Sorry about the wait here guys and gals. I've been quite busy with my life out here, but I haven't forgotten y'all, even if you've forgotten me... Why hasn't anybody made any decisions about what they should hunt? I've given all o' y'all the opportunity to participate in the story, and not one reply has come through! I'm very disappointed in you! But I'll forgive...I always do...
Xera was walking down the hallway to her own rooms, deep in thought. So deep in thought that she almost missed the soft click from a door. She turned around, figuring that it was just Ryu coming into the hallway for something, maybe a drink. She knew that Elric's room was further ahead, not specifically where but she knew it wasn't behind her. So that only left Ryuhime right?
She turned, lifting a hand in greeting, but the hallway was empty. She walked back down it, far enough to reach Ryuhime's door. A dirty thought crossed her mind. Maybe instead of sleeping in her own room tonight, she could convince Ryuhime to share her room. She knew for a fact that Ryu wouldn't refuse. She'd never heard Ryuhime refuse anything before in her life when someone had asked her to do something. And if sharing a room led to sharing beds, well, Xera wouldn't complain. She knocked softly at the door before opening it.
She did so without shame, she'd had a little to drink and it had only bolstered her already formidable confidence. Like she bragged so often to everybody, she wasn't afraid of anything. And unlike many false braggarts who claimed the same, she wasn't afraid of her heart either...mostly.
The only reason she hadn't gone for Ryuhime earlier was, well, she had thought that Ryu was crushing on a boy in class besides Ivan. She didn't want to get in Ryu's way if she was interested in boys. Or other girls.
But it appeared that Ryu was abandoning all of the people in their class to stay with Xera, to Xera that meant that there might be some interest.
So she barged right into Ryu's room without waiting for acknowledgment. And good thing she did too. The sight that greeted her was almost enough to make her vomit.
A grotesque, disfigured, naked male figure was the sight to greet her. It was obvious what his intentions were due to the state of arousal he was in.
Xera wasn't sure wasn't sure what disgusted her more, the disfigured, horribly scarred body, or the sight of his arousal. Some freak had snuck on board and was trying to rape her Ryuhime? Oh hell no!
She charged forward and smashed her clenched fists into the back of the freak's neck. He dropped like a rock, and completely silently.
She dragged the body out of the room and back to her own. Before anything else, she was going to get some damn answers out of him.
Ryu woke up at the slamming of the door, but she couldn't see anything that would've disturbed her sleep. She knew that something had woken her, she wasn't one to wake randomly in the middle of the night. But she couldn't see anything so she curled back up and glanced nervously around herself. Eventually she fell back into an uneasy sleep.
Xera dragged the disfigured man back to her room relatively easily. He didn't even begin to regain consciousness until she closed the door... on his leg.
The leg snapped audibly. The man screamed out his pain, but Xera shoved the edge of her stiffened palm into his throat, instantly silencing him. While he sputtered and choked, she warned him. "Don't scream, or I'll just have to get rid of you entirely."
It worked, when he finally could breathe again, he didn't try to speak, he couldn't stop most of his sobs of pain and self-pity.
"Now who in hell are you? Why did you sneak on board our ship?"
"Goddamn bitch!" Ivan sobbed at her. "You can't recognize me? No, of course you can't. After that stupid whore did this to me, I don't suppose anybody could recognize the amazing body of the one and only Ivan."
Xera was shocked, she'd not only thought that they'd left Ivan behind and as such hadn't given him another thought, but she also couldn't even imagine what could've happened to make him so horribly scarred and disfigured. Before she could inquire, he continued.
"I followed y'all to the ship to get revenge. Something I know that you at least understand fully."
"What the hell happened to you?" Xera asked, honestly astonished and amazed.
"That goddamn whore did!" Ivan snapped.
Xera put two and two together quickly. He followed for revenge, and there were only two girls on the ship. And she hadn't done this to him.
Xera kicked the joining at the top of his legs. To keep his cries quiet, she dropped her elbow hard on his kidney, knocking the breath out of him in an explosive exhalation.
"Don't you dare, ever talk about her like that. If you call Ryuhime anything else near as vulgar, I won't hold back like I have been." Xera whispered darkly. Her voice was utterly calm, but laced thoroughly with a murderous intent.
Ivan sputtered to try to regain his breath. Once he began to breathe normally, she kicked him in the chest. Ivan was smart enough to not say anything besides his involuntary groans and pain-filled exhalations.
"What were you planning to do to her when I interrupted you?"
Ivan gulped. No matter what he said, he knew that he was screwed. "Um, easy there Xera." He said soothingly. "You don't want to do anything you're gonna regret."
"What were you going to do?" All emotion had completely left her voice. The only thing left was anger, fury, and the promise of death if she wasn't satisfied.
"Um, finished what we started." Ivan said. He hadn't meant to admit that, but she was so scary that he lost control of his speech.
"Finish what?" Her voice hadn't regained any sense but his promise, and he was still petrified of what she was going to do.
"Um, before she burned me, we were having a… romantic evening…" He tried to place the blame away from his own actions.
Xera glanced down uncertainly. If he was telling the truth, then Ryuhime did have feelings for him. She didn't want to kill someone that Ryu had a crush on, she'd feel terrible afterward. But this was Ivan!
Xera hated Ivan with a passion. If there was a more despicable human being on the planet, she hadn't met him yet. (Xera was biased; in her opinion, the only bad people were male.) But she held a special hatred in her heart for Ivan. She couldn't hurt Ivan though!
Xera's heart was troubled. She hated Ivan, but loved Ryuhime; she had found him in high arousal, but he and she had had a 'romantic evening;' Ivan deserved to die, but Ryuhime didn't deserve to be hurt.
While Xera was busy trying to make some sense of the scenario, Ivan recognized her troubled mind. Whenever Xera was confused her face scrunched up and she got a glazed look in her eyes.
He grinned, and that grin spread as her mind grew more disrupted.
Xera didn't like to have to think. She wasn't stupid, nor was she opposed to thinking, she just preferred when her answers were straight forward and easy. This scenario she was currently forced into had no easy answers.
But when she saw the grin on Ivan's face, she grew much more aggressive. For some reason, his idiotic face smiling at her just filled her with a terrible rage. She kicked the side of knee, which snapped and broke completely.
She grinned when she heard the joint break. This time she didn't stop Ivan's scream. She wanted him to know that even if everybody on the ship came, he wouldn't be saved. She leaned in close to his panting face.
"I bet you I can guess exactly what kind of 'romantic evening' you treated Ryuhime to. Am I right? I thought so." She continued even though he hadn't answered her. "Now you have two options, either tell me exactly what happened, or I'm going to make you hurt. Course if you don't wanna tell me, I'll toss you out of the ship with a noose tied 'round your only friends."
Ivan gulped audibly. This was Xera, she wasn't right in the head, hell, he'd feel safer if a deviljho had him pinned at the moment rather than Xera.
"Um, okay." He said, trying to placate her enough to so that he could figure some way out of his predicament. She snapped her carving knife off of her things to the side and slapped the flat of the blade against the top of his thigh. "Alright, goddammit woman, give me a second.
"I went over to Ryuhime's house to punish her for earlier." He flinched when Xera's fists clenched, but she didn't strike out at him. "When she spurned me a long time ago, it made me want her all the more. After the final exam, I asked her for another shot at us, but she seemed to be disinterested.
"I still went. I figured I could bring some alcohol, use that to loosed her up. So I did, and she got defensive. It was too much, I reached for her, and she attacked me. She tried to kill me with her switchaxe. I fought her off as best I could, but she beat me to the ground. Then she burned her house down on my head." He was lying, but lying was a skill he had a lot of talent and practice in.
Unfortunately for him, Xera was able to read his lies. She could almost taste it when he lied to her, it wasn't just him, she could do it with just about anybody. Her abilities were unique.
Xera's hands clenched and she checked herself before throttling him, although it would make her feel better, it wouldn't actually accomplish anything. She wanted to learn how far Ivan had gone, how far he was willing to go, and how much he thought he could get away with lying to her with.
Apparently a lot.
Xera sat and listened as he rambled for a few hours, his lies just building up and upon each other. He tried to insinuate that Ryuhime had instigated his passion subtly, winking at him when no one was looking, giving him smiles from across the room, little things that burned into him, things he couldn't forget because of how he felt about her.
If Ivan had had any actual belief in what he was telling Xera, she might've been a little lenient towards him, since he had done much of it out of love, but since he didn't, neither did she.
She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him forcefully to his feet, not caring when she tore his skin and drew blood. He dared to lie to her, threaten her Ryuhime, attempted to rape Ryuhime and herself, and, she knew this though he had never mentioned anything of the sort, kill Elric.
She dragged him to the edge of a window near the loading areas, which were currently being used to store provisions for their journey and for when they docked. He struggled a little, leading Xera to spin in a tight pirouette and lash a high kick against his chest.
He stumbled back into a wall next to the window and was dazed for a few moments. He didn't really understand that those would among his last once Xera had her way with him.
She quickly secured a thin length of rope into a lariat, which she then looped around Ivan's most prized possessions.
This immediately brought him out of his stupor. "W-wait, what are you doing?" He said in a higher than average pitch for him.
"What do you think? Idiot." Xera made her opinion of him abundantly clear.
"N-no, please." He groaned in vast agony as she pulled the hoop tighter, cutting off circulation and burning his tender flesh with the speed in which she yanked.
Then she maneuvered him so that his back was to the large window, affording any occupants of the room with an awe-inspiring vista. It would suit her needs sufficiently as well.
Ivan sensed her plan moments before she began.
"Ivan, you idiot." She taunted him. "I know Ryu hates you. Everybody with half a brain, no scratch that, even girl without that much know better. Just face it, nobody with any shred of intelligence would ever find you anything less than repulsive, especially now. Plus, you never had much going for you anyway." Her pointed, disdainful look gave evidence of her meaning.
Ivan blushed. Then cursed himself for letting her get to him like that. She was teasing him, she had hurt him sure, but not even Xera was psycho enough to kill him, right?
"And I know what you were planning to do with her." Xera's glare turned steely cold. "You were planning to rape her, probably violently, then kill her, am I right? Then knowing how sick and twisted you are, you probably thought I'd be nice to have after? Then why not take the ship while you're at it? You already killed twice, why not thrice?"
Ivan sputtered denials and excuses, but Xera didn't pay them any heed. Then all of a sudden he just stopped and smiled at her.
This shocked Xera out of her monologue. He was smiling at her? Smiling? What the hell?
"C'mon Xera shut the hell up!" He snapped. "We all know you won't do anything. You're too chicken to ever do anything of this sort. How long have you despised me? So what, after 15 years you finally grow bold enough to stop me? Once a pussy, always a pussy." He chuckled. "Now get me out of here and go back to your room like a good little girl, I'll come visit after Ryu."
Xera's head tipped slightly to the side as a wide grin spread across her face. "You know Ivan? You think you're awesome and mighty, a pinnacle of manhood, I'm sure you wouldn't hesitate to kill another person, despite the laws. I'm pretty sure Ulf wouldn't, nor Nailah if it suited her. But guess what?
"Yeah, about those laws?" She rushed him and kicked his tied 'package.' He fell backwards out of the airship, plummeting to the ground rapidly. Before he fell too far though, she finished her statement. "I don't really give a damn." Then she shrugged and turned away from the window.
The rope tied around Ivan's little friends was secured at its other end to a massive beam, one of the support beams that allowed the sub-cabin where Xera had pushed him from to even exist. The rope snapped taut and Ivan cried out in pain. His scream was so forceful, that even over the wind of passage as they flew, Ryuhime, Xera, and Elric all heard it.
Elric woke from his sleep, heard the noise, and idly wondered when someone would bother to let him know what had happened.
Ryuhime didn't wake, but when her unconscious form heard the scream, her fitful sleep became infinitely more peaceful. She rolled over and curled up happily with a dreamy smile on her face.
Xera only grinned, then headed back to her room for some sleep. Her plan with Ryuhime was long gone from her mind, she'd completely forgotten what she'd wanted to do.
They need to hunt something after the gypceros, so you guys can still vote! Don't waste the opportunity, I may not give another!
