Witch Juice Ch. 10

"Yes, Lord Astorius."

"Good. Begone."

Pollux continued on his way. As he opened the doorway, Valdrina was already leaning by, greeting him with an expression of anticipation.

"We're fucked. We're fucked," Pollux lamented.

"What? Why? What did you say?"

"He's going to kill that kid on sight."

"That's no issue, Yazu's troops are all sex-deprived bottomfeeders. I just have to flaunt my-"

"He's sending his own trooper."

Valdrina was still not alerted to any of this news. "So? How would Astorius or his troopers even know what the descendant or the witch even looks like?"

Pollux stayed silent.

"Pollux?" Valdrina pressed.

Pollux sighed and scratched the back of his head.

"Pollux," Valdrina said, her casual expression tensing up.

Pollux broke eye contact with her, pursing his lips nervously.

"You didn't..." she continued, fear spreading through her face.

"...I had to..." Pollux whimpered out. "I can't just disobey Astorius, I don't wanna die!"

"What did you give him? What did you do?"

"He... wanted backup imaging of your memories... while you were unconscious-"

"You couldn't have altered them!?"

"It was a sudden request overseen by his attendant, I had no time! He must've known we would've tried."

Valdrina threw her hands up in defeat. "We're fucked. He had us in checkmate the entire time, didn't he- You! You told me this would work. I told you not to go to him!"

"This- this is bad. If that kid gets killed, it's all over. Everything we've worked for is naught."

"Now what, genius?"

Pollux paced the hallway, his weary eyes darting every which way as his thoughts raced with gale-force speeds. His breathing was erratic and beads of sweat formed on his brow.

"Anything? Anything?" Valdrina pressed.

"Shut up!" Pollux shouted.

"Urgh!" Valdrina grunted in anger.

Pollux paced the room for a good minute as Valdrina stood by, scowling at him. Finally, he stopped.

"Okay, okay. We only have one shot at this."

"Tell me."

"I- uh, okay, let me dispatch the fucker first, and then I'll let you know."

"Huh? Just tell me, you stupid imp!"

"After, after, I need to gather a strategy, let me at least meet the guy!" Pollux scurried off.

"Pollux!" Valdrina shouted after him. "Don't fuck this up again!"

The doors to the hot-red generator room slid open, spilling a maddening scarlet hue into the hallway. Pollux sighed as he saw a figure standing by the stone plate in the middle. The man stood tall, arms crossed, his back to Pollux.

"Ochus," Pollux greeted, the man turning to him.

"Pollux," he answered in his coarse, gruff voice. Ochus was as tall as Pollux but somehow more imposing as his skin tone was a deep, bloody red, and he had a seemingly permanent scowl carved into his long, angular face. A spiraled horn was affixed to his chin, protruding out, yet that was not the strangest thing about Ochus. His hair was bizarrely styled into an outward reaching, assertive pompadour in which the frontal mound was instead shaped into a hand with thin, spindly fingers, with the index finger pointing straight up and out, and the other fingers slightly curled in, each more than the last. His build was lean and muscular, as displayed by the fact that he only wore a vest over his torso, ornamented with thick, braided ropes that wrapped about his shoulders.

"So, uh... I know Astorius-"

"Lord Astorius," Ochus corrected.

Pollux stuck his tongue into his cheek in annoyance. "Yes, Lord Astorius. He said that if you see the descendant, you should kill on sight."

"Correct," Ochus growled.

"Well, this is a covert mission. It is my recommendation that-"

"Lord Astorius stated that the death of the descendant supersedes all elements of stealth for this mission."

"Well, this isn't his mission, now is it?"

Ochus turned to Pollux with a terrifying gaze straight into his eyes, pressing into his soul. "Lord Astorius also stated that any sign of your resistance to this fact can be swiftly answered with cutting your legs off. Your arms can stay so you can operate the portals."

Pollux's legs began to quake. "Of course, of course. I was just worried about the covertness of the task, but if Lord Astorius sees otherwise then I see no reason to doubt his judgment." His words spilled out nervously.

"Open the portal," Ochus commanded, marching to the back of the room.

"Right." Pollux quickly made his way to the stone plate and began to wave his fingers about, summoning forth the golden magic seals that worked the vortex. The vortex sparked and crackled, tearing open with its usual howl. Ochus simply walked through, the portal swallowing him up and disappearing without a trace.

Valdrina strode into the room just as Ochus was gone. "So then what now?"

Pollux sighed deeply. "Get your phone."

***

Lilith and Emmett entered the Accel University Central Library, greeted by a quiet mass of students, each reading and writing at desks or scouring bookshelves for study materials. Impressively, even with the high traffic, the library was kept clean and still had that sharp, yet soothing woody smell.

"Let's get to it, where's the stairwell to the basement?" Lilith asked, a bit excited.

"Uh, I'm not sure. Let's look around," Emmet replied, a rush of red coming over his face.

"What do you mean, 'you're not sure?' Don't you go here?"

"I... usually study in my dorm," Emmett admitted.

"Do you even study at all?" Lilith chided.

"Of course! Can we just get on with finding the stairwell, or elevator, or something?" Emmett hastily marched into the first floor, past the quiet hive of students. Lilith snickered and followed suit.

As the space was filled with bookcases that lined the walls and desks that filled the study areas, the path to the basement wasn't obvious to Emmett, as he had seldom visited the library. He avoided eye contact with Lilith, knowing how shameful that was, considering he had lectured her several times now, yet to her, he seemed like an uncultured nitwit that had never opened a book. But he continued to press on regardless. He and Lilith brushed past student after student before finally finding a stairwell that could possibly lead down to the basement.

"Finally," Lilith complained as she accelerated past Emmett, eager to start working.

Emmett sighed. "Can you calm down? You're bringing unnecessary attention to yourself..." He followed her trail but stopped as he felt a small tap on his shoulder. Emmett spun around, and once he saw who was behind him, his chest sparked up with a fuzzy lightness.

"Emmett!?" Jenna exclaimed with surprise and worry. "I knew it was you! What are you doing here? You didn't call me after they discharged you from the hospital! What the hell, man!" She lightly shoved at Emmett's shoulder, brandishing her usually jolly grin after.

He had seen Jenna just yesterday, but somehow it had felt like ages. She was wearing a dark purple, loose-fitting blouse that was tucked into her very short jean shorts, which exposed her glorious bronze thighs. Her shirt had a lowish-cut collar, offering only a slight hint of cleavage from her perky tits, though the loose fabric draped over them, allowing him to see the outline of her bra poke through. Emmett blinked hard as he realized how hard he had been ogling Jenna's curvy, stout figure. He could feel his dick twitch in his pants, the blood flowing into it harder than it ever had been in her presence, her whole body teasing him. Something felt different after all of the erotic escapades he had been on from the last twenty-four hours. Thankfully, she hadn't noticed his wandering eyes.

"Uh, yeah..." Emmett stuttered. "Things were a bit hectic..."

"I tried to visit you but the doctors wouldn't let me... so weird, right?" she wondered with a puzzled expression.

"Yeah, heh... I think they were like... overbooked from that weird explosion from the Academic Hub."

"That too! What was that all about? I thought you had gotten caught in the explosion or something!"

Emmett shrugged with an awkward smile. "Uh, kinda, yeah. Aidan and I were near the blast and got knocked unconscious... but we're fine."

"Holy shit... sounds like you got lucky," she put her hand to her chest. "I'm really, really glad, Emmett. I was so worried! You should've called!"

Emmett blushed. "Oh, sorry... I was also checking on Aidan. I think he got the worse end of it; they let him go from the hospital, but he's sleeping in his apartment right now."

"Damn, we should visit him later... get him some of those subs from his favorite shop... shit! I don't remember the name..."

"Super Sub Bub's Super Subs."

"That is a terrible name, I don't know how I forgot it."

"Yep, well..." This would be the first time he had to force himself to break away from Jenna. Usually, if they had coincidentally met like this, they would just spend more time together for the rest of the day. "...I have to-"

"And don't you think it's weird that the explosion happened on the same night that that mystery girl was getting all snuggly with Aidan? So many weird things happening at once..."

"Oh... now who's playing too many video games, huh?"

"Definitely not as much as you... But... what happened after you went to check on him?"

Emmett could feel his forehead heat up as he was forced to lie to Jenna, something he did not do often. "Oh, after that whole... incident with that girl..." Emmett paused as he realized that Jenna had seen Lilith before as well. Surely she would get suspicious if she saw her.

"Oh, he's fine, turns out there was this whole crazy... stalker," the words dribbled from his mouth without much confidence.

"No way... that girl we saw was a stalker, huh?"

"Well, no, actually-"

He heard a familiar, shrill voice call out to him. "Emmett! You were so fucking juiced to visit the archive and now you're fooling around back here? Let's go already!"

The hot feeling intensified around his face as he realized Lilith was coming back up.

"Oh, who's that?" Jenna peeked around Emmett.

"It's- it's a friend! She happened to be at the hospital and she drove Aidan and I home, and-"

"Oh shit," Lilith said with a malicious smile as she walked up to the two, leaning on Emmett's shoulder. "This is that girl you wanna fuck, huh?"

Emmett was mortified, turning towards Lilith with his eyes bulged with shock, his face felt as if it would burst with how fast blood was rushing to it. His blood boiled in his veins and his feet and spine felt like they had been encased in ice. He had to hold back every muscle in his body from just running away from the situation, but he knew he couldn't just back out. He scoured his thoughts for some kind of excuse for what Lilith just said, but all he could do was stare at Lilith in utter astonishment.

The silence of the library haunted him for what seemed like an eternity. That was until he heard a playful laughter ring into his ears. He turned to see Jenna, holding back her giggles with a hand to her mouth, her face adorably scrunched up with glee. Lilith, too, joined in the laughter. Emmett also nervously laughed out an awkward chortle.

"See, Emmett?" Jenna started, stifling her giggling. "You said that more people needed to loosen up with their jokes, right?"

"Oh, this one's plenty loose," Emmett joked, gulping as the momentous fear slowly subsided.

"Well, introduce me to your friend..." Jenna urged.

"Lilith!' she excitedly greeted Jenna with a chipper handshake.

"That's a cool name... haven't heard it before!" she complimented back. She took a closer look at Lilith. "Hmm... you seem familiar, have we met before?"

A wave of relief swept over Emmett. Jenna must've been too far away from Lilith to have seen her clearly in the lecture hall.

"I... uh..." Lilith started, taken aback.

"She's in my physics class!" Emmett dove in with the save. "I tutor her sometimes, right, Lilith?"

"Oh, I don't need tutoring, Emmett is the one that needs tutoring," she grinned.

Emmett turned to Lilith, leering at her. "...Sure..." he seethed out.

"So... who's... tutoring who?" Jenna asked, confused. "I need to know if I can tease Emmett about being bad at physics; he would always make fun of me in high school about it!"

"I am. I'm the tutor, I mean- I'm tutoring her!" Emmett sputtered out, his pride on the line. Lilith simply snickered at him.

"Damn it," Jenna snapped her fingers in disappointment.

"So, Jenna..." Lilith started. "I always wondered, what was Emmett like in high school?"

"You know, you were in such a rush to study before..." Emmett scolded.

"I want to know! I'm curious!"

"He was a dork!" Jenna stated bluntly with a laugh.

"A... d-dork?" Emmett replied, clearly disgraced by her response.

"But you were like..." Jenna trailed off as she looked away from the two to think of a better way to put it. "... a... cute... dork!" She hesitated on the word "cute."

"A cu-u-ute dork! O-o-o!" Lilith teased as she could see that Emmett's face was as red as a ripe cherry.

"Cute..." Emmett repeated, not knowing how to feel about that.

"Yeah, he would get all excited about video games and movies and stuff, but it was..."

"Adorable?" Lilith guessed, obviously egging them on.

"I mean..." Jenna turned a bit red as well. "I don't mean, like, you know- it was... endearing."

"Endearing?" Emmett parroted, thinking that that was an awkward way to describe a person in casual conversation.

"Y-yeah..." Jenna must have realized it as well.

Lilith snickered at the two of them.

"Well, we have to get to those chapters, Lilith," Emmett rushed.

Lilith waved to her. "Well, nice meeting ya, Jenna, we have to go study-"

"Wait, why don't you guys come study with us? We have a pretty good spot. Ashe's been staked out here since 6:00 AM! Come on-"

"Well, we're already set up in the basement, so..." Emmett didn't know why his brain had to run on all gears just to bluff Jenna.

"The basement? No way, we have a spot right by the window! You can see the fountain outside and everything, it's pretty!"

"Oh, my... eyes are... sensitive!" Lilith saved.

Emmett chimed in, "Yeah, she's like a bat, an old bat that needs to live in a cave." It was Lilith's turn to leer at Emmett.

"...Better a bat than a nerd-goblin that's on his computer all day," Lilith countered with delight, satisfied in her response.

Jenna stood by and snickered at their banter. "Lilith, I think we're gonna get along. We should all hang sometime!"

"Right-o," Emmett agreed. "I'll catch up with you later, then."

"Still, are you sure... you want a room in the basement?"

"I think my eyes are already straining up here," Lilith laughed nervously. "Not enough blinds on these windows!"

"Right, right, wouldn't want her to get a migraine," Emmett added.

Jenna looked at them both weirdly. "Well... okay, then. I'll see you later, Emmett."

"Yeah, see you..."

Jenna turned to get back to her own study group, and Emmett's eyes could not help but glue themselves to her ass, softly jiggling as she walked off. Lilith smiled as she observed Emmett stare, as the two finally made their way to the basement.

The place was dimly lit and was cooler and quieter than the upper floor, free of the shuffling and fidgeting of students as they were all resigned to reserved study rooms behind locked doors that lined thin hallways.

Emmett looked around every which way. "Alright, how can we tell which door-"

"I think she likes you," Lilith observed out of nowhere.

"What? Who? Jenna? No- she's just being nice."

"How dense can you be? She called you cute!"

"Girls say that all the time."

"No the fuck they don't, not to a guy-"

"She didn't say I was cute, she said... me being a dork... was cute. The concept of dorkiness in itself is cute to her, not me overall-"

"Oh come on," she faced Emmett, walking backward through the hall. "This isn't some complicated computer program, okay, Einstein?"

"Einstein didn't program- I mean- girls are way more complicated than that, anyway. Why do you care about this anyway?"

"Nothing! I just think it's funny. I like her, she's just like me."

"Believe me, she's nothing like you," Emmett retorted, almost sounding a little offended.

"Really? If she liked that 'joke,' then she might be more... you know... willing."

"Willing?"

"You know... more inclined to... have a lot of sex."

"No, no, she's not like that, trust me."

"Oh really? With that body?"

"What? Her body?"

"Yeah, guys are into that type of short, curvy girl nowadays. They call 'em 'thick!'"

"I know."

"I'm sure there are plenty of guys other than you that would kill to rail that ass. Jesus, she had a good, plump one, too."

"Can we stop talking about this?"

"I thought you liked her!"

"That's why I don't want to talk about this!"

"With your huge cock, you could make a nice, extra, extra-large hot dog with her buns if you catch my drift."

"Shut up!"

"Fine, fine."

The two continued down the maze-like hallways, looking for suspicious doors. Every so often, Lilith would take Vincent's silver key out and try it on a random door, only for it to catch and fail. Students would occasionally wander in and out of study rooms, stealing looks of suspicion.

"Does she have a boyfriend?" Lilith suddenly blurted out while trying the key on another door.

"Wha-what the fuck? I thought we were off this!"

"I just want to know!"

"I'm not talking about this anymore."

"It's better that you get it off your chest."

"Off my chest? I don't need anything off my chest."

"Are you sure? You are really tense."

"Because you're getting all in my personal business!"

"How much further can I get into your business at this point? We've had sex twice now."

"You said that was 'part of the job,' you hypocrite!"

"And... getting you to calm down is also part of the job. So just tell me! Jeez, you were so chatty before."

"And now that we're talking about my personal life, you're so chatty now."

"Better than talking about music."

Emmett sighed, giving in. "Fine. She had this one boyfriend who was really tall and muscular."

"Ah, a douche, huh?"

"No, he was pretty nice. He knew Aidan too, and we all even hung out."

"Oh, so he was cool, then."

"Yeah. But I fucking hated him. I was so damned happy when they broke up."

"Why did they break up?"

"Jenna said they... just had 'differences.' We didn't talk about it much, actually. All I know is that he was super religious."

"Ah-ha! See, there it is."

"What? The fact that he was religious?"

"Those types of guys never want to have sex- probably wanted to wait until marriage and that must've freaked her out."

"God, this again," Emmett rolled his eyes.

"It's true! She must've been craving for some dick. You are perfectly positioned for a rebound slam-dunk into this girl's ass! I'm sure if she ever saw your dick, she'd be drooling."

"Urgh, stop talking about her like that!"

"Why? I'm sure she thinks the same way- deprived of good sex by some pious, priest-wanna-be! It's a shame."

"Well, she was into that stuff too at some point. I remember she would go to church on Sunday mornings and things like that."

"Woah... really? Hmm... maybe not then..."

"Told you... well, I don't know if she still goes..." Emmett wondered out loud.

"Ah-ha again! She doesn't go anymore, does she?"

"No... I guess not."

"Perfect, you should definitely ask her out and fuck her brains out."

"I... whatever, let's just look for this door." Emmett realized he never had the chance to talk about his crush on Jenna with anyone like this before. It was another refreshing element that Lilith brought into his life that he wasn't sure he should entertain, but he appreciated for the time being. He simply sighed to himself and tried not to bring more attention to the subject.