A Familiar Place

I remember fear. Fear... is a familiar place.

My Emperor's moods almost ended my existence at times, but so it was: a flame, bright as the sun, the purest white spirit, the light of the empire, was all that he was. By his passion, by his rightful ownership, I laid with him; in him was the hope that I might bear him ever more white flames. But my mother... my dear mother saw naught but the blackness in my dear Emperor. She feared for me, she told the priest when she thought I could not hear. My father's will was her own. She claimed the priest could help keep me safe. She said she did it for me as much as she did it to serve our Emperor.

I didn't understand, but who was I to question? My Emperor did not tell me no, and my parents commanded me yes; I had but one choice.

Ju continued to cough, but nothing would come out. Her disgust, her shame, her terror all amounted to nothing to her stomach, that treacherous organ that refused to give up the mixture of bodily fluids she had so greedily swallowed. She looked back up, tears welling in her eyes from the effort, and saw that the mysterious woman was finally put aside, left twitching and shaming herself further with masturbation against a pillar inside the near-featureless room. The other, mostly-naked foreigner was upon her... with a hand stretched out, and kind eyes looking her over with worry. His weapon was put away, though its outline was still clear against the fabric of his bizarre undergarments.

"Are you alright?"

Ju blinked slowly, and shook her head. She had understood him... but the language was... wrong, somehow. "Yes," she faithfully answered. A man had asked her a question, after all... even if it was a foreigner.

Even if she had just partaken in a treacherous act. Even if the Emperor would disown her, soiled as she now was.

Achievement unlocked! "... who has an insatiable love for the dead?"
You sexually engaged a corpse! This time I'm sure there are laws about that!
+100HP
+100MP
+2,000XP

John minimized the achievement window with a hasty brush of his hand. "Hey, please, don't cry," John urged, taking a knee by the trembling woman's side. Her stability read at 100%, but the warmth and life in her features only made her misery more poignant. "It's... I'm sorry, it's just that you were apparently... well, thirsty..." Right, probably not the best choice of words, John...

"I was," she sobbed. "I shame myself with this..."

John dug through his library of video game tropes, and read her description again. "Hey, uh... so you can understand me, right? So if I say Emperor..." He read it slowly. "...Xiang... feng, you can tell me who that is, right?"

She looked up at him with wide, confused eyes. "N-No, I do not."

"Huh... how about Yizhu... Aisin-?" Her eyes widened, and then shimmered with burning tears anew. "Hey, listen, whatever it is, it's alright!"

"No... my Emperor will disown me... you've... you've sullied me..."

John shook his head, not eager for a new reason to feel guilt. "No no, trust me, he's probably-" Wait, is finding out that he's probably some ancient dead guy REALLY going to help her? "Look, it's complicated... but we're... probably really far away from where you think you are... or when you are."

Ju splashed the crystal-clear water onto her face, and tried to enjoy its cool, cleansing feeling. In truth, her skin was growing just as cold.

The confusion took almost an hour to diffuse: that she was dead was somehow the easiest thing for her to accept, and that she had become a "jiangshi", an undead horror from her time, seemed like a given to her.

"... but you really won't accept that China is no longer an empire?" John leaned against the doorframe while he watched the girl bathe her face.

Her skin had grown far paler; her stability, once he told her that acting slow would keep it up, was nearly down to 45%, and her mana ticked down as she kept the number up habitually. "It is a meaningless thing to say, with all due respect, Master Newman. The Empire was the greatest in the world, and the Emperor, blessed by the spirits, would never let it fall. Should one perish, another would rise; it is the order of things."

The honorific seemed odd with how condescending her tone had become, but he let it slide: he had effectively told her the world she knew was gone, as it truly was. "... and you think I'm English?"

"You are a foreigner."

"R-Right, but you mentioned a war about opium? I'd have to wiki it - don't... don't ask - but I'm pretty sure that involved the British... and it was quite awhile ago." John huffed at that; American schooling system aside, shouldn't he know more about it? I wonder if more points in Intelligence would teach me things I don't know...? No, no, that doesn't make any sense.

"Are we... on Hong Kong?"

"We're... not in Hong Kong, or on it, or anywhere near it. We're just about on the other side of... well, we're inside my head, which is..." John rubbed his chin as he contemplated her. She only blinked at him, waiting for something sensible. "Look, I can promise you that you don't need to worry about the Empire, or your old rights, or... well, not any rights... though I guess that's an issue I keep running into..." She remained silent, but it was clear by her concern that he was only confusing her further. "The point is, you're undead, and you're not familiar with America, let alone Springfield, so I can hardly let you go out there like Tara..."

"I... don't understand."

"Well... I mean, what year do you think it is?"

"T-The year is..." Somehow, this gave her more confidence, and she managed a tight smile as she spoke, never looking John in the eye. "It is the 68th year of Daoguang, may he reign for ten thousand years."

"Eh? Well... the Gregorian calendar date, then? If you know it?" Hell, if it was even known as that, back then...

"Gre-go-ri-an?"

Realizing he'd get nowhere, John pulled up his inventory and, upon materializing his phone in his hand, turned its screen on to show it to her. "See this?"

"It's..." She neared the device, blinking as she squinted at it. "Is it... no. What is it? A lantern or...?"

"Right, so no electricity," he mumbled, putting the phone away. He materialized his Glock 777. "What about this? Do you know what this is?"

She shook her head.

Not even guns? Sure, it's nothing like a flintlock or whatever, but the general shape... Then again, maybe she was so sheltered... Hell, maybe I can't judge by any of this. Never had he so wished for internet access or signal in his temple. "Right... yeah, we're going to need a nice, long introduction to how stuff works. But right now, I don't think I can go summoning the undead until I know what the Order intends to do with me..." Ju stared at the floor, remaining silent as he looked back. "Eh, you can sleep here," he motioned to the sanctuary, "and feel free to wander the temple and speak to the others... except maybe the small, green one. Don't... Don't listen to anything he says."

"Hey!" came the squawk from down the hall.

She nodded, and took on a shade of blue as John stared at her. She breathed in deeply, despite the lack of need, and her skin returned to normal... while the remainder of her mana was spent. "You're going to need another dose," he whispered.

Now she finally dared to look him in the eye. "Please, Master Newman... spare me further ruination-!"

"You'll turn again." Her voice caught as he spoke, and she bit her lip as she realized his meaning. "Then you might attack someone else here, but fail to do so... you might end up drinking another man's... well, another rabbit-man, or the aforementioned goblin-"

"I will not willingly betray my Emperor!" The shriek in her voice took John aback, and seemed to surprise her as well. She covered her face as she turned towards the fountain, her body trembling beneath the many layers of her garment.

John felt a gulf open between him and his summon. Of course, I could just order her to do it... it'd be for her own good, this time... "So be it... but please, don't hesitate to ask if you want anything."

"I want to be returned to my Emperor."

"I... I'm sorry, but as far as I can tell, that's impossible."

She said nothing more, and to that John could only close the door to his Sanctuary, now something of an unbarred prison.

With a frustrated sigh, John stalked back into the Waypoint Chamber, and gave Alysha's twitching form a once-over. She was a pitiful sight, laying on her side and staring up at him until, as he neared, she was finally moved to get on her hands and knees and crawl to him. "Is... this what you... want...?" She could barely manage the words as she panted, and her crawling stuttered as her hands kept drifting right from the floor to her sopping sex.

John hoisted her up and onto her feet by her armpits. She was so terribly light. "No," he confessed.

"Th-" His mouth sealed hers, and he walked towards her as she struggled not to retreat, cornering her lithe body into one of the wide, inactive alcoves and bending her head up to remain against his lips. Their tongues danced, their flesh warmed one another, and her nipples dragged against him, hard and moist, joined by the friction of her pregnant mound against his crotch. He withdrew, his eyes furious, and Alysha felt herself wither before them, and yearn for more of his touch. "What... what's wrong?"

"I'm never going to get you to forgive me." Her hands drifted to his boxers, and tugged down on the elastic band of them. He popped out again, his rod slapping against her clitoris lightly as it tucked between her thighs. She nearly came from the impact alone, such was the swollen state of her genitals. "You're horny now... and you hate me even under this spell. You're just going to keep hating me, aren't you?"

"Of course I hate you, John Newman," she whispered, mismatched with those pleading, honest eyes, "and it is in my nature to never forgive even those slights that pale compared to what you've done. I will hate you until oblivion comes for me. I despise your seed, even now as my sex thirsts for it." She squeezed him as if to emphasize. Despite his desire to be taken seriously, his face flinched in that way that was almost endearing to her. "I wish for your vicious tool, but ever more will I wish for your ****, even if it condemns me."

John's fingers dug suddenly and fiercely into her ass, squeezing each cheek until he earned a pained, orgasmic cry from his ****. He hoisted her up by her bottom, lined himself with that pitifully small quim, and brutally pounded her, earning a squirt of her cum and her vicious, moaned insults as he pounded her against the stone. He drove his frustration, his futility, into the dark elf until she was left a sobbing, blissful mess, sloppily wrestling her tongue with his as their sweat dripped from their bodies. He came inside her. He came again. He flushed her innards and the font from their joining continued to pour onto the floor. Her abused cunt was swollen, aching, bruised, too sensitive for pleasure; she reveled in the feeling, and demanded more.

"Is that all you can manage, human?" Her taunt was pitiful, squealed and moaned as it was. "I am keel-vorsh'ek! You will never break me, but won't you even try to fail?"

"You're... talking alot, for someone full of my kids... you vicious... fucking...!"

She controlled him as he controlled her: the two wrestling egos wrapped inside that niche of stone as each bathed in the sweat of the other. John lost track of time, and perhaps on purpose. This vicious hate-fuck served him as did any good video game: it let him ignore the real world for a moment, and his flaws, and his enemies. He didn't have to consider the effects of his power, the people he had hurt, the people he might save to try and make up for it... the mysteries still glinting at the edges of his new world. The condition of his mother. Wentworth, and Lily, and the Extinction King.

It all fell away as he played this game, this one relief he might find in someone who hated him as much as Alysha did. She spared him nothing; he censored her not. He pounded into her with enough **** to bruise, and bruise she did; she started to take real damage, and he healed her only enough to keep her awake as the pain threatened to make her pass out.

She swung to consciousness for the second time. "Still not satisfied? Ignorant wretch... filthy degenerate... pitiful, small-dicked Master of mineeeeaaaaaaah!" He squeezed the tips of her ears... and then tugged them down, causing her body to spasm as she matted his pubic hair with every fluid that spat out of her nethers. Using her tormented ears like handlebars, he pulled her face into his, practically smashed their tongues together anew, and continued keeping her awake to exchange their fluids, their breaths, and their pain.