Brash and the Schrodinger Snare Ch. 04

King Lioncourt inclined his head. "Sorcerers!"

Two robed figures emerged from literally nowhere to my left and right. "Hi!" I said, smiling at them.

"Strip his flight," Lioncourt said.

"Hah!" I said, grinning. "My flight's only mostly magical!" I paused. "Wait, that's most of it, crap."

"You will have it returned on your victory," Lioncourt said, quietly, as the sorcerers began to incant. They used not only somatic and verbal components that I recognized, but also weird blood magics that seemed to be proprietary Tremere trickery. I felt a cold that went deeper than the air freezing temperatures outside. A cold that penetrated my scales and made me squirm and grit my teeth. It settled right into my flight organs (which, for you non-dragons out there, is kind of like the place where you get a heart burn, but slightly lower) and then started to throb. It throbbed and throbbed...and suddenly, I felt a horrible weight settle onto my shoulders. I sagged against the pole.

"Ow..." I whimpered.

"You freaking tranch!" Alex snarled at Lady Brando.

"Alexandress!" King Lioncourt barked. But despite that, I could see Alex literally vibrating with rage. P90 looked as if she was sizing up Lady Brando for a staking and salting, while Cindi was more looking at me, chewing her thumb nervously. Kira was clutching her hands to her chest, and watched me too. I tried to give them a thumbs up with my head arm.

"Let the games...begin," King Lioncourt said.

And that was when the chains dissolved and the stone floor I stood on canted forward and I yelped as I was dumped, head over heels, into the maze...and into the fight with six of my fiancee's evil exes. Without flight powers. Or any high powered energy weapons.

Ugh!

What a day!

Okay. Focus. I focused. Then I clicked on my Brash Fight Music playlist. I had gotten this ever since I had eaten Dad's iPod. And so, as the exciting beat started to fill my ears and the voice demanded that I test my might I sprinted down the corridor I was in. Snarling gargoyles zipped past as I focused and unsheathed my psi-sword. Do you know how slow and hard running is when you can't fly? It's not that it's actually harder, it's just that you suddenly know that you can't not run anymore, you know? I was still thinking this as the techno went to full scale speed and I rounded a corner and into a spray of bullets. I yelped and flung myself behind a planter. Bullets whined and clipped through the air, chopping chunks off the frozen plant in the tree. Other bullets gouged off chunks from the planter.

Fortch, most fully automatic weapons ran out of ammo way faster than people thinked.

Hence why, after only a few seconds, the guns started clicking. I rolled out of cover.

There was Lady Brando's son.

"Dio!" I snarled.

The incredibly pretty blond haired linebacker with the two Uzis didn't even bother reloading. Instead, he tossed his weapons into the air...and then...posed. His hand flipped up - two fingers fanning before his eyes in a V pattern. His other hand contorted upwards and pressed to his hip and he turned ever so slightly to the side. Sparkles surrounded him and I gasped, dropping my psi-sword. My hands went to my mouth, struck dumb by the raw, intense poseness of his pose. It was the most posing pose that had ever posed. His whole body flared and I trembeld, unable to move. Dio 'hurmphed' and then fished out two magazines. The Uzis dropped down from where he had tossed them, the magazines clicked home, and Dio smirked.

"When you wake up in hell, dragon," he said, his voice booming. "Tell them that it was I, Dio, who sent you!"

And he opened up with both Uzis.

Bullets slammed into my chest and shoulder and face and shins and thighs and arms and I danced backwards, twitching and writhing. Bullets skidded me along the icy ground, my heels slipping and bouncing as I was pushed up against the corner I had run around, then pitching me backwards and onto my belly. Dio sneered as he lifted his Uzis, walking forward cockily. "All too easy..." he muttered. And once he was within kicking range, I snapped my leg up and kicked him right in his stupid knee with all the strength I had. His knee twisted fully into a perfect right angle and his eyes bugged out of his head and he went down.

I scrambled to my feet - it was harder to kip to your feet when you can't fly - and grinned down at him.

"Thirty lethal soak, biiiiiiitch!" I said, flipping him off as I moonwalked backwards.

Which was right when the huge wolf leaped onto my back, chomping its teeth onto my neck. I yelped as it pitched me forward and my face mashed into the ground. The wolf's teeth pierced into my skin and pain flared as my HUD flashed up a warning: Spine in danger. Spine in danger.

"Really!?" I snarled. "I had no idea."

I put my palms under me and shoved up. The wolf remained attached to my neck. So I shifted my neck to make it slippier, and now, the momentum I had given the wolf sent it flipping and spinning away. As the wolf cartwheeled through the air, I brought up my psi-sword and heard the very faint snick snick snick of feet on the ground. I spun around and saw the incredibly scantily dressed Nosferatu girl running up behind me. She had a sword out and my sword and her sword met as Tepes' kid landed on all four paws, his claws digging into the airsnow on the ground. Sparks flew as elven mithril and psionic energy met - and the Nosferatu sprang backwards, not letting her blade and mine touch for too long.

She sneered, which looked really ugly, then slashed at me. But as she slashed, Tepes the younger leaped at me. His teeth sank into my wrist and dragged me to the side, so that the sword slash at my throat missed and just cut off some of my gorgeous hair. I yelped as I was dragged off my feet. The wolf was on me now - claws slashing at my chest, teeth chewing and grinding on my wrist. But I saw my shot! I reached up - and my palm mashed into the pure white fur of the huge dire wolf that was trying to disembowl me. My palm slipped up and down, up and down.

Slowly, Tepes the younger opened his muzzle and woofed at me. The collar around his neck translated it to: "What are you doing?"

I panted, feeling my wounds starting to slowly heal - flesh knitting together again now that supernaturally sharp claws and teeth weren't digging into my skin. "Getting...pets...I didn't get a chance to...pet your dad, and you're so fluffy!"

The wolf looked at me in total confusion.

"Back off, Tepes, he's mine!" An angry male voice snarled. Then a leg smashed into the Gangrel's belly and sent Tepes flying like the fluffiest football in the universe. Tepes landed with a whimper and I saw Orlock's son. He was shirtless, muscular as fuck, and covered in tattoos. He actually held his shirt in one hand, and had slung some rocks into the shirt's sling. And he started to swing it around like a flail, grinning. It whipped faster and faster and faster. Soon, it was making what little air was out here crack with every motion, and the Brujah's body was crackling with lightning. He let the sling open and the rock he had jammed in there shot out at railgun speed, smashing through the Nosferatu's guts, blowing a perfect circle in her belly. She still went flying backwards.

"HEY!" I shouted, trying to scramble up. But before I could, Orlock's son was standing above me.

Okay.

Uh.

Right.

When Alex had said lots of Celerity, she had meant lots and lots of superspeed.

Good to know!

"I'm going to enjoy draining your veins and breaking your spine," he growled.

"Knock knock!" I choked out, trying to get him all distracted for some classic Brash reversals.

"Shut up," he snarled, lifting up his hands, clutching them together. He was tensing, his body starting to surge as he pushed blood into his muscles, strength rushing up to the upper limits of his strength. He was about to squish my head.

"Markus Orlock has a tiny dick!" Alex's voice boomed from the speaker. "He's tiny!"

That got his attention. He jerked his head back. And so I did the only thing that I could think of. I surged upwards, growing my neck like the world's deadliest giraffe, and smashed my head as hard as I could right into his junk. And, just saying, he was pretty dinky. Not that that was a bad thing! Girls tended to get off more from tongue fun anyway. All this buzzed through my brain in the microseconds before the pain hit his undead nerves. Then Orlock wheeze-groaned at the same time, clutching at himself with both hands, staggering backwards. I kicked at his ankle, then punched him in the facemeats as hard as I could.

He went sprawling next to the Nos girl, who was sitting up and looking somewhat forelornly at her missing gut.

"Are you okay?" I asked, rubbing at my neck with a wince.

"I'm not dust, am I?" she scowled at me.

I gave her a thumbs up.

"We're fighting to the death, cuntface!" she snarled.

"Oh, no, no, no!" I said, shaking my head. "You are fighting me to the death. I'm fighting you to the point where you give up! Like this guy!" I gestured to Tepes the younger, who was laying on the ground - his tongue lolling out like a knocked out puppy. I clicked my tongue, then walked over and knelt down. I started to pet him, gingerly. "Hey, it's okay, puppy. You were very strong." Then I paused. "You're just faking, aren't you?"

"Shut up, dude, I don't want to marry that crazy witch," Tepes growled through his collar. "I'm gay."

I scowled. "Hey! Don't call my fiancee crazy. That makes you slightly less cute."

"I'd call her every name under the moon if it'd get you to stop petting me!" he snarled.

I sighed, then stood. "Well, now you've just ruined a good thing."

When I had turned around, I saw that another vampire was there.

She was pretty. And cute. Pretty cute. But she was also the kind of pretty cute where I wasn't sure if she was originally a halfling, a super tiny human woman, or a twelve year old girl. I bit my lip, feeling faintly uncomfortable about the fact that she was in an incredibly revealing maid's outfit. Like. Super revealing. Okay, no I lied. I was super duper uncomfortabled by her eyes. They weren't red or black with circles of yellow or slitted or anything. They were just...normal colored eyes. Grayish, maybe. But the more I looked at them, the more I could see that her pupils were slightly too small, her whites slightly too pronounced. Her face was slightly too taut. And the more I looked...the more I started to realize...

She was screaming.

She was screaming her heads off.

On the inside.

I gulped, then stammered. "Hello?"

And as I watched, my word floated before me. It shimmered in the air, a bright white set of words: Hello? Then the first four letters glowed red. I stepped backwards, blinking as the word Hell blazed at me. And then, around me, the entire maze exploded into flames. Spikes of metal wrapped in barbed wire thrust from the ground, and the sky turned to an endless smoky haze. The cold I had been feeling was gone, replaced with scorching heat. And then the barbed wire lashed outwards and dragged a kicking, screaming figure. My eyes widened as I realized it was...Mom! Mom, in her humanoid form. Her clothes were tattered, and she was screaming in utter terror as the barbed wire dragged her onto-

"No! STOP!" I shouted, running forward - and smashed right into the No and Stop. Then the Stop started to pulse. It turned black and I turned around and started to scramble away from that pulsating stop. Stop stop stop. But something was dragging me towards it. I yelped as it ripped me off my feet and fell into the stop and-

Nothing.

The purest, most complete nothing I had ever felt. Nothing touched my skin. Nothing entered into my eyeballs. Nothing came from or went into my mouth. I couldn't even say I wrapped or floated, since that implied something. Something at all. Anything. But there was only nothing. It was as if everything had...stopped. And I had thought hell had been bad. How long had this been going on? There was nothing in my head but my own thoughts. I couldn't even move. I started to grind my teeth, and think furiously. It couldn't have been more than...five seconds? Right? It felt like forever. It was forever, wasn't it! I was going to be like this...forever!

"Let me GO!" I shouted.

And there, in the nothing, floated Go.

Oh dang it.

Go flared.

And suddenly, I was somewhere. Standing on a vast, bleak plain of blackened dust. The air was thin and the sky was dominated by a vast, shimmering red star. It flared and twisted and popped with solar ejections the size of small planets, and it seemed to be glaring down on me. I looked around wildly. Go. I had gone. But gone where? Then I saw a faint bump at the end of the horizon. I started to run forward, desperate to find some clue. But as I ran, the endless emptiness of this place felt like it was sinking into me more and more. Every step kicked up dust that added a tang of age to my nose, burrowing in. Gone. Gone. Gone. Go. Go. Go.

And then I came to the bump.

It was the rusted, solitary head of the Statue of Liberty.

I slowly sank to my feet.

I was gone.

I was ten billion years gone.

I opened my mouth, about to scream at the heavens - when I stopped myself. Alex's voice seemed to echo in my head. Memories.

And don't even talk to the Malk's kid.

I closed my eyes. Then I breathed out. "Candy."

The word floated before my lips. It flared and then I was tumbling forward. I sprawled on a vast plain of shimmering green rectangles. They felt faintly sticky and clattered as I scrambled to my feet, looking around. Vast mountains made of striated orange and white and yellow thrust from the distant horizons. I grinned, then popped one of the jolly rogers - for that was what they were - into my mouth. As I sucked, I said: "The arena I was just in!"

The words shivered. The word was started to glow, but before it could, I flung myself at the word Arena. My shoulder smashed home and I felt the world seem to shudder. I smashed against it again and this time, I tumbled through, falling to the ground before the Malkavian girl. She was pursing her lips. I grinned at her, then spread my arms.

"Hugs!" I said.

The Malk bit her lip, looking at me. Then she looked up at the floating moon observation post. Then she looked back at me. I wiggled my eyebrows.

She stepped forward, tentatively, and then the word hugs glowed. I swept her into my arms, squeezing her tight. Then, wordlessly, I set her down, stood up, then bowed to her. She curtsied to me, then turned and started to hum to herself as she walked off. I scratched my neck. "Now, where's the other Malk kid?" I muttered. Then I gasped. "Wait! Is she actually two daughters in one body!?"

"How did you know that?" Alex asked. I turned around. She was floating down, grinning hugely at me. Next to her was a breather masked and coat shrouded Kira, who Alex was holding under one arm like a super adorable suitcase.

"I got through Santa Monica at least!" I said, cheerfully.

Kira hugged me next. I squeezed her back, then set her down as she said: "I can't believe you survived! And you didn't even kill any of them!" She gestured to the groaning mass of spoiled vampire snot kids. I waved at them cheerfully. Alex nodded, knuckling at me.

But that was when the space-shuttle zoomed overhead. It was a huge, sturdy looking craft, with a stern looking bearded face for a figure head. Its hover engines glowed a brilliant blue and Kira gasped. "D-Dad?" She whispered.

"What?" Alex asked.

"That's my Dad's shuttle..." Kira said, her voice soft. "I...he must have found me!"

The shuttle connected to the floating moon bay. Then the door swung open and I could just barely see from my angle the dwarves striding out of the gangplank. They wore heavy armor that was painted a pure black, with flapping red capes. Kira's eyes widened. She whispered, softly. "No..."

"What?" Alex asked as, through the PA, would could hear King Lioncourt.

"King Logarn Preen Nashen Vin Lor!" King Lioncourt said, sounding amused. "Are you here to renegotiate? I may drive a somewhat harder bargain."

"Duergar!" Kira screamed.

And there, on the moon, the dwarf in the gleaming black breastplate, with the curved crowned helmet, lifted his helmet off and grinned at King Lioncourt and his Primogens. His voice was thick and broad and sneering.

"'Ello King Lioncourt. Lord Darkeye sends his regards."

And he underhanded an inferno grenade at King Lioncourt's feet. I leaped upwards - and then fell back down. White heat flared and the dome exploded outwards. I had never felt so helpless, even as Alex screamed. "DAD!"

But then I saw that the dome hadn't exploded from the grenade. Instead, P90 - who was holding Cindi under one arm and had G282 clinging to her back - was swinging out. She held a grappling hook gun in her other hands, and as she swung out, I turned back to face the shuttle. The duergar had used their power armor to resist the explosion of flames and were now standing on the gangplank, letting the moon observation platform slew slowly to the side, its hover engines flickering and dimming as the flames continued to do damage. As the moon skidded out of the way, the duergar leader sneered down at Brash.

"I'm going to KILL YOU!" Alex screamed, her body starting to grow into her huge, tough monster form. But before she could fully finish up, the duergar lifted up a weapon, sneering.

"I wouldn't do that, luv!" he said, his voice booming through a throat mic. "My name is Brethghol Blackheart, and I'm the leader of this merry little band. And this?" He lifted and twiddled the weapon. "This is a remote control."

I let go of Alex. "Nevermind, go kill him," I said, nodding.

"I. Wouldn't. Do. That. Luv." Blackheart said again, enunciating every single word. Alex trembled furiously, and Kira was desperately signaling that she shouldn't. Meanwhile, I had noticed that P90 had pulled out her fireball wand. I held out my hand to her and she under handed me another fireball wand. I lifted it up too, aiming down the sights. "I touch this wee little button, Princess, and five million of your citizens are ash in as many minutes. After that, another ten, then another thirty. Get the picta, luv?"

Alex trembled even more. She had actually shrunk down to her normal humany form, but her eyes were glowing and her fangs were popped. I put my hand on her shoulder, squeezing as tightly as I could.

"Give. Me. Tha. Princess." Blackheart paused. "That other one." He nodded to Kira.

"You don't want her," I said, stepping forward, scowling. "I'm the one who knows what the Quantum Hoard is!"

Blackheart's eyes sparkled. "What is it, then?"

I snorted. "Everyone knows what it is!"

Blackheart chuckled. "Nice try, kiddo. But no dice."

I scowled.

Kira stepped forward. "I'll do it," she whispered. P90 and G282 exclaimed, P90 stepping forward. But before either could act, Blackheart snapped his fingers and his goons swept down on rocket boots that roared and sputtered with orange flames. They landed and P90 took a swing at one, but that duregar smashed into her gut with a wand. P90's whole body wobbled and she actually started to melt. I cried out, leaping at one of the duregar, but their rocket boots flared and they and Kira soared upwards, arcing towards the duregar shuttle.