Sweet Venom Arc

***

"Listen, I get that you're nervous, but I'm really fucking hungry and I'm getting fed up of hearing you go on." Seres snapped, harsher than she meant to. "So can we just... get on with it, please?"

It felt like they'd been walking for hours. They'd managed to stick to a rough dirt path for the majority of the trek, but the forest was getting thicker now, and the worn, man-made track had long been reclaimed by nature. Seres' frustration was building quicker than she'd like to admit, but her head had been filled with nothing but the sound of her stomach rumbling for the last forty-eight hours, and she honestly believed her body was on the verge of eating itself. At this point, she was more excited for the free lunch the interviewer had offered, than Liena's job opportunity.

"It's not my fault your merc jobs dried up!" Liena snapped back. Her eyes were glued to the maps app on her phone. She'd received the co-ordinates of the drop-ship's pick up location a few days ago, but now, as they moved further and further away from civilisation, her crippling interview anxiety was churning into something more... real. "This just feels weird to me!" She tripped over a tree root and almost went flying. "Why are they meeting us in the middle of nowhere?!"

Seres inhaled deeply. "Because it's a military station, Liena! Look at it!" She gestured roughly up at the treeline, where a glimpse of a massive space station was visible through the leaves. The station itself had been built into a solid iron meteorite the size of a small moon which, although mostly still fresh and silver in its colour, had flecks of rust on its surface from ventilation leakage. There were several red buildings and structures forming the bulk of the architecture, however most notable about the station were the giant red and silver rings, orbiting the moon over and over like a gyroscope. The rings projected various multicoloured containment fields around the station visible even from the planet. Likely, these projection fields supported the station when warping, the sheer size of it making such travel unusual, and no easy feat.

"It's a research station! The lady never said it was mil-"

"It's a private station with high staff turnover and no public info, that parks itself at the edges of nomad territory that's in desperate need of scientists and mercenaries. It's obviously military."

"Then we should just turn back. I didn't leave the DA just to end up building bombs or something for someone else."

Seres spun around, and Liena almost walked into her. "We need the money, Liena! Do you think I wanted to be doing all those merc jobs? Do you even know what I've been doing?!" She asked incredulously. "You think it was my dream to follow people around, 'protecting' people who didn't need protecting, just playing bodyguard? The amount of jobs disguised as security which actually just turned out to be 'we need all these really heavy boxes moved from this warehouse to that one, and yeah, the pay's half of what we said.' And then when I did have security work, it was the most mind-numbingly boring thing I have ever done! Literally patrolling water farms, watching water drip down condensation boards!" Seres rubbed her hands down her face and stared Liena directly in the eye, a stare which Liena quickly broke. "And the worst of them all? Disposal and clean up. Did you know dead people SHIT THEMSELVES after they die? And that some mother fuckers just decide to WAIT to SHIT ALL OVER YOU when you pick them up and sling 'em over your shoulder?! IT IS FUCKING DISGUSTING! It has been months, months since we left the DA, and you have absolutely nothing to show for it! Did you actually think you'd leave one of the top scientific capitals in the universe and just walk into your dream job, in nomad territory?" Seres shook her head. "You're so smart, Liena, but your head is full of numbers and... I don't know, atoms. Do you actually know anything about real life?"

Liena shifted awkwardly on the spot, staring at the floor. "I guess not." She mumbled.

She looked so defeated. The dress shoes on her feet were scuffed and covered in dried dirt. Her modest black dress was darkening with sweat stains.The blazer that went with it had been abandoned somewhere about an hour ago. Her tights were laddered from catching on twigs. She'd seen before they set off that the drop point was out in the forest, but she'd insisted on dressing smart. She'd wanted to make the best impression she could.

She looked so small. Seres sighed and hooked her arm around Liena's shoulders.

"I'm sorry." She said softly. "I'm angsty, that's not your fault. But I promise, this is completely normal. We did drops like this all the time in the army."

"Okay. I trust you." Liena smiled tiredly.

"I'll look after you." Seres smiled back and carried on walking, gently guiding her over the roughage. "If anyone comes up and tries to start networking with you, come tell me immediately and I'll beat 'em up."

Finally, they started to make out a clearing ahead. They were close - or at least they assumed they were. "I'm not getting any signal!" Liena growled, holding her phone up in the air. She waved it around, but the bars remained unchanged.

"I can't say I'm that surprised." Seres replied, brushing past the heavy foliage.

As they emerged from the trees, a large, grey building came into view. It wasn't anything particularly spectacular to look at, it appeared to be an abandoned factory, a concrete box several stories high. Parts of the walls were starting to crumble away. Windows were either cracked or boarded up entirely. Some old pieces of machinery, log splitters, circular saws and band saws, and wood chippers were still about, both outside and inside following a curious peak through the windows. It looked like the factory had once been a lumbermill, and maybe assembled furniture on site too. A little ways away from the main factory, now overgrown with patches of grass and stubborn weeds, was the remnants of a landing pad.

"I think that's it!" Seres said excitedly, and started to make her way towards the landing pad. As she did, she noticed a silver dropship with scarlett detailing, large wings and heavy vertical engines descending from the station at significant speed. It was surprisingly quiet for such a fast descent. It was about the same size as a small shuttle bus, designed for running between stations and planets. "Look at that, right on time!"

As the dropship grew closer the wind picked up, whipping Seres' dreadlocks around her. She turned back for Liena, and realised that she was still some distance back, hovering close to the treeline.

Seres waited for the roar of the craft's powerful engines to fade into a gentle hum, as it hovered slightly over the landing pad, then landed gently. When Liena still didn't move, she padded back over.

"There should be signal here, we're out in the open now." Liena was saying.

"What?"

"We're in a clearing! But I've still got no bars!" Liena shoved the phone in Seres' face. "I can't access anything!"

"This isn't the DA. Shit's choppy at the best of times in nomad territory."

"W-Well... There was plenty of space to land our own ship out here! Why did they say there wasn't? That we had to walk?" Liena demanded.

"You're being paranoid now. There's only one landing pad, and there's not that much space. The state our ship's in, I don't think it's got another landing left in it." Seres could feel her temper building again - she fought to swallow it. "You said you trusted me, right?"

Liena hesitated, then nodded.

"I promise, it's gonna be fine." Seres smiled. "Stop letting your anxiety dictate your life! Live a little, Liena. And remember, I'm always here."Seres held her hand out.

"A-Always?"

"Always."

What if I just kissed her. Forget the job, forget everything. Just wrapped my arms around her neck and kissed her and we stayed here. No scary ships. No horrible jobs... Just us...

But she didn't. She took Seres' outstretched hand and let her pull her across the clearing, past the factory, to the dropship. As they got close, the door clunked and opened, steam hissing from its vents.

"L-Ladies first." Liena said shakily, dropping Seres' hand and hiding behind her, barely daring to peek inside.

"Oh no! You deserve this. This is all your hard work, your perseverance, your determination. This is your moment, and I refuse to take that away from you. Now get your tiny ass on that ship!" Seres nudged Liena forward. "I'm right behind you!"

And so, her hands shaking, her heart in her mouth, Liena stepped into the gloom.

The ship itself was nothing too special. It was a simple transport pod, with around fifteen seats placed around the walls of the ship in a circle, leaving a decently-sized open space in the middle. Although there was something in the dead centre - a tall pillar, maybe for standing support?

Liena continued forward, Seres moving up the metal steps behind her.

The moment Seres stepped inside, the door slammed shut. The drop ship plunged into darkness.

"S-Seres?" Liena cautiously stepped back, reaching with her hand.

The pillar suddenly opened.

The upper, outer walls of the cylinder peeled back, unfurling back on itself, sprouting into a fluorescent bloom to reveal a jagged purple crystal, about the same size as a clenched fist.

Its surface pulsed and throbbed with an unnatural, unsettling motion like it was alive, or perhaps pretending to be. It seemed to react to their presence, clicking and creaking as its hardened parts grated against one another.

Liena's eyes widened as she stared into its rich, amethystine glow. She was frightened. Every instinct she had was screaming at her, run, turn away, do something... but she couldn't pull her gaze away.

The longer she stared at it, the louder - more agitated - its beating became, twisting in on itself, like it was trying to hide from her gaze.

A single moment of clarity flashed through her head -

Perception reactive crystalline matrix... Is it... anomalous?

- Before the crystal shattered.

Shrapnel flew in all directions across the pod as though a grenade had just gone off. Seres managed to twist her body, cover herself with her arm and hide her head as crystal shards struck into her skin. Blood immediately started to trickle from the cuts.

Liena screamed.

She staggered around, face in her hands. Her entire front was covered in the tiny empaled shards, tearing through her pretty black dress, little glittery shards of purple glass embedded into her skin.

"Seres! I can't see, I CAN'T SEE!"

Seres lurched forward, coughing. Her heart was pounding. The crystalline shards that hadn't hit them had smashed on impact with the walls of the pod, and disintegrated into a fine dust that was impossible not to inhale. It scratched and burnt as it crusted her throat, her lungs.

Her arm was starting to sting.

She managed to reach Liena before she fell to the floor. Blood seeped through her fingers. "Let me see, Liena, let me see!"

Liena shook her head furiously as Seres pried her hands away. She gasped.

The shards impaled into Leina's eyes were bright with luminescence, the colour rapidly shifting from their initial purple hue into a toxic green glow. From the shards that had embedded into her face, black rings were seeping into her skin.

It was a small mercy that Liena couldn't see Seres' paling face.

"You have to get them out, g-get the sh-shards out." Liena was stuttering. "I c-can tell you h-how, s-s-safely, j-just please, I c-can't s-s-see -" Her sentence was cut off abruptly as she started coughing too, choking on the crystal dust.

Then the pain started.

Seres staggered for the door just as Liena started screaming, writhing, blindly scratching at her skin. It felt like it was on fire, scorching her skin and spreading inside her. Seres immediately went back and grabbed her, lifting her into her arms.

I've got you.

The pain in Seres' arm had spread now too, a raging inferno across the rest of her body. She seethed and clenched her teeth as she tried to push past it, tried to push past the burning in her lungs as she gasped at the toxic air. She lifted her leg back and kicked the door. Again. And again.

You were right. I fucked up.

The impacts shuddered through Liena's body as she broke into a cold sweat.

I'm so sorry.

She felt Seres sway. The kicks became lighter. The last one she missed completely, and they crashed to the floor. Liena tumbled out of her arms.

"Seres?" She gasped hoarsely.

Seres didn't respond. Liena weakly reached out, scrambling at the floor, trying desperately to find her friend.

"S-Seres, I'm scared..."

Darkness swirled before her eyes. Liena lay flat on her back, convulsing, her nails gripping the floor of the pod so hard that some of them broke. That pain was nothing though, compared to the fire that was currently burning through her body. It sunk into her bones, her organs, the very fibres of her being. Her body strained to keep them in place. A sharp ache started in her limbs. Her bones felt like they were trying to push themselves out, she could feel them, hear them grinding and grating against one another. Finally, the pressure gave way as she felt her shoulder dislocate with a loud snap.

She shivered.

There was something else. Something beyond the pain... The shards in her face, she could feel them writhing uncomfortably, prickling, like her skin was standing on end... It was an itch... no, it was worse...

It was like someone was watching her.

She couldn't bear it.

She twisted and curled, bringing her knees to her chest, ducking her head down low. Hiding within herself.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Liena slipped unconscious.

***

Chapter 20 - Laid Bare

Fiiiiiiinally. The brains girl.

She sniffed the air as multiple aromas filtered through her nose. She plucked each one, and analysed them individually. First was a dry warmth. Air filtered through the numerous fans and heatsinks present. Second was static and plastic, blended together into a faint but ever-present chemical tingle. Plastic sheets and wrapping were present throughout the room. Third was sweat, humid and lowly, both from within the lab and from behind her. Some of it was filled with the stink of stress, the rest humid labour... Fourth was semen, sickly and mellow, only faintly detectable over the sweat but present all the same. Two males, different species... Goblin and wolf. Then, finally... Controller produce. Sweet, rich, dark and overpowering. Something she'd spent the last few days becoming intimately familiar with. It tingled up her muzzle and down her throat, threatening to tip her into a begging mess...

Skrrr. Detour was worth it.

A hungry growl escaped her throat as she prowled around the lab. She could hear the footsteps of hundreds of ORG agents, hovering close to her position at all times. They were all nervous, their hearts, organic and artificial alike, thrumming in their chests. They were not to interfere with her directly, just remain close enough so that if she did do anything... Well. They'd try to stop her.

She giggled to herself, the dual tone of her voice almost lost within the city-scape of a laboratory in front of her. A hustle and bustle of blinking buttons, rattling dials, diamond glassware and silver-sheen steel. Many of the machines were already humming away, but a few were still sealed in their plastic wrapping, waiting patiently for their opportunity to contribute to the cutting edge. The lab's lighting held a distinctive blue tone to it. The metal plates beneath her feet had long, narrow drains carved into evenly spaced grooves between the tiles, all but invisible without closer inspection.

Her winding path through the tall steel and tightly turned pipework eventually took her to the heart of the lab. At the far end was a twin set of staircases rising to an upper deck, but the central area itself was otherwise surrounded by a series of massive glass containment tanks, each one flanked by various advanced computers and intricate pipework that fed into the tanks themselves. Most of them were empty, but a single one had a vague dark silhouette of a czarite submerged in thick, sludgy fluid. Her finer details were impossible to make out, but her roamer-sized silhouette held a broody, dark aura to it, like they'd trapped a storm cloud in an oversized bottle...

Suddenly, high above the warmth and hum of the machines, a single drip splattering against the floor caught her ear, followed shortly by a sharp swat and a muffled, high-pitched moan.

She glanced towards the intriguing noise where the lab was abruptly divided by a sharp wall, lined with the aforementioned staircases leading to an upper deck, at least twenty feet up. There was a substantial void between the lab and the ceiling above, giving the whole area quite the sense of space, along with plenty of room to fit heavy duty trusses, lined with cables, chains, fixtures and a lone mug that had been left behind during the construction, high above. The upper deck, whilst still plenty roomy, was closer to the ceiling and had more personalised fixtures hanging within the owner's reach. From her position, she could just about make out a couple of chains hanging from the ceiling above the upper deck, suspending something...

No...

Someone.

Curiosity gripped her with a sneer and she surged over from the captive czarite, towards the stairs. She moved quieter than a whisper and in the blink of an eye, already gently peaking her head above the floor to spy on the activity above.

It was a spacious area, much more personal than the lab below, with an enormous data-board spanning most of the back wall, and a collection of smaller instruments and desks lining the edges of the deck. The centre of the space held a couple of comfy-looking, large chairs, and a substantial collection of more lude sitting devices, complete with ropes, chains and shackles. A tall green czarite was standing in front of the data-board, clad in a white lab coat - only a white lab coat - and holding a black riding crop tightly in her hand. The tip of the crop was gently teasing the lips of a goblin, hanging upside-down in chains, bounded tightly but not cruelly. His pretty face was red as a cherry, it seemed any moment now steam would start to rise from his pointed ears. He was wearing a harness of vibrators that buzzed against all the sensitive parts they were supposed to, their buzzing lost in the hum of the lab but driving the lad to near hysteria all the same. A long strand of cum dripped from the tip of his throbbing cock whilst he clenched with all of his might to hold it back. The goblin's desperate struggle against the vibration was all recorded on a camera located in the rigging, getting a good view of his entire supple body as he gently rotated in the chains, sometimes showing the red playful lashes marking his buttcheeks.

Held in a similar situation, aside from the chastity cage that locked his manhood up, was a timber wolf. His cheek bore a large green kiss mark, staining his fur deeply and he appeared to have a gem studded butt plug pressed firmly inside him, vibrating in the same stubborn, coaxing manner. Finally, both males had a single wine glass placed under them, slowly filling with their seed.

She glanced at the chastity cage again, her eyes sharpening in disgust.

Weak.

Her focus shot back to the whip, teasingly stroking the goblin's ears now.

What does she want from her subjects? I don't understand.

The drizzle of semen from the stranded goblin poured out in one continuous thin line, with the Controller not even giving him a glance; her focus was entirely on the data in front of her. Suddenly, the goblin clenched, squeezing his legs and interrupting the flow. The resulting light patter of fluid was immediately followed with a firm swat to his ass cheeks.