A Fight To The Breath

Celeste

The foe was hung with care.

I took him into my lab on the second floor where that traitor Daliah lay. I spared her a glance, trying to unweave the treachery that had played out between the two. She laid strapped to a gurney, surrounded by thermal potions. Her head lolled about unconsciously. It seemed more humane to keep her in a coma than to be awake for the monotony of her sentence. She was sweating heavily, endlessly, each drop producing a very expensive potion, of which I was quickly becoming well stocked.

This had been the most incredible discovery of my life and the truth of it somehow escaped me. She was acting as an alchemist’s familiar, only instead of being the size of a small finger, she was human sized with big human sized sweat glands.

It was incredible! I could dissect her, take them out, study them, and she’d seal herself back up, and regrow the glands. And I did, to no avail. They had to be connected to her for the phenomenon to continue.

Luckily she was bathed in healing sweat and could recover from whatever experiment I inflicted upon her.

It’d been a very exciting month.

But not a productive one.

Unless you count the major stockpile of exceedingly rare and expensive potions I’d gathered.

I suspected if I fed her a new potion she would begin producing that one as well. However until I understood the phenomenon I dared not try. The potential of losing what I already had was unacceptable.

It was greedy thinking, to lose what I gained with almost no effort. Alas I am yet mortal, and base animals desire what they will. Besides, the fear was real. This phenomenon could have easily been the intervention of a god, in fact I was growing more sure of it. It refused to be studied, or quantified. This meant it was subject to a capricious will that could very well take it away if I prodded too much.

Just another reason to be an atheist.

The foe, the alchemist, Herald if that was his real name, would not benefit from my mercy so much as the treacherous Daliah had. He would live though, for a time. He’d either identified or created something awfully interesting in my clerk that even I had not seen. That demanded exploration.

So much in life did. The whole of the universe was a strange, bloated body that demanded dissection. Humanity would do it, bit by bit throughout the ages, and I was lucky to have many more years to give to this ****.

Many more years indeed.

I injected my guest with a bit of truth serum and waited patiently for his consciousness to return. The two were not connected mind you, I just feel like my use of language there could have caused a layman to make inaccurate conclusions.

No. The subject awoke at his own pace, system already primed for the interrogation that was to come.

“It’s been twenty minutes.” I told him as consciousness was confirmed. From there I observed him. This was a man who had been taken prisoner many times, perhaps in strange dungeons such as mine. He instantly looked around, making mental notes of exits, tools, and his own restraints.

I felt violated, dissected myself. I now questioned the wisdom of bringing him into my lab. Who knew what secrets his hungry eyes would pick up?

Well, we have adages about dead men and secrets for a reason.

“Are you behind the thefts from my store?”

“No.” He answered quickly, the familiar vomit if a man under the effects of truth serum.

It was a surprising answer, because Daliah had already revealed that he was during her interrogation. I thought about it for a moment a nice little puzzle. Then it came to me. “Did you instruct Daliah to steal from me?”

“Yes.”

I smiled at him, and you’ve got to love it, he smiled back. This was such a liar he could navigate the cracks in my questions to avoid answering them.

Impressive.

"Why?"

"To help her learn alchemy.”

"Why were you helping her with alchemy?" I press.

"Because you weren't."

"What did you have to gain from helping her?"

"Her loyalty."

"Once you had her loyalty, what use was she to you?"

"As a spy?"

"A spy against me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because she worked in your store." This was getting frustrating.

"Why would you spy against me?”

"You're the other alchemist in town."

"Why is that important?"

"It makes you my opponent."

"Were you aware I'm a 3 star?"

"No."

"Would you have gone against me if you did know?"

"Probably not."

I tapped my chin, thinking. "Are you aware of Daliah's ability?"

"Yes."

"Did you give it to her?"

"Yes." Answering that question hurt him. I was on to something...

"If she drinks a new potion will she begin to produce that one?"

"Yes."

My heart skipped a beat. I was about to become a very powerful woman indeed.

"Could you give this power to others?"

"I don't know."

"How did you do it?”

"I picked it from the options presented to me."

"Who presented..." I was momentarily dazed by the smell of something foul. My whole nervous system became alight with a burning sensation. My concentration broken I turned my head and saw some kind of yellow smoke rolling in from under the door. I looked to the prisoner and then the door. I rushed to the door and broke a seal of liquid I had had in the door frame. The liquid gushed down the frame and interacted with a ward I had installed. A faint wafting barrier shimmered along the door that would difuse any gas from entering or leaving. I usually used it to stop myself from killing everyone in the store with my experiments, but it also worked from the outside.

It was, however, too late.

I bent down to inhale the gas that had made it through, confident that my stars would diffuse whatever was in the gas. They could protect me from, but they could not stop the smell.

It was a reeking animal musk of some kind. Sharp and dirty. The moment I inhaled the scent it went burning through my skull. My eyes, my nose, my mouth, they all watered **** to protect me from the burning I now felt in my very being. Even my sex began to burn. It was pheromones I realized my brain broke apart the compounds and found them organic, dreadfully organic.

It was too much.

It was all I could smell, all I could taste, all I could see. My brain was firing off in a million confused directions deciphering and shrieking at the dreadful smell. I recoiled covering my nose. Like an animal I lashed out. I had to stop smelling it.

I concentrated and removed my Enhanced Smell from my equipped stars.

For a brief moment I was mortal again. I felt weak, slow, powerless, my body aged at it's normal pace for a few seconds, like the very atmosphere of the planet was poisonous to me without my stars.

It was in that moment that the door was kicked open, and the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen charged through it... naked.

My sex clenched in interest, and that error nearly cost me my life. Before I could react she was on me, punching me, hurting me.

She jabbed her hand forward like a spear head into my gut. She was displeased to find that even without my stars I was something more than human. He hand bounced off, but she recoved. She threw fists into my rock hard body next. Each punch hard enough to shatter bones, but not hard enough to break my skin. Her hits thundered in, each one knocking me off balance, breaking the concentration I needed to replace my star.

She soon adaped with a mighty shove she sent me flying against a wall, then with a jump she kicked at the chains holding the alchemist, and freed him.

Was this that blonde girl he hung around? I knew she was powerful but...

No the breasts were smaller, and her form was far more beautiful. Perfect even. She looked so authoritative, so wise. This was an old being, three stars at least and definetly my elder. What an admirable weapon.

I shook my head. Why was I thinking this?

"We need the girl." The alchemist said, to his liberator. He looked as surprised to see the blonde honey badger as I was, but he knew how to take an opprotunity.

So did I.

I slotted a new star into place, and was restored to my full capacity.

I launched myself forward, as the assaliant launched herself towards Daliah.

All it took was a brush of my fingers against her cape. "Touch of Midas 3 Stars!"

A wave of golde over took her cape, turning fabric into solid metal. She stumbled forwad the weight of the world suddenly on her back. She crashed into Daliah's gurney, ripping introvenous tubes and needles from the girls' body. It healed immediately.

"Wait for it." I said, watching the woman struggle to remove the cape. Then in an eruption of peeling metal and shattering shards, a rainbow of crystals erupted from the cape, impailing the woman deeply.

She cried out in pain, and even that looked beautiful. I'd never been much of a sadist, but suffering looked good on her.

The alchemist acted wisely if not heroically, and ran for it, leaving both the women behind. Whether it was planning or sheer dumb luck, I couldn't leave my elder here to recover. I'd have to track him down later. How many lives did this boy have?

My head was feeling woozy, my loins burned. Even without my enhanced smell the stink of this woman, her blinding musk was making it hard to focus, see, hear. I was realizing that this wasn't a poison. It was pheremones. I was helpless to them.

Daliah was moaning to herself, aroused even while in a coma.

What was this woman?

Whatever she was I was quickly losing sight of her as this steam billowed up from her armpits, the mist hanging heavy in the room now.

Come on, bleed out. She tried to remove the cape, but the knot was solid gold now. Gold is a very soft material, and with three stars she may have very well broken free. But my Midas touch is also capable of enforcing the strength of gold. Making it hard as steel.

Normally I would use my Poison Breath Star to end this fight. But Daliah was in the room and she was worth more than her weight in gold.

I'd have to claw this woman, and get close to her.

Closer.

I steeled myself, and drew forward.

The proximity made it easier to see her, and I could tell she was close to ****. Her beauty had faded a great deal, and yet. I thought it might be pleasureable to kiss her before the kill...

I leaned forward, determined to cut her instead, when she opened her mouth wide.

Very wide, like a snake.

I saw with a grotesque fascination a head emerge from her mouth, her own head. Like a snake shedding it's skin she crawled out of her own mouth. Her bones liquid or plastic enough to slip through the knot of her now gold cape and pull free. It was a disgusting sight, utterly alien and inhuman. Yet it couldn't look away. She somehow made it look attractive, or enticing. It was rebirth. Oroboros, eternal life.

Rather than cut her with my nail, and poison her, I caught her and pulled her free her discarded skin. Like a midwife I ran my hand along her body, no sign of the impaling marks of the crystals. They'd healed completely.

Then she was gorgeous again. More gorgeous. Stunningly painfully gorgeous and I lurched forward to kiss her slime covered lips. She happily accepted. It's not that I forgot the danger, it's that it made everything so much more erotic and intense. Life and ****, and pleasure.

I pressed my mouth to her's and activated my poison breath. Breathing just a small amount of my toxin into her lungs.

Fair is fair, my lungs were swimming with her toxin.

She gasped as she felt it enter her body. "I have poison immunity." Despite this she pushed herself into my, her hands ripping at my clothing fondling my hard body.

I'm sure she did.

I doubt she had it at level 3 potency. A base level of poison immunity will save you from just about every poison found naturally in the world. Or those made by man. Very few people bothered to enhance it's potency and instead made it do other things for them instead. It was an understandable mistake. Yet it's one many of my opponents made, and I was always so upfront about being a poison specialist.

"What I gave you is slow acting." I assured her. "Fifteen minutes before your organs start shutting down. Time enough to..." I took her hand and lowered it down to my swollen sex. Her fingers penetrated me, and I came.

I'd never so sensitive before to come from just...

I came again...

My body convulsed, it pumped endorphins into my body beyond my control, my brain went haywire.

I came again...

The vaults of my memory were thrown open, every erotic thought or memory I had in my life flashed through my eyes...

I came again...

again...

again...

I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came, I came.

I passed out and I'm sure I came some more.