'She Who Dares Wins'

Synopsis:

A game is about to begin; and there will be two players.

They are not powerful mages,
They are not talented in any form in marital arts or in the use of conventional weapons,
And There are many things stronger and bigger than they are…
But it’s not about the cards you are dealt; it’s how you play the hand.

Both are skilled in deception and manipulation. They solve problems with lateral thinking and let the suckers do the dirty work, and Felarya is filled with suckers just asking to made fools of, or indeed food. It’s bad enough with just one of those running around, imagine what would happen if two such forces were to collide.

One is a mysterious being living in social isolation in the wild. She has decided to target humanity over some vendetta that is understood only to herself and has spent years observing them in order to plan ways of making their existence hell. She uses a few inherited defensive abilities that can’t harm people in the conventional way, but are lethal in luring the targets into situations where she has the upper hand.

Negav has tasked one of their hunter consultants to aid them into the capture of this “hostile” that is malicious enough to be a security concern. This consultant is a member of the civil service; she is a blend of sophistication and ruthlessness.
She professionalizes in capturing sentient predators, the best tactic being to wait at a distance and use others distract them before closing in with a well-laid trap. Of course most people won’t be willing to risk their lives for her benefit, that’s why she mostly does it without their consent.
She uses defensive gadgets to keep herself out of trouble and has a few connections to get them. But she isn’t rich or powerful enough to get everything and has to mostly improvise with what she can afford or what she can coax her benefactors into lending.

Can one outwit the other? Or will they be stuck in a constant psychological arms race as they adapt and counter adapt their plans to catch the other one out?

Who will suffer from the collateral damage when these two minds compete and their game escalates into anarchy?

One thing is certain. In this game of survival of the fittest,
She who is confined to predicable behavior, loses
And she who dares, wins…

Oof, I could see this being a really intrepid story. Normally blurbs don't interest me but this one is pretty damn captivating. It's an almost Sherlock/Moriarty-esque contest, one of wits and working outside the law to achieve their goals. Look forward to reading it!

This is certainly a very intriguing introduction
I can't wait to see more about it ^^

Warning: ‘She Who Dares Wins’ is a Black comedy, fantasy thriller with erotic elements. It explores what lengths a calculative mind would go to defeat an equally calculative mind, and the confliction of morality involved. Therefore it goes without saying that anything that doesn’t conform to the ideals of your morality (whatever it may be) could and most likely will happen...

...And I do mean anything…

Naming everything could take forever. So If there is ANYTHING about Felarya that you find offensive, be it scenes of vore, cruelty or sexual overtones (to name a few) it very likely will turn up at some point, often in the traditional Felarya humor (or at least my interpretation of it) If you don’t like the sound of that, then don’t read (Ya Wuss!)

The rest you, Enjoy!

All characters and events in this story are fictional and any resemblance to any living persons alive or dead would be really weird!

I have created all main characters; any characters that aren’t mine have their creators credited in the respective chapters that they appear in
Felarya was created by Karbo

‘She Who Dares Wins’

Chapter One: Sophisticated Predator

Gareth regained consciousness, realizing he was no longer in the bed he remembered falling asleep in. He wasn’t in a bed at all, the surface was fairly firm, his bare skin was tickled by what felt like grass, and he could sense that distinct scent of earth. Everything was fairly silent, save for the jingling of what sounded like tiny bells. He laid on his side, His knees were brought up to his chest in a sort of fetal position, but his arms strangely enough were ridged and went straight along his sides. He was sure the one he was directly laying on has gone numb, why would he pose his arms so unnaturally? He tried moving them to find that he couldn’t.

“…What the…?”

He opened his eyes and tried to get up, finding it quite hard because his arms felt like they were strapped to his body. While he fought, he heard more jingling of bells that seemed to resonate with his body movements.

“Shit!...”

Gareth with great difficulty managed to sit upright and have a good look around him. He realized he was in the forest, wearing only his boxers and tied up with rope wrapped tightly around his torso and arms, binding them together. He seemed to be sitting in a small clearing, and so some amount of light dimly illuminated the area where he sat. The trees got really dark beyond the clearing, he couldn’t see far beyond them. The tree’s trunks were huge and looked deathly pale, almost as if they were painted white. He became nervous at the realization of the fact that because he was in a clearing, it meant that his location stuck out like a street lamp.

“This is not right.”

His legs were unbound, so he tried to get up. As he got onto his knees he felt resistance pulling him back, preventing from him from fully standing up. And again the sound of bells was heard. He glanced behind him and saw a leash like rope, one end was hooked to the back of the bonds that restrained him and the other was hooked to a metal stake with a circular hook ring. The stake was hammered firmly into the ground binding him to it. Tied along this leash were a dozen tiny cat bells that jingled when his movements vibrated the leash. Gareth started thrusting himself forwards as hard as he could, trying to break the stake from the earth using his weight. But it wouldn’t budge and all he managed to do was make bells ring even louder. Realizing this he quickly sat back down and tried to be very still.

“Gods, no” Gareth whispered, slowly raising his legs and rested his forehead on his bare knees. “Please Gods, not this.”

More jingling came from his right. He turned his gaze and saw another man slowly stir and struggled to sit up. He was tied up in the exact same way he was, bells and all. Also like Gareth, this guy lacked clothing, with only a pair of Y-fronts to save any dignity he had left. He was slightly chubbier than Gareth, but not fully fat. Though it seem like he was losing the battle against baldness.

“Where am I?!” blurted the man sitting up, overwhelmed with panic while he struggled to free himself, setting the bells ringing like crazy. “WHERE THE HELL AM I!?”

“Ssssssssh!” Gareth hissed at the man, his voice barely audible over the frenzied yelling.

“HELP! HELP! SOMEONE HELP MEEEEE!”

“SHUT THE HELL UP!” Gareth shouted at him.

“HOLY SHIT!” The other man leaped out of his skin and feel to his side, “How long have you been there? Jeez don’t scare me like that, there was no need to shout!”

The other man took a moment to right himself again. Once he was back sitting up, he started to hyperventilate.

“Okay, calm down” Gareth said, keeping his voice calm and quiet. “Panicking won’t help us, so lets just slow things down, take a few big breaths and we can start work out what’s going on.”

The man did as advised and controlled his breathing, taking several big breaths before he was able to breath as normal.

“Who are you?” the man asked when he was able to, his voice weak.

“Ugh…I’m Gareth, and you?”

“Colin” the worried man squeaked. “Where are we? What is going on?”

“Well obviously we’ve been kidnapped”

“KIDNAPPED?!”

“Keep it down, you fool!” Gareth hushed.

“Sorry” Colin whispered

“Okay, let’s figure this out” Gareth said. “What was the last thing you remember before waking up?”

“I was…” Colin said trying to recall, “…I was…ugh…asleep! Yeah, I remember arriving at a hotel and I had settled for the night after having a meal. Then I woke up here”

“Hmmm, I did the same thing at an Inn.” Gareth mused in thought. “So they must had slipped us something in our food and then took us during the night.”

“Why would anyone kidnap us and just leave us here of all places?” Colin asked.

“Haven’t you worked that out? Look at the bells,” Gareth said gesturing behind him with his head. “They’ve left us here for the wildlife to take care of.”

“Oh no!” Colin exclaimed, starting to panic again. “No! No no no no no no no! God no!”

“Oh for Minalca’s sake!” Gareth said rolling his eyes and covering his face with his raised knees.

“What does it matter?” Colin sobbed. “We are screwed anyway! No one knows we are out here and it’s just a matter of time before something comes along!”

Gareth ignored Colin, glancing over the place, looking for anything familiar or indeed anything to identify where they were. He then looked upwards; his face went pale and his eyes widened. He looked down quickly before Colin saw his face.

“I think we are in Dridder Forest.” Gareth said, slowly and calmly.

“Dridlery what? I don’t know where that is. You know the area well?”

“Not really, but something tells me that’s where we are.” Gareth said.

Gareth decided it was best not to frighten Colin by telling him that forty feet above their heads, gently swaying back and forth, upside down from the extended branches, were a dozen webbed sacks. Skeletal remains clothed in ragged clothing stuck out from them.

“Why me?” Colin continued to weep. “I was only on this world as part of an business trip. I only arrived at the city last night! Why would anyone go for me?”

“Can’t say I understand why I am here either” said Gareth. “I am a local librarian. I only deal in books. I avoid places like this like the plague. What crime did I commit to justify this?”

“Maybe someone was really overdue and didn’t feel like paying up” Colin gave a small giggle as he wiped his eyes on his knees.

“You are really easy to amuse aren’t you?” Gareth said. “Well if we really are screwed, we might as well make the most of it. Know any good jokes?”

“Jokes?”

“Yeah, lets at least try to lighten the situation. Come on, what have we got to lose?”

Colin paused to think.

“Okay, I got one!”

He cleared his throat.

“What is a Neko’s favorite color?”

“No! Don’t tell that one!” Gareth pleaded.

“Purrrrrrrrrple! Bah Hahahahahahaha!”

Gareth just stared at him, his face filled with disbelief and disgust.

“I thought we were telling jokes,” Gareth said mirthlessly once Colin stopped laughing. “Not trying to give each other a brain hemorrhage.”

“Well okay Mr. hotshot! You try telling a good joke then!” Colin said defensively.

“Okay, once there was this…Oooooooh Shit.”

“There was a shit?”

“No!” Gareth gasped with fear as stared ahead of him. “I mean, Oooooooh Shit.”

Puzzled, Colin looked to the direction Gareth was fixated on.

“Oooooooh Shit.”

A Weaver Dridder had just wondered out of the forest just a head of them. The creature wasn’t a giant, but at nine feet tall she still looked pretty intimidating to the two men, and now the webbed sacks of left overs made sense. The Dridder’s hair was a very dark purple, her skin a whitish grey.  Around her neck was a necklace of some kind; the pendent was a large green stone that rested neatly between her swollen naked breasts. She stared at the men with her crazed dark blue eyes. She was panting in excitement at the feast before her, her chest raising and descending rapidly with each breath. Her mouth was gaped open, the tongue stuck out with a string of saliva dangling from it. Her hands were shaking with anticipation.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! They’ve given me double helpings this time!” She said, smacking her lips.

The Dridder started to crawl towards the meal prepared for her, not running towards them as there was no need, but she still moved at a fairly quick pace, getting more ecstatic as she got nearer. She wasn’t the only one getting erratic in behavior…

“ARRRRGGGGHHHH! SPIDERSPIDERSPIDERSPIDERSPIDER!” Colin screamed over and over, losing himself to hysteria.  

Gareth and Colin struggled to their knees, turned away from the Dridder and desperately tried to use their full body weight to pull at the rope that tied them down, praying to any otherworldly force that might be watching that the stake would give and break free from the earth. But the only thing they managed was to make the bells ring more frantically.

“I love the sound those ringing things make!” She exclaimed, licking her lips, “Ring, ring, ringly ringly, ring, ring! Hehehe!”

The men looked over their shoulders and saw that she was closing in on them.

“NO! NO! NO!” Colin Screamed as he wet himself. “NOT ME! NOT ME! I AM NOT EVEN SURPOSSED TO BE HERE! GOD YOU BASTARD!”

The two men closed their eyes and waited for the painful death that was moments away. Then there was a small bang.

“Eh?” The Dridder stopped suddenly, confused.

Her under courage felt weird, like it was warm and gooey.

“What the...?”

She looked down and saw that there was a large amount of slimy and sticky bright blue substance stuck to her undercarriage and legs, it had slatted all underneath her. Large stands of the glue had already attached itself to her and the ground.

“Ewwwwwwwww!”

She attempted to walk out of it but the glue held her in place. The more she struggled the firmer it got, turning from a liquid to an elastic form.

“Oh, come on!” The Dridder yelled in frustration, stretching her arms out forward, trying to reach the feast only two feet from her grasp.

After a while she realized there was no use in struggling, so she sat down, her head level dropping by two feet as she did. She crossed her arms and sulked; looking longingly at the food she was so looking forward to, which was so close she could almost taste them. And they stared back at her. An awkward moment of silence followed that was only interrupted by a deep and noisy rumble coming from deep inside the Dridder’s abdomen that became more high pitched as it traveled, finally fading out at her humanoid belly.

“Well that’s just fucking great!” Colin grumbled. “We’re almost naked, a huge hungry spider woman that was supposed to eat us has got caught in something, I’ve wet my underwear, and I still have no idea what’s going on!”

Then they heard an electrical humming sound, it sounded just like a car window winding down. They looked towards the source of the sound, which came from somewhere to their left, near the edge of the clearing. And they saw a head of a person, stick out from the air itself, like some sort of portal. It appeared to be a woman, her hair short and pure white, fringe around the forehead and bangs that only just passed her jaw line; they were cut jagged, allowing a lot of movement. Her white catlike ears twitched on her head, homing in on any slightest sound. When she saw everyone turn their heads toward her she grinned, her long pointy cat canines visible. Her yellow eyes brightened.

“Salutations gentlemen! I trust you slept well? And Miss Dridder glad you could make it! You're just on time!”

One of her hands becomes visible through the weird hole in reality. In it she held a small remote. She pressed one of the buttons.
Around her a vehicle appeared, she had been in fact sitting in a cloaked car, looking out of the driver’s window. The vehicle appeared to be a hover car. A updated 4X4 that in place of wheels had what seemed like four panels that somehow forced the vehicle a foot above the ground. It didn’t look like a military vehicle, the design was sleek, but the black paintwork appeared scratched all over. The vehicle had many dents in it; all suggesting it has been well used and hasn’t had a full fix up for some time. The trunk space was fairly large, lengthening the vehicle slightly. There was no identification marks other than the custom license plate. The car was just angled that they could read the one round the back. It read 'NYAN-7I1’

The Neko climbed out of the car, and started walking toward the area where the two men and the Driddler sat.
She wore a black velvet fitted waistcoat dress that went down to her knees, the back went down slightly further giving the dress a riding up appearance up front. The waistcoat had no sleeves and had a deep V neckline, showing off cleavage that was covered by semi see through white chiffon top that she wore underneath. Hanging from her shoulder was a black leather handbag that gently bounced against her hips while she walked. A white furred tail trailed behind her from under the dress. Around her legs were long black socks that went up to her knees. And on her feet were biking boots that were firmly held to the owner’s feet by belt like straps.

The Neko stopped in front of the men, who had turned themselves to face her. She then squatted down, her face becoming level with theirs as she looked directly at them. It was obvious by now that she was munching loudly on something concealed in her mouth, a trickle of blood seeping from the corner. She swallowed what she was eating and while keeping her gaze on the men she casually wiped away the blood from her mouth with her left hand. She then licked it off her hand.

“Now then, what does an predator’s stomach and a human’s head normally have in common?” The she asked.

She looked at them expectantly, turning her gaze from Gareth to Colin and back again. They just stared back in bewilderment.

“Things go in one end and go out the other!”

The two men just exchanged looks.

“Well it was funnier than Colin’s joke!” the Neko said, standing up.

“Wait, how do you know my name?” Asked Colin, confused. “I am not sure I understand…”

“You idiot!” Gareth mumbled. “Don’t you get it? She has been watching us all this time, waiting for the spider to come out. She dragged us here to use as bait!”

“Oh good, the whole thing hasn’t traumatized you too much then.” The Neko smiled. “I guess I owe you an explanation. You see, a gang of small time assassins was using this creature to make their jobs easier. Her cave is only just beyond the trees where she came from. It seems that the assassins got too confident and started going for fairly high profile targets, so high that they were missed. So we investigated and got whisper of this Symbiosis relationship. The assassins will be held accountable for their actions when caught, but first we had to take her out, and so they sent me. We hadn’t located their hideout yet, but all I had to do was work out which way they went as they left the city, follow them, observe from afar, see how they packaged their victims for her, come back later with hostages of my own at a time when I knew she would be home, duplicate the method for myself and then wait for her to walk into the slime mine placed between her cave and you.”

“But why did you have to use us, of all people as bait?” Colin asked.

“Jeez, no need to take it so personally.” The Neko sighed. “I needed bait. Bait that would be some people of no importance, not too heavy to carry and who would alert the Driddler with their panicked voices and bickering. You two just happened to fit the bill.”

“Was taking off our clothes really necessary?” Gareth asked, gesturing his almost naked body with his head.

“Hey, I only duplicated what the assassins did to prevent the Dridder from becoming suspicious.” The Neko said defensively, “Blame them, not me.”

She reached into her handbag and pulled out a small phone and pressed a few buttons.

“Now shut up for a moment, I need to make a quick call.”

She placed the phone to her neko ear.

“’Mousetrap’ here, I am calling to inform you that you can now remove you're name from the lonely hearts pages. I have found you a woman, Your into legs, right?...Oh come on, lighten up! Yes that does mean I caught the spider.”

“Mousetrap?” Colin turned to Gareth

“A codename no doubt” Gareth said.

“Guys, guys, do you mind?” Mousetrap hissed, lowering her phone briefly. “I am on the phone! Jeez, people are so rude.”

She continued her conversation into the phone

“I reckon that we can use her cave as a hiding point for our ambush, now that I’ve drawn the Dridder out of her cave, she would had dismantled any web trappings on her way out. So our men can now get to it safely. Then once her benefactors come here with the next ‘Meal of wheels delivery’ we can catch them red handed, when faced with a solid case for banishment into the wilderness they most likely rat on the rest of the group and any friends they have to lower it to a lifetime of work in the mines. Can you hang on for a moment, I want to check something.”

Mousetrap paused for a moment and concentrated her gaze onto the Dridder’s breasts.

“What the hell are you looking at, you perv?” The Dridder asked, disgusted.

“Just noticed her breasts,” Mousetrap said into the phone, making her way back to her vehicle. “By the look of them I’d say she has already laid her young. So I will need to sort that out first. Fortunately I noticed she was about to drop when I observed her earlier and so I came prepared.”

When she got to her vehicle, she reached into the driver’s side and pulled out a huge wooden mallet.

“NOOOOO!” cried the Driddler when she saw it.

“They don’t lay anywhere near as many eggs as regular spiders,” Mousetrap said, holding the mallet with one hand and resting it against her shoulder. “So it should only take a few minutes to clear the area out.”

“Please don’t!” The Dridder begged as tears started gushing from her eyes. “Don’t hurt my babies!”

“See you when I bring the mother, nyan nyan for now.”

She places the phone back into her handbag.

“You can’t kill them!” Cried the Dridder. “They didn’t do anything, I am the one you want. So please leave them alone!”

“Hmmmmm…let me think” Mousetrap said, tossing the mallet upwards, allowing it to rotate in the air and caught the handle again when it came down. “I’ll let your babies live, if you give me that!”

She pointed at the necklace around the Dridders neck with the mallet.

“Why would you want that?” The Dridder asked. “It’s just something my mother made for me, it’s of no value to your kind!”

“It’s valuable to you” Mousetrap smiled. “I love mementos”

The Dridder stopped to think, conflicted over the choice of giving up the only thing left of her mother to save her babies.

“Okay okay okay!” She finally said, taking the necklace off and throwing it at Mousetrap, whom caught it with her spare hand.

Mousetrap reached over her head and placed the necklace around her neck, the jewelry itself being intended for a bigger creature than her meant it dangled around her stomach as apposed to her chest.

“Okay, I’ve given you what you wanted.” The Dridder said. “You better not go back on your word!”

“Chill the hell out, your babies are good as safe” Mousetrap said taking the mallet back to the car. “I’ll come back here later, pick them up and go search for a more human friendly parent that might be willing to raise them. To be really honest, I don’t get any pleasure from killing something as easy as Dridder eggs. As you may recall, I only told the higher ups I would clear your cave out. I never said anything about killing. I only got the mallet out because I wanted to see if I could trick you into handing over the necklace, I was only having a bit of fun.”

“You call that fun?.” The Dridder asked, flabbergasted “I guess now you’ll be killing me now?”

“Kill you? I don’t think so.” Mousetrap said, tossing the mallet back into the car. She then reached in and produced an orange and green plastic water gun. “No, we don’t just want you out of the way, we have lab coats that have been desperate for a Dridder guinea pig to experiment on for some time now, so why not kill two birds with one stone? So we want you alive. The best thing about you is that since you have decided to become an outcast, the Dridder community is hardly going to miss you. You are really regretting giving your boyfriends those fatal hickies now, aren’t you?”

When she reached the Dridder again she placed the water gun on the ground. She then reached into her handbag again and pulled out a small syringe with a plastic cap over the needle. She removed it and quickly dashed forward and jabbed the needle into the Dridders arm, injecting a clear liquid into her body.

“Owww!” Dridder yelled at the stinging sensation.

Mousetrap quickly withdrew the syringe, She then ducked as the Dridder attempted to grab her; the head sized palm barely touched the tips of Mousetrap’s cat ears.

“What the hell?” The Dridder exclaimed rubbing her stung arm. “How did that little thing penetrate my…”

“My business, not yours.” Mousetrap said while backing off. She placed the cap back on the syringe and dropped it back into her handbag. “Now be a good girl and have a little nap for me, okay? It’s quite a drive and I don’t want your love bites while driving.”

“Bah!” The Dridder taunted, “You really think I am going to do that? Don’t make me laug…”

The Dridder’s head fell limp as she lost consciousness. She drooled and snored while she slept.

“Aww” Mousetrap said, picking back up the water gun and pumping it. “They are so cute when they are asleep.”

She started squirting a stream of liquid out from her water gun onto the hard glue that still held the Dridder in place, making sure to cover most of it. The liquid instantly corroded the substance as if it was acid, but the Dridder was unharmed. Soon most of what used to be the glue was a watery blue puddle, the Dridder’s unconscious body, now free her legs spread further out, but she remained sitting upright. The slight movement didn’t disturb her slumber other than making her mumble.

“…Juicy Giblets…”

“So fellas!” Mousetrap said turning to Gareth and Colin. “Feel like making yourselves useful? I need help in getting ‘Eight thighs’ into my vehicle and there’s no way I can do it myself.”

“Why should we help a bitch like you?” Colin growled. “You kidnapped us!”

“Don’t speak to me like that!” Mousetrap said condescendingly. “Or I might reconsider my offer of freeing you!”

“So let me get this straight! Gareth said. “You are saying that you will free us if we help you?”

“Correct, I didn’t just need bait, I also needed some extra muscle. That’s why I kidnapped two of you and just not one. Would of kidnapped more, but too big a feast might of looked suspicious.”

“And after what you did, you really expect us to trust you?”

“No I am not asking you to trust me at all. Look, you can hold a grudge towards me all you like, but I am the only one here who has a vehicle and knows the way out. And it will be a while before anyone else plans to come over. So helping me gives you a better chance of survival than you just sitting there.”

“Well” Said Gareth. “That sounds all nice and all, but you better make with the assurances that you won’t backstab us right now, otherwise we might decide to just sit here. You can’t get what you want without us either, so we want a guarantee before we help you.”

“Oh you’re being like that eh? Well okay we can just stand here until you change your tone mister! I don’t mind waiting. You never know when another Dridder might come this way, could be a bigger one. And on the off chance that one does, I’ll dive into my vehicle. They will go for the naked meat before going for the one in the tin can. If I manage to escape and go back empty handed, I’ll be penalized for it. But you have to ask yourself, are you willing to risk your life just to shun me? Well Colin? What do you think?”

“Erm...If it’s all the same to you,” Colin said.  “I really don’t plan on dying today.”

“See Gareth? Colin wants to be released, please help me for his sake if not for your own.”

“Just untie us and let’s get it over with.” Gareth sighed.

“So we are agreed?” Mousetrap said cheerfully “Brilliant!”

She dashed toward her vehicle, threw in the water gun, and pulled out an six inch combat knife that was sheathed in a slot on the interior of the driver’s door, giving off the short sound of sliding metal as the blade came out. Mousetrap then walked over, holding it in a saber grip. She reached Gareth first, grabbed the rope with the bells, and started cutting through it. Once she had cut through. She allowed the bell rope fall to the ground, it giving one more clink of bells at it landed.

“Now sit very still.” Mousetrap said, bending down behind Gareth and started cutting Gareth free of the ropes tied around him.

Once Gareth was free; Mousetrap walked over and did the same process with Colin.

“You don’t happen to have pair of clean underwear by any chance do you?” Colin asked while his bonds started to fall lose. “My ones…ugh…somehow got wet.”

“Oh yes. I never go anywhere without my trusty collection of men’s Y-fronts.” Mousetrap said sarcastically.

The two men were free and able to fully stand up, feeling even more exposed now they couldn’t hide behind their once raised legs. Colin feeling even more embarrassed, covering his soaked Y-fronts with his hands.

“Alright then, my panty clad jungle men!” Mousetrap grinned. “You two might not be exactly beefcakes, but between the three of us, we should be able to carry 'spider-tits' over there without too much trouble. If you two go round the back and lift the abdomen, I can then support you by holding on to her front. Well, what are waiting for? Chop chop!”

Gareth and Colin did as they were told and made their way around the Driddler to her back.

“Give us the heavy end why don’t you?” Gareth mumbled.

Mousetrap slipped her hand into a small side pocket in her waistcoat, pulled out the remote from before and pressed a button. The back door of the vehicle automatically opened up, giving access to the truck space. The back seats behind the front set folded down with a click.

“It might be an idea if you lift it from both sides.” Mousetrap said smiling

Gareth left Colin on side of the Dridder’s abdomen and walked over to the other side.

“That’s it!” Mousetrap said enthusiastically, reaching down underneath the Dridder’s front “Now lift!”

The two men reached under the Dridder’s abdomen and started lifting from below. Mousetrap lifted from her end. The humanoid part of the Dridder leaned forward and pressed heavily against her body and her face disappeared between the Dridder’s large breasts.

“Mmmmppphhh!?”

“Hehehehe!” The Dridder giggled in her sleep. “That tickles!”

Mousetrap struggled to free her face from the flesh that was smothering her. After a few seconds she managed to turn her head to the side to gasp for air.

“…Okay…Okay, let’s go.” She said when she could breath. “Towards the car.”

They rotated the Dridder around so her front faced the direction of the vehicle. They then started moving, Mousetrap moving backwards while she carried the Dridder’s front and Gareth and Colin moving forwards from behind. As the two men carried the large Abdomen, they could feel the inner organ’s move about and the contents of the Dridder’s gut slosh back and forth every time their movements disturbed it.

“Is that normal?” Colin asked, feeling a gurgle rippling against his hands.

“You get used to that sort of thing.” Gareth Sighed

Mousetrap could barely hear anything, the Dridder’s large breasts muffled her left Neko ear. The pounding of the beast’s relaxed heartbeat was giving her an earache; it banged against her head, pushing it out slightly every time it did. Suddenly the two men heard a burble coming from inside the abdomen, and felt what felt like bubbles sliding pass their hands under the exterior of the abdomen. It noisily moved along the creature’s body. Mousetrap felt it tickling her when it moved through the humanoid belly and heard bubbling passing her ear through the creature’s chest.

“Buuuuuuurrpp!”

“Uggh!” Mousetrap moaned when she smelled the released gas as it drifted down from the Dridder’s mouth and passed her face.

After much effort, they reached the opened trunk of the vehicle; Mousetrap dropped her end of the Dridder, climbed into the trunk, and then grabbed the Dridder around the torso in an embrace. She then proceeded to drag the beast into the back of the vehicle, crouching low as possible while the men continued to push from their end.

“Hope she doesn’t throw up on the way back.” Mousetrap said moving backwards through the back of her vehicle. “The stink of digested flesh takes days to remove.”

As the Dridder was forced further into the vehicle, her legs limply folded under her body when they came in contact with the interior walls of the trunk space. Mousetrap’s back hit the back of the front two seats of the vehicle; she released her grasp of the Dridder’s body, opened the nearby passenger side door and climbed out. She then joined the men round the back and helped push the Dridder further in. Soon the creature’s upper torso was slumping over the front passenger seat, her face as pressing against the inside of the vehicle’s front windscreen. The rear of the Abdomen and the ends of her legs poked out from the open trunk, but she was firmly in.

“Friggin Nagas and their fancy tails!” The Dridder mumbled as she drooled onto the windscreen.

“We did it!” Mousetrap said slapping the rear of the Dridder, the force causing the inner fluids to a splash about loudly. “Well done, boys!”

“So…” Gareth said looking at the stuffed vehicle. “What’s the plan to get us two home?”

“The plan is that you use those things you call legs.” Mousetrap said matter of factly.

“Hang on!” Colin said. “Didn’t you say that you would…”

“I said I would give your freedom in exchange for your assistance, and I’ve fulfilled our agreement to the letter, you’re free. I said I was the only one who knew the way out and had a vehicle but I never explicitly stated that I would allow you into it. Therefore our little arrangement is hereby dissolved, thank you for your time gentlemen.”

She turned her back to them and walked away from the back of the car and to the side.

“But you can’t just leave us out here!” Colin said dismayed.

“Look, be reasonable,” Mousetrap said turning around to face them again. “I have just squeezed a nine foot Dridder into the back of my car, the only space left besides mine is the remaining front passenger seat and she is over the top of it and the seat itself has equipment on it. I couldn’t fit you in even if I wanted to.”

“Surely you have must something in that car of yours!” Gareth said. “A teleportation device? Can’t you leave and teleport back?”

“Those things are unpredictable and potentially unreliable. You’re just going to have to take the long way and walk back yourselves. Or you can just wait around the cave and wait and see if you’re still alive when I come over later to pick up the eggs before my people sets up the ambush for the Assassins, but remember that we are far out and it would be a while.”

“But we’ve got nothing but our underwear!” Colin said.  “We could die out here!”

“And you have my deepest sympathies and gratitude. You would had died for a good cause.” Mousetrap said.

“In that case” Gareth said angrily. “Me and Colin are just going to have take the vehicle ourselves, leave you and the creature behind and drive till we find the way out. We outnumber you bitch! Now give us the keys to the damn car, or between Colin and me, I swear we will break your leg!”

“Ugh…Gareth!” Colin said nervously. “I don’t think I can…”

“Just hold her down and I’ll do the rest.” Gareth interrupted

“Okay, okay, no need to get violent.” Mousetrap said, pulling out the remote from her side pocket. “I’ll get the car running. Just...just don't hurt me.”

She pressed a few buttons. The vehicle’s electric engine started up.

“Now that’s much more like it!” Gareth said. “Now give me that remote.”

Mousetrap smiled and then pressed one more button. Suddenly the vehicle lurched backwards and the Dridder’s huge rear end that was poking out the back collided sharply with Gareth and Colin.

“Arrgghh!” they both cried in surprise, falling backwards and disappearing under the moving hover vehicle.

Mousetrap was standing at just the right distance away from the car that it passed right by as it reversed. She pressed the break button on the remote, stopping the vehicle as the driving seat passed before her. She quickly stepped in, closed the door and manually put her foot to the acceleration. The vehicle sped forwards. The two men got back on their feet just in time to see the car and it's cargo disappear into the dark of the forest.

“Ah jeez…” Gareth said, looking down at himself and then at Colin for they were covered in bruises and a few bloody scratches where the hover vehicle scarcely flew over them.

“Well…” Colin said putting his hands to his hips, “…I think I can rightfully say that this can’t get more screwed up than it already…”

A webbed sack of human remains fell from above, passed their view and hit the ground. The web tore open and the contents rolled out before them.

“…is….”

Thanks for pointing out those corrections, ^_^ they will be fixed when I upload the next chapter, which should be anytime soon.

EDIT:

About the phone. I didn't go into detail about it because it was from Gareth's perspective, therefore he woulden't know the specifications of the device. And Mousetrap had no reason to explain. The phone actually has double functionality picking up nearby networks and works magically as well. Mousetrap likes to cover all bases if possible. I'll proberly adress this more in detail along with many other of her stuff when Mousetrap is in an situration where she's obliged to tell how her equipment works.

But other than that, everything has been fixed.

Rachael was on her hands and knees, gently knocking on the wooden floor around her with her fist. Listening to the sound of each knock intensely with her red neko ears.

“Nothing…”

She slowly crawled across the room along the front wall, being careful not to tear a hole in her opaque tights, knocking around the flooring as she went.

“Nothing along here either.”

She sat up, brushing her long red hair back over behind her shoulders and looked around the room for somewhere else to search. She had already checked the flooring of the bedrooms, the bathroom, the offices and now the drawing room. She looked over to the main window, just right from when you come through the front door. A large desk stood next to it, two seats either side. On it was a few picture portraits, a small vase of red carnations, packs of game cards and an unfinished game of Hell Chess.

“I wonder…” Rachael pondered.

She very carefully crawled under the desk, carefully trying not to come in contact with it and risk knocking anything on the table over. She then knocked on the floor under it, sure enough; it gave off a sound of a hallowed space.

“Aha!”

She felt about on the floor, running her nails along the planks of the wooden flooring. She found where the floor felt lose and wrenched the plank free using her fingers. She removed the plank and peered into the small space underneath.

“Oh Winona, you sadistic bitch” She sighed, horrified at what she saw.

She reached into the space and pulled out a pint sized glassed jar that held three Tomthumbs. The Jar’s lid had holes pierced into it so they could breath, and a small piece of apple was placed inside to provide them nourishment and fluids, which was now a dark yellow with a layer of mold growing around it. The Tomthumbs barely acknowledged Rachael’s existence, having been in the dark with limited air for too long.

“You guys alright?” Rachael said concerned. “Don’t worry, I am going to get you out of here.”

“Are you Minalca?” One weakly gasped, the sudden exposure to the light distorted his vision, making him only see a giant dark being that was surrounded by what seemed to him to be heavenly light.

Rachael stopped to think how she should answer the dazed and confused being.

“Yes, it’s me Minalca.” Rachael said in a comforting tone. “I’ve come to save you from this injustice.”

“What happened to the devil that put us in this pit of hell?” Another confused Tomthumb asked.

“She’s not here right now.” Rachael said, maintaining her tone. “Don’t worry, I’ll be having strict words with her. Now let’s get you out of here.”

She tried to back out from the table as she did her hips slightly banged against one of the table legs and she heard something from above fall over from the sudden movement.

“…Oh crap!”

She fully backed out from the table, got up and placed the jar on the nearby window sill and then turned to her attention to the tabletop. Two of the chess pieces had fallen over and rolled over the game board.

“Oh god! She’ll throw a fit if she sees this!” Rachael said, quickly picking up the two pieces.

She looked about on the game board, she could see where the dust had settled, leaving the little clean circles where the pieces once stood, but she still had no idea which way round they were.

“The pawn must have had been here.” She said, her hand slightly shaking as she placed the piece down. “And the bishop, here.”

She stepped away. Even if she had placed the pieces wrongly, there was a good chance it would go unnoticed. She picked up the jar of Tinies and walked to the front door, pushing it open. After she made sure no one was looking, she twisted the jar open and knelt down, gently tipping the jar upside down, letting the Tomthumbs slide out onto the street.

“Now get out of here!”

She watched as the still dazed trio of Tomthumbs wondered off, pushing themselves along the building wall for support as they went. She kept her eye on them until they went round a corner and out of sight. She took a moment to look out on Negav’s Middle Tier, which their house was situated. Even if a passerby saw anything they probably wouldn’t question it. Helping Tomthumbs out of dangerous places weren’t that uncommon. But she still felt uneasy about the whole thing considering the circumstances. She closed the door and walked back into the drawing room.

“I’ll kill her.”

She heard the front door open and close behind her.

“Speak of the devil.”

Her fist tightened around the now empty jar and her fluffy red tail that extruded from the rear of her office miniskirt swished back and forth. She brushed her black waistcoat, adjusted her red tie and turned round to face the arrival.

“There she is!” Winona said opening her arms. “How’s it going Rach? Did you miss me?”

Winona Galen, Aka Mousetrap, embraced Rachael and rubbed her white haired head against her face, purring as she did. Rachael remained rigged, not taken in by the neko greeting.

“Any news from HQ?” Winona asked, breaking her hold of Rachael

“No.” Rachael said, keeping herself calm and in control.

“I’ve got you a gift!” Winona said taking the Dridder necklace that she was wearing off and placing it on Rachael.

Rachael did not ease up at all, taking no interest in the necklace that hanged from her neck.

“You don’t like it?” Winona asked tilting her head.

“I found this with Tomthumbs underneath the floorboards.” Rachael said, lifting the jar in her hand into view. “Care to explain?”

Winona stared indifferently at the jar for a couple of seconds, then looked back up at Rachael

“Well I do believe my dear Rach, that is what we call a ‘jar’. It’s a wide mouthed, cylindrical container, normally used for storing food substances. What I do is, I put things I like to eat, such as Tomthumbs, into these ‘jars’ to store them away so I can enjoy them later.”

“I meant explain why you are trying to sneak Tinies behind my back, smartass.” Rachael said, crossing her arms.

“I am trying to sneak them behind your back so I can continue to eat them without your interference.”

“Cut the smartass bullshit! I thought we agreed that you were not to eat them anymore?”

“We most certainly did.” Winona said nodding quickly.  “Yes, I definitely remember that.”

“Then why am I finding hidden stashes about the house?”

“Because you’re so damn persistent and thorough when making sure I kept my word.”

Rachael placed her hands in her hips and frowned at Winona, who avoided her gaze and looked towards the main window.

“Rachael!” Winona moaned, seeing the hole under the desk where Rachael had forgot to place the plank back in. “You are not allowed to go near that table!”

She went over to the table and glanced everything over, obsessively making sure everything was in their correct place.

“Don’t change the subject!” Rachael said. “And it’s very low of you to use my respect for that space in order to hide Tinies in it.”

“Well if your going to be all ‘Madame Stroppy Face’, I think I’ll be taking back my gift.” Winona said, walking back to Rachael and pulling off the necklace.

“You had no intention of letting me keep that.” Rachael said. “You were just trying to distract me because you knew I was upset the moment you saw my face.”

“I guess it didn’t work.” Winona sighed. “Okay, then, give me your stupid lecture. But I warn you, this will only end in tears.”

“Just because the law on eating Tinies is lax, doesn’t mean you of all people can take advantage of it.” Rachael said sternly.

“Reluctance to enforce a law renders the law pointless and superficial. It makes no logical sense to take a law seriously when the law enforcers don’t take it seriously themselves.” Winona answered back.

“Does the fact that you that you are a part of Negav Security mean nothing to you? If influential members of the Tinie society and support movement found out about this and linked you back to the government, the higher-ups might consider letting you take the fall to prevent public backlash, and as your supervisor hired to make sure you do your job, I’ll be in the shit as well. And if you think I am going to let you drag me down with you, you have got another thing coming!”

“Then why do you release them?” Winona asked, “No Survivors, no proof! People disappear everyday, it’s a given fact of life and no one is going to question it as long as it isn’t anyone of importance. You’re the one who’s running the risk by letting them live!”

“Don’t you dare turn this onto me!” Rachael growled. “I hate when you do that!”

“I don’t know why you are so concerned about this.” Winona said. “I have a good cover as a major player in the Tinie support movement. As long as you don’t further screw things up, no one will suspect me of doing anything. And on top of that, I am helping them in the long run. So what if I am eating the occasional thief and wonderer when I catch them infiltrating my house? The Tinie society as a collective will greatly benefit from my contributions, isn’t that all that matters? All I am doing is trimming the hedge, getting rid of the excess. Anyone stupid enough to walk out into a potentially dangerous environment unprepared would just of been an hindrance to the majority as a whole at some point.”

“This isn’t just about the law or our reputations! Eating people is wrong, regardless of who it is.”

“Just claiming something is ‘Wrong’ without rationale is a insignificant argument.” Winona said. “By the sounds of it, you’re just disturbed because the morality is unfamiliar. Morality is relative, not universal. Mother nature cares not for variable opinions on right and wrong and nor do I. In the end all that matters is balance. I am not going to change simply because it contradicts the viewpoint of a Neko born on another world, who has only been in Felarya for half a year, especially one that that vaguely uses words like ‘Wrong’ with no explanation. Stop singling me out and get over the culture shock already!”

“How can you just stand there and rationalize cruelty? How do you sleep at night when you are fully aware of the suffering of tiny sapient beings that you cause?” Rachael said disgusted.

“Oh look who’s all high and mighty!” Winona said defensively. “You are fully aware of my job of helping the ISD to eliminate threats to security and what I do to get it done! And through experience you know, as much as I do that the creatures out there are just as sapient as any other humanoid. You also know that I use humans as bait. But none of that stops you from taking on messages while I am away, making sure I complete the assignments, balancing the budget, helping with the research or enjoying the salary! It’s pathetic how easily people like you drop your so-called morals when the sacrifices are all statistics and you’re not the one that has to personally face them! Why don’t you just get over yourself and stop condemning me to make yourself feel better, you hypocrite!”

Winona turned around and started marching towards her office, taking a moment to unsling her handbag from her shoulder and tossed it onto one of the drawing room’s sofas.

“Now if you’re quite done wasting my time, I have a report to write up and then send off. I am sure as supervisor you won’t argue with that!”

She stormed into her office and slammed the door hard behind her.

“That sociopath does my head in!” Rachael sighed as she walked towards her own office.



“That hypocrite gets on my tits!” Winona mumbled as she sat down at her desk, taking off her Dridder necklace and dropping it into an open wooden trunk bulging with jewelry and trinkets that she kept next to it.

She reached over for her closed ISD issued work laptop that she had on the desk, planted her index finger over a small sensor built into the lid and the laptop unlocked. The lid automatically flipped upwards and the computer came to life. After waiting for the ISD logo to disappear a login prompt came up, Winona quickly entered her password, the computer then allowed her access to the operating system. She loaded up a documentation program, she then started typing into the keyboard rapidly, only pausing occasionally until everything was typed up.

“Well that’s done!” She smiled, saving the report and sending it through the ISD wireless communication network to the head of the ISD. “And on time too, I think I deserve a little treat.”

Winona shutdown the laptop and closed the lid. She then reached for the lower draw to her desk, pulling it outwards and then pulled it upwards, detaching it. She removed the draw completely from the desk, revealing that the floor underneath its space had the floor planks removed; She reached down and pulled out a jar of Tomthumbs out of the secret compartment. This jar had the exact same layout as the one Rachael had found earlier, with three Tinies, a small apple piece and breathing holes in the lid. She placed the draw back in place.

“You have to get up pretty early in the morning to deny me of all my treats, Rachael.” Winona quietly snickered to herself.

She laid the jar onto the desk in front of her and put her face up to the jar, peering at the contents inside. Two of them were young men and one was a young woman; they laid at the bottom of the jar.

“Wakey wakey!” Winona said gently taping on the jar with her index finger, startling them into waking up and making them press their backs against the inner wall of the jar, staring up at her in fear.

“Hello my little agents!” Winona cooed to the miniature humans. “I’ve got a little assignment for you. Your mission is to be taken into containment in the tight and secure location of the construct you see before you.”

She lightly patted her belly.

“Then once you have reached the biochemical apartment, the natural order will then incorporate you into the system. I am sure your contributions will greatly enhance system productivity and raise overall morale to high standard. I hope you enjoy your time at ‘Mousetrap Interior Operations.’”

She graped the jar with one hand, and twisted the lid off with the other. Inside the Tomthumbs huddled together, too disoriented and fatigued from long containment to really put up a fight.

“It’s sad to see you so weakened.” Winona sighed. “That was my fault, I apologize. When I caught you I didn’t expect to be called out for the next couple of days. I couldn’t just let you go. But I am here now, it will be all over in a couple of hours.”

She reached into the jar, not really aiming for anyone in particular. When she felt her fingers grasp around one of them she pulled it out of the jar before placing the lid back onto the jar with her other hand. She held the creature between her index finger and her thumb by the neck of its jacket and brought it up to her face. It was one of the men. She watched as he weakly fought against her grip, his legs thrashing about with what little strength he had.

“What’s your name agent?” She asked playfully.

“Go to hell…” The Tiny man gasped.

“I said indentify yourself!” She asked forcefully, shaking him about like a puppet.

“Stewart!” He screamed in fear.

“Good boy.” Winona said, stopping the shaking. “Now Stewart, here’s the interview. You give me one good reason why I shouldn’t enroll you to my system, and I’ll let you go. You get once chance, screw it up and it’s into the entry hatch for you.”

“Please…” Stewart begged. “…I have a wife and kids…”

“If you really cared about them, then maybe you shouldn’t of been so careless when invading someone’s home.” Winona said coldly. “You’ve failed, God speed little agent!”

And with that she slowly opened her jaw wide, sliding her tongue out as she did. She lowered him inside her mouth.

“Oh Winona I need you to sign…” Rachael stopped halfway through the door when she saw Winona close her lips around her fingers that held the Tomthumb.
Winona froze, her lips still around her fingers. She didn’t move a muscle except to move her eyes towards Rachael.

“That wouldn’t be another helpless Tinie you’ve just put in your mouth by any chance, would it?” Rachael asked, putting her hands onto her hips.

“Nnooooopppph!” Winona shook her head and brought her hand away from her face in order to shrug her shoulders innocently.

A tiny terrified scream came from within Winona’s mouth, muffled by her closed lips.

“Take him out of your mouth now!” Rachael demanded

Winona paused for a moment, mulling Rachael’s words over. She then swallowed her mouthful. The screaming inside her mouth faded out as the load in her mouth went down her throat and vanished into her torso.

“There you go.” Winona smirked. “He’s out of my mouth, just as you asked, see?”

She opened her jaw wide and stuck her tongue out, giving Rachael a good view of the inside of her mouth to exemplify her point. Rachael flattened her palm across her face in responce.

“Alright,” Rachael said reaching her arm out and holding her hand open “hand me the jar.”

“What jar would that be?” Winona asked smiling.

“The jar of Tinies that is on the table.”

“And which table would you be referring to?”

“The table that you are sitting at.”

“Oh, this table?” Winona asked, pointing at the desk.

“Yes, that table.”

“So you want me to hand over the jar of Tinies that is on the table that is in front of me?”

“Yes.” Rachael said, getting irritated.

“And why would I want to do that?”

“Because I said so! I have authority over you!”

“As a chair-person of the Tinie support movement I have to remind you that in this house I am the one with jurisdiction over how Tinies are treated, and I say ‘Overruled!’”

“HAND OVER THE TINIES NOW!” Rachael bellowed.

“GET YOUR OWN!” Winona bellowed back.



Stewart sat in complete darkness. What little air there was inside the chamber he was now trapped in was heavy and pungent. The heat that radiated from the surrounding moving fleshy walls wasn’t making anything easier either. Sweat dripped from his forehead. He tried not to think too much about what was floating about in the bubbling pool mixture that was up to his waist. This creature’s stomach was not exactly empty that was for sure. Palm to his face, he laid back against one of the squishy walls and waited for this nightmare to end. He listened to the barely audible voices from outside, able to just about make out the words out of the Neko that he was inside over the sound of it’s own heartbeat and breathing; the other voice was too inaudible to hear. He could tell that the tone of both voices was getting increasingly tense though. He heard them scream at each other. Suddenly Stewart’s environment started moving, everything moving like an earthquake as he was flung to and fro about the stomach, being knocked over right into the surrounding liquid every time.



Winona held the jar of Tinies firmly with both hands as she run around the office desk, Rachael in pursuit. Rachael tried catching Winona out by changing direction and going round the other way but Winona quickly adapted and changed direction herself.

“Damn it Winona!” Rachael yelled diving herself onto the desk and tried to grasp Winona as she passed on the other side.

“Oh Rach!” Winona giggled, leaping back. Only just evading Rachael’s grasp. “Didn’t know you were so desperate to cop a feel!”

Before Rachael could stand back up, Winona dashed round the desk and made for the office door.

“Come back here!” Rachael fumed, getting up and tailing Winona.

Rachael made a desperate dive, flying through the door into the drawing room and tackling Winona on the way down by grabbing her legs from behind. Winona gave out a cry of surprise as she went down as well.



Gravity went crazy around Stewart as the whole space rotated by ninety degrees, the bottom of the stomach became a wall and the front wall became the floor. The stomach fluids gushed towards the gravity direction and Stewart was tipped, falling right into pool with a huge splash. Then there was an earthquake like crash as the whole body of the Neko came crashing down on what Stewart guessed must be the floor. Stewart emerged from under the surface of the fluids, sitting up. A large amount of his jacket dropped off his body as it dissolved at the seams. His body was stinging like hell, especially his eyes that he held tightly closed. He couldn’t tell in the dark, but for all he knew he could have been blinded by the acid.
“What the hell is going on?” He cried, spitting out some of the bitter fluid that had found it’s way into his mouth.



Winona lost grip of the jar when she fell flat on her face on the ground. The jar rolled freely across the room. The two Tinies inside were unable to do anything but scream, pinned to the inner surface of the jar as the force of the acceleration forced them to roll with the jar at the same velocity. The jar finally stopped when it collided with the bottom of the front door. The Tinies fell down to the side the Jar now rested on, their heads still spinning from the experience.

“My Tinies!” Winona gasped; she wiggled her legs out of Rachael’s grasp and started crawling on hands and knees towards the Jar.

Rachael felt Winona’s legs slip through her; she got on her knees and clutched the end of Winona’s white tail with both hands.

“NOT MY TAIL!” Winona screamed in pain.

Rachael maintained her Grip on Winona’s tail while getting up to her feet; she then started dragging Winona back towards the office. Winona retaliated by kicking Rachael hard in the knee with her left leg.

“Owwww!” Rachael yelped, raising her leg up so she could hold it. She hopped on one leg in agony.

Now free of Rachael’s clutches, Winona started crawling with haste towards the jar on the other side of the room. The Tinies within the jar barely had anytime to recover from their dizziness as Winona crawled up to them and snatched the jar off the ground.

“Got ya!” Winona exclaimed in triumph.

Winona looked up and saw Rachael limping as fast as she could with her aching leg towards her. Winona looked down to the welcome mat by the door. With her right foot she quickly kicked it towards Rachael. The mat slid underneath one of Rachael’s feet, causing her to slip and fall down. Now with extra time, Winona quickly twisted the lid off the jar, reaching inside and throwing out the apple piece. She then opened her mouth wide and tipped both the two Tinies into it. She closed her jaws shut on them.

“Mmm!” Winona smiled as she relished the taste.

“Spit them out now!” Rachael yelled as she caught up to Winona, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her.



Stewart was thrown side to side of the dark chamber as everything started shaking, the liquid contents flying close behind, splashing him every time he hit a wall.
Not that far away, the two other Tomthumbs also suffered the same shaking as they tried to find something to cling to in the dark space that was the Neko’s closed jaw. But the force of the shaking combined with the wetness of the tongue floor caused them to quickly slip and together they both fell down the pit at the back of the mouth.



Winona’s eyes widened; she brought her hands to her throat and started coughing and spattering. Rachael, realizing something was wrong, released her grip and Winona feel to her knees, trying to dislodge the painful lump caught in her throat.

“Shit! Are you choking?” Rachael asked concerned.

Winona, unable to say anything, simply tugged desperately at Rachael’s miniskirt.



The two Tomthumbs were wedged firmly between the fleshy walls of the pitch-black vertical passage. Their backs flat against the tunnel surface and their fronts pressed against each other, preventing any further progression downwards. The male Tomthumb was caught inside the larynx, preventing any air from passing through it. Even with the flesh of the throat closed around them, the agonized screams of Stewart amoung the bubbling and gurgling coming the chamber below managed to reach their ears.



“Winona standup and turn round!” Rachael yelled, her voice somewhat panicked.

Winona managed to get back on her feet, back facing Rachael, who then wrapped her arms around her waist. Rachael made a fist with one hand against Winona’s stomach, thumb towards her body, and grasped the fist with her other hand. She then started delivering squeezing thrusts to Winona’s abdomen.



Stewart, who’s clothes had pretty much dissolved and was in great pain as the fluids around him worked on his flesh, suddenly was hit by a great force from outside, sending him flying hard against the opposite side of the stomach. The impact caused him to lose all senses and slip out of consciousness.



“Come on!” Rachael screamed, as she trusted her hands into Winona’s body for the fifth time.

Winona gave out a huge cough and the two Tinies flew out her mouth like a bottle cork, shot across the room and went straight through the windowpane by the game desk, smashing the glass and leaving two Tomthumb shaped holes in the now ruined window. Rachael screamed in horror and released Winona.

“What have I done?” She cried “...I was just…I was only trying…”

“If it’s any consolation,” Winona said with a croaky voice, “Their deaths were most likely instantaneous the moment they hit the glass surface and therefore painless.”

“Oh shut up you bitch!”

Rachael drove her tightly clenched fist into Winona’s face.



Winona sat legs crossed on one of the sofas in the drawing room. Her head still throbbed, even though ten minutes had passed. She peered at the reflection of her bruised eye with a handbag mirror that she held in her palm.

“Damn brute.” She mumbled, closing the mirror lid down by clenching her hand.

She placed the mirror back into her handbag and brought out a pack of rolling paper and a pack of catnip. She prepared the joint on a small coffee table that sat in front of her sofa. Once the joint was rolled up she held it between her right hand’s index and middle finger and pulled out a lighter from her bag with her left, she lit the joint, put the unlit end to her mouth and smoked it, exhaling loudly. She sat still, staring into space. Only moving her cig to her mouth to inhale occasionally.

“Now you’re sulking?” Rachael said, limping out from the kitchen.

Winona didn’t move from her position and continued to smoke, deep in thought. Rachael hobbled her way over and eased herself into the sofa opposite, the coffee table between them. Winona barely acknowledged her existence, only moving her eyes to look at her before returning them to their original gazing position.

“I wish you wouldn’t make me out to be the bad guy all the time.” Rachael said solemnly. “I understand what you have to do fulfill your job as an ISD agent. I appreciate how hard it must be to distance yourself from all that when your not working. I’ve never condemned you for any of that for I have the very same problems. But stuffing your face with Tinies has no justification other than your own selfish desires, and that’s just not fair on them.”

“Fair…” Winona broke her silence with a quiet voice. “…These Tomthumb burglars sneak into my home, completely careless in their approach to steal my stuff, and you want me to act all merciful when I effortlessly catch them? How’s that fair?”

She calmly stabbed her joint into an ashtray that was on the table and stood up.

“Don’t talk to me about being fair!” She yelled angrily without warning, violently kicking the coffee table over. “You dare speak to me about fairness, when you know, you know very damn well that I am only aiding the ISD because they blackmailed me into it! Had it been a less skilled person, they wouldn’t have cared much about what they got up to. They barely moved from their arses to capture the people who committed crimes against me! But the very moment I started the same thing, they went for me, not to enforce justice, but simply because they were so impressed by how well I did it and wanted my skills as an asset. It’s logical, but it’s not fair at all!”

Winona paused and glanced over to the desk by the window, focusing on the Hell chess game board, it’s pieces placed in midgame.

“You can be one of the most talented and prepared person out there, but if caught by one of the wildlife, Felarya will not give any more passion or mercy than had it been an reckless idiot. And Negav will barely acknowledge his passing, no matter how much he contributed. Asking me to show passion to the inefficient is nothing but a slap in the face to everything I’ve put up with for the last ten years. Life hasn’t been fair to me, it’s only fair that it’s unfair to everyone else as well!”

She wiped her eyes that had begun to water.

“Heh, see? tears, Just like I said.” She said, laughing lightly.

“Okay.” Rachael said getting up. “How about this, I’ll stop pressing the issue on you; it’s obvious I can’t convince you to change. But if I find any hidden Tinies, I am going to release them, okay? If your acts get out to the public and the higher-ups come down on you, you’re on your own, because I can claim I at least tried to stop you. Do you understand?”

“Fair enough.” Winona broke into a smile. “But in order to save them you’ll have to find them first.”

“Goodnight Winona.” Rachael sighed, shaking her head as she walked towards her bedroom. “It’s getting late, I am off to bed. I’ll suggest you do the same, we have to be up in the morning.”

“Good night Rach.”

When Rachael had gone into her bedroom, Winona bent down and corrected the coffee table and placed the ashtray back onto it, sweeping any ash on the wooden floor under the sofa. She looked back at the table by the window and made her way to it.

“Hello Shaun.”

She sat on her end of the table, pulled open the game piece drawer and pulled out the wedding ring she kept there. She stuck it onto her left hand ring finger and picked up one of the picture portraits with the other, gently caressing the face within. The frame held the photograph of a young, blond haired male Neko, with brown eyes and tanned skin.

“Sorry I haven’t talked to you in a while, I am sure you know how busy I’ve been.”

She placed the portrait back down and reached into one of her waistcoat pockets to pull out a pack of trading cards.

“I got you these, I don’t think you’ve got these ones.”

She placed the new pack along with the collection of cards. She blew the dust from the chessboard and stared longingly at the empty seat on the other side of the table, remembering the person that used to sit there, who should still be sitting there.



“Can you feel it, closing in on you? Your defenses are falling and soon you will be mine! And then I’ll have my reward.” Winona said, staring seductively towards Shaun and loosening a few of the top buttons of her yellow pajamas, slowly revealing her bust.

“Oh really? Well I still can turn this around, and then it will be me that will be dominating tonight.” Shaun smiled back while he advanced his bishop.

“Not this time.” Winona whispered, moving her queen up a step, taking out one of his pawns. “I really have my heart set on being on top tonight. And besides, I owe you pay back, and I’ve brought just the tools for the job.”

She grinned as she pulled up a pair of white furry love cuffs from under the table and dangled them teasingly in front of him.  

Shaun paused, thinking of how to proceed. After a moment had passed he reached down into the game board. Just as he gripped one of his knights, the ringing of the home phone broke his concentration.

“Damn!” Winona huffed, crossing her arms and thrashing her white tail about while she watched Shaun get up from his seat and walk over to the phone.

“Hello?” He answered the phone. “Yeah I am at home…Well no, I am not busy but I was just…pardon?...he did what?...oh that idiot!...Yeah okay I’ll be down there as soon as possible. Bye.”

“What’s going on?” Winona asked.

“That expedition we just arranged, they are a man down. Ray’s sick.” Shaun said walking towards the bedroom.

“Sick?” Winona asked, getting up and following him.

“Poisoned. He thought he could spare some Skevol and brought those cheaply made potions instead of the ones we normally suggest. Now he’s in bed with a painful stomach and a monkey tail growing out from his arse.”

“Oh it’s nothing to worry about.” Winona said, smiling while she waved her hand dismissively. “The effects aren’t normally permanent on those things, he’ll be fine.”

“True.” Shaun said, grabbing a pair of cameo cargo pants from the bedroom wardrobe and pulled them up over his boxers. “But we can’t wait for him to recover, we will get behind schedule. They’ve asked me to take his place leading the expedition. I need to go down there now and oversee the preparations before we head out.”

“Can’t we arrange for someone else to fill in?”

“Noone else will be avaible at such short notice.” Shaun said putting on a camo field shirt. “I’ll go and you hold the fort.”

“But this was supposed to be our time off, our time alone!” Winona moaned. “We were only supposed to be arranging this job.”

“We can finish our game when I get back.” Shaun said walking over to Winona and planting a kiss on her lips. “Make sure nothing disturbs the pieces while I am gone.”

As he turned away Winona wrapped her arms under his armpits, clinging onto him from behind. She rested her chin on his left shoulder and started purring.

“You know…I could come along!” She whispered into his blond Neko ear.  “They say that love making in the forest is the ultimate thrill! The two of us going at it, trying not to make a sound! Knowing that at any moment a predator might come across us!”

“Yeah, as great as that sounds, do remember we wouldn’t be the only ones there” Shaun said, not moving from her grip.

“Then I am sure it would be quite the experience for the others too!”

Winona started giggling uncontrollably, her chest heaving against Shaun’s back. He shook his head in mock disbelief and smiled.

“Very funny, now I really should get going.” He said.

Winona sighed and loosened her grip, letting her hands slide around his torso as he moved away, gently grabbing his tail playfully and felling it as it slithered through her fingers.

“Be back in a few days.” Shaun said, walking to the front door and opening it.

“Missing you already!” Winona smiled and watched Shaun go through the door.

Winona sighed while strolling back to the game desk, she pulled out the two travel tickets she had hidden under the table and tore both of them up.
“The surprise holiday will just have to wait. Oh well, always another day.”



Winona wiped her watering eyes while staring at the chess pieces that were still in the same place as they were back then ten years ago. She placed her ring back into the game draw and closed it. She then picked up one of Shaun’s portraits, lightly kissing the glass surface over the image of his face.

“Goodnight Shaun.”

What is this about exactly? I was acknowledged that this was for stories not upcoming RP's.

It is a story, it's a story set in Felarya with characters I created. it's an story arch concerning two inhabinants that come in conflict, the story focous is that they both use manlipuative tricks to get what they want, making the conflict into a game of strategy

DarkOne wrote:

Synopsis:

A game is about to begin; and there will be two players.

They are not powerful mages,
They are not talented in any form in marital arts or in the use of conventional weapons,
And There are many things stronger and bigger than they are…
But it’s not about the cards you are dealt; it’s how you play the hand.

Both are skilled in deception and manipulation. They solve problems with lateral thinking and let the suckers do the dirty work, and Felarya is filled with suckers just asking to made fools of, or indeed food. It’s bad enough with just one of those running around, imagine what would happen if two such forces were to collide.

One is a mysterious being living in social isolation in the wild. She has decided to target humanity over some vendetta that is understood only to herself and has spent years observing them in order to plan ways of making their existence hell. She uses a few inherited defensive abilities that can’t harm people in the conventional way, but are lethal in luring the targets into situations where she has the upper hand.

Negav has tasked one of their hunter consultants to aid them into the capture of this “hostile” that is malicious enough to be a security concern. This consultant is a member of the civil service; she is a blend of sophistication and ruthlessness.
She professionalizes in capturing sentient predators, the best tactic being to wait at a distance and use others distract them before closing in with a well-laid trap. Of course most people won’t be willing to risk their lives for her benefit, that’s why she mostly does it without their consent.
She uses defensive gadgets to keep herself out of trouble and has a few connections to get them. But she isn’t rich or powerful enough to get everything and has to mostly improvise with what she can afford or what she can coax her benefactors into lending.

Can one outwit the other? Or will they be stuck in a constant psychological arms race as they adapt and counter adapt their plans to catch the other one out?

Who will suffer from the collateral damage when these two minds compete and their game escalates into anarchy?

One thing is certain. In this game of survival of the fittest,
She who is confined to predicable behavior, loses
And she who dares, wins…

That is the best synopsis for a story I've ever heard online! Very riveting. I have to say if it were a actaull book synopsis I'd be curious at the least. Even without the Felarya factor.

I have found the time to read the first chapter! ^.^ I'll be giving my sparse critique coupled with my vastly wise grammar harping~

DarkOne wrote:

Gareth regained consciousness, realizing he was no longer the bed he remembered falling asleep in.

The first problem's in here; I think it should be "he was no longer in the bed".

DarkOne wrote:

His bare skin was tickled...

"His" doesn't need to be capitalized. Actually, coming after a comma, it shouldn't be capitalized unless it's referring to God or someone of such stature.

DarkOne wrote:

The tree’s trunks were huge and looked deathly pale, almost as if they were painted white. He became nervous at the realization of the fact that because he was in a clearing, it meant that his location stuck out like a street lamp.

I like this. We know where he is by the description alone, rather than being told exactly what it is. ^.^

DarkOne wrote:

His legs were unbounded...

I believe "unbound" is the right word, "unbounded" meaning 'without limit'.

I have to say, I really like the genius of how this Gareth is trapped. ^_^ It's very creative and very deadly.

DarkOne wrote:

One of her hands becomes visible through the weird hole in reality. In it she held a small remote. She pressed one of the buttons.
Around her a vehicle appeared, she had been in fact sitting in a cloaked car, looking out of the driver’s window. The vehicle appeared to be a hover car. A updated 4X4 that in place of wheels had what seemed like four panels that somehow forced the vehicle a foot above the ground. It didn’t look like a military vehicle, the design was sleek, but the black paintwork appeared scratched all over. The vehicle had many dents in it; all suggesting it has been well used and hasn’t had a full fix up for some time. The trunk space was fairly large, lengthening the vehicle slightly. There was no identification marks other than the custom license plate. The car was just angled that they could read the one round the back. It read ‘NYA-7I1’

Okay, best car ever! XD

DarkOne wrote:

...the back wet down slightly further...

I believe you meant "went" down.

DarkOne wrote:

high profile targets, so high that were missed.

I think you're missing a word in here? This sentence isn't very coherent.

DarkOne wrote:

I have found you a woman, Your into legs, right?

Another misplaced capital, or maybe misplaced comma. Also, "you're" should replace "your".

DarkOne wrote:

we have lab coats that have been desperate for an Dridder guinea pig...

"An" should only come before a word that starts with a vowel. That's why I can't stand when people say "an historic event". DX That drives me up a wall.

DarkOne wrote:

You can’t get you want without us either...

Another missing word?

DarkOne wrote:

You two might not exactly beefcakes

Found another one.

DarkOne wrote:

“Uggh!” Mousetrap moaned when she smelt...

"Smelled", actually.

DarkOne wrote:

...as it drifted down from the Dridder’s mouth and passed her face.

Be careful with this; I'm not sure if it's a misspelling or not because either 'passed' or 'past' could work in this context, but they would mean two slightly different things.

DarkOne wrote:

You would of died for a good cause.

"Would have".


That's it for chapter one~ I'll read chapter two next chance I get~

Venom Agato wrote:

Remind me to PM you the next time I need someone to look over a fic of mine. XD You got a hawks-eye for something like that.

No! DX Don't give me more work! I'm lazy! Though thank you for the compliment. ^.^

‘She Who Dares Wins’

Chapter Three: The Chaotic Counterpart

The tree branch that Audree moved silently along, dwarfed her naked three-inch fairy frame. She sneaked straight ahead, further along the branch was her prey, his back turned to her, his butterfly wings spread out.

“Where did she go?” She heard him mumble.

Very gently Audree drew closer to him, she could almost touch his short green hair that was only a slighter darker shade than hers. Suddenly he quickly turned round and his green eyes met hers. Before she could respond, he had leaped backwards beyond her reach, raised his hand and within seconds Audree was a quarter the size she previously was, staring up at him with a frown on her face.

“You cheating bastard!”

“You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to tag me!” Kyle chuckled, backing further away from her.

“You’re such a cheater!” Audree fumed, causally pointing a finger to herself and zapping himself back to three inches. “We agreed not to use size shifting magic, only stealth is allowed!”

“I agreed to nothing!” Kyle said, still keeping his distance. “You said we weren’t using magic and I just mumbled something that sounded like an agreement.”

“I am not playing anymore!” Audree said, crossing her arms under her naked breasts.

“That’s so childish!” Kyle said. “Quiting a game only because it’s not going your way.”

“I am being childish? You’re the one who’s…”

Audree cut of mid sentence and turned her head.

“…Hey, you sense that?”

“Oh no you don’t.” Kyle said. “This is a ploy to tag me when I least suspect it isn’t it?”

“No seriously, pay attention, it’s faint and I didn’t notice it before but it’s there.”

Kyle paused for an moment and consentrated, his face lit up.

“Ah…humans!”

A rush of wind almost knocked Kyle off his feet, he regained balance in time to see Audree fly off into the distance.

“Last one there gets nothing!” She yelled back.

“Oh your on!” Kyle said, taking off from the branch.

Audree sped through the forest, her wings fluttering rapidly as she headed for where she could sense their next meal. As she got closer her sense became clearer, it was humans all right, two of them. She could also sense Kyle catching up behind her.

“OH NO YOU DON’T!” She yelled back to him, pushing herself to fly even faster.

As Audree shot past tree, a steam like gas engulfed her, one breath of the weird fumes was enough to make her cough and spatter uncontrollably. Kyle, only a few seconds behind had no time to react to the gas cloud ahead of him and flew right into it and so was also hit by a coughing fit. Their bodies went limp, completely paralyzed and they started to plummet from their flight path, eventually crashing the earth below, coming to a complete stop.


The moment the fairies hit the ground, a nearby mound of foliage rose off the ground and dashed toward where they had fallen. Right behind another mound of foliage detached itself from a nearby tree and followed suit. The two humans, Jarrett and Gwen, decked in Ghillie camouflage, made their way to where the fairies had fallen. Jarrett scouted the forest floor, looking through the inferred scope that was attached with his automatic shotgun.

“There’s one!” He spoke through his half-mask respirator, gently prodding one of the fallen fairies with his weapon. “And there’s another over here.”

Gwen whom also wore a respirator, knelt down, removed the lid to a flask-sized container that she held in her hands and placed the container on the ground. She then went about gently picking the two fairies up one by one with one hand and dropped them into the container. Once the fairies were inside she sealed the container back up and pressed a button built into the center of the lid. Tiny pin head sized breathing holes in a circular pattern morphed into the metallic lid and a series of green lights built all around the side of the lid lit up a green glow.

“The container is secure.” The Gwen said to her partner, giving him the thumbs up.

She then reached into one of her pockets and pulled a sticker roll. She striped off a Warning sticker label and planted it onto the container.

‘WARNING: CONTAINS FARIES, USE UNDER EXTREME CAUTION!’

She picked the container and raised it to her face, peering into the glass midsection, watching the fairies inside start to rouse from their paralyzed states. She watched as the little creatures got up to their feet and banged angrily against the enchanted unbreakable glass.

“Looks like they’re in good condition” She said. “The fall hasn’t hurt them and it looks like the gas has had no long term effects.”

“Good.” Jarrett said. “Was hoping more would fall into the trap so we could make some cash on the side, but these two are all we need”

“Why would our client ask for just two?” Gwen asked.

“Guess she appreciates how hard and expensive it is to capture the little bastards.” Jarrett said. “She most likely wants to play it safe and not gamble putting us in big much of a risk of trying to capture a load of them. Anyways who cares? All I need to know is that she is going to pay handsomely for these two. A thousand Skevols each.”

“She must want those faries really bad, who is this client anyway?”

“Shannon Tilbury she said her name was, she looked like a dealer to me. She didn’t really give me a lot of detail when I asked, but then again most our clients tend to be tight lipped on their intentions.”

Jarrett pulled out a small remote from a chest pocket and pressed a button, a built in green light flickered for five seconds.

“Okay the other gas bombs within our perimeter have been disengaded, let’s quickly pack up before any more faries detect our presence.”

Gwen nodded and the two hunters made their way towards the nearest tree.

“Be glad to get back home, something about this trip seems off.” Gwen said, reaching for an device that was stuck to the trunk of the tree just above her head height.

“What do you mean?” Jarrett said carrying on walking to the tree opporsite and detaching an simular device that was placed there.

“I don’t know, since we left Negav I’ve had this feeling that something has been following us.”

“You’re paranoid, if something was following us at the speed of our jetbikes, I think we would of noticed.” Jarrett said, making his way round the huge trunk to the next device. “And woulden’t they have walked right into our trap? There’s nothing to worry…”

“Hello funny forest people!” a voice came from behind him.

Jarrett instinctively span around raised his shotgun.

“Arrgh! No shootie Sophie’s heinie!”

A woman in a long old tattered grey hooded coat stood before him, quickly raising her hands when she saw the gun. Unwashed blonde hair came down from under the hood on her head to her chest. Her skin was a dark tan and her eyes were a sparkling bright blue. Her feet that stuck out from under the coat were bare.

“Who the hell are you?” Jarrett asked, keeping his weapon fixed on her while Gwen caught up with them from behind.

“Sophie’s name is Sophie!” The weird woman said tilting her head and pointed at the container that rested in Gwen’s hands. “What does funny forest people have there? Looks like small people! Ooooooooh!”

“That’s none of your business, Sophie.” Gwen said.

“Sophie would like to own small people. Put them with her collection of pretty things!”

“Well too bad, these are for someone else’s collection.” Jarrett said.

“Sophie will pays for small people, pay with precious pearls!” Sophie said, pulling a small bag tied closed with string from one of her coat pockets.

Jarrett and Gwen exchanged glances, and then turned their gaze back to the woman.

“Pearls you say?”

Sophie untied the string and opened up the bag and pulled out a rainbow pearl.

“Twenty precious pearls.” Sophie smiled as she gazed lovingly at the pearl in her hand. “Sophie found them from guy that walked and talked no more. Didn’t seem to mind when Sophie fondled his precious pearls that was in his pants, too busy being dead, he was.”

“That sounds so wrong.” Gwen giggled.

“Nothing is wrong with the precious pearls Sophie has!”

“Let me see.” Jarrett said, hand open as he walked closer.

Sophie quickly span around on the spot where she stood, when she had fully rotated to face Jarrett again the bag of pearls had disappeared from her hands.

“Sophie not a dumb-bum!” Sophie said. “Sophie won’t let funny forest man snatch away her precious pearls! Funny forest man must trade first!”

“Well that’s nice.” Gwen said. “But I am afraid we already have someone buying these and…”

“Do excuse us!” Jarrett interrupted, putting a hand over Gwen’s mouth. “I need a chat with my associate here!”

“Ah! Secret chatter?” Sophie said. “Yes, whisper sweet nothings to each other. Sophie can wait. Be Hasty though!”

Jarrett pulled Gwen a few steps away from the woman and they turned their backs on her.

“This is perfect!” Jarrett whispered to Gwen. “That crazy woman is willing to give us four thousand worth of Skevols in Rainbow Pearls for only two faires! We can get double the amount that we were orignally going to get.”

“But what about our client?” Gwen whispered back.

“Aw Gwen, your so naïve!” Jarrett said quietly. “Just play along and watch what I do.”

The two turned back to the woman.

“We are willing to give you the small people for the pearls.” Jarrett grinned.

“Yes! Yes!” Sophie clapped her hands happly. “Sophie thanks funny forest people, muchly.”

Jarrett looked at Gwen who still held the container, he nudged her.

“Well? Go on then!”

“Oh right!” Gwen said, walking over to the woman.

she placed the container on the ground in front of her.

“Now give the pearls.” Gwen said, reaching out her hand, hand open.

Sophie reached into her coat and very obviously pulled the bag out from between her breasts. She placed the bag into Gwen's palm.

“Charming…” Gwen said, noticing the warmth of the pearl bag.

“Oooooh, Hello small people!” Sophie said, picking up the container and peering at the fairies through the glass midsection of the container, looking the terrified creatures up and down. “Oh, what does button do?”

“Eh, don’t touch that!” Gwen said. “It let’s them out.”

“Ooooooooh! Sophie doesn’t want that! Sophie can’t gaze at small people if they skedaddle!”

“Exactly.” Gwen said, pocketing the bag of pearls and walked back to where Jarrett stood.

The woman turned to her left and started walking away from the two hunters.

“Time to go! Time to take small people away and hide them deep inside Sophie’s dark hidey-hole. Okay funny forest people, may the giants that refuse to wear clothes find you unsavory, bye bye now.”

The woman didn’t get to far before she felt the end of Jarrett’s gun poke her in the back.

“Thanks for the pearls.” Jarrett said. “Now hand me back the little people or I’ll shootie Sophie’s heinie!”

“Arrrggh!” Sophie yelped, not moving from her position. “Sophie has been bamboozled! Funny forest man is big hoodlum!”

“Yeah well, you’re a imbecile.” Jarrett said. “Now are you going to give them to me?”

Sophie held the container close to her chest, out of Jarrett’s sight and quietly pressed the lid button of the container. The sidelights flashed red for a couple of seconds and the tiny breathing holes morphed back to solid metal, the lid detached from the rest of the container.

“Sophie hand over little people!” Sophie said.

“Good girl.” Jarrett said lowing his gun before gesturing for Gwen to come over.

Gwen walked over to where Sophie and Jarrett stood and opened her hands out expectantly, Jarrett still had his gun lowered, but held it firmly.

“Here’s little people.” Sophie said, turned round and gave Gwen the container.

As she handed it over, she removed her hand that held the top, taking the loosened lid with it. Gwen was surprised to look down to see two unhappy faces staring back at her from inside the unsealed container.

“What the…”

The container fell to the ground, Gwen’s hands no longer big enough to hold it anymore.

“BITCH!” Jarrett yelled in surprise

Before he could raise his shotgun, Sophie was already swinging the hand that held the container lid his way; the thick heavy metal covering hit him sharply in the jaw. While he was stunned, she dropped the lid and grabbed his gun with both her hands and pulled it out from his loosened grip. She then turned and sprinted off with it.
When Jarrett recovered from the blow that took him by surprise, he looked up to see the two fairies hovering just above his eye level in front of him. The female pointed a finger at him.

“Zap!”


While the fairies were busy with the humans, Sophie was sniffing about the area where the humans had emerged from their hiding places. She then paused and looked down to her right.

“Aha!”

Knelling down onto the grass, she dropped Jarrett’s shotgun, reached down and pulled out a rucksack that was hidden with foliage just like the hunters were. Opening the bag, she started searching through the various belongings within. Rooting through gas grenades and rations until something made her face lit up.

“Oh sweetness!” She exclaimed, pulling a hip flask out of the rucksack.

She opened it up and sniffed the contents. The strong smell made her face flinch and her eyes squint. Pleased with the find, She grasped her hands together and looked up to the heavens.

“Thank you.” She whispered gratefully.


Jarrett tried fighting against the fairy thumb and fingers that now outsized him and had him clamped between them. He tried to raise his left leg to get at the knife from his leg strap, but he could barely move under the creature’s tight grip.

“Okay then.” The male fairy giggled to his female companion. “Say ahhhh!”

“Ahhhhhhhh!” The female fairy said, her mouth opening up.

Jarrett went pale as he looked down to see the huge dank pit of a mouth open up below him. The tongue slowly slid out, dripping with strands of salvia, giving Jarrett a good view of the tonsils, the uvula dangling between them, and the passage going down beyond, descending into darkness. Suddenly the grip on him was gone, and Jarrett was falling towards the open mouth, the last thing he saw was the sight of the fairy’s gullet closing in on him before being enclosed by warm, wet and sticky blackness.


Audree snapped her jaws closed and instantly swallowed the human. Feeling the creature slide down the inside of her neck.

“Okay!” Kyle said. “Now it’s your turn to feed me!”

Audree laughed as she raised her hand that held the female fairy hunter, flew up slightly above Kyle and waited for him to open his mouth.


Gwen struggled to escape; the open mouth of the male fairy drew closer. She tried turning her head away from the horrific sight to only see another disturbing sight. She saw Sophie, just standing by, watching this as this happened. She was gulping down the contents of Jarrett’s Whisky Flask. Their gaze met, without even removing the flask from her mouth Sophie merely raised her other arm and gently waved at her, bidding her farewell. Gwen then was falling; she closed her eyes and waited for the evitable.


“Mmm, the texture is delightful is it not?” Kyle mumbled as he crunched loudly on the female human.

“Yeah, the plant disguises they were wrapped in really adds an arousing combination of flavors.” Audree nodded. “An improvement on the unpleasant coverings they normally arrive in.”

“If only they all come like this.” Kyle said before swallowing. “You get the balanced diet of meat and vegetation without having to prepare it yourself.”

“Oh!” Audree giggled, placing a hand on her belly. “He’s kicking!”

“Oh let me feel!” Kyle said enthusiastically, placing a hand just above Audree’s navel, feeling the occasional thrust from inside push her skin out.

“Ahem!”

The two fairies froze when they realized the Sophie woman was watching them with an eyebrow raised. Audree and Kyle disengaged from each other; both their faces had turned red.

“Didn’t realize you were still here.” Audree said. “Erm…hey!”

The two fairies flew over and landed in front of Sophie, instantly transforming to her size as they landed. They stared at her with uncertainly. She looked back at them, apparently not fazed at all by the naked creatures that stood before her.

“So…” Kyle finally said. “What’s the deal with you? You look human, but you’re different.”

The tanned skin of the woman who claimed to be called Sophie faded to a ghostly white and her bright blue eyes grew larger and went a dark purple. The long blonde hair rapidly shrunk back into the head. She pushed the hood off her head to reveal that it had changed color, becoming a wild mess of raven black hair that stopped at chin level. Her face became more rounded and youthful. She dropped in height by half a foot, the tattered coat she wore now barely hanged on her now smaller body. She allowed it to fall to the ground and stepped out of the bundle, her white body now fully exposed to the world.

“Can’t fool creatures with sharp senses as yours.” She said, her voice now a deeper yet still distinctly feminine tone and her light yellow teeth noticeable next to her white complexion, “Humans on the other hand are easy pickings.”

“So why did you go out of your way to save us?” Audree asked. “Not that I am complaining.”

“When someone has an ability such as mine, it’s hard to resist pulling a prank on those who are easily fooled, especially when they come out here so willingly.”

“Well…thank you I guess…” Audree said.

“You are a weird looking thing.” Kyle said, curiously looking the white humanoid up and down. “Haven’t come across anything like you before.”

“Yeah, I am kind of an rarity. The woman said, taking a swig out of the flask that she still held. “I am Saskia, shape shifting extraordinaire.”

“So can you disguise yourself as anything else?” Audree asked excitedly.

“Hold that thought.” Saskia said.

She held her hands to her ears for a moment, when she took her hands away they had become long and pointed. She then placed her fingers on her cheekbones and pushed them higher. She then shot up a couple of feet, becoming taller. Her waist became thinner and her hips widened. Her hair grew down her back down to her back. Finally her skin changed to a creamy white.

“An Elf!” She announced.

“Oh!” Audree said. “Can you do a Neko?”

Saskia put her left hand’s thumb into her mouth and blew until two black neko ears popped out the top of her head. A black furry tail then grew out of the back of her rear.

“Yes I can.” She purred, grinning to show of her cat canines.

“That’s so cool!” Audree said, clapping her hands. “Do our wings!”

“Sadly that sort of thing is out of my range. I’ve never really been able to deviate too far from the basic humanoid form. Neko tails and such aren’t too much of a stretch, however stuff like Naga tails and fairy wings are.”

“You poor thing! You’re missing out!” Audree said.

“But outside of that, if it’s roughly my size, has two legs and two arms and a head I can imitate it!” Saskia said, her body returning to it’s default form. “In fact I can do it so well, I can even get into the human city!”

“Is that so?” Kyle asked.

“It is so!”

Kyle and Audree exchanged a wily look.

“Hey, Saskia, I was just thinking, would you be up for some fun?” Audree asked.

“What fun would that be now?” Saskia asked, putting on an innocent look.

“Well wouldn’t it be cool if you went and used your ability to lure humans and other things our way? We get yummy treats and you get to have fun playing with them and get to take their stuff afterwards.”

“What a great idea!” Saskia gasped.

“Really?” Kyle asked. “You have no issues with that? I mean it’s a fanatic idea but many non fairies would object to it.”

“Hey.” Saskia said. “If there’s people out there that would object to something that fun, it’s their loss, right?”

“I like her!” Audree turned to Kyle. “Her outlook is so refreshing compared to the other prey.”

A suppressed wailing interrupted the conversation, the three looked down, seeing that the muffled cry was coming from Audree’s belly.

“Sorry.” Audree blushed.

She slapped her stomach.

“Shut up in there!”

“Well then.” Saskia said, looking back up. “I think I’ve got something that could help us.”

Saskia turned around, knelt to the ground and rummaged through her coat on the floor, pulling out two golden rings.

“These rings give an telepathic link to one wearer to the other” She said, handing one to Audree. “I’ve only just recently swiped them from the city and just happened to be carrying them, if I am thinking about luring some delectable’s your way, I can give you the heads up and we can set the time and place.”

“Okay sure.” Audree grinned, putting the ring on. “We’ll be in touch.”

“If you know anyone else, maybe you could invite them to take part.” Saskia smiled. “I didn’t get you names by the way.”

“Oh, well I am Audree.” Beamed Audree.

“Kyle.” Nodded Kyle.

“Nice to meet you Audree and Kyle.” Saskia smiled.

Everything was going just as Saskia had planned.


“So can you do it?” Saskia said with her current voice, a soothing tone. “I want proper size changing fairies and don’t want them harmed, I want to use them as soon as possible, so I don’t want to wait for their wings to heal.”

“Sure thing, Mrs. Tilbury.” Jarrett said from the other side of the bar table, dressed up in a formal shirt and pants combo, covered in a brown trench coat.

“Please call me Shannon.” Saskia smiled, brushing her newly formed short brunette hair.

“Okay, Shannon.” Jarrett smiled back. “I can easily get you your two fairies. We use the latest in nerve agents and containment systems. I can assure you we aren’t like the rubes that run about with nets. We can capture them in a manner that is safe for the fairies, and less risky for us. But it’s still a considerable risk never the less, so it will be costly.”

Saskia nodded towards the fairy hunter and reached into a pocket of her latest suit of choice, a green jacket, and pulled out a bag of coins. She leaned over and placed it on the table. She then opened it up to let Jarrett to see the contents.

“How does two thousand strike you?” She asked, staring at him intently with her now brown eyes. “A thousand each for you and your partner.”

“Well I think that’s quite reasonable.” Jarrett said, looking down at the bag before him.

“Can you set out today, within the next couple of hours?” Saskia asked, closing the bag and putting it back into her pocket.

“Next couple of hours?” Jarrett choked on his beer mid-sip. “My dear lady, surely you can wait?”

“I can’t hang about in this city too long.” Saskia said. “I am trying to avoid certain people. So take too long and I’ll not be here when you get back.”

“Okay, okay.” Jarrett said. “Since your giving a good pay, I’ll start seeking out my partner and grab our gear the moment I leave this place. We have developed Fairy tracking devices and over time have charted the nearest but smaller fairy territories where we are most likely to find a good catch. We also have transport, so hopefully we won’t be out there for an insane amount of time.”

“Thank you.” Saskia said, lifting her brandy glass and swigged it in one go.

“You don’t mind if I was to enquire why you are so desperate to get your hands on some fairies?”

Saskia paused for a moment, thinking the wording of her reply very carefully. She then smiled.

“Let’s just say I am trying to make friends with some very powerful people and I want to make a good first impression.”

Great story! I look forward to reading more.

Oohoohoo, amazingly deep and interesting writing from you again, Dark! And also riddled with spelling errors once again, Dark! ^^; I'm not going to point out each and every single one this time, but you might consider getting a proofreader.

Thanks for your comments, all comments are Appricated! ^ ^

Mabye I should get a proof reader, I am losing Patience with Microsoft, it's pathetic as a spellchecker. You know you'll going to have issues when the program can't even recoginze the name 'Saskia' which is a real name, a name still used and has been used for over nine centuries

I don't like to depend on spellchecker. If that's what you're doing, I'd suggest even just going over it manually once maybe a day or two after you spellcheck it.

Agreed. I'm willing to help if you want sometime if I have some time.
To start: third paragraph - his short green fair. (hair?)

Great stories
Welll written and very entertaining to read ^^ you managed to give them a little something that made them pretty unique ^^ especially the first one. I started to read and didn't even slowed down once

‘She Who Dares Wins’

Chapter Four: Manhunt

Daniel Bailey, shrouded in a black cloak with the hood covering his head, navigated the narrow shanty streets of the Negav underground. Down here the only visible light came from glowing white orbs that hovered twenty-five feet above, working as street lights. The streets around this area were mostly empty, save for the occasional equally dodgy looking passerby. Daniel stopped at the wooden door of one derelict looking building. He checked the written address on the letter in his hands, comparing it with the house number that was crudely painted onto the door in bright red paint. He closed in on the door and reached for the creepy looking door hammer that was shaped like a human face, grasped the ring that was in the face’s mouth and hammered it against the door three times.

“Enter.” A deep booming voice answered from beyond the door.

The door whined slowly as Daniel pushed it open and entered the building. Inside it seemed to consist of just one room. Small black candles illuminated the place, casting shadows over the inner walls.
A figure sat motionless in a tattered leather wingback chair behind a large oak table. The body was hidden underneath a black hooded cloak. The sound of the person inhaling and exhaling emitted loudly through a breathing support mask that covered the entire face. The head then shoot up to look at Daniel, caching him off guard.

“Bailey.” The voice from before came out from the breathing apparatus. “Welcome.”

“I take it that you’re Solon Black?” Daniel asked.

“Correct.”

“Well thank the gods for that.” Daniel said walking further in. “There are hideouts all around this part of the underground, I’ve walked into the wrong one about four times on the way here.  I don’t even want to know what the cultists in the last one were doing with that Alpaca.”

Daniel gently lowered himself into a wingback chair that was on the opposite end of the table, facing the shrouded stranger.

“I suppose that you’ve called me here because you are interested in my clan’s services?” He then asked.

Solon slowly nodded, reached out and pushed two sheets of paper that were on the table towards Daniel. His gloved hand then tapped a finger on the photographs of the two men that the profiles contained.

“Exterminate.”

“You’re a man of few words I see.” Daniel said, picking up the papers and gave them a glance over. “If you’ve heard about us, then you must know of our special offer where we take the targets into the forest and let a nine-foot-tall Dridder eat them alive. It’s much more painful for them and much more satisfying for you. Would you be willing to pay the extra charge for this?”

“Affirmative.” Solon nodded again.

“Okay, I can’t imagine what these guys did to piss you off, but they don’t look all that tough.” Daniel said. “So I’d say five hundred skevols per head.”
“Deal.” Solon said.

Daniel knelt down, opened his bag and pulled out a transparent crystal ball and a small stand. He then placed the stand on the table and then the globe on top of it.

“You can watch it happen on this. Once we have kidnapped the targets I’ll send you a small bottle of their blood. Pour the blood onto the globe and then from that point on it will show you their whereabouts until they die. You can even rewind it to watch later if you’re too busy for the live viewing. Rotate the globe on its stand left for backwards and right for to fast-forward. It only has a day’s worth of memory so be sure to check everyday, because we won’t be held accountable if you miss it.”

“Understood.” Solon said, reaching for the globe and pulling the item towards his side of the table.

“I’ll be back for the globe when I come for my payment.” Daniel said, getting out of his seat and turning to leave. “Hope you enjoy the show.”

Solon watched as Daniel slipped back out of the door he entered from and waited for the door to close. The hood of the cloak was then dropped, revealing two white cat ears protruding from the head. Winona removed the ‘Solon mask’ from her face and placed it on the table next to the globe.

“Oh I’ve got a feeling that we are going to enjoy it very much.” She smirked, reaching into the cloak, pulling out an already prepared Catnip joint and held it over one of the candles on the table to light it.


The moonlight rays that managed to penetrate through the giant white treetops of Dridder forest lit up the clearing where Daniel and his four equally shrouded followers were at work. Two of them placed metal stakes above the forest ground and then whispered an incantation and the stakes slowly forced themselves deep into the soil. Another member of the clan slowly and gently attached the ropes with cat bells to the hook ring at the top of the stakes. He then attached it to the backs to the two captives the group had with them. The captives were on their knees, their arms tied to their torsos and their faces obscured by black hoods. Once the preparations were done, Daniel removed the hoods from their heads.

“Peek-a-boo.” Daniel said, removing the gags from their mouths. “Take in the sights around you, it’s the last place you’ll ever see.”

“Aw hell no!” Gareth said, now able to look about the area around him and speak. “Not here again!”

“We just got back from this place!” Colin started crying.

“What?” Daniel frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Suddenly a series of whooshing sounds was heard as multiple projectiles shot out from the forest, a succession of light thudding sounds followed as the projectiles found their targets.

“…Ouch…”

All five members of the clan collapsed to the ground.

Five armed combat units rushed out into the clearing from the trees, each one coming from a different direction. They wore forest patterned camouflaged ‘Isolon Fist’ body amour and had helmets with infrared lenses built in. Reaching the center, they stopped and aimed their Silenced tranquilizer rifles where the assassins now laid unconscious. Each one of them then gave a sharp kick to the nearest assassin, after seeing no reaction they looked up and silently gestured an okay to each other. One turned round to face the trees, in the direction where he had run out from and gave a thumbs-up.

More combat units slowly emerged from the trees, armed with an assortment of Assault rifles, Shotguns and Grenade launchers. Amongst them was an Elf in a black military trench coat. He towered above everyone else; his black hair only just passed his shoulders.

“Would you kindly expose their faces?” He asked the units watching over the unconscious assassins.

The units knelt down to the nearest assassin and pulled back the hoods from their heads, exposing all five of the men’s faces.  

“Good, that’s Bailey alright.” The Elf said, looking down at Daniel’s knocked out rugged features that were topped off with short brown hair.

He then looked up into the upper tree branches where the web sacks of human remains still hung.

“I want all the remains brought down and loaded into the provided vehicles.” He said to the ‘Battle mage’ next to him. “Put a sound dampening spell on them before cutting them down to reduce the sound of them hitting the ground and put your best shielding spell on them so the impact doesn’t damage them. As fast as you can please, I am not fond of massive creepy crawlies and rather not hang about Dridder forest at this kind of time as most of them like to do the night shift.”

“Yes, Agent Bishop.” The Battle mage replied, before turning to the combat units. “You heard what he said, you lot get ready to carry the sacks and me and my partner will get them down.”

Bishop walked over to where Gareth and Colin were still on their knees.

“You okay there, lads?” He asked. “Mousetrap sends her greetings and hopes that you aren’t too miffed about her using you as bait in another trap.”

“Tell her that she can go to hell!” Gareth fumed.

“You guys didn’t happen to bring any clean underwear did you?” Colin asked.


Rachael hastily walked through one of the halls of the ‘Internal Security Division’ part of ‘The Negav Investigators headquarters’, heading towards a door at the very end. Passing a stairway she saw that Agent Bishop was on his way up.

“Good morning, ‘Bittersweet’.” He said, addressing the red haired Neko.

“Hello Bishop.” Rachael said, stopping to return the greeting. “I still don’t like being called that Codename, you know.”

“Well the people who come up with our codenames do like to have a bit of fun.” Bishop smiled.

“At least you get a cool codename.”

“’Bishop’ is the codename given to the leading supervisor of this division.” Bishop said, “So work hard and maybe one day the name will be passed on to you. Are you on your way to the boss?”

“Yeah.” Rachael replied.

The two walked side by side as they strolled down the remainder of the hall.

“So how’s ‘Trappers’?” Bishop asked.

“Mousetrap? A colossal pain in the ass as usual.” Rachael replied.

“Well you’re still here.” Bishop said. “That means she has accepted you as her supervisor to an extent. If she really wanted you gone, she would have found a way by now. One of your predecessors is still recovering in therapy because of what she did to him.”

“Why, what did she do to him?” Rachael asked, concerned.

“She slipped him a paralyzing drug, covered him with Paper mache, hung him from a tree at one of the city’s parks and told some nearby kids that he was a Piñata. They were smacking him with poles for a good ten minutes until they finally realized that no candy or toys were going to fall out. We punished her by adding on an extra decade of service to the ISD for that. Can’t exactly fire someone when they aren’t working here by their own freewill, so in her case we add time.”

“I honestly wonder if she is worth the trouble.” Rachael said shaking her head.

“The higher ups clearly think she is.” Bishop said. “As long as she keeps delivering the goods and don’t do anything that truly hurts the agency, then they will put up with a bit of rebellious behavior. And you are being paid to make sure it stays that way, so keep at it and don’t worry about her so much. She knows her place, she’s been in it longer than most of us have been in ours.”

The door sign ‘ISD Director: Lord Cyrus’ briefly crossed their view as Bishop pushed open the door into the office. Inside was a seemingly young man in a black frock coat that he wore over a grey waistcoat. He sat in a large office chair sitting in front of a desk, behind him was a large set of windows that allowed the day light into the room and gave anyone in the office a view of the ‘Higher tier’ of Negav city below. From here at the heart of the city, the hybrid of ancient and modern architecture that surrounded them seemed to go on forever, fading into the distance. One could just make out the people, which from this high up appeared like insects while they moved about in the streets below.

“Look, we don’t know yet.” Cyrus said, a phone to his ear while he nervously fiddled with his cravat with his other hand. “Of course I’ll tell you when I find out. Yes, okay, the very second I find out. Okay, bye.”

He placed the phone onto its holder on his desk, and then run his fingers through his short dark blue hair.

“Bishop, Bittersweet?” He acknowledged the two supervisors before him, his light brown eyes glancing back and forth between them.

“My Lord, I’ve got news about ‘Lady Theron’.” Bishop announced.

“You’ve found her?” Cyrus sat up straight in his chair. “That was the High Council just now, they keep harassing me for updates on the case, any information would be great right now.”

“Our psychic medium mages were able to identify one of the remains from Dridder forest as belonging Lady Theron.” Bishop said, placing a couple report pages onto the desk. “We were then able to confirm it by matching the remains to Lady Theron’s dental records.”

Cyrus picked up the papers and held them in front of him, silent as he quickly browsed the text, realization taking hold.

“So much for the hope that the assassins were holding her alive somewhere for a future ransom.” He finally sighed, putting the papers back down. “Were the mediums able to get anything else from the remains?”

“She’s been dead for some time.” Bishop said. “And she seems to have passed on, which of course prevents the mediums from communicating with her directly. She probably lost hope that someone would find her remains all the way out there and so she passed on willingly. So all they got was a few memories here and there, nothing we didn’t already know. Anyways we can take her off the missing person’s list as soon as you’re ready.”

“Yeah. Now I am just going to think of a way to break the news to the High Council and her family.” Cyrus said. “Well at least we have the bastard responsible, that might soften the impact just a bit. You can get back to your duties, Bishop.”

“Yes, My Lord.” Bishop said, turning around, glancing at Rachael before he went through the door. “See you later ‘Bitters.’”

“You summoned me, My Lord?” Rachael asked.

“Ah yes.” Cyrus said. “Mousetrap has requested to be the first to grill Daniel Bailey, the head of the assassin group we have just brought in. She’s curious about how they came up with their trapping ideas, I thought it was a valid line of inquiry, it’s her area so she’s the best one to ask about it. And now that we know he is responsible for Lady Theron’s death, I think he deserves a one to one with her. So you can tell Mousetrap that her request is granted. Bailey is held up in ‘Cell 25-D’, Oh, and since you heard Bishop’s report, you should also update her on about Lady Theron, so she can ask him about that too.”

“I’ll do that right now.” Rachael said.

She turned around and started walking away from Cyrus’s desk.

“I wouldn’t want to be Daniel Bailey right now.” Rachael whispered to herself.


“Mr. Bailey.”

Daniel flinched and gave out a light grunt in response to the woman’s voice, barely taking in her words. It felt like the world was spinning and he just wanted to go back to the comforting realm of unconsciousness. So he didn’t open his eyes and waited for his mind to take him away to dreamland.

“Rise and shine, Mr. Bailey."

“What?” Daniel mumbled, opening his into a squint before closing them again. “Go way, I am busy having time with ‘Mistress Mammary Mandy’.”

The ear-piercing sound of a foghorn made Daniel leap out of his skin, his eyes shot wide open.

“Where am I?” Daniel asked, quickly sitting up, faced by the cold grey stonewalls of the small room he was in.

Looking down at himself he realized that his cloak was gone, leaving him in nothing but his briefs.

“Where are my clothes?”

Looking around the room, he saw large viewing window on one of the walls with a wooden chair before it. Winona sat in an office chair in a control room on the other side of the viewing window, next to her was a control panel. Winona released her finger off one of the panel’s buttons’ and the sound of the foghorn ceased.

“Now then,” Winona’s voice was amplified through a speaker on Daniel’s end. “I think we really should discuss the appalling behavior you’ve had over the last few months.”

“Who are you?” Daniel asked.

“I am not obligated to disclose that information.” Winona replied. “But you do already know me by another name.”

From underneath the control panel she pulled out the breathing mask from before and loosely placed it to her face.

“Hello.” She said, her voice altered to the loud masculine voice of Solon as it came through the mask.

“You!” Daniel growled. “Wait, the dark lord Solon Black is a wussy looking Neko?”

“Solon Black is one of my fabrications.” Winona said, removing the mask from her face and putting it aside. “A myth I created and maintain, allowing it to spread around the criminal underground by word of mouth for the past several years. The stories are designed to entice criminals into meeting the mysterious and powerful dark lord if they ever get word that he has a proposition for them. Makes it easier for me to manipulate them into doing what I want. Obviously I don’t use it on criminals that are smart enough to question why would anyone wear such a mask when there are plenty of breathing aids available that don’t cover the entire face. But you are clearly not one of those.”

“Oh, you’re so going to get it!” Daniel yelled, jumping to his feet and stretching out his arms towards Winona. He opened his hands and his palms started to glow.

“Oh, you’re going to show me a magic trick, are you?” Winona smirked.

“JUST SHUT UP AND DIE!” Daniel screamed while a stream of fire erupted from his hands. The provided wooden chair was the first to be consumed on its way towards Winona.

Winona calmly sat as she watched the fire come her way and didn’t as much as flinch when it rebounded off the window separating the rooms and headed back towards Daniel, his entire body going up in flames when it came in contact with him. He gave out a blood-curdling scream of agony and fell to the cell floor.

“Now that’s Interesting.” Winona said to herself, looking on while Daniel thrashed about the floor while the flames burned into his flesh. “Subject is highly prone to hysteria to the point of being unable recall that he is capable of manifesting water as well as fire.”

She turned to the control panel.

“Now which button turns the fire safety system back on?” She asked playfully to herself. “I seem to have accidently turned it off, I am such a klutz.”

“FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY!” Daniel screamed amongst the pain and the burning. “SOMEONE HELP ME!”

“It must be here somewhere.” Winona said, taking her time while looking the control panel up and down. “Oh, this one has a fire symbol, that must be it.”

She pressed the button, multiple streams of fire flooded Daniel’s cell from the surrounding walls.

“AAAAAARRRGGGHHHHH!” Daniel screamed out from somewhere within the blazing room.

“Whoops-a-daisy.” Winona said, pressing the button again, switching off the fire emitters. “Let’s try that again.”

She pressed a large red button that clearly had a fire safety label above it.

“’Cell Fire Safety System’ activated.” A robotic female voice announced. “Fire detected!”

After a few moments, water started to rain down on Daniel from the ceiling sprinkler, extinguishing the fire. Daniel sat up while the water soaked him, his skin charred all over and his underwear was fused to his skin. What was left of his hair dangled lifelessly from his scalp and smoke lifted from his body.

“I suggest that you don’t assault the ‘Rebounding Window’ again Mr. Bailey.” Winona said grinning. “Did I forget to warn you that you are in one of the cells at ISD headquarters, most of which are designed to contain mages?”

“Crazy bitch!” Daniel said. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“No, that would be counterproductive.” Winona answered. “This cell is enchanted so that mishaps are not fatal, it allows for all kinds of fun without the worry that our suspects will leave the mortal plane too early.”

“Fucking coward, hiding behind a magical barrier.” Daniel growled, getting to his feet with great difficulty, glaring at Winona the whole time.

“I am not intimidated by you Mr. Bailey.” Winona replied. “The magical barrier exists because it isn’t standard procedure to give our captives the chance of overpowering the interrogator. Surely even someone with your limited reasoning can see the sense in that? Besides it was my trap that got you in there, so it’s not like I have anything to prove. Now I suggest that you sit down and cooperate. It will be a much quicker and less painful way of getting out of there. You seem to have incinerated the chair we provided for you. No matter, I’ll get you a sturdier one.”

She reached over and pressed a large round grey button. Part of the ceiling directly above Daniel opened and a large office chair fell out of the opened hatch, landing heavily on top of him. Daniel gave out a yelp of pain and surprise while the weight of the heavy piece of furniture knocked him to the ground.

“Please take a seat Mr. Bailey.” Winona gestured her hand towards the chair.

Daniel slowly got back to his feet, moaning from his aches and pains. He uprighted the chair and sat down on it. Looking up at where the chair had came from, he wheeled the chair to the right side of the cell, just out of the drop zone.

“I am not speaking till I get a lawyer.” He said, crossing his arms.

“We are not the police, the ISD is above the law and so have no obligation to waste time with representatives.” Winona replied, crossing her arms in return.

“You can‘t do that!” Daniel said.

“I don’t think someone that kills for financial gain is in any position to tell us what is legally ethical.” Winona scoffed. “If anything, the people of this city are fairly tolerant of the government’s authoritarian structure as it allows us to protect them from those who think their great powers permits them to do as they wish. We are merely a reasonable response to an unreasonable situation created by the existence of the likes of you. Everyone that enters Negav is informed of the terms and conditions of our ruling. We can’t be held accountable for those that fail to acknowledge them. You can have your lawyer when we are finished interrogating you and send you over for your sentencing, so you have every reason to cooperate.”

“Let’s have it then.” Daniel sighed, easing up in his chair.

“You have been charged with the crime of leading an assassination clan.” Winona said. “The evidence indicates that over the last few months you have taken fifteen victims out into Dridder Forest and left them for a nine-foot-tall Dridder to externally digest them alive. In addition, you have also attempted to kill two more victims that we have successfully rescued from you. We have extracted the footage of you being caught in the act from the viewing globe that you gave me. We have also extracted all fifteen corpses from the scene of the crimes, one has already been identified as Lady Theron, a member of the Ps’isol Magiocrats high council, who’s murder alone is treason.”

“I don’t know anything about these other killings that you speak of nor do I know anything about a Magiocrat.” Daniel said. “You’ve only linked me to the kidnapping of those two men with the intent to leave them for the Dridder.”

“Oh, I see, so someone else is responsible for the fifteen murders and it’s just an amazing coincidence that you tried to kill your two men in the exact same way, in the exact same remote part of a dangerous forest that most people would not dare to go to?” Winona smirked.

“I am telling the truth!” Daniel insisted.

Winona rolled her eyes, reached out and pressed the large round grey button again. The ceiling hatch opened, now slightly to the right this time, just above Daniel’s current position and another large office chair fell out. Daniel looked up just in time for it to hit him right in the face. He gave out a cry of pain, his chair toppled backwards, taking him with it.

“If you are going to lie to me, at least have the courtesy of making an effort.” Winona growled. “I find your assumption that I would really believe that bullshit to be quite insulting.”

“My neck!” Daniel moaned in agony from where he laid. “I think it’s broken!”

“Oh noes!” Winona said, mocking concern. “I guess that means we will have to continue the interrogation with you on the floor.”

“Why me?” Daniel sobbed.

“So, with the evidence that we have got on you, any court will find you guilty as hell.” Winona continued. “By all rights your sentence should be death, teleported far away from civilization with your magic disabled and left for Mother Nature to do her thing. Essentially suffering the same fate as your victims. And in your current crippled state, I wouldn’t bet on the chances that you would last more than ten minutes.”

“Look, I’ll tell you anything!” Daniel pleaded. “Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you!”

“Now we’re talking.” Winona smiled. “But I’ll make it clear right now that you can’t avoid harsh punishment, you have pissed off too many important people for that. But if your information proves useful in our investigations, then we might be able to pull a few strings, certain evidence will disappear and you’ll be ensured that your sentence will be reduced to that of hard labor for the rest of your life, once we fix your neck of course. It will be dangerous work, but the point is that it’s a chance at some form of a life. Which is more than certain death.”

“What is it that you want to know?” Daniel asked after a pause.

“I am really interested in this special service of yours.” Winona said. “The way you took the victims out to Dridder forest, the technique of tying them down with ropes with bells that would only ensure a faster death if the victim struggles. And the fact that you would had to find out where the Dridder was and know that she would be happy to clear them away for you, the whole thing with the viewing globe was a nice touch. All of this was quite organized and calculated. But you didn’t come up with it did you?”

“How did you know that?” Daniel frowned.

“Because it’s painfully obvious that you lack the rationality to come up with such a plan.” Winona said. “While it’s been apparent during this interrogation that you aren’t all that bright, but the most glaring example is how we found out about you in the first place. Okay, so you snuffed out Lady Theron, I can understand how a very generous client might persuade you to go for such a high-risk target. But if you really were as organized as your Dridder method suggests, then you would have been somewhat wary of the high level investigation that you would had obviously provoked and had taken evasive measures. But instead you carried on, taking on even more high profile targets when Negav security was on high alert. It was a very stupid thing to do when the police had already identified you being responsible for small-scale public murders. We really didn’t expect it to be as easy as going through the list of known assassin clans and sending agents to investigate. The only reason no one had caught you before was because you weren’t a high priority, so it was really arrogant of you to think you could handle the big boys when you couldn’t maintain a low profile. You didn’t even do any background checks on your new clients when any of them could had been an undercover agent, and as it turned out, one was. Oh, and a little tip for you, any killer that is a professional would have asked to be paid upfront. So no, the plan couldn’t have been yours, and the brown nosed bitches that you call a clan seem to be too obedient to you to have any original ideas of their own. So it has to be someone that has left the clan since or it’s someone who wasn’t directly involved to begin with.”

Winona reached down and pulled her handbag out from the control panel, opened it and pulled out a pen and notepad.

“Can you tell me who this person is, please?” She asked, flicking the notepad to an empty page. She paused, staring at Daniel expectantly.

It went quiet as Daniel thought it over.

“Well there was this Elf.” He finally said. “She found us and proposed that she would sell us an idea for a special service we could run that involved a horrific end to our client’s enemies if they were willing to pay extra for it to happen. So in exchange for twenty rainbow pearls, she showed us where to find the Dridder and how to get the creature’s attention.”

“How did she know about the Dridder?” Winona asked, not taking her eyes off her notepad while she wrote in it.

“She seemed to have been friends with it.”

“I see.” Winona stopped to muse. “She is someone without a bias against the carnivorous Felarya wildlife, potentially significantly broadening her options when it comes to allies. If you can befriend a creature that likes to turn people into smoothies, then you can be friends with almost anything. And she would also have a fair familiarity with Dridder forest at the very least.”  

She looked back down to her notepad.

“Please continue.”

“Well she also got us the viewing globe as part of the deal and showed us how to use it.” Daniel said.

“Ah yes, the globe.” Winona said. “Thanks for giving me that by the way, while it was very handy in producing evidence, it still was a shame that it only had a day’s worth of memory. If it wasn’t so weak, we could have just got our hands on it and rewound it to the previous deaths and saved ourselves a lot of time.”

“Have to say, once we started that part of the service, our customer demand went straight up.” Daniel gave a little smile.

“Is there really that much of a high demand for that sort of thing?” Winona asked.

“You’d be surprised by how many people out there actually likes to watch a woman like creature eat people.”

Winona raised an eyebrow in response.

“So this Elf, did she ever give you a name?” She then asked.

“Oh, let’s see.” Daniel said, trying to recall. “…I think her name was Sonya, Sonya…Tine! That’s it, Sonya Tine.”

“Can you describe Sonya for me?”

“She was very tall, long blue hair, dark blue eyes, and what a fantastic ass!”

“Oh you liked her eh?” Winona said, adding ‘attractive posterior’ along with the other descriptive details into her notebook. “Did she give you a way to contact her again? Or do you know anywhere that we could find her?”

“As I said, she came to us.” Daniel said. “She first met up with one of our friends and they heard she was looking for our kind of people to do business with, so we arranged to meet up. She never gave us a means to contact her and we haven’t seen her since.”

Winona paused to think.

“So, about Lady Theron,” She then said. “How does one get access to someone who could afford high security? I doubt that was your plan either.”

“The client sent us written instructions.” Daniel said. “We never even met him or her in person. It was simple really; the Magiocrat was expecting a parcel and our client gave us a duplicate that actually contained a teleporting artifact. The parcel made it past security and the moment she touched the contents she was teleported to a place in the underground where we were waiting. Knocked her out before she could react and took her away.”

“Do you still have the instructions?”

“We were instructed to burn it after the job was done.”

“Well, we certainly have our work cut out then.” Winona said, putting the notebook away in her handbag. “I think that is all for now, thank you for your time Mr. Bailey.”

“Can I go now?” Daniel asked, watching her lift from her seat from where he lay.

“We will hand you over to the law when we are fully satisfied that there isn’t anything else you or your followers can help us with.” Winona said making her way to the cell door. “In the meantime, I suggest that you make yourself comfortable. I’ll send someone to help you with that neck and put you in a chair.”

“Can you also ask them to get me something to drink?” Daniel asked.

Winona stopped before she had fully closed the exit door behind her; she poked her head back into the room.

“Thirsty? Use that water spell of yours, or failing that you can just activate the sprinkler system again.”


“My Lord,” Winona said, entering Cyrus’ office, followed by Rachael. “I’ve got Intel on a suspect. An Elf called Sonya Tine allegedly gave the assassin group the idea of using the Dridder.”

“And how did they get their hands on Lady Theron?” Cyrus asked.

“Someone helped them with that part, even Bailey didn’t know who exactly.”

“The full details are in this report.” Rachael said, placing a couple of papers onto Cyrus’ desk.

“Okay, this Elf is now one of our high priorities.” Cyrus said, “I’ll assign agents to run ‘Sonya Tine’ through the city census and send troops to any associated locations. If she isn’t situated here then I am sure the Investigator council won’t object to expanding our investigations to outside locations, including other worlds. I’ll keep you two in the loop to any progress. That’s all for now.”

Winona and Racheal turned to leave.

“The deal you made with Bailey, It was a load of bullshit wasn’t it?” Rachael asked while the two went through the office door. “Surely the Ps'isol Magiocrats won’t allow him to live after what he did.”

“Me telling Porky pies?” Winona asked. “No, the deal was genuine. If the info he gave is good, he will then be deployed at the Ascarlin Mines as one of the canary units. If there is anything dangerous in the area the workers are working in, his death cries will alert them.”

“Why aren’t I surprised?” Racheal sighed.


Winona walked into her home office, switching on the room light since night had long since fallen. She approached her office desk and placed Daniel’s globe next to her laptop. She eased herself into her desk chair and looked at it thoughtfully, then moved the globe from the left of the desk over to the right. Satisfied with its placement she then leant back in her seat.

“Must be one of the best mementos yet.”

Rachael walked into the room.

“Oh Rach, want me to look into your future?” Winona grinned, playfully peering into the globe. “I see you with someone very tall, he is also dark and mysterious. He will take you on a great journey, somewhere that you’ve never been to before, through his digestive tract!”

“Heh heh heh!” Rachael sarcastically laughed. “While you’re looking in that, maybe you can find your long lost sense of decency. Anyway, Cyrus has just called.”

“Ah, about the census results I presume?” Winona asked.

“The census search came back with no results.” Rachael said. “There has never been anyone going by the name Sonya Tine recorded in the census since it was devised by the founders of the agency a hundred and twenty three years ago. Perhaps Bailey lied to us?”

“Possible, but unlikely.” Winona said. “He is a terrible liar. It’s more likely that Sonya Tine was an alias. To be realistic, the hope that our suspect would had used her real name with someone like Bailey was a long shot to begin with.”

“Either way, Cyrus wants us back at H.Q. so we can discuss our next move.”

“The plot thickens.” Winona said, enthusiastically lifting herself out of her seat.

“You know that great feeling you get from having a good night’s sleep most nights?” Rachael asked. “I really miss it.”