smartphone. "Well, on that very heavy and not-sexy note that was hopefully the distraction you were hoping for, it's getting to be time for lunch, and I'm starved. Shall we hit the cafeteria?"

"Sounds good. And yes, thank you for the distraction. It was very appreciated."

***

"So, you mind if I join you two?" Michelle Delgado walked right up to the table where the twins were eating, and Natashka waved her into a seat.

"Not at all! Sorry for any awkwardness this morning."

Michelle laughed and waved it off, then leaned over to Victor on her right and left a kiss on his cheek while still addressing his sister. "Please, I should be apologizing to you. I just, well, got swept up into things. It's a fun way to live, but it does make things a little awkward sometimes. Sorry about that."

Natashka chuckled as she picked up a pair of crinkle fries. "No apologies needed. All water under the drawbridge." She felt Victor's foot kicking her lightly under the table. "Sorry. Under the bridge, I mean."

If Michelle took any note of Natashka's odd idiom, she didn't show it. "So I've got a question, Miss Twin Sister. Now, I gotta be up front -- I like your brother here, like, a lot. He's the first guy who can keep up with me, doesn't think I'm crazy, and is willing to indulge my kinks."

Victor put both hands to his cheeks, miming a shocked expression. "Kinks as in plural?! I thought it was just the one! Oh Noes! What have I gotten myself into?! Welp, I'm outta here!" He made a pretend show of standing up, but Michelle grabbed his hand to not only pull him back into his chair, but then placed his hand right over one of her clothed breasts -- which he gave a warm squeeze.

Natashka could hear someone muttering nearby. "Jesus Christ, those two", while most everyone else around just had a laugh.

Michelle turned to give Victor another kiss before turning back to face Natasha across the table. "Sorry, got distracted. Anyway -- what I wanted to ask, in all seriousness, is this. Am I going to have to, like, compete with you for time with this awesome guy? I mean, I hear twins can get pretty close, and I don't want to come between you two, but I don't want to get shut out either, y'know?"

Natashka gave a kind smile. "Rest assured, I'm not your competition, Michelle - in any respect." She made a bawdy wink, and Michelle giggled. "The only thing I can think of cutting into your time with him is a bit of a... family project. But I promise not to monopolize him."

"Oooooo, what kind of project? Can I help?"

Victor raised an eyebrow in his sister's direction, but Natashka already had an answer ready. "Well you see, we had a friend of the family who was a Sergeant in another nation's army. He and I were very close when I was younger, and he taught me how to fight using a style he'd invented. Some established military technique, some details cribbed from various martial arts he'd encountered in his life, very much its own thing." She held open her hands. "Sadly, just as he was getting close with Victor and getting ready to teach him as well, the dear Sergeant passed on, so I'm, ah, honoring his last wishes to pass on his teachings to more people, starting with Victor. We just started his training over the summer, so he's got a lot ot learn."

"Oh wow! I definitely wouldn't want to interfere with that -- and you know, I always did want to learn how to really fight! I took karate classes for a few weeks when I was fourteen, but the sensei was a grabby creep, so I stopped. Could I learn too?"

Victor sent a mental message Natashka's way. "Are you thinking of teaching magic to others as well?"

She made a tiny shake of her head. "I was just thinking about Sergeant Borkin's methods rather than my witchcraft -- but now that you mention it, that is something I will definitely have to think about for later." She looked up at Michelle. "You know what? Yes, that would be blastingly good. Give Victor a sparring partner while I supervise, that sort of thing."

Michelle raised an eyebrow just as Victor kicked Natashka's ankle again. "Blastingly?"

"Oh! Sorry. It's a... a tick I picked up from Sergeant Borkin. English wasn't his first language," Or his second, or third, or any language he spoke at all, she added to herself with a chuckle. "...and he was, ah, quite a unique fellow."

"Well, I'm sorry for your loss, Natasha. But yeah, let me know the next time you two are practicing so I can join in!"

The Dread-Witch smiled. "Keep in mind that I'm only going to teach you the basics to start." She waggled her fingers and made her eyes wide, her voice taking on a mock-dramatic tone. "To learn the true secret techniques of 'Sergeant-Style Kung Fu', you must prove yourself worthy of its infinite and mysterious ninja magics!"

As Michelle had a good laugh, Victor reached out mentally again. "Since when did you know anything about ninjas?"

Natashka waggled her eyebrows. "I do watch movies now, you know. And we had something very much like Ninjas back on All Stone. They were called 'Shai-Kan', mystic spies and assassins with unequaled hand-to-hand skills. A pity we didn't have movies on my world, those 'Mystery Slayers' would have been perfect film fodder."

"Was Sergeant Borkin one of those Shai-Kans?"

"He was coy about it, but he did once admit to having trained with some for a little while. So there's certainly some Shai-Kan Fist in what we've been practicing."

"I'm learning secret extra-dimensional magic ninjitsu! My nerd cred is over nine thousand!"

"Whatever that means."

"Oh Natashka -- in this field, now you are the student and I am the master. We'll get you up to speed on memes and anime and all sorts of fun in good time."

Natashka stood up. "Well I'm glad we're all on the same page here, Michelle. If you'll excuse me, I have a dinner date to get ready for."

The co-ed reached out with surprising speed and grabbed Natashka's wrist. "Hold on. Dinner date? It's not even one o'clock yet! Slow your roll and sit back down, girlfriend! What's the rush? And who's the lucky guy? C'mon, dish!"

The witch glanced around, but Shadrach wasn't anywhere in sight. "Well, nothing's official yet, but Shadrach asked me out this morning, and I agreed."

"Victor's roommate? Awwww, he seems nice! What time are you meeting?"