Eye of the Monster

"You could talk to someone."

Vayger's defensive revulsion was immediate. "Talk about the bomb calling the bullet lethal! You ever use any of that money Gaines pissed on you to see a fucking shrink, huh?" She lowered her voice to match Dawson's tone in an effort to mock her suggestion. "`Talk to someone. Just let it all out and tell people how you really feel.` Fuck you! Never saw you shed a single fuckin' tear the whole time we were trying to save this fuckin' city, Imp..."

"That day we found the ditch on the beach, with all those... Those little..." Her voice faltered. Dawson set the commpad down on the nightstand and slid herself across the bed. Her arms spread wide and enfolded Vayger's upper body causing the elf to flinch.

"Shhhh," Dawson soothed. Voyager grit her teeth for several long seconds and then finally melted against Dawson's chest, heaving an enormous sigh. One of Dawson's hands came up to cup Vayger's left ear, curling its tip against her palm and squeezing lightly. The woman shuddered once, squirming in the embrace before relaxing again.

Downstairs, someone started her stereo.

"You're not shy... You get around... You wanna fly, don't want your feet on the ground..."

Thankfully it was turned down a moment later, allowing Dawson and Vayger to whisper to each other.

"What are you going to do now?" Dawson asked, "That this gang war is ending." The elf scoffed, but made no effort to escape the human's grip.

"What do you think? Gain turf, run guns, carve out territory so my girls and boys aren't sleeping on each other's heads every night. Pull jobs, soak nuyen, fix problems. I got a list, Imp. Elves with problems, the kind that take chrome and surgery to fix. You can't steal surgery off the back of a truck, Imp."

"Yeah," Dawson breathed. "I know."

"What, you gonna ask me to not do crimes? Hey do I come to where you work and slap the fucking battering ram out of your hands and tell you not to beat orks into the street? Since you fragged that warboss prick last week, me and mine have been having the time of our lives out there! You eat pussy good Imp, but not good enough to make me give up a chance like this!"

Dawson asked, "What if I did?"

Vayger snorted. "Tch! What's that supposed to..."

She trailed off as someone mounted the landing from the spiral staircase. Her hair was pulled back, her outfit was more street-casual and on her neck was a heart tattoo proclaiming a carnal affection for all living things, but aside from that it was someone shockingly familiar.

Through her arms Dawson could feel the fight-or-flight response pulse through Vayger's body. "Imp who the fuck is that?"

"Easy," Dawson said, rubbing the back of the elf's head. "This is my... Sister. She goes by Instinct. And she's been dying to meet you."

She opened her arms but the elf made no effort to move away from her. "You never mentioned having a fucking twin before!"

"We just recently met," Dawson admitted. Technically true, even if Instinct hadn't existed until recently.

"Fuck, she looks just like you! Ohh shit, I'm not fucked up enough to handle what I'm seeing right now."

Instinct stopped at the foot of the bed and started taking off her gray leather jacket. "Impulse has told me a lot about you," she said playfully. "Everything, I think. But I was hoping I could learn a few things first-hand."

Though the situation was undeniably strange, Vayger had always had an open mind. And she was also a little hammered. "Yeah? What kind of things has she said about me?"

"She says your cunt tastes pretty good. Prime elf meat better than any other that can be found, even in Tir Tairngire."

The jacket came off and dropped to the floor, followed by the plain white shirt she'd worn underneath. Her left bicep was decorated with the Mother Earth symbol, a circle being held from below by cupped hands. The right arm bore a sleeve of ink depicting an angel with dark wings and a black mask holding a sword of blue light towards a forest canopy through which a sunshaft was shining on her. Dawson had to admit, it was more tasteful than a demon on the back.

Vayger's eyes roamed over the propositioning body and it was clear she was warming up to the prospect, as they'd expected. "Sounds about right," she said indulgently. "You'd have a real fuckin' hard time finding a better cunt than mine to liioooOHH what the FUCK!"

Instinct had leaned on the bed with both arms and opened her mouth. From between the razor-sharp points of her teeth had emerged her tongue, prehensile and extending a full two feet away from her face. It prodded at one of Vayger's thighs experimentally, narrower at the tip than at the base but pulsing in time with the woman's seemingly human heartbeat.

"We aren't completely twins," Dawson admitted. "I'm told she's a better kisser. You want to confirm that?"

Instinct's tongue brushed against Vayger's jean button, popping it open and opening the way for the tip to slip in beneath her waist. She had no underwear; the elf offered no resistance to the rope of hot, slimy muscle pressing into her mound except an upward rolling of her eyes and a shudder of either reflexive revulsion, spiking ecstasy or both. Slllrrchh! Her breath caught, and Dawson carefully lowered the elf to the bed so she could writhe helplessly as Instinct ate her fill.

A series of not-quite hushed voices spoke from the stairway. "Wow! Better-Kisser Dawson is eating Captain V's pussy!"

"I hope she does mine next!!"

"Yeah, I want her to lick my brains out!"

"I hope she tongues my asshole, too!"

"Eugh, you're such a shameless rub-addict. I'm gonna kiss her before she does that!"

"Lady... tongue lady sexy..."

An emphasized clearing of Dawson's throat caused the elves to duck down below the edge of the first step, but Avalanche immediately clambered past them and crawled towards Dawson's feet on all fours. Despite their professed enthusiasm for being conditioning, the fomor had quickly surpassed her peers in terms of unthinking obedience. Perhaps something about her brutish personality made her especially susceptible to loyalty indoctrination; Dawson suspected it probably had more to do with the constant rewards she received for her good behavior.

Even on her hands and knees the troll came up to Dawson's waist. She took Avalanche's chin and cheek in her hands and forced her to make and maintain eye contact while affecting her most intense and authoritative stare, speaking in a voice to match.

"Take off your clothes. Get on the bed." Drooling and panting, Avalanche hastened to do as ordered and pulled at her belt, breaking the buckle in the process while thinking only of the pleasure soon to inflicted on her.

"Hey!" Rierra called, "What about us?"

"You're not getting off easy," Dawson informed them. "Line up by the bed. First one to get naked is next."

= = =

"Uh! Uhh! Uhh!" The reinforced bed springs complained beneath Avalanche's furious affections.

"Ohh.. Ohh fuck.. Alright," Dawson said tensely, "That's enough... Come on, pull out..."

The fomor whined in protest. "Buhh.. br-breed..." Another heavy squeal from the springs as she shifted her weight against Dawson's groin.

"Ahhhh..! No! You're not gunking up my holes tonight! Pull out... Before I change my mind."

Though it clearly went against her instincts to do so, the troll obeyed and eased out of the human woman's thoroughly worked-out holes. The two erections were beyond enraged, throbbing out of sync and visibly demanding to be sheathed back in the sweet and hot meat-sleeves that had just a moment ago been squeezing them. The comparatively freezing air of the apartment simply wouldn't do! It was completely irrelevant that they'd been sucked and jerked to explosive climaxes three times already tonight... Avalanche needed to breed!

"Hey big girl," Instinct said. "Over here." A sound of hands clapping against thighs as she spread her legs, one foot ending up on Alenia's back and the other laying across Vayger's shoulders.

"Nnuh?" Avalanche shifted her glimmer of available attention towards the other woman. Her dicks twitched in delight--it was literally the same woman she'd just been fucking! A perfect target for her frustrations!

"You can breed me as much as you want," Instinct offered.

The offer alone caused small gushes of syrupy pre-cum to gush out of the fomor's meat rods, further staining the thoroughly soaked (and absorbent by design) bedsheet. Panting and nearly foaming at the mouth, Avalanche carefully crawled across the pile of snoring, thoroughly exhausted elves to fall on Instinct's body, licking and sucking at her neck and face while clumsily trying to insert both of her cocks into the woman-shaped creature.

Instinct took pity on Avalanche and seized her by the shoulder to hold her still, using her other hand to firmly guide the tips into her orifices, twisting her lower body to make it so the stiff rods could sit at their natural side-by-side level as they stabbed into her and begin to sink into the sweetness of her flesh.

Avalanche gasped in relief, her furious blades once again quenched in the only scabbards that would do. They were far too stupid to perceive the difference, but in fairness almost everyone was. In every way that mattered these were the holes that were made for her!!

Dawson rubbed at her sore groin while working her way off the bed, stroking Jastira's hair for a moment when the elf stirred. A kiss to the forehead soothed her back to her post-sex coma. She picked her commpad up off the nightstand and made her way to the stairs. She was halfway down when Avalanche cried out BREED!!! and groaned in thoughtless delight, enthusiastically transferring the viscous contents of her own groin to the one that had recklessly been offered to her. The ejaculation seemed to last an entire minute and by the time Dawson was standing naked in front of the tinted window overlooking the street, Avalanche had added her heavy snoring to the symphony.

She was flipping through early AM dispatch reports when a few minutes Instinct joined her, rubbing at her groin with one hand. "Fuck," she said under her breath, "This stuff is like womb glue."

Impulse grinned without looking up from the commpad. "Hope you're on a different cycle than I am."

"I'm pretty sure that's something I can control," Instinct said carefully.

"Behold: Woman, improved. Probably."

"Well, I've only been alive for like a week and a half so I haven't tested it yet. Anything going on out there?"

"The usual," Dawson admitted in a sigh. "But even the usual..."

"...is better than the previous month."

"If you get into the habit of finishing my thoughts out loud, people are going to buy the twins thing completely. At least until you tongue-fuck them."

Instinct stepped up next to Dawson and took the commpad from her with one hand and stood well within her personal space, their faces inches apart. Dawson was immediately on guard.

"What are you doing?"

"I know your thoughts," Instinct whispered to her. "All of them. I know why you're standing here worrying about the world outside while there's a pile of people upstairs who wish you would join them."

Dawson turned her face away from Instinct's. "Your breath smells like Vayger's cunt." Anyone else she would have told to shut up.

"Don't turn away from me," Instinct insisted. "I know you better than anyone else ever will. You're standing here because you need to worry. You can't let yourself be happy, Impulse."

Now she spoke through gritted teeth. "Someone has to worry. You think Sokoth or Brandt are looking at dispatch right now?

Her deflection was ignored. Instinct took her by the chin and whispered, "You need the world to forgive you for the way you used to be."

This time she couldn't keep it from hissing the refutation. "Shut up! I don't need to be reminded of the way I am. I'm... I'm fucking trying!"

"If a person like Illich Mendoza can find peace," the creature cast in her image whispered, "So can you. If you can forgive me for the way I was created, then you can do the same for yourself. I know you can, Impulse."

Hot, thin tears coursed down Dawson's face as she tried to pull away, but Instinct held her close by force. She found she lacked the will to fight her off.

"There are only two people in this world who could forgive me," Dawson shuddered, "And they're not you or me."

Instinct used one hand to make Dawson look at her. It was almost like looking into a mirror, if mirrors could tell ugly truths.

"When I realized for the first time that I wasn't you, I was terrified. But in the days since I started to feel... relief. I was relieved, Dawson, because I realized that all those horrible things I thought I'd done were done by someone else."

"And now I'm terrified again, Impulse. Because I know how you feel all the time. The weight you carry. You're so lonely... You still think no one wants you. Even when people beg you on their hands and knees, you're afraid it's only as long as you're useful."

"You can't live that way. I won't let you be alone I can't force you to forgive yourself. But you will hear me. When you're ready, I'll help you look for the people you need forgiveness from. You won't have to do it alone."

Dawson bit her tongue to keep from choking up. "Who are you," she asked, "To tell me that the way I am isn't good enough?"

She smiled as she replied, sounding almost giddy "I'm you, Impulse! I'm everything you wish you were. Everything you could be when you overcome your guilt."

Dawson couldn't help but breathe laughter. "What? A tremendous slut that fucks everything she can catch?"

Instinct nodded. "Yes! It's everything you imagine it to be and more!"

Her hands came up to clutch the side of Dawson's face as well as her chin. "You believe you have no pride. Pride isn't necessary for happiness, or love. It's not needed to make the world a better place. In fact it often just gets in the way. You think you're suffering in humility, that it's noble and serves a good purpose. And maybe it does... But you know in your heart you'd serve even better."

Briefly Impulse averted her eyes, swallowed heavily and shuddered again to keep from weeping. "When did you get a degree in psychology?" she asked.

"The only person I understand so far is you," Instinct said, smiling broadly. "Everyone else I just tongue into submission."

"Well don't try that with me," Dawson warned her. "My path to total fulfillment involves more than just a tentacle in my ass."

"But it doesn't exclude it."

Finally Instinct let Dawson go but the woman didn't turn away, instead electing to remain close and examine her otherworldly twin.

"I don't think I'm ready to go fuck myself yet."

"I can wait. Until then I'll just continue fucking everyone you know until they forget all about you and I'm the only one who will touch you. Then you'll be all mine."

Dawson scoffed. "You can have them. I could use the time off."

Instinct cupped one of Dawson's bare buttocks, making her straighten up. "I'm going to ruin you like I've ruined all your friends, Impulse."

"This must have been the doomsday that the maniac in Seacliff was trying to bring about. Shame all those other freaks showed up at the same time."

"Yeah," Instinct said, "But they're dead now, and you're stuck with me. Wise up and let's get hitched. You know I'm good in bed and can clean up after myself."

At this Dawson outright laughed. It felt even sweeter to do so in the shadow of the anguish just a few minutes ago. Her face was still wet from it. "I don't know if that's incest or just masturbation."

"I see no reason why we can't do both."

"Yeah, you look the type." Dawson let out another slow sigh and faced the window to look at the street, rolling her shoulders. "When things settle down here... Then we can talk about forgiveness."

"That's wise," Instinct said. "I've got a feeling this isn't settled yet."

"Do you get feelings anywhere other than between your legs?"

"No, it's between my legs. But I can feel it all the same."

= = =

"Ivan Ionfist. Pfah!" Sokoth set the data pad on the table between them, making no effort to hide his disgust. "Near as we can tell you've been a son of a bitch your whole miserable life. War crimes in South America, ethnic cleansing in Germany, ritual executions for the Yakuza in Japan. Is there any continent you haven't made worse by visiting?"

The four chains connected to the collar around Ivan's neck rattled as he shifted his attention to the lieutenant. "I've had a lot of conquests, old man. And I've got more in my future."

"The only thing in your future is the chair," Sokoth corrected. "The corporations want you dead, 'warboss.' You broke the golden rule in the sixth world: you fucked with the money. You can believe all the fairytales you want but the moment you start cutting into the bottom line you make the only enemies that matter. How's that 'conquest' working out for you right now?"

The fingers on Ivan's remaining hand drummed repeatedly on the steel table to which he was bound. He smiled darkly. "Take off these chains, old man, and I'll show you a work-out."

"Yeah, I'm sure you'd love that. But you're going to die in those chains, Ionfist. You're a god damned cop killer and a mass murderer to boot and if it was up to me you'd be dead already, but they want to make an example of you. My advice is to go out with a little dignity."

Ivan chuckled and looked away, saying nothing more. Sokoth stood up from his chair and walked to the door, pressing the buzzer to contact the men on the other side. When he was out of the cell he shouted to the attending officers, "Keep an eye on him! There's a hundred and eighty-one Bloody Tusks in Folsom and I don't want any of them getting anywhere near that bastard!"

= = =

"What do you hope to accomplish with these talks of ours, detective? Do you hope that somehow if you simply believe hard enough that you are morally correct I will be convinced to admit that what I did was wrong?" Julius smiled in an indulgent and condescending way, showing the stark white of the finest teeth money could buy.

"No," Dawson said while shaking her head, "I don't hope that. You deserve the death penalty for what you did, let alone what you'd have gone on to do if allowed. If you felt bad about it then that might be another story. Clearly you don't."

Megiddo chuckled heartily as if at something a precocious toddler had spouted. "Your view of the world is juvenile, detective. Founded upon the comforting myth that all life is precious, rather than the truth that all life is an accident. You are constrained by the immature notion that one life is as valuable as another, even when so many aspects of our world are a demonstration of how this is simply not the case. The have-nots--those who lack ambition, or ruthlessness, or cunning--cry out to be treated as equals when most certainly they are not. And you know this, detective! You yourself killed hundreds of people whose beliefs contradicted your own, during the occupation. People who were not your equal when it came to savagery and valor. And you did not spare those people a single thought when you killed them, did you?"

Dawson's face was expressionless, her voice even. "That was different. That was war. Both sides had what they thought were good reasons."

"Ah," the elf said, grinning once more and nodding in what seemed to be complete understanding. "And who decides what is a 'good reason,' detective? You? Your friends at Lone Star? Knight Errant? The Corporate Court? Fairweather friends, detective, all of them. Today they're your friends. Tomorrow?"

She peered through the bars, scanning the interior of Megiddo's cell. It was as lavish as ever; he was comfortable, prepared to endure what should have been a life sentence as if it were nothing more than a stay at a country club. That made her angry. But if somehow he lived through this, Instinct would be around to make him wish he hadn't. That thought... That thought was an enormous comfort to her.