Of Toasters, Alnel, and Insane Fluff
A/N- The funny thing about the last chapter was that while I was writing the thing, I could have sworn that I smelled burnt toast. Well, I finally finished and posted it, and within an hour my monitor went spastic, went to twitchy black and white stripes, and started smoking. Yes, it totally bit the dust. It doesn't seem it, but it's really scary when you're monitor acts possessed at 2:00 in the morning when you're already mostly asleep. Could it be that the story is cursed with the wrath of toast? AHHHH! Well, at least the reviews made it worth it, but if my borrowed monitor starts doing the same thing, I'll have to take a hint before the toaster comes and gets me. Oh, and the same thing will happen to your screens unless you review at the end. -grins- Well, enough babbling. On to the real insanity!
Chapter Two: Of secrets, snatching, and smut.
Twix crept out of his temple minutes before its detonation. He huddled into his cloak and started down the road and saw a young blonde staring at him mischievously.
"You're a priest, right?" She smiled.
"Well, yes… but the temple's closed right now." He grunted back, just wanting to get to the bar.
"Oh, I don't care about that. I just need you."
He stopped in his tracks and appraised her with some regret.
"Whoa, there, darling. You're cute and all, but a little too young. I don't go for that kind of thing."
Peppita flushed and pulled out a bottle.
"That was not what I meant, pervert."
Glaring, she chucked the secret weapon at him and immediately he began choking and passed out. On second thought, perhaps the secret weapon wasn't such a great idea. Sure, it was effective, but even she was beginning to tear and the wind was blowing the other way. Well, one mystery of the world was solved: Cliff's new cologne could knock out something the size of a horse. Staying as far away from the stench as she could, she hogtied the nearly asphyxiated priest. One tug made her realize the one thing she hadn't planned on: that this particular priest weighed about as much as a village of Menodix.
"Freaking cream puff…" Peppita growled, lugging her hostage behind her.
The night owls of Aquios had adopted a snitch-and-die policy concerning most of the illegal events that took place after dark. Still, even a few street thugs gave Peppita odd looks before backing away into whatever dark alley they'd ventured from. Ninja-girl was definitely too hardcore for them.
Several frightened villagers later, a profusely sweating Peppita finally reached the workshop and hauled the fat priest to the hearth, where she dumped him roughly.
"Think of it as practice. It's going to be a lot harder to kidnap Albel. He might be a twig, but he's scrappy as hell." She panted to herself, wondering if it was going to be worth all the trouble just to play matchmaker.
Peppita plopped down into a chair to calm her strained muscles, but instead of sinking into cushions, there was an uncomfortable hard surface. Looking down, she realized that burnt toast in Albel's likeness covered every inch of the room.
"Toaster…" Peppita began, wiping the crumbs off her outfit, "don't you think this is getting a tiny bit…oh, I don't know-- creepy? Stalkerish?"
The Toaster hissed from somewhere in a pile of toast.
"Er, right. I'll just…uh… go get Albel. Keep an eye on Cream Puff."
Toaster scuttled unseen under the piles of toast to Twix, whom it wrapped its cord around. It let off a warning shock and motioned for Peppita to leave.
Really, the thing was starting to disturb her. Something she created was more conniving than she was.
"Scary thought." She sighed, opening the door and storming back into the night.
Once again almost all the citizenry stayed out of her way. That is, until a figure in a very short skirt appeared from the shadows and descended upon her, sneaky as a fox.
"Peppita, what are you doing out here so late at night?" Nel scolded, hands on her hips, "It's not safe, you know."
"Nel!" Peppita choked, jumping a foot in the air, "Oh. Err.. right. Just out to pick something up."
Nel sighed and nodded, motioning for her to follow.
"Well, in that case, I'll just escort you. I couldn't sleep, so I guess a walk will help as much as anything else."
"NO! I mean… that's really not necessary." Peppita stammered, noticing Nel's odd look and shoving the rope into her pack. "I wouldn't want to.. err... impose?"
"Like I said, it's no trouble at all. I insist."
Anyone who knew Nel well (or had ever gotten on her bad side) knew that once Nel insisted on something, there wasn't any room for argument. Peppita sighed and grudgingly followed the intimidating older warrior.
"Peppita, where exactly were you going? You never answered."
"Errrr... uh," Peppita said, scrambling for any story that didn't involve kidnapping Albel, "The... bakery! Yeah! I had a craving for apple pie."
Nel gave her another strange look, and Peppita really hoped that Nel's training didn't involve much advanced lie-detection.
"Then why exactly are we walking in the opposite direction?"
"It's err… the safer route."
At that moment, they passed a group of drunken thugs loudly brawling in a dark alley. A broken cider bottle whizzed past Nel's head and snagged her scarf, making Nel go into warrior mode.
"That was my favorite scarf." She growled, green eyes looking more possessed than usual, "You're going to pay for that."
She quickly broke up the fight (along with some of the perp's bones) and turned back to Peppita.
"Safer, hm?" Nel drawled, arching one eyebrow so high that it almost disappeared into her bangs.
Peppita remained tactfully silent, slightly cowed by Nel's scary show of strength.
Knowing she wouldn't get a straight answer out of the girl, Nel shrugged and changed the subject.
"Uh, speaking of safe… Have you 'put down' that Toaster thing yet?"
"I wish." Peppita sighed.
"Well, if it becomes a threat to the public interest, know that I'll take care of it myself."
Nel narrowed her eyes just enough to be barely perceptible. It was enough. Little rivulets of sweat began to prick up all over Peppita's body.
'She's onto me…WhaddoIdo? She's like a stubborn, ferocious bloodhound. No matter where I go, she'll be able to track me down by the scent of burnt toast! I'm doomed!'Wiping a drop of sweat off her cheek, Peppita eyed up her adversary, trying to seem casual and most of all, innocent. On Peppita, innocent turned out to be more suspicious than anything else.
"So…errr… what do you mean by the 'public interest' thing?"
Nel favored her with another eye-narrowing.
"The people of Aquios, of course."
"Errr… right. Of course."
'Well then she can't complain if I kidnap Albel. He's the farthest thing you can get from a citizen of Aquios.'
Her voice of logic, however, ruined the moment of victory by interrupting.
'Are you forgetting about the Aquarian priest you just kidnapped?'
'Quiet, you.' She responded, blocking herself out.
She had to find out how to get Nel off her tail, at least for a while. Suddenly, an evil, red-eyed lightbulb popped into invisible existence above Peppita's head.
"Look, Nel!" She cried, pointing across the road at a random NPC, "That guy just made lewd comments about your mother and stole a goat to molest!"
Nel's eyes blazed and she drew her daggers.
"Ayiyiyiyiyiiiiiii!" She screamed, charging at him.
"What the? Lady Nel, what are you doing?" Laselle whimpered, spotting the scariest woman in Aquios rush toward him in a violent rage, "This is highly unorthodox! OW! That was my kidney!"
Peppita smiled in her most devious manner and quickly fled the scene. She didn't want to be around when Nel finished with the pompous puppet. Once she worked up a mood, it was kind of hard to get her to stop.
'But on the bright side,' she thought, ignoring the screams in the background, 'I just did a community service. No one liked Laselle!'
"NOT THE SPLEEN!"
With that, Peppita skipped off happily to hunt down her next victim. The street thugs practically trampled each other to get out of her way.
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When she had finished avenging her honor and doing the world a favor, Nel stepped over the remains of Laselle and looked around.
"Where'd Peppita go?" she murmured, then shrugged, not really caring.
Her real problem was much worse and beating up Laselle had only relieved a little of her stress. She had the most dreaded of all problems: the bane of existence, the devil's own pet.
She had…
writer's block.
The draft of her latest book was due in a week and she still couldn't think up a decent ending. Or a decent beginning. Or middle, for that matter. She suppressed a shudder and looked around fearfully. Something was looming overhead with evil certainty, like a dark shadow that blotted out all happiness. Ever time she thought about it, it gave her the chills. No matter where she went, she couldn't escape it. It nagged her when she tried to relax, when she tried to sleep, when she tried to write. Yes, it was her most evil nemesis as an author, the dreaded Deadline. It's vampiric ways were feared by all with sense. Trying to push it to the back of her mind, Nel trudged back to her room in the inn, where her unfinished draft was waiting on her desk, mocking her with its emptiness. She had to resist using a firebolt on it.
"Now where was I?" she groaned, sitting in the uncomfortable chair that kept her from falling asleep on the manuscript.
Len had to struggle to keep herself from falling asleep as she worked on the more tedious aspects of her latest report. Her last assignment as top spy for the Tauralean queen was to investigate a group of off-worlders who had mysteriously appeared in Taural's long-time foe, Librani. During that interesting mission, she had discovered more exhilaration and excitement than she had in a long time. Though no one else knew, not all of it had come from the adventure. Some of it had been caused by him. Even something as insignificant as watching him move in battle could make shivers of longing run through her body. It was utterly ridiculous that she was harboring these feelings for someone like Belal. He was her country's sworn enemy, her counterpart in Librani. It seemed treasonous to keep thinking of him in that way. Besides that, he was utterly infuriating, always poking her to see if she's jump. They were at each other's throats constantly. Sure it was wrong, but…
"But he's so damned attractive." She groaned to herself, feeling the familiar wave of lust wash over her body.
"Who is?" A dark rumble of a voice purred from beside her.
Her body jolted at the shock of an intruder and her hands flew immediately to her dagger hilts. The strange thing was that she hadn't heard anyone come in despite the fact that she was the most skilled spy in the area. Only one person could've snuck up on her: the one she had just been thinking about. Reluctantly turning, she came face-to-face with Belal.
"Who's 'so damned attractive'?" he smirked, putting a wry twist on the phrase.
She could feel another shiver building up. His voice had always done this to her. It was so much like velvet that it was nearly tangible.
"No one of your concern." She responded quickly, then the whole thing sank in. She whirled around to face him, eyes blazing. "
What the hell are you doing in my house?" she glared, hands going back to her daggers.
"Something I should have done a long time ago…" he whispered as his hand slid behind her neck.
With one fluid motion, he pulled her to him and kissed her, slowly, languorously, as if savoring her taste. Her eyes went vague in shock for a moment, but she eventually gave up her struggle and let her lips melt into his. When they finally came up for air, she was numb with passion. One thing was for sure: she hadn't over-estimated him in her dreams.
"Belal…" she moaned softly, longing for more.
He chuckled softly and obliged, but this time, he stood up, pulling Len with him. The two appraised each other for a moment, then Len took matters into her own hands, teasingly nipping him on the lips. With newly-awoken sensuality, she traced a path of quick kisses to his ear, which she wet with her tongue, then blew softly on. This time, his moan wasn't soft and longing, but strained. Without letting her do anything else, he tackled her roughly to the floor and…
Nel snapped out of her daydream and looked at what she had written. She blushed crimson and swore.
"More smut!" She moaned, tossing it into what she called her garbage drawer, "Why does it always end up like that?"
Well, she supposed it was probably what had made her a successful author. There were a lot of people out there who liked Eln Lephrez's occasional lapses into the naughty. Still, it'd be quite embarrassing if someone found out it was her writing the popular spy series. She shook the thought from her head. No one would ever be clever enough to figure out her connection to the stories. (Now is as good a time as any to mention that Elicoor doesn't have word jumbles. Otherwise, Nel wouldn't think herself nearly as clever.) Besides, she'd soon be able to buy silence from anyone with the enormous royalties checks she kept getting from both the inventor's guild and her publisher. Yes, the world would soon be hers! That is, if she ever got past the smut and into the story. Nel groaned and shackled herself back to the uncomfortable chair to sift some storyline out of the fluff. Several hours later, her dirty drawer's contents had grown exponentially, while her draft had stayed the same size.
"Damn it!" She groaned, banging her head futilely against the desk.
It was going to be a longer night than she knew.
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Meanwhile, in an inn across town, Albel the Wicked settled down to sleep with the new book by his favorite author, the only spy novelist who didn't suck. He was just getting to the good part-- where the red-headed spy finally fell for the slightly effeminate yet bad-ass rival spy—when he got the feeling that someone was watching him. He scanned the room and decided that it was all in his head and returned to his book.
Len straddled Belal's stomach and caressed his rippling chest muscles. She'd been longing to have him for her own for so long and now finally she did. He tensed underneath her as her roaming hands—
Albel was interrupted from his reading by the sound of his window opening. He scowled and put down his book huffily.
"Now one gets away with interrupting me during the best part of the book! I kill you!"
Before he could even get out of bed, the pink-clad ninja of doom was on him. She grabbed a sword from her pack and stabbed the pillow a few inches from Albel's head.
"Albie…" she cooed, raising a random mallet over her head simultaneously, "Do you hate me?"
Just before the mallet crashed into his head, Albel was at a complete loss for words.
With that, Peppita grinned and took her beloved rope from her pack and finally started to put it to use. Yes, her plan was finally beginning to fall into place. She couldn't help but cackle maniacally in glee to celebrate her power-trip.
"Well, you will soon."
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A/N- mendokuse na, Sorceress Myst, Blue Persuasion, BlueTrillium, May, Anarchy Sky, Aki Leafe, RandoMaia, RWT, I love you all. Seriously. It's people like you that make this section so very, very hella-awesome. Rock on with your coolness. I'll probably do individual review responses next chapter, but I'm so very tired right now (my three and a half hour Italian class liquefies my brain). Anyhow, I hope you all liked the new chapter. Next time, the Elicoorian Gods will come back, Peppita unveils her plan to Albel and anyone else who will listen to her, and Nel gets a nighttime visit. Now, click on the Periwinkle box or an army of kick-boxing penguins with cardboard knives will attack you in the nicest way possible. And until next time, remember to never trust your computer when it smells like toast. Actually, just don't trust toast in general. It's very under-handed.