John hasn't even had lunch yet.

John looked away from the remnants of the enemy, and over to the settling dust around Tricia. No longer obfuscated by Yarrick's tactics, the remains of the academy were made clear: a pot-holed plain of ash, without a single interruption of upright debris remaining. The Academy had not vanished into a desert so much as it had become a desert, of black sands and the heat of Gorbachev attacks rippling the air above them even after her barrage had ended. John blinked out of Fairy's hands and near the girl, who slowly began to lower to the ground. She no longer had any visible Eyes, save the two that humans tended to have... and she regarded him with a wrinkled smile and glassy eyes. "I thought... you were... dead-" John lunged forward as her feet touched the ground with only the slightest support from her knees. She collapsed there in his arms, naked and . John looked her over, and brushed a few burnt locks of hair from her ash-dirtied face. Why... was she so concerned about me, anyways...? John felt arrogant to think that their one encounter might've given her that relationship score, or made him such an object of-

"Newman!" John's eyes drifted from Tricia's face, and to the chastity belt and decency-saving shield held before Moira's breasts. Whatever wounds she had were sealed, though the dust-coagulated blood still stuck to her legs and arms where visible. Her face trembled as she struggled with her predicament, stripped naked by Yarrick's attacks save for the shield and steel underwear. "Did you...?" It took him a moment to realize she wasn't still harping on about the girl in his arms. Her eyes were hard... but devoid of anger. He nodded solemnly, and she returned the same. "You did well, mage... and you shouldn't feel pride or shame for what you did. There was no way someone like that could be tolerated to live, and continue killing the way he meant to."

John weighed her words before replying. "Would you treat all smugglers like that? Is there no solution, but , that your Order can offer?"

Moira's eyes narrowed. She seemed more insulted than, as John had expected, ashamed. "We punish based on necessity and crime... and a warrior that powerful and working directly against our interests could not be tolerated." She looked about as the outermost shards of the trap barrier began to fall, revealing only light. A piece cracked and dissipated from the floor, revealing only a few centimeters of the cafeteria floor, presumably the ruins of which they currently stood upon.

Trap barrier will collapse in 90 seconds.

The second alarm popped up, and John dismissed it with a handwave. "I'm going to drop us off at the fourth floor. I have the last free, living smuggler there... and I really don't have anywhere to keep him, much less try to change his ways or hide him from anyone who might want him. He's nothing like the swordsman... so can you promise I'm not handing him over to you for a needless ?"

Moira thought to draw near, but her exposed state stayed her feet. "If it means getting out of here faster, then I promise to tell my father of your wishes. That is all I can do, as Warden." John nodded, and opened a peep-hole tunnel to verify that it was safe before walking towards Moira. The paladin grew a shade redder and cowered behind her shield. "W-Wait, surely you don't need to get any closer, not while I'm like thi-" The long and narrow tunnel opened, and John, cradling Tricia, fell through one end of it landing on his feet, while Moira fell through the other side onto her bare ass. John landed just before the stall where he had left the mage, leaving the other end of the portal over the stall itself-

"I'm taking a dump."

"AAAAAAH!"

John flinched as the Warden's scream promised to bring more attention to the isolated men's room. "Moira, pipe down! Rurik, I order you to follow Moira's instructions from now on!"

"As you command."

<Fairy, just blink out of this bathroom and stay somewhere safe, but close, in case I need to return in a hurry.>

<What, you're going to come back to school? After all THAT?>

"Get me out- get off of- gah- NEWMAN, HOW DARE YOU-... Newman?!" Moira opened the stall, unsure whether it was less safe to expose her bare ass to the bathroom or to the dazed, filthy mage that broke her very naked fall. She resolved to not expose herself to even more strangers and peeked around, finding the bathroom empty. Neither John nor Tricia remained; the mage had abandoned her. "Newman, you wretched-!"

"Are you Moira?" The paladin nearly fell out of the stall as the smuggler spoke, and so began her troublesome process of transporting her new prisoner. Elsewhere in the school, Collide made their smooth exit, eluding the paladin's watch once again...

*

John wasn't sure how magical tracking worked, other than how Wentworth had apparently found him that one, terrifying morning, but he knew enough about proxying his internet connections to know he shouldn't tunnel straight into the Gorbachev's underground home. A few more safe, peep-hole tunnels and jumps later, he eventually did finally reach her domain, appearing just before her bed, the feature of her lab he managed to remember the best. The drones turned to observe him, obviously alarmed and ready to gun him down until they identified him. Glad she didn't take back that security clearance... John swallowed hard and laid Tricia on her sheets, flattening her legs and arms until she seemed in a fairly comfortable position. She was clean, he finally realized; working in the dust had left his clothes and armor in need of a wash, but nothing of the illusion barrier seemed to stick to her; a curiosity he would have to explore later. Idly he sat by her bed, slowing his breath while he considered his interface. He went to the paragon menu when a small, crane game-like drone passed by and, with the help of two similar drones, turned Tricia's head. What is that? John eyed a small, simple crystal device on her neck, kept there by a choker he hadn't bothered to question until now. The crystal was all but shattered inside its fixture, and the drones made small welding cuts into the choker links before lifting off and away with it. He gave it a scan, and found that the crystal itself was her suppression suit... now with the "BROKEN" status. The drone itself, identified as a repair drone, vanished into a hole in the ceiling, and so went Tricia's only protection from John.

He wasn't going to do anything, of course; seeing her here, barely escaping , he remembered that his old panty quest was what put him in this situation in the first place. The last hours, or thirty minutes by real time's measure, started to wear on John. He wanted a rest, his sleep immunity be damned. Unconsciously he started to scan Tricia, staring at her near-translucent skin, her bald pubic mound, the flatness of her belly, the perky shape of her breasts, her frail, neck, her wide-eyed stare-

John flinched as he realized she was awake, and fully aware of his ogling. "T-Tricia! Sorry, I-I was..." John fell silent, and finally looked away. "I'm sorry... this was my fault." Tricia blinked up at the man in her bed, the one she had suppressed fantasies over... and squeezed her thighs before sitting up to lunge onto John. She was rewarded with a cloud of dust, and was sent reeling back in a coughing fit. John looked back at her, bewildered. "Wh-What-"

By the time he looked, she was balled up into a fetal position and facing the other side of the bed. "My drones will clean your clothes and other accessories with 100% accuracy. No harm will come to them. Remove them, p-please." Her voice cracked slightly, and she remained turned away from him. She was embarrassed by her nudity, John concluded, and his presence around her. Embarrassed in turn, he complied and started to remove his vest. Out of sight, Tricia continued to squeeze her thighs together and steepled her hands to keep them from touching herself as she drooled slightly. Her drones were repairing her suppression suit; it was the only way the choker would've come off so cleanly. She just had to hold out until then... and given what had transpired, that should be easy. She cursed herself for not easily containing these base, overflowing emotions, but surely she could manage-

She peeked over her shoulder, and saw his bare back as he worked to remove his pants. She turned away, terrified that her heart would explode. "I really am sorry... I didn't mean to bring this kind of trouble to you. One of the Smugglers mentioned everything they knew about me, when you helped me. This... this was my fault." Shame laced his words, all while he remained unaware of Tricia's true struggle, this close to their near- experience.

"Manual c-command activate. Voice command mode until-til restoration of standard protocol." The drones all blinked purple in unison. "Network: f-full safe cleanse of John Newman's... wear."

John watched as a fleet of drones vanished his equipment. "I... I've been trying to think of what to tell you, in case... in case they had hurt you, because of me-"

"J-John..." She squeezed her eyes and bit her lip, still turned away from him.

"Yes, Tricia?"

"I... I'll... b-be o...kay..." John winced as he stared at her bare back. Even with his suppressed libido, hers was a tempting form; the guilt of it, after all she had been through, ate at him even as he sat in his (barely) clean boxers. She looked over her shoulder, and made a noise John didn't quite understand. "... j-just... remove your b-boxers... please..."

The Gamer blinked at her, and the brief, perverted snort that followed her words. Understanding came quickly, with that. "Tr... Tricia... before Fairy knocked you out, you were... um... acting pretty strangely..." She was acting like she was ready to fuck then and there, he thought to himself, but maybe I'm just being a pervert-

Tricia spun about and grabbed onto him... and he barely budged as she weakly tried to pull him back onto the bed. She swooned, still dizzy from her excursion, and now that she got moving John finally realized from where that familiar smell came. "John... I thought... I lost... John," she muttered into his shoulder, still hopelessly clinging to his neck with her arms, still with him sitting upright and dumbfounded, "I'm... I'm a monster..."

"N-No-"

"I am, you stupid, stupid jerk... you stupid, sexy jerk..." John continued staring at her from the corner of his wide eyes, stunned as he watched her RS tick up. "I want... and I have to not... I can't want anything, because then I'll... I'll overflow... and do something awful..." John slowly turned on the bed, stretching his arms around her but hesitant to embrace the shivering, horny scientist clinging to him. They were decidedly past the point of hesitating on such things, he realized, and so returned her embrace softly. "... I... I don't want to hurt anyone ever again... and I don't want you to be at risk because of-"

"Tricia," John interrupted, "I'm sorry... this is also my fault." She finally looked up, her eyes glassy, her thighs slowly moving to mount his bent knee as he straddled her bed. "I... I have this power now, that makes people below my level like me more. This is my fault... this isn't how you really feel-"

"I've wanted you since Tuesday!" she yelled, startling John. He looked down past her embracing arms at her hips as they swayed... as she humped against him. "I... God, I thought... I thought you'd keep g-going... I was so afraid... but so excited... I never felt like this before, and I know... I know I never got out of my suit before, and you don't think this is real, but... but-hnng!" John stood perfectly still as she came on his leg, without aphrodisiac, without augmentations... without any real effort on John's part to even try to court her, their sexual encounter aside.

But she summed it up well enough. "So you only feel this way because... you've never been with someone without that suit running at full blast? I mean, the level it was suppressing you..."

"Controlling emotions wuh... was paramount. Odd fixations and emotional instability from not dealing with... them, was inevitable," she slowly muttered as she recovered from her orgasm, "but worth keeping everyone safe. But even with the suit, I knew I... I wanted you... and I was so scared of hurting you... of doing something bad... but... but then you..." She bit on his shoulder suddenly and viciously.

-1hp

John flinched, but said nothing. She left no marks, and he recovered the health immediately. "Why Vanessa?! Why any of those other... it's not fair. They're normal... they get to love you, and I...!"

"Tricia... I mean, I'm not against having you, but I'm kind of dealing with a lot of-"

"Having?"

John froze up. Did... did I say having? I meant dating... didn't I say dating? "I-I meant-"

"You want to have me?" Her hand drifted down and into his boxers, where his monstrous meat was already bent and tucked mostly out of sight. With her stirring the beast, it could no longer be hidden, and sprang forth in her hand as she wrapped her fingers around its head. "Would you give Vanessa up, if you... had me?" She rubbed herself onto his leg, now slick with her juices, before softly pushing him onto his back. "If I was... if I gave you... everything... would I have you?" Her breaths were ragged as she switched to sitting on his cock, pointing it at him while her labia split on his shaft. She flinched as her body shivered from the stimulation, and she looked down, scared and excited and seemingly losing control of herself, exactly as she feared. He stared down at this, and tried his best to access all his Wisdom to get past this moment of temptation as she needily humped the base of his manhood.