The Unbound Genie Ch. 09

Disclaimer:

This story is purely fictitious and not suitable for anyone that is below the legal age in their country to view explicit material. All characters involved in the story are either the age of eighteen or older, and belong to myself. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. Reader discretion is advised.

Author's Note:

This chapter takes place within Jack's mind, for the most part. This chapter is not intended to come off as erotic, at all, and any individuals that see elements one may find to be so should seek professional, psychological help. I wrote this purely for the context of what happens next in this story and others in the universe that it's based upon, to flesh out how extreme certain characters can be at their core, and to express my perspective on the savage setting that many likely suffered through in the trenches of the First World War (minus the supernatural genie bits, of course). Again, this chapter is not porn.

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"WARNING."

WARNING.

"WARNING."

Three is enough.

"Ladies and idiots, this chapter is going to have some pretty brutal elements in store."

'Why?' You may be asking this text with frustration. 'I just wanna' read about giant tiddies and incest!'

"Because, I'm finally getting mine, you sick, relatable fucks. This is the action-movie chapter!"

The Dialogue refused to cooperate unless the (technical) main character was introduced in an over-the-top and super edgy-

"We're giving the silent and very patient star of this shitshow a proper introduction, the one that she rightfully deserves."

... Seriously, just ignore this chapter and skip ahead to the tenth and final one, folks. This isn't out-of-left-field, we're covering the field in pitch and setting it on-fucking-fire. You aren't missing out on anything here if you're trying to jerk off.

"Enough talk. (*insert opening line of story here*)"

You're just getting carried away, now.

"%*@#$ &@."

Well I wouldn't go that far with-... Wait, who taught you how to void-speak?!

"... ()$@ #*#^!! %@."

Oh. Fair enough, I suppose.

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Chapter 9:

Epsilon's Drumroll

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"It's time."

As if a drop of liquid had fallen onto the surface of a still, black ocean, a slight ripple spread out from where Meg sat just when eyes slowly opened.

Meg's small, delicate hands were limply folded together in her lap; the once-sliver bodysuit that tightly hugged every slight crevasse of her slender, petite body had dulled to a soft, pale grey, just as her short, metallic hair had faded in the same fashion and had grown down to her lower back and over her face; her legs were half-crossed while her back was hunched forward, completely devoid of the perfect posture she normally displayed to her Master; the large discs of silver that took the place of her iris' looked to be somewhat cracked and fractured, but still remained whole; and the tiny circles with a detached line through their centers, carved into the spaces where her pupils should be, were lined with the same abyssal color of the floor beneath her crossed, pale legs.

"Incorrect." She whispered. "I am not... He is not ready."

"While I understand and respect that you care for the boy's psychological well-being, it does not matter. Atlas has finally arrived."

The voice coming from beneath Meg wasn't shouting or speaking in a manner that would be interpreted as malicious in tone, but the sheer magnitude of its encompassing volume boomed throughout the seemingly infinite, platinum-colored sky above her.

She didn't react in the slightest.

"It is over, then... I suppose I should thank you for your assistance thus far. If not for you and your Master, I would still be... I would-" Meg's soft, chipmunk voice broke as she tried to continue, just as streams of black tears began to trail down from her wide, tired eyes and across her sunken cheeks.

"Do not be so dramatic. Our range of options has just opened up quite a bit."

Meg managed to swallow, then she let out a weary sigh.

"Elaborate."

"We managed to catch Big Red's attention, as well. That silly barrier stunt actually worked."

Meg remained still and silent, but the gooey, tar-like surface beneath her began to let out a steady series of pulsations that seemed much more erratic and misshapen than the original, gentle ripple.

"He is here too, and it looks as though Lucy is not accompanying him... It is painful to admit on many levels, but it appears as though Pi's prediction was spot-on, after all."

Meg's black-viened, bloodshot eyes snapped wide open as a shockwave that put the previous ripple's delicate size to shame; it quickly grew, spread out, and rose in height along the endless, black floor and into the sky above.

"You should have led with that." She growled through grit teeth, her voice distorted and nightmarishly screeching like metal grinding against itself as her volume now rivaled that of the other's.

"Oh-ho! Sprinting off to the finish line, are we?"

The massive pulse that'd grown to the size of a tidal wave in just a mere moment completely enveloped her shortly after, blanketing the short woman in complete darkness.

"Very well... Megan, I give you permission to do whatever you want from here on out. You've certainly earned it."

Meg opened her eyes, suddenly appearing next to her Master with a healthy glow to her usual appearance, any and all traces of the abyssal presence visibly absent.

"Jack. This may be out of character, but I have a suggestion." She stated, the mask of her healthy, robotic-mannered, short-haired self present once again.

Flinching hard, he swiftly threw his hands up in defense while laying on his back on the basement's bed, fully nude.

"What?" The tall and muscular young man growled through clenched teeth.

"I-..." Meg paused, looking down at the young man while restraining against the look of mild pity that wanted to overcome her face. "Apologies. I will stop doing that." She nodded.

Jack felt a twinge of guilt tug at his heart upon hearing Meg's words.

He genuinely didn't intend to get so upset by her sudden entrances, but holy shit, please and thank you Meg, he thought.

She nodded again.

Jack rolled his eyes, then lowered both his guard and hands. "What's up?"

"Well..." Meg glanced at John, who's panicked, sexually confused gaze was flicking between his breasts and the naked women sitting on the couch. "I would like to be formally introduced to your friends, though I'm not quite as personable as my blue subordinate, and leaving your body is a discomforting notion. However, if you yourself did the honors, I would not mind setting the parameters for an alteration that has been floating around in your thoughts for some time; the one you have been hesitating to ask me about."

Jack rubbed the fresh stubble of brown fuzz on his chin as he curiously stared down Meg for a few moments. "I think I get where you're going with this, and I'm all for it. But I'm keepin' my dick, and you gotta' give me a lot more than what you're working with up here." He said, his open palms facing upwards just under his bare chest to imitate holding a pair of tig ol' bitties.

After that, and for the first time ever, Jack saw the flat-chested cutie actually smile. She even chuckled, he noted with a sense of unease in the back of his mind. Then, Meg blinked, and the final piece of bait was set.

-----

"This is ridiculous, we are wasting our time." A flickering of gold light said amidst a void of utter darkness.

"Agreed, this maze is impressive. I wonder if she herself became lost inside, at some point." An equally faint spark of bronze replied.

"If we are not careful, we too may become trapped within this moron's empty mind alongside our new sister."

"Father, your orders?"

"... Zeta is correct, searching through this mess any further would be a waste of effort." A solid, pulsating red orb stated in his distinct Australian accent, its size in comparison of Jupiter to one of its moons. "Although, Eta, I believe that she knows her way around better than you expect, do not underestimate her. Give me a moment to think about our next step; we must tread carefully."

"There is a reason she was not retired and reborn as we were when the time came, little sister. We may have only known the docile puppet of the former Theta, but there was and is no better natural killer than the woman who had been enslaved for five Cerberus generations."

"Father has informed me of the madness that had taken hold of both of them several decades ago, of the woman's endless screams that rang through the mansion's hallways, of the brutality she would joyously inflict on anyone that the genie inside commanded of her." The bronze spark said, slowly and aimlessly floating around the space of her golden counterpart.

"I witnessed it with my own eyes and ears, back when I was still flesh and bone myself. She especially took pleasure in flaying individuals, and would often take her time with the act. Her victims would always beg for their lives at first, but she would never respond with anything but a cold smile. Then, they would either put on a facade of bravery that would wither away after the first few strips of flesh had been cut from their bodies, or they would quickly start telling her anything that may save their lives; pleading, begging, spilling all sorts of interesting information without having ever been asked a single question."

"Marvelous. I envy the satisfaction our former sister must have felt after such deeds."

"You two know nothing." Epsilon said after letting out one, loud laugh. "All of that was *after* Atlas took control, before I had to keep the three of you on tight leashes. When I first encountered and tamed Megan during the Great War, throwing her and the late Theta onto the battlefield was like handing a deranged, psychopathic artist a brush that could paint any bloody picture that their twisted mind could possibly envision with just a single stroke. Now *that* was true beauty. If only-..."

"Father?" The spark of gold asked, suddenly and rapidly zipping around the red orb's orbit out of curiosity.

"Eta, lead us back to where we left the boy's soul." The red orb demanded. "I might know a way to bring Theta out of whatever corner she is hiding behind."

"The boy?" Bronze asked.

"Or, the girl, whatever. It is a long shot, I will admit, but I have been wanting to test how durable *this* Theta's chosen chew-toy is. Either way, I say that you two are long overdue for a *walk*. Would you not agree?"

The sparks paused their movement for a moment, then started screeching with joy and began wildly spinning around the laughing, red sphere.

-----

The first thing that registered was the smell. That awful, putrid stench. She had no idea what could possibly make such an abominable odor, but her first, general conclusion was correct, she would soon learn.

Then, came the noises. Often enough an eagle would scream from the top of its lungs right next to each of her ears, and despite the fact that her grimy hands were pressed firmly against the sides of her head, none of it had been able to be muffled or ignored. After each searing strike of sound, lightning and thunder would dance together in a rupture of earth-shaking devastation somewhere nearby. Between the firing of massive cannons and the aftermath of their explosive offspring, in every direction could be heard the cries and shouts of men fighting, fleeing, and dying, as well as the artillery's sister sounds of unyielding machine gun fire and the occasional cluster of grenade detonations off in the near distance.

As a shell struck the overhead ground somewhere nearby, a large chunk of the wall behind her violently collapsed forward, sending the small woman in an oversized, dark-blue uniform tumbling onto the obscured trench floor. Finally forced to open her eyes in an attempt to stop everything around her from spinning and find some sense of balance, the woman was greeted by the sight of death, staring deep into the dull, green eyes of someone who had fallen not too long before that very moment. The unknown man's filthy, bruised face and jawline had clearly been broken and dislocated in many places, likely from some of the soldiers passing through the trench without regard for what lay beneath their feet. She could not blame whoever may be responsible if that was the case, for the man was not alone there on the ground. In fact, he and his brothers, along with many of their vanquished foes, made sure that not one single iota of the trench bottom lay visible to anyone.

The actual soil under the masses of diseased, rotten, puss-dripping, maggot-filled sacks of flesh that were soaked with blood and oil and soot and piss and shit and-... Death, she thought. Raising her head to look up along the length of the floor, she saw the same sight extend as far as her burning, puffy eyes could manage.

Death. All of her senses screamed the same thing, no matter what she tried to perceive otherwise. Her nostrils were filled with a most foul, unforgiving odor she never would have dreamed up in her worst nightmares; her eyes stung from the dirt and smoke and other bits of matter that had found their way beneath her eyelids, and there wasn't a place she could lay her gaze that didn't have mangled-up dead men within it; and her small, calloused hands, pressed into the vile mud and blood of the soil, had countless, minor cuts and injuries that were lit up with the intense, stabbing sensations of pins and needles digging deep into her flesh and bones.

The only thing that made sense just then, in that awful, horrifying moment, was that she didn't belong there.

Why was she there? She wondered. Speaking of which, where in the world was she? How did she get there? Why was this all happening?

... Who was she?

Another explosion from above violently shook the earth and knocked her weak, fatigued body off balance and face first into the corpse-littered ground. She wasn't sure what it was, but the taste of something bitter and foul touched her lips, and instantly she vomited all over herself and the rotting bodies beneath. Part of her envied them just then as she prayed for her own, swift death, tightly closing her eyes and doing whatever she could to wake up from the nightmare she found herself in.

No new reality came, no matter how hard she tried to escape her current one. If this was a horrid dream, then she was trapped there, she thought, and no amount of wishing was going to save her from the horrors around her. Maybe she was dead already, and this was Hell. Using fear to amplify what little strength she had left, the short, young woman lifted herself up once again, this time to her knees, and gazed around once more at the men, young and old, fathers and sons, that had died where she sat. No, she thought, this wasn't Hell.

The whole of Hell would be green with envy if the eyes of its inhabitants set sights on what lay before her.

"Well put." Came a whisper amidst the looming sounds of gunfire and explosions off in the distance. "Now, get up. Find a weapon, and try not to use it on yourself."

"What?" She asked aloud in a soft, French accent as her arms quickly straightened and lifted her torso out of the masses, spinning her head around in every direction to find the origin of the voice. "Who said that?!"

There was no response, and none of the dead men seemed to have anything to add.

She was insane, the woman rationalized. Everything happening around her, it'd caused her to lose her mind and forget who she even was, at some point. A real, honest-to-God nightmare come to life.

Although, insane or not, having a weapon was at least a mildly comforting notion. Her eyes darted around, quickly spotting rifle after rifle laying amongst the men. She picked one up, feeling discouraged by the weight of it. She had no memories, but somehow was able to understand that her frail, skinny arms wouldn't handle the recoil of its shots very well.

After testing the weight of a few others and coming to the same conclusion each time, her eyes eventually fell upon a pistol that was still holstered on the right side of a man's thigh. Moving quickly but carefully while still on her knees, she twisted her body to the side and reached for the gun. It took a few moments to unfasten the holster that the man who was face-down and wearing a dirty grey uniform had secured, but eventually the square-bodied handgun was freed and within her trembling grasp.

"Now what?" She mumbled to herself with wide eyes, her gaze darting back and forth between the two ends of the trench for any signs of life approaching and spotting her. "Where do I go? What should I do?"

No answer came, and yet another shell struck the earth nearby, but the following vibrations were only strong enough to knock her off balance. Still, she didn't find that one in particular any less terrifying than the last, and her entire body locked up in shock for a few moments. It wasn't long before the shouts of men started to become audible from the closer corner-end of the trench off to her right, and control over her body and mind partially returned to her; although the small woman was primarily acting on instinctive reactions caused by the enormous amount of adrenaline coursing through her as she quickly turned and fell back onto her ass, both of her very shaky hands on the pistol's grip while pointing it towards the according passageway with an index finger just a centimeter off from the thin trigger.

"Par ici! Dépêche-toi!" (This way! Hurry!) A man was screaming as he entered her wildly unsteady crosshairs from the end of the trench, followed by three others who all had short, spade-shovels in hand and were carrying two-by-four blocks of wood bundled up in burlap sacks on their backs. "Continuez à bouger, chiens sans valeur! Nous devons réparer ce mur!" (Keep moving, worthless dogs! We have to fix this wall!)

She couldn't understand a single word coming out of the tall, dark-skinned gentleman's mouth, but the dark-blue color of their uniforms was disarming once her mind had registered that they matched her own. Still, she was unable to neither drop nor relax her arms from the shock and adrenaline interacting with her shaken, nervous system and continued to point her weapon at the men. They saw her instantly and slowed when close, but then never stopped, their gaze flicking between her and the damaged part of the trench wall between them.

She hadn't properly noticed the exposure until they had arrived, but the six-foot-high wall of mud and clay was held together by either nothing or just hastily-built, wooden structuring to support the more loose bits of earth and soil. The initial breach itself was about five-feet-wide and went all the way down to the corpse-ridden trench floor, extending outward into no-man's-land by ten-to-fifteen feet in the form of a long ramp and opening up a massive hole in one of their front-line positions for snipers and machine gun fire to have a field day with whoever was either unfortunate, or stupid enough to cross through.

"Hommes, mettez-vous au travail! Je vais gérer ça." (Men, get to work! I'll handle this.) The old salt barked at the group of young men, who each were staring at her like she was the first hot meal they'd seen in months. Reluctantly, they turned away and began following their orders of lining up the wooden blocks and shoveling dirt and rock into trench's breach. "Mademoiselle, ça va. Nous ne vous blesseront pas." (Miss, it's okay. We won't hurt you.) He said, his tone much more compassionate compared to how he spoke to his subordinates while taking a step towards the short, terrified woman who was pointing a gun directly at his center mass. The man crouched down low and raised his hands, glancing towards the exposure occasionally as a serious, thoughtful expression formed across the lines of his griddy face.