The Naked Weapon

The clouds broke.

And I saw I was falling towards more clouds. The vast landscape below me was not land, but clouds. Vast, blue-white clouds that were streaked with purples that spanned as broad and as beautifully as continents. I swung my head around, my eyes as wide as I could get. Off to the right was the Doyen. He'd been blasted out of his war-form too. Unlike me, he had no metal around him, but he was just as much smaller as I had gotten, so...okay. We were both knocked off course, both out of warform, both falling. I looked down again.

Where were we falling to, exactly? Was this just a gas giant? Was I just totally fucking boned?

I wracked my brain, trying to think of anything in my life that would help me survive on a gas giant. Nope. No Boy Scout training came to mind. All I could remember from that was how to weave a net. Fat lot of help that would be.

Then I saw that, paralleling between the clouds and me, was an island. It was like no island I had ever seen in my life. For one thing, it was floating. For another thing, it was covered with vegitation nearly as blue as the clouds around it. The only thing that made it stand out was the black outline between the vegitation and the vast pink air-bladders that swelled underneath it. So, okay, it was less an island and more of a floating sky-whale thing with plants. Listen, beggars falling at terminal velocity in the upper atmosphere of an alien gas giant while fighting ancient star empires couldn't be choosers.

I tried to chart my falling, looking at me and the Doyen. And I already saw he was falling faster than me, his arms and legs flooping above him. Okay. So, he was out cold. I stuck my tongue out of the corner of my eye and tried to guesstimate their trajectory...and it did not look good. I was falling for the island. He was falling towards endless clouds. I tried to remember what was in the middle of gas giants. Well they were giants. Made of gas. Eventually, the gas got so heavy (in the same way an ocean gets heavy) that the gas becomes a liquid.

Basically, he was gonna fall into a lake of liquid hydrogen and freeze/crush to death.

Ugh.

"Fuuuuuuuck!" I swore, then looked down at the island.

It was getting closer.

I thrust my palm out to the Doyen.

I focused, like I was Luke Skywalker on Hoth. And like Luke Skywalker on Hoth, the only sign that the Doyen was making any movement towards my hands was a growing headache. I closed my eyes, trying to block out the fear and panic and just focus on moving them to me as fast as possible. That, uh, turned out to be a mistake. I opened my eye as I felt my talent catch and beamed -- and then saw the glittering, gemstone body flying at me like it had been fired out of a fucking cannon. I crossed my arms above my head a moment before he struck.

I rebounded.

Something shattered like a glass hitting the ground.

And then my back smashed into a tree branch. But rather than striking my back, the tree shattered against something hard as steel and soft as feathers that flared up behind me. I rebounded, smashed face first into another tree, shattering bark and sending lizard-like avians flying up in the air. I rebounded three more times in rapid succession, bleeding off kinetic energy every single step of the way before finally skidding onto my back. I thumped into thick dirt and curling vine-like brush. I sprawled on my belly and face, my palms spread wide.

"Uuuuuuuugh..." I groaned.

I lay there for a few more moments. My body didn't ache so much as I'd have expected. The shield had absorbed most of the impact. I was more just so utterly done. This morning, I had woken up nervous as all get out. I was going to crack the Pentagon files, for fucks sake. But today had been such a cavalcade of alarming revelations and shocking alterations to my world view that I just wanted something normal to happen.

Instead, I heard the snap, crack, crash of another form dropping through the trees above me. I looked up and saw a second Doyen falling through the trees.

I had not looked up. Not while falling. It hadn't seen important. Now, I was regretting that decision. This Doyen was clearly one of the three who had been on the Death Star, and he landed on his feet, with a crackling psychic sword in one hand and a furious wave of radiating heat exploding from his every crystalline facet. I scrambled away as he snarled at me -- his voice echoing in my head: The First! Where!? Where is the FIRST!?

He stepped forward, lifting up his sword.

And behind him, I saw a great big pair of eyes open in the darkness of the alien jungle. No. Not eyes. Gemstones, glittering and faceted and utterly pitiless.

"B-Behind you!" I pointed.

Don't insult me with mindless g-

A form that was somewhere between a dragon and a snake and a bunch of rocks thrust from between the two trees. Its muzzle -- easily the size of a Volkswagen -- closed around the Doyen and crunched. The only sound I felt was a single, muffled psychic scream. Then a leg dropped free from the razor sharp crystal teeth, hitting the floor of the jungle with a wet thump. Bright pink blood jetted from the leg, as if it had its own pressurized supply. As it pattered to the forest floor, I sat, perfectly still, and tried to not throw up.

The huge snake-boulder swallowed.

Burped.

Then it swung its head around. It had no nose. It had no eyes. It just had those glittering gemstones. And as they swept over me, I felt a prickling, probing pressure. It was feeling for me. I sat perfectly still. But it wasn't out of some cunning plan to remain concealed. I was just too terrified to think anything but: Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. The creature leaned its head towards me and I closed my eyes, sure I'd feel it crunch down. It'd hurt a lot. Then...

Then I wouldn't feel anything.

And then I heard the thump thump thump of footsteps.

I opened my eyes.

The beast was leaving. Walking back into the jungle. Swinging its head from side to side. It was looking for something else. My brow furrowed -- and the connection sparked in my brain. What had the Doyen been doing that I hadn't been doing?

Using psychic powers. Gemstones and crystals seemed to be a big part of psychic stuff -- from the Death Star to Barry's guns to that things weird ass eyes. The other Doyen. My heart leaped into my throat and I sprang to my feet. The idea of just leaving someone else to get chewed up and eaten, even if they were an evil fucking monster, was not something I was okay with. I sprinted forward, rushing through the jungle as fast as my naked ass could go. I yelped and hissed, every single time that my foot came down on a twig or sharp rock. I ducked under vines, my heart hammering -- and bypassed the creature within a few seconds.

It could chomp down fast, see.

But it walked slower than a log.

I came out, suddenly, into an open area of the jungle. There was a small pool of water, cupped in a set of solid crystals that thrust from the edges. A fine patina of glittering sand-like substance surrounded the water itself. And, like the dot on an exclamation point, the Doyen I had grabbed from the air had struck the sand, drawn a furrow and come to a stop. He was still out cold. I jogged over, panting slightly.

And...

Stopped.

Dead.

Um.

Slap me with a fash and call me a TERF, cause I had just misgendered the fuck out of this Doyen. Because it turns out the Doyen hadn't been naked at all, earlier. Now, looking down at her, I could see the Doyen weren't glittering crystal beings. That was just armor. Or clothes. Or whatever. Underneath was skin the same hue as the evening skin -- a warm purple, shading to dark blue-black at the tip of each finger. Her fingernails were slightly claw-like, and glittered with an ebony blackness that reminded me of the depths of space. Her breasts were somewhere between the generousness of Beli and the slenderness of Amelia -- perky and firm and tipped with pale white nipples. Her hair was long and white as well, and looked less like hair now that I was looking at it. They were more like, ah, crystal strands. Her thighs were muscular, as were her arms, and she had astounding girlabs, and a tiny thatch of crystal pubic hair above the prettiest pussy I had seen all day.

And, like, I had seen a shocking number of pussies today.

In other words, she was less 'genocidal alien monster' and more 'fucking gorgeous alien space princess.' Who fought for a genocidal alien monster empire. Dang it.

Her eyes opened. They were cat-slitted and glowed a pale green. Her face was full of confusion and her brow furrowed as she whispered, her delicate lips opening. "No, I don't want to go to the pens, Daddy..." she mumbled.

I blinked. "Uh-"

Her eyes focused.

Then she hit me with a telekinetic blast that rocketed me, like, ten feet backwards and into the water with a sploosh like a perfect belly flop. And like a perfect belly flop, it stung like a ruler to the balls. The water was shockingly cold, and I sat up with a quick gasp, flipping strands of hair out of the way of my face as I flailed around. I coughed, spluttered, spat. The water was tangy on my tongue and I tried to not think of a bunch of alien germs going into my body or up my dong or any number of other horrible, horrible things. But then I saw the Doyen was focusing on her left hand and forming a glowing battle-ax made of psychic energy.

Two great big gemstones opened up in the forest behind her.

I reached out with my talent and yanked her forward. The girl didn't make a noise -- but I could feel her surprise as she hit the water belly first, skidded, then came to a stop five inches from me. I grabbed her, then spun her around with a slosh of water, hissing. "That see's fucking psychic powers! Stop!"

She froze, seeing the huge boulder snake as it writhed forward onto the beach. Her body was pressed against mine in the water -- a slippery, silk smooth expanse of well muscled flesh. Her ass was taut as a drum and by the inextricable laws of awkward public nudity, my dick had slipped between the cheeks and was grinding against her like we were at a party and not being stalked by a gigantic alien rock-monster. Her eyes widened as the creature sniffed to the left. Then her voice echoed in my mind.

What is it?

The creature's head snapped back to look directly at us. I put my lips right next to her ear and hissed: "Don't. Use. Psychic. Powers."

The girl's jaw tightened and I actually felt her pointed ear-tip twitch against my lips. I could see a faint pink blush sliding along her purple skin as blood rushed to her cheeks. The closeness of our contact meant that, even with me desperately trying to not use my powers, I could feel her pure and utter mortification as she whispered, aloud: "What do we do?"

Her voice was musical. Beautiful. And somehow, I could understand her, despite the fact that she was an alien space princess. I decided to shelve that issue for future Abby. Instead, licked my lips ever so slightly, then whispered. "We, uh...start to walk away. It can't see us if we don't use psychic powers. We just leave."

She nodded, curtly, then stepped away from me -- my fingers slipping along her curved biceps as her arms escaped from under my somewhat slack grip. As she walked towards the shore, my eyes became glued to her back. I hadn't realized how graceful and elegant a spine could be. I had always thought of spines as, like, weird bone ladders you prefer to not think about. But watching the Doyen Princess slide, dripping from the water of the lake, I couldn't help but be in awe of the perfect, curving line of her back, terminating in an ass that announced: Yes, I'm a Princess, and yes, you will want me to sit on your face, and you will die happy.

Then she turned around and I remembered that while asses were amazing, I was totally a tit man because holy fuck. Her face, though, was a sticking point. It was hard to be breathtakingly beautiful when a dismissive sneer was sprayed across your face. Her eyes flashed and she hissed: "Come on, idiot mindless! We have to go. Now!" She jerked her head with a quiet harrumph and crossed her arms over her perfect breasts. The boulder-snake swung its head languidly towards her and I felt a sudden thrill of fear. I started forward, sloshing loudly through the water.

The Princess had turned her back to me by the time I had emerged, dripping wet and still hard as a rock despite (or maybe because of the danger) and was examining the trees of the jungles surrounding us. I took her by the arm and started to the east, or what I assumed was east, away from the snake. She almost didn't move her legs in time. Instead, she staggered and gaped at me. No, gaped wasn't a big enough word. She gawped at me. Like, full on, jaw hanging, eyes bugging gawping. And once we had a few trees between us and Mr. Snakey, she grabbed onto my arm with her hand, then shoved me hard into a tree.

"You touched me!?" She hissed. "Me? The Prime!"

"Well, excuse me, Princess-" I started.

She stabbed a finger into my chest. This was more than a metaphore, considering those claw-like fingernails of hers. Blood started to drip from the impact and I hissed loudly.

"I am not princess," she snarled. "I'm the Prime, first in the line of succession of the Doyen Empire."

I gritted my teeth, resisting the urge to try and grab her wrist and shove her away. The last thing I wanted to do was set off a fight that might get both of us eaten by a fucking monster. So, instead, I counted to ten, and said: "Fine. Prime." I inclined my head ever so slightly. "Now, please, stop impaling me with your...claw?"

The Princess clicked her tongue. She drew her finger back -- then actually did blink as she looked at the blood on her fingertip. She subtly tried to wipe it off on a leaf as I rubbed at my chest. The urge to try and stop the bleeding with biokinesis was pretty strong cause it stung like fuck. But you know what would be way more painful? Getting eaten by a boulder-snake. So, instead, I said: "Come on. Lets get more distance between us and the...psyvore."

Hey. I had to come up with some kind of name for it.

Plus, psyvore sounded cool and science-fictiony.

But the difference between reading a SF book and being in a SF book? Well, for one thing, you have no idea if the next step you'll take will be onto some kind of alien toxin vine or carnivorous plant or ambush predator and your story will end with the anticlimactic "and then he got eaten by a weird frog monster." Also, unlike a SF book, there's no instant transition between starting a walk and getting where you're going.

And thus began the longest two-ish hour-ishes of my life.

I didn't have a watch. But it felt like two hours.

***

So, the cave that I eventually found because the Princess was too busy sticking her nose into the air and radiating the same feeling I got from cats who had been dunked in water and then dressed in pink froo froos...well, it was less of a cave and more of a lean-too created by two outcroppings of crystals. The huge floating island we were stranded on didn't have rocks. Or earth. I was noticing that the "dirt" we walked over was actually just hyper-compacted bits of vines, grown so tight that they were nearly indistinguishable from one another. The crystal growths, though, gave us a place where predators could only come at us from the front.

Which was an improvement, right?

I sat down on the hard crystal surface of the cave and panted slightly. The Princess knelt across from me, her hands resting on her thighs. She looked incredibly pissed for exactly five seconds. Then her face went smooth and placid. She breathed out a quiet sigh and I blinked at her a bit.

"Uh, Princess-"

"Prime!" She opened her eyes, and her expression went right back to totally pissed off. "Do you not speak Doyenese?"

"Uh, no, I speak three languages, Princess," I said, lifting up my hand, counting up on my fingers. "English, Bad English and Worse Farsi."

The Princess' nose crinkled in confusion. It was an expression too cute for a face normally set to utter haughtiness. Total haught. Was that a word? I shook my head slightly -- trying to clear my head. I should have been thinking of a way to get back to the UN ship and to my basic braining. I was pretty sure Barry was going to absolutely kick my ass when I got back. But instead, all I could think of was: Holy shit those titties. The Princess, seeming to realize that she was naked, crossed one arm over her chest and scowled. "Well, then!" she said. "Find me some clothing. There are plenty of psi-crystals here. Chop chop."

I blinked at her. "Uh, no?" I shook my head again. "I'm not your servant, Princess."

"Prime!" she snapped.

"Fine! Fine! Prime!" I stood up -- and her eyes went wide. I looked down to see what she was looking at.

Oh.

Right.

I was hung like a horse. Kinda forgot. Two competing urges shot through me. The first was to clap both hands over my junk. Cause, like, unlike every other member of PsyCom, I wasn't used to being naked and swinging dick around like it ain't no thang. The second impulse was to smirk. Maybe strut a bit. Paleolithic masculine impulses were no less powerful for all the fact that they were kind of undignified and silly. So, I decided to compromise by walking totally casually and normally to the mouth of the cave and look out.

"Clothes don't matter," I said. "I mean, if psi-crystals don't fuck with your psychic powers like normal human clothing does, I sure don't know how to carve them. And I was told that wearing clothes will fuck with my powers."

"Your kind is so mindbogglingly primitive..." the Princess turned her head aside, her cheeks still flushed a bright pink. "I can't believe we even lost one fight to you, let alone so many."

"Yeah, yeah, and next you're going to say it's not like I even like you or anything," I muttered, looking back out at the jungle.

"I don't!" she snarled, so defensively that it actually made me laugh.

I turned back to face her. "My name is Abby. Abby Hatem. What's yours?"

"You can have my name when you pry it from my broken mind," the Princess snarled. "Throw me in with your pain chattel or break me upon a tree of woe, it won't matter, you won't get anything from me until I'm left a drooling wreck." She looked away from me again. "I won't give you any more sport."

My blink was glacial slow. It was more like I closed my eyes, then opened them again. "What?"

That drew her gaze back to me. The Princess' gaze was as flitting and inconsistent as a fly with dysentery. She'd look at me. Look at my chest. Her eyes would start to dip. Then, zip, off to look at the cave wall. Or the sky. Or her own hands. Usually, this would be accompanied with a bright blush.

Urge to be super smug and puff up my chest...intensifying. I crossed my arms over my chest as the Princess coughed, then said: "I said what I mean. I don't care how much you keep taunting me."

I put my hands over my face. "Okay." I paused, then slid my hands down to my mouth, then to my shoulders. "What the fuck is a pain chattel?"

The Princess looked at me with total and complete confusion.

"They're...pain chattel?" she asked.

"I'm new here!" I said. "Earlier today, I was on a planet that didn't even know psychic powers were real! Less than four hours ago, I was in my room, fiddling with my laptop and...and...you have no idea what I'm talking about." I put my hands over my face. I slumped against the cold, hard wall of the crystal, then slowly let myself sit down. That ended up producing a loud squeaking squealing squelching noise, and when my bare butt finally did hit the floor of the cave, the Princess giggled. She put her hand over her mouth to try and hide it, but she did a piss poor job at it.