[Intermission] The Dark Side of the Moon

Thursday, August 3rd, 2017, 10:13AM
Fells Wargo Investment Group Building
Downtown, Springfield

The sun had risen on a mending city.

The political fallout constructed on lies would play out according to a careful script: the enemy had become negligence, even reckless negligence, and fell squarely on the shoulders of the city commissioner board for years of invented neglect of gas lines. It was a reasonable explanation for almost a straight line of catastrophic damage; it didn’t explain crushed asphalt in the shape of footprints, but those details were wiped away sooner than any of the unaware could question it.

All the same, the city of Springfield had tasted something wrong and unfathomable, and its stain was like a film of grease over a once relatively clean people.

But this was not a meeting about the fake politics. This was a meeting about the real ones.

“Your father has expressed some reservations of the liberties you’ve been taking since the calamity, and so have our accountants.” The man who spoke while staring out through reinforced glass was Wayne McCarthy, and his mild, bespectacled appearance, of plump body and wispy remains of black hair, belied the firm voice he took with the scioness of his employer. He turned to regard her with bright brown eyes that could almost shimmer with the morning sun. “We’re still in the black, but not at the rate your investigations are costing us.”

The scioness remained comfortably sunken in the oversized leather chair at the far end of the conference room table... McCarthy’s chair for meetings with anyone except this young woman.

“We have eyes all over the world looking for this boy, and we’ll have burned a million dollars by next weekend. No specialist has found him... not even those specialists. As for your other hunt, it’s all but futile: the Gorbachevs are toothless, or ‘eyeless’ I suppose,” Wayne chuckled at his own joke, “and the known ones have been detained. Why then look for this John Newman, this Warlock who-?”

The armrest on McCarthy’s favorite chair groaned under an upset grip. Despite recently upgraded HVAC in the building, the air suddenly felt… thick. Stifling. Suffocating.

McCarthy couldn’t afford to be intimidated; reminding himself of that was all he could do to keep his voice even. “Your father already negotiated a settlement with the Order, and the damages from that could go a long way if spent carefully. So please, let me fully manage the search. I will bring it to a sustainable-”

“Mr. McCarthy,” came a sweet voice that was framed by sharpened teeth.

Wayne regarded his client’s daughter while wiping his brow. He was perspiring, even in a conference room kept this cold.

Kim Moon released his favorite armrests to rest her elbows on his favorite conference table. She was dressed in her business attire: a black blazer with a matching skirt, starched white shirt, and a single, red tie. She had never worn the tie before, but Wayne recognized the expensive, velvet strap as one her father always wore to discuss matters of heritage. Wayne didn’t know Senior Moon to lend his ties to anyone. “The Moon clan has always appreciated your wisdom, discretion, and courtesy,” she calmly recited, and yet McCarthy’s perspiration turned to cold sweat. “I’m afraid that explaining the need for the depth and breadth of the search for John Newman, as I’ve specified, would go beyond your station and into matters strictly handled by me. I’m certain-”

“Your father-” McCarthy’s words were nearly strangled from him as he interrupted the Slayer. “... W-Well, he h-has expressed some-”

“My father is wise and healthy, and I cherish his advice.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “But he is not me. He does not carry my duties. The sickness I’m meant to face has spread so insidiously that we were nearly destroyed… and at the heart of its discovery… at the heart of how we survived, I’m sure of it… was John Newman. You didn’t need that explanation; you already have your orders.”

“I... I-I’m not authorized to continue-”

“Oh yes, you are,” Kim sweetly whispered as she rose from her chair, “you have ultimate authority over so many of our financial affairs and resource allocation within this financial institute. Do you know why, Mr. McCarthy?”

She began a slow lope around the table towards Wayne, who very desperately wanted to escape. “I-I’m, I’m, well, I’m the CFO for the entire branch here in-”

“Accountability.”

“What-” She cleared the table in one leap from standing and lunged towards the crony. McCarthy toppled backwards as an animal fear made him stumble in flight- but there was no escape. She stopped just short of his fallen body and then walked over him, her wide stance making her feet flank him until he laid against the ground in an illogical hope to sink into the rug until he was gone and safe. He looked up as she put her feet over his shoulders. Her skirt swayed so her sinister grin was occasionally replaced with a peek underneath; she wore nothing underneath. McCarthy’s body, trapped between arousal and mortal terror, remained bound by animal gravity to his own conference room floor.

“Because if you and your incredible resources and acquisition teams do not find John Newman... before the Order of the Golden Rose does... I only need to punish one person.” A sickening energy rolled off her and onto McCarthy until his pants grew warm. The acrid stink of his terror filled the room as quickly as it filled his pants; Moon sniffed at the air like a curious beast before her grin grew.

A droplet tapped McCarthy’s face. Then another. The smell was vaguely familiar—something from his younger days—and he realized that her sex had become a wet, glistening pocket just from the fantasy of whatever harm she envisioned... or perhaps from the odor of his pitiful state. Her eyes glistened with a hungry lust... or perhaps just hunger. Fear mounted on fear, McCarthy suddenly got the impression that she’d **** and kill him there, soiled and sweating and crying as he now was. She squatted low and his eyes screwed shut as he felt her breath on his cheek and her mouth of shark teeth opening to bite-

“You served my father well... now serve me well, McCarthy. I need to go to class now; the Academy reopens this afternoon and I can’t afford to be missed this week.” Her voice had become... human. Distant. McCarthy opened his eyes... and saw as she stood at the opened conference room door. She looked back with sealed lips in a bitter smile. A whimper filled McCarthy’s throat. “Good day, Mr. McCarthy.”

The Slayer left, and McCarthy rolled into a ball and wept with the joy of survival.

Thursday, August 3rd, 2017, 10:19AM
The Brighton Manor (undergoing renovations)
Boothe Heights, Springfield

Moira Brighton plucked the bow of her uniform until it was as airy and bouncy as the model student would have it. Her golden shield pin shined brightly under the make-up lights; her make-up was already done, but she loved the station more than even the full-sized mirror for preparing for class. She did her best to keep to her old, rote patterns; she had to live normally again, or as normal as a Warden could.

She faked her best smile in the mirror. It would work on those it needed to work on.

She rubbed her hand… and a finger freshly cleansed of a recent commitment. Her eyes grew glassy, and she demanded the tears not come lest she need to fix the make-up anew. More, it proved nothing, regardless that such bonds vanishing were almost always the result of ****. She had to hope, somehow, that he was out there.

But that wasn’t how grief worked. The tears came, and Moira would not leave her room for another hour.

Elsewhere in the house, feeling her sister’s grief from afar, Laksha strapped on her armor to prepare for her journey home. She had launched the spear with the rising of the sun; it would hit the heart of India, from which she would begin her campaign of renewed patrols and extra vigilance to make up for her absence. She couldn’t share in Moira’s grief—what little she had seen of John made it hard not to be happy Moira was finally free of him—but out of respect for her feelings, she put on the airs of grief these past few days. Laksha’s job was complete: she met her new sister, guided her back onto the path of the Warden, and did all she could to protect her. Laksha only wished their duties didn’t drive them apart, now.

Springfield was healing without the interventions of Wardens; if villains would have normally taken advantage of the weakened state of the Order, meanwhile, they had run too far and too fast from the calamity to do so. Two days later, the Order was already reinforced, the Manor was mostly rebuilt by sorcerous reconstruction, and now they only had to re-apply the enchantments that made it a fortress.

A fortress a Warlock managed to break. Laksha couldn’t recall the battle as well as she had hoped; it was a universal problem. Most everyone who was conscious recalled those moments of John and his small army taking the Order in an all-out brawl on Lord Brighton’s front lawn… and then the image of John being shot through the head. From there… something pained or ugly that the mind refused to recollect. No memory mages could mend this gap; all had simply lost a piece of their recollection, leaping from that moment of victory to wailing, naked or injured, in the wake of some monstrous thing leaving what could only be footprints the size of freighter trucks.

John Newman was not in America; the agents of the Order couldn’t find him anywhere else, either. If he had fled to a Kingdom, then it was all but a lost cause; the Order seldom ventured into those treacherous places, and so they’d rely on their bounty hunters—the select few capable of venturing into Kingdoms—to scour the known worlds. But Laksha didn’t believe they’d find him in such remote places, either; the proof was on Moira’s hand. John Newman was dead… and would possibly be succeeded by a bastard child born to an Order Hospitaler, in an odd bout of irony. Moira would be reminded of that whenever she saw her underling, Laksha realized.

I should find her a nice Indian boy… a real cosmopolitan gentleman, yeah! If I travel the largest cities, I bet I could find…

While the Wardens were left to their devices, the remainder of the Order fellows continued their patrols and meetings… including Lord Brighton in his hall, sitting at a table occupied by Cornelius and Lorelei. Cornelius was clearly drowsy with the fatigue of jetlag; Lorelei simply sat there in a sad, contemplative state.

Lord Brighton’s regenerated hands folded before his mouth as he leaned forward to look upon the reports: the facility in London had been reviewed and scoured for any influence, and none was found. The “spy” statues, however they came to be such, were replaced; the “spies” themselves, innocent as they were, returned to their duties with new prayer statues to keep their morale up. All that remained was finding a way to help his daughter mend… and to forget that strange, awful man known as John Newman.

“My Lord,” Cornelius said, “that concludes my report on our exhaustive review of the various channels of mana and recordings we were capable of producing as to the ‘incident’ and the man responsible for it.”

“Yet we still do not know that he was responsible,” Lord Brighton clarified, “only that disaster and chaos are his shadow.”

“‘Were’ his shadow, my Lord,” Cornelius humbly corrected.

“Pray let the Lady prove you wiser, Cornelius.” Lord Brighton let a long, drawn-out sigh occupy the vacuum of sound. His Knight Captains remained by the large double-doors, ready to leap to any order. Lord Brighton contemplated them… and contemplated the Blessing that kept them strong.

“Are you tired, my Lord?” Cornelius half-yawned.

“No…” Of course, Lord Brighton had never felt better: whatever the ill-conceived purpose of John’s healing of him, Lord Brighton’s oldest scars and cursed wounds had been lifted like bad dreams, guaranteeing a long life for Lord Brighton if it didn’t end at the tip of a sword. But what drained him was his daughter’s state… and his natural, curious regret over all that had transpired. “The Academy re-opens today, correct?”

“Ashcroft, my Lord? Yes, it does.”

“Please ensure we’ve someone searching for John Newman at the Academy, just in case he attempts to make contact with the Warden-”

Cornelius opened his mouth to protest, but Lord Brighton’s eyes quieted him.

“… and intercept him before he can do so and contact us.”

“Yes, my Lord. Also, his old residence has been completely warded, and his mother has been reinserted with her memory corrected.”

Corrected. Lord Brighton had to turn her into a grieving mother; he prayed John was truly dead, lest she grieve him twice after his return. To think she had nearly escaped Springfield with that smuggler… well then. With some luck, this will be the last I or anyone else here must consider that damned John Newman.

“There is the matter with the Order Lords, my Lord,” Lorelei suddenly spoke up.

Lord Brighton raised an eyebrow at his Seer. “You have seen a missive?”

“They will express doubt about all that has transpired: a Warlock who shook our home, nearly brought ruin to this family, called a calamity down with the taint of Outsiders and revealing some Gorbachev conspiracy in the process… and all in the span of a week after being discovered as a novice mage.”

“Deceit is no novel concept for our enemies,” Cornelius scoffed, “the boy was obviously more than he was taken for.”

“There are murmurs,” Lorelei whispered as she turned to face some unseen origin, “mutterings… curiosities. There are some who wonder if a Champion of Gaia could be forsaken by the Lady-”

“Then let them invest their coffers in finding this so-called Champion,” Lord Brighton darkly answered, “and perhaps they might test his divinity before I inquire as to the state he left my daughter, the things he did to my men, the lives he claimed through calamities and mischief, and the enemies of the Order he let loose from our dungeons.” Lord Brighton shifted the papers before him anxiously. “Until the Lady Herself comes down to correct me, never again suggest that this sex offender is the Champion of Gaia.”

Lorelei nodded. She had nothing left she was allowed to say.

“Alright then, Cornelius: let us discuss the construction of our expansion into Canada.”

Thursday, August 3rd, 2017, 10:49AM
Apartment 239 at Paradise Rises
Downtown, Springfield

The shower was hot and cleansing, but this too had become a place to be dirtied.

I am Vanessa Hawthorne. I am the sole daughter of Niles and Rhonda Hawthorne, heiress to the Hawthorne fortune, and queen of my high school class. I’m set to reign at Ashcroft Academy as well… and I was so damn sure of it because, well, I’m a fucking Hawthorne. Who would tell me no? I can wrap peon men around my finger like the trash they are and keep them from ever acting against me. It’s the only way to stay safe in this world: after all, men can’t be trusted.

Vanessa let the hot water set her flesh to ache; it was a decent way to overwrite the pain radiating from her ass, but that relief was brief. Large, calloused hands began to explore her body underneath the burning water. She was never allowed to shower alone, now.

Men are monsters.

Gerald’s familiar cock slid through the lips of her sex to poke out from the front of her crotch. She looked down at its purple head. He slid like this, humping her soaked thighs as if the water would serve as good lubricant. It wouldn’t.

Men are fiends.

Vanessa stared with cold eyes at the monstrous thing. Gerald had recovered from his gut punch; now in power--in unchecked, inglorious power, if only over Vanessa--Gerald’s appetites had become brutally honest. He had all but been given the blessing of the Hawthornes to **** their daughter; the father, a weak and petty politician, had no objection as the mother declared it a reasonable exchange. Vanessa could still remember the look in her mother’s eye: disgust. Disappointment. Vanessa had aired out her father’s dirty laundry--the illegal sort, involving deaths and ****--aloud and, albeit unwittingly, getting recorded saying it. Vanessa had put the entire Hawthorne Estate in jeopardy… and her mother’s comfort in peril. This was to be a lesson in discretion; a Hawthorne lesson.

But her mother was not a monster… she would be sure to “renegotiate” in a few months, and surely Vanessa would be no worse for wear, save taught another valuable lesson in that time. Unknown to Gerald, the calculating Hawthorne decided the known IUD prescription would suffice to keep her daughter from bearing any ruinous bastards in the meantime. She didn’t believe Vanessa when she said the IUD fell out; without the excuse of magic, it sounded like another convenient lie for the youngest to get her way. Vanessa didn’t bother trying to explain magic again; her earlier attempts had been treated as fantasies gone wild.

But John never did return the IUD… and so Vanessa was truly in danger, and nothing in her first nights of bucking or crying stopped Gerald from believing the truth he guessed. “I’m thinking we name it Gerald Jr. if it’s a boy… and Candy if it’s a girl,” he groaned over the hiss of the shower with an ugly, throaty chuckle, “because her momma was so sweet.”

Vanessa said nothing; no protest would buy her mercy.

“See that plug up there, in the covey?”

Her eyes drifted towards a small shelf built into the tile walls of the shower; there, along with shampoo and an old douche, sat what looked like a small buttplug.

“You’re going to wear that while you keep my cum in you. You’re going to wear it through the day, and I’ll check on you randomly; if it’s still there, I’ll leave you alone. If it’s gone, well I’ll just have to fuck fresh seed into ya.”

“Eat shit and **** on it,” Vanessa hissed.

Gerald reared back, angled his cock with a practiced precision, and shoved into Vanessa hard enough to lift her toes from the shower floor. His meaty hand covered her shrieking mouth as he stood at his full height, hoisting her fresh young body up so her feet couldn’t find the earth again. The shower poured over her eyes and nose at close range as he smothered her; with just the bucks of his waist he fucked her like that, bashing his fat cock against her precious, fertile womb as he tried to make her snug snatch remember his shape.

I am Vanessa Hawthorne. I am the sole daughter of Niles and Rhonda Hawthorne, heiress to the Hawthorne fortune, and queen of my high school class.

Gerald had never forgiven Vanessa for the alleged hitwoman she hired to punch him nearly to ****. Vanessa regretted not finishing the accidental hit job herself after that insane, mohawked woman had battered him so; her father would’ve covered it up just fine, and the political fallout would’ve been inevitable. But Vanessa wouldn’t be smelling Gerald’s dick on his fingers, or crying as water stung her eyes, or quivering as the janitor drove her down on his cock as far as she would go. Then, Gerald hooked her shoulders.

“Alright, Miss Tighty, time you get a good stretching.”

“Fuck you, fuck you-!” Vanessa whimpered as he hooked his hands under her armpits and joined them behind her head. Gripping her in a Full Nelson, he began half-squatting as he continued to shove her down with the might of a laborer. She howled and panicked, but not so loud as to attract the unwanted attention of a neighbor; it wouldn’t save her and instead be even more humiliation. It didn’t matter how good a soul lived in the apartments nearby; the mobsters on Hawthorne’s payroll would be all the intimidation such people needed. I’m Vanessa Hawthorne...

“Yeah, get in there,” Gerald grunted as he flexed again. Vanessa’s vagina was stretched taut, but the pressure against her womb was arousing enough to let it expand; slowly, the last few inches began to slide in, and Vanessa continued to shiver and ache as Gerald got his wish. His bushy pubes scratched her clean muff—he ordered her to do it, lest he do it with his own, rusty razors—until finally they were flattened as the two were fully joined. “Fuck yeah… oh, I’m going to nut, oh God, you little rich bitch, you ready to be a momma yet? Too bad,” Gerald grunted as he didn’t wait for an answer.

John Newman was killed in that freak accident that rocked Springfield to its core… but Vanessa couldn’t accept it. He had to still be alive… and had to be happy to leave her to her fate, if he even knew. John owed her, as far as Vanessa was concerned… but she had no power to claim that debt. He was a man who had used her and abandoned her, as far as she saw it; he had been a exemplary man, then, just like the monster ravaging her in his shitty apartment where she was now **** to live. The choices were limited, then; there was no path to hope through John, or anyone else in her life.

I am Vanessa Hawthorne. I am the sole daughter of Niles and Rhonda Hawthorne, heiress to the Hawthorne fortune, and queen of my high school class…

Gerald lifted her slowly to let his seed build up in her stretched canal instead of risking it overflowing. Holding her by the waist to do so, he let his other hand stumble towards the plug as he continued to shake with his orgasm. But Gerald was a man of objectives; he managed it with enough grace to bring it to her snatch. The moment he felt the open air on the tip of his cock, he shoved the plug in to the hilt, leaving four inches of shaped rubber to trap his seed inside her. He finally let her feet find the floor and then caught her as she began to collapse.

“Now now, girlie, just a moment.” He unscrewed the bottom of the plug and drew out the various, long leather straps it came with. Slowly he unwound them and lifted them to Vanessa’s shoulders, drawing them over her belly, between her tits, over her shoulders and down into her ass crack until he secured it with a reef knot. The plug’s straps were stiff and unaccommodating; as he desired, Vanessa had no doubt. “Good, good… now get cleaned up and ready for school! Don’t want to be late… else I’ll give you the punishments the Academy’s too scared to do.”

I am Vanessa Hawthorne. I am the sole daughter of Niles and Rhonda Hawthorne, heiress to the Hawthorne fortune, and… and… why is this happening to me?