“Something tells me that’s a stretch,” I said.

  Amabie nodded. “It takes a lot out of me. If we had more time, or we didn’t think we’ll need me in the fight, I could manage. As it is, this might be the better option for now.”

  “What’s he doing?” Milrae asked.

  “Armor,” I replied. Everywhere but the bottom of my feet, at least, as that had already been established as leading to slippery footing. I’d have to remember to say fuck the rules next time and wear shoes.

  Then, stepping up to the plant, I braced myself. This was for Suiko and Kinara, for Jalee, and really for all of them. I was about to step in when Devasla stopped me.

  “Ferris, Ferris, Ferris…” She shook her head and laughed. “Don’t you think it would make sense to try having your little friend do his saliva thing before applying it? As in, see if it might even be less painful?”

  I stared at her, then leaped forward to throw my arms around her. She quickly doused her hot spots so I didn’t get burned, laughed, and said, “Just trying to work smarter.”

  “You’re a genius.”

  As she’d suggested, we went about it. First of all, Basty loved the taste of the plant, so he ate half of it before remembering to make my armor. Then, when he made the paste for me, I took it and rubbed it over my body, having Devasla help me get hard to reach areas. To my relief, it didn’t hurt. There was a slight numbing sensation, tingling in spots in a way that reminded me of tiger balm. When it hardened, it was thicker and stronger than the original.

  “Lizzy and Koharu, get over here,” I said, motioning them over. “Anyone else?”

  Amabie and Devasla each had their armor that came and went, so they passed. Void had a strong aversion to it, but I had no idea why. So I lathered up the paste first for Koharu, enjoying putting it on her ass, then turned to Lizzy to help her in the places she couldn’t reach.

  “Better than my old white and pink armor,” Koharu said, eyeing herself. “Though, I’ll probably switch back when we return. This is kind of weird.”

  “Hmmm,” Milrae said, shaking her head at the idea of this strange armor.

  “I’ll get you,” Devasla offered, to my relief, and I made sure to walk over and kiss Milrae to avoid watching the woman lather up Lizzy. When it was done, three of us had nice layers of body-hugging armor, and we were ready for action.

  “Good?” Basty asked.

  I knelt, loving how the armor formed with my movement, and patted him on the head. “You did great, buddy.”

  A wide grin spread across his face—too wide to feel natural, but it kind of worked in a fun anime way.

  “Quiet,” Void said, suddenly kneeling and gesturing for the rest of us to get down.

  We did and watched as a beast resembling a dragon flew by overhead. It had a round section protruding from the back of its head, curving fangs or tusks from its mouth, and long spikes along its back. Not exactly any dragon I’d ever seen, but that was certainly the closest thing I could relate it to.

  “It wasn’t that, though,” Void said, and she motioned to the ground ahead of us.

  There was a path, and along it, several spikes that rose, leading to a cliff visible through the trees that had a circular shape, perceptible in the darkness but only barely. Near it, tall trees grew up with canopies overhead of bright orange and purple. Or maybe they were large mushrooms, I wasn’t sure.

  “Through there,” she said and started sneaking that way.

  No, I wasn’t purposefully staring, but it was hard not to notice the following: if you’ve ever followed a nude woman up an incline before, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Even more so if she’s crouching but sticking out as she goes. This was the case with Void, and her little pussy mound showed; I had to quickly look down, then gesture for Milrae to go ahead of me.

  She took one look up at Void, chuckled, and said, “You want to see the goods? I got you.”

  When she did it, she made sure I had the full view. I mean it—pussy lips, little pink butthole, all of it. She paused, almost on all fours, and looked back.

  “Like what you see?”

  I grinned and nodded, trying deep breaths to avoid getting distracted. It didn’t work. Scales vanished as I got erect, and it took all my willpower not to bury my face in her pussy and lap it up. We’d have time enough for that later, I told myself.

  “Nice,” Koharu said from behind me.

  I figured she meant the game Milrae was playing, but when I looked back, I saw she was looking at how my balls hung, and I felt my cheeks flush.

  “Maybe I should have used that blue-plant armor there, too?”

  She shook her head. “Nah, I like this more. And you can make this armor come and go, while that one might get stuck, or hurt when you get erect.”

  I nodded and tried making the scale armor return with my erection. It worked, and I shook my head, hoping I wasn’t about to go into battle with a raging boner. That would just be weird.

  Trying to ignore the fact that Koharu was watching my armor-covered balls from behind, I finished the little climb up that steep path, joining the others at the opening ahead. Milrae reached back and flipped my tip with her claw, making the soft clang again. Void turned on her with a glare and finger to her mouth, then looked at me as if scolding me for having a boner. I was a fucking horny-as-hell man. What did she expect me to do about it?!

  “How fast can you take care of that?” she asked in a whisper, motioning down.

  “I…”

  “Come on, better to get rid of it so it doesn’t distract them or you. How fast?”

  “I bet I could take care of it in under thirty seconds,” Milrae said, then glanced at Koharu and Devasla. “Quicker with their help.”

  “Come on,” I protested. “This is hardly the time. What kind of person stops right before a siege to…?” I eyed Milrae, unsure what she had in mind.

  “Get a quick blowjob,” she whispered.

  “Ah. That.” I gulped.

  “We’ve already used up precious seconds discussing it,” Void pointed out, then nodded to Milrae.

  Before I could protest further, she knelt, paws on my ass, and gave me an “any day now” look. I made the scale armor go away, and she pulled me into her mouth. That tongue worked its magic, then Koharu was there with me, kissing my neck and grabbing my balls, while Devasla ran a warm hand up my back, sending little waves of bliss through me. The fact that the others were watching made it even more of a turn-on, and I swear it couldn’t have even been ten seconds before I was unloading in Milrae’s mouth. She started to pull back, when I whispered, “Not yet,” and gripped her by the little panda ears as another wave of orgasm took hold, causing a whole new barrage to assault her tonsils.

  She finally pulled back, gasping for air and trying to swallow, and Koharu did the honors of taking over to clean me.

  I stood there, almost out of breath, and pointedly avoided looking at Void or Lizzy. Motioning to the entrance, I whispered, “I’ll catch up. Give me a sec.”

  “Very well done,” Void whispered, and led the way in. Lizzy went next, then the others. Last was Devasla, who bit her lip, grinned, and said, “You human males. Hilarious.”

  I was about to go next when Amabie put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t ever be ashamed of your sexual drive. It makes the whole adventure that much more exciting.”

  “Thanks?” I leaned in. “You probably could have gotten in on that, you know.”

  Her eyes widened, then she winked, “Saving that for next time, when you can try to drown me on it the way you did her. Guess what? I don’t breathe the same way.” She winked, then headed in.

  Whoa, she had the potential to be much more dirty-minded than I’d originally thought. I liked it.

  Cock limp and armored up again, I followed them in to see what we’d find inside the strange cave.

  17

  Droplets of water sounded in the darkness, hitting a body of water somewhere within, not too far off. They clattered like little insect feet on stone or metal—a distant chortle.

  We moved with caution; Devasla’s light faded as she worked to subdue it, but leaving enough to ensure our next step wasn’t off a ledge and down to our deaths. Good thing, too, because just such a drop-off appeared to our left; however, we couldn’t see how far down it went.

  The route led to a curve ahead, and an ascent that led us out to a ledge overlooking an open area inside. A light glow showed at first, but as our eyes adjusted, I could make out curved metal, surrounded by a flat area with bots moving around. Windows on the curved metal gave it the look of an advanced building—maybe some sort of military base from the future, judging by what looked like turrets on the corner, and one on the middle of the area visible.

  What good would turrets do down here? I wondered. I started to scoot forward, trying to make sense of it. As far as I could tell, we’d found an internal base of operations, much larger than I could have imagined. Everything about this world had made me think it was undeveloped, like a primal jungle. Turns out, the advanced part was simply underground.

  I turned to Devasla on one side, then Amabie just behind me.

  “You’ve been here before?” I asked Void, keeping my voice low.

  She nodded. “It doesn’t belong here, and yet… here it is.”

  “Agreed. It’s completely out of place. But it makes sense, I guess, that—”

  Grinding sounds and vibrations pulled us from our moment. We all backed up, heads swiveling to see what could be making the noise.

  “We need to go,” Void said.

  I cursed, starting for the way we’d come, but she grabbed my arm, pulling me the other way. The others followed, and we descended on the other side as a massive orb appeared behind us. The reason for the grinding became clear; massive drills were working to clear stone. What we’d stumbled into wasn’t a normal opening, but a section being carved out for some reason.

  As we cleared the area, I had no time for questions. We found ourselves moving for the cover of a stone wall, then eyeing the metal building and trying to figure our way in. But the ground we stood on wasn’t stone, but metal. Like… a wing?

  This wasn’t a metal building constructed within the mountain. It was a ship, and they were working to clear it.

  “What… the… fuck.” I knelt, running my fingers along the metal to confirm it, then noticed a door opening in the ship.

  Two hunters emerged, working their way over to what I was now thinking of as the dig site, where we’d entered.

  “Stay low,” Void said, staff held close, hand over the crystal eyes to conceal their glow.

  “What is this place?” Amabie asked.

  “Not from here,” Void replied. “None of the hunters are, originally. That’s what I was trying to say—they showed up one day, and now the monsters live in fear of them. Rightly so.”

  I eyed her, wondering what else there was to this story. No reason not to ask now. “And the V of trees? Your deal?”

  “You’re smart. Clearly… but all I can say right now is that I’m also from another place. As were my kind.”

  “But they’re gone.”

  She nodded.

  The hunters seemed to be simply observing their mining operation, but as they conversed, one had started to move to almost face our direction.

  “We need to get inside,” I said.

  “Seems to me that would be putting ourselves in a precarious situation,” Amabie noted. “You’re sure someone’s in there?”

  I tried my spirit sight and was glad to see that it worked here. There was a shape lying down, maybe sleeping? And past that, another crouched, moving.

  “Two of them,” I said. The second of the hunters moved again, and I noted that instead of a leg, she had a snake tail. “One of them is Randi.”

  All eyes turned to Lizzy, but she simply shrugged. While Randi was doing her own thing up there, we weren’t exactly sure of Lizzy’s true loyalty. She seemed very eager to join our group but had been with Randi before, and certainly still could be.

  “What are we waiting for?” I asked, then nodded at the nearby hunters.

  Best to take them out quickly without raising any alarms. After having dealt with these things so far, killing them didn’t bother me in the least.

  “Not you,” I said to Devasla, knowing she would make too much of a commotion. “But…” I eyed Koharu and Milrae, motioning the two of them to go with me as I said, “Quickly, quietly.”

  Nobody seemed to have any issues with me taking control, so those two went with me while the others knelt out of sight.

  I motioned Milrae to the right, Koharu overhead, then lunged. My sword appeared in hand, and I sent an extra vibration to knock the two hunters off balance. They wouldn’t think anything of it, considering the vibrations from the drills, and by the time they saw us coming, we’d already hit. My sword sliced up and through the nearer of the two—right through the point under the shoulder, while Koharu vaulted overhead with her staff, landing with a kick to the guy’s face. Milrae had the other, pulling him around and slamming him into the rock. Her claws dug into openings in the armor, spikes from her wings joining in the assault. Not more than ten seconds could have passed before we were dragging their bodies into the shadows.

  “Not bad!” Amabie hissed.

  Void nodded and motioned to two bots below that had stopped, looking our way. “But not perfect. Allow me.”

  She was up and sliding down to the bots, shooting out blasts from the skull’s eyes. Those blasts connected and the robots froze mid-turn, then she was on the first, hand to its back in a way that caused a flow of energy from it and into her, dropping the bot into a helpless pile of metal. The other made a beeping sound, but she had it next.

  When it fell, she motioned to the ship—as I assumed it was—and said, “Inside, now. It might have sent out a warning.”

  We went to the ship and, on finding no doors that would open, Devasla created an entry for us. Lava melted metal, and soon we were in.

  “If they didn’t know we were here before, they will now,” Void said as she ducked through the molten metal opening.

  “You want stealth, you go with someone else,” Devasla said. “Me? I fuck shit up.”

  I grinned at her, but it might have been more of a nervous reaction to our surroundings. The walls were metal panels with cables running along them, leading to screens spaced about ten paces apart. At the moment the screens were dark, but on one wall was an image that might have been a map of a star system—one I certainly didn’t recognize. The bottom left of the image showed a golden, unfolded pyramid. A logo, perhaps? Or some sort of map symbol? I turned back to the passage ahead, then the one to our left, glad to see no signs of hunters or robots coming to intercept us yet.

  Maybe this was simply how the hunters decorated, but that wasn’t my guess. Everything about this place spelled fancy alien spaceship. Now that we were here and seeing it, I had no doubt the ship didn’t belong here.

  “How long have the hunters been hunting?” I asked.

  “At least one-hundred years,” Void said, but she waved her hand at our surroundings. “That doesn’t mean this place was here then. By my guess, I’d say they first traveled through the void.”

  I froze, realizing I’d heard someone else mention using the void to travel.

  “Do you know a man who goes by the name of Vaper?” I asked.

  Her eyes went wide, but it was a quick reaction that she instantly recovered from. “Ask me again when we’re out of here.”

  I nodded but had my answer. Somehow, this lady was connected to him. More interestingly, they and these hunters all had one thing in common—the void, whatever that was.

  To my relief, the spirit sight was still working, so I took the lead. More than one passage led to a dead-end, so although I could see where the vertical teammate was—either Kinara or Jalee—the route wasn’t obvious. Surprisingly, the section of the ship we passed through was empty. We even found sleeping chambers, complete with metal bunks and a hole in the corner that might have been a toilet. A strange plant with glowing, purple flowers grew up to my waist along one wall, and three black robes were hung nearby.

  “I’ve seen them wear those,” Milrae said, fingering the robes. “But only once. I wasn’t sure it was the same group.”

  “You witnessed a summoning ceremony?” Void asked.

  Milrae scrunched her nose. “Maybe.”

  “I’ve seen it only once myself. They wore these robes, gathered in a circle, and had a golden object that created a portal for others to emerge from. More hunters, though I’m not sure where they came from.” At my look of curiosity, Void added, “Possibly void travel, but I’m not certain.”

  “Hey,” Amabie said, and she was with Koharu, who had just pushed back a metal panel in the wall, close to the door I’d come through.

  Koharu knelt, sticking her head in, then came back with a grin. “I think we can try it. Even Devasla might fit.”

  “Don’t forget,” Devasla said, shrinking in size until she was about my height, “I’m not always huge like that.”

  “Let me check it out first,” I said, and poked my head in this time. With a click of my tongue, I was able to get a basic layout of the first part of it, a passage with three departure points ahead. Maintenance or engineering was my guess. Basty dropped from my neck and started walking forward, apparently going to check it out for us.

  When I backed up, I felt something brush against my butthole, and turned to see Amabie slapping Koharu’s tail away.

  “Know when to play, and when to be serious,” Amabie said.

  Koharu glared at her, then said, “Sorry.”

  “Not to me, to him. He might have yelped, given us all away.”

  Koharu turned my way to apologize, but I waved it off. I didn’t want to think about the view I’d been giving them while bending over like that.

  “Eventually, we’ll have to just pretend this is normal,” I said. “Until then, I don’t mind some levity mixed in with my anxiety. No harm, no foul.”