Brash and the Schrodinger Snare Ch. 10

Dr. Palladium flicked her finger. A chunk of moss flew from the ground and slapped over my mouth.

"Shut up," she said, quietly.

I glared at her.

"Brashie, honey," she said. "I'm trying to offer you a choice here. Something better than just being consumed by me and being recycled." She grinned. "I need extremely powerful cybernetic-draconic synthesis. I...I..." She stopped. I was shaking my head quickly. She frowned, then flicked her finger down. The moss slapped onto the ground.

"No! No! No no no!" I sang. "Not even slightly! Not at all! Fuck that! Fuck that noise!" I did a little dance. "Not even slightly! Wooo!"

Dr. Palladium scowled at me. "That is an extremely poor decision, considering you're surrounded by me."

"Yeah, but, uh...I have nukes?" I asked, clicking my heels together and teleporting down as far as I could, leaving behind two glittering, nuke capped pitons, slammed into the ground. They bleeped very very fast. I grinned as I floated in the empty space below the bridge...and then landed in the water. Except the water was now moss. Ah well, it still worked. A hand lashed out and wrapped a round my throat. My eyes widened and I made a garbled noise as Dr. Palladium emerged from the moss. Except that wasn't what was happening at all.

She was forming from the moss. My eyes saw it all: Bits of moss turning different shades and clumping together to form her arm, her shoulder, her head, her angry glare. She shoved me against the wall and the two of us phased through tissue and muscle and bits of gristle, all of it slurping against my body in this icky, icky way. We emerged out of the wall on the bridge and she flung me back down right where I had started - and I saw that the window was revealed now, the Beaststuff having drawn back to show space.

I could see two tiny bleeping red dots.

Then those two red dots flared a brilliant white.

"I built you. I designed your every specification." Her high heeled boot slammed into my spine.

Ah!

That's why people on twitter said they wanted pretty ladies to step on them! I would have enjoyed it more if she hadn't be an evil would be galaxy conquering super-genius made of gross moss. I put my palms underneath me and tried to shove up, but Dr. Palladium ground her heel into me, shoving me back down with what felt like at least two whole ogres worth of strength. And ogres were really strong, you know?

"I know...every..." She paused. Then, with a furious hiss, she reached down and grabbed my long, cute anime-boy hair. She yanked back hard, twisting my spine. "What is that you just thought?"

What had I just thought? I had a lot of thinks! Then I felt a psionic force smash into my brains. Every single cell of the Beast, directed by Dr. Palladium, tried to get into my brain case. They rummaged around and I squirmed and gritted my teeth and fought with every iota of internal strength I had. But they still fished around until they found a recent, very nice memory. Palladium gasped.

"Dude!" I exclaimed. "Don't look at that, you're like my mom."

"You made an egg? An egg!?" Dr. Palladium squalled. "With a dwarf!?"

"Chup!" I said. "I'd say it was super fun and hot, but...again. Mom. Gross." I made a face. "Even if you're not my real mom, it's still-"

She smashed her heel into the back of my head, which mashed my face up against the mossy floor. Her heel drove in hard enough that I felt my bones starting to creak. Pain stabbed through me as that psionic force went from rummage to pummel. It felt like hammers were crashing against my brain-shields, smashing and smashing and smashing. My eyes screwed shut and I clenched my jaw, trying to not scream as Dr. Palladium just crushed me.

"You stupid stupid STUPID piece of wasted genetic trash!" Dr. Palladium screeched. "That's why you were a prototype! A worthless fucking prototype! You couldn't follow a single fucking instruction, not a single design decision." She clenched her fist. "Do you know how HARD I worked to encode your FUCKING DRM!? And you fucked me! Making an egg should be paying me at least fifty million credits and the hand of a Princess in marriage, you little shit!"

I smacked at the ground, trying to get my head up.

"Of course, I don't really care about money...as much anymore," Dr. Palladium said, drawing her heel back just enough to let my head up. I breathed in, about to say something in defense of my egg making - specifically that if she had programmed me with DRM, I hadn't flipping noticed it. But Dr. Palladium brought her heel smashing back down again. "But it's the principle of the thing!"

This. Really. Fucking. Hurt. And I wanted to fight back. But the psychic hammering was starting to nibble away at me, like kittens attacking a very small ball of yarn, batting it here and there. I was losing string, and losing feeling in my arms and my shoulders. Dr. Palladium finally yanked her heel back, but it was just so she could push me to my feet with a spurt of telekinetic power, then mash me up against the window. She smirked at me as she forced me to look out.

There were the Von Braun's fighters. The Beast ship had launched its own fighters - clumps of spore and moss. They were shooting at the UNN fighters - beams of reddish light. Where that red light touched, fighters started to bloom with red moss. Ejection seats shot into space, but it was only a matter of time before the Beast got them too.

"That ship is going to make a fine breeder ship. I can use her hanger bays to make cruise missiles, full of the spores," Dr. Palladium crooned. "Entire planets, where every neuron, every node of intelligence, all of it slaved to my guiding force of will." She grinned. "They mocked me in the university, before I was cast down by Lloth and turned into a drider. And now, I'll do one better than ruling the galaxy."

She licked her lips.

"I will be the galaxy."

She pushed me away from the window. I sprawled on the ground and she stood above me, hands on her hips.

"One last chance, Brashie," she whispered. "Join me. Or become me. Those are your only options."

I licked my lips slowly.

"Wow," I said. "Total echo."

"Huh?" Dr. Palladium asked.

But I didn't dare point. For all I knew, she might actually be smart enough to turn her head. Instead, I just rolled. I rolled as hard and as fast as I could to the left, meaning I cleared the area around Dr. Palladium well before the nose of the immense drowish frigate that had just emerged from subspace plunged into the bridge. Fifteen meters of black metal that made up the forward antenna plunged through Dr. Palladium's chest, ripping her into a spray of gore and moss, while the metal of the prow of the ship buckled and tore mossy material and the underlying structure. The noise was somewhere between being trapped in a washing machine with a million quarters and ripping a phone book in half. Air roared past me and I felt myself getting picked up and rolled even more as the floor buckled under me even more. I rolled and fetched up against a wall made mostly of gristle and muscle.

I coughed as a haze of pulverized dust and debris filled the air. I waved my hand, trying to see what was even left of the bridge. Very little, as it turned out. Most of the bridge was now the drowish ship's prow, a smooth curved metal protrusion of matte black adamantine hull alloy. I could picture the Doomship now looking as if it had a brand new, triangular shaped extension to the command tower. It'd look super freaking weird, but, hey, most of the ship was, like, Beastified.

It couldn't be that much weirder.

The nose mounted airlock of the drowish frigate groaned as it slowly opened.

A slender figure stepped off, coughing and staggering slightly.

The smoke cleared.

Alexandress the Vampire Princess looked around herself, at the devastation she had wrought. She grinned, then pointed her thumbs at herself.

"Diablerie, biiiiiiiiiiiiiitches!"

I leaped and pumped my fist into the air so hard that my arm sunk up to the elbow into one of the mouth ceilings. "YES! I KNEW IT! I FUCKING KNEW IT!" I paused, realizing I was now hanging from the ceiling, the mouth having chomped down on me in reflexive anger. I jerked at my arm. "Hey, let me go."

Alex blurred to my side. She punched into the ceiling with claws and the mouth let me go, opening in silent pain. Then we embraced. Hard. My hands squeezed her to me, and her arms crushed me to her body. She clung to me, whispering. "Brash, Brash, Brash." I nuzzled against her, my cheek mashing up against her neck.

I'd have started fucking her right then and there if Dr. Palladium hadn't started to grow out of the floor, her head emerging first, her eyes flaring with pure fury. Alex saw that, then drew away from me. "That's gonna be a yikes from me," she said, quickly and I grabbed her hand and we both flew towards the airlock. The beast was already starting to consume the Drowish ship. We cleared the airlock just before the Beast spread from it. Behind us, the moss spread outwards, reaching tendrils and fingers for us. Psionic energy hammered at our backs, but Alex flew on her back, letting me guide forward motion so she could throw bolt after bolt of her own psychic energy back. Red energy crackled against the invisible force of the Beast.

I wove our way through the snarled, crumpled corridors of the Drowish ship, until I realized I had my guns. I lifted my free hand, activating my death-wands. Beams of ruby red light scythed a hole in the side of the ship and Alex and I emerged in a spray of molten metal. We soared out into the vacuum, leaving the Beast behind.

I looked at Alex. She looked at me.

"I knew you weren't dead," I whispered.

"Well, I'm kinda dead..." she grinned. "Vampire and all."

I kissed her, then drew back. "So, uh, what is diablerie?" I grinned, sheepishly. "I remember you mentioning how good you were at it, but I never got much more than that."

Alex chortled. "Well, uh, remember how I'm Tremere?"

I nodded. "Badass magic wizard vamps!"

"Wellllllllll, basically, the first Tremere was a human wizard. Lost his mojo when he was vampjacked," Alex said, shrugging slightly as we floated in the vacuum of space. You may ask how we were talking. Well, I'm a genetically engineered dragon super-weapon and she's a space vampire princess wizard. I'd have been more shocked if we couldn't talk in space. "So, he 'diablerized' an older vampy to steal his powers and used that to get his mojo back. But to remove the fancy pants words, uh..." She rubbed the back of her neck, looking kinda sheepish. "Basically, it means to eat their soul. Kinda."

I blinked a few times.

"So..." I said. "You were subsumed by the Lich King...and then once you got the chance, you ate him?"

Alex burped loudly. Then she sighed. "Oh that tranch."

I turned around and saw that the Beast ship was slowly turning around. It was not turning to face us. Instead, it was turning so its immense realspace engines were angled our way. Those engines were basically huge plasma rockets. I figured that at this range they'd crisp us super fast. I sighed and cracked my knuckles, readying myself to start flapping.

Whump.

Whump whump whump.

The sound was not quite a sound. It was more an intense pressure on the part of my body and brain that detected magic. I looked around, my eyes widening slowly as I saw that the sky was full of stars - and every star was a ship. Yes I stole that line shamelessly from Babylon 5, fucking sue me, JMS, I'll fucking fight you. The ships were from dozens of different kingdoms. I saw sleek Metallic Dragon starships, painted in golds and bronzes and silvers. I saw the cruel barbs of drowish ships. I saw the hardened metal and artificial tusks if orcish kill kroozers. I saw the crackling lightning in a bottle of Air elemental privateers. I saw the flying brass ships crewed by efreet from the red giant stars of Sirius Primus - each one shaped into the form of a different sea going creature.

But most of all?

Lots and lots of UNN ships. Frigates. Destroyers. Battleships. Carriers. They filled an entire hemisphere of space, tightly packed dots of reflected light.

Echoing, I could hear Dr. Palladium's single thought, emitted from the Beast's every spore in a single psionic ping.

Oh balls.

Each ship flickered and winked. A few seconds later, those winks resolved into dozens of missiles per ship, each one shooting through space on a level, flat trajectory. They burned towards the doomship faster than even I could go, leaving behind contrails that expanded outwards, making the lines of movement clearer and clearer, even as the dots started to coalesce, flying towards the doomship, clustering. I grabbed Alex and she grabbed me and we swung ourselves so we angled away from the doomship. She leaned forward and kissed me with ice cold lips, her tongue plunging into my mouth.

We macked as a nuclear fireball the size of a small city bloomed, formed of hundreds of interlocking spheres of furious, expanding heat. My tongue and hers sparred as the secondary wave went off, crackling and popping behind us, bathing us both with enough light and heat that we both felt warm for a few seconds. Then the lights faded and I drew back, panting softly as I looked at Alex. Her hands were going to her shirt, unbuttoning and tugging. I helped her by tearing at her clothes, shifting mine away. My cock thrust out into the empty vacuum of space and I thanked...well, I thanked the radioactive cloud of vapor behind me for how tough I was.

Alex pressed herself up against me, her mouth and mine locking together. My cock started to grind against her sex - and I felt just how dry she was. But, right, of course. Vaccuum. I focused and surrounded by cock with a vacuum hardened slickness that let me slide into Alex as easily as if she had been wetter than water world. Her legs locked around my hips as we kissed deeper and deeper. My hands cradled her ass and I thrust into her, using tiny spurts of flight power to drive my hips into her. She clung to me, her head rolling back as she moaned silently, not able to focus enough magic to create audible noise.

That was how they found us. The rescue shuttles. Their lights swept over us and I looked over Alex's shoulder at the two UNN pilots.

One gaped at me.

The other formed words with her lips. And I, being awesome, was an excellent lip reader.

"Noice."

THE END

Epilogue One: Da Bring

"Hiiiiiii!"

Lady Darkeye groaned as she sprawled against the wall of the brig, her arms crossed over her chest. The UNN prison unitard she wore was damned uncomfortable, but the last thing she wanted to do was be seen in it by...him.

Brash the Dragon stood by the bar, with a tiny bat on his shoulder.

"What do you want?" Lady Darkeye asked.

"Who is it?" The voice came from the other cell over. It was Blackheart.

"Oh, it's me!" Brash said. "Enjoying your time in the brig, Blackheart?"

"Not as much as on that drow bint's ship..." he muttered.

Lady Darkeye scowled. "Come to gloat, dragon?" she asked.

"Yup!" Brash said. "Also, to offer you moi services. You see, I have the awesome ability to manipulate the form of peeps I fuse with! So, if you want, I can form a suit around you, then shapeshift you...well, not back to a Beholder form. That's too much inherent magic. But I can at least make you a dude again-"

Lady Darkeye picked up the drinking mug she had been given for the cell and flung it at the bars. It rebounded as she snarled. "Fuck off! I don't want your fucking pity!"

Brash lifted up his hands. "Whoa! Okay! Fine! Fine!"

He and his bat retreated.

Lady Darkeye scowled as she leaned back against the wall.

"For someone who says they hate bein' a girl, you sure do seem quick to want to keep your boobs," Blackheart said, his voice dry.

"Fuck off, beardy," Lady Darkeye snarled.

She didn't like being a woman.

She just didn't want to accept that simpering, pathetic dragon's charity.

Honest. Really!

Really.

...really.

Epilogue Two: Trilby's Dating Advice

The school bell rang and Brash hurried to his locker. He swung it open and smiled at the full picture of Alexandress he had pinned up there. Thanks to some subtle magic, only he could see that it was a nudie. She had her arms lifted above her head and her chest thrust out, showing off her cute tiny little titties. Since she had to sleep in a coffin during the day, it was nice to have a reminder of her. Brash smiled as he closed the door to the locker and screamed as he saw that Cindi had walked up to him.

"Hey," she said, snickering.

"Cindi!" Brash clutched at his chest. "I...you scared me."

Cindi snorted. Then, quietly, she leaned forward. "I gotta know, Brash. How the heck are you adjusting so...easily?"

Brash cocked his head. "Zuh?"

"We've been back to school for a week. A-And everyone else treats us like nothing happened. They don't know. But...but I've been on an adventure. I flew a spaceship into a beholder and saw the distant stars and...and..." She stammered. "I got stoned!"

Brash snickered.

"Seriously!" Cindi punched his shoulder. "How do you go on acting like everything is...normal?"

Brash shrugged. "I've been on an adventure before. It's real life that's hard." He flushed. "Like...for example...I still haven't found a good time to ask you out on a date."

Cindi blinked. "Oh. Oh! Uh..." She smiled, shyly. "Brash, you're super nice, but I'm not into guys. Or girls." She paused. "Or anyone, really. That's why I kind of blew up at you..." She shook her head. "I just...I like hanging out with you. But I don't want to..."

"Ride my big fat dragon cock?" Brash suggested.

Cindi's cheeks turned bright red. "That is...one way to put it, yes."

Brash blinked, then cocked his head. Then he beamed. "Okay! Then lets hang and play video games!"

"Cool!" Cindi said, chuckling.

"And I know just which one to play!" Brash said, walking with her as they started to head to their next class. "Have you ever heard of Seven Days a Stranger?"

Epilogue Three: Closer to 9, really

The Mohs hardness scale was used to determine how hard it was for something to get scratched. Ten was a diamond. Palladium was somewhere around a four.

Two weeks after the Beast had been immolated, on a dusty desert planet, several light years off the beaten path, a woman staggered into a tavern. She was dressed in bone and bits of leather. This wasn't that strange. The bartender had seen at least two people dressed a similar way. Both had been necromancers. He smiled at her.

"Want a drink?" he asked.

The woman - a drow, he thought - sighed. She put her head in her hands, then groaned. "You know what? Yes. I need a godsdamned drink."

The bartender poured a green ale. The woman pounded it down. Then she looked around the interior of the bar. She looked at the various aliens and humanoids who were lounging around. Some were lazily playing cards. She considered. Lots of biomass. Tasty tasty biomass. She looked back at the cup...and sighed. "It'd just mean running into Brash again," she said, then shuddered.

That?

That sounded like something for someone else to handle.

She was going to just enjoy being an immortal shapeshifting psionic super-being that was now free of the curse of Lloth.