Three Square Meals

"Holy shit!" Dana blurted out, her eyes like saucers as she stared at the shattered bed. "How hard were you fucking her in the ass?!"

John was sitting on the mattress in the middle of all the destruction and protested, "Not enough to break the bed!"

Irillith kissed him on the shoulder and gave him a dreamy smile. "Actually, it was all very sensual and loving."

"Everything was," Tashana murmured, looking up at John with a doe-eyed expression of absolute devotion. "I don't think I've ever felt so close to you, Baen'thelas."

He put his arm around her waist and stroked her hugely swollen tummy. "You're right, it was an incredible evening... but I think we're getting a little side-tracked." He turned to the redhead. "What the hell happened to the bed, Sparks?"

Dana squatted down and picked up one of the jagged pieces of sparkling white metal that were scattered across the floor.

She turned it in her hand, studying the fragment in fascination. "Now this looks strangely familiar..."

"It can't have turned into Crystal Alyssium... can it?" John asked, frowning dubiously.

Her eyes blazed with a gleaming golden light and she peered into the atomic structure of what had once been black Progenitor metal. "No, this is something else entirely... I've never seen anything like it."

Alyssa yawned as she strode into the bedroom. "Sorry, I got here as fast as I..." Her voice trailed off as she gaped at the scene of devastation. "How the hell did you wreck the bed?!"

John shrugged helplessly. "I honestly don't know."

"Why don't you give me a blow-by-blow of what happened," Dana requested, before smirking at Tashana's cum-filled belly. "You know what I mean."

"Well the twins were already here when I arrived with Helene..."

"We showered and dressed together in my bedroom rather than the shuttle," Irillith interjected. She blushed as she added, "We both wanted to be fully prepared for John, so we-"

"So you gave each other enemas and lubed yourselves up for an assfucking," Dana interrupted, making an impatient rolling motion with her hand. "Skip to the next bit... when you arrived here, did anything weird happen?"

The twins shared a glance then shook their heads.

"We were only waiting for a couple of minutes before John arrived," Tashana explained, a faraway look appearing in her eyes.

"And what an entrance it was..." Irillith said with a breathy sigh.

Alyssa's ears perked up and she flashed a smile at the besotted Maliri. "Did he look handsome?"

"Oh, he looked amazing!" Tashana gushed, biting her lip.

"And he was so masterful," Irillith agreed, her violet eyes alight with wonder. "I would've done anything he asked..."

"But John was loving rather than domineering," her sister added wistfully. "Everything he said made my heart flutter..."

"Mine too," Irillith agreed, resting her head on his shoulder. "You really do own me body and soul, Baen'thelas..."

"Okay, so we've established John is awesome," the redhead said with an amused smile. "But what actually happened after he strode masterfully into the room?"

John put his arms around both Maliri girls, then gave Dana an apologetic look. "They're a bit out of it at the moment. I invited Helene to join us in bed and she offered to share our emotions... you know how powerful that can be."

Helene gave him a shy smile as she nuzzled into him. "I could just feel the love pouring off the three of you."

"Yeah..." Dana murmured, glancing down at the chunk of metal in her hand with a look of shocked disbelief on her face. "Powerful stuff..."

Alyssa darted a sceptical glance at the redhead as she heard what her friend was thinking. "You can't be serious?"

Dana frowned as she wracked her brain for any other possibilities. "What else could've done it? I can't think of anything..."

Squatting down beside one of the metal fragments, Alyssa took a deep breath, then tentatively reach out to pick up the chunk and heft it in her hand. She'd been expecting a wave of deeply unsettling sensations, but when she touched the piece of Progenitor metal, there was no sign of residual echoes. If anything, the contact felt almost pleasant and she closed her eyes to savour the gentle sense of warmth stirring in her heart.

Alyssa suddenly dropped the metal in shock, the chunk landing with a noisy clang. "Holy fuck..."

John half-rose from the bed in alarm. "What is it?"

"You know I've been getting bad vibes from the Progenitor metal?" Alyssa replied, looking at the white-streaked bed-frame in astonishment. "I think Helene... cleansed it."

"I did?!" the aquatic girl gasped, looking stunned.

The blonde nodded. "Every time I've been in contact with black metal, I get this really horrible feeling... a bit like the psychic echoes of thralls being slaughtered on a Progenitor dreadnought." She ran her fingers over another white chunk of shattered bed frame. "I don't get any of those sensations from this stuff... it's actually pleasant to touch now."

Dana jerked a thumb to the side. "Could you guys get off the mattress a second? I want to check underneath."

John nodded and was about to move, but he paused when he saw the treacherous carpet of jagged metallic fragments strewn across the floor. He made a sweeping gesture and a wall of telekinetic force brushed aside all the pieces, clearing a space for them to vacate the bed. The twins accepted the hands he offered them, rising to their feet and following Helene off the mattress. Alyssa waved a hand at the rumpled bed and flipped it aside, revealing the floor below.

The redhead whistled as she studied the warped deck plates. "Wow, she really went to town on it..."

Directly beneath where John and the girls had been lying was a pristine white oval, with white streaks spreading out in all directions. The metal had buckled and deformed, bowing outwards and forming a large depression in the floor.

"Okay so this was obviously centred on Helene," John said, gesturing to the white oval. "But that doesn't make any sense; she can't do psychic shaping."

"No... this is something different," Dana muttered, tapping a finger on her chin. "When I looked into the metal, its atomic structure was all messed up... like waves of force had pummelled it. The black metal must be psychically reactive, but it got completely fucked up by all the positive vibes you and the twins were pumping out."

"But why did the bed shatter like that?" John asked in confusion. "Crystal Alyssium gets stronger when we reshape it."

"Like I said, this isn't the same thing," Dana replied, pocketing samples of the metal for later study. "I added Etherium crystals to the mix for my ultimate material, which makes it tougher every time you psychically reshape the crystalline lattice. As Helene just proved, Progenitor metal obviously responds to psychic manipulation, but it's probably not designed to be reshaped."

"So Progenitor metal is just forged once, then done?" he asked, looking at the battered floor.

"In a Soul Forge..." Alyssa said in a hushed voice, her eyes widening as she stared at the black deck plates.

"Yeah... that's right," Dana agreed, nodding as she mulled it over. "We know these Progenitors don't give much of a shit about their thralls, so I can't see them standing around shaping metal over and over again to give their women the best gear possible."

John frowned and shook his head. "I can't see an asshole like Larn'kelnar doing that even once. How much metal do they need to create a dreadnought? What about building the thrall fleets? According to Calara, they've got thousands of ships."

The redhead frowned as she nodded her agreement. "You're right... they'd need fucktons of the stuff."

Alyssa started to back away, staring at the floor in horror. She bumped into the wall and her hand brushed against the black metal, making her yelp as she yanked her fingers back, reacting as if she'd been burned.

Startled by her cry, John looked up and saw Alyssa's dreadful look of revulsion. "Alyssa! What's wrong?"

"I've got to get out..." she muttered, backing out of the room with wild eyes.

"Wait!" he called after her as she stumbled into the corridor beyond.

"I've got to get out of here!" she gasped, running for the elevator and hammering at the rune beside the door.

The elevator took a few seconds to respond, a few seconds too long for the horrified girl.

"Let me out!" she screamed, her eyes blazing with an incandescent white light.

"What the fuck?!" Dana cried out in alarm, shocked by her friend's panicked reaction.

John swept aside the jagged fragments between them and sprang after her. "Alyssa!"

The scarlet lighting flickered as glowing streams of psychic energy whistled around Alyssa's arms, howling in a terrifying vortex of eldritch power that gathered at her hands.

"LET ME OUT!" she thundered, her tortured cry reverberating down the corridor.

Alyssa's piercing scream was drowned out by a deep bass boom, as she unleashed the vast amounts of pent-up energy she'd gathered in the throbbing orb surrounding her clenched fists. The dazzling blast slammed into the wall, blistering the black metal, which bubbled and melted under her onslaught.

*Master, she's draining me!* Jade called out in warning.

Edraele's shocked voice echoed through his mind a moment later. *She's taking everything, John!*

He winced against the blinding glare and stared in astonishment as she scorched her way through the wall, the blast like a supernova that incinerated everything in its path. Her eldritch beam vaporised the superstructure, then hit the shuttle's armour plating, buckling the black surface until it exploded outwards. An instant later, the blistering column of energy winked out, leaving glowing motes hanging in the air. With a strangled cry, Alyssa crouched down and kicked off the deck, launching herself through the glowing-edged tunnel she'd just bored through the hull.

"Shit!" John cursed, looking up through the melted hole and seeing no sign of Alyssa.

He lurched into the waiting elevator and hit the rune to descend. As the serrated doors slid shut, he saw Dana, Helene, and the twins standing frozen in the bedroom, all four staring at him in shock. Waiting to descend to the lower decks seemed to take an eternity, even though it only took a matter of seconds, and John ground his teeth in frustration at not being able to follow Alyssa through the hull. When the door finally opened, he bolted through to the corridor outside, then out of the shuttle via the airlock.

Whirling around, he saw no sign of the distraught teenager. *Alyssa?! Where are you?*

She didn't reply, but he could feel her anguish over their bond. He spotted movement out of the corner of his eye; the reinforced doors leading to the Secondary Hangar sliding closed. Activating his psychic speed, he barrelled across the huge room and dived through the closing doors, making it with seconds to spare. That was when he saw her, slumped under the protective shadow of the Raptor's white wing.

Running to Alyssa's side, he dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around her protectively. "You're safe now, honey... I'm here."

She sobbed against his chest, shaking like a leaf in his embrace. John held her close, stroking her hair and murmuring soothing words in her ear until she eventually calmed. When her trembling ceased and Alyssa seemed to have recovered, he leaned to the side so he could see her face. Her sickened expression hadn't changed, the look in her eyes still one of horrified revulsion.

"I had to get out of there..." she replied in a sepulchral whisper. "It's like a tomb... haunted by their last moments of suffering..."

"You saw more psychic echoes?" he asked, wondering why she reacted that strongly, having been in the bedroom before.

Alyssa shook her head. "The soul forge. I know what it is... what it does."

She told him... and his expression matched hers; a tortured mask of horror and disbelief. But only for a moment. Then the anger built, fuelled by his hatred, burning away everything but the primal need to obliterate these monsters from the galaxy.

***

"You're absolutely sure?" Calara asked, her voice quavering as she stared across the briefing room table at Alyssa.

The blonde nodded, her expression grim. "I know I'm right."

"My god..." the Latina muttered, shaking her head in denial.

"The first time I touched the black metal, I could feel how tainted it was," Alyssa said quietly, her voice no more than a haunted whisper. "The last agonising moments of thousands of dead thralls are seeped into every inch of it."

"Thousands sacrificed... per ship?" Calara asked, the look of horror in her eyes matching those of all the girls seated around the table.

The blonde nodded, her expression bleak. "The black metal responds to psychic energy and we all know how Progenitors get access to that. As John said earlier, an asshole like Larn'kelnar was never going to stand around and personally build fleets for his thralls."

John was standing by the window, staring out into space as he listened to their discussion. "Progenitors need a steady supply of new ships for their campaigns, but they'll be actively leading those wars. There's no chance that any of them will stay on their Throne Worlds just to keep a Soul Forge running."

"Shit... the clue's in the fucking name," Dana muttered, looking queasy. "I just can't even imagine someone doing something so fucked-up. Sacrificing millions of thralls just to make gear? Those Progenitors are a bunch of sick bastards!"

"What exactly are you sensing, Alyssa?" Tashana asked, looking at the blonde. "Is it psychic echoes from when the thralls were killed, or... their actual souls?"

Alyssa blanched at that, looking even more disturbed. "I... I don't know."

Helene looked at John in alarm. "There are tormented spirits inside that spaceship?!"

"We're not sure, Helene." Equally unsettled at the thought, he glanced at Alyssa. "Is there any chance there's a consciousness trapped there? Or thousands of them?"

She hesitated, then shook her head. "Whenever I touch the black metal I feel a horrible sense of dread... like something really awful happened. I've never been aware of any kind of... presence behind it though."

"So what happens to the shuttle now?" Sakura asked, her voice sombre. "Are we going to activate the autopilot and send it into the nearest sun?"

"I can't set foot in it again," Alyssa said adamantly, shaking her head. "Not now I know how it was built..."

John stood beside her chair and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Nobody's asking you to, honey." He glanced at the Asian girl. "Why do you ask, Sakura? Did you have something in mind?"

"It's a useful ship; is there any chance we can... exorcise it?" the Asian girl tentatively suggested.

Irillith raised an eyebrow. "Surely you're not proposing a repeat performance?"

"No... but Helene broke the bed by accident," Sakura said, turning to study the Aquatic girl. "What if she tried to deliberately affect the metal?"

"The psychic echoes might be gone, but the black metal was shattered in the process," John reminded her with a frown. "I'm not sure Helene can get rid of the psychic echoes without wrecking the shuttle."

"It's still worth testing," Sakura said, looking at the teal-hued girl speculatively. "That's a handy talent to have..."

John shook his head. "I'm trying to keep Helene out of combat, remember?"

"We don't need Helene to bust up thrall ships; Alyssa already blasted a big hole in the roof," Dana said, looking at her friend in admiration. "Maybe we just need to strap you to the front of the Invictus next time we go up against another Progenitor?"

"I know you're only joking, but I tapped a huge amount of power to melt through the hull," Alyssa admitted, darting an apologetic glance at Jade. "If I did that in a battle, we'd all be running on empty in no time."

The room went quiet, with everybody thinking about fighting hordes of sinister black ships all constructed the same horrifying way.

"Ah, shit..." Dana muttered with a grimace, her blue eyes flicking to Calara with concern. "Are we still going to go after Larn'kelnar's thrall fleets?"

"We haven't got any choice," the brunette said, suddenly looking ill at the prospect. "We can't turn down the chance to commandeer vessels with that kind of firepower, no matter how repulsive they might be."

Alyssa shivered with revulsion, a feeling shared by everyone around the table.

John let out a heavy sigh. "Alright, I think we've discussed everything we can at this point. We still don't know much about the metal, or exactly what happened to it, so we're just doing a lot of speculating."

"I grabbed some samples," Dana said, patting the pouches on her belt. "I'll take a look and see what I can find out. Don't hold your breath though... the black metal is still a big mystery and I'm not even sure of its exact composition."

"Anything you can find out would be useful," he said, giving her an encouraging smile.

"I'll go check them out now," the redhead agreed, rising from her seat.

The rest of the girls followed her lead, hugging John before exiting the Briefing Room. He asked Helene and the twins to wait, wanting to speak to them privately before they left.

"I'm so sorry I caused so much trouble!" Helene suddenly blurted out when they were alone, her face stricken.

"Hey, it wasn't your fault," John said soothingly, pulling her into a supportive embrace. "You were just trying to do something nice for us."

"But Alyssa got so upset..." she murmured, clinging to him for reassurance.

He joined the twins in stroking her back. "That's been brewing for months, honey. Ever since we boarded the Legacy, Alyssa's been getting bad vibes from the black metal."

The door slid open again and Alyssa re-entered the Briefing Room, gliding over to join the hug. "You're such a sweetheart, Helene. Thanks for worrying about me, but I'll be alright."

"I've never seen you lose control like that before," the aquatic girl said, looking at her wide-eyed.

"It was a horrible shock, finally finding out why Progenitor ships have freaked me out so much," the blonde admitted. "At least now we know and we can actually try to do something about it."

Helene nibbled nervously at her lip. "If the ship is haunted, I'd like to help you put those ghosts to rest."

"I appreciate the offer, but until we know exactly what we're dealing with, there's no point worrying yourself about it," John said, kissing her on the cheek. He looked into her eyes and continued, "Are you feeling better now?"

She nodded and gave him an embarrassed smile. "Yes, I'm okay..."

"Come here, gorgeous," Alyssa said, opening her arms for a proper hug.

When Helene went to the blonde, John turned his attention to the twins. "What happened between the three of us got overshadowed by the bed exploding... but I haven't forgotten."

"We felt it too," Irillith murmured, stepping into his arms.

Tashana nodded, joining her sister in his embrace. "Your attitude towards the Maliri... and to us, has changed. We could really sense the difference."

*You've finally embraced your heritage, John,* Edraele said quietly. *It was a huge step for you.*

"Claiming the Maliri was a privilege, not a burden," John said, kissing each of the sisters in turn. "The reality is that we have a special connection... and refusing to accept it was doing all of you a disservice. Our fates are tied together and the Maliri need me to lead them, just as I need their help to fight in this war. We stand no chance against the Progenitors without each other."

Tashana gave him an adoring smile. "You're going to be a magnificent leader, Baen'thelas."

"I'll do my best," he said, a hint of worry flashing across his features.